modern idea, has only been permitted to manifest itself in combination
with different forms of the old scholasticism. The whole speculative
movement of our century is made up of such hybrid systems; and three,
in particular, still divide the suffrages of many thinking men who
have not been able entirely to shake off the influence of reactionary
ideas. These are the systems of Hegel, of Comte, and of Mr. Herbert
Spencer. In each, the logic and metaphysics inherited from Greek
thought are variously compounded with the new science. And each, for
that very reason, serves to facilitate the transition from one to the
other; a part analogous to that played among the Greeks themselves by
the vast constructions of Plato and Aristotle, or, in an age of less
productivity, by the Stoic and Alexandrian philosophies.
The influence of Aristotle has, indeed, continued to make itself
felt not only through the teaching of his modern imitators, but more
directly as a living tradition in literature, or through the renewed
study of his writings at first hand. Even in the pure sciences, it
survived until a comparatively recent period, and, so far as the French
intellect goes, it is not yet entirely extinct. From Abélard on, Paris
was the headquarters of that soberer scholasticism which took its cue
from the Peripatetic logic; and the resulting direction of thought,
deeply impressed as it became on the French character and the French
language, was interrupted rather than permanently altered by the
Cartesian revolution, and, with the fall of Cartesianism, gradually
recovered its old predominance. The Aristotelian philosophy is
remarkable above all others for clear definitions, full descriptions,
comprehensive classifications, lucid reasoning, encyclopaedic science,
and disinterested love of knowledge; along with a certain incapacity
for ethical speculation,[576] strong conservative leanings, and
a general tendency towards the rigid demarcation rather than the
fruitful commingling of ideas. And it will probably be admitted that
these are also traits characteristic of French thinking as opposed
to English or German thinking. For instance, widely different as is
the _Mécanique Céleste_ from the astronomy of Aristotle’s treatise
_On the Heavens_, both agree in being attempts to prove the eternal
stability of the celestial system.[577] The destructive deluges by
which Aristotle supposes civilisation to be periodically interrupted,
reappear on a larger scale in the theory of catastrophes still held by
French geologists. Another Aristotelian dogma, the fixity of organic
species, though vigorously assailed by eminent French naturalists, has,
on the whole, triumphed over the opposite doctrine of transformism in
France, and now impedes the acceptance of Darwin’s teaching even in
circles where theological prepossessions are extinct. The accepted
classifications in botany and zoology are the work of Frenchmen
following in the footsteps of Aristotle, whose genius for methodical
arrangement was signally exemplified in at least one of these
departments; the division of animals into vertebrate and invertebrate
being originally due to him. Bichat’s distinction between the animal
and the vegetable functions recalls Aristotle’s distinction between
the sensitive and nutritive souls; while his method of studying the
tissues before the organs is prefigured in the treatise on the _Parts
of Animals_. For a long time, the ruling of Aristotle’s _Poetics_
was undisputed in French criticism; and if anything could disentitle
Montesquieu’s _Esprit des Lois_ to the proud motto, _Prolem sine matre
creatam_, it would be its close relationship to the _Politics_ of the
same universal master. Finally, if it be granted that the enthusiasm
for knowledge, irrespective of its utilitarian applications, exists
to a greater degree among the educated classes of France than in any
other modern society, we may plausibly attribute this honourable
characteristic to the fostering influence of one who has proclaimed
more eloquently than any other philosopher that theoretical activity is
the highest good of human life, the ideal of all Nature, and the sole
beatitude of God.
It remains to add a few words on the position which ancient and modern
philosophy respectively occupy towards theology. Here their relation is
one of contrast rather than of resemblance. The Greek thinkers start at
an immense distance from religious belief, and their first allusions
to it are marked by a scornful denial of its validity. Gradually, with
the transition from physical to ethical enquiries, an approximation
between the two is brought about, though not without occasional returns
to their former attitude of hostility. Finally, in presence of a common
danger they become interwoven and almost identified with one another;
while the new religion against which they make common cause, itself
presents the same spectacle of metaphysical and moral ideas entering
into combination with the spontaneous products of popular mythology.
And be it observed that throughout the whole of this process action
and reaction were equal and contrary. The decline and corruption of
philosophy was the price paid for the elevation and purification
of religion. While the one was constantly sinking, the other was
constantly rising, until they converged on the plane of dogmatic
theology. By the very circumstances of the case, an opposite course has
been imposed on the development of modern philosophy. Starting from
an intimate union with religion, it slowly disengages itself from the
compromising alliance; and, although, here also, the normal course of
ideas has been interrupted by frequent reactions, the general movement
of European thought has been no less decidedly towards a complete
emancipation from the popular beliefs than the movement of Greek
thought had been towards their conciliation and support.
_Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Vol. I., pp. 78-83.
[2] Aristotle, _Metaph._, VIII., iii., 1043, b, 25.
[3] Zeller, _Phil. d. Gr._, II., a, 277.
[4] Diog. L., VI., 3.
[5] According to the very probable conjecture of Zeller, _l. c._
[6] Zeller, _l. c._; Diog. L., VI., 12.
[7] Diog., VI., 3.
[8] For the authorities, see Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 263.
[9] Diog., IX., 62.
[10] _Metaph._, IV., iv., 1008, b, 12 ff.
[11] _Diss._, III., xxii.
[12] Diog., VIII., i. ff.
[13] Diog., VI., 96.
[14] Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, 29.
[15] Diog., VII., 5.
[16] Diog., VII., 183.
[17] _Ibid._, 179.
[18] _Ibid._, 25.
[19] _Ibid._, 180 L.
[20] Plutarch, _De Stoic. Repug._, iii., 2.
[21] It is significant that the only Stoic who fell back on pure
Cynicism should have been Aristo of Chios, a genuine Greek, while
the only one who, like Aristotle, identified good with knowledge was
Herillus, a Carthaginian.
[22] _Op. cit._, p. 18, cf. p. 362.
[23] Diog., VII., 144 ff.
[24] Posidonius estimated the sun’s distance from the earth at
500,000,000 stades, and the moon’s distance at 2,000,000 stades, which,
counting the stade at 200 yards, gives about 57,000,000 and 227,000
miles respectively. The sun’s diameter he reckoned, according to one
account, at 440,000 miles, about half the real amount; according to
another account at a quarter less. Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 190, Note 2.
[25] For the authorities, see Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 139, Note 1.
[26] Zeller, p. 155.
[27] The Stoic necessarianism gave occasion to a repartee which has
remained classical ever since, although its original authorship is
known to few. A slave of Zeno’s, on receiving chastisement for a theft,
tried to excuse himself by quoting his master’s principle that he was
fated to steal. ‘And to be flogged for it,’ replied the philosopher,
calmly continuing his predestined task. (Diog., VII., 23.)
[28] _Soph._, 247, D.
[29] Plutarch, _De Comm. Notit._, xxx., 2; Cicero, _Acad._, I., xi.,
39; Diog., VII., 150; Zeller, p. 117.
[30] Plutarch, _De Stoic. Repug._, xliii., 4.
[31] Zeller, p. 201, ff.
[32] Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._, II., xv., 39.
[33] Sextus Empiricus, _Adv. Math._, IX., 18.
[34] Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._, I., xiii., 32.
[35] Zeller, p. 309 ff.
[36] See Cicero, _De Divinatione_, I., _passim_.
[37] Plutarch, _De Placit. Phil._, IV., xi.
[38] This seems the best explanation of the various statements on the
subject made by our authorities, for which see Zeller, pp. 71-86.
[39] Sextus Emp., _Adv. Math._, VIII., 375.
[40] Zeller, p. 109.
[41] Zeller, p. 93.
[42] Stobaeus, _Eclog._, II., p. 132, quoted by Ritter and Preller, p.
394; Diog., VII., 89.
[43] ‘Quid est sapientia? Semper idem velle atque idem nolle. Licet
illam exceptiunculam non adicias ut rectum sit quod velis. Non potest
cuiquam semper idem placere nisi rectum.’ Seneca, _Epist._, xx., 4.
[44] Cicero, _De Fin._, I., ix., 30. In this he followed the Cyrenaics;
see Diog., II., 87.
[45] Sextus Emp., _Adv. Math._, XI., 73.
[46] ‘Das platonische Gedicht vom himmlischen Gottesstaat hatte durch
diestoische Auffassung der Welt als eines vom Göttlichen durchdrungenen
und beseelten Körpers einen Leib bekommen, in dessen zwingenden
Organismus der Einzelne als Glied beschlossen ist und sich fügen muss.’
Bruno Bauer, _Christus u. d. Cäsaren_, p. 328.
[47] Zeller, p. 168, Note 2.
[48] Diog., VII., vii., 85.
[49] Gellius, _Noct. Att._, XII., v., 7, quoted by Ritter and Preller,
p. 395.
[50] _Dissert._, I., xix., II.
[51] _Ibid._, xxii., 9, ff.
[52] Cicero, _Tusc. Disput._, IV., xix. ff.
[53] Cic., _Tusc. Disput._, IV., vi.
[54] Zeller, p. 229.
[55] See the _Dissertations_ of Epictêtus throughout.
[56] Plutarch, _De Communibus Notitiis_, cap. xxxiii., p. 1076 B.
[57] Cf. Zeller, p. 583.
[58] Zeller, pp. 260-1.
[59] _Ibid._, pp. 267-8.
[60] _Ibid._, p. 270.
[61] Cicero, _De Fin._, III., xvii., 58; _Acad._, I., x., 37; _De
Off._, I., iii., 8.
[62] _De Off._, I., vi.
[63] I., viii.
[64] I., xviii-xxiii.
[65] _Pyrrh. Hyp._, III., 201.
[66] Cic., _De Off._, III., xxiii., 91.
[67] Cic., _De Off._, III., xii., 51.
[68] _Ibid._, xxiii., 89.
[69] Plutarch, _De Comm. Notit._, xi., 8.
[70] Cf. Zeller, pp. 263-4, 278-84.
[71] Diog., VII., 130; Cic., _De Fin._, III., xviii., 60; Zeller, pp.
305-9.
[72] Diog., VII., 31, 176.
[73] Plutarch, _De Stoic. Repug._, xviii., 5.
