Produced by Don Kostuch
[Transcriber's Notes]
This text is derived from a copy in the Ave Maria University
library, catalog number "B 171 .S8"
[End Transcriber's Notes]
A CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON - BOMBAY - CALCUTTA - MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd
TORONTO
A CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY
BY
W. T. STACE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1920
COPYRIGHT
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
{v}
PREFACE
This book contains the substance, and for the most part the words, of
a course of public lectures delivered during the first three months of
1919. The original division into lectures has been dropped, the matter
being more conveniently redivided into chapters.
The audience to whom the lectures were delivered was composed of
members of the general public, and not only of students. For the most
part they possessed no previous knowledge of philosophy. Hence this
book, like the original lectures, assumes no previous special
knowledge, though it assumes, of course, a state of general education
in the reader. Technical philosophical terms are carefully explained
when first introduced; and a special effort has been made to put
philosophical ideas in the clearest way possible. But it must be
remembered that many of the profoundest as well as the most difficult
of human conceptions are to be found in Greek philosophy. Such ideas
are difficult in themselves, however clearly expressed. No amount of
explanation can ever render them anything but difficult to the
unsophisticated mind, and anything in the nature of "philosophy made
easy" is only to be expected from quacks and charlatans.
Greek philosophy is not, even now, antiquated. It is not from the
point of view of an antiquary or historian {vi} that its treasures are
valuable. We are dealing here with living things, and not with mere
dead things--not with the dry bones and debris of a bygone age. And I
have tried to lecture and write for living people, and not for mere
fossil-grubbers. If I did not believe that there is to be found here,
in Greek philosophy, at least a measure of the truth, the truth that
does not grow old, I would not waste five minutes of my life upon it.
"We do not," says a popular modern writer, [Footnote 1] "bring the
young mind up against the few broad elemental questions that are the
_questions of metaphysics_ .... We do not make it discuss, correct it,
elucidate it. That was the way of the Greeks, and we worship that
divine people far too much to adopt their way. No, we lecture to our
young people about not philosophy but philosophers, we put them
through book after book, telling how other people have discussed these
questions. We avoid the questions of metaphysics, but we deliver
semi-digested half views of the discussions of, and answers to these
questions made by men of all sorts and qualities, in various remote
languages and under conditions quite different from our own. . . . It
is as if we began teaching arithmetic by long lectures upon the origin
of the Roman numerals, and then went on to the lives and motives of
the Arab mathematicians in Spain, or started with Roger Bacon in
chemistry, or Sir Richard Owen in comparative anatomy .... It is time
the educational powers began to realise that the questions of
metaphysics, the elements of philosophy, are, here and now to be done
afresh in each mind .... What is wanted is philosophy, and not a
shallow smattering of the history of philosophy ... {vii} The proper
way to discuss metaphysics, like the proper way to discuss mathematics
or chemistry, is to discuss the accumulated and digested product of
human thought in such matters."
[Footnote 1: H. G. Wells in "First and Last Things."]
Plausible words these, certain to seem conclusive to the mob,
notwithstanding that for one element of truth they contain nine of
untruth! The elements of truth are that our educational system
unwarrantably leaves unused the powerful weapon of oral discussion--so
forcibly wielded by the Greeks--and develops book knowledge at the
expense of original thought. Though even here it must be remembered,
as regards the Greeks, (1) that if they studied the history of
philosophy but little, it was because there was then but little
history of philosophy to study, and (2) that if anyone imagines that
the great Greek thinkers did not fully master the thought of their
predecessors before constructing their own systems, he is grievously
mistaken, and (3) that in some cases the over-reliance on oral
discussion--the opposite fault to ours--led to intellectual
dishonesty, quibbling, ostentation, disregard of truth, shallowness,
and absence of all principle; this was the case with the Sophists.
As to the comparisons between arithmetic and philosophy, chemistry and
philosophy, etc., they rest wholly upon a false parallel, and involve
a total failure to comprehend the nature of philosophic truth, and its
fundamental difference from arithmetical, chemical, or physical truth.
If Eratosthenes thought the circumference of the earth to be so much,
whereas it has now been discovered to be so much, then the later
correct view simply cancels and renders nugatory the older view.
{viii} The one is correct, the other incorrect. We can ignore and
forget the incorrect view altogether. But the development of
philosophy proceeds on quite other principles. Philosophical truth is
no sum in arithmetic to be totted up so that the answer is thus
formally and finally correct or incorrect. Rather, the philosophical
truth unfolds itself, factor by factor, in time, in the successive
systems of philosophy, and it is only in the complete series that the
complete truth is to be found. The system of Aristotle does not simply
cancel and refute that of Plato. Spinoza does not simply abolish
Descartes. Aristotle completes Plato, as his necessary complement.
