CHAPTER VIII.

GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.

Whatever may be said of the inferiority of the ancients to the moderns

in natural and mechanical science, which no one is disposed to question,

or even in the realm of literature, which can be questioned, there was

one department which they carried to absolute perfection, and to which

we have added nothing of consequence. In the realm of art they were our

equals, and probably our superiors; in philosophy they carried logical

deductions to their utmost limit. They created the science. They

advanced, from a few crude speculations on material phenomena, to an

analysis of all the powers of the mind, and finally to the establishment

of ethical principles which even Christianity did not overturn. The

progress of the science, from Thales to Plato, is the most stupendous

triumph of the human understanding. The reason of man soared to the

loftiest flights that it has ever attained. It cast its searching eye

into the most abstruse inquiries which ever tasked the famous intellects

of the world. It exhausted all the subjects which dialectical subtlety

ever raised. It originated and it carried out the boldest speculations

respecting the nature of the soul and its future existence. It

established most important psychological truths. It created a method for

the solution of the most abstruse questions. It went on, from point to

point, until all the faculties of the mind were severely analyzed, and

all its operations were subjected to a rigid method. The Romans never

added a single principle to the philosophy which the Greeks elaborated;

the ingenious scholastics of the Middle Ages merely reproduced their

ideas; and even the profound and patient Germans have gone round in the

same circles that Plato and Aristotle marked out more than two thousand

years ago. It was Greek philosophy in which noble Roman youth were

educated, and hence, as it was expounded by a Cicero, a Marcus Aurelius,

and an Epictetus, it was as much the inheritance of the Romans as it was

of the Greeks themselves, after their political liberties were swept

away, and the Grecian cities formed a part of the Roman empire. The

Romans learned, or might have learned, what the Greeks created and

taught, and philosophy became, as well as art, identified with the

civilization which extended from the Rhine and the Po to the Nile and

the Tigris. Grecian philosophy was one of the distinctive features of

ancient civilization long after the Greeks had ceased to speculate on

the laws of mind, or the nature of the soul, or the existence of God, or

future rewards and punishments. Although it was purely Grecian in its

origin and development, it cannot be left out of the survey of the

triumphs of the human mind when the Romans were masters of the world,

and monopolized the fruits of all the arts and sciences. It became one

of the grand ornaments of the Roman schools, one of the priceless

possessions of the Roman conquerors. The Romans did not originate

medicine, but Galen was one of its greatest lights; they did not invent

the hexameter verse, but Virgil sung to its measure; they did not create

Ionic capitals, but their cities were ornamented with marble temples on

the same principles as those which called out the admiration of

Pericles. So, if they did not originate philosophy, and generally had

but little taste for it, still its truths were systematized and

explained by Cicero, and formed no small accession to the treasures with

which cultivated intellects sought everywhere to be enriched. It formed

an essential part of the intellectual wealth of the civilized world,

when civilization could not prevent the world from falling into decay

and ruin. And as it was the noblest triumph which the human mind, under

pagan influences, ever achieved, so it was followed by the most

degrading imbecility into which man, in civilized countries, was ever

allowed to fall. Philosophy, like art, like literature, like science,

arose, shined, grew dim, and passed away, and left the world in night.

Why was so bright a glory followed by so dismal a shame? What a comment

is this on the greatness and littleness of man!

[Sidenote: Commencement of Grecian speculations.]

The development of Greek philosophy is doubtless one commence-of the

most interesting and instructive subjects Grecian in the whole history

of mind. In all probability it originated with the Ionian Sophoi, though

many suppose it was derived from the East. It is questionable whether

the oriental nations had any philosophy distinct from religion. The

Germans are fond of tracing resemblances in the early speculations of

the Greeks to the systems which prevailed in Asia from a very remote

antiquity. Gladish sees in the Pythagorean system an adoption of Chinese

doctrines; in the Heraclitic system, the influence of Persia; in the

Empedoclean, Egyptian speculations; and in the Anaxagorean, the Jewish

creeds. [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. of Philos_., Introd.] But

the Orientals had theogonies, not philosophies. The Indian speculations

aim to an exposition of ancient revelation. They profess to liberate the

soul from the evils of mortal life--to arrive at eternal beatitudes. But

the state of perfectibility could only be reached by religious

ceremonial observances and devout contemplation. The Indian systems do

not disdain logical discussions, or a search after the principles of

which the universe is composed; and hence we find great refinements in

sophistry, and a wonderful subtlety of logical discussion; but these are

directed to unattainable ends,--to the connection of good with evil, and

the union of the supreme with nature. Nothing came out of these

speculations but an occasional elevation of mind among the learned, and

a profound conviction of the misery of man and the obstacles to his

perfection. [Footnote: See Archer Butler's fine lecture on the Indian

Philosophies.] The Greeks, starting from physical phenomena, went on in

successive series of inquiries, until they elevated themselves above

matter, above experience, even to the loftiest abstractions, and until

they classified the laws of thought. It is curious how speculation led

to demonstration, and how inquiries into the world of matter prepared

the way for the solution of intellectual phenomena. Philosophy kept pace

with geometry, and those who observed nature also gloried in abstruse

calculations. Philosophy and mathematics seem to have been allied with

the worship of art among the same men, and it is difficult to say which

more distinguished them, aesthetic culture or power of abstruse

reasoning.

[Sidenote: Thales.]

[Sidenote: Water the vital principle of Nature.]

We do not read of any remarkable philosophical inquirer until Thales

arose, the first of the Ionian school. He was born at Miletus, a Greek

colony in Asia Minor, about the year B.C. 636, when Ancus Martius was

king of Rome, and Josiah reigned at Jerusalem. He has left no writings

behind him, but he was numbered as one of the seven wise men of Greece.

He was numbered with the wise men on account of his political sagacity

and wisdom in public affairs. [Footnote: Miller, Hist, of Grec. Lit., ch.

xvii.]

"And he, 't is said, did first compute the stars

Which beam in Charles' wain, and guide the bark

Of the Phoenician sailor o'er the sea."

He was the first who attempted a logical solution of material phenomena,

without resorting to mythical representations. Thales felt that there

was a grand question to be answered relative to the _beginning of

things_. "Philosophy," it has been well said, "may be a history of

_errors_, but not of _follies_" It was not a folly, in a rude

age, to speculate on the first or fundamental principle of things. He

looked around him upon Nature, upon the sea and earth and sky, and

concluded that water or moisture was the vital principle. He felt it in

the air, he saw it in the clouds above, and in the ground beneath his

feet. He saw that plants were sustained by rain and by the dew, that

neither animal nor man could live without water, and that to fishes it

was the native element. What more important or vital than water? It was

the _prima materia_, the [Greek: archae], the beginning of all things--the

origin of the world. [Footnote: Aristotle, _Metaph._, 1. c. 3;

Diog. Laertius, _Thales_.] I do not here speak of his astronomical

and geometrical labors--as the first to have divided the year into three

hundred and sixty-five days. He is celebrated also for practical wisdom.

"Know thyself," is one of his remarkable sayings. But the foundation

principle of his philosophy was that water is the first cause of all

things--the explanation, of the origin of the universe. How so crude a

speculation could have been maintained by so wise a man it is difficult

to conjecture. It is not, however, the _reason_ which he assigns

for the beginning of things which is noteworthy, so much as the

_fact_ that his mind was directed to the solution of questions

pertaining to the origin of the universe. It was these questions which

marked the Ionian philosophers. It was these which showed the inquiring

nature of their minds. What is the great first cause of all things?

Thales saw it in one of the four elements of nature, as the ancients

divided them. And it is the earliest recorded theory among the Greeks of

the origin of the world. It is an induction from the phenomena of

animated nature--the nutrition and production of a seed. [Footnote:

Bitter, b. iii. c. 3; Lewes, ch. 1.] He regarded the entire world in the

light of a living being gradually maturing and forming itself from an

imperfect seed state, which was of a moist nature. This moisture endues

the universe with vitality. The world, he thought, was full of gods, but

they had their origin in water. He had no conception of God as

_Intelligence_, or as a _creative_ power. He had a great and

inquiring mind, but he was a pagan, with no knowledge of a spiritual and

controlling and personal deity.

[Sidenote: Anaximenes. Air the _animus mundi_.]

Anaximenes, his disciple, pursued his inquiries, and adopted his method.

He also was born in Miletus, but at what time is unknown, probably B.C.

529. Like Thales, he held to the eternity of matter. Like him, he

disbelieved in the existence of any thing immaterial, for even a human

soul is formed out of matter. He, too, speculated on the origin of the

universe, but thought that _air_, not water, was the primal cause.

[Footnote: Cicero, _De Nat. D_., i. 10.] This seemed to be

universal. We breathe it; all things are sustained by it. It is Life--

that is pregnant with vital energy, and capable of infinite

transmutations. All things are produced by it; all is again resolved

into it; it supports all things; it surrounds the world; it has

infinitude; it has eternal motion. Thus did this philosopher reason,

comparing the world with our own living existence,--which he took to be

air,--an imperishable principle of life. He thus advanced a step on

Thales, since he regarded the world not after the analogy of an

imperfect seed-state, but that of the highest condition of life,--the

human soul. [Footnote: Ritter, b. iii. c. 3.] And he attempted to refer

to one general law all the transformations of the first simple substance

into its successive states, for the cause of change is the eternal

motion of the air.

[Sidenote: Diogenes. Air and soul identical.]

Diogenes of Apollonia, in Crete, one of his disciples, born B.C. 460,

also believed that air was the principle of the universe, but he imputed

to it an intellectual energy, yet without recognizing any distinction

between mind and matter. [Footnote: Diog. Laert., ii. 3; Bayle, _Dict.

