The question about the Possible and Impossible, raised between

Aristotle and Diodorus, depends upon the larger question, Whether

there are universal laws of Nature or not? whether the sequences are,

universally and throughout, composed of assemblages of conditions

regularly antecedent, and assemblages of events regularly consequent;

though from the number and complication of causes, partly co-operating

and partly conflicting with each other, we with our limited

intelligence are often unable to predict the course of events in each

particular situation. Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, all maintained

that regular sequence of antecedent and consequent was not universal,

but partial only:[63] that there were some agencies essentially

regular, in which observation of the past afforded ground for

predicting the future--other agencies (or the same agencies on

different occasions) essentially irregular, in which the observation

of the past afforded no such ground. Aristotle admitted a graduation

of causes from perfect regularity to perfect irregularity:--1. The

Celestial Spheres, with their included bodies or divine persons, which

revolved and exercised a great and preponderant influence throughout

the Kosmos, with perfect uniformity; having no power of contraries,

_i.e._, having no power of doing anything else but what they actually

did (having [Greek: e)nergei/a] without [Greek: du/namis]). 2. The

four Elements, in which the natural agencies were to a great degree

necessary and uniform, but also in a certain degree otherwise--either

always or for the most part uniform ([Greek: to\ ô(s e)pi\ to\

polu/])--tending by inherent appetency towards uniformity, but not

always attaining it. 3. Besides these there were two other varieties

of Causes accidental, or perfectly irregular--Chance and Spontaneity:

powers of contraries, or with equal chance of contrary

manifestations--essentially capricious, undeterminable, unpredictable.[64]

This _Chance_ of Aristotle--with one of two contraries sure to turn up,

though you could never tell beforehand which of the two--was a

conception analogous to what logicians sometimes call an Indefinite

Proposition, or to what some grammarians have reckoned as a special

variety of genders called the _doubtful gender_. There were thus

positive causes of regularity, and positive causes of irregularity,

the co-operation or conflict of which gave the total manifestations of

the actual universe. The principle of irregularity, or the

Indeterminate, is sometimes described under the name of Matter,[65] as

distinguishable from, yet co-operating with, the three determinate

Causes--Formal, Efficient, Final. The Potential--the Indeterminate--the

_May or May not be_--is characterised by Aristotle as one of the inherent

principles operative in the Kosmos.

[Footnote 63: Xenophon, Memor. i. 1; Plato, Timæus, p. 48 A. [Greek:

ê( planôme/nê ai)ti/a], &c.]

[Footnote 64: [Greek: Ê( tu/chê--to\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche--to\

au)to/maton] are in the conception of Aristotle independent [Greek:

A)rchai/], attached to and blending with [Greek: a)na/gkê] and [Greek:

to\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu/]. See Physic. ii. 196, b. 11; Metaphys. E.

1026-1027.

Sometimes [Greek: to\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche] is spoken of as an [Greek:

A)rchê/], but not as an [Greek: ai)/tion], or belonging to [Greek:

u(/lê] as the [Greek: A)rchê/]. 1027, b. 11. [Greek: dê=lon a)/ra

o(/ti me/chri tino\s badi/zei a)rchê=s, au)/tê d' ou)/keti ei)s

a)/llo; e)/stai ou)=n ê( tou= o(po/ter' e)/tuchen au)/tê, kai\

ai)/tioi tê=s gene/seôs au)tê=s ou)the/n].

See, respecting the different notions of Cause held by ancient

philosophers, my remarks on the Platonic Phædon infrà, vol. iii.** ch.

xxv.]

[Footnote 65: Aristot. Metaph. E. 1027, a. 13; A. 1071, a. 10.

[Greek: ô(/ste ê( u(/lê e)/stai ai)ti/a, ê( e)ndechome/n ê para\ to\

ô(s e)pi\ to polu\ a)/llôs tou= sumbebêko/tos].

Matter is represented as the principle of irregularity, of [Greek: to\

o(po/ter' e)/tuche]--as the [Greek: du/namis tô=n e)nanti/ôn].

In the explanation given by Alexander of Aphrodisias of the

Peripatetic doctrine respecting chance--free-will, the principle of

irregularity--[Greek: tu/chê] is no longer assigned to the material

cause, but is treated as an [Greek: ai)ti/a kata\ sumbebêko/s],

distinguished from [Greek: ai)ti/a proêgou/mena] or [Greek: kath'

au(ta/]. The exposition given of the doctrine by Alexander is valuable

and interesting. See his treatise De Fato, addressed to the Emperor

Severus, in the edition of Orelli, Zurich. 1824 (a very useful volume,

containing treatises of Ammonius, Plotinus, Bardesanes, &c., on the

same subject); also several sections of his Quæstiones Naturales et

Morales, ed. Spengel, Munich, 1842, pp. 22-61-65-123, &c. He gives,

however, a different explanation of [Greek: to\ dunato\n] and [Greek:

to\ a)du/naton] in pp. 62-63, which would not be at variance with the

doctrine of Diodorus. We may remark that Alexander puts the antithesis

of the two doctrines differently from Aristotle,--in this way. 1.

Either all events happen [Greek: kath' ei(marme/nên]. 2. Or all events

do not happen [Greek: kath' ei(marme/nên], but some events are [Greek:

e)ph' ê(mi=n]. See De Fato, p. 14 seq. This way of putting the

question is directed more against the Stoics, who were the great

advocates of [Greek: ei(marme/nê], than against the Megaric Diodorus.

The treatises of Chrysippus and the other Stoics alter both the

wording and the putting of the thesis. We know that Chrysippus

impugned the doctrine of Diodorus, but I do not see how.

The Stoic antithesis of [Greek: ta kath' ei(marme/nên--ta\ e)ph'

ê(mi=n] is different from the antithesis conceived by Aristotle and

does not touch the question about the universality of regular

sequence. [Greek: Ta\ e)ph' ê(mi=n] describes those sequences in which

human volition forms one among the appreciable conditions determining

or modifying the result; [Greek: ta\ kath' ei(marme/nên] includes all

the other sequences wherein human volition has no appreciable

influence. But the sequence [Greek: tô=n e)ph' ê(mi=n] is just as

regular as the sequence [Greek: tô=n kath' ei(marme/nên]: both the one

and the other are often imperfectly predictable, because our knowledge

of facts and power of comparison is so imperfect.

Theophrastus discussed [Greek: to\ kath' ei(marme/nên], and explained

it to mean the same as [Greek: to\ kata\ phu/sin. phanerô/tata de\

Theo/phrastos dei/knusi tau)to\n o(\n to\ kath' ei(marme/nên tô=|

kata\ phu/sin] (Alexander Aphrodisias ad Aristot. De Animâ, ii.).]

[Side-note: Conclusion of Diodôrus--defended by Hobbes--Explanation

given by Hobbes.]

In what manner Diodorus stated and defended his opinion upon this

point, we have no information. We know only that he placed

affirmations respecting the future on the same footing as affirmations

respecting the past: maintaining that our potential affirmation--_May

or May not be_--respecting some future event, meant no more than it

means respecting some past event, viz.: no inherent indeterminateness

in the future sequence, but our ignorance of the determining

conditions, and our inability to calculate their combined working.[66]

In regard to scientific method generally, this problem is of the

highest importance: for it is only so far as uniformity of sequence

prevails, that facts become fit matter for scientific study.[67]

Consistently with the doctrine of all-pervading uniformity of

sequence, the definition of Hobbes gives the only complete account of

the Impossible and Possible: _i.e._ an account such as would appear to

an omniscient calculator, where _May or May not_ merge in _Will or

Will not_. According as each person falls short of or approaches this

ideal standard--according to his knowledge and mental resource,

inductive and deductive--will be his appreciation of what may be or

may not be--as of what may have been or may not have been during the

past. But such appreciation, being relative to each individual mind,

is liable to vary indefinitely, and does not admit of being embodied

in one general definition.

[Footnote 66: The same doctrine as that of the Megaric Diodorus is

declared by Hobbes in clear and explicit language (First Grounds of

Philosophy, ii. 10, 4-5):--"That is an impossible act, for the

production of which there is no power plenary. For seeing plenary

power is that in which all things concur which are requisite for the

production of an act,** if the power shall never be plenary, there will

always be wanting some of those things, without which the act cannot

be produced. Wherefore that act shall never be produced: that is, that

act is _impossible_. And every act, which is not impossible, is

_possible_. Every act therefore which is possible, shall at some time

or other be produced. For if it shall never be produced, then those

things shall never concur which are requisite for the production of

it; wherefore the act is _impossible_, by the definition; which is

contrary to what was supposed.

"A _necessary act_ is that, the production of which it is impossible

to hinder: and therefore every act that shall be produced, shall

necessarily be produced; for that it shall not be produced is

impossible, because, as has already been demonstrated, every possible

act shall at some time be produced. Nay, this proposition--_What shall

be shall be_--is as necessary a proposition as this--_A man is a man_.

"But here, perhaps, some man will ask whether those future things

which are commonly called _contingents_, are necessary. I say, then,

that generally all contingents have their necessary causes, but are

called _contingents_, in respect of other events on which they do not

depend--as the rain which shall be to-morrow shall be necessary, that

is, from necessary causes; but we think and say, it happens by chance,

because we do not yet perceive the causes thereof, though they exist

now. For men commonly call that _casual_ or _contingent_, whereof they

do not perceive the necessary cause: _and in the same manner they use

to speak of things past, when not knowing whether a thing be done or

not, they say, It is possible it never was done._

"Wherefore all propositions concerning future things, contingent or

not contingent, as this--It will rain to-morrow, or To-morrow the sun

will rise--are either necessarily true or necessarily false: but we

call them contingent, because we do not yet know whether they be true

or false; whereas their verity depends not upon our knowledge, but

upon the foregoing of their causes. But there are some, who, though

they will confess this whole proposition--_ To-morrow it will either

rain or not rain_--to be true, yet they will not acknowledge the parts

of it, as, _To-morrow it will rain_, or _To-morrow it will not rain_,

to be either of them true by itself; because (they say) neither this

nor that is true _determinately_. But what is this _true

determinately_, but true _upon our knowledge_ or _evidently true_? And

therefore they say no more but that it is not yet known whether it be

true or not; but they say it more obscurely, and darken the evidence

of the truth with the same words by which they endeavour to hide their

own ignorance."]

[Footnote 67: The reader will find this problem admirably handled in

Mr. John Stuart Mill's System of Logic, Book iii. ch. 21, and Book vi.

chs. 2 and 8; also in the volume of Professor Bain on the Emotions and

the Will, Chapter on Belief.]

Besides the above doctrine respecting Possible and Impossible, there

is also ascribed to Diodorus a doctrine respecting Hypothetical

Propositions, which, as far as I comprehend it, appears to have been a

correct one.[68] He is also said to have reasoned against the reality

of motion, renewing the arguments of Zeno the Eleate.

[Footnote 68: Sextus Emp. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. ii. pp. 110-115. [Greek:

a)lêthe\s sunêmme/non]. Adv. Mathemat. viii. 112. Philo maintained

that an hypothetical proposition was true, if both the antecedent and

consequent were true--"If it be day, I am conversing". Diodorus denied

that this proposition, as an Hypothetical proposition, was true: since

the consequent might be false, though the antecedent were true. An

Hypothetical proposition was true only when, assuming the antecedent

to be true, the consequent must be true also.]

[Side-note: Reasonings of Diodôrus--respecting Hypothetical

Propositions--respecting Motion. His difficulties about the _Now_ of

time.]

