[Footnote *: As stated in the prefatory note to this edition, the
present and the following chapter have been, for convenience,
transferred from the place given to them by the author, to their
present position.]
OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
Having dwelt at some length on the life and compositions of Plato, I
now proceed to place in comparison with him some other members of the
Sokratic philosophical family: less eminent, indeed, than the
illustrious author of the Republic, yet still men of marked character,
ability, and influence.[1] Respecting one of the brethren, Xenophon,
who stands next to Plato in celebrity, I shall say a few words
separately in my next and concluding chapter.
[Footnote 1: Dionysius of Halikarnassus contrasts Plato with [Greek:
to\ Sôkra/tous didaskalei=on pa=n] (De Adm. Vi Dic. Demosthen. p.
956.) Compare also Epistol. ad Cn. Pomp. p. 762, where he contrasts
the style and phraseology of Plato with that of the [Greek:
Sôkratikoi\ dia/logoi] generally.]
[Side-note: Influence exercised by Sokrates over his companions.]
The ascendancy of Sokrates over his contemporaries was powerfully
exercised in more than one way. He brought into vogue new subjects
both of indefinite amplitude, and familiar as well as interesting to
every one. On these subjects, moreover, he introduced, or at least
popularised, a new method of communication, whereby the relation of
teacher and learner, implying a direct transfer of ready-made
knowledge from the one to the other, was put aside. He substituted an
interrogatory process, at once destructive and suggestive, in which
the teacher began by unteaching and the learner by unlearning what was
supposed to be already known, for the purpose of provoking in the
learner's mind a self-operative energy of thought, and an internal
generation of new notions. Lastly, Sokrates worked forcibly upon the
minds of several friends, who were in the habit of attending him when
he talked in the market-place or the palæstra. Some tried to copy his
wonderful knack of colloquial cross-examination: how far they did so
with success or reputation we do not know: but Xenophon says that
several of them would only discourse with those who paid them a fee,
and that they thus sold for considerable sums what were only small
fragments obtained gratuitously from the rich table of their
master.[2] There were moreover several who copied the general style of
his colloquies by composing written dialogues. And thus it happened
that the great master,--he who passed his life in the oral application
of his Elenchus, without writing anything,--though he left no worthy
representative in his own special career, became the father of
numerous written dialogues and of a rich philosophical literature.[3]
[Footnote 2: Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 60. [Greek: ô(=n tine\s mikra\
me/rê par' e)kei/nou proi=ka labo/ntes pollou= toi=s a)/llois
e)pô/loun, kai\ ou)k ê)=san ô(/sper e)kei=nos dêmotikoi/; toi=s ga\r
mê\ e)/chousi chrê/mata dido/nai ou)k ê)/thelon diale/gesthai.]]
[Footnote 3: We find a remarkable proof how long the name and
conception of Sokrates lasted in the memory of the Athenian public, as
having been the great progenitor of the philosophy and philosophers of
the fourth century B.C. in Athens. It was about 306 B.C., almost a
century after the death of Sokrates, that Democharês (the nephew of
the orator Demosthenes) delivered an oration before the Athenian
judicature for the purpose of upholding the law proposed by Sophokles,
forbidding philosophers or Sophists to lecture without a license
obtained from the government; which law, passed a year before, had
determined the secession of all the philosophers from Athens until the
law was repealed. In this oration Democharês expatiated on the
demerits of many philosophers, their servility, profligate ambition,
rapacity, want of patriotism, &c., from which Athenæus makes several
extracts. [Greek: Toiou=toi ei)sin oi( a)po\ philosophi/as stratêgoi/;
peri\ ô(=n Dêmocha/rês e)/legen,--Ô(/sper e)k thu/mbras ou)dei\s a)\n
du/naito kataskeua/sai lo/gchên, ou)/d' e)k _Sôkra/tous stratiô/tên
a)/mempton_].
Demetrius Phalereus also, in or near that same time, composed a
[Greek: Sôkra/tous a)pologi/an] (Diog. La. ix. 37-57). This shows how
long the interest in the personal fate and character of Sokrates
endured at Athens.]
[Side-note: Names of those companions.]
Besides Plato and Xenophon, whose works are known to us, we hear of
Alexamenus, Antisthenes, Æschines, Aristippus, Bryson, Eukleides,
Phædon, Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, &c., as having composed dialogues of
this sort. All of them were companions of Sokrates; several among them
either set down what they could partially recollect of his
conversations, or employed his name as a dramatic speaker of their own
thoughts. Seven of these dialogues were ascribed to Æschines,
twenty-five to Aristippus, seventeen to Kriton, twenty-three to Simmias,
three to Kebês, six to Eukleides, four to Phædon. The compositions of
Antisthenes were far more numerous: ten volumes of them, under a
variety of distinct titles (some of them probably not in the form of
dialogues) being recorded by Diogenes.[4] Aristippus was the first of
the line of philosophers called Kyrenaic or Hedonic, afterwards (with
various modifications) Epikurean: Antisthenes, of the Cynics and
Stoics: Eukleides, of the Megaric school. It seems that Aristippus,
Antisthenes, Eukleides, and Bryson, all enjoyed considerable
reputation, as contemporaries and rival authors of Plato: Æschines,
Antisthenes (who was very poor), and Aristippus, are said to have
received money for their lectures; Aristippus being named as the first
who thus departed from the Sokratic canon.[5]
[Footnote 4: Diogenes Laert. 1. 47-61-83, vi. 15; Athenæ. xi. p. 505
C.
Bryson is mentioned by Theopompus ap. Athenæum, xi. p. 508 D.
Theopompus, the contemporary of Aristotle and pupil of Isokrates, had
composed an express treatise or discourse against Plato's dialogues,
in which discourse he affirmed that most of them were not Plato's own,
but borrowed in large proportion from the dialogues of Antisthenes,
Aristippus, and Bryson. Ephippus also, the comic writer (of the fourth
century B.C., contemporary with Theopompus, perhaps even earlier),
spoke of Bryson as contemporary with Plato (Athenæ. xi. 509 C). This
is good proof to authenticate Bryson as a composer of "Sokratic
dialogues" belonging to the Platonic age, along with Antisthenes and
Aristippus: whether Theopompus is correct when he asserts that Plato
borrowed _much_, from the three, is very doubtful.
Many dialogues were published by various writers, and ascribed falsely
to one or other of the _viri Sokratici_: Diogenes (ii. 64) reports the
judgment delivered by Panætius, which among them were genuine and
which not so. Panætius considered that the dialogues ascribed to
Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Æschines, were genuine; that those
assigned to Phædon and Eukleides were doubtful; and that the rest were
all spurious. He thus regarded as spurious those of Alexamenus,
Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, Simon, Bryson, &c., or he did not know them
all. It is possible that Panætius may not have known the dialogues of
Bryson; if he did know them and believed them to be spurious, I should
not accept his assertion, because I think that it is outweighed by the
contrary testimony of Theopompus. Moreover, though Panætius was a very
able man, confidence in his critical estimate is much shaken when we
learn that he declared the Platonic Phædon to be spurious.]
[Footnote 5: Diogen. Laert. i. 62-65; Athenæus, xi. p. 507 C.
Dion Chrysostom (Orat. lv. De Homero et Socrate, vol. ii. p. 289,
Reiske) must have had in his view some of these other Sokratic
dialogues, not those composed by Plato or Xenophon, when he alludes to
conversations of Sokrates with Lysikles, Glykon, and Anytus; what he
says about Anytus can hardly refer to the Platonic Menon.]
[Side-note: Æschines--oration of Lysias against him.]
Æschines the companion of Sokrates did not become (like Eukleides,
Antisthenes, Aristippus) the founder of a succession or sect of
philosophers. The few fragments remaining of his dialogues do not
enable us to appreciate their merit. He seems to have employed the
name of Aspasia largely as a conversing personage, and to have
esteemed her highly. He also spoke with great admiration of
Themistokles. But in regard to present or recent characters, he stands
charged with much bitterness and ill-nature: especially we learn that
he denounced the Sophists Prodikus and Anaxaras, the first on the
ground of having taught Theramenes, the second as the teacher of two
worthless persons--Ariphrades and Arignôtus. This accusation deserves
greater notice, because it illustrates the odium raised by Melêtus
against Sokrates as having instructed Kritias and Alkibiades.[6]
Moreover, we have Æschines presented to us in another character, very
unexpected in a _vir Socraticus_. An action for recovery of money
alleged to be owing was brought in the Athenian Dikastery against
Æschines, by a plaintiff, who set forth his case in a speech composed
by the rhetor Lysias. In this speech it is alleged that Æschines,
having engaged in trade as a preparer and seller of unguents, borrowed
a sum of money at interest from the plaintiff; who affirms that he
counted with assurance upon honest dealing from a disciple of
Sokrates, continually engaged in talking about justice and virtue.[7]
But so far was this expectation from being realized, that Æschines had
behaved most dishonestly. He repaid neither principal nor interest;
though a judgment of the Dikastery had been obtained against him, and
a branded slave belonging to him had been seized under it. Moreover,
Æschines had been guilty of dishonesty equally scandalous in his
dealings with many other creditors also. Furthermore, he had made love
to a rich woman seventy years old, and had got possession of her
property; cheating and impoverishing her family. His character as a
profligate and cheat was well known and could be proved by many
witnesses. Such are the allegations against Æschines, contained in the
fragment of a lost speech of Lysias, and made in open court by a real
plaintiff. How much of them could be fairly proved, we cannot say: but
it seems plain at least that Æschines must have been a trader as well
as a philosopher. All these writers on philosophy must have had their
root and dealings in real life, of which we know scarce anything.
[Footnote 6: Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24-32; Cicero, De Invent. i. 31;
Athenæus, v. 220. Some other citations will be found in Fischer's
collection of the few fragments of Æschines Sokraticus (Leipsic, 1788,
p. 68 seq.), though some of the allusions which he produces seem
rather to belong to the orator Æschines. The statements of Athenæus,
from the dialogue of Æschines called Telaugês, are the most curious.
The dialogue contained, among other things, [Greek: tê\n Prodi/kou
kai\ A)naxago/rous _tô=n sophistô=n_ diamô/kêsin], where we see
Anaxagoras denominated a Sophist (see also Diodor. xii. 39) as well as
Prodikus. Fischer considers the three Pseudo-Platonic
dialogues--[Greek: Peri\ A)retê=s, Peri\ Plou/tou, Peri\ Thana/tou]--as
the works of Æschines. But this is noway established.]
[Footnote 7: Athenæus, xiii. pp. 611-612. [Greek: Peisthei\s d' u(p'
au)tou= toiau=ta le/gontos, kai\ a(/ma oi)o/menos tou=ton Ai)schi/nên
Sôkra/tous gegone/nai mathêtê/n, kai\ peri\ dikaiosu/nês kai\ a)retê=s
pollou\s kai\ semnou\s le/gonta lo/gous, ou)k a)/n pote e)picheirê=sai
ou)de\ tolmê=sai a(/per oi( ponêro/tatoi kai\ a)dikô/tatoi a)/nthrôpoi
e)picheirou=si pra/ttein].
We read also about another oration of Lysias against Æschines--[Greek:
peri\ sukophanti/as] (Diogen. Laert. ii. 63), unless indeed it be the
same oration differently described.]
[Side-note: Written Sokratic Dialogues--their general character.]
