CHAPTER I

PERIOD I.—DIVISION I.—THALES TO ANAXAGORAS

SINCE we possess only traditions and fragments of this epoch, we may

speak here of the sources of these.

1. The first source is found in Plato, who makes copious reference to

the older philosophers. For the reason that he makes the earlier and

apparently independent philosophies, which are not so far apart when

once their Notion is definitely grasped, into concrete moments of one

Idea, Plato’s philosophy often seems to be merely a clearer statement

of the doctrines of the older philosophers, and hence it draws upon

itself the reproach of plagiarism. Plato was willing to spend much

money in procuring the writings of the older philosophers, and, from

his profound study of these, his conclusions have much weight. But

because in his writings he never himself appeared as teacher, but

always represented other people in his dialogues as the philosophers, a

distinction never has been made between what really belonged to them in

history and what was added by him through the further development which

he effected in their thoughts. In the Parmenides, for instance, we

have the Eleatic philosophy, and yet the working out of this doctrine

belongs peculiarly to Plato.

2. Aristotle is our most abundant authority; he studied the older

philosophers expressly and most thoroughly, and he has, in the

beginning of his Metaphysics especially, and also to a large extent

elsewhere, dealt with them, in historical order: he is as philosophic

as erudite, and we may rely upon him. We can do no better in Greek

philosophy than study the first book of his Metaphysics. When the

would-be-wise man depreciates Aristotle, and asserts that he has not

correctly apprehended Plato, it may be retorted that as he associated

with Plato himself, with his deep and comprehensive mind, perhaps no

one knew him better.

3. Cicero’s name may also occur to us here—although he certainly is

but a troubled spring—since he undoubtedly gives us much information;

yet because he was lacking in philosophic spirit, he understood

Philosophy rather as if it were a matter of history merely. He does

not seem to have himself studied its first sources, and even avows

that, for instance, he never understood Heraclitus; and because

this old and deep philosophy did not interest him, he did not give

himself the trouble to study it. His information bears principally

on later philosophers—the Stoics, Epicureans, the new Academy, and

the Peripatetics. He saw what was ancient through their medium,

and, generally speaking, through a medium of reasoning and not of

speculation.

4. Sextus Empiricus, a later sceptic, has importance through his

writings, _Hypotyposes Pyrrhonicæ_ and _adversus Mathematicos_.

Because, as a sceptic, he both combated the dogmatic philosophy and

also adduced other philosophers as testifying to scepticism (so that

the greater part of his writings is filled with the tenets of other

philosophers), he is the most abundant source we have for the history

of ancient philosophy, and he has retained for our use many valuable

fragments.

5. The book of Diogenes Laertius (_De vitis_, &c., Philoss. lib.

x., ed. Meibom. c. notis Menagii, Amstel. 1692) is an important

compilation, and yet it brings forward copious evidence without much

discrimination. A philosophic spirit cannot be ascribed to it; it

rambles about amongst bad anecdotes extraneous to the matter in hand.

For the lives of philosophers, and here and there for their tenets, it

is useful.

6. Finally, we must speak of Simplicius, a later Greek, from Cilicia,

living under Justinian, in the middle of the sixth century. He is the

most learned and acute of the Greek commentators of Aristotle, and of

his writings there is much still unpublished: to him we certainly owe

our thanks.

I need give no more references, for they may be found without trouble

in any compendium. In the progress of Greek philosophy men were

formerly accustomed to follow the order that showed, according to

ordinary ideas, an external connection, and which is found in one

philosopher having had another as his teacher—this connection is one

which might show him to be partly derived from Thales and partly from

Pythagoras. But such a connection is in part defective in itself, and

in part it is merely external. The one set of philosophic sects, or

of philosophers classed together, which is considered as belonging to

a system—that which proceeds from Thales—pursues its course in time

and mind far separate from the other. But, in truth, no such series

ever does exist in this isolation, nor would it do so even though the

individuals were consecutive and had been externally connected as

teacher and taught, which never is the case; mind follows quite another

order. These successive series are interwoven in spirit just as much as

in their particular content.

We come across Thales first amongst the Ionic people, to whom the

Athenians belonged, or from whom the Ionians of Asia Minor, as a whole,

derived their origin. The Ionic race appears earlier in Peloponnesus,

but seems to have been removed from thence. It is, however, not known

what nations belonged to it, for, according to Herodotus (I. 143), the

other Ionians, and even the Athenians, laid aside the name. According

to Thucydides (I. 2 and 12), the Ionic colonies in Asia Minor and the

islands proceeded principally from Athens, because the Athenians,

on account of the over-population of Attica, migrated there. We find

the greatest activity in Greek life on the coasts of Asia Minor, in

the Greek islands, and then towards the west of Magna Græcia; we see

amongst these people, through their internal political activity and

their intercourse with foreigners, the existence of a diversity and

variety in their relations, whereby narrowness of vision is done away

with, and the universal rises in its place. These two places, Ionia and

Greater Greece, are thus the two localities where this first period

in the history of Philosophy plays its part until the time when, that

period being ended, Philosophy plants itself in Greece proper, and

there makes its home. Those spots were also the seat of early commerce

and of an early culture, while Greece itself, so far as these are

concerned, followed later.

We must thus remark that the character of the two sides into which

these philosophies divide, the philosophy of Asia Minor in the east

and that of Grecian Italy in the west, partakes of the character of

the geographical distinction. On the Asia Minor side, and also in

the islands, we find Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus,

Leucippus, Democritus, Anaxagoras, and Diogenes from Crete. On the

other side are the inhabitants of Italy: Pythagoras from Samos, who

lived in Italy, however; Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles;

and several of the Sophists also lived in Italy. Anaxagoras was the

first to come to Athens, and thus his science takes a middle place

between both extremes, and Athens was made its centre. The geographical

distinction makes its appearance in the manifestation of Thought,

in the fact that, with the Orientals a sensuous, material side is

dominant, and in the west, Thought, on the contrary, prevails, because

it is constituted into the principle in the form of thought. Those

philosophers who turned to the east knew the absolute in a real

determination of nature, while towards Italy there is the ideal

determination of the absolute. These explanations will be sufficient

for us here; but Empedocles, whom we find in Sicily, is somewhat of

a natural philosopher, while Gorgias, the Sicilian sophist, remains

faithful to the ideal side.

We now have to consider further:—1, The Ionians, viz. Thales,

Anaximander, Anaximenes; 2, Pythagoras and his followers; 3, the

Eleatics, viz. Xenophanes, Parmenides, &c.; 4, Heraclitus; 5,

Empedocles, Leucippus and Democritus; 6, Anaxagoras. We have to trace

and point out the progression of this philosophy also. The first and

altogether abstract determinations are found with Thales and the

other Ionians; they grasped the universal in the form of a natural

determination, as water and air. Progression must thus take place by

leaving behind the merely natural determination; and we find that this

is so with the Pythagoreans. They say that number is the substance or

the essence of things; number is not sensuous, nor is it pure thought,

but it is a non-sensuous object of sense. It was with the Eleatics

that pure thought appeared, and that its forcible liberation from the

sensuous form and the form of number came to pass; and thus from them

proceeds the dialectic movement of thought, which negates the definite

particular in order to show that it is not the many but only the one

that is true. Heraclitus declares the Absolute to be this very process,

which, according to the Eleatics, was still subjective; he arrived at

objective consciousness, since in it the Absolute is that which moves

or changes. Empedocles, Leucippus, and Democritus, on the contrary,

rather go to the opposite extreme, to the simple, material, stationary

principle, to the substratum which underlies the process; and thus this

last, as being movement, is distinguished from it. With Anaxagoras it

is the moving, self-determining thought itself that is then known as

existence, and this is a great step forward.

A. THE IONIC PHILOSOPHY.

Here we have the earlier Ionic philosophy, which we desire to treat as

shortly as possible; and this is so much the easier, that the thought

contained in it is very abstract and barren. Other philosophers than

Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, only come under our consideration

as names. We have no more than half a dozen passages in the whole

of the early Ionic philosophy, and that makes it an easy study. Yet

learning prides itself most upon the ancients, for we may be most

learned about that of which we know the least.

1. _Thales._

With Thales we, properly speaking, first begin the history of

Philosophy. The life of Thales occurred at the time when the Ionic

towns were under the dominion of Crœsus. Through his overthrow (Ol.

58, 1; 548 B.C.), an appearance of freedom was produced, yet the most

of these towns were conquered by the Persians, and Thales survived the

catastrophe only a few years. He was born at Miletus; his family is,

by Diogenes (I. 22, 37), stated to be the Phœnician one of Thelides,

and the date of his birth, according to the best calculation, is placed

in the first year of the 35th Olympiad (640 B.C.), but according to

Meiners it was a couple of Olympiads later (38th Olympiad, 629 B.C.).

Thales lived as a statesman partly with Crœsus and partly in Miletus.

