THE GREEK AGE OF INTELLECTUAL DECREPITUDE.
THE DEATH OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
_Decline of Greek Philosophy: it becomes Retrospective, and in
Philo the Jew and Apollonius of Tyana leans on Inspiration,
Mysticism, Miracles._
NEO-PLATONISM _founded by Ammonius Saccas, followed by
Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblicus, Proclus.--The Alexandrian
Trinity.--Ecstasy.--Alliance with Magic, Necromancy._
_The Emperor Justinian closes the philosophical Schools._
_Summary of Greek Philosophy.--Its four Problems: 1. Origin of
the World; 2. Nature of the Soul; 3. Existence of God; 4.
Criterion of Truth.--Solution of these Problems in the Age of
Inquiry--in that of Faith--in that of Reason--in that of
Decrepitude._
_Determination of the Law of Variation of Greek Opinion.--The
Development of National Intellect is the same as that of
Individual._
_Determination of the final Conclusions of Greek Philosophy as
to God, the World, the Soul, the Criterion of
Truth.--Illustrations and Criticisms on each of these Points._
[Sidenote: Decline of Greek philosophy.]
In this chapter it is a melancholy picture that I have to present--the
old age and death of Greek philosophy. The strong man of Aristotelism
and Stoicism is sinking into the superannuated dotard; he is settling
"Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange, eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion--
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
He is full of admiration for the past and of contemptuous disgust at the
present; his thoughts are wandering to the things that occupied him in
his youth, and even in his infancy. Like those who are ready to die, he
delivers himself up to religious preparation, without any farther
concern whether the things on which he is depending are intrinsically
true or false.
In this, the closing scene, no more do we find the vivid faith of Plato,
the mature intellect of Aristotle, the manly self-control of Zeno. Greek
philosophy is ending in garrulity and mysticism. It is leaning for help
on the conjurer, juggler, and high-priest of Nature.
There are also new-comers obtruding themselves on the stage. The Roman
soldier is about to take the place of the Greek thinker, and assert his
claim to the effects of the intestate--to keep what suits him, and to
destroy what he pleases. The Romans, advancing towards their age of
Faith, are about to force their ideas on the European world.
Under the shadow of the Pyramids Greek philosophy was born; after many
wanderings for a thousand years round the shores of the Mediterranean,
it came back to its native place, and under the shadow of the Pyramids
it died.
[Sidenote: It becomes retrospective.]
[Sidenote: Has arrived at Oriental ideas.]
From the period of the New Academy the decline of Greek philosophy was
uninterrupted. Inventive genius no longer existed; its place was
occupied by the commentator. Instead of troubling themselves with
inquiries after absolute truth, philosophers sought support in the
opinions of the ancient times, and the real or imputed views of
Pythagoras, Plato, or Aristotle were received as a criterion. In this,
the old age of philosophy, men began to act as though there had never
been such things as original investigation and discovery among the human
race, and that whatever truth there was in the world was not the product
of thought, but the remains of an ancient and now all but forgotten
revelation from heaven--forgotten through the guilt and fall of man.
There is something very melancholy in this total cessation of inquiry.
The mental impetus, which one would have expected to continue for a
season by reason of the momentum that had been gathered in so many
ages, seems to have been all at once abruptly lost. So complete a pause
is surprising: the arrow still flies on after it has parted from the
bow; the potter's wheel runs round though all the vessels are finished.
In producing this sudden stoppage, the policy of the early Cæsars
greatly assisted. The principle of liberty of thought, which the very
existence of the divers philosophical schools necessarily implied, was
too liable to make itself manifest in aspirations for political liberty.
While through the emperors the schools of Greece, of Alexandria, and
Rome were depressed from that supremacy to which they might have
aspired, and those of the provinces, as Marseilles and Rhodes, were
relatively exalted, the former, in a silent and private way, were
commencing those rivalries, the forerunners of the great theological
struggles between them in after ages for political power. Christianity
in its dawn was attended by a general belief that in the East there had
been preserved a purer recollection of the ancient revelation, and that
hence from that quarter the light would presently shine forth. Under the
favouring influence of such an expectation, Orientalism, to which, as we
have seen, Grecian thought had spontaneously arrived, was greatly
re-enforced.
[Sidenote: Philo the Jew thinks he is inspired.]
[Sidenote: His mystical philosophy.]
In this final period of Greek philosophy, the first to whom we must turn
is Philo the Jew, who lived in the time of the Emperor Caligula. In
harmony with the ideas of his nation, he derives all philosophy and
useful knowledge from the Mosaic record, not hesitating to wrest
Scripture to his use by various allegorical interpretations, asserting
that man has fallen from his primitive wisdom and purity; that physical
inquiry is of very little avail, but that an innocent life and a burning
faith are what we must trust to. He persuaded himself that a certain
inspiration fell upon him while he was in the act of writing, somewhat
like that of the penmen of the Holy Scriptures. His readers may,
however, be disposed to believe that herein he was self-deceived,
judging both from the character of his composition and the nature of his
doctrine. As respects the former, he writes feebly, is vacillating in
his views, and, when watched in his treatment of a difficult point, is
seen to be wavering and unsteady. As respects the latter, among other
extraordinary things he teaches that the world is the chief angel or
first son of God; he combines all the powers of God into one force, the
Logos or holy Word, the highest powers being creative wisdom and
governing mercy. From this are emitted all the mundane forces; and,
since God cannot do evil, the existence of evil in the world must be
imputed to these emanating forces. It is very clear, therefore, that
though Philo declined Oriental pantheism, he laid his foundation on the
Oriental theory of Emanation.
[Sidenote: Apollonius of Tyana.]
[Sidenote: Is a miracle-worker and prophet.]
As aiding very greatly in the popular introduction of Orientalism,
Apollonius of Tyana must be mentioned. Under the auspices of the Empress
Julia Domna, in a biographical composition, Philostratus had the
audacity to institute a parallel between this man and our Saviour. He
was a miracle-worker, given to soothsaying and prophesying, led the life
of an ascetic, his raiment and food being of the poorest. He attempted a
reformation of religious rites and morals; denied the efficacy of
sacrifice, substituting for it a simple worship and a pure prayer,
scarce even needing words. He condemned the poets for propagating
immoral fables of the gods, since they had thereby brought impurity into
religion. He maintained the doctrine of transmigration.
[Sidenote: Plutarch leans to patronizing Orientalism.]
[Sidenote: Numenius inclines to a trinitarian philosophy.]
Plutarch, whose time reaches to the Emperor Hadrian, has exercised an
influence, through certain peculiarities of his style, which has
extended even to us. As a philosopher he is to be classed among the
Platonists, yet with a predominance of the prevailing Orientalism. His
mental peculiarities seem to have unfitted him for an acceptance of the
national faith, and his works commend themselves rather by the pleasant
manner in which he deals with the topic on which he treats than by a
deep philosophy. In some respects an analogy may be discerned between
his views and those of Philo, the Isis of the one corresponding to the
Word of the other. This disposition to Orientalism occurs still more
strongly in succeeding writers; for example, Lucius Apuleius the
Numidian, and Numenius: the latter embracing the opinion that had now
become almost universal--that all Greek philosophy was originally
brought from the East. In his doctrine a trinity is assumed, the first
person of which is reason; the second the principle of becoming, which
is a dual existence, and so gives rise to a third person, these three
persons constituting, however, only one God. Having indicated the
occurrence of this idea, it is not necessary for us to inquire more
particularly into its details. As philosophical conceptions, none of the
trinities of the Greeks will bear comparison with those of ancient
Egypt, Amun, Maut, and Khonso, Osiris, Isis, and Horus; nor with those
of India, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the Creator, Preserver, and
Destroyer, or, the Past, the Present, and the Future of the Buddhists.
