Their life is one of perfect
blessedness
and peace.
A Short History of Greek Philosophy by J. Marshall
For the hands are an
instrument; and Nature always assigns an instrument to the one fitted
to use it, just as a sensible man would. For it is more reasonable to
give a flute to a flute-player than to confer on a man who has some
flutes the art of playing them. To that which is the greater and
higher she adds what is less important, and not _vice versa_.
Therefore to the creature fitted to acquire the largest number of
skills Nature assigned the hand, the instrument useful for the largest
number of purposes" (Arist. _De Part. An. _ iv. p. 10).
[332]
And in the macrocosm, the visible and invisible world about us, the
same conception holds: "The existence of God is an eternally perfect
entelechy, a life everlasting. In that, therefore, which belongs to
the divine there must be an eternally perfect movement. Therefore the
heavens, which are as it were the body of the Divine, are in form a
sphere, of {201} necessity ever in circular motion. Why then is not
this true of every portion of the universe? Because there must of
necessity be a point of rest of the circling body at the centre. Yet
the circling body cannot rest either as a whole or as regards any part
of it, otherwise its motion could not be eternal, which by nature it
is. Now that which is a violation of nature cannot be eternal, but the
violation is posterior to that which is in accordance with nature, and
thus the unnatural is a kind of displacement or degeneracy from the
natural, taking the form of a coming into being.
"Necessity then requires earth, as the element standing still at the
centre. Now if there must be earth, there must be fire. For if one of
two opposites is natural or necessary, the other must be necessary too,
each, in fact, implying the necessity of the other. For the two have
the same substantial basis, only the positive form is naturally prior
to the negative; for instance, warm is prior to cold. And in the same
way motionlessness and heaviness are predicated in virtue of the
absence of motion and lightness, _i. e. _ the latter are essentially
prior.
"Further, if there are fire and earth, there must also be the elements
which lie between these, each having an antithetic relation to each.
From this it follows that there must be a process of coming into being,
because none of these elements can be eternal, {202} but each affects,
and is affected by each, and they are mutually destructive. Now it is
not to be argued that anything which can be moved can be eternal,
except in the case of that which by its own nature has eternal motion.
And if coming into being must be predicated of these, then other forms
of change can also be predicated" (Arist. _De Coelo_, ii. p. 3).
This passage is worth quoting as illustrating, not only Aristotle's
conception of the divine entelechy, but also the ingenuity with which
he gave that appearance of logical completeness to the vague and
ill-digested scientific imaginations of the time, which remained so
evil an inheritance for thousands of years. It is to be observed, in
order to complete Aristotle's theory on this subject, that the four
elements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, are all equally in a world which is
"contrary to nature," that is, the world of change, of coming into
being, and going out of being. Apart from these there is the element
of the Eternal Cosmos, which is "in accordance with nature," having its
own natural and eternal motion ever the same. This is the fifth or
divine element, the aetherial, by the schoolmen translated _Quinta
Essentia_, whence by a curious degradation we have our modern word
Quintessence, of that which is the finest and subtlest extract.
Still more clearly is the organic conception carried {203} out in
Aristotle's discussion of the Vital principle or Soul in the various
grades of living creatures and in man. It will be sufficient to quote
at length a chapter of Aristotle's treatise on the subject (_De Anima_,
ii. p. 1) in which this fundamental conception of Aristotle's
philosophy is very completely illustrated:--
"Now as to Substance we remark that this is one particular category
among existences, having three different aspects. First there is, so
to say, the raw material or Matter, having in it no definite character
or quality; next the Form or Specific character, in virtue of which the
thing becomes namable; and third, there is the Thing or Substance which
these two together constitute. The Matter is, in other words, the
_potentiality_ of the thing, the Form is the _realisation_ of that
potentiality. We may further have this realisation in two ways,
corresponding in character to the distinction between _knowledge_
(which we have but are not necessarily using) and actual
_contemplation_ or mental perception.
"Among substances as above defined those are most truly such which we
call _bodily objects_, and among these most especially objects which
are the products of nature, inasmuch as all other bodies must be
derived from them. Now among such natural objects some are possessed
of life, some are not; by _life_ I mean a process of spontaneous
nourishment, growth, and decay. Every natural {204} object having life
is a substance compounded, so to say, of several qualities. It is, in
fact, a bodily substance defined in virtue of its having life. Between
the living body thus defined and the Soul or Vital principle, a marked
distinction must be drawn. The body cannot be said to 'subsist in'
something else; rather must we say that it is the matter or substratum
in which something else subsists. And what we mean by the soul is just
this substance in the sense of the _form_ or specific character that
subsists in the natural body which is _potentially_ living. In other
words, the Soul is substance as _realisation_, only, however, of such a
body as has just been defined. Recalling now the distinction between
realisation as possessed knowledge and as actual contemplation, we
shall see that in its essential nature the Soul or Vital principle
corresponds rather with the first than with the second. For both sleep
and waking depend on the Soul or Life being there, but of these waking
only can be said to correspond with the active form of knowledge; sleep
is rather to be compared with the state of having without being
immediately conscious that we have. Now if we compare these two states
in respect of their priority of development in a particular person, we
shall see that the state of latent possession comes first. We may
therefore define the Soul or Vital principle as _The earliest {205}
realisation (entelechy) of a natural body having in it the potentiality
of life_.
"To every form of organic structure this definition applies, for even
the parts of plants are organs, although very simple ones; thus the
outer leaf is a protection to the pericarp, and the pericarp to the
fruit. Or, again, the roots are organs bearing an analogy to the mouth
in animals, both serving to take in food. Putting our definition,
then, into a form applicable to every stage of the Vital principle, we
shall say that _The Soul is the earliest realisation of a natural body
having organisation_.
"In this way we are relieved from the necessity of asking whether Soul
and body are one. We might as well ask whether the wax and the
impression are one, or, in short, whether the _matter_ of any object
and that whereof it is the matter or substratum are one. As has been
pointed out, unity and substantiality may have several significations,
but the truest sense of both is found in _realisation_.
"The general definition of the Soul or Vital principle above given may
be further explained as follows. The Soul is the _rational_ substance
(or function), that is to say, it is that which gives essential meaning
and reality to a body as knowable. Thus if an axe were a _natural_
instrument or organ, its rational substance would be found in its
realisation of what an axe means; this would be its _soul_. Apart
{206} from such realisation it would not be an axe at all, except in
name. Being, however, such as it is, the axe remains an axe
independently of any such realisation. For the statement that the Soul
is the _reason_ of a thing, that which gives it essential meaning and
reality, does not apply to such objects as an axe, but only to natural
bodies having power of spontaneous motion (including growth) and rest.
"Or we may illustrate what has been said by reference to the bodily
members. If the eye be a living creature, _sight_ will be its soul,
for this is the _rational_ substance (or function) of the eye. On the
other hand, the eye itself is the _material_ substance in which this
function subsists, which function being gone, the eye would no longer
be an eye, except in name, just as we can speak of the eye of a statue
or of a painted form. Now apply this illustration from a part of the
body to the whole. For as any one sense stands related to its organ,
so does the vital sense in general to the whole sensitive organism as
such, always remembering that we do not mean a dead body, but one which
really has in it potential life, as the seed or fruit has. Of course
there is a form of realisation to which the name applies in a specially
full sense, as when the axe is actually cutting, the eye actually
seeing, the man fully awake. But the Soul or Vital principle
corresponds rather with the _function_ of sight, or the _capacity_ for
cutting which {207} the axe has, the body, on the other hand, standing
in a relation of _potentiality_ to it. Now just as the eye may mean
both the actual organ or pupil, and also the function of sight, so also
the living creature means both the body and the soul. We cannot,
therefore, think of body apart from soul, or soul apart from body. If,
however, we regard the soul as composed of parts, we can see that the
realisation to which we give the name of soul is in some cases
essentially a realisation of certain parts of the body. We may,
however, conceive the soul as in other aspects separable, in so far as
the realisation cannot be connected with any bodily parts. Nay, we
cannot be certain whether the soul may not be the realisation or
perfection of the body as the sailor is of his boat. "
Observe that at the last Aristotle, though very tentatively, leaves an
opening for immortality, where, as in the case of man, there are
functions of the soul, such as philosophic contemplation, which cannot
be related to bodily conditions. He really was convinced that in man
there was a portion of that diviner aether which dwelt eternally in the
heavens, and was the ever-moving cause of all things. If there was in
man a _passive_ mind, which became all things, as all things through
sensation affected it, there was also, Aristotle argued, a _creative_
mind in man, which is above, and unmixed with, that which it
apprehends, {208} gives laws to this, is essentially prior to all
particular knowledge, is therefore eternal, not subject to the
conditions of time and space, consequently indestructible.
Finally, as a note on Aristotle's method, one may observe in this
passage, _first_, Aristotle's use of 'defining examples,' the wax, the
leaf and fruit, the axe, the eye, etc. ; _second_, his practice of
developing his distinctions gradually, Form and Matter in the abstract,
then in substances of every kind, then in natural bodies, then in
organic bodies of various grades, in separate organs, in the body as a
whole, and in the Soul as separable in man; and _thirdly_, his method
of approaching completeness in thought, by apparent contradictions or
qualifications, which aim at meeting the complexity of nature by an
equally organised complexity of analysis. To this let us simply add,
by way of final characterisation, that in the preceding pages we have
given but the merest fragment here and there of Aristotle's vast
accomplishment. So wide is the range of his ken, so minute his
observation, so subtle and complicated and allusive his illustrations,
that it is doubtful if any student of his, through all the centuries in
which he has influenced the world, ever found life long enough to
fairly and fully grasp him. Meanwhile he retains his grasp upon us.
Form and matter, final and efficient causes, potential and actual
existences, {209} substance, accident, difference, genus, species,
predication, syllogism, deduction, induction, analogy, and multitudes
of other joints in the machinery of thought for all time, were forged
for us in the workshop of Aristotle.
{210}
CHAPTER XXI
THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS
_Greek decay--The praises of Lucretius--Canonics--Physics--The proofs
of Lucretius--The atomic soul--Mental pleasures--Natural
pleasures--Lower philosophy and higher_
Philosophy, equally complete, equally perfect in all its parts, had its
final word in Plato and Aristotle; on the great lines of universal
knowledge no further really original structures were destined to be
raised by Greek hands. We have seen a parallelism between Greek
philosophy and Greek politics in their earlier phases (see above, p.
82); the same parallelism continues to the end. Greece broke the bonds
of her intense but narrow civic life and civic thought, and spread
herself out over the world in a universal monarchy and a cosmopolitan
philosophy; but with this widening of the area of her influence
reaction came and disruption and decay; an immense stimulus was given
on the one hand to the political activity, on the other, to the thought
and knowledge of the world as a whole, but at the centre Greece was
'living Greece no more,' her politics sank to the level of a dreary
farce, her philosophy died down to a dull and spiritless scepticism, to
an Epicureanism {211} that 'seasoned the wine-cup with the dust of
death,' or to a Stoicism not undignified yet still sad and narrow and
stern. The hope of the world, alike in politics and in philosophy,
faded as the life of Greece decayed.
[356]
The first phase of the change, _Scepticism_, or Pyrrhonism, as it was
named from its first teacher, need not detain us long. Pyrrho was
priest of Elis; in earlier life he accompanied Alexander the Great as
far as India, and is said to have become acquainted with certain of the
philosophic sects in that country. In his sceptical doctrine he had,
like his predecessors, a school with its succession of teachers; but
the [358] world has remembered little more of him or them than two
phrases 'suspense of judgment'--this for the intellectual side of
philosophy; 'impassibility'--this for the moral. The doctrine is a
negation of doctrine, the idle dream of idle men; even Pyrrho once,
when surprised in some sudden access of fear, confessed that it was
hard for him 'to get rid of the man in himself. ' Vigorous men and
growing nations are never agnostic. They decline to rest in mere
suspense; they are extremely the opposite of impassive; they believe
earnestly, they feel strongly.
