historical review of the way in which the subject has been hitherto
treated by the earlier philosophers. Says Adolph Stahr:--
"Plato made the external world the region of the incomplete and bad, of
the contradictory and the false, and recognized absolute truth only in
the eternal immutable ideas. Aristotle laid down the proposition that
the idea, which cannot of itself fashion itself into reality, is
powerless, and has only a potential existence; and that it becomes a
living reality only by realizing itself in a creative manner by means of
its own energy."
There can be no doubt as to Aristotle's marvellous power of
systematizing. Collecting together all the results of ancient
speculation, he so combined them into a co-ordinate system that for a
thousand years he reigned supreme in the schools. From a literary point
of view, Plato was doubtless his superior; but Plato was a poet, making
philosophy divine and musical, while Aristotle's investigations spread
over a far wider range. He differed from Plato chiefly in relation to
the doctrine of ideas, without however resolving the difficulty which
divided them. As he made matter to be the eternal ground of phenomena,
he reduced the notion of it to a precision it never before enjoyed, and
established thereby a necessary element in human science. But being
bound to matter, he did not soar, as Plato did, into the higher regions
of speculation; nor did he entertain as lofty views of God or of
immortality. Neither did he have as high an ideal of human life; his
definition of the highest good was a perfect practical activity in a
perfect life.
With Aristotle closed the great Socratic movement in the history of
speculation. When Socrates appeared there was a general prevalence of
scepticism, arising from the unsatisfactory speculations respecting
Nature. He removed this scepticism by inventing a new method of
investigation, and by withdrawing the mind from the contemplation of
Nature to the study of man himself. He bade men to look inward. Plato
accepted his method, but applied it more universally. Like Socrates,
however, ethics were the great subject of his inquiries, to which
physics were only subordinate. The problem he sought to solve was the
way to live like the Deity; he would contemplate truth as the great aim
of life. With Aristotle, ethics formed only one branch of attention; his
main inquiries were in reference to physics and metaphysics. He thus, by
bringing these into the region of inquiry, paved the way for a new epoch
of scepticism.
Both Plato and Aristotle taught that reason alone can form science; but,
as we have said, Aristotle differed from his master respecting the
theory of ideas. He did not deny to ideas a _subjective_ existence, but
he did deny that they have an objective existence. He maintained that
individual things alone _exist_; and if individuals alone exist, they
can be known only by _sensation_. Sensation thus becomes the basis of
knowledge. Plato made _reason_ the basis of knowledge, but Aristotle
made _experience_ that basis. Plato directed man to the contemplation of
Ideas; Aristotle, to the observation of Nature. Instead of proceeding
synthetically and dialectically like Plato, he pursues an analytic
course. His method is hence inductive,--the derivation of certain
principles from a sum of given facts and phenomena. It would seem that
positive science began with Aristotle, since he maintained that
experience furnishes the principles of every science; but while his
conception was just, there was not at that time a sufficient amount of
experience from which to generalize with effect. It is only a most
extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition
which will warrant secure reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned without
sufficient certainty of the major premise of his syllogisms.
Aristotle was the father of logic, and Hegel and Kant think there has
been no improvement upon it since his day. This became to him the real
organon of science. "He supposed it was not merely the instrument of
thought, but the instrument of investigation." Hence it was futile for
purposes of discovery, although important to aid processes of thought.
Induction and syllogism are the two great features of his system of
logic. The one sets out from particulars already known to arrive at a
conclusion; the other sets out from some general principle to arrive at
particulars. The latter more particularly characterized his logic, which
he presented in sixteen forms, the whole evincing much ingenuity and
skill in construction, and presenting at the same time a useful
dialectical exercise. This syllogistic process of reasoning would be
incontrovertible, if the _general_ were better known than the
_particular_; but it is only by induction, which proceeds from the world
of experience, that we reach the higher world of cognition. Thus
Aristotle made speculation subordinate to logical distinctions, and his
system, when carried out by the mediaeval Schoolmen, led to a spirit of
useless quibbling. Instead of interrogating Nature they interrogated
their own minds, and no great discoveries were made. From want of proper
knowledge of the conditions of scientific inquiry, the method of
Aristotle became fruitless for him; but it was the key by which future
investigators were enabled to classify and utilize their vastly greater
collection of facts and materials.
Though Aristotle wrote in a methodical manner, his writings exhibit
great parsimony of language. There is no fascination in his style. It is
without ornament, and very condensed. His merit consisted in great
logical precision and scrupulous exactness in the employment of terms.