[74] ‘Omnia scelera, etiam ante effectum operis, quantum culpae satis
est, perfecta sunt.’—Seneca, _De Const. Sap._, vii., 4. Cf. Zeno _apud_
Sext. Emp., _Adv. Math._, XI., 190.
[75] ‘Prope est a te Deus, tecum est, intus est ... sacer intra
nos spiritus sedet bonorum malorumque nostrorum observator et
custos.’—Seneca, _Epp._, xli., 1. Cf. Horace, _Epp._, I., i., 61;
Lucan, IX., 573; Persius, III., 43; Juvenal, XIII., 192-235.
[76] It may be desirable to give some reasons in support of this
opinion, as the contrary has been stated by scholars writing within a
comparatively recent period. Thus Welcker says: ‘Das Gewissen ward bei
den Griechen als ein göttliches Wesen, Erinys, gescheut und wie wir es
sonst nicht finden, zur Gottheit erhoben’ (_Griechische Götterlehre_,
I., 233); and again (p. 699) ‘Ἐρινύς ... ist das Gewissen.’ Similarly,
M. Alfred Maury observes that, ‘les remords se personnifiaient sous
la forme de déesses Erinnyies, chargées de punir tous les forfaits’
(_Histoire des Religions de la Grèce Antique_, I., 342). And Preller,
while entertaining sounder views respecting their origin, contents
himself with the caution that, ‘Man sich hüten muss die Furien blos
fur die subjectiven Mächte des menschlichen Gewissen zu halten’
(_Griechische Mythologie_, I., 686, 3rd ed.). Now, in the first place,
the Erinyes did not punish all crime, as they ought to have done had
they represented conscience. According to Aeschylus (_Eumen._, 604-5),
they considered that the murder of her husband by Clytaemnestra was no
affair of theirs, there being no blood relationship between the parties
concerned. They did not persecute Electra, who, short of striking the
fatal blow, had as much hand in her mother’s death as Orestes. And
even when a father was killed by his son, they do not always seem
to have taken up the matter; for in the _Odyssey_ it is not by the
Erinyes of Laius, but by those of Epicastê that Oedipus is pursued—a
conception very unlike that of Sophocles, who makes him feel as much
remorse for the parricide as for the incest and its consequences. In
the next place, the Erinyes are let loose not by the action itself but
by the curses of the injured or offended blood-relation, as we see
by Homer, _Il._, IX., 454 and 566; which seems to show that if they
personified anything human it was the imprecations of the victim, not
the self-reproach of the aggressor. Thirdly, the Orestes of Aeschylus,
so far from feeling conscience-smitten, disclaims all responsibility
for his mother’s death, inflicted as it was in consequence of a
direct command from the higher gods, accompanied by threats of heavy
punishment in case of disobedience. (_Eumen._, 443 ff.). And, finally,
the office assigned to the Erinyes of seeing that the laws of nature
are not broken (vol. I., 67) shows that the Greeks conceived their
existence as something altogether objective and physical. [There
is a short but very sensible account of the Erinyes in Keightley’s
_Mythology_, p. 175, 4th ed.]
[77] Cicero, _De Off._, I., xxxi.; Epictêtus, _Man._, 17, _b._, 30;
_Diss._, I., ii., 33; xvi., 20; xxix., 39; II., v., 10; _ib._, 21; x.,
4, xiv., 8; xxiii., 38; xxv., 22; Antoninus, _Comm._, VI., 39, 43; IX.,
29; cf. Seneca, _Epp._, lxxxv., 34, and the saying of Marcus Aurelius
quoted by Dion Cassius (_Epit._, LXXI., xxxiv., 4), that we cannot make
men what we wish them to be; we can only turn what faculties they have
to the best account in working for the public good.
[78] For the references to these and other similar passages, see the
last note.
[79] Plutarch, _De Alex. Virt._, I., vi.; Diog., VII., 33.
[80] It need hardly be observed that here also the morality of natural
law has attained its highest artistic development under the hand of
George Eliot—sometimes even to the neglect of purely artistic effect,
as in _Daniel Deronda_ and the _Spanish Gypsy_.
[81] Zeller, p. 297, followed by Mr. Capes, in his excellent little
work on Stoicism (p. 51).
[82] Seneca, _De Irâ_, I., v., 2 ff.; II., xxxi., 7; _De Clem._, I.,
iii., 2; De _Benef._, IV., xxvi., I, _Epp._, xcv., 51 ff.; Epictêtus,
_Diss._, IV., v., 10; Antoninus, VII., 13; together with the additional
references given by Zeller, p. 286 ff. It is to be observed that the
mutual love attributed to human beings by the Stoic philosophers
stands, not for an empirical characteristic, but for an unrealised
idea of human nature. The actual feelings of men towards one another
are described by Seneca in language recalling that of Schopenhauer and
Leopardi. ‘Erras,’ he exclaims, ‘si istorum tibi qui occurrunt vultibus
credis: hominum effigies habent, animos ferarum: nisi quod illarum
perniciosior est primus incursus. Nunquam enim illas ad nocendum nisi
necessitas inicit: aut fame aut timore coguntur ad pugnam: homini
perdere hominem libet.’—_Epp._, ciii., 2.
[83] Plato, _Protagoras_, 337, D.
[84] ‘He [Charles Austin] presented the Benthamic doctrines in the
most startling form of which they were susceptible, exaggerating
everything in them which tended to consequences offensive to any one’s
preconceived feelings.’—Mill’s _Autobiography_, p. 78.
[85] Zeller, p. 281.
[86] ‘Homo sacra res homini jam per lusum et jocum occiditur ...
satisque spectaculi ex homine mors est.’—Seneca, _Epp._, xcv., 33.
‘Servi sunt? Immo homines. Servi sunt? Immo contubernales. Servi sunt?
Immo humiles amici. Servi sunt? Immo conservi.’—_Ibid._, xlvii., 1.
Compare the treatise _De Irâ_, _passim_.
[87] Seneca once lets falls the words, ‘fortuna aequo jure genitos
alium alii donavit.’—_Consol. ad Marciam_, xx, 2; but this is the only
expression of the kind that we have been able to discover in a Stoic
writer of the empire.
[88] Seneca, _Epp._, lxxx.
[89] ‘L’empereur avait pour principe de maintenir les anciennes maximes
romaines dans leur intégrité.’ (Renan’s _Marc-Aurèle_, p. 54.) The
authority given by M. Renan is Dion Cass., LXXI., xxxiv.; where,
however, there is nothing of the kind stated. Capitolinus says (_Anton.
Phil._, cap. xi.): ‘Jus autem magis vetus restituit quam novum fecit.’
[90] Renan, p. 30; Capitolinus, _Anton. Phil._, xii.; Dion Cass.,
_Epit._, LXXI., xxix., 3.
[91] Antoninus, _Comm._, VI., 46; X., 8.
[92] The expressions used by M. Ernest Renan when treating of
this subject are somewhat conflicting. In reference to the penal
enactments against Christianity under Marcus Aurelius, he first
states that, however objectionable they may have been, ‘en tout cas
dans l’application la mansuétude du bon empereur fut à l’abri de tout
reproche’ (_Marc-Aurèle_, p. 58.) Further on, however we are told that
when the martyrs of Lyons appealed to Rome, ‘la réponse impériale
arriva en fin. Elle était dure et cruelle.’ (p. 329.) And subsequently
M. Renan makes the Emperor personally responsible for the atrocities
practised on that occasion by observing, ‘Si Marc-Aurèle, au lieu
d’employer les lions et la chaise rougie,’ &c. (p. 345.) But perhaps
such inconsistencies are to be expected in a writer who has elevated
the necessity of perpetual self-contradiction into a principle.
[93] Epictêtus, _Diss._, III., xxiv.
[94] Seneca, _De Irâ_, I., xiv., 2; _De Clement._, I., vi., 2.
[95] Diog., VII., 91. Ziegler (_Gesch. d. Ethik_, Bonn, 1882, I.,
174) holds, in opposition to Zeller, that originally every Stoic, as
such, was assumed to be a perfect sage, and that the question was only
whether the ideal had ever been realised outside the school. This,
however, goes against the evidence of Plutarch, who tells as (_De
Stoic. Repug._, xxxi., 5) that Chrysippus neither professed to be good
himself nor supposed that any of his friends or teachers or disciples
was good.
[96] Seneca, _Epp._, cxvi., 4. It must be borne in mind that Panaetius
was speaking at a time when the object of passion would at best be
either another man’s wife or a member of the _demi-monde_.
[97] _Comm._, VII., 26; XII., 16.
[98] See especially Antoninus, _Comm._, IX., 1.
[99] Friedländer, _Römische Sittengeschichte_, I., 463; Duruy,
_Histoire des Romains_, V., 349 ff., 370; cf. Gaston Boissier, _La
Religion Romaine_, II., 152 ff., 212 ff.
[100] This idea is most distinctly expressed by Marcus Aurelius, II.,
1, and VII., 13.
[101] For the authorities, see Zeller, p. 176.
[102] See especially Seneca, _Epp._, lxiv., and the whole treatise _De
Providentiâ_.
[103] See, _inter alia_, _Comm._, IV., 3; VI., 15, 37; VII., 21, 49;
XI., 1; XII., 7, 21, 23, 24, 26, 31, 32.
[104] _Comm._, XI., 28, xii. 14. A modern disciple of Aurelius has
expressed himself to the same purpose in slightly different language:—
‘Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn’st all simpler fare!
“Christ,” some one says, “was human as we are.
No judge eyes us from heaven our sin to scan;
We live no more, when we have done our span.”
“Well, then, for Christ,” thou answerest, “who can care?
From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we, like brutes, our life without a plan!”
So answerest thou; but why not rather say:
“Hath man no second life?—_Pitch this one high!_
Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?
_More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!_
Was Christ a man like us?—_Ah! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!_”’
—_The Better Part_, by Mr. Matthew Arnold.
The italics are in the original.
[105] _First Principles_, § 177.
[106] See an article entitled ‘Pantheism and Cosmic Emotion,’ by
Frederic Harrison, in the _Nineteenth Century_ for August, 1881.
[107] From the Hymn of Cleanthes, translated by Mr. Francis Newman in
_The Soul_, p. 73, fifth edition.
[108] _Epicureanism_, p. 1.
[109] _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, p. 380.
[110] _Op. cit._, p. 72.
