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Chat. 1, $ 18. ] Freedom of the Will : Stoics, Epicurus. 19?
all-animating World-power, personality ceased to be the true ground (<L>X*i) of his actions, and these appeared to be, like all else that occurs, but the predetermined and unavoidably necessary operations of the God-Nature. In fact, the Stoa did not shrink from this extreme consequence of determinism; on the contrary, Ghrysippus heaped up proof on proof for this doctrine. He based it upon the principle of sufficient reason (cf. above, § 15, 2) ; he showed that
only by presupposing this could the correctness of judgments con cerning the future be maintained, since a criterion for their truth or falsity is given only if the matter is already determined ; ' he also gave to this argument the changed form, that since only the necessary can be known, and not that which is still undecided, the
foreknowledge of the gods makes necessary the assumption of deter minism; he even did not scorn to adduce the fulfilment of predic Dona as a welcome argument.
In this doctrine, which, from the standpoint of the Stoic doctrine of the logos, was completely consistent, the opponents of the system saw of course a decided denial of freedom of the will, and of the criticisms which the system experienced this was perhaps the most frequent and at the same time the most incisive. Among the numerous attacks the best known is the so-called ignava ratio, or *- lazy reason " (apyos A. dyot), which from the claim of the unavoid able necessity of future events draws the fatalistic conclusion that one should await them inactively, — an attack which Ghrysippus did not know how to avoid except by the aid of very forced distinc tions. ' The Stoics, on the contrary, concerned themselves to show that in spite of this determinism, and rather exactly by virtue of man remains the cause of his actions in the sense that he to be made responsible for them. On the basis of distinction between main and accessory causes (which, moreover, reminds us throughout of the Platonic oTtiov and (womov) Ghrysippus showed that every decision of the will does indeed necessarily follow from the co-opera tion of man with his environment, but that just here the outer circumstances are only the accessory causes, while the assent pro ceeding from the personality the main cause, and to this account ability applies. While, however, this voluntarily acting ijycftovucoV, or ruling faculty of man, determined from the universal Pneuma, this Pneuma takes on in every separate being self-subsistent
Cfc. Dt Palo, 10, 20. So far as concerns disjunctive propositions Epicurus also lor this reason gave up the truth of disjunction Cic. Dt Nat. Dtor. H. 70.
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nature, different from that of others, and this is to be regarded as a proper aprf-1 ^n particular, the Stoics make prominent the point that responsibility, as a judgment pronounced on the ethical quality of actions and characters, is quite independent of the question whether the persons or deeds might, in the course of events, have been other than they were, or not. 1
4. The problem of the freedom of the will, which had been already complicated ethically and psychologically, experienced in this way still further a metaphysical and (in the Stoic sense) theo logical complication, and the consequence was that the indeterminists who were opponents of the Stoa gave a new turn to the conception of freedom which they regarded as threatened by the Stoic doctrine, and brought it into sharp definition. The assumption of the excep tionless causal nexus to which even the functions of the will were to be subordinated, seemed to exclude the capacity of free decision ; but this freedom of choice had, since Aristotle, been regarded in all schools as the indispensable presupposition of ethical accountability. On this account the opponents thought — and this gave the contro versy its especial violence — that they were defending an ethical good when they combated the Stoic doctrine of fate, and with that the Democritic principle of natural necessity. And if Chrysippus had appealed to the principle of sufficient reason to establish this, Carneades, to whom the freedom of the will was an incontestable fact, did not fear to draw in question the universal and invariable validity of this principle. *
Epicurus went still farther. He found the Stoic determinism so irreconcilable with the wise man's self-determination which formed the essential feature of his ethical ideal, that he would rather still assume the illusory ideas of religion than believe in such a slavery of the soul. 4 Therefore he, too, denied the universal validity of the causal law and subsumed freedom together with chance under the conception of uncaused occurrence. Thus in opposition to Stoic determinism, the metaphysical conception of freedom arose, by means of which Epicurus put the uncaused function of the will in man upon a parallel with the causeless deviation of the atoms from their line of fall (cf. § 15, 4). The freedom of indeterminism means, accordingly, a choice between different possibilities that is deter mined by no causes, aud Epicurus thought thereby to rescue moral responsibility.
This metaphysical conception of freedom as causelessness is not at
«Alex. Aphr. DeFato,p. 112. »Cic. DeFato,6,9; 11,23; 14,31. * lb. p. IOC. * Diog. Laert. X. 138 f. ; Us. p. 66.
Chap. 1, § 16. ] Phytico-Theology : Epicurus, Stoics. 195
all isolated in the scientific thought of antiquity. Only the Stoa held fast inviolably to the principle of causality. Even Aristotle had not followed into details the application of his general principles (ef. p. 143); he had contented himself with the eVi to iroXu, " for the most part," and had based his renunciation of the attempt fully to comprehend the particular upon the assumption of the contingent in Nature, i. e. of the lawless and causeless. In this respect the Stoics alone are to be regarded as forerunners of the modern study of Nature.
Stoicism encountered difficulties which were no less great, in carrying out its teleology. The pantheistic system which regarded the whole world as the living product of divine Reason acting according to ends, and found in this its sole ground of explanation, must of course maintain also the purposiveness, goodness, and perfec tion of this universe and conversely the Stoics were accustomed to prove the existence of the gods and of Providence by pointing to the purposiveness, beauty, and perfection of the world that by the so-called physico-theological method. 1
Tbe attacks which this line of thought experienced in antiquity were directed not so much against the correctness of the reasoning (though Carneades applied his criticism at this point also) as against the premises and conversely, the easy exhibition of the many defects and maladaptations, of the evils and the ethical harm in the world was employed as counter-reason against the assump tion of a rational, purposeful World-cause and of Providence. This was done first and with full energy, naturally, by Epicurus, who asked whether God would remove the evil in the world but could not, or could remove but would not, or whether perhaps neither of these was true,* — and who also pointed to the instances of injustice in which the course of life so often makes the good miserable and the wicked happy. 3
These objections, intensified and carried out with especial care, were brought into the field by Carneades. * But to the reference to tbe evil and injustice of the course of events he added the objec tion to which the Stoics were most sensitive " Whence then in this world which has been created by Reason comes that which void of reason and contrary to reason, whence in this world ani mated by the divine Spirit come sin and folly, the greatest of all
Clc. Dt Sat. Denr. II. 13 IT.
Lactam. Dt Ira Dti, 13. 19 Us. Fr. 374. Id. Intt. Div. III. 17, Us. Fr. 370.
Cic. Acad. II. 38, 120 Dt Sat. Deor. III. 32, 80 B. •Clc. Dt Sat. Deor. III. 25-31.
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evils? " And if the Stoics, as perhaps occurred in spite of their determinism,1 wished to make free will responsible for these things, the further question arose, why the almighty World-reason should have given man a freedom which was thus to be abused, and why it should permit this abuse.