Herodotus quotes him several times, and tells (I. 75) that, according

to the narratives of the Greeks, when Crœsus went to battle against

Cyrus and had difficulty in passing over the river Halys, Thales, who

accompanied the army, diverted the river by a trench, which he made

in the form of a crescent behind the camp, so that it could then be

forded. Diogenes (I. 25) says further of him as regards his relations

to his country, that he restrained the men of Miletus from allying

themselves with Crœsus when he went against Cyrus, and that hence,

after the conquest of Crœsus, when the other Ionic States were subdued

by the Persians, the inhabitants of Miletus alone remained undisturbed.

Diogenes records, moreover (I. 23), that he soon withdrew his attention

from the affairs of the State and devoted himself entirely to science.

Voyages to Phœnicia are recorded of him, which, however, rest on vague

tradition; but that he was in Egypt in his old age seems undoubted.[19]

There he was said to have learned geometry, but this would appear

not to have been much, judging from the anecdote, which Diogenes (I.

24, 27) retails from a certain Hieronymus. It was to the effect that

Thales taught the Egyptians to measure the height of their pyramids

by shadow—by taking the relation borne by the height of a man to his

shadow. The terms of the proportion are: as the shadow of a man is to

the height of a man, so is the shadow of a pyramid to its height. If

this were something new to the Egyptians, they must have been very far

back in the theory of geometry. Herodotus tells (I. 74), moreover,

that Thales foretold an eclipse of the sun that happened exactly on

the day of the battle between the Medians and Lydians, and that he

ascribed the rising of the Nile to the contrary Etesian winds, which

drove back the waters.[20] We have some further isolated instances

of, and anecdotes about his astronomical knowledge and works.[21] “In

gazing at and making observations on the stars, he fell into a ditch,

and the people mocked him as one who had knowledge of heavenly objects

and yet could not see what lay at his own feet.” The people laugh at

such things, and boast that philosophers cannot tell them about such

matters; but they do not understand that philosophers laugh at them,

for they do not fall into a ditch just because they lie in one for

all time, and because they cannot see what exists above them. He also

showed, according to Diogenes (I. 26), that a wise man, if he wishes,

can easily acquire riches. It is more important that he fixed that the

year, as solar year, should have 365 days. The anecdote of the golden

tripod to be given to the wisest man, is recorded by Diogenes (I.

27-33); and it carries with it considerable weight, because he combines

all the different versions of the story. The tripod was given to Thales

or to Bias; Thales gave it to some one else, and thus it went through

a circle until it again came to Thales; the latter, or else Solon,

decided that Apollo was wisest, and sent it to Didyma or to Delphi.

Thales died, according to Diogenes (I. 38), aged seventy-eight or

ninety, in the 58th Olympiad; according to Tennemann (vol. i. p. 414),

it was in Olympiad 59, 2 (543 B.C.), when Pythagoras came to Crotona.

Diogenes relates that he died at one of the games, overcome by heat and

thirst.

We have no writings by Thales, and we do not know whether he was in

the habit of writing. Diogenes Laertius (I. 23, 34, 35) speaks of two

hundred verses on astronomy, and some maxims, such as “It is not the

many words that have most meaning.”

As to his philosophy, he is universally recognized as the first natural

philosopher, but all one knows of him is little, and yet we seem to

know the most of what there is. For since we find that the further

philosophic progress of which his speculative idea was capable, and the

understanding of his propositions, which they alone could have, make

their first appearance and form particular epochs with the philosophers

succeeding him, who may be recognized thereby, this development

ascribed to Thales never took place with him at all. Thus if it is the

case that a number of his other reflections have been lost, they cannot

have had any particular speculative value; and his philosophy does not

show itself to be an imperfect system from want of information about

it, but because the first philosophy cannot be a system.

We must listen to Aristotle as regards these ancient philosophers,

for he speaks most sympathetically of them. In the passage of most

importance (Metaph. I. 3), he says: “Since it is clear that we must

acquire the science of first causes (_ἐξ ἀρχῆς αἰτίν_), seeing that

we say that a person knows a thing when he becomes acquainted with

its cause, there are, we must recollect, four causes—Being and Form

first (for the ‘why’ is finally led back to the Notion, but yet the

first ‘why’ is a cause and principle); matter and substratum, second;

the cause whence comes the beginning of movement, third; and fourth

the cause which is opposed to this, the aim in view and the good (for

that is the end of every origination). Hence we would make mention of

those who have undertaken the investigation of Being before us, and

have speculated regarding the Truth, for they openly advance certain

principles and first causes. If we take them under our consideration,

it will be of this advantage, so far as our present investigation

goes, that we shall either find other kinds of causes or be enabled

to have so much the more confidence in those just named. Most of the

earliest philosophers have placed the principles of everything in

something in the form of matter (_ἐν ὕλης εἴδει_), for, that from which

everything existent comes, and out of which it takes its origin as its

first source, and into which it finally sinks, as substance (_οὐσία_),

ever remains the same and only changes in its particular qualities

(_πάθεσι_); and this is called the element (_στοιχεῖον_) and this the

principle of all that exists” (the absolute prius). “On this account

they maintain that nothing arises or passes away, because the same

nature always remains. For instance, we say that, absolutely speaking,

Socrates neither originates if he becomes beautiful or musical, nor

does he pass away if he loses these qualities, because the subject (_τὸ

ὑποκείμενον_), Socrates, remains the same. And so it is with all else.

For there must be one nature, or more than one, from which all else

arises, because it maintains its existence” (_σωζομένης ἐκείνης_),

that means that in its change there is no reality or truth. “All do not

coincide as to the number of this principle or as to its description

(_εἶδος_); Thales, the founder of this philosophy,” (which recognizes

something material as the principle and substance of all that is),

“says that it is water. Hence he likewise asserts the earth to be

founded on water.” Water is thus the _ὑποκείμενον_, the first ground,

and, according to Seneca’s statement (Quæst. Nat. vi. 6), it seems to

him to be not so much the inside of the earth, as what encloses it

which is the universal existence; for “Thales considered that the whole

earth has water as its support (_subjecto humore_), and that it swims

thereon.”

We might first of all expect some explanation of the application of

these principles, as, for example, how it is to be proved that water is

the universal substance, and in what way particular forms are deduced

from it. But as to this we must say that of Thales in particular,

we know nothing more than his principle, which is that water is the

god over all. No more do we know anything further of Anaximander,

Anaximenes and Diogenes than their principles. Aristotle brings forward

a conjecture as to how Thales derived everything directly out of water,

“Perhaps (_ἴσως_) the conclusions of Thales have been brought about

from the reflection that it was evident that all nourishment is moist,

and warmth itself comes out of moisture and thereby life continues.

But that from which anything generates is the principle of all things.

This was one reason for holding this theory, and another reason is

contained in the fact that all germs are moist in character, and water

is the principle of what is moist.” It is necessary to remark that

the circumstances introduced by Aristotle with a “perhaps” which are

supposed to have brought about the conclusions of Thales, making water

the absolute essence of everything, are not adduced as the grounds

acknowledged by Thales. And furthermore, they can hardly be called

grounds, for what Aristotle does is rather to establish, as we would

say from actuality, that the latter corresponds to the universal

idea of water. His successors, as for instance Pseudo-Plutarch (De

plac. phil. I. 3), have taken Thales’ assertion as positive and not

hypothetical; Tiedmann (_Geist der spec. Phil._ vol. I. p. 36) remarks

with great reason that Plutarch omits the “perhaps.” For Plutarch

says, “Thales suggests (_στοχάζεται_) that everything takes its origin

from water and resolves itself into the same, because as the germs of

all that live have moisture as the principle of life, all else might

likewise (_εἰκός_) take its principle from moisture; for all plants

draw their nourishment, and thus bear fruit, from water, and if they

are without it, fade away; and even the fires of sun, and stars and

world are fed through the evaporation of water.” Aristotle is contented

with simply showing in regard to moisture that, at least, it is

everywhere to be found. Since Plutarch gives more definite grounds for

holding that water is the simple essence of things, we must see whether

things, in so far as they are simple essence, are water, (_α_) The germ

of the animal, of moist nature, is undoubtedly the animal as the simple

actual, or as the essence of its actuality, or undeveloped actuality.

(_β_) If, with plants, water may be regarded as for their nourishment,

nourishment is still only the being of a thing as formless substance

that first becomes individualized by individuality, and thus succeeds

in obtaining form. (_γ_) To make sun, moon and the whole world arise

through evaporation, like the food of plants, certainly approximates to

the idea of the ancients, who did not allow the sun and moon to have

obtained independence as we do.

“There are also some,” continues Aristotle, “who hold that all the

ancients who, at the first and long before the present generation,

made theology their study, understood Nature thus. They made Oceanus

and Tethys the producers of all origination (_τῆς γενέσεως_), and

water, which by the poets is called Styx, the oath of the gods. For

what is most ancient is most revered, and the oath is that most held in

reverence.” This old tradition has within it speculative significance.

If anything cannot be proved or is devoid of objective form, such as

we have in respect of payment in a discharge, or in witnesses who have

seen the transaction, the oath, the confirmation of myself as object,

expresses the fact that my assurance is absolute truth. Now since, by

way of confirmation, men swear by what is best, by what is absolutely

certain, and the gods swore by the subterranean water, it follows that

the essence of pure thought, the inmost being, the reality in which

consciousness finds its truth, is water; I, so to speak, express this

clear certainty of myself as object, as God.