[365]
A more interesting, because more positive and constructive, personality
was that of Epicurus. This philosopher was born at Samos, in the year
341 B. C. , of Athenian parents. He came to Athens in his eighteenth
year. Xenocrates was then teaching at {212} the Academy, Aristotle at
the Lyceum, but Epicurus heard neither the one nor the other. After
some wanderings he returned to Athens and set up on his [366] own
account as a teacher of philosophy. He made it a matter of boasting
that he was a self-taught philosopher; and Cicero (_De Nat. Deor. _ i.
26) sarcastically remarks that one could have guessed as much, even if
Epicurus had not stated it himself; as one might of the proprietor of
an ugly house, who should boast that he had employed no architect. The
style of Epicurus was, in fact, plain and unadorned, but he seems all
the same to have been able to say what he meant; and few if any writers
ancient or modern have ever had so splendid a literary tribute, as
Epicurus had from the great Roman poet Lucretius, his follower and
expositor.
"Glory of the Greek race," he says, "who first hadst power to raise
high so bright a light in the midst of darkness so profound, shedding a
beam on all the interests of life, thee do I follow, and in the
markings of thy track do I set my footsteps now. Not that I desire to
rival thee, but rather for love of thee would fain call myself thy
disciple. For how shall the swallow rival the swan, or what speed may
the kid with its tottering limbs attain, compared with the brave might
of the scampering steed? Thou; O father, art the discoverer of nature,
thou suppliest to us a father's teachings, and from thy pages, {213}
illustrious one, even as bees sip all manner of sweets along the
flowery glades, we in like manner devour all thy golden words, golden
and right worthy to live for ever. For soon as thy philosophy, birth
of thy godlike mind, hath begun to declare the origin of things,
straightway the terrors of the soul are scattered, earth's walls are
broken apart, and through all the void I see nature in the working. I
behold the gods in manifestation of their power, I discern their
blissful seats, which never winds assail nor rain-clouds sprinkle with
their showers, nor snow falling white with hoary frost doth buffet, but
cloudless aether ever wraps them round, beaming in broad diffusion of
glorious light. For nature supplies their every want nor aught impairs
their peace of soul. But nowhere do I see any regions of hellish
darkness, nor does the earth impose a barrier to our sight of what is
done in the void beneath our feet. Wherefore a holy ecstasy and thrill
of awe possess me, while thus by thy power the secrets of nature are
disclosed to view" (Lucret. _De Nat. Rer. _ iii, 1-30).
[367]
This devotion to the memory of Epicurus on the part of Lucretius was
paralleled by the love felt for him by his contemporaries; he had
crowds of followers who loved him and who were proud to learn his words
by heart. He seems indeed to have been a man of exceptional kindness
and amiability, and the 'garden of Epicurus' became proverbial as {214}
a place of temperate pleasures and wise delights. Personally we may
take it that Epicurus was a man of simple tastes and moderate desires;
and indeed throughout its history Epicureanism as a rule of conduct has
generally been associated with the finer forms of enjoyment, rather
than the more sensual. The 'sensual sty' is a nickname, not a
description.
[369]
Philosophy Epicurus defined as a process of thought and reasoning
tending to the realisation of happiness. Arts or sciences which had no
such practical end he contemned; and, as will be observed in Lucretius'
praises of him above, even physics had but one purpose or interest, to
free the soul from [370] terrors of the unseen. Thus philosophy was
mainly concerned with conduct, _i. e. _ with Ethics, but secondarily and
negatively with Physics, to which was appended what Epicurus called
Canonics, or the science of testing, that is, a kind of logic.
[371]
Beginning with _Canonics_, as the first part of philosophy in order of
time, from the point of view of human knowledge, Epicurus laid it down
that the only source of knowledge was the senses, which gave us an
immediate and true perception of that which actually came into contact
with them. Even the visions of madmen or of dreamers he considered
were in themselves true, being produced by a physical cause of some
kind, of which these visions were the direct and immediate report.
Falsity came in with {215} people's interpretations or imaginations
with respect to these sensations.
Sensations leave a trace in the memory, and out of similarities or
analogies among sensations there are developed in the mind general
notions or types, such as 'man,' 'house,' which are also true, because
[373] they are reproductions of sensations. Thirdly, when a sensation
occurs, it is brought into relation in the mind with one or more of
these types or notions; this is _predication_, true also in so far as
its elements are true, but capable of falsehood, as subsequent or
independent sensation may prove. If supported or not contradicted by
sensation, it is or may be true; if contradicted or not supported by
sensation, it is or may be false. The importance of this statement of
the canon of truth or falsehood will be understood when we come to the
physics of Epicurus, at the basis of which is his theory of Atoms,
which by their very nature can never be directly testified to by
sensation.
[374]
This and no more was what Epicurus had to teach on the subject of
logic. He had no theory of definition, or division, or ratiocination,
or refutation, or explication; on all these matters Epicurus was, as
Cicero said, 'naked and unarmed. ' Like most self-taught or ill-taught
teachers, Epicurus trusted to his dogmas; he knew nothing and cared
nothing for logical defence.
{216}
[375]
In his _Physics_ Epicurus did little more than reproduce the doctrine
of Democritus. He starts from the fundamental proposition that
'nothing can be produced from nothing, nothing can really perish. ' The
veritable existences in nature are the Atoms, which are too minute to
be discernible by the senses, but which nevertheless have a definite
size, and cannot further be divided. They have also a definite weight
and form, but no qualities other than these. There is an infinity of
empty space; this Epicurus proves on abstract grounds, practically
because a limit to space is unthinkable. It follows that there must be
an infinite number of the atoms, otherwise they would disperse
throughout the infinite void and disappear. There is a limit, however,
to the number of varieties among the atoms in respect of form, size,
and weight. The existence of the void space is proved by the fact that
motion takes place, to which he adds the argument that it necessarily
exists also to separate the atoms one from another. So far Epicurus
and Democritus are agreed.
To the Democritean doctrine, however, Epicurus made a curious addition,
to which he himself is said to have attached much importance. The
natural course (he said) for all bodies having weight is downwards in a
straight line. It struck Epicurus that this being so, the atoms would
all travel for ever in parallel lines, and those 'clashings and
interminglings' of {217} atoms out of which he conceived all visible
forms to be produced, could never occur. He therefore laid it down
that the atoms _deviated_ the least little bit from the straight, thus
making a world possible. And Epicurus considered that this supposed
deviation of the atoms not only made a world possible, but human
freedom also. In the deviation, without apparent cause, of the
descending atoms, the law of necessity was broken, and there was room
on the one hand for man's free will, on the other, for prayer to the
gods, and for hope of their interference on our behalf.
It may be worth while summarising the proofs which Lucretius in his
great poem, professedly following in the footsteps of Epicurus, adduces
for these various doctrines.
Epicurus' first dogma is, 'Nothing proceeds from nothing,' that is,
every material object has some matter previously existing exactly equal
in quantity to it, out of which it was made. To prove this Lucretius
appeals to the _order of nature_ as seen in the seasons, in the
phenomena of growth, in the fixed relations which exist between life
and its environment as regards what is helpful or harmful, in the
limitation of size and of faculties in the several species and the
fixity of the characteristics generally in each, in the possibilities
of cultivation and improvement of species within certain limits and
under certain conditions.
{218}
To prove his second position, 'Nothing passes into nothing,' Lucretius
points out to begin with that there is a law even in destruction;
_force_ is required to dissolve or dismember anything; were it
otherwise the world would have disappeared long ago. Moreover, he
points out that it is from the elements set free by decay and death
that new things are built up; there is no waste, no visible lessening
of the resources of nature, whether in the generations of living
things, in the flow of streams and the fulness of ocean, or in the
eternal stars. Were it not so, infinite time past would have exhausted
all the matter in the universe, but Nature is clearly immortal.
Moreover, there is a correspondence between the structure of bodies and
the forces necessary to their destruction. Finally, apparent
violations of the law, when carefully examined, only tend to confirm
it. The rains no doubt disappear, but it is that their particles may
reappear in the juices of the crops and the trees and the beasts which
feed on them.
Nor need we be surprised at the doctrine that the atoms, so
all-powerful in the formation of things, are themselves invisible. The
same is true of the forest-rending blasts, the 'viewless winds' which
lash the waves and overwhelm great fleets. There are odours also that
float unseen upon the air; there are heat, and cold, and voices. There
is the process of evaporation, whereby we know that the water has gone,
{219} yet cannot see its vapour departing. There is the gradual
invisible detrition of rings upon the finger, of stones hollowed out by
dripping water, of the ploughshare in the field, and the flags upon the
streets, and the brazen statues of the gods whose fingers men kiss as
they pass the gates, and the rocks that the salt sea-brine eats into
along the shore.
That there is Empty Space or Void he proves by all the varied motions
on land and sea which we behold; by the porosity even of hardest
things, as we see in dripping caves. There is the food also which
disperses itself throughout the body, in trees and cattle. Voices pass
through closed doors, frost can pierce even to the bones. Things equal
in size vary in weight; a lump of wool has more of void in it than a
lump of lead. So much for Lucretius.
For abstract theories on physics, except as an adjunct and support to
his moral conceptions, Epicurus seems to have had very little
inclination. He thus speaks of the visible universe or Cosmos. [373]
The Cosmos is a sort of skyey enclosure, which holds within it the
stars, the earth, and all visible things. It is cut off from the
infinite by a wall of division which may be either rare or dense, in
motion or at rest, round or three-cornered or any other form. That
there is such a wall of division is quite admissible, for no object of
which we have observation is without its limit. Were this wall of
division to {220} break, everything contained within it would tumble
out. We may conceive that there are an infinite number of such Cosmic
systems, with inter-cosmic intervals throughout the infinity of space.
He is very disinclined to assume that similar phenomena, _e. g. _
eclipses of the sun or moon, always have the same cause. The various
accidental implications and interminglings of the atoms may produce the
same effect in various ways. In fact Epicurus has the same impatience
of theoretical physics as of theoretical philosophy. He is a
'practical man. '
[378]
He is getting nearer his object when he comes to the nature of the
soul. The soul, like everything else, is composed of atoms, extremely
delicate and fine. It very much resembles the breath, with a mixture
of heat thrown in, sometimes coming nearer in nature to the first,
sometimes to the second. Owing to the delicacy of its composition it
is extremely subject to variation, as we see in its passions and
liability to emotion, its phases of thought and the varied experiences
without which we cannot live. It is, moreover, the chief cause of
sensation being possible for us. Not that it could of itself have had
sensation, without the enwrapping support of the rest of the structure.
The rest of the structure, in fact, having prepared this chief cause,
gets from it a share of what comes to it, but not a share of all which
the soul has.
The soul being of material composition equally {221} with the other
portions of the bodily structure, dies of course with it, that is, its
particles like the rest are dispersed, to form new bodies. There is
nothing dreadful therefore about death, for there is nothing left to
know or feel anything about it.
As regards the process of sensation, Epicurus, like Democritus,
conceived bodies as having a power of emitting from their surface
extremely delicate images of themselves. These are composed of very
fine atoms, but, in spite of their tenuity, they are able to maintain
for a considerable time their relative form and order, though liable
after a time to distortion. They fly with great celerity through the
void, and find their way through the windows of the senses to the soul,
which by its delicacy of nature is in sympathy with them, and
apprehends their form.
[379]
The gods are indestructible, being composed of the very finest and
subtlest atoms, so as to have not a body, but _as it were_ a body.
