To others a physician, whilst himself
Is full of ulcers?[127]
No indeed; but yet much farther in his second reprehension, without
any way minding it, he drives Epicurus and Democritus out of this
life. For he affirms that the saying of Democritus—that the atoms are
to the senses color by a certain law or ordinance, that they are by
the same law sweetness, and by the same law concretion[128]—is at war
with our senses, and that he who uses this reason and persists in this
opinion cannot himself imagine whether he is living or dead. I know not
how to contradict this discourse; but this I can boldly affirm, that
this is as inseparable from the sentences and doctrines of Epicurus
as they say figure and weight are from atoms. For what is it that
Democritus says? “There are substances, in number infinite, called
atoms (because they cannot be divided), without difference, without
quality, and impassible, which move, being dispersed here and there,
in the infinite voidness; and that when they approach one another,
or meet and are conjoined, of such masses thus heaped together, one
appears water, another fire, another a plant, another a man; and that
all things are thus really atoms (as he called them), and that there
is nothing else; for there can be no generation from what is not; and
of those things which are nothing can be generated, because these
atoms are so firm, that they can neither change, alter, nor suffer;
wherefore there cannot be made color of those things which are without
color, nor nature or soul of those things which are without quality and
impassible.” Democritus then is to be blamed, not for confessing those
things that happen upon his principles, but for supposing principles
upon which such things happen. For he should not have supposed
immutable principles; or having supposed them, he ought to have seen
that the generation of all quality is taken away; but having seen the
absurdity, to deny it is most impudent. But Epicurus says, that he
supposes the same principles with Democritus, but that he says not that
color, sweet, white, and other qualities, are by law and ordinance. If
therefore _not to say_ is merely _not to confess_, he does merely what
he is wont to do. For it is as when, taking away divine Providence,
he nevertheless says that he leaves piety and devotion towards the
Gods; and when, choosing friendship for the sake of pleasure, that he
suffers most grievous pains for his friends; and supposing the universe
to be infinite, that he nevertheless takes not away high and low....
Indeed having taken the cup, one may drink what he pleases, and return
the rest. But in reasoning one ought chiefly to remember this wise
apophthegm, that where the principles are not necessary, the ends and
consequences are necessary. It was not then necessary for him to
suppose or (to say better) to steal from Democritus, that atoms are
the principles of the universe; but having supposed this doctrine, and
having pleased and glorified himself in the first probable and specious
appearances of it, he must afterwards also swallow that which is
troublesome in it, or must show how bodies which have not any quality
can bring all sorts of qualities to others only by their meetings and
joining together. As—to take that which comes next to hand—whence does
that which we call heat proceed, and how is it engendered, in the
atoms, if they neither had heat when they came, nor are become hot
after their being joined together? For the one presupposes that they
had some quality, and the other that they were fit to receive it. And
you affirm, that neither the one nor the other must be said to belong
to atoms, because they are incorruptible.
9. How then? Do not Plato, Aristotle, and Xenocrates produce gold
from that which is not gold, and stone from that which is not stone,
and many other things from the four simple first bodies? Yes indeed;
but with those bodies immediately concur also the principles for the
generation of every thing, bringing with them great contributions, that
is, the first qualities which are in them; then, when they come to
assemble and join in one the dry with the moist, the cold with the hot,
and the solid with the soft,—that is active bodies with such as are fit
to suffer and receive every alteration and change,—then is generation
wrought by passing from one temperature to another. Whereas the atom,
being alone, is deprived and destitute of all quality and generative
faculty, and when it comes to meet with the others, it can make only a
noise and sound because of its hardness and firmness, but nothing else.
For they always strike and are stricken, not being able by this means
to compose or make an animal, a soul, or a nature, nay, not so much as
a mass or heap of themselves; for that as they beat upon one another,
so they fly back again asunder.
10. But Colotes, as if he were speaking to some ignorant and unlettered
king, again attacks Empedocles for breathing forth the same thought:
I’ve one thing more to say. 'Mongst mortals there
No Nature is; nor that grim thing men fear
So much, called death. There only happens first
A mixture, and mixt things asunder burst
Again, when them disunion does befall.
And this is that which men do Nature call.
For my part, I do not see how this is repugnant and contrary to life or
living, especially amongst those who hold that there is no generation
of that which is not, nor corruption of that which is, but that the
assembling and union of the things which are is called generation, and
their dissolution and disunion named corruption and death. For that
he took Nature for generation, and that this is his meaning, he has
himself declared, when he opposed Nature to death. And if they neither
live nor can live who place generation in union and death in disunion,
what else do these Epicureans? Yet Empedocles, gluing, (as it were) and
conjoining the elements together by heats, softnesses, and humidities,
gives them in some sort a mixtion and unitive composition; but these
men who hunt and drive together the atoms, which they affirm to be
immutable and impassible, compose nothing proceeding from them, but
indeed make many and continual percussions of them.
For the interlacement, hindering the dissolution, more and more
augments the collision and concussion; so that there is neither mixtion
nor adhesion and conglutination, but only a confusion and combat, which
according to them is called generation. And if the atoms do now recoil
for a moment by reason of the shock they have given, and then return
again after the blow is past, they are above double the time absent
from one another, without either touching or approaching, so as nothing
can be made of them, not even so much as a body without a soul. But as
for sense, soul, understanding, and prudence, there is not any man who
can in the least conceive or imagine how it is possible they should
be made in a voidness, and of atoms which neither when separate and
apart have any quality, nor any passion or alteration when they are
assembled and joined together, especially seeing this their meeting
together is not an incorporation or congress, making a mixture or
coalition, but rather percussions and repercussions. So that, according
to the doctrine of these people, life is taken away, and the being
of an animal denied, since they suppose principles void, impassible,
godless, and soulless, and such as cannot admit or receive any mixture
or incorporation whatever.