Hist. et Crit._] He made air and the soul identical. "For," says he,

"man and all other animals breathe and live by means of the air, and

therein consists their soul." [Footnote: Ritter, b. iii. c. 3.] And as

it is the primary being from which all is derived, it is necessarily an

eternal and imperishable body; but, as _soul_, it is also endued

with consciousness. Diogenes thus refers the origin of the world to an

intelligent being--to a soul which knows and vivifies. Anaximenes

regarded air as having Life. Diogenes saw in it also Intelligence. Thus

philosophy advanced step by step, though still groping in the dark; for

the origin of all things, according to Diogenes, must exist in

_Intelligence_.

[Sidenote: Heraclitus--Fire the principle of life.]

Heraclitus of Ephesus, classed by Ritter among the Ionian philosophers,

was born B.C. 503. Like others of his school, he sought a physical

ground for all phenomena. The elemental principle he regarded as

_fire_, since all things are convertible into it. In one of its

modifications, this fire, or fluid, self-kindled, permeating every thing

as the soul or principle of life, is endowed with intelligence and

powers of ceaseless activity. "If Anaximenes discovered that he had

within him a power and principle which ruled over all the acts and

functions of his bodily frame, Heraclitus found that there was life

within him which he could not call his own, and yet it was, in the very

highest sense, _himself_, so that without it he would have been a

poor, helpless, isolated creature; a universal life which connected him

with his fellow-men,--with the absolute source and original fountain of

life." [Footnote: Maurice, _Moral and Metaph. Phil._] "He

proclaimed the absolute vitality of nature, the endless change of

matter, the mutability and perishability of all individual things in

contrast with the eternal Being--the supreme harmony which rules over

all." [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. of Phil._] To trace the divine

energy of life in all things was the general problem of his philosophy,

and this spirit was akin to the pantheism of the East. But he was one of

the greatest speculative intellects that preceded Plato, and of all the

physical theorists arrived nearest to spiritual truth. He taught the

germs of what was afterwards more completely developed. "From his theory

of perpetual fluxion Plato derived the necessity of seeking a stable

basis for the universal system in his world of ideas." [Footnote: Archer

Butler, series i. lect. v.; Hegel, _Gesch. D. Phil._, i. p. 334.]

Anaxagoras, the most famous of the Ionian philosophers, was born B.C.

500, and belonged to a rich and noble family. Regarding philosophy as

the noblest pursuit of earth, he abandoned his inheritance for the study

of nature. He went to Athens in the most brilliant period of her history,

and had Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates for pupils. He taught that the

great moving force of nature was intellect [Greek: nous]. Intelligence

was the cause of the world and of order, and mind was the principle of

motion; yet this intelligence was not a moral intelligence, but simply

the _primum mobile_--the all-knowing motive force by which the

order of nature is effected. He thus laid the foundation of a new system

which, under the Attic philosophers, sought to explain nature, not by

regarding matter in its different forms, as the cause of all things, but

rather mind, thought, intelligence, which both knows and acts--a grand

conception unrivaled in ancient speculation. This explanation of

material phenomena by intellectual causes was his peculiar merit, and

places him in a very high rank among the thinkers of the world.

Moreover, he recognized the reason as the only faculty by which we

become cognizant of truth, the senses being too weak to discover the

real component particles of things. Like all the great inquirers, he was

impressed with the limited degree of positive knowledge, compared with

what there is to be learned. "Nothing," says he, "can be known; nothing

is certain; sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short"

[Footnote: Cicero, _Qu. Ac._, i. 12.]--the complaint, not of a

skeptic, but of a man overwhelmed with the sense of his incapacity to

solve the problems which arose before his active mind. [Footnote:

Lucret., lib. i. 834-875.] Anaxagoras thought that this spirit [Greek:

Nous] gave to all those material atoms, which, in the beginning of the

world, lay in disorder, the impulse by which they took the forms of

individual things, and that this impulse was given in a circular direction.

Hence that the sun, moon, and stars, and even the air, are constantly

moving in a circle. [Footnote: Muller, _Hist. Lit. of Greece_,

chap. xvii.]

[Sidenote: Anaximander thought that the Infinite is the origin of

things.]

In the mean time another sect of philosophers arose, who like the

Ionians, sought to explain nature, but by a different method.

Anaximander, born B.C. 610, was one of the original mathematicians of

Greece, yet, like Pythagoras and Thales, speculated on the beginning of

things. His principle was that the _Infinite_ is the origin of all things.

He used the word [Greek: archae] to denote the material out of which

all things were formed, as the everlasting and divine. [Footnote: Arist.,

_Phy_., iii. 4.] The idea of elevating an abstraction into a great

first cause is certainly puerile, nor is it easy to understand his

meaning, other than that the abstract has a higher significance than the

concrete. The speculations of Thales tended toward discovering the

material constitution of the universe, upon an _induction_ from

observed facts, and thus made water to be the origin of all things.

Anaximander, accustomed to view things in the abstract, could not accept

so concrete a thing as water; his speculations tended toward

mathematics, to the science of pure _deduction_. The primary being

is a unity, one in all, comprising within itself the multiplicity of

elements from which all mundane things are composed. It is only in

infinity that the perpetual changes of things can take place. [Footnote:

Diog. Laert., i. 119; Cicero, _Tus. Qu._, i. 16; Tennemann, p. 1,

ch. i. Sec. 86.] This original but obscure thinker prepared the way for

Pythagoras.

[Sidenote: Pythagoras--Number the essence of things.]

[Sidenote: Order and harmony in nature.]

This philosopher and mathematician, born about the year B.C. 570, is one

of the great names of antiquity; but his life is shrouded in dim

magnificence. The old historians paint him as "clothed in robes of

white, his head covered with gold, his aspect grave and majestic, wrapt

in the contemplation of the mysteries of existence, listening to the

music of Homer and Hesiod, or to the harmony of the spheres." [Footnote:

Lewes, _Biog. Hist. Phil._] To him is ascribed the use of the word

_philosopher_ rather than _sophos_, a lover of wisdom, not wise

man. He taught his doctrines to a select few, the members of which

society lived in common, and venerated him as an oracle. His great

doctrine is, that _number_ is the essence of things, by which is

understood the _form_ and not the _matter_ of the sensible.

The elements of numbers are the _odd_ and _even_, the former

being regarded as limited, the latter unlimited. Diogenes Laertius thus

sums up his doctrines, which were that "the _monad_ is--the

beginning of every thing. From the monad proceeds an indefinite

_duad_. From the monad and the duad proceed _numbers_, and from

numbers _signs_, and from these _lines_, of which plain figures

consist. And from plain figures are derived solid bodies, and

from these sensible bodies, of which there are four elements, fire,

water, earth, and air. The world results from a combination of these

elements." [Footnote: Diog. Laert., _Lives of Phil._] All this is

unintelligible or indefinite. We cannot comprehend how the number theory

will account for the production of corporeal magnitude any easier than

we can identify monads with mathematical points. But underlying this

mysticism is the thought that there prevails in the phenomena of nature

a rational _order, harmony_, and conformity to _law_, and that

these laws can be represented by numbers. Number or harmony is the

principle of the universe, and order holds together the world. Like

Anaximander, he passes from the region of physics to metaphysics, and

thus opens a new world of speculation. His method was purely deductive,

and his science mathematical. "The _Infinite_ of Anaximander became

the _One_ of Pythagoras." Assuming that number is the essence of

the world, he deduced that the world is regulated by numerical

proportions, in other words, by a system of laws, and these laws,

regular and harmonious in their operation, _may_ have suggested to

the great mind of Pythagoras, so religious and lofty, the necessity for

an intelligent creator of the universe. It was in moral truth that he

delighted as well as metaphysical, and his life and the lives of his

disciples were disciplined to a severe virtue, as if he recognized in

numbers or order the necessity of a conformity to all law, and saw in

obedience to it both harmony and beauty. But we have no _direct_

and positive evidence of the kind or amount of knowledge which this

great intellect acquired. All that can be affirmed is, that he was a man

of extensive attainments; that he was a great mathematician, that he was

very religious, that he devoted himself to doing good, that he placed

happiness in the virtues of the soul or the perfect science of numbers,

and made a likeness to the Deity the object of all endeavors. He

believed that the soul was incorporeal, [Footnote: Ritter, b. iv. chap

i.] and is put into the body by the means of number and harmonical

relation, and thus subject to a divine regulation. Every thing was

regarded by him in a moral light. The order of the universe is only a

harmonical development of the first principle of all things to virtue

and wisdom. [Footnote: Our knowledge of Pythagoras is chiefly derived

from Aristotle. Both Ritter and Brandis have presented his views

elaborately, but with more clearness than was to be expected.] He

attached great value to music, as a subject of precise mathematical

calculation, and an art which has a great effect on the affections.

Hence morals and mathematics were linked together in his mind. As the

heavens were ordered in consonance with number, they must move in

eternal order. "The spheres" revolved in harmonious order around the

great centre of light and heat--the sun--"the throne of the elemental

world." Hence the doctrine of "the music of the spheres." _Pythagoras

ad harmoniam canere mundum existimat_. [Footnote: Cicero, _De Nat.

D_., iii. ii. 27.] The tendency of his speculations, obscure as they

are to us, was to raise the soul to a contemplation of order and beauty

and law, in the material universe, and hence to the contemplation of a

supreme intelligence reigning in justice and truth. Justice and truth

became therefore paramount virtues, to be practiced, to be sought as the

great end of life, allied with the order of the universe, and with

mathematical essences--the attributes of the deity, the sublime unity

which he adored.

The Ionic philosophers, and the Pythagoreans, sought to find the nature

or first principle of all things in the elements, or in numbers. But the

Eleatics went beyond the realm of physics to pure metaphysical

inquiries. This is the second stage in the history of philosophy--an

idealistic pantheism, which disregarded the sensible and maintained that

the source of all truth is independent of sense.

[Sidenote: Xenophanes.--God the first great cause.]

The founder of this school was Xenophanes, born in Colophon, an Ionian

city of Asia Minor, from which, being expelled, he wandered over Sicily

as a rhapsodist or minstrel, reciting his elegiac poetry on the loftiest

truths; and at last came to Elea, about the year 536, where he settled.

