Theon remained transfixed to the same spot of earth on which the Sage
left him. A confused train of thoughts travelled through his brain,
which his reason sought in vain to arrest, or to analyze. At one moment
it seemed as if a ray of light had dawned upon his mind, opening to it a
world of discovery as interesting as it was novel. Then suddenly he
started as from the brink of a precipice, whose depths were concealed in
darkness. “Cleanthes then had justly expounded the doctrines of the
garden.—But did these doctrines involve the delinquency which he had
hitherto supposed? Were they inconsistent with reason, and
irreconcilable with virtue? If so, I shall be able to detect their
fallacy,” said the youth, pursuing his soliloquy aloud. “It were a poor
compliment to the truths I have hitherto worshipped, did I shrink from
their investigation. And yet, to question the power of the Gods! To
question their very existence! To refuse the knee of homage to that
great first cause of all things, that speaks, and breathes, and shines
resplendent throughout all animated nature! To dispute I know not
what—of truths, as self-evident as they are sacred; which speak to our
eyes and our ears; to those very senses whose testimony alone is without
appeal in the garden!”
“Do you object to the testimony, young Corinthian?” said a voice, which
Theon recognised as that of Metrodorus.
“You arrive opportunely,” said Theon; “that is, if you will listen to
the questions of my doubting and embarrassed mind.”
“Say rather, if I can answer them.”
“I attribute to you the ability,” said Theon, “since I have heard you
quoted as an able expounder of the philosophy of the garden.”
“In the absence of our Zeno,” said the scholar with a smile, “I
sometimes play the part of his Cleanthes. And though you may find me
less eloquent than my brother of the porch, I will promise equal
fidelity to the text of my original. But here is one, who can expound
the doctrine in the letter and the spirit; and, with such an assistant,
I should not fear to engage all the scholars and all the masters in
Athens.”
“Nay, boast rather of thy cause than of thy assistant,” said Leontium,
approaching, and playfully tapping the shoulder of Metrodorus; “nor yet
belie thy own talents, my brother. The Corinthian will smile at thy
false modesty, when he shall have studied thy writings, and listened to
thy logical discourses. I imagine,” she continued, turning her placid
gaze on the youth, “that you have hitherto listened to more declamation
than reasoning. I might also say, to more sophistry, seeing that you
have walked and talked in the Lyceum.”
“Say rather, walked and listened.”
“In truth and I believe it,” she returned with a smile, “and would that
your good sense in this were more common; and that men would rest
content with straining their ears, and forbear from submitting their
understandings, or torturing those of their neighbors.”
“It might seem strange,” said Metrodorus, “that the pedantry of
Aristotle should find so many imitators, and his dark sayings so many
believers, in a city, too, now graced and enlightened by the simple
language, and simple doctrines of an Epicurus.—But the language of truth
is too simple for inexperienced ears. We start in search of knowledge,
like the demi-gods of old in search of adventure, prepared to encounter
giants, to scale mountains, to pierce into Tartarean gulfs, and to carry
off our prize from the gripe of some dark enchanter, invulnerable to all
save to charmed weapons and deity-gifted assailants. To find none of all
these things, but, in their stead, a smooth road through a pleasant
country, with a familiar guide to direct our curiosity, and point out
the beauties of the landscape, disappoints us of all exploit and all
notoriety; and our vanity turns but too often from the fair and open
champaign, into error’s dark labyrinths, where we mistake mystery for
wisdom, pedantry for knowledge, and prejudice for virtue.”
“I admit the truth of the metaphor,” said Theon. “But may we not
simplify too much as well as too little? May we not push investigation
beyond the limits assigned to human reason, and, with a boldness
approaching to profanity, tear, without removing, the veil which enwraps
the mysteries of creation from our scrutiny?”
“Without challenging the meaning of the terms you have employed,” said
Metrodorus, “I would observe, that there is little danger of our pushing
investigation too far. Unhappily the limits prescribed to us by our few
and imperfect senses must ever cramp the sphere of our observation, as
compared to the boundless range of things; and that, even when we shall
have strained and improved our senses to the uttermost. We trace an
effect to a cause, and that cause to another cause, and so on, till we
hold some few links of a chain, whose extent, like the charmed circle,
is without beginning as without end.”
