THE IONICS.
The earliest Greek philosophers belong to what in after times came to
be called the Ionic school. The name was derived from the fact that
the three chief representatives of this school, Thales, Anaximander,
and Anaximenes, were all men of Ionia, that is to say, the coast of
Asia Minor.
Thales
As the founder of the earliest school in history, Thales of Miletus is
generally accounted the founder and father of all philosophy. He was
born about 624 B.C. and died about 550 B.C. These dates are
approximate, and it should be understood that the same thing is true
of nearly all the dates of the early philosophers. Different scholars
vary, sometimes as much as ten years, in the dates they give. We shall
not enter into these questions at all, because they are of no
importance. And throughout these lectures it should be understood that
the dates given are approximate.
Thales, at any rate, was a contemporary of Solon and Croesus. He was
famous in antiquity for his mathematical and astronomical learning,
and also for his practical sagacity and wisdom. He is included in {21}
all the accounts of the Seven Sages. The story of the Seven Sages is
unhistorical, but the fact that the lists of their names differ
considerably as given by different writers, whereas the name of Thales
appears in all, shows with what veneration he was anciently regarded.
An eclipse of the sun occurred in 585 B.C., and Thales is alleged to
have predicted it, which was a feat for the astronomy of those times.
And he must have been a great engineer, for he caused a diversion of
the river Halys, when Croesus and his army were unable to cross it.
Nothing else is known of his life, though there were many apocryphal
stories.
No writings by Thales were extant even in the time of Aristotle, and
it is believed that he wrote nothing. His philosophy, if we can call
it by that name, consisted, so far as we know, of two propositions.
Firstly, that the principle of all things is water, that all comes
from water, and to water all returns. And secondly, that the earth is
a flat disc which floats upon water. The first, which is the chief
proposition, means that water is the one primal kind of existence and
that everything else in the universe is merely a modification of
water. Two questions will naturally occur to us. Why did Thales choose
water as the first principle? And by what process does water, in his
opinion, come to be changed into other things; how was the universe
formed out of water? We cannot answer either of these questions with
certainty. Aristotle says that Thales "probably derived his opinion
from observing that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that
even actual heat is generated therefrom, and that animal life is
sustained by water, ... and from the fact that the seeds of all things
possess {22} a moist nature, and that water is a first principle of
all things that are humid." This is very likely the true explanation.
But it will be noted that even Aristotle uses the word "probably," and
so gives his statement merely as a conjecture. How, in the opinion of
Thales, the universe arose out of water, is even more uncertain. Most
likely he never asked himself the question, and gave no explanation.
At any rate nothing is known on the point.
This being the sum and substance of the teaching of Thales, we may
naturally ask why, on account of such a crude and undeveloped idea, he
should be given the title of the father of philosophy. Why should
philosophy be said to begin here in particular? Now, the significance
of Thales is not that his water-philosophy has any value in itself,
but that this was the first recorded attempt to explain the universe
on naturalistic and scientific principles, without the aid of myths
and anthropomorphic gods. Moreover, Thales propounded the problem, and
determined the direction and character, of all pre-Socratic
philosophy. The fundamental thought of that period was, that under the
multiplicity of the world there must be a single ultimate principle.
The problem of all philosophers from Thales to Anaxagoras was, what is
the nature of that first principle from which all things have issued?
Their systems are all attempts to answer this question, and may be
classified according to their different replies. Thus Thales asserted
that the ultimate reality is water, Anaximander indefinite matter,
Anaximenes air, the Pythagoreans number, the Eleatics Being,
Heracleitus fire, Empedocles the four elements, Democritus atoms, and
so on. The first period is thus {23} essentially cosmological in
character, and it was Thales who determined the character. His
importance is that he was the first to propound the question, not that
he gave any rational reply to it.
We saw in the first chapter, that man is naturally a materialist, and
that philosophy is the movement from sensuous to non-sensuous thought.
As we should expect, then, philosophy begins in materialism. The first
answer to the question, what the ultimate reality is, places the
nature of that reality in a sensuous object, water. The other members
of the Ionic school, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, are also
materialists. And from their time onwards we can trace the gradual
rise of thought, with occasional breaks and relapses, from this
sensualism of the Ionics, through the semi-sensuous idealism of the
Eleatics, to the highest point of pure non-sensuous thought, the
idealism of Plato and Aristotle. It is important to keep in mind,
then, that the history of philosophy is not a mere chaotic hotch-potch
of opinions and theories, succeeding each other without connection or
order. It is a logical and historical evolution, each step in which is
determined by the last, and advances beyond the last towards a
definite goal. The goal, of course, is visible to us, but was not
visible to the early thinkers themselves.