[111] _Short Studies_, III., p. 246.
[112] _Gesch. des Mater._, I., p. 92.
[113] Pollock’s _Spinoza_, p. 64.
[114] _Epicuro e l’Epicurismo_, Florence, 1877, p. 29.
[115] _Lucretii Philosophia cum fontibus comparata_, Groningen, 1877,
p. 137.
[116] _Dialogues Philosophiques_, p. 54, quoted by Woltjer, _loc. cit._
[117] Diog. L., X., 142.
[118] _Ibid._, 113.
[119] Diog. L., X., 134.
[120] Cicero, _Acad._, II., xxxiii., 106.
[121] Cicero, _De Fin._, II., xxx., 96; _Diog._, X., 22. Cicero
translates the words διαλογισμῶν μνήμῃ, ‘memoria rationum inventorumque
nostrorum.’ They may refer merely to the pleasure derived from
intellectual conversation.
[122] The authorities for the life of Epicurus are given by Zeller,
_op. cit._, p. 363 ff.
[123] Diog., II., 92.
[124] Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, II., a, 294.
[125] Cf. Plato, _Protag._, 353, C, ff., with Epicurus in the letter to
Menoeceus, quoted by Diog., X., 129.
[126] _Morale d’Épicure_, p. 20.
[127] Wallace’s _Épicureanism_, p. 154; Guyau, _Morale d’Épicure_, p.
34.
[128] Cicero, _Tusc. Disput._, III., xviii., 41; Zeller, III., a, p.
444.
[129] Zeller, p. 460.
[130] _Ibid._, p. 581.
[131] Diog., II., 72.
[132] Diog., X., 131.
[133] Guyau, _Morale d’Épicure_, p. 55.
[134] Diog., X., 118.
[135] Lucret., IV., 1057-66.
[136] Diog., X., 117, 118.
[137] Cicero, _De Fin._, V., xxvii., 80; Diog., X., 118.
[138] That is, if we assume what Aristotle says on the subject to be
derived from common usage (_Eth. Nic._, III., ix., p. 1115, a, 33).
[139] Cicero, _Tusc. Disp._, II., xii., 28.
[140] Cicero, _De Fin._, I., xv.; _Tusc._, V., xxviii.
[141] Diog., X., 150 ff.
[142] Wallace, p. 162; Diog., X., 150.
[143] _Epicureanism_, pp. 162-3.
[144] Cicero, _De Fin._, II., vii., 20; _De Nat. Deor._, I., xvii., 45,
xxx., 85.
[145] Diog., X., 150-1.
[146] V., 1145-59.
[147] Cicero, _De Fin._, II., xvii., 57.
[148] _Op. cit._, p. 163.
[149] The lamented Prof. T. H. Green may be mentioned as another
example of a high-minded thinker who was also an ardent and active
politician. With regard to antiquity, see the splendid roll of
public-spirited philosophers enumerated by Plutarch, _Adv. Col._,
xxxii.
[150] _Op. cit._, p. 164.
[151] J. S. Mill observed, in a conversation with Mr. John Morley,
reported by the latter, that ‘in his youth mere negation of religion
was a firm bond of union, social and otherwise, between men who agreed
in nothing else.’—_Fortnightly Review_, vol. XIII., p. 675.
[152] Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._, L., 18-24.
[153] Woltjer, _Lucret. Ph._, p. 74.
[154] ‘Das Staatsgesetz oder das dem Gesetz gleichkommende väterliche
Herkommen bildet einen Gegensatz gegen ein abgeschlossenes Priesterthum
und dessen natürlichen Einfluss.’ Welcker, _Gr. Götterlehre_, II.,
p. 45. ‘La religion romaine, comme toutes celles où domine l’esprit
laïque, diminue le rôle du prêtre.’ Gaston Boissier, _La Religion
Romaine_, I., p. 16.
[155] This reminds one of the ‘pèlerinages,’ which figure along with
‘pigeon-shooting’ among the attractions offered by French country
hotels to idle visitors.
[156] _Republic_, II., 364, C, ff; Jowett’s transl., III., 234-5.
Elsewhere Plato proposes that these ‘bestial persons’ who persuade
others that the gods can be induced by magical incantations to pardon
crime, should be punished by imprisonment for life (_Legg_, X., 909, A,
f.).
[157] Villemain, _Life of Gregory VII._, Engl, transl., I., p. 305. As
a further illustration of the same subject, it may be mentioned that
there is a cemetery near Innsbruck (and probably many more like it
throughout the Tyrol) freely adorned with rude representations of souls
in purgatory, stretching out their hands for help from amid the flames.
The help is of course to be obtained by purchase from the priesthood.
[158] Lucret., I., 108-12.
[159] _Agamemnon_, 369 (Dindorf).
[160] Zeller, pp. 428-9.
[161] Prof. Sellar observes, as we think, with perfect truth,
that ‘there is no necessary connexion between the atomic theory
of philosophy and that view of the ends and objects of life which
Lucretius derived from Epicurus.’—_Roman Poets of the Republic_, p.
348, 2nd ed.
[162] Lucret., I., 1020 ff.; V., 835 ff; IV., 780 ff.; V., 1023; V.,
1307 ff.
[163] That Democritus attributed weight to his atoms has been proved,
in opposition to Lewes and others, by Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, I., p. 713
(3rd ed.)
[164] Woltjer, _Lucr. Phil._, p. 38.
[165] Arist., _Phys._, IV., viii., 216, a, 20.
[166] II., 257 ff.
[167] Lucret., IV., 875 ff.
[168] Lucret., V., 437 ff.
[169] Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, pp. 397-8. Reichel’s transl., pp.
412-3 (1st ed.)
[170] Woltjer (_Lucret. Ph._, p. 126) charges Lucretius with having
misunderstood his master on this point. As the sun and moon appear
larger when near the horizon than at other times, Epicurus thought
that we then see them either as they really are or a little larger.
This, Lucretius, according to Woltjer, took to mean that their general
apparent size may be a little over or under their real size.
[171] Zeller, p. 413.
[172] See, for instance, Woltjer, _op. cit._, p. 88.
[173] Zeller, p. 443, note 3.
[174] Zeller, pp. 417-8.
[175] Diog., X., 125.
[176] III., 922.
[177] Cicero, _De Fin._, I., ix., 30.
[178] ‘Aeque enim timent ne apud inferos sint, quam ne
nusquam.’—Seneca, _Epp._, lxxxii., 16.
[179] Cf. Plutarch, _Non posse suaviter vivi_, cap. xxvii.
[180] Among other feelings consequent on the first experience of death
among the posterity of Cain, the following are specified:—
‘It seemed the light was never loved before,
Now each man said, “‘Twill go and come no more.”
No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,
No form, no shadow but new dearness took
From the one thought that life must have an end;
And the last parting now began to send
Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss,
Thrilling them into finer tenderness.‘
[181] III., 59 ff.
[182] _Ethic._, Pars. IV., Prop. vii.
[183] _Ethic. Nic._, III., xii., 1117, b, 10 ff. Sir Alexander Grant,
in his note on the passage, appositely compares the character of
Wordsworth’s Happy Warrior, who is ‘More brave for this that he has
much to love.’
[184] For the authorities, see Zeller, p. 388.
[185] Lucret., IV., 354, 728, 761.
[186] Such at least seems to be the theory rather obscurely set forth
in Diog., X., 32.
[187] Diog., X., 33, Sextus Emp., _Adv. Math._, VII., 211-16; Zeller,
p. 391.
[188] For additional authorities see Zeller, pp. 385-95, and Wallace’s
_Epicureanism_, chap. x.
[189] See Woltjer, _Lucr. Ph._, p. 141 ff.
[190] _Morale d’Épicure_, p. 157.
[191] In a fragment quoted by Sextus Empiricus, _Adv. Math._, IX., 54.
[192] _Fragmenta Tragicorum_, Didot, p. 140.
[193] Zeller, p. 416, note 1.
[194] See the whole concluding portion of Lucr., bk. V.
[195] Chiefly by Ritter, _Gesch. d. Phil._, IV., p. 94, on which see
the clear and convincing reply of Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 47.
[196] For details we must refer to the masterly treatise of Dr.
Woltjer, already cited more than once in the course of this chapter.
[197] Cf. II., 18, with II., 172.
[198] The single exception to this rule that can be quoted is, we
believe, the argument against impassioned love derived from its
enslaving influence (_quod alterius sub nutu degitur aetas_, V., 1116).
But to live under another’s nod is a condition eminently unfavourable
to the mental tranquillity which an Epicurean prized before all things;
nor, in any case, does it seem to have counted for so much with
Lucretius as the ‘damnation of expenses’ which was no less formidable a
deterrent to him than to the ‘unco guid’ of Burns’s satire.
[199] V., 1153-4.
[200] V., 1125.
[201] Ziegler (_Gesch. a. Ethik_, I., p. 203) quotes Lucret., III.,
136, to prove that the poet recognised the existence of mental
pleasures as such. But Lucretius only says that the mind has pleasures
not derived from an immediate external stimulus. This would apply
perfectly to the imagination of sensual pleasure.
[202] Woltjer, _op. cit._, p. 5.
[203] IV., 966.
[204] Woltjer, _op. cit._, pp. 178 ff.
[205] There is an unquestionable coincidence between Lucretius, II., 69
ff. and Plato, _Legg._, 776 B, pointed out by Teichmüller, _Geschichte
der Begriffe_, p. 177. Both may have drawn from some older source.
[206] We think, however, that Prof. Sellar attributes more importance
to this element in the Lucretian philosophy than it will bear. His
words are: ‘The doctrine proclaimed by Lucretius was, that creation
was no result of a capricious or benevolent exercise of power, but of
certain processes extending through infinite time, by means of which
the atoms have at length been able to combine and work together in
accordance with their ultimate conditions. The conception of these
ultimate conditions and of their relations to one another involves
some more vital agency than that of blind chance or an iron fatalism.
