THE ELEATICS
The Eleatics are so called because the seat of their school was at
Elea, a town in South Italy, and Parmenides and Zeno, the two chief
representatives of the school, were both citizens of Elea. So far we
have been dealing with crude systems of thought in which only the
germs of philosophic thinking can be dimly discerned. Now, however,
with the Eleatics we step out definitely for the first time upon the
platform of philosophy. Eleaticism is the first true philosophy. In it
there emerges the first factor of the truth, however poor, meagre, and
inadequate. For philosophy is not, as many persons suppose, simply a
collection of freak speculations, which we may study in historical
order, but at the end of which, God alone knows which we ought to
believe. On the contrary, the history of philosophy presents a
definite line of evolution. The truth unfolds itself gradually in
time.
Xenophanes
The reputed founder of the Eleatic School was Xenophanes. It is,
however, doubtful whether Xenophanes ever went to Elea. Moreover, he
belongs more properly {41} to the history of religion than to the
history of philosophy. The real creator of the Eleatic School was
Parmenides. But Parmenides seized upon certain germs of thought latent
in Xenophanes and transmuted them into philosophic principles. We
have, therefore, in the first instance, to say something of
Xenophanes. He was born about the year 576 B.C., at Colophon in Ionia.
His long life was spent in wandering up and down the cities of Hellas,
as a poet and minstrel, singing songs at banquets and festivals.
Whether, as sometimes stated; he finally settled at Elea is a matter
of doubt, but we know definitely that at the advanced age of
ninety-two he was still wandering about Greece. His philosophy, such
as it is, is expressed in poems. He did not, however, write
philosophical poems, but rather elegies and satires upon various
subjects, only incidentally expressing his religious views therein.
Fragments of these poems have come down to us.
Xenophanes is the originator of the quarrel between philosophy and
religion. He attacked the popular religious notions of the Greeks with
a view to founding a purer and nobler conception of Deity. Popular
Greek religion consisted of a belief in a number of gods who were
conceived very much as in the form of human beings. Xenophanes attacks
this conception of God as possessing human form. It is absurd, he
says, to suppose that the gods wander about from place to place, as
represented in the Greek legends. It is absurd to suppose that the
gods had a beginning. It is disgraceful to impute to them stories of
fraud, adultery, theft and deceit. And Xenophanes inveighs against
Homer and Hesiod for disseminating these degrading conceptions {42} of
the Deity. He argues, too, against the polytheistic notion of a
plurality of gods. That which is divine can only be one. There can
only be one best. Therefore, God is to be conceived as one. And this
God is comparable to mortals neither in bodily form nor understanding.
He is "all eye, all ear, all thought." It is he "who, without trouble,
by his thought governs all things." But it would be a mistake to
suppose that Xenophanes thought of this God as a being external to the
world, governing it from the outside, as a general governs his
soldiers. On the contrary, Xenophanes identified God with the world.
The world is God, a sentient being, though without organs of sense.
Looking out into the wide heavens, he said, "The One is God."
[Footnote 4] The thought of Xenophanes is therefore more properly
described as pantheism than as monotheism. God is unchangeable,
immutable, undivided, unmoved, passionless, undisturbed. Xenophanes
appears, thus, rather as a religious reformer than as a philosopher.
Nevertheless, inasmuch as he was the first to enunciate the
proposition "All is one," he takes his place in philosophy. It was
upon this thought that Parmenides built the foundations of the Eleatic
philosophy.
[Footnote 4: Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, Book I. chapter v.]
Certain other opinions of Xenophanes have been preserved. He observed
fossils, and found shells inland, and the forms of fish and sea-weed
embedded in the rocks in the quarries of Syracuse and elsewhere. From
these he concluded that the earth had risen out of the sea and would
again partially sink into it. Then the human race would be destroyed.
But the earth would again rise from the sea and the human race would
again [43] be renewed. He believed that the sun and stars were burning
masses of vapour. The sun, he thought, does not revolve round the
earth. It goes on in a straight line, and disappears in the remote
distance in the evening. It is not the same sun which rises the next
morning. Every day a new sun is formed out of the vapours of the sea.
This idea is connected with his general attitude towards the popular
religion. His motive was to show that the sun and stars are not divine
beings, but like other beings, ephemeral. Xenophanes also ridiculed
the Pythagoreans, especially their doctrine of re-incarnation.
Parmenides
Parmenides was born about 514 B.C. at Elea. Not much is known of his
life. He was in his early youth a Pythagorean, but recanted that
philosophy and formulated a philosophy of his own. He was greatly
revered in antiquity both for the depth of his intellect, and the
sublimity and nobility of his character. Plato refers to him always
with reverence. His philosophy is comprised in a philosophic didactic
poem which is divided into two parts. The first part expounds his own
philosophy and is called "the way of truth." The second part describes
the false opinions current in his day and is called "the way of
opinion."
The reflection of Parmenides takes its rise from observation of the
transitoriness and changeableness of things. The world, as we know it,
is a world of change and mutation. All things arise and pass away.
Nothing is permanent, nothing stands. One moment it is, another moment
it is not. It is as true to say of {44} anything, that it is not, as
that it is. The truth of things cannot lie here, for no knowledge of
that which is constantly changing is possible. Hence the thought of
Parmenides becomes the effort to find the eternal amid the shifting,
the abiding and everlasting amid the change and mutation of things.
And there arises in this way the antithesis between Being and
not-being. The absolutely real is Being. Not-being is the unreal.