Their life is one of perfect blessedness and peace. They are in number
countless; but the conceptions of the vulgar are erroneous respecting
them. They are not subject to the passions of humanity. Anger and joy
are alike alien to their nature; for all such feelings imply a lack of
strength. They dwell apart in the inter-cosmic spaces. As Cicero
jestingly remarks: "Epicurus by way of a joke introduced his gods so
pure that you could see through them, {222} so delicate that the wind
could blow through them, having their dwelling-place outside between
two worlds, for fear of breakage. "
[380]
Coming finally to Epicurus' theory of Ethics, we find a general
resemblance to the doctrine of Democritus and Aristippus. The end of
life is pleasure or the absence of pain. He differs, however, from the
Cyrenaics in maintaining that not the pleasure of the moment is the
end, but pleasure throughout the whole of life, and that therefore we
ought in our conduct to have regard to the future. Further he denies
that pleasure exists only in activity, it exists equally in rest and
quiet; in short, he places more emphasis in his definition on the
absence of pain or disturbance, than on the presence of positive
pleasure. And thirdly, while the Cyrenaics maintained that bodily
pleasures and pains were the keenest, Epicurus claimed these
characteristics for the pleasures of the mind, which intensified the
present feeling by anticipations of the future and recollections of the
past. And thus the wise man might be happy, even on the rack. Better
indeed was it to be unlucky and wise, than lucky and foolish. In a
similar temper Epicurus on his death-bed wrote thus to a friend: "In
the enjoyment of blessedness and peace, on this the last day of my life
I write this letter to you. Strangury has supervened, and the
extremest agony of internal {223} pains, yet resisting these has been
my joy of soul, as I recalled the thoughts which I have had in the
past. "
[381]
We must note, however, that while mental pleasures counted for much
with the Epicureans, these mental pleasures consisted not in thought
for thought's sake in any form; they had nothing to do with
contemplation. They were essentially connected with bodily
experiences; they were the memory of past, the anticipation of future,
bodily pleasures. For it is to be remembered that thoughts were with
Epicurus only converted sensations, and sensations were bodily
processes. Thus every joy of the mind was conditioned by a bodily
experience preceding it. Or as Metrodorus, Epicurus' disciple, defined
the matter: "A man is happy when his body is in good case, and he has
good hope that it will continue so. " Directly or indirectly,
therefore, every happiness came back, in the rough phrase of Epicurus,
to one's belly at last.
[382]
This theory did not, however, reduce morality to bestial
self-indulgence. If profligate pleasures could be had free from mental
apprehensions of another world and of death and pain and disease in
this, and if they brought with them guidance as to their own proper
restriction, there would be no reason whatever to blame a man for
filling himself to the full of pleasures, which brought no pain or
sorrow, that is, {224} no evil, in their train. But (Epicurus argues)
this is far from being the case. Moreover there are many pleasures
keen enough at the time, which are by no means pleasant in the
remembering. And even when we have them they bring no enjoyment to the
highest parts of our nature. What those 'highest parts' are, and by
what standard their relative importance is determined, Epicurus does
not say. He probably meant those parts of our nature which had the
widest range in space and time, our faculties, namely, of memory and
hope, of conception, of sight and hearing.
Moreover there are distinctions among desires; some are both natural
and compulsory, such as thirst; some are natural but not compulsory, as
the desire for dainties; some are neither natural nor compulsory, such
as the desire for crowns or statues. The last of these the wise man
will contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his
freedom. For independence of such things is desirable, not necessarily
that we may reduce our wants to a minimum, but in order that if we
cannot enjoy many things, we may be content with few. "For I am
convinced," Epicurus continues, "that they have the greatest enjoyment
of wealth, who are least dependent upon it for enjoyment. "
Thus if Epicurus did not absolutely teach simplicity of living, he
taught his disciples the necessity of being capable of such simplicity,
which they could {225} hardly be without practice. So that in reality
the doctrine of Epicurus came very near that of his opponents. As
Seneca the Stoic observed, "Pleasure with him comes to be something
very thin and pale. In fact that law which we declare for virtue, the
same law he lays down for pleasure. "
One of the chief and highest pleasures of life Epicurus found in the
possession of friends, who provided for each other not only help and
protection, but a lifelong joy. For the 'larger friendship' of the
civic community, Epicurus seems to have had only a very neutral regard.
Justice, he says, is a convention of interests, with a view of neither
hurting or being hurt. The wise man will have nothing to do with
politics, if he can help it.
In spite of much that may offend in the doctrines of Epicurus, there is
much at least in the man which is sympathetic and attractive. What one
observes, however, when we compare such a philosophy with that of Plato
or Aristotle, is first, a total loss of constructive imagination. The
parts of the 'philosophy,' if we are so to call it, of Epicurus hang
badly together, and neither the Canonics nor the Physics show any real
faculty of serious thinking at all. The Ethics has a wider scope and a
more real relation to experience if not to reason. But it can never
satisfy the deeper apprehension of mankind.
The truest and most permanently valid revelations {226} of life come
not to the many but to the one or the few, who communicate the truth to
the many, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, always at the cost
of antagonism and ridicule. A philosophy therefore which only
represents in theoretical form the average practice of the average man,
comes into the world still-born. It has nothing to say; its hearers
know it all, and the exact value of it all, already. And in their
heart of hearts, many even of those who have stooped to a lower ideal,
and sold their birthright of hopes beyond the passing hour, for a mess
of pottage in the form of material success and easy enjoyment, have a
lurking contempt for the preachers of what they practise; as many a
slaveholder in America probably had for the clerical defenders of the
'divine institution. '
There is a wasting sense of inadequacy in this 'hand-to-mouth' theory
of living, which compels most of those who follow it to tread softly
and speak moderately. They are generally a little weary if not
cynical; they don't think much of themselves or of their success; but
they prefer to hold on as they have begun, rather than launch out into
new courses, which they feel they have not the moral force to continue.
"May I die," said the Cynic, "rather than lead a life of pleasure. "
"May I die," says the Epicurean, "rather than make a fool of myself. "
The Idealist is to them, if not {227} a hypocrite, at least a
visionary,--if not a Tartuffe, at least a Don Quixote tilting at
windmills. Yet even for poor Don Quixote, with all his blindness and
his follies, the world retains a sneaking admiration. It can spare a
few or a good many of its worldly-wisdoms, rather than lose altogether
its enthusiasms and its dreams. And the one thing which saves
Epicureanism from utter extinction as a theory, is invariably the
idealism which like a 'purple patch' adorns it here and there. No man
and no theory is wholly self-centred. Pleasure is supplanted by
Utility, and Utility becomes the greatest Happiness of the greatest
Number, and so, as Horace says (_Ep. _ I. x. 24)--
Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,
Nature (like Love) thrust out of the door, will come back by the
window; and the Idealism which is not allowed to make pain a pleasure,
is required at last to translate pleasure into pains.
{228}
CHAPTER XXII
THE STOICS
_Semitic admixture--Closed fist and open hand--'Tabula rasa'--Necessity
of evil--Hymn of Cleanthes--Things indifferent--Ideal and
real--Philosophy and humanity_
Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (born _circa_ 340
B. C. ), was a native of Citium in Cyprus. The city was Greek, but with
a large Phoenician admixture. And it is curious that in this last and
sternest phase of Greek thought, not the founder only, but a large
proportion of the successive leaders of the school, came from this and
other places having Semitic elements in them. Among these places
notable as nurseries of Stoicism was Tarsus in Cilicia, the birthplace
of St. Paul. The times of preparation were drawing to a close; and
through these men, with their Eastern intensity and capacities of
self-searching and self-abasement, the philosophy of Greece was linking
itself on to the wisdom of the Hebrews.
Zeno came to Athens to study philosophy, and for twenty years he was a
pupil first of Crates the Cynic, and then of other teachers. At length
he set up a school of his own in the celebrated _Stoa {229} Poecile_
(Painted Colonnade), so named because it was adorned with frescoes by
Polygnotus. There he taught for nearly sixty years, and voluntarily
ended his life when close on a century old. His life, as Antigonus,
King of Macedon, recorded on his tomb, was consistent with his
doctrine--abstemious, [386] frugal, laborious, dutiful. He was
succeeded by Cleanthes, a native of Assos in Asia [387] Minor. But the
great constructor of the Stoic doctrine, without whom, as his
contemporaries said, there had been no Stoic school at all, was
Chrysippus, a native of Soli or of Tarsus in Cilicia. He wrote at
enormous length, supporting his teachings by an immense erudition, and
culling liberally from the poets to illustrate and enforce his views.
Learned and pedantic, his works had no inherent attraction, and nothing
of them but fragments has been preserved. We know the Stoic doctrine
mainly from the testimony and criticisms of later times.
[389]
Like the Epicureans, Zeno and his successors made philosophy primarily
a search for the chief good, a doctrine of practice and morals. But
like them they were impelled to admit a logic and a physics, at least
by way of preliminary basis to their [390] ethics. The relations of
the three they illustrated by various images. Philosophy was like an
animal; logic was its bones and sinews, ethics its flesh, physics its
life or soul. Or again, philosophy was {230} an egg; logic was the
shell, ethics the white, physics, the yolk. Or again, it was a
fruitful field; logic was the hedge, ethics the crop, physics the soil.
Or it was a city, well ordered and strongly fortified, and so on. The
images seem somewhat confused, but the general idea is clear enough.
Morality was the essential, the living body, of philosophy; physics
supplied its raw material, or the conditions under which a moral life
could be lived; logic secured that we should use that material rightly
and wisely for the end desired.
[391]
Logic the Stoics divided into two parts--Rhetoric, the 'science of the
open hand,' and Dialectic, the 'science of the closed fist,' as Zeno
called them. They indulged in elaborate divisions and subdivisions of
each, with which we need not meddle. The only points of interest to us
are contained in their analysis [392] of the processes of perception
and thought. A sensation, Zeno taught, was the result of an external
_impulse_, which when combined with an internal _assent_, produced a
mental state that revealed at the same time itself and the external
object producing it. The perception thus produced he compared to the
grip which the hand took of a solid object; and real perceptions,
those, that is, which were caused by a real external object, and not by
some illusion, always testified to the reality of their cause by this
sensation of 'grip. '
{231}
The internal assent of the mind was voluntary, and at the same time
necessary; for the mind could not do otherwise than will the acceptance
of that which it was fitted to receive. The peculiarity of their
physics, which we shall have to refer to later on, namely, the denial
of the existence of anything not material, implied that in some way
there was a material action of the external object on the structure of
the perceiving mind (itself also material). What exactly the nature of
this action was the Stoics themselves were not quite agreed. The idea
of an 'impression' such as a seal makes upon wax was a tempting one,
but they had difficulty in comprehending how there could be a multitude
of different impressions on the same spot without effacing each other.
Some therefore preferred the vaguer and safer expression,
'modification'; had they possessed our modern science, they might have
illustrated their meaning by reference to the phenomena of magnetism or
electricity.
An interesting passage may be quoted from [393] Plutarch on the Stoic
doctrine of knowledge: "The Stoics maintain," he says, "that when a
human being is born, he has the governing part of his soul like a sheet
of paper ready prepared for the reception of writing, and on this the
soul inscribes in succession its various ideas. The first form of the
writing is produced through the senses. When we perceive, for example,
{232} a white object, the recollection remains when the object is gone.
And when many similar recollections have accumulated, we have what is
called _experience_. Besides the ideas which we get in this natural
and quite undesigned way, there are other ideas which we get through
teaching and information. In the strict sense only these latter ought
to be called ideas; the former should rather be called perceptions.
Now the rational faculty, in virtue of which we are called reasoning
beings, is developed out of, or over and beyond, the mass of
perceptions, in the second seven years' period of life. In fact a
thought may be defined as a kind of mental image, such as a rational
animal alone is capable of having. "
Thus there are various gradations of mental apprehensions; first, those
of sensible qualities obtained through the action of the objects and
the assent of the perceiving subject, as already described; then by
experience, by comparison, by analogy, by the combinations of the
reasoning faculty, further and more general notions are arrived at, and
conclusions formed, as, for example, that the gods exist and exercise a
providential care over the world. By this faculty also the wise man
ascends to the apprehension of the good and true.
