It is not the purpose of this study to show that the Pre-Socratics
possessed a system of logic which is now for the first time brought to
the notice of the modern world. Indeed, there is nothing to indicate
that they had reflected on mental processes in such a way as to call for
an organized body of canons regulating the forms of concepts and
conclusions. Aristotle attributed the discovery of the art of dialectic
to Zeno the Eleatic, and we shall see in the sequel that there was much
to justify the opinion. But logic, in the technical sense, is
inconceivable without concepts, and from the days of Aristotle it has
been universally believed that proper definitions owe their origin to
Socrates. A few crude attempts at definition, if such they may be
rightly called, are referred to Empedocles and Democritus. But in so far
as they were conceived in the spirit of science, they essayed to define
things materially by giving, so to speak, the chemical formula for their
production. Significant as this very fact is, it shows that even the
rudiments of the canons of thought were not the subjects of reflection.
In his _Organon_ Aristotle makes it evident that the demand for a
regulative art of scientific discourse was created by the eristic
logic-chopping of those who were most deeply influenced by the Eleatic
philosophy. Indeed, the case is quite parallel to the rise of the art of
rhetoric. Aristotle regarded Empedocles as the originator of that art,
as he referred the beginnings of dialectic to Zeno. But the formulation
of both arts in well-rounded systems came much later. As men conducted
lawsuits before the days of Tisias and Corax, so also were the essential
principles of logic operative and effective in practice before Aristotle
gave them their abstract formulation.
While it is true, therefore, that the Pre-Socratics had no formal logic,
it is equally true, and far more significant, that they either received
from their predecessors or themselves developed the conceptions and the
presuppositions on which the Aristotelian logic is founded. One of the
objects of this study is to institute a search for some of these basic
conceptions of Greek thought, almost all of which existed before the
days of Socrates, and to consider their origin as well as their logical
significance. The other aim here kept in view is to trace the course of
thought in which the logical principles, latent in all attempts to
construct and verify theories, came into play.
It is impossible, no doubt, to discover a body of thought which does not
ground itself upon presuppositions. They are the warp into which the
woof of the system, itself too often consisting of frayed ends of other
fabrics, is woven with the delight of a supposed creator. Rarely is the
thinker so conscious of his own mental processes that he is aware of
what he takes for granted. Ordinarily this retirement to an interior
line takes place only when one has been driven back from the advanced
position which could no longer be maintained. Emerson has somewhere
said: "The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we
through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to
the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight
and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us and not the
history of theirs?" The difficulty lies precisely in our faith in
immediate insight and revelation, which are themselves only short-cuts
of induction, psychological short circuits, conducted by media we have
disregarded. Only a fundamentally critical philosophy pushes its doubt
to the limit of demanding the credentials of those conceptions which
have come to be regarded as axiomatic.
The need of going back of Aristotle in our quest for the truth is well
shown by his attitude toward the first principles of the several
sciences. To him they are immediately given--[Greek: amesoi
protaseis]--and hence are ultimate _a priori_. The historical
significance of this fact is already apparent. It means that in his day
these first principles, which sum up the outcome of previous inductive
movements of thought, were regarded as so conclusively established that
the steps by which they had been inferred were allowed to lapse from
memory.
No account of the history of thought can hope to satisfy the demands of
reason that does not _explain_ the origin of the convictions thus
embodied in principles. The only acceptable explanation would be in
terms of will and interest. To give such an account would, however,
require the knowledge of secular pursuits and ambitions no longer
obtainable. It might be fruitful of results if we could discover even
the theoretical interests of the age before Thales; but we know that in
modern times the direction of interest characteristic of the purely
practical pursuits manifests its reformative influences in speculation a
century or more after it has begun to shape the course of common life.
Hence we might misinterpret the historical data if they were obtainable.
But general considerations, which we need not now rehearse, as well as
indications contained in the later history of thought, hereinafter
sketched, point to the primacy of the practical as yielding the
direction of interest that determines the course it shall take.
It was said above that the principles of science are the result of an
inductive movement, and that the inductive movement is directed by an
interest. Hence the principles are contained in, or rather are the
express definition of, the interest that gave them birth. In other
words, there is implied in all induction a process of deduction. Every
stream of thought embraces not only the main current, but also an eddy,
which here and there re-enters it. And this is one way of explaining the
phenomenon which has long engaged the thought of philosophers, namely,
the fact of successful anticipations of the discoveries of science or,
more generally still, the possibility of synthetic judgments _a priori_.
