PLURALISM
=Efforts toward Reconciliation.= The theories of Heracleitus and
Parmenides were in part fantastic and in part abstract. They were the
two motives of the Milesian school that had been developed so far as to
reveal their inherent inconsistencies.
Physical theories now began to spring up which modified the
metaphysical theories; and these produced results which while not
so logical, were less distant from the facts of life. The Eleatics
had so conceived Being as to deny the existence of changing phenomena
perceived in the world of nature. On the other hand, Heracleitus had
so emphasized the universality of change that there was little reality
left in the particular changes. The later Heracleitans were Heracleitus
gone mad. “We not only cannot step into the same river twice, but
we cannot do it once.” All the preceding philosophers had been
monists. The time had therefore come for thinkers to abandon monism
if thought were to have any usefulness. Monism, whether in the form of
Heracleitus’ doctrine of universal change or of Parmenides’ doctrine of
universal permanence, had merely set aside the problem about the Many.
Of course, a more satisfactory solution of this problem could come only
when human life had become riper and had more experiences upon which to
draw. It was natural for the Greek philosopher to look now to pluralism
for his solution, when he turned away from monism. _At the outset
pluralism tried to reconcile the two extremes to which the Milesian
motifs had gone._ Its later development in the doctrine of Protagoras
was as extreme as that of the monists.
=The New Conception of Change of the Pluralists.= Facing the fact that
change has to be explained and cannot be denied, change is conceived
by the pluralists to be not a transformation but a transposition. It is
an alteration in position of the parts of a mass. Birth, growth, death,
are only such changes of transposition. Empedocles, to whom the origin
of the doctrine is attributed, says, “There is no coming into Being
of aught that perishes, nor any end for it in baneful death, but only
a mingling and a separation of what has been mingled. Just as when
painters are elaborating temple offerings,――they, when they have taken
the pigments of many colors in their hands, mix them in a harmony,――so
let not the error prevail in thy mind that there is any other source
of all the perishable creatures that appear in countless numbers.” All
origination, then, is a new combination, and every destruction only a
separation of the original parts. The Pluralists thus make Heracleitus’
conception useful in the explanation of nature.
=The New Conception of the Unchanging of the Pluralists――The Element.=
But there must be a permanence in order that there be change. This can
only be conceived by assuming that there are many original units that
in themselves do not change. The mass of the world is ever the same;
there is no new creation. Being consists in many elements, and not in a
single block. So to Empedocles in particular is accredited the priority
of forming the conception of the element, which has occupied an
important place in science. The element is conceived by the Pluralists
as unoriginated, imperishable, and unchanging. It has all the qualities
that Parmenides attributed to his single Being, only the elements may
change their place and suffer mechanical division. The Pluralists thus
make the Eleatic conception useful in the explanation of nature.
=The Introduction of the Conception of the Efficient Cause.= The
Eleatics had detached the quality of motion from Being. The Pluralists,
in reintroducing it, were obliged to make it a separate force in order
to get movement into their universe. The elements are changeless. How
can they move? They cannot move themselves. They are moved from without.
Here in Empedocles is made a differentiation of great importance――the
concept of the moving or efficient cause. However, this does not appear
in this early time in conceptual but in mythical-poetic and undefined
form. With this differentiated efficient cause, can Pluralism be
considered to be hylozoism? Authorities differ. Certainly this new
concept shows the beginning of the breaking up of hylozoism and
the beginning of the formation of a mechanistic conception of the
universe. But probably the Pluralists were as much hylozoists as their
predecessors, the monists. Their efficient causes are material like
the elements, and they are poetically and indefinitely described. They
are in every case conceived as the material which has a lively or an
originating motion. We must keep in mind that all the Cosmologists
except the Eleatics believed movement to be life.
=Summary of Similarities and Differences in the Theories of the
Reconcilers.=
The general common characteristics of the theories of the Reconcilers:――
1. A plurality of the elements.
2. An efficient cause which explains the shifting of the elements
in causing the origin, growth, and decay of the world of nature.