Not-being is not at all. And this not-being he identifies with
becoming, with the world of shifting and changing things, the world
which is known to us by the senses. The world of sense is unreal,
illusory, a mere appearance. It is not-being. Only Being truly is. As
Thales designated water the one reality, as the Pythagoreans named
number, so now for Parmenides the sole reality, the first principle of
things, is Being, wholly unmixed with not-being, wholly excludent of
all becoming. The character of Being he describes, for the most part,
in a series of negatives. There is in it no change, it is absolutely
unbecome and imperishable. It has neither beginning nor end, neither
arising nor passing away. If Being began, it must have arisen either
from Being or from not-being. But for Being to arise out of Being,
that is not a beginning, and for Being to arise out of not-being is
impossible, since there is then no reason why it should arise later
rather than sooner. Being cannot come out of not-being, nor something
out of nothing. _Ex nihilo nihil fit_. This is the fundamental thought
of Parmenides. Moreover, we cannot say of Being that it was, that it
is, that it will be. There is for it no past, no present, and no
future. It is rather eternally and timelessly present. It is undivided
and indivisible. For anything to be divided {45} it must be divided by
something other than itself. But there is nothing other than Being;
there is no not-being. Therefore there is nothing by which Being can
be divided. Hence it is indivisible. It is unmoved and undisturbed,
for motion and disturbance are forms of becoming, and all becoming is
excluded from Being. It is absolutely self-identical. It does not
arise from anything other than itself. It does not pass into anything
other than itself. It has its whole being in itself. It does not
depend upon anything else for its being and reality. It does not pass
over into otherness; it remains, steadfast, and abiding in itself. Of
positive character Being has nothing. Its sole character is simply its
being. It cannot be said that it is this or that; it cannot be said
that it has this or that quality, that it is here or there, then or
now. It simply _is_. Its only quality is, so to speak, "isness."
But in Parmenides there emerges for the first time a distinction of
fundamental importance in philosophy, the distinction between Sense
and Reason. The world of falsity and appearance, of becoming, of
not-being, this is, says Parmenides, the world which is presented to
us by the senses. True and veritable Being is known to us only by
reason, by thought. The senses therefore, are, for Parmenides, the
sources of all illusion and error. Truth lies only in reason. This is
exceedingly important, because this, _that truth lies in reason and not
in the world of sense_, is the fundamental position of idealism.
The doctrine of Being, just described, occupies the first part of the
poem of Parmenides. The second part is the way of false opinion. But
whether Parmenides is here simply giving an account of the false
philosophies {46} of his day, (and in doing this there does not seem
much point,) or whether he was, with total inconsistency, attempting,
in a cosmological theory of his own, to explain the origin of that
world of appearance and illusion, whose very being he has, in the
first part of the poem, denied--this does not seem to be clear. The
theory here propounded, at any rate, is that the sense-world is
composed of the two opposites, the hot and the cold, or light and
darkness. The more hot there is, the more life, the more reality; the
more cold, the more unreality and death.
What position, now, are we to assign to Parmenides in philosophy? How
are we to characterize his system? Such writers as Hegel, Erdmann, and
Schwegler, have always interpreted his philosophy in an idealistic
sense. Professor Burnet, however, takes the opposite view. To quote
his own words: "Parmenides is not, as some have said, the father of
idealism. On the contrary, all materialism depends upon his view."
[Footnote 5] Now if we cannot say whether Parmenides was a materialist
or an idealist, we cannot be said to understand much about his
philosophy. The question is therefore of cardinal importance. Let us
see, in the first place, upon what grounds the materialistic
interpretation of Parmenides is based. It is based upon a fact which I
have so far not mentioned, leaving it for explanation at this moment.
Parmenides said that Being, which is for him the ultimate reality,
occupies space, is finite, and is spherical or globe-shaped. Now that
which occupies space, and has shape, is matter. The ultimate reality
of things, therefore, is conceived by Parmenides as material, and
this, of course, is the {47} cardinal thesis of materialism. This
interpretation of Parmenides is further emphasized in the disagreement
between himself and Melissus, as to whether Being is finite or
infinite. Melissus was a younger adherent of the Eleatic School, whose
chief interest lies in his views on this question. His philosophical
position in general is the same as that of Parmenides. But on this
point they differed. Parmenides asserted that Being is globe-shaped,
and therefore finite. Now it was an essential part of the doctrine of
Parmenides that empty space is non-existent. Empty space is an
existent non-existence. This is self-contradictory, and for
Parmenides, therefore, empty space is simply not-being. There are, for
example, no interstices, or empty spaces between the particles of
matter. Being is "the full," that is, full space with no mixture of
empty space in it. Now Melissus agreed with Parmenides that there is
no such thing as empty space; and he pointed out, that if Being is
globe-shaped, it must be bounded on the outside by empty space. And as
this is impossible, it cannot be true that Being is globe-shaped, or
finite, but must, on the contrary, extend illimitably through space.
This makes it quite clear that Parmenides, Melissus, and the Eleatics
generally, did regard Being as, in some sense, material.
[Footnote 5: _Early Greek Philosophy_, chap. iv. Sec. 89.]
