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BY  BBRTRAND  RU8SBLL 


INTRODUCTION   TO  MATHEMATICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

THE  ANALYSIS  OF  MIND 

OUR  KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE  EXTERNAL  WORLD 

AN  OUTLINE  OP  PHILOSOPHY 

THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF   LEIBNIZ 

AN   INQUIRY   INTO  MEANING  AND  TRUTH 

POWER 

IN   PRAISE  OF   IDLENESS 
THE  CONQUEST  OF   HAPPINESS 

SCEPTICAL  ESSAYS 

THE  SCIENTIFIC   OUTLOOK 

MYSTICISM   AND   LOGIC 

MARRIAGE   AND    MORALS 

EDUCATION   AND   THE   SOCIAL   OKDLK 

ON   EDUCATION 

FREEDOM   AND  ORGANIZATION,    l8l4~I<M4 
PRINCIPLES   OF   SOCIAL    RECONSTRUCTION 

ROADS  TO   FREEDOM 
JUSTICE    IN    WAR-FIMi: 

FREE   THOUGHT   AND   OFFICIAL   PROPAGANDA 
THE   PROBLEM    OF    CHINA 

With  Scott  NcarinK 

BOLSHEVISM   AND   THE  Wt*T 

With  Dora  Russell 

THE    PROSPECTS   Ol-    INDUSTRIAL   CIVILIZATION 


BERTRAND     RUSSELL 

HISTORY    OF 

WESTERN 
PHILOSOPHY 

and  its  Connection  with  Political 

and  Social  Circumstances  from 

the   Earliest   Times  to 

the    Present    Dav 


GEORGE  ALLEN   AND   UNWIN  LTD 


FIRST  PUBLISHED   IN    1446 
SFCOND    IMPRESSION    1947 

All  rights  resented 


1'RINTI.D    IV    URI-AT    BKMAIS 
iff  n-/'</tnf  Imprint  Type 

\\\    UN  WIN     bHOJHfcHS    J, »  M  m  U 


PREFACE 

A  FEW  words  of  apology  and  explanation  are  called  for  if 
this  book  is  to  escape  even  more  severe  censure  than  it 
doubtless  deserves. 

Apology  is  due  to  the  specialists  on  various  schools  and  indi- 
vidual philosophers.  With  the  possible  exception  of  Leibniz, 
every  philosopher  of  whom  I  treat  is  better  known  to  some  others 
than  to  me.  If,  however,  books  covering  a  Wide  field  are  to  be 
written  at  all,  it  is  inevitable,  since  we  are  not  immortal,  that  those 
who  write  such  books  should  spend  less  time  on  any  one  part 
than  can  be  spent  by  a  man  who  concentrates  on  a  single  author 
or  a  brief  period.  Some,  whose  scholarly  austerity  is  unbending, 
will  conclude  that  books  covering  a  wide  field  should  not  be 
written  at  all,  or,  if  written,  should  consist  of  monographs  by  a 
multitude  of  authors.  There  is,  however,  something  lost  when 
many  authors  co-operate.  If  there  is  any  unity  in  the  movement 
of  history,  if  there  is  any  intimate  relation  between  what  goes 
before  and  what  comes  later,  it  is  necessary,  for  setting  this  forth, 
that  earlier  and  later  periods  should  be  synthesized  in  a  single 
mind.  The  student  of  Rousseau  may  have  difficulty  in  doing 
justice  to  his  connection  with  the  Sparta  of  Plato  and  Plutarch; 
the  historian  of  Sparta  may  not  be  prophetically  conscious  of 
Hobbcs  and  Fichte  and  Lenin.  To  bring  out  such  relations  is 
one  of  the  purposes  of  this  book,  and  it  is  a  purpose  which  only 
a  wide  survey  can  fulfil. 

There  are  many  histories  of  philosophy,  but  none  of  them,  so 
far  as  I  know,  has  quite  the  purpose  that  I  have  set  myself.  Philo- 
sophers are  both  effects  and  causes:  effects  of  their  social  cir- 
cumstances and  of  the  politics  and  institutions  of  their  time; 
causes  (if  they  are  fortunate)  of  beliefs  which  mould  the  politics 
and  institutions  of  later  ages.  In  most  histories  of  philosophy, 
each  philosopher  appears  as  in  a  vacuum;  his  opinions  are  set 
forth  unrelated  except,  at  most,  to  those  of  earlier  philosophers. 
I  have  tried,  on  the  contrary,  to  exhibit  each  philosopher,  as  far 
as  truth  permits,  as  an  outcome  of  his  milieu,  a  man  in  whom 
were  crystallized  and  concentrated  thoughts  and  feelings  which, 
in  a  vague  ahd  diffused  form,  were  common  to  the  community 
of  which  he  was  a  part. 

5 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

This  has  required  the  insertion  of  certain  chapters  of  purely 
social  history.  No  one  can  understand  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans 
without  some  knowledge  of  the  Hellenistic  age,  or  the  scholastics 
without  a  modicum  of  understanding  of  the  growth  of  the  Church 
from  the  fifth  to  'the  thirteenth  centuries.  I  have  therefore  set 
forth  briefly  those  parts  of  the  main  historical  outlines  that  seemed 
to  me  to  have  had  most  influence  on  philosophical  thought,  and 
I  have  done  this  with  most  fulness  where  the  history  may  be 
expected  to  be  unfamiliar  to  some  readers — for  example,  in  regard 
to  the  early  Middle  Ages.  But  in  these  historical  chapters  I  have 
rigidly  excluded  whatever  seemed  to  have  little  or  no  bearing  on 
contemporary  or  subsequent  philosophy. 

The  problem  of  selection,  in  such  a  book  as  the  present,  is 
very  difficult.  Without  detail,  a  book  becomes  jejune  and  un- 
interesting; with  detail,  it  is  in  danger  of  becoming  intolerably 
lengthy.  I  have  sought  a  compromise,  by  treating  only  those 
philosophers  who  seem  to  me  to  have  considerable  importance, 
and  mentioning,  in  connection  with  them,  such  details  as,  even 
if  not  of  fundamental  importance,  have  value  on  account  of  some 
iDustrative  or  vivifying  quality. 

Philosophy,  from  the  earliest  times,  has  been  not  merely  an 
affair  of  the  schools,  or  of  disputation  between  a  handful  of 
learned  men.  It  has  been  an  integral  part  of  the  life  of  the  com- 
munity, and  as  such  I  have  tried  to  consider  it.  If  there  is  any 
merit  in  this  book,  it  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  it  is  derived. 

This  book  owes  its  existence  to  Dr.  Albert  C.  Barnes,  having 
been  originally  designed  and  partly  delivered  as  lectures  at  the 
Barnes  Foundation  in  Pennsylvania. 

As  in  most  of  my  work  during  the  years  since  1932,  I  have 
been  greatly  assisted  in  research  and  in  many  other  ways  by  my 
wife,  Patricia  Russell. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


1 

II 
III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 


XI 

XII 

XIII 

XIV 

XV 

XVI 

XVII 

XVIII 

XIX 

XX 

XXI 

XXII 

XXIII 

XXIV 


XXV 
XXVI 

XXVII 

txvm 

XXIX 
XXX 


Introduction 

BOOK   ONE 

ANCIENT   PHILOSOPHY 

Part  i 
The   Pre-Socratics 

The  Rise  of  Greek  Civilization 

The  Milesian  School 

Pythagoras 

Heraclitus 

Pannenides 

Empedocles 

Athens  in  Relation  to  Culture 

Anaxagoras 

The  Atornists 

Protagoras 

Part  2 

Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle 
Socrates 

The  Influence  of  Sparta 
The  Sources  of  Plato's  Opinions 
Plato's  Utopia 
The  Theory  of  Ideas 
Plato's  Theory  of  Immortality 
Plato's  Cosmogony 
Knowledge  and  Perception  in  Plato 
Aristotle's  Metaphysics 
Aristotle's  Ethics 
Aristotle's  Politics 
Aristotle's  Logic 
Aristotle's  Physics 
Early  Greek  Mathematics  and  Astronomy 

Part  3 
Ancient  Philosophy  after  Aristotle 

The  Hellenistic  World 

Cynics  and  Sceptics 

The  Epicureans 

Stoitism 

The  Roman  Empire  in  Relation  to  Culture 

Plotinua 


PAGE 
10 


21 

8 

57 
6? 
72 

77 
81 

84 
94 


i  oz 


129 
141 

'54 

165 

171 
182 

'95 
207 
218 
226 
231 


241 
252 
263 

*75 
294 
308 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

BOOK     TWO 

CATHOLIC    PHILOSOPHY 

Introduction  322 
Part  i 

The  Fathers 

I    The  Religious  Development  of  the  Jews  328 

II    Christianity  During  the  First  Four  Centuries  344 

III  Three  Doctors  of  the  Church  354 

IV  St.  Augustine's  Philosophy  and  Theology  372 
V    The  Fifth  and  Sixth  Centuries                '  386 

VI     St.  Benedict  and  Gregory  the  Great  395 

Part  2 
The  Schoolmen 

VII     The  Papacy  in  the  Dark  Apes  408 

VIII     John  the  Scot  421 

IX     Ecclesiastical  Reform  in  the  Eleventh  Ccntuiv  428 

X     Mohammedan  Culture  and  Philosophy  440 

XI     The  Twelfth  Century  '  450 

XII     The  Thirteenth  Century  4^3 

XIII  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  474 

XIV  Franciscan  Schoolmen  48'* 
XV     The  Eclipse  of  the  Papacy  499 


BOOK     TIIRFh 

MODERN     PHILOSOPHY 

Part  i 
/'Vow  the  Renaissance  tu  Hume 

I     General  Characteristics  51 1 

11     The  Italian  Renaissance  ^i(> 

III  Machiavelli  525 

IV  Erasmus  and  More  533 
V    The  Reformation  and  Counter-Reformation  544 

VI    The  Rise  of  Science  547 

VII     Francis  Bacon  563 

VIII     Hobbca's  Leviathan  568 

IX    Descartes  580 

X    Spinoza  592 

XI    Leibniz  604 

b 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

XII  Philosophical  Liberalism  620 

XIII  Locke's  Theory  of  Knowledge  628 

XIV  Locke's  Political  Philosophy  642 
XV  Locke's  Influence  666 

XVI  Berkeley  673 

XVII  Hume  685 

Part  2 
From  Rousseau  to  the  Present  Day 

XVIII  The  Romantic  Movement  701 

XIX  Rousseau  711 

XX  Kant  728 

XXI  Currents  of  Thought  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  746 

XXII  Hegel  757 

XXIII  Byron  774 

XXIV  Schopenhauer  781 
XXV  Nietzsche  788 

XXVI  The  Utilitarians  801 

XXVII  Karl  Marx  810 

XXVIII  Bergson  819 

XXIX  William  James  839 

XXX  JohnDewey  847 

XXXI  The  Philosophy  of  Logical  Analysis  857 


INTRODUCTION 

E  I    \HE   conceptions   of  life  and   the   world   which   we    call 

I     "philosophical"  are  a  product  of  two  factors:  one,  inherited 

JL    religious  and  ethical  conceptions;  the  other,  the  sort  of 

investigation  which  may  be  called  "scientific,"  using  this  word  in 

its  broadest  sense.  Individual  philosophers  have  differed  widely 

in  regard  to  the  proportions  in  which  these  two  factors  entered 

into  their  systems,  but  it  is  the  presence  of  both,  in  some  degree, 

that  characterizes  philosophy. 

"Philosophy"  is  a  word  which  has  been  used  in  many  ways, 
some  wider,  some  narrower.  I  propose  to  use  it  in  a  very  wide 
sense,  which  I  will  now  try  to  explain. 

Philosophy,  as  I  shall  understand  the  word,  is  something  inter- 
mediate between  theology  and  science.  Like  theology,  it  consists 
of  speculations  on  matters  as  to  which  definite  knowledge  has,  so 
far,  been  unascertainable ;  but  like  science,  it  appeals  to  human 
reason  rather  than  to  authority,  whether  that  of  tradition  or  that 
of  revelation.  All  definite  knowledge — so  I  should  contend — 
belongs  to  science ;  all  dogma  as  to  what  surpasses  definite  know- 
ledge belongs  to  theology.  But  between  theology  and  science  there 
is  a  No  Man's  Land,  exposed  to  attack  from  both  sides;  this  No 
Man's  Land  is  philosophy.  Almost  all  the  questions  of  most 
interest  to  speculative  minds  are  such  as  science  cannot  answer, 
and  the  confident  answers  of  theologians  no  longer  seem  so  con- 
vincing as  they  did  in  former  centuries.  Is  the  world  divided  into 
mind  and  matter,  and,  if  so,  what  is  mind  and  what  is  matter?  Is 
mind  subject  to  matter,  or  is  it  possessed  of  independent  powers  ? 
Has  the  universe  any  unity  or  purpose?  Is  it  evolving  towards 
some  goal  ?  Are  there  really  laws  of  nature,  or  do  we  believe  in 
them  only  because  of  our  innate  love  of  order  ?  Is  man  what  he 
seems  to  the  astronomer,  a  tiny  lump  of  impure  carbon  and  water 
impotently  crawling  on  a  small  and  unimportant  planet  ?  Or  is  he 
what  he  appears  to  Hamlet  ?  Is  he  perhaps  both  at  once  ?  Is  there 
a  way  of  living  that  is  noble  and  another  that  is  base,  or  are  all 
ways  of  living  merely  futile?  If  there  is  a  way  of  living  that  is 
noble,  in  what  does  it  consist,  and  how  shall  we  achieve  it?  Must 
the  good  be  eternal  in  order  to  deserve  to  be  valuc'd,  or  is  it  worth 
seeking  even  if  the  universe  is  inexorably  moving  toward?  death  ? 

10 


INTRODUCTION 

Is  there  such  a  thing  as  wisdom,  or  is  what  seems  such  merely 
the  ultimate  refinement  of  folly?  To  such  questions  no  answer 
can  be  found  in  the  laboratory.  Theologies  have  professed  to  give 
answers,  all  too  definite;  but  their  very  definiteness  causes  modern 
minds  to  view  them  with  suspicion.  The  studying  of  these 
questions,  if  not  the  answering  of  them,  is  the  business  of 
philosophy. 

Why,  then,  you  may  ask,  waste  time  on  such  insoluble  problems  ? 
To  this  one  may  answer  as  a  historian,  or  as  an  individual  facing 
the  terror  of  cosmic  loneliness. 

The  answer  of  the  historian,  in  so  far  as  I  am  capable  of  giving 
it,  will  appear  in  the  course  of  this  work.  Ever  since  men  became 
capable  of  free  speculation,  their  actions,  in  innumerable  impor- 
tant respects,  have  depended  upon  their  theories  as  to  the  world 
and  human  life,  as  to  what  is  good  and  what  is  evil.  This  is  as 
true  in  the  present  day  as  at  any  former  time.  To  understand  an 
age  or  a  nation,  we  must  understand  its  philosophy,  and  to  under- 
stand its  philosophy  we  must  ourselves  be  in  some  degree  philo- 
sophers. There  is  here  a  reciprocal  causation:  the  circumstances 
of  men's  lives  do  much  to  determine  their  philosophy,  but,  con- 
versely, their  philosophy  does  much  to  determine  their  circum- 
stances. This  interaction  throughout  the  centuries  will  be  the 
topic  of  the  following  pages. 

There  is  also,  however,  a  more  personal  answer.  Science  tells 
us  what  we  can  know,  but  what  we  can  know  is  little,  and  if  we 
forget  how  much  we  cannot  know  we  become  insensitive  to  many 
things  of  very  great  importance.  Theology,  on  the  other  hand, 
induces  a  dogmatic  belief  that  we  have  knowledge  where  in  fact 
we  have  ignorance,  and  by  doing  so  generates  a  kind  of  impertinent 
insolence  towards  the  universe.  Uncertainty,  in  the  presence  of 
vivid  hopes  and  fears,  is  painful,  but  must  be  endured  if  we  wish 
to  live  without  the  support  of  comforting  fairy  tales.  It  is  not 
good  either  to  forget  the  questions  that  philosophy  asks,  or  to 
persuade  ourselves  that  we  have  found  indubitable  answers  to 
them.  To  teach  how  to  live  without  certainty,  and  yet  without 
being  paralysed  by  hesitation,  is  perhaps  the  chief  thing  that 
philosophy,  in  our  age,  can  still  do  for  those  who  study  it. 

Philosophy^  as  distinct  from  theology,  began  in  Greece  in  the 
sixth  century  B.C.  After  running  its  course  in  antiquity,  it  was 
again  submerged  by  theology  as  Christianity  rose  and  Rome  fell. 

xx 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

Its  second  great  period,  from  the  eleventh  to  the  fourteenth  cen- 
turies, was  dominated  by  the  Catholic  Church,  except  for  a  few 
great  rebels,  such  as  the  Emperor  Frederick  II  (1195-1250).  This 
period  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  confusions  that  culminated 
in  the  Reformation.  The  third  period,  from  the  seventeenth 
century  to  the  present  day,  is  dominated,  more  than  either  of  its 
predecessors,  by  science;  traditional  religious  beliefs  remain 
important,  but  are  felt  to  need  justification,  and  are  modified 
wherever  science  seems  to  make  this  imperative.  Few  of  the 
philosophers  of  this  period  are  orthodox  from  a  Catholic  stand- 
point, and  the  secular  State  is  more  important  in  their  speculations 
than  the  Church. 

Social  cohesion  and  individual  liberty,  like  religion  and  science, 
are  in  a  state  of  conflict  or  uneasy  compromise  throughout  the 
whole  period.  In  Greece,  social  cohesion  was  secured  by  loyalty 
to  the  City  State;  even  Aristotle,  though  in  his  time  Alexander 
was  making  the  City  State  obsolete,  could  see  no  merit  in  any 
other  kind  of  polity.  The  degree  to  which  the  individual's  liberty 
was  curtailed  by  his  duty  to  the  City  varied  widely.  In  Sparta  he 
had  as  little  liberty  as  in  modern  Germany  or  Russia;  in  Athens, 
in  spite  of  occasional  persecutions,  citizens  had,  in  the  best  period, 
a  very  extraordinary  freedom  from  restrictions  imposed  by  the 
State.  Greek  thought  down  to  Aristotle  is  dominated  by  religious 
and  patriotic  devotion  to  the  City ;  its  ethical  systems  arc  adapted 
to  the  lives  of  citizens  and  have  a  large  political  element.  When 
the  Greeks  became  subject,  first  to  the  Macedonians,  and  then  to 
the  Romans,  the  conceptions  appropriate  to  their  days  of  inde- 
pendence were  no  longer  applicable.  This  produced,  on  the  one 
hand,  a  loss  of  vigour  through  the  breach  with  tradition,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  more  individual  and  less  social  ethic.  The 
Stoics  thought  of  the  virtuous  life  as  a  relation  of  the  soul  to 
God,  rather  than  as  a  relation  of  the  citizen  to  the  State.  They 
thus  prepared  the  way  for  Christianity,  which,  like  Stoicism,  was 
originally  unpolitical,  since,  during  its  first  three  centuries,  its 
adherents  were  devoid  of  influence  on  government.  Social  cohesion, 
during  the  six  and  a  half  centuries  from  Alexander  to  Constantine, 
was  secured,  not  by  philosophy  and  not  by  ancient  loyalties,  but 
by  force,  first  that  of  armies  and  then  that  of  civil  administration. 
Roman  armies,  Roman  roads,  Roman  law,  and  ifoman  officials 
first  created  and  then  preserved  a  powerful  centralized.  State. 

12 


INTRODUCTION 

Nothing  was  attributable  to  Roman  philosophy,  since  there  was 
none. 

During  this  long  period,  the  Greek  ideas  inherited  from  the  age 
of  freedom  underwent  a  gradual  process  of  transformation.  Some 
of  the  old  ideas,  notably  those  which  we  should  regard  as  speci- 
fically religious,  gained  in  relative  importance;  others,  more 
rationalistic,  were  discarded  because  they  no  longer  suited  the 
spirit  of  the  age.  In  this  way  the  later  pagans  trimmed  the  Greek 
tradition  until  it  became  suitable  for  incorporation  in  Christian 
doctrine. 

Christianity  popularized  an  important  opinion,  already  implicit 
in  the  teaching  of  the  Stoics,  but  foreign  to  the  general  spirit  of 
antiquity — I  mean,  the  opinion  that  a  man's  duty  to  God  is  more 
imperative  than  his  duty  to  the  State.1  This  opinion — that  "we 
ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  Man/'  as  Socrates  and  the  Apostles 
said — survived  the  conversion  of  Constantine,  because  the  early 
Christian  emperors  were  Arians  or  inclined  to  Arianism.  When 
the  emperors  became  orthodox,  it  fell  into  abeyance.  In  the 
Byzantine  Empire  it  remained  latent,  as  also  in  the  subsequent 
Russian  Empire,  which  derived  its  Christianity  from  Constan- 
tinople.2 But  in  the  West,  where  the  Catholic  emperors  were 
almost  immediately  replaced  (except  in  parts  of  Gaul)  by  heretical 
barbarian  conquerors,  the  superiority  of  religious  to  political 
allegiance  survived,  and  to  some  extent  still  survives. 

The  barbarian  invasion  put  an  end,  for  six  centuries,  to  the 
civilization  of  western  Europe.  It  lingered  in  Ireland  until  the 
Danes  destroyed  it  in  the  ninth  century;  before  its  extinction 
there  it  produced  one  notable  figure,  Scotus  Erigena.  In  the 
Eastern  Empire,  Greek  civilization,  in  a  desiccated  form,  survived, 
as  in  a  museum,  till  the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453,  but  nothing 
of  importance  to  the  world  came  out  of  Constantinople  except  an 
artistic  tradition  and  Justinian's  Codes  of  Roman  law. 

During  the  period  of  darkness,  from  the  end  of  the  fifth  century 
to  the  middle  of  the  eleventh,  the  western  Roman  world  under- 
went some  very  interesting  changes.  The  conflict  between  duty  to 

1  This  opinion  was  not  unknown  in  earlier  times:  it  is  stated,  for 
example,  in  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles.  But  before  the  Stoics  those  who 
held  it  were  fei%. 

*  That  is  why  the  modem  Russian  does  not  think  that  we  ought  to 
obey  dialectical  materialism  rather  than  Stalin. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

God  and  duty  to  the  State,  which  Christianity  had  introduced, 
took  the  form  of  a  conflict  between  Church  and  king.  The  eccle- 
siastical jurisdiction  of  the  Pope  extended  over  Italy,  France,  and 
Spain,  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  Germany,  Scandinavia,  and 
Poland.  At  first,  outside  Italy  and  southern  France,  his  control 
over  bishops  and  abbots  was  very  slight,  but  from  the  time  of 
Gregory  VII  (late  eleventh  century)  it  became  real  and  effective. 
From  that  time  on,  the  clergy,  throughout  western  Europe, 
formed  a  single  organization  directed  from  Rome,  seeking  power 
intelligently  and  relentlessly,  and  usually  victorious,  until  after  the 
year  1300,  in  their  conflicts  with  secular  rulers.  The  conflict 
between  Church  and  State  was  not  only  a  conflict  between  clergy 
and  laity ;  it  was  also  a  renewal  of  the  conflict  between  the  Mediter- 
ranean world  and  the  northern  barbarians.  The  unity  of  the 
Church  echoed  the  unity  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  its  liturgy  was 
Latin,  and  its  dominant  men  were  mostly  Italian,  Spanish,  or 
southern  French.  Their  education,  when  education  revived,  was 
classical;  their  conceptions  of  law  and  government  would  have 
been  more  intelligible  to  Marcus  Aurelius  than  they  were  to 
contemporary  monarchs.  The  Church  represented  at  once 
continuity  with  the  past  and  what  was  most  civilized  in  the 
present. 

The  secular  power,  on  the  contrary,  was  in  the  hands  of  kings 
and  barons  of  Teutonic  descent,  who  endeavoured  to  preserve 
what  they  could  of  the  institutions  that  they  had  brought  out  of 
the  forests  of  Germany.  Absolute  power  was  alien  to  those  institu- 
tions, and  so  was  what  appeared  to  these  vigorous  conquerors  as 
a  dull  and  spiritless  legality.  The  king  had  to  share  his  power 
with  the  feudal  aristocracy,  but  all  alike  expected  to  be  allowed 
occasional  outbursts  of  passion  in  the  form  of  war,  murder,  pillage, 
or  rape.  Monarchs  might  repent,  for  they  were  sincerely  pious, 
and,  after  all,  repentance  was  itself  a  form  of  passion.  But  the 
Church  could  never  produce  in  them  the  quiet  regularity  of  good 
behaviour  which  a'modern  employer  demands,  and  usually  obtains, 
of  his  employees.  What  was  the  use  of  conquering  the  world  if 
they  could  not  drink  and  murder  and  love  as  the  spirit  moved 
them?  And  why  should  they,  with  their  armies  of  proud  knights, 
submit  to  the  orders  of  bookish  men,  vowed  to  celibacy  and 
destitute  of  armed  force?  In  spite  of  ecclesiastic^  disapproval, 
they  preserved  the  duel  and  trial  by  battle,  and  they  developed 


INTRODUCTION 

tournaments  and  courtly  love.  Occasionally,  in  a  fit  of  rage,  they 
would  even  murder  eminent  churchmen. 

All  the  armed  force  was  on  the  side  of  the  kings,  and  yet  the 
Church  was  victorious.  The  Church  won,  partly  because  it  had 
almost  a  monopoly  of  education,  partly  because  the  kings  were 
perpetually  at  war  with  each  other,  but  mainly  because,  with  very 
few  exceptions,  rulers  and  people  alike  profoundly  believed  that 
the  Church  possessed  the  power  of  the  keys.  The  Church  could 
decide  whether  a  king  should  spend  eternity  in  heaven  or  in  hell ; 
the  Church  could  absolve  subjects  from  the  duty  of  allegiance, 
and  so  stimulate  rebellion.  The  Church,  moreover,  represented 
order  in  place  of  anarchy,  and  consequently  won  the  support  of 
the  rising  mercantile  class.  In  Italy,  especially,  this  last  con- 
sideration was  decisive. 

The  Teutonic  attempt  to  preserve  at  least  a  partial  independence 
of  the  Church  expressed  itself  not  only  in  politics,  but  also  in 
art,  romance,  chivalry,  and  war.  It  expressed  itself  very  little  in 
the  intellectual  world,  because  education  was  almost  wholly  con- 
fined to  the  clergy.  The  explicit  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages 
is  not  an  accurate  mirror  of  the  times,  but  only  of  what  was 
thought  by  one  party.  Among  ecclesiastics,  however— especially 
among  the  Franciscan  friars — a  certain  number,  for  various 
reasons,  were  at  variance  with  the  Pope.  In  Italy,  moreover, 
culture  spread  to  the  laity  some  centuries  sooner  than  it  did 
north  of  the  Alps.  Frederick  II,  who  tried  to  found  a  new  religion, 
represents  the  extreme  of  anti-papal  culture;  Thomas  Aquinas, 
who  was  born  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples  where  Frederick  II  was 
supreme,  remains  to  this  day  the  classic  exponent  of  papal  philo- 
sophy. Dante,  some  fifty  years  later,  achieved  a  synthesis,  and 
gave  the  only  balanced  exposition  of  the  complete  medieval  world 
of  ideas. 

After  Dante,  both  for  political  and  for  intellectual  reasons,  the 
medieval  philosophical  synthesis  broke  down.  It  had,  while  it 
lasted,  a  quality  of  tidiness  and  miniature  completeness;  whatever 
the  system  took  account  of  was  placed  with  precision  with  relation 
to  the  other  contents  of  its  very  finite  cosmos.  But  the  Great 
Schism,  die  conciliar  movement,  and  the  Renaissance  papacy  led 
up  to  the  Reformation,  which  destroyed  the  unity  of  Christendom 
and  the  scholastic  theory  of  government  that  centred  round  the 

Pope.  In  the  Renaissance  period  new  knowledge,  both  of  antiquity 

• 

15 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

and  of  the  earth's  surface,  made  men  tired  of  systems,  which  were 
felt  to  be  mental  prisons.  The  Copernican  astronomy  assigned  to 
the  earth  and  to  man  a  humbler  position  than  they  had  enjoyed 
in  the  Ptolemaic  theory.  Pleasure  in  new  facts  took  the  place, 
among  intelligent  men,  of  pleasure  in  reasoning,  analysing,  and 
systematizing.  Although  in  art  the  Renaissance  is  still  orderly,  in 
thought  it  prefers  a  large  and  fruitful  disorder.  In  this  respect, 
Montaigne  is  the  most  typical  exponent  of  the  age. 

In  the  theory  of  politics,  as  in  everything  except  art,  there  was 
a  collapse  of  order.  The  Middle  Ages,  though  turbulent  in  prac- 
tice, were  dominated  in  thought  by  a  passion  for  legality  and  by 
a  very  precise  theory  of  political  power.  All  power  is  ultimately 
from  God ;  He  has  delegated  power  to  the  Pope  in  sacred  things 
and  to  the  Emperor  in  secular  matters.  But  Pope  and  Emperor 
alike  lost  their  importance  during  the  fifteenth  century.  The  Pope 
became  merely  one  of  the  Italian  princes,  engaged  in  the  incredibly 
complicated  and  unscrupulous  game  of  Italian  power  politics. 
The  new  national  monarchies  in  France,  Spain,  and  England  had, 
in  their  own  territories,  a  power  with  which  neither  Pope  nor 
Emperor  could  interfere.  The  national  State,  largely  owing  to 
gunpowder,  acquired  an  influence  over  men's  thoughts  and  feelings 
which  it  had  not  had  before,  and  which  progressively  destroyed 
what  remained  of  the  Roman  belief  in  the  unity  of  civilization. 

This  political  disorder  found  expression  in  Machiavelli's  Prince. 
In  the  absence  of  any  guiding  principle,  politics  becomes  a  naked 
struggle  for  power;  The  Prince  gives  shrewd  advice  as  to  how  to 
play  this  game  successfully.  What  had  happened  in  die  great  age 
of  Greece  happened  again  in  Renaissance  Italy:  traditional  moral 
restraints  disappeared,  because  they  were  seen  to  be  associated 
with  superstition;  the  liberation  from  fetters  made  individuals 
energetic  and  creative,  producing  a  rare  florescence  of  genius ;  but 
the  anarchy  and  treachery  which  inevitably  resulted  from  the 
decay  of  morals  made  Italians  collectively  impotent,  and  they  fell, 
like  the  Greeks,  under  the  domination  of  nations  less  civilized 
than  themselves  but  not  so  destitute  of  social  cohesion. 

The  result,  however,  was  less  disastrous  than  in  the  case  of 
Greece,  because  the  newly  powerful  nations,  with  the  exception 
of  Spain,  showed  themselves  as  capable  of  great  achievement  as 
the  Italians  had  been.  • 

From  the  sixteenth  century  onward,  the  history  of  European 

,6 


INTRODUCTION 

thought  is  dominated  by  the  Reformation.  The  Reformation  was 
a  complex  many-sided  movement,  and  owed  its  success  to  a 
variety  of  causes.  In  the  main,  it  was  a  revolt  of  the  northern 
nations  against  the  renewed  dominion  of  Rome.  Religion  was  the 
force  that  had  subdued  the  North,  but  religion  in  Italy  had 
decayed:  the  papacy  remained  as  an  institution,  and  extracted  a 
huge  tribute  from  Germany  and  England,  but  these  nations, 
which  were  still  pious,  could  feel  no  reverence  for  the  Borgias  and 
Medicis,  who  professed  to  save  souls  from  purgatory  in  return  for 
cash  which  they  squandered  on  luxury  and  immorality.  National 
motives,  economic  motives,  and  moral  motives  all  combined  to 
strengthen  the  revolt  against  Rome.  Moreover  the  Princes  soon 
perceived  that,  if  the  Church  in  their  territories  became  merely 
national,  they  would  be  able  to  dominate  it,  and  would  thus 
become  much  more  powerful  at  home  than  they  had  been  while 
sharing  dominion  with  the  Pope.  For  all  these  reasons,  Luther's 
theological  innovations  were  welcomed  by  rulers  and  peoples  alike 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  northern  Europe. 

The  Catholic  Church  was  derived  from  three  sources.  Its  sacred 
history  was  Jewish,  its  theology  was  Greek,  its  government  and 
canon  law  were,  at  least  indirectly,  Roman.  The  Reformation 
rejected  the  Roman  elements,  softened  the  Greek  elements,  and 
greatly  strengthened  the  Judaic  elements.  It  thus  co-operated  with 
the  nationalist  forces  which  were  undoing  the  work  of  social 
cohesion  which  had  been  effected  first  by  the  Roman  Empire  and 
then  by  the  Roman  Church.  In  Catholic  doctrine,  divine  revelation 
did  not  end  with  the  scriptures,  but  continued  from  age  to  age 
through  the  medium  of  the  Church,  to  which,  therefore,  it  was 
the  duty  of  the  individual  to  submit  his  private  opinions.  Pro- 
testants, on  the  contrary,  rejected  the  Church  as  a  vehicle  of 
revelation ;  truth  was  to  be  sought  only  in  the  Bible,  which  each 
man  could  interpret  for  himself.  If  men  differed  in  their  interpre- 
tation, there  was  no  divinely  appointed  authority  to  decide  the 
dispute.  In  practice,  the  State  claimed  the  right  that  had  formerly 
belonged  to  the  Church,  but  this  was  a  usurpation.  In  Protestant 
theory,  there  should  be  no  earthly  intermediary  between  the  soul 
and  God. 

The  effects  of  this  change  were  momentous.  Truth  was  no 
longer  to  be  ascertained  by  consulting  authority,  but  by  inward 

meditation,  There  was  a  tendency,  quickly  developed,  towards 

• 

«7 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

anarchism  in  politics,  and,  in  religion,  towards  mysticism,  which 
had  always  fitted  with  difficulty  into  the  framework  of  Catholic 
orthodoxy.  There  came  to  be  not  one  Protestantism,  but  a  multi- 
tude of  sects ;  not  one  philosophy  opposed  to  scholasticism,  but  as 
many  as  there  were  philosophers ;  not,  as  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
one  Emperor  opposed  to  the  Pope,  but  a  large  number  of  heretical 
kings.  The  result,  in  thought  as  in  literature,  was  a  continually 
deepening  subjectivism,  operating  at  first  as  a  wholesome  liberation 
from  spiritual  slavery,  but  advancing  steadily  towards  a  personal 
isolation  inimical  to  social  sanity. 

Modern  philosophy  begins  with  Descartes,  whose  fundamental 
certainty  is  the  existence  of  himself  and  his  thoughts,  from  which 
the  external  world  is  to  be  inferred.  This  was  only  the  first  stage 
in  a  development,  through  Berkeley  and  Kant,  to  Fichte,  for  whom 
everything  is  only  an  •„  rruiii..*!.  :>  oft!:?  *  so.  This  was  insanity,  and, 
from  this  extreme,  philosophy  has  been  attempting,  ever  since,  to 
escape  into  the  world  of  everyday  common  sense. 

With  subjectivism  in  philosophy,  anarchism  in  politics  goes 
hand  in  hand.  Already  during  Luther's  lifetime,  unwelcome  and 
unacknowledged  disciples  had  developed  the  doctrine  of  Ana- 
baptism,  which,  for  a  time,  dominated  the  city  of  Miinster.  The 
Anabaptists  repudiated  all  law,  since  they  held  that  the  good  man 
will  be  guided  at  every  moment  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  cannot 
be  bound  by  formulas.  From  this  premiss  they  arrive  at  com- 
munism and  sexual  promiscuity ;  they  were  therefore  exterminated 
after  a  heroic  resistance.  But  their  doctrine,  in  softened  forms, 
spread  to  Holland,  England  and  America;  historically,  it  is  the 
source  of  Quakerism.  A  fiercer  form  of  anarchism,  no  longer  con- 
nected with  religion,  arose  in  the  nineteenth  century.  In  Russia, 
in  Spain,  and  to  a  lesser  degree  in  Italy,  it  had  considerable 
success,  and  to  this  day  it  remains  a  bugbear  of  the  American 
immigration  authorities.  This  modern  form,  though  anti-religious, 
has  still  much  of  the  spirit  of  early  Protestantism ;  it  differs  mainly 
in  directing  against  secular  governments  the  hostility  that  Luther 
directed  against  popes. 

Subjectivity,  once  let  loose,  could  not  be  confined  within  limits 
until  it  had  run  its  course.  In  morals,  the  Protestant  emphasis  on 
the  individual  conscience  was  essentially  anarchic.  Habit  and 
custom  were  so  strong  that,  except  in  occasional  outbreaks  such 
as  that  of  Mtinstcr,  the  disciples  of  individualism  in  ethics  con- 

18 


INTRODUCTION 

tinued  to  act  in  a  manner  which  was  conventionally  virtuous.  But 
this  was  a  precarious  equilibrium.  The  eighteenth-century  cult  of 
"sensibility"  began  to  break  it  down:  an  act  was  admired,  not  for 
its  good  consequences,  or  for  its  conformity  to  a  moral  code,  but 
for  die  emotion  that  inspired  it.  Out  of  this  attitude  developed  the 
cult  of  the  hero,  as  it  is  expressed  by  Carlyle  and  Nietzsche,  and 
the  Byronic  cult  of  violent  passion  of  no  matter  what  kind. 

The  romantic  movement,  in  art,  in  literature,  and  in  politics,  is 
hound  up  with  this  subjective  way  of  judging  men,  not  as  members 
of  a  community,  but  as  aesthetically  delightful  objects  of  con- 
templation. Tigers  are  more  beautiful  than  sheep,  but  we  prefer 
them  behind  bars.  The  typical  romantic  removes  the  bars  and 
enjoys  the  magnificent  leaps  with  which  the  tiger  annihilates  the 
sheep.  He  exhorts  men  to  imagine  themselves  tigers,  and  when  he 
succeeds  the  results  are  not  wholly  pleasant. 

Against  the  more  insane  forms  of  subjectivism  in  modern  times 
there  have  been  various  reactions.  First,  a  half-way  compromise 
philosophy,  the  doctrine  of  liberalism,  which  attempted  to  assign 
the  respective  spheres  of  government  and  the  individual.  This 
begins,  in  its  modern  form,  with  Locke,  who  is  as  much  opposed 
to  "enthusiasm" — the  individualism  of  the  Anabaptists — as  to 
absolute  authority  and  blind  subservience  to  tradition.  A  more 
thoroughgoing  revolt  leads  to  the  doctrine  of  State  worship, 
which  assigns  to  the  State  the  position  that  Catholicism  gave 
to  the  Church,  or  even,  sometimes,  to  God.  Hobbes,  Rousseau, 
and  Hegel  represent  different  phases  of  this  theory,  and  their 
doctrines  are  embodied  practically  in  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  and 
modern  Germany.  Communism,  in  theory,  is  far  removed  from 
such  philosophies,  but  is  driven,  in  practice,  to  a  type  of  com- 
munity very  similar  to  that  which  results  from  State  worship. 

Throughout  this  long  development,  from  600  B.C.  to  the  present 
day,  philosophers  have  been  divided  into  those  who  wished  to 
tighten  social  bonds  and  those  who  wished  to  relax  them.  With 
this  difference  others  have  been  associated.  The  disciplinarians 
have  advocated  some  system  of  dogma,  either  old  or  new,  and 
have  therefore  been  compelled  to  be,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
hostile  to  science,  since  their  dogmas  could  not  be  proved  empiri- 
cally. They  have  almost  invariably  taught  that  happiness  is  not 
the  good,  but  that  "nobility"  or  "heroism"  is  to  be  preferred. 
'1 'hey  .have  had  a  sympathy  with  the  irrational  parts  of  human 

19 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

nature,  since  they  have  felt  reason  to  be  inimical  to  social  cohesion. 
The  libertarians,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  exception  of  the 
extreme  anarchists,  have  tended  to  be  scientific,  utilitarian, 
rationalistic,  hostile  to  violent  passion,  and  enemies  of  all  the 
more  profound  forms  of  religion.  This  conflict  existed  in  Greece 
before  the  rise  of  what  we  recognize  as  philosophy,  and  is  already 
quite  explicit  in  the  earliest  Greek  thought.  In  changing  forms, 
it  has  persisted  down  to  the  present  day,  and  no  doubt  will  persist 
for  many  ages  to  come. 

It  is  clear  that  each  party  to  this  dispute — as  to  all  that  persist 
through  long  periods  of  time — is  partly  right  and  partly  wrong. 
Social  cohesion  is  a  necessity,  and  mankind  has  never  yet  succeeded 
in  enforcing  cohesion  by  merely  rational  arguments.  Every  com- 
munity is  exposed  to  two  opposite  dangers;  ossification  through 
too  much  discipline  and  reverence  for  tradition,  on  the  one  hand; 
on  the  other  hand,  dissolution,  or  subjection  to  foreign  conquest, 
through  the  growth  of  an  individualism  and  personal  independence 
that  makes  co-operation  impossible.  In  general,  important  civili- 
zations start  with  a  rigid  and  superstitious  system,  gradually 
relaxed,  and  leading,  at  a  certain  stage,  to  a  period  of  brilliant 
genius,  while  the  good  of  the  old  tradition  remains  and  the  evil 
inherent  in  its  dissolution  has  not  yet  developed.  But  as  the  evil 
unfolds,  it  leads  to  anarchy,  thence,  inevitably,  to  a  new  tyranny, 
producing  a  new  synthesis  secured  by  a  new  system  of  dogma. 
The  doctrine  of  liberalism  is  an  attempt  to  escape  from  this 
endless  oscillation.  The  essence  of  liberalism  is  an  attempt  to 
secure  a  social  order  not  based  on  irrational  dogma,  and  insuring 
stability  without  involving  more  restraints  than  are  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  the  community.  Whether  this  attempt 
can  succeed  only  the  future  can  determine. 


20 


Book  One  ANCIENT   PHILOSOPHY 

Part  i. — The  Pre-Socratics 

Chapter  I 
THE    RISE    OF    GREEK    CIVILIZATION 

IN  all  history,  nothing  is  so  surprising  or  so  difficult  to  account 
for  as  the  sudden  rise  of  civilization  in  Greece.  Much  of  what 
makes  civilization  had  already  existed  for  thousands  of  years  in 
Egypt  and  in  Mesopotamia,  and  had  spread  thence  to  neighbouring 
countries.  But  certain  elements  had  been  lacking  until  the  Greeks 
supplied  them.  What  they  achieved  in  art  and  literature  is  familiar 
to  even-body,  but  what  they  did  in  the  purely  intellectual  realm 
is  even  more  exceptional.  They  invented  mathematics1  and 
science  and  philosophy ;  they  first  wrote  history  fcsx  opposed  to 
mere  annals;  they  speculated  freely  about  the  nature  of  the  world 
and  the  ends  of  life,  without  being  bound  in  the  fetters  of  any 
inherited  orthodoxy.  What  occurred  was  so  astonishing  that,  until 
very  recent  times,  men  were  content  to  gape  and  talk  mystically 
about  the  Greek  genius.  It  is  possible,  however,  to  understand 
the  development  of  Greece  in  scientific  terms,  and  it  is  well  worth 
while  to  do  so. 

Philosophy  begins  with  Thalcs,  who,  fortunately,  can  be  dated 
by  the  fact  that  he  predicted  an  eclipse  which,  according  to  the 
astronomers,  occurred  in  the  year  585  B.C.  Philosophy  and  science 
— which  were  not  originally  separate — were  therefore  born 
together  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century.  What  had  been 
happening  in  Greece  and  neighbouring  countries  before  this 
lime?  Any  answer  must  be  in  part  conjectural,  but  archaeology, 
during  the  present  century,  has  given  us  much  more  knowledge 
than  was  possessed  by  our  grandfathers. 

1  Arithmetic* and  some  geometry  existed  among  die  Egyptians  and 
Babylonians,  but  mainly  in  the  form  of  rules  of  thumb.  Dqductive 
reasoning  from  general  premisses  was  a  Greek  innovation. 

21 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

The  art  of  writing  was  invented  in  Egypt  about  the  year 
4000  B.C.,  and  in  Mesopotamia  not  much  later.  In  each  country 
writing  began  with  pictures  of  the  objects  intended.  These 
pictures  quickly  became  conventionalized,  so  that  words  were 
represented  by  ideograms,  as  they  still  are  in  China.  In  the  course 
of  thousands  of  years,  this  cumbrous  system  developed  into 
alphabetic  writing. 

The  early  development  of  civilization  in  Egypt  and  Meso- 
potamia was  due  to  the  Nile,  the  Tigris,  and  the  Euphrates, 
which  made  agriculture  very  easy  and  very  productive.  The 
civilization  was  in  many  ways  similar  to  that  which  the  Spaniards 
found  in  Mexico  and  Peru.  There  was  a  divine  king,  with  despotic 
powers;  in  Egypt,  he  owned  all  the  land.  There  was  a  polytheistic 
religion,  with  a  supreme  god  to  whom  the  king  had  a  specially 
intimate  relation.  There  was  a  military  aristocracy,  and  also  a 
priestly  aristocracy.  The  latter  was  often  able  to  encroach  on  the 
royal  power,  if  the  king  was  weak  or  if  he  was  engaged  in  a 
difficult  war.  The  cultivators  of  the  soil  were  serfs,  belonging 
to  the  king,  the  aristocracy,  or  the  priesthood. 

There  was  a  considerable  difference  between  Egyptian  and 
Babylonian  theology.  The  Egyptians  were  preoccupied  with 
death,  and  believed  that  the  souls  of  the  dead  descend  into  the 
underworld,  where  they  are  judged  by  Osiris  according  to  the 
manner  of  their  life  on  earth.  They  thought  that  the  soul  would 
ultimately  return  to  the  body;  this  led  to  mummification  and 
to  the  construction  of  splendid  tomks.  The  pyramids  were  built 
by  various  kings  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  millennium  B.C.  and 
the  beginning  of  the  third.  After  this  time,  Egyptian  civilization 
became  more  and  more  stereotyped,  and  religious  conservatism 
made  progress  impossible.  About  1800  B.C.  Epypt  was  conquered 
by  Semites  named  Hyksos,  who  ruled  the  country  for  about 
two  centuries.  They  left  no  permanent  mark  on  Epypt,  but  their 
presence  there  must  have  helped  to  spread  Egyptian  civilization 
in  Syria  ami  Palestine. 

Babylonia  had  a  more  warlike  development  than  Egypt.  At 
first,  the  ruling  race  were  not  Semites,  but  "Sumcrtans,"  whose 
origin  is  unknown.  They  invented  cuneiform  writing,  which  the 
conquering  Semites  took  over  from  them.  There  was  a  period 
when  there  ucrc  various  independent  cities  whicfi  fought  with 
each  other,  but  in  the  end  Babylon  became  supreme  and  <*n»tab* 


THE   RISE   OP    GREEK    CIVILIZATION 

lished  an  empire.  The  gods  of  other  cities  became  subordinate, 
and  Marduk,  the  god  of  Babylon,  acquired  a  position  like  that 
later  held  by  Zeus  in  the  Greek  pantheon.  The  same  sort  of 
thing  had  happened  in  Egypt,  but  at  a  much  earlier  time. 

The  religions  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  like  other  ancient 
religions,  were  originally  fertility  cults.  The  earth  was  female, 
the  sun  male.  The  bull  was  usually  regarded  as  an  embodiment 
of  male  fertility,  and  bull-gods  were  common.  In  Babylon, 
Ishtar,  the  earth-goddess,  was  supreme  among  female  divinities. 
Throughout  western  Asia,  the  Great  Mother  was  worshipped 
under  various  names.  When  Greek  colonists  in  Asia  Mjnor 
found  temples  to  her,  they  named  her  Artemis  and  took  over 
the  existing  cult.  This  is  the  origin  of  "Diana  of  the  Ephesians."1 
Christianity  transformed  her  into  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  it  was  a 
Council  at  Ephesus  that  legitimated  the  title  "Mother  of  God" 
as  applied  to  Our  Lady. 

Where  a  religion  was  bound  up  with  the  government  of  an 
empire,  political  motives  did  much  to  transform  its  primitive 
features.  A  god  or  goddess  became  associated  with  the  State,  and 
had  to  give,  not  only  an  abundant  harvest,  but  victory  in  war. 
A  rich  priestly  caste  elaborated  the  ritual  and  the  theology,  and 
fitted  together  into  a  pantheon  the  several  divinities  of  the  com- 
ponent parts  of  the  empire. 

Through  association  with  government,  the  gods  also  became 
associated  with  morality.  Lawgivers  received  their  codes  from  a 
god;  thus  a  breach  of  the  law  became  an  impiety.  The  oldest 
legal  code  still  known  is  that  of  Hammurabi,  king  of  Babylon, 
about  2100  B.C.  ;  this  code  was  asserted  by  the  king  to  have  been 
delivered  to  him  by  Marduk.  The  connection  between  religion 
and  morality  became  continually  closer  throughout  ancient  times. 

Babylonian  religion,  unlike  that  of  Egypt,  was  more  concerned 
with  prosperity  in  this  world  than  with  happiness  in  the  next. 
Magic,  divination,  and  astrology,  though  not  peculiar  to  Baby- 
lonia, were  more  developed  there  than  elsewhere,  and  it  was 
chiefly  through  Babylon  that  they  acquired  their  hold  on  later 
antiquity.  From  Babylon  come  some  things  that  belong  to  science: 
the  division  of  the  day  into  twenty-four  hours,  and  of  the  circle 

1  Diana  wa*  the  I*atin  equivalent  of  Artemis.  It  is  Artemis  who  is 
mentioned  in  the  Greek  Testament  where^our  translation  speaks  of 
Diana* 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

into  360  degrees ;  also  the  discovery  of  a  cycle  in  eclipses,  which 
enabled  lunar  eclipses  to  be  predicted  with  certainty,  and  solar 
eclipses  with  some  probability.  This  Babylonian  knowledge,  as 
we  shall  see,  was  acquired  by  Thales. 

The  civilizations  of  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia  were  agricultural, 
and  those  of  surrounding  nations,  at  first,  were  pastoral.  A  new 
element  came  with  the  development  of  commerce,  which  was  at 
first  almost  entirely  maritime.  Weapons,  until  about  1000  B.C., 
were  made  of  bronze,  and  nations  which  did  not  have  the  neces- 
sary metals  on  their  own  territory  were  obliged  to  obtain  them 
by  trade  or  piracy.  Piracy  was  a  temporary  expedient,  and  where 
social  and  political  conditions  were  fairly  stable,  commerce  was 
found  to  be  more  profitable.  In  commerce,  the  island  of  Crete 
seems  to  have  been  the  pioneer.  For  about  eleven  centuries,  say 
from  2500  B.C.  to  1400  B.C.,  an  artistically  advanced  culture, 
called  the  Minoan,  existed  in  Crete.  What  survives  of  Cretan 
art  gives  an  impression  of  cheerfulness  and  almost  decadent 
luxury,  very  different  from  the  terrifying  gloom  of  Egyptian 
temples. 

Of  this  important  civilization  almost  nothing  was  known  until 
the  excavations  of  Sir  Arthur  Evans  and  others.  It  was  a  maritime 
civilization,  in  close  touch  with  Egypt  (except  during  the  time  of 
the  Hyksos).  From  Egyptian  pictures  it  is  evident  that  the  very 
considerable  commerce  between  Egypt  and  Crete  was  carried 
on  by  Cretan  sailors;  this  commerce  reached  its  maximum 
about  1500  B.C.  The  Cretan  religion  appears  to  have  had  some 
affinities  with  the  religions  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  but  in  art 
there  was  more  affinity  with  Egypt,  though  Cretan  art  was  very 
original  and  amazingly  full  of  life.  The  centre  of  the  Cretan 
civilization  was  the  so-called  "palace  of  Minos"at  Knossos,of  which 
memories  lingered  in  the  traditions  of  classical  Greece.  The  palaces 
of  Crete  were  very  magnificent,  but  were  destroyed  about  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  century  B.C.,  probably  by  invaders  from 
Greece.  The  chronology  of  Cretan  history  is  derived  from  Egyp- 
tian objects  found  in  Crete,  and  Cretan  objects  found  in 
Egypt ;  throughout,  our  knowledge  is  dependent  on  archaeological 
evidence. 

The  Cretans  worshipped  a  goddess,  or  perhaps  several  goddesses. 
The  most  indubitable  goddess  was  the  "Mistress  of  Animals," 
who  was  a  huntress,  and  probably  the  source  of  the  classical 


THE   RISE   OF    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

Artemis.1  She  apparently  was  also  a  mother;  the  only  male  deity, 
apart  from  the  "Master  of  Animals,"  is  her  young  son.  There  is 
some  evidence  of  belief  in  an  after  life,  in  which,  as  in  Egyptian 
belief,  deeds  on  earth  receive  reward  or  retribution.  But  on  the 
whole  the  Cretans  appear,  from  their  art,  to  have  been  cheerful 
people,  not  much  oppressed  by  gloomy  superstitions.  They  were 
fond  of  bull-fights,  at  which  female  as  well  as  male  toreadors 
performed  amazing  acrobatic  feats.  Sir  Arthur  Evans  thinks  that 
the  bull-fights  were  religious  celebrations,  and  that  the  performers 
belonged  to  the  highest  nobility,  but  this  view  is  not  generally 
accepted.  The  surviving  pictures  are  full  of  movement  and  realism. 

The  Cretans  had  a  linear  script,  but  it  has  not  been  deciphered. 
At  home  they  were  peaceful,  and  their  cities  were  un walled; 
no  doubt  they  were  defended  by  sea  power. 

Before  the  destruction  of  the  Minoan  culture,  it  spread,  about 
1600  B.C.,  to  the  mainland  of  Greece,  where  it  survived,  through 
gradual  stages  of  modification,  until  about  900  B.C.  This  mainland 
civilization  is  called  the  Mycenaean;  it  is  known  through  the 
tombs  of  kings,  and  also  through  fortresses  on  hill-tops,  which 
show  more  fear  of  war  than  had  existed  in  Crete.  Both  tombs 
and  fortresses  remained  to  impress  the  imagination  of  classical 
Greece.  The  older  art  products  in  the  palaces  are  either  actually 
of  Cretan  workmanship,  or  closely  akin  to  those  of  Crete.  The 
Mycenaean  civilization,  seen  through  a  haze  of  legend,  is  that 
which  is  depicted  in  Homer. 

There  is  much  uncertainty  concerning  the  Mycenaeans.  Did 
they  owe  their  civilization  to  being  conquered  by  the  Cretans? 
Did  they  speak  Greek,  or  were  they  an  earlier  indigenous  race? 
No  certain  answer  to  these  questions  is  possible,  but  there  is 
evidence  which  makes  it  probable  that  they  were  conquerors 
who  spoke  Greek,  and  that  at  least  the  aristocracy  consisted  of 
fair-haired  invaders  from  the  North,  who  brought  the  Greek 
language  with  them.8  The  Greeks  came  to  Greece  in  three 
successive  waves,  first  the  lonians,  then  the  Achaeans,  and  last 
the  Dorians.  The  lonians  appear,  though  conquerors,  to  have 

1  She  has  a  male  twin  or  consort,  the  "Master  of  Animals/'  but  he  is 
less  prominent.  It  was  at  a  later  date  that  Artemis  was  identified  with  the 
Great  Mother  %f  Asia  Minor. 

1  See  The  Minoan- Mycenaean  Religion  and  Its  Survival  in  Greek 
Religion,  by  Martin  P.  Nilsson,  p.  1 1  M. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

adopted  the  Cretan  civilization  pretty  completely,  as,  later,  the 
Romans  adopted  the  civilization  of  Greece.  But  the  lonians  were 
disturbed,  and  largely  dispossessed,  by  their  successors,  the 
Achaeans.  The  Achaeans  are  known,  from  the  Hittite  tablets 
found  at  Boghaz-Keui,  to  have  had  a  large  organized  empire 
in  the  fourteenth  century  B.C.  The  Mycenaean  civilization, 
which  had  been  weakened  by  the  warfare  of  the  lonians  and 
Achaeans,  was  practically  destroyed  by  the  Dorians,  the  last 
Greek  invaders.  Whereas  previous  invaders  had  largely  adopted 
the  Minoan  religion,  the  Dorians  retained  the  original  Indo- 
European  religion  of  their  ancestors.  The  religion  of  Mycenaean 
times,  however,  lingered  on,  especially  in  the  lower  classes,  and 
the  religion  of  classical  Greece  was  a  blend  of  the  two.  In  fact 
some  of  the  classical  goddesses  were  of  Mycenaean  origin. 

Although  the  above  account  seems  probable,  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  we  do  not  know  whether  the  Mycenaeans  were 
Greeks  or  not.  What  we  do  know  is  that  their  civilization  decayed, 
that  about  the  time  when  it  ended  iron  superseded  bronze, 
and  that  for  some  time  sea  supremacy  passed  to  the  Phoenicians. 

Both  during  the  later  part  of  the  Mycenaean  age  and  after  its 
end,  some  of  the  invaders  settled  down  and  became  agriculturists, 
while  some  pushed  on,  first  into  the  islands  and  Asia  Minor, 
then  into  Sicily  and  southern  Italy,  where  they  founded  cities 
that  lived  by  maritime  commerce.  It  was  in  these  maritime  cities 
that  the  Greeks  first  made  qualitatively  new  contributions  to 
civilization ;  the  supremacy  of  Athens  came  later,  and  was  equally 
associated,  when  it  came,  with  naval  power. 

The  mainland  of  Greece  is  mountainous  and  largely  infertile. 
There  are,  however,  many  fertile  valleys,  with  easy  accx*ss  to  the 
sea,  but  cut  off  by  the  mountains  from  easy  land  communication 
with  each  other.  In  these  valleys  little  separate  communities  grew 
up,  living  by  agriculture,  and  centring  round  a  town,  generally 
close  to  the  sea.  In  such  circumstances  it  was  natural  that,  as 
soon  as  the  population  of  any  community  grew  too  great  for  its 
internal  resources,  those  who  could  not  live  on  the  land  should 
take  to  seafaring.  The  cities  of  the  mainland  founded  colonies, 
often  in  places  where  it  was  much  easier  to  find  subsistence  than 
it  had  been  at  home.  Thus  in  the  earliest  historical  period  the 
Greeks  of  Asia  Minor,  Sicily,  and  Italy  were  much  richer  than 
those  of  the  Greek  mainland. 

36 


THE   RISE   OF    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

The  social  system  was  very  different  in  different  parts  of 
Greece.  In  Sparta,  a  small  aristocracy  subsisted  on  the  labour  of 
oppressed  serfs  of  a  different  race;  in  the  poorer  agricultural 
regions,  the  population  consisted  mainly  of  fanners  cultivating 
their  own  land  with  the  help  of  their  families.  But  where  commerce 
and  industry  flourished,  the  free  citizens  grew  rich  by  the  em- 
ployment of  slaves — male  in  the  mines,  female  in  the  textile 
industry.  These  slaves  were,  in  Ionia,  of  the  surrounding  bar- 
barian population,  and  were,  as  a  rule,  first  acquired  in  war. 
With  increasing  wealth  went  increasing  isolation  of  respectable 
women,  who  in  later  times  had  little  part  in  the  civilized  aspects 
of  Greek  life  except  in  Sparta  and  Lesbos. 

There  was  a  very  general  development,  first  from  monarchy 
to  aristocracy,  then  to  an  alternation  of  tyranny  and  democracy. 
The  kings  were  not  absolute,  like  those  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia; 
they  were  advised  by  a  Council  of  Elders,  and  could  not  transgress 
custom  with  impunity.  "Tyranny"  did  not  mean  necessarily 
bad  government,  but  only  the  rule  of  a  man  whose  claim  to 
power  was  not  hereditary.  "Democracy"  meant  government 
by  all  the  citizens,  among  whom  slaves  and  women  were  not 
included.  The  early  tyrants,  like  the  Medici,  acquired  their 
power  through  being  the  richest  members  of  their  respective 
plutocracies.  Often  the  source  of  their  wealth  was  the  ownership 
of  gold  and  silver  mines,  made  the  more  profitable  by  the  new 
institution  of  coinage,  which  came  from  the  kingdom  of  Lydia, 
adjacent  to  Ionia.1  Coinage  seems  to  have  been  invented  shortly 
before  700  B.C. 

One  of  the  most  important  results,  to  the  Greeks,  of  commerce 
or  piracy — at  first  the  two  are  scarcely  distinct — was  the  acqui- 
sition of  the  art  of  writing.  Although  writing  had  existed  for 
thousands  of  years  in  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  and  the  Minonn 
Cretans  had  a  script  (which  has  not  been  deciphered),  there  is 
no  conclusive  evidence  that  the  Greeks  acquired  alphabetic 
writing  until  about  the  tenth  century  B.C.  They  learnt  the  art 
from  the  Phoenicians,  who,  like  the  other  inhabitants  of  Syria, 
were  exposed  to  both  Egyptian  and  Babylonian  influences,  and 
who  held  the  supremacy  in  maritime  commerce  until  the  rise 
of  the  Greek  cities  of  Ionia,  Italy,  and  Sicily.  In  the  fourteenth 
century,  writirffc  to  Ikhnaton  (the  heretic  king  of  Egypt),  Syrians 
1  Sec  P.  N.  Ure,  The  Origin  of  Tyranny. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

still  used  the  Babylonian  cuneiform;  but  Hiram  of  Tyre  (969- 
936)  used  the  Phoenician  alphabet,  which  probably  developed  out 
of  the  Egyptian  script.  The  Egyptians  used,  at  first,  a  pure  picture 
writing;  gradually  the  pictures,  much  conventionalized,  came  to 
represent  syllables  (the  first  syllables  of  the  names  of  the  things 
pictured),  and  at  last  single  letters,  on  the  principle  of  "A  was 
an  Archer  who  shot  at  a  frog."1  This  last  step,  which  was  not 
taken  with  any  completeness  by  the  Egyptians  themselves,  but 
by  the  Phoenicians,  gave  the  alphabet  with  all  its  advantages. 
The  Greeks,  borrowing  from  the  Phoenicians,  altered  the  alphabet 
to  suit  their  language,  and  made  the  important  innovation  of 
adding  vowels  instead  of  having  only  consonants.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  acquisition  of  this  convenient  method  of 
writing  greatly  hastened  the  rise  of  Greek  civilization. 

The  first  notable  product  of  the  Hellenic  civilization  was 
Homer.  Even-thing  about  Homer  is  conjectural,  but  there  is  a 
widely  held  opinion  that  he  was  a  series  of  poets  rather  than  an 
individual.  According  to  those  who  hold  this  opinion,  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey  between  them  took  about  two  hundred  years 
to  complete,  some  say  from  750  lo  550  B.r.,2  while  others  hold 
that  "Homer"  was  nearly  complete  at  the  end  of  the  eighth 
century.3  The  Homeric  poems,  in  their  present  form,  were 
brought  to  Athens  by  Peisistratus,  who  reigned  (with  inter- 
missions) from  560  to  527  B.C.  From  his  time  onward,  the  Athe- 
nian youth  learnt  Homer  by  heart,  and  this  was  the  most  important 
part  of  their  education.  In  some  parts  of  Greece,  notably  in  Sparta, 
Homer  had  not  the  same  prestige  until  a  later  date. 

The  Homeric  poems,  like  the  courtly  romances  of  the  later 
Middle  Ages,  represent  the  point  of  view  of  a  civilized  aristocracy, 
which  ignores  as  plebeian  various  superstitions  that  arc  still 
rampant  among  the  populace.  In  much  later  times,  many  of  these 
superstitions  rose  again  to  the  light  of  day.  Guided  by  anthropology, 
many  modern  writers  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Homer, 
so  far  from  being  primitive,  was  an  expurgator,  a  kind  of  eighteenth 
century  rationalizer  of  ancient  myths,  holding  up  an  upper-class 

1  For  instance,  "Gimel,"  the  third  letter  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet, 
means  "camel,"  and  the  iign  for  it  is  a  conventionalized  picture  of  a 
camel. 

1  Beloch,  Gruchischf  Ge$chithtet  chap.  xii. 

§  Kottovtieflf,  History  of  the  Ancient  World,  Vol.  I.  p.  390.. 


THE   RISK   OF   GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

ideal  of  urbane  enlightenment.  The  Olympian  gods,  who  represent 
religion  in  Homer,  were  not  the  only  objects  of  worship  among  the 
Greeks,  either  in  his  time  or  later.  There  were  other  darker  and 
more  savage  elements  in  popular  religion,  which  were  kept  at 
bay  by  the  Greek  intellect  at  its  best,  but  lay  in  wait  to  pounce 
in  moments  of  weakness  or  terror.  In  the  time  of  decadence, 
beliefs  which  Homer  had  discarded  proved  to  have  persisted, 
half  buried,  throughout  the  classical  period.  This  fact  explains 
many  things  that  would  otherwise  seem  inconsistent  and  sur- 
prising. 

Primitive  religion,  everywhere,  was  tribal  rather  than  personal. 
Certain  rites  were  performed,  which  were  intended,  by  sympa- 
thetic magic,  to  further  the  interests  of  the  tribe,  especially  in 
respect  of  fertility,  vegetable,  animal,  and  human.  The  winter 
solstice  was  a  time  when  the  sun  had  to  be  encouraged  not  to 
kro  on  diminishing  in  strength;  spring  and  harvest  also  called 
for  appropriate  ceremonies.  These  were  often  such  as  to  generate 
a  great  collective  excitement,  in  which  individuals  lost  their 
sense  of  separatcness  and  felt  themselves  at  one  with  the  whole 
tribe.  All  over  the  world,  at  a  certain  stage  of  religious  evolution, 
sacred  animals  and  human  beings  were  ceremonially  killed  and 
eaten.  In  different  regions,  this  stage  occurred  at  very  different 
dates.  Human  sacrifice  usually  lasted  longer  than  the  sacrificial 
eating  of  human  victims;  in  Greece  it  was  not  yet  extinct  at  the 
beginning  of  historical  times.  Fertility  rites  without  such  cruel 
aspects  were  common  throughout  Greece;  the  Eleusinian  mys- 
teries, in  particular,  were  essentially  agricultural  in  their  symbolism. 

It  must  he  admitted  that  religion,  in  Homer,  is  not  very  religious. 
The  gods  are  completely  human,  differing  from  men  only  in 
being  immortal  and  possessed  of  superhuman  powers.  Morally, 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said  for  them,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
they  can  have  inspired  much  awe.  In  some  passages,  supposed 
to  be  late,  they  are  treated  with  Voltairean  irreverence.  Such 
genuine  religious  feeling  as  is  to  be  found  in  Homer  is  less  con- 
cerned with  the  gods  of  Olympus  than  with  more  shadowy 
beings  such  as  Fate  or  Necessity  or  Destiny,  to  whom  even  Zeus 
is  subject.  Fate  exercised  a  great  influence  on  all  Greek  thought, 
and  perhaps  was  one  of  the  sources  from  which  science  derived 
the  belief  in  natural  law. 

1  lomeric  gods  were  the  gods  of  a  conquering  aristocracy, 

29 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

not  the  useful  fertility  gods  of  those  who  actually  tilled  the  soil. 
As  Gilbert  Murray  says  r1 

"The  gods  of  most  nations  claim  to  have  created  the  world. 
The  Olympians  make  no  such  claim.  The  most  they  ever  did  was 
to  conquer  it.  ...  And  when  they  have  conquered  their  kingdoms, 
what  do  they  do?  Do  they  attend  to  the  government?  Do  they 
promote  agriculture?  Do  they  practise  trades  and  industries? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  Why  should  they  do  any  honest  work?  They 
find  it  easier  to  live  on  the  revenues  and  blast  with  thunderbolts 
the  people  who  do  not  pay.  They  are  conquering  chieftains, 
royal  buccaneers.  They  fight,  and  feast,  and  play,  and  make 
music;  they  drink  deep,  and  roar  with  laughter  at  the  lame  smith 
who  waits  on  them.  They  are  never  afraid,  except  of  their  own 
king.  They  never  tell  lies,  except  in  love  and  war." 

Homer's  human  heroes,  equally,  are  not  very  well  behaved. 
The  leading  family  is  the  House  of  Pelops,  but  it  did  not  succeed 
in  setting  a  pattern  of  happy  family  life. 

"Tantalos,  the  Asiatic  founder  of  the  dynasty,  began  its  career 
by  a  direct  offence  airainst  the  gods;  some  said,  by  trying  to 
cheat  them  into  eating  human  flesh,  that  of  his  o\vn  son  Pelops. 
Pelops,  having  been  miraculously  restored  to  life,  offended  in 
his  turn.  He  won  his  famous  chariot-race  against  Oinomans, 
king  of  Pisa,  by  the  connivance  of  the  latter's  charioteer,  Myrtibs, 
and  then  got  rid  of  his  confederate,  whom  he  had  promised  to 
reward,  by  flinging  him  into  the  sea.  The  curse  descended  to 
his  sons,  Atreus  and  Thyestes,  in  the  form  of  what  the  Greeks 
called  ate,  a  strong  if  not  actually  irresistible  impulse  to  crime. 
Thyestes  corrupted  his  brother's  wife  and  thereby  managed 
to  steal  the  Muck*  of  the  family,  the  famous  golden-fleeced  ram. 
Atreus  in  turn  secured  his  brother's  banishment,  and  recalling 
him  under  pretext  of  a  reconciliation,  feasted  him  on  the  flesh 
of  his  own  children.  The  curse  was  now  inherited  by  Atreus' 
son  Agamemnon,  who  offended  Artemis  by  killing  a  sacred  stag, 
sacrificed  his  own  daughter  Iphigcnia  to  appease  the  goddess 
and  obtain  a  safe  passage  to  Troy  for  his  fleet,  and  was  in  turn 
murdered  by  his  faithless  wife  Klytaimnestra  and  her  paramour 
Aigisthos,  a  surviving  son  of  Thyestes.  Orestes,  Agamemnon's  son, 
in  turn  avenged  his  father  by  killing  his  mother  and  Aigisthos. "8 

1  Fh  f  Stages  of  Greek  Religion,  p.  67. 

1  Primitive  Culture  in  Greece,  IJ.  J.  Rose,  1925,  p.  193. 

3° 


THE   RISE   OP   GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

Homer  as  a  finished  achievement  was  a  product  of  Ionia,  i.e.  of 
a  part  of  Hellenic  Asia  Minor  and  the  adjacent  islands.  Some  time 
during  the  sixth  century  at  latest,  the  Homeric  poems  became 
fixed  in  their  present  form.  It  was  also  during  this  century  that 
Greek  science  and  philosophy  and  mathematics  began.  At  the 
same  time  events  of  fundamental  importance  were  happening 
in  other  parts  of  the  world.  Confucius,  Buddha,  and  Zoroaster, 
if  they  existed,  probably  belong  to  the  same  century.1  In  the 
middle  of  the  century  the  Persian  Empire  was  established  by 
Cyrus;  towards  its  close  the  Greek  cities  of  Ionia,  to  which  the 
Persians  had  allowed  a  limited  autonomy,  made  a  fruitless  rebel- 
lion, which  was  put  down  by  Darius,  and  their  best  men  became 
exiles.  Several  of  the  philosophers  of  this  period  were  refugees, 
who  wandered  from  city  to  city  in  the  still  unenslaved  parts  of 
the  Hellenic  world,  spreading  the  civilization  that,  until  then, 
had  been  mainly  confined  to  Ionia.  They  were  kindly  treated 
in  their  wanderings.  Xcnophanes,  who  flourished  in  the  later 
part  of  the  sixth  century,  and  who  was  one  of  the  refugees,  says: 
"This  is  the  sort  of  thing  we  should  say  by  the  fireside  in  the 
winter-time,  as  we  lie  on  soft  couches,  after  a  good  meal,  drinking 
sweet  wine  and  crunching  chickpeas:  'Of  what  country  are  you, 
and  how  old  are  you,  good  Sir?  And  how  old  were  you  when  the 
Mcde  appeared?1  "  The  rest  of  Greece  succeeded  in  preserving 
its  independence  at  the  battles  of  Salamis  and  Plataea,  after 
which  Ionia  was  liberated  for  a  time.* 

Greece  \vas  divided  into  a  large  number  of  small  independent 
states,  each  consisting  of  a  city  with  some  agricultural  territory 
surrounding  it.  The  level  of  civilization  was  very  different  in 
different  parts  of  the  Greek  world,  and  only  a  minority  of  cities 
contributed  to  the  total  of  Hellenic  achievement.  Sparta,  of  which 
I  shall  have  much  to  say  later,  was  important  in  a  military  sense, 
but  not  culturally.  Corinth  was  rich  and  prosperous,  a  great 
commercial  centre,  but  not  prolific  in  great  men. 

Then  there  were  purely  agricultural  rural  communities,  such 

1  Zoroaster's  date,  however,  is  very  conjectural.  Some  place  it  as  early 
as  looo  u.c.  See  Cambridge  Ancient  History,  Vol.  IV,  p.  207. 

1  As  a  result  of  the  defeat  of  Athens  by  Sparta,  the  Persians  regained 
the  whole  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  to  which  their  right  was  acknowledged  in 
the  Peace  oi  Antalcidas  (387-6  B.C.).  About  fifty  years  later,  they  were 
«ncorportteti  in  Alexander's  empire. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

as  the  proverbial  Arcadia,  which  townsmen  imagined  to  be 
idyllic,  but  which  really  was  full  of  ancient  barbaric  horrors. 

The  inhabitants  worshipped  Hermes  and  Pan,  and  had  a 
multitude  of  fertility  cults,  in  which,  often,  a  mere  square  pillar 
did  duty  in  place  of  a  statue  of  the  god.  The  goat  was  the  symbol 
of  fertility,  because  the  peasants  were  too  poor  to  possess  bulls. 
When  food  was  scarce,  the  statue  of  Pan  was  beaten.  (Similar 
things  are  still  done  in  remote  Chinese  villages.)  There  was  a  clan 
of  supposed  were-wolves,  associated,  probably,  with  human 
sacrifice  and  cannibalism.  It  was  thought  that  whoever  tasted  the 
flesh  of  a  sacrificed  human  victim  became  a  were-wolf.  There 
was  a  cave  sacred  to  Zeus  Lykaios  (the  wolf- Zeus);  in  this  cave 
no  one  had  a  shadow,  and  whoever  entered  it  died  within  a  year. 
AH  this  superstition  was  still  flourishing  in  classical  times.1 

Pan,  whose  original  name  (some  say)  was  "Paon",  meaning  the 
feeder  or  shepherd,  acquired  his  better-known  title,  interpreted 
as  meaning  the  All-God,  when  his  worship  was  adopted  by 
Athens  in  the  fifth  century,  after  the  Persian  war.- 

There  was,  however,  in  ancient  Greece,  much  that  we  can  feel 
to  have  been  religion  as  we  understand  the  term.  This  was  con- 
nected, not  with  the  Olympians,  but  with  Dionysus,  or  Bacchus, 
whom  we  think  of  most  naturally  as  the  somewhat  disreputable- 
god  of  wine  and  drunkenness.  The  way  in  which,  out  of  his 
worship,  there  arose  a  profound  mysticism,  which  greatly  influ- 
enced many  of  the  philosophers,  and  even  had  a  part  in  shaping 
Christian  theology,  is  very  remarkable,  and  must  be  understood 
by  anyone  who  wishes  to  study  the  development  of  (ireck 
thought. 

Dionysus,  or  Bacchus,  was  originally  a  Thracian  god.  The 
Thracians  were  very  much  less  civilized  than  the  Greeks,  who 
regarded  them  as  barbarians.  Like  all  primitive  agriculturists, 
they  had  fertility  cults,  and  a  god  who  promoted  fertility.  Mis 
name  was  Bacchus.  It  was  never  quite  clear  whether  Bacchus 
had  the  shape  of  a  man  or  of  a  bull.  When  they  discovered  how 
to  make  beer,  they  thought  intoxication  divine,  and  gave  honour 
to  Bacchus.  When,  later,  they  came  to  know  the  vine  and  to  learn 
to  drink  wine,  they  thought  even  better  of  him.  His  functions  in 
promoting  fertility  in  general  became  somewhat  subordinate 

1  ROM,  Primitive  Greece,  p.  65  (I. 

1  J.  £.  Harrison,  Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of  Greek  Religion,  p.  651 

3* 


THE   RISE   OF    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

to  his  functions  in  relation  to  the  grape  and  the  divine  madness 
produced  by  wine. 

At  what  date  his  worship  migrated  from  Thrace  to  Greece  is 
not  known,  but  it  seems  to  have  been  just  before  the  beginning 
of  historical  times.  The  cult  of  Bacchus  was  met  with  hostility 
by  the  orthodox,  but  nevertheless  it  established  itself.  It  con- 
tained many  barbaric  elements,  such  as  tearing  wild  animals 
to  pieces  and  eating  the  whole  of  them  raw.  It  had  a  curious 
element  of  feminism.  Respectable  matrons  and  maids,  in  large 
companies,  would  spend  whole  nights  on  the  bare  hills  in  dances 
which  stimulated  ecstasy,  and  in  an  intoxication  perhaps  partly 
alcoholic,  but  mainly  mystical.  Husbands  found  the  practice  an- 
noying, but  did  not  dare  to  oppose  religion.  Both  the  beauty  and 
the  savagery  of  the  cult  are  set  forth  in  the  Bacchae  of  Euripides. 

The  success  of  Dionysus  in  Greece  is  not  surprising.  Like  all 
communities  that  have  been  civilized  quickly,  the  Greeks,  or  at 
least  a  certain  proportion  of  them,  developed  a  love  of  the  primi- 
tive, and  a  hankering  after  a  more  instinctive  and  passionate 
way  of  life  than  that  sanctioned  by  current  morals.  To  the  man 
or  woman  who,  by  compulsion,  is  more  civilized  in  behaviour 
than  in  feeling,  rationality  is  irksome  and  virtue  is  felt  as  a  burden 
and  a  slavery.  This  leads  to  a  reaction  in  thought,  in  feeling,  and 
in  conduit.  It  is  the  reaction  in  thought  that  will  specially  concern 
us,  but  something  must  first  be  said  about  the  reaction  in  feeling 
and  conduct. 

The  civilized  man  is  distinguished  from  the  savage  mainly  by 
prudence^  or,  to  use  a  slightly  wider  term,  forethought.  He  is 
willing  to  endure  present  pains  for  the  sake  of  future  pleasures, 
even  if  the  future  pleasures  are  rather  distant.  This  habit  began  to 
be  important  with  the  rise  of  agriculture;  no  animal  and  no 
savage  would  work  in  the  spring  in  order  to  have  food  next 
winter,  except  for  a  few  purely  instinctive  forms  of  action,  such 
as  bees  making  honey  or  squirrels  burying  nuts.  In  these  cases, 
there  is  no  forethought ;  there  is  a  direct  impulse  to  an  act  which, 
to  the  human  spectator,  is  obviously  going  to  prove  useful  later 
on.  True  forethought  only  arises  when  a  man  does  something 
towards  which  no  impulse  urges  him,  because  his  reason  tells 
him  that  he  will  profit  by  it  at  some  future  date.  Hunting  requires 
no  forethought*  because  it  is  pleasurable ;  but  tilling  the  soil  is 
labour, and  cannot  be  done  from  spontaneous  impulse. 

tf  mary  o/  Wnt**  PAtfe***?  33  B 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Civilization  checks  impulse  not  only  through  forethought, 
which  is  a  self-administered  check,  but  also  through  law,  custom, 
and  religion.  This  check  it  inherits  from  barbarism,  but  it  makes 
it  less  instinctive  and  more  systematic.  Certain  acts  are  labelled 
criminal,  and  are  punished ;  certain  others,  though  not  punished 
by  law,  are  labelled  wicked,  and  expose  those  who  arc  guilty  of 
them  to  social  disapproval.  The  institution  of  private  property 
brings  with  it  the  subjection  of  women,  and  usually  the  creation 
of  a  slave  class.  On  the  one  hand  the  purposes  of  the  community 
are  enforced  upon  the  individual,  and,  on  the  other  hand  the 
individual,  having  acquired  the  habit  of  viewing  his  life  as  a 
whole,  increasingly  sacrifices  his  present  to  his  future. 

It  is  evident  that  this  process  can  be  carried  too  far,  as  it  is,  for 
instance,  by  the  miser.  But  without  going  to  such  extremes 
prudence  may  easily  involve  the  loss  of  some  of  the  best  things 
in  life.  The  worshipper  of  Dionysus  reacts  against  prudence.  In 
intoxication,  physical  or  spiritual,  he  recovers  an  intensity  of 
feeling  which  prudence  had  destroyed;  he  finds  the  world  full 
of  delight  and  beauty,  and  his  imagination  is  suddenly  liberated 
from  the  prison  of  every-day  preoccupations.  The  Bacchic 
ritual  produce^  what  was  called  "enthusiasm,"  which  means, 
etymologically,  having  the  god  enter  into  the  worshipper,  who 
believed  that  he  became  one  wilh  the  god.  Much  of  what  is 
greatest  in  human  achievement  involves  some  element  of  intoxi- 
cation,1 some  sweeping  away  of  prudence  by  pasbion.  Without 
the  Bacchic  element,  life  would  be  uninteresting;  with  it,  it  is 
dangerous.  Prudence  versus  passion  is  a  conflict  that  runs  through 
history.  It  is  not  a  conflict  in  which  we  ought  to  side  wholly 
with  either  party. 

In  the  sphere  of  thought,  sober  civilization  is  roughly  synony- 
mous with  science.  But  science,  unadulterated,  is  not  satisfying; 
men  need  also  passion  and  art  and  religion.  Science  may  set 
limits  to  knowledge,  but  should  not  set  limits  to  imagination. 
Among  Greek  philosophers,  as  among  those  of  later  times,  there 
were  those  who  were  primarily  scientific  and  those  who  were 
primarily  religious;  the  latter  owed  much,  directly  or  indirectly, 
to  the  religion  of  Bacchus.  This  applies  especially  to  Plato,  and 
through  him  to  those  later  developments  which  were  ultimately 
embodied  in  Christian  theology, 

1  I  mean  mental  intoxication,  not  intoxication  by  ilcohof. 

34 


THE   RISE   OP    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

The  worship  of  Dionysus  in  its  original  form  was  savage,  and 
in  many  ways  repulsive.  It  was  not  in  this  form  that  it  influenced 
the  philosophers,  but  in  the  spiritualized  form  attributed  to 
Orpheus,  which  was  ascetic,  and  substituted  mental  for  physical 
intoxication. 

.  Orpheus  is  a  dim  but  interesting  figure.  Some  hold  that  he  was 
an  actual  man,  others  that  he  was  a  god  or  an  imaginary  hero. 
Traditionally,  he  came  from  Thrace,  like  Bacchus,  but  it  seems 
more  probable  that  he  (or  the  movement  associated  with  his  name) 
came  from  Crete.  It  is  certain  that  Orphic  doctrines  contain 
much  that  seems  to  have  its  first  source  in  Egypt,  and  it  was 
chiefly  through  Crete  that  Egypt  influenced  Greece.  Orpheus  is 
said  to  have  been  a  reformer  who  was  torn  to  pieces  by  frenzied 
Maenads  actuated  by  Bacchic  orthodoxy.  His  addiction  u>  music 
is  not  so  prominent  in  the  older  forms  of  the  legend  as  it  became 
later.  Primarily  he  was  a  priest  and  a  philosopher. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  teaching  of  Orpheus  (if  he  existed), 
the  teaching  of  the  Orphics  is  well  known.  They  believed  in  the 
transmigration  of  souls;  they  taught  that  the  soul  hereafter 
might  achieve  eternal  bliss  or  suffer  eternal  or  temporary  torment 
according  to  its  way  of  life  here  on  earth.  They  aimed  at  becoming 
"pure,"  partly  by  ceremonies  of  purification,  partly  by  avoiding 
certain  kinds  of  contamination.  The  most  orthodox  among  them 
abstained  from  animal  food,  except  on  ritual  occasions  when 
they  ate  it  sacramentally.  Man,  they  held,  is  partly  of  earth, 
partly  of  heaven;  by  a  pure  life  the  heavenly  part  is  increased 
and  the  earthly  part  diminished.  In  the  end  a  man  may  become 
one  with  Bacchus,  and  is  called  "a  Bacchus."  There  was  an 
elaborate  theology,  according  to  which  Bacchus  was  twice  born, 
once  of  his  mother  Semele,  and  once  from  the  thigh  of  his  father 
Zeus. 

There  are  many  forms  of  the  Dionysus  myth.  In  one  of  them, 
Dionysus  is  the  son  of  Zeus  and  Persephone;  while  still  a  boy, 
he  is  torn  to  pieces  by  Titans,  who  eat  his  flesh,  all  but  the  heart. 
Some  say  that  the  heart  was  given  by  Zeus  to  Semele,  others 
that  Zeus  swallowed  it ;  in  either  case,  it  gave  rise  to  the  second 
birth  of  Dionysus.  The  tearing  of  a  wild  animal  and  the  de- 
vouring of  its  raw  flesh  by  Bacchae  was  supposed  to  re-enact 
the  tearing  and  "eating  of  Dionysus  by  the  Titans,  and  the  animal, 
in  some*  sense,  was  an  incarnation  of  the  god.  The  Titans  were 

35 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

earth-born,  but  after  eating  the  god  they  had  a  spark  of  divinity. 
So  man  is  partly  of  earth,  partly  divine,  and  Bacchic  rites  sought 
to  make  him  more  nearly  completely  divine. 

Euripides  puts  a  confession  into  the  mouth  of  an  Orphic  priest, 
which  is  instructive:1 

Lord  of  Europa's  Tyrian  line, 

Zeus-born,  who  holdest  at  thy  feet 
The  hundred  citadels  of  Crete, 

I  seek  to  Thee  from  that  dim  shrine, 

Roofed  by  the  Quick  and  Carven  Beam, 
By  Chalyb  steel  and  wild  bull's  blood. 
In  flawless  joints  of  Cypress  wood 

Made  steadfast.  There  is  one  pure  stream 

My  days  have  run.  The  servant  I, 
Initiate,  of  Idaean  Jove;2 
Where  midnight  Zapreus3  roves,  I  rove; 

I  have  endured  his  thunder-cry ; 

Fulfilled  his  red  and  bleeding  feasts ; 

Held  the  Great  Mother's  mountain  flume, 
I  am  set  free  and  named  by  name 

A  Bacchos  of  the  Mailed  Priests. 

Robed  in  pure  white  I  have  borne  me  clean 
From  man's  vile  birth  and  coffined  clay, 
And  exiled  from  my  lip  alway 

Touch  of  all  meat  where  Life  hath  been. 

Orphic  tablets  have  been  found  in  tombs,  giving  instructions  to 
the  soul  of  the  dead  person  as  to  how  to  find  his  way  in  the 
next  world,  and  whal  to  say  in  order  to  prove  himself  worthy  of 
salvation.  They  are  broken  and  incomplete;  the  most  nearly 
complete  (the  Petelia  tablet)  is  as  follows  : 

Thou  shah  find  on  the  left  of  the  House  of  Hades  a  Well-spring, 
And  by  the  side  thereof  standing  a  white  cypress. 
To  this  well-spring  approach  not  near. 

1  The  verse  translations  in  thtt  chapter  arc  by  Prufcttur  Gilbert 
Murray. 

*  Mystically  identified  with  DionyHu*. 
1  One  of  the  many  name*  of  I  )ionysm. 

36 


THE   RISE   OF    GREEK    CIVILIZATION 

But  thou  shalt  find  another  by  the  Lake  of  Memory, 

Cold  water  flowing  forth,  and  there  are  Guardians  before  it, 

Say:  "I  am  a  child  of  Earth  and  of  Starry  Heaven; 

But  my  race  is  of  Heaven  (alone).  This  ye  know  yourselves. 

And  lo,  I  am  parched  with  thirst  and  I  perish.  Give  me  quickly 

The  cold  water  flowing  forth  from  the  Lake  of  Memory." 

And  of  themselves  they  will  give  thee  to  drink  from  the  holy 

well-spring, 
And  thereafter  among  the  other  heroes  thou  shalt  have  lordship. . . . 

Another  tablet  says: — "Hail,  Thou  who  hast  suffered  the  suffer- 
ing .  .  .  Thou  art  become  (Sod  from  Man."  And  yet  in  another: — 
"Happy  and  Blessed  One,  thou  shalt  be  God  instead  of  mortal/' 

The  well-spring  of  which  the  soul  is  not  to  drink  is  Lethe,  which 
brings  forgetfulness;  the  other  well-spring  is  Mnemosyne,  re- 
membrance. The  soul  in  the  next  world,  if  it  is  to  achieve  salva- 
tion, is  not  to  forget,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  acquire  a  memory 
surpassing  what  is  natural. 

The  Orphics  were  an  ascetic  sect;  wine,  to  them,  was  only  a 
symbol,  as,  later,  in  the  Christian  sacrament.  The  intoxication  that 
they  sought  was  that  of  "enthusiasm,"  of  union  with  the  god.  They 
bt-lieved  themselves,  in  this  way,  to  acquire  mystic  knowledge  not 
obtainable  by  ordinary  means.  This  mystical  element  entered  into 
Greek  philosophy  with  Pythagoras,  who  was  a  reformer  of  Orphism 
as  Orpheus  was  a  reformer  of  the  religion  of  Dionysus.  From 
Pythagoras  Orphic  elements  entered  into  the  philosophy  of  Plato, 
and  from  Plato  into  most  later  philosophy  that  was  in  any  degree 
religious. 

Certain  definitely  Bacchic  elements  survived  wherever  Orphism 
had  influence.  One  of  these  was  ferrriism,  of  which  there  was 
much  in  Pythagoras,  and  which,  in  Plato,  went  so  far  as  to  claim 
complete  political  equality  for  women.  "Women  as  a  sex,"  says 
Pythagoras,  "are  more  naturally  akin  to  piety."  Another  Bacchic 
element  was  respect  for  violent  emotion.  Greek  tragedy  grew  out 
of  the  rites  of  Dionysus.  Euripides,  especially,  honoured  the  two 
chief  gods  of  Orphism,  Dionysus  and  Eros.  He  has  no  respect  for 
the  coldly  self-righteous  well-behaved  man,  who,  in  his  tragedies, 
is  apt  to  be  driven  mad  or  otherwise  brought  to  grief  by  the  gods 
in  resentment  of  his  blasphemy. 

The  conventional  tradition  concerning  the  Greeks  is  that  they 
exhibited  an  admirable  serenity,  which  enabled  them  to  contem- 

37 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

plate  passion  from  without,  perceiving  whatever  beauty  it  exhibited 
but  themselves  calm  and  Olympian.  This  is  a  very  one-sided  view. 
It  is  true,  perhaps,  of  Homer,  Sophocles,  and  Aristotle,  but  it  is 
emphatically  not  true  of  those  Greeks  who  were  touched,  directly 
or  indirectly,  by  Bacchic  or  Orphic  influences.  At  Eleusis,  where 
the  Eleusinian  mysteries  formed  the  most  sacred  part  of  Athenian 
State  religion,  a  hymn  was  sung,  saying: 

With  Thy  wine-cup  waving  high, 
With  Thy  maddening  revelry, 
To  Eleusis'  flowery  vale, 
Comest  Thou — Bacchus,  Paean,  hail! 

In  the  Bacchae  of  Euripides,  the  chorus  of  Maenads  displays  a 
combination  of  poetry  and  savagery  which  is  the  very  reverse  of 
serene.  They  celebrate  the  delight  in  tearing  a  wild  animal  limb 
from  limb,  and  eating  it  raw  then  and  there: 

O  glad,  glad  on  the  Mountains 
To  swoon  in  the  race  outworn. 
When  the  holy  fawn-skin  clings 

And  all  else  sweeps  away, 
To  the  joy  of  the  quick  red  fountains, 
The  blood  of  the  hill-goat  torn, 
The  glory  of  wild-beast  ravenin^s 

Where  the  hill-top  catches  the  day, 
To  the  Phrygian,  Lydian  mountains 
*Tis  Hromios  leads  the  way. 

(Bromtos  was  another  of  the  many  names  of  Dionysus.)  The  dance 
of  the  Maenads  on  the  mountain  side  was  not  only  fierce;  it  was 
an  escape  from  the  burdens  and  cares  of  civilization  into  the  world 
of  non-human  beauty  and  the  freedom  of  wind  and  stars.  In  a  les< 
frenzied  mood  they  sing: 

Will  they  ever  come  to  me,  ever  a^ain, 

The  long,  long  dances, 
On  through  the  dark  till  the  dim  stars  wane  ? 
Shall  I  feel  the  dew  on  my  throat,  and  the  stream 
Of  wind  in  my  hair?  Shall  our  white  feet  j^lcam 

In  the  dim  expanses? 
O  feet  of  the  fawn  to  the  greenwood  fled, 

Alone  in  the  grass  and  the  loveliness ; 
I^eap  of  the  hunted,  no  more  in  dread, 

Beyond  the  snares  and  the  deadly  press. 


THE    RISE   OF   GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

Yet  a  voice  still  in  the  distance  sounds, 
A  voice  and  a  fear  and  a  haste  of  hounds, 
O  wildly  labouring,  fiercely  fleet, 

Onward  yet  by  river  and  glen  — 
Is  it  joy  or  terror,  ye  storm-swift  feet  ? 

To  the  dear  lone  lands  untroubled  of  men, 
Where  no  voice  sounds,  and  amid  the  shadowy  green 
The  little  things  of  the  woodland  live  unseen. 

Before  repeating  that  the  Greeks  were  "serene,"  try  to  imagine 
the  matrons  of  Philadelphia  behaving  in  this  manner,  even  in  a 
play  by  Eugene  O'Neill. 

The  Orphic  is  no  more  "serene"  than  the  unreformed  wor- 
shipper of  Dionysus.  To  the  Orphic,  life  in  this  world  is  pain  and 
weariness.  We  are  bound  to  a  wheel  which  turns  through  endless 
cycles  of  birth  and  death;  our  true  life  is  the  stars,  but  we  are 
tied  to  earth.  Only  by  purification  and  renunciation  and  an  ascetic 
life  can  we  escape  from  the  wheel  and  attain  at  last  to  the  ecstasy 
of  union  with  God.  This  is  not  the  view  of  men  to  whom  life  is 
easy  and  pleasant.  It  is  more  like  the  Negro  spiritual: 


I'm  tfoing  to  tell  God  all  of  my  troubles 
When  I  get  home. 

Not  all  of  the  Greeks,  but  a  large  proportion  of  them,  were 
passionate,  unhappy,  at  war  with  themselves,  driven  along  one 
road  by  the  intellect  and  along  another  by  the  passions,  with  the 
imagination  to  conceive  heaven  and  the  wilful  self-assertion  that 
creates  hell.  They  had  a  maxim  "nothing  too  much,"  but  they 
were  in  fact  excessive  in  everything  —  in  pure  thought,  in  poetry, 
in  religion,  and  in  sin.  It  was  the  combination  of  passion  and 
intellect  that  made  them  great,  while  they  were  great.  Neither 
alone  would  have  transformed  the  world  for  all  future  time  as 
they  transformed  it.  Their  prototype  in  mythology  is  not 
Olympian  Zeus,  but  Prometheus,  who  brought  fire  from  heaven 
and  was  rewarded  with  eternal  torment. 

If  taken  as  characterizing  the  Greeks  as  a  whole,  however,  what 
has  just  been  said  would  be  as  one-sided  as  the  view  that  the 
Greeks  were  characterized  by  "serenity."  There  were,  in  fact,  two 
tendencies  in  Greece,  one  passionate,  religious,  mystical,  other- 
worldly, the  other  cheerful,  empirical,  rationalistic,  and  interested 
in  acquiring  knowledge  of  a  diversity  of  facts.  Herodotus  represents 

39 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHTCAL   THOUGHT 

still  used  the  Babylonian  cuneiform;  but  Hiram  of  Tyre  (969- 
936)  used  the  Phoenician  alphabet,  which  probably  developed  out 
of  the  Egyptian  script.  The  Egyptians  used,  at  first,  a  pure  picture 
writing;  gradually  the  pictures,  much  conventionalized,  came  to 
represent  syllables  (the  first  syllables  of  the  names  of  the  things 
pictured),  and  at  last  single  letters,  on  the  principle  of  "A  was 
an  Archer  who  shot  at  a  frog."1  This  last  step,  which  was  not 
taken  with  any  completeness  by  the  Egyptians  themselves,  but 
by  the  Phoenicians,  gave  the  alphabet  with  all  its  advantages. 
The  Greeks,  borrowing  from  the  Phoenicians,  altered  the  alphabet 
to  suit  their  language,  and  made  the  important  innovation  of 
adding  vowels  instead  of  having  only  consonants.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  acquisition  of  this  convenient  method  of 
writing  greatly  hastened  the  rise  of  Greek  civilization. 

The  first  notable  product  of  the  Hellenic  civilization  was 
Homer.  Everything  about  Homer  is  conjectural,  but  there  is  a 
widely  held  opinion  that  he  was  a  series  of  poets  rather  than  an 
individual.  According  to  those  who  hold  this  opinion,  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey  between  them  took  about  two  hundred  years 
to  complete,  some  say  from  750  to  550  B.C.,2  while  others  hold 
that  "Homer11  was  nearly  complete  at  the  end  of  the  eighth 
century.3  The  Homeric  poems,  in  their  present  form,  were 
brought  to  Athens  by  Peisistratus,  who  reigned  (with  inter- 
missions) from  560  to  527  B.C.  From  his  time  onward,  the  Athe- 
-  nian  youth  learnt  Homer  by  heart,  and  this  was  the  most  important 
part  of  their  education.  In  some  parts  of  Greece,  notably  in  Sparta, 
Homer  had  not  the  same  prestige  until  a  later  date. 

The  Homeric  poems,  like  the  courtly  romances  of  the  later 
Middle  Ages,  represent  the  point  of  view  of  a  civilized  aristocracy, 
which  ignores  as  plebeian  various  superstitions  that  arc  still 
rampant  among  the  populace.  In  much  later  times,  many  of  these 
superstitions  rose  again  to  the  light  of  day.  Guided  by  anthropology, 
many  modern  writers  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Homer, 
so  far  from  being  primitive,  was  an  cxpurgator,  a  kind  of  eighteenth 
century  rationalizer  of  ancient  myths,  holding  up  an  upper-class 

1  For  instance,  "Gimel,"  the  third  letter  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet, 
means  "camel/*  and  the  sign  for  it  is  a  conventionalized  picture  of  a 
camel. 

1  Oeloch,  Grieclwcht  Gttchichte,  chap.  xti. 

*  Rostovtseff,  Hittury  of  tht  Ancient  World,  Vol.  I,  p.  399. 

28 


THF   RISE   OF    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

ideal  of  urbane  enlightenment.  The  Olympian  gods,  who  represent 
religion  in  I  tamer,  were  not  the  only  objects  of  worship  among  the 
Greeks,  either  in  his  time  or  later.  There  were  other  darker  and 
more  savage  elements  in  popular  religion,  which  were  kept  at 
bay  by  the  Greek  intellect  at  its  best,  but  lay  in  wait  to  pounce 
in  moments  of  weakness  or  terror.  In  the  time  of  decadence, 
beliefs  which  Homer  had  discarded  proved  to  have  persisted, 
half  buried,  throughout  the  classical  period.  This  fact  explains 
many  things  that  would  otherwise  seem  inconsistent  and  sur- 
prising. 

Primitive  religion,  everywhere,  was  tribal  rather  than  personal. 
Certain  rites  were  performed,  which  were  intended,  by  sympa- 
thetic magic,  to  further  the  interests  of  the  tribe,  especially  in 
respect  of  fertility,  vegetable,  animal,  and  human.  The  winter 
solstice  was  a  time  when  the  sun  had  to  be  encouraged  not  to 
go  on  diminishing  in  strength;  spring  and  harvest  also  called 
for  appropriate  ceremonies.  These  were  often  such  as  to  generate 
a  great  collective  excitement,  in  which  individuals  lost  their 
sense  of  separateness  and  felt  themselves  at  one  with  the  whole 
tribe.  All  over  the  world,  at  a  certain  stage  of  religious  evolution, 
sacred  animals  and  human  beings  were  ceremonially  killed  and 
eaten.  In  different  regions,  this  stage  occurred  at  very  different 
dates.  Human  sacrifice  usually  lasted  longer  than  the  sacrificial 
eating  of  human  victims;  in  Greece  it  was  not  yet  extinct  at  the 
beginning  of  historical  times.  Fertility  rites  without  such  cruel 
aspects  \\ere  common  throughout  Greece;  the  Eleusinian  mys- 
teries, in  particular,  were  essentially  agricultural  in  their  symbolism. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  religion,  in  Homer,  is  not  very  religious. 
The  gods  are  completely  human,  differing  from  men  only  in 
being  immortal  and  possessed  of  superhuman  powers.  Morally, 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said  for  them,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
they  can  have  inspired  much  awe.  In  some  passages,  supposed 
to  be  late,  they  are  treated  with  Voltairean  irreverence.  Such 
genuine  religious  feeling  as  is  to  be  found  in  Homer  is  less  con- 
cerned with  the  gods  of  Olympus  than  with  more  shadow)' 
beings  such  as  Fate  or  Necessity  or  Destiny,  to  whom  even  Zeus 
is  subject.  Fate  exercised  a  great  influence  on  all  Greek  thought, 
and  perhaps  was  one  of  the  sources  from  which  science  derived 
the  belief  in  nUtural  law. 

The  Homeric  gods  were  the  gods  of  a  conquering  aristocracy, 

29 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

not  the  useful  fertility  gods  of  those  who  actually  tilled  the  soil. 
As  Gilbert  Murray  says:1 

"The  gods  of  most  nations  claim  to  have  created  the  world. 
The  Olympians  make  no  such  claim.  The  most  they  ever  did  was 
to  conquer  it. ...  And  when  they  have  conquered  their  kingdoms, 
what  do  they  do?  Do  they  attend  to  the  government?  Do  they 
promote  agriculture?  Do  they  practise  trades  and  industries? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  Why  should  they  do  any  honest  work?  They 
find  it  easier  to  live  on  the  revenues  and  blast  with  thunderbolts 
the  people  who  do  not  pay.  They  are  conquering  chieftains, 
royal  buccaneers.  They  fight,  and  feast,  and  play,  and  make 
music;  they  drink  deep,  and  roar  with  laughter  at  the  lame  smith 
who  waits  on  them.  They  are  never  afraid,  except  of  their  own 
king.  They  never  tell  lies,  except  in  love  and  war." 

Homer's  human  heroes,  equally,  are  not  very  well  behaved. 
The  leading  family  is  the  House  of  Pelops,  but  it  did  not  succeed 
in  setting  a  pattern  of  happy  family  life. 

"Tantalos,  the  Asiatic  founder  of  the  dynasty,  began  its  career 
by  a  direct  offence  against  the  gods;  some  said,  by  trying  to 
cheat  them  into  eating  human  flesh,  that  of  his  own  son  Pelops. 
Pelops,  having  been  miraculously  restored  to  life,  offended  in 
his  turn.  He  won  his  famous  chariot-race  against  Oinomao*, 
kinp  of  Pisa,  by  the  connivance  of  the  latter 's  charioteer,  Myrtilos. 
and  then  got  rid  of  his  confederate,  whom  he  had  promised  to 
reward,  by  flinging  him  into  the  .sea.  The  curse  descended  to 
his  sons,  Atreus  and  Thyestes,  in  the  form  of  what  the  Greeks 
called  ate,  a  strong  if  not  actually  irresistible  impulse  to  crime. 
Thyestes  corrupted  his  brother's  wife  and  thereby  managed 
to  steal  the  'luck*  of  the  family,  the  famous  golden-fleeced  ram. 
Atreus  in  turn  secured  his  brother's  banishment,  and  recalling 
him  under  pretext  of  a  reconciliation,  feasted  him  on  the  flesh 
of  his  own  children.  The  curse  was  now  inherited  by  Atreus' 
son  Agamemnon,  who  offended  Artemis  by  killing  a  sacred  stag, 
sacrificed  his  own  daughter  Iphigcnia  to  appease  the  goddess 
and  obtain  a  safe  passage  to  Troy  for  his  fleet,  and  was  in  turn 
murdered  by  his  faithless  wife  Klytairnnestra  and  her  paramour 
Aigisthos,  a  surviving  son  of  Thyestes.  Orestes,  Agamemnon's  son, 
in  turn  avenped  his  father  by  killing  his  mother  and  Aigistlios."* 

1  Fn  c  Stages  of  Greek  Rtligitmt  p.  67. 

*  Primitive  Culture  in  Greece,  II.  J.  Rose,  1925,  p. 

3° 


THE   RISE   OF    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

Homer  as  a  finished  achievement  was  a  product  of  Ionia,  i.e.  of 
a  part  of  Hellenic  Asia  Minor  and  the  adjacent  islands.  Some  time 
during  the  sixth  century  at  latest,  the  Homeric  poems  became 
fixed  in  their  present  form.  It  was  also  during  this  century  that 
Greek  science  and  philosophy  and  mathematics  began.  At  the 
same  time  events  of  fundamental  importance  were  happening 
in  other  parts  of  the  world.  Confucius,  Buddha,  and  Zoroaster, 
if  they  existed,  probably  belong  to  the  same  century.1  In  the 
middle  of  the  century  the  Persian  Empire  was  established  by 
Cyrus ;  towards  its  close  the  Greek  cities  of  Ionia,  to  which  the 
Persians  had  allowed  a  limited  autonomy,  made  a  fruitless  rebel- 
lion, which  was  put  down  by  Darius,  and  their  best  men  became 
exiles.  Several  of  the  philosophers  of  this  period  were  refugees, 
who  wandered  from  city  to  city  in  the  still  unenslaved  parts  of 
the  Hellenic  world,  spreading  the  civilization  that,  until  then, 
had  been  mainly  contincd  to  Ionia.  They  were  kindly  treated 
in  their  wanderings.  Xenophanes,  who  flourished  in  the  later 
part  of  the  sixth  century,  and  who  was  one  of  the  refugees,  says: 
"This  is  the  sort  of  thing  we  should  say  by  the  fireside  in  the 
winter-time,  as  we  lie  on  soft  couches,  after  a  good  meal,  drinking 
sweet  wine  and  crunching  chickpeas:  'Of  what  country  are  you, 
and  how  old  are  you,  good  Sir?  And  how  old  were  you  when  the 
Mede  appeared?1  "  The  re*»t  of  Greece  succeeded  in  preserving 
its  independence  at  the  battles  of  Salamis  and  Plataea,  after 
which  Ionia  was  liberated  for  a  time.1 

Greece  was  divided  into  a  large  number  of  small  independent 
states,  each  consisting  of  a  city  with  some  agricultural  territory 
surrounding  it.  The  level  of  civilization  was  very  different  in 
different  parts  of  the  Greek  world,  and  only  a  minority  of  cities 
contributed  to  the  total  of  Hellenic  achievement.  Sparta,  of  which 
1  shall  have  much  to  say  later,  was  important  in  a  military  sense, 
but  not  culturally.  Corinth  was  rich  and  prosperous,  a  great 
commercial  centre,  but  not  prolific  in  great  men. 

Then  there  were  purely  agricultural  rural  communities,  such 

1  Zoroaster's  date,  however,  is  very  conjectural.  Seine  place  it  as  early 
at>  1000  B.C.  Sec  Cambridge  Anritnt  History,  Vol.  IV,  p,  207. 

1  As  a  result  of  the  defeat  of  Athens  by  Sparta,  the  Persians  regained 
the  whole  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  to  which  their  right  was  acknowledged  in 
the  Peace  of  Antukidas  (387-6  ii.c.).  About  fifty  years  later,  they  were 
incorporated  in  Alexander's  empire. 

3' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

as  the  proverbial  Arcadia,  which  townsmen  imagined  to  be 
idyllic,  but  which  really  was  full  of  ancient  barbaric  horrors. 

The  inhabitants  worshipped  Hermes  and  Pan,  and  had  a 
multitude  of  fertility  cults,  in  which,  often,  a  mere  square  pillar 
did  duty  in  place  of  a  statue  of  the  god.  The  goat  was  the  symbol 
of  fertility,  because  the  peasants  were  too  poor  to  possess  bulls. 
When  food  was  scarce,  the  statue  of  Pan  was  beaten.  (Similar 
things  are  still  done  in  remote  Chinese  villages.)  There  was  a  clan 
of  supposed  were-wolves,  associated,  probably,  with  human 
sacrifice  and  cannibalism.  It  was  thought  that  whoever  tasted  the 
flesh  of  a  sacrificed  human  victim  became  a  were-wolf.  There 
was  a  cave  sacred  to  Zeus  Lykaios  (the  wolf- Zeus);  in  this  cave 
no  one  had  a  shadow,  and  whoever  entered  it  died  within  a  year. 
All  this  superstition  was  still  flourishing  in  classical  times.1 

Pan,  whose  original  name  (some  say)  was  "Paon",  meaning  the 
feeder  or  shepherd,  acquired  his  better-known  title,  interpreted 
as  meaning  the  All-God,  when  his  worship  was  adopted  by 
Athens  in  the  fifth  century,  after  the  Persian  war.2 

There  was,  however,  in  ancient  Greece,  much  that  we  can  feel 
to  have  been  religion  as  we  understand  the  term.  This  was  con- 
nected, not  with  the  Olympians,  but  with  Dionysus,  or  Bacchus, 
whom  we  think  of  most  naturally  as  the  somewhat  disreputable- 
god  of  wine  and  drunkenness.  The  way  in  which,  out  of  his 
worship,  there  arose  a  profound  mysticism,  which  greatly  influ- 
enced many  of  the  philosophers,  and  even  had  a  part  in  shaping 
Christian  theology,  is  very  remarkable,  and  must  be  understood 
by  anyone  who  wishes  to  study  the  development  of  Greek 
thought. 

Dionysus,  or  Bacchus,  was  originally  a  Thracian  god.  The 
Thracians  were  very  much  less  civilized  than  the  G  reeks,  who 
regarded  them  as  barbarians.  Like  all  primitive  agriculturists, 
they  had  fertility  cults,  and  a  god  who  promoted  fertility.  His 
name  was  Bacchus.  It  was  never  quite  clear  whether  Bacchus 
had  the  shape  of  a  man  or  of  a  bull.  When  they  discovered  how 
to  make  beer,  they  thought  intoxication  divine,  and  gave  honour 
to  Bacchus.  When,  later,  they  came  to  know  the  vine  and  to  learn 
to  drink  wine,  they  thought  even  better  of  him*  His  functions  in 
promoting  fertility  in  general  became  somewhat  subordinate 

1  Rose,  Primitive  Greece,  p.  65  II. 

1  J.  £.  Harrison,  Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of  Greek  Helicon* p.  651 

3* 


THE   RISE   OF   GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

to  his  functions  in  relation  to  the  grape  and  the  divine  madness 
produced  by  wine. 

At  what  date  his  worship  migrated  from  Thrace  to  Greece  is 
not  known,  but  it  seems  to  have  been  just  before  the  beginning 
of  historical  times.  The  cult  of  Bacchus  was  met  with  hostility 
by  the  orthodox,  but  nevertheless  it  established  itself.  It  con- 
tained many  barbaric  elements,  such  as  tearing  wild  animals 
to  pieces  and  eating  the  whole  of  them  raw.  It  had  a  curious 
clement  of  feminism.  Respectable  matrons  and  maids,  in  large 
companies,  would  spend  whole  nights  on  the  bare  hills  in  dances 
which  stimulated  ecstasy,  and  in  an  intoxication  perhaps  partly 
alcoholic,  but  mainly  mystical.  Husbands  found  the  practice  an- 
noying, but  did  not  dare  to  oppose  religion.  Both  the  beauty  and 
the  savagery  of  the  cult  are  set  forth  in  the  Bacchae  of  Euripides. 

The  success  of  Dionysus  in  Greece  is  not  surprising.  Like  all 
communities  that  have  been  civilized  quickly,  the  Greeks,  or  at 
least  a  certain  proportion  of  them,  developed  a  love  of  the  primi- 
tive, and  a  hankering  after  a  more  instinctive  and  passionate 
way  of  life  than  that  sanctioned  by  current  morals.  To  the  man 
or  woman  who,  by  compulsion,  is  more  civilized  in  behaviour 
than  in  feeling,  rationality  is  irksome  and  virtue  is  felt  as  a  burden 
and  a  slavery.  This  leads  to  a  reaction  in  thought,  in  feeling,  and 
in  conduct.  Jt  is  the  reaction  in  thought  that  will  specially  concern 
us,  but  something  must  first  be  said  about  the  reaction  in  feeling 
and  conduct. 

The  civilized  man  is  distinguished  from  the  savage  mainly  by 
prudence,  or,  to  use  a  slightly  wider  term,  forethought.  He  is 
willing  to  endure  present  pains  for  the  sake  of  future  pleasures, 
even  if  the  future  pleasures  are  rather  distant.  This  habit  began  to 
be  important  with  the  rise  of  agriculture;  no  animal  and  no 
savage  would  work  in  the  spring  in  order  to  have  food  next 
winter,  except  for  a  few  purely  instinctive  forms  of  action,  such 
as  bees  making  honey  or  squirrels  burying  nuts.  In  these  cases, 
there  is  no  forethought;  there  is  a  direct  impulse  to  an  act  which, 
to  the  human  spectator,  is  obviously  going  to  prove  useful  later 
on.  True  forethought  only  arises  when  a  man  does  something 
towards  which  no  impulse  urges  him,  because  his  reason  tells 
him  that  he  will  profit  by  it  at  some  future  date.  Hunting  requires 
no  forethought*  because  it  is  pleasurable ;  but  tilling  the  soil  is 
labour,4md  cannot  be  done  from  spontaneous  impulse. 

uj  H'Mfcm  /»*****?  33  B 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Civilization  checks  impulse  not  only  through  forethought, 
which  is  a  self-administered  check,  but  also  through  law,  custom , 
and  religion.  This  check  it  inherits  from  barbarism,  but  it  makes 
it  less  instinctive  and  more  systematic.  Certain  acts  arc  labelled 
criminal,  and  are  punished ;  certain  others,  though  not  punished 
by  law,  are  labelled  wicked,  and  expose  those  who  arc  guilty  of 
them  to  social  disapproval.  The  institution  of  private  property 
brings  with  it  the  subjection  of  women,  and  usually  the  creation 
of  a  slave  class.  On  the  one  hand  the  purposes  of  the  community 
are  enforced  upon  the  individual,  and,  on  the  other  hand  the 
individual,  having  acquired  the  habit  of  viewing  his  life  as  a 
whole,  increasingly  sacrifices  his  present  to  his  future. 

It  is  evident  that  this  process  can  be  carried  too  far,  as  it  is,  for 
instance,  by  the  miser.  But  without  going  to  such  extremes 
prudence  may  easily  involve  the  loss  of  some  of  the  best  things 
in  life.  The  worshipper  of  Dionysus  reacts  against  prudence.  In 
intoxication,  physical  or  spiritual,  he  recovers  an  intensity  of 
feeling  which  prudence  had  destroyed;  he  finds  the  world  full 
of  delight  and  beauty,  and  his  imagination  is  suddenly  liberated 
from  the  prison  of  every-day  preoccupations.  The  Bacchic 
ritual  produced  what  was  called  "enthusiasm,"  which  means, 
etymologically,  having  the  god  enter  into  the  worshipper,  who 
believed  that  he  became  one  with  the  god.  Much  of  what  is 
greatest  in  human  achievement  involves  some  element  of  intoxi- 
cation,1 some  sweeping  away  of  prudence  by  passion.  Without 
the  Bacchic  element,  life  would  be  uninteresting;  with  it,  it  is 
dangerous.  Prudence  versus  passion  is  a  conflict  that  runs  through 
history.  It  is  not  a  conflict  in  which  we  ought  to  side  wholly 
with  either  party. 

In  the  sphere  of  thought,  sober  civilization  is  roughly  synony- 
mous with  science.  But  science,  unadulterated,  is  not  satisfying; 
men  need  also  passion  and  art  and  religion.  Science  may  set 
limits  to  knowledge,  but  should  not  set  limits  to  imagination. 
Among  Greek  philosophers,  as  among  those  of  bter  times,  there 
were  those  who  were  primarily  scientific  and  those  who  were 
primarily  religious;  the  latter  owed  much,  directly  or  indirectly, 
to  the  religion  of  Bacchus.  This  applies  especially  to  Plato,  and 
through  him  to  those  later  developments  which  were  ultimately 
embodied  in  Christian  theology. 

1  I  mean  mental  intoxication,  not  intoxication  by  alcohol. 

34 


THE   RISE   OF    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

The  worship  of  Dionysus  in  its  original  form  was  savage,  and 
in  many  ways  repulsive.  It  was  not  in  this  form  that  it  influenced 
the  philosophers,  but  in  the  spiritualized  form  attributed  to 
Orpheus,  which  was  ascetic,  and  substituted  mental  for  physical 
intoxication. 

Orpheus  is  a  dim  but  interesting  figure.  Some  hold  that  he  was 
an  actual  man,  others  that  he  was  a  god  or  an  imaginary  hero. 
Traditionally,  he  came  from  Thrace,  like  Bacchus,  but  it  seems 
more  probable  that  he  (or  the  movement  associated  with  his  name) 
came  from  Crete.  It  is  certain  that  Orphic  doctrines  contain 
much  that  seems  to  have  its  first  source  in  Egypt,  and  it  was 
chiefly  through  Crete  that  Egypt  influenced  Greece.  Orpheus  is 
said  to  have  l>een  a  reformer  who  was  torn  to  pieces  by  frenzied 
Maenads  actuated  by  Bacchic  orthodoxy.  His  addiction  to  music 
is  not  so  prominent  in  the  older  forms  of  the  legend  as  it  became 
later.  Primarily  he  was  a  priest  and  a  philosopher. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  teaching  of  Orpheus  (if  he  existed), 
the  teaching  of  the  Orphics  is  well  known.  They  believed  in  the 
transmigration  of  souls;  they  taught  that  the  soul  hereafter 
might  achieve  eternal  bliss  or  suffer  eternal  or  temporary  torment 
according  to  its  way  of  life  here  on  earth.  They  aimed  at  becoming 
"pure,"  partly  by  ceremonies  of  purification,  partly  by  avoiding 
certain  kinds  of  contamination.  The  most  orthodox  among  them 
abstained  from  animal  food,  except  on  ritual  occasions  when 
they  ate  it  sacramentally.  Man,  they  held,  is  partly  of  earth, 
partly  of  heaven;  by  a  pure  life  the  heavenly  part  is  increased 
and  the  earthly  part  diminished.  In  the  end  a  man  may  become 
one  with  Bacchus,  and  is  called  **a  Bacchus."  There  was  an 
elaborate  theology,  according  to  which  Bacchus  was  twice  born, 
once  of  his  mother  Semele,  and  once  from  the  thigh  of  his  father 
Zeus. 

There  are  many  forms  of  the  Dionysus  myth.  In  one  of  them, 
Dionysus  is  the  son  of  Zeus  and  Persephone;  while  still  a  boy, 
he  is  torn  to  pieces  by  Titans,  who  eat  his  flesh,  all  but  the  heart. 
Some  say  that  the  heart  was  given  by  Zeus  to  Semele,  others 
that  Zeus  swallowed  it;  in  either  case,  it  gave  rise  to  the  second 
birth  of  Dionysus.  The  tearing  of  a  wild  animal  and  the  de- 
vouring of  its  raw  flesh  by  Bacchae  was  supposed  to  re-enact 
the  tearing  and  eating  of  Dionysus  by  the  Titans,  and  the  animal, 
in  some*  sense,  was  an  incarnation  of  the  god.  The  Titans  were 

35 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

earth-born,  but  after  eating  the  god  they  had  a  spark  of  divinity. 
So  man  is  partly  of  earth,  partly  divine,  and  Bacchic  rites  sought 
to  make  him  more  nearly  completely  divine. 

Euripides  puts  a  confession  into  the  mouth  of  an  Orphic  priest, 
which  is  instructive:1 

Lord  of  Europa's  Tynan  line, 

Zeus-born,  who  boldest  at  thy  feet 
The  hundred  citadels  of  Crete, 

I  seek  to  Thee  from  that  dim  shrine, 

Roofed  by  the  Quick  and  Can-en  Beam, 
By  Chalyb  steel  and  wild  bull's  blood. 
In  flawless  joints  of  Cypress  wood 

Made  steadfast.  There  is  one  pun-  stream 

My  days  have  run.  The  sen  ant  I, 
Initiate,  of  Idaean  Jove;2 
Where  midnight  Zagrcus8  rove?,  1  rove; 

I  have  endured  his  thunder-cry ; 

Fulfilled  his  red  and  bleeding  feasts ; 

Held  the  Great  Mother's  mountain  flame, 
I  am  set  free  and  named  by  name 

A  Bacchos  of  the  Mailed  Priests. 

Robed  in  pure  white  I  have  borne  me  clean 
From  man's  vile  birth  and  coihned  clay, 
And  exiled  from  my  lip  ahvay 

Touch  of  all  meat  where  Life  hath  been. 

Orphic  tablets  have  been  found  in  tombs,  giving  instructions  to 
the  soul  of  the  dead  person  as  to  how  to  find  his  way  in  the 
next  world,  and  what  to  say  in  order  to  prove  himself  \\orthy  of 
salvation.  They  are  broken  and  incomplete;  the  most  nearly 
complete  (the  Petelia  tablet)  is  as  follows: 

Thou  shalt  find  on  the  left  of  the  House  of  Hades  a  Well-spring, 
And  by  the  side  thereof  standing  a  white  cypress. 
To  this  well-spring  approach  not  near. 

1  The  verse  translations  in  thii  chapter  are   by   Profc-wor   Gilbert 
Murray. 

1  Mystically  idmtifad  with  Dionysu*, 
*  One  of  thr  many  narn*  *  of  I  )ionysu*. 

in 


THE   RISE   OF    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

But  thou  shalt  find  another  by  the  Lake  of  Memory, 

Cold  water  flowing  forth,  and  there  are  Guardians  before  it, 

Say:  "I  am  a  child  of  Earth  and  of  Starry  Heaven; 

Hut  my  race  is  of  Heaven  (alone).  This  ye  know  yourselves. 

And  lo,  I  am  parched  with  thirst  and  I  perish.  Give  me  quickly 

The  cold  water  flowing  forth  from  the  Lake  of  Memory." 

And  of  themselves  they  will  give  thee  to  drink  from  the  holy 

well-spring, 
And  thereafter  among  the  other  heroes  thou  shalt  have  lordship. . . . 

Another  tablet  says: — "Hail,  Thou  who  hast  suffered  the  suffer- 
ing .  .  .  Thou  art  become  (Jod  from  Man."  And  yet  in  another: — 
"Happy  and  Blessed  One,  thou  shalt  be  God  instead  of  mortal." 

The  well-spring  of  which  the  soul  is  not  to  drink  is  Ix?the,  which 
brings  forgetfulness;  the  other  well-spring  is  Mnemosyne,  re- 
membrance. The  soul  in  the  next  world,  if  it  is  to  achieve  salva- 
tion, is  not  to  forget,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  acquire  a  memory 
surpassing  what  is  natural. 

The  Orphics  were  an  ascetic  sect;  wine,  to  them,  was  only  a 
symbol,  as,  later,  in  the  Christian  sacrament.  The  intoxication  that 
they  sought  was  that  of  "enthusiasm,"  of  union  with  the  god.  They 
believed  themselves,  in  this  way,  to  acquire  mystic  knowledge  not 
obtainable  by  ordinary  means.  This  mystical  element  entered  into 
( Jreek  philosophy  with  Pythagoras,  who  was  a  reformer  of  Orphism 
as  Orpheus  was  a  reformer  of  the  religion  of  Dionysus.  From 
Pythagoras  Orphic  elements  entered  into  the  philosophy  of  Plato, 
and  from  Plato  into  most  later  philosophy  that  was  in  any  degree 
religious. 

Certain  definitely  Bacchic  elements  survived  wherever  Orphism 
had  influence.  One  of  these  was  frrrriism,  of  which  there  was 
much  in  Pythagoras,  and  which,  in  Plato,  went  so  far  as  to  claim 
complete  political  equality  for  women.  "Women  as  a  sex,"  says 
Pythagoras,  "are  more  naturally  akin  to  piety."  Another  Bacchic 
element  was  respect  for  violent  emotion.  Greek  tragedy  grew  out 
of  the  rites  of  Dionysus.  Euripides,  especially,  honoured  the  two 
chief  gods  of  Orphism,  Dionysus  and  Kros.  He  has  no  respect  for 
the  coldly  self-righteous  well-behaved  man,  who,  in  his  tragedies, 
is  apt  to  be  driven  mad  or  otherwise  brought  to  grief  by  the  gods 
in  resentment  of  his  blasphemy. 

'I 'he  conventional  tradition  concerning  the  Greeks  is  that  they 
exhibited  an  admirable  serenity,  which  enabled  them  to  contcm- 

37 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

plate  passion  from  without,  perceiving  whatever  beauty  it  exhibited 
but  themselves  calm  and  Olympian.  This  is  a  very  one-sided  view. 
It  is  true,  perhaps,  of  Homer,  Sophocles,  and  Aristotle,  but  it  is 
emphatically  not  true  of  those  Greeks  who  were  touched,  directly 
or  indirectly,  by  Bacchic  or  Orphic  influences.  At  Klcusis,  where 
the  Eleusinian  mysteries  formed  the  most  sacred  part  of  Athenian 
State  religion,  a  hymn  was  sung,  saying: 

With  Thy  wine-cup  waving  high, 
With  Thy  maddening  revelry, 
To  Klcusis'  flower}'  vale, 
Comest  Thou— Bacchus,  Paean,  hail! 

In  the  Bacchae  of  Euripides,  the  chorus  of  Maenads  displays  a 
combination  of  poetry  and  savagery  which  is  the  very  reverse  of 
serene.  They  celebrate  the  delight  in  tearing  a  wild  anirnal  limb 
from  limb,  and  eating  it  raw  then  and  there: 

O  glad,  glad  on  the  Mountains 
To  swoon  in  the  race  outworn, 
When  the  holy  fawn-skin  clings 

And  all  else  sweeps  away, 
To  the  joy  of  the  quick  red  fountains, 
The  blood  of  the  hill-goat  torn, 
The  glory  of  wild-beast  ravening* 

Where  the  hill-top  catches  the  day, 
To  the  Phrygian,  Lydian  mountains 
'Tis  ISromios  leads  the  way. 

(Bromios  was  another  of  the  many  names  of  Dionysus.)  The  dance 
of  the  Maenads  on  the  mountain  side  was  not  only  fierce;  it  was 
an  escape  from  the  burdens  and  cares  of  civilization  into  the  world 
of  non-human  beauty  and  the  freedom  of  wind  and  stars.  In  a  less 
frenzied  mood  they  sing: 

Will  they  ever  come  to  me,  ever  again, 

The  long,  long  dances, 
On  through  the  dark  till  the  dim  stars  wane  ? 
Shall  I  feel  the  dew  on  my  throat,  and  the  stream 
Of  wind  in  my  hair  ?  Shall  our  white  feet  gleam 

In  the  dim  expanses? 
O  feet  of  the  fawn  to  the  greenwood  fled, 

Alone  in  the  grass  and  the  loveliness ; 
[>eap  of  the  hunted,  no  more  in  dread, 

Beyond  the  snares  and  the  deadly  press. 


THE   RISE   OF    GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

Yet  a  voice  still  in  the  distance  sounds, 
A  voice  and  a  fear  and  a  haste  of  hounds, 
O  wildly  labouring,  fiercely  fleet, 

Onward  yet  by  river  and  glen — 
Is  it  joy  or  terror,  ye  storm-swift/eel? 

To  the  dear  lone  lands  untroubled  of  men, 
Where  no  voice  sounds,  and  amidfthe  shadowy  green 
The  little  things  of  the  woodland  (live  unseen. 

Before  repeating  that  the  Greeks  were  "serene,"  try  to  imagine 
the  matrons  of  Philadelphia  behaving  in  ti<js  manner,  even  in  a 
play  by  Eugene  O'Neill. 

The  Orphic  is  no  more  "serene"  than  tl»  unrefr  i«ed  woift 
shipper  of  Dionysus.  To  the  Orphic,  life  in  th*  world  is  pain  and 
weariness.  We  are  bound  to  a  J -heel  which  t^rns  through  endless 
cycles  of  birth  and  death;  our  true  life  is  tfhe  stars,  but  we  are 
tied  to  earth.  Only  by  purification  and  renunciation  and  an  ascetic 
life  can  we  escape  from  the  wheel  and  attain  at  last  to  the  ecstasy 
of  union  with  God.  This  is  not  the  view  of  men  to  whom  life  is 
easy  and  pleasant.  It  is  more  like  the  Negro  spiritual: 

I'm  going  to  tell  God  all  of  my  troubles 
When  I  get  home. 

Not  all  of  the  Greeks,  hut  a  large  proportion  of  them,  were 
passionate,  unhappy,  at  war  with  themselves,  driven  along  one 
road  by  the  intellect  and  along  another  by  the  passions,  with  the 
imagination  to  conceive  heaven  and  the  wilful  self-assertion  that 
creates  hell.  They  had  a  maxim  "nothing  too  much,"  but  they 
were  in  fact  excessive  in  everything — in  pure  thought,  in  poetry, 
in  religion,  and  in  sin.  It  was  the  combination  of  passion  and 
intellect  that  made  them  great,  while  they  were  great.  Neither 
alone  would  have  transformed  the  world  for  all  future  time  as 
they  transformed  it.  Their  prototype  in  mythology  is  not 
Olympian  Zeus,  but  Prometheus,  who  brought  fire  from  heaven 
and  was  rewarded  with  eternal  torment. 

If  taken  as  characterizing  the  Greeks  as  a  whole,  however,  what 
has  just  been  said  would  be  as  one-sided  as  the  view  that  the 
Greeks  were  characterized  by  "serenity."  There  were,  in  fact,  two 
tendencies  in  Greece,  one  passionate,  religious,  mystical,  other- 
worldly, the  other  cheerful,  empirical,  rationalistic,  and  interested 
in  acquiring  knowledge  of  a  diversity  of  facts.  Herodotus  represents 

39 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

this  latter  tendency;  so  do  the  earliest  Ionian  philosophers;  so, 
up  to  a  point,  does  Aristotle.  Beloch  (op.  cit.f  I,  i,  p.  434),  after 
describing  Orphism,  says: 

"But  the  Greek  nation  was  too  full  of  youthful  vigour  for  the 
general  acceptance  of  a  belief  which  denies  this  world  and  transfers 
real  life  to  the  Beyond.  Accordingly  the  Orphic  doctrine  remained 
confined  to  the  relatively  narrow  circle  of  the  initiate,  without 
acquiring  the  smallest  influence  on  the  State  religion,  not  even  in 
communities  which,  like  Athens,  had  taken  up  the  celebration  of 
the  mysteries  into  the  State  ritual  and  placed  it  under  legal  pro- 
tection. A  full  millennium  was  to  pass  before  these  ideas— in  a 
quite  different  theological  dress,  it  is  true — achieved  victory  in 
the  Greek  world/1 

It  would  seem  that  this  is  an  overstatement,  particularly  as 
regards  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  which  were  impregnated  with 
Orphism.  Broadly  speaking,  those  who  were  of  a  religious  tem- 
perament turned  to  Orphism,  while  rationalists  despised  it.  One 
might  compare  its  status  to  that  of  Methodism  in  England  in  the 
late  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries. 

We  know  more  or  less  what  an  educated  Greek  learnt  from  his 
father,  but  we  know  very  little  of  what,  in  his  earliest  years,  he 
learnt  from  his  mother,  who  was,  to  a  great  extent,  shut  out  from 
the  civilization  in  which  the  men  took  delight.  It  seems  probable 
that  educated  Athenians,  even  in  the  best  period,  however 
rationalistic  they  may  have  been  in  their  explicitly  conscious 
mental  processes,  retained  from  tradition  and  from  childhood  a 
more  primitive  way  of  thinking  and  feeling,  which  was  always 
liable  to  prove  victorious  in  times  of  stress.  For  this  reason,  no 
simple  analysis  of  the  Greek  outlook  is  likely  to  be  adequate. 

The  influence  of  religion,  more  particularly  of  non-Olympian 
religion,  on  Greek  thought  was  not  adequately  recognized  until 
recent  times.  A  revolutionary  book,  Jane  Harrison's  Prolegomena 
to  the  Study  of  Greek  Religion,  emphasized  both  the  primitive  and 
the  Dionysiac  elements  in  the  religion  of  ordinary  Greeks;  F.  M. 
Cornford's  From  Religion  to  Philosophy  tried  to  make  students  of 
Greek  philosophy  aware  of  the  influence  of  religion  on  the  philo- 
sophers, but  cannot  be  wholly  accepted  as  trustworthy  in  many 
of  its  interpretations,  or,  for  that  matter,  in  its  anthropology.1  The 

1  On  the  other  hand  Cornford's  books  on  various  Platonic  dialogues 
seem  to  me  wholly  admirable. 


THE   RISE   OF   GREEK   CIVILIZATION 

most  balanced  statement  known  to  me  is  in  John  Burnet's  Early 
Greek  Philosophy,  especially  chapter  ii,  "Science  and  Religion."  A 
conflict  between  science  and  religion  arose,  he  says,  out  of  "the 
religious  revival  which  swept  over  Hellas  in  the  sixth  century  B.C.," 
together  with  the  shifting  of  the  scene  from  Ionia  to  the  West. 
"The  religion  of  continental  Hellas,"  he  ssi^s,  "had  developed  in 
a  very  different  way  from  that  of  Ionia.  In  particular,  the  worship 
of  Dionysus,  which  came  from  Thrace,  and  is  barely  mentioned 
in  Homer,  contained  in  germ  a  wholly  new  way  of  looking  at  man's 
relation  to  the  world.  It  would  certainly  b&  wrong  to  credit  the 
Thracians  themselves  with  any  very  exalted  wews;  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that,  to  the  Greeks,  the  phenomenon  of  ecstasy 
suggested  that  the  soul  was  something  more  than  a  feeble  double 
of  the  self,  and  that  it  was  only  when  'out  of  the  body*  that  it 
could  show  its  true  nature.  .  .  . 

44 It  looked  as  if  Greek  religion  were  about  to  enter  on  the  same 
stage  as  that  already  reached  by  the  religions  of  the  East;  and,  but 
for  the  rise  of  science,  it  is  hard  to  see  what  could  have  checked 
this  tendency.  It  is  usual  to  say  that  the  Greeks  were  saved  from 
a  religion  of  the  Oriental  type  by  their  having  no  priesthood;  but 
this  is  to  mistake  the  effect  for  the  cause.  Priesthoods  do  not  make 
dogmas,  though  they  preserve  them  once  they  are  made;  and  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  their  development,  the  Oriental  peoples  had 
no  priesthoods  either  in  the  sense  intended.  It  was  not  so  much 
the  absence  of  a  priesthood  as  the  existence  of  the  scientific 
schools  that  saved  Greece. 

"The  new  religion— for  in  one  sense  it  was  new,  though  in 
another  as  old  as  mankind — reached  its  highest  point  of  develop- 
ment with  the  foundation  of  the  Orphic  communities.  So  far  as 
\ve  can  see,  the  original  home  of  these  was  Attica;  but  they  spread 
with  extraordinary  rapidity,  especially  in  Southern  Italy  and  Sicily. 
They  were  first  of  dl  associations  for  the  worship  of  Dionysus; 
but  they  were  distinguished  by  two  features  which  were  new 
among  the  Hellenes.  They  looked  to  a  revelation  as  the  source 
of  religious  authority,  and  they  were  organized  as  artificial  com- 
munities. The  poems  which  contained  their  theology  were 
ascribed  to  the  Thracian  Orpheus,  who  had  himself  descended 
into  Hades,  and  was  therefore  a  safe  guide  through  the  perils 
which  beset  the  disembodied  soul  in  the  next  world." 

Hurried  goes  on  to  state  that  there  is  a  striking  similarity  between 

4* 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Orphic  beliefs  and  those  prevalent  in  India  at  about  the  same  time, 
though  he  holds  that  there  cannot  have  been  any  contact.  He  then 
comes  on  to  the  original  meaning  of  the  word  "orgy,"  which  was 
Mc*vUV  *.tiA  O*"hics  to  mean  "sacrament,"  and  was  intended  to 
general  acceptance  o*  Soul  and  enable  it  to  escape  from  the  wheel 
reallifetotheBeyond.es,  unlike  the  priests  of  Olympian  cults, 
confined  to  the  relatmcall  "churches/1  i.e.  religious  communities 
acquiring  the  smallest  ithout  distinction  of  race  or  sex,  could  be 
communities  which,  liHf  and  from  their  influence  arose  the  con- 
the  mysteries  into  th^  as  a  way  of  life. 
"    -    A  full  millc 
*+  ther 


Chapter  II 
THE    MILESIAN    SCHOOL 

IN  every  history  of  philosophy  for  studenftf,  the  first  thing  men- 
tioned is  that  philosophy  began  witWi  hales,  who  said  that 
everything  is  made  of  water.  Thi$  is  discouraging  to  the 
beginner,  who  is  struggling — perhaps  not  very  hard — to  feel  that 
respect  for  philosophy  which  the  curriculum  seems  to  expect. 
There  is,  however,  ample  reason  to  feel  respkct  for  Thales,  though 
perhaps  rather  as  a  man  of  science  than  as  11  nhiloson'  sitfrfws?* 
modern  sense  of  the  word. 

Thales  was  a  native  of  Miletus,  in  Asia  Minor,  a  flourishing 
commercial  city,  in  which  there  was  a  large  slave  population,  and 
a  bitter  class  struggle  between  the  rich  and  poor  among  the  free 
population.  "At  Miletus  the  people  were  at  first  victorious  and 
murdered  the  wives  and  children  of  the  aristocrats;  then  the 
aristocrats  prevailed  and  burned  their  opponents  alive,  lighting 
up  the  open  spaces  of  the  city  with  live  torches/'1  Similar  con- 
ditions prevailed  in  most  of  the  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor  at  the 
time  of  Thales. 

Miletus,  like  other  commercial  cities  of  Ionia,  underwent  im- 
portant economic  and  political  developments  during  the  seventh 
and  sixth  centuries.  At  first,  political  power  belonged  to  a  land- 
owning aristocracy,  but  this  was  gradually  replaced  by  a  pluto- 
cracy of  merchants.  They,  in  turn,  were  replaced  by  a  tyrant, 
who  (as  was  usual)  achieved  power  by  the  support  of  the  demo- 
cratic party.  The  kingdom  of  Lydia  lay  to  the  east  of  the  Greek 
coast  towns,  but  remained  on  friendly  terms  with  them  until  the 
fall  of  Nineveh  (6oO  B.C.).  This  left  Lydia  free  to  turn  its  attention 
to  the  West,  but  Miletus  usually  succeeded  in  preserving  friendly 
relations,  especially  with  Croesus,  the  last  Lydian  king,  who  was 
conquered  by  Cyrus  in  546  B.C.  There  were  also  important  rela- 
tions with  Egypt,  where  the  king  depended  upon  Greek  mer- 
cenaries, and  had  opened  certain  cities  to  Greek  trade.  The  first 
Greek  settlement  in  Egypt  was  a  fort  occupied  by  a  Milesian 
garrison;  but  the  most  important,  during  the  period  610-560  B.C., 
was  Daphnac.  Here  Jeremiah  and  many  other  Jewish  fugitives 
v,  History  of  the  Ancient  World,  Vol.  I,  p.  204. 

43 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

took  refuge  from  Nebuchadrezzar  (Jeremiah  xliii.  5  If.);  but  while 
Egypt  undoubtedly  influenced  the  Greeks,  the  Jews  did  not,  nor 
can  we  suppose  that  Jeremiah  felt  anything  but  horror  towards 
the  sceptical  lonians. 

As  regards  the  u2te  of  Thales,  the  best  evidence,  as  we  saw,  is 
that  he  was  famous  for  predicting  an  eclipse  which,  according  to 
the  astronomers,  must  have  taken  place  in  585  B.C.  Other  evidence, 
such  as  it  is,  agrees  in  placing  his  activities  at  about  this  time.  It 
is  no  proof  of  extraordinaiT  genius  on  his  part  to  have  predicted 
an  eclipse.  Miletus  wao  allied  with  Lydia,  and  Lydia  had  cultural 
relations  with  Babylonia,  and  Babylonian  astronomers  had  dis- 
covered tV't  eclipses  recur  in  a  cycle  of  about  nineteen  years. 
They  could  predict  eclipses  of  the  moon  with  pretty  complete 
success,  but  as  regards  solar  eclipses  they  were  hampered  by  the 
fact  that  an  eclipse  may  be  visible  in  one  place  and  not  in  another. 
Consequently  they  could  only  know  that  at  such  and  such  a  date 
it  was  worth  while  to  look  out  for  an  eclipse,  and  this  is  probably 
all  that  Thales  knew.  Neither  he  nor  they  knew  why  there  is 
this  cycle. 

Thales  is  said  to  have  travelled  in  Kgypt,  and  to  have  thence 
brought  to  the  Greeks  the  science  of  geometry.  What  the  Egyptians 
knew  of  geometry  was  mainly  rules  of  thumb,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  Thales  arrived  at  deductive  proofs,  such  as 
later  Greeks  discovered.  He  seems  to  have  discovered  how  to 
calculate  the  distance  of  a  ship  at  sea  from  observations  taken  at 
two  points  on  land,  and  how  to  estimate  the  height  of  a  pyramid 
from  the  length  of  its  shadow.  Many  other  geometrical  theorem* 
are  attributed  to  him,  but  probably  wrongly. 

He  was  one  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men  of  Greece,  each  of  whom 
was  specially  noted  for  one  wise  saying;  his,  it  is  a  niiM.tke  to 
suppose,  was  "water  is  best." 

According  to  Aristotle,  he  thought  that  water  is  the  original 
substance,  out  of  which  all  others  are  funned ;  and  he  maintained 
that  the  earth  rests  on  water.  Aristotle  also  says  of  him  that  he 
said  the  magnet  has  a  soul  in  it,  because  it  moves  the  iron ;  further, 
that  all  things  arc  full  of  gods.1 

The  statement  that  everything  is  made  of  water  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  scientific  hypothesis,  arid  by  no  means  a  foolish  one.  Twenty 
years  ago,  the  received  view  was  that  everything  is  made  of 

1  Burnct  (Early  Gteck  Philotophy,  p.  51)  questions  tins  last  *  tying. 

44 


THE    MILESIAN    SCHOOL 

hydrogen,  which  is  two  thirds  of  water.  The  Greeks  were  rash 
in  their  hypotheses,  but  the  Milesian  school,  at  least,  was  prepared 
to  test  them  empirically.  Too  little  is  known  of  Thales  to  make  it 
possible  to  reconstruct  him  at  all  satisfactorily,  but  of  his  successors 
in  Miletus  much  more  is  known,  and  it  is  re^n5^C5nTRM2flfe%^ 
that  something  of  their  outlook  came  from  Jround  table,  and  that 
his  philosophy  were  both  crude,  but  they  ifsoul,  being  air,  holds 
both  thought  and  observation.  /$ass  the  whole  world." 

There  are  many  legends  about  him,  'ft 

known  than  the  few  facts  I  have  mentidquity  than  Anaximander, 
are  pleasant,  for  instance,  the  one  told  by  like  the  opposite  valua- 
(1259*):  "lie  was  reproached  for  his  poverty, ^Koras  and  Sjyjftji0*1 
to  show  that  philosophy  is  of  no  use.  According  to  fKe  story,  he 
knew  by  his  skill  in  the  stars  while  it  was  yet  winter  that  there 
would  be  a  great  harvest  of  olives  in  the  corning  year;  so,  having 
a  little  money,  he  gave  deposits  for  the  use  of  all  the  olive-presses 
in  Chios  and  Miletus,  which  he  hired  at  a  low  price  because  no 
one  bid  against  him.  When  the  harvest  time  came,  and  many 
were  wanted  all  at  once  and  of  a  sudden,  he  let  them  out  at  any 
rate  which  he  pleased,  and  made  a  quantity  of  money.  Thus  he 
showed  the  world  that  philosophers  can  easily  be  rich  if  they  like, 
but  that  their  ambition  is  of  another  sort." 

Anaximander,  the  second  philosopher  of  the  Milesian  school, 
is  much  more  interesting  than  Thales.  His  dates  are  uncertain, 
but  he  was  said  to  have  been  sixty-four  years  old  in  546  B.C.,  and 
there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  this  is  somewhere  near  the  truth. 
He  held  that  all  things  come  from  a  single  primal  substance,  but 
that  it  is  not  water,  as  Thales  held,  or  any  other  of  the  substances 
that  we  know.  It  is  infinite,  eternal  and  ageless,  and  "it  encom- 
passes all  the  worlds" — for  he  thought  our  world  only  one  of 
many.  The  primal  substance  is  transformed  into  the  various  sub- 
stances witii  which  we  are  familiar,  and  these  are  transformed 
into  each  other.  As  to  this,  he  makes  an  important  and  remarkable 
statement : 

"Into  that  from  which  things  take  their  rise  they  pass  away  once 
more,  as  is  ordained,  for  they  make  reparation  and  satisfaction  to 
one  another  for  their  injustice  according  to  the  ordering  of  time." 

The  idea  of  justice,  both  cosmic  and  human,  played  a  part  in 
(irerk  religion  Und  philosophy  which  is  not  altogether  easy  for  a 
modern  to  understand ;  indeed  our  word  "justice"  hardly  expresses 

45 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

what  is  meant,  but  it  is  difficult  to  find  any  other  word  that  would 
be  preferable.  The  thought  which  Anaximander  is  expressing 
seems  to  be  this:  there  should  be  a  certain  proportion  of  fire,  of 
earth,  and  of  water  in  the  world,  but  each  element  (conceived  as  a 
^AsVegardslhe  <j£ttcmPting  to  enlarge  its  empire.  But  there  is 
that  he  was  famous  itPatu1ral  h*  whfich  Perpetually  redresses  the 
the  astronomers,  must  K*  been  fire,  for  example,  there  are  ashes, 
such  as  it  is,  agrees  in  pl:?cePtlon  of  justice-of  not  overstepping 
is  no  proof  of  extraordinaif. one  of  the  most  Profound  of  Greek 
an  eclipse.  Miletus  wao  "»ubJect  to  Justlce  Just  »  much  as  men 
relations  with  BabyJo*  Power  was  not  itself  personal,  and  was 

..    .  a  oUfr.i,.,,    ec|j     - 

Anaximander  had  an  argument  to  prove  that  the  primal  sub- 
stance could  not  be  water,  or  any  other  known  element.  If  one  of 
these  were  primal,  it  would  conquer  the  others.  Aristotle  reports 
him  as  saying  that  these  knovrn  elements  are  in  opposition  to  one 
another.  Air  is  cold,  water  is  moist,  and  fire  is  hot.  "And  therefore, 
if  any  one  of  them  were  infinite,  the  rest  would  have  ceased  to  be 
by  this  time."  The  primal  substance,  therefore,  must  be  neutral 
in  this  cosmic  strife. 

There  was  an  eternal  motion,  in  the  course  of  which  was 
brought  about  the  origin  of  die  worlds.  The  worlds  were  not 
created,  as  in  Jewish  or  Christian  theology,  but  evolved.  There 
was  evolution  also  in  the  animal  kingdom.  Living  creatures  arose 
from  the  moist  element  as  it  was  evaporated  by  the  sun.  Man, 
like  every  other  animal,  was  descended  from  fishes.  He  must  be 
derived  from  animals  of  a  different  sort,  because,  owing  to  his 
long  infancy,  he  could  not  have  survived,  originally,  as  he  is  now. 

Anaximander  was  full  of  scientific  curiosity.  I  !e  is  said  to  have 
been  the  first  man  who  made  a  map.  He  held  tliat  the  earth  is 
shaped  like  a  cylinder.  He  is  variously  reported  as  saying  the  sun 
is  as  large  as  the  earth,  or  twenty-seven  times  as  large,  or  twenty- 
eight  times  as  large. 

Wherever  he  is  original,  he  is  scientific  and  rationalistic. 

Anaximenes,  the  last  of  the  Milesian  triad,  is  not  quite  so 
interesting  as  Anaximander,  but  makes  some  important  advances. 
His  dates  are  very  uncertain.  He  was  certainly  subsequent  to 
Anaximander,  and  he  certainly  flourished  before  494  B.C.,  since 
in  that  year  Miletus  was  destroyed  by  the  Persians  in  the  course 
of  their  suppression  of  the  Ionian  revolt. 

46 


THE  MILESIAN   SCHOOL 

The  fundamental  substance,  he  said,  is  air.  The  soul  is  air;  fire 
is  rarefied  air;  when  condensed,  air  becomes  first  water,  then,  if 
further  condensed,  earth,  and  finally  stone.  This  theory  has  the 
merit  of  making  all  the  differences  between  different  substances 
quantitative,  depending  entirely  upon  the 

He  thought  that  the  earth  is  shaped  like  a  j  Ol  c??  and  t^at 
air  encompasses  everything:  "Just  as  oui|fPunc*  .  e*.  ^olds 
us  together,  so  do  breath  and  air  encope3TsOU^  '3el^g1  '  rM" 
It  seems  that  the  world  breathes.  |$ass  the  whole  wor  . 

Anaximenes  was  more  admired  in  ant*/  "mander, 

though  almost  any  modern  world  would  hfluity  than  Anaxi    yajua. 
tion.  He  had  an  important  influence  on  Pytfcte  ^  °PP°j?lQn  tnuch 
subsequent  speculation.  The  Pythagoreans Tdflporas  *?  oiat  the 
earth  is  spherical,  but  the  atomists  adhered  to  the  view  of  Anaxi- 
menes, that  it  is  shaped  like  a  disc. 

The  Milesian  school  is  important,,  not  for  what  it  achieved,  but 
for  what  it  attempted.  It  was  brought  into  existence  by  the  contact 
of  the  Greek  mind  with  Babylonia  and  Egypt.  Miletus  was  a  rich 
commercial  city,  in  which  primitive  prejudices  and  superstitions 
were  softened  by  intercourse  with  many  nations.  Ionia,  until  its 
subjugation  by  Darius  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  was 
culturally  the  most  important  part  of  the  Hellenic  world.  It  was 
almost  untouched  by  the  religious  movement  connected  with 
Dionysus  and  Orpheus;  its  religion  was  Olympic,  but  seems  to 
have  been  not  taken  very  seriously.  The  speculations  of  Thales, 
Anaximander,  and  Anaximenes  are  to  be  regarded  as  scientific 
hypotheses,  and  seldom  show  any  undue  intrusion  of  anthropo- 
morphic desires  and  moral  ideas.  The  questions  they  asked  were 
good  questions,  and  their  vigour  inspired  subsequent  investigators. 

The  next  stage  in  Greek  philosophy,  which  is  associated  with 
the  Greek  cities  in  southern  Italy,  is  more  religious,  and,  in 
particular,  more  Orphic — in  some  ways  more  interesting,  admir- 
able in  achievement,  but  in  spirit  less  scientific  than  that  of  the 
Milesians. 


47 


Chapter  III 
PYTHAGORAS 

PYTHAGORAS,  whose  influence  in  ancient  and  modern  times 
is  my  subject  ins^his  chapter,  was  intellectually  one  of  the 
most  important  *J.sn  that  ever  lived,  both  when  he  was 
wise  and  when  he  was  .  mwise.  Mathematics,  in  the  sense  of 
demonstrative  deductive  argument,  begins  with  him,  and  in  him 
is  intimately  connected  with  a  peculiar  form  of  mysticism. 
The  influence  of  mathematics  on  philosophy,  partly  owing 
to  him,  has,  ever  since  his  time,  been  both  profound  and 
unfortunate. 

Let  us  begin  with  what  little  is  known  of  his  life.  He  was  a 
native  of  the  island  of  Samos,  and  flourished  about  532  B.C. 
Some  say  he  was  the  son  of  a  substantial  citizen  named  Mnesarchos, 
others  that  he  was  the  son  of  the  «?od  Apollo ;  I  leave  the  reader  to 
take  his  choice  between  these  alternatives.  In  his  time  Samos  was 
ruled  by  the  tyrant  Polycrates,  an  old  ruffian  who  became  im- 
mensely rich,  and  had  a  vast  navy. 

Samos  was  a  commercial  rival  of  Miletus;  its  traders  went  as 
far  afield  as  Tartessus  in  Spain,  which  was  famous  for  its  mines. 
Polycrates  became  tyrant  of  Samos  about  535  B.C.,  and  reigned 
until  515  B.C.  He  was  not  much  troubled  by  moral  scruples;  he 
got  rid  of  his  two  brothers,  who  were  at  first  associated  with  him 
in  the  tyranny,  and  he  used  his  navy  largely  for  piracy.  1  le  profited 
by  the  fact  that  Miletus  had  recently  submitted  to  Persia.  In  order 
to  obstruct  any  further  westward  expansion  of  the  Persians,  he 
allied  himself  with  Amasis,  king  of  Egypt.  But  when  Cambyses, 
king  of  Persia,  devoted  his  full  energies  to  the  conquest  of  Egypt, 
Polycrates  realized  that  he  was  likely  to  win,  and  changed  sides. 
He  sent  a  fleet,  composed  of  his  political  enemies,  to  attack  Egypt ; 
but  the  crews  mutinied  and  returned  to  Samos  to  attack  him. 
He  got  the  better  of  them,  however,  but  fell  at  last  by  a  treacherous 
appeal  to  his  avarice.  The  Persian  satrap  at  Sardes  represented 
that  he  intended  to  rebel  against  the  Great  King,  and  would  pay 
vast  sums  for  the  help  of  Polycrates,  who  went  to  the  mainland 
for  an  interview,  was  captured  and  crucified.  * 

Polycrates  was  a  patron  of  the  arts,  and  beautified  Samps  with 

48 


PYTHAGORAS 

remarkable  public  works.  Anacreon  was  his  court  poet.  Pythagoras, 
however,  disliked  his  government,  and  therefore  left  Samos.  It  is 
said,  and  is  not  improbable,  that  Pythagoras  visited  Egypt,  and 
learnt  much  of  his  wisdom  there;  however  that  may  be,  it  is 
certain  that  he  ultimately  established  himself  at  Croton,  in 
southern  Italy. 

The  Greek  cities  of  southern  Italy,  like  Samos  and  Miletus, 
were  rich  and  prosperous;  moreover  they  were  not  exposed  to 
danger  from  the  Persians.1  The  two  greatest  were  Sybaris  and 
Croton.  Sybaris  has  remained  proverbial  for  luxury;  its  popula- 
tion, in  its  greatest  days,  is  said  by  Diodorus  to  have  amounted  to 
300,000,  though  this  is  no  doubt  an  exaggeration.  Croton  was 
about  equal  in  sixc  to  Sybaris.  Both  cities  lived  by  importing 
Ionian  wares  into  Italy,  partly  for  consumption  in  that  country, 
partly  for  re-export  from  the  western  coast  to  Gaul  and  Spain. 
The  various  Greek  cities  of  Italy  fought  each  other  fiercely;  when 
Pythatroras  arrived  in  Croton,  it  had  just  been  defeated  by  Locri. 
Soon  after  his  arrival,  however,  Croton  was  completely  victorious 
in  a  war  against  Sybaris,  which  was  utterly  destroyed  (510  B.C.). 
Sybaris  had  been  closely  linked  in  commerce  with  Miletus.  Croton 
was  famous  for  medicine ;  a  certain  Democedes  of  Croton  became 
physician  to  Polycrates  and  then  to  Darius. 

At  t'roton  Pythagoras  founded  a  society  of  disciples,  which  for 
a  time  was  influential  in  that  city.  But  in  the  end  the  citizens 
turned  against  him,  and  he  moved  to  Metapontion  (also  in  southern 
Italy),  where  he  died.  He  soon  became  a  mythical  figure,  credited 
with  miracles  and  niapic  powers,  but  he  was  also  the  founder  of  a 
school  of  mathematicians."  Thus  two  opposing  traditions  disputed 
his  memory,  and  the  truth  is  hard  to  disentangle. 

l*ythagoras  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  puzzling  men  in 
history.  Not  only  are  the  traditions  concerning  him  an  almost 
inextricable  mixture  of  truth  and  falsehood,  but  even  in  their 
barest  and  least  disputable  form  they  present  us  with  a  very 
curious  psychology.  He  may  be  described,  briefly,  as  a  combina- 
tion of  Einstein  and  Mrs.  Eddy.  He  founded  a  religion,  of  which 

1  The  (irrck  cities  of  Sicily  were  in  danger  from  the  Carthaginians, 
but  in  Italy  this  danger  was  not  felt  to  be  imminent. 

*  Aristotle  ftays  of  him  that  he  "first  worked  at  mathematics  and 
arithmetic,  and  u&T\viirdH,  at  one  time,  condescended  to  the  wonder- 
working Qjroetised  by  I'herecydes." 

49 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

The  changes  in  the  meanings  of  words  are  often  very  instructive. 
I  spoke  above  about  the  word  "orgy";  now  I  want  to  speak  about 
the  word  "theory."  This  was  originally  an  Orphic  word,  which 
Cornford  interprets  as  "passionate  sympathetic  contemplation." 
In  this  state,  he  says.  "The  spectator  is  identified  with  the  suffering 
Cod,  dies  in  his  death,  and  rises  again  in  his  new  birth."  For 
Pythagoras,  the  "passionate  sympathetic  contemplation"  was 
intellectual,  and  issued  in  mathematical  knowledge.  In  this  way, 
through  Pythagoreanism,  "theory"  gradually  acquired  its  modern 
meaning;  but  for  all  who  were  inspired  by  Pythagoras  it  retained 
an  element  of  ecstatic  revelation.  To  those  who  have  reluctantly 
learnt  a  little  mathematics  in  school  this  may  seem  strange;  but 
to  those  who  have  experienced  the  intoxicating  delight  of  sudden 
understanding  that  mathematics  gives,  from  time  to  time,  to  those 
who  love  it,  the  Pythagorean  view  will  seem  completely  natural 
<rven  if  untrue.  It  might  seem  that  the  empirical  philosopher  is 
the  slave  of  his  material,  but  that  the  pure  mathematician,  like 
the  musician,  is  a  free  creator  of  his  world  of  ordered  beauty. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe,  in  liurnct's  account  of  the  Pytha- 
gorean ethic,  the  opposition  to  modern  values.  In  connection  with 
a  football  match,  modern-minded  men  think  the  players  grander 
than  the  mere  spectators.  Similarly  as  regards  the  State:  they 
admire  more  the  politicians  who  are  the  contestants  in  the  jrame 
than  those  who  are  only  onlookers.  This  change  of  values  is  con- 
nected with  a  change  in  the  social  system — the  warrior,  the 
gentleman,  the  plutocrat,  and  the  dictator,  each  has  his  own 
standard  of  the  |?ood  and  the  true.  The  gentleman  has  had  a  lonj: 
inninps  in  philosophical  theory,  because  he  is  associated  with  the 
Greek  genius,  because  the  virtue  of  contemplation  acquired 
theological  endorsement,  and  because  the  ideal  of  disinterested 
truth  dignified  the  academic  life.  The  gentleman  is  to  be  defined 
as  one  of  a  society  of  equals  who  live  on  slave  labour,  or  at  any 
rate  upon  the  labour  of  men  whose  inferiority  is  unquestioned. 
It  should  be  observed  that  this  definition  includes  the  saint  and 
the  sage,  insofar  as  these  men's  lives  are  contemplative  rather 
than  active. 

Modern  definitions  of  truth,  such  as  those  of  pragmatism  and 
instrumentalism,  which  are  practical  rather  than  contemplative, 
are  inspired  by  industrialism  as  opposed  to  aristocracy. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  a  social  system  which  f  tolerates 

5* 


PYTHAGORAS 

slavery,  it  is  to  gentlemen  in  the  above  sense  that  we  owe  pure 
mathematics.  The  contemplative  ideal,  since  it  led  to  the  creation 
of  pure  mathematics,  was  the  source  of  a  useful  activity;  this 
increased  its  prestige,  and  gave  it  a  success  in  theology,  in 
ethics,  and  in  philosophy,  which  it  might  not  otherwise  have 
enjoyed. 

So  much  by  way  of  explanation  of  the  two  aspects  of  Pythagoras : 
as  religious  prophet  and  as  pure  mathematician.  In  both  respects 
he  was  immeasurably  influential,  and  the  two  were  not  so  separate 
as  they  seem  to  a  modern  mind. 

Most  sciences,  at  their  inception,  have  been  connected  with 
some  form  of  false  belief,  which  gave  them  a  fictitious  value. 
Astronomy  was  connected  with  astrology,  chemistry  with  alchemy. 
Mathematics  was  associated  with  a  more  refined  type  of  error. 
Mathematical  knowledge  appeared  to  be  certain,  exact,  and  appli- 
cable to  the  real  world;  moreover  it  was  obtained  by  mere  thinking, 
without  the  need  of  observation.  Consequently,  it  was  thought  to 
supply  an  ideal,  from  which  every-day  empirical  knowledge  fell 
short.  It  was  supposed,  on  the  basis  of  mathematics,  that  thought 
is  superior  to  sense,  intuition  to  observation.  If  the  world  of  sense 
does  not  fit  mathematics,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  world  of 
sense.  In  various  ways,  methods  of  approaching  nearer  to  the 
mathematician's  ideal  were  sought,  and  the  resulting  suggestions 
were  the  source  of  much  that  was  mistaken  in  metaphysics  and 
theory  of  knowledge.  This  form  of  philosophy  begins  with 
Pythagoras. 

Pythagoras,  as  everyone  knows,  said  that  "all  things  are 
numbers."  This  statement,  interpreted  in  a  modern  way,  is 
logically  nonsense,  but  what  he  meant  was  not  exactly  nonsense. 
1  le  discovered  the  importance  of  numbers  in  music,  and  the  con- 
nection which  he  established  between  music  and  arithmetic  sur- 
vives in  the  mathematical  terms  "harmonic  mean*'  and  "harmonic 
progression."  He  thought  of  numbers  as  shapes,  as  they  appear 
on  dice  or  playing  cards.  We  still  speak  of  squares  and  cubes  of 
numbers,  which  are  terms  that  we  owe  to  him.  He  also  spoke  of 
oblong  numbers,  triangular  numbers,  pyramidal  numbers,  and  so 
on.  These  were  the  numbers  of  pebbles  (or,  as  we  should  more 
naturally  say,  shot)  required  to  make  the  shapes  in  question.  He 
presumably  thotight  of  the  world  as  atomic,  and  of  bodies  as  built 
up  of  lyolcculcs  composed  of  atoms  arranged  in  various  shapes. 

53 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

In  this  way  he  hoped  to  make  arithmetic  the  fundamental  study 
in  physics  as  in  aesthetics. 

The  greatest  discovery  of  Pythagoras,  or  of  his  immediate  dis- 
ciples, was  the  proposition  about  right-angled  triangles,  that  the 
sum  of  the  squares  on  the  sides  adjoining  the  right  angle  is  equal 
to  the  square  on  the  remaining  side,  the  hypotenuse.  The  Egyptians 
had  known  that  a  triangle  whose  sides  are  3, 4,  5  has  a  right  angle, 
but  apparently  the  Greeks  were  the  first  to  observe  that  3a  -f  4'- 
=  52,  and,  acting  on  this  suggestion,  to  discover  a  proof  of  the 
general  proposition. 

Unfortunately  for  Pythaponis,  his  theorem  led  at  once  to  the 
discovery  of  incommcnsurables,  which  appeared  to  disprove  his 
whole  philosophy.  In  a  rijjht-angled  isosceles  triangle,  the  square 
on  the  hypotenuse  is  double  of  the  square  on  either  side.  Let  us 
suppose  each  side  an  inch  long ;  then  how  long  is  the  hypotenuse  ? 
Let  us  suppose  its  length  is  mfn  inches.  Then  w2/;i2  ~  2.  If  m 
and  n  have  a  common  factor,  divide  it  out,  then  either  tn  or  n 
must  be  odd.  Now  w2  =  2«2,  therefore  m8  is  even,  therefore  m  is 
even,  therefore  n  is  odd.  Suppose  m  -•-  2p.  Then  4/>2  =  2«2,  there- 
fore, »2  =  2/>2  and  therefore  ;/  is  even,  contra  hyp.  Therefore  no 
fraction  m'n  will  measure  the  hypotenuse.  The  above  proof  is 
substantially  that  in  Euclid,  Book  X.1 

This  argument  proved  that,  whatever  unit  of  length  we  may 
adopt,  there  are  lengths  which  bear  no  exact  numerical  relation 
to  the  unit,  in  the  sense  that  there  are  no  two  integers  iw,  «,  such 
that  m  times  the  length  in  question  is  n  times  the  unit.  This  con- 
vinced the  Greek  mathematicians  that  geometry  must  be  estab- 
lished independently  of  arithmetic.  There  are  passapcs  in  Plato's 
dialogues  which  prove  that  the  independent  treatment  of  geo- 
metry was  well  under  way  in  his  day;  it  is  perfected  in  Euclid. 
Euclid,  in  Book  II,  proves  geometrically  many  things  which  we 
should  naturally  prove  by  algebra,  such  as  (a  -{-  bf  -~~  a1  +  zah 
+  A2.  It  was  because  of  the  difficulty  about  incommensurable* 
that  he  considered  this  course  necessary.  The  same  applies  to  his 
treatment  of  proportion  in  Books  V  and  VJ.  The  whole  system 
is  logically  delightful,  and  anticipates  the  rigour  of  nineteenth- 
century  mathematicians.  So  long  as  no  adequate  arithmetical  theory 
of  incommensurable^  existed,  the  method  of  Euclid  was  the  Inrst 

*  But  not  by  Euclid.  See  Heath,  Gftek  Mathtirutlici.  The  above  proof 
was  probably  known  to  Plato. 

54 


PYTHAGORAS 

that  was  possible  in  geometry.  When  Descartes  introduced  co- 
ordinate geometry,  thereby  again  making  arithmetic  supreme,  he 
assumed  the  possibility  of  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  incom- 
mensurables,  though  in  his  day  no  such  solution  had  been 
found. 

The  influence  of  geometry  upon  philosophy  and  scientific 
method  has  been  profound.  Geometry,  as  established  by  the 
Greeks,  starts  with  axioms  which  are  (or  are  deemed  to  be)  self- 
evident,  and  proceeds,  by  deductive  reasoning,  to  arrive  at 
theorems  that  are  very  far  from  self-evident.  The  axioms  and 
theorems  arc  held  to  be  true  of  actual  space,  which  is  something 
given  in  experience.  It  thus  appeared  to  be  possible  to  discover 
things  about  the  actual  world  by  first  noticing  what  is  self-evident 
and  then  using  deduction.  This  view  influenced  Plato  and  Kant, 
and  most  of  the  intermediate  philosophers.  When  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  says  "we  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident," 
it  is  modelling  itself  on  Euclid.  The  eighteenth-century  doctrine 
of  natural  rights  is  a  search  for  Euclidean  axioms  in  politics.1 
The  form  of  Newton's  Principia,  in  spite  of  its  admittedly  empirical 
material,  is  entirely  dominated  by  Euclid.  Theology,  in  its  exact 
scholastic  forms,  takes  its  style  from  the  same  source.  Personal 
religion  is  derived  from  ecstasy,  theology  from  mathematics;  and 
both  arc  to  be  found  in  Pythagoras. 

Mathematics  is,  I  believe,  the  chief  source  of  the  belief  in 
eternal  and  exact  truth,  as  well  as  in  a  super-sensible  intelligible 
\\orld.  Geometry  deals  with  exact  circles,  but  no  sensible  object 
is  exactly  circular;  however  carefully  we  may  use  our  compasses, 
there  will  be  some  imperfections  and  irregularities.  This  suggests 
the  view  that  all  exact  reasoning  applies  to  ideal  as  opposed  to 
sensible  objects;  it  is  natural  to  go  further,  and  to  argue  that 
thought  is  nobler  than  sense,  and  the  objects  of  thought  more 
real  than  those  of  sense-perception.  Mystical  doctrines  as  to  the 
relation  of  time  to  eternity  are  also  reinforced  by  pure  mathe- 
matics, for  mathematical  objects,  such  as  numbers,  if  real  at  all, 
are  eternal  and  not  in  time.  Such  eternal  objects  can  be  conceived 
as  God's  thoughts.  Hence  Plato's  doctrine  that  God  is  a  geometer, 
and  Sir  James  Jeans'  belief  that  He  is  addicted  to  arithmetic. 
Rationalistic  as  opposed  to  apocalyptic  religion  has  been,  ever 

1  "Self-evident**  was  substituted  by  Franklin  for  Jefferson's  "sacred 
and  undeniable." 

55 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

since  Pythagoras,  and  notably  ever  since  Plato,  very  completely 
dominated  by  mathematics  and  mathematical  method. 

The  combination  of  mathematics  and  theology,  which  began 
with  Pythagoras,  characterized  religious  philosophy  in  Greece,  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  modern  times  down  to  Kant.  Orphism 
before  Pythagoras  was  analogous  to  Asiatic  mystery  religions.  But 
in  Plato,  St.  Augustine,  Thomas  Aquinas,  Descartes,  Spinoza, 
and  Leibniz  there  is  an  intimate  blending  of  religion  and  reasoning, 
of  moral  aspiration  with  logical  admiration  of  what  is  timeless, 
which  comes  from  Pythagoras,  and  distinguishes  the  intellec- 
tualized  theology  of  Europe  from  the  more  straightforward 
mysticism  of  Asia.  It  is  only  in  quite  recent  times  that  it  has  been 
possible  to  say  clearly  where  Pythagoras  was  wrong.  1  do  not 
know  of  any  other  man  who  has  been  as  influential  as  he  was  in 
the  sphere  of  thought.  I  say  this  because  what  appears  as  Platonism 
is,  when  analysed,  found  to  be  in  essence  Pythagoreanism.  The 
whole  conception  of  an  eternal  world,  revealed  to  the  intellect 
but  not  to  the  senses,  is  derived  from  him.  But  for  him,  Christians 
would  not  have  thought  of  Christ  as  the  Word;  but  for  him, 
theologians  would  not  have  sought  logical  proofs  of  Mod  and 
immortality.  But  in  him  all  this  is  still  implicit.  I  low  it  became 
explicit  will  appear  as  we  proceed. 


Chapter  IV 
HERACLITUb 

Two  opposite  attitudes  towards  the  Greeks  are  common 
at  the  present  day.  One,  which  was  practically  universal 
from  the  Renaissance  until  very  recent  times,  views  the 
Greeks  with  almost  superstitious  reverence,  as  the  inventors  of 
all  that  is  best,  and  as  men  of  superhuman  genius  whom  the 
moderns  cannot  hope  to  equal.  The  other  attitude,  inspired  by 
the  triumphs  of  science  and  by  an  optimistic  belief  in  progress, 
considers  the  authority  of  the  ancients  an  incubus,  and  maintains 
that  most  of  their  contributions  to  thought  are  now  best  forgotten. 
1  cannot  myself  take  either  of  these  extreme  views;  each,  I  should 
say,  is  partly  right  and  partly  wrong.  Before  entering  upon  any 
detail,  I  shall  try  to  say  what  sort  of  wisdom  we  can  still  derive 
from  the  study  of  Greek  thought. 

As  to  the  nature  and  structure  of  the  world,  various  hypotheses 
are  possible.  Progress  in  metaphysics,  so  far  as  it  has  existed,  has 
consisted  in  a  gradual  refinement  of  all  these  hypotheses,  a  develop- 
ment of  their  implications,  and  a  reformulation  of  each  to  meet 
the  objections  urged  by  adherents  of  rival  hypotheses.  To  learn 
to  conceive  the  universe  according  to  each  of  these  systems  is  an 
imaginative  delight  and  an  antidote  to  dogmatism.  Moreover, 
even  if  no  one  of  the  hypotheses  can  be  demonstrated,  there  is 
genuine  knowledge  in  the  discovery  of  what  is  involved  in  making 
each  of  them  consistent  with  itself  and  with  known  facts.  Now 
almost  all  the  hypotheses  that  have  dominated  modern  philo- 
sophy were  first  thought  of  by  the  Greeks;  their  imaginative 
inventiveness  in  abstract  matters  can  hardly  be  too  highly  praised. 
What  1  shall  have  to  say  about  the  Greeks  will  be  said  mainly 
from  this  point  of  view;  I  shall  regard  them  as  giving  birth  to 
theories  which  have  had  an  independent  life  and  growth,  and 
which,  though  at  first  somewhat  infantile,  have  proved  capable 
of  surviving  and  developing  throughout  more  than  two  thousand 
years. 

The  Greeks  contributed,  it  is  true,  something  else  which  proved 
of  more  permanent  value  to  abstract  thought:  they  discovered 
mathematics  and  the  art  of  deductive  reasoning.  Geometry,  in 

57 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

particular,  is  a  Greek  invention,  without  which  modern  science 
would  have  been  impossible.  But  in  connection  with  mathematics 
the  one-sidedness  of  the  Greek  genius  appears :  it  reasoned  deduc- 
tively from  what  appeared  self-evident,  not  inductively  from  what 
had  been  observed.  Its  amazing  successes  in  the  employment 
of  this  method  misled  not  only  the  ancient  world,  but  the  greater 
part  of  the  modern  world  also.  It  has  only  been  very  slowly  that 
scientific  method,  which  seeks  to  reach  principles  inductively 
from  observation  of  particular  facts,  has  replaced  the  Hellenic 
belief  in  deduction  from  luminous  axioms  derived  from  the  mind 
of  the  philosopher.  For  this  reason,  apart  from  others,  it  is  a 
mistake  to  treat  the  Greeks  with  superstitious  reverence.  Scientific 
method,  though  some  few  among  them  were  the  first  men  who 
had  an  inkling  of  it,  is,  on  the  whole,  alien  to  their  temper  of  mind, 
and  the  attempt  to  glorify  them  by  belittling  the  intellectual 
progress  of  the  last  four  centuries  has  a  cramping  effect  upon 
modern  thought. 

There  is,  however,  a  more  general  argument  against  reverence, 
whether  for  the  Greeks  or  for  anyone  else.  In  studying  a  philo- 
sopher, the  right  attitude  is  neither  reverence  nor  contempt,  but 
first  a  kind  of  hypothetical  sympathy,  until  it  is  possible  to  know 
what  it  feels  like  to  believe  in  his  theories,  and  only  then  a  revival 
of  the  critical  attitude,  which  should  resemble,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  state  of  mind  of  a  person  abandoning  opinions  which  hr  has 
hitherto  held.  Contempt  interferes  with  the  first  part  of  this 
process,  and  reverence  with  the  second.  Two  things  are  to  be 
remembered:  that  a  man  whose  opinions  and  theories  are  worth 
studying  may  be  presumed  to  have  had  some  intelligence,  but 
that  no  man  is  likely  to  have  arrived  at  complete  and  final  truth 
on  any  subject  whatever.  When  an  intelligent  man  expresses 
a  view  which  seems  to  us  obviously  absurd,  \ve  should  not  attempt 
to  prove  that  it  is  somehow  true,  but  we  should  try  to  understand 
how  it  ever  came  to  seem  true.  This  exercise  of  historical  and 
psychological  imagination  at  once  enlarges  the  scope  of  our 
thinking,  and  helps  us  to  realize  how  foolish  many  of  our  own 
cherished  prejudices  will  seem  to  an  age  which  has  a  different 
temper  of  mind. 

Between  Pythagoras  and  Heraclitus,  with  whom  we  shall  be 
concerned  in  this  chapter,  there  was  another  philosopher,  of  less  im- 
portance, namely  Xenophancs.  His  date  is  uncertain,  and  's  mainly 

58 


HERACLJTUS 

determined  by  the  fact  that  he  alludes  to  Pythagoras  and  Hera- 
clitus  alludes  to  him.  He  was  an  Ionian  by  birth,  but  lived  most 
of  his  life  in  southern  Italy.  He  believed  all  things  to  be  made 
out  of  earth  and  water.  As  regards  the  gods  he  was  a  very  emphatic 
free  thinker.  "Homer  and  Hesiod  have  ascribed  to  the  gods  all 
things  that  are  a  shame  and  a  disgrace  among  mortals,  stealings 
and  adulteries  and  deccivings  of  one  another.  .  .  .  Mortals  deem 
that  gods  are  begotten  as  they  are,  and  have  clothes  like  theirs, 
and  voice  and  form  .  .  .  yes,  and  if  oxen  and  horses  or  lions  had 
hands,  and  could  paint  with  their  hands,  and  produce  works  of 
art  as  men  do,  horses  would  paint  the  forms  of  gods  like  horses, 
and  oxen  like  oxen,  and  make  their  bodies  in  the  image  of  their 
several  kinds.  .  .  .  The  Ethiopians  make  their  gods  black  and 
snub-nosed ;  the  Thracians  say  theirs  have  blue  eyes  and  red  hair." 
He  believed  in  one  God,  unlike  men  in  form  and  thoupht,  who 
"without  toil  swayeth  all  things  by  the  force  of  his  mind."  Xeno- 
phanes  made  fun  of  the  Pythagorean  doctrine  of  transmigration. 
"Once,  they  say,  he  (Pythagoras)  was  passing  by  when  a  dog  was 
being  ill-treated.  *Stop,'  he  said,  'don't  hit  it!  It  is  the  soul  of 
a  friend !  I  knew  it  when  I  heard  its  voice/  "  He  believed  it 
impossible  to  ascertain  the  truth  in  matters  of  theology.  "The 
certain  truth  there  is  no  man  who  knows,  nor  ever  shall  be,  about 
the  pods  and  all  the  things  whereof  I  speak.  Yea,  even  if  a  man 
should  chance  to  say  something  utterly  right,  still  he  himself 
knows  it  not — there  is  nowhere  anything  but  guessing."1 

Xenophanes  has  his  place  in  the  succession  of  rationalists,  who 
were  opposed  to  the  mystical  tendencies  of  Pythagoras  and  others, 
but  as  an  independent  thinker  he  is  not  in  the  first  rank. 

The  doctrine  of  Pythagoras,  as  we  saw,  is  very  difficult  to 
disentangle  from  that  of  his  disciples,  and  although  Pythagoras 
himself  is  very  early,  the  influence  of  his  school  is  mainly  sub- 
sequent to  that  of  various  other  philosophers.  The  first  of  these 
to  invent  a  theory  which  is  still  influential  was  Heraclitus,  who 
flourished  about  500  B.C.  Of  his  life  very  little  is  known,  except 
that  he  was  an  aristocratic  citizen  of  Ephesus.  He  was  chiefly 
famous  in  antiquity  for  his  doctrine  that  everything  is  in  a  state 
of  flux,  but  this,  as  we  shall  see,  is  only  one  aspect  of  his  meta- 
physics. 

iieraciitus,  though  an  Ionian,  was  not  in  the  scientific  tradition 

*  (Juotnl  from  Kdwyn  itevan,  Stoic t  an d  Sceptics,  Oxford,  1913,  p.  121. 

59 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

of  the  Milesians.1  He  was  a  mystic,  but  of  a  peculiar  kind.  He 
regarded  fire  as  the  fundamental  substance ;  everything,  like  flame 
in  a  fire,  is  born  by  the  death  of  something  else.  "Mortals  are 
immortals,  and  immortals  are  mortals,  the  one  living  the  other's 
death  and  dying  the  other's  life."  There  is  unity  in  the  world, 
but  it  is  a  unity  formed  by  the  combination  of  opposite?.  "All 
things  come  out  of  the  one,  and  the  one  out  of  all  things'1;  but 
the  many  have  less  reality  than  the  one,  which  is  God. 

From  what  survives  of  his  writings  he  does  not  appear  as  an 
amiable  character.  He  was  much  addicted  to  contempt,  and  was 
the  reverse  of  a  democrat.  Concerning  his  fellow-citizens,  he 
says:  "The  Kphesians  would  do  well  to  hane  themselves,  even- 
grown  man  of  them,  and  leave  the  city  to  beardless  lads;  for  they 
have  cast  out  Hermodorus,  the  best  man  among  them,  saying: 
'We  will  have  none  who  is  best  among  us;  if  there  be  any  such, 
let  him  be  so  elsewhere  and  among  others.'  "  He  speaks  ill  of 
all  his  eminent  predecessors,  with  a  single  exception.  "Homer 
should  be  turned  out  of  the  lists  and  whipped."  "Of  all  whose 
discourses  I  have  heard,  there  is  not  one  who  attains  to  under- 
standing that  wisdom  is  apart  from  all."  "The  learning  of  many 
things  teachelh  not  understanding,  else  would  it  have  taught 
Hesiod  and  Pythagoras,  and  again  Xenophanes  and  Hecataeus." 
"Pythagoras  .  .  .  claimed  for  his  own  wisdom  what  was  but  a 
knowledge  of  many  things  and  an  art  of  mischief."  The  one 
exception  to  his  condemnations  is  Tcutamus,  who  is  signalled 
out  as  "of  more  account  than  the  rest."  When  we  inquire  the 
reason  for  this  praise,  we  find  that  Tcutamus  said  "most  men 
are  bad." 

His  contempt  for  mankind  leads  him  to  think  that  only  force 
will  compel  them  to  act  for  their  own  good.  He  says:  "livery  beast 
is  driven  to  the  pasture  with  blows";  and  again:  "Asses  would 
rather  have  straw  than  gold." 

As  might  be  expected,  Heraclitus  believes  in  war.  "War,"  he 
says,  "is  the  father  of  all  and  the  king  of  all;  and  some  he  has 
made  gods  and  some  men,  some  bond  and  some  free."  Again: 
"Homer  was  wrong  in  saying:  *  Would  that  strife  might  perish 
from  among  gods  and  men!'  He  did  not  see  that  he  was  praying 
for  the  destruction  of  the  universe;  for,  if  his  prayer  were  heard, 

1  Comfofd,  op.  rit.  (p.  184),  ernphasixrs  this,  I  think  rightly.  Herat  liru» 
is  often  misunderstood  through  I>CWK  aasimilatrd  to  other  lonmns. 

60 


HERACLITUS 

all  things  would  pass  away."  And  yet  again:  "We  must  know 
that  war  is  common  to  all  and  strife  is  justice,  and  that  all  things 
come  into  being  and  pass  away  through  strife." 

His  ethic  is  a  kind  of  proud  asceticism,  very  similar  to  Nietzsche's, 
lie  regards  the  soul  as  a  mixture  of  fire  and  water,  the  fire  being 
noble  and  the  water  ignoble.  The  soul  that  has  most  fire  he 
calls  "dry."  "The  dry  soul  is  the  wisest  and  best."  "It  is  pleasure 
to  souls  to  become  moist."  "A  man,  when  he  gets  drunk,  is  led 
by  a  beardless  lad,  tripping,  knowing  not  where  he  steps,  having 
his  soul  moist."  "It  is  death  to  souls  to  become  water."  "It  is 
hard  to  fight  with  one's  heart's  desire.  Whatever  it  wishes  to 
get,  it  purchases  at  the  cost  of  soul."  "It  is  not  good  for  men  to 
get  all  that  they  wish  to  get."  One  may  say  that  Heraclitus  values 
power  obtained  through  self-mastery,  and  despises  the  passions 
that  distract  men  from  their  central  ambitions. 

The  attitude  of  Heraclitus  to  the  religions  of  his  time,  at  any 
rate  the  Bacchic  religion,  is  largely  hostile,  but  not  with  the 
hostility  of  a  scientific  rationalist.  He  has  his  own  religion,  and 
in  part  interprets  current  theology  to  fit  his  doctrine,  in  part 
rejects  it  with  considerable  scorn.  He  has  been  called  Bacchic 
(by  C'ornforti),  and  regarded  as  an  interpreter  of  the  mysteries 
(by  Pfieiderer).  I  do  not  think  the  relevant  fragments  bear  out 
this  view.  He  says,  for  example:  "The  mysteries  practised  among 
men  arc  unholy  mysteries/'  This  suggests  that  he  had  in  mind 
possible  mysteries  that  would  not  be  "unholy,"  but  would  be 
quite  different  from  those  that  existed.  He  would  have  been  a 
religious  reformer,  if  he  had  not  been  too  scornful  of  the  vulgar 
to  engage  in  propaganda. 

The  following  are  all  the  extant  sayings  of  Heraclitus  that  bear 
on  his  attitude  to  the  theology  of  his  day. 

The  Lord  whose  is  the  oracle  of  Delphi  neither  utters  nor  hides 
his  meaning,  but  shows  it  by  a  sign. 

And  the  Sibyl,  with  raving  lips  uttering  things  mirthless,  un- 
bedi/cnetl  and  unpei  fumed,  reaches  over  a  thousand  years  with 
her  \oice,  thanks  to  the  god  in  her. 

Souls  smell  in  Hades. 

(Jieater  deaths  win  greater  portions.  (Those  who  die  them 
become  gods.) 

Night-\valk(TS,*mairicians,  priests  of  Bacchus,  and  priestesses  of 
the  wine^val,  mystery-mongers. 

61 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

The  mysteries  practised  among  men  are  unholy  mysteries. 

And  they  pray  to  these  images,  as  if  one  were  to  talk  with  a 
man's  house,  knowing  not  what  gods  or  heroes  are. 

For  if  it  were  not  to  Dionysus  that  they  made  a  procession  and 
sang  the  shameful  phallic  hymn,  they  would  be  acting  most 
shamelessly.  But  Hades  is  the  same  as  Dionysus  in  whose  honour 
they  go  mad  and  keep  the  feast  of  the  wine-vat. 

They  vainly  purify  themselves  by  defiling  themselves  with 
blood,  just  as  if  one  who  had  stepped  into  the  mud  were  to  wash 
his  feet  in  mud.  Any  man  who  marked  him  doing  this,  would 
deem  him  mad. 

Heraclitus  believed  fire  to  be  the  primordial  element,  out  of 
which  everything  else  had  arisen.  Thales,  the  reader  will  remember, 
thought  everything  was  made  of  water;  Anaximenes  thought  air 
was  the  primitive  element;  Heraclitus  preferred  fire.  At  last 
Empedocles  suggested  a  statesmanlike  compromise  by  allowing 
four  elements,  earth,  air,  fire  and  water.  The  chemistry  of  the 
ancients  stopped  dead  at  this  point.  No  further  progress  was  made 
in  this  science  until  the  Mohammedan  alchemists  embarked 
upon  their  search  for  the  philosopher's  stone,  the  elixir  of  life, 
and  a  method  of  transmuting  base  metals  into  gold. 

The  metaphysics  of  Heraclitus  are  sufficiently  dynamic  to 
satisfy  the  most  hustling  of  moderns : 

"This  world,  which  is  the  same  for  all,  no  one  of  gods  or  men 
has  made;  but  it  was  ever,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be  an  ever-living 
Fire,  with  measures  kindling  and  measures  going  out.*' 

"The  transformations  of  Fire  are,  first  of  all,  sea;  and  half  of 
the  sea  is  earth,  half  whirlwind." 

In  such  a  world,  perpetual  change  was  to  be  expected,  ami 
perpetual  change  was  what  Heraclitus  believed  in. 

He  had,  however,  another  doctrine  on  which  he  set  even  more 
store  than  on  the  perpetual  flux;  this  was  the  doctrine  of  the 
mingling  of  opposites.  "Men  do  not  know,"  he  says,  "how  what 
is  at  variance  agrees  with  itself.  It  is  an  attunement  of  opposite 
tensions,  like  that  of  the  bow  and  the  lyre."  His  belief  in  strife 
is  connected  with  this  theory,  for  in  strife  opposites  combine  to 
produce  a  motion  which  is  a  harmony.  There  is  a  unity  in  the 
world,  but  it  is  a  unity  resulting  from  diversity: 

"Couples  are  things  whole  and  things  not  whole,  what  is  drawn 
together  and  what  is  drawn  asunder,  the  harmonious  an^I  the  dis- 

62 


HERACLITUS 

cordant.  The  one  is  made  up  of  all  things,  and  all  things  issue 
from  the  one." 

Sometimes  he  speaks  as  if  the  unity  were  more  fundamental 
than  the  diversity : 

"Good  and  ill  are  one/1 

"To  God  all  things  are  fair  and  good  and  right,  but  men  hold 
some  things  wrong  and  some  right." 

"The  way  up  and  the  way  down  is  one  and  the  same." 

"God  is  day  and  night,  winter  and  summer,  war  and  peace, 
surfeit  and  hunger;  but  he  takes  various  shapes,  just  as  fire,  when 
it  is  mingled  with  spices,  is  named  according  to  the  savour  of  each." 

Nevertheless,  there  would  be  no  unity  if  there  were  not  opposites 
to  combine:  "it  is  the  opposite  which  is  good  for  us." 

This  doctrine  contains  the  germ  of  Hegel's  philosophy,  which 
proceeds  by  a  synthcsi/ing  of  opposites. 

The  metaphysics  of  Ileraclitus,  like  that  of  Anaximander,  is 
dominated  by  a  conception  of  cosmic  justice,  which  prevents  the 
strife  of  opposites  from  ever  issuing  in  the  complete  victory  of 
cither. 

"All  things  are  an  exchange  for  Fire,  and  Fire  for  all  things, 
even  as  wares  for  gold  and  gold  for  wares." 

"Fire  lives  the  death  of  air,  and  air  lives  the  death  of  fire;  water 
lives  the  death  of  earth,  earth  that  of  water." 

"The  sun  will  not  overstep  his  measures ;  if  he  does, the  Erinyes, 
the  handmaids  of  Justice,  will  find  him  out." 

"We  must  know  that  war  is  common  to  all,  and  strife  is  justice." 

Ileraclitus  repeatedly  speaks  of  "God"  as  distinct  from  "the 
gods."  "The  way  of  man  has  no  wisdom,  but  that  of  God  has.  .  .  . 
Man  is  called  a  baby  by  God,  even  as  a  child  by  a  man.  .  .  .  The 
wisest  man  is  an  ape  compared  to  God,  just  as  the  most  beautiful 
ape  is  ugly  compared  to  man." 

God,  no  doubt,  is  the  embodiment  of  cosmic  justice. 

The  doctrine  that  everything  is  in  a  state  of  flux  is  the  most 
famous  of  the  opinions  of  Ileraclitus, and  the  one  most  emphasized 
by  his  disciples,  as  described  in  Plato's  Theaetetus. 

"You  cannot  step  twice  into  the  same  river;  for  fresh  waters 
are  ever  flowing  in  upon  you."1 

"The  sun  is  ne^w  every  day." 

1  But  cf.  *'\Ve  step  and  do  not  step  into  the  same  rivers:  we  are,  and 
are  not/'  *• 

63 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

His  belief  in  universal  change  is  commonly  supposed  to  have 
been  expressed  in  the  phrase  "all  things  are  flowing/1  but  this  is 
probably  apocryphal,  like  Washington's  "Father,  I  cannot  tell  a 
lie"  and  Wellington's  "Up  Guards  and  at  'em."  His  words,  like 
those  of  all  the  philosophers  before  Plato,  are  only  known  through 
quotations,  largely  made  by  Plato  or  Aristotle  for  the  sake  of 
refutation.  When  one  thinks  what  would  become  of  any  modern 
philosopher  if  he  were  only  known  through  the  polemics  of  his 
rivals,  one  can  see  how  admirable  the  pre-Socratics  must  have 
been,  since  even  through  the  mist  of  malice  spread  by  their 
enemies  they  still  appear  great.  However  this  may  be,  Plato  and 
Aristotle  agree  that  Heraclitus  taught  that  "nothing  ever  is, 
everything  is  becoming"  (Plato),  and  that  "nothing  steadfastly  is" 
(Aristotle). 

I  shall  return  to  the  consideration  of  this  doctrine  in  connection 
with  Plato,  who  is  much  concerned  to  refute  it.  For  the  present,  I 
shall  not  investigate  what  philosophy  has  to  say  about  it,  but 
only  what  the  poets  have  felt  and  the  men  of  science  have  taught. 

The  search  for  something  permanent  is  one  of  the  deepest  of 
the  instincts  leading  men  to  philosophy.  It  is  derived,  no  doubt, 
from  love  of  home  and  desire  for  a  refuge  from  danger;  we  find, 
accordingly,  that  it  is  most  passionate  in  those  whose  lives  are 
most  exposed  to  catastrophe.  Religion  seeks  permanence  in  two 
forms,  God  and  immortality.  In  God  is  no  variableness  neither 
shadow  of  turning;  the  life  after  death  is  eternal  and  unchanging. 
The  cheerfulness  of  the  nineteenth  century  turned  men  against 
these  static  conceptions,  and  modern  liberal  theology  believes 
that  there  is  progress  in  heaven  and  evolution  in  the  Godhead. 
But  even  in  this  conception  there  is  something  permanent,  namely 
progress  itself  and  its  immanent  goal.  And  a  dose  of  disaster  is 
likely  to  bring  men's  hopes  back  to  their  older  super-terrestrial 
forms:  if  life  on  earth  is  despaired  of,  it  is  only  in  heaven  that 
peace  can  be  sought. 

The  poets  have  lamented  the  power  of  Time  to  sweep  away 
every  object  of  their  love. 

Time  doth  transfix  the  flourish  set  on  youth, 
And  delves  the  parallels  in  beauty  'a  brow, 
Feeds  on  the  rarities  of  nature's  trurn, 
And  nothing  stands  but  for  his  scythe  to  mow. 


HERACLITUS 

They  generally  add  that  their  own  verses  are  indestructible: 

And  yet  to  times  in  hope  my  verse  shall  stand. 
Praising  thy  worth,  despite  his  cruel  hand. 

But  this  is  only  a  conventional  literary  conceit. 

Philosophically  inclined  mystics,  unable  to  deny  that  whatever 
is  in  time  is  transitory,  have  invented  a  conception  of  eternity  as 
not  persistence  through  endless  time,  but  existence  outside  the 
whole  temporal  process.  Eternal  life,  according  to  some  theologians, 
for  example,  Dean  Inge,  does  not  mean  existence  throughout 
every  moment  of  future  time,  but  a  mode  of  being  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  time,  in  which  there  is  no  before  and  after,  and  there- 
fore no  logical  possibility  of  change.  This  view  has  been  poetically 
expressed  by  Vaughan : 

I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night, 
Like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and  endless  light, 

All  calm,  as  it  was  bright; 
And  round  beneath  it,  Time  in  hours,  days,  years, 

Driven  by  the  spheres 
Like  a  vast  shadow  moved ;  in  which  the  world 

And  all  her  train  were  hurled. 

Several  of  the  most  famous  systems  of  philosophy  have  tried 
to  state  this  conception  in  sober  prose,  as  expressing  what  reason, 
patiently  pursued,  will  ultimately  compel  us  to  believe. 

Heraclitus  himself,  for  all  his  belief  in  change,  allowed  something 
everlasting.  The  conception  of  eternity  (as  opposed  to  endless 
duration),  which  comes  from  Parmenides,  is  not  to  be  found  in 
Heraclitus,  but  in  his  philosophy  the  central  fire  never  dies:  the 
world  "was  ever,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be,  an  ever-living  Fire/' 
But  fire  is  something  continually  changing,  and  its  permanence  is 
rather  that  of  a  process  than  that  of  a  substance — though  this  view 
should  not  be  attributed  to  Heraclitus. 

Science,  like  philosophy,  has  sought  to  escape  from  the  doctrine 
of  perpetual  flux  by  finding  some  permanent  substratum  amid 
changing  phenomena.  Chemistry  seemed  to  satisfy  this  desire.  It 
was  found  that  fire,  which  appears  to  destroy,  only  transmutes: 
elements  are  recombined,  but  each  atom  that  existed  before  com- 
bustion still  exists  when  the  process  is  completed.  Accordingly  it 
was  supposed  that  atoms  arc  indestructible,  and  that  all  change 
in  the  physical  world  consists  merely  in  re-arrangement  of  per- 

65  C 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

sistent  elements.  This  view  prevailed  until  the  discovery  of  radio- 
activity, when  it  was  found  that  atoms  could  disintegrate. 

Nothing  daunted,  the  physicists  invented  new  and  smaller  units 
called  electrons  and  protons,  out  of  which  atoms  were  composed ; 
and  these  units  were  supposed,  for  a  few  years,  to  have  the  in- 
destructibility formerly  attributed  to  atoms.  Unfortunately  it 
seemed  that  protons  and  electrons  could  meet  and  explode, 
forming,  not  new  matter,  but  a  wave  of  energy  spreading  through 
the  universe  with  the  velocity  of  light.  Energy  had  to  replace 
matter  as  what  is  permanent.  But  energy,  unlike  matter,  is  not  a 
refinement  of  the  common-sense  notion  of  a  "thing";  it  is  merely 
a  characteristic  of  physical  processes.  It  might  be  fancifully 
identified  with  the  Heraclitean  Fire,  but  it  is  the  burning,  not 
what  burns.  "What  burns"  has  disappeared  from  modern  physics. 

Passing  from  the  small  to  the  large,  astronomy  no  longer  allows 
us  to  regard  the  heavenly  bodies  as  everlasting.  The  planets  came 
out  of  the  sun,  and  the  sun  came  out  of  a  nebula.  It  has  lasted 
some  time,  and  will  last  some  time  longer;  but  sooner  or  later — 
probably  in  about  a  million  million  years — it  will  explode,  destroy- 
ing all  the  planets.  So  at  least  the  astronomers  say;  perhaps  as 
the  fatal  day  draws  nearer  they  will  find  some  mistake  in  their 
calculations. 

The  doctrine  of  the  perpetual  flux,  as  taught  by  Heraclitus,  is 
painful,  and  science,  as  we  have  seen,  can  do  nothing  to  refute  it. 
One  of  the  main  ambitions  of  philosophers  has  been  to  revive 
hopes  that  science  seemed  to  have  killed.  Philosophers,  accordingly, 
have  sought,  with  great  persistence,  for  something  not  subject  to 
the  empire  of  Time.  This  search  begins  with  Parmenidcs. 


Chapter  V 
PARMENIDES 

THE  Greeks  were  not  addicted  to  moderation,  cither  in 
their  theories  or  in  their  practice.  Heraclitus  maintained 
that  everything  changes;  Parmenides  retorted  that  nothing 
changes. 

Parmenides  was  a  native  of  Elea,  in  the  south  of  Italy,  and 
flourished  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.  According  to 
Plato,  Socrates  in  his  youth  (say  about  the  year  450  B.C.)  had  an 
interview  with  Parmenides,  then  an  old  man,  and  learnt  much 
from  him.  Whether  or  not  this  interview  is  historical,  we  may  at 
least  infer,  what  is  otherwise  evident,  that  Plato  himself  was 
influenced  by  the  doctrines  of  Parmenides.  The  south  Italian  and 
Sicilian  philosophers  were  more  inclined  to  mysticism  and  religion 
than  those  of  Ionia,  who  were  on  the  whole  scientific  and  sceptical 
in  their  tendencies.  But  mathematics,  under  the  influence  of 
Pythagoras,  flourished  more  in  Magna  Graecia  than  in  Ionia; 
mathematics  at  that  time,  however,  was  entangled  with  mysticism. 
Parmenides  was  influenced  by  Pythagoras,  but  the  extent  of  this 
influence  is  conjectural.  What  makes  Parmenides  historically 
important  is  that  he  invented  a  form  of  metaphysical  argument 
that,  in  one  form  or  another,  is  to  be  found  in  most  subsequent 
metaphysicians  down  to  and  including  Hegel.  He  is  often  said  to 
liave  invented  logic,  but  what  he  really  invented  was  metaphysics 
based  on  logic. 

The  doctrine  of  Parmenides  was  set  forth  in  a  poem  On  Nature. 
He  considered  the  senses  deceptive,  and  condemned  the  multitude 
of  sensible  things  as  mere  illusion.  The  only  true  being  is  "the 
One/'  which  is  infinite  and  indivisible.  It  is  not,  as  in  Heraclitus, 
a  union  of  opposites,  since  there  are  no  opposites.  He  apparently 
thought,  for  instance,  that  "cold"  means  only  "not  hot,"  and 
"dark"  means  only  "not  light."  "The  One"  is  not  conceived  by 
Parmenides  as  we  conceive  God ;  he  seems  to  think  of  it  as  material 
and  extended,  for  he  speaks  of  it  as  a  sphere.  But  it  cannot  be 
divided,  because  the  whole  of  it  is  present  everywhere. 

Parmenides  dk'ides  his  teaching  into  two  parts,  called  respec- 
tively "the  way  of  truth"  and  "the  way  of  opinion."  We  need  not 

67 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

sistent  elements.  This  view  prevailed  until  the  discovery  of  radio- 
activity, when  it  was  found  that  atoms  could  disintegrate. 

Nothing  daunted,  the  physicists  invented  new  and  smaller  units, 
called  electrons  and  protons,  out  of  which  atoms  were  composed ; 
and  these  units  were  supposed,  for  a  few  years,  to  have  die  in- 
destructibility formerly  attributed  to  atoms.  Unfortunately  it 
seemed  that  protons  and  electrons  could  meet  and  explode, 
forming,  not  new  matter,  but  a  wave  of  energy  spreading  through 
the  universe  with  the  velocity  of  light.  Energy  had  to  replace 
matter  as  what  is  permanent.  But  energy,  unlike  matter,  is  not  a 
refinement  of  the  common-sense  notion  of  a  "thing";  it  is  merely 
a  characteristic  of  physical  processes.  It  might  be  fancifully 
identified  with  the  Heraclitean  Fire,  but  it  is  the  burning,  not 
what  burns.  "What  burns"  has  disappeared  from  modern  physics. 

Passing  from  the  small  to  the  large,  astronomy  no  longer  allows 
us  to  regard  the  heavenly  bodies  as  everlasting.  The  planets  came 
out  of  the  sun,  and  the  sun  came  out  of  a  nebula.  It  has  lasted 
some  time,  and  will  last  some  time  longer;  but  sooner  or  later — 
probably  in  about  a  million  million  years — it  will  explode,  destroy- 
ing all  the  planets.  So  at  least  the  astronomers  say;  perhaps  as 
the  fatal  day  draws  nearer  they  will  find  some  mistake  in  their 
calculations. 

The  doctrine  of  the  perpetual  flux,  as  taught  by  Heraclitus,  is 
painful,  and  science,  as  we  have  seen,  can  do  nothing  to  refute  it. 
One  of  the  main  ambitions  of  philosophers  has  been  to  revive 
hopes  that  science  seemed  to  have  killed.  Philosophers,  accordingly, 
have  sought,  with  great  persistence,  for  something  not  subject  to 
the  empire  of  Time.  This  search  begins  with  Parmenides. 


66 


Chapter  V 
PARMENIDES 

THE  Greeks   were   not   addicted   to  moderation,  either  in 
their  theories  or  in  their  practice.  Heraclitus  maintained 
that  everything  clianges;  Parmenides  retorted  that  nothing 
changes. 

Parmenides  was  a  native  of  Elea,  in  the  south  of  Italy,  and 
flourished  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.  According  to 
Plato,  Socrates  in  his  youth  (say  about  the  year  450  B.C.)  had  an 
interview  with  Parmenides,  then  an  old  man,  and  learnt  much 
from  him.  Whether  or  not  this  interview  is  historical,  we  may  at 
least  infer,  what  is  otherwise  evident,  that  Plato  himself  was 
influenced  by  the  doctrines  of  Parmenides.  The  south  Italian  and 
Sicilian  philosophers  were  more  inclined  to  mysticism  and  religion 
than  those  of  Ionia,  who  were  on  the  whole  scientific  and  sceptical 
in  their  tendencies.  But  mathematics,  under  the  influence  of 
Pythagoras,  flourished  more  in  Magna  Graecia  than  in  Ionia; 
mathematics  at  that  time,  however,  was  entangled  with  mysticism. 
Parmenides  was  influenced  by  Pythagoras,  but  the  extent  of  this 
influence  is  conjectural.  What  makes  Parmenides  historically 
important  is  that  he  invented  a  form  of  metaphysical  argument 
that,  in  one  form  or  another,  is  to  be  found  in  most  subsequent 
metaphysicians  down  to  and  including  Hegel.  He  is  often  said  to 
have  invented  logic,  but  what  he  really  invented  was  metaphysics 
based  on  logic. 

The  doctrine  of  Parmenides  was  set  forth  in  a  poem  On  Nature, 
lie  considered  the  senses  deceptive,  and  condemned  the  multitude 
of  sensible  things  as  mere  illusion.  The  only  true  being  is  "the 
One,1'  which  is  infinite  and  indivisible.  It  is  not,  as  in  Heraclitus, 
a  union  of  opposites,  since  there  are  no  opposites.  He  apparently 
thought,  for  instance,  that  "cold"  means  only  "not  hot,"  and 
"dark"  means  only  "not  light."  "The  One"  is  not  conceived  by 
Parmenides  as  we  conceive  God ;  he  seems  to  think  of  it  as  material 
and  extended,  for  he  speaks  of  it  as  a  sphere.  But  it  cannot  be 
divided,  because  the  whole  of  it  is  present  everywhere. 

Parmenides  divides  his  teaching  into  two  parts,  called  respec- 
tively "the  way  of  truth19  and  "the  way  of  opinion."  We  need  not 

6? 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

concern  ourselves  with  the  latter.  What  he  says  about  the  way  of 
truth,  so  far  as  it  has  survived,  is,  in  its  essential  points,  as 
follows: 

"Thou  canst  not  know  what  is  not — that  is  impossible — nor 
utter  it;  for  it  is  the  same  thing  that  can  be  thought  and  that 
can  be." 

"How,  then,  can  what  is  be  going  to  be  in  the  future?  Or  how 
could  it  come  into  being?  If  it  came  into  being,  it  is  not;  nor  is  it 
if  it  is  going  to  be  in  the  future.  Thus  is  becoming  extinguished  and 
passing  away  not  to  be  heard  of. 

"The  thing  that  can  be  thought  and  that  for  the  sake  of  which 
the  thought  exists  is  the  same ;  for  you  cannot  find  thought  without 
something  that  is,  as  to  which  it  is  uttered."1 

The  essence  of  this  argument  is:  When  you  think,  you  think  of 
something;  when  you  use  a  name,  it  must  be  the  name  of  some- 
thing. Therefore  both  thought  and  language  require  objects  out- 
side themselves.  And  since  you  can  think  of  a  thing  or  speak  of  it 
at  one  time  as  well  as  at  another,  whatever  can  be  thought  of  or 
spoken  of  must  exist  at  all  times.  Consequently  there  can  be  no 
change,  since  change  consists  in  things  coming  into  being  or 
ceasing  to  be. 

This  is  the  first  example  in  philosophy  of  an  argument  from 
thought  and  language  to  the  world  at  large.  It  cannot  of  course 
be  accepted  as  valid,  but  it  is  worth  while  to  see  what  element  of 
truth  it  contains. 

We  can  put  the  argument  in  this  way:  if  language  is  not  just 
nonsense,  words  must  mean  something,  and  in  general  they  must 
not  mean  just  other  words,  but  something  that  is  there  whether 
we  talk  of  it  or  not.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  you  talk  of  George 
Washington.  Unless  there  were  a  historical  person  who  had  that 
name,  the  name  (it  would  seem)  would  be  meaningless,  and 
sentences  containing  the  name  would  be  nonsense.  Parmenides 
maintains  that  not  only  must  George  Washington  have  existed  in 
the  past,  but  in  some  sense  he  must  still  exist,  since  we  can  still 
use  his  name  significantly.  This  seems  obviously  untrue,  but 
how  are  we  to  get  round  the  argument  ? 
Let  us  take  an  imaginary  person,  say  Hamlet.  Consider  the 

1  Burnet'i  note :  "The  meaning,  I  think,  it  this.  4  .  .  There  can  be 
no  thought  corresponding  to  a  name  that  i»  not  the  name  of  something 
real."  ' 

68 


PARMENIDES 

statement  "Hamlet  was  Prince  of  Denmark."  In  some  sense  this 
is  true,  but  not  in  the  plain  historical  sense.  The  true  statement  is 
"Shakespeare  says  that  Hamlet  was  Prince  of  Denmark,"  or,  more 
explicitly,  "Shakespeare  says  there  was  a  Princ'e  of  Denmark 
called  'Hamlet.'  "  Here  there  is  no  longer  anything  imaginary. 
Shakespeare  and  Denmark  and  the  noise  "Hamlet"  are  all  real, 
but  the  noise  "Hamlet"  is  not  really  a  name,  since  nobody  is  really 
called  "Hamlet."  If  you  say  "  'Hamlet*  is  the  name  of  an  imaginary 
person,"  that  is  not  strictly  correct;  you  ought  to  say  "It  is  ima- 
gined that  'Hamlet'  is  the  name  of  a  real  person." 

Hamlet  is  an  imagined  individual;  unicorns  are  an  imagined 
species.  Some  sentences  in  which  the  word  "unicorn"  occurs  are 
true,  and  some  are  false,  but  in  each  case  not  directly.  Consider 
"a  unicorn  has  one  horn"  and  "a  cow  has  two  horns."  To  prove 
the  latter,  you  have  to  lopk  at  a  cow ;  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that 
in  some  book  cows  are  said  to  have  two  horns.  But  the  evidence 
that  unicorns  have  one  horn  is  only  to  be  found  in  books,  and  in 
fact  the  correct  statement  is:  "Certain  books  assert  that  there  are 
animals  with  one  horn  called  'unicorns/  "  All  statements  about 
unicorns  are  really  about  the  word  "unicorn,"  just  as  all  statements 
about  Hamlet  are  really  about  the  word  "Hamlet." 

But  it  is  obvious  that,  in  most  cases,  we  are  not  speaking  of 
words,  but  of  what  the  words  mean.  And  this  brings  us  back  to 
the  argument  of  Parmenides,  that  if  a  word  can  be  used  signifi- 
cantly it  must  mean  something,  not  nothing,  and  therefore  what 
the  word  means  must  in  some  sense  exist. 

What,  then,  are  we  to  say  about  George  Washington  ?  It  seems 
we  have  only  two  alternatives:  one  is  to  say  that  he  still  exists;  the 
other  is  to  say  that,  when  we  use  the  words  "George  Washington," 
we  are  not  really  speaking  of  the  man  who  bore  that  name.  Either 
seems  a  paradox,  but  the  latter  is  less  of  a  paradox,  and  I  shall 
try  to  show  a  sense  in  which  it  is  true. 

Parmenides  assumes  that  words  have  a  constant  meaning;  this 
is  really  the  basis  of  his  argument,  which  he  supposes  unquestion- 
able. But  although  the  dictionary  or  the  encyclopaedia  gives  what 
may  be  called  the  official  and  socially  sanctioned  meaning  of  a 
word,  no  two  people  who  use  the  same  word  have  just  the  same 
thought  in  their  minds. 

George  Washington  himself  could  use  his  name  and  the  word 
"I"  as  synonyms.  He  could  perceive  his  own  thoughts  and  the 

69 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

movements  of  his  body,  and  could  therefore  use  his  name  with  a 
fuller  meaning  than  was  possible  for  any  one  else.  His  friends, 
when  in  his  presence,  could  perceive  the  movements  of  his  body, 
and  could  divine  his  thoughts;  to  them,  the  name  "George 
Washington"  still  denoted  something  concrete  in  their  own 
experience.  After  his  death  they  had  to  substitute  memories  for 
perceptions,  which  involved  a  change  in  the  mental  processes 
taking  place  when  they  used  his  name.  For  us,  who  never  knew 
him,  the  mental  processes  are  again  different.  We  may  think  of 
his  picture,  and  say  to  ourselves  "yes,  that  man."  We  may  think 
"the  first  President  of  the  United  States."  If  we  are  very  ignorant, 
he  may  be  to  us  merely  "The  man  who  was  called  *  George 
Washington.'  "  Whatever  the  name  suggests  to  us,  it  must  be  not 
the  man  himself,  since  we  never  knew  him,  but  something  now 
present  to  sense  or  memory  or  thought.  This  shows  the  fallacy  of 
the  argument  of  Parmenides. 

This  perpetual  change  in  the  meanings  of  words  is  concealed 
by  the  fact  that,  in  general,  the  change  nukes  no  difference  to  the 
truth  or  falsehood  of  the  propositions  in  which  the  words  occur. 
If  you  take  any  true  sentence  in  which  the  name  "George  Washing- 
ton" occurs,  it  will,  as  a  rule,  remain  true  if  you  substitute  the 
phrase  "the  first  President  of  the  United  States."  There  are  ex- 
ceptions to  this  rule.  Before  Washington's  election,  a  man  might 
say  "I  hope  George  Washington  will  be  the  first  President  of  the 
United  States,"  but  he  would  not  say  "I  hope  the  first  President 
of  the  United  States  will  be  the  first  President  of  the  United 
States"  unless  he  had  an  unusual  passion  for  the  law  of  identity. 
But  it  is  easy  to  make  a  rule  for  excluding  these  exceptional  cases, 
and  in  those  that  remain  you  may  substitute  for  "George  Washing- 
ton" any  descriptive  phrase  that  applies  to  him  alone.  And  it  is 
only  by  means  of  such  phrases  that  we  know  what  we  know  about 
him. 

Parmenides  contends  that,  since  we  can  now  know  what  is  com- 
monly regarded  as  past,  it  cannot  really  be  past,  but  must,  in  some 
sense,  exist  now.  Hence  he  infers  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
change.  What  we  have  been  saying  about  George  Washington 
meets  this  argument.  It  may  be  said,  in  a  sense,  that  we  have  no 
knowledge  of  the  past.  When  you  recollect,  the  recollection  occurs 
now,  and  is  not  identical  with  the  event  recollected.  But  the  re- 
collection affords  a  description  of  the  past  event,  and  for  most 


PARMENIOES 

practical  purposes  it  is  unnecessary  to  distinguish  between  the 
description  and  what  it  describes. 

This  whole  argument  shows  how  easy  it  is  to  draw  metaphysical 
conclusions  from  language,  and  how  the  only  way  to  avoid 
fallacious  arguments  of  this  kind  is  to  push  the  logical  and  psy- 
chological study  of  language  further  than  has  been  done  by  most 
metaphysicians. 