Since man begins by looking outwards upon the external world and not
inwards upon his own self, this fact too determines the character of
the first period of Greek philosophy. It concerns itself solely with
nature, with the external world, and only with man as a part of
nature. It demands an explanation of nature. And this is the same as
saying that it is cosmological. The {24} problems of man, of life, of
human destiny, of ethics, are treated by it scantily, or not at all.
It is not till the time of the Sophists that the Greek spirit turns
inwards upon itself and begins to consider these problems, and with
the emergence of that point of view we have passed from the first to
the second period of Greek philosophy.
Because the Ionic philosophers were all materialists they are also
sometimes called Hylicists, from the Greek _hule_ which means matter.
Anaximander
The next philosopher of the Ionic school is Anaximander. He was an
exceedingly original and audacious thinker. He was probably born about
611 B.C. and died about 547. He was an inhabitant of Miletus, and is
said to have been a disciple of Thales. It will be seen, thus, that he
was a younger contemporary of Thales. He was born at the time that
Thales was flourishing, and was about a generation younger. He was the
first Greek to write a philosophic treatise, which however has been
unfortunately lost. He was eminent for his astronomical and
geographical knowledge, and in this connection was the first to
construct a map. Details of his life are not known.
Now Thales had made the ultimate principle of the universe, water.
Anaximander agrees with Thales that the ultimate principle of things
is material, but he does not name it water, does not in fact believe
that it is any particular kind of matter. It is rather a formless,
indefinite, and absolutely featureless matter in general. {25} Matter,
as we know it, is always some particular kind of matter. It must be
iron, brass, water, air, or other such. The difference between the
different kinds of matter is qualitative, that is to say, we know that
air is air because it has the qualities of air and differs from iron
because iron has the qualities of iron, and so on. The primeval matter
of Anaximander is just matter not yet sundered into the different
kinds of matter. It is therefore formless and characterless. And as it
is thus indeterminate in quality, so it is illimitable in quantity.
Anaximander believed that this matter stretches out to infinity
through space. The reason he gave for this opinion was, that if there
were a limited amount of matter it would long ago have been used up in
the creation and destruction of the "innumerable worlds." Hence he
called it "the boundless." In regard to these "innumerable worlds,"
the traditional opinion about Anaximander was that he believed these
worlds to succeed each other in time, and that first a world was
created, developed, and was destroyed, then another world arose, was
developed and destroyed, and that this periodic revolution of worlds
went on for ever. Professor Burnet, however, is of opinion that the
"innumerable worlds" of Anaximander were not necessarily successive but
rather simultaneously existing worlds. According to this view there
may be any number of worlds existing at the same time. But, even so,
it is still true that these worlds were not everlasting, but began,
developed and decayed, giving place in due time to other worlds.
How, now, have these various worlds been formed out of the formless,
indefinite, indeterminate matter of {26} Anaximander? On this question
Anaximander is vague and has nothing very definite to put forward.
Indeterminate matter by a vaguely conceived process separates itself
into "the hot" and "the cold." The cold is moist or damp. This cold
and moist matter becomes the earth, in the centre of the universe. The
hot matter collects into a sphere of fire surrounding the earth. The
earth in the centre was originally fluid. The heat of the surrounding
sphere caused the waters of the earth progressively to evaporate
giving rise to the envelope of air which surrounds the earth. For the
early Greeks regarded the air and vapour as the same thing. As this
air or vapour expanded under the action of heat it burst the outside
hot sphere of fire into a series of enormous "wheel-shaped husks,"
resembling cart wheels, which encircle the earth. You may naturally
ask how it is that if these are composed of fire we do not see them
continually glowing. Anaximander's answer was that these wheel-shaped
husks are encrusted with thick, opaque vapour, which conceals the
inner fire from our view. But there are apertures, or pipe-like holes
in the vapour-crust, and through these the fire gleams, causing the
appearance of the sun, stars, and moon. You will note that the moon
was, on this theory, considered to be fiery, and not, as we now know
it to be, a cold surface reflecting the sun's light. There were three
of these "cart wheels"; the first was that of the sun, furthest away
from the earth, nearer to us was that of the moon, and closest of all
was that of the fixed stars. The "wheel-shaped husks" containing the
heavenly bodies are revolved round the earth by means of currents of
air. The earth in the centre was believed by {27} Anaximander to be
not spherical but cylindrical. Men live on the top end of this pillar
or cylinder.
