THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.
PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
SENSATIONAL:
THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER--LEUCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.
"Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the
Stoics encountered Paul."--Acts xvii. 18.
"Plato affirms that this is the most just cause of the
creation of the world, that works which are good should be
wrought by the God who is good; whether he had read these
things in the Bible, or whether by his penetrating genius he
beheld _the invisible things of God as understood by the
things which are made_"--ST. AUGUSTINE, "De Civ. Dei," lib.
xi. ch. 21.
Of all the monuments of the greatness of Athens which have survived the
changes and the wastes of time, the most perfect and the most enduring
is her philosophy. The Propylæa, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum,
those peerless gems of Grecian architecture, are now in ruins. The
magnificent sculpture of Phidias, which adorned the pediment, and outer
cornice, and inner frieze of these temples, and the unrivalled statuary
of gods and heroes which crowded the platform of the Acropolis, making
it an earthly Olympus, are now no more, save a few broken fragments
which have been carried to other lands, and, in their exile, tell the
mournful story of the departed grandeur of their ancient home. The
brazen statue of Minerva, cast from the spoils of Marathon, which rose
in giant grandeur above the buildings of the Acropolis, and the flashing
of whose helmet plumes was seen by the mariner as soon as he had rounded
the Sunian promontory; and that other brazen Pallas, called, by
pre-eminence, "the Beautiful;" and the enormous Colossus of ivory and of
gold, "the Immortal Maid"--the protecting goddess of the
Parthenon--these have perished. But whilst the fingers of time have
crumbled the Pentelic marble, and the glorious statuary has been broken
to pieces by vandal hands, and the gold and brass have been melted in
the crucibles of needy monarchs and converted into vulgar money, the
philosophic _thought_ of Athens, which culminated in the dialectic of
Plato, still survives. Not one of all the vessels, freighted with
immortal thought, which Plato launched upon the stream of time, has
foundered. And after the vast critical movement of European thought
during the past two centuries, in which all philosophic systems have
been subjected to the severest scrutiny, the _method_ of Plato still
preserves, if not its exclusive authority unquestioned, at least its
intellectual pre-eminence unshaken. "Platonism is immortal, because its
principles are immortal in the human intellect and heart."[380]
[Footnote 380: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
9.]
Philosophy is, then, the world-enduring monument of the greatness and
the glory of Athens. Whilst Greece will be forever memorable as "the
country of wisdom and of wise men," Athens will always be pre-eminently
memorable as the University of Greece. This was the home of Socrates,
and Plato, and Aristotle--the three imperial names which, for twenty
centuries, reigned supreme in the world of philosophic thought. Here
schools of philosophy were founded to which students were attracted from
every part of the civilized world, and by which an impulse and a
direction was given to human thought in every land and in every age.
Standing on the Acropolis at Athens, and looking over the city and the
open country, the Apostle would see these _places_ which are inseparably
associated with the names of the men who have always been recognized as
the great teachers of the pagan world, and who have also exerted a
powerful influence upon Christian minds of every age. "In opposite
directions he would see the suburbs where Plato and Aristotle, the two
pupils of Socrates, held their illustrious schools. The streamless bed
of the Ilissus passes between the Acropolis and Hymettus in a
south-westerly direction, until it vanishes in the low ground which
separates the city from the Piræus." Looking towards the upper part of
this channel, Paul would see gardens of plane-trees and thickets of
angus-castus, "with other torrent-loving shrubs of Greece." Near the
base of Lycabettus was a sacred inclosure which Pericles had ornamented
with fountains. Here stood a statue of Apollo Lycius, which gave the
name to the _Lyceum_. Here, among the plane-trees, Aristotle _walked_,
and, as he walked, taught his disciples. Hence the name Peripatetics
(the Walkers), which has always designated the disciples of the
Stagirite philosopher.
On the opposite side of the city, the most beautiful of the Athenian
suburbs, we have the scene of Plato's teaching. Beyond the outer
Ceramicus, which was crowded with the sepulchres of those Athenians who
had fallen in battle, and were buried at the public expense, the eye of
Paul would rest on the favored stream of the Cephisus, flowing towards
the west. On the banks of this stream the _Academy_ was situated. A
wall, built at great expense by Hipparchus, surrounded it, and Cimon
planted long avenues of trees and erected fountains. Beneath the
plane-trees which shaded the numerous walks there assembled the
master-spirits of the age. This was the favorite resort of poets and
philosophers. Here the divine spirit of Plato poured forth its sublimest
speculations in streams of matchless eloquence; and here he founded a
school which was destined to exert a powerful and perennial influence on
human minds and hearts in all coming time.
Looking down from the Acropolis upon the Agora, Paul would distinguish a
cloister or colonnade. This is the Stoa Poecile, or "Painted Porch," so
called because its walls were decorated with fresco paintings of the
legendary wars of Greece, and the more glorious struggle at Marathon. It
was here that Zeno first opened that celebrated school which thence
received the name of _Stoic_. The site of the _garden_ where Epicurus
taught is now unknown. It was no doubt within the city walls, and not
far distant from the Agora. It was well known in the time of Cicero, who
visited Athens as a student little more than a century before the
Apostle. It could not have been forgotten in the time of Paul. In this
"tranquil garden," in the society of his friends, Epicurus passed a life
of speculation and of pleasure. His disciples were called, after him,
the Epicureans.[381]
[Footnote 381: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
Paul," vol. i., Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy;" and
Encyclopædia Britannica, article, "Athens," from whence our materials
for the description of these "places" are mainly derived.]
Here, then, in Athens the Apostle was brought into immediate contact
with all the phases of philosophic thought which had appeared in the
ancient world. "Amongst those who sauntered beneath the cool shadows of
the plane-trees in the Agora, and gathered in knots under the porticoes,
eagerly discussing the questions of the day, were the philosophers, in
the garb of their several sects, ready for any new question on which
they might exercise their subtlety or display their rhetoric." If there
were any in that motley group who cherished the principles and retained
the spirit of the true Platonic school, we may presume they felt an
inward intellectual sympathy with the doctrine enounced by Paul. With
Plato, "philosophy was only another name for _religion_: philosophy is
the love of perfect Wisdom; perfect Wisdom and perfect Goodness are
identical: the perfect Good is God himself; philosophy is the love of
God."[382] He confessed the need of divine assistance to attain "the
good," and of divine interposition to deliver men from moral ruin.[383]
Like Socrates, he longed for a supernatural--a divine light to guide
him, and he acknowledged his need thereof continually.[384] He was one
of those who, in heathen lands, waited for "the desire of nations;" and,
had he lived in Christian times, no doubt his "spirit of faith" would
have joyfully "embraced the Saviour in all the completeness of his
revelation and advent."[385] And in so far as the spirit of Plato
survived among his disciples, we may be sure they were not among the
number who "mocked," and ridiculed, and opposed the "new doctrine"
proclaimed by Paul. It was "the philosophers of the Epicureans and of
the Stoics who _encountered_ Paul." The leading tenets of both these
sects were diametrically opposed to the doctrines of Christianity. The
ruling spirit of each was alien from the spirit of Christ. The haughty
_pride_ of the Stoic, the Epicurean abandonment to _pleasure_, placed
them in direct antagonism to him who proclaimed the crucified and risen
Christ to be "_the wisdom_ of God."
[Footnote 382: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
61.]
[Footnote 383: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi. vii.]
[Footnote 384: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 362.]
[Footnote 385: Wheedon on "The Will," p. 352; also Butler's "Lectures,"
vol. ii. p. 252]
If, however, we would justly appreciate the relation of pagan philosophy
to Christian truth, we must note that, when Paul arrived in Athens, the
age of Athenian glory had passed away. Not only had her national
greatness waned, and her national spirit degenerated, but her
intellectual power exhibited unmistakable signs of exhaustion, and
weakness, and decay. If philosophy had borne any fruit, of course that
fruit remained. If, in the palmy days of Athenian greatness, any field
of human inquiry had been successfully explored; if human reason had
achieved any conquests; if any thing true and good had been obtained,
that must endure as an heir-loom for all coming time; and if those
centuries of agonizing wrestlings with nature, and of ceaseless
questioning of the human heart, had yielded no results, then, at least,
the _lesson_ of their failure and defeat remained for the instruction of
future generations. Either the problems they sought to solve were proved
to be insoluble, or their methods of solution were found to be
inadequate; for here the mightiest minds had grappled with the great
problems of being and of destiny. Here vigorous intellects had struggled
to pierce the darkness which hangs alike over the beginning and the end
of human existence. Here profoundly earnest men had questioned nature,
reason, antiquity, oracles, in the hope they might learn something of
that invisible world of _real_ being which they instinctively felt must
lie beneath the world of fleeting forms and ever-changing appearances.
Here philosophy had directed her course towards every point in the
compass of thought, and touched every _accessible_ point. The sun of
human reason had reached its zenith, and illuminated every field that
lay within the reach of human ken. And this sublime era of Greek
philosophy is of inestimable value to us who live in Christian times,
because _it is an exhaustive effort of human reason to solve the problem
of being_, and in its history we have a record of the power and weakness
of the human mind, at once on the grandest scale and in the fairest
characters.[386]
[Footnote 386: See article "Philosophy," in Smith's "Dictionary of the
Bible."]
These preliminary considerations will have prepared the way for, and
awakened in our minds a profound interest in, the inquiry--1st. What
permanent _results_ has Greek philosophy bequeathed to the world? 2d. In
what manner did Greek philosophy fulfill for Christianity a
_propoedeutic_ office?
It will at once be obvious, even to those who are least conversant with
our theme, that it would be fruitless to attempt the answer to these
important questions before we have made a careful survey of the entire
history of philosophic thought in Greece. We must have a clear and
definite conception of the problems they sought to solve, and we must
comprehend their methods of inquiry, before we can hope to appreciate
the results they reached, or determine whether they did arrive at any
definite and valuable conclusions. It will, therefore, devolve upon us
to present a brief and yet comprehensive epitome of the history of
Grecian speculative thought.
"_Philosophy_," says Cousin, "_is reflection_, and nothing else than
reflection, in a vast form"--"Reflection elevated to the rank and
authority of a _method_." It is the mind looking back upon its own
sensations, perceptions, cognitions, ideas, and from thence to the
_causes_ of these sensations, cognitions, and ideas. It is thought
passing beyond the simple perceptions of things, beyond the mere
spontaneous operations of the mind in the cognition of things to seek
the _ground_, and _reason_, and _law_ of things. It is the effort of
reason to solve the great problem of "Being and Becoming," of appearance
and reality, of the changeful and the permanent. Beneath the endless
diversity of the universe, of existence and action, there must be a
principle of unity; below all fleeting appearances there must be a
permanent substance; beyond this everlasting flow and change, this
beginning and ending of finite existence, there must be an _eternal
being_, the source and cause of all we see and know, _What is that
principle of unity, that permanent substance_, or principle, or being?
This fundamental question has assumed three separate forms or aspects in
the history of philosophy. These forms have been determined by the
objective phenomena which most immediately arrested and engaged the
attention of men. If external nature has been the chief object of
attention, then the problem of philosophy has been, _What is the
archê--_the beginning; what are the first principles_--the elements from
which, the ideas or laws according to which, the efficient cause or
energy by which, and the reason or end for which the universe exists?_
During this period reflective thought was a PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. If the
phenomena of mind--the opinions, beliefs, judgments of men--are the
chief object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
_What are the fundamental Ideas which are unchangeable and permanent
amid all the diversities of human opinions, connecting appearance with
reality, and constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute
truth?_ Reflective thought is now a PHILOSOPHY OF IDEAS. Then, lastly,
if the practical activities of life and the means of well-being be the
grand object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
_What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of
human conduct, we may determine what is right and good in individual,
social, and political life?_ And now reflective thought is a PHILOSOPHY
OF LIFE. These are the grand problems with which philosophy has grappled
ever since the dawn of reflection. They all appear in Greek philosophy,
and have a marked chronology. As systems they succeed each other, just
as rigorously as the phenomena of Greek civilization.
The Greek schools of philosophy have been classified from various points
of view. In view of their geographical relations, they have been divided
into the _Ionian_, the _Italian_, the _Eleatic_, the _Athenian_, and the
_Alexandrian_. In view of their prevailing spirit and tendency, they
have been classified by Cousin as the Sensational, the Idealistic, the
Skeptical, and the Mystical. The most natural and obvious method is that
which (regarding Socrates as the father of Greek philosophy in the
truest sense) arranges all schools from the Socratic stand point, and
therefore in the chronological order of development:
I. THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
III. THE POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
The history of philosophy is thus divided into three grand epochs. The
first reaching from Thales to the time of Socrates (B.C. 639-469): the
second from the birth of Socrates to the death of Aristotle (B.C.
469-322); the third from the death of Aristotle to the Christian era
(B.C. 322, A.D. 1). Greek philosophy during the first period was almost
exclusively a philosophy of nature; during the second period, a
philosophy of mind; during the last period, a philosophy of life.
Nature, man, and society complete the circle of thought. Successive
systems, of course, overlap each other, both in the order of time and as
subjects of human speculation; and the results of one epoch of thought
are transmitted to and appropriated by another; but, in a general sense,
the order of succession has been very much as here indicated. Setting
aside minor schools and merely incidental discussions, and fixing our
attention on the general aspects of each historic period, we shall
discover that the first period was eminently _Physical_, the second
_Psychological_, the last _Ethical_. Every stage of progress which
reason, on _à priori_ grounds, would suggest as the natural order of
thought, or of which the development of an individual mind would furnish
an analogy, had a corresponding realization in the development of
Grecian thought from the time of Thales to the Christian era. "Thought,"
says Cousin, "in the first trial of its strength is drawn without." The
first object which engages the attention of the child is the outer
world. He asks the "_how_" and "_why_" of all he sees. His reason urges
him to seek an explanation of the universe. So it was in the _childhood_
of philosophy. The first essays of human thought were, almost without
exception, discourses peri physeôs (De rerum natura), of the nature of
things. Then the rebound of baffled reason from the impenetrable
bulwarks of the universe drove the mind back upon itself. If the youth
can not interpret nature, he can at least "know himself," and find
within himself the ground and reason of all existence. There are
"_ideas_" in the human mind which are copies of those "_archetypal
ideas_" which dwell in the Creative Mind, and after which the universe
was built. If by "analysis" and "definition" these universal notions can
be distinguished from that which is particular and contingent in the
aggregate of human knowledge, then so much of eternal truth has been
attained. The achievements of philosophic thought in this direction,
during the Socratic age, have marked it as the most brilliant period in
the history of philosophy--the period of its _youthful_ vigor. Deeply
immersed in the practical concerns and conflicts of public life,
_manhood_ is mainly occupied with questions of personal duty, and
individual and social well-being. And so, during the hopeless turmoil of
civil disturbance which marked the decline of national greatness in
Grecian history, philosophy was chiefly occupied with questions of
personal interest and personal happiness. The poetic enthusiasm with
which a nobler age had longed for _truth_, and sought it as the highest
good, has all disappeared, and now one sect seeks refuge from the storms
and agitations of the age in Stoical indifference, the other in
Epicurean effeminacy.
If now we have succeeded in presenting the real problem of philosophy,
it will at once be obvious that the inquiry was not, in any proper
sense, _theological_. Speculative thought, during the period we have
marked as the era of Greek philosophy, was not an inquiry concerning the
existence or nature of God, or concerning the relations of man to God,
or the duties which man owes to God. These questions were all remitted
to the _theologian_. There was a clear line of demarkation separating
the domains of religion and philosophy. Religion rested solely on
authority, and appealed to the instinctive faith of the human heart. She
permitted no encroachment upon her settled usages, and no questioning of
her ancient beliefs. Philosophy rested on reason alone. It was an
independent effort of thought to interpret nature, and attain the
fundamental grounds of human knowledge--to find an archê--a first
principle, which, being assumed, should furnish a rational explanation
of all existence. If philosophy reach the conclusion that the archë was
water, or air, or fire, or a chaotic mixture of all the elements or
atoms, extended and self-moved, or monads, or to pan, or uncreated mind,
and that conclusion harmonized with the ancient standards of religious
faith--well; if not, philosophy must present some method of
conciliation. The conflicts of faith and reason; the stragglings of
traditional authority to maintain supremacy; the accommodations and
conciliations attempted in those primitive times, would furnish a
chapter of peculiar interest, could it now be written.
The poets who appeared in the dim twilight of Grecian
civilization--Orpheus, Musæus, Homer, Hesiod--seem to have occupied the
same relation to the popular mind in Greece which the Bible now sustains
to Christian communities.[387] Not that we regard them as standing on
equal ground of authority, or in any sense a revelation. But, in the eye
of the wondering Greek, they were invested with the highest sacredness
and the supremest authority. The high poetic inspiration which pervaded
them was a supernatural gift. Their sublime utterances were accepted as
proceeding from a divine afflatus. They were the product of an age in
which it was believed by all that the gods assumed a human form,[388]
and held a real intercourse with gifted men. This universal faith is
regarded by some as being a relic of still more distant times, a faint
remembrance of the glory of patriarchal days. The more natural opinion
is, that it was begotten of that universal longing of the human heart
for some knowledge of that unseen world of real being, which man
instinctively felt must lie beyond the world of fleeting change and
delusive appearances. It was a prolepsis of the soul, reaching upward
towards its source and goal. The poet felt within him some native
affinities therewith, and longed for some stirring breath of heaven to
sweep the harp-strings of the soul. He invoked the inspiration of the
Goddess of Song, and waited for, no doubt believed in, some "deific
impulse" descending on him. And the people eagerly accepted his
utterance as the teaching of the gods. They were too eager for some
knowledge from that unseen world to question their credentials. Orpheus,
Hesiod, Homer, were the theologoi--the theologians of that age.[389]
[Footnote 387: "Homer was, in a certain sense, the Bible of the
Greeks."--Whewell, "Platonic Dialogues," p. 283.]
[Footnote 388: The universality of this belief is asserted by Cicero:
"Vetus opinio est, jam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus, eaque et
populi Romani et omnium gentium firmata consensu, versari quandem inter
homines divinationem."--Cicero, "De Divin." bk. i. ch. i.]
[Footnote 389: Cicero.]
These ancient poems, then, were the public documents of the religion of
Greece--the repositories of the national faith. And it is deserving of
especial note that the philosopher was just as anxious to sustain his
speculations by quoting the high traditional authority of the ancient
theologian, as the propounder of modern novelties is to sustain his
notions by the authority of the Sacred Scriptures. Numerous examples of
this solicitude will recur at once to the remembrance of the student of
Plato. All encroachments of philosophy upon the domains of religion were
watched as jealously in Athens in the sixth century before Christ, as
the encroachments of science upon the fields of theology were watched in
Rome in the seventeenth century after Christ. The court of the Areopagus
was as earnest, though not as fanatical and cruel, in the defense of the
ancient faith, as the court of the Inquisition was in the defense of the
dogmas of the Romish Church. The people, also, as "the sacred wars" of
Greece attest, were ready quickly to repel every assault upon the
majesty of their religion. And so philosophy even had its martyrs. The
tears of Pericles were needed to save Aspasia, because she was suspected
of philosophy. But neither his eloquence nor his tears could save his
friend Anaxagoras, and he was ostracized. Aristotle had the greatest
difficulty to save his life. And Plato was twice imprisoned, and once
sold into slavery.[390]
[Footnote 390: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
p. 305.]
It is unnecessary that we should, in this place, again attempt the
delineation of the theological opinions of the earlier periods of
Grecian civilization. That the ancient Greeks believed in _one Supreme
God_ has been conclusively proved by Cudworth. The argument of his
fourth chapter is incontrovertible.[391] However great the number of
"generated gods" who crowded the Olympus, and composed the ghostly array
of Greek mythology, they were all subordinate agents, "demiurges,"
employed in the framing of the world and all material things, or else
the ministers of the moral and providential government of the eis Theos
agentos--the one uncreated God. Beneath, or beyond the whole system of
pagan polytheism, we recognize a faith in an _Uncreated Mind_, the
Source of all the intelligence, and order, and harmony which pervades
the universe the Fountain of law and justice; the Ruler of the world;
the Avenger of injured innocence; and the final Judge of men. The
immortality of the soul and a state of future retribution were necessary
corollaries of this sublime faith. This primitive theology was
unquestionably the people's faith; the faith, also, of the philosopher,
in his inmost heart, however far he might wander in speculative thought.
The instinctive feeling of the human heart, the spontaneous intuitions
of the human reason, have led man, in every age, to recognize a God. It
is within the fields of speculative thought that skepticism has had its
birth. Any thing like atheism has only made its appearance amid the
efforts of human reason to explain the universe. The native sentiments
of the heart and the spontaneous movements of the reason have always
been towards faith, that is, towards "a religious movement of the
soul."[392] Unbridled speculative thought, which turns towards the outer
world alone, and disregards "the voices of the soul," tends towards
_doubt_ and irreligion. But, as Cousin has said, "a complete
extravagance, a total delusion (except in case of real derangement), is
impossible." "Beneath reflection there is still spontaneity, when the
scholar has denied the existence of a God; listen to the man,
interrogate him unawares, and you will see that all his words betray the
idea of a God, and that faith in a God is, without his recognition, at
the bottom of his heart."[393]
[Footnote 391: "Intellectual System of the Universe;" see also ch. iii.,
"On the Religion of the Athenians."]
[Footnote 392: Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 22.]
[Footnote 393: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 137.]
Let us not, therefore, be too hasty in representing the early
philosophers as destitute of the idea of a God, because in the imperfect
and fragmentary representations which are given us of the philosophical
opinions of Thales, and Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, and Diogenes of
Apollonia, we find no explicit allusions to the _Uncreated Mind_ as the
first principle and cause of all. A few sentences will comprehend the
whole of what remains of the opinions of the earliest philosophers, and
these were transmitted for ages by _oral_ tradition. To Plato and
Aristotle we are chiefly indebted for a stereotype of those scattered,
fragmentary sentences which came to their hands through the dim and
distorting medium of more than two centuries. Surely no one imagines
these few sentences contain and sum up the results of a lifetime of
earnest thought, or represent all the opinions and beliefs of the
earliest philosophers! And should we find therein no recognition of a
personal God, would it not be most unfair and illogical to assert that
they were utterly ignorant of a God, or wickedly denied his being? If
they say "there is no God," then they are foolish Atheists; if they are
silent on that subject, we have a right to assume they were Theists, for
it is most natural to believe in God. And yet it has been quite
customary for Christian teachers, after the manner of some Patristic
writers, to deny to those early sages the smallest glimpse of underived
and independent knowledge of a Divine Being, in their zeal to assert for
the Sacred Scriptures the exclusive prerogative of revealing Him.
Now in regard to the theological opinions of the Greek philosophers, we
shall venture this general _lemma_--_the majority of them recognized an
"incorporeal substance"_[394]_ an uncreated Intelligence, an ordering,
governing Mind_. Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, who were
Materialists, are perhaps the only exceptions. Many of them were
Pantheists, in the higher form of Pantheism, which, though it associates
the universe with its framer and mover, still makes "the moving
principle" superior to that which is moved. The world was a living
organism,
"Whose body nature is, and God the soul."
Unquestionably most on them recognized the existence of _two_ first
principles, substances essentially distinct, which had co-existed from
eternity--an incorporeal Deity and matter.[395] We grant that the free
production of a universe by a creative fiat--the calling of matter into
being by a simple act of omnipotence--is not elementary to human reason.
The famous physical axiom of antiquity, "_De nihilo nihil, in nihilum
posse reverti"_ under one aspect, may be regarded as the expression of
the universal consciousness of a mental inability to conceive a creation
out of nothing, or an annihilation.[396] "We can not conceive, either,
on the one hand, nothing becoming something, or something becoming
nothing, on the other hand. When God is said to create the universe out
of nothing, we think this by supposing that he evolves the universe out
of himself; and in like manner, we conceive annihilation only by
conceiving the Creator to withdraw his creation from actuality into
power."[397] "It is by _faith_ we understand the worlds were framed by
the _word of God_, so that things which are were not made from things
which do appear"--that is, from pre-existent matter.
[Footnote 394: "Ousian asômaton."--Plato.]
[Footnote 395: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 269.]
[Footnote 396: Mansell's "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 100.]
[Footnote 397: Sir William Hamilton's "Discussions on Philosophy," p.
575.]
Those writers[398] are, therefore, clearly in error who assert that the
earliest question of Greek philosophy was, What is God? and that various
and discordant answers were given, Thales saying, water is God,
Anaximenes, air; Heraclitus, fire; Pythagoras, numbers; and so on. The
idea of God is a native intuition of the mind. It springs up
spontaneously from the depths of the human soul. The human mind
naturally recognizes God as an uncreated Mind, and recognizes itself as
"the offspring of God." And, therefore, it is simply impossible for it
to acknowledge water, or air, or fire, or any material thing to be its
God. Now they who reject this fundamental principle evidently
misapprehend the real problem of early Grecian philosophic thought. The
external world, the material universe, was the first object of their
inquiry, and the method of their inquiry was, at the first stage, purely
physical. Every object of sense had a beginning and an end; it rose out
of something, and it fell back into something. Beneath this ceaseless
flow and change there must be some permanent principle. What is that
stoicheon--that first element? The changes in the universe seem to obey
some principle of law--they have an orderly succession. What is that
morphê--that form, or ideal, or archetype, proper to each thing, and
according to which all things are produced? These changes must be
produced by some efficient cause, some power or being which is itself
immobile, and permanent, and eternal, and adequate to their production.
What is that archê tês kinêseôs--that first principle of movement Then,
lastly, there must be an end for which all things exist--a good reason
why things are as they are, and not otherwise. What is that to ou eneken
kai to agathon--that reason and good of all things? Now these are all
archai or first principles of the universe. "Common to all first
principles," says Aristotle, "is the being, the original, from which a
thing is, or is produced, or is known."[399] First principles,
therefore, include both elements and causes, and, under certain aspects,
elements are also causes, in so far as they are that without which a
thing can not be produced. Hence that highest generalization by
Aristotle of all first principles; as--1. The Material Cause; 2. The
Formal Cause; 3. The Efficient Cause; 4. The Final Cause. The grand
subject of inquiry in ancient philosophy was not alone what is the final
_element_ from which all things have been produced? nor yet what is the
_efficient cause_ of the movement and the order of the universe? _but
what are those First Principles which, being assumed, shall furnish a
rational explanation of all phenomena, of all becoming?_
[Footnote 398: As the writer of the article "Attica," in the
Encyclopædia Britannica.]
[Footnote 399: "Metaphysics," bk. iv. ch. i. p. 112 (Bohn's edition).]
So much being premised, we proceed to consider the efforts and the
results of philosophic thought in
THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
"The first act in the drama of Grecian speculation was performed on the
varied theatre of the Grecian colonies--Asiatic, insular, and Italian,
verging at length (in Anaxagoras) towards Athens." During the progress
of this drama two distinct schools of philosophy were developed, having
distinct geographical provinces, one on the east, the other on the west,
of the peninsula of Greece, and deriving their names from the localities
in which they flourished. The earliest was the _Ionian;_ the latter was
the _Italian_ school.
It would be extremely difficult, at this remote period, to estimate the
influence which geographical conditions and ethnical relations exerted
in determining the course of philosophic thought in these schools.
Unquestionably those conditions contributed somewhat towards fixing
their individuality. At the same time, it must be granted that the
distinction in these two schools of philosophy is of a deeper character
than can be represented or explained by geographical surroundings; it is
a distinction reaching to the very foundation of their habits of
thought. These schools represent two distinct aspects of philosophic
thought, two distinct methods in which the human mind has essayed to
solve the problem of the universe.
The ante-Socratic schools were chiefly occupied with the study of
external nature. "Greek philosophy was, at its first appearance, a
philosophy of nature." It was an effort of the reason to reach a "first
principle" which should explain the universe. This early attempt was
purely speculative. It sought to interpret all phenomena by
_hypotheses_, that is, by suppositions, more or less plausible,
suggested by physical analogies or by _à priori_ rational conceptions.
Now there are two distinct aspects under which nature presents itself to
the observant mind. The first and most obvious is the _simple phenomena_
as perceived by the senses. The second is the _relations_ of
_phenomena_, cognized by the reason alone. Let phenomena, which are
indeed the first objects of perception, continue to be the chief and
almost exclusive object of thought, and philosophy is on the highway of
pure physics. On the other hand, instead of stopping at phenomena, let
their relations become the sole object of thought, and philosophy is now
on the road of purely mathematical or metaphysical abstraction. Thus two
schools of philosophy are developed, the one SENSATIONAL, the other
IDEALIST. Now these, it will be found, are the leading and
characteristic tendencies of the two grand divisions of the pre-Socratic
schools; the Ionian is _sensational_, the Italian is _idealist_.
These two schools have again been the subject of a further subdivision
based upon diverse habits of thought. The Ionian school sought to
explain the universe by _physical analogies._ Of these there are two
clear and obvious divisions--analogies suggested by living organisms,
and analogies suggested by mechanical arrangements. One class of
philosophers in the Ionian school laid hold on the first analogy. They
regarded the world as a living being, spontaneously evolving itself--a
vital organism whose successive developments and transformations
constitute all visible phenomena. A second class laid hold on the
analogy suggested by mechanical arrangements. For them the universe was
a grand superstructure, built up from elemental particles, arranged and
united by some ab-extra power or force, or else aggregated by some
inherent mutual affinity. Thus we have two sects of the Ionian school;
the first, _Dynamical_ or vital; the second, _Mechanical_.[400]
[Footnote 400: Ritter's "Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 191, 192.]
The Italian school sought to explain the universe by rational
conceptions and _à priori_ ideas. Now to those who seek, by simple
reflection, to investigate the relations of the external world this
marked distinction will present itself: some are relations _between_
sensible phenomena--relations of time, of place, of number, of
proportion, and of harmony; others are relations _of_ phenomena to
essential being--relations of qualities to substance, of becoming to
being, of the finite to the infinite. The former constituted the field
of Pythagorean the latter of Eleatic contemplation. The Pythagoreans
sought to explain the universe by numbers, forms, and harmonies; the
Eleatics by the _à priori_ ideas of unity, substance, Being _in se_, the
Infinite. Thus were constituted a _Mathematical_ and a _Metaphysical_
sect in the Italian school. The pre-Socratic schools may, therefore, be
tabulated in the following order:
I. IONIAN (Sensational), (1.) PHYSICAL {Dynamical or Vital.
{Mechanical.
II. Italian (Idealist), {(2.) MATHEMATICAL Pythagoreans.
{(3.) METAPHYSICAL Eleatics.
I. _The Ionian or Physical School._--We have premised that the
philosophers of this school attempted the explanation of the universe by
physical analogies.
One class of these early speculators, the _Dynamical_, or vital
theorists, proceeded on the supposition of a living energy infolded in
nature, which in its spontaneous development continuously undergoes
alteration both of quality and form. This imperfect analogy is the first
hypothesis of childhood. The child personifies the stone that hurts him,
and his first impulse is to resent the injury as though he imagined it
to be endowed with consciousness, and to be acting with design. The
childhood of superstition (whose genius is multiplicity) personifies
each individual existence--a rude Fetichism, which imagines a
supernatural power and presence enshrined in every object of nature, in
every plant, and stock, and stone. The childhood of philosophy (whose
genius is unity) personifies the universe. It regards the earth as one
vast organism, animated by one soul, and this soul of the world as a
"created god."[401] The first efforts of philosophy were, therefore,
simply an attempt to explain the universe in harmony with the popular
theological beliefs. The cosmogonies of the early speculators in the
Ionian school were an elaboration of the ancient theogonies, but still
an elaboration conducted under the guidance of that law of thought which
constrains man to seek for _unity_, and reduce the many to the one.
Therefore, in attempting to construct a theory of the universe they
commenced by postulating an archê--a first principle or element out of
which, by a _vital_ process, all else should be produced. "Accordingly,
whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable, as well as _universal_
element in the mass of the visible world, was marked as the seminal
principle whose successive developments and transformations produced all
the rest."[402] With this seminal principle the living, _animating_
principle seems to have been associated--in some instances perhaps
confounded, and in most instances called by the same name. And having
pursued this analogy so far, we shall find the _most decided and
conclusive_ evidence of a tendency to regard the soul of man as similar,
in its nature, to the soul which animates the world.
[Footnote 401: Plato's "Laws," bk. x. ch. i.; "Timæus," ch. xii.]
[Footnote 402: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. 1. p.
292.]
_Thales of Miletus_(B.C. 636-542) was the first to lead the way in the
perilous inquiry after an archê, or first principle, which should
furnish a rational explanation of the universe. Following, as it would
seem, the genealogy of Hesiod, he supposed _water_ to be the primal
element out of which all material things were produced. Aristotle
supposes he was impressed with this idea from observing that all things
are nourished by moisture; warmth itself, he declared, proceeded from
moisture; the seeds of all things are moist; water, when condensed,
becomes earth.
Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he declared it to be
the first principle of things.[403]
And now, from this brief statement of the Thalean physics, are we to
conclude that he recognized only a _material_ cause of the universe?
Such is the impression we receive from the reading of the First Book of
Aristotle's Metaphysics. His evident purpose is to prove that the first
philosophers of the Ionian school did not recognize an _efficient_
cause. In his opinion, they were decidedly materialistic. Now to
question the authority of Aristotle may appear to many an act of
presumption. But Aristotle was not infallible; and nothing is more
certain than that in more than one instance he does great injustice to
his predecessors.[404] To him, unquestionably, belongs the honor of
having made a complete and exhaustive classification of causes, but
there certainly does appear something more than vanity in the assumption
that he, of all the Greek philosophers, was the only one who recognized
them all. His sagacious classification was simply a resumè of the labors
of his predecessors. His "principles" or "causes" were incipient in the
thought of the first speculators in philosophy. Their accurate
definition and clearer presentation was the work of ages of analytic
thought. The phrases "efficient," "formal," "final" cause, are, we
grant, peculiar to Aristotle; the ideas were equally the possession of
his predecessors.
[Footnote 403: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
[Footnote 404: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 77;
Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.]
The evidence, we think, is conclusive that, with this primal element
(water), Thales associated a formative principle of motion; to the
"material" he added the "efficient" cause. A strong presumption in favor
of this opinion is grounded on the psychological views of Thales. The
author of "De Placitis Philosophorum" associates him with Pythagoras and
Plato, in teaching that the soul is incorporeal, making it naturally
self-active, and an intelligent substance.[405] And it is admitted by
Aristotle (rather unwillingly, we grant, but his testimony is all the
more valuable on that account) that, in his time, the opinion that the
soul is a principle, aeikinêton--ever moving, or essentially
self-active, was currently ascribed to Thales. "If we may rely on the
notices of Thales, he too would seem to have conceived the soul as a
_moving principle_."[406] Extending this idea, that the soul is a moving
principle, he held that all motion in the universe was due to the
presence of a living soul. "He is reported to have said that the
loadstone possessed a soul because it could move iron."[407] And he
taught that "the world itself is _animated_, and full of gods."[408]
"Some think that _soul_ and _life_ is mingled with the whole universe;
and thence, perhaps, was that [opinion] of Thales that all things are
full of gods,"[409] portions, as Aristotle said, of the universal soul.
These views are quite in harmony with the theology which makes the Deity
the moving energy of the universe--the energy which wrought the
successive transformations of the primitive aqueous element. They also
furnish a strong corroboration of the positive statement of
Cicero--"Aquam, dixit Thales, esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem
quæ ex aqua cuncta fingeret." Thales said that water is the first
principle of things, but God was that mind which formed all things out
of water;[410] as also that still more remarkable saying of Thales,
recorded by Diogenes Laertius; "God is the most ancient of all things,
for he had no birth; the world is the most beautiful of all things, for
it is the workmanship of God."[411] We are aware that some historians of
philosophy reject the statement of Cicero, because, say they, "it does
violence to the chronology of speculation."[412] Following Hegel, they
assert that Thales could have no conception of God as Intelligence,
since that is a conception of a more advanced philosophy. Such an
opinion may be naturally expected from the philosopher who places God,
not at the commencement, but at the _end_ of things, God becoming
conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches that God
himself has had a progressive development, it is no wonder he should
assert that the idea of God has also had an historic development, the
_last_ term of which is an _intelligent God_. But he who believes that
the idea of God as the infinite and the perfect is native to the human
mind, and that God stands at the beginning of the entire system of
things, will feel there is a strong _à priori_ ground for the belief
that Thales recognized the existence of an _intelligent God who
fashioned the universe_.
[Footnote 405: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 71.]
[Footnote 406: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 2, 17.]
[Footnote 407: Id., ib., i. 2, 17.]
[Footnote 408: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," p. 18
(Bohn's ed.).]
[Footnote 409: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 17.]
[Footnote 410: "De Natura Deor.," bk. i. ch. x.]
[Footnote 411: "Lives," etc., p. 19.]
[Footnote 412: Lewes's "Hist. Philos.," p. 4.]
_Anaximenes of Miletus_ (B.C. 529-480) we place next to Thales in the
consecutive history of thought. It has been usual to rank Anaximander
next to the founder of the Ionian School. The entire complexion of his
system is, however, unlike that of a pupil of Thales. And we think a
careful consideration of his views will justify our placing him at the
head of the Mechanical or Atomic division of the Ionian school.
Anaximenes is the historical successor of Thales; he was unquestionably
a vitalist. He took up the speculation where Thales had left it, and he
carried it a step forward in its development.[413]
Pursuing the same method as Thales, he was not, however, satisfied with
the conclusion he had reached. Water was not to Anaximenes the most
significant, neither was it the most universal element. But air seemed
universally present. "The earth was a broad leaf resting upon it. All
things were produced from it; all things were resolved into it. When he
breathed he drew in a part of this universal life. All things are
nourished by air."[414] Was not, therefore, _air_ the archê, or primal
element of things?
[Footnote 413: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.
203.]
[Footnote 414: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 7.]
This brief notice of the physical speculations of Anaximenes is all that
has survived of his opinions. We search in vain for some intimations of
his theological views. On this merely negative ground, some writers have
unjustly charged him with Atheism. Were we to venture a conjecture, we
would rather say that there are indications of a tendency to Pantheism
in that form of it which associates God necessarily with the universe,
but does not utterly confound them. His fixing upon "_air_" as the
primal element, seems an effort to reconcile, in some apparently
intermediate substance, the opposite qualities of corporeal and
spiritual natures. Air is invisible, impalpable, all-penetrating, and
yet in some manner appreciable to sense. May not the vital
transformations of this element have produced all the rest? The writer
of the Article on Anaximenes in the Encyclopædia Britannica tells us (on
what ancient authorities he saith not) that "he asserted this air was
God, since the divine power resides in it and agitates it."
Some indications of the views of Anaximenes may perhaps be gathered from
the teachings of Diogenes of Apollonia (B.C. 520-490,) who was the
disciple, and is generally regarded as the commentator and expounder of
the views of Anaximenes. The air of Diogenes was a soul; therefore it
was _living_, and not only living, but conscious and _intelligent_. "It
knows much," says he; "for without _reason_ it would be impossible for
all to be arranged duly and proportionately; and whatever objects we
consider will be found to be so arranged and ordered in the best and
most beautiful manner."[415] Here we have a distinct recognition of the
fundamental axiom that _mind is the only valid explanation of the order
and harmony which pervades the universe_. With Diogenes the first
principle is a "divine air," which is vital, conscious, and intelligent,
which spontaneously evolves itself, and which, by its ceaseless
transformations, produces all phenomena. The soul of man is a detached
portion of this divine element; his body is developed or evolved
therefrom. The theology of Diogenes, and, as we believe, of his master,
Anaximenes also, was a species of Materialistic Pantheism.
[Footnote 415: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 8;
Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 214.]
_Heraclitus of Ephesus_(B.C. 503-420) comes next in the order of
speculative thought. In his philosophy, _fire_ is the archê, or first
principle; but not fire in the usual acceptation of that term. The
Heraclitean "fire" is not flame, which is only an intensity of fire, but
a warm, dry vapor--an _ether_, which may be illustrated, perhaps, by the
"caloric" of modern chemistry. This "_ether_" was the primal element out
of which the universe was formed; it was also a vital power or principle
which animated the universe, and, in fact, the _cause_ of all its
successive phenomenal changes. "The world," he said, "was neither made
by the gods nor men, and it was, and is, and ever shall be, an
_ever-living fire_, in due proportion self-enkindled, and in due measure
self-extinguished."[416] The universe is thus reduced to "an eternal
fire," whose ceaseless energy is manifested openly in the work of
dissolution, and yet secretly, but universally, in the work of
renovation. The phenomena of the universe are explained by Heraclitus as
"the concurrence of opposite tendencies and efforts in the motions of
this ever-living fire, out of which results the most beautiful harmony.
This harmony of the world is one of conflicting impulses, like the lyre
and the bow. The strife between opposite tendencies is the parent of all
things. All life is change, and change is strife."[417]
[Footnote 416: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.
235.]
[Footnote 417: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 70;
Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 244.]
Heraclitus was the first to proclaim the doctrine of the perpetual
fluxion of the universe (to reon, to gignomenon--Unrest and
Development), the endless changes of matter, and the mutability and
perishability of all individual things. This restless, changing flow of
things, which never _are_, but always are _becoming_, he pronounced to
be the _One_ and the _All_.
From this statement of the physical theory of Heraclitus we might
naturally infer that he was a Hylopathean Atheist. Such an hypothesis
would not, however, be truthful or legitimate. On a more careful
examination, his system will be found to stand half-way between the
materialistic and the spiritual conception of the Author of the
universe, and marks, indeed, a transition from the one to the other.
Heraclitus unquestionably held that all substance is material, for a
philosopher who proclaims, as he did, that the senses are the only
source of knowledge, must necessarily attach himself to a material
element as the primary one. And yet he seems to have _spiritualized_
matter. "The moving unit of Heraclitus--the Becoming--is as immaterial
as the resting unit of the Eleatics--the Being."[418] The Heraclitean
"_fire_" is endowed with _spiritual_ attributes. "Aristotle calls it
psychê--soul, and says that it is asômatôtaton, or absolutely
incorporeal ("De Anima," i. 2. 16). It is, in effect, the common ground
of the phenomena both of mind and matter it is not only the animating,
but also the intelligent and regulating principle of the universe; the
Zynos Logos, or universal Word or Reason, which it behooves all men to
follow."[419] The psychology of Heraclitus throws additional light upon
his theological opinions. With him human intelligence is a detached
portion of the Universal Reason. "Inhaling," said he, "through the
breath the Universal Ether, which is Divine Reason, we become
conscious." The errors and imperfections of humanity are consequently to
be ascribed to a deficiency of the Divine Reason in man. Whilst,
therefore, the theory of Heraclitus seems to materialize mind, it may,
with equal fairness, be said to spiritualize matter.
[Footnote 418: Zeller's "History of Greek Philosophy," vol. i. p. 57.]
[Footnote 419: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 297, note.]
The general inference, therefore, from all that remains of the doctrine
of Heraclitus is that he was a Materialistic Pantheist. His God was a
living, rational, intelligent Ether--a soul pervading the universe. The
form of the universe, its ever-changing phenomena, were a necessary
emanation from, or a perpetual transformation of, this universal soul.
With Heraclitus we close our survey of that sect of the physical school
which regarded the world as a living organism.
The second subdivision of the physical school, _the Mechanical_ or
_Atomist theorists_, attempted the explanation of the universe by
analogies derived from mechanical collocations, arrangements, and
movements. The universe was regarded by them as a vast superstructure
built up from elemental particles, aggregated by some inherent force or
mutual affinity.
_Anaximander of Miletus_ (born B.C. 610) we place at the head of the
Mechanical sect of the Ionian school; first, on the authority of
Aristotle, who intimates that the philosophic dogmata of Anaximander
"resemble those of Democritus," who was certainly an Atomist; and,
secondly, because we can clearly trace a genetic connection between the
opinions of Democritus and Leucippus and those of Anaximander.
The archê, or first principle of Anaximander, was to apeiron, _the
boundless, the illimitable, the infinite_. Some historians of philosophy
have imagined that the infinite of Anaximander was the "unlimited all,"
and have therefore placed him at the head of the Italian or "idealistic
school." These writers are manifestly in error. Anaximander was
unquestionably a sensationalist. Whatever his "infinite" may be found to
be, one thing is clear, it was not a "metaphysical infinite"--it did not
include infinite power, much less infinite mind.
The testimony of Aristotle is conclusive that by "the infinite"
Anaximander understood the multitude of primary, material particles. He
calls it "a migma, or mixture of elements."[420] It was, in fact, a
_chaos_--an original state in which the primary elements existed in a
chaotic combination without _limitation_ or division. He assumed a
certain "_prima materia_," which was neither air, nor water, nor fire,
but a "mixture" of all, to be the first principle of the universe. The
account of the opinions of Anaximander which is given by Plutarch ("De
Placita," etc.) is a further confirmation of our interpretation of his
infinite. "Anaximander, the Milesian, affirmed the infinite to be the
first principle, and that all things are generated out of it, and
corrupted again into it. _His infinite is nothing else but matter._"
"Whence," says Cudworth, "we conclude that Anaximander's infinite was
nothing else but an infinite chaos of matter, in which were actually or
potentially contained all manner of qualities, by the fortuitous
secretion and segregation of which he supposed infinite worlds to be
successively generated and corrupted. So that we may easily guess whence
Leucippus and Democritus had their infinite worlds, and perceive how
near akin these two Atheistic hypotheses were."[421] The reader, whose
curiosity may lead him to consult the authorities collected by Cudworth
(pp. 185-188), will find in the doctrine of Anaximander a rude
anticipation of the modern theories of "spontaneous generation" and "the
transmutation of species." In the fragments of Anaximander that remain
we find no recognition of an ordering Mind, and his philosophy is the
dawn of a Materialistic school.
[Footnote 420: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ii.]
[Footnote 421: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. pp. 186, 187.]
_Leucippus of Miletus_ (B.C. 500-400) appears, in the order of
speculation, as the successor of Anaximander. _Atoms_ and _space_ are,
in his philosophy, the archai, or first principles of all things.
"Leucippus (and his companion, Democritus) assert that the plenum and
the vacuum [_i.e._, body and space] are the first principles, whereof
one is the Ens, the other Non-ens; the differences of the body, which
are only figure, order, and position, are the causes of all
others."[422]
[Footnote 422: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," p. 21 (Bohn's edition).]
He also taught that the elements, and the worlds derived from them, are
_infinite_. He describes the manner in which the worlds are produced as
follows: "Many bodies of various kinds and shapes are borne by
amputation from the infinite [_i.e._, the chaotic migma of Anaximander]
into a vast vacuum, and then they, being collected together, produce a
vortex; according to which, they, dashing against each other, and
whirling about in every direction, are separated in such a way that like
attaches itself to like; bodies are thus, without ceasing, united
according to the impulse given by the vortex, and in this way the earth
was produced."[423] Thus, through a boundless void, atoms infinite in
number and endlessly diversified in form are eternally wandering; and,
by their aggregation, infinite worlds are successively produced. These
atoms are governed in their movements by a dark negation of
intelligence, designated "Fate," and all traces of a Supreme Mind
disappear in his philosophy. It is a system of pure materialism, which,
in fact, is Atheism.
[Footnote 423: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 389.]
_Democritus of Abdera_ (B.C. 460-357), the companion of Leucippus, also
taught "that _atoms_ and the _vacuum_ were the beginning of the
universe."[424] These atoms, he taught, were infinite in number,
homogeneous, extended, and possessed of those primary qualities of
matter which are necessarily involved in extension in space--as size,
figure, situation, divisibility, and mobility. From the combination of
these atoms all other existences are produced; fire, air, earth, and
water; sun, moon, and stars; plants, animals, and men; the soul itself
is an aggregation of round, moving atoms. And "motion, which is the
cause of the production of every thing, he calls _necessity_."[425]
Atoms are thus the only real existences; these, without any pre-existent
mind, or intelligence, were the original of all things.
[Footnote 424: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 395.]
[Footnote 425: Id, ib., p. 394.]
The psychological opinions of Democritus were as decidedly materialistic
as his physical theories. All knowledge is derived from sensation. It is
only by material impact that we can know the external world, and every
sense is, in reality, a kind of touch. Material images are being
continually thrown off from the surface of external objects which come
into actual contact with the organs of sense. The primary qualities of
matter, that is, those which are involved in extension in space, are the
only objects of real knowledge; the secondary qualities of matter, as
softness, hardness, sweetness, bitterness, and the like, are but
modifications of the human sensibilities. "The sweet exists only in
form--the bitter in form, hot in form, color in form; but in causal
reality only atoms and space exist. The sensible things which are
supposed by opinion to exist have no real existence, but atoms and space
alone exist."[426]
[Footnote 426: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 96. The
words of Democritus, as reported by Sextus Empiricus.]
Thus by Democritus was laid the basis of a system of absolute
materialism, which was elaborated and completed by Epicurus, and has
been transmitted to our times. It has undergone some slight
modifications, adapting it to the progress of physical science; but it
is to-day substantially the theory of Democritus. In Democritus we have
the culmination of the mechanical theory of the Ionian or Physical
school. In physics and psychology it terminated in pure materialism. In
theology it ends in positive Atheism.
The fundamental error of all the philosophers of the physical school was
the assumption, tacitly or avowedly, that sense-perception is the only
source of knowledge. This was the fruitful source of all their erroneous
conclusions, the parent of all their materialistic tendencies. This led
them continually to seek an archê, or first principle of the universe,
which should, under some form, be appreciable to _sense_; and
consequently the course of thought tended naturally towards materialism.
Thales was unquestionably a dualist. Instructed by traditional
intimations, or more probably guided by the spontaneous apperceptions of
reason, he recognized, with more or less distinctness, an incorporeal
Deity as the moving, animating, and organizing cause of the universe.
The idea of God is a truth so self-evident as to need no demonstration.
The human mind does not attain to the idea of a God as the last
consequence of a series of antecedent principles. It comes at once, by
an inherent and necessary movement of thought, to the recognition of God
as the First Principle of all principles. But when, instead of
hearkening to the simple and spontaneous intuitions of the mind, man
turns to the world of sense, and loses himself in discursive thought,
the conviction of a personal God becomes obscured. Then, amid the
endlessly diversified phenomena of the universe, he seeks for a cause or
origin which in some form shall be appreciable to sense. The mere study
of material phenomena, scientifically or unscientifically conducted,
will never yield the sense of the living God. Nature must be
interpreted, can only be interpreted in the light of certain _à priori_
principles of reason, or we can never "ascend from nature up to nature's
God." Within the circle of mere sense-perception, the dim and
undeveloped consciousness of God will be confounded with the universe.
Thus, in Anaximenes, God is partially confounded with "air," which
becomes a symbol; then a vehicle of the informing mind; and the result
is a semi-pantheism. In Heraclitus, the "ether" is, at first, a
semi-symbol of the Deity; at length, God is utterly confounded with this
ether, or "rational fire," and the result is a definite _materialistic
pantheism_. And, finally, when this feeling or dim consciousness of God,
which dwells in all human souls, is not only disregarded, but pronounced
to be an illusion--a phantasy; when all the analogies which intelligence
suggests are disregarded, and a purely mechanical theory of the universe
is adopted, the result is the utter negation of an Intelligent Cause,
that is, _absolute Atheism_, as in Leucippus and Democritus.