But if he reproduced the arguments of Zeno, he also employed another,

peculiar to himself. He admitted the reality of _past_ motion: but he

denied the reality of _present_ motion. You may affirm truly (he said)

that a thing _has been moved_: but you cannot truly affirm that any

thing _is being moved_. Since it was _here_ before, and is _there_

now, you may be sure that it has been moved: but actual present motion

you cannot perceive or prove. Affirmation in the perfect tense may be

true, when affirmation in the present tense neither is nor ever was

true: thus it is true to say--Helen _had_ three husbands (Menelaus,

Paris, Deiphobus): but it was never true to say--Helen _has_ three

husbands, since they became her husbands in succession.[69] Diodorus

supported this paradox by some ingenious arguments, and the opinion

which he denied seems to have presented itself to him as involving the

position of indivisible minima--atoms of body, points of space,

instants of time. He admitted such minima of atoms, but not of space

or time: and without such admission he could not make intelligible to

himself the fact of present or actual motion. He could find no present

_Now_ or Minimum of Time; without which neither could any present

motion be found. Plato in the Parmenidês[70] professes to have found

this inexplicable moment of transition, but he describes it in terms

not likely to satisfy a dialectical mind: and Aristotle denying that

the Now is any portion or constituent part of time, considers it only

as a boundary of the past and future.[71]

[Footnote 69: Sextus Empir. adv. Mathemat. x. pp. 85-101.]

[Footnote 70: Plato, Parmenidês, p. 156 D-E. [Greek: Po/t' ou)=n,

metaba/llei? ou)/te ga\r e(sto\s a)\n ou)/te kenou/menon meta/balloi,

ou)/te e)n chro/nô| o)/n]. (Here Plato adverts to the difficulties

attending the supposition of actual [Greek: metabolê/], as Diodorus to

those of actual [Greek: ki/nêsis]. Next we have Plato's hypothesis for

getting over the difficulties.) [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n e)sti/ to\

a)/topon tou=to, e)n ô)=| to/t' a)\n ei)/ê o(/te metaba/llei? To\

poi=on dê/? _To\ e)xai/phnês; ê( e)xai/phnês au)/tê phu/sis a)/topos_

tis e)gka/thêtai metaxu\ tê=s kinê/seôs te kai\ sta/seôs, e)n chro/nô|

ou)deni\ ou)=sa, kai\ ei)s tau/tên dê\ kai\ e)k tau/tês to/ te

kinou/menon metaba/llei e)pi\ to\ e)sta/nai kai\ to\ e)sto\s e)pi\ to\

kinei=sthai].

Diodorus could not make out this [Greek: phu/sis a)/topos] which Plato

calls [Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês].]

[Footnote 71: To illustrate this apparent paradox of Diodorus,

affirming past motion, but denying present motion, we may compare what

is said by Aristotle about the Now or Point of Present Time--that it

is not a part, but a boundary between Past and Future.

Aristot. Physic. iv. p. 218, a. 4-10. [Greek: tou= de\ chro/non ta\

me\n ge/gone, ta\ de\ me/llei, e)sti d' ou)de\n, o)/ntos meristou=;

to\ de\ nu=n ou) me/ros--to\ de\ nu=n pe/ras e)/sti] (a. 24)--p. 222,

a. 10-20-223, a. 20. [Greek: o( de\ chro/nos kai\ ê( ki/nêsis a(/ma

kata/ te du/namin kai\ kat' e)nergei/an].

Which doctrine is thus rendered by Harris in his Hermes, ch. vii. pp.

101-103-105:--"Both Points and Nows being taken as Bounds, and not as

Parts, it will follow that in the same manner as the same point may be

the end of one line and the beginning of another--so the same Now may

be the End of one time, and the beginning of another. . . I say of

these two times, that with respect to the _Now_, or Instant which they

include, the first of them is necessarily Past time, as being previous

to it: the other is necessarily Future, as being subsequent. . . From

the above speculations, there follow some conclusions, which may be

called paradoxes, till they have been attentively considered. In the

first place, there cannot (strictly speaking) be any such thing as

Time Present. For if all Time be transient, as well as continuous, it

cannot like a line be present altogether, but part will necessarily be

gone and part be coming. If therefore any portion of its continuity

were to be present at once, it would so far quit its transient nature,

and be Time no longer. But if no portion of its continuity can be thus

present, how can Time possibly be present, to which such continuity is

essential?"--Compare Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy,

p. 581.]

[Side-note: Motion is always present, past, and future.]

This opinion of Aristotle is in the main consonant with that of

Diodorus; who, when he denied the reality of present motion, meant

probably only to deny the reality of _present motion apart from past

and future motion_. Herein also we find him agreeing with Hobbes, who

denies the same in clearer language.[72] Sextus Empiricus declares

Diodorus to have been inconsistent in admitting past motion while he

denied present motion.[73] But this seems not more inconsistent than

the doctrine of Aristotle respecting the _Now_ of time. I know, when I

compare a child or a young tree with what they respectively were a

year ago, that they have grown: but whether they actually are growing,

at every moment of the intervening time, is not ascertainable by

sense, and is a matter of probable inference only.[74] Diodorus could

not understand present motion, except in conjunction with past and

future motion, as being the common limit of the two: but he could

understand past motion, without reference to present or future. He

could not state to himself a satisfactory theory respecting the

beginning of motion: as we may see by his reasonings distinguishing

the motion of a body all at once in its integrity, from the motion of

a body considered as proceeding from the separate motion of its

constituent atoms--the moving atoms preponderating over the atoms at

rest, and determining them to motion,[75] until gradually the whole

body came to move. The same argument re-appears in another example,

when he argues--The wall does not fall while its component stones hold

together, for then it is still standing: nor yet when they have come

apart, for then it _has_ fallen.[76]

[Footnote 72: Hobbes, First Grounds of Philosophy, ii. 8, 11. "That is

said to be at rest which, during any time, is in one place; and that

to be moved, or to have been moved, which whether it be now at rest or

moved, was formerly in another place from that which it is now in.

From which definition it may be inferred, first, that whatsoever is

moved _has been_ moved: for if it still be in the same place in which

it was formerly, it is at rest: but if it be in another place, it _has

been_ moved, by the definition of moved. Secondly, that what _is_

moved, _will yet_ be moved: for that which is moved, leaveth the place

where it is, and consequently will be moved still. Thirdly, that

whatsoever is moved, is not in one place during any time, how little

soever that may be: for by the definition of rest, that which is in

one place during any time, is at rest. . . . From what is above

demonstrated--namely, that whatsoever _is_ moved, _has also been_

moved, and _will be_ moved: this also may be collected, That there can

be no conception of motion without conceiving past and future time."]

[Footnote 73: Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. pp. 91-97-112-116.]

[Footnote 74: See this point touched by Plato in Philêbus, p. 43 B.]

[Footnote 75: Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. 113. [Greek: ki/nêsis kat'

ei)likri/neian . . . ki/nêsis kat' e)pikra/teian]. Compare Zeller, Die

Philosophie der Griech. ii. p. 191, ed. 2nd.]

[Footnote 76: Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. pp. 346-348.]

[Side-note: Stilpon of Megara--His great celebrity.]

That Diodorus was a person seriously anxious to solve logical

difficulties, as well as to propose them, would be incontestably

proved if we could believe the story recounted of him--that he hanged

himself because he could not solve a problem proposed by Stilpon in

the presence of Ptolemy Soter.[77] But this story probably grew out of

the fact, that Stilpon succeeded Diodorus at Megara, and eclipsed him

in reputation. The celebrity of Stilpon, both at Megara and at Athens

(between 320-300 B.C., but his exact date can hardly be settled), was

equal, if not superior, to that of any contemporary philosopher. He

was visited by listeners from all parts of Greece, and he drew away

pupils from the most renowned teachers of the day; from Theophrastus

as well as the others.[78] He was no less remarkable for fertility of

invention than for neatness of expression. Two persons, who came for

the purpose of refuting him, are said to have remained with him as

admirers and scholars. All Greece seemed as it were looking towards

him, and inclining towards the Megaric doctrines.[79] He was much

esteemed both by Ptolemy Soter and by Demetrius Poliorkêtes, though he

refused the presents and invitations of both: and there is reason to

believe that his reputation in his own day must have equalled that of

either Plato or Aristotle in theirs. He was formidable in disputation;

but the nine dialogues which he composed and published are

characterised by Diogenes as cold.[80]

[Footnote 77: Diog. L. ii. 112.]

[Footnote 78: This is asserted by Diogenes upon the authority of

[Greek: Phi/lippos o( Megriko/s], whom he cites [Greek: kata\ le/xin].

We do not know anything about Philippus.

Menedêmus, who spoke with contempt of the other philosophers, even of

Plato and Xenokrates, admired Stilpon (Diog. L. ii. 134).]

[Footnote 79: The phrase of Diogenes is here singular, and must

probably have been borrowed from a partisan--[Greek: ô(/ste mikrou=

deê=sai pa=san tê\n E(lla/da a)phorô=san ei)s au)to\n megari/sai].

Stilpon [Greek: eu(resilogi/a| kai\ sophistei/a| proê=ge tou\s

a)/llous--kompso/tatos] (Diog. L. ii. 113-115).]

[Footnote 80: Diog. L. ii. 119-120. [Greek: psuchroi/].]

[Side-note: Menedêmus and the Eretriacs.]

Contemporary with Stilpon (or perhaps somewhat later) was Menedêmus of

Eretria, whose philosophic parentage is traced to Phædon. The name of

Phædon has been immortalised, not by his own works, but by the

splendid dialogue of which Plato has made him the reciter. He is said

(though I doubt the fact) to have been a native of Elis. He was of

good parentage, a youthful companion of Sokrates in the last years of

his life.[81] After the death of Sokrates, Phædon went to Elis,

composed some dialogues, and established a succession or sect of

philosophers--Pleistanus, Anchipylus, Moschus. Of this sect

Menedêmus,[82] contemporary and hearer of Stilpon, became the most

eminent representative, and from him it was denominated Eretriac

instead of Eleian. The Eretriacs, as well as the Megarics, took up the

negative arm of philosophy, and were eminent as puzzlers and

controversialists.

[Footnote 81: The story given by Diogenes L. (ii. 31 and 106; compare

Aulus Gellius, ii. 18) about Phædon's adventures antecedent to his

friendship with Sokrates, is unintelligible to me. "Phædon was made

captive along with his country (Elis), sold at Athens, and employed in

a degrading capacity; until Sokrates induced Alkibiades or Kriton to

pay his ransom." Now, no such event as the capture of Elis, and the

sale of its Eupatrids as slaves, happened at that time: the war

between Sparta and Elis (described by Xenophon, Hell. iii. 2, 21 seq.)

led to no such result, and was finished, moreover, after the death of

Sokrates. Alkibiades had been long in exile. If, in the text of

Diogenes, where we now read [Greek: Phai/dôn, _Ê(/leios_, tô=n

eu)patridô=n]--we were allowed to substitute [Greek: Phai/dôn,

_Mê/lios_, tô=n eu)patridô=n]--the narrative would be rendered

consistent with known historical facts. The Athenians captured the

island of Melos in 415 B.C., put to death the Melians of military age,

and sold into slavery the younger males as well as the females

(Thucyd. v. 116). If Phædon had been a Melian youth of good family, he

would have been sold at Athens, and might have undergone the

adventures narrated by Diogenes. We know that Alkibiades purchased a

female Melian as slave (Pseudo-Andokides cont. Alkibiad.).]

[Footnote 82: Diog. L. ii. 105, 126 seq. There was a statue of

Menedêmus in the ancient stadium of Eretria: Diogenes speaks as if it

existed in his time, and as if he himself had seen it (ii. 132).]

[Side-note: Open speech and licence of censure assumed by Menedêmus.]