I  think,  however,  that,  if  Parmenides  could  return  from  the  dead 
and  read  what  I  have  been  saying,  he  would  regard  it  as  very  super- 
ficial. "How  do  you  know,"  he  would  ask,  "that  your  statements 
about  George  Washington  refer  to  a  past  time?  By  your  own 
account,  the  direct  reference  is  to  things  now  present;  your  recol- 
lections, for  instance,  happen  now,  not  at  the  time  that  you  think 
you  recollect.  If  memory  is  to  be  accepted  as  a  source  of  knowledge, 
the  past  must  be  before  the  mind  now,  and  must  therefore  in  some 
sense  still  exist/' 

I  will  not  attempt  to  meet  this  argument  now ;  it  requires  a  dis- 
cussion of  memory,  which  is  a  difficult  subject.  I  have  put  the 
argument  here  to  remind  the  reader  that  philosophical  theories, 
if  they  are  important,  can  generally  be  revived  in  a  new  form  after 
being  refuted  as  originally  stated.  Refutations  are  seldom  final; 
in  most  cases,  they  are  only  a  prelude  to  further  refinements. 

What  subsequent  philosophy,  down  to  quite  modern  times, 
accepted  from  Parmenides.  was  not  the  impossibility  of  all  change, 
which  was  too  violent  a  paradox,  but  the  indestructibility  of  sub- 
it  once.  The  word  "substance"  did  not  occur  in  his  immediate 
successors,  but  the  concept  is  already  present  in  their  speculations. 
A  substance  was  supposed  to  be  the  persistent  subject  of  varying 
predicates.  As  such  it  became,  and  remained  for  more  than  two 
thousand  years,  one  of  the  fundamental  concepts  of  philosophy, 
psychology,  physics,  and  theology.  I  shall  have  much  to  say  about 
it  at  a  later  stage.  For  the  present,  I  am  merely  concerned  to  note 
that  it  was  introduced  as  a  way  of  doing  justice  to  the  arguments 
of  Parmenides  without  denying  obvious  facts. 


Chapter  VI 
EMPEDOCLES 

E  •  IHE  mixture  of  philosopher,  prophet,  man  of  science,  and 
I  charlatan,  which  we  found  already  in  Pythagoras,  was  ex- 
JL  emplified  very  completely  in  Empedocles,  who  flourished 
about  440  B.C.,  and  was  thus  a  younger  contemporary  of  Par- 
menides,  though  his  doctrine  had  in  some  ways  more  affinity  with 
that  of  Heraclitus.  He  was  a  citizen  of  Acragas,  on  the  south  coast 
of  Sicily;  he  was  a  democratic  politician,  who  at  the  same  time 
claimed  to  be  a  god.  In  most  Greek  cities,  and  especially  in  those 
of  Sicily,  there  was  a  constant  conflict  between  democracy  and 
tyranny;  the  leaders  of  whichever  party  was  at  the  moment 
defeated  were  executed  or  exiled.  Those  who  were  exiled  seldom 
scrupled  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  the  enemies  of  Greece — 
Persia  in  the  East,  Carthage  in  the  West.  Empedocles,  in  due 
course,  was  banished,  but  he  appears,  after  his  banishment,  to 
have  preferred  the  career  of  a  sage  to  that  of  an  intriguing  refugee. 
It  seems  probable  that  in  youth  he  was  more  or  less  Orphic ;  that 
before  his  exile  he  combined  politics  and  science;  and  that  it 
was  only  in  later  life,  as  an  exile,  that  he  became  a  prophet. 

Legend  had  much  to  say  about  Empedocles.  He  was  supposed 
to  have  worked  miracles,  or  what  seemed  such,  sometimes  by 
magic,  sometimes  by  means  of  his  scientific  knowledge.  He  could 
control  the  winds,  we  are  told;  he  restored  to  life  a  woman  who 
had  seemed  dead  for  thirty  days;  finally,  it  is  said,  he  died  by 
leaping  into  the  crater  of  Etna  to  prove  that  he  was  a  god.  In  the 
words  of  the  poet : 

Great  Empedocles,  that  ardent  soul, 
Leapt  into  Etna,  and  was  roasted  whole. 

Matthew  Arnold  wrote  a  poem  on  this  subject,  but,  although  one 
of  his  worst,  it  does  not  contain  the  above  couplet. 

Like  Parmenides,  Empedocles  wrote  in  verse.  Lucretius,  who 
was  influenced  by  him,  praised  him  highly  as  a  poet,  but  on  this 
subject  opinions  were  divided.  Since  only  fragments  of  his  writings 
have  survived,  his  poetic  merit  must  remain  in  doubt. 

It  is  necessary  to  deal  separately  with  his  science  and  his  religion, 

72 


BMPEDOCLBS 

as  they  are  not  consistent  with  each  other.  I  shall  consider  first 
his  science,  then  his  philosophy,  and  finally  his  religion. 

His  most  important  contribution  to  science  was  his  discovery  of 
air  as  a  separate  substance.  This  he  proved  by  the  observation  that 
when  a  bucket  or  any  similar  vessel  is  put  upside  down  into  water, 
the  water  does  not  enter  into  the  bucket.  He  says: 

"When  a  girl,  playing  with  a  water-clock  of  shining  brass,  puts 
the  orifice  of  the  pipe  upon  her  comely  hand,  and  dips  the  water- 
clock  into  the  yielding  mass  of  silvery  water,  the  stream  does  not 
then  flow  into  the  vessel,  but  the  bulk  of  the  air  inside,  pressing 
upon  the  close-packed  perforations,  keeps  it  out  till  she  uncovers 
the  compressed  stream ;  but  then  air  escapes  and  an  equal  volume 
of  water  runs  in." 

This  passage  occurs  in  an  explanation  of  respiration. 

He  also  discovered  at  least  one  example  of  centrifugal  force: 
that  if  a  cup  of  water  is  whirled  round  at  the  end  of  a  string,  the 
water  does  not  come  out. 

He  knew  that  there  is  sex  in  plants,  and  he  had  a  theory  (some- 
what fantastic,  it  must  be  admitted)  of  evolution  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  Originally,  "countless  tribes  of  mortal  creatures  were 
scattered  abroad  endowed  with  all  manner  of  forms,  a  wonder  to 
behold."  There  were  heads  without  necks,  arms  without  shoulders, 
eyes  without  foreheads,  solitary  limbs  seeking  for  union.  These 
things  joined  together  as  each  might  chance ;  there  were  shambling 
creatures  with  countless  hands,  creatures  with  faces  and  breasts 
looking  in  different  directions,  creatures  with  the  bodies  of  oxen 
and  the  faces  of  men,  and  others  with  the  faces  of  oxen  and  the 
bodies  of  men.  There  were  hermaphrodites  combining  the  natures 
of  men  and  women,  but  sterile.  In  the  end,  only  certain  forms 
survived. 

As  regards  astronomy:  he  knew  that  the  moon  shines  by  re- 
flected light,  and  thought  that  this  is  also  true  of  the  sun;  he  said 
that  light  takes  time  to  travel,  but  so  little  time  that  we  cannot 
observe  it;  he  knew  that  solar  eclipses  are  caused  by  the  inter- 
position of  the  moon,  a  fact  which  he  seems  to  have  learnt  from 
Anaxagoras. 

He  was  the  founder  of  the  Italian  school  of  medicine,  and  the 
medical  school  which  sprang  from  him  influenced  both  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  According  to  Burnet  (p.  234),  it  affected  the  whole 
tendency  pf  scientific  and  philosophical  thinking. 

73 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

All  this  shows  the  scientific  vigour  of  his  time,  which  was  not 
equalled  in  the  later  ages  of  Greece. 

I  come  now  to  his  cosmology.  It  was  he,  as  already  mentioned, 
who  established  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water  as  the  four  elements 
(though  the  word  "element"  was  not  used  by  him).  Each  of  these 
was  everlasting,  but  they  could  be  mixed  in  different  proportions 
and  thu»  produce  the  changing  complex  substances  that  we  find 
in  the  world.  They  were  combined  by  Love  and  separated  by 
Strife.  Love  and  Strife  were,  for  Empedocles,  primitive  substances 
on  a  level  with  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water.  There  were  periods  when 
Love  was  in  the  ascendant,  and  others  when  Strife  was  the  stronger. 
There  had  been  a  golden  age  when  Love  was  completely  vic- 
torious. In  that  age,  men  worshipped  only  the  Cyprian  Aphrodite 
(fr.  128).  The  changes  in  the  world  are  not  governed  by  any 
purpose,  but  only  by  Chance  and  Necessity.  There  is  a  cycle: 
when  the  elements  have  been  thoroughly  mixed  by  Love,  Strife 
gradually  sorts  them  out  again;  when  Strife  has  separated  them, 
Love  gradually  reunites  them.  Thus  even-  compound  substance 
is  temporary;  only  the  elements,  together  with  Love  and  Strife, 
are  everlasting. 

There  is  a  similarity  to  Heraclitus,  but  a  softening,  since  it  is 
not  Strife  alone,  but  Strife  and  Love  together,  that  produce 
change.  Plato  couples  Heraclitus  and  Empedocles  in  the 
Sophist  (242): 

There  are  Ionian,  and  in  more  recent  time  Sicilian,  muses,  who 
have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  to  unite  the  two  principles  (of 
the  One  and  the  Many),  is  safer,  and  to  say  that  being  is  one  and 
many,  and  that  these  are  held  together  by  enmity  and  friendship, 
ever  parting,  ever  meeting,  as  the  severer  Muses  assert,  while  the 
gentler  ones  do  not  insist  on  the  perpetual  strife  and  peace,  but 
admit  a  relaxation  and  alternation  of  them;  peace  and  unity 
sometimes  prevailing  under  the  sway  of  Aphrodite,  and  then 
again  plurality  and  war,  by  reason  of  a  principle  of  strife. 

Empedocles  held  that  the  material  world  is  a  sphere ;  that  in  the 
Golden  Age  Strife  was  outside  and  Love  inside ;  then,  gradually, 
Strife  entered  and  Love  was  expelled,  until,  at  the  worst,  Strife 
will  be  wholly  within  and  Love  wholly  without  the  sphere.  Then 
— though  for  what  reason  is  not  clear — an  opposite  movement 
begins,  until  the  Golden  Age  returns,  but  not  for  ever.  The  whole 
cycle  is  then  repeated.  One  might  have  supposed  \hat  either 

74 


EMPEDOCLES 

extreme  could  be  stable,  but  that  is  not  the  view  of  Empedocles. 
He  wished  to  explain  motion  while  taking  account  of  the  argu- 
ments of  Parmenides,  and  he  had  no  wish  to  arrive,  at  any  stage, 
at  an  unchanging  universe. 

The  views  of  Empedocles  on  religion  are,  in  the  main,  Pytha- 
gorean. In  a  fragment  which,  in  all  likelihood,  refers  to  Pythagoras, 
he  says:  "There  was  among  them  a  man  of  rare  knowledge,  most 
skilled  in  all  manner  of  wise  works,  a  man  who  had  won  the 
utmost  wealth  of  wisdom ;  for  whensoever  he  strained  with  all  his 
mind,  he  easily  saw  everything  of  all  the  things  that  are,  in  ten, 
yea  twenty  lifetimes  of  men."  In  the  Golden  Age,  as  already 
mentioned,  men  worshipped  only  Aphrodite,  "and  the  altar  did 
not  reek  with  pure  bull's  blood,  but  this  was  held  in  the  greatest 
abomination  among  men,  to  eat  the  goodly  limbs  after  tearing  out 
the  life." 

At  one  time  he  speaks  of  himself  exuberantly  as  a  god: 

Friends,  that  inhabit  the  great  city  looking  down  on  the  yellow 
rock  of  Acragas,  up  by  the  citadel,  busy  in  goodly  works,  harbour 
of  honour  for  the  stranger,  men  unskilled  in  meanness,  all  hail.  I 
go  about  among  you  an  immortal  god,  no  mortal  now,  honoured 
among  all  as  is  meet,  crowned  with  fillets  and  flowery  garlands. 
Straightway,  whenever  I  enter  with  these  in  my  train,  both  men 
and  women,  into  the  flourishing  towns,  is  reverence  done  me;  they 
go  after  me  in  countless  throngs,  asking  of  me  what  is  the  way  to 
gain;  some  desiring  oracles,  while  some,  who  for  many  a  weary 
day  have  been  pierced  by  the  grievous  pangs  of  all  manner 
of  sickness,  beg  to  hear  from  me  the  word  of  healing.  .  .  .  But  why 
do  I  harp  on  these  things,  as  if  it  were  any  great  matter  that  I 
should  surpass  mortal,  perishable  men?" 

At  another  time  he  feels  himself  a  great  sinner,  undergoing 
expiation  for  his  impiety: 

There  is  an  oracle  of  Necessity,  an  ancient  ordinance  of  the  gods, 
eternal  and  sealed  fast  by  broad  oaths,  that  whenever  one  of  the 
daemons,  whose  portion  is  length  of  days,  has  sinfully  polluted  his 
hands  with  blood,  or  followed  strife  and  forsworn  himself,  he 
must  wander  thrice  ten  thousand  years  from  the  abodes  of  the 
blessed,  being  born  throughout  the  time  in  all  manners  of  mortal 
forms,  changing  jme  toilsome  path  of  life  for  another.  For  the 
mighty  Air  drives  him  into  the  Sea,  and  the  Sea  spews  him  forth 
upon  the. dry  Earth;  Earth  tosses  him  into  the  beams  of  the 

75 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

blazing  Sun,  and  he  flings  him  back  to  the  eddies  of  Air.  One  takes 
him  from  the  other,  and  all  reject  him.  One  of  these  I  now  am, 
an  exile  and  a  wanderer  from  the  gods,  for  that  I  put  my  trust 
in  an  insensate  strife. 

What  his  sin  had  been,  we  do  not  know;  perhaps  nothing  that 
we  should  think  very  grievous.  For  he  says : 

"Ah,  woe  is  me  that  the  pitiless  day  of  death  did  not  destroy 
me  ere  ever  I  wrought  evil  deeds  of  devouring  with  my  lips  1  ... 

"Abstain  wholly  from  laurel  leaves  .  .  . 

"Wretches,  utter  wretches,  keep  your  hands  from  beans!" 

So  perhaps  he  had  done  nothing  worse  than  munching  laurel 
leaves  or  guzzling  beans. 

The  most  famous  passage  in  Plato,  in  which  he  compares  this 
world  to  a  cave,  in  which  we  sec  only  shadows  of  the  realities  in 
the  bright  world  above,  is  anticipated  by  Empedoclcs;  its  origin 
is  in  the  teaching  of  the  Orphics. 

There  are  some — presumably  those  who  abstain  from  sin 
through  many  incarnations— who  at  last  achieve  immortal  bliss 
in  the  company  of  the  gods : 

But  at  the  last,  they1  appear  among  mortal  men  as  prophets, 
song-writers,  physicians,  and  princes ;  and  thence  they  rise  up  as 
gods  exalted  in  honour,  sharing  the  hearth  of  the  other  gods  and 
the  same  table,  free  from  human  woes,  safe  from  destiny,  and  in- 
capable of  hurt. 

In  all  this,  it  would  seem,  there  is  very  little  that  was  not  already 
contained  in  the  teaching  of  Orphism  and  Pythagoreanism. 

The  originality  of  Empedocies,  outside  science,  consists  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  four  elements,  and  in  the  use  of  the  two  principles 
of  Love  and  Strife  to  explain  change. 

He  rejected  monism,  and  regarded  the  course  of  nature  as 
regulated  by  chance  and  necessity  rather  than  by  purpose.  In 
these  respects  his  philosophy  was  more  scientific  than  those  of 
Parmenides,  Plato,  and  Aristotle.  In  other  respects,  it  is  true,  he 
acquiesced  in  current  superstitions;  but  in  this  he  was  no  worse 
than  many  more  recent  men  of  science. 

1  It  does  not  appear  who  "they"  are,  but  one  may  assume  that  they  are 
those  who  have  preserved  purity. 


Chapter  VII 
ATHENS    IN    RELATION    TO    CULTURE 

E  1   1HE  greatness  of  Athens  begins  at  the  time  of  the  two 
I    Persian  wars  (490  B.C.  and  480-79  B.C.).  Before  that  time, 

JL  Ionia  and  Magna  Graecia  (the  Greek  cities  of  south  Italy 
and  Sicily)  produced  the  great  men.  The  victory  of  Athens  against 
the  Persian  king  Darius  at  Marathon  (490),  and  of  the  combined 
Greek  fleets  against  his  son  and  successor  Xerxes  (480)  under 
Athenian  leadership,  gave  Athens  great  prestige.  The  lonians  in 
the  islands  and  on  part  of  the  mainland  of  Asia  Minor  had  rebelled 
against  Persia,  and  their  liberation  was  effected  by  Athens  after 
the  Persians  had  been  driven  from  the  mainland  of  Greece.  In 
this  operation  the  Spartans,  who  cared  only  about  their  own 
territory,  took  no  part.  Thus  Athens  became  the  predominant 
partner  in  an  alliance  against  Persia.  By  the  constitution  of  the 
alliance,  any  constituent  State  was  bound  to  contribute  either  a 
specified  number  of  ships,  or  the  cost  of  them.  Most  chose  the 
latter,  and  thus  Athens  acquired  naval  supremacy  over  the  other 
allies,  and  gradually  transformed  the  alliance  into  an  Athenian 
Empire.  Athens  became  rich,  and  prospered  under  the  wise 
leadership  of  Pericles,  who  governed,  by  the  free  choice  of  the 
citizens,  for  about  thirty  years,  until  his  fall  in  430  B.C. 

The  age  of  Pericles  was  the  happiest  and  most  glorious  time  in 
the  history  of  Athens.  Aeschylus,  who  had  fought  in  the  Persian 
wars,  inaugurated  Greek  tragedy;  one  of  his  tragedies,  the  Persae, 
departing  from  the  custom  of  choosing  Homeric  subjects,  deals 
with  the  defeat  of  Xerxes.  He  was  quickly  followed  by  Sophocles, 
and  Sophocles  by  Euripides.  Both  extend  into  the  dark  days  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War  that  followed  the  fall  and  death  of  Pericles* 
and  Euripides  reflects  in  his  plays  the  scepticism  of  the  later 
period.  His  contemporary  Aristophanes,  the  comic  poet,  makes 
fun  of  all  isms  from  the  standpoint  of  robust  and  limited  common 
sense;  more  particularly,  he  holds  up  Socrates  to  obloauv  as  one 
who  denies  the  existence  of  Zeus  and  dabbles  in 
scientific  mysteries. 

Athens  had  Mfen  captured  by  Xerxes,  ar 
Acropoli^  had  been  destroyed  by  fire.  Peric 

77 


''  WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

their  reconstruction.  The  Parthenon  and  the  other  temples  whose 
ruins  remain  to  impress  our  age  were  built  by  him.  Pheidias  the 
sculptor  was  employed  by  the  State  to  make  colossal  statues  of 
gods  and  goddesses.  At  the  end  of  this  period,  Athens  was  the 
most  beautiful  and  splendid  city  of  the  Hellenic  world. 

Herodotus,  the  father  of  history,  was  a  native  of  Halicarnassus, 
in  Asia  Minor,  but  lived  in  Athens,  was  encouraged  by  the 
Athenian  State,  and  wrote  his  account  of  the  Persian  wars  from 
the  Athenian  point  of  view. 

The  achievements  of  Athens  in  the  time  of  Pericles  are  perhaps 
the  most  astonishing  thing  in  all  history.  Until  that  time,  Athens 
had  lagged  behind  many  other  Greek  cities ;  neither  in  art  nor  in 
literature  had  it  produced  any  great  man  (except  Solon,  who  was 
primarily  a  lawgiver).  Suddenly,  under  the  stimulus  of  victory 
and  wealth  and  the  need  of  reconstruction,  architects,  sculptors, 
and  dramatists,  who  remain  unsurpassed  to  the  present  day,  pro- 
duced works  which  dominated  the  future  down  to  modern  times. 
This  is  the  more  surprising  when  we  consider  the  smallness  of 
the  population  involved.  Athens  at  its  maximum,  about  430  B.C., 
is  estimated  to  have  numbered  about  230,000  (including  slaves), 
and  the  surrounding  territory  of  rural  Attica  probably  contained 
a  rather  smaller  population.  Never  before  or  since  has  anything 
approaching  the  same  proportion  of  the  inhabitants  of  any  area 
shown  itself  capable  of  work  of  the  highest  excellence. 

In  philosophy,  Athens  contributes  only  two  great  names, 
Socrates  and  Plato.  Plato  belongs  to  a  somewhat  later  period,  but 
Socrates  passed  his  youth  and  early  manhood  under  Pericles.  The 
Athenians  were  sufficiently  interested  in  philosophy  to  listen 
eagerly  to  teachers  from  other  cities.  The  Sophists  were  sought 
after  by  young  men  who  wished  to  torn  the  art  of  disputation; 
in  the  Protagoras,  the  Platonic  Socrates  gives  an  amusing  satirical 
description  of  the  ardent  disciple**  hanging  on  the  words  of  the 
eminent  visitor.  Pericles,  as  we  shall  see,  imported  Anaxagoras, 
from  whom  Socrates  professed  to  have  learned  the  pre-eminence 
of  mind  in  creation. 

Most  of  Plato's  dialogues  are  supposed  by  him  to  take  place 
during  the  time  of  Pericles,  and  they  give  an  agreeable  picture  of 
life  among  the  rich.  Plato  belonged  to  an  aristocratic  Athenian 
family,  and  grew  up  in  the  tradition  of  the  perioil  before  war  and 
democracy  had  destroyed  the  wealth  and  security  of  the  upper 

78 


ATHENS   IN   RELATION   TO   CULTURE 

classes.  His  young  men,  who  have  no  need  to  work,  spend  most 
of  their  leisure  in  the  pursuit  of  science  and  mathematics  and 
philosophy;  they  know  Homer  almost  by  heart,  and  are  critical 
judges  of  the  merits  of  professional  reciters  of  poetry.  The  art 
of  deductive  reasoning  had  been  lately  discovered,  and  afforded 
the  excitement  of  new  theories,  both  true  and  false,  over  the  whole 
field  of  knowledge.  It  was  possible  in  that  age,  as  in  few  others, 
to  be  both  intelligent  and  happy,  and  happy  through  intelligence. 

But  the  balance  of  forces  which  produced  this  golden  age  was 
precarious.  It  was  threatened  both  from  within  and  from  without 
— from  within  by  the  democracy,  and  from  without  by  Sparta. 
To  understand  what  happened  after  Pericles,  we  must  consider 
briefly  the  earlier  history  of  Attica. 

Attica,  at  the  beginning  of  the  historical  period,  was  a  self- 
supporting  little  agricultural  region;  Athens,  its  capital,  was  not 
large,  but  contained  a  growing  population  of  artisans  and  skilled 
artificers  who  desired  to  dispose  of  their  produce  abroad.  Gradually 
it  was  found  more  profitable  to  cultivate  vines  and  olives  rather 
than  grain,  and  to  import  grain,  chiefly  from  the  coast  of  the 
Black  Sea.  This  form  of  cultivation  required  more  capital  than 
the  cultivation  of  grain,  and  the  small  farmers  got  into  debt. 
Attica,  like  other  Greek  states,  had  been  a  monarchy  in  the 
Homeric  age,  but  the  king  became  a  merely  religious  official 
without  political  power.  The  government  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  aristocracy,  who  oppressed  both  the  country  farmers  and  the 
urban  artisans.  A  compromise  in  the  direction  of  democracy  was 
effected  by  Solon  early  in  the  sixth  century,  and  much  of  his  work 
survived  through  a  subsequent  period  of  tyranny  under  Peisistratus 
and  his  sons.  When  this  period  came  to  an  end,  the  aristocrats, 
as  the  opponents  of  tyranny,  were  able  to  recommend  themselves 
to  the  democracy.  Until  the  fall  of  Pericles,  democratic  processes 
gave  power  to  the  aristocracy,  as  in  nineteenth-century  England. 
But  towards  the  end  of  his  life  the  leaders  of  the  Athenian  demo- 
cracy  began  to  demand  a  larger  share  of  political  power.  At  the 
same  time,  his  imperialist  policy,  with  which  the  economic  pros- 
perity of  Athens  was  bound  up,  caused  increasing  friction  with 
Sparta,  leading  at  last  to  the  Peloponnesian  War  (431-404),  in 
which  Athens  was  completely  defeated. 

In  spile  of  political  collapse,  the  prestige  of  Athens  survived, 

and  throughout  almost  a  millennium  philosophy  was  centred  there. 

» 

79 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Alexandria  eclipsed  Athens  in  mathematics  and  science,  but  Plato 
and  Aristotle  had  made  Athens  philosophically  supreme.  The 
Academy,  where  Plato  had  taught,  survived  all  other  schools,  and 
persisted,  as  an  island  of  paganism,  for  two  centuries  after  the 
conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  Christianity.  At  last,  in 
A.D.  529,  it  was  closed  by  Justinian  because  of  his  religious  bigotry, 
and  the  Dark  Ages  descended  upon  Europe. 


80 


Chapter  VIII 
ANAXAGORAS 

P  |   IHE   philosopher  Anaxagoras,  though  not   the    equal    of 

I    Pythagoras,  Heraclitus,  or  Parmenides,  has  nevertheless 

JL   a  considerable  historical  importance.  He  was  an  Ionian, 

and  carried  on  the  scientific,  rationalist  tradition  of  Ionia.  He  was 

the  first  to  introduce  philosophy  to  the  Athenians,  and  the  first 

to  suggest  mind  as  the  primary  cause  of  physical  changes. 

He  was  born  at  Clazomenae,  in  Ionia,  about  the  year  500  B.C., 
but  he  spent  about  thirty  years  of  his  life  in  Athens,  approximately 
from  462  to  432  B.C.  He  was  probably  induced  to  come  by  Pericles, 
who  was  bent  on  civilizing  his  fellow-townsmen.  Perhaps  Aspasia, 
who  came  from  Miletus,  introduced  him  to  Pericles.  Plato,  in  the 
Phaedrus,  says : 

Pericles  "fell  in,  it  seems  with  Anaxagoras,  who  was  a  scientific 
man ;  and  satiating  himself  with  the  theory  of  things  on  high,  and 
having  attained  to  a  knowledge  of  the  true  nature  of  intellect  and 
folly,  which  were  just  what  the  discourses  of  Anaxagoras  were 
mainly  about,  he  drew  from  that  source  whatever  was  of  a  nature 
to  further  him  in  the  art  of  speech." 

It  is  said  that  Anaxagoras  also  influenced  Euripides,  but  this 
is  more  doubtful. 

'l*hc  citizens  of  Athens,  like  those  of  other  cities  in  other  ages 
and  continents,  showed  a  certain  hostility  to  those  who  attempted 
to  introduce  a  higher  level  of  culture  than  that  to  which  they  were 
accustomed.  When  Pericles  was  growing  old,  his  opponents  began 
a  campaign  against  him  by  attacking  his  friends.  They  accused 
Phcidias  of  embezzling  some  of  the  gold  that  was  to  be  employed 
on  his  statues.  They  passed  a  law  permitting  impeachment  of 
those  who  did  not  practise  religion  and  taught  theories  about  "the 
things  on  high."  Under  this  law,  they  prosecuted  Anaxagoras, 
who  was  accused  of  teaching  that  the  sun  was  a  red-hot  stone 
and  the  moon  was  earth.  (The  same  accusation  was  repeated  by 
the  prosecutors  of  Socrates,  who  made  fun  of  them  for  being  out 
of  date.)  What  happened  is  not  certain,  except  that  Anaxagoras 
had  to  leave  Athens.  It  seems  probable  that  Pericles  got  him  out 

81 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

of  prison  and  managed  to  get  him  away.  He  returned  to  Ionia, 
where  he  founded  a  school.  In  accordance  with  his  will,  the 
anniversary  of  his  death  was  kept  as  a  schoolchildren 's  holiday. 

Anaxagoras  held  that  everything  is  infinitely  divisible,  and  that 
even  the  smallest  portion  of  matter  contains  some  of  each  element. 
Things  appear  to  be  that  of  which  they  contain  most.  Thus,  for 
example,  everything  contains  some  fire,  but  we  only  call  it  fire  if 
that  element  preponderates.  Like  Empedocles,  he  argues  against 
the  void,  saying  that  the  clepsydra  or  an  inflated  skin  shows  that 
there  is  air  where  there  seems  to  be  nothing. 

He  differed  from  his  predecessors  in  regarding  mind  (nous)  as  a 
substance  which  enters  into  the  composition  of  living  things,  and 
distinguishes  them  from  dead  matter.  In  everything,  he  says,  there 
is  a  portion  of  everything  except  mind,  and  some  things  contain 
mind  also.  Mind  has  power  over  all  things  that  have  life;  it  is 
infinite  and  self-ruled,  and  is  mixed  with  nothing.  Except  as 
regards  mind,  everything,  however  small,  contains  portions  of  all 
opposites,  such  as  hot  and  cold,  white  and  black.  He  maintained 
that  snow  is  black  (in  pan). 

Mind  is  the  source  of  all  motion.  It  causes  a  rotation,  which  is 
gradually  spreading  throughout  the  world,  and  is  causing  the 
lightest  things  to  go  to  the  circumference,  and  the  heaviest  to  fall 
towards  the  centre.  Mind  is  uniform,  and  is  just  as  good  in  animals 
as  in  man.  Man's  apparent  superiority  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
has  hands;  all  seeming  differences  of  intelligence  are  really  due 
to  bodily  differences. 

Both  Aristotle  and  the  Platonic  Socrates  complain  that  Anaxa- 
goras, after  introducing  mind,  makes  very  little  use  of  it.  Aristotle 
points  out  that  he  only  introduces  mind  as  a  cause  when  he  knows 
no  other.  Whenever  he  can,  he  gives  a  mechanical  explanation. 
He  rejected  necessity  and  chance  as  giving  the  origins  of  things  ; 
nevertheless,  there  was  no  "Providence"  in  his  cosmology.  He  does 
not  seem  to  have  thought  much  about  ethics  or  religion ;  probably 
he  was  an  atheist,  as  his  prosecutors  maintained.  All  his  pre- 
decessors influenced  him,  except  Pythagoras.  The  influence  of 
Parmenides  was  the  same  in  his  case  as  in  that  of  Empedocles. 

In  science  he  had  great  merit.  It  was  he  who  first  explained  that 
the  moon  shines  by  reflected  light,  though  there  is  a  cryptic  frag- 
ment in  Parmenides  suggesting  that  he  also  knew  this.  Anaxagoras 
gave  the  correct  theory  of  eclipses,  and  knew  that  the  moon  is 

82 


ANAXAGORAS 

below  the  sun.  The  suri  and  stars,  he  said,  are  fiery  stones,  but  we 
do  not  feel  the  heat  of  the  stars  because  they  are  too  distant.  The 
sun  is  larger  than  the  Peloponnesus.  The  moon  has  mountains, 
and  (he  thought)  inhabitants. 

Anaxagoras  is  said  to  have  been  of  the  school  of  Anaximenes ; 
certainly  he  kept  alive  the  rationalist  and  scientific  tradition  of  the 
lonians.  One  does  not  find  in  him  the  ethical  and  religious  pre- 
occupations which,  passing  from  the  Pythagoreans  to  Socrates 
and  from  Socrates  to  Plato,  brought  an  obscurantist  bias  into 
Greek  philosophy.  He  is  not  quite  in  the  first  rank,  but  he  is 
important  as  the  first  to  bring  philosophy  to  Athens,  and  as  one 
of  the  influences  that  helped  to  form  Socrates. 


Chapter  IX 
THE    ATOMISTS 

}  •   IHE  founders  of  atomism  were  two,  Leucippus  and  Demo- 

I    critus.  It  is  difficult  to  disentangle  them,  because  they  are 

JL  generally  mentioned  together,  and  apparently  some  of  the 

works  of  Leucippus  were  subsequently  attributed  to  Democritus. 

Leucippus,  who  seems  to  have  flourished  about  440  B.C.,1  came 

from  Miletus,  and  carried  on  the  scientific  rationalist  philosophy 

associated  with  that  city.  He  was  much  influenced  by  Parmenides 

and  Zeno.  So  little  is  known  of  him  that  Epicurus  (a  later  follower 

of  Democritus)  was  thought  to  have  denied  his  existence  altogether, 

and  some  moderns  have  revived  this  theory.  There  are,  however, 

a  number  of  allusions  to  him  in  Aristotle,  and  it  seems  incredible 

that  these  (which  include  textual  quotations)  would  have  occurred 

if  he  had  been  merely  a  myth. 

Democritus  is  a  much  more  definite  figure.  He  was  a  native  of 
Abdera  in  Thrace;  as  for  his  date,  he  stated  that  he  was  young 
when  Anaxagoras  was  old,  say  about  432  B.C.,  and  he  is  taken  to 
have  flourished  about  420  B.C.  He  travelled  widely  in  southern 
and  eastern  lands  in  search  of  knowledge ;  he  perhaps  spent  a  con- 
siderable time  in  Egypt,  and  he  certainly  visited  Persia.  He  then 
returned  to  Abdera,  where  he  remained.  Zeller  calls  him  "superior 
to  all  earlier  and  contemporary  philosophers  in  wealth  of  know- 
ledge, and  to  most  in  acuteness  and  logical  correctness  of  thinking." 
Democritus  was  a  contemporary  of  Socrates  and  the  Sophists, 
and  should,  on  purely  chronological  grounds,  be  treated  some- 
what later  in  our  history.  The  difficulty  is  that  he  is  so  hard  to 
separate  from  Leucippus.  On  this  ground,  I  am  considering  him 
before  Socrates  and  the  Sophists,  although  part  of  his  philosophy 
was  intended  as  an  answer  to  Protagoras,  his  fellow-townsman 
and  the  most  eminent  of  the  Sophists.  Protagoras,  when  he  visited 
Athens,  was  received  enthusiastically;  Democritus,  on  the  other 
hand,  says:  "I  went  to  Athens,  and  no  one  knew  me."  For  a  long 
time,  his  philosophy  was  ignored  in  Athens;  "It  is  not  clear,"  says 
Burnet,  "that  Plato  knew  anything  about  Democritus Aristotle, 

1  Cyril  Bailey,  The  Greek  Atomitt*  and  Epicurus,  estimates  that  he 
flourished  about  430  B.C.  or  a  link  earlier. 

84 


THE   ATOMISTS 

on  the  other  hand,  knows  Democritus  well;  for  he  too  was  an 
Ionian  from  the  North."1  Plato  never  mentions  him  in  the  Dia- 
logues, but  is  said  by  Diogenes  Laertius  to  have  disliked  him  so 
much  that  he  wished  all  his  books  burnt.  Heath  esteems  him 
highly  as  a  mathematician.2 

The  fundamental  ideas  of  the  common  philosophy  of  Leucippus 
and  Democritus  were  due  to  the  former,  but  as  regards  the 
working  out  it  is  hardly  possible  to  disentangle  them,  nor  is  it, 
for  our  purposes,  important  to  make  the  attempt.  Leucippus, 
if  not  Democritus,  was  led  to  atomism  in  the  attempt  to  mediate 
between  monism  and  pluralism,  as  represented  by  Parmenides 
and  Empedocles  respectively.  Their  point  of  view  was  remark- 
ably like  that  of  modern  science,  and  avoided  most  of  the  faults 
to  which  Greek  speculation  was  prone.  They  believed  that 
everything  is  composed  of  atoms,  which  are  physically,  but 
not  geometrically,  indivisible;  that  between  the  atoms  there  is 
empty  space;  that  atoms  are  indestructible;  that  they  always  have 
been,  and  always  will  be,  in  motion;  that  there  are  an  infinite 
number  of  atoms,  and  even  of  kinds  of  atoms,  the  differences  being 
as  regards  shape  and  size.  Aristotle3  asserts  that,  according  to  the 
atomists,  atoms  also  differ  as  regards  heat,  the  spherical  atoms, 
which  compose  fire,  being  the  hottest;  and  as  regards  weight,  he 
quotes  Democritus  as  saying  "The  more  any  indivisible  exceeds, 
the  heavier  it  is."  But  the  question  whether  atoms  are  originally 
possessed  of  weight  in  the  theories  of  the  atomists  is  a  controversial 
one. 

The  atoms  were  always  in  motion,  but  there  is  disagreement 
among  commentators  as  to  the  character  of  the  original  motion. 
Some,  especially  Zeller,  hold  that  the  atoms  were  thought  to  be 
always  falling,  and  that  the  heavier  ones  fell  faster;  they  thus 
caught  up  the  lighter  ones,  there  were  impacts,  and  the  atoms 
were  deflected  like  billiard  balls.  This  was  certainly  the  view  of 
Epicurus,  who  in  most  respects  based  his  theories  on  those  of 
Democritus,  while  trying,  rather  unintelligently,  to  take  account 
of  Aristotle's  criticisms.  But  there  is  considerable  reason  to  think 
that  weight  was  not  an  original  property  of  the  atoms  of  Leucippus 
and  Democritus.  It  seems  more  probable  that,  on  their  view, 
atoms  were  originally  moving  at  random,  as  in  the  modern  kinetic 

1  /•'ram  ThaUt  to  Plato,  p.  193-      f  G™*k  Mathematics,  Vol.  I,  p.  176. 
9  On  Generation  and  Corruption,  316*. 

85 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

theory  of  gases.  Democritus  said  there  was  neither  up  nor  down 
in  the  infinite  void,  and  compared  the  movement  of  atoms  in  the 
soul  to  that  of  motes  in  a  sunbeam  when  there  is  no  wind.  This  is 
a  much  more  intelligent  view  than  that  of  Epicurus,  and  I  think 
we  may  assume  it  to  have  been  that  of  Leucippus  and  Democritus.1 

As  a  result  of  collisions,  collections  of  atoms  came  to  form 
vortices.  The  rest  proceeded  much  as  in  Anaxagoras,  but  it  was 
an  advance  to  explain  the  vortices  mechanically  rather  than  as 
due  to  the  action  of  mind. 

It  was  common  in  antiquity  to  reproach  the  atomists  with  attri- 
buting everything  to  chance.  They  were,  on  the  contrary,  strict 
determinists,  who  believed  that  everything  happens  in  accordance 
with  natural  laws.  Democritus  explicitly  denied  that  anything  can 
happen  by  chance.8  Leucippus,  though  his  existence  is  questioned, 
is  known  to  have  said  one  thing:  "Naught  happens  for  nothing, 
but  everything  from  a  ground  and  of  necessity/'  It  is  true  that 
he  gave  no  reason  why  the  world  should  originally  have  been  as 
it  was;  this,  perhaps,  might  have  been  attributed  to  chance*.  Hut 
when  once  the  world  existed,  its  further  development  was  un- 
alterably fixed  by  mechanical  principles.  -Aristotle  and  others 
reproached  him  and  Democritus  for  not  accounting  for  the 
original  motion  of  the  atoms,  but  in  thi*  the  atomists  were  more 
scientific  than  their  critics.  Causation  must  start  from  something, 
and  wherever  it  starts  no  cause  can  be  assigned  for  the  initial 
datum.  The  world  may  be  attributed  to  a  Creator,  but  even  then 
the  Creator  Himself  is  unaccounted  for.  The  theory  of  the  atomists, 
in  fact,  was  more  nearly  that  of  modern  science  than  any  other 
theory  propounded  in  antiquity. 

The  atomists,  unlike  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  sought  to 
explain  the  world  without  introducing  the  notion  of  purpose  or 
Jmal  cause.  The  "final  cause"  of  an  occurrence  is  an  event  in  the 
future  for  the  sake  of  which  the  occurrence  takes  place.  In  human 
affairs,  this  conception  is  applicable.  Why  does  the  baker  make 
bread?  Because  people  will  be  hungry.  Why  are  railways  built? 
Because  people  will  wish  to  travel  In  such  cases,  things  are  ex- 
plained by  the  purpose  they  serve.  When  we  ask  "why?"  con- 
cerning an  event,  we  may  mean  either  of  two  things.  We  may 

1  This  interpretation  is  adopted  by  Bumct,  and  alsfy  at  leant  as  regard* 
Leucippus,  by  Uaiiey  (op.  nV.,  p.  83). 
*  See  Bailey,  op.  a/.,  p.  121,  on  the  detenniruttn  of  Uetnocqtu*. 

86 


THE  ATOMIST8 

mean:  "What  purpose  did  this  event  serve?"  or  we  may  mean: 
"What  earlier  circumstances  caused  this  event?"  The  answer  to 
the  former  question  is  a  teleological  explanation,  or  an  explanation 
by  final  causes ;  the  answer  to  the  latter  question  is  a  mechanistic 
explanation.  I  do  not  see  how  it  could  have  been  known  in  advance 
which  of  these  two  questions  science  ought  to  ask,  or  whether  it 
ought  to  ask  both.  But  experience  has  shown  that  the  mechanistic 
question  leads  to  scientific  knowledge,  while  the  teleological 
question  does  not.  The  atomists  asked  the  mechanistic  question, 
and  gave  a  mechanistic  answer.  Their  successors,  until  the  Re- 
naissance, were  more  interested  in  the  teleological  question,  and 
thus  led  science  up  a  blind  alley. 

In  regard  to  both  questions  alike,  there  is  a  limitation  which  is 
often  ignored,  both  in  popular  thought  and  in  philosophy.  Neither 
question  can  be  asked  intelligibly  about  reality  as  a  whole  (including 
God),  but  only  about  parts  of  it.  As  regards  the  teleological 
explanation,  it  usually  arrives,  before  long,  at  a  Creator,  or  at  least 
an  Artificer,  whose  purposes  are  realized  in  the  course  of  nature. 
But  if  a  man  is  so  obstinately  teleological  as  to  continue  to  ask 
what  purpose  is  served  by  the  Creator,  it  becomes  obvious  that 
his  question  is  impious.  It  is,  moreover,  unmeaning,  since,  to 
make  it  significant,  we  should  have  to  suppose  the  Creator  created 
by  some  super-Creator  whose  purposes  He  served.  The  conception 
of  purpose,  therefore,  is  only  applicable  within  reality,  not  to 
reality  as  a  whole. 

A  not  dissimilar  argument  applies  to  mechanistic  explanations. 
One  event  is  caused  by  another,  the  other  by  a  third,  and  so  on. 
But  if  we  ask  for  a  cause  of  the  whole,  we  are  driven  again  to  the 
Creator,  who  must  Himself  be  uncaused.  All  causal  explanations, 
therefore  must  have  an  arbitrary  beginning.  That  is  why  it  is  no 
defect  in  the  theory  of  the  atomists  to  have  left  the  original  move- 
ments of  the  atoms  unaccounted  for. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  their  reasons  for  their  theories 
were  wholly  empirical.  The  atomic  theory  was  revived  in  modern 
times  to  explain  the  facts  of  chemistry,  but  these  facts  were  not 
known  to  the  Greeks.  There  was  no  very  sharp  distinction,  in 
ancient  times,  between  empirical  observation  and  logical  argu- 
ment. Parmcnides,  it  is  true,  treated  observed  facts  with  contempt, 
but  Empedocles*and  Anaxagoras  would  combine  much  of  their 
metaphysics  with  observations  on  water-clocks  and  whirling 

87 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

buckets.  Until  the  Sophists,  no  philosopher  seems  to  have  doubted 
that  a  complete  metaphysic  and  cosmology  could  be  established 
by  a  combination  of  much  reasoning  and  some  observation.  By 
good  luck,  the  atomists  hit  on  a  hypothesis  for  which,  more  than 
two  thousand  years  later,  some  evidence  was  found,  but  their 
belief,  in  their  day,  was  none  the  less  destitute  of  any  solid 
foundation.1 

Like  the  other  philosophers  of  his  time,  Leucippus  was  con- 
cerned to  find  a  way  of  reconciling  the  arguments  of  Parmenides 
with  the  obvious  fact  of  motion  and  change.  As  Aristotle  says:2 

"  Although  these  opinions  [those  of  Parmenides]  appear  to  follow 
logically  in  a  dialectical  discussion,  yet  to  believe  them  seems 
next  door  to  madness  when  one  considers  the  facts.  For  indeed  no 
lunatic  seems  to  be  so  far  out  of  his  senses  as  to  suppose  that  fire 
and  ice  are  "one":  it  is  only  between  what  is  right  and  what  seems 
right  from  habit  that  some  people  are  mad  enough  to  see  no 
difference." 

Leucippus,  however,  thought  he  had  a  theory  which  harmonized 
with  sense-perception  and  would  not  abolish  either  coming-to-be 
and  passing-away  or  motion  and  the  multiplicity  of  things.  He 
made  these  concessions  to  the  facts  of  perception:  on  the  other 
hand,  he  conceded  to  the  Monists  that  there  could  be  no  motion 
without  a  void.  The  result  is  a  theory  which  he  states  as  follows : 
"The  void  is  a  not-being,  and  no  part  of  what  is  is  a  not-being;  for 
what  is  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term  is  an  absolute  plenum.  This 
plenum,  however,  is  not  one;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  many  infinite 
in  number  and  invisible  owing  to  the  minuteness  of  their  bulk.  The 
many  move  in  the  void  (for  there  is  a  void):  and  by  coming  to- 
gether they  produce  coming-to-be,  while  by  separating  they  pro- 
duce passing-away.  Moreover,  they  act  and  suffer  action  whenever 
they  chance  to  be  in  contact  (for  there  they  are  not  one),  and  they 
generate  by  being  put  together  and  become  intertwined.  From 
the  genuinely  one,  on  the  other  hand,  there  could  never  have  come 
to  be  a  multiplicity,  nor  from  the  genuinely  many  a  one:  that  is 
impossible." 

It  will  be  seen  that  there  was  one  point  on  which  even-body  50 
far  was  agreed,  namely  that  there  could  be  no  motion  in  a  plenum. 

1  On  the  logical  and  mathematical  grounds  for  the  theories  of  the 
•tomists,  tee  Gaston  Mtthaud,  Let  Phifaiophn  Gfometw  de  la  Greet, 
chap.  sv. 

*  On  Generation  and  Corruption,  325*. 

88 


THE   ATOMISTS 

In  this,  all  alike  were  mistaken.  There  can  be  cyclic  motion  in  a 
plenum,  provided  it  has  always  existed.  The  idea  was  that  a  thing 
could  only  move  into  an  empty  place,  and  that,  in  a  plenum,  there 
are  no  empty  places.  It  might  be  contended,  perhaps  validly,  that 
motion  could  never  begin  in  a  plenum,  but  it  cannot  be  validly 
maintained  that  it  could  not  occur  at  all.  To  the  Greeks,  however, 
it  seemed  that  one  must  either  acquiesce  in  the  unchanging  world 
of  Parmcnides,  or  admit  the  void. 

Now  the  arguments  of  Parmenides  against  not-being  seemed 
logically  irrefutable  against  the  void,  and  they  were  reinforced  by 
the  discovery  that  where  there  seems  to  be  nothing  there  is  air. 
(This  is  an  example  of  the  confused  mixture  of  logic  and  observa- 
tion that  was  common.)  We  may  put  the  Parmenidean  position 
in  this  way:  "You  say  there  is  the  void;  therefore  the  void  is  not 
nothing;  therefore  it  is  not  the  void."  It  cannot  be  said  that  the 
atomists  answered  this  argument;  they  merely  proclaimed  that 
they  proposed  to  ignore  it,  on  the  ground  that  motion  is  a  fact  of 
experience,  and  therefore  there  must  be  a  void,  however  difficult 
it  may  be  to  conceive.1 

Let  us  consider  the  subsequent  history  of  this  problem.  The 
first  and  most  obvious  way  of  avoiding  the  logical  difficulty  is  to 
distinguish  between  matter  and  space.  According  to  this  view, 
space  is  not  nothing,  but  is  of  the  nature  of  a  receptacle,  which 
may  or  may  not  have  any  given  part  filled  with  matter.  Aristotle 
says  (Physics,  208  b):  'The  theory  that  the  void  exists  involves 
the  existence  of  place:  for  one  would  define  void  as  place  bereft 
of  body/'  This  view  is  set  forth  with  the  utmost  explicitness  by 
Newton,  who  asserts  the  existence  of  absolute  space,  and  accor- 
dingly distinguishes  absolute  from  relative  motion.  In  the 
C'opernican  controversy,  both  sides  (however  little  they  may 
have  realized  it)  were  committed  to  this  view,  since  they  thought 
there  was  a  difference  between  saying  "the  heavens  revolve  from 
cast  to  west"  and  saying  "the  earth  rotates  from  west  to  east/' 
If  all  motion  is  relative,  these  two  statements  are  merely  different 

1  Bailey  (op.  «/.,  p.  75)  maintains,  on  the  contrary,  that  Leucippus  had 
an  answer,  which  was  "extremely  subtle."  It  consisted  essentially  in 
admitting  the  existence  of  something  (the  void)  which  was  not  corporeal. 
Similarly  Burnet  sa>«;  "It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  Atomists,  who  are 
commonly  regarded  as  the  great  materialists  of  antiquity,  were  actually 
the  first  to  wy  distinctly  that  a  thing  might  be  real  without  being  a  body." 

89 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

ways  of  saying  the  same  thing,  like  "John  is  the  father  of  James" 
and  "James  is  the  son  of  John."  But  if  all  motion  is  relative,  and 
space  is  not  substantial,  we  are  left  with  the  Parmenidean  argu- 
ments against  the  void  on  our  hands. 

Descartes,  whose  arguments  are  of  just  the  same  sort  as  those 
of  early  Greek  philosophers,  said  that  extension  is  the  essence  of 
matter,  and  therefore  there  is  matter  everywhere.  For  him, 
extension  is  an  adjective,  not  a  substantive;  its  substantive  is 
matter,  and  without  its  substantive  it  cannot  exist.  Empty  space, 
to  him,  is  as  absurd  as  happiness  without  a  sentient  being  who  is 
happy.  Leibniz,  on  somewhat  different  grounds,  also  believed  in 
the  plenum,  but  he  maintained  that  space  is  merely  a  system  of 
relations.  On  this  subject  there  was  a  famous  controversy  between 
him  and  Newton,  the  latter  represented  by  Clarke.  The  con- 
troversy remained  undecided  until  the  time  of  Einstein,  whose 
theory  conclusively  gave  the  victory  to  Leibniz. 

The  modern  physicist,  while  he  still  believes  that  matter  is  in 
some  sense  atomic,  does  not  believe  in  empty  space.  Where  there 
is  not  matter,  there  is  still  something,  notably  light-waves.  Matter 
no  longer  has  the  lofty  status  that  it  acquired  in  philosophy  through 
the  arguments  of  Parmenides.  It  is  not  unchanging  substance,  but 
merely  a  way  of  grouping  events.  Some  events  belong  to  groups 
that  can  be  regarded  as  material  things;  others,  such  as  light- 
waves, do  not.  It  is  the  events  that  are  the  stuff  of  the  world,  and 
each  of  them  is  of  brief  duration.  In  this  respect,  modern  physics 
is  on  the  side  of  Heraclitus  as  against  Parmenides.  But  it  was  on 
the  side  of  Parmenides  until  Einstein  and  quantum  theory. 

As  regards  space,  the  modern  view  is  that  it  is  neither  a  sub- 
stance, as  Newton  maintained,  and  as  Leucippus  and  Democritus 
ought  to  have  said,  nor  an  adjective  of  extended  bodies,  as  Des- 
cartes thought,  but  a  system  of  relations,  as  Leibniz  held.  It  is 
not  by  any  means  clear  whether  this  view  is  compatible  with  the 
existence  of  the  void.  Perhaps,  as  a  matter  of  abstract  logic,  it  can 
be  reconciled  with  the  void.  We  might  say  that,  between  any  two 
things,  there  is  a  certain  greater  or  smaller  distance,  and  that 
distance  does  not  imply  the  existence  of  intermediate  things. 
Such  a  point  of  view,  however,  would  be  impossible  to  utilize 
in  modern  physics.  Since  Einstein,  distance  ^is  between  events, 
not  between  things,  and  involves  time  as  well  as  space.  It  is 
essentially  a  causal  conception,  and  in  modern  physra  there  is 


THE   ATOMI3TB 

no  action  at  a  distance.  All  this,  however,  is  based  upon  empirical 
rather  than  logical  grounds.  Moreover  the  modern  view  cannot  be 
stated  except  in  terms  of  differential  equations,  and  would  therefore 
be  unintelligible  to  the  philosophers  of  antiquity. 

It  would  seem,  accordingly,  that  the  logical  development  of  the 
views  of  the  atomists  is  the  Newtonian  theory  of  absolute  space, 
which  meets  the  difficulty  of  attributing  reality  to  not-being.  To 
this  theory  there  are  no  logical  objections.  The  chief  objection  is 
that  absolute  space  is  absolutely  unknowable,  and  cannot  therefore 
be  a  necessary  hypothesis  in  an  empirical  science.  The  more 
practical  objection  is  that  physics  can  get  on  without  it.  But  the 
world  of  the  atomists  remains  logically  possible,  and  is  more  akin 
to  the  actual  world  than  is  the  world  of  any  other  of  the  ancient 
philosophers. 

Democritus  worked  out  his  theories  in  considerable  detail,  and 
some  of  the  working-out  is  interesting.  Each  atom,  he  said,  was 
impenetrable  and  indivisible  because  it  contained  no  void.  When 
you  use  a  knife  to  cut  an  apple,  the  knife  has  to  find  empty  places 
where  it  can  penetrate ;  if  the  apple  contained  no  void,  it  would 
be  infinitely  hard  and  therefore  physically  indivisible.  Each  atom 
is  internally  unchanging,  and  in  fact  a  Parmenidean  One.  The  only 
things  that  atoms  do  are  to  move  and  hit  each  other,  and  some- 
times to  combine  when  they  happen  to  have  shapes  that  are 
capable  of  interlocking.  They  are  of  all  sorts  of  shapes;  fire  is 
composed  of  small  spherical  atoms,  and  so  is  the  soul.  Atoms,  by 
collision,  produce  vortices,  which  generate  bodies  and  ultimately 
worlds.1  There  are  many  worlds,  some  growing,  some  decaying; 
some  may  have  no  sun  or  moon,  some  several.  Every  world  has  a 
Ixrtfinning  and  an  end.  A  world  may  be  destroyed  by  collision 
with  a  larger  world.  This  cosmology  may  be  summarized  in 
Shelley's  words: 

Worlds  on  worlds  are  rolling  ever 

From  creation  to  decay, 
Like  the  bubbles  on  a  river 

Sparkling  bursting,  borne  away. 

Life  developed  out  of  the  primeval  slime.  There  is  some  fire  every- 
where in  a  living  body,  but  most  in  the  brain  or  in  the  breast.  (On 

1  On  the  way  in  wfiich  this  was  supposed  to  happen,  sec  Bailey,  op.  «'!., 
p.  138  ff. 

91 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

this,  authorities  differ.)  Thought  is  a  kind  of  motion,  and  is  thus 
able  to  cause  motion  elsewhere.  Perception  and  thought  are  phy- 
sical processes.  Perception  is  of  two  sorts,  one  of  the  senses,  one 
of  the  understanding.  Perceptions  of  the  latter  sort  depend  only 
on  the  things  perceived,  while  those  of  the  former  sort  depend 
also  on  our  senses,  and  are  therefore  apt  to  be  deceptive.  Like 
Locke,  Democritus  held  that  such  qualities  as  warmth,  taste,  and 
colour  are  not  really  in  the  object,  but  are  due  to  our  sense-organs, 
while  such  qualities  as  weight,  density,  and  hardness  are  really  in 
the  object. 

Democritus  was  a  thorough-going  materialist;  for  him,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  soul  was  composed  of  atoms,  and  thought  was  a 
physical  process.  There  was  no  purpose  in  the  universe;  there 
were  only  atoms  governed  by  mechanical  laws.  He  disbelieved  in 
popular  religion,  and  he  argued  against  the  nous  of  Anaxagoras. 
In  ethics  he  considered  cheerfulness  the  goal  of  life,  and  regarded 
moderation  and  culture  as  the  best  means  to  it.  He  disliked  every- 
thing violent  and  passionate;  he  disapproved  of  sex,  because,  he 
said,  it  involved  the  overwhelming  of  consciousness  by  pleasure. 
He  valued  friendship,  but  thought  ill  of  women,  and  did  not  desire 
children,  because  their  education  interferes  with  philosophy.  In 
all  this,  he  was  very  like  Jeremy  Bentham ;  he  was  equally  so  in 
his  love  of  what  the  Greeks  called  democracy.1 

Democritus — such,  at  least,  is  my  opinion — is  the  last  of  the 
Greek  philosophers  to  be  free  from  a  certain  fault  which  vitiated 
all  later  ancient  and  medieval  thought.  All  the  philosophers  we 
have  been  considering  so  far  were  engaged  in  a  disinterested  effort 
to  understand  the  world.  They  thought  it  easier  to  understand 
than  it  is,  but  without  this  optimism  they  would  not  have  had  the 
courage  to  make  a  beginning.  Their  attitude,  in  the  main,  was 
genuinely  scientific  whenever  it  did  not  merely  embody  the  pre- 
judices of  their  age.  But  it  was  not  only  scientific ;  it  was  imaginative 
and  vigorous  and  filled  with  the  delight  of  adventure.  They  were 
interested  in  everything — meteors  and  eclipses,  fishes  and  whirl- 
winds, religion  and  morality;  with  a  penetrating  intellect  they 
combined  the  zest  of  children. 

From  this  point  onwards,  there  are  first  certain  seeds  of  decay, 
in  spite  of  previously  unmatched  achievement,  and  then  a  gradual 

1  "Poverty  in  a  democracy  t*  ••  much  to  be  preferred  to  what  is  called 
prosperity  under  despots  •*  freedom  is  to  slavery/'  he  tayt. 

9* 


THE   ATOMIBT8 

decadence.  What  is  amiss,  even  in  the  best  philosophy  after  Demo- 
critus,  is  an  undue  emphasis  on  man  as  compared  with  the  universe. 
First  comes  scepticism,  with  the  Sophists,  leading  to  a  study  of 
how  we  know  rather  than  to  the  attempt  to  acquire  fresh  knowledge. 
Then  comes,  with  Socrates,  the  emphasis  on  ethics;  with  Plato, 
the  rejection  of  the  world  of  sense  in  favour  of  the  self-created 
world  of  pure  thought;  with  Aristotle,  the  belief  in  purpose  as 
the  fundamental  concept  in  science.  In  spite  of  the  genius  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  their  thought  has  vices  which  proved  infinitely 
harmful.  After  their  time,  there  was  a  decay  of  vigour,  and  a 
gradual  recrudescence  of  popular  superstition.  A  partially  new 
outlook  arose  as  a  result  of  the  victory  of  Catholic  orthodoxy;  but 
it  was  not  until  the  Renaissance  that  philosophy  regained  the 
vigour  and  independence  that  characterize  the  predecessors  of 
Socrates. 


Chapter  X 
PROTAGORAS 

E  •  IHE  great  pre-Socratic  systems  that  we  have  been  consider- 
I  ing  were  confronted,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century, 
JL  by  a  sceptical  movement,  in  which  the  most  important 
figure  was  Protagoras,  chief  of  the  Sophists.  The  word  "Sophist" 
had  originally  no  bad  connotation;  it  meant,  as  nearly  as  may  be, 
what  we  mean  by  "professor."  A  Sophist  was  a  man  who  made 
his  living  by  teaching  young  men  certain  things  that,  it  was 
thought,  would  be  useful  to  them  in  practical  life.  As  there  was 
no  public  provision  for  such  education,  the  Sophists  taught  only 
those  who  had  private  means,  or  whose  parents  had.  This  tended 
to  give  them  a  certain  class  bias,  which  was  increased  by  the 
political  circumstances  of  the  time.  In  Athens  and  many  other 
cities,  democracy  was  politically  triumphant,  but  nothing  had 
been  done  to  diminish  the  wealth  of  those  who  belonged  to  the 
old  aristocratic  families.  It  was,  in  the  main,  the  rich  who  em- 
bodied what  appears  to  us  as  Hellenic  culture:  they  had  education 
and  leisure,  travel  had  taken  the  edge  off  their  traditional  pre- 
judices, and  the  time  that  they  spent  in  discussion  sharpened  their 
wits.  What  was  called  democracy  did  not  touch  the  institution  of 
slavery,  which  enabled  the  rich  to  enjoy  their  wealth  without 
oppressing  free  citizens. 

In  many  cities,  however,  and  especially  in  Athens,  the  poorer 
citizens  had  towards  the  rich  a  double  hostility,  that  of  envy,  and 
that  of  traditionalism.  The  rich  were  supposed — often  with  justice 
— to  be  impious  and  immoral;  they  were  subverting  ancient 
beliefs,  and  probably  trying  to  destroy  democracy'.  It  thus  hap- 
pened that  political  democracy,  was  associated  with  cultural 
conservatism,  while  those  who  were  cultural  innovators  tended  to 
be  political  reactionaries.  Somewhat  the  same  situation  exists  in 
modern  America,  where  Tammany,  as  a  mainly  Catholic  organiza- 
tion, is  engaged  in  defending  traditional  theological  and  ethical 
dogmas  against  the  assaults  of  enlightenment.  But  the  enlightened 
are  politically  weaker  in  America  than  they  were  in  Athens, 
because  they  have  failed  to  make  common  cav*e  with  the  pluto- 
cracy. There  is,  however,  one  important  and  highly  intellectual 

94 


PROTAGORAS 

class  which  is  concerned  with  the  defence  of  the  plutocracy, 
namely  the  class  of  corporation  lawyers.  In  same  respects,  their 
functions  are  similar  to  those  that  were  performed  in  Athens  by 
the  Sophists. 

Athenian  democracy,  though  it  had  the  grave  limitation  of  not 
including  slaves  or  women,  was  in  some  respects  more  democratic 
than  any  modern  system.  Judges  and  most  executive  officers  were 
chosen  by  lot,  and  served  for  short  periods;  they  were  thus  average 
citizens,  like  our  jurymen,  with  the  prejudices  and  lack  of  pro- 
fessionalism characteristic  of  average  citizens.  In  general,  there 
were  a  large  number  of  judges  to  hear  each  case.  The  plaintiff 
and  defendant,  or  prosecutor  and  accused,  appeared  in  person, 
not  through  professional  lawyers.  Naturally,  success  or  failure 
depended  largely  on  oratorical  skill  in  appealing  to  popular  pre- 
judices. Although  a  man  had  to  deliver  his  own  speech,  he  could 
hire  an  expert  to  write  the  speech  for  him,  or,  as  many  preferred, 
he  could  pay  for  instruction  in  the  arts  required  for  success  in  the 
law  courts.  These  arts  the  Sophists  were  supposed  to  teach. 

The  aye  of  Pericles  is  analogous,  in  Athenian  history,  to  the 
Victorian  age  in  the  history  of  England.  Athens  was  rich  and 
powerful,  not  much  troubled  by  wars,  and  possessed  of  a  demo- 
cratic constitution  administered  by  aristocrats.  As  we  have  seen, 
in  connection  with  Anaxagoras,  a  democratic  opposition  to 
Pericles  gradually  gathered  strength,  and  attacked  his  friends  one 
by  one.  The  Pcloponnesian  War  broke  out  in  43 1  B.C.  ;J  Athens 
(in  common  with  many  other  places)  was  ravaged  by  the  plague; 
the  population,  which  had  been  about  230,000,  was  greatly 
reduced,  and  never  rose  again  to  its  former  level  (Bury,  History  of 
Greece,  I,  p.  444).  Pericles  himself,  in  430  B.C.,  was  deposed  from 
the  office  of  general  and  fined  for  misappropriation  of  public 
money,  but  soon  reinstated.  His  two  legitimate  sons  died 
of  the  plague,  and  he  himself  died  in  the  following  year  (429). 
Pheidias  and  Anaxagoras  were  condemned;  Aspasia  was  prose- 
cuted for  impiety  and  for  keeping  a  disorderly  house,  but 
acquitted. 

In  such  a  community,  it  was  natural  that  men  who  were  likely 
to  incur  the  hostility  of  democratic  politicians  should  wish  to 
acquire  forensic  skill.  For  Athens,  though  much  addicted  to  per- 
secution, was  in  one  respect  less  illiberal  than  modern  America, 
1   It  ended  in  404  ii.C.  with  the  complete  overthrow  of  Athens. 

95 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

since  those  accused  of  impiety  and  corrupting  the  young  were 
allowed  to  plead  in  their  own  defence. 

This  explains  the  popularity  of  the  Sophists  with  one  class  and 
their  unpopularity  with  another.  But  in  their  own  minds  they 
served  more  impersonal  purposes,  and  it  is  clear  that  many  of 
them  were  genuinely  concerned  with  philosophy.  Plato  devoted 
himself  to  caricaturing  and  vilifying  them,  but  they  must  not  be 
judged  by  his  polemics.  In  his  lighter  vein,  take  the  following 
passage  from  the  Eutkydemus,  in  which  two  Sophists,  Dionyso- 
dorus  and  Euthydemus,  set  to  work  to  puzzle  a  simple-minded 
person  named  Clesippus.  Dionysodorus  begins: 

You  say  that  you  have  a  dog  ? 

Yes,  a  villain  of  a  one,  said  Clesippus. 

And  he  has  puppies  ? 

Yes,  and  they  are  very  like  himself. 

And  the  dog  is  the  father  of  them  ? 

Yes,  he  said,  I  certainly  saw  him  and  the  mother  of  the 

puppies  come  together. 
And  is  he  not  yours  ? 
To  be  sure  he  is. 
Then  he  is  a  father,  and  he  is  yours;  ergo,  he  is  your 

father,  and  the  puppies  are  your  brothers. 

In  a  more  serious  vein,  take  the  dialogue  called  The  Sophist. 
This  is  a  logical  discussion  of  definition,  which  uses  the  sophist 
as  an  illustration.  With  its  logic  we  are  not  at  present  concerned ; 
the  only  thing  I  wish  to  mention  at  the  moment  as  regards  this 
dialogue  is  the  final  conclusion : 

"The  ait  of  contradiction-making,  descended  from  an  insincere 
kind  of  conceited  mimicry,  of  the  semblance- making  breed, 
derived  from  image-making,  distinguished  as  a  portion,  not  divine 
but  human,  of  production,  that  presents  a  shadow-play  of  words 
— such  is  the  blood  and  lineage  which  can,  with  perfect  truth,  be 
assigned  to  the  authentic  Sophist/'  (Corn ford's  translation.) 

There  is  a  story  about  Protagoras,  no  doubt  apocryphal,  which 
illustrates  the  connection  of  the  Sophists  with  the  law-courts  in 
the  popular  mind.  It  is  said  that  he  taught  a  young  man  on  the 
terms  that  he  should  be  paid  his  fee  if  the  young  man  won 
his  first  law-suit,  but  not  otherwise,  and  that  the  young  man's 
first  law-suit  was  one  brought  by  Protagoras  for  recovery  of 
his  fee. 

96 


PROTAGORAS 

However,  it  is  time  to  leave  these  preliminaries  and  see  what  is 
really  known  about  Protagoras. 

Protagoras  was  born  about  500  B.C.,  at  Abdera,  the  city  from 
which  Democritus  came.  He  twice  visited  Athens,  his  second  visit 
being  not  later  than  432  B.C.  He  made  a  code  of  laws  for  the  city 
of  Thurii  in  444-3  B.C.  There  is  a  tradition  that  he  was  prosecuted 
for  impiety,  but  this  seems  to  be  untrue,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
he  wrote  a  book  On  the  Gods,  which  began:  "With  regard  to  the 
gods,  I  cannot  feel  sure  either  that  they  are  or  that  they  are  not, 
nor  what  they  are  like  in  figure;  for  there  are  many  things  that 
hinder  sure  knowledge,  the  obscurity  of  the  subject  and  the 
shortness  of  human  life." 

His  second  visit  to  Athens  is  described  somewhat  satirically  in 
Plato's  Protagoras,  and  his  doctrines  are  discussed  seriously  in 
the  Theaetetus.  He  is  chiefly  noted  for  his  doctrine  that  "Man  is 
the  measure  of  all  things,  of  things  that  are  that  they  are,  and  of 
things  that  are  not  that  they  are  not."  This  is  interpreted  as 
meaning  that  each  man  is  the  measure  of  all  things,  and  that, 
when  men  differ,  there  is  no  objective  truth  in  virtue  of  which 
one  is  right  and  the  other  wrong.  The  doctrine  is  essentially 
sceptical,  and  is  presumably  based  on  the  "deceitfulness"  of  the 
senses. 

One  of  the  three  founders  of  pragmatism,  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  was 
in  the  halm  of  calling  himself  a  disciple  of  Protagoras.  This  was, 
I  think,  because  Plato,  in  the  Thcaetetus,  suggests,  as  an  interpre- 
tation of  Protagoras,  that  one  opinion  can  be  better  than  another, 
though  it  cannot  be  truer.  For  example,  when  a  man  has  jaundice 
everything  looks  yellow.  There  is  no  sense  in  saying  that  things 
are  really  not  yellow,  but  the  colour  they  look  to  a  man  in  health; 
we  can  say,  however,  that,  since  health  is  better  than  sickness, 
the  opinion  of  the  man  in  health  is  better  than  that  of  the  man 
who  has  jaundice.  This  point  of  view,  obviously,  is  akin  to 
pragmatism. 

The  disbelief  in  objective  truth  makes  the  majority,  for  practical 
puqxiscs,  the  arbiters  as  to  what  to  believe.  Hence  Protagoras  was 
led  to  a  defence  of  law  and  convention  and  traditional  morality. 
While,  as  we  saw,  he  did  not  know  whether  the  gods  existed,  he 
was  sure  they  ought  to  be  worshipped.  This  point  of  view  is 
obviously  the  right  one  for  a  man  whose  theoretical  scepticism  is 
thoroughgoing  and  logical. 

97  D 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

Protagoras  spent  his  adult  life  in  a  sort  of  perpetual  lecture  tour 
through  the  cities  of  Greece,  teaching,  for  a  fee,  "any  one  who 
desired  practical  efficiency  and  higher  mental  culture"  (Zeller, 
p.  1299).  Plato  objects — somewhat  snobbishly,  according  to  modern 
notions — to  the  Sophists'  practice  of  charging  money  for  instruc- 
tion. Plato  himself  had  adequate  private  means,  and  was  unable, 
apparently,  to  realize  the  necessities  of  those  who  had  not  his  good 
fortune.  It  is  odd  that  modern  professors,  who  see  no  reason  to 
refuse  a  salary,  have  so  frequently  repeated  Plato's  strictures. 

There  was,  however,  another  point  in  which  the  Sophists  differed 
from  most  contemporary  philosophers.  It  was  usual,  except  among 
the  Sophists,  for  a  teacher  to  found  a  school,  which  had  some  of 
the  properties  of  a  brotherhood;  there  was  a  greater  or  smaller 
amount  of  common  life,  there  was  often  something  analogous  to 
a  monastic  rule,  and  there  was  usually  an  esoteric  doctrine  not 
proclaimed  to  the  public.  All  this  was  natural  wherever  philosophy 
had  arisen  out  of  Orphism.  Among  the  Sophists  there  was  none 
of  this.  What  they  had  to  teach  was  not,  in  their  minds,  connected 
with  religion  or  virtue.  They  taught  the  art  of  arguing,  and  as 
much  knowledge  as  would  help  in  this  an.  Broadly  speaking,  they 
were  prepared,  like  modern  lawyers,  to  show  how  to  ar^ue  for 
or  against  any  opinion,  and  were  not  concerned  to  advocate  con- 
clusions of  their  own.  Those  to  whom  philosophy  was  a  way  of 
life,  closely  bound  up  with  religion,  were  naturally  shocked;  to 
them,  the  Sophists  appeared  frivolous  and  immoral. 

To  some  extent — though  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  far— the 
odium  which  the  Sophists  incurred,  not  only  with  the  general 
public,  but  with  Plato  and  subsequent  philosophers,  was  due  to 
their  intellectual  merit.  The  pursuit  of  truth,  when  it  is  whole- 
hearted, must  ignore  moral  considerations;  we  cannot  know  in 
advance  that  the  truth  will  turn  out  to  be  what  is  thought  edifying 
in  a  given  society.  The  Sophists  were  prepared  to  follow  an  argu- 
ment wherever  it  might  lead  them.  Often  it  led  them  to  scepticism. 
One  of  them,  Gorgias,  maintained  that  nothing  exists;  that  if 
anything  exists,  it  is  unknowable;  and  granting  it  even  to  exist 
and  la  be  knowable  by  any  one  man,  he  could  never  communicate 
it  to  others.  We  do  not  know  what  hLs  arguments  were,  but  I  can 
well  imagine  that  they  had  a  logical  force  which  compelled  his 
opponents  to  take  refuge  in  edification.  Plato  u?  always  concerned 
to  advocate  views  that  \\ill  make  people  wliat  he  thinks  virtuous; 

98 


PROTAGORAS 

he  is  hardly  ever  intellectually  honest,  because  he  allows  himself 
to  judge  doctrines  by  their  social  consequences.  Even  about  this, 
he  is  not  honest;  he  pretends  to  follow  the  argument  and  to  be 
judging  by  purely  theoretical  standards,  when  in  fact  he  is  twist- 
ing the  discussion  so  as  to  lead  to  a  virtuous  result.  He  introduced 
this  vice  into  philosophy,  where  it  has  persisted  ever  since.  It 
was  probably  largely  hostility  to  the  Sophists  that  gave  this, 
character  to  his  dialogues.  One  of  the  defects  of  all  philosophers 
since  Plato  is  that  their  inquiries  into  ethics  proceed  on  the 
assumption  that  they  already  know  the  conclusions  to  be  reached. 

It  seems  that  there  were  men,  in  the  Athens  of  the  late  fifth 
century,  who  taught  political  doctrines  which  seemed  immoral  to 
their  contemporaries,  and  seem  so  to  the  democratic  nations  of 
the  present  day.  Thrasymachus,  in  the  first  book  of  the  Republic, 
argues  that  there  is  no  justice  except  the  interest  of  the  stronger; 
that  laws  are  made  by  governments  for  their  own  advantage;  and 
that  there  is  no  impersonal  standard  to  which  to  appeal  in  contests 
for  power,  Callicles,  according  to  Plato  (in  the  Gorgtas),  maintained 
a  similar  doctrine.  The  law  of  nature,  he  said,  is  the  law  of  the 
stronger;  but  for  convenience  men  have  established  institutions 
and  moral  precepts  to  restrain  the  strong.  Such  doctrines  have 
won  much  wider  assent  in  our  day  than  they  did  in  antiquity. 
And  whatever  may  be  thought  of  them,  they  are  not  characteristic 
of  the  Sophists. 

During  the  fifth  century — whatever  part  the  Sophists  may  have 
had  in  the  change- — there  was  in  Athens  a  transformation  from  a 
certain  stiff  Puritan  simplicity  to  a  quick-witted  and  rather  cruel 
cynicism  in  conflict  with  a  slow-witted  and  equally  cruel  defence 
of  crumbling  orthodoxy.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century  comes 
the  Athenian  championship  of  the  cities  of  Ionia  against  the 
Persians,  and  the  victory  of  Marathon  in  490  B.C.  At  the  end 
comes  the  defeat  of  Athens  by  Sparta  in  404  B.C.,  and  the  execu- 
tion of  Socrates  in  3^9  B.C.  After  this  time  Athens  ceased  to  be 
politically  important,  but  acquired  undoubted  cultural  supremacy, 
which  it  retained  until  the  victory  of  Christianity. 

Something  of  the  history  of  fifth-century 
the  understanding  of  Plato  and  of  all  subsec 
In  the  first  Persian  war,  the  chief  glory 
owing  to  the  decisfvc  victor}'  at  Marathor 
years  later^  the  Athenians  still  were  the 

99 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

but  on  land  victory  was  mainly  due  to  the  Spartans,  who  were  the 
acknowledged  leaders  of  the  Hellenic  world.  The  Spartans,  how- 
ever, were  narrowly  provincial  in  their  outlook,  and  ceased  to 
oppose  the  Persians  when  they  had  been  chased  out  of  European 
Greece.  The  championship  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  and  the  libera- 
tion of  the  islands  that  had  been  conquered  by  the  Persians,  was 
undertaken,  with  great  success,  by  Athens.  Athens  became  the 
leading  sea  power,  and  acquired  a  considerable  imperialist  control 
over  the  Ionian  islands.  Under  the  leadership  of  Pericles,  who  was 
a  moderate  democrat  and  a  moderate  imperialist,  Athens  prospered. 
The  great  temples,  whose  ruins  are  still  the  glory  of  Athens,  were 
built  by  his  initiative,  to  replace  those  destroyed  by  Xerxes.  The 
city  increased  very  rapidly  in  wealth,  and  also  in  culture,  and,  as 
invariably  happens  at  such  times,  particularly  when  wealth  is  due 
to  foreign  commerce,  traditional  morality  and  traditional  beliefs 
decayed. 

There  was  at  this  time  in  Athens  an  extraordinarily  large 
number  of  men  of  genius.  The  three  great  dramatists,  Aeschylus, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides,  all  belong  to  the  fifth  century.  Aeschylus 
fought  at  Marathon  and  saw  the  battle  of  Salamis.  Sophocles  was 
still  religiously  orthodox.  But  Euripides  was  influenced  by  Prota- 
goras and  by  the  free-thinking  spirit  of  the  time,  and  his  treatment 
of  the  myths  is  sceptical  and  subversive.  Aristophanes,  the  comic 
poet,  made  fun  of  Socrates,  Sophists,  and  philosophers,  but, 
nevertheless,  belonged  to  their  circle;  in  the  Symposium  Plato 
represents  him  as  on  very  friendly  terms  with  Socrates.  Pheidias 
the  sculptor,  as  we  have  seen,  belonged  to  the  circle  of  Pericles. 

The  excellence  of  Athens,  at  this  period,  was  artistic  rather 
than  intellectual.  None  of  the  great  mathematicians  or  philosophers 
of  the  fifth  century  were  Athenians,  with  the  exception  of  Socrates ; 
and  Socrates  was  not  a  writer,  but  a  man  who  confined  himself 
to  oral  discussion. 

The  outbreak  of  the  Pcloponncsian  War  in  431  B.C.  and  t he- 
death  of  Pericles  in  429  B.C.  introduced  a  darker  period  in  Athenian 
history.  The  Athenians  were  superior  at  sea,  but  the  Spartans 
had  supremacy  on  land,  and  repeatedly  occupied  Attica  (except 
Athens)  during  the  summer.  The  result  was  that  Athens  was  over- 
crowded, and  suffered  severely  from  the  plague.  In  414  B.C.  the 
Athenians  sent  a  large  expedition  to  Sicily,  in  the  hope  of  capturing 
Syracuse,  which  was  aljied  with  Sparta;  but  the  attempt  was  a 

100 


PROTAGORAS 

failure.  War  made  the  Athenians  fierce  and  persecuting.  In  416  B.C. 
they  conquered  the  island  of  Melos,  put  to  death  all  men  of 
military  age  and  enslaved  the  other  inhabitants.  The  Trojan 
Women  of  Euripides  is  a  protest  against  such  barbarism.  The 
conflict  had  an  ideological  aspect,  since  Sparta  was  the  champion 
of  oligarchy  and  Athens  of  democracy.  The  Athenians  had  reason 
to  suspect  some  of  their  own  aristocrats  of  treachery,  which  was 
generally  thought  to  have  had  a  part  in  the  final  naval  defeat  at 
the  battle  of  Acgospotami  in  405  B.C. 

At  the  end  of  the  war,  the  Spartans  established  in  Athens  an 
oligarchical  government,  known  as  the  Thirty  Tyrants.  Some  of 
the  Thirty,  including  Critias,  their  chief,  had  been  pupils  of 
Socrates.  They  were  deservedly  unpopular,  and  were  overthrown 
within  a  year.  With  the  compliance  of  Sparta,  democracy  was 
restored,  but  it  was  an  embittered  democracy,  precluded  by  an 
amnesty  from  direct  vengeance  against  its  internal  enemies,  but 
glad  of  any  pretext,  not  covered  by  the  amnesty,  for  prosecuting 
them.  It  was  in  this  atmosphere  that  the  trial  and  death  of  Socrates 
took  place-  (3W  n.r.). 


101 


Part  2. — Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle 

Chapter  XI 
SOCRATES 

SOCRATES  is  a  very  difficult  subject  for  the  historian.  There 
are  many  men  concerning  whom  it  is  certain  that  very  little 
is  known,  and  other  men  concerning  whom  it  is  certain  that 
a  great  deal  is  known;  but  in  the  case  of  Socrates  the  uncertainty 
is  as  to  whether  we  kno\v  very  little  or  a  great  deal.  He  was  un- 
doubtedly an  Athenian  citizen  of  moderate  means,  who  spent  his 
time  in  disputation,  and  taught  philosophy  to  the  young,  but  not 
for  money,  like  the  Sophists.  lie  was  certainly  tried,  condemned 
to  death,  and  executed  in  399  B.C.,  at  about  the  ape  of  seventy. 
He  was  unquestionably  a  well-known  figure  in  Athens,  since 
Aristophanes  caricatured  him  in  The  Clouds.  But  beyond  this 
point  we  become  involved  in  controversy.  Two  of  his  pupils, 
Xenophon  and  Plato,  wrote  voluminously  about  him,  but  they 
said  very  different  things.  Even  when  they  agree,  it  has  been 
suggested  by  Burnet  that  Xenophon  is  copying  Plato.  Where  they 
disagree,  some  believe  the  one,  some  the  other,  some  neither.  In 
such  a  dangerous  dispute,  I  shall  not  venture  to  take  sides,  but  I 
will  set  out  briefly  the  various  points  of  view. 

Let  us  begin  with  Xenophon,  a  military  man,  not  very  lilnrrally 
endowed  with  brains,  and  on  the  whole  conventional  in  his  out- 
look. Xenophon  is  pained  that  Socrates  should  have  been  accused 
of  impiety  and  of  corrupting  the  youth;  he  contends  that,  on  the 
cont ran\  Socrates  was  eminently  pious  and  had  a  thoroughly 
wholesome  effect  upon  those  who  came  under  his  influence.  His 
ideas,  it  appears,  so  far  from  being  subversive,  were  rather  dull 
and  commonplace.  This  defence  goes  too  far,  since  it  leaves  the 
hostility  to  Socrates  unexplained.  As  Burnet  says  (Tliaks  to  Plato. 
p.  149):  "Xenophon  *8  defence  of  .Socrates  is  too  successful.  He 
would  never  have  been  put  to  death  if  he  had  been  like  that." 

There  has  been  a  tendency  to  think  that  everything  Xenophon 
gays  must  be  true,  because  he  had  not  the  wits  to  think/if  anything 

102 


SOCRATES 

untrue.  This  is  a  very  invalid  line  of  argument.  A  stupid  man's 
report  of  what  a  clever  man  says  is  never  accurate,  because  he  un- 
consciously translates  what  he  hears  into  something  that  he  can 
understand.  I  would  rather  be  reported  by  my  bitterest  enemy 
among  philosophers  than  by  a  friend  innocent  of  philosophy.  We 
cannot  therefore  accept  what  Xenophon  says  if  it  either  involves 
any  difficult  point  in  philosophy  or  is  part  of  an  argument  to  prove 
that  Socrates  was  unjustly  condemned. 

Nevertheless,  some  of  Xenophon 's  reminiscences  are  very  con- 
vincing. He  tells  (as  Plato  also  does)  how  Socrates  was  continually 
occupied  with  the  problem  of  getting  competent  men  into  positions 
of  power.  He  would  ask  such  questions  as:  "If  I  wanted  a  shoe 
mended,  whom  should  I  employ?"  To  which  some  ingenuous 
youth  would  answer:  "A  shoemaker,  O  Socrates."  He  would  go 
on  to  carpenters,  coppersmiths,  etc.,  and  finally  ask  some  such 
question  as  "who  should  mend  the  Ship  of  State?"  When  he  fell 
into  conflict  with  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  Critias,  their  chief,  who 
knew  his  ways  from  having  studied  under  him,  forbade  him  to 
continue  teaching  the  young,  and  added:  "You  had  better  be 
done  with  your  shoemakers,  carpenters,  and  coppersmiths.  These 
must  be  pretty  well  trodden  out  at  heel  by  this  time,  considering 
the  circulation  you  have  given  them"  (Xenophon,  Memorabilia, 
Ilk.  I,  chap.  ii).  This  happened  during  the  brief  oligarchic 
government  established  by  the  Spartans  at  the  end  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  War.  But  at  most  times  Athens  was  democratic,  so 
much  so  that  even  generals  were  elected  or  chosen  by  lot.  Socrates 
came  across  a  young  man  who  wished  to  become  a  general,  and 
persuaded  him  that  it  would  be  well  to  know  something  of  the 
art  of  war.  The  young  man  accordingly  went  away  and  took  a 
brief  course  in  tactics.  When  he  returned,  Socrates,  after  some 
satirical  praise,  sent  him  back  for  further  instruction  (ibid.,  Bk.  Ill, 
chap.  i).  Another  young  man  he  set  to  learning  the  principles  of 
finance.  He  tried  the  same  sort  of  plan  on  many  people,  including 
the  war  minister;  but  it  was  decided  that  it  was  easier  to  silence 
him  by  means  of  the  hemlock  than  to  cure  the  evils  of  which  he 
complained. 

With  Plato's  account  of  Socrates,  the  difficulty  is  quite  a  different 
one  from  what  it  is  in  the  case  of  Xenophon,  namely,  that  it  is 
very  hard  to  judgc'how  far  Plato  means  to  portray  the  historical 
Socrates,  a'jd  how  far  he  intends  the  person  called  "Socrates"  in 

•03 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

his  dialogues  to  be  merely  the  mouthpiece  of  his  own  opinions. 
Plato,  in  addition  to  being  a  philosopher,  is  an  imaginative  writer 
of  great  genius  and  charm.  No  one  supposes,  and  he  himself  does 
not  seriously  pretend,  that  the  conversations  in  his  dialogues  took 
place  just  as  he  records  them.  Nevertheless,  at  any  rate  in  the 
earlier  dialogues,  the  conversation  is  completely  natural  and  the 
characters  quite  convincing.  It  is  the  excellence  of  Plato  as  a 
writer  of  fiction  that  throws  doubt  on  him  as  a  historian.  His 
Socrates  is  a  consistent  and  extraordinarily  interesting  character, 
far  beyond  the  power  of  most  men  to  invent ;  but  I  think  Plato 
could  have  invented  him.  Whether  he  did  so  is  of  course  another 
question. 

The  dialogue  which  is  most  generally  regarded  as  historical  is 
the  Apology.  This  professes  to  be  the  speech  that  Socrates  made  in 
his  own  defence  at  his  trial — not,  of  course,  a  stenographic  report, 
but  what  remained  in  Plato's  memory  some  years  after  the  event, 
put  together  and  elaborated  with  literary  art.  Plato  was  present 
at  the  trial,  and  it  certainly  seems  fairly  clear  that  what  is  set 
down  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  Plato  remembered  Socrates  as 
saying,  and  that  the  intention  is,  broadly  speaking,  historical. 
This,  with  all  its  limitations,  is  enough  to  give  a  fairly  definite 
picture  of  the  character  of  Socrates. 

The  main  facts  of  the  trial  of  Socrates  are  not  open  to  doubt. 
The  prosecution  was  based  upon  the  charge  that  "  Socrates  is  an 
evil-doer  and  a  curious  person,  searching  into  things  under  the 
earth  and  above  the  heaven;  and  making  the  worse  appear  the 
better  cause,  and  teaching  all  this  to  others."  The  real  ground  of 
hostility  to  him  was,  almost  certainly,  that  he  was  supposed  to 
be  connected  with  the  aristocratic  party;  most  of  his  pupils 
belonged  to  this  faction,  and  some,  in  positions  of  power,  had 
proved  themselves  very  pernicious.  But  this  ground  could  not  be 
made  evident,  on  account  of  the  amnesty.  He  was  found  guilty 
by  a  majority,  and  it  was  then  open  to  him,  by  Athenian  law,  to 
propose  some  lesser  penalty  than  death.  The  judges  had  to  choose, 
if  they  had  found  the  accused  guilty,  between  the  penalty  de- 
manded by  the  prosecution  and  that  suggested  by  the  defence. 
It  was  therefore  to  the  interest  of  Socrates  to  suggest  a  substantial 
penalty,  which  the  court  might  have  accepted  as  adequate.  He, 
however,  proposed  a  fine  of  thirty  minae,  for 'which  some  of  his 
friends  (including  Plato)  were  willing  to  go  surety.  'Vhis  was  so 

104 


SOCRATES 

small  a  punishment  that  the  court  was  annoyed,  and  condemned 
him  to  death  by  a  larger  majority  than  that  which  had  found  him 
guilty.  Undoubtedly  he  foresaw  this  result.  It  is  clear  that  he  had 
no  wish  to  avoid  the  death  penalty  by  concessions  which  might 
seem  to  acknowledge  his  guilt. 

The  prosecutors  were  Anytus,  a  democratic  politician;  Meletus, 
a  tragic  poet,  "youthful  and  unknown,  with  lanky  hair,  and  scanty 
beard,  and  a  hooked  nose";  and  Lykon,  an  obscure  rhetorician. 
(See  Burnet,  Thales  to  Plato,  p.  180.)  They  maintained  that 
Socrates  was  guilty  of  not  worshipping  the  gods  the  State  wor- 
shipped but  introducing  other  new  divinities,  and  further  that 
he  was  guilty  of  corrupting  the  young  by  teaching  them  accordingly. 

Without  further  troubling  ourselves  with  the  insoluble  question 
of  the  relation  of  the  Platonic  Socrates  to  the  real  man,  let  us  see 
what  Plato  makes  him  say  in  answer  to  this  charge. 

Socrates  begins  by  accusing  his  prosecutors  of  eloquence,  and 
rebutting  the  charge  of  eloquence  as  applied  to  himself.  The  only 
eloquence  of  which  he  is  capable,  he  says,  is  that  of  truth.  And 
they  must  not  be  angry  with  him  if  he  speaks  in  his  accustomed 
manner,  not  in  "a  set  oration,  duly  ornamented  with  words  and 
phrases/*1  He  is  over  seventy,  and  has  never  appeared  in  a  court 
of  law  until  now;  they  must  therefore  pardon  his  un-forensic  way 
of  speaking. 

lie  goes  on  to  say  that,  in  addition  to  his  formal  accusers,  he  has 
a  large  body  of  informal  accusers,  who,  ever  since  the  judges  were 
children,  have  gone  about  "telling  of  one  Socrates,  a  wise  man, 
who  speculated  about  the  heavens  above,  and  searched  into  the 
earth  beneath,  and  made  the  worse  appear  the  better  cause."  Such 
men,  he  says,  are  supposed  not  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  the 
Htnls.  This  old  accihsation  by  public  opinion  is  more  dangerous 
than  the  formal  indictment,  the  more  so  as  he  does  not  know 
who  are  the  men  from  whom  it  comes,  except  in  the  case  of 
Aristophanes.2  He  points  out,  in  reply  to  these  older  grounds  of 
hostility,  that  he  is  not  a  man  of  science — "I  have  nothing  to  do 
with  physical  speculations" — that  he  is  not  a  teacher,  and  does 
not  take  money  for  teaching.  He  goes  on  to  make  fun  of  the 
Sophist*,  and  to  disclaim  the  knowledge  that  they  profess  to  have. 

1  In  quotations  frapi  Plato,  I  have  generally  used  Jowett's  translation. 
•  In  Tkf  Clouds,  Socrates  is  represented  as  denying  the  existence  of 
Zeus.  , 

105 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

What,  then,  is  "the  reason  why  I  am  called  wise  and  have  such 
an  evil  fame?1' 

The  oracle  of  Delphi,  it  appears,  was  once  asked  if  there  were 
any  man  wiser  than  Socrates,  and  replied  that  there  was  not. 
Socrates  professes  to  have  been  completely  puz/led,  since  he  knew 
nothing,  and  yet  a  god  cannot  lie.  He  therefore  went  about  among 
men  reputed  wise,  to  see  whether  he  could  convict  the  god  of 
error.  First  he  went  to  a  politician,  who  "was  thought  wise  by 
many,  and  still  wiser  by  himself.*'  He  soon  found  that  the  man 
was  not  wise,  and  explained  this  to  him,  kindly  but  firmly,  "and 
the  consequence  was  that  he  hated  me."  He  then  went  to  the 
poets,  and  asked  them  to  explain  passages  in  their  writings,  but 
they  were  unable  to  do  so.  "Then  I  knew  that  not  by  wisdom  do 
poets  write  poetry,  but  by  a  sort  of  genius  and  inspiration.1'  Then 
he  went  to  the  artisans,  but  found  them  equally  disappointing. 
In  the  process,  he  says,  he  made  many  dangerous  enemies.  Finally 
he  concluded  that  "God  only  is  wise;  and  by  his  answer  he  intends 
to  show  that  the  wisdom  of  men  is  worth  little  or  nothing;  he  is 
not  speaking  of  Socrates,  he  is  only  using  my  name  by  way  of 
illustration,  as  if  he  said,  He,  O  men,  is  the  wisest,  who,  like 
Socrates,  knows  that  his  wisdom  is  in  truth  worth  nothing."  This 
business  of  shoeing  up  pretenders  to  wisdom  takes  up  all  his  time, 
and  has  left  him  in  utter  poverty,  but  he  feels  it  a  duty  to  vindicate 
the  oracle. 

Young  men  of  the  richer  classes,  he  says,  having  not  much  to 
do,  enjoy  listening  to  him  exposing  people,  and  proceed  to  do 
likewise,  thus  increasing  the  number  of  his  enemies.  ''For  they 
do  not  like  to  confess  that  their  pretence  of  knowledge  has  been 
detected." 

So  much  for  the  first  class  of  accusers. 

Socrates  now  proceeds  to  examine  his  prosecutor  Mektus.  "that 
good  man  and  true  lover  of  his  country,  as  he  calls  himself."  He 
asks  who  are  the  people  who  improve  the  young.  Mclctus  first 
mentions  the  judges;  then,  under  pressure,  is  driven,  step  by  step, 
to  say  that  every  Athenian  except  Socrates  improves  the  young; 
whereupon  Socrates  congratulates  the  city  on  its  good  fortune. 
Next,  he  points  out  that  good  men  are  better  to  live  among  than 
bad  men,  and  therefore  he  cannot  be  so  foolish  as  to  corrupt  his 
fellow-citizens  intentionally  ;  but  if  unintentionally,  then  Mclctus 
should  instruct  him,  not  prosecute  him. 

106 


SOCRATES 

The  indictment  had  said  that  Socrates  not  only  denied  the  gods 
of  the  State,  but  introduced  other  gods  of  his  own ;  Meletus,  how- 
ever, says  that  Socrates  is  a  complete  atheist,  and  adds:  "He  says 
that  the  sun  is  stone  and  the  moon  earth."  Socrates  replies  that 
Meletus  seems  to  think  he  is  prosecuting  Anaxagoras,  whose 
views  may  be  heard  in  the  theatre  for  one  drachma  (presumably 
in  the  plays  of  Euripides).  Socrates  of  course  points  out  that  this 
new  accusation  of  complete  atheism  contradicts  the  indictment, 
and  then  passes  on  to  more  general  considerations. 

The  rest  of  the  Apology  is  essentially  religious  in  tone.  He  has 
been  a  soldier,  and  has  remained  at  his  post,  as  he  was  ordered 
to  do.  Now  "God  orders  me  to  fulfil  the  philosopher's  mission  of 
searching  into  myself  and  other  men,"  and  it  would  be  as  shameful 
to  desert  his  post  now  as  in  time  of  battle.  Fear  of  death  is  not 
wisdom,  since  no  one  knows  whether  death  may  not  be  the  greater 
good.  If  he  were  offered  his  life  on  condition  of  ceasing  to  speculate 
as  he  has  done  hitherto,  he  would  reply:  "Men  of  Athens,  I 
honour  and  love  you ;  but  I  shall  obey  God  rather  than  you,1  and 
while  I  have  life  and  strength  I  shall  never  cease  from  the  practice 
and  teaching  of  philosophy,  exhorting  any  one  whom  I  meet.  .  .  . 
For  know  that  this  is  the  command  of  God;  and  I  believe  that  no 
greater  good  has  ever  happened  in  the  State  than  my  service  to 
the  God."  He  goes  on: 

I  have  something  more  to  say,  at  which  you  may  be  inclined 
to  cry  cnit;  but  I  believe  that  to  hear  me  will  be  good  for  you, 
and  therefore  I  beg  that  you  will  not  cry  out.  I  would  have  you 
know,  that  if  you  kill  such  a  one  as  I  am,  you  will  injure  your- 
selves more  than  you  will  injure  me.  Nothing  will  injure  me, 
not  Meletus  nor  yet  Anytus — they  cannot,  for  a  bad  man  is  not 
permitted  to  injure  a  belter  than  himself.  I  do  not  deny  that 
Anytus  may  perhaps  kill  him,  or  drive  him  into  exile,  or  deprive 
him  of  civil  rights;  and  he  may  imagine,  and  others  may  imagine, 
that  he  is  intlicting  a  great  injury  upon  him:  but  there  I  do  not 
agree.  For  the  evil  of  doing  as  he  is  doing — the  evil  of  unjustly 
taking  away  the  life  of  another — is  greater  far. 

It  is  for  the  sake  of  his  judges,  he  says,  not  for  his  own  sake, 
that  he  is  pleading.  He  is  a  gad-fly,  given  to  the  State  by  God,  and 
it  will  not  be  easy  to  find  another  like  him.  "I  dare  say  you  may 
feel  out  of  temper»(like  a  person  who  is  suddenly  awakened  from 

1  Cf.  Acts,  v,  29. 
107 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

sleep),  and  you  think  that  you  might  easily  strike  me  dead  as 
Anytus  advises,  and  then  you  would  sleep  on  for  the  remainder 
of  your  lives,  unless  God  in  his  care  of  you  sent  you  another 
gad-fly." 

Why  has  he  only  gone  about  in  private,  and  not  given  advice 
on  public  affairs?  "You  have  heard  me  speak  at  sundry  times  and 
in  diverse  places  of  an  oracle  or  sign  which  comes  to  me,  and  is 
the  divinity  which  Meletus  ridicules  in  the  indictment.  This  sign, 
which  is  a  kind  of  voice,  first  began  to  come  to  me  when  I  was  a 
child;  it  always  forbids  but  never  commands  me  to  do  anything 
which  I  am  going  to  do.  This  is  what  deters  me  from  being  a 
politician."  He  goes  on  to  say  that  in  politics  no  honest  man  can 
live  long.  He  gives  two  instances  in  which  he  was  unavoidably 
mixed  up  in  public  affairs:  in  the  first,  he  resisted  the  democracy; 
in  the  second,  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  in  each  case  when  the  authorities 
were  acting  illegally. 

He  points  out  that  among  those  present  are  many  former  pupils 
of  his,  and  fathers  and  brothers  of  pupils ;  not  one  of  these  has 
been  produced  by  the  prosecution  to  testify  that  he  corrupts  the 
young.  (This  is  almost  the  only  argument  in  the  Apology  that  a 
lawyer  for  the  defence  would  sanction.)  He  refuses  to  follow  the 
custom  of  producing  his  weeping  children  in  court,  to  soften  the 
hearts  of  the  judges;  such  scenes,  he  says,  make  the  accused  and 
the  city  alike  ridiculous.  It  is  his  business  to  convince  the  judges, 
not  to  ask  a  favour  of  them. 

After  the  verdict,  and  the  rejection  of  the  alternative  penalty  of 
thirty  minae  (in  connection  with  which  Socrates  names  Plato  as 
one  among  his  sureties,  and  present  in  court),  he  makes  OIK-  final 
speech. 

And  now,  O  men  who  have  condemned  me,  I  would  fain 
prophesy  to  you;  for  I  am  about  to  die,  and  in  the  hour  of  death 
men  are  gifted  with  prophetic  power.  And  I  prophesy  to  you, 
who  are  my  murderers,  that  immediately  after  my  departure 
punishment  far  heavier  than  you  have  inflicted  on  me  will  surely 
await  you.  ...  If  you  think  that  by  killing  men  you  can  prevent 
some  one  from  censuring  your  evil  lives,  you  are  mistaken;  that 
is  not  a  way  of  escape  which  is  either  possible  or  honourable; 
the  easiest  and  the  noblest  way  is  not  to  be  disabling  others,  but 
to  be  improving  yourselves. 

He  then  turns  to  those  of  his  judges  w..^  .«ave  ^voted  for 

108 


SOCRATES 

acquittal,  and  tells  them  that,  in  all  that  he  has  done  that  day,  his 
oracle  has  never  opposed  him,  though  on  other  occasions  it  has 
often  stopped  him  in  the  middle  of  a  speech.  This,  he  says,  "is  an 
intimation  that  what  has  happened  to  me  is  a  good,  and  that  those 
of  us  who  think  death  is  an  evil  are  in  error."  For  either  death  is 
a  dreamless  sleep — which  is  plainly  good — or  the  soul  migrates  to 
another  world.  And  "what  would  not  a  man  give  if  he  might 
converse  with  Orpheus  and  Musaeus  and  Hesiod  and  Homer? 
Nay,  if  this  be  true,  let  me  die  and  die  again."  In  the  next  world, 
he  will  converse  with  others  who  have  suffered  death  unjustly, 
and,  above  all,  lie  will  continue  his  search  after  knowledge.  "In 
another  world  they  do  not  put  a  man  to  death  for  asking  questions: 
assuredly  not.  For  besides  being  happier  than  we  are,  they  will 
be  immortal,  if  what  is  said  is  true.  .  .  . 

"The  hour  of  departure  has  arrived,  and  \ve  go  our  ways — I 
to  die,  ami  you  to  live.  Which  is  better  God  only  knows." 

The  Apology  gives  a  clear  picture  of  a  man  of  a  certain  type:  a 
man  very  sure  of  himself,  high-minded,  indifferent  to  worldly 
success,  believing  that  he  is  guided  by  a  divine  voice,  and  per- 
suaded that  clear  thinking  is  the  most  important  requisite  for  right 
living.  Lxcept  in  this  last  point,  he  resembles  a  Christian  martyr 
or  a  Puritan.  In  the  final  passage,  where  he  considers  what  happens 
after  death,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  he  firmly  believes  in 
immortality,  and  that  his  professed  uncertainty  is  only  assumed. 
He  is  not  troubled,  like  the  Christians,  by  fears  of  eternal  torment: 
he  has  no  doubt  that  his  life  in  the  next  world  will  be  a  happy 
one.  In  the  PhaeJo,  the  Platonic  Socrates  gives  reasons  for  the 
belief  in  immortality;  whether  these  were  the  reasons  that  in- 
fluenced the  historical  Socrates,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 

There  seems  hardly  any  doubt  that  the  historical  Socrates 
claimed  to  be  guided  by  an  oracle  or  daimon.  Whether  this  was 
analogous  to  what  a  Christian  would  call  the  voice  of  conscience, 
or  whether  it  appeared  to  him  as  an  actual  voice,  it  is  impossible 
to  know.  Joan  of  Arc  was  inspired  by  voices,  which  are  a  common 
symptom  of  insanity.  Socrates  was  liable  to  cataleptic  trances;  at 
least,  that  seems  the  natural  explanation  of  such  an  incident  as 
occurred  once  when  he  was  on  military  service: 

One  morning  he  was  thinking  about  something  which  he  could 
not  resolve;  he  would  not  give  it  up,  but  continued  thinking  from 
early  dawn  until  noon —there  he  stood  fixed  in  thought;  and  at 

109 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

noon  attention  was  drawn  to  him,  and  the  rumour  ran  through 
the  wondering  crowd  that  Socrates  had  been  standing  and  thinking 
about  something  ever  since  the  break  of  day.  At  last,  in  the 
evening  after  supper,  some  lonians  out  of  curiosity  (I  should 
explain  that  this  occurred  not  in  winter  but  in  summer),  brought 
out  their  mats  and  slept  in  the  open  air  that  they  might  watch 
him  and  see  whether  he  would  stand  all  night.  There  he  stood 
until  the  following  morning;  and  with  the  return  of  light  he 
offered  up  a  prayer  to  the  sun,  and  went  his  way  (Symposium,  220). 

This  sort  of  thing,  in  a  lesser  degree,  was  a  common  occurrence 
with  Socrates.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Symposium,  Socrates  and 
Aristodemus  go  together  to  the  banquet,  but  Socrates  drops  behind 
in  a  fit  of  abstraction.  When  Aristodemus  arrives,  Agathon,  the 
host,  says  "what  have  you  done  with  Socrates?"  Aristodemus  is 
astonished  to  find  Socrates  not  with  him;  a  slave  is  sent  to  look 
for  him,  and  finds  him  in  the  portico  of  a  neighbouring  house. 
"There  he  is  fixed,"  says  the  slave  on  his  return,  "ami  when  I 
call  to  him  he  will  not  stir."  Those  who  know  him  well  explain 
that  "he  has  a  way  of  stopping  anywhere  and  losing  himself 
without  any  reason."  They  leave  him  alone,  and  he  enters  when 
the  feast  is  half  over. 

Every  one  is  agreed  that  Socrates  was  very  uply;  he  had  a  snub 
nose  and  a  considerable  paunch ;  he  was  "uglier  than  all  the 
Silenuses  in  the  Satyric  drama"  (Xenophon,  Symposium).  He  was 
always  dressed  in  shabby  old  clothes,  and  went  barefoot  every- 
where. His  indifference  to  heat  and  cold,  hunger  and  thirst, 
amazed  every  one.  Alcihiades  in  the  Symposium,  describing 
Socrates  on  military  sen-ice,  says: 

His  endurance  was  simply  marvellous  when,  beins;  cut  off  from 
our  supplies,  we  were  compelled  to  go  without  food  -on  such 
occasions,  which  often  happen  in  time  of  war,  he  was  superior 
not  only  to  me  but  to  everybody:  there  was  no  one  to  be  com- 
pared to  him.  ...  His  fortitude  in  enduring  cold  was  also 
surprising.  There  was  a  severe  frost,  for  the  winter  in  that  region 
is  really  tremendous,  and  everybody  else  cither  remained  indoors 
or  if  they  went  out  had  on  an  amazing  quantity  of  clothes,  and 
were  well  shod,  and  had  their  feet  swathed  in  felt  and  fleeces: 
in  the  midst  of  this,  Socrates  with  his  bare  feet  on  the  ice  and  in 
his  ordinary  dress  marched  better  than  the  other  soldiers  who 
had  shoes  and  they  looked  daggers  at  him  because  he  seemed 
to  despise  them. 

no 


SOCRATES 

His  mastery  over  all  bodily  passions  is  constantly  stressed.  He 
seldom  drank  wine,  but  when  he  did,  he  could  out-drink  anybody; 
no  one  had  ever  seen  him  drunk.  In  love,  even  under  the  strongest 
temptations,  he  remained  "Platonic,"  if  Plato  is  speaking  the  truth. 
He  was  the  perfect  Orphic  saint:  in  the  dualism  of  heavenly  soul 
and  earthly  body,  he  had  achieved  the  complete  mastery  of  the 
soul  over  the  body.  His  indifference  to  death  at  the  last  is  the 
final  proof  of  this  mastery.  At  the  same  time,  he  is  not  an  orthodox 
Orphic;  it  is  only  the  fundamental  doctrines  that  he  accepts,  not 
the  superstitions  and  ceremonies  of  purification. 

The  Platonic  Socrates  anticipates  both  the  Stoics  and  the  Cynics. 
The  Stoics  held  that  the  supreme  good  is  virtue,  and  that  a  man 
cannot  be  deprived  of  virtue  by  outside  causes ;  this  doctrine  is 
implicit  in  the  contention  of  Socrates  that  his  judges  cannot  harm 
him.  The  Cynics  despised  worldly  goods,  and  showed  their  con- 
tempt by  eschewing  the  comforts  of  civilization;  this  is  the  same 
point  of  view  that  led  Socrates  to  go  barefoot  and  ill-clad. 

It  seems  fairly  certain  that  the  preoccupations  of  Socrates  were 
ethical  rather  than  scientific.  In  the  Apology,  as  we  saw,  he  says: 
*4I  have  nothing  to  do  with  physical  speculations."  The  earliest 
of  the  Platonic  dialogues,  which  are  generally  supposed  to  be  the 
most  Socratic,  are  mainly  occupied  with  the  search  for  definitions 
of  ethical  terms.  The  Charmides  is  concerned  with  the  definition 
of  temj>erance  or  moderation ;  the  Lysis  with  friendship ;  the  Laches 
with  courage.  In  all  of  these,  no  conclusion  is  arrived  at,  but 
Socrates  makes  it  clear  that  he  thinks  it  important  to  examine 
such  questions.  The  Platonic  Socrates  consistently  maintains  that 
fie  knows  nothing,  and  is  only  wiser  than  others  in  knowing  that 
he  knows  nothing ;  but  he  does  not  think  knowledge  unobtainable. 
On  the  contrary,  he  thinks  the  search  for  knowledge  of  the  utmost 
importance.  He  maintains  that  no  man  sins  wittingly,  and  there- 
fore only  knowledge  is  needed  to  make  all  men  perfectly  virtuous. 

The  close  connection  between  virtue  and  knowledge  is  charac- 
teristic of  Socrates  and  Plato.  To  some  degree,  it  exists  in  all 
Greek  thought,  as  opposed  to  that  of  Christianity.  In  Christian 
ethics,  a  pure  heart  is  the  essential,  and  is  at  least  as  likely  to  be 
found  among  the  ignorant  as  among  the  learned.  This  difference 
between  Greek  and  Christian  ethics  has  persisted  down  to  the 
present  day,  * 

Dialectic,  that  is  to  say,  the  method  of  seeking  knowledge  by 

in 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

question  and  answer,  was  not  invented  by  Socrates.  It  seems  to 
have  been  first  practised  systematically  by  Zeno,  the  disciple  of 
Parmenides ;  in  Plato's  dialogue  Parmenides,  Zeno  subjects  Socrates 
to  the  same  kind  of  treatment  to  which,  elsewhere  in  Plato, 
Socrates  subjects  others.  But  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that 
Socrates  practised  and  developed  the  method.  As  we  saw,  when 
Socrates  is  condemned  to  death  he  reflects  happily  that  in  the 
next  world  he  can  go  on  asking  questions  for  ever,  and  cannot  be 
put  to  death,  as  he  will  be  immortal.  Certainly,  if  he  practised 
dialectic  in  the  way  described  in  the  Apology,  the  hostility  to  him 
is  easily  explained:  all  the  humbugs  in  Athens  would  combine 
against  him. 

The  dialectic  method  is  suitable  for  some  questions,  and  un- 
suitable for  others.  Perhaps  this  helped  to  determine  the  character 
of  Plato's  inquiries,  which  were,  for  the  most  part,  such  as  could 
be  dealt  with  in  this  way.  And  through  Plato's  influence,  most 
subsequent  philosophy  has  been  bounded  by  the  limitations 
resulting  from  his  method. 

Some  matters  are  obviously  unsuitable  for  treatment  in  this  way 
— empirical  science,  for  example.  It  is  true  that  Galileo  used  dia- 
logues to  advocate  his  theories,  but  that  was  only  in  order  to 
overcome  prejudice — the  positive  grounds  for  his  discoveries 
could  not  be  inserted  in  a  dialogue  without  great  artificiality. 
Socrates,  in  Plato's  works,  always  pretends  that  he  is  only  eliciting 
knowledge  already  possessed  by  the  man  he  is  questioning;  on 
this  ground,  he  compares  himself  to  a  midwife.  When,  in  the 
Phaedo  and  the  Afeno,  he  applies  his  method  to  geometrical 
problems,  he  has  to  ask  leading  questions  which  any  judge  would 
disallow.  The  method  is  in  harmony  with  the  doctrine  of  reminis- 
cence, according  to  which  we  learn  by  remembering  what  we  knew 
in  a  former  existence.  As  against  this  view,  consider  any  discovery 
that  has  been  made  by  means  of  the  microscope,  say  the  spread 
of  diseases  by  bacteria;  it  can  hardly  be  maintained  that  such 
knowledge  can  be  elicited  from  a  previously  ignorant  person  by 
the  method  of  question  and  answer. 

The  matters  that  are  suitable  for  treatment  by  the  Socrattc 
method  are  those  as  to  which  we  have  already  enough  knowledge 
to  come  to  a  right  conclusion,  but  have  failed,  through  confusion 
of  thought  or  lack  of  analysis,  to  make  the  best  logical  use  of  what 
we  know.  A  question  such  as  "what  is  justice?''  is  eminently  suited 

112 


SOCRATES 

for  discussion  in  a  Platonic  dialogue.  We  all  freely  use  the  words 
"just"  and  "unjust,"  and,  by  examining  the  ways  in  which  we 
use  them,  we  can  arrive  inductively  at  the  definition  that  will  best 
suit  with  usage.  All  that  is  needed  is  knowledge  of  how  the  words 
in  question  are  used.  But  when  our  inquiry  is  concluded,  we  have 
made  only  a  linguistic  discovery,  not  a  discovery  in  ethics. 

We  can,  however,  apply  the  method  profitably  to  a  somewhat 
larger  class  of  cases.  Wherever  what  is  being  debated  is  logical 
rather  than  factual,  discussion  is  a  good  method  of  eliciting  truth. 
Suppose  someone  maintains,  for  example,  that  democracy  is  good, 
hut  persons  holding  certain  opinions  should  not  be  allowed  to 
vote,  we  may  convict  him  of  inconsistency,  and  prove  to  him  that 
at  least  one  of  his  two  assertions  must  be  more  or  less  erroneous. 
Logical  errors  are,  I  think,  of  greater  practical  importance  than 
many  people  believe;  they  enable  their  perpetrators  to  hold  the 
comfortable  opinion  on  every  subject  in  turn.  Any  logically 
coherent  body  of  doctrine  is  sure  to  be  in  part  painful  and  con- 
trary to  current  prejudices.  The  dialectic  method — or,  more 
generally,  the  habit  of  unfettered  discussion — tends  to  promote 
logical  consistency,  and  is  in  this  way  useful.  But  it  is  quite  un- 
availing when  the  object  is  to  discover  new  facts.  Perhaps  "philo- 
sophy*1 might  he  defined  as  the  sum-total  of  those  inquiries  that 
can  he  pursued  by  Plato's  methods.  But  if  this  definition  is 
appropriate,  that  is  because  of  Plato's  influence  upon  subsequent 
philosophers. 


Chapter  XII 
THE   INFLUENCE   OF   SPARTA 

E  •  1O  understand  Plato,  and  indeed  many  later  philosophers, 
I  it  is  necessary  to  know  something  of  Sparta.  Sparta  had 
JL  a  double  effect  on  Greek  thought:  through  the  reality,  and 
through  the  myth.  Each  is  important.  The  reality  enabled  the 
Spartans  to  defeat  Athens  in  war;  the  myth  influenced  Plato's 
political  theory,  and  that  of  countless  subsequent  writers.  The 
myth,  fully  developed,  is  to  be  found  in  Plutarch's  Life  of  Lycurgus\ 
the  ideals  that  it  favours  have  had  a  great  part  in  framing  the 
doctrines  of  Rousseau,  Nietzsche,  and  National  Socialism.1  The 
myth  is  of  even  more  importance,  historically,  than  the  reality ; 
nevertheless,  we  will  begin  with  the  latter.  For  the  reality  was  the 
source  of  the  myth. 

Laconia,  of  which  Sparta,  or  Lacedacmon  was  the  capital, 
occupied  the  south-east  of  the  Peloponnesus.  The  Spartans,  who 
were  the  ruling  race,  had  conquered  the  country  at  the  time  of  the 
Dorian  invasion  from  the  north,  and  had  reduced  the  population 
that  they  found  there  to  the  condition  of  serfs.  These  serfs  were 
called  helots.  In  historical  times,  all  the  land  belonged  to  the 
Spartans,  who,  however,  were  forbidden  by  law  and  custom  to 
cultivate  it  themselves,  both  on  the  ground  that  such  labour  was 
degrading,  and  in  order  that  they  might  always  be  free  for  military 
service.  The  serfs  were  not  bought  and  sold,  but  remained  attached 
to  the  land,  which  was  divided  into  lots,  one  or  more  for  each 
adult  male  Spartan.  These  lots,  like  the  helots,  could  not  be 
bought  or  sold,  and  passed,  by  law,  from  father  to  son.  (They 
could,  however,  be  bequeathed.)  The  landowner  received  from 
the  helot  who  cultivated  the  lot  seventy  medirnni  (about  105 
bushels)  of  grain  for  himself,  twelve  for  his  wife,  and  a  stated 
portion  of  wine  and  fruit  annually  *  Anything  beyond  this  amount 
was  the  property  of  the  helot.  The  helots  were  Greeks,  like  the 
Spartans,  and  bitterly  resented  their  servile  condition.  When  they 
could,  they  rebelled.  The  Spartans  had  a  body  of  secret  police  to 

1  Not  to  mention  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  and  the  English  public  schools. 
f  Bury,  History  of  Greece,  Vol.  I,  p.  138.  It  wen  is  that  Spartan  men  ate 
nearly  six  times  as  much  as  their  wive*. 

"4 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF    SPARTA 

deal  with  this  danger,  but  to  supplement  this  precaution  they  had 
another:  once  a  year,  they  declared  war  on  the  helots,  so  that  their 
young  men  could  kill  any  who  seemed  insubordinate  without 
incurring  the  legal  guilt  of  homicide.  Helots  could  be  emancipated 
by  the  State,  but  not  by  their  masters;  they  were  emancipated, 
rather  rarely,  for  exceptional  bravery  in  battle. 

At  some  time  during  the  eighth  century  B.C.  the  Spartans  con- 
quered the  neighbouring  country  of  Messenia,  and  reduced  most 
of  its  inhabitants  to  the  condition  of  helots.  There  had  been  a 
lack  of  Lebensraum  in  Sparta,  but  the  new  territory,  for  a  time, 
removed  this  source  of  discontent. 

Lois  were  for  the  common  run  of  Spartans;  the  aristocracy  had 
estates  of  their  own,  whereas  the  lots  were  portions  of  common 
land  assigned  by  the  State. 

The  free  inhabitants  of  other  parts  of  Laconia,  called  "p^rioeci," 
had  no  share  of  political  power. 

The  sole  business  of  a  Spartan  citizen  was  war,  to  which  he  was 
trained  from  birth.  Sickly  children  were  exposed  after  inspection 
by  the  heads  of  the  tribe;  only  those  judged  vigorous  were  allowed 
to  be  reared.  Up  to  the  age  of  twenty,  all  the  boys  were  trained  in 
one  big  school;  the  purpose  of  the  training  was  to  make  them 
hardy,  indifferent  to  pain,  and  submissive  to  discipline.  There 
was  no  nonsense  about  cultural  or  scientific  education;  the  sole 
aim  was  to  produce  good  soldiers,  wholly  devoted  to  the  State. 

At  the  age  of  twenty,  actual  military  service  began.  Marriage 
uas  permitted  to  anyone  over  the  age  of  twenty,  but  until  the 
age  of  thirty  a  man  had  to  live  in  the  "men's  house,"  and  had  to 
manage  his  marriage  as  if  it  were  an  illicit  and  secret  affair.  After 
thirty,  he  was  a  full-fledged  citizen.  Every  citizen  belonged  to  a 
mess,  and  dined  with  the  other  members;  he  had  to  make  a 
contribution  in  kind  from  the  produce  of  his  lot.  It  was  the  theory 
of  the  State  that  no  Spartan  citizen  should  be  destitute,  and  none 
should  be  rich.  Each  was  expected  to  live  on  the  produce  of  his 
lot,  which  lie  could  not  alienate  except  by  free  gift.  None  was 
allowed  to  own  gold  or  silver,  and  the  money  was  made  of  iron. 
Spartan  simplicity  became  proverbial. 

The  position  of  women  in  Sparta  was  peculiar.  They  were  not 
secluded,  like  respectable  women  elsewhere  in  Greece.  Girls  went 
through  the  same 'physical  training  as  was  given  to  boys;  what  is 
more  remarkable,  boys  and  girls  did  their  gymnastics  together, 

"5 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

all  being  naked.  It  was  desired  (I  quote  Plutarch's  Lycurgus  in 
North's  translation): 

that  the  maidens  should  harden  their  bodies  with  exercise  of 
running,  wrestling,  throwing  the  bar,  and  casting  the  dart,  to  the 
end  that  the  fruit  wherewith  they  might  be  afterwards  con- 
ceived, taking  nourishment  of  a  strong  and  lusty  body,  should 
shoot  out  and  spread  the  better:  and  that  they  by  gathering 
strength  thus  by  exercises,  should  more  easily  away  with  the 
pains  of  child  bearing.  .  .  .  And  though  the  maidens  did  show 
themselves  thus  naked  openly,  yet  was  there  no  dishonesty  seen 
nor  offered,  but  all  this  sport  was  full  of  play  and  toys,  without 
any  youthful  part  or  wantonness. 

Men  who  would  not  marry  were  made  "infamous  by  law/*  and 
compelled,  even  in  the  coldest  weather,  to  walk  up  and  down 
naked  outside  the  place  where  the  young  people  were  doing  their 
exercises  and  dances. 

Women  were  not  allowed  to  exhibit  any  emotion  not  profitable 
to  the  State.  They  might  display  contempt  for  a  coward,  and 
would  be  praised  if  he  were  their  son;  but  they  might  not  show 
grief  if  their  new-born  child  was  condemned  to  death  as  a  weakling, 
or  if  their  sons  were  killed  in  battle.  They  were  considered,  by 
other  Greeks,  exceptionally  chaste;  at  the  same  time,  a  childless 
married  woman  would  raise  no  objection  if  the  State  ordered  her 
to  find  out  whether  some  other  man  would  be  more  successful 
than  her  husband  in  begetting  citizens.  Children  were  encouraged 
by  legislation.  According  to  Aristotle,  the  father  of  three  sons  was 
exempt  from  military  service,  and  the  father  of  four  from  all  the 
burdens  of  the  State. 

The  constitution  of  Sparta  was  complicated.  There  were  two 
kings,  belonging  to  two  different  families,  and  succeeding  by 
heredity.  One  or  other  of  the  kings  commanded  the  army  in  time 
of  war,  but  in  time  of  peace  their  powers  were  limited.  At  com- 
munal feasts  they  got  twice  as  much  to  eat  as  any  one  else,  and 
there  was  general  mourning  when  one  of  them  died.  They  were 
members  of  the  Council  of  Klders,  a  body  consisting  of  thirty 
men  (including  the  kings);  the  other  twenty-eight  must  be  over 
sixty,  and  were  chosen  for  life  by  the  whole  body  of  the  citizens, 
but  only  from  aristocratic  families.  The  Council  tried  criminal 
cases,  and  prepared  matters  which  were  to  'come  before  the 
Assembly.  This  body  (the  Assembly)  consisted  of  all  the  citizens ; 

116 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF    SPARTA 

it  could  not  initiate  anything,  but  could  vote  yes  or  no  to  any 
proposal  brought  before  it.  No  law  could  be  enacted  without 
its  consent.  But  its  consent,  though  necessary,  was  not  sufficient ; 
the  elders  and  magistrates  must  proclaim  the  decision  before  it 
became  valid. 

In  addition  to  the  kings,  the  Council  of  Elders,  and  the 
Assembly,  there  was  a  fourth  branch  of  the  government,  peculiar 
to  Sparta.  This  was  the  five  ephors.  These  were  chosen  out  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  citizens,  by  a  method  which  Aristotle  says  was 
"too  childish,"  and  which  Bury  says  was  virtually  by  lot.  They 
were  a  "democratic11  element  in  the  constitution,1  apparently 
intended  to  balance  the  kings.  Every  month  the  kings  swore  to 
uphold  the  constitution,  and  the  ephors  then  swore  to  uphold  the 
kings  so  long  as  they  remained  true  to  their  oath.  When  either 
king  went  on  a  warlike  expedition,  two  ephors  accompanied  him 
to  watch  over  his  behaviour.  The  ephors  were  the  supreme  civil 
court,  but  over  the  kings  they  had  criminal  jurisdiction. 

The  Spartan  constitution  was  supposed,  in  later  antiquity,  to 
have  been  due  to  a  legislator  named  Lycurgus,  who  was  said  to 
have  promulgated  his  laws  in  885  B.C.  In  fact,  the  Spartan  system 
grew  up  gradually,  and  Lycurgus  was  a  mythical  person,  originally 
a  god.  His  name  meant  "wolf-repcller,"  and  his  origin  was 
Arcadian. 

Sparta  aroused  among  the  other  Greeks  an  admiration  which 
is  to  us  somewhat  surprising.  Originally,  it  had  been  much  less 
different  from  other  Greek  cities  than  it  became  later;  in  early 
days  it  produced  ports  and  artists  as  good  as  those  elsewhere. 
But  about  the  seventh  century  B.C.,  or  perhaps  even  later,  its  con- 
stitution (falsely  attributed  to  Lycurgus)  crystallized  into  the  form 
we  have  been  considering;  everything  else  was  sacrificed  to  success 
in  war,  and  Sparta  ceased  to  have  any  part  whatever  in  what 
Greece  contributed  to  the  civilization  of  the  world.  To  us,  the 
Spartan  State  appears  as  a  model,  in  miniature,  of  the  State  that 
the  Nazis  would  establish  if  victorious.  To  the  Greeks  it  seemed 
otherwise.  As  Bury  says: 

A  stranger  from  Athens  or  Miletus  in  the  fifth  century  visiting 
the  straggling  villages  which  formed  her  unwalled  unpretentious 

1  In  speaking  of  "  Jemocratie"  elements  in  the  Spartan  constitution,  one 
must  of  course  remember  that  the  citizens  as  a  whole  were  a  ruling  class 
fiercely  tyrannizing  over  the  helots,  and  allowing  no  power  to  die  perioeci. 

117 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

city  must  have  bad  a  feeling  of  being  transported  into  an  age 
long  past,  when  men  were  braver,  better  and  simpler,  unspoiled 
by  wealth,. undisturbed  by  ideas.  To  a  philosopher,  like  Plato, 
speculating  in  political  science,  the  Spartan  State  seemed  the 
nearest  approach  to  the  ideal.  The  ordinary  Greek  looked  upon 
it  as  a  structure  of  severe  and  simple  beauty,  a  Dorian  city  stately 
as  a  Dorian  temple,  far  nobler  than  his  own  abode  but  not  so 
comfortable  to  dwell  in.1 

One  reason  for  the  admiration  felt  for  Sparta  by  other  Greeks 
was  its  stability.  All  other  Greek  cities  had  revolutions,  but  the 
Spartan  constitution  remained  unchanged  for  centuries,  except 
for  a  gradual  increase  in  the  powers  of  the  ephors,  which  occurred 
by  legal  means,  without  violence. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that,  for  a  long  period,  the  Spartans  were 
successful  in  their  main  purpose,  the  creation  of  a  race  of  invincible 
warriors.  The  battle  of  Thermopylae  (480  B.C.),  though  technically 
a  defeat,  is  perhaps  the  best  example  of  their  valour.  Thermopylae 
was  a  narrow  pass  through  the  mountains,  where  it  was  hoped 
that  the  Persian  army  could  be  held.  Three  hundred  Spartans, 
with  auxiliaries,  repulsed  all  frontal  attacks.  Hut  at  last  the  Persians 
discovered  a  detour  through  the  hills,  and  succeeded  in  attacking 
the  Greeks  on  both  sides  at  once.  Every  single  Spartan  was  killed 
at  his  post.  Two  men  had  been  absent  on  sick  leave,  suffering 
from  a  disease  of  the  eyes  amounting  almost  to  ternporar}  blind- 
ness. One  of  them  insisted  on  being  led  by  his  helot  to  the  battle, 
where  he  perished;  the  other,  Aristodemus,  decided  that  lie  was 
too  ill  to  fight,  and  remained  absent.  When  he  returned  to  Sparta, 
no  one  would  speak  to  him;  he  was  called  "the  coward  ArLsto- 
demus."  A  year  later,  he  wiped  out  his  disgrace  by  dying  bravely 
at  the  battle  of  Plataea,  where  the  Spartans  were  victorious. 

After  the  war,  the  Spartans  erected  a  memorial  on  the  battlefield 
of  Thermopylae,  saying  only:  "Stranger,  tell  the  Lacedaemonians 
that  we  lie  here,  in  obedience  to  their  orders/' 

For  a  long  time,  the  Spartans  proved  themselves  invincible  on 
land.  They  retained  their  supremacy  until  the  year  371  B.C.,  when 
they  were  defeated  by  the  Thebans  at  the  battle  of  Lcuctra.  This 
was  the  end  of  their  military  greatness. 

Apart  from  war,  the  reality  of  Sparta  was  never  quite  the  same 
as  the  theory.  Herodotus,  who  lived  at  its  great  period,  remarks, 
1  History  of  Greece  t  Vol.  I,  p.  141. 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF    SPARTA 

surprisingly,  that  no  Spartan  could  resist  a  bribe.  This  was  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  contempt  for  riches  and  love  of  the  simple  life  was 
one  of  the  main  things  inculcated  in  Spartan  education.  We  are 
told  that  the  Spartan  women  were  chaste,  yet  it  happened  several 
times  that  a  reputed  heir  to  the  kingship  was  set  aside  on  the 
ground  of  not  being  the  son  of  his  mother's  husband.  We  are  told 
that  the  Spartans  were  inflexibly  patriotic,  yet  the  king  Pausanias, 
the  victor  of  Plataea,  ended  as  a  traitor  in  the  pay  of  Xerxes. 
Apart  from  such  flagrant  matters,  the  policy  of  Sparta  was  always 
petty  and  provincial.  When  Athens  liberated  the  Greeks  of  Asia 
Minor  and  the  adjacent  islands  from  the  Persians,  Sparta  held 
aloof;  so  long  as  the  Peloponnesus  was  deemed  safe,  the  fate  of 
other  (ireeks  was  a  matter  of  indifference.  Every  attempt  at  a 
confederation  of  the  Hellenic  world  was  defeated  by  Spartan 
particularism. 

Aristotle,  who  lived  after  the  downfall  of  Sparta,  gives  a  very 
hostile  account  of  its  constitution.1  What  he  says  is  so  different 
from  what  other  people  say  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  he  is 
speaking  of  the  same  place,  e.g.  "The  legislator  wanted  to  make 
the  whole  State  hardy  and  temperate,  and  he  has  carried  out  his 
intention  in  the  case  of  men,  but  he  has  neglected  the  women, 
who  live  in  even*  sort  of  intemperance  and  luxury.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  in  such  a  State  wealth  is  too  highly  valued,  especially 
if  the  citixcns  fall  under  the  dominion  of  their  wives,  after  the 
manner  of  most  warlike  races.  .  .  .  Even  in  regard  to  courage, 
which  is  of  no  use  in  daily  life,  and  is  needed  only  in  war,  the 
influence  of  the  I^iccdaemonian  women  has  been  most  mischievous. 
.  .  .  This  license  of  the  Lacedaemonian  women  existed  from  the 
earliest  times,  and  was  only  what  might  be  expected.  For  .  .  . 
when  I.vcurgus,  as  tradition  says,  wanted  to  bring  the  women 
under  his  laws,  they  resisted,  and  he  gave  up  the  attempt." 

1  le  goes  on  to  accuse  Spartans  of  avarice,  which  he  attributes 
to  the  unequal  distribution  of  property.  Although  lots  cannot  be 
sold,  he  says,  they  can  be  given  or  bequeathed.  Two-fifths  of  all 
the  land,  he  adds,  belongs  to  women.  The  consequence  is  a  great 
diminution  in  the  number  of  citizens:  it  is  said  that  once  there 
were  ten  thousand,  but  at  the  time  of  the  defeat  by  Thebes  there 
were  less  than  one  thousand. 

Aristotle  criticfccs  every  point  of  the  Spartan  constitution.  He 
,  Vol.  II,  Q  ( 126911- 1 270A). 

IK) 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

says  that  the  ephors  are  often  very  poor,  and  therefore  easy  to 
bribe ;  and  their  power  is  so  great  that  even  kings  are  compelled 
to  court  them,  so  that  the  constitution  has  been  turned  into  a 
democracy.  The  ephor?,  we  are  told,  have  too  much  licence,  and 
live  in  a  manner  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  while 
the  strictness  in  relation  to  ordinary  citizens  is  so  intolerable  that 
they  take  refuge  in  the  secret  illegal  indulgence  of  sensual  pleasures. 

Aristotle  wrote  when  Sparta  was  decadent,  but  on  some  points 
he  expressly  says  that  the  evil  he  is  mentioning  has  existed  from 
early  times.  His  tone  is  so  dry  and  realistic  that  it  is  difficult  to 
disbelieve  him,  and  it  is  in  line  with  all  modern  experience  of  the 
results  of  excessive  severity  in  the  laws.  But  it  was  not  Aristotle's 
Sparta  that  persisted  in  men's  imagination;  it  was  the  mythical 
Sparta  of  Plutarch  and  the  philosophic  idealization  of  Sparta  in 
Plato's  Republic.  Century  after  century,  young  men  read  these 
works,  and  were  fired  with  the  ambition  to  become  Lycurguses 
or  philosopher-kings.  The  resulting  union  of  idealism  and  love  of 
power  has  led  men  astray  over  and  over  again,  and  is  still  doing  so 
in  the  present  day. 

The  myth  of  Sparta,  for  medieval  and  modern  readers,  was 
mainly  fixed  by  Plutarch.  When  he  wrote,  Sparta  belonged  to  the 
romantic  past ;  its  great  period  was  as  far  removed  from  his  time 
as  Columbus  is  from  ours.  What  he  says  must  IK*  treated  with 
great  caution  by  the  historian  of  institutions,  but  to  the  historian 
of  myth  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance.  Greece  has  influenced  the 
world,  always,  through  its  effect  on  men's  imaginations,  ideals, 
and  hopes,  not  directly  through  political  power.  Rome  made  roads 
which  largely  still  survive,  and  la\v>  which  are  the  source  of  many 
modern  legal  codes,  but  it  was  the  armies  of  Rome  that  made  these 
things  important.  The  Greeks,  though  admirable  fighters,  made 
few  conquests,  because  they  expended  their  military  fury  mainly 
on  each  other.  It  was  left  to  the  semi-barbarian  Alexander  to  spread 
Hellenism  throughout  the  Near  Kast,  and  to  make  Greek  the 
literary  language  in  Kgypt  and  Syria  and  the  inland  parts  of  Asia 
Minor.  The  Greeks  could  never  have  accomplished  this  task,  not 
for  lack  of  military  force,  but  owing  to  their  incapacity  for 
political  cohesion.  The  political  vehicles  of  Hellenism  have  always 
been  non-Hellenic;  but  it  was  the  Greek  genius  that  so  inspired 
alien  nations  as  to  cause  them  to  spread  the*  culture  of  those 
whom  they  had  conquered. 

120 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF   SPARTA 

What  is  important  to  the  historian  of  the  world  is  not  the  petty 
wars  between  Greek  cities,  or  the  sordid  squabbles  for  party 
ascendancy,  but  the  memories  retained  by  mankind  when  the 
brief  episode  was  ended— like  the  recollection  of  a  brilliant  sunrise 
in  the  Alps,  while  the  mountaineer  struggles  through  an  arduous 
day  of  wind  and  snow.  These  memories,  as  they  gradually  faded, 
left  in  men's  minds  the  images  of  certain  peaks  that  had  shone 
with  peculiar  brightness  in  the  early  light,  keeping  alive  the 
knowledge  that  behind  the  clouds  a  splendour  still  survived,  and 
might  at  any  moment  become  manifest.  Of  these,  Plato  was  the 
most  important  in  early  Christianity,  Aristotle  in  the  medieval 
Church;  hut  when,  after  the  Renaissance,  men  began  to  value 
political  freedom,  it  was  above  all  to  Plutarch  that  they  turned. 
I  le  influenced  profoundly  the  English  and  French  liberals  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  the  founders  of  the  United  States;  he 
influenced  the  romantic  movement  in  Germany,  and  has  con- 
tinued, mainly  by  indirect  channels,  to  influence  German  thought 
down  to  the  present  day.  In  some  ways  his  influence  was  good, 
in  some  bad;  as  regards  Lycurgus  and  Sparta,  it  was  bad.  What 
he  has  to  say  about  Lycurgus  is  important,  and  I  shall  give  a  brief 
account  of  it,  even  at  the  cost  of  some  repetition. 

Lycurgus — so  Plutarch  says — having  resolved  to  give  laws  to 
Sparta,  travelled  widely  in  order  to  study  different  institutions. 
He  liked  the  laws  of  Crete,  which  were  "very  straight  and  severe,"1 
but  disliked  tho.se  of  Ionia,  where  there  were  "superfluities  and 
vanities.*'  In  Kgypt  he  learned  the  advantage  of  separating  the 
soldiers  from  the  rest  of  the  people,  and  afterwards,  having 
returned  from  his  travels,  "brought  the  practice  of  it  into  Sparta: 
where  setting  the  merchants,  artificers,  and  labourers  every  one 
a  part  by  themselves,  he  did  establish  a  noble  Commonwealth." 
He  nude  an  equal  division  of  hinds  among  all  the  citizens  of  Sparta 
in  order  to  "banish  out  of  the  city  all  insolvency,  envy,  covetous- 
ness,  and  dcliciousness,  and  also  all  riches  and  poverty."  He  for- 
bade gold  and  silver  money,  allowing  only  iron  coinage,  of  so 
little  value  that  "to  lay  up  thereof  the  value  often  minas,  it  would 
have  occupied  a  whole  cellar  in  a  house."  By  this  means  he 
banished  "all  superfluous  and  unprofitable  sciences,"  since  there 
was  not  enough  money  to  pay  their  practitioners;  and  by  the 
same  law  he  made'all  external  commerce  impossible.  Rhetoricians, 
N  '  In  quoting  Plutarch  I  use  North's  translation. 
121 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

panders,  and  jewellers,  not  liking  the  iron  money,  avoided  Sparta. 
He  next  ordained  that  all  the  citizens  should  eat  together,  and  all 
should  have  the  same  food. 

Lycurgus,  like  other  reformers,  thought  the  education  of  children 
"the  chiefest  and  greatest  matter,  that  a  reformer  of  laws  should 
establish";  and  like  all  who  aim  chiefly  nt  military  power,  he  was 
anxious  to  keep  up  the  birth  rate.  The  M plays,  sports,  and  dances 
the  maids  did  naked  before  young  men,  were  provocations  to  draw 
and  allure  the  young  men  to  marry:  not  as  persuaded  by  geo- 
metrical reasons,  as  saith  Plato,  but  brought  to  it  by  liking,  and  of 
very  love."  The  habit  of  treating  a  marriage,  for  the  first  few  years, 
as  if  it  were  a  clandestine  affair,  "continued  in  both  parties  a  still 
burning  love,  and  a  new  desire  of  the  one  to  the  other" — such,  at 
least,  is  the  opinion  of  Plutarch.  He  goes  on  to  explain  that  a  man 
was  not  thought  ill  of  if,  being  old  and  having  a  young  wife,  he 
allowed  a  younger  man  to  have  children  by  her.  "It  was  lawful 
also  for  an  honest  man  that  loved  another  man's  wife  ...  to  intreat 
her  husband  to  suffer  him  to  lie  with  her,  and  that  he  might  also 
plough  in  that  lusty  ground,  anj  e^t  abroad  the  seed  of  well- 
favoured  children."  There  was  to  be  no  foolish  jealousy,  for 
"Lycurgus  did  not  like  that  children  should  be  private  to  any 
men,  but  that  they  should  be  common  to  the  common  weal:  by 
which  reason  he  would  also,  that  such  as  should  become  citizens 
should  not  be  begotten  of  every  man,  but  of  the  most  honest 
men  only."  He  goes  on  to  explain  that  this  is  the  principle  that 
farmers  apply  to  their  live-stock. 

When  a  child  was  born,  the  father  brought  him  before  the 
elders  of  his  family  to  be  examined:  if  he  was  healthy,  he  was 
given  back  to  the  father  to  he  reared;  if  not,  he  was  thrown  into 
a  deep  pit  of  water.  Children,  from  the  first,  were  subjected  to  a 
severe  hardening  process,  in  some  respects  good — for  example, 
they  were  not  put  in  swaddling  clothes.  At  the  age  of  seven,  boys 
were  taken  away  from  home  and  put  in  a  boarding  school,  where 
they  were  divided  into  companies,  each  under  the  orders  of  one 
of  their  number,  chosen  for  sense  and  courage.  "Touching  learning, 
they  had  as  much  as  served  their  turn:  for  the  rest  of  their  time 
they  spent  in  learning  how  to  obey,  to  away  with  pain,  to  endure 
labour,  to  overcome  still  in  fight."  They  played  naked  together 
most  of  the  time;  after  twelve  years  old,  they  wf>re  no  coals;  they 
were  always  "nasty  and  sluttish,"  and  they  never  bathed  except 

122 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF    SPARTA 

on  certain  days  in  the  year.  They  slept  on  beds  of  straw,  which 
in  winter  they  mixed  with  thistle.  They  were  taught  to  steal,  and 
were  punished  if  caught— not  for  stealing,  but  for  stupidity. 

Homosexual  love,  male  if  not  female,  was  a  recognized 
custom  in  Sparta,  and  had  an  acknowledged  part  in  the  education 
of  adolescent  boys.  A  boy's  lover  suffered  credit  or  discredit  by 
the  boy's  actions;  Plutarch  states  that  once,  when  a  boy  cried  out 
because  he  was  hurt  in  fighting,  his  lover  was  fined  for  the  boy's 
cowardice. 

There  was  little  liberty  at  any  stape  in  the  life  of  a  Spartan. 

Their  discipline  and  order  of  life  continued  still,  after  they 
were  full  grown  men,  For  it  was  not  lawful  for  any  man  to  live 
as  he  listed,  but  they  were  within  tlieir  city,  as  if  they  had  been  in 
a  camp,  where  every  man  knoweth  what  allowance  he  hath  to  live 
withal,  and  what  business  he  hath  else  to  do  in  his  calling.  To  be 
short,  they  were  all  of  this  mind,  that  they  were  not  born  to  serve 
themselves,  but  to  serve  their  country.  .  .  .  One  of  the  best  and 
happit-st  things  which  Lycurpus  ever  brought  into  his  city,  was 
the  preat  rest  and  leisure  which  he  made  his  citizens  to  have,  only 
forhiddini;  them  that  they  should  not  profess  any  vile  or  base 
occupation:  and  they  needed  not  also  to  be  careful  to  get  great 
riches,  in  a  place  where  goods  were  nothing  profitable  nor  esteemed. 
For  the  1  lelots,  which  were  bond  men  made  by  the  wars,  did  till 
their  grounds,  and  yielded  them  a  certain  revenue  every  year. 

Plutarch  goes  on  to  tell  a  story  of  an  Athenian  condemned  for 
idleness,  upon  hearing  of  which  a  Spartan  exclaimed:  "show  me 
the  man  condemned  for  living  nobly  and  like  a  gentleman." 

Lycurijus  (Plutarch  continues)  "did  accustom  his  citizens  so, 
that  they  neither  would  nor  could  live  alone,  but  were  in  manner 
as  men  incorporated  one  with  another,  and  were  always  in  company 
together,  as  the  bees  be  about  their  master  bee." 

Spartans  were  not  allowed  to  travel,  nor  were  foreigners  admitted 
to  Sparta,  except  on  business;  for  it  was  feared  that  alien  customs 
uould  corrupt  Lacedaemonian  virtue. 

Plutarch  relates  the  law  that  allowed  Spartans  to  kill  helots 
whenever  they  felt  so  disposed,  but  refuses  to  believe  that  any- 
thing so  abominable  can  have  been  due  to  Lycurgus.  "For  I 
cannot  be  persuaded,  that  ever  Lycurgus  invented,  or  instituted 
so  wicked  and  mischievous  an  act,  as  that  kind  of  ordinance  was: 
because  I  imagine  his  nature  was  gentle  and  merciful,  by  the 

123 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

clemency  and  justice  we  see  he  used  in-  all  his  other  doings/* 
Except  in  this  matter  Plutarch  has  nothing  but  praise  for  the 
constitution  of  Sparta. 

The  effect  of  Sparta  on  Plato,  with  whom,  at  the  moment,  we 
shall  be  specially  concerned,  will  be  e\ident  from  the  account  of 
his  Utopia,  which  will  occupy  the  next  chapter. 


124 


Chapter  XIII 
THE    SOURCES   OF   PLATO'S   OPINIONS 

PLATO  and  Aristotle  were  the  most  influential  of  all  philo- 
sophers, ancient,  medieval,  or  modern;  and  of  the  two,  it 
was  Plato  who  had  the  greater  effect  upon  subsequent  ages. 
I  say  this  for  two  reasons:  first,  that  Aristotle  himself  is  an  out- 
come of  Plato;  second,  that  Christian  theology  and  philosophy,  at 
any  rate  until  the  thirteenth  century,  was  much  more  Platonic 
than  Aristotelian.  It  is  necessary  therefore,  in  a  history  of  philo- 
sophic thought,  to  treat  Plato,  and  to  a  lesser  degree  Aristotle, 
more  fully  than  any  of  their  predecessors  or  successors. 

The  most  important  matters  in  Plato's  philosophy  are:  fast,  his 
Utopia,  which  was  the  earliest  of  a  long  series;  second,  his  theory 
of  ideas,  which  was  a  pioneer  attempt  to  deal  with  the  still  unsolved 
problem  of  universal*;  third,  his  arguments  in  favour  of  immor- 
tality; fourth,  his  cosmogony;  fifth,  his  conception  of  knowledge 
as  reminiscence  rather  than  perception.  But  before  dealing  with 
any  of  these  topics,  I  shall  say  a  few  words  about  the  circumstances 
of  his  life  and  the  influences  which  determined  his  political  and 
philosophical  opinions. 

Plato  was  born  in  428-7  B.C.,  in  the  early  years  of  the  Pelo- 
ponncsian  War.  He  was  a  well-to-do  aristocrat,  related  to  various 
people  who  were  concerned  in  the  rule  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants.  He 
was  a  young  man  when  Athens  was  defeated,  and  he  could  attribute 
the  defeat  to  democracy,  which  his  social  position  and  his  family 
connections  were  likely  to  make  him  despise.  He  was  a  pupil  of 
Socrates,  for  whom  he  had  a  profound  affection  and  respect;  and 
Socrates  was  put  to  death  by  the  democracy.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
surprising  that  he  should  turn  to  Sparta  for  an  adumbration  of 
his  ideal  commonwealth.  Plato  possessed  the  an  to  dress  up 
illiberal  suggestions  in  such  a  way  that  they  deceived  future  ages, 
which  admired  the  Republic  without  ever  becoming  aware  of  what 
was  involved  in  its  proposals.  It  has  always  been  correct  to  praise 
Plato,  but  not  to  understand  him.  This  is  the  common  fate  of 
great  men.  My  object  is  the  opposite.  I  wish  to  understand  hiiiL 
but  to  treat  him  vrith  as  little  reverence  as  if  he  were  a  corirern- 
porary  Knclish  or  American  advocate  of  totalitarianism.  ,*y?  Or 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

The  purely  philosophical  influences  on  Plato  were  also  such  as 
to  predispose  him  in  favour  of  Sparta.  These  influences,  speaking 
broadly,  were:  Pythagoras,  Parmenides,  Heraclitus,  and  Socrates. 

From  Pythagoras  (whether  by  way  of  Socrates  or  not)  Plato 
derived  the  Orphic  elements  in  his  philosophy:  the  religious  trend, 
the  belief  in  immortality,  the  other-worldliness,  the  priestly  tone, 
and  all  that  is  involved  in  the  simile  of  the  cave;  also  his  respect 
for  mathematics,  and  his  intimate  intermingling  of  intellect  and 
mysticism. 

From  Parmenides  he  derived  the  belief  that  reality  is  eternal 
and  timeless,  and  that,  on  logical  grounds,  all  change*  must  be 
illusory. 

From  Heraclitus  he  derived  the  negative  doctine  that  there  is 
nothing  permanent  in  the  sensible  world.  This,  combined  with  the 
doctrine  of  Parmenides,  led  to  the  conclusion  that  knowledge  is 
not  to  be  derived  from  the  senses,  but  is  only  to  be  achieved  by 
the  intellect.  This,  in  turn,  fitted  in  well  with  Pythagoreanism. 

From  Socrates  he  probably  learnt  his  preoccupation  with 
ethical  problems,  and  his  tendency  to  seek  teleological  rather  than 
mechanical  explanations  of  the  world.  "The  Good"  dominated  his 
thought  more  than  that  of  the  pre-Socratics,  and  it  is  difficult  not 
to  attribute  this  fact  to  the  influence  of  Socrates. 

How  is  all  this  connected  with  authoritarianism  in  politics  ? 

In  the  first  place:  Goodness  and  Reality  being  timeless,  the  best 
State  will  be  the  one  which  most  nearly  copies  the  heavenly  model, 
by  having  a  minimum  of  change  and  a  maximum  of  static  perfec- 
tion, and  its  rulers  should  be  those  who  best  understand  the 
eternal  Good. 

In  the  second  place:  Plato,  like  all  mystics,  has,  in  his  beliefs, 
a  core  of  certainty  which  is  essentially  incommunicable  except  by 
a  way  of  life.  The  Pythagoreans  had  endeavoured  to  set  up  a  rule 
of  the  initiate,  and  this  is,  at  bottom,  what  Plato  desires.  If  a  man 
is  to  be  a  good  statesman,  he  must  know  the  Good;  this  he  can 
only  do  by  a  combination  of  intellectual  and  moral  discipline. 
If  those  who  have  not  gone  through  this  discipline  are  allowed  a 
share  in  the  government,  they  will  inevitably  corrupt  it. 

In  the  third  place:  much  education  is  needed  to  make  a  good 

''er  on  Plato's  principles.  It  seems  to  us  unwise  to  have  insisted 

chtng  geometry  to  the  younger  Dion  VMusJ  tyrant  of  Syracuse, 

r  to  make  him  a  good  king,  but  from  Plato's  point  of  view 

126 


THE   SOURCES   OF    PLATO'S   OPINIONS 

it  was  essential.  He  was  sufficiently  Pythagorean  to  think  that 
without  mathematics  no  true  wisdom  is  possible.  This  view  implies 
an  oligarchy. 

In  the  fourth  place:  Plato,  in  common  with  most  Greek  philo- 
sophers, took  the  view  that  leisure  is  essential  to  wisdom,  which 
will  therefore  not  be  found  among  those  who  have  to  work  for 
their  living,  but  only  among  those  who  have  independent  means 
or  who  are  relieved  by  the  State  from  anxieties  as  to  their  sub- 
sistence. This  point  of  view  is  essentially  aristocratic. 

Two  general  questions  arise  in  confronting  Plato  with  modern 
ideas.  The  first  is:  is  there  such  a  thing  as  "wisdom"?  The  second 
is:  granted  that  there  is  such  a  thing,  can  any  constitution  be 
devised  that  will  give  it  political  power? 

"Wisdom,"  in  the  sense  supposed,  would  not  be  any  kind  of 
specialized  skill,  such  as  is  possessed  by  the  shoemake-  or  the 
physician  or  the  military  tactician.  It  must  be  something  more 
generali/cd  than  this,  since  its  possession  is  supposed  to  make  a 
man  capable  of  governing  wisely.  I  think  Plato  would  have  said 
that  it  consists  in  knowledge  of  the  good,  and  would  have  supple- 
mented this  definition  with  the  Socratic  doctrine  that  no  man 
Mns  wittingly,  from  which  it  follows  that  whoever  knows  what  is 
good  does  what  is  right.  To  us,  such  a  view  seems  remote  from 
reality.  We  should  more  naturally  say  that  there  are  divergent 
interests,  and  that  the  statesman  should  arrive  at  the  best  available 
compromise.  The  members  of  a  class  or  a  nation  may  have  a 
common  interest,  but  it  will  usually  conflict  with  the  interests  of 
other  classes  or  other  nations.  There  are,  no  doubt,  some  interests 
of  mankind  as  a  whole,  but  they  do  not  suffice  to  determine  political 
action.  Perhaps  they  will  do  so  at  some  future  date,  but  certainly 
not  so  long  as  there  are  many  sovereign  States.  And  even  then  the 
most  difficult  part  of  the  pursuit  of  the  general  interest  would 
consist  in  arriving  at  compromises  among  mutually  hostile  special 
interests. 

But  even  if  we  suppose  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  "wisdom," 
is  there  any  form  of  constitution  which  will  give  the  government 
to  the  wise?  It  is  clear  that  majorities,  like  general  councils,  may 
err,  and  in  fact  have  erred.  Aristocracies  are  not  always  wise;  kings 
are  often  foolish ;  Popes,  in  spite  of  infallibility,  have  committed 
grievous  errors.  Wduld  anybody  advocate  entrusting  the  govern- 
ment to  university  graduates,  or  even  to  doctors  of  divinity?  Or 

127 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

to  men  who,  having  been  born  poor,  have  made  great  fortunes? 
It  is  clear  that  no  legally  definable  selection  of  citizens  is  likely  to 
be  wiser,  in  practice,  than  the  whole  body. 

It  might  be  suggested  that  men  could  be  given  political  wisdom 
by  a  suitable  training.  But  the  question  would  arise:  what  is  a 
suitable  training?  And  this  would  turn  out  to  be  a  party  question. 

The  problem  of  finding  a  collection  of  "wise"  men  and  leaving 
the  government  to  them  is  thus  an  insoluble  one.  That  is  the 
ultimate  reason  for  democracy. 


128 


Chapter  XIV 
PLATO'S   UTOPIA 

PLATO'S  most  important  dialogue,  the  Republic,  consists, 
broadly,  of  three  parts.  The  first  (to  near  the  end  of  Book  V) 
consists  in  the  construction  of  an  ideal  commonwealth ;  it  is 
the  earliest  of  Utopias. 

One  of  the  conclusions  arrived  at  is  that  the  rulers  must  be  philo- 
sophers. Books  VI  and  VII  are  concerned  to  define  the  word 
" philosopher."  This  discussion  constitutes  the  second  section. 

The  third  section  consists  mainly  of  a  discussion  of  various 
kinds  of  actual  constitutions  and  of  their  merits  and  defects. 

The  nominal  purpose  of  the  Republic  is  to  define  "justice."  But 
at  an  early  stage  it  is  decided  that,  since  everything  is  easier  to  see 
in  the  large  than  in  the  small,  it  will  be  better  to  inquire  what 
makes  a  just  State  than  what  makes  a  just  individual.  And  since 
justice  must  be  among  the  attributes  of  the  best  imaginable  State, 
such  a  State  is  first  delineated,  and  then  it  is  decided  which  of  its 
perfections  is  to  be  called  "justice." 

Let  us  first  describe  Plato's  Utopia  in  its  broad  outlines,  and 
then  consider  points  that  arise  by  the  way. 

Plato  begins  by  deciding  that  the  citizens  are  to  be  divided  into 
three  classes:  the  common  people,  the  soldiers,  and  the  guardians. 
'I 'he  last,  alone,  are  to  have  political  power.  There  are  to  be  much 
fewer  of  them  than  of  the  other  two  classes.  In  the  first  instance, 
it  seems,  they  are  to  be  chosen  by  the  legislator;  after  that,  they 
will  usually  succeed  by  heredity,  but  in  exceptional  cases  a  pro- 
mising child  may  be  promoted  from  one  of  the  inferior  classes, 
while  among  the  children  of  guardians  a  child  or  young  man  who 
is  unsatisfactory  may  be  degraded. 

The  main  problem,  as  Plato  perceives,  is  to  insure  that  the 
guardians  shall  carry  out  the  intentions  of  the  legislator.  For  this 
purpose  he  has  various  proposals,  educational,  economic,  biological, 
and  religious.  It  is  not  always  clear  how  far  these  proposals  apply 
to  other  classes  than  the  guardians;  it  is  clear  that  some  of  them 
apply  to  the  soldiers,  but  in  the  main  Plato  is  concerned  only 
with  the  guardians?  who  are  to  be  a  class  apart,  like  the  Jesuits  in 
old  Paraguay,  the  ecclesiastics  in  the  States  of  the  Church  until 

1 19  * 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

1870,  and  the  Communist  Party  in  the  U.S.S.R.  at  the  present  day. 

The  first  thing  to  consider  is  education.  This  is  divided  into 
two  parts,  music  and  gymnastics.  Each  has  a  wider  meaning  than 
at  present:  "music"  means  everything  that  is  in  the  province  of 
the  muses,  and  "gymnastics"  means  everything  concerned  with 
physical  training  and  fitness.  "Music"  is  almost  as  wide  as  what 
we  should  call  "culture/9  and  "gymnastics"  is  somewhat  wider 
than  what  we  call  "athletics." 

Culture  is  to  be  devoted  to  making  men  gentlemen,  in  the  sense 
which,  largely  owing  to  Plato,  is  familiar  in  England.  The  Athens 
of  his  day  was,  in  one  respect,  analogous  to  England  in  the  nine- 
teenth century:  there  was  in  each  an  aristocracy  enjoying  wealth 
and  social  prestige,  but  having  no  monopoly  of  political  power; 
and  in  each  the  aristocracy  had  to  secure  as  much  power  as  it 
could  by  means  of  impressive  behaviour.  In  Plato's  Utopia, 
however,  the  aristocracy  rules  unchecked. 

Gravity,  decorum  and  courage  seem  to  be  the  qualities  mainly 
to  be  cultivated  in  education.  There  is  to  be  a  rigid  censorship 
from  very  early  years  over  the  literature  to  which  the  young  have 
access  and  the  music  they  are  allowed  to  hear.  Mothers  and  nurses 
are  to  tell  their  children  only  authorized  stories.  Homer  and 
Hesiod  are  not  to  be  allowed,  for  a  number  of  reasons.  First  they 
represent  the  gods  as  behaving  badly  on  occasion,  which  is  un- 
edifying;  the  young  must  be  taught  that  evils  never  come  from 
the  gods,  for  God  is  not  the  author  of  all  things,  but  only  of  good 
things.  Second,  there  are  things  in  Homer  and  Hesiod  which  art- 
calculated  to  make  their  readers  fear  death,  whereas  everything 
ought  to  he  done  in  education  to  make  young  people  willing  to 
die  in  battle.  Our  boys  must  be  taught  to  consider  slavery  worse 
than  death,  and  therefore  they  must  have  no  stories  of  good  men 
weeping  and  wailing,  even  for  the  death  of  friends.  Third,  decorum 
demands  that  there  should  never  be  loud  laughter,  and  yet  Homer 
speaks  of  "inextinguishable  laughter  among  the  blessed  gods/' 
How  is  a  schoolmaster  to  reprove  mirth  effectively,  if  boys  can 
quote  this  passage?  Fourth,  there  are  passages  in  Homer  praising 
rich  feasts,  and  others  describing  the  lusts  of  the  gods;  such 
passages  discourage  temperance.  (Dean  Inge,  a  true  Platonist, 
objected  to  a  line  in  a  well-known  hymn:  "The  shout  of  them 
thai  triumph,  the  song  of  them  that  feast/'  which  occurs  in  a 
description  of  die  joys  of  heaven.)  Then  there  must  be  no  stories 

130 


PLATO'S  UTOPIA 

in  which  the  wicked  are  happy  or  the  good  unhappy;  the  moral 
effect  on  tender  minds  might  be  most  unfortunate.  On  all  these 
counts,  the  poets  are  to  be  condemned. 

Plato  passes  on  to  a  curious  argument  about  the  drama.  The 
good  man,  he  says,  ought  to  be  unwilling  to  imitate  a  bad  man; 
now  most  plays  contain  villains;  therefore  the  dramatist,  and  the 
actor  who  plays  the  villain's  part,  have  to  imitate  people  guilty  of 
various  crimes.  Not  only  criminals,  but  women,  slaves,  and 
inferiors  generally,  ought  not  to  be  imitated  by  superior  men. 
(In  Greece,  as  in  Elizabethan  England,  women's  parts  were  acted 
by  men.)  Plays,  therefore,  if  permissible  at  all,  must  contain  no 
characters  except  faultless  male  heroes  of  good  birth.  The  im- 
possibility of  this  is  so  evident  that  Plato  decides  to  banish  all 
dramatists  from  his  city: 

When  any  of  these  pantomimic  gentlemen,  who  are  so  clever 
that  they  can  imitate  anything,  comes  to  us,  and  makes  a  proposal 
to  exhibit  himself  and  his  poetry,  we  will  fall  down  and  worship 
him  as  a  sweet  and  holy  and  wonderful  being;  but  we  must 
also  inform  him  that  in  our  State  such  as  he  are  not  permitted  to 
exist ;  the  law  will  not  allow  them.  And  so  when  we  have  anointed 
him  with  myrrh,  and  set  a  garland  of  wool  upon  his  head,  we  shall 
send  him  away  to  another  city. 

Next  we  come  to  the  censorship  of  music  (in  the  modern  sense). 
The  Lydian  and  Ionian  harmonies  are  to  be  forbidden,  the  first 
because  it  expresses  sorrow,  the  second  because  it  is  relaxed.  Only 
the  Dorian  (for  courage)  and  the  Phrygian  (for  temperance)  are 
to  be  allowed.  Permissible  rhythms  must  be  simple,  and  such  as 
are  expressive  of  a  courageous  and  harmonious  life. 

The  training  of  the  body  is  to  be  very  austere.  No  one  is  to  eat 
fish,  or  meat  cooked  otherwise  than  roasted,  and  there  must  be 
no  sauces  or  confectionery.  People  brought  up  on  his  regimen, 
he  says,  will  have  no  need  of  doctors. 

Up  to  a  certain  age,  the  young  are  to  sec  no  ugliness  or  vice. 
But  at  a  suitable  moment,  they  must  be  exposed  to  "enchant- 
ments/* both  in  the  shape  of  terrors  that  must  not  terrify,  and  of 
bad  pleasures  that  must  not  seduce  the  will.  Only  after  they  have 
withstood  these  tests  will  they  be  judged  fit  to  be  guardians. 

Young  boys,  before  they  are  grown  up,  should  see  war,  though 
they  should  not  themselves  fight. 

As  for  economics:  Plato  proposes  a  thoroughgoing  communism 

'31 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

for  the  guardians,  and  (I  think)  also  for  the  soldiers,  though  this 
is  not  very  clear.  The  guardians  are  to  have  small  houses  and 
simple  food ;  they  are  to  live  as  in  a  camp,  dining  together  in  com- 
panies; they  are  to  have  no  private  property  beyond  what  is 
absolutely  necessary.  Gold  and  silver  are  to  be  forbidden.  Though 
not  rich,  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be  happy;  but 
the  purpose  of  the  city  is  the  good  of  the  whole,  not  the  happiness 
of  one  class.  Both  wealth  and  poverty  are  harmful,  and  in  Plato's 
city  neither  will  exist.  There  is  a  curious  argument  about  war, 
that  it  will  be  easy  to  purchase  allies,  since  our  city  will  not  want 
any  share  in  the  spoils  of  victory. 

With  feigned  unwillingness,  the  Platonic  Socrates  proceeds  to 
apply  his  communism  to  the  family.  Friends,  he  says,  should 
have  all  things  in  common,  including  women  and  children.  He 
admits  that  this  presents  difficulties,  but  thinks  them  not  insuper- 
able. First  of  all,  girls  are  to  have  exactly  the  same  education  as 
boys,  learning  music,  gymnastics,  and  the  art  of  war  along  with 
the  boys.  Women  are  to  have  complete  equality  with  men  in  all 
respects.  "The  same  education  which  makes  a  man  a  good  guardian 
will  make  a  woman  a  good  guardian ;  for  their  original  nature  is 
the  same."  No  doubt  there  are  differences  between  men  and 
women,  but  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  politics.  Some  women 
are  philosophic,  and  suitable  as  guardians;  some  are  warlike,  and 
could  make  good  soldiers. 

The  legislator,  having  selected  the  guardians,  some  men  and 
some  women,  will  ordain  that  they  shall  all  share  common  houses 
and  common  meals.  Marriage,  as  we  know  it,  will  be  radically 
transformed.1  At  certain  festivals,  brides  and  bridegrooms,  in 
such  numbers  as  are  required  to  keep  the  population  constant, 
mil  be  brought  together,  by  lot,  as  they  will  be  taught  to  believe; 
but  in  fact  the  rulers  of  the  city  will  manipulate  the  lots  on  eugenic 
principles.  They  will  arrange  that  the  best  sires  shall  have  the 
most  children.  All  children  will  be  taken  away  from  their  parents 
at  birth,  and  great  care  will  be  taken  that  no  parents  shall  know 
who  are  their  children,  and  no  children  shall  know  who  are  their 
parents.  Deformed  children,  and  children  of  inferior  parents,  "will 
be  put  away  in  some  mysterious  unknown  place,  as  they  ought  to 
be."  Children  arising  from  unions  not  sanctioned  by  the  State 

1  "These  women  ahull  be,  without  exception,  the  common  wives  of 
these  men,  and  no  one  shall  have  a  wife  of  hit  own." 

'3* 


PLATO'S  UTOPIA 

are  to  be  considered  illegitimate.  Mothers  are  to  be  between 
twenty  and  forty,  fathers  between  twenty-five  and  fifty-five.  Out- 
side these  ages,  intercourse  is  to  be  free,  but  abortion  or  infanticide 
is  to  be  compulsory.  In  the  "marriages"  arranged  by  the  State, 
the  people  concerned  have  no  voice;  they  are  to  be  actuated  by 
the  thought  of  their  duty  to  the  State,  not  by  any  of  those  common 
emotions  that  the  banished  poets  used  to  celebrate. 

Since  no  one  knows  who  his  parents  are,  he  is  to  call  every  one 
"father"  whose  age  is  such  that  he  might  be  his  father,  and 
similarly  as  regards  "mother"  and  "brother"  and  "sister."  (This 
sort  of  thing  happens  among  some  savages,  and  used  to  puzzle 
missionaries.)  There  is  to  be  no  marriage  between  a  "father"  and 
"daughter"  or  "mother"  and  "son" ;  in  general,  but  not  absolutely, 
marriages  of  "brother"  and  "sister"  are  to  be  prevented.  (I  think 
if  Plato  had  thought  this  out  more  carefully  he  would  have  found 
that  he  had  prohibited  all  marriages,  except  the  "brother-sister" 
marriages  which  he  regards  as  rare  exceptions.) 

It  is  supposed  that  the  sentiments  at  present  attached  to  the 
words  "father,"  "mother,"  "son,"  and  "daughter"  will  still  attach 
to  them  under  Plato's  new  arrangements;  a  young  man,  for 
instance,  will  not  strike  an  old  man,  because  he  might  be  striking 
his  father. 

The  advantage  sought  is,  of  course,  to  minimize  private  pos- 
sessive emotions,  and  so  remove  obstacles  to  the  domination  of 
public  spirit,  as  well  as  to  acquiescence  in  the  absence  of  private 
property.  It  was  largely  motives  of  a  similar  kind  that  led  to  the 
celibacy  of  the  clergy.1 

I  come  last  to  the  theological  aspect  of  the  system.  I  am  not 
thinking  of  the  accepted  Greek  gods,  but  of  certain  myths  which 
the  government  is  to  inculcate.  Lying,  Plato  says  explicitly,  is  to 
be  a  prerogative  of  the  government,  just  as  giving  medicine  is  of 
physicians.  The  government,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is  to 
deceive  people  in  pretending  to  arrange  marriages  by  lot,  but  this 
is  not  a  religious  matter. 

There  is  to  be  "one  royal  lie,"  which,  Plato  hopes,  may  deceive 
the  rulers,  but  will  at  any  rate  deceive  the  rest  of  the  city.  This 
"lie"  is  set  forth  in  considerable  detail.  The  most  important  part 
of  it  is  the  dogma  that  God  has  created  men  of  three  kinds,  the 
best  made  of  gold/ the  second  best  of  silver,  and  the  common 
1  Se^  Henry  C.  1-ca,  A  History  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy. 

133 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

herd  of  brass  and  iron.  Those  made  of  gold  are  fit  to  be  guardians ; 
those  made  of  silver  should  be  soldiers;  the  others  should  do  the 
manual  work.  Usually,  but  by  no  means  always,  children  will 
belong  to  the  same  grade  as  their  parents ;  when  they  do  not,  they 
must  be  promoted  or  degraded  accordingly.  It  is  thought  hardly 
possible  to  make  the  present  generation  believe  this  myth,  but  the 
next,  and  all  subsequent  generations,  can  be  so  educated  as  not 
to  doubt  it 

Plato  is  right  in  thinking  that  belief  in  this  myth  could  be 
generated  in  two  generations.  The  Japanese  have  been  taught 
since  1868  that  the  Mikado  is  descended  from  the  sun-goddess, 
and  that  Japan  was  created  earlier  than  the  rest  of  the  world.  Any 
university  professor,  who,  even  in  a  learned  work,  throws  doubt 
on  these  dogmas,  is  dismissed  for  un-Japanese  activities.  What 
Plato  does  not  seem  to  realize  is  that  the  compulsory  acceptance 
of  such  myths  is  incompatible  with  philosophy,  and  involves  a 
kind  of  education  which  stunts  intelligence. 

The  definition  of  "justice/1  which  is  the  nominal  goal  of  the 
whole  discussion,  is  reached  in  Book  IV.  It  consists,  we  are  told, 
in  everybody  doing  his  own  work  and  not  being  a  busybody:  the 
city  is /urt  when  trader,  auxiliary,  and  guardian,  each  does  his 
own  job  without  interfering  with  that  of  other  classes. 

That  everybody  should  mind  his  own  business  is  no  doubt  an 
admirable  precept,  but  it  hardly  corresponds  to  what  a  modern 
would  naturally  call  "justice."  The  Greek  word  so  translated 
corresponded  to  a  concept  which  was  very  important  in  Greek 
thought,  but  for  which  we  have  no  exact  equivalent.  It  is  worth 
while  to  recall  what  Anaximander  said: 

Into  that  from  which  things  take  their  rise  they  pass  away  once 
more,  as  is  ordained;  for  they  make  reparation  and  satisfaction  to 
one  another  for  their  injustice  according  to  the  appointed  time. 

Before  philosophy  began,  the  Greeks  had  a  theory  or  feeling 
about  the  universe,  which  may  be  called  religious  or  ethical. 
According  to  this  theory,  every  person  and  every  thing  has  his 
or  its  appointed  place  and  appointed  function.  This  does  not 
depend  upon  the  fiat  of  Zeus,  for  Zeus  himself  is  subject  to  the 
same  kind  of  law  as  governs  others.  The  theory  is  connected  with 
the  idea  of  fate  or  necessity.  It  applies  emphatitally  to  the  heavenly 
bodies.  But  where  there  is  vigour,  there  is  a  tendency  to  overstep 

'34 


PLATO'S  UTOPIA 

just  bounds;  hence  arises  strife.  Some  kind  of  impersonal  super- 
Olympian  law  punishes  hubris,  and  restores  the  eternal  order 
which  the  aggressor  sought  to  violate.  This  whole  outlook,  ori- 
ginally, perhaps,  scarcely  conscious,  passed  over  into  philosophy; 
it  is  to  be  found  alike  in  cosmologies  of  strife,  such  as  those  of 
Heraclitus  and  Empedoclea,  and  in  monistic  doctrines  such  as 
that  of  Parmenides.  It  is  the  source  of  the  belief  both  in  natural 
and  in  human  law,  and  it  clearly  underlies  Plato's  conception  of 
justice. 

The  word  "justice,"  as  still  used  in  the  law,  is  more  similar  to 
Plato's  conception  than  it  is  as  used  in  political  speculation.  Under 
the  influence  of  democratic  theory,  we  have  come  to  associate 
justice  with  equality:  while  for  Plato  it  has  no  such  implication. 
"Justice,"  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  almost  synonymous  with 
"law" — as  when  we  speak  of  "courts  of  justice" — is  concerned 
mainly  with  property  rights,  which  have  nothing  to  do  with 
equality.  The  first  suggested  definition  of  "justice,"  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Republic,  is  that  it  consists  in  paying  debts.  This 
definition  is  soon  abandoned  as  inadequate,  but  something  of  it 
remains  at  the  end. 

There  are  several  points  to  be  noted  about  Plato's  definition. 
First,  it  makes  it  possible  to  have  inequalities  of  power  and 
privilege  without  injustice.  The  guardians  are  to  have  all  the  power, 
because  they  are  the  wisest  members  of  the  community;  injustice 
would  only  occur,  on  Plato's  definition,  if  there  were  men  in  the 
other  classes  who  were  wiser  than  some  of  the  guardians.  That  is 
why  Plato  provides  for  promotion  and  degradation  of  citizens, 
although  he  thinks  that  the  double  advantage  of  birth  and  edu- 
cation will,  in  most  cases,  make  the  children  of  guardians  superior 
to  the  children  of  others.  If  there  were  a  more  exact  science  of 
government,  and  more  certainty  of  men  following  its  precepts, 
there  would  be  much  to  be  said  for  Plato's  system.  No  one  thinks 
it  unjust  to  put  the  best  men  into  a  football  team,  although  they 
acquire  thereby  a  great  superiority.  If  football  were  managed  as 
democratically  as  the  Athenian  government  the  students  to  play 
for  their  university  would  be  chosen  by  lot.  But  in  matters  of 
government  it  is  difficult  to  know  who  has  the  most  skill,  and 
very  far  from  certain  that  a  politician  will  use  his  skill  in  the 
public  interest  rather  than  in  his  own  or  in  that  of  his  class  or 
party  or  crcfd. 

135 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

The  next  point  is  that  Plato's  definition  of  "justice"  presup- 
poses a  State  organized  either  on  traditional  lines,  or,  like  his  own, 
so  as  to  realize,  in  its  totality,  some  ethical  ideal.  Justice,  we  are 
told,  consists  in  every  man  doing  his  own  job.  But  what  is  a  man's 
job?  In  a  State  which,  like  ancient  Egypt  or  the  kingdom  of  the 
Incas,  remains  unchanged  generation  after  generation,  a  man's 
job  is  his  father's  job,  and  no  question  arises.  But  in  Plato's  State 
no  man  has  any  legal  father.  His  job,  therefore,  must  be  decided 
either  by  his  own  tastes  or  by  the  State's  judgment  as  to  his 
aptitudes.  The  latter  is  obviously  what  Plato  would  desire.  But 
some  kinds  of  work,  though  highly  skilled,  may  be  deemed 
pernicious ;  Plato  takes  this  view  of  poetry,  and  I  should  take  it 
of  the  work  of  Napoleon.  The  purposes  of  the  Government, 
therefore,  are  essential  in  determining  what  is  a  man's  job.  Al- 
though all  the  rulers  are  to  be  philosophers,  there  are  to  be  no 
innovations:  a  philosopher  is  to  be,  for  all  time,  a  man  who 
understands  and  agrees  with  Plato. 

When  we  ask:  what  will  Plato's  Republic  achieve ?  the  answer 
is  rather  humdrum.  It  will  achieve  success  in  wars  against  roughly 
equal  populations,  and  it  will  secure  a  livelihood  for  a  certain 
small  number  of  people.  It  will  almost  certainly  produce  no  art 
or  science,  because  of  its  rigidity;  in  this  respect,  as  in  others, 
it  will  be  like  Sparta.  In  spite  of  all  the  fine  talk,  skill  in  war  and 
enough  to  eat  is  all  that  will  be  achieved.  Plato  had  lived  through 
famine  and  defeat  in  Athens;  perhaps,  subconsciously,  he  thought 
the  avoidance  of  these  evils  the  best  that  statesmanship  could 
accomplish. 

A  Utopia,  if  seriously  intended,  obviously  must  embody  the 
ideals  of  its  creator.  Let  us  consider,  for  a  moment,  what  we  can 
mean  by  "ideals."  In  the  first  place,  they  are  desired  by  those 
who  believe  in  them;  but  they  are  not  desired  quite  in  the  same- 
way  as  a  man  desires  personal  comforts,  such  as  food  and  shelter. 
What  makes  the  difference  between  an  "ideal"  and  an  ordinary 
object  of  desire  is  that  the  former  is  impersonal ;  it  is  something 
having  (at  least  ostensibly)  no  special  reference  to  the  ego  of  the 
man  who  feels  the  desire,  and  therefore  capable,  theoretically, 
of  being  desired  by  everybody.  Thus  we  might  define  an  "ideal" 
as  something  desired,  not  egocentric,  and  such  that  the  person 
desiring  it  wishes  that  every  one  else  also  deiircd  it.  I  may  wish 
that  everybody  had  enough  to  eat,  that  everybody  felt  kindly 

•36 


PLATO'S  UTOPIA 

towards  everybody,  and  so  on,  and  if  I  wish  anything  of  this 
kind  I  shall  also  wish  others  to  wish  it.  In  this  way,  I  can  build 
up  what  looks  like  an  impersonal  ethic,  although  in  fact  it  rests 
upon  the  personal  basis  of  my  own  desires — for  the  desire  remains 
mine,  even  when  what  is  desired  has  no  reference  to  myself. 
For  example,  one  man  may  wish  that  everybody  understood 
science,  and  another  that  everybody  appreciated  an;  it  is  a  per- 
sonal difference  between  the  two  men  that  produces  this  difference 
in  their  desires. 

The  personal  element  becomes  apparent  as  soon  as  controversy 
is  involved.  Suppose  some  man  says:  "You  are  wrong  to  wish 
everybody  to  be  happy;  you  ought  to  desire  the  happiness  of 
Germans  and  the  unhappiness  of  everyone  else."  Here  "ought" 
may  be  taken  to  mean  that  that  is  what  the  speaker  wishes  me 
to  desire.  I  might  retort  that,  not  being  German,  it  is  psychologi- 
cally impossible  for  me  to  desire  the  unhappiness  of  all  non- 
Germans  ;  but  this  answer  seems  inadequate. 

Again,  there  may  be  a  conflict  of  purely  impersonal  ideals. 
Nietzsche's  hero  differs  from  a  Christian  saint,  yet  both  are 
impersonally  admired,  the  one  by  Nietzscheans,  the  other  by 
Christians.  How  are  we  to  decide  between  the  two  except  by 
means  of  our  own  desires?  Yet,  if  there  is  nothing  further,  an 
ethical  disagreement  can  only  be  decided  by  emotional  appeals, 
or  by  force — in  the  ultimate  resort,  by  war.  On  questions  of 
fact,  we  can  appeal  to  science  and  scientific  methods  of  obser- 
vation; but  on  ultimate  questions  of  ethics  there  seems  to  be 
nothing  analogous.  Yet,  if  this  is  really  the  case,  ethical  disputes 
resolve  themselves  into  contests  for  power — including  propaganda 
power. 

This  point  of  view,  in  a  crude  form,  is  put  forth  in  the  first 
book  of  the  Republic  by  Thrasymachus,  who,  like  almost  all  the 
characters  in  Plato's  dialogues,  was  a  real  person.  He  was  a 
Sophist  from  Chalcedon.  and  a  famous  teacher  of  rhetoric;  he 
appeared  in  the  first  comedy  of  Aristophanes,  427  B.C.  After 
Socrates  has,  for  some  time,  been  amiably  discussing  justice  with 
an  old  man  named  Cephalus,  and  with  Plato's  elder  brothers 
Glaucon  and  Adeimantus,  Thrasymachus,  who  has  been  listening 
with  growing  impatience,  breaks  in  with  a  vehement  protest 
against  such  childish  nonsense.  He  proclaims  emphatically  that 
"justice  is  lathing  else  than  the  interest  of  the  stronger." 

'37 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

This  point  of  view  is  refuted  by  Socrates  with  quibbles;  it  is 
never  fairly  faced.  It  raises  the  fundamental  question  in  ethics 
and  politics,  namely:  Is  there  any  standard  of  "good"  and  "bad," 
except  what  the  man  using  these  words  desires  ?  If  there  is  not, 
many  of  the  consequences  drawn  by  Thrasymachus  seem  unes- 
capable.  Yet  how  are  we  to  say  that  there  is  ? 

At  this  point,  religion  has,  at  first  sight,  a  simple  answer.  God 
determines  what  is  good  and  what  bad ;  the  man  whose  will  is  in 
harmony  with  the  will  of  God  is  a  good  man.  Yet  this  answer  is 
not  quite  orthodox.  Theologians  say  that  God  is  good,  and  this 
implies  that  there  is  a  standard  of  goodness  which  is  independent 
of  God's  will.  We  are  thus  forced  to  face  the  question:  Is  there 
objective  truth  or  falsehood  in  such  a  statement  as  "pleasure 
is  good/'  in  the  same  sense  as  in  such  a  statement  as  "snow  is 
white"? 

To  answer  this  question,  a  very  long  discussion  would  be 
necessary.  Some  may  think  that  we  can,  for  practical  purposes, 
evade  the  fundamental  issue,  and  say:  "I  do  not  know  what  is 
meant  by  'objective  truth,'  but  I  shall  consider  a  statement  'true* 
if  all,  or  virtually  all,  of  those  who  have  investigated  it  are  agreed 
in  upholding  it."  In  this  sense,  it  is  "true"  that  snow  is  white. 
that  Caesar  was  assassinated,  that  water  is  composed  of  hydrogen 
and  oxygen,  and  so  on.  \Ve  are  then  faced  with  a  question  of  fact: 
are  there  any  similarly  agreed  statements  in  ethics?  If  there  arc, 
they  can  be  made  the  basis  both  for  rules  of  private  conduct, 
and  for  a  theory  of  politics.  If  there  are  not,  we  are  driven  in 
practice,  whatever  may  be  the  philosophic  truth,  to  a  contest  by 
force  or  propaganda  or  both,  whenever  an  irreconcilable  ethical 
difference  exists  between  powerful  groups. 

For  Plato,  this  question  does  not  really  exist.  Although  his 
dramatic  sense  leads  him  to  state  the  position  of  Thrasymachus 
forcibly,  he  is  quite  unaware  of  its  strength,  and  allows  himself 
to  be  grossly  unfair  in  arguing  against  it.  Plato  is  convinced  that 
there  is  "the  Good,"  and  that  its  nature  can  be  ascertained; 
when  people  disagree  about  it,  one,  at  least,  is  making  an  intel- 
lectual, error  just  as  much  as  if  the  disagreement  were  a  scientific 
one  on  some  matter  of  fact. 

The  difference  between  Plato  and  Thrasymachus  is  very  impor- 
tant, but  for  the  historian  of  philosophy  it  is  one  to  be  only  noted, 
not  decided.  Plato  thinks  he  can  prove  that  his  ideal  ^Republic  is 

138 


PLATO'S  UTOPIA 

good ;  a  democrat  who  accepts  the  objectivity  of  ethics  may  think 
that  he  can  prove  the  Republic  bad;  but  anyone  who  agrees  with 
Thrasymachus  will  say:  "There  is  no  question  of  proving  or 
disproving;  the  only  question  is  whether  you  like  the  kind  of  State 
that  Plato  desires.  If  you  do,  it  is  good  for  you ;  if  you  do  not, 
it  is  bad  for  you.  If  many  do  and  many  do  not,  the  decision  cannot 
be  made  by  reason,  but  only  by  force,  actual  or  concealed."  This 
is  one  of  the  issues  in  philosophy  that  are  still  open ;  on  each  side 
there  are  men  who  command  respect.  But  for  a  very  long  time 
the  opinion  that  Plato  advocated  remained  almost  undisputed. 

It  should  be  observed,  further,  that  the  view  which  substi- 
tutes the  consensus  of  opinion  for  an  objective  standard  has 
certain  consequences  that  few  would  accept.  What  are  we  to  say 
of  scientific  innovators  like  Galileo,  who  advocate  an  opinion 
with  which  few  agree,  but  finally  win  the  support  of  almost 
everybody?  They  do  so  by  means  of  arguments,  not  by  emotional 
appeals  or  state  propaganda  or  the  use  of  force.  This  implies 
a  criterion  other  than  the  general  opinion.  In  ethical  matters, 
there  is  something  analogous  in  the  case  of  the  great  religious 
teachers.  Christ  taught  that  it  is  not  wrong  to  pluck  ears  of  corn 
on  the  Sabbath,  but  that  it  is  wrong  to  hate  your  enemies.  Such 
ethical  innovations  obviously  imply  some  standard  other  than 
majority  opinion,  but  the  standard,  whatever  it  is,  is  not  objective 
fact,  as  in  a  scientific  question.  This  problem  is  a  difficult  one, 
and  I  do  not  profess  to  be  able  to  solve  it.  For  the  present,  let  us 
be  content  to  note  it. 

Plato's  Republic,  unlike  modern  Utopias,  was  perhaps  intended 
to  be  actually  founded.  This  was  not  so  fantastic  or  impossible  as 
it  might  naturally  seem  to  us.  Many  of  its  provisions,  including 
some  that  we  should  have  thought  quite  impracticable,  were 
actually  realized  at  Sparta.  The  rule  of  philosophers  had  been 
attempted  by  Pythagoras,  and  in  Plato's  time  Archytas  the 
Pythagorean  was  politically  influential  in  Taras  (the  modern 
Taranto)  when  Plato  visited  Sicily  and  southern  Italy.  It  was 
a  common  practice  for  cities  to  employ  a  sage  to  draw  up  their 
laws;  Solon  had  done  this  for  Athens,  and  Protagoras  for  Thurii. 
Colonies,  in  those  days,  were  completely  free  from  control  by 
their  parent  cities,  and  it  would  have  been  quite  feasible  for  a 
band  of  Platonists  to  establish  the  Republic  on  the  shores  of  Spain 
or  Gaul.  Unfortunately  chance  led  Plato  to  Syracuse,  a  great 

139 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

commercial  city  engaged  in  desperate  wars  with  Cartilage;  in 
such  an  atmosphere,  no  philosopher  could  have  achieved  much. 
In  the  next  generation,  the  rise  of  Macedonia  had  made  all  small 
States  antiquated,  and  had  brought  about  the  futility  of  all 
political  experiments  in  miniature. 


140 


Chapter  XV 
THE    THEORY    OF    IDEAS 

E  I   1HE  middle  of  the  Republic,  from  the  later  part  of  Book  V 

I    to  the  end  of  Book  VII,  is  occupied  mainly  with  questions 

JL   of  pure  philosophy,  as  opposed  to  politics.  These  questions 

are  introduced  by  a  somewhat  abrupt  statement: 

Until  philosophers  are  kings,  or  the  kings  and  princes  of  this . 
world  have  the  spirit  and  power  of  philosophy,  and  political  great- 
ness and  wisdom  meet  in  one,  and  those  commoner  natures  who 
pursue  either  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  are  compelled  to  stand 
aside,  cities  will  never  have  rest  from  these  evils — no,  nor  the 
human  race,  as  I  believe — and  then  only  will  this  our  State  have 
a  possibility  of  life  and  behold  the  light  of  day. 

If  this  is  true,  we  must  decide  what  constitutes  a  philosopher, 
and  what  we  mean  by  "philosophy."  The  consequent  discussion 
is  the  most  famous  part  of  the  Republic,  and  has  perhaps  been  the 
most  influential.  It  has,  in  parts,  extraordinary  literary  beauty; 
the  reader  may  disagree  (as  1  do)  with  what  is  said,  but  cannot 
help  being  moved  by  it. 

Plato's  philosophy  rests  on  the  distinction  between  reality  and 
appearance,  which  was  first  set  forth  by  Parmenides;  throughout 
the  discussion  with  which  we  are  now  concerned,  Parmenidean 
phrases  and  arguments  are  constantly  recurring.  There  is,  however, 
a  religious  tone  about  reality,  which  is  rather  Pythagorean  than 
Parmenidean ;  and  there  is  much  about  mathematics  and  music 
which  is  directly  traceable  to  the  disciples  of  Pythagoras.  This 
combination  of  the  logic  of  Parmenides  with  the  other- worldliness 
of  Pythagoras  and  the  Orphics  produced  a  doctrine  which  was 
felt  to  be  satisfying  to  both  the  intellect  and  the  religious  emo- 
tions ;  the  result  was  a  very  powerful  synthesis,  which,  with  various 
modifications,  influenced  most  of  the  great  philosophers,  down 
to  and  including  Hegel.  But  not  only  philosophers  were  influenced 
by  Plato.  Why  did  the  Puritans  object  to  the  music  ag^^fiSUl 
and  gorgeous  ritual  of  the  Catholic  Church  ?  Yoy^ff3u|VnSh<M)| 

M^r  \  ^^'*^*4^ 

answer  in  the  tenth  book  of  the  Republic.  \V\\wG*p>  pMtoren  11 
school  compelled  no  learn  arithmetic?  The  re^gnf/fire  given  ii 
the  seventh  book. 

141 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

The  following  paragraphs  summarize  Plato's  theory  of  ideas. 
Our  question  is:  What  is  a  philosopher?  The  first  answer  is  in 
accordance  with  the  etymology :  a  philosopher  is  a  lover  of  wisdom. 
But  this  is  not  the  same  thing  as  a  lover  of  knowledge,  in  the  sense 
in  which  an  inquisitive  man  may  be  said  to  love  knowledge ;  vulgar 
curiosity  does  not  make  a  philosopher.  The  definition  is  therefore 
amended :  the  philosopher  is  a  man  who  loves  the  " vision  of  truth." 
But  what  is  this  vision  ? 

Consider  a  man  who  loves  beautiful  things,  who  makes  a  point 
of  being  present  at  new  tragedies,  seeing  new  pictures,  and  hearing 
new  music.  Such  a  man  is  not  a  philosopher,  because  he  loves 
only  beautiful  things,  whereas  the  philosopher  loves  beauty  in 
itself.  The  man  who  only  loves  beautiful  things  is  dreaming, 
whereas  the  man  who  knows  absolute  beauty  is  wide  awake. 
The  former  has  only  opinion ;  the  latter  has  knowledge. 

What  is  the  difference  between  "knowledge"  and  ''opinion"? 
The  man  who  has  knowledge  has  knowledge  of  sometliing,  that 
is  to  say,  of  something  that  exists,  for  what  does  not  exist  is 
nothing.  (This  is  reminiscent  of  Parmenides.)  Thus  knowledge 
is  infallible,  since  it  is  logically  impossible  for  it  to  be  mistaken. 
But  opinion  can  be  mistaken.  How  can  this  be?  Opinion  cannot 
be  of  what  is  not,  for  that  is  impossible ;  nor  of  what  is,  for  then 
it  would  be  knowledge.  Therefore  opinion  must  be  of  what  both 
is  and  is  not. 

But  how  is  this  possible  ?  The  answer  is  that  particular  things 
always  partake  of  opposite  characters:  what  is  beautiful  is  also, 
in  some  respects,  ugly;  what  is  just  is,  in  some  respects,  unjust; 
and  so  on.  All  particular  sensible  objects,  so  Plato  contends,  have 
this  contradictory  character;  they  are  thus  intermediate  between 
being  and  not-being,  and  are  suitable  as  objects  of  opinion,  but 
not  of  knowledge.  "But  those  who  see  the  absolute  and  eternal 
and  immutable  may  be  said  to  know,  and  not  to  have  opinion  only." 
Thus  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  opinion  is  of  the  world 
presented  to  the  senses,  whereas  knowledge  is  of  a  super-sensible 
eternal  world;  for  instance,  opinion  is  concerned  with  particular 
beautiful  things,  but  knowledge  is  concerned  with  beauty  in 
itself. 

The  only  argument  advanced  is  that  it  is  self-contradictory  to 
suppose  that  a  thing  can  be  both  beautiful  and  not  beautiful,  or 

both  just  and  not  just,  and  that  nevertheless  particular  things 

f 
142 


THE  THEORY   OF   IDEAS 

seem  to  combine  such  contradictory  characters.  Therefore  par- 
ticular things  are  not  real.  Heraclitus  had  said  "We  step  and  do 
not  step  into  the  same  rivers;  we  are  and  are  not."  By  combining 
this  with  Parmenides  we  arrive  at  Plato's  result. 

There  is,  however,  something  of  great  importance  in  Plato's 
doctrine  which  is  not  traceable  to  his  predecessors,  and  that  is 
the  theory  of  "ideas"  or  "forms."  This  theory  is  partly  logical, 
partly  metaphysical.  The  logical  part  has  to  do  with  the  meaning 
of  general  words.  There  are  many  individual  animals  of  whom  we 
can  truly  say  "this  is  a  cat."  What  do  we  mean  by  the  word  "cat"  ? 
Obviously  something  different  from  each  particular  cat.  An 
animal  is  a  cat,  it  would  seem,  because  it  participates  in  a  general 
nature  common  to  all  cats.  Language  cannot  get  on  without 
general  words  such  as  "cat,"  and  such  words  are  evidently  not 
meaningless.  But  if  the  word  "cat"  means  anything,  it  means 
something  which  is  not  this  or  that  cat,  but  some  kind  of  universal 
cattiness.  This  is  not  born  when  a  particular  cat  is  born,  and 
does  not  die  when  it  dies.  In  fact,  it  has  no  position  in  space  or 
time;  it  is  "eternal."  This  is  the  logical  part  of  the  doctrine. 
The  arguments  in  its  favour,  whether  ultimately  valid  or  not,  are 
strong,  and  quite  independent  of  the  metaphysical  part  of  the 
doctrine. 

According  to  the  metaphysical  part  of  the  doctrine,  the  word 
"cat"  means  a  certain  ideal  cat,  "the  cat,"  created  by  God,  and 
unique.  Particular  cats  partake  of  the  nature  of  the  cat,  but  more 
or  less  imperfectly;  it  is  only  owing  to  this  imperfection  that 
there  can  be  many  of  them.  The  cat  is  real ;  particular  cats  are 
only  apparent. 

In  the  last  book  of  the  Republic,  as  a  preliminary  to  a  condemna- 
tion of  painters,  there  is  a  very  clear  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of 
ideas  or  forms. 

Here  Plato  explains  that,  whenever  a  number  of  individuals 
have  a  common  name,  they  have  also  a  common  "idea"  or  "form." 
For  instance,  though  there  are  many  beds,  there  is  only  one 
"idea"  or.  "form"  of  a  bed.  Just  as  a  reflection  of  a  bed  in  a  mirror 
is  only  apparent  and  not  "real,"  so  the  various  particular  beds 
are  unreal,  being  only  copies  of  the  "idea,"  which  is  the  one  real 
bed,  and  is  made  by  God.  Of  this  one  bed,  made  by  God,  there 
cm  be  knowledge,  but  in  respect  of  the  many  beds  made  by 
carpenters  there  can  be  only  opinion.  The  philosopher,  as  such, 

'43 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

will  be  interested  only  in  the  one  ideal  bed,  not  in  the  many  beds 
found  in  the  sensible  world.  He  will  have  a  certain  indifference 
to  ordinary  mundane  affairs:  "how  can  he  who  has  magnificence 
of  mind  and  is  the  spectator  of  all  time  and  all  existence,  think 
much  of  human  life?"  The  youth  who  is  capable  of  becoming 
a  philosopher  will  be  distinguished  among  his  fellows  as  just  and 
gentle,  fond  of  learning,  possessed  of  a  good  memory  and  a 
naturally  harmonious  mind.  Such  a  one  shall  be  educated  into 
a  philosopher  and  a  guardian. 

At  this  point  Adeimantus  breaks  in  with  a  protest.  When  he  tries 
to  argue  with  Socrates,  he  says,  he  feels  himself  led  a  little  astray 
at  each  step,  until,  in  the  end,  all  his  former  notions  are  turned 
upside  down.  But  whatever  Socrates  may  say,  it  remains  the  case, 
as  any  one  can  see,  that  people  who  stick  to  philosophy  become 
strange  monsters,  not  to  say  utter  rogues ;  even  the  best  of  them 
are  made  useless  by  philosophy. 

Socrates  admits  that  this  is  true  in  the  world  as  it  is,  but  main- 
tains that  it  is  the  other  people  who  are  to  blame,  not  the  philo- 
sophers; in  a  wise  community  the  philosophers  would  not  seem 
foolish;  it  is  only  among  fools  that  the  wise  are  judged  to  be 
destitute  of  wisdom. 

What  are  we  to  do  in  this  dilemma  ?  There  were  to  have  been 
two  ways  of  inaugurating  our  Republic:  by  philosophers  becoming 
rulers,  or  by  rulers  becoming  philosophers.  The  first  way  seems 
impossible  as  a  beginning,  because  in  a  city  not  already  philo- 
sophic the  philosophers  are  unpopular.  But  a  born  prince  might 
be  a  philosopher,  and  "one  is  enough;  let  there  be  one  man  who 
has  a  city  obedient  to  his  will,  and  he  might  bring  into  existence 
the  ideal  polity  about  which  the  world  is  so  incredulous."  Plato 
hoped  that  he  had  found  such  a  prince  in  the  younger  Dionysius, 
tyrant  of  Syracuse,  but  the  young  man  turned  out  disappointingly. 
In  the  sixth  and  seventh  books  of  the  Republic,  Plato  is  concerned 
with  two  questions:  First,  what  is  philosophy?  Second,  how  can  a 
young  man  or  woman,  of  suitable  temperament,  be  so  educated 
as  to  become  a  philosopher  ? 

Philosophy,  for  Plato,  is  a  kind  of  vision,  the  "vision  of  truth." 
It  is  not  purely  intellectual ;  it  is  not  merely  wisdom,  but  low  of 
wisdom.  Spinoza's  "intellectual  love  of  God"  is  much  the  same 
intimate  union  of  thought  and  feeling.  Every  6ne  who  has  done 
any  kind  of  creative  work  has  experienced,  in  a  greater  or  less 

144 


THE   THEORY   OP   IDEAS 

degree,  the  state  of  mind  in  which,  after  long  labour,  truth  or 
beauty  appears,  or  seems  to  appear,  in  a  sudden  glory — it  may 
be  only  about  some  small  matter,  or  it  may  be  about  the  universe. 
The  experience  is,  at  the  moment,  very  convincing;  doubt  may 
come  later,  but  at  the  time  there  is  utter  certainty.  I  think  most 
of  the  best  creative  work,  in  art,  in  science,  in  literature,  and  in 
philosophy,  has  been  the  result  of  such  a  moment.  Whether  it 
comes  to  others  as  to  me,  I  cannot  say.  For  my  pan,  I  have  found 
that,  when  I  wish  to  write  a  book  on  some  subject,  I  must  first 
soak  myself  in  detail,  until  all  the  separate  parts  of  the  subject- 
matter  are  familiar;  then,  some  day,  if  I  am  fortunate,  I  perceive 
the  whole,  with  all  its  parts  duly  interrelated.  After  that,  I  only 
have  to  write  down  what  I  have  seen.  The  nearest  analogy  is 
first  walking  all  over  a  mountain  in  a  mist,  until  every  path  and 
ridge  and  valley  is  separately  familiar,  and  then,  from  a  distance, 
seeing  the  mountain  whole  and  clear  in  bright  sunshine. 

This  experience,  I  believe,  is  necessary  to  good  creative  work, 
but  it  is  not  sufficient;  indeed  the  subjective  certainty  that  it 
brings  with  it  may  be  fatally  misleading.  William  James  describes 
a  man  who  got  the  experience  from  laughing-gas;  whenever  he 
was  under  its  influence,  he  knew  the  secret  of  the  universe,  but 
when  he  came  to,  he  had  forgotten  it.  At  last,  with  immense 
effort,  he  wrote  down  the  secret  before  the  vision  had  faded. 
When  completely  recovered,  he  rushed  to  see  what  he  had  written. 
It  was:  "A  smell  of  petroleum  prevails  throughout."  What  seems 
like  sudden  insight  may  be  misleading,  and  must  be  tested  soberly, 
when  the  divine  intoxication  has  passed. 

Plato's  vision,  which  he  completely  trusted  at  the  time  when  he 
wrote  the  Republic,  needs  ultimately  the  help  of  a  parable, 
the  parable  of  the  cave,  in  order  to  convey  its  nature  to  the 
reader.  Rut  it  is  led  up  to  by  various  preliminary  discussions, 
designed  to  make  the  reader  see  the  necessity  of  the  world  of 
ideas. 

First,  the  world  of  the  intellect  is  distinguished  from  the  world 
of  the  senses ;  then  intellect  and  sense-perception  are  in  turn  each 
divided  into  two  kinds.  The  two  kinds  of  sense-perception  need 
not  concern  us ;  the  two  kinds  of  intellect  are  called,  respectively, 
"reason"  and  "understanding."  Of  these,  reason  is  the  higher 
kind ;  it  is  concerned  with  pure  ideas,  and  its  method  is  dialectic. 
Understanding  is  the  kind  of  intellect  that  is  used  in  mathematics; 

»45 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

it  is  inferior  to  reason  in  that  it  uses  hypotheses  which  it  cannot 
test.  In  geometry,  for  example,  we  say:  "Let  ABC  be  a  rectilinear 
triangle."  It  is  against  the  rules  to  ask  whether  ABC  really  is 
a  rectilinear  triangle,  although,  if  it  is  a  figure  that  we  have  drawn, 
we  may  be  sure  that  it  is  not,  because  we  can't  draw  absolutely 
straight  lines.  Accordingly,  mathematics  can  never  tell  us  what  u, 
but  only  what  would  be  if.  ...  There  are  no  straight  lines  in  the 
sensible  world;  therefore,  if  mathematics  is  to  have  more  than 
hypothetical  truth,  we  must  find  evidence  for  the  existence  of 
super-sensible  straight  lines  in  a  super-sensible  world.  This 
cannot  be  done  by  the  understanding,  but  according  to  Plato 
it  can  be  done  by  reason,  which  shows  that  there  is  a  rectilinear 
triangle  in  heaven,  of  which  geometrical  propositions  can  be 
affirmed  categorically,  not  hypothetically. 

There  is,  at  this  point,  a  difficulty  which  did  not  escape  Plato's 
notice,  and  was  evident  to  modern  idealistic  philosophers. 
We  saw  that  God  made  only  one  bed,  and  it  would  he  natural 
to  suppose  that  he  made  only  one  straight  line.  But  if  there  is  a 
heavenly  triangle,  he  must  have  made  at  least  three  straight  lines. 
Theobjects  of  geometry,  though  ideal,  must  exist  in  manycxamples ; 
we  need  the  possibility  of  two  intersecting  circles ,  and  so  on. 
This  suggests  that  geometry,  on  Plato's  theory,  should  not  be 
capable  of  ultimate  truth,  but  should  be  condemned  as  part  of 
the  study  of  appearance.  We  will,  however,  ignore  this  point, 
as  to  which  Plato's  answer  is  somewhat  obscure. 

Plato  seeks  to  explain  the  difference  between  clear  intellectual 
vision  and  the  confused  vision  of  sense-perception  by  an  analogy 
from  the  sense  of  sight.  Sight,  he  says,  differs  from  the  other  senses, 
since  it  requires  not  only  the  eye  and  the  object,  hut  also  light. 
We  see  clearly  objects  on  which  the  sun  shines:  in  twilight  we 
see  confusedly,  and  in  pitch-darkness  not  at  all.  Now  the  world 
of  ideas  is  what  we  see  when  the  object  is  illumined  by  the  sun, 
while  the  world  of  passing  things  is  a  confused  twilight  world. 
The  eye  is  compared  to  the  soul,  and  the  sun,  as  the  source  of 
light,  to  truth  or  goodness. 

The  soul  is  like  an  eye:  when  resting  upon  that  on  which  truth 
and  being  shine,  the  soul  perceives  and  understands,  and  is  radiant 
with  intelligence;  but  when  turned  towards  the  twilight  of  be- 
coming and  perishing,  then  she  has  opinion  onfy,  and  goes  blinking 
about,  and  is  first  of  one  opinion  and  then  of  another,  and  seems  to 

146 


THE  THEORY   OP   IDEAS 

have  no  intelligence.  .  .  .  Now  what  imparts  truth  to  the  known 
and  the  power  of  knowing  to  the  knower  is  what  I  would  have 
you  term  the  idea  of  good,  and  this  you  will  deem  to  be  the  cause 
of  science. 

This  leads  up  to  the  famous  simile  of  the  cave  or  den,  according 
to  which  those  who  are  destitute  of  philosophy  may  be  compared 
to  prisoners  in  a  cave,  who  are  only  able  to  look  in  one  direction 
because  they  are  bound,  and  who  have  a  fire  behind  them  and 
a  wall  in  front.  Between  them  and  the  wall  there  is  nothing; 
all  that  they  see  are  shadows  of  themselves,  and  of  objects  behind 
them,  cast  on  the  wall  by  the  light  of  the  fire.  Inevitably  they 
regard  these  shadows  as  real,  and  have  no  notion  of  the  objects 
to  which  they  are  due.  At  last  some  man  succeeds  in  escaping 
from  the  cave  to  the  light  of  the  sun ;  for  the  first  time  he  sees 
real  things,  and  becomes  aware  that  he  had  hitherto  been  deceived 
by  shadows.  If  he  is  the  sort  of  philosopher  who  is  fit  to  become 
a  guardian,  he  will  feel  it  his  duty  to  those  who  were  formerly 
his  fellow-prisoners  to  go  down  again  into  the  cave,  instruct 
them  as  to  the  truth,  and  show  them  the  way  up.  But  he  will  have 
difficulty  in  persuading  them,  because,  coming  out  of  the  sunlight, 
he  will  sec  shadows  less  clearly  than  they  do,  and  will  seem  to 
them  stupider  than  before  his  escape. 

"And  now,  I  said,  let  me  show  in  a  figure  how  far  our  nature  is 
enlightened  or  unenlightened : — Behold!  human  beings  living  in 
an  underground  den,  which  has  a  mouth  open  toward  the  light 
and  reaching  all  along  the  den;  here  they  have  been  from  their 
childhood,  and  have  their  legs  and  necks  chained  so  that  they 
cannot  move,  and  can  only  see  before  them,  being  prevented  by 
the  chains  from  turning  round  their  heads.  Above  and  behind 
them  a  fire  is  blazing  at  a  distance,  and  between  the  fire  and  the 
prisoners  there  is  a  raised  way ;  and  you  will  see,  if  you  look,  a  low 
wall  built  along  the  way,  like  the  screen  which  marionette  players 
have  in  front  of  them,  over  which  they  show  the  puppets. 

"I  see. 

"And  do  you  sec,  I  said,  men  passing  along  the  wall  carrying  all 
sorts  of  vessels,  and  statues  and  figures  of  animals  made  of  wood 
and  stone  and  various  materials,  which  appear  over  the  wall  ?  Some 
of  them  arc  talking,  others  silent. 

"You  have  shown  me  a  strange  image,  and  they  are  strange 
prisoners. 

14 Like  ourselves,  I  replied ;  and  they  see  only  their  own  shadows, 

147 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

or  the  shadows  of  one  another,  which  the  fire  throws  on  the 
opposite  wall  of  the  cave." 

The  position  of  the  good  in  Plato's  philosophy  is  peculiar. 
Science  and  truth,  he  says,  are  like  the  good,  but  the  good  has 
a  higher  place.  "The  good  is  not  essence,  but  far  exceeds  essence 
in  dignity  and  power."  Dialectic  leads  to  the  end  of  the  intellectual 
world  in  the  perception  of  the  absolute  good.  It  is  by  means  of 
the  good  that  dialectic  is  able  to  dispense  with  the  hypotheses  of 
the  mathematician.  The  underlying  assumption  is  that  reality, 
as  opposed  to  appearance,  is  completely  and  perfectly  good; 
to  perceive  the  good,  therefore,  is  to  perceive  reality.  Throughout 
Plato's  philosophy  there  is  the  same  fusion  of  intellect  and  mysti- 
cism as  in  Pythagoreanism,  but  at  this  final  culmination  mysticism 
clearly  has  the  upper  hand. 

Plato's  doctrine  of  ideas  contains  a  number  of  obvious  errors. 
But  in  spite  of  these  it  marks  a  very  important  advance  in  philo- 
sophy, since  it  is  the  first  theory  to  emphasize  the  problem  of 
universal,  which,  in  varying  forms,  has  persisted  to  the  present 
day.  Beginnings  are  apt  to  be  crude,  but  their  originality  should 
not  be  overlooked  on  this  account.  Something  remains  of  what 
Plato  had  to  say,  even  after  all  necessary  corrections  have  been 
made.  The  absolute  minimum  of  what  remains,  even  in  the  view 
of  those  most  hostile  to  Plato,  is  this:  that  we  cannot  express 
ourselves  in  a  language  composed  wholly  of  proper  names,  but 
must  have  also  general  words  such  as  "man,"  "dog,"  "cat"; 
or,  if  not  these,  then  relational  words  such  as  "similar,"  "before," 
and  so  on.  Such  words  are  not  meaningless  noises,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  they  can  have  meaning  if  the  world  consists  en- 
tirely of  particular  things,  such  as  are  designated  by  proper 
names.  There  may  be  ways  of  getting  round  this  argument,  but 
at  any  rate  it  affords  a  prima  facie  case  in  favour  of  universal*. 
I  shall  provisionally  accept  it  as  in  some  degree  valid.  But  when 
so  much  is  granted,  the  rest  of  what  Plato  says  by  no  means 
follows. 

In  the  first  place,  Plato  has  no  understanding  of  philosophical 
syntax.  I  can  say  "Socrates  is  human,"  "Plato  is  human,"  and 
so  on.  In  all  these  statements,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  word 
"human"  has  exactly  the  same  meaning.  But  whatever  it  means, 
it  means  something  which  is  not  of  the  same  kind  as  Socrates, 

-48 


THE   THEORY   OF    IDEAS 

Plato,  and  the  rest  of  the  individuals  who  compose  the  human 
race.  "Human"  is  an  adjective;  it  would  be  nonsense  to  say 
"human  is  human."  Plato  makes  a  mistake  analogous  to  saying 
"human  is  human."  He  thinks  that  beauty  is  beautiful;  he  thinks 
that  the  universal  "man"  is  the  name  of  a  pattern  man  created 
by  God,  of  whom  actual  men  are  imperfect  and  somewhat  unreal 
copies.  He  fails  altogether  to  realize  how  great  is  the  gap  between 
universals  and  particulars;  his  "ideas"  are  really  just  other  par- 
ticulars, ethically  and  aesthetically  superior  to  the  ordinary  kind* 
He  himself,  at  a  later  date,  began  to  see  this  difficulty,  as  appears 
in  the  Parmenides,  which  contains  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
cases  in  history  of  self-criticism  by  a  philosopher. 

The  Parmenides  is  supposed  to  be  related  by  Antiphon  (Plato's 
half-brother),  who  alone  remembers  the  conversation,  but  is 
now  only  interested  in  horses.  They  find  him  carrying  a  bridle, 
and  with  difficulty  persuade  him  to  relate  the  famous  discussion 
between  Parmenides,  Zeno,  and  Socrates.  This,  we  are  told,  took 
place  when  Parmenides  was  old  (about  sixty-five),  Zeno  in  middle 
life  (about  forty),  and  Socrates  quite  a  young  man.  Socrates 
expounds  the  theory  of  ideas;  he  is  sure  that  there  are  ideas  of 
likeness,  justices  beauty,  and  goodness;  he  is  not  sure  that  there 
is  an  idea  of  man ;  and  he  rejects  with  indignation  the  suggestion 
that  there  could  be  ideas  of  such  things  as  hair  and  mud  and 
dirt — though,  he  adds,  there  are  times  when  he  thinks  that  there 
is  nothing  without  an  idea.  He  runs  away  from  this  view  because 
he  is  afraid  of  falling  into  a  bottomless  pit  of  nonsense. 

"Yes,  Socrates,  said  Parmenides;  that  is  because  you  are  still 
young ;  the  time  will  come,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  when  philosophy 
will  have  a  firmer  grasp  of  you,  and  then  you  will  not  despise 
even  the  meanest  things/' 

Socrates  agrees  that,  in  his  view,  "There  are  certain  ideas  of 
which  ail  other  things  partake,  and  from  which  they  derive  their 
names;  that  similars,  for  example,  become  similar,  because  they 
partake  of  similarity;  and  great  things  become  great,  because 
they  partake  of  greatness;  and  that  just  and  beautiful  things 
become  just  and  beautiful,  because  they  partake  of  justice  and 
beauty." 

Parmenides  proceeds  to  raise  difficulties,  (a)  Does  the  individual 
partake  of  the  wh<fle  idea,  or  only  of  a  part  ?  To  either  view  there 
are  objections.  If  the  former,  one  thing  is  in  many  places  at  once; 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

if  the  latter,  the  idea  is  divisible,  and  a  thing  which  has  a  part  of 
smallness  will  be  smaller  than  absolute  smallness,  which  is  absurd. 
(b)  When  an  individual  partakes  of  an  idea,  the  individual  and 
the  idea  are  similar;  therefore  there  will  have  to  be  another  idea, 
embracing  both  the  particulars  and  the  original  idea.  And  there 
will  have  to  be  yet  another,  embracing  the  particulars  and  the 
two  ideas,  and  so  on  ad  mfintium.  Thus  every  idea,  instead  of 
being  one,  becomes  an  infinite  series  of  ideas.  (This  is  the  same 
as  Aristotle's  argument  of  the  "third  man.")  (c)  Socrates  suggests 
that  perhaps  ideas  are  only  thoughts,  but  Parmenides  points 
out  that  thoughts  must  be  of  something,  (d)  Ideas  cannot  resemble 
the  particulars  that  partake  of  them,  for  the  reason  given  in  (b) 
above.  (*)  Ideas,  if  there  are  any,  must  be  unknown  to  us,  because 
our  knowledge  is  not  absolute.  (/)  If  God's  knowledge  is  absolute, 
He  will  not  know  us,  and  therefore  cannot  rule  us. 

Nevertheless,  the  theory  of  ideas  is  not  wholly  abandoned. 
Without  ideas,  Socrates  says,  there  will  be  nothing  on  which  the 
mind  can  rest,  and  therefore  reasoning  will  be  destroyed.  Par* 
menides  tells  him  that  his  troubles  come  of  lack  of  previous 
training,  but  no  definite  conclusion  is  reached. 

