PARMENIDES OF ELEA
[Sidenote: Life.]
84. Parmenides, son of Pyres, was a citizen of Hyele, Elea, or Velia, a
colony founded in Oinotria by refugees from Phokaia in 540-39 B.C.[422]
Diogenes tells us that he “flourished” in Ol. LXIX. (504-500 B.C.), and
this was doubtless the date given by Apollodoros.[423] On the other
hand, Plato says that Parmenides came to Athens in his sixty-fifth year,
accompanied by Zeno, and conversed with Sokrates, who was then quite
young. Now Sokrates was just over seventy when he was put to death in
399 B.C.; and therefore, if we suppose him to have been an _ephebos_,
that is, from eighteen to twenty years old, at the time of his interview
with Parmenides, we get 451-449 B.C. as the date of that event. I do not
hesitate to accept Plato’s statement,[424] especially as we have
independent evidence of the visit of Zeno to Athens, where Perikles is
said to have “heard” him.[425] The date given by Apollodoros, on the
other hand, depends solely on that of the foundation of Elea, which he
had adopted as the _floruit_ of Xenophanes. Parmenides is born in that
year, just as Zeno is born in the year when Parmenides “flourished.” Why
any one should prefer these transparent combinations to the testimony of
Plato, I am at a loss to understand, though it is equally a mystery why
Apollodoros himself should have overlooked such precise data.
Footnote 422:
Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 111). For the foundation of Elea, see Herod. i.
165 sqq. It was on the coast of Lucania, south of Poseidonia
(Paestum).
Footnote 423:
Diog. ix. 23 (R. P. 111). Cf. Diels, _Rhein. Mus._ xxxi. p. 34; and
Jacoby, pp. 231 sqq.
Footnote 424:
Plato, _Parm._ 127 b (R. P. 111 d). There are, as Zeller has shown, a
certain number of anachronisms in Plato, but there is not one of this
character. In the first place, we have exact figures as to the ages of
Parmenides and Zeno, which imply that the latter was twenty-five years
younger than the former, not forty as Apollodoros said. In the second
place, Plato refers to this meeting in two other places (_Tht._ 183 e
7 and _Soph._ 217 c 5), which do not seem to be mere references to the
dialogue entitled _Parmenides_. No parallel can be quoted for an
anachronism so glaring and deliberate as this would be. E. Meyer
(_Gesch. des Alterth._ iv. § 509, _Anm._) also regards the meeting of
Sokrates and Parmenides as historical.
Footnote 425:
Plut. _Per._ 4, 3. See below, p. 358, _n._ 852.
We have seen already (§ 55) that Aristotle mentions a statement which
made Parmenides the disciple of Xenophanes; but the value of this
testimony is diminished by the doubtful way in which he speaks, and it
is more than likely that he is only referring to what Plato says in the
_Sophist_.[426] It is, we also saw, very improbable that Xenophanes
founded the school of Elea, though it is quite possible he visited that
city. He tells us himself that, in his ninety-second year, he was still
wandering up and down (fr. 8). At that time Parmenides would be well
advanced in life. And we must not overlook the statement of Sotion,
preserved to us by Diogenes, that, though Parmenides “heard” Xenophanes,
he did not “follow” him. According to this account, our philosopher was
the “associate” of a Pythagorean, Ameinias, son of Diochaitas, “a poor
but noble man to whom he afterwards built a shrine as to a hero.” It was
Ameinias and not Xenophanes that “converted” Parmenides to the
philosophic life.[427] This does not read like an invention, and we must
remember that the Alexandrians had information about the history of
Southern Italy which we have not. The shrine erected by Parmenides would
still be there in later days, like the grave of Pythagoras at
Metapontion. It should also be mentioned that Strabo describes
Parmenides and Zeno as Pythagoreans, and that Kebes talks of a
“Parmenidean and Pythagorean way of life.”[428] Zeller explains all this
by supposing that, like Empedokles, Parmenides approved of and followed
the Pythagorean mode of life without adopting the Pythagorean system. It
is possibly true that Parmenides believed in a “philosophic life” (§
35), and that he got the idea from the Pythagoreans; but there is very
little trace, either in his writings or in what we are told about him,
of his having been in any way affected by the religious side of
Pythagoreanism. The writing of Empedokles is obviously modelled upon
that of Parmenides, and yet there is an impassable gulf between the two.
The touch of charlatanism, which is so strange a feature in the copy, is
altogether absent from the model. It is true, no doubt, that there are
traces of Orphic ideas in the poem of Parmenides;[429] but they are all
to be found either in the allegorical introduction or in the second part
of the poem, and we need not therefore take them very seriously. Now
Parmenides was a western Hellene, and he had probably been a
Pythagorean, so it is not a little remarkable that he should be so free
from the common tendency of his age and country. It is here, if
anywhere, that we may trace the influence of Xenophanes. As regards his
relation to the Pythagorean system, we shall have something to say later
on. At present we need only note further that, like most of the older
philosophers, he took part in politics; and Speusippos recorded that he
legislated for his native city. Others add that the magistrates of Elea
made the citizens swear every year to abide by the laws which Parmenides
had given them.[430]
Footnote 426:
See above, Chap. II. p. 140, _n._ 308.
Footnote 427:
Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. III), reading Ἀμεινίᾳ Διοχαίτα with Diels
(_Hermes_, xxxv. p. 197). Sotion, in his _Successions_, separated
Parmenides from Xenophanes and associated him with the Pythagoreans
(_Dox._ pp. 146, 148, 166).
Footnote 428:
Strabo, vi. 1, p. 252 (p. 195, _n._ 430); Ceb. _Tab._ 2 (R. P. 111 c).
This Kebes is not the Kebes of the _Phaedo_; but he certainly lived
some time before Lucian, who speaks of him as a well-known writer. A
Cynic of the name is mentioned by Athenaios (156 d). The statements of
Strabo are of the greatest value; for they are based upon historians
now lost.
Footnote 429:
O. Kern in _Arch._ iii. pp. 173 sqq. We know too little, however, of
the apocalyptic poems of the sixth century B.C. to be sure of the
details. All we can say is that Parmenides has taken the form of his
poem from some such source. See Diels, “Ueber die poetischen Vorbilder
des Parmenides” (_Berl. Sitzb._ 1896), and the Introduction to his
_Parmenides Lehrgedicht_, pp. 9 sqq.
Footnote 430:
Diog. ix. 23 (R. P. 111). Plut. _adv. Col._ 1226 a, Παρμενίδης δὲ τὴν
ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδα διεκόσμησε νόμοις ἀρίστοις, ὥστε τὰς ἀρχὰς καθ’ ἕκαστον
ἐνιαυτὸν ἐξορκοῦν τοὺς πολίτας ἐμμενεῖν τοῖς Παρμενίδου νόμοις.
Strabo, vi. 1. p. 252, (Ἐλέαν) ἐξ ἧς Παρμενίδης καὶ Ζήνων ἐγένοντο
ἄνδρες Πυθαγόρειοι. δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ δι’ ἐκείνους καὶ ἔτι πρότερον
εὐνομηθῆναι.
[Sidenote: The poem.]
85. Parmenides was really the first philosopher to expound his system in
metrical language. As there is some confusion on this subject, it
deserves a few words of explanation. In writing of Empedokles, Mr. J. A.
Symonds said: “The age in which he lived had not yet thrown off the form
of poetry in philosophical composition. Even Parmenides had committed
his austere theories to hexameter verse.” Now this is wrongly put. The
earliest philosophers, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Herakleitos, all
wrote in prose, and the only Greeks who ever wrote philosophy in verse
at all were just these two, Parmenides and Empedokles; for Xenophanes
was not primarily a philosopher any more than Epicharmos. Empedokles
copied Parmenides; and he, no doubt, was influenced by Xenophanes and
the Orphics. But the thing was an innovation, and one that did not
maintain itself.
The fragments of Parmenides are preserved for the most part by
Simplicius, who fortunately inserted them in his commentary, because in
his time the original work was already rare.[431] I follow the
arrangement of Diels.
Footnote 431:
Simpl. _Phys._ 144, 25 (R. P. 117). Simplicius, of course, had the
library of the Academy at his command. Diels notes, however, that
Proclus seems to have used a different MS.