Spinoza does the same for Descartes. And so it is always. The
calculation of Eratosthenes is simply wrong, and so we can afford to
forget it. But the systems of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibniz,
etc., are all alike factors of the truth. They are as true now as they
were in their own times, though they are not, and never were, the
whole truth. And therefore it is that they are not simply wrong, done
with, finished, ended, and that we cannot afford to forget them.
Whether it is not possible to bring the many lights to a single focus,
to weld the various factors of the truth into a single organic whole
or system, which should thus be the total result to date, is another
question. Only one such attempt has ever been made, but no one will
pretend that it is possible to understand it without a thorough
knowledge of all previous systems, a knowledge, in fact, of the
separate factors of the truth before they are thus combined into a
total result. Besides, that attempt, too, is now part of the history
of philosophy!
Hence any philosophical thinking which is not founded {ix} upon a
thorough study of the systems of the past will necessarily be shallow
and worthless. And the notions that we can dispense with this study,
and do everything out of our own heads, that everyone is to be his own
philosopher, and is competent to construct his own system in his own
way--such ideas are utterly empty and hollow. Of these truths, indeed,
we see a notable example in what the writer just quoted styles his
"metaphysic." This so-called metaphysic is wholly based upon the
assumption that knowledge and its object exist, each on its own
account, external to one another, the one here, the other there over
against it, and that knowledge is an "instrument" which in this
external manner takes hold of its object and makes it its own. The
very moment the word "instrument" is used here, all the rest,
including the invalidity of knowledge, follows as a matter of course.
Such assumption then--that knowledge is an "instrument"--our writer
makes, wholly uncritically, and without a shadow of right. He gives no
sign that it has ever even occurred to him that this is an assumption,
that it needs any enquiry, or that it is possible for anyone to think
otherwise. Yet anyone who will take the trouble, not merely
superficially to dip into the history of philosophy, but thoroughly to
submit himself to its discipline, will at least learn that this is an
assumption, a very doubtful assumption, too, which no one now has the
right to foist upon the public without discussion as if it were an
axiomatic truth. He might even learn that it is a false assumption.
And he will note, as an ominous sign, that the subjectivism which
permeates and directs the whole course of Mr. Wells's thinking is
identical in character with that {x} subjectivism which was the
essential feature of the decay and _downfall_ of the Greek philosophic
spirit, and was the cause of its final _ruin_ and _dissolution_.
I would counsel the young, therefore, to pay no attention to plausible
and shallow words such as those quoted, but, before forming their own
philosophic opinions, most thoroughly and earnestly to study and
master the history of past philosophies, first the Greek and then the
modern. That this cannot be done merely by reading a modern resume of
that history, but only by studying the great thinkers in their own
works, is true. But philosophical education must begin, and the
function of such books as this, is, not to complete it, but to begin
it; and to obtain first of all a general view of what must afterwards
be studied in detail is no bad way of beginning. Moreover, the study
of the development and historical connexions of the various
philosophies, which is not found in the original writings themselves,
will always provide a work for histories of philosophy to do.
Two omissions in this book require, perhaps, a word of explanation.
Firstly, in dealing with Plato's politics I have relied on the
"Republic," and said nothing of the "Laws." This would not be
permissible in a history of political theories, nor even in a history
of philosophy which laid any special emphasis on politics. But, from
my point of view, politics lie on the extreme outer margin of
philosophy, so that a more slender treatment of the subject is
permissible. Moreover, the "Republic," whether written early or late,
expresses, in my opinion, the views of Plato, and not those of
Socrates, and it still remains the outstanding, typical, and
characteristic {xi} expression of the Platonic political ideal,
however much that ideal had afterwards to be modified by practical
considerations.
Secondly, I have not even mentioned the view, now held by some, that
the theory of Ideas is really the work of Socrates, and not of Plato,
and that Plato's own philosophy consisted in some sort of esoteric
number-theory, combined with theistic and other doctrines. I can only
say that this theory, as expounded for example by Professor Burnet,
does not commend itself to me, that, in fact, I do not believe it, but
that, it being impossible to discuss it adequately in a book of this
kind, I have thought that, rather than discuss it inadequately, it
were better to leave it alone altogether. Moreover, it stands on a
totally different footing from, say, Professor Burnet's interpretation
of Parmenides, which I have discussed. That concerned the
interpretation of the true meaning of a philosophy. This merely
concerns the question who was the author of a philosophy. That was a
question of principle, this merely of personalities. That was of
importance to the philosopher, this merely to the historian and
antiquary. It is like the Bacon-Shakespeare question, which no lover
of drama, as such, need concern himself with at all. No doubt the
Plato-Socrates question is of interest to antiquarians, but after all,
fundamentally, it does not matter who is to have the credit of the
theory of Ideas, the only essential thing for us being to understand
that theory, and rightly to apprehend its value as a factor of the
truth. This book is primarily concerned with philosophical ideas,
their truth, meaning, and significance, and not with the rights and
wrongs of antiquarian disputes. It does indeed purport to {xii} be a
_history_, as well as a discussion of philosophic conceptions. But
this only means that it takes up philosophical ideas in their
historical sequence and connexions, and it does this only because the
conceptions of evolution in philosophy, of the onward march of thought
to a determined goal; of its gradual and steady rise to the supreme
heights of idealism, its subsequent decline, and ultimate collapse,
are not only profoundly impressive as historical phenomena, but are of
vital importance to a true conception of philosophy itself. Were it
not for this, Mr. Wells would, I think, be right, and I for one should
abandon treatment in historical order altogether. Lastly, I may remark
that the description of this book as a _critical_ history means that it
is, or attempts to be critical, not of dates, texts, readings, and the
like, but of philosophical conceptions.