The foedera Naturai are opposed to the foedera fati. The idea of law
in Nature as understood by Lucretius is not merely that of invariable
sequence or concomitance of phenomena. It implies at least the further
idea of a “secreta facultas” in the original elements.‘ (_Roman Poets
of the Republic_, p. 335, 2nd ed.) The expression _secreta facultas_
occurs, we believe, only once in the whole poem (I., 174), and is used
on that single occasion without any reference to the atoms, which do
not appear until a later stage of the exposition. Lucretius is proving
that whatever begins to exist must have a cause, and in support of
this principle he appeals to the fixed laws which govern the growth
of plants. Each plant springs from a particular kind of seed, and so,
he argues, each seed must have a distinct or specific virtue of its
own, which virtue he expresses by the words _secreta facultas_. But,
according to his subsequent teaching, this specific virtue depends on a
particular combination of the atoms, not on any spontaneous power which
they possess of grouping themselves together so as to form organic
compounds. With regard to the properties of the atoms themselves,
Lucretius enumerates them clearly enough. They are extension, figure,
resistance, and motion; the last mentioned being divided into downward
gravitation, lateral deflection, and the momenta produced by mutual
impact. Here we have nothing more than the two elements of ‘iron
fatalism’ and ‘blind chance’ which Prof. Sellar regards as insufficient
to account for the Lucretian scheme of creation; gravitation and
mutual impact give the one, lateral deflection gives the other. Any
faculty over and above these could only be conceived under the form of
conscious impulse, or of mutual attractions and repulsions exercised by
the atoms on one another. The first hypothesis is expressly rejected
by the poet, who tells us (I., 1020) that the primordial elements are
destitute of consciousness, and have fallen into their present places
through the agency of purely mechanical causes. The second hypothesis
is nowhere alluded to in the most distant manner, it is contrary to
the whole spirit of Epicurean physics, it never occurred to a single
thinker of antiquity, and to have conceived it at that time would
have needed more than the genius of a Newton. As a last escape it may
be urged that Lucretius believed in ‘a sort of a something’ which,
like the fourth element in the soul, he was not prepared to define.
But besides the utter want of evidence for such a supposition, what
necessity would there have been for the infinite chances which he
postulates in order to explain how the actual system of things came
to be evolved, had the elements been originally endowed with the
disposition to fall into such a system rather than into any other? For
Prof. Sellar’s vital agency must mean this disposition if it means
anything at all.
While on this subject we must also express our surprise to find
Prof. Sellar saying of Lucretius that ‘in no ancient writer’ is ‘the
certainty and universality of law more emphatically and unmistakably
expressed’ (p. 334). This would, we think, be much truer of the Stoics,
who recognised in its absolute universality that law of causation
on which all other laws depend, but which Lucretius expressly tells
us (II., 255) is broken through by the _clinamen_. A more accurate
statement of the case, we think, would be to say that the Epicurean
poet believed unreservedly in uniformities of co-existence, but not, to
the same extent, in uniformities of sequence; while apart from these
two classes neither he nor modern science knows of any laws at all.
[207] V., 695-73, 730-49.
[208] Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._, I., xxiv., 66.
[209] _Comm._, IX., 28.
[210] Coleridge’s _Friend_, Section II., Essay II., _sub in._
[211] ‘In the higher ranks of French society there are men who merit
to be called professors of the art of happiness; who have analysed
its ingredients with careful fingers and scrutinising eyes; who
have consummated their experience of means and ends; who, like able
doctors, can apply an immediate remedy to the daily difficulties of
home-life; whose practice is worthy of their theory, and who prove it
by maintaining in their wives’ hearts and in their own a perennial
never-weakening sentiment of gratitude and love.‘ (_French Home Life_,
p. 324.) Although Mr. Marshall’s observations are directly applicable
to the happiness of married life only, they tend to prove that all
happiness may be reduced to an art.
[212] Wallace’s _Epicureanism_, p. 37.
[213] Cicero, _De Rep._, III., vi.-xx.
[214] Plutarch, _Cato Major_, xxii. ff.
[215] Pindar, _Pyth._, III., 96.
[216] Vol. I., p. 46.
[217] It is said that the same ironical attitude continues to
characterise the Greeks of our time. Col. Leake (quoted by Welcker,
_Gr. Götterl._, II., p. 127) informs us that travellers in Greece
are continually entertained with local fables which are everywhere
repeated, but believed by nobody, least of all by the inhabitants
of the district where they first originated. And Welcker adds, from
his own experience, that the young Greeks who act as guides in the
religious houses related the miraculous legends of the place with an
enthusiasm and an eloquence which left him in doubt whether or not they
themselves believed what they expected him to believe.
[218] _Il._, II., 80; XII., 238; XVI., 859; _Od._, I., 215; XI., 363;
XXIII., 166; _Agamem._, 477 ff.
[219] Sextus Empiricus, _Adv. Math._, VII., 89 ff; Zeller, _Ph. d.
Gr._, I., pp. 464, 652, 743, 828. (3rd ed.)
[220] For the theses of Gorgias see Sextus Empiricus, _Adv. Math._,
VII., 65 ff.
[221] Sext. Emp., _Adv. Math._, VII., 170 ff.
[222] Xen., _Mem._, IV., iii., 14.
[223] _Timaeus_, 37, B, 43, D ff.
[224] Examples of these questions are: ‘Have you lost your horns?’ and,
‘Did Electra know that Orestes was her brother?’ Stated in words, she
knew that he was; but she did not recognise him as her brother when he
came to her in disguise.
[225] Plutarch, _Adv. Col._, xxii.-xxiii.; Seneca, _Epp._, ix.
[226] Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, 481; Diog. L., IX., xi.
[227] Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 484; Ritter and Preller, _Hist. Ph._, p.
336.
[228] ὡς χαλεπὸν εἴη ὁλοσχερῶς ἐκδῦναι ἄνθρωπον. For this and the other
stories, see Diog. L., IX., 66-8.
[229] _Pyrrh. Hyp._, I., 28 ff.
[230] Diog. L., VII., 171.
[231] Cicero, _Acad._, II., xxiv., 77; Sext. Emp., _Adv. Math._, VII.,
150-7; Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, pp. 492 ff.
[232] Plutarch, _De Comm. Notit._, i., 4; Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 81
(where, however, the reference to Plutarch is wrongly given).
[233] Εἰ μὴ γὰρ ἦν Χρύσιππος οὐκ ἂν ἦν ἐγώ. (Diog. L., IV., 62.) The
original line ran, εἰ μὴ γὰρ ἦν Χρύσιππος οὐκ ἂν ἦν στοά.
[234] Sext. Emp., _Adv. Math._, VII., 159-65.
[235] That Carneades was the first to start this difficulty cannot be
directly proved, but is conjectured with great probability by Zeller
(_op. cit._, p. 504).
[236] Sext. _Pyrrh. Hyp._, II., 186. _Adv. Math._, VIII., 463.
[237] _Pyrrh. Hyp._, II., 195, 204.
[238] Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._, I., xxiii., 62; III., iv., 11; xvi., 42;
xxi., 53.
[239] Sext., _Adv. Math._, IX., 182-3.
[240] Cic., _De Nat. Deor._, III., xviii., 47.
[241] Cic., _Acad._, II., xxxviii., 120; Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 506.
[242] Cic., _Acad._, _ibid._, 121; Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 507.
[243] Cic., _De Nat. Deor._, III., x., 24.
[244] _ibid._, III., xi., 27.
[245] _ibid._, ix., 21.
[246] _ibid._, III., xii., 29; I., xxxix., 109.
[247] Sext. _Adv. Math._, IX., 139-47.
[248] _ibid._, 152-77.
[249] Cic., _De Nat. Deor._, III., vi.; _De Divin._, II., _passim_; _De
Nat. Deor._, III., xxvi. ff.
[250] _Le Christianisme et ses Origines_, II., p. 3.
[251] Sext., _Pyrrh. Hyp._, III., 2.
[252] Sext., _Adv. Math._, VII., 166-89.
[253] Cic., _De Fin._, III., xii., 41; Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 519.
[254] According to Zeller’s interpretation of Cicero, _Acad._, II.,
xi., 34.
[255] Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 602.
[256] _ibid._, p. 603.
[257] For the authorities see Zeller, _op. cit._, pp. 599-601.
[258] Zeller, _op. cit._, pp. 603-8.
[259] Zeller, _op. cit._, pp. 554, 561 ff.
[260] Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 575.
[261] Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 621.
[262] Cic., _Acad._, II., xlv.
[263] The treatises entitled _De Stoicorum Repugnantiâ_ and _De
Communibus Notiliis_.
[264] Lucret., IV., 1154-64; Juven., VI., 186-95.
[265] Varro observes that for 170 years the ancient Romans worshipped
their gods without images; ‘quod si adhuc,’ inquit, ‘mansisset castius
Dii observarentur.’ And in the same passage, speaking of mythology, he
says, ‘hoc omnia Diis attribuuntur quae non modo in hominem, sed etiam
in contemtissimum hominem cadere possunt.’ Augustin., _De Civit. Dei_,
IV., iii., and xxxi., quoted by Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 674.
[266] Ritter and Preller, _Hist. Phil._, p. 426; Woltjer, _Lucretii
Philosophia_, p. 5.
[267] The services of Posidonius seem to have been overlooked by M.
Gaston Boissier when he implies in his work on Roman Religion (vol.
ii., p. 13) that Fabianus, a Roman declaimer under Augustus, was the
first to give an eloquent expression to Stoicism.
[268] Zeller, _op. cit._, pp. 597-8.
[269] _Acad._, II., xxii., 69.
[270] _ibid._, xxxi., 99.
[271] _De Fin._, V., xxi., 59.
[272] _Acad._, II., xxxix.
[273] For the literary studies of Socrates, see Xenoph., _Mem._, I.,
vi., 14; those of Cicero are too manifest to need any special reference.
[274] See the passages quoted by Zeller, _op. cit._, pp. 659-60.
[275] _Acad._, I., x.
[276] _De Fin._, IV., viii.
[277] _De Off._, III., iii., 11.
[278] The passage occurs near the beginning of his Essay on Bacon.
[279] See the _Somnium Scipionis, De Repub._, VI., xvii.
[280] _ibid._, xxvi.
[281] _De Divin._, II., lxxii., 148; Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 667.
[282] l. 724 ff.
[283] l. 5-7, and 34-36.
[284] I., 231-51.
[285] The very passage (_Georg._, II., 475-92) which is supposed
to refer to Lucretius contains a line (_frigidus obstiterit circum
praecordia sanguis_) embodying the Stoic theory that the soul has its
seat in the heart, and is nourished by a warm exhalation from the
blood. See Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, p. 197.
