Oat of* these needs arose, about the middle of the fifth century, ude by side, and with many reciprocal relations, positive and polem ical, the theories of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus, founder of the
Atomistic
School of Abdera.
Windelband - History of Philosophy
E.
Caird, Evolu-
a— sf Rtlxginn (2 vols. , Lond. and N. Y. 1893). ]
The division of the history of philosophy is usually connected with that current for political history, so as to distinguish three great periods, — Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Philosophy. Yet the •eroons made in this way are not so favourable for the history of philosophy as they perhaps are for political history. Other points of division must be made, equally important as regards the nature of the development ; and, on the other hand, the transition between the Middle Ages and modern times demands a shifting of the point of division on either side.
In consequence of this, the entire history of philosophy will here he treated according to the following plan of division, in a manner t£ be more exactly illustrated and justified in detail by the exposi- t>. o itself : —
(1) The Philosophy of the Greeks: from the beginnings of amtifie thought to the death of Aristotle, — from about 600 to •122 B. r.
(2) Hellenistic- Roman Philosophy: from the death of Aristotle v, ta* passing away of Neo-Platonism, — from 322 b. c. to about 580 *_d-
Mediaeval Philosophy: from Augustine to Nicolaus Cusanus, — from the fifth to the fifteenth century.
14 1 The Philosophy of the Renaissance : from the fifteenth to the •**ent»r«? uth century.
(Z)
22 Introduction.
(5) The Philosophy of the Enlightenment: from Locke to the death of Leasing, — 1689-1781.
The German Philosophy : from Kant to Hegel and Herbart, — 1781-1820.
The Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century.
(6) (7)
PART I.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS.
Chr. A. Brandis, Handbuch der Geschichte der griechisch-romischen Philosophic. 3 pts. in 6 vols. Berlin, 1835-66.
Same author, Geschichte der Entutickelungen der griechischen Philotophie und ihrtr Xachtcirlcungen im romischen Reiche. 2 pts. Berlin, 1862-66.
H Zeller, Die Philosophie der Oriechen. 3 pts. in 6 Tola. 1st vol. in 6th, 2 vol. in 4th, 3-5 vols, in 3d ed. Leipg. 1879-93. [Trans. , with the excep tion of the portion on the concluding religious period, as six works: Pre- Svrratic Philosophy (2 vols. ), Socrates and the Socratic School*, Plato and the Older Academy, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics (2 vols. ), Stoics. Epicureans, and Sceptics, History of Eclecticism, chiefly by S. F. Alleyne and <>. J. Reichel. Lond. and N. Y. , Longmans. ]
A. Schwegler, Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie. Ed. by K. Kostlin. 3d td. Freiburg. 1882.
L. Strumpell, Die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophic 2 pts. Leips. 1854-61.
w\ Windelband, Geschichte der alien Philosophie. 2d ed. Munich, 1894. [History of Ancient Philosophy, trans, by II. E. Cushman, N. Y. , 1899. J
Riturr et Hreller, HUtoria philosophic graco-romanat (Graieoz). In 8th ed. Edited by Wellnian. Gotha, 1898. An excellent collection of the most important sources.
[A. W. Benn, The Greek Philosophers. 2 vols. Lond. , 1883. The Philoso
phy of Greece. Lond. 1898. ]
Th. Gomperz, Griechische Denker. Vienna, 1897. [Trans, by L. Magnus.
Greek Thinkers. Lond. and N. Y. , 1900. ]
Ir by science we understand that independent and self-conscious work of intelligence which seeks knowledge methodically for its own sake, then it is among the Greeks, and the Greeks of the sixth i^ntury B. C. , that we first find such a science, — aside from some tendencies among the peoples of the Orient, those of China and India1 particularly, only recently disclosed. The great civilised
1 Even if it be conceded that the beginnings of moral philosophy among the Chinese rise above moralising, and especially those of logic in India above inci- deatal reflections on the scientific formation of conceptions, — on which we shall not here pronounce, — these remain so remote from the course of European Moaophy. which forms a complete unity in itself, that a text-book has no jctasloo to enter upon them. The literature is brought together in Ueber-
•»L|6.
23
24 The Philosophy of the Greeks.
peoples of earlier antiquity were not, indeed, wanting either in an abundance of information on single subjects, or in general views of the universe ; but as the former was gained in connection with prac tical needs, and the latter grew out of mythical fancy, so they remained under the control, partly of daily need, partly of religions poetry ; and, as was natural in consequence of the peculiar restraint of the Oriental mind, they lacked, for their fruitful and independent development, the initiative activity of individuals.
Among the Greeks, also, similar relations existed until, at the time- mentioned, the mighty upward movement of the national life unfet tered the mental powers of this most gifted of all peoples. For this result the democratic development of constitutions which in passion ate party struggle tended to bring out independence of individual opinions and judgments, and to develop the significance of person ality, proved even more favourable than the refinement and spiritual- isation of life which increasing wealth of trade brought with it. The more the luxuriant development of individualism loosened the old bonds of the common consciousness, of faith, and of morals, and threatened the youthful civilisation of Greece with the danger of anarchy, the more pressing did individual men, prominent by their position in life, their insight, and their character, find the duty of recovering in their own reflection the measure that was becoming lost. This ethical reflection found its representatives in the lyric and gnomic poets, especially, however, in the so-called seven wise men. 1 It could not fail to occur, also, that a similar movement, in which individual opinions asserted their independence, should trench upon the religious life already so varied, in which the opposition between the old mystery-cults and the aesthetic national
mythology stimu lated the formation of so many special types. 8 Already in the cos- mogonic poetry the poet had dared to portray the heaven of the
myths according to his own individual fancy ; the age of the seven sages began to read its ethical ideals into the gods of the Homeric poetry, and in the ethico-religious reformation attempted by Pythag oras,8 coming as it did in the outer form of a return to the old strict- ness of life, the new content which life had gained came all the more
clearly to view.
'The "seven sages," among whom Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon are usually named, while with regard to the rest tradition is not agreed, must not, with the exception of Thales, be regarded as representatives of science. Diog. Laert. I. 40 ; Plato, Protag. 343.
* Cf. E. Rohde (Psyche, 2d ed. , 1897) for the influence of religious ideas.
* Pherecydes of Syrus is to be regarded as the most important of these cos- mogonic poets ; he wrote in prose at the time of the first philosophies, but his mode of thought is still mythical throughout, not scientific. Fragments of hit writings collected by Sturz (Leips. 1834).
The Philosophy of the Greeks. 25
From such conditions of fermentation the science of the Greeks » which they gave the name philosophy was born. The independ
ent reflection of individuals, aided by the fluctuations of religious faaey, extended itself from the questions of practical life to the knowledge of Nature, and there first won that freedom from exter nal ends, that limitation of knowledge to itself, which constitutes the essence of science.