“I apprehend the difficulties,” observed Leontium, “which embraces the
mind of our young friend. Like most aspirants after knowledge, he has a
vague and incorrect idea of what he is pursuing, and still more, of what
may be attained. In the schools you have hitherto frequented,” she
continued, addressing the youth, “certain images of virtue, vice, truth,
knowledge, are presented to the imagination, and these abstract
qualities, or we may call them, figurative beings, are made at once the
objects of speculation and adoration. A law is laid down, and the
feelings and opinions of men are predicated upon it; a theory is built,
and all animate and inanimate nature is made to speak in its support; an
hypothesis is advanced, and all the mysteries of nature are treated as
explained. You have heard of, and studied various systems of philosophy;
but real philosophy is opposed to all systems. Her whole business is
observation; and the results of that observation constitute all her
knowledge. She receives no truths, until she has tested them by
experience; she advances no opinions, unsupported by the testimony of
facts; she acknowledges no virtue, but that involved in beneficial
actions; no vice, but that involved in actions hurtful to ourselves or
to others. Above all, she advances no dogmas,—is slow to assert what
is,—and calls nothing impossible. The science of philosophy is simply a
science of observation, both as regards the world without us, and the
world within; and, to advance in it, are requisite only sound senses,
well developed and exercised faculties, and a mind free of prejudice.
The objects she has in view, as regards the external world, are, first,
to see things as they are, and secondly, to examine their structure, to
ascertain their properties, and to observe their relations one to the
other.—As respects the world within, or the philosophy of mind, she has
in view, first, to examine our sensations, or the impressions of
external things on our senses; which operation involves, and is involved
in, the examination of those external things themselves: secondly, to
trace back to our sensations, the first development of all our
faculties; and again, from these sensations, and the exercise of our
different faculties as developed by them, to trace the gradual formation
of our moral feelings, and of all our emotions: thirdly, to analyze all
these our sensations, thoughts, and emotions,—that is, to examine the
qualities of our own internal, sentient matter, with the same, and yet
more, closeness of scrutiny, than we have applied to the examination of
the matter that is without us: finally, to investigate the justness of
our moral feelings, and to weigh the merit and demerit of human actions;
which is, in other words, to judge of their tendency to produce good or
evil,—to excite pleasurable or painful feelings in ourselves or others.
You will observe, therefore, that, both as regards the philosophy of
physics, and the philosophy of mind, all is simply a process of
investigation. It is a journey of discovery, in which, in the one case,
we commission our senses to examine the qualities of that matter which
is around us, and in the other, endeavor, by attention to the varieties
of our consciousness, to gain a knowledge of those qualities of matter,
which constitute our susceptibilities of thought and feeling.”
“This explanation is new to me,” observed Theon, “and, I will confess,
startling to my imagination. It is pure materialism!”
“You may so call it,” rejoined Leontium, “but, when you have so called
it—what then? The question remains: is it true? or is it false?”
“I should be disposed to say—false, since it confounds all my
preconceived notions of truth and error, of right and wrong.”
“Of truth and error, of right and wrong, in the sense of _correct_ or
_incorrect_ is, I presume, your meaning,” said Leontium. “You do not
involve moral rectitude or the contrary, in a matter of opinion?”
“If the opinion have a moral or immoral tendency I do,” said the youth.
“A simple matter of fact can have no such tendency, or ought not, if we
are rational creatures.”
“And would not, if we were always reasoning beings,” said Metrodorus;
“but as the ignorance and superstition which surround our infancy and
youth, favor the development of the imagination at the expense of the
judgment, we are ever employed in the coining of chimeras, rather than
in the discovery of truths; and if ever the poor judgment make an effort
to dispel these fancies of the brain, she is repulsed, like a
sacrilegious intruder into religious mysteries.”
“Until our opinions are made to rest on facts,” said Leontium, “the
error of our young friend—the most dangerous of all errors, being one of
principle and involving many—must ever pervade the world. And it was
because I suspected this leading misconception of the very nature—of the
very end and aim of the science he is pursuing, that I attempted an
explanation of what should be sought, and of what can alone be attained.
