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.
Epicureanism from utter extinction as a theory, is invariably the
idealism which like a 'purple patch' adorns it here and there.
A Short History of Greek Philosophy by J. Marshall
"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. They all rather
quickened the sense of emptiness in human existence, than satisfied it;
{244} at the best they enabled men to "absent themselves a little while
from the felicity of death. "
Thus all over the wide area of Greek and Roman civilisation, the
activity of the later schools was effectual to familiarise humanity
with the language of philosophy, and to convince humanity of the
inadequacy of its results. Both of these things the Greeks taught to
Saul of Tarsus; at a higher Source he found the satisfying of his soul;
but from the Greek philosophies he learned the language through which
the new Revelation was to be taught in the great world of Roman rule
and Grecian culture. And thus through the Pauline theology, Greek
philosophy had its part in the moral regeneration of the world; as it
has had, in later times, in every emancipation and renascence of its
thought.
{245}
INDEX
Abdera, birthplace of Democritus, 74; of Protagoras, 86
Absolute knowledge, unattainable by man, 19; absorption in, 133; no
separate existence, 182
Abstract ideas not derivable from experience, 45; abstract truth
impossible, 87; of no value, 132; revival of, 133
Academus, grove of, 135
Achilles and tortoise, 44; death of, 139
Acroatic, kind of lectures, 175
Actuality, see _Realisation_.
Agrigentum, birthplace of Empedocles, 59
Air, beginning of things, 14
Alcestis, referred to, 139
Alcibiades, dialogue, 137
Alexander, relations with Aristotle, 174; influence of conquests of, 242
Anarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 83; reaction against, by
Socrates, 102
Anaxagoras, 52; relation of Empedocles to, 62; quoted by Aristotle, 200
Anaximander, 7
Anaximenes, 14
Anthropomorphism, criticised, 32
Antigonus, friend of Zeno, 229
Antisthenes, 128
Apology, dialogue, 136
Appetite, the only reality, 96
Archilochus, criticised by Heraclitus, 16
Aristippus, 124
Aristocracy, in politics and in philosophy, 82
Aristotle, on Thales, 4; on Xenophanes, 32; on Zeno, 42; on Melissus,
47; on Anaxagoras, 54; on Empedocles, 59, 63, 70; a complete Socratic,
103; on Socrates, 106; on Sophists, 115; debt to Plato, 159; on Plato,
163; chapters on, 172 _sqq. _; his fresh contributions to Academic
philosophy, 173; two classes of lectures, 175; library, _ib. _;
predominance of, 176; style, 177; differences from Plato, 178
Art, a greater revealer than science, 66; relation of Love to, 137; a
mode of creation, 139
Asceticism, of Cynics, 128; of Plato, 168; of Epicurus, 225
Atarneus, residence of Aristotle, 174
Athens, visited by Parmenides and Zeno, 34, 42, 157; residence of
Anaxagoras, 52; centre of sophistry, 85; birthplace of Socrates, 103;
visited by Aristippus, 124; birthplace of Antisthenes, 129; and of
Plato, 134; dialogue in praise of, 137; residence of Aristotle, 173; of
Epicurus, 211
Atlantis, kingdom of, 153
Atomists, 52; revived theory of, 215
Atoms, constituents of nature, 76, 216; deviation of, 216
Beauty, one aspect of ideal, 110; relation to creative instinct, 139;
science of universal beauty, 141
Becoming, the fundamental principle, 16; passage from Being to, 36, 39
Beginning (_arche_), of Thales, 3; Aristotle's definition, 4;
difficulties of material theories of, 36l
Being, eternal being like a sphere, 32; passage from, to Becoming, 36,
39; a co-equal element with Nonentity, 75; analysis of, 159; and the
Other, 165
Body, realisation of soul, 27; a prison, 28; unthinkable except with
reference to space, 75; source of illusion, 164
Canonics, form of logic, 215
Cause, three causes, 110; equals essence, 167; first causes subject of
philosophy, 179; relation of, to potentiality, 185
Cave, of this life, 148, 166
Chaldaea, visited by Pythagoras, 22; by Democritus, 74
Change, how account for, 10, 35, 39, 75