Philosophy, as a great system of dialectics, as an analysis of the power
and faculties of the mind, as a method to pursue inquiries, culminated
in Aristotle. He completed the great fabric of which Thales laid the
foundation. The subsequent schools of philosophy directed attention to
ethical and practical questions, rather than to intellectual phenomena.
The Sceptics, like Pyrrho, had only negative doctrines, and held in
disdain those inquiries which sought to penetrate the mysteries of
existence. They did not believe that absolute truth was attainable by
man; and they attacked the prevailing systems with great plausibility.
They pointed out the uncertainty of things, and the folly of striving to
comprehend them.
The Epicureans despised the investigations of philosophy, since in their
view these did not contribute to happiness. The subject of their
inquiries was happiness, not truth. What will promote this? was the
subject of their speculation. Epicurus, born 342 B.C., contended that
pleasure was happiness; that pleasure should be sought not for its own
sake, but with a view to the happiness of life obtained by it. He taught
that happiness was inseparable from virtue, and that its enjoyments
should be limited. He was averse to costly pleasures, and regarded
contentedness with a little to be a great good. He placed wealth not in
great possessions, but in few wants. He sought to widen the domain of
pleasure and narrow that of pain, and regarded a passionless state of
life as the highest. Nor did he dread death, which was deliverance from
misery, as the Buddhists think. Epicurus has been much misunderstood,
and his doctrines were subsequently perverted, especially when the arts
of life were brought into the service of luxury, and a gross materialism
was the great feature of society. Epicurus had much of the spirit of a
practical philosopher, although very little of the earnest cravings of a
religious man. He himself led a virtuous life, because he thought it
was wiser and better and more productive of happiness to be virtuous,
not because it was his duty. His writings were very voluminous, and in
his tranquil garden he led a peaceful life of study and enjoyment. His
followers, and they were numerous, were led into luxury and
effeminacy,--as was to be expected from a sceptical and irreligious
philosophy, the great principle of which was that whatever is pleasant
should be the object of existence. Sir James Mackintosh says:--
"To Epicurus we owe the general concurrence of reflecting men in
succeeding times in the important truth that men cannot be happy without
a virtuous frame of mind and course of life,--a truth of inestimable
value, not peculiar to the Epicureans, but placed by their exaggerations
in a stronger light; a truth, it must be added, of less importance as a
motive to right conduct than to the completeness of moral theory, which,
however, it is very far from solely constituting. With that truth the
Epicureans blended another position,--that because virtue promotes
happiness, every act of virtue must be done in order to promote the
happiness of the agent. Although, therefore, he has the merit of having
more strongly inculcated the connection of virtue with happiness, yet
his doctrine is justly charged with indisposing the mind to those
exalted and generous sentiments without which no pure, elevated, bold,
or tender virtues can exist."
The Stoics were a large and celebrated sect of philosophers; but they
added nothing to the domain of thought,--they created no system, they
invented no new method, they were led into no new psychological
inquiries. Their inquiries were chiefly ethical; and since ethics are a
great part of the system of Greek philosophy, the Stoics are well worthy
of attention. Some of the greatest men of antiquity are numbered among
them,--like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The philosophy they
taught was morality, and this was eminently practical and also elevated.
The founder of this sect, Zeno, was born, it is supposed, on the island
of Cyprus, about the year 350 B.C. He was the son of wealthy parents,
but was reduced to poverty by misfortune. He was so good a man, and so
profoundly revered by the Athenians, that they intrusted to him the keys
of their citadel. He lived in a degenerate age, when scepticism and
sensuality were eating out the life and vigor of Grecian society, when
Greek civilization was rapidly passing away, when ancient creeds had
lost their majesty, and general levity and folly overspread the land.
Deeply impressed with the prevailing laxity of morals and the absence of
religion, he lifted up his voice more as a reformer than as an inquirer
after truth, and taught for more than fifty years in a place called the
_Stoa_, "the Porch," which had once been the resort of the poets. Hence
the name of his school. He was chiefly absorbed with ethical questions,
although he studied profoundly the systems of the old philosophers. "The
Sceptics had attacked both perception and reason. They had shown that
perception is after all based upon appearance, and appearance is not a
certainty; and they showed that reason is unable to distinguish between
appearance and certainty, since it had nothing but phenomena to build
upon, and since there is no criterion to apply to reason itself." Then
they proclaimed philosophy a failure, and without foundation. But Zeno,
taking a stand on common-sense, fought for morality, as did Buddha
before him, and long after him Reid and Beattie, when they combated the
scepticism of Hume.