The solution of the problem is ultimately contained in its
statement.[88]
To arrive at a stage of mentality not based on assumptions one would
have, no doubt, to go back to its beginnings. Greek thought, even in the
time of Thales, was well furnished with them. We cannot pause to
catalogue them, but it may further our project if we consider a few of
the more important. The precondition of thought as of life is that
nature be uniform, or ultimately that the world be rational. This is not
even, as it becomes later, a conscious demand; it is the primary ethical
postulate which expresses itself in the confidence that it is so. Viewed
from a certain angle it may be called the principle of sufficient
reason. Closely associated with it is the universal belief of the early
philosophers of Greece that everything that comes into being is bound up
inseparably with that which has been before; more precisely, that there
is no absolute, but only relative, Becoming. Corollaries of this axiom
soon appeared in the postulates of the conservation of matter or mass,
and the conservation of energy, or more properly for the ancients, of
motion. Logically these principles appear to signify that the subject,
while under definition, shall remain just what it is; and that, in the
system constituted of subject, predicate, and copula, the terms shall
"stay put" while the adjustment of verification is in progress. It is a
matter of course that the constants in the great problem should become
permanent landmarks.
Other corollaries derive from this same principle of uniformity. Seeing
that all that comes to be in some sense already is, there appears the
postulate of the unity of the world; and this unity manifests itself not
only in the integrity and homogeneity of the world-ground, but also in
the more ideal conception of a universal law to which all special modes
of procedure in nature are ancillary. In these we recognize the
insistent demand for the organization of predicate and copula. Side by
side with these formulæ stands the other, which requires an ordered
process of becoming and a graduated scale of existences, such as can
mediate between the extremes of polarity. Such series meet us on every
hand in early Greek thought. The process of rarefaction and condensation
in Anaximenes, the [Greek: hodos anô katô] of Heraclitus, the regular
succession of the four Empedoclean elements in almost all later
systems--these and other examples spontaneously occur to the mind. The
significance of this conception, as the representative of an effective
copula, will presently be seen. More subtle, perhaps, than any of these
principles, though not allowed to go so long unchallenged, is the
assumption of a [Greek: physis], that is, the assumption that all nature
is instinct with life. The logical interpretation of this postulate
would seem to be that the concrete system of things--subject, predicate,
copula--constitutes a totality complete in itself and needing no jog
from without.
In this survey of the preconceptions of the early Greek philosophers I
have employed the terms of the judgment without apology. The
justification for this course must come ultimately, as for any
assumption, from the success of its application to the facts. But if
"logic" merely formulates in a schematic way that which in life is the
manipulation of concrete experience, with a view to attaining practical
ends, then its forms must apply here as well as anywhere. Logical
terminology may therefore be assumed to be welcome to this field where
judgments are formed, induction is made from certain facts to defined
conceptions, and deductions are derived from principles or premises
assumed. Speaking then in these terms we may say that the Pre-Socratics
had three logical problems set for them: First, there was a demand for a
predicate, or, in other words, for a theory of the world. Secondly,
there was the need of ascertaining just what should be regarded as the
subject, or, otherwise stated, just what it was that required
explanation. Thirdly, there arose the necessity of discovering ways and
means by which the theory could be predicated of the world and by which,
in turn, the hypothesis erected could be made to account for the
concrete experience of life: in terms of logic this problem is that of
maintaining an efficient copula. It is not assumed that the sequence
thus stated was historically observed without crossing and overlapping;
but a survey of the history of the period will show that, in a general
way, the logical requirements asserted themselves in this order.