Chaos, of the Atomists, 53; of Empedocles, 69; king in philosophy, 83;
life not a chaos, 105
Charmides, dialogue, 136
Christ, brings sword, 99; kingdom of, 149
Chrysippus, successor of Cleanthes, 229
Cicero, mistranslates Pythagoras, 28; criticises Epicurus, 212, 221;
exponent of New Academy, 242
Citium, birthplace of Zeno, 228
Clazomenae, birthplace of Anaxagoras, 52
Cleanthes, successor of Zeno, 229; hymn of, 236
Codrus, Plato descended from, 134; sacrifice of, 139
Colophon, birthplace of Xenophanes, 31
Commonplaces, function of, in sophistry, 84
Community of wives, 148; ideal community, 149 (and see _State_)
Contradiction, philosophy of, 65
Cosmogony, of Democritus, 77; of Plato, 150; of Aristotle, 200; of
Epicurus, 219; of the Stoics, 231
Cosmopolitanism, of Cyrenaics and Cynics, 128; of later systems, 242
Courage, treated of in _Laches_, 136
Cratylus, dialogue, 137
Creation, a great expiation, 73; in the soul, 139; working out of God's
image, 151; union of Essence and Matter, 167
Criterion, feeling the only, 127
Critias, dialogue, 153
Crito, dialogue, 136
Crux, in philosophy, 190
Cynic, origin of name, 130; influence of school on Plato, 154; _v. _
Epicurean, 226
Cyrene, seat of Cyrenaic school, 124; visited by Plato, 134; influence
of school on Plato, 154
Death, birth of the soul, 19
Deduction, _v. _ Induction, 48; function of, in Aristotle, 184
Definitions, search for, by Socrates, 106; of no value, 132; rules for,
laid down by Plato, 156
Democritus, 74; relation of Epicurus to, 216
Demonstrative science, based on abstraction, 11
Desire, part of soul, 28, 169; thought without, gives no motive, 191;
distinctions among, 224
Destruction, meaning of, 53
Dialectic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; Platonic
theory of, 164, 171
Dichotomy, invented by Zeno, 43
Difference (see _Essence_), all difference quantitative, 76;
conditioned by dissimilarity in atoms, 77
Dilemma, Melissus' use of, 46
Diogenes, pupil of Antisthenes, 130
Dionysius, elder and younger, connection of Plato with, 135
Diotima, conversation of, with Socrates, 137
Dry light, 19
Dualism, unthinkable, 32; in nature, 38; of Plato and Aristotle, 184
Dynamic, see _Potentiality_
Earth, principle in nature, 38
Education, preparation for heaven, 148; ideal, 149; true function of,
169; three stages, 170; an entelechy, 191
Egypt, visited by Pythagoras, 22; Democritus, 74; Plato, 135
Elea, seat of Eleatic school, 30; birthplace of Parmenides, 33
Eleatics, relation of Empedocles to, 62; of Democritus, 75; of Plato,
154, 165
Elements, the four, 62; in creation, 151; in body and in soul, 156
Empedocles, 58
Ends of Life, indifference as to, 96; importance in later Greek
philosophy, 125; Plato's view of, 168; Aristotle's, 193; Epicurean, 222
Entelechy, Life, 186, 190; God, 188; Thought, _ib. _; Education, 191;
Morality, 193; State, 197; physical world, 199; Soul, 203
Ephesus, birthplace of Heraclitus, 15
Epicurus, 211; praises of, by Lucretius, 212; garden of, 213; relation
to Democritus, 216
Essence _v. _ Difference, 48; equals Cause, 167
Euclides, 132
Euripides, friend of Anaxagoras, 52
Euthydemus, conversation with Socrates, 116; dialogue, 137
Euthyphro, dialogue, 136
Even, _v. _ Odd, 24
Evil, origin of, 33; necessary on earth, 168; God cause of evil, but
hath none, 234
Evolution, Anaximander's conception of, 12; Xenophanes' theory of, 33;
relation of, to fundamental conception of Being, _ib. _; view of
Empedocles, 70
Existence, an idea prior to Time and Space, 37; not given by
Experience, 45; four forms of, 166; philosophy treats of existence as
such, 181
Exoteric kind of lectures, 175
Female, see _Male_
Fire, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38
Flux, of all things, 16; of life, 27, 73; sophistic theory of, 87
Form _v. _ Matter, 25, 48; Aristotle's theory of, 203
Formulae, never adequate, 122
Freewill, problem of, 33; relation to law, 113; and overruling
providence, 155
Friendship, treated of in _Lysis_, 136
Genus, has less of existence than species, 183