I owe a debt of thanks to Mr. F. L. Woodward, M.A., late principal of
Mahinda College, Galle, Ceylon, for assisting me in the compilation of
the index of names, and in sundry other matters.
W.T.S.
_January_, 1920.
{xiii}
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL. THE
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY 1
II. THE IONICS. THALES. ANAXIMANDER.
ANAXIMENES. OTHER IONIC THINKERS 20
III. THE PYTHAGOREANS 31
IV. THE ELEATICS. XENOPHANES. PARMENIDES.
ZENO. CRITICAL REMARKS ON ELEATICISM 40
V. HERACLEITUS 72
VI. EMPEDOCLES 81
VII. THE ATOMISTS 86
VIII. ANAXAGORAS 94
IX. THE SOPHISTS 106
X. SOCRATES 127
XI. THE SEMI-SOCRATICS. THE CYNICS. THE
CYRENAICS. THE MEGARICS 155
XII. PLATO 164
(i.) Life and writings 165
(ii.) The theory of knowledge 177
(iii.) Dialectic, or the theory of Ideas 183
(iv.) Physics, or the theory of existence 207
(a) The doctrine of the world 207
(b) The doctrine of the human soul 211
{xiv}
(v.) Ethics 217
(a) Of the individual 217
(b) The State 225
(vi.) Views upon art 229
(vii.) Critical estimate of Plato's philosophy 234
XIII. ARISTOTLE:
(i.) Life, Writings, and general character of
his work 249
(ii.) Logic 260
(iii.) Metaphysics 261
(iv.) Physics, or the philosophy of nature 288
(v.) Ethics:
(a) The individual 314
(b) The State 320
(vi.) Aesthetics, or the theory of art 325
(vii.) Critical estimate of
Aristotle's philosophy 331
XIV. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF POST-ARISTOTELIAN
PHILOSOPHY 339
XV. THE STOICS. LOGIC. PHYSICS. ETHICS 344
XVI. THE EPICUREANS. PHYSICS. ETHICS 354
XVII. THE SCEPTICS. PYRRHO. THE NEW ACADEMY.
LATER SCEPTICISM 361
XVIII. TRANSITION TO NEO-PLATONISM 368
XIX. THE NEO-PLATONISTS 372
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 378
INDEX OF NAMES 382
{1}
A CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY
CHAPTER I
THE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL.
THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY
It is natural that, at the commencement of any study, one should be
expected to say what the subject-matter of that study is. Botany is
the knowledge of plants, astronomy of the heavenly bodies, geology of
the rocks of the earth's crust. What, then, is the special sphere of
philosophy? What is philosophy about? Now it is not as easy to give a
concise definition of philosophy, as it is of the other sciences. In
the first place, the content of philosophy has differed considerably
in different periods of history. In general the tendency has been to
narrow down the scope of the subject as knowledge advanced, to exclude
from philosophy what was formerly included in it. Thus in the time of
Plato, physics and astronomy were included as parts of philosophy,
whereas now they constitute separate sciences. This, however, is not
an insurmountable difficulty. What chiefly militates against the
effort to frame a definition is that the precise content of philosophy
is differently viewed by different schools of thought. Thus a
definition of {2} philosophy which a follower of Herbert Spencer might
frame would be unacceptable to an Hegelian, and the Hegelian
definition would be rejected by the Spencerian. If we were to include
in our definition some such phrase as "the knowledge of the Absolute,"
while this might suit some philosophers, others would deny that there
is any Absolute at all. Another school would say that there may be an
Absolute, but that it is unknowable, so that philosophy cannot be the
knowledge of it. Yet another school would tell us that, whether there
is or is not an Absolute, whether it is or is not knowable, the
knowledge of it is in any case useless, and ought not to be sought.