11. How then is it, that they admit and allow Nature, soul, and living
creature? Even in the same manner as they do an oath, prayer, and
sacrifice, and the adoration of the Gods. Thus they adore by word
and mouth, only naming and feigning that which by their principles
they totally take away and abolish. If now they call that which is
born Nature, and that which is engendered generation,—as those who
ordinarily call the wood itself wood-work and the voices that accord
and sound together symphony,—whence came it into his mind to object
these words against Empedocles? “Why,” says he, “do we tire ourselves
in taking such care of ourselves, in desiring and longing after certain
things, and shunning and avoiding others? For we neither are ourselves,
nor do we live by making use of others.” But be of good cheer, my
dear little Colotes, may one perhaps say to him: there is none who
hinders you from taking care of yourself by teaching that the nature
of Colotes is nothing else but Colotes himself, or who forbids you to
make use of things (now things with you are pleasures) by showing
that there is no nature of tarts and marchpanes, of sweet odors, or of
venereal delights, but that there are tarts, marchpanes, perfumes, and
women. For neither does the grammarian who says that “the strength of
Hercules” is Hercules himself deny the being of Hercules; nor do those
who say that symphonies and roofings are but bare derivations affirm
that there are neither sounds nor timbers; since also there are some
who, taking away the soul and prudence, do not yet seem to take away
either living or being prudent.
And when Epicurus says that the nature of things consists in bodies
and their place, do we so comprehend him as if he meant that Nature
were something else than the things which are, or as if he insinuated
that it is simply the things which are, and nothing else?—as, to wit,
he is wont to call voidness itself the nature of voidness, and the
universe, by Jupiter, the nature of the universe. And if any one should
thus question him; What sayst thou, Epicurus, that this is voidness,
and that the nature of voidness? No, by Jupiter, would he answer; but
this community of names is in use by law and custom. I grant it is. Now
what has Empedocles done else, but taught that Nature is nothing else
save that which is born, and death no other thing but that which dies?
But as the poets very often, forming as it were an image, say thus in
figurative language,
Strife, tumult, noise, placed by some angry God,
Mischief, and malice there had their abode;[129]
so do most men attribute generation and corruption to things that
are contracted together and dissolved. But so far has he been from
stirring and taking away that which is, or contradicting that which
evidently appears, that he casts not so much as one single word out of
the accustomed use; but taking away all figurative fraud that might
hurt or endamage things, he again restored the ordinary and useful
signification to words in these verses:
When from mixed elements we sometimes see
A man produced, sometimes a beast, a tree,
Or bird, this birth and geniture we name;
But death, when this so well compacted frame
And juncture is dissolved. This use I do approve.
And yet I myself say that Colotes, though he alleged these verses, did
not understand that Empedocles took not away men, beasts, trees, or
birds, which he affirmed to be composed of the elements mixed together;
and that, by teaching how much they are deceived who call this
composition Nature and life, and this dissolution unhappy destruction
and miserable death, he did not abrogate the using of the customary
expressions in this respect.
12. And it seems to me, indeed, that Empedocles did not aim in this
place at the disturbing the common form of expression, but that he
really, as it has been said, had a controversy about generation from
things that have no being, which some call Nature. Which he manifestly
shows by these verses:
Fools, and of little thought, we well may deem
Those, who so silly are as to esteem
That what ne’er was may now engendered be,
And that what is may perish utterly.
For these are the words of one who cries loud enough to those which
have ears, that he takes not away generation, but procreation from
nothing; nor corruption, but total destruction, that is, reduction to
nothing. For to him who would not so savagely and foolishly but more
gently calumniate, the following verses might give a colorable occasion
of charging Empedocles with the contrary, when he says:
No prudent man can e’er into his mind
Admit that, whilst men living here on earth
(Which only life they call) both fortunes find,
They being have, but that before the birth
They nothing were, nor shall be when once dead.
For these are not the expressions of a man who denies those that are
born to be, but rather of him who holds those to be that are not yet
born or that are already dead. And Colotes also does not altogether
accuse him of this, but says that according to his opinion we shall
never be sick, never wounded. But how is it possible, that he who
affirms men to have being both before their life and after their death,
and during their life to find both fortunes (or to be accompanied both
by good and evil), should not leave them the power to suffer? Who then
are they, O Colotes, that are endued with this privilege never to be
wounded, never to be sick? Even you yourselves, who are composed of
atoms and voidness, neither of which, you say, has any sense. Now there
is no great hurt in this; but the worst is, you have nothing left that
can cause you pleasure, seeing an atom is not capable to receive those
things which are to effect it, and voidness cannot be affected by them.
13. But because Colotes would, immediately after Democritus, seem
to inter and bury Parmenides, and I have passed over and a little
postponed his defence, to bring in between them that of Empedocles, as
seeming to be more coherent and consequent to the first reprehensions,
let us now return to Parmenides. Him then does Colotes accuse of having
broached and set abroad certain shameful and villanous sophistries;
and yet by these his sophisms he has neither rendered friendship
less honorable, nor voluptuousness or the desire of pleasures more
audacious and unbridled. He has not taken from honesty its attractive
property or its being venerable or recommendable of itself, nor has
he disturbed the opinions we ought to have of the Gods. And I do not
see how, by saying that the All (or the universe) is one, he hinders
or obstructs our living. For when Epicurus himself says that the All
is infinite, that it is neither engendered nor perishable, that it can
neither increase nor be diminished, he speaks of the universe as of
one only thing. And having in the beginning of his treatise concerning
this matter said, that the nature of those things which have being
consists of bodies and of voidness, he makes a division (as it were) of
one thing into two parts, one of which has in reality no subsistence,
being, as you yourselves term it, impalpable, void, and incorporeal;
so that by this means, even with you also, all comes to be one; unless
you desire, in speaking of voidness, to use words void of sense, and to
combat the ancients, as if you were fighting against a shadow.