But though this was the common character of the two, in a logical

point of view, yet in Stilpon, as well as Menedêmus, other elements

became blended with the logical. These persons combined, in part at

least, the free censorial speech of Antisthenes with the subtlety of

Eukleides. What we hear of Menedêmus is chiefly his bitter, stinging

sarcasms, and clever repartees. He did not, like the Cynic Diogenes,

live in contented poverty, but occupied a prominent place (seemingly

under the patronage of Antigonus and Demetrius) in the government of

his native city Eretria. Nevertheless he is hardly less celebrated

than Diogenes for open speaking of his mind, and carelessness of

giving offence to others.[83]

[Footnote 83: Diog. L. ii. 129-142.]

* * * * *

ANTISTHENES.

[Side-note: Antisthenes took up Ethics principally, but with negative

Logic intermingled.]

Antisthenes, the originator of the Cynic succession of philosophers,

was one of those who took up principally the ethical element of the

Sokratic discoursing, which the Megarics left out or passed lightly

over. He did not indeed altogether leave out the logical element: all

his doctrines respecting it, as far as we hear of them, appear to have

been on the negative side. But respecting ethics, he laid down

affirmative propositions,[84] and delivered peremptory precepts. His

aversion to pleasure, by which he chiefly meant sexual pleasure, was

declared in the most emphatic language. He had therefore, in the

negative logic, a point of community with Eukleides and the Megarics:

so that the coalescence of the two successions, in Stilpon and

Menedêmus, is a fact not difficult to explain.

[Footnote 84: Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. ii. 20, p. 485, Potter.

[Greek: e)gô\ d' a)pode/chomai to\n A)phrodi/tên le/gonta ka)\|n

katatoxeu/saimi, ei) la/boimi], &c.

[Greek: Manei/ên ma=llon ê)\ ê)sthei/ên], Diog. L. vi. 3.]

The life of Sokrates being passed in conversing with a great variety

of persons and characters, his discourses were of course multifarious,

and his ethical influence operated in different ways. His mode of

life, too, exercised a certain influence of its own.

[Side-note: He copied the manner of life of Sokrates, in plainness and

rigour.]

Antisthenes, and his disciple Diogenes, were in many respects closer

approximations to Sokrates than either Plato or any other of the

Sokratic companions. The extraordinary colloquial and cross-examining

force was indeed a peculiar gift, which Sokrates bequeathed to none of

them: but Antisthenes took up the Sokratic purpose of inculcating

practical ethics not merely by word of mouth, but also by manner of

life. He was not inferior to his master in contentment under poverty,

in strength of will and endurance,[85] in acquired insensibility both

to pain and pleasure, in disregard of opinion around him, and in

fearless exercise of a self-imposed censorial mission. He learnt from

Sokrates indifference to conventional restraints and social

superiority, together with the duty of reducing wants to a minimum,

and stifling all such as were above the lowest term of necessity. To

this last point, Sokrates gave a religious colour, proclaiming that

the Gods had no wants, and that those who had least came nearest to

the Gods.[86] By Antisthenes, these qualities were exhibited in

eminent measure; and by his disciple Diogenes they were still farther

exaggerated. Epiktetus, a warm admirer of both, considers them as

following up the mission from Zeus which Sokrates (in the Platonic

Apology) sets forth as his authority, to make men independent of the

evils of life by purifying and disciplining the appreciation of good

and evil in the mind of each individual.[87]

[Footnote 85: Cicero, de Orator. iii. 17, 62; Diog. L. vi. 2. [Greek:

par' ou)=] (Sokrates) [Greek: kai\ to\ karteriko\n labô\n kai\ to\

a)pathe\s zêlô/sas katê=rxe prô=tos tou= kunismou=]: also vi. 15. The

appellation of Cynics is said to have arisen from the practice of

Antisthenes to frequent the gymnasium called [Greek: Kuno/sarges] (D.

L. vi. 13), though other causes are also assigned for the denomination

(Winckelmann, Antisth. Frag. pp. 8-10).]

[Footnote 86: Sokrates had said, [Greek: to\ mêdeno\s de/esthai,

thei=on ei)=nai; to\ d' ô(s e)lachi/stôn, e)gguta/tô tou= thei/ou]

(Xenophon, Memor. i. 6, 10. Compare Apuleius, Apol. p. 25). Plato,

Gorgias, p. 492 E. The same dictum is ascribed to Diogenes (Diog. L.

vi. 105).]

[Footnote 87: Epiktetus, Dissert. iii. 1, 19-22, iii. 21-19, iii.

24-40-60-69. The whole of the twenty-second Dissertation, [Greek: Peri\

Kunismou=], is remarkable. He couples Sokrates with Diogenes more

closely than with any one else.]

[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes exclusively ethical and ascetic.

He despised music, literature, and physics.]

Antisthenes declared virtue to be the End for men to aim at--and to be

sufficient _per se_ for conferring happiness; but he also declared

that virtue must be manifested in acts and character, not by words.

Neither much discourse nor much learning was required for virtue;

nothing else need be postulated except bodily strength like that of

Sokrates.[88] He undervalued theory even in regard to Ethics: much

more in regard to Nature (Physics) and to Logic: he also despised

literary, geometrical, musical teaching, as distracting men's

attention from the regulation of their own appreciative sentiment, and

the adaptation of their own conduct to it. He maintained strenuously

(what several Platonic dialogues call in question) that virtue both

could be taught and must be taught: when once learnt, it was

permanent, and could not be eradicated. He prescribed the simplest

mode of life, the reduction of wants to a minimum, with perfect

indifference to enjoyment, wealth, or power. The reward was, exemption

from fear, anxiety, disappointments, and wants: together with the

pride of approximation to the Gods.[89] Though Antisthenes thus

despised both literature and theory, yet he had obtained a rhetorical

education, and had even heard the rhetor Gorgias. He composed a large

number of dialogues and other treatises, of which only the titles

(very multifarious) are preserved to us.[90] One dialogue, entitled

Sathon, was a coarse attack on Plato: several treated of Homer and of

other poets, whose verses he seems to have allegorised. Some of his

dialogues are also declared by Athenæus to contain slanderous abuse of

Alkibiades and other leading Athenians. On the other hand, the

dialogues are much commended by competent judges; and Theopompus even

affirmed that much in the Platonic dialogues had been borrowed from

those of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.[91]

[Footnote 88: Diog. L. vi. 11.]

[Footnote 89: Diog. L. vi. 102-104.]

[Footnote 90: Diog. L. vi. 1, 15-18. The two remaining

fragments--[Greek: Ai)/as, O)/dusseu\s] (Winckelmann, Antisth. Fragm.

pp. 38-42)--cannot well be genuine, though Winckelmann seems to think

them so.]

[Footnote 91: Athenæus, v. 220, xi. 508; Diog. L. iii. 24-35;

Phrynichus ap. Photium, cod. 158; Epiktêtus, ii. 16-35. Antisthenes is

placed in the same line with Kritias and Xenophon, as a Sokratic

writer, by Dionysius of Halikarnassus, De Thucyd. Jud. p. 941. That

there was standing reciprocal hostility between Antisthenes and Plato

we can easily believe. Plato never names Antisthenes: and if the

latter attacked Plato, it was under the name of Sathon. How far Plato

in his dialogues intends to attack Antisthenes without naming him--is

difficult to determine. Probably he does intend to designate

Antisthenes as [Greek: ge/rôn o)psimathê/s], in Sophist. 251.

Schleiermacher and other commentators think that he intends to attack

Antisthenes in Philêbus, Theætêtus, Euthydêmus, &c. But this seems to

me not certain. In Philêbus, p. 44, he can hardly include Antisthenes

among the [Greek: ma/la deinoi\ peri\ phu/sin]. Antisthenes neglected

the study of [Greek: phu/sis].]

[Side-note: Constant friendship of Antisthenes with

Sokrates--Xenophontic Symposion.]

Antisthenes was among the most constant friends and followers of

Sokrates, both in his serious and in his playful colloquies.[92] The

Symposion of Xenophon describes both of them, in their hours of

joviality. The picture drawn by an author, himself a friend and

companion, exhibits Antisthenes (so far as we can interpret caricature

and jocular inversion) as poor, self-denying, austere, repulsive, and

disputatious--yet bold and free-spoken, careless of giving offence,

and forcible in colloquial repartee.[93]

[Footnote 92: Xenophon, Memor. iii. 11, 17.]

[Footnote 93: Xenophon, Memorab. iii. 11, 17; Symposion, ii. 10, iv.

2-3-44. Plutarch (Quæst. Symp. ii. 1, 6, p. 632) and Diogenes Laertius

(vi. 1, 15) appear to understand the description of Xenophon as

ascribing to Antisthenes a winning and conciliatory manner. To me it

conveys the opposite impression. We must recollect that the pleasantry

of the Xenophontic Symposion (not very successful as pleasantry) is

founded on the assumption, by each person, of qualities and

pretensions the direct reverse of that which he has in reality--and on

his professing to be proud of that which is a notorious disadvantage.

Thus Sokrates pretends to possess great personal beauty, and even puts

himself in competition with the handsome youth Kritobulus; he also

prides himself on the accomplishments of a good [Greek: mastropo/s].

Antisthenes, quite indigent, boasts of his wealth; the neglected

Hermogenes boasts of being powerfully friended. The passage, iv. 57,

61, which talks of the winning manners of Antisthenes, and his power

of imparting popular accomplishments, is to be understood in this

ironical and inverted sense.]

[Side-note: Diogenes, successor of Antisthenes--His Cynical

perfection--striking effect which he produced.]

In all these qualities, however, Antisthenes was surpassed by his

pupil and successor Diogenes of Sinôpê; whose ostentatious austerity

of life, eccentric and fearless character, indifference to what was

considered as decency, great acuteness and still greater power of

expression, freedom of speech towards all and against all--constituted

him the perfect type of the Cynical sect. Being the son of a

money-agent at Sinôpê, he was banished with his father for fraudulently

counterfeiting the coin of the city. On coming to Athens as an exile,

he was captivated with the character of Antisthenes, who was at first

unwilling to admit him, and was only induced to do so by his

invincible importunity. Diogenes welcomed his banishment, with all its

poverty and destitution, as having been the means of bringing him to

Antisthenes,[94] and to a life of philosophy. It was Antisthenes (he

said) who emancipated him from slavery, and made him a freeman. He was

clothed in one coarse garment with double fold: he adopted the wallet

(afterwards the symbol of cynicism) for his provisions, and is said to

have been without any roof or lodging--dwelling sometimes in a tub

near the Metroon, sometimes in one of the public porticoes or temples:

he is also said to have satisfied all his wants in the open day. He

here indulged unreservedly in that unbounded freedom of speech, which

he looked upon as the greatest blessing of life. No man ever turned

that blessing to greater account: the string of repartees, sarcasms,

and stinging reproofs, which are attributed to him by Diogenes

Laertius, is very long, but forms only a small proportion of those

which that author had found recounted.[95] Plato described Diogenes as

Sokrates running mad:[96] and when Diogenes, meeting some Sicilian

guests at his house and treading upon his best carpet, exclaimed "I am

treading on Plato's empty vanity and conceit," Plato rejoined "Yes,

with a different vanity of your own ". The impression produced by

Diogenes in conversation with others, was very powerfully felt both by

young and old. Phokion, as well as Stilpon, were among his

hearers.[97] In crossing the sea to Ægina, Diogenes was captured by

pirates, taken to Krete, and there put up to auction as a slave: the

herald asked him what sort of work he was fit for: whereupon Diogenes

replied--To command men. At his own instance, a rich Corinthian named

Xeniades bought him and transported him to Corinth. Diogenes is said

to have assumed towards Xeniades the air of a master: Xeniades placed

him at the head of his household, and made him preceptor of his sons.