(1)
The car that bears me carried me as far as ever my heart desired,
since it brought me and set me on the renowned way of the goddess,
which alone leads the man who knows through all things. On that way
was I borne along; for on it did the wise steeds carry me, drawing my
car, and maidens <<5>> showed the way. And the axle, glowing in the
socket—for it was urged round by the whirling wheels at each end—gave
forth a sound as of a pipe, when the daughters of the Sun, hasting to
convey me into the light, threw back their veils from off their faces
and left the abode of Night. <<10>>
There are the gates of the ways of Night and Day,[432] fitted above
with a lintel and below with a threshold of stone. They themselves,
high in the air, are closed by mighty doors, and Avenging Justice
keeps the keys that fit them. Her did the maidens entreat with gentle
words and cunningly persuade <<15>> to unfasten without demur the
bolted bars from the gates. Then, when the doors were thrown back,
they disclosed a wide opening, when their brazen posts fitted with
rivets and nails swung back one after the other. Straight through
them, on the broad way, did the maidens guide the horses and the
<<20>> car, and the goddess greeted me kindly, and took my right hand
in hers, and spake to me these words:
Welcome, O youth, that comest to my abode on the car that bears thee
tended by immortal charioteers! It is no ill <<25>> chance, but right
and justice that has sent thee forth to travel on this way. Far,
indeed, does it lie from the beaten track of men! Meet it is that thou
shouldst learn all things, as well the unshaken heart of well-rounded
truth, as the opinions of mortals in which is no true belief at all.
Yet <<30>> none the less shalt thou learn these things also,—how they
should have judged that the things which seem to them are,—as thou
goest through all things in thy journey.[433]
* * * * *
But do thou restrain thy thought from this way of inquiry, nor let
habit by its much experience force thee to cast upon this way a
wandering eye or sounding ear or tongue; but <<35>> judge by argument
the much disputed proof uttered by me. There is only one way left that
can be spoken of.[434]... R. P. 113.
THE WAY OF TRUTH
(2)
Look steadfastly with thy mind at things though afar as if they were
at hand. Thou canst not cut off what is from holding fast to what is,
neither scattering itself abroad in order nor coming together. R. P.
118 a.
(3)
It is all one to me where I begin; for I shall come back again there.
(4, 5)
Come now, I will tell thee—and do thou hearken to my saying and carry
it away—the only two ways of search that can be thought of. The first,
namely, that _It is_, and that it is impossible for it not to be, is
the way of belief, for truth is its companion. The other, namely, that
_It is not_, and that <<5>> it must needs not be,—that, I tell thee,
is a path that none can learn of at all. For thou canst not know what
is not—that is impossible—nor utter it; for it is the same thing that
can be thought and that can be.[435] R. P. 114.
(6)
It needs must be that what can be thought and spoken of is; for it is
possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is nothing to
be.[436] This is what I bid thee ponder. I hold thee back from this
first way of inquiry, and from this other also, upon which mortals
knowing naught wander <<5>> two-faced; for helplessness guides the
wandering thought in their breasts, so that they are borne along
stupefied like men deaf and blind. Undiscerning crowds, in whose eyes
it is, and is not, the same and not the same,[437] and all things
travel in opposite directions![438] R. P. 115.
(7)
For this shall never be proved, that the things that are not are; and
do thou restrain thy thought from this way of inquiry. R. P. 116.
(8)
One path only is left for us to speak of, namely, that _It is_. In it
are very many tokens that what is is uncreated and indestructible; for
it is complete,[439] immovable, and without end. Nor was it ever, nor
will it be; for now _it is_, all at once, a continuous one. For what
kind of origin for it wilt <<5>> thou look for? In what way and from
what source could it have drawn its increase? I shall not let thee say
nor think that it came from what is not; for it can neither be thought
nor uttered that anything is not. And, if it came from nothing, what
need could have made it arise later rather than sooner? <<10>>
Therefore must it either be altogether or be not at all. Nor will the
force of truth suffer aught to arise besides itself from that which is
not.[440] Wherefore, Justice doth not loose her fetters and let
anything come into being or pass away, but holds it fast. Our judgment
thereon depends on this: “_Is it_ <<15>> or _is it not_?” Surely it is
adjudged, as it needs must be, that we are to set aside the one way as
unthinkable and nameless (for it is no true way), and that the other
path is real and true. How, then, can what _is_ be going to be in the
future? Or how could it come into being? If it came into <<20>> being,
it is not; nor is it if it is going to be in the future. Thus is
becoming extinguished and passing away not to be heard of. R. P. 117.
Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike, and there is no more[441]
of it in one place than in another, to hinder it from holding
together, nor less of it, but everything is full of what is. Wherefore
it is wholly continuous; for what is, is in contact <<25>> with what
is.
Moreover, it is immovable in the bonds of mighty chains, without
beginning and without end; since coming into being and passing away
have been driven afar, and true belief has cast them away. It is the
same, and it rests in the self-same place, abiding in itself. And thus
it remaineth constant in <<30>> its place; for hard necessity keeps it
in the bonds of the limit that holds it fast on every side. Wherefore
it is not permitted to what is to be infinite; for it is in need of
nothing; while, if it were infinite, it would stand in need of
everything.[442] R. P. 118.
The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the
thought exists is the same;[443] for you cannot find <<35>> thought
without something that is, as to which it is uttered.[444] And there
is not, and never shall be, anything besides what is, since fate has
chained it so as to be whole and immovable. Wherefore all these things
are but names which mortals have given, believing them to be
true—coming into being and <<40>> passing away, being and not being,
change of place and alteration of bright colour. R. P. 119.
Since, then, it has a furthest limit, it is complete on every side,
like the mass of a rounded sphere, equally poised from the centre in
every direction; for it cannot be greater or <<45>> smaller in one
place than in another. For there is no nothing that could keep it from
reaching out equally, nor can aught that is be more here and less
there than what is, since it is all inviolable. For the point from
which it is equal in every direction tends equally to the limits. R.
P. 120.
THE WAY OF OPINION
Here shall I close my trustworthy speech and thought <<50>> about the
truth. Henceforward learn the opinions of mortals, giving ear to the
deceptive ordering of my words.
Mortals have made up their minds to name two forms, one of which they
should not name,[445] and that is where they go astray from the truth.
They have distinguished them as <<55>> opposite in form, and have
assigned to them marks distinct from one another. To the one they
allot the fire of heaven, gentle, very light, in every direction the
same as itself, but not the same as the other. The other is just the
opposite to it, dark night, a compact and heavy body. Of these I tell
thee <<60>> the whole arrangement as it seems likely; for so no
thought of mortals will ever outstrip thee. R. P. 121.
(9)
Now that all things have been named light and night, and the names
which belong to the power of each have been assigned to these things
and to those, everything is full at once of light and dark night, both
equal, since neither has aught to do with the other.
(10, 11)
And thou shalt know the substance of the sky, and all the signs in the
sky, and the resplendent works of the glowing sun’s pure torch, and
whence they arose. And thou shalt learn likewise of the wandering
deeds of the round-faced moon, and of her substance. Thou shalt know,
too, the heavens that surround <<5>> us, whence they arose, and how
Necessity took them and bound them to keep the limits of the stars ...
how the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and the sky that is common
to all, and the Milky Way, and the outermost Olympos, and the burning
might of the stars arose. <<10>> R. P. 123, 124.
(12)
The narrower rings are filled with unmixed fire, and those next them
with night, and in the midst of these rushes their portion of fire. In
the midst of these circles is the divinity that directs the course of
all things; for she is the beginner of all painful birth and all
begetting, driving the female to the <<5>> embrace of the male, and
the male to that of the female. R. P. 125.
(13)
First of all the gods she contrived Eros. R. P. 125.
(14)
Shining by night with borrowed light,[446] wandering round the earth.
(15)
Always looking to the beams of the sun.
(16)
For just as thought finds at any time the mixture of its erring
organs, so does it come to men; for that which thinks is the same,
namely, the substance of the limbs, in each and every man; for their
thought is that of which there is more in them.[447] R. P. 128.
(17)
On the right boys; on the left girls.[448]
(19)
Thus, according to men’s opinions, did things come into being, and
thus they are now. In time they will grow up and pass away. To each of
these things men have assigned a fixed name. R. P. 129 b.
Footnote 432:
For these see Hesiod, _Theog._ 748.
Footnote 433:
See below, p. 211, _n._ 459.
Footnote 434:
I read μῦθος as in the parallel passage fr. 8 _ad init._ Diels’s
interpretation of θυμὸς ὁδοῖο (the MS. reading here) as _ein
lebendiger Weg_ does not convince me, and the confusion of the two
words is fairly common.