1. Greek philosophy began its career with induction. We have already
stated that the preconceptions with which it approached its task were
the result of previous inductions, and indeed the epic and theogonic
poetry of the Greeks abounds in thoughts indicative of the consciousness
of all of these problems. Thus Homer is familiar with the notion that
all things proceed from water,[89] and that, when the human body decays,
it resolves itself into earth and water.[90] Other opinions might be
enumerated, but they would add nothing to the purpose. When men began,
in the spirit of philosophy, to theorize about the world, they assumed
that it--the subject--was sufficiently known. Its existence was taken
for granted, and that which engaged their attention was the problem of
its meaning. What predicate--so we may formulate their question--should
be given to the subject? It is noticeable that their induction was quite
perfunctory. But such is always the case until there are rival theories
competing for acceptance, and even then the impulse to gather up
evidence derived from a wide field and assured by resort to experiment
comes rather with the desire to test a hypothesis than to form it. It is
the effort to _verify_ that brings out details and also the negative
instances. Hence we are not to blame Thales for rashness in making his
generalization that all is Water. We do not know what indications led to
this conclusion. Aristotle ventured a guess, but the motives assumed for
Thales agree too well with those which weighed with Hippo to admit of
ready acceptance.
Anaximander, feeling the need of deduction as a sequel to induction,
found his predicate in the Infinite. We cannot now delay to inquire just
what he meant by the term; but it is not unlikely that its very
vagueness recommended it to a man of genius who caught enthusiastically
at the skirts of knowledge. Anaximenes, having pushed verification
somewhat farther and eliciting some negative instances, rejected water
and the Infinite and inferred that all was air. His [Greek: archê] must
have the quality of infinity, but, a copula having been found in the
process of rarefaction and condensation, it must occupy a determinate
place in the series of typical forms of existence. The logical
significance of this thought will engage our attention later.
Meanwhile it may be well to note that thus far only _one_ predicate has
been offered by each philosopher. This is doubtless due to the
preconception of the unity and homogeneity of the world, of which we
have already made mention. Although at the beginning its significance
was little realized, the conception was destined to play a prominent
part in Greek thought. It may be regarded from different points of view
not necessarily antagonistic. One may say, as indeed has oftentimes been
said, that it was due to ignorance. Men did not know the complexity of
the world, and hence declared its substance to be simple. Again, it may
be affirmed that the assumption was merely the naïve reflex of the
ethical postulate that we shall unify our experience and organize it for
the realization of our ideals. While increased knowledge has multiplied
the so-called chemical elements, physics knows nothing of their
differences, and chemistry itself demands their reduction.
The extension and enlarged scope of homogeneity came in two ways: First,
it presented itself by way of abstraction from the particular predicates
that may be given to things. This was due to the operation of the
fundamental assumption that the world must be intelligible. Thus, even
in Anaximander, the world-ground takes no account of the diversity of
things except in the negative way of providing that the contrariety of
experience shall arise from it. We are therefore referred for our
predicate to a somewhat behind concrete experience. The Pythagoreans fix
upon a single aspect of things as the essential, and find the meaning of
the world in mathematical relations. The Eleatics press the conception
of homogeneity until it is reduced to identity. Identity means the
absence of difference; hence, spatially considered, it requires the
negation of a void and the indivisibility of the world; viewed
temporally, it precludes the succession of different states and hence
the possibility of change.
We thus reach the acute stage of the problem of the One and the Many.
The One is here the predicate, the subject is the Many. The solution of
the difficulty is the task of the copula, and we shall recur to the
theme in due time. It may be well, however, at this point to draw
attention to the fact that the One is not always identical with the
predicate, nor the Many with the subject. In the rhythmic movement of
erecting and verifying hypotheses the interest shifts and what was but
now the predicate, by taking the place of the premises, comes to be
regarded as the given from which the particular is to be derived or
deduced. There is thus likewise a shift in the positions of existence
and meaning. The subject, or the world, was first assumed as the given
means with which to construct the predicate, its meaning; once the
hypothesis has been erected, the direction of interest shifts back to
the beginning, and in the process of verification or deduction the
quondam predicate, now the premises, becomes the given, and the task set
for thought is the derivation of fact. For the moment, or until the
return to the world is accomplished, the One is the only real, the
Manifold remains mere appearance.
The second form in which the sense of the homogeneity of the world
embodies itself is not, like the first, static, but is altogether
dynamic. That which makes the whole world kin is neither the presence
nor the absence of a quality, but a principle. The law thus revealed is,
therefore, not a matter of the predicate, but is the copula itself.
Hence we must defer a fuller consideration of it for the present.