[Sidenote: Ammonius Saccas founds Neo-Platonism.]
The doctrines of Numenius led directly to those of Neo-Platonism, of
which, however, the origin is commonly imputed to Ammonius Saccas of
Alexandria, toward the close of the second century after Christ. The
views of this philosopher do not appear to have been committed to
writing. They are known to us through his disciples Longinus and
Plotinus chiefly. Neo-Platonism, assuming the aspect of a philosophical
religion, is distinguished for the conflict it maintained with the
rising power of Christianity. Alexandria was the scene of this contest.
The school which there arose lasted for about 300 years. Its history is
not only interesting to us from its antagonism to that new power which
soon was to conquer the Western world, but also because it was the
expiring effort of Grecian philosophy.
[Sidenote: Plotinus, a Mystic. Reunion with God.]
Plotinus, an Egyptian, was born about A.D. 204. He studied at
Alexandria, and is said to have spent eleven years under Ammonius
Saccas. He accompanied the expedition of the Emperor Gordian to Persia
and India, and, escaping from its disasters, opened a philosophical
school in Rome. In that city he was held in the highest esteem by the
Emperor Gallienus; the Empress Salonina intended to build a city, in
which Plotinus might inaugurate the celebrated Republic of Plato. The
plan was not, however, carried out. With the best intention for
promoting the happiness of man, Plotinus is to be charged with no little
obscurity and mysticism. Eunapius says truly that the heavenly elevation
of his mind and his perplexed style make him very tiresome and
unpleasant. His repulsiveness is, perhaps, in a measure due to his want
of skill in the art of composition, for he did not learn to write till
he was fifty years old. He professed a contempt for the advantages of
life and for its pursuits. He disparaged patriotism. An ascetic in his
habits, eating no flesh and but little bread, he held his body in utter
contempt, saying that it was only a phantom and a clog to his soul. He
refused to remember his birthday. As has frequently been the case with
those who have submitted to prolonged fasting and meditation, he
believed that he had been privileged to see God with his bodily eye, and
on six different occasions had been reunited to him. In such a mental
condition, it may well be supposed that his writings are mysterious,
inconsequent and diffuse. An air of Platonism mingled with many Oriental
ideas and ancient Egyptian recollections, pervades his works.
[Sidenote: The trinity of Plotinus.]
[Sidenote: Ecstasy; communion with the invisible.]
Like many of his predecessors, Plotinus recognized a difference between
the mental necessities of the educated and the vulgar, justifying
mythology on the ground that it was very useful to those who were not
yet emancipated from the sensible. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics,
referring to mythology and the gods in human form, had remarked, "Much
has been mythically added for the persuasion of the multitude, and also
on account of the laws and for other useful ends." But Plotinus also
held that the gods are not to be moved by prayer, and that both they and
the dæmons occasionally manifest themselves visibly; that incantations
may be lawfully practised, and are not repugnant to philosophy. In the
body he discerns a penitential mechanism for the soul. He believes that
the external world is a mere phantom--a dream--and the indications of
the senses altogether deceptive. The union with the divinity of which he
speaks he describes as an intoxication of the soul which, forgetting all
external things, becomes lost in the contemplation of "the One." The
doctrinal philosophy of Plotinus presents a trinity in accordance with
the Platonic idea. (1.) The One, or Prime essence. (2.) The Reason. (3.)
The Soul. Of the first he declares that it is impossible to speak fully,
and in what he says on this point there are many apparent
contradictions, as when he denies oneness to the one. His ideas of the
trinity are essentially based on the theory of emanation. He describes
how the second principle issues by emanation out of the first, and the
third out of the second. The mechanism of this process may be
illustrated by recalling how from the body of the sun issues forth
light, and from light emerges heat. In the procession of the third from
the second principle it is really Thought arising from Reason; but
Thought is the Soul. The mundane soul he considers as united to nothing;
but on these details he falls into much mysticism, and it is often
difficult to see clearly his precise meaning, as when he says that
Reason is surrounded by Eternity, but the Soul is surrounded by Time. He
carries Idealism to its last extreme, and, as has been said, looks upon
the visible world as a semblance only, deducing from his doctrine moral
reflections to be a comfort in the trials of life. Thus he says that
"sensuous life is a mere stage-play; all the misery in it is only
imaginary, all grief a mere cheat of the players." "The soul is not in
the game; it looks on, while nothing more than the external phantom
weeps and laments." "Passive affections and misery light only on the
outward shadow of man." The great end of existence is to draw the soul
from external things and fasten it in contemplation on God. Such
considerations teach us a contempt for virtue as well as for vice: "Once
united with God, man leaves the virtues, as on entering the sanctuary he
leaves the images of the gods in the ante-temple behind." Hence we
should struggle to free ourselves from everything low and mean: to
cultivate truth, and devote life to intimate communion with God,
divesting ourselves of all personality, and passing into the condition
of ecstasy, in which the soul is loosened from its material prison,
separated from individual consciousness, and absorbed in the infinite
intelligence from which it emanated. "In ecstasy it contemplates real
existence; it identifies itself with that which it contemplates." Our
reminiscence passes into intuition. In all these views of Plotinus the
tincture of Orientalism predominates; the principles and practices are
altogether Indian. The Supreme Being of the system is the "unus qui est
omnia;" the intention of the theory of emanation is to find a
philosophical connexion between him and the soul of man; the process for
passing into ecstasy by sitting long in an invariable posture, by
looking steadfastly at the tip of the nose, or by observing for a long
time an unusual or definite manner of breathing, had been familiar to
the Eastern devotees, as they are now to the impostors of our own times;
the result is not celestial, but physiological. The pious Hindus were,
however, assured that, as water will not wet the lotus, so, though sin
may touch, it can never defile the soul after a full intuition of God.
[Sidenote: Porphyry--his writings destroyed;]
[Sidenote: resorts to magic and necromancy.]
The opinions of Plotinus were strengthened and diffused by his
celebrated pupil Porphyry, who was born at Tyre A.D. 233. After the
death of Plotinus he established a school in Rome, attaining great
celebrity in astronomy, music, geography, and other sciences. His
treatise against Christianity was answered by Eusebius, St. Jerome, and
others; the Emperor Theodosius the Great, however, silenced it more
effectually by causing all the copies to be burned. Porphyry asserts his
own unworthiness when compared with his master, saying that he had been
united to God but once in eighty-six years, whereas Plotinus had been so
united six times in sixty years. In him is to be seen all the mysticism,
and, it may be added, all the piety of Plotinus. He speaks of dæmons
shapeless, and therefore invisible; requiring food, and not immortal;
some of which rule the air, and may be propitiated or restrained by
magic: he admits also the use of necromancy. It is scarcely possible to
determine how much this inclination of the Neo-Platonists to the
unlawful art is to be regarded as a concession to the popular sentiment
of the times, for elsewhere Porphyry does not hesitate to condemn
soothsaying and divination, and to dwell upon the folly of invoking the
gods in making bargains, marriages, and such-like trifles. He
strenuously enjoins a holy life in view of the fact that man has fallen
both from his ancient purity and knowledge. He recommends a worship in
silence and pure thought, the public worship being of very secondary
importance. He also insists on an abstinence from animal food.