6. In the presence of such questions the Stoics with their monis tic metaphysics were in a much worse case than Plato and Aristotle, who had been able to trace the maladaptations and evil back to the resistance of the "Not-being," or of matter respectively. In spite of this the Stoics came forward boldly to master these diffi culties, and brought to light, not without acute thought, most of those arguments in which at later periods theodicy has moved again and again.
The teleological doctrine of the perfection of the universe can be protected against such attacks either by denying the dys-teleological facts, or by justifying them as the indispensable means or attend ant result in the purposefully connected whole. Both methods were pursued by the Stoa.
Their psychological and ethical theories permitted the claim that what is called a physical evil is not such in itself, but becomes such by man's assent, that hence, if diseases and the like are brought about by the necessity of the natural course of events, it is only man's fault that makes an evil out of them ; just as it is frequently only the wrong use which the foolish man makes of things that makes these injurious,* while in themselves they are either indif ferent or even beneficial. So the objection based on the injustice of the course of the world is rebutted by the claim that in truth for the good man and the wise man physical evils are no evils at all, and that for the bad man, on the other hand, only a sensuous illu sory satisfaction is possible, which does not make him truly happy, but rather only aggravates and strengthens the moral disease which has laid hold of him. 3
On the other hand, physical evils may also be defended on the ground that they are the inevitable consequences of arrangements of Nature which are in themselves adapted to their ends and do not fail of their purpose, — as Chrysippus, for example, attempted to show in the case of diseases. 4 In particular, however, they have the moral significance of serving partly as reformatory punishments of Providence ; 5 partly, also, as a useful stimulus for the exercise of our moral powers. 6
1 Cleanth. Hymn. v. 17.
1 Seneca, Oti. JVoi. V. 18, 4. » Seneca, Ep. 87, 11 S.
* Gell. iV. A. VII. 1, 7 ft. » Plut. Stoic. Bep. 35, 1. • Marc. Aurel. VIII. 36.
Chaf. 1, J 17. ] Criteria of Truth: Peripatetic*. 197
While external evils were thus justified principally by pointing oat their ethical purposiveness, it appeared for the Stoics an all the more argent problem, though one which proved also the more diffi cult, to make moral evil or sin comprehensible. Here the negative way of escape was quite impossible, for the reality of baseness in the case of the great majority of men was the favourite subject of declamation in the Stoic discourses on morals. Here, then, was the centre of the whole theodicy, namely, to show how in this world which is the product of divine Reason, that which is contrary to reason in the impulses, dispositions, and actions of rationally endowed beings is possible. Here, therefore, the Stoics resorted to universal considerations. They showed how the perfection of the whole not only does not include that of all the individual parts, but even excludes it,1 and in this way substantiated their claim that God must necessarily allow even the imperfection and baseness of
man. In particular, they emphasised the point that it is only through opposition to evil that good as such is brought about ; for were there no sin and folly, there would be no virtue and wisdom. ' And while vice is thus deduced as the necessary foil for the good, the Stoics give as a final consideration,1 that the eternal Providence ultimately turns even the evil to good, and has in it but an appar ently refractory means for the fulfilment of its own highest ends. 4
§ 17. The Criteria of Truth.
The philosophical achievements of the post-Aristotelian time were least important in the department of logic. Such a powerful creation as the Analytic* of the Stagirite, which brought the prin ciples of Greek science in so masterly a fashion to the consciousness of all in a conclusive form, must naturally rule logical thought for a long time, and, in fact, did this until the close of the Middle Ages, and even beyond. The foundations of this system were so firmly laid that at first nothing there was shaken, and there re mained for the activity of the schools but to build up individual parts, — an activity in connection with which, even at that time, much of the artificial adornment characteristic of a degenerate age displayed itself.
L The Peripatetic* had already attempted to develop the Aristote lian Analytic* systematically in this direction by a more detailed treat ment, by partially new proofs, by farther subdivision, and by more
> Plut. Stoic. Rep. 44, 0. » lb. 36, 3.
« lb. 38, 1. * Cleaiith. Hymn. vr. 18 f.
198 Hellenistic-Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part IX.
methodical formulation. In particular, Eudemus and Theophrastus undertook investigations concerning the hypothetical and disjunc tive judgments, and the extension of the theory of the syllogism occasioned by the appearance of these judgments and premises. The Stoics continued these efforts; they set these new forms of judgment (d&'w/m) as composite over against the simple ' categorical forms, developed into all their details the resulting forms of the syllogism, emphasised also especially the quality ? of judgments, and deduced the laws of thought in altered forms. In general, however, they spun out the logical rules into a dry schematism and genuine scholastic formalism which thereby became farther and farther removed from the significant fundamental thoughts of the Aristotelian Analytics, and became a dead mass of formulae. The unfruitful subtlety of this process took special delight in the solu
tion of sophistical catches, in which the real meaning was inextri cably involved in the contradiction of forms.
It was in these elaborations by the schools that the science of logic created by Aristotle first took on the purely formal character that it retained up to the time of Kant. The more pedantic the form taken in the development of the particular features, the more the consciousness of the living thought, to which Aristotle had aspired, was replaced by a schoolmaster-like network of rules, — essentially designed to catch thoughts and examine their formal legitimacy, but incapable of doing justice to the creative power of scientific activity. While, even with Aristotle, regard for proof and refutation had occupied the foreground, here it occupies the whole field. Antiquity did not attain a theory of investigation ; for the weak beginnings which we find toward this end in the inves tigations of a younger Epicurean,* Philodemus,4 concerning conclu sions from induction and analogy, are relatively isolated, and have no result worthy of mention.
2. In the doctrine of the Categories, of the elaboration of which the Stoics made much account, more that was real was to be expected. Here it was indeed quite correct, and yet not very fruitful, to call attention to the fact that the supreme category, of which the rest
» Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 93.
• Diog. Laert. VII. 66.
s Epicurus himself, and his school also, as a whole, did not trouble themselves
as to the principles of formal logic. One might regard this as an evidence of taste and intelligence, but it was in truth only indifference toward all that did not promise directly practical advantages.
* On his treatise repl cruuiav ko! arnuiibetuir, discovered in Herculaneum, cf. Th. Gompertz, Herculanentisehe Studien, Heft 1 (Leips. 1866) ; Fr. Bahusch (Lyck, 1879); K. Philippson (Berlin, 1881).
Chap. 1, § 17.
] Criteria of Truth : Stoic*. 199
represent only special determinations, is that of Being
Something (ti); and the co-ordination of the categories which, at least as regards the method of their enumeration, was Aristotle's plan, was replaced by an expressly systematic succession, according to which each category was to be more exactly determined by the following one. " What is," or Being, as abiding substrate of all possible relations, is substance (iiroKiipivoi) ; this is the supporter
(Trdger) of fixed qualities (voiov), and only in this aspect is it involved in changing states (to ttuk «x°0> ;,nd, in consequence of these latter, in relations to other substances (to npo\ ri ww fyov).