Philosophy, according to Zeno and other Stoics, was intimately connected
with the duties of practical life. The contemplation, meditation, and
thought recommended by Plato and Aristotle seemed only a covert
recommendation of selfish enjoyment. The wisdom which it should be the
aim of life to attain is virtue; and virtue is to live harmoniously with
Nature. To live harmoniously with Nature is to exclude all personal
ends; hence pleasure is to be disregarded, and pain is to be despised.
And as all moral action must be in harmony with Nature the law of
destiny is supreme, and all things move according to immutable fate.
With the predominant tendency to the universal which characterized their
system, the Stoics taught that the sage ought to regard himself as a
citizen of the world rather than of any particular city or state. They
made four things to be indispensable to virtue,--a knowledge of _good_
and _evil_, which is the province of the reason; _temperance_, a
knowledge of the due regulation of the sensual passions; _fortitude_, a
conviction that it is good to suffer what is necessary; and _justice_,
or acquaintance with what ought to be to every individual. They made
_perfection_ necessary to virtue; hence the severity of their system.
The perfect sage, according to them, is raised above all influence of
external events; he submits to the law of destiny; he is exempt from
desire and fear, joy or sorrow; he is not governed even by what he is
exposed to necessarily, like sorrow and pain; he is free from the
restraints of passion; he is like a god in his mental placidity. Nor
must the sage live only for himself, but for others also; he is a member
of the whole body of mankind. He ought to marry, and to take part in
public affairs; but he is to attack error and vice with uncompromising
sternness, and will never weakly give way to compassion or forgiveness.
Yet with this ideal the Stoics were forced to admit that virtue, like
true knowledge, although theoretically attainable is practically beyond
the reach of man. They were discontented with themselves and with all
around them, and looked upon all institutions as corrupt. They had a
profound contempt for their age, and for what modern society calls
"success in life;" but it cannot be denied that they practised a lofty
and stern virtue in their degenerate times. Their God was made subject
to Fate; and he was a material god, synonymous with Nature. Thus their
system was pantheistic. But they maintained the dignity of reason, and
sought to attain to virtues which it is not in the power of man fully
to reach.
Zeno lived to the extreme old age of ninety-eight, although his
constitution was not strong. He retained his powers by great
abstemiousness, living chiefly on figs, honey, and bread. He was a
modest and retiring man, seldom mingling with a crowd, or admitting the
society of more than two or three friends at a time. He was as plain in
his dress as he was frugal in his habits,--a man of great decorum and
propriety of manners, resembling noticeably in his life and doctrines
the Chinese sage Confucius. And yet this good man, a pattern to the
loftiest characters of his age, strangled himself. Suicide was not
deemed a crime by his followers, among whom were some of the most
faultless men of antiquity, especially among the Romans. The doctrines
of Zeno were never popular, and were confined to a small though
influential party.
With the Stoics ended among the Greeks all inquiry of a philosophical
nature worthy of especial mention, until centuries later, when
philosophy was revived in the Christian schools of Alexandria, where the
Hebrew element of faith was united with the Greek ideal of reason. The
struggles of so many great thinkers, from Thales to Aristotle, all ended
in doubt and in despair. It was discovered that all of them were wrong,
or rather partial; and their error was without a remedy, until "the
fulness of time" should reveal more clearly the plan of the great temple
of Truth, in which they were laying foundation stones.
The bright and glorious period of Greek philosophy was from Socrates to
Aristotle. Philosophical inquiries began about the origin of things, and
ended with an elaborate systematization of the forms of thought, which
was the most magnificent triumph that the unaided intellect of man ever
achieved. Socrates does not found a school, nor elaborate a system. He
reveals most precious truths, and stimulates the youth who listen to his
instructions by the doctrine that it is the duty of man to pursue a
knowledge of himself, which is to be sought in that divine reason which
dwells within him, and which also rules the world. He believes in
science; he loves truth for its own sake; he loves virtue, which
consists in the knowledge of the good.
Plato seizes the weapons of his great master, and is imbued with his
spirit. He is full of hope for science and humanity. With soaring
boldness he directs his inquiries to futurity, dissatisfied with the
present, and cherishing a fond hope of a better existence. He speculates
on God and the soul. He is not much interested in physical phenomena; he
does not, like Thales, strive to find out the beginning of all things,
but the highest good, by which his immortal soul may be refreshed and
prepared for the future life, in which he firmly believes. The sensible
is an impenetrable empire; but ideas are certitudes, and upon these he
dwells with rapt and mystical enthusiasm,--a great poetical rhapsodist,
severe dialectician as he is, believing in truth and beauty
and goodness.