All these processes, however, took place principally in the outly ing parts of Greek civilisation, in the colonies, which were in advance of the so-called Mother-country in mental as in material develop- oent In Ionia, in Magna Graecia, in Thrace, stood the cradles of anence. It was only after Athens in the Persian wars had assumed together with the political hegemony the mental as well, which she wis to keep so much longer than the former, that Attic soil, conse nted to all the muses, attracted science also. Its advent was at the time of the Sophists; it found its completion in the doctrine ud school of Aristotle.
It was in connection with the disinterested consideration of Nature that reflection first rose to the scientific construction of
The result of this was that Greek science devoted all the freshness of youthful joy and knowledge primarily to the prob lems of Nature, and in this work stamped out fundamental concep tions, or Forms of thought, for apprehending the external world. In order to turn the look of philosophy inward and make human action the object of its study, there was first need, for one thing, of subse quent reflection upon what had, and what had not, been accomplished by this study of Nature, and, for another thing, of the imperious demands made by public life on science now so far matured as to be
a social factor. The effect of this change might for a time seem to he to check the pure zeal for research which had marked the begin- siazs. bat after positive results had been reached in the field of the knowledge of man's inner nature this same zeal developed all the more rigorously, and led to the construction of those great systems with which purely Greek philosophy reached its consummation.
The philosophy of the Greeks divides, therefore, into three periods : a nwmoiogieal, which extends from about 600 to about 450 b. c. ; an ftkrrjpologicaL, which fills out about the second half of the fifth wtsii a. c. (450-400) ; and a systematic, which contains the development of the three great systems of Greek science, those of Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle (400-322).
The philosophy of the Greek* forma the moat instructive part of the whole aory of philosophy from a theoretical point of view, not only because the 1 conceptions crested in it have become the permanent foundations
(•coemptions.
26 The Philosophy of the Greeks.
for all further development of thought, and promise to remain such, but also because in it the formal presuppositions contained in the postulates of the thinking Reason itself, attained sharp formulation as set over against the mate rial of knowledge, which, especially at the beginning, was still relatively small in amount. In this the Greek philosophy has its typical value and its didactic importance.
These advantages appear already in the transparency and simplicity of the entire development, which enable us to see the inquiring mind at first turned outward, then thrown back upon itself, and from this point of view returning to a deeper apprehension of reality as a whole.
There is, therefore, scarcely any controversy with regard to this course of the general development of Greek philosophy, though different expositions have located the divisions between the periods at different points. Whether Socrates is made to begin a new period, or is placed together with the Sophists in tbe period of Greek Enlightenment, depends ultimately only on whether the result (negative or positive), or the object-matter of the philosophising, is regarded as of decisive importance. That, however, Democritus must in any case be sepa rated from the " Pre-Socratics " and assigned to the great systematic period of Greek Philosophy, has been proved by the Author in his survey of the History of Ancient Philosophy, ch. V. , and the objections which the innovation has encountered have not sufficed to convince him of any mistake.
CHAPTER I.
THE COSMOLOGICAL PERIOD.
3. A. Byk, Die vorsokratische Philosophic der Griechen in ihrer organischen Qliederung. 2 Parts. Leips. 1876-77.
[J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy. Lond. 1892. ]
The immediate background for the beginnings of Greek philoso phy was formed by the cosmogonic poetry, which aimed to present in mythical garb the story of the prehistoric ages of the given world, and so, in the form of narratives of the origination of the universe, made use of prevailing ideas as to the constant mutations of things. The more freely individual views developed in this pro cess, the more the time factor in the myth retreated in favour of the emphasising of these abiding relations; and the question finally emerged: " What is then the original ground of things, which out lasts all temporal change, and how does it change itself into these particular things, or change these things back into itself ? "
The solution of this question was first attempted in the sixth century by the Milesian School of natural philosophy, of which Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes are known to us as tin- three chief representatives. / Information of many kinds, which hail long been publicly accumulating in the practical experience of the sea-faring Ionians, stood at their disposal, as well as many true observations, often of an acute sort. They kept in touch, also, no doubt, with the experience of the Oriental peoples, especially the Egyptians, with whom they stood in so close relation. 1 Knowledge from these various sources was brought together with youthful zeal. The chief interest fell upon physical questions, particularly upon
1 The influence of the Orient upon the beginnings of Greek philosophy has been overestimated by Glabisch (Die Religion und die Philosophie in ihrer M<rltg**c\iehtlichen Enticicklung, Breslau, 1852) and Roth (Gesrhfthte unsrrer abrudl-indischen Philosophie, 2 Vols. , Mannheim, 1858 fl. ). In the case of information upon particular fields such influence is certainly to be recognised ;
-n the other hand, the scientific conceptions are throughout independent works ■A Greek thought.
27
28 The Philosophy of the Qreeka. [Part I.
the great elementary phenomena, to explain which many hypotheses were thought out. Besides this, interest turned chiefly to geo graphical and astronomical problems, such as the form of the earth, its relation to the sidereal heavens, the nature of the sun, moon,
and planets, and the manner and cause of their motion. On the other hand, there are but feeble indications of a zeal for knowledge applied to the organic world and man.
Such were the objects of experience studied by the first " philosophy. " It stood quite far removed from medical science, which, to be sure, was limited to technical information and proficiency in the art, and was handed down as a secret doctrine, guarded in priest-like fashion in orders and schools, such as those of Rhodes, Cyrene, Crotona, Cos, and Cnidus. Ancient medicine, which aimed expressly to be an art and not a science (so Hippocrates), came into contact with philosophy when this was an all-embracing science, only at a late period and quite transiently. Cf. Haser, Lehrbuch der Gesehichte der Medicin, I. (2d ed. , Jena, 1876).
So also the beginnings of mathematics go along independently beside those of ancient philosophy. The propositions ascribed to the Milesians make the im pression of individual pieces of information picked up and put together, rather than of results of genuine research, and are quite out of relation with their doctrines in natural science and philosophy. In the circles of the Pythagoreans, also, mathematical studies were at first evidently pursued for their own sake, to be drawn all the more vigorously into the treatment of general problems. Cf. G. Cantor, Gesehichte der Mathematik, I. (Leips. 1880).
The efforts of the Milesians to determine the nature of the one world-ground had already in the case of Anaximander led beyond experience to the construction of a metaphysical conception to be used for explanation, viz. the anupov, and thereby drew science away from the investigation of facts to the consideration of conceptions. While Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic School, drew the con sequences which result for the religious consciousness from the philosophical conception of the unity of the world, Heraclitus, in hard struggle with ideas that were obscure and religiously coloured, analysed destructively the presupposition of an abiding substance, and allowed only a law of change to stand as ultimate content of knowledge. All the more sharply, on the other hand, did the Eleatic School, in its great representative, Parmenides, shape out the con ception of Being until it reached that regardless boldness of formu lation which, in the following generation of the School, was defended by Zeno, and softened down in some measure only by Melissus.