Out of the doctrine of the categories grows thus an ontology, that is, a metaphysical theory as to the most general formal relations of reality, and this theory in the system of the Stoics, agreeably to their general tendency (cf. § 15, 5), takes on a thoroughly materi alistic character. As substance, the existent is matter which is in itself destitute of properties (vAr/), and the qualities and forces which are inherent in matter as a whole, as well as in a particular part (roiorifTK — Swo/uif ), are likewise kinds of matter (atmospheric
which are commingled with it (xpao-i? St' o-W). In this connection both substance and attributes are regarded, as well from the point of view of the general conception as from that of the indi vidual thing, and in the latter aspect it is emphasised that every individual thing is essentially and definitely distinguished from all others. *
Besides these categories of Being, we find making their appear ance among the Stoics those conceptions! forms by which the rela tion of thought to Being is expressed, and in these the separation of ike subjective from the objective, for which a preparation had been growing more and more complete in the development of Greek thought, now attains definite expression. For while the Stoics regarded all objects to which thought relates as corporeal, while they regarded the activity of thought itself, and no less its expres sion in language * as corporeal functions, they were still obliged to confess that the content of consciousness as such (to Xiktov) is of in
• That the Peripatetic* also busied themselves with this category is proved by the definition preserved by Strato: ri it im ri rijt tiaitoriii alrior (l'roclus I* rim. 'iti K).
1 In contrasting the first two with the last two categories, the language rela tion of noun and verb appears here also (in Stoic terminology rriivn and *ar>i-
* The Stoics laid great weight upon the discriminative comparison of thought and of speech, of the inner activity of reason (X4>o» iriiitmn), and of its ex pression through the voice (Xfryot wpefopucit). Hence, too, the assumption (cf. ) IS, n) of the faculty of speech as a proper part of the soul ; hence their thor- uojh treatment of rhetoric and grammar side by »de with logic.
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currents)
200 Hellenistic- Roman Thought : Hthical Period. [Part IL
nature. But since the distinction was thus sharply drawn between Being and content of consciousness, the fundamental epistemological problem came forward, how the relations by which the ideational content refers to Being and agrees with are to be thought.
This question was, moreover, also brought home by the vigor ous development which Scepticism had meanwhile undergone, and by the relatively strong position which occupied as compared with the dogmatic systems.
Whether by Pyrrho or Timon matters not, was at all events at about the same time at which the great school-systems became dogmatically developed and fortified, that all those arguments were systematised into complete whole, by which the Sophistic period had shaken the naive trust in man's capacity for knowledge. Al though the ethical end of making man independent of fate by with holding judgment was ultimately decisive (cf. 14, 2), this Scepticism still forms a carefully carried out theoretical doctrine.
It doubts the possibility of knowledge in both its forms, the form of perception as truly as that of judging thought, and after has destructively analysed each of these two factors singly, adds expressly that just on this account their union can have no certain result. 1
As regards perception, the Sceptics availed themselves of the Protagorean relativism, and in the so-called ten Tropes in which
jEnesidemus
corporeal
sets forth the sceptical theory with very defective arrangement, this tendency still occupies the broadest space. Per ceptions change not only with the different species of animate beings (1), not only with different men (2), according to their cus toms (9) and their whole development (10), but even in the case of the same individual at different times (3), in dependence upon bodily conditions (4), and upon the different relations in which the individual finds himself with regard to his object spatially They alter, also, because of the difference in the states of the object
(7), and have, therefore, no claim to the value of an immediate report of things, because their origination conditioned by inter mediate states in media such as the air, the co-operating elements furnished by which we are not able to deduct (6). Man there-
From two deceivers combined only right to expect no truth. Diog. Laert. IX. 114.
Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. 38 ff.
It was said by the ancient writers that JEnesidemus was attached, not only to Scepticism, but also to the metaphysics of Heraclitus. The question whether this was actually so, or whether such relation was only ascribed to him by mis take, has solely antiquarian significance. For had the former been the case, would have been but another manifestation of real relationship in thought, to which Plato had already directed attention. Thrift. 152 ff. cf. 92, note
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fore, in all ways, not in a condition to know things purely (8), and in the face of the multiplicity of impressions so full of contradic tions he has no means of distinguishing a true from a false impres sion. One is no more (ov /toAAov) valid than another.
Equally relative with man's perceptions are also his opinions
In this aspect the influences of the Eleatic dialectic assert themselves in Pyrrhonism. It is shown that to every opinion the opposite can be opposed with equally good reasons, and this equilibrium of reasons (iaovdivtw. tu>v \oymv) does not permit us, therefore, to distinguish true and false : in the case of such a con tradiction (itmXoyia) the one holds no more than the other. All opinions accordingly stand — according to the phrase of the Sophists, adopted by the Sceptics — only by convention and cus tom {vofuf re «u i6ti), not by their essential right and title (ipwm).
More energetically still did the later Scepticism attack the possi bility of scientific knowledge, by disclosing the difficulties of the syllogistic procedure, and of the methods which Aristotle had built up upon this. 1 In this Curneades seems to have led the way, show ing that every proof, since it presupposes other proofs for the valid ity of its premises, makes necessary a regressus in infinitum — an argument that was completely in place for the Sceptic who did not, as did Aristotle, recognise anything as immediately certain (Sfuaov ; ef. f 12, 4). The same argument was carried further by Agrippa, who formulated Scepticism in five Tropes * much more clearly and comprehensively than . ACnesidemus. He called attention again to the relativity of perceptions (3) and of opinions (1); he showed how every proof pushes on into infinity (2 : 6 u'« tbrupw UfiiLWuv), and how unjustifiable it is in the process of proof to proceed from premises that are only hypothetically to be assumed (4), and finally, how often it occurs, even in science, that that must be [Kwtulated as ground of the premises which is only to be proved by means of the syllogism in question (5: 6 SuiAAtjAos). In the latter aspect atten tion was also called to the fact that in the syllogistic deduction of a particular proposition from a general one, the general would yet from the outset be justified only on condition that the particular were valid. '
Since the essential nature of things is thus inaccessible to human
> Bert. Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 310 ft*.
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•Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. I. 104 ft". : (1) The conflict of opinion*. (2) The rndleaa icgi'tas in proving. (3) The relativity of all perceptions. (4) The im possibility of other than hypothetical premises. (5) The circle in the syllogism.
• Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. II. 194 ff. Renewed in J. 8. Mill, Loyic, II. 3, 2; correcud in Chr. Sigwart, Logik, I. { 66, 3.