In philosophy—that is, in knowledge—enquiry is every thing: theory and
hypothesis are worse than nothing. Truth is but approved facts. Truth,
then, is one with the knowledge of these facts. To shrink from enquiry,
is to shrink from knowledge. And to prejudge an opinion as true or
false, because it interferes with some preconceived abstraction we call
vice or virtue, is as if we were to draw the picture of a man we had
never seen, and then, upon seeing him, were to dispute his being the man
in question, because unlike our picture.”
“But if this opinion interfered with another, of whose truth we imagined
ourselves certain?”
“Then clearly, in one or the other, we are mistaken; and the only way to
settle the difficulty, is to examine and compare the evidences of both.”
“But are there not some truths self-evident?”
“There are a few which we may so call. That is to say, there are some
facts, which we admit upon the evidence of a simple sensation; as, for
instance, that a whole is greater than its part; that two are more than
one: which we receive immediately upon the testimony of our sense of
sight or of touch.”
“But are there no moral truths of the same nature?”
“I am not aware of any. Moral truth, resting entirely upon the
ascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation
and reasoning.”
“What call you, then, a belief in a presiding providence, and a great
first cause?”
“A belief resting upon testimony; which belief will be true or false,
according to the correctness or incorrectness of that testimony.”
“Is it not rather a self-evident moral truth?”
“In my answer, I shall have to divide your question into two. First, it
cannot be a moral truth, since it is not deduced from the consequences
of human action. It can be simply a truth, that is, a fact. Secondly, it
is not a self-evident truth, since it is not evident to all minds, and
frequently becomes less and less evident, the more it is examined.”
“But is not the existence of a first or creating cause demonstrated to
our senses, by all we see, and hear, and feel?”
“The existence of all that we see and hear and feel is demonstrated to
our senses; and the belief we yield to this existence is immediate and
irresistible, that is, intuitive.—The existence of the creating cause,
that you speak of, is not demonstrated to our senses; and therefore the
belief in it cannot be immediate and irresistible. I prefer the
expression ‘creating’ to ‘first’ cause, because it seems to present a
more intelligible meaning. When you shall have examined farther into the
phenomena of nature, you will see, that there can be as little a _first_
as a _last_ cause.”
“But there must be always a cause, producing an effect?”
“Certainly; and so your cause,—creating all that we see and hear and
feel—must itself have a producing cause, otherwise you are in the same
difficulty as before.”
“I suppose it a Being unchangeable and eternal, itself unproduced, and
producing all things.”
“Unchangeable it _may_ be,—eternal it _must_ be—since every thing is
eternal.”
“Every thing eternal?”
“Yes; that is, the elements composing all substances are, so far as we
know and can reason, eternal, and in their nature unchangeable; and it
is apparently only the different disposition of these eternal and
unchangeable atoms that produces all the varieties in the substances
constituting the great material whole, of which we form a part. Those
particles, whose peculiar agglomeration or arrangement, we call a
vegetable to-day, pass into, and form part of, an animal to-morrow; and
that animal again, by the falling asunder of its constituent atoms, and
the different approximation and agglomeration of the same,—or, of the
same with other atoms,—is transformed into some other substance
presenting a new assemblage of qualities. To this simple exposition of
the phenomena of nature (which, you will observe, is not _explaining_
their wonders, for that is impossible, but only _observing_ them,) we
are led by the exercise of our senses. In studying the existences which
surround us, it is clearly our business to use our eyes, and not our
imaginations. To see things as they are, is all we should attempt, and
is all that is possible to be done. Unfortunately, we can do but little
even here, as our eyes serve us to see but a very little way. But, were
our eyes better—were they so good as to enable us to observe all the
arcana of matter, we could never acquire any other knowledge of them,
than that they are as they are;—and, in knowing this, that is, in seeing
every link in the chain of occurrences, we should know all that even an
omniscient being _could_ know. One astronomer traces the course of the
sun round the earth, another imagines that of the earth round the sun.