Now, however, let us turn to the other side of the picture. What
ground is there for regarding Parmenides as an idealist? In the first
place, we may say that his ultimate principle, Being, whatever he may
have thought of it, is not in fact material, but is essentially an
abstract thought, a concept. Being is not here, it is not there. It is
not in any place or time. It is not to be found by the senses. It is
to be found only in reason. {48} We form the idea of Being by the
process of abstraction. For example, we see this desk. Our entire
knowledge of the desk consists in our knowledge of its qualities. It
is square, brown, hard, odourless, etc. Now suppose we successively
strip off these qualities in thought--its colour, its size, its shape.
We shall ultimately be left with nothing at all except its mere being.
We can no longer say of it that it is hard, square, etc. We can only
say "it is." As Parmenides said, Being is not divisible, movable; it
is not here nor there, then nor now. It simply "is." This is the
Eleatic notion of Being, and it is a pure concept. It may be compared
to such an idea as "whiteness." We cannot see "whiteness." We see
white things, but not "whiteness" itself. What, then, is "whiteness"?
It is a concept, that is to say, not a particular thing, but a general
idea, which we form by abstraction, by considering the quality which
all white things have in common, and neglecting the qualities in which
they differ. Just so, if we consider the common character of all
objects in the universe, and neglect their differences, we shall find
that what they all have in common is simply "being." Being then is a
general idea, or concept. It is a thought, and not a thing.
Parmenides, therefore, actually placed the absolute reality of things
in an idea, in a thought, though he may have conceived it in a
material and sensuous way. Now the cardinal thesis of idealism is
precisely this, that the absolute reality, of which the world is a
manifestation, consists in thought, in concepts. Parmenides, on this
view, was an idealist.
Moreover, Parmenides has clearly made the distinction between sense
and reason. True Being is not known to {49} the senses, but only to
reason, and this distinction is an essential feature of all idealism.
Materialism is precisely the view that reality is to be found in the
world of sense. But the proposition of Parmenides is the exact
opposite of this, namely, that reality is to be found only in reason.
Again, there begins to appear for the first time in Parmenides the
distinction between reality and appearance. Parmenides, of course,
would not have used these terms, which have been adopted in modern
times. But the thought which they express is unmistakably there. This
outward world, the world of sense, he proclaims to be illusion and
appearance. Reality is something which lies behind, and is invisible
to the senses. Now the very essence of materialism is that this
material world, this world of sense, is the real world. Idealism is
the doctrine that the sense-world is an appearance. How then can
Parmenides be called a materialist?
How are we to reconcile these two conflicting views of Parmenides? I
think the truth is that these two contradictories lie side by side in
Parmenides unreconciled, and still mutually contradicting each other.
Parmenides himself did not see the contradiction. If we emphasize the
one side, then Parmenides was a materialist. If we emphasize the other
side, then he is to be interpreted as an idealist. In point of fact,
in the history of Greek philosophy, both these sides of Parmenides
were successively emphasized. He became the father both of materialism
and of idealism. His immediate successors, Empedocles and Democritus,
seized upon the materialistic aspect of his thought, and developed it.
The essential thought of Parmenides was that Being cannot arise from
not-being, and that Being neither {50} arises nor passes away. If we
apply this idea to matter we get what in modern times is called the
doctrine of the "indestructibility of matter." Matter has no beginning
and no end. The apparent arising and passing away of things is simply
the aggregation and separation of particles of matter which, in
themselves, are indestructible. This is precisely the position of
Democritus. And his doctrine, therefore, is a materialistic rendering
of the main thought of Parmenides that Being cannot arise from
not-being or pass into not-being.
It was not till the time of Plato that the idealistic aspect of the
Parmenidean doctrine was developed. It was the genius of Plato which
seized upon the germs of idealism in Parmenides and developed them.
Plato was deeply influenced by Parmenides. His main doctrine was that
the reality of the world is to be found in thought, in concepts, in
what is called "the Idea." And he identified the Idea with the Being
of Parmenides.
But still, it may be asked, which is the true view of Parmenides?
Which is the historical Parmenides? Was not Plato in interpreting him
idealistically reading his own thought into Parmenides? Are not we, if
we interpret him as an idealist, reading into him later ideas? In one
sense this is perfectly true. It is clear from what Parmenides himself
said that he regarded the ultimate reality of things as material. It
would be a complete mistake to attribute to him a fully developed and
consistent system of idealism. If you had told Parmenides that he was
an idealist, he would not have understood you. The distinction between
materialism and idealism was not then developed. If you had told him,
moreover, that Being is a concept, he would not have understood {51}
you, because the theory of concepts was not developed until the time
of Socrates and Plato. Now it is the function of historical criticism
to insist upon this, to see that later thought is not attributed to
Parmenides. But if this is the function of historical scholarship, it
is equally the function of philosophic insight to seize upon the germs
of a higher thought amid the confused thinking of Parmenides, to see
what he was groping for, to see clearly what he saw only vaguely and
dimly, to make explicit what in him was merely implicit, to exhibit
the true inwardness of his teaching, to separate what is valuable and
essential in it from what is worthless and accidental. And I say that
in this sense the true and essential meaning of Parmenides is his
idealism. I said in the first chapter that philosophy is the movement
from sensuous to non-sensuous thought. I said that it is only with the
utmost difficulty that this movement occurs. And I said that even the
greatest philosophers have sometimes failed herein. In Parmenides we
have the first example of this. He began by propounding the truth that
Being is the essential reality, and Being, as we saw, is a concept.
But Parmenides was a pioneer. He trod upon unbroken ground. He had not
behind him, as we have, a long line of idealistic thinkers to guide
him. So he could not maintain this first non-sensuous thought. He
could not resist the temptation to frame for himself a mental image, a
picture, of Being. Now all mental images and pictures are framed out
of materials supplied to us by the senses. Hence it comes about that
Parmenides pictured Being as a globe-shaped something occupying space.