The great subject of his inquiries was God himself--the first great

cause--the supreme intelligence of the universe. "From the principle

_ex nihilo nihil fit_, he concluded that nothing could pass from

non-existence to existence. All things that exist are eternal and

immutable. God, as the most perfect essence, is eternally One,

unalterable, neither finite nor infinite, neither movable nor immovable,

and not to be represented under any human semblance." [Footnote:

Tennemann, _Hist. of Phil._, p. 1, Section 98.] What a great

stride was this! Whence did he derive his opinions? He starts with the

proposition that God is an all-powerful being, and denies all beginning

of being, and hence infers that God must be from eternity. From this

truth he advances to deny all multiplicity. A plurality of gods is

impossible. With these sublime views--the unity and eternity and

omnipotence of God--he boldly attacked the popular errors of his day. He

denounced the transference to the deity of the human form; he inveighed

against Homer and Hesiod; he ridiculed the doctrine of migration of

souls. Thus he sings,--

"Such things of the gods are related by Homer and Hesiod,

As would be shame and abiding disgrace to mankind,--

Promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other."

[Footnote: See Ritter, on Xenophanes. See note 20, in Archer Butler,

series i. lect vi.]

And, again, respecting anthropomorphic representations of the Deity,--

"But men foolishly think that gods are born like as men are,

And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice and their figure

But there's but one God alone, the greatest of gods and of mortals,

Neither in body, to mankind resembling, neither in ideas."

God seen in all the manifestations of nature.

[Sidenote: God seen in all manifestations of nature.]

[Sidenote: He sought to create a knowledge of God.]

Such were his sublime meditations. He believed in the _One_, which

is God; but this all-pervading, unmoved, undivided being was not a

personal God, nor a moral governor, but the deity pervading all space.

He could not separate God from the world, nor could he admit the

existence of world which is not God. He was a monotheist, but his

monotheism was pantheism. He saw God in all the manifestations of

nature. This did not satisfy him, nor resolve his doubts, and he

therefore confessed that reason could not compass the exalted aims of

philosophy. But there was no cynicism in his doubt. It was the soul-

sickening consciousness that Reason was incapable of solving the mighty

questions that he burned to know. There was no way to arrive at the

truth, "for," as he said, "error is spread over all things." It was not

disdain of knowledge, it was the combat of contradictory opinions that

oppressed him. He could not solve the questions pertaining to God. What

uninstructed reason can? "Canst thou by searching find out God, canst

thou know the Almighty unto perfection." What was impossible to Job, was

not possible to him. But he had attained a recognition of the unity and

perfections of God, and this conviction he would spread abroad, and tear

down the superstitions which hid the face of truth. I have great

admiration of this philosopher, so sad, so earnest, so enthusiastic,

wandering from city to city, indifferent to money, comfort, friends,

fame, that he might kindle the knowledge of God. This was a lofty aim

indeed for philosophy in that age. It was a higher mission than that of

Homer, [Footnote: Lewes has some shallow remarks on this point, although

spirited and readable. Ritter is more earnest.] great as his was, but

not so successful.

Parmenides of Elea, born about the year B.C. 536, followed out the

system of Xenophanes, the central idea of which was the existence of

God. With him the central idea was the notion of _being_. Being is

uncreated and unchangeable; the fullness of all being is _thought_;

the _All_ is thought and intelligence. He maintained the uncertainty

of knowledge; but meant the knowledge derived through the senses.

He did not deny the certainty of reason. He was the first who drew

a distinction between knowledge obtained by the senses, and that

obtained through the reason; and thus he anticipated the doctrine of

innate ideas. From the uncertainty of knowledge derived through the

senses, he deduced the twofold system of true and apparent knowledge.

[Footnote: Prof. Brandis's article in Smith's _Dictionary_.]

[Sidenote: Zeno introduces a new method.]

Zeno of Elea, the friend and pupil of Parmenides, born B.C. 500, brought

nothing new to the system, but invented _Dialectics_, that logic

which afterwards became so powerful in the hands of Plato and Aristotle,

and so generally admired among the schoolmen. It seeks to establish

truth by refuting error by the _reductio ad absurdum_. While

Parmenides sought to establish the doctrine of the _One_, Zeno

proved the non-existence of the _Many_. He denied that appearances

were real existences, but did not deny existences. It was the mission of

Zeno to establish the doctrines of his master. But, in order to convince

his listeners, he was obliged to use a new method of argument. So he

carried on his argumentation by question and answer, and was, therefore,

the first who used dialogue as a medium of philosophical communication.

[Footnote: Cousin, _Nouveaux Fragments Philosophiques_.]

[Sidenote: Empedocles.--Love the moving cause of all things.]

Empedocles, born B.C. 444, like others of the Eleatics, complained of

the imperfection of the senses, and looked for truth only in reason. He

regarded truth as a perfect unity, ruled by love,--the only true force,

the one moving cause of all things,--the first creative power by whom

the world was formed. Thus "God is love," a sublime doctrine which

philosophy revealed to the Greeks.

[Sidenote: The loftiness of the Eleatic philosophers.]

Thus did the Eleatic philosophers speculate almost contemporaneously

with the Ionians, on the beginning of things and the origin of

knowledge, taking different grounds, and attempting to correct the

representations of sense by the notions of reason. But both schools,

although they did not establish many truths, raised an inquisitive

spirit and awakened freedom of thought and inquiry. They raised up

workmen for more enlightened times, even as scholastic inquirers in the

Middle Ages prepared the way for the revival of philosophy on sounder

principles. They were all men of remarkable elevation of character as

well as genius. They hated superstitions and attacked the

Anthropomorphism of their day. They handled gods and goddesses with

allegorizing boldness, and hence were often persecuted by the people.

They did not establish moral truths by scientific processes, but they

set examples of lofty disdain of wealth and factitious advantages, and

devoted themselves with holy enthusiasm to the solution of the great

questions which pertain to God and nature. Thales won the respect of his

countrymen by devotion to studies. Pythagoras spent twenty-two years in

Egypt to learn its science. Xenophanes wandered over Sicily as a

rhapsodist of truth. Parmenides, born to wealth and splendor, forsook

the feverish pursuit of sensual enjoyments to contemplate "the quiet and

still air of delightful studies." Zeno declined all worldly honors to

diffuse the doctrines of his master. Heraclitus refused the chief

magistracy of Ephesus that he might have leisure to explore the depths

of his own nature. Anaxagoras allowed his patrimony to run to waste in

order to solve problems. "To philosophy," said he, "I owe my worldly

ruin and my soul's prosperity." They were, without exception, the

greatest and best men of their times. They laid the foundation of the

beautiful temple which was constructed after they were dead, in which

both physics and psychology reached the dignity of science. [Footnote:

Archer Butler in his lecture on the Eleatic school follows closely, and

expounds clearly, the views of Ritter.]

Nevertheless, these great men, lofty as were their inquiries, and

blameless their lives, had not established any system, nor any theories

which were incontrovertible. They had simply speculated, and the world

ridiculed their speculations. They were one-sided; and, when pushed out

to their extreme logical sequence, were antagonistic to each other,

which had a tendency to produce doubt and skepticism. Men denied the

existence of the gods, and the grounds of certainty fell away from the

human mind.

[Sidenote: Circumstances which favoured the Sophists.]

[Sidenote: Character of the Sophists.]

This spirit of skepticism was favored by the tide of worldliness and

prosperity which followed the Persian War. Athens became a great centre

of art, of taste, of elegance, and of wealth. Politics absorbed the

minds of the people. Glory and splendor were followed by corruption of

morals and the pursuit of material pleasures. Philosophy went out of

fashion, since it brought no outward and tangible good. More scientific

studies were pursued--those which could be applied to purposes of

utility and material gains; even, as in our day, geology, chemistry,

mechanics, engineering, having reference to the practical wants of men,

command talent, and lead to certain reward. In Athens, rhetoric,

mathematics, and natural history supplanted rhapsodies and speculations

on God and Providence. Renown and wealth could only be secured by

readiness and felicity of speech, and that was most valued which brought

immediate reward, like eloquence. Men began to practice eloquence as an

_art_, and to employ it in furthering their interests. They made

special pleadings, since it was their object to gain their point, at any

expense of law and justice. Hence they taught that nothing was immutably

right, but only so by convention. They undermined all confidence in

truth and religion by teaching its uncertainty. They denied to men even

the capability of arriving at truth. They practically affirmed the cold

and cynical doctrine that there is nothing better for a man than that he

should eat and drink. _Qui bono_, the cry of the Epicureans, of the

latter Romans, and of most men in a period of great outward prosperity,

was the popular inquiry,--who shall show us any good?--how can we become

rich, strong, honorable?--this was the spirit of that class of public

teachers who arose in Athens when art and eloquence and wealth and

splendor were at their height in the fifth century before Christ, and

when the elegant Pericles was the leader of fashion and of political

power.

[Sidenote: Power and popularity of the Sophists.]

[Sidenote: Influence of the Sophists.]

These men were the Sophists--rhetorical men who taught the children of

the rich; worldly men who sought honor and power; frivolous men,

trifling with philosophical ideas; skeptical men, denying all certainty

to truths; men who, as teachers, added nothing to the realm of science,

but who yet established certain dialectical rules useful to later

philosophers. They were a wealthy, powerful, honored class, not much

esteemed by men of thought, but sought out as very successful teachers

of rhetoric. They were full of logical tricks, and contrived to throw

ridicule upon profound inquiries. They taught also mathematics,

astronomy, philology, and natural history with success. They were

polished men of society, not profound nor religious, but very brilliant

as talkers, and very ready in wit and sophistry. And some of them were

men of great learning and talent, like Democritus, Leucippus, and

Gorgias. They were not pretenders and quacks; they were skeptics who

denied subjective truths, and labored for outward advantage. They were

men of general information, skilled in subtleties, of powerful social

and political connections, and were generally selected as ambassadors on

difficult missions. They taught the art of disputation, and sought

systematic methods of proof. They thus prepared the way for a more

perfect philosophy than that taught by the Ionians, the Pythagoreans, or

the Elentae, since they showed the vagueness of their inquiries,

conjectural rather than scientific. They had no doctrines in common.