Hence no definition of philosophy can be appreciated without some
knowledge of the special tenets of the various schools. In a word, the
proper place to give a definition is not at the beginning of the study
of philosophy, but at the end of it. Then, with all views before us,
we might be able to decide the question.
I shall make no attempt, therefore, to place before you a precise
definition. But perhaps the same purpose will be served, if I pick out
some of the leading traits of philosophy, which serve to distinguish
it from other branches of knowledge, and illustrate them by
enumerating--but without any attempt at completeness--some of the
chief problems which philosophers have usually attempted to solve. And
firstly, philosophy is distinguished from other branches of knowledge
by the fact that, whereas these each take some particular portion of
the universe for their study, philosophy does not specialize in this
way, but deals with the universe as a whole. The universe is one, and
ideal knowledge of it would be one; but the principles of
specialization and division of {3} labour apply here as elsewhere, and
so astronomy takes for its subject that portion of the universe which
we call the heavenly bodies, botany specializes in plant life,
psychology in the facts of the mind, and so on. But philosophy does
not deal with this or that particular sphere of being, but with being
as such. It seeks to see the universe as a single co-ordinated system
of things. It might be described as the science of things in general.
The world in its most universal aspects is its subject. All sciences
tend to generalize, to reduce multitudes of particular facts to single
general laws. Philosophy carries this process to its highest limit. It
generalizes to the utmost. It seeks to view the entire universe in the
light of the fewest possible general principles, in the light, if
possible, of a single ultimate principle.
It is a consequence of this that the special sciences take their
subject matter, and much of their contents, for granted, whereas
philosophy seeks to trace everything back to its ultimate grounds. It
may be thought that this description of the sciences is incorrect. Is
not the essential maxim of modern science to assume nothing, to take
nothing for granted, to assert nothing without demonstration, to prove
all? This is no doubt true within certain limits, but beyond those
limits it does not hold good. All the sciences take quite for granted
certain principles and facts which are, for them, ultimate. To
investigate these is the portion of the philosopher, and philosophy
thus takes up the thread of knowledge where the sciences drop it. It
begins where they end. It investigates what they take as a matter of
course.
Let us consider some examples of this. The science of geometry deals
with the laws of space. But it takes {4} space just as it finds it in
common experience. It takes space for granted. No geometrician asks
what space is. This, then, will be a problem for philosophy. Moreover,
geometry is founded upon certain fundamental propositions which, it
asserts, being self-evident, require no investigation. These are
called "axioms." That two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and
that equals being added to equals the results are equal, are common
examples. Into the ground of these axioms the geometrician does not
enquire. That is the business of philosophy. Not that philosophers
affect to doubt the truth of these axioms. But surely it is a very
strange thing, and a fact quite worthy of study, that there are some
statements of which we feel that we must give the most laborious
proofs, and others in the case of which we feel no such necessity. How
is it that some propositions can be self-evident and others must be
proved? What is the ground of this distinction? And when one comes to
think of it, it is a very extraordinary property of mind that it
should be able to make the most universal and unconditional statements
about things, without a jot of evidence or proof. When we say that two
straight lines cannot enclose a space, we do not mean merely that this
has been found true in regard to all the particular pairs of straight
lines with which we have tried the experiment. We mean that it never
can be and never has been otherwise. We mean that a million million
years ago two straight lines did not enclose a space, and that it will
be the same a million million years hence, and that it is just as true
on those stars, if there are any, which are invisible even to the
greatest telescopes. But we have no experience of what will {5} happen
a million million years hence, or of what can take place among those
remote stars. And yet we assert, with absolute confidence, that our
axiom is and must be equally true everywhere and at all times.
Moreover, we do not found this on probabilities gathered from
experience. Nobody would make experiments or use telescopes to prove
such axioms. How is it that they are thus self-evident, that the mind
can make these definite and far-reaching assertions without any
evidence at all? Geometricians do not consider these questions. They
take the facts for granted. To solve these problems is for philosophy.
Again, the physical sciences take the existence of matter for granted.
But philosophy asks what matter is. At first sight it might appear
that this question is one for the physicist and not the philosopher.
For the problem of "the constitution of matter" is a well-known
physical problem. But a little consideration will show that this is
quite a different question from the one the philosopher propounds. For
even if it be shown that all matter is ether, or electricity, or
vortex-atoms, or other such, this does not help us in our special
problem. For these theories, even if proved, only teach us that the
different kinds of matter are forms of some one physical existence.
But what we want to know is what physical existence itself is. To
prove that one kind of matter is really another kind of matter does
not tell us what is the essential nature of matter. That, therefore,
is a problem, not of science, but of philosophy.