The dialogues known by the title of Sokratic dialogues,[8] were
composed by all the principal companions of Sokrates, and by many who
were not companions. Yet though thus composed by many different
authors, they formed a recognised class of literature, noticed by the
rhetorical critics as distinguished for plain, colloquial, unstudied,
dramatic execution, suiting the parts to the various speakers: from
which general character Plato alone departed--and he too not in all of
his dialogues. By the Sokratic authors generally Sokrates appears to
have been presented under the same main features: his proclaimed
confession of ignorance was seldom wanting: and the humiliation which
his cross-questioning inflicted even upon insolent men like
Alkibiades, was as keenly set forth by Æschines as by Plato: moreover
the Sokratic disciples generally were fond of extolling the Dæmon or
divining prophecy of their master.[9] Some dialogues circulating under
the name of some one among the companions of Sokrates, were spurious,
and the authorship was a point not easy to determine. Simon, a currier
at Athens, in whose shop Sokrates often conversed, is said to have
kept memoranda of the conversations which he heard, and to have
afterwards published them: Æschines also, and some other of the
Sokratic companions, were suspected of having preserved or procured
reports of the conversations of the master himself, and of having made
much money after his death by delivering them before select
audiences.[10] Aristotle speaks of the followers of Antisthenes as
unschooled, vulgar men: but Cicero appears to have read with
satisfaction the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom he designates as acute
though not well-instructed.[11] Other accounts describe his dialogues
as composed in a rhetorical style, which is ascribed to the fact of
his having received lessons from Gorgias:[12] and Theopompus must have
held in considerable estimation the dialogues of that same author, as
well as those of Aristippus and Bryson, when he accused Plato of
having borrowed from them largely.[13]
[Footnote 8: Aristotel. ap. Athenæum, xi. p. 505 C; Rhetoric. iii. 16.
Dionys. Halikarnass. ad Cn. Pomp. de Platone, p. 762, Reiske. [Greek:
Traphei\s] (Plato) [Greek: e)n toi=s Sôkratikoi=s dialo/gois
i)schnota/tois ou)=si kai\ a)kribesta/tois, ou) mei/nas d' e)n
au)toi=s, a)lla\ tê=s Gorgi/ou kai\ Thoukudi/dou kataskeuê=s
e)rasthei/s]: also, De Admir. Vi Dicend. in Demosthene, p. 968. Again
in the same treatise De Adm. V. D. Demosth. p. 956. [Greek: ê( de\
e(te/ra le/xis, ê( litê\ kai\ a)phelê\s kai\ dokou=sa kataskeuê/n te
kai\ i)schu\n tê\n pro\s i)diô/tên e)/chein lo/gon kai\ o(moio/têta,
pollou\s me\n e)/sche kai\ a)gathou\s a)/ndras prosta/tas--kai\ oi(
tô=n ê)thikô=n dialo/gôn poiêtai/, ô(=n ê)=n to\ Sôkratiko\n
didaskalei=on pa=n, e)/xô Pla/tônos], &c.
Dionysius calls this style [Greek: o( Sôkratiko\s charaktê\r] p. 1025.
I presume it is the same to which the satirist Timon applies the
words:--
[Greek: A)sthenikê/ te lo/gôn duas ê)\ tria\s ê)\ e)/ti po/rsô,
Oi)=os Xeinopho/ôn, ê)/t' Ai)schi/nou ou)k e)pipeithê\s
gra/psai--] Diogen. La. ii. 55.
Lucian, Hermogenes, Phrynichus, Longinus, and some later rhetorical
critics of Greece judged more favourably than Timon about the style of
Æschines as well as of Xenophon. See Zeller, Phil. d. Griech. ii. p.
171, sec. ed. And Demetrius Phalereus (or the author of the treatise
which bears his name), as well as the rhetor Aristeides, considered
Æschines and Plato as the best representatives of the [Greek:
Sôkratiko\s charaktê/r], Demetr. Phaler. De Interpretat. 310;
Aristeides, Orat. Platon. i. p. 35; Photius, Cods. 61 and 158;
Longinus, ap. Walz. ix. p. 559, c. 2. Lucian says (De Parasito, 33)
that Æschines passed some time with the elder Dionysius at Syracuse,
to whom he read aloud his dialogue, entitled Miltiades, with great
success.
An inedited discourse of Michæl Psellus, printed by Mr. Cox in his
very careful and valuable catalogue of the MSS. in the Bodleian
Library, recites the same high estimate as having been formed of
Æschines by the chief ancient rhetorical critics: they reckoned him
among and alongside of the foremost Hellenic classical writers, as
having his own peculiar merits of style--[Greek: para\ me\n Pla/tôni,
tê\n dialogikê\n phra/sin, para\ de\ tou= Sôkratikou= Ai)schi/nou,
tê\n e)mmelê= sunthê/kên tô=n le/xeôn, para\ de\ Thoukudi/dou], &c.
See Mr. Cox's Catalogue, pp. 743-745. Cicero speaks of the Sokratic
philosophers generally, as writing with an elegant playfulness of
style (De Officiis, i. 29, 104): which is in harmony with Lucian's
phrase--[Greek: Ai)schi/nês o( tou\s dialo/gous makrou\s kai\
a)stei/ous gra/psas], &c.]
[Footnote 9: Cicero, Brutus, 85, s. 292; De Divinatione, i. 54-122;
Aristeides, Orat. xlv. [Greek: peri\ R(êtorikê=s] Orat. xlvi. [Greek:
U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], vol. ii. pp. 295-369, ed. Dindorf. It appears
by this that some of the dialogues composed by Æschines were mistaken
by various persons for actual conversations held by Sokrates. It was
argued, that because Æschines was inferior to Plato in ability, he was
more likely to have repeated accurately what he had heard Sokrates
say.]
[Footnote 10: Diog. L. ii. 122. He mentions a collection of
thirty-three dialogues in one volume, purporting to be reports of real
colloquies of Sokrates, published by Simon. But they can hardly be
regarded as genuine.
The charge here mentioned is advanced by Xenophon (see a preceding
note, Memorab. i. 2, 60), against some persons ([Greek: tine\s]), but
without specifying names. About Æschines, see Athenæus, xiii. p. 611
C; Diogen. Laert. ii. 62.]
[Footnote 11: Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, xii. 38:--"viri acuti magis
quam eruditi," is the judgment of Cicero upon Antisthenes. I presume
that these words indicate the same defect as that which is intended by
Aristotle when he says--[Greek: oi( A)nthisthe/neioi kai\ oi( ou(/tôs
_a)pai/deutoi_], Metaphysic. [Greek: Ê]. 3, p. 1043, b. 24. It is
plain, too, that Lucian considered the compositions of Antisthenes as
not unworthy companions to those of Plato (Lucian, adv. Indoctum, c.
27).]
[Footnote 12: Diogen. Laert. vi. 1. If it be true that Antisthenes
received lessons from Gorgias, this proves that Gorgias must sometimes
have given lessons _gratis_; for the poverty of Antisthenes is well
known. See the Symposion of Xenophon.]
[Footnote 13: Theopomp. ap. Athenæ. xi. p. 508. See K. F. Hermann,
Ueber Plato's Schriftsteller. Motive, p. 300. An extract of some
length, of a dialogue composed by Æschines between Sokrates and
Alkibiades, is given by Aristeides, Or. xlvi. [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n
Tetta/rôn], vol. ii. pp. 292-294, ed. Dindorf.]
[Side-note: Relations between the companions of Sokrates--Their
proceedings after the death of Sokrates.]
Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, were all companions and
admirers of Sokrates, as was Plato. But none of them were his
disciples, in the strict sense of the word: none of them continued or
enforced his doctrines, though each used his name as a spokesman.
During his lifetime the common attachment to his person formed a bond
of union, which ceased at his death. There is indeed some ground for
believing that Plato then put himself forward in the character of
leader, with a view to keep the body united.[14] We must recollect
that Plato though then no more than twenty-eight years of age, was the
only one among them who combined the advantages of a noble Athenian
descent, opulent circumstances, an excellent education, and great
native genius. Eukleides and Aristippus were neither of them
Athenians: Antisthenes was very poor: Xenophon was absent on service
in the Cyreian army. Plato's proposition, however, found no favour
with the others and was even indignantly repudiated by Apollodorus: a
man ardently attached to Sokrates, but violent and overboiling in all
his feelings.[15] The companions of Sokrates, finding themselves
unfavourably looked upon at Athens after his death, left the city for
a season and followed Eukleides to Megara. How long they stayed there
we do not know. Plato is said, though I think on no sufficient
authority, to have remained absent from Athens for several years
continuously. It seems certain (from an anecdote recounted by
Aristotle)[16] that he talked with something like arrogance among the
companions of Sokrates: and that Aristippus gently rebuked him by
reminding him how very different had been the language of Sokrates
himself. Complaints too were made by contemporaries, about Plato's
jealous, censorious, spiteful, temper. The critical and disparaging
tone of his dialogues, notwithstanding the admiration which they
inspire, accounts for the existence of these complaints: and anecdotes
are recounted, though not verified by any sufficient evidence, of
ill-natured dealing on his part towards other philosophers who were
poorer than himself.[17] Dissension or controversy on philosophical
topics is rarely carried on without some invidious or hostile feeling.
Athens, and the _viri Sokratici_, Plato included, form no exception to
this ordinary malady of human nature.
[Footnote 14: Athenæus, xi. p. 507 A-B. from the [Greek: u(pomnê/mata]
of the Delphian Hegesander. Who Hegesander was, I do not know: but
there is nothing improbable in the anecdote which he recounts.]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Phædon. pp. 59 A. 117 D. Eukleides, however,
though his school was probably at Megara, seems to have possessed
property in Attica: for there existed, among the orations of Isæus, a
pleading composed by that rhetor for some client--[Greek: Pro\s
Eu)klei/dên to\n Sôkratiko\n a)mphisbê/têsis u(pe\r tê=s tou= chôri/ou
lu/seôs] (Dion. Hal., Isæ., c. 14, p. 612 Reiske) Harpokr.--[Greek:
O(/ti ta\ e)pikêrutto/mena]: also under some other words by
Harpokration and by Pollux, viii. 48.]
[Footnote 16: Aristot. Rhet. ii. 23, p. 1398, b. 30. [Greek: ê)\ ô(s
A)ri/stippos, pro\s Pla/tôna e)paggeltikô/tero/n ti ei)po/nta, ô(s
ô(/|eto--a)lla\ mê\n o( g' e(tai=ros ê(mô=n, e)/phê, ou)the\n
toiou=ton--le/gôn to\n Sôkra/tên].
This anecdote, mentioned by Aristotle, who had good means of knowing,
appears quite worthy of belief. The jealousy and love of supremacy
inherent in Plato's temper ([Greek: to\ philo/timon]), were noticed by
Dionysius Hal. (Epist. ad Cn. Pompeium, p. 756).]
[Footnote 17: Athenæus, xi. pp. 505-508. Diog. Laert. ii. 60-65, iii.
36.
The statement made by Plato in the Phædon--That Aristippus and
Kleombrotus were not present at the death of Sokrates, but were said
to be in Ægina--is cited as an example of Plato's ill-will and
censorious temper (Demetr. Phaler. s. 306). But this is unfair. The
statement ought not to be so considered, if it were true: and if not
true, it deserves a more severe epithet. We read in Athenæus various
other criticisms, citing or alluding to passages of Plato, which are
alleged to indicate ill-nature; but many of the passages cited do not
deserve the remark.]
[Side-note: No Sokratic school--each of the companions took a line of
his own.]