[286] Zeller does indeed call Seneca and Marcus Aurelius ‘Platonising
Stoics’ (_Ph. d. Gr._, III., b, p. 236, 3rd. ed.); but the evidence
adduced hardly seems to justify the epithet.
[287] _Metamorph._, XV., 60.
[288] Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, p. 681.
[289] _Epp._, I., i., 18.
[290] M. Gaston Boissier (_Religion Romaine_, I., p. 206), on the
strength of a passage in one of Horace’s _Satires_ (II., iii., 11),
where the poet speaks of carrying Plato about with him on his travels,
infers that the study of the _Dialogues_ had a good deal to do with his
conversion. It is, however, more than probable that the Plato mentioned
is not the philosopher, but the comic poet, for we find that his
companions in Horace’s trunk were Menander, Eupolis, and Archilochus.
[291] Zeller is inclined to place Aenesidêmus a hundred years earlier
than the date here assigned to him (_Ph. d. Gr._, III., b, p. 9);
but two pieces of evidence which he himself quotes seem to militate
strongly against this view. One is a statement of Aristocles the
Peripatetic, who flourished 160-190 A.D., that Scepticism had been
revived not long before his time (ἐχθὲς καὶ πρώην; _apud_ Euseb.,
_Pr. Ev._, XIV., xviii., 22; Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 9); the other is
Seneca’s question, _Quis est qui tradat praecepta Pyrrhonis?_ (_Nat.
Quaest._, VII., xxxii. 2; Zeller, p. 11). On the other hand, Epictêtus,
lecturing towards the end of the first century, alludes to Scepticism
as something then living and active. The natural inference is that
Aenesidêmus flourished before his time and after Seneca, that is about
the period mentioned in the text; and we cannot make out that there are
any satisfactory data pointing to a different conclusion.
[292] Zeller, III., b, p. 18.
[293] Zeller, III., a, pp. 495 and 514; Cic., _Acad._, I., xii., 45;
_ibid._, II., ix., 28.
[294] With all deference to so great a scholar as Zeller, it seems
to us that he has misinterpreted a passage in which Sextus Empiricus
observes that a particular argument of his own against the possibility
of reaching truth either by sense or by reason, is virtually (δυνάμει)
contained in the difficulties raised by Aenesidêmus (_Adv. Math._,
VIII., 40). Zeller (_op. cit._, III., b, p. 20, note 5) translates
δυνάμει, ‘dem Sinne nach,’ ‘in substance,’ a meaning which it will
hardly bear. What Sextus says is that the untrustworthiness of reason
follows on the untrustworthiness of sense, for the notions supplied
by the latter must either be common to all the senses—which is
impossible, owing to their specialised character—or limited to some,
and therefore equally liable with them to dispute and contradiction.
Moreover, he argues, rational notions (τά νοητά) cannot all be true,
as they conflict both with each other and with sensation. And the
reference to Aenesidêmus means simply that this kind of argument
amounts to a further extension of his attack on the credibility of the
senses; it does not imply that Aenesidêmus had ever attacked reason
himself. The whole passage is quite in the usual style of exhaustive
alternation followed by Sextus, and its extreme awkwardness seems to
show that he is forcing his arguments into parallelism with those of
his predecessor. It is possible also that the different members of the
argument have been transposed; for the part connecting reason with
sense (44) ought logically to stand last, and that relating to the
discrepancy of different notions with one another (45-7), second. Cf.
_Adv. Math._, VII., 350, where Aenesidêmus is said to have identified
the understanding with the senses, quite in the style of Protagoras and
quite unlike the New Academy.
[295] Sext. Emp., _Pyrrh. Hyp._, I., 180 ff.
[296] _Adv. Math._, IX., 228.
[297] The ten Tropes were evidently suggested by the ten Categories
of Aristotle. The five grounded on differences of disposition, place,
quantity, relation, and habits, show at once by their names that they
are derived from κεῖσθαι, ποῦ, ποσόν, πρός τι, and ἔχειν. The Trope
of comparative frequency would be suggested by πότε; the disturbing
influence of bodies on one another combines ποιεῖν and πάσχειν;
the conflict of the special senses belongs, although somewhat more
remotely, to ποιόν; and, in order to make up the number ten, οὐσία,
which answers to the percipient in general, had to be divided into the
two Tropes taken respectively from the differences among animals and
among men,—an arrangement that would occur all the more readily as
οὐσία included the two notions of Genus and Species, of which the one
answers, in this instance, to animals, and the other to men.
[298] Zeller, III., b, p. 23.
[299] Zeller, _op. cit._ pp. 29-37.
[300] Sext. Emp., _Pyrrh. Hyp._, I., 164 and 178; Zeller, _op. cit._,
pp. 37 and 38.
[301] _Adv. Math._, V., 1.
[302] _ibid._, IX., 208.
[303] These are the four principles enumerated by Sextus, _Pyrrh.
Hyp._, I., 24.
[304] Diog. L., X., 9.
[305] The materials and, to a certain extent, the ideas of this
chapter are chiefly derived from Zeller’s _Philosophie der Griechen_,
Vol. III., Duruy’s _Histoire des Romains_, Vol. V., Gaston Boissier’s
_Religion Romaine_, and above all from Friedländer’s _Darstellungen aus
der Sittengeschichte Rom’s_, Part III., chapters iv. and vi.
[306] Friedländer, _Römische Sittengeschichte_, III., pp, 483, 681.
[307] As a striking instance of the solidarity which now connects all
forms of irrationalism, it may be mentioned that Livy’s fables are
accepted, in avowed defiance of modern criticism, by the clericalising
English students of archaeology in Rome.
[308] Using the word in its modern rather than in its ancient sense, so
as to include the whole empire outside the city of Rome.
[309] _Epp._, II., i., 20 ff.
[310] _Carm._, I., xi., and III., xxiii.
[311] _Carm._, III., vi., and the _Carmen Seculare_.
[312] Boissier, _Religion Romaine_, I., p. 336.
[313] Friedländer, III., p. 510.
[314] See the note on _Honestiores_ and _Humiliores_ appended to the
fifth volume of Duruy’s _Histoire des Romains_.
[315] Lucian, _Adversus Indoctum_.
[316] Juvenal, _Satt._, XVI., 14.
[317] Persius, _Satt._, III., 77.; cf. V., 189.
[318] Matth., viii., 9; Luke, vii., 8.
[319] Thucydides, II., iv. The other women alluded to are, the wife
of Admêtus, who tells Themistocles how he is to proceed in order to
conciliate her husband (I., cxxxvi.); Stratonice, the sister whom
Perdiccas gives in marriage to Seuthes (II., ci.); and Brauro, the
Edonian queen who murders her husband Pittacus (IV., cvii.). The wife
and daughter of Hippias the Peisistratid and the sister of Harmodius
are mentioned in bk. VI., lv. ff, but they take us back to an
earlier period of Greek history than that of which Thucydides treats
consecutively; while the names of Helen and Procne, which also occur,
belong, of course, to a much remoter past (I., ix., and II., xxix.)
[320] It has even been maintained that the condition of the Roman
matron was superior to that of the modern Frenchwoman. (Duruy,
_Histoire des Romains_, V., p. 41.)
[321] Boissier, _Religion Romaine_, II. p. 200.
[322] Boissier, _op. cit._, II., pp. 214 ff.
[323] Friedländer, _Romische Sittengeschichte_, I., pp. 441 ff.
[324] Lucian, _De Mercede Conductis_, xxvi.; Friedländer, I., p. 447.
[325] Epict., _Fragm._, 53 Dübner.
[326] Juvenal, V., and Lucian, _De Mercede Conductis_.
[327] Friedländer, III., p. 502.
[328] Friedländer, _ibid._
[329] Boissier, _op. cit._, I., p. 362.
[330] Havet, _Le Christianisme et ses Origines_, II., p. 150.
[331] Hor., _Satt._, I., ix., 67-72.
[332] _Ibid._, I., iv., 142.
[333] _Opera_, ed. Tauchnitz, V., p. 209.
[334] Philo, _Vita Mos._ p. 136, M.; Joseph., _Contr. Ap._, II.,
xxxix.; Friedländer, III., p. 583.
[335] Ovid., _Ars Am._, I., 415; _Rem. Am._, 219; Pers., V., 179; Juv.,
XIV., 97; Friedländer, _loc. cit._
[336] Havet, II., p. 328.
[337] Friedländer, I., p. 451.
[338] _Ars Am._, I., 76.
[339] Friedländer, III., pp. 518, 539 ff, 553 ff.
[340] Xenophon, _Mem._, I., i., 9.
[341] Friedländer, III., p. 523.
[342] _ibid._, pp. 524 ff.
[343] Friedländer, III., pp. 527 ff.
[344] Plutarch, _De Defect. Oracul._, cap. xlv., p. 434.
[345] Lucian, _Alexander_, 25, 47.
[346] According to Friedländer (III., p. 531), this happened between
167 and 169.
[347] Friedländer, p. 532.
[348] Friedländer, III., p. 533.
[349] _Ibid._, p. 534.
[350] For details see Friedländer, _loc. cit._
[351] Friedländer, pp. 535 ff. This form of superstition still
flourishes in great force among at least the lower class of Italians
at the present day; and the continual stimulation afforded to it by
the public lottery is not the least mischievous consequence of that
infamous institution.
[352] Aelian, _Fragm._, 98; Friedländer, p. 494.
[353] Friedländer, _loc. cit._
[354] Friedländer, p. 549.
[355] For the whole subject of Aristeides see Friedländer, pp. 496 ff.
[356] ‘Et parum sane fuit quod illi honores divinos, omnis aetas,
omnis sexus, omnis condicio ac dignitas dedit, nisi quod etiam
sacrilegus judicatus est qui ejus imaginem in suo domo non habuit qui
per fortunam vel potuit habere vel debuit. Denique hodieque in multis
domibus M. Aurelii statuae consistunt inter deos penates. Nec defuerunt
homines qui somniis eum multa praedixisse augurantes futura et vera
concinnerunt.’—_Vita M. Antonini Phil._, cap. xviii.
[357] Friedländer, p. 513.