In the same way, all the sciences take the existence of the universe
for granted. But philosophy seeks to know why it is that there is a
universe at all. Is it {6} true, for example, that there is some
single ultimate reality which produces all things? And if so, what
sort of a reality is it? Is it matter, or mind, or something different
from both? Is it good or evil? And if it is good, how is it that there
is evil in the world?
Moreover every science, except the purely mathematical sciences,
assumes the truth of the law of causation. Every student of logic
knows that this is the ultimate canon of the sciences, the foundation
of them all. If we did not believe in the truth of the law of
causation, namely, that everything which has a beginning has a cause,
and that in the same circumstances the same things invariably happen,
all the sciences would at once crumble to dust. In every scientific
investigation, this truth is assumed. If we ask the zoologist how he
knows that all camels are herbivorous, he will no doubt point in the
first instance to experience. The habits of many thousands of camels
have been observed. But this only proves that those particular camels
are herbivorous. How about the millions that have never been observed
at all? He can only appeal to the law of causation. The camel's
structure is such that it cannot digest meat. It is a case of cause
and effect. How do we know that water always freezes at 0 deg. centigrade
(neglecting questions of pressure, etc.)? How do we know that this is
true at those regions of the earth where no one has ever been to see?
Only because we believe that in the same circumstances the same thing
always happens, that like causes always produce like effects. But how
do we know the truth of this law of causation itself? Science does not
consider the question. It traces its assertions back to this law, but
goes no {7} further. Its fundamental canon it takes for granted. The
grounds of causation, why it is true, and how we know it is true, are,
therefore, philosophical questions.
One may be tempted to enquire whether many of these questions,
especially those connected with the ultimate reality, do not transcend
human faculties altogether, and whether we had not better confine our
enquiries to matters that are not "too high for us." One may question
whether it is possible for finite minds to comprehend the infinite.
Now it is very right that such questions should be asked, and it is
essential that a correct answer should be found. But, for the present,
there is nothing to say about the matter, except that these questions
themselves constitute one of the most important problems of
philosophy, though it is one which, as a matter of fact, has scarcely
been considered in full until modern times. The Greeks did not raise
the question. [Footnote 2] And as this is itself one of the problems
of philosophy, it will be well to start with an open mind. The
question cannot be decided offhand, but must be thoroughly
investigated. That the finite mind of man cannot understand the
infinite is one of those popular dogmatic assertions, which are
bruited about from mouth to mouth, as if they were self-evident, and
so come to tyrannize over men's minds. But for the most part those who
make this statement have never thoroughly sifted the grounds of it,
but simply take it as something universally admitted, and trouble no
further about it. But at the very least we should first know exactly
what {8} we mean by such terms as "mind," "finite," and "infinite."
And we shall not find that our difficulties end even there.
[Footnote 2: The reasoning of the Sceptics and others no doubt
involved this question. But they did not consider it in its peculiar
modern form.]
Philosophy, then, deals with the universe as a whole; and it seeks to
take nothing for granted. A third characteristic may be noted as
especially important, though here no doubt we are trenching upon
matters upon which there is no such universal agreement. Philosophy is
essentially an attempt to rise from sensuous to pure, that is,
non-senuous, thought. This requires some explanation.
We are conscious, so to speak, of two different worlds, the external
physical world and the internal mental world. If we look outwards we
are aware of the former, if we turn our gaze inwards upon our own
minds we become aware of the latter. It may appear incorrect to say
that the external world is purely physical, for it includes other
minds. I am aware of your mind, and this is, to me, part of the world
which is external to me. But I am not now speaking of what we know by
inference, but only of what we directly perceive. I cannot directly
perceive your mind, but only your physical body. In the last resort it
will be found that I am aware of the existence of your mind only by
inference from perceived physical facts, such as the movements of your
body and the sounds that issue from your lips. The only mind which I
can immediately perceive is my own. There is then a physical world
external to us, and an internal mental world.
Which of these will naturally be regarded as the most real? Men will
regard as the most real that which is the most familiar, that which
they came first into {9} contact with, and have most experience of.
And this is unquestionably the external material world. When a child
is born, it turns its eyes to the light, which is an external physical
thing. Gradually it gets to know different objects in the room. It
comes to know its mother, but its mother is, in the first instance, a
physical object, a body. It is only long afterwards that its mother
becomes for the child a mind or a soul. In general, all our earliest
experiences are of the material world. We come to know of the mental
world only by introspection, and the habit of introspection comes in
youth or manhood only, and to many people it hardly comes at all. In
all those early impressionable years, therefore, when our most durable
ideas of the universe are formed, we are concerned almost exclusively
with the material world. The mental world with which we are much less
familiar consequently tends to appear to all of us something
comparatively unreal, a world of shadows. The bent of our minds
becomes materialistic.
What I have said of the individual is equally true of the race.