It is common for historians of philosophy to speak of a Sokratic
school: but this phrase, if admissible at all, is only admissible in
the largest and vaguest sense. The effect produced by Sokrates upon
his companions was, not to teach doctrine, but to stimulate
self-working enquiry, upon ethical and social subjects. Eukleides,
Antisthenes, Aristippus, each took a line of his own, not less
decidedly than Plato. But unfortunately we have no compositions
remaining from either of the three. We possess only brief reports
respecting some leading points of their doctrine, emanating altogether
from those who disagreed with it: we have besides aphorisms, dicta,
repartees, bons-mots, &c., which they are said to have uttered. Of
these many are evident inventions; some proceeding from opponents and
probably coloured or exaggerated, others hardly authenticated at all.
But if they were ever so well authenticated, they would form very
insufficient evidence on which to judge a philosopher--much less to
condemn him with asperity.[18] Philosophy (as I have already observed)
aspires to deliver not merely truth, but reasoned truth. We ought to
know not only what doctrines a philosopher maintained, but how he
maintained them:--what objections others made against him, and how he
replied:--what objections he made against dissentient doctrines, and
what replies were made to him. Respecting Plato and Aristotle, we
possess such information to a considerable extent:--respecting
Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, we are without it. All their
compositions (very numerous, in the case of Antisthenes) have
perished.
[Footnote 18: Respecting these ancient philosophers, whose works are
lost, I transcribe a striking passage from Descartes, who complains,
in his own case, of the injustice of being judged from the statements
of others, and not from his own writings:--"Quod adeo in hâc materiâ
verum est, ut quamvis sæpe _aliquas ex meis opinionibus explicaverim
viris acutissimis_, et qui _me loquente videbantur eas valdé distincté
intelligere: attamen cum eas retulerunt, observavi_ ipsos fere _semper
illas ita mutavisse, ut pro meis agnoscere amplius non possem._ Quâ
occasione posteros hic oratos volo, ut nunquam credant, quidquam à me
esse profectum, quod ipse in lucem non edidero. _Et nullo modo miror
absurda illa dogmata, quæ veteribus illis philosophis tribuuntur,
quorum scripta non habemus_: nec propterea judico ipsorum cogitationes
valdé à ratione fuisse alienas, cum habuerint præstantissima suorum
sæculorum ingenia; sed tantum nobis perperam esse relatas."
(Descartes, Diss. De Methodo, p. 43.)]
* * * * *
EUKLEIDES.
[Side-note: Eukleides of Megara--he blended Parmenides with Sokrates.]
Eukleides was a Parmenidean, who blended the ethical point of view of
Sokrates with the ontology of Parmenides, and followed out that
negative Dialectic which was common to Sokrates with Zeno. Parmenides
(I have with already said)[19] and Zeno after him, recognised no
absolute reality except Ens Unum, continuous, indivisible: they denied
all real plurality: they said that the plural was Non-Ens or Nothing,
_i.e._ nothing real or absolute, but only apparent, perpetually
transient and changing, relative, different as appreciated by one man
and by another. Now Sokrates laid it down that wisdom or knowledge of
Good, was the sum total of ethical perfection, including within it all
the different virtues: he spoke also about the divine wisdom inherent
in, or pervading the entire Kosmos or universe.[20] Eukleides blended
together the Ens of Parmenides with the Good of Sokrates, saying that
the two names designated one and the same thing: sometimes called
Good, Wisdom, Intelligence, God, &c., and by other names also, but
always one and the same object named and meant. He farther maintained
that the opposite of Ens, and the opposite of Bonum (Non-Ens,
Non-Bonum, or Malum) were things non-existent, unmeaning names,
Nothing,[21] &c.: _i.e._ that they were nothing really, absolutely,
permanently, but ever varying and dependent upon our ever varying
conceptions. The One--the All--the Good--was absolute, immoveable,
invariable, indivisible. But the opposite thereof was a non-entity or
nothing: there was no one constant meaning corresponding to Non-Ens--but
a variable meaning, different with every man who used it.
[Footnote 19: See ch. i. pp. 19-22.]
[Footnote 20: Xenophon. Memor. i. 4, 17. [Greek: tê\n e)n tô=| panti\
phro/nêsin]. Compare Plato, Philêbus, pp. 29-30; Cicero, Nat. Deor.
ii. 6, 6, iii. 11.]
[Footnote 21: Diog. L. ii. 106. [Greek: Ou)=tos e)\n to\ a)gatho\n
a)pephê/|nato polloi=s o)no/masi kalou/menon; o(/te me\n ga\r
phro/nêsin, o(/te de\ theo/n, kai\ a)/llote nou=n kai\ ta\ loipa/. Ta\
de\ a)ntikei/mena tô=| a)gathô=| a)nê/|rei, mê\ ei)=nai pha/skôn].
Compare also vii. 2, 161, where the Megarici are represented as
recognising only [Greek: mi/an a)retê\n polloi=s o)no/masi
kaloume/nên]. Cicero, Academ. ii. 42.]
[Side-note: Doctrine of Eukleides about _Bonum_.]
It was in this manner that Eukleides solved the problem which Sokrates
had brought into vogue--What is the Bonum--or (as afterwards phrased)
the Summum Bonum? Eukleides pronounced the Bonum to be coincident with
the Ens Unum of Parmenides. The Parmenidean thesis, originally
belonging to Transcendental Physics or Ontology, became thus
implicated with Transcendental Ethics.[22]
[Footnote 22: However, in the verse of Xenophanes, the predecessor of
Parmenides--[Greek: Ou(=los o(ra=|, ou(=los de\ noei=, ou(=los de/ t'
a)kou/ei]--the Universe is described as a thinking, seeing, hearing
God--[Greek: E(\n kai\ Pa=n]. Sextus Empir. adv. Mathemat. ix. 144;
Xenophan. Fragm. p. 36, ed. Karsten.]
[Side-note: The doctrine compared to that of Plato--changes in Plato.]
Plato departs from Sokrates on the same point. He agrees with
Eukleides in recognising a Transcendental Bonum. But it appears that
his doctrines on this head underwent some change. He held for some
time what is called the doctrine of Ideas: transcendental Forms,
Entia, Essences: he considered the Transcendental to be essentially
multiple, or to be an aggregate--whereas Eukleides had regarded it as
essentially One. This is the doctrine which we find in some of the
Platonic dialogues. In the Republic, the Idea of Good appears as one
of these, though it is declared to be the foremost in rank and the
most ascendant in efficacy.[23] But in the later part of his life, and
in his lectures (as we learn from Aristotle), Plato came to adopt a
different view. He resolved the Ideas into numbers. He regarded them
as made up by the combination of two distinct factors:--1. The One--the
Essentially One. 2. The Essentially Plural: The Indeterminate
Dyad: the Great and Little.--Of these two elements he considered the
Ideas to be compounded. And he identified the Idea of Good with the
essentially One--[Greek: to\ a)gatho\n] with [Greek: to\ e(/n]: the
principle of Good with the principle of Unity: also the principle of
Evil with the Indeterminate. But though Unity and Good were thus
identical, he considered Unity as logically antecedent, or the
subject--Good as logically consequent, or the predicate.[24]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 508 E, vii. p. 517 A.]
[Footnote 24: The account given by Aristotle of Plato's doctrine of
Ideas, as held by Plato in his later years, appears in various
passages of the Metaphysica, and in the curious account repeated by
Aristoxenus (who had often heard it from Aristotle--[Greek:
A)ristote/lês a)ei\ diêgei=to]) of the [Greek: a)kro/asis] or lecture
delivered by Plato, De Bono. See Aristoxen. Harmon. ii. p. 30, Meibom.
Compare the eighth chapter in this work,--Platonic Compositions
Generally. Metaphys. N. 1091, b. 13.[Greek: tô=n de\ ta\s a)kinê/tous
ou)si/as ei)=nai lego/ntôn] (sc. Platonici) [Greek: oi( me/n phasin
au)to\ to\ e(\n to\ a)gatho\n au)to\ ei)=nai; ou)si/an me/ntoi to\
e(\n au)tou= ô)/|onto ei)=nai ma/lista], which words are very clearly
explained by Bonitz in the note to his Commentary, p. 586: also
Metaphys. 987, b. 20, and Scholia, p. 551, b. 20, p. 567, b. 34, where
the work of Aristotle, [Greek: Peri\ Ta\gathou=], is referred to:
probably the memoranda taken down by Aristotle from Plato's lecture on
that subject, accompanied by notes of his own.
In Schol. p. 573, a. 18, it is stated that the astronomer Eudoxus was
a hearer both of Plato and of Eukleides.
The account given by Zeller (Phil. der Griech. ii. p. 453, 2nd ed.) of
this latter phase of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, applies exactly
to that which we hear about the main doctrine of Eukleides. Zeller
describes the Platonic doctrine as being "Eine Vermischung des
ethischen Begriffes vom höchsten Gut, mit dem Metaphysischen des
Absoluten: Der Begriff des Guten ist zunächst aus dem menschlichen
Leben abstrahirt; er bezeichnet das, was dem Menschen zuträglich ist.
So noch bei Sokrates. Plato verallgemeinert ihn nun zum Begriff des
Absoluten; dabei spielt aber seine ursprüngliche Bedeutung noch
fortwährend herein, und so entsteht die Unklarheit, dass weder der
ethische noch der metaphysische Begriff des Guten rein gefasst wird."
This remark is not less applicable to Eukleides than to Plato, both of
them agreeing in the doctrine here criticised. Zeller says truly, that
the attempt to identify Unum and Bonum produces perpetual confusion.
The two notions are thoroughly distinct and independent. It ought not
to be called (as he phrases it) "a generalization of Bonum". There is
no common property on which to found a generalization. It is a forced
conjunction between two disparates.]
[Side-note: Last doctrine of Plato nearly the same as that of
Eukleides.]
This last doctrine of Plato in his later years (which does not appear
in the dialogues, but seems, as far as we can make out, to have been
delivered substantially in his oral lectures, and is ascribed to him
by Aristotle) was nearly coincident with that of Eukleides. Both held
the identity of [Greek: to\ e(/n] with [Greek: to\ a)gatho/n]. This
one doctrine is all that we know about Eukleides: what consequences he
derived from it, or whether any, we do not know. But Plato combined,
with this transcendental Unum = Bonum, a transcendental indeterminate
plurality: from which combination he considered his Ideas or Ideal
Numbers to be derivatives.
[Side-note: Megaric succession of philosophers. Eleian or Eritrean
succession.]
Eukleides is said to have composed six dialogues, the titles of which
alone remain. The scanty information which we possess respecting him
relates altogether to his negative logical procedure. Whether he
deduced any consequences from his positive doctrine of the
Transcendental Ens, Unum, Bonum, we do not know: but he, as Zeno had
been before him,[25] was acute in exposing contradictions and
difficulties in the positive doctrines of opponents. He was a citizen
of Megara, where he is said to have harboured Plato and the other
companions of Sokrates, when they retired for a time from Athens after
the death of Sokrates. Living there as a teacher or debater on
philosophy, he founded a school or succession of philosophers who were
denominated _Megarici_. The title is as old as Aristotle, who both
names them and criticises their doctrines.[26] None of their
compositions are preserved. The earliest who becomes known to us is
Eubulides, the contemporary and opponent of Aristotle; next Ichthyas,
Apollonius, Diodôrus Kronus, Stilpon, Alexinus, between 340-260 B.C.
[Footnote 25: Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 C, where Zeno represents
himself as taking for his premisses the conclusions of opponents, to
show that they led to absurd consequences. This seems what is meant,
when Diogenes says about Eukleides--[Greek: tai=s a)podei/xesin
e)ni/stato ou) kata\ lê/mmata, a)lla\ kat' e)piphora/n] (ii. 107);
Deycks, De Megaricorum Doctrinâ, p. 34.]