[Sidenote: Iamblicus a wonder-worker.]
The cultivation of magic and the necromantic art was fully carried out
in Iamblicus, a Coelo-Syrian, who died in the reign of Constantine the
Great. It is scarcely necessary to relate the miracles and prodigies he
performed, though they received full credence in those superstitious
times; how, by the intensity of his prayers, he raised himself
unsupported nine feet above the ground; how he could make rays of a
blinding effulgence play round his head; how, before the bodily eyes of
his pupils, he evoked two visible dæmonish imps. Nor is it necessary to
mention the opinions of Ædesius, Chrysanthus, or Maximus.
[Sidenote: Proclus unites emanation with mysticism.]
For a moment, however, we may turn to Proclus, who was born in
Constantinople A.D. 412. When Vitalian laid siege to Constantinople,
Proclus is said to have burned his ships with a polished brass mirror.
It is scarcely possible for us to determine how much truth there is in
this, since similar authority affirms that he could produce rain and
earthquakes. His theurgic propensities are therefore quite distinct.
Yet, notwithstanding these superhuman powers, together with special
favours displayed to him by Apollo, Athene, and other divinities, he
found it expedient to cultivate his rites in secret, in terror of
persecution by the Christians, whose attention he had drawn upon himself
by writing a work in opposition to them. Eventually they succeeded in
expelling him from Athens, thereby teaching him a new interpretation of
the moral maxim he had adopted, "Live concealed." It was the aim of
Proclus to construct a complete theology, which should include the
theory of emanation, and be duly embellished with mysticism. The Orphic
poems and Chaldæan oracles were the basis upon which he commenced; his
character may be understood from the dignity he assumed as "high priest
of the universe." He recommended to his disciples the study of
Aristotle for the sake of cultivating the reason, but enjoined that of
Plato, whose works he found to be full of sublime allegories suited to
his purpose. He asserted that to know one's own mind is to know the
whole universe, and that that knowledge is imparted to us by revelations
and illuminations of the gods.
[Sidenote: Justinian puts an end to philosophy.]
He speculates on the manner in which absorption is to take place;
whether the last form can pass at once into the primitive, or whether it
is needful for it to resume, in a returning succession, the intervening
states of its career. From such elevated ideas, considering the mystical
manner in which they were treated, there was no other prospect for
philosophy than to end as Neo-Platonism did under Damasius. The final
days were approaching. The Emperor Justinian prohibited the teaching of
philosophy, and closed its schools in Athens A.D. 529. Its last
representatives, Damasius, Simplicius, and Isidorus, went as exiles to
Persia, expecting to find a retreat under the protection of the great
king, who boasted that he was a philosopher and a Platonist.
Disappointed, they were fain to return to their native land; and it must
be recorded to the honour of Chosroes that, in his treaty of peace with
the Romans, he stipulated safety and toleration for these exiles, vainly
hoping that they might cultivate their philosophy and practise their
rites without molestation.
So ends Greek philosophy. She is abandoned, and preparation made for
crowning Faith in her stead. The inquiries of the Ionians, the reasoning
of the Eleatics, the labours of Plato, of Aristotle, have sunk into
mysticism and the art of the conjurer. As with the individual man, so
with philosophy in its old age: when all else had failed it threw itself
upon devotion, seeking consolation in the exercises of piety--a frame of
mind in which it was ready to die. The whole period from the New Academy
shows that the grand attempt, every year becoming more and more urgent,
was to find a system which should be in harmony with that feeling of
religious devotion into which the Roman empire had fallen--a feeling
continually gathering force. An air of piety, though of a most delusive
kind, had settled upon the whole pagan world.
[Sidenote: Summary of Greek philosophy.]
From the long history of Greek philosophy presented in the foregoing
pages, we turn, 1st, to an investigation of the manner of progress of
the Greek mind; and, 2nd, to the results to which it attained.
The period occupied by the events we have been considering extends over
almost twelve centuries. It commences with Thales, B.C. 636, and ends
A.D. 529.
[Sidenote: Age of Inquiry--its solutions.]
[Sidenote: First problem. Origin of the world.]
1st. Greek philosophy commenced on the foundation of physical
suggestions. Its first object was the determination of the origin and
manner of production of the world. The basis upon which it rested was in
its nature unsubstantial, for it included intrinsic errors due to
imperfect and erroneous observations. It diminished the world and
magnified man, accepting the apparent aspect of Nature as real, and
regarding the earth as a flat surface, on which the sky was sustained
like a dome. It limited the boundaries of the terrestrial plane to an
insignificant extent, and asserted that it was the special and exclusive
property of man. The stars and other heavenly bodies it looked upon as
mere meteors or manifestations of fire. With superficial simplicity, it
received the notions of absolute directions in space, up and down, above
and below. In a like spirit is adopted, from the most general
observation, the doctrine of four elements, those forms of substance
naturally presented to us in a predominating quantity--earth, water,
air, fire. From these slender beginnings it made its first attempt at a
cosmogony, or theory of the mode of creation, by giving to one of these
elements a predominance or superiority over the other three, and making
them issue from it. With one teacher the primordial element was water;
with another, air; with another, fire. Whether a genesis had thus taken
place, or whether all four elements were co-ordinate and equal, the
production of the world was of easy explanation; for, by calling in the
aid of ordinary observation, which assures us that mud will sink to the
bottom of water, that water will fall through air, that it is the
apparent nature of fire to ascend, and, combining these illusory facts
with the erroneous notion of up and down in space, the arrangement of
the visible world became clear--the earth down below, the water floating
upon it, the air above, and, still higher, the region of fire. Thus it
appears that the first inquiry made by European philosophy was, Whence
and in what manner came the world?
[Sidenote: Its irreligious solution thereof.]
The principles involved in the solution of this problem evidently led to
a very important inference, at this early period betraying what was
before long to become a serious point of dispute. It is natural for man
to see in things around him visible tokens of divinity, continual
providential dispensations. But in this, its very first act, Greek
philosophy had evidently excluded God from his own world. This settling
of the heavy, this ascending of the light, was altogether a purely
physical affair; the limitless sea, the blue air, and the unnumbered
shining stars, were set in their appropriate places, not at the pleasure
or by the hand of God, but by innate properties of their own. Popular
superstition was in some degree appeased by the localization of deities
in the likeness of men in a starry Olympus above the sky, a region
furnishing unsubstantial glories and a tranquil abode. And yet it is not
possible to exclude altogether the spiritual from this world. The soul,
ever active and ever thinking, asserts its kindred with the divine. What
is that soul? Such was the second question propounded by Greek
philosophy.