202 Hellenist ie- Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part II.
knowledge,1 the Sceptics demanded that man should suspend judg ment so far as possible (cVo^). We can say nothing concerning things (di^ao-ta) ; we can only assert that this and that appears so or so, and in so doing we report only our own momentary states (as the Cyrenaics had already taught, § 8, 3). Even the sceptical main tenance of the impossibility of knowledge (in order to avoid the contradiction that here something of a negative character, at least, seems to be maintained and proved)* should be conceived of rather as a profession of belief than as knowledge, — more as a withholding of opinion than as a positive assertion.
Cf. V. Brochard, Les Sceptiques Orees (Paris, 1877).
4. The attack of Scepticism was most sharply concentrated in the principle8 that, in the presence of the deceptions to which man is exposed in all his ideas of whatever origin, there is no uni- vocal, sure sign of knowledge, no criterion of truth. If, therefore, the dogmatic schools held fast to the reality of knowledge, even from the Socratic motive that virtue is impossible without knowl edge,4 they found the task assigned them by this sceptical position of announcing such a criterion and of defending it against the sceptical objections. This was done also by the Epicureans and Stoics, although their materialistic metaphysics and the sensualistic psychology connected with it prepared for them serious, and, ultimately, insurmountable difficulties.
In fact, it was the psycho-genetic doctrine of both these schools that the content of all ideas and knowledge arises solely from sen suous perception. The origin of sense-perception the Epicureans explained by the image theory of Democritus (§ 10, 3). This theory gave even to the illusions of the senses, to dreams, etc. , the character of perceptions corresponding to reality ; and even the con structions of the combining fancy or imagination could be explained on this theory by unions which had already taken place objectively between the images. But the Stoics also regarded perception as a bodily process, as an impression of outer things upon the soul
(rviruxns), the possibility of which seemed to them to be self- evident, in view of the universal commingling of all bodies. This
1 The simplest formulation of Scepticism, finally, was that which brought Agrippa's five Tropes together into two ; there is nothing immediately certain, and just on this account nothing mediately certain; accordingly nothing what ever that is certain. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. I. 178 f.
» Cic. Acad. II. 9, 28 and 34, 109 ; Sext Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 463 ff.
• Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VII. 159.
« Diog. Laert. X. 146 f. K. A ; Us. p. 76 on the other hand, Ptut. Stoic.
Rep. 47, 12.
f. ,
Chap. 1, § 17. ] Criteria of Truth : Epicurean*, Stoics. 203
crassly sensuous conception they expressed by the since frequently repeated comparison, that the soul is originally like a blank tablet, on which the outer world imprints its signs in the course of time. 1 More refined, but more indefinite, and yet absolutely mechanical still in its tone is the designation of Chrysippus, who called percep tion an alteration of qualities (crcpotWt? ) in the soul; for, at all events, the idea or mental presentation (^ammii) remains for
him, too, a corporeal effect or product of that which is presented
(domurroV).
Both schools explained the presence of conceptions and of general
ideas (xpoXi^wtf, and among the Stoics also koivoI cwouu) solely by the persistence of these impressions, or of parts of them, and by their combination. They combated, therefore, as the Cynics espe cially had already done, the Platonic-Aristotelian doctrine of Ideas and Forms,9 especially the assumption of an independent activity or power of forming conceptions, and traced even the most general and abstract conceptions back to this mechanism of elementary perceptions (to which they scarcely gave any further analysis). To these general ideas of experience (i/xwupia), which arise natu
rally and involuntarily (dtuo-ucw*), the Stoics indeed opposed the conceptions of science produced by the aid of a methodical con sciousness ; but even the content of these scientific conceptions was held to be exclusively derived from sensations. In this connection, both schools laid especial weight upon the co-operation of language in the origination of conceptions.
But now, in so far as the total content of impressions, and like- vise also the nature of thought, are the same among all men, it necessarily follows that under these circumstances the same general ideas will be formed, in both the theoretical and the practical domain, by means of the psychological mechanism. This consequence was drawn especially by the Stoics, whose attention was by their whole metaphysics directed vigorously to the common nature of the psy chical functions, which were all held to arise from the divine Pneuma. They taught, therefore, that the surest truth is to be sought in those ideas which develop uniformly among all men with natural neces sity, and they liked to take as their starting-point, even for scientific reasonings, these kmhu Jkvoox, or communes notiones. They have a
' Pint. Ptae. IV. 11 ; Dox, D. 400 ; Plut. Comm. Xot. 47 ; cf. beside* Plat. Tktmt. 191 C.
' Hence the Stolen regard Platonic " Ideas" (class-concepts) as merely struc tures of the human mind (iwroiiiara tidrtpa ; cf. Plut. Plac. I. 10. Dox. D. 300), »nd thtu (rave the first suggestion for the later subjective meaning of the term •idea. " Cf. § 19.
204 Hellenistic-Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part IL
predilection for appealing to the consensus gentium — the consent of all men, — an argument whose validity it was easy for the Sceptics to shake by pointing to the negative instances of experience. 1
It was, therefore, not in the spirit of the Stoics that in the later Eclectic literature these common ideas were called innate (innate), and that Cicero especially saw in them not only that which Nature teaches equally to all, but also that which Nature or the deity has originally implanted in every one at the same time with his reason. Cicero maintains this, not only for the fundamental conceptions of morality and right, but also for the belief in the deity and in the immortality of the soul : the knowledge of God especially is held to be only man's recollection of his true origin. * This doctrine formed the best bridge between the Platonic and the Stoic theories of knowledge, and under the Stoic name of xon-al citocu the ration alistic doctrine of knowledge was propagated on into the beginnings of modern philosophy. Just by this means it retained the accessory
psychologistic meaning that rational knowledge consists in innate ideas. 5. While now the Stoics as well as the Epicureans originally traced back all the contents of ideas to sense-impressions psycho-
genetically, it was only the Epicureans who drew from this the consistent inference that the sign for the recognition of truth is solely the feeling of the necessity with which a perception forces itself upon consciousness, the irresistible clearness or vividness (ivapyaa) conjoined with the taking up of reality in the function of the senses. Every perception is as such true and irrefutable ; it exists, so to speak, as a self-certain atom of the world of conscious ness, free from doubt, independent, and immovable by any reasons whatever. * And if different and mutually contradictory perceptions of the same objects seem to exist, the error lies only in the opinion which refers them, and not in the perceptions which by the very fact of their difference prove that different outer causes correspond to them ; relativity is accordingly nothing in point against the cor rectness of all perceptions. *
Meanwhile, opinions (So£<u) constantly and necessarily go beyond this immediate presence of sense-impressions : for the knowledge requisite for acting needs also knowledge of that which is not immediately perceptible : it needs to know, on the one hand, grounds
» Cic. De Nat. Deor. I. 23, 62 f.
2 Id. De Leg. L 8, 24 : . . . til is agnoscat deum, qui unde ortus sit quasi re- cordetur ac noscal.
* The parallelism of this epistemological Atomism with the physical and ethical Atomism of the Epicureans is obvious.
* Sext. Emp. Adv.