I  do  not  think  that  Plato's  logical  objections  to  the  reality  of 
sensible  particulars  will  bear  examination.  He  says,  for  example, 
that  whatever  is  beautiful  is  also  in  some  respects  ugly;  what  is 
double  is  also  half;  and  so  on.  But  when  we  say  of  some  work  of 
art  that  it  is  beautiful  in  some  respects  and  ugly  in  others,  analysis 
will  always  (at  least  theoretically)  enable  us  to  say  "this  part  or 
aspect  is  beautiful,  while  that  part  or  aspect  is  ugly."  And  as 
regards  "double"  and  "half,"  these  are  relative  terms;  there  is 
no  contradiction  in  the  fact  that  2  is  double  of  i  and  half  of  4. 
Plato  is  perpetually  getting  into  trouble  through  not  understanding 
relative  terms.  He  thinks  that  if  A  is  greater  than  B  and  less  than 
C,  then  A  is  at  once  great  and  small,  which  seems  to  him  a  contra- 
diction. Such  troubles  are  among  the  infantile  diseases  of  philo- 
sophy. 

The  distinction  between  reality  and  appearance  cannot  have 
the  consequences  attributed  to  it  by  Parmenides  and  Plato  and 
Hegel.  If  appearance  really  appears,  it  is  not  nothing,  and  is 
therefore  pan  of  reality;  this  is  an  argument  of  the  correct  Par- 
menidean  sort.  If  appearance  does  not  really  appear,  why  trouble 
our  heads  about  it?  But  perhaps  some  one  will  say:  "Appearance 

150 


THE   THEORY   OF   IDEAS 

does  not  really  appear,  but  it  appears  to  appear."  This  will  not 
help,  for  we  shall  ask  again:  "Does  it  really  appear  to  appear, 
or  only  apparently  appear  to  appear?"  Sooner  or  later,  if  appear- 
ance is  even  to  appear  to  appear,  we  must  reach  something  that 
really  appears,  and  is  therefore  part  of  reality.  Plato  would  not 
dream  of  denying  that  there  appear  to  be  many  beds,  although 
there  is  only  one  real  bed,  namely  the  one  made  by  God.  But 
he  does  not  seem  to  have  faced  the  implications  of  the  fact  that 
there  are  many  appearances,  and  that  this  many-ness  is  part  of 
reality.  Any  attempt  to  divide  the  world  into  portions,  of  which 
one  is  more  "real"  than  the  other,  is  doomed  to  failure. 

Connected  with  this  is  another  curious  view  of  Plato's,  that 
knowledge  and  opinion  must  be  concerned  with  different  subject- 
matters.  We  should  say:  If  I  think  it  is  going  to  snow,  that  is 
opinion;  if  later  I  see  it  snowing,  that  is  knowledge;  but  the 
subject-matter  is  the  same  on  both  occasions.  Plato,  however, 
thinks  that  what  can  at  any  time  be  a  matter  ot  opinion  can  never 
be  a  matter  of  knowledge.  Knowledge  is  certain  and  infallible; 
opinion  is  not  merely  fallible,  but  is  necessarily  mistaken,  since  it 
assumes  the  reality  of  what  is  only  appearance.  All  this  repeats 
what  had  been  said  by  Parmenides. 

There  is  one  respect  in  which  Plato's  metaphysic  is  apparently 
different  from  that  of  Parmenides.  For  Parmenides  there  is  only 
the  One;  for  Plato,  there  are  many  ideas.  There  are  not  only 
beauty,  truth,  and  goodness,  but,  as  we  saw,  there  is  the  heavenly 
bed,  created  by  God;  there  is  a  heavenly  man,  a  heavenly  dog, 
a  heavenly  cat,  and  so  on  through  a  whole  Noah's  ark.  All  this 
however,  seems,  in  the  Republic ,  to  have  been  not  adequately 
thought  out.  A  Platonic  idea  or  form  is  not  a  thought,  thougk  it 
may  be  the  object  of  a  thought.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  God 
can  have  created  it,  since  its  being  is  timeless,  and  he  could  not 
have  decided  to  create  a  bed  unless  his  thought,  when  he  decided, 
had  had  for  its  object  that  very  Platonic  bed  which  we  are  told 
he  brought  into  existence.  What  is  timeless  must  be  uncreated. 
We  come  here  to  a  difficulty  which  has  troubled  many  philosophic 
theologians.  Only  the  contingent  world,  the  world  in  space  and 
time,  can  have  been  created;  but  this  is  the  everyday  world  which 
has  been  condemned  as  illusory  and  also  bad.  Therefore  the 
Creator,  it  would* seem,  created  only  illusion  and  evil.  Some 
Gnostics  \vere  so  consistent  as  to  adopt  this  view;  but  in  Plato 

'5* 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

the  difficulty  is  still  below  the  surface,  and  he  seems,  in  the  Repub- 
lic, to  have  never  become  aware  of  it. 

The  philosopher  who  is  to  be  a  guardian  must,  according  to 
Plato,  return  into  the  cave,  and  live  among  those  who  have  never 
seen  the  sun  of  truth.  It  would  seem  that  God  Himself,  if  He 
wishes  to  amend  His  creation,  must  do  likewise;  a  Christian 
Platonist  might  so  interpret  the  Incarnation.  But  it  remains 
completely  impossible  to  explain  why  God  was  not  content 
with  the  world  of  ideas.  The  philosopher  finds  the  cave  in  existence, 
and  is  actuated  by  benevolence  in  returning  to  it ;  but  the  Creator, 
if  He  created  everything,  might,  one  would  think,  have  avoided 
the  cave  altogether. 

Perhaps  this  difficulty  arises  only  from  the  Christian  notion 
of  a  Creator,  and  is  not  chargeable  to  Plato,  who  says  that  God 
did  not  create  everything,  but  only  what  is  good.  The  multiplicity 
of  the  sensible  world,  on  this  view,  would  have  some  other  source 
than  God.  And  the  ideas  would,  perhaps,  be  not  so  much  created 
by  God  as  constituents  of  His  essence.  The  apparent  pluralism 
involved  in  the  multiplicity  of  ideas  would  thus  not  be  ultimate. 
Ultimately  there  is  only  God,  or  the  Good,  to  whom  the  ideas  are 
adjectival.  This,  at  any  rate,  is  a  possible  interpretation  of  Plato. 
Plato  proceeds  to  an  interesting  sketch  of  the  education  proper 
to  a  young  man  who  is  to  be  a  guardian.  We  saw  that  the  young 
man  is  selected  for  this  honour  on  the  ground  of  a  combination  of 
intellectual  and  moral  qualities;  he  must  be  just  and  gentle,  fond 
of  learning,  with  a  good  memory  and  a  harmonious  mind.  The 
young  man  who  has  been  chosen  for  these  merits  will  spend  the 
years  from  twenty  to  thirty  on  the  four  Pythagorean  studies: 
arithmetic,  geometry  (plane  and  solid),  astronomy,  and  harmony. 
These  studies  are  not  to  be  pursued  in  any  utilitarian  spirit,  but 
in  order  to  prepare  his  mind  for  the  vision  of  eternal  things.  In 
astronomy,  for  example,  he  is  not  to  trouble  himself  too  much 
about  the  actual  heavenly  bodies,  but  rather  with  the  mathematics 
of  the  motion  of  ideal  heavenly  bodies.  This  may  sound  absurd  to 
modern  ears,  but,  strange  to  say,  it  proved  to  be  a  fruitful  point 
of  view  in  connection  with  empirical  astronomy.  The  way  this 
came  about  is  curious,  and  worth  considering. 

The  apparent  motions  of  the  planets,  until  they  have  been 
very  profoundly  analysed,  appear  to  be  irregular  and  complicated, 
and  not  at  all  such  &*  a  Pythagorean  Creator  would  tyvc  chosen. 

152 


THE  THEORY   OF    IDEAS 

It  was  obvious  to  every  Greek  that  the  heavens  ought  to  exemplify 
mathematical  beauty,  which  would  only  be  the  case  if  the  planets 
moved  in  circles.  This  would  be  especially  evident  to  Plato, 
owing  to  his  emphasis  on  the  good.  The  problem  thus  arose:  is 
there  any  hypothesis  which  will  reduce  the  apparent  disorderliness 
of  planetary  motions  to  order  and  beauty  and  simplicity?  If 
there  is,  the  idea  of  the  good  will  justify  us  in  asserting  this 
hypothesis.  Aristarchus  of  Samos  found  such  a  hypothesis:  that 
all  the  planets,  including  the  earth,  go  round  the  sun  in  circles. 
This  view  was  rejected  for  two  thousand  years,  partly  on  the 
authority  of  Aristotle,  who  attributes  a  rather  similar  hypothesis 
to  "the  Pythagoreans"  (De  Coelo,  293  a).  It  was  revived  by 
Copernicus,  and  its  success  might  seem  to  justify  Plato's  aesthetic 
bias  in  astronomy.  Unfortunately,  however,  Kepler  discovered 
that  the  planets  move  in  ellipses,  not  in  circles,  with  the  sun 
at  a  focus,  not  at  the  centre;  then  Newton  discovered  that  they 
do  not  move  even  in  exact  ellipses.  And  so  the  geometrical  sim- 
plicity sought  by  Plato,  and  apparently  found  by  Aristarchus  of 
Samos,  proved  in  the  end  illusory. 

This  piece  of  scientific  history  illustrates  a  general  maxim :  that 
any  hypothesis,  however  absurd,  may  be  useful  in  science,  if  it 
enables  a  discoverer  to  conceive  things  in  a  new  way;  but  that, 
when  it  has  served  this  purpose  by  luck,  it  is  likely  to  become  an 
obstacle  to  further  advance.  The  belief  in  the  good  as  the  key  to 
the  scientific  understanding  of  the  world  was  useful,  at  a  certain 
stage,  in  astronomy,  but  at  every  later  stage  it  was  harmful.  The 
ethical  and  aesthetic  bias  of  Plato,  and  still  more  of  Aristotle, 
did  much  to  kill  Greek  science. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  modern  Platonists,  with  few  exceptions, 
are  ignorant  of  mathematics,  in  spite  of  the  immense  importance 
that  Plato  attached  to  arithmetic  and  geometry,  and  the  immense 
influence  that  they  had  on  his  philosophy.  This  is  an  example 
of  the  evils  of  specialization:  a  man  must  not  write  on  Plato  unless 
he  has  spent  so  much  of  his  youth  on  Greek  as  to  have  had  no 
time  for  the  things  that  Plato  thought  important. 


'53 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

I  have  good  hope  that  there  is  yet  something  remaining  for  the 
dead,  some  far  better  thing  for  the  good  than  for  the  evil." 

Death,  says  Socrates,  is  the  separation  of  soul  and  body.  Here 
we  come  under  Plato's  dualism:  between  reality  and  appearance, 
ideas  and  sensible  objects,  reason  and  sense-perception,  soul  and 
body.  These  pairs  are  connected:  the  first  in  each  pair  is  superior 
to  the  second  both  in  reality  and  in  goodness.  An  ascetic  morality 
was  the  natural  consequence  of  this  dualism.  Christianity  adopted 
this  doctrine  in  part,  but  never  wholly.  There  were  two  obstacles. 
The  first  was  that  the  creation  of  the  visible  world,  if  Plato  was 
right,  might  seem  to  have  been  an  evil  deed,  and  therefore  the 
Creator  could  not  be  good.  The  second  was  that  orthodox  Christi- 
anity could  never  bring  itself  to  condemn  marriage,  though  it 
held  celibacy  to  be  nobler.  The  Manichaeans  were  more  consistent 
in  both  respects. 

The  distinction  between  mind  and  matter,  which  has  become 
a  commonplace  in  philosophy  and  science  and  popular  thought, 
has  a  religious  origin,  and  began  as  the  distinction  of  soul  and  body. 
The  Orphic,  as  we  saw,  proclaims  himself  the  child  of  earth  and 
of  the  starry  heaven ;  from  earth  comes  the  body,  from  heaven  the 
soul.  It  is  this  theory  that  Plato  seeks  to  express  in  the  language 
of  philosophy. 

Socrates,  in  the  Phaedo,  proceeds  at  once  to  develop  the  ascetic 
implications  of  his  doctrine,  but  his  asceticism  is  of  a  moderate  and 
gentlemanly  sort.  He  does  not  say  that  the  philosopher  should 
wholly  abstain  from  ordinary  pleasures,  but  only  that  he  should 
not  be  a  slave  to  them.  The  philosopher  should  not  care  about 
eating  and  drinking,  but  of  coune  he  should  eat  as  much  as  is 
necessary;  there  is  no  suggestion  of  fasting.  And  we  are  told  that 
Socrates,  though  indifferent  to  wine,  could,  on  occasion,  drink 
more  than  anybody  else,  without  ever  becoming  intoxicated. 
It  was  not  drinking  that  he  condemned,  but  pleasure  in  drinking. 
In  like  manner,  the  philosopher  must  not  care  for  the  pleasures 
of  love,  or  for  costly  raiment,  or  sandals,  or  other  adornments 
of  the  person.  He  must  be  entirely  concerned  with  the  soul, 
and  not  with  the  body.  "He  would  like,  as  far  as  he  can,  to  get 
away  from  the  body  and  to  turn  to  the  soul." 

It  is  obvious  that  this  doctrine,  popularized,  would  become 
ascetic,  but  in  intention  it  is  not,  properly' speaking,  ascetic. 
The  philosopher  will  not  abstain  with  an  effort  from  the  pleasures 


PLATO'S  THEORY  OF  IMMORTALITY 

of  sense,  but  will  be  thinking  of  other  things.  I  have  known  many 
philosophers  who  forgot  their  meals,  and  read  a  book  when  at 
last  they  did  eat.  These  men  were  acting  as  Plato  says  they  should: 
they  were  not  abstaining  from  gluttony  by  means  of  a  moral 
effort,  but  were  more  interested  in  other  matters.  Apparently 
the  philosopher  should  marry,  and  beget  and  rear  children,  in 
the  same  absent-minded  way,  but  since  the  emancipation  of 
women  this  has  become  more  difficult.  No  wonder  Xanthippe 
was  a  shrew. 

Philosophers,  Socrates  continues,  try  to  dissever  the  soul  from 
communion  with  thfe  body,  whereas  other  people  think  that  life  is 
not  worth  living  for  a  man  who  has  "no  sense  of  pleasure  and  no 
part  in  bodily  pleasure."  In  this  phrase,  Plato  seems — perhaps 
inadvertently — to  countenance  the  view  of  a  certain  class  of 
moralists,  that  bodily  pleasures  are  the  only  ones  that  count. 
These  moralists  hold  that  the  man  who  does  not  seek  the  pleasures 
of  sense  must  be  eschewing  pleasure  altogether,  and  living  virtu- 
ously. This  is  an  error  which  has  done  untold  harm.  In  so  far  as 
the  division  of  mind  and  body  can  be  accepted,  the  worst  pleasures, 
as  well  as  the  best,  are  mental — for  example,  envy,  and  many 
forms  of  cruelty  and  love  of  power.  Milton's  Satan  rises  superior 
to  physical  torment,  and  devotes  himself  to  a  work  of  destruction 
from  which  he  derives  a  pleasure  that  is  wholly  of  the  mind. 
Many  eminent  ecclesiastics,  having  renounced  the  pleasures  of 
sense,  and  not  being  on  their  guard  against  others,  become 
dominated  by  love  of  power,  which  led  them  to  appalling  cruelties 
and  persecutions,  nominally  for  the  sake  of  religion.  In  our  own 
day,  Hitler  belongs  to  this  type;  by  all  accounts,  the  pleasures  of 
sense  are  of  very  little  importance  to  him.  Liberation  from  the 
tyranny  of  the  body  contributes  to  greatness,  but  just  as  much  to 
greatness  in  sin  as  to  greatness  in  virtue. 

This,  however,  is  a  digression,  from  which  we  must  return  to 
Socrates. 

We  come  now  to  the  intellectual  aspect  of  the  religion  which 
Plato  (rightly  or  wrongly)  attributes  to  Socrates.  We  are  told 
that  the  body  is  a  hindrance  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  and 
that  sight  and  hearing  are  inaccurate  witnesses:  true  existence, 
if  revealed  to  the  soul  at  all,  is  revealed  in  thought,  not  in  sense. 
Ixrt  us  consider,  for* a  moment,  the  implications  of  this  doctrine. 
It  involves  a  complete  rejection  of  empirical  knowledge,  including 

157 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

all  history  and  geography.  We  cannot  know  that  there  was  such 
a  place  as  Athens,  or  such  a  man  as  Socrates;  his  death,  and  his 
courage  in  dying,  belong  to  the  world  of  appearance.  It  is  only 
through  sight  and  hearing  that  we  know  anything  about  all  this, 
and  the  true  philosopher  ignores  sight  and  hearing.  What,  then, 
is  left  to  him?  First,  logic  and  mathematics;  but  these  are  hypo- 
thetical, and  do  not  justify  any  categorical  assertion  about  the  real 
world.  The  next  step— and  this  is  the  crucial  one— depends  upon 
the  idea  of  the  good.  Having  arrived  at  this  idea,  the  philosopher 
is  supposed  to  know  that  the  good  is  the  real,  and  thus  to  be  able 
to  infer  that  the  world  of  ideas  is  the  real  world.  Later  philosophers 
had  arguments  to  prove  the  identity  of  the  real  and  the  good,  but 
Plato  seems  to  have  assumed  it  as  self-evident.  If  we  wish  to 
understand  him,  we  must,  hypothetically,  suppose  this  assumption 
justified. 

Thought  is  best,  Socrates  says,  when  the  mind  is  gathered  into 
itself,  and  is  not  troubled  by  sounds  or  sights  or  pain  or  pleasure 
but  takes  leave  of  the  body  and  aspires  after  true  being;  "and  in 
this  the  philosopher  dishonours  the  body/'  From  this  point, 
Socrates  goes  on  to  the  ideas  or  forms  or  essences.  There  is 
absolute  justice,  absolute  beauty,  and  absolute  good,  but  they  are 
not  visible  to  the  eye.  "And  I  speak  not  of  these  alone,  but  of 
absolute  greatness,  and  health,  and  strength,  and  of  the  essence 
or  true  nature  of  everything."  All  these  are  only  to  be  seen  by 
intellectual  vision.  Therefore  while  we  are  in  the  body,  and  while 
the  soul  is  infected  with  the  evils  of  the  body,  our  desire  for  truth 
Mill  not  be  satisfied. 

This  point  of  view  excludes  scientific  observation  and  experi- 
ment as  methods  for  the  attainment  of  knowledge.  The  experi- 
menter's mind  is  not  "gathered  into  itself,"  and  docs  not  aim  at 
avoiding  sounds  or  sights.  The  two  kinds  of  mental  activity  that 
can  be  pursued  by  the  method  that  Plato  recommends  are  mathe- 
matics and  mystic  insight.  This  explains  how  these  two  come  to 
be  so  intimately  combined  in  Plato  and  the  Pythagoreans. 

To  the  empiricist,  the  body  is  what  brings  us  into  touch  with 
the  world  of  external  reality,  bat  to  Plato  it  is  doubly  evil,  as  a 
distorting  medium,  causing  us  to  see  as  through  a  glass  darkly, 
and  as  a  source  of  lusts  which  distract  us  from  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge  and  the  vision  of  truth.  Some  Quotations  will  mike 
this  dear. 


PLATO'S  THEORY  OF  IMMORTALITY 

The  body  is  the  source  of  endless  trouble  to  us  by  reason  of 
the  mere  requirement  of  food;  and  is  liable  also  to  diseases  which 
overtake  and  impede  us  in  the  search  after  true  being:  it  fills  us 
full  of  loves,  and  lusts,  and  fears,  and  fancies  of  all  kinds,  and  end- 
less foolery,  and  in  fact,  as  men  say,  takes  away  from  us  all  power 
of  thinking  at  all.  Whence  come  wars,  and  fightings  and  factions? 
Whence  but  from  the  body  and  the  lusts  of  the  body?  Wars  are 
occasioned  by  the  love  of  money,  and  money  has  to  be  acquired 
for  the  sake  and  in  the  service  of  the  body;  and  by  reason  of  all 
these  impediments  we  have  no  time  to  give  to  philosophy;  and, 
last  and  worst  of  all,  even  if  we  are  at  leisure  to  betake  ourselves 
to  some  speculation,  the  body  is  always  breaking  in  upon  us, 
causing  turmoil  and  confusion  in  our  inquiries,  and  so  amazing  us 
that  we  are  prevented  from  seeing  the  truth.  It  has  been  proved 
to  us  by  experience  that  if  we  would  have  true  knowledge  of 
anything  we  must  be  quit  of  the  body — the  soul  in  herself  must 
behold  things  in  themselves:  and  then  we  shall  attain  the  wisdom 
which  we  desire,  and  of  which  we  say  we  are  lovers;  not  while  we 
live,  but  after  death ;  for  if  while  in  company  with  the  body  the 
soul  cannot  have  pure  knowledge,  knowledge  must  be  attained 
after  death,  if  at  all. 

And  thus  having  got  rid  of  the  foolishness  of  the  body  we  shall 
he  pure  and  have  converse  with  the  pure,  and  know  of  ourselves 
the  clear  light  everywhere,  which  is  no  other  than  the  light  of 
tnith.  For  the  impure  are  not  permitted  to  approach  the  pure. . .  . 
And  what  is  purification  but  the  separation  of  the  soul  from  the 
body  ?  .  .  .  And  this  separation  and  release  of  the  soul  from  the 
body  is  termed  death.  .  .  .  And  the  true  philosophers,  and  they 
only,  arc  ever  seeking  to  release  the  soul. 

There  is  one  true  coin  for  which  all  things  ought  to  be  exchanged, 
and  that  is  wisdom. 

The  founders  of  the  mysteries  would  appear  to  have  had  a  real 
meaning,  and  were  not  talking  nonsense  when  they  intimated  in 
a  figure  long  ago  that  he  who  passes  unsanctified  and  uninitiated 
into  the  world  below  will  lie  on  a  slough,  but  that  he  who  arrives 
there  after  initiation  and  purification  will  dwell  with  the  gods. 
For  many,  as  they  say  in  the  mysteries,  are  the  thyrsus-bearers,  but 
few  are  the  mystics,  meaning,  as  1  interpret  the  words,  the  true 
philosophers. 

All  this  language  is  mystical,  and  is  derived  from  the  mysteries. 
"Purity"  is  an  Orphic  conception,  having  primarily  a  ritual 
meaning,  but  for  Pilto  it  means  freedom  from  slavery  to  the  body 
and  its  needs.  It  it  interesting  to  find  him  saying  that  wars  are 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

caused  by  love  of  money,  and  that  money  is  only  needed  for  the 
service  of  the  body.  The  first  half  of  this  opinion  is  the  same  as 
that  held  by  Marx,  but  the  second  belongs  to  a  very  different  out- 
look. Plato  thinks  that  a  man  could  live  on  very  little  money  if  his 
wants  were  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  this  no  doubt  is  true.  But 
he  also  thinks  that  a  philosopher  should  be  exempt  from  manual 
labour;  he  must  therefore  live  on  wealth  created  by  others.  In  a 
very  poor  State  there  are  likely  to  be  no  philosophers.  It  was  the 
imperialism  of  Athens  in  the  age  of  Pericles  that  made  it  possible 
for  Athenians  to  study  philosophy.  Speaking  broadly,  intellectual 
goods  are  just  as  expensive  as  more  material  commodities,  and 
just  as  little  independent  of  economic  conditions.  Science  requires 
libraries,  laboratories,  telescopes,  microscopes,  and  so  on,  and 
men  of  science  have  to  be  supported  by  the  labour  of  others.  But 
to  the  mystic  all  this  is  foolishness.  A  holy  man  in  India  or  Tibet 
needs  no  apparatus,  wears  only  a  loin  cloth,  eats  only  rice,  and  is 
supported  by  very  meagre  charity  because  he  is  thought  wise. 
This  is  the  logical  development  of  Plato's  point  of  view. 

To  return  to  the  Phaedo:  Cehcs  expresses  doubt  as  to  the 
survival  of  the  soul  after  death,  and  urges  Socrates  to  offer  argu- 
ments. This  he  proceeds  to  do,  but  it  must  be  said  that  the  argu- 
ments are  very  poor. 

Tlit  first  argument  is  that  all  things  which  have  opposites  arc 
generated  from  their  opposites — a  statement  which  reminds  us  of 
Anaximander's  views  on  cosmic  justice.  Now  life  and  death  are 
opposites,  and  therefore  each  must  generate  the  other.  It  follows 
that  the  souk  of  the  dead  exist  somewhere,  and  come  back  to 
earth  in  due  course.  St.  Paul's  statement,  "the  seed  is  not 
quickened  except  it  die,"  seems  to  belong  to  some  such  theory  as 
this. 

The  second  argument  is  that  knowledge  is  recollection,  and 
therefore  the  soul  must  have  existed  before  birth.  The  theory  that 
knowledge  is  recollection  is  supported  chiefly  by  the  fact  that  we 
have  ideas,  such  as  exact  equality,  which  cannot  be  derived  from 
experience.  We  have  experience  of  approximate  equality,  but 
absolute  equality  is  never  found  among  sensible  objects,  and  yet 
we  know  what  we  mean  by  "absolute  equality."  Since  we  have 
not  learnt  this  from  experience,  we  must  have  brought  the  know- 
ledge with  us  from  a  previous  existence.  A  similar  argument,  he 
says,  applies  to  all  other  ideas.  Thus  the  existence  of  essences, 

160 


PLATO'S  THEORY  OF  IMMORTALITY 

and  our  capacity  to  apprehend  them,  proves  the  pre-existence  of 
the  soul  with  knowledge. 

The  contention  that  all  knowledge  is  reminiscence  is  developed 
at  greater  length  in  the  Meno  (82  ff.).  Here  Socrates  says  "there  is 
no  teaching,  but  only  recollection."  He  professes  to  prove  his  point 
by  having  Meno  call  in  a  slave-boy  whom  Socrates  proceeds  to 
question  on  geometrical  problems.  The  boy's  answers  are  supposed 
to  show  that  he  really  knows  geometry,  although  he  has  hitherto 
been  unaware  of  possessing  this  knowledge.  The  same  conclusion 
is  drawn  in  the  Meno  as  in  the  Phaedo,  that  knowledge  is  brought 
by  the  soul  from  a  previous  existence. 

As  to  this,  one  may  observe,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  argument 
is  wholly  inapplicable  to  empirical  knowledge.  The  slave-boy 
could  not  have  been  led  to  "remember"  when  the  Pyramids  were 
built,  or  whether  the  siege  of  Troy  really  occurred,  unless  he  had 
happened  to  be  present  at  these  events.  Only  the  sort  of  knowledge 
that  is  called  a  priori — especially  logic  and  mathematics— can  be 
possibly  supposed  to  exist  in  every  one  independently  of  experience. 
In  fact,  this  is  the  only  sort  of  knowledge  (apart  from  mystic 
insight)  that  Plato  admits  to  be  really  knowledge.  Let  us  see  how 
the  argument  can  be  met  in  regard  to  mathematics. 

Take  the  concept  of  equality.  We  must  admit  that  we  have  no 
experience,  among  sensible  objects,  of  exact  equality ;  we  see  only 
approximate  equality.  How,  then,  do  we  arrive  at  the  idea  of 
absolute  equality?  Or  do  we,  perhaps,  have  no  such  idea? 

Let  us  take  a  concrete  case.  The  metre  is  defined  as  the  length 
of  a  certain  rod  in  Paris  at  a  certain  temperature.  What  should  we 
mean  if  we  said,  of  some  other  rod,  that  its  length  was  exactly 
one  metre?  I  don't  think  \ve  should  mean  anything.  We  could 
say:  The  most  accurate  processes  of  measurement  known  to 
science  at  the  present  day  fail  to  show  that  our  rod  is  either  longer 
or  shorter  than  the  standard  metre  in  Paris.  We  might,  if  we  were 
sufficiently  rash,  add  a  prophecy  that  no  subsequent  refinements 
in  the  technique  of  measurement  will  alter  this  result.  But  this 
is  still  an  empirical  statement,  in  the  sense  that  empirical  evidence 
may  at  any  moment  disprove  it.  I  do  not  think  we  really  possess 
the  idea  of  absolute  equality  that  Plato  supposes  us  to  possess. 

But  even  if  we  do,  it  is  clear  that  no  child  possesses  it  until  it 
reaches  a  certain  afce,  and  that  the  idea  is  elidttd  by  experience, 
although  not  directly  derived  from  experience.  Moreover,  unless 

1 6l  F 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

our  existence  before  birth  was  not  one  of  sense-perception,  it 
would  have  been  as  incapable  of  generating  the  idea  as  this  life 
is;  and  if  our  previous  existence  is  supposed  to  have  been  partly 
super-sensible,  why  not  make  the  same  supposition  concerning 
our  present  existence?  On  all  these  grounds,  the  argument  fails. 

The  doctrine  of  reminiscence  being  considered  established, 
Cebes  says:  "About  half  of  what  was  required  has  been  proven; 
to  wit,  that  our  souls  existed  before  we  were  born: — that  the 
soul  will  exist  after  death  as  well  as  before  birth  is  the  other  half 
of  which  the  proof  is  still  wanting."  Socrates  accordingly  applies 
himself  to  this.  He  says  that  it  follows  from  what  was  said  about 
everything  being  generated  from  its  opposite,  according  to  which 
death  must  generate  life  just  as  much  as  life  generates  death.  But 
he  adds  another  argument,  which  had  a  longer  history  in  philo- 
sophy: that  only  what  is  complex  can  be  dissolved,  and  that  the 
soul,  like  the  ideas,  is  simple  and  not  compounded  of  parts.  What 
is  simple,  it  is  thought,  cannot  begin  or  end  or  change.  Now 
essences  are  unchanging:  absolute  beauty,  for  example,  is  always 
the  same,  whereas  beautiful  things  continually  change.  Thus 
things  seen  are  temporal,  but  things  unseen  are  eternal.  The  body 
is  seen,  but  the  soul  is  unseen ;  therefore  the  soul  is  to  be  classified 
in  the  group  of  things  that  are  eternal. 

The  soul,  being  eternal,  is  at  home  in  the  contemplation  of 
eternal  things,  that  is,  essences,  but  is  lost  and  confused  when, 
as  in  sense-perception,  it  contemplates  the  world  of  changing 
things. 

The  soul,  when  using  the  body  as  an  instrument  of  perception, 
that  is  to  say,  when  using  the  sense  of  sight  or  hearing  or  some 
other  sense  (for  the  meaning  of  perceiving  through  the  body  is 
perceiving  through  the  senses)  ...  is  then  dragged  by  the  body 
into  the  region  of  the  changeable,  and  wanders  and  is  confused ; 
the  world  spins  round  her,  and  she  is  like  a  drunkard,  when  she 
touches  change.  .  .  .  But  when  returning  into  herself  she  reflects, 
then  she  passes  into  the  other  world,  the  region  of  purity,  and 
eternity,  and  immortality,  and  unchangeableness,  which  arc  her 
kindred,  and  with  them  she  ever  lives,  when  she  is  by  herself,  and 
is  not  let  or  hindered ;  then  she  ceases  from  her  erring  ways,  and 
being  in  communion  with  the  unchanging  is  unchanging.  And  this 
state  of  the  soul  is  called  wisdom. 

The  soul  of  the  true  philosopher,  which  has,  in  life,  been 

162 


PLATO'S  THEORY  OP  IMMORTALITY 

liberated  from  thraldom  to  the  flesh,  will,  after  death,  depart  to 
the  invisible  world,  to  live  in  bliss  in  the  company  of  the  gods. 
But  the  impure  soul,  which  has  loved  the  body,  will  become  a 
ghost  haunting  the  sepulchre,  or  will  enter  into  the  body  of  an 
animal,  such  as  an  ass  or  wolf  or  hawk,  according  to  its  character. 
A  man  who  has  been  virtuous  without  being  a  philosopher  will 
become  a  bee  or  wasp  or  ant,  or  some  other  animal  of  a  gregarious 
and  social  sort. 

Only  the  true  philosopher  goes  to  heaven  when  he  dies.  "No 
one  who  has  not  studied  philosophy  and  who  is  not  entirely  pure 
at  the  time  of  his  departure  is  allowed  to  enter  the  company  of 
the  Gods,  but  the  lover  of  knowledge  only."  That  is  why  the  true 
votaries  of  philosophy  abstain  from  fleshly  lusts:  not  that  they 
fear  poverty  or  disgrace,  but  because  they  "are  conscious  that  the 
soul  was  simply  fastened  or  glued  to  the  body — until  philosophy 
received  her,  she  could  only  view  real  existence  through  the  bars 
of  a  prison,  not  in  and  through  herself,  .  .  .  and  by  reason  of  lust 
had  become  the  principal  accomplice  in  her  own  captivity."  The 
philosopher  will  be  temperate  because  "each  pleasure  and  pain 
is  a  sort  of  nail  which  nails  and  rivets  the  soul  to  the  body,  until 
si  ie  becomes  like  the  body,  and  believes  that  to  be  true  which  the 
body  affirms  to  be  true." 

At  this  point,  Simmias  brings  up  the  Pythagorean  opinion  that 
the  soul  is  a  harmony,  and  urges:  if  the  lyre  is  broken,  can  the 
harmony  survive?  Socrates  replies  that  the  soul  is  not  a  harmony, 
for  a  harmony  is  complex,  but  the  soul  is  simple.  Moreover,  he 
says,  the  view  that  the  soul  is  a  harmony  is  incompatible  with  its 
pre-existcnce,  which  was  proved  by  the  doctrine  of  reminiscence; 
for  the  harmony  does  not  exist  before  the  lyre. 

Socrates  proceeds  to  give  an  account  of  his  own  philosophical 
development,  which  is  very  interesting,  but  not  germane  to  the 
main  argument.  He  goes  on  to  expound  the  doctrine  of  ideas, 
leading  to  the  conclusion  "that  ideas  exist,  and  that  other  things 
participate  in  them  and  derive  their  names  from  them.*'  At  last 
lie  describes  the  fate  of  souls  after  death:  the  good  go  to  heaven, 
the  bad  to  hell,  the  intermediate  to  purgatory. 

His  end,  and  his  farewells,  are  described.  His  last  words  are: 
"Crito,  I  owe  a  cock  to  Asclepius;  will  you  remember  to  pay  the 
debt?"  Men  paid  A  cock  to  Asclepius  when  they  recovered  from 
tn  illness,  and  Socrates  has  recovered  from  life's  fitful  fever. 

163 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

"Of  aU  the  men  of  his  time/*  Phaedo  concludes,  "he  was  the 
wisest  and  justest  and  best." 

The  Platonic  Socrates  was  a  pattern  to  subsequent  philosophers 
for  many  ages.  What  are  we  to  think  of  him  ethically?  (I  am  con- 
cerned only  with  the  man  as  Plato  portrays  him.)  His  merits  are 
obvious.  He  is  indifferent  to  worldly  success,  so  devoid  of  fear  that 
he  remains  calm  and  urbane  and  humorous  to  the  last  moment, 
caring  more  for  what  he  believes  to  be  truth  than  for  anything 
else  whatever.  He  has,  however,  some  very  grave  defects.  He  is 
dishonest  and  sophistical  in  argument,  and  in  his  private  thinking 
he  uses  intellect  to  prove  conclusions  that  are  to  him  agreeable, 
rather  than  in  a  disinterested  search  for  knowledge.  There  is 
something  smug  and  unctuous  about  him,  which  reminds  one  of 
a  bad  type  of  cleric.  His  courage  in  the  face  of  death  would  have 
been  more  remarkable  if  he  had  not  believed  that  he  was  going 
to  enjoy  eternal  bliss  in  the  company  of  the  gods.  Unlike  some  of 
his  predecessors,  he  was  not  scientific  in  his  thinking,  but  was 
determined  to  prove  the  universe  agreeable  to  his  ethical  standards. 
This  is  treachery  to  truth,  and  the  worst  of  philosophic  sin*.  As 
a  man,  we  may  believe  him  admitted  to  the  communion  of  saints; 
but  as  a  philosopher  he  needs  a  long  residence  in  ;»  scientific 
purgatory. 


Chapter  XVII 
PLATO'S   COSMOGONY 

PLATO'S  cosmogony  is  set  forth  in  the  Timaeus,1  which  was 
translated  into  Latin  by  Cicero,  and  was,  moreover,  the 
only  one  of  the  dialogues  that  was  known  in  the  West  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Both  then,  and  earlier  in  Neoplatonism,  it 
had  more  influence  than  anything  else  in  Plato,  which  is  curious, 
as  it  certainly  contains  more  that  is  simply  silly  than  is  to  be  found 
in  his  other  writings.  As  philosophy,  it  is  unimportant,  but  his- 
torically it  was  so  influential  that  it  must  be  considered  in  some 
detail. 

The  place  occupied  by  Socrates  in  the  earlier  dialogues  i*  taken, 
in  the  Timaeus,  by  a  Pythagorean,  and  the  doctrines  of  that  school 
are  in  the  main  adopted,  including  (up  to  a  point)  the  view  that 
number-is  the  explanation  of  the  world.  There  is  first  a  summary 
of  the  first  five  books  of  the  Republic,  then  the  myth  of  Atlantis, 
which  is  said  to  have  been  an  island  off  the  Pillars  of  Hercules, 
larger  than  Libya  and  Asia  put  together.  Then  Timaeus,  who  is  a 
Pythagorean  astronomer,  proceeds  to  tell  the  history  of  the  world 
down  to  the  creation  of  man.  What  he  says  is,  in  outline,  as  follows. 
What  is  unchanging  is  apprehended  by  intelligence  and  reason ; 
what  is  changing  is  apprehended  by  opinion.  The  world,  being 
sensible,  cannot  be  eternal,  and  must  have  been  created  by  God. 
Since  God  is  good,  He  made  the  world  after  the  pattern  of  the 
eternal;  being  without  jealousy,  He  wanted  everything  as  like 
Himself  as  possible.  "God  desired  that  all  things  should  be  good, 
and  nothing  bad,  as  far  as  possible."  "Finding  the  whole  visible 
sphere  not  at  rest,  but  moving  in  an  irregular  and  disorderly 
fashion,  out  of  disorder  he  brought  order."  (Thus  it  appears  that 
Plato's  God,  unlike  the  Jewish  and  Christian  God,  did  not  create 
the  world  out  of  nothing,  but  rearranged  pre-existing  material.) 
He  put  intelligence  in  the  soul,  and  the  soul  in  the  body.  He  made 
the  world  as  a  whole  a  living  creature  having  soul  and  intelligence. 
There  is  only  one  world,  not  many,  as  various  pre-Socratics  had 

1  This  dialogue  contains  much  that  is  obscure  and  has  given  rise  to 
controversies  among  commentators.  On  the  whole,  I  find  myself  in  most 
agreement  with  Comford's  admirable  book,  Plato's  Cosmology. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

taught;  there  cannot  be  more  than  one,  since  it  is  a  created  copy 
designed  to  accord  as  closely  as  possible  with  the  eternal  original 
apprehended  by  God.  The  world  in  its  entirety  is  one  visible 
animal,  comprehending  within  itself  all  other  animals.  It  is  a 
globe,  because  like  is  fairer  than  unlike,  and  only  a  globe  is  alike 
everywhere.  It  rotates,  because  circular  motion  is  the  most  perfect ; 
and  since  this  is  its  only  motion  it  needs  no  feet  or  hands. 

The  four  elements,  fire,  air,  water,  and  earth,  each  of  which 
apparently  is  represented  by  a  number,  are  in  continued  propor- 
tion, i.e.  fire  is  to  air  as  air  is  to  water  and  as  water  is  to  earth.  God 
used  all  the  elements  in  making  the  world,  and  therefore  it  is 
perfect,  and  not  liable  to  old  age  or  disease.  It  is  harmonized  by 
proportion,  which  causes  it  to  have  the  spirit  of  friendship,  and 
therefore  to  be  indissoluble  except  by  God. 

God  made  first  the  soul,  then  the  body.  The  soul  is  compounded 
of  the  indivisible-unchangeable  and  the  divisible-changeable;  it 
is  a  third  and  intermediate  kind  of  essence. 

Here  follows  a  Pythagorean  account  of  the  planets,  leading  to 
an  explanation  of  the  origin  of  time: 

When  the  father  and  creator  saw  the  creature  which  he  had 
made  moving  and  living,  the  created  image  of  the  eternal  gods,  he 
rejoiced,  and  in  his  joy  determined  to  make  the  copy  still  more  like 
the  original ;  and  as  this  was  eternal,  he  sought  to  make  the  universe 
eternal,  so  far  as  might  be.  Now  the  nature  of  the  ideal  being  was 
everlasting,  but  to  bestow  this  attribute  in  its  fulness  upon  a 
creature  was  impossible.  Wherefore  he  resolved  to  have  a  moving 
image  of  eternity,  and  when  be  set  in  order  the  heaven,  he  made  this 
image  eternal  but  moving  according  to  number,  while  eternity 
itself  rests  in  unity;  and  this  image  we  call  Time.1 

Before  this,  there  were  no  days  or  nights.  Of  the  eternal  essence 
we  must  not  say  that  it  tvas  or  will  be ;  only  is  is  correct.  It  is  implied 
that  of  the  "moving  image  of  eternity*1  it  is  correct  to  say  that  it 
was  and  will  be. 

Time  and  the  heavens  came  into  existence  at  the  same  instant. 
God  made  the  sun  so  that  animals  could  learn  arithmetic — without 
the  succession  of  days  and  nights,  one  supposes,  we  should  not 
have  thought  of  numbers.  The  sight  of  day  and  night,  months 
and  years,  has  created  knowledge  of  number  and  given  u*  the 

1  Vaughcn  mutt  have  been  reading  this  pasngc  when  he  wrote  the 
poem  beginning  "I  saw  eternity  the  other  night." 

166 


PLATO'S  COSMOGONY 

conception  of  time,  and  hence  came  philosophy.  This  is  the 
greatest  boon  we  owe  to  sight. 

There  are  (apart  from  the  world  as  a  whole)  four  kinds  of 
animals:  gods,  birds,  fishes,  and  land  animals.  The  gods  are 
mainly  fire;  the  fixed  stars  are  divine  and  eternal  animals.  The 
Creator  told  the  gods  that  he  could  destroy  them,  but  would  not 
do  so.  He  left  it  to  them  to  make  the  mortal  part  of  all  other 
animals,  after  he  had  made  the  immortal  and  divine  part.  (This, 
like  other  passages  about  the  gods  in  Plato,  is  perhaps  not  to  be 
taken  very  seriously.  At  the  beginning,  Timaeus  says  he  seeks 
only  probability,  and  cannot  be  sure.  Many  details  are  obviously 
imaginative,  and  not  meant  literally.) 

The  Creator,  Timaeus  says,  made  one  soul  for  each  star.  Souls 
have  sensation,  love,  fear,  and  anger;  if  they  overcome  these,  they 
live  righteously,  but  if  not,  not.  If  a  man  lives  well,  he  goes,  after 
death,  to  live  happily  for  ever  in  his  star.  But  if  he  lives  badly,  he 
will,  in  the  next  life,  be  a  woman ;  if  he  (or  she)  persists  in  evil- 
doing,  he  (or  she)  will  become  a  brute,  and  go  on  through  trans- 
migrations until  at  last  reason  conquers.  God  put  some  souls  on 
earth,  some  on  the  moon,  some  on  other  planets  and  stars,  and 
left  it  to  the  gods  to  fashion  their  bodies. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  causes,  those  that  are  intelligent,  and 
those  that,  being  moved  by  others,  are,  in  turn,  compelled  to 
move  others.  The  former  are  endowed  with  mind,  and  are  the 
workers  of  things  fair  and  good,  while  the  latter  produce  chance 
effects  without  order  or  design.  Both  sorts  ought  to  be  studied, 
for  the  creation  is  mixed,  being  made  up  of  necessity  and  mind. 
(It  will  be  observed  that  necessity  is  not  subject  to  God's  power.) 
Timaeus  now  proceeds  to  deal  with  the  part  contributed  by 
necessity.1 

Earth,  air,  tire,  and  water  are  not  the  first  principles  or  letters 
or  elements;  they  are  not  even  syllables  or  first  compounds.  Fire, 
for  instance,  should  not  be  called  this,  but  such — that  is  to  say,  it 
is  not  a  substance,  but  rather  a  state  of  substance.  At  this  point, 
the  question  is  raised:  are  intelligible  essences  only  names?  The 
answer  turns,  we  are  told,  on  whether  mind  is  or  is  not  the  same 

1  Cornford  (op.  cit.)  points  out  that  "necessity"  is  not  to  be  con- 
founded with  the  modern  conception  of  a  deterministic  reign  of  law.  The 
things  that  happen  through  "necessity"  are  those  not  brought  about  by 
a  purpose :  they  are  chaotic  and  not  subject  to  laws. 

167 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

thing  as  true  opinion.  If  it  is  not,  knowledge  must  be  knowledge 
of  essences,  and  therefore  essences  cannot  be  mere  names.  Now 
mind  and  true  opinion  certainly  differ,  for  the  one  is  implanted 
by  instruction,  the  other  by  persuasion;  one  is  accompanied  by 
true  reason,  the  other  is  not;  all  men  share  in  true  opinion, 
but  mind  is  the  attribute  of  the  gods  and  of  a  very  few  among 
men. 

This  leads  to  a  somewhat  curious  theory  of  space,  as  something 
intermediate  between  the  world  of  essence  and  the  world  of 
transient  sensible  things. 

There  is  one  kind  of  being  which  is  always  the  same,  uncreated 
and  indestructible,  never  receiving  anything  into  itself  from  with- 
out, nor  itself  going  out  to  any  other,  but  invisible  and  imper- 
ceptible by  any  sense,  and  of  which  the  contemplation  is  granted 
to  intelligence  only.  And  there  is  another  nature  of  the  same  name 
with  it,  and  like  to  it,  perceived  by  sense,  created,  always  in  motion, 
becoming  in  place  and  again  vanishing  out  of  place,  which  is  appre- 
hended by  opinion  and  sense.  And  there  is  a  third  nature,  which 
is  space,  and  is  eternal,  and  admits  not  of  destruction  and  provides 
a  home  for  all  created  things,  and  is  apprehended  without  the  help 
of  sense,  by  a  kind  of  spurious  reason,  and  is  hardly  real ;  which  \vc 
beholding  as  in  a  dream,  say  of  all  existence  that  it  must  of  necessity 
be  in  some  place  and  occupy  a  space,  but  that  what  is  neither  in 
heaven  nor  on  earth  has  no  existence. 

This  is  a  very  difficult  passage,  which  I  do  not  pretend  to  under- 
stand at  all  fully.  The  theory  expressed  must,  I  think,  have  arisen 
from  reflection  on  geometry,  which  appeared  to  be  a  matter  of 
pure  reason,  like  arithmetic,  and  yet  had  to  do  with  space,  which 
was  an  aspect  of  the  sensible  world.  In  general  it  is  fanciful  to 
find  analogies  with  later  philosophers,  but  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  Kant  must  have  liked  this  view  of  space,  as  one  having  an 
affinity  with  his  own. 

The  true  elements  of  the  material  world,  Timaeus  says,  are  not 
earth,  air,  fire,  and  water,  but  two  sorts  of  right-angled  triangles, 
the  one  which  is  half  a  square  and  the  one  which  is  half  an  equi- 
lateral triangle.  Originally  everything  was  in  confusion,  and  "the 
various  elements  had  different  places  before  they  were  arranged 
so  as  to  form  the  universe/'  But  then  God  fashioned  them  by 
form  and  number,  and  "made  them  as  far  as'possible  the  fairest 
and  best,  out  of  things  which  were  not  fair  and  good."  The  above 

168 


PLATO'S  COSMOGONY 

two  sorts  of  triangles,  we  are  told,  are  the  most  beautiful  forms 
and  therefore  God  used  them  in  constructing  matter.  By  means  of 
these  two  triangles,  it  is  possible  to  construct  four  of  the  five 
regular  solids,  and  each  atom  of  one  of  the  four  elements  is  a 
regular  solid.  Atoms  of  earth  are  cubes;  of  fire,  tetrahedra;  of  air, 
octahedra ;  and  of  water,  icosahedra.  (I  shall  come  to  the  dode- 
cahedron presently.) 

The  theory  of  the  regular  solids,  which  is  set  forth  in  the 
thirteenth  book  of  Euclid,  was,  in  Plato's  day,  a  recent  discovery; 
it  was  completed  by  Theaetetus,  who  appears  as  a  very  young 
man  in  the  dialogue  that  bears  his  name.  It  was,  according  to 
tradition,  he  who  first  proved  that  there  are  only  five  kinds  of 
regular  solids,  and  discovered  the  octahedron  and  the  icosahedron.1 
The  regular  tetrahedron,  octahedron,  and  icosahedron,  have 
equilateral  triangles  for  their  faces;  the  dodecahedron  has  regular 
pentagons,  and  cannot  therefore  be  constructed  out  of  Plato's  two 
triangles.  For  this  reason  he  does  not  use  it  in  connection  with  the 
four  elements. 

As  for  the  dodecahedron,  Plato  says  only  "there  was  yet  a  fifth 
combination  which  God  used  in  the  delineation  of  the  universe." 
This  is  obscure,  and  suggests  that  the  universe  is  a  dodecahedron; 
but  elsewhere  it  is  said  to  be  a  sphere.1  The  pentagram  has  always 
been  prominent  in  magic,  and  apparently  owes  this  position  to  the 
Pythagoreans,  who  called  it  '"Health"  and  used  it  as  a  symbol  of 
recognition  of  members  of  the  brotherhood.8  It  seems  that  it  owed 
its  properties  to  the  fact  that  the  dodecahedron  has  pentagons  for 
its  faces,  and  is,  in  some  sense,  a  symbol  of  the  universe.  This 
topic  is  attractive,  but  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  much  that  is 
definite  about  it. 

After  a  discussion  of  sensation,  Timaeus  proceeds  to  explain 
the  two  souls  in  man,  one  immortal,  the  other  mortal,  one  created 
by  God,  the  other  by  the  gods.  The  mortal  soul  is  "subject  to 
terrible  and  irresistible  affections — first  of  all,  pleasure,  the 
greatest  incitement  to  evil;  then  pain,  which  deters  from  good; 
also  rashness  and  fear,  two  foolish  counsellors,  anger  hard  to  be 
appeased,  and  hope  easily  led  astray;  these  they  (the  gods)  mingled 

1  Sec  Heath,  Greek  Mathcmalic*,  Vol.  1,  pp.  159,  162,  294-296. 
1  For  a  reconciliation  of  the  two  statements,  see  Cornford,  op.  «/., 
p.  219. 
9  Heath,  of.  ri/.,  p.  161. 

169 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

with  irrational  sense  and  with  all-daring  love  according  to 
necessary  laws,  and  so  framed  men." 

The  immortal  soul  is  in  the  head,  the  mortal  in  the  breast. 

There  is  some  curious  physiology,  as,  that  the  purpose  of  the 
intestines  is  to  prevent  gluttony  by  keeping  the  food  in,  and  then 
there  is  another  account  of  transmigration.  Cowardly  or  un- 
righteous men  will,  in  the  next  life,  be  women.  Innocent  light- 
minded  men,  who  think  that  astronomy  can  be  learnt  by  looking 
at  the  stars  without  knowledge  of  mathematics,  will  become  birds ; 
those  who  have  no  philosophy  will  become  wild  land-animals; 
the  very  stupidest  will  become  fishes. 

The  last  paragraph  of  the  dialogue  sums  it  up : 

We  may  now  say  that  our  discourse  about  the  nature  of  the 
universe  has  an  end.  The  world  has  received  animals,  mortal  and 
immortal,  and  is  fulfilled  with  them,  and  has  become  a  visible 
animal  containing  the  visible — the  sensible  God  who  is  the  image 
of  the  intellectual,  the  greatest,  best,  fairest,  most  perfect-  the 
one  only-begotten  heaven. 

It  is  difficult  to  know  what  to  take  seriously  in  the  Tiwacus, 
and  what  to  regard  as  play  of  fancy.  I  think  the  account  of  the 
creation  as  bringing  order  out  of  chaos  is  to  be  taken  quite 
seriously;  so  also  is  the  proportion  between  the  four  elements,  and 
their  relation  to  the  regular  solids  and  their  constituent  triangles. 
The  accounts  of  time  and  space  are  obviously  what  Plato  believes, 
and  so  is  the  view  of  the  created  world  as  a  copy  of  an  eternal 
archetype.  The  mixture  of  necessity  and  purpose  in  the  world  is 
a  belief  common  to  practically  all  Greeks,  long  antedating  the  rise 
of  philosophy;  Plato  accepted  it,  and  thus  avoided  the  problem 
of  evil,  which  troubles  Christian  theology.  I  think  his  world- 
animal  is  seriously  meant.  But  the  details  about  transmigration, 
and  the  pan  attributed  to  the  gods,  and  other  inessentials,  are,  I 
think,  only  put  in  to  give  a  possible  concreteness. 

The  whole  dialogue,  as  I  said  before,  deserves  to  he  studied 
because  of  its  great  influence  on  ancient  and  medieval  thought; 
and  this  influence  is  not  confined  to  what  is  least  fantastic. 


170 


Chapter  XVIII 
KNOWLEDGE   AND   PERCEPTION    IN   PLATO 

MOST  modern  men  take  it  for  granted  that  empirical  know- 
ledge is  dependent  upon,  or  derived  from,  perception. 
There  is  however  in  Plato  and  among  philosophers  of 
certain  other  schools  a  very  different  doctrine,  to  the  effect  that 
there  is  nothing  worthy  to  be  called  "knowledge"  to  be  derived 
from  the  senses,  and  that  the  only  real  knowledge  has  to  do  with 
concepts.  In  this  view,  "2  +  2  =  4"  is  genuine  knowledge,  but 
such  a  statement  as  "snow  is  white"  is  so  full  of  ambiguity  and 
uncertainty  that  it  cannot  find  a  place  in  the  philosopher's  corpus 
of  truths. 

This  view  is  perhaps  traceable  to  Panne nides,  but  in  its  explicit 
form  the  philosophic  world  owes  it  to  Plato.  I  propose,  in  this 
chapter,  to  deal  with  Plato's  criticism  of  the  view  that  know- 
ledge is  the  same  thing  as  perception,  which  occupies  the  first 
half  of  the  Theaetetus. 

This  dialogue  is  concerned  to  find  a  definition  of  "knowledge," 
but  ends  without  arriving  at  any  but  a  negative  conclusion; 
several  definitions  are  proposed  and  rejected,  but  no  definition 
that  is  considered  satisfactory  is  suggested. 

The  first  of  the  suggested  definitions,  and  the  only  one  that  I 
shall  consider,  is  set  forth  by  Theaetetus  in  the  words: 

"It  seems  to  me  that  one  who  knows  something  is  perceiving 
the  thing  that  he  knows,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  see  at  present, 
knowledge  is  nothing  but  perception." 

Socrates  identifies  this  doctrine  with  that  of  Protagoras,  that 
"man  is  the  measure  of  all  thini;sv"  i.e.*that  any  given  thing  "is 
to  me  such  as  it  appears  to  me,  and  is  to  you  such  as  it  appears 
10  you."  Socrates  adds:  "Perception,  then,  is  always  something 
that  w,  and,  as  being  knowledge,  it  is  infallible." 

A  large  part  of  the  argument  that  follows  is  concerned  with  the 
characterization  of  perception;  when  once  this  is  completed,  it 
does  not  take  long  to  prove  that  such  a  thing  as  perception  has 
turned  out  to  be  cannot  be  knowledge. 

Socrates  adds  to*  the  doctrine  of  Protagoras  the  doctrine  of 
Heraclitus,  jhat  everything  is  always  changing,  i.e.  that  "all  the 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

things  we  are  pleased  to  say  'are'  really  are  in  process  of  becoming. " 
Plato  believes  this  to  be  true  of  objects  of  sense,  but  not  of  the 
objects  of  real  knowledge.  Throughout  the  dialogue,  however, 
his  positive  doctrines  remain  in  the  background. 

From  the  doctrine  of  Heraclitus,  even  if  it  be  only  applicable 
to  objects  of  sense,  together  with  the  definition  of  knowledge  as 
perception,  it  follows  that  knowledge  is  of  what  becomes,  not  of 
what  is. 

There  are,  at  this  point,  some  puzzles  of  a  very  elementary 
character.  We  are  told  that,  since  6  is  greater  than  4  but  less  than 
12,  6  is  both  great  and  small,  which  is  a  contradiction.  Again, 
Socrates  is  now  taller  than  Theaetetus,  who  is  a  youth  not  yet 
full  grown;  but  in  a  few  years  Socrates  will  be  shorter  than 
Theaetetus.  Therefore  Socrates  is  both  tall  and  short.  The  idea 
of  a  relational  proposition  seems  to  have  puzzled  Plato,  as  it  did 
most  of  the  great  philosophers  down  to  Hegel  (inclusive).  These 
puzzles,  however,  are  not  very  germane  to  the  argument,  and 
may  be  ignored. 

Returning  to  perception,  it  is  regarded  as  due  to  an  interaction 
between  the  object  and  the  sense-organ,  both  of  which,  according 
to  the  doctrine  of  Heraclitus,  are  always  changing,  and  both  of 
which,  in  changing,  change  the  percept.  Socrates  remarks  that 
when  he  is  well  he  finds  wine  sweet,  but  when  ill,  sour.  Here  it 
is  a  change  in  the  percipient  that  causes  the  change  in  the  percept. 

Certain  objections  to  the  doctrine  of  Protagoras  arc  advanced, 
and  some  of  these  are  subsequently  withdrawn.  It  is  urged  that 
Protagoras  ought  equally  to  have  admitted  pigs  and  baboons  as 
measures  of  all  things,  since  they  also  are  percipients.  Questions 
are  raised  as  to  the  validity  of  perception  in  dreams  and  in  madness. 
It  is  suggested  that,  if  Protagoras  is  right,  one  man  knows  no 
more  than  another:  not  only  is  Protagoras  as  wise  as  the  gods, 
but,  what  is  more  serious,  he  is  no  wiser  than  a  fool.  Further,  if 
one  man's  judgments  are  as  correct  as  another's,  the  people  who 
judge  that  Protagoras  is  mistaken  have  the  same  reason  to  be 
thought  right  as  he  has. 

Socrates  undertakes  to  find  an  answer  to  many  of  these  objec- 
tions, putting  himself,  for  the  moment,  in  the  place  of  Protagoras. 
As  for  dreams,  the  percepu  are  true  as  percept*.  As  for  the  argu- 
ment about  pigs  and  baboons,  this  is  dismissed  as  vulgar  abuse. 
As  for  the  argument  that,  if  each  man  U  the  measure  pf  all  things, 

172 


KNOWLEDGE   AND    PERCEPTION    IN   PLATO 

one  man  is  as  wise  as  another,  Socrates  suggests,  on  behalf  of 
Protagoras,  a  very  interesting  answer,  namely  that,  while  one 
judgment  cannot  be  truer  than  another,  it  can  be  better,  in  the 
sense  of  having  better  consequences.  This  suggests  pragmatism.1 

This  answer,  however,  though  Socrates  has  invented  it,  does 
not  satisfy  him.  He  urges,  for  example,  that  when  a  doctor  fore- 
tells the  course  of  my  illness,  he  actually  knows  more  of  my  future 
than  I  do.  And  when  men  differ  as  to  what  it  is  wise  for  the  State 
to  decree,  the  issue  shows  that  some  men  had  a  greater  knowledge 
as  to  the  future  than  others  had.  Thus  we  cannot  escape  the 
conclusion  that  a  wise  man  is  a  better  measure  of  things  than  a  fool. 

All  these  are  objections  to  the  doctrine  that  each  man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things,  and  only  indirectly  to  the  doctrine  that 
"knowledge"  means  "perception,"  in  so  far  as  this  doctrine  leads 
to  the  other.  There  is,  however,  a  direct  argument,  namely  that 
memory  must  be  allowed  as  well  as  perception.  This  is  admitted, 
and  to  this  extent  the  proposed  definition  is  amended. 

We  come  next  to  criticisms  of  the  doctrine  of  Heraclitus.  This 
is  first  pushed  to  extremes,  in  accordance,  we  are  told,  with  the 
practice  of  his  disciples  among  the  bright  youths  of  Ephesus.  A 
thing  may  change  in  two  ways,  by  locomotion,  and  by  a  change  of 
quality,  and  the  doctrine  of  flux  is  held  to  state  that  everything 
is  always  changing  in  both  respects.2  And  not  only  is  everything 
always  undergoing  some  qualitative  change,  but  everything  is 
always  changing  all  its  qualities — so,  we  are  told,  clever  people 
think  at  Ephesus.  This  has  awkward  consequences.  We  cannot 
say  "this  is  white,"  for  if  it  was  white  when  we  began  speaking  it 
will  have  ceased  to  be  white  before  we  end  our  sentence.  We 
cannot  be  right  in  saying  we  are  seeing  a  thing,  for  seeing  is 
perpetually  changing  into  not-seeing.*  If  everything  is  changing 

1  It  was  presumably  thit  passage  that  first  suggested  to  F.  C.  S.  Schiller 
his  admiration  of  Protagoras. 

1  It  seems  that  neither  Plato  nor  the  dynamic  youths  of  Ephesus  had 
noticed  that  locomotion  is  impossible  on  the  extreme  Heraclitean  doctrine. 
Motion  demands  that  a  given  thing  A  should  be  now  here,  now  there :  it 
must  remain  the  tame  thing  while  it  moves.  In  the  doctrine  that  Plato 
examines  there  is  change  of  quality  and  change  of  place,  but  not  change 
of  substance.  In  this  respect,  modern  quantum  physics  goes  further  than 
the  most  extreme  di^iples  of  Heraclitus  went  in  Plato's  time.  Plato  \\ould 
have  thought  this  fatal  to  science,  but  it  has  not  proved  so. 

*  Compaq*  the  advertisement:  "That's  Shell,  that  was.9 

173 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

in  every  kind  of  way,  seeing  has  no  right  to  be  called  seeing  rather 
than  not-seeing,  or  perception  to  be  called  perception  rather  than 
not-perception.  And  when  we  say  "perception  is  knowledge,"  we 
might  just  as  well  say  "perception  is  not-knowledge." 

What  the  above  argument  amounts  to  is  that,  whatever  else 
may  be  in  perpetual  flux,  the  meanings  of  words  must  be  fixed, 
at  least  for  a  time,  since  otherwise  no  assertion  is  definite,  and  no 
assertion  is  true  rather  than  false.  There  must  be  something  more 
or  less  constant,  if  discourse  and  knowledge  are  to  be  possible. 
This,  I  think,  should  be  admitted.  But  a  great  deal  of  flux  is 
compatible  with  this  admission. 

There  is,  at  this  point,  a  refusal  to  discuss  Parmenides,  on  the 
ground  that  he  is  too  great  and  grand.  He  is  a  "reverend  and 
awfiil  figure."  "There  was  a  sort  of  depth  in  him  that  was  alto- 
gether noble."  He  is  "one  being  whom  I  respect  above  all."  In 
these  remarks  Plato  shows  his  love  for  a  static  universe,  and  his 
dislike  of  the  Heraclitean  flux  which  he  has  been  admitting  for 
the  sake  of  argument.  But  after  this  expression  of  reverence  he 
abstains  from  developing  the  Parmenidean  alternative  to  I  leraclitus. 
We  now  reach  Plato's  final  argument  against  the  identification 
of  knowledge  with  perception.  He  begins  by  pointing  out  that  we 
perceive  through  eyes  and  ears,  rather  than  with  them,  and  he  goes 
on  to  point  out  that  some  of  our  knowledge  is  not  connected  with 
any  sense-organ.  We  can  know,  for  instance,  that  sounds  and 
colours  are  unlike,  though  no  organ  of  sense  can  perceive  both. 
There  is  no  special  organ  for  "existence  and  non-existence,  like- 
ness and  unlikeness,  sameness  and  differences,  and  also  unity  and 
numbers  in  general."  The  same  applies  to  honourable  and  dis- 
honourable, and  good  and  bad.  "The  mind  contemplates  some 
things  through  its  own  instrumentality,  others  through  the  bodily 
faculties."  We  perceive  hard  and  soft  through  touch,  but  it  is  the 
mind  that  judges  that  they  exist  and  that  they  are  contraries.  Only 
the  mind  can  reach  existence,  and  we  cannot  reach  truth  if  we  do 
not  reach  existence.  It  follows  that  we  cannot  know  things  through 
the  senses  alone,  since  through  the  senses  alone  we  cannot  know 
that  things  exist.  Therefore  knowledge  consists  in  reflection,  not 
in  impressions,  and  perception  is  not  knowledge,  because  it  "has 
no  part  in  apprehending  truth,  since  it  has  none  in  apprehending 
existence."  • 

7*o  disentangle  what  can  be  accepted  from  what  must  be  rejected 

*74 


KNOWLEDGE   AND   PERCEPTION    IN   PLATO 

in  this  argument  against  the  identification  of  knowledge  with 
perception  is  by  no  means  easy.  There  are  three  inter-connected 
theses  that  Plato  discusses,  namely: 

(1)  Knowledge  is  perception; 

(2)  Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things; 

(3)  Everything  is  in  a  state  of  flux. 

(i)  The  first  of  these,  with  which  alone  the  argument  is  pri- 
marily concerned,  is  hardly  discussed  on  its  own  account  except 
in  the  final  passage  with  which  we  have  just  been  concerned. 
Here  it  is  argued  that  comparison,  knowledge  of  existence,  and 
understanding  of  number,  are  essential  to  knowledge,  but  cannot 
be  included  in  perception  since  they  are  not  effected  through 
any  sense-organ.  The  things  to  be  said  about  these  are  different. 
Let  us  begin  with  likeness  and  unlikeness. 

That  two  shades  of  colour,  both  of  which  I  am  seeing,  are 
similar  or  dissimilar  as  the  case  may  be,  is  something  which  I, 
for  my  part,  should  accept,  not  indeed  as  a  "percept,"  but  as  a 
"judgment  of  perception.11  A  percept,  I  should  say,  is  not  know- 
ledge, but  merely  something  that  happens,  and  that  belongs 
equally  to  the  world  of  physics  and  to  the  world  of  psychology. 
We  naturally  think  of  perception,  as  Plato  does,  as  a  relation 
between  a  percipient  and  an  object:  we  say  "I  see  a  table."  But 
here  "I"  and  "table"  are  logical  constructions.  The  core  of  crude 
occurrence  is  merely  certain  patches  of  colour.  These  are  asso- 
ciated with  images  of  touch,  they  may  cause  words,  and  they  may 
become  a  source  of  memories.  The  percept  as  filled  out  with 
images  of  touch  becomes  an  "object,"  which  is  supposed  physical; 
the  percept  as  filled  out  with  words  and  memories  becomes  a 
"perception,"  which  is  part  of  a  "subject"  and  is  considered 
mental.  The  percept  is  just  an  occurrence,  and  neither  true  nor 
false;  the  percept  as  filled  out  with  words  is  a  judgment,  and 
capable  of  truth  or  falsehood.  This  judgment  I  call  a  "judgment 
of  perception."  The  proposition  "knowledge  is  perception"  must 
be  interpreted  as  meaning  "knowledge  is  judgments  of  perception." 
It  is  only  in  this  form  that  it  is  grammatically  capable  of  being 
correct. 

To  return  to  likeness  and  unlikeness,  it  is  quite  possible,  when 
I  perceive  two  colours  simultaneously,  for  their  likeness  or  unlike- 
ness to  be  part  of  the  datum,  and  to  be  asserted  in  a  judgment  of 

175 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

perception.  Plato's  argument  that  we  have  no  sense-organ  for 
perceiving  likeness  and  unlikeness  ignores  the  cortex,  and  assumes 
that  all  sense-organs  must  be  at  the  surface  of  the  body. 

The  argument  for  including  likeness  and  unlikeness  as  possible 
perceptive  data  is  as  follows.  Let  us  assume  that  we  see  two  shades 
of  colour  A  and  B,  and  that  we  judge  "A  is  like  B."  Let  us  assume 
further,  as  Plato  does,  that  such  a  judgment  is  in  general  correct, 
and,  in  particular,  is  correct  in  the  case  we  are  considering.  There 
is,  then,  a  relation  of  likeness  between  A  and  B,  and  not  merely 
a  judgment  on  our  part  asserting  likeness.  If  there  were  only  our 
judgment,  it  would  be  an  arbitrary  judgment,  incapable  of  truth 
or  falsehood.  Since  it  obviously  is  capable  of  truth  or  falsehood, 
the  likeness  can  subsist  between  A  and  B,  and  cannot  be  merely 
something  "mental."  The  judgment  "A  is  like  B"  is  true  (if  it  is 
true)  in  virtue  of  a  "fact,"  just  as  much  as  the  judgment  "A  is 
red"  or  "A  is  round."  The  mind  is  no  wore  involved  in  the  per- 
ception of  likeness  than  in  the  perception  of  colour. 

I  come  now  to  existence^  on  which  Plato  lays  great  stress.  We 
have,  he  says,  as  regards  sound  and  colour,  a  thought  which 
includes  both  at  once,  namely  that  they  exist.  Existence  belongs 
to  everything,  and  is  among  the  things  that  the  mind  apprehends 
by  itself;  without  reaching  existence,  it  is  impossible  to  reach 
truth. 

The  argument  against  Plato  here  is  quite  different  from  that 
in  the  case  of  likeness  and  unlikeness.  The  argument  here  is  that 
all  that  Plato  says  about  existence  is  bad  grammar,  or  rather  bad 
syntax.  This  point  is  important,  not  only  in  connection  with 
Plato,  but  also  with  other  matters  such  as  the  ontological  argument 
for  the  existence  of  the  Deity. 

Suppose  you  say  to  a  child  "lions  exist,  but  unicorns  don't," 
you  can  prove  your  point  so  far  as  lions  are  concerned  by  taking 
him  to  the  Zoo  and  saying  "look,  that's  a  lion."  You  will  not, 
unless  you  are  a  philosopher,  add:  "And  you  can  sec  that  that 
exists."  If,  being  a  philosopher,  you  do  add  this,  you  are  uttering 
nonsense.  To  say  "lions  exist"  means  "there  are  lions,"  i.e.  "  'x 
is  a  lion'  is  true  for  a  suitable  #."  But  we  cannot  say  of  the  suitable 
x  that  it  "exists";  we  can  only  apply  this  verb  to  a  description, 
complete  or  incomplete.  "Lion"  is  an  incomplete  description, 
because  it  applies  to  many  objects:  "The  largbst  lion  in  the  Zoo" 
is  complete,  because  it  applies  to  only  one  object. 

176 


KNOWLEDGE   AND   PERCEPTION    IN   PLATO 

Now  suppose  that  I  am  looking  at  a  bright  red  patch.  I  may 
say  "this  is  my  present  percept";  I  may  also  say  "my  present 
percept  exists";  but  I  must  not  say  "this  exists/'  because  the 
word  "exists"  is  only  significant  when  applied  to  a  description 
as  opposed  to  a  name.1  This  disposes  of  existence  as  one  of  the 
things  that  the  mind  is  aware  of  in  objects. 

I  come  now  to  understanding  of  numbers.  Here  there  are  two 
very  different  things  to  be  considered :  on  the  one  hand,  the  pro- 
positions of  arithmetic,  and  on  the  other  hand,  empirical  pro- 
positions of  enumeration.  "2  +  2  =  4"  is  of  the  former  kind;  "I 
have  ten  fingers"  is  of  the  latter. 

I  should  agree  with  Plato  that  arithmetic,  and  pure  mathematics 
generally,  is  not  derived  from  perception.  Pure  mathematics  con- 
sists of  tautologies,  analogous  to  "men  are  men,"  but  usually 
more  complicated.  To  know  that  a  mathematical  proposition  is 
correct,  we  do  not  have  to  study  the  world,  but  only  the  meanings 
of  the  symbols ;  and  the  symbols,  when  we  dispense  with  definitions 
(of  which  the  purpose  is  merely  abbreviation),  are  found  to  be 
such  words  as  "or"  and  "not,"  and  "all"  and  "some,"  which  do 
not,  like  "Socrates,"  denote  anything  in  the  actual  world.  A 
mathematical  equation  asserts  that  two  groups  of  symbols  have 
the  same  meaning;  and  so  long  as  we  confine  ourselves  to  pure 
mathematics,  this  meaning  must  be  one  that  can  be  understood 
without  knowing  anything  about  what  can  be  perceived.  Mathe- 
matical truth,  therefore,  is,  as  Plato  contends,  independent  of 
perception ;  but  it  is  truth  of  a  very  peculiar  sort,  and  is  concerned 
only  with  symbols. 

Propositions  of  enumeration,  such  as  "I  have  ten  fingers,"  are 
in  quite  a  different  category,  and  are  obviously,  at  least  in  part, 
dependent  on  perception.  Clearly  the  concept  "finger"  is  abstracted 
from  perception;  but  how  about  the  concept  "ten"?  Here  we 
may  seem  to  have  arrived  at  a  true  universal  or  Platonic  idea.  We 
cannot  say  that  "ten"  is  abstracted  from  perception,  for  any 
percept  which  can  be  viewed  as  ten  of  some  kind  of  thing  can 
equally  well  be  viewed  otherwise.  Suppose  I  give  the  name 
"digitary"  to  all  the  fingers  of  one  hand  taken  together;  then  I 
can  say  "I  have  two  digitaries,"  and  this  describes  the  same  fact 
of  perception  as  I  formerly  described  by  the  help  of  the  number 
ten.  Thus  in  the  statement  "I  have  ten  fingers"  perception  plays 
1  On  this  subject  see  the  last  chapter  of  the  present  work. 

177 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

a  smaller  part,  and  conception  a  larger  part,  than  in  such  a 
statement  as  "this  is  red."  The  matter,  however,  is  only  one  of 
degree. 

The  complete  answer,  as  regards  propositions  in  which  the 
word  "ten"  occurs,  is  that,  when  these  propositions  are  correctly 
analysed,  they  are  found  to  contain  no  constituent  corresponding 
to  the  word  "ten."  To  explain  this  in  the  case  of  such  a  large 
number  as  ten  would  be  complicated ;  let  us,  therefore,  substitute 
"I  have  two  hands."  This  means: 

"There  is  an  a  such  that  there  is  a  b  such  that  a  and  b  are  not 
identical  and  whatever  x  may  be,  lx  is  a  hand  of  mine*  is  true 
when,  and  only  when,  x  is  a  or  x  is  6." 

Here  the  word  "two"  does  not  occur.  It  is  true  that  two  letters 
a  and  b  occur,  but  we  do  not  need  to  know  that  they  are  two,  any 
more  than  we  need  to  know  that  they  are  black,  or  white,  or 
whatever  colour  they  may  happen  to  be. 

Thus  numbers  are,  in  a  certain  precise  sense,  formal.  The  facts 
which  verify  various  propositions  asserting  that  various  collections 
each  have  two  members,  have  in  common,  not  a  constituent,  but 
a  form.  In  this  they  differ  from  propositions  about  the  Statue  of 
Liberty,  or  the  moon,  or  George  Washington.  Such  propositions 
refer  to  a  particular  portion  of  space-time;  it  is  this  that  is  in 
common  between  all  the  statements  that  can  be  made  about  the 
Statue  of  Liberty.  But  there  is  nothing  in  common  among  pro- 
positions "there  are  two  so-and-so's"  except  a  common  form. 
The  relation  of  the  symbol  "two"  to  the  meaning  of  a  proposition 
in  which  it  occurs  is  far  more  complicated  than  the  relation  of  the 
symbol  "red"  to  the  meaning  of  a  proposition  in  which  it  occurs. 
We  may  say,  in  a  certain  sense,  that  the  symbol  "two"  means 
nothing,  for,  when  it  occurs  in  a  true  statement,  there  is  no 
corresponding  constituent  in  the  meaning  of  the  statement.  We 
may  continue,  if  we  like,  to  say  that  numbers  are  eternal,  im- 
mutable, and  so  on,  but  we  must  add  that  they  are  logical  fictions. 

There  is  a  further  point.  Concerning  sound  and  colour,  Plato 
says  "both  together  are  two,  and  each  of  them  is  erne."  We  have 
considered  the  two\  now  we  must  consider  the  one.  There  is  here 
a  mistake  very  analogous  to  that  concerning  existence.  The  pre- 
dicate "one"  is  not  applicable  to  things,  but  only  to  unit  classes. 
We  can  say  "the  earth  has  one  satellite,"  bdt  it  is  a  syntactical 
error  to  say  "the  moon  is  one."  For  what  can  such  an  assertion 


KNOWLEDGE   AND   PERCEPTION    IN   PLATO 

mean  ?  You  may  just  as  well  say  "the  moon  is  many/'  since  it 
has  many  parts.  To  say  "the  earth  has  one  satellite*'  is  to  give  a 
property  of  the  concept  "earth's  satellite,"  namely  the  following 
property: 

"There  is  a  c  such  that  '*  is  a  satellite  of  the  earth'  is  true  when, 
and  only  when,  x  is  £." 

This  is  an  astronomical  truth;  but  if,  for  "a  satellite  of  the 
earth/'  you  substitute  "the  moon"  or  any  other  proper  name,  the 
result  is  either  meaningless  or  a  mere  tautology.  "One,"  therefore, 
is  a  property  of  certain  concepts,  just  as  "ten"  is  a  property  of  the 
concept  "my  finger."  But  to  argue  "the  earth  has  one  satellite, 
namely  the  moon,  therefore  the  moon  is  one"  is  as  bad  as  to 
argue  "The  Apostles  were  twelve;  Peter  was  an  apostle;  therefore 
Peter  was  twelve/1  which  would  be  valid  if  for  "twelve"  we 
substituted  "white." 

The  above  considerations  have  shown  that,  while  there  is  a 
formal  kind  of  knowledge,  namely  logic  and  mathematics,  which 
is  not  derived  from  perception,  Plato's  arguments  as  regards  all 
other  knowledge  are  fallacious.  This  does  not,  of  course,  prove 
that  his  conclusion  is  false;  it  proves  only  that  he  has  given  no 
valid  reason  for  supposing  it  true. 

(2)  I  come  now  to  the  position  of  Protagoras,  that  man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things,  or,  as  it  is  interpreted,  that  each  man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things.  Mere  it  is  essential  to  decide  the  level  upon 
which  the  discussion  is  to  proceed.  It  is  obvious  that,  to  begin 
with,  we  must  distinguish  between  percepts  and  inferences.  Among 
percepts,  each  man  is  inevitably  confined  to  his  own;  what  he 
knows  of  the  percepts  of  others  he  knows  by  inference  from  his 
own  percepts  in  hearing  and  reading.  The  percepts  of  dreamers 
and  madmen,  as  percepts,  arc  just  as  good  as  those  of  others;  the 
only  objection  to  them  is  that,  as  their  context  is  unusual,  they 
are  apt  to  give  rise  to  fallacious  inferences. 

But  how  about  inferences?  Are  they  equally  personal  and 
private?  In  a  sense,  we  must  admit  that  they  are.  What  I  am  to 
believe,  1  must  believe  because  of  some  reason  that  appeals  to 
me.  It  is  true  that  my  reason  may  be  some  one  else's  assertion, 
but  that  may  be  a  perfectly  adequate  reason — for  instance,  if  I  am 
a  judge  listening  to  evidence.  And  however  Protagorean  I  may 
be,  it  is  reasonable  to  accept  the  opinion  of  an  accountant  about 
a  set  of  figures  in  preference  to  my  own,  for  1  may  have  repeatedly 

'79 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

found  that  if,  at  first,  I  disagree  with  him,  a  little  more  care  shows 
me  that  he  was  right.  In  this  sense  I  may  admit  that  another  man 
is  wiser  than  I  am.  The  Protagorean  position,  rightly  interpreted, 
does  not  involve  the  view  that  I  never  make  mistakes,  but  only 
that  the  evidence  of  my  mistakes  must  appear  to  me.  My  past  self 
can  be  judged  just  as  another  person  can  be  judged.  But  all  this 
presupposes  that,  as  regards  inferences  as  opposed  to  percepts, 
there  is  some  impersonal  standard  of  correctness.  If  any  inference 
that  I  happen  to  draw  is  just  as  good  as  any  other,  then  the  in- 
tellectual anarchy  that  Plato  deduces  from  Protagoras  does  in 
fact  follow.  On  this  point,  therefore,  which  is  an  important  one, 
Plato  seems  to  be  in  the  right.  But  the  empiricist  would  say  that 
perceptions  are  the  test  of  correctness  in  inference  in  empirical 
material. 

(3)  The  doctrine  of  universal  flux  is  caricatured  by  Plato,  and 
it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  any  one  ever  held  it  in  the  extreme 
form  that  he  gives  to  it.  Let  us  suppose,  for  example,  that  the 
colours  we  see  are  continually  changing.  Such  a  word  as  "red" 
applies  to  many  shades  of  colour,  and  if  we  say  "I  see  red,"  there 
is  no  reason  why  this  should  not  remain  true  throughout  the  time 
that  it  takes  to  say  it.  Plato  gets  his  results  by  applying  to  pro- 
cesses of  continuous  change  such  logical  oppositions  as  perceiving 
and  not-perceiving,  knowing  and  not-knowing.  Such  oppositions, 
however,  are  not  suitable  for  describing  such  processes.  Suppose, 
on  a  foggy  day,  you  watch  a  man  walking  away  from  you  along  a 
road:  he  grows  dimmer  and  dimmer,  and  there  comes  a  moment 
when  you  are  sure  that  you  no  longer  see  him,  but  there  is  an 
intermediate  period  of  doubt.  Logical  oppositions  have  been 
invented  for  our  convenience,  but  continuous  change  requires  a 
quantitative  apparatus,  the  possibility  of  which  Plato  ignores. 
What  he  says  on  this  subject,  therefore,  is  largely  beside  the  mark. 

At  the  same  time,  it  must  be  admitted  that,  unless  words,  to 
some  extent,  had  fixed  meanings,  discourse  would  be  impossible. 
Here  again,  however,  it  is  easy  to  be  too  absolute.  Words  do  change 
their  meanings;  take,  for  example,  the  word  "idea,"  It  i*  only 
by  a  considerable  process  of  education  that  we  learn  to  give  to 
this  word  something  like  the  meaning  which  Plato  gave  to  it.  It 
is  necessary  that  the  changes  in  the  meanings  of  words  should  he 
slower  than  the  changes  that  the  words  d&cribe;  but  it  is  not 
necessary  that  there  should  be  no  changes  in  the  meanings  of 

180 


KNOWLEDGE   AND    PERCEPTION    IN    PLATO 

words.  Perhaps  this  does  not  apply  to  the  abstract  words  of  logic 
and  mathematics,  but  these  words,  as  we  have  seen,  apply  only 
to  the  form,  not  to  the  matter,  of  propositions.  Here,  again,  we 
find  that  logic  and  mathematics  are  peculiar.  Plato,  under  the 
influence  of  the  Pythagoreans,  assimilated  other  knowledge  too 
much  to  mathematics.  He  shared  this  mistake  with  many  of  the 
greatest  philosophers,  but  it  was  a  mistake  none  the  less. 


181 


Chapter  XIX 
ARISTOTLE'S   METAPHYSICS 

IN  reading  any  important  philosopher,  but  most  of  all  in  reading 
Aristotle,  it  is  necessary  to  study  him  in  two  ways:  with  refer- 
ence to  his  predecessors,  and  with  reference  to  his  successors. 
In  the  former  aspect,  Aristotle's  merits  are  enormous ;  in  the  latter, 
his  demerits  are  equally  enormous.  For  his  demerits,  however,  his 
successors  are  more  responsible  than  he  is.  He  came  at  the  end  of 
the  creative  period  in  Greek  thought,  and  after  his  death  it  was 
two  thousand  years  before  the  world  produced  any  philosopher 
who  could  be  regarded  as  approximately  his  equal.  Towards  the 
end  of  this  long  period  his  authority  had  become  almost  as  un- 
questioned as  that  of  the  Church,  and  in  science,  as  well  as  in 
philosophy,  had  become  a  serious  obstacle  to  progress.  Ever  since 
the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  almost  every  serious 
intellectual  advance  has  had  to  begin  with  an  attack  on  some 
Aristotelian  doctrine;  in  logic,  this  is  still  true  at  the  present  day. 
But  it  would  have  been  at  least  as  disastrous  if  any  of  his  pre- 
decessors (except  perhaps  Democritus)  had  acquired  equal 
authority.  To  do  him  justice,  we  must,  to  bejrin  with,  forget  his 
excessive  posthumous  fame,  and  the  equally  excessive  posthumous 
condemnation  to  which  it  led. 

Aristotle  was  born,  probably  in  384  B.C.,  at  Stagira  in  Thrace. 
His  father  had  inherited  the  position  of  family  physician  to  the 
king  of  Macedonia.  At  about  the  age  of  eighteen  Aristotle  came 
to  Athens  and  became  a  pupil  of  Plato ;  he  remained  in  the  Aca- 
demy for  nearly  twenty  years,  until  the  death  of  Plato  in  348-7  B.C. 
I  le  then  travelled  for  a  time,  and  married  either  the  sister  or  the 
niece  of  a  tyrant  named  Hermias.  (Scandal  said  she  was  the 
daughter  or  concubine  of  Hermias,  but  both  stories  are  disproved 
by  the  fact  that  he  was  a  eunuch.)  In  343  B.C.  he  became  tutor  to 
Alexander,  then  thirteen  years  old,  and  continued  in  that  position 
until,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  Alexander  was  pronounced  by  his 
father  to  be  of  age,  and  was  appointed  regent  during  Philip's 
absence.  Everything  one  would  wish  to  know  of  the  relations  of 
Aristotle  and  Alexander  is  unascertainable,  the  more  so  as  legends 
were  soon  invented  on  the  subject.  There  are  letters  between  them 

182 


ARISTOTLE'S   METAPHYSICS 

which  are  generally  regarded  as  forgeries.  People  who  admire 
both  men  suppose  that  the  tutor  influenced  the  pupil.  Hegel 
thinks  that  Alexander's  career  shows  the  practical  usefulness  of 
philosophy.  As  to  this,  A.  W.  Benn  says:  "It  would  be  unfortunate 
if  philosophy  had  no  better  testimonial  to  show  for  herself  than 
the  character  of  Alexander.  .  .  .  Arrogant,  drunken,  cruel, 
vindictive,  and  grossly  superstitious,  he  united  the  vices  of  a 
Highland  chieftain  to  the  frenzy  of  an  Oriental  despot."1 

For  my  part,  while  I  agree  with  Benn  about  the  character  of 
Alexander,  I  nevertheless  think  that  his  work  was  enormously 
important  and  enormously  beneficial,  since,  but  for  him,  the  whole 
tradition  of  Hellenic  civilization  might  well  have  perished.  As 
to  Aristotle's  influence  on  him,  we  are  left  free  to  conjecture 
whatever  seems  to  us  most  plausible.  For  my  part,  I  should 
suppose  it  nil.  Alexander  was  an  ambitious  and  passionate  boy, 
on  bad  terms  with  his  father,  and  presumably  impatient  of 
schooling.  Aristotle  thought  no  State  should  have  as  many  as  one 
hundred  thousand  citizens,2  and  preached  the  doctrine  of  the 
golden  mean.  I  cannot  imagine  his  pupil  regarding  him  as  any- 
thing but  a  prosy  old  pedant,  set  over  him  by  his  father  to  keep 
him  out  of  mischief.  Alexander,  it  is  true,  had  a  certain  snobbish 
respect  for  Athenian  civilization,  but  this  was  common  to  his 
whole  dynasty,  who  wished  to  prove  that  they  were  not  barbarians. 
It  was  analogous  to  the  feeline;  of  nineteenth-century  Russian 
aristocrats  for  Paris.  This,  therefore,  was  not  attributable  to 
Aristotle's  influence.  And  I  do  not  see  anything  else  in  Alexander 
that  could  possibly  have  come  from  this  source. 

It  is  more  surprising  that  Alexander  had  so  little  influence  on 
Aristotle,  whose  speculations  on  politics  were  blandly  oblivious 
of  the  fact  that  the  era  of  City  States  had  given  \vay  to  the  era  of 
empires.  I  suspect  that  Aristotle,  to  the  end,  thought  of  him  as 
"that  idle  and  headstrong'  boy,  who  never  could  understand  any- 
thing of  philosophy/*  On  the  whole,  the  contacts  of  these  two 
great  men  seem  to  have  been  as  unfruitful  as  if  they  had  lived  in 
different  worlds. 

From  335  B.C.  to  323  B.C.  (in  which  latter  year  Alexander  died), 
Aristotle  lived  at  Athens.  It  was  during  these  twelve  years  that  he 
founded  his  school  and  wrote  most  of  his  books.  At  the  death  of 
Alexander,  the  Athenians  rebelled,  and  turned  on  his  friends, 

1  Tht  Cree^  Philosophers,  Vol.  I,  p.  285.  *  Ethics,  11708. 

183 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

including  Aristotle,  who  was  indicted  for  impiety,  but,  unlike 
Socrates,  fled  to  avoid  punishment.  In  the  next  year  (322)  he  died. 

Aristotle,  as  a  philosopher,  is  in  many  ways  very  different  from 
all  his  predecessors.  He  is  the  first  to  write  like  a  professor:  his 
treatises  are  systematic,  his  discussions  are  divided  into  heads, 
he  is  a  professional  teacher,  not  an  inspired  prophet.  His  work  is 
critical,  careful,  pedestrian,  without  any  trace  of  Bacchic  en- 
thusiasm. The  Orphic  elements  in  Plato  are  watered  down  in 
Aristotle,  and  mixed  with  a  strong  dose  of  common  sense;  where 
he  is  Platonic,  one  feels  that  his  natural  temperament  has  been 
overpowered  by  the  teaching  to  which  he  has  been  subjected.  He 
is  not  passionate,  or  in  any  profound  sense  religious.  The  errors 
of  his  predecessors  were  the  glorious  errors  of  youth  attempting 
the  impossible ;  his  errors  are  those  of  age  which  cannot  free  itself 
of  habitual  prejudices.  He  is  best  in  detail  and  in  criticism;  he 
fails  in  large  construction,  for  lack  of  fundamental  clarity  and 
Titanic  fire. 

It  is  difficult  to  decide  at  what  point  to  begin  an  account  of 
Aristotle's  metaphysics,  but  perhaps  the  best  place  is  his  criticism 
of  the  theory  of  ideas  and  his  own  alternative  doctrine  of  uni- 
versals.  He  advances  against  the  theory  of  ideas  a  number  of  very 
good  arguments,  most  of  which  are  already  to  be  found  in  Plato's 
Parmenides.  The  strongest  argument  is  that  of  the  "third  man": 
if  a  man  is  a  man  because  he  resembles  the  ideal  man,  there  must 
be  a  still  more  ideal  man  to  whom  both  ordinary  men  and  the 
ideal  man  are  similar.  Again,  Socrates  is  both  a  man  and  an  animal, 
and  the  question  arises  whether  the  ideal  man  is  an  ideal  animal ; 
if  he  is,  there  must  be  as  many  ideal  animals  as  there  are  species 
of  animals.  It  is  needless  to  pursue  the  matter;  Aristotle  makes  it 
obvious  that,  when  a  number  of  individuals  share  a  predicate, 
this  cannot  be  because  of  relation  to  something  of  the  same  kind 
as  themselves,  but  more  ideal.  This  much  may  be  taken  as  proved, 
but  Aristotle's  own  doctrine  is  far  from  clear.  It  was  this  lack  of 
clarity  that  made  possible  the  medieval  controversy  between 
nominalists  and  realists. 

Aristotle's  metaphysics,  roughly  speaking,  may  be  described  as 
Plato  diluted  by  common  sense,  lie  is  difficult  because  Plato  and 
common  sense  do  not  mix  easily.  When  one  tries  to  understand 
him,  one  thinks  part  of  the  time  that  he  is  expressing  the  ordinary 
views  of  a  person  innocent  of  philosophy  and  the  rest  of  the  time 

184 


ARISTOTLE'S  METAPHYSICS 

that  he  is  setting  forth  Platonism  with  a  new  vocabulary.  It  does 
not  do  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  any  single  passage,  because  there 
is  liable  to  be  a  correction  or  modification  of  it  in  some  later 
passage.  On  the  whole,  the  easiest  way  to  understand  both  his 
theory  of  universals  and  his  theory  of  matter  and  form  is  to  set 
forth  first  the  common-sense  doctrine  which  is  half  of  his  view, 
and  then  to  consider  the  Platonic  modifications  to  which  he 
subjects  it. 

Up  to  a  certain  point,  the  theory  of  universals  is  quite  simple. 
In  language,  there  are  proper  names,  and  there  are  adjectives. 
The  proper  names  apply  to  "things"  or  "persons,"  each  of  which 
is  the  only  thing  or  person  to  which  the  name  in  question  applies. 
The  sun,  the  moon,  France,  Napoleon,  are  unique;  there  are  not 
a  number  of  instances  of  things  to  which  these  names  apply.  On 
the  other  hand,  words  like  "cat,"  "dog,"  "man"  apply  to  many 
different  things.  The  problem  of  universals  is  concerned  with 
the  meanings  of  such  words,  and  also  of  adjectives,  such  as 
"white,"  "hard,"  "round,"  and  so  on.  He  says:1  "By  the  term 
'universal'  I  mean  that  which  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  be  pre- 
dicated of  many  subjects,  by  'individual'  that  which  is  not  thus 
predicated." 

What  is  signified  by  a  proper  name  is  a  "substance/*  while 
what  is  signified  by  an  adjective  or  class-name,  such  as  "human" 
or  "man,"  is  called  a  "universal."  A  substance  is  a  "this,"  but  a 
universal  is  a  "such" — it  indicates  the  sort  of  thing,  not  the  actual 
particular  thing.  A  universal  is  not  a  substance,  because  it  is  not 
a  "this."  (Plato's  heavenly  bed  would  be  a  "this"  to  those  who 
could  perceive  it ;  this  is  a  matter  as  to  which  Aristotle  disagrees 
with  Plato.)  "It  seems  impossible,"  Aristotle  says,  "that  any  uni- 
versal term  should  be  the  name  of  a  substance.  For  .  .  .  the 
substance  of  each  thing  is  that  which  is  peculiar  to  it,  which  does 
not  belong  to  anything  else;  but  the  universal  is  common,  since 
that  is  called  universal  which  is  sUch  as  to  belong  to  more  than 
one  thing."  The  gist  of  the  matter,  so  far,  is  that  a  universal 
cannot  exist  by  itself,  but  only  in  particular  things. 

Superficially,  Aristotle's  doctrine  is  plain  enough.  Suppose  I 

say  "there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  game  of  football,"  most  people 

would  regard  the  remark  as  a  truism.  But  if  I  were  to  infer  that 

football  could  exist  without  football-players,  I  should  be  rightly 

1  'to  Interpretation,  17*. 

185 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

held  to  be  talking  nonsense.  Similarly,  it  would  be  held,  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  parenthood,  but  only  because  there  are  parents; 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  sweetness,  but  only  because  there  are 
sweet  things;  and  there  is  redness,  but  only  because  there  are 
red  things.  And  this  dependence  is  thought  to  be  not  reciprocal : 
the  men  who  play  football  would  still  exist  even  if  they  never 
played  football;  things  which  are  usually  sweet  may  turn  sour; 
and  my  face,  which  is  usually  red,  may  turn  pale  without  ceasing 
to  be  my  face.  In  this  way  we  are  led  to  conclude  that  what  is 
meant  by  an  adjective  is  dependent  for  its  being  on  what  is  meant 
by  a  proper  name,  but  not  vice  versa.  This  is,  I  think,  what 
Aristotle  means.  His  doctrine  on  this  point,  as  on  many  others, 
is  a  common-sense  prejudice  pedantically  expressed. 

But  it  is  not  easy  to  give  precision  to  the  theory.  Granted  that 
football  could  not  exist  without  football-players,  it  could  perfectly 
well  exist  without  this  or  that  football-player.  And  granted  that  a 
person  can  exist  without  playing  football,  he  nevertheless  cannot 
exist  without  doing  something.  The  quality  redness  cannot  exist 
without  some  subject,  but  it  can  exist  without  this  or  that  subject ; 
similarly  a  subject  cannot  exist  without  some  quality,  but  can 
exist  without  this  or  that  quality.  The  supposed  ground  for  the 
distinction  between  things  and  qualities  thus  seems  to  be  illusory. 

The  true  ground  of  the  distinction  is,  in  fact,  linguistic;  it  is 
derived  from  syntax.  There  are  proper  names,  adjectives,  and 
relation- words ;  we  may  say  "John  is  wise,  James  is  foolish,  John 
is  taller  than  James,"  Here  "John"  and  "James"  are  proper 
names,  "wise"  and  "foolish"  are  adjectives,  and  "taller"  is  a 
relation-word.  Metaphysicians,  ever  since  Aristotle,  have  inter- 
preted these  syntactical  differences  metaphysically:  John  and 
James  are  substances,  wisdom  and  folly  are  universal*.  (Relation- 
words  were  ignored  or  misinterpreted.)  It  may  be  that,  given 
sufficient  care,  metaphysical  differences  can  be  found  that  have 
some  relation  to  these  syntactical  differences,  but,  if  so,  it  will  be 
only  by  means  of  a  long  process,  involving,  incidentally,  the 
creation  of  an  artificial  philosophical  language.  And  this  language 
will  contain  no  such  names  as  "John"  and  "James/*  and  no  such 
adjectives  as  "wise"  and  "foolish";  all  the  words  of  ordinary 
languages  will  have  yielded  to  analysis,  and  been  replaced  by 
words  having  a  less  complex  significance.  Until  this  labour  has 
been  performed,  the  question  of  particulars  and  universals  cannot 

186 


ARISTOTLE'S  METAPHYSICS 

be  adequately  discussed.  And  when  we  reach  the  point  at  which 
we  can  at  last  discuss  it,  we  shall  find  that  the  question  we  are 
discussing  is  quite  different  from  what  we  supposed  it  to  be  at 
the  outset. 

If,  therefore,  I  have  failed  to  make  Aristotle's  theory  of  uni- 
versals  clear,  that  is  (I  maintain)  because  it  is  not  clear.  But  it  is 
certainly  an  advance  on  the  theory  of  ideas,  and  is  certainly  con- 
cerned with  a  genuine  and  very  important  problem. 

There  is  another  term  which  is  important  in  Aristotle  and  in 
his  scholastic  followers,  and  that  is  the  term  "essence."  This  is 
by  no  means  synonymous  with  "universal."  Your  "essence"  is 
"what  you  are  by  your  very  nature."  It  is,  one  may  say,  those  of 
your  properties  which  you  cannot  lose  without  ceasing  to  be  your- 
self. Not  only  an  individual  thing,  but  a  species,  has  an  essence. 
The  definition  of  a  species  should  consist  in  mentioning  its  essence. 
I  shall  return  to  the  conception  of  "essence"  in  connection  with 
Aristotle's  logic.  For  the  present  I  will  merely  observe  that  it 
seems  to  me  a  muddle-headed  notion,  incapable  of  precision. 

The  next  point  in  Aristotle's  metaphysics  is  the  distinction  of 
"form"  and  "matter. f>  (It  must  be  understood  that  "matter,"  in 
the  sense  in  which  it  is  opposed  to  "form,"  is  different  from 
"matter"  as  opposed  to  "mind.") 

Here,  again,  there  is  a  common-sense  basis  for  Aristotle's  theory, 
but  here,  more  than  in  the  case  of  universals,  the  Platonic  modifi- 
cations are  very  important.  We  may  start  with  a  marble  statue; 
here  marble  is  the  matter,  while  the  shape  conferred  by  the 
sculptor  is  the  form.  Or,  to  take  Aristotle's  examples,  if  a  man 
makes  a  bronze  sphere,  bronze  is  the  matter,  and  sphericity  is  the 
form;  while  in  the  case  of  a  calm  sea,  water  is  the  matter  and 
smoothness  is  the  form.  So  far,  all  is  simple. 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  it  is  in  virtue  of  the  form  that  the  matter 
is  some  one  definite  thing,  and  this  is  the  substance  of  the  thing. 
What  Aristotle  means  seems  to  be  plain  common  sense:  a  "thing" 
must  be  bounded,  and  the  boundary  constitutes  its  form.  Take, 
say,  a  volume  of  water:  any  part  of  it  can  be  marked  off  from  the 
rest  by  being  enclosed  in  a  vessel,  and  then  this  part  becomes  a 
*  thing,"  but  so  long  as  the  part  is  in  no  way  marked  out  from  the 
rest  of  the  homogeneous  mass  it  is  not  a  "thing."  A  statue  is  a 
"thing,"  and  the  marble  of  which  it  is  composed  is,  in  a  sense, 
unchanged  from  what  it  was  as  part  of  a  lump  or  as  part  of  the 

,87 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

provided  it  is  so  used  that  we  can  translate  our  statements  into 
a  form  in  which  the  concept  is  absent.  "A  block  of  marble  is  a 
potential  statue"  means  "from  a  block  of  marble,  by  suitable  acts, 
a  statue  is  produced."  But  when  potentiality  is  used  as  a  funda- 
mental and  irreducible  concept,  it  always  conceals  confusion  of 
thought.  Aristotle's  use  of  it  is  one  of  the  bad  points  in  his 
system. 

Aristotle's  theology  is  interesting,  and  closely  connected  with 
the  rest  of  his  metaphysics — indeed,  "theology"  is  one  of  his 
names  for  what  we  call  "metaphysics."  (The  book  which  we  know 
under  that  name  was  not  so  called  by  him.) 

There  are,  he  says,  three  kinds  of  substances:  those  that  are 
sensible  and  perishable,  those  that  are  sensible  but  not  perishable, 
and  those  that  are  neither  sensible  nor  perishable.  The  first  class 
includes  plants  and  animals,  the  second  includes  the  heavenly 
bodies  (which  Aristotle  believed  to  undergo  no  change  except 
motion),  the  third  includes  the  rational  soul  in  man,  and  also 
God. 

The  main  argument  for  God  is  the  First  Cause:  there  must  be 
something  which  originates  motion,  and  this  something  must  itself 
be  unmoved,  and  must  be  eternal,  substance,  and  actuality.  The 
object  of  desire  and  the  object  of  thought,  Aristotle  says,  cause 
movement  in  this  way,  without  themselves  being  in  motion.  So 
God  produces  motion  by  being  loved,  whereas  every  other  cause 
of  motion  works  by  being  itself  in  motion  (like  a  billiard  ball). 
God  is  pure  thought ;  for  thought  is  what  is  best.  "Life  also  belongs 
to  God;  for  the  actuality  of  thought  is  life,  and  God  is  that 
actuality;  and  God's  self-dependent  actuality  is  life  most  good 
and  eternal.  We  say  therefore  that  God  is  a  living  being,  eternal, 
most  good,  so  that  life  and  duration  continuous  and  eternal  belong 
to  God;  for  this  is  God"  (1072*). 

"It  is  clear  then  from  what  has  been  said  that  there  is  a  sub- 
stance which  is  eternal  and  unmovable  and  separate  from  sensible 
things.  It  has  been  shown  that  this  substance  cannot  have  any 
magnitude,  but  is  without  parts  and  indivisible.  .  .  .  But  it  has 
also  been  shown  that  it  is  impassive  and  unalterable;  for  all  the 
other  changes  are  posterior  to  change  of  place"  (1073*). 

God  does  not  have  the  attributes  of  a  Christian  Providence,  for 
it  would  derogate  from  His  perfection  to  think  about  anything 
except  what  is  perfect,  i.e.  Himself  "It  must  be  of  itself  that  the 

190 


ARISTOTLE'S  METAPHYSICS 

divine  thought  thinks  (since  it  is  the  most  excellent  of  things), 
and  its  thinking  is  a  thinking  on  thinking."  (1074*).  We  must  infer 
that  God  does  not  know  of  the  existence  of  our  sublunary  world. 
Aristotle,  like  Spinoza,  holds  that,  while  men  must  love  God, 
it  is  impossible  that  God  should  love  men. 

God  is  not  definable  as  "the  unmoved  mover."  On  the  contrary, 
astronomical  considerations  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  there  are 
either  forty-seven  or  fifty-five  unmoved  movers  (1074*).  The 
relation  of  these  to  God  is  not  made  clear;  indeed  the  natural 
interpretation  would  be  that  there  are  forty-seven  or  fifty-five 
gods.  For  after  one  of  the  above  passages  on  God  Aristotle  pro- 
ceeds: "We  must  not  ignore  the  question  whether  we  are  to 
suppose  one  such  substance  or  more  than  one,"  and  at  once 
embarks  upon  the  argument  that  leads  to  the  forty-seven  or 
fifty-five  unmoved  movers. 

The  conception  of  an  unmoved  mover  is  a  difficult  one.  To  a 
modern  mind,  it  would  seem  that  the  cause  of  a  change  must  be  a 
previous  change,  and  that,  if  the  universe  were  ever  wholly  static, 
it  would  remain  so  eternally.  To  understand  what  Aristotle  means, 
we  must  take  account  of  what  he  says  about  causes.  There  are, 
according  to  him,  four  kinds  of  causes,  which  were  called,  respec- 
tively, material,  formal,  efficient,  and  final.  Let  us  take  again  the 
man  who  is  making  a  statue.  The  material  cause  of  the  statue  is 
the  marble,  the  formal  cause  is  the  essence  of  the  statue  to  be 
produced,  the  efficient  cause  is  the  contact  of  the  chisel  with  the 
marble,  and  the  final  cause  is  the  end  that  the  sculptor  has  in 
view.  In  modern  terminology,  the  word  "cause"  would  be  con- 
fined to  the  efficient  cause.  The  unmoved  mover  may  be  regarded 
as  a  final  cause :  it  supplies  a  purpose  for  change,  which  is  essentially 
an  evolution  towards  likeness  with  God. 

I  said  that  Aristotle  was  not  by  temperament  deeply  religious, 
but  this  is  only  partly  true.  One  could,  perhaps,  interpret  one 
aspect  of  his  religion,  somewhat  freely,  as  follows: 

God  exists  eternally,  as  pure  thought,  happiness,  complete  self- 
fulfilment,  without  any  unrealized  purposes.  The  sensible  world, 
oo  the  contrary,  is  imperfect,  but  it  has  life,  desire,  thought  of  an 
imperfect  kind,  and  aspiration.  All  living  things  are  in  a  greater 
or  less  degree  aware  of  God,  and  are  moved  to  action  by  admira- 
tion and  love  of  God.  Thus  God  is  the  final  cause  of  all  activity. 
Change  consists  in  giving  form  to  matter,  but,  where  sensible 

191 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

things  are  concerned,  a  substratum  of  matter  always  remains. 
Only  God  consists  of  form  without  matter.  The  world  is  con- 
tinually evolving  towards  a  greater  degree  of  form,  and  thus 
becoming  progressively  more  like  God.  But  the  process  cannot 
be  completed,  because  matter  cannot  be  wholly  eliminated.  This 
is  a  religion  of  progress  and  evolution,  for  God's  static  perfection 
moves  the  world  only  through  the  love  that  finite  beings  feel  for 
Him.  Plato  was  mathematical,  Aristotle  was  biological;  this 
accounts  for  the  differences  in  their  religions. 

This  would,  however,  be  a  one-sided  view  of  Aristotle's  religion ; 
he  has  also  the  Greek  love  of  static  perfection  and  preference  for 
contemplation  rather  than  action.  His  doctrine  of  the  soul 
illustrates  this  aspect  of  his  philosophy. 

Whether  Aristotle  taught  immortality  in  any  form,  or  not,  was 
a  vexed  question  among  commentators.  Avenoes,  who  held  that 
he  did  not,  had  followers  in  Christian  countries,  of  whom  the 
more  extreme  were  called  Epicureans,  and  whom  Dante  found  in 
hell.  In  fact,  Aristotle's  doctrine  is  complex,  and  easily  lends  itself 
to  misunderstandings.  In  his  book  On  the  Soul,  he  regards  the 
soul  as  bound  up  with  the  body,  and  ridicules  the  Pythagorean 
doctrine  of  transmigration  (407*).  The  soul,  it  seems,  perishes 
with  the  body:  "it  indubitably  follows  that  the  soul  is  inseparable 
from  its  body"  (4x3*);  but  he  immediately  adds:  "or  at  any  rate 
certain  parts  of  it  are."  Body  and  soul  are  related  as  matter  and 
form:  "the  soul  must  be  a  substance  in  the  sense  of  the  form  of 
a  material  body  having  life  potentially  within  it.  But  substance  is 
actuality,  and  thus  soul  is  the  actuality  of  a  body  as  above  charac- 
terized" (412*).  Soul  "is  substance  in  the  sense  which  corresponds 
to  the  definitive  formula  of  a  thing's  essence.  That  means  that  it 
is  the  'essential  whatness'  of  a  body  of  the  character  just  assigned1' 
(i.e.  having  Hfe)  (412*).  The  soul  is  the  first  grade  of  actuality  of 
a  natural  body  having  life  potentially  in  it.  The  body  so  described 
is  a  body  which  is  organized  (412*).  To  ask  whether  soul  and  body 
are  one  is  as  meaningless  as  to  ask  whether  the  wax  and  the  shape 
given  it  by  the  stamp  are  one  (412*).  Self  •nutrition  is  the  only 
psychic  power  possessed  by  plants  (413').  The  soul  is  the  final 
cause  of  the  body  (414"). 

In  this  book,  he  distinguishes  between  "soul"  and  "mind," 
making  mind  higher  than  soul,  and  less  bound  to  the  body.  After 
•peaking  of  the  relation  of  soul  and  body,  he  says:  "The  case  of 

192 


ARISTOTLE'S  METAPHYSICS 

mind  is  different;  it  seems  to  be  an  independent  substance  im- 
planted within  the  soul  and  to  be  incapable  of  being  destroyed" 
(408*).  Again:  "We  have  no  evidence  as  yet  about  mind  or  the 
power  to  think;  it  seems  to  be  a  widely  different  kind  of  soul, 
differing  as  what  is  eternal  from  what  is  perishable;  it  alone  is 
capable  of  existence  in  isolation  from  all  other  psychic  powers. 
All  the  other  parts  of  soul,  it  is  evident  from  what  we  have  said, 
are,  in  spite  of  certain  statements  to  the  contrary,  incapable  of 
separate  existence**  (413*).  The  mind  is  the  part  of  us  that  under- 
stands mathematics  and  philosophy;  its  objects  are  timeless,  and 
therefore  it  is  regarded  as  itself  timeless.  The  soul  is  what  moves 
the  body  and  perceives  sensible  objects ;  it  is  characterized  by  self- 
nutrition,  sensation,  feeling,  and  motivity  (413*);  but  the  mind 
has  the  higher  function  of  thinking,  which  has  no  relation  to  the 
body  or  to  the  senses.  Hence  the  mind  can  be  immortal,  though 
the  rest  of  the  soul  cannot. 

To  understand  Aristotle's  doctrine  of  the  soul,  we  must  re- 
member that  the  soul  is  the  "form"  of  the  body,  and  that  spatial 
shape  is  one  kind  of  "form."  What  is  there  in  common  between 
soul  and  shape?  I  think  what  is  in  common  is  the  conferring  of 
unity  upon  a  certain  amount  of  matter.  The  part  of  a  block  of 
marble  which  afterwards  becomes  a  statue  is,  as  yet,  not  separated 
from  the  rest  of  the  marble;  it  is  not  yet  a  "thing,"  and  has  not 
yet  any  unity.  After  the  sculptor  has  made  the  statue,  it  has  unity, 
which  it  derives  from  its  shape.  Now  the  essential  feature  of  the 
soul,  in  virtue  of  which  it  is  the  "form"  of  the  body,  is  that  it 
makes  the  body  an  organic  whole,  having  purposes  as  a  unit.  A 
single  organ  has  purposes  lying  outside  itself;  the  eye,  in  isolation, 
cannot  see.  Thus  many  things  can  be  said  in  which  an  animal  or 
plant  as  a  whole  is  the  subject,  which  cannot  be  said  about  any 
part  of  it.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  organization,  or  form,  confers 
substantiality.  That  which  confers  substantiality  upon  a  plant  or 
animal  is  what  Aristotle  calls  its  "soul/1  But  "mind"  is  some- 
thing different,  less  intimately  bound  up  with  the  body;  perhaps 
it  is  a  part  of  the  soul,  but  it  is  possessed  by  only  a  small  minority 
of  living  beings  (415").  Mind  as  speculation  cannot  be  the  cause 
of  movement,  for  it  never  thinks  about  what  is  practicable,  and 
never  says  what  is  to  be  avoided  or  what  pursued  (432*). 

A  similar  doctrine,  though  with  a  slight  change  of  terminology, 
is  set  forth  in  the  Nicomachean  Ethics.  There  is  in  the  soul  one 

Hukiry  »/  H' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

element  that  is  rational,  and  one  that  is  irrational.  The  irrational 
part  is  two-fold:  the  vegetative,  which  is  found  in  everything 
living,  even  in  plants,  and  the  appetitive,  which  exists  in  all 
animals  (1102*).  The  life  of  the  rational  soul  consists  in  contem- 
plation, which  is  the  complete  happiness  of  man  though  not  fully 
attainable.  "Such  a  life  would  be  too  high  for  man;  for  it  is  not 
in  so  far  as  he  is  man  that  he  will  live  so,  but  in  so  far  as  something 
divine  is  present  in  him ;  and  by  so  much  as  this  is  superior  to  our 
composite  nature  is  its  activity  superior  to  that  which  is  the 
exercise  of  the  other  kind  of  virtue  (the  practical  kind).  If  reason 
is  divine,  then,  in  comparison  with  man,  the  life  in  accordance 
with  it  is  divine  in  comparison  with  human  life.  But  we  must  not 
follow  those  who  advise  us,  being  men,  to  think  of  human  things, 
and  being  mortal,  of  mortal  things,  but  must,  so  far  as  we  can, 
make  ourselves  immortal,  and  strain  every  nerve  to  live  in  accord- 
ance with  the  best  thing  in  us;  for  even  if  it  be  small  in  bulk, 
much  more  does  it  in  power  and  worth  surpass  everything"  ( 1 177'). 
It  seems,  from  these  passages,  that  individuality — what  distin- 
guishes one  man  from  another — is  connected  with  the  body  and 
the  irrational  soul,  while  the  rational  soul  or  mind  is  divine  and 
impersonal.  One  man  likes  oysters,  and  another  likes  pineapples; 
this  distinguishes  between  them.  But  when  they  think  about  the 
multiplication  table,  provided  they  think  correctly,  there  is  no 
difference  between  them.  The  irrational  separates  us,  the  rational 
unites  us.  Thus  the  immortality  of  mind  or  reason  is  not  a  personal 
immortality  of  separate  men,  but  a  share  in  God's  immortality. 
It  does  not  appear  that  Aristotle  believed  in  personal  immortality, 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  was  taught  by  Plato  and  afterwards  by 
Christianity.  He  believed  only  that,  in  so  far  as  men  are  rational, 
they  partake  of  the  divine,  which  is  immortal.  It  is  open  to  man 
to  increase  the  element  of  the  divine  in  his  nature,  and  to  do  so 
is  the  highest  virtue.  But  if  he  succeeded  completely,  he  would 
have  ceased  to  exist  as  a  separate  person.  This  is  perhaps  not  the 
only  possible  interpretation  of  Aristotle's  words,  but  I  think  it  is 
the  most  natural. 


'94 


Chapter  XX 
ARISTOTLE'S   ETHICS 

IN  the  corpus  of  Aristotle's  works,  three  treatises  on  ethics  have 
a  place,  but  two  of  these  are  now  generally  held  to  be  by  dis- 
ciples. The  third,  the  Nicomachean  Ethics,  remains  for  the  most 
part  unquestioned  as  to  authenticity,  but  even  in  this  book  there 
is  a  portion  (Books  V,  VI,  and  VII)  which  is  held  by  many  to  have 
been  incorporated  from  one  of  the  works  of  disciples.  I  shall, 
however,  ignore  this  controversial  question,  and  treat  the  book  as 
a  whole  and  as  Aristotle's. 

The  views  of  Aristotle  on  ethics  represent,  in  the  main,  the  pre- 
vailing opinions  of  educated  and  experienced  men  of  his  day. 
They  are  not,  like  Plato's,  impregnated  with  mystical  religion;  nor 
do  they  countenance  such  unorthodox  theories  as  are  to  be  found 
in  the  Republic  concerning  property  and  the  family.  Those  who 
neither  fall  below  nor  rise  above  the  level  of  decent,  well-behaved 
citizens  mil  find  in  the  Ethics  a  systematic  account  of  the  prin- 
ciples by  which  they  hold  that  their  conduct  should  be  regulated. 
Those  who  demand  anything  more  will  be  disappointed.  The 
book  appeals  to  the  respectable  middle-aged,  and  has  been  used 
by  them,  especially  since  the  seventeenth  century,  to  repress  the 
ardours  and  enthusiasms  of  the  young.  But  to  a  man  with  any 
depth  of  feeling  it  is  likely  to  be  repulsive. 

The  good,  we  are  told,  is  happiness,  which  is  an  activity  of  the 
soul.  Aristotle  says  that  Plato  was  right  in  dividing  the  soul  into 
two  parts,  one  rational,  the  other  irrational.  The  irrational  part 
itself  he  divides  into  the  vegetative  (which  is  found  even  in  plants) 
and  the  appetitive  (which  is  found  in  all  animals).  The  appetitive 
part  may  be  in  some  degree  rational,  when  the  goods  that  it  seeks 
arc  such  as  reason  approves  of.  This  is  essential  to  the  account  of 
virtue,  for  reason  alone,  in  Aristotle,  is  purely  contemplative,  and 
docs  not,  without  the  help  of  appetite,  lead  to  any  practical 
activity. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  virtues,  intellectual  and  moral,  corre- 
sponding to  the  two  parts  of  the  soul.  Intellectual  virtues  result 
from  teaching,  moral  virtues  from  habit.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
legislator  to  make  the  citizens  good  by  forming  good  habits.  We 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

become  just  by  performing  just  acts,  and  similarly  as  regards 
other  virtues.  By  being  compelled  to  acquire  good  habits,  we  shall 
in  time,  Aristotle  thinks,  come  to  find  pleasure  in  performing  good 
actions.  One  is  reminded  of  Hamlet's  speech  to  his  mother: 

Assume  a  virtue  if  you  have  it  not. 

That  monster,  custom,  who  all  sense  doth  eat, 

Of  habits  devil,  is  angel,  yet  in  this 

That  to  the  use  of  actions  fair  and  good 

He  likewise  gives  a  frock  or  livery 

That  aptly  is  put  on. 

We  now  come  to  the  famous  doctrine  of  the  golden  mean. 
Every  virtue  is  a  mean  between  two  extremes,  each  of  which  is  a 
vice.  This  is  proved  by  an  examination  of  the  various  virtues. 
Courage  is  a  mean  between  cowardice  and  rashness;  liberality, 
between  prodigality  and  meanness ;  proper  pride,  between  vanity 
and  humility;  ready  wit,  between  buffoonery  and  boorishness; 
modesty,  between  bashfulness  and  shamelessness.  Some  virtues 
do  not  seem  to  fit  into  this  scheme;  for  instance,  truthfulness. 
Aristotle  says  that  this  is  a  mean  between  boastfulness  and  mock- 
modesty  (1108*),  but  this  only  applies  to  truthfulness  about  one- 
self. I  do  not  see  how  truthfulness  in  any  wider  sense  can  be  fitted 
into  the  scheme.  There  was  once  a  mayor  who  had  adopted 
Aristotle's  doctrine ;  at  the  end  of  his  term  of  office  he  made  a 
speech  saying  that  he  had  endeavoured  to  steer  the  narrow  line 
between  partiality  on  the  one  hand  and  impartiality  on  the  other. 
The  view  of  truthfulness  as  a  mean  seems  scarcely  less  absurd. 

Aristotle's  opinions  on  moral  questions  are  always  such  as  were 
conventional  in  his  day.  On  some  points  they  differ  from  those  of 
our  time,  chiefly  where  some  form  of  aristocracy  comes  in.  We 
think  that  human  beings,  at  least  in  ethical  theory,  all  have  equal 
rights,  and  that  justice  involves  equality;  Aristotle  thinks  that 
justice  involves,  not  equality,  but  right  proportion,  which  is  only 
sometimes  equality  (1131*). 

The  justice  of  a  master  or  a  father  is  a  different  thing  from  that 
of  a  citizen,  for  a  son  or  slave  is  property,  and  there  can  be  no 
injustice  to  one's  own  property  (i  134*).  As  regards  stoves,  however, 
there  is  a  slight  modification  of  this  doctrine  in  connection  with 
the  question  whether  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  be  a  friend  of  his 
slave:  "There  is  nothing  in  common  between  the  two  parties;  the 
slave  is  a  living  tool.  .  .  .  Qua  slave,  then,  one  cannot  be  friends 

196 


ARISTOTLE'S  ETHICS 

with  him.  But  qua  man  one  can ;  for  there  seems  to  be  some  justice 
between  any  man  and  any  other  who  can  share  in  a  system  of 
law  or  be  a  party  to  an  agreement;  therefore  there  can  also  be 
friendship  with  him  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  man"  (n6i6). 

A  father  can  repudiate  his  son  if  he  is  wicked,  but  a  son  cannot 
repudiate  his  father,  because  he  owes  him  more  than  he  can  pos- 
sibly repay,  especially  existence  (n636).  In  unequal  relations,  it  is 
right,  since  everybody  should  be  loved  in  proportion  to  his  worth, 
that  the  inferior  should  love  the  superior  more  than  the  superior 
loves  the  inferior:  wives,  children,  subjects,  should  have  more  love 
for  husbands,  parents,  and  monarchs  than  the  latter  have  for 
them.  In  a  good  marriage,  "the  man  rules  in  accordance  with 
his  worth,  and  in  those  matters  in  which  a  man  should  rule,  but 
the  matters  that  befit  a  woman  he  hands  over  to  her"  (1160*). 
He  should  not  rule  in  her  province;  still  less  should  she  rule  in 
his,  as  sometimes  happens  when  she  is  an  heiress. 

The  best  individual,  as  conceived  by  Aristotle,  is  a  very  different 
person  from  the  Christian  saint.  He  should  have  proper  pride,  and 
not  underestimate  his  own  merits.  He  should  despise  whoever 
deserves  to  be  despised  (1124*).  The  description  of  the  proud  or 
magnanimous  man1  is  very  interesting  as  showing  the  difference 
between  pagan  and  Christian  ethics,  and  the  sense  in  which 
Nietzsche  was  justified  in  regarding  Christianity  as  a  slave- 
morality. 

The  magnanimous  man,  since  he  deserves  most,  must  be  good, 
in  the  highest  degree;  for  the  better  man  always  deserves  more, 
and  the  best  man  most.  Therefore  the  truly  magnanimous  man 
must  be  good.  And  greatness  in  every  virtue  would  seem  to  be 
characteristic  of  the  magnanimous  man.  And  it  would  be  most 
unbecoming  for  the  magnanimous  man  to  fly  from  danger, 
swinging  his  arms  by  his  sides,  or  to  wrong  another;  for  to  what 
end  should  he  do  disgraceful  acts,  he  to  whom  nothing  is  great  ? 
.  .  .  magnanimity,  then,  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  crown  of  the 
virtues;  for  it  makes  them  greater,  and  it  is  not  found  without 
them.  Therefore  it  is  hard  to  be  truly  magnanimous;  for  it  is 

1  The  Greek  word  means,  literally,  "great-souled,"  and  is  usually 
translated  "magnanimous, "  but  the  Oxford  translation  renders  it  "proud.*' 
Neither  word,  in  its  modern  usage,  quite  expresses  Aristotle's  meaning, 
but  1  prefrr"magnaninu>us,"  and  have  therefore  substituted  it  for'* proud" 
in  the  above  qtyotation  from  the  Oxford  translation. 

"97 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

impossible  without  nobility  and  goodness  of  character.  It  is 
chiefly  with  honours  and  dishonours,  then,  that  the  magnanimous 
man  is  concerned;  and  at  honours  that  are  great  and  conferred 
by  good  men  he  will  be  moderately  pleased,  thinking  that  he  is 
coming  by  his  own  or  even  less  than  his  own;  for  there  can  be 
no  honour  that  is  worthy  of  perfect  virtue,  yet  he  will  at  any  rate 
accept  it  since  they  have  nothing  greater  to  bestow  on  him ;  but 
honour  from  casual  people  and  on  trifling  grounds  he  will  utterly 
despise,  since  it  is  not  this  that  he  deserves,  and  dishonour  too, 
since  in  his  case  it  cannot  be  just.  .  .  .  Power  and  wealth  arc 
desirable  for  the  sake  of  honour;  and  to  him  for  whom  even 
honour  is  a  little  thing  the  others  must  be  so  too.  Hence  magnani- 
mous men  are  thought  to  be  disdainful.  .  .  .  The  magnanimous 
man  does  not  run  into  trifling  dangers,  .  .  .  but  he  will  face  great 
dangers,  and  when  he  is  in  danger  he  is  unsparing  of  his  life, 
knowing  that  there  are  conditions  on  which  life  is  not  worth 
having.  And  he  is  the  sort  of  man  to  confer  benefits,  but  he  is 
ashamed  of  receiving  them;  for  the  one  is  the  mark  of  a  superior, 
the  other  of  an  inferior.  And  he  is  apt  to  confer  greater  benefits 
in  return;  for  thus  the  original  benefactor  besides  being  repaid 
will  incur  a  debt  to  him.  ...  It  is  the  mark  of  the  magnanimous 
man  to  ask  for  nothing  or  scarcely  anything,  but  to  give  help 
readily,  and  to  be  dignified  towards  people  who  enjoy  a  hiuh 
position  but  unassuming  towards  those  of  the  middle  class;  for 
it  is  a  difficult  and  lofty  thing  to  be  superior  to  the  former,  but 
easy  to  be  so  to  the  latter,  and  a  lofty  bearing  over  the  former  is 
no  mark  of  ill-breeding,  but  among  humble  people  it  is  as  vulgar 
as  a  display  of  strength  against  the  weak.  ...  lie  must  also  be 
open  in  his  hate  and  in  his  love,  for  to  conceal  one's  feelings, 
i.e.  to  care  less  for  truth  than  for  what  people  think,  is  a  coward's 
part.  .  .  .  He  is  free  of  speech  because  he  is  contemptuous,  and 
he  is  given  to  telling  the  truth,  except  when  he  speaks  in  irony 
to  the  vulgar.  . . .  Nor  is  he  given  to  admiration,  for  to  him  nothing 
is  great.  .  .  .  Nor  is  he  a  gossip;  for  he  will  speak  neither  about 
himself  nor  about  another,  since  he  cares  not  to  be  praised  nor 
for  others  to  be  blamed.  ...  He  is  one  who  will  possess  beautiful 
and  profitless  things  rather  than  profitable  and  useful  ones,  .  .  . 
Further,  a  slow  step  is  thought  proper  to  the  magnanimous  man, 
a  deep  voice,  and  a  level  utterance.  .  .  .  Such,  then,  is  the  magnani- 
mous man;  the  man  who  falls  short  of  him  is  unduly  humble 
and  the  man  who  goes  beyond  him  is  vain"  (1123*-!  125*). 

One  shudders  to  think  what  a  vain  man  would  b?  like. 
Whatc/er  may  be  thought  of  the  magnanimous  pun,  one  thing 


ARISTOTLE'S  ETHICS 

is  clear:  there  cannot  be  very  many  of  him  in  a  community.  I  do 
not  mean  merely  in  the  general  sense  in  which  there  are  not  likely 
to  be  many  virtuous  men,  on  the  ground  that  virtue  is  difficult; 
what  I  mean  is  that  the  virtues  of  the  magnanimous  man  largely 
depend  upon  his  having  an  exceptional  social  position.  Aristotle 
considers  ethics  a  branch  of  politics,  and  it  is  not  surprising,  after 
his  praise  of  pride,  to  find  that  he  considers  monarchy  the  best 
form  of  government,  and  aristocracy  the  next  best.  Monarchs  and 
aristocrats  can  be  "magnanimous,"  but  ordinary  citizens  would 
be  laughable  if  they  attempted  to  live  up  to  such  a  pattern. 

This  brings  up  a  question  which  is  half  ethical,  half  political. 
Can  we  regard  as  morally  satisfactory  a  community  which,  by  its 
essential  constitution,  confines  the  best  things  to  a  few,  and 
requires  the  majority  to  be  content  with  the  second-best?  Plato 
and  Aristotle  say  yes,  and  Nietzsche  agrees  with  them.  Stoics, 
Christians,  and  democrats  say  no.  But  there  are  great  differences 
in  their  ways  of  saying  no.  Stoics  and  early  Christians  consider 
that  the  greatest  pood  is  virtue,  and  that  external  circumstances 
cannot  prevent  a  man  from  being  virtuous;  there  is  therefore  no 
need  to  seek  a  just  social  system,  since  social  injustice  affects  only 
unimportant  matters.  The  democrat,  on  the  contrary,  usually 
holds  that,  at  least  so  far  as  politics  are  concerned,  the  most 
important  goods  are  power  and  property;  he  cannot,  therefore, 
acquiesce  in  a  social  system  which  is  unjust  in  these  respects. 

The  Stoic-Christian  view  requires  a  conception  of  virtue  very 
different  from  Aristotle's,  since  it  must  hold  that  virtue  is  as 
possible  for  the  slave  as  for  his  master.  Christian  ethics  dis- 
approves of  pride,  which  Aristotle  thinks  a  virtue,  and  praises 
humility,  which  he  thinks  a  vice.  The  intellectual  virtues,  which 
Plato  and  Aristotle  value  above  all  others,  have  to  be  thrust  out 
of  the  list  altogether,  in  order  that  the  poor  and  humble  may  be 
able  to  be  as  virtuous  as  any  one  else.  Pope  Gregory  the  Great 
solemnly  reproved  a  bishop  for  teaching  grammar. 

The  Aristotelian  view,  that  the  highest  virtue  is  for  the  few,  is 
logically  connected  with  the  subordination  of  ethics  to  politics, 
if  the  aim  is  the  good  community  rather  than  the  good  individual, 
it  i«  possible  that  the  good  community  may  be  one  in  which  there 
is  subordination.  In  an  orchestra,  the  first  violin  is  more  important 
than  the  oboe,  though  both  arc  necessary  for  the  excellence  of  the 
whole.  It  is  impossible  to  organize  an  orchestra  on  the  principle 

199 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

of  giving  to  each  man  what  would  be  best  lor  him  as  an  isolated 
individual.  The  same  sort  of  thing  applies  to  the  government  of  a 
large  modern  State,  however  democratic.  A  modern  democracy 
— unlike  those  of  antiquity— confers  great  power  upon  certain 
chosen  individuals,  Presidents  or  Prime  Ministers,  and  must  expect 
of  them  kinds  of  merit  which  are  not  expected  of  the  ordinary 
citizen.  When  people  are  not  thinking  in  terms  of  religion  or 
political  controversy,  they  are  likely  to  hold  that  a  good  President 
is  more  to  be  honoured  than  a  good  bricklayer.  In  a  democracy 
a  President  is  not  expected  to  be  quite  like  Aristotle's  magnani- 
mous man,  but  still  he  is  expected  to  be  rather  different  from  the 
average  citizen,  and  to  have  certain  merits  connected  with  his 
station.  These  peculiar  merits  would  perhaps  not  be  considered 
"ethical,*1  but  that  is  because  we  use  this  adjective  in  a  narrower 
sense  than  that  in  which  it  is  used  by  Aristotle. 

As  a  result  of  Christian  dogma,  the  distinction  between  moral 
and  other  merits  has  become  much  sharper  than  it  was  in  Greek 
times.  It  is  a  merit  in  a  man  to  be  a  great  poet  or  composer  or 
painter,  but  not  a  moral  merit;  we  do  not  consider  him  the  more 
virtuous  for  possessing  such  aptitudes,  or  the  more  likely  to  go 
to  heaven.  Moral  merit  is  concerned  solely  with  acts  of  will,  i.e. 
with  choosing  rightly  among  possible  courses  of  action.1  I  am  not 
to  blame  for  not  composing  an  opera,  because  I  don't  know  how 
to  do  it.  The  orthodox  view  is  that,  wherever  two  courses  of  action 
are  possible,  conscience  tells  me  which  is  right,  and  to  choose  the 
other  is  sin.  Virtue  consists  mainly  in  the  avoidance  of  sin,  rather 
than  in  anything  positive.  There  is  no  reason  to  expect  an  educated 
man  to  be  morally  better  than  an  uneducated  man,  or  a  clever 
man  than  a  stupid  man.  In  this  way,  a  number  of  merits  of  great 
social  importance  are  shut  out  from  the  realm  of  ethics.  The 
adjective  "unethical,"  in  modern  usage,  has  a  much  narrower 
range  than  the  adjective  "undesirable.11  It  is  undesirable  to  be 
feeble-minded,  but  not  unethical. 

Many  modern  philosophers,  however,  have  not  accepted  this 
view  of  ethics.  They  have  thought  that  one  should  first  define  the 
good,  and  then  say  that  our  actions  ought  to  be  such  as  tend  to 
realize  the  good.  This  point  of  view  is  more  like  that  of  Aristotle, 
who  holds  that  happiness  is  the  good.  The  highest  happiness,  it 

1  It  i*  true  that  Aristotle  also  say*  this  (i  105'),  but  as  he  means  it  the 
consequences  are  not  so  far-reaching  as  in  the  Christian  interpretation. 

200 


ARISTOTLE'S  ETHICS 

is  true,  is  only  open  to  the  philosopher,  but  to  Aristotle  that  is  no 
objection  to  the  theory. 

Ethical  theories  may  be  divided  into  two  classes,  according  as 
they  regard  virtue  as  an  end  or  a  means.  Aristotle,  on  the  whole, 
takes  the  view  that  virtues  are  means  to  an  end,  namely  happiness. 
"The  end,  then,  being  what  we  wish  for,  the  means  what  we 
deliberate  about  and  choose,  actions  concerning  means  must  be 
according  to  choice  and  voluntary.  Now  the  exercise  of  the  virtues 
is  concerned  with  means"  (iii36).  But  there  is  another  sense  of 
virtue  in  which  it  is  included  in  the  ends  of  action:  "Human  good 
is  activity  of  soul  in  accordance  with  virtue  in  a  complete  life" 
(1098*).  I  think  he  would  say  that  the  intellectual  virtues  are  ends, 
but  the  practical  virtues  are  only  means.  Christian  moralists  hold 
that,  while  the  consequences  of  virtuous  actions  are  in  general 
good,  they  are  not  as  good  as  the  virtuous  actions  themselves, 
which  are  to  be  valued  on  their  own  account,  and  not  on  account 
of  their  effects.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  consider  pleasure 
the  good  regard  virtues  solely  as  means.  Any  other  definition  of 
the  good,  except  the  definition  as  virtue,  will  have  the  same  conse- 
quence, that  virtues  are  means  to  goods  other  than  themselves. 
On  this  question,  Aristotle,  as  already  said,  agrees  mainly,  though 
not  wholly,  with  those  who  think  the  first  business  of  ethics  is  to 
define  the  good,  and  that  virtue  is  to  be  defined  as  action  tending 
to  produce  the  good. 

The  relation  of  ethics  to  politics  raises  another  ethical  question 
of  considerable  importance.  Granted  that  the  good  at  which  right 
action  should  aim  is  the  good  of  the  whole  community,  or,  ulti- 
mately, of  the  whole  human  race,  is  this  social  good  a  sum  of 
goods  enjoyed  by  individuals,  or  is  it  something  belonging 
essentially  to  the  whole,  not  to  the  parts  ?  We  may  illustrate  the 
problem  by  the  analogy  of  the  human  body.  Pleasures  are  largely 
associated  with  different  parts  of  the  body,  but  we  consider  them 
as  belonging  to  a  person  as  a  whole;  we  may  enjoy  a  pleasant 
smell,  but  we  know  that  the  nose  alone  could  not  enjoy  it.  Some 
contend  that,  in  a  closely  organized  community,  there  are,  analo- 
gously, excellences  belonging  to  the  whole,  but  not  to  any  part. 
If  they  are  metaphysicians,  they  may  hold,  like  Hegel,  that  what- 
ever quality  is  good  is  an  attribute  of  the  universe  as  a  whole; 
but  they  will  generally  add  that  it  is  less  mistaken  to  attribute  good 
to  a  State  thap  to  an  individual.  logically,  the  view  may  be  put 

201 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

as  follows.  We  can  attribute  to  a  State  various  predicates  that 
cannot  be  attributed  to  its  separate  members — that  it  is  populous, 
extensive,  powerful,  etc.  The  view  we  are  considering  puts  ethical 
predicates  in  this  class,  and  says  that  they  only  derivatively  belong 
to  individuals.  A  man  may  belong  to  a  populous  State,  or  to  a 
good  State;  but  he,  they  say,  is  no  more  good  than  he  is  populous. 
This  view,  which  has  been  widely  held  by  German  philosophers, 
is  not  Aristotle's,  except  possibly,  in  some  degree,  in  his  conception 
of  justice. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  Ethics  is  occupied  with  the  discussion 
of  friendship,  including  all  relations  that  involve  affection.  Perfect 
friendship  is  only  possible  between  the  good,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  be  friends  with  many  people.  One  should  not  be  friends  with  a 
person  of  higher  station  than  one's  own,  unless  he  is  also  of  higher 
virtue,  which  will  justify  the  respect  shown  to  him.  \Ve  have  seen 
that,  in  unequal  relations,  such  as  those  of  man  and  wife  or  father 
and  son,  the  superior  should  be  the  more  loved.  It  is  impossible 
to  be  friends  with  God,  because  He  cannot  love  us.  Aristotle 
discusses  whether  a  man  can  be  a  friend  to  himself,  and  decides 
that  this  is  only  possible  if  he  is  a  good  man;  wicked  men,  he 
asserts,  often  hate  themselves.  The  good  man  should  love  himself, 
but  nobly  (1169*).  Friends  are  a  comfort  in  misfortune,  but  one 
should  not  make  them  unhappy  by  seeking  their  sympathy,  as  is 
done  by  women  and  womanish  men  (1171*).  It  is  not  only  in 
misfortune  that  friends  are  desirable,  for  the  happy  man  needs 
friends  with  whom  to  share  his  happiness.  "No  one  would  choose 
the  whole  world  on  condition  of  being  alone,  since  man  is  a 
political  creature  and  one  whose  nature  is  to  live  with  others" 
(1169*).  All  that  is  said  about  friendship  is  sensible,  but  there  is 
not  a  word  that  rises  above  common  sense. 

Aristotle  again  shows  his  good  sense  in  the  discussion  of  pleasure, 
which  Plato  had  regarded  somewhat  ascetically.  Pleasure,  as 
Aristotle  uses  the  word,  is  distinct  from  happiness,  though  there 
can  be  no  happiness  without  pleasure.  There  are,  he  says,  three 
views  of  pleasure:  (i)  that  it  is  never  good;  (2)  that  some  pleasure- 
is  good,  but  most  is  bad;  (3)  that  pleasure  is  good,  but  not  the 
best.  He  rejects  the  first  of  these  on  the  ground  that  pain  is  cer- 
tainly bad,  and  therefore  pleasure  must  be  good.  He  says,  very 
justly,  that  it  is  nonsense  to  say  a  man  can  be  happy  on  the  rack : 
some  degree  of  external  good  fortune  is  necessary  for  happiness. 

202 


ARISTOTLE'S  ETHICS 

tie  also  disposes  of  the  view  that  all  pleasures  are  bodily ;  all  things 
have  something  divine,  and  therefore  some  capacity  for  higher 
pleasures.  Good  men  have  pleasure  unless  they  are  unfortunate, 
and  God  always  enjoys  a  single  and  simple  pleasure  (1152-1154). 

There  is  another  discussion  of  pleasure,  in  a  later  pan  of  the 
book,  which  is  not  wholly  consistent  with  the  above.  Here  it  is 
argued  that  there  are  bad  pleasures,  which,  however,  are  not 
pleasures  to  pood  people  (1173*);  that  perhaps  pleasures  differ  in 
kind  (ibid.) ;  and  that  pleasures  are  good  or  bad  according  as  they 
are  connected  with  good  or  bad  activities  (1175*).  There  are  things 
that  are  valued  more  than  pleasure;  no  one  would  be  content  to 
go  through  life  with  a  child's  intellect,  even  if  it  were  pleasant  to 
do  so.  Each  animal  has  its  proper  pleasure,  and  the  proper  pleasure 
of  man  is  connected  with  reason. 

This  leads  on  to  the  only  doctrine  in  the  book  which  is  not  mere 
common  sense.  Happiness  lies  in  virtuous  activity,  and  perfect 
happiness  lies  in  the  best  activity,  which  is  contemplative.  Con- 
templation is  preferable  to  war  or  politics  or  any  other  practical 
career,  because  it  allows  leisure,  and  leisure  is  essential  to  happi- 
ness. Practical  virtue  brings  only  a  secondary  kind  of  happiness; 
the  supreme  happiness  is  in  the  exercise  of  reason,  for  reason, 
more  than  anything  else,  is  man.  Man  cannot  be  wholly  contem- 
plative, but  in  so  far  as  he  is  so  he  shares  in  the  divine  life.  "The 
activity  of  God,  which  surpasses  all  others  in  blessedness,  must 
be  contemplative."  Of  all  human  beings,  the  philosopher  is  the 
most  godlike  in  his  activity,  and  therefore  the  happiest  and  best: 

I  Ic  who  exercises  his  reason  and  cultivates  it  seems  to  be  both 
in  the  be*»t  state  of  mind  and  most  dear  to  the  gods.  For  if  the  gods 
have  any  care  for  human  affairs,  as  they  are  thought  to  have,  it 
would  be  reasonable  both  that  they  should  delight  in  that  which 
was  best  and  most  akin  to  them  (i.e.  reason)  and  that  they  should 
reward  those  who  love  and  honour  this  most,  as  caring  for  the 
things  that  are  dear  to  them  and  acting  both  rightly  and  nobly. 
And  that  all  these  attributes  belong  most  of  all  to  the  philosopher 
is  manifest.  He,  therefore,  is  the  dearest  to  the  gods.  And  he  who 
is  that  will  presumably  be  also  the  happiest;  so  that  in  this  way 
too  the  philosopher  will  more  than  any  other  be  happy  (1179*). 

This  passage  is  virtually  the  peroration  of  the  Ethics-,  the  few 

paragraphs  that  follow  are  concerned  with  the  transition  to  politics. 

Let  us  now  try  to  decide  what  we  are  to  think  of  the  merits  and 

203 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

demerits  of  the  Ethics.  Unlike  many  other  subjects  treated  by 
Greek  philosophers,  ethics  has  not  made  any  definite  advances, 
in  the  sense  of  ascertained  discoveries ;  nothing  in  ethics  is  known 
in  a  scientific  sense.  There  is  therefore  no  reason  why  an  ancient 
treatise  on  it  should  be  in  any  respect  inferior  to  a  modern  one. 
When  Aristotle  talks  about  astronomy,  we  can  say  definitely  that 
he  is  wrong;  but  when  he  talks  about  ethics  we  cannot  say,  in 
the  same  sense,  either  that  he  is  wrong  or  that  he  is  right.  Broadly 
speaking,  there  are  three  questions  that  we  can  ask  about  the 
ethics  of  Aristotle,  or  of  any  other  philosopher:  (i)  Is  it  internally 
self-consistent?  (2)  Is  it  consistent  with  the  remainder  of  the 
author's  views  ?  (3)  Does  it  give  answers  to  ethical  problems  that 
are  consonant  to  our  own  ethical  feelings  ?  If  the  answer  to  cither 
the  first  or  second  question  is  in  the  negative,  the  philosopher  in 
question  has  been  guilty  of  some  intellectual  error.  But  if  the 
answer  to  the  third  question  is  in  the  negative,  we  have  no  right 
to  say  that  he  is  mistaken ;  we  have  only  the  right  to  say  that  we 
do  not  like  him. 

Let  us  examine  these  three  questions  in  turn,  as  regards  the 
ethical  theory  set  forth  in  the  Nicomachean  Ethics. 

(1)  On  the  whole,  the  book  is  self-consistent,  except  in  a  few 
not  very  important  respects.  The  doctrine  that  the  good  is  happi- 
ness, and  that  happiness  consists  in  successful  activity,  is  well 
worked  out.  The  doctrine  that  every  virtue  is  a  mean  between 
two  extremes,  though  very  ingeniously  developed,  is  less  successful, 
since  it  does  not  apply  to  intellectual  contemplation,  which,  we 
are  told,  is  the  best  of  all  activities.  It  can,  however,  be  maintained 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  mean  is  only  intended  to  apply  to  the 
practical  virtues,  not  to,  those  of  the  intellect.  Perhaps,  to  take 
another  point,  the  position  of  the  legislator  is  somewhat  ambiguous. 
He  is  to  cause  children  and  young  people  to  acquire  the  habit  of 
performing  good  actions,  which  mil,  in  the  end,  lead  them  to  find 
pleasure  in  virtue,  and  to  act  virtuously  without  the  need  of  legal 
compulsion.  It  is  obvious  that  the  legislator  might  equally  well 
cause  the  young  to  acquire  bad  habits;  if  this  is  to  be  avoided,  he 
must  have  all  the  wisdom  of  a  Platonic  guardian ;  and  if  it  is  not 
avoided,  the  argument  that  a  virtuous  life  is  pleasant  will  fail. 
This  problem,  however,  belongs  perhaps  more  to  politics  than 
to  ethics. 

(2)  Aristotle's  ethics  is,  at  all  points,  consistent  with  his  meta- 

204 


ARISTOTLE'S    ETHICS 

physics.  Indeed,  his  metaphysical  theories  are  themselves  the 
expression  of  an  ethical  optimism.  He  believes  in  the  scientific 
importance  of  final  causes,  and  this  implies  the  belief  that  purpose 
governs  the  course  of  development  in  the  universe.  He  thinks 
that  changes  are,  in  the  main,  such  as  embody  an  increase  of 
organization  or  "form,"  and  at  bottom  virtuous  actions  are  those 
that  favour  this  tendency.  It  is  true  that  a  great  deal  of  his  practical 
ethics  is  not  particularly  philosophical,  but  merely  the  result  of 
observation  of  human  affairs ;  but  this  part  of  his  doctrine,  though 
it  may  be  independent  of  his  metaphysics,  is  not  inconsistent 
with  it. 

(3)  When  we  come  to  compare  Aristotle's  ethical  tastes  with 
our  own,  we  find,  in  the  first  place,  as  already  noted,  an  acceptance 
of  inequality  which  is  repugnant  to  much  modern  sentiment. 
Not  only  is  there  no  objection  to  slavery,  or  to  the  superiority 
of  husbands  and  fathers  over  wives  and  children,  but  it  is  held 
that  what  is  best  is  essentially  only  for  the  few — magnanimous 
men  and  philosophers.  Most  men,  it  would  seem  to  follow,  are 
mainly  means  for  the  production  of  a  few  rulers  and  sages.  Kant 
maintained  that  every  human  being  is  an  end  in  himself,  and  this 
may  be  taken  as  an  expression  of  the  view  introduced  by  Christi- 
anity. There  is,  however,  a  logical  difficulty  in  Kant's  view,  since 
it  gives  no  means  of  reaching  a  decision  when  two  men's  interests 
clash.  If  each  is  an  end  in  himself,  how  are  we  to  arrive  at  a  prin- 
ciple for  determining  which  shall  give  way?  Such  a  principle 
must  have  to  do  with  the  community  rather  than  with  the  indi- 
vidual. In  the  broadest  sense  of  the  word,  it  will  have  to  be  a 
principle  of  "justice."  Benthum  and  the  utilitarians  interpret 
"justice"  as  "equality":  when  two  men's  interests  clash,  the  right 
course  is  that  which  produces  the  greatest  total  of  happiness, 
regardless  of  which  of  the  two  enjoys  it,  or  how  it  is  shared  among 
them.  If  more  is  given  to  the  better  man  than  to  the  worse,  that 
is  because,  in  the  long  run,  the  general  happiness  is  increased  by 
rewarding  virtue  and  punishing  vice,  not  because  of  an  ultimate 
ethical  doctrine  that  the  good  deserve  more  than  the  bad.  "Justice," 
in  this  view,  consists  in  considering  only  the  amount  of  happiness 
involved,  without  favour  to  one  individual  or  class  as  against 
another.  Greek  philosophers,  including  Plato  and  Aristotle,  had 
a  different  conception  of  justice,  and  it  is  one  which  is  still  widely 
prevalent.  They  thought — originally  on  grounds  derived  from 

205 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

religion — that  each  thing  or  person  had  its  or  his  proper  sphere, 
to  overstep  which  is  "unjust."  Some  men,  in  virtue  of  their 
character  and  aptitudes,  have  a  wider  sphere  than  others,  and 
there  is  no  injustice  if  they  enjoy  a  greater  share  of  happiness. 
This  view  is  taken  for  granted  in  Aristotle,  but  its  basis  in  primitive 
religion,  which  is  evident  in  the  earliest  philosophers,  is  no  longer 
apparent  in  his  writings. 

There  is  in  Aristotle  an  almost  complete  absence  of  what  may 
be  called  benevolence  or  philanthropy.  The  sufferings  of  mankind, 
in  so  far  as  he  is  aware  of  them  do  not  move  him  emotionally; 
he  holds  them,  intellectually,  to  be  an  evil,  but  there  is  no  evidence 
that  they  cause  him  unhappiness  except  when  the  sufferers  happen 
to  be  his  friends. 

More  generally,  there  is  an  emotional  poverty  in  the  Ethics, 
which  is  not  found  in  the  earlier  philosophers.  There  is  something 
unduly  smug  and  comfortable  about  Aristotle's  speculations  on 
human  affairs;  everything  that  makes  men  feel  a  passionate  interest 
in  each  other  seems  to  be  forgotten.  Even  his  account  of  friend- 
ship is  tepid.  He  shows  no  sign  of  having  had  any  of  those  experi- 
ences which  make  it  difficult  to  preserve  sanity;  all  the  more 
profound  aspects  of  the  moral  life  are  apparently  unknown  to  him. 
He  leaves  out,  one  may  say,  the  whole  sphere  of  human  experi- 
ence with  which  religion  is  concerned.  What  he  ha,s  to  say  is 
what  will  be  useful  to  comfortable  men  of  weak  passions;  but  he 
has  nothing  to  say  to  those  who  are  possessed  by  a  god  or  a  devil, 
or  whom  outward  misfortune  drives  to  despair.  For  these  reasons, 
in  my  judgment,  his  Ethics,  in  spite  of  its  fame,  is  lacking  in 
intrinsic  importance. 


206 


Chapter  XXI 
ARISTOTLE'S    POLITICS 

ARISTOTLE'S  Politics  is  both  interesting  and  important — 
interesting,  as  showing  the  common  prejudices  of  educated 
Greeks  in  his  time,  and  important  as  a  source  of  many  prin- 
ciples which  remained  influential  until  the  end  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  I  do  not  think  there  is  much  in  it  that  could  be  of  any  practical 
use  to  a  statesman  of  the  present  day,  but  there  is  a  great  deal 
that  throws  light  on  the  conflicts  of  parties  in  different  parts  of 
the  Hellenic  world.  There  is  not  very  much  awareness  of  methods 
of  government  in  non-Hellenic  States.  There  are,  it  is  true, 
allusions  to  Egypt,  Babylon,  Persia,  and  Carthage,  but  except  in 
the  case  of  Carthage  they  are  somewhat  perfunctory.  There  is 
no  mention  of  Alexander,  and  not  even  the  faintest  awareness  of 
the  complete  transformation  that  he  was  effecting  in  the  world. 
The  whole  discussion  is  concerned  with  City  States,  and  there  is 
no  prevision  of  their  obsolescence.  Greece,  owing  to  its  division 
into  independent  cities,  was  a  laboratory  of  political  experiment; 
but  nothing  to  which  these  experiments  were  relevant  existed 
from  Aristotle's  time  until  the  rise  of  the  Italian  cities  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  In  many  ways,  the  experience  to  which  Aristotle  appeals  is 
more  relevant  to  the  comparatively  modern  world  than  to  any 
that  existed  for  fifteen  hundred  years  after  the  book  was  written. 
There  are  many  pleasant  incidental  remarks,  some  of  which 
may  be  noted  before  we  embark  upon  political  theory.  We  are 
told  that  Euripides,  when  he  was  staying  at  the  court  of  Archelaus, 
King  of  Macedon,  was  accused  of  halitosis  by  a  certain  Decam- 
nichus.  To  soothe  his  fury,  the  king  gave  him  permission  to 
scourge  Decarnnichus,  which  he  did.  Decamnichus,  after  waiting 
many  years,  joined  in  a  successful  plot  to  kill  the  king;  but  by 
this  time  Euripides  was  dead.  We  are  told  that  children  should 
be  conceived  in  winter,  when  the  wind  is  in  the  north ;  that  there 
must  be  a  careful  avoidance  of  indecency,  because  "shameful 
words  lead  to  shameful  acts,"  and  that  obscenity  is  never  to  be 
tolerated  except  in  temples,  where  the  law  permits  even  ribaldry. 
People  should  not  marry  too  young,  because,  if  they  do,  the 
children  will  be  weak  and  female,  the  wives  will  become  wanton, 

307 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

and  the  husbands  stunted  in  their  growth.  The  right  age  for 
marriage  is  thirty-seven  in  men,  eighteen  in  women. 

We  learn  how  Thales,  being  taunted  with  his  poverty,  bought  up 
all  the  olive-presses  on  the  instalment  plan,  and  was  then  able  to 
charge  monopoly  rates  for  their  use.  This  he  did  to  show  that 
philosophers  can  make  money,  and,  if  they  remain  poor,  it  is 
because  they  have  something  more  important  than  wealth  to 
think  about.  All  this,  however,  is  by  the  way ;  it  is  time  to  come  to 
more  serious  matters. 

The  book  begins  by  pointing  out  the  importance  of  the  State ; 
it  is  the  highest  kind  of  community,  and  aims  at  the  highest  good. 
In  order  of  time,  the  family  comes  first ;  it  is  built  on  the  two 
fundamental  relations  of  man  and  woman,  master  and  slave,  both 
of  which  are  natural.  Several  families  combined  make  a  village ; 
several  villages,  a  State,  provided  the  combination  is  nearly  large 
enough  to  be  self-sufficing.  The  State,  though  later  in  time  than 
the  family,  is  prior  to  it,  and  even  to  the  individual,  by  nature; 
for  "what  each  thing  is  when  fully  developed  we  call  its  nature/' 
and  human  society,  fully  developed,  is  a  State,  and  the  whole 
is  prior  to  the  part.  The  conception  involved  here  is  that  of 
organism:  a  hand,  when  the  body  is  destroyed,  is,  we  are  told,  no 
longer  a  hand.  The  implication  is  that  a  hand  is  to  be  defined  by 
its  purpose — that  of  grasping — which  it  can  only  perform  when 
joined  to  a  living  body.  In  like  manner  an  individual  cannot  fulfil 
his  purpose  unless  he  is  part  of  a  State.  He  who  founded  the 
State,  Aristotle  says,  was  the  greatest  of  benefactors;  for  without 
law  man  is  the  worst  of  animals,  and  law  depends  for  its  existence 
on  the  State.  The  State  is  not  a  mere  society  for  exchange  and  the 
prevention  of  crime:  "The  end  of  the  State  is  the  good  life. 
.  .  .  And  the  State  is  the  union  of  families  and  villages  in  a 
perfect  and  self-sufficing  life,  by  which  we  mean  a  happy  and 
honourable  life"  (1280*).  "A  political  society  exists  for  the  sake 
of  noble  actions,  not  of  mere  companionship"  (1281°). 

A  State  being  composed  of  households,  each  of  which  consists 
of  one  family,  the  discussion  of  politics  should  begin  with  the 
family.  The  bulk  of  this  discussion  is  concerned  with  slavery — 
for  in  antiquity  the  slaves  were  always  reckoned  as  pan  of  the 
family.  Slavery  is  expedient  and  right,  but  the  slave  should  be 
naturally  inferior  to  the  master.  From  birth,  some  are  marked  out 
for  subjection,  others  for  rule;  the  man  who  is  by  nature  not  his 

208 


ARISTOTLE'S  POLITICS 

own  but  another  man's  is  by  nature  a  slave.  Slaves  should  not  be 
Greeks,  but  of  an  inferior  race  with  less  spirit  (1255*  and  1330*). 
Tame  animals  are  better  off  when  ruled  by  man,  and  so  are  those 
who  are  naturally  inferior  when  ruled  by  their  superiors.  It  may 
be  questioned  whether  the  practice  of  making  slaves  out  of 
prisoners  of  war  is  justified ;  power,  such  as  leads  to  victory  in 
war,  seems  to  imply  superior  virtue,  but  this  is  not  always  the 
case.  War,  however,  is  just  when  waged  against  men  who,  though 
intended  by  nature  to  be  governed,  will  not  submit  (1256*);  and 
in  this  case,  it  is  implied,  it  would  be  right  to  make  slaves  of  the 
conquered.  This  would  seem  enough  to  justify  any  conqueror  who 
ever  lived ;  for  no  nation  will  admit  that  it  is  intended  by  nature  to 
be  governed,  and  the  only  evidence  as  to  nature's  intentions 
must  be  derived  from  the  outcome  of  war.  In  every  war,  therefore, 
the  victors  are  in  the  right  and  the  vanquished  in  the  wrong. 
Very  satisfactory ! 

Next  comes  a  discussion  of  trade,  which  profoundly  influenced 
scholastic  casuistry.  There  are  two  uses  of  a  thing,  one  proper, 
the  other  improper;  a  shoe,  for  instance,  may  be  worn,  which  is 
its  proper  use,  or  exchanged,  which  is  its  improper  use.  It  follows 
that  there  is  something  degraded  about  a  shoemaker,  who  must 
exchange  his  shoes  in  order  to  live.  Retail  trade,  we  are  told,  is 
not  a  natural  part  of  the  art  of  getting  wealth  (1257*).  The  natural 
way  to  get  wealth  is  by  skilful  management  of  house  and  land. 
To  the  wealth  that  can  be  made  in  this  way  there  is  a  limit,  but 
to  what  can  be  made  by  trade  there  is  none.  Trade  has  to  do  with 
money,  but  wealth  is  not  the  acquisition  of  coin.  Wealth  derived 
from  trade  is  justly  hated,  because  it  is  unnatural.  "The  most 
hated  sort,  and  with  the  greatest  reason,  is  usury,  which  makes 
a  gain  out  of  money  itself,  and  not  from  the  natural  object  of  it. 
For  money  was  intended  to  be  used  in  exchange,  but  not  to  increase 
at  interest.  ...  Of  all  modes  of  getting  wealth  this  is  the  most 
unnatural"  (1258). 

What  came  of  this  dictum  you  may  read  in  Tawney's  Religion 
and  the  Rise  oj  Capitalism.  But  while  his  history  is  reliable,  his 
comment  has  a  bias  in  favour  of  what  is  pre-capitalistic. 

44 Usury"  means  all  lending  money  at  interest,  not  only,  as  now, 
lending  at  an  exorbitant  rate.  From  Greek  times  to  the  present 
day,  mankind,  or  at  least  the  economically  more  developed 
portion  of  them,  have  been  divided  into  debtors  and  creditors; 

209 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

debtors  have  disapproved  of  interest,  and  creditors  have  approved 
of  it.  At  most  times,  landowners  have  been  debtors,  while  men 
engaged  in  commerce  have  been  creditors.  The  views  of  philo- 
sophers, with  few  exceptions,  have  coincided  with  the  pecuniary 
interests  of  their  class.  Greek  philosophers  belonged  to,  or  were 
employed  by,  the  landowning  class;  they  therefore  disapproved 
of  interest.  Medieval  philosophers  were  churchmen,  and  the 
property  of  the  Church  was  mainly  in  land ;  they  therefore  saw 
no  reason  to  revise  Aristotle's  opinion.  Their  objection  to  usury 
was  reinforced  by  anti-Semitism,  for  most  fluid  capital  was 
Jewish.  Ecclesiastics  and  barons  had  their  quarrels,  sometimes 
very  bitter;  but  they  could  combine  against  the  wicked  Jew  who 
had  tided  them  over  a  bad  harvest  by  means  of  a  loan,  and  con- 
sidered that  he  deserved  some  reward  for  his  thrift. 

With  the  Reformation,  the  situation  changed.  Many  of  the 
most  earnest  Protestants  were  business  men,  to  whom  lending 
money  at  interest  was  essential.  Consequently  first  Calvin,  and 
then  other  Protestant  divines,  sanctioned  interest.  At  last  the 
Catholic  Church  was  compelled  to  follow  suit,  because  the  old 
prohibitions  did  not  suit  the  modern  world.  Philosophers,  whose 
incomes  are  derived  from  the  investments  of  universities,  have 
favoured  interest  ever  since  they  ceased  to  be  ecclesiastics  and 
therefore  connected  with  landowning.  At  every  stage,  theie  has 
been  a  wealth  of  theoretical  argument  to  support  the  economically 
convenient  opinion. 

Plato's  Utopia  is  criticized  by  Aristotle  on  various  grounds. 
There  is  first  the  very  interesting  comment  that  it  gives  too  much 
unity  to  the  State,  and  would  make  it  into  an  individual.  Next 
comes  the  kind  of  argument  against  the  proposed  abolition  of  the 
family  that  naturally  occurs  to  every  reader.  Plato  thinks  that,  by 
merely  giving  the  title  of  "son'*  to  all  who  are  of  an  age  that  makes 
their  sonship  possible,  a  man  will  acquire  towards  the  whole 
multitude  the  sentiments  that  men  have  at  present  towards  their 
actual  sons,  and  correlatively  as  regards  the  title  "father/*  Aristotle, 
on  the  contrary,  says  that  what  is  common  to  the  greatest  number 
receives  the  least  care,  and  that  if  "sons'1  are  common  to  many 
"fathers"  they  will  be  neglected  in  common;  it  is  better  to  be 
a  cousin  in  reality  than  a  "son"  in  Plato's  sense ;  Plato's  plan  would 
make  love  watery.  Then  there  is  a  curious  argument  that,  since 
abstinence  from  adultery  is  a  virtue,  it  would  be  a  pity  to  have 

210 


ARISTOTLE'S  POLITICS 

a  social  system  which  abolishes  this  virtue  and  the  correlative 
vice  (1263*).  Then  we  are  asked:  if  women  are  common,  who 
will  manage  the  house  ?  I  wrote  an  essay  once,  called  "Architecture 
and  the  Social  System,"  in  which  I  pointed  out  that  all  who 
combine  communism  with  abolition  of  the  family  also  advocate 
communal  houses  for  large  numbers,  with  communal  kitchens, 
dining-rooms,  and  nurseries.  This  system  may  be  described  as 
monasteries  without  celibacy.  It  is  essential  to  the  carrying  out  of 
Plato's  plans,  but  it  is  certainly  not  more  impossible  than  many 
other  things  that  he  recommends. 

Plato's  communism  annoys  Aristotle.  It  would  lead,  he  says, 
to  anger  against  lazy  people,  and  to  the  sort  of  quarrels  that  are 
common  between  fellow-travellers.  It  is  better  if  each  minds  his 
own  business.  Property  should  be  private,  but  people  should  be 
so  trained  in  benevolence  as  to  allow  the  use  of  it  to  be  largely 
common.  Benevolence  and  generosity  are  virtues,  and  without 
pr  vate  property  they  are  impossible.  Finally  we  are  told  that,  if 
Plato's  plans  were  good,  someone  would  have  thought  of  them 
sooner.1  I  do  not  agree  with  Plato,  but  if  anything  could  make 
me  do  so,  it  would  be  Aristotle's  arguments  against  him. 

As  we  have  seen  in  connection  with  slavery,  Aristotle  is  no 
Miever  in  equality.  Granted,  however,  the  subjection  of  slaves 
and  women,  it  still  remains  a  question  whether  all  citizens  should 
be  politically  equal.  Some  men,  he  says,  think  this  desirable,  on 
the  ground  that  all  revolutions  turn  on  the  regulation  of  property, 
lie  rejects  this  argument,  maintaining  that  the  greatest  crimes 
are  due  to  excess  rather  than  want ;  no  man  becomes  a  tyrant  in 
order  to  avoid  feeling  the  cold. 

A  government  is  good  when  it  aims  at  the  good  of  the  whole 
community,  bad  when  it  cares  only  for  itself.  There  are  three  kinds 
of  government  that  are  good:  monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  consti- 
tutional government  (or  polity);  there  are  three  that  are  bad: 
tyranny,  oligarchy,  and  democracy.  There  are  also  many  mixed 
intermediate  forms.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  good  and  bad 
governments  are  defined  by  the  ethical  qualities  of  the  holders  of 
power,  not  by  the  form  of  the  constitution.  This,  however,  is 

1  Ct.  Tlit  Noodle's  Oration  in  Sydney  Smith;  "If  the  proposal  be 
bound,  would  the  Saxon  have  passed  it  by  ?  Would  the  Dane  have  ignored 
it?  Would  it  have  escaped  the  wisdom  of  the  Norman?"  (I  quote  from 
memory. ) 

211 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

only  partly  true.  An  aristocracy  is  a  rule  of  men  of  virtue,  an 
oligarchy  is  a  rule  of  the  rich,  and  Aristotle  does  not  consider 
virtue  and  wealth  strictly  synonymous.  What  he  holds,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  doctrine  of  the  golden  mean,  is  that  a  moderate 
competence  is  most  likely  to  be  associated  with  virtue:  "Mankind 
do  not  acquire  or  preserve  virtue  by  the  help  of  external  goods, 
but  external  goods  by  the  help  of  virtue,  and  happiness,  whether 
consisting  in  pleasure  or  virtue,  or  both,  is  more  often  found 
with  those  who  are  most  highly  cultivated  in  their  mind  and  in 
their  character,  and  have  only  a  moderate  share  of  external  poods, 
than  among  those  who  possess  external  goods  to  a  useless  extent 
but  are  deficient  in  higher  qualities*'  (1323*  and  ')-  There  is 
therefore  a  difference  between  the  rule  of  the  best  (aristocracy) 
and  of  the  richest  (oligarchy),  since  the  best  are  likely  to  have 
only  moderate  fortunes.  There  is  also  a  difference  between  demo- 
cracy and  polity,  in  addition  to  the  ethical  difference  in  the  govern- 
ment, for  what  Aristotle  calls  "polity"  retains  some  oligarchic 
elements  (1293*).  But  between  monarchy  and  tyranny  the  only 
difference  is  ethical. 

He  is  emphatic  in  distinguishing  oligarchy  and  democracy  by 
the  economic  status  of  the  governing  party:  there  is  oligarchy 
when  the  rich  govern  without  consideration  for  the  poor,  demo- 
cracy when  power  is  in  the  hands  of  the  needy  and  they  disregard 
the  interest  of  the  rich. 

Monarchy  is  better  than  aristocracy,  aristocracy  is  better  than 
polity.  But  the  corruption  of  the  best  is  worst ;  therefore  tyranny 
is  worse  than  oligarchy,  and  oligarchy  than  democracy.  In  this 
way  Aristotle  arrives  at  a  qualified  defence  of  democracy;  for 
most  Actual  governments  are  bad,  and  therefore,  among  actual 
governments,  democracies  tend  to  be  best. 

The  Greek  conception  of  democracy  was  in  many  ways  more 
extreme  than  ours;  for  instance,  Aristotle  says  that  to  elect  magis- 
trates is  oligarchic,  while  it  is  democratic  to  appoint  them  by  lot. 
In  extreme  democracies,  the  assembly  of  the  citizens  was  above  the 
law,  and  decided  each  question  independently.  The  Athenian 
law-courts  were  composed  of  a  large  number  of  citizens  chosen 
by  lot,  unaided  by  any  jurist ;  they  were,  of  course,  liable  to  be 
swayed  by  eloquence  or  party  passion.  When  democracy  is 
criticized,  it  must  be  understood  that  this  sort  of  thing  is 
meant. 

212 


ARISTOTLE'S    POLITICS 

There  is  a  long  discussion  of  causes  of  revolution.  In  Greece, 
revolutions  were  as  frequent  as  formerly  in  Latin  America,  and 
therefore  Aristotle  had  a  copious  experience  from  which  to  draw 
inferences.  The  main  cause  was  the  conflict  of  oligarchs  and 
democrats.  Democracy,  Aristotle  says,  arises  from  the  belief  that 
men  who  are  equally  free  should  be  equal  in  all  respects;  oligarchy, 
from  the  fact  that  men  who  are  superior  in  some  respect  claim 
too  much.  Both  have  a  kind  of  justice,  but  not  the  best  kind. 
"Therefore  both  parties,  whenever  their  share  in  the  government 
does  not  accord  with  their  preconceived  ideas,  stir  up  revolution" 
(1301*).  Democratic  governments  are  less  liable  to  revolutions 
than  oligarchies,  because  oligarchs  may  fall  out  with  each  other. 
The  oligarchs  seem  to  have  been  vigorous  fellows.  In  some  cities, 
we  are  told,  they  swore  an  oath :  "I  will  be  an  enemy  to  the  people, 
and  will  devise  all  the  harm  against  them  which  I  can."  Nowadays 
reactionaries  are  not  so  frank. 

The  three  things  needed  to  prevent  revolution  are  government 
propaganda  in  education,  respect  for  law,  even  in  small  things, 
and  justice  in  law  and  administration,  i.e.,  "equality  according 
to  proportion,  and  for  every  man  to  enjoy  his  own"  (1307*, 
I3°7b^  *310*)'  Aristotle  never  seems  to  have  realized  the  difficulty 
of  "equality  according  to  proportion."  If  this  is  to  be  true  justice, 
the  proportion  must  be  of  virtue.  Now  virtue  is  difficult  to  measure, 
and  is  a  matter  of  party  controversy.  In  political  practice,  therefore, 
virtue  tends  to  be  measured  by  income;  the  distinction  between 
aristocracy  and  oligarchy,  which  Aristotle  attempts  to  make,  is 
only  possible  where  there  is  a  very  well-established  hereditary 
nobility.  Even  then,  as  soon  as  there  exists  a  large  class  of  rich 
men  who  are  not  noble,  they  have  to  be  admitted  to  power  for 
fear  of  their  making  a  revolution.  Hereditary  aristocracies  cannot 
long  retain  their  power  except  where  land  is  almost  the  only 
source  of  wealth.  All  social  inequality,  in  the  long  run,  is  inequality 
of  income.  That  is  part  of  the  argument  for  democracy:  that  the 
attempt  to  have  a  "proportionate  justice"  based  on  any  merit 
other  than  wealth  is  sure  to  break  down.  Defenders  of  oligarchy 
pretend  that  income  is  proportional  to  virtue;  the  prophet  said 
he  had  never  seen  a  righteous  man  begging  his  bread,  and  Aristotle 
thinks  that  good  men  acquire  just  about  his  own  income,  neither 
very  large  nor  very  small.  But  such  views  are  absurd.  Eveiy  kind 
of  4 'justice"  other  than  absolute  equality  will,  in  practice,  reward 

"3 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

some  quality  quite  other  than  virtue,  and  is  therefore  to  be 
condemned. 

There  is  an  interesting  section  on  tyranny.  A  tyrant  desires 
riches,  whereas  a  king  desires  honour.  The  tyrant  has  guards  who 
are  mercenaries,  whereas  the  king  has  guards  who  are  citizens. 
Tyrants  are  mostly  demagogues,  who  acquire  power  by  promising 
to  protect  the  people  against  the  notables.  In  an  ironically  Machia- 
vellian tone,  Aristotle  explains  what  a  tyrant  must  do  to  retain 
power.  He  must  prevent  the  rise  of  any  person  of  exceptional 
merit,  by  execution  or  assassination  if  necessary.  He  must  prohibit 
common  meals,  clubs,  and  any  education  likely  to  produce  hostile 
sentiment.  There  must  be  no  literary  assemblies  or  discussions. 
He  must  prevent  people  from  knowing  each  other  well,  and 
compel  them  to  live  in  public  at  his  gates.  He  should  employ 
spies,  like  the  female  detectives  at  Syracuse.  He  must  sow  quarrels, 
and  impoverish  his  subjects.  He  should  keep  them  occupied  in 
great  works,  as  the  king  of  Egypt  did  in  getting  the  pyramids 
built.  He  should  give  power  to  women  and  slaves,  to  make  them 
informers.  He  should  make  war,  in  order  that  his  subjects  may 
have  something  to  do  and  be  always  in  want  of  a  leader  (131 3' 
and  *). 

It  is  a  melancholy  reflection  that  this  passage  is,  of  the  whole 
book,  the  one  most  appropriate  to  the  present  day.  Aristotle 
concludes  that  there  is  no  wickedness  too  great  for  a  tyrant.  There- 
is,  however,  he  says,  another  method  of  preserving  a  tyranny, 
namely  by  moderation  and  by  seeming  religious.  There  is  no 
decision  as  to  which  method  is  likely  to  prove  the  more  successful. 

There  is  a  long  argument  to  prove  that  foreign  conquest  is  not 
the  end  of  the  State,  showing  that  many  people  took  the  imperialist 
view.  There  is,  it  is  true,  an  exception:  conquest  of  "natural 
slaves"  is  right  and  just.  This  would,  in  Aristotle's  view,  justify 
wars  against  barbarians,  but  not  against  Greeks,  for  no  Greeks 
are  '"natural  slaves."  In  general,  war  is  only  a  means,  not  an  end; 
a  city  in  an  isolated  situation,  where  conquest  is  not  possible, 
may  be  happy;  States  that  live  in  isolation  need  not  be  inactive. 
God  and  the  universe  are  active,  though  foreign  conquest  is 
impossible  for  them.  The  happiness  that  a  State  should  seek, 
therefore,  though  war  may  sometimes  be  a  necessary  means  to  it, 
should  not  be  war,  but  the  activities  of  peace. 

This  leads  to  the  question :  how  large  should  a  State  be  ?  Large 


ARISTOTLE'S  POLITICS 

cities,  we  are  told,  are  never  well  governed,  because  a  great  multi- 
tude cannot  be  orderly.  A  State  ought  to  be  large  enough  to  be 
more  or  less  self-sufficing,  but  not  too  large  for  constitutional 
government.  It  ought  to  be  small  enough  for  the  citizens  to  know 
each  other's  characters,  otherwise  right  will  not  be  done  in  elections 
and  law-suits.  The  territory  should  be  small  enough  to  be  surveyed 
in  its  entirety  from  a  hill-top.  We  are  told  both  that  it  should  be 
self-sufficient  (1326*)  and  that  it  should  have  an  export  and 
import  trade  (1327*),  which  seems  an  inconsistency. 

Men  who  work  for  their  living  should  not  be  admitted  to  citizen- 
ship. " Citizens  should  not  lead  the  life  of  mechanics  or  tradesmen, 
for  such  a  life  is  ignoble  and  inimical  to  virtue."  Nor  should  they 
be  husbandmen,  because  they  need  leisure.  The  citizens  should 
own  the  property,  but  the  husbandmen  should  be  slaves  of  a 
different  race  (1330°).  Northern  races,  we  are  told,  are  spirited; 
southern  races,  intelligent ;  therefore  slaves  should  be  of  southern 
races,  since  it  is  inconvenient  if  they  are  spirited.  The  Greeks 
alone  are  both  spirited  and  intelligent ;  they  are  better  governed 
than  barbarians,  and  if  united  could  rule  the  world  (1327*).  One 
might  have  expected  at  this  point  some  allusion  to  Alexander, 
but  there  is  none. 

With  regard  to  the  size  of  States,  Aristotle  makes,  on  a  different 
scale,  the  same  mistake  that  is  made  by  many  modern  liberals. 
A  State  must  be  able  to  defend  itself  in  war,  and  even,  if  any 
liberal  culture  is  to  survive,  to  defend  itself  without  very  great 
difficulty.  I  low  large  this  requires  a  State  to  be,  depends  upon  the 
technique  of  war  and  industry.  In  Aristotle's  day,  the  City  State 
was  obsolete  because  it  could  not  defend  itself  against  Macedonia. 
In  our  day,  Greece  as  a  whole,  including  Macedonia,  is  obsolete 
in  this  sense,  as  has  been  recently  proved.1  To  advocate  complete 
independence  for  Greece,  or  any  other  small  country,  is  now  as 
futile  as  to  advocate  complete  independence  for  a  single  city, 
whose  territory  can  be  seen  entire  from  an  eminence.  There  can 
be  no  true  independence  except  for  a  State  or  alliance  strong 
enough,  by  its  own  efforts,  to  repel  all  attempts  at  foreign  conquest. 
Nothing  smaller  than  America  and  the  British  Empire  combined 
will  satisfy  this  requirement;  and  perhaps  even  this  would  be 
too  small  a  unit. 

The  book,  which,  in  the  form  in  which  we  have  it,  appears  to 
1  Thh  was  written  in  May,  194". 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

be  unfinished,  ends  with  a  discussion  of  education.  Education, 
of  course,  is  only  for  children  who  are  going  to  be  citizens ;  slaves 
may  be  taught  useful  arts,  such  as  cooking,  but  these  are  no  part 
of  education.  The  citizen  should  be  moulded  to  the  form  of 
government  under  which  he  lives,  and  there  should  therefore  be 
differences  according  as  the  city  in  question  is  oligarchic  or 
democratic.  In  the  discussion,  however,  Aristotle  assumes  that 
the  citizens  will  all  have  a  share  of  political  power.  Children 
should  learn  what  is  useful  to  them,  but  not  vulgarizing;  for 
instance,  they  should  not  be  taught  any  skill  that  deforms  the 
body,  or  that  would  enable  them  to  earn  money.  They  should 
practise  athletics  in  moderation,  but  not  to  the  point  of  acquiring 
professional  skill;  the  boys  who  train  for  the  Olympic  games 
suffer  in  health,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  those  who  have  been 
victors  as  boys  are  hardly  ever  victors  as  men.  Children  should 
learn  drawing,  in  order  to  appreciate  the  beauty  of  the  human 
form;  and  they  should  be  taught  to  appreciate  such  painting  and 
sculpture  as  expresses  moral  ideas.  They  may  learn  to  sing  and  to 
play  musical  instruments  enough  to  be  able  to  enjoy  music 
critically,  but  not  enough  to  be  skilled  performers ;  for  no  freeman 
would  play  or  sing  unless  drunk.  They  must  of  course,  learn  to 
read  and  write,  in  spite  of  the  usefulness  of  these  arts.  But  the 
purpose  of  education  is  "virtue,"  not  usefulness.  What  Aristotle 
means  by  "virtue"  he  has  told  us  in  the  Ethics,  to  which  this  book 
frequently  refers. 

Aristotle's  fundamental  assumptions,  in  his  Politics,  are  very 
different  from  those  of  any  modern  writer.  The  aim  of  the  State, 
in  his  view,  is  to  produce  cultured  gentlemen — men  who  combine 
the  aristocratic  mentality  with  love  of  learning  and  the  arts 
This  combination  existed,  in  its  highest  perfection,  in  the  Athens 
of  Pericles,  not  in  the  population  at  large,  but  among  the  well- 
to-do.  It  began  to  break  down  in  the  last  years  of  Pericles.  The 
populace,  who  had  no  culture,  turned  against  the  friends  of 
Pericles,  who  were  driven  to  defend  the  privileges  of  the  rich, 
by  treachery,  assassination,  illegal  despotism,  and  other  such 
not  very  gentlemanly  methods.  After  the  death  of  Socrates, 
the  bigotry  of  the  Athenian  democracy  diminished,  and  Athens 
remained  the  centre  of  ancient  culture,  but  political  power  went 
elsewhere.  Throughout  later  antiquity,  power  and  culture  were 
usually  separate:  power  was  in  the  hands  of  rough  soldiers, 

216 


ARISTOTLE'S  POLITICS 

culture  belonged  to  powerless  Greeks,  often  slaves.  This  is  only 
partially  true  of  Rome  in  its  great  days,  but  it  is  emphatically 
true  before  Cicero  and  after  Marcus  Aurelius.  After  the  barbarian 
invasion,  the  "gentlemen"  were  northern  barbarians,  the  men 
of  culture  subtle  southern  ecclesiastics.  This  state  of  affairs 
continued,  more  or  less,  until  the  Renaissance,  when  the  laity 
began  to  acquire  culture.  From  the  Renaissance  onwards,  the 
Creek  conception  of  government  by  cultured  gentlemen  gradually 
prevailed  more  and  more,  reaching  its  acme  in  the  eighteenth 
century. 

Various  forces  have  put  an  end  to  this  state  of  affairs.  First, 
democracy,  as  embodied  in  the  French  Revolution  and  its  after- 
math. The  cultured  gentlemen,  as  after  the  age  of  Pericles,  had 
to  defend  their  privileges  against  the  populace,  and  in  the  process 
ceased  to  he  either  gentlemen  or  cultured.  A  second  cause  was 
the  rise  of  industrialism,  with  a  scientific  technique  very  different 
from  traditional  culture.  A  third  cause  was  popular  education, 
which  conferred  the  power  to  read  and  write,  but  did  not  confer 
culture;  this  enabled  a  new  type  of  demagogue  to  practise  a  new 
type  of  propaganda,  as  seen  in  the  dictatorships. 

Both  for  good  and  evil,  therefore,  the  day  of  the  cultured 
gentleman  is  past. 


-21" 


Chapter  XXII 
ARISTOTLE'S   LOGIC 

ARISTOTLE'S  influence,  which  was  very  great  in  many 
different  fields,  was  greatest  of  all  in  logic.  In  late  antiquity, 
when  Plato  was  still  supreme  in  metaphysics,  Aristotle  was 
the  recognized  authority  in  logic,  and  he  retained  this  position 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages.  It  was  not  till  the  thirteenth  century 
that  Christian  philosophers  accorded  him  supremacy  in  the  field 
of  metaphysics.  This  supremacy  was  largely  lost  after  the  Renais- 
sance, but  his  supremacy  in  logic  survived.  Even  at  the  present 
day,  all  Catholic  teachers  of  philosophy  and  many  others  still 
obstinately  reject  the  discoveries  of  modern  logic,  and  adhere 
with  a  strange  tenacity  to  a  system  which  is  as  definitely  antiquated 
as  Ptolemaic  astronomy.  This  makes  it  difficult  to  do  historical 
justice  to  Aristotle.  His  present-day  influence  is  so  inimical  to 
clear  thinking  that  it  is  hard  to  remember  how  great  an  advance 
he  made  upon  all  his  predecessors  (including  Plato),  or  how 
admirable  his  logical  work  would  still  seem  if  it  had  been  a  stage 
in  a  continual  progress,  instead  of  being  (as  in  fact  it  was)  a  dead 
end,  followed  by  over  two  thousand  years  of  stagnation.  In  dealing 
with  the  predecessors  of  Aristotle,  it  is  not  necessary  to  remind 
the  reader  that  they  are  not  verbally  inspired;  one  can  therefore 
praise  them  for  their  ability  without  being  supposed  to  subscrilxr 
to  all  their  doctrines.  Aristotle,  on  the  contrary,  is  still,  especially 
in  logic,  a  battle-ground,  and  cannot  be  treated  in  a  purely  his- 
torical spirit. 

Aristotle's  most  important  work  in  logic  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
syllogism.  A  syllogism  is  an  argument  consisting  of  three  parts,  a 
major  premiss,  a  minor  premiss,  and  a  conclusion.  Syllogisms 
are  of  a  number  of  different  kinds,  each  of  which  has  a  name, 
given  by  the  scholastics.  The  most  familiar  ts  the  kind  called 
"Barbara": 

All  men  are  mortal  (Major  premiss). 
Socrates  is  a  man  (Minor  premiss). 
Therefore:  Socrates  is  mortal  (Conclusion) 

21* 


ARISTOTLE'S  LOGIC 

Or:  all  men  are  mortal. 

AH  Greeks  are  men. 

Therefore:  All  Greeks  are  mortal. 

(Aristotle  docs  not  distinguish  between  these  two  forms;  this,  as 
we  shall  sec  later,  is  a  mistake.) 

Other  forms  are:  No  fishes  are  rational,  oil  sharks  are  fishes, 
therefore  no  sharks  are  rational.  (This  is  called  "Celarent.") 

All  men  are  rational,  some  animals  are  men,  therefore  some 
animals  are  rational.  (This  is  called  "Darii.") 

No  Greeks  are  black,  some  men  are  Greeks,  therefore  some  men 
are  not  black.  (This  is  called  "Ferio.")  x 

These  four  make  up  the  "first  figure";  Aristotle  adds  a  second 
and  third  figure,  and  the  schoolmen  added  a  fourth.  It  is  *hown 
that  the  three  later  figures  can  be  reduced  to  the  first  by  various 
devices. 

There  are  some  inferences  that  can  be  made  from  a  single 
premiss.  From  "some  men  are  mortal"  we  can  infer  that  "some 
mortals  are  men."  According  to  Aristotle,  this  can  be  also  inferred 
from  "all  men  are  mortal."  From  "no  gods  are  mortal"  we  can 
infer  "no  mortals  are  gods,"  but  from  "some  men  are  not  Greeks" 
it  does  not  follow  that  "some  Greeks  are  not  men." 

Apart  from  such  inferences  as  the  above,  Aristotle  and  his 
followers  thought  that  all  deductive  inference,  when  strictly 
stated,  is  syllogistic.  By  setting  forth  all  the  valid  kinds  of  syllogism, 
and  setting  out  any  suggested  argument  in  syllogistic  form,  it 
should  therefore  be  possible  to  avoid  all  fallacies. 

This  system  was  the  beginning  of  formal  logic,  and,  as  such,  was 
both  important  and  admirable.  But  considered  as  the  end,  not  the 
beginning,  of  formal  logic,  it  is  open  to  three  kinds  of  criticism: 

(1)  Formal  defects  within  the  system  itself. 

(2)  Over-estimation  of  the  syllogism,  as  compared  to  other 
forms  of  deductive  argument. 

(3)  Over-estimation  of  deduction  as  a- form  of  argument. 
On  each  of  these  three,  something  must  be  said. 

(i)  Formal  defect*.  Ix?t  us  begin  with  the  two  statements 
"Socrates  is  a  man"  and  "all  Greeks  are  men."  It  is  necessary  to 
make  a  sharp  distinction  between  these  two,  which  is  not  done 
in  Aristotelian  logic.  The  statement  "all  Greeks  arc  men"  is 
commonly  interpreted  ss  implying  that  there  are  Greeks:  without 

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WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

this  implication,  some  of  Aristotle's  syllogisms  are  not  valid. 
Take  for  instance: 

"All  Greeks  are  men,  All  Greeks  are  white,  therefore  some 
men  are  white."  This  is  valid  if  there  are  Greeks,  but  not  otherwise. 
If  I  were  to  say : 

"All  golden  mountains  are  mountains,  all  golden  mountains 
are  golden,  therefore  some  mountains  are  golden,"  my  conclusion 
would  be  false,  though  in  some  sense  my  premisses  would  be 
true.  If  we  are  to  be  explicit,  we  must  therefore  divide  the  one 
statement  "all  Greeks  are  men"  into  two,  one  saying  "there  are 
Greeks,"  and  the  other  saying  "if  anything  is  a  Greek  it  is  a  man." 
The  latter  statement  is  purely  hypothetical,  and  does  not  imply 
that  there  are  Greeks. 

The  statement  "all  Greeks  are  men"  is  thus  much  more 
complex  in  form  than  the  statement  "Socrates  is  a  man." 
"Socrates  is  a  man"  has  "Socrates"  for  its  subject,  but  "all 
Greeks  are  men"  does  not  have  "all  Greeks"  for  its  subject, 
for  there  is  nothing  about  "all  Greeks"  either  in  the  statement 
"there  are  Greeks,"  or  in  the  statement  "if  anything  is  a  Greek  it 
is  a  man." 

This  purely  formal  error  was  a  source  of  errors  in  metaphysics 
and  theory  of  knowledge.  Consider  the  state  of  our  knowledge  in 
regard  to  the  two  propositions  "Socrates  is  mortal"  and  "all  men 
are  mortal."  In  order  to  know  the  truth  of  "Socrates  is  mortal," 
most  of  us  are  content  to  rely  upon  testimony ;  but  if  testimony 
is  to  be  reliable,  it  must  lead  us  back  to  some  one  who  knew 
Socrates  and  saw  him  dead.  The  one  perceived  fact — the  dead 
body  of  Socrates — together  with  the  knowledge  that  this  was 
called  "Socrates,"  was  enough  to  assure  us  of  the  mortality 
of  Socrates.  But  when  it  comes  to  "all  men  are  mortal,"  the 
matter  is  different.  The  question  of  our  knowledge  of  such 
general  propositions  is  a  very  difficult  one.  Sometimes  they  are 
merely  verbal:  "all  Greeks  are  men"  is  known  because  nothing 
is  called  "a  Greek"  unless  it  is  a  man.  Such  general  statements 
can  be  ascertained  from  the  dictionary ;  they  tell  us  nothing  about 
the  world  except  how  words  are  used.  But  "all  men  are  mortal" 
is  not  of  this  sort;  there  is  nothing  logically  self-contradictory 
about  an  immortal  man.  We  believe  the  proposition  on  the  basis 
of  induction,  because  there  is  no  well-authenticated  case  of  a 
man  living  more  than  (say)  150  years;  but  this  only  makes  the 

220 


ARISTOTLE'S  LOGIC 

proposition  probable,  not  certain.  It  cannot  be  certain  so  long  as 
living  men  exist. 

Metaphysical  errors  arose  through  supposing  that  "all  men"  is 
the  subject  of  "all  men  are  mortal"  in  the  same  sense  as  that  in 
which  "Socrates"  is  the  subject  of  "Socrates  is  mortal."  It  made 
it  possible  to  hold  that,  in  some  sense,  "all  men"  denotes  an  entity 
of  the  same  sort  as  that  denoted  by  "Socrates."  This  led  Aristotle 
to  say  that  in  a  sense  a  species  is  a  substance.  He  is  careful  to 
qualify  this  statement,  but  his  followers,  especially  Porphyry, 
showed  less  caution. 

Another  error  into  which  Aristotle  falls  through  this  mistake 
is  to  think  that  a  predicate  of  a  predicate  can  be  a  predicate  of 
the  original  subject.  If  I  say  "Socrates  is  Greek,  all  Greeks  are 
human,"  Aristotle  thinks  that  "human"  is  a  predicate  of  "Greek," 
while  "Greek"  is  a  predicate  of  "Socrates,"  and  obviously  "human" 
is  a  predicate  of  "Socrates."  But  in  fact  "human"  is  not  a  predicate 
of  "Greek."  The  distinction  between  names  and  predicates,  or 
in  metaphysical  language,  between  particulars  and  universals, 
is  thus  blurred,  with  disastrous  consequences  to  philosophy.  One 
of  the  resulting  confusions  was  to  suppose  that  a  class  with  only 
one  member  is  identical  with  that  one  member.  This  made  it 
impossible  to  have  a  correct  theory  of  the  number  one,  and  led 
to  endless  bad  metaphysics  about  unity. 

(2)  Over-estimation  of  tlie  syllogism.  The  syllogism  is  only  one 
kind  of  deductive  argument.  In  mathematics,  which  is  wholly 
deductive,  syllogisms  hardly  ever  occur.  Of  course,  it  would  be 
possible  to  re-write  mathematical  arguments  in  syllogistic  form, 
but  this  would  he  very  artificial  and  would  not  make  them  any 
more  cogent.  Take  arithmetic,  for  example.  If  I  buy  goods  worth 
1 6s.  3d.,  and  tender  a  £1  note  in  payment,  how  much  change 
is  due  to  me  ?  To  put  this  simple  sum  in  the  form  of  a  syllogism 
would  be  absurd,  and  would  tend  to  conceal  the  real  nature  of 
the  argument.  Again,  within  logic  there  are  non-syllogistic 
inferences  such  as:  "A  horse  is  an  animal,  therefore  a  horse's 
head  is  an  animal's  head."  Valid  syllogisms,  in  fact,  are  only 
some  among  valid  deductions,  and  have  no  logical  priority  over 
others.  The  attempt  to  give  pre-eminence  to  the  syllogism  in 
deduction  misled  philosophers  as  to  the  nature  of  mathematical 
reasoning.  Kant,  who  perceived  that  mathematics  is  not  syllogistic, 
inferred  that  it  uses  extra-logical  principles,  which,  however,  he 

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WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

supposed  to  be  as  certain  as  those  of  logic.  He,  like  his  predecessors, 
though  in  a  different  way,  was  misled  by  respect  for  Aristotle. 

(3)  Over -estimation  of  deduction.  The  Greeks  in  general  attached 
more  importance  to  deduction  as  a  source  of  knowledge  than 
modern  philosophers  do.  In  this  respect,  Aristotle  was  less  at 
fault  than  Plato ;  he  repeatedly  admitted  the  importance  of  induc- 
tion, and  he  devoted  considerable  attention  to  the  question :  how 
do  we  know  the  first  premisses  from  which  deduction  must  start  ? 
Nevertheless,  he,  like  other  Greeks,  gave  undue  prominence  to 
deduction  in  his  theory  of  knowledge.  We  shall  agree  that  Mr. 
Smith  (say)  is  mortal,  and  we  may,  loosely,  say  that  we  know  this 
because  we  know  that  all  men  are  mortal.  But  what  we  really 
know  is  not  "all  men  are  mortal";  we  know  mther  something 
like  "all  men  born  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  are 
mortal,  and  so  are  almost  all  men  born  more  than  one  hundred 
years  ago."  This  is  our  reason  for  thinking  that  Mr.  Smith  will 
die.  But  this  argument  is  an  induction,  not  a  deduction.  It  has 
less  cogency  than  a  deduction,  and  yields  only  a  probability,  not 
a  certainty;  but  on  the  other  hand  it  gives  new  knowledge,  which 
deduction  does  not.  All  the  important  inferences  outside  logic  and 
pure  mathematics  are  inductive,  not  deductive;  the  only  excep- 
tions are  law  and  theology,  each  of  which  derives  its  first  prin- 
ciples from  an  unquestionable  text,  viz.  the  statute  hooks  01  the 
scriptures. 

Apart  from  The  Prior  Analytics,  which  deals  with  the  syllogism 
there  are  other  logical  writings  of  Aristotle  which  have  con- 
siderable importance  in  the  history  of  philosophy.  One  of  these 
is  the  short  work  on  The  Categories.  Porphyry  the  Neoplatonist 
wrote  a  commentary  on  this  book,  which  had  a  very  notable 
influence  on  medieval  philosophy;  but  for  the  present  let  us 
ignore  Porphyry  and  confine  ourselves  to  Aristotle. 

What,  exactly,  is  meant  by  the  word  "category/*  whether  in 
Aristotle  or  in  Kant  and  Hegel,  I  must  confess  that  I  have  never 
been  able  to  understand.  I  do  not  myself  believe  that  the  term 
"category"  is  in  any  way  useful  in  philosophy,  as  representing 
any  clear  idea.  There  are,  in  Aristotle,  ten  categories:  substance, 
quantity,  quality,  relation,  place,  time,  position,  state,  action, 
and  affection.  The  only  definition  offered  of  the  term  "category " 
is:  "expressions  which  are  in  no  way  composite  signify" — and 
then  follows  the  above  list.  This  seems  to  mean  that  every  word 

222 


ARISTOTLE'S  LOGIC 

of  which  the  meaning  is  not  compounded  of  the  meanings  of 
other  words  signifies  a  substance  or  a  quantity  or  etc.  There  is 
no  suggestion  of  any  principle  on  which  the  list  of  ten  categories 
has  been  compiled. 

"Substance"  is  primarily  what  is  not  predicable  of  a  subject  nor 
present  in  a  subject.  A  thing  is  said  to  be  "present  in  a  subject" 
when,  though  not  a  part  of  the  subject,  it  cannot  exist  without 
the  subject.  The  instances  given  are  a  piece  of  grammatical 
knowledge  which  is  present  in  a  mind,  and  a  certain  whiteness 
which  may  be  present  in  a  body.  A  substance  in  the  above  primary 
sense  is  an  individual  thing  or  person  or  animal.  But  in  a  secondary 
sense  a  species  or  a  genus — e.g.  "man"  or  "animal" — may  be 
called  a  substance.  This  secondary  sense  seems  indefensible, 
and  opened  the  door,  in  later  writers,  to  much  bad  metaphysics. 

The  Posterior  Analytics  is  a  work  largely  concerned  with  a 
question  which  must  trouble  any  deductive  theory,  namely:  How 
are  first  premisses  obtained?  Since  deduction  must  start  from 
somewhere,  we  must  begin  with  something  unproved,  which 
must  be  known  otherwise  than  by  demonstration.  I  shall  not  give 
Aristotle's  theory  in  detail,  since  it  depends  upon  the  notion  of 
essence.  A  definition,  he  says,  is  a  statement  of  a  thing's  essential 
nature.  The  notion  of  essence  is  an  intimate  part  of  every  philo- 
sophy subsequent  to  Aristotle,  until  we  come  to  modern  times. 
It  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  hopelessly  muddle-headed  notion,  but  its 
historical  importance  requires  us  to  say  something  about  it. 

The  "essence"  of  a  thing  appears  to  have  meant  "those  of  its 
properties  which  it  cannot  change  without  losing  its  identity." 
Socrates  may  be  sometimes  happy,  sometimes  sad;  sometimes 
well,  sometimes  ill.  Since  he  can  change  these  properties  without 
ceasing  to  be  Socrates,  they  are  no  part  of  his  essence.  But  it  is 
supposed  to  be  of  the  essence  of  Socrates  that  he  is  a  man,  though 
a  Pythagorean,  who  believes  in  transmigration,  will  not  admit 
this.  In  fact,  the  question  of  "essence"  is  one  as  to  the  use  of 
words.  We  apply  the  same  name,  on  different  occasions,  to 
somewhat  different  occurrences,  which  .we  regard  as  manifesta- 
tions of  a  single  "thing"  or  "person."  In  fact,  however,  this  is 
only  a  verbal  convenience.  The  "essence"  of  Socrates  thus  consists 
of  those  properties  in  the  absence  of  which  we  should  not  use  the 
name  "Socrates."  The  question  is  purely  linguistic:  a  word  may 
have  an  essence,  but  a  thing  cannot. 

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WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

The  conception  of  "substance,"  like  that  of  "essence,11  is  a 
transference  to  metaphysics  of  what  is  only  a  linguistic  convenience. 
We  find  it  convenient,  in  describing  the  world,  to  describe  a 
certain  number  of  occurrences  as  events  in  the  life  of  "Socrates," 
and  a  certain  number  of  others  as  events  in  the  life  of  "Mr.  Smith." 
This  leads  us  to  think  of  "Socrates"  or  "Mr.  Smith"  as  denoting 
something  that  persists  through  a  certain  number  of  years,  and 
as  in  some  way  more  "solid"  and  "real"  than  the  events  that 
happen  to  him.  If  Socrates  is  ill,  we  think  that  Socrates,  at  other 
times,  is  well,  and  therefore  the  being  of  Socrates  is  independent 
of  his  illness;  illness,  on  the  other  hand,  requires  somebody  to 
be  ill.  But  although  Socrates  need  not  be  ill,  something  must  be 
occurring  to  him  if  he  is  to  be  considered  to  exist.  He  is  not, 
therefore,  really  any  more  "solid"  than  the  things  that  happen 
to  him. 

"Substance,"  when  taken  seriously,  is  a  concept  impossible  to 
free  from  difficulties.  A  substance  is  supposed  to  be  the  subject 
of  properties,  and  to  be  something  distinct  from  all  its  properties. 
But  when  we  take  away  the  properties,  and  try  to  imagine  the 
substance  by  itself,  we  find  that  there  is  nothing  left.  To  put  the 
matter  in  another  way:  What  distinguishes  one  substance  from 
another?  Not  difference  of  properties,  for,  according  to  the  logic 
of  substance,  difference  of  properties  presupposes  numerical 
diversity  between  the  substances  concerned.  Two  substances, 
therefore,  must  be  just  two,  without  being,  in  themselves,  in  any 
way  distinguishable.  How,  then,  are  we  ever  to  find  out  that 
they  are  two  ? 

"Substance,"  in  fact,  is  merely  a  convenient  way  of  collecting 
events  into  bundles.  What  can  we  know  about  Mr.  Smith?  When 
we  look  at  him,  we  see  a  pattern  of  colours ;  when  we  listen  to  him 
talking,  we  hear  a  series  of  sounds.  We  believe  that,  like  us,  he  has 
thoughts  and  feelings.  But  what  is  Mr.  Smith  apart  from  all  these 
occurrences?  A  mere  imaginary  hook,  from  which  the  occurrences 
are  supposed  to  hang.  They  have  in  fact  no  need  of  a  hook,  any 
more  than  the  earth  needs  an  elephant  to  rest  upon.  Any  one 
can  see,  in  the  analogous  case  of  a  geographical  region,  that  such 
a  word  as  "France"  (say)  is  only  a  linguistic  convenience,  and  that 
there  is  not  a  thing  called  "France"  over  and  above  its  various 
parts.  The  same  holds  of  "Mr.  Smith";  it  is  a  collective  name 
for  a  number  of  occurrences.  If  we  take  it  as  anything  more,  it 

224 


ARISTOTLE'S  LOGIC 

denotes  something  completely  unknowable,  and  therefore  not 
needed  for  the  expression  of  what  we  know. 

"Substance,"  in  a  word,  is  a  metaphysical  mistake,  due  to 
transference  to  the  world-structure  of  the  structure  of  sentences 
composed  of  a  subject  and  a  predicate. 

I  conclude  that  the  Aristotelian  doctrines  with  which  we  have 
been  concerned  in  this  chapter  are  wholly  false,  with  the  exception 
of  the  formal  theory  of  the  syllogism,  which  is  unimportant. 
Any  person  in  the  present  day  who  wishes  to  learn  logic  will  be 
wasting  his  time  if  he  reads  Aristotle  or  any  of  his  disciples. 
None  the  less,  Aristotle's  logical  writings  show  great  ability,  and 
would  have  been  useful  to  mankind  if  they  had  appeared  at  a 
time  when  intellectual  originality  was  still  active.  Unfortunately, 
they  appeared  at  the  very  end  of  the  creative  period  of  Greek 
thought,  and  therefore  came  to  be  accepted  as  authoritative. 
By  the  time  that  logical  originality  revived,  a  reign  of  two  thousand 
years  had  made  Aristotle  very  difficult  to  dethrone.  Throughout 
modern  times,  practically  every  advance  in  science,  in  logic,  or 
in  philosophy  has  had  to  be  made  in  the  teeth  of  opposition  from 
Aristotle's  disciples. 


H 


Chapter  XXIII 
ARISTOTLE'S    PHYSICS 

IN  tiiis  chapter  I  propose  to  consider  two  of  Aristotle's  books, 
the  one  called  Physics  and  the  one  called  On  the  Heavens. 
These  two  books  are  closely  connected;  the  second  takes  up 
the  argument  at  the  point  at  which  the  first  has  left  it.  Both  were 
extremely  influential,  and  dominated  science  until  the  time  of 
Galileo.  Words  such  as  "quintessence"  and  "sublunary"  are 
derived  from  the  theories  expressed  in  these  books.  The  historian 
of  philosophy,  accordingly,  must  study  them,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  hardly  a  sentence  in  either  can  be  accepted  in  the  light  of 
modern  science. 

To  understand  the  views  of  Aristotle,  as  of  most  Greeks,  on 
physics,  it  is  necessary  to  apprehend  their  imaginative  back- 
ground. Every  philosopher,  in  addition  to  the  formal  system  which 
he  offers  to  the  world,  has  another,  much  simpler,  of  which  he 
may  be  quite  unaware.  If  he  is  aware  of  it,  he  probably  realizes 
that  it  won't  quite  do;  he  therefore  conceals  it,  and  sets  forth 
something  more  sophisticated,  which  he  believes  because  it  is 
like  his  crude  system,  but  which  he  asks  others  to  accept  because 
he  thinks  he  has  made  it  such  as  cannot  be  disproved.  The 
sophistication  comes  in  by  way  of  refutation  of  refutations,  but 
this  alone  will  never  give  a  positive  result:  it  shows,  at  best, 
that  a  theory  may  be  true,  not  that  it  must  be.  The  positive  result, 
however  little  the  philosopher  may  realize  it,  is  due  to  his  imagina- 
tive preconceptions,  or  to  what  Santayana  calls  "animal  faith." 

In  relation  to  physics,  Aristotle's  imaginative  background  was 
very  different  from  that  of  a  modern  student.  Nowadays,  a  boy 
begins  with  mechanics,  which,  by  its  very  name,  suggests  machines. 
He  is  accustomed  to  motor-cars  and  aeroplanes;  he  docs  not, 
even  in  the  dimmest  recesses  of  his  subconscious  imagination, 
think  that  a  motor-car  contains  some  sort  of  horse  in  its  inside, 
or  that  an  aeroplane  flies  because  its  wings  are  those  of  a  bird 
possessing  magical  powers.  Animals  have  lost  their  importance 
in  our  imaginative  pictures  of  the  world,  in  which  man  stands 
comparatively  alone  as  master  of  a  mainly  lifeless  and  largely 
subservient  material  environment. 

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ARISTOTLE'S    PHYSICS 

To  the  Greek,  attempting  to  give  a  scientific  account  of  motion, 
the  purely  mechanical  view  hardly  suggested  itself,  except  in  the 
case  of  a  few  men  of  genius  such  as  Democritus  and  Archimedes. 
Two  sets  of  phenomena  seemed  important:  the  movements  of 
animals,  and  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  To  the 
modern  man  of  science,  the  body  of  an  animal  is  a  very  elaborate 
machine,  with  an  enormously  complex  physico-chemical  structure; 
every  new  discovery  consists  in  diminishing  the  apparent  gulf 
between  animals  and  machines.  To  the  Greek,  it  seemed  more 
natural  to  assimilate  apparently  lifeless  motions  to  those  of  animals. 
A  child  still  distinguishes  live  animals  from  other  things  by  the 
fact  that  they  can  move  of  themselves;  to  many  Greeks,  and 
especially  to  Aristotle,  this  peculiarity  suggested  itself  as  the  basis 
of  a  general  theory  of  physics. 

But  how  about  the  heavenly  bodies?  They  differ  from  animals 
by  the  regularity  of  their  movements,  but  this  may  be  only  due 
to  their  superior  perfection.  Every  Greek  philosopher,  whatever 
he  may  have  come  to  think  in  adult  life,  had  been  taught  in  child- 
hood to  regard  the  sun  and  moon  as  gods;  Anaxagoras  was 
prosecuted  for  impiety  because  he  thought  that  they  were  not 
alive.  It  was  natural  that  a  philosopher  who  could  no  longer 
regard  the  heavenly  bodies  themselves  as  divine  should  think  of 
them  as  moved  by  the  will  of  a  Divine  Being  who  had  a  Hellenic 
love  of  order  and  geometrical  simplicity.  Thus  the  ultimate 
source  of  all  movement  is  Will:  on  earth  the  capricious  Will  of 
human  beings  and  animals,  but  in  heaven  the  unchanging  Will 
of  the  Supreme  Artificer. 

I  do  not  suggest  that  this  applies  to  every  detail  of  what  Aristotle 
has  to  say.  What  I  do  suggest  is  that  it  gives  his  imaginative  back- 
ground, and  represents  the  sort  of  thing  which,  in  embarking  on 
liis  investigations,  he  would  expect  to  find  true. 

After  these  preliminaries,  let  us  examine  what  it  is  that  he 
actually  says. 

Physics,  in  Aristotle,  is  the  science  of  what  the  Greeks  called 
"phusis"  (or  Mphysis")t  a  word  which  is  translated  'nature," 
but  has  not  exactly  the  meaning  which  we  attach  to  that  word. 
We  still  speak  of  "natural  science"  and  "natural  history,"  but 
"nature"  by  itself,  though  it  is  a  very  ambiguous  word,  seldom 
means  just  what  "phusis"  meant.  "Phusis"  had  to  do  with  growth ; 
one  might  sav  it  is  the  "nature"  of  an  acorn  to  grow  into  an  oak, 

227 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

and  in  that  case  one  would  be  using  the  word  in  the  Aristotelian 
sense.  The  "nature"  of  .a  thing,  Aristotle  says,  is  its  end,  that  for 
the  sake  of  which  it  exists.  Thus  the  word  has  a  ideological 
implication.  Some  things  exist  by  nature,  some  from  other  causes. 
Animals,  plants,  and  simple  bodies  (elements)  exist  by  nature; 
they  have  an  internal  principle  of  motion  (the  word  translated 
"motion"  or  "movement"  has  a  wider  meaning  than  "loco- 
motion" ;  in  addition  to  locomotion  it  includes  change  of  quality 
or  of  size.)  Nature  is  a  source  of  being  moved  or  at  rest.  Things 
"have  a  nature"  if  they  have  an  internal  principle  of  this  kind. 
The  phrase  "according  to  nature"  applies  to  these  things  and  their 
essential  attributes.  (It  was  through  this  point  of  view  that 
"unnatural"  came  to  express  blame.)  Nature  is  in  form  rather 
than  in  matter;  what  is  potentially  flesh  or  bone  has  not 
yet  acquired  its  own  nature,  and  a  thing  is  more  what  it  is 
when  it  has  attained  to  fulfilment.  This  whole  point  of  view 
seems  to  be  suggested  by  biology:  the  acorn  is  "potentially" 
an  oak. 

Nature  belongs  to  the  class  of  causes  which  operate  for  the  sake 
of  something.  This  leads  to  a  discussion  of  the  view  that  nature 
works  of  necessity,  without  purpose,  in  connection  with  which 
Aristotle  discusses  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  in  the  form  taught 
by  Empedocles.  This  cannot  be  right,  he  says,  because  things 
happen  in  fixed  ways,  and  when  a  series  has  a  completion,  all 
preceding  steps  are  for  its  sake.  Those  things  are  "natural"  which 
"by  a  continuous  movement,  originated  from  an  internal  principle, 
arrive  at  some  completion"  (199*). 

This  whole  conception  of  "nature,"  though  it  might  well  seem 
admirably  suited  to  explain  the  growth  of  animals  and  plants, 
became,  in  the  event,  a  great  obstacle  to  the  progress  of  science, 
and  a  source  of  much  that  was  bad  in  ethics.  In  the  latter  respect, 
it  is  still  harmful. 

Motion,  we  are  told,  is  the  fulfilling  of  what  exists  potentially. 
This  view,  apart  from  other  defects,  is  incompatible  with  the 
relativity  of  locomotion.  When  A  moves  relatively  to  B,  B  moves 
relatively  to  A,  and  there  is  no  sense  in  saying  that  one  of  the  two 
is  in  motion  while  the  other  is  at  rest.  When  a  dog  seizes  a  bone, 
it  seems  to  common  sense  that  the  dog  moves  while  the  bone 
remains  at  rest  (until  seized),  and  that  the  motion  has  a  purpose, 
namely  to  fulfil  the  dog's  "nature."  But  it  has  turned  out  that  this 

228 


ARISTOTLE'S  PHYSICS 

point  of  view  cannot  be  applied  to  dead  matter,  and  that,  for  the 
purposes  of  scientific  physics,  no  conception  of  an  "end"  is  useful, 
nor  can  any  motion,  in  scientific  strictness,  be  treated  as  other 
than  relative. 

Aristotle  rejects  the  void,  as  maintained  by  Leucippus  and 
Democritus.  He  then  passes  on  to  a  rather  curious  discussion  of 
time.  It  might,  he  says,  be  maintained  that  time  does  not  exist, 
since  it  is  composed  of  past  and  future,  of  which  one  no  longer 
exists  while  the  other  does  not  yet  exist.  This  view,  however,  he 
rejects.  Time,  he  says,  is  motion  that  admits  of  numeration.  (It  is 
not  clear  why  he  thinks  numeration  essential.)  We  may  fairly  ask, 
he  continues,  whether  time  could  exist  without  the  soul,  since  there 
cannot  be  anything  to  count  unless  there  is  someone  to  count, 
and  time  involves  numeration.  It  seems  that  he  thinks  of  time  as 
so  many  hours  or  days  or  years.  Some  things,  he  adds,  are  eternal, 
in  the  sense  of  not  being  in  time ;  presumably  he  is  thinking  of 
such  things  as  numbers. 

There  always  has  been  motion,  and  there  always  will  be;  for 
there  cannot  be  time  without  motion,  and  all  are  agreed  that  time 
is  uncreated,  except  Plato.  On  this  point,  Christian  followers  of 
Aristotle  were  obliged  to  dissent  from  him,  since  the  Bible  tells 
us  that  the  universe  had  a  beginning. 

The  Physics  ends  with  the  argument  for  an  unmoved  mover, 
which  we  considered  in  connection  with  the  Metaphysics.  There 
is  one  unmoved  mover,  which  directly  causes  a  circular  motion. 
Circular  motion  is  the  primary  kind,  and  the  only  kind  which 
can  be  continuous  and  infinite.  The  first  mover  has  no  parts  or 
magnitude  and  is  at  the  circumference  of  the  world. 

Having  reached  this  conclusion,  we  pass  on  to  the  heavens. 

The  treatise  On  tlit  Heavens  sets  forth  a  pleasant  and  simple 
theory.  Things  below  the  moon  are  subject  to  generation  and 
decay;  from  the  moon  upwards,  everything  is  ungenerated  and 
indestnictible.The  earth,  which  is  spherical,  is  at  the  centre  of  the 
universe.  In  the  sublunary  sphere,  everything  is  composed  of  the 
four  elements,  earth,  water,  air,  and  fire;  but  there  is  a  fifth  ele- 
ment, of  which  the  heavenly  bodies  are  composed.  The  natural 
movement  of  the  terrestrial  elements  is  rectilinear,  but  that  of  the 
fifth  clement  is  circular.  The  heavens  are  perfectly  spherical,  and 
the  upper  regions  are  more  divine  than  the  lower.  The  stars  and 
planets  are  not  composed  of  fire,  hut  of  the  fifth  element;  their 

229 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

motion  is  due  to  that  of  spheres  to  which  they  are  attached. 
(All  this  appears  in  poetical  form  in  Dante's  Paradiso.) 