They were the barristers of their age, _paid_ to make the "worse

appear the better reason," yet not teachers of immorality any more than

the lawyers of our day,--men of talents, the intellectual leaders of

society. If they did not advance positive truths, they were useful in

the method they created. They taught the art of disputation. They

doubtless quibbled when they had a bad cause to present. They brought

out the truth more forcibly when they defended a good cause. They had no

hostility to truth; they only doubted whether it could be reached in the

realm of psychological inquiries, and sought to apply it to their own

purposes, or rather to distort it in order to gain a case. They are not

a class of men whom I admire, as I do the old sages they ridiculed, but

they were not without their use in the development of philosophy.

[Footnote: Grote has a fine chapter on the Sophists (part ii. ch. 67).]

The Sophists also rendered a service to literature by giving

definiteness to language, and creating style in prose writing.

Protagoras investigated the principles of accurate composition; Prodicus

busied himself with inquiries into the significance of words; Gorgias

proposed a captivating style. He gave symmetry to the structure of

sentences.

[Sidenote: Socrates.]

[Sidenote: The method of Socrates.]

[Sidenote: Ethical inquiries of Socrates.]

The ridicule and skepticism of the Sophists brought out the great powers

of Socrates, to whom philosophy is probably more indebted than to any

man who ever lived, not so much for a perfect system, but for the

impulse he gave to philosophical inquiries, and his successful exposure

of error. He inaugurated a new era. Born in Athens in the year 470 B.C.,

the son of a poor sculptor, he devoted his life to the search for truth,

for its own sake, and sought to base it on immutable foundations. He was

the mortal enemy of the Sophists, whom he encountered, as Pascal did the

Jesuits, with wit, irony, puzzling questions, and remorseless logic.

Like the earlier philosophers, he disdained wealth, ease, and comfort,

but with greater devotion than they, since he lived in a more corrupt

age, when poverty was a disgrace and misfortune a crime, when success

was the standard of merit, and every man was supposed to be the arbiter

of his own fortune, ignoring that Providence who so often refuses the

race to the swift and the battle to the strong. He was what in our time

would be called eccentric. He walked barefooted, meanly clad, and withal

not over cleanly, seeking public places, disputing with every body

willing to talk with him, making every body ridiculous, especially if

one assumed airs of wisdom or knowledge,--an exasperating opponent,

since he wove a web around a man from which he could not be extricated,

and then exposed him to ridicule, in the wittiest city of the world. He

attacked every body, and yet was generally respected, since it was

_errors_ and not the person, _opinions_ rather than vices; and

this he did with bewitching eloquence and irresistible fascination; so

that, though he was poor and barefooted, a Silenus in appearance, with

thick lips, upturned nose, projecting eyes, unwieldy belly, he was

sought by Alcibiades and admired by Aspasia. Even Xantippe, a beautiful

young woman, very much younger than he, a woman fond of the comforts and

pleasures of life, was willing to be his wife, even if she did

afterwards torment him, when the _res angusta domi_ disenchanted

her from the music of his voice and the divinity of his nature. "I have

heard Pericles," said the most dissipated and voluptuous man in Athens,

"and other excellent orators, but was not moved by them; while this

Marsyas--this Satyr--so affects me that the life I lead is hardly worth

living, and I stop my ears, as from the Syrens, and flee as fast as

possible, that I may not sit down and grow old in listening to his

talk." He learned his philosophy from no one, and struck out an entirely

new path. He declared his own ignorance, and sought to convince other

people of theirs. He did not seek to reveal truth so much as to expose

error. And yet it was his object to attain correct ideas as to moral

obligations. He was the first who recognized natural right, and held

that virtue and vice are inseparably united. He proclaimed the

sovereignty of virtue, and the immutability of justice. He sought to

delineate and enforce the practical duties of life. His great object was

the elucidation of morals, and he was the first to teach ethics

systematically, and from the immutable principles of moral obligation.

Moral certitude was the lofty platform from which he surveyed the world,

and upon which, as a rock, he rested in the storms of life. Thus he was

a reformer and a moralist. It was his ethical doctrines which were most

antagonistic to the age, and the least appreciated. He was a profoundly

religious man, recognized Providence, and believed in the immortality of

the soul. From the abyss of doubt, which succeeded the speculations of

the first philosophers, he would plant grounds of certitude--a ladder

on which he would mount to the sublime regions of absolute truth. He did

not presume to inquire into the Divine essence, yet he believed that the

gods were omniscient and omnipresent, that they ruled by the law of

goodness, and that, in spite of their multiplicity, there was unity--a

supreme intelligence that governed the world. Hence he was hated by the

Sophists, who denied the certainty of arriving at the knowledge of God.

From the comparative worthlessness of the body he deduced the

immortality of the soul. With him, the end of life was reason and

intelligence. He proved the existence of God by the order and harmony of

nature, which belief was certain. He endeavored to connect the moral

with the religious consciousness, and then he proclaimed his convictions

for the practical welfare of society. In this light Socrates stands out

the grandest personage of pagan antiquity,--as a moralist, as a teacher

of ethics, as a man who recognized the Divine.

[Sidenote: The mission of Socrates.]

[Sidenote: The great aim of the Socratic method.]

So far as he was concerned in the development of Grecian philosophy

proper, he was probably inferior to some of his disciples. Yet he gave a

turning-point to a new period, when he awakened the _idea_ of

knowledge, and was the founder of the theory of scientific knowledge,

since he separated the legitimate bounds of inquiry, and was thus the

precursor of Bacon and Pascal. He did not attempt to make physics

explain metaphysics, nor metaphysics the phenomena of the natural world.

And he only reasoned from what was assumed to be true and invariable. He

was a great pioneer of philosophy, since he resorted to inductive

methods of proof, and gave general definiteness to ideas. [Footnote:

Arist., _Metaph_., xiii. 4.] He gave a new method, and used great

precision of language. Although he employed induction, it was his aim to

withdraw the mind from the contemplation of nature, and to fix it on its

own phenomena,--to look inward rather than outward, as carried out so

admirably by Plato. The previous philosophers had given their attention

to external nature; he gave up speculations about material phenomena,

and directed his inquiries solely to the nature of knowledge. And, as he

considered knowledge to be identical with virtue, he speculated on

ethical questions mainly, and the method which he taught was that by

which alone man could become better and wiser. To know one's self, in

other words, "that the proper study of mankind is man," he was the first

to proclaim. He did not disdain the subjects which chiefly interested

the Sophists,--astronomy, rhetoric, physics; but he discussed moral

questions, such as, what is piety? what is the just and the unjust? what

is temperance? what is courage? what is the character fit for a

citizen?--and such like ethical points. And he discussed them in a

peculiar manner, in a method peculiarly his own. "Professing ignorance,

he put perhaps this question--What is law? It was familiar and was

answered off-hand. Socrates, having got the answer, then put fresh

questions applicable to specific cases, to which the respondent was

compelled to give an answer inconsistent with the first, thus showing

that the _definition_ was too narrow or too wide, or defective in

some essential condition. [Footnote: Grote, part ii. ch. 68.] The

respondent then amended his answer; but this was a prelude to other

questions, which could only be answered in ways inconsistent with the

amendment; and the respondent, after many attempts to disentangle

himself, was obliged to plead guilty to his inconsistencies, with an

admission that he could make no satisfactory answer to the original

inquiry which had at first appeared so easy." Thus, by this system of

cross-examination, he showed the intimate connection between the

dialectic method, and the logical distribution of particulars into

species and genera. The discussion first turns upon the meaning of some

generic term; the queries bring the answers into collision with various

particulars which it ought not to comprehend, or which it ought to

comprehend, but does not. He broke up the one into many by his

analytical string of questions, which was a novel mode of argument. This

was the method which he invented, and by which he separated _real_

knowledge from the _conceit_ of knowledge, and led to precision in

the use of definitions. It was thus that he exposed the false, without

aiming even to teach the true; for he generally professed ignorance, and

put himself in the attitude of a learner, while he made by his cross-

examinations the man from whom he apparently sought knowledge to be as

ignorant as himself, or, still worse, absolutely ridiculous. Thus he

pulled away all the foundations on which a false science had been

erected, and indicated the way by which alone the true could be

established. Here he was not unlike Bacon, who pointed out the way that

science could be advanced, without founding any school or advocating any

system; but he was unlike Bacon in the object of his inquiries. Bacon

was disgusted with ineffective _logical_ speculations, and Socrates

with ineffective _physical_ researches. [Footnote: Archer Butler,

s. i. 1. vii.] He never suffered a general term to remain undetermined,

but applied it at once to particulars, and by questions the purport of

which was not comprehended. It was not by positive teaching, but by

exciting scientific impulse in the minds of others, or stirring up the

analytical faculties, which constitute his originality. "The Socratic

dialectics, clearing away," says Grote, [Footnote: Grote, part ii. ch.

68; Maurice, _Ancient Philosophy_, p. 119.] "from the mind its mist

of fancied knowledge, and, laying bare the real ignorance, produced an

immediate effect like the touch of the torpedo; the newly created

consciousness of ignorance was humiliating and painful, yet it was

combined with a yearning after truth never before experienced. Such

intellectual quickening, which could never commence until the mind had

been disabused of its original illusion of false knowledge, was

considered by Socrates not merely as the index and precursor, but as the

indisputable condition of future progress." It was the aim of Socrates

to force the seekers after truth into the path of inductive

generalization, whereby alone trustworthy conclusions could be formed.