God, soul of the world, 27; the Odd-Even, 26; the universe His
self-picturing, 26; God is one, 32; not a function of matter, 33;
atomic origin of idea of, 80; the law or ideal in the universe, 112;
Man the friend of God, 142; works out His image in creation, 151; God's
thought and God's working, 152; is Mind universal, 164; cause of union
in creation, 166; His visible images in Man and Nature, _ib. _; cause
both of good and of knowledge, 166; thoughts of, eternally existing,
187; an entelechy, 188; Epicurean theory of, 221; Stoic theory of, 233
Golden age, 73
Gorgias, 92; Antisthenes pupil of, 129; dialogue, 137
Greek _v. _ Modern difficulties, 158
Gymnastic, function of, 170
Habit, Aristotle's definition of, 195
Happiness, chief good, 193; reason standard of, 196
Harmony, the eternal, 19; soul a harmony, 29
Hecataeus, referred to by Herodotus, 2
Hegel, philosophic system of, 159
Heraclitus, 15; _v. _ Democritus, 74; Plato student of, 134; relation of
Plato to, 163
Hercules, patron-god of Cynics, 130
Herodotus, notices Hecataeus, 2
Hesiod, praised, 139
Hippias, dialogue, 137
Homer, criticised by Heraclitus, 16; anthropomorphism of, 31; praised,
139
Horace, quoted, 125
Humanitarianism, began in scepticism, 99
Humanity, granted only to possessors of eternal truth, 145
Husk, symbol of evolution, 12
Idea, exists prior to sensation, 143; eternal in universe, 150;
rational element in sensation, 152; Platonic criticism of, 157;
universals are ideas of real existences, 163; things partake of, 164;
relation of, to Pythagorean 'Numbers,' 167; Aristotelian criticism of,
181; necessarily prior to sensation, 187
Ideal, struggle of old and new, 99; in the arts, 110; has three
aspects, Justice, Beauty, Utility, _ib. _; great ideal in the universe,
112; can never wholly fit the real, 239
Idealism, _v. _ Practicality, 4, 96; Parmenides founder of, 39; _v. _
Realism, 51; _v. _ Epicureanism, 216
Immortality, aspect of, to Greeks, 40; Parmenides pioneer for, 41;
_Phaedo_ dialogue on, 136; Love and immortality, 138; of soul, 150;
relation of doctrine to Platonic recollection, 154; faith as to, 155;
Man must put on, 168; Aristotle's view of, 207
Inconsistency, not forbidden in philosophy, 64
Individual, _v. _ Universal, 99; relation of, to community, 147, 196;
reality of, 184; importance of, in later systems, 243
Individualism, in philosophy, 83, 85; not wholly bad, 98; required
reconciling with universalism, 100
Induction (see Deduction); Socrates inventor of, 106; Plato's
contributions to, 160; function of, in Aristotle, 184
Infinite or indefinite, origin of things, 8; function of, in
mathematics, 10; relation to definite, 24, 26, 165
Infinity, origin of idea of, 46
Intellect, division of soul, 28, 169
Ion, dialogue, 136
Irony, of Socrates, 105
Jowett, Prof. , quoted, 39, 43, 89, 138, 142, 153, 158
Judgment, vision of, 150
Justice, a cheating device, 95; one form of ideal or universal, 110;
related to law and to utility, 120; the fairest wisdom, 139; dialogue
on, 146; only interest of stronger, 147; writ large in state, 147;
perfection of whole man, and of state, 169; a civic quality
restraining, 198; Epicurean theory of, 225
Kant, his _Critic_ referred to, 158; maxim of, 236
Knowledge, _v. _ Opinion, 33, 35, 51; impossible, 93; really exists,
164; first causes pertain to, 179; must have real object, 183;
potential and actual, 203
'Know thyself,' 113; dialogue on, 137
Laches, dialogue, 136
Lampsacus, place of death of Anaxagoras, 57
Laughing philosopher, 74
Law, in universe, 112; relation to Freewill, 113; relation to Justice,
120; fulfilled through Love, 122; Laws, dialogue, 160; potential and
actual, 192
Leontini, birthplace of Gorgias, 92
Leucippus, 74
Life, death of the soul, 19; a prison, 28; a sentinel-post, _ib. _; a
union of contradictories, 66; a dwelling in cave, 148; organic idea of,
185; an entelechy, 190; different kinds of, 194; Aristotle's
definition, 203
Listeners, in Pythagorean system, 23
Logic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; contributions
of Plato and Aristotle to, 159; governing idea of Aristotle's, 184; of
Epicurus, 215; Stoic divisions of, 230
Love, motive force in Nature, 38; one of two principles, 38, 63;
fulfilling of the law, 122; dialogues on, 137, 144; pure and impure, 145
Lucretius, praises Empedocles, 59; Epicurus, 212; proofs by, of
Epicurus' theory, 217; exponent of Roman Epicureanism, 242
Lyceum, school of Aristotle, 174
Lycurgus, praised, 140
Lysis, dialogue, 136
Magnet, soul of, 6
Male and Female, Pythagorean view of, 24; principles in Nature, 38;
equality of, 148; correlative, 167; basis of State, 197
Man, measure of truth, 87; working with Eternal Mind, 155; Does Man
partake in God's ideas? 158; differentia of, possession of reason, 191;
function of, 193; a political animal, 197; wisest of animals, why? 200
Materialism, ancient and modern, 57; of Epicureans, 220; of Stoics, 233
Mathematicians, in system of Pythagoras, 23
Mathematics, based on indefinables, 10; function of, in Pythagorean
philosophy, 25; and in Platonic, 170
Matter (see _Mind_), _v. _ Thought, 48; another name for the formless,
151, 167; correlative of Mind, 167; what it symbolises, 184; relation
to Form, 203
Mechanical theory, of universe, 56, 78; of virtue, 195
Megara, birthplace of Euclides, 132; influence of school on Plato, 154
Melissus, 46
Menexenus, dialogue, 137
Meno, dialogue, 136; relation to Aristotle's doctrine, 191
Midwifery of Socrates, 104
Might, without Right is weak, 147; is Right in tyrant, 149
Miletus, birthplace of Thales, 1; of Anaximander, 7; of Anaximenes, 14
Mind, _v. _ Matter, 51, 167; function of, in the universe, 54; God's
mind working on matter, 151; ruler of universe, 155; must rule
pleasure, 156; home of ideas, 164; correlative of matter, 167; passive
and creative, 207
Moist or base element, 18
Monarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 82
Morality, a convention, 95, 126; traditional morality of Greece
required remodelling, 98; question as to origin solved by Socrates,
121; can never exhaust Subject, 188; an entelechy, 192; potential and
actual, 194
Motion, animal, how accounted for, 79
Multiplicity, see _Unity_
Music, of the spheres, 27; of seven planets, 151; function of, in
education, 29, 170
Myth, of Steeds, 144; of Judgment, 150; of Creation, 152; philosophers
fond of, 178
Names, approximations to reality, 165
Nature, treatises on, 16, 34, 46, 217; a reason in, 37; male and female
principles in, 38; Love motive force in, _ib. _; the non-existent, 92;
'touch of nature,' 191; Aristotle's conception of, 199; violations of,
201; order of, 217; clearly immortal, 218; a life consistent with, 236
Necessity, creative power, 38, 63; how used by Democritus, 78;
Aristotle's conception of, 201
Neleus, family (owners of Aristotle's library), 175
Nicomachus, father of Aristotle, 172
Notions, Epicurus' view of, 215
Number, original of things, 24; relation of ideas to, 167
Obedience, through disobedience, 122
Obscure, epithet of Heraclitus, 15
Odd, _v. _ Even, 24
Opinion, _v. _ Knowledge, 33, 35
Oracle, answer of, respecting Socrates, 107; maxim engraved on, 113
Organism, idea of, in Aristotle, 185, 205
Organon, of Aristotle, 159
Origination, meaning of, 53, 62
Other, the 'Other' of Plato, 165
Pains, classification of, 131; converted into pleasures, 131, 227;
moral function of, 238
Pantheistic apathy, 20
Parmenides, 33; relation of Zeno to, 42; visited Athens, 157; dialogue,
_ib. _
Particular, see _Universal_
Passion, part of soul, 28, 169
Paul, St. , influence of Stoicism on, 228; relation of, to Greek
philosophy, 244
Pericles, friend of Anaxagoras, 52; and of Protagoras, 86
Peripatetics, origin of name, 174
Personality, absence of, in Greek thought, 40
Persuasion, only true wisdom, 88
Phaedo, quoted from, 54; dialogue, 136
Phaedrus, dialogue, 142
Phenomena, not source of abstract ideas, 15
Philebus, dialogue, 156
Philosophy, different from science, 9; does not forbid inconsistency,
64; a form of poesy or fiction, 66; at the basis of religion, art, and