The physics of the Stoics started from the fundamental [398]
proposition that in the universe of things there were two elements--the
active and the passive. {233} The latter was Matter or unqualified
existence; the former was the reason or qualifying element in Matter,
that is, God, who being eternal, is the fashioner of every individual
thing throughout the universe of matter. God is One; He is Reason, and
Fate, and Zeus. In fact all the gods are only various representations
of His faculties and powers. He being from the beginning of things by
Himself, turneth all existence through air to water. And even as the
genital seed is enclosed in the semen, so also was the seed of the
world concealed in the water, making its matter apt for the further
birth of things; then first it brought into being the four
elements--fire, water, air, earth. For there was a finer fire or air
which was the moving spirit of things; later and lower than this were
the material elements of fire and air. It follows that the universe of
things is threefold; there is first God Himself, the source of all
character and individuality, who is indestructible and eternal, the
fashioner of all things, who in certain cycles of ages gathers up all
things into Himself, and then out of Himself brings them again to
birth; there is the matter of the universe whereon God works; and
thirdly, there is the union of the two. Thus the world is governed by
reason and forethought, and this reason extends through every part,
even as the soul or life extends to every part of us. The universe
therefore is a living thing, having a {234} soul or reason in it. This
soul or reason one teacher likened to the air, another to the sky,
another to the sun. For the soul of nature is, as it were, a finer air
or fire, having a power of creation in it, and moving in an ordered way
to the production of things.
[399]
The universe is one and of limited extension, being spherical in form,
for this is the form which best adapts itself to movement. Outside
this universe is infinite bodiless space; but within the universe there
is no empty part; all is continuous and united, as is proved by the
harmony of relation which exists between the heavenly bodies and those
upon the earth. The world as such is destructible, for its parts are
subject to change and to decay; yet is this change or destruction only
in respect of the qualities imposed upon it from time to time by the
Reason inherent in it; the mere unqualified Matter remains
indestructible.
[408]
In the universe evil of necessity exists; for evil being the opposite
of good, where no evil is there no good can be. For just as in a
comedy there are absurdities, which are in themselves bad, but yet add
a certain attraction to the poem as a whole, so also one may blame evil
regarded in itself, yet for the whole it is not without its use. So
also God is the cause of death equally with birth; for even as cities
when the inhabitants have multiplied overmuch, {235} remove their
superfluous members by colonisation or by war, so also is God a cause
of destruction. In man in like manner good cannot exist save with
evil; for wisdom being a knowledge of good and evil, remove the evil
and wisdom itself goes. Disease and other natural evils, when looked
at in the light of their effects, are means not of evil but of good;
there is throughout the universe a balance and interrelation of good
and evil. Not that God hath in Himself any evil; the law is not the
cause of lawlessness, nor God Himself responsible for any violation of
right.
[404]
The Stoics indulged in a strange fancy that the world reverted after a
mighty cycle of years in all its parts to the same form and structure
which it possessed at the beginning, so that there would be once more a
Socrates, a Plato, and all the men that had lived, each with the same
friends and fellow-citizens, the same experiences, and the same
endeavours. At the termination of each cycle there was a burning up of
all things, and thereafter a renewal of the great round of life.
[408]
Nothing incorporeal, they maintained, can be affected by or affect that
which is corporeal; body alone can affect body. The soul therefore
must be corporeal. Death is the separation of soul from body, but it
is impossible to separate what is incorporeal from body; therefore,
again, the soul must {236} be corporeal. In the belief of Cleanthes,
the souls of all creatures remained to the next period of cyclic
conflagration; Chrysippus believed that only the souls of the wise and
good remained.
[413]
Coming finally to the Ethics of the Stoic philosophy, we find for the
chief end of life this definition, 'A life consistent with itself,' or,
as it was otherwise expressed, 'A life consistent with Nature. ' The
two definitions are really identical; for the law of nature is the law
of our nature, and the reason in our being the reason which also is in
God, the supreme Ruler of the universe. This is substantially in
accordance with the celebrated law of right action laid down by Kant,
"Act so that the maxim of thine action be capable of being made a law
of universal action. " Whether a man act thus or no, by evil if not by
good the eternal law will satisfy itself; the question is of import
only for the man's own happiness. Let his will accord with the
universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, and the man will be
happy. Let his will resist the universal will, then the law will be
fulfilled, but the man will bear the penalty. This was expressed by
Cleanthes in a hymn which ran somewhat thus--
Lead me, O Zeus most great,
And thou, Eternal Fate:
What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel
That way I'll follow without fret or cavil.
{237}
Or if I evil be
And spurn thy high decree,
Even so I still shall follow, soon or late.
Thus in the will alone consists the difference of good or ill for us;
in either case Nature's great law fulfils itself infallibly. To their
view on this point we may apply the words of Hamlet: "If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not
now, yet it will come; the _readiness_ is all. "
This universal law expresses itself in us in various successive
manifestations. From the moment of birth it implants in us a supreme
self-affection, whereby of infallible instinct we seek our own
self-preservation, rejoice in that which is suitable to our existence,
shrink from that which is unsuitable. As we grow older, further and
higher principles manifest themselves--reason and reflection, a more
and more careful and complete apprehension of that which is honourable
and advantageous, a capacity of choice among goods. Till finally the
surpassing glory of that which is just and honourable shines out so
clear upon us, that any pain or loss is esteemed of no account, if only
we may attain to that. Thus at last, by the very law of our being, we
come to know that nothing is truly and absolutely good but goodness,
nothing absolutely bad but sin. Other things, inasmuch as they have no
character of moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really
good or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things
indifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be
relatively preferable or relatively undesirable. Even pleasure and
pain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being,
are things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil. Yet
have they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them
was so implanted in us at the first that our souls by natural impulse
are drawn to pleasure, while they shrink from pain as from a deadly
enemy. Wherefore reason neither can nor ought to seek wholly to
eradicate these primitive and deep-seated affections of our nature; but
so to exercise a resisting and ordering influence upon them, as to
render them obedient and subservient to herself.
[415]
That which is absolutely good--wisdom, righteousness, courage,
temperance--does good only and never ill to us. All other
things,--life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, reputation,
birth,--and their opposites,--death, disease, pain, deformity,
weakness, poverty, contempt, humility of station,--these are in
themselves neither a benefit nor a curse. They may do us good, they
may do us harm. We may use them for good, we may use them for evil.
[417]
Thus the Stoics worked out on ideal and absolute lines the thought of
righteousness as the chief and {239} only good. Across this ideal
picture were continually being drawn by opponents without or inquirers
within, clouds of difficulty drawn from real experience. 'What,' it
was asked, 'of _progress_ in goodness? Is this a middle state between
good and evil; or if a middle state between good and evil be a
contradiction, in terms, how may we characterise it? ' Here the wiser
teachers had to be content to answer that it _tended_ towards good, was
good in possibility, would be absolutely good when the full attainment
came, and the straining after right had been swallowed up in the
perfect calm of settled virtue.
'How also of the wise man tormented by pain, or in hunger and poverty
and rags, is his perfectness of wisdom and goodness really sufficient
to make him happy? ' Here, again, the answer had to be hesitating and
provisional, through no fault of the Stoics. In this world, while we
are still under the strange dominion of time and circumstance, the
ideal can never wholly fit the real. There must still be difficulty
and incompleteness here, only to be solved and perfected 'when iniquity
shall have an end. ' Our eyes may fail with looking upward, yet the
upward look is well; and the jibes upon the Stoic 'king in rags' that
Horace and others were so fond of, do not affect the question. It may
have been, and probably often was, the case that Stoic teachers {240}
were apt to transfer to themselves personally the ideal attributes,
which they justly assigned to the ideal man in whom wisdom was
perfected. The doctrine gave much scope for cant and mental pride and
hypocrisy, as every ideal doctrine does, including the Christian. But
the existence of these vices in individuals no more affected the
doctrine of an ideal goodness in its Stoic form, than it does now in
its Christian one. That only the good man is truly wise or free or
happy; that vice, however lavishly it surround itself with luxury and
ease and power, is inherently wretched and foolish and slavish;--these
are things which are worth saying and worth believing, things, indeed,
which the world dare not and cannot permanently disbelieve, however
difficult or even impossible it may be to mark men off into two
classes, the good and the bad, however strange the irony of
circumstance which so often shows the wicked who 'are not troubled as
other men, neither are they plagued like other men; they have more than
their heart could wish,' while good men battle with adversity, often in
vain. Still will the permanent, fruitful, progressive faith of man
'look to the end'; still will the ideal be powerful to plead for the
painful right, and spoil, even in the tasting, the pleasant wrong.
The doctrine, of course, like every doctrine worth anything, was pushed
to extravagant lengths, and {241} thrust into inappropriate quarters,
by foolish doctrinaires. As that the wise man is the only orator,
critic, poet, physician, nay, cobbler if you please; that the wise man
knows all that is to be known, and can do everything that is worth
doing, and so on. The school was often too academic, too abstract, too
fond of hearing itself talk. This, alas! is what most schools are, and
most schoolmasters.
Yet the Stoics were not altogether alien to the ordinary interests and
duties of life. They admitted a duty of co-operating in politics, at
least in such states as showed some desire for, or approach to, virtue.
They approved of the wise man taking part in education, of his marrying
and bringing up children, both for his own sake and his country's. He
will be ready even to 'withdraw himself from life on behalf of his
country or his friends. This 'withdrawal,' which was their word for
suicide, came unhappily to be much in the mouths of later, and
especially of the Roman, Stoics, who, in the sadness and restraint of
prevailing despotism, came to thank God that no one was compelled to
remain in life; he might 'withdraw' when the burden of life, the
hopelessness of useful activity, became too great.
With this sad, stern, yet not undignified note, the philosophy of
Greece speaks its last word. The later scepticism of the New Academy,
directed mainly to a negative criticism of the crude enough logic of
the {242} Stoics, or of the extravagances of their ethical doctrine,
contributed no substantial element to thought or morals. As an
eclectic system it had much vogue, side by side with Stoicism and
Epicureanism, among the Romans, having as its chief exponent Cicero, as
Epicureanism had Lucretius, and Stoicism, Seneca.
The common characteristic of all these systems in their later
developments, is their _cosmopolitanism_. _Homo sum, nil humani a me
alienum puto_, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem
alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in
any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. We have seen
already (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely
conditioned, if not produced, by the breakdown of the old civic life of
Greece. The process hardly suffered delay from all the efforts of
Socrates and Plato. Cosmopolitanism was already a point of union
between the Cynics and Cyrenaics (see p. 128). And the march of
politics was always tending in the same direction. First through great
leagues, such as the Spartan or Athenian or Theban, each with a
predominant or tyrannical city at the head; then later through the
conquest of Greece by Alexander, and the leaguing of all Greek-speaking
peoples in the great invasion of Asia; then through the spread of Greek
letters all over the Eastern {243} world, and the influx upon Greek
centres such as Athens and Alexandria, of all manner of foreign
intelligences; and finally, through the conquest of all this teeming
world of culture by the discipline and practical ability of Rome, and
its incorporation in a universal empire of law, all the barriers which
had divided city from city and tribe from tribe and race from race
disappeared, and only a common humanity remained.
The only effective philosophies for such a community were those which
regarded man as an _individual_, with a world politically omnipotent
hedging him about, and driving him in upon himself. Thus the New
Academy enlarged on the doubtfulness of all beyond the individual
consciousness; Stoicism insisted on individual dutifulness,
Epicureanism on individual self-satisfaction. The first sought to make
life worth living through culture, the second through indifference, the
third through a moderate enjoyment. But all alike felt themselves very
helpless in face of the growing sadness of life, in face of the
deepening mystery of the world beyond. All alike were controversial,
and quick enough to ridicule their rivals; none was hopefully
constructive, or (unless in the poetic enthusiasm of a Lucretius) very
confident of the adequacy of its own conceptions.
instrument; and Nature always assigns an instrument to the one fitted
to use it, just as a sensible man would. For it is more reasonable to
give a flute to a flute-player than to confer on a man who has some
flutes the art of playing them. To that which is the greater and
higher she adds what is less important, and not _vice versa_.