In both capacities Diogenes discharged his duty well.[98] As a slave

well treated by his master, and allowed to enjoy great freedom of

speech, he lived in greater comfort than he had ever enjoyed as a

freeman: and we are not surprised that he declined the offers of

friends to purchase his liberation. He died at Corinth in very old

age: it is said, at ninety years old, and on the very same day on

which Alexander the Great died at Babylon (B.C. 323). He was buried at

the gate of Corinth leading to the Isthmus: a monument being erected

to his honour, with a column of Parian marble crowned by the statue of

a dog.[99]

[Footnote 94: Diog. L. vi. 2, 21-49; Plutarch Quæst. Sympos. ii. 1, 7;

Epiktetus, iii. 22, 67, iv. 1, 114; Dion Chrysostom. Orat. viii.-ix.-x.

Plutarch quotes two lines from Diogenes respecting Antisthenes:--

[Greek: O(/s me r(a/kê t' ê)/mpische ka\xêna/gkase

Ptôcho\n gene/sthai kai\ do/môn a)na/staton--

ou) ga\r a)\n o(moi/ôs pithano\s ê)=n le/gôn--O(/s me sopho\n kai\

au)ta/rkê kai\ maka/rion e)poi/êse].

The interpretation given of the passage by Plutarch is curious, but

quite in the probable meaning of the author. However, it is not easy

to reconcile with the fact of this extreme poverty another fact

mentioned about Diogenes, that he asked fees from listeners, in one

case as much as a mina (Diog. L. vi. 2, 67).]

[Footnote 95: Diog. L. v. 18, vi. 2, 69. [Greek: e)rôtêthei\s ti/

ka/lliston e)n a)nthrô/pois e)/phê--par)r(êsi/a]. Among the numerous

lost works of Theophrastus (enumerated by Diogen. Laert. v. 43) one is

[Greek: Tô=n Dioge/nous Sunagôgê\, a/], a remarkable evidence of the

impression made by the sayings and proceedings of Diogenes upon his

contemporaries. Compare Dion Chrysostom. Or. ix. (vol. i. 288 seq.

Reiske) for the description of the conduct of Diogenes at the Isthmian

festival, and the effect produced by it on spectators.

These smart sayings, of which so many are ascribed to Diogenes, and

which he is said to have practised beforehand, and to have made

occasions for--[Greek: o(/ti chrei/an ei)/ê memeletêkô/s] (Diog. L. v.

18, vi. 91, vii. 26)--were called by the later rhetors [Greek:

Chrei=ai]. See Hermogenes and Theon, apud Walz, Rhetor. Græc. i. pp.

19-201; Quintilian, i. 9, 4.

Such collections of _Ana_ were ascribed to all the philosophers in

greater or less number. Photius, in giving the list of books from

which the Sophist Sopater collected extracts, indicates one as [Greek:

Ta\ Dioge/nous tou= Kunikou= A)pophthe/gmata] (Codex 161).]

[Footnote 96: Diog. L. vi. 54: [Greek: Sôkra/tês maino/ menos]. vi. 26:

[Greek: Oi( de\ phasi to\n Dioge/nên ei)pei=n, Patô= to\n Pla/tônos

tu=phon; to\n de\ pha/nai, E(te/rô| ge tu/phô|, Dio/genes]. The term

[Greek: tu=phos] ("vanity, self-conceit, assumption of knowing better

than others, being puffed up by the praise of vulgar minds") seems to

have been mach interchanged among the ancient philosophers, each of

them charging it upon his opponents; while the opponents of philosophy

generally imputed it to all philosophers alike. Pyrrho the Sceptic

took credit for being the only [Greek: a)/tuphos]: and he is

complimented as such by his panegyrist Timon in the Silli. Aristokles

affirmed that Pyrrho had just as much [Greek: tu=phon] as the rest.

Eusebius, Præp. Evang. xiv. 18.]

[Footnote 97: Diog. L. vi. 2, 75-76.]

[Footnote 98: Diog. L. vi. 2, 74. Xeniades was mentioned by

Democritus: he is said to have been a sceptic (Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem.

vii. 48-53), at least he did not recognise any [Greek: kritê/rion].]

[Footnote 99: Diog. L. vi. 2, 77-78.

Diogenes seems to have been known by his contemporaries under the

title of [Greek: o( Ku/ôn]. Aristotle cites from him a witty comparison

under that designation, Rhetoric. iii. 10, 1410, a. 24. [Greek: kai\

o( Ku/ôn (e)ka/lei) ta\ kapêlei=a, ta\ A)ttika\ phidi/tia.]]

[Side-note: Doctrines and smart sayings of Diogenes--Contempt of

pleasure--training and labour required--indifference to literature and

geometry.]

In politics, ethics, and rules for human conduct, Diogenes adopted

views of his own, and spoke them out freely. He was a freethinker

(like Antisthenes) as to the popular religion: and he disapproved of

marriage laws, considering that the intercourse of the sexes ought to

be left to individual taste and preference.[100] Though he respected

the city and conformed to its laws, yet he had no reverence for

existing superstitions, or for the received usages as to person, sex,

or family. He declared himself to be a citizen of the Kosmos and of

Nature.[101] His sole exigency was, independence of life, and freedom

of speech: having these, he was satisfied, fully sufficient to himself

for happiness, and proud of his own superiority to human weakness. The

main benefit which he derived from philosophy (he said) was, that he

was prepared for any fortune that might befall him. To be ready to

accept death easily, was the sure guarantee of a free and independent

life.[102] He insisted emphatically upon the necessity of exercise or

training ([Greek: a)/skêsis]) both as to the body and as to the mind.

Without this, nothing could be done: by means of it everything might

be achieved. But he required that the labours imposed should be

directed to the acquisition of habits really useful; instead of being

wasted, as they commonly were, upon objects frivolous and showy. The

truly wise man ought to set before him as a model the laborious life

of Hêraklês: and he would find, after proper practice and training,

that the contempt of pleasures would afford him more enjoyment than

the pleasures themselves.[103]

[Footnote 100: Diog. L. vi. 2, 72. Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 13.]

[Footnote 101: Diog. L. vi. 2, 63-71. The like declaration is ascribed

to Sokrates. Epiktêtus, i. 9, 1.]

[Footnote 102: Diog. L. vi. 2, 63, 72. [Greek: mêde\n e)leutheri/as

prokri/nôn]. Epiktêtus, iv. 1, 30. [Greek: Ou(/tô kai\ Dioge/nês

le/gei, mi/an ei)=nai mêchanê\n pro\s e)leutheri/an--to\ eu)ko/lôs

a)pothnê/skein]. Compare iv. 7-28, i. 24, 6.]

[Footnote 103: Diog. L. vi. 2, 70-71. [Greek: kai\ ga\r au)tê\ tê=s

ê(donê=s ê( kataphro/nêsis ê(duta/tê promeletêthei=sa, kai\ ô(/sper

oi( sunethisthe/ntes ê(de/ôs zê=|n, a)êdô=s e)pi\ tou)nanti/on

meti/asin, ou(/tô oi( tou)nanti/on a)skêthe/ntes ê(/dion au)tô=n tô=n

ê(donô=n kataphronou=si]. See Lucian, Vitar. Auct. c. 9, about the

hard life and the happiness of Diogenes. Compare s. 26 about the

[Greek: tu=phos] of Diogenes treading down the different [Greek:

tu=phos] of Plato, and Epiktêtus iii. 22, 57. Antisthenes, in his

dialogue or discourse called [Greek: Ê(raklê=s], appears to have

enforced the like appeal to that hero as an example to others. See

Winckelmann, Fragm. Antisthen. pp. 15-18.]

[Side-note: Admiration of Epiktêtus for Diogenes, especially for his

consistency in acting out his own ethical creed.]

Diogenes declared that education was sobriety to the young,

consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, ornament to the rich. But

he despised much of what was commonly imparted as education--music,

geometry, astronomy, &c.: and he treated with equal scorn Plato and

Eukleides.[104] He is said however to have conducted the education of

the sons of his master Xeniades[105] without material departure from

the received usage. He caused them to undergo moderate exercise (not

with a view to athletic success) in the palæstra, and afterwards to

practise riding, shooting with the bow, hurling the javelin, slinging

and hunting: he cultivated their memories assiduously, by recitations

from poets and prose authors, and even from his own compositions: he

kept them on bread and water, without tunic or shoes, with clothing

only such as was strictly necessary, with hair closely cut, habitually

silent, and fixing their eyes on the ground when they walked abroad.

These latter features approximate to the training at Sparta (as

described by Xenophon) which Diogenes declared to contrast with Athens

as the apartments of the men with those of the women. Diogenes is said

to have composed several dialogues and even some tragedies.[106] But

his most impressive display (like that of Sokrates) was by way of

colloquy--prompt and incisive interchange of remarks. He was one of

the few philosophers who copied Sokrates in living constantly before

the public--in talking with every one indiscriminately and fearlessly,

in putting home questions like a physician to his patient.[107]

Epiktêtus,--speaking of Diogenes as equal, if not superior, to

Sokrates--draws a distinction pertinent and accurate. "To Sokrates"

(says he) "Zeus assigned the elenchtic or cross-examining function: to

Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising function: to Zeno (the Stoic)

the didactic and dogmatical." While thus describing Diogenes justly

enough, Epiktetus nevertheless insists upon his agreeable person and

his extreme gentleness and good-nature:[108] qualities for which

probably Diogenes neither took credit himself, nor received credit

from his contemporaries. Diogenes seems to have really possessed--that

which his teacher Antisthenes postulated as indispensable--the

Sokratic physical strength and vigour. His ethical creed, obtained

from Antisthenes, was adopted by many successors, and (in the main) by

Zeno and the Stoics in the ensuing century. But the remarkable feature

in Diogenes which attracts to him the admiration of Epiktêtus, is--that

he set the example of acting out his creed, consistently and

resolutely, in his manner of life:[109] an example followed by some of

his immediate successors, but not by the Stoics, who confined

themselves to writing and preaching. Contemporary both with Plato and

Aristotle, Diogenes stands to both of them in much the same relation

as Phokion to Demosthenes in politics and oratory: he exhibits

strength of will, insensibility to applause as well as to reproach,

and self-acting independence--in antithesis to their higher gifts and

cultivation of intellect. He was undoubtedly, next to Sokrates, the

most original and unparalleled manifestation of Hellenic philosophy.

[Footnote 104: Diog. L. vi. 2, 68-73-24-27.]

[Footnote 105: Diog. L. vi. 2, 30-31.]

[Footnote 106: Diog. L. vi. 2, 80. Diogenes Laertius himself cites a

fact from one of the dialogues--Pordalus (vi. 2, 20): and Epiktêtus

alludes to the treatise on Ethics by Diogenes--[Greek: e)n tê=|

Ê)thikê=|]--ii. 20, 14. It appears however that the works ascribed to

Diogenes were not admitted by all authors as genuine (Diog. L. c.).]

[Footnote 107: Dion Chrysost. Or. x.; De Servis, p. 295 E. Or. ix.;

Isthmicus, p. 289 R. [Greek: ô(/sper i)atroi\ a)nakri/nousi tou\s

a)sthenou=ntas, ou(/tôs Dioge/nês a)ne/krine to\n a)/nthrôpon], &c.]

[Footnote 108: Epiktêtus, iii. 21, 19. [Greek: ô(s Sôkra/tei

sunebou/leue tê\n e)legktikê\n chô/ran e)/chein, ô(s Dioge/nei tê\n

basilikê\n kai\ e)piplêktikê/n, ô(s Zê/nôni tê\n didaskalikê\n kai\

dogmatikê/n].

About [Greek: to\ ê(/meron kai\ phila/nthrôpon] of Diogenes, see

Epiktêtus, iii. 24, 64; who also tells us (iv. 11, 19), professing to

follow the statements of contemporaries, that the bodies both of

Sokrates and Diogenes were by nature so sweet and agreeable ([Greek:

e)pi/chari kai\ ê(du/]) as to dispense with the necessity of washing.