He thus improved the method of speculative minds, and struck out from

other minds that fire which sets light to original thought and

stimulates analytical inquiry. He was a religious and intellectual

missionary preparing the way for the Platos and Aristotles of the

succeeding age by his severe dialectics. This was his mission, and he

declared it by talking. He did not lecture; he conversed. For more than

thirty years he discoursed on the principles of morality, until he

arrayed against himself enemies who caused him to be put to death, for

his teachings had undermined the popular system which the Sophists

accepted and practiced. He probably might have been acquitted if he had

chosen it, but he did not wish to live after his powers of usefulness

had passed away. He opened to science new matter and a new method, as a

basis for future philosophical systems. He was a "colloquial

dialectician," such as this world has never seen, and may never see

again. He was a skeptic respecting physics, but as far as man and

society are concerned, he thought that every man might and ought to know

what justice, temperance, courage, piety, patriotism, etc., were, and

unless he did know what they were he would not be just, temperate, etc.

He denied that men can know that on which they have bestowed no pains,

or practice what they do not know. "The method of Socrates survives

still in some of the dialogues of Plato, and is a process of eternal

value and universal application. There is no man whose notions have not

been first got together by spontaneous, unartificial associations,

resting upon forgotten particulars, blending together disparities or

inconsistencies, and having in his mind old and familiar phrases and

oracular propositions of which he has never rendered to himself an

account; and there is no man who has not found it a necessary branch of

self-education to break up, analyze, and reconstruct these ancient

mental compounds." [Footnote: Grote has written very ably, and at

unusual length, respecting Socrates and his philosophy. Thirlwall has

also reviewed Hegel and other German authors on Socrates' condemnation.

Ritter has a full chapter of great value. See Donaldson's continuation

of Muller. The original sources of knowledge respecting Socrates are

found chiefly in Plato and Xenophon. Cicero may be consulted in

his _Tusculan Questions_.] The services which he rendered to

philosophy, as enumerated by Tennemann, [Footnote: Tennemann;

Schliermacker, _Essay on the Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher_,

translated by Bishop Thirlwall, and reprinted in Dr. Wigger's _Life of

Socrates_.] "are twofold,--negative and positive: _Negative_,

inasmuch as he avoided all vain discussions; combated mere speculative

reasoning on substantial grounds, and had the wisdom to acknowledge

ignorance when necessary, but without attempting to determine accurately

what is capable, and what is not, of being accurately known.

_Positive_, inasmuch as he examined with great ability the ground

directly submitted to our understanding, and of which man is the

centre."

Socrates cannot be said to have founded a school, like Xenophanes. He

did not bequeath a system of doctrines; he rather attempted to awaken

inquiry, for which his method was admirably adapted. He had his

admirers, who followed in the path which he suggested. Among these were

Aristippus, Antisthenes, Euclid of Megara, Phaedo of Elis, and Plato, all

of whom were disciples of Socrates, and founders of schools. Some only

partially adopted his method, and all differed from each other. Nor can

it be said that all of them advanced science. Aristippus, the founder of

the Cyreniac School, was a sort of Epicurean, teaching that pleasure was

the end of life. Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynics, was both

virtuous and arrogant, placing the supreme good in virtue, but despising

speculative science, and maintaining that no man can refute the opinions

of another. He made it a virtue to be ragged, hungry, and cold, like the

ancient monks; an austere, stern, bitter, reproachful man, who affected

to despise all pleasures, like his own disciple Diogenes, who lived in a

tub, and carried on a war between the mind and body--brutal, scornful,

proud. To men who maintained that science was impossible, philosophy is

not much indebted, although they were disciples of Socrates. Euclid

merely gave a new edition of the Eleatic doctrines, and Phaedo speculated

on the oneness of the good.

[Sidenote: Plato.]

[Sidenote: His education and travels.]

[Sidenote: He adopts the Socratic method.]

It was not till Plato arose that a more complete system of philosophy

was founded. He was born of noble Athenian parents B.C. 429, the year

that Pericles died, and the second year of the Peloponnesian War, and

the most active period of Grecian thought. He had a severe education,

studying poetry, music, rhetoric, and blending these with philosophy. He

was only twenty when he found out Socrates, with whom he remained ten

years, and from whom he was separated only by death. He then went on his

travels, visiting every thing worth seeing in his day, especially in

Egypt. When he returned, he commenced to teach the doctrines of his

master, which he did, like him, gratuitously, in a garden near Athens,

planted with lofty plane-trees, and adorned with temples and statues.

This was called the Academy, and gave a name to his system of

philosophy. And it is this only with which we have to do. It is not the

calm, serious, meditative, isolated man that I would present, but _his

contribution_ to the developments of philosophy on the principles of

his master. And surely no man ever made a richer contribution. He may

not have had the originality or breadth of Socrates, but he was more

profound. He was preeminently a great thinker--a great logician--skilled

in dialectics, and his "Dialogues" are such exercises of dialectical

method that the ancients were divided whether he was a skeptic or a

dogmatist. He adopted the Socratic method, and enlarged it. "Socrates

relied on inductive reasoning, and on definitions, as the two principles

of investigation. Definitions form the basis of all philosophy. To know

a thing, you must know what it is not. Plato added a more efficient

process of analysis and synthesis, of generalization and

classification." [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. of Philos_.]

"Analysis," continues the same author, "as insisted on by Plato, is the

decomposition of the whole into its separate parts--is seeing the

_one_ in many. Definitions were to Plato, what general or abstract

ideas were to later metaphysicians. The individual thing was transitory;

the abstract idea was eternal. Only concerning the latter could

philosophy occupy itself. Socrates, insisting on proper definitions, had

no conception of the classification of those definitions which must

constitute philosophy. Plato, by the introduction of this process,

shifted philosophy from the ground of inquiries into man and society,

which exclusively occupied Socrates, to that of dialectics." Plato was

also distinguished for skill in composition. Dionysius of Halicarnassus

classes him with Herodotus and Demosthenes in the perfection of his

style, which is characterized by great harmony and rhythm, as well as

the variety of elegant figures. [Footnote: See Donaldson's quotations,

_Hist. Lit. of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 257.]

[Sidenote: His doctrines.]

[Sidenote: The end of science is the contemplation of truth.]

Plato made philosophy to consist in the discussion of general terms, or

abstract ideas. General terms were synonymous with real existences, and

these were the only objects of philosophy. These were called

_Ideas_; and ideas are the basis of his system, or rather the

subject matter of dialectics. He was a Realist, that is, he maintained

that every general term, or abstract idea, has a real and independent

existence. Here he probably was indebted to Pythagoras, for Plato was a

master of the whole realm of philosophical speculation; but his

conception of _ideas_ is a great advance on the conception of

_numbers_. He was taught by Socrates that beyond this world of

sense, there was the world of eternal truth, and that there were certain

principles concerning which there could be no dispute. The soul

apprehends the idea of goodness, greatness, etc. It is in the celestial

world that we are to find the realm of ideas. Now God is the supreme

idea. To know God should be the great aim of life. We know him by the

desire which like feels for like. The divinity within feels for the

divinity revealed in beauty, or any other abstract idea. The longing of

the soul for beauty is _Love_. Love then is the bond which unites

the human to the divine. Beauty is not revealed by harmonious outlines

which appeal to the senses, but is _Truth_. It is divinity. Beauty,

truth, love, these are God, the supreme desire of the soul to

comprehend, and by the contemplation of which the mortal soul sustains

itself, and by perpetual meditation becomes participant in immortality.

The communion with God presupposes immortality. The search for the

knowledge of God is the great end of life. Wisdom is the consecration of

the soul to the search; and this is effected by dialectics, for only out

of dialectics can correct knowledge come. But man, immersed in the flux

of sensualities, can never fully attain this high excellence--the

knowledge of God, the object of all rational inquiry. Hence the

imperfection of all human knowledge. The supreme good is attainable; it

is not attained. God is the immutable good, and justice the rule of the

universe. "The vital principle of his philosophy is to show that true

science is the knowledge of the good; is the eternal contemplation or

truth, or ideas; and though man may not be able to apprehend it in its

unity, because he is subject to the restraints of the body, he is,

nevertheless, permitted to recognize it, imperfectly, by calling to mind

the eternal measure of existence, by which he is in his origin

connected." [Footnote: Ritter, _Hist, of Phil_., b. viii. p. 2,

chap. i.] He was unable to find a transition from his world of ideas to

that of sense, and his philosophy, vague and mystical, though severely

logical, diverts the mind from the investigations of actual life--from

that which is the object of experience.

[Sidenote: The object of Plato's inquiries.]

The writings of Plato have come down to us complete, and have been

admired by all ages for their philosophical acuteness, as well as beauty

of language. He was not the first to use the form of dialogue, but he

handled it with greater mastery than any one who preceded him, or has

come after him, and all with a view to bring his hearers to a

consciousness of knowledge or ignorance. He regarded wisdom as the

attribute of the godhead; that philosophy is the necessity of the

intellectual man, and the greatest good to which he can attain. This

wisdom presupposes, however, a communion with the divine. He regarded

the soul as immortal and indestructible. He maintained that neither

happiness nor virtue can consist in the attempt to satisfy our unbridled

desires; that virtue is purely a matter of intelligence; that passions

disturb the moral economy.

[Sidenote: God the immutable good.]

"When we review the doctrines of Plato, it is impossible to deny," says

Hitter, "that they are pervaded with a grand view of life and the

universe. This is the noble thought which inspired him to say, that God

is the constant and immutable good; the world is good in a state of

becoming, and the human soul that in and through which the good in the

world is to be consummated. In his sublimer conception, he shows himself

the worthy disciple of Socrates. His merit lies chiefly in having

advanced certain distinct and precise rules for the Socratic method, and

in insisting, with a perfect consciousness of its importance, upon the

law of science, that to be able to descend from the higher to the lower

ideas by a principle of the reason, and reciprocally from the

multiplicity of the lower to the higher, is indispensable to the perfect

possession of any knowledge. He thus imparted to this method a more

liberal character. While he adopted many of the opinions of his

predecessors, and gave due consideration to the results of the earlier

philosophy, he did not allow himself to be disturbed by the mass of

conflicting theories, but breathed into them the life-giving breath of

unity. He may have erred in his attempts to determine the nature of

good; still he pointed out to all who aspire to a knowledge of the

divine nature, an excellent road by which they may arrive at it."