2. As has already been said, the inductive movement implies the
deductive, and not only as something preceding or accompanying it, but
as its inner meaning and ultimate purpose. So too it was with the
earliest Greek thinkers. Their object in setting up a predicate was the
derivation of the subject from it. In other words their ambition was to
discover the [Greek: archê] from which the genesis of the world
proceeds. But deduction is really a much more serious task than would
at first appear to one who is familiar with the Aristotelian machinery
of premises and middle terms. The business of deduction is to reveal the
subject, and ordinarily the subject quite vanishes from view. Induction
is rapid, but deduction lags far behind. It may require but a momentary
flash of "insight" on the part of the physical philosopher to discover a
principle; if it is really significant, inventors will be engaged for
centuries in deducing from it applications to the needs of life by means
of contrivances. Thus after ages we come to know more of the subject,
which is thereby enriched. The contrivances are the representatives of
the copula in practical affairs; in quasi-theoretical spheres they are
the apparatus for experimentation. It has just been remarked that by the
application of the principles to life it is enriched; in other words, it
receives new meaning, and new meaning signifies a new predicate. Theory
is at times painfully aware of the multitude of new predicates proposed;
rarely does it realize that there has been created a new heaven and a
new earth. Without the latter, the former would be absurd.
Men take very much for granted and regard almost every achievement as a
matter of course. Hence they do not become aware of their changed
position except as it reflects itself in new schemes and in a larger
outlook. The subject receives only a summary glance to discover what new
predicate shall be evolved. Hence, while there is in Greek philosophy a
strongly marked deductive movement, the theoretical results to the
subject are insignificant. Thales seems, indeed, to have had no means to
offer for the derivation of the world, but he evidently had no doubt
that it was possible. With him and with others the assumption, however
vaguely understood, seems to have been that the subject, like the
predicate, was simple. Thus the essential unity of the world, considered
as existence no less than as meaning, is a foregone conclusion. The
sense of a division in the subject seems to arise with Empedocles when,
reaping the harvest of the Eleatic definition of substance, he parted
the world, as subject and as predicate, into four elements.
We may, perhaps, pause a moment to consider the significance of the
assumption of four elements which plays so large a part in subsequent
philosophies. There is no need of enlarging on the importance of the
association of multiple elements with the postulate that nothing is
absolutely created and nothing absolutely passes away. These are indeed
the pillars that support chemical science, and they further imply the
existence of qualities of different rank; but that implication, as we
shall see, lay even in the process of rarefaction and condensation
introduced by Anaximenes. The four elements concern us here chiefly as
testifying to the fact that certain practical interests had summed up
the essential characteristics of nature in forms sufficiently
significant to have maintained themselves even to our day. In regard to
fire, air, and water this is not greatly to be wondered at; it is a
somewhat different case with earth. If metallurgy and other pursuits
which deal with that which is roughly classed as earth had been highly
enough developed to have reacted upon the popular mind, this element
could not possibly have been assumed to be so homogeneous. The
conception clearly reflects the predominantly agricultural interest of
the Greeks in their relation to the earth. This further illustrates the
slow progress which deduction makes in the reconstitution of the
subject.
It is different, however, with Anaxagoras and the Atomists. Apparently
the movement begun by Empedocles soon ran its extreme course. Instead of
four elements there is now an infinite number of substances, each
differentiated from the other. The meaning of this wide swing of the
pendulum is not altogether clear; but it is evident from the system of
Anaxagoras that the metals, for example, possessed a significance which
they can not have had for Empedocles.
The opposite swing of the pendulum is seen in the later course of the
Eleatics. Given a predicate as fixed and unified as they assumed, the
subject cannot possibly be conceived in terms of it and hence it is
denied outright. In the dialectic of Zeno and Melissus, dealing with the
problems of the One and the Many, there is much that suggests the
solution offered by the Atomists; but it is probably impossible now to
ascertain whether these passages criticise a doctrine already propounded
or pointed the way for successors. While the Eleatics asserted the sole
reality of the One, Anaxagoras and the Atomists postulated a
multiplicity without essential unity. But the human mind seems to be
incapable of resting in that decision; it demands that the world shall
have not meanings, but a meaning. This demand calls not only for a
unified predicate, but also for an effective copula.
3. We have already remarked that the steps by which the predicate was
inferred are for the most part unknown. Certain suggestions are
contained in the reports of Aristotle, but it is safe to say that they
are generally guesses well or ill founded. The summary inductive
mediation has left few traces; and the process of verification, in the
course of which hypotheses were rejected and modified, can be followed
only here and there in the records. Almost our only source of
information is the dialectic of systems. Fortunately for our present
purpose we do not need to know the precise form which a question assumed
to the minds of the several philosophers; the efforts which they made to
meet the imperious demands of logic here speak for themselves.