"Ego certé" (says Seneca, Epist. 108, 13-14, about the lectures of the

eloquent Stoic Attalus) "cum Attalum audirem, in vitia, in errores, in

mala vitæ perorantem, sæpé misertus sum generis humani, et illum

sublimem altioremque humano fastigio credidi. Ipse regem se esse

dicebat: sed plus quam regnare mihi videbatur, cui liceret censuram

agere regnantium." See also his treatises De Beneficiis, v. 4-6, and

De Tranquillitate Animi (c. 8), where, after lofty encomium on

Diogenes, he exclaims--"Si quis de felicitate Diogenis dubitat, potest

idem dubitare et de Deorum immortalium statu, an parum beaté degant,"

&c.]

[Footnote 109: Cicero, in his Oration in defence of Murena (30-61-62)

compliments Cato (the accuser) as one of the few persons who adopted

the Stoic tenets with a view of acting them out, and who did really

act them out--"Hæc homo ingeniosissimus M. Cato, autoribus

eruditissimis inductus, arripuit: neque disputandi causa, ut magna

pars, sed ita vivendi". Tacitus (Histor. iv. 5) pays the like

compliment to Helvidius Priscus.

M. Gaston Boissier (Étude sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Varron, pp.

113-114, Paris, 1861) expresses an amount of surprise which I should

not have expected, on the fact that persons adopted a philosophical

creed for the purpose only of debating it and defending it, and not of

acting it out. But he recognises the fact, in regard to Varro and his

contemporaries, in terms not less applicable to the Athenian world:

amidst such general practice, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Krates, &c.,

stood out as memorable exceptions. "Il ne faut pas non plus oublier de

quelle manière, et dans quel esprit, les Romains lettrés étudiaient la

philosophie Grecque. Ils venaient écouter les plus habiles maîtres,

connaître les sectes les plus célèbres: mais ils les étudiaient plutôt

en curieux, qu'ils ne s'y attachaient en adeptes. On ne les voit

guères approfondir un système et s'y tenir, adopter un ensemble de

croyances, et y conformer leur conduite. On étudiait le plus souvent

la philosophie pour discuter. C'était seulement une matière à des

conversations savantes, un exercice et un aliment pour les esprits

curieux. Voilà pourquoi la secte Académique étoit alors mieux

accueillie que les autres," &c.]

[Side-note: Admiration excited by the asceticism of the

Cynics--Asceticism extreme in the East--Comparison of the Indian

Gymnosophists with Diogenes.]

Respecting Diogenes and the Cynic philosophers generally, we have to

regard not merely their doctrines, but the effect produced by their

severity of life. In this point Diogenes surpassed his master

Antisthenes, whose life he criticised as not fully realising the lofty

spirit of his doctrine. The spectacle of man not merely abstaining

from enjoyment, but enduring with indifference hunger, thirst, heat,

cold, poverty, privation, bodily torture, death, &c., exercises a

powerful influence on the imagination of mankind. It calls forth

strong feelings of reverence and admiration in the beholders: while in

the sufferer himself also, self-reverence and self-admiration, the

sense of power and exaltation above the measure of humanity, is

largely developed. The extent to which self-inflicted hardships and

pains have prevailed in various regions of the earth, the

long-protracted and invincible resolution with which they have been

endured, and the veneration which such practices have procured for the

ascetics who submitted to them are among the most remarkable chapters

in history.[110] The East, especially India, has always been, and

still is, the country in which these voluntary endurances have reached

their extreme pitch of severity; even surpassing those of the

Christian monks in Egypt and Syria, during the fourth and fifth

centuries of the Christian era.[111] When Alexander the Great first

opened India to the observation of Greeks, one of the novelties which

most surprised him and his followers was, the sight of the

Gymnosophists or naked philosophers. These men were found lying on the

ground, either totally uncovered or with nothing but a cloth round the

loins; abstaining from all enjoyment, nourishing themselves upon a

minimum of coarse vegetables or fruits, careless of the extreme heat

of the plain, and the extreme cold of the mountain; and often

superadding pain, fatigue, or prolonged and distressing uniformity of

posture. They passed their time either in silent meditation or in

discourse on religion and philosophy: they were venerated as well as

consulted by every one, censuring even the most powerful persons in

the land. Their fixed idea was to stand as examples to all, of

endurance, insensibility, submission only to the indispensable

necessities of nature, and freedom from all other fear or authority.

They acted out the doctrine, which Plato so eloquently preaches under

the name of Sokrates in the Phædon--That the whole life of the

philosopher is a preparation for death: that life is worthless, and

death an escape from it into a better state.[112] It is an interesting

fact to learn that when Onesikritus (one of Alexander's officers, who

had known and frequented the society of Diogenes in Greece), being

despatched during the Macedonian march through India for the purpose

of communicating with these Gymnosophists, saw their manner of life

and conversed with them he immediately compared them with Diogenes,

whom he had himself visited--as well as with Sokrates and Pythagoras,

whom he knew by reputation. Onesikritus described to the Gymnosophists

the manner of life of Diogenes: but Diogenes wore a threadbare mantle,

and this appeared to them a mark of infirmity and imperfection. They

remarked that Diogenes was right to a considerable extent; but wrong

for obeying convention in preference to nature, and for being ashamed

of going naked, as they did.[113]

[Footnote 110: Dion Chrysostom, viii. p. 275, Reiske.]

[Footnote 111: See the striking description in Gibbon, Decl. and Fall,

ch. xxxvii. pp. 253-265.]

[Footnote 112: Strabo, xv. 713 A (probably from Onesikritus, see

Geier, Fragment. Alexandr. Magn. Histor. p. 379). [Greek: Plei/stous

d' au)toi=s ei)=nai lo/gous peri\ tou= thana/tou; nomi/zein ga\r dê\

to\n me\n e)ntha/de bi/on ô(s a)\n a)kmê\n kuome/nôn ei)=nai, to\n de\

tha/naton ge/nesin ei)s to\n o)/ntôs bi/on kai\ to\n eu)dai/mona toi=s

philosophê/sasi; dio\ tê=| a)skê/sei plei/stê| chrê=sthai pro\s to\

e)toimotha/naton; a)gatho\n de\ ê)\ kako\n mêde\n ei)=nai tô=n

sumbaino/ntôn a)nthrô/pois], &c.

This is an application of the doctrines laid down by the Platonic

Sokrates in the Phædon, p. 64 A: [Greek: Kinduneu/ousi ga\r o(/soi

tugcha/nousin o)rthô=s a)pto/menoi philosophi/as lelêthe/nai tou\s

a)/llous, o(/ti ou)de\n a)/llo au)toi\ e)pitêdeu/ousin ê)\

a)pothnê/skein te kai\ tethna/nai]. Compare p. 67 D.; Cicero. Tusc. D.

i. 30. Compare Epiktêtus, iv. i. 30 (cited in a former note) about

Diogenes the Cynic. Also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27; Valerius Maximus,

iii. 3, 6; Diogen. L. Prooem. s. 6; Pliny, H. N. vii. 2.

Bohlen observes (Das Alte Indien, ch. ii. pp. 279-289), "It is a

remarkable fact that Indian writings of the highest antiquity depict

as already existing the same ascetic exercises as we see existing at

present: they were even then known to the ancients, who were

especially astonished at such fanaticism.]

[Footnote 113: Strabo gives a condensed summary of this report, made

by Onesikritus respecting his conversation with the Indian

Gymnosophist Mandanis, or Dandamis (Strabo, xv. p. 716 B):--[Greek:

Tau=t' ei)po/nta e)xere/sthai] (Dandamis asked Onesikritus), [Greek:

ei) kai\ e)n toi=s E(/llêsi lo/goi toiou=toi le/gointo. Ei)po/ntos d'

(O)nêsikri/tou), o(/ti kai\ Puthago/ras toiau=ta le/goi, keleu/oi te

e)mpsu/chôn a)pe/chesthai, kai\ Sôkra/tês, kai\ Dioge/nês, _ou(= kai\

au)to\s_] (Onesikritus) [Greek: _a)kroa/saito_, a)pokri/nasthai]

(Dandamis), [Greek: o(/ti ta)/lla me\n nomi/zoi phroni/môs au)toi=s

dokei=n, e(\n d' a(marta/nein--no/mon pro\ tê=s phu/seôs titheme/nous;

ou) ga\r a)\n ai)schu/nesthai gumnou/s, ô(/sper au)to/n, dia/gein,

a)po\ litô=n zô=ntas; kai\ ga\r oi)ki/an a)ri/stên ei)=nai, ê)/tis

a)\n e)piskeuê=s e)lachi/stês de/êtai].

About Onesikritus, Diog. Laert. vi. 75-84; Plutarch, Alexand. c. 65;

Plutarch, De Fortuna Alexandri, p. 331.

The work of August Gladitsch (Einleitung in das Verständniss der

Weltgeschichte, Posen, 1841) contains an instructive comparison

between the Gymnosophists and the Cynics, as well as between the

Pythagoreans and the Chinese philosophers--between the Eleatic sect

and the Hindoo philosophers. The points of analogy, both in doctrine

and practice, are very numerous and strikingly brought out, pp.

356-377. I cannot, however, agree in his conclusion, that the doctrines

and practice of Antisthenes were borrowed, not from Sokrates with

exaggeration, but from the Parmenidean theory, and the Vedanta theory

of the Ens Unum, leading to negation and contempt of the phenomenal

world.]

[Side-note: The precepts and principles laid down by Sokrates were

carried into fullest execution by the Cynics.]

These observations of the Indian Gymnosophist are a reproduction and

an application in practice[114] of the memorable declaration of

principle enunciated by Sokrates--"That the Gods had no wants: and

that the man who had fewest wants, approximated most nearly to the

Gods". This principle is first introduced into Grecian ethics by

Sokrates: ascribed to him both by Xenophon and Plato, and seemingly

approved by both. In his life, too, Sokrates carried the principle

into effect, up to a certain point. Both admirers and opponents attest

his poverty, hard fare, coarse clothing, endurance of cold and

privation:[115] but he was a family man, with a wife and children to

maintain, and he partook occasionally, of indulgences which made him

fall short of his own ascetic principle. Plato and Xenophon--both of

them well-born Athenians, in circumstances affluent, or at least easy,

the latter being a knight, and even highly skilled in horses and

horsemanship--contented themselves with preaching on the text,

whenever they had to deal with an opponent more self-indulgent than

themselves; but made no attempt to carry it into practice.[116] Zeno

the Stoic laid down broad principles of self-denial and apathy: but in

practice he was unable to conquer the sense of shame, as the Cynics

did, and still more the Gymnosophists. Antisthenes, on the other hand,

took to heart, both in word and act, the principle of Sokrates: yet

even he, as we know from the Xenophontic Symposion, was not altogether

constant in rigorous austerity. His successors Diogenes and Krates

attained the maximum of perfection ever displayed by the Cynics of

free Greece. They stood forth as examples of endurance,

abnegation--insensibility to shame and fear--free-spoken censure of

others. Even they however were not so recognised by the Indian

Gymnosophists; who, having reduced their wants, their fears, and

their sensibilities, yet lower, had thus come nearer to that which they

called the perfection of Nature, and which Sokrates called the close

approach to divinity.[117] When Alexander the Great (in the first year of

his reign and prior to any of his Asiatic conquests) visited Diogenes at

Corinth, found him lying in the sun, and asked if there was anything

which he wanted--Diogenes made the memorable reply--"Only that you and

your guards should stand out of my sunshine". This reply doubtless

manifests the self-satisfied independence of the philosopher. Yet it

is far less impressive than the fearless reproof which the Indian

Gymnosophists administered to Alexander, when they saw him in the

Punjab at the head of his victorious army, after exploits, dangers,

and fatigues almost superhuman, as conqueror of Persia and

acknowledged son of Zeus.[118]

[Footnote 114: Onesikritus observes, respecting the Indian

Gymnosophists, that "they were more striking in act than in discourse"

([Greek: e)n e)/rgois ga\r au)tou\s krei/ttous ê)\ lo/gois ei)=nai],

Strabo, xv. 713 B); and this is true about the Cynic succession of

philosophers, in Greece as well as in Rome. Diogenes Laertius (compare

his prooem, s. 19, 20, and vi. 103) ranks the Cynic philosophy as a

distinct [Greek: ai(/resis]: but he tells us that other writers

(especially Hippobotus) would not reckon it as an [Greek: ai(/resis],

but only as an [Greek: e)/nstasis bi/ou]--practice without theory.]