Chat. 1, $ 18. ] Freedom of the Will : Stoics, Epicurus. 19?
all-animating World-power, personality ceased to be the true ground (<L>X*i) of his actions, and these appeared to be, like all else that occurs, but the predetermined and unavoidably necessary operations of the God-Nature. In fact, the Stoa did not shrink from this extreme consequence of determinism; on the contrary, Ghrysippus heaped up proof on proof for this doctrine. He based it upon the principle of sufficient reason (cf. above, § 15, 2) ; he showed that
only by presupposing this could the correctness of judgments con cerning the future be maintained, since a criterion for their truth or falsity is given only if the matter is already determined ; ' he also gave to this argument the changed form, that since only the necessary can be known, and not that which is still undecided, the
foreknowledge of the gods makes necessary the assumption of deter minism; he even did not scorn to adduce the fulfilment of predic Dona as a welcome argument.
In this doctrine, which, from the standpoint of the Stoic doctrine of the logos, was completely consistent, the opponents of the system saw of course a decided denial of freedom of the will, and of the criticisms which the system experienced this was perhaps the most frequent and at the same time the most incisive. Among the numerous attacks the best known is the so-called ignava ratio, or *- lazy reason " (apyos A. dyot), which from the claim of the unavoid able necessity of future events draws the fatalistic conclusion that one should await them inactively, — an attack which Ghrysippus did not know how to avoid except by the aid of very forced distinc tions. ' The Stoics, on the contrary, concerned themselves to show that in spite of this determinism, and rather exactly by virtue of man remains the cause of his actions in the sense that he to be made responsible for them. On the basis of distinction between main and accessory causes (which, moreover, reminds us throughout of the Platonic oTtiov and (womov) Ghrysippus showed that every decision of the will does indeed necessarily follow from the co-opera tion of man with his environment, but that just here the outer circumstances are only the accessory causes, while the assent pro ceeding from the personality the main cause, and to this account ability applies. While, however, this voluntarily acting ijycftovucoV, or ruling faculty of man, determined from the universal Pneuma, this Pneuma takes on in every separate being self-subsistent
Cfc. Dt Palo, 10, 20. So far as concerns disjunctive propositions Epicurus also lor this reason gave up the truth of disjunction Cic. Dt Nat. Dtor. H. 70.
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nature, different from that of others, and this is to be regarded as a proper aprf-1 ^n particular, the Stoics make prominent the point that responsibility, as a judgment pronounced on the ethical quality of actions and characters, is quite independent of the question whether the persons or deeds might, in the course of events, have been other than they were, or not. 1
4. The problem of the freedom of the will, which had been already complicated ethically and psychologically, experienced in this way still further a metaphysical and (in the Stoic sense) theo logical complication, and the consequence was that the indeterminists who were opponents of the Stoa gave a new turn to the conception of freedom which they regarded as threatened by the Stoic doctrine, and brought it into sharp definition. The assumption of the excep tionless causal nexus to which even the functions of the will were to be subordinated, seemed to exclude the capacity of free decision ; but this freedom of choice had, since Aristotle, been regarded in all schools as the indispensable presupposition of ethical accountability. On this account the opponents thought — and this gave the contro versy its especial violence — that they were defending an ethical good when they combated the Stoic doctrine of fate, and with that the Democritic principle of natural necessity. And if Chrysippus had appealed to the principle of sufficient reason to establish this, Carneades, to whom the freedom of the will was an incontestable fact, did not fear to draw in question the universal and invariable validity of this principle. *
Epicurus went still farther. He found the Stoic determinism so irreconcilable with the wise man's self-determination which formed the essential feature of his ethical ideal, that he would rather still assume the illusory ideas of religion than believe in such a slavery of the soul. 4 Therefore he, too, denied the universal validity of the causal law and subsumed freedom together with chance under the conception of uncaused occurrence. Thus in opposition to Stoic determinism, the metaphysical conception of freedom arose, by means of which Epicurus put the uncaused function of the will in man upon a parallel with the causeless deviation of the atoms from their line of fall (cf. § 15, 4). The freedom of indeterminism means, accordingly, a choice between different possibilities that is deter mined by no causes, aud Epicurus thought thereby to rescue moral responsibility.
This metaphysical conception of freedom as causelessness is not at
«Alex. Aphr. DeFato,p. 112. »Cic. DeFato,6,9; 11,23; 14,31. * lb. p. IOC. * Diog. Laert. X. 138 f. ; Us. p. 66.
Chap. 1, § 16. ] Phytico-Theology : Epicurus, Stoics. 195
all isolated in the scientific thought of antiquity. Only the Stoa held fast inviolably to the principle of causality. Even Aristotle had not followed into details the application of his general principles (ef. p. 143); he had contented himself with the eVi to iroXu, " for the most part," and had based his renunciation of the attempt fully to comprehend the particular upon the assumption of the contingent in Nature, i. e. of the lawless and causeless. In this respect the Stoics alone are to be regarded as forerunners of the modern study of Nature.
Stoicism encountered difficulties which were no less great, in carrying out its teleology. The pantheistic system which regarded the whole world as the living product of divine Reason acting according to ends, and found in this its sole ground of explanation, must of course maintain also the purposiveness, goodness, and perfec tion of this universe and conversely the Stoics were accustomed to prove the existence of the gods and of Providence by pointing to the purposiveness, beauty, and perfection of the world that by the so-called physico-theological method. 1
Tbe attacks which this line of thought experienced in antiquity were directed not so much against the correctness of the reasoning (though Carneades applied his criticism at this point also) as against the premises and conversely, the easy exhibition of the many defects and maladaptations, of the evils and the ethical harm in the world was employed as counter-reason against the assump tion of a rational, purposeful World-cause and of Providence. This was done first and with full energy, naturally, by Epicurus, who asked whether God would remove the evil in the world but could not, or could remove but would not, or whether perhaps neither of these was true,* — and who also pointed to the instances of injustice in which the course of life so often makes the good miserable and the wicked happy. 3
These objections, intensified and carried out with especial care, were brought into the field by Carneades. * But to the reference to tbe evil and injustice of the course of events he added the objec tion to which the Stoics were most sensitive " Whence then in this world which has been created by Reason comes that which void of reason and contrary to reason, whence in this world ani mated by the divine Spirit come sin and folly, the greatest of all
Clc. Dt Sat. Denr. II. 13 IT.
Lactam. Dt Ira Dti, 13. 19 Us. Fr. 374. Id. Intt. Div. III. 17, Us. Fr. 370.
Cic. Acad. II. 38, 120 Dt Sat. Deor. III. 32, 80 B. •Clc. Dt Sat. Deor. III. 25-31.
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196 Hellenistic- Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part II.
evils? " And if the Stoics, as perhaps occurred in spite of their determinism,1 wished to make free will responsible for these things, the further question arose, why the almighty World-reason should have given man a freedom which was thus to be abused, and why it should permit this abuse.