Very soon, however, a series of efforts appeared, which brought anew into the foreground the interest in explanatory natural science that had been thrust aside by this development of the first meta physical antitheses. In behalf of this interest more comprehensive efforts were made toward an enrichment of knowledge ; this time, more than in the case of previous observations, questions and hypotheses from the organic and physiological realms were kept in
Ce*t. 1. } Hie Cotmological Period. 29
sind; and the attempt was made to mediate with explanatory theories between the opposing conceptions of Heraclitus and Par- amides.
Oat of* these needs arose, about the middle of the fifth century, ude by side, and with many reciprocal relations, positive and polem ical, the theories of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus, founder of the Atomistic School of Abdera. The number of these theories and their well-known dependence upon one another prove that in iph> of the distance- by which individual men and schools found taemselves separated, there was already a great vigour in exchange of thought and in literary activity. The picture of this life takes oo a much fuller form as we reflect that tradition, in sifting its material, has obviously preserved only the memory of what was nost important, and that each of the names remaining known to u indicates, in truth, an entire circle of scientific activity.
The Pythagoreans, during this same period, occupied a peculiar position at one side. They also took up the metaphysical problem oven by the opposition between Heraclitus and the Eleatics, but hoped to find its solution by the aid of mathematics, and, by their Omtry of numbers, as whose first literary representative Philolaus is K. io-rn, added a number of most important factors to the further ■aorenient of thought. The original purpose or tendency of their l*a*rue made itself felt in their doctrines, in that, in fixing these, they conceded a considerable influence to considerations of (ethical or esthetic) worth. They indeed attempted a scientific treatment •A ethical questions as little as did the entire philosophy of this priori, but the cosmology which they based upon their astronomical ideas, already widely developed with the help of mathematics, is
yet at the same time permeated by aesthetic and ethical motives.
Of the y*n^rf»n School only three names — Thales, Anaximaruler, and An* iitau iim — hare been handed down to us. From this it appears that the school tm'T-slml in what was then the Ionic capital during the entire sixth century, aa4 prnahed with the city itself, which was laid waste by the Persians in 494, «fi*r the battle of Lade.
Tnsl— sprung from an old merchant family, is said to have predicted the wiar eclipse in 585, and survived the invasion of the Persians in the middle of '■*• *wa oratory. He had perhaps seen Egypt, and was not deficient in mathe*
and physical knowledge. So early an author as Aristotle did not know from him.
tor seems to have been little younger. Of his treatise rtpl (piatus • -ijvjus fragment only is preserved. Cf. Neuhauser (Bonn, 1883). — Biisgen,
r-Vr 4as sr«#*r des A. (Wiesbaden, 1867).
H » difficult to determine the period of Anaximenes. It falls probably about
O M». Almost nothing of his work rtpl <t>vctut remains.
l»i>- from that given by Aristotle (in the beginning of the Metaphysics) we
•^ *xor BMagre information concerning the theories of the Milesians chiefly to •-»* Commentary of Simplicius. Cf. II. Ritter, Oeschichtt der jonitchen Philos- *»•. * Berlin. 1821) ; R. Seydel, Der Fnrtschritt der Metaphysik unter den altet-
PMlosopken (Leips. 1801).
30 The Greeks: Cosmological Period. [Part I.
At the head of the Eleatic School, Xenophanes, who at all events was concerned in its establishment, is generally placed. Born about 570 in Colophon, he fled in 646, in consequence of the Persian conquest of Ionia, and gained a living as wandering poet. At last, in Elea, founded by the Ionians who fled into Magna Graecia, he found a permanent dwelling. He died after 480. . The frag ments of his partly gnomic, partly philosophical, sayings have been collected by
Karsten (Amsterdam, 1835). Concerning him see Fr. Kern (Naumburg, 1864,
Oldenburg, 1867, Danzig, 1871, Stettin, 1874 and 1877) and J. Freudenthal (Bres-
lau, 1886).
Parmenidea, an Eleatic of renowned family, who was not a stranger to the
Pythagorean society, wrote about 470. / The fragments of his didactic poem have been collected by Peyron (Leips. 1810) and H. Stein (Leips. 1864). [Met. tr. in Jour. Spec. Phil, IV. ] The lost treatise of Zeno (about 490-430) was probably the first which was separated into chapters and arranged dialectically. He, too, came from Elea.
Melisaos, on the contrary, was the Samian general who conquered the Athe nians in 442. Concerning his personal connection with the Eleatic school nothing i» Known. A. Pabst, De M. Fragment is (Bonn, 1889).
The unimportant fragments of the Eleatics are in a measure supplemented by the accounts of Aristotle, Simplicity, and others. The pseudo-Aristotelian work, De Xenephone, Zenone, Gorgia (Arist. , Berl. ed. , 974 ff. ), which must be used with great discretion, gives an account in the first chapter probably of Melissos ; in the second, from confusedly intermingling sources, of Zeno ; in the third, of Gorgias.
Heraclitus of Ephesus ("the Obscure"), about 636-470, disgusted with the ever-growing power of the democracy, gave up the high position which was his by birth, and in the moody leisure of the last decade of his life, wrote a treatise which was pronounced difficult of comprehension even by the ancients, while the fragments of it which we possess are often very ambiguous. Collected and edited by P. Schuster (Leips. 1873) and J. Bywater (Oxford, 1877). Cf. Fr. Schleiermacher (Ges. W-, III. Abth. , Bd. 2, pp. 1-146); J. Bernays (Get. Abhand- lungen, Bd. I. , 1885); F. Lasalle (2 Bde. , Berlin, 1868); E. Pfleiderer (Berlin, 188B). [G. T. W. Patrick, Heraclitus in Am. Jour. Pay. , I. , 1888, contains trans, of the Fr. ]
The first Dorian in the history of philosophy is Empedocles of Agrigentum, about 490-430, a priestly and prophetic personality, much regarded in his char acter as statesman, physician, and worker of miracles. He had, too, relations with the Sicilian school of orators, of which the names of Koraz and Tisias are familiar ; and besides his KaSappol (Songs of Purification) has left a didactic poem, the fragments of which have been published by Sturz (Leips. 1806). Karsten (Amsterdam, 1838), and Stein (Bonn, 1852).
Anaxagoras of Klazomene (500 till after 430) settled, toward the middle of the fifth century, in Athens, where he made friends with Pericles. In 434 he was accused of impiety and obliged to leave the city, and founded a school in Lampsacus. Schaubach (Leips. 1827) and Schorn (Bonn, 1829) have col lected the fragments of his treatise, rtpl (f>i<rim. Cf. Breier (Berlin, 1840), Zevort (Paris, 1843).