[Footnote 115: Xenophon, Memor. i. 6, 2-5; Plato, Sympos. 219, 220.

The language of contemporary comic writers, Ameipsias, Eupolis,

Aristophanes, &c., about Sokrates--is very much the same as that of

Menander a century afterwards about Kratês. Sokrates is depicted as a

Cynic in mode of life (Diogen. L. ii. 28; Aristophan. Nubes,

104-362-415).]

[Footnote 116: Zeno, though he received instructions from Kratês, was

[Greek: a)/llôs me\n eu)/tonos pro\s tê\n philosophi/an, ai)dê/môn de\

ô(s pro\s tê\n kunikê\n a)naischunti/an] (Diog. L. vii. 3).

"Disputare cum Socrate licet, dubitare cum Carneade, cum Epicure

quiescere, hominis naturam cum Stoicis vincere, cum Cynicis excedere,"

&c. This is the distinction which Seneca draws between Stoic and Cynic

(De Brevitat. Vitæ, 14, 5). His admiration for the "seminudus" Cynic

Demetrius, his contemporary and companion, was extreme (Epist. 62, 2,

and Epist. 20, 18).]

[Footnote 117: Xenoph. Memor. i. 6, 10 (the passage is cited in a

previous note). The Emperor Julian (Orat. vi. p. 192 Spanh.) says

about the Cynics--[Greek: a)pa/theian ga\r poiou=ntai to\ te/los,

tou=to de\ i)/son e)sti\ tô=| theo\n gene/sthai]. Dion Chrysostom (Or.

vi. p. 208) says also about Diogenes the Cynic--[Greek: kai\ ma/lista

e)mimei=to tô=n theô=n to\n bi/on.]]

[Footnote 118: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 32, 92, and the Anabasis of

Arrian, vii. 1-2-3, where both the reply of Diogenes and that of the

Indian Gymnosophists are reported. Dion Chrysostom (Orat. iv. p. 145

seq. Reiske) gives a prolix dialogue between Alexander and Diogenes.

His picture of the effect produced by Diogenes upon the different

spectators at the Isthmian festival, is striking and probable.

Kalanus, one of the Indian Gymnosophists, was persuaded, by the

instances of Alexander, to abandon his Indian mode of life and to come

away with the Macedonian army--very much to the disgust of his

brethren, who scornfully denounced him as infirm and even as the

slave of appetite ([Greek: a)ko/laston], Strabo, xv. 718). He was

treated with the greatest consideration and respect by Alexander and

his officers; yet when the army came into Persis, he became sick of

body and tired of life. He obtained the reluctant consent of Alexander

to allow him to die. A funeral pile was erected, upon which he

voluntarily burnt himself in presence of the whole army; who witnessed

the scene with every demonstration of military honour. See the

remarkable description in Arrian, Anab. vii. 3. Cicero calls him

"Indus indoctus ac barbarus" (Tusc. Disp. ii. 22, 52); but the

impression which he made on Alexander himself, Onesikritus,

Lysimachus, and generally upon all who saw him, was that of respectful

admiration (Strabo, xv. 715; Arrian, l. c.). One of these Indian

sages, who had come into Syria along with the Indian envoys sent by an

Indian king to the Roman Emperor Augustus, burnt himself publicly at

Athens, with an exulting laugh when he leaped upon the funeral pile

(Strabo, xv. 720 A)--[Greek: kata\ ta\ pa/tria tô=n I)ndô=n e)/thê].

The like act of self-immolation was performed by the Grecian Cynic

Peregrinus Proteus, at the Olympic festival in the reign of Marcus

Antoninus, 165 A.D. (See Clinton, Fasti Romani.) Lucian, who was

present and saw the proceeding, has left an animated description of

it, but ridicules it as a piece of silly vanity. Theagenes, the

admiring disciple of Peregrinus, and other Cynics, who were present in

considerable numbers--and also Lucian himself compare this act to that

of the Indian Gymnosophists--[Greek: ou(=tos de\ ti/nos ai)ti/as

e(/neken e)mba/llei phe/rôn e(auto\n ei)s to\ pu=r? nê\ Di/', o(/pôs

tê\n karteri/an e)pidei/xêtai, katha/per oi( Brachma=nes] (Lucian, De

Morte Peregrini, 25-39, &c.).]

[Side-note: Antithesis between Nature--and Law or Convention--insisted

on by the Indian Gymnosophists.]

Another point, in the reply made by the Indian Gymnosophist to

Onesikritus, deserves notice: I mean the antithesis between law (or

convention) and nature ([Greek: no/mos--phu/sis])--the supremacy which

he asserts for Nature over law--and the way in which he understands

Nature and her supposed ordinances. This antithesis was often put

forward and argued in the ancient Ethics: and it is commonly said,

without any sufficient proof, that the Sophists (speaking of them

collectively) recognised only the authority of law--while Sokrates and

Plato had the merit of vindicating against them the superior authority

of Nature. The Indian Gymnosophist agrees with the Athenian speaker in

the Platonic treatise De Legibus, and with the Platonic Kallikles in

the Gorgias, thus far--that he upholds the paramount authority of

Nature. But of these three interpreters, each hears and reports the

oracles of Nature differently from the other two: and there are many

other dissenting interpreters besides.[119] Which of them are we to

follow? And if, adopting any one of them, we reject the others, upon

what grounds are we to justify our preference? When the Gymnosophist

points out, that nakedness is the natural condition of man; when he

farther infers, that because natural it is therefore right and that

the wearing of clothes, being a departure from nature, is also a

departure from right--how are we to prove to him that his

interpretation of nature is the wrong one? These questions have

received no answer in any of the Platonic dialogues: though we have

seen that Plato is very bitter against those who dwell upon the

antithesis between Law and Nature, and who undertake to decide between

the two.

[Footnote 119: Though Seneca (De Brevitate Vit. 14) talks of the

Stoics as "conquering Nature, and the Cynics as exceeding Nature," yet

the Stoic Epiktêtus considers his morality as the only scheme

conformable to Nature (Epiktêt. Diss. iv. 1, 121-128); while the

Epikurean Lucretius claims the same conformity for the precepts of

Epikurus.]

[Side-note: The Greek Cynics--an order of ascetic or mendicant

friars.]

Reverting to the Cynics, we must declare them to be in one respect the

most peculiar outgrowth of Grecian philosophy: because they are not

merely a doctrinal sect, with phrases, theories, reasonings, and

teachings, of their own--but still more prominently a body of

practical ascetics, a mendicant order[120] in philosophy, working up

the bystanders by exhibiting themselves as models of endurance and

apathy. These peculiarities seem to have originated partly with

Pythagoras, partly with Sokrates--for there is no known prior example

of it in Grecian history, except that of the anomalous priests of Zeus

at Dodona, called Selli, who lay on the ground with unwashed feet. The

discipline of Lykurgus at Sparta included severe endurance; but then

it was intended to form, and actually did form, good soldiers. The

Cynics had no view to military action. They exaggerated the

peculiarities of Sokrates, and we should call their mode of life the

Sokratic life, if we followed the example of those who gave names to

the Pythagorean or Orphic life, as a set of observances derived from

the type of Pythagoras or Orpheus.[121]

[Footnote 120: Respecting the historical connexion between the Grecian

Cynics and the ascetic Christian monks, see Zeller, Philos. der

Griech. ii. p. 241, ed. 2nd.

Homer, Iliad xvi. 233-5:--

[Greek: Zeu= a)/na, Dôdônai=e, Pelasgike/, têlo/thi nai/ôn,

Dôdô/nês mede/ôn duscheime/rou, a)mphi\ de\ Se/lloi

Soi\ nai/ous' u(pophê=tai a)nipto/podes, chamaieu=nai].

There is no analogy in Grecian history to illustrate this very curious

passage: the Excursus of Heyne furnishes no information (see his

edition of the Iliad, vol. vii. p. 289) except the general

remark:--"Selli--vitæ genus et institutum affectarunt abhorrens à communi

usu, vitæ monachorum mendicantium haud absimile, cum sine vitæ cultu

viverent, nec corpus abluerent, et humi cubarent. Ita inter barbaros

non modo, sed inter ipsas feras gentes intellectum est, eos qui

auctoritatem apud multitudinem consequi vellent, externâ specie, vitæ

cultu austeriore, abstinentiâ et continentiâ, oculos hominum in se

convertere et mirationem facere debere."]

[Footnote 121: Plato, Republic, x. 600 B; Legib. vi. 782 C; Eurip.

Hippol. 955; Fragm. [Greek: Krê=tes].

See also the citations in Athenæus (iv. pp. 161-163) from the writers

of the Attic middle comedy, respecting the asceticism of the

Pythagoreans, analogous to that of the Cynics.]

[Side-note: Logical views of Antisthenes and Diogenes--they opposed

the Platonic Ideas.]

Though Antisthenes and Diogenes laid chief stress upon ethical topics,

yet they also delivered opinions on logic and evidence.[122]

Antisthenes especially was engaged in controversy, and seemingly in

acrimonious controversy, with Plato; whose opinions he impugned in an

express dialogue entitled Sathon. Plato on his side attacked the

opinions of Antisthenes, and spoke contemptuously of his intelligence,

yet without formally naming him. At least there are some criticisms in

the Platonic dialogues (especially in the Sophistês, p. 251) which the

commentators pronounce, on strong grounds, to be aimed at Antisthenes:

who is also unfavourably criticised by Aristotle. We know but little

of the points which Antisthenes took up against Plato and still less

of the reasons which he urged in support of them. Both he and

Diogenes, however, are said to have declared express war against the

Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas. The functions of general

Concepts and general propositions, together with the importance of

defining general terms, had been forcibly insisted on in the

colloquies of Sokrates; and his disciple Plato built upon this

foundation the memorable hypothesis of an aggregate of eternal,

substantive realities, called Ideas or Forms, existing separate from

the objects of sense, yet affording a certain participation in

themselves to those objects: not discernible by sense, but only by the

Reason or understanding. These bold creations of the Platonic fancy

were repudiated by Antisthenes and Diogenes: who are both said to have

declared "We see Man, and we see Horse; but Manness and Horseness we

do not see". Whereunto Plato replied "You possess that eye by which

Horse is seen: but you have not yet acquired that eye by which

Horseness is seen".[123]

[Footnote 122: Among the titles of the works of Antisthenes, preserved

by Diogenes Laertius (vi. 15), several relate to dialectic or logic.

[Greek: A)lê/theia. Peri\ tou= diale/gesthai, a)ntilogiko/s. Sa/thôn,

peri\ tou= a)ntile/gein, a, b, g. Peri\ Diale/kton. Peri\ Paidei/as

ê)\ o)noma/tôn, a, b, g, d, e. Peri\ o)noma/tôn chrêseôs, ê)\

e)ristiko/s. Peri\ e)rôtê/seôs kai\ a)pokri/seôs], &c., &c.

Diogenes Laertius refers to _ten_ [Greek: to/moi] of these treatises.]