[Footnote 26: Aristot. Metaph. iv. p. 1046, b. 29.
The sarcasm ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic implies that Eukleides was
really known as the founder of a _school_--[Greek: kai\ tê\n me\n
Eu)klei/dou scholê\n e)/lege cholê/n] (Diog. L. vi. 24)--the earliest
mention (I apprehend) of the word [Greek: scholê\] in that sense.]
With the Megaric philosophers there soon become confounded another
succession, called Eleian or Eretrian, who trace their origin to
another Sokratic man--Phædon. The chief Eretrians made known to us are
Pleistanus, Menedêmus, Asklepiades. The second of the three acquired
some reputation.
[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus--Ethical, not
transcendental.]
The Megarics and Eretrians, as far as we know them, turned their
speculative activity altogether in the logical or intellectual
direction, paying little attention to the ethical and emotional field.
Both Antisthenes and Aristippus, on the contrary, pursued the ethical
path. To the Sokratic question, What is the Bonum? Eukleides had
answered by a transcendental definition: Antisthenes and Aristippus
each gave to it an ethical answer, having reference to human wants and
emotions, and to the different views which they respectively took
thereof. Antisthenes declared it to consist in virtue, by which he
meant an independent and self-sufficing character, confining all wants
within the narrowest limits: Aristippus placed it in the moderate and
easy pleasures, in avoiding ambitious struggles, and in making the
best of every different situation, yet always under the guidance of a
wise calculation and self-command. Both of them kept clear of the
transcendental: they neither accepted it as Unum et Omne (the view of
Eukleides), nor as Plura (the Eternal Ideas or Forms, the Platonic
view). Their speculations had reference altogether to human life and
feelings, though the one took a measure of this wide subject very
different from the other: and in thus confining the range of their
speculations, they followed Sokrates more closely than either
Eukleides or Plato followed him. They not only abstained from
transcendental speculation, but put themselves in declared opposition
to it. And since the intellectual or logical philosophy, as treated by
Plato, became intimately blended with transcendental
hypothesis--Antisthenes and Aristippus are both found on the negative side
against its pretensions. Aristippus declared the mathematical sciences to
be useless, as conducing in no way to happiness, and taking no account of
what was better or what was worse.[27] He declared that we could know
nothing except in so far as we were affected by it, and as it was or
might be in correlation with ourselves: that as to causes not relative
to ourselves, or to our own capacities and affections, we could know
nothing about them.[28]
[Footnote 27: Aristotel. Metaph. B. 906, a. 32. [Greek: ô(/ste dia\
tau=ta tô=n _sophistô=n tines_ oi(=on A)ri/stippos proepêla/kizon
au)ta\s (ta\s mathêmatika\s te/chnas);--e)n me\n ga\r tai=s a)/llais
te/chnais, kai\ tai=s banau/sois, oi(=on e)n tektonikê=| kai\
skutikê=|, dio/ti be/ltion ê)\ chei=ron le/gesthai pa/nta, ta\s de\
mathêmatika\s ou)the/na poiei=sthai lo/gon peri\ a)gathô=n kai\
kakô=n.]
Aristotle here ranks Aristippus among the [Greek: sophistai/].
Aristippus, in discountenancing [Greek: phusiologi/an], cited the
favourite saying of Sokrates that the proper study of mankind was
[Greek: o(/tti toi e)n mega/roisi kako/n t' a)gatho/n te te/tuktai].
Plutarch, ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 8.]
[Footnote 28: Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 191; Diog. L. ii. 92.]
[Side-note: Preponderance of the negative vein in the Platonic age.]
Such were the leading writers and talkers contemporary with Plato, in
the dialectical age immediately following on the death of Sokrates.
The negative vein greatly preponderates in them, as it does on the
whole even in Plato--and as it was pretty sure to do, so long as the
form of dialogue was employed. Affirmative exposition and proof is
indeed found in some of the later Platonic works, carried on by
colloquy between two speakers. But the colloquial form manifests
itself evidently as unsuitable for the purpose: and we must remember
that Plato was a lecturer as well as a writer, so that his doctrines
made their way, at least in part, through continuous exposition. But
it is Aristotle with whom the form of affirmative continuous
exposition first becomes predominant, in matters of philosophy. Though
he composed dialogues (which are now lost), and though he appreciates
dialectic as a valuable exercise, yet he considers it only as a
discursive preparation; antecedent, though essential, to the more
close and concentrated demonstrations of philosophy.
[Side-note: Harsh manner in which historians of philosophy censure the
negative vein.]
Most historians deal hardly with this negative vein. They depreciate
the Sophists, the Megarics and Eretrians, the Academics and Sceptics
of the subsequent ages--under the title of Eristics, or lovers of
contention for itself--as captious and perverse enemies of truth.
[Side-note: Negative method in philosophy essential to the controul of
the affirmative.]
I have already said that my view of the importance and value of the
negative vein of philosophy is altogether different. It appears to me
quite as essential as the affirmative. It is required as an
antecedent, a test, and a corrective. Aristotle deserves all honour
for his attempts to construct and defend various affirmative theories:
but the value of these theories depends upon their being defensible
against all objectors. Affirmative philosophy, as a body not only of
truth but of reasoned truth, holds the champion's belt, subject to the
challenge not only of competing affirmants, but of all deniers and
doubters. And this is the more indispensable, because of the vast
problems which these affirmative philosophers undertake to solve:
problems especially vast during the age of Plato and Aristotle. The
question has to be determined, not only which of two proposed
solutions is the best, but whether either of them is tenable, and even
whether any solution at all is attainable by the human faculties:
whether there exist positive evidence adequate to sustain any
conclusion, accompanied with adequate replies to the objections
against it. The burthen of proof lies upon the affirmant: and the
proof produced must be open to the scrutiny of every dissentient.
[Side-note: Sokrates--the most persevering and acute Eristic of his
age.]
Among these dissentients or negative dialecticians, Sokrates himself,
during his life, stood prominent. In his footsteps followed Eukleides
and the Megarics: who, though they acquired the unenviable surname of
Eristics or Controversialists, cannot possibly have surpassed Sokrates,
and probably did not equal him, in the refutative Elenchus. Of no one
among the Megarics, probably, did critics ever affirm, what the admiring
Xenophon says about Sokrates--"that he dealt with every one in colloquial
debate just as he chose," _i.e._, that he baffled and puzzled his
opponents whenever he chose. No one of these Megarics probably ever
enunciated so sweeping a negative programme, or declared so emphatically
his own inability to communicate positive instruction, as Sokrates in the
Platonic Apology. A person more thoroughly Eristic than Sokrates never
lived. And we see perfectly, from the Memorabilia of Xenophon (who
nevertheless strives to bring out the opposite side of his character),
that he was so esteemed among his contemporaries. Plato, as well as
Eukleides, took up this vein in the Sokratic character, and worked it
with unrivalled power in many of his dialogues. The Platonic Sokrates
is compared, and compares himself, to Antæus, who compelled every
new-comer, willing or unwilling, to wrestle with him.[29]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Theætet. p. 169 A. _Theodorus_. [Greek: Ou)
r(a/|dion, ô)= Sô/krates, soi\ parakathê/menon mê\ dido/nai lo/gon,
a)ll' e)gô\ a)/rti parelê/rêsa pha/skôn se e)pitre/psein moi mê\
a)podu/esthai, kai\ ou)chi\ a)nagka/sein katha/per Lakedaimo/nioi; su\
de/ moi dokei=s pro\s to\n Ski/r)r(ôna ma=llon tei/nein.
Lakedaimo/nioi me\n ga\r a)pie/nai ê(\ a)podu/esthai keleu/ousi, su\
de\ kat' A)ntai=o/n ti/ moi ma=llon dokei=s to\ dra=ma dra=|n; to\n
ga\r proseltho/nta ou)k a)ni/ês pri\n a)nagka/sê|s a)podu/sas e)n
toi=s lo/gois prospalai=sai.]
_Sokrates_. [Greek: _A)=rista ge_, ô)= Theo/dôre, _tê\n no/son mou
a)pei/kasas_; i)schurikô/teros me/ntoi e)gô\ e)kei/nôn; muri/oi ga\r
ê)/dê moi Ê(rakle/es te kai\ Thêse/es e)ntucho/ntes karteroi\ pro\s
to\ le/gein ma/l' eu)= xugkeko/phasin, a)ll' e)gô\ ou)de/n ti ma=llon
a)phi/stamai. ou(/tô _tis e)rô\s deino\s e)nde/duke tê=s peri\ tau=ta
gumnasi/as_; mê\ ou)=n mêde\ su\ phthonê/sê|s prosanatripsa/menos
sauto/n te a(/ma kai\ e)me\ o)nê=sai].
How could the eristic appetite be manifested in stronger language
either by Eukleides, or Eubulides, or Diodôrus Kronus, or any of those
Sophists upon whom the Platonic commentators heap so many harsh
epithets?
Among the compositions ascribed to Protagoras by Diogenes Laertius
(ix. 55), one is entitled [Greek: Te/chnê E)ristikô=n]. But if we look
at the last chapter of the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis, we shall
find Aristotle asserting explicitly that there existed no [Greek:
Te/chnê E)ristikô=n] anterior to his own work the Topica.]
[Side-note: Platonic Parmenides--its extreme negative character.]
Of the six dialogues composed by Eukleides, we cannot speak
positively, because they are not preserved. But they cannot have been
more refutative, and less affirmative, than most of the Platonic
dialogues; and we can hardly be wrong in asserting that they were very
inferior both in energy and attraction. The Theætêtus and the
Parmenides, two of the most negative among the Platonic dialogues,
seem to connect themselves, by the _personnel_ of the drama, with the
Megaric philosophers: the former dialogue is ushered in by Eukleides,
and is, as it were, dedicated to him: the latter dialogue exhibits, as
its _protagonistes_, the veteran Parmenides himself, who forms the one
factor of the Megaric philosophy, while Sokrates forms the other.
Parmenides (in the Platonic dialogue so called) is made to enforce the
negative method in general terms, as a philosophical duty co-ordinate
with the affirmative; and to illustrate it by a most elaborate
argumentation, directed partly against the Platonic Ideas (here
advocated by the youthful Sokrates), partly against his own (the
Parmenidean) dogma of Ens Unum. Parmenides adduces unanswerable
objections against the dogma of Transcendental Forms or Ideas; yet
says at the same time that there can be no philosophy unless you admit
it. He reproves the youthful Sokrates for precipitancy in affirming
the dogma, and contends that you are not justified in affirming any
dogma until you have gone through a bilateral scrutiny of it--that is,
first assuming the doctrine to be true, next assuming it to be false,
and following out the deductions arising from the one assumption as
well as from the other.[30] Parmenides then gives a string of
successive deductions (at great length, occupying the last half of the
dialogue)--four pairs of counter-demonstrations or Antinomies--in
which contradictory conclusions appear each to be alike proved. He
enunciates the final result as follows:--"Whether Unum exists, or does
not exist, Unum itself and Cætera, both exist and do not exist, both
appear and do not appear, all things and in all ways--both in relation
to themselves and in relation to each other".[31]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Parmen. p. 136.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Parmen. p. 166. [Greek: e(\n ei)/t' e)/stin,
ei)/te mê\ e)/stin, au)to/ te kai\ ta)/lla kai\ pro\s au)ta\ kai\
pro\s a)/llêla pa/nta pa/ntôs e)sti/ te kai\ ou)k e)/sti, kai\
phai/netai/ te kai\ ou) phai/netai.--A)lêthe/stata].
See below, vol. iii. chap. xxvii. Parmenides.]