1. The closer consideration of this principle in its bearings would

have no interest. For since the whole philosophy of Thales lies in

the fact that water is this principle, the only point of interest can

be to ask how far that principle is important and speculative. Thales

comprehends essence as devoid of form. While the sensuous certitude

of each thing in its individuality is not questioned, this objective

actuality is now to be raised into the Notion that reflects itself

into itself and is itself to be set forth as Notion; in commencement

this is seen in the world’s being manifested as water, or as a simple

universal. Fluid is, in its Notion, life, and hence it is water itself,

spiritually expressed; in the so-called grounds or reasons, on the

contrary, water has the form of existent universal. We certainly

grant this universal activity of water, and for that reason call it

an element, a physical universal power; but while we find it thus to

be the universal of activity, we also find it to be this actual, not

everywhere, but in proximity to other elements—earth, air and fire.

Water thus has not got a sensuous universality, but a speculative one

merely; to be speculative universality, however, would necessitate its

being Notion and having what is sensuous removed. Here we have the

strife between sensuous universality and universality of the Notion.

The real essence of nature has to be defined, that is, nature has to

be expressed as the simple essence of thought. Now simple essence, the

Notion of the universal, is that which is devoid of form, but this

water as it is, comes into the determination of form, and is thus, in

relation to others, a particular existence just like everything that

is natural. Yet as regards the other elements, water is determined as

formless and simple, while the earth is that which has points, air is

the element of all change, and fire evidently changes into itself.

Now if the need of unity impels us to recognize for separate things a

universal, water, although it has the drawback of being a particular

thing, can easily be utilized as the One, both on account of its

neutrality, and because it is more material than air.

The proposition of Thales, that water is the Absolute, or as the

ancients say, the principle, is the beginning of Philosophy, because

with it the consciousness is arrived at that essence, truth, that which

is alone in and for itself, are one. A departure from what is in our

sensuous perception here takes place; man recedes from this immediate

existence. We must be able to forget that we are accustomed to a rich

concrete world of thought; with us the very child learns, “There is

one God in Heaven, invisible.” Such determinations are not yet present

here; the world of Thought must first be formed and there is as yet no

pure unity. Man has nature before him as water, air, stars, the arch

of the heavens; and the horizon of his ideas is limited to this. The

imagination has, indeed, its gods, but its content still is natural;

the Greeks had considered sun, mountains, earth, sea, rivers, &c.,

as independent powers, revered them as gods, and elevated them by

the imagination to activity, movement, consciousness and will. What

there is besides, like the conceptions of Homer, for instance, is

something in which thought could not find satisfaction; it produces

mere images of the imagination, endlessly endowed with animation and

form, but destitute of simple unity. It must undoubtedly be said that

in this unconsciousness of an intellectual world, one must acknowledge

that there is a great robustness of mind evinced in not granting this

plenitude of existence to the natural world, but in reducing it to

a simple substance, which, as the ever enduring principle, neither

originates nor disappears, while the gods have a Theogony and are

manifold and changing. This wild, endlessly varied imagination of

Homer is set at rest by the proposition that existence is water; this

conflict of an endless quantity of principles, all these ideas that

a particular object is an independent truth, a self-sufficient power

over others existing in its own right, are taken away, and it is shown

likewise that there is only one universal, the universal self-existent,

the simple unimaginative perception, the thought that is one and one

alone.

This universal stands in direct relationship to the particular

and to the existence of the world as manifested. The first thing

implied in what has been said, is that the particular existence

has no independence, is not true in and for itself, but is only an

accidental modification. But the affirmative point of view is that all

other things proceed from the one, that the one remains thereby the

substance from which all other things proceed, and it is only through

a determination which is accidental and external that the particular

existence has its being. It is similarly the case that all particular

existence is transient, that is, it loses the form of particular and

again becomes the universal, water. The simple proposition of Thales

therefore, is Philosophy, because in it water, though sensuous, is not

looked at in its particularity as opposed to other natural things, but

as Thought in which everything is resolved and comprehended. Thus we

approach the divorce of the absolute from the finite; but it is not

to be thought that the unity stands above, and that down here we have

the finite world. This idea is often found in the common conception

of God—where permanence is attributed to the world and where men

often represent two kinds of actuality to themselves, a sensuous and a

supersensuous world of equal standing. The philosophic point of view is

that the one is alone the truly actual, and here we must take actual in

its higher significance, because we call everything actual in common

life. The second circumstance to be remembered is that with the ancient

philosophers, the principle has a definite and, at first, a physical

form. To us this does not appear to be philosophic but only physical;

in this case, however, matter has philosophic significance. Thales’

theory is thus a natural philosophy, because this universal essence

is determined as real; consequently the Absolute is determined as the

unity of thought and Being.

2. Now if we have this undifferentiated principle predominating, the

question arises as to the determination of this first principle. The

transition from universal to particular at once becomes essential, and

it begins with the determination of activity; the necessity for such

arises here. That which is to be a veritable principle must not have

a one-sided, particular form, but in it the difference must itself

be absolute, while other principles are only special kinds of forms.

The fact that the Absolute is what determines itself is already more

concrete; we have the activity and the higher self-consciousness of the

spiritual principle, by which the form has worked itself into being

absolute form, the totality of form. Since it is most profound, this

comes latest; what has first to be done is merely to look at things as

determined.

Form is lacking to water as conceived by Thales. How is this accorded

to it? The method is stated (and stated by Aristotle, but not directly

of Thales), in which particular forms have arisen out of water; it

is said to be through a process of condensation and rarefaction

(_πυκνότητι καὶ μανότητι_), or, as it may be better put, through

greater or less intensity. Tennemann (vol. I. p. 59) in reference to

this, cites from Aristotle, _De gen. et corrupt._ I. 1, where there

is no mention of condensation and rarefaction as regards Thales, and

further, _De cælo_, III. 5, where it is only said that those who uphold

water or air, or something finer than water or coarser than air, define

difference as density and rarity, but nothing is said of its being

Thales who gave expression to this distinction. Tiedmann (vol. I. p.

38) quotes yet other authorities; it was, however, later on, that this

distinction was first ascribed to Thales.[22] Thus much is made out,

that for the first time in this natural philosophy as in the modern,

that which is essential in form is really the quantitative difference

in its existence. This merely quantitative difference, however, which,

as the increasing and decreasing density of water, constitutes its

only form-determination, is an external expression of the absolute

difference; it is an unessential distinction set up through another and

is not the inner difference of the Notion in itself; it is therefore

not worth while to spend more time over it.

Difference as regards the Notion has no physical significance,

but differences or the simple duality of form in the sides of its

opposition, must be comprehended as universally in the Notion. On this

account a sensuous interpretation must not be given to the material,

that is to particular determinations, as when it is definitely said

that rare water is air, rare air, fiery ether, thick water, mud, which

then becomes earth; according to this, air would be the rarefaction of

the first water, ether the rarefaction of air, and earth and mud the

sediment of water. As sensuous difference or change, the division here

appears as something manifested for consciousness; the moderns have

experimented in making thicker and thinner what to the senses is the

same.

Change has consequently a double sense; one with reference to existence

and another with reference to the Notion. When change is considered

by the ancients, it is usually supposed to have to do with a change

in what exists, and thus, for instance, inquiry would be made as to

whether water can be changed through chemical action, such as heat,

distillation, &c., into earth; finite chemistry is confined to this.

But what is meant in all ancient philosophies is change as regards

the Notion. That is to say, water does not become converted into air

or space and time in retorts, &c. But in every philosophic idea, this

transition of one quality into another takes place, _i.e._ this inward

connection is shown in the Notion, according to which no one thing can

subsist independently and without the other, for the life of nature

has its subsistence in the fact that one thing is necessarily related

to the other. We certainly are accustomed to believe that if water

were taken away, it would indeed fare badly with plants and animals,

but that stones would still remain; or that of colours, blue could

be abstracted without harming in the least yellow or red. As regards

merely empirical existence, it may easily be shown that each quality

exists on its own account, but in the Notion they only are, through one

another, and by virtue of an inward necessity. We certainly see this

also in living matter, where things happen in another way, for here

the Notion comes into existence; thus if, for example, we abstract the

heart, the lungs and all else collapse. And in the same way all nature

exists only in the unity of all its parts, just as the brain can exist

only in unity with the other organs.

3. If the form is, however, only expressed in both its sides as

condensation and rarefaction, it is not in and for itself, for to be

this it must be grasped as the _absolute Notion_, and as an endlessly

forming unity. What is said on this point by Aristotle (De Anima, I.

2, also 5) is this: “Thales seems, according to what is said of him,

to consider the soul as something having movement, for he says of

the loadstone that it has a soul, since it moves the iron.” Diogenes

Laertius (I. 24) adds amber to this, from which we see that even Thales

knew about electricity, although another explanation of it is that

_ἤλεκτρον_ was besides a metal. Aldobrandini says of this passage in

Diogenes, that it is a stone which is so hostile to poison that when

touched by such it immediately hisses. The above remark by Aristotle

is perverted by Diogenes to such an extent that he says: “Thales has

likewise ascribed a soul to what is lifeless.” However, this is not the

question, for the point is how he thought of absolute form, and whether

he expressed the Idea generally as soul so that absolute essence should

be the unity of simple essence and form.