[Footnote 123: Simplikius, ad Aristot. Categ. p. 66, b. 47, 67, b. 18,

68, b. 25, Schol. Brand.; Tzetzes, Chiliad. vii. 606.

[Greek: tô=n de\ palaiô=n oi( me\n a)nê/|roun ta\s poio/têtas tele/ôs,

to\ poio\n sugchôrou=ntos ei)=nai; ô(/sper A)ntisthe/nês, o(/s pote

Pla/tôni diamphisbêtô=n--ô(= Pla/tôn, e)/phê, i(/ppon me\n o(rô=,

i(ppo/têta d' ou)ch o(rô=; kai\ o(\s ei)=pen, e)/cheis me\n ô(=|

i(/ppos o(ra=tai to/de to\ o)/mma, ô(=| de\ i(ppo/tês theôrei=tai,

ou)de/pô ke/ktêsai. kai\ a)/lloi de/ tines ê)=san tau/tês tê=s do/xês.

oi( de\ tina\s men a)nê/|roun poio/têtas, tina\s de\ kateli/mpanon].

[Greek: Anthrôpo/tês] occurs p. 58, a. 31. Compare p. 20, a. 2.

The same conversation is reported as having taken place between

Diogenes and Plato, except that instead of [Greek: i(ppo/tês] and

[Greek: a)nthrôpo/tês], we have [Greek: trapezo/tês] and [Greek:

kuatho/tês] (Diog. L. vi, 53).

We have [Greek: zôo/tês--A)thênaio/tês]--in Galen's argument against

the Stoics (vol. xix. p. 481, Kühn).]

[Side-note: First protest of Nominalism against Realism.]

This debate between Antisthenes and Plato marks an interesting point

in the history of philosophy. It is the first protest of Nominalism

against the doctrine of an extreme Realism. The Ideas or Forms of

Plato (according to many of his phrases, for he is not always

consistent with himself) are not only real existences distinct from

particulars, but absorb to themselves all the reality of particulars.

The real universe in the Platonic theory was composed of Ideas or

Forms such as Manness or Horseness[124] (called by Plato the [Greek:

Au)to\-A)/nthrôpos] and [Greek: Au)to\-I(/ppos]), of which particular

men and horses were only disfigured, transitory, and ever-varying

photographs. Antisthenes denied what Plato affirmed, and as Plato

affirmed it. Aristotle denied it also; maintaining that genera,

species, and attributes, though distinguishable as separate predicates

of, or inherencies in, individuals--yet had no existence apart from

individuals. Aristotle was no less wanting than Antisthenes, in the

intellectual eye required for discerning the Platonic Ideas.

Antisthenes is said to have declared these Ideas to be mere thoughts

or conceptions ([Greek: psila\s e)nnoi/as]): _i.e._, merely subjective

or within the mind, without any object corresponding to them. This is

one of the various modes of presenting the theory of Ideas, resorted

to even in the Platonic Parmenidês, not by one who opposes that

theory, but by one seeking to defend it--_viz._, by Sokrates, when he

is hard pressed by the objections of the Eleate against the more

extreme and literal version of the theory.[125] It is remarkable, that

the objections ascribed to Parmenides against that version which

exhibits the Ideas as mere Concepts of and in the mind, are decidedly

less forcible than those which he urges against the other versions.

[Footnote 124: We know from Plato himself (Theætêtus, p. 182 A) that

even the word [Greek: poio/tês], if not actually first introduced by

himself, was at any rate so recent as to be still repulsive, and to

require an Apology, If [Greek: poio/tês] was strange, [Greek:

a)nthrôpo/tês] and [Greek: i(ppo/tês] would be still more strange.

Antisthenes probably invented them, to present the doctrine which he

impugned in a dress of greater seeming absurdity.]

[Footnote 125: Plato, Parmenidês, p. 132 B. See, afterwards, chapter

xxvii., Parmenides.]

[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes about predication--he admits no

other predication but identical.]

There is another singular doctrine, which Aristotle ascribes to

Antisthenes, and which Plato notices and confutes; alluding to its

author contemptuously, but not mentioning his name. Every name

(Antisthenes argued) has its own special reason or meaning ([Greek:

oi)kei=os[126] lo/gos]), declaring the essence of the thing named, and

differing from every other word: you cannot therefore truly predicate

any one word of any other, because the reason or meaning of the two is

different: there can be no true propositions except identical

propositions, in which the predicate is the same with the subject--"man

is man, good is good". "Man is good" was an inadmissible

proposition: affirming different things to be the same, or one thing

to be many.[127] Accordingly, it was impossible for two speakers

really to contradict each other. There can be no contradiction between

them if both declare the essence of the same thing--nor if neither of

them declare the essence of it--nor if one speaker declares the

essence of one thing, and another speaker that of another. But one of

these three cases must happen: therefore there can be no

contradiction.[128]

[Footnote 126: Diogen. L. vi. 3. [Greek: Prôto/s te ô(ri/sato]

(Antisthenes) [Greek: lo/gon, ei)pô/n, lo/gos e)sti\n o( to\ ti/ ê)=n

ê)/ e)sti dêlô=n.]]

[Footnote 127: Aristotle, Metaphy. [Greek: D]. 1024, b. 32, attributes

this doctrine to Antisthenes by name; which tends to prove that Plato

meant Antisthenes, though not naming him, in Sophist, p. 251 B, where

he notices the same doctrine. Compare Philêbus, p. 14 D.

It is to be observed that a doctrine exactly the same as that which

Plato here censures in Antisthenes, will be found maintained by the

Platonic Sokrates himself, in Plato, Hippias Major, p. 304 A. See

chap, xiii. vol. ii. of the present work.]

[Footnote 128: Aristot. Topic. i. p. 104, b. 20. [Greek: the/sis de/

e)stin u(po/lêpsis para/doxos tô=n gnôri/môn tino\s kata\

philosophi/an; oi(=on o(/ti ou)k e)/stin a)ntile/gein, katha/per

e)/phê A)ntisthe/nês].

Plato puts this [Greek: the/sis] into the mouth of Dionysodorus, in

the Euthydêmus--p. 286 B; but he says (or makes Sokrates say) that it

was maintained by many persons, and that it had been maintained by

Protagoras, and even by others yet more ancient.

Antisthenes had discussed it specially in a treatise of three sections

polemical against Plato--[Greek: Sa/thôn, ê)\ peri\ tou= a)ntile/gein,

a, b, g] (Diog. L. vi. 16).]

[Side-note: The same doctrine asserted by Stilpon, after the time of

Aristotle.]

The works of Antisthenes being lost, we do not know how he himself

stated his own doctrine, nor what he said on behalf of it, declaring

contradiction to be impossible. Plato sets aside the doctrine as

absurd and silly; Aristotle--since he cites it as a paradox, apt for

dialectical debate, where the opinion of a philosopher stood opposed

to what was generally received--seems to imply that there were

plausible arguments to be urged in its favour.[129] And that the

doctrine actually continued to be held and advocated, in the

generation not only after Antisthenes but after Aristotle--we may see

by the case of Stilpon: who maintained (as Antisthenes had done) that

none but identical propositions, wherein the predicate was a

repetition of the subject, were admissible: from whence it followed

(as Aristotle observed) that there could be no propositions either

false or contradictory. Plutarch,[130] in reciting this doctrine of

Stilpon (which had been vehemently impugned by the Epikurean Kolôtês),

declares it to have been intended only in jest. There is no ground for

believing that it was so intended: the analogy of Antisthenes goes to

prove the contrary.

[Footnote 129: Aristotle (Met. [Greek: D]. 1024) represents the

doctrine of Antisthenes, That contradictory and false propositions are

impossible--as a consequence deduced from the position laid down--That

no propositions except identical propositions were admissible. If you

grant this last proposition, the consequences will be undeniable.

Possibly Antisthenes may have reasoned in this way:"There are many

contradictory and false propositions now afloat; but this arises from

the way in which predication is conducted. So long as the predicate is

different from the subject, there is nothing _in the form of a

proposition_ to distinguish falsehood from truth (to distinguish

_Theætêtus sedet_, from _Theætêtus volat_--to take the instance in the

Platonic Sophistês--p. 263). There ought to be no propositions except

identical propositions: the form itself will then guarantee you

against both falsehood and contradiction: you will be sure always to

give [Greek: to\n oi)kei=on lo/gon tou= pra/gmatos]." There would be

nothing inconsistent in such a precept: but Aristotle might call it

silly [Greek: eu)êthô=s]), because, while shutting out falsehood and

contradiction, it would also shut out the great body of useful truth,

and would divest language of its usefulness as a means of

communication.

Brandis (Gesch. der Gr. Römisch. Phil. vol. ii. xciii. 1) gives

something like this as the probable purpose of Antisthenes--"Nur Eins

bezeichne die Wesenheit eines Dinges--die Wesenheit als einfachen

Träger des mannichfaltigen der Eigenschaften"(this is rather too

Aristotelian)--"zur Abwehr von Streitigkeiten auf dem Gebiete der

Erscheinungen". Compare also Ritter, Gesch. Phil. vol. ii. p. 130. We

read in the Kratylus, that there were persons who maintained the

rectitude of all names: to say that a name was not right, was (in

their view) tantamount to saying that it was no name at all, but only

an unmeaning sound (Plato, Krat. pp. 429-430).]

[Footnote 130: Plutarch, adv. Kolôten, p. 1119 C-D.]

[Side-note: Nominalism of Stilpon. His reasons against accidental

predication.]

Stilpon, however, while rejecting (as Antisthenes had done) the

universal Ideas[131] or Forms, took a larger ground of objection. He

pronounced them to be inadmissible both as subject and as predicate.

If you speak of Man in general (he said), what, or whom, do you mean?

You do not mean A or B, or C or D, &c.: that is, you do not mean any

one of these more than any other. You have no determinate meaning at

all: and beyond this indefinite multitude of individuals, there is

nothing that the term can mean. Again, as to predicates--when you say,

_The man runs_, or _The man is good_, what do you mean by the

predicate _runs_, or is _good_? You do not mean any thing specially

belonging to man: for you apply the same predicates to many other

subjects: you say _runs_, about a horse, a dog, or a cat--you say

_good_ in reference to food, medicine, and other things besides. Your

predicate, therefore, being applied to many and diverse subjects,

belongs not to one of them more than to another: in other words, it

belongs to neither: the predication is not admissible.[132]

[Footnote 131: Hegel (Geschichte der Griech. Philos. i. p. 123) and

Marbach (Geschichte der Philos. s. 91) disallow the assertion of

Diogenes, that Stilpon [Greek: a)nê/rei ta\ ei)/dê]. They maintain

that Stilpon rejected the particular affirmations, and allowed only

general or universal affirmations. This construction appears to me

erroneous.]

[Footnote 132: Diog. L. ii. 113; Plutarch, adv. Kolôten, 1119-1120.

[Greek: ei) peri\ i(/ppou to\ tre/chein katêgorou=men, ou)/ phêsi]

(Stilpon) [Greek: tau)to\n ei)=nai tô=| peri\ ou)= katêgorei=tai to\

katêgorou/menon--e)kate/rou ga\r a)paitou/menoi to\n lo/gon, ou) to\n

au)to\n a)podi/domen u(pe\r a)mphoi=n. O(/then a(marta/nein tou\s

e(/teron e(te/rou katêgorou=ntas. Ei) me\n ga\r tau)ton e)sti tô=|

a)nthrô/pô| to\ a)gatho/n, kai\ tô=| i(/ppô| to\ tre/chein, pô=s kai\

siti/ou kai\ pharma/kou to\ a)gatho/n? kai\ nê\ Di/a pa/lin le/ontos

kai\ kuno\s to\ tre/chein, katêgorou=men? ei) d' e(/teron, ou)k

o)rthô=s _a)/nthrôpon a)gatho\n kai\ i(/ppon tre/chein_ le/gomen].