But these atomical bodies, you will say, are, according to the opinion
of Epicurus, infinite in number, and every thing which appears to us
is composed of them. See now, therefore, what principles of generation
you suppose, infinity and voidness; one of which, to wit, voidness, is
inactive, impassible, and incorporeal; the other, to wit, infinity,
is disorderly, unreasonable, and incomprehensible, dissolving and
confounding itself, because it cannot for its multitude be contained,
circumscribed, or limited. But Parmenides has neither taken away fire,
nor water, nor rocks and precipices, nor yet cities (as Colotes says)
which are built and inhabited as well in Europe as in Asia; since
he has both made an order of the world, and mixing the elements, to
wit, light and dark, does of them and by them compose and finish all
things that are to be seen in the world. For he has written very
largely of the earth, heaven, sun, moon, and stars, and has spoken
of the generation of man; and being, as he was, an ancient author in
physiology, and one who in writing sought to deliver his own and not to
destroy another’s doctrine, he has passed over none of the principal
things in Nature. Moreover, Plato, and before him Socrates himself,
understood that in Nature there is one part subject to opinion, and
another subject to intelligence. As for that which is subject to
opinion, it is always unconstant, wandering, and carried away with
several passions and changes, liable to diminution and increase, and to
be variously disposed to various men, and not always appearing after
one manner even to the same person. But as to the intelligible part, it
is quite of another kind,
Constant, entire, and still engenerable,
as himself says, always like to itself, and perdurable in its being.
Here Colotes, sycophant-like, catching at his expressions and drawing
the discourse from things to words, flatly affirms that Parmenides in
one word takes away the existence of all things by supposing _ens_ (or
that which is) to be one. But, on the contrary, he takes away neither
the one nor the other part of Nature; but rendering to each of them
what belongs to it and is convenient for it, he places the intelligible
in the idea of one and of “that which is,” calling it _ens_ because it
is eternal and incorruptible, and one because it is always like itself
and admits no diversity. And as for that part which is sensible, he
places it in the rank of uncertain, disorderly, and always moving. Of
which two parts, we may see the distinct judgment:
One certain truth and sincere knowledge is,
as regarding that which is intelligible, and always alike and of the
same sort;
The other does on men’s opinions rest,
Which breed no true belief within our breast,
because it is conversant in things which receive all sorts of changes,
passions, and inequalities. Now how he could have left sense and
opinion, if he had not also left any thing sensible and opinable, it
is impossible for any man to say. But because to that which truly _is_
it appertains to continue in its being, and because sensible things
sometimes are, sometimes are not, continually passing from one being
to another and perpetually changing their state, he thought they
required some other name than that of _entia_, or things which always
are. This speech therefore concerning _ens_ (or that which is), that
it should be but one, is not to take away the plurality of sensible
things, but to show how they differ from that which is intelligible.
Which difference Plato in his discourse of Ideas more fully declaring,
has thereby afforded Colotes an opportunity of cavilling.
14. Therefore it seems not unreasonable to me to take next into our
consideration, as it were all in a train, what he has also said against
him. But first let us contemplate a little the diligence—together with
the manifold and profound knowledge—of this our philosopher, who says,
that Aristotle, Xenocrates, Theophrastus, and all the Peripatetics
have followed these doctrines of Plato. For in what corner of the
uninhabitable world have you, O Colotes, written your book, that,
composing all these accusations against such personages, you never have
lighted upon their works, nor have taken into your hands the books of
Aristotle concerning Heaven and the Soul, nor those of Theophrastus
against the Naturalists, nor the Zoroaster of Heraclides, nor his books
of Hell, nor that of Natural Doubts and Difficulties, nor the book of
Dicaearchus concerning the Soul; in all which books they are in the
highest degree contradictory and repugnant to Plato about the principal
and greatest points of natural philosophy? Nay, Strato himself, the
very head and prince of the other Peripatetics, agrees not in many
things with Aristotle, and holds opinions altogether contrary to
Plato, concerning motion, the understanding, the soul, and generation.
In fine, he says that the world is not an animal, and that what is
according to Nature follows what is according to Fortune; for that
Chance gave the beginning, and so every one of the natural effects was
afterwards finished.
Now as to the ideas,—for which he quarrels with Plato,—Aristotle, by
moving this matter at every turn, and alleging all manner of doubts
concerning them, in his Ethics, in his Physics, and in his Exoterical
Dialogues seems to some rather obstinately than philosophically to
have disputed against these doctrines, as having proposed to himself
the debasing and undervaluing of Plato’s philosophy; so far he was
from following it. What an impudent rashness then is this, that having
neither seen nor understood what these persons have written and what
were their opinions, he should go and devise such things as they
never imagined; and persuading himself that he reprehends and refutes
others, he should produce a proof, written with his own hand, arguing
and convincing himself of ignorance, licentiousness, and shameful
impudence, in saying that those who contradict Plato agree with him,
and that those who oppose him follow him?