The  four  terrestrial  elements  are  not  eternal,  but  are  generated 
out  of  each  other — fire  is  absolutely  light,  in  the  sense  that  its 
natural  motion  is  upward ;  earth  is  absolutely  heavy.  Air  is  relatively 
light,  and  water  is  relatively  heavy. 

This  theory  provided  many  difficulties  for  later  ages.  Comets, 
which  were  recognized  as  destructible,  had  to  be  assigned  to  the 
sublunary  sphere,  but  in  the  seventeenth  century  it  was  found 
that  they  describe  orbits  round  the  sun,  and  are  very  seldom  as 
near  as  the  moon.  Since  the  natural  motion  of  terrestrial  bodies 
is  rectilinear,  it  was  held  that  a  projectile  fired  horizontally  will 
move  horizontally  for  a  time,  and  then  suddenly  begin  to  fall 
vertically.  Galileo's  discovery  that  a  projectile  moves  in  a  parabola 
shocked  his  Aristotelian  colleagues.  Copernicus,  Kepler,  and 
Galileo  had  to  combat  Aristotle  as  well  as  the  Bible  in  establishing 
the  view  that  the  earth  is  not  the  centre  of  the  universe,  but  rotates 
once  a  day  and  goes  round  the  sun  once  a  year. 

To  come  to  a  more  general  matter:  Aristotelian  physics  is  in- 
compatible with  Newton's  "First  Law  of  Motion,"  originally 
enunciated  by  Galileo.  This  law  states  that  every  body,  left  to 
itself,  mil,  if  already  in  motion,  continue  to  move  in  a  straight 
line  with  uniform  velocity.  Thus  outside  causes  are  required,  not 
to  account  for  motion,  but  to  account  for  change  of  motion,  either 
in  velocity  or  in  direction.  Circular  motion,  which  Aristotle 
thought  "natural"  for  the  heavenly  bodies,  involves  a  continual 
change  in  the  direction  of  motion,  and  therefore  requires  a  force 
directed  towards  the  centre  of  the  circle,  as  in  Newton's  law  of 
gravitation. 

Finally:  The  view  that  the  heavenly  bodies  are  eternal  and  in- 
corruptible has  had  to  be  abandoned.  The  sun  and  stars  have  long 
lives,  but  do  not  live  for  ever.  They  are  born  from  a  nebula,  and 
in  the  end  they  either  explode  or  die  of  cold.  Nothing  in  the  visible 
world  is  exempt  from  change  and  decay;  the  Aristotelian  belief 
to  the  contrary,  though  accepted  by  medieval  Christians,  is  a 
product  of  the  pagan  worship  of  sun  and  moon  and  planets. 


230 


Chapter  XXIV 
EARLY   GREEK   MATHEMATICS   AND   ASTRONOMY 

I  AM  concerned  in  this  chapter  with  mathematics,  not  on  its 
own  account,  but  as  it  was  related  to  Greek  philosophy — a 
relation  which,  especially  in  Plato,  was  very  close.  The  pre- 
eminence of  the  Greeks  appears  more  clearly  in  mathematics  and 
astronomy  than  in  anything  else.  What  they  did  in  art,  in  literature, 
and  in  philosophy,  may  be  judged  better  or  worse  according  to 
taste,  but  what  they  accomplished  in  geometry  is  wholly  beyond 
question.  They  derived  something  from  Egypt,  and  rather  less 
from  Babylonia;  but  what  they  obtained  from  these  sources  was, 
in  mathematics,  mainly  simple  rules,  and  in  astronomy  records 
of  observations  extended  over  very  long  periods.  The  art  of 
mathematical  demonstration  was,  almost  wholly,  Greek  in  origin. 
There  are  many  pleasant  stories,  probably  unhistorical,  showing 
what  practical  problems  stimulated  mathematical  investigations. 
The  earliest  and  simplest  relates  to  Thales,  who,  when  in  Egypt, 
was  asked  by  the  king  to  find  out  the  height  of  a  pyramid.  He 
waited  for  the  time  of  day  when  his  shadow  was  as  long  as  he  was 
tall ;  he  then  measured  the  shadow  of  the  pyramid,  which  was  of 
course  equal  to  its  height.  It  is  said  that  the  laws  of  perspective 
were  first  studied  by  the  geometer  Agatharcus,  in  order  to  paint 
scenery  for  the  plays  of  Aeschylus.  The  problem  of  finding  the 
distance  of  a  ship  at  sea,  which  was  said  to  have  been  studied  by 
Thales,  was  correctly  solved  at  an  early  stage.  One  of  the  great 
problems  that  occupied  Greek  geometers,  that  of  the  duplication 
of  the  cube,  originated,  we  are  told,  with  the  priests  of  a  certain 
temple,  who  were  informed  by  the  oracle  that  the  god  wanted  a 
statue  twice  as  large  as  the  one  they  had.  At  first  they  thought 
simply  of  doubling  all  the  dimensions  of  the  statue,  but  then  they 
realized  that  the  result  would  be  eight  times  as  large  as  the  ori- 
ginal, which  would  involve  more  expense  than  the  god  had 
demanded.  So  they  sent  a  deputation  to  Plato  to  ask  whether  any- 
body in  the  Academy  could  solve  their  problem.  The  geometers 
took  it  up,  and  worked  at  it  for  centuries,  producing,  incidentally, 
much  admirable  work.  The  problem  is,  of  course,  that  of  deter- 
mining the  cube  root  of  a. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

The  square  root  of  2,  which  was  the  first  irrational  to  be  dis- 
covered, was  known  to  the  early  Pythagoreans,  and  ingenious 
methods  of  approximating  to  its  value  were  discovered.  The  best 
was  as  follows:  Form  two  columns  of  numbers,  which  we  will 
call  the  <z's  and  the  6's;  each  starts  with  i.  The  next  a,  at  each 
stage,  is  formed  by  adding  the  last  a  and  b  already  obtained ;  the 
next  b  is  formed  by  adding  twice  the  previous  a  to  the  previous  b. 
The  first  6  pairs  so  obtained  are  (i  ,i),  (2, 3),  (5, 7),  (12, 17),  (29, 41), 

(70,  99).  In  each  pair,  20*  — -  6a  is  i  or  —  i.  Thus  -  is  nearly  the 

square  root  of  two,  and  at  each  fresh  step  it  gets  nearer.  For 
instance,  the  reader  may  satisfy  himself  that  the  square  of  99/70 
is  very  nearly  equal  to  2. 

Pythagoras — always  a  rather  misty  figure — is  described  by 
Proclus  as  the  first  who  made  geometry  a  liberal  education.  Many 
authorities,  including  Sir  Thomas  Heath,1  believe  that  he  probably 
discovered  the  theorem  that  bears  his  name,  to  the  effect  that,  in 
a  right-angled  triangle,  the  square  on  the  side  opposite  the  right 
angle  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  squares  on  the  other  two  sides. 
In  any  case,  this  theorem  was  known  to  the  Pythagoreans  at  a 
very  early  date.  They  knew  also  that  the  sum  of  the  angles  of  a 
triangle  is  two  right  angles. 

Irrationals  other  than  the  square  root  of  two  were  studied,  in 
particular  cases,  by  Theodorus,  a  contemporary  of  Socrates,  and 
in  a  more  general  way  by  Theaetetus,  who  was  roughly  contem- 
porary with  Plato,  but  somewhat  older.  Democritus  wrote  a 
treatise  on  irrationals,  but  very  little  is  known  as  to  its  contents. 
Plato  was  profoundly  interested  in  the  subject;  he  mentions  the 
work  of  Thcodorus  and  Theaetetus  in  the  dialogue  called  after 
the  latter.  In  the  Laws  (819-820),  he  says  that  the  general  ignorance 
on  this  subject  is  disgraceful,  and  implies  .that  he  himself  began 
to  know  about  it  rather  late  in  life.  It  had  of  course  an  important 
bearing  on  the  Pythagorean  philosophy. 

One  of  the  most  important  consequences  of  the  discovery  of 
irrationals  was  the  invention  of  the  geometrical  theory  of  propor- 
tion by  Eudoxus  (ca.  408 — ca.  355  B.C.).  Before  him,  there  was 
only  the  arithmetical  theory  of  proportion.  According  to  this 
theory*,  the  ratio  of  a  to  b  is  equal  to  the  ratio  of  c  to  d  if  a  times  d 

'  (jreek  Mathtmatia,  Vol.  I,  p.  145 

23* 


FARI'Y    GREEK    MATHEMATICS    AND    ASTRONOMY 

is  equal  to  b  times  c.  This  definition,  in  the  absence  of  an  arith- 
metical theory  of  irrationals,  is  only  applicable  to  rationals. 
Eudoxus,  however,  gave  a  new  definition  not  subject  to  this 
restriction,  framed  in  a  manner  which  suggests  the  methods  of 
modern  analysis.  The  theory  is  developed  in  Euclid,  and  has 
great  logical  beauty. 

Eudoxus  also  either  invented  or  perfected  the  "method  of  ex- 
haustion," which  was  subsequently  used  with  great  success  by 
Archimedes.  This  method  is  an  anticipation  of  the  integral  cal- 
culus. Take,  for  example,  the  question  of  the  area  of  a  circle.  You 
can  inscribe  in  a  circle  a  regular  hexagon,  or  a  regular  dodecagon, 
or  a  regular  polygon  of  a  thousand  or  a  million  sides.  The  area 
of  such  a  polygon,  however  many  sides  it  has,  is  proportional  to 
the  square  on  the  diameter  of  the  circle.  The  more  sides  the 
polygon  has,  the  more  nearly  it  becomes  equal  to  the  circle.  You 
can  prove  that,  if  you  give  the  polygon  enough  sides,  its  area  can 
be  got  to  differ  from  that  of  the  circle  by  less  than  any  previously 
assigned  area,  however  small.  For  this  purpose,  the  "axiom  of 
Archimedes"  is  used.  This  states  (when  somewhat  simplified) 
that  if  the  greater  of  two  quantities  is  halved,  and  then  the  half 
is  halved,  and  so  on,  a  quantity  will  be  reached,  at  last,  which  is 
less  than  the  smaller  of  the  original  two  quantities.  In  other  words, 
if  a  is  greater  than  A,  there  is  some  whole  number  n  such  that  2n 
times  b  is  greater  than  a. 

The  method  of  exhaustion  sometimes  leads  to  an  exact  result, 
as  in  squaring  the  parabola,  which  was  done  by  Archimedes ;  some- 
times, as  in  the  attempt  to  square  the  circle,  it  can  only  lead  to 
successive  approximations.  The  problem  of  squaring  the  circle  is 
the  problem  of  determining  the  ratio  of  the  circumference  of  a 
circle  to  the  diameter,  which  is  called  77.  Archimedes  used  the 
approximation  *f  in  calculations ;  by  inscribing  and  circumscribing 
a  regular  polygon  of  96  sides,  he  proved  that  TT  is  less  than  3^  and 
greater  than  3^  J.  The  method  could  be  carried  to  any  required 
degree  of  approximation,  and  that  is  all  that  any  method  can  do 
in  this  problem.  The  use  of  inscribed  and  circumscribed  polygons 
for  approximations  to  n  goes  back  to  Antiphon,  who  was  a 
contemporary  of  Socrates. 

Euclid,  who  was  still,  when  I  was  young,  the  sole  acknowledged 
text-book  of  geometry  for  boys,  lived  at  Alexandria,  about  300  B.C., 
a  few  years  after  the  death  of  Alexander  and  Aristotle.  Most  of 

233 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

his  Elements  was  not  original,  but  the  order  of  propositions,  and 
the  logical  structure,  were  largely  his.  The  more  one  studies  geo- 
metry, the  more  admirable  these  are  seen  to  be.  The  treatment  of 
parallels  by  means  of  the  famous  postulate  of  parallels  has  the 
twofold  merit  of  rigour  in  deduction  and  of  not  concealing  the 
dubiousness  of  the  initial  assumption.  The  theory  of  proportion, 
which  follows  Eudoxus,  avoids  all  the  difficulties  connected  with 
irrationals,  by  methods  essentially  similar  to  those  introduced  by 
Weierstrass  into  nineteenth-century  analysis.  Euclid  then  passes 
on  to  a  kind  of  geometrical  algebra,  and  deals,  in  Book  X,  with  the 
subject  of  irrationals.  After  this  he  proceeds  to  solid  geometry, 
ending  with  the  construction  of  the  regular  solids,  which  had 
been  perfected  by  Theaetetus  and  assumed  in  Plato's  Timaeus. 

Euclid's  Elements  is  certainly  one  of  the  greatest  books  ever 
written,  and  one  of  the  most  perfect  monuments  of  the  Greek 
intellect.  It  has,  of  course,  the  typical  Greek  limitations:  the 
method  is  purely  deductive,  and  there  is  no  way,  within  it,  of 
testing  the  initial  assumptions.  These  assumptions  were  supposed 
to  be  unquestionable,  but  in  the  nineteenth  century  non-Euclidean 
geometry  showed  that  they  might  be  in  part  mistaken,  and  that 
only  observation  could  decide  whether  they  were  so. 

There  is  in  Euclid  the  contempt  for  practical  utility  which  had 
been  inculcated  by  Plato.  It  is  said  that  a  pupil,  after  listening  to 
a  demonstration,  asked  what  he  would  gain  by  learning  geometry, 
whereupon  Euclid  called  a  slave  and  said  "Give  the  young  man 
threepence,  since  he  must  needs  make  a  gain  out  of  what  he 
learns."  The  contempt  for  practice  was,  however,  pragmatically 
justified.  No  one,  in  Greek  times,  supposed  that  conic  sections 
had  any  utility;  at  last,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Galileo  dis- 
covered that  projectiles  move  in  parabolas,  and  Kepler  discovered 
that  planets  move  in  ellipses.  Suddenly  the  work  that  the  Greeks 
had  done  from  pure  love  of  theory  became  the  key  to  warfare  and 
astronomy. 

The  Romans  were  too  practical-minded  to  appreciate  Euclid; 
the  first  of  them  to  mention  him  is  Cicero,  in  whose  time  there  was 
probably  no  Latin  translation ;  indeed  there  is  no  record  of  any 
Latin  translation  before  Boethius  (ca.  A.D.  480).  The  Arabs  were 
more  appreciative :  a  copy  was  given  to  the  caliph  by  the  Byzantine 
emperor  about  A.D.  760,  and  a  translation  into  Arabic  was  made 
under  Harun  al  Rashid,  about  A.D.  800.  The  first  still  extant 

234 


EARLY    GREEK    MATHEMATICS    AND   ASTRONOMY 

Latin  translation  was  made  from  the  Arabic  by  Adelard  of 
Bath  in  A.D.  1120.  From  that  time  on,  the  study  of  geometry 
gradually  revived  in  the  West;  but  it  was  not  until  the  late  Re- 
naissance that  important  advances  were  made. 

I  come  now  to  astronomy,  where  Greek  achievements  were  as 
remarkable  as  in  geometry.  Before  their  time,  among  the  Baby- 
lonians and  Egyptians,  many  centuries  of  observation  had  laid  a 
foundation.  The  apparent  motions  of  the  planets  had  been  re- 
corded, but  it  was  not  known  that  the  morning  and  evening  star 
were  the  same.  A  cycle  of  eclipses  had  been  discovered,  certainly 
in  Babylonia  and  probably  in  Egypt,  which  made  the  prediction 
of  lunar  eclipses  fairly  reliable,  but  not  of  solar  eclipses,  since 
those  were  not  always  visible  at  a  given  spot.  We  owe  to  the 
Babylonians  the  division  of  the  right  angle  into  ninety  degrees, 
and  of  the  degree  into  sixty  minutes;  they  had  a  liking  for  the 
number  sixty,  and  even  a  system  of  numeration  based  upon  it. 
The  Greeks  were  fond  of  attributing  the  wisdom  of  their  pioneers 
to  travels  in  Egypt,  but  what  had  really  been  achieved  before  the 
Greeks  was  very  little.  The  prediction  of  an  eclipse  by  Thales 
was,  however,  an  example  of  foreign  influence;  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  he  added  anything  to  what  he  learnt  from  Egyptian 
or  Babylonian  sources,  and  it  was  a  stroke  of  luck  that  his  prediction 
was  verified. 

Let  us  begin  with  some  of  the  earliest  discoveries  and  correct 
hypotheses.  Ariaximander  thought  that  the  earth  floats  freely,  and 
is  not  supported  on  anything.  Aristotle,1  who  often  rejected  the 
hcst  hypotheses  of  his  time,  objected  to  the  theory  of  Anaxi- 
inander,  that  the  earth,  being  at  the  centre,  remained  immovable 
because  there  was  no  reason  for  moving  in  one  direction  rather 
than  another.  If  this  were  valid,  he  said,  a  man  placed  at  the 
centre  of  a  circle  with  food  at  various  points  of  the  circumference 
would  starve  to  death  for  lack  of  reason  to  choose  one  portion  of 
food  rather  than  another.  This  argument  reappears  in  scholastic 
philosophy,  not  in  connection  with  astronomy,  but  with  free  will. 
It  reappears  in  the  form  of  "Buridan's  ass,"  which  was  unable  to 
choose  between  two  bundles  of  hay  placed  at  equal  distances  to 
right  and  left,  and  therefore  died  of  hunger. 

Pythagoras,  in  all  probability,  was  the  first  to  think  the  earth 
spherical,  but  his  reasons  were  (one  must  suppose)  aesthetic 

1  De  Cacto,  295*- 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

rather  than  scientific.  Scientific  reasons,  however,  were  soon  found. 
Anaxagoras  discovered  that  the  moon  shines  by  reflected  light, 
and  gave  the  right  theory  of  eclipses.  He  himself  still  thought  the 
earth  flat,  but  the  shape  of  the  earth's  shadow  in  lunar  eclipses 
gave  the  Pythagoreans  conclusive  arguments  in  favour  of  its  being 
spherical.  They  went  further,  and  regarded  the  earth  as  one  of  the 
planets.  They  knew — from  Pythagoras  himself,  it  is  said — that 
the  morning  star  and  the  evening  star  are  identical,  and  they 
thought  that  ail  the  planets,  including  the  earth,  move  in  circles, 
not  round  the  sun,  but  round  the  "central  fire."  They  had  dis- 
covered that  the  moon  always  turns  the  same  face  to  the  earth, 
and  they  thought  that  the  earth  always  turns  the  same  face  to  the 
"central  fire."  The  Mediterranean  regions  were  on  the  side  turned 
away  from  the  central  fire,  which  was  therefore  always  invisible. 
The  central  fire  was  called  "the  house  of  Zeus,"  or  "the  Mother 
of  the  gods."  The  sun  was  supposed  to  shine  by  light  reflected 
from  the  central  fire.  In  addition  to  the  earth,  there  was  another 
body,  the  counter-earth,  at  the  same  distance  from  the  central 
fire.  For  this,  they  had  two  reasons,  one  scientific,  one  derived 
from  their  arithmetical  mysticism.  The  scientific  reason  was  the 
correct  observation  that  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  sometimes  occurs 
when  both  sun  and  moon  are  above  the  horizon.  Refraction, 
which  is  the  cause  of  this  phenomenon,  was  unknown  to  them, 
and  they  thought  that,  in  such  cases,  the  eclipse  must  be  due  to 
the  shadow  of  a  body  other  than  the  earth.  The  other  reason  was 
that  the  sun  and  moon,  the  five  planets,  the  earth  and  counter- 
earth,  and  the  central  fire,  made  ten  heavenly  bodies,  and  ten  was 
the  mystic  number  of  the  Pythagoreans. 

This  Pythagorean  theory  is  attributed  to  Philolatis,  a  Theban, 
who  lived  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.  Although  it  is  fanciful 
and  in  part  quite  unscientific,  it  is  very  important,  since  it  involves 
the  greater  part  of  the  imaginative  effort  required  for  conceiving 
the  Copernican  hypothesis.  To  conceive  of  the  earth,  not  as  the 
centre  of  the  universe,  but  as  one  among  the  planets,  not  as 
eternally  fixed,  but  as  wandering  through  space,  showed  an  extra- 
ordinary emancipation  from  anthropoctntric  thinking.  When  once 
this  jolt  had  been  given  to  men's  natural  picture  of  the  universe, 
it  was  not  so  very  difficult  to  be  led  by  scientific  arguments  to  a 
more  accurate  theory. 
To  this  various  observations  contributed.  Oenopidcs,  who  was 


EARLY    GREEK    MATHEMATICS   AND   ASTRONOMY 

slightly  later  than  Anaxagoras,  discovered  the  obliquity  of  the 
ecliptic.  It  soon  became  clear  that  the  sun  must  be  much  larger 
than  the  earth,  which  fact  supported  those  who  denied  that  the 
earth  is  the  centre  of  the  universe.  The  central  fire  and  the  counter- 
earth  were  dropped  by  the  Pythagoreans  soon  after  the  time  of 
Plato.  Heraclides  of  Pontus  (whose  dates  are  about  388  to  315  B.C., 
contemporary  with  Aristotle)  discovered  that  Venus  and  Mercury 
revolve  about  the  sun,  and  adopted  the  view  that  the  earth  rotates 
on  its  own  axis  once  every  twenty-four  hours.  This  last  was  a 
very  important  step,  which  no  predecessor  had  taken.  Heraclides 
was  of  Plato's  school,  and  must  have  been  a  great  man,  but  was 
not  as  much  respected  as  one  would  expect ;  he  is  described  as  a 
fat  dandy. 

Aristarchus  of  Samos,  who  lived  approximately  from  310  to 
230  B.C.,  and  was  thus  about  twenty-five  years  older  than  Archi- 
medes, is  the  most  interesting  of  all  ancient  astronomers,  because 
he  advanced  the  complete  Copernican  hypothesis,  that  all  the 
planets,  including  the  earth,  revolve  in  circles  round  the  sun,  and 
that  the  earth  rotates  on  its  axis  once  in  twenty-four  hours.  It  is 
a  little  disappointing  to  find  that  the  only  extant  work  of  Aristar- 
chus, On  the  Sizes  and  Distances  of  the  Sun  and  the  Moon,  adheres 
to  the  geocentric  view.  It  is  true  that,  for  the  problems  with  which 
this  book  deals,  it  makes  no  difference  which  theory  is  adopted, 
and  he  may  therefore  have  thought  it  unwise  to  burden  his  cal- 
culations with  an  unnecessary  opposition  to  the  general  opinion 
of  astronomers ;  or  he  may  have  only  arrived  at  the  Copernican 
hypothesis  after  writing  this  book.  Sir  Thomas  Heath,  in  his 
work  on  Aristarchus,1  which  contains  the  text  of  this  book  with 
a  translation,  inclines  to  the  latter  view.  The  evidence  that 
Aristarchus  suggested  the  Copernican  view  is,  in  any  case,  quite 
conclusive. 

The  first  and  best  evidence  is  that  of  Archimedes,  who,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  a  younger  contemporary  of  Aristarchus.  Writing 
to  Gelon,  King  of  Syracuse,  he  says  that  Aristarchus  brought  out 
"a  book  consisting  of  certain  hypotheses,"  and  continues:  "His 
hypotheses  are  that  the  fixed  stars  and  the  sun  remain  unmoved, 
that  the  earth  revolves  about  the  sun  in  the  circumference  of  a 
circle,  the  sun  lying  in  the  middle  of  the  orbit."  There  is  a 

1  Aristurchut  of  Samos,  the  Ancient  Copernicus.  By  Sir  Thomas  Heath. 
Oxford,  1913.  What  follows  is  bused  on  this  book. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

passage  in  Plutarch  saying  that  Cleanthes  "thought  it  was  the 
duty  of  the  Greeks  to  indict  Aristarchus  of  Samos  on  the  charge 
of  impiety  for  putting  in  motion  the  Hearth  of  the  Universe  (i.e. 
the  earth),  this  being  the  effect  of  his  attempt  to  save  the  pheno- 
mena by  supposing  the  heaven  to  remain  at  rest  and  the  earth  to 
revolve  in  an  oblique  circle,  while  it  rotates,  at  the  same  time, 
about  its  own  axis."  Cleanthes  was  a  contemporary  of  Aristarchus, 
and  died  about  232  B.C.  In  another  passage,  Plutarch  says  that 
Aristarchus  advanced  this  view  only  as  a  hypothesis,  but  that 
his  successor  Seleucus  maintained  it  as  a  definite  opinion.  (Seleucus 
flourished  about  250  B.C.).  Aetius  and  Sextus  Empiricus  also  assert 
that  Aristarchus  advanced  the  heliocentric  hypothesis,  but  do  not 
say  that  it  was  set  forth  by  him  only  as  a  hypothesis.  Even  if  he 
did  so,  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  he,  like  Galileo  two  thousand 
years  later,  was  influenced  by  the  fear  of  offending  religious  pre- 
judices, a  fear  which  the  attitude  of  Cleanthes  (mentioned  above) 
shows  to  have  been  well  grounded. 

The  Copernican  hypothesis,  after  being  advanced,  whether  posi- 
tively or  tentatively,  by  Aristarchus,  was  definitely  adopted  by 
Seleucus,  but  by  no  other  ancient  astronomer.  This  general 
rejection  was  mainly  due  to  Hip  parch  us,  who  flourished  from  161 
to  126  B.C.  He  is  described  by  Heath  as  "the  greatest  astronomer 
of  antiquity."1  He  was  the  first  to  write  systematically  on  trigono- 
metry ;  he  discovered  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes ;  he  estimated 
the  length  of  the  lunar  month  with  an  error  of  less  than  one 
second;  he  improved  Aristarchus's  estimates  of  the  sizes  and 
distances  of  the  sun  and  moon;  he  made  a  catalogue  of  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  fixed  stars,  giving  their  latitude  and  longitude. 
As  against  the  heliocentric  hypothesis  of  Aristarchus,  he  adopted 
and  improved  the  theory  of  epicycles  which  had  been  invented  by 
Apollonius,  who  flourished  about  220  B.C.  ;  it  was  a  development 
of  this  theory  that  came  to  be  known,  later,  as  the  Ptolemaic 
system,  after  the  astronomer  Ptolemy,  who  flourished  in  the  middle 
of  the  second  century  A.D. 

Copernicus  perhaps  came  to  know  something,  though  not 
much,  of  the  almost  forgotten  hypothesis  of  Aristarchus,  and  was 
encouraged  by  finding  ancient  authority  for  his  innovation.  Other- 
wise, the  effect  of  this  hypothesis  on  subsequent  astronomy  was 
practically  nil. 

1  Greek  Mathematics,  Vol.  II,  p.  253. 


EARLY   GREEK   MATHEMATICS   AND   ASTRONOMY 

Ancient  astronomers,  in  estimating  the  sizes  of  the  earth,  moon, 
and  sun,  and  the  distances  of  the  moon  and  sun,  used  methods 
which  were  theoretically  valid,  but  they  were  hampered  by  the 
lack  of  instruments  of  precision.  Many  of  their  results,  in  view 
of  this  lack,  were  surprisingly  good.  Eratosthenes  estimated  the 
earth's  diameter  at  7,850  miles,  which  is  only  about  fifty  miles 
short  of  the  truth.  Ptolemy  estimated  the  mean  distance  of  the 
moon  at  29  J  times  the  earth's  diameter;  the  correct  figure  is 
about  30.2.  None  of  them  got  anywhere  near  the  size  and  distance 
of  the  sun,  which  all  under-estimated.  Their  estimates,  in  terms 
of  the  earth's  diameter,  were: 

Aristarchus,  180; 

Hipparchus,  1,245; 

Posidonius,  6,545. 

The  correct  figure  is  1 1 ,726.  It  will  be  seen  that  these  estimates 
continually  improved  (that  of  Ptolemy,  however,  showed  a  retro- 
gression) ;  that  of  Posidonius1  is  about  half  the  correct  figure.  On 
the  whole,  their  picture  of  the  solar  system  was  not  so  very  far 
from  the  truth. 

Creek  astronomy  was  geometrical,  not  dynamic.  The  ancients 
thought  of  the  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  as  uniform  and 
circular,  or  compounded  of  circular  motions.  They  had  not  the 
conception  of  force.  There  were  spheres  which  moved  as  a  whole, 
and  on  which  the  various  heavenly  bodies  were  fixed.  With  Newton 
and  gravitation  a  new  point  of  view,  less  geometrical,  was  intro- 
duced. It  is  curious  to  observe  that  there  is  a  reversion  to  the 
geometrical  point  of  view  in  Einstein's  General  Theory  of 
Relativity,  from  which  the  conception  of  force,  in  the  Newtonian 
sense,  has  been  banished. 

The  problem  for  the  astronomer  is  this:  given  the  apparent 
motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  on  the  celestial  sphere,  to  introduce, 
by  hypothesis,  a  third  co-ordinate,  depth,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  the  description  of  the  phenomena  as  simple  as  possible. 
The  merit  of  the  Coperntcan  hypothesis  is  not  truth,  but  simplicity; 
in  view  of  the  relativity  of  motion,  no  question  of  truth  is  involved. 
The  Greeks,  in  their  search  for  hypotheses  which  would  "save 
the  phenomena,"  were  in  effect,  though  not  altogether  in  intention, 
tackling  the  problem  in  the  scientifically  correct  way.  A  com- 

1  Posidonius  was  Cicero's  teacher.  He  flourished  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  second  century  u.c 

239 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

parison  with  their  predecessors,  and  with  their  successors  until 
Copernicus,  must  convince  every  student  of  their  truly  astonishing 
genius. 

Two  very  great  men,  Archimedes  and  Apollonius,  in  the  third 
century  B.C.,  complete  the  list  of  first-class  Greek  mathematicians. 
Archimedes  was  a  friend,  probably  a  cousin,  of  the  king  of 
Syracuse,  and  was  killed  when  that  city  was  captured  by  the 
Romans  in  212  B.C.  Apollonius,  from  his  youth,  lived  at  Alexandria. 
Archimedes  was  not  only  a  mathematician,  but  also  a  physicist 
and  student  of  hydrostatics.  Apollonius  is  chiefly  noted  for  his 
work  on  conic  sections.  I  shall  say  no  more  about  them,  as  they 
came  too  late  to  influence  philosophy. 

After  these  two  men,  though  respectable  work  continued  to  be 
done  in  Alexandria,  the  great  age  was  ended.  Under  the  Roman 
domination,  the  Greeks  lost  the  self-confidence  that  belongs  to 
political  liberty,  and  in  losing  it  acquired  a  paralysing  respect  for 
their  predecessors.  The  Roman  soldier  who  killed  Archimedes 
was  a  symbol  of  the  death  of  original  thought  that  Rome  caused 
throughout  the  Hellenic  world. 


040 


Part  3. — Ancient  Philosophy  after  Aristotle 

Chapter  XXV 
THE   HELLENISTIC   WORLD 

^  I   WE  history  of  the  Greek-speaking  world  in  antiquity  may 

I    be  divided  into  three  periods:  that  of  the  free  City  States, 

JL    which  was  brought  to  an  end  by  Philip  and  Alexander; 

that  of  the  Macedonian  domination,  of  which  the  last  remnant 

was  extinguished  by  the  Roman  annexation  of  Egypt  after  the 

death  of  Cleopatra;  and  finally  that  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Of 

these  three  periods,  the  first  is  characterized  by  freedom  and 

disorder,  and  second  by  subjection  and  disorder,  the  third  by 

subjection  and  order. 

The  second  of  these  periods  is  known  as  the  Hellenistic  age. 
In  science  and  mathematics,  the  work  done  during  this  period  is 
the  best  ever  achieved  by  the  Greeks.  In  philosophy,  it  includes 
the  foundation  of  the  Epicurean  and  Stoic  schools,  and  also  of 
scepticism  as  a  definitely  formulated  doctrine;  it  is  therefore  still 
important  philosophically,  though  less  so  than  the  period  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  After  the  third  century  B.C.,  there  is  nothing  really 
new  in  Greek  philosophy  until  the  Neoplatonists  in  the  third 
century  A.D.  But  meanwhile  the  Roman  world  was  being  prepared 
for  the  victory  of  Christianity. 

The  brief  career  of  Alexander  suddenly  transformed  the  Greek 
world.  In  the  ten  years  from  334  to  324  B.C.,  he  conquered  Asia 
Minor,  Syria,  Egypt,  Babylonia,  Persia,  Samarcand,  Bactria,  and 
the  Punjab.  The  Persian  Empire,  the  greatest  that  the  world  had 
known,  was  destroyed  by  three  battles.  The  ancient  lore  of  the 
Babylonians,  along  with  their  ancient  superstitions,  became 
familiar  to  Greek  curiosity;  so  did  the  Zoroastrian  dualism  and 
(in  a  lesser  degree)  die  religions  of  India,  where  Buddhism  was 
moving  towards  supremacy.  Wherever  Alexander  penetrated,  even 
in  the  mountains  of  Afghanistan,  on  the  banks  of  the  Jaxattes, 
and  on  the  tributaries  of  the  Indus,  he  founded  Greek  cities,  in 
which  he  tried  to  reproduce  Greek  institutions,  with  a  measure 

241 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

of  self-government.  Although  his  army  was  composed  mainly  of 
Macedonians,  and  although  most  European  Greeks  submitted  to 
him  unwillingly,  he  considered  himself,  at  first,  as  the  apostle  of 
Hellenism.  Gradually,  however,  as  his  conquests  extended,  he 
adopted  the  policy  of  promoting  a  friendly  fusion  between  Greek 
and  barbarian. 

For  this  he  had  various  motives.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  obvious 
that  his  armies,  which  were  not  very  large,  could  not  permanently 
hold  so  vast  an  empire  by  force,  but  must,  in  the  long  run,  depend 
upon  conciliation  of  the  conquered  populations.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  East  was  unaccustomed  to  any  form  of  government 
except  that  of  a  divine  king,  a  role  which  Alexander  felt  himself 
well  fitted  to  perform.  Whether  he  believed  himself  a  god,  or 
only  took  on  the  attributes  of  divinity  from  motives  of  policy,  is 
a  question  for  the  psychologist,  since  the  historical  evidence  is 
indecisive.  In  any  case,  he  clearly  enjoyed  the  adulation  which 
he  received  in  Egypt  as  successor  of  the  Pharaohs,  and  in  Persia 
as  the  Great  King.  His  Macedonian  captains — the  "Companions," 
as  they  were  called — had  towards  him  the  attitude  of  western 
nobles  to  their  constitutional  sovereign :  they  refused  to  prostrate 
themselves  before  him,  they  gave  advice  and  criticism  even  at  the 
risk  of  their  lives,  and  at  a  crucial  moment  they  controlled  his 
actions,  when  they  compelled  him  to  turn  homewards  from  the 
Indus  instead  of  marching  on  to  the  conquest  of  the  Ganges. 
Orientals  were  more  accommodating,  provided  their  religious 
prejudices  were  respected.  This  offered  no  difficulty  to  Alexander; 
it  was  only  necessary  to  identify  Ammon  or  Bel  with  Zeus,  and 
to  declare  himself  the  son  of  the  god.  Psychologists  observe  that 
Alexander  hated  Philip,  and  was  probably  privy  to  his  murder; 
he  would  have  liked  to  believe  that  his  mother  Olympias,  like 
some  lady  of  Greek  mythology,  had  been  beloved  of  a  god. 
Alexander's  career  was  so  miraculous  that  he  may  well  have 
thought  a  miraculous  origin  the  best  explanation  of  his  prodigious 
success. 

The  Greeks  had  a  very  strong  feeling  of  superiority  to  the  bar* 
barians;  Aristotle  no  doubt  expresses  the  general  view  when  he 
says  that  northern  races  are  spirited,  southern  races  civilized,  but 
the  Greeks  alone  are  both  spirited  and  civilized.  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle thought  it  wrong  to  make  slaves  of  Greeks,  but  not  of  bar- 
barians. Alexander,  who  was  not  quite  a  Greek,  tried  to  break 

242 


THE   HELLENISTIC    WORLD 

down  this  attitude  of  superiority.  He  himself  married  two  barbarian 
princesses,  and  he  compelled  his  leading  Macedonians  to  marry 
Persian  women  of  noble  birth.  His  innumerable  Greek  cities,  one 
would  suppose,  must  have  contained  many  more  male  than  female 
colonists,  and  their  men  must  therefore  have  followed  his  example 
in  intermarrying  with  the  women  of  the  locality.  The  result  of 
this  policy  was  to  bring  into  the  minds  of  thoughtful  men  the 
conception  of  mankind  as  a  whole;  the  old  loyalty  to  the  City 
State  and  (in  a  lesser  degree)  to  the  Greek  race  seemed  no  longer 
adequate.  In  philosophy,  this  cosmopolitan  point  of  view  begins 
with  the  Stoics,  but  in  practice  it  begins  earlier,  with  Alexander. 
It  had  the  result  that  the  interaction  of  Greek  and  barbarian  was 
reciprocal:  the  barbarians  learnt  something  of  Greek  science, 
while  the  Greeks  learnt  much  of  barbarian  superstition.  Greek 
civilization,  in  covering  a  wider  area,  became  less  purely  Greek. 

Greek  civilization  was  essentially  urban.  There  were,  of  course, 
many  Greeks  engaged  in  agriculture,  but  they  contributed  little 
to  what  was  distinctive  in  Hellenic  culture.  From  the  Milesian 
school  onwards,  the  Greeks  who  were  eminent  in  science  and 
philosophy  and  literature  were  associated  with  rich  commercial 
cities,  often  surrounded  by  barbarian  populations.  This  type  of 
civilization  was  inaugurated,  not  by  the  Greeks,  but  by  the  Phoe- 
nicians; Tyre  and  Sidon  and  Carthage  depended  on  slaves  for 
manual  labour  at  home,  and  on  hired  mercenaries  in  the  conduct 
of  their  wars.  They  did  not  depend,  as  modern  capital  cities  do, 
upon  large  rural  populations  of  the  same  blood  and  with  equal 
political  rights.  The  nearest  modern  analogue  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
Far  East  during  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Singapore 
and  Hong  Kong,  Shanghai  and  the  other  treaty  ports  of  China, 
were  little  European  islands,  where  the  white  men  formed  a  com- 
mercial aristocracy  living  on  coolie  labour.  In  North  America, 
north  of  the  Mason- Dixon  line,  since  such  labour  was  not  available, 
white  men  were  compelled  to  practise  agriculture.  For  this  reason, 
the  hold  of  the  white  man  on  North  America  is  secure,  while  his 
hold  on  the  Far  East  has  already  been  greatly  diminished,  and 
may  easily  cease  altogether.  Much  of  his  type  of  culture,  especially 
industrialism,  will,  however,  survive.  This  analogue  will  help  us 
to  understand  the  position  of  the  Greeks  in  the 
Alexander's  empire. 

The  effect  of  Alexander  on  the  imagination 

241 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

and  lasting.  The  First  Book  of  the  Maccabees,  written  centuries 
after  his  death,  opens  with  an  account  of  his  career: 

"And  it  happened,  after  that  Alexander,  son  of  Philip,  the  Mace- 
donian, who  came  out  of  the  land  of  Chettiim,  had  smitten  Darius, 
king  of  the  Persians  and  Medes,  that  he  reigned  in  his  stead,  the 
first  over  Greece,  and  made  many  wars,  and  won  many  strong 
holds,  and  slew  the  kings  of  the  earth,  and  went  through  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth,  and  took  spoil  of  many  nations,  insomuch  that 
the  earth  was  quiet  before  him;  whereupon  he  was  exalted,  and 
his  heart  was  lifted  up.  And  he  gathered  a  mighty  strong  host,  and 
ruled  over  countries,  and  nations,  and  kings,  who  became  tri- 
butaries unto  him.  And  after  these  things  he  fell  sick,  and  per- 
ceived that  he  should  die.  Wherefore  he  called  his  servants,  such 
as  were  honorable,  and  had  been  brought  up  with  him  from  his 
youth,  and  parted  his  kingdom  among  them,  while  he  was  yet 
alive.1  So  Alexander  reigned  twelve  years,  and  then  died/1 

He  survived  as  a  legendary  hero  in  the  Mohammedan  religion, 
and  to  this  day  petty  chieftains  in  the  Himalayas  claim  to  be 
descended  from  him.1  No  other  hilly  historical  hero  has  ever 
furnished  such  a  perfect  opportunity  for  the  mythopoeic  faculty. 

At  Alexander's  death,  there  was  an  attempt  to  preserve  the 
unit}'  of  his  empire.  But  of  his  two  sons,  one  was  an  infant  and 
the  other  was  not  yet  born.  Each  had  supporters,  but  in  the 
resultant  civil  war  both  were  thrust  aside.  In  the  end,  his  empire 
was  divided  between  the  families  of  three  generals,  of  whom, 
roughly  speaking,  one  obtained  the  European,  one  the  African, 
and  one  the  Asiatic  parts  of  Alexander's  possessions.  The  European 
part  fell  ultimately  to  Antigonus's  descendants;  Ptolemy,  who 
obtained  Egypt,  made  Alexandria  his  capital;  Seleucus,  who 
obtained  Asia  after  many  wars,  was  too  busy  with  campaigns  to 
have  a  fixed  capital,  but  in  later  times  Antioch  was  the  chief  city 
of  his  dynasty. 

Both  the  Ptolemies  and  the  Seleucids  (as  the  dynasty  of  Seleu- 
cus was  called)  abandoned  Alexander's  attempts  to  produce  a 
fusion  of  Greek  and  barbarian,  and  established  military  tyrannies 
based,  at  first,  upon  their  part  of  the  Macedonian  army  streng- 
thened with  Greek  mercenaries.  The  Ptolemies  held  Egypt  fairly 

1  7%his  is  not  historically  true. 

*  Perhaps  this  is  no  longer  true,  as  the  sons  of  thobc  who  held  thia  belief 
have  been  educated  at  Eton. 

244 


THE    HELLENISTIC    WORLD 

securely,  but  in  Asia  two  centuries  of  confused  dynastic  wars  were 
only  ended  by  the  Roman  conquest.  During  these  centuries, 
Persia  was  conquered  by  the  Parthians,  and  the  Bactrian  Greeks 
were  increasingly  isolated. 

In  the  second  century  B.C.  (after  which  they  rapidly  declined) 
they  had  a  king,  Menander,  whose  Indian  Empire  was  very 
extensive.  A  couple  of  dialogues  between  him  and  a  Buddhist  sage 
have  survived  in  Pali,  and,  in  part,  in  a  Chinese  translation.  Dr. 
Tarn  suggests  that  the  first  of  these  is  based  on  a  Greek  original; 
the  second,  which  ends  with  Menander  abdicating  and  becoming 
a  Buddhist  saint,  is  certainly  not. 

Buddhism,  at  this  time,  was  a  vigorous  proselytizing  religion. 
Asoka  (264-228),  the  saintly  Buddhist  king,  records,  in  a  still  extant 
inscription,  that  he  sent  missionaries  to  all  the  Macedonian  kings: 
"And  this  is  the  cliicfcst  conquest  in  His  Majesty's  opinion — the 
conquest  by  the  Law;  this  also  is  that  effected  by  His  Majesty  both 
in  his  own  dominions  and  in  all  the  neighbouring  realms  as  far 
as  six  hundred  leagues —even  to  where  the  Greek  king  Antiochus 
dwells,  and  beyond  that  Antiochus  to  where  dwell  the  four  kings 
severally  named  Ptolemy,  Antigonus,  Magas,  and  Alexander  .  .  , 
and  likewise  here,  in  the  king's  dominions,  among  the  Yonas"1 
(i.e.  the  Greeks  of  the  Punjab).  Unfortunately  no  western  account 
of  these  missionaries  has  survived. 

Babylonia  was  much  more  profoundly  influenced  by  Hellenism. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  only  ancient  who  followed  Aristarchus  of 
Sarnos  in  maintaining  the  Copernican  system  was  Seleucus  of 
Sdeucia  on  the  Tigris,  who  flourished  about  150  B.C.  Tacitus 
tells  us  that  in  the  first  century  A.D.  Seleucia  had  not  "lapsed  into 
the  barbarous  usages  of  the  Parthians,  but  still  retained  the  insti- 
tutions of  Seleucus,8  its  Greek  founder.  Three  hundred  citizens, 
chosen  for  their  wealth  or  wisdom,  compose  as  it  were  a  Senate; 
the  {x>pulace  too  have  their  share  of  power."3  Throughout  Meso- 
potamia, as  further  West,  Greek  became  the  language  of  literature 
and  culture,  and  remained  so  until  the  Mohammedan  conquest. 

Syria  (excluding  Judea)  became  completely  Hellenized  in  the 
cities,  in  so  far  as  language  and  literature  were  concerned.  But  the 
rural  populations,  which  were  more  conservative,  retained  the 

1  Quoted  in  Be  van,  Housf  of  ScletAtvs,  Vol.  I,  p.  29811. 
*  The  king,  not  die  astronomer. 
Book  VI,  chap.  42. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

religions  and  the  languages  to  which  they  were  accustomed.1  In 
Asia  Minor,  the  Greek  cities  of  the  coast  had,  for  centuries,  had 
an  influence  on  their  barbarian  neighbours.  This  was  intensified 
by  the  Macedonian  conquest.  The  first  conflict  of  Hellenism  with 
the  Jews  is  related  in  the  Books  of  the  Maccabees.  It  is  a  profoundly 
interesting  story,  unlike  anything  else  in  the  Macedonian  Empire. 
I  shall  deal  with  it  at  a  later  stage,  when  I  come  to  the  origin  and 
growth  of  Christianity.  Elsewhere,  Greek  influence  encountered 
no  such  stubborn  opposition. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  Hellenistic  culture,  the  most  brilliant 
success  of  the  third  century  B.C.  was  the  city  of  Alexandria.  Egypt 
was  less  exposed  to  war  than  the  European  and  Asiatic  parts  of 
the  Macedonian  domain,  and  Alexandria  was  in  an  extraordinarily 
favoured  position  for  commerce.  The  Ptolemies  were  patrons  of 
learning,  and  attracted  to  their  capital  many  of  the  best  men  of 
the  age.  Mathematics  became,  and  remained  until  the  fall  of  Rome, 
mainly  Alexandrian.  Archimedes,  it  is  true,  was  a  Sicilian,  and 
belonged  to  the  one  part  of  the  world  where  the  Greek  City 
States  (until  the  moment  of  his  death  in  212  B.C.)  retained  their 
independence ;  but  he  too  had  studied  in  Alexandria.  Eratosthenes 
was  chief  librarian  of  the  famous  library  of  Alexandria.  The 
mathematicians  and  men  of  science  connected,  more  or  less  closely, 
with  Alexandria  in  the  third  century  before  Christ  were  as  able 
as  any  of  the  Greeks  of  the  previous  centuries,  and  did  work  of 
equal  importance.  But  they  were  not,  like  their  predecessors,  men 
who  took  all  learning  for  their  province,  and  propounded  universal 
philosophies;  they  were  specialists  in  the  modern  sense.  Euclid, 
Aristarchus,  Archimedes,  and  Apollonius,  were  content  to  be 
mathematicians ;  in  philosophy  they  did  not  aspire  to  originality. 

Specialization  characterized  the  age  in  all  departments,  not  only 
in  the  world  of  learning.  In  the  self-governing  Greek  cities  of  the 
fifth  and  fourth  centuries,  a  capable  man  was  assumed  to  be  capable 
of  everything.  He  would  be,  as  occasion  arose,  a  soldier,  a  politician, 
a  lawgiver,  or  a  philosopher.  Socrates,  though  he  disliked  politics, 
could  not  avoid  being  mixed  up  with  political  disputes.  In  his 
youth  he  was  a  soldier,  and  (in  spite  of  his  disclaimer  in  the 
Apology)  a  student  of  physical  science.  Protagoras,  when  he  could 
spare  time  from  teaching  scepticism  to  aristocratic  youths  in  search 
of  the  latest  thing,  was  drawing  up  a  code  of  laws  for  Thurii. 
1  See  Cambridge  Ancient  History*  VoL  V1J,  pp.  194-5. 

246 


THE   HELLENISTIC   WORLD 

Plato  dabbled  in  politics,  though  unsuccessfully.  Xenophon, 
when  he  was  neither  writing  about  Socrates  nor  being  a  country 
gentleman,  spent  his  spare  time  as  a  general.  Pythagorean  mathe- 
maticians attempted  to  acquire  the  government  of  cities.  Every- 
body had  to  serve  on  juries  and  perform  various  other  public 
duties.  In  the  third  century  all  this  was  changed.  There  continued, 
it  is  true,  to  be  politics  in  the  old  City  States,  but  they  had  become 
parochial  and  unimportant,  since  Greece  was  at  the  mercy  of 
Macedonian  aimies.  The  serious  struggles  for  power  were  between 
Macedonian  soldiers ;  they  involved  no  question  of  principle,  but 
merely  the  distribution  of  territory  between  rival  adventurers.  On 
administrative  and  technical  matters,  these  more  or  less  unedu- 
cated soldiers  employed  Greeks  as  experts;  in  Egypt,  for  example, 
excellent  work  was  done  in  irrigation  and  drainage.  There  were 
soldiers,  administrators,  physicians,  mathematicians,  philosophers, 
but  there  was  no  one  who  was  all  these  at  once. 

The  age  was  one  in  which  a  man  who  had  money  and  no  desire 
for  power  could  enjoy  a  very  pleasant  life — always  assuming  that 
no  marauding  army  happened  to  come  his  way.  Learned  men  who 
found  favour  with  some  prince  could  enjoy  a  high  degree  of  luxury, 
provided  they  were  adroit  flatterers  and  did  not  mind  being  the 
butt  of  ignorant  royal  witticisms.  But  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
security.  A  palace  revolution  might  displace  the  sycophantic 
sage's  patron;  the  Galatians  might  destroy  the  rich  man's  villa; 
one's  city  might  be  sacked  as  an  incident  in  a  dynastic  war.  In 
such  circumstances  it  is  no  wonder  that  people  took  to  worshipping 
the  goddess  Fortune,  or  Luck.  There  seemed  nothing  rational  in 
the  ordering  of  human  affairs.  Those  who  obstinately  insisted 
upon  finding  rationality  somewhere  withdrew  into  themselves, 
and  decided,  like  Milton's  Satan,  that 

The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 
Can  make  a  heaven  of  hell,  a  hell  of  heaven. 

Except  for  adventurous  self-seekers,  there  was  no  longer  any 
incentive  to  take  an  interest  in  public  affairs.  After  the  brilliant 
episode  of  Alexander's  conquests,  the  Hellenistic  world  was 
sinking  into  chaos,  for  lack  of  a  despot  strong  enough  to  achieve 
stable  supremacy,  or  a  principle  powerful  enough  to  produce 
social  cohesion.  Greek  intelligence,  confronted  with  new  political 
problems,  showed  complete  incompetence.  The  Romans,  no 

247 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

doubt,  were  stupid  and  brutal  compared  to  the  Greeks,  but  at 
least  they  created  order.  The  old  disorder  of  the  days  of  freedom 
had  been  tolerable,  because  every  citizen  had  a  share  in  it;  but 
the  new  Macedonian  disorder,  imposed  upon  subjects  by  incom- 
petent rulers,  was  utterly  intolerable — far  more  so  than  the  subse- 
quent subjection  to  Rome. 

There  was  widespread  social  discontent  and  fear  of  revolution. 
The  wages  of  free  labour  fell,  presumably  owing  to  the  competition 
of  eastern  slave  labour;  and  meantime  the  prices  of  necessaries 
rose.  One  finds  Alexander,  at  the  outset  of  his  enterprise,  having 
time  to  make  treaties  designed  to  keep  the  poor  in  their  place. 
"In  the  treaties  made  in  335  between  Alexander  and  the  States 
of  the  League  of  Corinth  it  was  provided  that  the  Council  of  the 
League  and  Alexander's  representative  were  to  see  to  it  that  in 
no  city  of  the  League  should  there  be  either  confiscation  of  per- 
sonal property,  or  division  of  land,  or  cancellation  of  debt,  or 
liberation  of  slaves  for  the  purpose  of  revolution."1  The  temples, 
in  the  Hellenistic  world,  were  the  bankers;  they  owned  the  gold 
reserve,  and  controlled  credit.  In  the  early  third  century,  the 
temple  of  Apollo  at  Delos  made  loans  at  ten  per  cent ;  formerly, 
the  rate  of  interest  had  been  higher.2 

Free  labourers  who  found  wages  insufficient  even  for  bare 
necessities  must,  if  young  and  vigorous,  have  been  able  to  obtain 
employment  as  mercenaries.  The  life  of  a  mercenary,  no  doubt, 
was  filled  with  hardships  and  dangers,  but  it  also  had  great  possi- 
bilities. There  might  be  the  loot  of  some  rich  eastern  city ;  there 
might  be  a  chance  of  lucrative  mutiny.  It  must  have  been  dangerous 
for  a  commander  to  attempt  to  disband  his  army,  and  this  must 
have  been  one  of  the  reasons  why  wars  were  almost  continuous. 

The  old  civic  spirit  more  or  less  survived  in  the  old  Greek 
cities,  but  not  in  the  new  cities  founded  by  Alexander — not  ex- 
cepting Alexandria.  In  earlier  times,  a  new  city  was  always  a 
colony  composed  of  emigrants  from  some  one  older  city,  and  it 
remained  connected  with  its  parent  by  a  bond  of  sentiment.  This 
kind  of  sentiment  had  great  longevity,  as  is  shown,  for  example, 
by  the  diplomatic  activities  of  Lampsacus  on  the  Hellespont  in 

1  "The  Social  Question  in  the  Third  Century,"  by  W  W.  Tarn,  in  7Vi« 
Hellenistic  Age  by  various  authors.  Cambridge,  1923.  This  essay  is  exceed* 
ingly  interesting,  and  contains  many  facts  nor  elsewhere  readily  accessible. 

'  Ibid. 


THE   HELLENISTIC   WORLD 

the  year  196  B.C.  This  city  was  threatened  with  subjugation  by  the 
Seleucid  King  Antiochus  III,  and  decided  to  appeal  to  Rome  for 
protection.  An  embassy  was  sent,  but  it  did  not  go  direct  to  Rome ; 
it  went  first,  in  spite  of  the  immense  distance,  to  Marseilles,  which, 
like  Lampsacus,  was  a  colony  of  Phocaea,  and  was,  moreover, 
viewed  with  friendly  eyes  by  the  Romans.  The  citizens  of  Mar- 
seilles, having  listened  to  an  oration  by  the  envoy,  at  once  decided 
to  send  a  diplomatic  mission  of  their  own  to  Rome  to  support 
their  sister  city.  The  Gauls  who  lived  inland  from  Marseilles 
joined  in  with  a  letter  to  their  kinsmen  of  Asia  Minor,  the 
Galatians,  recommending  Lampsacus  to  their  friendship.  Rome, 
naturally,  was  glad  of  a  pretext  for  meddling  in  the  affairs  of  Asia 
Minor,  and  by  Rome's  intervention  Lampsacus  preserved  its 
freedom — until  it  became  inconvenient  to  the  Romans.1 

In  general,  the  rulers  of  Asia  called  themselves  "Phil-Hellene," 
and  befriended  the  old  Greek  cities  as  far  as  policy  and  military 
necessity  allowed.  The  cities  desired,  and  (when  they  could) 
claimed  as  a  right,  democratic  self-government,  absence  of  tribute, 
and  freedom  from  a  royal  garrison.  It  was  worth  while  to  conciliate 
them,  because  they  were  rich,  they  could  supply  mercenaries,  and 
many  of  them  had  important  harbours.  But  if  they  took  the  wrong 
side  in  a  civil  war,  they  exposed  themselves  to  sheer  conquest. 
On  the  whole,  the  Seleucids,  and  the  other  dynasties  which 
gradually  grew  up,  dealt  tolerably  with  them,  but  there  were 
exceptions. 

The  new  cities,  though  they  had  a  measure  of  self-government, 
had  not  the  same  traditions  as  the  older  ones.  Their  citizens  were 
not  of  homogeneous  origin,  but  were  from  all  parts  of  Greece. 
They  were  in  the  main  adventurers  like  the  conquistadors  or  the 
settlers  in  Johannesburg,  not  pious  pilgrims  like  the  earlier  Greek 
colonists  or  the  New  England  pioneers.  Consequently  no  one  of 
Alexander's  cities  formed  a  strong  political  unit.  This  was  con- 
venient from  the  standpoint  of  the  king's  government,  but  a 
weakness  from  the  standpoint  of  the  spread  of  Hellenism. 

The  influence  of  non-Greek  religion  and  superstition  in  the 
Hellenistic  world  was  mainly,  but  not  wholly,  bad.  This  might 
not  have  been  the  case.  Jews,  Persians,  and  Buddhists  all  had 
religions  that  were  very  definitely  superior  to  the  popular  Greek 
polytheism,  and  could  even  have  been  studied  with  profit  by  the 
1  Heyan,  House  of  Seleucut,  Vol.  II,  pp.  45-0. 

H9 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

best  philosophers.  Unfortunately  it  was  the  Babylonians,  or 
Chaldeans,  who  most  impressed  the  imagination  of  the  Greeks. 
There  was,  first  of  all,  their  fabulous  antiquity ;  the  priestly  records 
went  back  for  thousands  of  years,  and  professed  to  go  back  for 
thousands  more.  Then  there  was  some  genuine  wisdom:  the 
Babylonians  could  more  or  less  predict  eclipses  long  before  the 
Greeks  could.  But  these  were  merely  causes  of  receptiveness; 
what  was  received  was  mainly  astrology  and  magic.  "Astrology," 
says  Professor  Gilbert  Murray,  "fell  upon  the  Hellenistic  mind  as 
a  new  disease  falls  upon  some  remote  island  people.  The  tomb  of 
Ozymandias,  as  described  by  Diodorus,  was  covered  with  astro- 
logical symbols,  and  that  of  Antiochus  I,  which  has  been  dis- 
covered in  Commagene,  is  of  the  same  character.  It  was  natural 
for  monarchs  to  believe  that  the  stars  watched  over  them.  But 
every  one  was  ready  to  receive  the  germ."1  It  appears  that  astrology 
was  first  taught  to  the  Greeks  in  the  time  of  Alexander,  by  a 
Chaldean  named  Berosus,  who  taught  in  Cos,  and,  according  to 
Seneca,  "interpreted  Bel."  "This,"  says  Professor  Murray,  "must 
mean  that  he  translated  into  Greek  the  'Eye  of  Bel,'  a  treatise  in 
seventy  tablets  found  in  the  library  of  Assur-bani-pal  (686-626  B.C.) 
but  composed  for  Sargon  I  in  the  third  millennium  B.C."  (ibid., 
p.  176). 

As  we  shall  see,  the  majority  even  of  the  best  philosophers  fell 
in  with  the  belief  in  astrology.  It  involved,  since  it  thought  the 
future  predictable,  a  belief  in  necessity  or  fate,  which  could  be 
set  against  the  prevalent  belief  in  fortune.  No  doubt  most  men 
believed  in  both,  and  never  noticed  the  inconsistency. 

The  general  confusion  was  bound  to  bring  moral  decay,  even 
more  than  intellectual  enfeeblement.  Ages  of  prolonged  uncer- 
tainty, while  they  are  compatible  with  the  highest  degree  of  saintli- 
ness  in  a  few,  are  inimical  to  the  prosaic  every-day  virtues  of 
respectable  citizens.  There  seems  no  use  in  thrift,  when  to-morrow 
all  your  savings  may  be  dissipated ;  no  advantage  in  honesty,  when 
the  man  towards  whom  you  practise  it  is  pretty  sure  to  swindle 
you ;  no  point  in  steadfast  adherence  to  a  cause,  when  no  cause  is 
important  or  has  a  chance  of  stable  victory ;  no  argument  in  favour 
of  truthfulness,  when  only  supple  tergiversation  makes  the  pre- 
servation of  life  and  fortune  possible.  The  man  whose  virtue  has 
no  source  except  a  purely  terrestrial  prudence  will,  in  such  a  world, 
1  Fit*  Stag€*  of  Gfttk  Reti0<m9  pp.  17778 


THE    HELLENISTIC    WORLD 

become  an  adventurer  if  he  has  the  courage,  and,  if  not,  will  seek 
obscurity  as  a  timid  time-server. 
Menander,  who  belongs  to  this  age,  says: 

So  many  cases  I  have  known 
Of  men  who,  though  not  naturally  rogues, 
Became  so,  through  misfortune,  by  constraint. 

This  sums  up  the  moral  character  of  the  third  century  B.C., 
except  for  a  few  exceptional  men.  Even  among  these  few,  fear 
took  the  place  of  hope ;  the  purpose  of  life  was  rather  to  escape 
misfortune  than  to  achieve  any  positive  good.  "Metaphysics  sink 
into  the  background,  and  ethics,  now  individual,  become  of  the 
first  importance.  Philosophy  is  no  longer  the  pillar  of  fire  going 
before  a  few  intrepid  seekers  after  truth :  it  is  rather  an  ambulance 
following  in  the  wake  of  the  struggle  for  existence  and  picking  up 
the  weak  and  wounded."1 

1  C.  F.  Angus  in  Cambridge  Ancient  History,  Vol.  VII,  p.  231.  The 
above  quotation  from  Menander  is  taken  from  the  same  chapter. 


251 


Chapter  XXVI 
CYNICS   AND   SCEPTICS 

E  I  IHE  relation  of  intellectually  eminent  men  to  contemporary 
I  society  has  been  very  different  in  different  ages.  In  some 
JL  fortunate  epochs  they  have  been  on  the  whole  in  harmony 
with  their  surroundings — suggesting,  no  doubt,  such  reforms  as 
seemed  to  them  necessary,  but  fairly  confident  that  their  sugges- 
tions would  be  welcomed,  and  not  disliking  the  world  in  which 
they  found  themselves  even  if  it  remained  unreformed.  At  other 
times  they  have  been  revolutionary,  considering  that  radical 
alterations  were  called  for,  but  expecting  that,  partly  as  a  result 
of  their  advocacy,  these  alterations  would  be  brought  about  in  the 
near  future.  At  yet  other  times  they  have  despaired  of  the  world, 
and  felt  that,  though  they  themselves  knew  what  was  needed, 
there  was  no  hope  of  its  being  brought  about.  This  mood  sinks 
easily  into  the  deeper  despair  which  regards  life  on  earth  as 
essentially  bad,  and  hopes  for  good  only  in  a  future  life  or  in 
some  mystical  transfiguration. 

In  some  ages,  all  these  attitudes  have  been  adopted  by  different 
men  living  at  the  same  time.  Consider,  for  example,  the  early 
nineteenth  century.  Goethe  is  comfortable,  Bentharn  is  a  reformer, 
Shelley  is  a  revolutionary,  and  Leopardi  is  a  pessimist.  But  in 
most  periods  there  has  been  a  prevailing  tone  among  great  writers. 
In  England  they  were  comfortable  under  Elizabeth  and  in  the 
eighteenth  century;  in  France,  they  became  revolutionary  about 
1750;  in  Germany,  they  have  been  nationalistic  since  1813. 

During  the  period  of  ecclesiastical  domination,  from  the  fifth 
century  to  the  fifteenth,  there  was  a  certain  conflict  between  what 
was  theoretically  believed  and  what  was  actually  felt.  Theoretically, 
the  world  was  a  vale  of  tears,  a  preparation,  amid  tribulation,  for 
the  world  to  come.  But  in  practice  the  writers  of  hooks,  being 
almost  all  clerics,  could  not  help  feeling  exhilarated  by  the  power 
of  the  Church;  they  found  opportunity  for  abundant  activity  of 
a  sort  that  they  believed  to  be  useful.  They  had  therefore  the 
mentality  of  a  governing  class,  not  of  men  who  feel  themselves 
exiles  in  an  alien  world.  This  is  part  of  the  curious  dualism  that 
runs  through  the  Middle  Ages,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  Church, 

252 


CYNICS   AND   SCEPTICS 

chough  based  on  other-worldly  beliefs,  was  the  most  important 
institution  in  the  every-day  world. 

The  psychological  preparation  for  the  other-worldliness  of 
Christianity  begins  in  the  Hellenistic  period,  and  is  connected 
with  the  eclipse  of  the  City  State.  Down  to  Aristotle,  Greek  philo- 
sophers, though  they  might  complain  of  this  or  that,  were,  in 
the  main,  not  cosmically  despairing,  nor  did  they  feel  themselves 
politically  impotent.  They  might,  at  times,  belong  to  a  beaten 
party,  but,  if  so,  their  defeat  was  due  to  the  chances  of  conflict, 
not  to  any  inevitable  powerlessness  of  the  wise.  Even  those  who, 
like  Pythagoras,  and  Plato  in  certain  moods,  condemned  the  world 
of  appearance  and  sought  escape  in  mysticism,  had  practical  plans 
for  turning  the  governing  classes  into  saints  and  sages.  When 
political  power  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Macedonians,  Greek 
philosophers,  as  was  natural,  turned  aside  from  politics  and 
devoted  themselves  more  to  the  problem  of  individual  virtue  or 
salvation.  They  no  longer  asked:  how  can  men  create  a  good 
State?  They  asked  instead:  how  can  men  be  virtuous  in  a  wicked 
world,  or  happy  in  a  world  of  suffering?  The  change,  it  is  true, 
is  only  one  of  degree ;  such  questions  had  been  asked  before,  and 
the  later  Stoics,  for  a  time,  again  concerned  themselves  with 
politics — the  politic^  of  Rome,  not  of  Greece.  But  the  change  was 
none  the  less  real.  Except  to  a  limited  extent  during  the  Roman 
period  in  Stoicism,  the  outlook  of  those  who  thought  and  felt 
seriously  became  increasingly  subjective  and  individualistic,  until, 
at  last,  Christianity  evolved  a  gospel  of  individual  salvation  which 
inspired  missionary  zeal  and  created  the  Church.  Until  that 
happened,  there  was  no  institution  to  which  the  philosopher  could 
give  whole-hearted  adherence,  and  therefore  there  was  no  ade- 
cjuate  outlet  for  his  legitimate  love  of  power.  For  this  reason,  the 
philosophers  of  the  Hellenistic  period  are  more  limited  as  human 
beings  than  the  men  who  lived  while  the  City  State  could  still 
inspire  allegiance.  They  still  think,  because  they  cannot  help 
thinking;  but  they  scarcely  hope  that  their  thought  will  bear  fruit 
in  the  world  of  affairs. 

Four  schools  of  philosophy  were  founded  about  the  time  of 
Alexander.  The  two  most  famous,  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans, 
will  be  the  subjects  of  later  chapters ;  in  the  present  chapter  we 
shall  be  concerned  with  the  Cynics  and  Sceptics. 

The  first  of  these  schools  is  derived,  through  its  founder  Dio- 

253 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

genes,  from  Amisthenes,  a  disciple  of  Socrates,  about  twenty 
years  older  than  Plato.  Antisthenes  was  a  remarkable  character, 
in  some  ways  rather  like  Tolstoy.  Until  after  the  death  of  Socrates, 
he  lived  in  the  aristocratic  circle  of  his  fellow  disciples,  and 
showed  no  sign  of  unorthodoxy.  But  something — whether  the 
defeat  of  Athens,  or  the  death  of  Socrates,  or  a  distaste  for  philo- 
sophic quibbling — caused  him,  when  no  longer  young,  to  despise 
the  things  that  he  had  formerly  valued.  He  would  have  nothing 
but  simple  goodness.  He  associated  with  working  men,  and 
dressed  as  one  of  them.  He  took  to  open-air  preaching,  in  a  style 
that  the  uneducated  could  understand.  All  refined  philosophy  he 
held  to  be  worthless;  what  could  be  known,  could  be  known  by 
the  plain  man.  He  believed  in  the  "return  to  nature/1  and  carried 
this  belief  very  far.  There  was  to  be  no  government,  no  private 
property,  no  marriage,  no  established  religion.  His  followers,  if 
not  he  himself,  condemned  slavery.  He  was  not  exactly  ascetic, 
but  he  despised  luxury  and  all  pursuit  of  artificial  pleasures  of 
the  senses.  "I  had  rather  be  mad  than  delighted/'  he  said.1 

The  fame  of  Antisthenes  was  surpassed  by  that  of  his  disciple 
Diogenes,  "a  young  man  from  Sinope,  on  the  Euxine,  whom  he 
[Antisthenes]  did  not  take  to  at  first  sight ;  the  son  of  a  disreputable 
money-changer  who  had  been  sent  to  prison  for  defacing  the 
coinage.  Antisthenes  ordered  the  lad  away, but  he  paid  no  attention ; 
he  beat  him  with  his  stick,  but  he  never  moved.  He  wanted 
'wisdom/  and  saw  that  Antisthenes  had  it  to  give.  His  aim  in 
life  was  to  do  as  his  father  had  done,  to  'deface  the  coinage/  but 
on  a  much  larger  scale.  He  would  deface  all  the  coinage  current 
in  the  world.  Every  conventional  stamp  was  false.  The  men 
stamped  as  generals  and  kings;  the  things  stamped  as  honour  and 
wisdom  and  happiness  and  riches ;  all  were  base  metal  with  lying 
superscription/'* 

He  decided  to  live  like  a  dog,  and  was  therefore  called  a  "cynic," 
which  means  "canine."  He  rejected  all  conventions — whether  of 
religion,  of  manners,  of  dress,  of  housing,  of  food,  or  of  decency. 
One  is  told  that  he  lived  in  a  tub,  but  Gilbert  Murray  assures  us 
that  this  is  a  mistake:  it  was  a  large  pitcher,  of  the  sort  used  in 
primitive  times  for  burials.8  He  lived,  like  an  Indian  fakir,  by 
begging.  He  proclaimed  his  brotherhood,  not  only  with  the  whole 

1  Benn,  Vol.  II,  pp.  4,  5:  Murray,  Five  Stagey  pp.  113-14. 

9  Ibid.,  p.  117.  •  Ibid.,  p.  no. 


CYNICS    AND   SCEPTICS 

human  race,  but  also  with  animals.  He  was  a  man  about  whom 
stories  gathered,  even  in  his  lifetime.  Everyone  knows  how 
Alexander  visited  him,  and  asked  if  he  desired  any  favour ;  "only 
to  stand  out  of  my  light/'  he  replied. 

The  teaching  of  Diogenes  was  by  no  means  what  we  now  call 
"cynical"— quite  the  contrary.  He  had  an  ardent  passion  for 
"virtue,"  in  comparison  with  which  he  held  worldly  goods  of  no 
account.  He  sought  virtue  and  moral  freedom  in  liberation  from 
desire:  be  indifferent  to  the  goods  that  fortune  has  to  bestow, 
and  you  will  be  emancipated  from  fear.  In  this  respect,  his  doctrine, 
as  we  shall  see,  was  taken  up  by  the  Stoics,  but  they  did  not  follow 
him  in  rejecting  the  amenities  of  civilization.  He  considered  that 
Prometheus  was  justly  punished  for  bringing  to  man  the  arts  that 
have  produced  the  complication  and  artificiality  of  modern  life. 
In  this  he  resembled  the  Taoists  and  Rousseau  and  Tolstoy,  but 
was  more  consistent  than  they  were. 

His  doctrine,  though  he  was  a  contemporary  of  Aristotle, 
belongs  in  its  temper  to  the  Hellenistic  age.  Aristotle  is  the  last 
Greek  philosopher  who  faces  the  world  cheerfully ;  after  him,  all 
have,  in  one  form  or  another,  a  philosophy  of  retreat.  The  world 
is  bad ;  let  us  learn  to  be  independent  of  it.  External  goods  are 
precarious ;  they  are  the  gift  of  fortune,  not  the  reward  of  our  own 
efforts.  Only  subjective  goods — virtue,  or  contentment  through 
resignation — are  secure,  and  these  alone,  therefore,  will  be  valued 
by  the  wise  man.  Diogenes  personally  was  a  man  full  of  vigour, 
but  his  doctrine,  like  all  those  of  the  Hellenistic  age,  was  one  to 
appeal  to  weary  men,  in  whom  disappointment  had  destroyed 
natural  zest.  And  it  was  certainly  not  a  doctrine  calculated  to 
promote  art  or  science  or  statesmanship,  or  any  useful  activity 
except  one  of  protest  against  powerful  evil. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  what  the  Cynic  teaching  became 
when  it  was  popularized.  In  the  early  part  of  the  third  century  B.C., 
the  cynics  were  the  fashion,  especially  in  Alexandria.  They 
published  little  sermons  pointing  out  how  easy  it  is  to  do  without 
material  possessions,  how  happy  one  can  be  on  simple  food,  how 
warm  one  can  keep  in  winter  without  expensive  clothes  (which 
might  be  true  in  Egypt  I),  how  silly  it  is  to  feel  affection  for  one's 
native  country,  or  to  mourn  when  one's  children  or  friends  die. 
"Because  my  son  or  my  wife  is  dead/*  says  Teles,  who  was  one 
of  these  popularizing  Cynics,  "is  that  any  reason  for  my  neglecting 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

myself,  who  am  still  alive,  and  ceasing  to  look  after  my  property  ?"* 
At  this  point,  it  becomes  difficult  to  feel  any  sympathy  with  the 
simple  life,  which  has  grown  altogether  too  simple.  One  wonders 
who  enjoyed  these  sermons.  Was  it  the  rich,  who  wished  to  think 
the  sufferings  of  the  poor  imaginary?  Or  was  it  the  new  poor, 
who  were  trying  to  despise  the  successful  business  man  ?  Or  was 
it  sycophants  who  persuaded  themselves  that  the  charity  they 
accepted  was  unimportant?  Teles  says  to  a  rich  man:  "You  give 
liberally  and  I  take  valiantly  from  you,  neither  grovelling  nor 
demeaning  myself  basely  nor  grumbling."2  A  very  convenient 
doctrine.  Popular  Cynicism  did  not  teach  abstinence  from  the  good 
things  of  this  world,  but  only  a  certain  indifference  to  them.  In 
the  case  of  a  borrower,  this  might  take  the  form  of  minimizing 
the  obligation  to  the  lender.  One  can  see  how  the  word  "cynic" 
acquired  its  everyday  meaning. 

What  was  best  in  the  Cynic  doctrine  passed  over  into  Stoicism, 
which  was  an  altogether  more  complete  and  rounded  philosophy. 

Scepticism,  as  a  doctrine  of  the  schools,  was  first  proclaimed 
by  Pyrrho,  who  was  in  Alexander's  army,  and  campaigned  with 
it  as  far  as  India.  It  seems  that  this  gave  him  a  sufficient  taste  of 
travel,  and  that  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in  his  native  city,  Elis, 
where  he  died  in  275  B.C.  There  was  not  much  that  was  new  in 
his  doctrine,  beyond  a  certain  systematizing  and  formalizing  of 
older  doubts.  Scepticism  with  regard  to  the  senses  had  troubled 
Greek  philosophers  from  a  very  early  stage ;  the  only  exceptions 
were  those  who,  like  Parmenides  and  Plato,  denied  the  cognitive 
value  of  perception,  and  made  their  denial  into  an  opportunity 
for  an  intellectual  dogmatism.  The  Sophists,  notably  Protagoras 
and  Gorgias,  had  been  led  by  the  ambiguities  and  apparent  con- 
tradictions of  sense-perception  to  a  subjectivism  not  unlike  I  luine's. 
Pyrrho  seems  (for  he  very  wisely  wrote  no  books)  to  have  added 
moral  and  logical  scepticism  to  scepticism  as  to  the  senses.  He 
is  said  to  have  maintained  that  there  could  never  be  any  rational 
ground  for  preferring  one  course  of  action  to  another.  In  practice, 
this  meant  that  one  conformed  to  the  customs  of  whatever  country 
one  inhabited.  A  modem  disciple  would  go  to  church  on  Sundays 
and  perform  the  correct  genuflexions,  but  without  any  of  the 
religious  beliefs  that  are  supposed  to  inspire  these  actions.  Ancient 

1  The  Hellemstif  Age  (Cambridge,  1923),  p.  84  11. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  86. 


CYNICS   AND   SCEPTICS 

Sceptics  went  through  the  whole  pagan  ritual,  and  were  even 
sometimes  priests;  their  Scepticism  assured  them  that  this 
behaviour  could  not  be  proved  wrong,  and  their  common  sense 
(which  survived  their  philosophy)  assured  them  that  it  was  con- 
venient. 

Scepticism  naturally  made  an  appeal  to  many  unphilosophic 
minds.  People  observed  the  diversity  of  schools  and  the  acerbity 
of  their  disputes,  and  decided  that  all  alike  were  pretending  to 
knowledge  which  was  in  fact  unattainable.  Scepticism  was  a  lazy 
man's  consolation,  since  it  showed  the  ignorant  to  be  as  wise  as 
the  reputed  men  of  learning.  To  men  who,  by  temperament, 
required  a  gospel,  it  might  seem  unsatisfying,  but  like  every 
doctrine  of  the  Hellenistic  period  it  recommended  itself  as  an 
antidote  to  worry.  Why  trouble  about  the  future?  It  is  wholly 
uncertain.  You  may  as  well  enjoy  the  present;  "what's  to  come 
is  still  unsure/1  For  these  reasons,  Scepticism  enjoyed  a  con- 
siderable popular  success. 

It  should  be  observed  that  Scepticism  as  a  philosophy  is  not 
merely  doubt,  but  what  may  be  called  dogmatic  doubt.  The  man 
of  science  says  "I  think  it  is  so-and-so,  but  I  am  not  sure."  The 
man  of  intellectual  curiosity  says  "I  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  I 
hope  to  find  out."  The  philosophical  Sceptic  says  "nobody  knows, 
and  nobody  ever  can  know/'  It  is  this  element  of  dogmatism  that 
makes  the  system  vulnerable.  Sceptics,  of  course,  deny  that  they 
assert  the  impossibility  of  knowledge  dogmatically,  but  their 
denials  are  not  very  convincing. 

Pyrrho's  disciple  Timon,  however,  advanced  some  intellectual 
arguments  which,  from  the  standpoint  of  Greek  logic,  were  very 
hard  to  answer.  The  only  logic  admitted  by  the  Greeks  was  de- 
ductive, and  all  deduction  had  to  start,  like  Euclid,  from  general 
principles  regarded  as  self-evident.  Timon  denied  the  possibility 
of  finding  such  principles.  Everything*  therefore,  will  have  to  be 
proved  by  means  of  something  else,  and  all  argument  will  be 
either  circular  or  an  endless  chain  hanging  from  nothing.  In  either 
case  nothing  can  be  proved.  This  argument,  as  we  can  see,  cut 
at  the  root  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy  which  dominated  the 
Middle  Ages. 

Some  forms  of  Scepticism  which,  in  our  own  day,  arc  advocated 
by  men  who  arc  by  no  means  wholly  sceptical,  had  not  occurred 
to  the  Sceptics  of  antiquity.  They  did  not  doubt  phenomena,  or 

//Mlur>  <>/ 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

question  propositions  which,  in  their  opinion,  only  expressed 
what  we  know  directly  concerning  phenomena.  Most  of  Timon's 
work  is  lost,  but  two  surviving  fragments  will  illustrate  this  point. 
One  says  "The  phenomenon  is  always  valid."  The  other  says: 
"That  honey  w  sweet  I  refuse  to  assert ;  that  it  appears  sweet,  I 
fully  grant."1  A  modern  Sceptic  would  point  out  that  the  pheno- 
menon merely  occurs,  and  is  not  either  valid  or  invalid;  what  is 
valid  or  invalid  must  be  a  statement,  and  no  statement  can  be  so 
closely  linked  to  the  phenomenon  as  to  be  incapable  of  falsehood. 
For  the  same  reason,  he  would  say  that  the  statement  "honey 
appears  sweet"  is  only  highly  probable,  not  absolutely  certain. 

In  some  respects,  the  doctrine  of  Timon  was  very  similar  to 
that  of  Hume.  He  maintained  that  something  which  had  never 
been  observed — atoms,  for  instance — could  not  be  validly  inferred ; 
but  when  two  phenomena  had  been  frequently  observed  together, 
one  could  be  inferred  fiom  the  other. 

Timon  lived  at  Athens  throughout  the  later  years  of  his  long 
life,  and  died  there  in  235  B.C.  With  his  death,  the  school  of 
Pyrrho,  as  a  school,  came  to  an  end,  but  his  doctrines,  somewhat 
modified,  were  taken  up,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  by  the  Academy, 
which  represented  the  Platonic  tradition. 

The  man  who  effected  this  surprising  philosophic  revolution 
was  Arcesilaus,  a  contemporary  of  Timon,  who  died  as  an  old 
man  about  240  B.C.  What  most  men  have  taken  from  Plato  is 
belief  in  a  supersensible  intellectual  world  and  in  the  superiority 
of  the  immortal  soul  to  the  mortal  body.  But  Plato  was  many- 
sided,  and  in  some  respects  could  be  regarded  as  teaching  scep- 
ticism. The  Platonic  Socrates  professes  to  know  nothing;  we 
naturally  treat  this  as  irony,  but  it  could  be  taken  seriously. 
Many  of  the  dialogues  reach  no  positive  conclusion,  and  aim  at 
leaving  the  reader  in  a  state  of  doubt.  Some — the  latter  half  of 
the  Parmenide*,  for  instance — might  seem  to  have  no  purpose 
except  to  show  that  either  side  of  any  question  can  be  maintained 
with  equal  plausibility.  The  Platonic  dialectic  could  be  treated 
as  an  end,  rather  than  a  means,  and  if  so  treated  it  lent  itself 
admirably  to  the  advocacy  of  Scepticism.  This  seems  to  have 
been  the  way  in  which  Arcesilaus  interpreted  the  man  whom  he 
still  professed  to  follow.  He  had  decapitated  Plato,  but  at  any  rate 
the  torso  that  remained  was  genuine. 

1  Quoted  by  Edwyn  Bevan,  Stoics  and  Sceptics,  p.  126. 


CYNICS   AND   SCEPTICS 

The  manner  in  which  Arcesilaus  taught  would  have  had  much 
to  commend  it,  if  the  young  men  who  learnt  from  him  had  been 
able  to  avoid  being  paralysed  by  it.  He  maintained  no  thesis,  but 
would  refute  any  thesis  set  up  by  a  pupil.  Sometimes  he  would 
himself  advance  two  contradictory  propositions  on  successive 
occasions,  showing  how  to  argue  convincingly  in  favour  of  either. 
A  pupil  sufficiently  vigorous  to  rebel  might  have  learnt  dexterity 
and  the  avoidance  of  fallacies ;  in  fact,  none  seem  to  have  learnt 
anything  except  cleverness  and  indifference  to  truth.  So  great 
was  the  influence  of  Arcesilaus  that  the  Academy  remained 
sceptical  for  about  two  hundred  years. 

In  the  middle  of  this  sceptical  period,  an  amusing  incident 
occurred.  Carneades,  a  worthy  successor  of  Arcesilaus  as  head  of 
the  Academy,  was  one  of  three  philosophers  sent  by  Athens  on 
a  diplomatic  mission  to  Rome  in  the  year  156  B.C.  He  saw  no 
reason  why  his  ambassadorial  dignity  should  interfere  with  the 
main  chance,  so  he  announced  a  course  of  lectures  in  Rome.  The 
young  men,  who,  at  that  time,  were  anxious  to  ape  Greek  manners 
and  acquire  Greek  culture,  flocked  to  hear  him.  His  first  lecture 
expounded  the  views  of  Aristotle  and  Plato  on  justice,  and  was 
thoroughly  edifying.  His  second,  however,  was  concerned  in 
refuting  all  that  he  had  said  in  his  first,  not  with  a  view  to  estab- 
lishing opposite  conclusions,  but  merely  to  show  that  every  con- 
clusion is  unwarranted.  Plato's  Socrates  had  argued  that  to  inflict 
injustice  was  a  greater  evil  to  the  perpetrator  than  to  suffer  it. 
Carneadcs,  in  his  second  lecture,  treated  this  contention  with 
scorn.  Great  States,  he  pointed  out,  had  become  great  by  unjust 
aggressions  against  their  weaker  neighbours;  in  Rome,  this  could 
not  well  be  denied.  In  a  shipwreck,  you  may  save  your  life  at  the 
expense  of  some  one  weaker,  and  you  are  a  fool  if  you  do  not. 
"Women  and  children  first,"  he  seems  to  think,  is  not  a  maxim 
that  leads  to  personal  survival.  What  would  you  do  if  you  were 
flying  from  a  victorious  enemy,  you  had  lost  your  horse,  but  you 
found  a  wounded  comrade  on  a  horse?  If  you  were  sensible,  you 
would  drag  him  off  and  seize  his  horse,  whatever  justice  might 
ordain.  All  this  not  very  edifying  argumentation  is  surprising  in 
a  nominal  follower  of  Plato,  but  it  seems  to  have  pleased  the 
modern-minded  Roman  youths. 

There  was  one  man  whom  it  did  not  please,  and  that  was  the 
Cato,  who  represented  the  stern,  stiff,  stupid,  and  brutal 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

moral  code  by  means  of  which  Rome  had  defeated  Carthage. 
From  youth  to  old  age,  he  lived  simply,  rose  early,  practised 
severe  manual  labour,  ate  only  coarse  food,  and  never  wore  a 
gown  that  cost  over  a  hundred  pence.  Towards  the  State  he  was 
scrupulously  honest,  avoiding  all  bribery  and  plunder.  He  exacted 
of  other  Romans  all  the  virtues  that  he  practised  himself,  and 
asserted  that  to  accuse  and  pursue  the  wicked  was  the  best  thing 
an  honest  man  could  do.  He  enforced,  as  far  as  he  could,  the  old 
Roman  severity  of  manners: 

"Cato  put  out  of  the  Senate  also,  one  Manilius,  who  was  in 
great  towardness  to  have  been  made  Consul  the  next  year  following, 
only  because  he  kissed  his  wife  too  lovingly  in  the  day  time,  and 
before  his  daughter:  and  reproving  him  for  it,  he  told  him,  his 
wife  never  kissed  him,  but  when  it  thundered."1 

When  he  was  in  power,  he  put  down  luxury  and  feasting.  He 
made  his  wife  suckle  not  only  her  own  children,  but  also  those  of 
his  slaves,  in  order  that,  having  been  nourished  by  the  same  milk, 
they  might  love  his  children.  When  his  slaves  were  too  old  to 
work,  he  sold  them  remorselessly.  He  insisted  that  his  slaves 
should  always  be  either  working  or  sleeping.  He  encouraged  his 
slaves  to  quarrel  with  each  other,  for  "he  could  not  abide  that 
they  should  be  friends."  When  a  slave  had  committed  a  grave 
fault,  he  would  call  in  his  other  slaves,  and  induce  them  to  condemn 
the  delinquent  to  death;  he  would  then  carry  out  the  sentence 
with  his  own  hands  in  the  presence  of  the  survivors. 

The  contrast  between  Cato  and  Carneades  was  very  complete: 
the  one  brutal  through  a  morality  that  was  too  strict  and  too 
traditional,  the  other  ignoble  through  a  morality  that  was  too 
lax  and  too  much  infected  with  the  social  dissolution  of  the 
Hellenistic  world. 

"Marcus  Cato,  even  from  the  beginning  that  young  men  began 
to  study  the  Greek  tongue,  and  that  it  grew  in  estimation  in  Rome, 
did  dislike  of  it:  fearing  lest  the  youth  of  Rome  that  were  desirous 
of  learning  and  eloquence,  would  utterly  give  over  the  honour  and 
glory  of  arms.  ...  So  lie  openly  found  fault  one  day  in  the 
Senate,  that  the  Ambassadors  were  long  there,  and  had  no  dis- 
patch :  considering  also  they  were  cunning  men,  and  could  easily 
persuade  what  they  would.  And  if  there  were  no  other  respect, 
this  only  might  persuade  them  to  determine  some  answer  for 
1  North's  Plutarch,  Lftto,  Marcus  Cato. 


CYNICS   AND   SCEPTICS 

them,  and  to  send  them  home  again  to  their  schools,  to  teach 
their  children  of  Greece,  and  to  let  alone  the  children  of  Rome, 
that  they  might  learn  to  obey  the  laws  and  the  Senate,  as  they 
had  done  before.  Now  he  spake  thus  to  the  Senate,  not  of  any 
private  ill  will  or  malice  he  bare  to  Carneades,  as  some  men 
thought:  but  because  he  generally  hated  philosophy."1 

The  Athenians,  in  Cato's  view,  were  a  lesser  breed  without  the 
law;  it  did  not  matter  if  they  were  degraded  by  the  shallow  soph- 
istries of  intellectuals,  but  the  Roman  youth  must  be  kept  puri- 
tanical, imperialistic,  ruthless,  and  stupid.  He  failed,  however; 
later  Romans,  while  retaining  many  of  his  vices,  adopted  those  of 
Carneades  also. 

The  next  head  of  the  Academy,  after  Carneades  (ca.  180  to 
ca.  no  B.C.),  was  a  Carthaginian  whose  real  name  was  Hasdrubal, 
but  who,  in  his  dealings  with  Greeks,  preferred  to  call  himself 
Clitomachus.  Unlike  Carneades,  who  confined  himself  to  lec- 
turing, Clitomachus  wrote  over  four  hundred  books,  some  of 
them  in  the  Phoenician  language.  His  principles  appear  to  have 
been  the  same  as  those  of  Carneades.  In  some  respects,  they  were 
useful.  These  two  Sceptics  set  themselves  against  the  belief  in 
divination,  magic,  and  astrology,  which  was  becoming  more  and 
more  widespread.  They  also  developed  a  constructive  doctrine, 
concerning  degrees  of  probability:  although  we  can  never  be 
justified  in  feeling  certainty,  some  things  are  more  likely  to  be 
true  than  others.  Probability  should  be  our  guide  in  practice,  since 
it  is  reasonable  to  act  on  the  most  probable  of  possible  hypo- 
theses. This  view  is  one  with  which  most  modern  philosophers 
would  agree.  Unfortunately,  the  books  setting  it  forth  are  lost,  and 
it  is  difficult  to  reconstruct  the  doctrine  from  the  hints  that  remain. 

After  Clitomachus,  the  Academy  ceased  to  be  sceptical,  and  from 
the  time  of  Antiochus  (who  died  in  69  B.C.)  its  doctrines  became, 
for  centuries,  practically  indistinguishable  from  those  of  the  Stoics. 

Scepticism,  however,  did  not  disappear.  It  was  revived  by  the 
Cretan  Aenesidemus,  who  came  from  Knossos,  where,  for  aught 
we  know,  there  may  have  been  Sceptics  two  thousand  years  earlier, 
entertaining  dissolute  courtiers  with  doubts  as  to  the  divinity  of 
the  mistress  of  animals.  The  date  of  Aenesidemus  is  uncertain. 
He  threw  over  the  doctrines  on  probability  advocated  by  Carneades, 
and  reverted  to  the  earliest  forms  of  Scepticism.  11  is  influence  was 
1  North's  Plutarch,  Ltvtt,  Marcus  Cato 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

considerable;  he  was  followed  by  the  satirist  Lucian  in  the  second 
century  A.D.,  and  also,  slightly  later,  by  Sextus  Empiricus,  the 
only  Sceptic  philosopher  of  antiquity  whose  works  survive.  There 
is,  for  example,  a  short  treatise,  "Arguments  Against  Belief  in  a 
God,"  translated  by  Edwyn  Bevan  in  his  Later  Greek  Religion, 
pp.  52-56,  and  said  by  him  to  be  probably  taken  by  Sextus 
Empiricus  from  Carneades,  as  reported  by  Clitomachus. 

This  treatise  begins  by  explaining  that,  in  behaviour,  the  Sceptics 
are  orthodox:  "We  sceptics  follow  in  practice  the  way  of  the  world, 
but  without  holding  any  opinion  about  it.  We  speak  of  the  Gods 
as  existing  and  offer  worship  to  the  Gods  and  say  that  they  exercise 
providence,  but  in  saying  this  we  express  no  belief,  and  avoid  the 
rashness  of  the  dogmatize rs." 

He  then  argues  that  people  differ  as  to  the  nature  of  God ;  for 
instance,  some  think  Him  corporeal,  some  incorporeal.  Since  we 
have  no  experience  of  Him,  we  cannot  know  His  attributes.  The 
existence  of  God  is  not  self-evident,  and  therefore  needs  proof. 
There  is  a  somewhat  confused  argument  to  show  that  no  such 
proof  is  possible.  He  next  takes  up  the  problem  of  evil,  and 
concludes  with  the  words: 

"Those  who  affirm  positively  that  God  exists  cannot  avoid  falling 
into  an  impiety.  For  if  they  say  that  God  controls  everything, 
they  make  Him  the  author  of  evil  things;  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  say  that  He  controls  some  things  only,  or  that  He  controls 
nothing,  they  are  compelled  to  make  God  cither  grudging  or 
impotent,  and  to  do  that  is  quite  obviously  an  impiety/' 

Scepticism,  while  it  continued  to  appeal  to  some  cultivated  indi- 
viduals until  somewhere  in  the  third  century  A.D.,  was  contrary 
to  the  temper  of  the  age,  which  was  turning  more  and  more  to 
dogmatic  religion  and  doctrines  of  salvation.  Scepticism  had 
enough  force  to  make  educated  men  dissatisfied  with  the  State 
religions,  but  it  had  nothing  positive,  even  in  the  purely  intellectual 
sphere,  to  offer  in  their  place.  From  the  Renaissance  onwards, 
theological  scepticism  has  been  supplemented,  in  most  of  its 
advocates,  by  an  enthusiastic  belief  in  science,  but  in  antiquity 
there  was  no  such  supplement  to  doubt.  Without  answering  the 
arguments  of  the  Sceptics,  the  ancient  world  turned  aside  from 
them.  The  Olympians  being  discredited,  the  way  was  left  clear 
for  an  invasion  of  oriental  religions,  which  competed  for  the 
favour  of  the  superstitious  until  the  triumph  of  Christianity. 

262 


Chapter  XXVII 
THE   EPICUREANS 

p  I  1HE  two  great  new  schools  of  the  Hellenistic  period,  the 
I  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  were  contemporaneous  in  their 
JL  foundation.  Their  founders,  Zeno  and  Epicurus,  were  born 
at  about  the  same  time,  and  settled  in  Athens  as  heads  of  their 
respective  sects  within  a  few  years  of  each  other.  It  is  therefore 
a  matter  of  taste  which  to  consider  first.  I  shall  begin  with  the 
Epicureans,  because  their  doctrines  were  fixed  once  for  all  by 
their  founder,  whereas  Stoicism  had  a  long  development, 
extending  as  far  as  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius,  who  died 
in  A.D.  1 80. 

The  main  authority  for  the  life  of  Epicurus  is  Diogenes  Laertius, 
who  lived  in  the  third  century  A.D.  There  are,  however,  two  diffi- 
culties: first,  Diogenes  Laertius  is  himself  ready  to  accept  legends 
of  little  or  no  historical  value;  second,  part  of  his  Life  consists  in 
reporting  the  scandalous  accusations  brought  against  Epicurus  by 
the  Stoics,  and  it  is  not  always  clear  whether  he  is  asserting  some- 
thing himself  or  merely  mentioning  a  libel.  The  scandals  invented 
by  the  Stoics  are  facts  about  them,  to  be  remembered  when  their 
lofty  morality  is  praised;  but  they  are  not  facts  about  Epicurus. 
For  instance,  there  was  a  legend  that  his  mother  was  a  quack 
priestess,  as  to  which  Diogenes  says: 

"They  (apparently  the  Stoics)  say  that  he  used  to  go  round 
from  house  to  house  with  his  mother  reading  out  the  purification 
prayers,  and  assisted  his  father  in  elementary  teaching  for  a 
miserable  pittance." 

On  this  Bailey  comments:1  "If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  story 
that  he  went  about  with  his  mother  as  an  acolyte,  reciting  the 
formulae  of  her  incantations,  he  may  well  have  been  inspired  in 
quite  early  years  with  the  hatred  of  superstition,  which  was  after- 
wards so  prominent  a  feature  in  his  teaching."  This  theory  is 
attractive,  but,  in  view  of  the  extreme  unscrupulousness  of  later 
antiquity  in  inventing  a  scandal,  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  accepted 

1  The  Greek  Atomitts  and  Epicurus,  by  Cyril  Bailey,  Oxford,  1928, 
p.  221.  Mr.  Bailey  has  made  a  specialty  of  Epicurus,  and  his  book  is 
invaluable  to  the  student. 

•63 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

as  having  any  foundation.1  There  is  against  it  the  fact  that  he 
had  an  unusually  strong  affection  for  his  mother.2 

The  main  facts  of  the  life  of  Epicurus  seem,  however,  fairly 
certain.  His  father  was  a  poor  Athenian  colonist  in  Samos ;  Epi- 
curus was  born  in  342-1  B.C.,  but  whether  in  Samos  or  in  Attica 
is  not  known.  In  any  case,  his  boyhood  was  passed  in  Samos.  He 
states  that  he  took  to  the  study  of  philosophy  at  the  age  of  fourteen. 
At  the  age  of  eighteen,  about  the  time  of  Alexander's  death,  he 
went  to  Athens,  apparently  to  establish  his  citizenship,  but  while 
he  was  there  the  Athenian  colonists  were  turned  out  of  Samos 
(322  B.C.).  The  family  of  Epicurus  became  refugees  in  Asia  Minor, 
where  he  rejoined  them.  At  Taos,  either  at  this  time,  or  perhaps 
earlier,  he  was  taught  philosophy  by  a  certain  Nausiphanes, 
apparently  a  follower  of  Democritus.  Although  his  mature  philo- 
sophy owes  more  to  Democritus  than  to  any  other  philosopher, 
he  never  expressed  anything  but  contempt  for  Nausiphanes, 
whom  he  alluded  to  as  "The  Mollusc." 

In  the  year  311  he  founded  his  school,  which  was  first  in 
Mitylene,  then  in  Lampsacus,  and,  from  307  onwards,  in  Athens, 
where  he  died  in  270-1  B.C. 

After  the  hard  years  of  his  youth,  his  life  in  Athens  was  placid, 
and  was  only  troubled  by  his  ill  health.  He  had  a  house  and  a 
garden  (apparently  separate  from  the  house),  and  it  was  in  the 
garden  that  he  taught.  His  three  brothers,  and  some  others,  had 
been  members  of  his  school  from  the  first,  but  in  Athens  his 
community  was  increased,  not  only  by  philosophic  disciples,  but 
by  friends  and  their  children,  slaves  and  hetaerae.  These  last  were 
made  an  occasion  of  scandal  by  his  enemies,  but  apparently  quite 
unjustly.  He  had  a  very  exceptional  capacity  for  purely  human 
friendship,  and  wrote  pleasant  letters  to  the  young  children  of 
members  of  the  community.  He  did  not  practise  that  dignity  and 
reserve  in  the  expression  of  the  emotions  that  was  expected  of 
ancient  philosophers;  his  letters  are  amazingly  natural  and 
unaffected. 

The  life  of  the  community  was  very  simple,  partly  on  principle, 

1  The  Stoics  were  very  unjust  to  Epicurus.  Epictctus,  for  example, 
addressing  him,  says;  "This  is  the  life  of  which  you  pronounce  yourself 
worthy:  eating,  drinking,  copulation,  evacuation  and  snoring."  Book  II, 
chap,  n,  Ditcoune*  of  Epictctus. 

a  Gilbert  Murray,  Five  Stages,  p.  130 


THE   EPICUREANS 

and  partly  (no  doubt)  for  lack  of  money.  Their  food  and  drink 
was  mainly  bread  and  water,  which  Epicurus  found  quite  satis- 
fying. "I  am  thrilled  with  pleasure  in  the  body,"  he  says,  "when 
I  live  on  bread  and  water,  and  I  spit  on  luxurious  pleasures,  not 
for  their  own  sake,  but  because  of  the  inconveniences  that  follow 
them."  The  community  depended  financially,  at  least  in  part, 
on  voluntary  contributions.  "Send  me  some  preserved  cheese," 
he  writes,  "that  when  I  like,  I  may  have  a  feast."  To  another 
friend:  "Send  us  offerings  for  the  sustenance  of  our  holy  body 
on  behalf  of  yourself  and  your  children."  And  again:  "The  only 

contribution  I  require  is  that  which ordered  the  disciples  to 

send  me,  even  if  they  be  among  the  Hyperboreans.  I  wish  to 
receive  from  each  of  you  two  hundred  and  twenty  drachmae1  a 
year  and  no  more." 

Epicurus  suffered  all  his  life  from  bad  health,  but  learnt  to 
endure  it  with  great  fortitude.  It  was  he,  not  a  Stoic,  who  first 
maintained  that  a  man  could  be  happy  on  the  rack.  Two  letters 
written,  one  a  few  days  before  his  death,  the  other  on  the  day  of 
his  death,  show  that  he  had  some  right  to  this  opinion.  The  first 
says:  "Seven  days  before  writing  this  the  stoppage  became  com- 
plete and  I  suffered  pains  such  as  bring  men  to  their  last  day.  If 
anything  happens  to  me,  do  you  look  after  the  children  of  Metro- 
dorus  for  four  or  five  years,  but  do  not  spend  any  more  on  them 
than  you  now  spend  on  me."  The  second  says:  "On  this  truly 
happy  day  of  my  life,  as  I  am  at  the  point  of  death,  I  write  this 
to  you.  The  diseases  in  my  bladder  and  stomach  are  pursuing 
their  course,  lacking  nothing  of  their  usual  severity:  but  against 
all  this  is  the  joy  in  my  heart  at  the  recollection  of  my  conversa- 
tions with  you.  Do  you,  as  I  might  expect  from  your  devotion 
from  boyhood  to  me  and  to  philosophy,  take  good  care  of  the 
children  of  Metrodorus."  Metrodorus,  who  had  been  one  of  his 
first  disciples,  was  dead;  Epicurus  provided  for  his  children  in 
his  will. 

Although  Epicurus  was  gentle  and  kindly  towards  most  people, 
a  different  side  of  his  character  appeared  in  his  relations  to  philo- 
sophers, especially  those  to  whom  he  might  be  considered  in- 
debted. "I  suppose,"  he  says,  "that  these  grumblers  will  believe 
me  to  be  a  disciple  of  The  Mollusc  (Nausiphanes)  and  to  have 
listened  to  his  teaching  in  company  with  a  few  bibulous  youths. 
1  About  five  pounds. 

265 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

For  indeed  the  fellow  was  a  bad  man  and  his  habits  such  as 
could  never  lead  to  wisdom."1  He  never  acknowledged  the  extent 
of  his  indebtedness  to  Democritus,  and  as  for  Leucippus,  he 
asserted  that  there  was  no  such  philosopher — meaning,  no  doubt, 
not  that  there  was  no  such  man,  but  that  the  man  was  not  a 
philosopher.  Diogenes  Laertius  gives  a  whole  list  of  abusive 
epithets  that  he  is  supposed  to  have  applied  to  the  most  eminent 
of  his  predecessors.  With  this  lack  of  generosity  towards  other 
philosophers  goes  another  grave  fault,  that  of  dictatorial  dog- 
matism. His  followers  had  to  learn  a  kind  of  creed  embodying 
his  doctrines,  which  they  were  not  allowed  to  question.  To  the 
end,  none  of  them  added  or  modified  anything.  When  Lucretius, 
two  hundred  years  later,  turned  the  philosophy  of  Epicurus  into 
poetry,  he  added,  so  far  as  can  be  judged,  nothing  theoretical  to 
the  master's  teaching.  Wherever  comparison  is  possible,  Lucretius 
is  found  to  agree  closely  with  the  original,  and  it  is  generally 
held  that,  elsewhere,  he  may  be  used  to  fill  in  the  gaps  in  our 
knowledge  caused  by  the  loss  of  all  of  Epicurus's  three  hundred 
books.  Of  his  writings,  nothing  remains  except  a  few  letters,  some 
fragments,  and  a  statement  of  "Principal  Doctrines." 

The  philosophy  of  Epicurus,  like  all  those  of  his  age  (with  the 
partial  exception  of  Scepticism),  was  primarily  designed  to  secure 
tranquillity.  He  considered  pleasure  to  be  the  good,  and  adhered, 
with  remarkable  consistency*  to  all  the  consequences  of  this  view. 
"Pleasure,"  he  said,  "is  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  blessed  life.0 
Diogenes  Laertius  quotes  him  as  saying,  in  a  book  on  The  End  of 
Life,  "I  know  not  how  I  can  conceive  the  good,  if  I  withdraw  the 
pleasures  of  taste  and  withdraw  the  pleasures  of  love  and  those  of 
hearing  and  sight."  Again:  "The  beginning  and  the  root  of  all 
good  is  the  pleasure  of  the  stomach;  even  wisdom  and  culture 
must  be  referred  to  this."  The  pleasure  of  the  mind,  we  are  told, 
is  the  contemplation  of  pleasures  of  the  body.  Its  only  advantage 
over  bodily  pleasures  is  that  we  can  learn  to  contemplate  pleasure 
rather  than  pain,  and  thus  have  more  control  over  mental 
than  over  physical  pleasures.  "Virtue,"  unless  it  means  "pru- 
dence in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,"  is  an  empty  name.  Justice,  for 
example,  consists  in  so  acting  as  not  to  have  occasion  to  fear 
other  men's  resentment — a  view  which  leads  to  a  doctrine 

1  The  Stoic  and  Epicurean  Philosophers,  by  W.  J.  Gates,  p.  47.  Whtre 
possible,  I  have  availed  myself  of  Mr.  Oates's  translations. 

266 


THE   EPICUREANS 

of  the  origin  of  society  not  unlike  the  theory  of  the  Social 
Contract. 

Epicurus  disagrees  with  some  of  his  hedonist  predecessors  in 
distinguishing  between  active  and  passive  pleasures,  or  dynamic 
and  static  pleasures.  Dynamic  pleasures  consist  in  the  attainment 
of  a  desired  end,  the  previous  desire  having  been  accompanied 
by  pain.  Static  pleasures  consist  in  a  state  of  equilibrium,  which 
results  from  the  existence  of  the  kind  of  state  of  affairs  that  would 
be  desired  if  it  were  absent.  I  think  one  may  say  that  the  satisfying 
of  hunger,  while  it  is  in  progress,  is  a  dynamic  pleasure,  but  the 
state  of  quiescence  which  supervenes  when  hunger  is  completely 
satisfied  is  a  static  pleasure.  Of  these  two  kinds,  Epicurus  holds  it 
more  prudent  to  pursue  the  second,  since  it  is  unalloyed,  and  does 
not  depend  upon  the  existence  of  pain  as  a  stimulus  to  desire. 
When  the  body  is  in  a  state  of  equilibrium,  there  is  no  pain;  we 
should,  therefore,  aim  at  equilibrium  and  the  quiet  pleasures 
rather  than  at  more  violent  joys.  Epicurus,  it  seems,  would  wish, 
if  it  were  possible,  to  be  always  in  the  state  of  having  eaten 
moderately,  never  in  that  of  voracious  desire  to  eat. 

He  is  thus  led,  in  practice,  to  regarding  absence  of  pain,  rather 
than  presence  of  pleasure,  as  the  wise  man's  goal.1  The  stomach 
may  be  at  the  root  of  things,  but  the  pains  of  stomach-ache  out- 
weigh the  pleasures  of  gluttony;  accordingly  Epicurus  lived  on 
bread,  with  a  little  cheese  on  feast  days.  Such  desires  as  those  for 
wealth  and  honour  are  futile,  because  they  make  a  man  restless 
when  he  might  be  contented. '  'The  greatest  good  of  all  is  prudence : 
it  is  a  more  precious  thing  even  than  philosophy."  Philosophy,  as 
he  understood  it,  was  a  practical  system  designed  to  secure  a 
happy  life;  it  required  only  common  sense,  not  logic  or  mathe- 
matics or  any  of  the  elaborate  training  prescribed  by  Plato.  He 
urges  his  young  disciple  and  friend  Pythodes  to  "flee  from  every 
form  of  culture."  It  was  a  natural  consequence  of  his  principles 
that  he  advised  abstinence  from  public  life,  for  in  proportion  as 
a  man  achieves  power  he  increases  the  number  of  those  who  envy 
him  and  therefore  wish  to  do  him  injury.  Even  if  he  escapes  out- 
ward misfortune,  peace  of  mind  is  impossible  in  such  a  situation. 
The  wise  man  will  try  to  live  unnoticed,  so  as  to  have  no  enemies. 

Sexual  love,  as  one  of  the  most  "dynamic11  of  pleasures,  naturally 

1  (For  Epicurus)  "Absence  of  pain  is  in  itself  pleasure,  indeed  in  his 
ultimate  analvsia  the  truest  pleasure.'1  Bailey,  op.  of.,  p.  349. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

comes  under  the  ban.  "Sexual  intercourse,"  the  philosopher 
declares,  "has  never  done  a  man  good  and  he  is  lucky  if  it  has  not 
harmed  him."  He  was  fond  of  children  (other  people's),  but  for 
the  gratification  of  this  taste  he  seems  to  have  relied  upon  other 
people  not  to  follow  his  advice.  He  seems,  in  fact,  to  have  liked 
children  against  his  better  judgment ;  for  he  considered  marriage 
and  children  a  distraction  from  more  serious  pursuits.  Lucretius, 
who  follows  him  in  denouncing  love,  sees  no  harm  in  sexual 
intercourse  provided  it  is  divorced  from  passion. 

The  safest  of  social  pleasures,  in  the  opinion  of  Epicurus,  is 
friendship.  Epicurus,  like  Bentham,  is  a  man  who  considers  that 
all  men,  at  all  times,  pursue  only  their  own  pleasure,  sometimes 
wisely,  sometimes  unwisely;  but,  again  like  Bentham,  he  is  con- 
stantly seduced  by  his  own  kindly  and  affectionate  nature  into 
admirable  behaviour  from  which,  on  his  own  theories,  he  ought 
to  have  refrained.  He  obviously  liked  his  friends  without  regard 
to  what  he  got  out  of  them,  but  he  persuaded  himself  that  he  was 
as  selfish  as  his  philosophy  held  all  men  to  be.  According  to 
Cicero,  he  held  that  "friendship  cannot  be  divorced  from  pleasure, 
and  for  that  reason  must  be  cultivated,  because  without  it  neither 
can  we  live  in  safety  and  without  fear,  nor  even  pleasantly." 
Occasionally,  however,  he  forgets  his  theories  more  or  less:  "all 
friendship  is  desirable  in  itself,"  he  says,  adding  "though  it  starts 
from  the  need  of  help."1 

Epicurus,  though  his  ethic  seemed  to  others  swinish  and  lacking 
in  moral  exaltation,  was  very  much  in  earnest.  As  we  have  seen, 
he  speaks  of  the  community  in  the  garden  as  "our  holy  body"; 
he  wrote  a  book  On  Holiness ;  he  had  all  the  fervour  of  a  religious 
reformer.  He  must  have  had  a  strong  emotion  of  pity  for  the 
sufferings  of  mankind,  and  an  unshakeable  conviction  that  they 
would  be  greatly  lessened  if  men  would  adopt  his  philosophy.  It 
was  a  valetudinarian's  philosophy,  designed  to  suit  a  world  in 
which  adventurous  happiness  had  become  scarcely  possible.  Eat 
little,  for  fear  of  indigestion ;  drink  little,  for  fear  of  next  morning ; 
eschew  politics  and  love  and  all  violently  passionate  activities;  do 
not  give  hostages  to  fortune  by  marrying  and  having  children ;  in 
your  mental  life,  teach  yourself  to  contemplate  pleasures  rather 
than  pains.  Physical  pain  is  certainly  a  great  evil,  but  if  severe, 

1  On  the  subject  of  friendship  and  Epicurus's  amiable  inconsistency, 
see  Bailey,  op.  cit.,  pp.  517-20. 

268 


THE    EPICUREANS 

it  is  brief,  and  if  prolonged,  it  can  be  endured. by  means  of  mental 
discipline  and  the  habit  of  thinking  of  happy  things  in  spite  of  it. 
Above  all,  live  so  as  to  avoid  fear. 

It  was  through  the  problem  of  avoiding  fear  that  Epicurus  was 
led  into  theoretical  philosophy.  He  held  that  two  of  the  greatest 
sources  of  fear  were  religion  and  the  dread  of  death,  which  were 
connected,  since  religion  encouraged  the  view  that  the  dead  are 
unhappy.  He  therefore  sought  a  metaphysic  which  would  prove 
that  the  gods  do  not  interfere  in  human  affairs,  and  that  the  soul 
perishes  with  the  body.  Most  modern  people  think  of  religion  as 
a  consolation,  but  to  Epicurus  it  was  the  opposite.  Supernatural 
interference  with  the  course  of  nature  seemed  to  him  a  source  of 
terror,  and  immortality  fatal  to  the  hope  of  release  from  pain. 
Accordingly  he  constructed  an  elaborate  doctrine  designed  to 
cure  men  of  the  beliefs  that  inspire  fear. 

Epicurus  was  a  materialist,  but  not  a  determinist.  He  followed 
Democritus  in  believing  that  the  world  consists  of  atoms  and  the 
void;  but  he  did  not  believe,  as  Democritus  did,  that  the  atoms  are 
at  all  times  completely  controlled  by  natural  laws.  The  conception 
of  necessity  in  Greece  was,  as  we  have  seen,  religious  in  origin, 
and  perhaps  he  was  right  in  considering  that  an  attack  on  religion 
would  be  incomplete  if  it  allowed  necessity  to  survive.  His  atoms 
had  weight,  and  were  continually  falling;  not  towards  the  centre 
of  the  earth,  but  downwards  in  some  absolute  sense.  Every  now 
and  then,  however,  an  atom,  actuated  by  something  like  free  will, 
would  swerve  slightly  from  the  direct  downward  path,1  and  so 
would  come  into  collision  with  some  other  atom.  From  this  point 
onwards,  the  development  of  vortices,  etc.,  proceeded  in  much  the 
same  way  as  in  Democritus.  The  soul  is  material,  and  is  composed 
of  particles  like  those  of  breath  and  heat.  (Epicurus  thought 
breath  and  wind  different  in  substance  from  air;  they  were  not 
merely  air  in  motion.)  Soul-atoms  are  distributed  throughout  the 
body.  Sensation  is  due  to  thin  films  thrown  off  by  bodies  and 
travelling  on  until  they  touch  soul-atoms.  These  films  may  still 
exist  when  the  bodies  from  which  they  originally  proceeded  have 
been  dissolved;  this  accounts  for  dreams.  At  death,  the  soul  is 
dispersed,  and  its  atoms,  which  of  course  survive,  are  no  longer 
capable  of  sensation,  because  they  are  no  longer  connected  with 

1  An  analogous  view  is  urged  in  our  day  by  Eddtngton,  in  his  inter- 
pretation of  the  principle  of  indeterminacy. 

369 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

the  body.  It  follows,  in  the  words  of  Epicurus,  that  "Death  is 
nothing  to  us;  for  that  which  is  dissolved,  is  without  sensation, 
and  that  which  lacks  sensation  is  nothing  to  us." 

As  for  the  gods,  Epicurus  firmly  believes  in  their  existence, 
since  he  cannot  otherwise  account  for  the  widespread  existence 
of  the  idea  of  gods.  But  he  is  persuaded  that  they  do  not  trouble 
themselves  with  the  affairs  of  our  human  world.  They  are  rational 
hedonists,  who  follow  his  precepts,  and  abstain  from  public  life; 
government  would  be  an  unnecessary  labour,  to  which,  in  their 
life  of  complete  blessedness,  they  feel  no  temptation.  Of  course, 
divination  and  augury  and  all  such  practices  are  purely  super- 
stitious, and  so  is  the  belief  in  Providence. 

There  is  therefore  no  ground  for  the  fear  that  we  may  incur  the 
anger  of  the  gods,  or  that  we  may  suffer  in  Hades  after  death. 
Though  subject  to  the  powers  of  nature,  which  can  be  studied 
scientifically,  we  yet  have  free  will,  and  are,  within  limits,  the 
masters  of  our  fate.  We  cannot  escape  death,  but  death,  rightly 
understood,  is  no  evil.  If  we  live  prudently,  according  to  the 
maxims  of  Epicurus,  we  shall  probably  achieve  a  measure  of 
freedom  from  pain.  This  is  a  moderate  gospel,  but  to  a  man 
impressed  with  human  misery  it  sufficed  to  inspire  enthusiasm 

Epicurus  has  no  interest  in  science  on  its  own  account ;  he  values 
it  solely  as  providing  naturalistic  explanations  of  phenomena  which 
superstition  attributes  to  the  agency  of  the  gods.  When  there  are 
several  possible  naturalistic  explanations,  he  holds  that  there  is  no 
point  in  trying  to  decide  between  them.  The  phases  of  the  moon, 
for  example,  have  been  explained  in  many  different  ways;  any 
one  of  these,  so  long  as  it  does  not  bring  in  the  gods,  is  as  good  as 
any  other,  and  it  would  be  idle  curiosity  to  attempt  to  determine 
which  of  them  is  true.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  Epicureans  con- 
tributed practically  nothing  to  natural  knowledge.  They  served  a 
useful  purpose  by  their  protest  against  the  increasing  devotion  of 
the  later  pagans  to  magic,  astrology,  and  divination ;  but  they  re- 
mained, like  their  founder,  dogmatic,  limited,  and  without  genuine 
interest  in  anything  outside  individual  happiness.  They  learnt  by 
heart  the  creed  of  Epicurus,  and  added  nothing  to  it  throughout 
the  centuries  during  which  the  school  survived. 

The  only  eminent  disciple  of  Epicurus  is  the  poet  Lucretius 
(99-55  B.C.),  who  was  a  contemporary  of  Julius  Caesar.  In  the 
last  days  of  the  Roman  Republic,  free  thought  was  the  fashion, 

270 


THE   EPICUREANS 

and  the  doctrines  of  Epicurus  were  popular  among  educated 
people.  The  Emperor  Augustus  introduced  an  archaistic  revival 
of  ancient  virtue  and  ancient  religion,  which  caused  the  poem  of 
Lucretius  On  the  Nature  of  Things  to  become  unpopular,  and  it 
remained  so  until  the  Renaissance.  Only  one  manuscript  of  it 
survived  die  Middle  Ages,  and  that  narrowly  escaped  destruction 
by  bigots.  Hardly  any  great  poet  has  had  to  wait  so  long  for 
recognition,  but  in  modern  times  his  merits  have  been  almost 
universally  acknowledged.  For  example,  he  and  Benjamin  Franklin 
were  Shelley's  favourite  authors. 

His  poem  sets  forth  in  verse  the  philosophy  of  Epicurus.  Al- 
though the  two  men  have  the  same  doctrine,  their  temperaments 
are  very  different.  Lucretius  was  passionate,  and  much  more  in 
need  of  exhortations  to  prudence  than  Epicurus  was.  He  com- 
mitted suicide,  and  appears  to  have  suffered  from  periodic  insanity 
— brought  on,  so  some  averred,  by  the  pains  of  love  or  the  un- 
intended effects  of  a  love  philtre.  He  feels  towards  Epicurus  as 
towards  a  saviour,  and  applies  language  of  religious  intensity  to 
the  man  whom  he  regards  as  the  destroyer  of  religion:1 

When  prostrate  upon  earth  lay  human  life 
Visibly  trampled  down  and  foully  crushed 
Beneath  Religion's  cruelty,  who  meanwhile 
Out  of  the  regions  of  the  heavens  above 
Showed  forth  her  face,  lowering  on  mortal  men 
With  horrible  aspect,  first  did  a  man  of  Greece 
Dare  to  lift  up  his  mortal  eyes  against  her; 
The  first  was  he  to  stand  up  and  defy  her. 
Him  neither  stories  of  the  gods,  nor  lightnings, 
Nor  heaven  with  muttering  menaces  could  quell, 
But  all  the  more  did  they  arouse  his  soul's 
Keen  valour,  till  he  longed  to  be  the  first 
To  break  through  the  fast-bolted  doors  of  Nature. 
Therefore  his  fervent  energy  of  mind 
Prevailed,  and  he  passed  onward,  voyaging  far 
Beyond  the  flaming  ramparts  of  the  world, 
Ranging  in  mind  and  spirit  far  and  wide 
Throughout  the  unmeasured  universe ;  and  thence 
A  conqueror  he  returns  to  us,  bringing  back 
Knowledge  both  of  what  can  and  what  cannot 
Rise  into  being,  teaching  us  in  fine 

1  1  quote  the  translation  of  Mr.  R.  C.  Trevelyan,  Book  1, 60-79. 

271 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

Upon  what  principle  each  thing  has  its  powers 
Limited,  and  its  deep-set  boundary  stone. 
Therefore  now  has  Religion  been  cast  down 
Beneath  men's  feet,  and  trampled  on  in  turn: 
Ourselves  heaven-high  his  victory  exalts. 

The  hatred  of  religion  expressed  by  Epicurus  and  Lucretius  is 
not  altogether  easy  to  understand,  if  one  accepts  the  conventional 
accounts  of  the  cheerfulness  of  Greek  religion  and  ritual.  Keats 's 
Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  for  instance,  celebrates  a  religious  ceremony, 
but  not  one  which  could  fill  men's  minds  with  dark  and  gloomy 
terrors.  I  think  popular  beliefs  were  very  largely  not  of  this  cheerful 
kind.  The  worship  of  the  Olympians  had  less  of  superstitious 
cruelty  than  the  other  forms  of  Greek  religion,  but  even  the 
Olympian  gods  had  demanded  occasional  human  sacrifice  until 
the  seventh  or  sixth  century  B.C.,  and  this  practice  was  recorded 
in  myth  and  drama.1  Throughout  the  barbarian  world,  human 
sacrifice  was  still  recognized  in  the  time  of  Epicurus;  until  the 
Roman  conquest,  it  was  practised  in  times  of  crisis,  such  as  the 
Punic  Wars,  by  even  the  most  civilized  of  barbarian  populations. 

As  was  shown  most  convincingly  by  Jane  Harrison,  the  Greeks 
had,  in  addition  to  the  official  cults  of  Zeus  and  his  family,  other 
more  primitive  beliefs  associated  with  more  or  less  barbarous  rites. 
These  were  to  some  extent  incorporated  in  Orphism,  which 
became  the  prevalent  belief  among  men  of  religious  temperament. 
It  is  sometimes  supposed  that  Hell  was  a  Christian  invention,  but 
this  is  a  mistake.  What  Christianity  did  in  this  respect  was  only 
to  systematize  earlier  popular  beliefs.  From  the  beginning  of  Plato's 
Republic  it  is  clear  that  the  fear  of  punishment  after  death  was 
common  in  fifth-century  Athens,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  it  grew 
less  in  the  interval  between  Socrates  and  Epicurus.  (I  am  thinking 
not  of  the  educated  minority,  but  of  the  general  population.) 
Certainly,  also,  it  was  common  to  attribute  plagues,  earthquakes, 
defeats  in  war,  and  such  calamities,  to  divine  displeasure  or  to 
failure  to  respect  the  omens.  I  think  that  Greek  literature  and  art 
are  probably  very  misleading  as  regards  popular  beliefs.  What 
should  we  know  of  Methodism  in  the  late  eighteenth  century  if 
no  record  of  the  period  survived  except  its  aristocratic  books  and 
paintings?  The  influence  of  Methodism,  like  that  of  religiosity  in 

1  Lucretius  instances  the  sacrifice  of  Iphigcnia  as  an  example  of  the 
harm  wrought  by  religion.  Book  I,  85-100. 

272 


THE   EPICUREANS 

the  Hellenistic  age,  rose  from  below;  it  was  already  powerful  in 
the  time  of  Boswell  and  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  although  from  their 
allusions  to  it  the  strength  of  its  influence  is  not  apparent.  We 
must  not,  therefore,  judge  of  popular  religion  in  Greece  by  the 
pictures  on  "Grecian  Urns"  or  by  the  works  of  poets  and  aristo- 
cratic philosophers.  Epicurus  was  not  aristocratic,  either  by  birth 
or  through  his  associates;  perhaps  this  explains  his  exceptional 
hostility  to  religion. 

It  is  through  the  poem  of  Lucretius  that  the  philosophy  of  Epi- 
curus has  chiefly  become  known  to  readers  since  the  Renaissance. 
What  has  most  impressed  them,  when  they  were  not  professional 
philosophers,  is  the  contrast  with  Christian  belief  in  such  matters 
as  materialism,  denial  of  Providence,  and  rejection  of  immortality. 
What  is  especially  striking  to  a  modern  reader  is  to  have  these 
views — which,  nowadays,  are  generally  regarded  as  gloomy  and 
depressing — presented  as  a  gospel  of  liberation  from  the  burden 
of  fear.  Lucretius  is  as  firmly  persuaded  as  any  Christian  of  the 
importance  of  true  belief  in  matters  of  religion.  After  describing 
how  men  seek  escape  from  themselves  when  they  are  the  victims 
of  an  inner  conflict,  and  vainly  seek  relief  in  change  of  place, 
he  says:1 

Each  man  flies  from  his  own  self; 
Yet  from  that  self  in  fact  he  has  no  power 
To  escape:  he  clings  to  it  in  his  own  despite, 
And  loathes  it  too,  because,  though  he  is  sick, 
He  perceives  not  the  cause  of  his  disease. 
Which  if  he  could  but  comprehend  aright, 
Each  would  put  all  things  else  aside  and  first 
Study  to  learn  the  nature  of  the  world, 
Since  'tis  our  state  during  eternal  time, 
Not  for  one  hour  merely,  that  is  in  doubt, 
That  state  wherein  mortals  will  have  to  pass 
The  whole  time  that  awaits  them  after  death. 

The  age  of  Epicurus  was  a  wean'  age,  and  extinction  could 
appear  as  a  welcome  rest  from  travail  of  spirit.  The  last  age  of 
the  Republic,  on  the  contrary,  was  not,  to  most  Romans,  a  time 
of  disillusionment:  men  of  titanic  energy  were  creating  out  of 
chaos  a  new  order,  which  the  Macedonians  had  failed  to  do.  But 
to  the  Roman  aristocrat  who  stood  aside  from  politics,  and  cared 

1  Book  III,  1068-76.  I  again  quote  Mr.  R.  C.  Trevelyan's  translation. 

273 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

nothing  for  the  scramble  for  power  and  plunder,  the  course  of 
events  must  have  been  profoundly  discouraging.  When  to  this 
was  added  the  affliction  of  recurrent  insanity,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  Lucretius  accepted  the  hope  of  non-existence 
as  a  deliverance. 

But  the  fear  of  death  is  so  deeply  rooted  in  instinct  that  the 
gospel  of  Epicurus  could  not,  at  any  time,  make  a  wide  popular 
appeal;  it  remained  always  the  creed  of  a  cultivated  minority. 
Even  among  philosophers,  after  the  time  of  Augustus,  it  was,  as 
a  rule,  rejected  in  favour  of  Stoicism.  It  survived,  it  is  true,  though 
with  diminishing  vigour,  for  six  hundred  years  after  the  death  of 
Epicurus;  but  as  men  became  increasingly  oppressed  by  the 
miseries  of  our  terrestrial  existence,  they  demanded  continually 
stronger  medicine  from  philosophy  or  religion.  The  philosophers 
took  refuge,  with  few  exceptions,  in  Neoplatonism ;  the  uneducated 
turned  to  various  Eastern  superstitions,  and  then,  in  continually 
increasing  numbers,  to  Christianity,  which,  in  its  early  form, 
placed  all  good  in  the  life  beyond  the  grave,  thus  offering  men  a 
gospel  which  was  the  exact  opposite  of  that  of  Kpicurus.  Doc- 
trines very  similar  to  his,  however,  were  revived  by  the  French 
philosophes  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  brought  to 
England  by  Bentham  and  his  followers;  this  was  done  in  conscious 
opposition  to  Christianity,  which  these  men  regarded  as  hostilcly 
as  Epicurus  regarded  the  religions  of  his  day. 


Chapter  XXVIII 
STOICISM 

STOICISM,  while  in  origin  contemporaneous  with  Epicurean- 
ism, had  a  longer  history  and  less  constancy  in  doctrine. 
The  teaching  of  its  founder  Zeno,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
third  century  B.C.,  was  by  no  means  identical  with  that  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  in  the  latter  half  of  the  second  century  A.D.  Zeno  was  a 
materialist,  whose  doctrines  were,  in  the  main,  a  combination  of 
Cynicism  and  Heraclitus;  but  gradually,  through  an  admixture 
of  Platonism,  the  Stoics  abandoned  materialism,  until,  in  the  end, 
little  trace  of  it  remained.  Their  ethical  doctrine,  it  is  true,  changed 
very  little,  and  was  what  most  of  them  regarded  as  of  the  chief 
importance.  liven  in  this  respect,  however,  there  is  some  change 
of  emphasis.  As  time  goes  on,  continually  less  is  said  about  the 
other  aspects  of  Stoicism,  and  continually  more  exclusive  stress 
is  laid  upon  ethics  and  those  parts  of  theology  that  are  most 
relevant  to  ethics.  With  regard  to  all  the  earlier  Stoics,  we  are 
hampered  by  the  fact  that  their  works  survive  only  in  a  few  frag- 
ments. Seneca,  Kpictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  who  belong  to 
the  first  and  second  centuries  A.D.,  alone  survive  in  complete 
books. 

Stoicism  is  less  Greek  than  any  school  of  philosophy  with  which 
we  have  been  hitherto  concerned.  The  early  Stoics  were  mostly 
Syrian,  the  later  ones  mostly  Roman.  Tarn  (Hellenistic  Civilization, 
p.  287)  suspects  Chaldean  influences  in  Stoicism.  Uebenveg  justly 
observes  that,  in  Hcllenizing  the  barbarian  world,  the  Greeks 
dropped  what  only  suited  themselves.  Stoicism,  unlike  the  earlier 
purely  Greek  philosophies,  is  emotionally  narrow,  and  in  a  certain 
sense  fanatical ;  but  it  also  contains  religious  elements  of  which 
the  world  felt  the  need,  and  which  the  Greeks  seemed  unable  to 
supply.  In  particular,  it  appealed  to  rulers:  "nearly  all  the  suc- 
cessors of  Alexander — we  may  say  all  the  principal  kings  in 
existence  in  the  generations  following  Zeno— professed  themselves 
Stoics,"  says  Professor  Gilbert  Murray. 

Zeno  was  a  Phoenician,  born  at  Citium,  in  Cyprus,  at  some  time 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.  It  seems  probable 
that  his  family  were  engaged  in  commerce,  and  that  business 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

interests  were  what  first  took  him  to  Athens.  When  there,  however, 
he  became  anxious  to  study  philosophy.  The  views  of  the  Cynics 
were  more  congenial  to  him  than  those  of  any  other  school,  but 
he  was  something  of  an  eclectic.  The  followers  of  Plato  accused 
him  of  plagiarizing  the  Academy.  Socrates  was  the  chief  saint  of 
the  Stoics  throughout  their  history;  his  attitude  at  the  time  of 
his  trial,  his  refusal  to  escape,  his  calmness  in  the  face  of  death, 
and  his  contention  that  the  perpetrator  of  injustice  injures  himself 
more  than  his  victim,  all  fined  in  perfectly  with  Stoic  teaching. 
So  did  his  indifference  to  heat  and  cold,  his  plainness  in  matters 
of  food  and  dress,  and  his  complete  independence  of  all  bodily 
comforts.  But  the  Stoics  never  took  over  Plato1*  doctrine  of  ideas, 
and  most  of  them  rejected  his  arguments  for  immortality.  Only 
the  later  Stoics  followed  him  in  regarding  the  soul  as  immaterial ; 
the  earlier  Stoics  agreed  with  Heraclitus  in  the  view  that  the  soul 
is  composed  of  material  fire.  Verbally,  this  doctrine  is  also  to  be 
found  in  Epictetus  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  but  it  seems  that  in 
them  the  fire  is  not  to  be  taken  literally  as  one  of  the  four  elements 
of  which  physical  things  are  composed. 

Zcno  had  no  patience  with  metaphysical  subtleties.  Virtue  was 
what  he  thought  important,  and  he  only  valued  physics  and  meta- 
physics in  so  far  as  they  contributed  to  virtue.  He  attempted  to 
combat  the  metaphysical  tendencies  of  the  age  by  means  of 
common  sense,  which,  in  Greece,  meant  materialism.  Doubts  as 
to  the  trustworthiness  of  the  senses  annoyed  him,  and  he  pushed 
the  opposite  doctrine  to  extremes. 

"Zeno  began  by  asserting  the  existence  of  the  real  world.  'What 
do  you  mean  by  real  ?'  asked  the  Sceptic.  'I  mean  solid  and  material. 
I  mean  that  this  table  is  solid  matter/  'And  God/  asked  the 
Sceptic,  'and  the  Soul?'  'Perfectly  solid/  said  Zeno,  'more  solid, 
if  anything,  than  the  table.'  'And  virtue  or  justice  or  the  Rule  of 
Three;  also  solid  matter?'  4Of  course,'  said  Zeno,  'quite  solid/  "' 

It  is  evident  that,  at  this  point,  Zeno,  like  many  others,  was 
hurried  by  anti-metaphysical  zeal  into  a  metaphysic  of  his  own. 

The  main  doctrines  to  which  the  school  remained  constant 
throughout  are  concerned  with  cosmic  determinism  and  human 
freedom.  Zeno  believed  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  chance,  and 
that  the  course  of  nature  is  rigidly  determined  by  natural  laws. 
Originally  there  was  only  fire;  then  the  other  elements — air,  water. 

1  Gilbert  Murray,  The  Stoic  Philosophy  (1915),  P.  as- 
276 


STOICISM 

earth,  in  that  order — gradually  emerged.  But  sooner  or  later  there 
will  be  a  cosmic  conflagration,  and  all  will  again  become  fire.  This, 
according  to  most  Stoics,  is  not  a  final  consummation,  like  the 
end  of  the  world  in  Christian  doctrine,  but  only  the  conclusion 
of  a  cycle;  the  whole  process  will  be  repeated  endlessly.  Every- 
thing that  happens  has  happened  before,  and  will  happen  again, 
not  once,  but  countless  times. 

So  far,  the  doctrine  might  seem  cheerless,  and  in  no  respect 
more  comforting  than  ordinary  materialism  such  as  that  of  Demo- 
critus.  But  this  was  only  one  aspect  of  it.  The  course  of  nature,  in 
Stoicism  as  in  eighteenth-century  theology,  was  ordained  by  a 
Lawgiver  who  was  also  a  beneficent  Providence.  Down  to  the 
smallest  detail,  the  whole  was  designed  to  secure  certain  ends  by 
natural  means.  These  ends,  except  in  so  far  as  they  concern  gods 
and  daemons,  are  to  be  found  in  the  life  of  man.  Everything  has  a 
purpose  connected  with  human  beings.  Some  animals  are  good 
to  eat,  some  afford  tests  of  courage;  even  bed  bugs  are  useful, 
since  they  help  us  to  wake  in  the  morning  and  not  lie  in  bed  too 
long.  The  supreme  Power  is  called  sometimes  God,  sometimes 
Zeus.  Seneca  distinguished  this  Zeus  from  the  object  of  popular 
belief,  who  was  also  real,  but  subordinate. 

God  is  not  separate  from  the  world ;  He  is  the  soul  of  the  world, 
and  each  of  us  contains  a  part  of  the  Divine  Fire.  All  things  are 
parts  of  one  single  system,  which  is  called  Nature;  the  individual 
life  is  good  when  it  is  in  harmony  with  Nature.  In  one  sense,  every 
life  is  in  harmony  with  Nature,  since  it  is  such  as  Nature's  laws 
have  caused  it  to  be ;  but  in  another  sense  a  human  life  is  only  in 
harmony  with  Nature  when  the  individual  will  is  directed  to  ends 
which  are  among  those  of  Nature.  Virtue  consists  in  a  will  which 
is  in  agreement  with  Nature.  The  wicked,  though  perforce  they 
obey  God's  law,  do  so  involuntarily;  in  the  simile  of  Cleanthes, 
they  are  like  a  dog  tied  to  a  cart,  and  compelled  to  go  wherever 
it  goes. 

In  the  life  of  an  individual  man,  virtue  is  the  sole  good;  such 
things  as  health,  happiness,  possessions,  are  of  no  account.  Since 
virtue  resides  in  the  will,  everything  really  good  or  bad  in  a  man's 
life  depends  only  upon  himself.  He  may  become  poor,  but  what 
of  it?  He  can  still  be  virtuous.  A  tyrant  may  put  him  in  prison, 
but  he  can  still  persevere  in  living  in  harmony  with  Nature.  He 
may  be  sentenced  to  death,  but  he  can  die  nobly,  like  Socrates. 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Other  men  have  power  only  over  externals;  virtue,  which  alone 
is  truly  good,  rests  entirely  with  the  individual.  Therefore  every 
man  has  perfect  freedom,  provided  he  emancipates  himself  from 
mundane  desires.  It  is  only  through  false  judgments  that  such 
desires  prevail;  the  sage  whose  judgments  are  true  is  master  of 
his  fate  in  all  that  he  values,  since  no  outside  force  can  deprive 
him  of  virtue. 

There  are  obvious  logical  difficulties  about  this  doctrine.  II 
virtue  is  really  the  sole  good,  a  beneficent  Providence  must  be 
solely  concerned  to  cause  virtue,  yet  the  laws  of  Nature  have 
produced  abundance  of  sinners.  If  virtue  is  the  sole  good,  there 
can  be  no  reason  against  cruelty  and  injustice,  since,  as  the  Stoics 
are  never  tired  of  pointing  out,  cruelty  and  injustice  afford  the 
sufferer  the  best  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  virtue.  If  the 
world  is  completely  deterministic,  natural  laws  will  decide  whether 
I  shall  be  virtuous  or  not.  If  I  am  wicked,  Nature  compels  me  to 
be  wicked,  and  the  freedom  which  virtue  is  supposed  to  give  is 
not  possible  for  me. 

To  a  modern  mind,  it  is  difficult  to  feel  enthusiastic  about  a 
virtuous  life  if  nothing  is  going  to  be  achieved  by  it.  We  admire  a 
medical  man  who  risks  his  life  in  an  epidemic  of  plague,  because 
we  think  illness  is  an  evil,  and  we  hope  to  diminish  its  frequency. 
But  if  illness  is  no  evil,  the  medical  man  might  as  well  stay  com- 
fortably at  home.  To  the  Stoic,  his  virtue  is  an  end  it  itself,  not 
something  that  does  good.  And  when  we  take  a  longer  view,  what 
is  the  ultimate  outcome?  A  destruction  of  the  present  world  by 
fire,  and  then  a  repetition  of  the  whole  process.  Could  anything 
be  more  devastatingly  futile?  There  may  be  progress  here  and 
there,  for  a  time,  but  in  the  long  run  there  is  only  recurrence. 
When  we  see  something  unbearably  painful,  we  hope  that  in 
time  such  things  will  cease  to  happen ;  but  the  Stoic  assures  us 
that  what  is  happening  now  will  happen  over  and  over  again. 
Providence,  which  sees  the  whole,  must,  one  would  think,  ulti- 
mately grow  weary  through  despair. 

There  goes  with  this  a  certain  coldness  in  the  Stoic  conception 
of  virtue.  Not  only  bad  passions  are  condemned,  but  all  passions. 
The  $age  does  not  feel  sympathy ;  when  his  wife  or  hift  children 
die,  he  reflects  that  this  event  is  no  obstacle  to  his  own  virtue, 
and  therefore  he  does  not  suffer  deeply.  Friendship,  so  highly 
prized  by  Epicurus,  is  all  very  well,  but  it  must  not  be  carried  to 

278 


STOICISM 

the  point  where  your  friend's  misfortunes  can  destroy  your  holy 
calm.  As  for  public  life,  it  may  be  your  duty  to  engage  in  it,  since 
it  gives  opportunities  for  justice,  fortitude,  and  so  on;  but  you 
must  not  be  actuated  by  a  desire  to  benefit  mankind,  since  the 
benefits  you  can  confer — such  as  peace,  or  a  more  adequate  supply 
of  food — are  no  true  benefits,  and,  in  any  case,  nothing  matters 
to  you  except  your  own  virtue.  The  Stoic  is  not  virtuous  in  order 
to  do  good,  but  does  good  in  order  to  be  virtuous.  It  has  not 
occurred  to  him  to  love  his  neighbour  as  himself;  love,  except  in 
a  superficial  sense,  is  absent  from  his  conception  of  virtue. 

When  I  say  this,  I  am  thinking  of  love  as  an  emotion,  not  as  a 
principle.  As  a  principle,  the  Stoics  preached  universal  love;  this 
principle  is  found  in  Seneca  and  his  successors,  and  probably  was 
taken  by  them  from  earlier  Stoics.  The  logic  of  the  school  led  to 
doctrines  which  were  softened  by  the  humanity  of  its  adherents, 
who  were  much  better  men  than  they  would  have  been  if  they 
had  been  consistent.  Kant — who  resembles  them — says  that  you 
must  be  kind  to  your  brother,  not  because  you  are  fond  of  him, 
but  because  the  moral  law  enjoins  kindness;  I  doubt,  however, 
whether,  in  private  life,  he  lived  down  to  this  precept. 

Leaving  these  generalities,  let  us  come  to  the  history  of  Stoicism. 

Of  Zeno,1  only  some  fragments  remain.  From  these  it  appears 
that  he  defined  God  as  the  fiery  mind  of  the  world,  that  he  said 
God  was  a  bodily  substance,  and  that  the  whole  universe  formed 
the  substance  of  God;  Tertullian  says  that,  according  to  Zeno, 
God  runs  through  the  material  world  as  honey  runs  through  the 
honeycomb.  According  to  Diogenes  Lacrtius,  Zeno  held  that  the 
General  Law,  which  is  Right  Reason,  pervading  everything,  is 
the  same  as  Zeus,  the  Supreme  Head  of  the  government  of  the 
universe:  God,  Mind,  Destiny,  Zeus,  are  one  thing.  Destiny  is  a 
power  which  moves  matter;  "Providence"  and  "Nature"  are 
other  names  for  it.  Zeno  does  not  believe  that  there  should  be 
temples  to  the  gods:  "To  build  temples  there  will  be  no  need:  for 
a  temple  must  not  be  held  a  thing  of  great  worth  or  anything  holy. 
Nothing  can  be  of  great  worth  or  holy  which  is  the  work  of 
builders  and  mechanics."  He  seems,  like  the  later  Stoics,  to  have 
believed  in  astrology  and  divination.  Cicero  says  that  he  attributed 
a  divine  potency  to  the  stars.  Diogenes  Laertius  says:  "All  kinds 
of  divination  the  Stoics  leave  valid.  There  must  be  divination, 

1  For  the  source*  of  what  follows,  sec  lie  van,  l^ter  Greek  Religion,  p.  i  if. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

they  say,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  Providence.  They  prove  the 
reality  of  the  art  of  divination  by  a  number  of  cases  in  which 
predictions  have  come  true,  as  Zeno  asserts."  Chrysippus  is 
explicit  on  this  subject. 

The  Stoic  doctrine  as  to  virtue  does  not  appear  in  the  surviving 
fragments  of  Zeno,  but  seems  to  have  been  held  by  him. 

Cleanthes  of  Assos,  the  immediate  successor  of  Zeno,  is  chiefly 
notable  for  two  things.  First:  as  we  have  already  seen,  he  held 
that  Aristarchus  of  Samos  should  be  prosecuted  for  impiety 
because  he  made  the  sun,  instead  of  the  earth,  the  centre  of  the 
universe.  The  second  thing  is  his  Hymn  to  Zeus,  much  of  which 
might  have  been  written  by  Pope,  or  any  educated  Christian  in 
the  century  after  Newton.  Even  more  Christian  is  the  short 
prayer  of  Cleanthes: 

Lead  me,  O  Zeus,  and  thou,  O  Destiny. 

Lead  thou  me  on. 

To  whatsoever  task  thou  sendest  me, 

Lead  thou  me  on. 

I  follow  fearless,  or,  if  in  mistrust 

I  lag  and  will  not,  follow  still  I  must. 


Chrysippus  (280-207  B-C0»  wh°  succeeded  Cleanthcs,  was  a 
voluminous  author,  and  is  said  to  have  written  seven  hundred  and 
five  books.  He  made  Stoicism  systematic  and  pedantic.  He  held 
that  only  Zeus,  the  Supreme  Fire,  is  immortal  ;  the  other  gods, 
including  the  sun  and  moon,  are  born  and  die.  He  is  said  to  have 
considered  that  God  has  no  share  in  the  causation  of  evil,  but  it 
is  not  clear  how  he  reconciled  this  with  determinism.  Elsewhere 
he  deals  with  evil  after  the  manner  of  Hcraclitus,  maintaining  that 
opposites  imply  one  another,  and  good  without  evil  is  logically 
impossible:  "There  can  be  nothing  more  inept  than  the  people 
who  suppose  that  good  could  have  existed  without  the  existence 
of  evil.  Good  and  evil  being  antithetical,  both  must  needs  subsist 
in  opposition.  "  In  support  of  this  doctrine  he  appeals  to  Plato, 
not  to  Heraclitus. 

Chrysippus  maintained  that  the  good  man  is  always  happy  and 
the  bad  man  unhappy,  and  that  the  good  man's  happiness  differs 
in  no  way  from  God's.  On  the  question  whether  the  soul  survives 
death,  there  were  conflicting  opinions.  Clcanthes  maintained  that 
all  souls  survive  until  the  next  universal  conflagration  (when 

280 


STOICISM 

everything  is  absorbed  into  God);  but  Chrysippus  maintained 
that  this  is  only  true  of  the  souls  of  the  wise.  He  was  less  exclusively 
ethical  in  his  interests  than  the  later  Stoics ;  in  fact,  he  made  logic 
fundamental.  The  hypothetical  and  disjunctive  syllogism,  as  well 
as  the  word  "disjunction,"  are  due  to  the  Stoics;  so  is  the  study 
of  grammar  and  the  invention  of  "cases"  in  declension.1  Chry- 
sippus, or  other  Stoics  inspired  by  his  work,  had  an  elaborate 
theory  of  knowledge,  in  the  main  empirical  and  based  on  percep- 
tion, though  they  allowed  certain  ideas  and  principles,  which 
were  held  to  be  established  by  consensus  gentium,  the  agreement 
of  mankind.  But  Zeno,  as  well  as  the  Roman  Stoics,  regarded  all 
theoretical  studies  as  subordinate  to  ethics:  he  says  that  philo- 
sophy is  like  an  orchard,  in  which  logic  is  the  walls,  physics  the 
trees,  and  ethics  the  fruit;  or  like  an  egg,  in  which  logic  is  the 
shell,  physics  the  white,  and  ethics  the  yolk.2  Chrysippus,  it 
would  seem,  allowed  more  independent  value  to  theoretical 
studies.  Perhaps  his  influence  accounts  for  the  fact  that  among  the 
Stoics  there  were  many  men  who  made  advances  in  mathematics 
and  other  sciences. 

Stoicism,  after  Chrysippus,  was  considerably  modified  by  two 
important  men,  Panaetius  and  Posidonius.  Panaetius  introduced 
a  considerable  element  of  Platonism,  and  abandoned  materialism. 
He  was  a  friend  of  the  younger  Scipio,  and  had  an  influence  on 
Cicero,  through  whom,  mainly,  Stoicism  became  known  to  the 
Romans.  Posidonius,  under  whom  Cicero  studied  in  Rhodes, 
influenced  him  even  more.  Posidonius  was  taught  by  Panaetius, 
who  died  about  1 10  B.C. 

Posidonius  (ra,  135-01.  51  B.C.)  was  a  Syrian  Greek,  and  was  a 
child  when  the  Seleucid  empire  came  to  an  end.  Perhaps  it  was 
his  experience  of  anarchy  in  Syria  that  caused  him  to  travel  west- 
ward, first  to  Athens,  where  he  imbibed  the  Stoic  philosophy, 
and  then  further  afield,  to  the  western  parts  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
44  He  saw  with  his  own  eyes  the  sunset  in  the  Atlantic  beyond  the 
verge  of  the  known  world,  and  the  African  coast  over  against 
Spain,  where  the  trees  were  full  of  apes,  and  the  villages  of  bar- 
barous people  inland  from  *  Marseilles,  where  human  heads 
hanging  at  the  house-doors  for  trophies  were  an  every-day  sight."* 
He  became  a  voluminous  writer  on  scientific  subjects;  indeed, 

1  See  Berth,  Die  Stoa,  4th  edition,  Stuttgart,  1922. 

1  Ibid.  '  Bcvan,  Stoics  and  Sceptics,  p.  88. 

28l 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

one  of  the  reasons  for  his  travels  was  a  wish  to  study  the  tides, 
which  could  not  be  done  in  the  Mediterranean.  He  did  excellent 
work  in  astronomy;  as  we  saw  in  Chapter  XXIV  his  estimate  of 
the  distance  of  the  sun  was  the  best  in  antiquity.1  He  was  also  a 
historian  of  note — he  continued  Polybius.  But  it  was  chiefly  as 
an  eclectic  philosopher  that  he  was  known:  he  combined  with 
Stoicism  much  of  Plato's  teaching,  which  the  Academy,  in  its 
sceptical  phase,  appeared  to  have  forgotten. 

This  affinity  to  Plato  is  shown  in  his  teaching  about  the  soul 
and  the  life  after  death.  Panaetius  had  said,  as  most  Stoics  did, 
that  the  soul  perishes  with  the  body.  Posidonius,  on  the  contrary, 
says  that  it  continues  to  live  in  the  air,  where,  in  most  cases,  it 
remains  unchanged  until  the  next  world-conflagration.  There  is 
no  hell,  but  the  wicked,  after  death,  are  not  so  fortunate  as  the 
good,  for  sin  makes  the  vapours  of  the  soul  muddy,  and  prevents 
it  from  rising  as  far  as  the  good  soul  rises.  The  very  wicked  stay 
near  the  earth  and  are  reincarnated ;  the  truly  virtuous  rise  to  the 
stellar  sphere  and  spend  their  time  watching  the  stars  go  round. 
They  can  help  other  souls;  this  explains  (he  thinks)  the  truth  of 
astrology.  Bevan  suggests  that,  by  this  revival  of  Orphic  notions 
and  incorporation  of  Neo-Pythagorean  beliefs,  Posidonius  may 
have  paved  the  way  for  Gnosticism.  He  adds,  very  truly,  that 
what  was  fatal  to  such  philosophies  as  his  was  not  Christianity 
but  the  Coperrucan  theory.1  Cleanthes  was  right  in  regarding 
Aristarchus  of  Samos  as  a  dangerous  enemy. 

Much  more  important  historically  (though  not  philosophically) 
than  the  earlier  Stoics  were  the  three  who  were  connected  with 
Rome:  Seneca,  Epictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius — a  minister,  a 
slave,  and  an  emperor,  respectively. 

Seneca  (ca.  3  B.C.  to  A.D.  65)  was  a  Spaniard,  whose  father  was 
a  cultivated  man  living  in  Rome.  Seneca  adopted  a  political  career, 
and  was  being  moderately  successful  when  he  was  banished  to 
Corsica  (A.D.  41)  by  the  Emperor  Claudius,  because  he  had 
incurred  the  enmity  of  the  Empress  Messalina.  Claudius's  second 
wife  Agrippina  recalled  Seneca  from  exile  in  A.D.  48,  and  appointed 

1  He  estimated  that  by  sailing  westward  from  Cadiz,  India  could  be 
teached  after  70,000  stades.  "This  remark  was  the  ultimate  foundation 
of  Columbia's  confidence."  Tarn,  Hellenistic  Civilization,  p.  249. 

1  The  above  account  of  Posidonius  is  mainly  based  on  Chapter  II I  of 
Edwyn  Be  van's  Stoic t  and  Sceptic*. 

282 


STOICISM 

him  tutor  to  her  son,  aged  eleven.  Seneca  was  less  fortunate  than 
Aristotle  in  his  pupil,  who  was  the  Emperor  Nero.  Although,  as  a 
Stoic,  Seneca  officially  despised  riches,  he  amassed  a  huge  fortune, 
amounting,  it  was  said,  to  three  hundred  million  sesterces  (about 
three  million  pounds).  Much  of  this  he  acquired  by  lending 
money  in  Britain ;  according  to  Dio,  the  excessive  rates  of  interest 
that  he  exacted  were  among  the  causes  of  revolt  in  that  country. 
The  heroic  Queen  Boadicea,  if  this  is  true,  was  heading  a  rebellion 
against  capitalism  as  represented  by  the  philosophic  apostle  of 
austerity. 

Gradually,  as  Nero's  excesses  grew  more  unbridled,  Seneca  fell 
increasingly  out  of  favour.  At  length  he  \vas  accused,  justly  or 
unjustly,  of  complicity  in  a  widespread  conspiracy  to  murder 
Nero  and  place  a  new  emperor — some  said,  Seneca  himself — 
upon  the  throne.  In  view  of  his  former  services,  he  was  graciously 
permitted  to  commit  suicide  (A.D.  65). 

His  end  was  edifying.  At  first,  on  being  informed  of  the  Em- 
peror's decision,  he  set  about  making  a  will.  When  told  that  there 
was  no  time  allowed  for  such  a  lengthy  business,  he  turned  to  his 
sorrowing  family  and  said:  "Never  mind,  I  leave  you  what  is  of 
far  more  value  than  earthly  riches,  the  example  of  a  virtuous  life" 
— or  words  to  that  effect.  lie  then  opened  his  veins,  and  summoned 
his  secretaries  to  take  down  his  dying  words;  according  to  Tacitus, 
his  eloquence  continued  to  flow  during  his  last  moments.  His 
nephew  Lucan,  the  poet,  suffered  a  similar  death  at  the  same  time, 
and  expired  reciting  his  own  verses.  Seneca  was  judged,  in  future 
ages,  rather  hy  his  admirable  precepts  than  by  his  somewhat 
dubious  practice.  Several  of  the  Fathers  claimed  him  as  a  Christian, 
and  a  supposed  correspondence  between  him  and  Saint  Paul  was 
accepted  as  genuine  by  such  men  as  Saint  Jerome. 

Epictetus  (born  about  A.D.  60,  died  about  A.D.  100)  is  a  very 
different  type  of  man,  though  closely  akin  as  a  philosopher.  He 
was  a  Greek,  originally  a  slave  of  Epaphroditus,  a  freedman  of 
Nero  and  then  his  minister.  He  was  lame— as  a  result,  it  was  said 
of  a  cruel  punishment  in  his  days  of  slavery.  He  lived  and  taught 
at  Rome  until  A.D.  90,  when  the  Emperor  Domitian,  who  had  no 
use  for  intellectuals,  banished  all  philosophers.  Epictetus  there- 
upon retired  to  lS?icopolis  in  Epirus,  where,  after  some  years 
spent  in  writing  and  teaching,  he  died. 

Marcus  Aurrlius  (A.D.  121-180)  was  at  the  other  end  of  the 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

social  scale.  He  was  the  adopted  son  of  the  good  Emperor  Anto- 
ninus Pius,  who  was  his  uncle  and  his  father-in-law,  whom  he 
succeeded  in  A.D.  161,  and  whose  memory  he  revered.  As  Emperor, 
he  devoted  himself  to  Stoic  virtue.  He  had  much  need  of  fortitude, 
for  his  reign  was  beset  by  calamities — earthquakes,  pestilences, 
long  and  difficult  wars,  military  insurrections.  His  Meditations, 
which  are  addressed  to  himself,  and  apparently  not  intended  for 
publication,  show  that  he  felt  his  public  duties  burdensome,  and 
that  he  suffered  from  a  great  weariness.  His  only  son  Commodus, 
who  succeeded  him,  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  worst  of  the 
many  bad  emperors,  but  successfully  concealed  his  vicious  pro- 
pensities so  long  as  his  father  lived.  The  philosopher's  wife 
Faustina  was  accused,  perhaps  unjustly,  of  gross  immorality,  but 
he  never  suspected  her,  and  after  her  death  took  trouble  about 
her  deification.  He  persecuted  the  Christians,  because  they  re- 
jected the  State  religion,  which  he  considered  politically  necessary. 
In  all  his  actions  he  was  conscientious,  but  in  most  he  was  un- 
successful.He  is  a  pathetic  figure:  in  a  list  of  mundane  desires  to 
be  resisted,  the  one  that  he  finds  most  seductive  is  the  wish  to 
retire  to  a  quiet  country  life.  For  this,  the  opportunity  never 
came.  Some  of  his  Meditations  are  dated  from  the  camp,  on 
distant  campaigns,  the  hardships  of  which  eventually  caused  his 
death. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Epictetus  and  Marcus  Aurelius  are  com- 
pletely at  one  on  all  philosophical  questions.  This  suggests  that 
although  social  circumstances  affect  the  philosophy  of  an  age, 
individual  circumstances  have  less  influence  than  is  sometimes 
thought  upon  the  philosophy  of  an  individual.  Philosophers  are 
usually  men  with  a  certain  breadth  of  mind,  who  can  largely  dis- 
count the  accidents  of  their  private  lives;  but  even  they  cannot 
rise  above  the  larger  good  or  evil  of  their  time.  In  bad  times  they 
invent  consolations ;  in  good  times  their  interests  are  more  purely 
intellectual. 

Gibbon,  whose  detailed  history  begins  with  the  vices  of  Corn- 
modus,  agrees  with  most  eighteenth-century  writers  in  regarding 
the  period  of  the  Amonines  as  a  golden  age.  "If  a  man  were  called 
upon/'  be  says,  "to  fix  the  period  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
during  which  the  condition  of  the  human  race  was  most  happy 
and  prosperous,  he  would,  without  hesitation,  name  that  which 
elapsed  from  the  death  of  Domitian  to  the  accession  of  Com- 


STOICISM 
• 

modus."  It  is  impossible  to  agree  altogether  with  this  judgment. 
The  evil  of  slavery  involved  immense  suffering,  and  was  sapping 
the  vigour  of  the  ancient  world.  There  were  gladiatorial  shows 
and  fights  with  wild  beasts,  which  were  intolerably  cruel  and 
must  have  debased  the  populations  that  enjoyed  the  spectacle. 
Marcus  Aurelius,  it  is  true,  decreed  that  gladiators  should  fight 
with  blunted  swords ;  but  this  reform  was  short-lived,  and  he  did 
nothing  about  fights  with  wild  beasts.  The  economic  system  was 
very  bad;  Italy  was  going  out  of  cultivation,  and  the  population 
of  Rome  depended  upon  the  free  distribution  of  grain  from  the 
provinces.  All  initiative  was  concentrated  in  the  Emperor  and  his 
ministers;  throughout  the  vast  extent  of  the  Empire,  no  one. 
except  an  occasional  rebellious  general,  could  do  anything  but 
submit.  Men  looked  to  the  past  for  what  was  best;  the  future, 
they  felt,  would  be  at  best  a  weariness,  and  at  worst  a  horror. 
When  we  compare  the  tone  of  Marcus  Aurelius  with  that  of 
Bacon,  or  Ixrcke,  or  Condorcet,  we  see  the  difference  between  a 
tired  and  a  hopeful  age.  In  a  hopeful  age,  great  present  evils  can 
be  endured,  because  it  is  thought  that  they  will  pass;  but  in  a 
tired  ape  even  real  poods  lose  their  savour.  The  Stoic  ethic  suited 
the  times  of  Kpictettis  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  because  its  gospel 
was  one  of  endurance  rather  than  hope. 

Undoubtedly  the  ape  of  the  Antonines  was  much  better  than 
any  later  ape  until  the  Renaissance,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
general  happiness.  Rut  careful  study  shows  that  it  was  not  so 
prosperous  as  its  architectural  remains  would  lead  one  to  suppose. 
Graeco-  Roman  civilization  had  made  very  little  impression  on 
the  agricultural  regions;  it  was  practically  limited  to  the  cities. 
Even  in  the  cities,  there  was  a  proletariat  which  suffered  very 
great  poverty,  and  there  was  a  large  slave  class.  Rostovtseff  sums 
up  a  discussion  of  social  and  economic  conditions  in  the  cities 
as  follows:1 

"This  picture  of  their  social  conditions  is  not  so  attractive  as 
the  picture  of  their  external  appearance.  The  impression  conveyed 
by  our  sources  is  that  the  splendour  of  the  cities  was  created  by, 
and  existed  for,  a  rather  small  minority  of  their  population ;  that 
the  welfare  even  of  this  small  minority  was  based  on  comparatively 
weak  foundations;  that  the  large  masses  of  the  city  population 

1  Roftovtacff,  The  Social  and  Economic  History  qf  the  Roman  Empire. 
P.  17J>. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

had  either  a  very  moderate  income  or  lived  in  extreme  poverty. 
In  a  word,  we  must  not  exaggerate  the  health  of  the  cities:  their 
external  aspect  is  misleading." 

On  earth,  says  Epictetus,  we  are  prisoners,  and  in  an  earthly 
body.  According  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  he  used  to  say  "Thou  art 
a  little  soul  bearing  about  a  corpse."  Zeus  could  not  make  the 
body  free,  but  he  gave  us  a  portion  of  his  divinity.  God  is  the 
father  of  men,  and  we  are  all  brothers.  We  should  not  say  "I  am 
an  Athenian"  or  "I  am  a  Roman,"  but  "I  am  a  citizen  of  the 
universe."  If  you  were  a  kinsman  of  Caesar,  you  would  feel  safe; 
how  much  more  should  you  feel  safe  in  being  a  kinsman  of  God  ? 
If  we  understand  that  virtue  is  the  only  true  good,  we  shall  see 
that  no  real  evil  can  befall  us. 

I  must  die.  But  must  I  die  groaning?  I  must  be  imprisoned.  But 
must  I  whine  as  well  ?  I  must  suffer  exile.  Can  any  one  then  hinder 
me  from  going  with  a  smile,  and  a  good  courage,  and  at  peace? 
"Tell  the  secret."  I  refuse  to  tell,  for  this  is  in  my  power.  "But  I 
will  chain  you."  What  say  you,  fellow?  Chain  me?  My  leg  you 
will  chain — yes,  but  my  will — no,  not  even  Zeus  can  conquer  that. 
"I  will  imprison  you."  My  bit  of  a  body,  you  mean.  "I  will  behead 
you."  Why?  When  did  I  ever  tell  you  that  I  was  the  only  man  in 
the  world  that  could  not  be  beheaded  ? 

These  are  the  thoughts  that  those  who  pursue  philosophy 
should  ponder,  these  are  the  lessons  they  should  write  down  day 
by  day,  in  these  they  should  exercise  themselves.1 

Slaves  are  the  equals  of  other  men,  because  all  alike  arc  sons 
of  God. 

We  must  submit  to  Cod  as  a  good  citizen  submits  to  the  law. 
"The  soldier  swears  to  respect  no  man  above  Caesar,  but  we  to 
respect  ourselves  first  of  all."2  "When  you  appear  before  the 
mighty  of  the  earth,  remember  that  Another  looks  from  above 
on  what  is  happening,  and  that  you  must  please  Him  rather  than 
this  man."3 

Who  then  is  a  Stoic  ? 

Show  me  a  man  moulded  to  the  pattern  of  the  judgments  that 
he  utters,  in  the  same  way  as  we  call  a  statue  Phidian  that  is 
moulded  according  to  the  art  of  Phidias.  Show  me  one  who  is 
sick  and  yet  happy,  in  peril  and  yet  happy,  dying  and  yet  happy, 

1  Quoted  from  Gates,  op.  rtf.,  pp.  225-6, 

1  /««/.,  p.  251.  •  IUd.9  p.  280. 

286 


STOICISM 

in  exile  and  happy,  in  disgrace  and  happy.  Show  him  me.  By  the 
gods  I  would  fain  see  a  Stoic.  Nay  you  cannot  show  me  a  finished 
Stoic;  then  show  me  one  in  the  moulding,  one  who  has  set  his 
feet  on  the  path.  Do  me  this  kindness,  do  not  grudge  an  old  man 
like  me  a  sight  I  never  'saw  till  now.  What!  You  think  you  are 
going  to  show  me  the  Zeus  of  Phidias  or  his  Athena,  that  work  of 
ivory  and  gold?  It  is  a  soul  I  want;  let  one  of  you  show  me  the 
soul  of  a  man  who  wishes  to  be  at  one  with  God,  and  to  blame 
God  or  man  no  longer,  to  fail  in  nothing,  to  feel  no  misfortune, 
to  be  free  from  anger,  envy,  and  jealousy — one  who  (why  wrap 
up  my  meaning?)  desires  to  change  his  manhood  for  godhead, 
and  who  in  this  poor  body  of  his  has  his  purpose  set  upon  com- 
munion with  God.  Show  him  to  me.  Nay,  you  cannot. 

Epictctus  is  never  weary  of  showing  how  we  should  deal  with 
what  are  considered  misfortunes,  which  he  does  often  by  means 
of  homely  dialogues. 

Like  the  Christians,  he  holds  that  we  should  love  our  enemies. 
In  general,  in  common  with  other  Stoics,  he  despises  pleasure, 
but  there  is  a  kind  of  happiness  that  is  noi  to  be  despised.  "Athens 
is  beautiful.  Yes,  but  happiness  is  far  more  beautiful — freedom 
from  passion  and  disturbance,  the  sense  that  your  affairs  depend 
on  no  one"  (p.  428).  Every  man  is  an  actor  in  a  play,  in  which 
God  has  assigned  the  parts;  it  is  our  duty  to  perform  our  part 
worthily,  whatever  it  may  be. 

There  is  great  sincerity  and  simplicity  in  the  writings  which 
record  the  teaching  of  Kpictetus.  (They  are  written  down  from 
notes  by  his  pupil  Arrian.)  His  morality  is  lofty  and  unworldly; 
in  a  situation  in  which  a  man's  main  duty  is  to  resist  tyrannical 
power,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  anything  more  helpful.  In 
some  respects,  for  instance  in  recognizing  the  brotherhood  of 
nian  and  in  teaching  the  equality  of  slaves,  it  is  superior  to  any- 
thing to  be  found  in  Plato  or  Aristotle  or  any  philosopher  whose 
thought  is  inspired  by  the  City  State.  The  actual  world,  in  the 
time  of  Epictctus,  was  very  inferior  to  the  Athens  of  Pericles; 
but  the  evil  in  what  existed  liberated  his  aspirations,  and  his 
ideal  world  is  a*  superior  to  that  of  Plato  as  his  actual  world  is 
inferior  to  the  Athens  of  the  fifth  century. 

The  Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius  begin  by  acknowledging 
his  indebtedness  to  his  grandfather,  father,  adopted  father,  various 
teachers,  and  the  gods.  Some  of  the  obligations  he  enumerates  are 

287 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

curious.  He  learned  (he  says)  from  Diognetus  not  to  listen  to 
miracle- workers;  from  Rusticus,  not  to  write  poetry;  from  Sextus, 
to  practise  gravity  without  affectation;  from  Alexander  the 
grammarian,  not  to  correct  bad  grammar  in  others,  but  to  use 
the  right  expression  shortly  afterwards;  from  Alexander  the 
Platonist,  not  to  excuse  tardiness  in  answering  a  letter  by  the 
plea  of  press  of  business;  from  his  adopted  father,  not  to  fall  in 
love  with  boys.  He  owes  it  to  the  gods  (he  continues)  that  he  was 
not  brought  up  too  long  with  his  grandfather's  concubine,  and 
did  not  make  proof  of  his  virility  too  soon ;  that  his  children  are 
neither  stupid  nor  deformed  in  body;  that  his  wife  is  obedient, 
affectionate,  and  simple ;  and  that  when  he  took  to  philosophy  he 
did  not  waste  time  on  history,  syllogism,  or  astronomy. 

What  is  impersonal  in  the  Meditations  agrees  closely  with 
Epictetus.  Marcus  Aurelius  is  doubtful  about  immortality,  but 
says,  as  a  Christian  might:  "Since  it  is  possible  that  thou  mayst 
depart  from  life  this  very  moment,  regulate  every  act  and  thought 
accordingly."  Life  in  harmony  with  the  universe  is  what  is  good; 
and  harmony  with  the  universe  is  the  same  thing  as  obedience 
to  the  will  of  God. 

"Everything  harmonizes  with  me  which  is  harmonious  to  thec, 
O  Universe.  Nothing  for  me  is  too  early  or  too  late,  which  is  in 
due  time  for  thee.  Everything  is  fruit  to  me  which  thy  seasons 
bring,  O  Nature:  from  thec  are  ail  things,  in  thee  are  all  things, 
to  thee  all  things  return.  The  poet  says,  Dear  city  of  Cecrops;  and 
wilt  not  thou  say,  Dear  city  of  Zeus?" 

One  sees  that  Saint  Augustine's  City  of  God  was  in  part  taken 
over  from  the  pagan  Emperor. 

Marcus  Aureiius  is  persuaded  that  God  gives  every  man  a 
special  daemon  as  his  guide — a  belief  which  reappears  in  the 
Christian  guardian  angel.  He  finds  comfort  in  the  thought  of  the 
universe  as  a  closely-knit  whole;  it  is,  he  says,  one  living  being, 
having  one  substance  and  one  soul.  One  of  his  maxims  is:  "Fre- 
quently consider  the  connection  of  all  things  in  the  universe." 
"Whatever  may  happen  to  thee,  it  was  prepared  for  thee  from  all 
eternity;  and  the  implication  of  causes  was  from  eternity  spinning 
the  thread  of  thy  being/'  There  goes  with  this,  in  spite  of  his 
position  in  the  Roman  State,  the  Stoic  belief  in  the  human  race 
as  one  community :  "My  city  and  country,  so  far  as  1  am  Antoninus, 
it  Rome,  but  so  far  as  I  am  a  man,  it  is  the  world."  There  is  the 

288 


STOICISM 

difficulty  that  one  finds  in  all  Stoics,  of  reconciling  determinism 
with  the  freedom  of  the  will.  "Men  exist  for  the  sake  of  one 
another,"  he  says,  when  he  is  thinking  of  his  duty  as  ruler.  "The 
wickedness  of  one  man  does  no  harm  to  another,"  he  says  on 
the  same  page,  when  he  is  thinking  of  the  doctrine  that  the  virtuous 
will  alone  is  good.  He  never  inferred  that  the  goodness  of  one 
man  does  no  good  to  another,  and  that  he  would  do  no  harm  to 
anybody  but  himself  if  he  were  as  bad  an  Emperor  as  Nero;  and 
yet  this  conclusion  seems  to  follow. 

"It  is  peculiar  to  man,"  he  says,  "to  love  even  those  who  do 
wrong.  And  this  happens  if,  when  they  do  wrong,  it  occurs  to 
thee  that  they  are  kinsmen,  and  that  they  do  wrong  through 
ignorance  and  unintentionally,  and  that  soon  both  of  you  will  die; 
and  above  all,  that  the  wrong-doer  has  done  thee  no  harm,  foi 
he  has  not  made  thy  ruling  faculty  worse  than  it  was  before." 

And  again:  "Love  mankind,  Follow  God.  .  .  .  And  it  is 
enough  to  remember  that  Law  rules  all." 

These  passages  bring  out  very  clearly  the  inherent  contradictions 
in  Stoic  ethics  arid  theology.  On  the  one  hand,  the  universe  is  a 
rigidly  deterministic  single  whole,  in  which  all  that  happens  is 
the  result  of  previous  causes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  individual 
will  is  completely  autonomous,  and  no  man  can  be  forced  to  sin 
by  outside  causes.  This  is  one  contradiction  and  there  is  a  second 
closely  connected  with  it.  Since  the  will  is  autonomous,  and  the 
virtuous  will  alone  is  good,  one  man  cannot  do  either  good  or 
harm  to  another;  therefore  benevolence  is  an  illusion.  Something 
must  be  said  about  each  of  these  contradictions. 

The  contradiction  between  free  will  and  determinism  is  one  of 
those  that  run  through  philosophy  from  early  times  to  our  own 
day,  taking  different  forms  at  different  times.  At  present  it  is  the 
Stoic  form  that  concerns  us. 

I  think  that  a  Stoic,  if  we  could  make  him  submit  to  a  Socratic 
interrogation,  would  defend  his  view  more  or  less  as  follows:  The 
universe  is  a  single  animate  Being,  having  a  soul  which  may  also 
be  called  God  or  Reason.  As  a  whole,  this  Being  is  free.  God 
decided,  from  the  first,  that  He  would  act  according  to  fixed 
general  laws,  but  He  chose  such  laws  as  would  have  the  best 
results.  Sometimes,  in  particular  cases,  the  results  are  not  wholly 
desirable,  but  this  inconvenience  is  worth  enduring,  as  in  human 
codes  of  law,  for  the  sake  of  the  advantage  of  legislative  fixity.  A 

>  tif  M'/u«r*  /'JMliOoffty  289  K 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

human  being  is  partly  fire,  partly  of  lower  clay ;  in  so  far  as  he  is 
fire  (at  any  rate  when  it  is  of  the  best  quality),  he  is  part  of  God. 
When  the  divine  part  of  a  man  exercises  will  virtuously,  this  will 
is  part  of  God's,  which  is  free;  therefore  in  these  circumstances 
the  human  will  also  is  free. 

This  is  a  good  answer  up  to  a  point,  but  it  breaks  down  when 

we  consider  the  causes  of  our  volitions.  We  all  know,  as  a  matter 

of  empirical  fact,  that  dyspepsia,  for  example,  has  a  bad  effect  on 

a  man's  virtue,  and  that,  by  suitable  drugs  forcibly  administered, 

will-power  can  be   destroyed.    Take  Epictetus's  favourite  case, 

the  man  unjustly  imprisoned  by  a  tyrant,  of  which  there  have 

been  more  examples  in  recent  years  than  at  any  other  period  in 

human  history.  Some  of  these  men  have  acted  with  Stoic  heroism ; 

some,  rather  mysteriously,  have  not.  It  has  become  clear,  not 

only  that  sufficient  torture  will  break  down  almost  any  man's 

fortitude,  but  also  that  morphia  or  cocaine  can  reduce  a  man  to 

docility.  The  will,  in  fact,  is  only  independent  of  the  tyrant  so 

long  as  the  tyrant  is  unscientific.  This  is  an  extreme  example; 

but  the  same  arguments  that  exist  in  favour  of  determinism  in  the 

inanimate  world  exist  also  in  the  sphere  of  human  volitions  in 

general.  I  do  not  say — I  do  not  think — that  these  arguments  are 

conclusive;  I  say  only  that  they  are  of  equal  strength  in  both  cases, 

and  that  there  can  be  no  good  reason  for  accepting  them  in  one 

region  and  rejecting  them  in  another.  The  Stoic,  when  he  is 

engaged  in  urging  a  tolerant  attitude  to  sinners,  will  himself  urge 

that  the  sinful  will  is  a  result  of  previous  causes ;  it  is  only  the 

virtuous  will  that  seems  to  him  free.  This,  however,  is  inconsistent. 

Marcus  Aurelius  explains  his  own  virtue  as  due  to  the  good 

influence  of  parents,  grandparents,  and  teachers;  the  good  will  is 

just  as  much  a  result  of  previous  causes  as  the  bad  will.  The 

Stoic  may  say  truly  that  his  philosophy  is  a  cause  of  virtue  in 

those  who  adopt  it,  but  it  seems  that  it  will  not  have  this  desirable 

effect  unless  there  is  a  certain  admixture  of  intellectual  error. 

The  realization  that  virtue  and  sin  alike  are  the  inevitable  result 

of  previous  causes  (as  the  Stoics  should  have  held)  is  likely  to 

have  a  somewhat  paralysing  effect  on  moral  effort. 

I  come  now  to  the  second  contradiction,  that  the  Stoic,  while  he 
preached  benevolence,  held,  in  theory,  that  no  man  can  do  either 
good  or  harm  to  another,  since  the  virtuous  will  alone  is  good,  and 
the  virtuous  will  is  independent  of  outside  causes.  This  contra- 

290 


STOICISM 

diction  is  more  patent  than  the  other,  and  more  peculiar  to  the 
Stoics  (including  certain  Christian  moralists).  The  explanation  of 
their  not  noticing  it  is  that,  like  many  other  people,  they  had  two 
systems  of  ethics,  a  superfine  one  for  themselves,  and  an  inferior 
one  for  "the  lesser  breeds  without  the  law."  When  the  Stoic 
philosopher  is  thinking  of  himself,  he  holds  that  happiness  and 
all  other  worldly  so-called  goods  are  worthless;  he  even  says  that 
to  desire  happiness  is  contrary  to  nature,  meaning  that  it  involves 
lack  of  resignation  to  the  will  of  God.  But  as  a  practical  man 
administering  the  Roman  Empire,  Marcus  Aurelius  knows  per- 
fectly well  that  this  son  of  thing  won't  do.  It  is  his  duty  to  see 
that  the  grain-ships  from  Africa  duly  reach  Rome,  that  measures 
are  taken  to  relieve  the  sufferings  caused  by  pestilence,  and  that 
barbarian  enemies  are  not  allowed  to  cross  the  frontier.  That  is 
to  say,  in  dealing  with  those  of  his  subjects  whom  he  does  not 
regard  as  Stoic  philosophers,  actual  or  potential,  he  accepts 
ordinary  mundane  standards  of  what  is  good  or  bad.  It  is  by 
applying  these  standards  that  he  arrives  at  his  duty  as  an  adminis- 
trator. What  is  odd  is  that  this  duty,  itself,  is  in  the  higher  sphere 
of  what  the  Stoic  sage  should  do,  although  it  is  deduced  from  an 
ethic  which  the  Stoic  sage  regards  as  fundamentally  mistaken. 

The  only  reply  that  I  can  imagine  to  this  difficulty  is  one  which 
is  perhaps  logically  unassailable,  but  is  not  very  plausible.  It 
would,  I  think,  be  given  by  Kant,  whose  ethical  system  is  very 
similar  to  that  of  the  Stoics.  True,  he  might  say,  there  is  nothing 
good  but  the  good  will,  but  the  will  is  good  when  it  is  directed 
to  certain  ends,  that,  in  themselves,  are  indifferent.  It  does  not 
matter  whether  Mr.  A  is  happy  or  unhappy,  but  I,  if  I  am  virtuous, 
shall  act  in  a  way  which  I  believe  will  make  him  happy,  because 
that  is  what  the  moral  law  enjoins.  I  cannot  make  Mr.  A  virtuous, 
because  his  virtue  depends  only  upon  himself;  but  I  can  do  some- 
thing towards  making  him  happy,  or  rich,  or  learned,  or  healthy. 
The  Stoic  ethic  may  therefore  be  stated  as  follows:  Certain  things 
are  vulgarly  considered  goods,  but  this  is  a  mistake;  what  is  good 
is  a  will  directed  towards  securing  these  false  goods  for  other  people. 
This  doctrine  involves  no  logical  contradiction,  but  it  loses  all 
plausibility  if  we  genuinely  believe  that  what  are  commonly  con- 
sidered goods  are  worthless,  for  in  that  case  the  virtuous  will 
might  just  as  well  be  directed  to  quite  other  ends. 

There  is,  in  fact,  an  element  of  sour  grapes  in  Stoicism.  We 

291 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

can't  be  happy,  but  we  can  be  good;  let  us  therefore  pretend  that, 
so  long  as  we  are  good,  it  doesn't  matter  being  unhappy.  This 
doctrine  is  heroic,  and,  in  a  bad  world,  useful;  but  it  is  neither 
quite  true  nor,  in  a  fundamental  sense,  quite  sincere. 

Although  the  main  importance  of  the  Stoics  was  ethical,  there 
were  two  respects  in  which  their  teaching  bore  fruit  in  other  fields. 
One  of  these  is  theory  of  knowledge ;  the  other  is  the  doctrine  of 
natural  law  and  natural  rights. 

In  theory  of  knowledge,  in  spite  of  Plato,  they  accepted  percep- 
tion; the  deceptiveness  of  the  senses,  they  held,  was  really  false 
judgment,  and  could  be  avoided  by  a  little  care.  A  Stoic  philo- 
sopher, Sphaerus,  an  immediate  disciple  of  Zcno,  was  once  invited 
to  dinner  by  King  Ptolemy,  who,  having  heard  of  this  doctrine, 
offered  him  a  pomegranate  made  of  wax.  The  philosopher  pro- 
ceeded to  try  to  eat  it,  whereupon  the  king  laughed  at  him.  He 
replied  that  he  had  felt  no  certainty  of  its  being  a  real  pomegranate, 
but  had  thought  it  unlikely  that  anything  inedible  would  be 
supplied  at  the  royal  table.1  In  this  answer  he  appealed  to  a  Stoic 
distinction,  between  those  things  which  can  be  known  with 
certainty  on  the  basis  of  perception,  and  those  which,  on  this 
basis,  are  only  probable.  On  the  whole,  this  doctrine  was  sane  and 
scientific. 

Another  doctrine  of  theirs  in  theory  of  knowledge  was  more 
influential,  though  more  questionable.  This  was  their  belief  in 
innate  ideas  and  principles.  Greek  logic  was  wholly  deductive, 
and  this  raised  the  question  of  first  premisses.  First  premisses  had 
to  be,  at  least  in  part,  general,  and  no  method  existed  of  proving 
them.  The  Stoics  held  that  there  are  certain  principles  which  are 
luminously  obvious,  and  are  admitted  by  all  men ;  these  could  be 
made,  as  in  Euclid's  Elements,  the  basis  of  deduction.  Innate  ideas, 
similarly,  could  be  used  as  the  starting-point  of  definitions.  This 
point  of  view  was  accepted  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
even  by  Descartes. 

The  doctrine  of  natural  right,  as  it  appears  in  the  sixteenth, 
seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries,  is  a  revival  of  a  Stoic 
doctrine,  though  with  important  modifications.  It  was  the  Stoics 
who  distinguished  jus  naturale  from  jut  gentium.  Natural  law  was 
derived  from  first  principles  of  the  kind  held  to  underlie  all 
general  knowledge.  By  nature,  the  Stoics  held,  all  human  beings 
1  Diogenet  Laertnu,  Vol.  VII  ,177. 
292 


STOICISM 

are  equal.  Marcus  Aurelius,  in  his  Meditations,  favours  "a  polity 
in  which  there  is  the  same  law  for  all,  a  polity  administered  with 
regard  to  equal  rights  and  equal  freedom  of  speech,  and  a  kingly 
government  which  respects  most  of  all  the  freedom  of  the 
governed.*'  This  was  an  ideal  which  could  not  be  consistently 
realized  in  the  Roman  Empire,  but  it  influenced  legislation,  partic- 
ularly in  improving  the  status  of  women  and  slaves.  Christianity 
took  over  this  part  of  Stoic  teaching  along  with  much  of  the  rest. 
And  when  at  last,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  opportunity 
came  to  combat  despotism  effectually,  the  Stoic  doctrines  of 
natural  law  and  natural  equality,  in  their  Christian  dress,  acquired 
a  practical  force  which,  in  antiquity,  not  even  an  emperor  could 
to  them. 


Chapter  XXIX 

THE   ROMAN  EMPIRE   IN   RELATION 
TO   CULTURE 

f  •   IHE  Roman  Empire  affected  the  history  of  culture  in  various 

I    more  or  less  separate  ways. 

JL  First:  there  is  the  direct  effect  of  Rome  on  Hellenistic 
thought.  This  is  not  very  important  or  profound. 

Second:  the  effect  of  Greece  and  the  East  on  the  western  half 
of  the  empire.  This  was  profound  and  lasting,  since  it  included 
the  Christian  religion. 

Third:  the  importance  of  the  long  Roman  peace  in  diffusing 
culture  and  in  accustoming  men  to  the  idea  of  a  single  civilization 
associated  with  a  single  government. 

Fourth:  the  transmission  of  Hellenistic  civilization  to  the 
Mohammedans,  and  thence  ultimately  to  western  Europe. 

Before  considering  these  influences  of  Rome,  a  very  brief 
synopsis  of  the  political  history  will  be  useful. 

Alexander's  conquests  had  left  the  western  Mediterranean  un- 
touched ;  it  was  dominated,  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century 
B.C.,  by  two  powerful  City  States,  Carthage  and  Syracuse.  In  the 
first  and  second  Punic  Wars  (264-241  and  218-201),  Rome  con- 
quered Syracuse  and  reduced  Carthage  to  insignificance.  During 
the  second  century,  Rome  conquered  the  Macedonian  monarchies 
— Egypt,  it  is  true,  lingered  on  as  a  vassal  state  until  the  death  of 
Cleopatra  (30  B.C.).  Spain  was  conquered  as  an  incident  in  the 
war  with  Hannibal;  France  was  conquered  by  Caesar  in  the 
middle  of  the  first  century  B.C.,  and  England  was  conquered 
about  a  hundred  years  later.  The  frontiers  of  the  Empire,  in  its 
great  days,  were  the  Rhine  and  Danube  in  Europe,  the  Euphrates 
in  Asia,  and  the  desert  in  North  Africa. 

Roman  imperialism  was,  perhaps,  at  its  best  in  North  Africa 
(important  in  Christian  history  as  the  home  of  Saint  Cyprian  and 
Saint  Augustine),  where  large  areas,  uncultivated  before  and  after 
Roman  times,  were  rendered  fertile  and  supported  populous  cities. 
The  Roman  Empire  was  on  the  whole  stable  and  peaceful  for 
over  two  hundred  years,  from  the  accession  of  Augustus  (30  B.C.) 
until  the  disasters  of  the  third  century. 

294 


THE   ROMAN    EMPIRE    IN    RELATION   TO    CULTURE 

Meanwhile  the  constitution  of  the  Roman  State  had  undergone 
important  developments.  Originally,  Rome  was  a  small  City 
State,  not  very  unlike  those  of  Greece,  especially  such  as,  like 
Sparta,  did  not  depend  upon  foreign  commerce.  Kings,  like  those 
of  Homeric  Greece,  had  been  succeeded  by  an  aristocratic  republic. 
Gradually,  while  the  aristocratic  element,  embodied  in  the  Senate, 
remained  powerful,  democratic  elements  were  added ;  the  resulting 
compromise  was  regarded  by  Panaetius  the  Stoic  (whose  views 
are  reproduced  by  Polybius  and  Cicero)  as  an  ideal  combination 
of  monarchical,  aristocratic,  and  democratic  elements.  But  con- 
quest upset  the  precarious  balance;  it  brought  immense  new 
wealth  to  the  senatorial  class,  and,  in  a  slightly  lesser  degree,  to 
the  "knights,"  as  the  upper  middle  class  were  called.  Italian 
agriculture,  which  had  been  in  the  hands  of  small  farmers  growing 
grain  by  their  own  labour  and  that  of  their  families,  came  to  be  a 
matter  of  huge  estates  belonging  to  the  Roman  aristocracy,  where 
vines  and  olives  were  cultivated  by  slave  labour.  The  result  was 
the  virtual  omnipotence  of  the  Senate,  which  was  used  shamelessly 
for  the  enrichment  of  individuals,  without  regard  for  the  interests 
of  the  State  or  the  welfare  of  its  subjects. 

A  democratic  movement,  inaugurated  by  the  Gracchi  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  second  century  B.C.,  led  to  a  series  of  civil  wars, 
and  finally — as  so  often  in  Greece — to  the  establishment  of  a 
4 'tyranny."  It  is  curious  to  see  the  repetition,  on  such  a  vast  scale, 
of  developments  which,  in  Greece,  had  been  confined  to  minute 
areas.  Augustus,  the  heir  and  adopted  son  of  Julius  Caesar,  who 
reigned  from  30  B.C.  to  A.D.  14,  put  an  end  to  civil  strife,  and  (with 
few  exceptions)  to  external  wars  of  conquest.  For  the  first  time 
since  the  beginnings  of  Greek  civilization,  the  ancient  world 
enjoyed  peace  and  security. 

Two  things  had  ruined  the  Greek  political  system:  first,  the 
claim  of  each  city  to  absolute  sovereignty;  second,  the  bitter  and 
bloody  strife  between  rich  and  poor  within  most  cities.  After  the 
conquest  of  Carthage  and  the  Hellenistic  kingdoms,  the  first  of 
these  causes  no  longer  afflicted  the  world,  since  no  effective 
resistance  to  Rome  was  possible.  But  the  second  cause  remained. 
In  the  civil  wars,  one  general  would  proclaim  himself  the  champion 
of  the  Senate,  the  other  of  the  people.  Victory  went  to  the  one 
who  offered  the  highest  rewards  to  the  soldiers.  The  soldiers 
wanted  not  only  pay  and  plunder,  but  grants  of  land;  therefore 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

each  civil  war  ended  in  the  formally  legal  expulsion  of  many 
existing  landholders,  who  were  nominally  tenants  of  the  State,  to 
make  room  for  the  legionaries  of  the  victor.  The  expenses  of  the 
war,  while  in  progress,  were  defrayed  by  executing  rich  men  and 
confiscating  their  property.  This  system,  disastrous  as  it  was, 
could  not  easily  be  ended ;  at  last,  to  every  one's  surprise,  Augustus 
was  so  completely  victorious  that  no  competitor  remained  to 
challenge  his  claim  to  power. 

To  the  Roman  world,  the  discovery  that  the  period  of  civil 
war  was  ended  came  as  a  surprise,  which  was  a  cause  of  rejoicing 
to  all  except  a  small  senatorial  party.  To  every  one  else,  it  was  a 
profound  relief  when  Rome,  under  Augustus,  at  last  achieved  the 
stability  and  order  which  Greeks  and  Macedonians  had  sought  in 
vain,  and  which  Rome,  before  Augustus,  had  also  failed  to  pro- 
duce. In  Greece,  according  to  Rostovtseff,  republican  Rome  had 
"introduced  nothing  new,  except  pauperization,  bankruptcy,  and 
a  stoppage  of  all  independent  political  activity/'1 

The  reign  of  Augustus  was  a  period  of  happiness  for  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  administration  of  the  provinces  was  at  last  organized 
with  some  regard  to  the  welfare  of  the  population,  and  not  on  a 
purely  predatory  system.  Augustus  was  not  only  officially  deified 
after  his  death,  but  was  spontaneously  regarded  as  a  god  in  various 
provincial  cities.  Poets  praised  him,  the  commercial  classes  found 
the  universal  peace  convenient,  and  even  the  Senate,  which  he 
treated  with  all  the  outward  forms  of  respect,  lost  no  opportunity 
of  heaping  honours  and  offices  on  his  head. 

But  although  the  world  was  happy,  some  savour  had  gone  out 
of  life,  since  safety  had  been  preferred  to  adventure.  In  early  times, 
every  free  Greek  had  had  the  opportunity  of  adventure;  Philip 
and  Alexander  put  an  end  to  this  state  of  affairs,  and  in  the 
Hellenistic  world  only  Macedonian  dynasts  enjoyed  anarchic 
freedom.  The  Greek  world  lost  its  youth,  and  became  either 
cynical  or  religious.  The  hope  of  embodying  ideals  in  earthly 
institutions  faded,  and  with  it  the  best  men  lost  their  zest.  Heaven, 
for  Socrates,  was  a  place  where  he  could  go  on  arguing;  for 
philosophers  after  Alexander,  it  was  something  more  different 
from  their  existence  here  below. 

In  Rome,  a  similar  development  came  later,  and  in  a  less  painful 
form.  Rome  was  not  conquered,  as  Greece  was,  but  had,  on  the 
1  History  of  th*  Ancient  World.  Vol.  II,  p.  255. 
2Q6 


THE   ROMAN   EMPIRE   IN   RELATION   TO   CULTURE 

contrary,  the  stimulus  of  successful  imperialism.  Throughout  the 
period  of  the  civil  wars,  it  was  Romans  who  were  responsible  for 
the  disorders.  The  Greeks  had  not  secured  peace  and  order  by 
submitting  to  the  Macedonians,  whereas  both  Greeks  and  Romans 
secured  both  by  submitting  to  Augustus.  Augustus  was  a  Roman, 
to  whom  most  Romans  submitted  willingly,  not  only  on  account 
of  his  superior  power;  moreover  he  took  pains  to  disguise  the 
military  origin  of  his  government,  and  to  base  it  upon  decrees  of 
the  Senate.  The  adulation  expressed  by  the  Senate  was,  no  doubt, 
largely  insincere,  but  outside  the  senatorial  class  no  one  felt 
humiliated. 

The  mood  of  the  Romans  was  like  that  of  zjeune  homtne  range 
in  nineteenth-century  France,  who,  after  a  life  of  amatory  ad- 
venture, settles  down  to  a  marriage  of  reason.  This  mood,  though 
contented,  is  not  creative.  The  great  poets  of  the  Augustan  age 
had  been  formed  in  more  troubled  times;  Horace  fled  at  Philippi, 
and  both  he  and  Virgil  lost  their  farms  in  confiscations  for  the 
benefit  of  victorious  soldiers.  Augustus,  for  the  sake  of  stability, 
set  to  work,  somewhat  insincerely,  to  restore  ancient  piety,  and 
was  therefore  necessarily  rather  hostile  to  free  inquiry.  The 
Roman  world  began  to  become  stereotyped,  and  the  process 
continued  under  later  emperors. 

The  immediate  successors  of  Augustus  indulged  in  appalling 
cruelties  towards  Senators  and  towards  possible  competitors  for 
the  purple.  To  some  extent,  the  misgovernment  of  this  period 
extended  to  the  provinces;  but  in  the  main  the  administrative 
machine  created  by  Augustus  continued  to  function  fairly  well. 

A  better  period  began  with  the  accession  of  Trajan  in  A.D,  98, 
and  continued  until  the  death  of  Marcus  Aurelius  in  A.D.  180. 
During  this  time,  the  government  of  the  Empire  was  as  good  as 
any  despotic  government  can  be.  The  third  century,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  one  of  appalling  disaster.  The  army  realized  its  power, 
made  and  unmade  emperors  in  return  for  cash  and  the  promise 
of  a  life  without  warfare,  and  ceased,  in  consequence,  to  be  an 
effective  fighting  force.  The  barbarians,  from  north  and  east, 
invaded  and  plundered  Roman  territory.  The  army,  preoccupied 
with  private  gain  and  civil  discord,  was  incompetent  in  defence. 
The  whole  fiscal  system  broke  down,  since  there  was  an  immense 
diminution  of  resources  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  vast  increase  of 
expenditure  in  unsuccessful  war  and  in  bribery  of  the  army. 

297 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Pestilence,  in  addition  to  war,  greatly  diminished  the  population. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  Empire  was  about  to  fall. 

This  result  was  averted  by  two  energetic  men,  Diocletian  (A.D. 

286-305)  and  Constantine,  whose  undisputed  reign  lasted  from 

A.D.  312  to  337.  By  them  the  Empire  was  divided  into  an  eastern 

and  western  half,  corresponding,  approximately,  to  the  division 

between  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages.  By  Constantine  the 

capital  of  the  eastern  half  was  established  at  Byzantium,  to  which 

he  gave  the  new  name  of  Constantinople.  Diocletian  curbed  the 

army,  for  a  while,  by  altering  its  character ;  from  his  time  onwards, 

the  most  effective  fighting  forces  were  composed  of  barbarians, 

chiefly  German,  to  whom  all  the  highest  commands  were  open. 

This  was  obviously  a  dangerous  expedient,  and  early  in  the  fifth 

century  it  bore  its  natural  fruit.  The  barbarians  decided  that  it 

was  more  profitable  to  fight  for  themselves  than  for  a  Roman 

master.  Nevertheless  it  served  its  purpose  for  over  a  century. 

Diocletian's  administrative  reforms  were  equally  successful  for  a 

time,  and  equally  disastrous  in  the  long  run.  The  Roman  system 

was  to  allow  local  self-government  to  the  towns,  and  to  leave 

their  officials  to  collect  the  taxes,  of  which  only  the  total  amount 

due  from  any  one  town  was  fixed  by  the  centra)  authorities. 

This  system  had  worked  well  enough  in  prosperous  times,  but 

now,  in  the  exhausted  state  of  the  empire,  the  revenue  demanded 

was  more  than  could  be  borne  without  excessive  hardship.  The 

municipal  authorities  were  personally  responsible  for  the  taxes, 

and  fled  to  escape  payment.   Diocletian  compelled  well-to-do 

citizens  to  accept  municipal  office,  and  made  flight  illegal.  From 

similar  motives  he  turned  the  rural  population  into  serfs,  tied  to 

the  soil  and  forbidden  to  migrate.  This  system  was  kept  on  by 

later  emperors. 

Constantine's  most  important  innovation  was  the  adoption  of 
Christianity  as  the  State  religion,  apparently  because  a  large 
proportion  of  the  soldiers  were  Christian.1  The  result  of  this  was 
that  when,  during  the  fifth  century,  the  Germans  destroyed  the 
Western  Empire,  its  prestige  caused  them  to  adopt  the  Christian 
religion,  thereby  preserving  for  western  Europe  so  much  of 
ancient  civilization  as  had  been  absorbed  by  the  Church. 

The  development  of  the  territory  assigned  to  the  eastern  half 
of  the  Empire  was  different.  The  Eastern  Empire,  though  con- 

1  Sec  Rottovtteff,  Hittorv  of  the  Ancient  World,  Vol.  II,  p.  332. 

298 


THE    ROMAN    EMPIRE   IN   RELATION   TO   CULTURE 

tinually  diminishing  in  extent  (except  for  the  transient  conquests 
of  Justinian  in  the  sixth  century),  survived  until  1453,  when 
Constantinople  was  conquered  by  the  Turks.  But  most  of  what 
had  been  Roman  provinces  in  the  east,  including  also  Africa  and 
Spain  in  the  west,  became  Mohammedan.  The  Arabs,  unlike  the 
Germans,  rejected  the  religion,  but  adopted  the  civilization,  of 
those  whom  they  had  conquered.  The  Eastern  Empire  was  Greek, 
not  Latin,  in  its  civilization;  accordingly,  from  the  seventh  to  the 
eleventh  centuries,  it  was  it  and  the  Arabs  who  preserved  Greek 
literature  and  whatever  survived  of  Greek,  as  opposed  to  Latin, 
civilization.  From  the  eleventh  century  onward,  at  first  through 
Moorish  influences,  the  west  gradually  recovered  what  it  had  lost 
of  the  Grecian  heritage. 

I  come  now  to  the  four  ways  in  which  the  Roman  Empire 
affected  the  history  of  culture. 

I.  The  direct  effect  of  Rome  on  Greek  thought.  This  begins  in 
the  second  century  B.C.,  with  two  men,  the  historian  Polybius, 
and  the  Stoic  philosopher  Panaetius.  The  natural  attitude  of  the 
Greek  to  the  Roman  was  one  of  contempt  mingled  with  fear; 
the  Greek  felt  himself  more  civilized,  but  politically  less  powerful. 
If  the  Romans  were  more  successful  in  politics,  that  only  showed 
that  politics  is  an  ignoble  pursuit.  The  average  Greek  of  the 
second  century  B.C.  was  pleasure- loving,  quick-witted,  clever  in 
business,  and  unscrupulous  in  all  things.  There  were,  however, 
still  men  of  philosophic  capacity.  Some  of  these — notably  the 
sceptics,  such  as  Carneades — had  allowed  cleverness  to  destroy 
seriousness.  Some,  like  the  Epicureans  and  a  section  of  the  Stoics, 
had  withdrawn  wholly  into  a  quiet  private  life.  But  a  few,  with  more 
insight  than  had  been  shown  by  Aristotle  in  relation  to  Alexander, 
realized  that  the  greatness  of  Rome  was  due  to  certain  merits 
which  were  lacking  among  the  Greeks. 

The  historian  Polybius,  born  in  Arcadia  about  200  B.C.,  was 
sent  to  Rome  as  a  prisoner,  and  there  had  the  good  fortune  to 
become  the  friend  of  the  younger  Scipio,  whom  he  accompanied 
on  many  of  his  campaigns.  It  was  uncommon  for  a  Greek  to  know 
Latin,  though  most  educated  Romans  knew  Greek;  the  circum- 
stances of  Polybius,  however,  led  him  to  a  thorough  familiarity 
with  Latin,  lie  wrote,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Greeks,  the  history  of 
ihc  later  Punic  Wars,  which  enabled  Rome  to  conquer  the  world. 

299 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

His  admiration  of  the  Roman  constitution  was  becoming  out  of 
date  while  he  wrote,  but  until  his  time  it  had  compared  very 
favourably,  in  stability  and  efficiency,  with  the  continually 
changing  constitutions  of  most  Greek  cities.  The  Romans  naturally 
read  his  history  with  pleasure;  whether  the  Greeks  did  so  is 
more  doubtful. 

Panaetius  the  Stoic  has  been  already  considered  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  He  was  a  friend  of  Polybius,  and,  like  him,  a  protege  of 
the  younger  Scipio.  While  Scipio  lived,  he  was  frequently  in 
Rome,  but  after  Scipio's  death  in  129  B.C.  he  stayed  in  Athens 
as  head  of  the  Stoic  school.  Rome  still  had,  what  Greece  had  lost, 
the  hopefulness  connected  with  the  opportunity  for  political 
activity.  Accordingly  the  doctrines  of  Panaetius  were  more 
political,  and  less  akin  to  those  of  the  Cynics,  than  were  those  of 
earlier  Stoics.  Probably  the  admiration  of  Plato  felt  by  cultivated 
Romans  influenced  him  in  abandoning  the  dogmatic  narrowness 
of  his  Stoic  predecessors.  In  the  broader  form  given  to  it  by  him 
and  by  his  successor  Posidonius,  Stoicism  strongly  appealed  to 
the  more  serious  among  the  Romans. 

At  a  later  date,  Epictetus,  though  a  Greek,  lived  most  of  his  life 
in  Rome.  Rome  supplied  him  with  most  of  his  illustrations ;  he  is 
always  exhorting  the  wise  man  not  to  tremble  in  the  presence  of 
the  Emperor.  We  know  the  influence  of  Epictetus  on  Marcus 
Aurelius,  but  his  influence  on  the  Greeks  is  hard  to  trace. 

Plutarch  (ca.  A.D.  46-120),  in  his  Lives  of  the  Noble  Grecians  and 
Romans,  traced  a  parallelism  between  the  most  eminent  men  of 
the  two  countries.  He  spent  a  considerable  time  in  Rome,  and  was 
honoured  by  the  Emperors  Hadrian  and  Trajan.  In  addition  to 
his  Lives,  he  wrote  numerous  works  on  philosophy,  religion, 
natural  history,  and  morals.  His  Lives  are  obviously  concerned 
to  reconcile  Greece  and  Rome  in  men's  thoughts. 

On  the  whole,  apart  from  such  exceptional  men,  Rome  acted 
as  a  blight  on  the  Greek-speaking  part  of  the  Empire.  Thought 
and  art  alike  declined.  Until  the  end  of  the  second  century  A.D., 
life,  for  the  well-to-do,  was  pleasant  and  easy-going;  there  was  no 
incentive  to  strenuousness,  and  little  opportunity  for  great  achieve- 
ment. The  recognized  schools  of  philosophy— the  Academy,  the 
Peripatetics,  the  Epicureans,  and  the  Stoics — continued  to  exist 
until  they  were  closed  by  Justinian.  None  of  these,  however, 
showed  any  vitality  throughout  the  time  after  Marcus  Aurelius, 

joo 


THE   ROMAN    EMPIRE    IN   RELATION    TO   CULTURE 

except  the  Neoplatonists  in  the  third  century  A.D.,  whom  we  shall 
consider  in  the  next  chapter;  and  these  men  were  hardly  at  all 
influenced  by  Rome.  The  Latin  and  Greek  halves  of  the  Empire 
became  more  and  more  divergent;  the  knowledge  of  Greek 
became  rare  in  the  west,  and  after  Constantine  Latin,  in  the  east, 
survived  only  in  law  and  in  the  army. 

II.  The  influence  of  Greece  and  the  East  on  Rome.  There  are  here 
two  very  different  things  to  consider:  first,  the  influence  of  Hellenic 
art  and  literature  and  philosophy  on  the  most  cultivated  Romans; 
second,  the  spread  of  non-Hellenic  religions  and  superstitions 
throughout  the  Western  world. 

(i)  When  the  Romans  first  came  in  contact  with  Greeks,  they 
became  aware  of  themselves  as  comparatively  barbarous  and  ur- 
couth.  The  Greeks  were  immeasurably  their  superiors  in  many 
ways:  in  manufacture  and  in  the  technique  of  agriculture ;  in  the 
kinds  of  knowledge  that  are  necessary  for  a  good  official;  in  con- 
versation and  the  art  of  enjoying  life;  in  art  and  literature  and 
philosophy.  The  only  tilings  in  which  the  Romans  were  superior 
were  military  tactics  and  social  cohesion.  The  relation  of  the 
Romans  to  the  Creeks  was  something  like  that  of  the  Prussians 
to  the  French  in  1814  and  1815;  but  this  latter  was  temporary, 
whereas  the  other  lasted  a  long  time.  After  the  Punic  Wars,  young 
Romans  conceived  an  admiration  for  the  Greeks.  They  learnt  the 
Greek  language,  they  copied  Greek  architecture,  they  employed 
Greek  sculptors.  The  Roman  gods  were  identified  with  the  gods 
of  Greece.  The  Trojan  origin  of  the  Romans  was  invented  to 
make  a  connection  with  the  Homeric  myths.  Latin  poets  adopted 
Greek  metres,  Latin  philosophers  took  over  Greek  theories.  To 
the  end,  Rome  was  culturally  parasitic  on  Greece.  The  Romans 
invented  no  art  forms,  constructed  no  original  system  of  philo- 
sophy, and  made  no  scientific  discoveries.  They  made  good  roads, 
systematic  legal  codes,  and  efficient  armies;  for  the  rest  they 
looked  to  Greece, 

The  Hellenizing  of  Rome  brought  with  it  a  certain  softening  of 
manners,  abhorrent  to  the  elder  Cato.  Until  the  Punic  Wars,  the 
Romans  had  been  a  bucolic  people,  with  the  virtues  and  vices  ot 
farmers:  austere,  industrious,  brutal,  obstinate,  and  stupid.  Their 
family  life  had  been  stable  and  solidly  built  on  the  patria  potestas; 
women  ;md  young  people  were  completely  subordinated.  All  this 

301 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

• 

changed  with  the  influx  of  sudden  wealth.  The  small  farms  dis- 
appeared, and  were  gradually  replaced  by  huge  estates  on  which 
slave  labour  was  employed  to  carry  out  new  scientific  kinds  of 
agriculture.  A  great  class  of  traders  grew  up,  and  a  large  number 
of  men  enriched  by  plunder,  like  the  nabobs  in  eighteenth-century 
England.  Women,  who  had  been  virtuous  slaves,  became  free  and 
dissolute;  divorce  became  common;  the  rich  ceased  to  have 
children.  The  Greeks,  who  had  gone  through  a  similar  develop- 
ment centuries  ago,  encouraged,  by  their  example,  what  historians 
call  the  decay  of  morals.  Even  in  the  most  dissolute  times  of  the 
Empire,  the  average  Roman  still  thought  of  Rome  as  the  upholder 
of  a  purer  ethical  standard  against  the  decadent  corruption  of 
Greece. 

The  cultural  influence  ot  Greece  on  the  Western  Kmpire 
diminished  rapidly  from  the  third  century  A.D.  onwards,  chiefly 
because  culture  in  general  decayed.  For  this  there  were  many 
causes,  but  one  in  particular  must  be  mentioned.  In  the  last  times 
of  the  Western  Empire,  the  government  was  more  undisguised!}* 
a  military  tyranny  than  it  had  been,  and  the  army  usually  selected 
a  successful  general  as  emperor;  but  the  army,  even  in  its  highest 
ranks,  was  no  longer  composed  of  cultivated  Romans,  but  of  semi- 
barbarians  from  the  frontier.  These  rough  soldiers  had  no  use  for 
culture,  and  regarded  the  civilized  citizens  solely  as  sources  of 
revenue.  Private  persons  were  too  impoverished  to  support  much 
in  the  way  of  education,  and  the  State  considered  education  un- 
necessary. Consequently,  in  the  West,  only  a  few  men  of  excep- 
tional learning  continued  to  read  Greek. 

(2)  Non-Hellenic  religion  and  superstition,  on  the  contrary, 
acquired,  as  time  went  on,  a  firmer  and  firmer  hold  on  the  West. 
We  have  already  seen  how  Alexander's  conquests  introduced  the 
Greek  world  to  the  beliefs  of  Babylonians,  Persians,  and  Egyptians. 
Similarly  the  Roman  conquests  made  the  Western  world  familiar 
with  these  doctrines,  and  also  with  those  of  Jews  and  Christians. 
I  shall  consider  what  concerns  the  Jews  anJ  Christians  at  a  later 
stage;  for  the  present,  I  shall  confine  myself  as  far  as  possible  to 
pagan  superstitions.1 

In  Rome  every  sect  and  every  prophet  was  represented,  and 
sometimes  won  favour  in  the  highest  government  circles.  Lucian, 
who  stood  for  sane  scepticism  in  spite  of  the  credulity  of  his  age. 
*  See  Cumom,  Oriental  Religion*  in  Roman  Paganism. 


THE    ROMAN    EMPIRE   IN    RELATION    TO   CULTURE 

tcfls  an  amusing  story,  generally  accepted  as  broadly  true,  about 
a  prophet  and  miracle-worker  called  Alexander  the  Paphlagonian. 
This  man  healed  the  sick  and  foretold  the  future,  with  excursions 
into  blackmail.  His  fame  reached  the  ears  of  Marcus  Aurelius, 
then  fighting  the  Marcomanni  on  the  Danube.  The  Emperor 
consulted  him  as  to  how  to  win  the  war,  and  was  told  that  if  he 
threw  two  lions  into  the  Danube  a  great  victory  would  result.  He 
followed  the  advice  of  the  seer,  but  it  was  the  Marcomanni  who 
won  the  great  victor)'.  In  spite  of  this  mishap,  Alexander's  fame 
continued  to  grow.  A  prominent  Roman  of  consular  rank,  Ruti- 
lianus, after  consulting  him  on  many  points,  at  last  sought  his 
advice  as  to  the  choice  of  a  wife.  Alexander,  like  Endymion,  had 
enjoyed  the  favours  of  the  moon,  and  by  her  had  a  daughter, 
whom  the  oracle  recommended  to  Rutilianus.  "Rutilianus,  who 
was  at  the  time  sixty  years  old,  at  once  complied  with  the  divine 
injunction,  and  celebrated  his  marriage  by  sacrificing  whole 
hecatombs  to  his  celestial  mother-in-law."1 

More  important  than  the  career  of  Alexander  the  Paphlagonian 
was  the  reign  of  the  Krnperor  Klagabalus  or  Heliogabalus  (A.D.  218- 
22),  who  was,  until  his  elevation  by  the  choice  of  the  army,  a 
Syrian  priest  of  the  sun.  In  his  slow  progress  from  Syria  to  Rome, 
he  was  preceded  by  his  portrait,  sent  as  a  present  to  the  Senate. 
"He  was  drawn  in  his  sacerdotal  robes  of  silk  and  gold,  after  the 
loose  flowing  fashion  of  the  Medes  and  Phoenicians;  his  head 
was  covered  with  a  lofty  tiara,  his  numerous  collars  and  bracelets 
were  adorned  with  gems  of  inestimable  value.  His  eyebrows  were 
tinged  with  black,  and  his  cheeks  painted  with  an  artificial  red 
and  white.  The  grave  senators  confessed  with  a  sigh,  that,  after 
having  long  experienced  the  stern  tyranny  of  their  own  country- 
men, Rome  was  at  length  humbled  beneath  the  effeminate  luxury 
of  Oriental  despotism."1  Supported  by  a  large  section  in  the  army, 
he  proceeded,  with  fanatical  zeal,  to  introduce  in  Rome  the 
religious  practices  of  the  East ;  his  name  was  that  of  the  sun-god 
worshipped  at  Emesa,  where  he  had  been  chief  priest.  His  mother, 
or  grandmother,  who  was  the  real  ruler,  perceived  that  he  had 
Kone  too  far,  and  deposed  him  in  favour  of  her  nephew  Alexander 
(222-35),  who«e  Oriental  proclivities  were  more  moderate.  The 
mixture  of  creeds  that  wa$  possible  in  his  day  was  illustrated  in 

•  Brnn,  Tht  Check  PMlmofhen.  Vol.  II,  p.  226. 

•  Gibbon,  chap.  vi. 

303 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

his  private  chapel,  in  which  he  placed  the  statues  of  Abraham 
Orpheus,  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  and  Christ. 
.  The  religion  of  Mithras,  which  was  of  Persian  origin,  was  a 
close  competitor  of  Christianity,  especially  during  the  latter  half 
of  the  third  century  A.D.  The  emperors,  who  were  making  desperate 
attempts  to  control  the  army,  felt  that  religion  might  give  a  much 
needed  stability;  but  it  would  have  to  be  one  of  the  new  religions, 
since  it  was  these  that  the  soldiers  favoured.  The  cult  was  intro- 
duced at  Rome,  and  had  much  to  commend  it  to  the  military  mind. 
Mithras  was  a  sun-god,  but  not  so  effeminate  as  his  Syrian  col- 
league ;  he  was  a  god  concerned  with  war,  the  great  war  between 
good  and  evil  which  had  been  part  of  the  Persian  creed  since 
Zoroaster.  Rostovtseff1  reproduces  a  bas-relief  representing  his 
worship,  which  was  found  in  a  subterranean  sanctuary  at  Heddern- 
heim  in  Germany,  and  shows  that  his  disciples  must  have  been 
numerous  among  the  soldiers,  not  only  in  the  East,  but  in  the 
West  also. 

Constantine's  adoption  of  Christianity  was  politically  successful, 
whereas  earlier  attempts  to  introduce  a  new  religion  failed;  but 
the  earlier  attempts  were,  from  a  governmental  point  of  view,  very 
similar  to  his.  All  alike  derived  their  possibility  of  success  from 
the  misfortunes  and  weariness  of  the  Roman  world.  The  traditional 
religions  of  Greece  and  Rome  were  suited  to  men  interested  in  the 
terrestrial  world,  and  hopeful  of  happiness  on  earth.  Asia,  with  a 
longer  experience  of  despair,  had  evolved  more  successful  anti- 
dotes in  the  form  of  other-worldly  hopes;  of  all  these,  Christianity 
was  the  most  effective  in  bringing  consolation.  But  Christianity, 
by  the  time  it  became  the  State  religion,  had  absorbed  much  from 
Greece,  and  transmitted  this,  along  with  the  Judaic  element,  to 
succeeding  ages  in  the  West. 