morals, 67; great philosophies never die, 68; first systematically
divided by Democritus, 75; relation to politics, 82, 97; paradox of,
100; crisis of, _ib. _; of nature and of moral, 101; a means of social
culture, 125; relation of Love to, 137; must rule on earth, 149; only
makes happy guesses in science, 152; origin of, 178; investigates first
causes, 179; crux in, 190; Epicurus' definition of, 214; a search for
chief good, 229
Plato, criticism of Protagoras, 89; a _complete_ Socratic, 103: took
refuge with Euclides, 132, 134; compared to Shakespeare, 134; as
psychologist, 155; central doctrines of, 155; dogma impossible, 162;
Aristotle on, 163; relation to Heraclitus, _ib. _; and to the Eleatics,
165; relation of Aristotle to, 178, 181; his mistake as to universals,
182
Pleasure, end of life, 126; contempt of, 131; reason gives law to, 149;
is it chief good? 156; Epicurean theory of, 222; moral function of, 238
Politics, relation to philosophy, 82, 97; influence of sophistry upon,
88
Politicus, see _Statesman_
Potentiality (Dynamic idea), how used by Aristotle, 185; of feeling,
195; equals matter, 203
Practicality, _v. _ Idealism, 4
Predication, Epicurus' view of, 215
Propositions, _v. _ Things, 189
Protagoras, 85; Plato's criticism of, 89; dialogue, 136
Protoplasm, explains nothing, 37
Punishment, Sophistic theory of, 88
Pyrrho, founder of Scepticism, 211
Pythagoras, 23
Quinta Essentia, origin of, 202
Quixote, the world admires, 227
Realisation (Actuality), correlative of potentiality, 185; relation to
Plato's Recollection, 188; chief good, 194
Reality, standard of, 40, 51; distinction between, and appearance,
abolished, 83, 87; no necessary relation between thought and reality,
94; the only reality appetite, 96; thoughts of God the only reality,
164; approximations to, 165; ideal can never wholly fit, 239
Reason, function of, 37, 56; corrector of the senses, 61; governs
evolution, 70; worse made to appear better, 84; realises itself through
individuals, 114; gives law to pleasure, 149, 156; man possesses, 191;
actual and latent, 192; partly obedient, partly contemplative, 194; an
element in Habit, 195; an impersonal ruler, 196
Recollection (or Reminiscence), departure and renewal of knowledge,
138; doctrine of, in Plato, 142; Platonic criticism of, 154; nature of,
165; relation of Aristotle's theory to, 188
Reminiscence, see _Recollection_
Republic, dialogue, 146; relation of, to Aristotle's doctrine, 192
Revelation, how criticise? 158
Right, Might without, is weak, 147
Samos, birthplace of Pythagoras, 23; of Melissus, 46; of Epicurus, 211
Scepticism, its isolating influence, 94; destroys not appetite, but
moral restraint, 95; represented birth of new conditions, 98; phase of
decay in distinctively Greek life, 211
Science, philosophy different from, 9; happy guesses in, 152;
different kinds of, 180; can never exhaust object, 188
Scrip and staff, emblems of Cynics, 130
Semitic elements in later Greek philosophy, 228
Seneca, on Epicurus, 225; exponent of Roman Stoicism, 242
Senses (or Sensation), channel for the eternal wisdom, 18; data of, no
measure of reality, 40; not source of ideas, 45; untrustworthy, 49;
necessary to truth, 56; no test of truth, 60; relation to reason, 61;
based on composite character of body, 71; atomic theory of, 79; give no
absolute truth, 80; no distinction between, and thing or mind, 87;
reaction of moral theory on theory of sensation, 102; invalid as
against reason, 133; has rational elements conditioning, 151; universal
cannot belong to, 163; universals furthest removed from, 180; only
source of knowledge, 214; Epicurean theory of emission, 221; Stoic
theory, 230
Shakespeare, Plato compared to, 134
Sicily, birthplace of Empedocles, 58; connection with rise of
Sophistry, 84, 86, 92; connection of Plato with, 135
Sin, willing and unwilling, 121
Sinope, birthplace of Diogenes, 130
Sleep, cuts us off from eternal wisdom, 18
Socrates, 101; relation to Anaxagoras, 54; his doctrine in general,