[358] Friedländer, III., p. 683. Cp. Clifford’s epitaph: ‘I was nothing
and was conceived; I loved and did a little work; I am nothing and
grieve not.’
[359] _Comm._, IV., 21; XII., 5, 26.
[360] Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, p. 798.
[361] Quoted by Friedländer, pp. 681 f.
[362] _Ibid._, p. 688.
[363] _Ibid._
[364] Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 828.
[365] See in particular, _Satt._, II, 149.
[366] Friedländer, I., p. 465 f.
[367] Duruy, _Hist. d. Rom._, V., p. 463.
[368] III., p. 692.
[369] Friedländer, III., p. 701.
[370] A mesure que le temps s’avance les traits par lesquels se
produit la croyance à une autre vie, d’abord vagues et confus, loin de
s’effacer, se prononcent et se précisent. On se fait de la destinée des
âmes des idées de plus en plus hautes; on rend aux morts des honneurs
de plus en plus grands. En outre, ces idées, ces pratiques s’étendent
de plus en plus au grand nombre. Au commencement il semble qu’on ne
s’inquiète que du sort des rois et des héros, enfants ou descendants
directs des dieux; avec le temps beaucoup d’autres ont part aux mêmes
préoccupations, puis tous ou presque tous. La félicité est réservée
a qui ressemble aux dieux; c’est une maxime antique qui subsiste
immuable. Avec le temps on se fait de la ressemblance avec les dieux
ou, ce qui revient au même, de la perfection, des idées qui permettent
à tous d’y prétendre.’ Ravaisson, _Le Monument de Myrrhine et les
bas-reliefs funéraires_, 1876, quoted by Duruy, _op. cit._, p. 463.
[371] See Vol. I., p. 68.
[372] For references see Friedländer, III., pp. 706 ff.
[373] _Epod._, xvii., 79.
[374] Friedländer, pp. 710 f.
[375] Sen., _Epp._, xvi., 5; xcv., 52; xli., 1 and 2.
[376] Perhaps, however, Zeller’s contention amounts to no more than
that Seneca follows Posidonius in his adoption of the Platonic
distinction between reason and passion, which were identified by the
older Stoics. But the object of the latter was apparently to save the
personality of man, which seemed to be threatened by Plato’s tripartite
division of mind; and as Seneca achieves the same result by including
the passions in the ἡγεμονικὸν[377] the difference between them and
him is after all little more than verbal. For the general attitude of
Seneca towards religion see Gaston Boissier, _Religion Romaine_, II.,
pp. 63-92.
[377] _Epp._, xcii., 1., (Zeller, by mistake refers to _Epp._, xciv.,
in _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, p. 711.)
[378] As ψυχάριον, σωμάτιον, σαρκίδιον.
[379] Epict., _Fragm._, 175; _Diss._, I., xvi., 1-8; II., xvi., 42;
III., xxii., 2; xxiv., 91-94. Zeller, III., a, p. 742.
[380] Zeller, p. 745.
[381] Friedländer, III., p. 493.
[382] _Comm._, VI., 30.
[383] _Oratt._, VI., p. 203.
[384] _Diss._, II., xxxvi.
[385] _Ph. d. Gr._, III., b, pp. 88 ff.
[386] Seneca, _Epp._, lxiv., 2; cviii., 17.
[387] Seneca, _De Irâ_, III., xxxvi., 1.
[388] Seneca, _Epp._, cviii., 22.
[389] For a detailed account of the Neo-Pythagorean school, see Zeller,
_op. cit._, III., b, pp. 79-158, from which the above summary is
entirely derived.
[390] _De Defect. Orac._, xvii., p. 419.
[391] _Diss._, I., xv., 2.
[392] Plutarch, _De Is. et Osir._, xxv. and xxvi; _De Fac. in Orbe
Lun._, xxx.
[393] _Op. et D._, 120.
[394] _Diss._, I., xv., 7.
[395] Zeller, III., b, pp. 189 ff.
[396] _De Superstit._, viii., p. 169.
[397] _Metamorph._, XI., xxv.
[398] Zeller, III., b, pp. 257 ff.
[399] For references, see Ritter and Preller, _Hist. Phil._, pp. 467-73.
[400] For references, see Zeller, III., b, pp. 148 f.
[401] Suidas, quoted by Ritter and Preller, p. 485.
[402] Vacherot, _Histoire de l’Ecole d’Alexandrie_, pp. 214-17; Zeller,
III., b, pp. 387 ff. The original authority is Irenaeus.
[403] _Politicus_, p. 270 ff.
[404] _Legg._, X., pp. 896, D ff, 898, C, 904, A.
[405] _De Isid. et Osir._, xlv. f.; _De Vir. Moral._, iii.; _De Anim.
Procr._, v., 5. Plutarch supposes that the irrational soul in man is
derived from the evil world-soul which he regards rather as senseless
than as Satanic. It would thus very closely resemble the delirious
Demiurgus of Valentinus and the ‘absolut Dumme’ of Eduard v. Hartmann.
[406] _Diss._, III., xxiii.
[407] Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., a, pp. 807 ff.
[408] Porph., _Vita Plot._, cap. iii.
[409] _Ibid._, cap. vii.
[410] _Ibid._, cap. xiii.
[411] Not, as is commonly stated, on the model of Plato’s Republic,
which would have been a far more difficult enterprise, and one little
in accordance with the practical good sense shown on other occasions by
Plotinus.
[412] Porph., _Vita_, cap. xii.; Hegel, _Gesch. d. Ph._, III., p. 34.
[413] Porph., _Vita_, cap. ix.
[414] _Ibid._, xi. Leopardi has taken the incident referred to as
the subject of one of his dialogues; Plotinus, the great champion of
optimism, being chosen, with bitter irony, to represent the Italian
poet’s own pessimistic views of life. The difficulty was to show how
the Neo-Platonist philosopher could, consistently with the principles
thus fathered on him, still continue to dissuade his pupil from
committing suicide. Leopardi voluntarily faces the _argumentum ad
hominem_ by which common sense has in all ages summarily disposed of
pessimism: ‘Then why don’t you kill yourself?’ (‘Your philosophy or
your life,’ so to speak.) The answer is singularly lame. Porphyry is to
think of the distress which his death would cause to his friends. He
might have replied that if the general misery were so great as Plotinus
had maintained, a little more or less affliction would not make any
appreciable difference; that, considering the profound selfishness of
mankind, an accepted article of faith with pessimism, his friends would
in all probability easily resign themselves to his loss; that, at any
rate, the suffering inflicted on them would be a mere trifle compared
to what he would himself be getting rid of; and that, if the worst came
to the worst, they had but to follow his example and ease themselves
of all their troubles at a single stroke. A sincere pessimist would
probably say: ‘I do not kill myself because I am afraid: and my very
fear of death is a conclusive argument in favour of my creed. Nothing
proves the deep-rooted necessity of pain more strongly than that we
should refuse to profit by so obvious a means of escaping from it as
that offered by suicide.’ Of course where pessimism is associated with
a belief in metempsychosis, as among the Buddhists, there is the best
of reasons for not seeking a violent death, namely, that it would in
all probability transfer the suicide to another and inferior grade of
existence; whereas, by using the opportunities of self-mortification
which this world offers, he might succeed in extinguishing the vital
principle for good and all. And Schopenhauer does, in fact, adopt
the belief in metempsychosis just so far as is necessary to exclude
the desirability of suicide from his philosophy. But the truth is,
that while Asiatic pessimism is the logical consequence of a false
metaphysical system, the analogous systems of European pessimists are
simply an excuse for not pushing their disgust with life to its only
rational issue.
[415] Porph., _Vita_, cap. xviii.
[416] Porphyry says six, but there must be a mistake somewhere, as
Plotinus was fifty-nine when their friendship began, and died in his
sixty-sixth year; while Porphyry’s departure for Sicily took place two
years before that event, leaving, at most, five years during which
their personal intercourse can have lasted, if the other dates are to
be trusted.
[417] _Enn._, III., ii. and iii.
[418] _Plotini Opera_ recognovit Adolphus Kirchhoff, Lipsiae, 1856,
in Teubner’s series of Greek and Latin authors. H. F. Müller, the
latest editor of Plotinus, has returned to the original arrangement
by Enneads. His edition is accompanied by a very useful German
translation, only half of which, however, has as yet appeared. (Berlin,
1878.)
[419] Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., b, p. 472. (Third edition.)
[420] Porph., _Vita_, iv. ff., xxiv. ff.
[421] _Ibid._, cap. x.
[422] _Ibid._
[423] _Ibid._, cap. xxii.
[424] _Ibid._, capp. i. and ii.
[425] Zeller, _op. cit._, pp. 451 ff.
[426] Porph., _Vita_, cap. xx.
[427] A single example will make our meaning clear. Plotinus is trying
to prove that there can be no Form without Matter. He first argues
that if the notes of a concept can be separated from one another, this
proves the presence of Matter, since divisibility is an affection
belonging only to it. He then goes on to say, εἰ δὲ πολλὰ ὂν ἀμέριστόν
ἐστι, τὰ πολλὰ ἐν ἑνὶ ὂντα ἐν ὕλῃ ἐστὶ τῷ ἑνὶ αὐτὰ μορφαὶ αῦτου ὂντα.
(_Enn._, II., iv., 4; Kirchhoff, I., p. 113, I. 7.) The meaning is,
that if the notes are inseparable, the unity in which they inhere is
related to them as Matter to Form.
[428] See the index to Kirchhoff’s edition.
[429] For references see Kirchner, _Die Philosophie des Plotin_, p.
185; Steinhart, _Meletemata Plotiniana_, pp. 9-23; Zeller, _Ph. d.
Gr._, III., b, pp. 430 f.
[430] Steinhart, _op. cit._, pp. 30 ff.; Kirchner, _op. cit._, pp. 186
ff.
[431] Porph., _Vita_, cap. xv.
[432] _Enn._, I., vi.
[433] _Meno_, 86, A. Compare Vol. I., p. 212.
[434] _Theaetêtus_, 176, A. _Phaedo_, 67, B ff.
[435] _Op. cit._, p. 427.
[436] _Enn._, IV., vii.
[437] _Enn._, III., i., 3.
[438] _Enn._, III., i.