III.  The  unification  of  government  and  culture.  We  owe  it  first 

to  Alexander  and  then  to  Rome  that  the  achievements  of  the  great 

age  of  Greece  were  not  lost  to  the  world,  like  those  of  the  Minoan 

age.  In  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  a  Jenghiz  Khan,  if  one  had  happened 

to  arise,  could  have  wiped  out  all  that  was  important  in  the 

Hellenic  world;  Xerxes,  with  a  little  more  competence,  might 

have  made  Greek  civilization  very  greatly  inferior  to  what  it 

became  after  he  was  repulsed.  Consider  the  period  from  Aeschylus 

1  History  of  the  Ancient  World,  Vol.  II,  p.  343. 

304 


THE   ROMAN    EMPIRE   IN    RELATION   TO   CULTURE 

to  Plato:  all  that  was  done  in  this  time  was  done  by  a  minority 
of  the  population  of  a  few  commercial  cities.  These  cities,  as  the 
future  showed,  had  no  great  capacity  for  withstanding  foreign 
conquest,  but  by  an  extraordinary  stroke  of  good  fortune  their 
conquerors,  Macedonian  and  Roman,  were  Philhellenes,  and  did 
not  destroy  what  they  conquered,  as  Xerxes  or  Carthage  would 
have  done.  The  fact  that  we  are  acquainted  with  what  was  done 
by  the  (1  reeks  in  an  and  literature  and  philosophy  and  science 
is  due  to  the  stability  introduced  by  Western  conquerors  who  had 
the  good  sense  to  admire  the  civilization  which  they  governed 
but  did  their  utmost  to  preserve. 

In  certain  respects,  political  and  ethical,  Alexander  and  the 
Romans  were  the  causes  of  a  better  philosophy  than  any  that  was 
professed  by  Greeks  in  their  days  of  freedom.  The  Stoics,  as  we 
have  seen,  believed  in  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  did  not  confine 
their  sympathies  to  the  Greeks.  The  long  dominion  of  Rome 
accustomed  men  to  the  idea  of  a  single  civilization  under  a  single 
government,  li'e  are  aware  that  there  were  important  parts  of  the 
world  which  were  not  subject  to  Rome — India  and  China,  more 
especially.  But  to  the  Roman  it  seemed  that  outside  the  Empire  there 
were  only  more  or  less  barbarian  tribes,  who  might  be  conquered 
whenever  it  should  be  worth  while  to  make  the  effort.  Essentially 
and  in  idea,  the  empire,  in  the  minds  of  the  Romans,  was  world- 
wide. This  conception  descended  to  the  Church,  which  was 
"Catholic"  in  spite  of  Buddhists,  Confucians,  and  (later)  Moham- 
medans. tSVruriis  judicat  orbis  terrarum  is  a  maxim  taken  over  by 
ihr  Church  from  the  later  Stoics;  it  owes  its  appeal  to  the  apparent 
uimcr&ality  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Throughout  the  Middle  Ages, 
after  the  time  of  Charlemagne,  the  Church  and  the  Holy  Roman 
Kmpirt  were  world-xude  in  idea,  although  everybody  knew  that 
they  were  not  so  in  fact.  The  conception  of  one  human  family, 
one  Catholic  religion,  one  universal  culture,  and  one  world-wide 
State,  has  haunted  men's  thoughts  ever  since  its  approximate 
realization  by  Rome. 

The  part  played  by  Rome  in  enlarging  the  area  of  civilization 
was  of  immense  importance.  Northern  Italy,  Spain,  France,  and 
parts  of  western  Germany,  were  civilized  as  a  result  of  forcible 
conquest  by  the  Roman  legions.  All  these  regions  proved  them- 
selves just  as  capable  of  a  high  level  of  culture  as  Rome  itself. 
In  the  last  days  of  the  Western  Empire,  Gaul  produced  men  who 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

were  at  least  the  equals  of  their  contemporaries  in  regions  of 
older  civilization.  It  was  owing  to  the  diffusion  of  culture  by 
Rome  that  the  barbarians  produced  only  a  temporary  eclipse, 
not  a  permanent  darkness.  It  may  be  argued  that  the  quality  of 
civilization  was  never  again  as  good  as  in  the  Athens  of  Pericles; 
but  in  a  world  of  war  and  destruction,  quantity  is,  in  the  long 
run,  almost  as  important  as  quality,  and  quantity  was  due  to 
Rome. 

IV.  The  Mohammedans  as  vehicles  of  Hellenism.  In  the  seventh 
century,  the  disciples  of  the  Prophet  conquered  Syria,  Egypt,  and 
North  Africa;  in  the  following  century,  they  conquered  Spain. 
Their  victories  were  easy,  and  the  fighting  was  slight.  Except 
possibly  during  the  first  few  years,  they  were  not  fanatical; 
Christians  and  Jews  were  unmolested  so  long  as  they  paid  the 
tribute.  Very  soon  the  Arabs  acquired  the  civilization  of  the 
Eastern  Empire,  but  with  the  hopefulness  of  a  rising  polity 
instead  of  the  weariness  of  decline.  Their  learned  men  read 
Greek  authors  in  translation,  and  wrote  commentaries.  Aristotle's 
reputation  is  mainly  due  to  them ;  in  antiquity,  he  was  not  regarded 
as  on  a  level  with  Plato. 

It  is  instructive  to  consider  some  of  the  words  that  we  derive 
from  Arabic,  such  as:  algebra,  alcohol,  alchemy,  alembic,  alkali, 
azimuth,  zenith.  With  the  exception  of  "alcohol"— which  meant, 
not  a  drink,  but  a  substance  used  in  chemistr  —these  words 
would  give  a  good  picture  of  some  of  the  things  we  owe  to  the 
Arabs.  Algebra  had  been  invented  by  the  Alexandrian  Greeks, 
but  was  carried  further  by  the  Mohammedans.  "Alchemy/ 
"alembic,"  "alkali"  are  words  connected  with  the  attempt  to 
turn  base  metals  into  gold,  which  the  Arabs  took  over  from  the 
Greeks,  and  in  pursuit  of  which  they  appealed  to  Greek  philo- 
sophy.1 "Azimuth"  and  "zenith"  are  astronomical  terms,  chiefly 
useful  to  the  Arabs  in  connection  with  astrology. 

The  etymological  method  conceals  what  we  owe  to  the  Arabs 
as  regards  knowledge  of  Greek  philosophy,  because,  when  it  was 
again  studied  in  Europe,  the  technical  term*  required  were  taken 
from  Greek  or  Latin.  In  philosophy,  the  Arabs  were  better  as 
commentators  than  as  original  thinkers.  Their  importance,  for  us, 

1  Sec  Alchemy,  Child  of  Greek  Philtxaphy,  by  Arthur  John  Hopkin*, 
Columbia,  1934. 

306 


THE   ROMAN   EMPIRE   IN   RELATION   TO   CULTURE 

is  that  they,  and  not  the  Christians,  were  the  immediate  inheritors 
of  those  parts  of  the  Greek  tradition  which  only  the  Eastern 
Empire  had  kept  alive.  Contact  with  the  Mohammedans,  in  Spain, 
and  to  a  lesser  extent  in  Sicily,  made  the  West  aware  of  Aristotle; 
also  ot  Arabic  numerals,  algebra,  and  chemistry.  It  was  this 
contact  that  began  the  revival  of  learning  in  the  eleventh  century, 
leading  to  the  Scholastic  philosophy.  It  was  later,  from  the 
thirteenth  century  onward,  that  the  study  of  Greek  enabled  men 
to  go  direct  to  the  works  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  and  other  Greek 
writers  of  antiquity.  Rut  if  the  Arabs  had  not  preserved  the 
tradition,  the  men  of  the  Renaissance  might  not  have  suspected 
how  much  was  to  he  gained  by  the  revival  of  classical  learning. 


307 


Chapter  XXX 
PLOTINUS 

PLOTINUS  (A.D.  204-70),  the  founder  of  Neoplatonism,  is 
the  last  of  the  great  philosophers  of  antiquity.  His  life  is 
almost  coextensive  with  one  of  the  most  disastrous  periods 
in  Roman  history.  Shortly  before  his  birth,  the  army  had  become 
conscious  of  its  power,  and  had  adopted  the  practice  of  choosing 
emperors  in  return  for  monetary  rewards,  and  assassinating  them 
afterwards  to  give  occasion  for  a  renewed  sale  of  the  empire. 
These  preoccupations  unfitted  the  soldiers  for  the  defence  of  the 
frontier,  and  permitted  vigorous  incursions  of  Germans  from  the 
north  and  Persians  from  the  Hast.  War  and  pestilence  diminished 
the  population  of  the  empire  by  about  a  third,  while  increased 
taxation  and  diminished  resources  caused  financial  ruin  in  even 
those  provinces  to  which  no  hostile  forces  penetrated.  The  cities, 
which  had  been  the  bearers  of  culture,  were  especially  hard  hit ; 
substantial  citizens,  in  large  numbers,  fled  to  escape  the  tax* 
collector.  It  was  not  till  after  the  death  of  Plotinus  that  order  was 
re-established  and  the  empire  temporarily  saved  by  the  vigorous 
measures  of  Diocletian  and  Constantine. 

Of  all  this  there  is  no  mention  in  the  works  of  Plotinus.  He 
turned  aside  from  the  spectacle  of  ruin  and  misery  in  the  actual 
world,  to  contemplate  an  eternal  world  ot  goodness  and  beauty. 
In  this  he  was  in  harmony  with  all  the  most  serious  men  of  his 
age.  To  all  of  them,  Christians  and  pagans  alike,  the  world  of 
practical  affairs  seemed  to  offer  no  hope,  and  only  the  Other 
World  seemed  worthy  of  allegiance.  To  the  Christian,  the  Other 
World  was  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  to  be  enjoyed  after  death; 
to  the  Platonist,  it  was  the  eternal  world  of  ideas,  the  real  world 
as  opposed  to  that  of  illusory  appearance.  Christian  theologians 
combined  these  points  of  view,  and  embodied  much  of  the  philo- 
sophy of  Plotinus.  Dean  Inge,  in  his  invaluable  book  on  Plotinus, 
rightly  emphasizes  what  Christianity  owes  to  him.  "Platonism," 
he  says,  "is  part  of  the  vital  structure  of  Christian  theology,  with 
which  no  other  philosophy,  I  venture  to  say.  can  work  without 
friction/'  There  is,  he  says,  an  "utter  impossibility  of  excising 
Platonism  from  Christianity  without  tearing  Christianity  to 

308 


PLOTINUS 

pieces."  He  points  out  that  Saint  Augustine  speaks  of  Plato's 
system  as  "the  most  pure  and  bright  in  all  philosophy/'  and  of 
Plotinus  as  a  man  in  whom  "Plato  lived  again,"  and  who,  if  he 
had  lived  a  little  later,  would  have  "changed  a  few  words  and 
phrases  and  become  Christian."  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  according 
to  Dean  Inge,  "is  nearer  to  Plotinus  than  to  the  real  Aristotle." 

Plotinus,  accordingly,  is  historically  important  as  an  influence 
in  moulding  the  Christianity  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  Catholic 
theology.  The  historian,  in  speaking  of  Christianity,  has  to  be 
careful  to  recognize  the  very  great  changes  that  it  has  undergone, 
and  the  variety  of  forms  that  it  may  assume  even  at  one  epoch. 
The  Christianity  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  is  almost  innocent  of 
metaphysics.  The  Christianity  of  modern  America,  in  this  respect, 
is  like  primitive  Christianity;  Platonism  is  alien  to  popular  thought 
and  feeling  in  the  United  States,  and  most  American  Christians 
are  much  mere  concerned  with  duties  here  on  earth,  and  with 
social  progress  in  the  everyday  world,  than  with  the  transcendental 
hopes  that  consoled  men  when  everything  terrestrial  inspired 
despair.  I  am  not  speaking  of  any  change  of  dogma,  but  of  a 
difference  of  emphasis  and  interest.  A  modern  Christian,  unless 
he  realizes  how  great  this  difference  is,  will  fail  to  understand  the 
Christianity  of  the  past.  We,  since  our  study  is  historical,  are  con- 
cerned with  the  effective  beliefs  of  past  centuries,  and  as  to  these 
it  is  impossible  to  disagree  with  what  Dean  Inge  says  on  the 
influence  of  Plato  and  Plotinus. 

Plotinus,  however,  is  not  only  historically  important.  He  repre- 
sents, better  than  any  other  philosopher,  an  important  type  of 
theory.  A  philosophical  system  may  be  judged  important  for 
various  different  kinds  of  reasons.  The  first  and  most  obvious  is 
that  we  think  it  may  be  true.  Not  many  students  of  philosophy 
at  the  present  time  would  feel  this  about  Plotinus;  Dean  Inge  is, 
in  this  respect,  a  rare  exception.  But  truth  is  not  the  only  merit 
that  a  mctaphysic  can  possess.  It  may  have  beauty,  and  this  is 
certainly  to  be  found  in  Plotinus;  there  are  passages  that  remind 
one  of  the  later  cantos  of  Dante's  Paradise,  and  of  almost  nothing 
else  in  literature.  Now  and  again,  his  descriptions  of  the  eternal 

world  of  glory 

To  our  high-wrought  fantasy  present 
That  undisturbed  song  of  pure  concent 
Aye  sung  before  the  sapphire-coloured  throne 
To  Him  that  sits  thereon. 
309 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Again,  a  philosophy  may  be  important  because  it  expresses  well 
what  men  are  prone  to  believe  in  certain  moods  or  in  certain  cir- 
cumstances. Uncomplicated  joy  and  sorrow  is  not  matter  for 
philosophy,  but  rather  for  the  simpler  kinds  of  poetry  and  music. 
Only  joy  and  sorrow  accompanied  by  reflection  on  the  universe 
generate  metaphysical  theories.  A  man  may  be  a  cheerful  pessimist 
or  a  melancholy  optimist.  Perhaps  Samuel  Butler  may  serve  as 
an  example  of  the  first;  Plotinus  is  an  admirable  example  of  the 
second.  In  an  age  such  as  that  in  which  he  lived,  unhappiness  is 
immediate  and  pressing,  whereas  happiness,  if  attainable  at  all, 
must  be  sought  by  reflection  upon  things  that  are  remote  from  the 
impressions  of  sense.  Such  happiness  has  in  it  always  an  element 
of  strain ;  it  is  very  unlike  the  simple  happiness  of  a  child.  And 
since  it  is  not  derived  from  the  everyday  world,  but  from  thought 
and  imagination,  it  demands  a  power  of  ignoring  or  despising  the 
life  of  the  senses.  It  is,  therefore,  not  those  who  enjoy  instinctive 
happiness  who  invent  the  kinds  of  metaphysical  optimism  that 
depend  upon  belief  in  the  reality  of  a  super-sensible  world.  Among 
the  men  who  have  been  unhappy  in  a  mundane  sense,  but  reso- 
lutely determined  to  find  a  higher  happiness  in  the  world  of 
theory,  Plotinus  holds  a  very  high  place. 

Nor  are  his  purely  intellectual  merits  by  any  means  to  be 
despised.  He  has,  in  many  respects,  clarified  Plato's  teaching;  he 
has  developed,  with  as  much  consistency  as  possible,  the  type  of 
theory  advocated  by  him  in  common  with  many  others.  His 
arguments  against  materialism  are  good,  and  his  whole  conception 
of  the  relation  of  soul  and  body  is  clearer  than  that  of  Plato  or 
Aristotle. 

Like  Spinoza,  he  has  a  certain  kind  of  moral  purity  and  loftiness, 
which  is  very  impressive.  He  is  always  sincere,  never  shrill  or 
censorious,  invariably  concerned  to  tell  the  reader,  as  simply  as 
he  can,  what  he  believes  to  be  important.  Whatever  one  may  think 
of  him  as  a  theoretical  philosopher,  it  is  impossible  not  to  love 
him  as  a  man. 

The  life  of  Plotinus  is  known,  so  far  as  it  is  known,  through  the 
biography  written  by  his  friend  and  disciple  Porphyry,  a  Semite 
whose  real  name  was  Malchus.  There  are,  however,  miraculous 
elements  in  this  account,  which  maker  it  difficult  to  place  a  complete 
reliance  upon  its  more  credible  portions. 
Plotinus  considered  his  spatio-temporal  appearance  unim~ 

310 


PLOTINU8 


portant,  and  was  loath  to  talk  about  the  accidents  of  his  historical 
existence.  He  stated,  however,  that  he  was  born  in  Egypt,  and  it 
is  known  that  as  a  young  man  he  studied  in  Alexandria,  where 
he  lived  until  the  age  of  thirty-nine,  and  where  his  teacher  was 
Ammonius  Saccas,  often  regarded  as  the  founder  of  Neoplatonism. 
He  then  joined  the  expedition  of  the  Emperor  Gordian  III  against 
the  Persians,  with  the  intention,  it  is  said,  of  studying  the  religions 
of  the  East.  The  Emperor  was  still  a  youth,  and  was  murdered  by 
the  army,  as  was  at  that  time  the  custom.  This  occurred  during 
his  campaign  in  Mesopotamia  in  A.D.  244.  Plotinus  thereupon 
abandoned  his  oriental  projects  and  settled  in  Rome,  where 
he  soon  began  to  teach.  Among  his  hearers  were  many  influen- 
tial men,  and  he  was  favoured  by  the  Emperor  Gallienus.1  At 
one  time  he  formed  a  project  of  founding  Plato's  Republic  in 
Campania,  and  building  for  the  purpose  a  new  city  to  be  called 
Platonopolis.  The  Kmperor,  at  first,  was  favourable,  but  ulti- 
mately withdrew  his  permission.  It  may  seem  strange  that  there 
should  be  room  for  a  new  city  so  near  Rome,  but  probably  by  that 
time  the  region  was  malarial,  as  it  is  now,  but  had  not  been  earlier. 
He  wrote  nothing  until  the  age  of  forty-nine;  after  that,  he  wrote 
much.  His  works  \u-re  edited  and  arranged  by  Porphyry,  who 
was  more  Pythagorean  than  Plotinus,  and  caused  the  Neoplatonist 
school  to  become  more  supernaturilist  than  it  would  have  been 
if  it  had  followed  Plotinns  more  faithfully. 

The  respect  of  Plotinus  for  Plato  is  very  great;  Plato  is  usually 
alluded  to  as  "He."  In  general,  the  "blessed  ancients"  are  treated 
with  reverence,  but  this  reverence  does  not  extend  to  the  atomists. 
The  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  being  still  active,  are  controverted, 
the  Stoics  only  for  their  materialism,  the  Epicureans  for  every 
part  of  their  philosophy.  Aristotle  plays  a  larger  part  than  appears, 
as  borrowings  from  him  are  often  unacknowledged.  One  feels  the 
influence  of  Parmenides  at  many  points. 

The  Plato  of  Plotinus  is  not  so  full-blooded  as  the  real  Plato. 

•  Concerning  Gailienus,  Gibbon  remarks :  "He  was  a  master  of  several 
curieTbttl  JL  ^-nccs,  a  ready  orator  and  -  e  egant  poe^i i*dftd 
excellent  cook,  and  most  contemptible  pnnce.  When  the 
iet  of  the  St,te  required  his  presence  and  attention   he 
convention  with  the  philosopher  Plotmus,  wasting  hi, 
or  licentious  pleasure.,  preparing  his  .motto. ,  »  the 
in  myU  or  eliciting  a  place  in  the  Areopagus  of  Athens 
'chap.  x). 

3" 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

The  theory  of  ideas,  the  mystical  doctrines  of  the  Phaedo  and  of 
Book  VI  of  the  Republic,  and  the  discussion  of  love  in  the  Sym- 
posium, make  up  almost  the  whole  of  Plato  as  he  appears  in  the 
Emieads  (as  the  books  of  Plotinus  are  called).  The  political  interests, 
the  search  for  definitions  of  separate  virtues,  the  pleasure  in 
mathematics,  the  dramatic  and  affectionate  appreciation  of  indi- 
viduals, and  above  all  the  playfulness  of  Plato,  are  wholly  absent 
from  Plotinus.  Plato,  as  Carlyle  said,  is  "very  much  at  his  ease 
in  Zion";  Plotinus,  on  the  contrary,  is  always  on  his  best  behaviour. 
The  metaphysics  of  Plotinus  begins  with  a  Holy  Trinity:  The 
One,  Spirit  and  Soul.  These  three  are  not  equal,  like  the  Persons 
of  the  Christian  Trinity;  the  One  is  supreme,  Spirit  conies  next, 
and  Soul  last.1 

The  One  is  somewhat  shadowy.  It  is  sometimes  called  God, 
sometimes  the  Good ;  it  transcends  Being,  which  is  the  first  sequent 
upon  the  One.  We  must  not  attribute  predicates  to  it,  but  only 
say  "It  is."  (This  is  reminiscent  of  Parmenides.)  It  would  be  a 
mistake  to  speak  of  God  as  "the  All,"  because  God  transcends 
the  All.  God  is  present  through  all  things.  The  One  can  be  present 
without  any  coming:  ** while  it  is  nowhere,  nowhere  is  it  not." 
Although  the  One  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  Good,  we  arc- 
also  told  that  it  precedes  both  the  Good  and  the  Beautiful.* 
Sometimes,  the  One  appears  to  resemble  Aristotle's  God;  we  arc 
told  that  God  has  no  need  of  His  derivatives,  and  ignores  the 
created  world.  The  One  is  indefinable,  and  in  regard  to  it  there 
is  more  truth  in  silence  than  in  any  words  whatever. 

We  now  come  to  the  Second  Person,  whom  Plotinus  calls  nous. 
It  is  always  difficult  to  find  an  English  word  to  represent  nous. 
The  standard  dictionary  translation  is  "mind,"  but  this  does  not 
have  the  correct  connotations,  particularly  when  the  word  is  used 
in  a  religious  philosophy.  If  we  were  to  say  that  Plotinus  put 
mind  above  soul,  we  should  give  a  completely  wrong  impression. 
McKenna,  the  translator  of  Plotinus,  uses  "Intellectual-Principle/' 
but  this  is  awkward,  and  does  not  suggest  an  object  suitable  for 
religious  veneration.  Dean  Inge  uses  "Spirit,"  which  is  perhaps 

1  Origen,  who  waa  a  contemporary  of  Plotinus  and  had  the  tame  teacher 
to  philosophy,  taught  that  the  Fiitt  Pcnon  waa  auperior  to  the  Second, 
and  the  Second  to  the  Third,  agreeing  in  (hit  with  Plotinua.  But 
view  wa*  aubaequently  declared  heretical. 

1  Ftfth  Ermtad,  Fifth  Tractate,  chap.  12. 

3'* 


PLOTINUS 

the  best  word  available.  But  it  leaves  out  the  intellectual  element 
which  was  important  in  all  Greek  religious  philosophy  after 
Pythagoras.  Mathematics,  the  world  of  ideas,  and  all  thought 
about  what  is  not  sensible,  have,  for  Pythagoras,  Plato,  and 
Plotinus,  something  divine;  they  constitute  the  activity  of  nous, 
or  at  least  the  nearest  approach  to  its  activity  that  we  can  conceive. 
It  was  this  intellectual  element  in  Plato's  religion  that  led  Chris- 
tians—notably the  author  of  Saint  John's  Gospel— to  identify 
Christ  with  the  Logos.  Logos  should  be  translated  "reason"  in  this 
connection ;  this  prevents  us  from  using  "reason"  as  the  translation 
of  nous.  I  shall  follow  Dean  Inge  in  using  "Spirit,"  but  with  the 
proviso  that  nous  has  an  intellectual  connotation  which  is  absent 
from  "Spirit"  as  usually  understood.  But  often  I  shall  use  the 
word  nous  untranslated. 

Nous,  we  are  told,  is  the  image  of  the  One;  it  is  engendered 
because  the  One,  in  its  self-quest,  has  vision;  this  seeing  is  nous. 
This  is  a  difficult  conception.  A  Being  without  parts,  Plotinus  says, 
may  know  itself;  in  this  case,  the  seer  and  the  seen  are  one.  In 
God,  who  is  conceived,  as  by  Plato,  on  the  analogy  of  the  sun,  the 
light-giver  and  what  is  lit  are  the  same.  Pursuing  the  analogy,  nous 
may  be  considered  as  the  lit^ht  by  which  the  One  sees  itself.  It  is 
possible  for  us  to  know  the  Divine  Mind,  which  we  forget  through 
self-will.  To  know  the  Divine  Mind,  we  must  study  our  own 
toul  when  it  is  most  god-like:  we  must  put  aside  the  body,  and 
the  part  of  the  soul  that  moulded  the  body,  and  "sense  with 
desires  and  impulses  and  every  such  futility";  what  is  then  left 
is  an  image  of  the  Divine  Intellect. 

"Those  divinely  possessed  and  inspired  have  at  least  the  know- 
ledge that  they  hold  some  greater  thing  within  them,  though  they 
cannot  tell  what  it  is;  from  the  movements  that  stir  them  and  the 
utterances  that  come  from  them  they  perceive  the  power,  not 
themselves,  that  moves  them:  in  the  same  way,  it  must  be,  we 
stand  towards  the  Supreme  when  we  hold  nous  pure;  we  know 
the  Divine  Mind  within,  that  which  gives  Being  and  all  else  of 
that  order:  but  we  know,  too,  that  other,  know  that  it  is  none  of 
these,  but  a  nobler  principle  than  anything  we  know  as  Being; 
fuller  and  greater;  above  reason,  mind,  and  feeling;  conferring 
these  powers,  not  to  be  confounded  with  them."1 

Thus  when  we  are  "divinely  possessed  and  inspired"  we  see  not 
1  Eimtad*.  V,  3,  14-  McKenna's  translation. 
3'3 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

only  nous,  but  also  the  One.  When  we  are  thus  in  contact  with  the 
Divine,  we  cannot  reason  or  express  the  vision  in  words ;  this  comes 
later.  "At  the  moment  of  touch  there  is  no  power  whatever  to  make 
any  affirmation;  there  is  no  leisure;  reasoning  upon  the  vision  is 
for  afterwards.  We  may  know  we  have  had  the  vision  when  the 
Soul  has  suddenly  taken  light.  This  light  is  from  the  Supreme  and 
is  the  Supreme;  we  may  believe  in  the  Presence  when,  like  that 
other  God  on  the  call  of  a  certain  man,  He  comes  bringing  light; 
the  light  is  the  proof  of  the  advent.  Thus,  the  Soul  unlit  remains 
without  that  vision;  lit,  it  possesses  what  it  sought.  And  this  is 
the  true  end  set  before  the  Soul,  to  take  that  light,  to  see  the 
Supreme  by  the  Supreme  and  not  by  the  light  of  any  other 
principle — to  see  the  Supreme  which  is  also  the  means  to  the 
vision ;  for  that  which  illumines  the  Soul  is  that  which  it  is  to  see 
just  as  it  is  by  the  sun's  own  light  that  we  see  the  sun. 

But  how  is  this  to  be  accomplished  ? 
Cut  away  everything/'1 

The  experience  of  "ecstasy"  (standing  outside  one's  own  body) 
happened  frequently  to  Plotinus: 

Many  times  it  has  happened:  Lifted  out  of  the  body  into  myself; 
becoming  external  to  all  other  things  and  self-encentred ;  behold- 
ing a  marvellous  beauty;  then,  more  than  ever,  assured  of  com- 
munity with  the  loftiest  order;  enacting  the  noblest  life,  acquiring 
identity  with  the  divine;  stationing  within  It  by  having  attained 
that  activity;  poised  above  whatsoever  in  the  Intellectual  is  less 
than  the  Supreme :  yet,  there  comes  the  moment  of  descent  from 
intellection  to  reasoning,  and  after  that  sojourn  in  the  divine,  I  ask 
myself  how  it  happens  that  I  can  now  be  descending,  and  how  did 
the  Soul  ever  enter  into  my  body,  the  Soul  which  even  within  the 
body,  is  the  high  thing  it  has  shown  itself  to  be.1 

This  brings  us  to  Soul,  the  third  and  lowest  member  of  the 
Trinity.  Soul,  though  inferior  to  nous,  is  the  author  of  all  living 
things;  it  made  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  and  the  whole  visible 
world.  It  is  the  offspring  of  the  Divine  Intellect.  It  is  double: 
there  is  an  inner  soul,  intent  on  nous,  and  another,  which  faces 
the  external.  The  latter  is  associated  with  a  downward  movement, 
in  which  the  Soul  generates  its  image,  which  is  Nature  and  the 
world  of  sense.  The  Stoics  had  identified  Nature  with  God,  but 

1  Eimtadt,  V,  3,  17.  2  IV,  8,  i 

3'4 


PLOTINU8 

Plotinus  regards  it  as  the  lowest  sphere,  something  emanating 
from  the  Soul  when  it  forgets  to  look  upward  towards  nous. 
This  might  suggest  the  Gnostic  view  that  the  visible  world  is  evil, 
but  Plotinus  does  not  take  this  view.  The  visible  world  is  beautiful, 
and  is  the  abode  of  blessed  spirits;  it  is  only  less  good  than  the 
intellectual  world.  In  a  very  interesting  controversial  discussion 
of  the  Gnostic  view,  that  the  cosmos  and  its  Creator  are  evil,  he 
admits  that  some  parts  of  Gnostic  doctrine,  such  as  the  hatred  of 
matter,  may  be  due  to  Plato,  but  holds  that  the  other  parts,  which 
do  not  come  from  Plato,  are  untrue. 

His  objections  to  Gnosticism  are  of  two  sorts.  On  the  one  hand, 
he  says  that  Soul,  when  it  creates  the  material  world,  does  so  from 
memory  of  the  divine,  and  not  because  it  is  fallen;  the  world  of 
sense,  he  thinks,  is  as  good  as  a  sensible  world  can  be.  He  feels 
strongly  the  beauty  of  things  perceived  by  the  senses: 

Who  that  truly  perceives  the  harmony  of  the  Intellectual 
Realm  could  fail,  if  he  has  any  bent  towards  music,  to  answer  to 
the  harmony  in  sensible  sounds?  What  geometrician  or  arith- 
metician could  fail  to  take  pleasure  in  the  symmetries,  corre- 
spondences and  principles  of  order  observed  in  visible  things? 
Consider,  even,  the  case  of  pictures :  those  seeing  by  the  bodily 
sense  the  productions  of  the  art  of  painting  do  not  see  the  one 
thing  in  the  one  only  way ;  they  are  deeply  stirred  by  recognizing 
in  the  objects  depicted  to  the  eyes  the  presentation  of  what  lies 
in  the  idea,  and  so  are  called  to  recollection  of  the  truth — the 
very  experience  out  of  which  Love  rises.  Now,  if  the  sight  of 
Beauty  excellently  reproduced  upon  a  face  hurries  the  mind  to 
that  other  Sphere,  surely  no  one  seeing  the  loveliness  lavish  in 
the  world  of  sense — this  vast  orderliness,  the  form  which  the  stars 
even  in  their  remoteness  display,  no  one  could  be  so  dull-witted, 
so  immoveable,  as  not  to  be  carried  by  all  this  to  recollection, 
and  gripped  by  reverent  awe  in  the  thought  of  all  this,  so  great, 
sprung  from  that  greatness.  Not  to  answer  thus  could  only  be  to 
have  neither  fathomed  this  world  nor  had  any  vision  of  that 
other  (II,  9, 16). 

There  is  another  reason  for  rejecting  the  Gnostic  view.  The 
Gnostics  think  that  nothing  divine  is  associated  with  the  sun, 
moon,  and  stars;  they  were  created  by  an  evil  spirit.  Only  the  soul 
of  man,  among  things  perceived,  has  any  goodness.  But  Plotinus 
is  firmly  persuaded  that  the  heavenly  bodies  are  the  bodies  of 

315 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

god-like  beings,  immeasurably  superior  to  man.  According  to  the 
Gnostics,  "their  own  soul,  the  soul  of  the  least  of  mankind,  they 
declare  deathless,  divine;  but  the  entire  heavens  and  the  stars 
within  the  heavens  have  had  no  communion  with  the  Immortal 
Principle,  though  these  are  far  purer  and  lovelier  than  their  own 
souls"  (II,  9,  5).  For  the  view  of  Plotinus  there  is  authority  in 
the  Timaeus,  and  it  was  adopted  by  some  Christian  Fathers,  for 
instance,  Origen.  It  is  imaginatively  attractive;  it  expresses 
feelings  that  the  heavenly  bodies  naturally  inspire,  and  makes 
man  less  lonely  in  the  physical  universe. 

There  is  in  the  mysticism  of  Plotinus  nothing  morose  or  hostile 
to  beauty.  But  he  is  the  last  religious  teacher,  for  many  centuries, 
of  whom  this  can  be  said.  Beauty,  and  all  the  pleasures  associated 
with  it,  came  to  be  thought  to  be  of  the  Devil ;  pagans,  as  well  as 
Christians,  came  to  glorify  ugliness  and  dirt.  Julian  the  Apostate, 
like  contemporary  orthodox  saints,  boasted  of  the  populousness 
of  liis  beard.  Of  all  this,  there  is  nothing  in  Plotinus. 

Matter  is  created  by  Soul,  and  has  no  independent  reality. 
Every  Soul  has  its  hour;  when  that  strikes,  it  descends,  and  enters 
the  body  suitable  to  it.  The  motive  is  not  reason,  but  something 
more  analogous  to  sexual  desire.  When  the  soul  leaves  the  body, 
it  must  enter  another  body  if  it  has  been  sinful,  for  justice  requires 
that  it  should  be  punished.  If,  in  this  life,  you  have  murdered 
your  mother,  you  will,  in  the  next  life,  be  a  woman,  and  be 
murdered  by  your  son  (HI,  2,  13).  Sin  must  be  punished;  but  the 
punishment  happens  naturally,  through  the  restless  driving  of  the 
sinner's  errors. 

Do  we  remember  this  life  after  we  are  dead  ?  The  answer  is  per- 
fectly logical,  but  not  what  most  modem  theologians  would  say. 
Memory  is  concerned  with  our  life  in  time,  whereas  our  best  and 
truest  life  is  in  eternity.  Therefore,  as  the  soul  grows  towards 
eternal  life,  it  mil  remember  less  and  less;  friends,  children,  wife, 
will  be  gradually  forgotten;  ultimately,  we  shall  know  nothing  of 
the  things  of  this  world,  but  only  contemplate  the  intellectual 
realm.  There  will  be  no  memory  of  personality,  which,  in  con- 
templative vision,  is  unaware  of  itself.  The  soul  will  become  one 
with  nous,  but  not  to  its  own  destruction :  nous  and  the  individual 
soul  will  be  simultaneously  two  and  one  (IV,  4,  2). 

In  the  Fourth  Emend,  which  is  on  the  Soul,  one  section,  the 
Seventh  Tractate,  is  devoted  to  the  discussion  of  immortality. 

116 


PLOTINUS 

The  body,  being  compound,  is  clearly  not  immortal;  if,  then, 
it  is  part  of  us,  we  are  not  wholly  immortal.  But  what  is  the  relation 
of  the  soul  to  the  body  ?  Aristotle  (who  is  not  mentioned  explicitly) 
said  the  soul  was  the  form  of  the  body,  but  Plotinus  rejects  this 
view,  on  the  ground  that  the  intellectual  act  would  be  impossible 
if  the  soul  were  any  form  of  body.  The  Stoics  think  that  the  soul 
is  material,  but  the  unity  of  the  soul  proves  that  this  is  impossible. 
Moreover,  since  matter  is  passive,  it  cannot  have  created  itself; 
matter  could  not  exist  if  soul  had  not  created  it,  and,  if  soul  did 
not  exist,  matter  would  disappear  in  a  twinkling.  The  soul  is 
neither  matter  nor  the  form  of  a  material  body,  but  Essence,  and 
Essence  is  eternal.  This  view  is  implicit  in  Plato's  argument  that 
the  soul  is  immortal  because  ideas  arc  eternal ;  but  it  is  only  with 
Plotinus  that  it  becomes  explicit. 

How  does  the  soul  enter  the  body  from  the  aloofness  of  the 
intellectual  world  ?  The  answer  is,  through  appetite.  But  appetite, 
though  sometimes  ignoble,  may  be  comparatively  noble.  At  best, 
the  soul  "has  the  desire  of  elaborating  order  on  the  model  of 
what  it  has  seen  in  the  Intellectual-Principle  (nous).99  That  is  to 
say,  soul  contemplates  the  inward  realm  of  essence,  and  wishes 
to  produce  something,  as  like  it  as  possible,  that  can  be  seen  by 
looking  without  instead  of  looking  within — like  (we  might  say)  a 
composer  who  first  imagines  his  music,  and  then  wishes  to  hear  it 
performed  by  an  orchestra. 

But  this  desire  of  the  soul  to  create  has  unfortunate  results.  So 
long  as  the  soul  lives  in  the  pure  world  of  essence,  it  is  not  separated 
from  other  souls  living  in  the  same  world ;  but  as  soon  as  it  becomes 
joined  to  a  body,  it  has  the  task  of  governing  what  is  lower  than 
itself,  and  by  this  task  it  becomes  separate  from  other  souls,  which 
have  other  bodies.  Except  in  a  few  men  at  a  few  moments,  the 
soul  becomes  chained  to  the  body.  "The  body  obscures  the  truth, 
but  there1  all  stands  out  clear  and  separate11  (IV,  9,  5). 

This  doctrine,  like  Plato's,  has  difficulty  in  avoiding  the  view 
that  the  creation  was  a  mistake.  The  soul  at  its  best  is  content 
with  nous,  the  world  of  essence ;  if  it  were  always  at  its  best,  it 
would  not  create,  but  only  contemplate.  It  seems  that  the  act  of 

4  Plotinus  habitually  uses  "There"  as  a  Christian  might — as  it  is  used, 
for  instance,  in 

The  life  that  knows  no  ending, 
The  tearless  life  is  There. 

317 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

creation  is  to  be  excused  on  the  ground  that  the  created  world, 
in  its  main  lines,  is  the  best  that  is  logically  possible;  but  this  is 
a  copy  of  the  eternal  world,  and  as  such  has  the  beauty  that  is 
possible  to  a  copy.  The  most  definite  statement  is  in  the  Tractate 
on  the  Gnostics  (II,  9,  8): 

To  ask  why  the  Soul  has  created  the  Kosmos,  is  to  ask  why  there 
is  a  Soul  and  why  a  Creator  creates.  The  question,  also,  implies  a 
beginning  in  the  eternal  and,  further,  represents  creation  as  the  act 
of  a  changeful  Being  who  turns  from  this  to  that. 

Those  that  think  so  must  be  instructed — if  they  would  but  bear 
with  correction — in  the  nature  of  the  Supernals,  and  brought  to 
desist  from  that  blasphemy  of  majestic  powers  which  comes  so 
easily  to  them,  where  all  should  be  reverent  scruple. 

Even  in  the  administration  of  the  Universe  there  is  no  ground 
for  such  attack,  for  it  affords  manifest  proof  of  the  greatness  of 
the  Intellectual  Kind. 

This  All  that  has  emerged  into  life  is  no  amorphous  structure — 
like  those  lesser  forms  within  it  which  are  born  night  and  day  out 
of  the  lavishness  of  its  vitality — the  Universe  is  a  life  organised, 
effective,  complex,  all-comprehensive,  displaying  an  unfathomable 
wisdom.  How,  then,  can  anyone  deny  that  it  is  a  clear  image,  beau- 
tifully  formed,  of  the  Intellectual  Divinities  ?  No  doubt  it  is  a  copy, 
not  original ;  but  that  is  its  very  nature ;  it  cannot  be  at  once  symbol 
and  reality.  But  to  say  that  it  is  an  inadequate  copy  is  false ;  nothing 
has  been  left  out  which  a  beautiful  representation  within  the  physi- 
cal order  could  include. 

Such  a  reproduction  there  must  necessarily  be — though  not  by 
deliberation  and  contrivance — for  the  Intellectual  could  not  be  the 
last  of  things,  but  must  have  a  double  Act,  one  within  itself,  and 
one  outgoing;  there  must,  then,  be  something  later  than  the 
Divine;  for  only  the  thing  with  which  all  power  ends  fails  to  pass 
downwards  something  of  itself. 

This  is  perhaps  the  best  answer  to  the  Gnostics  that  the  prin- 
ciples of  Plotinus  make  possible.  The  problem,  in  slightly  different 
language,  was  inherited  by  Christian  theologians ;  they,  also,  have 
found  it  difficult  to  account  for  the  creation  without  allowing  the 
blasphemous  conclusion  that,  before  it,  something  was  lacking 
to  the  Creator.  Indeed,  their  difficulty  is  greater  than  that  of 
Plotinus,  for  he  may  say  that  the  nature  of  Mind  made  creation 
inevitable,  whereas,  for  the  Christian,  the  world  resulted  from  the 
untrammelled  exercise  of  God's  free  will 


PLCtlNUS 

Plotinus  has  a  very  vivid  sense  of  a  certain  kind  of  abstract 
beauty.  In  describing  the  position  of  Intellect  as  intermediate 
between  the  One  and  Soul,  he  suddenly  bursts  out  into  a  passage 
of  rare  eloquence: 

The  Supreme  in  its  progress  could  never  be  borne  forward  upon 
some  soulless  vehicle  nor  even  directly  upon  the  Soul:  it  will  be 
heralded  by  some  ineffable  beauty:  before  the  Great  King  in  his 
progress  there  comes  first  the  minor  train,  th£n  rank  by  rank  the 
greater  and  more  exalted,  closer  to  the  King  the  kinglier;  next  his 
own  honoured  company  until,  last  among  all  these  grandeurs, 
suddenly  appears  the  Supreme  Monarch  himself,  and  all — unless 
indeed  for  those  who  have  contented  themselves  with  the  spectacle 
before  his  coming  and  gone  away — prostrate  themselves  and  hail 
him  (V,  5,  3). 

There  is  a  Tractate  on  Intellectual  Beauty,  which  shows  the 
same  kind  of  feeling  (V,  8): 

Assuredly  all  the  gods  are  august  and  beautiful  in  a  beauty 
beyond  our  speech.  And  what  makes  them  so?  Intellect;  and 
especially  Intellect  operating  within  them  (the  divine  sun  and 
stars)  to  visibility.  .  .  . 

To  "live  at  ease"  is  There;  and  to  these  divine  beings  verity  is 
mother  and  nurse,  existence  and  sustenance;  all  that  is  not  of 
process  but  of  authentic  being  they  see,  and  themselves  in  all;  for 
all  is  transparent,  nothing  dark,  nothing  resistant;  every  being  is 
lucid  to  every  other,  in  breadth  and  depth;  light  runs  through 
light.  And  each  of  them  contains  all  within  itself,  and  at  the  same 
time  sees  all  in  every  other,  so  that  everywhere  there  is  all,  and  all 
is  all  and  each  all,  and  infinite  the  glory.  Each  of  them  is  great; 
the  small  is  great ;  the  sun,  There,  is  all  the  stars ;  and  every  star, 
again,  is  all  the  stars  and  sun.  While  some  manner  of  being  is 
dominant  in  each,  all  are  mirrored  in  every  other. 

In  addition  to  the  imperfection  which  the  world  inevitably 
possesses  because  it  is  a  copy,  there  is,  for  Plotinus  as  for  the 
Christians,  the  more  positive  evil  that  results  from  sin.  Sin  is  a 
consequence  of  free  will,  which  Plotinus  upholds  as  against  the 
determinists,  and,  more  particularly,  the  astrologers.  He  does  not 
venture  to  deny  the  validity  of  astrology  altogether,  but  he  attempts 
to  set  bounds  to  it,  BO  as  to  make  what  remains  compatible  with 
free  will.  He  does  the  same  as  regards  magic;  the  sage,  he  says,  is 
exempt  from  the  power  of  the  magician.  Porphyry  relates  that  a 

3*9 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

rival  philosopher  tried  to  put  evil  spells  on  Plotinus,  but  that' 
because  of  his  holiness  and  wisdom,  the  spells  recoiled  on  the 
rival.  Porphyry,  and  all  the  followers  of  Plotinus,  are  much  more 
superstitious  than  he  is.  Superstition,  in  him,  is  as  slight  as  was 
possible  in  that  age. 

Let  us  now  endeavour  to  sum  up  the  merits  and  defects  of  the 
doctrine  taught  by  Plotinus,  and  in  the  main  accepted  by  Christian 
theology  so  long  as, it  remained  systematic  and  intellectual. 

There  is,  first  and  foremost,  the  construction  of  what  Plotinus 
believed  to  be  a  secure  refuge  for  ideals  and  hopes,  and  one,  more- 
over, which  involved  both  moral  and  intellectual  effort.  In  the 
third  century,  and  in  the  centuries  after  the  barbarian  invasion, 
western  civilization  came  near  to  total  destruction.  It  was  fortunate 
that,  while  theology  was  almost  the  sole  surviving  mental  activity, 
the  system  that  was  accepted  was  not  purely  superstitious,  but 
preserved,  though  sometimes  deeply  buried,  doctrines  which 
embodied  much  of  the  work  of  Greek  intellect  and  much  of  the 
moral  devotion  that  is  common  to  the  Stoics  and  the  Neoplatonists. 
This  made  possible  the  rise  of  the  scholastic  philosophy,  and  later, 
with  the  Renaissance,  the  stimulus  derived  from  the  renewed 
study  of  Plato,  and  thence  of  the  other  ancients. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  philosophy  of  Plotinus  has  the  defect 
of  encouraging  men  to  look  within  rather  than  to  look  without : 
when  we  look  within  we  see  nous,  which  is  divine,  while  when  we 
look  without  we  see  the  imperfections  of  the  sensible  world.  This 
kind  of  subjectivity  was  a  gradual  growth ;  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
doctrines  of  Protagoras,  Socrates,  and  Plato,  as  well  as  in  the 
Stoics  and  Epicureans.  But  at  first  it  was  only  doctrinal,  not 
temperamental ;  for  a  long  time  it  failed  to  kill  scientific  curiosity. 
We  saw  how  Posidonius,  about  100  B.C.,  travelled  to  Spain  and 
the  Atlantic  coast  of  Africa  to  study  the  tides.  Gradually,  however, 
subjectivism  invaded  men's  feelings  as  well  as  their  doctrines. 
Science  was  no  longer  cultivated,  and  only  virtue  was  thought 
important.  Virtue,  as  conceived  by  Plato,  involved  all  that  was 
then  possible  in  the  way  of  mental  achievement;  but  in  later 
centuries  it  came  to  be  thought  of,  increasingly,  as  involving  only 
the  virtuous  wiU,  and  not  a  desire  to  understand  the  physical 
world  or  improve  the  world  of  human  institutions.  Christianity, 
in  its  ethical  doctrines,  was  not  free  from  this  defect,  although  in 
practice  belief  in  the  importance  of  spreading  the  Christian  faith 

.120      * 


PLOTINUS 

gave  a  practicable  object  for  moral  activity,  which  was  no  longer 
confined  to  the  perfecting  of  self. 

Plotinus  is  both  an  end  and  a  beginning — an  end  as  regards  the 
Greeks,  a  beginning  as  regards  Christendom.  To  the  ancient  world, 
weary  with  centuries  of  disappointment,  exhausted  by  despair, 
his  doctrine  might  be  acceptable,  but  could  not  be  stimulating. 
To  the  cruder  barbarian  world,  where  superabundant  energy 
needed  to  be  restrained  and  regulated  rather  than  stimulated, 
what  could  penetrate  in  his  teaching  was  beneficial,  since  the 
evil  to  be  combated  was  not  languor  but  brutality.  The  work  of 
transmitting  what  could  survive  of  his  philosophy  was  performed 
by  the  Christian  philosophers  of  the  last  age  of  Rome. 


// u/or >  o/  W nt cr  n  l>k tttuoff h >  J 2 1 


Book  Two  CATHOLIC  PHILOSOPHY 


INTRODUCTION7 

CATHOLIC  philosophy,  in  the  sense  in  which  1  shall  use  the 
term,  is  that  which  dominated  European  thought  from 
Augustine  to  the  Renaissance.  There  have  been  philo- 
sophers, before  and  after  this  period  often  centuries,  who  belonged 
to  the  same  general  school.  Before  Augustine  there  were  the  early 
Fathers,  especially  Origen;  after  the  Renaissance  there  are  many, 
•'ncluding,  at  the  present  day,  all  orthodox  Catholic  teachers  of 
philosophy,  who  adhere  to  some  medieval  system,  especially  that 
of  Thomas  Aquinas.  But  it  is  only  from  Augustine  to  the  Re- 
naissance that  the  greatest  philosophers  of  the  age  are  concerned 
in  building  up  or  perfecting  the  Catholic  synthesis.  In  the  Christian 
centuries  before  Augustine,  Stoics  and  Neoplatonists  outshine  the 
Fathers  in  philosophic  ability;  after  the  Renaissance,  none  of  the 
outstanding  philosophers,  even  among  those  who  were  orthodox 
Catholics,  were  concerned  to  carry  on  the  Scholastic  or  the 
Augustinian  tradition. 

The  period  with  which  we  shall  be  concerned  in  this  book  differs 
from  earlier  and  later  times  not  only  in  philosophy,  but  in  many 
other  ways.  The  most  notable  of  these  is  the  power  of  the  Church. 
The  Church  brought  philosophic  beliefs  into  a  closer  relation  to 
social  and  political  circumstances  than  they  have  ever  had  before 
or  since  the  medieval  period,  which  we  may  reckon  from  about 
A.I).  400  to  about  A.D.  1400.  The  Church  is  a  social  institution 
built  upon  a  creed,  partly  philosophic,  partly  concerned  with 
sacred  history.  It  achieved  power  and  wealth  by  means  of  its  creed. 
The  lay  rulers,  who  were  in  frequent  conflict  with  it,  were  defeated 
because  the  great  majority'  of  the  population,  including  most  of 
the  lay  rulers  themselves,  were  profoundly  convinced  of  the  truth 
of  the  Catholic  faith.  There  were  traditions,  Roman  and  Germanic, 
against  which  the  Church  had  to  fight.  The  Roman  tradition  was 
strongest  in  Italy,  especially  among  lawyers;  the  German  tradition 
was  strongest  in  the  feudal  aristocracy  that  arose  out  of  the  bar- 
barian conquest.  But  for  many  centuries  neither  of  these  traditions 

122 


INTRODUCTION 

proved  strong  enough  to  generate  a  successful  opposition  to  the 
Church ;  and  this  was  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  they  were  not 
embodied  in  any  adequate  philosophy. 

A  history  of  thought,  such  as  that  upon  which  we  are  engaged, 
is  unavoidably  one-sided  in  dealing  with  the  Middle  Ages.  With 
very  few  exceptions,  all  the  men  of  this  period  who  contributed 
to  the  intellectual  life  of  their  time  were  churchmen.  The  laity 
in  the  Middle  Ages  slowly  built  up  a  vigorous  political  and 
economic  system,  but  their  activities  were  in  a  sense  blind.  There 
was  in  the  later  Middle  Ages  an  important  lay  literature,  very 
different  from  that  of  the  Church ;  in  a  general  history,  this  litera- 
ture would  demand  more  consideration  than  is  called  for  in  a 
history  of  philosophic  thought.  It  is  not  until  we  come  to  Dante 
that  we  find  a  layman  writing  with  full  knowledge  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical philosophy  of  his  time.  Until  the  fourteenth  century, 
ecclesiastics  have  a  virtual  monopoly  of  philosophy,  and  philo- 
sophy, accordingly,  is  written  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Church. 
For  this  reason,  medieval  thought  cannot  be  made  intelligible 
without  a  fairly  extensive  account  of  the  growth  of  ecclesiastical 
institutions,  and  especially  of  the  papacy. 

The  medieval  world,  as  contrasted  with  the  world  of  antiquity, 
is  characterized  by  various  forms  of  dualism.  There  is  the  dualisr 
of  clergy  and  laity,  the  dualism  of  Latin  and  Teuton,  the  duali' 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  kingdoms  of  this  world,  the  c* 
ism  of  the  spirit  and  the  flesh.  All  these  are  exemplified  ' 
dualism  of  Pope  and  Emperor.  The  dualism  of  Latin  and 
an  outcome  of  the  barbarian  invasion,  but  the  others 
sources.  The  relations  of  clergy  and  laity,  for  the 
were  to  be  modelled  on  the  relations  of  Samuel  and 
demand  for  the  supremacy  of  the  clergy  arose  out 
of  Arian  or  semi-Arian  emperors  and  kings.  The  d 
kingdom  of  God  and  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  i* 
New  Testament,  but  was  systematized  in  Saint  £     t^c  dark 
of  God.  The  dualism  of  the  spirit  and  the  flesh  '    ctivity  was 
Plato,  and  was  emphasized  by  the  Neoplatoni?*      «me  to  the 
in  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul;  and  it  domir^nstan 
asceticism  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries. 

Catholic  philosophy  is  divided  into 
ages,  during  which,  in  Western  Europe, 
almost  non-existent.  From  the 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

wars  of  Byzantines  and  Lombards  destroyed  most  of  what  re- 
mained of  the  civilization  of  Italy.  The  Arabs  conquered  most  of 
the  territory  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  established  themselves  in 
Africa  and  Spain,  threatened  France,  and  even,  on  one  occasion, 
sacked  Rome.  The  Danes  and  Normans  caused  havoc  in  France 
and  England,  in  Sicily  and  Southern  Italy.  Life,  throughout  these 
centuries,  was  precarious  and  full  of  hardship.  Bad  as  it  was  in 
reality,  gloomy  superstitions  made  it  even  worse.  It  was  thought 
that  the  great  majority  even  of  Christians  would  go  to  hell.  At 
every  moment,  men  felt  themselves  encompassed  by  evil  spirits, 
and  exposed  to  the  machinations  of  sorcerers  and  witches.  No  joy 
of  life  was  possible,  except,  in  fortunate  moments,  to  those  who 
retained  the  thoughtlessness  of  children.  The  general  misery 
heightened  the  intensity  of  religious  feeling.  The  life  of  the  good 
here  below  was  a  pilgrimage  to  the  heavenly  city;  nothing  of  value 
was  possible  in  the  sublunary  world  except  the  steadfast  virtue 
that  would  lead,  in  the  end,  to  eternal  bliss.  The  Greeks,  in  their 
great  days,  had  found  joy  and  beauty  in  the  everyday  world. 
Empedocles,  apostrophizing  his  fellow-citizens,  says:  " Friends, 
that  inhabit  the  great  city  looking  down  on  the  yellow  rock  of 
Acragas,  up  by  the  citadel,  busy  in  goodly  works,  harbour  of 
honour  for  the  stranger,  men  unskilled  in  meanness,  all  hail."  In 
later  times,  until  the  Renaissance,  men  had  no  such  simple  happi- 
ness in  the  visible  world,  but  turned  their  hopes  to  the  ur-*>'  °J 
Acragas  is  replaced  in  their  love  by  Jerusalem  the  Golden. lts  t"e 
earthly  happiness  at  last  returned,  the  intensity  of  longin-nten;sts 
other  world  grew  gradually  less.  Men  used  the  same  \f*"e 
with  a  less  profound  sincerity.  *°; 

In  the  attempt  to  make  the  genesis  and  significance  stian  reve' 
philosophy  intelligible,  I  have  found  it  necessary  to  challenged 
space  to  general  history  than  is  demanded  in  connects-  °*  systems 
ancient  or  modern  philosophy.  Catholic  philoy^^'  *n  the  *on8 
the  philosophy  of  an  institution,  namel—  ""stake,  but  in  the 
modern  philosophy,  even  when  it  r-**v;Cess*u*' 
concerned  with  problems,  espec*8'  which  had  an  air  of  complete- 
which  are  derived  from  Christ :J  bX  a  vanety  of  cause8-  Perhaps 
Catholic  doctrines  as  to  thtV2*  thc  8rowth  of  a  rich  commercial 
Graeco-Ror/*n  paganism  tl  Hewhene.  The  feudal  aristocracy,  in 
Christian,  from  the  very  begi' *tuPld-  and  barbaric;  the  common 
or,  in  political  terms,  to  Chur^rch  M  superior  to  the  nobles  in 

3*4 


INTRODUCTION 

The  problems  raised  by  this  dual  loyalty  were,  for  the  most 
part,  worked  out  in  practice  before  the  philosophers  supplied  the 
necessary  theory.  In  this  process  there  were  two  very  distinct 
stages:  one  before  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  and  one  after 
it.  The  practice  of  a  long  line  of  bishops,  culminating  in  St. 
Ambrose,  supplied  the  basis  for  St.  Augustine's  political  philo- 
sophy. Then  came  the  barbarian  invasion,  followed  by  a  long  time 
of  confusion  and  increasing  ignorance.  Between  Boethius  and 
St.  Anselm,  a  period  of  over  five  centuries,  there  is  only  one 
eminent  philosopher,  John  the  Scot,  and  he,  as  an  Irishman,  had 
largely  escaped  the  various  processes  that  were  moulding  the  rest 
of  the  Western  world.  But  this  period,  in  spite  of  the  absence  of 
philosophers,  was  not  one  during  which  there  was  no  intellectual 
development.  Chaos  raised  urgent  practical  problems,  which  were 
dealt  with  by  means  of  institutions  and  modes  of  thought  that 
dominated  scholastic  philosophy,  and  are,  to  a  great  extent,  still 
important  at  the  present  day.  These  institutions  and  modes  of 
thought  were  not  introduced  to  the  world  by  theorists,  but  by 
practical  men  in  the  stress  of  conflict.  The  moral  reform  of  the 
Church  in  the  eleventh  century,  which  was  the  immediate  prelude 
to  the  scholastic  philosophy,  was  a  reaction  against  the  increasing 
absorption  of  the  Church  into  the  feudal  system.  To  understand 
the  scholastics  we  must  understand  Hil  deb  rand,  and  to  understand 
1  ^Mebrand  we  must  know  something  of  the  evils  against  which 

..  Attended.  Nor  can  we  ignore  the  foundation  of  the  Holy 
mediex  .**•,.      &  T-  ^       i_ 

. ,    Empire  and  its  effect  upon  European  thought. 

Su-  !  *   i^Js*5  reasons,  the  reader  will  find  in  the  following  pages 
this  svntfiC  .     •    ,       ,      ••  -    t  •  •  f    i  -  .    i        • 

rf  „  *        |piastical  and  political  history  of  which  the  relevance  to 
1  he  moi  f    .  .,        ,  .     ,        i  ,     .          ,.      , 

,|ment  of  philosophic  thought  may  not  be  immediately 

I          .  I  is  the  more  necessary  to  relate  something  of  this 
only  rendcf .          .    .  .  . J   .  ,  .        f  &  ... 

Tl         h          period  concerned  is  obscure,  and  is  unfamiliar  to 

\  «.    .  *^*«  nt  home  with  both  ancient  and  modern  history, 
out  western  huru>       .        .        ,     ,  ,   .  ~  ,  •• 

,        .  .  :  -  ^phers  have  had  as  much  influence  on  philo- 

when  the  general  level  c.    ,  ~»     ,  ,  .T<1 ,  ' r      , 

i  11  j     •      ^t.    r       L         %hrose,  Charlemagne,  and  Hiidebrand. 
lull  during  the  fourth  century,  . '    .  /    ,     6    '         ,    ,    .     . 
»u   \\r   *       r      •         i  *u      *  uninfe  these  men  and  their  times 
the  Western  Empire  and  the  estab     T  r 

.  .     f  *    .         rr,        ,;v  adequate  treatment  of  our 

out  its  former  territory.  The  culm.       ^ 

late  Roman  civilization  depended, 
condition  of  destitute  refugees;  the 
their  rural  estates.  Fresh  shocks  cor 
without  any  sufficient  breathing  $rt 

125  ] 


Part  i . — The  Fathers 


Chapter  I 

THE    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT 
OF    THE    JEWS 

^  |  -1HE  Christian  religion,  as  it  was  handed  over  by  the  late 

I     Roman  Empire  to  the  barbarians,  consisted  of  three  ele- 

JL   ments:  first,  certain  philosophical  beliefs,  derived  mainly 

from  Plato  and  the  Neoplatonists,  but  also  in  part  from  the  Stoics; 

second,  a  conception  of  morals  and  history  derived  from  the  Jews ; 

and  third,  certain  theories,  more  especially  as  to  salvation,  which 

were  on  the  whole  new  in  Christianity,  though  in  part  traceable 

to  Orphism,  and  to  kindred  cults  of  the  Near  East. 
The  most  important  Jewish  elements  in  Christianity  appear  to 

me  to  be  the  following: 

1.  A  sacred  history,  beginning  with  the  Creation,  leading  to  a 
consummation  in  the  future,  and  justifying  the  ways  of  Q       . 

man'     i          .  f  f         ,    ***  the  unseen. 

2.  The  existence  of  a  small  section  of  man*e  Q^J^   When 

specially  loves.  For  Jews,  this  section  was  the.  of  ,  .  for  thc 
Christians,  the  elect.  uged  tf£  Mme*  V0rd8>  but 

3.  A  new  conception  of    nghteoi 

giving,  for  example,  was  taken  o^  and  significance  Of  Catholic 
Judaism.  The  importance  attache^  h  nec  lo  ^.otc  more 

from  Orphism  or  from  onentemanded  in  ^^n  ^th  cithcr 
practical  philanthropy,  as  a/h  Catholjc  hilocjphy  is  essentially 
of  virtue,  seems  to  have  coftution>  MIW>V  thc  Catholic  Church; 

4.  The  Law.  Chnstiami^jj  ;,  IS  tar  from  orthodox,  is  largely 
instance  the  Decalogue,  wL^feUy  in  ethics  and  political  theory 
ritual  parts.  But  in  practice  ^,an  views  of  the  moral  law  and  froin 
same  feelings  that  the  Jew*  relations  of  Church  and  State.  In 
the  doctrine  that  correct  beliere  is  no  such  dual  loyalty  as  the 
action,  a  doctrine  which  is  esnning,  has  owed  to  God  and  Caesar, 
origin  is  the  exclusiveness  of  -h  and  State. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   DEVELOPMENT   OP   THE   JEWS 

5.  The  Messiah.  The  Jews  believed  that  the  Messiah  would 
bring  them  temporal  prosperity,  and  victory  over  their  enemies 
here  on  earth ;  moreover,  he  remained  in  the  future.  For  Christians, 
the  Messiah  was  the  historical  Jesus,  who  was  also  identified  with 
the  Logos  of  Greek  philosophy;  and  it  was  not  on  earth,  but  in 
heaven,  that  the  Messiah  was  to  enable  his  followers  to  triumph 
over  their  enemies. 

6.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Other-worldliness  is  a  conception 
which  Jews  and  Christians,  in  a  sense,  share  with  later  Platonism, 
but  it  takes,  with  them,  a  much  more  concrete  form  than  with 
(I reek  philosophers.  The  Greek  doctrine — which  is  to  be  found 
in  much  Christian  philosophy,  but  not  in  popular  Christianity — 
was  that  the  sensible  world,  in  space  and  time,  is  an  illusion,  and 
that,  by  intellectual  and  moral  discipline,  a  man  can  learn  to  live 
in  the  eternal  world,  which  alone  is  real.  The  Jewish  and  Christian 
doctrine,  on  the  other  hand,  conceived  the  Other  World  as  not 
metaphysically  different  from  this  world,  but  as  in  the  future,  when 
the  virtuous  would  enjoy  everlasting  bliss  and  the  wicked  would 
suffer  everlasting  torment.  This  belief  embodied  revenge  psy- 
chology, and  was  intelligible  to  all  and  sundry,  as  the  doctrines 
of  Greek  philosophers  were  not. 

'ro  understand  the  origin  of  these  beliefs,  we  must  take  account 


..-..  .   '"  facts  in  Jewish  history,  to  which  we  will  now  turn  our 
Hildebranu 

he  contended.  ,  ^  of  lhe  Israciites  ^^^  be  confirmed  from  any 
Roman  Lmpire  an>v,,d  Testament,  and  it  is  impossible  to  know  at 
tor  these  reasons,  *  -  .  urelv  legendary.  David  and  Solomon 
much  ecclesiastical  and  polit  '  bablv  had  a  real  existence,  but 
the  development .of  ph.losophi,  w  CQme  to  somethi  ^^ 
evident.  It  is  the  more  nect  ki  doms  of  Israe,  and  Judah. 
history  as  the  period  concerned  .  Q,d  Testamem  of  whom  there 
many  who  are  at  home  with  both  «  of  Ittac,  who  u  ken 
I-ew  technical  philosophers  have  had  a A^yrf^  finally  conquered 
sopluc  thought  as  St.  Ambrose,  Cha;nd  remoyed  .  rf 

lo  relate  what  is  essential  concerning    dom  of  Judah  a,one 
is  therefore  indispensable  in  any  ition.  The  kingdom  of  Judah 
8U  'ec  '  ower  came  to  an  end  with  the 

.lians  and  Medes  in  606  B.C. 
aptured  Jerusalem,  destroyed 
t  of  the  population  to  Babylon. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

The  Babylonian  kingdom  fell  in  538  B.C.,  when  Babylon  was  taken 
by  Cyrus,  king  of  the  Medes  and  Persians.  Cyrus,  in  537  B.C., 
issued  an  edict  allowing  the  Jews  to  return  to  Palestine.  Many  of 
them  did  so,  under  the  leadership  of  Nehemiah  and  Ezra;  die 
Temple  was  rebuilt,  and  Jewish  orthodoxy  began  to  be  crystallized. 

In  the  period  of  the  captivity,  and  for  some  time  before  and 
after  this  period,  Jewish  religion  went  through  a  very  important 
development.  Originally,  there  appears  to  have  been  not  very 
much  difference,  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  between  the 
Israelites  and  surrounding  tribes.  Yahweh  was,  at  first,  only  a 
tribal  god  who  favoured  the  children  of  Israel,  but  it  was  not 
denied  that  there  were  other  gods,  and  their  worship  was  habitual. 
When  the  first  Commandment  says  "Thou  shall  have  none  other 
gods  but  me,"  it  is  saying  something  which  was  an  innovation 
in  the  time  immediately  preceding  the  captivity.  This  is  made 
evident  by  various  texts  in  the  earlier  prophets.  It  was  the 
prophets  at  this  time  who  first  taught  that  the  worship  of  heathen 
gods  was  sin.  To  win  the  victory  in  the  constant  wars  of  that  time, 
they  proclaimed,  the  favour  of  Yahweh  was  essential ;  and  Yahweh 
would  withdraw  his  favour  if  other  gods  were  also  honoured. 
Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  especially,  seem  to  have  invented  the  idea 
that  all  religions  except  one  are  false,  and  that  the  Lord  punishes 
idolatry. 

Some  quotations  will  illustrate  their  teachings,  and  the  pre- 
valence of  the  heathen  practices  against  which  they  protested. 
"Seest  Thou  not  what  they  do  in  the  cities  of  Judah  and  in  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem?  The  children  gather  wood,  and  the  fathers 
kindle  the  fire,  and  the  women  knead  their  dough,  to  make  cakes 
to  the  queen  of  heaven  [Ishtar],  and  pour  out  drink  offerings  unto 
other  gods,  that  they  may  provoke  me  to  anger."1  The  Ix>rd  is 
angry  about  it.  "And  they  have  built  the  high  places  of  Tophct, 
which  is  in  the  valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom,  to  burn  their  sons 
and  their  daughters  in  the  fire;  which  I  commanded  them  not, 
neither  came  it  into  my  heart."2 

There  is  a  very  interesting  passage  in  Jeremiah  in  which  he 
denounces  the  Jews  in  Kgypt  for  their  idolatry.  He  himself  had 
lived  among  them  for  a  time.  The  prophet  tells  the  Jewish  refugees 
in  Egypt  that  Yahweh  will  destroy  them  all  because  their  wives 
have  burnt  incense  to  other  gods.  But  they  refuse  to  listen  to  him, 

1  Jeremiah  vii,  17-18.  *  Jbid.t  vii,  31. 

330 


THE    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   JEWS 

saying:  "We  will  certainly  do  whatsoever  thing  goeth  forth  out 
of  our  own  mouth,  to  burn  incense  unto  the  queen  of  heaven,  and 
to  pour  out  drink  offerings  unto  her,  as  we  have  done,  we  and  our 
fathers,  our  kings  and  our  princes,  in  the  cities  of  Judah,  and  in 
the  streets  of  Jerusalem ;  for  then  had  we  plenty  of  victuals,  and 
were  well,  and  saw  no  evil."  But  Jeremiah  assures  them  that 
Yahweh  noticed  these  idolatrous  practices,  and  that  misfortune 
has  come  because  of  them.  "Behold,  I  have  sworn  by  my  great 
name,  saith  the  Lord,  that  my  name  shall  no  more  be  named  in 
the  mouth  of  any  man  of  Judah  in  all  the  land  of  Egypt.  .  .  . 
I  will  watch  over  them  for  evil,  and  not  for  good;  and  all  the 
men  of  Judah  that  are  in  the  land  of  Egypt  shall  be  consumed  by 
the  sword  and  by  the  famine,  until  there  be  an  end  of  them."1 

Iv/ckiel  is  equally  shocked  by  the  idolatrous  practices  of  the 
Jews.  The  Ix>rd  in  a  vision  shows  him  women  at  the  north  gate  of 
the  temple  weeping  for  Tammuz  (a  Babylonian  deity);  then  He 
shows  him  "greater  abominations,"  five  and  twenty  men  at  the 
door  of  the  temple  worshipping  the  sun.  The  Lord  declares: 
"Therefore  will  I  also  deal  in  fury:  mine  eye  shall  not  spare, 
neither  will  I  have  pity:  and  though  they  cry  in  mine  ears  with  a 
loud  voice,  yet  will  I  not  hear  them."2 

The  idea  that  all  religions  but  one  are  wicked,  and  that  the 
Lord  punishes  idolatry,  was  apparently  invented  by  these  prophets. 
The  prophets,  on  the  whole,  were  fiercely  nationalistic,  and  looked 
forward  to  the  day  when  the  Ix>rd  would  utterly  destroy  the 
gentiles. 

The  captivity  was  taken  to  justify  the  denunciations  of  the 
prophets.  If  Yahweh  was  all-powerful,  and  the  Jews  were  his 
Chosen  People,  their  sufferings  could  only  be  explained  by  their 
wickedness.  The  psychology  is  that  of  paternal  correction:  the 
Jews  are  to  be  purified  by  punishment.  Under  the  influence  of  this 
belief,  they  developed,  in  exile,  an  orthodoxy  much  more  rigid  and 
much  more  nationally  exclusive  than  that  which  had  prevailed  while 
they  were  independent.  The  Jews  who  remained  behind  and  were 
not  transplanted  to  Babylon  did  not  undergo  this  development 
to  anything  like  the  same  extent.  When  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  came 
back  to  Jerusalem  after  the  captivity,  they  were  shocked  to  find 
that  mixed  marriages  had  been  common,  and  they  dissolved  all 
such  marriages.3 

1  Jeremiah  xliv,  ii-cnd.  '  Kzckiel  vii,  ii-cnd.  *  Ezra  ix-x,  5. 

33' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

in  our  version  of  the  Apocrypha.  The  morality  taught  is  very 
mundane.  Reputation  among  neighbours  is  highly  prized.  Honesty 
is  the  best  policy,  because  it  is  useful  to  have  Yahweh  on  your 
side.  Almsgiving  is  recommended.  The  only  sign  of  Greek  influence 
is  in  the  praise  of  medicine. 

Slaves  must  not  be  treated  too  kindly.  "Fodder,  a  wand,  and 
burdens,  are  for  the  ass:  and  bread,  correction,  and  work,  for  a 
servant.  ...  Set  him  to  work,  as  is  fit  for  him:  if  he  be  not 
obedient,  put  on  more  heavy  fetters"(xxiii,  24,  28).  At  the  same 
time,  remember  that  you  have  paid  a  price  for  him,  and  that  if 
he  runs  away  you  will  lose  your  money;  this  sets  a  limit  to  pro- 
fitable severity  (ibid.,  30,  31).  Daughters  are  a  great  source  of 
anxiety;  apparently  in  the  writer's  day  they  were  much  addicted  to 
immorality  (xlii,  9-11).  He  has  a  low  opinion  of  women:  "From 
garments  cometh  a  moth,  and  from  women  wickedness"  (ibid.,  13). 
It  is  a  mistake  to  be  cheerful  with  your  children ;  the  right  course 
is  to  "bow  down  their  neck  from  their  youth"  (vii.  23,  24). 

Altogether,  like  the  elder  Cato,  he  represents  the  morality  of 
the  virtuous  business  man  in  a  very  unattractive  li^ht. 

This  tranquil  existence  ot  comfortable  self-righteousness  was 
rudely  interrupted  by  the  Scleucid  king  Amiochus  IV,  who  was 
determined  to  hellenize  all  his  dominions.  In  175  B.C.  he  estab- 
lished a  gymnasium  in  Jerusalem,  and  taught  young  men  to  ucar 
Greek  hats  and  practise  athletics.  In  this  he  was  helped  by  a 
hellenizing  Jew  named  Jason,  whom  he  made  high  priest.  The 
priestly  aristocracy  had  become  lax,  and  had  felt  the  attraction 
of  Greek  civilization;  but  they  were  vehemently  opposed  by  a 
party  called  the  "Hasidim"  (meaning  "Holy"),  who  were  strong 
among  the  rural  population.1  When,  in  170  B.C.,  Antiochus 
became  Involved  in  war  with  ligypt,  the  Jews  rebelled.  Thereupon 
Antiochus  took  the  holy  vessels  from  the  Temple,  and  placed  in 
it  the  image  of  the  God.  He  identified  Yahweh  with  Zeus, 
following  a  practice  \\hich  had  been  successful  ever)' where  else.* 
He  resolved  to  extirpate  the  Jewish  religion,  and  to  stop  circum- 

1  From  them,  probably,  dc \eloped  the  sect  of  the  Kssenes,  whose 
doctrines  seem  to  have  influenced  primitive  Christianity.  Sec  Ocstcrlcy 
and  Robinson,  Ilutury  of  Israel,  Vol.  II,  p.  323  II.  The  Pharisee*  also 
descended  from  them. 

9  Some  Alexandrian  Jew*  did  not  object  to  this  identification.  See 
Letter  uf  Aris teas t  15,  16. 

334 


THE   RELIGIOUS   DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE  JEWS 

cision  and  the  observance  of  the  laws  relating  to  food.  To  all  this 
Jerusalem  submitted,  but  outside  Jerusalem  the  Jews  resisted 
with  the  utmost  stubbornness. 

The  history  of  this  period  is  told  in  the  First  Book  of  Maccabees. 
The  first  chapter  tells  how  Antiochus  decreed  that  all  the  in- 
habitants of  his  kingdom  should  be  one  people,  and  abandon  their 
separate  laws.  All  the  heathen  obeyed,  and  many  of  the  Israelites, 
although  the  king  commanded  that  they  should  profane  the 
sabbath,  sacrifice  swine's  flesh,  and  leave  their  children  uncir- 
cumcised.  All  who  disobeyed  were  to  suffer  death.  Many,  neverthe- 
less, resisted.  "They  put  to  death  certain  women,  that  had  caused 
their  children  to  be  circumcised.  And  they  hanged  the  infants 
about  their  necks,  and  rifled  their  houses,  and  slew  them  that  had 
circumcised  them.  Howbeit  many  in  Israel  were  fully  resolved 
and  confirmed  in  themselves  not  to  eat  any  unclean  thing.  Where- 
fore they  chose  rather  to  die,  that  they  might  not  be  defiled  with 
meats,  and  that  they  might  not  profane  the  holy  covenant:  so  then 
they  died."1 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  doctrine  of  immortality  came  to  be 
widely  believed  among  the  Jews.  It  had  been  thought  that  virtue 
would  be  rewarded  here  on  earth;  but  persecution,  which  fell 
upon  the  most  virtuous,  made  it  evident  that  this  was  not  the  case. 
In  order  to  safeguard  divine  justice,  therefore,  it  was  necessary 
to  believe  in  rewards  and  punishments  hereafter.  This  doctrine 
was  not  universally  accepted  among  the  Jews;  in  the  time  of 
Christ,  the  Sadducees  still  rejected  it.  But  by  that  time  they 
were  a  small  party,  and  in  later  times  all  Jews  believed  in  immor- 
tality. 

The  revolt  against  Antiochus  was  led  by  Judas  Maccabaeus,  an 
able  military  commander,  who  first  recaptured  Jerusalem  (164  B.C.), 
and  then  embarked  upon  aggression.  Sometimes  he  killed  all  the 
males,  sometimes  he  circumcised  them  by  force.  His  brother 
Jonathan  was  made  high  priest,  was  allowed  to  occupy  Jerusalem 
with  a  garrison,  and  conquered  part  of  Samaria,  acquiring  Joppa 
and  Akra.  He  negotiated  with  Rome,  and  was  successful  in  securing 
complete  autonomy.  His  family  were  high  priests  until  Herod, 
and  are  known  as  the  I  lasmonean  dynasts. 

In  enduring  and  resisting  persecution  the  Jews  of  this  time 
showed  immense  heroism,  although  in  defence  of  things  that  do 
1  I  Maccabees  i,  60-3. 

335 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

The  New  Testament  writers  are  familiar  with  it;  St.  Jude  con- 
siders it  to  be  actually  by  Enoch.  Early  Christian  Fathers,  for 
instance  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Tertullian,  treated  it  as 
canonical,  but  Jerome  and  Augustine  rejected  it.  It  fell,  conse- 
quently, into  oblivion,  and  was  lost  until,  early  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  three  manuscripts  of  it,  in  Ethiopic,  were  found  in 
Abyssinia.  Since  then,  manuscripts  of  parts  of  it  have  been  found 
in  Greek  and  Latin  versions.  It  appears  to  have  been  originally 
written  partly  in  Hebrew,  partly  in  Aramaic.  Its  authors  were 
members  of  the  Hasidim,  and  their  successors  the  Pharisees.  It 
denounces  kings  and  princes,  meaning  the  Hasmonean  dynasty 
and  the  Sadducees.  It  influenced  New  Testament  doctrine, 
particularly  as  regards  the  Messiah,  Sheol  (hell),  and  demonology. 

The  book  consists  mainly  of  "parables,"  which  are  more  cosmic 
than  those  of  the  New  Testament.  There  are  visions  of  heaven 
and  hell,  of  the  Last  Judgment,  and  so  on ;  one  is  reminded  of  the 
first  two  Books  of  Paradise  Lost  where  the  literary  quality  is  good, 
and  of  Blake's  Prophetic  Books  where  it  is  inferior. 

There  is  an  expansion  of  Genesis  vi,  2,  4,  which  is  curious  and 
Promethean.  The  angels  taught  men  metallurgy,  and  were  punished 
for  revealing  ''eternal  secrets."  They  were  also  cannibals.  The 
angels  that  had  sinned  became  pagan  gods,  and  their  women 
became  sirens ;  but  at  the  last,  they  were  punished  with  everlajtin^ 
torments. 

There  are  descriptions  of  heaven  and  hell  which  have  consider- 
able literary  merit.  The  Last  Judgipent  is  performed  by  "the  Son 
of  Man,  who  hath  righteousness"  and  who  sits  on  the  throne  of 
His  glory.  Some  of  the  gentiles,  at  the  last,  will  repent  and  be 
forgiven;  but  most  gentiles,  and  all  hellenizing  Jews,  will  suffer 
eternal  damnation,  for  the  righteous  will  pray  for  vengeance,  and 
their  prayer  will  be  granted. 

There  is  a  section  on  astronomy,  where  we  learn  that  the  sun 
and  moon  have  chariots  driven  by  the  wind,  that  the  year  consists 
of  364  days,  that  human  sin  causes  the  heavenly  bodies  to  depart 
from  their  courses,  and  that  only  the  virtuous  can  know  astronomy. 
Falling  stars  are  falling  angels,  and  are  punished  by  the  seven 
archangels. 

Next  comes  sacred  history.  Up  to  the  Maccabees,  this  pursues 
the  course  known  from  the  Bible  in  its  earlier  portions,  and  from 
history  in  the  later  parts.  Then  the  author  goes  on  into  the  future: 

338 


THE    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT    OF    THE   JEWS 

the  New  Jerusalem,  the  conversion  of  the  remnant  of  the  gentiles, 
the  resurrection  of  the  righteous,  and  the  Messiah. 

There  is  a  great  deal  about  the  punishment  of  sinners  and  the 
reward  of  the  righteous,  who  never  display  an  attitude  of  Christian 
forgiveness  towards  sinners.  "What  will  ye  do,  ye  sinners,  and 
whither  will  ye  flee  on  that  day  of  judgment,  when  ye  hear  the 
voice  of  the  prayer  of  the  righteous?"  "Sin  has  not  been  sent  upon 
the  earth,  but  man  of  himself  has  created  it."  Sins  are  recorded 
in  heaven.  "Ye  sinners  shall  be  cursed  for  ever,  and  ye  shall  have 
no  peace."  Sinners  may  be  happy  all  their  lives,  and  even  in 
dying,  but  their  souls  descend  into  Sheol,  where  they  shall  suffer 
"darkness  and  chains  and  a  burning  flame."  But  as  for  the 
righteous,  "I  and  my  Son  will  be  united  with  them  for  ever." 

The  last  words  of  the  book  are:  "To  the  faithful  he  will  give 
faithfulness  in  the  habitation  of  upright  paths.  And  they  shall  see 
those  who  were  born  in  darkness  led  into  darkness,  while  the 
righteous  shall  be  resplendent.  And  the  sinners  shall  cry  aloud 
and  see  them  resplendent,  and  they  indeed  will  go  where  days  and 
seasons  are  prescribed  for  them." 

Jews,  like  Christians,  thought  much  about  sin,  but  few  of  them 
thought  of  themselves  as  sinners.  This  was,  in  the  main,  a  Christian 
innovation,  introduced  by  the  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the 
publican,  and  taucht  as  a  virtue  in  Christ's  denunciations  of  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees.  The  Christians  endeavoured  to  practise 
Christian  humility;  the  Jews,  in  general,  did  not. 

There  are,  however,  important  exceptions  among  orthodox  Jews 
just  before  the  lime  of  Christ.  Take,  for  instance,  "The  Testaments 
ill"  the  Twelve  Patriarchs/1  written  between  109  and  107  B.C.  by 
a  Pharisee  who  admired  John  Hyrcanus,  a  high  priest  of  the 
Ihusmonean  dynasty.  This  book,  in  the  form  in  which  we  have  it, 
contains  Christian  interpolations,  but  these  are  all  concerned  with 
dogma.  When  they  are  excised,  the  ethical  teaching  remains  closely 
similar  to  that  of  the  ( jnspels.  As  the  Rev.  Dr.  R.  H.  Charles  says: 
"The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  reflects  in  several  instances  the  spirit 
and  even  reproduces  the  very  phrases  of  our  text:  many  passages 
in  tlir  (iospcls  exhibit  traces  of  the  same,  and  St.  Paul  seems  to 
have  used  the  book  as  a  vade  mecuin"  (op.  «'/.,  pp.  291-2).  We 
lind  in  this  hook  such  preempts  as  the  following: 

"Love  ye  one  another  from  the  heart;  and  if  a  man  sin  against 
thec,  speak  peaceably  to  him,  and  in  thy  soul  hold  not  guile;  and 

339 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

if  he  repent  and  confess,  forgive  him.  But  if  he  deny  it,  do  not 
get  into  a  passion  with  him,  lest  catching  the  poison  from  thee 
he  take  to  swearing,  and  so  then  sin  doubly.  .  .  .  And  if  he  be 
shameless  and  persist  in  wrong-doing,  even  so  forgive  him  from 
the  heart,  and  leave  to  God  the  avenging." 

Dr.  Charles  is  of  opinion  that  Christ  must  have  been  acquainted 
with  this  passage.  Again  we  find : 

"Love  the  Lord  and  your  neighbour." 

"Love  the  Lord  through  all  your  life,  and  one  another  with  a 
true  heart." 

"I  love  the  Lord;  likewise  also  every  man  with  all  my  heart." 
These  are  to  be  compared  with  Matthew  xxii,  37-39.  There  is  a 
reprobation  of  all  hatred  in  "The  Testaments  of  the  Twelve 
Patriarchs";  for  instance: 

"Anger  is  blindness,  and  docs  not  suffer  one  to  see  the  face  of 
any  man  with  truth." 

"Hatred,  therefore,  is  evil;  for  it  constantly  matcth  with  lying." 
The  author  of  this  book,  as  might  be  expected,  holds  that  not  only 
the  Jews,  but  all  the  gentiles,  will  be  saved. 

Christians  have  learnt  from  the  Gospels  to  think  ill  of  Pharisees, 
yet  the  author  of  this  book  was  a  Pharisee,  and  he  taught,  as  we 
have  seen,  those  very  ethical  maxims  which  we  think  of  as  most 
distinctive  of  Christ's  preaching.  The  explanation,  however,  is 
not  difficult.  In  the  first  place,  he  must  have  been,  even  in  his  own 
day,  an  exceptional  Pharisee;  the  more  usual  doctrine  was,  no 
doubt,  that  of  the  Book  of  Enoch.  In  the  second  place,  we  know 
that  all  movements  tend  to  ossify ;  who  could  infer  the  principles 
of  Jefferson  from  those  of  the  Daughters  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution? In  the  third  place,  we  know,  as  regards  the  Pharisees  in 
particular,  that  their  devotion  to  the  Law,  as  the  absolute  and 
final  truth,  soon  put  an  end  to  all  fresh  and  living  thought  and 
feeling  among  them.  As  Dr.  Charles  says: 

"When  Pharisaism,  breaking  with  the  ancient  ideals  of  its  party, 
committed  itself  to  political  interests  and  movements,  and  con- 
currently therewith  surrendered  itself  more  and  more  wholly  to 
the  study  of  the  letter  of  the  Law,  it  soon  ceased  to  offer  scope  for 
the  development  of  such  a  lofty  system  of  ethics  as  the  Testaments 
[of  the  Patriarchs]  attest,  and  so  the  true  successors  of  the  early 
Hasids  and  their  teaching  quitted  Judaism  and  found  their  natural 
home  in  the  bosom  of  primitive  Christianity." 

340 


THE   RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE  JEWS 

After  a  period  of  rule  by  the  High  Priests,  Mark  Antony  made 
his  friend  Herod  King  of  the  Jews.  Herod  was  a  gay  adventurer, 
often  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy,  accustomed  to  Roman  society, 
and  very  far  removed  from  Jewish  piety.  His  wife  was  of  the 
family  of  the  high  priests,  but  he  was  an  Idumaean,  which  alone 
would  suffice  to  make  him  an  object  of  suspicion  to  the  Jews.  He 
was  a  skilful  time-server,  and  deserted  Antony  promptly  when  it 
became  evident  that  Octavius  was  going  to  be  victorious.  However, 
he  made  strenuous  attempts  to  reconcile  the  Jews  to  his  rule.  He 
rebuilt  the  Temple,  though  in  a  hellenistic  style,  with  rows  of 
Corinthian  pillars;  but  he  placed  over  the  main  gate  a  large 
golden  eagle,  thereby  infringing  the  second  Commandment.  When 
it  was  rumoured  that  he  was  dying,  the  Pharisees  pulled  down  the 
eagle,  but  he,  in  revenge,  caused  a  number  of  them  to  be  put  to 
death.  He  died  in  4  B.C.,  and  soon  after  his  death  the  Romans 
abolished  the  kingship,  putting  Judea  under  a  procurator.  Pontius 
Pilate,  who  became  procurator  in  A.U.  26,  was  tactless,  and  was 
soon  retired. 

In  A.D.  66,  the  Jews,  led  by  the  party  of  the  Zealots,  rebelled 
against  Rome.  They  were  defeated,  and  Jerusalem  was  captured 
in  A.D.  70.  The  Temple  was  destroyed,  and  few  Jews  were  left  in 
Judea. 

The  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  had  become  important  centuries 
before  this  time.  The  Jews  had  been  originally  an  almost  wholly 
agricultural  people,  but  they  learnt  trading  from  the  Babylonians 
during  the  captivity.  Many  of  them  remained  in  Babylon  after  the 
time  of  lizra  and  Nehemiah,  and  among  these  some  were  very 
rich.  After  the  foundation  of  Alexandria,  great  numbers  of  Jews 
settled  in  that  city;  they  had  a  special  quarter  assigned  to  them, 
not  as  a  ghetto,  but  to  keep  them  from  danger  of  pollution  by 
contact  with  gentiles.  The  Alexandrian  Jews  became  much  more 
hellenized  than  those  of  Judea,  and  forgot  Hebrew.  For  this  reason 
it  became  necessary  to  translate  the  Old  Testament  into  Greek; 
the  result  was  the  Septuagint.  The  Pentateuch  was  translated  in 
the  middle  of  the  third  century  B.C.;  the  other  parts  somewhat 
later. 

Legends  arose  about  the  Septuagint,  so  called  because  it  was 
the  work  of  seventy  translators.  It  was  said  that  each  of  the 
seventy  translated  the  whole  independently,  and  that  when  the 
versions  were  compared  they  were  found  to  be  identical  down  to 


Chapter  II 

CHRISTIANITY    DURING   THE   FIRST    FOUR 

CENTURIES 

CHRISTIANITY,  at  first,  was  preached  by  Jews  to  Jews,  as 
a  reformed  Judaism.  St.  James,  and  to  a  lesser  extent  St. 
Peter,  wished  it  to  remain  no  more  than  this,  and  they 
might  have  prevailed  but  for  St.  Paul,  who  was  determined  to 
admit  gentiles  without  demanding  circumcision  or  submission  to 
the  Mosaic  Law.  The  contention  between  the  two  factions  is 
related  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  from  a  Pauline  point  of  view. 
The  communities  of  Christians  that  St.  Paul  established  in  many 
places,  were,  no  doubt,  composed  partly  of  converts  from  among 
the  Jews,  partly  of  gentiles  seeking  a  new  religion.  The  certainties 
of  Judaism  made  it  attractive  in  that  age  of  dissolving  faiths,  but 
circumcision  was  an  obstacle  to  the  conversion  of  men.  The  ritual 
laws  in  regard  to  food  were  also  inconvenient.  These  two  obstacles, 
even  if  there  had  been  no  others,  would  have  made  it  almost  im- 
possible for  the  Hebrew  religion  to  become  universal.  Christianity, 
owing  to  St.  Paul,  retained  what  was  attractive  in  the  doctrines  of 
the  Jews,  without  the  features  that  gentiles  found  hardest  to 
assimilate. 

The  view  that  the  Jews  were  the  Chosen  People  remained,  how- 
ever, obnoxious  to  Greek  pride.  This  view  was  radically  rejected 
by  the  Gnostics.  They,  or  at  least  some  of  them,  held  that  the 
sensible  world  had  been  created  by  an  inferior  deity  named 
laldabaoth,  the  rebellious  son  of  Sophia  (heavenly  wisdom).  He, 
they  said,  is  the  Yahweh  of  the  Old  Testament,  while  the  serpent, 
so  far  from  being  wicked,  was  engaged  in  warning  Eve  against 
his  deceptions.  For  a  long  time,  the  supreme  deity  allowed  lalda- 
baoth free  play;  at  last  lie  sent  His  Son  to  inhabit  temporarily 
the  body  of  the  man  Jesus,  and  to  liberate  the  world  from  the  false 
teaching  of  Moses.  Those  who  held  this  view,  or  something  like 
it,  combined  it,  as  a  rule,  with  a  Platonic  philosophy;  Plotinus, 
as  we  saw,  found  some  difficulty  in  refuting  it.  Gnosticism  afforded 
a  half-way  house  between  philosophic  paganism  and  Christianity, 
for,  while  it  honoured  Christ,  it  thought  ill  of  the  Jews.  The 
same  was  true,  later,  of  Manichaeism,  through  which  St.  Augustine 

344 


CHRISTIANITY      DURING      THE      FIRST      FOUR      CENTURIES 

came  to  the  Catholic  Faith.  Manichseism  combined  Christian  and 
Zoroastrian  elements,  teaching  that  evil  is  a  positive  principle, 
embodied  in  matter,  while  the  good  principle  is  embodied  in 
spirit.  It  condemned  meat-eating,  and  all  sex,  even  in  marriage. 
Such  intermediate  doctrines  helped  much  in  the  gradual  con- 
version of  cultivated  men  of  Greek  speech;  but  the  New  Testa- 
ment warns  true  believers  against  them:  "O  Timothy,  keep  that 
which  is  committed  to  thy  trust,  avoiding  profane  and  vain 
babblings,  and  oppositions  of  science  [Gnosis]  falsely  so  called: 
which  some  professing  have  erred  concerning  the  faith."1 

Gnostics  and  Manichaeans  continued  to  flourish  until  the  govern- 
ment became  Christian.  After  that  time  they  were  led  to  conceal 
their  beliefs,  but  they  still  had  a  subterranean  influence.  One  of  the 
doctrines  of  a  certain  sect  of  Gnostics  was  adopted  by  Mohammed. 
They  taught  that  Jesus  was  a  mere  man,  and  that  the  Son  of  God 
descended  upon  him  at  the  baptism,  and  abandoned  him  at  the 
time  of  the  Passion.  In  support  of  this  view  they  appealed  to 
the  text:  "My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"2 — 
a  text  which,  it  must  be  confessed,  Christians  have  always  found 
difficult.  The  Gnostics  considered  it  unworthy  of  the  Son  of  God 
to  be  born,  to  be  an  infant,  and,  above  all,  to  die  on  the  cross; 
they  said  that  these  things  had  befallen  the  man  Jesus,  but  not 
the  divine  Son  of  God.  Mohammed,  who  recognized  Jesus  as  a 
prophet,  though  not  as  divine,  had  a  strong  class  feeling  that 
prophets  ought  not  to  come  to  a  bad  end.  He  therefore  adopted 
the  view  of  the  Docetics  (a  Gnostic  sect),  according  to  which  it 
was  a  mere  phantom  that  hung  upon  the  cross,  upon  which, 
impotently  and  ignorantly,  Jews  and  Romans  wreaked  their 
ineffectual  vengeance.  In  this  way,  something  of  Gnosticism 
passed  over  into  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  Islam. 

The  attitude  of  Christians  to  contemporary  Jews  early  became 
hostile.  The  received  view  was  that  God  had  spoken  to  the  patri- 
archs and  prophets,  who  were  holy  men,  and  had  foretold  the 
coming  of  Christ;  but  when  Christ  came,  the  Jews  failed  to 
recognize  Him,  and  were  thenceforth  to  be  accounted  wicked. 
Moreover  Christ  had  abrogated  the  Mosaic  Law,  substituting  the 
two  commandments  to  love  God  and  our  neighbour;  this,  also, 
the  Jews  perversely  failed  to  recognize.  As  soon  as  the  State 
became  Christian,  anti-Semitism,  in  its  medieval  form,  began, 

1  I  Timothy  vi,  ao,  ai.  '  Mark  xxv,  34. 

345 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

nominally  as  a  manifestation  of  Christian  zeal.  How  far  the 
economic  motives,  by  which  it  was  inflamed  in  later  times,  operated 
in  the  Christian  Empire,  it  seems  impossible  to  ascertain. 

In  proportion  as  Christianity  became  hellenized,  it  became  theo- 
logical. Jewish  theology  was  always  simple.  Yahweh  developed 
from  a  tribal  deity  into  the  sole  omnipotent  God  who  created 
heaven  and  earth ;  divine  justice,  when  it  was  seen  not  to  confer 
earthly  prosperity  upon  the  virtuous,  was  transferred  to  heaven, 
which  entailed  belief  in  immortality.  But  throughout  its  evolution 
the  Jewish  creed  involved  nothing  complicated  and  metaphysical ; 
it  had  no  mysteries,  and  every  Jew  could  understand  it. 

This  Jewish  simplicity,  on  the  whole,  still  characterizes  the 
synoptic  Gospels  (Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke),  but  has  already 
disappeared  in  St.  John,  where  Christ  is  identified  with  the 
Platonic-Stoic  Logos.  It  is  less  Christ  the  Man  than  Christ 'the 
theological  figure  that  interests  the  fourth  evangelist.  This  is  still 
more  true  of  the  Fathers;  you  mil  find,  in  their  writings,  many 
more  allusions  to  St.  John  than  to  the  other  three  gospels  put 
together.  The  Pauline  epistles  also  contain  much  theology,  espe- 
cially as  regards  salvation;  at  the  same  time  they  show  a  con- 
siderable acquaintance  with  Greek  culture — a  quotation  from 
Menander,  an  allusion  to  Epimenides  the  Cretan  who  said  that 
all  Cretans  are  liars,  and  so  on.  Nevertheless  St.  Paul1  says: 
"Beware  lest  any  man  spoil  you  through  philosophy  and  vain 
deceit." 

The  synthesis  of  Greek  philosophy  and  Hebrew  scriptures 
remained  more  or  less  haphazard  and  fragmentary  until  the  time 
of  Origen  (A.D.  185-254).  Origen,  like  Philo,  lived  in  Alexandria, 
which,  owing  to  commerce  and  the  university,  was,  from  its 
foundation  to  its  fall,  the  chief  centre  of  learned  syncretism.  Like 
his  contemporary  Plotinus,  he  was  a  pupil  of  Ammonius  Saccas, 
whom  many  regard  as  the  founder  of  Neoplatonisrn.  His  doctrines, 
as  set  forth  in  his  work  De  Principtis,  have  much  affinity  to  those 
of  Plotinus — more,  in  fact,  than  is  compatible  with  orthodoxy. 

There  is,  Origen  says,  nothing  wholly  incorporeal  except  God — 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  The  stars  are  living  rational  beings, 
to  whom  God  has  given  souls  that  were  already  in  existence.  The 
sun,  he  thinks,  can  sin.  The  souls  of  men,  as  Plato  taught,  come 
to  them  at  birth  from  elsewhere,  having  existed  ever  since  the 
1  Or  rather  the  author  of  an  Epistle  attributed  to  St.  Paul — Coiosaians  ii,8. 

346 


CHRISTIANITY      DURING      THE      FIRST      FOUR      CENTURIES 

Creation.  Nous  and  soul  are  distinguished  more  or  less  as  in 
Plotinus.  When  Nous  falls  away,  it  becomes  soul;  soul,  when 
virtuous,  becomes  Nous.  Ultimately  all  spirits  will  become  wholly 
submissive  to  Christ,  and  will  then  be  bodiless.  Even  the  devil 
will  be  saved  at  the  last. 

Origen,  in  spite  of  being  recognized  as  one  of  the  Fathers,  was, 
in  later  times,  condemned  as  having  maintained  four  heresies: 

1 .  The  pre-existence  of  souls,  as  taught  by  Plato. 

2.  That  the  human  nature  of  Christ,  and  not  only  His  divine 
nature,  existed  before  the  Incarnation. 

3.  That,  at  the  resurrection,  our  bodies  will  be  transformed 
into  absolutely  ethereal  bodies. 

4.  That  all  men,  and  even  devils,  shall  be  saved  at  the  last. 

St.  Jerome,  who  had  expressed  a  somewhat  unguarded  admira- 
tion of  Origen  for  his  work  in  establishing  the  text  of  the  Old 
Testament,  found  it  prudent,  subsequently,  to  expend  much  time 
and  vehemence  in  repudiating  his  theological  errors. 

Origen 's  aberrations  were  not  only  theological;  in  his  youth  he 
was  guilty  of  an  irreparable  error  through  a  too  literal  interpreta- 
tion of  the  text:  "There  be  eunuchs,  which  have  made  themselves 
eunuchs  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven's  sake."1  This  method  of 
escaping  the  temptations  of  the  flesh,  which  Origen  rashly  adopted, 
had  been  condemned  by  the  Church;  moreover  it  made  him 
ineligible  for  holy  orders,  although  some  ecclesiastics  seem  to  have 
thought  otherwise,  thereby  giving  rise  to  unedifying  controversies. 

Origen  *s  longest  work  is  a  book  entitled  Against  Celsus.  Celsus 
was  the  author  of  a  book  (now  lost)  against  Christianity,  and 
Origen  set  to  work  to  answer  him  point  by  point.  Celsus  begins 
by  objecting  to  Christians  because  they  belong  to  illegal  associa- 
tions; this  Origen  does  not  deny,  but  claims  to  be  a  virtue,  like 
tyrannicide.  He  then  comes  to  what  is  no  doubt  the  real  basis  for 
the  dislike  of  Christianity:  Christianity,  says  Celsus,  comes  from 
the  Jews,  who  are  barbarians;  and  only  Greeks  can  extract  sense 
out  of  the  teachings  of  barbarians.  Origen  replies  that  anyone 
coming  from  Greek  philosophy  to  the  Gospels  would  conclude 
that  they  arc  true,  and  supply  a  demonstration  satisfying  to  the 
Greek  intellect.  But,  further,  "The  Gospel  has  a  demonstration 
of  its  own,  more  divine  than  any  established  by  Grecian  dialectics. 
And  this  diviner  method  is  called  by  the  apostle  the  'manifestation 
1  Matthew  xix,  12. 

347 


WBSTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

of  the  Spirit  and  of  power';  of  'the  Spirit/  on  account  of  the 
prophecies,  which  are  sufficient  to  produce  faith  in  any  one  who 
reads  them,  especially  in  those  things  which  relate  to  Christ;  and 
of  'power/  because  of  the  signs  and  wonders  which  we  must 
believe  to  have  been  performed,  both  on  many  other  grounds,  and 
on  this,  that  traces  of  them  are  still  preserved  among  those  who 
regulate  their  lives  by  the  precepts  of  the  Gospel."1 

This  passage  is  interesting,  as  showing  already  the  twofold  argu- 
ment for  belief  which  is  characteristic  of  Christian  philosophy. 
On  the  one  hand,  pure  reason,  rightly  exercised,  suffices  to  establish 
the  essentials  of  the  Christian  faith,  more  especially  God,  im- 
mortality, and  free  will.  But  on  the  other  hand  the  Scriptures 
prove  not  only  these  bare  essentials,  but  much  more;  and  the 
divine  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the 
prophets  foretold  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  by  the  miracles, 
and  by  the  beneficent  effects  of  belief  on  the  lives  of  the  faithful. 
Some  of  these  arguments  are  now  considered  out  of  date,  but  the 
last  of  them  was  still  employed  by  William  James.  All  of  them, 
until  the  Renaissance,  were  accepted  by  even1  Christian  philo- 
sopher. 

Some  of  Origen's  arguments  are  curious.  He  says  that  magicians 
invoke  the  "God  of  Abraham/'  often  without  knowing  who  Ik- 
is;  but  apparently  this  invocation  is  specially  potent.  Names  are 
essential  in  magic;  it  is  not  indifferent  whether  Coil  is  called  by 
His  Jewish,  Egyptian,   Babylonian,  Greek,  or  Brahman  name. 
Magic  formulae  lose  their  efficacy-  when  translated.  (>nc  is  led  to 
suppose  that  the  magicians  of  the  time  used  formulae  from  all 
known  religions,  but  if  Origen  is  right,  those  derived  from  Hebrew 
sources  were  the  most  effective.  The  argument  is  the  more  curious 
as  he  points  out  that  Moses  forbade  sorcery.2 

Christians,  we  are  told,  should  not  take  part  in  the  government 
of  the  State,  but  only  of  the  "divine  nation, "  i.e.,  the  Church.3 
This  doctrine,  of  course,  was  somewhat  modified  after  the  time 
of  Constantine,  but  something  of  it  survived.  It  is  implicit  in  St. 
Augustine's  City  of  God.  It  led  churchmen,  at  the  time  of  the 
fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  to  look  on  passively  at  secular  disasters, 
while  they  exercised  their  very  great  talents  in  Church  discipline, 

1  Origen,  Contra  Celsum,  Book  I,  chap.  ti. 
1  Ibid.,  Book  I,  chap.  xxvi. 
.,  Book  VIII,  chap.  bcxv 

348 


CHRISTIANITY      DURING      THE      FIRST      FOUR      CENTURIES 

theological  controversy,  and  the  spread  of  monasticism.  Some 
trace  of  it  still  exists:  most  people  regard  politics  as  "worldly" 
and  unworthy  of  any  really  holy  man. 

Church  government  developed  slowly  during  the  first  three 
centuries,  and  rapidly  after  the  conversion  of  Constantino.  Bishops 
were  popularly  elected;  gradually  they  acquired  considerable 
power  over  Christians  in  their  own  dioceses,  but  before  Con- 
stant ine  there  was  hardly  any  form  of  central  government  over 
the  whole  Church.  The  power  of  bishops  in  great  cities  was 
enhanced  by  the  practice  of  almsgiving:  the  offerings  of  the 
faithful  were  administered  by  the  bishop,  who  could  give  or  with- 
hold charity  to  the  poor.  There  came  thus  to  be  a  mob  of  the 
destitute,  ready  to  do  the  bishop's  will.  When  the  State  became 
Christian,  the  bishops  were  given  judicial  and  administrative 
functions.  There  came  also  to  be  a  central  government,  at  least 
in  matters  of  doctrine.  Constantine  was  annoyed  by  the  quarrel 
between  Catholics  and  Arians;  having  thrown  in  his  lot  with  the 
Christians  he  wanted  them  to  be  a  united  part)'.  For  the  purpose 
of  healing  dissensions,  he  caused  the  convening  of  the  oecumenical 
Council  of  Nicara,  which  drew  up  the  Xicene  Creed,1  and,  so 
far  as  the  Arian  controversy  was  concerned,  determined  for  all 
lime  the  standard  of  orthodoxy.  Other  later  controversies  were 
similarly  decided  by  oecummical  councils,  until  the  division 
between  Kast  and  West  and  the  Kastern  refusal  to  admit  the 
authority  of  the  POJX*  made  them  impossible. 

The  i'ope,  though  officially  the  most  important  individual  in 
ihc  Church,  had  no  authority  over  the  Church  as  a  whole  until  a 
much  later  period.  The  gradual  growth  of  the  papal  power  is  a 
very  interesting  subject,  which  I  shall  deal  with  in  later  chapters. 

The  growth  of  Christianity  before  Constantine,  as  well  as  the 
motives  of  his  conversion,  has  been  variously  explained  by  various 
authors.  Gibbon*  assigns  live  causes: 

"I.  The  inflexible,  and,  if  we  may  use  the  expression,  the 
intolerant  zeal  of  the  Christians,  derived,  it  is  true,  from  the 
Jewish  religion,  but  purified  from  the  narrow  and  unsocial  spirit 
which,  instead  of  inviting,  had  deterred  the  Gentiles  from  em- 
bracing the  law  of  Moses. 

"II.  The  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  improved  by  every  additional 
1  Not  exactly  in  its  present  form,  which  was  decided  upon  in  362. 
1  The  Decline  and  Full  <>/  the  Ruman  Empire,  chap.  xv. 

349 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

circumstance  which  could  give  weight  and  efficacy  to  that  im- 
portant truth. 

"III.  The  miraculous  powers  ascribed  to  the  primitive  Church. 

"IV.  The  pure  and  austere  morals  of  the  Christians. 

"V.  The  union  and  discipline  of  the  Christian  republic,  which 
gradually  formed  an  independent  and  increasing  State  in  the 
heart  of  the  Roman  empire." 

Broadly  speaking,  this  analysis  may  be  accepted,  but  with  some 
comments.  The  first  cause — the  inflexibility  and  intolerance 
derived  from  the  Jews — may  be  wholly  accepted.  We  have  seen 
in  our  own  day  the  advantages  of  intolerance  in  propaganda.  The 
Christians,  for  the  most  part,  believed  that  they  alone  would  go 
to  heaven,  and  that  the  most  awful  punishments  would,  in  the 
next  world,  fall  upon  the  heathen.  The  other  religions  which 
competed  for  favour  during  the  third  century  had  not  this  threa- 
tening character.  The  worshippers  of  the  Great  Mother,  for 
example,  while  they  had  a  ceremony — the  Taurobolium — which 
was  analogous  to  baptism,  did  not  teach  that  those  who  omitted 
it  would  go  to  hell.  It  may  be  remarked,  incidentally,  that  the 
Taurobolium  was  expensive:  a  bull  had  to  be  killed,  and  its  blood 
allowed  to  trickle  over  the  convert.  A  rite  of  this  sort  is  aristocratic, 
and  cannot  be  the  basis  of  a  religion  which  is  to  embrace  the 
great  bulk  of  the  population,  rich  and  poor,  free  and  slave.  In 
such  respects,  Christianity  had  an  advantage  over  all  its  rivals. 

As  regards  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  in  the  West  it  was  first 
taught  by  the  Orphics  and  thence  adopted  by  Greek  philosophers. 
The  Hebrew  prophets,  some  of  them,  taught  the  resurrection  of 
the  body,  but  it  seems  to  have  been  from  the  Greeks  that  the  Jews 
learnt  to  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the  spirit.1  The  doctrine  of 
immortality,  in  Greece,  had  a  popular  form  in  Orphism  and  a 
learned  form  in  Platonism.  The  latter,  being  based  upon  difficult 
arguments,  could  not  become  widely  popular;  the  Orphic  form, 
however,  probably  had  a  great  influence  on  the  general  opinions 
of  later  antiquity,  not  only  among  pagans,  but  also  among  Jews 
and  Christians.  Elements  of  mystery  religions,  both  Orphic  and 
Asiatic,  enter  largely  into  Christian  theology;  in  all  of  them,  the 
central  myth  is  that  of  the  dying  god  who  rises  again.2  i  think, 

1  See  Oesterley  and  Robinson,  I  i  threw  Religion. 
1  See  Angus,  The  Mystery  Religions  and  Christianity 

35° 


CHRISTIANITY      DURING      THE      FIRST      FOUR      CENTURIES 

therefore,  that  the  doctrine  of  immortality  must  have  had  less 
to  do  with  the  spread  of  Christianity  than  Gibbon  thought. 

Miracles  certainly  played  a  very  large  part  in  Christian  propa- 
ganda. But  miracles,  in  later  antiquity,  were  very  common,  and 
were  not  the  prerogative  of  any  one  religion.  It  is  not  altogether 
easy  to  see  why,  in  this  competition,  the  Christian  miracles  came 
to  be  more  widely  believed  than  those  of  other  sects.  I  think 
Gibbon  omits  one  very  important  matter,  namely  the  possession 
of  a  Sacred  Book.  The  miracles  to  which  Christians  appealed  had 
begun  in  a  remote  antiquity,  among  a  nation  which  the  ancients 
felt  to  be  mysterious;  there  was  a  consistent  history,  from  the 
Creation  onwards,  according  to  which  Providence  had  always 
worked  wonders,  first  for  the  Jews,  then  for  the  Christians.  To  a 
modern  historical  student  it  is  obvious  that  the  early  history  of 
the  Israelites  is  in  the  main  legendary,  but  not  so  to  the  ancients. 
They  believed  in  the  Homeric  account  of  the  siege  of  Troy,  in 
Romulus  and  Remus,  and  so  on;  why,  asks  Origen,  should  you 
accept  these  traditions  and  reject  those  of  the  Jews?  To  this 
argument  there  was  no  logical  answer.  It  was  therefore  natural 
to  accept  Old  Testament  miracles,  and,  when  they  had  been 
admitted,  those  of  more  recent  date  became  credible,  especially 
in  view  of  the  Christian  interpretation  of  the  prophets. 

The  morals  of  the  Christians,  before  Constantine,  were  un- 
doubtedly very  superior  to  those  of  average  pagans.  The  Christians 
were  persecuted  at  times,  and  were  almost  always  at  a  disadvantage 
in  competition  with  pagans.  They  believed  firmly  that  virtue 
would  be  rewarded  in  heaven  and  sin  punished  in  hell.  Their  sexual 
ethics  had  a  strictness  that  was  rare  in  antiquity.  Pliny,  whose 
official  duty  it  was  to  persecute  them,  testifies  to  their  high  moral 
character.  After  the  conversion  of  Constantine,therewere,  of  course, 
time-servers  among  Christians;  but  prominent  ecclesiastics,  with 
some  exceptions,  continued  to  be  men  of  inflexible  moral  principles. 
I  think  Gibbon  is  right  in  attributing  great  importance  to  this 
high  moral  level  as  one  of  the  causes  of  the  spread  of  Christianity. 

Gibbon  puts  last  "the  union  and  discipline  of  the  Christian 
republic."  I  think  that,  from  a  political  point  of  view,  this  was  the 
most  important  of  his  five  causes.  In  the  modern  world,  we  are 
accustomed  to  political  organization;  every  politician  has  to  reckon 
with  the  Catholic  vote,  but  it  is  balanced  by  the  vote  of  other  or- 
ganized groups.  A  Catholic  candidate  for  the  American  Presidency 

35' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

is  at  a  disadvantage,  because  of  Protestant  prejudice.  But,  if  there 
were  no  such  thing  as  Protestant  prejudice,  a  Catholic  candidate 
would  stand  a  better  chance  than  any  other.  This  seems  to  have 
been  Constantino's  calculation.  The  support  of  the  Christians,  as 
a  single  organized  bloc,  was  to  be  obtained  by  favouring  them. 
Whatever  dislike  of  the  Christians  existed  was  unorganized  and 
politically  ineffective.  Probably  Rostovtseff  is  right  in  holding 
that  a  large  part  of  the  army  was  Christian,  and  that  this  was 
what  most  influenced  Constantino.  However  that  may  be,  the 
Christians,  while  still  a  minority,  had  a  kind  of  organization  which 
was  then  new,  though  now  common,  and  which  gave  them  all 
the  political  influence  of  a  pressure  group  to  which  no  other 
pressure  groups  are  opposed.  This  was  the  natural  consequence 
of  their  virtual  monopoly  of  zeal,  and  their  zeal  was  an  inheritance 
from  the  Jews. 

Unfortunately,  as  soon  as  the  Christians  acquired  political 
power,  they  turned  their  zeal  against  each  other.  There  had  been 
heresies,  not  a  few,  before  Constantine,  but  the  orthodox  had 
had  no  means  of  punishing  them.  When  the  State  became  Chris- 
tian, great  prizes,  in  the  shape  of  power  and  wealth,  became  open 
to  ecclesiastics;  there  were  disputed  elections,  and  theological 
quarrels  were  also  quarrels  for  worldly  advantages.  Constantine 
himself  preserved  a  certain  degree  of  neutrality  in  the  disputes  of 
theologians,  but  after  his  death  (337)  his  successors  (except  for 
Julian  the  Apostate)  were,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  favourable 
to  the  Arians,  until  the  accession  of  Theodosius  in  379. 

The  hero  of  this  period  is  Athanasius  (ca.  297-373),  who  was 
throughout  his  long  life  the  most  intrepid  champion  of  Nicene 
orthodoxy. 

The  period  from  Constantine  to  the  Council  of  Chalceclon  (451) 
is  peculiar  owing  to  the  political  importance  of  theology.  Two 
questions  successively  agitated  the  Christian  world:  first,  the 
nature  of  the  Trinity,  and  then  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation. 
Only  the  first  of  these  was  to  the  fore  in  the  time  of  Athanasius. 
Anus,  a  cultivated  Alexandrian  priest,  maintained  that  the  Son 
is  not  the  equal  of  the  Father,  but  created  by  Him.  At  an  earlier 
period,  this  view  might  not  have  aroused  much  antagonism,  but 
in  the  fourth  century  most  theologians  rejected  it.  The  view  which 
finally  prevailed  was  that  the  Father  and  the  Son  were  equal,  and 
of  the  same  substance;  they  were,  however,  distinct  Persons.  The 

352 


CHRISTIANITY      DURING      THE      FIRST      FOUR      CENTURIES 

view  that  they  were  not  distinct,  but  only  different  aspects  of  one 
Being,  was  the  Sabellian  heresy,  called  after  its  founder  Sabellius. 
Orthodoxy  thus  had  to  tread  a  narrow  line:  those  who  unduly 
emphasized  the  distinctness  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  were  in 
danger  of  Arianism,  and  those  who  unduly  emphasized  their 
oneness  were  in  danger  of  Sabellianism. 

The  doctrines  of  Arius  were  condemned  by  the  Council  of 
Nicaea  (325)  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  But  various  modifica- 
tions were  suggested  by  various  theologians,  and  favoured  by 
Emperors.  Athanasius,  who  was  Bishop  of  Alexandria  from  328 
till  his  death,  was  constantly  in  exile  because  of  his  zeal  for  Nicene 
orthodoxy.  He  had  immense  popularity  in  Egypt,  which,  through- 
out the  controversy,  followed  him  unwaveringly.  It  is  curious  that, 
in  the  course  of  theological  controversy,  national  (or  at  least 
regional)  feeling,  which  had  seemed  extinct  since  the  Roman 
conquest,  revived.  Constantinople  and  Asia  inclined  to  Arianism; 
Egypt  was  fanatically  Athanasian;  the  West  steadfastly  adhered 
to  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Nicaea.  After  the  Arian  controversy 
was  ended,  new  controversies,  of  a  more  or  less  kindred  sort, 
arose,  in  which  Egypt  became  heretical  in  one  direction  and  Syria 
in  another.  These  heresies,  which  were  persecuted  by  the  orthodox, 
impaired  the  unity  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  and  facilitated  the 
Mohammedan  conquest.  The  separatist  movements,  in  themselves, 
are  not  surprising,  but  it  is  curious  that  they  should  have  been 
associated  with  vefy  subtle  and  abstruse  theological  questions. 

The  Emperors,  from  335  to  378,  favoured  more  or  less  Arian 
opinions  as  far  as  they  dared,  except  for  Julian  the  Apostate 
(361-363),  who,  as  a  pagan,  was  neutral  as  regards  the  internal 
disputes  of  the  Christians.  At  last,  in  379,  the  Emperor  Theodosius 
gave  his  full  support  to  the  Catholics,  and  their  victory  throughout 
the  Empire  was  complete.  St.  Ambrose,  St.  Jerome,  and  St. 
Augustine,  whom  we  shall  consider  in  the  next  chapter,  lived  most 
of  their  lives  during  this  period  of  Catholic  triumph.  It  was 
succeeded,  however,  in  the  West,  by  another  Arian  domination, 
that  of  the  Goths  and  Vandals,  who,  between  them,  conquered 
most  of  the  Western  Empire.  Their  power  lasted  for  about  a 
century,  at  the  end  of  which  it  was  destroyed  by  Justinian,  the 
Lombards,  and  the  Franks,  of  whom  Justinian  and  the  Franks, 
and  ultimately  the  Lombards  also,  were  orthodox.  Thus  at  last 
the  Catholic  faith  achieved  definitive  success. 

353  M 


Chapter  III 
THREE    DOCTORS    OF    THE    CHURCH 

FOUR  men  are  called  the  Doctors  of  the  Western  Church: 
St.  Ambrose,  St.  Jerome,  St.  Augustine,  and  Pope  Gregory 
the  Great.  Of  these  the  first  three  were  contemporaries, 
while  the  fourth  belonged  to  a  later  date.  I  shall,  in  this  chapter, 
give  some  account  of  the  life  and  times  of  the  first  three,  reserving 
for  a  later  chapter  an  account  of  the  doctrines  of  St.  Augustine, 
who  is,  for  us,  the  most  important  of  the  three. 

Ambrose,  Jerome,  and  Augustine  all  flourished  during  the  brief 
period  between  the  victory  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  barbarian  invasion.  All  three  were  young  during 
the  reign  of  Julian  the  Apostate ;  Jerome  lived  ten  years  after  the 
sack  of  Rome  by  the  Goths  under  Alaric ;  Augustine  lived  till  the 
irruption  of  the  Vandals  into  Africa,  and  died  while  they  were 
besieging  Hippo,  of  which  he  was  bishop.  Immediately  after  their 
time,  the  masters  of  Italy,  Spain,  and  Africa  were  not  only  bar- 
barians, but  Arian  heretics.  Civilization  declined  for  centuries, 
and  it  was  not  until  nearly  a  thousand  years  later  that  Christendom 
again  produced  men  who  were  their  equals  in  learning  and  culture. 
Throughout  the  dark  ages  and  the  medieval  period,  their  authority 
was  revered;  they,  more  than  any  other  men,  fixed  the  mould 
into  which  the  Church  was  shaped.  Speaking  broadly,  St.  Ambrose 
determined  the  ecclesiastical  conception  of  the  relation  of  Church 
and  State;  St.  Jerome  gave  the  Western  Church  its  Latin  Bible 
and  a  great  part  of  the  impetus  to  monasticism ;  while  St.  Augustine 
fixed  the  theology  of  the  Church  until  the  Reformation,  and,  later, 
a  great  part  of  the  doctrines  of  Luther  and  Calvin.  Few  men  have 
surpassed  these  three  in  influence  on  the  course  of  history.  The 
independence  of  the  Church  in  relation  to  the  secular  State,  as 
successfully  maintained  by  St.  Ambrose,  was  a  new  and  revolu- 
tionary doctrine,  which  prevailed  until  the  Reformation;  when 
Hobbes  combated  it  in  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  against 
St.  Ambrose  that  he  chiefly  argued.  St.  Augustine  was  in  the  fore- 
front of  theological  controversy  during  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries,  Protestants  and  Jansenists  being  for  him,  and 
orthodox  Catholics  against  him. 

354 


THREE  DOCTORS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

The  capital  of  the  Western  Empire,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  was  Milan,  of  which  Ambrose  was  bishop.  His  duties 
brought  him  constantly  into  relations  with  the  emperors,  to  whom 
he  spoke  habitually  as  an  equal,  sometimes  as  a  superior.  His 
dealings  with  the  imperial  court  illustrate  a  general  contrast 
characteristic  of  the  times:  while  the  State  was  feeble,  incompetent, 
governed  by  unprincipled  self-seekers,  and  totally  without  any* 
policy  beyond  that  of  momentary  expedients,  the  Church  was 
vigorous,  able,  guided  by  men  prepared  to  sacrifice  everything 
personal  in  its  interests,  and  with  a  policy  so  far-sighted  that 
it  brought  victory  for  the  next  thousand  years.  It  is  true  that 
these  merits  were  offset  by  fanaticism  and  superstition,  but 
without  these  no  reforming  movement  could,  at  that  time,  have 
succeeded. 

St.  Ambrose  had  every  opportunity  to  seek  success  in  the  service 
of  the  State.  His  father,  also  named  Ambrose,  was  a  high  official 
—prefect  of  the  Gauls.  The  Saint  was  born,  probably,  at  Treves, 
a  frontier  garrison  town,  where  the  Roman  legions  were  stationed 
to  keep  the  Germans  at  bay.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  he  was  taken 
to  Rome,  where  he  had  a  good  education,  including  a  thorough 
grounding  in  Greek.  When  he  grew  up  he  took  to  the  law,  in 
which  he  was  very  successful;  and  at  the  age  of  thirty  he  was 
made  governor  of  Liguria  and  ^Emilia.  Nevertheless,  four  years 
later  he  turned  his  back  on  secular  government,  and  by  popular 
acclaim  became  bishop  of  Milan,  in  opposition  to  an  Arian  candi- 
date. He  gave  all  his  worldly  goods  to  the  poor,  and  devoted  the 
whole  of  the  rest  of  his  life  to  the  service  of  the  Church,  sometimes 
at  great  personal  risk.  This  choice  was  certainly  not  dictated  by 
worldly  motives,  but,  if  it  had  been,  it  would  have  been  wise.  In 
the  State,  even  if  he  had  become  Emperor,  he  could  at  that  time 
have  found  no  such  scope  for  his  administrative  statesmanship  as 
he  found  in  the  discharge  of  his  episcopal  duties. 

During  the  first  nine  years  of  Ambrose's  episcopate,  the 
Emperor  of  the  West  was  Gratian,  who  was  Catholic,  virtuous, 
and  careless.  He  was  so  devoted  to  the  chase  that  he  neglected 
the  government,  and  in  the  end  was  assassinated.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded, throughout  most  of  the  Western  Empire,  by  a  usurper 
named  Maximus;  but  in  Italy  the  succession  passed  to  Gratian 's 
younger  brother  Valentinian  II,  who  was  still  a  boy.  At  first,  the 
imperial  power  was  exercised  by  his  mother,  Justina,  widow  of 

355 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

the  Emperor  Valentinian  I;  but  as  she  was  an  Arian,  conflicts 
between  her  and  St.  Ambrose  were  inevitable. 

All  the  three  Saints  with  whom  we  are  concerned  in  this  chapter 
wrote  innumerable  letters,  of  which  many  are  preserved ;  the  con- 
sequence is  that  we  know  more  about  them  than  about  any  of 
the  pagan  philosophers,  and  more  than  about  all  but  a  few  of  the 
•  ecclesiastics  of  the  Middle  Ages.  St.  Augustine  wrote  letters  to 
all  and  sundry,  mostly  on  doctrine  or  Church  discipline;  St. 
Jerome's  letters  are  mainly  addressed  to  ladies,  giving  advice  on 
how  to  preserve  virginity ;  but  St.  Ambrose's  most  important  and 
interesting  letters  are  to  Emperors,  telling  them  in  what  respects 
they  have  fallen  short  of  their  duty,  or,  on  occasion,  congratulating 
them  on  having  performed  it. 

The  first  public  question  with  which  Ambrose  had  to  deal  was 
that  of  the  altar  and  statue  of  Victory  in  Rome.  Paganism  lingered 
longer  among  the  senatorial  families  of  the  capital  than  it  did 
elsewhere;  the  official  religion  was  in  the  hands  of  an  aristocratic 
priesthood,  and  was  bound  up  with  the  imperial  pride  of  the 
conquerors  of  the  world.  The  statue  of  Victor}'  in  the  Senate 
House  had  been  removed  by  Constantius,  the  son  of  Constantine, 
and  restored  by  Julian  the  Apostate.  The  Emperor  Gratian  again 
removed  the  statue,  whereupon  a  deputation  of  the  Senate,  headed 
by  Symmachus,  prefect  of  the  City,  asked  for  its  renewed 
restoration. 

Symmachus,  who  also  played  a  part  in  the  life  of  Augustine, 
was  a  distinguished  member  of  a  distinguished  family — rich, 
aristocratic,  cultivated,  and  pagan.  He  was  banished  from  Rome 
by  Gratian  in  382  for  his  protest  against  the  removal  of  the  statue 
of  Victory,  but  not  for  long,  as  he  was  prefect  of  the  City  in  384. 
He  was  the  grandfather  of  the  Symmachus  who  was  the  father-in- 
law  of  Boethius,  and  who  was  prominent  in  the  reign  of  Theodoric. 

The  Christian  senators  objected,  and  by  the  help  of  Ambrose 
and  the  Pope  (Damasus)  their  view  was  made  to  prevail  with  the 
Emperor.  After  the  death  of  Gratian,  Symmachus  and  the  pagan 
senators  petitioned  the  new  Emperor,  Valentinian  II,  in  A.o.  384. 
In  rebuttal  of  this  renewed  attempt,  Ambrose  wrote  to  the 
Emperor,  setting  forth  the  thesis  that,  as  all  Romans  owed  military 
service  to  their  sovereign,  so  he  (the  Emperor)  owed  service  to 
Almighty  God.1  "Let  no  one,"  he  says,  "take  advantage  of  your 
1  This  thesis  seems  to  anticipate  the  outlook  of  feudalism. 

356 


THREE  DOCTORS  OP  THE  CHURCH 

youth ;  if  he  be  a  heathen  who  demands  this,  it  is  not  right  that 
he  should  bind  your  mind  with  the  bonds  of  his  own  superstition; 
but  by  his  zeal  he  ought  to  teach  and  admonish  you  how  to  be 
zealous  for  the  true  faith,  since  he  defends  vain  things  with  all 
the  passion  of  truth."  To  be  compelled  to  swear  at  the  altar  of  an 
idol,  he  says,  is,  to  a  Christian,  persecution.  "If  it  were  a  civil 
cause  the  right  of  reply  would  be  reserved  for  the  opposing  party; 
it  is  a  religious  cause,  and  I  the  bishop  make  a  claim. .  . .  Certainly 
if  anything  else  is  decreed,  we  bishops  cannot  constantly  suffer  it 
and  take  no  notice;  you  indeed  may  come  to  the  Church,  but  will 
find  either  no  priest  there,  or  one  who  will  resist  you."1 

The  next  epistle  points  out  that  the  endowments  of  the  Church 
serve  purposes  never  served  by  the  wealth  of  heathen  temples.  "The 
possessions  of  the  Church  are  the  maintenance  of  the  poor.  Let 
them  count  up  how  many  captives  the  temples  have  ransomed, 
what  food  they  have  contributed  for  the  poor,  to  what  exiles  they 
have  supplied  the  means  of  living.**  This  was  a  telling  argument, 
and  one  which  was  quite  justified  by  Christian  practice. 

St.  Ambrose  won  his  point,  but  a  subsequent  usurper,  Eugenius, 
who  favoured  the  heathen,  restored  the  altar  and  statue.  It  was 
only  after  the  defeat  of  Eugenius  by  Theodosius  in  394  that  the 
question  was  finally  decided  in  favour  of  the  Christians. 

The  bishop  was,  at  first,  on  very  friendly  terms  with  the  imperial 
court,  and  was  employed  on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  the  usurper 
Maximus,  who,  it  was  feared,  might  invade  Italy.  Out  before  long 
a  grave  matter  of  controversy  arose.  The  Empress  Justina,  as  an 
Arian,  requested  that  one  church  in  Milan  might  be  ceded  to  the 
Arians,  but  Ambrose  refused.  The  people  sided  with  him,  and 
thronged  the  basilica  in  great  crowds.  Gothic  soldiers,  who  were 
Arians,  were  sent  to  take  possession,  but  fraternized  with  the 
people.  "The  Counts  and  Tribunes,'1  he  says  in  a  spirited  letter 
to  his  sister,3  "came  and  urged  me  to  cause  the  basilica  to  be 
quickly  surrendered,  saying  that  the  Emperor  was  exercising  his 
rights  since  everything  was  under  his  power.  I  answered  that  if 
he  asked  of  me  what  was  mine,  that  is,  my  land,  my  money,  or 
whatever  of  this  kind  was  my  own,  I  would  not  refuse  it,  although 
all  that  I  have  belonged  to  the  poor,  but  that  those  things  which 
are  God's  are  not  subject  to  the  imperial  power.  'If  my  patrimony 
is  required,  enter  upon  it ;  if  my  body,  I  will  go  at  once.  Do  you 

1  Epistle  xvii.  «  Ibid.  xx. 

357 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

wish  to  cast  me  into  chains,  or  to  give  me  to  death  ?  It  will  be  a 
pleasure  to  me.  I  will  not  defend  myself  with  throngs  of  people, 
nor  will  I  cling  to  the  altars  and  entreat  for  my  life,  but  will  more 
gladly  be  slain  myself  for  the  altars.'  I  was  indeed  struck  with 
horror  when  I  learnt  that  armed  men  had  been  sent  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  basilica,  lest  while  the  people  were  defending  the 
basilica,  there  might  be  some  slaughter  which  would  tend  to  the 
injury  of  the  whole  city.  I  prayed  that  I  might  not  survive  the 
destruction  of  so  great  a  city,  or  it  might  be  of  the  whole  of  Italy." 

These  fears  were  not  exaggerated,  as  the  Gothic  soldiery  were 
liable  to  break  out  into  savagery,  as  they  did  twenty-five  years 
later  in  the  sack  of  Rome. 

Ambrose's  strength  lay  in  the  support  of  the  people.  He  was 
accused  of  inciting  them,  but  replied  that  "it  was  in  my  power 
not  to  excite  them,  but  in  God's  hands  to  quiet  them."  None  of 
the  Arians,  he  says,  dared  to  go  forth,  as  there  was  not  one  Arian 
among  the  citizens.  He  was  formally  commanded  to  surrender  the 
basilica,  and  the  soldiers  were  ordered  to  use  violence  if  necessary. 
But  in  the  end  they  refused  to  use  violence,  and  the  Emperor  was 
compelled  to  give  way.  A  great  battle  had  been  won  in  the  contest 
for  ecclesiastical  independence;  Ambrose  had  demonstrated  that 
there  were  matters  in  which  the  State  must  yield  to  the  Church, 
and  had  thereby  established  a  new  principle  which  retains  its 
importance  to  the  present  day. 

His  next  conflict  was  with  the  Emperor  Theodosius.  A  syna- 
gogue had  been  burnt,  and  the  Count  of  the  East  reported  that 
this  had  been  done  at  the  instigation  of  die  local  bishop.  The 
Emperor  ordered  that  the  actual  incendiaries  should  be  punished, 
and  that  the  guilty  bishop  should  rebuild  the  synagogue.  St. 
Ambrose  neither  admits  nor  denies  the  bishop's  complicity,  but 
is  indignant  that  the  Emperor  should  seem  to  side  with  Jews 
against  Christians.  Suppose  the  bishop  refuses  to  obey?  He  will 
then  have  to  become  a  martyr  if  he  persists,  or  an  apostate  if  he 
gives  way.  Suppose  the  Count  decides  to  rebuild  the  synagogue 
himself  at  the  expense  of  the  Christians?  In  that  case  the  Emperor 
will  have  an  apostate  Count,  and  Christian  money  will  be  taken 
to  support  unbelief.  "Shall,  then,  a  place  be  made  for  the  unbelief 
of  the  Jews  out  of  the  spoils  of  the  Church,  and  shall  the  patrimony, 
which  by  the  favour  of  Christ  has  been  gained  for  Christians,  be 
transferred  to  the  treasuries  of  unbelievers?"  He  continues:  "But 

358 


THREE  DOCTORS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

perhaps  the  cause  of  discipline  moves  you,  O  Emperor.  Which, 
then,  is  of  greater  importance,  the  show  of  discipline  or  the  cause 
of  religion  ?  It  is  needful  that  judgment  should  yield  to  religion. 
Have  you  not  heard,  O  Emperor,  how,  when  Julian  commanded 
that  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem  should  be  restored,  those  who  were 
clearing  the  rubbish  were  consumed  by  fire?" 

It  is  clear  that,  in  the  Saint's  opinion,  the  destruction  of  syna- 
gogues should  not  be  punished  in  any  way.  This  is  an  example  of 
the  manner  in  which,  as  soon  as  it  acquired  power,  the  Church 
began  to  stimulate  anti-Semitism. 

The  next  conflict  between  Emperor  and  Saint  was  more  honour- 
able to  the  latter.  In  A.D.  390,  when  Theodosius  was  in  Milan,  a 
mob  in  Thessalonica  murdered  the  captain  of  the  garrison.  Theo- 
dosius, on  receiving  the  news,  was  seized  with  ungovernable  fury, 
and  ordered  an  abominable  revenge.  When  the  people  were 
assembled  in  the  circus,  the  soldiers  fell  upon  them,  and  massacred 
at  least  seven  thousand  of  them  in  an  indiscriminate  slaughter. 
Hereupon  Ambrose,  who  had  endeavoured  in  advance  to  restrain 
the  Emperor,  but  in  vain,  wrote  him  a  letter  full  of  splendid 
courage,  on  a  purely  moral  issue,  involving,  for  once,  no  question 
of  theology  or  the  power  of  the  Church: 

"There  was  that  done  in  the  city  of  the  Thessalonians  of  which 
no  similar  record  exists,  which  I  was  not  able  to  prevent  happening; 
which,  indeed,  I  had  before  said  would  be  most  atrocious  when 
I  so  often  petitioned  against  it." 

David  repeatedly  sinned,  and  confessed  his  sin  with  penitence.1 
Will  Theodosius  do  likewise?  Ambrose  decides  that  "I  dare  not 
offer  the  sacrifice  if  you  intend  to  be  present.  Is  that  which  is  not 
allowed  after  shedding  the  blood  of  one  innocent  person,  allowed 
after  shedding  the  blood  of  many?  I  do  not  think  so." 

The  Emperor  repented,  and,  divested  of  the  purple,  did  public 
penance  in  the  cathedral  of  Milan.  From  that  time  until  his  death 
in  395,  he  had  no  friction  with  Ambrose. 

Ambrose,  while  he  was  eminent  as  a  statesman,  was,  in  other 
respects,  merely  typical  of  his  age.  He  wrote,  like  other  ecclesi- 
astical authors,  a  treatise  in  praise  of  virginity,  and  another 

*  This  allusion  to  the  Books  of  Samuel  begins  a  line  of  biblical  argu- 
ment against  kings  which  persisted  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
even  in  the  conflict  of  the  Puritans  with  the  Stuarts.  It  appears  for  instance 
in  Milton.  - 

359 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

deprecating  the  remarriage  of  widows.  When  he  had  decided  on 
the  site  for  his  new  cathedral,  two  skeletons  (revealed  in  a  vision, 
it  was  said)  were  conveniently  discovered  on  the  spot,  were  found 
to  work  miracles,  and  were  declared  by  him  to  be  those  of  two 
martyrs.  Other  miracles  are  related  in  his  letters,  with  all  the 
credulity  characteristic  of  his  times.  He  was  inferior  to  Jerome 
as  a  scholar,  and  to  Augustine  as  a  philosopher.  But  as  a  statesman, 
who  skilfully  and  courageously  consolidated  the  power  of  the 
Church,  he  stands  out  as  a  man  of  the  first  rank. 

Jerome  is  chiefly  notable  as  the  translator  who  produced  the 
Vulgate,  which  remains  to  this  day  the  official  Catholic  version  of 
the  Bible.  Until  his  day  the  Western  Church  relied,  as  regards 
the  Old  Testament,  chiefly  on  translations  from  the  Septuagint, 
which,  in  important  ways,  differed  from  the  Hebrew  original. 
Christians,  as  we  have  seen,  were  given  to  maintaining  that  the 
Jews,  since  the  rise  of  Christianity,  had  falsified  the  Hebrew  text 
where  it  seemed  to  predict  the  Messiah.  This  was  a  view  which 
sound  scholarship  showed  to  be  untenable,  and  which  Jerome 
firmly  rejected.  He  accepted  the  help  of  rabbis,  given  secretly  for 
fear  of  the  Jews.  In  defending  himself  against  Christian  criticism 
he  said:  "Let  him  who  would  challenge  aught  in  this  translation 
ask  the  Jews."  Because  of  his  acceptance  of  the  Hebrew  text  in 
the  form  which  the  Jews  regarded  as  correct,  his  version  had,  at 
first,  a  largely  hostile  reception;  but  it  won  its  way,  partly  because 
St.  Augustine  on  the  whole  supported  it.  It  was  a  great  achieve- 
ment, involving  considerable  textual  criticism. 

Jerome  was  born  in  345 — five  years  after  Ambrose — not  far  from 
Aquileia,  at  a  town  called  Stridon,  which  was  destroyed  by  the 
Goths  in  377.  His  family  were  well-to-do,  but  not  rich.  In  363  he 
went  to  Rome,  where  he  studied  rhetoric  and  sinned.  After  travel- 
ling in  Gaul,  he  settled  in  Aquileia,  and  become  an  ascetic.  The 
next  five  years  he  spent  as  a  hermit  in  the  Syrian  wilderness.  "His 
life  while  in  the  desert  was  one  of  rigorous  penance,  of  tears  and 
groans  alternating  with  spiritual  ecstasy,  and  of  temptations  from 
haunting  memories  of  Roman  life ;  he  lived  in  a  cell  or  cavern ;  he 
earned  his  daily  bread,  and  was  clad  in  sackcloth."1  After  this 
period,  he  travelled  to  Constantinople,  and  lived  in  Rome  for  three 
years,  where  he  became  the  friend  and  adviser  of  Pope  Damasus, 
with  whose  encouragement  he  undertook  his  translation  of  the  Bible. 
1  Selict  Library  of  Nutmt  and  Post-Nicent  Father*  t  Vol.  VI,  p.  17. 

360 


THREE  DOCTORS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

St.  Jerome  was  a  man  of  many  quarrels.  He  quarrelled  with  St. 
Augustine  about  the  somewhat  questionable  behaviour  of  St.  Peter 
as  related  by  St.  Paul  in  Galatians  ii ;  he  broke  with  his  friend  Ru- 
finus  over  Origen ;  and  he  was  so  vehement  against  Pelagius  that 
his  monastery  was  attacked  by  a  Pelagian  mob.  After  the  death  of 
Damasus,  he  seems  to  have  quarrelled  with  the  new  Pope;  he  had, 
while  in  Rome,  become  acquainted  with  various  ladies  who  were 
both  aristocratic  and  pious,  some  of  whom  he  persuaded  to  adopt 
the  ascetic  life.  The  new  Pope,  in  common  with  many  other  people 
in  Rome,  disliked  this.  For  this  reason  among  others,  Jerome  left 
Rome  for  Bethlehem,  where  he  remained  from  386  till  his  death 
in  420. 

Among  his  distinguished  female  converts,  two  were  especially 
notable:  the  widow  Paula  and  her  daughter  Eustochium.  Both  these 
ladies  accompanied  him  on  his  circuitous  journey  to  Bethlehem. 
They  were  of  the  highest  nobility,  and  one  cannot  but  feel  a  flavour 
of  snobbery  in  the  Saint's  attitude  to  them.  When  Paula  died  and 
was  buried  at  Bethlehem,  Jerome  composed  an  epitaph  for  her 
tomb : 

Within  this  tomb  a  child  of  Scipio  lies, 

A  daughter  of  the  far-famed  Pauline  house, 

A  scion  of  the  Gracchi,  of  the  stock 

Of  Agamemnon's  self,  illustrious: 

Here  rests  the  lady  Paula,  well-beloved 

Of  both  her  parents,  with  Eustochium 

For  daughter ;  she  the  first  of  Roman  dames 

Who  hardship  chose  and  Bethlehem  for  Christ.1 

Some  of  Jerome's  letters  to  Eustochium  are  curious.  He  gives 
her  advice  on  the  preservation  of  virginity,  very  detailed  and  frank; 
he  explains  the  exact  anatomical  meaning  of  certain  euphemisms 
in  the  Old  Testament ;  and  he  employs  a  kind  of  erode  mysticism 
in  praising  the  joys  of  conventual  life.  A  nun  is  the  Bride  of 
Christ ;  this  marriage  is  celebrated  in  the  Song  of  Solomon.  In  a 
long  letter  written  at  the  time  when  she  took  the  vows,  he  gives 
a  remarkable  message  to  her  mother:  "Are  you  angry  with  her 
because  she  chooses  to  be  a  king's  [Christ's]  wife  and  not  a  sol- 
dier's? She  has  conferred  on  you  a  high  privilege;  you  are  now 
the  mother-in-law  of  God."8 

1  Select  Library  of  A'*f«f«r  und  Fo$t-Ktcene  Fathers,  Vol.  VI,  p,  212. 
•  ibid.,  p.  30. 

361 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

To  Eustochium  herself,  in  the  same  letter  (xxii),  he  says: 

"Ever  let  the  privacy  of  your  chamber  guard  you ;  ever  let  the 
Bridegroom  sport  with  you  within.  Do  you  pray  ?  You  speak  to  the 
Bridegroom.  Do  you  read  ?  He  speaks  to  you.  When  sleep  over- 
takes you  He  will  come  behind  and  put  His  hand  through  the  hole 
of  the  door,  and  your  heart  shall  be  moved  for  Him;  and  you  will 
awake  and  rise  up  and  say:  "I  am  sick  of  love.'  Then  He  will  reply: 
'A  garden  enclosed  is  my  sister,  my  spouse;  a  spring  shut  up,  a 
fountain  sealed/  " 

In  the  same  letter  he  relates  how,  after  cutting  himself  off  from 
relations  and  friends,  uand — harder  still — from  the  dainty  food 
to  which  I  had  been  accustomed,"  he  still  could  not  bear  to  be 
parted  from  his  library,  and  took  it  with  him  to  the  desert.  "And 
so,  miserable  man  that  I  was,  I  would  fast  only  that  I  might  after- 
wards read  Cicero."  After  days  and  nights  of  remorse,  he  would 
fall  again,  and  read  Plautus.  After  such  indulgence,  the  style  of 
the  prophets  seemed  "rude  and  repellent."  At  last,  during  a  fever, 
he  dreamed  that,  at  the  Last  Judgment,  Christ  asked  him  who 
he  was,  and  he  replied  that  he  was  a  Christian.  The  answer  came: 
"Thou  liest,  thou  art  a  follower  of  Cicero  and  not  of  Christ." 
Thereupon  he  was  ordered  to  be  scourged.  At  length  Jerome,  in 
his  dream,  cried  out:  "Lord,  if  ever  again  I  possess  worldly  books, 
or  if  ever  again  I  read  such,  I  have  denied  Thee."  This,  he  adds, 
"was  no  sleep  or  idle  dream."1 

After  this,  for  some  years,  his  letters  contain  few  classical  quota- 
tions. But  after  a  certain  time  he  lapses  again  into  verses  from 
Virgil,  Horace,  and  even  Ovid.  They  seem,  however,  to  be  from 
memory,  particularly  as  some  of  them  are  repeated  over  and  over 
again. 

Jerome's  letters  express  the  feelings  produced  by  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire  more  vividly  than  any  others  known  to  me.  In 
396  he  writes:2 

"I  shudder  when  I  think  of  the  catastrophes  of  our  time.  For 
twenty  years  and  more  the  blood  of  Romans  has  been  shed  daily 
between  Constantinople  and  the  Julian  Alps.  Scythia,  Thrace, 
Macedonia,  Dacia,  Thessaly,  Achaia,  Epirus,  Dalmatia,  the 

•  *  This  hostility  to  pagan  literature  persisted  in  the  Church  until  the 
eleventh  century,  except  in  Ireland,  where  the  Olympian  gods  had  never 
been  worshipped,  and  were  therefore  not  feared  by  the  Church. 

1  Utter  be. 

,   '  362 


THREE  DOCTORS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

Pannonias — each  and  all  of  these  have  been  sacked  and  pillaged 
and  plundered  by  Goths  and  Sarmatians,  Quad!  and  Alans,  Huns 
and  Vandals  and  Marchmen. . .  .  The  Roman  world  is  falling:  yet 
we  hold  up  our  heads  instead  of  bowing  them.  What  courage, 
think  you,  have  the  Corinthians  now,  or  the  Athenians  or  the 
Lacedaemonians  or  the  Arcadians,  or  any  of  the  Greeks  over  whom 
the  barbarians  bear  sway  ?  I  have  mentioned  only  a  few  cities,  but 
these  once  the  capitals  of  no  mean  States  " 

He  goes  on  to  relate  the  ravages  of  the  Huns  in  the  East,  and 
ends  with  the  reflection :  "To  treat  such  themes  as  they  deserve, 
Thucydides  and  Sallust  would  be  as  good  as  dumb." 

Seventeen  years*  later,  three  years  after  the  sack  of  Rome,  he 
writes:1 

"The  world  sinks  into  ruin:  yes!  but  shameful  to  say  our  sins 
still  live  and  flourish.  The  renowned  city,  the  capital  of  the  Roman 
Kmpire,  is  swallowed  up  in  one  tremendous  fire ;  and  there  is  no 
part  of  the  earth  where  Romans  are  not  in  exile.  Churches  once 
held  sacred  are  now  but  heaps  of  dust  and  ashes ;  and  yet  we  have 
our  minds  set  on  the  desire  of  gain.  We  live  as  though  we  were 
going  to  die  to-morrow;  yet  we  build  as  though  we  were  going 
to  live  always  in  this  world.  Our  walls  shine  with  gold,  our  ceilings 
also  and  the  capitals  of  our  pillars ;  yet  Christ  dies  before  our  doors 
naked  and  hungry  in  the  person  of  His  poor." 

This  passage  occurs  incidentally  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  who  has 
decided  to  devote  his  daughter  to  perpetual  virginity,  and  most 
of  it  is  concerned  \\ith  the  rules  to  be  observed  in  the  education 
of  girls  so  dedicated.  It  is  strange  that,  with  all  Jerome's  deep 
feeling  about  the  fall  of  the  ancient  world,  he  thinks  the  preser- 
vation of  virginity  more  important  than  victory  over  the  Huns  and 
Vandals  and  Goths.  Never  once  do  his  thoughts  turn  to  any 
possible  measure  of  practical  statesmanship;  never  once  does  he 
point  out  the  evils  of  the  fiscal  system,  or  of  reliance  on  an  army 
composed  of  barbarians.  The  same  is  true  of  Ambrose  and  of 
Augustine ;  Ambrose,  it  is  true,  was  a  statesman,  but  only  on  behalf 
of  the  Church.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  Empire  fell  into  ruin  when 
all  the  best  and  most  vigorous  minds  of  the  age  were  so  compl 
remote  from  secular  concerns.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
inevitable,  the  Christian  outlook  was  admirably  fitted^ 
fortitude,  and  to  enable  them  to  preserve  their 

1  Letter  cxxviii. 

363 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

when  earthly  hopes  seemed  vain.  The  expression  of  this  point  of 
view,  in  The  City  of  God,  was  the  supreme  merit  of  St.  Augustine. 

Of  St.  Augustine  I  shall  speak,  in  this  chapter,  only  as  a  man ; 
as  a  theologian  and  philosopher,  I  shall  consider  him  in  the  next 
chapter. 

He  was  born  in  354,  nine  years  after  Jerome,  and  fourteen  years 
after  Ambrose;  he  was  a  native  of  Africa,  where  he  passed  much 
the  greater  part  of  his  life.  His  mother  was  a  Christian,  but  his 
father  was  not.  After  a  period  as  a  Manicluean,  he  became  a 
Catholic,  and  was  baptized  by  Ambrose  in  Milan.  He  became 
bishop  of  Hippo,  not  far  from  Carthage,  about  the  year  396.  There 
he  remained  until  his  death  in  430. 

Of  his  early  life  we  know  much  more  than  in  the  case  of  most 
ecclesiastics,  because  he  has  told  of  it  in  his  Confessions.  This  book 
has  had  famous  imitators,  particularly  Rousseau  and  Tolstoy,  but 
I  do  not  think  it  had  any  comparable  predecessors.  St.  Augustine 
is  in  some  ways  similar  to  Tolstoy,  to  whom,  however,  he  is 
superior  in  intellect.  He  was  a  passionate  man,  in  youth  very  far 
from  a  pattern  of  virtue,  but  driven  by  an  inner  impulse  to  search 
for  truth  and  righteousness.  Like  Tolstoy,  he  was  obsessed,  in  his 
later  years,  by  a  sense  of  sin,  which  made  his  life  stern  and  his 
philosophy  inhuman.  He  combated  heresies  vigorously,  but  some 
of  his  views,  when  repeated  by  Jansenius  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, were  pronounced  heretical.  Until  the  Protestants  took  up 
his  opinions,  however,  the  Catholic  Church  had  never  impugned 
their  orthodox)*. 

One  of  the  first  incidents  of  his  life  related  in  the  Confessions 
occurred  in  his  boyhood,  and  did  not,  in  itself,  greatly  distinguish 
him  from  other  boys.  It  appears  that,  with  some  companions  of 
his  own  age,  he  despoiled  a  neighbour's  pear  tree,  although  he  was 
not  hungry,  and  his  parents  had  better  pears  at  home.  He  con- 
tinued throughout  his  life  to  consider  this  an  act  of  almost  in- 
credible wickedness.  It  would  not  have  been  so  bad  if  he  had  been 
hungry,  or  had  had  no  other  means  of  getting  pears;  but,  as  it  was, 
the  act  was  one  of  pure  mischief,  inspired  by  the  love  of  wicked- 
ness for  its  own  sake.  It  is  this  that  makes  it  so  unspeakably 
black.  He  beseeches  God  to  forgive  him: 

"Behold  my  heart,  O  God,  behold  my  heart,  which  Thou  hadst 
pity  upon  in  the  bottom  of  the  abyss.  Now,  behold,  let  my  heart 
tell  Thee,  what  it  sought  there,  that  I  should  be  gratuitously 

364 


THREE  DOCTORS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

wicked,  having  no  temptation  to  that  evil  deed,  but  the  evil  deed 
itself.  It  was  foul,  and  I  loved  it;  I  loved  to  perish,  I  loved  mine 
own  fault,  not  that  for  the  sake  of  which  I  committed  the  fault, 
but  my  fault  itself  I  loved.  Foul  soul,  falling  from  the  firmament 
to  expulsion  from  Thy  presence;  not  seeking  aught  through  the 
shame,  but  the  shame  itself  I"1 

Me  goes  on  like  this  for  seven  chapters,  and  all  about  some  pears 
plucked  from  a  tree  in  a  boyish  prank.  To  a  modern  mind,  this 
seems  morbid;2  but  in  his  own  age  it  seemed  right  and  a  mark 
of  holiness.  The  sense  of  sin,  which  was  very  strong  in  his  day, 
came  to  the  Jews  as  a  way  of  reconciling  self-importance  with 
outward  defeat.  Yahweh  was  omnipotent,  and  Yahweh  was  specially 
interested  in  the  Jews;  why,  then,  did  they  not  prosper?  Because 
they  were  wicked  :  they  were  idolaters,  they  married  gentiles,  they 
failed  to  observe  the  Law.  God's  purposes  were  centred  on  the 
Jews,  but,  since  righteousness  is  the  greatest  of  goods,  and  is 
achieved  through  tribulation,  they  must  first  be  chastised,  and 
must  recognize  their  chastisement  as  a  mark  of  God's  paternal  love. 

Christians  put  the  Church  in  place  of  the  Chosen  People,  but 
except  in  one  respect  this  made  little  difference  to  the  psychology 
of  sin.  The  Church,  like  the  Jews,  suffered  tribulation;  the  Church 
was  troubled  by  heresies;  individual  Christians  fell  into  apostasy 
under  the  stress  of  persecution.  There  was,  however,  one  impor- 
tant development,  already  made,  to  a  great  extent,  by  the  Jews, 
and  that  was  the  substitution  of  individual  for  communal  sin. 
Originally,  it  was  the  Jewish  nation  that  sinned,  and  that  was 
collectively  punished;  but  later  sin  became  more  personal,  thus 
losing  its  political  character.  When  the  Church  was  substituted 
for  the  Jewish  nation,  this  change  became  essential,  since  the 
Church,  as  a  spiritual  entity,  could  not  sin,  but  the  individual 
sinner  could  cease  to  be  in  communion  with  the  Church.  Sin,  as 
we  said  just  now,  is  connected  with  self-importance.  Originally 
the  importance  was  that  of  the  Jewish  nation,  but  subsequently 
it  was  that  of  the  individual  —  not  of  the  Church,  because  the 
Church  never  sinned.  It  thus  came  about  that  Christian  theology 
had  two  parts,  one  concerned  with  the  Church,  and  one  with  the 
individual  soul.  In  later  times,  the  first  of  these  was  most  em- 


s,  Book  II,  chap.  iv. 

1  I  must  except  Mahatma  Gnndhi,   whoso  autobiography  contains 
passages  closely  similar  to  the  above. 

365 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

phasized  by  Catholics,  and  the  second  by  Protestants,  but  in  St. 
Augustine  both  exist  equally,  without  his  having  any  sense  of 
disharmony.  Those  who  are  saved  are  those  whom  God  has  pre- 
destined to  salvation ;  this  is  a  direct  relation  of  the  soul  to  God. 
But  no  one  will  be  saved  unless  he  has  been  baptized,  and  thereby 
become  a  member  of  the  Church;  this  makes  the  Church  an 
intermediary  between  the  soul  and  God. 

Sin  is  what  is  essential  to  the  direct  relation,  since  it  explains 
how  a  beneficent  Deity  can  cause  men  to  suffer,  and  how,  in  spite 
of  this,  individual  souls  can  be  what  is  of  most  importance  in  the 
created  world.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  the  theology 
upon  which  the  Reformation  relied  should  be  due  to  a  man  whose 
sense  of  sin  was  abnormal. 

So  much  for  the  pears.  Let  us  now  see  what  the  Confessions  have 
to  say  on  some  other  subjects. 

Augustine  relates  how  he  learnt  Latin,  painlessly,  at  his  mother's 
knee,  but  hated  Greek,  which  they  tried  to  teach  him  at  school, 
because  he  was  "urged  vehemently  with  cruel  threats  and  punish- 
ments." To  the  end  of  his  life,  his  knowledge  of  Greek  remained 
slight.  One  might  have  supposed  that  he  would  go  on,  from  this 
contrast,  to  draw  a  moral  in  favour  of  gentle  methods  in  education. 
What  he  says,  however,  is: 

"It  is  quite  clear,  then,  that  a  free  curiosity  has  more  power  to 
make  us  learn  these  things  than  a  terrifying  obligation.  Only  this 
obligation  restrains  the  waverings  of  that  freedom  by  Thy  laws, 
O  my  God,  Thy  laws,  from  the  master's  rod  to  the  martyr's  trials, 
for  Thy  laws  have  the  effect  of  mingling  for  us  certain  wholesome 
bitters,  which  recall  us  to  Thee  away  from  that  pernicious  blithe- 
someness,  by  means  of  which  we  depart  from  Thee." 

The  schoolmaster's  blows,  though  they  failed  to  make  him  know 
Greek,  cured  him  of  being  perniciously  blithesome,  and  were,  on 
this  ground,  a  desirable  part  of  education.  For  those  who  make  sin 
the  most  important  of  all  human  concerns,  this  view  is  logical.  He 
goes  on  to  point  out  that  he  sinned,  not  only  as  a  school-boy,  when 
he  told  lies  and  stole  food,  but  even  earlier;  indeed  he  devotes  a 
whole  chapter  (Book  I,  chap,  vii)  to  proving  that  even  infants  at  the 
breast  are  full  of  sin — gluttony,  jealousy,  and  other  horrible  vices. 

When  he  reached  adolescence,  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  overcame 
him.  "Where  was  I,  and  how  far  was  I  exiled  from  the  delights  of 
Thy  house,  in  that  sixteenth  year  of  the  age  of  my  flesh,  when  the 


THREE  DOCTORS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

madness  of  lust  which  hath  licence  through  man's  viciousness, 
though  forbidden  by  Thy  laws,  took  the  rule  over  me,  and  I 
resigned  myself  wholly  to  it?"1 

His  father  took  no  pains  to  prevent  this  evil,  but  confined  him- 
self to  giving  help  in  Augustine's  studies.  His  mother,  St.  Monica, 
on  the  contrary,  exhorted  him  to  chastity,  but  in  vain.  And  even 
she  did  not,  at  that  time,  suggest  marriage,  "lest  my  prospects 
might  be  embarrassed  by  the  clog  of  a  wife." 

At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  went  to  Carthage,  "where  there  seethed 
all  around  me  a  cauldron  of  lawless  loves.  I  loved  not  yet,  yet  I 
loved  to  love,  and  out  of  a  deep-seated  want,  I  hated  myself  for 
wanting  not.  I  sought  what  I  might  love,  in  love  with  loving,  and 
I  hated  safety.  ...  To  love  then,  and  to  be  beloved,  was  sweet  to 
me;  but  more,  when  I  obtained  to* enjoy  the  person  I  loved.  I 
defiled,  therefore,  the  spring  of  friendship  with  the  filth  of  con- 
cupiscence, and  I  beclouded  its  brightness  with  the  hell  of  lust- 
fulness."2  These  words  describe  his  relation  to  a  mistress  whom 
he  loved  faithfully  for  many  years,3  and  by  whom  he  had  a  son, 
whom  he  also  loved,  and  to  whom,  after  his  conversion,  he  gave 
much  care  in  religious  education. 

The  time  came  when  he  and  his  mother  thought  he  ought  to 
begin  to  think  of  marrying.  He  became  engaged  to  a  girl  of  whom 
she  approved,  and  it  was  held  necessary  that  he  should  break  with 
his  mistress.  "My  mistress,"  he  says,  "being  torn  from  my  side 
as  a  hindrance  to  my  marriage,  my  heart  which  clave  unto  her  was 
torn  and  wounded  and  bleeding.  And  she  returned  to  Africa 
[Augustine  was  at  this  time  in  Milan],  vowing  unto  Thee  never 
to  know  any  other  man,  leaving  with  me  my  son  by  her."4  As, 
however,  the  marriage  could  not  take  place  for  two  years,  owing 
to  the  girl's  youth,  he  took  meanwhile  another  mistress,  less  official 
and  less  acknowledged.  His  conscience  increasingly  troubled  him, 
and  he  used  to  pray:  "Give  me  chastity  and  continence,  only  not 
yet."6  At  last,  before  the  time  had  come  for  his  marriage,  religion 
won  a  complete  victory,  and  he  dedicated  the  rest  of  his  life  to 
celibacy. 

To  return  to  an  earlier  time:  in  his  nineteenth  year,  having 
achieved  proficiency  in  rhetoric,  he  was  recalled  to  philosophy  by 

1  Confusions,  Book  II,  chap.  ii.  *  Ibid,,  Book  III,  chap.  i. 

8  Ibid.,  Book  IV,  chap.  ii.  '  Ibid.,  Book  VI,  chap.  xv. 

'  Ibid.,  Book  VIII,  chap.  vii. 

367 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Cicero,  He  tried  reading  the  Bible,  but  found  it  lacking  in 
Ciceronian  dignity.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  became  a  Mwiichaean, 
which  grieved  his  mother.  By  profession  he  was  a  teacher  of 
rhetoric.  He  was  addicted  to  astrology,  to  which,  in  later  life,  he 
was  averse,  because  it  teaches  that  "the  inevitable  cause  of  thy 
sin  is  in  the  sky."1  He  read  philosophy,  so  far  as  it  could  be  read 
in  Latin;  he  mentions  particularly  Aristotle's  Ten  Categories  > 
which,  he  says,  he  understood  without  the  help  of  a  teacher.  "And 
what  did  it  profit  me,  that  I,  the  vilest  slave  of  evil  passions,  read 
by  myself  all  the  books  of  so-called  'liberal'  arts,  and  understood 
whatever  I  could  read?  .  .  .  For  I  had  my  back  to  the  light,  and 
my  face  to  the  things  enlightened ;  whence  my  face  .  .  .  itself  was 
not  enlightened."8  At  this  time  he  believed  that  God  was  a  vast 
and  bright  body,  and  he  himself  a  part  of  that  body.  One  could 
wish  that  he  had  told  in  detail  the  tenets  of  the  Manichaeans, 
instead  of  merely  saying  they  were  erroneous. 

It  is  interesting  that  St.  Augustine's  first  reasons  for  rejecting 
the  doctrines  of  Manichanis  were  scientific.  He  remembered— so 
he  tells  us8 — what  he  had  learned  of  astronomy  from  the  writings 
of  the  best  astronomers,  "and  I  compared  them  with  the  sayings 
of  Manichaeus,  who  in  his  crazy  folly  has  written  much  and 
copiously  upon  these  subjects;  but  none  of  his  reasoning  of  the 
solstices,  nor  equinoxes,  nor  eclipses,  nor  whatever  of  this  kind 
I  had  learned  in  books  of  secular  philosophy,  was  satisfactory  to 
me.  But  I  was  commanded  to  believe;  and  yet  it  corresponded 
not  with  the  reasonings  obtained  by  calculations,  and  by  my  own 
observations,  but  was  quite  contrary."  He  is  careful  to  point  out 
that  scientific  mistakes  are  not  in  themselves  a  sign  of  errors  as 
to  the  faith,  but  only  become  so  when  delivered  with  an  air  of 
authority  as  known  through  divine  inspiration.  One  wonders  what 
he  would  have  thought  if  he  had  lived  in  the  time  of  Galileo. 

In  the  hope  of  resolving  his  doubts,  a  Manich&an  bishop  named 
Faustus,  reputed  the  most  learned  member  of  the  sect,  met  him 
and  reasoned  with  him.  But  "I  found  him  first  utterly  ignorant 
of  liberal  sciences,  save  grammar,  and  that  but  in  an  ordinary 
way.  But  because  he  had  read  some  of  Tully's  Orations,  a  very 
few  books  of  Seneca,  some  things  of  the  poets,  and  such  few 
volumes  of  his  own  sect,  as  were  written  in  I<atin  and  in  logical 

1  Cottfesricns,  Book  IV,  chap.  iii. 

1  IMd.t  Book  IV,  chap.  xvi.  *  /«*,  Book  V,  chap,  iii 

368 


THREE  DOCTORS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

order,  and  was  daily  practised  in  speaking,  he  acquired  a  certain 
eloquence,  which  proved  the  more  pleasing  and  seductive,  because 
under  the  control  of  his  good  sense,  and  with  a  certain  natural 
grace."1 

He  found  Faustus  quite  unable  to  solve  his  astronomical  diffi- 
culties. The  books  of  the  Manichecans,  he  tells  us,  "are  full  of 
lengthy  fables,  of  the  heaven,  and  stars,  sun,  and  moon,"  which 
do  not  agree  with  what  has  been  discovered  by  astronomers;  but 
when  he  questioned  Faustus  on  these  matters,  Faustus  frankly 
confessed  his  ignorance.  "Even  for  this  I  liked  him  the  better. 
For  the  modesty  of  a  candid  mind  is  even  more  attractive  than 
the  knowledge  of  those  things  which  I  desired ;  and  such  I  found 
him,  in  all  the  more  difficult  and  subtle  questions."2 

This  sentiment  is  surprisingly  liberal;  one  would  not  have  ex- 
pected it  in  that  age.  Nor  is  it  quite  in  harmony  with  St.  Augus- 
tine's later  attitude  towards  heretics. 

At  this  time  he  decided  to  go  to  Rome,  not,  he  says,  because 
there  the  income  of  a  teacher  was  higher  than  at  Carthage,  but 
because  he  had  heard  that  classes  were  more  orderly.  At  Carthage, 
the  disorders  perpetrated  by  students  were  such  that  teaching  was 
almost  impossible;  but  at  Rome,  while  there  was  less  disorder, 
students  fraudulently  evaded  payment. 

In  Rome,  he  still  associated  with  the  Manichaeans,  but  with  less 
conviction  of  their  tightness.  He  began  to  think  that  the  Academics 
were  right  in  holding  that  men  ought  to  doubt  everything.3  He 
still,  however,  agreed  with  the  Manichseans  in  thinking  "that  it 
is  not  we  ourselves  that  sin,  but  that  some  other  nature  (what,  I 
know  not)  sins  in  us,"  and  he  believed  Evil  to  be  some  kind  of 
substance.  This  makes  it  clear  that,  before  as  after  his  conversion, 
the  question  of  sin  pre-occupied  him. 

After  about  a  year  in  Rome,  he  was  sent  to  Milan  by  the  Prefect 
Symmachus,  in  response  to  a  request  from  that  city  for  a  teacher 
of  rhetoric.  At  Milan  he  became  acquainted  with  Ambrose,  "known 
to  the  whole  world  as  among  the  best  of  men."  He  came  to  love 
Ambrose  for  his  kindness,  and  to  prefer  the  Catholic  doctrine  to 
that  of  the  Manichseans;  hut  for  a  while  he  was  held  back  by  the 
scepticism  he  had  learnt  from  the  Academics,  "to  which  philoso- 
phers notwithstanding,  because  they  were  without  the  saving  name 

1  Confessions,  Bcx>k  V,  chap.  vi. 

d.,  Book  II,  chap.  vii.  8  /«</.,  Book  V,  chap.  x. 

369 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

of  Christ,  I  utterly  refused  to  commit  the  care  of  my  sick 
soul."1 

In  Milan  he  was  joined  by  his  mother,  who  had  a  powerful 
influence  in  hastening  the  last  steps  to  his  conversion.  She  was  a 
very  earnest  Catholic,  and  he  writes  of  her  always  in  a  tone  of 
reverence.  She  was  the  more  important  to  him  at  this  time,  because 
Ambrose  was  too  busy  to  converse  with  him  privately. 

There  is  a  very  interesting  chapter9  in  which  he  compares  the 
Platonic  philosophy  with  Christian  doctrine.  The  Lord,  he  says, 
at  this  time  provided  him  with  "certain  books  of  the  Platonists, 
translated  from  Greek  into  Latin.  And  therein  I  read,  not  indeed 
in  these  words,  but  to  the  same  purpose,  enforced  by  many  and 
diverse  reasons,  that  'In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the 
Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God:  the  same  was  in 
the  beginning  with  God ;  all  things  were  made  by  Him,  and  without 
Him  was  nothing  made:  that  which  was  made  by  Him  is  life,  and 
the  life  was  the  light  of  men,  and  the  light  shineth  in  the  darkness, 
and  the  darkness  comprehended  it  not.  And  that  the  soul  of  man, 
though  it  'bears  witness  to  the  light,'  yet  itself  'is  not  that  light,' 
but  God,  the  Word  of  God,  'is  that  true  light  that  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world.1  And  that  'He  was  in  the  world, 
and  the  world  was  made  by  Him,  and  the  world  knew  Him  not.9 
But  that  'He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received  Him  not; 
but  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  power  to  become 
the  sons  of  God,  even  to  them  that  believe  on  His  Name':  this  I 
read  not  there."  He  also  did  not  read  there  that  "the  Word  was 
made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us" ;  nor  that  "He  humbled  Himself, 
and  became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  Cross"; 
nor  that  "at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow." 

Broadly  speaking,  he  found  in  the  Platonists  the  metaphysical 
doctrine  of  the  Logos,  but  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  and 
the  consequent  doctrine  of  human  salvation.  Something  not 
unlike  these  doctrines  existed  in  Orphism  and  the  other  mystery 
religions;  but  of  this  St.  Augustine  appears  to  have  been  ignorant. 
In  any  case,  none  of  these  were  connected  with  a  comparatively 
recent  historical  event,  as  Christianity  was. 

As  against  the  Manichaeans,  who  were  dualists,  Augustine  came 
to  believe  that  evil  originates  not  from  some  substance,  but  from 
pcrvcrseness  of  will. 

1  Confetti™.  Book  V.  chap.  tiv.  •  Ibid..  Book  VII,  chap.  is. 

370 


THREE  DOCTORS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

He  found  especial  comfort  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul.1 
At  length,  after  passionate  inward  struggles,  he  was  converted 
(386) ;  he  gave  up  his  professorship,  his  mistress,  and  his  bride,  and, 
after  a  brief  period  of  meditation  in  retirement,  was  baptized  by 
St.  Ambrose.  His  mother  rejoiced,  but  died  not  long  afterwards. 
In  388  he  returned  to  Africa,  where  he  remained  for  the  rest  of  his 
life,  fully  occupied  with  his  episcopal  duties  and  with  controversial 
writings  against  various  heresies,  Donatist,  Manichaean,  and 
Pelagian. 

1  Confessions,  Book  VII,  chap.  xxi. 


37* 


Chapter  IV 

ST.    AUGUSTINE'S   PHILOSOPHY   AND 
THEOLOGY 

ST.   AUGUSTINE  was  a  very  voluminous   writer,  mainly    on 
theological  subjects.  Some  of  his  controversial  writing  was 
topical,  and  lost  interest  through  its  very  success ;  but  some 
of  it,  especially  what  is  concerned  with  the  Pelagians,  remained 
practically  influential  down  to  modern  times.  I  do  not  propose  to 
treat  his  works  exhaustively,  but  only  to  discuss  what  seems  to  me 
important,  either  intrinsically  or  historically.  I  shall  consider: 

First:  his  pure  philosophy,  particularly  his  theory  of  time; 
Second:  his  philosophy  of  history,  as  developed  in  The  City 

ofGod\ 
Third:  his  theory  of  salvation,  as  propounded  ajrainst   the 

Pelagians. 

1.  PURE  PHILOSOPHY 

St.  Augustine,  at  most  times,  docs  not  occupy  himself  with  pure 
philosophy,  but  when  he  does  he  shows  very  great  ability'.  He  is 
the  first  of  a  long  line  whose  purely  speculative  views  are  influenced 
by  the  necessity  of  agreeing  with  Scripture.  This  cannot  be  said  of 
earlier  Christian  philosophers,  e.g.,  Origen ;  in  Origen,  Christianity 
and  Platonism  lie  side  by  side,  and  do  not  interpenetrate.  In  St. 
Augustine,  on  the  other  hand,  original  thinking  in  pure  philosophy 
is  stimulated  by  the  fact  that  Platonism,  in  certain  respects,  is  not 
in  harmony  with  Genesis. 

The  best  purely  philosophical  work  in  St.  Augustine's  writings 
is  the  eleventh  book  of  the  Confessions.  Popular  editions  of  the 
Confessions  end  with  Book  X,  on  the  ground  that  what  follows  is 
uninteresting;  it  is  uninteresting  because  it  is  good  philosophy, 
not  biography.  Book  XI  is  concerned  with  the  problem:  Creation 
having  occurred  as  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  asserts,  and  as 
Augustine  maintains  against  the  Manicha-ans,  it  should  have 
occurred  as  soon  as  possible.  So  he  imagines  an  objector  arguing. 

The  first  point  to  realize,  if  his  answer  is  to  be  understood,  is  that 

37* 


ST.    AUGUSTINE'S   PHILOSOPHY    AND   THEOLOGY 

creation  out  of  nothing,  which  was  taught  in  the  Old  Testament, 
was  an  idea  wholly  foreign  to  Greek  philosophy.  When  Plato  speaks 
of  creation,  he  imagines  a  primitive  matter  to  which  God  gives 
form ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  Aristotle.  Their  God  is  an  artificer  or 
architect,  rather  than  a  Creator.  Substance  is  thought  of  as  eternal 
and  uncreated ;  only  form  is  due  to  the  will  of  God.  As  against 
this  view,  St.  Augustine  maintains,  as  every  orthodox  Christian 
must,  that  the  world  was  created  not  from  any  certain  matter, 
but  from  nothing.  God  created  substance,  not  only  order  and 
arrangement. 

The  Greek  view,  that  creation  out  of  nothing  is  impossible,  has 
recurred  at  intervals  in  Christian  times,  and  has  led  to  pantheism. 
Pantheism  holds  that  God  and  the  world  are  not  distinct,  and  that 
everything  in  the  world  is  part  of  God.  This  view  is  developed  most 
fully  in  Spinoza,  but  is  one  to  which  almost  all  mystics  arc  attracted. 
It  has  thus  happened,  throughout  the  Christian  centuries,  that 
mystics  have  had  difficulty  in  remaining  orthodox,  since  they  find 
it  hard  to  believe  that  the  world  is  outside  God.  Augustine,  how- 
ever, feels  no  difficulty  on  this  point;  Genesis  is  explicit,  and  that 
is  enough  for  him.  His  view  on  this  matter  is  essential  to  his  theory 
of  time. 

Why  was  the  world  not  created  sooner?  Because  there  was  no 
"sooner."  Time  was  created  when  the  world  was  created.  God  is 
eternal,  in  the  sense  of  being  timeless;  in  God  there  is  no  before 
and  after,  but  only  an  eternal  present.  God's  eternity  is  exempt  from 
the  relation  of  time;  all  time  is  present  to  Him  at  once.  He  did  not 
precede  His  own  creation  of  time,  for  that  would  imply  that  He  was 
in  time,  whereas  He  stands  eternally  outside  the  stream  of  time. 
This  leads  St.  Augustine  to  a  very  admirable  relativistic  theory 
of  time. 

"What,  then,  is  time  ?"  lie  asks.  "If  no  one  asks  of  me,  I  know;  if 
I  wish  to  explain  to  him  who  asks,  I  know  not."  Various  difficulties 
perplex  him.  Neither  past  nor  future,  he  says,  but  only  the  present, 
really  li;  the  present  is  only  a  moment,  and  time  can  only  be 
measured  while  it  is  passing.  Nevertheless,  there  really  is  time  past 
and  future.  We  seem  here  to  be  led  into  contradictions.  The  only 
way  Augustine  can  find  to  avoid  these  contradictions  is  to  say  that 
past  and  future  can  only  be  thought  of  as  present:  "past"  must 
be  identified  with  memory,  and  "future"  with  expectation, 
memory  and  expectation  being  both  present  facts.  There  are,  he 

373 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

says,  three  times:  "a  present  of  things  past,  a  present  of  things 
present,  and  a  present  of  things  future."  "The  present  of  things 
past  is  memory;  the  present  of  things  present  is  sight;  and  the 
present  of  things  future  is  expectation."1  To  say  that  there  are 
three  times,  past,  present,  and  future,  is  a  loose  way  of  speaking. 

He  realizes  that  he  has  not  really  solved  all  difficulties  by  this 
theory.  "My  soul  yearns  to  know  this  most  entangled  enigma,"  he 
says,  and  he  prays  to  God  to  enlighten  him,  assuring  Him  that 
his  interest  in  the  problem  does  not  arise  from  vain  curiosity.  "I 
confess  to  Thee,  O  Lord,  that  I  am  as  yet  ignorant  what  time  is." 
But  the  gist  of  the  solution  he  suggests  is  that  time  is  subjective: 
time  is  in  the  human  mind,  which  expects,  considers,  and  remem- 
bers.2 It  follows  that  there  can  be  no  time  without  a  created  being,9 
and  that  to  speak  of  time  before  the  Creation  is  meaningless. 

I  do  not  myself  agree  with  this  theory,  in  so  far  as  it  makes  time 
something  mental.  But  it  is  clearly  a  very  able  theory,  deserving 
to  be  seriously  considered.  I  should  go  further,  and  say  that  it  is 
a  great  advance  on  anything  to  be  found  on  the  subject  in  Greek 
philosophy.  It  contains  a  better  and  clearer  statement  than  Kant's 
of  the  subjective  theory  of  time — a  theory  which,  since  Kant,  has 
been  widely  accepted  among  philosophers. 

The  theory  that  time  is  only  an  aspect  of  our  thoughts  is  one  of 
the  most  extreme  forms  of  that  subjectivism  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  gradually  increased  in  antiquity  from  the  time  of  Protagoras 
and  Socrates  onwards.  Its  emotional  aspect  is  obsession  with  sin, 
which  came  later  than  its  intellectual  aspects.  St.  Augustine 
exhibits  both  kinds  of  subjectivism.  Subjectivism  led  him  to 
anticipate  not  only  Kant's  theory  of  time,  but  Descartes'  cogito. 
In  his  Soliloquia  he  says:  "You,  who  wish  to  know,  do  you  know 
you  are?  I  know  it.  Whence  are  you?  I  know  not.  Do  you  feel 
yourself  single  or  multiple?  I  know  not.  Do  you  feel  yourself 
moved?  I  know  not.  Do  you  know  that  you  think?  I  do."  This 
contains  not  only  Descartes'  cogito,  but  his  reply  to  Ga&sendi's 
ambulo  ergo  sum.  As  a  philosopher,  therefore,  Augustine  deserves 
a  high  placl. 

II.  THE  CITY   OF  GOD 

When,  tn  410,  Rome  was  sacked  by  the  Goths,  the  pagans,  not 
unnaturally,  attributed  the  disaster  to  the  abandonment  of  the 

1  Confessions,  Book  XI,  chap.  xx. 

1  Ibid.,  chap,  xxvtit.  *  ibid.,  chap.  xxx. 

374 


ST.  AUGUSTINE'S  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THEOLOGY 

ancient  gods.  So  long  as  Jupiter  was  worshipped,  they  said,  Rome 
remained  powerful;  now  that  the  Emperors  have  turned  away 
from  him,  he  no  longer  protects  his  Romans.  This  pagan  argument 
called  for  an  answer.  The  City  of  God,  written  gradually  between 
412  and  427,  was  St.  Augustine's  answer;  but  it  took,  as  it  pro- 
ceeded, a  far  wider  flight,  and  developed  a  complete  Christian 
scheme  of  history,  past,  present,  and  future.  It  was  an  immensely 
influential  book  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  especially  in  the 
struggles  of  the  Church  with  secular  princes. 

Like  some  other  very  great  books,  it  composes  itself,  in  the 
memory  of  those  who  have  read  it,  into  something  better  than  at 
first  appears  on  re-reading.  It  contains  a  great  deal  that  hardly 
anyone  at  the  present  day  can  accept,  and  its  central  thesis  is  some- 
what obscured  by  excrescences  belonging  to  his  age.  But  the  broad 
conception  of  a  contrast  between  the  City  of  this  world  and  the 
City  of  God  has  remained  an  inspiration  to  many,  and  even  now 
can  be  restated  in  non-theological  terms. 

To  omit  detail  in  an  account  of  the  book,  and  concentrate  on  the 
central  idea,  would  give  an  unduly  favourable  view;  on  the  other 
hand,  to  concentrate  on  the  detail  would  be  to  omit  what  is  best 
and  most  important.  I  shall  endeavour  to  avoid  both  errors  by  first 
giving  some  account  of  the  detail  and  then  passing  on  to  the 
general  idea  as  it  appeared  in  historical  development. 

The  book  begins  with  considerations  arising  out  of  the  sack  of 
Rome,  and  designed  to  show  that  even  worse  things  happened  in 
pre-Christian  times.  Among  the  pagans  who  attribute  the  disaster 
to  Christianity,  there  are  many,  the  Saint  says,  who,  during  the 
sack,  sought  sanctuary  in  the  churches,  which  the  Goths,  because 
they  were  Christians,  respected.  In  the  sack  of  Troy,  on  the 
contrary,  Juno's  temple  afforded  no  protection,  nor  did  the  gods 
preserve  the  city  from  destruction.  The  Romans  never  spared 
temples  in  conquered  cities;  in  this  respect,  the  sack  of  Rome 
was  milder  than  most,  and  the  mitigation  was  a  result  of 
Christianity. 

Christians  who  suffered  the  sack  have  no  right  to  complain,  for 
several  reasons.  Some  wicked  Goths  may  have  prospered  at  their 
expense,  but  they  will  suffer  hereafter:  if  all  sin  were  punished  on 
earth,  there  would  be  no  need  of  the  Last  Judgment.  What  Chris- 
tians endured  would,  if  they  were  virtuous,  turn  to  their  edification, 
for  saints,  in  the  loss  of  things  temporal,  lose  nothing  of  any  value, 

375 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

It  does  not  matter  if  their  bodies  lie  unburied,  because  ravenous 
beasts  cannot  interfere  with  the  resurrection  of  the  body. 

Next  comes  the  question  of  pious  virgins  who  were  raped  during 
the  sack.  There  were  apparently  some  who  held  that  these  ladies, 
by  no  fault  of  their  own,  had  lost  the  crown  of  virginity.  This  view 
the  Saint  very  sensibly  opposes.  "Tush,  another's  lust  cannot 
pollute  thee."  Chastity  is  a  virtue  of  the  mind,  and  is  not  lost  by 
rape,  but  is  lost  by  the  intention  of  sin,  even  if  unperformed.  It 
is  suggested  that  God  permitted  rapes  because  the  victims  had 
been  too  proud  of  their  continence.  It  is  wicked  to  commit  suicide 
in  order  to  avoid  being  raped ;  this  leads  to  a  long  discussion  of 
Lucretia,  who  ought  not  to  have  killed  herself,  because  suicide  is 
always  a  sin. 

There  is  one  proviso  to  the  exculpation  of  virtuous  women  who 
are  raped:  they  must  not  enjoy  it.  If  they  do,  they  are  sinful. 

He  comes  next  to  the  wickedness  of  the  heathen  gods.  For 
example:  "Your  stage-plays,  those  spectacles  of  uncleanness, 
those  licentious  vanities,  were  not  first  brought  up  at  Rome  by 
the  corruptions  of  men,  but  by  the  direct  command  of  your 
gods/'1  It  would  be  better  to  worship  a  virtuous  man,  such  as 
Scipio,  than  these  immoral  gods.  But  as  for  the  sack  of  Rome,  it 
need  not  trouble  Christians,  who  have  a  sanctuary  in  the  "pilgrim 
city  of  God." 

In  this  world,  the  two  cities — the  earthly  and  the  heavenly — are 
commingled ;  but  hereafter  the  predestinate  and  the  reprobate  will 
be  separated.  In  this  life,  we  cannot  know  who,  even  among  our 
seeming  enemies,  are  to  be  found  ultimately  among  the  elect. 

The  most  difficult  part  of  the  work,  we  are  told,  will  consist  in 
the  refutation  of  the  philosophers,  with  the  best  of  whom  Chris- 
tians are  to  a  large  extent  in  agreement — for  instance  as  to  immor- 
tality and  the  creation  of  the  world  by  God.2 

The  philosophers  did  not  throw  over  the  worship  of  the  heathen 
gods,  and  their  moral  instructions  were  weak  because  the  gods 
were  wicked.  It  is  not  suggested  that  the  gods  are  mere  fables; 
they  are  held  by  St.  Augustine  to  exist,  but  to  be  devils.  They 
liked  to  have  filthy  stories  told  of  them,  because  they  wanted  to 
injure  men.  Jupiter's  deeds  count  more,  with  most  pagans,  than 
Plato's  doctrines  or  Cato's  opinions.  "Plato,  who  would  not  allow 
poets  to  dwell  in  a  well-governed  city,  showed  that  his  sole  worth 

1  The  City  of  God,  I,  31.  •  lbid.t  I,  35- 

376 


ST.  AUGUSTINE'S  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THEOLOGY 

was  better  than  those  gods,  that  desire  to  be  honoured  with  stage- 
plays."1 

Rome  was  always  wicked,  from  the  rape  of  the  Sabine  women 
onwards.  Many  chapters  are  devoted  to  the  sinfulness  of  Roman 
imperialism.  Nor  is  it  true  that  Rome  did  not  suffer  before  the 
State  became  Christian;  from  the  Gauls  and  the  civil  wars  it 
suffered  as  much  as  from  the  Goths,  and  more. 

Astrology  is  not  only  wicked,  but  false ;  this  may  be  proved  from 
the  different  fortunes  of  twins,  who  have  the  same  horoscope.9 
The  Stoic  conception  of  Fate  (which  was  connected  with  astrology) 
is  mistaken,  since  angels  and  men  have  free  will.  It  is  true  that 
God  has  foreknowledge  of  our  sins,  but  we  do  not  sin  because  of 
His  foreknowledge.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  virtue  brings 
unhappiness,  even  in  this  world:  Christian  emperors,  if  virtuous, 
have  been  happy  even  if  not  fortunate,  and  Constantine  and 
Theodosius  were  fortunate  as  well;  again,  the  Jewish  kingdom 
lasted  as  long  as  the  Jews  adhered  to  the  truth  of  religion. 

There  is  a  very  sympathetic  account  of  Plato,  whom  he  places 
above  all  other  philosophers.  All  others  are  to  give  place  to  him: 
"Let  Thales  depart  with  his  water,  Anaximenes  with  the  air,  the 
Stoics  with  their  fire,  Epicurus  with  his  atoms."8  All  these  were 
materialists ;  Plato  was  not.  Plato  saw  that  God  is  not  any  bodily 
thing,  but  that  all  things  have  their  being  from  God,  and  from 
something  immutable.  He  was  right,  also,  in  saying  that  perception 
is  not  the  source  of  truth.  Platonists  are  the  best  in  logic  and 
ethics,  and  nearest  to  Christianity.  "It  is  said  that  Plotinus,  that 
lived  but  lately,  understood  Plato  the  best  of  any.1'  As  for  Aristotle, 
he  was  Plato's  inferior,  but  far  above  the  rest.  Both,  however,  said 
that  all  gods  are  good,  and  to  be  worshipped. 

As  against  the  Stoics,  who  condemned  all  passion,  St.  Augustine 
holds  that  the  passions  of  Christians  may  be  causes  of  virtue; 
anger,  or  pity,  is  not  to  be  condemned  per  s* ,  but  we  must  inquire 
into  its  cause. 

Platonists  are  right  about  God,  wrong  about  gods.  They  are  also 
wrong  in  not  acknowledging  the  Incarnation. 

There  is  a  long  discussion  of  angels  and  demons,  which  is  con- 

1  Tfie  City  of  God,  II,  14. 

1  This  argument  is  not  original :  it  is  derived  from  the  academic  sceptic 
Carncades.  Cf.  Curnont,  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism,  p.  166. 
*  The  City  of  God,  VIII,  5. 

377 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

nected  with  the  Neoplatonists.  Angels  may  be  good  or  bad,  but 
demons  are  always  bad.  To  angels,  knowledge  of  temporal  things 
(though  they  have  it)  is  vile.  St.  Augustine  holds  with  Plato  that 
the  sensible  world  is  inferior  to  the  eternal. 

Book  XI  begins  the  account  of  the  nature  of  the  City  of  God. 
The  City  of  God  is  the  society  of  the  elect.  Knowledge  of  God  is 
obtained  only  through  Christ.  There  are  things  that  can  be  dis- 
covered by  reason  (as  in  the  philosophers),  but  for  all  further 
religious  knowledge  we  must  rely  on  the  Scriptures.  We  ought 
not  to  seek  to  understand  time  and  space  before  the  world  was 
made:  there  was  no  time  before  the  Creation,  and  there  is  no 
place  where  the  world  is  not. 

Everything  blessed  is  eternal,  but  not  everything  eternal  is 
blessed — e.g.  hell  and  Satan.  God  foreknew  the  sins  of  devils,  but 
also  their  use  in  improving  the  universe  as  a  whole,  which  is 
analogous  to  antithesis  in  rhetoric. 

Origen  errs  in  thinking  that  souls  were  given  bodies  as  a  punish- 
ment. If  this  were  so,  bad  souls  would  have  bad  bodies;  but  devils, 
even  the  worst  of  them,  have  airy  bodies,  which  are  better 
than  ours. 

The  reason  the  world  was  created  in  six  days  is  that  six  is  a 
perfect  number  (i.e.  equal  to  the  sum  of  its  factors). 

There  are  good  and  bad  angels,  but  even  the  bad  angels  do  not 
have  an  essence  which  is  contrary  to  God.  God's  enemies  are  not 
so  by  nature,  but  by  mil.  The  vicious  will  has  no  efficient  cause, 
but  only  a  deficient  one ;  it  is  not  an  effect,  but  a  defect. 

The  world  is  less  than  six  thousand  years  old.  History  is  not 
cyclic,  as  some  philosophers  suppose:  "Christ  died  once  for  our 
sins."1 

If  our  first  parents  had  not  sinned,  they  would  not  have  died, 
but,  because  they  sinned,  all  their  posterity  die.  Eating  the  apple 
brought  not  only  natural  death,  but  eternal  death,  i.e.  damnation. 

Porphyry  is  wrong  in  refusing  bodies  to  saints  in  heaven.  They 
will  have  better  bodies  than  Adam's  before  the  fall;  their  bodies 
will  be  spiritual,  but  not  spirits,  and  will  not  have  weight.  Men 
will  have  male  bodies,  and  women  female  bodies,  and  those  who 
have  died  in  infancy  will  rise  again  with  adult  bodies. 

Adam's  sin  would  have  brought  all  mankind  to  eternal  death 
(i.e.  damnation),  but  that  God's  grace  has  freed  many  from  it. 

vi:  I  TheMtkmiant  iv. 

378 


ST.  AUGUSTINE'S  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THEOLOGY 

Sin  came  from  the  soul,  not  from  the  flesh.  Platonists  and 
Manichseans  both  err  in  ascribing  sin  to  the  nature  of  the  flesh, 
though  Platonists  are  not  so  bad  as  Manichaeans.  The  punishment 
of  all  mankind  for  Adam's  sin  was  just ;  for,  as  a  result  of  this 
sin,  man,  that  might  have  been  spiritual  in  body,  became  carnal 
in  mind.1 

This  leads  to  a  long  and  minute  discussion  of  sexual  lust,  to 
which  we  are  subject  as  part  of  our  punishment  for  Adam's  sin. 
This  discussion  is  very  important  as  revealing  the  psychology  of 
asceticism;  we  must  therefore  go  into  it,  although  the  Saint 
confesses  that  the  theme  is  immodest.  The  theory  advanced  is  as 
follows. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  sexual  intercourse  in  marriage  is  not 
sinful,  provided  the  intention  is  to  beget  offspring.  Yet  even  in 
marriage  a  virtuous  man  will  wish  that  he  could  manage  without 
lust.  Even  in  marriage,  as  the  desire  for  privacy  shows,  people  are 
ashamed  of  sexual  intercourse,  because  "this  lawful  act  of  nature 
is  (from  our  first  parents)  accompanied  with  our  penal  shame." 
The  cynics  thought  that  one  should  be  without  shame,  and 
Diogenes  would  have  none  of  it,  wishing  to  be  in  all  things  like 
a  dog;  yet  even  he,  after  one  attempt,  abandoned,  in  practice, 
this  extreme  of  shamelessness.  What  is  shameful  about  lust  is  its 
independence  of  the  will.  Adam  and  Eve,  before  the  fall,  could 
have  had  sexual  intercourse  without  lust,  though  in  fact  they  did 
not.  Handicraftsmen,  in  the  pursuit  of  their  trade,  move  their 
hands  without  lust;  similarly  Adam,  if  only  he  had  kept  away 
from  the  apple-tree,  could  have  performed  the  business  of  sex 
without  the  emotions  that  it  now  demands.  The  sexual  members, 
like  the  rest  of  the  body,  would  have  obeyed  the  will.  The  need 
of  lust  in  sexual  intercourse  is  a  punishment  for  Adam's  sin,  but 
for  which  sex  might  have  been  divorced  from  pleasure.  Omitting 
some  physiological  details  which  the  translator  has  very  properly 
left  in  the  decent  obscurity  of  the  original  Latin,  the  above  is 
St.  Augustine's  theory  as  regards  sex. 

It  is  evident  from  the  above  that  what  makes  the  ascetic  dislike 
sex  is  its  independence  of  the  will.  Virtue,  it  is  held,  demands  a 
complete  control  of  the  will  over  the  body,  but  such  control  does 
not  suffice  to  make  the  sexual  act  possible.  The  sexual  act,  there- 
fore, seems  inconsistent  with  a  perfectly  virtuous  life. 
1  ThtCityofGod,\\\,  15. 
379 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Ever  since  the  Fall,  the  world  has  been  divided  into  two  cities, 
of  which  one  shall  reign  eternally  with  God,  the  other  shall  be  in 
eternal  torment  with  Satan.  Cain  belongs  to  the  city  of  the  Devil, 
Abel  to  the  City  of  God.  Abel,  by  grace,  and  in  virtue  of  pre- 
destination, was  a  pilgrim  on  earth  and  a  citizen  of  heaven.  The 
patriarchs  belonged  to  the  City  of  God.  Discussion  of  the  death 
of  Methuselah  brings  St.  Augustine  to  the  vexed  question  of  the 
comparison  of  the  Septuagint  with  the  Vulgate.  The  data,  as  given 
in  the  Septuagint,  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  Methuselah  survived 
the  flood  by  fourteen  years,  which  is  impossible,  since  he  was  not 
in  the  Ark.  The  Vulgate,  following  the  Hebrew  manuscripts,  gives 
data  from  which  it  follows  that  he  died  in  the  year  of  the  flood.  On 
this  point,  St.  Augustine  holds  that  St.  Jerome  and  the  Hebrew 
manuscripts  must  be  right.  Some  people  maintained  that  the  Jews 
had  deliberately  falsified  the  Hebrew  manuscripts,  out  of  malice 
towards  the  Christians;  this  hypothesis  is  rejected.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Septuagint  must  have  been  divinely  inspired.  The  only 
conclusion  is  that  Ptolemy's  copyists  made  mistakes  in  transcribing 
the  Septuagint.  Speaking  of  the  translations  of  the  Old  Testament, 
he  says:  "The  Church  has  received  that  of  the  Seventy,  as  if  there 
were  no  other,  as  many  of  the  Greek  Christians,  using  this  wholly, 
know  not  whether  there  be  or  no.  Our  Latin  translation  is  from 
this  also.  Although  one  Jerome,  a  learned  priest,  and  a  great 
linguist,  has  translated  the  same  Scriptures  from  the  Hebrew  into 
Latin.  But  although  the  Jews  affirm  his  learned  labour  to  be  all 
truth,  and  avouch  the  Seventy  to  have  oftentimes  erred,  yet  the 
Churches  of  Christ  hold  no  one  man  to  be  preferred  before  so 
many,  especially  being  selected  by  the  high  priest,  for  this  work.*' 
He  accepts  the  story  of  the  miraculous  agreement  of  the  seventy 
independent  translations,  and  considers  this  a  proof  that  the 
Septuagint  is  divinely  inspired.  The  Hebrew,  however,  is  equally 
inspired.  This  conclusion  leaves  undecided  the  question  as  to  the 
authority  of  Jerome's  translation.  Perhaps  he  might  have  been 
more  decidedly  on  Jerome's  side  if  the  two  Saints  had  not  had  a 
quarrel  about  St.  Peter's  time-serving  propensities.1 

He  gives  a  synchronism  of  sacred  and  profane  history.  We  learn 
that  £neas  came  to  Italy  when  Abdon3  was  judge  in  Israel,  and 

1  Galatians  ii,  11-14. 

1  Of  Abclon  we  know  only  that  he  had  forty  nons  and  thirty  nephews, 
and  that  all  these  seventy  rode  donkeys  (Judge*  xii,    14). 

380 


ST.  AUGUSTINE'S  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THEOLOGY 

that  the  last  persecution  will  be  under  Antichrist,  but  its  date  is 
unknown. 

After  an  admirable  chapter  against  judicial  torture,  St.  Augustine 
proceeds  to  combat  the  new  Academicians,  who  hold  all  things 
to  be  doubtful.  "The  Church  of  Christ  detests  these  doubts  as 
madness,  having  a  most  certain  knowledge  of  the  things  it  appre- 
hends." We  should  believe  in  the  truth  of  the  Scriptures.  He  goes 
on  to  explain  that  there  is  no  true  virtue  apart  from  true  religion. 
Pagan  virtue  is  " prostituted  with  the  influence  of  obscene  and 
filthy  devils."  What  would  be  virtues  in  a  Christian  are  vices  in  a 
pagan.  "Those  things  which  she  [the  soul]  seems  to  account 
virtues,  and  thereby  to  sway  her  affections,  if  they  be  not  all 
referred  unto  God,  are  indeed  vices  rather  than  virtues."  They 
that  are  not  of  this  society  (the  Church)  shall  suffer  eternal  misery. 
"In  our  conflicts  here  on  earth,  either  the  pain  is  victor,  and  so 
death  expels  the  sense  of  it,  or  nature  conquers,  and  expels  the 
pain.  But  there,  pain  shall  afflict  eternally,  and  nature  shall  suffer 
eternally,  both  enduring  to  the  continuance  of  the  inflicted  punish- 
ment." 

There  are  two  resurrections,  that  of  the  soul  at  death,  and  that 
of  the  body  at  the  Last  Judgment.  After  a  discussion  of  various 
difficulties  concerning  the  millennium,  and  the  subsequent  doings 
of  Gog  and  Magog,  he  comes  to  a  text  in  II  Thessalonians 
(ii,  11,12):  "God  shall  send  them  strong  delusion,  that  they  should 
believe  a  lie,  that  they  nil  might  be  damned  who  believed  not  the 
truth,  but  had  pleasure  in  unrighteousness."  Some  people  might 
think  it  unjust  that  the  Omnipotent  should  first  deceive  them, 
and  then  punish  them  for  being  deceived;  but  to  St.  Augustine 
this  seems  quite  in  order.  "Being  condemned,  they  are  seduced, 
and,  being  seduced,  condemned.  But  their  seducement  is  by  the 
secret  judgment  of  God,  justly  secret,  and  secretly  just;  even  His 
that  hath  judged  continually,  ever  since  the  world  began."  St. 
Augustine  holds  that  God  divided  mankind  into  the  elect  and  the 
reprobate,  not  because  of  their  merits  or  demerits,  but  arbitrarily. 
All  alike  deserve  damnation,  and  therefore  the  reprobate  have  no 
ground  of  complaint.  From  the  above  passage  of  St.  Paul,  it 
appears  that  they  are  wicked  because  they  are  reprobate,  not  repro- 
bate because  they  are  wicked. 

After  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  the  bodies  of  the  damned 
will  burn  eternally  without  being  consumed.  In  this  there  is 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

nothing  strange;  it  happens  to  the  salamander  and  Mount  Etna. 
Devils,  though  incorporeal,  can  be  burnt  by  corporeal  fire.  Hell's 
torments  are  not  purifying,  and  will  not  be  lessened  by  the  inter- 
cessions of  saints.  Origen  erred  in  thinking  hell  not  eternal. 
Heretics,  and  sinful  Catholics,  will  be  damned. 

The  book  ends  with  a  description  of  the  Saints'  vision  of  God 
in  heaven,  and  of  the  eternal  felicity  of  die  City  of  God. 

From  the  above  summary,  the  importance  of  the  work  may  not 
be  clear.  What  was  influential  was  the  separation  of  Church  and 
State,  with  the  clear  implication  that  the  State  could  only  be  part 
of  the  City  of  God  by  being  submissive  towards  the  Church  in  all 
religious  matters.  This  has  been  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  ever 
since.  All  through  the  Middle  Ages,  during  the  gradual  rise  of 
the  papal  power,  and  throughout  the  conflict  between  Pope  and 
Emperor,  St.  Augustine  supplied  the  Western  Church  with  the 
theoretical  justification  of  its  policy.  The  Jewish  State,  in  the 
legendary  time  of  the  Judges,  and  in  the  historical  period  after 
the  return  from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  had  been  a  theocracy; 
the  Christian  State  should  imitate  it  in  this  respect.  The  weakness 
of  the  emperors,  and  of  most  Western  medieval  monarchs,  enabled 
the  Church,  to  a  great  extent,  to  realize  the  ideal  of  the  City  of 
God.  In  the  East,  where  the  emperor  was  strong,  this  development 
never  took  place,  and  the  Church  remained  much  more  subject 
to  the  State  than  it  became  in  the  West. 

The  Reformation,  which  revived  St.  Augustine's  doctrine  of 
salvation,  threw  over  his  theocratic  teaching,  and  became  Eras- 
tian,1  largely  owing  to  the  practical  exigencies  of  the  fight  with 
Catholicism.  But  Protestant  Erastianism  was  half-hearted,  and  the 
most  religious  among  Protestants  were  still  influenced  by  St. 
Augustine.  Anabaptists,  Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  and  Quakers  took 
over  a  part  of  his  doctrine,  but  laid  less  stress  on  the  Church.  He 
held  to  predestination,  and  also  to  the  need  of  baptism  for  salva- 
tion; these  two  doctrines  do  not  harmonize  well,  and  the  extreme 
Protestants  threw  over  the  latter.  But  their  eschatology  remained 
Augustinian. 

The  City  of  God  contains  little  that  is  fundamentally  original. 
The  eschatology  is  Jewish  in  origin,  and  came  into  Christianity 
mainly  through  the  Book  of  Revelation.  The  doctrine  of  prc- 

*  Erasttanism  is  the  doctrine  that  the  Church  should  be  subject  to  the 
State. 

382 


ST.  AUGUSTINE'S  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THEOLOGY 

destination  and  election  is  Pauline,  though  St.  Augustine  gave  it 
a  much  fuller  and  more  logical  development  than  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Epistles.  The  distinction  between  sacred  and  profane  history 
is  quite  clearly  set  forth  in  the  Old  Testament.  What  St.  Augustine 
did  was  to  bring  these  elements  together,  and  to  relate  them  to 
the  history  of  his  own  time,  in  such  a  way  that  the  fall  of  the 
Western  Empire,  and  the  subsequent  period  of  confusion,  could 
be  assimilated  by  Christians  without  any  unduly  severe  trial  of 
their  faith. 

The  Jewish  pattern  of  history,  past  and  future,  is  such  as  to 
make  a  powerful  appeal  to  the  oppressed  and  unfortunate  at  all 
times.  St.  Augustine  adapted  this  pattern  to  Christianity,  Marx 
to  Socialism.  To  understand  Marx  psychologically,  one  should 
use  the  following  dictionary : 

Yahweh  =  Dialectical  Materialism 
The  Messiah  =  Marx 

The  Elect  =  The  Proletariat 
The  Church  =  The  Communist  Party 
The  Second  Coming  =  The  Revolution 

Hell  =  Punishment  of  the  Capitalists 

The  Millennium  =  The  Communist  Commonwealth 

* 

The  terms  on  the  left  give  the  emotional  content  of  the  terms 
on  the  right,  and  it  is  this  emotional  content,  familiar  to  those  who 
have  had  a  Christian  or  a  Jewish  upbringing,  that  makes  Marx's 
eschatology  credible.  A  similar  dictionary  could  be  made  for  the 
Nazis,  but  their  conceptions  are  more  purely  Old  Testament  and 
less  Christian  than  those  of  Marx,  and  their  Messiah  is  more 
analogous  to  the  Maccabees  than  to  Christ. 


III.   THE  PELAGIAN  CONTROVERSY 

Much  of  the  most  influential  part  of  St.  Augustine's  theology 
was  concerned  in  combating  the  Pelagian  heresy.  Pelagius  was  a 
Welshman,  whose  real  name  was  Morgan,  which  means  "man  of 
the  sea,"  as  "Pelagius"  does  in  Greek.  He  was  a  cultivated  and 
agreeable  ecclesiastic,  less  fanatical  than  many  of  his  contem- 
poraries. He  believed  in  free  will,  questioned  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin,  and  thought  that,  when  men  act  virtuously,  it  is  by 

383 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

reason  of  their  own  moral  effort.  If  they  act  rightly,  and  are 
orthodox,  they  go  to  heaven  as  a  reward  of  their  virtues. 

These  views,  though  they  may  now  seem  commonplace,  caused, 
at  the  time,  a  great  commotion,  and  were,  largely  through  St. 
Augustine's  efforts,  declared  heretical.  They  had,  however,  a 
considerable  temporary  success.  Augustine  had  to  write  to  the 
patriarch  of  Jerusalem  to  warn  him  against  the  wily  heresiarch, 
who  had  persuaded  many  Eastern  theologians  to  adopt  his  views. 
Even  after  his  condemnation,  other  people,  called  semi-Pelagians, 
advocated  weakened  forms  of  his  doctrines.  It  was  a  long  time 
before  the  purer  teaching  of  the  Saint  was  completely  victorious, 
especially  in  France,  where  the  final  condemnation  of  the  semi- 
Pelagian  heresy  took  place  at  the  Council  of  Orange  in  529. 

St.  Augustine  taught  that  Adam,  before  the  Fall,  had  had  free 
will,  and  could  have  abstained  from  sin.  But  as  he  and  Eve  ate  the 
apple,  corruption  entered  into  them,  and  descended  to  all  their 
posterity,  none  of  whom  can,  of  their  own  power,  abstain  from 
sin.  Only  God's  grace  enables  men  to  be  virtuous.  Since  we  all 
inherit  Adam's  sin,  we  all  deserve  eternal  damnation.  All  who  die 
unbaptized,  even  infants,  mil  go  to  hell  and  suffer  unending 
torment.  We  have  no  reason  to  complain  of  this,  since  we  are  all 
wicked.  (In  the  Confessions,  the  Saint  enumerates  the  crimes  of 
which  he  was  guilty  in  the  cradle.)  But  by  God's  free  grace  certain 
people,  among  those  who  have  been  baptized,  are  chosen  to  go 
to  heaven ;  these  are  the  elect.  They  do  not  go  to  heaven  because 
they  are  good;  we  are  all  totally  depraved,  except  in  so  far  as 
God's  grace,  which  is  only  bestowed  on  the  elect,  enables  us  to 
be  otherwise.  No  reason  can  be  given  why  some  are  saved  and  the 
rest  damned;  this  is  due  to  God's  unmotived  choice.  Damnation 
proves  God's  justice;  salvation,  His  mercy.  Both  equally  display 
His  goodness. 

The  arguments  in  favour  of  this  ferocious  doctrine — which  was 
revived  by  Calvin,  and  has  since  then  not  been  held  by  the  Catholic 
Church — are  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul,  particularly 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  These  are  treated  by  Augustine  as  a 
lawyer  treats  the  law:  the  interpretation  is  able,  and  the  texts  are 
made  to  yield  their  utmost  meaning.  One  is  persuaded,  at  the  end, 
not  that  St.  Paul  believed  what  Augustine  deduces,  but  that, 
taking  certain  texts  in  isolation,  they  do  imply  just  what  he  says 
they  do.  It  may  seem  odd  that  the  damnation  of  unbaptized  infants 

384 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

should  not  have  been  thought  shocking,  but  should  have  been 
attributed  to  a  good  God.  The  conviction  of  sin,  however,  so 
dominated  him  that  he  really  believed  new-born  children  to  be 
limbs  of  Satan.  A  great  deal  of  what  is  most  ferocious  in  the 
medieval  Church  is  traceable  to  his  gloomy  sense  of  universal 
guilt. 

There  is  only  one  intellectual  difficulty  that  really  troubles  St. 
Augustine.  This  is  not  that  it  seems  a  pity  to  have  created  Man, 
since  the  immense  majority  of  the  human  race  are  predestined  to 
eternal  torment.  What  troubles  him  is  that,  if  original  sin  is 
inherited  from  Adam,  as  St.  Paul  teaches,  the  soul,  as  well  as  the 
body,  must  be  propagated  by  the  parents,  for  sin  is  of  the  soul, 
not  the  body.  He  sees  difficulties  in  this  doctrine,  but  says  that, 
since  Scripture  is  silent,  it  cannot  be  necessary  to  salvation  to 
arrive  at  a  just  view  on  the  matter.  He  therefore  leaves  it  undecided. 

It  is  strange  that  the  last  men  of  intellectual  eminence  before 
the  dark  ages  were  concerned,  not  with  saving  civilization  or 
expelling  the  barbarians  or  reforming  the  abuses  of  the  adminis- 
tration, but  with  preaching  the  merit  of  virginity  and  the  damna- 
tion of  unbaptized  infants.  Seeing  that  these  were  the  preoccupa- 
tions that  the  Church  handed  on  to  the  converted  barbarians,  it 
is  no  wonder  that  the  succeeding  age  surpassed  almost  all  other 
fully  historical  periods  in  cruelty  and  superstition. 


History  of  W*tt*r»  Pkihsof>ky  385  N 


Chapter  V 
THE    FIFTH    AND    SIXTH    CENTURIES 

^  •  IHE  fifth  century  was  that  of  the  barbarian  invasion  and 
I  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire.  After  the  death  of 

JL  Augustine  in  430,  there  was  little  philosophy;  it  was  a 
century  of  destructive  action,  which,  however,  largely  determined 
the  lines  upon  which  Europe  was  to  be  developed.  It  was  in  this 
century  that  the  English  invaded  Britain,  causing  it  to  become 
England;  it  was  also  in  this  century  that  the  Prankish  invasion 
turned  Gaul  into  France,  and  that  the  Vandals  invaded  Spain, 
giving  their  name  to  Andalusia.  St.  Patrick,  during  the  middle 
years  of  the  century,  converted  the  Irish  to  Christianity.  Through- 
out the  Western  World,  rough  Germanic  kingdoms  succeeded  the 
centralized  bureaucracy  of  the  Empire.  The  imperial  post  ceased, 
the  great  roads  fell  into  decay,  war  put  an  end  to  large-scale 
commerce,  and  life  again  became  local  both  politically  and 
economically.  Centralized  authority  was  preserved  only  in  the 
Church,  and  there  with  much  difficulty. 

Of  the  Germanic  tribes  that  invaded  the  Empire  in  the  fifth 
century,  the  most  important  were  the  Goths.  They  were  pushed 
westwards  by  the  Huns,  who  attacked  them  from  the  East.  At 
first  they  tried  to  conquer  the  Eastern  Empire,  but  were  defeated ; 
then  they  turned  upon  Italy.  Since  Diocletian,  they  had  been 
employed  as  Roman  mercenaries ;  this  had  taught  them  more  of 
the  art  of  war  than  barbarians  would  otherwise  have  known. 
Alaric,  king  of  the  Goths,  sacked  Rome  in  410,  but  died  the  same 
year.  Odovaker,  king  of  the  Ostrogoths,  put  an  end  to  the  Western 
Empire  in  476,  and  reigned  until  493,  when  he  was  treacherously 
murdered  by  another  Ostrogoth,  Theodoric,  who  was  king  of 
Italy  until  526.  Of  him  I  shall  have  more  to  say  shortly.  He  was 
important  both  in  history  and  legend;  in  the  Niebelungenlicd  he 
appears  as  "Dietrich  von  Bern"  (**Bern"  being  Verona). 

Meanwhile  the  Vandals  established  themselves  in  Africa,  the 
Visigoths  in  the  south  of  France,  and  the  Franks  in  the  north. 

In  the  middle  of  the  Germanic  invasion  came  the  inroads  of  the 
Huns  under  Attila,  The  Huns  were  of  Mongol  race,  and  yet  they 
were  often  allied  with  the  Goths.  At  the  crucial  moment,  however, 

386 


THE  FIFTH   AND   SIXTH   CENTURIES 

when  they  invaded  Gaul  in  451,  they  had  quarrelled  with  the 
Goths;  the  Goths  and  Romans  together  defeated  them  in  that 
year  at  Chalons.  Attila  then  turned  against  Italy,  and  thought  of 
marching  on  Rome,  but  Pope  Leo  dissuaded  him,  pointing  out 
that  Alaric  had  died  after  sacking  Rome.  His  forbearance,  how- 
ever, did  him  no  service,  for  he  died  in  the  following  year.  After 
his  death  the  power  of  the  Huns  collapsed. 

During  this  period  of  confusion  the  Church  was  troubled  by  a 
complicated  controversy  on  the  Incarnation.  The  protagonists  in 
the  debates  were  two  ecclesiastics,  Cyril  and  Nestorius,  of  whom, 
more  or  less  by  accident,  the  former  was  proclaimed  a  saint  and 
the  latter  a  heretic.  St.  Cyril  was  patriarch  of  Alexandria  from 
about  412  till  his  death  in  444;  Nestorius  was  patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople. The  question  at  issue  was  the  relation  of  Christ's 
divinity  to  His  humanity.  Were  there  two  Persons,  one  human 
and  one  divine  ?  This  was  the  view  held  by  Nestorius.  If  not,  was 
there  only  one  nature,  or  were  there  two  natures  in  one  person, 
a  human  nature  and  a  divine  nature  ?  These  questions  roused,  in 
the  fifth  century,  an  almost  incredible  degree  of  passion  and  fury. 
"A  secret  and  incurable  discord  was  cherished  between  those  who 
were  most  apprehensive  of  confounding,  and  those  who  were  most 
fearful  of  separating,  the  divinity  and  the  humanity  of  Christ."1 

St.  Cyril,  the  advocate  of  unity,  was  a  man  of  fanatical  zeal.  He 
used  his  position  as  patriarch  to  incite  pogroms  against  the  very  large 
Jewish  colony  in  Alexandria.  His  chief  claim  to  fame  is  the  lynching 
of  Hypatia,  a  distinguished  lady  who,  in  an  age  of  bigotry,  adhered 
to  the  Neoplatonic  philosophy  and  devoted  her  talents  to  mathe- 
matics. She  was  "torn  from  her  chariot,  stripped  naked,  dragged 
to  the  church,  and  inhumanly  butchered  by  the  hands  of  Peter 
the  Reader  and  a  troop  of  savage  and  merciless  fanatics:  her  flesh 
was  scraped  from  her  bones  with  sharp  oyster-shells  and  her 
quivering  limbs  were  delivered  to  the  flames.  The  just  progress 
of  inquiry  and  punishment  was  stopped  by  seasonable  gifts."2 
After  this,  Alexandria  was  no  longer  troubled  by  philosophers. 

St.  Cyril  was  pained  to  learn  that  Constantinople  was  being  led 
astray  by  the  teaching  of  its  patriarch  Nestorius,  who  maintained 
that  there  were  two  Persons  in  Christ,  one  human  and  one  divine. 
On  this  ground  Nestorius  objected  to  the  new  practice  of  calling 
the  Virgin  "Mother  of  God";  she  was,  he  said,  only  the  mother 

1  Gibbon,  op.  cit.t  chap,  xlvii,  *  Ibid. 

387 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

of  the  human  Person,  while  the  divine  Person,  who  was  God,  had 
no  mother.  On  this  question  the  Church  was  divided:  roughly 
speaking,  bishops  east  of  Suez  favoured  Nestorius,  while  those 
west  of  Suez  favoured  St.  Cyril.  A  council  was  summoned  to 
meet  at  Ephesus  in  431  to  decide  the  question.  The  Western 
bishops  arrived  firsthand  proceeded  to  lock  the  doors  against  late- 
comers and  decide  in  hot  haste  for  St.  Cyril,  who  presided.  "This 
episcopal  tumult,  at  the  distance  of  thirteen  centuries,  assumes 
the  venerable  aspect  of  the  third  oecumenical  Council."1 

As  a  result  of  this  council,  Nestorius  was  condemned  as  a  heretic. 
He  did  not  recant,  but  was  the  founder  of  the  Nestorian  sect, 
which  had  a  large  following  in  Syria  and  throughout  the  East. 
Some  centuries  later,  Nestorianism  was  so  strong  in  China  that 
it  seemed  to  have  a  chance  of  becoming  the  established  religion. 
Nestorians  were  found  in  India  by  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
missionaries  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  persecution  of  Nes- 
torianism by  the  Catholic  government  of  Constantinople  caused 
disaffection  which  helped  the  Mohammedans  in  their  conquest 
of  Syria. 

The  tongue  of  Nestorius,  which  by  its  eloquence  had  seduced 
so  many,  was  eaten  by  worms — so  at  least  we  are  assured. 

Ephesus  had  learnt  to  substitute  the  Virgin  for  Artemis,  but  had 
still  the  same  intemperate  zeal  for  its  goddess  as  in  the  time  of  St. 
Paul.  It  was  said  that  the  Virgin  was  buried  there.  In  449,  after  the 
death  of  St.  Cyril,  a  synod  at  Ephesus  tried  to  carry  the  triumph 
further,  and  thereby  fell  into  the  heresy  opposite  to  that  of  Nes- 
torius; this  is  called  the  Monophysite  heresy,  and  maintains  that 
Christ  has  only  one  nature.  If  St.  Cyril  had  still  been  alive,  he 
would  certainly  have  supported  this  view,  and  have  become 
heretical.  The  Emperor  supported  the  synod,  but  the  Pope  repu- 
diated it.  At  last  Pope  Leo—the  same  Pope  who  turned  Attila 
from  attacking  Rome — in  the  year  of  the  battle  of  Chalons  secured 
the  summoning  of  an  oecumenical  council  at  Chalcedon  in  451, 
which  condemned  the  Monophysites  and  finally  decided  the  ortho- 
dox doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  The  Council  of  Ephesus  had 
decided  that  there  is  only  one  Person  of  Christ,  but  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon  decided  that  He  exists  in  two  natures,  one  human  and 
one  divine.  The  influence  of  the  Pope  was  paramount  in  securing 
this  decision. 

1  Gibbon,  op.  *&,  chip  xlvii. 

388 


THE  FIFTH   AND    SIXTH   CENTURIES 

The  Monophysites,  like  the  Nestorians,  refused  to  submit. 
Egypt,  almost  to  a  man,  adopted  their  heresy,  which  spread  up  the 
Nile  and  as  far  as  Abyssinia.  The  heresy  of  the  Abyssinians  was 
given  by  Mussolini  as  one  of  his  reasons  for  conquering  them.  The 
heresy  of  Egypt,  like  the  opposite  heresy  of  Syria,  facilitated  the 
Arab  conquest. 

During  the  sixth  century,  there  were  four  men  of  great  im- 
portance in  the  history  of  culture:  Boethius,  Justinian,  Benedict, 
and  Gregory  the  Great.  They  will  be  my  chief  concern  in  the 
remainder  of  this  chapter  and  in  the  next. 

The  Gothic  conquest  of  Italy  did  not  put  an  end  to  Roman 
civilization.  Under  Theodoric,  king  of  Italy  and  of  the  Goths,  the 
civil  administration  of  Italy  was  entirely  Roman;  Italy  enjoyed 
peace  and  religious  toleration  (till  near  the  end);  the  king  was 
both  wise  and  vigorous.  He  appointed  consuls,  preserved  Roman 
law,  and  kept  up  the  Senate:  when  in  Rome,  his  first  visit  was  to 
the  Senate  House. 

Though  an  Arian,  Theodoric  was  on  good  terms  with  the 
Church  until  his  last  years.  In  523,  the  Emperor  Justin  proscribed 
Arianism,  and  this  annoyed  Theodoric.  He  had  reason  for  fear, 
since  Italy  was  Catholic  and  was  led  by  theological  sympathy  to 
side  with  the  Emperor.  He  believed,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that 
there  was  a  plot  involving  men  in  his  own  government.  This  led 
him  to  imprison  and  execute  his  minister,  the  senator  Boethius, 
whose  Consolations  of  Philosophy  was  written  while  he  was  in 
prison. 

Boethius  is  a  singular  figure.  Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  he 
was  read  and  admired,  regarded  always  as  a  devout  Christian, 
and  treated  almost  as  if  he  had  been  one  of  the  Fathers.  Yet  his 
Consolations  of  Philosophy,  written  in  524  while  he  was  awaiting 
execution,  is  purely  Platonic;  it  does  not  prove  that  he  was  not 
a  Christian,  but  it  does  show  that  pagan  philosophy  had  a  much 
stronger  hold  on  him  than  Christian  theology.  Some  theological 
works,  especially  one  on  the  Trinity,  which  are  attributed  to  him, 
are  by  many  authorities  considered  to  be  spurious;  but  it  was 
probably  owing  to  them  that  the  Middle  Ages  were  able  to  regard 
him  as  orthodox,  and  to  imbibe  from  him  much  Platonism  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  viewed  with  suspicion. 

The  work  is  an  alternation  of  verse  and  prose:  Boethius,  in  his 
own  person,  speaks  in  prose,  while  Philosophy  answers  in  verse. 

389 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

There  is  a  certain  resemblance  to  Dante,  who  was  no  doubt 
influenced  by  him  in  the  Vita  Nuova. 

The  Consolations,  which  Gibbon  rightly  calls  a  "golden  volume," 
begins  by  the  statement  that  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle  are  the 
true  philosophers;  Stoics,  Epicureans,  and  the  rest  are  usurpers 
whom  the  profane  multitude  mistook  for  the  friends  of  philosophy. 
Boethius  says  he  obeyed  the  Pythagorean  command  to  "follow 
God"  (not  the  Christian  command).  Happiness,  which  is  the  same 
thing  as  blessedness,  is  the  good,  not  pleasure.  Friendship  is  a 
"most  sacred  thing."  There  is  much  morality  that  agrees  closely 
with  Stoic  doctrine,  and  is  in  fact  largely  taken  from  Seneca. 
There  is  a  summary,  in  verse,  of  the  beginning  of  the  Timaeus. 
This  is  followed  by  a  great  deal  of  purely  Platonic  metaphysics. 
Imperfection,  we  are  told,  is  a  lack,  implying  the  existence  of  a 
perfect  pattern.  He  adopted  the  privative  theory  of  evil.  He  then 
passes  on  to  a  pantheism  which  should  have  shocked  Christians,  but 
for  some  reason  did  not.  Blessedness  and  God,  he  says,  are  both  the 
chiefest  good,  and  are  therefore  identical.  "Men  are  made  happy 
by  the  obtaining  of  divinity."  "They  who  obtain  divinity  become 
gods.  Wherefore  every  one  that  is  happy  is  a  god,  but  by  nature 
there  is  only  one  God,  but  there  may  be  many  by  participation.0 
"The  sum,  origin,  and  cause  of  all  that  is  sought  after  is  rightly 
thought  to  be  goodness."  "The  substance  of  God  consisteth  in 
nothing  else  but  in  goodness."  Can  God  do  evil?  No.  Therefore 
evil  is  nothing,  since  God  can  do  everything.  Virtuous  men  are 
always  powerful,  and  bad  men  always  weak;  for  both  desire  the 
good,  but  only  the  virtuous  get  it.  The  wicked  are  more  unfor- 
tunate if  they  escape  punishment  than  if  they  suffer  it.  "In  wise 
men  there  is  no  place  for  hatred." 

The  tone  of  the  book  is  more  like  that  of  Plato  than  that  of 
Plotinus.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  superstition  or  morbidness  of 
the  age,  no  obsession  with  sin,  no  excessive  straining  after  the 
unattainable.  There  is  perfect  philosophic  calm — so  much  that, 
if  the  book  had  been  written  in  prosperity,  it  might  almost  have 
been  called  smug.  Written  when  it  was,  in  prison  under  sentence 
of  death,  it  is  as  admirable  as  the  last  moments  of  the  Platonic 
Socrates. 

One  does  not  find  a  similar  outlook  until  after  Newton.  I  will 
quote  in  extenso  one  poem  from  the  book,  which,  in  its  philosophy, 
is  not  unlike  Pope's  Essay  an  Man. 

39° 


THE   FIFTH    AND   SIXTH    CENTURIES 

If  Thou  wouldst  sec 

God's  laws  with  purest  mind, 

Thy  sight  on  heaven  fixed  must  be, 

Whose  settled  course  the  stars  in  peace  doth  bind. 

The  sun's  bright  fire 

Stops  not  his  sister's  team. 

Nor  doth  the  northern  bear  desire 

Within  the  ocean's  wave  to  hide  her  beam. 

Though  she  behold 

The  other  stars  there  crouching, 

Yet  she  incessantly  is  rolled 

About  high  heaven,  the  ocean  never  touching. 

The  evening  light 

With  certain  course  doth  show 

The  coming  of  the  shady  night, 

And  Lucifer  before  the  day  doth  go. 

This  mutual  love 

Courses  eternal  makes, 

And  from  the  starry  spheres  above 

All  cause  of  war  and  dangerous  discord  takes. 

This  sweet  consent 

In  equal  bands  doth  tie 

The  nature  of  each  element 

So  that  the  moist  things  yield  unto  the  dry. 

The  piercing  cold 

With  flames  doth  friendship  heap 

The  trembling  fire  the  highest  place  doth  hold, 

And  the  gross  earth  sinks  down  into  the  deep. 

The  flowery  year 

Breathes  odours  in  the  spring, 

The  scorching  summer  corn  doth  bear, 

The  autumn  fruit  from  laden  trees  doth  faring. 

The  falling  rain 

Doth  winter's  moisture  i»ive. 

These  rules  thus  nourish  and  maintain 

All  creatures  which  we  see  on  earth  to  live. 

And  when  they  die, 

These  bring  them  to  their  end, 

While  their  Creator  sits  on  high, 

Whose  hand  the  reins  of  the  whole  world  doth  bend. 

He  as  their  king 

Rules  them  with  lordly  might. 

From  Him  they  rise,  flourish,  and  spring, 

He  as  their  law  and  judge  decides  their  right. 

39' 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Those  things  whose  course 

Most  swiftly  glides  away 

His  might  doth  often  backward  force, 

And  suddenly  their  wandering  motion  stay. 

Unless  his  strength 

Their  violence  should  bound, 

And  them  which  else  would  run  at  length, 

Should  bring  within  the  compass  of  a  round, 

That  firm  decree 

Which  now  doth  all  adorn 

Would  soon  destroyed  and  broken  be, 

Things  being  far  from  their  beginning  borne. 

This  powerful  love 

Is  common  unto  all, 

Which  for  desire  of  good  do  move 

Back  to  the  springs  from  whence  they  first  did  fall. 

No  worldly  thing 

Can  a  continuance  have 

Unless  love  back  again  it  bring 

Unto  the  cause  which  first  the  essence  gave. 

Boethius  was,  until  the  end,  a  friend  of  Theodoric.  His  father 
was  consul,  he  was  consul,  and  so  were  his  two  sons.  His  father- 
in-law  Symmachus  (probably  grandson  of  the  one  who  had  a 
controversy  with  Ambrose  about  the  statue  of  Victory)  was  an 
important  man  in  the  court  of  the  Gothic  king.  Theodoric  em- 
ployed Boethius  to  reform  the  coinage,  and  to  astonish  less 
sophisticated  barbarian  kings  with  such  devices  as  sun-dials  and 
water-docks.  It  may  be  that  his  freedom  from  superstition  was 
not  so  exceptional  in  Roman  aristocratic  families  as  elsewhere; 
but  its  combination  with  great  learning  and  zeal  for  the  public 
good  was  unique  in  that  age.  During  the  two  centuries  before  his 
time  and  the  ten  centuries  after  it,  I  cannot  think  of  any  European 
man  of  learning  so  free  from  superstition  and  fanaticism.  Nor  are 
his  merits  merely  negative;  his  survey  is  lofty,  disinterested,  and 
sublime.  He  would  have  been  remarkable  in  any  age;  in  the  age 
in  which  he  lived,  he  is  utterly  amazing. 

The  medieval  reputation  of  Boethius  was  .partly  due  to  his 
being  regarded  as  a  martyr  to  Arian  persecution — a  view  which 
began  two  or  three  hundred  years  after  his  death.  In  Pa  via,  he 
was  regarded  as  a  saint ,  but  in  fact  he  was  not  canonized.  Though 
Cyril  was  a  saint,  Boethius  was  not. 

393 


THE   FIFTH    AND    SIXTH   CENTURIES 

Two  years  after  the  execution  of  Boethius,  Theodoric  died.  In 
the  next  year,  Justinian  became  Emperor.  He  reigned  until  565, 
and  in  this  long  time  managed  to  do  much  harm  and  some  good. 
He  is  of  course  chiefly  famous  for  his  Digest,  but  I  shall  not  venture 
on  this  topic,  which  is  one  for  the  lawyers.  He  was  a  man  of  deep 
piety,  which  he  signalized,  two  years  after  his  accession,  by  closing 
the  schools  of  philosophy  in  Athens,  where  paganism  still  reigned. 
The  dispossessed  philosophers  betook  themselves  to  Persia,  where 
the  king  received  them  kindly.  But  they  were  shocked — more  so, 
says  Gibbon,  than  became  philosophers— by  the  Persian  practices 
of  polygamy  and  incest,  so  they  returned  home  again,  and  faded 
into  obscurity.  Three  years  after  this  exploit  (532),  Justinian 
embarked  upon  another,  more  worthy  of  praise — the  building  of 
St.  Sophia.  I  have  never  seen  St.  Sophia,  but  I  have  seen  the 
beautiful  contemporary  mosaics  at  Ravenna,  including  portraits 
of  Justinian  and  his  empress  Theodora.  Both  were  very  pious, 
though  Theodora  was  a  lady  of  easy  virtue  whom  he  had  picked 
up  in  the  circus.  What  is  even  worse,  she  was  inclined  to  be  a 
Monophysite. 

But  enough  of  scandal.  The  Emperor  himself,  I  am  happy  to 
say,  was  of  impeccable  orthodoxy,  even  in  the  matter  of  the 
"Three  Chapters."  This  was  a  vexatious  controversy.  The  Council 
of  Chalcedon  had  pronounced  orthodox  three  Fathers  suspected 
of  Nestorianism ;  Theodora,  along  with  many  others,  accepted  all 
the  other  decrees  of  the  council,  but  not  this  one.  The  Western 
Church  stood  by  everything  decided  by  the  Council,  and  the 
empress  was  driven  to  persecute  the  Pope.  Justinian  adored  her, 
and  after  her  death  in  548,  she  became  to  him  what  the  dead 
Prince  Consort  was  to  Queen  Victoria.  So  in  the  end  he  lapsed 
into  heresy,  that  of  Aphthartodocctism.  A  contemporary  historian 
(Evagrius)  writes:  "Having  since  the  end  of  his  life  received  the 
wages  of  his  misdeeds,  he  has  gone  to  seek  the  justice  which  was 
his  due  before  the  judgment-seat  of  hell." 

Justinian  aspired  to  reconquer  as  much  as  possible  of  the 
Western  Empire.  In  535  he  invaded  Italy,  and  at  first  had  quick 
success  against  the  Goths.  The  Catholic  population  welcomed 
him,  and  he  came  as  representing  Rome  against  the  barbarians. 
But  the  Goths  rallied,  and  the  war  lasted  eighteen  years,  during 
which  Rome,  and  Italy  generally,  suffered  far  more  than  in  the 
barbarian  invasion. 

393 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Rome  was  five  times  captured,  thrice  by  Byzantines,  twice  by 
Goths,  and  sank  to  a  small  town.  The  same  sort  of  thing  happened 
in  Africa,  which  Justinian  also  more  or  less  reconquered.  At  first 
his  armies  were  welcomed;  then  it  was  found  that  Byzantine 
administration  was  corrupt  end  Byzantine  taxes  were  ruinous. 
In  the  end,  many  people  wished  the  Goths  and  Vandals  back. 
The  Church,  however,  until  his  last  years,  was  steadily  on  the 
side  of  the  Emperor,  because  of  his  orthodoxy.  He  did  not  attempt 
the  reconquest  of  Gaul,  partly  because  of  distance,  but  partly  also 
because  the  Franks  were  orthodox. 

In  568,  three  years  after  Justinian's  death,  Italy  was  invaded 
by  a  new  and  very  fierce  German  tribe,  the  Lombards.  Wars 
between  them  and  the  Byzantines  continued  intermittently  for 
two  hundred  years,  until  nearly  the  time  of  Charlemagne.  The 
Byzantines  held  gradually  less  and  less  of  Italy;  in  the  South, 
they  had  also  to  face  the  Saracens.  Rome  remained  nominally 
subject  to  them,  and  the  popes  treated  the  Kastern  emperors  with 
deference.  But  in  most  parts  of  Italy  the  emperors,  after  the 
coming  of  the  Lombards,  had  very  little  authority  or  even  none 
at  all.  It  was  this  period  that  ruined  Italian  civilization.  It  was 
refugees  from  the  Lombards  who  founded  Venice,  not,  as  tradition 
avers,  fugitives  from  Attila. 


394 


Chapter  VI 
ST.   BENEDICT  AND   GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

-TTN  the  general  decay  of  civilization  that  came  about  during  the 
I  incessant  wars  of  the  sixth  and  succeeding  centuries,  it  was 
JL  above  all  the  Church  that  preserved  whatever  survived  of  the 
culture  of  ancient  Rome.  The  Church  performed  this  work  very 
imperfectly,  because  fanaticism  and  superstition  prevailed  among 
even  the  greatest  ecclesiastics  of  thp  time,  and  secular  learning 
was  thought  wicked.  Nevertheless,  ecclesiastical  institutions 
created  a  solid  framework,  within  which,  in  later  times,  a  revival 
of  learning  and  civilized  arts  became  possible. 

In  the  period  with  which  we  are  concerned,  three  of  the  activities 
of  the  Church  call  for  special  notice:  first,  the  monastic  movement; 
second,  the  influence  of  the  papacy,  especially  under  Gregory  the 
Great;  third,  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  barbarians  by  means 
of  missions.  I  will  say  something  about  each  of  these  in  succession. 

The  monastic  movement  began  simultaneously  in  Egypt  and 
Syria  about  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century.  It  had  two  forms, 
that  of  solitary  hermits,  and  that  of  monasteries.  St.  Anthony,  the 
first  of  the  hermits,  was  born  in  Egypt  about  250,  and  withdrew 
from  the  world  about  270.  For  fifteen  years  he  lived  alone  in  a 
hut  near  his  home;  then,  for  twenty  years,  in  remote  solitude  in 
the  desert.  But  his  fame  spread,  and  multitudes  longed  to  hear 
him  preach.  Accordingly,  about  305,  he  came  forth  to  teach,  and 
to  encourage  the  hermit's  life.  He  practised  extreme  austerities, 
reducing  food,  drink,  and  sleep  to  the  minimum  required  to 
support  life.  The  devil  constantly  assailed  him  with  lustful  visions, 
but  he  manfully  withstood  the  malign  diligence  of  Satan.  By  the 
end  of  his  life,  the  Thebaid1  was  full  of  hermits  who  had  been 
inspired  by  his  example  and  his  precepts. 

A  few  years  later — about  315  or  320— another  Egyptian,  Pacho- 
mius,  founded  the  first  monastery.  Here  the  monks  had  a  common 
life,  without  private  property,  with  communal  meals  and  com- 
munal religious  observances.  It  was  in  this  form,  rather  than  in 
that  of  St.  Anthony,  that  monasticism  conquered  the  Christian 
world.  In  the  monasteries  derived  from  Pachomius,  the  monks 
1  The  desert  near  Egyptian  Thebes. 
395 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

did  much  work,  chiefly  agricultural,  instead  of  spending  the  whole 
of  their  time  in  resisting  the  temptations  of  the  flesh. 

At  about  the  same  time,  monasticism  sprang  up  in  Syria  and 
Mesopotamia.  Here  asceticism  was  carried  to  even  greater  lengths 
than  in  Egypt.  St.  Simeon  Stylites  and  the  other  pillar  hermits 
were  Syrian.  It  was  from  the  East  that  monasticism  came  to  Greek- 
speaking  countries,  chiefly  owing  to  St.  Basil  (about  360).  His 
monasteries  were  less  ascetic;  they  had  orphanages,  and  schools 
for  boys  (not  only  for  such  as  intended  to  become  monks). 

At  first,  monasticism  was  a  spontaneous  movement,  quite  out- 
side Church  organization.  It  was  St.  Athanasius  who  reconciled 
ecclesiastics  to  it.  Partly  as  a  result  of  his  influence,  it  came  to  be 
the  rule  that  monks  should  be  priests.  It  was  he  also,  while  he 
was  in  Rome  in  339,  who  introduced  the  movement  into  the  West. 
St.  Jerome  did  much  to  promote  it,  and  St.  Augustine  introduced 
it  into  Africa.  St.  Martin  of  Tours  inaugurated  monasteries  in 
Gaul,  St.  Patrick  in  Ireland.  The  monastery  of  lona  was  founded 
by  St.  Columba  in  566.  In  early  days,  before  monks  had  been 
fined  into  the  ecclesiastical  organization,  they  had  been  a  source 
of  disorder.  To  begin  with,  there  was  no  way  of  discriminating 
between  genuine  ascetics  and  men  who,  being  destitute,  found 
monastic  establishments  comparatively  luxurious.  Then  again 
there  was  the  difficulty  that  the  monks  gave  a  turbulent  support 
to  their  favourite  bishop,  causing  synods  (and  almost  causing 
Councils)  to  fall  into  heresy.  The  synod  (not  the  Council)  of 
Ephesus,  which  decided  for  the  Monophysites,  was  under  a 
monkish  reign  of  terror.  But  for  the  resistance  of  the  Pope,  the 
victory  of  the  Monophysites  might  have  been  permanent.  In 
later  times,  such  disorders  no  longer  occurred. 

There  seem  to  have  been  nuns  before  there  were  monks — as 
early  as  the  middle  of  the  third  century. 

Cleanliness  was  viewed  with  abhorrence.  Lice  were  called 
"pearls  of  God,"  and  were  a  mark  of  saintliness.  Saints,  male  and 
female,  would  boast  that  water  had  never  touched  their  feet  except 
when  they  had  to  cross  rivers.  In  later  centuries,  monks  served 
many  useful  purposes:  they  were  skilled  agriculturists,  and  some 
of  them  kept  alive  or  revived  learning.  But  in  the  beginning, 
especially  in  the  eremitic  section,  there  was  none  of  this.  Most 
monks  did  no  work,  never  read  anything  except  what  religion 
prescribed,  and  conceived  virtue  in  an  entirely  negative  manner, 

396 


ST.  BENEDICT  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

as  abstention  from  sin,  especially  the  sins  of  the  flesh.  St.  Jerome, 
it  is  true,  took  his  library  with  him  into  the  desert,  but  he  came  to 
think  that  this  had  been  a  sin. 

In  Western  monasticism,  the  most  important  name  is  that  of 
St.  Benedict,  the  founder  of  the  Benedictine  Order.  He  was  born 
about  480,  near  Spoleto,  of  a  noble  Umbrian  family;  at  the  age 
of  twenty,  he  fled  from  the  luxuries  and  pleasures  of  Rome  to 
the  solitude  of  a  cave,  where  he  lived  for  three  years.  After  this 
period,  his  life  was  less  solitary,  and  about  the  year  520  he  founded 
the  famous  monastery  of  Monte  Cassino,  for  which  he  drew  up 
the  "Benedictine  rule."  This  was  adapted  to  Western  climates, 
and  demanded  less  austerity  than  had  been  common  among 
Egyptian  and  Syrian  monks.  There  had  been  an  unedifying  com- 
petition in  ascetic  extravagance,  the  most  extreme  practitioner 
being  considered  the  most  holy.  To  this  St.  Benedict  put  an  end, 
decreeing  that  austerities  going  beyond  the  rule  could  only  be 
practised  by  permission  of  the  abbot.  The  abbot  was  given  great 
power ;  he  was  elected  for  life,  and  had  (within  the  Rule  and  the 
limits  of  orthodoxy)  an  almost  despotic  control  over  his  monks, 
who  were  no  longer  allowed,  as  previously,  to  leave  their  monastery 
for  another  if  they  felt  so  inclined.  In  later  times,  Benedictines 
have  been  remarkable  for  learning,  but  at  first  all  their  reading 
was  devotional. 

Organizations  have  a  life  of  their  own,  independent  of  the 
intentions  of  their  founders.  Of  this  fact,  the  most  striking  example 
is  the  Catholic  Church,  which  would  astonish  Jesus,  and  even 
Paul.  The  Benedictine  Order  is  a  lesser  example.  The  monks  take 
a  vow  of  poverty,  obedience,  and  chastity.  As  to  this,  Gibbon 
remarks:  "I  have  somewhere  heard  or  read  the  frank  confession 
of  a  Benedictine  abbot:  'My  vow  of  poverty  has  given  me  an 
hundred  thousand  crowns  a  year;  my  vow  of  obedience  has  raised 
me  to  the  rank  of  a  sovereign  prince.'  I  forget  the  consequences 
of  his  vow  of  chastity."1  The  departures  of  the  Order  from  the 
founder's  intentions  were,  however,  by  no  means  all  regrettable. 
This  is  true,  in  particular,  of  learning.  The  library  of  Monte 
Cassino  was  famous,  and  in  various  ways  the  world  is  much 
indebted  to  the  scholarly  tastes  of  later  Benedictines. 

St.  Benedict  lived  at  Monte  Cassino  from  its  foundation  until 
his  death  in  543.  The  monastery  was  sacked  by  the  Lombards, 
1  Op.  cit.t  xxxvii,  note  57. 

397 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

shortly  before  Gregory  the  Great,  himself  a  Benedictine,  became 
Pope.  The  monks  fled  to  Rome;  but  when  the  fury  of  the 
Lombards  had  abated,  they  returned  to  Monte  Cassino. 

From  the  dialogues  of  Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  written  in  593, 
we  learn  much  about  St.  Benedict.  He  was  "brought  up  at  Rome 
in  the  study  of  humanity.  But  forasmuch  as  he  saw  many  by  the 
reason  of  such  learning  to  fall  to  dissolute  and  lewd  life,  he  drew 
back  his  foot,  which  he  had  as  it  were  now  set  forth  into  the  world, 
lest,  entering  too  far  in  acquaintance  therewith,  he  likewise  might 
have  fallen  into  that  dangerous  and  godless  gulf:  wherefore,  giving 
over  his  book,  and  forsaking  his  father's  house  and  wealth,  with 
a  resolute  mind  only  to  serve  God,  he  sought  for  some  place, 
where  he  might  attain  to  the  desire  of  his  holy  purpose:  and  in 
this  sort  he  departed,  instructed  with  learned  ignorance,  and 
furnished  with  unlearned  wisdom." 

He  immediately  acquired  the  power  to  work  miracles.  The  first 
of  these  was  the  mending  of  a  broken  sieve  by  means  of  prayer. 
The  townsmen  hung  the  sieve  over  the  church  door,  and  it  "con- 
tinued there  many  years  after,  even  to  these  very  troubles  of  the 
Lombards."  Abandoning  the  sieve,  he  went  to  his  cave,  unknown 
to  all  but  one  friend,  who  secretly  supplied  him  with  food  let 
down  by  a  rope,  to  which  a  bell  was  tied  to  let  the  saint  know 
when  his  dinner  had  come.  But  Satan  threw  a  stone  at  the  rope, 
breaking  both  it  and  the  bell.  Nevertheless,  the  enemy  of  mankind 
was  foiled  in  his  hope  of  disrupting  the  Saint's  food-supply. 

When  Benedict  had  been  as  long  in  the  cave  as  God's  purposes 
required,  our  Lord  appeared  on  Easter  Sunday  to  a  certain  priest, 
revealed  the  hermit's  whereabouts,  and  bade  him  share  his  Easter 
feast  with  the  Saint.  About  the  same  time  certain  shepherds 
found  him.  "At  the  first,  when  they  espied  him  through  the  bushes, 
and  saw  his  apparel  made  of  skins,  they  verily  thought  that  it 
had  been  some  beast:  but  after  they  were  acquainted  with  the 
r  \ju*nt  of  God,  many  of  them  were  by  his  means  convened  from 
jfce  ot'-^tly  life  to  grace,  piety,  and  devotion." 
,  flesh-  naner  hermits,  Benedict  suffered  from  the  temptations  oi 
»a,  tb*  lpttA  certain  woman  there  was  which  some  time  he  had 
toemory  of  which  the  wicked  spirit  put  into  his  mind, 
*kc  ***  memory  of  her  did  so  mightily  inflame  with  concupis- 
mi  of  God's  servant,  which  did  so  increase  that,  almost 
ith  pleasure,  he  was  of  mind  to  have  forsaken  the 

398 


ST.  BENEDICT  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

wilderness.  But  suddenly,  assisted  with  God's  grace,  he  came  to 
himself;  and  seeing  many  thick  briers  and  nettle  bushes  to  grow 
hard  by,  off  he  cast  his  apparel,  and  threw  himself  into  the  midst 
of  them,  and  there  wallowed  so  long  that,  when  he  rose  up,  all 
his  flesh  was  pitifully  torn:  and  so  by  the  wounds  of  his  body, 
he  cured  the  wounds  of  his  soul." 

His  fame  being  spread  abroad,  the  monks  of  a  certain  monastery, 
whose  abbot  had  lately  died,  besought  him  to  accept  the  succession. 
He  did  so,  and  insisted  upon  observance  of  strict  virtue,  so  that 
the  monks,  in  a  rage,  decided  to  poison  him  with  a  glass  of  poisoned 
wine.  He,  however,  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  over  the  glass, 
whereupon  it  broke  in  pieces.  So  he  returned  to  the  wilderness. 

The  miracle  of  the  sieve  was  not  the  only  practically  useful  one 
performed  by  St.  Benedict.  One  day,  a  virtuous  Goth  was  using  a 
bill-hook  to  clear  away  briers,  when  the  head  of  it  flew  off  the 
handle  and  fell  into  deep  water.  The  Saint,  being  informed,  held 
the  handle  in  the  water,  whereupon  the  iron  head  rose  up  and 
joined  itself  again  to  the  handle. 

A  neighbouring  priest,  envious  of  the  holy  man's  reputation,  sent 
him  a  poisoned  loaf.  But  Benedict  miraculously  knew  it  was 
poisoned.  He  had  the  habit  of  giving  bread  to  a  certain  crow,  and 
when  the  crow  came  on  the  day  in  question,  the  Saint  said  to  it: 
"In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  take  up  that  loaf,  and 
leave  it  in  some  such  place  where  no  man  may  find  it."  The  crow 
obeyed,  and  on  its  return  was  given  its  usual  dinner.  The  wicked 
priest,  seeing  he  could  not  kill  Benedict's  body,  decided  to  kill 
his  soul,  and  sent  seven  naked  young  women  into  the  monastery. 
The  Saint  feared  lest  some  of  the  younger  monks  might  be  moved 
to  sin,  and  therefore  departed  himself,  that  the  priest  might  no 
longer  have  a  motive  for  such  acts.  But  the  priest  was  killed  by 
the  ceiling  of  his  room's  falling  on  him.  A  monk  pursued  Benedict 
with  the  news,  rejoicing,  and  bidding  him  return.  Benedict 
mourned  over  the  death  of  the  sinner,  and  imposed  a  penance 
on  the  monk  for  rejoicing. 

Gregory  does  not  only  relate  miracles,  but  deigns,  now  and 
then,  to  tell  facts  in  the  career  of  St.  Benedict.  After  founding 
twelve  monasteries,  he  finally  came  to  Monte  Cassino,  where 
there  was  a  "chapel"  to  Apollo,  still  used  by  the  country  people 
for  heathen  worship.  "Even  to  that  very  time,  the  mad  multitude 
of  infidels  did  offer  most  wicked  sacrifice/*  Benedict  destroyed 

399 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

the  altar,  substituted  a  church,  and  converted  the  neighbouring 
pagans.  Satan  was  annoyed: 

"The  old  enemy  of  mankind,  not  taking  this  in  good  part,  did 
not  now  privily  or  in  a  dream,  but  in  open  sight  present  himself 
to  the  eyes  of  that  holy  father,  and  with  great  outcries  complained 
that  he  had  offered  him  violence.  The  noise  which  he  made,  the 
monks  did  hear,  but  himself  they  could  not  see;  but,  as  the 
venerable  father  told  them,  he  appeared  visibly  unto  him  most  fell 
and  cruel,  and  as  though,  with  his  fiery  mouth  and  flaming  eyes, 
he  would  have  torn  him  in  pieces:  what  the  devil  said  unto  him, 
all  the  monks  did  hear;  for  first  he  would  call  him  by  his  name, 
and  because  the  man  of  God  vouchsafed  him  not  any  answer, 
then  would  he  fall  a  reviling  and  railing  at  him :  for  when  he  cried 
out,  calling  him  "Blessed  Bennet,'  and  yet  found  that  he  gave  him 
no  answer,  straightways  he  would  turn  his  tune  and  say:  'Cursed 
Bennet,  and  not  blessed:  what  hast  thou  to  do  with  me?  and  why 
dost  thou  thus  persecute  me?'  "  Here  the  story  ends;  one  gathers 
that  Satan  gave  up  in  despair. 

I  have  quoted  at  some  length  from  these  dialogues,  because  they 
have  a  threefold  importance.  First,  they  are  the  principal  source 
for  our  knowledge  of  the  life  of  St.  Benedict,  whose  Rule  became 
the  model  for  all  Western  monasteries  except  those  of  Ireland  or 
founded  by  Irishmen.  Secondly,  they  give  a  vivid  picture  of  the 
mental  atmosphere  among  the  most  civilized  people  living  at  the 
end  of  the  sixth  century.  Thirdly,  they  are  written  by  Pope 
Gregory  the  Great,  fourth  and  last  of  the  Doctors  of  the  Western 
Church,  and  politically  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  popes. 
To  him  we  must  now  turn  our  attention. 

The  Venerable  W.  H.  Hutton,  Archdeacon  of  Northampton,1 
claims  that  Gregory  was  the  greatest  man  of  the  sixth  century; 
the  only  rival  claimants,  hc^ays,  would  be  Justinian  and  St.  Bene- 
dict. All  three,  certainly,  had  a  profound  effect  on  future  ages: 
Justinian  by  his  Laws  (not  by  his  conquests,  which  were  ephe- 
meral); Benedict  by  his  monastic  order;  and  Gregory  by  the 
increase  of  papal  power  which  he  brought  about.  In  the  dialogues 
that  I  have  been  quoting  he  appears  childish  and  credulous,  but 
as  a  statesman  he  is  astute,  masterful,  and  very  well  aware  of 
what  can  be  achieved  in  the  complex  and  changing  world  in 
which  he  has  to  operate.  The  contrast  is  surprising;  but  the 
1  Cambridge  Medieval  History  t  II,  chap.  viii. 
400 


ST.  BENEDICT  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

most  effective  men  of  action  are  often  intellectually  second- 
rate. 

Gregory  the  Great,  the  first  Pope  of  that  name,  was  born  in 
Rome,  about  540,  of  a  rich  and  noble  family.  It  seems  his  grand- 
father had  been  Pope  after  he  became  a  widower.  He  himself,  as  a 
young  man,  had  a  palace  and  immense  wealth.  He  had  what  was 
considered  a  good  education,  though  it  did  not  include  a  know- 
ledge of  Greek,  which  he  never  acquired,  although  he  lived  for 
six  years  in  Constantinople.  In  573  he  was  prefect  of  the  City  of 
Rome.  But  religion  claimed  him:  he  resigned  his  office,  gave  his 
wealth  to  the  founding  of  monasteries  and  to  charity,  and  turned 
his  own  palace  into  a  house  for  monks,  himself  becoming  a  Bene- 
dictine. He  devoted  himself  to  meditation,  and  to  austerities 
which  permanently  injured  his  health.  But  Pope  Pelagius  II  had 
become  aware  of  his  political  abilities,  and  sent  him  as  his  envoy 
to  Constantinople,  to  which,  since  Justinian's  time,  Rome  was 
nominally  subject.  Gregory  lived  in  Constantinople  from  579  to 
585,  representing  papal  interests  at  the  Emperor's  court,  and  papal 
theology  in  discussions  with  Eastern  ecclesiastics,  who  were  always 
more  prone  to  heresy  than  those  of  the  West.  The  patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  at  this  time,  held  the  erroneous  opinion  that  our 
resurrection  bodies  will  be  impalpable,  but  Gregory  saved  the 
Emperor  from  falling  into  this  departure  from  the  true  faith.  He 
was  unable,  however,  to  persuade  the  Emperor  to  undertake  a 
campaign  against  the  Lombards,  which  was  the  principal  object 
of  his  mission. 

The  five  years  585-90  Gregory  spent  as  head  of  his  monastery. 
Then  the  Pope  died,  and  Gregory  succeeded  him.  The  times  were 
difficult,  but  by  their  very  confusion  offered  great  opportunities 
to  an  able  statesman.  The  Lombards  were  ravaging  Italy;  Spain 
and  Africa  were  in  a  state  of  anarchy  due  to  the  weakness  of  the 
Byzantines  and  the  decadence  of  Visigoths  and  the  depredations 
of  Moors.  In  France  there  were  wars  between  North  and  South. 
Britain,  which  had  been  Christian  under  the  Romans,  had  re- 
verted to  paganism  since  the  Saxon  invasion.  There  were  still 
remnants  of  Arianism,  and  the  heresy  of  the  Three  Chapters  was 
by  no  means  extinct.  The  turbulent  times  infected  even  bishops, 
many  of  whom  led  far  from  exemplary  lives.  Simony  was  rife, 
and  remained  a  crying  evil  until  the  latter  half  of  the  eleventh 
century. 

401 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

All  these  sources  of  trouble  Gregory  combated  with  energy  and 
sagacity.  Before  his  pontificate,  the  bishop  of  Rome,  though 
acknowledged  to  be  the  greatest  man  in  the  hierarchy,  was  not 
regarded  as  having  any  jurisdiction  outside  his  own  diocese.  St. 
Ambrose,  for  example,  who  was  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the 
Pope  of  his  day,  obviously  never  regarded  himself  as  in  any  degree 
subject  to  his  authority.  Gregory,  owing  partly  to  his  personal 
qualities  and  partly  to  the  prevailing  anarchy,  was  able  to  assert 
successfully  an  authority  which  was  admitted  by  ecclesiastics 
throughout  the  West,  and  even,  to  a  lesser  degree,  in  the  East. 
He  exerted  this  authority  chiefly  by  means  of  letters  to  bishops 
and  secular  rulers  in  all  parts  of  the  Roman  world,  but  also  in 
other  ways.  His  Book  of  Pastoral  Rule,  containing  advice  to  bishops, 
had  a  great  influence  throughout  the  earlier  Middle  Ages.  It  was 
intended  as  a  guide  to  the  duties  of  bishops,  and  was  accepted  as 
such.  He  wrote  it  in  the  first  instance  for  the  bishop  of  Ravenna, 
and  sent  it  also  to  the  bishop  of  Seville.  Under  Charlemagne,  it 
was  given  to  bishops  at  consecration.  Alfred  the  Great  translated 
it  into  Anglo-Saxon.  In  the  East  it  was  circulated  in  Greek.  It 
gives  sound,  if  not  surprising,  advice  to  bishops,  such  as  not  to 
neglect  business.  It  tells  them  also  that  rulers  should  not  be 
criticized,  but  should  be  kept  alive  to  the  danger  of  hell-fire  if 
they  fail  to  follow  the  advice  of  the  Church. 

Gregory's  letters  are  extraordinarily  interesting:,  not  only  as 
showing  his  character,  but  as  giving  a  picture  of  his  age.  His  tone, 
except  to  the  Emperor  and  the  ladies  of  the  Byzantine  court,  is 
that  of  a  head  master — sometimes  commending,  often  reproving, 
never  showing  the  faintest  hesitation  as  to  his  right  to  give  orders. 

Let  us  take  as  a  sample  his  letters  during  one  year  (599).  The 
first  is  a  letter  to  the  bishop  of  Cagliari  in  Sardinia,  who,  though 
old,  was  bad.  It  says,  in  part:  "It  has  been  told  me  that  on  the 
Lord's  day,  before  celebrating  the  solemnities  of  mass,  thou 
wentest  forth  to  plough  up  the  crop  of  the  bearer  of  these  presents. 
.  .  .  Also,  after  the  solemnities  of  mass  thou  didst  not  fear  to  root 
up  the  landmarks  of  that  possession.  .  .  .  Seeing  that  we  still 
spare  thy  grey  hairs,  bethink  thee  at  length,  old  man,  and  restrain 
thyself  from  such  levity  of  .behaviour,  and  perversity  of  deeds/' 
He  writes  at  the  same  time  to  the  secular  authorities  of  Sardinia 
on  the  same  subject.  The  bishop  in  question  next  has  to  be  re- 
proved because  he  makes  a  charge  for  conducting  funerals;  and 

402 


ST.  BENEDICT  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

then  again  because,  with  his  sanction,  a  converted  Jew  placed  the 
Cross  and  an  image  of  the  Virgin  in  a  synagogue.  Moreover,  he 
and  other  Sardinian  bishops  have  been  known  to  travel  without 
permission  of  their  metropolitan;  this  must  cease.  Then  follows 
a  very  severe  letter  to  the  proconsul  of  Dalmatia,  saying,  among 
other  things:  "We  see  not  of  what  sort  your  satisfaction  is  either 
to  God  or  men";  and  again:  "With  regard  to  your  seeking  to  be 
in  favour  with  us,  it  is  fitting  that  with  your  whole  heart  and  soul, 
and  with  tears,  as  becomes  you,  you  should  satisfy  your  Redeemer 
for  such  things  as  these."  I  am  ignorant  as  to  what  the  wretch 
had  done. 

Next  comes  a  letter  to  CaUinicus,  exarch  of  Italy,  congratulating 
him  on  a  victory  over  the  Slavs,  and  telling  him  how  to  act  towards 
the  heretics  of  I  stria,  who  erred  as  to  the  Three  Chapters.  He 
writes  also  on  this  subject  to  the  bishop  of  Ravenna.  Once,  by  way 
of  exception,  we  find  a  letter  to  the  bishop  of  Syracuse,  in  which 
Gregory  defends  himself  instead  of  finding  fault  with  others.  The 
question  at  issue  is  a  weighty  one,  namely  whether  "Alleluia" 
should  be  said  at  a  certain  point  in  the  mass.  Gregory's  usage,  he 
says,  is  not  adopted  from  subservience  to  the  Byzantines,  as  the 
bishop  of  Syracuse  suggests,  but  is  derived  from  St.  James  via 
the  blessed  Jerome.  Those  who  thought  he  was  being  unduly 
subservient  to  Greek  usage  were  therefore  in  error.  (A  similar 
question  was  one  of  the  causes  of  the  schism  of  the  Old  Believers 
in  Russia.) 

There  are  a  number  of  letters  to  barbarian  sovereigns,  male  and 
female.  Brunichild,  queen  of  the  Franks,  wanted  the  pallium  con- 
ferred on  a  certain  French  bishop,  and  Gregory  was  willing  to 
grant  her  request ;  but  unfortunately  the  emissary  she  sent  was  a 
schismatic.  To  Agilulph  king  of  the  Lombards  he  writes  con- 
gratulating him  on  having  made  peace.  "For,  if  unhappily  peace 
had  not  been  made,  what  else  could  have  ensued  but,  with  sin 
and  danger  on  ix>th  sides,  the  shedding  of  the  blood  of  miserable 
peasants  whose  lalxmr  profits  both?"  At  the  same  time  he  writes 
to  Agilulph's  wife,  Queen  Theodelinda,  telling  her  to  influence 
her  husband  to  persist  in  good  courses.  1  le  writes  again  to  Bruni- 
child to  find  fault  with  two  things  IA  her  kingdom:  that  laymen 
are  promoted  at  once  to  be  bishops,  without  a  probationary  time 
as  ordinary  priests;  and  that  Jews  are  allowed  to  have  Christian 
slaves.  To  Theodoric  and  Theodebert,  kings  of  the  Franks,  he 

403 


WBSTBRN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

writes  saying  that,  owing  to  the  exemplary  piety  of  the  Franks, 
he  would  like  to  utter  only  pleasant  things,  but  he  cannot  refrain 
from  pointing  out  the  prevalence  of  simony  in  their  kingdom. 
He  writes  again  about  a  wrong  done  to  the  Bishop  of  Turin. 
One  letter  to  a  barbarian  sovereign  is  wholly  complimentary;  it  is 
to  Richard,  king  of  the  Visigoths,  who  had  been  an  Arian,  but 
became  a  Catholic  in  587.  For  this  the  Pope  rewards  him  by 
sending  him  "a  small  key  from  the  most  sacred  body  of  the  blessed 
apostle  Peter  to  convey  his  blessing,  containing  iron  from  his  chains, 
that  what  had  bound  his  neck  for  martyrdom  may  loose  yours 
from  all  sins."  I  hope  His  Majesty  was  pleased  with  this  present. 

The  Bishop  of  Antioch  is  instructed  as  to  the  heretical  synod  of 
Ephesus,  and  informed  that  "it  has  come  to  our  ears  that  in  the 
Churches  of  the  East  no  one  attains  to  a  sacred  order  except  by 
giving  of  bribes" — a  matter  which  the  bishop  is  to  rectify  where- 
ever  it  is  in  his  power  to  do  so.  The  Bishop  of  Marseilles  is 
reproached  for  breaking  certain  images  which  were  being  adored : 
it  is  true  that  adoration  of  images  is  wrong,  but  images,  neverthe- 
less, are  useful  and  should  be  treated  with  respect.  Two  bishops 
of  Gaul  are  reproached  because  a  lady  who  had  become  a  nun 
was  afterwards  forced  to  marry.  "If  this  be  so,  ...  you  shall 
have  the  office  of  hirelings,  and  not  the  merit  of  shepherds." 

The  above  are  a  few  of  the  letters  of  a  single  year.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  he  found  no  time  for  contemplation,  as  he  laments  in  one  of 
the  letters  of  this  year  (cxxi). 

Gregory  was  no  friend  to  secular  learning.  To  Desiderius 
Bishop  of  Vienne  in  France,  he  writes: 

"It  came  to  our  ears,  what  we  cannot  mention  without  shame, 
that  thy  Fraternity  is  [i.e.  thou  art]  in  the  habit  of  expounding 
gUpunar  to  certain  persons.  This  thing  we  took  so  much  amiss, 
and  so  strongly  disapproved  it,  that  we  changed  what  had  been 
said  before  into  groaning  and  sadness,  since  the  praises  of  Christ 
cannot  find  room  in  one  mouth  with  the  praises  of  Jupiter  ....  In 
proportion  as  it  is  execrable  for  such  a  thing  to  be  related  of  a 
priest,  it  ought  to  be  ascertained  by  strict  and  veracious  evidence 
whether  or  not  it  be  so." 

This  hostility  to  pagan  learning  survived  in  the  Church  for  at 
least  four  centuries,  till  the  time  of  Gerbert  (Sylvester  II).  It  was 
only  from  the  eleventh  century  onward  that  the  Church  became 
friendly  to  learning. 

404 


ST.  BENEDICT  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

Gregory's  attitude  to  the  emperor  is  much  more  deferential  than 
his  attitude  to  barbarian  kings.  Writing  to  a  correspondent  in 
Constantinople  he  says:  "What  pleases  the  most  pious  emperor, 
whatever  he  commands  to  be  done,  is  in  his  power.  As  he  deter- 
mines, so  let  him  provide.  Only  let  him  not  cause  us  to  be  mixed 
up  in  the  deposition  [of  an  orthodox  bishop].  Still,  what  he  does, 
if  it  is  canonical,  we  will  follow.  But,  if  it  is  not  canonical,  we  will 
bear  it,  so  far  as  we  can  without  sin  of  our  own."  When  the 
Emperor  Maurice  was  dethroned  by  a  mutiny,  of  which  the  leader 
was  an  obscure  centurion  named  Phocas,  this  upstart  acquired 
the  throne,  and  proceeded  to  massacre  the  five  sons  of  Maurice 
in  their  father's  presence,  after  which  he  put  to  death  the  aged 
Emperor  himself.  Phocas  was  of  course  crowned  by  the  patriarch 
of  Constantinople,  \vho  had  no  alternative  but  death.  What  is 
more  surprising  is  that  Gregory,  from  the  comparatively  safe 
distance  of  Rome,  wrote  letters  of  fulsome  adulation  to  the  usurper 
and  his  wife.  "There  is  this  difference/'  he  writes,  "between  the 
kings  of  the  nations  and  the  emperors  of  the  republic,  that  the 
kings  of  the  nations  are  lords  of  slaves,  but  the  emperors  of  the 
republic  lords  of  freemen.  .  .  .  May  Almighty  God  in  every 
thought  and  deed  keep  the  heart  of  your  Piety  [i.e.  you]  in  the 
hand  of  His  grace;  and  whatsoever  things  should  be  done  justly, 
whatsoever  things  with  clemency,  may  the  Holy  Spirit  who  dwells 
in  your  breast  direct."  And  to  the  wife  of  Phocas,  the  Empress 
Leontia,  he  writes:  "What  tongue  may  suffice  to  speak,  what  mind 
to  think,  what  great  thanks  we  owe  to  Almighty  God  for  the 
serenity  of  your  empire,  in  that  such  hard  burdens  of  long  duration 
have  been  removed  from  our  necks,  and  the  gentle  yoke  of  im- 
perial supremacy  has  returned."  One  might  suppose  Maurice  to 
have  been  a  monster;  in  fact,  he  was  a  good  old  man.  Apologists 
excuse  Gregory  on  the  pica  that  he  did  not  know  what  atrocities 
had  been  committed  by  Phocas ;  but  he  certainly  knew  the  custo- 
mary behaviour  of  Byzantine  usurpers,  and  he  did  not  wait  to 
ascertain  whether  Phocas  was  an  exception. 

The  conversion  of  the  heathen  was  an  important  part  of  the 
increasing  influence  of  the  Church.  The  Goths  had  been  convened 
before  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  by  Ulphilas,  or  Ulfila — un- 
fortunately to  Arianism,  which  was  also  the  creed  of  the  Vandals. 
After  the  death  of  Theodoric,  however,  the  Goths  became  gradually 
Catholic:  the  king  of  the  Visigoths,  as  we  have  seen,  adopted 

405 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

the  orthodox  faith  in  the  time  of  Gregory.  The  Franks  were 
Catholic  from  the  time  of  Clovis.  The  Irish  were  converted  before 
the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire  by  St.  Patrick,  a  Somersetshire 
country  gentleman1  who  lived  among  them  from  432  till  his  death 
in  461.  The  Irish  in  turn  did  much  to  evangelize  Scotland  and 
the  North  of  England.  In  this  work  the  greatest  missionary  was 
St.  Columba;  another  was  St.  Columban,  who  wrote  long  letters 
to  Gregory  on  the  date  of  Easter  and  other  important  questions. 
The  conversion  of  England,  apart  from  Northumbria,  was  Gre- 
gory's special  care.  Every  one  knows  how,  before  he  was  Pope,  he 
saw  two  fair-haired  blue-eyed  boys  in  the  slave  market  in  Rome, 
and  on  being  told  they  were  Angles  replied,  "No,  angels/*  When 
he  became  Pope  he  sent  St.  Augustine  to  Kent  to  convert  the 
Angles.  There  are  many  letters  in  his  correspondence  to  St. 
Augustine,  to  Edilbext,  king  of  the  Angeli,  and  to  others,  about 
the  mission.  Gregory  decrees  that  heathen  temples  in  England  are 
not  to  be  destroyed,  but  the  idols  are  to  be  destroyed  and  the 
temples  then  consecrated  as  churches.  St.  Augustine  puts  a 
number  of  queries  to  the  Pope,  such  as  whether  cousins  may 
marry,  whether  spouses  who  have  had  intercourse  the  previous 
night  may  come  to  church  (yes,  if  they  have  washed,  says  Gregory), 
and  so  on.  The  mission,  as  we  know,  prospered,  and  that  is  why 
we  are  all  Christians  at  this  day. 

The  period  we  have  been  considering  is  peculiar  in  the  fact  that, 
though  its  great  men  are  inferior  to  those  of  many  other  epochs, 
their  influence  on  future  ages  has  been  greater.  Roman  law, 
monasticism,  and  the  papacy  owe  their  long  and  profound  in- 
fluence very  largely  to  Justinian,  Benedict,  and  Gregory.  The 
men  of  the  sixth  century,  though  less  civilized  than  their  pre- 
decessors, were  much  more  civilized  than  the  men  of  the  next 
four  centuries,  and  they  succeeded  in  framing  institutions  that 
ultimately  tamed  the  barbarians.  It  is  noteworthy  that,  of  the 
above  three  men,  two  were  aristocratic  natives  of  Rome,  and  the 
third  was  Roman  Emperor.  Gregory  is  in  a  very  real  sense  the 
last  of  the  Romans.  His  tone  of  command,  while  justified  by  his 
office,  has  its  instinctive  basis  in  Roman  aristocratic  pride.  After 
him,  for  many  ages,  the  city  of  Rome  ceased  to  produce  great 
men.  But  in  its  downfall  it  succeeded  in  fettering  the  souls  of  its 
conquerors:  the  reverence  which  they  felt  for  the  Chair  of  Peter 
1  So  at  least  Bury  says  in  hit  Life  of  the  Stint. 
406 


ST.  BENEDICT  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

was  an  outcome  of  the  awe  which  they  felt  for  the  throne  of  the 
Caesars. 

In  the  East,  the  course  of  history  was  different.  Mohammed 
was  born  when  Gregory  was  about  thirty  years  old. 


407 


Part  2. — The  Schoolmen 

Chapter  VII 
THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   DARK   AGES 

DURING  the  four  centuries  from  Gregory  the  Great  to  Syl- 
vester II,  the  papacy  underwent  astonishing  vicissitudes.  Ii 
was  subject,  at  times,  to  the  Greek  Emperor,  at  other  times 
to  the  Western  Emperor,  and  at  yet  other  times  to  the  local  Roman 
aristocracy;  nevertheless,  vigorous  popes  in  the  eighth  and  ninth 
centuries,  seizing  propitious  moments,  built  up  the  tradition  of 
papal  power.   The  period  from  A.D.  600  to  1000  is  of  vital  impor- 
tance for  the  understanding  of  the  medieval  Church  and  its  relation 
to  the  State. 

The  popes  achieved  independence  of  the  Greek  emperors,  not 
so  much  by  their  own  efforts,  as  by  the  arms  of  the  Lombards,  to 
whom,  however,  they  felt  no  gratitude  whatever.  The  Greek  Church 
remained  always,  in  a  great  measure,  subservient  to  the  Emperor, 
who  considered  himself  competent  to  decide  on  matters  of  faith, 
as  well  as  to  appoint  and  depose  bishops,  even  patriarchs.  The 
monks  strove  for  independence  of  the  Emperor,  and  for  that  reason 
sided,  at  times,  with  the  Pope.  But  the  patriarchs  of  Constantinople, 
though  willing  to  submit  to  the  Emperor,  refused  to  regard  them- 
selves as  in  any  degree  subject  to  papal  authority.  At  times,  when 
the  Emperor  needed  the  Pope's  help  against  barbarians  in  Italy, 
he  was  more  friendly  to  the  Pope  than  the  patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople was.  The  main  cause  of  the  ultimate  separation  of  the 
Eastern  and  the  Western  Churches  was  the  refusal  of  the  former 
to  submit  to  papal  jurisdiction. 

After  the  defeat  of  the  Byzantines  by  the  Lombards,  the  popes 
had  reason  to  fear  that  they  also  would  be  conquered  by  these 
vigorous  barbarians.  They  saved  themselves  by  an  alliance  with 
the  Franks,  who,  under  Charlemagne,  conquered  Italy  and  Ger- 
many. This  alliance  produced  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  which 
had  a  constitution  that  assumed  harmony  between  Pope  and 
Emperor.  The  power  of  the  Carolingian  dynasty,  however,  decayed 

408 


THE  PAPACY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES 

rapidly.  At  first,  the  Pope  reaped  the  advantage  of  this  decay,  and 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  ninth  century  Nicholas  I  raised  the  papal 
power  to  hitherto  unexampled  heights.  The  general  anarchy,  how- 
ever, led  to  the  practical  independence  of  the  Roman  aristocracy, 
which,  in  the  tenth  century,  controlled  the  papacy,  with  disastrous 
results.  The  way  in  which,  by  a  great  movement  of  reform,  the 
papacy,  and  the  Church  generally,  was  saved  from  subordination 
to  the  feudal  aristocracy,  will  be  the  subject  of  a  later  chapter. 

In  the  seventh  century,  Rome  was  still  subject  to  the  military 
power  of  the  emperors,  and  popes  had  to  obey  or  suffer.  Some,  e.g. 
Honorius,  obeyed,  even  to  the  point  of  heresy;  others,  e.g.  Martin 
I,  resisted,  and  were  imprisoned  by  the  Emperor.  From  685  to 
752,  most  of  the  popes  were  Syrians  or  Greeks.  Gradually,  how- 
ever, as  the  Lombards  acquired  more  and  more  of  Italy,  Byzantine 
power  declined.  The  Emperor  Leo  the  Isaurian,  in  726,  issued  his 
iconoclast  decree,  which  was  regarded  as  heretical,  not  only 
throughout  the  West,  but  by  a  large  party  in  the  East.  This  the 
popes  resisted  vigorously  and  successfully;  at  last,  in  787,  under 
the  Empress  Irene  (at  first  as  regent),  the  East  abandoned  the 
iconoclast  heresy.  Meanwhile,  however,  events  in  the  West  had 
put  an  end  forever  to  the  control  of  Byzantium  over  the  papacy. 

In  about  the  year  751,  the  Lombards  captured  Ravenna,  the 
capital  of  Byzantine  Italy.  This  event,  while  it  exposed  the  popes 
to  great  danger  from  the  Lombards,  freed  them  from  all  depen- 
dence on  the  Greek  emperors.  The  popes  had  preferred  the  Greeks 
to  the  Lombards  for  several  reasons.  First,  the  authority  of  the 
emperors  was  legitimate,  whereas  barbarian  kings,  unless  recog- 
nized by  the  emperors,  were  regarded  as  usurpers.  Second,  the 
Greeks  were  civilized.  Third,  the  Lombards  were  nationalists, 
whereas  the  Church  retained  Roman  internationalism.  Fourth,  the 
Lombards  had  been  Arians,  and  some  odium  still  clung  to  them 
after  their  conversion. 

The  Lombards,  under  King  Liutprand,  attempted  to  conquer 
Rome  in  739,  and  were  hotly  opposed  by  Pope  Gregory  III,  who 
turned  to  the  Franks  for  aid  The  Merovingian  kings,  the  descen- 
dants of  Clovis,  had  lost  all  real  power  in  the  Prankish  kingdom, 
which  was  governed  by  the  "Mayors  of  the  Palace."  At  this  time 
the  Mayor  of  the  Palace  was  an  exceptionally  vigorous  and  able 
man,  Charles  Mattel,  like  William  the  Conqueror  a  bastard.  In 
732  he  had  won  the  decisive  battle  of  Tours  against  the  Moors 

409 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

thereby  saving  Fiance  for  Christendom.  This  should  have  won 
him  the  gratitude  of  the  Church,  but  financial  necessity  led  him 
to  seize  some  Church  lands,  which  much  diminished  ecclesiastical 
appreciation  of  his  merits.  However,  he  and  Gregory  III  both  died 
in  741,  and  his  successor  Pepin  was  wholly  satisfactory  to  the 
Church.  Pope  Stephen  III,  in  754,  to  escape  the  Lombards 
crossed  the  Alps  and  visited  Pepin,  when  a  bargain  was  struck 
which  proved  highly  advantageous  to  both  parties.  The  Pope 
needed  military  protection,  but  Pepin  needed  something  that  only 
the  Pope  could  bestow:  the  legitimization  of  his  title  as  king  in 
place  of  the  last  of  the  Merovingians.  In  return  for  this,  Pepin 
bestowed  on  the  Pope  Ravenna  and  all  the  territory  of  the  former 
Exarchate  in  Italy.  Since  it  could  not  be  expected  that  Constanti- 
nople would  recognize  such  a  gift,  this  involved*  political  severance 
from  the  Eastern  Empire. 

If  the  popes  had  remained  subject  to  the  Greek  emperors,  the 
development  of  the  Catholic  Church  would  have  been  very 
different.  In  the  Eastern  Church,  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople 
never  acquired  either  that  independence  of  secular  authority  or 
that  superiority  to  other  ecclesiastics  that  was  achieved  by  the 
Pope.  Originally  all  bishops  were  considered  equal,  and  to  a 
considerable  extent  this  view  persisted  in  the  East.  Moreover, 
there  were  other  Eastern  patriarchs,  at  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and 
Jerusalem,  whereas  the  Pope  was  the  only  patriarch  in  the  West. 
(This  fact,  however,  lost  its  importance  after  the  Mohammedan 
conquest.)  In  the  West,  but  not  in  the  East,  the  laity  were  mostly 
illiterate  for  many  centuries,  and  this  gave  the  Church  an  advantage 
in  the  West  which  it  did  not  possess  in  the  East.  The  prestige  of 
Rome  surpassed  that  of  any  Eastern  city,  for  it  combined  the 
imperial  tradition  with  legends  of  the  martyrdom  of  Peter  and 
Paul,  and  of  Peter  as  first  Pope.  The  Emperor's  prestige  might 
have  sufficed  to  cope  with  that  of  the  Pope,  but  no  Western 
monarch's  could.  The  Holy  Roman  emperors  were  often  destitute 
of  real  power;  moreover  they  only  became  emperors  when  the 
Pope  crowned  them.  For  all  these  reasons,  the  emancipation  of 
the  Pope  from  Byzantine  domination  was  essential  both  to  the 
independence  of  the  Chuith  in  relation  to  secular  monarchs,  and 
to  the  ultimate  establishment  of  the  papal  monarchy  in  the 
government  of  the  Western  Church. 

Certain  documents  of  great  importance,  the  4<  Donation  of 


THE  PAPACY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES 

Constantine"  and  the  False  Decretals,  belong  to  this  period.  The 
False  Decretals  need  not  concern  us,  but  something  must  be 
said  of  the  Donation  of  Constantine.  In  order  to  give  an  air  of 
antique  legality  to  Pepin's  gift,  churchmen  forged  a  document, 
purporting  to  be  a  decree  issued  by  the  Emperor  Constantine, 
by  which,  when  he  founded  the  New  Rome,  he  bestowed  upon 
the  Pope  the  old  Rome  and  all  its  Western  territories.  This  bequest, 
which  was  the  basis  of  the  Pope's  temporal  power,  was  accepted 
as  genuine  by  the  whole  of  the  subsequent  Middle  Ages.  It  was 
first  rejected  as  a  forgery,  in  the  time  of  the  Renaissance,  by 
Lorenzo  Valla  in  1439.  He  had  written  a  book  "on  the  elegancies 
of  the  Latin  language,"  which,  naturally,  were  absent  in  a  pro- 
duction of  the  eighth  century.  Oddly  enough,  after  he  had  pub- 
lished his  book  against  the  Donation  of  Constantine,  as  well  as  a 
treatise  in  praise  of  Epicurus,  he  was  made  apostolic  secretary  by 
Pope  Nicholas  V,  who  cared  more  for  latinity  than  for  the  Church. 
Nicholas  V  did  not,  however,  propose  to  give  up  the  States  of  the 
Church,  though  the  Pope's  title  to  them  had  been  based  upon  the 
supposed  Donation. 

The  contents  of  this  remarkable  document  are  summarized  by 
C.  Delislc  Burns  as  follows:1 

After  a  summary  of  the  Nicene  creed,  the  fall  of  Adam,  and  the 
birth  of  Christ,  Constantine  says  he  was  suffering  from  leprosy, 
that  doctors  were  useless,  and  that  he  therefore  approached  "the 
priests  of  the  Capitol."  They  proposed  that  he  should  slaughter 
several  infants  and  be  washed  in  their  blood,  but  owing  to  their 
mothers'  tears  he  restored  them.  That  night  Peter  and  Paul 
appeared  to  him  and  said  that  Pope  Sylvester  was  hiding  in  a  cave 
on  Soracte,  and  would  cure  him.  He  went  to  Soracte,  where  the 
"universal  Pope*'  told  him  Peter  and  Paul  were  apostles,  not  gods, 
showed  him  portraits  which  he  recognized  from  his  vision,  and 
admitted  it  before  all  his  "satraps."  Pope  Sylvester  thereupon 
assigned  him  a  period  of  penance  in  a  hair  shirt ;  then  he  baptized 
him,  when  he  saw  a  hand  from  heaven  touching  him.  He  was 
cured  of  leprosy,  and  gave  up  worshipping  idols.  Then  "with  all 
his  satraps,  the  Senate,  his  nobles  and  the  whole  Roman  people 
he  thought  it  good  to  grant  supreme  power  to  the  See  of  Peter/' 
and  superiority  over  Antioch,  Alexandria,  Jerusalem,  and  Con- 
stantinople. He  then  built  a  church  in  his  palace  of  the  Lateran. 
On  the  Pope  he  conferred  his  crown,  tiara,  and  imperial  garments. 
1  I  am  quoting  t  still  unpublished  book,  Th*  Firti  Europe. 

4" 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

He  placed  a  tiara  on  the  Pope's  head  and  held  the  reins  of  his 
horse.  He  left  to  "Silvester  and  his  successors  Rome  and  all  the 
provinces,  districts  and  cities  of  Italy  and  the  West  to  be  subject 
to  the  Roman  Church  forever";  he  then  moved  East  "because, 
where  the  princedom  of  bishops  and  the  head  of  the  Christian 
religion  has  been  established  by  the  heavenly  Emperor  it  is  not 
just  that  an  earthly  Emperor  should  have  power." 

The  Lombards  did  not  tamely  submit  to  Pepin  and  the  Pope, 
but  in  repeated  wars  with  the  Franks  they  were  worsted.  At  last, 
in  774,  Pepin's  son  Charlemagne  marched  into  Italy,  completely 
defeated  the  Lombards,  had  himself  recognized  as  their  king, 
and  then  occupied  Rome,  where  he  confirmed  Pepin's  donation. 
The  Popes  of  his  day,  Hadrian  and  Leo  HI,  found  it  to  their 
advantage  to  further  his  schemes  in  every  way.  He  conquered 
most  of  Germany,  converted  the  Saxons  by  vigorous  persecution, 
and  finally,  in  his  own  person,  revived  the  Western  Empire,  being 
crowned  Emperor  by  the  Pope  in  Rome  on  Christmas  Day, 
A.D.  800. 

The  foundation  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  marks  an  epoch  in 
medieval  theory,  though  much  less  in  medieval  practice.  The 
Middle  Ages  were  peculiarly  addicted  to  legal  fictions,  and  until 
this  time  the  fiction  had  persisted  that  the  Western  provinces  of 
the  former  Roman  Empire  were  still  subject,  de  jure,  to  the 
Emperor  in  Constantinople,  who  was  regarded  as  the  sole  source 
of  legal  authority.  Charlemagne,  an  adept  in  legal  fictions,  main- 
tained that  the  throne  of  the  Empire  was  vacant,  because  the 
reigning  Eastern  sovereign  Irene  (who  called  herself  emperor,  not 
empress)  was  a  usurper,  since  no  woman  could  be  emperor. 
Charles  derived  his  claim  to  legitimacy  from  the  Pope.  There  was 
thus,  from  the  first,  a  curious  interdependence  of  pope  and 
emperor.  No  one  could  be  emperor  unless  crowned  by  the  Pope 
in  Rome;  on  the  other  hand,  for  some  centuries,  every  strong 
emperor  claimed  the  right  to  appoint  or  depose  popes.  The 
medieval  theory  of  legitimate  power  depended  upon  both  emperor 
and  pope;  their  mutual  dependence  was  galling  to  both,  but  for 
centuries  inescapable.  There  was  constant  friction,  with  advantage 
now  to  one  side,  now  to  the  other.  At  last,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
the  conflict  became  irreconcilable.  The  Pope  was  victorious,  but 
lost  moral  authority  shortly  afterwards.  The  Pope  and  the  Holy 
Roman  Emperor  both  survived,  the  Pope  to  the  present  day,  the 


THE  PAPACY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES 

Emperor  to  the  time  of  Napoleon.  But  the  elaborate  medieval 
theory  that  had  been  built  up  concerning  their  respective  powers 
ceased  to  be  effective  during  the  fifteenth  century.  The  unity  of 
Christendom,  which  it  maintained,  was  destroyed  by  the  power 
of  the  French,  Spanish,  and  English  monarchies  in  the  secular 
sphere,  and  by  the  Reformation  in  the  sphere  of  religion. 

The  character  of  Charles  the  Great  and  his  entourage  is  thus 
summed  up  by  Dr.  Gerhard  Seeliger:1 

Vigorous  life  was  developed  at  Charles's  court.  We  see  there 
magnificence  and  genius,  but  immorality  also.  For  Charles  was 
not  particular  about  the  people  he  drew  round  him.  He  himself 
was  no  model,  and  he  suffered  the  greatest  licence  in  those  whom 
he  liked  and  found  useful.  As  "Holy  Emperor"  he  was  addressed, 
though  his  life  exhibited  little  holiness.  He  is  so  addressed  by 
Alcuin,  who  also  praises  the  Emperor's  beautiful  daughter  Rotrud 
as  distinguished  for  her  virtues  in  spite  of  her  having  borne  a  son 
to  Count  Rodenc  of  Maine,  though  not  his  wife.  Charles  would  not 
be  separated  from  his  daughters,  he  would  not  allow  their 
marriage,  and  he  was  therefore  obliged  to  accept  the  consequences. 
The  other  daughter,  Bertha,  also  had  two  sons  by  the  pious  Abbot 
Angilbert  of  St.  Riquier.  In  fact  the  court  of  Charles  was  a  centre 
of  very  loose  life. 

Charlemagne  was  a  vigorous  barbarian,  politically  in  alliance 
with  the  Church,  but  not  unduly  burdened  with  personal  piety 
He  could  not  read  or  write,  but  he  inaugurated  a  literary  renais- 
sance. He  was  dissolute  in  his  life, and  unduly  fond  of  his  daughters, 
but  he  did  all  in  his  power  to  promote  holy  living  among  his 
subjects.  He,  like  his  father  Pepin,  made  skilful  use  of  the  zeal  of 
missionaries  to  promote  his  influence  in  Germany,  but  he  saw  to 
it  that  Popes  obeyed  his  orders.  They  did  this  the  more  willingly, 
because  Rome  had  become  a  barbarous  city,  in  which  the  person 
of  the  Pope  was  not  safe  without  external  protection,  and  papal 
elections  had  degenerated  into  disorderly  faction  fights.  In  799, 
local  enemies  seized  the  Pope,  imprisoned  him,  and  threatened  to 
blind  him.  During  Charles's  lifetime,  it  seemed  as  if  a  new  order 
would  be  inaugurated;  but  after  his  death  little  survived  except 
a  theory. 

The  gains  of  the  Church,  and  more  particularly  of  the  papacy, 
were  wort  solid  than  those  of  the  Western  Empire.  England  had 
1  In  Cambridge  Medieval  History,  II,  663. 

4*3 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

been  converted  by  a  monastic  mission  under  the  orders  of  Gregory 
the  Great,  and  remained  much  more  subject  to  Rome  than  were 
the  countries  with  bishops  accustomed  to  local  autonomy.  The 
conversion  of  Germany  was  largely  the  work  of  St.  Boniface 
(680-754),  an  English  missionary,  who  was  a  friend  of  Charles 
Martel  and  Pepin,  and  completely  faithful  to  the  Pope.  Boniface 
founded  many  monasteries  in  Germany ;  his  friend  St.  Gall  founded 
the  Swiss  monastery  which  bears  his  name.  According  to  some 
authorities,  Boniface  anointed  Pepin  as  king  with  a  ritual  taken 
from  the  First  Book  of  Kings. 

St.  Boniface  was  a  native  of  Devonshire,  educated  at  Exeter  and 
Winchester.  He  went  to  Frisia  in  716,  but  soon  had  to  return.  In 
717  he  went  to  Rome,  and  in  719  Pope  Gregory  II  sent  him  to 
Germany  to  convert  the  Germans  and  to  combat  the  influence  of 
the  Irish  missionaries  (who,  it  will  be  remembered,  erred  as  to 
the  date  of  Easter  and  the  shape  of  the  tonsure).  After  considerable 
successes,  he  returned  to  Rome  in  722,  where  he  was  made  bishop 
by  Gregory  II,  to  whom  he  took  an  oath  of  obedience.  The  Pope 
gave  him  a  letter  to  Charles  Martel,  and  charged  him  to  suppress 
heresy  in  addition  to  converting  the  heathen.  In  732  he  became 
archbishop;  in  738  he  visited  Rome  a  third  time.  In  741  Pope 
Zacharias  made  him  legate,  and  charged  him  to  reform  the 
Prankish  Church.  He  founded  the  abbey  of  Fulda,  to  which  he 
gave  a  rule  stricter  than  the  Benedictine.  Then  he  had  a  con- 
troversy with  an  Irish  bishop  of  Salzburg,  named  Virgil,  who 
maintained  that  there  are  other  worlds  than  ours,  but  was,  never- 
theless, canonized.  In  754,  after  returning  to  Frisia,  Boniface  and 
his  companions  were  massacred  by  the  heathen.  It  was  owing  to 
him  that  German  Christianity  was  papal,  not  Irish. 

English  monasteries,  particularly  those  of  Yorkshire,  were  of 
great  importance  at  this  time.  Such  civilization  as  had  existed  in 
Roman  Britain  had  disappeared,  and  the  new  civilization  intro- 
duced by  Christian  missionaries  centred  entirely  round  the 
Benedictine  abbeys,  which  owed  everything  directly  to  Rome. 
The  Venerable  Bede  was  a  monk  at  Jarrow.  His  pupil  Ecgbert, 
first  archbishop  of  York,  founded  a  cathedral  school,  where  Alcuin 
was  educated. 

Alcuin  is  an  important  figure  in  the  culture  of  the  time.  He  went 
to  Rome  in  780,  and  in  the  course  of  his  journey  met  Charlemagne 
at  Parma.  The  Emperor  employed  him  to  teach  Latin  to  the  Franks 

4*4 


THE  PAPACY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES 

and  to  educate  the  royal  family.  He  spent  a  considerable  part  of 
his  life  at  the  court  of  Charlemagne,  engaged  in  teaching  and  in 
founding  schools.  At  the  end  of  his  life  he  was  abbot  of  St.  Martin's 
at  Tours.  He  wrote  a  number  of  books,  including  a  verse  history 
of  the  church  at  York.  The  emperor,  though  uneducated,  had  a 
considerable  belief  in  the  value  of  culture,  and  for  a  brief  period 
diminished  the  darkness  of  the  dark  ages.  But  his  work  in  this 
direction  was  ephemeral.  The  culture  of  Yorkshire  was  for  a  time 
destroyed  by  the  Danes,  that  of  France  was  damaged  by  the 
Normans.  The  Saracens  raided  Southern  Italy,  conquered  Sicily, 
and  in  846  even  attacked  Rome.  On  the  whole,  the  tenth  century 
was,  in  Western  Christendom,  about  the  darkest  epoch;  for  the 
ninth  is  redeemed  by  the  English  ecclesiastics  and  by  the  as- 
tonishing figure  of  Johannes  Scotus,  as  to  whom  I  shall  have 
more  to  say  presently. 

The  decay  of  Carolingian  power  after  the  death  of  Charlemagne 
and  the  division  of  his  empire  redounded,  at  first,  to  the  advantage 
of  the  papacy.  Pope  Nicholas  I  (858-67)  raised  papal  power  to  a 
far  greater  height  than  it  had  ever  attained  before.  He  quarrelled 
with  the  Emperors  of  the  East  and  the  West,  with  King  Charles 
the  Bald  of  France  and  King  Lothar  II  of  Lorraine,  and  with  the 
episcopate  of  nearly  every  Christian  country;  but  in  almost  all 
his  quarrels  he  was  successful.  The  clergy  in  many  regions  had 
become  dependent  on  the  local  princes,  and  he  set  to  work  to 
remedy  this  state  of  affairs.  His  two  greatest  controversies  con- 
cerned the  divorce  of  Lothar  II  and  the  uncanonical  deposition 
of  Ignatius,  patriarch  of  Constantinople.  The  power  of  the  Church, 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  royal 
divorces.  Kings  were  men  of  headstrong  passions,  who  felt  that 
the  indissolubility  of  marriage  was  a  doctrine  for  subjects  only. 
The  Church,  however,  could  alone  solemnize  a  marriage,  and  if 
the  Church  declared  a  marriage  invalid,  a  disputed  succession  and 
a  dynastic  war  were  very  likely  to  result.  The  Church,  therefore, 
was  in  a  very  strong  position  in  opposing  royal  divorces  and 
irregular  marriages.  In  England,  it  lost  this  position  under  Henry 
VIII,  but  recovered  it  under  Edward  VIII. 

When  Lothar  II  demanded  a  divorce;  the  clergy  of  his  kingdom 
agreed.  Pope  Nicholas,  however,  deposed  the  bishops  who  had 
acquiesced,  and  totally  refused  to  admit  the  King's  plea  for  divorce. 
Lothar's  brother,  the  Emperor  Louis  II,  thereupon  inarched  on 

415 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Rome  with  the  intention  of  overawing  the  Pope;  but  superstitious 
terrors  prevailed,  and  he  retired.  In  the  end,  the  Pope's  will 
prevailed. 

The  business  of  the  Patriarch  Ignatius  was  interesting,  as 
showing  that  the  Pope  could  still  assert  himself  in  the  East. 
Ignatius,  who  was  obnoxious  to  the  Regent  Bardas,  was  deposed, 
and  Photius,  hitherto  a  layman,  was  elevated  to  his  place.  The 
Byzantine  government  asked  the  Pope  to  sanction  this  proceeding. 
He  sent  two  legates  to  inquire  into  the  matter;  when  they  arrived 
in  Constantinople,  they  were  terrorized,  and  gave  their  assent. 
For  some  time,  the  facts  were  concealed  from  the  Pope,  but  when 
he  came  to  know  them,  he  took  a  high  line.  He  summoned  a  council 
in  Rome  to  consider  the  question ;  he  deposed  one  of  the  legates 
from  his  bishopric,  and  also  the  archbishop  of  Syracuse,  who  had 
consecrated  Photius ;  he  anathematized  Photius,  deposed  all  whom 
he  had  ordained,  and  restored  all  who  had  been  deposed  for 
opposing  him.  The  Emperor  Michael  III  was  furious,  and  wrote 
the  Pope  an  angry  letter,  but  the  Pope  replied:  "The  day  of  king- 
priests  and  emperor-pontiffs  is  past,  Christianity  has  separated 
the  two  functions,  and  Christian  emperors  have  need  of  the  Pope 
in  view  of  the  life  eternal,  whereas  popes  have  no  need  of  emperors 
except  as  regards  temporal  things."  Photius  and  the  Emperor 
retorted  by  summoning  a  council,  which  excommunicated  the 
Pope  and  declared  the  Roman  Church  heretical.  Soon  after  this, 
however,  Michael  III  was  murdered,  and  his  successor  Basil 
restored  Ignatius,  explicitly  recognizing  papal  jurisdiction  in  the 
matter.  This  triumph  happened  just  after  the  death  of  Nicholas, 
and  was  attributable  almost  entirely  to  the  accidents  of  palace 
revolutions.  After  the  death  of  Ignatius,  Photius  again  became 
patriarch,  and  the  split  between  the  Eastern  and  the  Western 
Churches  was  widened.  Thus  it  cannot  be  said  that  Nicholas's 
policy  in  this  matter  was  victorious  in  the  long  run. 

Nicholas  had  almost  more  difficulty  in  imposing  his  will 
upon  the  episcopate  than  upon  kings.  Archbishops  had  come  to 
consider  themselves  very  great  men,  and  they  were  reluctant  to 
submit  tamely  to  an  ecclesiastical  monarch.  He  maintained,  how- 
ever, that  bishops  owe  their  existence  to  the  Pope,  and  while  he 
lived  he  succeeded,  on  the  whole,  in  making  this  view  prevail. 
There  was,  throughout  these  centuries,  great  doubt  as  to  how 
bishops  should  be  appointed.  Originally  they  were  elected  by  the 


THE   PAPACY    IN    THB    DARK    AGES 

acclamation  of  the  faithful  in  their  cathedral  city;  then,  frequently, 
by  a  synod  of  neighbouring  bishops ;  then,  sometimes  by  the  King, 
and  sometimes  by  the  Pope.  Bishops  could  be  deposed  for  grave 
causes,  but  it  was  not  clear  whether  they  should  be  tried  by  the 
Pope  or  by  a  provincial  synod.  All  these  uncertainties  made  the 
powers  of  an  office  dependent  upon  the  energy  and  astuteness  of 
its  holders.  Nicholas  stretched  papal  power  to  the  utmost  limits 
of  which  it  was  then  capable;  under  his  successors,  it  sank  again 
to  a  very  low  ebb. 

During  the  tenth  century,  the  papacy  was  completely  under  the 
control  of  the  local  Roman  aristocracy.  There  was,  as  yet,  no  fixed 
rule  as  to  the  election  of  Popes ;  sometimes  they  owed  their  ele- 
vation to  popular  acclaim,  sometimes  to  emperors  or  kings,  and 
sometimes,  as  in  the  tenth  century,  to  the  holders  of  local  urban 
power  in  Rome.  Rome  was,  at  this  time,  not  a  civilized  city,  as  it 
had  still  been  in  the  time  of  Gregory  the  Great.  At  times  there 
were  faction  fights;  at  other  times  some  rich  family  acquired 
control  by  a  combination  of  violence  and  corruption.  The  disorder 
and  weakness  of  Western  Europe  was  so  great  at  this  period  that 
Christendom  might  have  seemed  in  danger  of  complete  destruction. 
The  Emperor  and  the  King  of  France  were  powerless  to  curb  the 
anarchy  produced  in  their  realms  by  feudal  potentates  who  were 
nominally  their  vassals.  The  Hungarians  made  raids  on  Northern 
Italy.  The  Normans  raided  the  French  coast,  until,  in  911,  they 
were  given  Normandy  and  in  return  became  Christians.  But  the 
greatest  danger  in  Italy  and  Southern  France  came  from  the 
Saracens,  who  could  not  be  converted,  and  had  no  reverence  for 
the  Church.  They  completed  the  conquest  of  Sicily  about  the 
end  of  the  ninth  century;  they  were  established  on  the  River 
Garigliano,  near  Naples;  they  destroyed  Monte  Cassino  and  other 
great  monasteries;  they  had  a  settlement  on  the  coast  of  Provence, 
whence  they  raided  Italy  and  the  Alpine  valleys,  interrupting 
traffic  between  Rome  and  the  North. 

The  conquest  of  Italy  by  the  Saracens  was  prevented  by  the 
Eastern  Empire,  which  overcame  the  Saracens  of  the  Garigliano 
in  9x5.  But  it  was  not  strong  enough  to  govern  Rome,  as  it  had 
done  after  Justinian's  conquest,  and  the  papacy  became,  for  about 
a  hundred  years,  a  perquisite  of  the  Roman  aristocracy  or  of  the 
counts  of  Tusculum.  The  most  powerful  Romans,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  tenth  century,  were  the  "Senator"  Theophylact  and  his 

Hillary  of  Wttto*  1'kOoiopk* 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

daughter  Marozia,  in  whose  family  the  papacy  nearly  became 
hereditary.  Marozia  had  several  husbands  in  succession,  and  an 
unknown  number  of  lovers.  One  of  the  latter  she  elevated  to  the 
papacy,  under  the  title  of  Sergius  II  (904-11).  His  and  her  son 
was  Pope  John  XI  (931-36);  her  grandson  was  John  XII 
(955-64),  who  became  Pope  at  the  age  of  sixteen  and  "completed 
the  debasement  of  the  papacy  by  his  debauched  life  and  the  orgies 
of  which  the  Lateran  palace  soon  became  the  scene."1  Marozia 
is  presumably  the  basis  for  the  legend  of  a  female  "Pope  Joan." 

The  popes  of  this  period  naturally  lost  whatever  influence  their 
predecessors  had  retained  in  the  East.  They  lost  also  the  power, 
which  Nicholas  I  had  successfully  exercised,  over  bishops  north 
of  the  Alps.  Provincial  councils  asserted  their  complete  inde- 
pendence of  the  Pope,  but  they  failed  to  maintain  independence 
of  sovereigns  and  feudal  lords.  Bishops,  more  and  more,  became 
assimilated  to  lay  feudal  magnates.  "The  Church  itself  thus 
appears  as  the  victim  of  the  same  anarchy  in  which  lay  society  is 
weltering;  all  evil  appetites  range  unchecked,  and,  more  than  ever, 
such  of  the  clergy  as  still  retain  some  concern  for  religion  and 
for  the  salvation  of  the  souls  committed  to  their  charge  mourn 
over  the  universal  decadence  and  direct  the  eyes  of  the  faithful 
towards  the  spectre  of  the  end  of  the  world  and  of  the  I-ast 
Judgment."2 

It  is  a  mistake,  however,  to  suppose  that  a  special  dread  of  the 
end  of  the  world  in  the  year  1000  prevailed  at  this  time,  as  used 
to  be  thought.  Christians,  from  St.  Paul  onward,  believed  the 
end  of  the  world  to  be  at  hand,  but  they  went  on  with  their 
ordinary  business  none  the  less. 

The  year  1000  may  be  conveniently  taken  as  marking  the  end 
of  the  lowest  depth  to  which  the  civilization  of  Western  Europe 
sank.  From  this  point  the  upward  movement  began  which  con- 
tinued till  1914.  In  the  beginning,  progress  was  mainly  due  to 
monastic  reform.  Outside  the  monastic  orders,  the  clergy  had 
become,  for  the  most  part,  violent,  immoral,  and  worldly;  they 
were  corrupted  by  the  wealth  and  power  that  they  owed  to  the 
benefactions  of  the  pious.  The  same  thing  happened,  over  and 
over  again,  even  to  the  monastic  orders;  but  reformers,  with  new 
zeal,  revived  their  moral  force  as  often  as  it  had  decayed. 
Another  reason  which  makes  the  year  1000  a  turning-point  is 
1  Cambridge  Medieval  History,  HI,  455.  '  Ibid 

418 


THE  PAPACY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES 

the  cessation,  at  about  this  time,  of  conquest  by  both  Moham- 
medans and  northern  barbarians,  so  far  at  least  as  Western  Europe 
is  concerned.  Goths,  Lombards,  Hungarians,  and  Normans  came 
in  successive  waves;  each  horde  in  turn  was  christianized,  but 
each  in  turn  weakened  the  civilized  tradition.  The  Western  Empire 
broke  up  into  many  barbarian  kingdoms ;  the  kings  lost  authority 
over  their  vassals;  there  was  universal  anarchy,  with  perpetual 
violence  both  on  a  large  and  on  a  small  scale.  At  last  all  the  races 
of  vigorous  northern  conquerors  had  been  converted  to  Chris- 
tianity, and  had  acquired  settled  habitations.  The  Normans,  who 
were  the  last  comers,  proved  peculiarly  capable  of  civilization. 
They  reconquered  Sicily  from  the  Saracens,  and  made  Italy  safe 
from  the  Mohammedans.  They  brought  England  back  into  the 
Roman  world,  from  which  the  Danes  had  largely  excluded  it. 
Once  settled  in  Normandy,  they  allowed  France  to  revive,  and 
helped  materially  in  the  process. 

Our  use  of  the  phrase  "the  Dark  Ages"  to  cover  the  period  from 
600  to  1000  marks  our  undue  concentration  on  Western  Europe. 
In  China,  this  period  includes  the  time  of  the  Tang  dynasty,  the 
greatest  age  of  Chinese  poetry,  and  in  many  other  ways  a  most 
remarkable  epoch.  From  India  to  Spain,  the  brilliant  civilization 
of  Islam  flourished.  What  was  lost  to  Christendom  at  this  time 
was  not  lost  to  civilization,  but  quite  the  contrary.  No  one  could 
have  guessed  that  Western  Europe  would  later  become  dominant, 
both  in  power  and  in  culture.  To  us,  it  seems  that  West-European 
civilization  is  civilization,  but  this  is  a  narrow  view.  Most  of  the 
cultural  content  of  our  civilization  comes  to  us  from  the  Eastern 
Mediterranean,  from  Greeks  and  Jews.  As  for  power:  Western 
Europe  was  dominant  from  the  Punic  Wars  to  the  fall  of  Rome — 
say,  roughly,  during  the  six  centuries  from  200  B.C.  to  A.O.  400. 
After  that  time,  no  State  in  Western  Europe  could  compare  in 
power  with  China,  Japan,  or  the  Caliphate. 

Our  superiority  since  the  Renaissance  is  due  partly  to  science 
and  scientific  technique,  partly  to  political  institutions  slowly  built 
up  during  the  Middle  Ages.  There  is  no  reason,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  why  this  superiority  should  continue.  In  the  present  war, 
great  military  strength  has  been  shown  by  Russia,  China,  and 
Japan.  All  these  combine  Western  technique  with  Eastern  ideology 
—Byzantine,  Confucian,  or  Shinto.  India,  if  liberated,  will  con- 
tribute another  Oriental  element.  It  seems  not  unlikely  that, 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

during  the  next  few  centuries,  civilization,  if  it  survives,  will  have 
greater  diversity  than  it  has  had  since  the  Renaissance.  There  is 
an  imperialism  of  culture  which  is  harder  to  overcome  than  the 
imperialism  of  power.  Long  after  the  Western  Empire  fell — indeed 
until  the  Reformation — all  European  culture  retained  a  tincture 
of  Roman  imperialism.  It  now  has,  for  us,  a  West-European 
imperialistic  flavour.  I  think  that,  if  we  are  to  feel  at  home  in  the 
world  after  the  present  war,  we  shall  have  to  admit  Asia  to  equality 
in  our  thoughts,  not  only  politically,  but  culturally.  What  changes 
this  will  bring  about,  I  do  not  know,  but  I  am  convinced  that  they 
will  be  profound  and  of  the  greatest  importance. 


420 


] 

J\ 


Chapter  VIII 
JOHN   THE   SCOT 

JOHN  THE  SCOT,  or  Johannes  Scotus,  to  which  is  sometimes 
added  Eriugena  or  Erigena,1  is  the  most  astonishing  person  of 
the  ninth  century ;  he  would  have  been  less  surprising  if  he  had 
lived  in  the  fifth  or  the  fifteenth  century.  He  was  an  Irishman,  a 
Neoplatonist,  an  accomplished  Greek  scholar,  a  Pelagian,  a  pan- 
theist. He  spent  much  of  his  life  under  the  patronage  of  Charles 
the  Bald,  king  of  France,  and  though  he  was  certainly  far  from 
orthodox,  yet,  so  far  as  we  know,  he  escaped  persecution.  He  set 
reason  above  faith,  and  cared  nothing  for  the  authority  of  eccle- 
siastics; yet  his  arbitrament  was  invoked  to  settle  their  controversies, 
To  understand  the  occurrence  of  such  a  man,  we  must  turn  our 
attention  first  to  Irish  culture  in  the  centuries  following  St.  Patrick. 
Apart  from  the  extremely  painful  fact  that  St.  Patrick  was  an 
Englishman,  there  are  two  other  scarcely  less  painful  circum- 
stances: first,  that  there  were  Christians  in  Ireland  before  he  went 
there;  second,  that,  whatever  he  may  have  done  for  Irish  Chris- 
tianity, it  was  not  to  him  that  Irish  culture  was  due.  At  the  time 
of  the  invasion  of  Gaul  (says  a  Gaulish  author),  first  by  Attila, 
then  by  the  Goths,  Vandals,  and  Alaric,  "all  the  learned  men  on 
their  side  the  sea  fled,  and  in  the  countries  beyond  sea,  namely 
Ireland,  and  wherever  else  they  betook  themselves,  brought  to 
the  inhabitants  of  those  regions  an  enormous  advance  in  learning."2 
If  any  of  these  men  sought  refuge  in  England,  the  Angles  and 
Saxons  and  Jutes  must  have  mopped  them  up ;  but  those  who  went 
to  Ireland  succeeded,  in  combination  with  the  missionaries,  in 
transplanting  a  great  deal  of  the  knowledge  and  civilization  that 
was  disappearing  from  the  Continent.  There  is  good  reason  to 
believe  that,  throughout  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  centuries, 
a  knowledge  of  Greek,  as  well  as  a  considerable  familiarity  with 
Latin  classics,  survived  among  the  Irish.3  Greek  was  known  in 

1  This  addition  it  redundant;  it  would  make  his  name  "Iriah  John 
from  Ireland.*1  In  the  ninth  century  "Scotuft"  means  "Irishman." 

1  Cambridge  Medieval  History*,  III,  501. 

*  This  question  is  discussed  carefully  in  the  Cambridge  Medieval 
History,  III,  chap,  xix,  and  the  conclusion  is  in  favour  of  Irish  knowledge 
of  Greek. 

431 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

England  from  the  time  of  Theodore,  archbishop  of  Canterbury 
(669-90)9  who  was  himself  a  Greek,  educated  at  Athens ;  it  may 
also  have  become  known,  in  the  North,  through  Irish  missionaries. 
"During  the  latter  part  of  the  seventh  century/'  says  Montague 
James,  "it  was  in  Ireland  that  the  thirst  for  knowledge  was  keenest, 
and  the  work  of  teaching  was  most  actively  carried  on.  There  the 
Latin  language  (and  in  a  less  degree  the  Greek)  was  studied  from 
a  scholar's  point  of  view.  ...  It  was  when,  impelled  in  the  first 
instance  by  missionary  zeal,  and  later  by  troubled  conditions  at 
home,  they  passed  over  in  large  numbers  to  the  Continent,  that 
they  became  instrumental  in  rescuing  fragments  of  the  literature 
which  they  had  already  learnt  to  value."1  Heiric  of  Auxerre, 
about  876,  describes  this  influx  of  Irish  scholars:  "Ireland, 
despising  the  dangers  of  the  sea,  is  migrating  almost  en  masse 
with  her  crowd  of  philosophers  to  our,  shores,  and  all  the  most 
learned  doom  themselves  to  voluntary  exile  to  attend  the  bidding 
of  Solomon  the  wise"— i.e.  King  Charles  the  Bald.2 

The  lives  of  learned  men  have  at  many  times  been  perforce 
nomadic.  At  the  beginning  of  Greek  philosophy,  many  of  the 
philosophers  were  refugees  from  the  Persians;  at  the  end  of  it, 
in  the  time  of  Justinian,  they  became  refugees  to  the  Persians.  In 
the  fifth  century,  as  we  have  just  seen,  men  of  learning  fled  from 
Gaul  to  the  Western  Isles  to  escape  the  Germans;  in  the  ninth 
century-,  they  fled  back  from  England  and  Ireland  to  escape  the 
Scandinavians.  In  our  own  day,  German  philosophers  have  to  fly 
even  further  West  to  escape  their  compatriots.  I  wonder  whether 
it  will  be  equally  long  before  a  return  flight  takes  place. 

Too  little  is  known  of  the  Irish  in  the  days  when  they  were 
preserving  for  Europe  the  tradition  of  classical  culture.  This 
learning  was  connected  with  monasteries,  and  was  full  of  piety, 
as  their  penitentials  show;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  much 
concerned  with  theological  niceties.  Being  monastic  rather  than 
episcopal,  it  had  not  the  administrative  outlook  that  characterized 
Continental  ecclesiastics  from  Gregory  the  Great  onwards.  And 
being  in  the  main  cut  off  from  effective  contact  with  Rome,  it  still 
regarded  the  Pope  as  he  was  regarded  in  the  time  of  St.  Ambrose, 
not  as  he  came  to  be  regarded  later.  Peiagius,  though  probably  a 
Briton,  is  thought  by  some  to  have  been  an  Irishman.  It  is  likely 
that  his  heresy  survived  in  Ireland,  where  authority  could  not 

1  Lor.  €»$.,  pp.  507-8.  •  Loc.  «'!.,  p.  524. 

422 


JOHN   THE  SCOT 

stamp  it  out,  as  it  did,  with  difficulty,  in  Gaul.  These  circumstances 
do  something  to  account  for  the  extraordinary  freedom  and  fresh- 
ness of  John  the  Scot's  speculations. 

The  beginning  and  the  end  of  John  the  Scot's  life  are  unknown ; 
we  know  only  the  middle  period,  during  which  he  was  employed 
by  the  king  of  France.  He  is  supposed  to  have  been  born  about 
800,  and  to  have  died  about  877,  but  both  dates  are  guesswork. 
He  was  in  France  during  the  papacy  of  Pope  Nicholas  I,  and  we 
meet  again,  in  his  life,  the  characters  who  appear  in  connection 
with  that  Pope,  such  as  Charles  the  Bald  and  the  Emperor  Michael 
and  the  Pope  himself. 

John  was  invited  to  France  by  Charles  the  Bald  about  the  year 
843,  and  was  by  him  placed  at  the  head  of  the  court  school.  A 
dispute  as  to  predestination  and  free  will  had  arisen  between 
Gottschalk,  a  monk,  and  the  important  ecclesiastic  Hincmar,  Arch- 
bishop of  Rheims.  The  monk  was  predestinarian,  the  archbishop 
libertarian.  John  supported  the  archbishop  in  a  treatise  On  Divine 
Predestination,  but  his  support  went  too  far  for  prudence.  The 
subject  was  a  thorny  one;  Augustine  had  dealt  with  it  in  his 
writings  against  Pclagius,  but  it  was  dangerous  to  agree  with 
Augustine  and  still  more  dangerous  to  disagree  with  him  explicitly. 
John  supported  free  will,  and  this  might  have  passed  uncensored ; 
but  what  roused  indignation  was  the  purely  philosophic  character 
of  his  argument.  Not  that  he  professed  to  controvert  anything 
accepted  in  theology,  but  that  he  maintained  the  equal,  or  even 
superior,  authority  of  a  philosophy  independent  of  revelation.  He 
contended  that  reason  and  revelation  are  both  sources  of  truth, 
and  therefore  cannot  conflict;  but  if  they  ever  seem  to  conflict, 
reason  is  to  be  preferred.  True  religion,  he  said,  is  true  philosophy; 
but,  conversely,  true  philosophy  is  true  religion.  His  work  was 
condemned  by  two  councils,  in  855  and  859;  the  first  of  these 
described  it  as  "Scots  porridge." 

He  escaped  punishment,  however,  owing  to  the  support  of  the 
king,  with  whom  he  seems  to  have  been  on  familiar  terms.  If 
William  of  Malmesbury  is  to  be  believed,  the  king,  when  John 
was  dining  with  him,  asked:  "What  separates  a  Scot  from  a  sot?" 
and  John  replied,  "Only  the  dinner  table."  The  king  died  in  877, 
and  after  this  date  nothing  is  known  as  to  John.  Some  think  that 
he  also  died  in  that  year.  There  are  legends  that  he  was  invited  to 
England  by  Alfred  the  Great,  that  he  became  abbot  of  Malmesbury 

423 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

or  Athelncy,  and  was  murdered  by  the  monks.  This  misfortune, 
however,  seems  to  have  befallen  some  other  John. 

John's  next  work  was  a  translation  from  the  Greek  of  the 
pseudo-Bionysius.  This  was  a  work  which  had  great  fame  in  the 
early  Middle  Ages.  When  St.  Paul  preached  in  Athens,  "certain 
men  clave  unto  him,  and  believed :  among  the  which  was  Dionysius 
the  Areopagite"  (Acts  xvii.  34).  Nothing  more  is  now  known 
about  this  man,  but  in  the  Middle  Ages  a  great  deal  more  was 
known.  He  had  travelled  to  France,  and  founded  the  abbey  of 
St.  Denis;  so  at  least  it  was  said  by  Hilduin,  who  was  abbot  just 
before  John's  arrival  in  France.  Moreover,  he  was  the  reputed 
author  of  an  important  work  reconciling  Neoplatonism  with 
Christianity.  The  date  of  this  work  is  unknown ;  it  was  certainly 
before  500  and  after  Plotinus.  It  was  widely  known  and  admired 
in  the  East,  but  in  the  West  it  was  not  generally  known  until  the 
Greek  Emperor  Michael,  in  827,  sent  a  copy  to  Louis  the  Pious, 
who  gave  it  to  the  above-mentioned  Abbot  Hilduin.  He,  believing 
it  to  have  been  written  by  St.  Paul's  disciple,  the  reputed  founder 
of  his  abbey,  would  have  liked  to  know  what  its  contents  were ; 
but  nobody  could  translate  the  Greek  until  John  appeared.  He 
accomplished  the  translation,  which  he  must  have  done  with 
pleasure,  as  his  own  opinions  were  in  close  accord  with  those  of 
the  pseudo-Dionysius,  who,  from  that  time  onward,  had  a  great 
influence  on  Catholic  philosophy  in  the  West. 

John's  translation  was  sent  to  Pope  Nicholas  in  860.  The  Pope 
was  offended  because  his  permission  had  not  been  sought  before 
the  work  was  published,  and  he  ordered  Charles  to  send  John  to 
Rome — an  order  which  was  ignored.  But  as  to  the  substance,  and 
more  especially  the  scholarship  shown  in  the  translation,  he  had 
no  fault  to  find.  His  librarian  Anastasius,  an  excellent  Grecian,  to 
whom  he  submitted  it  for  an  opinion,  was  astonished  that  a  man 
from  a  remote  and  barbarous  country  could  have  possessed  such 
a  profound  knowledge  of  Greek. 

John's  greatest  work  was  called  (in  Greek)  On  the  Division  o] 
Nature.  This  book  was  what,  in  scholastic  times,  would  have  been 
termed  "realist";  that  is  to  say,  it  maintained,  with  Plato,  that 
universal*  are  anterior  to  particulars.  He  includes  in  "Nature"  not 
only  what  is,  but  also  what  is  not.  The  whole  of  Nature  is  divided 
into  four  classes:  (i)  what  creates  and  is  not  created,  (2)  what 
creates  and  is  created,  (3)  what  is  created  but  does  not  create, 

4*4 


JOHN   THB  SCOT 

(4)  what  neither  creates  nor  is  created.  The  first,  obviously,  is 
God.  The  second  is  the  (Platonic)  ideas,  which  subsist  in  God. 
The  third  is  things  in  space  and  time.  The  fourth,  surprisingly,  is 
again  God,  not  as  Creator,  but  as  the  End  and  Purpose  of  all  things. 
Everything  that  emanates  from  God  strives  to  return  to  Him; 
thus  the  end  of  all  such  things  is  the  same  as  their  beginning.  The 
bridge  between  the  One  and  the  many  is  the  Logos. 

In  the  realm  of  not-being  he  includes  various  things,  for  example, 
physical  objects,  which  do  not  belong  to  the  intelligible  world, 
and  sin,  since  it  means  loss  of  the  divine  pattern.  That  which 
creates  and  is  not  created  alone  has  essential  subsistence ;  it  is  the 
essence  of  all  things.  God  is  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end  of 
things.  God's  essence  is  unknowable  to  men,  and  even  to  angels. 
Even  to  Himself  He  is,  in  a  sense,  unknowable:  "God  does  not 
know  himself,  what  He  is,  because  He  is  not  a  what\  in  a  certain 
respect  He  is  incomprehensible  to  Himself  and  to  every  intellect."1 
In  the  being  of  things  God's  being  can  be  seen;  in  their  order, 
His  wisdom;  in  their  movement,  His  life.  His  being  is  the  Father, 
His  wisdom  the  Son,  His  life  the  Holy  Ghost.  But  Dionysius  is 
right  in  saying  that  no  name  can  be  ttuly  asserted  of  God.  There 
is  an  affirmative  theology,  in  which  He  is  said  to  be  truth,  goodness, 
essence,  etc.,  but  such  affirmations  are  only  symbolically  true,  for 
all  such  predicates  have  an  opposite,  but  God  has  no  opposite. 

The  class  of  things  that  both  create  and  are  created  embraces 
the  whole  of  the  prime  causes,  or  prototypes,  or  Platonic  ideas. 
The  total  ot  these  prime  causes  is  die  Logos.  The  world  of  ideas 
is  eternal,  and  yet  created.  Under  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
these  prime  causes  give  rise  to  the  world  of  particular  things,  the 
materiality  of  which  U  illusory.  When  it  is  said  that  God  created 
things  out  of  "nothing,"  this  "nothing"  is  to  be  understood  as 
God  Himself,  in  the  sense  in  which  He  transcends  all  knowledge. 

Creation  is  an  eternal  process:  the  substance  of  all  finite  things 
is  God.  The  creature  is  not  a  being  distinct  from  God.  The 
creature  subsists  in  God,  and  God  manifests  Himself  in  the 
creature  in  an  ineffable  manner.  "The  Holy  Trinity  loves  Itself 
in  us  and  in  Itself  ;a  It  sees  and  moves  Itself." 

1  Cf.  Bradley  on  the  inadequacy  of  all  cognition.  He  holds  that  no 
truth  is  quite  true,  but  the  Ix>st  available  truth  is  not  intellectually 
corrigible. 

9  Cf.  Spinox*. 

4*5 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Sin  has  its  source  in  freedom:  it  arose  because  man  turned 
towards  himself  instead  of  towards  God.  Evil  does  not  have  its 
ground  in  God,  for  in  God  there  is  no  idea  of  evil.  Evil  is  not- 
being  and  has  no  ground,  for  if  it  had  a  ground  it  would  be 
necessary.  Evil  is  a  privation  of  good. 

The  Logos  is  the  principle  that  brings  the  many  back  to  the 
One,  and  man  back  to  God;  it  is  thus  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 
By  union  with  God,  the  part  of  man  that  effects  union  becomes 
divine. 

John  disagrees  with  the  Aristotelians  in  refusing  substantiality 
to  particular  things.  He  calls  Plato  the  summit  of  philosophers. 
But  the  first  three  of  his  kinds  of  being  are  derived  indirectly  from 
Aristotle's  moving-not-moved,  moving-and- moved,  moved-but- 
not-moving.  The  fourth  kind  of  being  in  John's  system,  that  which 
neither  creates  nor  is  created,  is  derived  from  the  doctrine  of 
Dionysius,  that  all  things  return  into  God. 

The  unorthodoxy  of  John  the  Scot  is  evident  from  the  above 
summary.  His  pantheism,  which  refuses  substantial  reality  to 
creatures,  is  contrary  to  Christian  doctrine.  His  interpretation  of 
the  creation  out  of  "nothing*  is  not  such  as  any  prudent  theologian 
could  accept.  His  Trinity,  which  closely  resembles  that  of  Plotinus, 
fails  to  preserve  the  equality  of  the  Three  Persons,  although  he 
tries  to  safeguard  himself  on  this  point.  His  independence  of  mind 
is  shown  by  these  heresies,  and  is  astonishing  in  the  ninth  century. 
His  Neoplatonic  outlook  may  perhaps  have  been  common  in 
Ireland,  as  it  was  among  the  Greek  Fathers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries.  It  may  be  that,  if  we  knew  more  about  Irish  Christianity 
from  the  fifth  to  the  ninth  century,  we  should  find  him  less  sur- 
prising. On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  that  most  of  what  is  heretical 
in  him  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  influence  of  the  pseu do- Dionysius, 
who,  because  of  his  supposed  connection  with  St.  Paul,  was 
mistakenly  believed  to  be  orthodox. 

His  view  of  creation  as  timeless  is,  of  course,  also  heretical  and 
compels  him  to  say  that  the  account  in  Genesis  is  allegorical. 
Paradise  and  the  fall  are  not  to  be  taken  literally.  Like  all  pantheists, 
he  has  difficulties  about  sin.  He  holds  that  man  was  originally 
without  sin,  and  when  hfe  was  without  sin  he  was  without  dis- 
tinction of  sex.  This,  of  course,  contradicts  the  statement  "male 
and  female  created  he  them."  According  to  John,  it  was  only  as 
the  result  of  sin  that  human  beings  were  divided  into  male  and 


JOHN   THB   SCOT 

female.  Woman  embodies  man's  sensuous  and  fallen  nature.  In 
the  end,  distinction  of  sex  will  again  disappear,  and  we  shall  have 
a  purely  spiritual  body.1  Sin  consists  in  misdirected  will,  in  falsely 
supposing  something  good  which  is  not  so.  Its  punishment  is 
natural ;  it  consists  in  discovering  the  vanity  of  sinful  desires.  But 
punishment  is  not  eternal.  Like  Origen,  John  holds  that  even  the 
devils  will  be  saved  at  last,  though  later  than  other  people. 

John's  translation  of  the  pseudo-Dionysius  had  a  great  influence 
on  medieval  thought,  but  his  magnum  opus  on  the  division  of 
Nature  had  very  little.  It  was  repeatedly  condemned  as  heretical, 
and  at  last,  in  1225,  Pope  Honorius  III  ordered  all  copies  of  it 
to  be  burnt.  Fortunately  this  order  was  not  efficiently  carried  out. 

1  Contrast  St.  Augustine. 


4*7 


Chapter  IX 

ECCLESIASTICAL   REFORM   IN    THE 
ELEVENTH   CENTURY 

FOR  the  first  time  since  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  Europe, 
during  the  eleventh  century,  made  rapid  progress  not  sub- 
sequently lost.  There  had  been  progress  of  a  sort  during  the 
Carolingian  renaissance,  but  it  proved  to  be  not  solid.  In  the 
eleventh  century,  the  improvement  was  lasting  and  many-sided. 
It  began  with  monastic  reform;  it  then  extended  to  the  papacy 
and  Church  government ;  towards  the  end  of  the  century  it  pro- 
duced the  first  scholastic  philosophers.  The  Saracens  were  expelled 
from  Sicily  by  the  Normans;  the  Hungarians,  having  become 
Christians,  ceased  to  be  marauders ;  the  conquests  of  the  Normans 
in  France  and  England  saved  those  countries  from  further  Scandi- 
navian incursions.  Architecture,  which  had  been  barbaric  except 
where  Byzantine  influence  prevailed,  attained  sudden  sublimity. 
The  level  of  education  rose  enormously  among  the  clergy,  and 
considerably  in  the  lay  aristocracy. 

The  reform  movement,  in  its  earlier  stages,  was,  in  the  minds  of 
its  promoters,  actuated  exclusively  by  moral  motives.  The  clergy, 
both  regular  and  secular,  had  fallen  into  bad  ways,  and  earnest 
men  set  to  work  to  make  them  live  more  in  accordance  with  their 
principles.  But  behind  this  purely  moral  motive  there  was  another, 
at  first  perhaps  unconscious,  but  gradually  becoming  more  and 
more  open.  This  motive  was  to  complete  the  separation  between 
clergy  and  laity,  and,  in  so  doing,  to  increase  the  power  of  the 
former.  It  was  therefore  natural  that  the  victory  of  reform  in  the 
Church  should  lead  straight  on  to  a  violent  conflict  between 
Emperor  and  Pope. 

Priests  had  formed  a  separate  and  powerful  caste  in  Egypt, 
Babylonia,  and  Persia,  but  not  in  Greece  or  Rome.  In  the  primitive 
Christian  Church,  the  distinction  between  clergy  and  laity  arose 
gradually;  when  we  read  of  "bishops"  in  the  New  Testament,  the 
word  does  not  mean  what  it  has  come  to  mean  to  us.  The  separa- 
tion of  the  clergy  from  the  rest  of  the  population  had  two  aspects, 
one  doctrinal,  the  other  political;  the  political  aspect  depended 
upon  the  doctrinal.  The  clergy  possessed  certain  miraculous 

4*8 


ECCLESIASTICAL     REFORM      IN     THE     ELEVENTH     CENTURY 

powers,  especially  in  connection  with  the  sacraments— except 
baptism,  which  could  be  performed  by  laymen.  Without  the  help 
of  the  clergy,  marriage,  absolution,  and  extreme  unction  were 
impossible.  Even  more  important,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  was  tran- 
substantiation:  only  a  priest  could  perform  the  miracle  of  the 
mass.  It  was  not  until  the  eleventh  century,  in  1079,  that  the 
doctrine  of  transubstantiation  became  an  article  of  faith,  though 
it  had  been  generally  believed  for  a  long  time. 

Owing  to  their  miraculous  powers,  priests  could  determine 
whether  a  man  should  spend  eternity  in  heaven  or  in  hell.  If  he 
died  while  excommunicate,  he  went  to  hell ;  if  he  died  after  a  priest 
had  performed  all  the  proper  ceremonies,  he  would  ultimately  go 
to  heaven  provided  he  had  duly  repented  and  confessed.  Before 
going  to  heaven,  however,  he  would  have  to  spend  some  time — 
perhaps  a  very  long  time — suffering  the  pains  of  purgatory. 
Priests  could  shorten  this  time  by  saying  masses  for  his  soul, 
which  they  were  willing  to  do  for  a  suitable  money  payment. 

All  this,  it  must  be  understood,  was  genuinely  and  firmly  be- 
lieved both  by  priests  and  by  laity;  it  was  not  merely  a  creed 
officially  professed.  Over  and  over  again,  die  miraculous  powers 
of  the  clergy  gave  them  the  victory  over  powerful  princes  at  the 
head  of  their  armies.  This  power,  however,  was  limited  in  two 
ways:  by  reckless  outbreaks  of  passion  on  the  part  of  furious  lay- 
men, and  by  divisions  among  the  clergy.  The  inhabitants  of  Rome, 
until  the  time  of  Gregory  MI,  showed  little  respect  for  the  person 
of  the  Pope.  They  would  kidnap  him,  imprison  him,  poison  him, 
or  fight  against  him,  whenever  their  turbulent  factional  strife 
tempted  them  to  such  action.  How  is  this  compatible  with  their 
beliefs?  Partly,  no  doubt,  the  explanation  lies  in  mere  lack  of  self- 
control;  partly,  however,  in  the  thought  that  one  could  repent  on 
one's  deathbed.  Another  reason,  which  operated  less  in  Rome  than 
elsewhere,  was  that  kings  could  bend  to  their  will  the  bishops  in 
their  kingdoms,  and  thus  secure  enough  priestly  magic  to  save 
themselves  from  damnation.  Church  discipline  and  a  unified 
ecclesiastical  government  were  therefore  essential  to  the  power 
of  the  clergy.  These  ends  were  secured  during  the  eleventh  century, 
as  part  and  parcel  of  a  moral  reformation  of  the  clergy. 

The  power  of  die  clergy  as  a  whole  could  only  be  secured  by 
very  considerable  sacrifices  on  the  part  of  individual  ecclesiastics. 
The  two  great  evils  against  which  all  clerical  reformers  directed 

4*9 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

their  energies  were  simony  and  concubinage.  Something  must  be 
said  about  each  of  these. 

Owing  to  the  benefactions  of  the  pious,  the  Church  had  become 
rich.  Many  bishops  had  huge  estates,  and  even  parish  priests  had, 
as  a  rule,  what  for  those  times  was  a  comfortable  living.  The 
appointment  of  bishops  was  usually,  in  practice,  in  the  hands  of 
the  king,  but  sometimes  in  those  of  some  subordinate  feudal  noble. 
It  was  customary  for  the  king  to  sell  bishoprics;  this,  in  fact, 
provided  a  substantial  pan  of  his  income.  The  bishop,  in  turn, 
sold  such  ecclesiastical  preferment  as  was  in  his  power.  There 
was  no  secret  about  this.  Gerbert  (Sylvester  II)  represented 
bishops  as  saying:  "I  gave  gold  and  I  received  the  episcopate; 
but  yet  I  do  not  fear  to  receive  it  back  if  I  behave  as  I  should.  I 
ordain  a  priest  and  I  receive  gold ;  I  make  a  deacon  and  I  receive 
a  heap  of  silver.  Behold  the  gold  which  I  gave  I  have  once  more 
unlessened  in  my  purse.1'1  Peter  Damian  in  Milan,  in  1059, 
found  that  every  cleric  in  the  city,  from  the  archbishop  downwards, 
had  been  guilty  of  simony.  And  this  state  of  affairs  was  in  no  way 
exceptional. 

Simony,  of  course,  was  a  sin,  but  that  was  not  the  only  objection 
to  it.  It  caused  ecclesiastical  preferment  to  go  by  wealth,  not  merit ; 
it  confirmed  lay  authority  in  the  appointment  of  bishops,  and 
episcopal  subservience  to  secular  rulers;  and  it  tended  to  make  the 
episcopate  part  of  the  feudal  system.  Moreover,  when  a  man  had 
purchased  preferment,  he  was  naturally  anxious  to  recoup  himself, 
so  that  worldly  rather  than  spiritual  concerns  were  likely  to  pre- 
occupy him.  For  these  reasons,  the  campaign  against  simony  was 
a  necessary  part  of  the  ecclesiastical  struggle  for  power. 

Very  similar  considerations  applied  to  clerical  celibacy.  The 
reformers  of  the  eleventh  century  often  spoke  of  "concubinage'' 
when  it  would  have  been  more  accurate  to  speak  of  "marriage." 
Monks,  of  course,  were  precluded  from  marriage  by  their  vow 
of  chastity,  but  there  had  been  no  clear  prohibition  of  marriage 
for  the  secular  clergy.  In  the  Eastern  Church,  to  this  day,  parish 
priests  are  allowed  to  be  married.  In  the  West,  in  the  eleventh 
century,  most  parish  priests  were  married.  Bishops,  for  their 
part,  appealed  to  St.  Paul's  pronouncement:  "A  bishop  then  must 
be  blameless,  the  husband  of  one  wife."1  There  was  not  the  same 

1  Cambridge  Medieval  History*  V,  chap.  to. 
'  I  Timothy  iii.  2. 

430 


ECCLESIASTICAL     REFORM     IN     THE     ELEVENTH     CENTURY 

clear  moral  issue  as  in  the  matter  of  simony,  but  in  the  insistence 
on  clerical  celibacy  there  were  political  motives  very  similar  to 
those  in  the  campaign  against  simony.1 

When  priests  were  married,  they  naturally  tried  to  pass  on 
Church  property  to  their  sons.  They  could  do  this  legally  if  their 
sons  became  priests ;  therefore  one  of  the  first  steps  of  the  reform 
party,  when  it  acquired  power,  was  to  forbid  the  ordination  of 
priests'  sons.8  But  in  the  confusion  of  the  times  there  was  still 
danger  that,  if  priests  had  sons,  they  would  find  means  of  illegally 
alienating  parts  of  the  Church  lands.  In  addition  to  this  economic 
consideration,  there  was  also  the  fact  that,  if  a  priest  was  a  family 
man  like  his  neighbours,  he  seemed  to  them  less  removed  from 
themselves.  There  was,  from  at  least  the  fifth  century  onwards, 
an  intense  admiration  for  celibacy,  and  if  the  clergy  were  to  com- 
mand the  reverence  on  which  their  power  depended,  it  was  highly 
advantageous  that  they  should  be  obviously  separated  from  other 
men  by  abstinence  from  marriage.  The  reformers  themselves,  no 
doubt,  sincerely  believed  that  the  married  state,  though  not 
actually  sinful,  is  lower  than  the  state  of  celibacy,  and  is  only 
conceded  to  the  weakness  of  the  flesh.  St.  Paul  says  "If  they 
cannot  contain,  let  them  marry"3;  but  a  really  holy  man  ought  to 
he  able  to  "contain."  Therefore  clerical  celibacy  is  essential  to 
the  moral  authority  of  the  Church. 

After  these  general  preliminaries,  let  us  come  to  the  actual 
history  of  the  reform  movement  in  the  eleventh-century  Church. 

The  beginning  goes  back  to  the  foundation  of  the  abbey  of 
Cluny  in  910  by  William  the  Pious,  Duke  of  Aquitaine.  This 
abbey  was,  from  the  first,  independent  of  all  external  authority 
except  that  of  the  Pope;  moreover,  its  abbot  was  given  authority 
over  other  monasteries  that  owed  their  origin  to  it.  Most  monas- 
teries, at  this  time,  were  rich  and  lax;  Cluny,  though  avoiding 
extreme  asceticism,  was  careful  to  preserve  decency  and  decorum. 
The  second  abbot,  Odo,  went  to  Italy,  and  was  given  control  of 
several  Roman  monasteries.  He  was  not  always  successful: 
"Farfa,  divided  by  a  schism  between  two  rival  abbots  who  had 

murdered  their*  predecessor,  resisted  the  introduction  of  Cluniac 

• 

1  Sec  Henry  C.  Lea,  The  History  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy. 
1  In  1046,  it  was  decreed  that  a  clerk'i  «on  cannot  be  a  bishop.  Later, 
it  was  decreed  he  could  not  be  in  holy  orders. 
9  I  Corinthians  vti.  9. 

43 » 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

monks  by  Odo  and  got  rid  by  poison  of  the  abbot  whom  Alberic 
installed  by  armed  force."1  (Alberic  was  the  ruler  of  Rome  who 
had  invited  Odo.)  In  the  twelfth  century  Cluny's  reforming  zeal 
grew* cold.  St.  Bernard  objected  to  its  fine  architecture;  like  all 
the  most  earnest  men  of  his  time,  he  considered  splendid 
ecclesiastical  edifices  a  sign  of  sinful  pride.  * 

During  the  eleventh  century,  various  other  orders  were  founded 
by  reformers.  Romuald,an  ascetic  hermit,  founded  the  Camaldolese 
Order  in  1012;  Peter  Damian,  of  whom  we  shall  speak  shortly, 
was  a  follower  of  his.  The  Carthusians,  who  never  ceased  to  be 
austere,  were  founded  by  Bruno  of  Cologne  in  1084.  In  1098  the 
Cistercian  Order  was  founded,  and  in  1113  it  was  joined  by  St. 
Bernard.  It  adhered  strictly  to  the  Benedictine  Rule.  It  forbade 
stained-glass  windows.  For  labour,  it  employed  convent,  or  lay 
brethren.  These  men  took  the  vows,  but  were  forbidden  to  learn 
reading  and  writing;  they  were  employed  mainly  in  agriculture, 
but  also  in  other  work,  such  as  architecture.  Fountains  Abbey,  in 
Yorkshire,  is  Cistercian — a  remarkable  work  for  men  who  thought 
all  beauty  of  the  Devil. 

As  will  be  seen  from  the  case  of  Farfa,  which  was  by  no  means 
unique,  monastic  reformers  required  great  courage  and  energy. 
Where  they  succeeded,  they  were  supported  by  the  secular 
authorities.  It  was  these  men  and  their  followers  who  made 
possible  the  reformation,  first  of  the  papacy  and  then  of  the  Church 
as  a  whole. 

The  reform  of  the  papacy,  however,  was,  at  first,  mainly  the 
work  of  the  Emperor.  The  last  dynastic  Pope  was  Benedict  IX, 
elected  in  1032,  and  said  to  have  been  only  twelve  years  old  at 
the  time.  He  was  the  son  of  Alberic  of  Tusculum,  whom  we  hav% 
already  met  in  connection  with  Abbot  Odo.  As  he  grew  older,  he 
grew  more  and  more  debauched,  and  shocked  even  the  Romans. 
At  last  his  wickedness  reached  such  a  pitch  that  he  decided  to 
resign  the  papacy  in  order  to  marry.  He  sold  it  to  his  godfather, 
who  became  Gregory  VI.  This  man,  though  he  acquired  the  papacy 
stmoniacally,  was  a  reformer;  he  was  a  friend  of  Hildebrand 
(Gregory  VII).  The  manner  of  his  acquiring  the  papacy,  however, 
was  too  scandalous  to  be  passed  over.  The  young  Emperor 
Henry  III  (1039-56)  was  a  pious  reformer,  who  had  abandoned 
simony  at  great  cost  to  his  revenue,  while  retaining  the  right  to 
*  Cambridge  Medieval  History,  V,  66a. 

43* 


ECCLESIASTICAL     REFORM     IN     THE     ELEVENTH     CENTURY 

appoint  bishops.  He  came  to  Italy  in  1046,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
two,  and  deposed  Gregory  VI  on  the  charge  of  simony. 

Henry  III  retained  throughout  his  reign  the  power  of  making 
and  unmaking  popes,  which,  however,  he  exercised  wisely  Ih  the 
interests  of  reform.  After  getting  rid  of  Gregory  VI,  he  appointed 
a  German  bishop,  Suidger  of  Bamberg;  the  Romans  resigned  the 
election  rights  which  they  had  claimed  and  often  exercised,  almost 
always  badly.  The  new  Pope  died  next  year,  and  the  Emperor's 
next  nominee  also  died  almost  immediately — of  poison,  it  was 
said.  Henry  III  then  chose  a  relation  of  his  own,  Bruno  of  Tout, 
who  became  Leo  IX  (1049-54).  He  was  an  earnest  reformer, 
who  travelled  much  and  held  many  councils;  he  wished  to  fight 
the  Normans  in  Southern  Italy,  but  in  this  he  was  unsuccessful. 
Hildebrand  was  his  friend,  and  might  almost  be  called  his  pupil. 
At  his  death  the  Emperor  appointed  one  more  Pope,  Gebhard  of 
Eichstadt,  who  became  Victor  II,  in  1055.  But  the  Emperor  died 
the  next  year,  and  the  Pope  the  year  after.  From  this  point  on- 
wards, the  relations  of  Emperor  and  Pope  became  less  friendly. 
The  Pope,  having  acquired  moral  authority  by  the  help  of  Henry 
III,  claimed  first  independence  of  the  Emperor,  and  then  super- 
iority to  him.  Thus  began  the  great  conflict  which  lasted  two 
hundred  years  and  ended  in  the  defeat  of  the  Emperor.  In  the 
long  run,  therefore,  Henry  Ill's  policy  of  reforming  the  papacy 
was  perhaps  short-sighted. 

The  next  Emperor,  Henry  IV,  reigned  for  fifty  years  (1056- 
1106).  At  first  he  was  a  minor,  and  the  regency 'was  exercised  by 
his  mother  the  Empress  Agnes.  Stephen  IX  was  Pope  for  one  year, 
and  at  his  death  the  cardinals  chose  one  Pope  while  the  Romans, 
reasserting  the  rights  they  had  surrendered,  chose  another.  The 
Empress  sided  with  the  cardinals,  whose  nominee  took  the  name 
of  Nicholas  II.  Although  his  reign  only  lasted  three  years,  it  was 
important.  He  made  peace  with  the  Normans,  thereby  making  the 
papacy  less  dependent  on  the  Emperor.  In  his  time  the  manner 
in  which  popes  were  to  be  elected  was  determined  by  a  decree, 
according  to  which  the  choice  was  to  be  made  first  by  die  cardinal 
bishops,  then  by  the  other  cardinals,  and  last  by  the  clergy  and 
people  of  Rome,  whose  participation,  one  gathers,  was  to  be 
purely  formal.  In  effect,  the  cardinal  bishops  were  to  select  the 
Pope.  The  election  was  to  take  place  in  Rome  if  possible,  but 
might  take  place  elsewhere  if  circumstances  made  election  in 

433 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Rome  difficult  or  undesirable.  No  part  in  the  election  was  allotted 
to  the  Emperor.  This  decree,  which  was  accepted  only  after  a 
struggle,  was  an  essential  step  in  the  emancipation  of  the  papacy 
from  lay  control. 

Nicholas  II  secured  a  decree  that,  for  the  future,  ordinations 
by  men  guilty  of  simony  were  not  to  be  valid.  The  decree  was 
not  made  retroactive,  because  to  do  so  would  have  invalidated  the 
great  majority  of  ordinations  of  existing  priests. 

During  the  pontificate  of  Nicholas  II  an  interesting  struggle 
began  in  Milan.  The  Archbishop,  following  the  Ambrosian  tradi- 
tion, claimed  a  certain  independence  of  the  Pope.  He  and  his 
clergy  were  in  alliance  with  the  aristocracy,  and  were  strongly 
opposed  to  reform.  The  mercantile  and  lower  classes,  on  the  other 
hand,  wished  the  clergy  to  be  pious;  there  were  riots  in  support 
of  clerical  celibacy,  and  a  powerful  reform  movement,  called 
"Patarine,"  against  the  archbishop  and  his  supporters.  In  1059 
the  Pope,  in  support  of  reform,  sent  to  Milan  as  his  legate  the 
eminent  St.  Peter  Damian.  Damian  was  the  author  of  a  treatise 
On  Divine  Omnipotence,  which  maintained  that  God  can  do  things 
contrary  to  the  law  of  contradiction,  and  can  undo  the  past. 
(This  view  was  rejected  by  St.  Thomas,  arid  has,  since  his  time, 
been  unorthodox.)  He  opposed  dialectic,  and  spoke  of  philosophy 
as  the  handmaid  of  theology.  He  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  follower 
of  the  hermit  Romuald,  and  engaged  with  great  reluctance  in  the 
conduct  of  affairs.  His  holiness,  however,  was  such  an  asset  to 
the  papacy  that  very  strong  persuasion  was  brought  to  bear  on 
him  to  help  in  the  reform  campaign,  and  he  yielded  to  the  Pope's 
representations.  At  Milan  in  1050  he  made  a  speech  against  simony 
to  the  assembled  clerics.  At  first  they  were  so  enraged  that  his 
life  was  in  danger,  but  at  last  his  eloquence  won  them  over,  and 
with  tears  they  one  and  all  confessed  themselves  guilt}-.  Moreover, 
they  promised  obedience  to  Rome.  Under  the  next  Pope,  there 
was  a  dispute  with  the  Emperor  about  the  see  of  Milan,  in  which, 
with  the  help  of  the  Patarines,  the  Pope  was  ultimately  victorious. 

At  the  death  of  Nicholas  II  in  1961 ,  Henry  IV  being  now  of  age, 
there  was  a  dispute  between  him  and  the  cardinals  as  to  the  suc- 
cession to  the  papacy.  The*  Emperor  had  not  accepted  the  election 
decree,  and  was  not  prepared  to  forgo  his  rights  in  the  election  of 
the  Pope.  The  dispute  lasted  for  three  years,  but  in  the  end  the 
cardinals'  choice  prevailed,  without  a  definite  trial  of  strength 

434 


ECCLESIASTICAL     REFORM     IN     THE     ELEVENTH     CENTURY 

between  Emperor  and  curia.  What  turned  the  scale  was  the 
obvious  merit  of  the  cardinals'  Pope,  who  was  a  man  combining 
virtue  with  experience,  and  a  former  pupil  of  Lanfranc  (afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury).  The  death  of  this  Pope,  Alexander  II, 
in  1073,  was  followed  by  the  election  of  Hildebrand  (Gregory  VII). 

Gregory  VII  (1073-85)  is  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the 
Popes.  He  had  long  been  prominent,  and  had  great  influence  on 
papal  policy.  It  was  owing  to  him  that  Pope  Alexander  II  blessed 
William  the  Conqueror's  English  enterprise;  he  favoured  the 
Normans  both  in  Italy  and  in  the  North.  He  had  been  a  prot£g£ 
of  Gregory  VI,  who  bought  the  papacy  in  order  to  combat  simony; 
after  the  deposition  of  this  Pope,  Hildebrand  passed  two  years  in 
exile.  Most  of  the  rest  of  his  life  was  spent  in  Rome.  He  was  not 
a  learned  man,  but  was  inspired  largely  by  St.  Augustine,  whose 
doctrines  he  learnt  at  second-hand  from  his  hero  Gregory  the 
Great.  After  he  became  Pope,  he  believed  himself  the  mouthpiece 
of  St.  Peter.  This  gave  him  a  degree  of  self-confidence  which, 
on  a  mundane  calculation,  was  not  justified.  He  admitted  that 
the  Emperor's  authority  was  also  of  divine  origin:  at  first,  he 
compared  Pope  and  Emperor  to  two  eyes;  later,  when  quarrelling 
with  the  Emperor,  to  the  sun  and  moon — the  Pope,  of  course, 
being  the  sun.  The  Pope  must  be  supreme  in  morals,  and  must 
therefore  have  the  right  to  depose  the  Emperor  if  the  Emperor 
was  immoral.  And  nothing  could  be  more  immoral  than  resisting 
the  Pope.  All  this  he  genuinely  and  profoundly  believed. 

Gregory  VII  did  more  than  any  previous  Pope  to  enforce 
clerical  celibacy.  In  Germany  the  clergy  objected,  and  on  this 
ground  as  well  as  others  were  inclined  to  side  with  the  Emperor. 
The  laity,  however,  everywhere  preferred  their  priests  celibate. 
Gregory  stirred  up  riots  of  the  laity  against  married  priests  and 
their  wives,  in  which  both  often  suffered  brutal  ill-treatment.  He 
called  on  the  laity  not  to  attend  mass  when  celebrated  by  a  recal- 
citrant priest.  He  decreed  that  the  sacraments  of  married  clergy 
were  invalid,  and  that  such  clergy  must  not  enter  churches.  All 
this  roused  clerical  opposition  and  lay  support;  even  in  Rome, 
where  Popes  had  usually  gone  in  danger  of  their  lives,  he  was 
popular  with  the  people. 

In  Gregory's  time  began  the  great  dispute  concerning  "inves- 
titures." When  a  bishop  was  consecrated,  he  was  invested  with  a 
ring  and  staff  as  symbols  of  his  office.  These  had  been  given  by 

435 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Emperor  or  king  (according  to  the  locality),  as  the  bishop's  feudal 
overlord.  Gregory  insisted  that  they  should  be  given  by  the  Pope. 
The  dispute  was  part  of  the  work  of  detaching  the  ecclesiastical 
from  the  feudal  hierarchy.  It  lasted  a  long  time,  but  in  the  end 
the  papacy  was  completely  victorious. 

The  quarrel  which  led  to  Canossa  began  over  the  archbishopric 
of  Milan.  In  1075  the  Emperor,  with  the  concurrence  of  the 
suffragans,  appointed  an  archbishop;  the  Pope  considered  this 
an  infringement  of  his  prerogative,  and  threatened  the  Emperor 
with  excommunication  and  deposition.  The  Emperor  retaliated 
by  summoning  a  council  of  bishops  at  Worms,  where  the  bishops 
renounced  their  allegiance  to  the  Pope.  They  wrote  him  a  letter 
accusing  him  of  adultery  and  perjury,  and  (worse  than  cither) 
ill-treatment  of  bishops.  The  Emperor  also  wrote  him  a  letter, 
claiming  to  be  above  all  earthly  judgment.  The  Emperor  and  his 
bishops  pronounced  Gregory  deposed ;  Gregory  excommunicated 
the  Emperor  and  his  bishops,  and  pronounced  t/iem  deposed. 
Thus  the  stage  was  set. 

In  the  first  act,  victory  went  to  the  Pope.  The  Saxons,  who  had 
before  rebelled  against  Henry  IV  and  then  made  peace  with  him, 
rebelled  again ;  the  German  bishops  made  their  peace  with  Gre- 
gory. The  world  at  large  was  shocked  by  the  Emperor's  treatment 
of  the  Pope.  Accordingly  in  the  following  year  (1077)  Henry 
decided  to  seek  absolution  from  the  Pope.  In  the  depth  of  winter, 
with  his  wife  and  infant  son  and  a  few  attendants,  he  crossed  the 
Mont  Cenis  pass,  and  presented  himself  as  a  suppliant  before  the 
castle  of  Canossa,  where  the  Pope  was.  For  three  days  the  Pope 
kept  him  waiting,  bare-foot  and  in  penitential  garb.  At  last  he  was 
admitted.  Having  expressed  penitence  and  sworn,  in  future,  to 
follow  the  Pope's  directions  in  dealing  with  his  German  opponents, 
be  was  pardoned  and  received  back  into  communion. 

The  Pope's  victory,  however,  was  illusory.  1  le  had  been  caught 
out  by  the  rules  of  his  own  theology,  one  of  which  enjoined  abso- 
lution for  penitents.  Strange  to  say,  he  was  taken  in  by  Henry, 
and  supposed  his  repentance  sincere.  He  soon  discovered  his 
mistake.  He  could  no  longer  support  Henry's  German  enemies, 
who  felt  that  he  had  betrayed  them.  From  this  moment,  tilings 
began  to  go  against  him. 

Henry's  German  enemies  elected  a  rival  Emperor,  named 
Rudolf.  The  Pope,  at  first,  while  maintaining  that  it  was  for  him 

436 


ECCLESIASTICAL     REFORM     IN     THE     ELEVENTH     CENTURY 

to  decide  between  Henry  and  Rudolf,  refused  to  come  to  a  decision. 
At  last,  in  1080,  having  experienced  the  insincerity  of  Henry's 
repentance,  he  pronounced  for  Rudolf.  By  this  time,  however, 
Henry  had  got  the  better  of  most  of  his  opponents  in  Germany. 
He  had  an  antipope  elected  by  his  clerical  supporters,  and  with 
him,  in  1084,  he  entered  Rome.  His  antipope  duly  crowned  him, 
but  both  had  to  retreat  quickly  before  the  Normans,  who  advanced 
to  the  relief  of  Gregory.  The  Normans  brutally  sacked  Rome,  and 
took  Gregory  away  with  them.  He  remained  virtually  their 
prisoner  until  his  death  the  next  year. 

Thus  his  policies  appeared  to  have  ended  in  disaster.  But  in 
fact  they  were  pursued,  with  more  moderation,  by  his  successors. 
A  compromise  favourable  to  the  papacy  was  patched  up  for  the 
moment,  but  the  conflict  was  essentially  irreconcilable.  Its  later 
stages  will  be  dealt  with  in  subsequent  chapters. 

It  remains  to  say  something  of  the  intellectual  re\ival  in  the 
eleventh  century.  The  tenth  century  was  destitute  of  philosophers, 
except  for  Gerbert  (Pope  Sylvester  II,  999-1003),  and  even  he 
was  more  a  mathematician  than  a  philosopher.  But  as  the  eleventh 
century  advanced,  men  of  real  philosophical  eminence  began  to 
appear.  Of  these,  the  most  important  were  Anselm  and  Roscelin, 
but  some  others  deserve  mention.  All  were  monks  connected 
with  the  reform  movement. 

Peter  Damian,  the  oldest  of  them,  has  already  been  mentioned. 
Bcrengar  of  Tours  (d.  1088)  is  interesting  as  being  something  of 
a  rationalist.  He  maintained  that  reason  is  superior  to  authority, 
in  support  of  which  view  he  appealed  to  John  the  Scot,  who  was 
therefore  posthumously  condemned.  Berengar  denied  transub- 
sta filiation,  and  was  twice  compelled  to  recant.  His  heresies  were 
combated  by  Lanfranc  in  his  book  DC  corpore  ct  sanguine  Domini. 
Lanfranc  was  born  at  Pavia,  studied  law  at  Bologna,  and  became 
a  first-rate  dialectician.  But  he  abandoned  dialectic  for  theology, 
and  entered  the  monastery  of  Bcc,  in  Normandy,  where  he  con- 
ducted a  school.  William  the  Conqueror  made  him  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  in  1070. 

St.  Anselm  was,  like  Lanfranc,  an  Italian,  a  monk  at  Bee,  and 
.Vrchbiahop  of  Canterbury  (1093-1109),  in  which  capacity  he 
followed  the  principles  of  Gregory  VII  and  quarrelled  with  the 
king.  He  is  chiefly  known  to  fame  as  the  inventor  of  the  "onto- 
logicaJ  argument'1  for  the  existence  of  God.  As  he  put  it,  the 

437 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

argument  is  as  follows:  We  define  "God"  as  the  greatest  possible 
object  of  thought.  Now  if  an  object  of  thought  does  not  exist, 
another,  exactly  like  it,  which  does  exist,  is  greater.  Therefore  the 
greatest  of  all  objects  of  thought  must  exist,  since,  otherwise, 
another,  still  greater,  would  be  possible.  Therefore  God  exists. 

This  argument  has  never  been  accepted  by  theologians.  It  was 
adversely  criticized  at  the  time;  then  it  was  forgotten  till  the  latter 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Thomas  Aquinas  rejected  it,  and 
among  theologians  his  authority  has  prevailed  ever  since.  But 
among  philosophers  it  has  had  a  better  fate.  Descartes  revived 
it  in  a  somewhat  amended  form ;  Leibniz  thought  that  it  could  be 
made  valid  by  the  addition  of  a  supplement  to  prove  that  God  is 
possible.  Kant  considered  that  he  had  demolished  it  once  for  all. 
Nevertheless,  in  some  sense,  it  underlies  the  system  of  Hegel  and 
his  followers,  and  reappears  in  Bradley 's  principle:  "What  may 
be  and  must  be,  is." 

Clearly  an  argument  with  such  a  distinguished  history  is  to  be 
treated  with  respect,  whether  valid  or  not.  The  real  question  is: 
Is  there  anything  we  can  think  of  which,  by  the  mere  fact  that 
we  can  think  of  it,  is  shown  to  exist  outside  our  thought  ?  Every 
philosopher  would  like  to  say  yes,  because  a  philosopher's  job 
is  to  find  out  things  about  the  world  by  thinking  rather  than 
observing.  If  yes  is  the  right  answer,  there  is  a  bridge  from  pure 
thought  to  things;  if  not,  not.  In  this  generalized  form,  Plato  uses 
a  kind  of  ontological  argument  to  prove  the  objective  reality  of 
ideas.  But  no  one  before  Anselm  had  stated  the  argument  in  its 
naked  logical  purity.  In  gaining  purity,  it  loses  plausibility;  but 
this  also  is  to  Anselm's  credit. 

For  the  rest,  Anselm's  philosophy  is  mainly  derived  from  St. 
Augustine,  from  whom  it  acquires  many  Platonic  elements.  He 
believes  in  Platonic  ideas,  from  which  he  derives  another  proof 
of  the  existence  of  God.  By  Neoplatonic  arguments  he  professes 
to  prove  not  only  God,  but  the  Trinity.  (It  will  be  remembered 
that  Plotinus  has  a  Trinity,  though  not  one  that  a  Christian  can 
accept  as  orthodox.)  Anselm  considers  reason  subordinate  to  faith. 
"I  believe  in  order  to  understand,"  he  says;  following  Augustine, 
he  holds  that  without  belief  it  is  impossible  to  understand.  God, 
he  says,  is  not  just,  but  justice.  It  will  be  remembered  that  John 
the  Scot  says  similar  things.  The  common  origin  is  in  Plato. 

St  Anaelm,  like  his  predecessors  in  Christian  philosophy,  is  in 

438 


ECCLESIASTICAL     REFORM     IN     THE     ELEVENTH     CENTURY 

the  Platonic  rather  than  the  Aristotelian  tradition.  For  this  reason, 
he  has  not  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  philosophy  which 
is  called  "scholastic,"  which  culminated  in  Thomas  Aquinas. 
This  kind  of  philosophy  may  be  reckoned  as  beginning  with 
Roscelin,  who  was  Anselm's  contemporary,  being  seventeen  years 
younger  than  Anselm.  Roscelin  marks  a  new  beginning,  and  will 
be  considered  in  a  later  chapter. 

When  it  is  said  that  medieval  philosophy,  until  the  thirteenth 
century,  was  mainly  Platonic,  it  must  be  remembered  that  Plato, 
except  for  a  fragment  of  the  Timaeus,  was  known  only  at  second 
or  third  hand.  John  the  Scot,  for  example,  could  not  have  held 
the  views  which  he  did  hold  but  for  Plato,  but  most  of  what  is 
Platonic  in  him  comes  from  the  pseudo-Dionysius.  The  date  of 
this  author  is  uncertain,  but  it  seems  probable  that  he  was  a 
disciple  of  Proclus  the  Neoplatonist.  It  is  probable,  also,  that 
John  the  Scot  had  never  heard  of  Proclus  or  read  a  line  of  Plotinus. 
Apart  from  the  pseudo-Dionysius,  the  other  source  of  Platonism 
in  the  Middle  Ages  was  Boethius.  This  Platonism  was  in  many 
ways  different  from  that  which  a  modern  student  derives  from 
Plato's  own  writings.  It  omitted  almost  everything  that  had  no 
obvious  bearing  on  religion,  and  in  religious  philosophy  it  enlarged 
and  emphasized  certain  aspects  at  the  expense  of  others.  This 
change  in  the  conception  of  Plato  had  already  been  effected  by 
Plotinus.  The  knowledge  of  Aristotle  was  also  fragmentary,  but 
in  an  opposite  direction:  all  that  was  known  of  him  until  the 
twelfth  century  was  Hoethius's  translation  of  the  Categories  and 
/)c  Emendation?.  Thus  Aristotle  was  conceived  as  a  mere  dialec- 
tician, and  Plato  as  only  a  religious  philosopher  and  the  author 
of  the  theory  of  ideas  During  the  course  of  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
both  these  partial  conceptions  were  gradually  emended,  especially 
the  conception  of  Aristotle.  But  the  process,  as  regards  Plato, 
was  not  completed  until  the  Renaissance. 


439 


Chapter  X 
MOHAMMEDAN   CULTURE  AND   PHILOSOPHY 

attacks  upon  the  Eastern  Empire,  Africa,  and  Spain, 
differed  from  those  of  Northern  barbarians  on  the  West  in 
two  respects:  first,  the  Eastern  Empire  survived  till  1453, 
nearly  a  thousand  years  longer  than  the  Western ;  second,  the  main 
attacks  upon  the  Eastern  Empire  were  made  by  Mohammedans, 
who  did  not  become  Christians  after  conquest,  but  developed  an 
important  civilization  of  their  own. 

The  Hegira,1  with  which  the  Mohammedan  era  begins,  took 
place  in  A.D.  622;  Mohammed  died  ten  years  later.  Immediately 
after  his  death  the  Arab  conquests  began,  and  they  proceeded  with 
extraordinary  rapidity.  In  the  East,  Syria  was  invaded  in  634, 
and  completely  subdued  within  two  years.  In  637  Persia  was 
invaded;  in  650  its  conquest  was  completed.  India  was  invaded 
in  664;  Constantinople  was  besieged  in  669  (and  again  in  716-17). 
The  westward  movement  was  not  quite  so  sudden.  Egypt  was 
conquered  by  642,  Carthage  not  till  697.  Spain,  except  for  a  small 
corner  in  the  north-west,  was  acquired  in  711-12.  Westward 
expansion  (except  in  Sicily  and  Southern  Italy)  was  brought  to  a 
standstill  by  the  defeat  of  the  Mohammedans  at  the  battle  of 
'Fours  in  732,  just  one  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  the 
Prophet.  (The  Ottoman  Turks,  who  finally  conquered  Con- 
stantinople, belong  to  a  later  period  than  that  with  which  we  are 
now  concerned.) 

Various  circumstances  facilitated  this  expansion.  Persia  and  the 
Eastern  Empire  were  exhausted  by  their  long  wars.  The  Syrians, 
who  were  largely  Nestorian,  suffered  persecution  at  the  hands  of 
the  Catholics,  whereas  Mohammedans  tolerated  all  sects  of 
Christians  in  return  for  the  payment  of  tribute.  Similarly  in 
Egypt  the  Monophysites,  who  were  the  hulk  of  the  population, 
welcomed  the  invaders.  In  Africa,  the  Arabs  allied  themselves 
with  the  Berbers,  whom  the  Romans  had  never  thoroughly  sub- 
dued. Arabs  and  Berbery  together  invaded  Spain,  where  they 
were  helped  by  the  Jews,  whom  the  Visigoths  had  severely 
persecuted. 

1  The  Hegira  wan  Mohammed'*  Hight  from  Mecca  to  Medina. 

440 


MOHAMMEDAN    CULTURE   AND    PHILOSOPHY 

The  religion  of  the  Prophet  was  a  simple  monotheism,  uncom- 
plicated by  the  elaborate  theology  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarna- 
tion. The  Prophet  made  no  claim  to  be  divine,  nor  did  his  followers 
make  such  a  claim  on  his  behalf.  He  revived  the  Jewish  prohibition 
of  graven  images,  and  forbade  the  use  of  wine.  It  was  the  duty  of 
the  faithful  to  conquer  as  much  of  the  world  as  possible  for  Islam, 
but  there  was  to  be  no  persecution  of  Christians,  Jews,  or  Zoro- 
astrians — the  "people  of  the  Book,"  as  the  Koran  calls  them,  i.e. 
those  who  followed  the  teaching  of  a  Scripture. 

Arabia  was  largely  desert,  and  was  growing  less  and  less  capable 
of  supporting  its  population.  The  first  conquests  of  the  Arabs 
began  as  mere  raids  for  plunder,  and  only  turned  into  permanent 
occupation  after  experience  had  shown  the  weakness  of  the  enemy. 
Suddenly,  in  the  course  of  some  twenty  years,  men  accustomed  to 
all  the  hardships  of  a  meagre  existence  on  the  fringe  of  the  desert 
found  themselves  masters  of  some  of  the  richest  regions  of  the 
world,  able  to  enjoy  every  luxury  and  to  acquire  all  the  refinements 
of  an  ancient  civilization.  They  withstood  the  temptations  of  this 
transformation  better  than  most  of  the  Northern  barbarians  had 
done.  As  they  had  acquired  their  empire  without  much  severe 
fighting,  there  had  been  little  destruction,  and  the  civil  adminis- 
tration was  kept  on  almost  unchanged.  Both  in  Persia  and  in  the 
Byzantine  Kmpirc,  the  civil  government  had  been  highly  organized. 
The  Arab  tribesmen,  at  first,  understood  nothing  of  its  compli- 
cations, and  perforce  accepted  the  services  of  the  trained  men 
whom  they  found  in  charge.  These  men,  for  the  most  part,  showed 
no  reluctance  to  serve  under  their  new  masters.  Indeed,  the  change 
made  their  work  easier,  since  taxation  was  lightened  very  con- 
siderably. The  populations,  moreover,  in  order  to  escape  the 
tribute,  very  largely  abandoned  Christianity  for  Islam. 

The  Arab  Empire  was  an  absolute  monarchy,  under  the  caliph, 
who  was  the  successor  of  the  Prophet,  and  inherited  much  of  his 
holiness.  The  caliphate  was  nominally  elective,  but  soon  became 
hereditary,  The  first  dynasty,  that  of  the  Umayyads,  who  lasted 
till  750,  was  founded  by  men  whose  acceptance  of  Mohammed 
was  purely  political,  and  it  remained  always  opposed  to  the  more 
fanatical  among  the  faithful.  The  Arabs;  although  they  conquered 
a  great  part  of  the  world  in  the  name  of  a  new  religion,  were  not 
a  very  religious  race;  the  motive  of  their  conquests  was  plunder 
and  wealth  rather  than  religion.  It  was  only  in  virtue  of  their  lack 

44' 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

of  fanaticism  that  a  handful  of  warriors  were  able  to  govern, 
without  much  difficulty,  vast  populations  of  higher  civilization 
and  alien  religion. 

The  Persians,  on  the  contrary,  have  been,  from  the  earliest  times, 
deeply  religious  and  highly  speculative.  After  their  conversion, 
they  made  out  of  Islam  something  much  more  interesting,  more 
religious,  and  more  philosophical,  than  had  been  imagined  by  the 
Prophet  and  his  kinsmen.  Ever  since  the  death  of  Mohammed's 
son-in-law  All  in  661,  Mohammedans  have  been  divided  into  two 
sects,  the  Sunni  and  the  Shiah.  The  former  is  the  larger;  the  latter 
follows  Ali,  and  considers  the  Umayyad  dynasty  to  have  been 
usurpers.  The  Persians  have  lonj;  belonged  to  the  Shiah  sect. 
Largely  by  Persian  influence,  the  Umayyads  were  at  last  over- 
thrown,  and  succeeded  by  the  Abbasids,  who  represented  Persian 
interests.  The  change  was  marked  by  the  removal  of  the  capita] 
from  Damascus  to  Baghdad. 

The  Abbasids  were,  politically,  more  in  favour  of  the  fanatics 
than  the  Umayyads  had  been.  They  did  not,  however,  acquire  the 
whole  of  the  empire.  One  member  of  the  Umayyad  family  escaped 
the  general  massacre,  fled  to  Spain,  and  was  there  acknowledged 
as  the  legitimate  ruler.  From  that  time  on,  Spain  was  independent 
of  the  rest  of  the  Mohammedan  world. 

Under  the  early  Abbasids  the  caliphate  attained  its  greatest 
splendour.  The  best  known  of  them  is  Hanm-al-Rashid  (d.  809) 
who  was  a  contemporary  of  Charlemagne  and  the  Empress  Irene, 
and  is  known  to  every  one  in  legendary  form  through  the  Arabian 
Nights.  His  court  was  a  brilliant  centre  of  luxury',  poetry,  and 
learning;  his  revenue  was  enormous;  his  empire  stretched  from 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  to  the  Indus.  His  will  was  absolute;  he 
was  habitually  accompanied  by  the  executioner,  who  performed 
his  office  at  a  nod  from  the  caliph.  This  splendour,  however,  was 
short-lived.  His  successor  made  the  mistake  of  composing  his 
army  mainly  of  Turks,  who  were  insubordinate,  and  soon  reduced 
the  caliph  to  a  cipher,  to  be  blinded  or  murdered  whenever  the 
soldiery  grew  tired  of  him.  Nevertheless,  the  caliphate  lingered 
on;  the  last  caliph  of  the  Abbasid  dynasty  was  put  to  death  by 
the  Mongols  in  1256,  along  with  800,000  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Baghdad. 

The  political  and  social  system  of  the  Arabs  had  defects  similar 
to  those  of  the  Roman  Empire,  together  with  some  others.  Abso- 

44* 


MOHAMMEDAN   CULTURE   AND   PHILOSOPHY 

lute  monarchy  combined  with  polygamy  led,  as  it  usually  does,  to 
dynastic  wars  whenever  a  ruler  died,  ending  with  the  victory  of 
one  of  the  ruler's  sons  and  the  death  of  all  the  rest.  There  were 
immense  numbers  of  slaves,  largely  as  a  result  of  successful  wars; 
at  times  there  were  dangerous  servile  insurrections.  Commerce 
was  greatly  developed,  the  more  so  as  the  caliphate  occupied  a 
central  position  between  East  and  West.  "Not  only  did  the  pos- 
session of  enormous  wealth  create  a  demand  for  costly  articles, 
such  as  silks  from  China,  and  furs  from  Northern  Europe,  but 
trade  was  promoted  by  certain  special  conditions,  such  as  the  vast 
extent  of  the  Muslim  Empire,  the  spread  of  Arabic  as  a  world- 
language,  and  the  exalted  status  assigned  to  the  merchant  in  the 
Muslim  system  of  ethics;  it  was  remembered  that  the  Prophet 
himself  had  been  a  merchant  and  had  commended  trading  during 
the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca."1  This  commerce,  like  military  cohesion, 
depended  on  the  great  roads  which  the  Arabs  inherited  from  the 
Romans  and  Persians,  and  which  they,  unlike  the  Northern  con- 
querors, did  not  allow  to  fall  into  disrepair.  Gradually,  however, 
the  empire  broke  up  into  fractions— Spain,  Persia,  North  Africa, 
and  Egypt  successively  split  off  and  acquired  complete  or  almost 
complete  independence. 

One  of  the  best  features  of  the  Arab  economy  was  agriculture, 
particularly  the  skilful  use  of  irrigation,  which  they  learnt  from 
living  where  water  is  scarce.  To  this  day  Spanish  agriculture 
profits  by  Arab  irrigation  works. 

'ITie  distinctive  culture  of  the  Muslim  world,  though  it  began 
in  Syria,  soon  came  to  flourish  most  in  the  Eastern  and  Western 
extremities,  Persia  and  Spain.  The  Syrians,  at  the  time  of  the  con- 
quest, were  admirers  of  Aristotle,  whom  Nestorians  preferred  to 
Plato,  the  philosopher  favoured  by  Catholics.  The  Arabs  first 
acquired  their  knowledge  of  Greek  philosophy  from  the  Syrians, 
and  thus,  from  the  beginning,  they  thought  Aristotle  more  im- 
portant than  Plato.  Nevertheless,  their  Aristotle  wore  a  Neo- 
platonic  dress.  Kindi  (d.  ca.  873),  the  first  to  write  philosophy  in 
Arabic,  and  the  only  philosopher  of  note  who  was  himself  an  Arab, 
translated  parts  of  the  Enneads  of  Plotinus,  and  published  his 
translation  under  the  title  The  Theology  of  Aristotle.  This  intro- 
duced great  confusion  into  Arabic  ideas  of  Aristotle,  from  which 
it  took  centuries  to  recover. 

>  Cambridge  Medieval  History,  IV,  286. 

443 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

Meanwhile,  in  Persia,  Muslims  came  in  contact  with  India.  It 
was  from  Sanskrit  writings  that  they  acquired,  during  the  eighth 
century,  their  first  knowledge  of  astronomy.  About  830,  Muham- 
mad ibn  Musa  al-Khwarazmi,  a  translator  of  mathematical  and 
astronomical  books  from  the  Sanskrit,  published  a  book  which 
was  translated  into  Latin  in  the  twelfth  century,  under  the  title 
Algoritm  de  numero  Indorwn.  It  was  from  this  book  that  the  West 
first  learnt  of  what  we  call  "Arabic"  numerals,  which  ought  to 
be  called  "Indian."  The  same  author  wrote  a  book  on  algebra 
which  was  used  in  the  West  as  a  text-book  until  the  sixteenth 
century. 

Persian  civilization  remained  both  intellectually  and  artistically 
admirable,  though  it  was  seriously  damaged  by  the  invasion  of 
the  Mongols  in  the  thirteenth  century.  Omar  Khayyam,  the  only 
man  known  to  me  who  was  both  a  poet  and  a  mathematician, 
reformed  the  calendar  in  1079.  His  best  friend,  oddly  enough, 
was  the  founder  of  the  sect  of  the  Assassins,  the  "Old  Man  of  the 
.Mountain,"  of  legendary  fame.  The  Persians  were  great  poets: 
Firdousi  (ca.  941),  author  of  the  Shalmama,  is  said  by  those  who 
have  read  him  to  be  comparable  to  Homer.  They  were  also  remark- 
able as  mystics,  which  other  Mohammedans  were  not.  The  Sufi 
sect,  which  still  exists,  allowed  itself  great  latitude  in  the  mystical 
and  allegorical  interpretation  of  orthodox  dogma ;  it  was  more  or 
less  Ncoplatonic. 

The  Nestorians,  through  whom,  at  first,  Greek  influences  came 
into  the  Muslim  world,  were  by  no  means  purely  Greek  in  their 
outlook.  Their  school  at  Edessa  had  been  closed  by  the  Kmperor 
Zeno  in  481 ;  its  learned  men  thereupon  migrated  to  Persia,  where 
they  continued  their  work,  but  not  without  suffering  Persian 
influences.  The  Nestorians  valued  Aristotle  only  for  his  logic,  and 
it  was  above  all  his  logic  that  the  Arabic  philosophers  thought 
important  at  first.  Later,  however,  they  studied  also  his  Mela- 
physict  and  his  De  Anima.  Arabic  philosophers,  in  general,  are 
encyclopedic:  they  are  interested  in  alchemy,  astrology,  astronomy, 
and  zoology,  as  much  as  in  what  we  should  call  philosophy.  They 
were  looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  the  populace,  which  was 
fanatical  and  bigoted;  tKey  owed  their  safety  (when  they  were 
safe)  to  the  protection  of  comparatively  free-thinking  princes. 

Two  Mohammedan  philosophers,  one  of  Persia,  one  of  Spain, 
demand  special  notice;  they  are  Avicenna  and  Averroes.  Of  these 


MOHAMMEDAN   CULTURE   AND   PHILOSOPHY 

the  former  is  the  more  famous  among  Mohammedans,  the  latter 
among  Christians. 

Avicenna  (Ibn  Sina)  (980*1037)  spent  his  life  in  the  sort  of  places 
that  one  used  to  think  only  exist  in  poetry.  He  was  born  in  the 
province  of  Bokhara ;  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  he  went  to  Khiva 
— "lone  Khiva  in  the  waste" — then  to  Khorassan — "the  lone 
Chorasmian  shore."  For  a  while  he  taught  medicine  and  philosophy 
at  Ispahan;  then  he  settled  at  Teheran.  He  was  even  more  famous 
in  medicine  than  in  philosophy,  though  he  added  little  to  Galen. 
From  the  twelfth  to  the  seventeenth  century,  he  was  used  in 
Europe  as  a  guide  to  medicine.  He  was  not  a  saintly  character,  in 
fact  he  had  a  passion  for  wine  and  women.  He  was  suspect  to  the 
orthodox,  but  was  befriended  by  princes  on  account  of  his  medical 
skill.  At  times  he  got  into  trouble  owing  to  the  hostility  of  Turkish 
mercenaries;  sometimes  he  was  in  hiding,  sometimes  in  prison. 
He  was  the  author  of  an  encyclopedia,  almost  unknown  to  the 
Hast  because  of  the  hostility  of  theologians,  but  influential  in  the 
West  through  I^atin  translations.  His  psychology  has  an  empirical 
tendency. 

His  philosophy  is  nearer  to  Aristotle,  and  less  Neoplatonic,  than 
that  of  his  Muslim  predecessors.  Like  the  Christian  scholastics 
later,  he  is  occupied  with  the  problem  of  universals.  Plato  said 
they  were  anterior  to  things.  Aristotle  has  two  views,  one  when 
he  is  thinking,  the  other  when  he  is  combating  Plato.  This  makes 
him  ideal  material  for  the  commentator. 

Avicenna  invented  a  formula,  which  was  repeated  by  Averroes 
and  Albertus  Magnus:  "Thought  brings  about  the  generality  in 
forms."  From  this  it  might  be  supposed  that  he  did  not  believe 
in  universals  apart  from  thought.  This,  however,  would  be  an 
unduly  simple  view.  Genera— that  is,  universals— are,  he  says,  at 
once  before  things,  in  things,  and  after  things.  He  explains  this 
as  follows.  They  are  before  things  in  God's  understanding.  (God 
decides,  for  instance,  to  create  cats.  This  requires  that  He  should 
have  the  idea  "cat,"  which  is  thus,  in  this  respect,  anterior  to 
particular  cats.)  Genera  are  in  things  in  natural  objects.  (When 
cats  have  been  created,  felinity  is  in  each  of  them.)  Genera  arc 
after  things  in  our  thought.  (When  we  have  seen  many  cats,  we 
notice  their  likeness  to  each  other,  and  arrive  at  the  general  idea 
"cat.")  This  view  is  obviously  intended  to  reconcile  different 
theories. 

445 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Averroes  (Ibn  Rushd)  (1126-98)  lived  at  the  opposite  end  ot 
the  Muslim  world  from  Avicenna.  He  was  born  at  Cordova,  where 
his  father  and  grandfather  had  been  cadis;  he  himself  was  a  cadi, 
first  in  Seville,  then  in  Cordova.  He  studied,  first,  theology  and 
jurisprudence,  then  medicine,  mathematics,  and  philosophy.  He 
was  recommended  to  the  "Caliph"  Abu  Yaqub  Yusuf  as  a  man 
capable  of  making  an  analysis  of  the  works  of  Aristotle.  (It  seems, 
however,  that  he  did  not  know  Greek.)  This  ruler  took  him  into 
favour;  in  1184  he  made  him  his  physician,  but  unfortunately 
the  patient  died  two  years  later.  His  successor,  Yaqub  Al-Mansur, 
for  eleven  years  continued  his  father's  patronage;  then,  alarmed 
by  the  opposition  of  the  orthodox  to  the  philosopher,  he  deprived 
him  of  his  position,  and  exiled  him,  first  to  a  small  place  near 
Cordova,  and  then  to  Morocco.  He  was  accused  of  cultivating  the 
philosophy  of  the  ancients  at  the  expense  of  the  true  faith.  Al- 
Mansur  published  an  edict  to  the  effect  that  God  had  decreed 
hell-fire  for  those  who  thought  that  truth  could  be  found  by  the 
unaided  reason.  All  the  books  that  could  be  found  on  logic  and 
metaphysics  were  given  to  the  flames.1 

Shortly  after  this  time  the  Moorish  territory  in  Spain  was 
greatly  diminished  by  Christian  conquests.  Muslim  philosophy  in 
Spain  ended  with  Averroes;  and  in  the  rest  of  the  Mohammedan 
world  a  rigid  orthodoxy  put  an  end  to  speculation. 

Ueberweg,  rather  amusingly,  undertakes  to  defend  Averroes 
against  the  charge  of  unorthodox}' — a  matter,  one  would  say,  for 
Muslims  to  decide.  Ucberwcg  points  out  that,  according  to  the 
mystics,  every  text  of  the  Koran  had  7  or  70  or  700  layers  of  inter- 
pretation, the  literal  meaning  being  only  for  the  ignorant  vulgar. 
It  would  seem  to  follow  that  a  philosopher's  teaching  could  not 
possibly  conflict  with  the  Koran;  for  among  700  interpretations 
there  would  surely  be  at  least  one  that  would  fit  what  the  philo- 
sopher had  to  say.  In  the  Mohammedan  world,  however,  the 
ignorant  seem  to  have  objected  to  all  learning  that  went  beyond  a 
knowledge  of  the  Holy  Book ;  it  was  dangerous,  even  if  no  specific 
heresy  could  be  demonstrated.  The  view  of  the  mystics,  that  the 
populace  should  take  the  Koran  literally  but  wise  people  need 
not  do  so,  was  hardly  likely  to  win  wide  popular  acceptance. 

Averroes  was  concerned  to  improve  the  Arabic  interpretation 

1  It  it  «ud  that  Averroes  w*s  taken  back  into  favour  shortly  before  hit 
dttittt* 

446 


MOHAMMEDAN   CULTURE  AND   PHILOSOPHY 

of  Aristotle,  which  had  been  unduly  influenced  by  Neoplatonisrn. 
He  gave  to  Aristotle  the  sort  of  reverence  that  is  given  to  the 
founder  of  a  religion— much  more  than  was  given  even  by  Avi- 
cenna.  He  holds  that  the  existence  of  God  can  be  proved  by  reason 
independently  of  revelation,  a  view  also  held  by  Thomas  Aquinas. 
As  regards  immortality,  he  seems  to  have  adhered  closely  to 
Aristotle,  maintaining  that  the  soul  is  not  immortal,  but  intellect 
(nous)  is.  This,  however,  does  not  secure  personal  immortality, 
since  intellect  is  one  and  the  same  when  manifested  in  different 
persons.  This  view,  naturally,  was  combated  by  Christian 
philosophers. 

Averroes,  like  most  of  the  later  Mohammedan  philosophers, 
though  a  believer,  xvas  not  rigidly  orthodox.  There  was  a  sect  of 
completely  orthodox  theologians,  who  objected  to  all  philosophy 
as  deleterious  to  the  faith.  One  of  these,  named  Algazel,  wrote  a 
hook  called  Destruction  of  tlie  Philosopliers,  pointing  out  that,  since 
all  necessary  truth  is  in  the  Koran,  there  is  no  need  of  speculation 
independent  of  revelation.  Averroes  replied  by  a  book  called 
Destruction  of  the  Destruction.  The  religious  dogmas  that  Algazel 
specially  upheld  against  the  philosophers  were  the  creation  of  the 
\\orld  in  time  out  of  nothing,  the  reality  of  the  divine  attributes, 
and  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  Averroes  regards  religion  as 
containing  philosophic  truth  in  allegorical  form.  This  applies  in 
particular  to  creation,  which  he,  in  his  philosophic  capacity, 
interprets  in  an  Aristotelian  fashion. 

Averroes  is  more  important  in  Christian  than  in  Mohammedan 
philosophy.  In  the  latter  he  was  a  dead  end;  in  the  former,  a 
beginning.  He  was  translated  into  I>atin  early  in  the  thirteenth 
century  by  Michael  Scott;  as  his  works  belong  to  the  latter  half 
of  the  twelfth  century,  this  is  surprising.  His  influence  in  Europe 
was  very  great,  not  only  on  the  scholastics,  but  also  on  a  large 
body  of  unprofessional  free-thinkers,  who  denied  immortality 
and  were  called  Averroists.  Among  professional  philosophers,  his 
admirers  were  at  first  especially  among  the  Franciscans  and  at 
the  University  of  Paris.  But  this  is  a  topic  which  will  be  dealt 
with  in  a  later  chapter. 

Arabic  philosophy  is  not  important  as  original  thought.  Men 
like  Aviccnna  and  Averroes  are  essentially  commentators.  Speaking 
generally,  the  views  of  the  more  scientific  philosophers  come  from 
Aristotle  and  the  Neoplatonbts  in  logic  and  metaphysics,  from 

447 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Galen  in  medicine,  from  Greek  and  Indian  sources  in  mathematics 
and  astronomy,  and  among  mystics  religious  philosophy  has  also 
an  admixture  of  old  Persian  beliefs.  Writers  in  Arabic  showed 
some  originality  in  mathematics  and  in  chemistry — in  the  latter 
case,  as  an  incidental  result  of  alchemical  researches.  Moham- 
medan civilization  in  its  great  days  was  admirable  in  the  arts  and 
in  many  technical  ways,  but  it  showed  no  capacity  for  independent 
speculation  in  theoretical  matters.  Its  importance,  which  must 
not  be  underrated,  is  as  a  transmitter.  Between  ancient  and  modern 
European  civilization,  the  dark  ages  intervened.  The  Moham- 
medans and  the  Byzantines,  while  lacking  the  intellectual  energy 
required  for  innovation,  preserved  the  apparatus  of  civilization — 
education,  books,  and  learned  leisure.  Both  stimulated  the  West 
when  it  emerged  from  barbarism — the  Mohammedans  chiefly  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  the  Byzantines  chiefly  in  the  fifteenth.  In 
each  case  the  stimulus  produced  new  thought  better  than  any 
produced  by  the  transmitters — in  the  one  case  scholasticism,  in 
the  other  the  Renaissance  (which  however  had  other  causes  also). 

Between  the  Spanish  Moors  and  the  Christians,  the  Jews  formed 
a  useful  link.  There  were  many  Jews  in  Spain,  who  remained  when 
the  country  was  reconquered  by  the  Christians.  Since  they  knew 
Arabic,  and  perforce  acquired  the  language  of  the  Christians,  they 
were  able  to  supply  translations.  Another  means  of  transfusion 
arose  through  Mohammedan  persecution  of  Aristotelians  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  which  led  Moorish  philosophers  to  take  refuge 
with  Jews,  especially  in  Provence. 

The  Spanish  Jews  produced  one  philosopher  of  importance, 
Maimonides.  He  was  born  in  Cordova  in  1135,  but  went  to  Cairo 
at  the  age  of  thirty,  and  stayed  there  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  lie 
wrote  in  Arabic,  but  was  immediately  translated  into  Hebrew.  A 
few  decades  after  his  death,  he  was  translated  into  Latin,  probably 
at  the  request  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  He  wrote  a  book 
called  Guide  to  Wander  en,  addressed  to  philosophers  who  have 
lost  their  faith.  Its  purpose  is  to  reconcile  Aristotle  with  Jewish 
theology.  Aristotle  is  the  authority  on  the  sublunary  world,  reve- 
lation on  the  heavenly.  But  philosophy  and  revelation  come  to- 
gether in  the  knowledge  of  God.  The  pursuit  of  truth  is  a  religious 
duty.  Astrology  is  rejected.  The  Pentateuch  is  not  always  to  be 
taken  literally;  when  the  literal  sense  conflicts  with  reason,  we 
must  seek  an  allegorical  interpretation.  As  against  Aristotle,  he 

44* 


MOHAMMEDAN    CULTURE   AND    PHILOSOPHY 

maintains  that  God  created  not  only  form,  but  matter,  out  of 
nothing.  He  gives  a  summary  of  the  Timaeus  (which  he  knew  in 
Arabic),  preferring  it  on  some  points  to  Aristotle.  The  essence  of 
God  is  unknowable,  being  above  all  predicated  perfections.  The 
Jews  considered  htm  heretical,  and  went  so  far  as  to  invoke  the 
Christian  ecclesiastical  authorities  against  him.  Some  think  that 
he  influenced  Spinoza,  but  this  is  very  questionable. 


F1 
• 


Chapter  XI 
THE  TWELFTH   CENTURY 

IOUR  aspects  of  the  twelfth  century  are  specially  interesting 
to  us: 


(1)  The  continued  conflict  of  empire  and  papacy; 

(2)  The  rise  of  the  Lombard  cities; 

(3)  The  Crusades;  and 

(4)  The  growth  of  scholasticism. 

All  these  four  continued  into  the  following  century.  The 
Crusades  gradually  came  to  an  inglorious  end ;  but,  as  regards  the 
other  three  movements,  the  thirteenth  century  marks  the  cul- 
mination of  what,  in  the  twelfth,  is  in  a  transitional  stage.  In  the 
thirteenth  century,  the  Pope  definitely  triumphed  over  the 
Emperor,  the  Lombard  cities  acquired  secure  independence  and 
scholasticism  reached  its  highest  point.  All  this,  however,  was  an 
outcome  of  what  the  twelfth  century  had  prepared. 

Not  only  the  first  of  these  four  movements,  but  the  other  three 
also,  are  intimately  bound  up  with  the  increase  of  papal  and 
ecclesiastical  power.  The  Pope  was  in  alliance  with  the  Lombard 
cities  against  the  Emperor;  Pope  Urban  II  inaugurated  the  first 
Crusade,  and  subsequent  popes  were  the  main  promoters  of  the 
later  ones;  the  scholastic  philosophers  were  all  clerics,  and  Church 
councils  took  care  to  keep  them  within  the  bounds  of  orthodoxy, 
or  discipline  them  if  they  strayed.  Undoubtedly,  their  sense  of 
the  political  triumph  of  the  Church,  in  which  they  felt  themselves 
participants,  stimulated  their  intellectual  initiative. 

One  of  the  curious  things  about  the  Middle  Ages  is  that  they 
were  original  and  creative  without  knowing  it.  All  parties  justified 
their  policies  by  antiquarian  and  archaistic  arguments.  The 
Emperor  appealed,  in  Germany,  to  the  feudal  principles  of  the 
time  of  Charlemagne;  in  Italy,  to  Roman  law  and  the  power  of 
ancient  Emperors.  The  Lombard  cities  went  still  further  back,  to 
the  institutions  of  repubKcan  Rome.  The  papal  party  based  its 
claims  partly  on  the  forged  Donation  of  Constantine,  partly  on 
the  relations  of  Saul  and  Samuel  as  told  in  the  Old  Testament. 
The  scholastics  appealed  either  to  the  Scriptures  or  at  first  to 

450 


THE   TWELFTH    CENTURY 

Plato  and  then  to  Aristotle;  when  they  were  original,  they  tried 
to  conceal  the  fact.  The  Crusades  were  an  endeavour  to  restore 
the  state  of  affairs  that  had  existed  before  the  rise  of  Islam. 

We  must  not  be  deceived  by  this  literary  archaism.  Only  in  the 
case  of  the  Emperor  did  it  correspond  with  the  facts.  Feudalism 
was  in  decay,  especially  in  Italy;  the  Roman  Empire  was  a  mere 
memory.  Accordingly,  the  Emperor  was  defeated.  The  cities  of 
North  Italy,  while,  in  their  later  development,  they  showed  much 
similarity  to  the  cities  of  ancient  Greece,  repeated  the  pattern, 
not  from  imitation,  but  from  similarity  of  circumstances:  that  of 
small,  rich,  highly  civilized  republican  commercial  communities 
surrounded  by  monarchies  at  a  lower  level  of  culture.  The  scho- 
lastics, however  they  might  revere  Aristotle,  showed  more  ori- 
ginality than  any  of  the  Arabs — more,  indeed,  than  any  one  since 
Plotinus,  or  at  any  rate  since  Augustine.  In  politics  as  in  thought, 
there  was  the  same  distinguished  originality. 

CONFLICT  OF   EMPIRE  AND  PAPACY 

From  the  time  of  Gregory  VII  to  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  European  history  centres  round  the  struggle  for  power 
between  the  Church  and  the  lay  monarchs — primarily  the  Em- 
peror, but  also,  on  occasion,  the  kings  of  France  and  England. 
Gregory's  pontificate  had  ended  in  apparent  disaster,  but  his 
policies  were  resumed,  though  with  more  moderation,  by  Urban  II 
(1088-99),  who  repeated  the  decrees  against  lay  investiture, 
and  desired  episcopal  elections  to  be  made  freely  by  clergy  and 
people.  (The  share  of  the  people  was,  no  doubt,  to  be  purely 
formal.)  In  practice,  however,  he  did  not  quarrel  with  lay  appoint- 
ments if  they  were  good. 

At  first,  Urban  was  safe  only  in  Norman  territory.  But  in  1093 
Henry  IV's  son  Conrad  rebelled  against  his  father,  and,  in  alliance 
with  the  Pope,  conquered  North  Italy,  where  the  Lombard 
League,  an  alliance  of  cities  with  Milan  at  its  head,  favoured  the 
Pope.  In  1094,  Urban  made  a  triumphal  procession  through 
North  Italy  and  France.  He  triumphed  over  Philip,  King  of 
France,  who  desired  a  divorce,  and  was  therefore  excommunicated 
by  the  Pope,  but  submitted.  At  the  Council  of  Clermont,  in  1095, 
Urban  proclaimed  the  first  Crusade,  which  produced  a  wave  of 
religious  enthusiasm  leading  to  increase  of  papal  power— also  to 

45' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

atrocious  pogroms  of  Jews.  The  last  year  of  Urban's  life  he  spent 
in  safety  in  Rome,  where  popes  were  seldom  safe. 

The  next  Pope,  Paschal  II,  like  Urban,  came  from  Cluny.  He 
continued  the  struggle  on  investitures,  and  was  successful  in 
France  and  England.  But  after  the  death  of  Henry  IV  in  1 106,  the 
next  Emperor,  Henry  V,  got  the  better  of  the  Pope,  who  was  an 
unworldly  man  and  allowed  his  saintliness  to  outweigh  his  political 
sense.  The  Pope  proposed  that  the  Emperor  should  renounce 
investitures,  but  in  return  bishops  and  abbots  should  renounce 
temporal  possessions.  The  Emperor  professed  to  agree ;  but  when 
the  suggested  compromise  was  made  public,  the  ecclesiastics 
rebelled  furiously  against  the  Pope.  The  Emperor,  who  was  in 
Rome,  took  the  opportunity  to  seize  the  Pope,  who  yielded  to 
threats,  gave  way  on  investitures,  and  crowned  Henry  V.  Eleven 
years  later,  however,  by  the  Concordat  of  Worms  in  1122,  Pope 
Calixtus  II  compelled  Henry  V  to  give  way  on  investitures, 
and  to  surrender  control  over  episcopal  elections  in  Burgundy 
and  Italy. 

So  far,  the  net  result  of  the  struggle  was  that  the  Pope,  who  had 
been  subject  to  Henry  III,  had  become  the  equal  of  the  Emperor. 
At  the  same  time,  he  had  become  more  completely  sovereign  in 
the  Church,  which  he  governed  by  means  of  legates.  This  increase 
of  papal  power  had  diminished  the  relative  importance  of  bishops. 
Papal  elections  were  now  free  from  lay  control,  and  ecclesiastics 
generally  were  more  virtuous  than  they  had  been  before  the 
reform  movement. 


RISE  OF  THE   LOMBARD  CITIKS 

The  next  stage  was  connected  with  the  Emperor  Frederick 
Barbarossa  (1152-90),  an  able  and  energetic  man,  who  would 
have  succeeded  in  any  enterprise  in  which  success  was  possible. 
He  was  a  man  of  education,  who  read  Latin  with  pleasure,  though 
he  spoke  it  with  difficult)'.  His  classical  learning  was  considerable, 
and  he  was  an  admirer  of  Roman  law.  He  thought  of  himself  as 
the  heir  of  the  Roman  Emperors,  and  hoped  to  acquire  their 
power.  But  as  a  German  he  was  unpopular  in  Italy.  The  Lombard 
cities,  while  willing  to  acknowledge  his  formal  overlordship, 
objected  when  he  interfered  in  their  affairs — except  those  which 
feared  Milan,  against  which  city  some  of  them  invoked  his  pro* 

45* 


THE   TWELFTH   CENTURY 

tection.  The  Patarine  movement  in  Milan  continued,  and  was 
associated  with  a  more  or  less  democratic  tendency;  most,  but  by 
no  means  all,  of  the  North  Italian  cities  sympathized  with  Milan, 
and  made  common  cause  against  the  Emperor. 

Hadrian  IV,  a  vigorous  Englishman  who  had  been  a  missionary 
in  Norway,  became  Pope  two  years  after  the  accession  of  Bar- 
barossa,  and  was,  at  first,  on  good  terms  with  him.  They  were 
reconciled  by  a  common  enmity.  The  city  of  Rome  claimed  inde- 
pendence from  both  alike,  and,  as  a  help  in  the  struggle,  had 
invited  a  saintly  heretic,  Arnold  of  Brescia.1  His  heresy  was  very 
grave:  he  maintained  that  "clerks  who  have  estates,  bishops  who 
hold  fiefs,  monks  who  possess  property,  cannot  be  saved."  He 
held  this  view  because  he  thought  that  the  clergy  ought  to  devote 
themselves  entirely  to  spiritual  matters.  No  one  questioned  his 
sincere  austerity,  although  he  was  accounted  wicked  on  account 
of  his  heresy.  St.  Bernard,  who  vehemently  opposed  him,  said, 
"He  neither  eats  nor  drinks,  but  only,  like  the  Devil,  hungers  and 
thirsts  for  the  blood  of  souls."  Hadrian's  predecessor  in  the 
papacy  had  written  to  Barbarossa  to  complain  that  Arnold  sup- 
ported the  popular  faction,  which  wished  to  elect  one  hundred 
senators  and  two  consuls,  and  to  have  an  Emperor  of  their  own. 
Frederick,  who  was  setting  out  for  Italy,  was  naturally  scandalized. 
The  Roman  demand  for  communal  liberty,  which  was  encouraged 
by  Arnold,  led  to  a  riot  in  which  a  cardinal  was  killed.  The  newly- 
elected  Pope  Hadrian  thereupon  placed  Rome  under  an  interdict. 
It  was  Holy  Week,  and  superstition  got  the  better  of  the  Romans; 
they  submitted,  and  promised  to  banish  Arnold.  He  hid,  but  was 
captured  by  the  Emperor's  troops.  He  was  burnt,  and  his  ashes 
were  thrown  into  the  Tiber,  for  fear  of  their  being  preserved  as 
holy  relics.  After  a  delay  caused  by  Frederick's  unwillingness  to 
hold  the  Pope's  bridle  and  stirrup  while  he  dismounted,  the  Pope 
crowned  the  Kmpcror  in  1 155  amid  the  resistance  of  the  populace, 
which  was  quelled  with  great  slaughter. 

The  honest  man  being  disposed  of,  the  practical  politicians 
were  free  to  resume  their  quarrel. 

The  Pope,  having  made  peace  with  the  Normans,  ventured  in 

1 1 57  to  break  with  the  Emperor.  For  twenty  years  there  was  almost 

continuous  war  between  the  Emperor  on  the  one  side,  and  the 

Pope  with  the  Lombard  cities  on  the  other.  The  Normans  mostly 

1  He  was  mid  to  he  a  pupil  of  Abtiard,  but  thin  is  doubtful. 

453 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

supported  the  Pope.  The  bulk  of  the  fighting  against  the  Emperor 
was  done  by  the  Lombard  League,  which  spoke  of  "liberty"  and 
was  inspired  by  intense  popular  feeling.  The  Emperor  besieged 
various  cities,  and  in  1162  even  captured  Milan,  which  he  razed 
to  the  ground,  compelling  its  citizens  to  live  elsewhere.  But  five 
years  later  the  League  rebuilt  Milan  and  the  former  inhabitants 
returned.  In  this  same  year,  the  Emperor,  duly  provided  with  an 
antipope,1  marched  on  Rome  with  a  great  army.  The  Pope  fled, 
and  his  cause  seemed  desperate,  but  pestilence  destroyed  Fred- 
crick's  army,  and  he  returned  to  Germany  a  solitary  fugitive. 
Although  not  only  Sicily,  but  the  Greek  Emperor,  now  sided 
with  the  Lombard  League,  Barbarossa  made  another  attempt, 
ending  in  his  defeat  at  the  battle  of  Legnano  in  1176.  After  this 
he  was  compelled  to  make  peace,  leaving  to  the  cities  all  the  sub- 
stance of  liberty.  In  the  conflict  between  Empire  and  papacy^ 
however,  the  terms  of  peace  gave  neither  party  complete  victory. 

Barbarossa 's  end  was  seemly.  In  1189  he  went  on  the  third 
Crusade,  and  in  the  following  year  he  died. 

The  rise  of  free  cities  is  what  proved  of  most  ultimate  importance 
in  this  long  strife.  The  power  of  the  Emperor  was  associated  with 
the  decaying  feudal  system;  the  power  of  the  Pope,  though  still 
growing,  was  largely  dependent  upon  the  world's  need  of  him  as 
an  antagonist  to  the  Emperor,  and  therefore  decayed  when  the 
Empire  ceased  to  be  a  menace;  but  the  power  of  the  cities  was 
new,  a  result  of  economic  progress,  and  a  source  of  new  political 
forms.  Although  this  does  not  appear  in  the  twelfth  century,  the 
Italian  cities,  before  long,  developed  a  non-clerical  culture  which 
reached  the  very  highest  levels  in  literature,  in  art,  and  in  science. 
All  this  was  rendered  possible  by  their  successful  resistance  to 
Barbarossa. 

All  the  great  cities  of  Northern  Italy  lived  by  trade,  and  in  the 
twelfth  century  the  more  settled  conditions  made  traders  more 
prosperous  than  before.  The  maritime  cities,  Venice,  Genoa,  and 
Pisa,  never  had  to  fight  for  their  liberty,  and  were  therefore  less 
hostile  to  the  Emperor  than  the  cities  at  the  foot  of  the  Alps, 

1  There  was  an  antipope 'throughout  most  of  this  time.  At  the  death  of 
Hadrian  IV,  the  two  claimants,  Alexander  III  and  Victor  IV,  had  •  tug- 
of-war  for  the  papal  mantle.  Victor  IV  (who  was  the  antipope),  having 
failed  to  snatch  the  mantle,  obtained  from  hia  partisans  a  substitute 
which  he  bad  had  prepared,  but  in  bis  haste  be  put  it  on  inside-out. 

454 


THE   TWELFTH   CENTURY 

which  were  important  to  him  as  the  gateways  to  Italy.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  Milan  is  the  most  interesting  and  important  of 
Italian  cities  at  this  time. 

Until  the  time  of  Henry  III,  the  Milanese  had  usually  been 
content  to  follow  their  archbishop.  But  the  Patarine  movement, 
mentioned  in  an  earlier  chapter,  changed  this:  the  archbishop 
sided  with  the  nobility,  while  a  powerful  popular  movement 
opposed  him  and  them.  Some  beginnings  of  democracy  resulted, 
and  a  constitution  arose  under  which  the  rulers  of  the  city  were 
elected  by  the  citizens.  In  various  northern  cities,  but  especially 
in  Bologna,  there  was  a  learned  class  of  lay  lawyers,  well  versed 
in  Roman  law;  moreover  the  rich  laity,  from  the  twelfth  century 
onwards,  were  much  better  educated  than  the  feudal  nobility 
north  of  the  Alps.  Although  they  sided  with  the  Pope  against  the 
Emperor,  the  rich  commercial  cities  were  not  ecclesiastical  in  their 
outlook.  In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  many  of  them 
adopted  heresies  of  a  Puritan  sort,  like  the  merchants  of  England 
and  Holland  after  the  Reformation.  Later,  they  tended  to  be  free- 
thinkers, paying  lip-service  to  the  Church,  but  destitute  of  all 
real  piety.  Dante  is  the  last  of  the  old  type,  Boccaccio  the  first  of 
the  new. 


THE  CRUSADES 

The  Crusades  need  not  concern  us  as  wars,  but  they  have  a 
certain  importance  in  relation  to  culture.  It  was  natural  for  the 
papacy  to  take  the  lead  in  the  initiating  of  a  Crusade,  since  the 
object  was  (at  least  ostensibly)  religious ;  thus  the  power  of  the 
popes  was  increased  by  the  war  propaganda  and  by  the  religious 
zeal  that  was  excited.  Another  important  effect  was  the  massacre 
of  large  numbers  of  Jews;  those  who  were  not  massacred  were 
often  despoiled  of  their  property  and  forcibly  baptized.  There 
were  large-scale  murders  of  Jews  in  Germany  at  the  time  of  the 
first  Crusade,  and  in  England,  at  the  time  of  the  third  Crusade, 
on  the  accession  of  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion.  York,  where  the  first 
Christian  Emperor  had  begun  his  reign,  was  the  scene  of  one  of 
the  most  appalling  mass-atrocities  again*  Jews.  The  Jews,  before 
the  Crusades,  had  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  trade  in  Eastern 
goods  throughout  Europe;  after  the  Crusades,  as  a  result  of  the 
persecution  of  Jews,  this  trade  was  largely  in  Christian  hands. 

455 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

Another  and  very  different  effect  of  the  Crusades  was  to  stimulate 
literary  intercourse  with  Constantinople.  During  the  twelfth  and 
early  thirteenth  centuries,  many  translations  from  Greek  into 
Latin  were  made  as  a  result  of  this  intercourse.  There  had  always 
been  much  trade  with  Constantinople,  especially  by  Venetians; 
but  Italian  traders  did  not  trouble  themselves  with  Greek  classics, 
any  more  than  English  or  American  traders  in  Shanghai  troubled 
themselves  with  the  classics  of  China.  (European  knowledge  of 
Chinese  classics  was  derived  mainly  from  missionaries.) 

THE  GROWTH  OF  SCHOLASTICISM 

Scholasticism,  in  its  narrower  sense,  begins  early  in  the  twelfth 
century.  As  a  philosophic  school,  it  has  certain  definite  charac- 
teristics. First,  it  is  confined  within  the  limits  of  what  appears  to 
the  writer  to  be  orthodoxy;  if  his  views  are  condemned  by  a 
council,  he  is  usually  willing  to  retract.  This  is  not  to  be  attributed 
entirely  to  cowardice,  it  is  analogous  to  the  submission  of  a  judge 
to  the  decision  of  a  Court  of  Appeal.  Second,  within  the  limits  of 
orthodoxy,  Aristotle,  who  gradually  became  mure  fully  known 
during  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  is  increasingly 
accepted  as  the  supreme  authority ;  Plato  no  longer  holds  the  first 
place.  Third,  there  is  a  great  belief  in  "dialectic"  and  in  syllogistic 
reasoning;  the  general  temper  of  the  scholastics  is  minute  and 
disputatious  rather  than  mystical.  Fourth,  the  question  of  uni- 
versals  is  brought  to  the  fore  by  the  discovery  that  Aristotle  and 
Plato  do  not  agree  about  it;  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose, 
however,  that  universals  are  the  main  concern  of  the  philosophers 
of  this  period. 

The  twelfth  century,  in  this  as  in  other  matters,  prepares  the 
way  for  the  thirteenth,  to  which  the  greatest  names  belong.  The 
earlier  men  have,  however,  the  interest  of  pioneers.  There  is  a 
new  intellectual  confidence,  and,  in  spite  of  the  respect  for  Aris- 
totle, a  free  and  vigorous  exercise  of  reason  wherever  dogma  has 
not  made  speculation  too  dangerous.  The  defects  of  the  scholastic 
method  are  those  that  inevitably  result  from  laying  stress  on 
"dialectic."  These  defects  are:  indifference  to  facts  and  science, 
belief  in  reasoning  in  matters  which  only  observation  can  decide, 
and  an  undue  emphasis  on  verbal  distinctions  and  subtleties. 
These  defects  we  had  occasion  to  mention  in  connection  with 

456 


THE   TWELFTH   CENTURY 

Plato,  but  in  the  scholastics  they  exist  in  a  much  more  extreme 
form. 

The  first  philosopher  who  can  be  regarded  as  strictly  a  scholastic 
is  Roscelin.  Not  very  much  is  known  about  him.  He  was  born  at 
Compi&gne  about  1050,  and  taught  at  Loches,  in  Brittany,  where 
AWlard  was  his  pupil.  He  was  accused  of  heresy  at  a  council  at 
Rheims  in  1092,  and  recanted  for  fear  of  being  stoned  to  death  by 
ecclesiastics  with  a  taste  for  lynching.  He  fled  to  England,  but 
there  he  was  rash  enough  to  attack  St.  Anselm.  This  time  he  fled 
to  Rome,  where  he  was  reconciled  to  the  Church.  He  disappears 
from  history  about  1120;  the  date  of  his  death  is  purely  con- 
jectural. 

Nothing  remains  of  Roscelin's  writings  except  a  letter  to  Abelard 
on  the  Trinity.  In  this  letter  he  belittles  Abelard  and  makes  merry 
over  his  castration.  Ueberweg,  who  seldom  displays  emotion,  is 
led  to  observe  that  he  can't  have  been  a  very  nice  man.  Apart 
from  this  letter,  Roscelin's  views  are  chiefly  known  through  the 
controversial  writings  of  Anselm  and  Abelard.  According  to 
Anselm,  he  said  that  universals  are  mere  flatus  vocts,  "breath  of 
the  voice."  If  this  is  to  be  taken  literally,  it  means  that  a  universal 
is  a  physical  occurrence,  that,  namely,  which  takes  place  when  we 
pronounce  a  word.  It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed,  however,  that 
Roscelin  maintained  anything  so  foolish.  Anselm  says  that, 
according  to  Roscelin,  man  is  not  a  unity,  but  only  a  common 
name;  this  view  Anselm,  like  a  good  Platonist,  attributes  to 
Roscelin's  only  conceding  reality  to  what  is  sensible.  He  seems 
to  have  held,  generally,  that  a  whole  which  has  parts  has  no 
reality  of  its  own,  but  is  a  mere  word;  the  reality  is  in  the  parts. 
This  view  should  have  led  him,  and  perhaps  did  lead  him,  to  an 
extreme  atomism.  In  any  case,  it  led  him  into  trouble  about  the 
Trinity.  He  considered  that  the  Three  Persons  are  three  distinct 
substances,  and  that  only  usage  stands  in  the  way  of  our  saying 
that  there  are  Three  Gods.  The  alternative,  which  he  does  not 
accept,  is,  according  to  him,  to  say  that  not  only  the  Son,  but  the 
Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  were  incarnate.  All  this  speculation, 
in  so  far  as  it  was  heretical,  he  recanted  at  Rheims  in  1092.  It  is 
impossible  to  know  exactly  what  he  thought  about  universals, 
l>ut  at  any  rate  it  is  plain  that  he  was  some  sort  of  nominalist. 

His  pupil  Abelard  (or  Abailard)  was  much  abler  and  much  more 
distinguished.  He  was  born  near  Nantes  in  1079,  was  a  pupil  of 

457 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

William  of  Champeaux  (a  realist)  in  Paris,  and  then  a  teacher  in 
the  Paris  cathedral  school,  where  he  combated  William's  views 
and  compelled  him  to  modify  them.  After  a  period  devoted  to  the 
study  of  theology  under  Anselm  of  Laon  (not  the  archbishop), 
he  returned  to  Paris  in  1113,  and  acquired  extraordinary  popu- 
larity as  a  teacher.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  became  the  lover  of 
Helolse,  niece  of  Canon  Fulbert.  The  canon  had  him  castrated, 
and  he  and  Hlloise  had  to  retire  from  the  world,  he  into  a 
monastery  at  St.  Denis,  she  into  a  nunnery  at  Argenteuil.  Their 
famous  correspondence  is  said,  by  a  learned  German  named 
Schmeidler,  to  have  been  entirely  composed  by  Abllard  as  a 
literary  fiction.  I  am  not  competent  to  judge  as  to  the  correctness 
of  this  theory,  but  nothing  in  Abllard's  character  makes  it  im- 
possible. He  was  always  vain,  disputatious,  and  contemptuous; 
after  his  misfortune  he  was  also  angry  and  humiliated.  Heloise's 
letters  are  much  more  devoted  than  his,  and  one  can  imagine  him 
composing  them  as  a  balm  to  his  wounded  pride. 

Even  in  his  retirement,  he  still  had  great  success  as  a  teacher; 
the  young  liked  his  cleverness,  his  dialectical  skill,  and  his  irre- 
verence towards  their  older  teachers.  Older  men  felt  the  correlative 
dislike  of  him,  and  in  1121  he  was  condemned  at  Soissons  for  an 
unorthodox  book  on  the  Trinity.  Having  made  due  submission, 
he  became  abbot  of  St.  Gildas  in  Brittany,  where  he  found  the 
monks  savage  boors.  After  four  miserable  years  in  this  exile,  he 
returned  to  comparative  civilization.  His  further  history  is  obscure, 
except  that  he  continued  to  teach  with  great  success,  according 
to  the  testimony  of  John  of  Salisbury.  In  1141,  at  the  instance  of 
St.  Bernard,  he  was  again  condemned,  this  time  at  Sens.  He 
retired  to  Cluny,  and  died  the  next  year. 

Abelard's  most  famous  book,  composed  in  1121-22,  is  Sic  et 
Aoif,  "Yes  and  No."  Here  he  gives  dialectical  arguments  for  and 
against  a  great  variety  of  theses,  often  without  attempting  to  arrive 
at  a  conclusion;  clearly  he  likes  the  disputation  itself,  and  con- 
siders it  useful  as  sharpening  the  wits.  The  book  had  a  con- 
siderable effect  in  waking  people  from  their  dogmatic  slumbers. 
Abllard's  view,  that  (apart  from  Scripture)  dialectic  is  the  sole 
road  to  truth,  while  no  empiricist  can  accept  it,  had,  at  the  time, 
a  valuable  effect  as  a  solvent  of  prejudices  and  an  encouragement 
to  the  fearless  use  of  the  intellect.  Nothing  outside  the  Scriptures, 
he  said,  is  infallible;  even  Apostles  and  Fathers  may  err* 


THE   TWELFTH   CENTURY 

His  valuation  of  logic  was,  from  a  modern  point  of  view, 
excessive.  He  considered  it  pre-eminently  the  Christian  science, 
and  made  play  with  its  derivation  from  "Logos."  "In  the  be- 
ginning was  the  Logos/'  says  St.  John's  Gospel,  and  this,  he 
thought,  proves  the  dignity  of  Logic. 

His  chief  importance  is  in  logic  and  theory  of  knowledge.  His 
philosophy  is  a  critical  analysis,  largely  linguistic.  As  for  universals, 
i.e.  what  can  be  predicated  of  many  different  things,  he  holds 
that  we  do  not  predicate  a  thing,  but  a  word.  In  this  sense  he  is  a 
nominalist.  But  as  against  Roscelin  he  points  out  that  a  "flatus 
vocis"  is  a  thing ;  it  is  not  the  word  as  a  physical  occurrence  that 
we  predicate,  but  the  word  as  meaning.  Here  he  appeals  to  Aristotle. 
Things,  he  says,  resemble  each  other,  and  these  resemblances  give 
rise  to  universals.  But  the  point  of  resemblance  between  two 
similar  things  is  not  itself  a  thing;  this  is  the  mistake  of  realism. 
He  says  some  things  that  are  even  more  hostile  to  realism,  for 
example,  that  general  concepts  arc  not  based  in  the  nature  of 
things,  but  are  confused  images  of  many  things.  Nevertheless  he 
does  not  wholly  refuse  a  place  to  Platonic  ideas :  they  exist  in  the 
divine  mind  as  patterns  for  creation;  they  are,  in  fact,  God's 
concepts. 

All  this,  whether  right  or  wrong,  is  certainly  very  able.  The 
most  modern  discussions  of  the  problem  of  universals  have  not 
got  much  further. 

St.  Bernard,  whose  saintliness  did  not  suffice  to  make  hint 
intelligent,1  failed  to  understand  Abelard,  and  brought  unjust 
accusations  against  him.  He  asserted  that  Abelard  treats  the 
Trinity  like  an  Arian,  grace  like  a  Pelagian,  and  the  Person  of 
Christ  like  a  Nestorian;  that  he  proves  himself  a  heathen  in 
sweating  to  prove  Plato  a  Christian;  and  further,  that  he  destroys 
the  merit  of  the  Christian  faith  by  maintaining  that  God  can  be 
completely  understood  by  human  reason.  In  fact,  Abelard  never 
maintained  this  last,  and  always  left  a  large  province  to  faith, 
although,  like  St.  Anselm,  he  thought  that  the  Trinity  could  be 
rationally  demonstrated  without  the  help  of  revelation.  It  is  true 
that,  at  one  time,  he  identified  the  Holy  Ghost  with  the  Platonic 
Soul  of  the  World,  but  he  abandoned  this  view  as  soon  as  its 
heretical  character  was  pointed  out  to  him.  Probably  it  was  more 

1  M'Il>e  greatness  of  St.  Bernard  lay  not  in  the  qualities  of  his  intellect, 
but  of  his  chir*ctcT.tt—Encyclopadia  Britannica. 

459 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

his  combativeness  than  his  doctrines  that  caused  him  to  be 
accused  of  heresy,  for  his  habit  of  criticizing  pundits  made  him 
violently  unpopular  with  all  influential  persons. 

Most  of  the  learned  men  of  the  time  were  less  devoted  to  dia- 
lectic than  AWlard  was.  There  was,  especially  in  the  School  of 
Chartres,  a  humanistic  movement,  which  admired  antiquity,  and 
followed  Plato  and  Boethius.  There  was  a  renewed  interest  in 
mathematics:  Adelard  of  Bath  went  to  Spain  early  in  the  twelfth 
century,  and  in  consequence  translated  Euclid. 

As  opposed  to  the  dry  scholastic  method,  there  was  a  strong 
mystical  movement,  of  which  St.  Bernard  was  the  leader.  His 
father  was  a  knight  who  died  in  the  first  Crusade.  He  himself 
was  a  Cistercian  monk,  and  in  1115  became  abbot  of  the  newly- 
founded  abbey  of  Clairvaux.  He  was  very  influential  in  eccle- 
siastical politics — turning  the  scales  against  antipopes,  combating 
heresy  in  Northern  Italy  and  Southern  France,  bringing  the 
weight  of  orthodoxy  to  bear  on  adventurous  philosophers,  and 
preaching  the  second  Crusade.  In  attacking  philosophers  he  was 
usually  successful ;  but  after  the  collapse  of  his  Crusade  he  failed 
to  secure  the  conviction  of  Gilbert  de  la  Porrec,  who  agreed  with 
Boethius  more  than  seemed  right  to  the  saintly  heresy-hunter. 
Although  a  politician  and  a  bigot,  he  was  a  man  of  genuinely 
religious  temperament,  and  his  Latin  hymns  have  great  beauty.1 
Among  those  influenced  by  him,  mysticism  became  increasingly 
dominant,  till  it  passed  into  something  like  heresy  in  Joachim  of 
Flora  (d.  1202).  The  influence  of  this  man,  however,  belongs  to 
a  later  time.  St.  Bernard  and  his  followers  sought  religious  truth, 
not  in  reasoning,  but  in  subjective  experience  and  contemplation. 
Abdard  and  Bernard  are  perhaps  equally  one-sided. 

Bernard,  as  a  religious  mystic,  deplored  the  absorption  of  the 
papacy  in  worldly  concerns,  and  disliked  the  temporal  power. 
Although  he  preached  the  Crusade,  he  did  not  seem  to  understand 
that  a  war  requires  organization,  and  cannot  be  conducted  by 
'  religious  enthusiasm  alone.  He  complains  that  "the  law  of  Justinian, 
not  the  law  of  the  Lord"  absorbs  men's  attention.  He  is  shocked 
when  the  Pope  defends  his  domain  by  military  force.  The  function 

of  the  Pope  19  spiritual/ and  he  should  not  attempt  actual  govern - 

','t 

1  Medieval  jbatin  hymns,  rhymed  and  accentual,  give  expression, 
aometime^i£}>$mc,  sometunet  gentle  and  pathetic,  to  the  beat  aide  of 
fueling  of  the  times. 

460 


THE   TWELFTH    CENTURY 

ment.  This  point  of  view,  however,  is  combined  with  unbounded 
reverence  for  the  Pope,  whom  he  calls  "prince  of  bishops,  heir 
of  the  apostles,  of  the  primacy  of  Abel,  the  governance  of  Noah, 
the  patriarchate  of  Abraham,  the  order  of  Melchizedek,  the 
dignity  of  Aaron,  the  authority  of  Moses,  in  judgeship  Samuel,  in 
power  Peter,  in  unction  Christ."  The  net  result  of  St.  Bernard's 
activities  was,  of  course,  a  great  increase  of  the  power  of  the  Pope 
in  secular  affairs. 

John  of  Salisbury,  though  not  an  important  thinker,  is  valuable 
for  our  knowledge  of  his  times,  of  which  he  wrote  a  gossipy 
account.  He  was  secretary  to  three  Archbishops  of  Canterbury, 
one  of  whom  was  Becket;  he  was  a  friend  of  Hadrian  IV;  at  the 
end  of  his  life  he  was  bishop  of  Chartres,  where  he  died  in  1180. 
In  matters  outside  the  faith,  he  was  a  man  of  sceptical  temper;  he 
called  himself  an  Academic  (in  the  sense  in  which  St.  Augustine 
uses  this  term).  His  respect  for  kings  was  limited:  "an  illiterate 
king  is  a  crowned  ass."  He  revered  St.  Bernard,  but  was  well  aware 
that  his  attempt  to  reconcile  Plato  and  Aristotle  must  be  a  failure. 
He  admired  Abelard,  but  laughed  at  his  theory  of  universals,  and 
at  Roscclin's  equally.  He  thought  logic  a  pood  introduction  to 
learning,  but  in  itself  bloodless  and  sterile.  Aristotle,  he  says,  can 
be  improved  on,  even  in  logic;  respect  for  ancient  authors  should 
not  hamper  the  critical  exercise  of  reason.  Plato  U  still  to  him  the 
"prince  of  all  philosophers."  He  knows  personally  most  of  the 
learned  men  of  his  time,  and  takes  a  friendly  part  in  scholastic 
debates.  On  revisiting  one  school  of  philosophy  after  thirty  years, 
he  smiles  to  find  them  still  discussing  the  same  problems.  The 
atmosphere  of  the  society  that  he  frequents  is  very  like  that  of 
Oxford  Common  Rooms  thirty  years  ago.  Towards  the  end  of  his 
life,  the  cathedral  schools  gave  place  to  universities,  and  univer- 
sities, at  least  in  England,  have  had  a  remarkable  continuity  from 
that  day  to  this. 

During  the  twelfth  century,  translators  gradually  increased  the 
number  of  Greek  books  available  to  Western  students.  Then; 
three  main  sources  of  such  translations:  Constantinoplg^^ 
and  Toledo.  Of  these  Toledo  was  the  most  impoj 
translations  coming  from  there  were  often  from 
direct  from  the  Greek.  In  the  second  quarter  of  thej 
Archbishop  Raymond  of  Toledo  instituted  a  collef 
whose  work  was  very  fruitful.  In  1 128,  James  of ' 

461 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

Aristotle's  Analytics,  Topics,  and  Sophistici  Elenchi\  the  Posterior 
Analytics  were  found  difficult  by  Western  philosophers.  Henry 
Aristippus  of  Catania  (d.  1162)  translated  the  Phaedo  and  Meno, 
but  his  translations  had  no  immediate  effect.  Partial  as  was  the 
knowledge  of  Greek  philosophy  in  the  twelfth  century,  learned 
men  were  aware  that  much  of  it  remained  to  be  discovered  by  the 
West,  and  a  certain  eagerness  arose  to  acquire  a  fuller  knowledge 
of  antiquity.  The  yoke  of  orthodoxy  was  not  so  severe  as  is  some- 
times supposed;  a  man  could  always  write  his  book,  and  then,  if 
necessary,  withdraw  its  heretical  portions  after  full  public  dis- 
cussion. Most  of  the  philosophers  of  the  time  were  French,  and 
France  was  important  to  the  Church  as  a  make-weight  against  the 
Empire.  Whatever  theological  heresies  might  occur  among  them, 
learned  clerics  were  almost  all  politically  orthodox ;  this  made  the 
peculiar  wickedness  of  Arnold  of  Brescia,  who  was  an  exception 
to  the  rule.  The  whole  of  early  scholasticism  may  be  viewed, 
politically,  as  an  offshoot  of  the  Church's  struggle  for  power. 


Chapter  XII 
THE   THIRTEENTH    CENTURY 

IN  the  thirteenth  century  the  Middle  Ages  reached  a  culmina- 
tion. The  synthesis  which  had  been  gradually  built  up  since 
the  fall  of  Rome  became  as  complete  as  it  was  capable  of  being. 
The  fourteenth  century  brought  a  dissolution  of  institutions  and 
philosophies;  the  fifteenth  brought  the  beginning  of  those  that 
we  still  regard  as  modern.  The  great  men  of  the  thirteenth  century 
were  very  great:  Innocent  III,  St.  Francis,  Frederick  II,  and 
Thomas  Aquinas  are,  in  their  different  ways,  supreme  representa- 
tives of  their  respective  types.  There  were  also  great  achievements 
not  so  definitely  associated  with  great  names:  the  Gothic  cathedrals 
of  France,  the  romantic  literature  of  Charlemagne,  Arthur, 
and  the  Niebelungcn,  the  beginnings  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment in  Magna  Carta  and  the  House  of  Commons.  The  matter 
that  concerns  us  most  directly  is  the  scholastic  philosophy, 
especially  as  set  forth  by  Aquinas;  but  I  shall  leave  this  for 
the  next  chapter,  and  attempt,  first,  to  give  an  outline  of  the 
events  that  did  most  to  form  the  mental  atmosphere  of  the 
age. 

The  central  figure  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  is  Pope 
Innocent  HI  (i  198-1216),  a  shrewd  politician,  a  man  of  infinite 
vigour,  a  firm  believer  in  the  most  extreme  claims  of  the  papacy, 
but  not  endowed  with  Christian  humility.  At  his  consecration,  he 
preached  from  the  text:  "See,  1  have  this  day  set  thee  over  the 
nations  and  over  the  kingdoms,  to  pluck  up  and  to  break  down, 
to  destroy  and  to  overthrow,  to  build  and  to  plant. "  He  called 
himself  "king  of  kings,  lord  of  lords,  a  priest  for  ever  and  ever 
according  to  the  order  of  Melchizcdek."  In  enforcing  this  view 
of  himself,  he  took  advantage  of  every  favourable  circumstance. 
In  Sicily,  which  had  been  conquered  by  the  Emperor  Henry  VI 
(d.  1197)9  who  had  married  Constance,  heiress  of  the  Norman 
kings,  the  new  king  was  Frederick,  only  three  years  old  at  the 
time  of  Innocent's  accession.  The  kingdom  was  turbulent,  and 
Constance  needed  the  Pope's  help.  She  made  him  guardian  of  the 
infant  Frederick,  and  secured  his  recognition  of  her  son's  rights  in 
Sicily  by  acknowledging  papal  superiority.  Portugal  and  Aragoo 

463 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

made  similar  acknowledgments.  In  England,  King  John,  after 
vehement  resistance,  was  compelled  to  yield  his  kingdom  to 
Innocent  and  receive  it  back  as  a  papal  fief. 