Diogenes certainly says further of Thales (I. 27), “The world is

animated and full of demons,” and Plutarch (De plac. phil. I. 7)

says, “He called God the Intelligence (_νοῦς_) of the world.” But all

the ancients, and particularly Aristotle, ascribe this expression

unanimously to Anaxagoras as the one who first said that the _νοῦς_

is the principle of things. Thus it does not conduce to the further

determination of form according to Thales, to find in Cicero (De Nat.

Deor. I. 10) this passage: “Thales says that water is the beginning

of everything, but God is the Mind which forms all that is, out of

water.” Thales may certainly have spoken of God, but Cicero has

added the statement that he comprehended him as the _νοῦς_ which

formed everything out of water. Tiedmann (vol. I. p. 42) declares the

passage to be possibly corrupt, since Cicero later on (c. 11) says

of Anaxagoras that “he first maintained the order of things to have

been brought about through the infinite power of Mind.” However, the

Epicurean, in whose mouth these words are put, speaks “with confidence

only fearing that he should appear to have any doubts” (c. 8) both

previously and subsequently of other philosophers rather foolishly, so

that this description is given merely as a jest. Aristotle understands

historic accuracy better, and therefore we must follow him. But to

those who make it their business to find everywhere the conception of

the creation of the world by God, that passage in Cicero is a great

source of delight, and it is a much disputed point whether Thales is

to be counted amongst those who accepted the existence of a God. The

Theism of Thales is maintained by Plouquet, whilst others would have

him to be an atheist or polytheist, because he says that everything is

full of demons. However, this question as to whether Thales believed

in God does not concern us here, for acceptation, faith, popular

religion are not in question; we only have to do with the philosophic

determination of absolute existence. And if Thales did speak of God as

constituting everything out of this same water, that would not give us

any further information about this existence; we should have spoken

unphilosophically of Thales because we should have used an empty word

without inquiring about its speculative significance. Similarly the

word world-soul is useless, because its being is not thereby expressed.

Thus all these further, as also later, assertions do not justify us in

maintaining that Thales comprehended form in the absolute in a definite

manner; on the contrary, the rest of the history of philosophical

development refutes this view. We see that form certainly seems to

be shown forth in existence, but as yet this unity is no further

developed. The idea that the magnet has a soul is indeed always better

than saying that it has the power of attraction; for power is a quality

which is considered as a predicate separable from matter, while soul

is movement in unison with matter in its essence. An idea such as

this of Thales stands isolated, however, and has no further relation

to his absolute thought. Thus, in fact, the philosophy of Thales is

comprised in the following simple elements: (_a_) It has constituted

an abstraction in order to comprehend nature in a simple sensuous

essence. (_b_) It has brought forth the Notion of ground or principle;

that is, it has defined water to be the infinite Notion, the simple

essence of thought, without determining it further as the difference of

quantity. That is the limited significance of this principle of Thales.

2. _Anaximander._

Anaximander was also of Miletus, and he was a friend of Thales. “The

latter,” says Cicero (Acad. Quaest. IV. 37), “could not convince him

that everything consisted of water.” Anaximander’s father was called

Praxiades; the date of his birth is not quite certain; according to

Tennemann (vol. I. p. 413), it is put in Olympiad 42, 3 (610 B.C.),

while Diogenes Laertius (II. I, 2) says, taking his information

from Apollodorus, an Athenian, that in Ol. 58, 2 (547 B.C.), he was

sixty-four years old, and that he died soon after, that is to say about

the date of Thales’ death. And taking for granted that he died in his

ninetieth year, Thales must have been nearly twenty-eight years older

than Anaximander. It is related of Anaximander that he lived in Samos

with the tyrant Polycrates, where were Pythagoras and Anacreon also.

Themistius, according to Brucker (Pt. I. p. 478), says of him that

he first put his philosophic thoughts into writing, but this is also

recorded of others, as for example, of Pherecydes, who was older than

he. Anaximander is said to have written about nature, the fixed stars,

the sphere, besides other matters; he further produced something like a

map, showing the boundary (_πρίμετρον_) of land and sea; he also made

other mathematical inventions, such as a sun-dial that he put up in

Lacedæmon, and instruments by which the course of the sun was shown,

and the equinox determined; a chart of the heavens was likewise made by

him.

His philosophical reflections are not comprehensive, and do not extend

as far as to determination. Diogenes says in the passage quoted

before: “He adduced the Infinite” (_τὸ ἄπειρον_, the undetermined),

“as principle and element; he neither determined it as air or water or

any such thing.” There are, however, few attributes of this Infinite

given. (_α_.) “It is the principle of all becoming and passing away;

at long intervals infinite worlds or gods rise out of it, and again

they pass away into the same.” This has quite an oriental tone. “He

gives as a reason that the principle is to be determined as the

Infinite, the fact that it does not need material for continuous

origination. It contains everything in itself and rules over all: it

is divine, immortal, and never passes away.”[23] (_β_.) Out of the

one, Anaximander separates the opposites which are contained in it,

as do Empedocles and Anaxagoras; thus everything in this medley is

certainly there, but undetermined.[24] That is, everything is really

contained therein in possibility (_δυνάμει_), “so that,” says Aristotle

(Metaphys. XI. 2), “it is not only that everything arises accidentally

out of what is not, but everything also arises from what is, although

it is from incipient being which is not yet in actuality.” Diogenes

Laertius adds (II. 1): “The parts of the Infinite change, but it itself

is unchangeable.” (_γ_.) Lastly, it is said that the infinitude is in

size and not in number, and Anaximander differs thus from Anaxagoras,

Empedocles and the other atomists, who maintain the absolute discretion

of the infinite, while Anaximander upholds its absolute continuity.[25]

Aristotle (Metaphys. I. 8) speaks also of a principle which is neither

water nor air, but is “thicker than air and thinner than water.” Many

have connected this idea with Anaximander, and it is possible that it

belongs to him.

The advance made by the determination of the principle as infinite in

comprehensiveness rests in the fact that absolute essence no longer is

a simple universal, but one which negates the finite. At the same time,

viewed from the material side, Anaximander removes the individuality

of the element of water; his objective principle does not appear to

be material, and it may be understood as Thought. But it is clear

that he did not mean anything else than matter generally, universal

matter.[26] Plutarch reproaches Anaximander “for not saying what (_τι_)

his infinite is, whether air, water or earth.” But a definite quality

such as one of these is transient; matter determined as infinitude

means the motion of positing definite forms, and again abolishing the

separation. True and infinite Being is to be shown in this and not in

negative absence of limit. This universality and negation of the finite

is, however, our operation only: in describing matter as infinite,

Anaximander does not seem to have said that this is its infinitude.

He has said further (and in this, according to Theophrastus, he agrees

with Anaxagoras), “In the infinite the like separates itself from the

unlike and allies itself to the like; thus what in the whole was gold

becomes gold, what was earth, earth, &c., so that properly nothing

originates, seeing that it was already there.”[27] These, however, are

poor determinations, which only show the necessity of the transition

from the undetermined to the determined; for this still takes place

here in an unsatisfying way. As to the further question of how the

infinite determines the opposite in its separation, it seems that the

theory of the quantitative distinction of condensation and rarefaction

was held by Anaximander as well as by Thales. Those who come later

designate the process of separation from the Infinite as development.

Anaximander supposes man to develop from a fish, which abandoned water

for the land.[28] Development comes also into prominence in recent

times, but as a mere succession in time—a formula in the use of which

men often imagine that they are saying something brilliant; but there

is no real necessity, no thought, and above all, no Notion contained in

it.

But in later records the idea of warmth, as being the disintegration of

form, and that of cold, is ascribed to Anaximander by Stobæus (Eclog.

Phys. c. 24, p. 500); this Aristotle (Metaphys. I. 5) first ascribed

to Parmenides. Eusebius (De præp. Evang. I. 8), out of a lost work of

Plutarch, gives us something from Anaximander’s Cosmogony which is

dark, and which, indeed, Eusebius himself did not rightly understand.

Its sense is approximately this: “Out of the Infinite, infinite

heavenly spheres and infinite worlds have been set apart; but they

carry within them their own destruction, because they only are through

constant dividing off.” That is, since the Infinite is the principle,

separation is the positing of a difference, i.e. of a determination or

something finite. “The earth has the form of a cylinder, the height

of which is the third part of the breadth. Both of the eternally

productive principles of warmth and cold separate themselves in the

creation of this earth, and a fiery sphere is formed round the air

encircling the earth, like the bark around a tree. As this broke up,

and the pieces were compressed into circles, sun, moon, and stars

were formed.” Hence Anaximander, according to Stobæus (Ecl. Phys. 25,

p. 510), likewise called the stars “wheel-shaped with fire-filled

wrappings of air.” This Cosmogony is as good as the geological

hypothesis of the earth-crust which burst open, or as Buffon’s

explosion of the sun, which beginning, on the other hand, with the sun,

makes the planets to be stones projected from it. While the ancients

confined the stars to our atmosphere, and made the sun first proceed

from the earth, we make the sun to be the substance and birthplace of

the earth, and separate the stars entirely from any further connection

with us, because for us, like the gods worshipped by the Epicureans,

they are at rest. In the process of origination, the sun, indeed,

descends as the universal, but in nature it is that which comes later;

thus in truth the earth is the totality, and the sun but an abstract

moment.