[Sidenote: Second problem. What is the soul?]
[Sidenote: Its material solution thereof.]
A like course of superficial observation was resorted to in the solution
of this inquiry. To breathe is to live; then the breath is the life. If
we cease to breathe we die. Man only becomes a living soul when the
breath of life enters his nostrils; he is a senseless and impassive form
when the last breath is expired. In this life-giving principle, the air,
must therefore exist all those noble qualities possessed by the soul. It
must be the source from which all intellect arises, the store to which
all intellect again returns. The philosophical school whose fundamental
principle was that the air is the primordial element thus brought back
the Deity into the world, though under a material form. Yet still it was
in antagonism to the national polytheism, unless from that one god, the
air, the many gods of Olympus arose.
[Sidenote: Third problem. What is God?]
But who is that one God? This is the third question put forth by Greek
philosophy. Its answer betrays that in this, its beginning, it is
tending to Pantheism.
In all these investigations the starting-point had been material
conceptions, depending on the impressions or information of the senses.
Whatever the conclusion arrived at, its correctness turned on the
correctness of that information. When we put a little wine into a
measure of water, the eye may no longer see it, but the wine is there.
When a rain-drop falls on the leaves of a distant forest, we cannot hear
it, but the murmur of many drops composing a shower is audible enough.
But what is that murmur except the sum of the sounds of all the
individual drops?
[Sidenote: Fourth problem. Has man a criterion of truth?]
And so it is plain our senses are prone to deceive us. Hence arises the
fourth great question of Greek philosophy: Have we any criterion of
truth?
[Sidenote: Importance of the views of Pythagoras.]
The moment a suspicion that we have not crosses the mind of man, he
realizes what may be truly termed intellectual despair. Is this world an
illusion, a phantasm of the imagination? If things material and
tangible, and therefore the most solid props of knowledge, are thus
abruptly destroyed, in what direction shall we turn? Within a single
century Greek philosophy had come to this pass, and it was not without
reason that intelligent men looked on Pythagoras almost as a divinity
upon earth when he pointed out to them a path of escape; when he bid
them reflect on what it was that had thus taught them the fallibility of
sense. For what is it but reason that has been thus warning us, and, in
the midst of delusions, has guided us to the truth--reason, which has
objects of her own, a world of her own? Though the visible and audible
may deceive, we may nevertheless find absolute truth in things
altogether separate from material nature, particularly in the relations
of numbers and properties of geometrical forms. There is no illusion in
this, that two added to two make four; or in this, that any two sides of
a triangle taken together are greater than the third. If, then, we are
living in a region of deceptions, we may rest assured that it is
surrounded by a world of truth.
[Sidenote: Influence of the Eleatic school and the Sophists.]
From the material basis speculative philosophy gradually disengaged
itself through the labours of the Eleatic school, the controversy as to
the primary element receding into insignificance, and being replaced by
investigations as to Time, Motion, Space, Thought, Being, God. The
general result of these inquiries brought into prominence the suspicion
of the untrustworthiness of the senses, the tendency of the whole period
being manifested in the hypothesis at last attained, that atoms and
space alone exist; and, since the former are mere centres of force,
matter is necessarily a phantasm. When, therefore, the Athenians
themselves commenced the cultivation of philosophy, it was with full
participation in the doubt and uncertainty thus overspreading the whole
subject. As Sophists, their action closed this speculative period, for,
by a comparison of all the partial sciences thus far known, they arrived
at the conclusion that there is no conscience, no good or evil, no
philosophy, no religion, no law, no criterion of truth.
[Sidenote: Age of faith--its solutions.]
[Sidenote: Its continuation by Plato, and its end by the Sceptics.]
But man cannot live without some guiding rule. If his speculations in
Nature will yield him nothing on which he may rely, he will seek some
other aid. If there be no criterion of truth for him in philosophy, he
will lean on implicit, unquestioning faith. If he cannot prove by
physical arguments the existence of God, he will, with Socrates, accept
that great fact as self evident and needing no demonstration. He will,
in like manner, take his stand upon the undeniable advantages of virtue
and good morals, defending the doctrine that pleasure should be the
object of life--pleasure of that pure kind which flows from a
cultivation of ennobling pursuits, or instinctive, as exhibited in the
life of brutes. But when he has thus cast aside demonstration as
needless for his purposes, and put his reliance in this manner on faith,
he has lost the restraining, the guiding principle that can set bounds
to his conduct. If he considers, with Socrates, who opens the third age
of Greek development--its age of faith--the existence of God as not
needing any proof, he may, in like manner, add thereto the existence of
matter and ideas. To faith there will be no difficulty in such
doctrines as those of Reminiscence, the double immortality of the soul,
the actual existence of universals; and, if such faith, unrestrained and
unrestricted, be directed to the regulation of personal life, there is
nothing to prevent a falling into excess and base egoism. For ethics, in
such an application, ends either in the attempt at the procurement of
extreme personal sanctity or the obtaining of individual pleasure--the
foundation of patriotism is sapped, the sentiment of friendship is
destroyed. So it was with the period of Grecian faith inaugurated by
Socrates, developed by Plato, and closed by the Sceptics. Antisthenes
and Diogenes of Sinope, in their outrages on society and their
self-mortifications, show to what end a period of faith, unrestrained by
reason, will come; and Epicurus demonstrated its tendency when guided by
self.
Thus closes the third period of Greek philosophical development.
[Sidenote: Age of Reason--its solutions.]
In introducing us to a fourth, Aristotle insists that, though we must
rely on reason, Reason itself must submit to be guided by Experience;
and Zeno, taking up the same thought, teaches us that we must appeal to
the decisions of common sense. He disposes of all doubt respecting the
criterion of truth by proclaiming that the distinctness of our sensuous
impressions is a sufficient guide. In all this, the essential condition
involved is altogether different from that of the speculative ages, and
also of the age of faith. Yet, though under the ostensible guidance of
reason, the human mind ever seeks to burst through such self-imposed
restraints, attempting to ascertain things for which it possesses no
suitable data. Even in the age of Aristotle, the age of Reason in
Greece, philosophy resumed such questions as those of the creation of
the world, the emanation of matter from God, the existence and nature of
evil, the immortality, or, alas! it might perhaps be more truly said,
judging from its conclusions, the death of the soul, and this even after
the Sceptics had, with increased force, denied that we have any
criterion of truth, and showed to their own satisfaction that man, at
the best, can do nothing but doubt; and, in view of his condition here
upon earth, since it has not been permitted him to know what is right
and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, his wisest course is
to give himself no concern about the matter, but tranquilly sink into a
state of complete indifference and quietism.
How uniformly do we see that through such variations of opinion
individual man approaches his end. For Greek philosophy, what other
prospect was there but decrepitude, with its contempt for the present,
its attachment to the past, its distrust of man, its reliance on the
mysterious--the unknown? And this imbecility how plainly we witness
before the scene finally is closed.
[Sidenote: Duration of these ages.]