Sextus Empiricus (adv. Mathem. vii. p. 269-282) gives a different vein

of reasoning respecting predication,--yet a view which illustrates

this doctrine of Antisthenes. Sextus does not require that all

predication shall be restricted to identical predication: but he

maintains that you cannot define any general word. To define, he says,

is to enunciate the essence of that which is defined. But when you

define Man--"a mortal, rational animal, capable of reason and

knowledge"--you give only certain attributes of Man, which go along

with the essence--you do not give the essence itself. If you enumerate

even all the accompaniments ([Greek: sumbebêko/ta]), you will still

fail to tell me what the essence of Man is: which is what I desire to

know, and what you profess to do by your definition. It is useless to

enumerate accompaniments, until you explain to me what the essence is

which they accompany.

These are ingenious objections, which seem to me quite valid, if you

assume the logical subject to be a real, absolute essence, apart from

all or any of its predicates. And this is a frequent illusion,

favoured even by many logicians. We enunciate the subject first, then

the predicate; and because the subject can be conceived after

abstraction of this, that, _or_ the other predicates--we are apt to

imagine that it may be conceived without _all or any_ of the

predicates. But this is an illusion. If you suppress all predicates,

the subject or supposed substratum vanishes along with them: just as

the Genus vanishes, if you suppress all the different species of it.

"Scais-tu au moins ce que c'est que la matière? Très-bien. . . Par

exemple, cette pierre est grise, est d'une telle forme, a ses trois

dimensions; elle est pésante et divisible. Eh bien (dit le Sirien),

cette chose qui te paroît être divisible, pésante, et grise, me dirois

tu bien ce que c'est? Tu vois quelques attributs: mais le fond de la

chose, le connois tu? Non, dit l'autre. Tu ne scais donc point ce que

c'est que la matière." (Voltaire, Micromégas, c. 7.)

"Le fond de la chose"--the Ding an sich--is nothing but the name

itself, divested of every fraction of meaning: it is _titulus sine

re_. But the name being familiar, and having been always used with a

meaning, still appears invested with much of the old emotional

associations, even though it has been stripped of all its meaning by

successive acts of abstraction. If you subtract from four, 1 + 1 + 1 +

1, there will remain zero. But by abstracting, from the subject _man_,

all its predicates, real and possible, you cannot reduce it to zero.

The _name_ man always remains, and appears by old association to carry

with it some meaning--though the meaning can no longer be defined.

This illusion is well pointed out in a valuable passage of Cabanis (Du

Degré de Certitude de la Médecine, p. 61):--

"Je pourrois d'ailleurs demander ce qu'on entend par la nature et les

causes premières des maladies. Nous connoissons de leur nature, ce que

les faits en manifestent. Nous savons, par exemple, que la fièvre

produit tels et tels changements: ou plutôt, c'est par ces changements

qu'elle se montre à nos yeux: c'est _par eux seuls qu'elle existe pour

nous_. Quand un homme tousse, crache du sang, respire avec peine,

ressent une douleur de côté, a le pouls plus vite et plus dur, la peau

plus chaude que dans l'état naturel--l'on dit qu'il est attaqué d'une

pleurésie. Mais qu'est ce donc _qu'une pleurésie_? On vous répliquera

que c'est une maladie, dans laquelle tous, ou presque tous, ces

accidents se trouvent combinés. S'il en manque un ou plusieurs, ce

n'est point la pleurésie, du moins la vraie pleurésie essentielle des

écoles. _C'est donc le concours de ces accidents qui la constitue._ Le

mot _pleurésie ne fait que les retracer d'une manière plus courte. Ce

mot n'est pas un être par lui-même_: il exprime une abstraction de

l'esprit, et réveille par un seul trait toutes les images d'un assez

grand tableau.

"Ainsi lorsque, non content de connoître une maladie par ce qu'elle

offre à nos sens, par ce qui seul la constitue, et sans quoi elle

n'existeroit pas, _vous demandez encore quelle est sa nature en

elle-même, quelle est son essence--c'est comme si vous demandiez quelle

est la nature ou l'essence d'un mot, d'une pure abstraction._ Il n'y a

donc pas beaucoup de justesse à dire, d'un air de triomphe, que les

médecins ignorent même la nature de la fièvre, et que sans cesse ils

agissent dans des circonstances, ou manient des instruments, dont

l'essence leur est inconnue."]

[Side-note: Difficulty of understanding how the same predicate could

belong to more than one subject.]

Stilpon (like Antisthenes, as I have remarked above) seems to have had

in his mind a type of predication, similar to the type of reasoning

which Aristotle laid down the syllogism: such that the form of the

proposition should be itself a guarantee for the truth of what was

affirmed. Throughout the ancient philosophy, especially in the more

methodised debates between the Academics and Sceptics on one side, and

the Stoics on the other--what the one party affirmed and the other

party denied, was, the existence of a Criterion of Truth: some

distinguishable mark, such as falsehood could not possibly carry. To

find this infallible mark in propositions, Stilpon admitted none

except identical. While agreeing with Antisthenes, that no predicate

could belong to a subject different from itself, he added a new

argument, by pointing out that predicates applied to one subject were

also applied to many other subjects. Now if the predicates belonged to

one, they could not (in his view) belong to the others: and therefore

they did not really belong to any. He considered that predication

involved either identity or special and exclusive implication of the

predicate with the subject.

[Side-note: Analogous difficulties in the Platonic Parmenidês.]

Stilpon was not the first who had difficulty in explaining to himself

how one and the same predicate could be applied to many different

subjects. The difficulty had already been set forth in the Platonic

Parmenidês.[133] How can the Form (Man, White, Good, &c.) be present

at one and the same time in many distinct individuals? It cannot be

present as a whole in each: nor can it be divided, and thus present

partly in one, partly in another. How therefore can it be present at

all in any of them? In other words, how can the One be Many, and how

can the Many be One? Of this difficulty (as of many others) Plato

presents no solution, either in the Parmenidês or anywhere else.[134]

Aristotle alludes to several contemporaries or predecessors who felt

it. Stilpon reproduces it in his own way. It is a very real

difficulty, requiring to be dealt with by those who lay down a theory

of predication; and calling upon them to explain the functions of

general propositions, and the meaning of general terms.

[Footnote 133: Plato, Parmenidês, p. 131. Compare also Philêbus, p.

15, and Stallbaum's Proleg. to the Parmenidês, pp. 46-47. The long

commentary of Proklus (v. 100-110. pp. 670-682 of the edition of

Stallbaum) amply attests the [Greek: duskoli/an] of the problem.

The argument of Parmenidês (in the dialogue called Parmenidês) is

applied to the Platonic [Greek: ei)/dê] and to [Greek: ta\

mete/chonta]. But the argument is just as much applicable to

attributes, genera, species: to all general predicates.]

[Footnote 134: Aristot. Physic. i. 2, 185, b. 26-36.

Lykophron and some others anterior to Aristotle proposed to elude the

difficulty, by ceasing to use the substantive verb as copula in

predication: instead of saying [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)sti\ leuko/s], they

said either [Greek: Sôkra/tês leuko/s], simply, or [Greek: Sôkra/tês

leleu/kôtai].

This is a remarkable evidence of the difficulty arising, even in these

early days of logic, about the logical function of the copula.]

[Side-note: Menedêmus disallowed all negative predication.]

Menedêmus the Eretrian, one among the hearers and admirers of Stilpon,

combined even more than Stilpon the attributes of the Cynic with those

of the Megaric. He was fearless in character, and uncontrouled in

speech, delivering harsh criticisms without regard to offence given:

he was also a great master of ingenious dialectic and puzzling

controversy.[135] His robust frame, grave deportment, and simplicity

of life, inspired great respect; especially as he occupied a

conspicuous position, and enjoyed political influence at Eretria. He

is said to have thought meanly both of Plato and Xenokrates. We are

told that Menedêmus, like Antisthenes and Stilpon, had doctrines of

his own on the subject of predication. He disallowed all negative

propositions, admitting none but affirmative: moreover even of the

affirmative propositions, he disallowed all the hypothetical,

approving only the simple and categorical.[136]

[Footnote 135: Diog. L. ii. 127-134. [Greek: ê)=n ga\r kai\

e)piko/ptês kai\ par)r(êsiastê/s.]]

[Footnote 136: Diog. L. ii. 134.]

It is impossible to pronounce confidently respecting these doctrines,

without knowing the reasons upon which they were grounded.

Unfortunately these last have not been transmitted to us. But we may

be very sure that there were reasons, sufficient or insufficient: and

the knowledge of those reasons would have enabled us to appreciate

more fully the state of the Greek mind, in respect to logical theory,

in and before the year 300 B.C.

[Side-note: Distinction ascribed to Antisthenes between simple and

complex objects. Simple objects undefinable.]

Another doctrine, respecting knowledge and definition, is ascribed by

Aristotle to "the disciples of Antisthenes and other such uninstructed

persons": it is also canvassed by Plato in the Theætêtus,[137] without

specifying its author, yet probably having Antisthenes in view. As far

as we can make out a doctrine which both these authors recite as

opponents, briefly and their own way, it is as follows:--"Objects must

be distinguished into--1. Simple or primary; and 2. Compound or

secondary combinations of these simple elements. This last class, the

compounds, may be explained or defined, because you can enumerate the

component elements. By such analysis, and by the definition founded

thereupon, you really come to _know_ them--describe them--predicate

about them. But the first class, the simple or primary objects, can

only be perceived by sense and named: they cannot be analysed,

defined, or known. You can only predicate about them that they are

like such and such other things: _e.g., silver_, you cannot say what

it is in itself, but only that it is like tin, or like something else.

There may thus be a _ratio_ and a definition of any compound object,

whether it be an object of perception or of conception: because one of

the component elements will serve as Matter or Subject of the

proposition, and the other as Form or Predicate. But there can be no

definition of any one of the component elements separately taken:

because there is neither Matter nor Form to become the Subject and

Predicate of a defining proposition."

[Footnote 137: Plato, Theætêt, pp. 201-202. Aristotel. Metaph. [Greek:

Ê]. 1043, b. 22.]

This opinion, ascribed to the followers of Antisthenes, is not in

harmony with the opinion ascribed by Aristotle to Antisthenes himself

(_viz._, That no propositions, except identical propositions, were

admissible): and we are led to suspect that the first opinion must

have been understood or qualified by its author in some manner not now

determinable. But the second opinion, drawing a marked logical

distinction between simple and complex Objects, has some interest from

the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle: both of whom select, for the

example illustrating the opinion, the syllable as the compound made up

of two or more letters which are its simple constituent elements.

[Remarks of Plato on this doctrine.]

Plato refutes the doctrine,[138] but in a manner not so much to prove

its untruth, as to present it for a verbal incongruity. How can you

properly say (he argues) that you _know_ the compound AB, when you

know neither A nor B separately? Now it may be incongruous to

restrict in this manner the use of the words _know--knowledge_: but

the distinction between the two cases is not denied by Plato.

Antisthenes said--"I feel a simple sensation (A or B) and can name it,

but I do not _know_ it: I can affirm nothing about it in itself, or

about its real essence. But the compound AB I do know, for I know its

essence: I can affirm about it that _it is_ compounded of A and B, and

this is its essence." Here is a real distinction: and Plato's argument

amounts only to affirming that it is an incorrect use of words to call

the compound _known_, when the component elements are not known.

Unfortunately the refutation of Plato is not connected with any

declaration of his own counter-doctrine, for Theætêtus ends in a

result purely negative.

[Footnote 138: Plato, Theætêt. ut suprâ.]

[Side-note: Remarks of Aristotle upon the same.]