To  some  degree,  the  Venetians  got  the  better  of  him  in  the 
matter  of  the  fourth  Crusade.  The  soldiers  of  the  Cross  were  to 
embark  at  Venice,  but  there  were  difficulties  in  procuring  enough 
ships.  No  one  had  enough  except  the  Venetians,  and  they  main- 
tained (for  purely  commercial  reasons)  that  it  would  be  much 
better  to  conquer  Constantinople  than  Jerusalem — in  any  case, 
it  would  be  a  useful  stepping-stone,  and  the  Eastern  Empire  had 
never  been  very  friendly  to  Crusaders.  It  was  found  necessary  to 
give  way  to  Venice;  Constantinople  was  captured,  and  a  Latin 
Emperor  established.  At  first  Innocent  was  annoyed;  but  he 
reflected  that  it  might  now  be  possible  to  re- unite  the  Eastern 
and  Western  Churches.  (This  hope  proved  vain.)  Except  in  this 
instance,  I  do  not  know  of  anybody  who  ever  in  any  degree  got 
the  better  of  Innocent  III.  He  ordered  the  great  Crusade  against 
the  Albigenses,  which  rooted  out  heresy,  happiness,  prosperity, 
and  culture  from  southern  France.  He  deposed  Raymond,  Count 
of  Toulouse,  for  lukewarmness  about  the  Crusade,  and  secured 
most  of  the  region  of  the  Albigenses  for  its  leader,  Simon  de 
Montfort,  father  of  the  father  of  Parliament.  He  quarrelled  with 
the  Emperor  Otto,  and  called  upon  the  Germans  to  depose  him. 
They  did  so,  and  at  his  suggestion  elected  Frederick  II,  now  just 
of  age,  in  his  stead.  But  for  his  support  of  Frederick  he  exacted 
a  terrific  price  in  promises — which,  however,  Frederick  was  deter- 
mined to  break  as  soon  as  possible. 

Innocent  III  was  the  first  great  Pope  in  whom  there  was  no 
element  of  sanctity.  The  reform  of  the  Church  made  ihe  hierarchy 
feel  secure  as  to  its  moral  prestige,  and  therefore  convinced  that 
it  need  no  longer  trouble  to  be  holy.  The  power  motive,  from  his 
time  on,  more  and  more  exclusively  dominated  the  papacy,  and 
produced  opposition  from  some  religious  men  even  in  his  day. 
He  codified  the  canon  law  so  as  to  increase  the  power  of  the  Curia ; 
Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  called  this  code  "the  blackest  book 
that  hell  ever  gave/1  Although  the  papacy  still  had  resounding 
victories  to  win,  the  manner  of  its  subsequent  decline  might 
already  have  been  foreseen. 

Frederick  II,  who  had  been  the  ward  of  Innocent  III,  went  to 
Germany  in  1212,  and  by  the  Pope's  help  wag  elected  to  replace 

464 


THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY 

Otto.  Innocent  did  not  live  to  see  what  a  formidable  antagonist 
he  had  raised  up  against  the  papacy. 

Frederick — one  of  the  most  remarkable  rulers  known  to  history 
— had  passed  his  childhood  and  youth  in  difficult  and  adverse 
circumstances.  His  father  Henry  VI  (son  of  Barbarossa)  had 
defeated  the  Normans  of  Sicily,  and  married  Constance,  heiress 
to  the  kingdom.  He  established  a  German  garrison,  which  was 
hated  by  the  Sicilians;  but  he  died  in  1197,  when  Frederick  was 
two  years  old.  Constance  thereupon  turned  against  the  Germans, 
and  tried  to  govern  without  them  by  the  help  of  the  Pope.  The 
Germans  were  resentful,  and  Otto  tried  to  conquer  Sicily;  this 
was  the  cause  of  his  quarrel  with  the  Pope.  Palermo,  where 
Frederick  passed  his  childhood,  was  subject  to  other  troubles. 
There  were  Muslim  revolts;  the  Pisans  and  Genoese  fought  each 
other  and  everyone  else  for  possession  of  the  island ;  the  important 
people  in  Sicily  were  constantly  changing  sides,  according  as  one 
party  or  the  other  offered  the  higher  price  for  treachery.  Culturally, 
however,  Sicily  had  great  advantages.  Muslim,  Byzantine,  Italian, 
and  German  civilization  met  and  mingled  there  as  nowhere  else. 
Greek  and  Arabic  were  still  living  languages  in  Sicily.  Frederick 
learnt  to  speak  six  languages  fluently,  and  in  all  six  he  was  witty. 
He  was  at  home  in  Arabian  philosophy,  and  had  friendly  relations 
with  Mohammedans,  which  scandalized  pious  Christians.  He  was 
a  Hohenstaufen,  and  in  Germany  could  count  as  a  German.  But 
in  culture  and  sentiment  he  was  Italian,  with  a  tincture  of  Byzan* 
tine  and  Arab.  His  contemporaries  gazed  upon  him  with  astonish- 
ment gradually  turning  into  horror;  they  called  him  "wonder  of 
the  world  and  marvellous  innovator."  While  still  alive,  he  was 
the  subject  of  myths.  He  was  said  to  be  the  author  of  a  book 
l)e  Tribus  Impostoribus — the  three  impostors  were  Moses,  Christ, 
and  Mohammed.  This  book,  which  never  existed,  was  attributed, 
successively,  to  many  enemies  of  the  Church,  the  last  of  whom 
was  Spinoza. 

The  words  "Guelf"  and  "Ghibclline"  began  to  be  used  at  the 
time  of  Frederick's  contest  with  the  Emperor  Otto.  They  are  cor- 
ruptions of  "Welf"  and  "Waiblingen,"  the  family  names  of  the 
two  contestants.  (Otto's  nephew  was  an  ancestor  of  the  British 
royal  family.) 

Innocent  III  died  in  1216;  Otto,  whom  Frederick  had  defeated, 
died  in  1218.  The  new  Pope,  Honorius  III,  was  at  first  on  good 

465 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

terms  with  Frederick,  but  difficulties  soon  arose.  First,  Frederick 
refused  to  go  on  crusade;  then  he  had  trouble  with  the  Lombard 
cities,  which  in  1226  contracted  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance 
for  twenty-five  years.  They  hated  the  Germans;  one  of  their  poets 
wrote  fiery  verses  against  them.  "Love  not  the  folk  of  Germany; 
far,  far  from  you  be  these  mad  dogs."  This  seems  to  have  expressed 
the  general  feeling  in  Lombardy.  Frederick  wanted  to  remain  in 
Italy  to  deal  with  the  cities,  but  in  1227  Honorius  died,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Gregory  IX,  a  fiery  ascetic  who  loved  St.  Francis 
and  was  beloved  by  him.  (He  canonized  St.  Francis  two  years 
after  his  death.)  Gregory  thought  nothing  else  so  important  as  the 
Crusade,  and  excommunicated  Frederick  for  not  undertaking  it. 
Frederick,  who  had  married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  the  King 
of  Jerusalem,  was  willing  enough  to  go  when  he  could,  and  called 
himself  King  of  Jerusalem.  In  1228,  while  still  excommunicate, 
he  went;  this  made  Gregory  even  more  angry  than  his  previously 
not  going,  for  how  could  the  crusading  host  be  led  by  a  man 
whom  the  Pope  had  banned  ?  Arrived  in  Palestine,  Frederick  made 
friends  with  the  Mohammedans,  explained  to  them  that  the  Chris- 
tians attached  importance  to  Jerusalem  although  it  was  of  little 
strategic  value,  and  succeeded  in  inducing  them  peaceably  to 
restore  the  city  to  him.  This  made  the  Pope  still  more  furious — 
one  should  fight  the  infidel,  not  negotiate  with  him.  However, 
Frederick  was  duly  crowned  in  Jerusalem,  and  no  one  could  deny 
that  he  had  been  successful.  Peace  between  Pope  and  Emperor 
was  restored  in  1230. 

During  the  few  years  of  peace  that  followed,  the  Emperor 
devoted  himself  to  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  of  Sicily.  By  the 
help  of  his  prime  minister,  Pietro  della  Vigna,  he  promulgated  a 
new  legal  code,  derived  from  Roman  law,  and  showing  a  high 
level  of  civilization  in  his  southern  dominion ;  the  code  was  at 
once  translated  into  Greek,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Greek-speaking 
inhabitants.  He  founded  an  important  university  at  Naples.  He 
minted  gold  coins,  called  "augustals,"  the  first  gold  coins  in  the 
West  for  many  centuries.  He  established  freer  trade,  and  abolished 
all  internal  customs.  He  even  summoned  elected  representatives 
of  the  cities  to  his  council,  which,  however,  had  only  consultative 
powers. 

This  period  of  peace  ended  when  Frederick  again  came  into 
conflict  with  the  Lombard  League  in  1237;  the  Pope  threw  in 

466 


THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY 

his  lot  with  them,  and  again  excommunicated  the  Emperor.  From 
this  time  until  Frederick's  death  in  1250,  the  war  was  practically 
continuous,  growing,  on  both  sides,  gradually  more  bitter,  cruel, 
and  treacherous.  There  were  great  fluctuations  of  fortune,  and 
the  issue  was  still  undecided  when  the  Emperor  died.  But  those 
who  attempted  to  be  his  successors  had  not  his  power,  and  were 
gradually  defeated,  leaving  Italy  divided  and  the  Pope  victorious. 

Deaths  of  popes  made  little  difference  in  the  struggle ;  each  new 
Pope  took  up  his  predecessor's  policy  practically  unchanged. 
Gregory  IX  died  in  1241 ;  in  1243  Innocent  IV,  a  bitter  enemy  of 
Frederick,  was  elected.  Louis  IX,  in  spite  of  his  impeccable 
orthodoxy,  tried  to  moderate  the  fury  of  Gregory  and  Innocent  IV, 
but  in  vain.  Innocent,  especially,  rejected  all  overtures  from  the 
Emperor,  and  used  all  manner  of  unscrupulous  expedients  against 
him.  He  pronounced  him  deposed,  declared  a  crusade  against  him, 
and  excommunicated  all  who  supported  him.  The  friars  preached 
against  him,  the  Muslims  rose,  there  were  plots  among  his  promi- 
nent nominal  supporters.  All  this  made  Frederick  increasingly 
cruel;  plotters  were  ferociously  punished,  and  prisoners  were 
deprived  of  the  right  eye  and  the  right  hand. 

At  one  time  during  this  titanic  struggle,  Frederick  thought  of 
founding  a  new  religion,  in  which  he  was  to  be  the  Messiah,  and 
his  minister  Pictro  della  Vigna  was  to  take  the  place  of  St.  Peter.1 
He  did  not  get  so  far  as  to  make  this  project  public,  but  wrote 
about  it  to  della  Vigna.  Suddenly,  however,  he  became  convinced, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  that  Pietro  was  plotting  against  him;  he 
blinded  him,  and  exhibited  him  publicly  in  a  cage;  Pietro,  how- 
ever, avoided  further  suffering  by  suicide. 

Frederick,  in  spite  of  his  abilities,  could  not  have  succeeded, 
because  the  antipapal  forces  that  existed  in  his  time  were  pious 
and  democratic,  whereas  his  aim  was  something  like  a  restoration 
of  the  pagan  Roman  Empire.  In  culture  he  was  enlightened,  but 
politically  he  was  retrograde.  His  court  was  oriental;  he  had  a 
harem  with  eunuchs.  But  it  was  in  this  court  that  Italian  poetry 
began;  he  himself  had  some  merit  as  a  poet.  In  his  conflict  with 
the  papacy,  he  published  controversial  statements  as  to  the  dangers 
of  ecclesiastical  absolutism,  which  wogld  have  been  applauded  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  but  fell  flat  in  his  own  day.  The  heretics, 
who  should  have  been  his  allies,  appeared  to  him  simply  rebels, 
1  Sec  the  life  of  Frederick  II,  by  Hermann  Kantorowicx. 

467 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

and  to  please  the  Pope  he  persecuted  them.  The  free  cities,  but 
for  the  Emperor,  might  have  opposed  the  Pope;  but  so  long  as 
Frederick  demanded  their  submission  they  welcomed  the  Pope 
as  an  ally.  Thus,  although  he  was  free  from  the  superstitions  of 
his  age,  and  in  culture  far  above  other  contemporary  rulers,  his 
position  as  Emperor  compelled  him  to  oppose  all  that  was  politi- 
cally liberal.  He  failed  inevitably,  but  of  all  the  failures  in  history 
he  remains  one  of  the  most  interesting. 

The  heretics,  against  whom  Innocent  III  crusaded,  and  whom 
all  rulers  (including  Frederick)  persecuted,  deserve  study,  both  in 
themselves  and  as  giving  a  glimpse  of  popular  feeling,  of  which, 
otherwise,  hardly  a  hint  appears  in  the  writings  of  the  tune. 

The  most  interesting,  and  also  the  largest,  of  the  heretical  sects 
were  the  Cathari,  who,  in  the  South  of  France,  are  better  known 
as  Albigenses.  Their  doctrines  came  from  Asia  by  way  of  the 
Balkans;  they  were  widely  held  in  Northern  Italy,  and  in  the 
South  of  France  they  were  held  by  the  great  majority,  including 
nobles,  who  liked  the  excuse  to  seize  Church  lands.  The  cause  of 
this  wide  diffusion  of  heresy  was  partly  disappointment  at  the 
failure  of  the  Crusades,  but  mainly  moral  disgust  at  the  wealth 
and  wickedness  of  the  clergy.  There  was  a  widespread  feclinp, 
analogous  to  later  puritanism,  in  favour  of  personal  holiness;  this 
was  associated  with  a  cult  of  poverty.  The  Church  was  rich  and 
largely  worldly;  very  many  priests  were  grossly  immoral.  The 
friars  brought  accusations  against  the  older  orders  and  the  parish 
priests,  asserting  abuse  of  the  confessional  for  purposes  of  reduc- 
tion; and  the  enemies  of  the  friars  retoited  the  accusation.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  such  charges  were  largely  justified.  The  more 
the  Church  claimed  supremacy  on  religious  grounds,  the  more 
plain  people  were  shocked  by  the  contrast  between  profession  and 
performance.  The  same  motives  which  ultimately  led  to  the 
Reformation  were  operative  in  the  thirteenth  century.  The  main 
difference  was  that  secular  rulers  were  not  ready  to  throw  in  their 
lot  with  the  heretics;  and  this  was  largely  because  no  existing 
philosophy  could  reconcile  heresy  with  the  claims  of  kings  to 
dominion. 

The  tenets  of  the  Cathari  cannot  be  known  with  certainty,  as 
we  are  entirely  dependent  on  the  testimony  of  their  enemies. 
Moreover  ecclesiastics,  being  well  versed  in  the  history  of  heresy, 
tended  to  apply  some  familiar  label,  and  to  attribute  to  existing 

468 


THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY 

sects  all  the  tenets  of  former  ones,  often  on  the  basis  of  some  not 
very  close  resemblance.  Nevertheless,  there  is  a  good  deal  that  is 
almost  beyond  question.  It  seems  that  the  Cathari  were  dualists 
and  that,  like  the  Gnostics,  they  considered  the  Old  Testament 
Jehovah  a  wicked  demiurge,  the  true  God  being  only  revealed  in 
the  New  Testament.  They  regarded  matter  as  essentially  evil,  and 
believed  that  for  the  virtuous  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  body. 
The  wicked,  however,  will  suffer  transmigration  into  the  bodies 
of  animals.  On  this  ground  they  were  vegetarians,  abstaining  even 
from  eggs,  cheese,  and  milk.  They  ate  fish,  however,  because  they 
believed  that  fishes  are  not  sexually  generated.  All  sex  was  abhor- 
rent to  them;  marriage,  some  said,  is  even  worse  than  adultery, 
because  it  is  continuous  and  complacent.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
saw  no  objection  to  suicide.  They  accepted  the  New  Testament 
more  literally  than  did  the  orthodox;  they  abstained  from  oaths, 
and  turned  the  other  cheek.  The  persecutors  record  a  case  of  a 
man  accused  of  heresy,  who  defended  himself  by  saying  that  he 
ate  meat,  lied,  swore,  and  was  a  good  Catholic. 

The  stricter  precepts  of  the  sect  were  only  to  be  observed  by 
certain  exceptionally  holy  people  called  the  " perfected";  the  others 
might  cat  meat  and  even  marry. 

It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  genealogy  of  these  doctrines.  They 
came  to  Italy  and  France,  by  way  of  the  Crusaders,  from  a  sect 
called  the  Bogomiles  in  Bulgaria;  in  1167,  when  the  Cathari  held 
a  council  near  Toulouse,  Bulgarian  delegates  attended.  The  Bogo- 
miles,  in  turn,  were  the  result  of  a  fusion  of  Manichaeans  and 
Paulicians.  The  Paulicians  were  an  Armenian  sect  who  rejected 
infant  baptism,  purgatory,  the  invocation  of  saints,  and  the 
Trinity;  they  spread  gradually  into  Thrace,  and  thence  into 
Bulgaria.  The  Paulicians  were  followers  of  Marcion  (ca.  A.D.  150), 
who  considered  himself  to  be  following  St.  Paul  in  rejecting  the 
Jewish  elements  in  Christianity,  and  who  had  some  affinity  with 
the  Gnostics  without  being  one  of  them. 

The  only  other  popular  heresy  that  I  shall  consider  is  that  of  the 
Waldenses.  These  were  the  followers  of  Peter  Waldo,  an  enthusiast 
who,  in  1170,  started  a  "crusade"  for  observance  o  the  law  of 
Christ.  He  gave  all  his  goods  to  the  poor,  and  founded  a  society 
called  the  "Poor  Men  of  Lyons,"  who  practised  poverty  and  a 
strictly  virtuous  life.  At  first  they  had  papal  approval,  but  they 
inveighed  somewhat  too  forcibly  against  the  immorality  of  the 

469 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

clergy,  and  were  condemned  by  the  Council  of  Verona  in  1184. 
Thereupon  they  decided  that  every  good  man  is  competent  to 
preach  and  expound  the  Scriptures;  they  appointed  their  own 
ministers,  and  dispensed  with  the  services  of  die  Catholic  priest- 
hood. They  spread  to  Lombardy,  and  to  Bohemia,  where  they 
paved  the  way  for  the  Hussites.  In  the  Albigensian  persecution, 
which  affected  them  also,  many  fled  to  Piedmont;  it  was  their 
persecution  in  Piedmont  in  Milton's  time  that  occasioned  his 
sonnet  "Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints.'1  They  survive 
to  this  day  in  remote  Alpine  valleys  and  in  the  United  States. 

All  this  heresy  alarmed  the  Church,  and  vigorous  measures  were 
taken  to  suppress  it.  Innocent  III  considered  that  heretics  deserved 
death,  being  guilty  of  treason  to  Christ.  He  called  upon  the  king 
of  France  to  embark  upon  a  crusade  against  the  Albigenscs,  which 
was  done  in  1209.  It  was  conducted  with  incredible  ferocity; 
after  the  taking  of  Carcassonne,  especially,  there  was  an  appalling 
massacre.  The  ferreting  out  of  heresy  had  been  the  business  of 
the  bishops,  but  it  became  too  onerous  to  be  performed  by  men 
who  had  other  duties,  and  in  1233  Gregory  IX  founded  the 
Inquisition,  to  take  over  this  part  of  the  work  of  the  episcopate. 
After  1254,  those  accused  by  the  Inquisition  were  not  allowed 
counsel.  If  condemned,  their  property  was  confiscated — in  France, 
to  the  crown.  When  an  accused  person  was  found  guilty,  he  was 
handed  over  to  the  secular  arm  with  a  prayer  that  his  life  might 
be  spared;  but  if  the  secular  authorities  failed  to  burn  him,  they 
were  liable  to  be  themselves  brought  before  the  Inquisition.  It 
dealt  not  only  with  heresy  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  with  sorcery 
and  witchcraft.  In  Spain,  it  was  chiefly  directed  against  crypto- 
Jews.  Its  work  was  performed  mainly  by  Dominicans  and  Fran- 
ciscans. It  never  penetrated  to  Scandinavia  or  England,  but  the 
English  were  quite  ready  to  make  use  of  it  against  Joan  of  Arc. 
On  the  whole,  it  was  very  successful;  at  the  outset,  it  completely 
stamped  out  the  Albigensian  heresy. 

The  Church,  in  the  early  thirteenth  century,  was  in  danger  of  a 
revolt  scarcely  less  formidable  than  that  of  the  sixteenth.  From 
this  it  was  saved,  very  largely,  by  the  rise  of  the  mendicant  orders; 
St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic  did  much  more  for  orthodoxy  than 
was  done  by  even  the  most  vigorous  popes. 

St.  Francis  of  Assist  (1181  or  1182-1226)  was  one  of  the  moat 
lovable  men  known  to  history*  He  was  of  a  well-to-do  family,  and 

A70 


THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY 

in  his  youth  was  not  averse  from  ordinary  gaieties.  But  one  day, 
as  he  was  riding  by  a  leper,  a  sudden  impulse  of  pity  led  him  to 
dismount  and  kiss  the  man.  Soon  afterwards,  he  decided  to  forgo 
all  worldly  goods,  and  devote  his  life  to  preaching  and  good  works. 
His  father,  a  respectable  business  man,  was  furious,  but  could 
not  deter  him.  He  soon  gathered  a  band  of  followers,  all  vowed  to 
complete  poverty.  At  first,  the  Church  viewed  the  movement  with 
some  suspicion;  it  seemed  too  like  the  "Poor  Men  of  Lyons/9 
The  first  missionaries  whom  St.  Francis  sent  to  distant  places 
were  taken  for  heretics,  because  they  practised  poverty  instead  of 
(like  the  monks)  only  taking  a  vow  which  no  one  regarded  as 
serious.  But  Innocent  III  was  shrewd  enough  to  see  the  value  of 
the  movement,  if  it  could  be  kept  within  the  bounds  of  orthodoxy, 
and  in  1209  or  1210  he  gave  recognition  to  the  new  order. 
Gregory  IX,  who  was  a  personal  friend  of  St.  Francis,  continued 
to  favour  him,  while  imposing  certain  rules  which  were  irksome 
to  the  Saint's  enthusiastic  and  anarchic  impulses.  Francis  wished 
to  interpret  the  vow  of  poverty  in  the  strictest  possible  way;  he 
objected  to  houses  or  churches  for  his  followers.  They  were  to 
beg  their  bread,  and  to  have  no  lodging  but  what  chance  hospitality 
provided.  In  1219,  he  travelled  to  the  East  and  preached  before 
the  Sultan,  who  received  him  courteously  but  remained  a  Moham- 
medan. On  his  return,  he  found  that  the  Franciscans  had  built 
themselves  a  house;  he  was  deeply  pained,  but  the  Pope  induced 
or  compelled  him  to  give  way.  After  his  death,  Gregory  canonized 
him  but  softened  his  rule  in  the  article  of  poverty. 

In  the  matter  of  saintliness,  Francis  has  had  equals;  what  makes 
htm  unique  among  saints  is  his  spontaneous  happiness,  his  uni- 
versal love,  and  his  gifts  as  a  poet.  His  goodness  appears  always 
devoid  of  effort,  as  though  it  had  no  dross  to  overcome.  He  loved 
all  living  things,  not  only  as  a  Christian  or  a  benevolent  man,  but 
as  a  poet.  His  hymn  to  the  sun,  written  shortly  before  his  death, 
might  almost  have  been  written  by  Ikhnaton  the  sun-worshipper, 
but  not  quite— Christianity  informs  it,  though  not  very  obviously. 
He  felt  a  duty  to  lepers,  for  their  sake,  not  for  his;  unlike  most 
Christian  saints,  he  was  more  interested  in  the  happiness  of  others 
titan  in  his  own  salvation.  He  never 'showed  any  feeling  of  supe- 
riority, even  lo  the  humblest  or  most  wicked.  Thomas  of  Celano 
said  of  him  that  he  was  more  than  a  saint  among  saints;  among 
sinners  he  was  one  of  themselves. 

47' 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

If  Satan  existed,  the  future  of  the  order  founded  by  St.  Francis 
would  afford  him  the  most  exquisite  gratification.  The  saint's 
immediate  successor  as  head  of  the  order,  Brother  Elias,  wallowed 
in  luxury,  and  allowed  a  complete  abandonment  of  poverty.  The 
chief  work  of  the  Franciscans  in  the  years  immediately  following 
the  death  of  their  founder  was  as  recruiting  sergeants  in  the  bitter 
and  bloody  wars  of  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines.  The  Inquisition, 
founded  seven  years  after  his  death,  was,  in  several  countries, 
chiefly  conducted  by  Franciscans.  A  small  minority,  called  the 
Spirituals,  remained  true  to  his  teaching;  many  of  these  were  burnt 
by  the  Inquisition  for  heresy.  These  men  held  that  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  owned  no  property,  not  even  the  clothes  they  wore;  this 
opinion  was  condemned  as  heretical  in  1323  by  John  XXII.  The 
net  result  of  St.  Francis's  life  was  to  create  yet  one  more  wealthy 
and  corrupt  order,  to  strengthen  the  hierarchy,  and  to  facilitate 
the  persecution  of  all  who  excelled  in  moral  earnestness  or  freedom 
of  thought.  In  view  of  his  own  aims  and  character,  it  is  impossible 
to  imagine  any  more  bitterly  ironical  outcome. 

St.  Dominic  (1170-1221)  is  much  less  interesting  than  St. 
Francis.  He  was  a  Castilian,  and  had,  like  Loyola,  a  fanatical 
devotion  to  orthodoxy.  His  main  purpose  was  to  combat  heresy, 
and  he  adopted  poverty  as  a  means  to  this  end.  He  was  present 
throughout  the  Albigensian  war,  though  he  is  said  to  have  deplored 
some  of  its  more  extreme  atrocities.  The  Dominican  Order  was 
founded  in  1215  by  Innocent  III,  and  won  quick  success.  The 
only  human  trait  known  to  me  in  St.  Dominic  is  his  confession 
to  Jordan  of  Saxony  that  he  liked  talking  to  young  women  better 
than  to  old  ones.  In  1242,  the  Order  solemnly  decreed  that  this 
passage  should  be  deleted  from  Jordan's  life  of  the  founder. 

The  Dominicans  were  even  more  active  than  the  Franciscans 
in  the  work  of  the  Inquisition.  They  performed,  however,  a  valu- 
able service  to  mankind  by  their  devotion  to  learning.  This  was 
no  part  of  St.  Dominic's  intention ;  he  had  decreed  that  his  friars 
were  "not  to  learn  secular  sciences  or  liberal  arts  except  by  dis- 
pensation/' This  rule  was  abrogated  in  1259,  after  which  date 
everything  was  done  to  make  a  studious  life  easy  for  Dominicans. 
Manual  labour  was  no  part  of  their  duties,  and  the  hours  of 
devotion  were  shortened  to  give  them  more  time  for  study.  They 
devoted  themselves  to  reconciling  Aristotle  and  Christ;  Albertus 
Magnus  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  both  Dominican*,  accomplished 


THE   THIRTEENTH    CENTURY 

this  task  as  well  as  it  is  capable  of  being  accomplished.  The 
authority  of  Thomas  Aquinas  was  so  overwhelming  that  subse- 
quent Dominicans  did  not  achieve  much  in  philosophy;  though 
Francis,  even  more  »  than  Dominic,  had  disliked  learning,  the 
greatest  names  in  the  immediately  following  period  are  Franciscan: 
Roger  Bacon,  Duns  Scot  us,  and  William  of  Occam  were  all 
Franciscans.  What  the  friars  accomplished  for  philosophy  will  be 
the  subject  of  the  following  chapters. 


473 


Chapter  XIII 
ST.   THOMAS  AQUINAS 

^-T^HOMAS  AQUINAS  (b.  1225  or  1226,  d.  1274)  is  regarded 
I    as  the  greatest  of  scholastic  philosophers.  In  all  Catholic 

JL  educational  institutions  that  teach  philosophy  his  system 
has  to  be  taught  as  the  only  right  one;  this  has  been  the  rule 
since  a  rescript  of  1879  by  Leo  XIII.  St.  Thomas,  therefore,  is 
not  only  of  historical  interest,  but  is  a  living  influence,  like  Plato, 
Aristotle,  Kant,  and  Hegel— more,  in  fact,  than  the  latter  two. 
In  most  respects,  he  follows  Aristotle  so  closely  that  the  Stagyrite 
has,  among  Catholics,  almost  the  authority  of  one  of  the  Fathers ; 
to  criticize  him  in  matters  of  pure  philosophy  has  come  to  be 
thought  almost  impious.1  This  was  not  always  the  case.  In  the 
time  of  Aquinas,  the  battle  for  Aristotle,  as  against  Plato,  still  had 
to  be  fought  The  influence  of  Aquinas  secured  the  victory  until 
the  Renaissance;  then  Plato,  who  became  better  known  than  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  again  acquired  supremacy  in  the  opinion  of 
most  philosophers.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  possible  to 
be  orthodox  and  a  Cartesian;  Malebranche,  though  a  priest,  was 
never  censured.  But  in  our  day  such  freedoms  are  a  thing  of  the 
past;  Catholic  ecclesiastics  must  accept  St.  Thomas  if  they 
concern  themselves  with  philosophy. 

St.  Thomas  was  the  son  of  the  Count  of  Aquino,  whose  castle, 
in  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  was  close  to  Monte  Cassino,  where  the 
education  of  the  "angelic  doctor"  began.  He  was  for  six  years  at 
Frederick  H's  university  of  Naples;  then  he  became  a  Dominican 
and  went  to  Cologne,  to  study  under  Albertus  Magnus,  who  was 
the  leading  Aristotelian  among  the  philosophers  of  the  time. 
After  a  period  in  Cologne  and  Paris,  he  returned  to  Italy  in  1259, 
where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  except  for  the  three  years  1269- 
72.  During  these  three  years  he  was  in  Paris,  where  the  Dominicans, 
on  account  of  their  Aristotelianism,  were  in  trouble  with  the 
university  authorities,  and  were  suspected  of  heretical  sympathy 
with  the  Averroists,  who  toad  a  powerful  party  in  the  university. 
The  Averroists  held,  on  the  basis  of  their  interpretation  of  Ari*- 

1  When  I  did  to  in  a  broadcast,  very  many  protest*  from  Catholics 
resulted. 


SAINT   THOMAS   AQUINAS 

totle,  that  the  soul,  in  so  far  as  it  is  individual,  is  not  immortal; 
immortality  belongs  only  to  the  intellect,  which  is  impersonal, 
and  identical  in  different  intellectual  beings.  When  it  was  forcibly 
brought  to  their  notice  that  this  doctrine  is  contrary  to  the 
Catholic  faith,  they  took  reftige  in  the  subterfuge  of  "double 
truth":  one  sort,  based  on  reason,  in  philosophy,  and  another, 
based  on  revelation,  in  theology.  All  this  brought  Aristotle  into 
bad  odour,  and  St.  Thomas,  in  Paris,  was  concerned  to  undo  the 
harm  done  by  too  close  adherence  to  Arabian  doctrines.  In  this 
he  was  singularly  successful. 

Aquinas,  unlike  his  predecessors,  had  a  really  competent  know- 
ledge of  Aristotle.  His  friend  William  of  Moerbeke  provided  him 
with  translations  from  the  Greek,  and  he  himself  wrote  com- 
mentaries. Until  his  time,  men's  notions  of  Aristotle  had  been 
obscured  by  Neoplatonic  accretions.  He,  however,  followed  the 
genuine  Aristotle,  and  disliked  Platonism,  even  as  it  appears  in 
St.  Augustine.  He  succeeded  in  persuading  the  Church  that  Aris- 
totle's system  was  to  be  preferred  to  Plato's  as  the  basis  of 
Christian  philosophy,  and  that  Mohammedans  and  Christian 
Averroists  had  misinterpreted  Aristotle.  For  my  part,  I  should 
say  that  the  De  Anima  leads  much  more  naturally  to  the  view  of 
Averroes  than  to  that  of  Aquinas;  however,  the  Church,  since 
St.  Thomas,  has  thought  otherwise.  I  should  say,  further,  that 
Aristotle's  views  on  most  questions  of  logic  and  philosophy  were 
not  final,  and  have  since  been  proved  to  be  largely  erroneous; 
this  opinion,  also,  is  not  allowed  to  be  professed  by  any  Catholic 
philosopher  or  teacher  of  philosophy. 

St.  Thomas's  most  important  work,  the  Summa  contra  Gentiles, 
was  written  during  the  years  1259-64.  It  is  concerned  to  establish 
the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion  by  arguments  addressed  to  a 
reader  supposed  to  be  not  already  a  Christian;  one  gathers  that 
the  imaginary  reader  is  usually  thought  of  as  a  man  versed  in  the 
philosophy  of  the  Arabs,  He  wrote  another  book,  Summa  Theo- 
bgiae,  of  almost  equal  importance,  but  of  somewhat  less  interest 
to  us  because  less  designed  to  use  arguments  not  assuming  in 
advance  the  truth  of  Christianity. 

What  follows  is  an  abstract  of  the  Summa  contra  Gentile*. 

Let  us  first  consider  what  is  meant  by  "wisdom."  A  man  may 
be  wise  in  some  particular  pursuit,  such  as  making  houses;  this 
implies  that  he  knows  the  means  to  some  particular  end.  But  all 

475 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

particular  ends  are  subordinate  to  the  end  of  the  universe,  and 
wisdom  per  se  is  concerned  with  the  end  of  the  universe.  Now  the 
end  of  the  universe  is  the  good  of  the  intellect,  i.e.  truth.  The 
pursuit  of  wisdom  in  this  sense  is  the  most  perfect,  sublime, 
profitable,  and  delightful  of  pursuits.  All  this  is  proved  by  appeal 
to  the  authority  of  the  "The  Philosopher,"  i.e.  Aristotle. 

My  purpose  (he  says)  is  to  declare  the  truth  which  the  Catholic 
Faith  professes.  But  here  I  must  have  recourse  to  natural  reason, 
since  the  gentiles  do  not  accept  the  authority  of  Scripture.  Natural 
reason,  however,  is  deficient  in  the  things  of  God;  it  can  prove 
some  parts  of  the  faith,  but  not  others.  It  can  prove  the  existence 
of  God  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  but  not  the  Trinity,  the 
Incarnation,  or  the  Last  Judgment.  Whatever  is  demonstrable  is, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  in  accordance  with  the  Christian  faith,  and  nothing 
in  revelation  is  contrary  to  reason.  But  it  is  important  to  separate 
the  parts  of  the  faith  which  can  be  proved  by  reason  from  those 
which  cannot.  Accordingly,  of  the  four  books  into  which  the 
Summa  is  divided,  the  first  three  make  no  appeal  to  revelation, 
except  to  show  that  it  is  in  accordance  with  conclusions  reached 
by  reason;  only  in  the  fourth  book  are  matters  treated  which 
cannot  be  known  apart  from  revelation. 

The  first  step  is  to  prove  the  existence  of  God.  Some  think  this 
unnecessary,  since  the  existence  of  God  (they  say)  is  self-evident. 
If  we  knew  God's  essence,  this  would  be  true,  since  (as  is  proved 
later)  in  God,  essence  and  existence  are  one.  But  we  do  not  know 
His  essence,  except  very  imperfectly.  Wise  men  know  more  of  His 
essence  than  do  the  ignorant,  and  angels  know  more  than  either; 
but  no  creature  knows  enough  of  it  to  be  able  to  deduce  God's 
existence  from  His  essence.  On  this  ground,  the  ontological 
argument  is  rejected. 

It  is  important  to  remcmlxrr  that  religious  truths  which  can  be 
proved  can  also  be  known  by  faith.  The  proofs  are  difficult,  and 
can  only  be  understood  by  the  learned ;  but  faith  is  necessary  also 
to  the  ignorant,  to  the  young,  and  to  those  who,  from  practical 
preoccupations,  have  not  the  leisure  to  learn  philosophy.  For  them, 
revelation  suffices. 

Some  say  that  God  is  only  knowable  by  faith.  They  argue  that, 
if  the  principles  of  demonstration  became  known  to  us  through 
experience  derived  from  the  senses,  as  is  said  in  the  Posterior 
Analytic*,  whatever  transcends  sense  cannot  be  proved.  This, 


SAINT    THOMAS    AQUINAS 

however,  is  false;  and  even  if  it  were  true,  God  could  be  known 
from  His  sensible  effects. 

The  existence  of  God  is  proved,  as  in  Aristotle,  by  the  argument 
of  the  unmoved  mover.1  There  are  things  which  are  only  moved, 
and  other  things  which  both  move  and  are  moved.  Whatever  is 
moved  is  moved  by  something,  and,  since  an  endless  regress  is 
impossible,  we  must  arrive  somewhere  at  something  which 
moves  other  things  without  being  moved.  This  unmoved  mover 
is  God.  It  might  be  objected  that  this  argument  involves  the 
eternity  of  movement,  which  Catholics  reject.  This  would  be  an 
error:  it  is  valid  on  the  hypothesis  of  the  eternity  of  movement, 
but  is  only  strengthened  by  the  opposite  hypothesis,  which 
involves  a  beginning,  and  therefore  a  First  Cause. 

In  the  Summa  Theologian,  five  proofs  of  God's  existence  are 
given.  First,  the  argument  of  the  unmoved  mover,  as  above. 
Second,  the  argument  of  the  First  Cause,  which  again  depends 
upon  the  impossibility  of  an  infinite  regress.  Third,  that  there 
must  be  an  ultimate  source  of  all  necessity;  this  is  much  the  same 
as  the  second  argument.  Fourth,  thai  we  find  various  perfections 
in  the  world,  and  that  these  must  have  their  source  in  something 
completely  perfect.  Fifth,  that  we  find  even  lifeless  things  serving 
a  purf*o$e,  which  must  be  that  of  some  being  outside  them,  since 
only  living  things  can  have  an  internal  purpose. 

To  return  to  the  Summa  contra  Gentiles,  having  proved  the 
existence  of  God,  we  can  now  say  many  things  about  Him,  but 
these  are  all,  in  a  sense,  negative;  God's  nature  is  only  known  to 
us  through  what  it  is  not.  God  is  eternal,  since  He  is  unmoved; 
He  is  unchanging,  since  He  contains  no  passive  potentiality. 
David  of  Dinant  (a  materialistic  pantheist  of  the  early  thirteenth 
century)  "raved"  that  God  is  the  same  as  primary  matter;  this 
is  absurd,  since  primary  matter  is  pure  passivity,  and  God  is  pure 
activity.  In  God,  there  is  no  composition,  therefore  He  is  not  a 
body,  because  bodies  have  parts. 

God  is  His  own  essence,  since  otherwise  He  would  not  be 
simple,  but  would  be  compounded  of  essence  and  existence,  (This 
point  is  important.)  In  God,  essence  and  existence  are  identical. 
There  are  no  accidents  in  God.  He  ca'nnot  be  specified  by  any 
substantial  difference;  He  is  not  in  any  genus;  He  cannot  be  defined. 
But  He  lack*  not  the  excellence  of  any  genus.  Things  are  in  some 
1  But  in  Aristotle  the  argument  leads  to  4?  or  55  Gods. 

477 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

ways  like  God,  in  others  not.  It  is  more  fitting  to  say  that  things 
are  like  God  than  that  God  is  like  things. 

God  is  good,  and  is  His  own  goodness;  He  is  the  good  of  every 
good.  He  is  intelligent,  and  His  act  of  intelligence  is  His  essence. 
He  understands  by  His  essence,  and  understands  Himself  per- 
fectly. (John  the  Scot,  it  will  be  remembered,  thought  otherwise.) 

Although  there  is  no  composition  in  the  divine  intellect,  God 
understands  many  things.  This  might  seem  a  difficulty,  but  the 
things  that  He  understands  have  no  distinct  being  in  Him.  Nor 
do  they  exist  per  se,  as  Plato  thought,  because  forms  of  natural 
things  cannot  exist  or  be  understood  apart  from  matter.  Never- 
theless, God  must  understand  forms  before  creating.  The  solution 
of  this  difficulty  is  as  follows:  "The  concept  of  the  divine  intellect, 
according  as  He  understands  Himself,  which  concept  is  His 
Word,  is  the  likeness  not  only  of  God  Himself  understood,  but 
also  of  all  the  things  of  which  the  divine  essence  is  the  likeness. 
Accordingly  many  things  can  be  understood  by  God,  by  one 
intelligible  species  which  is  the  divine  essence,  and  by  one  under- 
stood  intention  which  is  the  divine  Word."1  Ever}'  form,  so  far 
as  it  is  something  positive,  is  a  perfection.  God's  intellect  includes 
in  His  essence  what  is  proper  to  each  thing,  by  understanding 
where  it  is  like  Him  and  where  unlike ;  for  instance  life,  not  know- 
ledge, is  the  essence  of  a  plant,  and  knowledge,  not  intellect,  is 
the  essence  of  an  animal.  Thus  a  plant  is  like  God  in  being  alive, 
but  unlike  in  not  having  knowledge;  an  animal  is  like  God  in 
having  knowledge,  but  unlike  in  not  having  intellect.  It  is  always 
by  a  negation  that  a  creature  differs  from  God. 

God  understands  all  things  at  the  same  instant.  His  knowledge 
is  not  a  habit,  and  is  not  discursive  or  argumentative.  God  is 
truth.  (This  is  to  be  understood  literally.) 

We  come  now  to  a  question  which  had  already  troubled  both 
Plato  and  Aristotle.  Can  God  know  particular  things,  or  does  He 
only  know  universal  and  general  truths?  A  Christian,  since  he 
believes  in  Providence,  must  hold  that  God  knows  particular 
things;  nevertheless,  there  are  weighty  arguments  against  this 
view.  St.  Thomas  enumerates  seven  such  arguments,  and  then 
proceeds  to  refute  them.  The  seven  arguments  are  as  follows: 

i.  Singularity  being  signate  matter,  nothing  immaterial  can 
know  it. 

1  Summa  centra  GentiUt,  Book  I,  chap.  liii. 

478 


SAINT   THOMAS   AQUINAS 

2.  Singulars  do  not  always  exist,  and  cannot  be  known  when 
they  do  not  exist;  therefore  they  cannot  be  known  by  an  un- 
changing being. 

3.  Singulars  are  contingent,  not  necessary;  therefore  there  can 
be  no  certain  knowledge  of  them  except  when  they  exist. 

4.  Some  singulars  are  due  to  volitions,  which  can  only  be 
known  to  the  person  willing. 

5.  Singulars  are  infinite  in  number,  and  the  infinite  as  such  is 
unknown. 

6.  Singulars  are  too  petty  for  God's  attention. 

7.  In  some  singulars  there  is  evil,  but  God  cannot  know  evil. 

Aquinas  replies  that  God  knows  singulars  as  their  cause;  that 
He  knows  things  that  do  not  yet  exist,  just  as  an  artificer  does 
when  he  is  making  something;  that  He  knows  future  contingents, 
because  He  sees  each  thing  in  time  as  if  present,  He  Himself  being 
not  in  time;  that  He  knows  our  minds  and  secret  wills,  and  that 
He  knows  an  infinity  of  things,  although  we  cannot  do  so.  He 
knows  trivial  things,  because  nothing  is  wholly  trivial,  and  every- 
thing has  some  nobility;  otherwise  God  would  know  only  Himself. 
Moreover  the  order  of  the  universe  is  very  noble,  and  this  cannot 
be  known  without  knowing  even  the  trivial  parts.  Finally,  God 
knows  evil  things,  because  knowing  anything  good  involves 
knowing  the  opposite  evil. 

In  God  there  is  Will;  His  Will  is  His  essence,  and  its  principal 
object  is  the  divine  essence.  In  willing  Himself,  God  wills  other 
things  also,  for  God  is  the  end  of  all  things.  He  wills  even  things 
that  are  not  yet.  He  wills  His  own  being  and  goodness,  but  other 
things,  though  He  wills  them,  He  does  not  will  necessarily.  There 
is  free  will  in  God ;  a  reason  can  be  assigned  for  His  volition,  but 
not  a  cause,  lit  cannot  will  things  impossible  in  themselves;  for 
example,  He  cannot  make  a  contradiction  true.  The  Saint's 
example  of  something  beyond  even  divine  power  is  not  an  alto- 
gether happy  one;  he  says  that  God  could  not  make  a  man  be 
an  ass. 

In  God  are  delight  and  joy  and  love;  God  hates  nothing,  and 
possesses  the  contemplative  and  active  virtues.  He  is  happy,  and 
is  His  own  happiness. 

We  come  now  (in  Book  II)  to  the  consideration  of  creatures. 
This  is  useful  for  refuting  errors  against  God.  God  created  the 
world  out  of  nothing,  contrary  to  the  opinions  of  the  ancients. 

479 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

The  subject  of  the  things  that  God  cannot  do  is  resumed.  He 
cannot  be  a  body,  or  change  Himself;  He  cannot  fail;  He  cannot 
be  weary,  or  forget,  or  repent,  or  be  angry  or  sad ;  He  cannot  make 
a  man  have  no  soul,  or  make  the  sum  of  the  angles  of  a  triangle 
be  not  two  right  angles.  He  cannot  undo  the  past,  commit  sins, 
make  another  God,  or  make  Himself  not  exist. 

Book  II  is  mainly  occupied  with  the  soul  in  man.  All  intellectual 
substances  are  immaterial  and  incorruptible;  angels  have  no  bodies, 
but  in  men  the  soul  is  united  to  a  body.  It  is  the  form  of  the  body, 
as  in  Aristotle.  There  are  not  three  souls  in  man,  but  only  one. 
The  whole  soul  is  present  entire  in  every  part  of  the  body.  The 
souls  of  animals,  unlike  those  of  men,  are  not  immortal.  The 
intellect  is  part  of  each  man's  soul;  there  is  not,  as  Avcrroes 
maintained,  only  one  intellect,  in  which  various  men  participate. 
The  soul  is  not  transmitted  with  the  semen,  but  is  created  afresh 
with  each  man.  There  is,  it  is  true,  a  difficulty:  when  a  man  is 
born  out  of  wedlock,  this  seems  to  make  God  an  accomplice  in 
adultery.  This  objection,  however,  is  only  specious.  (There  is  a 
grave  objection,  which  troubled  St.  Augustine,  and  that  is  as  to 
the  transmission  of  original  sin.  It  is  the  soul  that  sins,  and  if  the 
soul  is  not  transmitted,  but  created  afresh,  how  can  it  inherit  the 
sin  of  Adam?  This  is  not  discussed.) 

In  connection  with  the  intellect,  the  problem  of  universal*  is 
discussed.  St.  Thomas's  position  is  that  of  Aristotle.  Uuiversals 
do  not  subsist  outside  the  soul,  but  the  intellect,  in  understanding 
universal,  understands  things  that  are  outside  the  soul. 

The  Third  Book  is  largely  concerned  with  ethical  questions. 
Evil  is  unintentional,  not  an  essence,  and  has  an  accidental  cause 
which  is  good.  All  things  tend  to  be  like  God  who  is  the  end  of 
all  things.  Human  happiness  does  not  consist  in  carnal  pleasures, 
honour,  glory,  wealth,  worldly  power,  or  goods  of  the  body,  and 
is  not  seated  in  the  senses.  Man's  ultimate  happiness  does  not 
consist  in  acts  of  moral  virtue,  because  these  arc  means;  it  consists 
in  the  contemplation  of  God.  But  the  knowledge  of  God  possessed 
by  the  majority  does  not  suffice;  nor  the  knowledge  of  Him 
obtained  by  demonstration ;  nor  even  the  knowledge  obtained  by 
faith.  In  this  life,  we  cannot  see  God  in  His  essence,  or  have 
ultimate  happiness;  but  hereafter  we  shall  see  Him  face  to  face. 
(Not  literally,  we  are  warned,  because  God  has  no  face.)  This 
will  happen,  not  by  our  natural  power,  but  by  the  divine  light; 

480 


SAINT    THOMAS    AQUINAS 

and  even  then,  we  shall  not  see  all  of  Him.  By  this  vision  we 
become  partakers  of  eternal  life,  i.e.  of  life  outside  time. 

Divine  Providence  does  not  exclude  evil,  contingency,  free  will, 
chance  or  luck.  Evil  comes  through  second  causes,  as  in  the  case 
of  a  good  artist  with  bad  tools. 

Angels  are  not  all  equals;  there  is  an  order  amdng  them.  Each 
angel  is  the  sole  specimen  of  his  species,  for,  since  angels  have 
no  bodies,  they  can  only  be  distinct  through  specific  differences, 
not  through  position  in  space. 

Astrology  is  to  be  rejected,  for  the  usual  reasons.  In  answer  to 
the  question  "Is  there  such  a  thing  as  fate?"  Aquinas  replies  that 
we  might  give  the  name  "fate"  to  the  order  impressed  by  Provi- 
dence, but  it  is  wiser  not  to  do  so,  as  "fate"  is  a  pagan  word. 
This  leads  to  an  argument  that  prayer  is  useful  although  Provi- 
dence is  unchangeable.  (1  have  failed  to  follow  this  argument.) 
(Jod  sometimes  works  miracles,  but  no  one  else  can.  Magic, 
however,  is  possible  with  the  help  of  demons;  this  is  not  properly 
miraculous,  and  is  not  by  the  help  of  the  stars. 

Divine  lore  directs  us  to  love  God;  also,  in  a  lesser  degree,  our 
neighbour.  It  forbids  fornication,  because  the  father  should  stay 
with  the  mother  while  the  children  are  being  reared.  It  forbids 
birth  control,  as  being  against  nature;  it  does  not,  however,  on 
this  account  forbid  life-long  celibacy.  Matrimony  should  be  indis- 
soluble, because  the  father  is  needed  in  the  education  of  the 
children,  both  as  more  rational  than  the  mother,  and  as  having 
more  physical  strength  when  punishment  is  required.  Not  all 
carnal  inteicourse  is  sinful,  since  it  is  natural;  but  to  think  the 
married  state  as  good  as  continence  is  to  fall  into  the  heresy  of 
Jovinian.  There  must  be  strict  monogamy;  polygyny  is  unfair  to 
women,  and  polyandry*  makes  paternity  uncertain.  Incest  is  to 
be  forbidden  because  it  would  complicate  family  life.  Against 
brother-sister  incest  there  is  a  very  curious  argument:  that  if  the 
love  of  husband  and  wife  were  combined  with  that  of  brother 
and  sister,  mutual  attraction  would  be  so  strong  as  to  cause  unduly 
frequent  intercourse. 

All  these  arguments  on  sexual  ethics,  it  is  to  be  observed,  appeal 
to  purely  rational  considerations,  not  fc>  divine  commands  and 
prohibitions.  Here,  as  throughout  the  first  three  books,  Aquinas 
is  glad,  at  the  end  of  a  piece  of  reasoning,  to  quote  texts  showing 
that  reason  has  led  him  to  a  conclusion  in  harmony  with  the 

'/lifer*   ,1  Wfturtt  /•«./  .j,»/»At  ^Sl  Q 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

Scriptures,  but  he  does  not  appeal  to  authority  until  his  result 
has  been  reached. 

There  is  a  most  lively  and  interesting  discussion  of  voluntary 
poverty,  which,  as  one  might  expect,  arrives  ultimately  at  a  con- 
clusion in  harmony  with  the  principles  of  the  mendicant  Orders, 
but  states  the  objections  with  a  force  and  realism  which  shows 
them  to  be  such  as  he  had  actually  heard  urged  by  the  secular 
clergy. 

He  then  passes  on  to  sin,  predestination,  and  election,  on  which 
his  view  is  broadly  that  of  Augustine.  By  mortal  sin  a  man  fort  cits 
his  last  end  to  all  eternity,  and  therefore  eternal  punishment  is  his 
due.  No  man  can  be  freed  from  sin  except  by  grace,  and  yet  the 
sinner  is  to  be  blamed  if  he  is  not  converted.  Man  needs  grace 
to  persevere  in  good,  but  no  one  can  merit  divine  assistance.  God 
is  not  the  cause  of  sinning,  but  some  He  leaves  in  sin,  while  others 
He  delivers  from  it.  As  regards  predestination,  St.  Thomas  seems 
to  hold,  with  St.  Augustine,  that  no  reason  can  be  given  why 
some  are  elected  and  go  to  heaven,  while  others  are  left  reprobate 
and  go  to  hell.  He  holds  also  that  no  man  can  enter  heaven  unless 
he  has  been  baptized.  This  is  not  one  of  the  truths  that  can  be 
proved  by  the  unaided  reason;  it  is  revealed  in  John  iii.  5.* 

The  fourth  book  is  concerned  with  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation, 
the  supremacy  of  the  Pope,  the  sacraments,  and  the  resurrection 
of  the  body.  In  the  main,  it  is  addressed  to  theologians  rattier  than 
philosophers,  and  I  shall  therefore  deal  with  it  briefly. 

There  are  three  ways  of  knowing  God:  by  reason,  by  revelation, 
and  by  intuition  of  things  previously  known  only  by  revelation. 
Of  the  third  way,  however,  he  says  almost  nothing.  A  writer 
inclined  to  mysticism  would  have  said  more  of  it  than  of  either 
of  the  others,  but  Aquinas 's  temperament  is  ratiocinative  rather 
than  mystical. 

The  Greek  Church  is  blamed  for  denying  the  double  procession 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope.  We  are  warned 
that,  although  Christ  was  conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  we  must 
not  suppose  that  He  was  the  son  of  the  Holy  Ghost  according  to 
the  flesh. 

The  sacraments  are  valid  even  when  dispensed  by  wicked 
ministers.  This  was  an  important  point  in  Church  doctrine.  Very 

1  "Jeaus  answered,  verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thcc,  except  a  man  he 
born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.** 


SAINT    THOMAS    AQUINAS 

many  priests  lived  in  mortal  sin,  and  pious  people  feared  that  such 
priests  could  not  administer  the  sacraments.  This  was  awkward; 
no  one  could  know  if  he  was  really  married,  or  if  he  had  received 
valid  absolution.  It  led  to  heresy  and  schism,  since  the  puritanically 
minded  sought  to  establish  a  separate  priesthood  of  more  im- 
peccable virtue.  The  Church,  in  consequence,  was  obliged  to 
assert  with  great  emphasis  that  sin  in  a  priest  did  not  incapacitate 
him  for  the  performance  of  his  functions. 

One  of  the  last  questions  discussed  is  the  resurrection  of  the 
body.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  Aquinas  states  very  fairly  the  arguments 
that  have  been  brought  against  the  orthodox  position.  One  of  these, 
at  first  sight,  offers  great  difficulties.  What  is  to  happen,  asks  the 
Saint,  to  a  man  who  never,  throughout  his  life,  ate  anything  but 
human  flesh,  and  whose  parents  did  likewise?  It  would  seem 
unfair  to  his  victims  that  they  should  be  deprived  of  their  bodies 
at  the  last  day  as  a  consequence  of  his  greed ;  yet,  if  not,  what  will 
be  left  to  make  up  his  body  ?  I  am  happy  to  say  that  this  difficulty, 
which  might  at  first  sight  seem  insuperable,  is  triumphantly  met. 
The  identity  of  the  body,  St.  Thomas  points  out,  is  not  dependent 
on  the  persistence  of  the  same  material  particles;  during  life,  by 
the  processes  of  eating  and  digesting,  the  matter  composing  the 
body  undergoes  perpetual  change.  The  cannibal  may,  therefore, 
receive  the  same  body  at  the  resurrection,  even  if  it  is  not  com- 
posed of  the  same  matter  as  was  in  his  body  when  he  died.  With 
this  comforting  thought  we  may  end  our  abstract  of  the  Summa 
contra  Geutiles. 

In  its  general  outlines,  the  philosophy  of  Aquinas  agrees  with 
that  of  Aristotle,  and  will  be  accepted  or  rejected  by  a  reader  in 
the  measure  in  which  he  accepts  or  rejects  the  philosophy  of  the 
Statryritc.  The  originality  of  Aquinas  is  shown  in  his  adaptation 
of  Aristotle  to  Christian  dogma,  with  a  minimum  of  alteration. 
In  his  day  he  was  considered  a  bold  innovator;  even  after  his 
death  many  of  his  doctrines  were  condemned  by  the  universities 
of  Paris  and  Oxford.  He  was  even  more  remarkable  for  syste- 
matizing than  for  originality.  Even  if  every  one  of  his  doctrines 
were  mistaken,  the  Summa  would  remain  an  imposing  intellectual 
edifice.  When  he  wishes  to  refute  some  doctrine,  he  states  it  first, 
often  with  great  force,  and  almost  always  with  an  attempt  at 
fairness.  The  sharpness  and  clarity  with  which  he  distinguishes 
arguments  derived  from  reason  and  arguments  derived  from 

483 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

revelation  are  admirable.  He  knows  Aristotle  well,  and  under- 
stands him  thoroughly,  which  cannot  be  said  of  any  earlier 
Catholic  philosopher. 

These  merits,  however,  seem  scarcely  sufficient  to  justify  his 
immense  reputation.  The  appeal  to  reason  is,  in  a  sense,  insincere, 
since  the  conclusion  to  be  reached  is  fixed  in  advance.  Take,  for 
example,  the  indissolubility  of  marriage.  This  is  advocated  on  the 
ground  that  the  father  is  useful  in  the  education  of  the  children, 
(a)  because  he  is  more  rational  than  the  mother,  (b)  because, 
being  stronger,  he  is  better  able  to  inflict  physical  punishment. 
A  modern  educator  might  retort  (a)  that  there  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  men  in  general  more  rational  than  women,  (b)  that  the 
sort  of  punishment  that  requires  great  physical  strength  is  not 
desirable  in  education.  He  might  go  on  to  point  out  that  fathers, 
in  the  modern  world,  have  scarcely  any  part  in  education.  But 
no  follower  of  St.  Thomas  would,  on  that  account,  cease  to 
believe  in  lifelong  monogamy,  because  the  real  grounds  of  belief 
are  not  those  which  are  alleged. 

Or  take  again  the  arguments  professing  to  prove  the  existence 
of  God.  All  of  these, except  the  one  from  teleology  in  lifeless  things, 
depend  upon  the  supposed  impossibility  of  a  series  having  no 
first  term.  Every  mathematician  knows  that  there  is  no  such  im- 
possibility; the  series  of  negative  integers  ending  with  minus  one 
is  an  instance  to  the  contrary.  But  here  again  no  Catholic  is  likely 
to  abandon  belief  in  God  even  if  he  becomes  convinced  that  St. 
Thomas's  arguments  are  bad ;  he  will  invent  other  arguments,  or 
take  refuge  in  revelation. 

The  contentions  that  God's  essence  and  existence  are  one  and 
the  same,  that  God  is  His  own  goodness,  His  own  power,  and  so 
on,  suggest  a  confusion,  found  in  Plato,  but  supposed  to  have 
been  avoided  by  Aristotle,  between  the  manner  of  being  of  parti- 
culars and  the  manner  of  being  of  universal.  God's  essence  is, 
one  must  suppose,  of  the  nature  of  universals,  while  His  existence 
is  not.  It  is  difficult  to  state  this  difficulty  satisfactorily,  since  it 
occurs  within  a  logic  that  can  no  longer  be  accepted.  But  it  points 
clearly  to  some  kind  of  syntactical  confusion,  without  which  much 
of  the  argumentation  abodt  God  would  lose  its  plausibility. 

There  is  little  of  the  true  philosophic  spirit  in  Aquinas,  tie  does 
not,  like  the  Platonic  Socrates,  set  out  to  follow  wherever  the 
argument  may  lead.  lie  is  not  engaged  in  an  inquiry,  the  result 

484 


SAINT    THOMAS    AQUINAS 

of  which  it  is  impossible  to  know  in  advance.  Before  he  begins  to 
philosophize,  he  already  knows  the  truth;  it  is  declared  in  the 
Catholic  faith.  If  he  can  find  apparently  rational  arguments  for 
some  parts  of  the  faith,  so  much  the  better;  if  he  cannot,  he  need 
only  fall  back  on  revelation.  The  finding  of  arguments  for  a 
conclusion  given  in  advance  is  not  philosophy,  but  special  pleading. 
I  cannot,  therefore,  feel  that  he  deserves  to  be  put  on  a  level 
with  the  best  philosophers  either  of  Greece  or  of  modern  times. 


485 


Chapter  XIV 
FRANCISCAN   SCHOOLMEN 

FRANCISCANS,  on  the  whole,  were  less  impeccably  orthodox 
than  Dominicans.  Between  the  two  orders  there  was  keen 
rivalry,  and  the  Franciscans  were  not  inclined  to  accept  the 
authority  of  St.  Thomas.  The  three  most  important  of  Franciscan 
philosophers  were  Roger  Bacon,  Duns  Scotus,  and  William  of 
Occam.  St.  Bonaventura  and  Matthew  of  Aquasparta  also  call 
for  notice. 

Roger  Bacon  (ca.  1214-01.  1294)  was  not  greatly  admired  in  his 
own  day,  but  in  modern  times  has  been  praised  far  beyond  his 
deserts.  He  was  not  so  much  a  philosopher,  in  the  narrow  sense, 
as  a  man  of  universal  learning  with  a  passion  for  mathematics  and 
science.  Science,  in  his  day,  was  mixed  up  with  alchemy,  and 
thought  to  be  mixed  up  with  black  magic;  Bacon  was  constantly 
getting  into  trouble  through  being  suspected  of  heresy  and  magic. 
In  1257,  St.  Bonaventura,  the  General  of  the  Franciscan  order, 
placed  him  under  surveillance  in  Paris,  and  forbade  him  to  publish. 
Nevertheless,  while  this  prohibition  was  still  in  force,  the  papa! 
legate  in  England,  Guy  de  Foulques,  commanded  him,  contrary 
orders  notwithstanding,  to  write  out  his  philosophy  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Pope.  He  therefore  produced  in  a  very  short  time  three 
books,  Opus  Majus,  Opus  Minus,  and  Opus  Tertium.  These  seem 
to  have  produced  a  good  impression,  and  in  1268  he  was  allowed 
to  return  to  Oxford,  from  which  he  had  been  removed  to  a  sort 
of  imprisonment  in  Paris.  However,  nothing  could  teach  him 
caution.  He  made  a  practice  of  contemptuous  criticism  of  all  the 
most  learned  of  his  contemporaries;  in  particular,  he  maintained 
that  the  translators  from  Greek  and  Arabic  were  grossly  incom- 
petent. In  1271,  he  wrote  a  book  called  Compendium  Studii 
Pkihsophiae,  in  which  he  attacked  clerical  ignorance.  This  did 
nothing  to  add  to  his  popularity  among  his  colleagues,  and  in 
1278  his  books  were  condemned  by  the  General  of  the  Order, 
and  he  was  put  in  prison  for  fourteen  years.  In  1292  he  was 
liberated,  but  died  not  long  afterwards. 

He  was  encyclopaedic  in  his  learning,  but  not  systematic.  Unlike 
most  philosophers  of  the  time,  he  valued  experiment  highly,  and 

48* 


FRANCISCAN    SCHOOLMEN 

illustrated  its  importance  by  the  theory  of  the  rainbow.  He  wrote 
well  on  geography ;  Columbus  read  this  part  of  his  work,  and  was 
influenced  by  it.  He  was  a  good  mathematician;  he  quotes  the 
sixth  and  ninth  books  of  Euclid.  He  treated  of  perspective,  follow- 
ing Arabic  sources.  Logic  he  thought  a  useless  study;  alchemy, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  valued  enough  to  write  on  it. 

To  give  an  idea  of  his  scope  and  method,  I  will  summarize 
some  parts  of  the  Opus  Majus. 

There  are,  he  says,  four  causes  of  ignorance:  First,  the  example 
of  frail  and  unsuited  authority.  (The  work  being  written  for  the 
Pope,  he  is  careful  to  say  that  this  does  not  include  the  Church.) 
Second,  the  influence  of  custom.  Third,  the  opinion  of  the  un- 
learned crowd.  (This,  one  gathers,  includes  all  his  contemporaries 
except  himself.)  Fourth,  the  concealment  of  one's  ignorance  in  a 
display  of  apparent  wisdom.  From  these  four  plagues,  of  which 
the  fourth  is  the  worst,  spring  all  human  evils. 

In  supporting  an  opinion,  it  is  a  mistake  to  argue  from  the 
wisdom  of  our  ancestors,  or  from  custom,  or  from  common  belief. 
In  support  of  his  view  he  quotes  Seneca,  Cicero,  Avicenna, 
Averroes,  Adelard  of  Bath,  St.  Jerome,  and  St.  Chrysostom. 
These  authorities,  he  seems  to  think,  suffice  to  prove  that  one 
should  not  respect  authority. 

His  respect  for  Aristotle  is  great,  but  not  unbounded.  *4Only 
Aristotle,  together  with  his  followers,  has  been  called  philosopher 
in  the  judgment  of  all  wise  men."  Like  almost  all  his  contem- 
poraries, he  uses  the  designation,  "The  Philosopher,11  when  he 
speaks  of  Aristotle,  but  even  the  Stagyrite,  we  are  told,  did  not 
come  to  the  limit  of  human  wisdom.  After  him,  Avicenna  was 
"the  prince  and  leader  of  philosophy,"  though  he  did  not  fully 
understand  the  rainbow,  because  he  did  not  recognize  its  final 
cause,  which,  according  to  Genesis,  is  the  dissipation  of  aqueous 
vapour.  (Nevertheless,  when  Bacon  comes  to  treat  of  the  rainbow, 
he  quotes  Avicenna  with  great  admiration.)  Every  now  and  then 
he  says  something  that  has  a  flavour  of  orthodoxy,  such  as  that 
the  only  perfect  wisdom  is  in  the  Scriptures,  as  explained  by 
canon  law  and  philosophy.  But  he  sounds  more  sincere  when  he 
says  that  there  is  no  objection  to  getting  knowledge  from  the 
heathen;  in  addition  to  Avicenna  and  Averroes,  he  quotes  Al- 
farabi1  very  often,  and  Albumazar1  and  others  from  time  to  time. 
Follower  of  Kindi:  d.  950.  '  Astronomer,  805-885. 

487 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Albumazar  is  quoted  to  prove  that  mathematics  was  known  before 
the  Flood  and  by  Noah  and  his  sons ;  this,  I  suppose,  is  a  sample 
of  what  we  may  learn  from  infidels.  Bacon  praises  mathematics 
as  the  sole  (unrevealed)  source  of  certitude,  and  as  needed  for 
astronomy  and  astrology. 

Bacon  follows  Averroes  in  holding  that  the  active  intellect  is  a 
substance  separated  from  the  soul  in  essence.  He  quotes  various 
eminent  divines,  among  them  Grosseteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  as 
also  supporting  this  opinion,  which  is  contrary  to  that  of  St. 
Thomas.  Apparently  contrary  passages  in  Aristotle,  he  says,  are 
due  to  mistranslation.  He  does  not  quote  Plato  at  first  hand,  but 
at  second  hand  through  Cicero,  or  at  third  hand  through  the 
Arabs  on  Porphyry.  Not  that  he  has  much  respect  for  Porphyry, 
whose  doctrine  on  universals  he  calls  "childish." 

In  modern  times  Bacon  has  been  praised  because  he  valued 
experiment,  as  a  source  of  knowledge,  more  than  argument. 
Certainly  his  interests  and  his  way  of  dealing  with  subjects  are 
very  different  from  those  of  the  typical  scholastics.  His  encyclo- 
paedic tendencies  are  like  those  of  the  Arabic  writers,  who  evi- 
dently influenced  him  more  profoundly  than  they  did  most  other 
Christian  philosophers.  They,  like  him,  were  interested  in  science, 
and  believed  in  magic  and  astrology,  whereas  Christians  thought 
magic  wicked  and  astrology  a  delusion.  He  is  astonishing  because 
he  differs  so  widely  from  other  medieval  Christian  philosophers, 
but  he  had  little  influence  in  his  own  time,  and  was  not,  to  my 
mind,  so  scientific  as  is  sometimes  thought.  English  writers  used 
to  say  that  he  invented  gunpowder,  but  this,  of  course,  is  untrue. 

St.  Bonaventura  (1221-1274),  who,  as  General  of  the  Franciscan 
order,  forbade  Bacon  to  publish,  was  a  man  of  a  totally  different 
kind.  He  belonged  to  the  tradition  of  St.  Anselm,  whose  onto- 
logical  argument  he  upheld.  He  saw  in  the  new  Aristotelianism  a 
fundamental  opposition  to  Christianity.  He  believed  in  Platonic 
ideas,  which,  however,  only  God  knows  perfectly.  In  his  writings 
Augustine  is  quoted  constantly,  but  one  finds  no  quotations  from 
Arabs,  and  few  from  pagan  antiquity. 

Matthew  of  Aquasparta  (ca.  1235-1302)  was  a  follower  of  Bona- 
ventura, but  less  untouched  by  the  new  philosophy.  He  was  a 
Franciscan,  and  became  a  cardinal ;  he  opposed  St.  Thomas  from 
an  Augustinian  point  of  view.  But  to  him  Aristotle  has  become 
"The  Philosopher*';  he  is  quoted  constantly.  Avicenna  is  fre- 

488 


FRANCISCAN    SCHOOLMEN 

quently  mentioned ;  St.  Anselm  is  quoted  with  respect,  as  is  the 
pseudo-Dionysius ;  but  the  chief  authority  is  St.  Augustine.  We 
must,  he  says,  find  a  middle  way  between  Plato  and  Aristotle. 
Plato's  ideas  are  "utterly  erroneous";  they  establish  wisdom,  but 
not  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  Aristotle  is  also  wrong;  he 
establishes  knowledge,  but  not  wisdom.  Our  knowledge — so  it  is 
concluded — is  caused  by  both  lower  and  higher  things,  by  external 
objects  and  ideal  reasons. 

Duns  Scotus  (ca.  1270-1308)  carried  on  the  Franciscan  con- 
troversy with  Aquinas.  He  was  born  in  Scotland  or  Ulster,  became 
a  Franciscan  at  Oxford,  and  spent  his  later  years  at  Paris.  Against 
St.  Thomas,  he  defended  the  Immaculate  Conception,  and  in  this 
the  University  of  Paris,  and  ultimately  the  whole  Catholic  Church, 
agreed  with  him.  He  is  Augustinian,  but  in  a  less  extreme  form 
than  Bonaventura,  or  even  Matthew  of  Aquasparta;  his  differences 
from  St.  Thomas,  like  theirs,  come  of  a  larger  admixture  of 
Platonism  (via  Augustine)  in  his  philosophy. 

He  discusses,  for  example,  the  question  "Whether  any  sure  and 
pure  truth  can  be  known  naturally  by  the  understanding  of  the 
wayfarer  without  the  special  illumination  of  the  uncreated  light?" 
And  he  argues  that  it  cannot.  He  supports  this  view,  in  his  opening 
argument,  solely  by  quotations  from  St.  Augustine;  the  only  diffi- 
culty he  finds  is  Romans  i.  20:  "The  invisible  things  of  God, 
understood  by  means  of  those  things  that  have  been  made,  are 
clearly  comprehended  from  the  creation  of  the  world." 

Duns  Scut  us  was  a  moderate  realist.  He  believed  in  free  will 
and  had  leanings  towards  Pelagianism.  He  held  that  being  is  no 
different  from  essence.  He  was  mainly  interested  in  evidence,  i.e. 
the  kinds  of  things  that  can  be  known  without  proof.  Of  these  there 
ire  three  kinds:  (i)  principles  known  by  themselves,  (2)  things 
known  by  experience,  (3)  our  own  actions.  But  without  divine 
. Humiliation  we  can  know  nothing. 

Most  Franciscans  followed  Duns  Scotus  rather  than  Aquinas. 

Duns  Scotus  held  that,  since  there  is  no  difference  between 
being  and  essence,  thc"principle  of  individuation" — i.e.  that  which 
makes  one  thing  not  identical  with  another — must  be  form,  not 
matter.  The  "principle  of  individuation"  was  one  of  the  important 
problems  of  the  scholastic  philosophy.  In  various  forms,  it  has 
remained  a  problem  to  the  present  day.  Without  reference  to  any 
particular  author,  we  may  perhaps  state  the  problem  as  follows. 

489 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Among  the  properties  of  individual  things,  some  are  essential, 
others  accidental ;  the  accidental  properties  of  a  thing  are  those  it 
can  lose  without  losing  its  identity — such  as  wearing  a  hat,  if  you 
are  a  man.  The  question  now  arises:  given  two  individual  things 
belonging  to  the  same  species,  do  they  always  differ  in  essence,  or 
is  it  possible  for  the  essence  to  be  exactly  the  same  in  both? 
St.  Thomas  holds  the  latter  view  as  regards  material  substances, 
the  former  as  regards  those  that  are  immaterial.  Duns  Scotus 
holds  that  there  are  always  differences  of  essence  between  two 
different  individual  things.  The  view  of  St.  Thomas  depends 
upon  the  theory  that  pure  matter  consists  of  undifferentiated  parts, 
which  are  distinguished  solely  by  difference  of  position  in  space. 
Thus  a  person,  consisting  of  mind  and  body,  may  differ  physically 
from  another  person  solely  by  the  spatial  position  of  his  body. 
(This  might  happen  with  identical  twins,  theoretically.)  Duns 
Scotus,  on  the  other  hand,  holds  that  if  things  are  distinct,  they 
must  be  distinguished  by  some  qualitative  difference.  This  view, 
clearly,  is  nearer  to  Platonism  than  is  that  of  St.  Thomas. 

Various  stages  have  to  be  traversed  before  we  can  state  this 
problem  in  modern  terms.  The  first  step,  which  was  taken  by 
Leibniz,  was  to  get  rid  of  the  distinction  between  essential  and 
accidental  properties,  which,  like  many  that  the  scholastics  took 
over  from  Aristotle,  turns  out  to  be  unreal  as  soon  as  we  attempt 
to  state  it  carefully.  We  thus  have,  instead  of  "essence,"  "all  the 
propositions  that  are  true  of  the  thing  in  question/1  (In  general, 
however,  spatial  and  temporal  position  would  still  be  excluded.) 
Leibniz  contends  that  it  is  impossible  for  two  things  to  be  exactly 
alike  in  this  sense;  this  is  his  principle  of  the  "identity  of  indis- 
cernibles."  This  principle  was  criticized  by  physicists,  who  main- 
tained that  two  particles  of  matter  might  differ  solely  as  regards 
position  in  space  and  time — a  view  which  has  been  rendered 
more  difficult  by  relativity,  which  reduces  space  and  time  to 
relations. 

A  further  step  is  required  in  modernizing  the  problem,  and  that 
is,  to  get  rid  of  the  conception  of  "substance."  When  this  is  done, 
a  "thing"  has  to  be  a  bundle  of  qualities,  since  there  is  no  longer 
any  kernel  of  pure  "thinghood."  It  would  seem  to  follow  that,  if 
"substance0  is  rejected,  we  must  take  a  view  more  akin  to  that 
of  Scotus  than  to  that  of  Aquinas.  This,  however,  involves  much 
difficulty  in  connection  with  space  and  time.  I  have  treated  the 

490 


FRANCISCAN    SCHOOLMEN 

question  as  I  sec  it,  under  the  heading  "Proper  Names/'  in  my 
Inquiry  into  Meaning  and  Truth. 

William  of  Occam  is,  after  St.  Thomas,  the  most  important 
schoolman.  The  circumstances  of  his  life  are  very  imperfectly 
known.  He  was  born  probably  between  1290  and  1300;  he  died 
on  April  loth,  but  whether  in  1349  or  1350  is  uncertain.  (The 
Black  Death  was  raging  in  1349,  so  that  this  is  perhaps  the  more 
probable  year.)  Most  people  say  he  was  born  at  Ockham  in  Surrey, 
but  Delisle  Burns  prefers  Ockham  in  Yorkshire.  He  was  at  Oxford, 
and  then  at  Paris,  where  he  was  first  the  pupil  and  afterwards 
the  rival  of  Duns  Scotus.  He  was  involved  in  the  quarrel  of  the 
Franciscan  order  with  Pope  John  XXII  on  the  subject  of  poverty. 
The  Pope  had  persecuted  the  Spirituals,  with  the  support  of 
Michael  of  Cesena,  General  of  the  Order.  But  there  had  been  an 
arrangement  by  which  property  left  to  the  friars  was  given  by 
them  to  the  Pope,  who  allowed  them  the  benefit  of  it  without  the 
sin  of  ownership.  This  was  ended  by  John  XXII,  who  said  they 
should  accept  outright  ownership.  At  this  a  majority  of  the  Order, 
headed  by  Michael  of  Cesena,  rebelled.  Occam,  who  had  been 
summoned  to  Avignon  by  the  Pope  to  answer  charges  of  heresy 
as  to  transubstantiation,  sided  with  Michael  of  Cesena,  as  did 
another  important  man,  Marsiglio  of  Padua.  All  three  were  ex- 
communicated in  1328,  but  escaped  from  Avignon,  and  took 
refuge  with  the  Emperor  Louis.  Louis  was  one  of  the  two 
claimants  to  the  Empire;  he  was  the  one  favoured  by  Germany, 
but  the  other  was  favoured  by  the  Pope.  The  Pope  excommuni- 
cated Louis,  who  appealed  against  him  to  a  General  Council.  The 
Pope  himself  was  accused  of  heresy. 

It  is  said  that  Occam,  on  meeting  the  Emperor,  said:  "Do  you 
defend  me  with  the  sword,  and  I  will  defend  you  with  the  pen." 
At  any  rate,  he  and  Marsiglio  of  Padua  settled  in  Munich,  under 
the  protection  of  the  Emperor,  and  there  wrote  political  treatises 
of  considerable  importance.  What  happened  to  Occam  after  the 
Emperor's  death  in  1338  is  uncertain.  Some  say  he  was  reconciled 
to  the  Church,  but  this  seems  to  be  false. 

The  Empire  was  no  longer  what  it  had  been  in  the  Hohenstaufen 
era;  and  the  papacy,  though  its  pretensions  had  grown  continually 
greater,  did  not  command  the  same  reverence  as  formerly.  Clement 
V  had  moved  it  to  Avignon  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  the  Pope  had  become  a  political  subordinate  of  the 

49' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

King  of  France.  The  Empire  had  sunk  even  more;  it  could  no 
longer  claim  even  the  most  shadowy  kind  of  universal  dominion, 
because  of  the  strength  of  France  and  England;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  Pope,  by  subservience  to  the  King  of  France,  also  weakened 
his  claim  to  universality  in  temporal  matters.  Thus  the  conflict 
between  Pope  and  Emperor  was  really  a  conflict  between  France 
and  Germany.  England,  under  Edward  HI,  was  at  war  with 
France,  and  therefore  in  alliance  with  Germany;  this  caused 
England,  also,  to  be  anti-papal.  The  Pope's  enemies  demanded  a 
General  Council — the  only  ecclesiastical  authority  which  could 
be  regarded  as  superior  to  the  Pope. 

The  character  of  the  opposition  to  the  Pope  changed  at  this 
time.  Instead  of  being  merely  in  favour  of  the  Emperor,  it  acquired 
a  democratic  tone,  particularly  in  matters  of  Church  government. 
This  gave  it  a  new  strength,  which  ultimately  led  to  the  Re- 
formation. 

Dante  (1265-1321),  though  as  a  poet  he  was  a  great  innovator, 
was,  as  a  thinker,  somewhat  behind  the  times.  His  book  De 
Monarcfua  is  somewhat  Ghibelline  in  outlook,  and  would  have 
been  more  timely  a  hundred  years  earlier.  He  regards  Emperor 
and  Pope  as  independent,  and  both  divinely  appointed.  In  the 
Divine  Comedy,  his  Satan  has  three  mouths,  in  which  he  eternally 
chews  Judas  Iscariot,  Brutus,  and  Cassius,  who  are  all  three 
equally  traitors,  the  first  against  Christ,  the  other  two  against 
Caesar.  Dante's  thought  is  interesting,  not  only  in  itself,  hut  as 
that  of  a  layman;  but  it  was  not  influential,  and  was  hopelessly 
out  of  date. 

Marsiglio  of  Padua  (1270-1342),  on  the  contrary,  inaugurated 
the  new  form  of  opposition  to  the  Pope,  in  which  the  Emperor 
has  mainly  a  role  of  decorative  dignity.  He  was  a  close  friend  of 
William  of  Occam,  whose  political  opinions  he  influenced.  Poli- 
tically, he  is  more  important  than  Occam.  He  holds  that  the 
legislator  is  the  majority  of  the  people,  and  that  the  majority  has 
the  right  to  punish  princes.  He  applies  popular  sovereignty  also 
to  the  Church,  and  he  includes  the  laity.  There  are  to  be  local 
councils  of  the  people,  including  the  laity,  who  are  to  elect  repre- 
sentatives to  General  Councils.  The  General  Council  alone  should 
have  power  to  excommunicate,  and  to  give  authoritative  inter- 
pretations of  Scripture.  Thus  all  believers  will  have  a  voice  in 
deciding  doctrine.  The  Church  is  to  have  no  secular  authority; 

492 


FRANCISCAN    SCHOOLMEN 

there  is  to  be  no  excommunication  without  civil  concurrence ;  and 
the  Pope  is  to  have  no  special  powers. 

Occam  did  not  go  quite  so  far  as  Marsiglio,  but  he  worked  out 
a  completely  democratic  method  of  electing  the  General  Council. 

The  conciliar  movement  came  to  a  head  in  the  early  fifteenth 
century,  when  it  was  needed  to  heal  the  Great  Schism.  But  having 
accomplished  this  task,  it  subsided.  Its  standpoint,  as  may  be  seen 
already  in  Marsiglio,  was  different  from  that  afterwards  adopted, 
in  theory,  by  the  Protestants.  The  Protestants  claimed  the  right 
of  private  judgment,  and  were  not  willing  to  submit  to  a  General 
Council.  They  held  that  religious  belief  is  not  a  matter  to  be 
decided  by  any  governmental  machinery.  Marsiglio,  on  the  con- 
trary, still  aims  at  preserving  the  unity  of  the  Catholic  faith,  but 
wishes  this  to  be  done  by  democratic  means,  not  by  the  papal 
absolutism.  In  practice,  most  Protestants,  when  they  acquired 
the  government,  merely  substituted  the  King  for  the  Pope,  and 
thus  secured  neither  liberty  of  private  judgment  nor  a  democratic 
method  of  deciding  doctrinal  questions.  But  in  their  opposition 
to  the  Pope  they  found  support  in  the  doctrines  of  the  conciliar 
movement.  Of  all  the  schoolmen,  Occam  was  the  one  whom 
Luther  preferred.  It  must  be  said  that  a  considerable  section  of 
Protestants  held  to  the  doctrine  of  private  judgment  even  where 
the  State  was  Protestant.  This  was  the  chief  point  of  difference 
between  Independents  and  Presbyterians  in  the  English  Civil 
War. 

Occam's  political  works1  are  written  in  the  style  of  philosophic 
disputations,  with  arguments  for  and  against  various  theses,  some- 
times not  reaching  any  conclusion.  We  are  accustomed  to  a  more 
forthright  kind  of  political  propaganda,  but  in  his  day  the  form 
he  chose  was  probably  effective. 

A  few  samples  will  illustrate  his  method  and  outlook. 

There  is  a  long  treatise  called  "Eight  Questions  Concerning  the 
Power  of  the  Pope."  The  first  question  is  whether  one  man  can 
rightfully  be  supreme  both  in  Church  and  State.  The  second:  Is 
secular  authority  derived  immediately  from  God  or  not?  Tliird: 
Has  the  Pope  the  right  to  grant  secular  jurisdiction  to  the  Emperor 
and  other  princes?  Fourth:  Does  election  by  the  electors  give  full 
powers  to  the  German  king?  Fifth  and  sixth:  What  rights  does 

1  See   Guillelmi  de  Ockham   Opera  Politica,   Manchester   University 
1940. 

493 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

the  Church  acquire  through  the  right  of  bishops  to  anoint  kings? 
Seventh:  Is  a  coronation  ceremony  valid  if  performed  by  the 
wrong  archbishop?  Eighth:  Does  election  by  the  electors  give 
the  German  king  the  title  of  Emperor?  All  these  were,  at  the  time, 
burning  questions  of  practical  politics. 

Another  treatise  is  on  the  question  whether  a  prince  can  obtain 
the  goods  of  the  Church  without  the  Pope's  permission.  This  is 
concerned  to  justify  Edward  III  in  taxing  the  clergy  for  his  war 
with  France.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Edward  was  an  ally  of 
the  Emperor. 

Then  comes  a  "Consultation  on  a  matrimonial  cause/1  on  the 
question  whether  the  Emperor  was  justified  in  marrying  his 
cousin. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Occam  did  his  best  to  deserve  the  protection 
of  the  Emperor's  sword. 

It  is  time  now  to  turn  to  Occam's  purely  philosophical  doctrines. 
On  this  subject  there  is  a  very  good  book,  Ttif  Logic  of  \\illiam 
of  Occam,  by  Ernest  E.  Moody.  Much  of  what  I  shall  have  to  say 
is  based  on  this  book,  which  takes  a  somewhat  unusual  view,  but, 
I  think,  a  correct  one.  There  is  a  tendency  in  writers  on  history 
of  philosophy  to  interpret  men  in  the  light  of  their  successors,  but 
this  is  generally  a  mistake.  Occam  has  been  regarded  as  bringing 
about  the  breakdown  of  scholasticism,  as  a  precursor  of  Descartes 
or  Kant  or  whoever  might  be  the  particular  commentator's 
favourite  among  modern  philosophers.  According  to  Moody,  with 
whom  I  agree,  all  this  is  a  mistake.  Occam,  he  holds,  was  mainly 
concerned  to  restore  a  pure  Aristotle,  freed  from  both  Augustinian 
and  Arabic  influences.  This  had  also  been,  to  a  considerable  extent, 
the  aim  of  St.  Thomas;  but  the  Franciscans,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  continued  to  follow  St.  Augustine  much  more  closely  than 
he  did.  The  interpretation  of  Occam  by  modern  historians, 
according  to  Moody,  has  been  vitiated  by  the  desire  to  find  a 
gradual  transition  from  scholastic  to  modern  philosophy ;  this  has 
caused  people  to  read  modern  doctrines  into  him,  when  in  fact 
he  is  only  interpreting  Aristotle. 

Occam  is  best  known  for  a  maxim  which  is  not  to  be  found  in 
his  works,  but  has  acquiied  the  name  of  "Occam's  razor."  This 
maxim  says:  "Endues  are  not  to  be  multiplied  without  necessity." 
Although  he  did  not  say  this,  he  said  something  which  has  much 
the  same  effect,  namely:  "It  is  vain  to  do  with  more  what  can  be 

494 


FRANCISCAN    SCHOOLMEN 

done  with  fewer."  That  is  to  say,  if  everything  in  some  science  can 
be  interpreted  without  assuming  this  or  that  hypothetical  entity, 
there  is  no  ground  for  assuming  it.  I  have  myself  found  this  a 
most  fruitful  principle  in  logical  analysis. 

In  logic,  though  apparently  not  in  metaphysics,  Occam  was  a 
nominalist ;  the  nominalists  of  the  fifteenth  century1  looked  upon 
him  as  the  founder  of  their  school.  He  thought  that  Aristotle  had 
been  misinterpreted  by  the  Scotists,  and  that  this  misinterpreta- 
tion was  due  partly  to  the  influence  of  Augustine,  partly  to 
Avicenna,  but  partly  to  an  earlier  cause,  Porphyry's  treatise  on 
Aristotle's  Categories.  Porphyry  in  this  treatise  raised  three 
questions:  (i)  Are  genera  and  species  substances?  (2)  Are  they 
corporeal  or  incorporeal?  (3)  If  the  latter,  are  they  in  sensible 
things  or  separated  from  them?  He  raised  these  questions  as 
relevant  to  Aristotle's  Categories,  and  thus  led  the  Middle  Ages 
to  interpret  the  Organon  too  metaphysically.  Aquinas  had  at- 
tempted to  undo  this  error,  but  it  had  been  reintroduced  by  Duns 
Scot  us.  The  result  had  been  that  logic  and  theory  of  knowledge 
had  become  dependent  on  metaphysics  and  theology.  Occam  set 
to  work  to  separate  them  again. 

For  Occam,  logic  is  an  instrument  for  the  philosophy  of  nature, 
which  can  be  independent  of  metaphysics.  Logic  is  the  analysis 
of  discursive  science;  science  is  about  things,  but  logic  is  not. 
Things  are  individual,  but  among  terms  there  are  u reversals; 
logic  treats  of  universais,  while  science  uses  them  without  dis- 
cussing them.  Logic  is  concerned  with  terms  or  concepts,  not  as 
psychical  states,  but  as  having  meaning.  "Man  is  a  species"  is 
not  a  proposition  of  logic,  because  it  requires  a  knowledge  of  man. 
Logic  deals  with  things  fabricated  by  the  mind  within  itself,  which 
cannot  exist  except  through  the  existence  of  reason.  A  concept  is 
a  natural  sign,  a  word  is  a  conventional  sign.  We  must  distinguish 
when  we  are  speaking  of  the  word  as  a  thing,  and  when  we  are 
using  it  as  having  meaning,  otherwise  we  may  fall  into  fallacies 
such  as:  "Man  is  a  species,  Socrates  is  a  man,  therefore  Socrates 
is  a  species." 

Terms  which  point  at  things  are  called  "terms  of  first  intention1' ; 

terms  which  point  at  terms  are  called  "terms  of  second  intention." 

The  terms  in  science  arc  of  first  intention;  in  logic,  of  second. 

Metaphysical  terms  are  peculiar  in  that  they  signify  both  things 

1  !•:.«.,  Swinrahead.  Heytesbury,  Gcrson,  and  d'Ailly 

495 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

signified  by  words  of  first  intention  and  things  signified  by  words 
of  second  intention.  There  are  exactly  six  metaphysical  terms: 
being,  thing,  something,  one,  true,  good.1  These  terms  have  the 
peculiarity  that  they  can  all  be  predicated  of  each  other.  But  logic 
can  be  pursued  independently  of  them. 

Understanding  is  of  things,  not  of  forms  produced  by  the  mind ; 
these  are  not  what  is  understood,  but  that  by  which  things  are 
understood.  Universais,  in  logic,  are  only  terms  or  concepts  pre- 
dicable  of  many  other  terms  or  concepts.  Universal,  genus,  species 
are  terms  of  second  intention,  and  therefore  cannot  mean  tilings. 
But  since  one  and  being  are  convertible,  if  a  universal  existed,  it 
would  be  one,  and  an  individual  thing.  A  universal  is  merely  a 
sign  of  many  things.  As  to  this,  Occam  agrees  with  Aquinas,  as 
against  Averroes,  Avicenna,  and  the  Augustinians.  Both  hold  that 
there  are  only  individual  things,  individual  minds,  and  acts  of 
understanding.  Both  Aquinas  and  Occam,  it  is  true,  admit  (he 
universale  ante  rem,  but  only  to  explain  creation ;  it  had  to  be  in 
the  mind  of  God  before  He  could  create.  But  this  belongs  to 
theology,  not  to  the  explanation  of  human  knowledge,  which  is 
only  concerned  with  the  universale  post  rent.  In  explaining  human 
knowledge,  Occam  never  allows  universals  to  be  things.  Socrates 
is  similar  to  Plato,  he  says,  but  not  in  virtue  of  a  third  thing  called 
similarity.  Similarity  is  a  term  of  second  intention,  and  is  in  the 
mind.  (All  this  is  good.) 

Propositions  about  future  contingents,  according  to  Occam,  are 
not  yet  either  true  or  false.  He  makes  no  attempt  to  reconcile  this 
view  with  divine  omniscience.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  keeps  logic- 
free  from  metaphysics  and  theology. 

Some  samples  of  Occam's  discussions  may  be  useful. 

He  asks:  "Whether  that  which  is  known  by  the  understanding 
first  according  to  a  primacy  of  generation  is  the  individual." 

Against:  The  universal  is  the  first  and  proper  object  of  the 
understanding. 

For:  The  object  ot  sense  and  the  object  of  understanding  are 
the  same,  but  the  individual  is  the  first  object  of  sense. 

Accordingly,  the  meaning  of  the  question  must  be  stated, 
(Presumably,  because  both  arguments  seem  strong.) 

He  continues:  "The  thing  outside  the  soul  which  is  not  a  sign 

1  I  do  not  here  pause  to  criticize  the  use  to  which  Occam  puu  these 
term*. 

496 


FRANCISCAN   SCHOOLMEN 

is  understood  first  by  such  knowledge  (i.e.  by  knowledge  which  is 
individual),  therefore  the  individual  is  known  first,  since  every- 
thing outside  the  soul  is  individual." 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  abstract  knowledge  a  ways  presupposes 
knowledge  which  is  "intuitive"  (i.e.  of  perception),  and  this  is 
caused  by  individual  things. 

He  then  enumerates  four  doubts  which  may  arise,  and  proceeds 
to  resolve  them. 

He  concludes  with  an  affirmative  answer  to  his  original  question, 
but  adds  that  "the  universal  is  the  first  object  by  primacy  of 
adequation,  not  by  the  primacy  of  generation." 

The  question  involved  is  whether,  or  how  far,  perception  is  the 
source  of  knowledge.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Plato,  in  the 
Theaetetus,  rejects  the  definition  of  knowledge  as  perception. 
Occam,  pretty  certainly,  did  not  know  the  Theaetelus,  but  if  he 
had  he  would  have  disagreed  with  it. 

To  the  question  "whether  the  sensitive  soul  and  the  intellective 
soul  are  really  distinct  in  man/*  he  answers  that  they  are,  though 
this  is  hard  to  prove.  One  of  his  arguments  is  that  we  may  with 
our  appetites  desire  something  which  with  our  understanding  we 
reject;  therefore  appetite  and  understanding  belong  to  different 
subjects.  Another  argument  is  that  sensations  are  subjectively  in 
the  sensitive  soul,  but  not  subjectively  in  the  intellective  soul. 
Again:  the  sensitive  soul  is  extended  and  material,  while  the 
intellective  soul  is  neither.  Four  objections  are  considered,  all 
theological,1  but  they  are  answered.  The  view  taken  by  Occam 
on  this  question  is  not,  perhaps,  what  might  be  expected.  How- 
ever, he  agrees  with  St.  Thomas  and  disagrees  with  Averroes  in 
thinking  that  each  man's  intellect  is  his  own,  not  something 
impersonal. 

Ky  insisting  on  the  possibility  of  studying  logic  and  human 
knowledge  without  reference  to  metaphysics  and  theology, 
Occam's  work  encouraged  scientific  research.  The  Augustinians, 
he  said,  erred  in  fii.st  supposing  things  unintelligible  and  men  un- 
intelligent, and  then  adding  a  light  from  Infinity  by  which  know- 
ledge became  possible  He  agreed  in  this  with  Aquinas,  but 

• 

1  For  instance;  Betxvccn  Good  Friday  and  Faster,  Christ's  soul 
descended  into  hell,  whereas  His  body  remained  in  the  tomb  of  Joseph  of 
Arimmhca.  If  the  sensitive  soul  is  distinct  from  the  intellective  soul,  diJ 
Christ's  sensitive  soul  spend  this  time  in  hell  or  in  the  tomb? 

497 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

differed  in  emphasis,  for  Aquinas  was  primarily  a  theologian,  and 
Occam  was,  so  far  as  logic  is  concerned,  primarily  a  secular 
philosopher. 

His  attitude  gave  confidence  to  students  of  particular  problems, 
for  instance,  his  immediate  follower  Nicholas  of  Oresme  (d.  1382), 
who  investigated  planetary  theory.  This  man  was,  to  a  certain 
extent,  a  precursor  of  Copernicus;  he  set  forth  both  the  geocentric 
and  the  heliocentric  theories,  and  said  that  each  would  explain  all 
the  facts  known  in  his  day,  so  that  there  was  no  way  of  deciding 
between  them. 

After  William  of  Occam  there  are  no  more  great  scholastics.  The 
next  time  for  great  philosophers  began  in  the  late  Renaissance. 


498 


Chapter  XV 
THE   ECLIPSE   OF   THE    PAPACY 

*  |  IHE  thirteenth  century  had  brought  to  completion  a  great 
I  synthesis,  philosophical,  theological,  political,  and  social, 
JL  which  had  been  slowly  built  up  by  the  combination  of 
many  elements.  The  first  element  was  pure  Greek  philosophy, 
especially  the  philosophies  of  Pythagoras,  Parmenides,  Plato,  and 
Aristotle.  Then  came,  as  a  result  of  Alexander's  conquests,  a  great 
influx  of  oriental  beliefs.1  These,  taking  advantage  of  Orphism 
and  the  Mysteries,  transformed  the  outlook  of  the  Greek-speaking 
world,  and  ultimately  of  the  Latin-speaking  world  also.  The 
dying  and  resurrected  god,  the  sacramental  eating  of  what  pur- 
ported to  be  the  flesh  of  the  god,  the  second  birth  into  a  new  life 
through  some  ceremony  analogous  to  baptism,  came  to  be  part 
of  the  theology  of  large  sections  of  the  pagan  Roman  world.  With 
these  was  associated  an  ethic  of  liberation  from  bondage  to  the 
flesh,  which  was,  at  least  theoretically,  ascetic.  From  Syria,  Egypt, 
Babylonia,  and  Persia  came  the  institution  of  a  priesthood  sepa- 
rated from  the  lay  population,  possessed  of  more  or  less  magical 
powers,  and  able  to  exert  considerable  political  influence.  Im- 
pressive rituals,  largely  connected  with  belief  in  a  life  after  death, 
came  from  the  same  sources.  From  Persia,  in  particular,  came  a 
dualism  which  regarded  the  world  as  the  battleground  of  two 
great  hosts,  one,  which  was  good,  led  by  Ahura  Mazda,  the  other, 
which  was  evil,  led  by  Ahriman.  Black  magic  was  the  kind  that 
was  worked  by  the  help  of  Ahriman  and  his  followers  in  the  world 
of  spirits.  Satan  is  a  development  of  Ahriman. 

This  influx  of  barbarian  ideas  and  practices  was  synthesized 
with  certain  Hellenic  elements  in  the  Neoplatonic  philosophy.  In 
Orphism,  Pythagorean  ism,  and  some  pans  of  Plato,  the  Greeks 
had  developed  points  of  view  which  were  easy  to  combine  with 
tliose  of  the  Orient,  perhaps  because  they  had  been  borrowed 
from  the  East  at  a  much  earlier  time.  With  Plotinus  and  Porphyry 
the  development  of  pagan  philosophy  Aids. 

The  thought  of  these  men,  however,  though  deeply  religious, 
was  not  capable,  without  much  transformation,  of  inspiring  a 
1  Sec  Cumont,  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism. 
499 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

victorious  popular  religion.  Their  philosophy  was  difficult,  and 
could  not  be  generally  understood ;  their  way  of  salvation  was  too 
intellectual  for  the  masses.  Their  conservatism  led  them  to  uphold 
the  traditional  religion  of  Greece,  which,  however,  they  had  to 
interpret  allegorically  in  order  to  soften  its  immoral  elements 
and  to  reconcile  it  with  their  philosophical  monotheism.  The 
Greek  religion  had  fallen  into  decay,  being  unable  to  compete 
with  Eastern  rituals  and  theologies.  The  oracles  had  become  silent, 
and  the  priesthood  had  never  formed  a  powerful  distinct  caste. 
The  attempt  to  revive  Greek  religion  had  therefore  an  archaistic 
character  which  gave  it  a  certain  feebleness  and  pedantry,  espe- 
cially noticeable  in  the  Emperor  Julian.  Already  in  the  third 
century,  it  could  have  been  foreseen  that  some  Asiatic  religion 
would  conquer  the  Roman  world,  though  at  that  time  there  were 
still  several  competitors  which  all  seemed  to  have  a  chance  of 
victory. 

Christianity  combined  elements  of  strength  from  various  sources. 
From  the  Jews  it  accepted  a  Sacred  Book  and  the  doctrine  that  all 
religions  but  one  are  false  and  evil ;  but  it  avoided  the  racial  ex- 
clusiveness  of  the  Jews  and  the  inconveniences  of  die  Mosaic  law. 
Later  Judaism  had  already  learnt  to  believe  in  the  life  after  death, 
but  the  Christians  gave  a  new  definiteness  to  heaven  and  hell, 
and  to  the  ways  of  reaching  the  one  and  escaping  the  other. 
Easter  combined  the  Jewish  Passover  with  pagan  celebrations  of 
the  resurrected  God.  Persian  dualism  was  absorbed,  but  with  <i 
firmer  assurance  of  the  ultimate  omnipotence  of  the  #>od  principle, 
and  with  the  addition  that  the  pagan  gods  were  followers  of  Satan. 
At  first  the  Christians  were  not  the  equals  of  their  adversaries  in 
philosophy  or  in  ritual,  but  gradually  these  deficiencies  were 
made  good.  At  first,  philosophy  was  more  advanced  among  the 
semi-Christian  Gnostics  than  among  the  orthodox ;  but  from  the 
time  of  Origen  onwards,  the  Christians  developed  an  adequate 
philosophy  by  modification  of  Neoplatonibin.  Ritual  among  the 
early  Christians  is  a  somewhat  obscure  subject,  but  at  any  rate 
by  the  time  of  St.  Ambrose  it  had  become  extremely  impressive. 
The  power  and  the  separateneas  of  the  priesthood  were  taken 
from  the  East,  but  were  gradually  strengthened  by  methods  of 
government,  in  the  Church,  which  owed  much  to  the  practice  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  The  Old  Testament,  the  utybtcry  religions, 
Greek  philosophy,  and  Roman  methods  of  administration  were 


THE  ECLIPSE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

all  blended  in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  combined  to  give  it  a 
strength  which  no  earlier  social  organization  had  equalled. 

The  Western  Church,  like  ancient  Rome,  developed,  though 
more  slowly,  from  a  republic  into  a  monarchy.  We  have  seen  the 
stages  in  the  growth  of  papal  power,  from  Gregory  the  Great 
through  Nicholas  I,  Gregory  VII,  and  Innocent  III,  to  the  final 
defeat  of  the  Hohenstaufen  in  the  wars  of  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines. 
At  the  same  time  Christian  philosophy,  which  had  hitherto  been 
Augustinian  and  therefore  largely  Platonic,  was  enriched  by  new 
elements  due  to  contact  with  Constantinople  and  the  Moham- 
medans. Aristotle,  during  the  thirteenth  century,  came  to  be 
known  fairly  completely  in  the  West,  and,  by  the  influence  of 
Albertus  Magnus  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  was  established  in  the 
minds  of  the  learned  as  the  supreme  authority  after  Scripture  and 
the  Church.  Down  to  the  present  day,  he  has  retained  this  position 
among  Catholic  philosophers.  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  sub- 
stitution of  Aristotle  for  Plato  and  St.  Augustine  was  a  mistake 
from  the  Christian  point  of  view.  Plato's  temperament  was  more 
religious  than  Aristotle's,  and  Christian  theology  had  been,  from 
almost  the  first,  adapted  to  Platonism.  Plato  had  taught  that 
knowledge  is  not  perception,  but  a  kind  of  reminiscent  vision; 
Aristotle  was  much  more  of  an  empiricist.  St.  Thomas,  little 
though  he  intended  it,  prepared  the  way  for  the  return  from 
Platonic  dreaming  to  scientific  observation. 

Outward  events  had  more  to  do  than  philosophy  with  the  dis- 
integration of  the  Catholic  synthesis  which  began  in  the  fourteenth 
century.  The  Byzantine  Empire  was  conquered  by  the  Latins  in 
1204,  and  remained  in  their  hands  till  1261.  During  this  time  the 
religion  of  its  government  was  Catholic,  not  Greek;  but  after  1261 
Constantinople  was  lost  to  the  Pope  and  never  recovered,  in  spite 
of  nominal  union  at  Ferrara  in  1438.  The  defeat  of  the  Western 
Empire  in  its  conflict  with  the  papacy  proved  useless  to  the 
Church,  owing  to  the  rise  of  national  monarchies  in  France  and 
England;  throughout  most  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  Pope 
was,  politically,  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  king  of  France.  More 
important  than  these  causes  was  the  rise  of  a  rich  commercial 
class  and  the  increase  of  knowledge  *in  the  laity.  Both  of  these 
began  in  Italy,  and  remained  more  advanced  in  that  country  than 
in  other  parts  of  the  West  until  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
North  Italian  cities  were  much  richer,  in  the  fourteenth  century 

501 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

than  any  of  the  cities  of  the  North ;  and  learned  laymen,  especially 
in  law  and  medicine,  were  becoming  increasingly  numerous. 
The  cities  had  a  spirit  of  independence  which,  now  that  the 
Emperor  was  no  longer  a  menace,  was  apt  to  turn  against  the 
Pope.  But  the  same  movements,  though  to  a  lesser  degree,  existed 
elsewhere.  Flanders  prospered ;  so  did  the  Hanse  towns.  In  Eng- 
land the  wool  trade  was  a  source  of  wealth.  The  age  was  one  in 
which  tendencies  which  may  be  broadly  called  democratic  were 
very  strong,  and  nationalistic  tendencies  were  even  stronger.  The 
papacy,  which  had  become  very  worldly,  appeared  largely  as  a 
taxing  agency,  drawing  to  itself  vast  revenues  which  most  countries 
wished  to  retain  at  home.  The  popes  no  longer  had  or  deserved 
the  moral  authority  which  had  given  them  power.  St.  Francis 
had  been  able  to  work  in  harmony  with  Innocent  III  and  Gre- 
gory IX,  but  the  most  earnest  men  of  the  fourteenth  century 
were  driven  into  conflict  with  the  papacy. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  century,  however,  these  causes  of 
decline  in  the  papacy  were  not  yet  apparent.  Boniface  VIII,  in 
the  Bull  Unam  Sane  tarn,  made  more  extreme  claims  than  had  ever 
been  made  by  any  previous  Pope.  He  instituted,  in  1300,  the  year 
of  Jubilee,  when  plenary  indulgence  is  granted  to  all  Catholics 
who  visit  Rome  and  perform  certain  ceremonies  while  there.  This 
brought  immense  sums  of  money  to  the  coffers  of  the  Curia  and 
the  pockets  of  the  Roman  people.  There  was  to  be  a  Jubilee  even' 
hundredth  year,  but  the  profits  were  so  great  that  the  period 
was  shortened  to  fifty  years,  and  then  to  twenty-five,  at  which  it 
remains  to  the  present  day.  The  first  Jubilee,  that  of  1300,  showed 
the  Pope  at  the  summit  of  his  success,  and  may  be  conveniently 
regarded  as  the  date  from  which  the  decline  began. 

Boniface  VIII  was  an  Italian,  born  at  Anagni.  He  had  been 
besieged  in  the  Tower  of  Ix>ndon  when  in  England,  on  behalf  of 
the  Pope,  to  support  Henry  III  against  the  rebellious  barons,  but 
he  was  rescued  in  1267  by  the  King's  son,  afterwards  Edward  I. 
There  was  already  in  his  day  a  powerful  French  party  in  the 
Church,  and  his  election  was  opposed  by  the  French  cardinals. 
He  came  into  violent  conflict  with  the  French  king  Philip  IV,  on 
the  question  whether  the  King  had  the  right  to  tax  the  French 
clergy,  Boniface  was  addicted  to  nepotism  and  avarice ;  he  there- 
fore wished  to  retain  control  over  as  many  sources  of  revenue  as 
possible.  He  waa  accused  of  heresy,  probably  with  justice;  it 

502 


THE  FCLIPSB  OP  THE  PAPACY 

seems  that  he  was  an  Averroist  and  did  not  believe  in  immortality. 
His  quarrel  with  the  king  of  France  became  so  bitter  that  the 
king  sent  a  force  to  arrest  him,  with  a  view  to  his  being  deposed 
by  a  General  Council.  He  was  caught  at  Anagni,  but  escaped  to 
Rome,  where  he  died.  After  this,  for  a  long  time,  no  pope  ventured 
to  oppose  the  king  of  France. 

After  a  very  brief  intermediate  reign,  the  cardinals  in  1305 
elected  the  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux,  who  took  the  name  of 
Clement  V.  He  was  a  Gascon,  and  consistently  represented  the 
French  party  in  the  Church.  Throughout  his  pontificate  he  never 
went  to  Italy.  He  was  crowned  in  Lyons,  and  in  1309  he  settled 
in  Avignon,  where  the  popes  remained  for  about  seventy  years. 
Clement  V  signalized  his  alliance  with  the  king  of  France  by 
their  joint  action  against  the  Templars.  Both  needed  money,  the 
Pope  because  he  was  addicted  to  favouritism  and  nepotism,  Philip 
for  the  English  war,  the  Flemish  revolt,  and  the  costs  of  an 
increasingly  energetic  government.  After  he  had  plundered  the 
bankers  of  Lombard)',  and  persecuted  the  Jews  to  the  limit  of 
41  what  the  traffic  would  bear,1*  it  occurred  to  him  that  the  Templars, 
in  addition  to  being  bankers,  had  immense  landed  estates  in 
France,  which,  with  the  Pope's  help,  he  might  acquire.  It  was 
therefore  arranged  that  the  Church  should  discover  that  the 
Templars  had  fallen  into  heresy,  and  that  king  and  pope  should 
share  the  spoils.  On  a  given  day  in  1307,  all  the  leading  Templars 
in  France  were  arrested;  a  list  of  leading  questions,  previously 
drawn  up,  was  put  to  them  all;  under  torture,  they  confessed 
that  they  had  done  homage  to  Satan  and  committed  various  other 
abominations;  at  last,  in  1313,  the  Pope  suppressed  the  order, 
and  all  its  property  was  confiscated.  The  best  account  of  this 
proceeding  is  in  Henry  C.  Lea's  History  of  the  Inquisition,  where, 
after  full  investigation,  the  conclusion  is  reached  that  the  charges 
against  the  Templars  were  wholly  without  foundation. 

In  the  case  of  the  Templars,  the  financial  interests  of  pope  and 
king  coincided.  But  on  most  occasions  in  most  parts  of  Christen- 
dom, they  conflicted.  In  the  time  of  Boniface  VIII,  Philip  IV 
had  secured  the  support  of  the  Estates  (even  the  Estate  of  the 
Church)  in  his  disputes  with  the  Pope  as  to  taxation.  When  the 
popes  became  politically  subservient  to  France,  the  sovereigns 
hostile  to  the  French  king  were  necessarily  hostile  to  the  Pope. 
This  led  to  the  protection  of  William  of  Occam  and  Marsiglio  of 

S°3 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

Padua  by  the  Emperor;  at  a  slightly  later  date,  it  led  to  the 
protection  of  Wycliffe  by  John  of  Gaunt. 

Bishops,  in  general,  were  by  this  time  completely  in  subjection 
to  the  Pope;  in  an  increasing  proportion,  they  were  actually 
appointed  by  him.  The  monastic  Orders  and  the  Dominicans 
were  equally  obedient,  but  the  Franciscans  still  had  a  certain 
spirit  of  independence.  This  led  to  their  conflict  with  John  XXII, 
which  we  have  already  considered  in  connection  with  William 
of  Occam.  During  this  conflict,  Marsiglio  persuaded  the  Emperor 
to  march  on  Rome,  where  the  imperial  crown  was  conferred  on 
him  by  the  populace,  and  a  Franciscan  antipope  was  elected 
after  the  populace  had  declared  John  XXII  deposed.  However, 
nothing  came  of  all  this  beyond  a  general  diminution  of  respect 
for  the  papacy. 

The  revolt  against  papal  domination  took  different  forms  in 
different  places.  Sometimes  it  was  associated  with  monarchical 
nationalism,  sometimes  with  a  Puritan  horror  of  the  corruption 
and  worldliness  of  the  papal  court.  In  Rome  itself,  the  revolt  was 
associated  with  an  archaistic  democracy.  Under  Clement  VI 
(1342-52)  Rome,  for  a  time,  sought  to  free  itself  from  the  absentee 
Pope  under  the  leadership  of  a  remarkable  man,  Cola  di  Rienzi. 
Rome  suffered  not  only  from  the  rule  of  the  popes,  but  also  from 
the  local  aristocracy,  which  continued  the  turbulence  that  had 
degraded  the  papacy  in  the  tenth  century.  Indeed  it  was  partly 
to  escape  from  the  lawless  Roman  nobles  that  the  popes  had  fled 
to  Avignon.  At  first  Ricnzi,  who  was  the  son  of  a  tavern-keeper, 
rebelled  only  against  the  nobles,  and  in  this  he  had  the  support 
of  the  Pope.  lie  roused  so  much  popular  enthusiasm  that  the 
nobles  fled  (1347).  Petrarch,  who  admired  him  and  wrote  an 
ode  to  him,  urged  him  to  continue  his  great  and  noble  work.  lie 
took  the  title  of  tribune,  and  proclaimed  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Roman  people  over  the  Empire.  He  seems  to  have  conceived  this 
sovereignty  democratically,  for  he  called  representatives  from  the 
Italian  cities  to  a  sort  of  parliament.  Success,  however,  gave  him 
delusions  of  grandeur.  At  this  time,  as  at  many  others,  there 
were  rival  claimants  to  the  Kmpire.  Rienzi  summoned  both  of 
them,  and  the  Electors,  to  come  before  him  to  have  the  issue 
decided.  This  naturally  turned  both  imperial  candidates  against 
him,  and  also  the  Pope,  who  considered  that  it  was  for  him  to 
pronounce  judgment  in  such  matters.  Rienzi  was  captured  by  the 

5<>4 


THE   ECLIPSE   OF    THE    PAPACY 

Pope  (1352),  and  kept  in  prison  for  two  years,  until  Clement  VI 
died.  Then  he  was  released,  and  returned  to  Rome,  where  he 
acquired  power  again  for  a  few  months.  On  this  second  occasion, 
however,  his  popularity  was  brief,  and  in  the  end  he  was  murdered 
by  the  mob.  Byron,  as  well  as  Petrarch,  wrote  a  poem  in  his 
praise. 

It  became  evident  that,  if  the  papacy  was  to  remain  effectively 
the  head  of  the  whole  Catholic  Church,  it  must  free  itself  from 
dependence  on  France  by  returning  to  Rome.  Moreover,  the 
Anglo-French  war,  in  which  France  was  suffering  severe  defeats, 
made  France  unsafe.  Urban  V  therefore  went  to  Rome  in  1367; 
but  Italian  politics  were  too  complicated  for  him,  and  he  returned 
to  Avignon  shortly  before  his  death.  The  next  Pope,  Gregory  XI, 
was  more  resolute.  Hostility  to  the  French  curia  had  made  many 
Italian  towns,  especially  Florence,  bitterly  anti-papal,  but  by 
returning  to  Rome  and  opposing  the  French  cardinals  Gregory 
did  everything  in  his  power  to  save  the  situation.  Hosvever,  at  his 
death  the  French  and  Roman  parties  in  the  College  of  Cardinals 
proved  irreconcilable.  In  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  Roman 
party,  an  Italian,  Dartolomco  Prignano,  was  elected,  and  took  the 
name  of  I'rban  VI.  Hut  a  number  of  Cardinals  declared  his 
election  uncanonical,  and  proceeded  to  elect  Robert  of  Geneva, 
who  belonged  to  the  French  party.  Me  took  the  name  of  Clement 
VII,  and  lived  in  Avignon. 

Thus  began  the  Great  Schism,  which  lasted  for  some  forty 
years.  France,  of  course,  recognized  the  Avignon  Pope,  and  the 
enemies  of  France  recognized  the  Roman  Pope.  Scotland  was  the 
enemy  of  Kngland,  and  Kngland  of  France;  therefore  Scotland 
recognized  the  Avignon  Pope.  Each  pope  chose  cardinals  from 
among  his  own  partisans,  and  when  either  died  his  cardinals 
quickly  elected  another.  Thus  there  was  no  way  of  healing  the 
schism  except  by  bringing  to  bear  some  power  superior  to  both 
popes.  It  was  clear  that  one  of  them  must  be  legitimate,  therefore 
a  power  superior  to  a  legitimate  pope  had  to  be  found.  The  only 
solution  lay  in  a  General  Council.  The  University  of  Paris,  led 
by  Gerson,  developed  a  new  theory,  giving  powers  of  initiative 
to  a  Council.  The  lay  sovereigns,  to  wHbm  the  schism  was  incon- 
venient, lent  their  support.  At  last,  in  1409,  a  Council  was  sum- 
moned, and  met  at  Pisa.  It  failed,  however,  in  a  ridiculous  manner. 
It  declared  both  popes  deposed  for  heresy  and  schism,  and 

505 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

elected  a  third,  who  promptly  died;  but  his  cardinals  elected  as 
his  successor  an  ex-pirate  named  Baldassare  Cossa,  who  took  the 
name  of  John  XXIII.  Thus  the  net  result  was  that  there  were 
three  popes  instead  of  two,  the  conciliar  pope  being  a  notorious 
ruffian.  At  this  stage,  the  situation  seemed  more  hopeless  than 
ever. 

But  the  supporters  of  the  conciliar  movement  did  not  give  in. 
In  14141  a  new  Council  was  summoned  at  Constance,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  vigorous  action.  It  first  decreed  that  popes  cannot  dis- 
solve councils,  and  must  submit  to  them  in  certain  respects;  it 
also  decided  that  future  popes  must  summon  a  General  Council 
every  seven  years.  It  deposed  John  XXIII,  and  induced  the 
Roman  Pope  to  resign.  The  Avignon  Pope  refused  to  resign,  and 
after  his  death  the  king  of  Aragon  caused  a  successor  to  be 
elected.  But  France,  at  this  time  at  the  mercy  of  England,  refused 
to  recognize  him,  and  his  party  dwindled  into  insignificance  and 
finally  ceased  to  exist.  Thus  at  last  there  was  no  opposition  to  the 
Pope  chosen  by  the  Council,  who  was  elected  in  1417,  and  took 
the  name  of  Martin  V. 

These  proceedings  were  creditable,  but  the  treatment  of  Huss, 
the  Bohemian  disciple  of  Wycliffe,  was  not.  He  was  brought  to 
Constance  with  the  promise  of  a  safe  conduct,  but  when  he  ^ot 
there  he  was  condemned  and  suffered  death  at  the  stake.  Wycliffe 
was  safely  dead,  but  the  Council  ordered  his  bones  to  be  dug 
up  and  burnt.  The  supporters  of  the  conciliar  movement  were 
anxious  to  free  themselves  from  all  suspicion  of  unorthodoxy. 

The  Council  of  Constance  had  healed  the  schism,  but  it  had 
hoped  to  do  much  more,  and  to  substitute  a  constitutional 
monarchy  for  the  papal  absolutism.  Martin  V  had  made  many 
promises  before  his  election;  some  he  kept,  some  he  broke.  Me 
had  assented  to  the  decree  that  a  council  should  be  summoned 
every  seven  years,  and  to  this  decree  he  remained  obedient.  The 
Council  of  Constance  having  been  dissolved  in  1417,3  new  Council 
which  proved  of  no  importance,  was  summoned  in  1424;  then 
in  1431,  another  was  convoked  to  meet  at  Basel.  Martin  V  died 
just  at  this  moment,  and  his  successor  Eugenius  IV  was,  through- 
out his  pontificate,  in  bitter  conflict  with  the  reformers  who 
controlled  the  Council.  lie  dissolved  the  Council,  but  it  refused 
to  consider  itself  dissolved;  in  1433  he  gave  way  for  a  time,  but 
in  1437  he  dissolved  it  again.  Nevertheless  it  remained  in  session 

506 


THE    ECLIPSE   OF    THE    PAPACY 

till  1448, by  which  time  it  was  obvious  to  all  that  the  Pope  had  won 
a  complete  triumph.  In  1439  the  Council  had  alienated  sympathy 
by  declaring  the  Pope  deposed  and  electing  an  antipope  (the  last 
in  history),  who,  however,  resigned  almost  immediately.  In  the 
same  year  Eugenius  IV  won  prestige  by  holding  a  Council  of  his 
own  at  Ferrara,  where  the  Greek  Church,  in  desperate  fear  of 
the  Turks,  made  a  nominal  submission  to  Rome.  The  papacy  thus 
emerged  politically  triumphant,  but  with  very  greatly  diminished 
power  of  inspiring  moral  reverence. 

Wycliffe  (ca.  1320-84)  illustrates,  by  his  life  and  doctrine,  the 
diminished  authority  of  the  papacy  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
Unlike  the  earlier  schoolmen,  he  was  a  secular  priest,  not  a  monk 
or  friar.  He  had  a  great  reputation  in  Oxford,  where  he  became  a 
doctor  of  theology  in  1372.  For  a  short  time  he  was  Master  of 
Balliol.  He  was  the  last  of  the  important  Oxford  scholastics.  As  a 
philosopher,  he  was  not  progressive;  he  was  a  realist,  and  a 
Platonist  rather  than  an  Aristotelian.  He  held  that  God's  decrees 
are  not  arbitrary ,  as  some  maintained ;  the  actual  world  is  not  one 
among  possible  worlds,  but  is  the  only  possible  world,  since  God 
is  bound  to  choose  what  is  best.  All  this  is  not  what  makes  him 
interesting,  nor  does  it  seem  to  have  been  what  most  interested 
him,  for  he  retired  from  Oxford  to  the  life  of  a  country  clergyman. 
During  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  he  was  the  parish  priest  of 
Lutterworth,  by  crovvn  appointment.  He  continued,  however,  to 
lecture  at  Oxford. 

Wycliffe  is  remarkable  for  the  extreme  slowness  of  his  develop- 
ment. In  1372,  when  his  age  was  fifty  or  more,  he  was  still  ortho- 
dox; it  was  only  after  this  date,  apparently,  that  he  became 
heretical.  He  seems  to  have  been  driven  into  heresy  entirely  by 
the  strength  of  his  moral  feelings— his  sympathy  with  the  poor, 
and  his  horror  of  rich  worldly  ecclesiastics.  At  first  his  attack  on 
the  papacy  was  only  political  and  moral,  not  doctrinal;  it  was  only 
gradually  that  he  was  driven  into  wider  revolt. 

Wycliffe's  departure  from  orthodoxy  began  in  1376  with  a 
course  of  lectures  at  Oxford  "On  Civil  Dominion."  He  advanced 
the  theory  that  righteousness  alone  gives  the  title  to  dominion 
and  property;  that  unrighteous  clergy  hive  no  such  title;  and  that 
the  decision  as  to  whether  an  ecclesiastic  should  retain  his  pro- 
perty or  not  ought  to  be  taken  by  the  civil  power.  He  taught, 
further,  that  property  is  the  result  of  sin;  Christ  and  the  Apostles 

S<>7 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

had  no  property,  and  the  clergy  ought  to  have  none.  These 
doctrines  offended  all  clerics  except  the  friars.  The  English 
government,  however,  favoured  them,  for  the  Pope  drew  a  huge 
tribute  from  England,  and  the  doctrine  that  money  should  not  be 
sent  out  of  England  to  the  Pope  was  a  convenient  one.  This  was 
especially  the  case  while  the  Pope  was  subservient  to  France,  and 
England  was  at  war  with  France.  John  of  Gaunt,  who  held  power 
during  the  minority  of  Richard  II,  befriended  Wycliffe  as  long 
as  possible.  Gregory  XI,  on  the  other  hand,  condemned  eighteen 
theses  in  Wycliffe  *s  lectures,  saying  that  they  were  derived  from 
IVIarsiglio  of  Padua.  Wycliffe  was  summoned  to  appear  for  trial 
before  a  tribunal  of  bishops,  but  the  Queen  and  the  mob  protected 
him,  while  the  University  of  Oxford  refused  to  admit  the  Pope's 
jurisdiction  over  its  teachers.  (Even  in  those  days,  English  uni- 
versities believed  in  academic  freedom.) 

Meanwhile  Wycliffe  continued,  during  1378  and  1379,  to  write 
learned  treatises,  maintaining  that  the  king  is  God's  vicar,  and 
that  bishops  are  subject  to  him.  When  the  preat  schism  came,  he 
went  further  than  before,  branding  the  Pope  as  Antichrist,  and 
saying  that  acceptance  of  the  Donation  of  Constantinc  had  made 
all  subsequent  popes  apostates.  He  translated  the  Vulgate  into 
English,  and  established  "poor  priests,"  who  were  secular.  (By 
this  action  he  at  last  annoyed  the  friars.)  He  employed  the  "poor 
priests"  as  itinerant  preachers,  whose  mission  was  especially  to 
the  poor.  At  last,  in  attacking  sacerdotal  power,  he  was  led  to 
deny  transubstantiation,  which  he  called  a  deceit  and  a  blasphe- 
mous folly.  At  this  point,  John  of  Gaunt  ordered  him  to  be 
silent. 

The  Peasants'  Revolt  of  1381,  led  by  Wat  Tyler,  made  matters 
more  difficult  for  Wycliffe.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  actively 
encouraged  it,  but,  unlike  Luther  in  similar  circumstances,  he 
refrained  from  condemning  it.  John  Ball,  the  Socialist  unfrocked 
priest  who  was  one  of  the  leaders,  admired  Wycliffe,  which  was 
embarrassing.  But  as  he  had  been  excommunicated  in  1366,  when 
Wycliffe  was  still  orthodox,  he  must  have  arrived  independently 
at  his  opinions.  Wycliffe's  communistic  opinions,  though  no 
doubt  the  "poor  priests"  disseminated  them,  were,  by  him,  only 
stated  in  Latin,  so  that  at  first  hand  they  were  inaccessible  to 
peasants. 

It  is  surprising  that  Wycliffe  did  not  suffer  more  than  he  did 

508 


THE  ECLIPSE  OF  THE  PAPACY 

for  his  opinions  and  his  democratic  activities.  The  University  of 
Oxford  defended  him  against  the  bishops  as  long  as  possible. 
When  the  House  of  Lords  condemned  his  itinerant  preachers,  the 
House  of  Commons  refused  to  concur.  No  doubt  trouble  would 
have  accumulated  if  he  had  lived  longer,  but  when  he  died  in 
1384  he  had  not  yet  been  formally  condemned.  He  was  buried 
at  Lutterworth,  where  he  died,  and  his  bones  were  left  in 
peace  until  the  Council  of  Constance  had  them  dug  up  and 
burnt. 

His  followers  in  England,  the  Lollards,  were  severely  perse- 
cuted and  practically  stamped  out.  But  owing  to  the  fact  that 
Richard  II's  wife  was  a  Bohemian,  his  doctrines  became  known 
in  Bohemia,  where  Huss  was  his  disciple;  and  in  Bohemia,  in 
spite  of  persecution,  they  survived  until  the  Reformation.  In 
England,  although  driven  underground,  the  revolt  against  the 
papacy  remained  in  men's  thoughts,  and  prepared  the  soil  for 
Protestantism. 

During  the  fifteenth  century,  various  other  causes  were  added 
to  the  decline  of  the  papacy  to  produce  a  very  rapid  change,  both 
political  and  cultural,  Gunpowder  strengthened  central  govern- 
ments at  the  expense  <•!  the  feudal  nobility.  In  France  and  England, 
Louis  XI  and  Edward  IV  allied  themselves  with  the  rich  middle 
class,  who  helped  tl.cm  to  quell  aristocratic  anarchy.  Italy,  until 
the  last  years  of  the  century,  was  fairly  free  from  Northern  armies, 
ami  advanced  rapidly  both  in  wealth  and  culture.  The  new  culture 
was  essentially  paijan,  admiring  Greece  and  Rome,  and  despising 
the  Middle  Ages.  Architecture  and  literary  style  were  adapted  to 
ancient  models.  When  Constantinople,  the  last  survival  of  anti- 
quity, was  captured  by  the  Turks,  Greek  refugees  in  Italy  were 
welcomed  by  humanists.  Yasco  da  Gama  and  Columbus  enlarged 
the  world,  and  Copernicus  enlarged  the  heavens.  The  Donation 
of  Constantine  was  rejected  as  a  fable,  and  overwhelmed  with 
scholarly  derision.  Hy  the  help  of  the  Byzantines,  Plato  came  to 
he  known,  not  only  in  Neoplatonic  and  Augustinian  versions,  but 
at  first  hand.  This  sublunar)'  sphere  appeared  no  longer  as  a  vale 
of  tears,  a  place  of  painful  pilgrimage  to  another  world,  but  as 
atfcirding  opportunity  for  pagan  deligllts,  for  fame  and  beauty 
and  adventure.  The  long  centuries  of  asceticism  were  forgotten 
in  a  riot  of  art  and  poetry  ami  pleasure.  Even  in  Italy,  it  is  true, 
the  Middle  Ages  did  riot  die  without  a  struggle;  Savonarola  and 

509 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

Leonardo  were  born  in  the  same  year.  But  in  the  main  the  old 
terrors  had  ceased  to  be  terrifying,  and  the  new  liberty  of  the 
spirit  was  found  intoxicating.  The  intoxication  could  not  last, 
but  for  the  moment  it  shut  out  fear.  In  this  moment  of  joyful 
liberation  the  modern  world  was  born. 


510 


Book  Three  MODERN  PHILOSOPHY 

Part  i. — From  the  Renaissance  to  Hume 

Chapter  I 
GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS 

f  •  ^HE  period  of  history  which  is  commonly  called  "modern" 
I  has  a  mental  outlook  which  differs  from  that  of  the  medie- 
A.  val  period  in  many  ways.  Of  these,  two  are  the  most  impor- 
tant: the  diminishing  authority  of  the  Church,  and  the  increasing 
authority  of  science.  With  these  two,  others  are  connected.  The 
culture  of  modern  times  is  more  lay  than  clerical.  States  increas- 
ingly replace  the  Church  as  the  governmental  authority  that  con- 
trols culture.  The  government  of  nations  is,  at  first,  mainly  in  the 
hands  of  kings;  then,  as  in  ancient  Greece,  the  kings  are  gradually 
replaced  by  democracies  or  tyrants.  The  power  of  the  national 
State,  and  the  functions  that  it  performs,  grow  steadily  throughout 
the  whole  period  (apart  from  some  minor  fluctuations) ;  but  at  most 
times  the  State  has  less  influence  on  the  opinions  of  philosophers 
than  the  Church  had  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  feudal  aristocracy, 
which,  north  of  the  Alps,  had  been  able,  till  the  fifteenth  century, 
to  hold  its  own  against  central  governments,  loses  first  its  political 
and  then  its  economic  importance.  It  is  replaced  by  the  king  in 
alliance  with  rich  merchants;  these  two  share  power  in  different 
proportions  in  different  countries.  There  is  a  tendency  for  the  rich 
merchants  to  become  absorbed  into  the  aristocracy.  From  the  time 
of  the  American  and  French  Revolutions  onwards,  democracy, 
in  the  modern  sense,  becomes  an  important  political  force. 
Socialism,  as  opposed  to  democracy  based  on  private  property, 
first  acquires  governmental  power  in  1917.  This  form  of  govern- 
ment, however,  if  it  spreads,  must  obvi6usly  bring  with  it  a  new 
form  of  culture ;  the  culture  with  which  we  shall  be  concerned  is 
in  the  main  'liberal/'  that  is  to  say,  of  the  kind  most  naturally 
Associated  with  commerce.  To  this  there  are  important  exceptions, 

5" 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

especially  in  Germany;  Fichte  and  Hegel,  to  take  two  examples, 
have  an  outlook  which  is  totally  unconnected  with  commerce.  But 
such  exceptions  are  not  typical  of  their  age. 

The  rejection  of  ecclesiastical  authority,  which  is  the  negative 
characteristic  of  the  modern  age,  begins  earlier  than  the  positive 
characteristic,  which  is  the  acceptance  of  scientific  authority.  In  the 
Italian  renaissance,  science  played  a  very  small  part ;  the  opposition 
to  the  Church,  in  men's  thoughts,  was  connected  with  antiquity, 
and  looked  still  to  the  past,  but  to  a  more  distant  past  than  that  of 
the  early  Church  and  the  Middle  Ages.  The  first  serious  irruption 
of  science  was  the  publication  of  the  Copernican  theory  in  1543; 
but  this  theory  did  not  become  influential  until  it  was  taken  up  and 
improved  by  Kepler  and  Galileo  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Then 
began  the  long  fight  between  science  and  dogma,  in  which  tradi- 
tionalists fought  a  losing  battle  against  new  knowledge. 

The  authority  of  science,  which  is  recognized  by  most  philoso- 
phers of  the  modem  epoch,  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  since  it  is  intellectual,  not  governmental. 
No  penalties  fall  upon  those  who  reject  it ;  no  prudential  arguments 
influence  those  who  accept  it.  It  prevails  solely  by  its  intrinsic 
appeal  to  reason.  It  is,  moreover,  a  piecemeal  and  partial  authority ; 
it  does  not,  like  the  body  of  Catholic  dogma,  lay  down  a  complete 
system,  covering  human  morality,  human  hopes,  and  the  past  and 
future  history  of  the  universe.  It  pronounces  only  on  whatever,  at 
the  time,  appears  to  have  been  scientifically  ascertained,  which  is 
a  small  island  in  an  ocean  of  nescience.  There  is  yet  another 
difference  from  ecclesiastical  authority,  which  declares  its  pro- 
nouncements to  be  absolutely  certain  and  eternally  unalterable: 
the  pronouncements  of  science  are  made  tentatively,  on  a  basis 
of  probability,  and  are  regarded  as  liable  to  modification.  This 
produces  a  temper  of  mind  very  different  from  that  of  the  medieval 
dogmatist. 

So  far,  I  have  been  speaking  of  theoretical  science,  which  is  an 
attempt  to  understand  the  world.  Practical  science,  which  is  an 
attempt  to  change  the  world,  has  been  important  from  the  first, 
and  has  continually  increased  in  importance,  until  it  han  almost 
ousted  theoretical  science  from  men's  thoughts.  The  practical 
importance  of  science  was  first  recognized  in  connection  with  war; 
Galileo  and  Leonardo  obtained  government  employment  by  their 
claim  to  improve  artillery  and  the  art  of  fortification.  From  their 

512 


GENERAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

time  onwards,  the  part  of  the  men  of  science  in  war  has  steadily 
grown  greater.  Their  pan  in  developing  machine  production,  and 
accustoming  the  population  to  the  use,  first  of  steam,  then  of 
electricity,  came  later,  and  did  not  begin  to  have  important  political 
effects  until  near  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  triumph 
of  science  has  been  mainly  due  to  its  practical  utility,  and  there 
has  been  an  attempt  to  divorce  this  aspect  from  that  of  theory, thus 
making  science  more  and  more  a  technique,  and  less  and  less  a 
doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  the  world.  The  penetration  of  this 
point  of  view  to  the  philosophers  is  very  recent. 

Emancipation  from  the  authority  of  the  Church  led  to  the  growth 
of  individualism,  even  to  the  point  of  anarchy.  Discipline,  intel- 
lectual, moral,  and  political,  was  associated  in  the  minds  of  the 
men  of  the  Renaissance  with  the  scholastic  philosophy  and  eccle- 
siastical government.  The  Aristotelian  logic  of  the  Schoolmen  was 
narrow,  but  afforded  a  training  in  a  certain  kind  of  accuracy. 
When  this  school  of  logic  became  unfashionable,  it  was  not,  at 
first,  succeeded  by  something  better,  but  only  by  an  eclectic  imita- 
tion of  ancient  models.  Until  the  seventeenth  century,  there  was 
nothing  of  importance  in  philosophy.  The  moral  and  political 
anarchy  of  fifteenth-century  Italy  was  appalling,  and  gave  rise  to 
the  doctrines  of  Machiavelli.  At  the  same  time,  the  freedom  from 
mental  shackles  led  to  an  astonishing  display  of  genius  in  art  and 
literature.  But  such  a  society  is  unstable.  The  Reformation  and 
the  Counter- Reformat  ton,  combined  with  the  subjection  of  Italy 
to  Spain,  put  an  end  to  both  the  good  and  the  bad  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance.  When  the  movement  spread  north  of  the  Alps,  it  had 
not  the  same  anarchic  character. 

Modern  philosophy,  however,  has  retained,  for  the  most  part, 
an  individualistic  and  subjective  tendency.  This  is  very  marked  in 
Descartes,  who  builds  up  all  knowledge  from  the  certainty  of  his 
own  existence,  and  accepts  clearness  and  distinctness  (both  sub- 
jective) as  criteria  of  truth.  It  is  not  prominent  in  Spinoza,  but 
reappears  in  Leibniz's  windowless  monads.  Locke,  whose  tern- 
perament  is  thoroughly  objective,  is  forced  reluctantly  into  the 
subjective  doctrine  that  knowledge  is  of  the  agreement  or  disagree- 
ment of  ideas — a  view  so  repulsive  to  him  that  he  escapes  from 
it  by  violent  inconsistencies.  Berkeley,  after  abolishing  matter,  is 
only  saved  from  complete  subjectivism  by  a  use  of  God  which 
most  subsequent  philosophers  have  regarded  as  illegitimate.  In 

513  R  • 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Hume,  the  empiricist  philosophy  culminated  in  a  scepticism  which 
none  could  refute  and  none  could  accept.  Kant  and  Fichte  were 
subjective  in  temperament  as  well  as  in  doctrine;  Hegel  saved 
himself  by  means  of  the  influence  of  Spinoza.  Rousseau  and  the 
romantic  movement  extended  subjectivity  from  theory  of  know- 
ledge to  ethics  and  politics,  and  ended,  logically,  in  complete 
anarchism  such  as  that  of  Bakunin.  This  extreme  of  subjectivism 
is  a  form  of  madness. 

Meanwhile  science  as  technique  was  building  up  in  practical 
men  a  quite  different  outlook  from  any  that  was  to  be  found  among 
theoretical  philosophers.  Technique  conferred  a  sense  of  power: 
man  is  now  much  less  at  the  mercy  of  his  environment  than  he  was 
in  former  times.  But  the  power  conferred  by  technique  is  social, 
not  individual;  an  average  individual  wrecked  on  a  desert  island 
could  have  achieved  more  in  the  seventeenth  century  than  he  could 
now.  Scientific  technique  requires  the  co-operation  of  a  large 
number  of  individuals  organized  under  a  single  direction.  Its  ten- 
dency, therefore,  is  against  anarchism  and  even  individualism, 
since  it  demands  a  well-knit  social  structure.  Unlike  religion,  it 
is  ethically  neutral:  it  assures  men  that  they  can  perform  wonders 
but  does  not  tell  them  what  wonders  to  perform.  In  this  way  it 
is  incomplete.  In  practice,  the  purposes  to  which  scientific  skill 
will  be  devoted  depend  largely  on  chance.  The  men  at  the  head 
of  the  vast  organizations  which  it  necessitates  can,  within  limits, 
turn  it  this  way  or  that  as  they  please.  The  power  impulse  thus 
has  a  scope  which  it  never  had  before.  The  philosophies  that  have 
been  inspired  by  scientific  technique  are  power  philosophies,  and 
tend  to  regard  everything  non-human  as  mere  raw  material.  Ends 
are  no  longer  considered;  only  the  skilfulness  of  the  process  is 
valued  This  also  is  a  form  of  madness.  It  is,  in  our  day,  the  most 
dangerous  form,  and  the  one  against  which  a  sane  philosophy 
should  provide  an  antidote. 

The  ancient  world  found  an  end  to  anarchy  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  but  the  Roman  Empire  was  a  brute  fact,  not  an  idea.  The 
Catholic  world  sought  an  end  to  anarchy  in  the  Church,  which  was 
an  idea,  but  was  never  adequately  embodied  in  fact.  Neither  the 
ancient  nor  the  medieval  Solution  was  satisfactory— the  one  because 
it  could  not  be  idealized,  the  other  because  it  could  not  be 
actualized.  The  modern  world,  at  present,  seems  to  be  moving 
towards  a  solution  like  that  of  antiquity:  a  social  order  imposed 

5'4 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS 


by  force,  representing  the  will  of  the  powerful  rather  than  the 
hopes  of  common  men.  The  problem  of  a  durable  and  satisfactory 
social  order  can  only  be  solved  by  combining  the  solidity  of  the 
Roman  Empire  with  the  idealism  of  St.  Augustine's  City  of  God. 
To  achieve  this  a  new  philosophy  will  be  needed. 


5*5 


Chapter  II 
THE   ITALIAN    RENAISSANCE 

f  I  «HE  modern  as  opposed  to  the  medieval  outlook  began  in 
I  Italy  with  the  movement  called  the  Renaissance.  At  first, 

JL  only  a  few  individuals,  notably  Petrarch,  had  this  outlook, 
but  during  the  fifteenth  century  it  spread  to  the  great  majority  of 
cultivated  Italians,  both  lay  and  clerical.  In  some  respects,  Italians 
of  the  Renaissance — with  the  exception  of  Leonardo  and  a  few 
others — had  not  the  respect  for  science  which  has  characterized 
most  important  innovators  since  the  seventeenth  century;  with 
this  lack  is  associated  their  very  partial  emancipation  from  super- 
stition, especially  in  the  form  of  astrology.  Many  of  them  had  still 
the  reverence  for  authority  that  medieval  philosophers  had  had, 
but  they  substituted  the  authority  of  the  ancients  for  that  of  the 
Church.  This  was,  of  course,  a  step  towards  emancipation,  since 
the  ancients  disagreed  with  each  other,  and  individual  judgment 
was  required  to  decide  which  of  them  to  follow.  But  very  few 
Italians  of  the  fifteenth  century  would  have  dared  to  hold  an 
opinion  for  which  no  authority  could  be  found  either  in  antiquity 
or  in  the  teaching  of  the  Church. 

To  understand  the  Renaissance,  it  is  necessary  first  to  review 
briefly  the  political  condition  of  Italy.  After  the  death  of  Frederick 
II  in  1250,  Italy  was,  in  the  main,  free  from  foreign  interference 
until  the  French  king  Charles  VIII  invaded  the  country  in  1494. 
There  were  in  Italy  five  important  States:  Milan,  Venice,  Florence, 
the  Papal  Domain,  and  Naples;  in  addition  to  these  there  were  a 
number  of  small  principalities,  which  varied  in  their  alliance  with 
or  subjection  to  some  one  of  the  larger  States.  Until  1378,  Genoa 
rivalled  Venice  in  commerce  and  naval  power,  but  after  that  year 
Genoa  became  subject  to  Milanese  suzerainty. 

Milan,  which  led  the  resistance  to  feudalism  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries,  fell,  after  the  final  defeat  of  the  Hohenstaufen, 
under  the  dominion  of  the  Visconti,  an  able  family  whose  power 
was  plutocratic,  not  feudal.  They  ruled  for  170  years,  from  1277 
to  1447 ;  then,  after  three  years  of  restored  republican  government, 
a  new  family,  that  of  the  Sforza,  connected  with  the  Visconti, 
acquired  the  government,  and  took  the  title  of  Dukes  of  Milan. 


THE    ITALIAN   RENAISSANCE 

From  1494  to  1535,  Milan  was  a  battle-ground  between  the  French 
and  the  Spaniards;  the  Sforza  allied  themselves  sometimes  with 
one  side,  sometimes  with  the  other.  During  this  period  they  were 
sometimes  in  exile,  sometimes  in  nominal  control.  Finally,  in  1535, 
Milan  was  annexed  by  the  Emperor  Charles  V. 

The  Republic  of  Venice  stands  somewhat  outside  Italian  politics, 
especially  in  the  earlier  centuries  of  its  greatness.  It  had  never  been 
conquered  by  the  barbarians,  and  at  first  regarded  itself  as  subject 
to  the  Eastern  emperors.  This  tradition,  combined  with  the  fact 
that  its  trade  was  with  the  East,  gave  it  an  independence  of  Rome, 
which  still  persisted  down  to  the  time  of  the  Council  of  Trent 
(1545),  of  which  the  Venetian  Paolo  Sarpi  wrote  a  very  anti-papal 
history.  We  have  seen  how,  at  the  time  of  the  fourth  Crusade, 
Venice  insisted  upon  the  conquest  of  Constantinople.  This  im- 
proved Venetian  trade,  which,  conversely,  suffered  by  the  Turkish 
conquest  of  Constantinople  in  1453.  For  various  reasons,  partly 
connected  with  food  supply,  the  Venetians  found  it  necessary, 
during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  to  acquire  consider- 
able territory  on  the  mainland  of  Italy;  this  roused  enmities,  and 
led  finally,  in  1509,  to  the  formation  of  the  League  of  Cambrai, 
a  combination  of  powerful  States  by  which  Venice  was  defeated. 
It  might  have  been  possible  to  recover  from  this  misfortune,  but 
not  from  Vasco  da  G  a  ma's  discovery  of  the  Cape  route  to  India 
(1497-8).  This,  added  to  the  power  of  the  Turks,  ruined  Venice, 
which,  however,  lingered  on  until  deprived  of  independence  by 
Napoleon. 

The  constitution  of  Venice,  which  had  originally  been  demo- 
cratic, became  gradually  less  so,  and  was,  after  1297,  a  close 
oligarchy.  The  basis  of  political  power  was  the  Great  Council, 
membership  of  which,  after  that  date,  was  hereditary,  and  was 
confined  to  the  leading  families.  Executive  power  belonged  to  the 
Council  of  Ten,  which  was  elected  by  the  Great  Council.  The 
Doge,  the  ceremonial  head  of  the  State,  was  elected  for  life;  his 
nominal  powers  were  very  restricted,  but  in  practice  his  influence 
was  usually  decisive.  Venetian  diplomacy  was  considered  exceed- 
ingly astute,  and  the  reports  of  Venetian  ambassadors  were 
remarkably  penetrating.  Since  Ranke,  historians  have  used  them 
as  among  the  best  sources  for  knowledge  of  the  events  with  which 
they  deal. 

Florence  was  the  most  civilized  city  in  the  world,  and  the  chief 

5'7 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

source  of  the  Renaissance.  Almost  all  the  great  names  in  literature, 
and  the  earlier  as  well  as  some  of  the  later  of  the  great  names  in 
art,  are  connected  with  Florence ;  but  for  the  present  we  are  con- 
cerned with  politics  rather  than  culture.  In  the  thirteenth  century, 
there  were  three  conflicting  classes  in  Florence:  the  nobles,  the 
rich  merchants,  and  the  small  men.  The  nobles,  in  the  main,  were 
Ghibelline,  the  other  two  classes  Guelf.  The  Ghibellines  were 
finally  defeated  in  1266,  and  during  the  fourteenth  century  the 
party  of  the  small  men  got  the  better  of  the  rich  merchants.  The 
conflict,  however,  led  not  to  a  stable  democracy,  but  to  the  gradual 
growth  of  what  the  Greeks  would  have  called  a  "tyranny."  The 
Medici  family,  who  ultimately  became  the  rulers  of  Florence, 
began  as  political  bosses  on  the  democratic  side.  Cosimo  dei  Medici 
(1389-1464),  the  first  of  the  family  to  achieve  clear  pre-eminence, 
still  had  no  official  position;  his  power  depended  upon  skill  in 
manipulating  elections.  He  was  astute,  conciliatory  when  possible, 
ruthless  when  necessary.  He  was  succeeded,  after  a  short  interval, 
by  his  grandson  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  who  held  power  from 
1469  till  his  death  in  1492.  Both  these  men  owed  their  position 
to  their  wealth,  which  they  had  acquired  mainly  in  commerce,  but 
also  in  mining  and  other  industries.  They  understood  how  to  make 
Florence  rich,  as  well  as  themselves,  and  under  them  the  city 
prospered. 

Lorenzo's  son  Pietro  lacked  his  father's  merits,  and  was  expelled 
in  1494.  Then  followed  the  four  years  of  Savonarola's  influence, 
when  a  kind  of  Puritan  revival  turned  men  against  gaiety  and 
luxury,  away  from  free-thought  and  towards  the  piety  supposed 
to  have  characterized  a  simpler  age.  In  the  end,  however,  mainly 
for  political  reasons,  Savonarola's  enemies  triumphed,  he  was 
executed  and  his  body  was  burnt  (1498).  The  Republic,  demo- 
cratic in  intention  but  plutocratic  in  fact,  survived  till  1512,  when 
the  Medici  were  restored.  A  son  of  Lorenzo,  who  had  become  a 
cardinal  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  was  elected  Pope  in  1513,  and  took 
the  title  of  Leo  X.  The  Medici  family,  under  the  title  of  Grand 
Dukes  of  Tuscany,  governed  Florence  until  1737;  but  Florence 
meanwhile,  like  the  rest  of  Italy,  had  become  poor  and  unim- 
portant. 

The  temporal  power  of  the  Pope,  which  owed  its  origin  to 
Pepin  and  the  forged  Donation  of  Constantinc,  increased  greatly 
during  the  Renaissance;  but  the  methods  employed  by  the  popes 


THE    ITALIAN    RENAISSANCE 

to  this  end  robbed  the  papacy  of  spiritual  authority.  The  conciliar 
movement,  which  came  to  grief  in  the  conflict  between  the  Council 
of  Basel  and  Pope  Eugenius  IV  (1431-47),  represented  the  most 
earnest  elements  in  the  Church;  what  was  perhaps  even  more 
important,  it  represented  ecclesiastical  opinion  north  of  the  Alps. 
The  victory  of  the  popes  was  the  victory  of  Italy,  and  (in  a  lesser 
degree)  of  Spain.  Italian  civilization,  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  was  totally  unlike  that  of  northern  countries, 
which  remained  medieval.  The  Italians  were  in  earnest  about 
culture,  but  not  about  morals  and  religion  ;  even  in  the  minds  of 
ecclesiastics,  elegant  latinity  would  cover  a  multitude  of  sins. 
Nicholas  V  (1447-55),  the  first  humanist  Pope,  gave  papal  offices 
to  scholars  whose  learning  he  respected,  regardless  of  other  con- 
siderations; Lorenzo  Valla,  an  Epicurean,  and  the  man  who  proved 
the  Donation  of  Constantine  to  be  a  forgery,  who  ridiculed  the 
style  of  the  Vulgate  and  accused  St.  Augustine  of  heresy,  was  made 
apostolic  secretary.  This  policy  of  encouraging  humanism  rather 
than  piety  or  orthodoxy  continued  until  the  sack  of  Rome  in 


Encouragement  of  humanism,  though  it  shocked  the  earnest 
North,  might,  from  our  point  of  view,  be  reckoned  a  virtue;  but 
the  warlike  policy  and  immoral  life  of  some  of  the  popes  could 
not  be  defended  from  any  point  of  view  except  that  of  naked  power 
politics.  Alexander  VI  (1492-1503)  devoted  his  life  as  Pope  to  the 
aggrandizement  of  himself  and  his  family.  He  had  two  sons,  the 
Duke  of  Gandia  and  Caesar  Borgia,  of  whom  he  greatly  preferred 
the  former.  The  duke,  however,  was  murdered,  probably  by  his 
brother;  the  Pope's  dynastic  ambitions  therefore  had  to  be  con- 
centrated on  Caesar.  Together  they  conquered  the  Romagna  and 
Ancona,  which  were  intended  to  form  a  principality  for  Caesar; 
but  when  the  Pope  died  Caesar  was  very  ill,  and  therefore  could 
not  act  promptly.  Their  conquests  consequently  reverted  to  the 
patrimony  of  St.  Peter.  The  wickedness  of  these  two  men  soon 
became  legendary,  and  it  is  difficult  to  disentangle  truth  from 
falsehood  as  regards  the  innumerable  murders  of  which  they  are 
accused.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  they  carried  the 
arts  of  perfidy  further  than  they  had  'ever  been  carried  before. 
Julius  II  (1503-13),  who  succeeded  Alexander  VI,  was  not  remark- 
able for  piety,  but  gave  less  occasion  for  scandal  than  his  pre- 
decessor. He  continued  the  process  of  enlarging  the  papal  domain  ; 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

as  a  soldier  he  had  merit,  but  not  as  the  Head  of  the  Christian 
Church.  The  Reformation,  which  began  under  his  successor  Leo  X 
(1513-21),  was  the  natural  outcome  of  the  pagan  policy  of  the 
Renaissance  popes. 

The  southern  extremity  of  Italy  was  occupied  by  the  Kingdom 
of  Naples,  with  which,  at  most  times,  Sicily  was  united.  Naples  and 
Sicily  had  been  the  especial  personal  kingdom  of  the  Emperor 
Frederick  II;  he  had  introduced  an  absolute  monarchy  on  the 
Mohammedan  model,  enlightened  but  despotic,  and  allowing  no 
power  to  the  feudal  nobility.  After  his  death  in  1250,  Naples  and 
Sicily  went  to  his  natural  son  Manfred,  who,  however,  inherited 
the  implacable  hostility  of  the  Church,  and  was  ousted  by  the 
French  in  1266.  The  French  made  themselves  unpopular,  and 
were  massacred  in  the  "Sicilian  Vespers"  (1282),  after  which  the 
kingdom  belonged  to  Peter  III  of  Aragon  and  his  heirs.  After 
various  complications,  leading  to  the  temporary  separation  of 
Naples  and  Sicily,  they  were  reunited  in  1443  under  Alphonso 
the  Magnanimous,  a  distinguished  patron  of  letters.  From  1495 
onwards,  three  French  kings  tried  to  conquer  Naples,  but  in  the 
end  the  kingdom  was  acquired  by  Ferdinand  of  Aragon  (1502). 
Charles  VIII,  Louis  XII,  and  Francis  I,  kings  of  France,  all  had 
claims  (not  very  good  in  law)  on  Milan  and  Naples;  all  invaded 
Italy  with  temporary  success,  but  all  were  ultimately  defeated  by 
the  Spaniards.  The  victory  of  Spain  and  the  Counter- Reformation 
put  an  end  to  the  Italian  Renaissance.  Pope  Clement  VII  being 
an  obstacle  to  the  Counter- Reformation,  and,  as  a  Medici,  a  friend 
of  France,  Charles  V,  in  1527,  caused  Rome  to  be  sacked  by  a 
largely  Protestant  army.  .After  this,  the  popes  became  religious, 
and  the  Italian  Renaissance  was  at  an  end. 

The  game  of  power  politics  in  Italy  was  unbelievably  complex. 
The  minor  princes,  mostly  self-made  tyrants,  allied  themselves 
now  with  one  of  the  larger  States,  now  with  another;  if  they 
played  the  game  unwisely,  they  were  exterminated.  There  were 
constant  wars,  but  until  the  coming  of  the  French  in  1494  they 
were  almost  bloodless:  the  soldiers  were  mercenaries,  who  were 
anxious  to  minimize  their  vocational  risks.  These  purely  Italian 
wars  did  not  interfere  much  with  trade,  or  prevent  the  country 
from  increasing  in  wealth.  There  was  much  statecraft,  but  no 
wiae  statesmanship;  when  the  French  came,  the  country  found 
ittelf  practically  defenceless.  French  troops  shocked  the  Italians 

520 


THE   ITALIAN   RENAISSANCE 

by  actually  killing  people  in  battle.  The  wars  between  French  and 
Spaniards  which  ensued  were  serious  wars,  bringing  suffering  and 
impoverishment.  But  the  Italian  States  went  on  intriguing  against 
each  other,  invoking  the  aid  of  France  or  Spain  in  their  internal 
quarrels,  without  any  feeling  for  national  unity.  In  the  end,  all 
were  ruined.  It  must  be  said  that  Italy  would  inevitably  have  lost 
its  importance,  owing  to  the  discovery  of  America  and  the  Cape 
route  to  the  East;  but  the  collapse  could  have  been  less  catas- 
trophic, and  less  destructive  of  the  quality  of  Italian  civilization. 

The  Renaissance  was  not  a  period  of  great  achievement  in 
philosophy,  but  it  did  certain  things  which  were  essential  pre- 
liminaries to  the  greatness  of  the  seventeenth  century.  In  the  first 
place,  it  broke  down  the  rigid  scholastic  system,  which  had  become 
an  intellectual  strait  jacket.  It  revived  the  study  of  Plato,  and 
thereby  demanded  at  least  so  much  independent  thought  as  was 
required  for  choosing  between  him  and  Aristotle.  In  regard  to 
both,  it  promoted  a  genuine  and  first-hand  knowledge,  free  from 
the  glosses  of  Xeoplatonists  and  Arabic  commentators.  More 
important  still,  it  encouraged  the  habit  of  regarding  intellectual 
activity  as  a  delightful  social  adventure,  not  a  cloistered  meditation 
aiming  at  the  preservation  of  a  predetermined  orthodoxy. 

The  substitution  of  Plato  for  the  scholastic  Aristotle  was  has- 
tened by  contact  with  Byzantine  scholarship.  Already  at  the  Coun- 
cil of  Ferrara  (1438),  which  nominally  reunited  the  Eastern  and 
Western  Churches,  there  was  a  debate  in  which  the  Byzantines 
maintained  the  superiority  of  Plato  to  Aristotle.  Gemistus  Pletho, 
an  ardent  Greek  Platonist  of  doubtful  orthodoxy,  did  much  to 
promote  Platonism  in  Italy ;  so  did  Bessarion,  a  Greek  who  became 
a  cardinal.  Cosirno  and  Lorenzo  dei  Medici  were  both  addicted 
to  Plato;  Cosimo  founded  and  Lorenzo  continued  the  Florentine 
Academy,  which  was  largely  devoted  to  the  study  of  Plato.  Cosimo 
died  listening  to  one  of  Plato's  dialogues.  The  humanists  of  the 
time,  however,  were  too  busy  acquiring  knowledge  of  antiquity  to 
be  able  to  produce  anything  original  in  philosophy. 

The  Renaissance  was  not  a  popular  movement;  it  was  a  move- 
ment of  a  small  number  of  scholars  and  artists,  encouraged  by 
liberal  patrons,  especially  the  Medici  artd  the  humanist  popes.  But 
for  these  patrons,  it  might  have  had  very  much  less  success. 
Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  belong  men- 
tally to  the  Renaissance,  but  owing  to  the  different  political  con- 

521 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

ditions  of  their  time  their  immediate  influence  was  less  than  that 
of  the  fifteenth-century  humanists. 

The  attitude  of  Renaissance  scholars  to  the  Church  is  difficult 
to  characterize  simply.  Some  were  avowed  free-thinkers,  though 
even  these  usually  received  extreme  unction,  making  peace  with 
the  Church  when  they  felt  death  approaching.  Most  of  them  were 
impressed  by  the  wickedness  of  contemporary  popes,  but  were 
nevertheless  glad  to  be  employed  by  them.  Guicciardini  the  his- 
torian wrote  in  1529: 

"No  man  is  more  disgusted  than  I  am  with  the  ambition,  the 
avarice,  and  the  profligacy  of  the  priests,  not  only  because  each 
of  these  vices  is  hateful  in  itself,  but  because  each  and  all  of  them 
are  most  unbecoming  in  those  who  declare  themselves  to  be  men 
in  special  relations  with  God,  and  also  because  they  are  vices  so 
opposed  to  one  another,  that  they  can  only  co-exist  in  very  sin- 
gular natures.  Nevertheless,  my  position  at  the  Court  of  several 
popes  forced  me  to  desire  their  greatness,  for  the  sake  of  my  own 
interest.  But,  had  it  not  been  for  this,  I  should  have  loved  Martin 
Luther  as  myself,  not  in  order  to  free  myself  from  the  laws  which 
Christianity,  as  generally  understood  and  explained,  lays  upon  us, 
but  in  order  to  see  this  swarm  of  scoundrels  put  back  into  their 
proper  place,  so  that  they  may  be  forced  to  live  either  without 
vices  or  without  power."1 

This  is  delightfully  frank,  and  shows  clearly  why  the  humanists 
could  not  inaugurate  a  reformation.  Moreover,  most  of  them  saw 
no  half-way  house  between  orthodoxy  and  free-thought;  such  a 
position  as  Luther's  was  impossible  for  them,  because  they  no 
longer  had  the  medieval  feeling  for  the  subtleties  of  theology. 
Masuccio,  after  describing  the  wickedness  of  monks  and  nuns  and 
friars,  says;  "The  best  punishment  for  them  would  be  for  God 
to  abolish  purgatory;  they  would  then  receive  no  more  alms,  and 
would  be  forced  to  go  back  to  their  spades."2  But  it  does  not 
occur  to  him,  as  to  Luther,  to  deny  purgatory,  while  retaining 
most  of  the  Catholic  faith. 

The  wealth  of  Rome  depended  only  in  small  part  upon  the 
revenues  obtained  from  the  papal  dominions;  in  the  main,  it  was 
a  tribute,  drawn  from  the  whole  Catholic  world,  by  means  of  a 
theological  system  which  maintained  that  the  popes  held  the  keys 

1  Quoted  from  Burckhardt,  Renaissance  in  Italy,  part  iv,  chap.  ii. 
•  Ibid. 


THE    ITALIAN    RENAISSANCE 

of  heaven.  An  Italian  who  effectively  questioned  this  system  risked 
the  impoverishment  of  Italy,  and  the  loss  of  the  position  in  the 
Western  world.  Consequently  Italian  unorthodoxy,  in  the  Renais- 
sance, was  purely  intellectual,  and  did  not  lead  to  schism,  or  to 
any  attempt  to  create  a  popular  movement  away  from  the  Church. 
The  only  exception,  and  that  a  very  partial  one,  was  Savonarola, 
who  belonged  mentally  to  the  Middle  Ages. 

Most  of  the  humanists  retained  such  superstitious  beliefs  as  had 
found  support  in  antiquity.  Magic  and  witchcraft  might  be  wicked, 
but  were  not  thought  impossible.  Innocent  VIII,  in  1484,  issued 
a  bull  against  witchcraft,  which  led  to  an  appalling  persecution 
of  witches  in  Germany  and  elsewhere.  Astrology  was  prized 
especially  by  freethinkers;  it  acquired  a  vogue  which  it  had  not 
had  since  ancient  times.  The  first  effect  of  emancipation  from  the 
Church  was  not  to  make  men  think  rationally,  but  to  open  their 
minds  to  every  sort  of  antique  nonsense. 

Morally,  the  first  effect  of  emancipation  w$s  equally  disastrous. 
The  old  moral  rules  ceased  to  be  respected ;  most  of  the  rulers  of 
States  had  acquired  their  position  by  treachery,  and  retained  it 
by  ruthless  cruelty.  When  cardinals  were  invited  to  dine  at  the 
coronation  of  a  pope,  they  brought  their  own  wine  and  their  own 
cup-bearer,  for  fear  of  poison.1  Except  Savonarola,  hardly  any 
Italian  of  the  period  risked  anything  for  a  public  object.  The  evils 
of  papal  corruption  were  obvious,  but  nothing  was  done  about 
them.  The  desirability  of  Italian  unity  was  evident,  but  the  rulers 
were  incapable  of  combination.  The  danger  of  foreign  domination 
was  imminent,  yet  every  Italian  ruler  was  prepared  to  invoke  the 
aid  of  any  foreign  power,  even  the  Turk,  in  any  dispute  with  any 
other  Italian  ruler.  I  cannot  think  of  any  crime,  except  the  des- 
truction of  ancient  manuscripts,  of  which  the  men  of  the  Renais- 
sance were  not  frequently  guilty. 

Outside  the  sphere  of  morals,  the  Renaissance  had  great  merits. 
In  architecture,  painting,  and  poetry,  it  has  remained  renowned. 
It  produced  very  great  men,  such  as  Leonardo,  Michelangelo,  and 
Machiavelli.  It  liberated  educated  men  from  the  narrowness  of 
medieval  culture,  and,  even  while  still  a  slave  to  the  worship  of 
antiquity,  it  made  scholars  aware  that  *a  variety  of  opinions  had 
been  held  by  reputable  authorities  on  almost  every  subject.  By 
reviving  the  knowledge  of  the  Greek  world,  it  created  a  mental 
1  Burckhardt,  op.  cit.t  part  vi,  chap.  i. 

523 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

atmosphere  in  which  it  was  again  possible  to  rival  Hellenic  achieve- 
ments, and  in  which  individual  genius  could  flourish  with  a  free- 
dom unknown  since  the  time  of  Alexander.  The  political  conditions 
of  the  Renaissance  favoured  individual  development,  but  were 
unstable;  the  instability  and  the  individualism  were  closely  con- 
nected, as  in  ancient  Greece.  A  stable  social  system  is  necessary, 
but  every  stable  system  hitherto  devised  has  hampered  the  deve- 
lopment of  exceptional  artistic  or  intellectual  merit.  How  much 
murder  and  anarchy  are  we  prepared  to  endure  for  the  sake  of 
great  achievements  such  as  those  of  the  Renaissance  ?  In  the  past, 
a  great  deal;  in  our  own  time,  much  less.  No  solution  of  this 
problem  has  hitherto  been  found,  although  increase  of  social 
organization  is  making  it  continually  more  important. 


5*4 


Chapter  III 
MACHIAVELLI 

E  •  IHE  Renaissance,  though  it  produced  no  important  theo- 
I  retical  philosopher,  produced  one  man  of  supreme 
JL  eminence  in  political  philosophy:  Niccol6  Machiavelli.  It 
is  the  custom  to  be  shocked  by  him,  and  he  certainly  is  sometimes 
shocking.  But  many  other  men  would  be  equally  so  if  they  were 
equally  free  from  humbug.  His  political  philosophy  is  scientific 
and  empirical,  based  upon  his  own  experience  of  affairs,  concerned 
to  set  forth  the  means  to  assigned  ends,  regardless  of  the  question 
whether  the  ends  are  to  be  considered  good  or  bad.  When,  on 
occasion,  he  allows  himself  to  mention  the  ends  that  he  desires, 
they  are  such  as  we  can  all  applaud.  Much  of  the  conventional 
obloquy  that  attaches  to  his  name  is  due  to  the  indignation  of 
hypocrites  who  hate  the  frank  avowal  of  evil-doing.  There  remains, 
it  is  true,  a  good  deal  that  genuinely  demands  criticism,  but  in  this 
he  is  an  expression  of  his  age.  Such  intellectual  honesty  about 
political  dishonesty  would  have  been  hardly  possible  at  any  other 
time  or  in  any  other  country,  except  perhaps  in  Greece  among 
men  who  owed  their  theoretical  education  to  the  sophists  and  their 
practical  training  to  the  wars  of  petty  states  which,  in  classical 
Greece  as  in  Renaissance  Italy,  were  the  political  accompaniment 
of  individual  genius. 

Machiavelli  (1467-1527)  was  a  Florentine,  whose  father,  a  law- 
yer, was  neither  rich  nor  poor.  When  he  was  in  his  twenties, 
Savonarola  dominated  Florence;  his  miserable  end  evidently  made 
a  great  impression  on  Machiavelli,  for  he  remarks  that  "all  armed 
prophets  have  conquered  and  unarmed  ones  failed,"  proceeding 
to  give  Savonarola  as  an  instance  of  the  latter  class.  On  the  other 
side  he  mentions  Moses,  Cyrus,  Theseus,  and  Romulus.  It  is 
typical  of  the  Renaissance  that  Christ  is  not  mentioned. 

Immediately  after  Savonarola's  execution,  Machiavelli  obtained 
a  minor  post  in  the  Florentine  government  (1498).  He  remained 
in  its  service,  at  times  on  important  diplomatic  missions,  until 
the  restoration  of  the  Medici  in  1512 ;  tLen,  having  always  opposed 
them,  he  was  arrested,  but  acquitted,  and  allowed  to  live  in  retire- 
ment in  the  country  near  Florence.  He  became  an  author  for  want 

525 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

oi  other  occupation.  His  most  famous  work,  The  Prince^  was 
written  in  1513,  and  dedicated  to  Lorenzo  the  Second,  since  he 
hoped  (vainly,  as  it  proved)  to  win  the  favour  of  the  Medici, 
Its  tone  is  perhaps  partly  due  to  this  practical  purpose ;  his  longer 
work,  the  Discourses^  which  he  was  writing  at  the  same  time,  is 
markedly  more  republican  and  more  liberal.  He  says  at  the  begin- 
ning of  The  Prince  that  he  will  not  speak  of  republics  in  this  book, 
since  he  has  dealt  with  them  elsewhere.  Those  who  do  not  read 
also  the  Discourses  are  likely  to  get  a  very  one-sided  view  of  his 
doctrine. 

Having  failed  to  conciliate  the  Medici,  Machiavelli  was  com- 
pelled to  go  on  writing.  He  lived  in  retirement  until  the  year  of 
his  death,  which  was  that  of  the  sack  of  Rome  by  the  troops  of 
Charles  V.  This  year  may  be  reckoned  also  that  in  which  the 
Italian  Renaissance  died. 

The  Prince  is  concerned  to  discover,  from  history  and  from  con- 
temporary events,  how  principalities  are  won,  how  they  are  held, 
and  how  they  are  lost.  Fifteenth-century  Italy  afforded  a  multitude 
of  examples,  both  great  and  small.  Few  rulers  were  legitimate; 
even  the  popes,  in  many  cases,  secured  election  by  corrupt  means. 
The  rules  for  achieving  success  were  not  quite  the  same  as  they 
became  when  times  grew  more  settled,  for  no  one  was  shocked  by 
cruelties  and  treacheries  which  would  have  disqualified  a  man  in 
the  eighteenth  or  the  nineteenth  century.  Perhaps  our  age,  again, 
can  better  appreciate  Machiavelli,  for  some  of  the  most  notable 
successes  of  our  time  have  been  achieved  by  methods  as  base  as 
any  employed  in  Renaissance  Italy.  He  would  have  applauded, 
as  an  artistic  connoisseur  in  statecraft,  Hitler's  Reichstag  fire,  his 
purge  of  the  party  in  1934,  and  his  breach  of  faith  after  Munich. 
Caesar  Borgia,  son  of  Alexander  VI,  comes  in  for  high  praise. 
His  problem  was  a  difficult  one:  first,  by  the  death  of  his  brother, 
to  become  the  sole  beneficiary  of  his  father's  dynastic  ambition ; 
second,  to  conquer  by  force  of  arms,  in  the  name  of  the  Pope, 
territories  which  should,  after  Alexander's  death,  belong  to  him- 
self and  not  to  the  Papal  States;  third,  to  manipulate  the  College 
of  Cardinals  so  that  the  next  Pope  should  be  his  friend.  He  pursued 
this  difficult  end  with  great  skill;  from  his  practice,  Machiavellt 
says,  a  new  prince  should  derive  precepts.  Caesar  failed,  it  is  true, 
but  only  "by  the  extraordinary  malignity  of  fortune."  It  happened 
that,  when  his  father  died,  he  also  was  dangerously  ill;  by  the 

526 


MACH1AVELLI 

time  he  recovered,  his  enemies  had  organized  their  forces,  and  his 
bitterest  opponent  had  been  elected  Pope.  On  the  day  of  this 
election,  Caesar  told  Machiavelli  that  he  had  provided  for  every- 
thing, "except  that  he  had  never  thought  that  at  his  father's  death 
he  would  be  dying  himself." 

Machiavelli,  who  was  intimately  acquainted  with  his  villainies, 
sums  up  thus:  "Reviewing  thus  all  the  actions  of  the  duke  [Caesar], 
I  find  nothing  to  blame,  on  the  contrary,  I  feel  bound,  as  I  have 
done,  to  hold  him  as  an  example  to  be  imitated  by  all  who  by 
fortune  and  with  the  arms  of  others  have  risen  to  power." 

There  is  an  interesting  chapter  "Of  Ecclesiastical  Principalities," 
which,  in  view  of  what  is  said  in  the  Discourses,  evidently  conceals 
part  of  Machiavelli 's  thought.  The  reason  for  concealment  was, 
no  doubt,  that  The  Prince  was  designed  to  please  the  Medici,  and 
that,  when  it  was  written,  a  Medici  had  just  become  Pope  (Leo  X). 
In  regard  to  ecclesiastical  principalities,  he  says  in  The  Prince,  the 
only  difficulty  is  to  acquire  them,  for,  when  acquired,  they  are 
defended  by  ancient  religious  customs,  which  keep  their  princes 
in  power  no  matter  how  they  behave.  Their  princes  do  not  need 
armies  (so  he  says),  because  "they  are  upheld  by  higher  causes 
which  the  human  mind  cannot  attain  to."  They  are  "exalted  and 
maintained  by  God,"  and  "it  would  be  the  work  of  a  presumptuous 
and  foolish  man  to  discuss  them."  Nevertheless,  he  continues,  it 
is  permissible  to  inquire  by  what  means  Alexander  VI  so  greatly 
increased  the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope. 

The  discussion  of  the  papal  powers  in  the  Discourses  is  longer 
and  more  sincere.  Here  he  begins  by  placing  eminent  men  in  an 
ethical  hierarchy.  The  best,  he  says,  are  the  founders  of  religions; 
then  come  the  founders  of  monarchies  or  republics;  then  literary 
men.  These  are  good,  but  destroyers  of  religions,  subverters  of 
republics  or  kingdoms,  and  enemies  of  virtue  or  of  letters,  are 
bad.  Those  who  establish  tyrannies  are  wicked,  including  Julius 
Caesar ;  on  the  other  hand,  Brutus  was  good.  (The  contrast  between 
this  view  and  Dante's  shows  the  effect  of  classical  literature.)  Me 
holds  that  religion  should  have  a  prominent  place  in  the  State,  not 
on  the  ground  of  its  truth,  but  as  a  social  cement:  the  Romans 
were  right  to  pretend  to  believe  in  auguries,  and  to  punish  those 
who  disregarded  them.  His  criticisms  of  the  Church  in  his  day 
are  two:  that  by  its  evil  conduct  it  has  undermined  religious  belief, 
and  that  the  temporal  power  of  the  popes,  with  the  policy  that  it 

5*7 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

inspires,  prevents  the  unification  of  Italy.  These  criticisms  are 
expressed  with  great  vigour.  "The  nearer  people  are  to  the  Church 
of  Rome,  which  is  the  head  of  our  religion,  the  less  religious  are 
they. . . .  Her  ruin  and  chastisement  is  near  at  hand. . . .  We  Italians 
owe  to  the  Church  of  Rome  and  to  her  priests  our  having  become 
irreligious  and  bad;  but  we  owe  her  a  still  greater  debt,  and  one 
that  will  be  the  cause  of  our  ruin,  namely  that  the  Church  has 
kept  and  still  keeps  our  country  divided."1 

In  view  of  such  passages,  it  must  be  supposed  that  Machiavelli's 
admiration  of  Caesar  Borgia  was  only  for  his  skill,  not  for  his  pur- 
poses. Admiration  of  skill,  and  of  the  actions  that  lead  to  fame,  was 
very  great  at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance.  This  kind  of  feeling  has, 
of  course,  always  existed ;  many  of  Napoleon's  enemies  enthusiasti- 
cally admired  him  as  a  military  strategist.  But  in  the  Italy  of 
Machiavelli's  time  the  quasi-artistic  admiration  of  dexterity  was 
much  greater  than  in  earlier  or  later  centuries.  It  would  be  a 
mistake  to  try  to  reconcile  it  with  the  arger  political  aims  which 
Machiavelli  considered  important;  the  two  things,  love  of  skill 
and  patriotic  desire  for  Italian  unity,  existed  side  by  side  in  his 
mind,  and  were  not  in  any  degree  synthesized.  Thus  he  can  praise 
Caesar  Borgia  for  his  cleverness,  and  blame  him  for  keeping  Italy 
disrupted.  The  perfect  character,  one  must  suppose,  would  be,  in 
his  opinion,  a  man  as  clever  and  unscrupulous  as  Caesar  Borgia 
where  means  are  concerned,  but  aiming  at  a  different  end.  The 
Prince  ends  with  an  eloquent  appeal  to  the  Medici  to  liberate  Italy 
from  the  "barbarians"  (i.e.  the  French  and  Spaniards),  whose 
domination  "stinks."  He  would  not  expect  such  a  work  to  be 
undertaken  from  unselfish  motives,  but  from  love  of  power,  and 
still  more  of  fame. 

The  Prince  is  very  explicit  in  repudiating  received  morality  where 
the  conduct  of  rulers  is  concerned.  A  ruler  will  perish  if  he  is 
always  good ;  he  must  be  as  cunning  as  a  fox  and  as  fierce  as  a  lion. 
There  is  a  chapter  (XVIII)  entitled:  "In  What  Way  Princes  Must 
Keep  Faith."  We  learn  that  they  should  keep  faith  when  it  pays 
to  do  so,  but  not  otherwise.  A  prince  must  on  occasion  be  faithless 

"But  it  is  necessary  to  be  able  to  disguise  this  character  well,  and 

to  be  a  great  feigner  and  dissembler;  and  men  are  so  simple  and 

so  ready  to  obey  present  necessities,  that  one  who  deceives  will 

always  find  those  who  allow  themselves  to  be  deceived.  I  will  men- 

*  This  remained  true  until  1870. 

5*8 


MACHIAVELLI 

tion  only  one  modern  instance.  Alexander  VI  did  nothing  else  but 
deceive  men,  he  thought  of  nothing  else,  and  found  the  occasion 
for  it;  no  man  was  ever  more  able  to  give  assurances,  or  affirmed 
things  with  stronger  oaths,  and  no  man  observed  them  less;  how* 
ever,  he  always  succeeded  in  his  deceptions,  as  he  knew  well  this 
aspect  of  things.  It  is  not  necessary  therefore  for  a  prince  to  have 
all  the  above-named  qualities  [the  conventional  virtues],  but  it  is 
very  necessary  to  seem  to  have  them." . 

He  goes  on  to  say  that,  above  all,  a  prince  should  seem  to  be 
religious. 

The  tone  of  the  Discourses,  which  are  nominally  a  commentary 
on  Livy,  is  very  different.  There  are  whole  chapters  which  seem 
almost  as  if  they  had  been  written  by  Montesquieu ;  most  of  the 
book  could  have  been  read  with  approval  by  an  eighteenth-century 
liberal.  The  doctrine  of  checks  and  balances  is  set  forth  explicitly. 
Princes,  nobles,  and  people  should  all  have  a  part  in  the  Con- 
stitution; "then  these  three  powers  will  keep  each  other  recipro- 
cally in  check."  The  constitution  of  Sparta,  as  established  by 
Lycurgus,  was  the  best,  because  it  embodied  the  most  perfect 
balance ;  that  of  Solon  was  too  democratic,  and  therefore  led  to  the 
tyranny  of  Peisistratus.  The  Roman  republican  constitution  was 
good,  owing  to  the  conflict  of  Senate  and  people. 

The  word  "liberty"  is  used  throughout  as  denoting  something 
precious,  though  what  it  denotes  is  not  very  clear.  This,  of  course, 
comes  from  antiquity,  and  was  passed  on  to  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries.  Tuscany  has  preserved  its  liberties,  because 
it  contains  no  castles  or  gentlemen.  ("Gentlemen"  is  of  course  a 
mistranslation,  but  a  pleasing  one.)  It  seems  to  be  recognized  that 
political  liberty  requires  a  certain  kind  of  personal  virtue  in  the 
citizens.  In  Germany  alone,  we  are  told,  probity  and  religion  are 
still  common,  and  therefore  in  Germany  there  are  many  republics. 
In  genera],  the  people  are  wiser  and  more  constant  than  princes, 
although  Livy  and  most  other  writers  maintain  the  opposite.  It  is 
not  without  good  reason  that  it  is  said,  "the  voice  of  the  people 
is  the  voice  of  God." 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  the  political  thought  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans,  in  their  republican  days,  acquired  an  actuality 
in  the  fifteenth  century  which  it  had  not  had  in  Greece  since 
Alexander  or  in  Rome  since  Augustus.  The  Neoplatonists,  the 
Arabs,  and  the  Schoolmen  took  a  passionate  interest  in  the  meta- 

5*9 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

physics  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  but  none  at  all  in  their  political 
writings,  because  the  political  systems  of  the  age  of  City  States 
had  completely  disappeared.  The  growth  of  City  States  in  Italy 
synchronized  with  the  revival  of  learning,  and  made  it  possible 
for  humanists  to  profit  by  the  political  theories  of  republican 
Greeks  and  Romans.  The  love  of  "liberty,"  and  the  theory  of 
checks  and  balances,  came  to  the  Renaissance  from  antiquity,  and 
to  modern  times  largely  from  the  Renaissance,  though  also  directly 
from  antiquity.  This  aspect  of  Machiavelli  is  at  least  as  important 
as  the  more  famous  "immoral"  doctrines  of  The  Prince. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  Machiavelli  never  bases  any  political 
argument  on  Christian  or  biblical  grounds.  Medieval  writers  had 
a  conception  of  "legitimate"  power,  which  was  that  of  the  Pope 
and  the  Emperor,  or  derived  from  them.  Northern  writers,  even 
so  late  as  Locke,  argue  as  to  what  happened  in  the  Garden  of  Eden, 
and  think  that  they  can  thence  derive  proofs  that  certain  kinds  of 
power  are  "legitimate."  In  Machiavelli  there  is  no  such  conception. 
Power  is  for  those  who  have  the  skill  to  seize  it  in  a  free  com- 
petition.  His  preference  for  popular  government  is  not  derived 
from  any  idea  of  "rights,"  but  from  the  observation  that  popular 
governments  are  less  cruel,  unscrupulous,  and  inconstant  than 
tyrannies. 

Let  us  try  to  make  a  synthesis  (which  Machiavelli  himself  did 
not  make)  of  the  "moral"  and  "immoral"  parts  of  his  doctrine. 
In  what  follows,  I  am  expressing  not  my  own  opinions,  but 
opinions  which  are  explicitly  or  implicitly  his. 

There  are  certain  political  goods,  of  which  three  are  specially 
important:  national  independence,  security,  and  a  well-ordered 
constitution.  The  best  constitution  is  one  which  apportions  legal 
rights  among  prince,  nobles,  and  people  in  proportion  to  their  real 
power,  for  under  such  a  constitution  successful  revolutions  are 
difficult  and  therefore  stability  is  possible;  but  for  considerations 
of  stability,  it  would  be  wise  to  give  more  power  to  the  people. 
So  far  as  regards  ends. 

But  there  is  also,  in  politics,  the  question  of  means.  It  is  futile 
to  pursue  a  political  purpose  by  methods  that  are  bound  to  fail ; 
if  the  end  is  held  good,  <we  must  choose  means  adequate  to  its 
achievement.  The  question  of  means  can  be  treated  in  a  purely 
scientific  manner,  without  regard  to  the  goodness  or  badness  of  the 
ends.  "Success"  means  the  achievement  of  your  purpose,  whatever 

530 


MACH1AVELL1 

it  may  be.  If  there  is  a  science  of  success,  it  can  be  studied  just  as 
well  in  the  successes  of  the  wicked  as  in  those  of  the  good — indeed 
better,  since  the  examples  of  successful  sinners  are  more  numerous 
than  those  of  successful  saints.  But  the  science,  once  established, 
will  be  just  as  useful  to  the  saint  as  to  the  sinner.  For  the  saint,  if 
he  concerns  himself  with  politics,  must  wish,  just  as  the  sinner 
does,  to  achieve  success. 

The  question  is  ultimately  one  of  power.  To  achieve  a  political 
end,  power,  of  one  kind  or  another,  is  necessary.  This  plain  fact 
is  concealed  by  slogans,  such  as  "right  will  prevail'*  or  ''the  triumph 
of  evil  is  short-lived."  If  the  side  that  you  think  right  prevails,  that 
is  because  it  has  superior  power.  It  is  true  that  power,  often, 
depends  upon  opinion,  and  opinion  upon  propaganda;  it  is  true, 
also,  that  it  is  an  advantage  in  propaganda  to  seem  more  virtuous 
than  your  adversary,  and  that  one  way  of  seeming  virtuous  is  to 
be  virtuous.  For  this  reason,  it  may  sometimes  happen  that  victory 
goes  to  the  side  which  has  the  most  of  what  the  general  public 
considers  to  be  virtue.  We  must  concede  to  Machiavelli  that  this 
was  an  important  element  in  the  growing  power  of  the  Church 
during  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and  thirteenth  centuries,  as  well  as  in 
the  success  of  the  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century.  But  there 
are  important  limitations.  In  the  first  place,  those  who  have  seized 
power  can,  by  controlling  propaganda,  cause  their  party  to  appear 
virtuous;  no  one,  for  example,  could  mention  the  sins  of  Alexander 
VI  in  a  New  York  or  Boston  public  school.  In  the  second  place, 
there  are  chaotic  periods  during  which  obvious  knavery  frequently 
succeeds;  the  period  of  Machiavelli  was  one  of  them.  In  such 
times,  there  tends  to  be  a  rapidly  growing  cynicism,  which  makes 
men  forgive  anything  provided  it  pays.  Even  in  such  times,  as 
Machiavelli  himself  says,  it  is  desirable  to  present  an  appearance 
of  virtue  before  the  ignorant  public. 

This  question  can  be  carried  a  step  further.  Machiavelli  is  of 
opinion  that  civilized  men  are  almost  certain  to  be  unscrupulous 
egoists.  If  a  man  wished  nowadays  to  establish  a  republic,  he 
says,  he  would  find  it  easier  with  mountaineers  than  with  the  men 
of  a  large  city,  since  the  latter  would  be  already  corrupted.1  If  a 
man  is  an  unscrupulous  egoist,  his  wisest  line  of  conduct  will 

1  It  is  curious  to  find  this  anticipation  of  Rousseau.  It  would  be  amus- 
ing, and  not  wholly  false,  to  interpret  Machiavelli  as  a  disappointed 
romantic. 

S31 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

depend  upon  the  population  with  which  he  has  to  operate.  The 
Renaissance  Church  shocked  everybody,  but  it  was  only  north 
of  the  Alps  that  it  shocked  people  enough  to  produce  the  Refor- 
mation. At  the  time  when  Luther  began  his  revolt,  the  revenue  of 
the  papacy  was  probably  larger  than  it  would  have  been  if  Alexan- 
der VI  and  Julius  II  had  been  more  virtuous,  and  if  this  is  true, 
it  is  so  because  of  the  cynicism  of  Renaissance  Italy.  It  follows  that 
politicians  will  behave  better  when  they  depend  upon  a  virtuous 
population  than  when  they  depend  upon  one  which  is  indifferent 
to  moral  considerations;  they  will  also  behave  better  in  a  com- 
munity in  which  their  crimes,  if  any,  can  be  made  widely  known, 
than  in  one  in  which  there  is  a  strict  censorship  under  their  control. 
A  certain  amount  can,  of  course,  always  be  achieved  by  hypocrisy, 
but  the  amount  can  be  much  diminished  by  suitable  institutions. 

Machiavelli's  political  thinking,  like  that  of  most  of  the  ancients, 
is  in  one  respect  somewhat  shallow.  He  is  occupied  with  great  law- 
givers, such  as  Lycurgus  and  Solon,  who  are  supposed  to  create 
a  community  all  in  one  piece,  with  little  regard  to  what  has  gone 
before.  The  conception  of  a  community  as  an  organic  growth, 
which  the  statesmen  can  only  affect  to  a  limited  extent,  is  in  the 
main  modern,  and  has  been  greatly  strengthened  by  the  theory 
of  evolution.  This  conception  is  not  to  be  found  in  Machiavelli 
any  more  than  in  Plato. 

It  might,  however,  be  maintained  that  the  evolutionary  view  of 
society,  though  true  in  the  past,  is  no  longer  applicable,  but  must, 
for  the  present  and  the  future,  be  replaced  by  a  much  more 
mechanistic  view.  In  Russia  and  Germany  new  societies  have  been 
created,  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  mythical  Lycurgus  was 
supposed  to  have  created  the  Spartan  polity.  The  ancient  lawgiver 
was  a  benevolent  myth ;  the  modern  lawgiver  is  a  terrifying  reality. 
The  world  has  become  more  like  that  of  Machiavelli  than  it  was, 
and  the  modern  man  who  hopes  to  refute  his  philosophy  must 
think  more  deeply  than  seemed  necessary  in  the  nineteenth  century. 


532 


Chapter  IV 
ERASMUS    AND    MORE 

IN  northern  countries  the  Renaissance  began  later  than  in  Italy, 
and  soon  became  entangled  with  the  Reformation.  But  there 
was  a  brief  period,  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
during  which  the  new  learning  was  being  vigorously  disseminated 
in  France,  England,  and  Germany,  without  having  become  in- 
volved in  theological  controversy.  This  northern  Renaissance  was 
in  many  ways  very  different  from  that  of  Italy.  It  was  not  anarchic 
or  amoral;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  associated  with  piety  and  public 
virtue.  It  was  much  interested  in  applying  standards  of  scholarship 
to  the  Bible,  and  in  obtaining  a  more  accurate  text  than  that  of  the 
Vulgate.  It  was  less  brilliant  and  more  solid  than  its  Italian  pro- 
genitor, less  concerned  with  personal  display  of  learning,  and  more 
anxious  to  spread  learning  as  widely  as  possible. 

Two  men,  Erasmus  and  Sir  Thomas  More,  will  serve  as  exem- 
plars of  the  northern  Renaissance.  They  were  close  friends,  and 
had  much  in  common.  Both  were  learned,  though  More  less  so 
than  Erasmus ;  both  despised  the  scholastic  philosophy ;  both  aimed 
at  ecclesiastical  reform  from  within,  but  deplored  the  Protestant 
schism  when  it  came;  both  were  witty,  humorous,  and  highly 
skilled  writers.  Before  Luther's  revolt,  they  were  leaders  of  thought, 
but  after  it  the  world  was  too  violent,  on  both  sides,  for  men  of 
their  type.  More  suffered  martyrdom,  and  Erasmus  sank  into 
ineffectiveness. 

Neither  Erasmus  nor  More  was  a  philosopher  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word.  My  reason  for  speaking  of  them  is  that  they  illustrate 
the  temper  of  a  pre-revolutionary  age,  when  there  is  a  widespread 
demand  for  moderate  reform,  and  timid  men  have  not  yet  been 
frightened  into  reaction  by  extremists.  They  exemplify  also  the 
dislike  of  everything  systematic  in  theology  or  philosophy  which 
characterized  the  reactions  against  scholasticism. 

Erasmus  (1466-1536)  was  born  at  Rotterdam.1  He  was  illegiti- 
mate, and  invented  a  romantically  untrae  account  of  the  circum- 
stances of  his  birth.  In  fact,  his  father  was  a  priest,  a  man  of 

1  As  regards  the  life  of  Erasmus,  I  have  mainly  followed  the  excellent 
biography  by  Iluizinga. 

533 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

some  learning,  with  a  knowledge  of  Greek.  His  parents  died  before 
he  was  grown  up,  and  his  guardians  (apparently  because  they  had 
embezzled  his  money)  cajoled  him  into  becoming  a  monk  at  the 
monastery  of  Steyr,  a  step  which  he  regretted  all  the  rest  of  his  life. 
One  of  his  guardians  was  a  schoolmaster,  but  knew  less  Latin  than 
Erasmus  already  knew  as  a  schoolboy;  in  reply  to  a  Latin  epistle 
from  the  boy,  the  schoolmaster  wrote:  "If  you  should  write  again 
so  elegantly,  please  to  add  a  commentary." 

In  1493,  he  became  secretary  to  the  bishop  of  Cambrai,  who  was 
Chancellor  of  the  Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece.  This  gave  him  the 
opportunity  to  leave  the  monastery  and  travel,  though  not  to  Italy, 
as  he  had  hoped.  His  knowledge  of  Greek  was  as  yet  very  slight, 
but  he  was  a  highly  accomplished  Latinist ;  he  particularly  admired 
Lorenzo  Valla,  on  account  of  his  book  on  the  elegancies  of  the 
Latin  language.  He  considered  latinity  quite  compatible  with  true 
devotion,  and  instanced  Augustine  and  Jerome — forgetting,  appa- 
rently, the  dream  in  which  Our  Lord  denounced  the  latter  for 
reading  Cicero. 

He  was  for  a  time  at  the  University  of  Paris,  but  found  nothing 
there  that  was  of  profit  to  himself.  The  university  had  had  its  great 
days,  from  the  beginning  of  scholasticism  to  Gerson  and  the  con- 
ciliar  movement,  but  now  the  old  disputes  had  become  arid. 
Thomists  and  Scotists,  who  jointly  were  called  the  Ancients,  dis- 
puted against  Occamists,  who  were  called  the  Terminists,  or 
Moderns.  At  last,  in  1482,  they  were  reconciled,  and  made  common 
cause  against  the  humanists,  who  were  making  headway  in  Paris 
outside  university  circles.  Erasmus  hated  the  scholastics,  whom  he 
regarded  as  superannuated  and  antiquated.  He  mentioned  in  a 
letter  that,  as  he  wanted  to  obtain  the  doctor's  degree,  he  tried 
to  say  nothing  either  graceful  or  witty.  He  did  not  really  like  any 
philosophy,  not  even  Plato  and  Aristotle,  though  they,  being 
ancients,  had  to  be  spoken  of  with  respect. 

In  1499  he  made  his  first  visit  to  England,  where  he  liked  the 
fashion  of  kissing  girls.  In  England  he  made  friends  with  Colet  and 
More,  who  encouraged  him  to  undertake  serious  work  rather  than 
literary  trifles.  Colet  lectured  on  the  Bible  without  knowing  Greek; 
Erasmus,  feeling  that  he  would  like  to  do  work  on  the  Bible,  con- 
sidered that  a  knowledge  of  Greek  was  essential.  After  leaving 
England  at  the  beginning  of  1500,  he  set  to  work  to  learn  Greek, 
though  he  was  too  poor  to  afford  a  teacher ;  by  the  autumn  of  1502, 

534 


ERASMUS    AND    MORE 

he  was  proficient,  and  when  in  1506  he  went  to  Italy,  he  found 
that  the  Italians  had  nothing  to  teach  him.  He  determined  to  edit 
St.  Jerome,  and  to  bring  out  a  Greek  Testament  with  a  new  Latin 
translation;  both  were  achieved  in  1516.  The  discovery  of  inac- 
curacies in  the  Vulgate  was  subsequently  of  use  to  the  Protestants 
in  controversy.  He  tried  to  learn  Hebrew,  but  gave  it  up. 

The  only  book  by  Erasmus  that  is  still  read  is  The  Praise  of  Folly. 
The  conception  of  this  book  came  to  him  in  1509,  while  he  was 
crossing  the  Alps  on  the  way  from  Italy  to  England.  He  wrote  it 
quickly  in  London,  at  the  house  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  to  whom  it 
is  dedicated,  with  a  playful  suggestion  of  appropriateness  since 
"moros"  means  "fool."  The  book  is  spoken  by  Folly  in  her  own 
person ;  she  sings  her  own  praises  with  great  gusto,  and  her  text 
is  enlivened  still  further  with  illustrations  by  Holbein.  She  covers 
all  pans  of  human  life,  and  all  classes  and  professions.  But  for  her, 
the  human  race  would  die  out,  for  who  can  marry  without  folly? 
She  counsels,  as  an  antidote  to  wisdom,  "taking  a  wife,  a  creature 
so  harmless  and  silly,  and  yet  so  useful  and  convenient,  as  might 
mollify  and  make  pliable  the  stiffness  and  morose  humour  of  men." 
Who  can  be  happy  without  flattery  or  without  self-love?  Yet  such 
happiness  is  folly.  The  happiest  men  are  those  who  are  nearest  the 
brutes  and  divest  themselves  of  reason.  The  best  happiness  is  that 
which  is  based  on  delusion,  since  it  costs  least:  it  is  easier  to 
imagine  oneself  a  king  than  to  make  oneself  a  king  in  reality. 
Erasmus  proceeds  to  make  fun  of  national  pride  and  of  professional 
conceit :  almost  all  professors  of  the  arts  and  sciences  are  egregiously 
conceited,  and  derive  their  happiness  from  their  conceit. 

There  are  passages  where  the  satire  gives  way  to  invective,  and 
Folly  utters  the  serious  opinions  of  Erasmus ;  these  are  concerned 
with  ecclesiastical  abuses.  Pardons  and  indulgences,  by  which 
priests  "compute  the  time  of  each  soul's  residence  in  purgatory"; 
the  worship  of  saints,  even  of  the  Virgin,  "whose  blind  devotees 
think  it  manners  to  place  the  mother  before  the  Son";  the  disputes 
of  theologians  as  to  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation ;  the  doctrine 
of  transubstantiation ;  the  scholastic  sects;  popes,  cardinals,  and 
bishops — all  are  fiercely  ridiculed.  Particularly  fierce  is  the  attack 
on  the  monastic  orders:  they  are  "brainsick  fools,"  who  have  very 
little  religion  in  them,  yet  are  "highly  in  love  with  themselves,  and 
fond  admirers  of  their  own  happiness/'  They  behave  as  if  all 
religion  consisted  in  minute  punctilio:  "The  precise  number  of 

535 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

knots  to  the  tying  on  of  their  sandals;  what  distinct  colours  their 
respective  habits,  and  what  stuff  made  of;  how  broad  and  long 
their  girdles,"  and  so  on.  "It  will  be  pretty  to  hear  their  pleas 
before  the  great  tribunal :  one  will  brag  how  he  mortified  his  carnal 
appetite  by  feeding  only  upon  fish:  another  will  urge  that  he  spent 
most  of  his  time  on  earth  in  the  divine  exercise  of  singing  psalms: 
. . .  another,  that  in  threescore  years  he  never  so  much  as  touched 
a  piece  of  money,  except  he  fingered  it  through  a  thick  pair  of 
gloves."  But  Christ  will  interrupt:  "Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and 
pharisees,  ...  I  left  you  but  one  precept,  of  loving  one  another, 
which  I  do  not  hear  any  one  plead  that  he  has  faithfully  dis- 
charged.9' Yet  on  earth  these  men  are  feared,  for  they  know  many 
secrets  from  the  confessional,  and  often  blab  them  when  they  are 
drunk. 

Popes  are  not  spared.  They  should  imitate  their  Master  by 
humility  and  poverty.  "Their  only  weapons  ought  to  be  those  of 
the  Spirit ;  and  of  these  indeed  they  are  mightily  liberal,  as  of  their 
interdicts,  their  suspensions,  their  denunciations,  their  aggrava- 
tions, their  greater  and  lesser  excommunications,  and  their  roaring 
bulls,  that  fight  whomever  they  are  thundered  against ;  and  these 
most  holy  fathers  never  issue  them  out  more  frequently  than 
against  those  who,  at  the  instigation  of  the  devil,  and  not  having 
the  fear  of  God  before  their  eyes,  do  feloniously  and  maliciously 
attempt  to  lessen  and  impair  St.  Peter's  patrimony." 

It  might  be  supposed,  from  such  passages,  that  Erasmus  would 
have  welcomed  the  Reformation,  but  it  proved  otherwise. 

The  book  ends  with  the  serious  suggestion  that  true  religion  is 
a  form  of  Folly.  There  are,  throughout,  two  kinds  of  Folly,  one 
praised  ironically,  the  other  seriously;  the  kind  praised  seriously 
is  that  which  is  displayed  in  Christian  simplicity.  This  praise  is 
of  a  piece  with  Erasmus's  dislike  of  scholastic  philosophy  and  of 
learned  doctors  whose  Latin  was  unclassical.  But  it  has  also  a 
deeper  aspect.  It  is  the  first  appearance  in  literature,  so  far  as  I 
know,  of  the  view  set  forth  in  Rousseau's  Savoyard  Vicar,  accord- 
ing to  which  true  religion  comes  from  the  heart,  not  the  head,  and 
all  elaborate  theology  is  superfluous.  This  point  of  view  has  become 
increasingly  common,  anti  is  now  pretty  generally  accepted  among 
Protestants.  It  is,  essentially,  a  rejection  of  Hellenic  intellectualism 
by  the  sentimentalism  of  the  North. 

Erasmus,  on  his  second  visit  to  England,  remained  for  five  years 

536 


ERASMUS    AND    MORE 

(1509-14),  partly  in  London,  partly  at  Cambridge.  He  had  a  con- 
siderable influence  in  stimulating  English  humanism.  The  educa- 
tion at  English  public  schools  remained,  until  recently,  almost 
exactly  what  he  would  have  wished:  a  thorough  grounding  in 
Greek  and  Latin,  involving  not  only  translation,  but  verse  and 
prose  composition.  Science,  although  intellectually  dominant  since 
the  seventeenth  century,  was  thought  unworthy  the  attention  of 
a  gentleman  or  a  divine;  Plato  should  be  studied,  but  not  the 
subjects  which  Plato  thought  worth  studying.  All  this  is  in  line 
with  the  influence  of  Erasmus. 

The  men  of  the  Renaissance  had  an  immense  curiosity;  "these 
minds,"  says  Huizinga,  "never  had  their  desired  share  of  striking 
incidents,  curious  details,  rarities  and  anomalies."  But  at  first  they 
sought  these  things,  not  in  the  world,  but  in  old  books.  Erasmus 
was  interested  in  the  world,  but  could  not  digest  it  in  the  raw:  it 
had  to  be  dished  up  in  Latin  or  Greek  before  he  could  assimilate 
it.  Travellers'  tales  were  discounted,  but  any  marvel  in  Pliny  was 
believed.  Gradually,  however,  curiosity  became  transferred  from 
books  to  the  real  world ;  men  became  interested  in  the  savages  and 
strange  animals  that  were  actually  discovered,  rather  than  in  those 
described  by  classical  authors.  Caliban  comes  from  Montaigne, 
and  Montaigne's  cannibals  come  from  travellers.  "The  anthropo- 
phagi and  men  whose  heads  do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders"  had 
been  seen  by  Othello,  not  derived  from  antiquity. 

And  so  the  curiosity  of  the  Renaissance,  from  having  been 
literary,  gradually  became  scientific.  Such  a  cataract  of  new  facts 
overwhelmed  men  that  they  could,  at  first,  only  be  swept  along 
with  the  current.  The  old  systems  were  evidently  wrong;  Aris- 
totle's physics  and  Ptolemy's  astronomy  and  Galen's  medicine 
could  not  be  stretched  to  include  the  discoveries  that  had  been 
made.  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare  are  content  with  confusion: 
discovery  is  delightful,  and  system  is  its  enemy.  It  was  not  till  the 
seventeenth  century  that  the  system-building  faculty  caught  up 
with  the  new  knowledge  of  matters  of  fact.  All  this,  however,  has 
taken  us  far  from  Erasmus,  to  whom  Columbus  was  less  interesting 
than  the  Argonauts. 

Erasmus  was  incurably  and  unashamedly  literary.  He  wrote  a 
book,  Enchiridion  militis  christiani,  giving  advice  to  illiterate  sol- 
diers: they  were  to  read  the  Bible,  but  also  Plato,  Ambrose, 
Jerome,  and  Augustine.  He  made  a  vast  collection  of  Latin  pro- 

537 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

verbs,  to  which,  in  later  editions,  he  added  many  in  Greek;  his 
original  purpose  was  to  enable  people  to  write  Latin  idiomatically. 
He  wrote  an  immensely  successful  book  of  Colloquies,  to  teach 
people  how  to  talk  in  Latin  about  every-day  matters,  such  as  a 
game  of  bowls.  This  was,  perhaps,  more  useful  than  it  seems  now. 
Latin  was  the  only  international  language,  and  students  at  the 
University  of  Paris  came  from  all  over  Western  Europe.  It  may 
have  often  happened  that  Latin  was  the  only  language  in  which 
two  students  could  converse. 

After  the  Reformation,  Erasmus  lived  first  in  Louvain,  which 
maintained  perfect  Catholic  orthodoxy,  then  in  Basel,  which 
became  Protestant.  Each  side  tried  to  enlist  him,  but  for  a  long 
time  in  vain.  He  had,  as  we  have  seen,  expressed  himself  strongly 
about  ecclesiastical  abuses  and  the  wickedness  of  popes;  in  1518, 
the  very  year  of  Luther's  revolt,  he  published  a  satire,  called  Julius 
exclusus,  describing  the  failure  of  Julius  II  to  get  to  heaven.  But 
Luther's  violence  repelled  him,  and  he  hated  war.  At  last  he  came 
down  on  the  Catholic  side.  In  1524  he  wrote  a  work  defending 
free  will,  which  Luther,  following  and  exaggerating  Augustine, 
rejected.  Luther  replied  savagely,  and  Erasmus  was  driven  further 
into  reaction.  From  this  time  until  his  death,  he  became  increasingly 
unimportant.  He  had  always  been  timid,  and  the  times  were  no 
longer  suited  to  timid  people.  For  honest  men,  the  only  honourable 
alternatives  were  martyrdom  or  victory.  His  friend  Sir  Thomas 
More  was  compelled  to  choose  martyrdom,  and  Erasmus  com- 
mented: "Would  More  had  never  meddled  with  that  dangerous 
business,  and  left  the  theological  cause  to  the  theologians.1' 
Erasmus  lived  too  long,  into  an  age  of  new  virtues  and  new 
vices — heroism  and  intolerance — neither  of  which  he  could 
acquire. 

Sir  Thomas  More  (1478-1535)  was,  as  a  man,  much  more  ad- 
mirable than  Erasmus,  but  much  less  important  as  an  influence. 
He  was  a  humanist,  but  also  a  man  of  profound  piety.  At  Oxford, 
he  set  to  work  to  learn  Greek,  which  was  then  unusual,  and  was 
thought  to  show  a  sympathy  with  Italian  infidels.  The  authorities 
and  his  father  objected,  and  he  was  removed  from  the  university. 
Thereupon  he  was  attracted  to  the  Carthusians,  practised  extreme 
austerities,  and  contemplated  joining  the  order.  He  was  deterred 
from  doing  so,  apparently  by  the  influence  of  Erasmus,  whom  he 
first  met  at  this  time.  His  father  was  a  lawyer,  and  he  decided  to 

538 


ERASMUS   AND    MORE 

follow  his  father's  profession.  In  1504  he  was  a  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  led  the  opposition  to  Henry  VH's  demand  for  new 
taxes.  In  this  he  was  successful,  but  the  king  was  furious;  he  sent 
More's  father  to  the  Tower,  releasing  him,  however,  on  payment 
of  £100.  On  the  king's  death  in  1509,  More  returned  to  the  practice 
of  the  law,  and  won  the  favour  of  Henry  VIII.  He  was  knighted 
in  1514,  and  employed  on  various  embassies.  The  king  kept  in- 
viting him  to  court,  but  More  would  not  come;  at  last  the  king 
came  uninvited  to  dine  with  him  at  his  house  in  Chelsea.  More 
had  no  illusions  as  to  Henry  VIII;  when  complimented  on  the 
king's  favourable  disposition,  he  replied:  "If  my  head  should  win 
him  a  castle  in  France  it  should  not  fail  to  go." 

When  Wolsey  fell,  the  king  appointed  More  chancellor  in  his 
stead.  Contrary  to  the  usual  practice,  he  refused  all  gifts  from 
litigants.  He  soon  fell  into  disfavour,  because  the  king  was  deter- 
mined to  divorce  Catherine  of  Aragon  in  order  to  marry  Anne 
Bo  ley  n,  and  More  was  unalterably  opposed  to  the  divorce.  He 
therefore  resigned  in  1532.  His  incorruptibility  when  in  office  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  after  his  resignation  he  had  only  £100  a 
year.  In  spite  of  his  opinions,  the  king  invited  him  to  his  wedding 
with  Anne  Boleyn,  but  More  refused  the  invitation.  In  1534,  the 
king  got  Parliament  to  pass  the  Act  of  Supremacy,  declaring  him, 
not  the  Pope,  the  head  of  the  Church  of  England.  Under  this  act 
an  Oath  of  Supremacy  was  exacted,  which  More  refused  to  take; 
this  was  only  misprision  of  treason,  which  did  not  involve  the 
death  penalty.  It  was  proved,  however,  by  very  dubious  testimony, 
that  he  had  said  Parliament  could  not  make  Henry  head  of  the 
Church;  on  this  evidence  he  was  convicted  of  high  treason,  and 
beheaded.  His  property  was  given  to  Princess  Elizabeth,  who  kept 
it  to  the  day  of  her  death. 

More  is  remembered  almost  solely  on  account  of  his  Utopia 
(1518).  Utopia  is  an  island  in  the  southern  hemisphere,  where 
everything  is  done  in  the  best  possible  way.  It  has  been  visited 
accidentally  by  a  sailor  named  Raphael  Hythloday,  who  spent  five 
years  there,  and  only  returned  to  Europe  to  make  its  wise  institu- 
tions known. 

In  Utopia,  as  in  Plato's  Republic,  all  things  are  held  in  common, 
for  the  public  good  cannot  flourish  where  there  is  private  property, 
and  without  communism  there  can  be  no  equality.  More,  in  the 
dialogue,  objects  that  communism  would  make  men  idle,  and 

539 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

destroy  respect  for  magistrates;  to  this  Raphael  replies  that  no 
one  would  say  this  who  had  lived  in  Utopia. 

There  are  in  Utopia  fifty-four  towns,  all  on  the  same  plan,  except 
that  one  is  the  capital.  All  the  streets  are  twenty  feet  broad,  and 
all  the  private  houses  are  exactly  alike,  with  one  door  onto  the 
street  and  one  onto  the  garden.  There  are  no  locks  on  the  doors, 
and  everyone  may  enter  any  house.  The  roofs  are  flat.  Every 
tenth  year  people  change  houses — apparently  to  prevent  any  feeling 
of  ownership.  In  the  country,  there  are  farms,  each  containing 
not  fewer  than  forty  persons,  including  two  bondmen ;  each  farm 
is  under  the  rule  of  a  master  and  mistress,  who  are  old  and  wise. 
The  chickens  are  not  hatched  by  hens,  but  in  incubators  (which 
did  not  exist  in  More's  time).  All  are  dressed  alike,  except  that 
there  is  a  difference  between  the  dress  of  men  and  women,  and 
of  married  and  unmarried.  The  fashions  never  change,  and  no 
difference  is  made  between  summer  and  winter  clothing.  At  work, 
leather  or  skins  are  worn ;  a  suit  will  last  seven  years.  When  they 
stop  work,  they  throw  a  woollen  cloak  over  their  working  clothes. 
All  these  cloaks  are  alike,  and  are  the  natural  colour  of  wool.  Each 
family  makes  its  own  clothes. 

Everybody — men  and  women  alike — works  six  hours  a  day,  three 
before  dinner  and  three  after.  All  go  to  bed  at  eight,  and  sleep  eight 
hours.  In  the  early  morning  there  are  lectures,  to  which  multitudes 
go,  although  they  are  not  compulsory.  After  supper  an  hour  is 
devoted  to  play.  Six  hours*  work  is  enough,  because  there  are  no 
idlers  and  there  is  no  useless  work;  with  us,  it  is  said,  women, 
priests,  rich  people,  servants,  and  beggars,  mostly  do  nothing 
useful,  and  owing  to  the  existence  of  the  rich  much  labour  is  spent 
in  producing  unnecessary  luxuries;  all  this  is  avoided  in  Utopia. 
Sometimes  it  is  found  that  there  is  a  surplus,  and  the  magistrates 
proclaim  a  shorter  working  day  for  a  time. 

Some  men  are  elected  to  become  men  of  learning,  and  are 
exempted  from  other  work  while  they  are  found  satisfactory.  All 
who  are  concerned  with  government  are  chosen  from  the  learned. 
The  government  is  a  representative  democracy,  with  a  system  of 
indirect  election;  at  the  head  is  a  prince  who  is  elected  for  life, 
but  can  be  deposed  for  tyranny. 

Family  life  is  patriarchal;  married  sons  live  in  their  father's 
house,  and  are  governed  by  him,  unless  he  is  in  his  dotage.  If  any 
family  grows  too  large,  the  surplus  children  are  moved  into  another 


ERASMUS   AND   MORE 

family.  If  a  town  grows  too  large,  some  of  the  inhabitants  are 
moved  into  another  town.  If  all  the  towns  are  too  large,  a  new 
town  is  built  on  waste  land.  Nothing  is  said  as  to  what  is  to  be 
done  when  all  the  waste  land  is  used  up.  All  killing  of  beasts  for  food 
is  done  by  bondmen,  lest  free  citizens  should  learn  cruelty.  There 
are  hospitals  for  the  sick,  which  are  so  excellent  that  people  who 
are  ill  prefer  them.  Eating  at  home  is  permitted,  but  most  people 
eat  in  common  halls.  Here  the  "vile  service"  is  done  by  bondmen, 
but  the  cooking  is  done  by  women  and  the  waiting  by  the  older 
children.  Men  sit  at  one  bench,  women  at  another;  nursing 
mothers,  with  children  under  five,  are  in  a  separate  parlour.  All 
women  nurse  their  own  children.  Children  over  five,  if  too  young 
to  be  waiters,  "stand  by  with  marvellous  silence,"  while  their 
elders  eat ;  they  have  no  separate  dinner,  but  must  be  content  with 
such  scraps  as  are  given  them  from  the  table. 

As  for  marriage,  both  men  and  women  are  sharply  punished  if 
not  virgin  when  they  marry ;  and  fhe  householder  of  any  house  in 
which  misconduct  has  occurred  is  liable  to  incur  infamy  for  care- 
lessness. Before  marriage,  bride  and  groom  see  each  other  naked ; 
no  one  would  buy  a  horse  without  first  taking  off  the  saddle  and 
bridle,  and  similar  considerations  should  apply  in  marriage.  There 
is  divorce  for  adultery  or  "intolerable  waywardness"  of  either 
party,  but  the  guilty  party  cannot  remarry.  Sometimes  divorce 
is  granted  solely  because  both  parties  desire  it.  Breakers  of  wedlock 
are  punished  by  bondage. 

There  is  foreign  trade,  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  getting  iron, 
of  which  there  is  none  in  the  island.  Trade  is  used  also  for  purposes 
connected  with  war.  The  Utopians  think  nothing  of  martial  glory, 
though  all  learn  how  to  fight,  women  as  well  as  men.  They  resort 
to  war  for  three  purposes:  to  defend  their  own  territory  when 
invaded ;  to  deliver  the  territory  of  an  ally  from  invaders ;  and  to 
free  an  oppressed  nation  from  tyranny.  But  whenever  they  can, 
they  get  mercenaries  to  fight  their  wars  for  them.  They  aim  at 
getting  other  nations  into  their  debt,  and  letting  them  work  off 
the  debt  by  supplying  mercenaries.  For  war  purposes  also  they 
find  a  store  of  gold  and  silver  useful,  since  they  can  use  it  to  pay 
foreign  mercenaries.  For  themselves,  they  have  no  money,  and 
they  teach  contempt  for  gold  by  using  it  for  chamberpots  and  the 
chains  of  bondmen.  Pearls  and  diamonds  are  used  as  ornaments 
for  infants,  but  never  for  adults.  When  they  are  at  war,  they  offer 

54' 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

large  rewards  to  anyone  who  will  kill  the  prince  of  the  enemy 
country,  and  still  larger  rewards  to  anyone  who  will  bring  him 
alive,  or  to  himself  if  he  yields  himself  up.  They  pity  the  common 
people  among  their  enemies,  "knowing  that  they  be  driven  and 
enforced  to  war  against  their  wills  by  the  furious  madness  of  their 
princes  and  heads."  Women  fight  as  well  as  men,  but  no  one  is 
compelled  to  fight.  "Engines  for  war  they  devise  and  invent  won- 
drous wittily. "  It  will  be  seen  that  their  attitude  to  war  is  more 
sensible  than  heroic,  though  they  display  great  courage  when 
necessary. 