But this is not the truth of Parmenides. This is simply his failure to
realise {52} and understand his own principle, and to think his own
thought. It is true that his immediate successors, Empedocles and
Democritus, seized upon this, and built their philosophies upon it.
But in doing so they were building upon the darkness of Parmenides,
upon his dimness of vision, upon his inability to grapple with his own
idea. It was Plato who built upon the light of Parmenides.
Zeno
The third and last important thinker of the Eleatic School is Zeno
who, like Parmenides, was a man of Elea. His birth is placed about 489
B.C. He composed a prose treatise in which he developed his
philosophy. Zeno's contribution to Eleaticism is, in a sense, entirely
negative. He did not add anything positive to the teachings of
Parmenides. He supports Parmenides in the doctrine of Being. But it is
not the conclusions of Zeno that are novel, it is rather the reasons
which he gave for them. In attempting to support the Parmenidean
doctrine from a new point of view he developed certain ideas about the
ultimate character of space and time which have since been of the
utmost importance in philosophy. Parmenides had taught that the world
of sense is illusory and false. The essentials of that world are two--
multiplicity and change. True Being is absolutely one; there is in it
no plurality or multiplicity. Being, moreover, is absolutely static
and unchangeable. There is in it no motion. Multiplicity and motion
are the two characteristics of the false world of sense. Against
multiplicity and motion, therefore, Zeno directed his {53} arguments,
and attempted indirectly to support the conclusions of Parmenides by
showing that multiplicity and motion are impossible. He attempted to
force multiplicity and motion to refute themselves by showing that, if
we assume them as real, contradictory propositions follow from that
assumption. Two propositions which contradict each other cannot both
be true. Therefore the assumptions from which both follow, namely,
multiplicity and motion, cannot be real things.
_Zeno's arguments against multiplicity_.
(1) If the many is, it must be both infinitely small and infinitely
large. The many must be infinitely small. For it is composed of units.
This is what we mean by saying that it is many. It is many parts or
units. These units must be indivisible. For if they are further
divisible, then they are not units. Since they are indivisible they
can have no magnitude, for that which has magnitude is divisible. The
many, therefore, is composed of units which have no magnitude. But if
none of the parts of the many have magnitude, the many as a whole has
none. Therefore, the many is infinitely small. But the many must also
be infinitely large. For the many has magnitude, and as such, is
divisible into parts. These parts still have magnitude, and are
therefore further divisible. However far we proceed with the division
the parts still have magnitude and are still divisible. Hence the many
is divisible _ad infinitum_. It must therefore be composed of an
infinite number of parts, each having magnitude. But the smallest
magnitude, multiplied by infinity, becomes an infinite magnitude.
Therefore the many is infinitely large. (2) The {54} many must be, in
number, both limited and unlimited. It must be limited because it is
just as many as it is, no more, no less. It is, therefore, a definite
number. But a definite number is a finite or limited number. But the
many must be also unlimited in number. For it is infinitely divisible,
or composed of an infinite number of parts.
_Zeno's arguments against motion_.
(1) In order to travel a distance, a body must first travel half the
distance. There remains half left for it still to travel. It must then
travel half the remaining distance. There is still a remainder. This
progress proceeds infinitely, but there is always a remainder
untravelled. Therefore, it is impossible for a body to travel from one
point to another. It can never arrive. (2) Achilles and the tortoise
run a race. If the tortoise is given a start, Achilles can never catch
it up. For, in the first place, he must run to the point from which
the tortoise started. When he gets there, the tortoise will have gone
to a point further on. Achilles must then run to that point, and finds
then that the tortoise has reached a third point. This will go on for
ever, the distance between them continually diminishing, but never
being wholly wiped out. Achilles will never catch up the tortoise. (3)
This is the story of the flying arrow. An object cannot be in two
places at the same time. Therefore, at any particular moment in its
flight the arrow is in one place and not in two. But to be in one
place is to be at rest. Therefore in each and every moment of its
flight it is at rest. It is thus at rest throughout. Motion is
impossible.
{55}
This type of argument is, in modern times, called "antinomy." An
antinomy is a proof that, since two contradictory propositions equally
follow from a given assumption, that assumption must be false. Zeno is
also called by Aristotle the inventor of dialectic. Dialectic
originally meant simply discussion, but it has come to be a technical
term in philosophy, and is used for that type of reasoning which seeks
to develop the truth by making the false refute and contradict itself.
The conception of dialectic is especially important in Zeno, Plato,
Kant, and Hegel.
All the arguments which Zeno uses against multiplicity and motion are
in reality merely variations of one argument. That argument is as
follows. It applies equally to space, to time, or to anything which
can be quantitatively measured. For simplicity we will consider it
only in its spatial significance. Any quantity of space, say the space
enclosed within a circle, must either be composed of ultimate
indivisible units, or it must be divisible _ad infinitum_. If it is
composed of indivisible units, these must have magnitude, and we are
faced with the contradiction of a magnitude which cannot be divided.
If it is divisible _ad infinitum_, we are faced with the contradiction
of supposing that an infinite number of parts can be added up and make
a finite sum-total. It is thus a great mistake to suppose that Zeno's
stories of Achilles and the tortoise, and of the flying arrow, are
merely childish puzzles. On the contrary, Zeno was the first, by means
of these stories, to bring to light the essential contradictions which
lie in our ideas of space and time, and thus to set an important
problem for all subsequent philosophy.