Primitive man does not brood over the facts of his own mind. Necessity
compels him to devote most of his life to the acquisition of food, and
to warding off the dangers which continually threaten him from other
physical objects. And even among ourselves, the majority of men have
to spend most of their time upon considering various aspects of things
external to them. By the individual training of each man, and by long
hereditary habit, then, it comes about that men tend to regard the
physical world as more real than the mental.
{10}
Abundant evidences of this are to be found in the structure of human
language. We seek to explain what is strange by means of what is
well-known. We try to express the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar.
We shall find that language always seeks to express the mental by the
analogy of the physical. We speak of a man as a "clear" thinker.
"Clear" is an attribute of physical objects. Water is clear if it has
no extraneous matter in it. We say that a man's ideas are "luminous,"
thus taking a metaphor from physical light. We talk of having an idea
"at the back of the mind." "At the back of"? Has the mind got a front
and a back? We are thinking of it as if it were a physical thing in
space. We speak of mental habits of "attention." "Attention" means
stretching or turning the mind in a special direction. We "reflect."
"Reflection" means bending our thoughts back upon themselves. But,
literally speaking, only physical objects can be stretched, turned,
and bent. Whenever we wish to express something mental we do it by a
physical analogy. We talk of it in terms of physical things. This
shows how deep-rooted our materialism is. If the mental world were
more familiar and real to us than the material, language would have
been constructed on the opposite principle. The earliest words of
language would have expressed mental facts, and we should afterwards
have tried to express physical things by means of mental analogies.
In the East one commonly hears Oriental idealism contrasted with
Western materialism. Such phrases may possess a certain relative
truth. But if they mean that there is in the East, or anywhere else in
the world, {11} a race of men who are naturally idealists, they are
nonsense. Materialism is ingrained in all men. We, Easterns or
Westerns, are born materialists. Hence when we try to think of objects
which are commonly regarded as non-material, such as God or the soul,
it requires continual effort, a tremendous struggle, to avoid
picturing them as material things. It goes utterly against the grain.
Perhaps hundreds of thousands of years of hereditary materialism are
against us. The popular idea of ghosts will illustrate this. Those who
believe in ghosts, I suppose, regard them as some sort of disembodied
souls. The pictures of ghosts in magazines show them as if composed of
matter, but matter of some _thin_ kind, such as vapour. Certain Indian
systems of thought, which are by way of regarding themselves as
idealistic, nevertheless teach that thought or mind is an extremely
subtle kind of matter, far subtler than any ever dealt with by the
physicist and chemist. This is very interesting, because it shows that
the authors of such ideas feel vaguely that it is wrong to think of
thought as if it were matter, but being unable to think of it in any
other way, owing to man's ingrained materialism, they seek to palliate
their sin by making it thin matter. Of course this is just as absurd
as the excuse made by the mother of an illegitimate child, that it was
a very small one. This thin matter is just as material as lead or
brass. And such systems are purely materialistic. But they illustrate
the extraordinary difficulty that the ordinary mind experiences in
attempting to rise from sensuous to non-sensuous thinking. They
illustrate the ingrained materialism of man.
This natural human materialism is also the cause {12} of mysticism and
symbolism. A symbolic thought necessarily contains two terms, the
symbol and the reality which it symbolizes. The symbol is always a
sensuous or material object, or the mental image of such an object,
and the reality is always something non-sensuous. Because the human
mind finds it such an incredible struggle to think non-sensuously, it
seeks to help itself by symbols. It takes a material thing and makes
it stand for the non-material thing which it is too weak to grasp.
Thus we talk of God as the "light of lights." No doubt this is a very
natural expression of the religious consciousness, and it has its
meaning. But it is not the naked truth. Light is a physical existence,
and God is no more light than he is heat or electricity. People talk
of symbolism as if it were a very high and exalted thing. They say,
"What a wonderful piece of symbolism!" But, in truth symbolism is the
mark of an infirm mind. It is the measure of our weakness and not of
our strength. Its root is in materialism, and it is produced and
propagated by those who are unable to rise above a materialistic
level.
Now philosophy is essentially the attempt to get beyond this sort of
symbolic and mystical thinking, to get at the naked truth, to grasp
what lies behind the symbol as it is in itself. These inferior modes
of thought are a help to those who are themselves below their level,
but are a hindrance to those who seek to reach the highest level of
truth.