Some future improvements in science may enable us to ascertain which
conjecture is the true one. We shall then have ascertained a fact, which
fact may lead to the discovery of other facts, and so on. Until this
plain and simple view of the nature of all science be generally
received, all the advances we may make in it are comparatively as
nothing. Until we occupy ourselves in examining, observing, and
ascertaining, and not in _explaining_, we are idly and childishly
employed.—With every truth we may discover we shall mix a thousand
errors; and, for one matter of fact, we shall charge our brain with a
thousand fancies. To this leading misconception of the real, and only
possible object of philosophical enquiry, I incline to attribute all the
modes and forms of human superstition. The vague idea that some
mysterious cause not merely _precedes_ but _produces_ the effect we
behold, occasions us to wander from the real object in search of an
imaginary one. We see the sun rise in the east: Instead of confining our
curiosity to the discovery of the time and manner of its rising, and of
its course in the heavens, we ask also—_why_ does it rise? What _makes_
it move? The more ignorant immediately conceive some Being spurring it
through the heavens, with fiery steeds, and on wheels of gold, while the
more learned tell us of laws of motion, decreed by an almighty fiat, and
sustained by an almighty will. Imagine the truth of both suppositions:
In the one case, we should see the application of what we call physical
power in the driver and the steeds followed by the motion of the sun,
and in the other, an almighty volition followed by the motion of the
sun. But, in either case, should we understand _why_ the sun
moved?—_why_ or _how_ its motion followed what we call the impulse of
the propelling power, or the propelling volition? All that we could
_then_ know, more than we _now_ know, would be, that the occurrence of
the motion of the sun was preceded by another occurrence; and if we
afterwards frequently observed the same sequence of occurrences, they
would become associated in our mind as necessary precedent and
consequent—as cause and effect: and we might give to them the
appellation of law of nature, or any other appellation; but they would
still constitute merely a truth—that is, _a fact_, and envelope no other
mystery, than that involved in every occurrence and every existence.”
“But, according to this doctrine,” said Theon, “there would be no less
reason in attributing the beautiful arrangement of the material world to
the motion of a horse, than to the volition of an almighty mind.”
“If I saw the motion of a horse followed by the effect you speak of, I
should believe in some relation between them; and if I saw it follow the
volition of an almighty mind—the same.”
“But the cause would be inadequate to the effect.”
“It could not be so, if it were the cause. For what constitutes the
adequacy of which you speak? Clearly only the contact, or immediate
proximity of the two occurrences. If any sequence could in fact be more
wonderful than another, it should rather seem to be for the consequent
to impart grandeur to the precedent—the effect to the cause,—than for
the cause to impart grandeur to the effect. But in reality all sequences
are equally wonderful. That light should follow the appearance of the
sun, is just as wonderful, and no more so, as if it were to follow the
appearance of any other body—and did light follow the appearance of a
black stone it would excite astonishment simply because we never saw
light follow such an appearance before. Accustomed, as we now are, to
see light when the sun rises, our wonder would be, if we did not see
light when he rose: but were light regularly to attend the appearance of
any other body, our wonder at such a sequence would, after a time,
cease; and we should then say, as we now say, there is light, _because_
such a body has risen; and imagine _then_, as we imagine _now_, that we
understand _why_ light is.
“In like manner all existences are equally wonderful. An African lion is
in himself nothing more extraordinary than a Grecian horse; although the
whole people of Athens will assemble to gaze on the lion, and exclaim,
how wonderful! while no man observes the horse.”
“True—but this is the wondering of ignorance.”
“I reply—true again, but so is all wondering. If, indeed, we should
consider it in this and in all other cases as simply an emotion of
pleasurable surprise, acknowledging the presence of a novel object, the
feeling is perfectly rational; but if it imagine any thing more
intrinsically marvellous in the novel existence than in the familiar
one, it is then clearly the idle—that is, the unreasoned and
unreflecting marvelling of ignorance. There is but one real wonder to
the thinking mind: it is the existence of all things; that is, the
existence of matter. And the only rational ground of this one great
wonder is, that the existence of matter is the last link in the chain of
cause and effect, at which we can arrive. You imagine yet another
link—the existence of a power creating that matter.—My only objections
to this additional link, or superadded cause, are, that it is
_imagined_, and that it leaves the wonder as before; unless, indeed, we
should say that it has superadded other wonders, since it supposes a
power, or rather, an existence possessing a power, of which we never saw
an example.”