15. Plato, says he, writes that horses are in vain by us esteemed
horses, and men men. And in which of Plato’s commentaries has he found
this hidden? For as to us, we read in all his books, that horses are
horses, that men are men, and that fire is by him esteemed fire,
because he holds that every one of these things is sensible and subject
to opinion. But this fine fellow Colotes, as if he were not a hair’s
breadth removed from perfect wisdom, apprehends it to be one and the
same thing to say, “Man is not” and “Man is a _non ens_.”
Now to Plato there seems to be a wonderful great difference between
not being at all and being a _non ens_; because the first imports an
annihilation and abolishment of all substance, and the other shows the
diversity there is between that which is participated and that which
participates. Which diversity those who came after distinguished only
into the difference of genus and species, and certain common and
proper qualities or accidents, as they are called, but ascended no
higher, falling into more logical doubts and difficulties. Now there
is the same proportion between that which is participated and that
which participates, as there is between the cause and the matter, the
original and the image, the faculty and the effect. Wherein that which
is by itself and always the same principally differs from that which
is by another and never abides in one and the same manner; because
the one never was nor ever shall be non-existent, and is therefore
totally and essentially an _ens_; but to the other that very being,
which it has not of itself but happens to take by participation from
another, does not remain firm and constant, but it goes out of it by
its imbecility,—the matter always gliding and sliding about the form,
and receiving several affections and changes in the image of the
substance, so that it is continually moving and shaking. As therefore
he who says that the image of Plato is not Plato takes not away the
sense and substance of the image, but shows the difference of that
which exists of itself from that which exists only in regard to some
other; so neither do they take away the nature, use, or sense of men,
who affirm that every one of us, by participating in a certain common
substance, that is, by the idea, is become the image of that which
afforded the likeness for our generation. For neither does he who says
that a red-hot iron is not fire, or that the moon is not the sun, but,
as Parmenides has it,
A torch which round the earth by night
Does bear about a borrowed light,
take away therefore the use of iron, or the nature of the moon. But if
he should deny it to be a body, or affirm that it is not illuminated,
he would then contradict the senses, as one who admitted neither body,
animal, generation, nor sense. But he who by his opinion imagines
that these things subsist only by participation, and considers how
far remote and distant they are from that which always is and which
communicates to them their being, does not reject the sensible, but
affirms that the intelligible is; nor does he take away and abolish the
effects which are wrought and appear in us; but he shows to those who
follow him that there are other things, firmer and more stable than
these in respect of their essence, because they are neither engendered,
nor perish, nor suffer any thing; and he teaches them, more purely
touching the difference, to express it by names, calling these ὄντα or
_entia_ (_things that have being_), and those γιγνόμενα or _fientia_
(_things engendered_). And the same also usually befalls the moderns;
for they deprive many—and those great things—of the appellation of
_ens_ or _being_; such as are voidness, time, place, and simply the
entire genus of things spoken, in which are comprised all things true.
For these things, they say, are not _entia_ but _some things_; and they
perpetually make use of them in their lives and in their philosophy, as
of things having subsistence and existence.
16. But I would willingly ask this our fault-finder, whether themselves
do not in their affairs perceive this difference, by which some things
are permanent and immutable in their substances,—as they say of their
atoms, that they are at all times and continually after one and the
same manner, because of their impassibility and hardness,—but that all
compounded things are fluxible, changeable, generated, and perishing;
forasmuch as infinite images are always departing and going from them,
and infinite others, as it is probable, repair to them from the ambient
air, filling up what was diminished from the mass, which is much
diversified and transvasated, as it were, by this change, since those
atoms which are in the very bottom of the said mass can never cease
stirring and reciprocally beating upon one another; as they themselves
affirm. There is then in things such a diversity of substance.
But Epicurus is in this wiser and more learned than Plato, that he
calls them all equally _entia_,—to wit, the impalpable voidness, the
solid and resisting body, the principles, and the things composed of
them,—and thinks that the eternal participates of the common substance
with that which is generated, the immortal with the corruptible, and
the natures that are impassible, perdurable, unchangeable, and that
can never fall from their being, with those which have their essence
in suffering and changing, and can never continue in one and the same
state. But though Plato had with all the justness imaginable deserved
to be condemned for having offended in this, yet should he have been
sentenced by these gentlemen, who speak Greek more elegantly and
discourse more correctly than he, only as having confounded the terms,
and not as having taken away the things and driven life from us,
because he named them _fientia_ (or things engendered), and not _entia_
(things that have being), as these men do.
17. But because we have passed over Socrates, who should have come
next after Parmenides, we must now turn back our discourse to him.