Then Aristotle, following out the method of his teachers, attempts to
exhaust experience, and directs his inquiries into the outward world of
sense and observation, but all with the view of discovering from
phenomena the unconditional truth, in which he too believes. But
everything in this world is fleeting and transitory, and therefore it is
not easy to arrive at truth. A cold doubt creeps into the experimental
mind of Aristotle, with all his learning and his logic.
The Epicureans arise. Misreading or corrupting the purer teaching of
their founder, they place their hopes in sensual enjoyment. They
despair of truth.
But the world will not be abandoned to despair. The Stoics rebuke the
impiety which is blended with sensualism, and place their hopes on
virtue. Yet it is unattainable virtue, while their God is not a moral
governor, but subject to necessity.
Thus did those old giants grope about, for they did not know the God who
was revealed unto the more spiritual sense of Abraham, Moses, David, and
Isaiah. And yet with all their errors they were the greatest benefactors
of the ancient world. They gave dignity to intellectual inquiries, while
by their lives they set examples of a pure morality.
* * * * *
The Romans added absolutely nothing to the philosophy of the Greeks. Nor
were they much interested in any speculative inquiries. It was only the
ethical views of the old sages which had attraction or force to them.
They were too material to love pure subjective inquiries. They had
conquered the land; they disdained the empire of the air.
There were doubtless students of the Greek philosophy among the Romans,
perhaps as early as Cato the Censor. But there were only two persons of
note in Rome who wrote philosophy, till the time of Cicero,--Aurafanius
and Rubinus,--and these were Epicureans.
Cicero was the first to systematize the philosophy which contributed so
greatly to his intellectual culture, But even he added nothing; he was
only a commentator and expositor. Nor did he seek to found a system or a
school, but merely to influence and instruct men of his own rank. Those
subjects which had the greatest attraction for the Grecian schools
Cicero regarded as beyond the power of human cognition, and therefore
looked upon the practical as the proper domain of human inquiry. Yet he
held logic in great esteem, as furnishing rules for methodical
investigation. He adopted the doctrine of Socrates as to the pursuit of
moral good, and regarded the duties which grow out of the relations of
human society as preferable to those of pursuing scientific researches.
He had a great contempt for knowledge which could lead neither to the
clear apprehension of certitude nor to practical applications. He
thought it impossible to arrive at a knowledge of God, or the nature of
the soul, or the origin of the world; and thus he was led to look upon
the sensible and the present as of more importance than inconclusive
inductions, or deductions from a truth not satisfactorily established.
Cicero was an eclectic, seizing on what was true and clear in the
ancient systems, and disregarding what was simply a matter of
speculation. This is especially seen in his treatise "De Finibus Bonorum
et Malorum," in which the opinions of all the Grecian schools
concerning the supreme good are expounded and compared. Nor does he
hesitate to declare that the highest happiness consists in the knowledge
of Nature and science, which is the true source of pleasure both to gods
and men. Yet these are but hopes, in which it does not become us to
indulge. It is the actual, the real, the practical, which pre-eminently
claims attention,--in other words, the knowledge which will furnish man
with a guide and rule of life. Even in the consideration of moral
questions Cicero is pursued by the conflict of opinions, although in
this department he is most at home. The points he is most anxious to
establish are the doctrines of God and the soul. These are most fully
treated in his essay "De Natura Deorum," in which he submits the
doctrines of the Epicureans and the Stoics to the objections of the
Academy. He admits that man is unable to form true conceptions of God,
but acknowledges the necessity of assuming one supreme God as the
creator and ruler of all things, moving all things, remote from all
mortal mixture, and endued with eternal motion in himself. He seems to
believe in a divine providence ordering good to man, in the soul's
immortality, in free-will, in the dignity of human nature, in the
dominion of reason, in the restraint of the passions as necessary to
virtue, in a life of public utility, in an immutable morality, in the
imitation of the divine.
Thus there is little of original thought in the moral theories of
Cicero, which are the result of observation rather than of any
philosophical principle. We might enumerate his various opinions, and
show what an enlightened mind he possessed; but this would not be the
development of philosophy. His views, interesting as they are, and
generally wise and lofty, do not indicate any progress of the science.
He merely repeats earlier doctrines. These were not without their
utility, since they had great influence on the Latin fathers of the
Christian Church. He was esteemed for his general enlightenment. He
softened down the extreme views of the great thinkers before his day,
and clearly unfolded what had become obscured. He was a critic of
philosophy, an expositor whom we can scarcely spare.
If anybody advanced philosophy among the Romans it was Epictetus, and
even he only in the realm of ethics. Quintius Sextius, in the time of
Augustus, had revived the Pythagorean doctrines. Seneca had recommended
the severe morality of the Stoics, but added nothing that was not
previously known.