[439] Ἀλλὰ γὰρ δεῖ καὶ ἕκαστον εἶναι καὶ πράξεις ἡμετέρας καὶ
διανοίας ὑπάρχειν. III., i., 4, Kirchh., I., p. 38, l. 22. So utterly
incapable is M. Vacherot of placing himself at this point of view,
that he actually reads into the words quoted an argument in favour of
free-will based on the testimony of consciousness. His version runs
as follows:—‘Nous savons et nous croyons fermement par le sentiment
de ce qui se passe en nous que les individus (les âmes) vivent,
agissent, pensent, d’une vie, d’une action, d’une pensée qui leur est
propre.’—_Histoire Critique de l’École d’Alexandrie_, I., p. 514. So
far as our knowledge goes, such an appeal to consciousness is not to be
found in any ancient writer.
[440] See _Legg._, 861, A ff. for an attempt to prove that men may
properly be punished for actions committed through ignorance of their
real good. This passage is one of the grounds used by Teichmüller, in
his _Literarische Fehden_, to establish the rather paradoxical thesis
that Aristotle published his _Ethics_ before Plato’s death.
[441] III., i., 10.
[442] Cap. 4, _sub fin._
[443] Capp. 6 and 7. Cp. _Enn._, II., iii.; Zeller, _op. cit._, pp. 567
ff; Kirchner, _Ph. d. Plot._, p. 195.
[444] Plato, _Phaedo_, 79, A ff.; Aristot., _De An._, III., iv., _sub
fin._
[445] _Phaedr._, 245, C; _Legg._, 892, A.
[446] _Adv. Col._, ix., 3.
[447] _Enn._, IV., ii., i.
[448] _Enn._, IV., ii., _sub fin._; _Tim._, 35, A.
[449] _Enn._, V., ix.
[450] _Enn._, IV., viii.
[451] _Enn._, V., ix., 2.
[452] Readers of Pope’s _Essay on Man_ will recognise this argument. It
was, in fact, borrowed from Plotinus by Leibnitz, and handed on through
Bolingbroke to Pope. There is no better introduction to Neo-Platonism
than this beautiful poem.
[453] Kirchner, _Ph. d. Plot._, p. 35. The triad of body, soul,
and spirit is still to be met with in modern popular philosophy;
but, contrary to the Greek order of priority, there is a noticeable
tendency to rank soul, as the seat of emotion, higher than spirit or
pure reason, particularly among persons whose opinions receive little
countenance from the last-mentioned faculty.
[454] _Rep._, VI., 508, C ff.; VII., 517, C.
[455] Vol. I., p. 229.
[456] _Ibid._, p. 235.
[457] Aristot., _Metaph._, I., vi.
[458] _Enn._, V., iv., 2; Kirchh., I., p. 72, l. 8.
[459] This is the method of Fichte’s _Wissenschaftslehre_, which seems
to show that Fichte was acquainted with Neo-Platonism, probably at
second-hand.
[460] _Enn._, IV., ix.
[461] _Ibid._, 3; Kirchh., I., p, 75, l. 24.
[462] _Enn._, VI., ix., 1.
[463] _Enn._, VI., ix., 3; Kirchh., I., pp. 81 ff.
[464] In the introductory essay prefixed to his work _De l’École
d’Alexandrie_.
[465] οὕτω δὲ καλῶν ἀμφοτέρων ὄντων, γνώσεώς τε καὶ ἀληθείας, ἄλλο καὶ
κάλλιον ἔτι τούτων.—_Rep._, 508, E. οὐκ οὐσίας ὄντος τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, ἀλλ’
ἔτι ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας πρεσβείᾳ καὶ δυνάμει ὑπερέχοντος.—_Ibid._, 509,
B. The first of these passages is bracketed by Stallbaum, but not the
second.
[466] _Symp._, 211, E f.
[467] _Enn._, V., i.
[468] _Enn._, VI., ix., 3, _sub fin._; _ibid._, 6, p. 764, E. (Kirchh.,
I., p. 87, l. 16); _Enn._, V., v., 6, p. 525, D. (Kirchh., II., p. 24,
l. 24).
[469] _Enn._, VI., ix., 9, _sub fin._
[470] _Ibid._, V., ii., I, p. 494, A. (Kirchh., I., p. 109, l. 7).
[471] _Ibid._, V., i., 5, p. 487, C. (Kirchh., I., p. 101, l. 32).
[472] _Enn._, V., i., 6, p. 487, B. (Kirchh., I., p. 101, l. 21).
[473] _Enn._, V., i., 4, p. 485, E (Kirchh., I., pp. 99 f.).
[474] _Enn._, V., ii., 1, p. 494, A; VI., ix., 2, p. 759, A; II., iv.,
5, p. 162, A.
[475] _Enn._, IV., iv., 16, p. 409, C (Kirchh., I., p. 283, l. 31).
[476] _Enn._, V., ii., 2.
[477] _Enn._, II., iv.
[478] Aristot., _Metaph._, VII., x., _sub fin._
[479] _Tim._, 48, E, ff.
[480] _Ibid._, 47, E.
[481] _Enn._, II., iv., 5, p. 161, E (Kirchh., I., p. 114, l. 1).
[482] _Enn._, II., iv., 11, _sub fin._
[483] _Enn._, III., vi., 14 f.
[484] _Enn._, II., iv., 15, p. 169, A (Kirchh., I., p. 124, l. 17).
[485] _Ibid._, 5, p. 162, A (Kirchh., I., p. 114, l. 12).
[486] _Ibid._, III., ix., 3, p. 358, A (Kirchh., I., p. 128, l. 22).
[487] _Enn._, III., iv., i.
[488] _Enn._, II., iv., 15, p. 169, B (Kirchh., I., p. 124, l. 22).
[489] _Enn._, IV., iii,, 9, p. 379, A (Kirchh., I., p. 244, l. 17).
In one of his latest essays (_Enn._, I., viii., 7) Plotinus for a
moment accepts the Platonic theory that evil must necessarily coexist
with good as its correlative opposite, but quickly returns to the
alternative theory that evil results from the gradual diminution and
extinction of good (cp. Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, III., b, p. 549).
[490] _Enn._, III., viii., 4 and 8.
[491] Our own word ‘paragon’ is a curious record of the theory in
question. It is derived from the Greek participial substantive ὁ
παράγων, the producer. Now, according to Neo-Platonism, in the
hierarchic series of existences, the product always strives, or should
strive, to model itself on the producer, hence παράγων came to be used
in the double sense of a cause and an exemplar. As such, it is one of
the technical terms employed throughout the _Institutiones Theologicae_
of Proclus. But, in time, the second or derivative meaning became so
much the more important as to gain exclusive possession of the word on
its adoption into modern languages.
[492] _Enn._, III., iv., 2.
[493] _Enn._, I., ii., 1.
[494] _Ibid._, 3.
[495] _Enn._, I., ii., 6, _sub fin._
[496] _Ibid._, 5.
[497] _Ibid._, ix.
[498] _Enn._, I., iii.
[499] _Rep._, VI., 511.
[500] See the conclusion of the _Posterior Analytics_.
[501] _Enn._, III., vii., 1, p. 325, C (Kirchh., II., p. 282, l. 13).
[502] Zeller’s last volume, giving a full account of the Neo-Platonic
school, has recently reached a third edition, but it belongs to a
connected work, and contains, in addition, a mass of information
possessing special interest for theologians. It has not, however, been
translated into English, nor apparently is there any intention of
translating it. Our own literature on the subject is represented by a
worthless book of Kingsley’s, entitled _Alexandria and her Schools_,
and a novel by a lady, called the _Wards of Plotinus_.
[503] _Enn._, VI., ix., _sub fin._
[504] _Enn._, III., ii., 15, p. 266, E (Kirchh., II., p. 336, l.
31). M. Renan talks of the period from 235 to 284 as ‘cet enfer
d’un demi-siècle où sombre toute philosophie, toute civilité, toute
délicatesse’ (_Marc-Aurèle_, p. 498). As, however, this epoch produced
Neo-Platonism, the expression ‘toute philosophie’ is rather misplaced.
[505] _Enn._, IV., iv., 17, p. 410, B. (Kirchh., I., p. 285, l. 1).
[506] _Ph. d. Gr._, III., b, pp. 69 ff, 419 ff.
[507] _Op. cit._, pp. 419 ff.
[508] Zeller, p. 447.
[509] _Enn._, V., v., p. 520, A. (Kirchh., II., p. 18, l. 3). This is
the only passage in the _Enneads_ where the Sceptics seem to be alluded
to.
[510] _Loc. cit._
[511] _Vita_, x., _sub fin._
[512] For specimens of his treatment, see Zeller, pp. 622 ff.
[513] For the theology of Plotinus see Zeller, pp. 619 ff, and for the
daemons, p. 570. In our opinion, Zeller attributes a much stronger
religious faith to Plotinus than can be proved from the passages to
which he refers.
[514] _Enn._, V., vii.
[515] _Enn._, V., vii., I, p. 539, B. (Kirchh., I., p. 145, l. 23).
[516] For references, see Zeller, pp. 588 ff.
[517] _Enn._, VI., ii., 3, p. 598, A. (Kirchh., II., p. 227).
[518] _Enn._, II., ix.
[519] _Ibid._, cap. 6.
[520] _Ibid._, 14.
[521] _Enn._, II., ix., 15.
[522] Kirchner, _Die Ph. d. Plot._, pp. 1-24, 175-208. Cp. Steinhart,
_Meletemata Plotiniana_, p. 4.
[523] Two other popular misconceptions may be traced back, in part at
least, to the exclusively transcendental interpretation of Plato’s
philosophy. By drawing away attention from the Socratic dialogues,
it broke the connexion between Socrates and his chief disciple, thus
leaving the former to be estimated exclusively from Xenophon’s view
of his character as a moral and religious teacher. True, Xenophon
himself supplies us with the data which prove that Socrates was, above
all things, a dialectician, but only in the reflex light of Plato’s
subsequent developments can their real significance be perceived. On
the other hand, the attempt to combine Aristotle with Plato led to
a serious misunderstanding of the actual relation between the two.
When the whole ideal element of his philosophy had been drawn off
and employed to heighten still further the transcendentalism of his
master’s teaching, the Stagirite came to be judged entirely by the
residual elements, by the logical, physical, and critical portions of
his system. On the strength of these, he was represented as the type of
whatever is most opposed to Plato, and, in particular, of a practical,
prosaic turn of mind, which was quite alien from his true character.