If this memorable dialogue, with its concluding string of elaborate
antinomies, had come down to us under the name of Eukleides,
historians would probably have denounced it as a perverse exhibition
of ingenuity, worthy of "that litigious person, who first infused into
the Megarians the fury of disputation "[32] But since it is of
Platonic origin, we must recognise Plato not only as having divided
with the Megaric philosophers the impulse of negative speculation
which they had inherited from Sokrates, but as having carried that
impulse to an extreme point of invention, combination, and dramatic
handling, much beyond their powers. Undoubtedly, if we pass from the
Parmenidês to other dialogues, we find Plato very different. He has
various other intellectual impulses, an abundant flow of ideality and
of constructive fancy, in many distinct channels. But negative
philosophy is at least one of the indisputable and prominent items of
the Platonic aggregate.
[Footnote 32: This is the phrase of the satirical sillographer Timon,
who spoke with scorn of all the philosophers except Pyrrhon:--
[Greek: A)ll' ou)/ moi tou/tôn phledo/nôn me/lei, ou)de\ me\n a)/llou
Ou)deno/s, ou) Phai/dônos, o(/tis ge me\n--ou)/d' e)rida/nteô
Eu)klei/dou, Megareu=sin o(\s e)/mbale lu/ssan e)rismou=.]]
[Side-note: The Megarics shared the negative impulse with Sokrates and
Plato.]
While then we admit that the Megaric succession of philosophers
exhibited negative subtlety and vehement love of contentious debate,
we must recollect that these qualities were inherited from Sokrates
and shared with Plato. The philosophy of Sokrates, who taught nothing
and cross-examined every one, was essentially more negative and
controversial, both in him and his successors, than any which had
preceded it. In an age when dialectic colloquy was considered as
appropriate for philosophical subjects, and when long continuous
exposition was left to the rhetor--Eukleides established a succession
or school[33] which was more distinguished for impugning dogmas of
others than for defending dogmas of its own. Schleiermacher and others
suppose that Plato in his dialogue Euthydêmus intends to expose the
sophistical fallacies of the Megaric school:[34] and that in the
dialogue Sophistês, he refutes the same philosophers (under the vague
designation of "the friends of Forms") in their speculations about
Ens and Non-Ens. The first of these two opinions is probably true to
some extent, though we cannot tell how far: the second of the two is
supported by some able critics--yet it appears to me untenable.[35]
[Footnote 33: If we may trust a sarcastic bon-mot ascribed to Diogenes
the Cynic, the contemporary of the _viri Sokratici_ and the follower
of Antisthenes, the term [Greek: scholê\] was applied to the visitors
of Eukleides rather than to those of Plato--[Greek: kai\ tê\n me\n
Eu)klei/dou scholê\n e)/lege _cholê/n_, tê\n de\ Pla/tônos diatribê/n,
_katatribê/n_]. Diog. L. vi. 24.]
[Footnote 34: Schleierm. Einleitung to Plat. Euthyd. p. 403 seq.]
[Footnote 35: Schleierm. Introduction to the Sophistês, pp. 134-135.
See Deycks, Megaricorum Doctrina, p. 41 seq. Zeller, Phil. der Griech.
vol. ii. p. 180 seq., with his instructive note. Prantl, Gesch. der
Logik, vol. i. p. 37, and others cited by Zeller.--Ritter dissents
from this view, and I concur in his dissent. To affirm that Eukleides
admitted a plurality of Ideas or Forms, is to contradict the only one
deposition, certain and unequivocal, which we have about his
philosophy. His doctrine is that of the Transcendental Unum, Ens,
Bonum; while the doctrine of the Transcendental Plura (Ideas or Forms)
belongs to Plato and others. Both Deycks and Zeller (p. 185) recognise
this as a difficulty. But to me it seems fatal to their hypothesis;
which, after all, is only an hypothesis--first originated by
Schleiermacher. If it be true that the Megarici are intended by Plato
under the appellation [Greek: oi( tô=n ei)dô=n phi/loi], we must
suppose that the school had been completely transformed before the
time of Stilpon, who is presented as the great opponent of [Greek: ta\
ei)/dê].]
Of Eukleides himself, though he is characterised as strongly
controversial, no distinct points of controversy have been preserved:
but his successor Eubulides is celebrated for various sophisms. He was
the contemporary and rival of Aristotle: who, without however
expressly naming him, probably intends to speak of him when alluding
to the Megaric philosophers generally.[36] Another of the same school,
Alexinus (rather later than Eubulides) is also said to have written
against Aristotle.
[Footnote 36: Aristokles, ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2. Eubulides is
said not merely to have controverted the philosophical theories of
Aristotle, but also to have attacked his personal character with
bitterness and slander: a practice not less common in ancient
controversy than in modern. About Alexinus, Diog. L. ii. 109.
Among those who took lessons in rhetoric and pronunciation from
Eubulides, we read the name of the orator Demosthenes, who is said to
have improved his pronunciation thereby. Diog. Laert. ii. p. 108.
Plutarch, x. Orat. 21, p. 845 C.]
[Side-note: Eubulides--his logical problems or puzzles--difficulty of
solving them--many solutions attempted.]
Six sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides. 1.--[Greek: O(
pseudo/menos]--Mentiens. 2.--[Greek: O( dialantha/nôn], or
[Greek: e)gkekalumme/nos]--the person hidden under a veil.
3.--[Greek: Ê)le/ktra]. 4.--[Greek: Sôrei/tês]--Sorites.
5.--[Greek: Kerati/nês]--Cornutus. 6.--[Greek: Pha/lakros]--Calvus.
Of these the second is substantially the same with the third; and the
fourth the same with the sixth, only inverted.[37]
[Footnote 37: Diog. L. ii. pp. 108-109; vii. 82. Lucian vit. Auct. 22.
1. Cicero, Academ. ii. pp. 30-96. "Si dicis te mentiri verumque dicis,
mentiris. Dicis autem te mentiri, verumque dicis: mentiris igitur." 2,
3. [Greek: O( e)gkekalumme/nos]. You know your father: you are placed
before a person covered and concealed by a thick veil: you do not know
him. But this person is your father. Therefore you both know your
father and do not know him. 5. [Greek: Kerati/nês]. That which you
have not lost, you have: but you have not lost horns; therefore you
_have_ horns. 4, 6. [Greek: Sôrei/tês--Pha/lakros]. What number of
grains make a heap--or are many? what number are few? Are three grains
few, and four _many_?--or, where will you draw the line between Few
and Many? The like question about the hairs on a man's head--How many
must he lose before he can be said to have only a few, or to be bald?]
These sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides, and belonged probably to the
Megaric school both before and after him. But it is plain both from
the Euthydêmus of Plato, and from the Topica of Aristotle, that there
were many others of similar character; frequently employed in the
abundant dialectic colloquies which prevailed at Athens during the
fourth and third centuries B.C. Plato and Aristotle handle such
questions and their authors contemptuously, under the name of Eristic:
but it was more easy to put a bad name upon them, as well as upon the
Eleate Zeno, than to elucidate the logical difficulties which they
brought to view. Neither Aristotle nor Plato provided a sufficient
answer to them: as is proved by the fact, that several subsequent
philosophers wrote treatises expressly in reference to them--even
philosophers of reputation, like Theophrastus and Chrysippus.[38] How
these two latter philosophers performed their task, we cannot say. But
the fact that they attempted the task, exhibits a commendable anxiety
to make their logical theory complete, and to fortify it against
objections.
[Footnote 38: Diog. L. v. p. 49; vii. pp. 192-198. Seneca, Epistol. p.
45. Plutarch (De Stoicor. Repugnantiis, p. 1087) has some curious
extracts and remarks from Chrysippus; who (he says) spoke in the
harshest terms against the [Greek: Megarika\ e)rôtê/mata], as having
puzzled and unsettled men's convictions without ground--while he
(Chrysippus) had himself proposed puzzles and difficulties still more
formidable, in his treatise [Greek: kata\ Sunêthei/as].]
[Side-note: Real character of the Megaric sophisms, not calculated to
deceive but to guard against deception.]
It is in this point of view--in reference to logical theory--that the
Megaric philosophers have not been fairly appreciated. They, or
persons reasoning in their manner, formed one essential encouragement
and condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory. They
administered, to minds capable and constructive, that painful sense of
contradiction, and shock of perplexity, which Sokrates relied upon as
the stimulus to mental parturition--and which Plato extols as a lever
for raising the student to general conceptions.[39] Their sophisms
were not intended to impose upon any one, but on the contrary, to
guard against imposition.[40] Whoever states a fallacy clearly and
nakedly, applying it to a particular case in which it conducts to a
conclusion known upon other evidence not to be true--contributes to
divest it of its misleading effect. The persons most liable to be
deceived by the fallacy are those who are not forewarned:--in cases
where the premisses are stated not nakedly, but in an artful form of
words--and where the conclusion, though false, is not known beforehand
to be false by the hearer. To use Mr. John Stuart Mill's phrase,[41]
the fallacy is a case of apparent evidence mistaken for real evidence:
you expose it to be evidence only apparent and not real, by giving a
type of the fallacy, in which the conclusion obtained is obviously
false: and the more obviously false it is, the better suited for its
tutelary purpose. Aristotle recognises, as indispensable in
philosophical enquiry, the preliminary wrestling into which he
conducts his reader, by means of a long string of unsolved
difficulties or puzzles--([Greek: a)po/riai]). He declares distinctly
and forcibly, that whoever attempts to lay out a positive theory,
without having before his mind a full list of the difficulties with
which he is to grapple, is like one who searches without knowing what
he is looking for; without being competent to decide whether what he
hits upon as a solution be really a solution or not.[42] Now that
enumeration of puzzles which Aristotle here postulates (and in part
undertakes, in reference to Philosophia Prima) is exactly what the
Megarics, and various other dialecticians (called by Plato and
Aristotle Sophists) contributed to furnish for the use of those who
theorised on Logic.
[Footnote 39: Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 523 A, 524. [Greek: ta\ me\n
e)n tai=s ai)sthê/sesin ou) parakalou=nta tê\n no/êsin ei)s
e)pi/skepsin, ô(s i(kanô=s u(po\ tê=s ai)sthê/seôs krino/mena--ta\ de\
panta/pasi diakeleuo/mena e)kei/nên e)piske/psasthai, ô(s tê=s
ai)sthê/seôs ou)de\n u(gie\s poiou/sês . . . Ta\ me\n ou)
parakalou=nta, o(/sa mê\ e)kbai/nei ei)s e)nanti/an ai)/sthêsin a(/ma;
ta\ d' e)kbai/nonta, ô(s parakalou=nta ti/thêmi, e)peida\n ê(
ai)/sthêsis mêde\n ma=llon tou=to ê)\ to\ e)nanti/on dêloi=]. Compare
p. 524 E: the whole passage is very interesting.]
[Footnote 40: The remarks of Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. ii. p. 189.
2nd ed.) upon these Megaric philosophers are more just and discerning
than those made by most of the historians of philosophy "Doch darf man
wohl annehmen, dass sie solche Trugschlüsse nicht zur Täuschung,**
sondern zur Belehrung für unvorsichtige, oder zur Warnung vor der
Seichtigkeit gewöhnlicher Vorstellungsweisen, gebrauchen wollten. So
viel ist gewiss, dass die Megariker sich viel mit den Formen des
Denken beschäftigten, vielleicht mehr zu Aufsuchung einzelner Regeln,
als zur Begründung eines wissenschaftlichen Zusammenhangs unter ihnen;
obwohl auch besondere Theile der Logik unter ihren Schriften erwähnt
werden."