At first there was no scheme for the mediation of the predicate back to
the subject. Indeed there seems not to have existed in the mind of
Thales a sense of its need. Anaximander raised the question, but the
process of segregation or separation ([Greek: ekkrinesthai]) which he
propounded was so vaguely conceived that it has created more problems
than it solved. Anaximenes first proposed a scheme that has borne
fruits. He said that things are produced from air by rarefaction and
condensation. This process offers not only a principle of difference,
but also a regulative conception, the evaluation of which engaged the
thought of almost all the later Pre-Socratics. It implies that extension
and mass constitute the essential characters of substance, and, fully
apprehended, contains in germ the whole materialistic philosophy from
Parmenides at one extreme to Democritus and Anaxagoras at the other. The
difficulties inherent in the view were unknown to Anaximenes; for,
having a unitary predicate, he assumed also a homogeneous subject.
The logical position of Heraclitus is similar to that of Anaximenes. He
likewise posits a simple predicate and further signalizes its functional
character by naming it Fire. Without venturing upon debatable ground we
may say that it was the restless activity of the element that caused him
to single it out as best expressing the meaning of things. Its rhythmic
libration typified to him the principle of change in existence and of
existence in change. It is the "ever-living" copula, devouring subject
and predicate alike and re-creating them functionally as co-ordinate
expressions of itself. That which alone _is_, the abiding, is not the
physical composition of a thing, but the law of reciprocity by which it
maintains a balance. This he calls variously by the names of Harmony,
Logos, Necessity, Justice. In this system of functional co-ordinates
nothing escapes the accounting on 'Change;[91] all things are in
continuous flux, only the nodes of the rhythm remaining constant. It is
not surprising therefore that Heraclitus has been the subject of so much
speculation and comment in modern times; for the functional character of
all distinctions in his system marks the affinity of his doctrines for
those of modern psychology and logic.[92]
The Pythagoreans, having by abstraction obtained a predicate,
acknowledged the existence of the subject, but did not feel the need of
a copula in the theoretical sphere, except as it concerned the inner
relation of the predicate. To them the world was number, but number
itself was pluralistic, or let us rather say dualistic. The odd and the
even, the generic constituents of number, had somehow to be brought
together. The bond was found in Unity, or, again, in Harmony. When they
inquired how numbers constituted the world, their answer was in general
only a nugatory exercise of an unbridled fancy.[93] Such and such a
number was Justice, such another, Man. It was only in the wholly
practical sphere of experiment that they reached a conclusion worth
recording. Its significance they themselves did not perceive. Here, by
the application of mathematical measurements to sounds, they discovered
how to produce tones of a given pitch, and thus successfully
demonstrated the efficiency of their copula.
The Eleatics followed the same general course of abstraction; but with
them the sense of the unity of the world effaced its rich diversity.
Xenophanes does not appear to have pressed the conception so far as to
deny all change within the world. Parmenides, however, bated no jot of
the legitimate consequences of his logical position, interpreting, as he
did, the predicate, originally conceived as meaning, in terms of
existence. That which is simply _is_. Thus there is left only a one-time
predicate, now converted into a subject of which only itself, as a brute
fact, can be predicated. Stated logically, Parmenides is capable only of
uttering identical propositions: A=A. The fallacious character of the
report of the senses and the impossibility of Becoming followed as a
matter of course. Where the logical copula is a mere sign of equation
there can be neither induction nor deduction. We are caught in a
theoretical _cul-de-sac_.
We are not now concerned to know in what light the demand for a treatise
on the world of Opinion may have appeared to Parmenides himself. The
avenues by which men reach conclusions which are capable of
simplification and syllogistic statement are too various to admit of
plausible conjecture in the absence of specific evidence. But it is
clear that his resort to the expedient reflected a consciousness of the
state of deadlock. In that part of his philosophical poem he dealt with
many questions of detail in a rather more practical spirit. Following
the lead of Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans he was more successful here
than in the field of metaphysics. Thus we see once more that the wounds
of theory are healed by practice. But, as usual, even though the
metaphysician does receive the answer to his doubts by falling into a
severely practical pit and extricating himself by steps which he
fashions with his hands, his mental habit is not thereby reconstructed.