{56}
All Zeno's arguments are based upon the one argument described above,
which may be called the antinomy of infinite divisibility. For
example, the story of the flying arrow. At any moment of its flight,
says Zeno, it must be in one place, because it cannot be in two places
at the same moment. This depends upon the view of time as being
infinitely divisible. It is only in an infinitesimal moment, an
absolute moment having no duration, that the arrow is at rest. This,
however, is not the only antinomy which we find in our conceptions of
space and time. Every mathematician is acquainted with the
contradictions immanent in our ideas of infinity. For example, the
familiar proposition that parallel straight lines meet at infinity, is
a contradiction. Again, a decreasing geometrical progression can be
added up to infinity, the infinite number of its terms adding up in
the sum-total to a finite number. The idea of infinite space itself is
a contradiction. You can say of it exactly what Zeno said of the many.
There must be in existence as much space as there is, no more. But
this means that there must be a definite and limited amount of space.
Therefore space is finite. On the other hand, it is impossible to
conceive a limit to space. Beyond the limit there must be more space.
Therefore space is infinite. Zeno himself gave expression to this
antinomy in the form of an argument which I have not so far mentioned.
He said that everything which exists is in space. Space itself exists,
therefore space must be in space. That space must be in another space
and so _ad infinitum_. This of course is merely a quaint way of saying
that to conceive a limit to space is impossible.
But to return to the antinomy of infinite divisibility, {57} on which
most of Zeno's arguments rest, you will perhaps expect me to say
something of the different solutions which have been offered. In the
first place, we must not forget Zeno's own solution. He did not
propound this contradiction for its own sake, but to support the
thesis of Parmenides. His solution is that as multiplicity and motion
contain these contradictions, therefore multiplicity and motion cannot
be real. Therefore, there is, as Parmenides said, only one Being, with
no multiplicity in it, and excludent of all motion and becoming. The
solution given by Kant in modern times is essentially similar.
According to Kant, these contradictions are immanent in our
conceptions of space and time, and since time and space involve these
contradictions it follows that they are not real beings, but
appearances, mere phenomena. Space and time do not belong to things as
they are in themselves, but rather to our way of looking at things.
They are forms of our perception. It is our minds which impose space
and time upon objects, and not objects which impose space and time
upon our minds. Further, Kant drew from these contradictions the
conclusion that to comprehend the infinite is beyond the capacity of
human reason. He attempted to show that, wherever we try to think the
infinite, whether the infinitely large or the infinitely small, we
fall into irreconcilable contradictions. Therefore, he concluded that
human faculties are incapable of apprehending infinity. As might be
expected, many thinkers have attempted to solve the problem by denying
one or other side of the contradiction, by saying that one or other
side does not follow from the premises, that one is true and the other
false. David Hume, for example, {58} denied the infinite divisibility
of space and time, and declared that they are composed of indivisible
units having magnitude. But the difficulty that it is impossible to
conceive of units having magnitude which are yet indivisible is not
satisfactorily explained by Hume. And in general, it seems that any
solution which is to be satisfactory must somehow make room for both
sides of the contradiction. It will not do to deny one side or the
other, to say that one is false and the other true. A true solution is
only possible by rising above the level of the two antagonistic
principles and taking them both up to the level of a higher
conception, in which both opposites are reconciled.
This was the procedure followed by Hegel in his solution of the
problem. Unfortunately his solution cannot be fully understood without
some knowledge of his general philosophical principles, on which it
wholly depends. I will, however, try to make it as plain as possible.
In the first place, Hegel did not go out of his way to solve these
antinomies. They appear as mere incidents in the development of his
thought. He did not regard them as isolated cases of contradiction
which occur in thought, as exceptions to a general rule, which
therefore need special explanation. On the contrary, he regarded them,
not as exceptions to, but as examples of, the essential character of
reason. All thought, all reason, for Hegel, contains immanent
contradictions which it first posits and then reconciles in a higher
unity, and this particular contradiction of infinite divisibility is
reconciled in the higher notion of quantity. The notion of quantity
contains two factors, namely the one and the many. Quantity means
precisely a many in {59} one, or a one in many. If, for example, we
consider a quantity of anything, say a heap of wheat, this is, in the
first place, one; it is one whole. Secondly, it is many; for it is
composed of many parts. As one it is continuous; as many it is
discrete. Now the true notion of quantity is not one, apart from many,
nor many apart from one. It is the synthesis of both. It is a many
_in_ one. The antinomy we are considering arises from considering one
side of the truth in a false abstraction from the other. To conceive
unity as not being in itself multiplicity, or multiplicity as not
being unity, is a false abstraction. The thought of the one involves
the thought of the many, and the thought of the many involves the
thought of the one. You cannot have a many without a one, any more
than you can have one end of a stick without the other. Now, if we
consider anything which is quantitatively measured, such as a straight
line, we may consider it, in the first place, as one. In that case it
is a continuous indivisible unit. Next we may regard it as many, in
which case it falls into parts. Now each of these parts may again be
regarded as one, and as such is an indivisible unit; and again each
part may be regarded as many, in which case it falls into further
parts; and this alternating process may go on for ever. This is the
view of the matter which gives rise to the contradictions we have been
considering. But it is a false view. It involves the false abstraction
of first regarding the many as something that has reality apart from
the one, and then regarding the one as something that has reality
apart from the many. If you persist in saying that the line is simply
one and not many, then there arises the theory of indivisible units.
If you {60} persist in saying it is simply many and not one, then it
is divisible _ad infinitum_. But the truth is that it is neither simply
many nor simply one; it is a many in one, that is, it is a _quantity_.
Both sides of the contradiction are, therefore, in one sense true, for
each is a factor of the truth. But both sides are also false, if and
in so far as, each sets itself up as the whole truth.
Critical Remarks on Eleaticism.
The consideration of the meaning of Zeno's doctrine will give us an
insight into the essentials of the position of the Eleatics. Zeno said
that motion and multiplicity are not real. Now what does this mean?
Did Zeno mean to say that when he walked about the streets of Elea, it
was not true that he walked about? Did he mean that it was not a fact
that he moved from place to place? When I move my arms, did he mean
that I am not moving my arms, but that they really remain at rest all
the time? If so, we might justly conclude that this philosophy is a
mere craze of speculation run mad, or else a joke. But this is not
what is meant. The Eleatic position is that though the world of sense,
of which multiplicity and motion are essential features, may exist,
yet that outward world is not the true Being. They do not deny that
the world exists. They do not deny that motion exists or that
multiplicity exists. These things no sane man can deny. The existence
of motion and multiplicity is, as Hegel says, as sensuously certain as
the existence of elephants. Zeno, then, does not deny the existence of
the world. What he denies is the truth of existence. What he means is:
certainly there is motion and multiplicity; certainly the world is
here, is present to our senses, but it is not the true world. It is
{61} not reality. It is mere appearance, illusion, an outward show and
sham, a hollow mask which hides the real being of things. You may ask
what is meant by this distinction between appearance and reality. Is
not even an appearance real? It appears. It exists. Even a delusion
exists, and is therefore a real thing. So is not the distinction
between appearance and reality itself meaningless? Now all this is
perfectly true, but it does not comprehend quite what is meant by the
distinction. What is meant is that the objects around us have
existence, but not self-existence, not self-substantiality. That is to
say, their being is not in themselves, their existence is not grounded
in themselves but is grounded in another, and flows from that other.
They exist, but they are not independent existences. They are rather
beings whose being flows into them from another, which itself is
self-existent and self-substantial. They are, therefore, mere
appearances of that other, which is the reality. Of course the
Eleatics did not speak of appearance and reality in these terms. But
this is what they were groping for, and dimly saw.
If we now look back upon the road on which we have travelled from the
beginning of Greek philosophy, we shall be able to characterize the
direction in which we have been moving. The earliest Greek
philosophers, the Ionics, propounded the question, "what is the
ultimate principle of things?" and answered it by declaring that the
first principle of things is matter. The second Greek School, the
Pythagoreans, answered the same question by declaring numbers to be
the first principle. The third school, the Eleatics, answered the
question by asserting that the first principle of things is Being.
{62} Now the universe, as we know it, is both quantitative and
qualitative. Quantity and quality are characteristics of every
sense-object. These are not, indeed, the only characteristics of the
world, but they are the only characteristics which have so far come to
light. Now the position of the Ionics was that the ultimate reality is
both quantitative and qualitative, that is to say, it is matter, for
matter is just what has both quantity and quality. The Pythagoreans
abstracted from the quality of things. They stripped off the
qualitative aspect from things, and were accordingly left with only
quantity as ultimate reality. Quantity is the same as number. Hence
the Pythagorean position that the world is made of numbers. The
Eleatic philosophy, proceeding one step further in the same direction,
abstracted from quantity as well as quality. Whereas the Pythagoreans
had denied the qualitative aspect of things, leaving themselves only
with the quantitative, the Eleatics denied both quantity and quality,
for in denying multiplicity they denied quantity. Therefore they are
left with the total abstraction of mere Being which has in it neither
dividedness (quantity), nor positive character (quality). The rise
from the Ionic to the Eleatic philosophy is therefore essentially a
rise from sensuous to pure thinking. The Eleatic Being is a pure
abstract thought. The position of the Pythagoreans on the other hand
is that of semi-sensuous thought. They form the stepping-stone from
the Ionics to the Eleatics.
Now let us consider what of worth there is in this Eleatic principle,
and what its defects are. In the first place, it is necessary for us
to understand that the Eleatic philosophy is the first monism. A
monistic philosophy {63} is a philosophy which attempts to explain the
entire universe from one single principle. The opposite of monism is
therefore pluralism, which is that kind of philosophy which seeks to
explain the universe from many ultimate and equally underived
principles. But more particularly and more frequently we speak of the
opposite of monism as being dualism, that is to say, the position that
there are two ultimate principles of explanation. If, for example, we
say that all the good in the universe arises from one source which is
good, and that all the evil arises from another source which is evil,
and that these sources of good and evil cannot be subordinated one to
the other, and that one does not arise out of the other, but both are
co-ordinate and equally primeval and independent, that position would
be a dualism. All philosophy, which is worthy of the name, seeks, in
some sense, a monistic explanation of the universe, and when we find
that a system of philosophy breaks down and fails, then we may nearly
always be sure its defect will reveal itself as an unreconciled
dualism. Such a philosophy will begin with a monistic principle, and
will attempt to derive or deduce the entire universe from it, but
somewhere or other it comes across something in the world which it
cannot bring under that principle. Then it is left with two equally
ultimate existences, neither of which can be derived from the other.
Thus it breaks out into dualism.
Now the search for a monistic explanation of things is a universal
tendency of human thought. Wherever we look in the world of thought,
we find that this monistic tendency appears. I have already said that
it appears throughout the history of philosophy. It reveals itself,
{64} too, very clearly in the history of religion. Religion begins in
polytheism, the belief in many gods. From that it passes on to
monotheism, the belief in one God, who is the sole author and creator
of the universe. In Hindu thought we find the same thing. Hindu
thought is based upon the principle that "All is one." Everything in
the world is derived from one ultimate being, Brahman. But not only is
this monistic tendency traceable in religion and philosophy; it is
also traceable in science. The progress of scientific explanation is
essentially a progress towards monism. In the first place, the
explanation of isolated facts consists always in assigning causes for
them. Suppose there is a strange noise in your room at night. You say
it is explained when you find that it is due to the falling of a book
or the scuttling of a rat across the floor. The noise is thus
explained by assigning a cause for it. But this simply means that you
have robbed it of its isolated and exceptional position, and reduced
it to the position of an example of a general law. When the water
freezes in your jug, you say that the cause of this is the cold. It is
an example of the law that whenever the cold reaches a certain degree,
then, other things being equal, water solidifies. But to assign causes
in this way is not really to explain anything. It does not give any
reason for an event happening. You cannot see any reason why water
should solidify in the cold. It merely tells us that the event is not
exceptional, but is an example of what always happens. It reduces the
isolated event to a case of a general law, which "explains," not
merely this one event, but possibly millions of events. It is not
merely that cold solidifies the water in your jug. {65} It equally
solidifies the water in everybody's jug. The same law "explains" all
these, and likewise "explains" icebergs and the polar caps on the
earth and the planet Mars. In fact scientific explanation means the
reduction of millions of facts to one principle. But science does not
stop here. It seeks further to explain the laws themselves, and its
method is to reduce the many laws to one higher and more general law.
A familiar example of this is the explanation of Kepler's laws of the
planetary motions. Kepler laid down three such laws. The first was
that planets move in elliptical orbits with the sun in one focus. The
second was that planets describe equal areas in equal times. The third
was a rather more complicated law. Kepler knew these laws from
observation, but he could not explain them. They were explained by
Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation. Newton proved that
Kepler's three laws could be mathematically deduced from the law of
gravitation. In that way Kepler's laws were explained, and not only
Kepler's laws, but many other astronomical laws and facts. Thus the
explanation of the many isolated facts consists in their reduction to
the one law, and the explanation of the many laws consists in their
reduction to the one more general law. As knowledge advances, the
phenomena of the universe come to be explained by fewer and fewer, and
wider and wider, general principles. Obviously the ultimate goal would
be the explanation of all things by one principle. I do not mean to
say that scientific men have this end consciously in view. But the
point is that the monistic tendency is there. What is meant by the
explanation is the reduction of all things to one principle.
{66}
In philosophy, in religion, and in science, then, we find this
monistic tendency of thought. But it might be asked how we know that
this universal tendency is right? How do we know that it is not merely
a universal error? Is there no logical or philosophical basis for the
belief that the ultimate explanation of things must be one? Now this
is a subject which takes us far afield from Greek philosophy. The
philosophical basis of monism was never thought out till the time of
Spinoza. So we cannot go into it at length here. But, quite shortly,
the question is--Is there any reason for believing that the ultimate
explanation of things must be one? Now if we are to explain the
universe, two conditions must be fulfilled. In the first place, the
ultimate reality by which we attempt to explain everything must
explain all the other things in the world. It must be possible to
deduce the whole world from it. Secondly, the first principle must
explain itself. It cannot be a principle which itself still requires
explanation by something else. If it is itself not self-explanatory,
but is an ultimate mystery, then even if we succeed in deducing the
universe from it, nothing is thereby explained. This, for example, is
precisely the defect of materialism. Even if we suppose it proved that
all things, including mind, arise from matter, yet the objection
remains that this explains nothing at all, for matter is not a
self-explanatory existence. It is an unintelligible mystery. And to
reduce the universe to an ultimate mystery is not to explain it.
Again; some people think that the world is to be explained by what
they call a "first cause." But why should any cause be the first? Why
should we stop anywhere in the chain of causes? Every cause is {67}
necessarily the effect of a prior cause. The child, who is told that
God made the world, and who inquires who, in that case, made God, is
asking a highly sensible question. Or suppose, in tracing back the
chain of causes, we come upon one which we have reason to say is
really the first, is anything explained thereby? Still we are left
with an ultimate mystery. Whatever the principle of explanation is, it
cannot be a principle of this kind. It must be a principle which
explains itself, and does not lead to something further, such as
another cause. In other words, it must be a principle which has its
whole being in itself, which does not for its completeness refer us to
anything beyond itself. It must be something fully comprehended in
itself, without reference to anything outside it. That is to say, it
must be what we call self-determined or absolute. Now any absolute
principle must necessarily be one. Suppose that it were two. Suppose
you attempt to explain the world by two principles, X and Y, each of
which is ultimate, neither being derived from the other. Then what
relation does X bear to Y? We cannot fully comprehend X without
knowing its relation to Y. Part of the character and being of X is
constituted by its relation to Y. Part of X's character has to be
explained by Y. But that is not to be self-explained. It is to be
explained by something not itself. Therefore, the ultimate explanation
of things must be one.