The general differences between the theories of the Reconcilers:――
1. In the number and quality of the elements.
2. In the number and quality of the causes.
=The Pluralistic Philosophers: Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and
the Later Pythagoreans.= With the Pluralists we pass completely out of
the sixth century B. C. The lives of the hylozoistic Pluralists span
the fifth century, and cosmological interest extends later. Even the
Eleatic Zeno lived from 490 to 430 B. C. Empedocles lived from 490 to
430 B. C., Anaxagoras from 500 to 425 B. C., and the Pythagoreans and
Leucippus later. When the cosmological movement was still virile in the
Grecian colonies, and even before it had reached its systematic form
in Democritus of Abdera, the anthropological movement had begun in the
motherland, in Athens. The Persian Wars are the dividing line between
the two periods, but only because they denote the beginning of the new
movement in Athens, not the end of the old movement in Asia Minor and
Magna Græcia. Contemporaneous with the Pluralists was the brilliant Age
of Pericles, when the Sophists were carrying education to the people
and Socrates was teaching in the Athenian market-place. By the middle
of the fifth century B. C. there was the liveliest interchange of
scientific ideas throughout Greek society, and the contemporaneousness
of the Pluralists with one another and with the Athenian philosophers
shows this in many similarities in their doctrines and in many
polemical references. There are four schools of Reconcilers, of which
Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and the later Pythagoreans are the
representatives.
_Empedocles_[11] (490 to 430 B. C.) was the first Dorian philosopher, a
partisan of the democracy, and belonged to a rich family of Agrigentum.
He became a distinguished statesman, but he later fell from popular
favor. Then, in the garb of a magician, he traveled as physician and
priest through Magna Græcia. His political affiliations would prevent
his direct connection with the Pythagoreans, but he showed that the
Pythagoreans influenced him, and his career is an imitation of that of
Pythagoras. He was acquainted with the theory of Heracleitus, and he
knew Parmenides personally. He was one of the first rhetoricians, and
was probably connected with a large literary circle. He is the first
and most imperfect representative of the reconciliation. The story of
his suicide by leaping into Mt. Ætna is supposed to be a myth.
_Anaxagoras_ (500–425 B. C.), a man of wealthy antecedents, was much
esteemed, was born in Clazomenæ in a circle rich in Ionian culture,
but was isolated from practical life. He declared the heaven to be his
fatherland and the study of the heavenly bodies to be his life’s task.
He went to Athens about 450 B. C., where he formed one of a circle
of notable men of culture. He lived in Athens under the patronage of
Pericles, but in 434 B. C. he was expelled. In Athens he was intimate
with such men as Euripides, Thucydides, and Protagoras. He represents
the first appearance of philosophy in Athens.
The life of _Leucippus_ is almost unknown. He was probably born in
Miletus, visited Elea, and settled in Abdera.
_The Later Pythagoreans._ After the Pythagoreans as a religious and
political body had been defeated at Crotona, they lost their prestige
and were scattered to the four winds. They were beaten in the battle
of Crotona (510 B. C.) and dispersed about 450 B. C. Pythagoras died
504 B. C. His scattered followers, these later Pythagoreans, formed
a school of philosophy which had its centre at Thebes. Destroyed as a
religious body the members lost their superstitions and turned their
attention to philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and physics.
As mathematicians and as astronomers they are the most notable among
the ancients. Philolaus is the probable originator of their philosophy
of numbers. This school disappeared about 350 B. C. Pythagoreanism
reappeared later under the name of neo-Pythagoreanism.
=The Philosophy of Empedocles.= Empedocles conceived the number of
elements to be four,――earth, air, fire, and water,――an arbitrary
enumeration, which nevertheless persisted in the popular imagination
throughout the Middle Ages. He chose this number of elements because
they included all the elements in his predecessors’ theories. By the
transposition and new arrangement of these elements he could account
for the variety of the world. The efficient causes that make these
different separations and mixtures are Love and Hate, two mythical and
sensuous entities. Love is the cause of the union of things, Hate of
their separation.
This is the general metaphysical theory that Empedocles uses to explain
the physical world and especially physiological phenomena; and he
is probably best known as the author of the aphorism, “Like attracts
Like.” For example, he conceives the physical world as continuously
repeating itself through four cosmic stages, each centuries long. The
world moves therefore in cyclical evolution, in which Love is bringing
like elements together only to be followed by stages of the separation
of the like elements by Hate,――an endless cosmic procession.
But Empedocles’ interest in cosmology was only a part of his dominating
interest in the organic world. He held some interesting evolution
theories. His special interest in human physiology led him to frame the
first theory of perception. Man is composed of the four elements, and
he can know the universe around himself because Like in him attracts
Like in the external world. The earth forms our solid parts, water the
liquid parts, air is the vital breath, and fire is the soul. The blood
contains the four elements, and is therefore the real carrier of life.