The fixed predicate of the Eleatics was bequeathed to the
Platonic-Aristotelian formal logic, and induction and deduction remained
for centuries in theory a race between the hedgehog and the hare.[94]
The true significance of the destructive criticism brought to bear by
Zeno and Melissus on the concepts of unity, plurality, continuity,
extension, time, and motion is simply this: that when by a shift of the
attention a predicate becomes subject or meaning fossilizes as
existence, the terms of the logical process lose their functional
reference and grow to be unmeaning and self-contradictory.
We have already remarked that Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists
sought to solve the problem of the One and the Many, of the subject and
the predicate, by shattering the unitary predicate and thus leaving the
field to plurality in both spheres. But obviously they were merely
postponing the real question. Thought, as well as action, demands a
unity somewhere. Hence the absorbing task of these philosophers is to
disclose or contrive such a bond of unity. The form which their quest
assumed was the search for a basis for physical interaction.[95]
Empedocles clearly believed that he was solving the difficulty in one
form when he instituted the rhythmic libration between unity under the
sway of Love and multiplicity under the domination of Hate. But even he
was not satisfied with that. While Love brought all the elements
together into a sphere and thus produced a unity, it was a unity
constituted of a mixture of elements possessing inalienable characters
not only different but actually antagonistic. On the other hand, Hate
did indeed separate the confused particles, but it effected a sort of
unity in that, by segregating the particles of the several elements from
the others, it brought like and like together. In so far Aristotle was
clearly right in attributing to Love the power to separate as well as to
unite. Moreover, it would seem that there never was a moment in which
both agencies were not conceived to be operative, to however small an
extent.
Empedocles asserted, however, that a world could arise only in the
intervals between the extremes of victory in the contest between Love
and Hate, when, so to speak, the battle was drawn and there was a
general _mêlée_ of the combatants. It may be questioned, perhaps,
whether he distinctly stated that in our world everything possessed its
portion of each of the elements; but so indispensable did he consider
this _mixture_ that its function of providing a physical unity is
unmistakable. A further evidence of his insistent demand for unity--the
copula--is found in his doctrine that only like can act on like; and the
scheme of pores and effluvia which he contrived bears eloquent testimony
to the earnest consideration he gave to this matter. For he conceived
that all interaction took place by means of them.
Empedocles, then, may be said to have annulled the decree of divorce he
had issued for the elements at the beginning. But the solution here too
is found, not in the theoretical, but in the practical, sphere; for he
never retracts his assertion that the elements are distinct and
antagonistic. But even so his problem is defined rather than solved; for
after the elements have been brought within microscopic distance of each
other in the mixture, since like can act only on like, the narrow space
that separates them is still an impassable gulf.[96]
Anaxagoras endowed his infinitely numerous substances with the same
characters of fixity and contrariety that mark the four elements of
Empedocles. For him, therefore, the difficulty of securing unity and
co-operation in an effective copula is, if that be possible, further
aggravated. His grasp of the problem, if we may judge from the
relatively small body of documentary evidence, was not so sure as that
of Empedocles, though he employed in general the same means for its
solution. He too postulates a mixture of all substances, more
consciously and definitely indeed than his predecessor. Believing that
only like can act on like,[97] he is led to assume not only an infinite
multiplicity of substances, but also their complete mixture, so that
everything, however small, contains a portion of every other. Food, for
example, however seeming-simple, nourishes the most diverse tissues of
the body. Thus we discover in the universal mixture of substances the
basis for co-operation and interaction.
Anaxagoras, therefore, like Empedocles, feels the need of bridging the
chasm which he has assumed to exist between his distinct substances.
Their failure is alike great, and is due to the presuppositions they
inherited from the Eleatic conception of a severe homogeneity which
implies an absolute difference from everything else. The embarrassment
of Anaxagoras increases with the introduction of the [Greek: Nous]. This
agency was conceived with a view to explaining the formation of the
world; that is, with a view to mediating between the myriad substances
in their essential aloofness and effecting the harmonious concord of
concrete things. While, even on the basis of a universal mixture, the
function of the [Greek: Nous] was foredoomed to failure, its task was
made more difficult still by the definition given to its nature.