“How so? Does not even man possess a species of creating power? And do
you not suppose, in your inert matter, that very property which others
attribute, with more reason it appears to me, to some superior and
unknown existence?”
“By no means. No existence, that we know of, possesses creating power,
in the sense you suppose. Neither the existence we call a man, nor any
of the existences, comprised under the generic names of matter, physical
world, nature, &c., possesses the power of calling into being its own
constituent elements, nor the constituent elements of any other
substance. It can change one substance into another substance, by
altering the position of its particles, or intermingling them with
others: but it cannot call into being, any more than it can annihilate,
those particles themselves. The hand of man causes to approach particles
of earth and of water, and by their approximation, produces clay; to
which clay it gives a regular form, and, by the application of fire,
produces the vessel we call a vase. You may say that the hand of man
creates the vase; but it does not create the earth, or the water, or the
fire; neither has the admixture of these substances added to, or
subtracted from, the sum of their elementary atoms. Observe, therefore,
there is no analogy between the power inherent in matter of changing its
appearance and qualities, by a simple change in the position of its
particles, and that which you attribute to some unseen existence, who,
by a simple volition, should have called into being matter itself, with
all its wonderful properties. An existence possessing such a power I
have never seen; and though this says nothing against the possibility of
such an existence, it says every thing against _my belief_ in it. And
farther, the power which you attribute to this existence—that of willing
every thing out of nothing,—being, not only what I have never seen, but
that of which I cannot with any distinctness conceive—it must appear to
me the greatest of all improbabilities.”
“Our young friend,” observed Metrodorus, “lately made use of an
expression, the error involved in which, seems to be at the root of his
difficulty. In speaking of matter,” he continued, turning to Theon, “you
employed the epithet _inert_. What is your meaning? And what matter do
you here designate?”
“All matter surely is, in itself, inert.”
“All matter surely is, in itself, as it is,” said Metrodorus with a
smile; “and that, I should say, is living and active. Again, what is
matter?”
“All that is evident to our senses,” replied Theon, “and which stands
opposed to mind.”
“All matter then is inert which is devoid of mind. What, then, do you
understand by mind?”
“I conceive some error in my definition,” said Theon, smiling. “Should I
say—_thought_—you would ask if every existence devoid of thought was
inert, or if every existence, possessing life, possessed thought?”
“I should so have asked. Mind or thought I consider a quality of that
matter constituting the existence we call a man, which quality we find
in a varying degree in other existences; many, perhaps all animals,
possessing it. Life is another quality, or combination of qualities, of
matter, inherent in—we know not how many existences. We find it in
vegetables; we might perceive it even in stones, could we watch their
formation, growth, and decay. We may call that active principle,
pervading the elements of all things, which approaches and separates the
component particles of the ever changing, and yet ever during
world—life. Until you discover some substance, which undergoes no
change, you cannot speak of inert matter: it can only be so, at least,
relatively,—that is, as compared with other substances.”
“The classing of thought and life among the qualities of matter is new
to me.”
“What is in a substance cannot be separate from it. And is not all
matter a compound of qualities? Hardness, extension, form, color,
motion, rest—take away all these, and where is matter? To conceive of
mind independent of matter, is as if we should conceive of color
independent of a substance colored: What is form, if not a body of a
particular shape? What is thought, if not something which thinks?
Destroy the substance, and you destroy its properties; and so
equally—destroy the properties, and you destroy the substance. To
suppose the possibility of retaining the one, without the other, is an
evident absurdity.”
“The error of conceiving a quality in the abstract often offended me in
the Lyceum,” returned the youth, “but I never considered the error as
extending to mind and life, any more than to vice and virtue.”
“You stopped short with many others,” said Leontium. “It is indeed
surprising how many acute minds will apply a logical train of reasoning
in one case, and invert the process in another exactly similar.”
“To return, and, if you will, to conclude our discussion,” said
Metrodorus, “I will observe that no real advances can be made in the
philosophy of mind, without a deep scrutiny into the operations of
nature, or material existences. Mind being only a quality of matter, the
study we call the philosophy of mind, is necessarily only a branch of
general physics, or the study of a particular part of the philosophy of
matter.”