This is much more reasonable than the language of Prantl, who
denounces "the shamelessness of doctrinarism" (die Unverschämtheit des
Doctrinarismus) belonging to these Megarici "the petulance and vanity
which prompted them to seek celebrity by intentional offences against
sound common sense," &c. (Gesch. der Logik, pp. 39-40.--Sir Wm.
Hamilton has some good remarks on these sophisms, in his Lectures on
Logic, Lect. xxiii. p. 452 seq.)]
[Footnote 41: See the first chapter of his book v. on Fallacies,
System of Logic, vol. ii.]
[Footnote 42: Aristotel. Metaphys. B. 1, p. 995, a. 33.
[Greek: dio\ dei= ta\s duscherei/as tetheôrêke/nai pa/sas pro/teron,
tou/tôn de\ cha/rin kai\ dia\ to\ tou\s zêtou=ntas a)/neu tou=
diaporê=sai prô=ton o(moi/ous ei)=nai toi=s poi= dei= badi/zein
a)gnoou=si, kai\ pro\s tou/tois ou)d' ei) pote to\ zêtou/menon
eu(/rêken ê)\ mê\ gignô/skein; to\ ga\r te/los tou/tô| me\n ou)
dê=lon, tô=| de\ proêporêko/ti dê=lon].
Aristotle devotes the whole of this Book to an enumeration of [Greek:
a)po/riai].]
[Side-note: If the process of theorising be admissible, it must
include negative as well as affirmative.]
You may dislike philosophy: you may undervalue, or altogether
proscribe, the process of theorising. This is the standing-point usual
with the bulk of mankind, ancient as well as modern: who generally
dislike all accurate reasoning, or analysis and discrimination of
familiar abstract words, as mean and tiresome hair-splitting.[43] But
if you admit the business of theorising to be legitimate, useful, and
even honourable, you must reckon on free working of independent,
individual, minds as the operative force--and on the necessity of
dissentient, conflicting, manifestations of this common force, as
essential conditions to any successful result. Upon no other
conditions can you obtain any tolerable body of reasoned truth--or
even reasoned _quasi-truth_.
[Footnote 43: See my account of the Platonic dialogue Hippias Major,
vol. ii. chap. xiii. Aristot. Metaphys. A. minor, p. 995, a. 9.
[Greek: tou\s de\ lupei= to\ a)kribe\s, ê)\ dia\ to\ mê\ du/nasthai
sunei/rein, ê)\ dia\ tê\n mikrologi/an; e)/chei ga/r ti to\ a)kribe\s
toiou=ton, ô(/ste katha/per e)pi\ tô=n sumbolai/ôn, kai\ e)pi\ tô=n
lo/gôn a)neleu/theron ei)=nai tisi dokei=]. Cicero (Paradoxa, c. 2)
talks of the "minutæ interrogatiunculæ" of the Stoics as tedious and
tiresome.]
[Side-note: Logical position of the Megaric philosophers erroneously
described by historians of philosophy. Necessity of a complete
collection of difficulties.]
Now the historians of philosophy seldom take this view of philosophy
as a whole--as a field to which the free antithesis of affirmative and
negative is indispensable. They consider true philosophy as
represented by Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, one or other of them:
while the contemporaries of these eminent men are discredited under
the name of Sophists, Eristics, or sham-philosophers, sowing tares
among the legitimate crop of wheat--or as devils whom the miraculous
virtue of Sokrates and Plato is employed in expelling from the
Athenian mind. Even the companions of Sokrates, and the Megarics among
them, whom we know only upon the imperfect testimony of opponents,
have fallen under this unmerited sentence:[44] as if they were
destructive agents breaking down an edifice of well-constituted
philosophy--no such edifice in fact having ever existed in Greece,
though there were several dissenting lecture rooms and conflicting
veins of speculation promoted by eminent individuals.
[Footnote 44: The same charge is put by Cicero into the mouth of
Lucullus against the Academics: "Similiter vos (Academici) quum
perturbare, ut illi" (the Gracchi and others) "rempublicam, sic vos
philosophiam, benè jam constitutam velitis. . . . Tum exortus est, ut
in optimâ republicâ Tib. Gracchus, qui otium perturbaret, sic
Arcesilas, qui constitutam philosophiam everteret" (Acad. Prior, ii. 5,
14-15).
Even in the liberal and comprehensive history of the Greek philosophy
by Zeller (vol. ii. p. 187, ed. 2nd), respecting Eukleides' and the
Megarians;--"Dagegen bot der _Streit gegen die geltenden Meinungen_
dem Scharfsinn, der Rechthaberei, und dem wissenschaftlichen Ehrgeiz,
ein unerschöpfliches Feld dar, welches denn auch die Megarischen
Philosophen rüstig ausbeuteten."
If by "die geltenden Meinungen" Zeller means the common sense of the
day that is, the opinions and beliefs current among the [Greek:
i)diô=tai], the working, enjoying, non-theorising public--it is very
true that the Megaric philosophers contended against them: but
Sokrates and Plato contended against them quite as much: we see this
in the Platonic Apology, Gorgias, Republic, Timæus, Parmenidês, &c.
If, on the other hand, by "die geltenden Meinungen" Zeller means any
philosophical or logical theories generally or universally admitted by
thinking men as valid, the answer is that there were none such in the
fourth and third centuries B.C. Various eminent speculative
individuals were labouring to construct such theories, each in his own
way, and each with a certain congregation of partisans; but
established theory there was none. Nor can any theory (whether
accepted or not) be firm or trustworthy, unless it be exposed to the
continued thrusts of the negative weapon, searching out its vulnerable
points. We know of the Megarics only what they furnished towards that
negative testing; without which, however,--as we may learn from Plato
and Aristotle themselves,--the true value of the affirmative defences
can never be measured.]
Whoever undertakes, _bonâ fide_, to frame a complete and defensible
logical theory, will desire to have before him a copious collection of
such difficulties, and will consider those who propound them as useful
auxiliaries.[45] If he finds no one to propound them, he will have to
imagine them for himself. "The philosophy of reasoning" (observes Mr.
John Stuart Mill) "must comprise the philosophy of bad as well as of
good reasoning."[46] The one cannot be complete without the other. To
enumerate the different varieties of apparent evidence which is not
real evidence (called Fallacies), and of apparent contradictions which
are not real contradictions--referred as far as may be to classes,
each illustrated by a suitable type--is among the duties of a
logician. He will find this duty much facilitated, if there happen to
exist around him an active habit of dialectic debate: ingenious men
who really study the modes of puzzling and confuting a well-armed
adversary, as well as of defending themselves against the like. Such a
habit did exist at Athens: and unless it had existed, the Aristotelian
theories on logic would probably never have been framed. Contemporary
and antecedent dialecticians, the Megarici among them, supplied the
stock of particular examples enumerated and criticised by Aristotle in
the Topica:[47] which treatise (especially the last book, De
Sophisticis Elenchis) is intended both to explain the theory, and to
give suggestions on the practice, of logical controversy. A man who
takes lessons in fencing must learn not only how to thrust and parry,
but also how to impose on his opponent by feints, and to meet the
feints employed against himself: a general who learns the art of war
must know how to take advantage of the enemy by effective cheating and
treachery (to use the language of Xenophon), and how to avoid being
cheated himself. The Aristotelian Topica, in like manner, teach the
arts both of dialectic attack and of dialectic defence.[48]
[Footnote 45: Marbach (Gesch. der Philos. s. 91), though he treats the
Megarics as jesters (which I do not think they were), yet adds very
justly: "Nevertheless these puzzles (propounded by the Megarics) have
their serious and scientific side. We are forced to inquire, how it
happens that the contradictions shown up in them are not merely
possible but even necessary."
Both Tiedemann and Winckelmann also remark that the debaters called
Eristics contributed greatly to the formation of the theory and
precepts of Logic, afterwards laid out by Aristotle. Winckelmann,
Prolegg. ad Platon. Euthydem. pp. xxiv.-xxxi. Even Stallbaum, though
full of harshness towards those Sophists whom he describes as
belonging to the school of Protagoras, treats the Megaric philosophers
with much greater respect. Prolegom. ad Platon. Euthydem. p. 9.]
[Footnote 46: System of Logic, Book v. 1, 1.]
[Footnote 47: Prantl (Gesch. der Logik, vol. i. pp. 43-50) ascribes to
the Megarics all or nearly all the sophisms which Aristotle notices in
the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis. This is more than can be proved,
and more than I think probable. Several of them are taken from the
Platonic Euthydêmus.]
[Footnote 48: See the remarkable passages in the discourses of
Sokrates (Memorab. iii. 1, 6; iv. 2, 15), and in that of Kambyses to
Cyrus, which repeats the same opinion--Cyropæd. i. 6, 27--respecting
the amount of deceit, treachery, the thievish and rapacious qualities
required for conducting war against an enemy--([Greek: ta\ pro\s tou\s
polemi/ous no/mima], i. 6, 34).
Aristotle treats of Dialectic, as he does of Rhetoric, as an art
having its theory, and precepts founded upon that theory. I shall have
occasion to observe in a future chapter (xxi.), that logical Fallacies
are not generated or invented by persons called Sophists, but are
inherent liabilities to error in the human intellect; and that the
habit of debate affords the only means of bringing them into clear
daylight, and guarding against being deceived by them. Aristotle gives
precepts both how to thrust, and how to parry with the best effect: if
he had taught only how to parry, he would have left out one-half of
the art.
One of the most learned and candid of the Aristotelian
commentators--M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire--observes as follows (Logique
d'Aristote, p. 435, Paris, 1838) respecting De Sophist. Elenchis:--
"Aristote va donc s'occuper de la marche qu'il faut donner aux
discussions sophistiques: et ici il serait difficile quelquefois de
décider, à la manière dont les choses sont présentées par lui, si ce
sont des conseils qu'il donne aux Sophistes, ou à ceux qui veulent
éviter leurs ruses. Tout ce qui précède, prouve, au reste, que c'est
en ce dernier sens qu'il faut entendre la pensée du philosophe. Ceci
est d'ailleurs la seconde portion du traîté."
It appears to me that Aristotle intended to teach or to suggest both
the two things which are here placed in Antithesis--though I do not
agree with M. St. Hilaire's way of putting the alternative--as if
there were one class of persons, professional Sophists, who fenced
with poisoned weapons, while every one except them refrained from such
weapons. Aristotle intends to teach the art of Dialectic as a whole;
he neither intends nor wishes that any learners shall make a bad use
of his teaching; but if they do use it badly, the fault does not lie
with him. See the observations in the beginning of the Rhetorica, i.
p. 1355, a. 26, and the observations put by Plato into the mouth of
Gorgias (Gorg. p. 456 E).
Even in the Analytica Priora (ii. 19, a. 34) (independent of the
Topica) Aristotle says:--[Greek: chrê\ d' o(/per phula/ttesthai
paragge/llomen a)pokrinome/nous, au)tou\s e)picheirou=ntas
peira=sthtai lantha/nein]. Investigations of the double or triple
senses of words (he says) are useful--[Greek: kai\ pro\s to\ mê\
paralogisthê=nai, kai\ pro\s to\ paralogi/sasthai], Topica, i. 18, p.
108, a. 26. See also other passages of the Topica where artifices are
indicated for the purpose of concealing your own plan of proceeding
and inducing your opponent to make answer in the sense which you wish,
Topica, i. 2, p. 101, a. 25; vi. 10, p. 148, a. 37; viii. 1, p. 151,
b. 23; viii. 1, p. 153, a. 6; viii. 2, p. 154, a. 5; viii. 11, p. 161,
a. 24 seq. You must be provided with the means of meeting every sort
and variety of objection--[Greek: pro\s ga\r to\n pa/ntôs
e)nista/menon pa/ntôs a)ntitakte/on e)sti/n]. Topic. v. 4, p. 134, a.