[524] Χαλεπὸν μὲν γνωσθῆναι ... γιγνωσκόμενον δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ
γεννήματι τῇ οὐσίᾳ. (_Enn._, VI., ix., 5, p. 763, B.) Πᾶν τὸ θεῖον
αὐτὸ μὲν διὰ τὴν ὑπερούσιον ἕνωσιν ἄρρητόν ἐστι καὶ ἄγνωστον πᾶσι τοῖς
δευτέροις· ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν μετεχόντων ληπτόν ἐστι καὶ γνωστόν. (Proclus,
_Institutiones Theologicae_, cxxiii.), cp. Proclus, _ibid._, clxii.
[525] _De Princip._, ii., quoted by Ritter and Preller, p. 536 f.
[526] _Inst. Theol._, lxxii., cp. Zeller, p. 808, where it is denied,
wrongly, as we think, that Plotinus held the same view.
[527] The following sketch is based on the accounts given of the period
to which it relates in the works of Zeller and Vacherot.
[528] _De Civit. Dei_, VIII., v., quoted by Kirchner, p. 208.
[529] _Enn._, II., ix., 18, p. 217, C; for Syrianus and Proclus, see
Zeller, p. 738. The Emperor Constantine is said to have remained a
sun-worshipper all his life (Vacherot, II., p. 153); and even Philo
Judaeus speaks of the stars as visible gods (Zeller, p. 393).
[530] Quoted by Ritter and Preller, p. 539.
[531] Compare the report of Agathias with the series of questions put
to Priscian, quoted in the Dissertation by M. Quicherat, prefixed to
Dübner’s edition of Priscian’s _Solutiones_ (printed after Plotinus in
Didot’s edition, pp. 549 ff).
[532] M. Vacherot says (II., p. 400), without giving any authority for
his statement, that the Neo-Platonists were driven from Persia by the
persecution of the Magi; and that they returned home ‘furtivement,’
which is certainly incorrect. They returned openly, under the
protection of a treaty between Persia and Rome.
[533] _Repub._, IX., _sub fin._
[534] Hauréau, _Histoire de la Philosophie Scolastique_, I., p. 372.
[535] For Gilbert de la Porrée see Hauréau, I., chap. xviii.
[536] Jourdain, _Recherches critiques sur les Traductions latines
d’Aristote_.
[537] The term Nominalist is here used in the wide sense given to it by
Hauréau. See the last chapter of his work on the Scholastic Philosophy.
[538] _Works_ I., p. 405 in Ellis and Spedding’s edition.
[539] ‘Historia naturalis ... materia prima philosophiae.’ _De Aug._,
II., iii.
[540] The ‘notions and conceptions’ of the _Advancement of Learning_
(_Works_, III., p. 356) is rendered by ‘axiomata’ in the _De Augmentis_
(I., p. 567), where in both instances the question is entirely about
Forms. Cp. § 8 of Prof. Fowler’s Introduction to the _Novum Organum_.
[541] _Analyt. Prior._, II., xxx.
[542] Prof. Bain, after mentioning that the second book of the _Topics_
‘sets forth in a crude condition the principal canons of inductive
logic,’ goes on to say that ‘these statements cannot be called germs
for they never germinated’ (Grote’s _Minor Works_, p. 14). May they not
have germinated in the _Novum Organum_?
[543] Descartes showed a much deeper insight into the scientific
conditions of industrial progress than Bacon. His words are, ‘On peut
trouver une philosophie pratique par laquelle connoissant la force
et les actions du feu, de l’eau, de l’air, des astres, des cieux, et
de tous les autres corps qui nous environnent, aussi distinctement
que nous connoissons les divers mestiers de nos artisans, nous les
pourrions employer en même façon à tous les usages auxquels ils sont
propres, et ainsi nous rendre comme maistres et possesseurs de la
Nature.’ _Discours de la Méthode_, Sixième Partie. This passage has
been recently quoted by Dr. Bridges (‘Comte’s Definition of Life,’
_Fortnightly Review_ for June 1881, p. 684) to illustrate what seems
a very questionable position. He says that the Copernican astronomy,
by revealing the infinitude of the universe, made men despair of
comprehending nature in her totality, and thus threw them back on
enquiries of more directly human interest and practical applicability;
particularly specifying ‘the lofty utilitarianism of the _Novum
Organum_ and of the _Discours de la Méthode_,’ as ‘one of the first
concomitants’ ‘of this intellectual revolution.‘ There seems to be a
double misconception here: for, in the first place, Bacon could hardly
have been influenced by a theory which he persistently rejected; and,
in the next place, neither Bacon nor Descartes showed a trace of the
positivist tendency to despair of attaining absolute and universal
knowledge. Both of them expected to discover the inmost essences
of things; and neither of them imagined that a different set of
conditions might come into play outside the boundaries of the visible
universe. In fact they believed themselves to be enlarging instead
of restricting the field of mental vision; and it was from this very
enlargement that they anticipated the most momentous practical results.
It was with Locke, as we shall see hereafter, that the sceptical or
agnostic movement began. In this same article, Dr. Bridges repeats,
probably on Comte’s authority, the incredible statement that ‘Thales
taught the Egyptian priests those two or three elementary truths as to
the laws of triangles, which enabled them to tell the height of the
pyramid by measuring its shadow.’ Comte’s ignorance or carelessness in
relating this story as a well-attested fact was long ago noticed with
astonishment by Grote. (_Life of George Grote_, p. 204.)
[544] Whewell notices this ‘Stationary Interval’ (_History of the
Inductive Sciences_, Bk. XVI., chapter iii., sect. 3), but without
determining either its just limits or its real cause.
[545] Compreso che sarà il moto di quest’ astro mondano in cui siamo
... s’aprirà la porta de l’intelligenza de li principi veri di cose
naturali. _De l’Infinito Universo e Mondi_, p. 51, Wagner’s Ed.
[546] ‘Sono amputate radici che germogliano, son cose antiche che
rivegnono. _Ibid._, p. 82.
[547] _Principio Causa et Uno_, p. 225. For David of Dinan, whose
opinions are known only through the reports of Albertus and Aquinas,
see Hauréau, II., iv.
[548] Galileo’s words are:—‘Il moto circulare è naturale del tutto e
delle parti mentre sono in ottima disposizione.’ _Dialoghi sui Massimi
Sistemi._ _Opere_, Vol. I., p. 265; see also p. 38.
[549] _Dialoghi_, p. 211.
[550] ‘Non posso trovar termine all’ammirazione mia come abbia possuto
in Aristarco e nel Copernico far la ragione tanta violenza al senso
che contro a questo ella si sia fatta padrona della loro credulità.’
_Dialoghi_, p. 358.
[551] _Ibid._, p. 370.
[552] ‘Kepler était persuadé de l’existence de ces lois en suivant
cette pensée de Platon: que Dieu, en créant le monde, avait dû faire de
la géometrie.’ Arago, _Œuvres_ III., p. 212.
[553] _De Aug._, III., v. _Works_, I., p. 571.
[554] This is well brought out in a remarkable series of articles
on the Philosophy of Hobbes recently published by Tönnies in the
_Vierteljahrsschrift fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie_.
[555] _Leviathan_, chap. xv., _sub fin._
[556] _Leviathan_, chap. xi., _sub fin._
[557] _Leviathan_, chap. vi.
[558] _Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante, sub in._
[559] _Advancement of Learning_, Ellis and Spedding, III., p. 428.
[560] _Republic_, VI., 511, Jowett’s Trans. III., p. 398.
[561] Plotinus himself expresses a doubt as to whether the One is,
properly speaking, all things or not (_Enn._, V., ii., _sub in._); but
in his essay on Substance and Quality, he defines qualities as energies
of the substance to which they belong (_Enn._, II., vi. 3). Now all
things are, according to his philosophy, energies of the One. There
would, therefore, be no difficulty in considering it as their substance.
[562]
—— Quia multimodis, multis, mutata, per omne
Ex infinito vexantur percita plagis,
Omne genus motus, et coetus experiundo,
Tandem deveniunt in taleis disposituras,
Qualibus haec rebus consistit summa creata.
(I., 1023-7.)
[563] V., 853; IV., 780-800; V., 1025.
[564] Just the same remark applies to the monads of Leibnitz. Each
monad reflects all the others, and infers that its reflections
represent a reality from the infinite creative power of God. Descartes’
appeal to the divine veracity represents the same method in a less
developed stage. The root-idea here is to be sought for, not in Greek
thought but in the Christian doctrine of a supernatural revelation.
[565] The formal cause of a thing is its species, the concept under
which it is immediately subsumed; the efficient cause is what brings
it into existence. Thus the formal cause of a man is humanity, the
efficient cause, his father.
[566] _Eth._, I., prop. xvi.; II., prop. iii.; prop. v.; prop. xviii.,
schol.; prop. xxviii.; prop. xl., schol. ii.; V., prop. xxix., schol.;
prop. xl., schol. (The passage last referred to is the clearest and
most decisive.)
[567] See the passage from the _Republic_ quoted above.
[568] The tendency of logicians is now, contrariwise, to force
reasoning into parallelism with mathematical physics by interpreting
the proposition as an equation between subject and predicate.
[569] III., prop. ii., schol.
[570] II., vii., schol.
[571] III., ix. and xi.
[572] Greek tragedy is just the reverse—an expansion of the old
patriarchal relations into a mould fitted to receive the highest
thought and feeling of a civilised age.
[573] For the whole subject of Spinoza’s mathematical method, see
Windelband’s paper on Spinoza in the _Vierteljahrsschrift für
wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, 1877. Some points in the last paragraph
were suggested by Mr. Pollock’s _Spinoza_ (pp. 255, 264).
[574] _Essay_, Bk. iv., ch. 12.
[575] See the references to Epictêtus, _supra_, p. 21.
[576] What Aristotle has written on the subject is not ethics but
natural history.
[577] ‘Ne remarque-t-on comment chaque recherche analytique de Laplace
a fait ressortir dans notre globe et dans l’univers des conditions
d’ordre et de durée?’—Arago, _Œuvres_, III., p. 496.
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and ligatures have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.