It is often said that philosophy is a very difficult and abstruse
subject. Its difficulty lies almost wholly in the struggle to think
non-sensuously. Whenever we {13} come to anything in philosophy that
seems beyond us, we shall generally find that the root of the trouble
is that we are trying to think non-sensuous objects in a sensuous way,
that is, we are trying to form mental pictures and images of them, for
all mental pictures are composed of sensuous materials, and hence no
such picture is adequate for a pure thought. It is impossible to
exaggerate this difficulty. Even the greatest philosophers have
succumbed to it. We shall constantly have to point out that when a
great thinker, such as Parmenides or Plato, fails, and begins to
flounder in difficulties, the reason usually is that, though for a
time he has attained to pure thought, he has sunk back exhausted into
sensuous thinking, and has attempted to form mental pictures of what
is beyond the power of any such picture to represent, and so has
fallen into contradictions. We must keep this constantly in mind in
the study of philosophy.
In modern times philosophy is variously divided, as into metaphysics,
which is the theory of reality, ethics, the theory of the good, and
aesthetics, the theory of the beautiful. Modern divisions do not,
however, altogether fit in with Greek philosophy, and it is better to
let the natural divisions develop themselves as we go on, than to
attempt to force our material into these moulds.
If, now, we look round the world and ask; in what countries and what
ages the kind of thought we have described has attained a high degree
of development, we shall find such a development only in ancient
Greece and in modern Europe. There were great civilizations in Egypt,
China, Assyria, and so on. They produced art and religion, but no
philosophy to speak of. Even {14} ancient Rome added nothing to the
world's philosophical knowledge. Its so-called philosophers, Marcus
Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Lucretius, produced no essentially new
principle. They were merely disciples of Greek Schools, whose writings
may be full of interest and of noble feeling, but whose essential
thoughts contained nothing not already developed by the Greeks.
The case of India is more doubtful. Opinions may differ as to whether
India ever had any philosophy. The Upanishads contain
religio-philosophical thinking of a kind. And later we have the six
so-called schools of philosophy. The reasons why this Indian thought
is not usually included in histories of philosophy are as follows.
Firstly, philosophy in India has never separated itself from religious
and practical needs. The ideal of knowledge for its own sake is rarely
to be found. Knowledge is desired merely as a means towards salvation.
Philosophy and science, said Aristotle, have their roots in
wonder,--the desire to know and understand for the sole sake of
knowing and understanding. But the roots of Indian thought lie in the
anxiety of the individual to escape from the ills and calamities of
existence. This is not the scientific, but the practical spirit. It
gives birth to religions, but not to philosophies. Of course it is a
mistake to imagine that philosophy and religion are totally separate
and have no community. They are in fact fundamentally akin. But they
are also distinct. Perhaps the truest view is that they are identical
in substance, but different in form. The substance of both is the
absolute reality and the relation of all things, including men, to
that reality. But whereas philosophy presents this subject-matter
scientifically, in {15} the form of pure thought, religion gives it in
the form of sensuous pictures, myths, images, and symbols.
And this gives us the second reason why Indian thought is more
properly classed as religious than philosophical. It seldom or never
rises from sensuous to pure thought. It is poetical rather than
scientific. It is content with symbols and metaphors in place of
rational explanations, and all this is a mark of the religious, rather
than the philosophical, presentation of the truth. For example, the
main thought of the Upanishads is that the entire universe is derived
from a single, changeless, eternal, infinite, being, called Brahman or
Paramatman. When we come to the crucial question how the universe
arises out of this being, we find such passages as this:--"As the
colours in the flame or the red-hot iron proceed therefrom a
thousand-fold, so do all beings proceed from the Unchangeable, and
return again to it." Or again, "As the web issues from the spider, as
little sparks proceed from fire, so from the one soul proceed all
living animals, all worlds, all the gods and all beings." There are
thousands of such passages in the Upanishads. But obviously these
neither explain nor attempt to explain anything. They are nothing but
hollow metaphors. They are poetic rather than scientific. They may
satisfy the imagination and the religious feelings, but not the
rational understanding. Or when again Krishna, in the Bhagavat-Gita,
describes himself as the moon among the lunar mansions, the sun among
the stars, Meru among the high-peaked mountains, it is clear that we
are merely piling sensuous image upon sensuous image without any
further understanding of what the nature of the absolute being in its
own self is. {16} The moon, the sun, Meru, are physical sense-objects.
And this is totally sensuous thinking, whereas the aim of philosophy
is to rise to pure thought. In such passages we are still on the level
of symbolism, and philosophy only begins when symbolism has been
surpassed. No doubt it is possible to take the line that man's thought
is not capable of grasping the infinite as it is in itself, and can
only fall back upon symbols. But that is another question, and at any
rate, whether it is or is not possible to rise from sensuous to pure
thought, philosophy is essentially the attempt to do so.
Lastly, Indian thought is usually excluded from the history of
philosophy because, whatever its character, it lies outside the main
stream of human development. It has been cut off by geographical and
other barriers. Consequently, whatever its value in itself, it has
exerted little influence upon philosophy in general.