So little is known of the personality of Leucippus. that even in ancient times his very existence was doubted. The great development of the atomistic theory by Democritus (see ch. 3) had completely overshadowed its founder. But traces of Atomism are to be recognised with certainty in the entire structure of thought after Parmenides. Leucippus, if not born in Abdera, yet active there as head of the school out of which Protagoras and Democritus went later, must have been contemporary with Empedocles and Anaxagoras, even though somewhat older. Whether he wrote anything is uncertain. Cf. Diels, Verh. der Stett. Philol. Vers. (1886). —A Brieger, Die Urbeieegung der Atome (Halle, 1884); H. Liepmann, Die Mechanik der leucipp-demokritischen Atome (Leips.
1885).
The Pythagorean Society first appeared in the cities of Magna Gnecia at
a religious-political association toward the end of the sixth century. Its founder was Pythagoras, of Sainos, who, born about 580, after long journeys, which probably led him toward Egypt also, made the aristocratic city of Crotona the starting-point of a reform movement which had for its aim a moral and religion!
Chap. 1, 5 4. ] Conceptions of Being. 31
purification. We are first apprised of the internal relations of the society through subsequent narratives ( Jamblichus, De Vita Pythagorica, and Porphy rius, De Vita Pythagora; published by Kiesling (Leips. 1815-16), whose trustworthiness is doubtful. It seems, however, to be certain that already the old society imposed definite duties upon its members, even for private life, and introduced the prac tice of working in common at intellectual pursuits, especially at music and mathematics. In consequence of its political position (in regard to which B. Krische, Gottingen, 1830) the external conditions of the society assumed at first a very favourable form, inasmuch as, after the plunder of the democratic Sybaris, 609, Crotona won a kind of hegemonic influence in Magna Grscia. In time, however, the Pythagoreans became the losers in the bitter party
strugKles of the cities, and often suffered bitter persecution, by which the society was finally destroyed in the fourth century.
To Pythagoras himself, who died about 500, we can trace back no philosoph ical writings, although the subsequent myth-making process sought so strenu ously to make him the idol of all Hellenic wisdom. (E. Zeller in Vortr. u. Ahkandl. , I. , Leips. 1866. ) Plato and Aristotle knew only of a philosophy of the Pythagoreans. Phllolaus, who seems to have been somewhat younger than Kmpedocles and Anaxagoras, appears as the most prominent representative of this philosophy. Almost nothing is known of the circumstances of his life, and the fragments of his treatise (ed. by Boeckh, Berlin, 1810 ; cf. C. Schaar- schmidt, Bonn, 1864) lie under considerable
suspicion.
Of the remaining adherents of the society, only the names are known. The
latest representatives came into so close relations with the Platonic Academy that, as regards their philosophy, they may almost be said to have belonged to it. Among them Archytas of Tarentum, the vryll -known savant and statesman, should be mentioned. Concerning the very doubtful fragments attributed to him, cf. G. Hartenstein (Leips. 1833), Fr. Petersen (Zeitschr. f. Alterthumsk ; 1838), O. Gruppe (Berlin, 1840), Fr. Beckman (Berlin, 1844).
The reports concerning the teaching of the Pythagoreans, especially in the later accounts, are clouded by so many additions from foreign sources, that perhaps at no point in ancient philosophy is it so difficult to determine the actual facts in the case as here, even if we sift out the most trustworthy, namely Aristotle and his best taught commentators, notably Simplicius, many dark points and contradictory statements remain, particularly in details. The reason for this lies probably in the fact that in the school, which for a time was widely extended, various trends of thought ran side by side, and that among these the general fun damental thought first brought forward perhaps by Philolaus, was worked out in different ways. It would be of great service to attempt such a separation.
H. Bitter, Oeschichte der pythagoreischen Philosophic (Hamburg, 1826) ; Rolhenbicher, Das System der Pythagoreer nach Aristoteles (Berlin, 1867) ; E. Cbaignet, Pythagore et la philosophie pythagoricienne (2 vols. , Paris, 1873).
§ 4. The Conceptions of Being.
The fact that things of experience change into one another was the stimulus to the first philosophical reflections, and wonder1 at this must indeed have arisen early among a people so mobile and with so varied an experience of Nature as the Ionians. To this fact, which furnished the fundamental motive of its reflection, the Ionic philosophy gave liveliest expression in Heraclitus, who seems to have been unwearied * in seeking the most pointed formulations for this universal mutability of all things, and especially for the sudden changes of opposites into each other. But while myth gave
» Ct upon the philosophical value of the tfau^dfeir, Arist. Met. I. 2, 982 b 12. * Fragm. (Schust. ) 41-44, 60, 63, 67.
32 The Greek* : Uosmological Period. [Part I.
to this view the garb of a fabled account of the formation of the world, science asked for the abiding ground of all these changes, and fixed this question in the conception of the cosmic matter, or "world-stuff" ( Weltstoff), which experiences all these transforma tions, from which all individual things arise, and into which they become again transformed (apxi)- 1° tn^s conception1 was tacitly contained the presupposition of the unity of the world; whether the Milesians * already sought to justify this we do not know. It was a later eclectic straggler * who first attempted to justify this Monism by the transformation of all things into one another, and by the inter-connection of all things without exception. ,
1. That, however, a single cosmic matter, or world-stuff, lies at the basis of the entire process of nature, appears in ancient tradi tion as a self-evident presupposition of the Ionic School. The only question was to determine what this elementary matter was. The nearest course was then to seek for it in what was given in experi ence, and so Thales declared it to be water; Anaximenes, air. To this choice they were probably determined only by the mobility, changeability, and apparent inner vitality * of water and air. It is evident, too, that the Milesians thought little in this connection of the chemical peculiarities of water and air, but only of the states of aggregation ' concerned. While the solid appears in itself dead, moved only from without, the liquid and volatile make the impres sion of independent mobility and vitality ; and the monistic prepos session of this first philosophising was so great that the Milesians never once thought of asking for a reason or ground of this cease less change of the cosmic matter, but instead assumed this as a self- intelligible fact — a matter/of course — as they did all change or occurrence; at most they /{escribed its individual forms. The cos
mic matter passed with—f! hem for something in itself living : they thought of it as animated, just as are particular organisms,* and for this reason their doctrine is usually characterised from the stand point of the later separation in conceptions as Hylozoism.
1 Which Aristotle in the Met. I. 3, 083 b 8, has defined, not without the admixture of his own categories.
* The expression ipx'hy which, moreover, bears in itself the memory of the chronological fancies of the Cosmologists, is said by Simplicius to have been used first by Anaximander.