100; marks a parting of ways, 103; warning 'voice' or 'daemon' of, 104;
philosophic midwifery, _ib. _; irony, 105; not an expositor, 115;
relation to Sophists, _ib. _; Aristippus student of, 124; criticises
Antisthenes, 129; Plato pupil of, 134; dialogue concerning, 136;
conversation of Diotima with, 137; in _Republic_, 146
Socratics, complete and incomplete, 103; incomplete, 125, 128
Solon, Plato descended from, 134; praised, 140
Sophists, 82; name first used by Protagoras, 85; influence of, on
politics, 88, 97; refuted by the arts, 111; relation to Socrates, 115;
Platonic dialogues on, 136; dialogue so named, 159
Soul of all things, 6; a fiery exhalation, 18; God soul of the world,
27; soul realised in body, _ib. _; soul double, 28; triple, 28, 169;
life of soul a harmony, 29; composed of finest atoms, 78; even that of
universe, 80; loss of one's soul, 150; world-soul the first creation,
151; divisions of, 169; an entelechy, 203; definition of, 204; _v. _
body, 205; Epicurean theory of, 220
Space, existence prior to, 37, 167; unthinkable except with reference
to body, 75
Sparta, ideas from, in _Republic_, 148; influence on Plato's Laws, 160
Species, has more of existence than genus, 183
Speusippus, successor of Plato, 172
Stagira, birthplace of Aristotle, 172
State, Justice writ large in, 147; classes in, 169; an entelechy, 196
Statesman (or Politicus), dialogue, 159
Stoicism, Semitic element in, 228; origin of name, 229
Strife, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38, 63
Substance defined, 203
Sulla, brought Aristotle's library to Rome, 176
Summum bonum, what? 156; relation of man's perfection, 168; philosophy
search for, 229
Symposium, dialogue, 137
Tabula rasa, Stoic theory of, 231
Tarsus, birthplace of St. Paul and (possibly) of Chrysippus, 229
Temperance, treated of in _Charmides_, 136; fairest sort of wisdom, 139
Thales, 2
Theaetetus, quoted from, 89; dialogue, 159
Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, 175
Things, in themselves, how known? 158; partake in the idea, 164; _v. _
Propositions, 189
Thought, of God, 150; ideal elements in, 152; of God, source of
reality, 164; relation to matter, 184; of God, eternally existing in
ideas, 187; an entelechy, 188; without desire, no motive, 191; arms
of, 198; only converted sensation, 223
Thucydides, quoted, 97
Thurii, code for, drawn up by Protagoras, 86
Timaeus, dialogue, 150
Time, brings its revenges, 8; plays with the dice, 20; existence prior
to, 37, 168
Tortoise, see _Achilles_
Transmigration of souls, 27, 73
Truth, first duty of man, 29 senses give no absolute, 80; title of work
by Protagoras, 86; man measure of, 87; abstract truth impossible,
_ib. _; dialogue concerning, 137
Tyranny, in politics and in philosophy, 83
Ultimately, significance of word, 190
Unity, _v. _ Multiplicity, 28; of objects only apparent, 76; no absolute
unity either of body or soul, 138; analysis of, 159; in thoughts of
God, 164
Universal, _v. _ Particular, 48; _v. _ Individual, 99; search after lost,
105, 163; three forms, Justice, Beauty, Utility, 110; cannot belong to
sense, 163; knowledge of, function of philosophy, 180; does not exist
apart from particulars, 181; has less of existence than particulars,
183; they are not antithetical, 189
Universe, the self-picturing of God, 27; mechanical theory of, 56;
ideal working in, 112; origin of, 151, 165, 200, 216, 232
Utility, relation to Justice, 120; philosophy does not seek, 178
Virtue, teachable through persuasion, 88; is knowledge, 112, 118;
teachable through training, 131; sufficient for happiness, _ib. _;
teachableness of, 136, 191; immortal product of soul, 139; a habit,
195; a mean, _ib. _; Reason standard of, 196; alone absolutely good, 238
Void, existence of, 75; proofs of, 219
Water, beginning of things, 4
Weeping philosopher, 20; _v. _ laughing philosopher, 74
Wisdom, persuasion only true, 88; moderate indulgence, 126; a weaning
of soul from pleasure, 131; temperance and justice the fairest, 139;
heavenly and earthly, 148; Is it chief good?