Plato is very much admired by the Germans, who look upon him as the

incarnation of dialectical power; but it were to be hoped that, some

day, these great metaphysicians may make a clearer exposition of his

doctrines, and of his services to philosophy, than they have as yet

done. To me, Ritter, Brandis, and all the great authorities, are

obscure. But that Plato was one of the greatest lights of the ancient

world, there can be no reasonable doubt. Nor is it probable that, as a

dialectician, he has ever been surpassed; while his purity of life, and

his lofty inquiries, and his belief in God and immortality, make him, in

an ethical point of view, the most worthy of the disciples of Socrates.

He was to the Greeks what Kant was to the Germans, and these two great

thinkers resemble each other in the structure of their minds and their

relations to society.

The ablest part of the lectures of Archer Butler of Dublin, is devoted

to the Platonic philosophy. It is a criticism and an eulogium. No modern

writer has written more enthusiastically of what he considers the

crowning excellence of the Greek philosophy. The dialectics of Plato,

his ideal theory, his physics, his psychology, and his ethics, are most

ably discussed, and in the spirit of a loving and eloquent disciple. He

represents the philosophy which he so much admires as a contemplation

of, and the tendency to, the absolute and eternal good. The good is

enthroned by Plato in majesty supreme at the summit of the whole

universe, and the sensible world is regarded as a development of supreme

perfection in an inferior and transitory form. Nor are ideas

abstractions, as some suppose, but archetypal conceptions of the divine

mind itself--the eternal laws and reasons of things. The sensible world

is regarded as an imperfect image of ideal perfection, yet the

uncertainty of physical researches is candidly admitted. The discovery

of theological and moral truth, is the great object even of the

"_Timoeus_." Hence the physics of Plato have a theological

character--are mathematical rather than experimental. The psychology

represents the body as the prison of the soul, somewhat after the spirit

of oriental theogonists, and the aim of virtue is to preserve the

distinctness of both, and realize liberty in bonds. The doctrine of

preexistence is maintained, as well as a future state. In the ethics,

the perfection of the human soul--the perfection which it may attain--is

distinctly unfolded, and also the unity of the great ideas of the

beautiful, just, and good. The "_Phoedo_" enforces the supremacy

of wisdom, and the "_Philebus_" the "_summum bonum_." _Love_ is

the aspiration after a communion with perfection. The chief

excellence of the philosophy which Plato taught, consists in the

immutable basis assigned to the principles of moral truth; the defects

are a want of distinct apprehension of the claims of divine justice in

consequence of human sin, and an indirect discouragement of active

virtue.

The great disciple of Plato was Aristotle, and he carried on the

philosophical movement which Socrates had started to the highest limit

that it ever reached in the ancient world. He was born at Stagira B.C.

384, of wealthy parents, and early evinced an insatiable thirst for

knowledge. When Plato returned from Sicily he joined his disciples, and

was his pupil for seventeen years, at Athens. On the death of Plato, he

went on his travels, and became the tutor of Alexander the Great, and

B.C. 335, returned to Athens, after an absence of twelve years, and set

up a school, and taught in the Lyceum. He taught while walking up and

down the shady walks which surrounded it, from which he obtained the

name of Peripatetic, which has clung to his name and philosophy. His

school had a great celebrity, and from it proceeded illustrious

philosophers, statesmen, historians, and orators. He taught thirteen

years, during which he composed most of his greater works. He not only

wrote on dialectics and logic, but also on physics in its various

departments. His work on "The History of Animals" was deemed so

important that his royal pupil presented him with eight hundred talents--

an enormous sum--for the collection of materials. He also wrote on

ethics and politics, history and rhetoric; letters, poems, and speeches,

three fourths of which are lost. He was one of the most voluminous

writers of antiquity, and probably the most learned man whose writings

have come down to us. Nor has any one of the ancients exercised upon the

thinking of succeeding ages so great an influence. He was an oracle

until the revival of learning.

[Sidenote: Genius of Aristotle.]

"Aristotle," says Hegel, "penetrated into the whole mass, and into every

department of the universe of things, and subjected to the comprehension

its scattered wealth; and the greater number of the philosophical

sciences owe to him their separation and commencement." [Footnote: Hagel

is said to have comprehended Aristotle better than any modern writer,

and the best work on his philosophy is by him.] He is also the father of

the history of philosophy, since he gives an historical review of the

way in which the subject has been hitherto treated by the earlier

philosophers.

"Plato made the external world the region of the incomplete and bad, of

the contradictory and the false, and recognized absolute truth only in

the eternal immutable ideas. Aristotle laid down the proposition that

the idea, which cannot of itself fashion itself into reality, is

powerless, and has only a potential existence, and that it becomes a

living reality, only by realizing itself in a creative manner by means

of its own energy." [Footnote: Adolph Stahr, Oldenburg.]

[Sidenote: Vast attainments of Aristotle.]

But there can be no doubt as to his marvelous power of systematization.

Collecting together all the results of ancient speculation, he so

elaborated them into a coordinate system, that for two thousand years he

reigned supreme in the schools. In a literary point of view, Plato was

doubtless his superior, but Plato was a poet making philosophy divine

and musical; but Aristotle's investigations spread over a far wider

range. He wrote also on politics, natural history, and ethics, in so

comprehensive and able manner, as to prove his claim to be one of the

greatest intellects of antiquity, the most subtle and the most patient.

He differed from Plato chiefly in relation to the doctrine of ideas,

without however resolving the difficulty which divided them. As he made

matter to be the eternal ground of phenomena, he reduced the notion of

it to a precision it never before enjoyed, and established thereby a

necessary element in human science. But being bound to matter, he did

not soar, as Plato did, into the higher regions of speculation; nor did

he entertain as lofty views of God, or of immortality. Neither did he

have as high an ideal of human life. His definition of the highest good

was a perfect practical activity in a perfect life.

With Aristotle closed the great Socratic movement in the history of

speculation. When Socrates appeared there was the general prevalence of

skepticism, arising from the unsatisfactory speculations respecting

nature. He removed this skepticism by inventing a new method, and by

withdrawing the mind from the contemplation of nature, to the study of

man himself. He bade men to look inward.

[Sidenote: Ethics the great subject of inquiry with Plato.]

Plato accepted his method, but applied it more universally. Like

Socrates, however, ethics were the great subject of his inquiries, to

which physics were only subordinate. The problem he sought to solve was

the way to live like the gods. He would contemplate truth as the great

aim of life.

[Sidenote: Main inquiries of Aristotle had reference to physics and

metaphysics.]

With Aristotle, ethics formed only one branch of his attention. His main

inquiries were in reference to physics and metaphysics. He thus, by

bringing these into the region or inquiry, paved the way for a new epoch

of skepticism. [Footnote: Lewes, Ritter, Hegel, Maurice, Diogenes

Laertius. See fine article in _Encyclopedia Britannica._ Schwegler,

translated by Seelyn.]

It is impossible, within the proper limits of this chapter, to enter

upon an analysis of the philosophy of either the three great lights of

the ancient world, or to enumerate and describe their other writings. I

merely wish to show what are considered to be the vital principles on

which their systems were based, and the general spirit of their

speculations. The student must examine these in the elaborate treatises

of modern philosophers, and in the original works of Plato and

Aristotle.

[Sidenote: Their characteristic inquiries.]

Both Plato and Aristotle taught that reason alone could form science;

but Aristotle differed from his master respecting the theory of ideas.

He did not deny to ideas a _subjective_ existence, but he did deny

that they have an objective existence. And he maintained that the

individual things alone _existed_, and if individuals only exist,

they can only be known by _sensation_. Sensation thus becomes the

basis of knowledge. Plato made reason the basis of knowledge,

but Aristotle made _experience_. Plato directed man to the

contemplation of ideas; Aristotle, to the observations of Nature.

Instead of proceeding synthetically and dialectically like Plato, he

pursues an analytic course. His method is hence inductive--the

derivation of certain principles from a sum of given facts and

phenomena. It would seem that positive science commenced with him, since

he maintained that experience furnishes the principles of every science;

but, while his conception was just, there was not sufficient experience

then accumulated from which to generalize with effect. He did not

sufficiently verify his premises. His reasoning was correct upon the

data given, as in the famous syllogism, "All black birds are crows; this

bird is black; therefore this bird is a crow." The defect of the

syllogism is not in the reasoning, but in the truth of the major

premise, since all black birds are not crows. It is only a most

extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition

which will warrant reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned without

sufficient examination of the major premise of his syllogisms.

[Sidenote: Logic of Aristotle.]

Aristotle was the father of logic, and Hegel and Kant think there has

been no improvement upon it since his day. And this became to him the

real organon of science. "He supposed it was not merely the instrument

of thought, but the instrument of investigation." Hence it was futile

for purposes of discovery, although important to aid the processes of

thought. Induction and syllogism are the two great instruments of his

logic. The one sets out from particulars already known to arrive at a

conclusion; the other sets out from some general principle to arrive at

particulars. The latter more particularly characterized his logic, which

he presented in sixteen forms, showing great ingenuity, and useful as a

dialectical exercise. This syllogistic process of reasoning would be

incontrovertible, if the _general_ were better known than the

_particular_. But it is only by induction, which proceeds from the

world of experience, that we reach the higher world of cognition. We

arrive at no new knowledge by the syllogism, since the major premise is

more evident than the conclusion, and anterior to it. Thus he made

speculation subordinate to logical distinctions, and his system, when

carried out by the schoolmen, led to a spirit of useless quibbling.

Instead of interrogating Nature, as Bacon led the way, they interrogated

their own minds, and no great discoveries were made. From a want of a

proper knowledge of the conditions of scientific inquiry, the method of

Aristotle became fruitless. [Footnote: Maurice, _Anc. Phil_. See

Whewell, _Hist. Ind. Science_.]

Though Aristotle wrote in a methodical manner, yet there is great

parsimony of language. There is no fascination in his style. It is

without ornament, and very condensed. His merit consisted in great

logical precision, and scrupulous exactness in the employment of terms.