6. In the presence of such questions the Stoics with their monis tic metaphysics were in a much worse case than Plato and Aristotle, who had been able to trace the maladaptations and evil back to the resistance of the "Not-being," or of matter respectively. In spite of this the Stoics came forward boldly to master these diffi culties, and brought to light, not without acute thought, most of those arguments in which at later periods theodicy has moved again and again.
The teleological doctrine of the perfection of the universe can be protected against such attacks either by denying the dys-teleological facts, or by justifying them as the indispensable means or attend ant result in the purposefully connected whole. Both methods were pursued by the Stoa.
Their psychological and ethical theories permitted the claim that what is called a physical evil is not such in itself, but becomes such by man's assent, that hence, if diseases and the like are brought about by the necessity of the natural course of events, it is only man's fault that makes an evil out of them ; just as it is frequently only the wrong use which the foolish man makes of things that makes these injurious,* while in themselves they are either indif ferent or even beneficial. So the objection based on the injustice of the course of the world is rebutted by the claim that in truth for the good man and the wise man physical evils are no evils at all, and that for the bad man, on the other hand, only a sensuous illu sory satisfaction is possible, which does not make him truly happy, but rather only aggravates and strengthens the moral disease which has laid hold of him. 3
On the other hand, physical evils may also be defended on the ground that they are the inevitable consequences of arrangements of Nature which are in themselves adapted to their ends and do not fail of their purpose, — as Chrysippus, for example, attempted to show in the case of diseases. 4 In particular, however, they have the moral significance of serving partly as reformatory punishments of Providence ; 5 partly, also, as a useful stimulus for the exercise of our moral powers. 6
1 Cleanth. Hymn. v. 17.
1 Seneca, Oti. JVoi. V. 18, 4. » Seneca, Ep. 87, 11 S.
* Gell. iV. A. VII. 1, 7 ft. » Plut. Stoic. Bep. 35, 1. • Marc. Aurel. VIII. 36.
Chaf. 1, J 17. ] Criteria of Truth: Peripatetic*. 197
While external evils were thus justified principally by pointing oat their ethical purposiveness, it appeared for the Stoics an all the more argent problem, though one which proved also the more diffi cult, to make moral evil or sin comprehensible. Here the negative way of escape was quite impossible, for the reality of baseness in the case of the great majority of men was the favourite subject of declamation in the Stoic discourses on morals. Here, then, was the centre of the whole theodicy, namely, to show how in this world which is the product of divine Reason, that which is contrary to reason in the impulses, dispositions, and actions of rationally endowed beings is possible. Here, therefore, the Stoics resorted to universal considerations. They showed how the perfection of the whole not only does not include that of all the individual parts, but even excludes it,1 and in this way substantiated their claim that God must necessarily allow even the imperfection and baseness of
man. In particular, they emphasised the point that it is only through opposition to evil that good as such is brought about ; for were there no sin and folly, there would be no virtue and wisdom. ' And while vice is thus deduced as the necessary foil for the good, the Stoics give as a final consideration,1 that the eternal Providence ultimately turns even the evil to good, and has in it but an appar ently refractory means for the fulfilment of its own highest ends. 4
§ 17. The Criteria of Truth.
The philosophical achievements of the post-Aristotelian time were least important in the department of logic. Such a powerful creation as the Analytic* of the Stagirite, which brought the prin ciples of Greek science in so masterly a fashion to the consciousness of all in a conclusive form, must naturally rule logical thought for a long time, and, in fact, did this until the close of the Middle Ages, and even beyond. The foundations of this system were so firmly laid that at first nothing there was shaken, and there re mained for the activity of the schools but to build up individual parts, — an activity in connection with which, even at that time, much of the artificial adornment characteristic of a degenerate age displayed itself.
L The Peripatetic* had already attempted to develop the Aristote lian Analytic* systematically in this direction by a more detailed treat ment, by partially new proofs, by farther subdivision, and by more
> Plut. Stoic. Rep. 44, 0. » lb. 36, 3.
« lb. 38, 1. * Cleaiith. Hymn. vr. 18 f.
198 Hellenistic-Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part IX.
methodical formulation. In particular, Eudemus and Theophrastus undertook investigations concerning the hypothetical and disjunc tive judgments, and the extension of the theory of the syllogism occasioned by the appearance of these judgments and premises. The Stoics continued these efforts; they set these new forms of judgment (d&'w/m) as composite over against the simple ' categorical forms, developed into all their details the resulting forms of the syllogism, emphasised also especially the quality ? of judgments, and deduced the laws of thought in altered forms. In general, however, they spun out the logical rules into a dry schematism and genuine scholastic formalism which thereby became farther and farther removed from the significant fundamental thoughts of the Aristotelian Analytics, and became a dead mass of formulae. The unfruitful subtlety of this process took special delight in the solu
tion of sophistical catches, in which the real meaning was inextri cably involved in the contradiction of forms.
It was in these elaborations by the schools that the science of logic created by Aristotle first took on the purely formal character that it retained up to the time of Kant. The more pedantic the form taken in the development of the particular features, the more the consciousness of the living thought, to which Aristotle had aspired, was replaced by a schoolmaster-like network of rules, — essentially designed to catch thoughts and examine their formal legitimacy, but incapable of doing justice to the creative power of scientific activity. While, even with Aristotle, regard for proof and refutation had occupied the foreground, here it occupies the whole field. Antiquity did not attain a theory of investigation ; for the weak beginnings which we find toward this end in the inves tigations of a younger Epicurean,* Philodemus,4 concerning conclu sions from induction and analogy, are relatively isolated, and have no result worthy of mention.
2. In the doctrine of the Categories, of the elaboration of which the Stoics made much account, more that was real was to be expected. Here it was indeed quite correct, and yet not very fruitful, to call attention to the fact that the supreme category, of which the rest
» Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 93.
• Diog. Laert. VII. 66.
s Epicurus himself, and his school also, as a whole, did not trouble themselves
as to the principles of formal logic. One might regard this as an evidence of taste and intelligence, but it was in truth only indifference toward all that did not promise directly practical advantages.
* On his treatise repl cruuiav ko! arnuiibetuir, discovered in Herculaneum, cf. Th. Gompertz, Herculanentisehe Studien, Heft 1 (Leips. 1866) ; Fr. Bahusch (Lyck, 1879); K. Philippson (Berlin, 1881).
Chap. 1, § 17.
] Criteria of Truth : Stoic*. 199
represent only special determinations, is that of Being
Something (ti); and the co-ordination of the categories which, at least as regards the method of their enumeration, was Aristotle's plan, was replaced by an expressly systematic succession, according to which each category was to be more exactly determined by the following one. " What is," or Being, as abiding substrate of all possible relations, is substance (iiroKiipivoi) ; this is the supporter
(Trdger) of fixed qualities (voiov), and only in this aspect is it involved in changing states (to ttuk «x°0> ;,nd, in consequence of these latter, in relations to other substances (to npo\ ri ww fyov).
Out of the doctrine of the categories grows thus an ontology, that is, a metaphysical theory as to the most general formal relations of reality, and this theory in the system of the Stoics, agreeably to their general tendency (cf. § 15, 5), takes on a thoroughly materi alistic character. As substance, the existent is matter which is in itself destitute of properties (vAr/), and the qualities and forces which are inherent in matter as a whole, as well as in a particular part (roiorifTK — Swo/uif ), are likewise kinds of matter (atmospheric
which are commingled with it (xpao-i? St' o-W). In this connection both substance and attributes are regarded, as well from the point of view of the general conception as from that of the indi vidual thing, and in the latter aspect it is emphasised that every individual thing is essentially and definitely distinguished from all others. *
Besides these categories of Being, we find making their appear ance among the Stoics those conceptions! forms by which the rela tion of thought to Being is expressed, and in these the separation of ike subjective from the objective, for which a preparation had been growing more and more complete in the development of Greek thought, now attains definite expression. For while the Stoics regarded all objects to which thought relates as corporeal, while they regarded the activity of thought itself, and no less its expres sion in language * as corporeal functions, they were still obliged to confess that the content of consciousness as such (to Xiktov) is of in
• That the Peripatetic* also busied themselves with this category is proved by the definition preserved by Strato: ri it im ri rijt tiaitoriii alrior (l'roclus I* rim. 'iti K).
1 In contrasting the first two with the last two categories, the language rela tion of noun and verb appears here also (in Stoic terminology rriivn and *ar>i-
* The Stoics laid great weight upon the discriminative comparison of thought and of speech, of the inner activity of reason (X4>o» iriiitmn), and of its ex pression through the voice (Xfryot wpefopucit). Hence, too, the assumption (cf. ) IS, n) of the faculty of speech as a proper part of the soul ; hence their thor- uojh treatment of rhetoric and grammar side by »de with logic.
(Toov)'or
currents)
200 Hellenistic- Roman Thought : Hthical Period. [Part IL
nature. But since the distinction was thus sharply drawn between Being and content of consciousness, the fundamental epistemological problem came forward, how the relations by which the ideational content refers to Being and agrees with are to be thought.
This question was, moreover, also brought home by the vigor ous development which Scepticism had meanwhile undergone, and by the relatively strong position which occupied as compared with the dogmatic systems.
Whether by Pyrrho or Timon matters not, was at all events at about the same time at which the great school-systems became dogmatically developed and fortified, that all those arguments were systematised into complete whole, by which the Sophistic period had shaken the naive trust in man's capacity for knowledge. Al though the ethical end of making man independent of fate by with holding judgment was ultimately decisive (cf. 14, 2), this Scepticism still forms a carefully carried out theoretical doctrine.
It doubts the possibility of knowledge in both its forms, the form of perception as truly as that of judging thought, and after has destructively analysed each of these two factors singly, adds expressly that just on this account their union can have no certain result. 1
As regards perception, the Sceptics availed themselves of the Protagorean relativism, and in the so-called ten Tropes in which
jEnesidemus
corporeal
sets forth the sceptical theory with very defective arrangement, this tendency still occupies the broadest space. Per ceptions change not only with the different species of animate beings (1), not only with different men (2), according to their cus toms (9) and their whole development (10), but even in the case of the same individual at different times (3), in dependence upon bodily conditions (4), and upon the different relations in which the individual finds himself with regard to his object spatially They alter, also, because of the difference in the states of the object
(7), and have, therefore, no claim to the value of an immediate report of things, because their origination conditioned by inter mediate states in media such as the air, the co-operating elements furnished by which we are not able to deduct (6). Man there-
From two deceivers combined only right to expect no truth. Diog. Laert. IX. 114.
Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. 38 ff.
It was said by the ancient writers that JEnesidemus was attached, not only to Scepticism, but also to the metaphysics of Heraclitus. The question whether this was actually so, or whether such relation was only ascribed to him by mis take, has solely antiquarian significance. For had the former been the case, would have been but another manifestation of real relationship in thought, to which Plato had already directed attention. Thrift. 152 ff. cf. 92, note
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fore, in all ways, not in a condition to know things purely (8), and in the face of the multiplicity of impressions so full of contradic tions he has no means of distinguishing a true from a false impres sion. One is no more (ov /toAAov) valid than another.
Equally relative with man's perceptions are also his opinions
In this aspect the influences of the Eleatic dialectic assert themselves in Pyrrhonism. It is shown that to every opinion the opposite can be opposed with equally good reasons, and this equilibrium of reasons (iaovdivtw. tu>v \oymv) does not permit us, therefore, to distinguish true and false : in the case of such a con tradiction (itmXoyia) the one holds no more than the other. All opinions accordingly stand — according to the phrase of the Sophists, adopted by the Sceptics — only by convention and cus tom {vofuf re «u i6ti), not by their essential right and title (ipwm).
More energetically still did the later Scepticism attack the possi bility of scientific knowledge, by disclosing the difficulties of the syllogistic procedure, and of the methods which Aristotle had built up upon this. 1 In this Curneades seems to have led the way, show ing that every proof, since it presupposes other proofs for the valid ity of its premises, makes necessary a regressus in infinitum — an argument that was completely in place for the Sceptic who did not, as did Aristotle, recognise anything as immediately certain (Sfuaov ; ef. f 12, 4). The same argument was carried further by Agrippa, who formulated Scepticism in five Tropes * much more clearly and comprehensively than . ACnesidemus. He called attention again to the relativity of perceptions (3) and of opinions (1); he showed how every proof pushes on into infinity (2 : 6 u'« tbrupw UfiiLWuv), and how unjustifiable it is in the process of proof to proceed from premises that are only hypothetically to be assumed (4), and finally, how often it occurs, even in science, that that must be [Kwtulated as ground of the premises which is only to be proved by means of the syllogism in question (5: 6 SuiAAtjAos). In the latter aspect atten tion was also called to the fact that in the syllogistic deduction of a particular proposition from a general one, the general would yet from the outset be justified only on condition that the particular were valid. '
Since the essential nature of things is thus inaccessible to human
> Bert. Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 310 ft*.
(&&u).
•Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. I. 104 ft". : (1) The conflict of opinion*. (2) The rndleaa icgi'tas in proving. (3) The relativity of all perceptions. (4) The im possibility of other than hypothetical premises. (5) The circle in the syllogism.
• Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. II. 194 ff. Renewed in J. 8. Mill, Loyic, II. 3, 2; correcud in Chr. Sigwart, Logik, I. { 66, 3.