8 Diogenes of Apollonia. Cf. Simpl. Pkyt. (D. ) 32r 151, 30, and Arist. Uen «f Corr. I. 6, 322 b 13.
♦ Schol.
a— sf Rtlxginn (2 vols. , Lond. and N. Y. 1893). ]
The division of the history of philosophy is usually connected with that current for political history, so as to distinguish three great periods, — Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Philosophy. Yet the •eroons made in this way are not so favourable for the history of philosophy as they perhaps are for political history. Other points of division must be made, equally important as regards the nature of the development ; and, on the other hand, the transition between the Middle Ages and modern times demands a shifting of the point of division on either side.
In consequence of this, the entire history of philosophy will here he treated according to the following plan of division, in a manner t£ be more exactly illustrated and justified in detail by the exposi- t>. o itself : —
(1) The Philosophy of the Greeks: from the beginnings of amtifie thought to the death of Aristotle, — from about 600 to •122 B. r.
(2) Hellenistic- Roman Philosophy: from the death of Aristotle v, ta* passing away of Neo-Platonism, — from 322 b. c. to about 580 *_d-
Mediaeval Philosophy: from Augustine to Nicolaus Cusanus, — from the fifth to the fifteenth century.
14 1 The Philosophy of the Renaissance : from the fifteenth to the •**ent»r«? uth century.
(Z)
22 Introduction.
(5) The Philosophy of the Enlightenment: from Locke to the death of Leasing, — 1689-1781.
The German Philosophy : from Kant to Hegel and Herbart, — 1781-1820.
The Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century.
(6) (7)
PART I.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS.
Chr. A. Brandis, Handbuch der Geschichte der griechisch-romischen Philosophic. 3 pts. in 6 vols. Berlin, 1835-66.
Same author, Geschichte der Entutickelungen der griechischen Philotophie und ihrtr Xachtcirlcungen im romischen Reiche. 2 pts. Berlin, 1862-66.
H Zeller, Die Philosophie der Oriechen. 3 pts. in 6 Tola. 1st vol. in 6th, 2 vol. in 4th, 3-5 vols, in 3d ed. Leipg. 1879-93. [Trans. , with the excep tion of the portion on the concluding religious period, as six works: Pre- Svrratic Philosophy (2 vols. ), Socrates and the Socratic School*, Plato and the Older Academy, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics (2 vols. ), Stoics. Epicureans, and Sceptics, History of Eclecticism, chiefly by S. F. Alleyne and <>. J. Reichel. Lond. and N. Y. , Longmans. ]
A. Schwegler, Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie. Ed. by K. Kostlin. 3d td. Freiburg. 1882.
L. Strumpell, Die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophic 2 pts. Leips. 1854-61.
w\ Windelband, Geschichte der alien Philosophie. 2d ed. Munich, 1894. [History of Ancient Philosophy, trans, by II. E. Cushman, N. Y. , 1899. J
Riturr et Hreller, HUtoria philosophic graco-romanat (Graieoz). In 8th ed. Edited by Wellnian. Gotha, 1898. An excellent collection of the most important sources.
[A. W. Benn, The Greek Philosophers. 2 vols. Lond. , 1883. The Philoso
phy of Greece. Lond. 1898. ]
Th. Gomperz, Griechische Denker. Vienna, 1897. [Trans, by L. Magnus.
Greek Thinkers. Lond. and N. Y. , 1900. ]
Ir by science we understand that independent and self-conscious work of intelligence which seeks knowledge methodically for its own sake, then it is among the Greeks, and the Greeks of the sixth i^ntury B. C. , that we first find such a science, — aside from some tendencies among the peoples of the Orient, those of China and India1 particularly, only recently disclosed. The great civilised
1 Even if it be conceded that the beginnings of moral philosophy among the Chinese rise above moralising, and especially those of logic in India above inci- deatal reflections on the scientific formation of conceptions, — on which we shall not here pronounce, — these remain so remote from the course of European Moaophy. which forms a complete unity in itself, that a text-book has no jctasloo to enter upon them. The literature is brought together in Ueber-
•»L|6.
23
24 The Philosophy of the Greeks.
peoples of earlier antiquity were not, indeed, wanting either in an abundance of information on single subjects, or in general views of the universe ; but as the former was gained in connection with prac tical needs, and the latter grew out of mythical fancy, so they remained under the control, partly of daily need, partly of religions poetry ; and, as was natural in consequence of the peculiar restraint of the Oriental mind, they lacked, for their fruitful and independent development, the initiative activity of individuals.
Among the Greeks, also, similar relations existed until, at the time- mentioned, the mighty upward movement of the national life unfet tered the mental powers of this most gifted of all peoples. For this result the democratic development of constitutions which in passion ate party struggle tended to bring out independence of individual opinions and judgments, and to develop the significance of person ality, proved even more favourable than the refinement and spiritual- isation of life which increasing wealth of trade brought with it. The more the luxuriant development of individualism loosened the old bonds of the common consciousness, of faith, and of morals, and threatened the youthful civilisation of Greece with the danger of anarchy, the more pressing did individual men, prominent by their position in life, their insight, and their character, find the duty of recovering in their own reflection the measure that was becoming lost. This ethical reflection found its representatives in the lyric and gnomic poets, especially, however, in the so-called seven wise men. 1 It could not fail to occur, also, that a similar movement, in which individual opinions asserted their independence, should trench upon the religious life already so varied, in which the opposition between the old mystery-cults and the aesthetic national
mythology stimu lated the formation of so many special types. 8 Already in the cos- mogonic poetry the poet had dared to portray the heaven of the
myths according to his own individual fancy ; the age of the seven sages began to read its ethical ideals into the gods of the Homeric poetry, and in the ethico-religious reformation attempted by Pythag oras,8 coming as it did in the outer form of a return to the old strict- ness of life, the new content which life had gained came all the more
clearly to view.
'The "seven sages," among whom Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon are usually named, while with regard to the rest tradition is not agreed, must not, with the exception of Thales, be regarded as representatives of science. Diog. Laert. I. 40 ; Plato, Protag. 343.
* Cf. E. Rohde (Psyche, 2d ed. , 1897) for the influence of religious ideas.
* Pherecydes of Syrus is to be regarded as the most important of these cos- mogonic poets ; he wrote in prose at the time of the first philosophies, but his mode of thought is still mythical throughout, not scientific. Fragments of hit writings collected by Sturz (Leips. 1834).
The Philosophy of the Greeks. 25
From such conditions of fermentation the science of the Greeks » which they gave the name philosophy was born. The independ
ent reflection of individuals, aided by the fluctuations of religious faaey, extended itself from the questions of practical life to the knowledge of Nature, and there first won that freedom from exter nal ends, that limitation of knowledge to itself, which constitutes the essence of science.