Footnote 435:
I read with Zeller (p. 558 n. 1, Eng. trans. p. 584, n. 1) τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ
νοεῖν ἔστιν τε καὶ εἶναι. Apart from the philosophical anachronism of
making Parmenides say that “thought and being are the same,” it is a
grammatical anachronism to make him use the infinitive (with or
without the article) as the subject of a sentence. On the other hand,
he does use the active infinitive after εἶναι in the construction
where we usually use a passive infinitive (Monro, _H. Gr._ § 231 _sub
fin._). Cf. fr. 4, εἰσὶ νοῆσαι, “are for thinking,” _i.e._ “can be
thought.”
Footnote 436:
The construction here is the same as that explained in the last note.
It is surprising that good scholars should acquiesce in the
translation of τὸ λέγειν τε νοεῖν τε as “to say and think this.” Then
ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι means “it can be,” not “being is,” and the last phrase
should be construed οὐκ ἔστι μηδὲν (εἶναι).
Footnote 437:
I construe οἷς νενόμισται τὸ πέλειν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶναι ταὐτὸν καὶ οὐ
ταὐτόν. The subject of the infinitives πέλειν καὶ οὐκ εἶναι is the
_it_, which has to be supplied also with ἔστιν and οὐκ ἔστιν. This way
of taking the words makes it unnecessary to believe that Parmenides
said (τὸ) οὐκ εἶναι instead of (τὸ) μὴ εἶναι for “not-being.” There is
no difference between πέλειν and εἶναι except in rhythmical value.
Footnote 438:
I take πάντων as neuter and understand παλίντροπος κέλευθος as
equivalent to the ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω of Herakleitos. I do not think it has
anything to do with the παλίντονος (or παλίντροπος) ἁρμονίη. See Chap.
III. p. 150, _n._ 347.
Footnote 439:
I still prefer to read ἔστι γὰρ οὐλομελές with Plutarch (_adv. Col._
1114 c). Proklos (_in Parm._ 1152, 24) also read οὐλομελές.
Simplicius, who has μουνογενές here, calls the One of Parmenides
ὁλομελές elsewhere (_Phys._ p. 137, 15). The reading of [Plut.]
_Strom._ 5, μοῦνον μουνογενές helps to explain the confusion. We have
only to suppose that the letters μ, ν, γ were written above the line
in the Academy copy of Parmenides by some one who had _Tim._ 31 b 3 in
mind.
Footnote 440:
Diels formerly read ἔκ πη ἐόντος, “from that which in any way is”; but
he has now reverted to the reading ἔκ μὴ ἐόντος, supposing that the
other horn of the dilemma has dropped out. In any case, “nothing but
what is not can arise from what is not” gives a perfectly good sense.
Footnote 441:
For the difficulties which have been felt about μᾶλλον here, see
Diels’s note. If the word is to be pressed, his interpretation is
admissible; but it seems to me that this is simply an instance of
“polar expression.” It is true that it is only the case of there being
less of what is in one place than another that is important for the
divisibility of the One; but if there is less in one place, there is
more in another _than in that place_. The Greek language tends to
express these implications. The position of the relative clause makes
a difficulty for us, but hardly for a Greek.
Footnote 442:
Simplicius certainly read μὴ ἐὸν δ’ ἂν παντὸς ἐδεῖτο, which is
metrically impossible. I followed Bergk in deleting μή, and have
interpreted with Zeller. So too Diels.
Footnote 443:
For the construction of ἔστι νοεῖν, see above, p. 198, _n._ 435.
Footnote 444:
As Diels rightly points out, the Ionic φατίζειν is equivalent to
ὀνομάζειν. The meaning, I think, is this. We may name things as we
choose, but there can be no thought corresponding to a name that is
not the name of something real.
Footnote 445:
This is Zeller’s way of taking the words, and still seems to me the
best. Diels objects that ἑτέρην would be required, and renders _nur
eine derselben, das sei unerlaubt_, giving the words to the “mortals.”
This seems to me to involve more serious grammatical difficulties than
the use of μίαν for τὴν ἑτέραν, which is quite legitimate when there
is an emphasis on the number. Aristotle must have taken it so; for he
infers that one of the μορφαί is to be identified with τὸ ἐόν.
Footnote 446:
Note the curious echo of _Il._ v. 214. Empedokles has it too (v. 154).
It appears to be a joke, made in the spirit of Xenophanes, when it was
first discovered that the moon shone by reflected light.
Footnote 447:
This fragment of the theory of knowledge which was expounded in the
second part of the poem of Parmenides must be taken in connexion with
what we are told by Theophrastos in the “Fragment on Sensation”
(_Dox._ p. 499; cf. p. 222). It appears from this that he said the
character of men’s thought depended upon the preponderance of the
light or the dark element in their bodies. They are wise when the
light element predominates, and foolish when the dark gets the upper
hand.
Footnote 448:
This is a fragment of Parmenides’s embryology. Diels’s fr. 18 is a
retranslation of the Latin hexameters of Caelius Aurelianus quoted R.
P. 127 a.
[Sidenote: “It is.”]
86. In the First Part of his poem, we find Parmenides chiefly interested
to prove that _it is_; but it is not quite obvious at first sight what
it is precisely that _is_. He says simply, _What is, is_. To us this
does not seem very clear, and that for two reasons. In the first place,
we should never think of doubting it, and we cannot, therefore,
understand why it should be asserted with such iteration and vigour. In
the second place, we are accustomed to all sorts of distinctions between
different kinds and degrees of reality, and we do not see which of these
is meant. Such distinctions, however, were quite unknown in those days.
“That which is,” with Parmenides, is primarily what, in popular
language, we call matter or body; only it is not matter as distinguished
from anything else. It is certainly regarded as spatially extended; for
it is quite seriously spoken of as a sphere (fr. 8, 40). Moreover,
Aristotle tells us that Parmenides believed in none but a sensible
reality, which does not necessarily mean with him a reality that is
actually perceived by the senses, but includes any which might be so
perceived if the senses were more perfect than they are.[449] Parmenides
does not say a word about “Being” anywhere.[450] The assertion that _it
is_ amounts just to this, that the universe is a _plenum_; and that
there is no such thing as empty space, either inside or outside the
world. From this it follows that there can be no such thing as motion.
Instead of endowing the One with an impulse to change, as Herakleitos
had done, and thus making it capable of explaining the world, Parmenides
dismissed change as an illusion. He showed once for all that if you take
the One seriously you are bound to deny everything else. All previous
solutions of the question, therefore, had missed the point. Anaximenes,
who thought to save the unity of the primary substance by his theory of
rarefaction and condensation, did not observe that, by assuming there
was less of what is in one place than another, he virtually affirmed the
existence of what is not (fr. 8, 42). The Pythagorean explanation
implied that empty space or air existed outside the world, and that it
entered into it to separate the units (§ 53). It, too, assumes the
existence of what is not. Nor is the theory of Herakleitos any more
satisfactory; for it is based upon the contradiction that fire both is
and is not (fr. 6).
Footnote 449:
Arist. _de Caelo_, Γ, 1. 298 b 21, ἐκεῖνοι δὲ (οἱ περὶ Μέλισσόν τε καὶ
Παρμενίδην) διὰ τὸ μηθὲν μὲν ἄλλο παρὰ τὴν τῶν αἰσθητῶν οὐσίαν
ὑπολαμβάνειν εἶναι κ.τ.λ. So too Eudemos, in the first book of his
Physics (_ap._ Simpl. _Phys._ p. 133, 25), said of Parmenides: τὸ μὲν
οὖν κοινὸν οὐκ ἂν λέγοι. οὔτε γὰρ ἐζητεῖτό πω τὰ τοιαῦτα, ἀλλ’ ὕστερον
ἐκ τῶν λόγων προήλθεν, οὔτε ἐπιδέχοιτο ἂν ἂ τῷ ὅντι ἐπιλέγει. πῶς γὰρ
ἔσται τοῦτο “μέσσοθεν ἰσοπαλὲς” καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα; τῷ δὲ οὐρανῷ (the
world) σχεδὸν πάντες ἐφαρμόσουσιν οἱ τοιοῦτοι λόγοι The Neoplatonists,
of course, saw in the One the νοητὸς κόσμος, and Simplicius calls the
sphere a “mythical figment.” See especially Baümker, “Die Einheit des
Parmenideischen Seiendes” (_Jahrb. f. kl. Phil._ 1886, pp. 541 sqq.),
and _Das Problem der Materie_, pp. 50 sqq.
Footnote 450:
We must not render τὸ ἐόν by “Being,” _das Sein_ or _l’être_. It is
“what is,” _das Seiende, ce qui est_. As to (τὸ) εἶναι it does not,
and could not, occur. Cf. p. 198, _n._ 435, above.
The allusion to Herakleitos in the verses last referred to has been
doubted, though upon insufficient grounds. Zeller points out quite
rightly that Herakleitos never says Being and not-Being are the same
(the common translation of fr. 6, 8); and, were there nothing more than
this, the reference might well seem doubtful. The statement, however,
that, according to the view in question, “all things travel in opposite
directions,” can hardly be understood of anything but the “upward and
downward path” of Herakleitos (§ 71). And, as we have seen, Parmenides
does not attribute the view that Being and not-Being are the same to the
philosopher whom he is attacking; he only says that _it_ is and is not,
the same and not the same.[451] That is the natural meaning of the
words; and it furnishes a very accurate description of the theory of
Herakleitos.
Footnote 451:
See above, p. 198, _n._ 437.
[Sidenote: The method of Parmenides.]
87. The great novelty in the poem of Parmenides is the method of
argument. He first asks what is the common presupposition of all the
views with which he has to deal, and he finds that this is the existence
of what is not. The next question is whether this can be thought, and
the answer is that it cannot. If you think at all, you must think of
something. Therefore there is no nothing. Philosophy had not yet learned
to make the admission that a thing might be unthinkable and nevertheless
exist. Only that can be which can be thought (fr. 5); for thought exists
for the sake of what is (fr. 8, 34).
This method Parmenides carries out with the utmost rigour. He will not
have us pretend that we think what we must admit to be unthinkable. It
is true that if we resolve to allow nothing but what we can understand,
we come into direct conflict with the evidence of our senses, which
present us with a world of change and decay. So much the worse for the
senses, says Parmenides. To many this will doubtless seem a mistake on
his part, but let us see what history has to say on the point. The
theory of Parmenides is the inevitable outcome of a corporeal monism,
and his bold declaration of it ought to have destroyed that theory for
ever. If he had lacked courage to work out the prevailing views of his
time to their logical conclusion, and to accept that conclusion, however
paradoxical it might seem to be, men might have gone on in the endless
circle of opposition, rarefaction and condensation, one and many, for
ever. It was the thorough-going dialectic of Parmenides that made
progress possible. Philosophy must now cease to be monistic or cease to
be corporealist. It could not cease to be corporealist; for the
incorporeal was still unknown. It therefore ceased to be monistic, and
arrived at the atomic theory, which, so far as we know, is the last word
of the view that the world is matter in motion. Having worked out its
problems on those conditions, philosophy next attacked them on the other
side. It ceased to be corporealist, and found it possible to be monistic
once more, at least for a time. This progress would have been impossible
but for that faith in reason which gave Parmenides the courage to reject
as untrue what was to him unthinkable, however strange the result might
be.
[Sidenote: The results.]
88. He goes on to develop all the consequences of the admission that _it
is_. It must be uncreated and indestructible. It cannot have arisen out
of nothing; for there is no such thing as nothing. Nor can it have
arisen from something; for there is no room for anything but itself.
What is cannot have beside it any empty space in which something else
might arise; for empty space is nothing, nothing cannot be thought, and
therefore cannot exist. What is, never came into being, nor is anything
going to come into being in the future. “Is it or is it not?” If it is,
then it is now, all at once.
That Parmenides was really denying the existence of empty space was
quite well known to Plato. He says that Parmenides held “all things were
one, and that the one remains at rest in itself, _having no place in
which to move_.”[452] Aristotle is no less clear. In the _de Caelo_ he
lays it down that Parmenides was driven to take up the position that the
One was immovable just because no one had yet imagined that there was
any reality other than sensible reality.[453]
Footnote 452:
Plato, _Tht._ 180 e 3, ὡς ἕν τε πάντα ἐστὶ καὶ ἕστηκεν αὐτὸ ἐν αὐτῷ
οὐκ ἔχον χώραν ἐν ᾗ κινεῖται.
Footnote 453:
Arist. _de Caelo_, Γ, 1. 298 b 21, quoted above, p. 203, _n._ 449.
That which is, is; and it cannot be more or less. There is, therefore,
as much of it in one place as in another, and the world is a continuous,
indivisible _plenum_. From this it follows at once that it must be
immovable. If it moved, it must move into an empty space, and there is
no empty space. It is hemmed in by _what is_, by the real, on every
side. For the same reason, it must be finite, and can have nothing
beyond it. It is complete in itself, and has no need to stretch out
indefinitely into an empty space that does not exist. Hence, too, it is
spherical. It is equally real in every direction, and the sphere is the
only form which meets this condition. Any other would _be_ in one
direction more than in another. And this sphere cannot even move round
its own axis; for there is nothing outside of it with reference to which
it could be said to move.
[Sidenote: Parmenides the father of materialism.]
89. To sum up. What _is_, is a finite, spherical, motionless corporeal
_plenum_, and there is nothing beyond it. The appearances of
multiplicity and motion, empty space and time, are illusions. We see
from this that the primary substance of which the early cosmologists
were in search has now become a sort of “thing in itself.” It never
quite lost this character again. What appears later as the elements of
Empedokles, the so-called “homoeomeries” of Anaxagoras and the atoms of
Leukippos and Demokritos, is just the Parmenidean “being.” Parmenides is
not, as some have said, the “father of idealism”; on the contrary, all
materialism depends on his view of reality.
[Sidenote: The beliefs of “mortals.”]
90. It is commonly said that, in the Second Part of his poem, Parmenides
offered a dualistic theory of the origin of things as his own
conjectural explanation of the sensible world, or that, as Gomperz says,
“What he offered were the Opinions of Mortals; and this description did
not merely cover other people’s opinions. It included his own as well,
as far as they were not confined to the unassailable ground of an
apparent philosophical necessity.”[454] Now it is true that in one place
Aristotle appears to countenance a view of this sort, but nevertheless
it is an anachronism.[455] Nor is it really Aristotle’s view. He was
perfectly well aware that Parmenides did not admit the existence of
“not-being” in any degree whatever; but it was a natural way speaking to
call the cosmology of the Second Part of the poem that of Parmenides.
His hearers would understand at once in what sense this was meant. At
any rate, the Peripatetic tradition was that Parmenides, in the Second
Part of the poem, meant to give the belief of “the many.” This is how
Theophrastos put the matter, and Alexander seems to have spoken of the
cosmology as something which Parmenides himself regarded as wholly
false.[456] The other view comes from the Neoplatonists, and especially
Simplicius, who very naturally regarded the Way of Truth as an account
of the intelligible world, and the Way of Opinion as a description of
the sensible. It need hardly be said that this is almost as great an
anachronism as the Kantian parallelism suggested by Gomperz.[457]
Parmenides himself tells us in the most unequivocal language that there
is no truth at all in the theory which he expounds, and he gives it
merely as the belief of “mortals.” It was this that led Theophrastos to
speak of it as the opinion of “the many.”
Footnote 454:
_Greek Thinkers_, pp. 180 sqq.
Footnote 455:
_Met._ Α, 5. 986 b 31 (R. P. 121 a). Aristotle’s way of putting the
matter is due to his interpretation of fr. 8, 54, which he took to
mean that one of the two “forms” was to be identified with τὸ ὄν and
the other with τὸ μὴ ὄν. Cf. _Gen. Corr._ Α, 3. 318 b 6, ὥσπερ
Παρμενίδης λέγει δύο, τὸ ὂν καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν εἶναι φάσκων. This last
sentence shows clearly that when Aristotle says Παρμενίδης, he means
what we should call “Parmenides.” He cannot have supposed that
Parmenides admitted the being of τὸ μὴ ὄν in any sense whatever (cf.
Plato, _Soph._ 241 d 5).
Footnote 456:
Theophr. _Phys. Op._ fr. 6 (_Dox._ p. 482; R. P. 121 a), κατὰ δόξαν δὲ
τῶν πολλῶν εἰς τὸ γένεσιν ἀποδοῦναι τῶν φαινομένων δύο ποιῶν τὰς
ἀρχάς. For Alexander cf. Simpl. _Phys._ p. 38, 24.
Footnote 457:
Simpl. _Phys._ p. 39, 10 (R. P. 121 b). Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, p.
180. E. Meyer says (_Gesch. des Alterth._ iv. § 510, _Anm._): “How too
can we think that a teacher of wisdom taught his disciples nothing as
to the way in which they must take the existing sensible world, even
if only as a deception?” This implies (1) that the distinction between
Appearance and Reality had been clearly grasped; and (2) that a
certain hypothetical and relative truth was allowed to Appearance.
These are palpable anachronisms. Both views are Platonic, and they
were not held even by Plato in his earlier writings.
His explanation however, though preferable to that of Simplicius, is not
convincing either. “The many” are as far as possible from believing in
an elaborate dualism such as Parmenides expounded, and it is a highly
artificial hypothesis to assume that he wished to show how the popular
view of the world could best be systematised. “The many” would hardly be
convinced of their error by having their beliefs presented to them in a
form which they would certainly fail to recognise. This, indeed, seems
the most incredible interpretation of all. It still, however, finds
adherents, so it is necessary to point out that the beliefs in question
are called “the opinions of mortals” simply because the speaker is a
goddess. Further, we have to note that Parmenides forbids two ways of
research, and we have seen that the second of these, which is also
expressly ascribed to “mortals,” must be the system of Herakleitos. We
should surely expect, then, to find that the other way too is the system
of some contemporary school, and it seems hard to discover any of
sufficient importance except the Pythagorean. Now it is admitted by
every one that there are Pythagorean ideas in the Second Part of the
poem, and it is therefore to be presumed, in the absence of evidence to
the contrary, that the whole system comes from the same source. It does
not appear that Parmenides said any more about Herakleitos than the
words to which we have just referred, in which he forbids the second way
of inquiry. He implies, indeed, that there are really only two ways that
can be thought of, and that the attempt of Herakleitos to combine them
was futile.[458] In any case, the Pythagoreans were far more serious
opponents at that date in Italy, and it is certainly to them that we
should expect Parmenides to define his attitude.
Footnote 458:
Cf. frs. 4 and 6, especially the words αἵπερ ὁδοὶ μοῦναι διζήσιός εἰσι
νοῆσαι. The third way, that of Herakleitos, is only added as an
afterthought—αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ ἀπὸ τῆς κ.τ.λ.
It is still not quite clear, however, why he should have thought it
worth while to put into hexameters a view which he believed to be false.
Here it becomes important to remember that he had been a Pythagorean
himself, and that the poem is a renunciation of his former beliefs. In
such cases men commonly feel the necessity of showing where their old
views were wrong. The goddess tells him that he must learn of those
beliefs also “how men ought to have judged that the things which seem to
them really are.”[459] That is clear so far; but it does not explain the
matter fully. We get a further hint in another place. He is to learn
these beliefs “in order that no opinion of mortals may ever get the
better of him” (fr. 8, 61). If we remember that the Pythagorean system
at this time was handed down by oral tradition alone, we shall perhaps
see what this means. Parmenides was founding a dissident school, and it
was quite necessary for him to instruct his disciples in the system they
might be called upon to oppose. In any case, they could not reject it
intelligently without a knowledge of it, and this Parmenides had to
supply himself.[460]
Footnote 459:
I read χρῆν δοκιμῶσ’ εἶναι in fr. 1, 32 with Diels, but I do not feel
able to accept his rendering _wie man bei gründlicher Durchforschung
annehmen müsste, dass sich jenes Scheinwesen verhalte_. We must, I
think, take χρῆν δοκιμῶσαι (_i.e._ δοκιμάσαι) quite strictly, and χρῆν
with the infinitive means “ought to have.” The most natural subject
for the infinitive in that case is βροτούς, while εἶναι will be
dependent on δοκιμῶσαι, and have τὰ δοκοῦντα for its subject. This way
of taking the words is confirmed by fr. 8, 54, τῶν μίαν οὐ χρεών
ἐστιν, if taken as I have taken it with Zeller. See above, p. 201,
_n._ 445.
Footnote 460:
The view that the opinions contained in the Second Part are those of
others, and are not given as true in any sense whatsoever, is that of
Diels. The objections of Wilamowitz (_Hermes_, xxxiv. pp. 203 sqq.) do
not appear to me cogent. If we interpret him rightly, Parmenides never
says that “this hypothetical explanation is ... better than that of
any one else” (E. Meyer, iv. § 510, _Anm._). What he does say is that
it is untrue altogether. It seems to me, however, that Diels has
weakened his case by refusing to identify the theory here expounded
with Pythagoreanism, and referring it mainly to Herakleitos.
Herakleitos was emphatically _not_ a dualist, and I cannot see that to
represent him as one is even what Diels calls a “caricature” of his
theory. Caricatures must have some point of likeness. It is still more
surprising to me that Patin, who makes ἓν πάντα εἶναι the corner-stone
of Herakleiteanism, should adopt this view (_Parmenides im Kampfe
gegen Heraklit_, 1899). E. Meyer (_loc. cit._) seems to think that the
fact of Zeno’s having modified the δόξα of Parmenides in an
Empedoklean sense (Diog. ix. 29; R. P. 140) proves that it was
supposed to have some sort of truth. On the contrary, it would only
show, if true, that Zeno had other opponents to face than Parmenides
had.
[Sidenote: The dualist cosmology.]
91. The view that the Second Part of the poem of Parmenides was a sketch
of contemporary Pythagorean cosmology is, doubtless, incapable of
rigorous demonstration, but it can, I think, be made extremely probable.
The entire history of Pythagoreanism up to the end of the fifth century
B.C. is certainly conjectural; but, if we find in Parmenides ideas which
are wholly unconnected with his own view of the world, and if we find
precisely the same ideas in later Pythagoreanism, the most natural
inference will surely be that the later Pythagoreans derived these views
from their predecessors, and that they formed part of the original
stock-in-trade of the society to which they belonged. This will only be
confirmed if we find that they are developments of certain features in
the old Ionian cosmology. Pythagoras came from Samos, which always stood
in the closest relations with Miletos; and it was not, so far as we can
see, in his cosmological views that he chiefly displayed his
originality. It has been pointed out above (§ 53) that the idea of the
world breathing came from Anaximenes, and we need not be surprised to
find traces of Anaximander as well. Now, if we were confined to what
Aristotle tells us on this subject, it would be almost impossible to
make out a case; but his statements require, as usual, to be examined
with a certain amount of care. He says, first of all, that the two
elements of Parmenides were the Warm and the Cold.[461] In this he is so
far justified by the fragments that, since the Fire of which Parmenides
speaks is, of course, warm, the other “form,” which has all the opposite
qualities, must of necessity be cold. But, nevertheless, the habitual
use of the terms “_the_ warm” and “_the_ cold” is an accommodation to
Aristotle’s own system. In Parmenides himself they were simply one pair
of attributes amongst others.
Footnote 461:
_Met._ Α, 5. 986 b 34, θερμὸν καὶ ψυχρόν; _Phys._ Α, 5. 188 a 20;
_Gen. Corr._ Α, 3. 318 b 6; Β, 3. 330 b 14.
Still more misleading is Aristotle’s identification of these with Fire
and Earth. It is not quite certain that he meant to say Parmenides
himself made this identification; but, on the whole, it is most likely
that he did, and Theophrastos certainly followed him in this.[462] It is
another question whether it is accurate. Simplicius, who had the poem
before him (§ 85), after mentioning Fire and Earth, at once adds “or
rather Light and Darkness”;[463] and this is suggestive enough. Lastly,
Aristotle’s identification of the dense element with “what is not,”[464]
the unreal of the First Part of the poem, is not very easy to reconcile
with the view that it is earth. On the other hand, if we suppose that
the second of the two “forms,” the one which should not have been
“named,” is the Pythagorean Air or Void, we get a very good explanation
of Aristotle’s identification of it with “what is not.” We seem, then,
to be justified in neglecting the identification of the dense element
with earth for the present. At a later stage, we shall be able to see
how it may have originated.[465] The further statement of Theophrastos,
that the Warm was the efficient cause and the Cold the material or
passive,[466] is intelligible enough if we identify them with the Limit
and the Unlimited respectively; but is not, of course, to be regarded as
historical.
Footnote 462:
_Phys._ Α, 5. 188 a 21, ταῦτα δὲ (θερμὸν καὶ ψυχρὸν) προσαγορεύει πῦρ
καὶ γῆν; _Met._ Α, 5. 986 b 34, οἷον πῦρ καὶ γῆν λέγων. Cf. Theophr.
_Phys. Op._ fr. 6 (_Dox._ p. 482; R. P. 121 a). [Plut.] _Strom._ fr. 5
(_Dox._ p. 581), λέγει δὲ τῆν γῆν τοῦ πυκνοῦ καταρρυέντος ἀέρος
γεγονέναι. Zeller, p. 568, n. 1 (Eng. trans. p. 593, n. 2).
Footnote 463:
_Phys._ p. 25, 15, ὡς Παρμενίδης ἐν τοῖς πρὸς δόξαν πῦρ καὶ γῆν (ἢ
μᾶλλον φῶς καὶ σκότος).
Footnote 464:
_Met._ Α, 5. 986 b 35, τούτων δὲ κατὰ μὲν τὸ ὂν τὸ θερμὸν τάττει,
θάτερον δὲ κατὰ τὸ μὴ ὄν. See above, p. 208, _n._ 457.
Footnote 465:
See below, Chap. VII. § 147.
Footnote 466:
Theophr. _Phys. Op._ fr. 6 (_Dox._ p. 482; R. P. 121 a), followed by
the doxographers.
We have seen that Simplicius, with the poem of Parmenides before him,
corrects Aristotle by substituting Light and Darkness for Fire and
Earth, and in this he is amply borne out by the fragments which he
quotes. Parmenides himself calls one “form” Light, Flame, and Fire, and
the other Night, and we have now to consider whether these can be
identified with the Pythagorean Limit and Unlimited. We have seen good
reason to believe (§ 58) that the idea of the world breathing belonged
to the earliest form of Pythagoreanism, and there can be no difficulty
in identifying this “boundless breath” with Darkness, which stands very
well for the Unlimited. “Air” or mist was always regarded as the dark
element.[467] And that which gives definiteness to the vague darkness is
certainly light or fire, and this may account for the prominence given
to that element by Hippasos.[468] We may probably conclude, then, that
the Pythagorean distinction between the Limit and the Unlimited, which
we shall have to consider later (Chap. VII.), made its first appearance
in this crude form. If, on the other hand, we identify darkness with the
Limit, and light with the Unlimited, as most critics do, we get into
insuperable difficulties.
Footnote 467:
Note the identification of the dense element with “air” in [Plut.]
_Strom._, quoted p. 213, _n._ 462; and for the identification of this
“air” with “mist and darkness,” cf. Chap. I. § 27, and Chap. V. § 107.
It is to be observed further that Plato puts this last identification
into the mouth of a Pythagorean (_Tim._ 52 d).
Footnote 468:
See above, p. 121.
[Sidenote: The heavenly bodies.]
92. We must now look at the general cosmical view expounded in the
Second Part of the poem. The fragments are scanty, and the doxographical
tradition hard to interpret; but enough remains to show that here, too,
we are on Pythagorean ground. All discussion of the subject must start
from the following important passage of Aetios:—
Parmenides held that there were crowns crossing one another[469] and
encircling one another, formed of the rare and the dense element
respectively, and that between these there were other mixed crowns
made up of light and darkness. That which surrounds them all was solid
like a wall, and under it is a fiery crown. That which is in the
middle of all the crowns is also solid, and surrounded in turn by a
fiery circle. The central circle of the mixed crowns is the cause of
movement and becoming to all the rest. He calls it “the goddess who
directs their course,” “the Holder of Lots,” and “Necessity.” Aet. ii.
7. 1 (R. P. 126).
Footnote 469:
It seems most likely that ἐπαλλήλους here means “crossing one
another,” as the Milky Way crosses the Zodiac. The term ἐπάλληλος is
opposed to παράλληλος.
[Sidenote: The “crowns.”]
93. The first thing we have to observe is that it is quite unjustifiable
to regard these “crowns” as spheres. The word στέφαναι can mean “rims”
or “brims” or anything of that sort, but it seems incredible that it
should be used of spheres. It does not appear, either, that the solid
circle which surrounds all the crowns is to be regarded as spherical.
The expression “like a wall” would be highly inappropriate in that case.
We seem, then, to be face to face with something of the same kind as the
“wheels” of Anaximander, and it is obviously quite likely that
Pythagoras should have taken this theory from him. Nor is evidence
altogether lacking that the Pythagoreans did regard the heavenly bodies
in this way. In Plato’s Myth of Er, which is certainly Pythagorean in
its general character, we do not hear of spheres, but of the “lips” of
concentric whorls fitted into one another like a nest of boxes.[470]
Even in the _Timaeus_ there are no spheres, but bands or strips crossing
each other at an angle.[471] Lastly, in the Homeric _Hymn to Ares_,
which seems to have been composed under Pythagorean influence, the word
used for the orbit of the planet is ἄντυξ, which must mean “rim.”[472]
Footnote 470:
_Rep._ x. 616 d 5, καθάπερ οἱ κάδοι οἱ εἰς ἀλλήλους ἁρμόττοντες; e 1,
κύκλους ἄνωθεν τὰ χείλη φαίνοντας (σφονδύλους).
Footnote 471:
_Tim._ 36 b 6, ταύτην οὖν τὴν σύστασιν πᾶσαν διπλῆν κατὰ μῆκος σχίσας,
μέσην πρὸς μέσην ἐκατέραν ἀλλήλαις οἷον χεῖ (the letter Χ) προσβαλὼν
κατέκαμψεν εἰς ἓν κύκλῳ.
Footnote 472:
_Hymn to Ares_, 6:
πυραυγέα κύκλον ἑλίσσων
αἰθέρος ἑπταπόροις ἐνὶ τείρεσιν, ἔνθα σε πῶλοι
ζαφλεγέες τριτάτης ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος αἰὲν ἔχουσι.
So, in allusion to an essentially Pythagorean view, Proclus says to
the planet Venus (h. iv. 17):
εἴτε καὶ ἑπτὰ κύκλων ὑπὲρ ἄντυγας αἰθέρα ναίεις.
The fact is, there is really no evidence that any one ever adopted the
theory of celestial spheres at all, till Aristotle turned the
geometrical construction which Eudoxos had set up as a hypothesis “to
save appearances” (σῴζειν τὰ φαινόμενα ) into real things.[473] From
that time forward we hear a great deal about spheres, and it was natural
that later writers should attribute them to the Pythagoreans; but there
is no occasion to do violence to the language of Parmenides by turning
his “crowns” into anything of the sort. At this date, spheres would not
have served to explain anything that could not be explained more simply
without them.
Footnote 473:
On the concentric spheres of Eudoxos, see Dreyer, _Planetary Systems_,
chap. iv. It is unfortunate that the account of Plato’s astronomy
given in this work is wholly inadequate, owing to the writer’s
excessive reliance on Boeckh, who was led by evidence now generally
regarded as untrustworthy to attribute all the astronomy of the
Academy to their predecessors, and especially to Philolaos.
We are next told that these “crowns” encircle one another or are folded
over one another, and that they are made of the rare and the dense
element. We also learn that between them are “mixed crowns” made up of
light and darkness. Now it is to be observed, in the first place, that
light and darkness are exactly the same thing as the rare and the dense,
and it looks as if there was some confusion here. It may be doubted
whether these statements are based on anything else than fr. 12, which
might certainly be interpreted to mean that between the crowns of fire
there were crowns of night with a portion of fire in them. That may be
right; but I think it is rather more natural to understand the passage
as saying that the narrower circles are surrounded by wider circles of
night, each with its portion of fire rushing in the midst of it. These
last words would then be a simple repetition of the statement that the
narrower circles are filled with unmixed fire,[474] and we should have a
fairly exact reproduction of the planetary system of Anaximander. It is,
however, possible, though I think less likely, that Parmenides
represented the space between the circles as occupied by similar rings
in which the fire and darkness were mixed instead of having the fire
enclosed in the darkness.
Footnote 474:
Such a repetition (παλινδρομία) is characteristic of all Greek style,
but the repetition at the end of the period generally adds a new touch
to the statement at the opening. The new touch is here given in the
word ἵεται. I do not press this interpretation, but it seems to me
much the simplest.
[Sidenote: The goddess.]
94. “In the middle of those,” says Parmenides, “is the goddess who
steers the course of all things.” Aetios, that is, Theophrastos,
explains this to mean in the middle of the mixed crowns, while
Simplicius declares that it means in the middle of all the crowns, that
is to say, in the centre of the world.[475] It is not very likely that
either of them had anything better to go upon than the words of
Parmenides just quoted, and these are ambiguous. Simplicius, as is clear
from the language he uses, identified this goddess with the Pythagorean
Hestia or central fire, while Theophrastos could not do this, because he
knew and stated that Parmenides held the earth to be round and in the
centre of the world.[476] In this very passage we are told that what is
in the middle of all the crowns is solid. The data furnished by
Theophrastos, in fact, exclude the identification of the goddess with
the central fire altogether. We cannot say that what is in the middle of
_all_ the crowns is solid, and that under it there is again a fiery
crown.[477] Nor does it seem fitting to relegate a goddess to the middle
of a solid spherical earth. We must try to find a place for her
elsewhere.
Footnote 475:
Simpl. _Phys._ p. 34, 14 (R. P. 125 b).
Footnote 476:
Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 126 a).
Footnote 477:
I do not discuss the interpretation of περὶ ὃ πάλιν πυρώδης which
Diels gave in _Parmenides Lehrgedicht_, p. 104, and which is adopted
in R. P. 162 a, as it is now virtually retracted. In the second
edition of his _Vorsokratiker_ (p. 111) he reads καὶ τὸ μεσαίτατον
πασῶν στερεόν, <ὑφ’ ᾧ> πάλιν πυρώδης [sc. στεφάνη]. That is a flat
contradiction. It is of interest to observe that Mr. Adam also gets
into the interior of the earth in his interpretation of the Myth of
Er. It is instructive, too, because it shows that we are really
dealing with the same order of ideas. The most heroic attempt to save
the central fire for Pythagoras was my own hypothesis of an annular
earth (1st ed. p. 203). This has met with well-deserved ridicule; but
all the same it is the only possible solution on these lines. We shall
see in Chap. VII. that the central fire belongs to the later
development of Pythagoreanism.
We are further told by Aetios that this goddess was called Ananke and
the “Holder of Lots.”[478] We know already that she steers the course of
all things, that is, that she regulates the motions of the celestial
crowns. Simplicius adds, unfortunately without quoting the actual words,
that she sends souls at one time from the light to the unseen world, at
another from the unseen world to the light.[479] It would be difficult
to describe more exactly what the goddess does in the Myth of Er, and so
here once more we seem to be on Pythagorean ground. It is to be noticed
further that in fr. 10 we read how Ananke took the heavens and compelled
them to hold fast the fixed courses of the stars, and that in fr. 12 we
are told that she is the beginner of all pairing and birth. Lastly, in
fr. 13 we hear that she created Eros first of all the gods. Modern
parallels are dangerous, but it is not really going much beyond what is
written to say that this Eros is the Will to Live, which leads to
successive rebirths of the soul. So we shall find that in Empedokles it
is an ancient oracle or decree of Ananke that causes the gods to fall
and become incarnate in a cycle of births.[480]
Footnote 478:
R. P. 126, where Fülleborn’s ingenious emendation κλῃδοῦχον for
κληροῦχον is tacitly adopted. This is based upon the view that Aetios
(or Theophrastos) was thinking of the goddess that keeps the keys in
the Proem (fr. 1, 14). I now think that the κλῆροι of the Myth of Er
are the true explanation of the name. Philo uses the term κληροῦχος
θεός.
Footnote 479:
Simpl. _Phys._ p. 39, 19, καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς πέμπειν ποτὲ μὲν ἐκ τοῦ
ἐμφανοῦς εἰς τὸ ἀειδές (_i.e._ ἀιδές), ποτὲ δὲ ἀνάπαλίν φησιν. We
should probably connect this with the statement of Diog. ix. 22 (R. P.
127) that men arose from the sun (reading ἡλίου with the MSS. for the
conjecture ἰλύος in the Basel edition).
Footnote 480:
Empedokles, fr. 115.
We should, then, be more certain of the place which this goddess
occupies in the universe if we could be quite sure where Ananke is in
the Myth of Er. Without, however, raising that vexed question, we may
lay down with some confidence that, according to Theophrastos, she
occupied a position midway between the earth and the heavens. Whether we
believe in the “mixed crowns” or not makes no difference in this
respect; for the statement of Aetios that she was in the middle of the
mixed crowns undoubtedly implies that she was in that region. Now she is
identified with one of the crowns in a somewhat confused passage of
Cicero,[481] and we have seen above (p. 69) that the whole theory of
wheels or crowns was probably suggested by the Milky Way. It seems to
me, therefore, that we must think of the Milky Way as a crown
intermediate between the crowns of the Sun and the Moon, and this agrees
very well with the prominent way in which it is mentioned in fr. 11. It
is better not to be too positive about the other details of the system,
though it is interesting to notice that according to some it was
Pythagoras, and according to others Parmenides, who discovered the
identity of the evening and morning star. That fits in exactly with our
general view.[482]
Footnote 481:
Cicero, _de nat. D._ i. 11, 28: “Nam Parmenides quidem commenticium
quiddam coronae simile efficit (στεφάνην appellat), continente ardore
lucis orbem, qui cingat caelum, quem appellat deum.” We may connect
with this the statement of Aetios, ii. 20, 8, τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὴν
σελήνην ἐκ τοῦ γαλαξίου κύκλου ἀποκριθῆναι.
Footnote 482:
Diog. ix. 23, καὶ δοκεῖ (Παρμενίδης) πρῶτος πεφωρακέναι τὸν αὐτὸν
εἶναι Ἕσπερον καὶ Φωσφόρον, ὥς φησι Φαβωρῖνος ἐν πέμπτῳ
Ἀπομνημονευμάτων· οἱ δὲ Πυθαγόραν. If, as Achilles says, the poet
Ibykos of Rhegion had anticipated Parmenides in announcing this
discovery, that is to be explained by the fact that Rhegion had become
the chief seat of the Pythagorean school.
Besides all this, it is quite certain that Parmenides went on to
describe how the other gods were born and how they fell, an idea which
we know to be Orphic, and which may well have been Pythagorean. We shall
come to it again in Empedokles. In Plato’s _Symposium_, Agathon couples
Parmenides with Hesiod as a narrator of ancient deeds of violence
committed by the gods.[483] If Parmenides was expounding the Pythagorean
theology, all this is just what we should expect; but it seems hopeless
to explain it on any of the other theories which have been advanced on
the purpose of the Way of Belief. Such things do not follow naturally
from the ordinary view of the world, and we have no reason to suppose
that Herakleitos expounded his views of the upward and downward path of
the soul in this form. He certainly did hold that the guardian spirits
entered into human bodies; but the whole point of his theory was that he
gave a naturalistic rather than a theological account of the process.
Still less can we think it probable that Parmenides made up these
stories himself in order to show what the popular view of the world
really implied if properly formulated. We must ask, I think, that any
theory on the subject shall account for what was evidently no
inconsiderable portion of the poem.
Footnote 483:
Plato, _Symp._ 195 c 1. It is implied that these παλαιὰ πράγματα were
πολλὰ καὶ βίαια, including such things as ἐκτομαί and δεσμοί. The
Epicurean criticism of all this is partially preserved in Philodemos,
_de pietate_, p. 68, Gomperz; and Cicero, _de nat. D._ i. 28 (_Dox._
p. 534; R. P. 126 b).
[Sidenote: Physiology.]
95. In describing the views of his contemporaries, Parmenides was
obliged, as we see from the fragments, to say a good deal about
physiological matters. Like everything else, man was composed of the
warm and the cold, and death was caused by the removal of the warm. Some
curious views with regard to generation were also stated. In the first
place, males came from the right side and females from the left. Women
had more of the warm and men of the cold, a view which we shall find
Empedokles contradicting.[484] It is just the proportion of the warm and
cold in men that determines the character of their thought, so that even
corpses, from which the warm has been removed, retain a perception of
what is cold and dark.[485] These fragments of information do not tell
us much when taken by themselves; but they connect themselves in a most
interesting way with the history of medicine, and point to the fact that
one of its leading schools stood in close relation with the Pythagorean
Society. Even before the days of Pythagoras, we know that Kroton was
famous for its doctors. A Krotoniate, Demokedes, was court physician to
the Persian king, and married Milo the Pythagorean’s daughter.[486] We
also know the name of a very distinguished medical writer who lived at
Kroton in the days between Pythagoras and Parmenides, and the few facts
we are told about him enable us to regard the physiological views
described by Parmenides not as isolated curiosities, but as landmarks by
means of which we can trace the origin and growth of one of the most
influential of medical theories, that which explains health as a balance
of opposites.
Footnote 484:
For all this, see R. P. 127 a, with Arist. _de Part. An._ Β, 2. 648 a
28; _de Gen. An._ Δ, 1. 765 b 19.
Footnote 485:
Theophr. _de sens._ 3, 4 (R. P. 129).
Footnote 486:
Herod. iii. 131, 137.
[Sidenote: Alkmaion of Kroton.]
96. Aristotle tells us that Alkmaion of Kroton[487] was a young man in
the old age of Pythagoras. He does not actually say, as later writers
do, that he was a Pythagorean, though he points out that he seems either
to have derived his theory of opposites from the Pythagoreans or they
theirs from him.[488] In any case, he was intimately connected with the
society, as is proved by one of the scanty fragments of his book. It
began as follows: “Alkmaion of Kroton, son of Peirithous, spoke these
words to Brotinos and Leon and Bathyllos. As to things invisible and
things mortal, the gods have certainty; but, so far as men may infer
...”[489] The quotation unfortunately ends in this abrupt way, but we
learn two things from it. In the first place, Alkmaion possessed that
reserve which marks all the best Greek medical writers; and in the
second place, he dedicated his work to the heads of the Pythagorean
Society.[490]
Footnote 487:
On Alkmaion, see especially Wachtler, _De Alcmaeone Crotoniata_
(Leipzig, 1896).
Footnote 488:
Arist. _Met._ Α, 5. 986 a 27 (R. P. 66). In a 30 Diels reads, with
great probability, ἐγένετο τὴν ἡλικίαν <νέος> ἐπὶ γέροντι Πυθαγόρᾳ.
Cf. Iambl. _V. Pyth._ 104, where Alkmaion is mentioned among the
συγχρονίσαντες καὶ μαθητεύσαντες τῷ Πυθαγόρᾳ πρεσβύτῃ νέοι.
Footnote 489:
Ἀλκμαίων Κρωτωνιήτης τάδε ἔλεξε Πειρίθου υἱὸς Βροτίνῳ καὶ Λέοντι καὶ
Βαθύλλῳ· περὶ τῶν ἀφανέων, περὶ τῶν θνητῶν, σαφήνειαν μὲν θεοὶ ἔχοντι,
ὡς δὲ ἀνθρώποις τεκμαίρεσθαι καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. The fact that this is not
written in conventional Doric, like the forged Pythagorean books, is a
strong proof of genuineness.
Footnote 490:
Brotinos (not Brontinos) is variously described as the son-in-law or
father-in-law of Pythagoras. Leon is one of the Metapontines in the
catalogue of Iamblichos (Diels, _Vors._ p. 268), and Bathyllos is
presumably the Poseidoniate Bathylaos also mentioned there.
Alkmaion’s chief importance in the history of philosophy really lies in
the fact that he is the founder of empirical psychology.[491] It is
certain that he regarded the brain as the common sensorium, an important
discovery which Hippokrates and Plato adopted from him, though
Empedokles, Aristotle, and the Stoics reverted to the more primitive
view that the heart performs this function. There is no reason to doubt
that he made this discovery by anatomical means. We have some authority
for saying that he practised dissection, and, though the nerves were not
yet recognised as such, it was known that there were certain “passages”
which might be prevented from communicating sensations to the brain by
lesions.[492] He also distinguished between sensation and understanding,
though we have no means of knowing exactly where he drew the line
between them. His theories of the special senses are of great interest.
We find in him already, what is characteristic of Greek theories of
vision as a whole, the attempt to combine the view of vision as an act
proceeding from the eye with that which attributes it to an image
reflected in the eye. He knew the importance of air for the sense of
hearing, though he called it the void, a thoroughly Pythagorean touch.
With regard to the other senses, our information is more scanty, but
sufficient to show that he treated the subject systematically.[493]
Footnote 491:
Everything bearing on the early history of this subject is brought
together and discussed in Prof. Beare’s _Greek Theories of Elementary
Cognition_, to which I must refer the reader for all details.
Footnote 492:
Theophr. _de sens._ 26 (Beare, p. 252, n. 1). Our authority for the
dissections of Alkmaion is only Chalcidius, but he gets his
information on such matters from far older sources. The πόροι and the
inference from lesions are vouched for by Theophrastos.
Footnote 493:
The details will be found in Beare, pp. 11 sqq. (vision), pp. 93 sqq.
(hearing), pp. 131 sqq. (smell), pp. 180 sqq. (touch), pp. 160 sqq.
(taste).
His astronomy seems surprisingly crude for one who stood in close
relations with the Pythagoreans. We are told that he adopted Anaximenes’
theory of the sun and Herakleitos’s explanation of eclipses.[494] It is
all the more remarkable that he is credited with originating the idea,
which it required all Plato’s authority to get accepted later, that the
planets have an orbital motion in the opposite direction to the diurnal
revolution of the heavens.[495] This, if true, probably stood in close
connexion with his saying that soul was immortal because it resembled
immortal things, and was always in motion like the heavenly bodies.[496]
He seems, in fact, to be the real author of the curious view which Plato
put into the mouth of the Pythagorean Timaios, that the soul has circles
revolving just as the heavens and the planets do. This too seems to be
the explanation of his further statement that man dies because he cannot
join the beginning to the end.[497] The orbits of the heavenly bodies
always come full circle, but the circles in the head may fail to
complete themselves. This new version of the parallelism between the
microcosm and the macrocosm would be perfectly natural for Alkmaion,
though it is, of course, no more than a playful fancy to Plato.
Footnote 494:
Aet. ii. 22, 4, πλατὺν εἶναι τὸν ἥλιον; 29, 3, κατὰ τὴν τοῦ
σκαφοειδοῦς στροφὴν καὶ τὰς περικλίσεις (ἐκλείπειν τὴν σελήνην).
Footnote 495:
Aet. ii. 16, 2, (τῶν μαθηματικῶν τινες) τοὺς πλανήτας τοῖς ἀπλάνεσιν
ἀπὸ δυσμῶν ἐπ’ ἀνατολὰς ἀντιφέρεσθαι. τούτῳ δὲ συνομολογεῖ καὶ
Ἀλκμαίων.
Footnote 496:
Arist. _de An._ Α, 2. 405 a 30 (R. P. 66 c).
Footnote 497:
Arist. _Probl._ 17, 3. 916 a 33, τοὺς ἀνθρώπους φησὶν Ἀλκμαίων διὰ
τοῦτο ἀπόλλυσθαι, ὅτι οὐ δύνανται τὴν ἀρχὴν τῷ τέλει προσάψαι.
Alkmaion’s theory of health as “isonomy” is at once that which most
clearly connects him with earlier inquirers like Anaximander, and also
that which had the greatest influence on the subsequent development of
philosophy. He observed, to begin with, that “most things human were
two,” and by this he meant that man was made up of the hot and the cold,
the moist and the dry, and the rest of the opposites.[498] Disease was
just the “monarchy” of any one of these—the same thing that Anaximander
had called “injustice”—while health was the establishment in the body of
a free government with equal laws.[499] This was the leading doctrine of
the Sicilian school of medicine which came into existence not long
after, and we shall have to consider in the sequel its influence on the
development of Pythagoreanism. Taken along with the theory of
“pores,”[500] it is of the greatest importance for later science.
Footnote 498:
Arist. _Met._ Α, 5. 986 a 27 (R. P. 66).
Footnote 499:
Aet. v. 30, 1, Ἀλκμαίων τῆς μὲν ὑγιείας εἶναι συνεκτικὴν τὴν ἰσονομίαν
τῶν δυνάμεων, ὑγροῦ, ξηροῦ, ψυχροῦ, θερμοῦ, πικροῦ, γλυκέος, καὶ τῶν
λοιπῶν, τὴν δ’ ἐν αὐτοῖς μοναρχίαν νόσου ποιητικήν· φθοροποιὸν γὰρ
ἐκατέρου μοναρχίαν.
Footnote 500:
My colleague, Dr. Fraser Harris, points out to me that Alkmaion’s
πόροι may have been a better guess than he knew. The nerve-fibres,
when magnified 1000 diameters, “sometimes appear to have a clear
centre, as if the fibrils were tubular.”—Schäfer, _Essentials of
Physiology_ (7th edition), p. 132.