202 Hellenist ie- Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part II.
knowledge,1 the Sceptics demanded that man should suspend judg ment so far as possible (cVo^). We can say nothing concerning things (di^ao-ta) ; we can only assert that this and that appears so or so, and in so doing we report only our own momentary states (as the Cyrenaics had already taught, § 8, 3). Even the sceptical main tenance of the impossibility of knowledge (in order to avoid the contradiction that here something of a negative character, at least, seems to be maintained and proved)* should be conceived of rather as a profession of belief than as knowledge, — more as a withholding of opinion than as a positive assertion.
Cf. V. Brochard, Les Sceptiques Orees (Paris, 1877).
4. The attack of Scepticism was most sharply concentrated in the principle8 that, in the presence of the deceptions to which man is exposed in all his ideas of whatever origin, there is no uni- vocal, sure sign of knowledge, no criterion of truth. If, therefore, the dogmatic schools held fast to the reality of knowledge, even from the Socratic motive that virtue is impossible without knowl edge,4 they found the task assigned them by this sceptical position of announcing such a criterion and of defending it against the sceptical objections. This was done also by the Epicureans and Stoics, although their materialistic metaphysics and the sensualistic psychology connected with it prepared for them serious, and, ultimately, insurmountable difficulties.
In fact, it was the psycho-genetic doctrine of both these schools that the content of all ideas and knowledge arises solely from sen suous perception. The origin of sense-perception the Epicureans explained by the image theory of Democritus (§ 10, 3). This theory gave even to the illusions of the senses, to dreams, etc. , the character of perceptions corresponding to reality ; and even the con structions of the combining fancy or imagination could be explained on this theory by unions which had already taken place objectively between the images. But the Stoics also regarded perception as a bodily process, as an impression of outer things upon the soul
(rviruxns), the possibility of which seemed to them to be self- evident, in view of the universal commingling of all bodies. This
1 The simplest formulation of Scepticism, finally, was that which brought Agrippa's five Tropes together into two ; there is nothing immediately certain, and just on this account nothing mediately certain; accordingly nothing what ever that is certain. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. I. 178 f.
» Cic. Acad. II. 9, 28 and 34, 109 ; Sext Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 463 ff.
• Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VII. 159.
« Diog. Laert. X. 146 f. K. A ; Us. p. 76 on the other hand, Ptut. Stoic.
Rep. 47, 12.
f. ,
Chap. 1, § 17. ] Criteria of Truth : Epicurean*, Stoics. 203
crassly sensuous conception they expressed by the since frequently repeated comparison, that the soul is originally like a blank tablet, on which the outer world imprints its signs in the course of time. 1 More refined, but more indefinite, and yet absolutely mechanical still in its tone is the designation of Chrysippus, who called percep tion an alteration of qualities (crcpotWt? ) in the soul; for, at all events, the idea or mental presentation (^ammii) remains for
him, too, a corporeal effect or product of that which is presented
(domurroV).
Both schools explained the presence of conceptions and of general
ideas (xpoXi^wtf, and among the Stoics also koivoI cwouu) solely by the persistence of these impressions, or of parts of them, and by their combination. They combated, therefore, as the Cynics espe cially had already done, the Platonic-Aristotelian doctrine of Ideas and Forms,9 especially the assumption of an independent activity or power of forming conceptions, and traced even the most general and abstract conceptions back to this mechanism of elementary perceptions (to which they scarcely gave any further analysis). To these general ideas of experience (i/xwupia), which arise natu
rally and involuntarily (dtuo-ucw*), the Stoics indeed opposed the conceptions of science produced by the aid of a methodical con sciousness ; but even the content of these scientific conceptions was held to be exclusively derived from sensations. In this connection, both schools laid especial weight upon the co-operation of language in the origination of conceptions.
But now, in so far as the total content of impressions, and like- vise also the nature of thought, are the same among all men, it necessarily follows that under these circumstances the same general ideas will be formed, in both the theoretical and the practical domain, by means of the psychological mechanism. This consequence was drawn especially by the Stoics, whose attention was by their whole metaphysics directed vigorously to the common nature of the psy chical functions, which were all held to arise from the divine Pneuma. They taught, therefore, that the surest truth is to be sought in those ideas which develop uniformly among all men with natural neces sity, and they liked to take as their starting-point, even for scientific reasonings, these kmhu Jkvoox, or communes notiones. They have a
' Pint. Ptae. IV. 11 ; Dox, D. 400 ; Plut. Comm. Xot. 47 ; cf. beside* Plat. Tktmt. 191 C.
' Hence the Stolen regard Platonic " Ideas" (class-concepts) as merely struc tures of the human mind (iwroiiiara tidrtpa ; cf. Plut. Plac. I. 10. Dox. D. 300), »nd thtu (rave the first suggestion for the later subjective meaning of the term •idea. " Cf. § 19.
204 Hellenistic-Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part IL
predilection for appealing to the consensus gentium — the consent of all men, — an argument whose validity it was easy for the Sceptics to shake by pointing to the negative instances of experience. 1
It was, therefore, not in the spirit of the Stoics that in the later Eclectic literature these common ideas were called innate (innate), and that Cicero especially saw in them not only that which Nature teaches equally to all, but also that which Nature or the deity has originally implanted in every one at the same time with his reason. Cicero maintains this, not only for the fundamental conceptions of morality and right, but also for the belief in the deity and in the immortality of the soul : the knowledge of God especially is held to be only man's recollection of his true origin. * This doctrine formed the best bridge between the Platonic and the Stoic theories of knowledge, and under the Stoic name of xon-al citocu the ration alistic doctrine of knowledge was propagated on into the beginnings of modern philosophy. Just by this means it retained the accessory
psychologistic meaning that rational knowledge consists in innate ideas. 5. While now the Stoics as well as the Epicureans originally traced back all the contents of ideas to sense-impressions psycho-
genetically, it was only the Epicureans who drew from this the consistent inference that the sign for the recognition of truth is solely the feeling of the necessity with which a perception forces itself upon consciousness, the irresistible clearness or vividness (ivapyaa) conjoined with the taking up of reality in the function of the senses. Every perception is as such true and irrefutable ; it exists, so to speak, as a self-certain atom of the world of conscious ness, free from doubt, independent, and immovable by any reasons whatever. * And if different and mutually contradictory perceptions of the same objects seem to exist, the error lies only in the opinion which refers them, and not in the perceptions which by the very fact of their difference prove that different outer causes correspond to them ; relativity is accordingly nothing in point against the cor rectness of all perceptions. *
Meanwhile, opinions (So£<u) constantly and necessarily go beyond this immediate presence of sense-impressions : for the knowledge requisite for acting needs also knowledge of that which is not immediately perceptible : it needs to know, on the one hand, grounds
» Cic. De Nat. Deor. I. 23, 62 f.
2 Id. De Leg. L 8, 24 : . . . til is agnoscat deum, qui unde ortus sit quasi re- cordetur ac noscal.
* The parallelism of this epistemological Atomism with the physical and ethical Atomism of the Epicureans is obvious.
* Sext. Emp. Adv.