The Eleatics, then, were perfectly correct in saying that all is one,
and that the ultimate principle of the universe, Being, is one. But if
we examine the way in which they carried out their monism, we shall
see that it broke down in a hopeless dualism. How did they {68}
explain the existence of the world? They propounded the principle of
Being, as the ultimate reality. How then did they derive the actual
world from that principle? The answer is that they neither derived it
nor made any attempt to derive it. Instead of deducing the world from
their first principle, they simply denied the reality of the world
altogether. They attempted to solve the problem by denying the
existence of the problem. The world, they said, is simply not-being.
It is an illusion. Now certainly it is a great thing to know which is
the true world, and which the false, but after all this is not an
explanation. To call the world an illusion is not to explain it. If
the world is reality, then the problem of philosophy is, how does that
reality arise? If the world is illusion, then the problem is, how does
that illusion arise? Call it illusion, if you like. But this is not
explaining it. It is simply calling it names. This is the defect, too,
of Indian philosophy in which the world is said to be Maya--delusion.
Hence in the Eleatic philosophy there are two worlds brought face to
face, lying side by side of each other, unreconciled--the world of
Being, which is the true world, and the world of facts, which is
illusion. Although the Eleatics deny the sense-world, and call it
illusion, yet of this illusion they cannot rid themselves. In some
sense or other, this world is here, is present. It comes back upon our
senses, and demands explanation. Call it illusion, but it still stands
beside the true world, and demands that it be deduced from that. So
that the Eleatics have two principles, the false world and the true
world, simply lying side by side, without any connecting link between
them, without anything to {69} show how the one arises from the other.
It is an utterly irreconcilable dualism.
It is easy to see why the Eleatic philosophy broke down in this
dualism. It is due to the barrenness of their first principle itself.
Being, they say, has in it no becoming. All principle of motion is
expressly excluded from it. Likewise they deny to it any multiplicity.
It is simply one, without any many in it. If you expressly exclude
multiplicity and becoming from your first principle, then you can
never get multiplicity and becoming out of it. You cannot get out of
it anything that is not in it. If you say absolutely there is no
multiplicity in the Absolute, then it is impossible to explain how
multiplicity comes into this world. It is exactly the same in regard
to the question of quality. Pure Being is without quality. It is mere
"isness." It is an utterly featureless, characterless Being, perfectly
empty and abstract. How then can the quality of things issue from it?
How can all the riches and variety of the world come out of this
emptiness? The Eleatics are like jugglers who try to make you believe
that they get rabbits, guinea-pigs, pieces of string, paper, and
ribbon, out of an entirely empty top-hat. One can see how utterly
barren and empty this principle is, if one translates it into
figurative language, that is to say, into the language of religion.
The Eleatic principle would correspond to a religion in which we said
that "God is," but beyond the fact that He "is," He has absolutely no
character. But surely this is a wholly barren and meagre conception of
the Deity. In the Christian religion we are accustomed to hear such
expressions as, not only that "God is," but that "God is Love," "God
is Power," {70} "God is Goodness," "God is Wisdom." Now objection may
certainly be taken to these predicates and epithets on the ground that
they are merely figurative and anthropomorphic. In fact, they exhibit
the tendency to think non-sensuous objects sensuously. These
predicates are merely picked up from the finite world and applied
haphazard to God, for whom they are entirely inadequate. But at least
these expressions teach us, that out of mere emptiness nothing can
come; that the world cannot arise out of something which is lower and
poorer than itself. Here in the world we find in a certain measure,
love, wisdom, excellence, power. These things cannot spring from a
source which is so poor that it contains nothing but "isness." The
less can arise out of the greater, but not the greater out of the
less. We may contrast Eleaticism not only with Christianity, but even
with popular modern agnosticism. According to this, the Absolute is
unknowable. But what the agnostic means is that human reason is
inadequate to grasp the greatness of the ultimate being. But the
Eleatic principle is, not that in saying "God is Love, Power, Wisdom,"
we are saying too little about God, and that our ideas are inadequate
to express the fullness of His being, but on the contrary, that they
express too high an idea for God, of whom nothing can be said except
"He is," because there is absolutely nothing more to say. This
conception of God is the conception of an absolutely empty being.
Monism, I said, is a necessary idea in philosophy. The Absolute must
be one. But an utterly abstract monism is impossible. If the Absolute
is simply one, wholly excludent of all process and multiplicity, out
of such an abstraction the process and multiplicity of the {71} world
cannot issue. The Absolute is not simply one, or simply many. It must
be a many in one, as correctly set forth in the Christian doctrine of
the Trinity. Religion moves from an abstract polytheism (God is many)
to an abstract monotheism (God is one; Judaism, Hinduism and Islam).
But it does not stop there. It rightly passes on to a concrete
monotheism (God is many in one; Christianity). There are two popular
misconceptions regarding the doctrine of the Trinity. The first
mistake is that of popular rationalism, the second is that of popular
theology. Popular rationalism asserts that the doctrine of the Trinity
is contrary to reason. Popular theology asserts that it is a mystery
which transcends reason. But the truth is that it neither contradicts
nor transcends reason. On the contrary, it is in itself the highest
manifestation of reason. What is really a mystery, what really
contradicts reason, is to suppose that God, the Absolute, is simply
one without any multiplicity. This contradiction results in the fatal
dualism which broke out in Eleaticism, and has broken out in every
other system of thought, such as that of the Hindus or that of
Spinoza, which begins with the conception of the Absolute as a pure
one, totally exclusive of the many.
{72}