“I am indebted to your patience,” said the youth, “and would fain
intrude farther on it. I will confine myself at present, however, to one
observation. The general view of things, which you present to my mind,
the simplicity of which I will confess to be yet more fascinating than
its novelty, is evidently unfavorable to religion,—and, if so,
unfavorable to virtue.”
“An opportunity will, to-day, be afforded you,” said Leontium, “of
examining this important question in detail. At the request of some of
our youth, the Master will himself give his views on the subject.”
“I am all curiosity,” said Theon. “Other teachers have commanded my
respect, inflamed my imagination, and, I believe, often controlled my
reason. The son of Neocles inspires me with love, and wins me to
confidence by encouraging me to exercise my own judgment, in scanning
his arguments, and examining the groundwork of his own opinions. With
such a teacher, and in such a school, I feel suspicion to be wholly
misplaced; and I shall now start in the road of enquiry, anxious only to
discover truth, and willing to part with every erroneous opinion, the
moment it shall be proved to be erroneous.”
NOTE, BY THE TRANSLATOR. How beautifully have the modern discoveries
in chymistry and natural philosophy, and the more accurate analysis of
the human mind—sciences unknown to the ancient world—substantiated the
leading principles of the Epicurean ethics and physics—the only
ancient school of either, really deserving the name!
To what have all our ingenious inventions and contrivances, for the
analysis of material substances, led us, but to the atoms of Epicurus?
To what, our accurate observation of the decomposition of substances,
and the arresting and weighing of their most subtle and invisible
elements, but to the eternal and unchangeable nature of those atoms?
We have, in the course of our scrutiny, superadded to the wonderful
qualities of matter with which he was acquainted, those which we call
attraction, repulsion, electricity, magnetism, &c. How do these
discoveries multiply and magnify the living powers inherent in the
simple elements of all existences, and point our admiration to the
sagacity of that intellect which, 2,000 years ago, started in the true
road of enquiry; while, at this day, thousands of teachers and
millions of scholars are stumbling in the paths of error!
If we look to our mental philosophy, to what has our scrutiny led, but
to the leading principles of Epicurean ethics? In the
pleasure,—utility,—propriety of human action—(whatever word we employ,
the meaning is the same)—in the consequences of human actions, that
is, in their tendency to promote our good or our evil, we must ever
find the only test of their intrinsic merit or demerit.
It might seem strange that, while the truth of the leading principles
of the Epicurean philosophy have been long admitted by all sound
reasoners, the abuse of the school and of its founder is continued to
this day: this might and would seem strange and incomprehensible, did
we not, on every subject, find the same cowardly fear of facing,
openly and honestly, the prejudices of men. Teachers, aware of the
ignorance of those they teach, develope their doctrines in language
intelligible only to the few; or, where they hazard a more distinct
exposition of truth, shelter themselves from obloquy, by echoing the
vulgar censure against those who have taught the same truth, with more
explicitness, before them. The mass, even of what is called the
educated world, know nothing of the principles they decry, or of the
characters they abuse. It is easy, therefore, by joining in the abuse
against the one, to encourage a belief that we cannot be advocating
the other. This desire of standing fair with the wise, without
incurring the enmity of the ignorant, may suit with the object of
those who acquire knowledge only for its display, or for the
gratification of mere curiosity. But they, whose nobler aim, and
higher gift it is, to advance the human mind in the discovery of
truth, must stand proof equally to censure and to praise. That such
lips and such pens should employ equivocation, or other artifice, to
turn aside the wrath of ignorance, is degrading to themselves and
mortifying to their admirers. The late amiable and enlightened
teacher, Thomas Brown, of Edinburgh, whose masterly exposition of old
and new truths, and exposure of modern as well as ancient errors, has
so advanced the science he professed, is yet chargeable with this
weakness. After inculcating the leading principles, the whole of his
beautiful system, he condescends to soothe the prejudices which all
his arguments have tended to uproot, by passing a sweeping censure on
the school, whose doctrines he has borrowed and taught. We might
say—how unworthy of such a mind! But we will rather say—how is it to
be lamented that such a mind bears not within itself the conviction,
that _all_ truths are important to _all_ men; and that to employ
deception with the ignorant, is to defeat our own purpose; which is,
surely, not to open the eyes of those who already see, but to
enlighten the blind!