[Sidenote: The Skeptics.]

Philosophy, as a great system of dialectics, as an analysis of the power

and faculties of the mind, as a method to pursue inquiries, as an

intellectual system merely, culminated in Aristotle. He completed the

great fabric of which Thales laid the foundation. The subsequent schools

of philosophy directed attention to ethical and practical questions,

rather than to intellectual phenomena. The skeptics, like Pyrrho, had

only negative doctrines, and had a disdain of those inquiries which

sought to penetrate the mysteries of existence. They did not believe

that absolute truth was attainable by man. And they attacked the

prevailing systems with great plausibility. Thus Sextus attacked both

induction and definitions. "If we do not know the thing we define," said

he, "we do not comprehend it because of the definition, but we impose on

it the definition because we know it; and if we are ignorant of the

thing we would define, it is impossible to define it." Thus the skeptics

pointed out the uncertainty of things and the folly of striving to

comprehend them.

The Epicureans despised the investigations of philosophy, since, in

their view, they did not contribute to happiness. The subject of their

inquiries was happiness, not truth. What will promote this, was the

subject of their speculation. Epicurus, born B.C. 342, contended that

pleasure was happiness; that pleasure should not be sought for its own

sake, but with a view of the happiness of life obtained by it. He taught

that it was inseparable from virtue, and that its enjoyments should be

limited. He was averse to costly pleasures, and regarded contentedness

with a little to be a great good. He placed wealth not in great

possessions, but few wants. He sought to widen the domain of pleasure,

and narrow that of pain, and regarded a passionless state of life the

highest. Nor did he dread death, which was deliverance from misery.

Epicurus has been much misunderstood, and his doctrines were

subsequently perverted, especially when the arts of life were brought

into the service of luxury, and a gross materialism was the great

feature of society. Epicurus had much of the practical spirit of a

philosopher, although very little of the earnest cravings of a religious

man. He himself led a virtuous life, because it was wiser and better to

be virtuous, not because it was his duty. His writings were very

voluminous, and in his tranquil garden he led a peaceful life of study

and enjoyment. His followers, and they were numerous, were led into

luxury and effeminacy, as was to be expected from a skeptical and

irreligious philosophy, the great principle of which was that whatever

is pleasant should be the object of existence. [Footnote: the doctrines

of the Epicureans are best set forth in Lucretius.]

The Stoics were a large and celebrated sect of philosophers; but they

added nothing to the domain of thought,--they created no system, they

invented no new method, they were led into no new psychological

inquiries. Their inquiries were chiefly ethical. And if ethics are a

part of the great system of Grecian philosophy, they are well worthy of

attention. Some of the greatest men of antiquity are numbered among

them--like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. The philosophy they taught was

morality, and this was eminently practical and also elevated.

[Sidenote: Zeno.]

The founder of this sect, Zeno, born rich, but reduced to poverty by

misfortune, was a very remarkable man, and a very good one, and

profoundly revered by the Athenians, who intrusted him with the keys of

their citadel. The date of his birth is unknown, but he lived in a

degenerate age, when skepticism and sensuality were eating out the life

and vigor of Grecian society, when Greek civilization was rapidly

passing away, when ancient creeds had lost their majesty, and general

levity and folly overspread the land. Deeply impressed with the

prevailing laxity of morals and the absence of religion, he lifted up

his voice, more as a reformer than as an inquirer after truth, and

taught for more than fifty years in a place called the Porch, which had

once been the resort of the poets. He was chiefly absorbed with ethical

questions, although he studied profoundly the systems of the old

philosophers. He combated Plato's doctrine that virtue consists in

contemplation, and of Epicurus, that it consisted in pleasure. Man, in

his eyes, was made for active duties. He also sought to oppose

skepticism, which was casting the funereal veil of doubt and uncertainty

over every thing pertaining to the soul, and God, and the future life.

"The skeptics had attacked both perception and reason. They had shown

that perception is, after all, based upon appearance, and appearance is

not a certainty; and they showed that reason is unable to distinguish

between appearance and certainty, since it had nothing but phenomena to

build upon, and since there is no criterion to apply to reason itself."

Then they proclaimed philosophy a failure, and without foundation. But

he, taking a stand on common sense, fought for morality, as did Reid and

Beattie, when they combated the skepticism of Hume.

[Sidenote: Doctrines of the Stoics.]

[Sidenote: Influence of the Stoics.]

Philosophy, according to Zeno and other Stoics, was intimately connected

with the duties of practical life. The contemplation, recommended by

Plato and Aristotle, seemed only a covert recommendation of selfish

enjoyment. The wisdom, which it should be the aim of life to attain, is

virtue. And virtue is to live harmoniously with nature. To live

harmoniously with nature is to exclude all personal ends. Hence pleasure

is to be disregarded, and pain is to be despised. And as all moral

action must be in harmony with nature, the law of destiny is supreme,

and all things move according to immutable fate. With the predominant

tendency to the universal which characterized their system, the Stoics

taught that the sage ought to regard himself as a citizen of the world

rather than of any particular city or state. They made four things to be

indispensable to virtue: a knowledge of _good and evil_, which is

the province of the reason; _temperance_, a knowledge of the due

regulation of the sensual passions; _fortitude_, a conviction that

it is good to suffer what is necessary; and _justice_, or

acquaintance with what ought to be to every individual. They made

_perfection_ necessary to virtue, and saw nothing virtuous in the

mere advance to it. Hence the severity of their system. The perfect

sage, according to them, is raised above all influence of external

events; he submits to the law of destiny; he is exempt from desire and

fear, joy or sorrow; he is not governed even by what he is exposed to

necessarily, like sorrow and pain; he is free from the restraints of

passion; he is like a god in his mental placidity. Nor must the sage

live only for himself, but for others; he is a member of the whole body

of mankind; he ought to marry, and to take part in public affairs, but

he will never give way to compassion or forgiveness, and is to attack

error and vice with uncompromising sternness. But with this ideal, the

Stoics were forced to admit that virtue, like true knowledge, although

attainable, is beyond the reach of man. They were discontented with

themselves, and with all around them, and looked upon all institutions

as corrupt. They had a profound contempt of their age, and of human

attainments; but it cannot be denied they practiced a lofty and stern

virtue, and were the best people in their degenerate times. Their God

was made subject to Fate, and he was a material god, synonymous with

Nature. Thus their system was pantheistic. But they maintained the

dignity of reason, and the ideal in nature, the actualization of which

we should strive after, though without the hope of reaching it. "As a

reaction against effeminacy, Stoicism may be applauded; as a doctrine,

it is one-sided, and ends in apathy and egotism." [Footnote: See Cicero,

_De Fin_. and _Tusculan Questions_; Diogenes Laertius on Zeno.

This historian is quite full on this subject, and seems to furnish the

basis for Ritter.]

With the Stoics ended all inquiry among the Greeks of a philosophical

nature worthy of especial mention, until philosophy was revived in the

Christian schools of Alexandria, where faith was united with reason. The

Stoics endeavored to establish the certitude of human knowledge in order

that they might establish the truth of moral principles, and the basis

of their system was common sense, with which they attacked the godless

skepticism of their times, and raised up a barrier, feeble though it

was, to prevailing degeneracy. The struggles of so many great thinkers,

from Thales to Aristotle, all ended in doubt and in despair. It was

discovered that all of them were wrong, but that their error was without

a remedy.

[Sidenote: Bright period of Grecian philosophy.]

The bright and glorious period of Grecian philosophy was from Socrates

to Aristotle. Philosophical inquiries began about the origin of things,

and ended with an elaborate systematization of the forms of thought,

which was the most magnificent triumph that the unaided intellect of man

ever achieved. Socrates founds a school, but does not elaborate a

system. He reveals most precious truths, and stimulates the youth who

listen to his instructions by the doctrine that it is the duty of man to

pursue a knowledge of himself, which is to be sought in that divine

reason which dwells within him and which also rules the world. He

confides in science; he loves truth for its own sake; he loves virtue,

which consists in the knowledge of the good.

[Sidenote: Summary.]

Plato seizes his weapons and is imbued with his spirit. He is full of

hope for science and humanity. With soaring boldness he directs his

inquiries to futurity, dissatisfied with the present, and cherishing a

fond hope of a better existence. He speculates on God and the soul. He

is not much interested in physical phenomena. He does not, like Thales,

strive to find out the beginning of all things, but the highest good, by

which his immortal soul may be refreshed and prepared for the future

life he cannot solve, yet in which he believes. The sensible is an

impenetrable empire, but ideas are certitudes, and upon these he dwells

with rapt and mystical enthusiasm,--a great poetical rhapsodist like

Xenophanes, severe dialectician as he is, believing in truth and beauty

and goodness.

Then Aristotle, following out the method of _his_ teachers,

attempts to exhaust experience, and directs his inquiries into the

outward world of sense and observation, but all with the view of

discovering from phenomena the unconditional truth, in which he, too,

believes. But every thing in this world is fleeting and transitory, and,

therefore, it is not easy to arrive at truth. A cold doubt creeps into

the experimental mind of Aristotle with all his learning and all his

logic.

The Epicureans arise. They place their hopes in sensual enjoyment. They

despair of truth. But the world will not be abandoned to despair. The

Stoics rebuke the impiety which is blended with sensualism, and place

their hopes on virtue. But it is unattainable virtue, while their God is

not a moral governor, but subject to necessity.

Thus did those old giants grope about, for they did not know the God who

was revealed unto Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Isaiah. They solved

nothing, since they did not _know_, even if they speculated on, the

_Great First Cause_. And yet, with all their errors, they were the

greatest benefactors of the ancient world. They gave dignity to

intellectual inquiries, while they set, by their lives, examples of a

pure morality--not the morality of the gospel, but the severest virtue

practiced by the old guides of mankind.

[Sidenote: Philosophy among the Romans.]

The Romans added absolutely nothing to the philosophy of the Greeks. Nor

were they much interested in any speculative inquiries. It was only the

ethical views of the old sages which had attraction or force to them.