If we perceive anything, it is because we have qualities similar to
that thing. The element in us attracts the like element outside. He
fancifully explained how parts of each element pressed upon parts of
like elements――earth upon earth, air upon air; and how these clung
together until sundered by Hate. The senses have only a partial number
of elements, while the reason has them all; therefore sense knowledge
is partial when compared with rational knowledge.
=The Philosophy of Anaxagoras.= The pluralistic conception of the
nature-substance, that was originated by Empedocles in this crude
form, got a more complete character in the hands of Anaxagoras. For
Anaxagoras took exception to the arbitrary assumption of Empedocles
that the elements were only four in number. How could this world of
infinite variety be derived from only four elements? We must postulate
as many elements as there are qualities, if by merely shuffling
them――by various combinings and separatings of them――their infinite
number is to be explained. _There are a plural number of elements
qualitatively distinct._ Every perceptual thing is composed of these
heterogeneous parts or qualities or elements. But how do you know an
element when you find one? Always by the fact that when you divide
it, its parts are homogeneous. The elements are, therefore, those
substances that divide into parts that are like one another; while the
perceptual objects of nature can be divided into parts that are unlike
one another. They are called “seeds” by Anaxagoras, and designated
as “homoiomeriai” by Aristotle and later philosophy. This was a time,
it must be remembered, when chemical analysis had not developed, and
when mechanical division and change of temperature were the only means
of investigation. Form, color, and taste were the characteristics
that differentiated elements. So Anaxagoras was content to name as
elements such things as bones, muscles, flesh, marrow, metals, etc.
The countless elements or qualities are present in a finely divided
state throughout the universe. Every perceptual object has present
in it all elements, even opposite elements. It is, however, known and
named by the element that prevails in it at any particular instant. For
example, fire contains an element of cold but the fire element prevails.
Opposites attract, and the qualitative change in a thing consists in
the predominance of some other quality already present in it.
For the efficient cause of the combining and separating of the elements
_Anaxagoras selected one of the elements_. He called it the Nous, the
Greek word for mind or reason. Many historians have therefore concluded
that Anaxagoras is the author of an idealistic philosophy. Aristotle
says of Anaxagoras that he “stood out like a sober man among the random
talkers that had preceded him.” But both Plato[12] and Aristotle are
disappointed with the way in which Anaxagoras handles the conception
of Nous and, as a matter of fact, the Nous, as Anaxagoras uses it,
is not less hylozoistic than the Love and Hate of Empedocles. In the
Nous Anaxagoras threw out a thought that was too big for him. Its
introduction, however, marks the breaking up of pre-Socratic hylozoism.
Anaxagoras wrote down the word, Nous, from which comes the contrast
with matter. He stripped the mythical dress from the efficient cause
of Empedocles and substituted Nous, because he wished to emphasize the
unity of the cosmic process. The Nous is one of the elements; it is
“thought-stuff,” it is a corporeal substance. It differs from all the
other elements in that it is the finest, the most mobile, and has the
power of self-motion. If among the early schools motion is life, here
we find the new conception of self-motion as most alive. Instead of a
departure from hylozoism, this is a rehabilitation of hylozoism in more
perfect form. The Nous is the cause of the harmony and order of the
cosmos.
=The Philosophy of the Atomists――Leucippus and the School at Abdera.=
Only circumstantial evidence is left to testify to the early beginnings
of the school of atomists at Abdera. About 450 B. C., owing to the rise
of Athens and the great victory of Cimon over the Persians, the Ionian
civilization on the coasts of Asia Minor had a new lease of life, and
there was a renewal of scientific activity in the cities. The influence
of the Milesians appeared and Anaxagoras’ doctrine, which had been
widely disseminated, began to have great vigor. Among the philosophers
of this section was one about whom we know very little, except that
his name was Leucippus and that he was the father of atomism. Miletus
was probably his native place, and after visiting Elea he settled
in Abdera in Thrace. We know that the polemic of Zeno was directed
against contemporary atomism; and we know the theories of the pupils
of Leucippus, of Protagoras, and of Democritus, in whom the doctrine
of atomism culminated. Probably the theory of Leucippus was that
the cosmic substance is composed of _an infinite number of elements
quantitatively distinct_, in opposition to Empedocles’ theory of a
fourfold division as well as against Anaxagoras’ theory of an infinite
number of qualities. Atomism in this early form represents one of the
ways that Greek thought took in reconciling the conflicting claims of
Heracleitus and Parmenides. The doctrine of atomism will be presented
fully in its greatest representative, Democritus.
=The Later Pythagoreans.= Had the Pythagorean band remained what
Pythagoras had designed it, had it not had its political aspirations
crushed at the battle of Crotona and the members scattered far and wide,
it would probably have for the historian of to-day only the importance
of a local band of political and religious reformers. The adversity at
Crotona was, however, a blessing in disguise for the Pythagoreans and
for Greece, for it turned the Pythagoreans from religious politics to
science and metaphysics. _In the first place_, they became the authors
of an important metaphysical theory. This was the theory of numbers,
which influenced Plato, became the foundation of a vigorous school in
Alexandria in the Hellenic-Roman Period, flourished during the Middle
Ages, and united with the doctrines of the Jews in what is called the
Cabala. To-day the magic numbers persist in our superstitions. _In
the second place_, the Pythagoreans turned to science,――especially
to mathematics and astronomy,――and in these two branches became very
celebrated in ancient times. Their astronomical theory had a most
extraordinary history. With modifications it was preserved by Plato
and Aristotle, and later became the basis of the Ptolemaic system
of astronomy. This system was the scientifically accepted system
for fifteen hundred years, when it was supplanted by the Newtonian
theory. It is a most singular fact that the cosmological background
of the Epics of Dante and Milton is the astronomical system of the
Pythagoreans as expressed in the Ptolemaic system.
The Pythagoreans, be it remarked, were “Reconcilers,” but they were
more. The original ethical motive of Pythagoras influenced them as
scientists. They did not attempt to formulate a science of ethics, but
the ethical motive was always back of their mathematics and astronomy.
=1. The Pythagorean Conception of Being.= The Pythagorean conception
of reality is the most advanced of any cosmological theory in this
period. The Pythagoreans were hylozoists, but they come the nearest
to transcending the hylozoism of their time. The influence of the
later Pythagoreans, whom Plato met in Italy, upon Plato shows that
Pythagorean philosophy forms a link between the cosmology of the
colonies and the following comprehensive systems of thought.
The important position in the evolution of Greek thought occupied
by the Pythagoreans depends upon their conception of that Being that
abides amid all change. Pythagoreanism is usually spoken of as “the
number theory.” This is, however, only a suggestion of its import. For
numbers are not to the Pythagoreans what the different kinds of cosmic
matter were to the early monists, or what the several elements were to
the pluralists,――Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the atomists. Neither are
they abstractions merely, such as we use in scientific reckoning. The
Pythagoreans were pluralists and hylozoists whose plural numbers look
beyond hylozoism.
There are two kinds of reality in the Pythagorean teaching: (1) numbers,
and (2) unlimited space. The essential nature of things, the Being
that abides, consists in the shaping of this unlimited space into
mathematical forms. The numbers or the forms are the limited aspect of
Being; space is the unlimited aspect of Being. Actual Being consists
in the union of the two aspects. Being therefore has two roots, each
being necessary to the other. The later Pythagoreans, indeed, called
attention to the fact that their numbers were not the same as the
different kinds of matter out of which the other Cosmologists conceived
the world to be fashioned. Numbers are not the stuff out of which
the world of nature-objects have arisen, but rather are forms of
nature-objects. Numbers are the patterns or models of things; things
are the copies or imitations of numbers. Unlimited space furnishes the
material; numbers or mathematical forms furnish the mould; the result
is a material thing. Here we find the early basis of Plato’s doctrine
of Ideas, and the correlation in Aristotle of Form and matter. If we
were to draw an analogy between the Pythagorean conception of numbers
and any part of the preceding cosmological teaching, we should find
the similarity between the numbers and the earlier efficient causes
and not between the numbers and the elements. For example, Pythagorean
numbers have a function more nearly like Love and Hate than like the
four elements in Empedocles’ teaching. On the other hand, Pythagorean
unlimited space is analogous to the Empedoclean elements.
=2. The Pythagorean Dualistic World.=[13] The Pythagoreans carried out
their conception of this twofold reality both in their mathematical
studies and in their conceptions of natural objects. It was from such
investigations that they were impressed by the dualism in everything
and so reached their principle. They observed in mathematics that
the number-series consists of alternate odd and even numbers. The
odd numbers are limited and the even unlimited (because they could
be divided). They explained the elements as determined by mathematical
forms: fire has the form of a tetrahedron; earth, of the cube; air,
of the octohedron; water, of the icosahedron; and an additional fifth
element, the æther, of the dodecahedron. They carried this dualism
further by identifying the limited form with the odd, with the perfect,
and with the good; while the unlimited was identified with the even,
the imperfect, and the bad. Some of the Pythagoreans even sought to
trace out this dualism in the many realms of experience, and they
originated a table of ten pairs of opposites: limited and unlimited;
odd and even; one and many; right and left; male and female; rest and
motion; straight and crooked; light and dark; good and bad; square and
oblong.
There is a system in the Pythagorean theory not to be found in the
teaching of the other reconcilers. Although all the numbers, and with
them all the world, are divided into two opposing classes, these are,
nevertheless, united in a harmony. The harmony of a dualism reminds us
of Heracleitus’ harmony of antitheses. All series of numbers have their
unity and harmony in the odd-even number, One. To the Pythagorean the
opposites of life――the good and the bad, the limited and unlimited, the
perfect and imperfect, the odd and even――exist in an harmonious whole.
As the Pythagorean school grew in years, the realms to which it
applied its theory increased. While we have stated its metaphysical
theory first in order to give it prominence, the school came to the
formulation of its theory through its investigations in mathematics,
music, and astronomy. Then it applied the theory to geometrical
structures and to other fields with a procedure that was arbitrary and
unmethodical. Yet so universal was the application of the theory that
it lived to have superstitious authority for the human mind in the
Middle Ages.
=3. Pythagorean Astronomy.= The formation of the world-all began from
the One, or central fire, which attracted and limited the nearest
portions of the unlimited. This fire became the centre of the world-all,
which had the shape of a hollow globe. Around the central fire the
celestial bodies move in globular transparent shells. Their movements
are concentric to the fire. This is the beginning of the astronomical
theory of the crystalline spheres. The world-all is divided into three
concentric portions. The periphery or outer rim is Olympus, where all
is perfection and where the gods dwell. Between Olympus and the moon is
Cosmos, where all is orderly and all movements are in circles. Between
the moon and the central fire is the region called Uranus, where all
is disorderly and the movements are up and down. The earth is in this
lower section of disorder, and moves in a transparent globular shell
like the celestial bodies around the central fire. The number of the
heavenly bodies is the perfect number, ten. The world-all is conceived
as a heavenly heptachord, with the orbits of the seven planets as
the sounding strings. Upon this notion was founded the harmony of the
spheres, which harmony is not heard by man because it is constant.
In modifying this astronomical theory and then accepting it, the most
important change that Aristotle made was to conceive the earth as at
the centre of the world-all with the sun revolving about it. This was
the form in which the Ptolemaic astronomers received it.
=Historical Retrospect.= In these many searchings of the Cosmologists
for a reality amid the changes of nature, what result can be found
significant for the Cosmological Period and valuable as a bequest for
the following periods? Are these crude scientific speculations of the
early Greeks to be looked upon as out of connection with their own
age and the age to come? The Cosmological philosophy had two definite
results. _In the first place_, with reference to its own century and
a half, it saved the intellectual world of Greece from the slavery of
a mystic religion. When we started with Thales in 625 B. C., we saw
Greece confronted with two perils. One was political, and consisted
of internecine troubles and of danger from its warlike neighbors. This
peril grew still greater, until at the very end of the period it was
averted at the battle of Salamis. Greek arms banished this political
peril. But the other peril was subjective and therefore more menacing.
The mysteries of the Orphic religion would have quenched the Greek
genius had not its rational philosophy given the Greek intellectual
life new conceptions. _In the next place_, it bequeathed to the
succeeding period a fairly well-drawn contrast between a world of
intellectual order and a world of sensuous disorder. The thought of an
order in nature in conformity to law was developed into clearness in
the Cosmological Period. The order was obtained from the astronomical
studies of these scientists. Reasoning from the order that they saw, to
an ordering principle, Anaxagoras and the Pythagoreans almost, but not
quite, gave to that principle a teleological meaning. The principle of
permanence that these nature scientists sought was found in the great
and simple relations of the stars, whose revolutions are the expression
of order and constancy. Impregnated as they were with their elemental
hylozoism, the Greek Cosmologists were as yet not quite able to find
an orderly permanence in the terrestrial world with its manifold
and intersecting motions. Yet Greek thought was looking forward. The
Cosmologist had already contrasted the terrestrial as the imperfect
with the celestial as the perfect peace and permanence. The step was
but a short one from the contrast of the two realms to the effort to
bring them into a unity. Thus in this astronomical and concrete form
a distinction of value was obtained that had lasting ethical and
æsthetical significance, not only upon Plato and Aristotle, but upon
modern thought.