No More Learning

It was in these elaborations by the schools that the science of logic created by Aristotle first took on the purely formal character that it retained up to the time of Kant. The more pedantic the form taken in the development of the particular features, the more the consciousness of the living thought, to which Aristotle had aspired, was replaced by a schoolmaster-like network of rules, — essentially designed to catch thoughts and examine their formal legitimacy, but incapable of doing justice to the creative power of scientific activity. While, even with Aristotle, regard for proof and refutation had occupied the foreground, here it occupies the whole field. Antiquity did not attain a theory of investigation ; for the weak beginnings which we find toward this end in the inves tigations of a younger Epicurean,* Philodemus,4 concerning conclu sions from induction and analogy, are relatively isolated, and have no result worthy of mention.
2. In the doctrine of the Categories, of the elaboration of which the Stoics made much account, more that was real was to be expected. Here it was indeed quite correct, and yet not very fruitful, to call attention to the fact that the supreme category, of which the rest
» Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 93.
• Diog. Laert. VII. 66.
s Epicurus himself, and his school also, as a whole, did not trouble themselves
as to the principles of formal logic. One might regard this as an evidence of taste and intelligence, but it was in truth only indifference toward all that did not promise directly practical advantages.
* On his treatise repl cruuiav ko! arnuiibetuir, discovered in Herculaneum, cf. Th. Gompertz, Herculanentisehe Studien, Heft 1 (Leips. 1866) ; Fr. Bahusch (Lyck, 1879); K. Philippson (Berlin, 1881).
Chap. 1, § 17. ] Criteria of Truth : Stoic*. 199
represent only special determinations, is that of Being
Something (ti); and the co-ordination of the categories which, at least as regards the method of their enumeration, was Aristotle's plan, was replaced by an expressly systematic succession, according to which each category was to be more exactly determined by the following one. " What is," or Being, as abiding substrate of all possible relations, is substance (iiroKiipivoi) ; this is the supporter
(Trdger) of fixed qualities (voiov), and only in this aspect is it involved in changing states (to ttuk «x°0> ;,nd, in consequence of these latter, in relations to other substances (to npo\ ri ww fyov).
Out of the doctrine of the categories grows thus an ontology, that is, a metaphysical theory as to the most general formal relations of reality, and this theory in the system of the Stoics, agreeably to their general tendency (cf. § 15, 5), takes on a thoroughly materi alistic character. As substance, the existent is matter which is in itself destitute of properties (vAr/), and the qualities and forces which are inherent in matter as a whole, as well as in a particular part (roiorifTK — Swo/uif ), are likewise kinds of matter (atmospheric
which are commingled with it (xpao-i? St' o-W). In this connection both substance and attributes are regarded, as well from the point of view of the general conception as from that of the indi vidual thing, and in the latter aspect it is emphasised that every individual thing is essentially and definitely distinguished from all others. *
Besides these categories of Being, we find making their appear ance among the Stoics those conceptions! forms by which the rela tion of thought to Being is expressed, and in these the separation of ike subjective from the objective, for which a preparation had been growing more and more complete in the development of Greek thought, now attains definite expression. For while the Stoics regarded all objects to which thought relates as corporeal, while they regarded the activity of thought itself, and no less its expres sion in language * as corporeal functions, they were still obliged to confess that the content of consciousness as such (to Xiktov) is of in
• That the Peripatetic* also busied themselves with this category is proved by the definition preserved by Strato: ri it im ri rijt tiaitoriii alrior (l'roclus I* rim. 'iti K).
1 In contrasting the first two with the last two categories, the language rela tion of noun and verb appears here also (in Stoic terminology rriivn and *ar>i-
* The Stoics laid great weight upon the discriminative comparison of thought and of speech, of the inner activity of reason (X4>o» iriiitmn), and of its ex pression through the voice (Xfryot wpefopucit). Hence, too, the assumption (cf. ) IS, n) of the faculty of speech as a proper part of the soul ; hence their thor- uojh treatment of rhetoric and grammar side by »de with logic.
(Toov)'or
currents)
200 Hellenistic- Roman Thought : Hthical Period. [Part IL
nature. But since the distinction was thus sharply drawn between Being and content of consciousness, the fundamental epistemological problem came forward, how the relations by which the ideational content refers to Being and agrees with are to be thought.
This question was, moreover, also brought home by the vigor ous development which Scepticism had meanwhile undergone, and by the relatively strong position which occupied as compared with the dogmatic systems.
Whether by Pyrrho or Timon matters not, was at all events at about the same time at which the great school-systems became dogmatically developed and fortified, that all those arguments were systematised into complete whole, by which the Sophistic period had shaken the naive trust in man's capacity for knowledge. Al though the ethical end of making man independent of fate by with holding judgment was ultimately decisive (cf. 14, 2), this Scepticism still forms a carefully carried out theoretical doctrine.
It doubts the possibility of knowledge in both its forms, the form of perception as truly as that of judging thought, and after has destructively analysed each of these two factors singly, adds expressly that just on this account their union can have no certain result. 1
As regards perception, the Sceptics availed themselves of the Protagorean relativism, and in the so-called ten Tropes in which
jEnesidemus
corporeal
sets forth the sceptical theory with very defective arrangement, this tendency still occupies the broadest space. Per ceptions change not only with the different species of animate beings (1), not only with different men (2), according to their cus toms (9) and their whole development (10), but even in the case of the same individual at different times (3), in dependence upon bodily conditions (4), and upon the different relations in which the individual finds himself with regard to his object spatially They alter, also, because of the difference in the states of the object
(7), and have, therefore, no claim to the value of an immediate report of things, because their origination conditioned by inter mediate states in media such as the air, the co-operating elements furnished by which we are not able to deduct (6). Man there-
From two deceivers combined only right to expect no truth. Diog. Laert. IX. 114.
Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. 38 ff.
It was said by the ancient writers that JEnesidemus was attached, not only to Scepticism, but also to the metaphysics of Heraclitus. The question whether this was actually so, or whether such relation was only ascribed to him by mis take, has solely antiquarian significance. For had the former been the case, would have been but another manifestation of real relationship in thought, to which Plato had already directed attention. Thrift. 152 ff. cf. 92, note
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Ihap. 1, § 17. ] Criteria of Truth : Sceptics. 201
fore, in all ways, not in a condition to know things purely (8), and in the face of the multiplicity of impressions so full of contradic tions he has no means of distinguishing a true from a false impres sion. One is no more (ov /toAAov) valid than another.
Equally relative with man's perceptions are also his opinions
In this aspect the influences of the Eleatic dialectic assert themselves in Pyrrhonism. It is shown that to every opinion the opposite can be opposed with equally good reasons, and this equilibrium of reasons (iaovdivtw. tu>v \oymv) does not permit us, therefore, to distinguish true and false : in the case of such a con tradiction (itmXoyia) the one holds no more than the other. All opinions accordingly stand — according to the phrase of the Sophists, adopted by the Sceptics — only by convention and cus tom {vofuf re «u i6ti), not by their essential right and title (ipwm).
More energetically still did the later Scepticism attack the possi bility of scientific knowledge, by disclosing the difficulties of the syllogistic procedure, and of the methods which Aristotle had built up upon this. 1 In this Curneades seems to have led the way, show ing that every proof, since it presupposes other proofs for the valid ity of its premises, makes necessary a regressus in infinitum — an argument that was completely in place for the Sceptic who did not, as did Aristotle, recognise anything as immediately certain (Sfuaov ; ef. f 12, 4). The same argument was carried further by Agrippa, who formulated Scepticism in five Tropes * much more clearly and comprehensively than . ACnesidemus. He called attention again to the relativity of perceptions (3) and of opinions (1); he showed how every proof pushes on into infinity (2 : 6 u'« tbrupw UfiiLWuv), and how unjustifiable it is in the process of proof to proceed from premises that are only hypothetically to be assumed (4), and finally, how often it occurs, even in science, that that must be [Kwtulated as ground of the premises which is only to be proved by means of the syllogism in question (5: 6 SuiAAtjAos). In the latter aspect atten tion was also called to the fact that in the syllogistic deduction of a particular proposition from a general one, the general would yet from the outset be justified only on condition that the particular were valid. '
Since the essential nature of things is thus inaccessible to human
> Bert. Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 310 ft*.
(&&u).
•Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. I. 104 ft". : (1) The conflict of opinion*. (2) The rndleaa icgi'tas in proving. (3) The relativity of all perceptions. (4) The im possibility of other than hypothetical premises. (5) The circle in the syllogism.
• Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. II. 194 ff. Renewed in J. 8. Mill, Loyic, II. 3, 2; correcud in Chr. Sigwart, Logik, I. { 66, 3.
202 Hellenist ie- Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part II.
knowledge,1 the Sceptics demanded that man should suspend judg ment so far as possible (cVo^). We can say nothing concerning things (di^ao-ta) ; we can only assert that this and that appears so or so, and in so doing we report only our own momentary states (as the Cyrenaics had already taught, § 8, 3). Even the sceptical main tenance of the impossibility of knowledge (in order to avoid the contradiction that here something of a negative character, at least, seems to be maintained and proved)* should be conceived of rather as a profession of belief than as knowledge, — more as a withholding of opinion than as a positive assertion.
Cf. V. Brochard, Les Sceptiques Orees (Paris, 1877).
4. The attack of Scepticism was most sharply concentrated in the principle8 that, in the presence of the deceptions to which man is exposed in all his ideas of whatever origin, there is no uni- vocal, sure sign of knowledge, no criterion of truth. If, therefore, the dogmatic schools held fast to the reality of knowledge, even from the Socratic motive that virtue is impossible without knowl edge,4 they found the task assigned them by this sceptical position of announcing such a criterion and of defending it against the sceptical objections. This was done also by the Epicureans and Stoics, although their materialistic metaphysics and the sensualistic psychology connected with it prepared for them serious, and, ultimately, insurmountable difficulties.
In fact, it was the psycho-genetic doctrine of both these schools that the content of all ideas and knowledge arises solely from sen suous perception. The origin of sense-perception the Epicureans explained by the image theory of Democritus (§ 10, 3). This theory gave even to the illusions of the senses, to dreams, etc. , the character of perceptions corresponding to reality ; and even the con structions of the combining fancy or imagination could be explained on this theory by unions which had already taken place objectively between the images. But the Stoics also regarded perception as a bodily process, as an impression of outer things upon the soul
(rviruxns), the possibility of which seemed to them to be self- evident, in view of the universal commingling of all bodies. This
1 The simplest formulation of Scepticism, finally, was that which brought Agrippa's five Tropes together into two ; there is nothing immediately certain, and just on this account nothing mediately certain; accordingly nothing what ever that is certain. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. I. 178 f.
» Cic. Acad. II. 9, 28 and 34, 109 ; Sext Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 463 ff.
• Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VII. 159.
« Diog. Laert. X. 146 f. K. A ; Us. p. 76 on the other hand, Ptut. Stoic.
Rep. 47, 12.
f. ,
Chap. 1, § 17. ] Criteria of Truth : Epicurean*, Stoics. 203
crassly sensuous conception they expressed by the since frequently repeated comparison, that the soul is originally like a blank tablet, on which the outer world imprints its signs in the course of time. 1 More refined, but more indefinite, and yet absolutely mechanical still in its tone is the designation of Chrysippus, who called percep tion an alteration of qualities (crcpotWt? ) in the soul; for, at all events, the idea or mental presentation (^ammii) remains for
him, too, a corporeal effect or product of that which is presented
(domurroV).
Both schools explained the presence of conceptions and of general
ideas (xpoXi^wtf, and among the Stoics also koivoI cwouu) solely by the persistence of these impressions, or of parts of them, and by their combination. They combated, therefore, as the Cynics espe cially had already done, the Platonic-Aristotelian doctrine of Ideas and Forms,9 especially the assumption of an independent activity or power of forming conceptions, and traced even the most general and abstract conceptions back to this mechanism of elementary perceptions (to which they scarcely gave any further analysis). To these general ideas of experience (i/xwupia), which arise natu
rally and involuntarily (dtuo-ucw*), the Stoics indeed opposed the conceptions of science produced by the aid of a methodical con sciousness ; but even the content of these scientific conceptions was held to be exclusively derived from sensations. In this connection, both schools laid especial weight upon the co-operation of language in the origination of conceptions.
But now, in so far as the total content of impressions, and like- vise also the nature of thought, are the same among all men, it necessarily follows that under these circumstances the same general ideas will be formed, in both the theoretical and the practical domain, by means of the psychological mechanism. This consequence was drawn especially by the Stoics, whose attention was by their whole metaphysics directed vigorously to the common nature of the psy chical functions, which were all held to arise from the divine Pneuma. They taught, therefore, that the surest truth is to be sought in those ideas which develop uniformly among all men with natural neces sity, and they liked to take as their starting-point, even for scientific reasonings, these kmhu Jkvoox, or communes notiones. They have a
' Pint. Ptae. IV. 11 ; Dox, D. 400 ; Plut. Comm. Xot. 47 ; cf. beside* Plat. Tktmt. 191 C.
' Hence the Stolen regard Platonic " Ideas" (class-concepts) as merely struc tures of the human mind (iwroiiiara tidrtpa ; cf. Plut. Plac. I. 10. Dox. D.
300), »nd thtu (rave the first suggestion for the later subjective meaning of the term •idea. " Cf. § 19.
204 Hellenistic-Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part IL
predilection for appealing to the consensus gentium — the consent of all men, — an argument whose validity it was easy for the Sceptics to shake by pointing to the negative instances of experience. 1
It was, therefore, not in the spirit of the Stoics that in the later Eclectic literature these common ideas were called innate (innate), and that Cicero especially saw in them not only that which Nature teaches equally to all, but also that which Nature or the deity has originally implanted in every one at the same time with his reason. Cicero maintains this, not only for the fundamental conceptions of morality and right, but also for the belief in the deity and in the immortality of the soul : the knowledge of God especially is held to be only man's recollection of his true origin. * This doctrine formed the best bridge between the Platonic and the Stoic theories of knowledge, and under the Stoic name of xon-al citocu the ration alistic doctrine of knowledge was propagated on into the beginnings of modern philosophy. Just by this means it retained the accessory
psychologistic meaning that rational knowledge consists in innate ideas. 5. While now the Stoics as well as the Epicureans originally traced back all the contents of ideas to sense-impressions psycho-
genetically, it was only the Epicureans who drew from this the consistent inference that the sign for the recognition of truth is solely the feeling of the necessity with which a perception forces itself upon consciousness, the irresistible clearness or vividness (ivapyaa) conjoined with the taking up of reality in the function of the senses. Every perception is as such true and irrefutable ; it exists, so to speak, as a self-certain atom of the world of conscious ness, free from doubt, independent, and immovable by any reasons whatever. * And if different and mutually contradictory perceptions of the same objects seem to exist, the error lies only in the opinion which refers them, and not in the perceptions which by the very fact of their difference prove that different outer causes correspond to them ; relativity is accordingly nothing in point against the cor rectness of all perceptions. *
Meanwhile, opinions (So£<u) constantly and necessarily go beyond this immediate presence of sense-impressions : for the knowledge requisite for acting needs also knowledge of that which is not immediately perceptible : it needs to know, on the one hand, grounds
» Cic. De Nat. Deor. I. 23, 62 f.
2 Id. De Leg. L 8, 24 : . . . til is agnoscat deum, qui unde ortus sit quasi re- cordetur ac noscal.
* The parallelism of this epistemological Atomism with the physical and ethical Atomism of the Epicureans is obvious.
* Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VII. 203 ff.
Cma*. 1, § 17. ] Criteria of Truth : Epicurean*. 205
of phenomena (3&rjKov) , and on the other hand the expectation as to the future that may be inferred from them (wpwrfuvov). But for all these farther functions of the psychical mechanism there is, accord ing to the Epicureans, no other guaranty than perception again. For if conceptions (rpoK-qijius ) are only sense-impressions retained in the memory, they have their own certainty in the clearness or vividness of these impressions, a certainty susceptible neither of proof nor of attack; ' and hypotheses (inroKy^tm). both with regard to the imperceptible grounds of things and also with regard to future events, find their criterion solely in perception, in so far as they are
verified by or at least not refuted the former holds for the pre diction of the future, the latter for explanatory theories. ' There
therefore among the Epicureans nothing said of an independent faculty of conviction or belief whether our expectation of any event
correct we can know only when the event occurs. Thus they re nounce on principle any attempt at an actual theory of investigation.
It evident from this that the Epicureans might regard their own Atomistic metaphysics as hypothesis not refuted by facts, but that they were not permitted to regard as hypothesis that was proved. It was hypothesis, indeed, of which the essential end, as they employed was to displace other hypotheses which seemed to them ethically objectionable. Their dogmatism accordingly only problematical, and their doctrine of knowledge, in so far as
has to do with rational knowledge, very strongly permeated with scepticism. In so far as they recognise only that which passes with tense-perception as " fact," but regard such facts as completely cer tain, their standpoint to be designated as that of Positivism.
This positivism was developed in antiquity still more consistently, and in form freed from the ethical and metaphysical tendencies of Epicurus, by the theories of the later schools of empirical physi cians. These schools went with the Sceptics as regards knowledge of all that imperceptible by the senses and as regards all rational theories; on the other hand, in their recognition of the sensuous evidence of perceptions, they went with the Epicureans. Observation
(njpijffn) here portrayed as the basis of the physician's art, and ob servation retained in memory regarded as the sole essence of his theory etiological explanations especially are rejected on principle.
Connected with this the circumstance that the later Sceptics treated the conception of causality iu searching investigations and
Aa the final criterion even for the Intellectually good i*. with Epicurus, sen- ■nous pleasure, so the criterion of the truth of conceptions only sensuous
riTidneas
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'206 Hellenistic-Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part II.
discovered its difficulties. iEnesidemus had already propounded a series of such aporise,1 and in Sextus Empiricus we find them devel oped more broadly and comprehensively. * With him not only such defects of serological theories are designated as, that they reduce the known to the unknown whicn is just as inexplicable, that they maintain one possibility among many without a sufficient reason, that they do not examine experience carefully enough with a view to possible negative instances, and finally that they after all explain that which is inaccessible to perception by some sort of a scheme known from perception, which is especially simple and therefore apparently intelligible in itself ; besides these, he searches out, also, all the general difficulties which prevent us from gaining a clear
(picturate) idea of the causal relation. The process of the action of one thing upon another, the passing over of motion from one thing to another, can be made intelligible neither on the assumption that that which acts (as force) is immaterial, nor on the opposite assumption ; nor does contact (d<f>y) which is assumed as a conditio sine qua non of the causal process (as had been already done by Aristotle) make it any more explicable. So, too, the time relation of cause and effect is extremely difficult to determine. The most important thought in these discussions, however, is the pointing out of the relativity of the causal relation : nothing is in itself a cause or effect; each of the two h such only with reference to the other; alrtov and irdcrxov are correlative terms which must not be absolutely postulated or asserted. The (Stoic) conception of an essentially efficient cause, the conception of a creative deity, is then thereby excluded.
7. The Sceptics of the Academy sought in another direction a substitute for the certainty of rational knowledge which they also had given up. Since in practical life suspense cannot be carried out as a principle of conduct and action is indispensable, and since for action determining ideas are requisite, Arcesilaus brought out the view that ideas, even though one refuse them his complete assent, are yet able to move the will,5 and that in practical life one must content himself with a certain kind of confidence or trust
(jrtoTis), according to which some ideas may in a greater degree than others be regarded as probable (tvAoyov), adapted to the purpose of life, and reasonable. 4
1 Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. I. 180 fl.
* Adv. Math. IX. 195 ff. ; cf. K. Goring, Der Begriff der Uraache in der grie- chischen Philosophie (Leips. 1874).
» Pint. Adv. Col. 26, 3.
* Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VII. 158.
Cmap. 1, § 17. ] Criteria of Truth : Sceptic*, Strict. 207
The theory of Probabilism was carried out farther by Carneades'* in an attempt to define more exactly, according to logical relations, the particular degrees of this " belief. " The least degree of proba bility (wtBavonft) is that which (as an indistinct and imperfect form of sensuous clearness or vividness — ivapytta) belongs to the single idea that stands in no farther connections. A higher degree of probability belongs to that idea which can be united (djrcp«nra<rT<w), without any contradictions, with other ideas in connection with which it belongs. Lastly, the highest stage of belief is reached where a whole system of such connected ideas is examined as to its complete harmony and verification in experience (jrtpi<. i8c! '/i«V»>).
Empirical confidence rises, therefore, from the sensuously isolated to the logical systems of scientific research. But though in the latter form it may be completely sufficient for practical life (as Carneades assumed), it is yet not able to lead to a completely certain conviction.
8. In contrast with this, the Stoics made the most strenuous efforts to gain an epistemological substructure for their metaphysics, to which they attributed so high a value from considerations of ethi cal interest, and in spite of psycho-genetic sensualism, to rescue the rational character of science. * On the principle that like is known by like, their doctrine of the World-reason demanded a knowledge of the external Logos by the internal logos of man, — by his rea
son ;' and the ethical antagonism or dualism between virtue and the sensuous impulses required a parallel distinction between knowledge and sensuous ideas. Although, therefore, the whole material of knowledge was held to grow out of sensuous presenta tions, the Stoics pointed out, on the other hand, that in perception aa such, no knowledge whatever is contained ; that it is not to be characterised as either true or false. Truth and falsity can be predicated only when judgments (d£tu/iara) have been formed in which something is asserted or denied as to the relation of ideas. 4
nevertheless, is conceived of by the Stoics — and in this they take a new and important position, which, in antiquity, only the Sceptics approach in some degree — by no means merely as the theoretical process of ideation and combination of ideas. They recognised, as the essential characteristic in judgment, the i>eculiar art of assent (ovyKara&crif ). of approval, and of being convinced, with which the mind makes the content of the idea its own, grasps
> lb. 140 fl.
1 Cf. M. Heinr*. Zur ErkenntnissUhre der Stoiker (Lefps. 18801. • Sext. Emp. Adv. Hath. VII. 93.
'Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 10.
Jitdgment,
208 Helleni»tic-Roman Thought : Ethical Period. [Part II.
and in a certain way takes possession of (Ka. TaXaixj3avuv) . This act of apprehension the Stoics regard as an independent function of consciousness (Tjye/ioviKoV), in the same way as they regard the assent to the impulses, which makes its appearance in passion. The arising of ideas, like that of the excitations of feeling, a process which of natural necessity and completely independent of human will (dxouo-tov) but the assent by which we make the one class, judgments, and the other, passions, decision (itpi'o-is) of con sciousness, free ((kovo-iov) from the outer world. 1
But now in the case of the wise man, by virtue of the identity of the universal with the individual logos, this assent appears only in the case of those ideas which are true the soul, therefore, in appre hending the content of these ideas, apprehends reality. Such an idea the Stoics called favTao-ia KaraX-qimKri* and they were of the conviction that such an idea must call forth the reasonable man's assent with immediate evidence or clearness. Hence assent itself
(<rvyKaTaOvTi<;) is conceived of as an activity of the thinking soul, but individual perceptions appear as the objects of assent as truly as do the intellectual activities of conception, judgment, and reason ing, based upon the individual perceptions.
If thus the Stoics understood by the fam-acrta KaTaXijirriKi} that idea by which the mind lays hold of reality, and which, therefore, so illumines the mind that this, in its assent, makes reality its own, this was indeed the correct expression for the requirement which they set up for the true idea,3 but the definition was not at all adapted to the end for which was framed that is, for a sign by which to recognise truth. For as the Sceptics4 very justly objected, the subjective mark, assent, might be shown as psychological fact in the case of multitude of evidently false ideas.
Thus the anthropological discord in the Stoic doctrine manifests
lb. VIII. 39,
In the interpretation of this term there wide divergence. According to the sources, seems now as the idea were intended which the mind lays hold of, now that which apprehends the real fact, now that by which the mind appre hends reality, and now again that which on its part so lays hold of the mind that the mind must assent to it. It has hence been supposed that the Stoics purposely constructed the expression in this ambiguous form, inasmuch as all these relations would harmonise in it, and perhaps E. Zeller (IV. 3 83) [Eng. tr. , Stoics, etc. p. 89] intended to repeat this ambiguity by his translation, concep- tional idea or perception" (begriffliche Vorstellung), which, however, has an accessory logical sense that the Stoics certainly did n6t intend.
It worth while to point out the fact that in their designations for the relation of the knowing mind to the external reality, the Stoics employ, for the m >st part, expressions from the field of the sense of touch (impression, appre hending, or grasping, etc. ), while formerly optical analogies had been preferred. Cf. 11, 2.
Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VII. 402 ff.
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CuAr. 1, f 17. ] Criteria of Truth : Stoic$. 209
itself even in this central conception of their theory of knowledge. As it could not be explained in accordance with their metaphysics how the individual soul arising from the World-reason should fall under the mastery of sensuous impulses, so it is equally impossible to understand how theoretical assent should, under certain circum stances, be given even to false ideas. Both difficulties, however, have ultimately a common ground. The Stoics agreed with Hera- clitus in identifying in their metaphysics the normative and the actual ordering of things, although these conceptions had meanwhile become much more clearly separated. Reason was for them that which should be, as well as that which is ; it was at the same time rifun and ^wm. And this antithesis, the two sides of which came into strenuous opposition in their doctrine of freedom and their
theodicy, was the problem of the future.
CHAPTER II. THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD.
J. Simon, Histoirc de VEcole d' Alexandrie. Paris, 1843 ff.
E. Matter, Essai sur VEcole d' Alexandrie. Paris, 1840 ff.
E. Vacherot, Histoire Critique de VEcole <TAlexandrie. Paris, 1846 ff.
[J. Drummond, Philo Judasus, or the Jewish Alexandrian Philosophy in its
Development and Completion. 2 vols. , Lond. 1888. ]
Barthfilemy St. Hilaire, Sur le Concours ouvert par VAcademie, etc. , sur VEcole
d'Alexandrie. Paris, 1845.
K. Vogt, Xeuplatonismus und Christenthum. Berlin, 1836.
Georgii, lieber die Gegensätze in der Auffassung der alexandrinischen Religions
philosophie (Zeitschr. f. hist. Theol. 1839).
E. Deutinger, Geist der christlichen Ueberlieferung. Regensburg, 1850-51.
A. Ritschi, Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche.