his remarkable sayings. The chief claim of Thales to a lofty rank among
sages, however, is that he was the first who attempted a logical
solution of material phenomena, without resorting to mythical
representations. Thales felt that there was a grand question to be
answered relative to the _beginning of things._ "Philosophy," it has
been well said, "maybe a history of _errors_^ but not of _follies_". It
was not a folly, in a rude age, to speculate on the first or fundamental
principle of things. Thales looked around him upon Nature, upon the sea
and earth and sky, and concluded that water or moisture was the vital
principle. He felt it in the air, he saw it in the clouds above and in
the ground beneath his feet. He saw that plants were sustained by rain
and by the dew, that neither animal nor man could live without water,
and that to fishes it was the native element. What more important or
vital than water? It was the _prima materia_, the [Greek: archae] the
beginning of all things,--the origin of the world. How so crude a
speculation could have been maintained by so wise a man it is difficult
to conjecture. It is not, however, the cause which he assigns for the
beginning of things which is noteworthy, so much as the fact that his
mind was directed to any solution of questions pertaining to the origin
of the universe. It was these questions, and the solution of them, which
marked the Ionian philosophers, and which showed the inquiring nature of
their minds. What is the great first cause of all things? Thales saw it
in one of the four elements of Nature as the ancients divided them; and
this is the earliest recorded theory among the Greeks of the origin of
the world. It is an induction from one of the phenomena of animated
Nature,--the nutrition and production of a seed. He regarded the entire
world in the light of a living being gradually maturing and forming
itself from an imperfect seed-state, which was of a moist nature. This
moisture endues the universe with vitality. The world, he thought, was
full of gods, but they had their origin in water. He had no conception
of God as _intelligence_, or as a _creative_ power. He had a great and
inquiring mind, but it gave him no knowledge of a spiritual,
controlling, and personal deity.
Anaximenes, the disciple of Thales, pursued his master's inquiries and
adopted his method. He also was born in Miletus, but at what time is
unknown,--probably 500 B.C. Like Thales, he held to the eternity of
matter. Like him, he disbelieved in the existence of anything
immaterial, for even a human soul is formed out of matter. He, too,
speculated on the origin of the universe, but thought that _air_, not
water, was the primal cause. This element seems to be universal. We
breathe it; all things are sustained by it. It is Life,--that is,
pregnant with vital energy, and capable of infinite transmutations. All
things are produced by it; all is again resolved into it; it supports
all things; it surrounds the world; it has infinitude; it has eternal
motion. Thus did this philosopher reason, comparing the world with our
own living existence,--which he took to be air,--an imperishable
principle of life. He thus advanced a step beyond Thales, since he
regarded the world not after the analogy of an imperfect seed-state, but
after that of the highest condition of life,--the human soul. And he
attempted to refer to one general law all the transformations of the
first simple substance into its successive states, in that the cause of
change is the eternal motion of the air.
Diogenes of Apollonia, in Crete, one of the disciples of Anaximenes,
born 500 B.C., also believed that air was the principle of the
universe, but he imputed to it an intellectual energy, yet without
recognizing any distinction between mind and matter. He made air and
the soul identical. "For," says he, "man and all other animals breathe
and live by means of the air, and therein consists their soul." And as
it is the primary being from which all is derived, it is necessarily an
eternal and imperishable body; but as _soul_ it is also endued with
consciousness. Diogenes thus refers the origin of the world to an
intelligent being,--to a soul which knows and vivifies. Anaximenes
regarded air as having life; Diogenes saw in it also intelligence. Thus
philosophy advanced step by step, though still groping in the dark; for
the origin of all things, according to Diogenes, must exist in
_intelligence_. According to Diogenes Laertius, he said: "It appears to
me that he who begins any treatise ought to lay down principles about
which there can be no dispute."
Heraclitus of Ephesus, classed by Ritter among the Ionian philosophers,
was born 503 B.C. Like others of his school, he sought a physical ground
for all phenomena. The elemental principle he regarded as _fire_, since
all things are convertible into it. In one of its modifications this
fire, or fluid, self-kindled, permeating everything as the soul or
principle of life, is endowed with intelligence and powers of ceaseless
activity. "If Anaximenes," says Maurice, not very clearly, "discovered
that he had within him a power and principle which ruled over all the
acts and functions of his bodily frame, Heraclitus found that there was
life within him which he could not call his own, and yet it was, in the
very highest sense, _himself_, so that without it he would have been a
poor, helpless, isolated creature,--a universal life which connected him
with his fellow-men, with the absolute source and original fountain of
life.... He proclaimed the absolute vitality of Nature, the endless
change of matter, the mutability and perishability of all individual
things in contrast with the eternal Being,--the supreme harmony which
rules over all." To trace the divine energy of life in all things was
the general problem of the philosophy of Heraclitus, and this spirit was
akin to the pantheism of the East. But he was one of the greatest
speculative intellects that preceded Plato, and of all the physical
theorists arrived nearest to spiritual truth. He taught the germs of
what was afterward more completely developed. "From his theory of
perpetual fluxion," says Archer Butler, "Plato derived the necessity of
seeking a stable basis for the universal system in his world of ideas."
Heraclitus was, however, an obscure writer, and moreover cynical
and arrogant.
Anaxagoras, the most famous of the Ionian philosophers, was born 500
B.C., and belonged to a rich and noble family. Regarding philosophy as
the noblest pursuit of earth, he abandoned his inheritance for the study
of Nature. He went to Athens in the most brilliant period of her history,
and had Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates for pupils. He taught that the
great moving force of Nature was intellect ([Greek: nous]). Intelligence
was the cause of the world and of order, and mind was the principle of
motion; yet this intelligence was not a moral intelligence, but simply
the _primum mobile_,--the all-knowing motive force by which the order of
Nature is effected. He thus laid the foundation of a new system, under
which the Attic philosophers sought to explain Nature, by regarding as
the cause of all things, not _matter_ in its different elements, but
rather _mind_, thought, intelligence, which both knows and acts,--a
grand conception, unrivalled in ancient speculation. This explanation of
material phenomena by intellectual causes was the peculiar merit of
Anaxagoras, and places him in a very high rank among the thinkers of the
world. Moreover, he recognized the reason as the only faculty by which
we become cognizant of truth, the senses being too weak to discover the
real component particles of things. Like all the great inquirers, he was
impressed with the limited degree of positive knowledge compared with
what there is to be learned. "Nothing," says he, "can be known; nothing
is certain; sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short,"--the
complaint, not of a sceptic, but of a man overwhelmed with the sense of
his incapacity to solve the problems which arose before his active mind.
Anaxagoras thought that this spirit ([Greek: nous]) gave to all those
material atoms which in the beginning of the world lay in disorder the
impulse by which they took the forms of individual things, and that this
impulse was given in a circular direction. Hence that the sun, moon, and
stars, and even the air, are constantly moving in a circle.
In the mean time another sect of philosophers had arisen, who, like the
Ionians, sought to explain Nature, but by a different method.
Anaximander, born 610 B.C., was one of the original mathematicians of
Greece, yet, like Pythagoras and Thales, speculated on the beginning of
things. His principle was that _The Infinite_ is the origin of all
things. He used the word _[Greek: archae] (beginning)_ to denote the
material out of which all things were formed, as the Everlasting, the
Divine. The idea of elevating an abstraction into a great first cause
was certainly a long stride in philosophic generalization to be taken at
that age of the world, following as it did so immediately upon such
partial and childish ideas as that any single one of the familiar
"elements" could be the primal cause of all things. It seems almost like
the speculations of our own time, when philosophers seek to find the
first cause in impersonal Force, or infinite Energy. Yet it is not
really easy to understand Anaximander's meaning, other than that the
abstract has a higher significance than the concrete. The speculations
of Thales had tended toward discovering the material constitution of the
universe upon an _induction_ from observed facts, and thus made water to
be the origin of all things. Anaximander, accustomed to view things in
the abstract, could not accept so concrete a thing as water; his
speculations tended toward mathematics, to the science of pure
_deduction_. The primary Being is a unity, one in all, comprising within
itself the multiplicity of elements from which all mundane things are
composed. It is only in infinity that the perpetual changes of things
can take place. Thus Anaximander, an original but vague thinker,
prepared the way for Pythagoras.
This later philosopher and mathematician, born about the year 600 B.C.,
stands as one of the great names of antiquity; but his life is shrouded
in dim magnificence. The old historians paint him as "clothed in robes
of white, his head covered with gold, his aspect grave and majestic,
rapt in the contemplation of the mysteries of existence, listening to
the music of Homer and Hesiod, or to the harmony of the spheres."
Pythagoras was supposed to be a native of Samos. When quite young, being
devoted to learning, he quitted his country and went to Egypt, where he
learned its language and all the secret mysteries of the priests. He
then returned to Samos, but finding the island under the dominion of a
tyrant he fled to Crotona, in Italy, where he gained great reputation
for wisdom, and made laws for the Italians. His pupils were about three
hundred in number. He wrote three books, which were extant in the time
of Diogenes Laertius,--one on Education, one on Politics, and one on
Natural Philosophy. He also wrote an epic poem on the universe, to which
he gave the name of _Kosmos_.
Among the ethical principles which Pythagoras taught was that men ought
not to pray for anything in particular, since they do not know what is
good for them; that drunkenness was identical with ruin; that no one
should exceed the proper quantity of meat and drink; that the property
of friends is common; that men should never say or do anything in anger.
He forbade his disciples to offer victims to the gods, ordering them to
worship only at those altars which were unstained with blood.
Pythagoras was the first person who introduced measures and weights
among the Greeks. But it is his philosophy which chiefly claims our
attention. His main principle was that _number_ is the essence of
things,--probably meaning by number order and harmony and conformity to
law. The order of the universe, he taught, is only a harmonical
development of the first principle of all things to virtue and wisdom.
He attached much value to music, as an art which has great influence on
the affections; hence his doctrine of the music of the spheres. Assuming
that number is the essence of the world, he deduced the idea that the
world is regulated by numerical proportions, or by a system of laws
which are regular and harmonious in their operations. Hence the
necessity for an intelligent creator of the universe. The Infinite of
Anaximander became the One of Pythagoras. He believed that the soul is
incorporeal, and is put into the body subject to numerical and
harmonical relation, and thus to divine regulation. Hence the tendency
of his speculations was to raise the soul to the contemplation of law
and order,--of a supreme Intelligence reigning in justice and truth.
Justice and truth became thus paramount virtues, to be practised and
sought as the end of life. "It is impossible not to see in these lofty
speculations the effect of the Greek mind, according to its own genius,
seeking after God, if haply it might find Him."
We now approach the second stage of Greek philosophy. The Ionic
philosophers had sought to find the first principle of all things in the
elements, and the Pythagoreans in number, or harmony and law, implying
an intelligent creator. The Eleatics, who now arose, went beyond the
realm of physics to pure metaphysical inquiries, to an idealistic
pantheism, which disregarded the sensible, maintaining that the source
of truth is independent of the senses. Here they were forestalled by the
Hindu sages.
The founder of this school was Xenophanes, born in Colophon, an Ionian
city of Asia Minor, from which being expelled he wandered over Sicily as
a rhapsodist, or minstrel, reciting his elegiac poetry on the loftiest
truths, and at last, about the year 536 B.C., came to Elea, where he
settled. The principal subject of his inquiries was deity itself,--the
great First Cause, the supreme Intelligence of the universe. From the
principle _ex nihilo nihil fit_ he concluded that nothing could pass
from non-existence to existence. All things that exist are created by
supreme Intelligence, who is eternal and immutable. From this truth that
God must be from all eternity, he advances to deny all multiplicity. A
plurality of gods is impossible. With these sublime views,--the unity
and eternity and omnipotence of God,--Xenophanes boldly attacked the
popular errors of his day. He denounced the transference to the deity of
the human form; he inveighed against Homer and Hesiod; he ridiculed the
doctrine of migration of souls. Thus he sings,--
"Such things of the gods are related by Homer and Hesiod
As would be shame and abiding disgrace to mankind,--
Promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other."
And again, respecting anthropomorphic representations of the deity,--
"But men foolishly think that gods are born like as men are,
And have too a dress like their own, and their voice and their figure;
But there's but one God alone, the greatest of gods and of mortals,
Neither in body to mankind resembling, neither in ideas."
Such were the sublime meditations of Xenophanes. He believed in the
_One_, which is God; but this all-pervading, unmoved, undivided being
was not a personal God, nor a moral governor, but deity pervading all
space. He could not separate God from the world, nor could he admit the
existence of world which is not God. He was a monotheist, but his
monotheism was pantheism. He saw God in all the manifestations of
Nature. This did not satisfy him nor resolve his doubts, and he
therefore confessed that reason could not compass the exalted aims of
philosophy. But there was no cynicism in his doubt. It was the
soul-sickening consciousness that reason was incapable of solving the
mighty questions that he burned to know. There was no way to arrive at
the truth, "for," said he, "error is spread over all things." It was not
disdain of knowledge, it was the combat of contradictory opinions that
oppressed him. He could not solve the questions pertaining to God. What
uninstructed reason can? "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst
thou know the Almighty unto perfection?" What was impossible to Job was
not possible to Xenophanes. But he had attained a recognition of the
unity and perfections of God; and this conviction he would spread
abroad, and tear down the superstitions which hid the face of truth. I
have great admiration for this philosopher, so sad, so earnest, so
enthusiastic, wandering from city to city, indifferent to money,
comfort, friends, fame, that he might kindle the knowledge of God. This
was a lofty aim indeed for philosophy in that age. It was a higher
mission than that of Homer, great as his was, though not so successful.
Parmenides of Elea, born about the year 530 B.C., followed out the
system of Xenophanes, the central idea of which was the existence of
God. With Parmenides the main thought was the notion of _being_. Being
is uncreated and unchangeable; the fulness of all being is _thought_;
the _All_ is thought and intelligence. He maintained the uncertainty of
knowledge, meaning the knowledge derived through the senses. He did not
deny the certainty of reason. He was the first who drew a distinction
between knowledge obtained by the senses and that obtained through the
reason; and thus he anticipated the doctrine of innate ideas. From the
uncertainty of knowledge derived through the senses, he deduced the
twofold system of true and apparent knowledge.
Zeno of Elea, the friend and pupil of Parmenides, born 500 B.C.,
brought nothing new to the system, but invented _Dialectics_, the art of
disputation,--that department of logic which afterward became so
powerful in the hands of Plato and Aristotle, and so generally admired
among the schoolmen. It seeks to establish truth by refuting error
through the _reductio ad absurdum_. While Parmenides sought to establish
the doctrine of the _One_, Zeno proved the non-existence of the _Many_.
He did not deny existences, but denied that appearances were real
existences. It was the mission of Zeno to establish the doctrines of his
master. But in order to convince his listeners, he was obliged to use a
new method of argument. So he carried on his argumentation by question
and answer, and was therefore the first who used dialogue, which he
called dialectics, as a medium of philosophical communication.
Empedocles, born 444 B.C., like others of the Eleatics, complained of
the imperfection of the senses, and looked for truth only in reason. He
regarded truth as a perfect unity, ruled by love,--the only true force,
the one moving cause of all things,--the first creative power by which
or whom the world was formed. Thus "God is love" is a sublime doctrine
which philosophy revealed to the Greeks, and the emphatic and continuous
and assured declaration of which was the central theme of the revelation
made by Jesus, the Christ, who resolved all the Law and the Gospel into
the element of Love,--fatherly on the part of God, filial and fraternal
on the part of men.
Thus did the Eleatic philosophers speculate almost contemporaneously
with the Ionians on the beginning of things and the origin of knowledge,
taking different grounds, and attempting to correct the representations
of sense by the notions of reason. But both schools, although they did
not establish many truths, raised an inquisitive spirit, and awakened
freedom of thought and inquiry. They raised up workmen for more
enlightened times, even as scholastic inquirers in the Middle Ages
prepared the way for the revival of philosophy on sounder principles.
They were all men of remarkable elevation of character as well as
genius. They hated superstitions, and attacked the anthropomorphism of
their day. They handled gods and goddesses with allegorizing boldness,
and hence were often persecuted by the people. They did not establish
moral truths by scientific processes, but they set examples of lofty
disdain of wealth and factitious advantages, and devoted themselves with
holy enthusiasm to the solution of the great questions which pertain to
God and Nature. Thales won the respect of his countrymen by devotion to
studies. Pythagoras spent twenty-two years in Egypt to learn its
science. Xenophanes wandered over Sicily as a rhapsodist of truth.
Parmenides, born to wealth and splendor, forsook the feverish pursuit of
sensual enjoyments that he might "behold the bright countenance of truth
in the quiet and still air of delightful studies." Zeno declined all
worldly honors in order that he might diffuse the doctrines of his
master. Heraclitus refused the chief magistracy of Ephesus that he might
have leisure to explore the depths of his own nature. Anaxagoras allowed
his patrimony to run to waste in order to solve problems. "To
philosophy," said he, "I owe my worldly ruin, and my soul's prosperity."
All these men were, without exception, the greatest and best men of
their times. They laid the foundation of the beautiful temple which was
constructed after they were dead, in which both physics and psychology
reached the dignity of science. They too were prophets, although
unconscious of their divine mission,--prophets of that day when the
science which explores and illustrates the works of God shall enlarge,
enrich, and beautify man's conceptions of the great creative Father.
Nevertheless, these great men, lofty as were their inquiries and
blameless their lives, had not established any system, nor any theories
which were incontrovertible. They had simply speculated, and the world
ridiculed their speculations. Their ideas were one-sided, and when
pushed out to their extreme logical sequence were antagonistic to one
another; which had a tendency to produce doubt and scepticism. Men
denied the existence of the gods, and the grounds of certainty fell away
from the human mind.
This spirit of scepticism was favored by the tide of worldliness and
prosperity which followed the Persian War. Athens became a great centre
of art, of taste, of elegance, and of wealth. Politics absorbed the
minds of the people. Glory and splendor were followed by corruption of
morals and the pursuit of material pleasures. Philosophy went out of
fashion, since it brought no outward and tangible good. More scientific
studies were pursued,--those which could be applied to purposes of
utility and material gains; even as in our day geology, chemistry,
mechanics, engineering, having reference to the practical wants of men,
command talent, and lead to certain reward. In Athens, rhetoric,
mathematics, and natural history supplanted rhapsodies and speculations
on God and Providence. Renown and wealth could be secured only by
readiness and felicity of speech, and that was most valued which brought
immediate recompense, like eloquence. Men began to practise eloquence as
an art, and to employ it in furthering their interests. They made
special pleadings, since it was their object to gain their point at any
expense of law and justice. Hence they taught that nothing was immutably
right, but only so by convention. They undermined all confidence in
truth and religion by teaching its uncertainty. They denied to men even
the capability of arriving at truth. They practically affirmed the cold
and cynical doctrine that there is nothing better for a man than that he
should eat and drink. _Cui bono?_ this, the cry of most men in periods
of great outward prosperity, was the popular inquiry. Who will show us
any good?--how can we become rich, strong, honorable?--this was the
spirit of that class of public teachers who arose in Athens when art and
eloquence and wealth and splendor were at their height in the fifth
century before Christ, and when the elegant Pericles was the leader of
fashion and of political power.