The claim is sometimes put forward by Orientals themselves that Greek
philosophy came from India, and if this were true, it would greatly
affect the statement made in the last paragraph. But it is not true.
It used to be believed that Greek philosophy came from "the East," but
this meant Egypt. And even this theory is now abandoned. Greek
culture, especially mathematics and astronomy, owed much to Egypt. But
Greece did not owe its philosophy to that source. The view that it did
was propagated by Alexandrian priests and others, whose sole motive
was, that to represent the triumphs of Greek philosophy as borrowed
from Egypt, flattered their national vanity. It was a great thing,
wherever they found anything good, to say, "this must have come from
us." A precisely similar motive lies behind the {17} Oriental claim
that Greek philosophy came from India. There is not a scrap of
evidence for it, and it rests entirely upon the supposed resemblance
between the two. But this resemblance is in fact mythical. The whole
character of Greek philosophy is European and unoriental to the
back-bone. The doctrine of re-incarnation is usually appealed to. This
characteristically Indian doctrine was held by the Pythagoreans, from
whom it passed to Empedocles and Plato. The Pythagoreans got it from
the Orphic sect, to whom quite possibly it came indirectly from India,
although even this is by no means certain, and is in fact highly
doubtful. But even if this be true, it proves nothing. Re-incarnation
is of little importance in Greek philosophy. Even in Plato, who makes
much of it, it is quite unessential to the fundamental ideas of his
philosophy, and is only artificially connected with them. And the
influence of this doctrine upon Plato's philosophy was thoroughly bad.
It was largely responsible for leading him into the main error of his
philosophy, which it required an Aristotle to correct. All this will
be evident when we come to consider the systems of Plato and
Aristotle.
The origin of Greek philosophy is not to be found in India, or Egypt,
or in any country outside Greece. The Greeks themselves were solely
responsible for it. It is not as if history traces back their thought
only to a point at which it was already highly developed, and cannot
explain its beginnings. We know its history from the time, so to
speak, when it was in the cradle. In the next two chapters we shall
see that the first Greek attempts at philosophising were so much the
beginnings of a beginner, were so very crude and unformed, that it is
{18} mere perversity to suppose that they could not make these simple
efforts for themselves. From those crude beginnings we can trace the
whole development in detail up to its culmination in Aristotle, and
beyond. So there is no need to assume foreign influence at any point.
Greek philosophy begins in the sixth century before Christ. It begins
when men for the first time attempted to give a scientific reply to
the question, "what is the explanation of the world?" Before this era
we have, of course, the mythologies, cosmogonies, and theologies of
the poets. But they contain no attempt at a naturalistic explanation
of things. They belong to the spheres of poetry and religion, not to
philosophy.
It must not be supposed, when we speak of the philosophy of Greece,
that we refer only to the mainland of what is now called Greece. Very
early in history, Greeks of the mainland migrated to the islands of
the Aegean, to Sicily, to the South of Italy, to the coast of Asia
Minor, and elsewhere, and founded flourishing colonies. The Greece of
philosophy includes all these places. It is to be thought of rather
racially than territorially. It is the philosophy of the men of Greek
race, wherever they happened to be situated. And in fact the first
period of Greek philosophy deals exclusively with the thoughts of
these colonial Greeks. It was not till just before the time of
Socrates that philosophy was transplanted to the mainland.
Greek philosophy falls naturally into three periods. The first may be
roughly described as pre-Socratic philosophy, though it does not
include the Sophists who were both the contemporaries and the
predecessors of Socrates. This period is the rise of Greek philosophy.
{19} Secondly, the period from the Sophists to Aristotle, which
includes Socrates and Plato, is the maturity of Greek philosophy, the
actual zenith and culmination of which is undoubtedly the system of
Aristotle. Lastly, the period of post-Aristotelian philosophy
constitutes the decline and fall of the national thought. These are
not merely arbitrary divisions. Each period has its own special
characters, which will be described in the sequel.
A few words must be said of the sources of our knowledge of
pre-Socratic philosophy. If we want to know what Plato and Aristotle
thought about any matter, we have only to consult their works. But the
works of the earlier philosophers have not come down to us, except in
fragments, and several of them never committed their opinions to
writing. Our knowledge of their doctrines is the result of the
laborious sifting by scholars of such materials as are available.
Luckily the material has been plentiful. It may be divided into three
classes. First come the fragments of the original writings of the
philosophers themselves. These are in many cases long and important,
in other cases scanty. Secondly, there are the references in Plato and
Aristotle. Of these by far the most important are to be found in the
first book of Aristotle's "Metaphysics," which is a history of
philosophy up to his own time, and is the first attempt on record to
write a history of philosophy. Thirdly, there is an enormous mass of
references, some valuable, some worthless, contained in the works of
later, but still ancient, writers.
{20}