According to Anaxagoras it was the sole exception to the composite
character of things; it is absolutely pure and simple in nature.[98] By
its definition, then, it is prevented from accomplishing the work it was
contrived to do; and hence we cannot be surprised at the lamentations
raised by Plato and Aristotle about the failure of Anaxagoras to employ
the agency he had introduced. To be sure, the [Greek: Nous] is no more
a _deus ex machina_ than were the ideas of Plato or the God of
Aristotle. They all labored under the same restrictions.
The Atomists followed with the same recognition of the Many, in the
infinitely various kinds of atoms; but it was tempered by the assumption
of an essential homogeneity. One atom is distinguished from another by
characteristics due to its spatial relations. Mass and weight are
proportional to size. Aristotle reports that, though things and atoms
have differences, it is not in virtue of their differences, but in
virtue of their essential identity, that they interact.[99] There is
thus introduced a distinction which runs nearly, but not quite, parallel
to that between primary and secondary qualities.[100] Primary qualities
are those of size, shape, and perhaps[101] position; all others are
secondary. On the other hand, that which is common to all atoms is their
corporeity, which does indeed define itself with reference to the
primary (spatial) qualities, but not alike in all. The atoms of which
the world is constituted are alike in essential nature, but they differ
most widely in position.
It is the void that breaks up the unity of the world--atomizes it, if we
may use the expression. It is the basis of all discontinuity. Atoms and
void are thus polar extremes reciprocally exclusive. The atoms in their
utter isolation in space are incapable of producing a world. In order to
bridge the chasm between atom and atom, recourse is had to motion
eternal, omnipresent, and necessary. This it is that annihilates
distances. In the course of their motion atoms collide, and in their
impact one upon the other the Atomists find the precise mode of
co-operation by which the world is formed.[102] To this agency are due
what Lucretius happily called "generating motions."
The problem, however, so insistently pursued the philosophers of this
time that the Atomists did not content themselves with this solution,
satisfactory as modern science has pretended to consider it. They
followed the lead of Empedocles and Anaxagoras in postulating a
widespread, if not absolutely universal, _mixture_. Having on principle
excluded "essential" differences among the atoms, the impossibility of
finally distinguishing essential and non-essential had its revenge.
Important as the device of mixture was to Empedocles and Anaxagoras,
just so unmeaning ought it to have been in the Atomic philosophy,
provided that the hypothesis could accomplish what was claimed for it.
It is not necessary to reassert that the assumption of "individua,"
utterly alienated one from the other by a void, rendered the problem of
the copula insoluble for the Atomists.
Diogenes of Apollonia is commonly treated contemptuously as a mere
reactionary who harked back to Anaximenes and had no significance of his
own. The best that can be said of such an attitude is that it regards
philosophical theories as accidental utterances of individuals,
naturally well or ill endowed, who happen to express conclusions with
which men in after times agree or disagree. A philosophical tenet is an
atom, set somewhere in a vacuum, utterly out of relation to everything
else. But it is impossible to see how, on this theory, any system of
thought should possess any significance for anybody, or how there should
be any progress even, or retardation.
Viewed entirely from without, the doctrine of Diogenes would seem to be
substantially a recrudescence of that of Anaximenes. Air is once more
the element or [Greek: archê] out of which all proceeds and into which
all returns. Again the process of transformation is seen in rarefaction
and condensation; and the attributes of substance are those which were
common to the early hylozoists. But there is present a keen sense of a
problem unknown to Anaximenes. What the early philosopher asserted in
the innocence of the youth of thought, the later physiologist reiterates
with emphasis because he believes that the words are words of life.
The motive for recurring to the earlier system is supplied by the
imperious demand for a copula which had so much distressed Empedocles,
Anaxagoras, and the Atomists. And here we are not left to conjecture,
but are able to refer to the _ipsissima verba_ of our philosopher. After
a brief prologue, in which he stated that one's starting-point must be
beyond dispute, he immediately[103] turned to his theme in these
words:[104] "In my opinion, to put the whole matter in a nutshell, all
things are derived by alteration from the same substance, and indeed all
are one and the same. And this is altogether evident. For if the things
that now exist in the world--earth and water and air and fire and
whatsoever else appears to exist in this world--if, I say, any one of
these were different from the other, different that is to say in its
proper peculiar nature, and did not rather, being one and the same,
change and alter in many ways, then in no-wise would things be able to
mix with one another, nor would help or harm come to one from the other,
nor would any plant spring from the earth, nor any other living thing
come into being, if things were not so constituted as to be one and the
same."