If now we look back upon this career of the Grecian mind, we find that
after the legendary prehistoric period--the age of credulity--there came
in succession an age of speculative inquiry, an age of faith, an age of
reason, an age of decrepitude--the first, the age of credulity, was
closed by geographical discovery; the second by the criticism of the
Sophists; the third by the doubts of the Sceptics; the fourth, eminently
distinguished by the greatness of its results, gradually declined into
the fifth, an age of decrepitude, to which the hand of the Roman put an
end. In the mental progress of this people we therefore discern the
foreshadowing of a course like that of individual life, its epochs
answering to Infancy, Childhood Youth, Manhood, Old Age; and which, on a
still grander scale, as we shall hereafter find, has been repeated by
all Europe in its intellectual development.
[Sidenote: Boundaries of these ages.]
In a space of 1150 years, ending about A.D. 529, the Greek mind had
completed its philosophical career. The ages into which we have divided
that course pass by insensible gradations into each other. They overlap
and intermingle, like a gradation of colours, but the characteristics of
each are perfectly distinct.
[Sidenote: Determination of the law of variations of opinions.]
[Sidenote: Philosophical conclusions finally arrived at by the Greeks.]
2nd. Having thus determined the general law of the variation of
opinions, that it is the same in this nation as in an individual, I
shall next endeavour to disentangle the final results attained,
considering Greek philosophy as a whole. To return to the illustration,
to us more than an empty metaphor, though in individual life there is a
successive passage through infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood to
old age, a passage in which the characteristics of each period in their
turn disappear, yet, nevertheless, there are certain results in another
sense permanent, giving to the whole progress its proper individuality.
A critical eye may discern in the successive stages of Greek
philosophical development decisive and enduring results. These it is for
which we have been searching in this long and tedious discussion.
There are four grand topics in Greek philosophy: 1st, the existence and
attributes of God; 2nd, the origin and destiny of the world; 3rd, the
nature of the human soul; 4th, the possibility of a criterion of truth.
I shall now present what appear to me to be the results at which the
Greek mind arrived on each of these points.
[Sidenote: As to God--His unity.]
(1.) Of the existence and attributes of God. On this point the decision
of the Greek mind was the absolute rejection of all anthropomorphic
conceptions, even at the risk of encountering the pressure of the
national superstition. Of the all-powerful, all-perfect, and eternal
there can be but one, for such attributes are absolutely opposed to
anything like a participation, whether of a spiritual or material
nature; and hence the conclusion that the universe itself is God, and
that all animate and inanimate things belong to his essence. In him they
live, and move, and have their being. It is conceivable that God may
exist without the world, but it is inconceivable that the world should
exist without God. We must not, however, permit ourselves to be deluded
by the varied aspect of things; for, though the universe is thus God, we
know it not as it really is, but only as it appears. God has no
relations to space and time. They are only the fictions of our finite
imagination.
[Sidenote: But their solution is Pantheism.]
But this ultimate effort of the Greek mind is Pantheism. It is the same
result which the more aged branch of the Indo-European family had long
before reached. "There is no God independent of Nature; no other has
been revealed by tradition, perceived by the sense, or demonstrated by
argument."
Yet never will man be satisfied with such a conclusion. It offers him
none of that aspect of personality which his yearnings demand. This
infinite, and eternal, and universal is no intellect at all. It is
passionless, without motive, without design. It does not answer to those
lineaments of which he catches a glimpse when he considers the
attributes of his own soul. He shudderingly turns from Pantheism, this
final result of human philosophy, and, voluntarily retracing his steps,
subordinates his reason to his instinctive feelings; declines the
impersonal as having nothing in unison with him, and asserts a personal
God, the Maker of the universe and the Father of men.
[Sidenote: As to the world--a manifestation of God.]
(2.) Of the origin and destiny of the world. In an examination of the
results at which the Greek mind arrived on this topic, our labour is
rendered much lighter by the assistance we receive from the decision of
the preceding inquiry. The origin of all things is in God, of whom the
world is only a visible manifestation. It is evolved by and from him,
perhaps, as the Stoics delighted to say, as the plant is evolved by and
from the vital germ in the seed. It is an emanation of him. On this
point we may therefore accept as correct the general impression
entertained by philosophers, Greek, Alexandrian, and Roman after the
Christian era, that, at the bottom, the Greek and Oriental philosophies
were alike, not only as respects the questions they proposed for
solution, but also in the decisions they arrived at. As we have said,
this impression led to the belief that there must have been in the
remote past a revelation common to both, though subsequently obscured
and vitiated by the infirmities and wickedness of man. This doctrine of
emanation, reposing on the assertion that the world existed eternally in
God, that it came forth into visibility from him, and will be hereafter
absorbed into him, is one of the most striking features of Veda
theology. It is developed with singular ability by the Indian
philosophers as well as by the Greeks, and is illustrated by their
poets.
[Sidenote: This solution identical with the Oriental.]
The following extract from the Institutes of Menu will convey the
Oriental conclusion: "This universe existed only in the first divine
idea, yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness; imperceptible,
undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered by revelation,
as if it were wholly immersed in sleep. Then the sole self-existing
power, himself undiscerned, but making this world discernible, with five
elements and other principles of nature, appeared with undiminished
glory, expanding his idea, or dispelling the gloom. He whom the mind
alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no
visible parts, who exists from eternity--even He, the soul of all
beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person. He, having
willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first
with a thought created the waters. The waters are so called (nárá)
because they were the production of _Nara_, or the spirit of God; and,
since they were his first _ayaná_ or place of motion, he thence is named
Narayana, or moving on the waters. From that which is the first cause,
not the object of sense existing everywhere in substance, not existing
to our perception, without beginning or end, was produced the divine
male. He framed the heaven above, the earth beneath, and in the midst
placed the subtle ether, the light regions, and the permanent receptacle
of waters. He framed all creatures. He gave being to time and the
divisions of time--to the stars also and the planets. For the sake of
distinguishing actions, he made a total difference between right and
wrong. He whose powers are incomprehensible, having created this
universe, was again absorbed in the spirit, changing the time of energy
for the time of repose."
[Sidenote: Illustrations of the origins, duration, and absorption of the
world.]
From such extracts from the sacred writings of the Hindus we might turn
to their poets, and find the same conceptions of the emanation,
manifestation, and absorption of the world illustrated. "The Infinite
being is like the clear crystal, which receives into itself all the
colours and emits them again, yet its transparency or purity is not
thereby injured or impaired." "He is like the diamond, which absorbs the
light surrounding it, and glows in the dark from the emanation thereof."
In similes of a less noble nature they sought to convey their idea to
the illiterate "Thou hast seen the spider spin his web, thou hast seen
its excellent geometrical form, and how well adapted it is to its use;
thou hast seen the play of tinted colours making it shine like a
rainbow in the rays of the morning sun. From his bosom the little
artificer drew forth the wonderful thread, and into his bosom, when it
pleases him, he can withdraw it again. So Brahm made, and so will he
absorb the world." In common the Greek and Indian asserted that being
exists for the sake of thought, and hence they must be one; that the
universe is a thought in the mind of God, and is unaffected by the
vicissitudes of the worlds of which it is composed. In India this
doctrine of emanation had reached such apparent precision that some
asserted it was possible to demonstrate that the entire Brahm was not
transmuted into mundane phenomena, but only a fourth part; that there
occur successive emanations and absorptions, a periodicity in this
respect being observed; that, in these considerations, we ought to guard
ourselves from any deception arising from the visible appearance of
material things, for there is reason to believe that matter is nothing
more than forces filling space. Democritus raised us to the noble
thought that, small as it is, a single atom may constitute a world.
The doctrine of Emanation has thus a double interpretation. It sets
forth the universe either as a part of the substance of God, or as an
unsubstantial something proceeding from him: the former a conception
more tangible and readily grasped by the mind; the latter of
unapproachable sublimity, when we recall the countless beautiful and
majestic forms which Nature on all sides presents. This visible world is
only the shadow of God.
In the further consideration of this doctrine of the issue forthcoming,
or emanation of the universe from God, and its return into or absorption
by him, an illustration may not be without value. Out of the air, which
may be pure and tranquil, the watery vapour often comes forth in a
visible form, a misty fleece, perhaps no larger than the hand of a man
at first, but a great cloud in the end. The external appearance the
forthcoming form presents is determined by the incidents of the times;
it may have a pure whiteness or a threatening blackness; its edges may
be fringed with gold. In the bosom of such a cloud the lightning may be
pent up, from it the thunder may be heard; but, even if it should not
offer these manifestations of power, if its disappearance should be as
tranquil as its formation, it has not existed in vain. No cloud ever yet
formed on the sky without leaving an imperishable impression on the
earth, for while it yet existed there was not a plant whose growth was
not delayed, whose substance was not lessened. And of such a cloud the
production of which we have watched, how often has it happened to us to
witness its melting away into the untroubled air. From the untroubled
air it came, and to the pure untroubled air it has again returned.
Now such a cloud is made up of countless hosts of microscopic drops,
each maintaining itself separate from the others, and each, small though
it may be, having an individuality of its own. The grand aggregate may
vary its colour and shape; it may be the scene of unceasing and rapid
interior movements of many kinds, yet it presents its aspect unchanged,
or changes tranquilly and silently, still glowing in the light that
falls on it, still casting its shadow on the ground. It is an emblem of
the universe according to the ancient doctrine, showing us how the
visible may issue from the invisible, and return again thereto; that a
drop too small for the unassisted eye to see may be the representative
of a world. The spontaneous emergence and disappearance of a cloud is
the emblem of a transitory universe issuing forth and disappearing,
again to be succeeded by other universes, other like creations in the
long lapse of time.
[Sidenote: As to the soul--a part of the divinity.]
(3.) Of the nature of the soul. From the material quality assigned to
the soul by the early Ionian schools, as that it was air, fire, or the
like, there was a gradual passage to the opinion of its immateriality.
To this, precision was given by the assertion that it had not only an
affinity with, but even is a part of God. Whatever were the views
entertained of the nature and attributes of the Supreme Being, they
directly influenced the conclusions arrived at respecting the nature of
the soul.
[Sidenote: Its immortality and final absorption.]
Greek philosophy, in its highest state of development, regarded the soul
as something more than the sum of the moments of thinking. It held it to
be a portion of the Deity himself. This doctrine is the necessary
corollary of Pantheism. It contemplated a past eternity, a future
immortality. It entered on such inquiries as whether the number of souls
in the universe is constant. As upon the foregoing point, so upon this:
there was a complete analogy between the decision arrived at in Grecian
and that in Indian philosophy. Thus the latter says, "I am myself an
irradiated manifestation of the supreme BRAHM." "Never was there a time
in which I was not, nor thou, nor these princes of the people, and never
shall I not be; henceforth we all are." Viewing the soul as merely a
spectator and stranger in this world, they regarded it as occupying
itself rather in contemplation than in action, asserting that in its
origin it is an immediate emanation from the Divinity--not a
modification nor a transformation of the Supreme, but a portion of him;
"its relation is not that of a servant to his master, but of a part to
the whole." It is like a spark separated from a flame; it migrates from
body to body, sometimes found in the higher, then in the lower, and
again in the higher tribes of life, occupying first one, then another
body, as circumstances demand. And, as a drop of water pursues a devious
career in the cloud, in the rain, in the river, a part of a plant, or a
part of an animal, but sooner or later inevitably finds its way back to
the sea from which it came, so the soul, however various its fortunes
may have been, sinks back at last into the divinity from which it
emanated.
Both Greeks and Hindus turned their attention to the delusive phenomena
of the world. Among the latter many figuratively supposed that what we
call visible nature is a mere illusion befalling the soul, because of
its temporary separation from God. In the Buddhist philosophy the world
is thus held to be a creature of the imagination. But among some in
those ancient, as among others in more modern times, it was looked upon
as having a more substantial condition, and the soul as a passive mirror
in which things reflected themselves, or perhaps it might, to some
extent, be the partial creator of its own forms. However that may be,
its final destiny is a perfect repose after its absorption in the
Supreme.
[Sidenote: Illustration of the nature of the soul.]
On this third topic of ancient philosophy an illustration may not be
without use. As a bubble floats upon the sea, and, by reason of its
form, reflects whatever objects may be present, whether the clouds in
the sky, or the stationary and moving things on the shore, nay, even to
a certain extent depicts the sea itself on which it floats, and from
which it arose, offering these various forms not only in shapes
resembling the truth in the proper order of light and shade, the proper
perspective, the proper colours, but, in addition thereto, tincturing
them all with a play of hues arising from itself, so it is with the
soul. From a boundless and unfathomable sea the bubble arose. It does
not in any respect differ in nature from its source. From water it came,
and mere water it ever is. It gathers its qualities, so far as external
things are concerned, only from its form, and from the environment in
which it is placed. As the circumstances to which it is exposed vary, it
floats here and there, merging into other bubbles it meets, and emerging
from the collected foam again. In such migrations it is now larger, now
smaller; at one moment passing into new shapes, at another lost in a
coalescence with those around it. But whatever these its migrations,
these its vicissitudes, there awaits it an inevitable destiny, an
absorption, a re-incorporation with the ocean. In that final moment,
what is it that is lost? what is it that has come to an end? Not the
essential substance, for water it was before it was developed, water it
was during its existence, and water it still remains, ready to be
re-expanded.
Nor does the resemblance fail when we consider the general functions
discharged while the bubble maintained its form. In it were depicted in
their true shapes and relative magnitudes surrounding things. It hence
had a relation to Space. And, if it was in motion, it reflected in
succession the diverse objects as they passed by. Through such
successive representations it maintained a relation to Time. Moreover,
it imparted to the images it thus produced a coloration of its own, and
in all this was an emblem of the Soul. For Space and Time are the
outward conditions with which it is concerned, and it adds thereto
abstract ideas, the product of its own nature.
[Sidenote: Its continued existence--its Nirwana.]
But when the bubble bursts there is an end of all these relations. No
longer is there any reflection of external forms, no longer any motion,
no longer any innate qualities to add. In one respect the bubble is
annihilated, in another it still exists. It has returned to that
infinite expanse in comparison with which it is altogether insignificant
and imperceptible. Transitory, and yet eternal: transitory, since all
its relations of a special and individual kind have come to an end;
eternal in a double sense--the sense of Platonism--since it was
connected with a past of which there was no beginning, and continues in
a future to which there is no end.
[Sidenote: As to the criterion of truth--sense-delusions.]
(4.) Of the possibility of a criterion of truth. An absolute criterion
of truth must at once accredit itself, as well as other things. At a
very early period in philosophy the senses were detected as being
altogether untrustworthy. On numberless occasions, instead of
accrediting, they discredit themselves. A stick, having a spark of fire
at one end, gives rise to the appearance of a circle of light when it is
turned round quickly. The rainbow seems to be an actually existing arch
until the delusion is detected by our going to the place over which it
seems to rest. Nor is it alone as respects things for which there is an
exterior basis or foundation, such as the spark of fire in one of these
cases, and the drops of water in the other. Each of our organs of sense
can palm off delusions of the most purely fictitious kind. The eye may
present apparitions as distinct as the realities among which they place
themselves; the ear may annoy us with the continual repetition of a
murmuring sound, or parts of a musical strain, or articulate voices,
though we well know that it is all a delusion; and in like manner, in
their proper way, in times of health, and especially in those of
sickness, will the other senses of taste, and touch, and smell practise
upon us their deceptions.
This being the case, how shall we know that any information derived from
such unfaithful sources is true? Pythagoras rendered a great service in
telling us to remember that we have within ourselves a means of
detecting fallacy and demonstrating truth. What is it that assures us of
the unreality of the fiery circle, the rainbow, the spectre, the voices,
the crawling of insects upon the skin? Is it not reason? To reason may
we not then trust?
[Sidenote: Uncertainties in philosophizing.]
With such facts before us, what a crowd of inquiries at once presses
upon our attention--inquiries which even in modern times have occupied
the thoughts of the greatest metaphysicians. Shall we begin our studies
by examining sensations or by examining ideas? Shall we say with
Descartes that all clear ideas are true? Shall we inquire with Spinoza
whether we have any ideas independent of experience? With Hobbes, shall
we say that all our thoughts are begotten by and are the representatives
of objects exterior to us; that our conceptions arise in material
motions pressing on our organs, producing motion in them, and so
affecting the mind; that our sensations do not correspond with outward
qualities; that sound and noise belong to the bell and the air, and not
to the mind, and, like colour, are only agitations occasioned by the
object in the brain; that imagination is a conception gradually dying
away after the act of sense, and is nothing more than a decaying
sensation; that memory is the vestige of former impressions, enduring
for a time; that forgetfulness is the obliteration of such vestiges;
that the succession of thought is not indifferent, at random, or
voluntary, but that thought follows thought in a determinate and
predestined sequence; that whatever we imagine is finite, and hence we
cannot conceive of the infinite, nor think of anything not subject to
sense? Shall we say with Locke that there are two sources of our ideas,
sensation and reflection; that the mind cannot know things directly, but
only through ideas? Shall we suggest with Leibnitz that reflection is
nothing more than attention to what is passing in the mind, and that
between the mind and the body there is a sympathetic synchronism? With
Berkeley shall we assert that there is no other reason for inferring the
existence of matter itself than the necessity of having some synthesis
for its attributes; that the objects of knowledge are ideas and nothing
else; and that the mind is active in sensation? Shall we listen to the
demonstration of Hume, that, if matter be an unreal fiction, the mind
is not less so, since it is no more than a succession of impressions and
ideas; that our belief in causation is only the consequence of habit;
and that we have better proof that night is the cause of day, than of
thousands of other cases in which we persuade ourselves that we know the
right relation of cause and effect; that from habit alone we believe the
future will resemble the past? Shall we infer with Condillac that memory
is only transformed sensation, and comparison double attention; that
every idea for which we cannot find an exterior object is destitute of
significance; that our innate ideas come by development, and that
reasoning and running are learned together. With Kant shall we conclude
that there is but one source of knowledge, the union of the object and
the subject--but two elements thereof, space and time; and that they are
forms of sensibility, space being a form of internal sensibility, and
time both of internal and external, but neither of them having any
objective reality; and that the world is not known to us as it is, but
only as it appears?
[Sidenote: Remarks on the criterion.]
I admit the truth of the remark of Posidonius that a man might as well
be content to die as to cease philosophizing; for, if there are
contradictions in philosophy, there are quite as many in life. In the
light of this remark, I shall therefore not hesitate to offer a few
suggestions respecting the criterion of human knowledge, undiscouraged
by the fact that so many of the ablest men have turned their attention
to it. In this there might seem to be presumption, were it not that the
advance of the sciences, and especially of human physiology has brought
us to a more elevated point of view, and enabled us to see the state of
things much more distinctly than was possible for our predecessors.
[Sidenote: Defective information of the old philosophy.]
[Sidenote: Necessity of a more general conception as to man.]
[Sidenote: The whole cycle must be included,]
[Sidenote: and also his race connexions.]
I think that the inability of ancient philosophers to furnish a true
solution of this problem was altogether owing to the imperfect, and,
indeed, erroneous idea they had of the position of man. They gave too
much weight to his personal individuality. In the mature period of his
life they regarded him as isolated, independent, and complete in
himself. They forgot that this is only a momentary phase in his
existence, which, commencing from small beginnings, exhibits a
continuous expansion or progress. From a single cell, scarcely more than
a step above the inorganic state, not differing, as we may infer both
from the appearance it offers and the forms through which it runs in the
earlier stages of life, from the cell out of which any other animal or
plant, even the humblest, is derived, a passage is made through form
after form in a manner absolutely depending upon surrounding physical
conditions. The history is very long, and the forms are very numerous,
between the first appearance of the primitive trace and the hoary aspect
of seventy years. It is not correct to take one moment in this long
procession and make it a representative of the whole. It is not correct
to say, even if the body of the mature man undergoes unceasing changes
to an extent implying the reception, incorporation, and dismissal of
nearly a ton and a half of material in the course of a year, that in
this flux of matter there is not only a permanence of form, but, what is
of infinitely more importance, an unchangeableness in his intellectual
powers. It is not correct to say this; indeed, it is wholly untrue. The
intellectual principle passes forward in a career as clearly marked as
that in which the body runs. Even if we overlook the time antecedent to
birth, how complete is the imbecility of his early days! The light
shines upon his eyes, he sees not; sounds fall upon his ear, he hears
not. From these low beginnings we might describe the successive
re-enforcements through infancy, childhood, and youth to maturity. And
what is the result to which all this carries us? Is it not that, in the
philosophical contemplation of man, we are constrained to reject the
idea of personality, of individuality, and to adopt that of a cycle of
progress; to abandon all contemplation of his mere substantial form, and
consider his abstract relation? All organic forms, if compared together
and examined from one common point of view, are found to be constructed
upon an identical scheme. It is as in some mathematical expression
containing constants and variables; the actual result changes
accordingly as we assign successively different values to the variables,
yet in those different results, no matter how numerous they may be, the
original formula always exists. From such a universal conception of the
condition and career of man, we rise at once to the apprehension of his
relations to others like himself--that is to say, his relations as a
member of society. We perceive, in this light, that society must run a
course the counterpart of that we have traced for the individual, and
that the appearance of isolation presented by the individual is
altogether illusory. Each individual man drew his life from another, and
to another man he gives rise, losing, in point of fact, his aspect of
individuality when these his race connexions are considered. One epoch
in life is not all life. The mature individual cannot be disentangled
from the multitudinous forms through which he has passed; and,
considering the nature of his primitive conception and the issue of his
reproduction, man cannot be separated from his race.
By the aid of these views of the nature and relationship of man, we can
come to a decision respecting his possession of a criterion of truth. In
the earliest moments of his existence he can neither feel nor think, and
the universe is to him as though it did not exist. Considering the
progress of his sensational powers--his sight, hearing, touch,
etc.--these, as his cycle advances to its maximum, become, by nature or
by education, more and more perfect; but never, at the best, as the
ancient philosophers well knew, are they trustworthy. And so of his
intellectual powers. They, too, begin in feebleness and gradually
expand. The mind alone is no more to be relied on than the organs of
sense alone. If any doubt existed on this point, the study of the
phenomena of dreaming is sufficient to remove it, for dreaming manifests
to us how wavering and unsteady is the mind in its operations when it is
detached from the solid support of the organs of sense. How true is the
remark of Philo the Jew, that the mind is like the eye; for, though it
may see all other objects, it cannot see itself, and therefore cannot
judge of itself. And thus we may conclude that neither are the senses to
be trusted alone, nor is the mind to be trusted alone. In the conjoint
action of the two, by reason of the mutual checks established, a far
higher degree of certainty is attained to, yet even in this, the utmost
vouchsafed to the individual, there is not, as both Greeks and Indians
ascertained, an absolute sureness. It was the knowledge of this which
extorted from them so many melancholy complaints, which threw them into
an intellectual despair, and made them, by applying the sad
determination to which they had come to the course of their daily life,
sink down into indifference and infidelity.
But yet there is something more in reserve for man. Let him cast off the
clog of individuality, and remember that he has race connexions--connexions
which, in this matter of a criterion of truth, indefinitely increase his
chances of certainty. If he looks with contempt on the opinions of his
childhood, with little consideration on those of his youth, with distrust
on those of his manhood, what will he say about the opinions of his race?
Do not such considerations teach us that, through all these successive
conditions, the criterion of truth is ever advancing in precision and
power, and that its maximum is found in the unanimous opinion of the whole
human race?
[Sidenote: Though no absolute criterion exists, a practical one does.]
[Sidenote: The maximum of certainty in the human race.]
Upon these principles I believe that, though we have not philosophically
speaking, any absolute criterion of truth, we rise by degrees to higher
and higher certainties along an ascending scale which becomes more and
more exact. I think that metaphysical writers who have treated of this
point have been led into error from an imperfect conception of the true
position of man; they have limited their thoughts to a single epoch of
his course, and have not taken an enlarged and philosophical view. In
thus declining the Oriental doctrine that the individual is the centre
from which the universe should be regarded, and transferring our
stand-point to a more comprehensive and solid foundation, we imitate, in
metaphysics, the course of astronomy when it substituted the
heliocentric for the geocentric point of view, and the change promises
to be equally fertile in sure results. If it were worth while, we might
proceed to enforce this doctrine by an appeal to the experience of
ordinary life. How often, when we distrust our own judgment, do we seek
support in the advice of a friend. How strong is our persuasion that we
are in the right when public opinion is with us. For this even the
Church has not disdained to call together Councils, aiming thereby at a
surer means of arriving at the truth. The Council is more trustworthy
than an individual, whoever he may be. The probabilities increase with
the number of consenting intellects, and hence I come to the conclusion
that in the unanimous consent of the entire human race lies the human
criterion of truth--a criterion, in its turn, capable of increased
precision with the diffusion of enlightenment and knowledge. For this
reason, I do not look upon the prospects of humanity in so cheerless a
light as they did of old. On the contrary, ever thing seems full of
hope. Good auguries may be drawn for philosophy from the great
mechanical and material inventions which multiply the means of
intercommunication, and, it may be said, annihilate terrestrial
distances. In the intellectual collisions that must ensue, in the
melting down of opinions, in the examinations and analyses of nations,
truth will come forth. Whatever cannot stand that ordeal must submit to
its fate. Lies and imposture, no matter how powerfully sustained, must
prepare to depart. In that supreme tribunal man may place implicit
confidence. Even though, philosophically, it is far from absolute, it is
the highest criterion vouchsafed to him, and from its decision he has no
appeal.
In delivering thus emphatically my own views on this profound topic
perhaps I do wrong. It is becoming to speak with humility on that which
has been glorified by the great writers of Greece, of India, of
Alexandria, and, in later times, of Europe.
[Sidenote: Complete analogy between Greek and Indian process of
thought.]
In conclusion, I would remark that the view here presented of the
results of Greek philosophy is that which offers itself to me after a
long and careful study of the subject. It is, however, the affirmative,
not the negative result; for we must not forget that if, on the one
hand, the pantheistic doctrines of the Nature of God, Universal
Animation, the theory of Emanation, Transmutation, Absorption,
Transmigration, etc., were adopted, on the other there was by no means
an insignificant tendency to atheism and utter infidelity. Even of this
negative state a corresponding condition occurred in the Buddhism of
India, of which I have previously spoken; and, indeed, so complete is
the parallel between the course of mental evolution in Asia and Europe,
that it is difficult to designate a matter of minor detail in the
philosophy of the one which cannot be pointed out in that of the other.
It was not without reason, therefore, that the Alexandrian philosophers,
who were profoundly initiated in the detail of both systems, came to the
conclusion that such surprising coincidences could only be accounted for
upon the admission that there had been an ancient revelation, the
vestiges of which had descended to their time. In this, however, they
judged erroneously; the true explanation consisting in the fact that the
process of development of the intellect of man, and the final results to
which he arrives in examining similar problems, are in all countries the
same.
[Sidenote: Variation of practical application explained.]
It does not fall within my plan to trace the application of these
philosophical principles to practice in daily life, yet the subject is
of such boundless interest that perhaps the reader will excuse a single
paragraph. It may seem to superficial observation that, whatever might
be the doctrinal resemblances of these philosophies, their application
was very different. In a general way, it may be asserted that the same
doctrines which in India led to the inculcation of indifference and
quietism, led to Stoic activity in Greece and Italy. If the occasion
permitted, I could, nevertheless, demonstrate in this apparent
divergence an actual coincidence; for the mode of life of man is chiefly
determined by geographical conditions, his instinctive disposition to
activity increasing with the latitude in which he lives. Under the
equinoctial line he has no disposition for exertion, his physiological
relations with the climate making quietism most agreeable to him. The
philosophical formula which, in the hot plains of India, finds its issue
in a life of tranquillity and repose, will be interpreted in the more
bracing air of Europe by a life of activity. Thus, in later ages, the
monk of Africa, willingly persuading himself that any intervention to
improve Nature is a revolt against the providence of God, spent his
worthless life in weaving baskets and mats, or in solitary meditation in
the caves of the desert of Thebais; but the monk of Europe encountered
the labours of agriculture and social activity, and thereby aided, in no
insignificant manner, in the civilization of England, France, and
Germany. These things, duly considered, lead to the conclusion that
human life, in its diversities, is dependent upon and determined by
primary conditions in all countries and climates essentially the same.