4.
I shall again have to touch on the Topica, in this point of view, as
founded upon and illustrating the Megaric logical puzzles (ch. viii.
of the present volume).]
[Side-note: Sophisms propounded by Eubulides. 1. Mentiens. 2. The
Veiled Man. 3. Sorites. 4. Cornutus.]
The Sophisms ascribed to Eubulidês, looked at from the point of view
of logical theory, deserve that attention which they seem to have
received. The logician lays down as a rule that no affirmative
proposition can be at the same time true and false. Now the first
sophism (called _Mentiens_) exhibits the case of a proposition which
is, or appears to be, at the same time true and false.[49] It is for
the logician to explain how this proposition can be brought under his
rule--or else to admit it as an exception. Again, the second sophism
in the list (the Veiled or Hidden Man) is so contrived as to involve
the respondent in a contradiction: he is made to say both that he
knows his father, and that he does not know his father. Both the one
answer and the other follow naturally from the questions and
circumstances supposed. The contradiction points to the loose and
equivocal way in which the word _to know_ is used in common speech.
Such equivocal meaning of words is not only one of the frequent
sources of error and fallacy in reasoning, but also one of the least
heeded by persons untrained in dialectics; who are apt to presume that
the same word bears always the same meaning. To guard against this
cause of error, and to determine (or impel others to determine) the
accurate meaning or various distinct meanings of each word, is among
the duties of the logician: and I will add that the verb _to know_
stands high in the list of words requiring such determination--as the
Platonic Theætêtus[50] alone would be sufficient to teach us.
Farthermore, when we examine what is called the Soritês of Eubulides,
we perceive that it brings to view an inherent indeterminateness of
various terms: indeterminateness which cannot be avoided, but which
must be pointed out in order that it may not mislead. You cannot say
how many grains are _much_--or how many grains make _a heap_. When
this want of precision, pervading many words in the language, was
first brought to notice in a suitable special case, it would naturally
appear a striking novelty. Lastly, the sophism called [Greek:
Kerati/nês] or Cornutus, is one of great plausibility, which would
probably impose upon most persons, if the question were asked for the
first time without any forewarning. It serves to administer a lesson,
nowise unprofitable or superfluous, that before you answer a question,
you should fully weigh its import and its collateral bearings.
[Footnote 49: Theophrastus wrote a treatise in three books on the
solution of the puzzle called [Greek: O( pseudo/menos] (see the list
of his lost works in Diogenes L. v. 49). We find also other treatises
entitled [Greek: Megariko\s a/] (which Diogenes cites, vi.
22),--[Greek: A)gônistiko\n tê=s peri\ tou\s e)ristikou\s lo/gous
theôri/as--Sophisma/tôn a/, b]--besides several more titles relating to
dialectics, and bearing upon the solution of syllogistic problems.
Chrysippus also, in the ensuing century, wrote a treatise in three
books, [Greek: Peri\ tê=s tou= pseudome/non lu/seôs] (Diog. vii. 107).
Such facts show the importance of these problems in their bearing upon
logical theory, as conceived by the ancient world. Epikurus also wrote
against the [Greek: Megarikoi/] (Diog. x. 27).
The discussion of sophisms, or logical difficulties ([Greek: lu/seis
a)pori/ôn]), was a favourite occupation at the banquets of
philosophers at Athens, on or about 100 B.C. [Greek: A)nti/patros d'
o( philo/sophos, sumpo/sio/n pote suna/gôn, sune/taxe toi=s
e)rchome/nois ô(s peri\ sophisma/tôn e(rou=sin] (Athenæus, v. 186 C).
Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, p. 1096 C; De
Sanitate Præcepta, c. 20, p. 133 B.]
[Footnote 50: Various portions of the Theætêtus illustrate this
Megaric sophism (pp. 165-188). The situation assumed in the question
of Eubulidês--having before your eyes a person veiled--might form a
suitable addition to the various contingencies specified in Theætêt.
pp. 192-193.
The manner in which the Platonic Sokrates proves (Theæt. 165) that you
at the same time see, and do not see, an object before you, is quite
as sophistical as the way in which Eubulidês proves that you both
know, and do not know, your father.]
[Side-note: Causes of error constant--the Megarics were sentinals
against them.]
The causes of error and fallacy are inherent in the complication of
nature, the imperfection of language, the small range of facts which
we know, the indefinite varieties of comparison possible among those
facts, and the diverse or opposite predispositions, intellectual as
well as emotional, of individual minds. They are not fabricated by
those who first draw attention to them.[51] The Megarics, far from
being themselves deceivers, served as sentinels against deceit. They
planted conspicuous beacons upon some of the sunken rocks whereon
unwary reasoners were likely to be wrecked. When the general type of a
fallacy is illustrated by a particular case in which the conclusion is
manifestly untrue, the like fallacy is rendered less operative for the
future.
[Footnote 51: Cicero, in his Academ. Prior, ii. 92-94, has very just
remarks on the obscurities and difficulties in the reasoning process,
which the Megarics and others brought to view--and were blamed for so
doing, as unfair and captious reasoners--as if they had themselves
created the difficulties--"(Dialectica) primo progressu festivé tradit
elementa loquendi et ambiguorum intelligentiam concludendique
rationem; tum paucis additis venit ad soritas, lubricum sané et
periculosum locum, quod tu modo dicebas esse vitiosum interrogandi
genus. Quid ergo? _istius vitii num nostra culpa est_? Rerum natura
nullam nobis dedit cognitionem finium, ut ullâ in re statuere possimus
quatenus. Nec hoc in acervo tritici solum, unde nomen est, sed nullâ
omnino in re minutatim interroganti--dives, pauper--clarus, obscurus,
sit--multa, pauca, magna, parva, longa, brevia, lata, angusta, quanto
aut addito aut dempto certum respondeamus, non habemus. At vitiosi
sunt soritæ. Frangite igitur eos, si potestis, ne molesti sint. . .
Sic me (inquit) sustineo, neque diutius captiosé interroganti
respondes. Si habes quod liqueat neque respondes, superbis: si non
habes, ne tu quidem percipis."
The principle of the Sorites ([Greek: ê( sôritikê\ a)pori/a]--Sextus
adv. Gramm. s. 68), though differently applied, is involved in the
argument of Zeno the Eleate, addressed to Protagoras--see Simplikius
ad Aristot. Physic. 250, p. 423, b. 42. Sch. Brand. Compare chap. ii.
of this volume.]
[Side-note: Controversy of the Megarics with Aristotle about Power.
Arguments of Aristotle.]
Of the positive doctrines of the Megarics we know little: but there is
one upon which Aristotle enters into controversy with them, and upon
which (as far as can be made out) I think they were in the right. In
the question about Power, they held that the power to do a thing did
not exist, except when the thing was actually done: that an architect,
for example, had no power to build a house, except when he actually
did build one. Aristotle controverts this opinion at some length;
contending that there exists a sort of power or cause which is in
itself irregular and indeterminate, sometimes turning to the
affirmative, sometimes to the negative, to do or not to do;[52] that
the architect _has_ the _power to build_ constantly, though he exerts
it only on occasion: and that many absurdities would follow if we did
not admit, That a given power or energy--and the exercise of that
power--are things distinct and separable.[53]
[Footnote 52: Aristot. De Interpret. p. 19, a. 6-20. [Greek: o(/lôs
e)/stin e)n toi=s mê\ a)ei\ e)nergou=si to\ dunato\n ei)=nai kai\ mê\
o(moi/ôs; e)n oi(=s a)mphô e)nde/chetai, kai\ to\ ei)=nai kai\ to\ mê\
ei)=nai, ô(/ste kai\ to\ gene/sthai kai\ to\ mê\ gene/sthai.]]
[Footnote 53: Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 3, p. 1046, b. 29. [Greek:
Ei)si\ de/ tines, oi)/ phasin, oi(=on oi( Megarikoi/, o(/tan
e)nergê=|, mo/non du/nasthai, o(/tan de\ mê\ e)nergê=|, mê\
du/nasthai--oi(=on to\n mê\ oi)kodomou=nta ou) du/nasthai oi)kodomei=n,
a)lla\ to\n oi)kodomou=nta o(/tan oi)kodomê=|; o(moi/ôs de\ kai\ e)pi\
tô=n a)/llôn].
Deycks (De Megaricorum Doctrinâ, pp. 70-71) considers this opinion of
the Megarics to be derived from their general Eleatic theory of the
Ens Unum et Immotum. But I see no logical connection between the two.]
[Side-note: These arguments not valid against the Megarici.]
Now these arguments of Aristotle are by no means valid against the
Megarics, whose doctrine, though apparently paradoxical, will appear
when explained to be no paradox at all, but perfectly true. When we
say that the architect has power to build, we do not mean that he has
power to do so under all supposable circumstances, but only under
certain conditions: we wish to distinguish him from non-professional
men, who under those same conditions have no power to build. The
architect must be awake and sober: he must have the will or
disposition to build:[54] he must be provided with tools and
materials, and be secure against destroying enemies. These and other
conditions being generally understood, it is unnecessary to enunciate
them in common speech. But when we engage in dialectic analysis, the
accurate discussion ([Greek: a)kribologi/a]) indispensable to
philosophy requires us to bring under distinct notice, that which the
elliptical character of common speech implies without enunciating.
Unless these favourable conditions be supposed, the architect is no
more able to build than an ordinary non-professional man. Now the
Megarics did not deny the distinctive character of the architect, as
compared with the non-architect: but they defined more accurately in
what it consisted, by restoring the omitted conditions. They went a
step farther: they pointed out that whenever the architect finds
himself in concert with these accompanying conditions (his own
volition being one of the conditions) he goes to work--and the
building is produced. As the house is not built, unless he wills to
build, and has tools and materials, &c.--so conversely, whenever he
has the will to build and has tools and materials, &c., the house is
actually built. The effect is not produced, except when the full
assemblage of antecedent conditions come together: but as soon as they
do come together, the effect is assuredly produced. The
accomplishments of the architect, though an essential item, are yet
only one item among several, of the conditions necessary to building
the house. He has no power to build, except when those other
conditions are assumed along with him: in other words, he has no such
power except when he actually does build.
[Footnote 54: About this condition implied in the predicate [Greek:
dunato/s], see Plato, Hippias Minor, p. 366 D.]
[Side-note: His arguments cited and criticised.]
Aristotle urges against the Megarics various arguments, as
follows:--1. Their doctrine implies that the architect is not an
architect, and does not possess his professional skill,[55] except at
the moment when he is actually building.--But the Megarics would have
denied that their doctrine did imply this. The architect possesses his
art at all times: but his art does not constitute a power of building
except under certain accompanying conditions.
[Footnote 55: Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 3, 1047, a. 3. [Greek:
o(/tan pau/sêtai (oi)kodomô=n) ou)ch e(/xei tê\n te/chnên.]]
2. The Megaric doctrine is the same as that of Protagoras, implying
that there exists no perceivable Object, and no Subject capable of
perceiving, except at the moment when perception actually takes
place.[56] On this we may observe, that the Megarics coincide with
Protagoras thus far, that they bring into open daylight the relative
and conditional, which the received phraseology tends to hide. But
neither they nor he affirm what is here put upon them. When we speak
of a perceivable Object, we mean that which may and will be perceived,
_if_ there be a proper Subject to perceive it: when we affirm a
Subject capable of perception, we mean, one which will perceive, under
those circumstances which we call the presence of an Object suitably
placed. The Subject and Object are correlates: but it is convenient to
have a language in which one of them alone is introduced
unconditionally, while the conditional sign is applied to the
correlate: though the matter affirmed involves a condition common to
both.