These words contain a singularly interesting expression of the need of
restoring the integrity of the process which had been lost in the effort
to solve the problem of the One and the Many without abandoning the
point of view won by the Eleatics. Aristotle and Theophrastus paraphrase
and sum up the passage above quoted by saying[105] that interaction is
impossible except on the assumption that all the world is one and the
same. Hence it is manifest, as was said above, that the return of
Diogenes to the monistic system of Anaximenes had for its conscious
motive the avoidance of the dualism that had sprung up in the interval
and had rendered futile the multiplied efforts to secure an effective
copula.
We should note, however, that in the attempt thus made to undo the work
of several generations Diogenes retained the principle which had wrought
the mischief. We have before remarked that the germ of the Atomic
philosophy was contained in the process of rarefaction and condensation.
Hence, in accepting it along with the remainder of Anaximenes's theory,
the fatal assumption was reinstated. It is the story of human systems in
epitome. The superstructure is overthrown, and with the débris a new
edifice is built upon the old foundations.
In the entire course of philosophical thought from Thales onward the
suggestion of an opposition between the subject and the predicate had
appeared. It has often been said that it was expressed by the search for
a [Greek: physis], or a _true nature_, in contrast with the world as
practically accepted. There is a certain truth in this view; for the
effort to attain a predicate which does not merely repeat the subject
does imply that there is an opposition. But the efforts made to return
from the predicate to the subject, in a deductive movement, shows that
the difference was not believed to be absolute. This is true, however,
only of those fields of speculation that lie next to the highways of
practical life, which lead equally in both directions, or, let us
rather say, which unite while they mark separation. In the sphere of
abstract ideas the sense of embarrassment was deep and constantly
growing deeper. The reconstruction, accomplished on lower levels, did
not attain unto those heights. Men doubted conclusions, but did not
think to demand the credentials of their common presuppositions.
Side by side with the later philosophers whom we have mentioned there
walked men whom we are wont to call the Sophists. They were the
journalists and pamphleteers of those days, men who, without dealing
profoundly with any special problem, familiarized themselves with the
generalizations of workers in special fields and combined these ideas
for the entertainment of the public. They were neither philosophers nor
physicists, but, like some men whom we might cite from our own times,
endeavored to popularize the teachings of both. Naturally they seized
upon the most sweeping generalizations and the preconceptions which
disclosed themselves in manifold forms. Just as naturally they had no
eyes with which to detect the significance of the besetting problems at
which, in matters more concrete, the masters were toiling. Hence the
contradictions, revealed in the analysis we have just given of the
philosophy of the age, stood out in utter nakedness.
The result was inevitable. The inability to discover a unitary
predicate, more still, the failure to attain a working copula, led
directly to the denial of the possibility of predication. There was no
truth. Granted that it existed, it could not be known. Even if known, it
could not be communicated. In these incisive words of Gorgias the
conclusion of the ineffectual effort to establish a logic of science is
clearly stated. But the statement is happily only the half-truth, which
is almost a complete falsehood. It takes no account of the indications,
everywhere present, of a needed reconstruction. Least of all does it
catch the meaning of such a demand.
The Sophists did not, however, merely repeat in abstract from the
teachings of the philosophers. It matters not whether they originated
the movement or not; at all events they were pioneers in the field of
moral philosophy. Here it was that they chiefly drew the inferences from
the distinction between [Greek: physei] and [Greek: nomô]. Nothing could
have been more effective in disengaging the firmly rooted moral
pre-possessions and rendering them amenable to philosophy. Just here, at
last, we catch a hint of the significance of the logical process. In a
striking passage in Plato's _Protagoras_,[106] which one is fain to
regard as an essentially true reproduction of a discourse by that great
man, Justice and Reverence are accorded true validity. On inquiring to
what characteristic this honorable distinction is due, we find that it
does not reside in themselves; it is due to _the assumption that a state
must exist_.
Here, then, in a word, is the upshot of the logical movement. Logical
predicates are essentially hypothetical, deriving their validity from
the interest that moves men to affirm them. When they lose this
hypothetical character, as terms within a volitional system, and set up
as entities at large, they cease to function and forfeit their right to
exist.
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