3. _Anaximenes._

Anaximenes still remains as having made his appearance between the

55th and 58th Olympiads (560-548 B.C.). He was likewise of Miletus, a

contemporary and friend of Anaximander; he has little to distinguish

him, and very little is known about him. Diogenes Laertius says neither

with consideration nor consistency (II. 3): “He was born, according

to Apollodorus in the 63rd Olympiad, and died in the year Sardis was

conquered” (by Cyrus, Olympiad 58th).

In place of the undetermined matter of Anaximander, he brings forward

a definite natural element; hence the absolute is in a real form,

but instead of the water of Thales, that form is air. He found that

for matter a sensuous being was indeed essential, and air has the

additional advantage of being more devoid of form; it is less corporeal

than water, for we do not see it, but feel it first in movement.

Plutarch (De plac. phil. I. 3) says: “Out of it everything comes forth,

and into it everything is again resolved.” According to Cicero (De Nat.

Deor. I. 10), “he defined it as immeasurable, infinite, and in constant

motion.” Diogenes Laertius expresses this in the passage already

quoted: “The principle is air and the infinite” (_οὖτος ἀρχὴν ἀέρα εἶπε

καὶ τὸ ἄπειρον_) as if there were two principles; however, _ἀρχὴν καὶ

ἄπειρον_ may be taken together as subject, and _ἀέρα_ regarded as the

predicate in the statement. For Simplicius, in dealing with the Physics

of Aristotle, expressly says (p. 6, a) “that the first principle was to

him one and infinite in nature as it was to Anaximander, but it was not

indefinite as with the latter, but determined, that is, it was air,”

which, however, he seems to have understood as endowed with soul.

Plutarch characterizes Anaximenes’ mode of representation which makes

everything proceed from air—later on it was called ether—and resolve

itself therein, better thus: “As our soul, which is air, holds us

together (_συγρατεῖ_), one spirit (_πνεῦμα_) and air together likewise

hold (_περιέχει_) the whole world together; spirit and air are

synonymous.” Anaximenes shows very clearly the nature of his essence

in the soul, and he thus points out what may be called the transition

of natural philosophy into the philosophy of consciousness, or the

surrender of the objective form of principle. The nature of this

principle has hitherto been determined in a manner which is foreign

and negative to consciousness; both its reality, water or air, and the

infinite are a “beyond” to consciousness. But soul is the universal

medium; it is a collection of conceptions which pass away and come

forth, while the unity and continuity never cease. It is active as

well as passive, from its unity severing asunder the conceptions and

sublating them, and it is present to itself in its infinitude, so that

negative signification and positive come into unison. Speaking more

precisely, this idea of the nature of the origin of things is that of

Anaxagoras, the pupil of Anaximenes.

Pherecydes has also to be mentioned as the teacher of Pythagoras; he

is of Syros, one of the Cyclades islands. He is said to have drawn

water from a spring, and to have learned therefrom that an earthquake

would take place in three days; he is also said to have predicted of

a ship in full sail that it would go down, and it sank in a moment.

Theopompus in Diogenes Laertius (I. 116), relates of this Pherecydes

that “he first wrote to the Greeks about Nature and the gods” (which

was before said of Anaximander). His writings are said to have been in

prose, and from what is related of them it is clear that it must have

been a theogony of which he wrote. The first words, still preserved

to us, are: “Jupiter and Time and what is terrestrial (_χθών_) were

from eternity (_εἰς ἀεί_); the name of earthly (_χθονίῃ_) was given

to the terrestrial sphere when Zeus granted to it gifts.”[29] How it

goes on is not known, but this cannot be deemed a great loss. Hermias

tells us only this besides:[30] “He maintained Zeus or Fire (_αἰθέρα_),

Earth and Chronos or Time as principles—fire as active, earth as

passive, and time as that in which everything originates.” Diogenes of

Apollonia, Hippasus, and Archelaus are also called Ionic philosophers,

but we know nothing more of them than their names, and that they gave

their adherence to one principle or the other.

We shall leave these now and go on to Pythagoras, who was a

contemporary of Anaximander; but the continuity of the development of

the principle of physical philosophy necessitated our taking Anaximenes

with him. We see that, as Aristotle said, they placed the first

principle in a form of matter—in air and water first, and then, if

we may so define Anaximander’s matter, in an essence finer than water

and coarser than air. Heraclitus, of whom we have soon to speak, first

called it fire. “But no one,” as Aristotle (Metaph. I. 8) remarks,

“called earth the principle, because it appears to be the most complex

element” (_διὰ τὴν μεγαλομέρειαν_); for it seems to be an aggregate of

many units. Water, on the contrary, is the one, and it is transparent;

it manifests in sensuous guise the form of unity with itself, and this

is also so with air, fire, matter, &c. The principle has to be one,

and hence must have inherent unity with itself; if it shows a manifold

nature as does the earth, it is not one with itself, but manifold. This

is what we have to say about the early Ionic Philosophy. The importance

of these poor abstract thoughts lies (_a_) in the comprehension of a

universal substance in everything, and (_b_) in the fact that it is

formless, and not encumbered by sensuous ideas.

No one recognized better the deficiencies in this philosophy than

did Aristotle in the work already quoted. Two points appear in his

criticism of these three modes of determining the absolute: “Those who

maintain the original principle to be matter fall short in many ways.

In the first place, they merely give the corporeal element and not the

incorporeal, for there also is such.” In treating of nature in order

to show its essence, it is necessary to deal with it in its entirety,

and everything found in it must be considered. That is certainly but an

empirical instance. Aristotle maintains the incorporeal to be a form of

things opposed to the material, and indicates that the absolute must

not be determined in a one-sided manner; because the principle of these

philosophers is material only, they do not manifest the incorporeal

side, nor is the object shown to be Notion. Matter is indeed itself

immaterial as this reflection into consciousness; but such philosophers

do not know that what they express is an existence of consciousness.

Thus the first great defect here rests in the fact that the universal

is expressed in a particular form.

Secondly, Aristotle says (Metaph. I. 3): “From this it may be seen

that first cause has only been by all these expressed in the form of

matter. But because they proceeded thus, the thing itself opened out

their way for them, and forced them into further investigation. For

whether origin and decay are derived from one or more, the question

alike arises, ‘How does it happen and what is the cause of it?’ For

the fundamental substance (_τὸ ὑποκείμενον_) does not make itself to

change, just as neither wood nor metal are themselves the cause of

change; wood neither forms a bed nor does brass a statue, but something

else is the cause of the change. To investigate this, however, is

to investigate the other principle, which, as we would say, is the

Principle of Motion.” This criticism holds good even now, where the

Absolute is represented as the one fixed substance. Aristotle says

that change is not conceivable out of matter as such, or out of water

not itself having motion; he reproaches the older philosophers for

the fact that they have not investigated the principle of motion for

which men care most. Further, object is altogether absent; there is no

determination of activity. Hence Aristotle says in the former passage:

“In that they undertake to give the cause of origin and decay, they in

fact remove the cause of movement. Because they make the principle to

be a simple body (earth being excepted), they do not comprehend the

mutual origination and decay whereby the one arises out of the other:

I am here referring to water, air, fire, and earth. This origination

is to be shown as separation or as union, and hence the contradiction

comes about that one in time comes earlier than the other. That is,

because this kind of origination is the method which they have adopted,

the way taken is from the simple universal, through the particular, to

the individual as what comes latest. Water, air, and fire are, however,

universal. Fire seems to be most suitable for this element, seeing that

it is the most subtle. Thus those who made it to be the principle, most

adequately gave expression to this method (_λόγῳ_) of origination; and

others thought very similarly. For else why should no one have made the

earth an element, in conformity with the popular idea? Hesiod says that

it was the original body—so ancient and so common was this idea. But

what in Becoming comes later, is the first in nature.” However, these

philosophers did not understand this so, because they were ruled by the

process of Becoming only, without again sublating it, or knowing that

first formal universal as such, and manifesting the third, the totality

or unity of matter and form, as essence. Here, we see, the Absolute is

not yet the self-determining, the Notion turned back into itself, but

only a dead abstraction; the moderns were the first, says Aristotle,

(Metaph. I. 6; III. 3) to understand the fundamental principle more in

the form of genus.

We are able to follow the three moments in the Ionic philosophy:

(_α_) The original essence is water; (_β_) Anaximander’s infinite is

descriptive of movement, simple going out of and coming back into the

simple, universal aspects of form—condensation and rarefaction; (_γ_)

the air is compared to the soul. It is now requisite that what is

viewed as reality should be brought into the Notion; in so doing we see

that the moments of division, condensation, and rarefaction are not in

any way antagonistic to the Notion. This transition to Pythagoras, or

the manifestation of the real side as the ideal, is Thought breaking

free from what is sensuous, and, therefore, it is a separation between

the intelligible and the real.

B. PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS.

The later Neo-Pythagoreans have written many extensive biographies

of Pythagoras, and are especially diffuse as regards the Pythagorean

brotherhood. But it must be taken into consideration that these often

distorted statements must not be regarded as historical. The life of

Pythagoras thus first comes to us in history through the medium of the

ideas belonging to the first centuries after Christ, and more or less

in the style in which the life of Christ is written, on the ground of

ordinary actuality, and not in a poetic atmosphere; it appears to be

the intermingling of many marvellous and extravagant tales, and to

take its origin in part from eastern ideas and in part from western.

In acknowledging the remarkable nature of his life and genius and of

the life which he inculcated on his followers, it was added that his

dealings were not with right things, and that he was a magician and

one who had intercourse with higher beings. All the ideas of magic,

that medley of unnatural and natural, the mysteries which pervade

a clouded, miserable imagination, and the wild ideas of distorted

brains, have attached themselves to him.

However corrupt the history of his life, his philosophy is as much so.

Everything engendered by Christian melancholy and love of allegory

has been identified with it. The treatment of Plato in Christian

times has quite a different character. Numbers have been much used

as the expression of ideas, and this on the one hand has a semblance

of profundity. For the fact that another significance than that

immediately presented is implied in them, is evident at once; but how

much there is within them is neither known by him who speaks nor by

him, who seeks to understand; it is like the witches’ rhyme (one time

one) in Goethe’s “Faust.” The less clear the thoughts, the deeper they

appear; what is most essential, but most difficult, the expression

of oneself in definite conceptions, is omitted. Thus Pythagoras’

philosophy, since much has been added to it by those who wrote of it,

may similarly appear as the mysterious product of minds as shallow

and empty as they are dark. Fortunately, however, we have a special

knowledge of the theoretic, speculative side of it, and that, indeed,

from Aristotle and Sextus Empiricus, who have taken considerable

trouble with it. Although later Pythagoreans disparage Aristotle on

account of his exposition, he has a place above any such disparagement,

and therefore to them no attention must be given.

In later times a quantity of writings were disseminated and foisted

upon Pythagoras. Diogenes Laertius (VIII. 6, 7) mentions many which

were by him, and others which were set down to him in order to obtain

authority for them. But in the first place we have no writings by

Pythagoras, and secondly it is doubtful whether any ever did exist.

We have quotations from these in unsatisfactory fragments, not from

Pythagoras, but from Pythagoreans. It cannot be decisively determined

which developments and interpretations belonged to the ancients and

which to the moderns; yet with Pythagoras and the ancient Pythagoreans

the determinations were not worked out in so concrete a way as later.

As to the life of Pythagoras, we hear from Diogenes Laertius (VIII.

1-3, 45) that he flourished about the 60th Olympiad (540 B.C.). His

birth is usually placed in the 49th or 50th Olympiad (584 B.C.); by

Larcher in Tennemann (Vol. I., pp. 413, 414), much earlier—in the

43rd Olympiad (43, 1, i.e. 608 B.C.). He was thus contemporaneous with

Thales and Anaximander. If Thales’ birth were in the 38th Olympiad

and that of Pythagoras in the 43rd, Pythagoras was only twenty-one

years younger than he; he either only differed by a couple of years

from Anaximander (Ol. 42, 3) in age, or the latter was twenty-six

years older. Anaximenes was from twenty to twenty-five years younger

than Pythagoras. His birthplace was the Island of Samos, and hence he

belonged to the Greeks of Asia Minor, which place we have hitherto

found to be the seat of philosophy. Pythagoras is said by Herodotus

(IV., 93 to 96) to have been the son of Mnesarchus, with whom Zalmoxis

served as slave in Samos; Zalmoxis obtained freedom and riches, became

ruler of the Getæ, and asserted that he and his people would not die.

He built a subterranean habitation and there withdrew himself from

his subjects; after four years he re-appeared;[31] hence the Getans

believed in immortality. Herodotus thinks, however, that Zalmoxis was

undoubtedly much older than Pythagoras.

His youth was spent at the court of Polycrates, under whose rule Samos

was brought, not only to wealth, but also to the possession of culture

and art. In this prosperous period, according to Herodotus (III., 39),

it possessed a fleet of a hundred ships. His father was an artist or

engraver, but reports vary as to this, as also as to his country, some

saying that his family was of Tyrrhenian origin and did not go to Samos

till after Pythagoras’ birth. That may be as it will, for his youth

was spent in Samos and he must hence have been naturalized there, and

to it he belongs. He soon journeyed to the main land of Asia Minor

and is said there to have become acquainted with Thales. From thence

he travelled to Phœnicia and Egypt, as Iamblichus (III., 13, 14) says

in his biography of Pythagoras. With both countries Asia Minor had

many links, commercial and political, and it is related that he was

recommended by Polycrates to King Amasis, who, according to Herodotus

(II. 154), attracted many Greeks to the country, and had Greek troops

and colonies. The narratives of further journeys into the interior

of Asia, to the Persian magicians and Indians, seem to be altogether

fabulous, although travelling, then as now, was considered to be a

means of culture. As Pythagoras travelled with a scientific purpose, it

is said that he had himself initiated into nearly all the mysteries of

Greeks and of Barbarians, and thus he obtained admission into the order

or caste of the Egyptian priesthood.

These mysteries that we meet with amongst the Greeks, and which are

held to be the sources of much wisdom, appear in their religion to have

stood in the relationship of doctrine to worship. This last existed in

offerings and solemn festivals only, but to ordinary conceptions, to

a consciousness of these conceptions, there is no transition visible

unless they were preserved in poems as traditions. The doctrines

themselves, or the act of bringing the actual home to the conception,

seems to have been confined to the mysteries; we find it to be the

case, however, that it is not only the ideas as in our teaching, but

also the body that is laid claim to—that there was brought home to man

by sending him to wander amongst his fellow-men, both the abandonment

of his sensuous consciousness and the purification and sanctification

of the body. Of philosophic matter, however, there is as little openly

declared as possible, and just as we know the system of freemasonry,

there is no secret in those mysteries.

His alliance with the Egyptian priesthood had a most important

influence upon Pythagoras, not through the derivation of profound

speculative wisdom therefrom, but by the idea obtained through it of

the realization of the moral consciousness of man; the individual, he

learned, must attend to himself, if inwardly and to the outer world

he is to be meritorious and to bring himself, morally formed and

fashioned, into actuality. This is a conception which he subsequently

carried out, and it is as interesting a matter as his speculative

philosophy. Just as the priests constituted a particular rank and

were educated for it, they also had a special rule, which was binding

throughout the whole moral life. From Egypt Pythagoras thus without

doubt brought the idea of his Order, which was a regular community

brought together for purposes of scientific and moral culture, which

endured during the whole of life. Egypt at that time was regarded as

a highly cultured country, and it was so when compared with Greece;

this is shown even in the differences of caste which assumes a division

amongst the great branches of life and work, such as the industrial,

scientific and religious. But beyond this, we need not seek great

scientific knowledge amongst the Egyptians, nor think that Pythagoras

got his science there. Aristotle (Metaph. I.) only says that “in Egypt

mathematical sciences first commenced, for there the nation of priests

had leisure.”[32]

Pythagoras stayed a long time in Egypt, and returned from thence

to Samos; but he found the internal affairs of his own country in

confusion, and left it soon after. According to Herodotus’ account

(III. 45-47), Polycrates had—not as tyrant—banished many citizens

from Samos, who sought and found support amongst the Lacedæmonians, and

a civil war had broken out. The Spartans had, at an earlier period,

given assistance to the others, for, as Thucydides says (I. 18), to

them thanks were generally ascribed for having abolished the rule of

the few, and caused a reversion to the system of giving public power to

the people; later on they did the opposite, abolishing democracy and

introducing aristocracy. Pythagoras’ family was necessarily involved in

these unpleasant relations, and a condition of internal strife was not

congenial to Pythagoras, seeing that he no longer took an interest in

political life, and that he saw in it an unsuitable soil for carrying

out his plans. He traversed Greece, and betook himself from thence to

Italy, in the lower parts of which Greek colonies from various states

and for various motives had settled, and there flourished as important

trading towns, rich in people and possessions.

In Crotona he settled down, and lived in independence, neither as

a statesman, warrior, nor political law-giver to the people, so

far as external life was concerned, but as a public teacher, with

the provision that his teaching should not be taken up with mere

conviction, but should also regulate the whole moral life of the

individual. Diogenes Laertius says that he first gave himself the name

_φιλόσοφος_, instead of _σοφός_; and men called this modesty, as if he

thereby expressed, not the possession of wisdom, but only the struggle

towards it, as towards an end which cannot be attained.[33] But _σοφός_

at the same time means a wise man, who is also practical, and that

not in his own interest only, for that requires no wisdom, seeing

that every sincere and moral man does what is best from his own point

of view. Thus _φιλόσοφος_ signifies more particularly the opposite

to participation in practical matters, that is in public affairs.

Philosophy is thus not the love of wisdom, as of something which one

sets oneself to acquire; it is no unfulfilled desire. _Φιλόσοφος_

means a man whose relation to wisdom is that of making it his object;

this relationship is contemplation, and not mere Being; but it must

be consciously that men apply themselves to this. The man who likes

wine (_φίλοινος_) is certainly to be distinguished from the man who is

full of wine, or a drunkard. Then does _φίλοινος_ signify only a futile

aspiration for wine?

What Pythagoras contrived and effected in Italy is told us by later

eulogists, rather than by historians. In the history of Pythagoras by

Malchus (this was the Syrian name of Porphyry) many strange things

are related, and with the Neo-Platonists the contrast between their

deep insight and their belief in the miraculous is surprising. For

instance, seeing that the later biographers of Pythagoras had already

related a quantity of marvels, they now proceeded to add yet more to

these with reference to his appearance in Italy. It appears that they

were exerting themselves to place him, as they afterwards did with

Apollonius of Tyana, in opposition to Christ. For the wonders which

they tell of him seem partly to be an amplification of those in the

New Testament, and in part they are altogether absurd. For instance,

they make Pythagoras begin his career in Italy with a miracle. When he

landed in the Bay of Tarentum, at Crotona, he encountered fishermen on

the way to the town who had caught nothing. He called upon them to draw

their nets once more, and foretold the number of fishes that would be

found in them. The fishermen, marvelling at this prophecy, promised

him that if it came true they would do whatever he desired. It came to

pass as he said, and Pythagoras then desired them to throw the fishes

alive back into the sea, for the Pythagoreans ate no flesh. And it is

further related as a miracle which then took place, that none of the

fishes whilst they were out of the water died during the counting. This

is the kind of miracle that is recorded, and the stories with which

his biographers fill his life are of the same silly nature. They then

make him effect such a general impression upon the mind of Italy, that

all the towns reformed upon their luxurious and depraved customs, and

the tyrants partly gave up their powers voluntarily, and partly they

were driven out. They thereby, however, commit such historical errors

as to make Charondas and Zaleucus, who lived long before Pythagoras,

his disciples; and similarly to ascribe the expulsion and death of the

tyrant Phalaris to him, and to his action.[34]

Apart from these fables, there remains as an historic fact, the great

work which he accomplished, and this he did chiefly by establishing

a school, and by the great influence of his order upon the principal

part of the Greco-Italian states, or rather by means of the rule

which was exercised in these states through this order, which lasted

for a very long period of time. It is related of him that he was a

very handsome man, and of a majestic appearance, which captivated as

much as it commanded respect. With this natural dignity, nobility of

manners, and the calm propriety of his demeanour, he united external

peculiarities, through which he seemed a remarkable and mysterious

being. He wore a white linen garment, and refrained from partaking of

certain foods.[35] Particular personality, as also the externalities of

dress and the like, are no longer of importance; men let themselves be

guided by general custom and fashion, since it is a matter outside of

and indifferent to them not to have their own will here; for we hand

over the contingent to the contingent, and only follow the external

rationality that consists in identity and universality. To this outward

personality there was added great eloquence and profound perception;

not only did he undertake to impart this to his individual friends, but

he proceeded to bring a general influence to bear on public culture,

both in regard to understanding and to the whole manner of life and

morals. He not merely instructed his friends, but associated them in a

particular life in order to constitute them into persons and make them

skilful in business and eminent in morals. The Institute of Pythagoras

grew into a league, which included all men and all life in its embrace;

for it was an elaborately fashioned piece of work, and excellently

plastic in design.

Of the regulations of Pythagoras’ league, we have descriptions from

his successors, more especially from the Neo-Platonists, who are

particularly diffuse as regards its laws. The league had, on the

whole, the character of a voluntary priesthood, or a monastic order

of modern times. Whoever wished to be received was proved in respect

of his education and obedience, and information was collected about

his conduct, inclinations, and occupations. The members were subject

to a special training, in which a difference was made amongst those

received, in that some were exoteric and some esoteric. These last were

initiated into the highest branches of science, and since political

operations were not excluded from the order, they were also engaged

in active politics; the former had to go through a novitiate of five

years. Each member must have surrendered his means to the order, but he

received them again on retiring, and in the probationary period silence

was enjoined (_ἐχεμυθία_).[36]

This obligation to cease from idle talk may be called an essential

condition for all culture and learning; with it men must begin if

they wish to comprehend the thoughts of others and relinquish their

own ideas. We are in the habit of saying that the understanding is

cultivated through questioning, objecting and replying, &c., but, in

fact, it is not thus formed, but made from without. What is inward

in man is by culture got at and developed; hence though he remains

silent, he is none the poorer in thought or denser of mind. He rather

acquires thereby the power of apprehension, and comes to know that his

ideas and objections are valueless; and as he learns that such ideas

are valueless, he ceases to have them. Now the fact that in Pythagoras

there is a separation between those in the course of preparation and

those initiated, as also that silence is particularly enjoined, seems

most certainly to indicate that in his brotherhood both were formal

elements and not merely as present in the nature of things, as might

occur spontaneously in the individual without any special law or the

application of any particular consideration. But here it is important

to remark that Pythagoras may be regarded as the first instructor

in Greece who introduced the teachings of science; neither Thales,

who was earlier than he, nor his contemporary Anaximander taught

scientifically, but only imparted their ideas to their friends. There

were, generally speaking, no sciences at that time; there was neither a

science of philosophy, mathematics, jurisprudence or anything else, but

merely isolated propositions and facts respecting these subjects. What

was taught was the use of arms, theorems, music, the singing of Homer’s

or Hesiod’s songs, tripod chants, &c., or other arts. This teaching

is accomplished in quite another way. Now if we said that Pythagoras

had introduced the teaching of science amongst a people who, though

like the Greeks, untaught therein, were not stupid but most lively,

cultured and loquacious, the external conditions of such teaching might

in so far be given as follows:—(_α_) He would distinguish amongst

those who as yet had no idea of the process of learning a science, so

that those who first began should be excluded from that which was to

be imparted to those further on; and (_β_) he would make them leave

the unscientific mode of speaking of such matters, or their idle

prattle, alone, and for the first time study science. But the fact

that this action both appeared to be formal and likewise required to

be made such, was, on account of its unwonted character, a necessary

one, just because the followers of Pythagoras were not only numerous,

necessitating a definite form and order, but also, generally speaking,

they lived continually together. Thus a particular form was natural to

Pythagoras, because it was the very first time that a teacher in Greece

arrived at a totality, or a new principle, through the cultivation of

the intelligence, mind and will. This common life had not only the

educational side and that founded on the exercise of physical ingenuity

or skill, but included also that of the moral culture of practical men.

But even now everything relating to morality appears and is or becomes

altogether formal, or rather this is so in as far as it is consciously

thought of as in this relation, for to be formal is to be universal,

that which is opposed to the individual. It appears so particularly

to him who compares the universal and the individual and consciously

reflects over both, but this difference disappears for those living

therein, to whom it is ordinary habit.

Finally, we have sufficient and full accounts of the outward forms

observed by the Pythagoreans in their common life and also of their

discipline. For much of this, however, we are indebted to the

impressions of later writers. In the league, a life regulated in

all respects was advocated. First of all, it is told us, that the

members made themselves known by a similar dress—the white linen of

Pythagoras. They had a very strict order for each day, of which each

hour had its work. The morning, directly after rising, was set aside

for recalling to memory the history of the previous day, because what

is to be done in the day depends chiefly on the previous day; similarly

the most constant self-examination was made the duty of the evening

in order to find whether the deeds done in the day were right or

wrong. True culture is not the vanity of directing so much attention to

oneself and occupying oneself with oneself as an individual, but the

self-oblivion that absorbs oneself in the matter in hand and in the

universal; it is this consideration of the thing in hand that is alone

essential, while that dangerous, useless, anxious state does away with

freedom. They had also to learn by heart from Homer and from Hesiod;

and all through the day they occupied themselves much with music—one

of the principal parts of Greek education and culture.[37] Gymnastic

exercises in wrestling, racing, throwing, and so on, were with them

also enforced by rule. They dined together, and here, too, they had

peculiar customs, but of these the accounts are different. Honey and

bread were made their principal food, and water the principal, and

indeed only, drink; they must thus have entirely refrained from eating

meat as being associated with metempsychosis. A distinction was also

made regarding vegetables—beans, for example, being forbidden. On

account of this respect for beans, they were much derided, yet in the

subsequent destruction of the political league, several Pythagoreans,

being pursued, preferred to die than to damage a field of beans.[38]

The order, the moral discipline which characterized them, the common

intercourse of men, did not, however, endure long; for even in

Pythagoras’ life-time the affairs of his league must have become

involved, since he found enemies who forcibly overthrew him. He drew

down upon him, it is said, the envy of others, and was accused of

thinking differently from what he seemed to indicate, and thus of

having an _arrière pensée_. The real fact of the case was that the

individual belonged, not entirely to his town, but also to another.

In this catastrophe, Pythagoras himself, according to Tennemann (Vol.

I. p. 414), met his death in the 69th Olympiad (504, B.C.) in a

rising of the people against these aristocrats; but it is uncertain

whether it happened in Crotona or in Metapontum, or in a war between

the Syracusans and the Agrigentines. There is also much difference of

opinion about the age of Pythagoras, for it is given sometimes as 80,

and sometimes as 104.[39] For the rest, the unity of the Pythagorean

school, the friendship of the members, and the connecting bond of

culture have even in later times remained, but not in the formal

character of a league, because what is external must pass away. The

history of Magna Græcia is in general little known, but even in

Plato’s[40] time we find Pythagoreans appearing at the head of states

or as a political power.

The Pythagorean brotherhood had no relation with Greek public and

religious life, and therefore could not endure for long: in Egypt and

in Asia exclusiveness and priestly influence have their home, but

Greece, in its freedom, could not let the Eastern separation of caste

exist. Freedom here is the principle of civic life, but still it is

not yet determined as principle in the relations of public and private

law. With us the individual is free since all are alike before the law;

diversity in customs, in political relations and opinions may thus

exist, and must indeed so do in organic states. In democratic Greece,

on the contrary, manners, the external mode of life, necessarily

preserved a certain similarity, and the stamp of similarity remained

impressed on these wider spheres; for the exceptional condition of the

Pythagoreans, who could not take their part as free citizens, but were

dependent on the plans and ends of a combination and led an exclusive

religious life, there was no place in Greece. The preservation of the

mysteries certainly belonged to the Eumolpidæ, and other special forms

of worship to other particular families, but they were not regarded

in a political sense as of fixed and definite castes, but as priests

usually are, politicians, citizens, men like their fellows; nor, as

with the Christians, was the separation of religious persons driven to

the extreme of monastic rule. In ordinary civic life in Greece, no one

could prosper or maintain his position who held peculiar principles,

or even secrets, and differed in outward modes of life and clothing;

for what evidently united and distinguished them was their community

of principles and life—whether anything was good for the commonwealth

or not, was by them publicly and openly discussed. The Greeks are

above having particular clothing, maintaining special customs of

washing, rising, practising music, and distinguishing between pure and

impure foods. This, they say, is partly the affair of the particular

individual and of his personal freedom, and has no common end in view,

and partly it is a general custom and usage for everybody alike.

What is most important to us is the Pythagorean philosophy—not

the philosophy of Pythagoras so much as that of the Pythagoreans,

as Aristotle and Sextus express it. The two must certainly be

distinguished, and from comparing what is given out as Pythagorean

doctrine, many anomalies and discrepancies become evident, as we shall

see. Plato bears the blame of having destroyed Pythagorean philosophy

through absorbing what is Pythagorean in it into his own. But the

Pythagorean philosophy itself developed to a point which left it

quite other than what at first it was. We hear of many followers of

Pythagoras in history who have arrived at this or that conclusion,

such as Alcmæon and Philolaus; and we see in many cases the simple

undeveloped form contrasted with the further stages of development in

which thought comes forth in definiteness and power. We need, however,

go no further into the historical side of the distinction, for we

can only consider the Pythagorean philosophy generally; similarly

we must separate what is known to belong to the Neo-Platonists and

Neo-Pythagoreans, and for this end we have sources to draw from which

are earlier than this period, namely the express statements found in

Aristotle and Sextus.

The Pythagorean philosophy forms the transition from realistic to

intellectual philosophy. The Ionic school said that essence or

principle is a definite material. The next conclusion is (_α_)

that the absolute is not grasped in natural form, but as a thought

determination. (_β_) Then it follows that determinations must

be posited while the beginning was altogether undetermined. The

Pythagorean philosophy has done both.

1. _The System of Numbers_. Thus the original and simple proposition

of the Pythagorean philosophy is, according to Aristotle (Metaph. I.

5), “that number is the reality of things, and the constitution of the

whole universe in its determinations is an harmonious system of numbers

and of their relations.” In what sense is this statement to be taken?

The fundamental determination of number is its being a measure; if we

say that everything is quantitatively or qualitatively determined,

the size and measure is only one aspect or characteristic which is

present in everything, but the meaning here is that number itself is

the essence and the substance of things, and not alone their form.

What first strikes us as surprising is the boldness of such language,

which at once sets aside everything which to the ordinary idea is real

and true, doing away with sensuous existence and making it to be the

creation of thought. Existence is expressed as something which is not

sensuous, and thus what to the senses and to old ideas is altogether

foreign, is raised into and expressed as substance and as true Being.

But at the same time the necessity is shown for making number to be

likewise Notion, to manifest it as the activity of its unity with

Being, for to us number does not seem to be in immediate unity with the

Notion.

Now although this principle appears to us to be fanciful and wild, we

find in it that number is not merely something sensuous, therefore it

brings determination with it, universal distinctions and antitheses.

The ancients had a very good knowledge of these. Aristotle (Metaph.

I. 6) says of Plato: “He maintained that the mathematical elements in

things are found outside of what is merely sensuous, and of ideas,

being between both; it differs from what is sensuous in that it

is eternal and unchangeable, and from ideas, in that it possesses

multiplicity, and hence each can resemble and be similar to another,

while each idea is for itself one alone.” That is, number can be

repeated; thus it is not sensuous, and still not yet thought. In

the life of Pythagoras, this is further said by Malchus (46, 47):

“Pythagoras propounded philosophy in this wise in order to loose

thought from its fetters. Without thought nothing true can be discerned

or known; thought hears and sees everything in itself, the rest is lame

and blind. To obtain his end, Pythagoras makes use of mathematics,

since this stands midway between what is sensuous and thought, as a

kind of preliminary to what is in and for itself.” Malchus quotes

further (48, 53) a passage from an early writer, Moderatus: “Because

the Pythagoreans could not clearly express the absolute and the first

principles through thought, they made use of numbers, of mathematics,

because in this form determinations could be easily expressed.” For

instance, similarity could be expressed as one, dissimilarity as two.

“This mode of teaching through the use of numbers, whilst it was the

first philosophy, is superseded on account of its mysterious nature.

Plato, Speusippus, Aristotle, &c., have stolen the fruits of their work

from the Pythagoreans by making a simple use of their principle.” In

this passage a perfect knowledge of numbers is evident.

The enigmatic character of the determination through number is what

most engages our attention. The numbers of arithmetic answers to

thought-determinations, for number has the “one” as element and

principle; the one, however, is a category of being-for-self, and

thus of identity with self, in that it excludes all else and is

indifferent to what is “other.” The further determinations of number

are only further combinations and repetitions of the one, which all

through remains fixed and external; number, thus, is the most utterly

dead, notionless continuity possible; it is an entirely external and

mechanical process, which is without necessity. Hence number is not

immediate Notion, but only a beginning of thought, and a beginning in

the worst possible way; it is the Notion in its extremest externality,

in quantitative form, and in that of indifferent distinction. In so

far, the one has within itself both the principle of thought and

that of materiality, or the determination of the sensuous. In order

that anything should have the form of Notion, it must immediately in

itself, as determined, relate itself to its opposite, just as positive

is related to negative; and in this simple movement of the Notion we

find the ideality of differences and negation of independence to be

the chief determination. On the other hand, in the number three, for

instance, there are always three units, of which each is independent;

and this is what constitutes both their defect and their enigmatic

character. For since the essence of the Notion is innate, numbers are

the most worthless instruments for expressing Notion-determinations.

Now the Pythagoreans did not accept numbers in this indifferent way,

but as Notion. “At least they say that phenomena must be composed of

simple elements, and it would be contrary to the nature of things if

the principle of the universe pertained to sensuous phenomena. The

elements and principles are thus not only intangible and invisible, but

altogether incorporeal.”[41] But how they have come to make numbers

the original principle or the absolute Notion, is better shown from

what Aristotle says in his Metaphysics (I. 5), although he is shorter

than he would have been, because he alleges that elsewhere (infra., p.

214) he has spoken of it. “In numbers they thought that they perceived

much greater similitude to what is and what takes place than in fire,

water, or earth; since a certain property of numbers (_τοιονδὶ πάθος_)

is justice, so is it with (_τοιονδὶ_) the soul and understanding;

another property is opportunity, and so on. Since they further saw the

conditions and relations of what is harmonious present in numbers, and

since numbers are at the basis of all natural things, they considered

numbers to be the elements of everything, and the whole heavens to

be a harmony and number.” In the Pythagoreans we see the necessity

for one enduring universal idea as a thought-determination. Aristotle

(Met. XII. 4), speaking of ideas, says: “According to Heraclitus,

everything sensuous flows on, and thus there cannot be a science of the

sensuous; from this conviction the doctrine of ideas sprang. Socrates

is the first to define the universal through inductive methods; the

Pythagoreans formerly concerned themselves merely with a few matters

of which they derived the notions from numbers—as, for example, with

what opportuneness, or right, or marriage are.” It is impossible to

discern what interest this in itself can have; the only thing which

is necessary for us as regards the Pythagoreans, is to recognize any

indications of the Idea, in which there may be a progressive principle.