Him therefore has Colotes begun at the very first to remove, as the
common proverb has it, from the sacred line; and having mentioned
how Chaerephon brought from Delphi an oracle, well known to us all,
concerning Socrates, he says thus: “Now as to this narration of
Chaerephon’s, because it is odious and absolutely sophistical, we
will overpass it.” Plato then, that we may say nothing of others, is
also odious, who has committed it to writing; and the Lacedaemonians
are yet more odious, who reserve the oracle of Lycurgus amongst their
most ancient and most authentic inscriptions. The oracle also of
Themistocles, by which he persuaded the Athenians to quit their town,
and in a naval fight defeated the barbarous Xerxes, was a sophistical
fiction. Odious also were all the ancient legislators and founders of
Greece, who established the most part of their temples, sacrifices,
and solemn festivals by the answer of the Pythian Oracle. But if
the oracle brought from Delphi concerning Socrates, a man ravished
with a divine zeal to virtue, by which he is styled and declared
wise, is odious, fictitious, and sophistical, by what name shall we
call your cries, noises, and shouts, your applauses, adorations and
canonizations, with which you extol and celebrate him who incites
and exhorts you to frequent and continual pleasures? For thus has
he written in his epistle to Anaxarchus: “I for my part incite and
call you to continual pleasures, and not to vain and empty virtues,
which have nothing but turbulent hopes of uncertain fruits.” And yet
Metrodorus, writing to Timarchus, says: “Let us do some extraordinarily
excellent thing, not suffering ourselves to be plunged in reciprocal
affections, but retiring from this low and terrestrial life, and
elevating ourselves to the truly holy and divinely revealed ceremonies
and mysteries of Epicurus.” And even Colotes himself, hearing one day
Epicurus discoursing of natural things, fell suddenly at his feet and
embraced his knees, as Epicurus himself, glorying in it, thus writes:
“For as if you had adored what we were then saying, you were suddenly
taken with a desire, proceeding not from any natural cause, to come to
us, prostrate yourself on the ground, embrace our knees, and use all
those gestures to us which are ordinarily practised by those who adore
and pray to the Gods. So that you made us also,” says he, “reciprocally
sanctify and adore you.” Those, by Jupiter, well deserve to be
pardoned, who say, they would willingly give any money for a picture
in which should be presented to the life this fine story of one lying
prostrate at the knees and embracing the legs of another, who mutually
again adores him and makes his devout prayers to him. Nevertheless this
devout service, how well soever it was ordered and composed by Colotes,
received not the condign fruit he expected; for he was not declared
wise; but it was only said to him: Go thy ways, and walk immortal; and
understand that we also are in like manner immortal.
18. These men, knowing well in their consciences that they have used
such foolish speeches, have had such motions, and such passions, dare
nevertheless call others odious. And Colotes, having shown us these
fine first-fruits and wise positions touching the natural senses,—that
we eat meat, and not hay or forage; and that when rivers are deep and
great, we pass them in boats, but when shallow and easily fordable, on
foot,—cries out, “You use vain and arrogant speeches, O Socrates; you
say one thing to those who come to discourse with you, and practise
another.” Now I would fain know what these vain and arrogant speeches
of Socrates were, since he ordinarily said that he knew nothing, that
he was always learning, and that he went enquiring and searching after
the truth. But if, O Colotes, you had happened on such expressions
of Socrates as are those which Epicurus writ to Idomeneus, “Send me
then the first-fruits for the entertainment of our sacred body, for
ourself and for our children: for so it comes upon me to speak;” what
more arrogant and insolent words could you have used? And yet that
Socrates spake otherwise than he lived, you have wonderful proofs in
his gests at Delium, at Potidaea, in his behavior during the time of
the Thirty Tyrants, towards Archelaus, towards the people of Athens, in
his poverty, and in his death. For are not these things beseeming and
answerable to the doctrine of Socrates? They would indeed, good sir,
have been indubitable testimonies to show that he acted otherwise than
he taught, if, having proposed pleasure for the end of life, he had led
such a life as this.
19. Thus much for the calumnies he has uttered against Socrates.
Colotes besides perceives not that he is himself found guilty of the
same offences in regard to proofs which he objects against Socrates.
For this is one of the sentences and propositions of Epicurus, that
none but the wise man ought irrevocably and unchangeably to be
persuaded of any thing. Since then Colotes, even after those adorations
he performed to Epicurus, became not one of the sages, let him first
make these questions and interrogatories his own: How is it that being
hungry he eats meat and not hay, and that he puts a robe about his
body and not about a pillar, since he is not indubitably persuaded
either that a robe is a robe or that meat is meat? But if he not only
does these things, but also passes not over rivers, when they are
great and high, on foot, and flies from wolves and serpents, not being
irrevocably persuaded that any of these things is such as it appears,
but yet doing every thing according to what appears to him; so likewise
the opinion of Socrates concerning the senses was no obstacle to him,
but that he might in like manner make use of things as they appeared
to him. For it is not likely that bread appeared bread and hay hay to
Colotes, because he had read those holy rules of Epicurus which came
down from heaven, while Socrates through his vanity took a fancy that
hay was bread and bread hay. For these wise men use better opinions
and reasons than we; but to have sense, and to receive an impression
from things as they appear, is common as well to the ignorant as to the
wise, as proceeding from causes where there needs not the discourse of
reason. And the proposition which affirms that the natural senses are
not perfect, nor certain enough to cause an entire belief, hinders not
that every thing may appear to us; but leaving us to make use of our
senses in our actions according to that which appears, it permits us
not so to give credit to them as if they were exactly true and without
error. For it is sufficient that in what is necessary and commodious
for use there is nothing better. But as for the science and knowledge
which the soul of a philosopher desires to have concerning every thing,
the senses have it not.
20. But as to this, Colotes will farther give us occasion to speak of
it hereafter, for he brings this objection against several others.
Furthermore, whereas he profusely derides and despises Socrates
for asking what man is, and in a youthful bravery (as he terms
it) affirming that he was ignorant of it, it is manifest that he
himself, who scoffs at it, never so much as thought of this matter;
but Heraclitus on the contrary, as having done some great and worthy
thing, said, I have been seeking myself. And of the sentences that
were written in Apollo’s temple at Delphi, the most excellent and most
divine seems to have been this, Know thyself. And this it was which
gave Socrates an occasion and beginning of doubting and enquiring
into it, as Aristotle says in his Platonics. And yet this appears to
Colotes ridiculous and fit to be scoffed at. And I wonder that he
derides not also his master himself, who does as much whenever he
writes concerning the substance of the soul and the origin of man. For
if that which is compounded of both, as they themselves hold,—of the
body, to wit, and the soul,—is man, he who searches into the nature of
the soul consequently also searches into the nature of man, beginning
from his chiefest principle. Now that the soul is very difficult to be
comprehended by reason, and altogether incomprehensible by the exterior
senses, let us not learn from Socrates, who is a vainglorious and
sophistical disputer, but let us take it from these wise men, who,
having forged and framed the substance of the soul of somewhat hot,
spiritual, and aerial, as far as to her faculties about the flesh, by
which she gives heat, softness and strength to the body, proceed not
to that which is the principal, but give over faint and tired by the
way. For that by which she judges, remembers, loves, hates,—in a word,
that which is prudent and rational, is,—say they, made afterwards of
I know not what nameless quality. Now we well know, that this nameless
thing is a confession of their shameful ignorance, whilst they pretend
they can not name what they are not able to understand or comprehend.
But let this, as they say, be pardoned them. For it seems not to be a
light and easy matter, which every one can at the first attempt find
out and attain to, but has retired itself to the bottom of some very
remote place, and there lies obscurely concealed. So that there is not,
amongst so many words and terms as are in use, any one that can explain
or show it. Socrates therefore was not a fool or blockhead for seeking
and searching what himself was; but they are rather to be thought
shallow coxcombs, who enquire after any other thing before this, the
knowledge of which is so necessary and so hard to find. For how could
he hope to gain the knowledge of other things, who has not been able to
comprehend the principal part even of himself?
21. But granting a little to Colotes, that there is nothing so vain,
useless, and odious as the seeking into one’s self, let us ask
him, what confusion of human life is in this, and how it is that a
man cannot continue to live, when he comes once thus to reason and
discourse in himself: “Go to now, what am I? Am I a composition, made
up of soul and body; or rather a soul, serving itself and making
use of the body, as an horseman using his horse is not a subject
composed of horse and man? Or is every one of us the principal part
of the soul, by which we understand, reason, and act; and are all the
other parts, both of soul and body, only organs and utensils of this
power? Or, to conclude, is there no proper substance of the soul at
all apart, but is only the temperature and complexion of the body so
disposed, that it has force and power to understand and live?” But
Socrates does not by these questions overthrow human life, since all
natural philosophers treat of the same matter. But those perhaps are
the monstrous questions and enquiries that turn every thing upside
down, which are in Phaedrus,[130] where he says, that every one ought
to examine and consider himself, whether he is a savage beast, more
cautelous, outrageous, and furious than ever was the monster Typhon; or
on the contrary, an animal more mild and gentle, partaking by Nature of
a certain divine portion, and such as is free from pride. Now by these
discourses and reasonings he overturns not the life of man, but drives
from it presumption and arrogance, and those haughty and extravagant
opinions and conceits he has of himself. For this is that monster
Typhon, which your teacher and master has made to be so great in you by
his warring against the Gods and divine men.
22. Having done with Socrates and Plato, he next attacks Stilpo. Now as
for those his true doctrines and good discourses, by which he managed
and governed himself, his country, his friends, and such kings and
princes as loved him and esteemed him, he has not written a word; nor
yet what prudence and magnanimity was in his heart, accompanied with
meekness, moderation, and modesty. But having made mention of one of
those little sentences he was wont in mirth and raillery to object
against the sophisters, he does, without alleging any reason against it
or solving the subtlety of the objection, stir up a terrible tragedy
against Stilpo, saying that the life of man is subverted by him,
inasmuch as he affirms that one thing cannot be predicated of another.
“For how,” says he, “shall we live, if we cannot style a man good, nor
a man a captain, but must separately name a man a man, good good, and
a captain a captain; nor can say ten thousand horsemen, or a fortified
town, but only call horsemen horsemen, and ten thousand ten thousand,
and so of the rest?” Now what man ever was there that lived the worse
for this? Or who is there that, hearing this discourse, does not
immediately perceive and understand it to be the speech of a man who
rallies gallantly, and proposes to others this logical question for the
exercise of their wits? It is not, O Colotes, a great and dangerous
scandal not to call man good, or not to say ten thousand horsemen;
but not to call God God, and not to believe him to be God,—as you and
the rest do, who will not confess that there is a Jupiter presiding
over generation, or a Ceres giving laws, or a Neptune fostering the
plants,—it is this separation of names that is pernicious, and fills
our life with audaciousness and an atheistical contempt of the Gods.
When you pluck from the Gods the names and appellations that are tied
to them, you abolish also the sacrifices, mysteries, processions,
and feasts. For to whom shall we offer the sacrifices preceding the
tilling of the ground? To whom those for the obtaining of preservation?
How shall we celebrate the Phosphoria, or torch-festivals, the
Bacchanals, and the ceremonies that go before marriage, if we admit
neither Bacchantes, Gods of light, Gods who protect the sown field,
nor preservers of the state? For this it is that touches the principal
and greatest points, being an error in things,—not in words, in the
structure of propositions, or use of terms.
Now if these are the things that disturb and subvert human life, who
are there that more offend and fail in language than you? For you take
utterly away the whole class of namable things, which constitute the
essence of language; and leave only words and their accidental objects,
while you take away in the mean time the things particularly signified
by them, by which are wrought disciplines, doctrines, preconceptions,
intelligences, inclination, and assent, which you hold to be nothing at
all.
23. But as for Stilpo, thus his argument stands. “If of a man we
predicate good, and of an horse running, the predicate or thing
predicated is not the same with the subject or that of which it is
predicated, but the essential definition of man is one, and of good
another. And again, to be a horse differs from to be running. For being
asked the definition of the one and of the other, we do not give the
same for them both; and therefore those err who predicate the one of
the other. For if good is the same with man, and to run the same with
a horse, how is good affirmed also of food and medicine, and again (by
Jupiter) to run of a lion and a dog? But if the predicate is different,
then we do not rightly say that a man is good, and a horse runs.” Now
if Stilpo is in this exorbitant and grossly mistaken, not admitting any
copulation of such things as are in the subject, or affirmed of the
subject, with the subject itself; but holding that every one of them,
if it is not absolutely one and the same thing with that to which it
happens or of which it is spoken, ought not to be spoken or affirmed of
it,—no, not even as an accident; it is nevertheless manifest, that he
was only offended with some words, and opposed the usual and accustomed
manner of speaking, and not that he overthrew man’s life, and turned
his affairs upside down.
24, Colotes then, having got rid of the old philosophers, turns to
those of his own time, but without naming any of them; though he would
have done better either to have reproved by name these moderns, as he
did the ancients, or else to have named neither of them. But he who
has so often employed his pen against Socrates, Plato, and Parmenides,
evidently demonstrates that it is through cowardice he dares not attack
the living, and not for any modesty or reverence, of which he showed
not the least sign to those who were far more excellent than these.
But his meaning is, as I suspect, to assault the Cyrenaics first, and
afterwards the Academics, who are followers of Arcesilaus. For it was
these who doubted of all things; but those, placing the passions and
imaginations in themselves, were of opinion that the belief proceeding
from them is not sufficient for the assuring and affirming of things;
but, as if it were in the siege of a town, abandoning what is without,
they have shut themselves up in the passions, using only _it seems_,
and not asserting _it is_, of things without. And therefore they
cannot, as Colotes says of them, live or have the use of things. And
then speaking comically of them, he adds: “These deny that there is
a man, a horse, a wall; but say that they themselves (as it were)
become walls, horses, men,” or “are impressed with the images of walls,
horses, or men.” In which he first maliciously abuses the terms, as
calumniators are usually wont to do. For though these things follow
from the sayings of the Cyrenaics, yet he ought to have declared the
fact as they themselves teach it. For they affirm that things then
become sweet, bitter, lightsome, or dark, when each thing has in itself
the natural unhindered efficacy of one of these impressions. But if
honey is said to be sweet, an olive-branch bitter, hail cold, wine hot,
and the nocturnal air dark, there are many beasts, things, and men that
testify the contrary. For some have an aversion for honey, others feed
on the branches of the olive-tree; some are scorched by hail, others
cooled with wine; and there are some whose sight is dim in the sun but
who see well by night. Wherefore opinion, containing itself within
these impressions, remains safe and free from error; but when it goes
forth and attempts to be curious in judging and pronouncing concerning
exterior things, it often deceives itself, and opposes others, who
from the same objects receive contrary impressions and different
imaginations.
25. And Colotes seems properly to resemble those young children who are
but beginning to learn their letters. For, being accustomed to learn
them where they see them in their own horn-books and primers, when
they see them written anywhere else, they doubt and are troubled; so
those very discourses, which he praises and approves in the writings
of Epicurus, he neither understands nor knows again, when they are
spoken by others. For those who say that the sense is truly informed
and moulded when there is presented one image round and another broken,
but nevertheless permit us not to pronounce that the tower is round
and the oar broken, confirm their own passions and imaginations, but
they will not acknowledge and confess that the things without are so
affected. But as the Cyrenaics must say that they are imprinted with
the figure of a horse or of a wall, but do not speak of the horse or
the wall; so also it is necessary to say that the sight is imprinted
with a figure round or with three unequal sides, and not that the tower
is in that manner triangular or round. For the image by which the sight
is affected is broken; but the oar whence that image proceeds is not
broken. Since then there is a difference between the impression and
the external subject, the belief must either remain in the impression,
or else—if it maintains the being in addition to the appearing—be
reproved and convinced of untruth. And whereas they cry out and are
offended in behalf of the sense, because the Cyrenaics say not that
the thing without is hot, but that the impression made on the sense is
such; is it not the same with what is said touching the taste, when
they say that the thing without is not sweet, but that some impression
and motion about the sense is such? And for him who says that he has
received the apprehension of an human form, but perceives not whether
it is a man, whence has he taken occasion so to say? Is it not from
those who affirm that they receive an apprehension of a bowed figure
and form, but that the sight pronounces not that the thing which was
seen is bowed or round, but that a certain effigies of it is such?
Yes, by Jupiter, will some one say; but I, going near the tower or
touching the oar, will pronounce and affirm that the one is straight
and the other has many angles and faces; but he, when he comes near
it, will confess that it seems and appears so to him, and no more. Yes
certainly, good sir, and more than this, when he sees and observes the
consequence, that every imagination is equally worthy of belief for
itself, and none for another; but that they are all in like condition.
But this your opinion is quite lost, that all the imaginations are true
and none false or to be disbelieved, if you think that these ought to
pronounce positively of that which is without, but those you credit
no farther than that they are so affected. For if they are in equal
condition as to their being believed, when they are near or when they
are far off, it is just that either upon all of them, or else not upon
these, should follow the judgment pronouncing that a thing is: But if
there is a difference in the being affected between those that are
near and those that are far off, it is then false that one sense and
imagination is not more express and evident than another. Therefore
those which they call testimonies and counter-testimonies are nothing
to the sense, but are concerned only with opinion. So, if they would
have us following these to pronounce concerning exterior things, making
being a judgment of opinion, and what appears an affection of sense,
they transfer the judicature from that which is totally true to that
which often fails.
26. But how full of trouble and contradiction in respect of one
another these things are, what need is there to say at present? But
the reputation of Arcesilaus, who was the best beloved and most
esteemed of all the philosophers in his time, seems to have been no
small eyesore to Epicurus; who says of him that, delivering nothing
peculiar to himself or of his own invention, he imprinted in illiterate
men an opinion and esteem of his being very knowing and learned. Now
Arcesilaus was so far from desiring any glory by being a bringer-in of
new opinions, and from arrogating to himself those of the ancients,
that the sophisters of that time blamed him for attributing to
Socrates, Plato, Parmenides, and Heraclitus the doctrines concerning
the retention of assent, and the incomprehensibility of things; having
no need so to do, but only that he might strengthen them and render
them recommendable by ascribing them to such illustrious personages.
For this therefore thanks to Colotes, and to every one who declares
that the Academic doctrine was from higher times derived to Arcesilaus.
Now as for the retention of assent and the doubting of all things,
not even those who have much labored in the matter, and strained
themselves to compose great books and large treatises concerning it,
were ever able to stir it; but bringing at last out of the Stoa itself
the cessation from all actions, as the Gorgon to frighten away the
objections that came against them, they were at last quite tired and
gave over. For they could not, what attempts and stirs soever they
made, obtain so much from the instinct by which the appetite is moved
to act, as to suffer itself to be called an assent, or to acknowledge
sense for the origin and principle of its propension, but it appeared
of its own accord to present itself to act, as having no need to be
joined with any thing else. For against such adversaries the combat and
dispute is lawful and just. And
Such words as you have spoke, the like you may
Expect to hear.[131]
For to speak to Colotes of instinct and consent is, I suppose, all one
as to play on the harp before an ass. But to those who can give ear
and conceive, it is said that there are in the soul three sorts of
motions,—the imaginative, the appetitive, and the consenting. As to
the imaginative or the apprehension, it cannot be taken away, though
one would. For one cannot, when things approach, avoid being informed
and (as it were) moulded by them, and receiving an impression from
them. The appetite, being stirred up by the imaginative, effectually
moves man to that which is proper and agreeable to his nature, just as
when there is made a propension and inclination in the principal and
reasonable part. Now those who withhold their assent and doubt of all
things take not away this, but make use of the appetition or instinct
naturally conducting every man to that which seems convenient for him.
What then is the only thing that they shun? That in which is bred
falsehood and deceit,—that is, opining, and precipitation in giving
consent,—which is a yielding through weakness to that which appears,
and has not any true utility. For action stands in need of two things,
to wit, the apprehension or imagination of what is agreeable to Nature,
and the instinct or appetition driving to that which is so imagined; of
which, neither the one nor the other is repugnant to the retention of
assent. For reason withdraws us from opinion, and not from appetition
or imagination. When therefore that which is delectable seems to us to
be proper for us, there is no need of opinion to move and carry us to
it, but appetition immediately exerts itself, which is nothing else but
the motion and inclination of the soul.
27. It is their own saying, that a man must only have sense and be
flesh and blood, and pleasure will appear to be good. Wherefore
also it will seem good to him who withholds his assent. For he also
participates of sense, and is made of flesh and blood, and as soon as
he has conceived an imagination of good, desires it and does all things
that it may not escape from him; but as much as possibly he can, he
will keep himself with that which is agreeable to his nature, being
drawn by natural and not by geometrical constraints. For these goodly,
gentle, and tickling motions of the flesh are, without any teacher,
attractive enough of themselves—even as these men forget not to say—to
draw even him who will not in the least acknowledge and confess that he
is softened and rendered pliable by them. “But how comes it to pass,”
perhaps you will say, “that he who is thus doubtful and withholds his
assent hastens not away to the mountain, instead of going to the bath?
Or that, rising up to go forth into the market-place, he runs not
his head against the wall, but takes his way directly to the door?”
Do you ask this, who hold all the senses to be infallible, and the
apprehensions of the imagination certain and true? It is because the
bath appears to him not a mountain, but a bath; and the door seems
not a wall, but a door; and the same is to be said of every other
thing. For the doctrine of retention does not pervert the sense, nor
by absurd passions and motions work in it an alteration disturbing the
imaginative faculty; but it only takes away opinions, and for the rest,
makes use of other things according to their nature.
But it is impossible, you will say, not to consent to things that are
evident; for to deny such things as are believed is more absurd than
neither to deny nor affirm. Who then are they that call in question
things believed, and contend against things that are evident? They
who overthrow and take away divination, who say that there is not any
government of Divine Providence, who deny the sun and the moon—to whom
all men offer sacrifices and whom they honor and adore—to be animated.
And do not you take away that which is apparent to all the world,
that the young are contained in the nature of their parents? Do you
not, contrary to the sense of all men, affirm that there is no medium
between pleasure and pain, saying that not to be in pain is to be in
the fruition of pleasure, that not to do is to suffer, and that not to
rejoice is to be grieved?
28. But to let pass all the rest, what is more evident and more
generally believed by all men, than that those who are seized with
melancholy distempers, and whose brain is troubled and whose wits are
distracted, do, when the fit is on them and their understanding altered
and transported, imagine that they see and hear things which they
neither see nor hear? Whence they frequently cry out:
Women in black arrayed bear in their hands,
To burn mine eyes, torches and fiery brands.
And again: