THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS _(continued_).
PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL _(continued_).
IDEALIST: PYTHAGORAS--XENOPHANES--PARMENIDES--ZENO. NATURAL REALIST:
ANAXAGORAS.
SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
SOCRATES.
In the previous chapter we commenced our inquiry with the assumption
that, in the absence of the true inductive method of philosophy which
observes, and classifies, and generalizes facts, and thence attains a
general principle or law, two only methods were possible to the early
speculators who sought an explanation of the universe--1st, That of
reasoning from physical analogies; or, 2d, That of deduction from
rational conceptions, or _à priori_ ideas.
Accordingly we found that one class of speculators fixed their attention
solely on the mere phenomena of nature, and endeavored, amid sensible
things, to find a _single_ element which, being more subtile, and
pliable, and universally diffused, could be regarded as the ground and
original of all the rest, and from which, by a vital transformation, or
by a mechanical combination and arrangement of parts, all the rest
should be evolved. The other class passed beyond the simple phenomena,
and considered only the abstract _relations_ of phenomena among
themselves, or the relations of phenomena to the necessary and universal
ideas of the reason, and supposed that, in these relations, they had
found an explanation of the universe. The former was the Ionian or
Sensation school; the latter was the Italian or Idealist school.
We have traced the method according to which the Ionian school
proceeded, and estimated the results attained. We now come to consider
the method and results of
THE ITALIAN OR IDEALIST SCHOOL.
This school we have found to be naturally subdivided into--1st, The
_Mathematical_ sect, which attempted the explanation of the universe by
the abstract conceptions of number, proportion, order, and harmony; and,
2d, The _Metaphysical_ school, which attempted the interpretation of the
universe according to the _à priori_ ideas of unity, of Being _in se_,
of the Infinite, and the Absolute.
_Pythagoras of Samos_(born B.C. 605) was the founder of the Mathematical
school.
We are conscious of the difficulties which are to be encountered by the
student who seeks to attain a definite comprehension of the real
opinions of Pythagoras. The genuineness of many of those writings which
were once supposed to represent his views, is now questioned. "Modern
criticism has clearly shown that the works ascribed to Timæus and
Archytas are spurious; and the treatise of Ocellus Lucanus on 'The
Nature of the All' can not have been written by a Pythagorean."[427] The
only writers who can be regarded as at all reliable are Plato and
Aristotle; and the opinions they represent are not so much those of
Pythagoras as "the Pythagoreans." This is at once accounted for by the
fact that Pythagoras taught in secret, and did not commit his opinions
to writing. His disciples, therefore, represent the _tendency_ rather
than the actual tenets of his system; these were no doubt modified by
the mental habits and tastes of his successors.
[Footnote 427: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 24.]
We may safely assume that the proposition from which Pythagoras started
was the fundamental idea of all Greek speculation--_that beneath the
fleeting forms and successive changes of the universe there is some
permanent principle of unity_[428] The Ionian school sought that
principle in some common physical element; Pythagoras sought, not for
"elements," but for "relations," and through these relations for
ultimate laws indicating primal forces.
[Footnote 428: See Plato, "Timæus," ch. ix. p. 331 (Bohn's edition);
Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. v. ch. iii.]
Aristotle affirms that Pythagoras taught "that _numbers_ are the first
principles of all entities," and, "as it were, a _material_ cause of
things,"[429] or, in other words, "that numbers are substances that
involve a separate subsistence, and are primary causes of
entities."[430]
[Footnote 429: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. v.]
[Footnote 430: Id., ib., bk. xii. ch. vi.]
Are we then required to accept the dictum of Aristotle as final and
decisive? Did Pythagoras really teach that numbers are real
entities--the _substance_ and cause of all other existences? The reader
may be aware that this is a point upon which the historians of
philosophy are not agreed. Ritter is decidedly of opinion that the
Pythagorean formula "can only be taken symbolically."[431] Lewes insists
it must be understood literally.[432] On a careful review of all the
arguments, we are constrained to regard the conclusion of Ritter as most
reasonable. The hypothesis "that numbers are real entities" does
violence to every principle of common sense. This alone constitutes a
strong _à priori_ presumption that Pythagoras did not entertain so
glaring an absurdity. The man who contributed so much towards perfecting
the mathematical sciences, who played so conspicuous a part in the
development of ancient philosophy, and who exerted so powerful a
determining influence on the entire current of speculative thought, did
not obtain his ascendency over the intellectual manhood of Greece by the
utterance of such enigmas. And further, in interpreting the philosophic
opinions of the ancients, we must be guided by this fundamental
canon--"The human mind has, under the necessary operation of its own
laws, been compelled to entertain the same fundamental ideas, and the
human heart to cherish the same feelings in all ages." Now if a careful
philosophic criticism can not render the _reported_ opinions of an
ancient teacher into the universal language of the reason and heart of
humanity, we must conclude either that his opinions were misunderstood
and misrepresented by some of his successors, or else that he stands in
utter isolation, both from the present and the past. His doctrine has,
then, no relation to the successions of thought, and no place in the
history of philosophy. Nay, more, such a doctrine has in it no element
of vitality, no germ of eternal truth, and must speedily perish. Now it
is well known that the teaching of Pythagoras awakened the deepest
intellectual sympathy of his age; that his doctrine exerted a powerful
influence on the mind of Plato, and, through him, upon succeeding ages;
and that, in some of its aspects, it now survives, and is more
influential to-day than in any previous age; but this element of
immutable and eternal truth was certainly not contained in the inane and
empty formula, "that numbers are real existences, the causes of all
other existences!" If the fame of Pythagoras had rested on such "airy
nothings," it would have melted away before the time of Plato.
[Footnote 431: "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]
[Footnote 432: "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38.]
We grant there is considerable force in the argument of Lewes. He urges,
with some pertinence, the unquestionable fact that Aristotle asserts,
again and again, that the Pythagoreans taught "that numbers are the
principles and substance of things as well as the causes of their
modifications;" and he argues that we are not justified in rejecting the
authority of Aristotle, unless better evidence can be produced.
So far, however, as the authority of Aristotle is concerned, even Lewes
himself charges him, in more than one instance, with strangely
misrepresenting the opinions of his predecessors.[433] Aristotle is
evidently wanting in that impartiality which ought to characterize the
historian of philosophy, and, sometimes, we are compelled to question
his integrity. Indeed, throughout his "Metaphysics" he exhibits the
egotism and vanity of one who imagines that he alone, of all men, has
the full vision of the truth. In Books I. and XII. he uniformly
associates the "_numbers_" of Pythagoras with the "_forms_" and
"_ideas_" of Plato. He asserts that Plato identifies "forms" and
"numbers," and regards them as real entities--substances, and causes of
all other things. "_Forms are numbers_[434]... so Plato affirmed,
similar with the Pythagoreans; and the dogma that numbers are causes to
other things--of their substance-_he, in like manner, asserted with
them_."[435] And then, finally, he employs the _same_ arguments in
refuting the doctrines of both.
[Footnote 433: "Aristotle uniformly speaks disparagingly of Anaxagoras"
(Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy"). He represents him as
employing mind (nous) simply as "a _machine_" for the production of the
world;--"when he finds himself in perplexity as to the cause of its
being necessarily an orderly system, he then drags it (mind) in by force
to his assistance" "Metaphysics," (bk. i. ch. iv.). But he is evidently
inconsistent with himself, for in "De Anima" (bk. i. ch. ii.) he tells
us that "Anaxagoras saith that mind is at once a _cause of motion_ in
the whole universe, and also of _well_ and _fit_." We may further ask,
is not the idea of fitness--of the good and the befitting--the final
cause, even according to Aristotle?
He also totally misrepresents Plato's doctrine of "Ideas." "Plato's
Ideas," he says, "are substantial existences--real beings"
("Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ix.). Whereas, as we shall subsequently show,
"they are objects of pure conception for human reason, and they are
attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially exist."
(Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 415). It is also pertinent
to inquire, what is the difference between the "formal cause" of
Aristotle and the archetypal ideas of Plato? and is not Plato's to
agathon the "final cause?" Yet Aristotle is forever congratulating
himself that he alone has properly treated the "formal" and the "final
cause!"]
[Footnote 434: This, however, was not the doctrine of Plato. He does not
say "forms are numbers." He says: "God formed things as they first arose
according to forms _and_ numbers." See "Timaeus," ch. xiv. and xxvii.]
[Footnote 435: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
Now the writings of Plato are all extant to-day, and accessible in an
excellent English translation to any of our readers. Cousin has
shown,[436] most conclusively (and we can verify his conclusions for
ourselves), that Aristotle has totally misrepresented Plato. And if, in
the same connection, and in the course of the same argument, and in
regard to the same subjects, he misrepresents Plato, it is most probable
he also misrepresents Pythagoras.
[Footnote 436: "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 77-81.]
It is, however, a matter of the deepest interest for us to find the
evidence gleaming out here and there, on the pages of Aristotle, that he
had some knowledge of the fact that the Pythagorean numbers were
regarded as _symbols_. The "numbers" of Pythagoras are, in the mind of
Aristotle, clearly identified with the "forms" of Plato. Now, in Chapter
VI. of the First Book he says that Plato taught that these "forms" were
paradeigmata--models, patterns, exemplars after which created things
were framed. The numbers of Pythagoras, then, are also models and
exemplars. This also is admitted by Aristotle. The Pythagoreans indeed
affirm that entities subsist by an _imitation_ (mimêsis) of
numbers.[437] Now if ideas, forms, numbers, were the models or paradigms
after which "the Operator" formed all things, surely it can not be
logical to say they were the "material" out of which all things were
framed, much less the "efficient cause" of things. The most legitimate
conclusion we can draw, even from the statements of Aristotle, is that
the Pythagoreans regarded numbers as the best expression or
representation of those laws of proportion, and order, and harmony,
which seemed, to their eyes, to pervade the universe. Their doctrine was
a faint glimpse of that grand discovery of modern science--that all the
higher laws of nature assume the form of a precise quantitative
statement.
[Footnote 437: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
The fact seems to be this, the Pythagoreans busied themselves chiefly
with what Aristotle designates "the _formal_ cause," and gave little
attention to the inquiry concerning "the _material_ cause." This is
admitted by Aristotle. Concerning fire, or earth, or the other bodies of
such kind, they have declared nothing whatsoever, inasmuch as affirming,
in my opinion, nothing that is peculiar concerning _sensible_
natures.[438] They looked, as we have previously remarked, to the
relations of phenomena, and having discovered certain "numerical
similitudes," they imagined they had attained an universal principle, or
law. "If all the essential properties and attributes of things were
fully represented by the relations of numbers, the philosophy which
supplied such an explanation of the universe might well be excused from
explaining, also, that existence of objects, which is distinct from the
existence of all their qualities and properties. The Pythagorean
doctrine of numbers might have been combined with the doctrine of atoms,
and the combination might have led to results worthy of notice. But, so
far as we are aware, no such combination was attempted, and perhaps we
of the present day are only just beginning to perceive, through the
disclosures of chemistry and crystallography, the importance of such an
inquiry."[439]
[Footnote 4398: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. ix.]
[Footnote 439: Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p.
78.]
These preliminary considerations will have cleared and prepared the way
for a fuller presentation of the philosophic system of Pythagoras. The
most comprehensive and satisfactory exposition of his "method" is that
given by Wm Archer Butler in his "_Lectures on Ancient Philosophy_," and
we feel we can not do better than condense his pages.[440]
[Footnote 440: Lecture VI. vol. i.]
Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty idea
of _order_, which seemed to reveal itself to his mind, as the presiding
genius of the serene and silent world. He had, from his youth, dwelt
with delight upon the eternal relations of space, and determinate form,
and number, in which the very idea of _proportion_ seems to find its
first and immediate development, and without the latter of which
(number), all proportion is absolutely inconceivable. To this ardent
genius, whose inventive energies were daily adding new and surprising
contributions to the sum of discoverable relations, it at length began
to appear as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in these
mysterious correspondences.
In making this extensive generalization, Pythagoras may, on his known
principles, be supposed to have reasoned as follows: The mind of man
perceives the relations of an eternal _order_ in the proportions of
space, and form, and number. That mind is, no doubt, a portion of the
soul which animates and governs the universe; for on what other
supposition shall we account for its internal principle of activity--the
very principle which characterizes the prime mover, and can scarce be
ascribed to an inferior nature? And on what other supposition are we to
explain the identity which subsists between the principles of order,
authenticated by the reason and the facts of order which are found to
exist in the forms and multiplicities around us, and independent of us?
Can this sameness be other than the sameness of the internal and
external principles of a common nature? The proportions of the universe
inhere in its divine soul; they are indeed its very essence, or at
least, its attributes. The ideas or principles of Order which are
implanted in the human reason, must inhere in the Divine Reason, and
must be reflected in the visible world, which is its product. Man, then,
can boldly affirm the necessary harmony of the world, because he has in
his own mind a revelation which declares that the world, in its real
structure, must be the image and copy of that divine _proportion_ which
he inwardly adores.[441]
[Footnote 441: It is an opinion which goes as far back as the time of
Plato, and even Pythagoras, and has ever since been widely entertained,
that beauty of _form_ consists in some sort of _proportion_ or _harmony_
which may admit of a mathematical expression; and later and more
scientific research is altogether in its favor. It is now established
that complementary colors, that is, colors which when combined make up
the full beam, are felt to be beautiful when seen simultaneously; that
is, the mind is made to delight in the unities of nature. At the basis
of music there are certain fixed ratios; and in poetry, of every
description, there are measures, and correspondencies. Pythagoras has
often been ridiculed for his doctrine of "the music of the spheres;" and
probably his doctrine was somewhat fanciful, but later science shows
that there is a harmony in all nature--in its forms, in its forces, and
in its motions. The highest unorganized and all organized objects take
definite forms which are regulated by mathematical laws. The forces of
nature can be estimated in numbers, and light and heat go in
undulations, whilst the movements of the great bodies in nature admit of
a precise quantitative expression. The harmonies of nature in respect of
color, of number, of form, and of time are forcibly exhibited in
"Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation," by M'Cosh.]
Again, the world is assuredly _perfect_, as being the sensible image and
copy of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development of the
Eternal Unity. It must, therefore, when thoroughly known and properly
interpreted, answer to all which we can conceive as perfect; that is, it
must be regulated by laws, of which we have the highest principles in
those first and elementary properties of numbers which stand next to
_unity_. "The world is then, through all its departments, _a living
arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose_." It
is a kosmos (for the word is purely Pythagorean)--the expression of
_harmony_, the manifestation, to sense, of everlasting _order_.
Though Pythagoras found in geometry the fitting initiative for abstract
speculation, it is remarkable that he himself preferred to constitute
the science of Numbers as the true representative of the laws of the
universe. The reason appears to be this: that though geometry speaks
indeed of eternal truths, yet when the notion of symmetry and proportion
is introduced, it is often necessary to insist, in preference, upon the
properties of numbers. Hence, though the universe displays the geometry
of its Constructor or Animator, yet nature was eminently defined as the
mimêsis tôn arithmôn--the imitation of numbers.
The key to all the Pythagorean dogmas, then, seems to be the general
formula of _unity in multiplicity_:--unity either evolving itself into
multiplicity, or unity discovered as pervading multiplicity. The
principle of all things, the same principle which in this philosophy, as
in others, was customarily called _Deity_, is the primitive unit from
which all proceeds in the accordant relations of the universal scheme.
Into the sensible world of multitude, the all-pervading Unity has
infused his own ineffable nature; he has impressed his own image upon
that world which is to represent him in the sphere of sense and man.
What, then, is that which is at once single and multiple, identical and
diversified--which we perceive as the combination of a thousand
elements, yet as the expression of a single spirit--which is a chaos to
the sense, a cosmos to the reason? What is it but
harmony--proportion--the one governing the many, the many lost in the
one? The world is therefore a _harmony_ in innumerable degrees, from the
most complicated to the most simple: it is now a Triad, combining the
Monad and the Duad, and partaking of the nature of both; now a Tetrad,
the form of perfection; now a Decad, which, in combining the four
former, involves, in its mystic nature, all the possible accordances of
the universe.[442]
The psychology of the Pythagoreans was greatly modified by their
physical, and still more, by their moral tenets. The soul was arithmos
eauton kinôn--a self-moving number or Monad, the copy (as we have seen)
of that Infinite Monad which unfolds from its own incomprehensible
essence all the relations of the universe. This soul has three elements,
Reason (nous), Intelligence (phrên), and Passion (Thymos). The two last,
man has in common with brutes, the first is his grand and peculiar
characteristic. It has, hence, been argued that Pythagoras could not
have held the doctrine of "transmigration." This clear separation of man
from the brute, by this signal endowment of reason, which is
sempiternal, seems a refutation of those who charge him with the
doctrine.
In the department of morals, the legislator of Crotona found his
appropriate sphere. In his use of numerical notation, moral good was
essential unity--evil, essential plurality and division. In the fixed
truths of mathematical abstractions he found the exemplars of social and
personal virtue. The rule or law of all morality is resemblance to God;
that is, the return of number to its root, to unity,[443] and virtue is
thus a harmony.
[Footnote 442: That is, 1+2+3+4=10. There are intimations that the
Pythagoreans regarded the Monad as God, the Duad as matter, the Triad as
the complex phenomena of the world, the Tetrad as the completeness of
all its relations, the Decad as the cosmos, or harmonious whole.]
[Footnote 443: Aristotle, "Nichomachian Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
Thus have we, in Pythagoras, the dawn of an _Idealist_ school; for
mathematics are founded upon abstractions, and there is consequently an
intimate connection between mathematics and idealism. The relations of
space, and number, and determinate form, are, like the relations of
cause and effect, of phenomena and substance, perceptible _only in
thought_; and the mind which has been disciplined to abstract thought by
the study of mathematics, is prepared and disposed for purely
metaphysical studies. "The looking into mathematical learning is a kind
of prelude to the contemplation of real being."[444] Therefore Plato
inscribed over the door of his academy, "Let none but Geometricians
enter here." To the mind thus disciplined in abstract thinking, the
conceptions and ideas of reason have equal authority, sometimes even
superior authority, to the perceptions of sense.
[Footnote 444: Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," ch.
vii.]
Now if the testimony of both reason and sense, as given in
consciousness, is accepted as of equal authority, and each faculty is
regarded as, within its own sphere, a source of real, valid knowledge,
then a consistent and harmonious system of _Natural Realism_ or _Natural
Dualism_ will be the result. If the testimony of sense is questioned and
distrusted, and the mind is denied any immediate knowledge of the
sensible world, and yet the existence of an external world is maintained
by various hypotheses and reasonings, the consequence will be a species
of _Hypothetical Dualism_ or _Cosmothetic Idealism_. But if the
affirmations of reason, as to the unity of the cosmos, are alone
accepted, and the evidence of the senses, as to the variety and
multiplicity of the world, is entirely disregarded, then we have a
system of _Absolute Idealism_. Pythagoras regarded the harmony which
pervades the diversified phenomena of the outer world as a manifestation
of the unity of its eternal principle, or as the perpetual evolution of
that unity, and the consequent _tendency_ of his system was to
depreciate the _sensible_. Following out this tendency, the Eleatics
first neglected, and finally denied the variety of the universe--denied
the real existence of the external world, and asserted an absolute
_metaphysical_ unity.
_Xenophanes of Colophon_, in Ionia (B.C. 616-516), was the founder of
this celebrated school of Elea. He left Ionia, and arrived in Italy
about the same time as Pythagoras, bringing with him to Italy his Ionian
tendencies; he there amalgamated them with Pythagorean speculations.
Pythagoras had succeeded in fixing the attention of his countrymen on
the harmony which pervades the material world, and had taught them to
regard that harmony as the manifestation of the intelligence, and unity,
and perfection of its eternal principle. Struck with this idea of
harmony and of unity, Xenophanes, who was a poet, a rhapsodist, and
therefore by native tendency, rather than by intellectual discipline, an
Idealist, begins already to attach more importance to _unity_ than
multiplicity in his philosophy of nature. He regards the testimony of
reason as of more authority than the testimony of sense; "and he holds
badly enough the balance between the unity of the Pythagoreans and the
variety which Heraclitus and the Ionians had alone considered."[445]
We are not, however, to suppose that Xenophanes denied entirely the
existence of _plurality_. "The great Rhapsodist of Truth" was guided by
the spontaneous intuitions of his mind (which seemed to partake of the
character of an inspiration), to a clearer vision of the truth than were
his successors of the same school by their discursive reasonings. "The
One" of Xenophanes was clearly distinguished from the outward universe
(ta polla) on the one hand, and from the "_non-ens_" on the other. It
was his disciple, Parmenides, who imagined the logical necessity of
identifying plurality with the "_non-ens_" and thus denying all
immediate cognition of the phenomenal world. The compactness and logical
coherence of the system of Parmenides seems to have had a peculiar charm
for the Grecian mind, and to have diverted the eyes of antiquity from
the views of the more earnest and devout Xenophanes, whose opinions were
too often confounded with those of his successors of the Eleatic school.
"Accordingly we find that Xenophanes has obtained credit for much that
is, exclusively, the property of Parmenides and Zeno, in particular for
denying plurality, and for identifying God with the universe."[446]
[Footnote 445: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 440.]
[Footnote 446: See note by editor, W.H. Thompson, M.A., on pages 331,
332 of Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. His authorities are "Fragments of
Xenophanes" and the treatise "De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia," by
Aristotle.]
In theology, Xenophanes was unquestionably a _Theist_. He had a profound
and earnest conviction of the existence of a God, and he ridiculed with
sarcastic force, the anthropomorphic absurdities of the popular
religion. This one God, he taught, was self-existent, eternal, and
infinite; supreme in power, in goodness, and intelligence.[447] These
characteristics are ascribed to the Deity in the sublime words with
which he opens his philosophic poem--
"There is one God, of all beings, divine and human, the greatest:
Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in mind."
He has no parts, no organs, as men have, being
"All sight, all ear, all intelligence;
Wholly exempt from toil, he sways all things by _thought_ and
_will_."[448]
Xenophanes also taught that God is "uncreated" or "uncaused," and that
he is "excellent" as well as "all-powerful."[449] And yet, regardless of
these explicit utterances, Lewes cautions his readers against supposing
that, by the "one God," Xenophanes meant a Personal God; and he asserts
that his Monotheism was Pantheism. A doctrine, however, which ascribes
to the Divine Being moral as well as intellectual supremacy, which
acknowledges an outward world distinct from Him, and which represents
Him as causing the changes in that universe by the acts of an
intelligent volition, can only by a strange perversion of language be
called pantheism.
[Footnote 447: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38;
Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 428, 429.]
[Footnote 448: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
432, 434.]
[Footnote 449: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 331, note; Ritter's
"History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 428.]
_Parmenides of Elea_ (born B.C. 536) was the philosopher who framed the
psychological opinions of the Idealist school into a precise and
comprehensive system. He was the first carefully to distinguish between
_Truth_ (alêtheian) and _Opinion_ (doxan)--between ideas obtained
through the reason and the simple perceptions of sense. Assuming that
reason and sense are the only sources of knowledge, he held that they
furnish the mind with two distinct classes of cognitions--one variable,
fleeting, and uncertain; the other immutable, necessary, and eternal.
Sense is dependent on the variable organization of the individual, and
therefore its evidence is changeable, uncertain, and nothing but a mere
"_seeming_." Reason is the same in all individuals, and therefore its
evidence is constant, real, and true. Philosophy is, therefore, divided
into two branches--_Physics_ and _Metaphysics_; one, a science of
absolute knowledge; the other, a science of mere appearances. The first
science, Physics, is pronounced illusory and uncertain; the latter,
Metaphysics, is infallible and immutable.[450]
Proceeding on these principles, he rejects the dualistic system of the
universe, and boldly declared that all essences are fundamentally
_one_--that, in fact, there is no real plurality, and that all the
diversity which "appears" is merely presented under a peculiar aesthetic
or sensible law. The senses, it is true, teach us that there are "many
things," but reason affirms that, at bottom, there exists only "the
one." Whatever, therefore, manifests itself in the field of sense is
merely illusory--the mental representation of a phenomenal world, which
to experience seems diversified, but which reason can not possibly admit
to be other than "immovable" and "one." There is but one Being in the
universe, eternal, immovable, absolute; and of this unconditioned being
all phenomenal existences, whether material or mental, are but the
attributes and modes. Hence the two great maxims of the Eleatic school,
derived from Parmenides--ta panta en, "_The All is One_" and to auto
noein te kai einai (Idem est cogitare atque esse), "_Thought and Being
are identical._" The last remarkable dictum is the fundamental principle
of the modern pantheistic doctrine of "absolute identity" as taught by
Schelling and Hegel.[451]
[Footnote 450: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
447, 451.]
[Footnote 451: Id., ib., vol. i. pp. 450, 455.]
Lewes asserts that "Parmenides did not, with Xenophanes, call 'the One'
God; he called it Being.[452] In support of this statement he, however,
cites no ancient authorities. We are therefore justified in rejecting
his opinion, and receiving the testimony of Simplicius, "the only
authority for the fragments of the Eleatics,"[453] and who had a copy of
the philosophic poems of Parmenides. He assures us that Parmenides and
Xenophanes "affirmed that '_the One,_' or unity, was the first Principle
of all,....they meaning by this One _that highest or supreme God_, as
being the cause of unity to all things.... It remaineth, therefore, that
that _Intelligence_ which is the cause of all things, and therefore of
mind and understanding also, in which all things are comprehended in
unity, was Parmenides' one Ens or Being.[454] Parmenides was, therefore,
a spiritualistic or idealistic Pantheist.
_Zeno of Elea_ (born B.C. 500) was the logician of the Eleatic school.
He was, says Diogenes Laertius, "the inventor of Dialectics."[455] Logic
henceforth becomes the organon[456]--organon of the Eleatics.
[Footnote 452: "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 50.]
[Footnote 453: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Simplicius."]
[Footnote 454: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 511.]
[Footnote 455: "Lives," p. 387 (Bohn's edition).]
[Footnote 456: Plato in "Parmen."]
This organon, however, Zeno used very imperfectly. In his hands it was
simply the "reductio ad absurdum" of opposing opinions as the means of
sustaining the tenets of his own sect. Parmenides had asserted, on _à
priori_ grounds, the existence of "the One." Zeno would prove by his
dialectic the non-existence of "the many." His grand position was that
all phenomena, all that appears to sense, is but a _modification_ of the
absolute One. And he displays a vast amount of dialectic subtilty in the
effort to prove that all "appearances" are unreal, and that all movement
and change is a mere "seeming"--not a reality. What men call motion is
only a name given to a series of conditions, each of which, considered
separately, is rest. "Rest is force resistant; motion is force
triumphant."[457] The famous puzzle of "Achilles and the Tortoise," by
which he endeavored to prove the unreality of motion, has been rendered
familiar to the English reader.[458]
[Footnote 457: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 60.]
[Footnote 458: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
475, 476.]
Aristotle assures us that Zeno, "by his one Ens, which neither was moved
nor movable, meaneth God." And he also informs us that "Zeno endeavored
to demonstrate that there is but one God, from the idea which all men
have of him, as that which is the best, supremest, most powerful of all,
or an absolutely perfect being" ("De Xenophane, Zenone, et
Gorgia").[459]
With Zeno we close our survey of the second grand line of independent
inquiry by which philosophy sought to solve the problem of the universe.
The reader will be struck with the resemblance which subsists between
the history of its development and that of the modern Idealist school.
Pythagoras was the Descartes, Parmenides the Spinoza, and Zeno the Hegel
of the Italian school.
In this survey of the speculations of the pre-Socratic schools of
philosophy, we have followed the course of two opposite streams of
thought which had their common origin in one fundamental principle or
law of the human mind--the _intuition of unity_--"or the desire to
comprehend all the facts of the universe in a single formula, and
consummate all conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditioned
existence." The history of this tendency is, in fact, the history of all
philosophy. "The end of all philosophy," says Plato, "is the intuition
of unity." "All knowledge," said the Platonists, "is the gathering up
into one."[460]
[Footnote 459: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 518.]
[Footnote 460: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 67-70 (English
edition).]
Starting from this fundamental idea, _that, beneath the endless flux and
change of the visible universe, there must be a permanent principle of
unity_, we have seen developed two opposite schools of speculative
thought. As the traveller, standing on the ridges of the Andes, may see
the head-waters of the great South American rivers mingling in one, so
the student of philosophy, standing on the elevated plane of analytic
thought, may discover, in this fundamental principle, the common source
of the two great systems of speculative thought which divided the
ancient world. Here are the head-waters of the sensational and the
idealist schools. The Ionian school started its course of inquiry in the
direction of _sense_; it occupied itself solely with the phenomena of
the external world, and it sought this principle of unity in a
_physical_ element. The Italian school started its course of inquiry in
the direction of _reason_; it occupied itself chiefly with rational
conceptions or _à priori_ ideas, and it sought this principle of unity
in purely _metaphysical_ being. And just as the Amazon and La Plata
sweep on, in opposite directions, until they reach the extremities of
the continent, so these two opposite streams of thought rush onward, by
the force of a logical necessity, until they terminate in the two
Unitarian systems of _Absolute Materialism_ and _Absolute Idealism_,
and, in their theological aspects, in a pantheism which, on the one
hand, identifies God with matter, or, on the other hand, swallows up the
universe in God.
The radical error of both these systems is at once apparent. The
testimony of the primary faculties of the mind was not regarded as each,
within its sphere, final and decisive. The duality of consciousness was
not accepted in all its integrity; one school rejected the testimony of
reason, the other denied the veracity of the senses, and both prepared
the way for the _skepticism_ of the Sophists.
We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that there were some
philosophers of the pre-Socratic school, as Anaxagoras and Empedocles,
who recognized the partial and exclusive character of both these
systems, and sought, by a method which Cousin would designate as
Eclecticism, to combine the element of truth contained in each.
_Anaxagoras of Clazomencoe_ (B.C. 500-428) added to the Ionian
philosophy of a material element or elements the Italian idea of a
_spirit_ distinct from, and independent of the world, which has within
itself the principle of a spontaneous activity--Nous autocratês, and
which is the first cause of motion in the universe--archê tês
kinêseôs.[461]
[Footnote 461: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 411.]
In his physical theory, Anaxagoras was an Atomist. Instead of one
element, he declared that the elements or first principles were
numerous, or even infinite. No point in space is unoccupied by these
atoms, which are infinitely divisible. He imagined that, in nature,
there are as many kinds of principles as there are species of compound
bodies, and that the peculiar form of the primary particles of which any
body is composed is the same with the qualities of the compound body
itself. This was the celebrated doctrine of _Homoeomeria_, of which
Lucretius furnishes a luminous account in his philosophic poem "De
Natura Rerum"--
"That bone from bones
Minute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;
And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.
Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,
From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;
And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughout
From primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."[462]
These primary particles were regarded by Anaxagoras as eternal; because
he held the dogma, peculiar to all the Ionians, that nothing can be
really created or annihilated (de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse
reverti). But he saw, nevertheless, that the simple existence of
"_inert_" matter, even from eternity, could not explain the motion and
the harmony of the material world. Hence he saw the necessity of another
power--_the power of Intelligence_. "All things were in chaos; then came
Intelligence and introduced Order."[463]
Anaxagoras, unlike the pantheistic speculators of the Ionian school,
rigidly separated the Supreme Intelligence from the material universe.
The Nous of Anaxagoras is a principle, infinite, independent
(autocratês), omnipresent (en panti pantos moioa enon), the subtilest
and purest of things (lepitotaton paniôn chrêmatôn kaikai katharôtaton);
and incapable of mixture with aught besides; it is also omniscient
(panta egnô), and unchangeable (pas omoios esti).--Simplicius, in
"Arist. Phys." i. 33.[464]
[Footnote 462: Good's translation, bk. i. p. 325.]
[Footnote 463: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 59.]
[Footnote 464: Butler's "Lectures on Philosophy," vol. i. p. 305, note.]
Thus did Anaxagoras bridge the chasm between the Ionian and the Italian
schools. He accepted both doctrines with some modifications. He believed
in the real existence of the phenomenal world, and he also believed in
the real existence of "The Infinite Mind," whose Intelligence and
Omnipotence were manifested in the laws and relations which pervade the
world. He proclaimed the existence of the Infinite Intelligence ("the
ONE"), who was the Architect and Governor of the Infinite Matter ("the
MANY").
On the question as to the origin and certainty of human knowledge,
Anaxagoras differed both from the Ionians and the Eleatics. Neither the
sense alone, nor the reason alone, were for him a ground of certitude.
He held that reason (logos) was the regulative faculty of the mind, as
the Nous, or Supreme Intelligence, was the regulative power of the
universe. And he admitted that the senses were veracious in their
reports; but they reported only in regard to phenomena. The senses,
then, perceive _phenomena_, but it is the reason alone which recognizes
_noumena_, that is, the reason perceives being in and through phenomena,
substance in and through qualities; an anticipation of the fundamental
principle of modern psychology--"_that every power or substance in
existence is knowable to us, so far only, as we know its phenomena_."
Thus, again, does he bridge the chasm that separates between the
Sensationalist and the Idealist. The Ionians relied solely on the
intuitions of sense; the Eleatics accepted only the apperceptions of
pure reason; he accepted the testimony of both, and in the synthesis of
subject and object--the union of an element supplied by sensation, and
an element supplied by reason, he found real, certain knowledge.
The harmony which the doctrine of Anaxagoras introduced into the
philosophy of Athens, soon attracted attention and multiplied disciples.
He was teaching when Socrates arrived in Athens, and the latter attended
his school. The influence which the doctrine of Anaxagoras exerted upon
the mind of Socrates (leading him to recognize Intelligence as the cause
of order and special adaptation in the universe),[465] and also upon the
course of philosophy in the Socratic schools, is the most enduring
memorial of his name.[466]
[Footnote 465: "Phaedo," § 105.]
[Footnote 466: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
We have devoted a much larger space than we originally designed to the
ante-Socratic schools--quite out of proportion, indeed, with that we
shall be able to appropriate to their successors. But inasmuch as all
the great primary problems of thought, which are subsequently discussed
by Plato and Aristotle, were started, and received, at least, typical
answers in those schools, we can not hope to understand Plato, or
Aristotle, or even Epicurus, or Zeno of Cittium, unless we have first
mastered the doctrines of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, and
Anaxagoras.[467] The attention we have bestowed on these early thinkers
will, therefore, have been a valuable preparatory discipline for the
study of
II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
The first cycle of philosophy was now complete. That form of Grecian
speculative thought which, during the first period of its development,
was a philosophy of nature, had reached its maturity; it had sought "the
first principles of all things" in the study of external nature, and had
signally failed. In this pursuit of first principles as the basis of a
true and certain knowledge of the system of the universe, the two
leading schools had been carried to opposite poles of thought. One had
asserted that _experience_ alone, the other, that _reason_ alone was the
sole criterion of truth. As the last consequence of this imperfect
method, Leucippus had denied the existence of "the one," and Zeno had
denied the existence of "the many." The Ionian school, in Democritus,
had landed in Materialism; the Italian, in Parmenides, had ended in
Pantheism; and, as the necessary result of this partial and defective
method of inquiry, which ended in doubt and contradiction, a spirit of
general skepticism was generated in the Athenian mind. If doubt be cast
upon the veracity of the primary cognitive faculties of the mind, the
flood-gates of universal skepticism are opened. If the senses are
pronounced to be mendacious and illusory in their reports regarding
external phenomena, and if the intuitions of the reason, in regard to
the ground and cause of phenomena, are delusive, then we have no ground
of certitude. If one faculty is unveracious and unreliable, how can we
determine that the other is not equally so? There is, then, no such
thing as universal and necessary truth. Truth is variable and uncertain,
as the variable opinion of each individual.
[Footnote 467: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 114; Butler's
"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 87, 88.]
The Sophists, who belonged to no particular school, laid hold on the
elements of skepticism contained in both the pre-Socratic schools of
philosophy, and they declared that "the sophia" was not only
unattainable, but that no relative degree of it was possible for the
human faculties.[468] Protagoras of Abdera accepted the doctrine of
Heraclitus, that thought is identical with sensation, and limited by it;
he therefore declared that there is no criterion of truth, and _Man is
the measure of all things_.[469] Sextus Empiricus gives the
psychological opinions of Protagoras with remarkable explicitness.
"Matter is in a perpetual flux, whilst it undergoes augmentations and
losses; the senses also are modified according to the age and
disposition of the body. He said, also, that the reason of all phenomena
resides in matter as substrata, so that matter, in itself, might be
whatever it appeared to each. But men have different perceptions at
different periods, according to the changes in the things perceived....
Man is, therefore, the criterion of that which exists; all that is
perceived by him exists; _that which is perceived by no man does not
exist_."[470] These conclusions were rigidly and fearlessly applied to
ethics and political science. If there is no Eternal Truth, there can be
no Immutable Right. The distinction of right and wrong is solely a
matter of human opinion and conventional usage.[471] "That which
_appears_ just and honorable to each city, is so for _that city_, so
long as the opinion prevails."[472]
[Footnote 468: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Sophist."]
[Footnote 469: Plato's "Theætetus" (anthropos--"the individual is the
measure of all things"), vol. i. p. 381 (Bohn's edition).]
[Footnote 470: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 117.]
[Footnote 471: "Gorgias," § 85-89.]
[Footnote 472: Plato's "Theætetus," § 65-75.]
There were others who laid hold on the weapons which Zeno had prepared
to their hands. He had asserted that all the objects of sense were mere
phantoms--delusive and transitory. By the subtilties of dialectic
quibbling, he had attempted to prove that "change" meant "permanence,"
and "motion" meant "rest."[473] Words may, therefore, have the most
opposite and contradictory meanings; and all language and all opinion
may, by such a process, be rendered uncertain. One opinion is,
consequently, for the individual, just as good as another; and all
opinions are equally true and untrue. It was nevertheless desirable, for
the good of society, that there should be some agreement, and that, for
a time at least, certain opinions should prevail; and if philosophy had
failed to secure this agreement, rhetoric, at least, was effectual; and,
with the Sophist, rhetoric was "the art of making the worst appear the
better reason." All wisdom was now confined to a species of "word
jugglery," which in Athens was dignified as "the art of disputation."
[Footnote 473: "And do we not know that the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno)
spoke by art in such a manner that the same things appeared to be
similar and dissimilar, one and many, at rest and in
motion?"--"Phædrus," § 97.]
SOCRATES (B.C. 469-399), the grand central figure in the group of
ancient philosophers, arrived in Athens in the midst of this general
skepticism. He had an invincible faith in truth. "He made her the
mistress of his soul, and with patient labor, and unwearied energy, did
his great and noble soul toil after perfect communion with her." He was
disappointed and dissatisfied with the results that had been reached by
the methods of his predecessors, and he was convinced that by these
methods the problem of the universe could not be solved. He therefore
turned away from physical inquiries, and devoted his whole attention to
the study of the human mind, its fundamental beliefs, ideas, and laws.
If he can not penetrate the mysteries of the outer world, he will turn
his attention to the world within. He will "know himself," and find
within himself the reason, and ground, and law of all existence. There
he discovered certain truths which can not possibly be questioned. He
felt he had within his own heart a faithful monitor--a _conscience_,
which he regarded as the voice of God.[474] He believed "he had a divine
teacher with him at all times. Though he did not possess wisdom, this
teacher could put him on the road to seek it, could preserve him from
delusions which might turn him out of the way, could keep his mind fixed
upon the end for which he ought to act and live."[475] In himself,
therefore, he sought that ground of certitude which should save him from
the prevailing skepticism of his times. The Delphic inscription, Gnôti
seauton, "_know thyself_" becomes henceforth the fundamental maxim of
philosophy.
[Footnote 474: The Dæmon of Socrates has been the subject of much
discussion among learned men. The notion, once generally received, that
his _daimôn_ was "a familiar genius," is now regarded as an exploded
error. "Nowhere does Socrates, in Plato or Xenophon, speak of _a_ genius
or demon, but always of a _doemoniac something (to daimonion_, or
_daimonin ti_), or of a _sign_, a _voice_, a _divine sign_, a _divine
voice_" (Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 166).
"Socrates always speaks of a _divine or supernatural somewhat_ ('divinum
quiddam,' as Cicero has it), the nature of which he does not attempt to
divine, and to which he never attributes personality" (Butler's
"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 357). The scholar need not
to be informed that _to daimonion_, in classic literature, means the
divine Essence (Lat. _numen_), to which are attributed events beyond
man's power, yet not to be assigned to any special god.]
[Footnote 475: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 124.]
Truth has a rational, _à priori_ foundation in the constitution of the
human mind. There are _ideas_ connatural to the human reason which are
the copies of those archetypal ideas which belong to the Eternal Reason.
The grand problem of philosophy, therefore, now is--_What are these
fundamental_ IDEAS _which are unchangeable and permanent, amid all the
diversifies of human opinion, connecting appearance with reality, and
constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth_? Socrates
may not have held the doctrine of ideas as exhibited by Plato, but he
certainly believed that there were germs of truth latent in the human
mind--principles which governed, unconsciously, the processes of
thought, and that these could be developed by reflection and by
questioning. These were embryonate in the womb of reason, coming to the
birth, but needing the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art, that they might be
brought forth.[476] He would, therefore, become the accoucheur of ideas,
and deliver minds of that secret truth which lay in their mental
constitution. And thus _Psychology_ becomes the basis of all legitimate
metaphysics.
[Footnote 476: Plato's "Theætetus," § 22.]
By the general consent of antiquity, as well as by the concurrent
judgment of all modern historians of philosophy, Socrates is regarded as
having effected a complete revolution in philosophic thought, and, by
universal consent, he is placed at the commencement of a new era in
philosophy. Schleiermacher has said, "the service which Socrates
rendered to philosophy consisted not so much in the truths arrived at
_as in the_ METHOD _by which truth is sought_." As Bacon inaugurated a
new method in physical inquiry, so Socrates inaugurated a new method in
metaphysical inquiry.
What, then, was this _new method_? It was no other than the _inductive_
method applied to the facts of consciousness. This method is thus
defined by Aristotle: "Induction is the process from particulars to
generals;" that is, it is the process of discovering laws from facts,
causes from effects, being from phenomena. But how is this process of
induction conducted? By observing and enumerating the real facts which
are presented in consciousness, by noting their relations of resemblance
or difference, and by classifying these facts by the aid of these
relations. In other words, it is _analysis_ applied to the phenomena of
mind.[477] Now Socrates gave this method of psychological analysis to
Greek philosophy. There are two things of which Socrates must justly be
regarded as the author,--the _inductive reasoning_ and _abstract
definition_.[478] We readily grant that Socrates employed this method
imperfectly, for methods are the last things perfected in science; but
still, the Socratic movement was a vast movement in the right direction.
[Footnote 477: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
p. 30.]
[Footnote 478: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," vol. xii. ch. iv. p. 359
(Bohn's edition).]
In what are usually regarded as the purely Socratic dialogues,[479]
Plato evidently designs to exhibit this method of Socrates. They proceed
continually on the firm conviction that there is a standard or criterion
of truth in the reason of man, and that, by _reflection_, man can
apprehend and recognize the truth. To awaken this power of reflection;
to compel men to analyze their language and their thoughts; to lead them
from the particular and the contingent, to the universal and the
necessary; and to teach them to test their opinions by the inward
standard of truth, was the aim of Socrates. These dialogues are a
picture of the conversations of Socrates. They are literally an
education of the thinking faculty. Their purpose is to discipline men to
think for themselves, rather than to furnish opinions for them. In many
of these dialogues Socrates affirms nothing. After producing many
arguments, and examining a question on all sides, he leaves it
undetermined. At the close of the dialogue he is as far from a
declaration of opinions as at the commencement. His grand effort, like
that of Bacon's, is to furnish men a correct method of inquiry, rather
than to apply that method and give them results.
[Footnote 479: "Laches," "Charmides," "Lysis," "The Rivals," "First and
Second Alcibiades," "Theages," "Clitophon." See Whewell's translation,
vol. i.]
We must not, however, from thence conclude that Socrates did not himself
attain any definite conclusions, or reach any specific and valuable
results. When, in reply to his friends who reported the answer of the
oracle of Delphi, that "Socrates was the wisest of men," he said, "he
supposed the oracle declared him wise _because he knew nothing_," he did
not mean that true knowledge was unattainable, for his whole life had
been spent in efforts to attain it. He simply indicates the disposition
of mind which is most befitting and most helpful to the seeker after
truth. He must be conscious of his own ignorance. He must not exalt
himself. He must not put his own conceits in the way of the thing he
would know. He must have an open eye, a single purpose, an honest mind,
to prepare him to receive light when it comes. And that there is light,
that there is a source whence light comes, he avowed in every word and
act.
Socrates unquestionably believed in one Supreme God, the immaterial,
infinite Governor of all. He cherished that instinctive, spontaneous
faith in God and his Providence which is the universal faith of the
human heart. He saw this faith revealed in the religious sentiments of
all nations, and in the tendency to worship so universally
characteristic of humanity.[480] He appealed to the consciousness of
absolute dependence--the persuasion, wrought by God in the minds of all
men, that "He is able to make men happy or miserable," and the
consequent sense of obligation which teaches man he ought to obey God.
And he regarded with some degree of affectionate tenderness the common
sentiment of his countrymen, that the Divine Government was conducted
through the ministry of subordinate deities or generated gods. But he
sought earnestly to prevent the presence of these subordinate agents
from intercepting the clear view of the Supreme God.
The faith of Socrates was not, however, grounded on mere feeling and
sentiment. He endeavored to place the knowledge of God on a rational
basis. We can not read the arguments he employed without being convinced
that he anticipated all the subsequent writers on Natural Theology in
his treatment of the argument from _special ends_ or _final causes_. We
venture to abridge the account which is given by Xenophon of the
conversation with Aristodemus:[481]
[Footnote 480: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv. § 16.]
[Footnote 481: Ibid., bk. i. ch. iv.]
"I will now relate the manner in which I once heard Socrates discoursing
with Aristodemus concerning the Deity; for, observing that he never
prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, but, on the contrary, ridiculed those
who did, he said to him:
"'Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man you admire on account of his
merits? Aristodemus having answered, 'Many,--'Name some of them, I pray
you,' said Socrates. 'I admire,' said Aristodemus, 'Homer for his Epic
poetry, Melanippides for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for his tragedy,
Polycletus for statuary, and Zeuxis for painting.'
"'But which seemed to you most worthy of admiration, Aristodemus--the
artist who forms images void of motion and intelligence, or one who has
skill to produce animals that are endued, not only with activity, but
understanding?'
"'The latter, there can be no doubt,' replied Aristodemus, 'provided the
production was not the effect of chance, but of wisdom and contrivance.'
"'But since there are many things, some of which we can easily see the
use of, while we can not say of others to what purpose they are
produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do you suppose the work of
wisdom?'
"'It would seem the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness
and utility are so evidently apparent,' answered Aristodemus.
"'But it is evidently apparent that He who, at the beginning, made man,
endued him with senses because they were good for him; eyes wherewith to
behold what is visible, and ears to hear whatever was heard; for, say,
Aristodemus, to what purpose should odor be prepared, if the sense of
smelling had been denied or why the distinction of bitter or sweet, of
savory or unsavory, unless a palate had been likewise given,
conveniently placed to arbitrate between them and proclaim the
difference? Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent
manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of a man is so delicate in
its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors whereby to
secure it, which extend of themselves whenever it is needful, and again
close when sleep approaches? Are not these eyelids provided, as it were,
with a fence on the edge of them to keep off the wind and guard the eye?
Even the eyebrow itself is not without its office, but, as a penthouse,
is prepared to turn off the sweat, which falling from the forehead might
enter and annoy that no less tender than astonishing part of us. Is it
not to be admired that the ears should take in sounds of every sort, and
yet are not too much filled with them? That the fore teeth of the animal
should be formed in such a manner as is evidently best for cutting, and
those on the side for grinding it to pieces? That the mouth, through
which this food is conveyed, should be placed so near the nose and eyes
as to prevent the passing unnoticed whatever is unfit for
nourishment?... And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus, whether a
_disposition of parts like this should be a work of chance, or of wisdom
and contrivance_?'
"'I have no longer any doubt,' replied Aristodemus; 'and, indeed, the
more I consider it, the more evident it appears to me that man must be
the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it infinite
marks of the love and favor of Him who hath thus formed it.'
"'But, further (unless thou desirest to ask me questions), seeing,
Aristodemus, thou thyself art conscious of reason and intelligence,
supposest thou there is no intelligence elsewhere? Thou knowest thy body
to be a small part of that wide-extended earth thou everywhere
beholdest; the moisture contained in it thou also knowest to be a
portion of that mighty mass of waters whereof seas themselves are but a
part, while the rest of the elements contribute out of their abundance
to thy formation. It is the _soul_, then, alone, that intellectual part
of us, which is come to thee by some lucky chance, from I know not
where. If so, there is no intelligence elsewhere; and we must be forced
to confess that this stupendous universe, with all the various bodies
contained therein--equally amazing, whether we consider their magnitude
or number, whatever their use, whatever their order--all have been
produced by chance, not by intelligence!'
"'It is with difficulty that I can suppose otherwise,' returned
Aristodemus; 'for I behold none of those gods whom you speak of as
framing and governing the world; whereas I see the artists when at their
work here among us.'
"'Neither yet seest thou thy soul, Aristodemus, which, however, most
assuredly governs thy body; although it may well seem, by thy manner of
talking, that it is chance and not reason which governs thee.'
"'I do not despise the gods,' said Aristodemus; 'on the contrary, I
conceive so highly of their excellency, as to suppose they stand in no
need of me or of my services.'
"'Thou mistakest the matter,' Aristodemus, 'the great magnificence they
have shown in their care of thee, so much the more honor and service
thou owest them.'
"'Be assured,' said Aristodemus, 'if I once could persuade myself the
gods take care of man, I should want no monitor to remind me of my
duty.'
"'And canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care of man? Hath
not the glorious privilege of walking upright been alone bestowed on
him, whereby he may with the better advantage survey what is around him,
contemplate with more ease those splendid objects which are above, and
avoid the numerous ills and inconveniences which would otherwise befall
him? Other animals, indeed, they have provided with feet; but to man
they have also given hands, with which he can form many things for use,
and make himself happier than creatures of any other kind. A tongue hath
been bestowed on every other animal; but what animal, except man, hath
the power of forming words with it whereby to explain his thoughts and
make them intelligible to others? But it is not with respect to the body
alone that the gods have shown themselves bountiful to man. Their most
excellent gift is that of a soul they have infused into him, which so
far surpasses what is elsewhere to be found; for by what animal except
man is even the existence of the gods discovered, who have produced and
still uphold in such regular order this beautiful and stupendous frame
of the universe? What other creature is to be found that can serve and
adore them?... In thee, Aristodemus, has been joined to a wonderful soul
a body no less wonderful; and sayest thou, after this, the gods take no
thought for me? What wouldst thou, then, more to convince thee of their
care?'
"'I would they should send and inform me,' said Aristodemus, 'what
things I ought or ought not to do, in like manner as thou sayest they
frequently do to thee.'"
In reply, Socrates shows that the revelations of God which are made in
nature, in history, in consciousness, and by oracles, are made _for_ all
men and _to_ all men. He then concludes with these remarkable words:
"As, therefore, amongst men we make best trial of the affection and
gratitude of our neighbor by showing him kindness, and make discovery of
his wisdom by consulting him in our distress, do thou, in like manner,
behave towards the gods; and if thou wouldst experience what their
wisdom and their love, render thyself deserving of some of those divine
secrets which may not be penetrated by man, and are imparted to those
alone who consult, who adore, and who obey the Deity. Then shalt thou,
my Aristodemus, understand _there is a Being whose eye passes through
all nature, and whose ear is open to every sound; extended to all
places, extending through all time; and whose bounty and care can know
no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation_".[482]
[Footnote 482: Lewes's translation, in "Biog. History of Philosophy,"
pp. 160-165.]
Socrates was no less earnest in his belief in the immortality of the
soul, and a state of future retribution. He had reverently listened to
the intuitions of his own soul--the instinctive longings and aspirations
of his own heart, as a revelation from God. He felt that all the powers
and susceptibilities of his inward nature were in conscious adaptation
to the idea of immortality, and that its realization was the appropriate
destiny of man. He was convinced that a future life was needed to avenge
the wrongs and reverse the unjust judgments of the present life;[483]
needed that virtue may receive its meet reward, and the course of
Providence may have its amplest vindication. He saw this faith reflected
in the universal convictions of mankind, and the "common traditions" of
all ages.[484] No one refers more frequently than Socrates to the grand
old mythologic stories which express this faith; to Minos, and
Rhadamanthus, and Æacus, and Triptolemus, who are "real judges," and
who, in "the Place of Departed Spirits, administer _justice_."[485] He
believed that in that future state the pursuit of wisdom would be his
chief employment, and he anticipated the pleasure of mingling in the
society of the wise, and good, and great of every age.
[Footnote 483: "Apology," § 32, p. 329 (Whewell's edition).]
[Footnote 484: Ibid.]
[Footnote 485: "Apology," p. 330.]
Whilst, then, Socrates was not the first to teach the doctrine of
immortality, because no one could be said to have first _discovered_ it
any more than to have first discovered the existence of a God, he was
certainly the first to place it upon a philosophic basis. The Phædo
presents the doctrine and the _reasoning_ by which Socrates had elevated
his mind above the fear of death. Some of the arguments may be purely
Platonic, the argument especially grounded on "ideas;" still, as a
whole, it must be regarded as a tolerably correct presentation of the
manner in which Socrates would prove the immortality of the soul.
In _Ethics_, Socrates was pre-eminently himself. The systematic
resolution of the whole theory of society into the elementary principle
of natural law, was peculiar to him. _Justice_ was the cardinal
principle which must lie at the foundation of all good government. The
word sophia--_wisdom_--included all excellency in personal morals,
whether as manifested (reflectively) in the conduct of one's self, or
(socially) towards others. And _Happiness_, in its purity and
perfection, can only be found in virtuous action.[486]
[Footnote 486: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
360, 361.]
Socrates left nothing behind him that could with propriety be called a
_school_. His chief glory is that he inaugurated a new _method_ of
inquiry, which, in Plato and Aristotle, we shall see applied. He gave a
new and vital impulse to human thought, which endured for ages; "and he
left, as an inheritance for humanity, the example of a heroic life
devoted wholly to the pursuit of truth, and crowned with martyrdom."