All these processes, however, took place principally in the outly ing parts of Greek civilisation, in the colonies, which were in advance of the so-called Mother-country in mental as in material develop- oent In Ionia, in Magna Graecia, in Thrace, stood the cradles of anence. It was only after Athens in the Persian wars had assumed together with the political hegemony the mental as well, which she wis to keep so much longer than the former, that Attic soil, conse nted to all the muses, attracted science also. Its advent was at the time of the Sophists; it found its completion in the doctrine ud school of Aristotle.
It was in connection with the disinterested consideration of Nature that reflection first rose to the scientific construction of
The result of this was that Greek science devoted all the freshness of youthful joy and knowledge primarily to the prob lems of Nature, and in this work stamped out fundamental concep tions, or Forms of thought, for apprehending the external world. In order to turn the look of philosophy inward and make human action the object of its study, there was first need, for one thing, of subse quent reflection upon what had, and what had not, been accomplished by this study of Nature, and, for another thing, of the imperious demands made by public life on science now so far matured as to be
a social factor. The effect of this change might for a time seem to he to check the pure zeal for research which had marked the begin- siazs. bat after positive results had been reached in the field of the knowledge of man's inner nature this same zeal developed all the more rigorously, and led to the construction of those great systems with which purely Greek philosophy reached its consummation.
The philosophy of the Greeks divides, therefore, into three periods : a nwmoiogieal, which extends from about 600 to about 450 b. c. ; an ftkrrjpologicaL, which fills out about the second half of the fifth wtsii a. c. (450-400) ; and a systematic, which contains the development of the three great systems of Greek science, those of Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle (400-322).
The philosophy of the Greek* forma the moat instructive part of the whole aory of philosophy from a theoretical point of view, not only because the 1 conceptions crested in it have become the permanent foundations
(•coemptions.
26 The Philosophy of the Greeks.
for all further development of thought, and promise to remain such, but also because in it the formal presuppositions contained in the postulates of the thinking Reason itself, attained sharp formulation as set over against the mate rial of knowledge, which, especially at the beginning, was still relatively small in amount. In this the Greek philosophy has its typical value and its didactic importance.
These advantages appear already in the transparency and simplicity of the entire development, which enable us to see the inquiring mind at first turned outward, then thrown back upon itself, and from this point of view returning to a deeper apprehension of reality as a whole.
There is, therefore, scarcely any controversy with regard to this course of the general development of Greek philosophy, though different expositions have located the divisions between the periods at different points. Whether Socrates is made to begin a new period, or is placed together with the Sophists in tbe period of Greek Enlightenment, depends ultimately only on whether the result (negative or positive), or the object-matter of the philosophising, is regarded as of decisive importance. That, however, Democritus must in any case be sepa rated from the " Pre-Socratics " and assigned to the great systematic period of Greek Philosophy, has been proved by the Author in his survey of the History of Ancient Philosophy, ch. V. , and the objections which the innovation has encountered have not sufficed to convince him of any mistake.
CHAPTER I.
THE COSMOLOGICAL PERIOD.
3. A. Byk, Die vorsokratische Philosophic der Griechen in ihrer organischen Qliederung. 2 Parts. Leips. 1876-77.
[J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy. Lond. 1892. ]
The immediate background for the beginnings of Greek philoso phy was formed by the cosmogonic poetry, which aimed to present in mythical garb the story of the prehistoric ages of the given world, and so, in the form of narratives of the origination of the universe, made use of prevailing ideas as to the constant mutations of things. The more freely individual views developed in this pro cess, the more the time factor in the myth retreated in favour of the emphasising of these abiding relations; and the question finally emerged: " What is then the original ground of things, which out lasts all temporal change, and how does it change itself into these particular things, or change these things back into itself ? "
The solution of this question was first attempted in the sixth century by the Milesian School of natural philosophy, of which Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes are known to us as tin- three chief representatives. / Information of many kinds, which hail long been publicly accumulating in the practical experience of the sea-faring Ionians, stood at their disposal, as well as many true observations, often of an acute sort. They kept in touch, also, no doubt, with the experience of the Oriental peoples, especially the Egyptians, with whom they stood in so close relation. 1 Knowledge from these various sources was brought together with youthful zeal. The chief interest fell upon physical questions, particularly upon
1 The influence of the Orient upon the beginnings of Greek philosophy has been overestimated by Glabisch (Die Religion und die Philosophie in ihrer M<rltg**c\iehtlichen Enticicklung, Breslau, 1852) and Roth (Gesrhfthte unsrrer abrudl-indischen Philosophie, 2 Vols. , Mannheim, 1858 fl. ). In the case of information upon particular fields such influence is certainly to be recognised ;
-n the other hand, the scientific conceptions are throughout independent works ■A Greek thought.
27
28 The Philosophy of the Qreeka. [Part I.
the great elementary phenomena, to explain which many hypotheses were thought out. Besides this, interest turned chiefly to geo graphical and astronomical problems, such as the form of the earth, its relation to the sidereal heavens, the nature of the sun, moon,
and planets, and the manner and cause of their motion. On the other hand, there are but feeble indications of a zeal for knowledge applied to the organic world and man.
Such were the objects of experience studied by the first " philosophy. " It stood quite far removed from medical science, which, to be sure, was limited to technical information and proficiency in the art, and was handed down as a secret doctrine, guarded in priest-like fashion in orders and schools, such as those of Rhodes, Cyrene, Crotona, Cos, and Cnidus. Ancient medicine, which aimed expressly to be an art and not a science (so Hippocrates), came into contact with philosophy when this was an all-embracing science, only at a late period and quite transiently. Cf. Haser, Lehrbuch der Gesehichte der Medicin, I. (2d ed. , Jena, 1876).
So also the beginnings of mathematics go along independently beside those of ancient philosophy. The propositions ascribed to the Milesians make the im pression of individual pieces of information picked up and put together, rather than of results of genuine research, and are quite out of relation with their doctrines in natural science and philosophy. In the circles of the Pythagoreans, also, mathematical studies were at first evidently pursued for their own sake, to be drawn all the more vigorously into the treatment of general problems. Cf. G. Cantor, Gesehichte der Mathematik, I. (Leips. 1880).
The efforts of the Milesians to determine the nature of the one world-ground had already in the case of Anaximander led beyond experience to the construction of a metaphysical conception to be used for explanation, viz. the anupov, and thereby drew science away from the investigation of facts to the consideration of conceptions. While Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic School, drew the con sequences which result for the religious consciousness from the philosophical conception of the unity of the world, Heraclitus, in hard struggle with ideas that were obscure and religiously coloured, analysed destructively the presupposition of an abiding substance, and allowed only a law of change to stand as ultimate content of knowledge. All the more sharply, on the other hand, did the Eleatic School, in its great representative, Parmenides, shape out the con ception of Being until it reached that regardless boldness of formu lation which, in the following generation of the School, was defended by Zeno, and softened down in some measure only by Melissus.
Very soon, however, a series of efforts appeared, which brought anew into the foreground the interest in explanatory natural science that had been thrust aside by this development of the first meta physical antitheses. In behalf of this interest more comprehensive efforts were made toward an enrichment of knowledge ; this time, more than in the case of previous observations, questions and hypotheses from the organic and physiological realms were kept in
Ce*t. 1. } Hie Cotmological Period. 29
sind; and the attempt was made to mediate with explanatory theories between the opposing conceptions of Heraclitus and Par- amides.
Oat of* these needs arose, about the middle of the fifth century, ude by side, and with many reciprocal relations, positive and polem ical, the theories of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus, founder of the Atomistic School of Abdera. The number of these theories and their well-known dependence upon one another prove that in iph> of the distance- by which individual men and schools found taemselves separated, there was already a great vigour in exchange of thought and in literary activity. The picture of this life takes oo a much fuller form as we reflect that tradition, in sifting its material, has obviously preserved only the memory of what was nost important, and that each of the names remaining known to u indicates, in truth, an entire circle of scientific activity.
The Pythagoreans, during this same period, occupied a peculiar position at one side. They also took up the metaphysical problem oven by the opposition between Heraclitus and the Eleatics, but hoped to find its solution by the aid of mathematics, and, by their Omtry of numbers, as whose first literary representative Philolaus is K. io-rn, added a number of most important factors to the further ■aorenient of thought. The original purpose or tendency of their l*a*rue made itself felt in their doctrines, in that, in fixing these, they conceded a considerable influence to considerations of (ethical or esthetic) worth. They indeed attempted a scientific treatment •A ethical questions as little as did the entire philosophy of this priori, but the cosmology which they based upon their astronomical ideas, already widely developed with the help of mathematics, is
yet at the same time permeated by aesthetic and ethical motives.
Of the y*n^rf»n School only three names — Thales, Anaximaruler, and An* iitau iim — hare been handed down to us. From this it appears that the school tm'T-slml in what was then the Ionic capital during the entire sixth century, aa4 prnahed with the city itself, which was laid waste by the Persians in 494, «fi*r the battle of Lade.
Tnsl— sprung from an old merchant family, is said to have predicted the wiar eclipse in 585, and survived the invasion of the Persians in the middle of '■*• *wa oratory. He had perhaps seen Egypt, and was not deficient in mathe*
and physical knowledge. So early an author as Aristotle did not know from him.
tor seems to have been little younger. Of his treatise rtpl (piatus • -ijvjus fragment only is preserved. Cf. Neuhauser (Bonn, 1883). — Biisgen,
r-Vr 4as sr«#*r des A. (Wiesbaden, 1867).
H » difficult to determine the period of Anaximenes. It falls probably about
O M». Almost nothing of his work rtpl <t>vctut remains.
l»i>- from that given by Aristotle (in the beginning of the Metaphysics) we
•^ *xor BMagre information concerning the theories of the Milesians chiefly to •-»* Commentary of Simplicius. Cf. II. Ritter, Oeschichtt der jonitchen Philos- *»•. * Berlin. 1821) ; R. Seydel, Der Fnrtschritt der Metaphysik unter den altet-
PMlosopken (Leips. 1801).
30 The Greeks: Cosmological Period. [Part I.
At the head of the Eleatic School, Xenophanes, who at all events was concerned in its establishment, is generally placed. Born about 570 in Colophon, he fled in 646, in consequence of the Persian conquest of Ionia, and gained a living as wandering poet. At last, in Elea, founded by the Ionians who fled into Magna Graecia, he found a permanent dwelling. He died after 480. . The frag ments of his partly gnomic, partly philosophical, sayings have been collected by
Karsten (Amsterdam, 1835). Concerning him see Fr. Kern (Naumburg, 1864,
Oldenburg, 1867, Danzig, 1871, Stettin, 1874 and 1877) and J. Freudenthal (Bres-
lau, 1886).
Parmenidea, an Eleatic of renowned family, who was not a stranger to the
Pythagorean society, wrote about 470. / The fragments of his didactic poem have been collected by Peyron (Leips. 1810) and H. Stein (Leips. 1864). [Met. tr. in Jour. Spec. Phil, IV. ] The lost treatise of Zeno (about 490-430) was probably the first which was separated into chapters and arranged dialectically. He, too, came from Elea.
Melisaos, on the contrary, was the Samian general who conquered the Athe nians in 442. Concerning his personal connection with the Eleatic school nothing i» Known. A. Pabst, De M. Fragment is (Bonn, 1889).
The unimportant fragments of the Eleatics are in a measure supplemented by the accounts of Aristotle, Simplicity, and others. The pseudo-Aristotelian work, De Xenephone, Zenone, Gorgia (Arist. , Berl. ed. , 974 ff. ), which must be used with great discretion, gives an account in the first chapter probably of Melissos ; in the second, from confusedly intermingling sources, of Zeno ; in the third, of Gorgias.
Heraclitus of Ephesus ("the Obscure"), about 636-470, disgusted with the ever-growing power of the democracy, gave up the high position which was his by birth, and in the moody leisure of the last decade of his life, wrote a treatise which was pronounced difficult of comprehension even by the ancients, while the fragments of it which we possess are often very ambiguous. Collected and edited by P. Schuster (Leips. 1873) and J. Bywater (Oxford, 1877). Cf. Fr. Schleiermacher (Ges. W-, III. Abth. , Bd. 2, pp. 1-146); J. Bernays (Get. Abhand- lungen, Bd. I. , 1885); F. Lasalle (2 Bde. , Berlin, 1868); E. Pfleiderer (Berlin, 188B). [G. T. W. Patrick, Heraclitus in Am. Jour. Pay. , I. , 1888, contains trans, of the Fr. ]
The first Dorian in the history of philosophy is Empedocles of Agrigentum, about 490-430, a priestly and prophetic personality, much regarded in his char acter as statesman, physician, and worker of miracles. He had, too, relations with the Sicilian school of orators, of which the names of Koraz and Tisias are familiar ; and besides his KaSappol (Songs of Purification) has left a didactic poem, the fragments of which have been published by Sturz (Leips. 1806). Karsten (Amsterdam, 1838), and Stein (Bonn, 1852).
Anaxagoras of Klazomene (500 till after 430) settled, toward the middle of the fifth century, in Athens, where he made friends with Pericles. In 434 he was accused of impiety and obliged to leave the city, and founded a school in Lampsacus. Schaubach (Leips. 1827) and Schorn (Bonn, 1829) have col lected the fragments of his treatise, rtpl (f>i<rim. Cf. Breier (Berlin, 1840), Zevort (Paris, 1843).
So little is known of the personality of Leucippus. that even in ancient times his very existence was doubted. The great development of the atomistic theory by Democritus (see ch. 3) had completely overshadowed its founder. But traces of Atomism are to be recognised with certainty in the entire structure of thought after Parmenides. Leucippus, if not born in Abdera, yet active there as head of the school out of which Protagoras and Democritus went later, must have been contemporary with Empedocles and Anaxagoras, even though somewhat older. Whether he wrote anything is uncertain. Cf. Diels, Verh. der Stett. Philol. Vers. (1886). —A Brieger, Die Urbeieegung der Atome (Halle, 1884); H. Liepmann, Die Mechanik der leucipp-demokritischen Atome (Leips.
1885).
The Pythagorean Society first appeared in the cities of Magna Gnecia at
a religious-political association toward the end of the sixth century. Its founder was Pythagoras, of Sainos, who, born about 580, after long journeys, which probably led him toward Egypt also, made the aristocratic city of Crotona the starting-point of a reform movement which had for its aim a moral and religion!
Chap. 1, 5 4. ] Conceptions of Being. 31
purification. We are first apprised of the internal relations of the society through subsequent narratives ( Jamblichus, De Vita Pythagorica, and Porphy rius, De Vita Pythagora; published by Kiesling (Leips. 1815-16), whose trustworthiness is doubtful. It seems, however, to be certain that already the old society imposed definite duties upon its members, even for private life, and introduced the prac tice of working in common at intellectual pursuits, especially at music and mathematics. In consequence of its political position (in regard to which B. Krische, Gottingen, 1830) the external conditions of the society assumed at first a very favourable form, inasmuch as, after the plunder of the democratic Sybaris, 609, Crotona won a kind of hegemonic influence in Magna Grscia. In time, however, the Pythagoreans became the losers in the bitter party
strugKles of the cities, and often suffered bitter persecution, by which the society was finally destroyed in the fourth century.
To Pythagoras himself, who died about 500, we can trace back no philosoph ical writings, although the subsequent myth-making process sought so strenu ously to make him the idol of all Hellenic wisdom. (E. Zeller in Vortr. u. Ahkandl. , I. , Leips. 1866. ) Plato and Aristotle knew only of a philosophy of the Pythagoreans. Phllolaus, who seems to have been somewhat younger than Kmpedocles and Anaxagoras, appears as the most prominent representative of this philosophy. Almost nothing is known of the circumstances of his life, and the fragments of his treatise (ed. by Boeckh, Berlin, 1810 ; cf. C. Schaar- schmidt, Bonn, 1864) lie under considerable
suspicion.
Of the remaining adherents of the society, only the names are known. The
latest representatives came into so close relations with the Platonic Academy that, as regards their philosophy, they may almost be said to have belonged to it. Among them Archytas of Tarentum, the vryll -known savant and statesman, should be mentioned. Concerning the very doubtful fragments attributed to him, cf. G. Hartenstein (Leips. 1833), Fr. Petersen (Zeitschr. f. Alterthumsk ; 1838), O. Gruppe (Berlin, 1840), Fr. Beckman (Berlin, 1844).
The reports concerning the teaching of the Pythagoreans, especially in the later accounts, are clouded by so many additions from foreign sources, that perhaps at no point in ancient philosophy is it so difficult to determine the actual facts in the case as here, even if we sift out the most trustworthy, namely Aristotle and his best taught commentators, notably Simplicius, many dark points and contradictory statements remain, particularly in details. The reason for this lies probably in the fact that in the school, which for a time was widely extended, various trends of thought ran side by side, and that among these the general fun damental thought first brought forward perhaps by Philolaus, was worked out in different ways. It would be of great service to attempt such a separation.
H. Bitter, Oeschichte der pythagoreischen Philosophic (Hamburg, 1826) ; Rolhenbicher, Das System der Pythagoreer nach Aristoteles (Berlin, 1867) ; E. Cbaignet, Pythagore et la philosophie pythagoricienne (2 vols. , Paris, 1873).
§ 4. The Conceptions of Being.
The fact that things of experience change into one another was the stimulus to the first philosophical reflections, and wonder1 at this must indeed have arisen early among a people so mobile and with so varied an experience of Nature as the Ionians. To this fact, which furnished the fundamental motive of its reflection, the Ionic philosophy gave liveliest expression in Heraclitus, who seems to have been unwearied * in seeking the most pointed formulations for this universal mutability of all things, and especially for the sudden changes of opposites into each other. But while myth gave
» Ct upon the philosophical value of the tfau^dfeir, Arist. Met. I. 2, 982 b 12. * Fragm. (Schust. ) 41-44, 60, 63, 67.
32 The Greek* : Uosmological Period. [Part I.
to this view the garb of a fabled account of the formation of the world, science asked for the abiding ground of all these changes, and fixed this question in the conception of the cosmic matter, or "world-stuff" ( Weltstoff), which experiences all these transforma tions, from which all individual things arise, and into which they become again transformed (apxi)- 1° tn^s conception1 was tacitly contained the presupposition of the unity of the world; whether the Milesians * already sought to justify this we do not know. It was a later eclectic straggler * who first attempted to justify this Monism by the transformation of all things into one another, and by the inter-connection of all things without exception. ,
1. That, however, a single cosmic matter, or world-stuff, lies at the basis of the entire process of nature, appears in ancient tradi tion as a self-evident presupposition of the Ionic School. The only question was to determine what this elementary matter was. The nearest course was then to seek for it in what was given in experi ence, and so Thales declared it to be water; Anaximenes, air. To this choice they were probably determined only by the mobility, changeability, and apparent inner vitality * of water and air. It is evident, too, that the Milesians thought little in this connection of the chemical peculiarities of water and air, but only of the states of aggregation ' concerned. While the solid appears in itself dead, moved only from without, the liquid and volatile make the impres sion of independent mobility and vitality ; and the monistic prepos session of this first philosophising was so great that the Milesians never once thought of asking for a reason or ground of this cease less change of the cosmic matter, but instead assumed this as a self- intelligible fact — a matter/of course — as they did all change or occurrence; at most they /{escribed its individual forms. The cos
mic matter passed with—f! hem for something in itself living : they thought of it as animated, just as are particular organisms,* and for this reason their doctrine is usually characterised from the stand point of the later separation in conceptions as Hylozoism.
1 Which Aristotle in the Met. I. 3, 083 b 8, has defined, not without the admixture of his own categories.
* The expression ipx'hy which, moreover, bears in itself the memory of the chronological fancies of the Cosmologists, is said by Simplicius to have been used first by Anaximander.
8 Diogenes of Apollonia. Cf. Simpl. Pkyt. (D. ) 32r 151, 30, and Arist. Uen «f Corr. I. 6, 322 b 13.
♦ Schol.