Therefore to the creature fitted to acquire the largest number of
skills Nature assigned the hand, the instrument useful for the largest
number of purposes" (Arist. _De Part. An. _ iv. p. 10).
[332]
And in the macrocosm, the visible and invisible world about us, the
same conception holds: "The existence of God is an eternally perfect
entelechy, a life everlasting. In that, therefore, which belongs to
the divine there must be an eternally perfect movement. Therefore the
heavens, which are as it were the body of the Divine, are in form a
sphere, of {201} necessity ever in circular motion. Why then is not
this true of every portion of the universe? Because there must of
necessity be a point of rest of the circling body at the centre. Yet
the circling body cannot rest either as a whole or as regards any part
of it, otherwise its motion could not be eternal, which by nature it
is. Now that which is a violation of nature cannot be eternal, but the
violation is posterior to that which is in accordance with nature, and
thus the unnatural is a kind of displacement or degeneracy from the
natural, taking the form of a coming into being.
"Necessity then requires earth, as the element standing still at the
centre. Now if there must be earth, there must be fire. For if one of
two opposites is natural or necessary, the other must be necessary too,
each, in fact, implying the necessity of the other. For the two have
the same substantial basis, only the positive form is naturally prior
to the negative; for instance, warm is prior to cold. And in the same
way motionlessness and heaviness are predicated in virtue of the
absence of motion and lightness, _i. e. _ the latter are essentially
prior.
"Further, if there are fire and earth, there must also be the elements
which lie between these, each having an antithetic relation to each.
From this it follows that there must be a process of coming into being,
because none of these elements can be eternal, {202} but each affects,
and is affected by each, and they are mutually destructive. Now it is
not to be argued that anything which can be moved can be eternal,
except in the case of that which by its own nature has eternal motion.
And if coming into being must be predicated of these, then other forms
of change can also be predicated" (Arist. _De Coelo_, ii. p. 3).
This passage is worth quoting as illustrating, not only Aristotle's
conception of the divine entelechy, but also the ingenuity with which
he gave that appearance of logical completeness to the vague and
ill-digested scientific imaginations of the time, which remained so
evil an inheritance for thousands of years. It is to be observed, in
order to complete Aristotle's theory on this subject, that the four
elements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, are all equally in a world which is
"contrary to nature," that is, the world of change, of coming into
being, and going out of being. Apart from these there is the element
of the Eternal Cosmos, which is "in accordance with nature," having its
own natural and eternal motion ever the same. This is the fifth or
divine element, the aetherial, by the schoolmen translated _Quinta
Essentia_, whence by a curious degradation we have our modern word
Quintessence, of that which is the finest and subtlest extract.
Still more clearly is the organic conception carried {203} out in
Aristotle's discussion of the Vital principle or Soul in the various
grades of living creatures and in man. It will be sufficient to quote
at length a chapter of Aristotle's treatise on the subject (_De Anima_,
ii. p. 1) in which this fundamental conception of Aristotle's
philosophy is very completely illustrated:--
"Now as to Substance we remark that this is one particular category
among existences, having three different aspects. First there is, so
to say, the raw material or Matter, having in it no definite character
or quality; next the Form or Specific character, in virtue of which the
thing becomes namable; and third, there is the Thing or Substance which
these two together constitute. The Matter is, in other words, the
_potentiality_ of the thing, the Form is the _realisation_ of that
potentiality. We may further have this realisation in two ways,
corresponding in character to the distinction between _knowledge_
(which we have but are not necessarily using) and actual
_contemplation_ or mental perception.
"Among substances as above defined those are most truly such which we
call _bodily objects_, and among these most especially objects which
are the products of nature, inasmuch as all other bodies must be
derived from them. Now among such natural objects some are possessed
of life, some are not; by _life_ I mean a process of spontaneous
nourishment, growth, and decay. Every natural {204} object having life
is a substance compounded, so to say, of several qualities. It is, in
fact, a bodily substance defined in virtue of its having life. Between
the living body thus defined and the Soul or Vital principle, a marked
distinction must be drawn. The body cannot be said to 'subsist in'
something else; rather must we say that it is the matter or substratum
in which something else subsists. And what we mean by the soul is just
this substance in the sense of the _form_ or specific character that
subsists in the natural body which is _potentially_ living. In other
words, the Soul is substance as _realisation_, only, however, of such a
body as has just been defined. Recalling now the distinction between
realisation as possessed knowledge and as actual contemplation, we
shall see that in its essential nature the Soul or Vital principle
corresponds rather with the first than with the second. For both sleep
and waking depend on the Soul or Life being there, but of these waking
only can be said to correspond with the active form of knowledge; sleep
is rather to be compared with the state of having without being
immediately conscious that we have. Now if we compare these two states
in respect of their priority of development in a particular person, we
shall see that the state of latent possession comes first. We may
therefore define the Soul or Vital principle as _The earliest {205}
realisation (entelechy) of a natural body having in it the potentiality
of life_.
"To every form of organic structure this definition applies, for even
the parts of plants are organs, although very simple ones; thus the
outer leaf is a protection to the pericarp, and the pericarp to the
fruit. Or, again, the roots are organs bearing an analogy to the mouth
in animals, both serving to take in food. Putting our definition,
then, into a form applicable to every stage of the Vital principle, we
shall say that _The Soul is the earliest realisation of a natural body
having organisation_.
"In this way we are relieved from the necessity of asking whether Soul
and body are one. We might as well ask whether the wax and the
impression are one, or, in short, whether the _matter_ of any object
and that whereof it is the matter or substratum are one. As has been
pointed out, unity and substantiality may have several significations,
but the truest sense of both is found in _realisation_.
"The general definition of the Soul or Vital principle above given may
be further explained as follows. The Soul is the _rational_ substance
(or function), that is to say, it is that which gives essential meaning
and reality to a body as knowable. Thus if an axe were a _natural_
instrument or organ, its rational substance would be found in its
realisation of what an axe means; this would be its _soul_. Apart
{206} from such realisation it would not be an axe at all, except in
name. Being, however, such as it is, the axe remains an axe
independently of any such realisation. For the statement that the Soul
is the _reason_ of a thing, that which gives it essential meaning and
reality, does not apply to such objects as an axe, but only to natural
bodies having power of spontaneous motion (including growth) and rest.
"Or we may illustrate what has been said by reference to the bodily
members. If the eye be a living creature, _sight_ will be its soul,
for this is the _rational_ substance (or function) of the eye. On the
other hand, the eye itself is the _material_ substance in which this
function subsists, which function being gone, the eye would no longer
be an eye, except in name, just as we can speak of the eye of a statue
or of a painted form. Now apply this illustration from a part of the
body to the whole. For as any one sense stands related to its organ,
so does the vital sense in general to the whole sensitive organism as
such, always remembering that we do not mean a dead body, but one which
really has in it potential life, as the seed or fruit has. Of course
there is a form of realisation to which the name applies in a specially
full sense, as when the axe is actually cutting, the eye actually
seeing, the man fully awake. But the Soul or Vital principle
corresponds rather with the _function_ of sight, or the _capacity_ for
cutting which {207} the axe has, the body, on the other hand, standing
in a relation of _potentiality_ to it. Now just as the eye may mean
both the actual organ or pupil, and also the function of sight, so also
the living creature means both the body and the soul. We cannot,
therefore, think of body apart from soul, or soul apart from body. If,
however, we regard the soul as composed of parts, we can see that the
realisation to which we give the name of soul is in some cases
essentially a realisation of certain parts of the body. We may,
however, conceive the soul as in other aspects separable, in so far as
the realisation cannot be connected with any bodily parts. Nay, we
cannot be certain whether the soul may not be the realisation or
perfection of the body as the sailor is of his boat. "
Observe that at the last Aristotle, though very tentatively, leaves an
opening for immortality, where, as in the case of man, there are
functions of the soul, such as philosophic contemplation, which cannot
be related to bodily conditions. He really was convinced that in man
there was a portion of that diviner aether which dwelt eternally in the
heavens, and was the ever-moving cause of all things. If there was in
man a _passive_ mind, which became all things, as all things through
sensation affected it, there was also, Aristotle argued, a _creative_
mind in man, which is above, and unmixed with, that which it
apprehends, {208} gives laws to this, is essentially prior to all
particular knowledge, is therefore eternal, not subject to the
conditions of time and space, consequently indestructible.
Finally, as a note on Aristotle's method, one may observe in this
passage, _first_, Aristotle's use of 'defining examples,' the wax, the
leaf and fruit, the axe, the eye, etc. ; _second_, his practice of
developing his distinctions gradually, Form and Matter in the abstract,
then in substances of every kind, then in natural bodies, then in
organic bodies of various grades, in separate organs, in the body as a
whole, and in the Soul as separable in man; and _thirdly_, his method
of approaching completeness in thought, by apparent contradictions or
qualifications, which aim at meeting the complexity of nature by an
equally organised complexity of analysis. To this let us simply add,
by way of final characterisation, that in the preceding pages we have
given but the merest fragment here and there of Aristotle's vast
accomplishment. So wide is the range of his ken, so minute his
observation, so subtle and complicated and allusive his illustrations,
that it is doubtful if any student of his, through all the centuries in
which he has influenced the world, ever found life long enough to
fairly and fully grasp him. Meanwhile he retains his grasp upon us.
Form and matter, final and efficient causes, potential and actual
existences, {209} substance, accident, difference, genus, species,
predication, syllogism, deduction, induction, analogy, and multitudes
of other joints in the machinery of thought for all time, were forged
for us in the workshop of Aristotle.
{210}
CHAPTER XXI
THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS
_Greek decay--The praises of Lucretius--Canonics--Physics--The proofs
of Lucretius--The atomic soul--Mental pleasures--Natural
pleasures--Lower philosophy and higher_
Philosophy, equally complete, equally perfect in all its parts, had its
final word in Plato and Aristotle; on the great lines of universal
knowledge no further really original structures were destined to be
raised by Greek hands. We have seen a parallelism between Greek
philosophy and Greek politics in their earlier phases (see above, p.
82); the same parallelism continues to the end. Greece broke the bonds
of her intense but narrow civic life and civic thought, and spread
herself out over the world in a universal monarchy and a cosmopolitan
philosophy; but with this widening of the area of her influence
reaction came and disruption and decay; an immense stimulus was given
on the one hand to the political activity, on the other, to the thought
and knowledge of the world as a whole, but at the centre Greece was
'living Greece no more,' her politics sank to the level of a dreary
farce, her philosophy died down to a dull and spiritless scepticism, to
an Epicureanism {211} that 'seasoned the wine-cup with the dust of
death,' or to a Stoicism not undignified yet still sad and narrow and
stern. The hope of the world, alike in politics and in philosophy,
faded as the life of Greece decayed.
[356]
The first phase of the change, _Scepticism_, or Pyrrhonism, as it was
named from its first teacher, need not detain us long. Pyrrho was
priest of Elis; in earlier life he accompanied Alexander the Great as
far as India, and is said to have become acquainted with certain of the
philosophic sects in that country. In his sceptical doctrine he had,
like his predecessors, a school with its succession of teachers; but
the [358] world has remembered little more of him or them than two
phrases 'suspense of judgment'--this for the intellectual side of
philosophy; 'impassibility'--this for the moral. The doctrine is a
negation of doctrine, the idle dream of idle men; even Pyrrho once,
when surprised in some sudden access of fear, confessed that it was
hard for him 'to get rid of the man in himself. ' Vigorous men and
growing nations are never agnostic. They decline to rest in mere
suspense; they are extremely the opposite of impassive; they believe
earnestly, they feel strongly.