Anaximander also developed a striking theory about the origin and
evolution of living beings. In the beginning the earth was fluid and
in the gradual drying up by evaporation of this fluid, living beings
were produced from the heat and moisture. In the first instance these
beings were of a low order. They gradually evolved into successively
higher and higher organisms by means of adaptation to their
environment. Man was in the first instance a fish living in the water.
The gradual drying up left parts of the earth high and dry, and marine
animals migrated to the land, and their fins by adaptation became
members fitted for movement on land. The resemblance of this primitive
theory to modern theories of evolution is remarkable. It is easy to
exaggerate its importance, but it is at any rate clear that
Anaximander had, by a happy guess, hit upon the central idea of
adaptation of species to their environment.
The teaching of Anaximander exhibits a marked advance beyond the
position of Thales. Thales had taught that the first principle of
things is water. The formless matter of Anaximander is,
philosophically, an advance on this, showing the operation of thought
and abstraction. Secondly, Anaximander had definitely attempted to
apply this idea, and to derive from it the existent world. Thales had
left the question how the primal water developed into a world,
entirely unanswered.
Anaximenes
Like the two previous thinkers Anaximenes was an inhabitant of
Miletus. He was born about 588 B.C. and {28} died about 524. He wrote
a treatise of which a small fragment still remains. He agreed with
Thales and Anaximander that the first principle of the universe is
material. With Thales too, he looked upon it as a particular kind of
matter, not indeterminate matter as taught by Anaximander. Thales had
declared it to be water. Anaximenes named air as first principle. This
air, like the matter of Anaximander, stretches illimitably through
space. Air is constantly in motion and has the power of motion
inherent in it and this motion brought about the development of the
universe from air. As operating process of this development Anaximenes
named the two opposite processes of (1) Rarefaction, (2) Condensation.
Rarefaction is the same thing as heat or growing hot, and condensation
is identified with growing cold. The air by rarefaction becomes fire,
and fire borne aloft upon the air becomes the stars. By the opposite
process of condensation, air first becomes clouds and, by further
degrees of condensation, becomes successively water, earth, and rocks.
The world resolves again in the course of time into the primal air.
Anaximenes, like Anaximander, held the theory of "innumerable worlds,"
and these worlds are, according to the traditional view, successive.
But here again Professor Burnet considers that the innumerable worlds
may have been co-existent as well as successive. Anaximenes considered
the earth to be a flat disc floating upon air.
The origin of the air theory of Anaximenes seems to have been
suggested to him by the fact that air in the form of breath is the
principle of life.
The teaching of Anaximenes seems at first sight to be {29} a falling
off from the position of Anaximander, because he goes back to the
position of Thales in favour of a determinate matter as first
principle. But in one respect at least there is here an advance upon
Anaximander. The latter had been vague as to how formless matter
differentiates itself into the world of objects. Anaximenes names the
definite processes of rarefaction and condensation. If you believe, as
these early physicists did, that every different kind of matter is
ultimately one kind of matter, the problem of the differentiation of
the qualities of the existent elements arises. For example, if this
paper is really composed of air, how do we account for its colour, its
hardness, texture, etc. Either these qualities must be originally in
the primal air, or not. If the qualities existed in it then it was not
really one homogeneous matter like air, but must have been simply a
mixture of different kinds of matter. If not, how do these properties
arise? How can this air which has not in it the qualities of things we
see, develop them? The simplest way of getting out of the difficulty
is to found quality upon quantity, and to explain the former by the
amount or quantity, more or less, of matter existent in the same
volume. This is precisely what is meant by rarefaction and
condensation. Condensation would result in compressing more matter
into the same volume. Rarefaction would give rise to the opposite
process. Great compression of air, a great amount of it in a small
space, might account for the qualities, say, of earth and stones, for
example, their heaviness, hardness, colour, etc.
Hence Anaximenes was to some extent a more logical and definite
thinker than Anaximander, but cannot {30} compare with him in audacity
and originality of thought.
Other Ionic Thinkers
We have now considered the three chief thinkers of the Ionic School.
Others there were, but they added nothing new to the teaching of these
three. They followed either Thales or Anaximenes in stating the first
principle of the world either as water or as air. Hippo, for example,
followed Thales, and for him the world is composed of water, Idaeus
agreed with Anaximenes that it is derived from air. Diogenes of
Apollonia is chiefly remarkable for the fact that he lived at a very
much later date. He was a contemporary of Anaxagoras, and opposed to
the more developed teachings of that philosopher the crude materialism
of the Ionic School. Air was by him considered to be the ground of all
things.
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