[Footnote 56: Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 3, 1047, a. 8-13.]
3. According to the Megaric doctrine (Aristotle argues) every man when
not actually seeing, is blind; every man when not actually speaking,
is dumb.--Here the Megarics would have said that this is a
misinterpretation of the terms dumb and blind; which denote a person
who cannot speak or see, even though he wishes it. One who is now
silent, though not dumb, may speak if he wills it: but his own
volition is an essential condition.[57]
[Footnote 57: The question between Aristotle and the Megarics has not
passed out of debate with modern philosophers.
Dr. Thomas Brown observes, in his inquiry into Cause and Effect--"From
the mere silence of any one, we cannot infer that he is dumb in
consequence of organic imperfection. He may be silent only because he
has no desire of speaking, not because speech would not have followed
his desire: and it is not with the mere _existence_ of any one, but
_with his desire of speaking_, that we suppose utterance to be
connected. A man who has _no desire of speaking, has in truth_, and in
strictness of language, _no power of speaking, when in that state of
mind_: since he has not a circumstance which, as immediately prior, is
essential to speech. But since he has that power, as soon as the new
circumstance of desire arises--and as the presence or absence of the
desire cannot be perceived but in its effects--_there is no
inconvenience in the common language_, which ascribes the power, _as
if it were possessed at all times, and in all circumstances of mind_,
though unquestionably, nothing more is meant than that the desire
existing will be followed by utterance." (Brown, Essay on the Relation
of Cause and Effect, p. 200.)
This is the real sense of what Aristotle calls [Greek: to\ de\
(le/getai) dunato/n, oi(=on dunato\n ei)=nai badi/zein o(/ti badiseien
a)\n], _i.e._ he will walk _if_ he desires to do so (De Interpret. p.
23, a. 9-15).]
4. According to the Megaric doctrine (says Aristotle) when you are now
lying down, you have no power to rise: when you are standing up, you
have no power to lie down: so that the present condition of affairs
must continue for ever unchanged: nothing can come into existence
which is not now in being.--Here again, the Megarics would have denied
his inference. The man who is now standing up, has power to lie down,
_if he wills_ to do so--or he may be thrown down by a superior force:
that is, he will lie down, _if_ some new fact of a certain character
shall supervene. The Megarics do not deny that he has power, _if_--so
and so: they deny that he has power, without the _if_--that is,
without the farther accompaniments essential to energy.
[Side-note: Potential as distinguished from the Actual--What it is.]
On the whole, it seems to me that Aristotle's refutation of the
Megarics is unsuccessful. A given assemblage of conditions is
requisite for the production of any act: while there are other
circumstances, which, if present at the same time, would defeat its
production. We often find it convenient to describe a state of things
in which some of the antecedent conditions are present without the
rest: in which therefore the act is not produced, yet would be
produced, if the remaining circumstances were present, and if the
opposing circumstances were absent.[58] The state of things thus
described is the _potential_ as distinguished from the _actual_:
power, distinguished from act or energy: it represents an incomplete
assemblage of the antecedent positive conditions--or perhaps a
complete assemblage, but counteracted by some opposing circumstances.
As soon as the assemblage becomes complete, and the opposing
circumstances removed, the potential passes into the actual. The
architect, when he is not building, possesses, not indeed the full or
plenary power to build, but an important fraction of that power, which
will become plenary when the other fractions supervene, but will then
at the same time become operative, so as to produce the actual
building.[59]
[Footnote 58: Hobbes, in his Computation or Logic (chaps. ix. and x.
Of Cause and Effect. Of Power and Act) expounds this subject with his
usual perspicuity.
"A Cause simply, or an Entire Cause, is the aggregate of all the
accidents, both of the agents, how many soever they be, and of the
patient, put together; which, when they are all supposed to be
present, it cannot be understood but that the effect is produced at
the same instant: and if any one of them be wanting, it cannot be
understood but that the effect is not produced" (ix. 3).
"Correspondent to Cause and Effect are Power and Act: nay, those and
these are the same things, though for divers considerations they have
divers names. For whensoever any agent has all those accidents which
are necessarily requisite for the production of some effect in the
patient, then we say that agent has power to produce that effect if it
be applied to a patient. In like manner, whensoever any patient has
all those accidents which it is requisite it should have for the
production of some effect in it, we say it is in the power of that
patient to produce that effect if it be applied to a fitting agent.
Power, active and passive, are parts only of plenary and entire power:
nor, except they be joined, can any effect proceed from them. And
therefore these powers are but conditional: namely, the agent has
power if it be applied to a patient, and the patient has power if it
be applied to an agent. _Otherwise neither of them have power, nor can
the accidents which are in them severally be properly called powers_:
nor any action be said to be possible for the power of the agent alone
or the patient alone."]
[Footnote 59: Aristotle does in fact grant all that is here said, in
the same book and in the page next subsequent to that which contains
his arguments against the Megaric doctrine, Metaphys. [Greek: Th]. 5,
1048, a. 1-24.
In this chapter Aristotle distinguishes powers belonging to things,
from powers belonging to persons--powers irrational from powers
rational--powers in which the agent acts without any will or choice,
from those in which the will or choice of the agent is one item of the
aggregate of conditions. He here expressly recognises that the power
of the agent, separately considered, is only _conditional_; that is,
conditional on the presence and suitable state of the patient, as well
as upon the absence of counteracting circumstances. But he contends
that such absence of counteracting circumstances is plainly implied,
and need not be expressly mentioned in the definition.
[Greek: e)pei\ de\ to\ dunato\n ti\ dunato\n kai\ pote\ kai\ pô=s kai\
o(/sa a)/lla a)na/gkê prosei=nai e)n tô=| diorismô=|--
to\ dunato\n kata\ lo/gon a(/pan a)na/gkê, o(/tan o)re/gêtai, ou)= t'
e)/chei tê\n du/namin kai\ ô(s e)/chei, tou=to poiei=n; e)/chei de\
paro/ntos tou= pathêtikou= kai\ ô(di\ e)/chontos poiei=n; _ei) de\
mê/, poiei=n ou) dunê/setai_. to\ ga\r mêtheno\s tô=n e(/xô kôlu/ontos
prosdiori/zesthai, ou)the\n e)/ti dei=; tê\n ga\r du/namin e)/chei
ô(/s e)/sti du/namis tou= poiei=n, _e)/sti d' ou) pa/ntôs_, a)ll'
e)cho/ntôn pô=s, e)n oi(=s a)phoristhê/setai kai\ ta\ e(/xô kôlu/onta;
a)phairei=tai ga\r tau=ta tô=n e)n tô=| diorismô=| proso/ntôn e)/nia].
The commentary of Alexander Aphr. upon this chapter is well worth
consulting (pp. 546-548 of the edition of his commentary by Bonitz,
1847). Moreover Aristotle affirms in this chapter, that when [Greek:
to\ poiêtiko\n] and [Greek: to\ pathêtiko\n] come together under
suitable circumstances, the power will certainly pass into act.
Here then, it seems to me, Aristotle concedes the doctrine which the
Megarics affirmed; or, if there be any difference between them, it is
rather verbal than real. In fact, Aristotle's reasoning in the third
chapter (wherein he impugns the doctrine of the Megarics), and the
definition of [Greek: dunato\n] which he gives in that chapter (1047,
a. 25), are hardly to be reconciled with his reasoning in the fifth
chapter. Bonitz (Notes on the Metaphys. pp. 393-395) complains of the
_mira levitas_ of Aristotle in his reasoning against the Megarics, and
of his omitting to distinguish between _Vermögen_ and _Möglichkeit_. I
will not use so uncourteous a phrase; but I think his refutation of
the Megarics is both unsatisfactory and contradicted by himself. I
agree with the following remark of Bonitz:--"Nec mirum, quod Megarici,
aliis illi quidem in rebus arguti, in hâc autem satis acuti,
existentiam [Greek: tô=| duna/mei o)/nti] tribuere recusarint," &c.]
[Side-note: Diodôrus Kronus--his doctrine about [Greek: to\ dunato/n].]
The doctrine which I have just been canvassing is expressly cited by
Aristotle as a Megaric doctrine, and was therefore probably held by
his contemporary Eubulidês. From the pains which Aristotle takes (in
the 'De Interpretatione' and elsewhere) to explain and vindicate his
own doctrine about the Potential and the Actual, we may see that it
was a theme much debated among the dialecticians of the day. And we
read of another Megaric, Diodorus[60] Kronus, perhaps contemporary
(yet probably a little later than Aristotle), as advancing a position
substantially the same as that of Eubulidês. That alone is possible
(Diodorus affirmed) which either is happening now, or will happen at
some future time. As in speaking about facts of an unrecorded past, we
know well that a given fact either occurred or did not occur, yet
without knowing which of the two is true--and therefore we affirm only
that the fact _may_ have occurred: so also about the future, either
the assertion that a given fact will at some time occur, is positively
true, or the assertion that it will never occur, is positively true:
the assertion that it may or may not occur some time or other,
represents only our ignorance, which of the two is true. That which
will never at any time occur, is impossible.
[Footnote 60: The dialectic ingenuity of Diodorus is powerfully
attested by the verse of Ariston, applied to describe Arkesilaus
(Sextus Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. p. 234):
[Greek: Pro/sthe Pla/tôn, o)/pithen Pu/r)r(ôn, me/ssos Dio/dôros.]]
[Side-note: Sophism of Diodorus--[Greek: O( Kurieu/ôn].]
The argument here recited must have been older than Diodorus, since
Aristotle states and controverts it: but it seems to have been handled
by him in a peculiar dialectic arrangement, which obtained the title
of [Greek: O( Kurieu/ôn].[61] The Stoics (especially Chrysippus), in
times somewhat later, impugned the opinion of Diodorus, though
seemingly upon grounds not quite the same as Aristotle. This problem
was one upon which speculative minds occupied themselves for several
centuries. Aristotle and Chrysippus maintained that affirmations
respecting the past were _necessary_ (one necessarily true and the
other necessarily false)--affirmations respecting the future,
_contingent_ (one must be true and the other false, but either might
be true). Diodorus held that both varieties of affirmations were
equally necessary--Kleanthes the Stoic thought that both were equally
contingent.[62]
[Footnote 61: Aristot. De Interpret. p. 18, a. pp. 27-38. Alexander ad
Aristot. Analyt. Prior. 34, p. 163, b. 34, Schol. Brandis. See also
Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Logic, Lect. xxiii. p. 464.]
[Footnote 62: Arrian ad Epiktet. ii. p. 19. Upton, in his notes on
this passage of Arrian (p. 151) has embodied a very valuable and
elaborate commentary by Mr. James Harris (the great English
Aristotelian scholar of the 18th century), explaining the nature of
this controversy, and the argument called [Greek: o( Kurieu/ôn].
Compare Cicero, De Fato, c. 7-9. Epistol. Fam. ix. 4.]
It was thus that the Megaric dialecticians, with that fertility of
mind which belonged to the Platonic and Aristotelian century, stirred
up many real problems and difficulties connected with logical
evidence, and supplied matters for discussion which not only occupied
the speculative minds of the next four or five centuries, but have
continued in debate down to the present day.
[Side-note: Question between Aristotle and Diodôrus depends upon
whether universal regularity of sequence be admitted or denied.]