[365]
A more interesting, because more positive and constructive, personality
was that of Epicurus. This philosopher was born at Samos, in the year
341 B. C. , of Athenian parents. He came to Athens in his eighteenth
year. Xenocrates was then teaching at {212} the Academy, Aristotle at
the Lyceum, but Epicurus heard neither the one nor the other. After
some wanderings he returned to Athens and set up on his [366] own
account as a teacher of philosophy. He made it a matter of boasting
that he was a self-taught philosopher; and Cicero (_De Nat. Deor. _ i.
26) sarcastically remarks that one could have guessed as much, even if
Epicurus had not stated it himself; as one might of the proprietor of
an ugly house, who should boast that he had employed no architect. The
style of Epicurus was, in fact, plain and unadorned, but he seems all
the same to have been able to say what he meant; and few if any writers
ancient or modern have ever had so splendid a literary tribute, as
Epicurus had from the great Roman poet Lucretius, his follower and
expositor.
"Glory of the Greek race," he says, "who first hadst power to raise
high so bright a light in the midst of darkness so profound, shedding a
beam on all the interests of life, thee do I follow, and in the
markings of thy track do I set my footsteps now. Not that I desire to
rival thee, but rather for love of thee would fain call myself thy
disciple. For how shall the swallow rival the swan, or what speed may
the kid with its tottering limbs attain, compared with the brave might
of the scampering steed? Thou; O father, art the discoverer of nature,
thou suppliest to us a father's teachings, and from thy pages, {213}
illustrious one, even as bees sip all manner of sweets along the
flowery glades, we in like manner devour all thy golden words, golden
and right worthy to live for ever. For soon as thy philosophy, birth
of thy godlike mind, hath begun to declare the origin of things,
straightway the terrors of the soul are scattered, earth's walls are
broken apart, and through all the void I see nature in the working. I
behold the gods in manifestation of their power, I discern their
blissful seats, which never winds assail nor rain-clouds sprinkle with
their showers, nor snow falling white with hoary frost doth buffet, but
cloudless aether ever wraps them round, beaming in broad diffusion of
glorious light. For nature supplies their every want nor aught impairs
their peace of soul. But nowhere do I see any regions of hellish
darkness, nor does the earth impose a barrier to our sight of what is
done in the void beneath our feet. Wherefore a holy ecstasy and thrill
of awe possess me, while thus by thy power the secrets of nature are
disclosed to view" (Lucret. _De Nat. Rer. _ iii, 1-30).
[367]
This devotion to the memory of Epicurus on the part of Lucretius was
paralleled by the love felt for him by his contemporaries; he had
crowds of followers who loved him and who were proud to learn his words
by heart. He seems indeed to have been a man of exceptional kindness
and amiability, and the 'garden of Epicurus' became proverbial as {214}
a place of temperate pleasures and wise delights. Personally we may
take it that Epicurus was a man of simple tastes and moderate desires;
and indeed throughout its history Epicureanism as a rule of conduct has
generally been associated with the finer forms of enjoyment, rather
than the more sensual. The 'sensual sty' is a nickname, not a
description.
[369]
Philosophy Epicurus defined as a process of thought and reasoning
tending to the realisation of happiness. Arts or sciences which had no
such practical end he contemned; and, as will be observed in Lucretius'
praises of him above, even physics had but one purpose or interest, to
free the soul from [370] terrors of the unseen. Thus philosophy was
mainly concerned with conduct, _i. e. _ with Ethics, but secondarily and
negatively with Physics, to which was appended what Epicurus called
Canonics, or the science of testing, that is, a kind of logic.
[371]
Beginning with _Canonics_, as the first part of philosophy in order of
time, from the point of view of human knowledge, Epicurus laid it down
that the only source of knowledge was the senses, which gave us an
immediate and true perception of that which actually came into contact
with them. Even the visions of madmen or of dreamers he considered
were in themselves true, being produced by a physical cause of some
kind, of which these visions were the direct and immediate report.
Falsity came in with {215} people's interpretations or imaginations
with respect to these sensations.
Sensations leave a trace in the memory, and out of similarities or
analogies among sensations there are developed in the mind general
notions or types, such as 'man,' 'house,' which are also true, because
[373] they are reproductions of sensations. Thirdly, when a sensation
occurs, it is brought into relation in the mind with one or more of
these types or notions; this is _predication_, true also in so far as
its elements are true, but capable of falsehood, as subsequent or
independent sensation may prove. If supported or not contradicted by
sensation, it is or may be true; if contradicted or not supported by
sensation, it is or may be false. The importance of this statement of
the canon of truth or falsehood will be understood when we come to the
physics of Epicurus, at the basis of which is his theory of Atoms,
which by their very nature can never be directly testified to by
sensation.
[374]
This and no more was what Epicurus had to teach on the subject of
logic. He had no theory of definition, or division, or ratiocination,
or refutation, or explication; on all these matters Epicurus was, as
Cicero said, 'naked and unarmed. ' Like most self-taught or ill-taught
teachers, Epicurus trusted to his dogmas; he knew nothing and cared
nothing for logical defence.
{216}
[375]
In his _Physics_ Epicurus did little more than reproduce the doctrine
of Democritus. He starts from the fundamental proposition that
'nothing can be produced from nothing, nothing can really perish. ' The
veritable existences in nature are the Atoms, which are too minute to
be discernible by the senses, but which nevertheless have a definite
size, and cannot further be divided. They have also a definite weight
and form, but no qualities other than these. There is an infinity of
empty space; this Epicurus proves on abstract grounds, practically
because a limit to space is unthinkable. It follows that there must be
an infinite number of the atoms, otherwise they would disperse
throughout the infinite void and disappear. There is a limit, however,
to the number of varieties among the atoms in respect of form, size,
and weight. The existence of the void space is proved by the fact that
motion takes place, to which he adds the argument that it necessarily
exists also to separate the atoms one from another. So far Epicurus
and Democritus are agreed.
To the Democritean doctrine, however, Epicurus made a curious addition,
to which he himself is said to have attached much importance. The
natural course (he said) for all bodies having weight is downwards in a
straight line. It struck Epicurus that this being so, the atoms would
all travel for ever in parallel lines, and those 'clashings and
interminglings' of {217} atoms out of which he conceived all visible
forms to be produced, could never occur. He therefore laid it down
that the atoms _deviated_ the least little bit from the straight, thus
making a world possible. And Epicurus considered that this supposed
deviation of the atoms not only made a world possible, but human
freedom also. In the deviation, without apparent cause, of the
descending atoms, the law of necessity was broken, and there was room
on the one hand for man's free will, on the other, for prayer to the
gods, and for hope of their interference on our behalf.
It may be worth while summarising the proofs which Lucretius in his
great poem, professedly following in the footsteps of Epicurus, adduces
for these various doctrines.
Epicurus' first dogma is, 'Nothing proceeds from nothing,' that is,
every material object has some matter previously existing exactly equal
in quantity to it, out of which it was made. To prove this Lucretius
appeals to the _order of nature_ as seen in the seasons, in the
phenomena of growth, in the fixed relations which exist between life
and its environment as regards what is helpful or harmful, in the
limitation of size and of faculties in the several species and the
fixity of the characteristics generally in each, in the possibilities
of cultivation and improvement of species within certain limits and
under certain conditions.
{218}
To prove his second position, 'Nothing passes into nothing,' Lucretius
points out to begin with that there is a law even in destruction;
_force_ is required to dissolve or dismember anything; were it
otherwise the world would have disappeared long ago. Moreover, he
points out that it is from the elements set free by decay and death
that new things are built up; there is no waste, no visible lessening
of the resources of nature, whether in the generations of living
things, in the flow of streams and the fulness of ocean, or in the
eternal stars. Were it not so, infinite time past would have exhausted
all the matter in the universe, but Nature is clearly immortal.
Moreover, there is a correspondence between the structure of bodies and
the forces necessary to their destruction. Finally, apparent
violations of the law, when carefully examined, only tend to confirm
it. The rains no doubt disappear, but it is that their particles may
reappear in the juices of the crops and the trees and the beasts which
feed on them.
Nor need we be surprised at the doctrine that the atoms, so
all-powerful in the formation of things, are themselves invisible. The
same is true of the forest-rending blasts, the 'viewless winds' which
lash the waves and overwhelm great fleets. There are odours also that
float unseen upon the air; there are heat, and cold, and voices. There
is the process of evaporation, whereby we know that the water has gone,
{219} yet cannot see its vapour departing. There is the gradual
invisible detrition of rings upon the finger, of stones hollowed out by
dripping water, of the ploughshare in the field, and the flags upon the
streets, and the brazen statues of the gods whose fingers men kiss as
they pass the gates, and the rocks that the salt sea-brine eats into
along the shore.
That there is Empty Space or Void he proves by all the varied motions
on land and sea which we behold; by the porosity even of hardest
things, as we see in dripping caves. There is the food also which
disperses itself throughout the body, in trees and cattle. Voices pass
through closed doors, frost can pierce even to the bones. Things equal
in size vary in weight; a lump of wool has more of void in it than a
lump of lead. So much for Lucretius.
For abstract theories on physics, except as an adjunct and support to
his moral conceptions, Epicurus seems to have had very little
inclination. He thus speaks of the visible universe or Cosmos. [373]
The Cosmos is a sort of skyey enclosure, which holds within it the
stars, the earth, and all visible things. It is cut off from the
infinite by a wall of division which may be either rare or dense, in
motion or at rest, round or three-cornered or any other form. That
there is such a wall of division is quite admissible, for no object of
which we have observation is without its limit. Were this wall of
division to {220} break, everything contained within it would tumble
out. We may conceive that there are an infinite number of such Cosmic
systems, with inter-cosmic intervals throughout the infinity of space.
He is very disinclined to assume that similar phenomena, _e. g. _
eclipses of the sun or moon, always have the same cause. The various
accidental implications and interminglings of the atoms may produce the
same effect in various ways. In fact Epicurus has the same impatience
of theoretical physics as of theoretical philosophy. He is a
'practical man. '
[378]
He is getting nearer his object when he comes to the nature of the
soul. The soul, like everything else, is composed of atoms, extremely
delicate and fine. It very much resembles the breath, with a mixture
of heat thrown in, sometimes coming nearer in nature to the first,
sometimes to the second. Owing to the delicacy of its composition it
is extremely subject to variation, as we see in its passions and
liability to emotion, its phases of thought and the varied experiences
without which we cannot live. It is, moreover, the chief cause of
sensation being possible for us. Not that it could of itself have had
sensation, without the enwrapping support of the rest of the structure.
The rest of the structure, in fact, having prepared this chief cause,
gets from it a share of what comes to it, but not a share of all which
the soul has.
The soul being of material composition equally {221} with the other
portions of the bodily structure, dies of course with it, that is, its
particles like the rest are dispersed, to form new bodies. There is
nothing dreadful therefore about death, for there is nothing left to
know or feel anything about it.
As regards the process of sensation, Epicurus, like Democritus,
conceived bodies as having a power of emitting from their surface
extremely delicate images of themselves. These are composed of very
fine atoms, but, in spite of their tenuity, they are able to maintain
for a considerable time their relative form and order, though liable
after a time to distortion. They fly with great celerity through the
void, and find their way through the windows of the senses to the soul,
which by its delicacy of nature is in sympathy with them, and
apprehends their form.
[379]
The gods are indestructible, being composed of the very finest and
subtlest atoms, so as to have not a body, but _as it were_ a body.
Their life is one of perfect blessedness and peace. They are in number
countless; but the conceptions of the vulgar are erroneous respecting
them. They are not subject to the passions of humanity. Anger and joy
are alike alien to their nature; for all such feelings imply a lack of
strength. They dwell apart in the inter-cosmic spaces. As Cicero
jestingly remarks: "Epicurus by way of a joke introduced his gods so
pure that you could see through them, {222} so delicate that the wind
could blow through them, having their dwelling-place outside between
two worlds, for fear of breakage. "
[380]
Coming finally to Epicurus' theory of Ethics, we find a general
resemblance to the doctrine of Democritus and Aristippus. The end of
life is pleasure or the absence of pain. He differs, however, from the
Cyrenaics in maintaining that not the pleasure of the moment is the
end, but pleasure throughout the whole of life, and that therefore we
ought in our conduct to have regard to the future. Further he denies
that pleasure exists only in activity, it exists equally in rest and
quiet; in short, he places more emphasis in his definition on the
absence of pain or disturbance, than on the presence of positive
pleasure. And thirdly, while the Cyrenaics maintained that bodily
pleasures and pains were the keenest, Epicurus claimed these
characteristics for the pleasures of the mind, which intensified the
present feeling by anticipations of the future and recollections of the
past. And thus the wise man might be happy, even on the rack. Better
indeed was it to be unlucky and wise, than lucky and foolish. In a
similar temper Epicurus on his death-bed wrote thus to a friend: "In
the enjoyment of blessedness and peace, on this the last day of my life
I write this letter to you. Strangury has supervened, and the
extremest agony of internal {223} pains, yet resisting these has been
my joy of soul, as I recalled the thoughts which I have had in the
past. "
[381]
We must note, however, that while mental pleasures counted for much
with the Epicureans, these mental pleasures consisted not in thought
for thought's sake in any form; they had nothing to do with
contemplation. They were essentially connected with bodily
experiences; they were the memory of past, the anticipation of future,
bodily pleasures. For it is to be remembered that thoughts were with
Epicurus only converted sensations, and sensations were bodily
processes. Thus every joy of the mind was conditioned by a bodily
experience preceding it. Or as Metrodorus, Epicurus' disciple, defined
the matter: "A man is happy when his body is in good case, and he has
good hope that it will continue so. " Directly or indirectly,
therefore, every happiness came back, in the rough phrase of Epicurus,
to one's belly at last.
[382]
This theory did not, however, reduce morality to bestial
self-indulgence. If profligate pleasures could be had free from mental
apprehensions of another world and of death and pain and disease in
this, and if they brought with them guidance as to their own proper
restriction, there would be no reason whatever to blame a man for
filling himself to the full of pleasures, which brought no pain or
sorrow, that is, {224} no evil, in their train. But (Epicurus argues)
this is far from being the case. Moreover there are many pleasures
keen enough at the time, which are by no means pleasant in the
remembering. And even when we have them they bring no enjoyment to the
highest parts of our nature. What those 'highest parts' are, and by
what standard their relative importance is determined, Epicurus does
not say. He probably meant those parts of our nature which had the
widest range in space and time, our faculties, namely, of memory and
hope, of conception, of sight and hearing.
Moreover there are distinctions among desires; some are both natural
and compulsory, such as thirst; some are natural but not compulsory, as
the desire for dainties; some are neither natural nor compulsory, such
as the desire for crowns or statues. The last of these the wise man
will contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his
freedom. For independence of such things is desirable, not necessarily
that we may reduce our wants to a minimum, but in order that if we
cannot enjoy many things, we may be content with few. "For I am
convinced," Epicurus continues, "that they have the greatest enjoyment
of wealth, who are least dependent upon it for enjoyment. "
Thus if Epicurus did not absolutely teach simplicity of living, he
taught his disciples the necessity of being capable of such simplicity,
which they could {225} hardly be without practice. So that in reality
the doctrine of Epicurus came very near that of his opponents. As
Seneca the Stoic observed, "Pleasure with him comes to be something
very thin and pale. In fact that law which we declare for virtue, the
same law he lays down for pleasure. "
One of the chief and highest pleasures of life Epicurus found in the
possession of friends, who provided for each other not only help and
protection, but a lifelong joy. For the 'larger friendship' of the
civic community, Epicurus seems to have had only a very neutral regard.
Justice, he says, is a convention of interests, with a view of neither
hurting or being hurt. The wise man will have nothing to do with
politics, if he can help it.
In spite of much that may offend in the doctrines of Epicurus, there is
much at least in the man which is sympathetic and attractive. What one
observes, however, when we compare such a philosophy with that of Plato
or Aristotle, is first, a total loss of constructive imagination. The
parts of the 'philosophy,' if we are so to call it, of Epicurus hang
badly together, and neither the Canonics nor the Physics show any real
faculty of serious thinking at all. The Ethics has a wider scope and a
more real relation to experience if not to reason. But it can never
satisfy the deeper apprehension of mankind.
The truest and most permanently valid revelations {226} of life come
not to the many but to the one or the few, who communicate the truth to
the many, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, always at the cost
of antagonism and ridicule. A philosophy therefore which only
represents in theoretical form the average practice of the average man,
comes into the world still-born. It has nothing to say; its hearers
know it all, and the exact value of it all, already. And in their
heart of hearts, many even of those who have stooped to a lower ideal,
and sold their birthright of hopes beyond the passing hour, for a mess
of pottage in the form of material success and easy enjoyment, have a
lurking contempt for the preachers of what they practise; as many a
slaveholder in America probably had for the clerical defenders of the
'divine institution. '
There is a wasting sense of inadequacy in this 'hand-to-mouth' theory
of living, which compels most of those who follow it to tread softly
and speak moderately. They are generally a little weary if not
cynical; they don't think much of themselves or of their success; but
they prefer to hold on as they have begun, rather than launch out into
new courses, which they feel they have not the moral force to continue.
"May I die," said the Cynic, "rather than lead a life of pleasure. "
"May I die," says the Epicurean, "rather than make a fool of myself. "
The Idealist is to them, if not {227} a hypocrite, at least a
visionary,--if not a Tartuffe, at least a Don Quixote tilting at
windmills. Yet even for poor Don Quixote, with all his blindness and
his follies, the world retains a sneaking admiration. It can spare a
few or a good many of its worldly-wisdoms, rather than lose altogether
its enthusiasms and its dreams. And the one thing which saves
Epicureanism from utter extinction as a theory, is invariably the
idealism which like a 'purple patch' adorns it here and there. No man
and no theory is wholly self-centred. Pleasure is supplanted by
Utility, and Utility becomes the greatest Happiness of the greatest
Number, and so, as Horace says (_Ep. _ I. x. 24)--
Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,
Nature (like Love) thrust out of the door, will come back by the
window; and the Idealism which is not allowed to make pain a pleasure,
is required at last to translate pleasure into pains.
{228}
CHAPTER XXII
THE STOICS
_Semitic admixture--Closed fist and open hand--'Tabula rasa'--Necessity
of evil--Hymn of Cleanthes--Things indifferent--Ideal and
real--Philosophy and humanity_
Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (born _circa_ 340
B. C. ), was a native of Citium in Cyprus. The city was Greek, but with
a large Phoenician admixture. And it is curious that in this last and
sternest phase of Greek thought, not the founder only, but a large
proportion of the successive leaders of the school, came from this and
other places having Semitic elements in them. Among these places
notable as nurseries of Stoicism was Tarsus in Cilicia, the birthplace
of St. Paul. The times of preparation were drawing to a close; and
through these men, with their Eastern intensity and capacities of
self-searching and self-abasement, the philosophy of Greece was linking
itself on to the wisdom of the Hebrews.
Zeno came to Athens to study philosophy, and for twenty years he was a
pupil first of Crates the Cynic, and then of other teachers. At length
he set up a school of his own in the celebrated _Stoa {229} Poecile_
(Painted Colonnade), so named because it was adorned with frescoes by
Polygnotus. There he taught for nearly sixty years, and voluntarily
ended his life when close on a century old. His life, as Antigonus,
King of Macedon, recorded on his tomb, was consistent with his
doctrine--abstemious, [386] frugal, laborious, dutiful. He was
succeeded by Cleanthes, a native of Assos in Asia [387] Minor. But the
great constructor of the Stoic doctrine, without whom, as his
contemporaries said, there had been no Stoic school at all, was
Chrysippus, a native of Soli or of Tarsus in Cilicia. He wrote at
enormous length, supporting his teachings by an immense erudition, and
culling liberally from the poets to illustrate and enforce his views.
Learned and pedantic, his works had no inherent attraction, and nothing
of them but fragments has been preserved. We know the Stoic doctrine
mainly from the testimony and criticisms of later times.
[389]
Like the Epicureans, Zeno and his successors made philosophy primarily
a search for the chief good, a doctrine of practice and morals. But
like them they were impelled to admit a logic and a physics, at least
by way of preliminary basis to their [390] ethics. The relations of
the three they illustrated by various images. Philosophy was like an
animal; logic was its bones and sinews, ethics its flesh, physics its
life or soul. Or again, philosophy was {230} an egg; logic was the
shell, ethics the white, physics, the yolk. Or again, it was a
fruitful field; logic was the hedge, ethics the crop, physics the soil.
Or it was a city, well ordered and strongly fortified, and so on. The
images seem somewhat confused, but the general idea is clear enough.
Morality was the essential, the living body, of philosophy; physics
supplied its raw material, or the conditions under which a moral life
could be lived; logic secured that we should use that material rightly
and wisely for the end desired.
[391]
Logic the Stoics divided into two parts--Rhetoric, the 'science of the
open hand,' and Dialectic, the 'science of the closed fist,' as Zeno
called them. They indulged in elaborate divisions and subdivisions of
each, with which we need not meddle. The only points of interest to us
are contained in their analysis [392] of the processes of perception
and thought. A sensation, Zeno taught, was the result of an external
_impulse_, which when combined with an internal _assent_, produced a
mental state that revealed at the same time itself and the external
object producing it. The perception thus produced he compared to the
grip which the hand took of a solid object; and real perceptions,
those, that is, which were caused by a real external object, and not by
some illusion, always testified to the reality of their cause by this
sensation of 'grip. '
{231}
The internal assent of the mind was voluntary, and at the same time
necessary; for the mind could not do otherwise than will the acceptance
of that which it was fitted to receive. The peculiarity of their
physics, which we shall have to refer to later on, namely, the denial
of the existence of anything not material, implied that in some way
there was a material action of the external object on the structure of
the perceiving mind (itself also material). What exactly the nature of
this action was the Stoics themselves were not quite agreed. The idea
of an 'impression' such as a seal makes upon wax was a tempting one,
but they had difficulty in comprehending how there could be a multitude
of different impressions on the same spot without effacing each other.
Some therefore preferred the vaguer and safer expression,
'modification'; had they possessed our modern science, they might have
illustrated their meaning by reference to the phenomena of magnetism or
electricity.
An interesting passage may be quoted from [393] Plutarch on the Stoic
doctrine of knowledge: "The Stoics maintain," he says, "that when a
human being is born, he has the governing part of his soul like a sheet
of paper ready prepared for the reception of writing, and on this the
soul inscribes in succession its various ideas. The first form of the
writing is produced through the senses. When we perceive, for example,
{232} a white object, the recollection remains when the object is gone.
And when many similar recollections have accumulated, we have what is
called _experience_. Besides the ideas which we get in this natural
and quite undesigned way, there are other ideas which we get through
teaching and information. In the strict sense only these latter ought
to be called ideas; the former should rather be called perceptions.
Now the rational faculty, in virtue of which we are called reasoning
beings, is developed out of, or over and beyond, the mass of
perceptions, in the second seven years' period of life. In fact a
thought may be defined as a kind of mental image, such as a rational
animal alone is capable of having. "
Thus there are various gradations of mental apprehensions; first, those
of sensible qualities obtained through the action of the objects and
the assent of the perceiving subject, as already described; then by
experience, by comparison, by analogy, by the combinations of the
reasoning faculty, further and more general notions are arrived at, and
conclusions formed, as, for example, that the gods exist and exercise a
providential care over the world. By this faculty also the wise man
ascends to the apprehension of the good and true.
The physics of the Stoics started from the fundamental [398]
proposition that in the universe of things there were two elements--the
active and the passive. {233} The latter was Matter or unqualified
existence; the former was the reason or qualifying element in Matter,
that is, God, who being eternal, is the fashioner of every individual
thing throughout the universe of matter. God is One; He is Reason, and
Fate, and Zeus. In fact all the gods are only various representations
of His faculties and powers. He being from the beginning of things by
Himself, turneth all existence through air to water. And even as the
genital seed is enclosed in the semen, so also was the seed of the
world concealed in the water, making its matter apt for the further
birth of things; then first it brought into being the four
elements--fire, water, air, earth. For there was a finer fire or air
which was the moving spirit of things; later and lower than this were
the material elements of fire and air. It follows that the universe of
things is threefold; there is first God Himself, the source of all
character and individuality, who is indestructible and eternal, the
fashioner of all things, who in certain cycles of ages gathers up all
things into Himself, and then out of Himself brings them again to
birth; there is the matter of the universe whereon God works; and
thirdly, there is the union of the two. Thus the world is governed by
reason and forethought, and this reason extends through every part,
even as the soul or life extends to every part of us. The universe
therefore is a living thing, having a {234} soul or reason in it. This
soul or reason one teacher likened to the air, another to the sky,
another to the sun. For the soul of nature is, as it were, a finer air
or fire, having a power of creation in it, and moving in an ordered way
to the production of things.
[399]
The universe is one and of limited extension, being spherical in form,
for this is the form which best adapts itself to movement. Outside
this universe is infinite bodiless space; but within the universe there
is no empty part; all is continuous and united, as is proved by the
harmony of relation which exists between the heavenly bodies and those
upon the earth. The world as such is destructible, for its parts are
subject to change and to decay; yet is this change or destruction only
in respect of the qualities imposed upon it from time to time by the
Reason inherent in it; the mere unqualified Matter remains
indestructible.
[408]
In the universe evil of necessity exists; for evil being the opposite
of good, where no evil is there no good can be. For just as in a
comedy there are absurdities, which are in themselves bad, but yet add
a certain attraction to the poem as a whole, so also one may blame evil
regarded in itself, yet for the whole it is not without its use. So
also God is the cause of death equally with birth; for even as cities
when the inhabitants have multiplied overmuch, {235} remove their
superfluous members by colonisation or by war, so also is God a cause
of destruction. In man in like manner good cannot exist save with
evil; for wisdom being a knowledge of good and evil, remove the evil
and wisdom itself goes. Disease and other natural evils, when looked
at in the light of their effects, are means not of evil but of good;
there is throughout the universe a balance and interrelation of good
and evil. Not that God hath in Himself any evil; the law is not the
cause of lawlessness, nor God Himself responsible for any violation of
right.
[404]
The Stoics indulged in a strange fancy that the world reverted after a
mighty cycle of years in all its parts to the same form and structure
which it possessed at the beginning, so that there would be once more a
Socrates, a Plato, and all the men that had lived, each with the same
friends and fellow-citizens, the same experiences, and the same
endeavours. At the termination of each cycle there was a burning up of
all things, and thereafter a renewal of the great round of life.
[408]
Nothing incorporeal, they maintained, can be affected by or affect that
which is corporeal; body alone can affect body. The soul therefore
must be corporeal. Death is the separation of soul from body, but it
is impossible to separate what is incorporeal from body; therefore,
again, the soul must {236} be corporeal. In the belief of Cleanthes,
the souls of all creatures remained to the next period of cyclic
conflagration; Chrysippus believed that only the souls of the wise and
good remained.
[413]
Coming finally to the Ethics of the Stoic philosophy, we find for the
chief end of life this definition, 'A life consistent with itself,' or,
as it was otherwise expressed, 'A life consistent with Nature. ' The
two definitions are really identical; for the law of nature is the law
of our nature, and the reason in our being the reason which also is in
God, the supreme Ruler of the universe. This is substantially in
accordance with the celebrated law of right action laid down by Kant,
"Act so that the maxim of thine action be capable of being made a law
of universal action. " Whether a man act thus or no, by evil if not by
good the eternal law will satisfy itself; the question is of import
only for the man's own happiness. Let his will accord with the
universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, and the man will be
happy. Let his will resist the universal will, then the law will be
fulfilled, but the man will bear the penalty. This was expressed by
Cleanthes in a hymn which ran somewhat thus--
Lead me, O Zeus most great,
And thou, Eternal Fate:
What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel
That way I'll follow without fret or cavil.
{237}
Or if I evil be
And spurn thy high decree,
Even so I still shall follow, soon or late.
Thus in the will alone consists the difference of good or ill for us;
in either case Nature's great law fulfils itself infallibly. To their
view on this point we may apply the words of Hamlet: "If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not
now, yet it will come; the _readiness_ is all. "
This universal law expresses itself in us in various successive
manifestations. From the moment of birth it implants in us a supreme
self-affection, whereby of infallible instinct we seek our own
self-preservation, rejoice in that which is suitable to our existence,
shrink from that which is unsuitable. As we grow older, further and
higher principles manifest themselves--reason and reflection, a more
and more careful and complete apprehension of that which is honourable
and advantageous, a capacity of choice among goods. Till finally the
surpassing glory of that which is just and honourable shines out so
clear upon us, that any pain or loss is esteemed of no account, if only
we may attain to that. Thus at last, by the very law of our being, we
come to know that nothing is truly and absolutely good but goodness,
nothing absolutely bad but sin. Other things, inasmuch as they have no
character of moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really
good or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things
indifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be
relatively preferable or relatively undesirable. Even pleasure and
pain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being,
are things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil. Yet
have they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them
was so implanted in us at the first that our souls by natural impulse
are drawn to pleasure, while they shrink from pain as from a deadly
enemy. Wherefore reason neither can nor ought to seek wholly to
eradicate these primitive and deep-seated affections of our nature; but
so to exercise a resisting and ordering influence upon them, as to
render them obedient and subservient to herself.
[415]
That which is absolutely good--wisdom, righteousness, courage,
temperance--does good only and never ill to us. All other
things,--life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, reputation,
birth,--and their opposites,--death, disease, pain, deformity,
weakness, poverty, contempt, humility of station,--these are in
themselves neither a benefit nor a curse. They may do us good, they
may do us harm. We may use them for good, we may use them for evil.
[417]
Thus the Stoics worked out on ideal and absolute lines the thought of
righteousness as the chief and {239} only good. Across this ideal
picture were continually being drawn by opponents without or inquirers
within, clouds of difficulty drawn from real experience. 'What,' it
was asked, 'of _progress_ in goodness? Is this a middle state between
good and evil; or if a middle state between good and evil be a
contradiction, in terms, how may we characterise it? ' Here the wiser
teachers had to be content to answer that it _tended_ towards good, was
good in possibility, would be absolutely good when the full attainment
came, and the straining after right had been swallowed up in the
perfect calm of settled virtue.
'How also of the wise man tormented by pain, or in hunger and poverty
and rags, is his perfectness of wisdom and goodness really sufficient
to make him happy? ' Here, again, the answer had to be hesitating and
provisional, through no fault of the Stoics. In this world, while we
are still under the strange dominion of time and circumstance, the
ideal can never wholly fit the real. There must still be difficulty
and incompleteness here, only to be solved and perfected 'when iniquity
shall have an end. ' Our eyes may fail with looking upward, yet the
upward look is well; and the jibes upon the Stoic 'king in rags' that
Horace and others were so fond of, do not affect the question. It may
have been, and probably often was, the case that Stoic teachers {240}
were apt to transfer to themselves personally the ideal attributes,
which they justly assigned to the ideal man in whom wisdom was
perfected. The doctrine gave much scope for cant and mental pride and
hypocrisy, as every ideal doctrine does, including the Christian. But
the existence of these vices in individuals no more affected the
doctrine of an ideal goodness in its Stoic form, than it does now in
its Christian one. That only the good man is truly wise or free or
happy; that vice, however lavishly it surround itself with luxury and
ease and power, is inherently wretched and foolish and slavish;--these
are things which are worth saying and worth believing, things, indeed,
which the world dare not and cannot permanently disbelieve, however
difficult or even impossible it may be to mark men off into two
classes, the good and the bad, however strange the irony of
circumstance which so often shows the wicked who 'are not troubled as
other men, neither are they plagued like other men; they have more than
their heart could wish,' while good men battle with adversity, often in
vain. Still will the permanent, fruitful, progressive faith of man
'look to the end'; still will the ideal be powerful to plead for the
painful right, and spoil, even in the tasting, the pleasant wrong.
The doctrine, of course, like every doctrine worth anything, was pushed
to extravagant lengths, and {241} thrust into inappropriate quarters,
by foolish doctrinaires. As that the wise man is the only orator,
critic, poet, physician, nay, cobbler if you please; that the wise man
knows all that is to be known, and can do everything that is worth
doing, and so on. The school was often too academic, too abstract, too
fond of hearing itself talk. This, alas! is what most schools are, and
most schoolmasters.
Yet the Stoics were not altogether alien to the ordinary interests and
duties of life. They admitted a duty of co-operating in politics, at
least in such states as showed some desire for, or approach to, virtue.
They approved of the wise man taking part in education, of his marrying
and bringing up children, both for his own sake and his country's. He
will be ready even to 'withdraw himself from life on behalf of his
country or his friends. This 'withdrawal,' which was their word for
suicide, came unhappily to be much in the mouths of later, and
especially of the Roman, Stoics, who, in the sadness and restraint of
prevailing despotism, came to thank God that no one was compelled to
remain in life; he might 'withdraw' when the burden of life, the
hopelessness of useful activity, became too great.
With this sad, stern, yet not undignified note, the philosophy of
Greece speaks its last word. The later scepticism of the New Academy,
directed mainly to a negative criticism of the crude enough logic of
the {242} Stoics, or of the extravagances of their ethical doctrine,
contributed no substantial element to thought or morals. As an
eclectic system it had much vogue, side by side with Stoicism and
Epicureanism, among the Romans, having as its chief exponent Cicero, as
Epicureanism had Lucretius, and Stoicism, Seneca.
The common characteristic of all these systems in their later
developments, is their _cosmopolitanism_. _Homo sum, nil humani a me
alienum puto_, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem
alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in
any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. We have seen
already (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely
conditioned, if not produced, by the breakdown of the old civic life of
Greece. The process hardly suffered delay from all the efforts of
Socrates and Plato. Cosmopolitanism was already a point of union
between the Cynics and Cyrenaics (see p. 128). And the march of
politics was always tending in the same direction. First through great
leagues, such as the Spartan or Athenian or Theban, each with a
predominant or tyrannical city at the head; then later through the
conquest of Greece by Alexander, and the leaguing of all Greek-speaking
peoples in the great invasion of Asia; then through the spread of Greek
letters all over the Eastern {243} world, and the influx upon Greek
centres such as Athens and Alexandria, of all manner of foreign
intelligences; and finally, through the conquest of all this teeming
world of culture by the discipline and practical ability of Rome, and
its incorporation in a universal empire of law, all the barriers which
had divided city from city and tribe from tribe and race from race
disappeared, and only a common humanity remained.
The only effective philosophies for such a community were those which
regarded man as an _individual_, with a world politically omnipotent
hedging him about, and driving him in upon himself. Thus the New
Academy enlarged on the doubtfulness of all beyond the individual
consciousness; Stoicism insisted on individual dutifulness,
Epicureanism on individual self-satisfaction. The first sought to make
life worth living through culture, the second through indifference, the
third through a moderate enjoyment. But all alike felt themselves very
helpless in face of the growing sadness of life, in face of the
deepening mystery of the world beyond. All alike were controversial,
and quick enough to ridicule their rivals; none was hopefully
constructive, or (unless in the poetic enthusiasm of a Lucretius) very
confident of the adequacy of its own conceptions.