They were too material to love pure subjective inquiries. They had

conquered the land; they disdained the empire of the air.

[Sidenote: Followers of the Greeks.]

There were, doubtless, students of the Greek philosophy among the

Romans, perhaps as early as Cato the Censor. But there were only two

persons of note who wrote philosophy, till the time of Cicero,

Aurafanius and Rubinus, and these were Epicureans.

[Sidenote: Cicero.]

Cicero was the first to systematize the philosophy which contributed so

greatly to his intellectual culture. But even he added nothing. He was

only a commentator and expositor. Nor did he seek to found a system or a

school, but merely to influence and instruct men of his own rank. He

regarded those subjects, which had the greatest attraction for the

Grecian schools, to be beyond the power of human cognition, and,

therefore, looked upon the practical as the proper domain of human

inquiry. Yet he held logic in great esteem, as furnishing rules for

methodical investigation. He adopted the doctrine of Socrates as to the

pursuit of moral good. He regarded the duties which grow out of the

relations of human society preferable to the obligations of pursuing

scientific researches. Although a great admirer of Plato and Aristotle,

he regarded patriotic calls of duty as paramount to any study of science

or philosophy, which he thought was involved in doubt. He had a great

contempt for knowledge which could neither lead to the clear

apprehension of certitude, nor to practical applications. He thought it

impossible to arrive at a knowledge of God, or the nature of the soul,

or the origin of the world. And he thus was led to look upon the

sensible and the present as of more importance than inconclusive

inductions, or deductions from a truth not satisfactorily established.

[Sidenote: His eclecticism.]

Cicero was an Eclectic, seizing on what was true and clear in the

ancient systems, and disregarding what was simply a matter of

speculation. This is especially seen in his treatise "De Finibus Bonorum

et Malorum," in which the opinions of all the Grecian schools concerning

the supreme good are expounded and compared. Nor does he hesitate to

declare that happiness consists in the cognition of nature and science,

which is the true source of pleasure both to gods and men. Yet these are

but hopes, in which it does not become us to indulge. It is the actual,

the real, the practical, which preeminently claims attention; in other

words, the knowledge which will but furnish man with a guide and rule of

life. [Footnote: _De Fin._, v. 6.] Indeed, the sum of Philosophy,

to the mind of Cicero, is that she is an instructress and a comforter.

He takes an entirely practical view of the end of philosophy, which is

to improve the mind, and make a man contented and happy. For philosophy

as a science,--a series of inductions and deductions,--he had profound

contempt. He also regards the doctrines of philosophy as involved in

doubt, and even in the consideration of moral questions he is pursued by

the conflict of opinions, although, in this department, he is most at

home. The points he is most anxious to establish are the doctrines of

God and the soul. These are most fully treated in his essay, "De Natura

Deorum," in which he submits the doctrines of the Epicureans and the

Stoics to the objections of the Academy. [Footnote: _De Nat. D._,

iii. 10.] He admits that man is unable to form true conceptions of God,

but acknowledges the necessity of assuming one supreme God as the

creator and ruler of all things, moving all things, remote from all

mortal mixture, and endued with eternal motion in himself. He seems to

believe in a divine providence ordering good to man; in the soul's

immortality, in free-will, in the dignity of human nature, in the

dominion of reason, in the restraint of the passions as necessary to

virtue, in a life of public utility, in an immutable morality, in the

imitation of the divine.

[Sidenote: His ethics.]

The doctrines of Cicero on ethical subjects, are chiefly drawn from the

Stoics and Peripatetics. They are opinions drawn sometimes from one

system and sometimes from another. Thus he agrees with the disciples of

Aristotle, that health, honors, friends, country, are worthy objects of

desire. Then again, he coincides with the Stoics that passions and

emotions of the soul are vices. But he recedes from their severe tone,

which elevated the sage too high above his fellow-men.

[Sidenote: Character of his philosophical writings.]

Thus there is little of original thought in the moral theories of

Cicero, and these are the result of observation rather than of any

philosophical principle. We might enumerate his various opinions, and

show what an enlightened mind he possessed; but this would not be the

development of philosophy. His views, interesting as they are, and

generally wise and lofty, yet do not indicate any progress of the

science; He merely repeats earlier doctrines. These were not without

their utility, since they had great influence on the Latin fathers. They

were esteemed for their general enlightenment. He softened down the

extreme views of the great thinkers before his day, and clearly unfolded

what had become obscured. He is a critic of philosophy; an expositor

whom we can scarcely spare.

If any body advanced philosophy among the Romans, it was Epictetus, and

he even only in the realm of ethics. Qumtius Sextius, in the time of

Augustus, had revived the Pythagorean doctrines. Seneca had recommended

the severe morality of the Stoics, but they added nothing that was not

previously known. The Romans had no talent for philosophy, although they

were acquainted with its various systems. Their greatest light was a

Phrygian slave.

[Sidenote: Epictetus.]

[Sidenote: His lofty ethical system.]

Epictetus taught in the time of Domitian, and though he did not leave

any written treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down by

his disciple Arrian, who had for him the reverence that Plato had for

Socrates. The loftiness of his recorded views makes us feel that he must

have been indebted to Christianity; for no one, before him, has revealed

precepts so much in accordance with its spirit. He was a Stoic, but he

held in the highest estimation Socrates and Plato. It is not for the

solution of metaphysical questions that he was remarkable. He was not a

dialectician, but a moralist, and, as such, takes the highest ground of

all the old inquirers after truth. With him, philosophy, as it was to

Cicero and Seneca, is a wisdom of life. He sets no value on logic, nor

much on physics; but he reveals sentiments of great simplicity and

grandeur. His great idea is the purification of the soul. He believes in

the severest self-denial; he would guard against the syren spells of

pleasure; he would make men feel that, in order to be good, they must

first feel that they are evil; he condemns suicide, although it had been

defended by the Stoics; he would complain of no one, not even of

injustice; he would not injure his enemies; he would pardon all

offenses; he would feel universal compassion, since men sin from

ignorance; he would not easily blame, since we have none to condemn but

ourselves; he would not strive after honor or office, since we put

ourselves in subjection to that we seek or prize; he would constantly

bear in mind that all things are transitory, and that they are not our

own; he would bear evils with patience, even as he would practice self-

denial of pleasure; he would, in short, be calm, free, keep in

subjection his passions, avoid self-indulgence, and practice a broad

charity and benevolence. He felt he owed all to God; that all was his

gift, and that we should thus live in accordance with his will; that we

should be grateful not only for our bodies, but for our souls, and

reason, by which we attain to greatness. And if God has given us such a

priceless gift, we should be contented, and not even seek to alter our

external relations, which are doubtless for the best. We should wish,

indeed, for only what God wills and sends, and we should avoid pride and

haughtiness, as well as discontent, and seek to fulfill our allotted

part. [Footnote: A fine translation of Epictetus has been published by

Little and Brown.]

[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius.]

Such were the moral precepts of Epictetus, in which we see the nearest

approach to Christianity that had been made in the ancient world. And

these sublime truths had a great influence, especially on the mind of

the most lofty and pure of all the Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius, who

_lived_ the principles he had learned from a slave, and whose

"Maxims" are still held in admiration.

[Sidenote: General observations.]

Thus did the speculations about the beginning of things lead to

elaborate systems of thought, and end in practical rules of life, until,

in spirit, they had, with Epictetus, harmonized with many of the

revealed truths which Christ and his Apostles laid down for the

regeneration of the world. Who cannot see in the inquiries of the old

philosopher, whether into nature, or the operations of mind, or the

existence of God, or the immortality of the soul, or the way to

happiness and virtue, a magnificent triumph of human genius, such as has

been exhibited in no other department of human science? We regret that

our limits preclude a more extended view of the various systems which

the old sages propounded--systems full of errors, yet also marked by

important truths, but whether false or true, showing a marvelous reach

of the human understanding. Modern researches have discarded many

opinions which were highly valued in their day, yet philosophy, in its

methods of reasoning, is scarcely advanced since the time of Aristotle;

while the subjects which agitated the Grecian schools, have been from

time to time revived and rediscussed, and are still unsettled. If any

science has gone round in perpetual circles, incapable, apparently, of

progression or rest, it is that glorious field of inquiry which has

tasked more than any other the mightiest intellects of this world, and

which, progressive or not, will never be relinquished without the loss

of what is most valuable in human culture.

* * * * *

For original authorities in reference to the matter of this chapter,

read Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers; the Writings of Plato

and Aristotle; Cicero, De Nat., De Or., De Offic., De Div., De Fin.,

Tusc. Quaest.; Xenophon, Memorabilia; Boethius, De Idea Hist. Phil.;

Lucretius.

The great modern authorities are the Germans, and these are very

numerous. Among the most famous writers on the history of philosophy,

are Bruckner, Hegel, Brandis, I. G. Buhle, Tennemann, Ritter, Plessing,

Schwegler, Hermann, Meiners, Stallbaum, and Speugel. The history of

Ritter is well translated, and is always learned and suggestive.

Tennemann, translated by Morell, is a good manual, brief, but clear. In

connection with the writings of the Germans, the great work of Cousin

should be consulted.

The English historians of ancient philosophy are not so numerous as the

Germans. The work of Enfield is based on Bruckner, or is rather an

abridgment. Archer Butler's Lectures are suggestive and able, but

discursive and vague, as is the History of Ancient Philosophy by

Maurice. Grote has written learnedly on Socrates and the other great

lights. Lewes' Biographical History of Philosophy has the merit of

clearness, and is very interesting, but rather superficial. Henry has

written a good epitome. See also Stanley's History of Philosophy, and

the articles in Smith's Dictionary, on the leading ancient philosophers.

Donaldson's continuation of Muller's History of the Lit. of Greece, is

learned, and should be consulted with Thompson's Notes on Archer Butler.

There are also fine articles in the Encyclopedias Britannica and

Metropolitana. Schleirmacher, on Socrates, translated by Bishop

Thirlwall.