As  for  ethics,  we  are  told  that  they  are  too  much  inclined  to 
think  that  felicity  consists  in  pleasure.  This  view,  however,  has  no 
bad  consequences,  because  they  think  that  in  the  next  life  the  good 
are  rewarded  and  the  wicked  punished.  They  are  not  ascetic,  and 
consider  fasting  silly.  There  are  many  religions  among  them,  all 
of  which  are  tolerated.  Almost  all  believe  in  God  and  immortality; 
the  few  who  do  not  are  not  accounted  citizens,  and  have  no  part 
in  political  life,  but  are  otherwise  unmolested.  Some  holy  men 
eschew  meat  and  matrimony;  they  are  thought  holy,  but  not 
wise.  Women  can  be  priests,  if  they  are  old  and  widowed.  The 
priests  are  few;  they  have  honour,  but  no  power. 

Bondmen  are  people  condemned  for  heinous  offences,  or 
foreigners  who  have  been  condemned  to  death  in  their  own  coun- 
tries, but  whom  the  Utopians  have  agreed  to  take  as  bondmen. 

In  the  case  of  a  painful  incurable  disease,  the  patient  is  advised 
to  commit  suicide,  but  is  carefully  tended  if  he  refuses  to 
do  so. 

Raphael  Hythloday  relates  that  he  preached  Christianity  to  the 
Utopians,  and  that  many  were  converted  when  they  learnt  that 
Christ  was  opposed  to  private  property.  The  importance  of  com- 
munism is  constantly  stressed ;  almost  at  the  end  we  are  told  that 
in  all  other  nations  "I  can  perceive  nothing  but  a  certain  con- 
spiracy of  rich  men  procuring  their  own  commodities  under  the 
name  and  title  of  the  common  wealth." 

More's  Utopia  was  in  many  ways  astonishingly  liberal.  I  am  not 
thinking  so  much  of  the  preaching  of  communism,  which  was  in 
the  tradition  of  many  religious  movements.  I  am  thinking  rather 
of  what  is  said  about  war,  about  religion  and  religious  toleration, 
against  the  wanton  killing  of  animals  (there  is  a  most  eloquent 
passage  against  hunting),  and  in  favour  of  a  mild  criminal  law. 

542 


ERASMUS    AND    MORF 


(The  book  opens  with  an  argument  against  the  death  penalty  for 
theft.)  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  life  in  More's  Utopia, 
as  in  most  others,  would  be  intolerably  dull.  Diversity  is  essential 
to  happiness,  and  in  Utopia  there  is  hardly  any.  This  is  a  defect 
of  all  planned  social  systems,  actual  as  well  as  imaginary. 


543 


Chapter  V 

THE    REFORMATION    AND    COUNTER- 
REFORMATION 

Y  •  1HE  Reformation  and  Counter-Reformation,  alike,  repre- 
I  sent  the  rebellion  of  less  civilized  nations  against  the 
JL  intellectual  domination  of  Italy.  In  the  case  of  the  Refor- 
mation, the  revolt  was  also  political  and  theological:  the  authority 
of  the  Pope  was  rejected,  and  the  tribute  which  he  had  obtained 
from  the  power  of  the  keys  ceased  to  be  paid.  In  the  case  of  the 
Counter- Reformation,  there  was  only  revolt  against  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  freedom  of  Renaissance  Italy;  the  power  of  the 
Pope  was  not  diminished,  but  enhanced,  while  at  the  same  time 
it  was  made  clear  that  his  authority  was  incompatible  with  the 
easy-going  laxity  of  the  Borgias  and  Medici.  Roughly  speaking, 
the  Reformation  was  German,  the  Counter- Reformation  Spanish; 
the  wars  of  religion  were  at  the  same  time  wars  between  Spain 
and  its  enemies,  coinciding  in  date  with  the  period  when  Spanish 
power  was  at  its  height. 

The  attitude  of  public  opinion  in  northern  nations  towards 
Renaissance  Italy  is  illustrated  in  the  English  saying  of  that  time: 

An  Englishman  Italianate 
Is  a  devil  incarnate. 

It  will  be  observed  how  many  of  the  villains  in  Shakespeare  are 
Italians.  lago  is  perhaps  the  most  prominent  instance,  but  an  even 
more  illustrative  one  is  lachimo  in  Cymbeline,  who  leads  astray  the 
virtuous  Briton  travelling  in  Italy,  and  comes  to  England  to  prac- 
tise his  wicked  wiles  upon  unsuspecting  natives.  Moral  indignation 
against  Italians  had  much  to  do  with  the  Reformation.  Unfor- 
tunately it  involved  also  intellectual  repudiation  of  what  Italy  had 
done  for  civilization. 

The  three  great  men  of  the  Reformation  and  Counter- Reforma- 
tion are  Luther,  Calvin,  and  Loyola.  All  three,  intellectually,  are 
medieval  in  philosophy,  fcs  compared  either  to  the  Italians  who 
immediately  preceded  them,  or  to  such  men  as  Erasmus  and  More. 
Philosophically,  the  century  following  the  beginning  of  the  Refor- 
mation is  a  barren  one.  Luther  and  Calvin  reverted  to  St.  Augus- 

544 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    COUNTER- REFORMATION 

tine,  retaining,  however,  only  that  part  of  his  teaching  which  deals 
with  the  relation  of  the  soul  to  God,  not  the  part  which  is  con* 
earned  with  the  Church.  Their  theology  was  such  as  to  diminish 
the  power  of  the  Church.  They  abolished  purgatory,  from  which 
the  souls  of  the  dead  could  be  delivered  by  masses.  They  rejected 
the  doctrine  of  Indulgences,  upon  which  a  large  part  of  the  papal 
revenue  depended.  By  the  doctrine  of  predestination,  the  fate  of 
the  soul  after  death  was  made  wholly  independent  of  the  actions 
of  priests.  These  innovations,  while  they  helped  in  the  struggle 
with  the  Pope,  prevented  the  Protestant  Churches  from  becoming 
as  powerful  in  Protestant  countries  as  the  Catholic  Church  was  in 
Catholic  countries.  Protestant  divines  were  (at  least  at  first)  just 
as  bigoted  as  Catholic  theologians,  but  they  had  less  power,  and 
were  therefore  less  able  to  do  harm. 

Almost  from  the  very  beginning,  there  was  a  division  among 
Protestants  as  to  the  power  of  the  State  in  religious  matters.  Luther 
was  willing,  wherever  the  prince  was  Protestant,  to  recognize  him 
as  head  of  the  Church  in  his  own  country.  In  England,  Henry  VIII 
and  Elizabeth  vigorously  asserted  their  claims  in  this  respect,  and 
so  did  the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany,  Scandinavia,  and  (after 
the  revolt  from  Spain)  Holland.  This  accelerated  the  already  exist- 
ing tendency  to  increase  in  the  power  of  kings. 

But  those  Protestants  who  took  seriously  the  individualistic 
aspects  of  the  Reformation  were  as  unwilling  to  submit  to  the  king 
as  to  the  Pope.  The  Anabaptists  in  Germany  were  suppressed,  but 
their  doctrine  spread  to  Holland  and  England.  The  conflict 
between  Cromwell  and  the  Long  Parliament  had  many  aspects; 
in  its  theological  aspect,  it  was  in  part  a  conflict  between  those 
who  rejected  and  those  who  accepted  the  view  that  the  State 
should  decide  in  religious  matters.  Gradually  weariness  resulting 
from  the  wars  of  religion  led  to  the  growth  of  belief  in  religious 
toleration,  which  was  one  of  the  sources  of  the  movement  which 
developed  inlo  eighteenth-  and  nineteenth-century  liberalism. 

Protestant  success,  at  first  amazingly  rapid,  was  checked  mainly 
as  a  resultant  of  Loyola's  creation  of  the  Jesuit  order.  Loyola  had 
been  a  soldier,  and  his  order  was  founded  on  military  models; 
there  must  be  unquestioning  obedience  to  the  General,  and  every 
Jesuit  was  to  consider  himself  engaged  in  warfare  against  heresy. 
As  early  as  the  Council  of  Trent,  the  Jesuits  began  to  be  influen- 
tial. They  were  disciplined,  able,  completely  devoted  to  the  cause 

tffcfcry  of  fffffeni  /'*ifc**Ay  545  9 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

and  skilful  propagandists.  Their  theology  was  the  opposite  of  that 
of  the  Protestants;  they  rejected  those  elements  of  St.  Augustine's 
teaching  which  the  Protestants  emphasized.  They  believed  in  free 
will,  and  opposed  predestination.  Salvation  was  not  by  faith  alone, 
but  by  both  faith  and  works.  The  Jesuits  acquired  prestige  by  their 
missionary  zeal,  especially  in  the  Far  East.  They  became  popular 
as  confessors,  because  (if  Pascal  is  to  be  believed)  they  were  more 
lenient,  except  towards  heresy,  than  other  ecclesiastics.  They  con- 
centrated on  education,  and  thus  acquired  a  firm  hold  on  the  minds 
of  the  young.  Whenever  theology  did  not  interfere,  the  education 
they  gave  was  the  best  obtainable;  we  shall  see  that  they  taught 
Descartes  more  mathematics  than  he  would  have  learnt  elsewhere. 
Politically,  they  were  a  single  united  disciplined  body,  shrinking 
from  no  dangers  and  no  exertions;  they  urged  Catholic  princes  to 
practise  relentless  persecution,  and,  following  in  the  wake  of  con- 
quering Spanish  armies,  re-established  the  terror  of  the  Inquisition, 
even  in  Italy,  which  had  had  nearly  a  century  of  free-thought. 

The  results  of  the  Reformation  and  Counter- Reformat  ion,  in  the 
intellectual  sphere,  were  at  first  wholly  bad,  but  ultimately  bene- 
ficial. The  Thirty  Years'  War  persuaded  everybody  that  neither 
Protestants  nor  Catholics  could  be  completely  victorious ;  it  became 
necessary  to  abandon  the  medieval  hope  of  doctrinal  unity,  and 
this  increased  men's  freedom  to  think  for  themselves,  even  about 
fundamentals.  The  diversity  of  creeds  in  different  countries  made 
it  possible  to  escape  persecution  by  living  abroad.  Disgust  with 
theological  warfare  turned  the  attention  of  able  men  increasingly 
to  secular  learning,  especially  mathematics  and  science.  These  are 
among  the  reasons  for  the  fact  that,  while  the  sixteenth  century, 
after  the  rise  of  Luther,  is  philosophically  barren,  the  seventeenth 
contains  the  greatest  names  and  makes  the  most  notable  advance 
since  Greek  times.  This  advance  began  in  science,  with  which  I 
shall  deal  in  my  next  chapter. 


546 


Chapter  VI 
THE    RISE    OF    SCIENCE 

A  MOST  everything  that  distinguishes  the  modern  world  from 
earlier  centuries  is  attributable  to  science,  which  achieved 
its  most  spectacular  triumphs  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  Italian  Renaissance,  though  not  medieval,  is  not  modern;  it 
is  more  akin  to  the  best  age  of  Greece.  The  sixteenth  century,  with 
its  absorption  in  theology,  is  more  medieval  than  the  world  of 
Machiavelli.  The  modern  world,  so  far  as  mental  outlook  is  con- 
cerned, begins  in  the  seventeenth  century.  No  Italian  of  the 
Renaissance  would  have  been  unintelligible  to  Plato  or  Aristotle; 
Luther  would  have  horrified  Thomas  Aquinas,  but  would  not  have 
been  difficult  for  him  to  understand.  With  the  seventeenth  century 
it  is  different:  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Aquinas  and  Occam,  could  not 
have  made  head  or  tail  of  Newton. 

The  new  conceptions  that  science  introduced  profoundly  in- 
fluenced modern  philosophy.  Descartes,  who  was  in  a  sense  the 
founder  of  modern  philosophy,  was  himself  one  of  the  creators  of 
seventeenth-century  science.  Something  must  be  said  about  the 
methods  and  results  of  astronomy  and  physics  before  the  mental 
atmosphere  of  the  time  in  which  modern  philosophy  began  can 
be  understood. 

Four  great  men — Copernicus,  Kepler,  Galileo,  and  Newton — 
arc  pre-eminent  in  the  creation  of  science.  Of  these,  Copernicus 
belongs  to  the  sixteenth  century,  but  in  his  own  time  he  had  little 
influence. 

Copernicus  (1473-1543)  was  a  Polish  ecclesiastic,  of  unimpeach- 
able orthodoxy.  In  his  youth  he  travelled  in  Italy,  and  absorbed 
something  of  the  atmosphere  of  the  Renaissance.  In  1500  he  had 
a  lectureship  or  professorship  of  mathematics  in  Rome,  but  in  1503 
he  returned  to  his  native  land,  where  he  was  a  canon  of  Frauen- 
burg.  Much  of  his  time  seems  to  have  been  spent  in  combating  the 
Germans  and  reforming  the  currency,  but  his  leisure  was  devoted 
to  astronomy.  He  came  early  to  believe  tHat  the  sun  is  at  the  centre 
of  the  universe,  and  that  the  earth  has  a  twofold  motion:  a  diurnal 
rotation,  and  an  annual  revolution  about  the  sun.  Fear  of  eccle- 
siastical censure  led  him  to  delay  publication  of  his  views  though 

547 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

he  allowed  them  to  become  known.  His  chief  work,  De  Revolu- 
tionibus  Orbium  Ccekstium,  was  published  in  the  year  of  his  death 
(1543),  with  a  preface  by  his  friend  Osiander  saying  that  the  helio- 
centric theory  was  only  put  forward  as  a  hypothesis.  It  is  uncertain 
how  far  Copernicus  sanctioned  this  statement,  but  the  question  is 
not  very  important,  as  he  himself  made  similar  statements  ii.  the 
body  of  the  book.1  The  book  is  dedicated  to  the  Pope,  and  escaped 
official  Catholic  condemnation  until  the  time  of  Galileo.  The 
Church  in  the  lifetime  of  Copernicus  was  more  liberal  than  it 
became  after  the  Council  of  Trent,  the  Jesuits,  and  the  revived 
Inquisition  had  done  their  work. 

The  atmosphere  of  Copernicus's  work  is  not  modern ;  it  might 
rather  be  described  as  Pythagorean.  He  takes  it  as  axiomatic  that 
all  celestial  motions  must  be  circular  and  uniform,  and  like  the 
Greeks  he  allows  himself  to  be  influenced  by  aesthetic  motives. 
There  are  still  epicycles  in  his  system,  though  their  centres  are  at 
the  sun,  or,  rather,  near  the  sun.  The  fact  that  the  sun  is  not 
exactly  in  the  centre  marred  the  simplicity  of  his  theory.  Though 
he  had  heard  of  the  Pythagorean  doctrines,  he  does  not  seem  to 
have  known  of  Aristarchus's  heliocentrictheory,but  thcreis  nothing 
in  his  speculations  that  could  not  have  occurred  to  a  Greek  as- 
tronomer. What  was  important  in  his  work  was  the  dethronement 
of  the  earth  from  its  geometrical  pre-eminence.  In  the  long  run, 
this  made  it  difficult  to  give  to  man  the  cosmic  importance  assigned 
to  him  in  the  Christian  theology,  but  such  consequences  of  his 
theory  would  not  have  been  accepted  by  Copernicus,  whose  ortho- 
doxy was  sincere,  and  who  protested  against  the  view  that  his 
theory  contradicted  the  Bible. 

There  were  genuine  difficulties  in  the  Copernican  theory.  The 
greatest  of  these  was  the  absence  of  stellar  parallax.  If  the  earth  at 
any  one  point  of  its  orbit  is  186,000,000  miles  from  the  point  at 
which  it  will  be  in  six  months,  this  ought  to  cause  a  shift  in  the 
apparent  positions  of  the  stars,  just  as  a  ship  at  sea  which  is  due 
north  from  one  point  of  the  coast  will  not  be  due  north  from 
another.  No  parallax  was  observed,  and  Copernicus  rightly  inferred 
that  the  fixed  stars  must  be  very  much  more  remote  than  the 
sun.  It  was  not  till  the  nineteenth  century  that  the  technique  of 
measurement  became  sufficiently  precise  for  stellar  parallax  to 

1  See  Tltree  Copernican  Treatises,  translated  by  Edward  Rosen, 
Chicago,  1939. 

548 


THE   RI6E   OF   SCIENCE 

be  observed,  and  then  only  in  the  case  of  a  few  of  the  nearest 
stars. 

Another  difficulty  arose  as  regards  falling  bodies.  If  the  earth 
is  continually  rotating  from  west  to  east,  a  body  dropped  from  a 
height  ought  not  to  fall  to  a  point  vertically  below  its  starting-point, 
but  to  a  point  somewhat  further  west,  since  the  earth  will  have 
slipped  away  a  certain  distance  during  the  time  of  the  fall.  To  this 
difficulty  the  answer  was  found  by  Galileo's  law  of  inertia,  but  in 
the  time  of  Copernicus  no  answer  was  forthcoming. 

There  is  an  interesting  book  by  E.  A.  Burtt,  called  The  Meta- 
physical Foundations  of  Modern  Physical  Science  (1925),  which  sets 
forth  with  much  force  the  many  unwarrantable  assumptions  made 
by  the  men  who  founded  modern  science.  He  points  out  quite 
truly  that  there  were  in  the  time  of  Copernicus  no  known  facts 
which  compelled  the  adoption  of  his  system,  and  several  which 
militated  against  it.  "Contemporary  empiricists,  had  they  lived 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  would  have  been  the  first  to  scoff  out  of 
court  the  new  philosophy  of  the  universe."  The  general  purpose 
of  the  hook  is  to  discredit  modern  science  by  suggesting  that  its 
discoveries  were  lucky  accidents  springing  by  chance  from  super- 
stitions as  gross  as  those  of  the  Middle  Ages.  I  think  this  shows 
a  misconception  of  the  scientific  attitude:  it  is  not  what  the  man 
of  science  believes  that  distinguishes  him,  but  how  and  why  he 
believes  it.  His  beliefs  are  tentative,  not  dogmatic;  they  are  based 
on  evidence,  not  on  authority  or  intuition.  Copernicus  was  right 
to  call  his  theory  a  hypothesis;  his  opponents  were  wrong  in 
thinking  new  hypotheses  undesirable. 

The  men  \\ho  founded  modern  science  had  two  merits  which 
are  not  necessarily  found  together:  immense  patience  in  observa- 
tion, and  great  boldness  in  framing  hypotheses.  The  second  of 
these  merits  had  belonged  to  the  earliest  Greek  philosophers;  the 
first  existed,  to  a  considerable  degree,  in  the  later  astronomers  of 
antiquity.  But  no  one  arnonir  the  ancients,  except  perhaps  Aris- 
tarchus,  possessed  both  merits,  and  no  one  in  the  Middle  Ages 
possessed  either.  Copernicus,  like  his  great  successors,  possessed 
both.  He  knew  all  that  could  be  known,  with  the  instruments 
existing  in  his  day,  about  the  apparent  motions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  on  the  celestial  sphere,  and  he  perceived  that  the  diurnal 
rotation  of  the  earth  was  a  more  economical  hypothesis  than  the 
revolution  of  all  the  celestial  spheres  According  to  modern  views, 

549 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

which  regard  all  motion  as  relative,  simplicity  is  the  only  gain 
resulting  from  his  hypothesis,  but  this  was  not  his  view  or  that 
of  his  contemporaries.  As  regards  the  earth's  annual  revolution, 
there  was  again  a  simplification,  but  not  so  notable  a  one  as  in  the 
case  of  the  diurnal  rotation.  Copernicus  still  needed  epicycles, 
though  fewer  than  were  needed  in  the  Ptolemaic  system.  It  was 
not  until  Kepler  discovered  his  laws  that  the  new  theory  acquired 
its  full  simplicity. 

Apart  from  the  revolutionary  effect  on  cosmic  imagination,  the 
great  merits  of  the  new  astronomy  were  two:  first,  the  recognition 
that  what  had  been  believed  since  ancient  times  might  be  false; 
second,  that  the  test  of  scientific  truth  is  patient  collection  of  facts, 
combined  with  bold  guessing  as  to  laws  binding  the  facts  together. 
Neither  merit  is  so  fully  developed  in  Copernicus  as  in  his  suc- 
cessors, but  both  are  already  present  in  a  hiph  degree  in  his  work. 

Some  of  the  men  to  whom  Copernicus  communicated  his  theory 
were  German  Lutherans,  but  when  Luther  came  to  know  of  it,  he 
was  profoundly  shocked.  "People  give  ear,"  he  said,  "to  an  upstart 
astrologer  who  strove  to  show  that  the  earth  revolves,  not  the 
heavens  or  the  firmament,  the  sun  and  the  moon.  Whoever  wishes 
to  appear  clever  must  devise  some  new  system,  which  of  all  systems 
is  of  course  the  very  best.  This  fool  wishes  to  reverse  the  entire 
science  of  astronomy;  but  sacred  Scripture  tells  us  that  Joshua 
commanded  the  sun  to  stand  still,  and  not  the  earth."  Calvin, 
similarly,  demolished  Copernicus  with  the  text:  "The  world  also 
is  stablished,  that  it  cannot  be  moved"  (Psa.  xciii.  i),  and  ex- 
claimed: "Who  will  venture  to  place  the  authority  of  Copernicus 
above  that  of  the  Holy  Spirit?"  Protestant  clergy  were  at  least 
an  bigoted  as  Catholic  ecclesiastics;  nevertheless  there  soon  carne 
to  be  much  more  liberty'  of  speculation  in  Protestant  than  in 
Catholic  countries,  because  in  Protestant  countries  the  clergy  had 
less  power.  The  important  aspect  of  Protestantism  was  schism, 
not  heresy,  for  schism  led  to  national  Churches,  and  national 
Churches  were  not  strong  enough  to  control  the  lay  government. 
This  was  wholly  a  gain,  for  the  Churches,  everywhere,  opposed  as 
long  as  they  could  practically  every  innovation  that  made  for  an 
increase  of  happiness  or  knowledge  here  cm  earth. 

Copernicus  was  not  in  a  position  to  give  any  conclusive  evidence 
in  favour  of  his  hypothesis,  and  for  a  long  time  astronomers  re- 
jected it.  The  next  astronomer  of  importance  wa§  Tycho  Brahe 

550 


THE    RISE   OF    SCIENCE 

(1546-1601),  who  adopted  an  intermediate  position:  he  held  that 
the  sun  and  moon  go  round  the  earth,  but  the  planets  go  round 
the  sun.  As  regards  theory  he  was  not  very  original.  He  gave, 
however,  two  good  reasons  against  Aristotle's  view  that  everything 
above  the  moon  is  unchanging.  One  of  these  was  the  appearance 
of  a  new  star  in  1572,  which  was  found  to  have  no  daily  parallax, 
and  must  therefore  be  more  distant  than  the  moon.  The  other 
reason  was  derived  from  observation  of  comets,  which  were  also 
found  to  be  distant.  The  reader  will  remember  Aristotle's  doctrine 
that  chance  and  decay  are  confined  to  the  sublunary  sphere;  this, 
like  everything  else  that  Aristotle  said  on  scientific  subjects,  proved 
an  obstacle  to  progress. 

The  importance  of  Tycho  Brahe  was  not  as  a  theorist,  but  as  an 
observer,  first  under  the  patronage  of  the  king  of  Denmark,  then 
under  the  Krnperor  Rudolf  II.  He  made  a  star  catalogue,  and  noted 
the  positions  of  the  planets  throughout  many  years.  Towards  the 
end  of  his  life  Kepler,  then  a  young  man,  became  hi?  assistant. 
To  Kepler  his  observations  were  invaluable. 

Kepler  (1571-1 630)  is  one  of  the  most  notable  examples  of  what 
can  be  achieved  by  patience  without  much  in  the  way  of  genius.  He 
was  the  first  important  astronomer  after  Copernicus  to  adopt  the 
heliocentric  theory,  but  Tycho  lirahc's  data  showed  that  it  could 
not  be  quite  right  in  the  form  given  to  it  by  Copernicus.  He  was 
influenced  by  Pythagoreanism,  and  more  or  less  fancifully  inclined 
to  sun- worship,  though  a  good  Protestant.  These  motives  no  doubt 
gave  him  a  bias  in  favour  of  the  heliocentric  hypothesis.  His 
Pythagoreanisni  also  inclined  him  to  follow  Plato's  Timaeus  in 
supposing  that  cosmic  significance  must  attach  to  the  five  regular 
solids.  He  used  them  to  suggest  hypotheses  to  his  mind;  at  last, 
by  good  luck,  one  of  these  worked. 

Kepler's  great  achievement  was  the  discovery  of  his  three  laws 
of  planetary  motion.  Two  of  these  he  published  in  1609,  and  the 
third  in  i6u>.  His  first  law  states:  The  planets  describe  elliptic 
orbits,  of  which  the  sun  occupies  one  focus.  His  second  law  states: 
The  line  joining  a  planet  to  the  sun  sweeps  out  equal  areas  in  equal 
timc«.  His  third  law  states:  The  square  ^of  the  period  of  revolution 
of  a  planet  is  proportional  to  the  cube  of  its  average  distance  from 
the  sun. 

Something  must  be  said  in  explanation  of  the  importance  of 
these  laws. 

55' 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

The  first  two  laws,  in  Kepler's  time,  could  only  be  proved  in  the 
case  of  Mars;  as  regards  the  other  planets,  the  observations  were 
compatible  with  them,  but  not  such  as  to  establish  them  definitely. 
It  was  not  long,  however,  before  decisive  confirmation  was  found. 

The  discovery  of  the  first  law,  that  the  planets  move  in  ellipses, 
required  a  greater  effort  of  emancipation  from  tradition  than  a 
modern  man  can  easily  realize.  The  one  thing  upon  which  all 
astronomers,  without  exception,  had  been  agreed,  was  that  all 
celestial  motions  are  circular,  or  compounded  of  circular  motions. 
Where  circles  were  found  inadequate  to  explain  planetary  motions, 
epicycles  were  used.  An  epicycle  is  the  curve  traced  by  a  point  on 
a  circle  which  rolls  on  another  circle.  For  example:  take  a  big 
wheel  and  fasten  it  flat  on  the  ground ;  take  a  smaller  wheel  (also 
flat  on  the  ground)  which  has  a  nail  through  it,  and  roll  the  smaller 
wheel  round  the  big  wheel,  with  the  point  of  the  nail  touching  the 
ground.  Then  the  mark  of  the  nail  in  the  ground  will  trace  out  an 
epicycle.  The  orbit  of  the  moon,  in  relation  to  the  sun,  is  roughly 
of  this  kind:  approximately,  the  earth  describes  a  circle  round  the 
sun,  and  the  moon  meanwhile  describes  a  circle  round  the  earth. 
But  this  is  only  an  approximation.  As  observation  grew  more  exact, 
it  was  found  that  no  system  of  epicycles  would  exactly  fit  the  facts. 
Kepler's  hypothesis,  he  found,  was  far  more  closely  in  accord  with 
the  recorded  positions  of  Mars  than  was  that  of  Ptolemy,  or  even 
that  of  Copernicus. 

The  substitution  of  ellipses  for  circles  involved  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  aesthetic  bias  which  had  governed  astronomy  ever  since 
Pythagoras.  The  circle  was  a  perfect  figure,  and  the  celestial  orbs 
were  perfect  bodies — originally  gods,  and  even  in  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle closely  related  to  gods.  It  seemed  obvious  that  a  perfect  body 
must  move  in  a  perfect  figure.  Moreover,  since  the  heavenly  bodies 
move  freely,  without  being  pushed  or  pulled,  their  motion  must 
be  "natural."  Now  it  was  easy  to  suppose  that  there  is  something 
"natural"  about  a  circle,  but  not  about  an  ellipse.  Thus  many 
deep-seated  prejudices  had  to  be  discarded  before  Kepler's  first 
law  could  be  accepted.  No  ancient,  not  even  Aristarchus  of  Samos, 
had  anticipated  such  an  hypothesis. 

The  second  law  deals  vC'ith  the  varying  velocity  of  the  planet  at 
different  points  of  its  orbit.  If  S  is  the  sun,  and  P|f  P2,  P,,  P4,  P§ 
are  successive  positions  of  the  planet  at  equal  intervals  of  time  - 
say  st  intervals  of  a  month  —then  Kepler's  law  state*  that  the 

55* 


THE    RISE   OF    SCIENCE 

areas  PjSP,,  P2SP3,  P?SP4,  P4SPB  arc  all  equal.  The  planet  therefore 
moves  fastest  when  it  is  nearest  to  the  sun,  and  slowest  when  it 
is  farthest  from  it.  This,  again,  was  shocking;  a  planet  ought  to  be 
too  stately  to  hurry  at  one  time  and  dawdle  at  another. 

The  third  law  was  important  because  it  compared  the  movements 
of  different  planets,  whereas  the  first  two  laws  dealt  with  the  several 
planets  singly.  The  third  law  says:  If  r  is  the  average  distance  of 
a  planet  from  the  sun,  and  T  is  the  length  of  its  year,  then  v9 
divided  by  Ta  is  the  same  for  all  the  different  planets.  This  law 
afforded  the  proof  (as  far  as  the  solar  system  is  concerned)  of 
Newton's  law  of  the  inverse  square  for  gravitation.  But  of  this  we 
shall  speak  later. 

Galileo  (1564-1642)  is  the  greatest  of  the  founders  of  modern 
science,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Newton.  He  was  born  on 
about  the  day  on  which  Michelangelo  died,  and  he  died  in  ihe 
year  in  which  Newton  was  l>orn.  I  commend  these  facts  to  those 
(if  any)  who  still  believe  in  metempsychosis.  He  is  important  as  an 
astronomer,  but  perhaps  even  more  as  the  founder  of  dynamics. 

Galileo  iirst  discovered  the  importance  of  acceleration  in  dyna- 
mics. "Acceleration**  means  change  of  velocity,  whether  in  mag- 
nitude or  direction;  thus  a  body  moving  uniformly  in  a  circle  has 
at  all  times  an  acceleration  towards  the  centre  of  the  circle.  In  the 
language  that  had  been  customary  before  his  time,  we  might  say 
that  he  treated  uniform  motion  in  a  straight  line  as  alone  "natural," 
whether  on  earth  or  in  the  hca\ens.  It  had  been  thought  "natural" 
for  heavenly  bodies  to  move  in  circles,  and  for  terrestrial  bodies 
to  move  in  straight  lines:  but  moving  terrestrial  bodies,  it  was 
thought,  would  gradually  cease  to  move  if  they  were  Jet  alone, 
(jaliieo  held,  as  against  this  view,  that  every  body,  if  left  alone, 
will  continue  to  move  in  a  straight  line  with  uniform  velocity;  any 
change,  either  in  the  rapidity  or  the  direction  of  motion,  requires 
to  be  explained  as  due  to  the  action  of  some  "force."  This  principle 
was  enunciated  by  Newton  as  the  "first  law  of  motion."  It  is  also 
called  the  law  of  inertia.  1  shall  return  to  its  purport  later,  but  first 
something  must  be  said  as  to  the  detail  of  Galileo's  discoveries. 

Galileo  was  the  first  to  establish  the  law  of  falling  bodies.  This 
law,  given  the  concept  of  "acceleration,"  is  of  the  utmost  sim- 
plicity. It  says  that,  when  a  body  is  falling  freely,  its  acceleration 
is  constant,  except  in  so  far  as  the  resistance  of  the  air  may  inter- 
fere; further,  the  acceleration  is  the  same  for  all  bodies,  heavy  or 

553 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

light,  great  or  small.  The  complete  proof  of  this  law  was  not 
possible  until  the  air  pump  had  been  invented,  which  was  about 
1654.  After  this,  it  was  possible  to  observe  bodies  falling  in  what 
was  practically  a  vacuum,  and  it  was  found  that  feathers  fell  as 
fast  as  lead.  What  Galileo  proved  was  that  there  is  no  measurable 
difference  between  large  and  small  lumps  of  the  same  substance. 
Until  his  time  it  had  been  supposed  that  a  large  lump  of  lead 
would  fall  much  quicker  than  a  small  one,  but  Galileo  proved  by 
experiment  that  this  is  not  the  case.  Measurement,  in  his  day,  was 
not  such  an  accurate  business  as  it  has  since  become;  nevertheless 
he  arrived  at  the  true  law  of  falling  bodies.  If  a  body  is  falling 
freely  in  a  vacuum,  its  velocity  increases  at  a  constant  rate.  At  the 
end  of  the  first  second,  its  velocity  will  be  32  feet  per  second;  at 
the  end  of  another  second,  64  feet  per  second;  at  the  end  of  the 
third,  96  feet  per  second ;  and  so  on.  The  acceleration,  i.e.  the  rate 
at  which  the  velocity  increases,  is  always  the  same;  in  each  second, 
the  increase  of  velocity  is  (approximately)  32  feet  per  scconJ. 

Galileo  also  studied  projectiles,  a  subject  of  importance  to  his 
employer,  the  duke  of  Tuscany.  It  had  been  thought  that  a  pro- 
jectile fired  horizontally  will  move  horizontally  for  a  while,  and 
then  suddenly  begin  to  fall  vertically.  Galileo  showed  that,  apart 
from  the  resistance  of  the  air,  the  horizontal  velocity  would  remain 
constant,  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  inertia,  but  a  vertical 
velocity  would  be  added,  which  would  grow  according  to  the  law 
of  falling  bodies.  To  find  out  how  the  projectile  will  move  during 
some  short  time,  say  a  second,  after  it  has  been  in  flight  for  some 
time,  we  proceed  as  follows:  First,  if  it  were  not  falling,  it  would 
cover  a  certain  horizontal  distance,  equal  to  that  which  it  covered 
in  the  first  second  of  its  fiight.  Second,  if  it  were  not  moving 
horizontally,  but  merely  falling,  it  would  fail  vertically  with  a 
velocity  proportional  to  the  time  since  the  flight  began.  In  fact, 
its  change  of  place  is  what  it  would  be  if  it  first  moved  horizontally 
for  a  second  with  the  initial  velocity,  and  then  fell  vertically  for 
a  second  with  a  velocity  proportional  to  the  time  during  which  it 
has  been  in  flight.  A  simple  calculation  shows  that  its  consequent 
course  is  a  parabola,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  observation  except 
in  so  far  as  the  resistance" of  the  air  interferes. 

The  above  gives  a  simple  instance  of  a  principle  which  proved 
immensely  fruitful  in  dynamics,  the  principle  that,  when  several 
forces  act  simultaneously,  the  effect  is  is  if  each  acted  in  turn.  This 

554 


THE    RISE   OF    SCIENCE 

is  pan  of  a  more  general  principle  called  the  parallelogram  law. 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  you  are  on  the  deck  of  a  moving  ship, 
and  you  walk  across  the  deck.  While  you  are  walking  the  ship 
has  moved  on,  so  that,  in  relation  to  the  water,  you  have  moved 
both  forward  and  across  the  direction  of  the  ship's  motion.  If  you 
want  to  know  where  you  will  have  got  to  in  relation  to  the  water, 
you  may  suppose  that  first  you  stood  still  while  the  ship  moved, 
and  then,  for  an  equal  time,  the  ship  stood  still  while  you  walked 
across  it.  The  same  principle  applies  to  forces.  This  makes  it 
possible  to  work  out  the  total  effect  of  a  number  of  forces,  and 
makes  it  feasible  to  analyse  physical  phenomena,  discovering  the 
separate  laws  of  the  several  forces  to  which  moving  bodies  are 
subject.  It  was  Galileo  who  introduced  this  immensely  fruitful 
method. 

In  what  I  have  been  saying,  I  have  tried  to  speak,  as  nearly  as 
possible,  in  the  language  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Modern  lan- 
guage is  different  in  important  respects,  but  to  explain  what  the 
seventeenth  century  achieved  it  is  desirable  to  adopt  its  modes  of 
expression  for  the  time  being. 

The  law  of  inertia  explained  a  puzzle  which,  before  Galileo,  the 
Copcrnican  system  had  been  unable  to  explain.  As  observed  above, 
if  you  drop  a  stone  from  the  top  of  a  tower,  it  will  fall  at  the  foot 
of  the  tower,  not  somewhat  to  the  west  of  it ;  yet,  if  the  earth  is 
rotating,  it  ought  to  have  slipped  away  a  certain  distance  during 
the  fall  of  the  stone.  The  reason  this  does  not  happen  is  that  the 
stone  retains  the  velocity  of  rotation  which,  before  being  dropped, 
it  shared  with  everything  else  on  the  earth's  surface.  In  fact,  if  the 
tower  were  high  enough,  there  would  be  the  opposite  effect  to  that 
expected  by  the  opponents  of  Copernicus.  The  top  of  the  tower, 
being  further  from  the  centre  of  the  earth  than  the  bottom,  is 
moving  faster,  and  therefore  the  stone  should  fall  slightly  to  the 
east  of  the  foot  of  die  tower.  This  effect,  however,  would  be  too 
slight  to  be  measurable. 

Galileo  ardently  adopted  the  heliocentric  system;  he  corre- 
sponded with  Kepler,  and  accepted  his  discoveries.  Having  heard 
that  a  Dutchman  had  lately  invented  a  telescope,  Galileo  made  one 
himself,  and  very  quickly  discovered  a  number  of  important  things. 
He  found  that  the  Milky  Way  consists  of  a  multitude  of  separate 
stars.  He  observed  the  phases  of  Venus,  which  Copernicus  knew 
to  be  implied  by  his  theory,  but  which  the  naked  eye  was  unable 

555 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

to  perceive.  He  discovered  the  satellites  of  Jupiter,  which,  in 
honour  of  his  employer,  he  called  "sidera  medicea."  It  was  found 
that  these  satellites  obey  Kepler's  laws.  There  was,  however,  a 
difficulty.  There  had  always  been  seven  heavenly  bodies,  the  five 
planets  and  the  sun  and  moon ;  now  seven  is  a  sacred  number.  Is 
not  the  Sabbath  the  seventh  day?  Were  there  not  the  seven- 
branched  candlesticks  and  the  seven  churches  of  Asia  ?  What,  then, 
could  be  more  appropriate  than  that  there  should  be  seven  heavenly 
bodies?  But  if  we  have  to  add  Jupiter's  four  moons,  that  makes 
eleven — a  number  which  has  no  mystic  properties.  On  this  ground 
the  traditionalists  denounced  the  telescope,  refused  to  look  through 
it,  and  maintained  that  it  revealed  only  delusions.  Galileo  wrote 
to  Kepler  wishing  they  could  have  a  good  laugh  together  at  the 
stupidity  of  "the  mob";  the  rest  of  his  letter  nukes  it  plain  that 
"the  mob"  consisted  of  the  professors  of  philosophy,  who  tried  to 
conjure  away  Jupiter's  moons,  using  "logic-chopping  arguments 
as  though  they  were  magical  incantations/' 

Galileo,  as  everyone  knows,  was  condemned  by  the  Inquisition, 
first  privately  in  1616,  and  then  publicly  in  1633,  on  which  latter 
occasion  he  recanted,  and  promised  never  again  to  maintain  that 
the  earth  rotates  or  revolves.  The  Inquisition  was  successful  in 
putting  an  end  to  science  in  Italy,  which  did  not  revive  there  for 
centuries.  But  it  failed  to  prevent  men  of  science  from  adopting 
the  heliocentric  theory,  and  did  considerable  damage  to  the  Church 
by  its  stupidity.  Fortunately  there  were  Protestant  countries,  where 
the  clergy,  however  anxious  to  do  harm  to  science,  were  unable 
to  gain  control  of  the  State. 

Newton  (1642-1727)  achieved  the  final  and  complete  triumph 
for  which  Copernicus,  Kepler,  and  Galileo  had  prepared  the  way. 
Starting  from  his  three  laws  of  motion— of  which  the  first  two  arc 
due  to  Galileo — he  proved  that  Kepler's  three  laws  are  equivalent 
to  the  proposition  that  every  planet,  at  every  moment,  has  an 
acceleration  towards  the  sun  which  varies  inversely  as  the  square 
of  the  distance  from  the  sun.  He  showed  dial  accelerations  towards 
the  earth  and  the  sun,  following  the  same  formula,  explain  the 
moon's  motion,  and  that  the  acceleration  of  falling  bodies  on  the 
earth's  surface  is  again  related  to  tiiat  of  the  moou  according  to 
the  inverse  square  law*  He  defined  "force"  as  the  cause  of  change 
of  motion,  i.e.  of  acceleration,  lie  was  thu*  able  to  enunciate  hi* 
tow  of  universal  gravitation:  "Every  body  attracts  every  other  with 

556 


THE   RISE   OP   SCIENCE 

a  force  directly  proportional  to  the  product  of  their  masses  and 
inversely  proportional  to  the  square  of  the  distance  between  them." 
From  this  formula  he  was  able  to  deduce  everything  in  planetary 
theory:  the  motions  of  the  planets  and  their  satellites,  the  orbits 
of  comets,  the  tides.  It  appeared  later  that  even  the  minute  depar- 
tures from  elliptical  orbits  on  the  part  of  the  planets  were  deducible 
from  Newton's  law.  The  triumph  was  so  complete  that  Newton 
was  in  danger  of  becoming  another  Aristotle,  and  imposing  an 
insuperable  barrier  to  progress.  In  England,  it  was  not  till  a  century 
after  his  death  that  men  freed  themselves  from  his  authority 
sufficiently  to  do  important  original  work  in  the  subjects  of  which 
he  had  treated. 

The  seventeenth  century  was  remarkable,  not  only  in  astronomy 
and  dynamics,  but  in  many  other  ways  connected  with  science. 

Take  first  the  question  of  scientific  instruments.1  The  compound 
microscope  was  invented  just  before  the  seventeenth  century,  about 
1590.  The  telescope  was  invented  in  1608,  by  a  Dutchman  named 
Lippershey,  though  it  was  Galileo  who  first  made  serious  use  of  it 
for  scientific  purposes.  Galileo  also  invented  the  thermometer — at 
least,  this  seems  most  probable.  His  pupil  Torricelli  invented  the 
barometer.  Gucricke  (1602-86)  invented  the  air  pump.  Clocks, 
though  not  new,  were  greatly  improved  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
largely  by  the  work  of  Galileo.  Owing  to  these  inventions,  scientific 
observation  became  immensely  more  exact  and  more  extensive 
than  it  had  been  at  any  former  time. 

Next,  there  was  important  work  in  other  sciences  than  astronomy 
and  dynamics.  Gilbert  (i  540-1603)  published  his  great  book  on  the 
magnet  in  1600.  Harvey  (1578-1657)  discovered  the  circulation 
of  the  blood,  and  published  his  discovery  in  1628.  Leeuwenhoek 
( 1632-1 723)  discovered  spermatozoa,  though  another  man,  Stephen 
Hiimm,  had  discovered  them,  apparently,  a  few  months  earlier; 
Leeuwenhoek  also  discovered  protozoa  or  unicellular  organisms, 
and  even  bacteria.  Robert  Boyle  (1627-91)  was,  as  children  were 
taught  when  I  was  young,  "the  father  of  chemistry  and  son  of  the 
Karl  of  Cork'1;  he  is  now  chiefly  remembered  on  account  of 
"Boyle '•  Law,"  that  in  a  given  quantity  of  gas  at  a  given  tern- 
perature,  pressure  is  inversely  proportional  to  volume. 

1  On  thi*  subject,  ire  the  chapter  "Scientific  Instruments"  in  A 
Hittory  of  Science,  Technology,  and  Philosophy  in  the  Sixteenth  and 
S*v*nU*nih  Ctnturiei,  by  A.  Wolf. 

557 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

1  have  hitherto  said  nothing  of  the  advances  in  pure  mathe- 
matics, but  these  were  very  great  indeed,  and  were  indispensable 
to  much  of  the  work  in  the  physical  sciences.  Napier  published 
his  invention  of  logarithms  in  1614.  Co-ordinate  geometry  resulted 
from  the  work  of  several  seventeenth-century  mathematicians, 
among  whom  the  greatest  contribution  was  made  by  Descartes. 
The  differential  and  integral  calculus  was  invented  independently 
by  Newton  and  Leibniz;  it  is  the  instrument  for  almost  all  higher 
mathematics.  These  are  only  the  most  outstanding  achievements 
in  pure  mathematics;  there  were  innumerable  others  of  great 
importance:. 

The  result  of  the  scientific  work  we  have  been  considering  was 
that  the  outlook  of  educated  men  was  completely  transformed.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  Sir  Thomas  Browne  took  part  in 
trials  for  witchcraft;  at  the  end,  such  a  thing  would  have  been 
impossible.  In  Shakespeare's  time,  cornets  were  still  portents;  after 
the  publication  of  Newton's  Principia  in  1687,  it  was  known  that 
he  and  Halley  had  calculated  the  orbits  of  certain  comets,  and  that 
they  were  as  obedient  as  the  planets  to  the  law  of  gravitation.  The 
reign  of  law  had  established  its  hold  on  men's  imaginations,  making 
such  things  as  magic  and  sorcery  incredible.  In  1700  the  mental 
outlook  of  educated  men  was  completely  modern;  in  ifoo,  except 
among  a  very  few,  it  was  still  largely  medieval. 

In  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  I  sliall  try  to  state  briefly  the 
philosophical  beliefs  which  appeared  to  follow  from  seventeenth- 
century  science,  and  some  of  the  respects  in  which  modern  science 
differs  from  that  of  Newton. 

The  first  thing  to  note  is  the  removal  of  almost  all  traces  ot 
animism  from  the  laws  of  physics.  The  Greeks,  though  they  did 
not  say  so  explicitly,  evidently  considered  the  power  of  movement 
a  sign  of  life.  To  common-sense  observation  it  seems  that  animals 
move  themselves,  while  dead  matter  only  moves  when  impelled 
by  an  external  force.  The  soul  of  an  animal,  in  Aristotle,  has  various 
functions,  and  one  of  them  is  to  move  the  animal's  body.  The  sun 
and  planets,  in  Greek  thinking,  are  apt  to  be  gods,  or  at  least 
regulated  and  moved  by  gods.  Anaxagoras  thought  otherwise,  but 
was  impious.  Democritus* thought  otherwise,  but  was  neglected, 
except  by  the  Epicureans,  in  favour  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Aris- 
totle's forty-seven  or  fifty-five  unmoved  movers  are  divine  spirits, 
and  are  the  ultimate  source  of  all  the  motion  in  the  heavens.  Left 


THE   RISE   OF   SCIENCE 

co  itself,  any  inanimate  body  would  soon  become  motionless;  thus 
the  operation  of  soul  on  matter  has  to  be  continuous  if  motion  is 
not  to  cease. 

All  this  was  changed  by  the  first  law  of  motion.  Lifeless  matter, 
once  set  moving,  will  continue  to  move  for  ever  unless  stopped 
by  some  external  cause.  Moreover  the  external  causes  of  change 
of  motion  turned  out  to  be  themselves  material,  whenever  they 
could  be  definitely  ascertained.  The  solar  system,  at  any  rate,  was 
kept  going  by  its  own  momentum  and  its  own  laws;  no  outside 
interference  was  needed.  There  might  still  seem  to  be  need  of 
God  to  set  the  mechanism  working;  the  planets,  according  to 
New-ton,  were  originally  hurled  by  the  hand  of  God.  But  when 
1  le  had  done  this,  and  decreed  the  law  of  gravitation,  everything 
went  on  by  itself  without  further  need  of  divine  intervention. 
When  Laplace  suggested  that  the  same  forces  which  are  now 
operative  might  have  caused  the  planets  to  grow  out  of  the  sun, 
God's  share  in  the  course  of  nature  was  pushed  still  further  back. 
I  It  might  remain  as  Creator,  but  even  that  was  doubtful,  since  it 
was  not  clear  that  the  world  had  a  beginning  in  time.  Although 
most  of  the  men  of  science  were  models  of  piety,  the  outlook 
suggested  by  their  work  was  disturbing  to  orthodoxy,  and  the 
theologians  were  quite  justified  in  feeling  uneasy. 

Another  thing  that  resulted  from  science  was  a  profound  change 
in  the  conception  of  man's  place  in  the  universe.  In  the  medieval 
world,  the  earth  was  the  centre  of  the  heavens,  and  everything  had 
a  purpose  concerned  with  man.  In  the  Newtonian  world,  the  earth 
was  a  minor  planet  of  a  not  specially  distinguished  star;  astrono- 
mical distances  were  so  vast  that  the  earth,  in  comparison,  was 
a  mere  pin-point.  It  seemed  unlikely  that  this  immense  apparatus 
was  all  designed  for  the  good  of.  certain  small  creatures  on  this 
pin-point.  Moreover  purpose,  which  had  since  Aristotle  formed 
an  intimate  part  of  the  conception  of  science,  was  now  thrust  out 
of  scientific  procedure.  Anyone  might  still  believe  that  the  heavens 
exist  to  declare  the  glory  of  God,  but  no  one  could  let  this  belief 
intervene  in  an  astronomical  calculation.  The  world  might  have 
a  purpose,  but  purposes  could  no  longer  enter  into  scientific 
explanations.  » 

'l*he  Copernican  theory  should  have  been  humbling  to  human 
pride,  but  in  fact  the  contrary  effect  was  produced,  for  the  triumphs 
of  science  revived  human  pride.  The  dying  ancient  world  had  been 

559 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

obsessed  with  a  sense  of  sin,  and  had  bequeathed  this  as  an  oppres- 
sion to  the  Middle  Ages.  To  be  humble  before  God  was  both  right 
and  prudent,  for  God  would  punish  pride.  Pestilences,  floods, 
earthquakes,  Turks,  Tartars,  and  comets  perplexed  the  gloomy 
centuries,  and  it  was  felt  that  only  greater  and  greater  humility 
would  avert  these  real  or  threatened  calamities.  But  it  became 
impossible  to  remain  humble  when  men  were  achieving  such 
triumphs : 

Nature  and  Nature's  laws  lay  hid  in  night. 
God  said  "Let  Newton  be,"  and  all  was  light. 

And  as  for  damnation,  surely  the  Creator  of  so  vast  a  universe  had 
something  better  to  think  about  than  sending  men  to  hell  for 
minute  theological  errors.  Judas  Iscariot  might  be  damned,  but 
not  Newton,  though  he  were  an  Arian. 

There  were  of  course  many  other  reasons  for  self-satisfaction. 
The  Tartars  had  been  confined  to  Asia,  and  the  Turks  were  ceasing 
to  be  a  menace.  Comets  had  been  humbled  by  H alley,  and  as  for 
earthquakes,  though  they  were  still  formidable,  they  were  so  in- 
teresting that  men  of  science  could  hardly  regret  them.  Western 
Europeans  were  growing  rapidly  richer,  and  were  becoming  lords 
of  all  the  world:  they  had  conquered  North  and  South  America, 
they  were  powerful  in  Africa  and  India,  respected  in  China  and 
feared  in  Japan.  When  to  all  this  were  added  the  triumphs  of 
science,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  men  of  the  seventeenth  century 
felt  themselves  to  be  fine  fellows,  not  the  miserable  sinners  that 
they  still  proclaimed  themselves  on  Sundays. 

There  are  some  respects  in  which  the  concepts  of  modern 
theoretical  physics  differ  from  those  of  the  Newtonian  system.  To 
begin  with,  the  conception  of  "force,"  which  is  prominent  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  has  been  found  to  be  superfluous.  4t Force/1 
in  Newton,  is  the  cause  of  change  of  motion,  whether  in  magnitude 
or  direction.  The  notion  of  cause  is  regarded  as  important,  and 
force  is  conceived  imaginatively  as  the  sort  of  thing  that  we  expe- 
rience when  we  push  or  pull.  For  this  reason  it  was  considered 
an  objection  to  gravitation  that  it  acted  at  a  distance,  and  Newton 
himself  conceded  that  thqre  must  be  some  medium  by  which  it 
was  transmitted.  Gradually  it  was  found  that  all  the  equations 
could  be  written  down  without  bringing  in  forces.  What  was  ob- 
servable was  a  certain  relation  between  acceleration  and  configura- 

560 


THE   RISE   OF   SCIENCE 

tion;  to  say  that  this  relation  was  brought  about  by  the  inter- 
mediacy  of  "force"  was  to  add  nothing  to  our  knowledge.  Obser- 
vation shows  that  planets  have  at  all  times  an  acceleration  towards 
the  sun,  which  varies  inversely  as  the  square  of  their  distance  from 
it.  To  say  that  this  is  due  to  the  "force"  of  gravitation  is  merely 
verbal,  like  saying  that  opium  makes  people  sleep  because  it  has 
a  dormitive  virtue.  The  modern  physicist,  therefore,  merely  states 
formulae  which  determine  accelerations,  and  avoids  the  word 
"force"  altogether.  "Force"  was  the  faint  ghost  of  the  vitalist 
view  as  to  the  causes  of  motions,  and  gradually  the  ghost  has  been 
exorcized. 

Until  the  coming  of  quantum  mechanics,  nothing  happened  to 
modify  in  any  degree  what  is  the  essential  purport  of  the  first  two 
laws  of  motion,  namely  this:  that  the  laws  of  dynamics  are  to  be 
stated  in  terms  of  accelerations.  In  this  respect,  Copernicus  and 
Kepler  are  still  to  be  classed  with  the  ancients;  they  sought  laws 
stating  the  shapes  of  the  orbits  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  Newton 
made  it  clear  that  laws  stated  in  this  form  could  never  be  more 
than  approximate.  The  planets  do  not  move  in  exact  ellipses, 
because  of  the  perturbations  caused  by  the  attractions  of  other 
planets.  Nor  is  the  orbit  of  a  planet  ever  exactly  repeated,  for  the 
same  reason.  But  the  law  of  gravitation,  which  dealt  with  accele- 
rations, was  very  simple,  and  was  thought  to  be  quite  exact  until 
two  hundred  years  after  Newton's  time.  When  it  was  amended  by 
Kinstein,  it  still  remained  a  law  dealing  with  accelerations. 

It  is  true  that  the  conservation  of  energy  is  a  law  dealing  with 
velocities,  not  accelerations.  But  in  calculations  which  use  this  law 
it  is  still  accelerations  that  have  to  be  employed. 

As  for  the  changes  introduced  by  quantum  mechanics,  they  are 
very  profound,  but  still,  to  some  degree,  a  matter  of  controversy 
and  uncertainty. 

There  is  one  change  from  the  Newtonian  philosophy  which  must 
he  mentioned  now,  and  that  is  the  abandonment  of  absolute  space 
and  time.  The  'reader  will  remember  a  mention  of  this  question 
in  connection  with  Dcmocritus.  Newton  believed  in  a  space  com- 
posed of  points,  and  a  time  composed  of  instants,  which  had  an 
existence  independent  of  the  bodies  and«events  that  occupied  them. 
As  regards  space,  he  had  an  empirical  argument  to  support  his 
view,  namely  that  physical  phenomena  enable  us  to  distinguish 
absolute  rotation.  If  the  water  in  a  bucket  is  rotated,  it  climbs  up 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

the  sides  and  is  depressed  in  the  centre;  but  if  the  bucket  is 
rotated  while  the  water  is  not,  there  is  no  such  effect.  Since  his 
day,  the  experiment  of  Foucault's  pendulum  has  been  devised, 
giving  what  has  been  considered  a  demonstration  of  the  earth's 
rotation.  Even  on  the  most  modern  views,  the  question  of  absolute 
rotation  presents  difficulties.  If  all  motion  is  relative,  the  difference 
between  the  hypothesis  that  the  earth  rotates  and  the  hypothesis 
that  the  heavens  revolve  is  purely  verbal;  it  is  no  more  than  the 
difference  between  "John  is  the  father  of  James"  and  "James  is 
the  son  of  John."  But  if  the  heavens  revolve,  the  stars  move  faster 
than  light,  which  is  considered  impossible.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
the  modern  answers  to  this  difficulty  are  completely  satisfying,  but 
they  are  sufficiently  satisfying  to  cause  almost  all  physicists  to 
accept  the  view  that  motion  and  space  are  purely  relative.  This, 
combined  with  the  amalgamation  of  space  and  time  into  space- 
time,  has  considerably  altered  our  view  of  the  universe  from  that 
which  resulted  from  the  work  of  Galileo  and  Newton.  But  of  this, 
as  of  quantum  theory,  I  \viil  sny  no  more  at  this  time. 


562 


Chapter  VII 
FRANCIS  BACON 

FRANCIS  RATON  (1561-1626),  although  his  philosophy  is  in 
many  ways  unsatisfactory,  has  permanent  importance  as  the 
founder  of  modern  inductive  method  and  the  pioneer  in  the 
attempt  at  logical  systematization  of  scientific  procedure. 

He  was  a  son  of  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  Lord  Keeper  of  the  Great 
Seal,  and  his  aunt  was  the  wife  of  Sir  William  Cecil,  afterwards 
Lord  Burghley ;  he  thus  grew  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  State  affairs. 
He  entered  Parliament  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  and  became 
adviser  to  Essex.  None  the  less,  when  Essex  fell  from  favour  he 
helped  in  his  prosecution.  For  this  he  has  been  severely  blamed : 
Lytton  Strachey.  for  example,  in  his  Elisabeth  and  Essex,  represents 
Bacon  as  a  monster  of  treachery  and  ingratitude.  This  is  quite 
unjust.  He  worked  with  Essex  while  Essex  was  loyal,  but  aban- 
doned him  when  continued  loyalty  to  him  would  have  been 
treasonable;  in  this  there  was  nothing  that  even  the  most  rigid 
moralist  of  the  age  could  condemn. 

In  spite  of  his  abandonment  of  Essex,  he  was  never  completely 
in  favour  during  the  lifetime  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  With  James's 
accession,  however,  his  prospects  improved.  In  1617  he  acquired 
his  father's  office  of  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal,  and  in  1618  he 
became  Lord  Chancellor.  But  after  he  had  held  this  great  position 
for  only  two  years,  he  was  prosecuted  for  accepting  bribes  from 
litigants.  He  admitted  the  truth  of  the  accusation,  pleading  only 
that  present*  never  influenced  his  decision.  As  to  that,  anyone  may 
form  his  own  opinion,  since  there  can  be  no  evidence  as  to  the 
decisions  that  Bacon  would  have  come  to  in  other  circumstances. 
He  was  condemned  to  a  fine  of  £40,000,  to  imprisonment  in  the 
Tower  during  the  king's  pleasure,  to  perpetual  banishment  from 
Court  and  inability  to  hold  office.  This  sentence  was  only  very 
partially  executed:  He  was  not  forced  to  pay  the  fine,  and  he  was 
kept  in  the  Tower  for  only  four  days.  But  he  was  compelled  to 
abandon  public  lite,  and  to  spend  the* remainder  of  his  days  to 
writing  important  books. 

The  ethics  of  the  legal  profession,  in  those  days,  were  somewhat 
lax.  Almost  every  judge  accepted  presents,  usually  from  both  sides. 

563 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Nowadays  we  think  it  atrocious  for  a  judge  to  take  bribes,  but  even 
more  atrocious,  after  taking  them,  to  decide  against  the  givers  of 
them.  In  thpse  days,  presents  were  a  matter  of  course,  and  a  judge 
showed  his  "virtue"  by  not  being  influenced  by  them.  Bacon  was 
condemned  as  an  incident  in  a  party  squabble,  not  because  he  was 
exceptionally  guilty.  He  was  not  a  man  of  outstanding  moral 
eminence,  like  his  forerunner  Sir  Thomas  More,  but  he  was  also 
not  exceptionally  wicked.  Morally,  he  was  an  average  man,  no 
better  and  no  worse  than  the  bulk  of  his  contemporaries. 

After  five  years  spent  in  retirement,  he  died  of  a  chill  caught 
while  experimenting  on  refrigeration  by  stuffing  a  chicken  full  of 
snow. 

Bacon's  most  important  book,  The  Advancement  of  Learning >  is 
in  many  ways  remarkably  modern.  He  is  commonly  regarded  as 
the  originator  of  the  saying  "Knowledge  is  power/'  and  though 
he  may  have  had  predecessors  who  said  the  same  thing,  he  said 
t  it  with  new  emphasis.  The  whole  basis  of  his  philosophy  was 
1  practical:  to  give  mankind  mastery  over  the  forces  of  nature  by 
j  means  of  scientific  discoveries  and  inventions.  He  held  that  philo- 
1  sophy  should  be  kept  separate  from  theology*  not  intimately 
blended  with  it  as  in  scholasticism.  He  accepted  orthodox  religion ; 
he  was  not  the  man  to  quarrel  with  the  government  on  such  a 
matter.  But  while  he  thought  that  reason  could  show  the  existence 
of  God,  he  regarded  everything  else  in  theology  as  known  only 
by  revelation.  Indeed  he  held  that  the  triumph  of  faith  is  greatest 
when  to  the  unaided  reason  a  dogma  appears  most  absurd.  Philo- 
sophy, however,  sl)pjuld_depend  only  upon  reason.  He  was  thus 
an  advocate  of  the  doctrine  of  "double  truth/'  that  of  reason  and 
that  of  revelation.  This  doctrine  had  been  preached  by  certain 
Averroists  in  the  thirteenth  century,  but  had  been  condemned  by 
the  Church.  The  "triumph  of  faith*'  was,  for  the  orthodox,  a 
dangerous  device.  Bayle,  in  the  late  seventeenth  century,  made 
ironical  use  of  it,  setting  forth  at  great  length  all  that  reason  could 
say  against  some  orthodox  belief,  and  then  concluding  "so  much 
the  greater  is  the  triumph  of  faith  in  nevertheless  believing." 
How  far  Bacon's  orthodoxy  was  sincere  it  is  impossible  to 
know. 

Bacon  was  the  first  of  the  long  line  of  scientifically  minded 
philosophers  who  have  emphasized  the  importance  of  induction 
as  opposed  to  deduction.  Like  most  of  his  successors,  he  tried  to 

564 


FRANCIS   BACON 

find  some  better  kind  of  induction  than  what  is  called  "induction 
by  simple  enumeration."  Induction  by  simple  enumeration  may 
be  illustrated  by  a  parable.  There  was  once  upon  a  time  a  census 
officer  who  had  to  record  the  names  of  all  householders  in  a  certain 
Welsh  village.  The  first  that  he  questioned  was  called  William 
Williams;  so  were  the  second,  third,  fourth.  ...  At  last  he  said 
to  himself:  "This  is  tedious;  evidently  they  are  all  called  William 
Williams.  I  shall  put  them  down  so  and  take  a  holiday."  But  he 
was  wrong;  there  was  just  one  whose  name  was  John  Jones.  This 
shows  that  we  may  go  astray  if  we  trust  too  implicitly  to  induction 
by  simple  enumeration. 

Bacon  believed  that  he  had  a  method  by  which  induction  could 
be  made  something  better  than  this.  He  wished,  for  example,  to 
discover  the  nature  of  heat,  wliich  he  supposed  (rightly)  to  consist 
of  rapid  irregular  motions  of  the  small  parts  of  bodies.  His  method 
was  to  make  lists  of  hot  bodies,  lists  of  cold  bodies,  and  lists  of 
bodies  of  varying  degrees  of  heat.  He  hoped  that  these  lists  would 
show  some  characteristic  always  present  in  hot  bodies  and  absent 
in  cold  bodies,  and  present  in  varying  degrees  in  bodies  of  different 
degrees  of  heat.  By  this  method  he  expected  to  arrive  at  general 
laws,  having,  in  the  first  instance,  the  lowest  degree  of  generality. 
From  a  number  of  such  laws  he  hoped  to  reach  laws  of  the  second 
degree  of  generality,  and  so  on.  A  suggested  law  should  be  tested 
by  being  applied  in  new  circumstances;  if  it  worked  in  these 
circumstances  it  was  to  that  extent  confirmed.  Some  instances  are 
specially  valuable  because  they  enable  us  to  decide  between  two 
theories,  each  possible  as  far  as  previous  observations  are  con- 
cerned; such  instances  are  called  "prerogative"  instances. 

Bacon  not  only  despised  the  syllogism,  but  undervalued  mathe- 
matics, presumably  as  insufficiently  experimental.  He  was  viru- 
lently hostile  to  Aristotle,  but  thought  very  highly  of  Democritus. 
Although  he  did  not  deny  that  the  course  of  nature  exemplifies 
a  divine  purpose,  he  objected  to  any  admixture  of  teleological 
explanation  in  the  actual  investigation  of  phenomena;  everything, 
he  held,  should  be  explained  as  following  necessarily  from  efficient 
causes. 

He  valued  his  method  as  showing  how  to  arrange  the  observa- 
tional data  upon  which  science  must  be  based.  We  ought,  he  says, 
to  be  neither  like  spiders,  which  spin  things  out  of  their  own 
inside*,  nor  like  ants,  which  merely  collect,  but  like  bees,  which 

565 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

both  collect  and  arrange.  This  is  somewhat  unfair  to  the  ants,  but 
it  illustrates  Bacon's  meaning. 

One  of  the  most  famous  parts  of  Bacon's  philosophy  is  his 
enumeration  of  what  he  calls  "idols,"  by  which  he  means  bad 
habits  of  mind  that  cause  people  to  fall  into  error.  Of  these  he 
enumerates  five  kinds.  "Idols  of  the  tribe"  are  those  that  are 
inherent  in  human  nature;  he  mentions  in  particular  the  habit  of 
expecting  more  order  in  natural  phenomena  than  is  actually  to  be 
found.  "Idols  of  the  cave"  are  personal  prejudices,  characteristic 
of  the  particular  investigator.  *4Idols  of  the  market-place"  are  those 
that  have  to  do  with  the  tyranny  of  words  and  the  difficulty  of 
escaping  from  their  influence  over  our  minds.  "Idols  of  the  theatre" 
are  those  that  have  to  do  with  received  systems  of  thoucht;  of 
these,  naturally,  Aristotle  and  the  scholastics  afforded  him  the  most 
noteworthy  instances.  Lastly  there  are  "idols  of  the  schools/' 
which  consist  in  thinking  that  some  blind  rule  (such  as  the 
syllogism)  can  take  the  place  of  judgment  in  investigation. 

Although  science  was  what  interested  Bacon,  and  although  his 
general  outlook  was  scientific,  he  missed  most  of  what  was  being 
done  in  science  in  his  day.  He  rejected  the  Copcrnican  theory, 
which  was  excusable  so  far  as  Copernicus  himself  was  concerned, 
since  he  did  not  advance  any  very  solid  arguments.  But  Bacon 
ought  to  have  been  convinced  by  Kepler,  whose  New  Astronomy 
appeared  in  1609.  Bacon  appears  not  to  have  known  of  the  work 
of  Vesalius,  the  pioneer  of  modern  anatomy,  though  he  admired 
Gilbert,  whose  work  on  magnetism  brilliantly  illustrated  inductive 
method.  Surprisingly, heseemed unconscious  of  the  work  of  I  larvcy, 
although  Harvey  was  his  medical  attendant.  It  is  true  that  Harvey 
did  not  publish  his  discover}'  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  until 
after  Bacon's  death,  but  one  would  have  supposed  that  Bacon 
would  have  been  aware  of  his  researches.  Harvey  had  no  very  high 
opinion  of  him,  saying  "he  writes  philosophy  like  a  Ix>rd  Chan- 
cellor." No  doubt  Bacon  could  have  done  better  if  he  had  been 
less  concerned  with  worldly  success. 

Bacon's  inductive  method  is  faulty  through  insufficient  emphasis 
on  hypothesis.  He  hoped  that  mere  orderly  arrangement  of  data 
would  make  the  right  hypothesis  obvious,  but  this  is  seldom  the 
case.  As  a  rule,  the  framing  of  hypotheses  is  the  most  difficult  part 
of  scientific  work,  and  the  part  where  great  ability  is  indispensable. 
So  far,  no  method  has  been  found  which  would  make  it  possible 

566 


FRANCIS   BACON 

to  invent  hypotheses  by  rule.  Usually  some  hypothesis  is  a  neces- 
sary preliminary  to  the  collection  of  facts,  since  the  selection  of 
facts  demands  some  way  of  determining  relevance.  Without  some- 
thing of  this  kind,  the  mere  multiplicity  of  facts  is  baffling. 

The  part  played  by  deduction  in  science  is  greater  than  Bacon 
supposed.  Often,  when  a  hypothesis  has  to  be  tested,  there  is  a 
long  deductive  journey  from  the  hypothesis  to  some  consequence 
that  can  be  tested  by  observation.  Usually  the  deduction  is  mathe- 
matical, and  in  this  respect  Bacon  underestimated  the  importance 
of  mathematics  in  scientific  investigation. 

The  problem  of  induction  by  simple  enumeration  remains  un- 
solved to  this  day.  Bacon  was  quite  right  in  rejecting  simple 
enumeration  \vhere  the  details  of  scientific  investigation  are  con- 
cerned, for  in  dealing  with  details  we  may  assume  general  laws 
on  the  basis  of  which,  so  long  as  they  are  taken  as  valid,  more  or 
less  cogent  methods  can  be  built  up.  John  Stuart  Mill  framed  four 
canons  of  inductive  method,  which  can  be  usefully  employed  so 
long  as  the  law  of  causality  is  assumed ;  but  this  law  itself,  he  had 
to  confess,  is  to  !>e  accepted  solely  on  the  basi.-  of  induction  by 
simple  enumeration.  The  thiny  that  is  achieved  by  the  theoretical 
organization  of  science  is  the  collection  of  all  subordinate  induc- 
tions into  a  few  that  are  very  comprehensive- -perhaps  only  one. 
Such  comprehensive  inductions  are  confirmed  by  so  many  in- 
stances that  it  is  thought  legitimate  to  accept,  as  regards  them,  an 
induction  by  simple  enumeration.  This  situation  i?  profoundly 
unsatisfactory,  but  neither  Bacon  nor  any  of  his  successors  have 
found  a  wav  out  of  it. 


567 


Chapter  VIII 
HOBBES'S   LEVIATHAN 

HOBBES  (1588-1679)  is  a  philosopher  whom  it  is  difficult  to 
classify.  He  was  an  empiricist,  like  Locke,  Berkeley,  and 
Hume,  but  unlike  them,  he  was  an  admirer  of  mathe- 
matical method,  not  only  in  pure  mathematics,  but  in  its  appli- 
cations. His  general  outlook  was  inspired  by  Galileo  rather  than 
Bacon.  From  Descartes  to  Kant,  Continental  philosophy  derived 
much  of  its  conception  of  the  nature  of  human  knowledge  from 
mathematics,  but  it  regarded  mathematics  as  known  independently 
of  experience.  It  was  thus  led,  like  Platonism,  to  minimize  the  part 
played  by  perception,  and  over-emphasize  the  part  played  by  pure 
thought.  English  empiricism,  on  the  other  hand,  was  little  in- 
fluenced by  mathematics,  and  tended  to  have  a  wrong  conception 
of  scientific  method.  Hobbes  had  neither  of  these  defects.  It  is 
not  until  our  own  day  that  we  find  any  other  philosophers  who 
were  empiricists  and  yet  laid  due  stress  on  mathematics.  In  this 
respect,  Hobbes 's  merit  is  great.  He  has,  however,  grave  defects, 
which  make  it  impossible  to  place  him  quite  in  the  first  rank,  lie 
is  impatient  of  subtleties,  and  too  much  inclined  to  cut  the 
Gordian  knot.  His  solutions  of  problems  are  logical,  but  are 
attained  by  omitting  awkward  facts.  He  is  vigorous,  but  crude; 
he  wields  the  battle-axe  better  than  the  rapier.  Nevertheless,  his 
theory  of  the  State  deserves  to  be  carefully  considered,  the  more 
so  as  it  is  more  modern  than  any  previous  theory,  even  that  of 
Machiavelli. 

Hobbes 's  father  was  a  vicar,  who  was  ill-tempered  and  un- 
educated ;  he  lost  his  job  by  quarrelling  with  a  neighbouring  vicar 
at  the  church  door.  After  this,  Hobbes  was  brought  up  by  an 
uncle.  He  acquired  a  good  knowledge  of  the  classics,  and  translated 
The  Medea  of  Euripides  into  Latin  iambics  at  the  age  of  fourteen. 
(In  later  life,  he  boasted,  justifiably,  that  though  he  abstained  from 
quoting  classical  poets  and  orators,  this  was  not  from  lack  of 
familiarity  with  their  works.)  At  fifteen,  he  went  to  Oxford,  where 
they  taught  him  scholastic  logic  and  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle. 
These  were  his  bugbears  in  later  life,  and  he  maintained  that  he 
had  profited  little  by  his  years  at  the  university;  indeed  univcr- 


HOBBES'S    LEVIATHAN 

sities  in  general  are  constantly  criticized  in  his  writings.  In  the 
year  1610,  when  he  was  twenty-two  years  old,  he  became  tutor  to 
Lord  Hardwick  (afterwards  second  Earl  of  Devonshire),  with 
whom  he  made  the  grand  tour.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  began 
to  know  the  work  oif  Galileo  and  Kepler,  which  profoundly  in- 
fluenced him.  His  pupil  became  his  patron,  and  remained  so 
until  he  died  in  1628.  Through  him,  Hobbes  met  Ben  Jonson  and 
Bacon  and  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  and  many  other  important 
men.  After  the  death  of  the  Earl  of  Devonshire,  who  left  a  young 
son,  Hobbes  lived  for  a  time  in  Paris,  where  he  began  the  study  of 
Euclid;  then  he  became  tutor  to  his  former  pupil's  son.  With  him 
he  travelled  to  Italy,  where  he  visited  Galileo  in  1636.  In  1637 
he  came  back  to  England. 

The  political  opinions  expressed  in  the  Leviathan,  which  were 
Royalist  in  the  extreme,  had  been  held  by  Hobbes  for  a  long  time. 
When  the  Parliament  of  1628  drew  up  the  Petition  of  Right,  he 
published  a  translation  of  Thucydides,  with  the  expressed  inten- 
tion of  showing  the  evils  of  democracy.  When  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment met  in  1640,  and  Laud  and  Strafford  were  sent  to  the  Tower, 
Hobbes  was  terrified  and  fled  to  France.  His  book,  De  Give, 
written  in  1641,  though  not  published  till  1647,  sets  forth  essen- 
tially the  same  theory  as  that  of  the  leviathan.  It  was  not  the 
actual  occurrence  of  the  Civil  War  that  caused  his  opinions, 
but  the  prospect  of  it;  naturally,  however,  his  convictions  were 
strengthened  when  his  fears  were  realized. 

In  Paris  he  was  welcomed  by  many  of  the  leading  mathe- 
maticians and  men  of  science.  lie  was  one  of  those  who  saw 
Descartes*  Meditation*  before  they  were  published,  and  wrote 
objections  to  them,  which  were  printed  by  Descartes  with  his 
replies.  He  also  soon  had  a  large  company  of  English  Royalist 
refugees  with  whom  to  associate.  For  a  time,  from  1646  to  1648, 
he  taught  mathematics  to  the  future  Charles  II.  When,  however, 
in  1651,  he  published  the  leviathan,  it  pleased  no  one.  Its 
rationalism  offended  most  of  the  refugees,  and  its  bitter  attacks 
on  the  Catholic  Church  offended  the  French  Government. 
Hobbes  therefore  fled  secretly  to  London,  where  he  made  sub- 
mission to  Cromwell,  and  abstained  from  all  political  activity. 

He  was  not  idle,  however,  either  at  this  time  or  at  any  other 
during  his  long  life.  He  had  a  controversy  with  Bishop  Bramhall 
on  free  will ;  he  was  himself  a  rigid  dcterrninist.  Over-estimating 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

his  own  capacities  as  a  geometer,  he  imagined  that  he  had  dis- 
covered how  to  square  the  circle;  on  this  subject  he  very  foolishly 
embarked  on  a  controversy  with  Wallis,  the  professor  of  geometry 
at  Oxford.  Naturally  the  professor  succeeded  in  making  him 
look  silly. 

At  the  Restoration,  Hobbes  was  taken  up  by  the  less  earnest  of 
the  king's  friends,  and  by  the  king  himself,  who  not  only  had 
Hobbes's  portrait  on  his  walls,  but  awarded  him  a  pension  of 
£100  a  year — which,  however,  His  Majesty  forgot  to  pay.  The 
Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon  was  shocked  by  the  favour  shown  to 
a  man  suspected  of  atheism,  and  so  was  Parliament.  After  the 
Plague  and  the  Great  Fire,  when  people's  superstitious  fears  were 
aroused,  the  House  of  Commons  appointed  a  committee  to  inquire 
into  atheistical  writings,  specially  mentioning  those  of  Ilobhcs. 
From  this  time  onwards,  he  could  not  obtain  leave  in  England  to 
print  anything  on  controversial  subjects.  Even  his  history  of  the 
Long  Parliament,  which  he  called  Belieruoth,  thowh  it  set  u>rth 
the  most  orthodox  doctrine,  had  to  he  printed  ahr  ad  do(>Sj.  The 
collected  edition  of  his  works  in  1688  appeared  in  Amsterdam.  In 
his  eld  age,  his  reputation  abroad  was  n.uch  greater  than  in 
England.  To  occupy  his  leisure,  he  v.  rote,  at  eighty-four,  an 
autobiography  in  Latin  verse,  and  published,  at  eighty-seven,  a 
translation  of  Homer.  I  cannot  disc-over  that  he  wrote  any  large 
books  after  the  age  of  eighty-seven. 

We  wiM  m  \\  consider  the  doctrines  of  the  l^ei'iathan,  upon 
which  the  fame  of  Hobbes  mainly  rests. 

He  prochnas,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  book,  his  thorough- 
going materialism.  Life,  he  says,  is  nothing  but  a  motion  ol"  the 
limbs,  and  therefore  automata  have  an  artificial  life.  The  common- 
wealth, which  he  calls  Leviathan,  is  a  creation  of  art,  ai.d  is  in 
fact  an  artificial  man.  This  is  intended  as  more  than  an  ana*  >uy, 
and  is  worked  out  in  some  detail.  The  sovereignty  is  an  artificial 
soul.  The  pacts  and  covenants  by  which  "Leviathan"  is  first 
created  take  the  place  of  God's  fiat  when  He  said  "Let  I's  make 
man." 

The  first  part  deals  with  man  as  an  individual,  and  with  such 
general  philosophy  as  Hobbes  deem*  necessary.  Sensations  arc 
caused  by  the  pressure  of  objects;  colours,  sounds,  etc.,  are  not 
in  the  objects.  The  qualities  in  objects  that  correspond  to  our 
sensations  are  motions.  The  first  law  of  motion  u*  stated,  and  is 


HOBBFS'S    LEVIATHAN 

immediately  applied  to  psychology:  imagination  is  a  decaying 
sense,  both  being  motions.  Imagination  when  asleep  is  dreaming; 
the  religions  of  the  gentiles  came  of  not  distinguishing  dreams 
from  waking  life.  (The  rash  reader  may  apply  the  same  argument 
to  the  Christian  religion,  but  Hobbes  is  much  too  cautious  to  do 
so  himself.1)  Belief  that  dreams  are  prophetic  is  a  delusion;  sa 
is  the  belief  in  witchcraft  and  in  ghosts. 

The  succession  of  our  thoughts  is  not  arbitrary,  but  governed 
by  laws — sometimes  those  of  association,  sometimes  those 
depending  upon  a  purpose  in  our  thinking.  (This  is  important  as 
an  application  of  determinism  to  psychology.) 

Hobbes,  as  might  be  expected,  is  an  out-and-out  nominalist. 
There  is,  he  says,  nothing  universal  but  names,  and  without  words 
we  could  not  conceive  any  general  ideas.  Without  language,  there 
would  be  no  truth  or  falsehood,  for  "true"  and  "false"  are 
attributes  of  speech. 

He  considers  geometry  the  one  genuine  science  so  far  created. 
Reasoning  is  of  the  nature  of  reckoning,  and  should  start  from 
definitions.  But  it  is  necessary  to  avoid  self-contradictory  notions 
in  definitions,  which  is  not  usually  done  in  philosophy.  *4 Incor- 
poreal substance,"  for  instance,  is  nonsense.  When  it  is  objected 
that  God  is  an  incorporeal  substance,  Hobbes  has  two  answers: 
first,  that  God  is  not  an  object  of  philosophy;  second,  that  many 
philosophers  have  thought  God  corporeal.  All  error  in  general 
propositions,  he  says,  conies  from  absurdity  (i.e.  self-contradic- 
tion); he  gives  as  examples  of  absurdity  the  idea  of  free  will,  and 
of  cheese  having  the  accidents  of  bread.  (We  know  that,  according 
to  the  Catholic  faith,  the  accidents  of  bread  can  inhere  in  a  sub- 
stance that  is  not  bread.) 

In  this  pannage  Hobbes  shows  an  old-fashioned  rationalism. 
Kepler  had  arrived  at  a  general  proposition:  "Planets  go  round 
the  sun  in  ellipses";  but  other  \icws,  such  as  those  of  Ptolemy, 
are  not  logically  absurd.  Hobbes  has  not  appreciated  the  use  of 
induction  for  arriving  at  general  laws,  in  spite  of  his  admiration 
for  Kepler  and  Galileo. 

As  against  Plato,  Hobbes  holds  that  reason  is  not  innate,  but  is 
developed  by  industry. 

He  conies  next  to  a  consideration  of  the  passions.  "Endeavour" 

1  Klnewhcrc  he  saya  that  the  heathen  gods  were  croitted  by  human 
Jem-,  but  that  our  God  i»  tht  First  Mover. 

57" 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

may  be  defined  as  a  small  beginning  of  motion ;  if  towards  some- 
thing, it  is  desire,  and  if  away  from  something  it  is  aversion.  Love 
is  the  same  as  desire,  and  hate  is  the  same  as  aversion.  We  call 
a  thing  "good"  when  it  is  an  object  of  desire,  and  "bad"  when  it 
is  an  object  of  aversion.  (It  will  be  observed  that  these  definitions 
give  no  objectivity  to  "good1*  and  "bad";  if  men  differ  in  their 
desires,  there  is  no  theoretical  method  of  adjusting  their  differ- 
ences.) There  are  definitions  of  various  passions,  mostly  based  on 
a  competitive  view  of  life;  for  instance,  laughter  is  sudden  glory. 
Fear  of  invisible  power,  if  publicly  allowed,  is  religion ;  if  not 
allowed,  superstition.  Thus  the  decision  as  to  what  is  religion  and 
what  superstition  rests  with  the  legislator.  Felicity  involves  con- 
tinual progress;  it  consists  in  prospering,  not  in  having  prospered ; 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  static  happiness — excepting,  of  course, 
the  joys  of  heaven,  which  surpass  our  comprehension. 

Will  is  nothing  but  the  last  appetite  or  aversion  remaining  in 
deli  be  radon.  That  is  to  say,  will  is  not  something  different  from 
desire  and  aversion,  but  merely  the  strongest  in  a  case  of  conflict. 
This  is  connected,  obviously,  with  Hobbes's  denial  of  free  will. 

Unlike  most  defenders  of  despotic  government,  Hobbes  holds 
that  all  men  are  naturally  equal.  In  a  state  of  nature,  before  there 
is  any  government,  every  man  desires  to  preserve  his  own  liberty, 
but  to  acquire  dominion  over  others;  both  these  desires  are 
dictated  by  the  impulse  to  self-preservation.  From  their  conflict 
arises  a  war  of  all  against  all,  which  makes  life  "nasty,  brutish, 
and  short."  In  a  state  of  nature,  there  is  no  property,  no  justice 
or  injustice;  there  is  only  war,  and  "force  and  fraud  are,  in  war, 
the  two  cardinal  virtues." 

The  second  part  tells  how  men  escape  from  these  evils  by  com- 
bining into  communities  each  subject  to  a  central  authority.  This 
is  represented  as  happening  by  means  of  a  social  contract.  It  is 
supposed  that  a  number  of  people  come  together  and  agree  to 
choose  a  sovereign,  or  a  sovereign  body,  which  shall  exercise 
authority  over  them  and  put  an  end  to  the  universal  war.  I  do  not 
think  this  "covenant"  (as  Hobbes  usually  calls  it)  is  thought  of  as 
a  definite  historical  event ;  it  is  certainly  irrelevant  to  the  argument 
to  think  of  it  as  such.  It  is  an  explanatory  myth,  used  to  explain 
why  men  submit,  and  should  submit,  to  the  limitations  on  personal 
freedom  entailed  in  submission  to  authority.  The  purpose  of  the 
restraint  men  put  upon  themselves,  says  Hobbes,  is  aelf~prc*er- 

572 


HOBBES'S    LEVIATHAN 

vation  from  the  universal  war  resulting  from  our  love  of  liberty 
for  ourselves  and  of  dominion  over  others. 

Hobbes  considers  the  question  why  men  cannot  co-operate  like 
ants  and  bees.  Bees  in  the  same  hive,  he  says,  do  not  compete;  they 
have  no  desire  for  honour;  and  they  do  not  use  reason  to  criticize 
the  government.  Their  agreement  is  natural,  but  that  of  men  can 
only  be  artificial,  by  covenant.  The  covenant  must  confer  power 
on  one  man  or  one  assembly,  since  otherwise  it  cannot  be  enforced. 
"Covenants,  without  the  sword,  are  but  words."  (President 
Wilson  unfortunately  forgot  this.)  The  covenant  is  not,  as  after- 
wards in  Jxxrkc  and  Rousseau,  between  the  citizens  and  the  ruling 
power;  it  is  a  covenant  made  by  the  citizens  with  each  other  to 
obey  such  ruling  power  as  the  majority  shall  choose.  When  they 
have  chosen,  their  political  power  is  at  an  end.  The  minority  is  as 
much  bound  as  the  majority,  since  the  covenant  was  to  obey  the 
government  chosen  by  the  majority.  When  the  government  has 
been  chosen,  the  citizens  lose  all  rights  except  such  as  the  govern- 
ment may  find  it  expedient  to  grant.  There  is  no  right  of  rebellion, 
because  the  ruler  is  not  bound  by  any  contract,  whereas  the 
subjects  are. 

A  multitude  so  united  is  called  a  commonwealth.  This 
"Leviathan**  is  a  mortal  God. 

Hobbes  prefers  monarchy,  but  all  his  abstract  arguments  are 
equally  applicable  to  all  forms  of  government  in  which  there  is 
one  supreme  authority  not  limited  by  the  legal  rights  of  other 
bodies.  He  could  tolerate  Parliament  alone,  but  not  a  system  in 
which  governmental  power  is  shared  between  King  and  Parlia- 
ment. This  is  the  exact  antithesis  to  the  views  of  Locke  and 
Montesquieu.  The  Knglish  Civil  War  occurred,  says  Hobbes, 
because  power  was  divided  between  King,  Lords,  and  Commons. 

The  supreme  power,  whether  a  man  or  an  assembly,  is  called 
the  Sovereign.  The  powers  of  the  sovereign,  in  Hobbes's  system, 
are  unlimited.  He  has  the  right  of  censorship  over  all  expression 
of  opinion.  It  is  assumed  that  his  main  interest  is  the  preservation 
of  internal  peace,  and  that  therefore  he  will  not  use  the  power  of 
censorship  to  suppress  truth,  for  a  doctrine  repugnant  to  peace 
cannot  be  true  (A  singularly  pragmatisf  view!)  The  laws  of  pro- 
perty are  to  be  entirely  subject  to  the  sovereign;  for  in  a  state  of 
nature  there  is  no  property,  and  therefore  property  is  created  by 
government,  which  may  control  its  creation  as  it  pleases. 

573 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

It  is  admitted  that  the  sovereign  may  be  despotic,  but  even  the 
worst  despotism  is  better  than  anarchy.  Moreover,  in  many  points 
the  interests  of  the  sovereign  are  identical  with  those  of  his  subjects. 
He  is  richer  if  they  are  richer,  safer  if  they  are  law-abiding,  and 
so  on.  Rebellion  is  wrong,  both  because  it  usually  fails,  and  because, 
if  it  succeeds,  it  sets  a  bad  example,  and  teaches  others  to  rebel. 
The  Aristotelian  distinction  between  tyranny  and  monarchy  is 
rejected;  a  "tyranny,"  according  to  Hobbes,  is  merely  a  monarchy 
that  the  speaker  happens  to  dislike. 

Various  reasons  are  given  for  preferring  government  by  a 
monarch  to  government  by  an  assembly.  It  is  admitted  that  the 
monarch  will  usually  follow  his  private  interest  when  it  conflicts 
with  that  of  the  public,  but  so  will  an  assembly.  A  monarch  may 
have  favourites,  but  so  may  even*  member  of  an  assembly; 
therefore  the  total  number  of  favourites  is  likely  to  be  fewer 
under  a  monarchy.  A  monarch  can  hear  advice  from  anybody 
secretly;  an  assembly  can  only  hear  advice  from  its  own  members, 
and  that  publicly.  In  an  assembly,  the  chance  absence  of  some 
may  cause  a  different  party  to  obtain  the  majority,  and  thus 
produce  a  change  of  policy.  Moreover,  if  the  assembly  is  divided 
against  itself,  the  result  may  be  civil  war.  For  all  these  reasons, 
Hobbes  concludes,  a  monarchy  is  best. 

Throughout  the  Leviathan,  Hobbes  never  considers  the  possible 
effect  of  periodical  elections  in  curbing  the  tendency  of  assemblies 
to  sacrifice  the  public  interest  to  the  private  interest  of  their 
members.  He  seems,  in  fact,  to  be  thinking,  not  of  democratically 
elected  Parliaments,  but  of  bodies  like  the  Grand  Council  in 
Venice  or  the  House  of  Lords  in  England.  He  conceives  demo- 
cracy, in  the  manner  of  antiquity,  as  involving  the  direct  partici- 
pation of  every  citizen  in  legislation  and  administration;  at  least, 
this  seems  to  be  his  view. 

The  part  of  the  people,  in  Hnhhes's  system,  ends  completely 
with  the  first  choice  of  a  sovereign.  The  succession  is  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  sovereign,  as  was  the  practice  in  the  Roman  Kmpire 
when  mutinies  did  not  interfere.  It  is  admitted  that  the  sovereign 
will  usually  choose  one  of  his  own  children,  or  a  near  relative  if 
he  has  no  children,  but  it  is  held  that  no  law  ought  to  prevent  him 
from  choosing  otherwise. 

There  is  a  chapter  on  the  liberty  of  subjects,  which  begins  with 
an  admirably  precise  definition :  Liberty  is  the  absence  of  external 

574 


HOBBES'S    LEVIATHAN 

impediments  to  motion.  In  this  sense,  liberty  is  consistent  with 
necessity;  for  instance,  water  necessarily  flows  down  hill  when 
there  are  no  impediments  to  its  motion,  and  when,  therefore, 
according  to  the  definition,  it  is  free.  A  man  is  free  to  do  what  he 
wills,  but  necessitated  to  do  what  God  wills.  All  our  volitions  have 
causes,  and  are  in  this  sense  necessary.  As  for  the  liberty  of 
subjects,  they  are  free  where  the  laws  do  not  interfere ;  this  is  no 
limitation  of  sovereignty,  since  the  laws  could  interfere  if  the 
sovereign  so  decided.  Subjects  have  no  rights  as  against  the 
sovereign,  except  what  the  sovereign  voluntarily  concedes.  When 
David  caused  Uriah  to  be  killed,  he  did  no  injury  to  Uriah,  because 
Uriah  was  his  subject;  but  he  did  an  injury  to  God,  because  he 
was  God's  subject  and  was  disobeying  God's  law. 

The  ancient  authors,  with  their  praises  of  liberty,  have  led  men, 
according  to  Hobbes,  to  favour  tumults  and  seditions.  He  main- 
tains that,  when  they  are  rightly  interpreted,  the  liberty  they 
praised  was  that  of  sovereigns,  i.e.  liberty  from  foreign  domina- 
tion. Internal  resistance  to  sovereigns  he  condemns  even  when  it 
might  seem  most  justified.  For  example,  he  holds  that  St.  Ambrose 
had  no  right  to  excommunicate  the  Emperor  Theodosius  after 
the  massacre  of  Thessalonica.  And  he  vehemently  censures  Pope 
Zachary  for  having  helped  to  depose  the  last  of  the  Merovingians 
in  favour  of  I'cpin. 

He  admits,  however,  one  limitation  on  the  duty  of  submission 
to  sovereigns.  The  right  of  self-preservation  he  regards  as  absolute, 
and  subjects  have  the  right  of  self-defence,  even  against  monarchs. 
This  is  logical,  since  he  has  made  self-preservation  the  motive  for 
instituting  government.  On  this  ground  he  holds  (though  with 
limitations)  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  refuse  to  fight  when  called 
upon  by  the  government  to  do  so.  This  is  a  right  which  no  modern 
government  concedes.  A  curious  result  of  his  egoistic  ethic  is 
that  resistance  to  the  sovereign  is  only  justified  in  w^-defence; 
resistance  in  defence  of  another  is  always  culpable. 

There  is  one  other  quite  logical  exception:  a  man  has  no  duty 
to  a  sovereign  who  has  not  the  power  to  protect  him.  This  justified 
Hobbes 's  submission  to  Cromwell  while  Charles  II  was  in  exile. 

There  must,  of  course,  be  no  such  bodies  as  political  parties  or 
what  we  should  now  call  trade  unions.  All  teachers  are  to  be 
ministers  of  the  sovereign,  and  are  to  teach  only  what  the  sovereign 
thinks  useful.  The  rights  of  property  are  only  valid  as  against 

575 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

other  subjects,  not  as  against  the  sovereign.  The  sovereign  has  the 
right  to  regulate  foreign  trade.  He  is  not  subject  to  the  civil  law. 
His  right  to  punish  comes  to  him,  not  from  any  concept  of  justice, 
but  because  he  retains  the  liberty  that  all  men  had  in  the  state  of 
nature,  when  no  man  could  be  blamed  for  inflicting  injury  on 
another. 

There  is  an  interesting  list  of  the  reasons  (other  than  foreign 
conquest)  for  the  dissolution  of  commonwealths.  These  are :  giving 
too  little  power  to  the  sovereign;  allowing  private  judgment  in 
subjects;  the  theory  that  everything  that  is  against  conscience  is 
sin;  the  belief  in  inspiration;  the  doctrine  that  the  sovereign  is 
subject  to  civil  laws;  the  recognition  of  absolute  private  property; 
division  of  the  sovereign  power;  imitation  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans;  separation  of  temporal  and  spiritual  powers;  refusing 
the  power  of  taxation  to  the  sovereign ;  the  popularity  of  potent 
subjects;  and  the  liberty  of  disputing  with  the  sovereign.  Of  all 
these,  there  were  abundant  instances  in  the  then  recent  history 
of  England  and  France. 

There  should  not,  Hobbes  thinks,  be  much  difficulty  in  teaching 
people  to  believe  in  the  rights  of  the  sovereign,  for  have  they  not 
been  taught  to  believe  in  Christianity,  and  even  in  transubstantia- 
tion,  which  is  contrary  to  reason?  There  should  be  days  set  apart 
for  learning  the  duty  of  submission.  The  instruction  of  the  people 
depends  upon  right  teaching  in  the  universities,  which  must 
therefore  be  carefully  supervised.  There  must  be  uniformity  of 
worship,  the  religion  being  that  ordained  by  the  sovereign. 

Part  II  ends  with  the  hope  that  some  sovereign  will  read  the 
book  and  make  himself  absolute— a  less  chimerical  hope  than 
Plato's,  that  some  king  would  turn  philosopher.  Monarchs  are 
assured  that  the  book  is  easy  reading  and  quite  interesting. 

Part  III,  "Of  a  Christian  Commonwealth,"  explains  that  there 
is  no  universal  Church,  because  the  Church  must  depend  upon 
the  civil  government.  In  each  country,  the  king  must  he  head  of 
the  Church;  the  Pope's  overlordship  and  infallibility  cannot  be 
admitted.  It  argues,  as  might  be  expected,  that  a  Christian  who 
is  a  subject  of  a  non-Christian  sovereign  should  yield  outwardly, 
for  was  not  Naaman  suffered  to  bow  himself  in  the  house  of 
Rimmon? 

Part  IV,  "Of  the  Kingdom  of  Darkness,'*  is  mainly  concerned 
with  criticism  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  which  Hobbes  hates 

57'' 


HOBBES'S    LEVIATHAN 

because  it  puts  the  spiritual  power  above  the  temporal.  The  rest 
of  this  part  is  an  attack  on  "vain  philosophy,"  by  which  Aristotle 
is  usually  meant. 

Let  us  now  try  to  decide  what  we  are  to  think  of  the  Leviathan. 
The  question  is  not  easy,  because  the  good  and  the  bad  in  it  are 
so  closely  intermingled. 

In  politics,  there  are  two  different  questions,  one  as  to  the  best 
form  of  the  State,  the  other  as  to  its  powers.  The  best  form  of 
State,  according  to  Hobbes,  is  monarchy,  but  this  is  not  the 
important  part  of  his  doctrine.  The  important  part  is  his  con- 
tention that  the  powers  of  the  State  should  be  absolute.  This 
doctrine,  or  something  like  it,  had  grown  up  in  Western  Europe 
during  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation.  First,  the  feudal 
nobility  were  cowed  by  Louis  XI,  Edward  IV,  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  and  their  successors.  Then  the  Reformation,  in  Pro- 
testant countries,  enabled  the  lay  government  to  get  the  better 
of  the  Church.  Henry  VIII  wielded  a  power  such  as  no  earlier 
English  king  had  enjoyed.  But  in  France  the  Reformation,  at  first, 
had  the  opposite  effect;  between  the  Guises  and  the  Huguenots, 
the  kings  were  nearly  powerless.  Henry  IV  and  Richelieu,  not 
long  before  Hobbes  wrote,  had  laid  the  foundations  of  the  absolute 
monarchy  which  lasted  in  France  till  the  Revolution.  In  Spain, 
Charles  V  had  got  the  better  of  the  Cortes,  and  Philip  II  was 
absolute  except  in  relation  to  the  Church.  In  England,  however, 
the  Puritans  had  undone  the  work  of  Henry  VIII;  their  work 
suggested  to  I  lobbcs  that  anarchy  must  result  from  resistance  to 
the  sovereign. 

liven'  community  is  faced  with  two  dangers,  anarchy  and 
despotism.  The  Puritans,  especially  the  Independents,  were  most 
impressed  by  the  danger  of  despotism.  Ilobbes,  on  the  contrary, 
having  experienced  the  conflict  of  rival  fanaticisms,  was  obsessed 
hy  the  fear  of  anarchy.  The  liberal  philosophers  who  arose  after 
the  Restoration,  and  acquired  control  after  1688,  realized  both 
dangers;  they  disliked  both  Strafford  and  the  Anabaptists.  This 
led  Locke  to  the  doctrine  of  division  of  powers,  and  of  checks 
and  balances.  In  England  there  was  a  real  division  of  powers  so 
long  as  the  King  had  influence;  then  Parliament  became  supreme, 
and  ultimately  the  Cabinet.  In  America,  there  are  still  checks  and 
balances  in  so  far  as  Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court  can  resist 
the  Administration.  In  (Germany,  Italy,  Russia,  and  Japan,  the 

/.»»/<*y  v/Hf.iffH  /'Ai/oto/i-Jy  577  *^ 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

government  has  had  even  more  power  than  Hobbes  thought  desir- 
able. On  the  whole,  therefore,  as  regards  the  powers  of  the  State, 
the  world  has  gone  as  Hobbes  wished,  after  a  long  liberal  period 
during  which,  at  least  apparently,  it  was  moving  in  the  opposite 
direction.  In  spite  of  the  outcome  of  the  present  war,  it 
seems  evident  that  the  functions  of  the  State  must  continue  to 
increase,  and  that  resistance  to  it  must  grow  more  and  more 
difficult. 

The  reason  that  Hobbes  gives  for  supporting  the  State,  namely 
that  it  is  the  only  alternative  to  anarchy,  is  in  the  main  a  valid  one. 
A  State  may,  however,  be  so  bad  that  temporary  anarchy  seems 
preferable  to  its  continuance,  as  in  France  in  1789  and  in  Russia 
in  1917.  Moreover,  the  tendency  of  every  government  towards 
tyranny  cannot  be  kept  in  check  unless  governments  have  some 
fear  of  rebellion.  Governments  would  be  worse  than  they  are  if 
Hobbes 's  submissive  attitude  were  universally  adopted  by  sub- 
jects. This  is  true  in  the  political  sphere,  where  governments  will 
try,  if  they  can,  to  make  themselves  personally  irremovable ;  it  is 
true  in  the  economic  sphere,  where  they  will  try  to  enrich  them- 
selves and  their  friends  at  the  public  expense;  it  is  true  in  the 
intellectual  sphere,  where  they  will  suppress  every  new  discovery 
or  doctrine  that  seems  to  menace  their  power.  These  are  reasons 
for  not  thinking  only  of  the  risk  of  anarchy,  but  also  of  the  danger 
of  injustice  and  ossification  that  is  bound  up  with  omnipotence 
in  government. 

The  merits  of  Hobbes  appear  most  clearly  when  he  is  contrasted 
with  earlier  political  theorists.  He  is  completely  free  from  super- 
stition ;  he  does  not  argue  from  what  happened  to  Adam  and  Eve 
at  the  time  of  the  Fall.  He  is  clear  and  logical;  his  ethics,  right  or 
wrong,  is  completely  intelligible,  and  does  not  involve  the  use 
of  any  dubious  concepts.  Apart  from  Machiavelli,  who  is  much 
more  limited,  he  is  the  first  really  modern  writer  on  political 
theory.  Where  he  is  wrong,  he  is  wrong  from  over-simplification, 
not  because  the  basis  of  his  thought  is  unreal  and  fantastic.  For 
this  reason,  he  is  still  worth  refuting. 

Without  criticizing  Hobbes's  metaphysics  or  ethics,  there  are 
two  points  to  make  against  him.  The  first  is  that  he  always  con- 
siders the  national  interest  as  a  whole,  and  assumes,  tacitly,  that 
the  major  interests  of  all  citizens  are  the  same.  He  does  not  realize 
the  importance  of  the  clash  between  different  classes,  which  Marx 

578 


HOBBES'S    LEVIATHAN 

makes  the  chief  cause  of  social  change.  This  is  connected  with  the 
assumption  that  the  interests  of  a  monarch  are  roughly  identical 
with  those  of  his  subjects.  In  time  of  war  there  is  a  unification  of 
interests,  especially  if  the  war  is  fierce;  but  in  time  of  peace  the 
clash  may  be  very  great  between  the  interests  of  one  class  and 
those  of  another.  It  is  not  by  any  means  always  true  that,  in  such 
a  situation,  the  best  way  to  avert  anarchy  is  to  preach  the  absolute 
power  of  the  sovereign.  Some  concession  in  the  way  of  sharing 
power  may  be  the  only  way  to  prevent  civil  war.  This  should  have 
been  obvious  to  I  lobbes  from  the  recent  history  of  England. 

Another  point  in  which  Hobbes's  doctrine  is  unduly  limited  is 
in  regard  to  the  relations  between  different  States.  There  is  not 
a  word  in  Leviathan  to  suggest  any  relation  between  them  except 
war  and  conquest,  with  occasional  interludes.  This  follows,  on 
his  principles,  from  the  absence  of  an  international  government, 
for  the  relations  of  States  are  still  in  a  state  of  nature,  which  is 
that  of  a  war  of  all  against  all.  So  long  as  there  is  international 
anarchy,  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  increase  of  efficiency  in  the 
separate  States  is  in  the  interest  of  mankind,  since  it  increases 
the  ferocity  and  destructiveness  of  war.  Every  argument  that  he 
adduces  in  favour  of  government,  in  so  far  as  it  is  valid  at  all,  is 
valid  in  favour  of  international  government.  So  long  as  national 
States  exist  and  fight  each  other,  only  inefficiency  can  preserve 
the  human  race.  To  improve  the  fighting  quality  of  separate 
States  without  having  any  means  of  preventing  war  is  the  road 
to  universal  destruction. 


579 


Chapter  IX 
DESCARTES 

K^N£  DESCARTES  (1596-1650)  is  usually  considered  the 
founder  of  modern  philosophy,  and,  I  think,  rightly.  He 
is  the  first  man  of  high  philosophic  capacity  whose  outlook 
is  profoundly  affected  by  the  new  physics  and  astronomy.  While 
it  is  true  that  he  retains  much  of  scholasticism,  he  does  not  accept 
foundations  laid  by  predecessors,  but  endeavours  to  construct  a 
complete  philosophic  edifice  de  novo.  This  had  not  happened  since 
Aristotle,  and  is  a  sign  of  the  new  self-confidence  that  resulted 
from  the  progress  of  science.  There  is  a  freshness  about  his  work 
that  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  eminent  previous  philosopher  since 
Plato.  All  the  intermediate  philosophers  were  teachers,  with  the 
professional  superiority  belonging  to  that  avocation.  Descartes 
writes,  not  as  a  teacher,  but  as  a  discoverer  and  explorer,  anxious 
to  communicate  what  he  has  found.  His  style  is  easy  and  un- 
pedantic,  addressed  to  intelligent  men  of  the  world  rather  than 
to  pupils.  It  is,  moreover,  an  extraordinarily  excellent  style.  It  is 
very  fortunate  for  modern  philosophy  that  the  pioneer  had  such 
admirable  literary  sense.  His  successors,  both  on  the  Continent 
and  in  England,  until  Kant,  retain  his  unprofessional  character, 
and  several  of  them  retain  something  of  his  stylistic  merit. 

Descartes *s  father  was  a  councillor  of  the  Parlemcnt  of  Brittany 
and  possessed  a  moderate  amount  of  landed  property.  When 
Descartes  inherited,  at  his  father's  death,  he  sold  his  estates,  and 
invested  the  money,  obtaining  an  income  of  six  or  seven  thousand 
francs  a  year.  He  was  educated,  from  1604  to  1612,  at  the  Jesuit 
college  of  La  Ffcche,  which  seems  to  have  given  him  a  much 
better  grounding  in  modern  mathematics  than  he  could  have 
got  at  most  universities  at  that  time.  In  1612  he  went  to  Paris, 
where  he  found  social  life  boring,  and  retired  to  a  secluded  retreat 
in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  in  which  he  worked  at  geometry. 
Friends  nosed  htm  out,  however,  so,  to  secure  more  complete 
quiet,  he  enlisted  in  the  Dutch  army  (1617).  As  Holland  was  at 
peace  at  the  time,  he  seems  to  have  enjoyed  two  years  of  undis- 
turbed meditation.  However,  the  coming  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  led  him  to  enlist  in  the  Bavarian  army  (1619).  It  was  in 


DESCARTES 

Bavaria,  during  the  winter  1619-20,  that  he  had  the  experience 
he  describes  in  the  Discours  de  la  Mtthode.  The  weather  being 
cold,  he  got  into  a  stove1  in  the  morning,  and  stayed  there  all 
day  meditating;  by  his  own  account,  his  philosophy  was  half 
finished  when  he  came  out,  but  this  need  not  be  accepted  too 
literally.  Socrates  used  to  meditate  all  day  in  the  snow,  but 
Descartes's  mind  only  worked  when  he  was  warm. 

In  1621  he  gave  up  fighting;  after  a  visit  to  Italy,  he  settled  in 
Paris  in  1625.  But  again  friends  would  call  on  him  before  he  was 
up  (he  seldom  got  up  before  midday),  so  in  1628  he  joined  the 
army  which  was  besieging  La  Rochelle,  the  Huguenot  stronghold. 
When  this  episode  was  finished,  he  decided  to  live  in  Holland, 
probably  to  escape  the  risk  of  persecution.  He  was  a  timid  man, 
a  practising  Catholic,  but  he  shared  Galileo's  heresies.  Some 
think  that  he  heard  of  the  first  (secret)  condemnation  of  Galileo, 
which  had  taken  place  in  1616.  However  that  may  be,  he  decided 
not  to  publish  a  great  book,  Le  Monde -,  upon  which  he  had  been 
engaged.  His  reason  was  that  it  maintained  two  heretical  doctrines: 
the  earth's  rotation  and  the  infinity  of  the  universe.  (This  book 
was  never  published  in  its  entirety,  but  fragments  of  it  were 
published  after  his  death.) 

lie  lived  in  Holland  for  twenty  years  (1629-49),  except  for  a 
few  brief  visits  to  France  and  one  to  England,  all  on  business.  It 
is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  Holland  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  as  the  one  country  where  there  was  freedom 
of  speculation.  Hbbbes  had  to  have  his  books  printed  there; 
Ix)cke  took  refuge  there  during  the  five  worst  years  of  reaction 
in  England  before  1688;  Bayle  (of  the  Dictionary)  found  it 
necessary  to  live  there;  and  Spinoza  would  hardly  have  been 
allowed  to  do  his  work  in  any  other  country. 

I  said  that  Descartes  was  a  timid  man,  but  perhaps  it  would  be 
kinder  to  say  that  he  wished  to  be  left  in  peace  so  as  to  do  his  work 
undisturbed.  He  always  courted  ecclesiastics,  especially  Jesuits — 
not  only  while  he  was  in  their  power,  but  after  his  emigration  to 
Holland.  His  psychology  is  obscure,  but  I  incline  to  think  that 
he  was  a  sincere  Catholic,  and  wished  to  persuade  the  Church — 
in  its  own  interests  as  well  as  in  his — to  be  less  hostile  to  modern 

1  Descartes  says  it  was  a  stove  (po£le)t  but  most  commentators  think 
this  impossible.  Those  who  know  old-fashioned  Bavarian  houses,  how* 
ever,  anftiire  me  jhat  it  is  entirely  credible 

58' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

science  than  it  showed  itself  in  the  case  of  Galileo.  There 
are  those  who  think  that  his  orthodoxy  was  merely  politic, 
but  though  this  is  a  possible  view  I  do  not  think  it  the  most 
probable. 

Even  in  Holland  he  was  subject  to  vexatious  attacks,  not  by  the 
Roman  Church,  but  by  Protestant  bigots.  It  was  said  that  his 
views  led  to  atheism,  and  he  would  have  been  prosecuted  but  for 
the  intervention  of  the  French  ambassador  and  the  Prince  of 
Orange.  This  attack  having  failed,  another,  less  direct,  was  made 
a  few  years  later  by  the  authorities  of  the  University  of  Leyden, 
which  forbade  all  mention  of  him,  whether  favourable  or  un- 
favourable. Again  the  Prince  of  Orange  intervened,  and  told  the 
university  not  to  be  silly.  This  illustrates  the  pain  to  Protestant 
countries  from  the  subordination  of  the  Church  to  the  State,  and 
from  the  comparative  weakness  of  Churches  that  were  not 
international. 

Unfortunately,  through  Chanut,  the  French  ambassador  at 
Stockholm,  Descartes  got  into  correspondence  with  Queen 
Christina  of  Sweden,  a  passionate  and  learned  lady  who  thought 
that,  as  a  sovereign,  she  had  a  right  to  waste  the  time  of  great 
men.  He  sent  her  a  treatise  on  love,  a  subject  which  until  then  he 
had  somewhat  neglected.  Me  also  sent  her  a  work  on  the  passions 
of  the  soul,  which  he  had  originally  composed  for  Princess 
Elizabeth,  daughter  of  the  Elector  Palatine.  These  writings  led 
her  to  request  his  presence  at  her  court;  he  at  last  agreed,  and  she 
sent  a  warship  to  fetch  him  (September,  1649).  It  turned  out  that 
she  wanted  daily  lessons  from  him,  but  could  not  spare  the  time 
except  at  five  in  the  morning.  This  unaccustomed  early  rising, 
in  the  cold  of  a  Scandinavian  winter,  was  not  the  best  thing  for 
a  delicate  man.  Moreover,  Chanut  became  dangerously  ill,  and 
Descartes  looked  after  him.  The  ambassador  recovered,  but 
Descartes  fell  ill  and  died  in  February,  1650. 

Descartes  never  married,  but  he  had  a  natural  daughter  who 
died  at  the  age  of  five;  this  was,  he  said,  the  greatest  sorrow  of  his 
life.  He  always  was  well  dressed,  and  wore  a  sword.  He  was  not 
industrious;  he  worked  short  hours,  and  read  little.  When  he  went 
to  Holland  he  took  few  books  with  him,  but  among  them  were 
the  Bible  and  Thomas  Aquinan.  His  work  secrns  to  have  been 
done  with  great  concentration  during  short  periods ;  but  perhaps, 
to  keep  up  the  appearance  of  a  gentlemanly  amateur,  he  may  have 

58* 


DESCARTES 

pretended  to  work  less  than  in  fact  he  did,  for  otherwise  his 
achievements  seem  scarcely  credible. 

Descartes  was  a  philosopher,  a  mathematician,  and  a  man  of 
science.  In  philosophy  and  mathematics,  his  work  was  of  supreme 
importance;  in  science,  though  creditable,  it  was  not  so  good  as 
that  of  some  of  his  contemporaries. 

His  great  contribution  to  geometry  was  the  invention  of  co- 
ordinate geometry,  though  not  quite  in  its  final  form.  He  used  the 
analytic  method,  which  supposes  a  problem  solved,  and  examines 
the  consequences  of  the  supposition;  and  he  applied  algebra  to 
geometry.  In  both  of  these  he  had  had  predecessors — as  regards 
the  former,  even  among  the  ancients.  What  was  original  in  him 
was  the  use  of  co-ordinates,  i.e.  the  determination  of  the  position 
of  a  point  in  a  plane  by  its  distance  from  two  fixed  lines.  He 
did  not  himself  discover  all  the  power  of  this  method,  but  he  did 
enough  to  make  further  progress  easy.  This  was  by  no  means  his 
sole  contribution  to  mathematics,  but  it  was  his  most  important. 

The  book  in  which  he  set  forth  most  of  his  scientific  theories 
was  Principia  Phifasophiae,  published  in  1644.  There  were,  how- 
ever, some  other  books  of  importance:  Essais  philosopluques  (1637) 
deals  with  optics  as  well  as  geometry,  and  one  of  his  books  is 
called  I)e  la  formation  du  foetus.  He  welcomed  Harvey's  discovery 
of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  was  always  hoping  (though 
in  vain)  to  make  some  discovery  of  importance  in  medicine.  He 
regarded  the  bodies  of  men  and  animals  as  machines;  animals  he 
regarded  as  automata,  governed  entirely  by  the  laws  of  physics, 
and  devoid  of  feeling  or  consciousness.  Men  arc  different:  they 
have  a  soul,  which  resides  in  the  pineal  gland.  There  the  soul 
comes  in  contact  with  the  "vital  spirits,11  and  through  this  contact 
there  is  interaction  between  soul  and  body.  The  total  quantity  of 
motion  in  the  universe  is  constant,  and  therefore  the  soul  cannot 
affect  it ;  but  it  can  alter  the  direction  of  motion  of  the  vital  spirits, 
and  hence,  indirectly,  of  other  parts  of  the  body. 

This  part  of  his  theory  was  abandoned  by  his  school — first  by 
his  Dutch  disciple  Geulincx,  and  later  by  Malebranche  and 
Spinoza.  The  physicists  discovered  the  conservation  of  momentum, 
according  to  which  the  total  quantity  of  motion  in  the  world  in 
any  given  direction  is  constant.  This  showed  that  the  sort  of  action 
of  mind  on  matter  that  Descartes  imagined  is  impossible.  Assum- 
ing— as  was  very  generally  assumed  in  the  Cartesian  school — that 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

all  physical  action  is  of  the  nature  of  impact,  dynamical  laws 
suffice  to  determine  the  motions  of  matter,  and  there  is  no  room 
for  any  influence  of  mind.  But  this  raises  a  difficulty.  My  arm 
moves  when  I  will  that  it  shall  move,  but  my  will  is  a  mental 
phenomenon  and  the  motion  of  my  arm  a  physical  phenomenon. 
Why  then,  if  mind  and  matter  cannot  interact,  does  my  body 
behave  as  if  my  mind  controlled  it  ?  To  this  Geulincx  invented 
an  answer,  known  as  the  theory  of  the  "two  clocks."  Suppose  you 
have  two  clocks  which  both  keep  perfect  time:  whenever  one 
points  to  the  hour,  the  other  will  strike,  so  that  if  you  saw  one 
and  heard  the  other,  you  would  think  the  one  caused  the  other 
to  strike.  So  it  is  with  mind  and  body.  tach  is  wound  up  by  God 
to  keep  time  with  the  other,  so  that,  on  occasion  of  my  volition, 
purely  physical  laws  cause  my  arm  to  move,  although  my  will 
has  not  really  acted  on  my  body. 

There  were  of  course  difficulties  in  this  theory.  In  the  first 
place,  it  was  very  odd;  in  the  second  place,  since  the  physical 
series  was  rigidly  determined  by  natural  laws,  the  mental  series, 
which  ran  parallel  to  it,  must  be  equally  deterministic.  If  the 
theory  was  valid,  there  should  be  a  sort  of  possible  dictionary,  in 
which  each  cerebral  occurrence  would  be  translated  into  the 
corresponding  mental  occurrence.  An  ideal  calculator  could 
calculate  the  cerebral  occurrence  by  the  laws  of  dynamics,  and 
infer  the  concomitant  mental  occurrence  by  means  of  the  "dic- 
tionary." Even  without  the  "dictionary,"  the  calculator  could 
infer  words  and  actions,  since  these  are  bodily  movements.  This 
view  would  be  difficult  to  reconcile  with  Christian  ethics  and  the 
punishment  of  sin. 

These  consequences,  however,  were  not  at  once  apparent. 
The  theory  appeared  to  have  two  merits.  The  first  was  that  it 
made  the  soul,  in  a  sense,  wholly  independent  of  the  body,  since 
it  was  never  acted  on  by  the  body.  The  second  was  that  it  allowed 
the  general  principle:  "one  substance  cannot  act  on  another/' 
There  were  two  substances,  mind  and  matter,  and  they  were  so 
dissimilar  that  an  interaction  seemed  inconceivable.  Geulincx *s 
theory  explained  the  appearance  of  interaction  while  denying  it? 


In  mechanics,  Descartes  accepts  the  first  law  of  motion,  accord- 
ing to  which  a  body  left  to  itself  will  move  with  constant  velocity 
in  a  straight  line.  But  there  is  no  action  at  a  distance,  as  later  in 

584 


DESCARTES 

Newton's  theory  of  gravitation.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  vacuum, 
and  there  are  no  atoms;  yet  all  interaction  is  of  the  nature  of 
impact.  If  we  knew  enough,  we  should  be  able  to  reduce  chemistry 
and  biology  to  mechanics;  the  process  by  which  a  seed  develops 
into  an  animal  or  a  plant  is  purely  mechanical.  There  is  no  need 
of  Aristotle's  three  souls ;  only  one  of  them,  the  rational  soul,  exists, 
and  that  only  in  man. 

With  due  caution  to  avoid  theological  censure,  Descartes 
develops  a  cosmogony  not  unlike  those  of  some  pre-Platonic 
philosophers.  We  know,  he  says,  that  the  world  was  created  as 
in  Genesis,  but  it  is  interesting  to  see  how  it  might  have  grown 
naturally.  lie  works  out  a  theory  of  the  formation  of  vortices: 
round  the  sun  there  is  an  immense  vortex  in  the  plenum,  which 
carries  the  planets  round  with  it.  The  theory  is  ingenious,  but 
cannot  explain  why  planetary  orbits  are  elliptical,  not  circular.  It 
was  generally  accepted  in  France,  where  it  was  only  gradually 
ousted  by  the  Newtonian  theory.  Cotes,  the  editor  of  the  first 
English  edition  of  Newton's  Principia,  argues  eloquently  that  the 
vortex  theory  leads  to  atheism,  while  Newton's  requires  God  to 
set  the  planets  in  motion  in  a  direction  not  towards  the  sun.  On 
this  ground,  he  thinks,  Newton  is  to  be  preferred. 

I  come  now  to  Descartes 's  two  most  important  books,  so  far  as 
pure  philosophy  is  concerned.  These  are  the  Discourse  on  Method 
(1637)  and  the  Meditations  (1642).  They  largely  overlap,  and  it  is 
not  necessary  to  keep  them  apart. 

In  these  books  Descartes  begins  by  explaining  the  method  of 
"Cartesian  doubt,"  as  it  has  come  to  be  called.  In  order  to  have 
a  firm  basis  for  his  philosophy,  he  resolves  to  make  himself  doubt 
even-thing  that  he  can  manage  to  doubt.  As  he  foresees  that  the 
process  may  take  some  time,  he  resolves,  in  the  meanwhile,  to 
regulate  his  conduct  by  commonly  received  rules;  this  will  leave 
his  mind  unhampered  by  the  possible  consequences  of  his  doubts 
in  relation  to  practice. 

He  begins  with  scepticism  in  regard  to  the  senses.  Can  I  doubt, 
he  says,  that  I  am  sitting  here  by  the  fire  in  a  dressing-gown? 
Yes,  for  sometimes  I  have  dreamt  that  ^  was  hej; 
I  was  naked  in  bed.  (Pyjamas,  and  even  night 
been  invented.)  Moreover  madmen  sometimr 
so  it  is  possible  that  I  may  be  in  like  case. 

Dreams,  however,  like  painters,  present 

585 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

things,  at  least  as  regards  their  elements.  (You  may  dream  of  a 
winged  horse,  but  only  because  you  have  seen  horses  and  wings.) 
Therefore  corporeal  nature  in  general,  involving  such  matters  as 
extension,  magnitude,  and  number,  is  less  easy  to  question  than 
beliefs  about  particular  things.  Arithmetic  and  geometry,  which 
are  not  concerned  with  particular  things,  are  therefore  more 
certain  than  physics  and  astronomy;  they  are  true  even  of  dream 
objects,  which  do  not  differ  from  real  ones  as  regards  number 
and  extension.  Even  in  regard  to  arithmetic  and  geometry,  how- 
ever, doubt  is  possible.  It  may  be  that  God  causes  me  to  make 
mistakes  whenever  I  try  to  count  the  sides  of  a  square  or  add  2  to  3. 
Perhaps  it  is  wrong,  even  in  imagination,  to  attribute  such  unkind- 
ness  to  God,  but  there  might  be  an  evil  demon,  no  less  cunning 
and  deceitful  than  powerful,  employing  all  his  industry  in  mis- 
leading me.  If  there  be  such  a  demon,  it  may  he  that  all  the  things 
Tsee  are  only  illusions  of  which  he  makes  use  as  traps  for  my 
credulity. 

There  remains,  however,  something  that  I  cannot  doubt:  no 
demon,  however  cunning,  could  deceive  me  if  I  did  not  exist.  I 
may  have  no  body:  this  might  be  an  illusion.  But  thought  is 
different.  "While  I  wanted  to  think  everything  false,  it  must 
necessarily  be  that  I  who  thought  was  something;  and  remarking 
that  this  truth,  /  think,  therefore  I  am,  was  so  solid  and  so  certain 
that  all  the  most  extravagant  suppositions  of  the  sceptics  were 
incapable  of  upsetting  it,  I  judged  that  I  could  receive  it  without 
scruple  as  the  first  principle  of  the  philosophy  that  I  sought. M| 

This  passage  is  the  kernel  of  Descartes *s  theory  of  knowledge, 
and  contains  what  is  most  important  in  his  philosophy.  Most 
philosophers  since  Descartes  have  attached  importance  to  the 
theory  of  knowledge,  and  their  doing  so  is  largely  due  to  him.  411 
think,  therefore  I  am"  makes  mind  more  certain  than  matter, 
and  my  mind  (for  me)  more  certain  than  the  minds  of  others. 
There  is  thus,  in  all  philosophy  derived  from  Descartes,  a  ten- 
dency to  subjectivism,  and  to  regarding  matter  as  something  only 
knowable,  if  at  all,  by  inference  from  what  is  known  of  mind. 
These  two  tendencies  ?xist  both  in  Continental  idealism  and  in 
British  empiricism — in  the  former  triumphantly,  in  the  latter 

1  The  above  argument,  "I  think,  therefore  1  am*'  (cofftlo  ergo  nun),  is 
known  as  Descartes '§  cogitot  and  the  process  by  which  it  i*  reached  is 
called  "Cartesian  doubt," 


DESCARTES 

regretfully.  There  has  been,  in  quite  recent  times,  an  attempt  to 
escape  from  this  subjectivism  by  the  philosophy  known  as  instru- 
mentalism,  but  of  this  I  will  not  speak  at  present.  With  this 
exception,  modern  philosophy  has  very  largely  accepted  the  for- 
mulation of  its  problems  from  Descartes,  while  not  accepting  his 
solutions. 

The  reader  will  remember  that  St.  Augustine  advanced  an 
argument  closely  similar  to  the  cogito.  He  did  not,  however,  give 
prominence  to  it,  and  the  problem  which  it  is  intended  to  solve 
occupied  only  a  small  part  of  his  thoughts.  Descartes 's  originality, 
therefore,  should  be  admitted,  though  it  consists  less  in  inventing 
the  argument  than  in  perceiving  its  importance. 

Having  now  secured  a  firm  foundation,  Descartes  sets  to  work 
to  rebuild  the  edifice  of  knowledge.  The  I  that  has  been  proved 
to  exist  has  been  inferred  from  the  fact  that  I  think,  therefore  I 
exist  while  I  think,  and  only  then.  If  I  ceased  to  think,  there 
would  be  no  evidence  of  my  existence.  I  am  a  thing  that  thinks, 
a  substance  of  which  the  whole  nature  or  essence  consists  in 
thinking,  and  which  needs  no  place  or  material  thing  for  its 
existence.  The  soul,  therefore,  is  wholly  distinct  from  the  body 
and  easier  to  know  than  the  body;  it  would  be  what  it  is  even  if 
there  were  no  body. 

Descartes  next  asks  himself:  why  is  the  cogito  so  evident?  He 
concludes  that  it  is  only  because  it  is  clear  and  distinct.  He  there- 
fore adopts  as  a  general  rule  the  principle:  All  things  that  we  con- 
ceive very  clearly  and  rerv  distinctly  are  true.  He  admits,  however, 
that  there  is  sometimes  difficulty  in  knowing  which  these  things 
are. 

"Thinking"  is  used  by  Descartes  in  a  very  wide  sense.  A  thing 
that  thinks,  he  says,  is  one  that  doubts,  understands,  conceives, 
aftirms,  denies,  wills,  imagines,  and  feels — for  feeling,  as  it  occurs 
in  dreams,  is  a  form  of  thinking.  Since  thought  is  the  essence  of 
mind,  the  mind  must  always  think,  even  during  deep  sleep. 

Descartes  now  resumes  the  question  of  our  knowledge  of  bodies. 
I  le  takes  as  an  example  a  piece  of  wax  from  the  honeycomb. 
Certain  things  are  apparent  to  the  senses:  it  tastes  of  honey,  it 
smells  of  (lowers,  it  has  a  certain  sensibfe  colour,  size  and  shape, 
it  is  hard  and  cold,  and  if  struck  it  emits  a  sound.  But  if  you  put 
it  near  the  fire,  these  qualities  change,  although  the  wax  persists, 
therefore  what  appeared  to  the  senses  was  nor  the  wax  itself. 

587 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

The  wax  itself  is  constituted  by  extension,  flexibility,  and  motion, 
which  are  understood  by  the  mind,  not  by  the  imagination.  The 
thing  that  is  the  wax  cannot  itself  be  sensible,  since  it  is  equally 
involved  in  all  the  appearances  of  the  wax  to  the  various  senses. 
The  perception  of  the  wax  "is  not  a  vision  or  touch  or  imagination, 
but  an  inspection  of  the  imnd."  I  do  not  sec  the  wax,  any  more 
than  I  see  men  in  the  street  when  I  see  hats  and  coats.  "I  under- 
stand by  the  sole  power  of  judgment,  which  resides  in  my  mind, 
what  I  thought  I  saw  with  my  eyes."  Knowledge  by  the  senses  is 
confused,  and  shared  with  animals;  but  now  I  have  stripped  the 
wax  of  its  clothes,  and  mentally  perceive  it  naked.  From  my 
sensibly  seeing  the  wax,  my  own  existence  follows  with  certainty, 
but  not  that  of  the  wax.  Knowledge  of  external  things  must  be 
by  the  mind,  not  by  the  senses. 

This  leads  to  a  consideration  of  different  kinds  of  ideas.  The 
commonest  of  errors,  Descartes  says,  is  to  think  that  my  ideas  are 
like  outside  things.  (The  word  "idea"  includes  sense-perceptions, 
as  used  by  Descartes.)  Ideas  seem  to  be  of  three  sorts:  (i)  those 
that  are  innate,  (2)  those  that  are  foreign  and  come  from  without, 
(3)  those  that  are  invented  by  me.  The  second  kind  of  ideas,  we 
naturally  suppose,  are  like  outside  objects.  We  suppose  this, 
partly  because  nature  teaches  us  to  think  so,  partly  because  such 
ideas  come  independently  of  the  will  (i.e.  through  sensation),  and 
it  therefore  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  foreign  thing 
imprints  its  likeness  on  me.  But  are  these  good  reasons?  When  1 
speak  of  being  "taught  by  nature"  in  this  connection,  I  only 
mean  that  I  have  a  certain  inclination  to  believe  it,  not  that  I  see 
it  by  a  natural  light.  What  is  seen  by  a  natural  light  cannot  be 
denied,  but  a  mere  inclination  may  be  towards  what  is  false.  And 
as  for  ideas  of  sense  being  involuntary,  that  is  no  argument,  for 
dreams  are  involuntary  although  they  come  from  within.  The 
reasons  for  supposing  that  ideas  of  sense  come  from  without  are 
therefore  inconclusive. 

Moreover  there  are  sometimes  two  different  ideas  of  the  same 
external  object,  e.g.,  the  sun  as  it  appears  to  the  senses  and  the 
sun  in  which  the  astronomers  believe.  These  cannot  both  be  like 
the  sun,  and  reason  shows  that  the  one  which  comes  directly 
from  experience  must  be  the  less  like  it  of  the  two. 

But  these  considerations  have  not  disposed  of  the  sceptical 
arguments  which  threw  doubt  on  the  existence  of  the  external 


DESCARTES 

world.  This  can  only  be  done  by  first  proving  the  existence  of  God. 

Descartes's  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God  are  not  very  original ; 
in  the  main  they  come  from  scholastic  philosophy.  They  were 
better  stated  by  Leibniz,  and  I  will  omit  consideration  of  them 
until  we  come  to  him. 

When  God's  existence  has  been  proved,  the  rest  proceeds  easily. 
Since  God  is  good,  He  will  not  act  like  the  deceitful  demon  whom 
Descartes  has  imagined  as  a  ground  for  doubt.  Now  God  has 
given  me  such  a  strong  inclination  to  believe  in  bodies  that  He 
would  be  deceitful  if  there  were  none ;  therefore  bodies  exist.  He 
must,  moreover,  have  given  me  the  faculty  of  correcting  errors. 
I  use  this  faculty  when  I  employ  the  principle  that  what  is  clear 
and  distinct  is  true.  This  enables  me  to  know  mathematics,  and 
physics  also,  if  1  remember  that  I  must  know  the  truth  about 
bodies  by  the  mind  alone,  not  by  mind  and  body  jointly. 

The  constructive  part  of  Descartes's  theory  of  knowledge  is 
much  less  interesting  than  the  earlier  destructive  part.  It  uses  all 
sorts  of  scholastic  maxims,  such  as  that  an  effect  can  never  have 
more  perfection  than  its  cause,  which  have  somehow  escaped  the 
initial  critical  scrutiny.  No  reason  is  given  for  accepting  these 
maxims,  although  they  are  certainly  less  self-evident  than  one's 
own  existence,  which  is  proved  with  a  flourish  of  trumpets.  Plato, 
St.  Augustine,  and  St.  Thomas  contain  most  of  what  is  affirmative 
in  the  Meditations. 

The  method  of  critical  doubt,  though  Descartes  himself  applied 
it  only  half-heartedly,  was  of  great  philosophic  importance.  It  is 
clear,  as  a  matter  of  logic,  that  it  can  only  yield  positive  results  if 
scepticism  is  to  stop  somewhere.  If  there  is  to  be  both  logical  and 
empirical  knowledge,  there  must  be  two  kinds  of  stopping  points: 
indubitable  facts,  and  indubitable  principles  of  inference.  Des- 
cartes 's  indubitable  facts  arc  his  own  thoughts— using  "thought" 
in  the  widest  possible  sense.  44I  think"  is  his  ultimate  premiss. 
Here  the  word  "I11  is  really  illegitimate;  he  ought  to  state  his 
ultimate  premiss  in  the  form  "there  are  thoughts."  The  word  "I" 
is  grammatically  convenient,  but  does  not  describe  a  datum. 
When  he  goes  on  to  say  "I  am  a  thing  which  thinks/'  he  is  already 
using  uncritically  the  apparatus  of  categories  handed  down  by 
scholasticism.  He  nowhere  proves  that  thoughts  need  a  thinker, 
nor  is  there  reason  to  believe  this  except  in  a  grammatical  sense. 
The  decision,  however,  to  regard  thoughts  rather  than  external 

5«9 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

objects  as  the  prime  empirical  certainties  was  very  important, 
and  had  a  profound  effect  on  all  subsequent  philosophy. 

In  two  other  respects  the  philosophy  of  Descartes  was  important. 
First:  it  brought  to  completion,  or  very  nearly  to  completion,  the 
dualism  of  mind  and  matter  which  began  with  Plato  and  was 
developed,  largely  for  religious  reasons,  by  Christian  philosophy. 
Ignoring  the  curious  transactions  in  the  pineal  gland,  which  were 
dropped  by  the  followers  of  Descartes,  the  Cartesian  system 
presents  two  parallel  but  independent  worlds,  that  of  mind  and 
that  of  matter,  each  of  which  can  be  studied  without  reference  to 
the  other.  That  the  mind  does  not  move  the  body  was  a  new  idea, 
due  explicitly  to  Geulincx  but  implicitly  to  Descartes.  It  had  the 
advantage  of  making  it  possible  to  say  that  the  body  does  not 
move  the  mind.  There  is  a  considerable  discussion  in  the  Medi- 
tations as  to  why  the  mind  feels  "sorrow"  when  the  body  is 
thirsty.  The  correct  Cartesian  answer  was  that  the  body  and  the 
mind  were  like  two  clocks,  and  that  when  one  indicated  "thirst" 
the  other  indicated  "sorrow."  From  the  religious  point  of  view, 
however,  there  was  a  grave  drawback  to  this  theory;  and  this 
brings  me  to  the  second  characteristic  of  Cartesianism  that  I 
alluded  to  above. 

In  the  whole  theory  of  the  material  world,  Cartesianism  was 
rigidly  deterministic.  Living  organisms,  just  as  much  as  dead 
matter,  were  governed  by  the  laws  of  physics;  there  was  no  longer 
need,  as  in  the  Aristotelian  philosophy,  of  an  entelechy  or  soul  to 
explain  the  growth  of  organisms  and  the  movements  of  animals. 
Descartes  himself  allowed  one  small  exception:  a  human  soul 
could,  by  volition,  alter  the  direction  though  not  the  quantity  of 
the  motion  of  the  vital  spirits.  This,  however,  was  contrary  to  the 
spirit  of  the  system,  and  turned  out  to  be  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
mechanics;  it  was  therefore  dropped.  The  consequence  was  that 
all  the  movements  of  matter  were  determined  by  physical  laws, 
and,  owing  to  parallelism,  mental  events  must  be  equally  deter- 
minate. Consequently  Cartesians  had  difficulty  about  free  will. 
And  for  those  who  paid  more  attention  to  Descartes *s  science  than 
to  his  theory  of  knowledge,  it  was  not  difficult  to  extend  the  theory 
that  animals  are  automate:  why  not  say  the  same  of  men,  and 
simplify  the  system  by  making  it  a  consistent  materialism  ?  This 
step  was  actually  taken  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

There  is  in  Descartes  an  unresolved  dualism  between  what  he 

59* 


DESCARTES 

learnt  from  contemporary  science  and  the  scholasticism  that  he 
had  been  taught  at  La  Fltche.  This  led  him  into  inconsistencies, 
but  it  also  made  him  more  rich  in  fruitful  ideas  than  any  com- 
pletely logical  philosopher  could  have  been.  Consistency  might 
have  made  him  merely  the  founder  of  a  new  scholasticism,  whereas 
inconsistency  made  him  the  source  of  two  important  but  divergent 
schools  of  philosophy. 


59' 


Chapter  X 
SPINOZA 

SPINOZA  (1634-77)  is  the  noblest  and  most  lovable  of  the 
great  philosophers,  Intellectually,  some  others  have  sur- 
passed him,  but  ethically  he  is  supreme.  As  a  natural  conse- 
quence, he  was  considered,  during  his  lifetime  and  for  a  century 
after  his  death,  a  man  of  appalling  wickedness.  Fie  was  born  a 
Jew,  but  the  Jews  excommunicated  him.  Christians  abhorred  him 
equally;  although  his  whole  philosophy  is  dominated  by  the  idea 
of  God,  the  orthodox  accused  him  of  atheism.  Leibniz,  who  owed 
much  to  him,  concealed  his  debt,  and  carefully  abstained  from 
saying  a  word  in  his  praise;  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  lie  about 
the  extent  of  his  personal  acquaintance  with  the  heretic  Jew. 

The  life  of  Spinoza  was  very  simple.  His  family  had  come  to 
Holland  from  Spain,  or  perhaps  Portugal,  to  escape  the  Inquisi- 
tion. He  himself  was  educated  in  Jewish  learning,  but  found  it 
impossible  to  remain  orthodox.  He  was  offered  1000  florins  a  year 
to  conceal  his  doubts;  when  he  refused,  an  attempt  was  made  to 
assassinate  him;  when  this  failed,  he  was  cursed  with  all  the 
curses  in  Deuteronomy  and  with  the  curse  that  Elisha  pro- 
nounced on  the  children  who,  in  consequence,  were  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  she-bears.  But  no  she-bears  attacked  Spinoza.  He  lived 
quietly,  first  at  Amsterdam  and  then  at  the  Hague,  making  his 
living  by  polishing  lenses.  His  wants  were  few  and  simple,  and 
he  showed  throughout  his  life  a  rare  indifference  to  money.  The 
few  who  knew  him  loved  him,  even  if  they  disapproved  of  his 
principles.  The  Dutch  Government,  with  its  usual  liberalism, 
tolerated  his  opinions  on  theological  matters,  though  at  one  time 
he  was  in  bad  odour  politically  because  he  sided  with  the  De  Witts 
against  the  House  of  Orange.  At  the  early  age  of  forty-three  he 
died  of  phthisis. 

His  chief  work,  the  Ethics,  was  published  posthumously.  Before 
considering  it,  a  few  words  must  be  said  about  two  of  his  other 
books,  the  Tractatus  Theolbgico-Politicu*  and  the  Tractatus  Politicu*. 
The  former  is  a  curious  combination  of  biblical  criticism  and 
political  theory;  the  latter  deals  with  political  theory  only.  In 
biblical  criticism  Spinoza  partially  anticipates  modern  view*, 

592 


SPINOZA 

particularly  in  assigning  much  later  dates  to  various  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  than  those  assigned  by  tradition.  He  endeavours 
throughout  to  show  that  the  Scriptures  can  be  interpreted  so  as 
to  be  compatible  with  a  liberal  theology. 

Spinoza's  political  theory  is,  in  the  main,  derived  from  Hobbes, 
in  spite  of  the  enormous  temperamental  difference  between  the 
two  men.  He  holds  that  in  a  state  of  nature  there  is  no  right  or 
wrong,  for  wrong  consists  in  disobeying  the  law.  He  holds  that 
the  sovereign  can  do  no  wrong,  and  agrees  with  Hobbes  that  the 
Church  should  be  entirely  subordinate  to  the  State.  He  is  opposed 
to  all  rebellion,  even  against  a  bad  government,  and  instances  the 
troubles  in  England  as  a  proof  of  the  harm  that  comes  of  forcible 
resistance  to  authority.  But  he  disagrees  with  Hobbes  in  thinking 
democracy  the  "most  natural"  form  of  government.  He  disagrees 
also  in  holding  that  subjects  should  not  sacrifice  all  their  rights 
to  the  sovereign.  In  particular,  he  holds  freedom  of  opinion 
important.  I  do  not  quite  know  how  he  reconciles  this  with  the 
opinion  that  religious  questions  should  be  decided  by  the  State. 
I  think  when  he  says  this  he  means  that  they  should  be  decided 
by  the  State  rather  than  the  Church;  in  Holland  the  State  was 
much  more  tolerant  than  the  Church. 

Spinoza's  Ethics  deals  with  three  distinct  matters.  It  begins  with 
metaphysics;  it  then  goes  on  to  the  psychology  of  the  passions 
and  the  will ;  and  finally  it  sets  forth  an  ethic  based  on  the  pre- 
ceding metaphysics  and  psychology.  The  metaphysic  is  a  modi- 
fication of  Descartes,  the  psychology  is  reminiscent  of  Hobbes, 
hut  the  ethic  is  original,  and  is  what  is  of  most  value  in  the  book. 
The  relation  of  Spinoza  to  Descartes  is  in  some  ways  not  unlike 
the  relation  of  Plotinus  to  Plato.  Descartes  was  a  many-sided  man, 
full  of  intellectual  curiosity,  but  not  much  burdened  with  moral 
earnestness.  Although  he  invented  "proofs0  intended  to  support 
orthodox  beliefs,  he  could  have  been  used  by  sceptics  as  Carneades 
used  Plato.  Spinoza,  although  he  was  not  without  scientific 
interests,  and  even  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  rainbow,  was  in  the 
main  concerned  with  religion  and  virtue.  He  accepted  from 
Descartes  and  his  contemporaries  a  materialistic  and  deterministic 
physics,  and  sought,  within  this  fraifiework,  to  find  room  for 
reverence  and  a  life  devoted  to  the  Good.  His  attempt  was  mag- 
nificent, and  rouses  admiration  even  in  those  who  do  not  think  it 
successful 

593 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

The  metaphysical  system  of  Spinoza  is  of  the  type  inaugurated 
by  Parmenides.  There  is  only  one  substance,  "God  or  Nature"; 
nothing  finite  is  self-subsistent.  Descartes  admitted  three  sub- 
stances, God  and  mind  and  matter;  it  is  true  that,  even  for  him, 
God  was,  in  a  sense,  more  substantial  than  mind  and  matter, 
since  He  had  created  them,  and  could,  if  He  chose,  annihilate 
them.  But  except  in  relation  to  God's  omnipotence,  mind  and 
matter  were  two  independent  substances,  defined,  respectively, 
by  the  attributes  of  thought  and  extension.  Spinoza  would  have 
none  of  this.  For  him,  thought  and  extension  were  both  attributes 
of  God.  God  has  also  an  infinite  number  of  other  attributes, 
since  He  must  be  in  every  respect  infinite;  but  these  others  are 
unknown  to  us.  Individual  souls  and  separate  pieces  of  matter 
are,  for  Spinoza,  adjectival ;  they  are  not  things,  but  merely  aspects 
of  the  divine  Being.  There  can  be  no  such  personal  immortality 
as  Christians  believe  in,  but  only  that  impersonal  sort  that  consists 
in  becoming  more  and  more  one  with  God.  Finite  things  are 
defined  by  their  boundaries,  physical  or  logical,  that  is  to  say,  by 
what  they  are  not:  "all  determination  is  negation/'  There  can  be 
only  one  Being  who  is  wholly  positive,  and  He  must  be  absolutely 
infinite.  Hence  Spinoza  is  led  to  a  complete  and  undiluted 
pantheism. 

Everything,  according  to  Spinoza,  is  ruled  by  an  absolute  logical 
necessity.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  free  will  in  the  mental  sphere 
or  chance  in  the  physical  world.  Everything  that  happens  is  a 
manifestation  of  God's  inscrutable  nature,  and  it  is  logically 
impossible  that  events  should  be  other  than  they  are.  This  leads 
to  difficulties  in  regard  to  sin,  which  critics  were  not  slow  to 
point  out.  One  of  them,  observing  that,  according  to  Spinoza, 
everything  is  decreed  by  God  and  is  therefore  good,  asks  indig- 
nantly: Was  it  good  that  Nero  should  kill  his  mother?  Was  it 
good  that  Adam  ate  the  apple?  Spinoza  answers  that  what  was 
positive  in  these  acts  was  good,  and  only  what  was  negative  was 
bad;  but  negation  exists  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  finite 
creatures.  In  God,  who  alone  is  completely  real,  there  is  no 
negation,  and  therefore  the  evil  in  what  to  us  seem  sins  does  not 
exist  when  they  are  viewed  as  parts  of  the  whole.  This  doctrine, 
thought  in  one  form  or  another,  it  has  been  held  by  most  mystics, 
cannot,  obviously,  be  reconciled  with  the  orthodox  doctrine  of 
jtn  and  damnation  It  is  bound  up  with  Spinoza's  complete 

594 


SPINOZA 

rejection  of  free  will.  Although  not  at  all  polemical,  Spinoza  was 
too  honest  to  conceal  his  opinions,  however  shocking  to  contem- 
poraries; the  abhorrence  of  his  teaching  is  therefore  not 
surprising. 

The  Ethic*  is  set  forth  in  the  style  of  Euclid,  with  definitions, 
axioms,  and  theorems;  everything  after  the  axioms  is  supposed  to 
be  rigorously  demonstrated  by  deductive  argument.  This  makes 
him  difficult  reading.  A  modern  student,  who  cannot  suppose 
that  there  are  rigorous  "proofs**  of  such  things  as  he  professes 
to  establish,  is  bound  to  grow  impatient  with  the  detail  of  the 
demonstrations,  which  is,  in  fact,  not  worth  masterin  .  It  is 
enough  to  read  the  enunciations  of  the  propositions,  and  to  study 
the  scholia,  which  contain  much  of  what  is  best  in  the  Ethics. 
But  it  would  show  a  lack  of  understanding  to  blame  Spinoza  for 
his  geometrical  method.  It  was  of  the  essence  of  his  system, 
ethically  as  well  as  metaphysically,  to  maintain  that  everything 
could  be  demonstrated,  and  it  was  therefore  essential  to  produce 
demonstrations.  We  cannot  accept  his  method,  but  that  is  because 
we  cannot  accept  his  metaphysic.  We  cannot  believe  that  the 
interconnections  of  the  parts  of  the  universe  are  logical,  because 
we  hold  that  scientific  laws  are  to  be  discovered  by  observation, 
not  by  reasoning  alone.  But  for  Spinoza  the  geometrical  method 
was  necessary,  and  was  bound  up  with  the  most  essential  parts  of 
his  doctrine. 

I  come  now  to  Spinoza *s  theory  of  the  emotions.  This  comes 
after  a  metaphysical  discussion  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  the 
mind,  which  leads  up  to  the  astonishing  proposition  that  "the 
human  mind  has  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  eternal  and 
infinite  essence  of  God."  But  the  passions,  which  are  discussed 
in  the  Third  Book  of  the  Ethics,  distract  us  and  obscure  our 
intellectual  vision  of  the  whole.  "Everything,"  we  are  told,  "in 
so  far  as  it  is  in  itself,  endeavours  to  persevere  in  its  own  being/9 
Hence  arise  love  and  hate  and  strife.  The  psychology  of  Book  111 
is  entirely  egoistic.  "He  who  conceives  that  the  object  of  his  hate 
is  destroyed  will  feel  pleasure."  "If  we  conceive  that  anyone  takes 
delight  in  something,  which  only  one  person  can  possess,  we 
shall  endeavour  to  bring  it  about,  thai  the  man  in  question  shall 
not  gain  possession  thereof/'  But  even  in  this  Book  there  are 
moments  when  Spinoza  abandons  the  appearance  of  mathe- 
matically demonstrated  cynicism,  as  when  he  says:  "Hatred  is 

595 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

increased  by  being  reciprocated,  and  can  on  the  other  hand  be 
destroyed  by  love."  Self-preservation  is  the  fundamental  motive 
of  the  passions,  according  to  Spinoza;  but  self-preservation  alters 
its  character  when  we  realize  that  what  is  real  and  positive  in 
us  is  what  unites  us  to  the  whole,  and  not  what  preserves  the 
appearance  of  separateness. 

The  last  two  books  of  the  Ethics,  entitled  respectively  "Ot 
human  bondage,  or  the  strength  of  the  emotions"  and  "Of  the 
power  of  the  understanding,  or  of  human  freedom,"  are  the  most 
interesting.  We  are  in  bondage  in  proportion  as  what  happens  to 
us  is  determined  by  outside  causes,  and  we  are  free  in  proportion 
as  we  are  self-determined.  Spinoza,  like  Socrates  and  Plato, 
believes  that  all  wrong  action  is  due  to  intellectual  error:  the 
man  who  adequately  understands  his  own  circumstances  will  act 
wisely,  and  will  even  be  happy  in  the  face  of  what  to  another 
would  be  misfortune.  He  makes  no  appeal  to  unselfishness;  he 
holds  that  self-seeking,  in  some  sense,  and  more  particularly  self- 
preservation,  govern  all  human  behaviour.  "No  virtue  can  be  con- 
ceived as  prior  to  this  endeavour  to  preserve  one's  own  being/' 
But  his  conception  of  what  a  wise  man  will  choose  as  the  goal  of 
his  self-seeking  is  different  from  that  of  the  ordinary  egoist:  "The 
mind's  highest  good  is  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  the  mind's 
highest  virtue  is  to  know  God."  Emotions  are  called  "passions" 
when  they  spring  from  inadequate  ideas;  passions  in  different 
men  may  conflict,  but  men  who  live  in  obedience  to  reason  will 
agree  together.  Pleasure  in  itself  is  good,  but  hope  and  fear  are 
bad,  and  so  are  humility  and  repentance:  "he  who  repents  of  an 
action  is  doubly  wretched  or  infirm."  Spinoza  regards  time  as 
unreal,  and  therefore  all  emotions  which  have  to  do  essentially 
with  an  event  as  future  or  as  past  are  contrary  to  reason.  "In  so 
far  as  the  mind  conceives  a  thing  under  the  dictate  of  reason, 
it  is  affected  equally,  whether  the  idea  be  of  a  thing  present,  past, 
or  future/9 

This  is  a  hard  saying,  but  it  is  of  the  essence  of  Spinoza's 
system,  and  we  shall  do  well  to  dwell  upon  it  for  a  moment.  In 
popular  estimation,  "all's  well  that  ends  well";  if  the  universe  is 
gradually  improving,  we  think  better  of  it  than  if  it  is  gradually 
deteriorating,  even  if  the  sum  of  good  and  evil  be  the  same  in  the 
two  cases.  We  are  more  concerned  about  a  disaster  in  our  own 
tune  than  in  the  time  of  Jeaghiz  Khan.  According  to  Spinoza 

596 


SPINOZA 

this  is  irrational.  Whatever  happens  is  part  of  the  eternal  timeless 
world  as  God  sees  it;  to  Him,  the  date  is  irrelevant.  The  wise 
man,  so  far  as  human  finitude  allows,  endeavours  to  see  the 
world  as  God  sees  it,  sub  specie  aternitatis,  under  the  aspect  of 
eternity.  But,  you  may  retort,  we  are  surely  right  in  being  more 
concerned  about  future  misfortunes,  which  may  possibly  be 
averted,  than  about  past  calamities  about  which  we  can  do  nothing/ 
To  this  argument  Spinoza's  determinism  supplies  the  answer. 
Only  ignorance  makes  us  think  that  we  can  alter  the  future;  what 
will  be  will  be,  and  the  future  is  as  unalterably  fixed  as  the  past. 
That  is  why  hope  and  fear  are  condemned:  both  depend  upon 
viewing  the  future  as  uncertain,  and  therefore  spring  from  lack  of 
wisdom. 

When  we  acquire,  in  so  far  as  we  can,  a  vision  of  the  world  which 
is  analogous  to  God's,  we  see  everything  as  pan  of  the  whole, 
and  as  necessary  to  the  goodness  of  the  whole.  Therefore  "the 
knowledge  of  evil  is  an  inadequate  knowledge.'*  God  has  no 
knowledge  of  evil,  because  there  is  no  evil  to  be  known;  the 
appearance  of  evil  only  arises  through  regarding  parts  of  the 
universe  as  if  they  were  self- subsis tent. 

Spinoza's  outlook  is  intended  to  liberate  men  from  the  tyranny 
of  fear.  "A  free  man  thinks  of  nothing  less  than  of  death;  and  his 
wisdom  is  a  meditation  not  of  death,  but  of  life."  Spinoza  lived  up 
to  this  precept  very  completely.  On  the  last  day  of  his  life  he  was 
entirely  calm,  not  exalted,  like  Socrates  in  the  Phaedo,  but  con- 
versing, as  he  would  on  any  other  day,  about  matters  of  interest 
to  his  interlocutor.  Unlike  some  other  philosophers,  he  not 
only  believed  his  own  doctrines,  but  practised  them;  I  do  not 
know  of  any  occasion,  in  spite  of  great  provocation,  in  which  he 
was  betrayed  into  the  kind  of  heat  or  anger  that  his  ethic  con- 
demned: In  controversy  he  was  courteous  and  reasonable,  never 
denouncing,  but  doing  his  utmost  to  persuade. 

In  so  far  as  what  happens  to  us  springs  from  ourselves,  it  is 
good ;  o*Iy  what  comes  from  without  is  bad  for  us.  "As  all  things 
whereof  a  man  is  the  efficient  cause  are  necessarily  good,  no  evil 
can  befall  a  man  except  through  external  causes."  Obviously, 
therefore,  nothing  bad  can  happen  to  the  universe  as  a  whole, 
since  it  is  not  subject  to  external  causes.  "We  are  a  part  of  uni- 
versal nature,  and  we  follow  her  order.  If  we  have  a  dear  and  dis- 
tinct understanding  of  this,  that  part  of  our  nature  which  is  defined 

597 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

by  intelligence,  in  other  words  the  better  part  of  ourselves,  will 
assuredly  acquiesce  in  what  befalls  us,  and  in  such  acquiescence 
will  endeavour  to  persist/9  In  so  far  as  a  man  is  an  unwilling  part 
of  a  larger  whole,  he  is  in  bondage;  but  in  so  far  as,  through  the 
understanding,  he  has  grasped  the  sole  reality  of  the  whole,  he  is 
free.  The  implications  of  this  doctrine  are  developed  in  the  last 
Bookofthe&ta*. 

Spinoza  does  not,  like  the  Stoics,  object  to  all  emotions;  he 
objects  only  to  those  that  are  "passions,"  i.e.  those  in  which  we 
appear  to  ourselves  to  be  passive  in  the  power  of  outside  forces. 
"An  emotion  which  is  a  passion  ceases  to  be  a  passion  as  soon  as 
we  form  a  clear  and  distinct  idea  of  it."  Understanding  that  all 
things  are  necessary  helps  the  mind  to  acquire  power  over  the 
emotions.  "He  who  clearly  and  distinctly  understands  himself 
and  his  emotions,  loves  God,  and  so  much  the  more  as  he  more 
understands  himself  and  his  emotions.**  This  proposition  intro- 
duces us  to  the  "intellectual  love  of  God/'  in  which  wisdom 
consists.  The  intellectual  love  of  God  is  a  union  of  thought  and 
emotion :  it  consists,  I  think  one  may  say,  in  true  thought  combined 
with  joy  in  the  apprehension  of  truth.  Ail  joy  in  true  thought  is 
part  of  the  intellectual  love  of  God,  for  it  contains  nothing  negative, 
and  is  therefore  truly  part  of  the  whole,  not  only  apparently,  as 
are  fragmentary  things  so  separated  in  thought  as  to  appear  bad. 

I  said  a  moment  ago  that  the  intellectual  love  of  God  involves 
joy,  but  perhaps  this  was  a  mistake,  for  Spinoza  says  that  God  is 
not  affected  by  any  emotion  of  pleasure  or  pain,  and  also  says 
that  "the  intellectual  love  of  the  mind  towards  God  is  part  of  the 
infinite  love  wherewith  God  loves  himself."  I  think,  nevertheless, 
that  there  is  something  in  "intellectual  Imt"  which  is  not  mere 
intellect;  perhaps  the  joy  involved  is  considered  as  something 
superior  to  pleasure. 

"Love  towards  God,"  we  are  told,  "must  hold  the  chief  place 
in  the  mind."  I  have  omitted  Spinoza's  demonstrations,  but  in  so 
doing  I  have  given  an  incomplete  picture  of  his  thought.  As  the 
proof  of  the  above  proposition  is  short,  I  will  quote  it  in  full; 
the  reader  can  then  in  imagination  supply  proofs  to  other  propo- 
sitions. The  proof  of  the  above  proposition  is  as  follows : 

"For  this  love  is  associated  with  all  the  modifications  of  the  body 
(V,  14)  and  is  fostered  by  them  all  (V,  1 5) ;  therefore  ( V  1 1 )  it  must 
hold  the  chief  place  in  the  mind.  Q.E.D ' 

598 


SPINOZA 

Of  the  propositions  referred  to  in  the  above  proof,  V,  14  states: 
"The  mind  can  bring  it  about,  that  all  bodily  modifications  or 
images  of  things  may  be  referred  to  the  idea  of  God";  V,  15, 
quoted  above,  states:  "He  who  clearly  and  distinctly  understands 
himself  and  his  emotions  loves  God,  and  so  much  the  more  in 
proportion  as  he  understands  himself  and  his  emotions";  V,  n 
states:  "In  proportion  as  a  mental  image  is  referred  to  more 
objects,  so  is  it  more  frequent,  or  more  often  vivid,  and  occupies 
the  mind  more/' 

The  "proof"  quoted  above  might  be  expressed  as  follows: 
Every  increase  in  the  understanding  of  what  happens  to  us  con- 
sists in  referring  events  to  the  idea  of  God,  since,  in  truth,  every- 
thing is  part  of  God.  This  understanding  of  everything  as  part 
of  God  is  love  of  God,  When  all  objects  are  referred  to  God,  the 
idea  of  God  mil  fully  occupy  the  mind. 

Thus  the  statement  that  "love  of  God  must  hold  the  chief  place 
in  the  mind"  is  not  a  primarily  moral  exhortation,  but  an  account 
of  what  must  inevitably  happen  as  we  acquire  understanding. 

We  are  told  that  no  one  can  hate  God,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
"he  who  loves  God  cannot  endeavour  that  God  should  love  him 
in  return/'  Goethe,  who  admired  Spinoza  without  even  beginning 
to  understand  him,  thought  this  proposition  an  instance  of  self- 
abnegation.  It  is  nothing  of  the  sort,  but  a  logical  consequence 
of  Spinoza's  metaphysic.  He  does  not  say  that  a  man  ought  not  to 
want  Cod  to  love  him;  he  says  that  a  man  who  loves  God  cannot 
want  God  to  love  him.  This  is  made  plain  by  the  proof,  which 
says:  "For,  if  a  man  should  so  endeavour,  he  would  desire  (V, 
17,  Corol.)  that  God,  whom  he  loves,  should  not  be  God,  and 
consequently  he  would  desire  to  feel  pain  (III,  19),  which  is 
absurd  (III,  28)."  V,  17  is  the  proposition  already  referred  to, 
which  says  that  God  has  no  passions  or  pleasures  or  pains;  the 
corollary  referred  to  above  deduces  that  God  loves  and  hates  no 
one.  Here  again  what  is  involved  is  not  an  ethical  precept,  but 
a  logical  necessity:  a  man  who  loved  God  and  wished  God  to 
love  htm  would  be  wishing  to  feel  pain,  "which  is  absurd." 

The  statement  that  God  can  love  no  one  should  not  be  con* 
stderrd  to  contradict  the  statement  that  God  loves  Himself  with 
an  infinite  intellectual  love.  He  may  love  Himself,  since  that  is 
possible  without  false  belief;  and  in  any  case  intellectual  love  is 
a  very  special  kind  of  love. 

S99 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

At  this  point  Spinoza  tells  us  that  he  has  now  given  us  "all  the 
remedies  against  the  emotions."  The  great  reme4  is  clear  and 
distinct  ideas  as  to  the  nature  of  the  emotions  and  their  relation 
to  external  causes.  There  is  a  further  advantage  in  love  of  God 
as  compared  to  love  of  human  beings:  "Spiritual  unhealthiness 
and  misfortunes  can  generally  be  traced  to  excessive  love  of 
something  which  is  subject  to  many  variations."  But  clear  and 
distinct  knowledge  "begets  a  love  towards  a  thing  immutable 
and  eternal/9  and  such  love  has  not  the  turbulent  and  disquieting 
character  of  love  for  an  object  which  is  transient  and  changeable. 

Although  personal  survival  after  death  is  an  illusion,  there  is 
nevertheless  something  in  the  human  mind  that  is  eternal.  The 
mind  can  only  imagine  or  remember  while  the  body  endures, 
but  there  is  in  God  an  idea  which  expresses  the  essence  of  this  or 
that  human  body  under  the  form  of  eternity,  and  this  idea  is  the 
eternal  part  of  the  mind.  The  intellectual  love  of  God,  when 
experienced  by  an  individual,  is  contained  in  this  eternal  part 
of  the  mind. 

Blessedness,  which  consists  of  love  towards  God,  is  not  the 
reward  of  virtue,  but  virtue  itself;  ue  do  not  rejoice  in  it  because 
we  control  our  lusts,  but  we  control  our  lusts  because  we  rejoice 
in  it. 

The  Ethics  ends  with  these  words: 

"The  wise  man,  in  so  far  as  he  is  regarded  as  such,  is  scarcely 
at  all  disturbed  in  spirit,  but  being  conscious  of  himself,  and  ol 
God,  and  of  things,  by  a  certain  eternal  necessity,  never  ceases  to 
be,  but  always  possesses  true  acquiescence  of  his  spirit.  If  the  way 
which  I  have  pointed  out  as  leading  to  this  result  seems  exceedingly 
hard,  it  may  nevertheless  be  discovered.  Needs  must  it  be  hard, 
since  it  is  so  seldom  found.  How  would  it  be  possible,  if  salvation 
were  ready  to  our  hand,  and  could  without  great  labour  be  found, 
that  it  should  be  by  almost  all  men  neglected  ?  But  all  excellent 
things  are  as  difficult  as  they  are  rare." 

In  forming  a  critical  estimate  of  Spinoza's  importance  as  a 
philosopher,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  his  ethics  from  his 
metaphysics,  and  to  consider  how  much  of  the  former  can  survive 
the  rejection  of  the  latter.  ' 

Spinoza's  metaphysic  is  the  best  example  of  what  may  be 
called  "logical  monism" — the  doctrine,  namely,  that  the  world 
as  a  whole  is  a  single  substance,  none  of  whose  parts  are  logically 

600 


SPINOZA 

capable  of  existing  alone.  The  ultimate  basis  for  this  view  is  the 
belief  that  every  proposition  has  a  single  subject  and  a  single 
predicate,  which  leads  us  to  the  conclusion  that  relations  and 
plurality  must  be  illusory.  Spinoza  thought  that  the  nature  of  the 
world  and  of  human  life  could  be  logically  deduced  from  self- 
evident  axioms;  we  ought  to  be  as  resigned  to  events  as  to  the  fact 
that  2  and  2  are  4,  since  they  are  equally  the  outcome  of  logical 
necessity.  The  whole  of  this  metaphysic  is  impossible  to  accept; 
it  is  incompatible  with  modern  logic  and  with  scientific  method. 
Facts  have  to  be  discovered  by  observation,  not  by  reasoning; 
when  we  successfully  infer  the  future,  we  do  so  by  means  of 
principles  which  are  not  logically  necessary,  but  are  suggested  by 
empirical  data.  And  the  concept  of  substance,  upon  which  Spinoza 
relies,  is  one  which  neither  science  nor  philosophy  can  nowadays 
accept. 

But  when  we  come  to  Spinoza's  ethics,  we  feel — or  at  least  1 
feel — that  something,  though  not  everything,  can  be  accepted 
even  when  the  metaphysical  foundation  has  been  rejected.  Broadly 
speaking,  Spinoza  is  concerned  to  show  how  it  is  possible  to  live 
nobly  even  when  we  recognize  the  limits  of  human  power.  He 
himself,  by  his  doctrine  of  necessity,  makes  these  limits  narrower 
than  they  are;  but  when  they  indubitably  exist,  Spinoza's  maxims 
are  probably  the  best  possible.  Take,  for  instance,  death: 
nothing  that  a  man  can  do  will  make  him  immortal,  and  it  is 
therefore  futile  to  spend  time  in  fears  and  lamentations  over  the 
fact  that  we  must  die.  To  be  obsessed  by  the  fear  of  death  is  a 
kind  of  slavery;  Spinoza  is  right  in  saying  that  "the  free  man 
thinks  of  nothing  less  than  of  death."  But  even  in  this  case,  it  is 
only  death  in  general  that  should  be  so  treated;  death  of  any 
particular  disease  should,  if  possible,  be  averted  by  submitting  to 
medical  care.  What  should,  even  in  this  case,  be  avoided,  is  a 
certain  kind  of  anxiety  or  terror;  the  necessary  measures  should  be 
taken  calmly,  and  our  thoughts  should,  as  far  as  possible,  be  then 
directed  to  other  matters.  The  same  considerations  apply  to  all 
other  purely  personal  misfortunes. 

But  how  about  misfortunes  to  people  whom  you  love?  Let  us 
think  of  some  of  the  things  that  are  lik'ely  to  happen  in  our  time 
to  inhabitants  of  Europe  or  China.  Suppose  you  are  a  Jew,  and 
your  family  has  been  massacred.  Suppose  you  are  an  underground 
worker  against  the  Nazis,  and  your  wife  has  been  shot  because 

601 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

you  could  not  be  caught.  Suppose  your  husband,  for  some  purely 
imaginary  crime,  has  been  sent  to  forced  labour  in  the  Arctic, 
and  has  died  of  cruelty  and  starvation.  Suppose  your  daughter 
has  been  raped  and  then  killed  by  enemy  soldiers.  Ought  you, 
in  these  circumstances,  to  preserve  a  philosophic  calm  ? 

If  you  follow  Christ's  teaching,  you  will  say  "Father,  forgive 
them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  I  have  known  Quakers 
who  could  have  said  this  sincerely  and  profoundly,  and  whom  I 
admired  because  they  could.  But  before  giving  admiration  one 
must  be  very  sure  that  the  misfortune  is  felt  as  deeply  as  it  should 
be.  One  cannot  accept  the  attitude  of  some  among  the  Stoics, 
who  said,  "What  does  it  matter  to  me  if  my  family  suffer?  I  can 
still  be  virtuous."  The  Christian  principle,  "Love  your  enemies," 
is  good,  but  the  Stoic  principle,  "Be  indifferent  to  your  friends,"  is 
bad.  And  the  Christian  principle  does  not  inculcate  calm,  but  an 
ardent  love  even  towards  the  worst  of  men.  There  is  nothing  to  be 
said  against  it  except  that  it  is  too  difficult  for  most  of  us  to  practise 
sincerely. 

The  primitive  reaction  to  such  disasters  is  revenge.  When 
Macduff  learns  that  his  wife  and  children  have  been  killed  by 
Macbeth,  he  resolves  to  kill  the  tyrant  himself.  This  reaction  is 
still  admired  by  most  people,  when  the  injury  is  great,  and  such  as 
to  arouse  moral  horror  in  disinterested  people.  Nor  can  it  be 
wholly  condemned,  for  it  is  one  of  the  forces  generating  punish- 
ment, and  punishment  is  sometimes  necessary.  Moreover,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  mental  health,  the  impulse  to  revenge  is  likely 
to  be  so  strong  that,  if  it  is  allowed  no  outlet,  a  man's  whole 
outlook  on  life  may  become  distorted  and  more  or  less  insane. 
This  is  not  true  universally,  but  it  is  true  in  a  large  percentage  of 
cases.  But  on  the  other  side  it  must  be  said  that  revenge  is  a  very 
dangerous  motive.  In  so  far  as  society  admits  it,  it  allows  a  man 
to  be  the  judge  in  his  own  case,  which  is  exactly  what  the  law  tries 
to  prevent.  Moreover  it  is  usually  an  excessive  motive;  it  seeks  to 
inflict  more  punishment  than  is  desirable.  Torture,  for  example, 
should  not  be  punished  by  torture,  but  the  man  maddened  by 
lust  for  vengeance  will  think  a  painless  death  too  good  for  the 
object  of  his  hate.  Moreover — and  it  is  here  that  Spinoza  is  in  the 
right— a  life  dominated  by  a  single  passion  is  a  narrow  life,  in- 
compatible with  every  kind  of  wisdom.  Revenge  as  such  is  there- 
fore not  the  best  reaction  to  injury. 

602 


SPINO2A 

Spinoza  would  say  what  the  Christian  says,  and  also*  something 
more.  For  him,  all  sin  is  due  to  ignorance;  he  would  "forgive 
them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  But  he  would  have  you 
avoid  the  limited  purview  from  which,  in  his  opinion,  sin  springs, 
and  would  urge  you,  even  under  the  greatest  misfortunes,  to 
avoid  being  shut  up  in  the  world  of  your  sorrow;  he  would  have 
you  understand  it  by  seeing  it  in  relation  to  its  causes  and  as  a 
part  of  the  whole  order  of  nature.  As  we  saw,  he  believes  that 
hatred  can  be  overcome  by  love:  "Hatred  is  increased  by  being 
reciprocated,  and  can  on  the  other  hand  be  destroyed  by  love. 
Hatred  which  is  completely  vanquished  by  love,  passes  into  love; 
and  love  is  thereupon  greater,  than  if  hatred  had  not  preceded  it." 
I  wish  I  could  believe  this,  but  I  cannot,  except  in  exceptional 
cases  where  the  person  hating  is  completely  in  the  power  of  the 
person  who  refuses  to  hate  in  return.  In  such  cases,  surprise  at 
being  not  punished  may  have  a  reforming  effect.  But  so  long  as  the 
wicked  have  power,  it  is  not  much  use  assuring  them  that  you  do 
not  hate  them,  since  they  will  attribute  your  words  to  the  wrong 
motive.  And  you  cannot  deprive  them  of  power  by  non-resistance. 

The  problem  for  Spinoza  is  easier  than  it  is  for  one  who  has 
no  belief  in  the  ultimate  goodness  of  the  universe.  Spinoza  thinks 
that,  if  you  see  your  misfortunes  as  they  are  in  reality,  as  part  of 
the  concatenation  of  causes  stretching  from  the  beginning  of 
time  to  the  end,  you  will  see  that  they  are  only  misfortunes  to 
you,  not  to  the  universe,  to  which  they  are  merely  passing  dis- 
cords heightening  an  ultimate  harmony.  I  cannot  accept  this; 
I  think  that  particular  events  are  what  they  are,  and  do  not  become 
different  by  absorption  into  a  whole.  Each  act  of  cruelty  is  eternally 
a  part  of  the  universe;  nothing  that  happens  later  can  make  that 
act  good  rather  than  bad,  or  can  confer  perfection  on  the  whole 
of  which  it  is  a  part. 

Nevertheless,  when  it  is  your  lot  to  have  to  endure  something 
that  is  (or  seems  to  you)  worse  than  the  ordinary  lot  of  mankind, 
Spinoza's  principle  of  thinking  about  the  whole,  or  at  any  rate 
about  larger  matters  than  your  own  grief,  is  a  useful  one.  There 
are  even  times  when  it  is  comforting  Jo  reflect  that  human  life, 
with  all  that  it  contains  of  evil  and  suffering,  is  an  infinitesimal 
pan  of  the  life  of  the  universe.  Such  reflections  may  not  suffice 
to  constitute  a  religion,  but  in  a  painful  world  they  are  a  help 
towards  sanity  and  an  antidote  to  the  paralysis  of  utter  despair. 


Chapter  XI 
LEIBNIZ 

CBNIZ  (1646-1716)  was  one  of  the  supreme  intellects  of  all 
time,  but  as  a  human  being  he  was  not  admirable.  He  had, 
it  is  true,  the  virtues  that  one  would  wish  to  find  men- 
tioned in  a  testimonial  to  a  prospective  employee:  he  was  in- 
dustrious, frugal,  temperate,  and  financially  honest.  But  he  was 
wholly  destitute  of  those  higher  philosophic  virtues  that  are  so 
notable  in  Spinoza.  His  best  thought  was  not  such  as  would  win 
him  popularity,  and  he  left  his  records  of  it  unpublished  in  his 
desk.  What  he  published  was  designed  to  win  the  approbation 
of  princes  and  princesses.  The  consequence  is  that  there  are  two 
systems  of  philosophy  which  may  be  regarded  as  representing 
Leibniz:  one,  which  he  proclaimed,  was  optimistic,  orthodox, 
fantastic,  and  shallow;  the  other,  which  has  been  slowly  unearthed 
from  his  manuscripts  by  fairly  recent  editors,  was  profound, 
coherent,  largely  Spinozistic,  and  amazingly  logical.  It  was  the 
popular  Leibniz  who  invented  the  doctrine  that  this  is  the  best 
of  all  possible  worlds  (to  which  F.  H.  Bradley  added  the  sardonic 
comment  "and  everything  in  it  is  a  necessary  evil*');  it  was  this 
Leibniz  whom  Voltaire  caricatured  as  Doctor  Pangloss.  It  would 
be  unhistorical  to  ignore  this  Leibniz,  but  the  other  is  of  far 
greater  philosophical  importance. 

Leibniz  was  born  two  years  before  the  end  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  at  Leipzig*  where  his  father  was  professor  of  moral  philo- 
sophy. At  the  university  he  studied  law,  and  in  1666  he  obtained 
a  Doctor's  degree  at  Altdorf,  where  he  was  offered  a  professorship, 
which  he  refused,  saying  he  had  "very  different  things  in  view.'* 
In  1667  he  entered  the  service  of  the  archbishop  of  Mainz,  who, 
like  other  West  German  princes,  was  oppressed  by  fear  of  Louis 
XIV.  With  the  approval  of  the  archbishop,  Leibniz  tried  to 
persuade  the  French  king  to  invade  Egypt  rather  than  Germany, 
but  was  met  with  a  polite  reminder  that  since  the  time  of  St. 
Louis  the  holy  war  against  the  infidel  had  gone  out  of  fashion. 
His  project  remained  unknown  to  the  public  until  it  was  dis- 
covered by  Napoleon  when  he  occupied  Hanover  in  1803,  four 
yean  after  his  own  abortive  Egyptian  expedition.  In  1672,  in 


LEIBNIZ 

connection  with  this  scheme,  Leibniz  went  to  Paris;  where  he 
spent  the  greater  part  of  the  next  four  years.  His  contacts  in 
Paris  were  of  great  importance  for  his  intellectual  development, 
for  Paris  at  that  time  led  the  world  both  in  philosophy  and  in 
mathematics.  It  was  there,  in  1675-6,  that  he  invented  the  infini- 
tesimal calculus,  in  ignorance  of  Newton's  previous  but  unpub- 
lished work  on  the  same  subject.  Leibniz's  work  was  first  published 
in  1684,  Newton's  in  1687.  The  consequent  dispute  as  to  priority 
was  unfortunate,  and  discreditable  to  aU  parties. 

Leibniz  was  somewhat  mean  about  money.  When  any  young 
lady  at  the  court  of  Hanover  married,  he  used  to  give  her  what 
he  called  a  "wedding  present/9  consisting  of  useful  maxims, 
ending  up  with  the  advice  not  to  give  up  washing  now  that  she 
had  secured  a  husband.  History  does  not  record  whether  the 
brides  were  grateful. 

In  Germany,  Leibniz  had  been  taught  a  neo-scholastic  Aris- 
totelian philosophy,  of  which  he  retained  something  throughout 
his  later  life.  But  in  Paris  he  came  to  know  Cartesianism  and  the 
materialism  of  Gassendi,  both  of  which  influenced  him;  at  this 
time,  he  said,  he  abandoned  the  "trivial  schools,'*  meaning 
scholasticism.  In  Paris  he  came  to  know  Malebranche  and  Arnauld 
the  Jansenist.  The  last  important  influence  on  his  philosophy  was 
that  of  Spinoza,  whom  he  visited  in  1676.  He  spent  a  month  in 
frequent  discussions  with  him,  and  secured  pan  of  the  Ethics 
in  manuscript.  In  later  years  he  joined  in  decrying  Spinoza,  and 
minimized  his  contacts  with  him,  saying  he  had  met  him  once, 
and  Spinoza  had  told  some  good  anecdotes  about  politics. 

His  connection  with  the  House  of  Hanover,  in  whose  service  he 
remained  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  began  in  1673.  From  1680  onwards 
he  was  their  librarian  at  Wolfenbiittel,  and  was  officially  employed 
in  writing  the  history  of  Brunswick.  He  had  reached  the  year 
1009  when  he  died.  The  work  was  not  published  till  1843.  Some 
of  his  time  was  spent  on  a  project  for  the  reunion  of  the  Churches, 
but  this  proved  abortive.  He  travelled  to  Italy  to  obtain  evidence 
that  the  Dukes  of  Brunswick  were  connected  with  the  Este  family. 
But  in  spite  of  these  services  he  was  left  behind  at  Hanover  when 
George  I  became  king  of  England,  the  chief  reason  being  that  his 
quarrel  with  Newton  had  made  England  unfriendly  to  him.  How- 
ever, the  Princess  of  Wales,  as  he  told  all  his  correspondents,  sided 
with  him  against  Newton.  In  spite  of  her  favour,  he  died  neglected. 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

Leibniz's  popular  philosophy  may  be  found  in  the  Monadology 
and  the  Principles  of  Nature  and  of  Grace,  one  of  which  (it  is 
uncertain  which)  he  wrote  for  Prince  Eugene  of  Savoy,  Marl- 
borough's  colleague.  The  basis  of  his  theological  optimism  is 
set  forth  in  the  Theodictc,  which  he  wrote  for  Queen  Charlotte 
of  Prussia.  I  shall  begin  with  the  philosophy  set  forth  in  these 
writings,  and  then  proceed  to  his  more  solid  work  which  he  left 
unpublished. 

Like  Descartes  and  Spinoza,  Leibniz  based  his  philosophy  on  the 
notion  of  substance,  but  he  differed  radically  from  them  as  regards 
the  relation  of  mind  and  matter,  and  as  regards  the  number  of 
substances.  Descartes  allowed  three  substances,  God  and  mind 
and  matter;  Spinoza  admitted  God  alone.  For  Descartes,  extension 
is  the  essence  of  matter;  for  Spinoza,  both  extension  and  thought 
are  attributes  of  God.  Leibniz  held  that  extension  cannot  be  an 
attribute  of  a  substance.  His  reason  was  that  extension  involves 
plurality,  and  can  therefore  only  belong  to  an  aggregate  of  sub- 
stances; each  single  substance  must  be  u  next  ended.  He  believed, 
consequently,  in  an  infinite  number  of  substances,  which  he 
called  "monads."  Each  of  these  would  have  some  of  the  properties 
of  a  physical  point,  but  only  when  viewed  abstractly ;  in  fact,  each 
monad  is  a  soul.  This  follows  naturally  from  the  rejection  of 
extension  as  an  attribute  of  substance;  the  only  remaining  possible 
essential  attribute  seemed  to  be  thought.  Thus  Leibniz  was  led 
to  deny  the  reality  of  matter,  and  to  substitute  an  infinite  family 
of  souls. 

The  doctrine  that  substances  cannot  interact,  which  had  been 
developed  by  Descartes9  followers,  was  retained  by  Leibniz,  and 
led  to  curious  consequences.  No  two  monads,  he  held,  can  ever 
have  any  causal  relation  to  each  other ;  when  it  seems  as  if  they  had, 
appearances  are  deceptive.  Monads,  as  he  expressed  it,  are 
"windowless."  This  led  to  two  difficulties:  one  in  dynamics, 
where  bodies  seem  to  affect  each  other,  especially  in  impact; 
the  other  in  relation  to  perception,  which  seems  to  be  an  effect 
of  the  perceived  object  upon  the  percipient.  We  will  ignore  the 
dynamical  difficulty  for  the  present,  and  consider  only  the  question 
of  perception.  Leibniz  held  that  every  monad  mirrors  the  universe, 
not  because  the  universe  affects  it,  but  because  God  has  given  it 
a  nature  which  spontaneously  produces  this  result.  There  is  a 
"pre-established  harmony0  between  the  changes  in  one  monad 

606 


LBIBNIZ 

and  those  in  another,  which  produces  the  semblance  of  inter- 
action. This  is  obviously  an  extension  of  the  two  clocks,  which 
strike  at  the  same  moment  because  each  keeps  perfect  time. 
Leibniz  has  an  infinite  number  of  clocks,  all  arranged  by  the 
Creator  to  strike  at  the  same  instant,  not  because  they  affect 
each  other,  but  because  each  is  a  perfectly  accurate  mechanism. 
To  those  who  thought  the  pre-established  harmony  odd,  Leibniz 
pointed  out  what  admirable  evidence  it  afforded  of  the  existence 
of  God. 

Monads  form  a  hierarchy,  in  which  some  are  superior  to  others 
in  the  clearness  and  distinctness  with  which  they  mirror  the 
universe.  In  all  there  is  some  degree  of  confusion  in  perception, 
but  the  amount  of  confusion  varies  according  to  the  dignity  of 
the  monad  concerned.  A  human  body  is  entirely  composed  of 
monads,  each  of  which  is  a  soul,  and  each  of  which  is  immortal, 
but  there  is  one  dominant  monad  which  is  what  is  called  the  soul 
of  the  man  of  whose  body  it  forms  pan.  This  monad  is  dominant, 
not  only  in  the  sense  of  having  clearer  perceptions  than  the  others, 
but  also  in  another  sense.  The  changes  in  a  human  body  (in 
ordinary  circumstances)  happen  for  the  sake  of  the  dominant 
monad:  when  my  arm  moves,  the  purpose  served  by  the  move- 
ment is  in  the  dominant  monad,  i.e.  my  mind,  not  in  the  monads 
that  compose  my  arm.  This  is  the  truth  of  what  appears  to  common 
sense  as  the  control  of  my  will  over  my  arm. 

Space,  as  it  appears  to  the  senses,  and  as  it  is  assumed  in  physics, 
is  not  real,  but  it  has  a  real  counterpart,  namely  the  arrangement 
of  the  monads  in  a  three-dimensional  order  according  to  the 
point  of  view  from  which  they  mirror  the  world.  Each  monad  sees 
the  world  in  a  certain  perspective  peculiar  to  itself;  in  this  sense 
we  can  speak,  somewhat  loosely,  of  the  monad  as  having  a  spatial 
position. 

Allowing  ourselves  this  way  of  speaking,  we  can  say  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  vacuum;  every  possible  point  of  view  is  filled 
by  one  actual  monad,  and  by  only  one.  No  two  monads  are 
exactly  alike;  this  is  Leibniz's  principle  of  the  "identity  of  tn- 
discernibles." 

In  contrasting  himself  with  Spinoza,  Kcibniz  made  much  of  the 
free  will  allowed  in  his  system.  He  had  a  "principle  of  sufficient 
reason,*'  according  to  which  nothing  happens  without  a  reason; 
but  when  we  are  concerned  with  free  agents,  the  reasons  for  their 

607 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

actions  "incline  without  necessitating.91  What  a  human  being  does 
always  has  a  motive,  but  the  sufficient  reason  of  his  action  has  no 
logical  necessity.  So,  at  least,  Leibniz  says  when  he  is  writing 
popularly,  but,  as  we  shall  see,  he  had  another  doctrine  which  he 
kept  to  himself  after  finding  that  Arnauld  thought  it  shocking. 

God's  actions  have  the  same  kind  of  freedom.  He  always  acts 
for  the  best,  but  He  is  not  under  any  logical  compulsion  to  do  so. 
Leibniz  agrees  with  Thomas  Aquinas  that  God  cannot  act  con- 
trary to  the  laws  of  logic,  but  He  can  decree  whatever  is  logically 
possible,  and  this  leaves  Him  a  great  latitude  of  choice. 

Leibniz  brought  into  their  final  form  the  metaphysical  proofs  of 
God's  existence.  These  had  a  long  history;  they  begin  with  Aris- 
totle, or  even  with  Plato;  they  are  formalized  by  the  scholastics, 
and  one  of  them,  the  ontological  argument,  was  invented  by 
St.  Anselm.  This  argument,  though  rejected  by  St.  Thomas, 
was  revived  by  Descartes.  Leibniz,  whose  logical  skill  was  supreme, 
stated  the  arguments  better  than  they  had  ever  been  stated  before. 
That  is  my  reason  for  examining  them  in  connection  with 
him. 

Before  examining  the  arguments  in  detail,  it  is  as  well  to  realize 
that  modern  theologians  no  longer  rely  upon  them.  Medieval 
theology  is  derivative  from  the  Greek  intellect.  The  God  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  a  God  of  power,  the  God  of  the  New  Testament 
is  also  a  God  of  love ;  but  the  God  of  the  theologians,  from  Aristotle 
to  Calvin,  is  one  whose  appeal  is  intellectual :  His  existence  solves 
certain  puzzles  which  otherwise  would  create  argumentative  diffi- 
culties in  the  understanding  of  the  universe.  This  Deity  who  appears 
at  the  end  of  a  piece  of  reasoning,  like  the  proof  of  a  proposition 
in  geometry,  did  not  satisfy  Rousseau,  who  reverted  to  a  conception 
of  God  more  akin  to  that  of  the  Gospels.  In  the  main,  modem 
theologians,  especially  such  as  are  Protestant,  have  followed 
Rousseau  in  this  respect.  The  philosophers  have  been  more 
conservative;  in  Hegel,  Lotze,  and  Bradley  arguments  of  the 
metaphysical  sort  persist,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Kant  professed 
to  have  demolished  such  arguments  once  for  all. 

Leibniz's  arguments  for  the  existence  of  God  are  four  in 
number;  they  are  (i)  the  ontological  argument,  (2)  the  cosmo- 
iogical  argument,  (3)  the  argument  from  eternal  truths,  (4)  the 
argument  from  the  pre-established  harmony,  which  may  be 
generalized  into  the  argument  from  design,  or  the  physico- 

608 


LEIBNIZ 

theological  argument,  as  Kant  calls  it.  We  will  consider  these 
arguments  successively. 

The  ontological  argument  depends  upon  the  distinction  between 
existence  and  essence.  Any  ordinary  person  or  thing,  it  is  held,  on 
the  one  hand  exists,  and  on  the  other  hand  has  certain  qualities, 
which  make  up  his  or  its  "essence."  Hamlet,  though  he  does  not 
exist,  has  a  certain  essence;  he  is  melancholy,  undecided,  witty, 
etc.  When  we  describe  a  person,  the  question  whether  he  is  real 
or  imaginary  remains  open,  however  minute  our  description  may 
be.  This  is  expressed  in  scholastic  language  by  saying  that,  in 
the  case  of  any  finite  substance,  its  essence  does  not  imply  its 
existence.  But  in  the  case  of  God,  defined  as  the  most  perfect 
Being,  St.  Anselm,  followed  by  Descartes,  maintains  that  essence 
does  imply  existence,  on  the  ground  that  a  Being  who  possesses 
all  other  perfections  is  better  if  He  exists  than  if  He  does  not, 
from  which  it  follows  that  if  He  does  not  He  is  not  the  best 
possible  Being. 

Leibni2  neither  wholly  accepts  nor  wholly  rejects  this  argument ; 
it  needs  to  be  supplemented,  so  he  says,  by  a  proof  that  God,  so 
defined,  is  possible.  He  wrote  out  a  proof  that  die  idea  of  God  is 
possible,  which  he  showed  to  Spinoza  when  he  saw  him  at  the 
Hague.  This  proof  defines  God  as  the  most  perfect  Being,  i.e. 
as  the  subject  of  all  perfections,  and  a  perfection  is  defined  as  a 
"simple  quality  which  is  positive  and  absolute,  and  expresses 
without  any  limits  whatever  it  does  express."  Leibniz  easily 
proves  that  no  two  perfections,  as  above  defined,  can  be  incom- 
patible. He  concludes:  "There  is,  therefore,  or  there  can  be 
conceived,  a  subject  of  all  perfections,  or  most  perfect  Being. 
Whence  it  follows  also  that  He  exists,  for  existence  is  among  the 
number  of  the  perfections.*' 

Kant  countered  this  argument  by  maintaining  that  "existence" 
is  not  a  predicate.  Another  kind  of  refutation  results  from  my 
theory  of  descriptions.  The  argument  does  not,  to  a  modern  mind, 
seem  very  convincing,  but  it  is  easier  to  feel  convinced  that  it 
must  be  fallacious  than  it  is  to  find  out  precisely  where  the  fallacy 
lies. 

The  cosmological  argument  is  morl  plausible  than  the  onto- 
logical argument.  It  is  a  form  of  the  First-Cause  argument,  which 
is  itself  derived  from  Aristotle's  argument  of  the  unmoved  mover. 
The  First-Cause  argument  is  simple.  It  points  out  that  everything 

If  fetor? »/  Wat**  /*AtfuMp*y  609  U 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

finite  has  a  cause,  which  in  turn  had  a  cause,  and  so  on.  This 
series  of  previous  causes  cannot,  it  is  maintained,  be  infinite,  and 
the  first  term  in  the  series  must  itself  be  uncaused,  since  otherwise 
it  would  not  be  the  first  term.  There  is  therefore  an  uncaused 
cause  of  everything,  and  this  is  obviously  God. 

In  Leibniz  the  argument  takes  a  somewhat  different  form.  He 
argues  that  every  particular  thing  in  the  world  is  "contingent," 
that  is  to  say,  it  would  be  logically  possible  for  it  not  to  exist; 
and  this  is  true,  not  only  of  each  particular  thing,  but  of  the  whole 
universe.  Even  if  we  suppose  the  universe  to  have  always  existed, 
there  is  nothing  within  the  universe  to  show  why  it  exists.  But 
everything  has  to  have  a  sufficient  reason,  according  to  Leibniz's 
philosophy;  therefore  the  universe  as  a  whole  must  have  a  suffi- 
cient reason,  which  must  be  outside  the  universe.  This  sufficient 
reason  is  God. 

This  argument  is  better  than  the  straightforward  First-Cause 
argument,  and  cannot  be  so  easily  refuted.  The  First-Cause 
argument  rests  on  the  assumption  that  every  series  must  have  a 
first  term,  which  is  false ;  for  example,  the  series  of  proper  fractions 
has  no  first  term.  But  Leibniz's  argument  does  not  depend  upon 
the  view  that  the  universe  must  have  had  a  beginning  in  time. 
The  argument  is  valid  so  long  as  we  grant  Leibniz's  principle  of 
sufficient  reason,  but  if  this  principle  is  denied  it  collapses.  What 
exactly  Leibniz  meant  by  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason  is  a 
controversial  question.  Couturat  maintains  that  it  means  that 
every  true  proposition  is  "analytic/1  i.e.  such  that  its  contra- 
dictory is  self-contradictory.  But  this  interpretation  (which  has 
support  in  writings  that  Leibniz  did  not  publish)  belongs,  if  true, 
to  the  esoteric  doctrine.  In  his  published  works  he  maintains  that 
there  is  a  difference  between  necessary  and  contingent  propositions, 
that  only  the  former  follow  from  the  laws  of  logic,  and  that  all 
propositions  asserting  existence  are  contingent,  with  the  sole 
exception  of  the  existence  of  God.  Though  God  exists  necessarily, 
He  was  not  compelled  by  logic  to  create  the  world ;  on  the  contrary, 
this  was  a  free  choice,  motivated,  but  not  necessitated,  by  His 
goodness. 

It  is  dear  that  Kant  is  ri|ht  in  saying  that  this  argument  depends 
upon  the  ontological  argument.  If  the  existence  of  the  world  can 
only  be  accounted  for  by  the  existence  of  a  necessary  Being,  then 
there  must  be  a  Being  whose  essence  involves  existence,  for 

610 


LEIBNIZ 

that  is  what  is  meant  by  a  necessary  Being.  But  if  it  is  possible 
that  there  should  be  a  Being  whose  essence  involves  existence 
then  reason  alone,  without  experience,  can  define  such  a  Being 
whose  existence  will  follow  from  the  ontological  argument;  for 
everything  that  has  to  do  only  with  essence  can  be  known  inde- 
pendently of  experience — such  at  least  is  Leibniz's  view.  The 
apparent  greater  plausibility  of  the  cosmological  as  opposed  to  the 
ontological  argument  is  therefore  deceptive. 

The  argument  from  the  eternal  truths  is  a  little  difficult  to  state 
precisely.  Roughly,  the  argument  is  this:  Such  a  statement  as 
"it  is  raining"  is  sometimes  true  and  sometimes  false,  but  "two 
and  two  are  four'9  is  always  true.  AH  statements  that  have  only  to 
do  with  essence,  not  with  existence,  are  either  always  true  or 
never  true.  Those  that  are  always  true  are  called  "eternal  truths." 
The  gist  of  the  argument  is  that  truths  are  pan  of  the  contents  of 
minds,  and  that  an  eternal  truth  must  be  part  of  the  content  of  an 
eternal  mind.  There  is  already  an  argument  not  unlike  this  in 
Plato,  where  he  deduces  immortality  from  the  eternity  of  the  ideas. 
But  in  Leibniz  the  argument  is  more  developed.  He  holds  that  the 
ultimate  reason  for  contingent  truths  must  be  found  in  necessary 
truths.  The  argument  here  is  as  in  the  cosmological  argument: 
there  must  be  a  reason  for  the  whole  contingent  world,  and  this 
reason  cannot  itself  be  contingent,  but  must  be  sought  among 
eternal  truths.  But  a  reason  for  what  exists  must  itself  exist; 
therefore  eternal  truths  must,  in  some  sense,  exist,  and  they  can 
only  exist  as  thoughts  in  the  mind  of  God.  This  argument  is 
really  only  another  form  of  the  cosmological  argument.  It  is, 
however,  open  to  the  further  objection  that  a  truth  can  hardly  be 
said  to  "exist"  in  a  mind  which  apprehends  it. 

The  argument  from  the  pre-established  harmony,  as  Leibniz 
states  it,  is  only  valid  for  those  who  accept  his  windowless  monads 
which  all  mirror  the  universe.  The  argument  is  that,  since  all  the 
clocks  keep  time  with  each  other  without  any  causal  interaction, 
there  must  have  been  a  single  outside  Cause  that  regulated  all 
of  them.  The  difficulty,  of  course,  is  the  one  that  besets  the  whole 
monadology:  if  the  monads  never  interact,  how  does  any  one  of 
them  know  that  there  are  any  others?  What  seems  like  mirroring 
the  universe  may  be  merely  a  dream.  In  fact,  if  Leibniz  is  right, 
it  ii  merely  a  dream,  but  he  has  ascertained  somehow  that  all  the 
monads  have  similar  dreams  at  the  same  time.  This,  of  course, 

6it 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

is  fantastic,  and  would  ntver  have  seemed  credible  but  for  the 
previous  history  of  Cartesianism. 

Leibniz's  argument,  however,  can  be  freed  from  dependence  on 
his  peculiar  metaphysic,  and  transformed  into  what  is  called  the 
argument  from  design.  This  argument  contends  that,  on  a  survey 
of  the  known  world,  we  find  things  which  cannot  plausibly  be 
explained  as  the  product  of  blind  natural  forces,  but  are  much 
more  reasonably  to  be  regarded  as  evidences  of  a  beneficent 
purpose. 

This  argument  has  no  formal  logical  defect;  its  premisses  are 
empirical,  and  its  conclusion  professes  to  be  reached  in  accordance 
with  the  usual  canons  of  empirical  inference.  The  question  whether 
it  is  to  be  accepted  or  not  turns,  therefore,  not  on  general  meta- 
physical questions,  but  on  comparatively  detailed  considerations. 
There  is  one  important  difference  between  this  argument  and  the 
others,  namely,  that  the  God  whom  (if  valid)  it  demonstrates 
need  not  have  all  the  usual  metaphysical  attributes.  He  need  not 
be  omnipotent  or  omniscient;  He  may  be  only  vastly  wiser  and 
more  powerful  than  we  are.  The  evils  in  the  world  may  be  due  to 
His  limited  power.  Some  modern  theologians  have  made  use  of 
these  possibilities  in  forming  their  conception  of  God.  But  such 
speculations  are  remote  from  the  philosophy  of  Leibniz,  to  which 
we  must  now  return. 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  that  philosophy  is  the 
doctrine  of  many  possible  worlds.  A  world  is  "possible"  if  it  does 
not  contradict  the  laws  of  logic.  There  are  an  infinite  number  of 
possible  worlds,  all  of  which  God  contemplated  before  creating 
the  actual  world.  Being  good,  God  decided  to  create  the  best  of 
the  possible  worlds,  and  He  considered  that  one  to  be  the  best 
which  had  the  greatest  excess  of  good  over  evil  He  could  have 
created  a  world  containing  no  evil,  but  it  would  not  have  been  so 
good  as  the  actual  world.  That  is  because  some  great  goods  are 
logically  bound  up  with  certain  evils.  To  take  a  trivial  illustration, 
a  drink  of  cold  water  when  you  are  very  thirsty  on  a  hot  day  may 
give  you  such  great  pleasure  that  you  think  the  previous  thirst, 
though  painful,  was  worth  enduring,  because  without  it  the 
subsequent  enjoyment  could  not  have  been  so  great.  For  theology, 
it  is  not  such  illustrations  that  are  important,  but  the  connection 
of  sin  with  free  will.  Free  will  is  a  great  good,  but  it  was  logically 
imoosftible  for  God  to  bestow  free  will  and  at  the  same  time 


LEIBNIZ 

decree  that  there  should  be  no  sin.  God  therefore  decided  to  make 
man  free,  although  he  foresaw  that  Adam  would  eat  the  apple, 
and  although  sin  inevitably  brought  punishment.  The  world 
that  resulted,  although  it  contains  evil,  has  a  greater  surplus  of 
good  over  evil  than  any  other  possible  world;  it  is  therefore  the 
best  of  all  possible  worlds,  and  the  evil  that  it  contains  affords  no 
argument  against  the  goodness  of  God. 

This  argument  apparently  satisfied  the  Queen  of  Prussia.  Her 
serfs  continued  to  suffer  the  evil,  while  she  continued  to  enjoy  the 
good,  and  it  was  comforting  to  be  assured  by  a  great  philosopher 
that  this  was  just  and  right. 

Leibniz's  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil,  like  most  of  his  other 
popular  doctrines,  is  logically  possible,  but  not  very  convincing.  A 
Manicharan  might  retort  that  this  is  the  worst  of  all  possible  worlds, 
in  which  the  good  things  that  exist  serve  only  to  heighten  the  evils. 
The  world,  he  might  say,  was  created  by  a  wicked  demiurge,  who 
allowed  free  will,  which  is  good,  in  order  to  make  sure  of  sin,  which 
is  bad,  and  of  which  the  evil  outweighs  the  good  of  free  will.  The 
demiurge,  he  might  continue,  created  some  virtuous  men,  in  order 
that  they  might  be  punished  by  the  wicked ;  for  the  punishment  of 
the  virtuous  is  so  great  an  evil  that  it  makes  the  world  worse  than  if 
no  good  men  existed.  I  am  not  advocating  this  opinion,  which  I 
consider  fantastic;  I  am  only  saying  that  it  is  no  more  fantastic 
than  Leibniz's  theory.  People  wish  to  think  the  universe  good, 
and  will  be  lenient  to  bad  arguments  proving  that  it  is  so,  while 
bad  arguments  proving  that  it  is  bad  are  closely  scanned.  In  fact, 
of  course,  the  world  is  partly  good  and  partly  bad,  and  no  "prob- 
lem of  evil"  arises  unless  this  obvious  fact  is  denied. 

I  come  now  to  Leibniz's  esoteric  philosophy,  in  which  we  find 
reasons  for  much  that  seems  arbitrary  or  fantastic  in  his  popular 
expositions,  as  well  as  an  interpretation  of  his  doctrines  which,  if 
it  had  become  generally  known,  would  have  made  them  much  less 
acceptable.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  he  so  imposed  upon  sub- 
sequent students  of  philosophy  that  most  of  the  editors  who 
published  selections  from  the  immense  mass  of  his  manuscripts 
preferred  what  supported  the  received  interpretation  of  his 
system,  and  rejected  as  unimportant  Asays  which  prove  him  to 
have  been  a  far  more  profound  thinker  than  he  wished  to  be 
thought.  Most  of  the  texts  upon  which  we  must  rely  for  an 
understanding  of  his  esoteric  doctrine  were  first  published  in 

613 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

1901  or  1903,  in  two  works  by  Louis  Couturat.  One  of  these  was 
even  headed  by  Leibniz  with  the  remark:  "Here  I  have  made 
enormous  progress."  But  in  spite  of  this,  no  editor  thought  it 
worth  printing  until  Leibniz  had  been  dead  for  nearly  two  cen- 
turies. It  is  true  that  his  letters  to  Arnauld,  which  contain  a  part 
of  his  more  profound  philosophy,  were  published  in  the  nineteenth 
century;  but  I  was  the  first  to  notice  their  importance.  Amauld's 
reception  of  these  letters  was  discouraging.  He  writes:  "I  find 
in  these  thoughts  so  many  things  which  alarm  me,  and  which 
almost  aU  men,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  will  find  so  shocking,  that 
I  do  not  see  of  what  use  a  writing  can  be,  which  apparently 
all  the  world  will  reject."  This  hostile  opinion  no  doubt  led  Leib- 
niz, thenceforth,  to  adopt  a  policy  of  secrecy  as  to  his  real  thoughts 
on  philosophical  subjects. 

The  conception  of  substance,  which  is  fundamental  in  the 
philosophies  of  Descartes,  Spinoza,  and  Leibniz,  is  derived  from 
the  logical  category  of  subject  and  predicate.  Some  words  can  be 
either  subjects  or  predicates;  e.g.,  I  can  say  "the  sky  is  blue'* 
and  "blue  is  a  colour."  Other  words — of  which  proper  names  are 
the  most  obvious  instances— can  never  occur  as  predicates,  but 
only  as  subjects,  or  as  one  of  the  terms  of  a  relation.  Such  words 
are  held  to  designate  substances.  Substances,  in  addition  to  this 
logical  characteristic,  persist  through  time,  unless  destroyed  by 
God's  omnipotence  (which,  one  gathers,  never  happens).  Every 
true  proposition  is  either  general,  like  "all  men  are  mortal,'* 
in  which  case  it  states  that  one  predicate  implies  another,  or 
particular,  like  "Socrates  is  mortal/'  in  which  case  the  predicate 
is  contained  in  the  subject,  and  the  quality  denoted  by  the  predi- 
cate is  part  of  the  notion  of  the  substance  denoted  by  the  subject. 
Whatever  happens  to  Socrates  can  be  asserted  in  a  sentence  in 
which  "Socrates"  is  the  subject  and  the  words  describing  the 
happening  in  question  are  the  predicate.  All  these  predicates  put 
together  make  up  the  "notion"  of  Socrates.  All  belong  to 
him  necessarily,  in  this  sense,  that  a  substance  of  which  they 
could  not  be  truly  asserted  would  not  be  Socrates,  but  some 
one  else. 

Leibniz  was  a  firm  believer  n  the  importance  of  logic,  not  only 
in  its  own  sphere,  but  as  the  basts  of  metaphysics.  He  did  work  on 
mathematical  logic  which  would  have  been  enormously  important 
if  he  had  published  it;  he  would,  in  that  case,  have  been  the 

614 


LEIBNIZ 

founder  of  mathematical  logic,  which  would  have  become  known 
a  century  and  a  half  sooner  than  it  did  in  fact.  He  abstained  from 
publishing,  because  he  kept  on  finding  evidence  that  Aristotle's 
doctrine  of  the  syllogism  was  wrong  on  some  points;  respect  for 
Aristotle  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  believe  this,  so  he  mis- 
takenly supposed  that  the  errors  must  be  his  own.  Nevertheless 
he  cherished  throughout  his  life  the  hope  of  discovering  a  kind  of 
generalized  mathematics,  which  he  called  Characteristica  Uni- 
ver satis,  by  means  of  which  thinking  could  be  replaced  by  calcu- 
lation. "If  we  had  it,"  he  says,  "we  should  be  able  to  reason  in 
metaphysics  and  morals  in  much  the  same  way  as  in  geometry 
and  analysis."  "If  controversies  were  to  arise,  there  would  be  no 
more  need  of  disputation  between  two  philosophers  than  between 
two  accountants.  For  it  would  suffice  to  take  their  pencils  in  their 
hands,  to  sit  down  to  their  slates,  and  to  say  to  each  other  (with 
a  friend  as  witness,  if  they  liked):  Let  us  calculate." 

Leibniz  based  his  philosophy  upon  two  logical  premisses,  the 
law  of  contradiction  and  the  law  of  sufficient  reason.  Both  depend 
upon  the  notion  of  an  "analytic"  proposition,  which  is  one  in 
which  the  predicate  is  contained  in  the  subject — for  instance,  "all 
white  men  are  men."  The  law  of  contradiction  states  that  all 
analytic  propositions  are  true.  The  law  of  sufficient  reason  (in  the 
esoteric  system  only)  states  that  all  true  propositions  are  analytic. 
This  applies  even  to  what  we  should  regard  as  empirical  state- 
ments about  matters  of  fact.  If  I  make  a  journey,  the  notion  of 
me  must  from  all  eternity  have  included  the  notion  of  this  journey, 
which  is  a  predicate  of  me.  "We  may  say  that  the  nature  of  an 
individual  substance,  or  complete  being,  is  to  have  a  notion  so 
completed  that  it  suffices  to  comprehend,  and  to  render  deducible 
from  it,  all  the  predicates  of  the  subject  to  which  this  notion  is 
attributed.  Thus  the  quality  of  king,  which  belongs  to  Alexander 
the  Great,  abstracting  from  the  subject,  is  not  sufficiently  deter- 
mined for  an  individual,  and  does  not  involve  other  qualities  of 
the  same  subject,  nor  all  that  the  notion  of  this  prince  contains, 
whereas  God, seeing  the  individual  notion  or  hecceityof  Alexander, 
sees  in  it  at  the  same  time  the  foundation  and  the  reason  of  all  the 
predicates  which  can  be  truly  attributed  to  him,  as  e:g.  whether 
he  would  conquer  Darius  and  Poms,  even  to  knowing  a  priori 
(and  not  by  experience)  whether  he  died  a  natural  death  or  by 
poison,  which  we  can  only  know  by  history." 

615 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

One  of  the  most  definite  statements  of  the  basis  of  his  meta- 
physic  occurs  in  a  letter  to  Arnauld: 

"In  consulting  the  notion  which  I  have  of  every  true  proposition, 
I  find  that  every  predicate,  necessary  or  contingent,  past,  present, 
or  future,  is  comprised  in  the  notion  of  the  subject,  and  I  ask 
no  more. . . .  The  proposition  in  question  is  of  great  importance, 
and  deserves  to  be  well  established,  for  it  follows  that  every  soul 
is  as  a  world  apart,  independent  of  everything  else  except 
God;  that  it  is  not  only  immortal  and  so  to  speak  impassible, 
but  that  it  keeps  in  its  substance  traces  of  all  that  happens 
to  it." 

He  goes  on  to  explain  that  substances  do  not  act  on  each  other, 
but  agree  through  all  mirroring  the  universe,  each  from  its  own 
point  of  view.  There  can  be  no  interaction,  because  all  that  happens 
to  each  subject  is  part  of  its  own  notion,  and  eternally  determined 
if  that  substance  exists. 

This  system  is  evidently  just  as  deterministic  as  that  of  Spinoza. 
Arnauld  expresses  his  horror  of  the  statement  (which  Leibniz  had 
made):  "That  the  individual  notion  of  each  person  involves  once 
for  all  everything  that  will  ever  happen  to  him."  Such  a  view  is 
evidently  incompatible  with  the  Christian  doctrine  of  sin  and 
free  will.  Finding  it  ill  received  by  Arnauld,  Leibniz  carefully 
refrained  from  making  it  public. 

For  human  beings,  it  is  true,  there  is  a  difference  between 
truths  known  by  logic  and  truths  known  by  experience.  This 
difference  arises  in  two  ways.  In  the  first  place,  although  every- 
thing  that  happens  to  Adam  follows  from  his  notion,  if  he  exists, 
we  can  only  ascertain  his  existence  by  experience.  In  the  second 
place,  the  notion  of  any  individual  substance  is  infinitely  complex, 
and  the  analysis  required  to  deduce  his  predicates  is  only  possible 
for  God.  These  differences,  however,  are  only  due  to  our  ignorance 
and  intellectual  limitation;  for  God,  they  do  not  exist.  God 
apprehends  the  notion  of  Adam  in  all  its  infinite  complexity, 
and  can  therefore  see  all  true  propositions  about  Adam  as  analytic. 
God  can  also  ascertain  a  priori  whether  Adam  exists.  For  God 
knows  His  own  goodness,  from  which  it  follows  that  He  will 
create  the  best  possible  world ;  and  He  also  knows  whether  or  not 
Adam  forms  part  of  this  world.  There  is  therefore  no  real  escape 
from  determinism  through  our  ignorance. 

There  is,  however,  a  further  point,  which  is  very  curious.  At 

616 


LEIBNIZ 

most  times,  Leibniz  repnesents  the  Creation  as  a  free  act  of  God, 
requiring  the  exercise  of  His  will.  According  to  this  doctrine,  the 
determination  of  what  actually  exists  is  not  effected  by  observation, 
but  must  proceed  by  way  of  God's  goodness.  Apart  from  God's 
goodness,  which  leads  Him  to  create  the  best  possible  world, 
there  is  no  a  priori  reason  why  one  thing  should  exist  rather  than 
another. 

But  sometimes,  in  papers  not  shown  to  any  human  being, 
there  is  a  quite  different  theory  as  to  why  some  things  exist  and 
others,  equally  possible,  do  not.  According  to  this  view,  everything 
that  does  not  exist  struggles  to  exist,  but  not  all  possibles  can 
exist,  because  they  are  not  all  "compossible."  It  may  be  possible 
that  A  should  exist,  and  also  possible  that  B  should  exist,  but  not 
possible  that  both  A  and  B  should  exist;  in  that  case,  A  and  B 
are  not  "compossible/'  Two  or  more  things  are  only  "compossible" 
when  it  is  possible  for  all  of  them  to  exist.  Leibniz  seems  to  have 
imagined  a  sort  of  war  in  the  Limbo  inhabited  by  essences  all 
trying  to  exist ;  in  this  war,  groups  of  compossibles  combine,  and 
the  largest  group  of  compossibles  wins,  like  the  largest  pressure 
group  in  a  political  contest.  Leibniz  even  uses  this  conception  as 
a  way  of  defining  existence.  He  says:  "The  existent  may  be  defined 
as  that  which  is  compatible  with  more  things  than  is  anything 
incompatible  with  itself."  That  is  to  say,  if  A  is  incompatible 
with  B,  while  A  is  compatible  with  C  and  D  and  £,  but  B  is  only 
compatible  with  F  and  G,  then  A,  but  not  B,  exists  by  definition. 
"The  existent,"  he  says,  "is  the  being  which  is  compatible  with 
the  most  things." 

In  this  account,  there  is  no  mention  of  God,  and  apparently  no 
act  of  creation.  Nor  is  there  need  of  anything  but  pure  logic  for 
determining  what  exists.  The  question  whether  A  and  B  are 
compossible  is,  for  Leibniz,  a  logical  question,  namely:  Does  the 
existence  of  both  A  and  B  involve  a  contradiction  ?  It  follows  that, 
in  theory,  logic  can  decide  the  question  what  group  of  compossibles 
is  the  largest,  and  this  group  consequently  will  exist. 

Perhaps,  however,  Leibniz  did  not  really  mean  that  the  above 
was  a  definition  of  existence.  If  it  was  jnerely  a  criterion,  it  can 
be  reconciled  with  his  popular  views  by  means  of  what  he  calls 
"metaphysical  perfection. "  Metaphysical  perfection,  as  he  uses 
the  term,  seems  to  mean  quantity  of  existence.  It  is,  he  says, 
"nothing  but  the  magnitude  of  positive  reality  strictly  understood." 

617 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

He  always  argues  that  God  created  as  much  as  possible;  this  is 
one  of  his  reasons  for  rejecting  a  vacuum.  There  is  a  general 
belief  (which  I  have  never  understood)  that  it  is  better  to  exist 
than'  not  to  exist;  on  this  ground  children  are  exhorted  to  be 
grateful  to  their  parents.  Leibniz  evidently  held  this  view,  and 
thought  it  part  of  God's  goodness  to  create  as  full  a  universe  as 
possible.  It  would  follow  that  the  actual  world  would  consist  of 
the  largest  group  of  compossibles.  It  would  still  be  true  that  logic 
alone,  given  a  sufficiently  able  logician,  could  decide  whether  a 
given  possible  substance  would  exist  or  not. 

Leibniz,  in  his  private  thinking,  is  the  best  example  of  a  philo- 
sopher who  uses  logic  as  a  key  to  metaphysics.  This  type  of  philo- 
sophy begins  with  Parmenides,  and  is  carried  further  in  Plato's 
use  of  the  theory  of  ideas  toprove  various  extra-logical  propositions. 
Spinoza  belongs  to  the  same  type,  and  so  does  Hegel.  But  none 
of  these  is  so  clear-cut  as  Leibniz  in  drawing  inferences  from 
syntax  to  the  real  world.  This  kind  of  argumentation  has  fallen 
into  disrepute  owing  to  the  growth  of  empiricism.  Whether  any 
valid  inferences  are  possible  from  language  to  non-linguistic  facts 
is  a  question  as  to  which  I  do  not  care  to  dogmatize;  but  certainly 
the  inferences  found  in  Leibniz  and  other  a  priori  philosophers 
are  not  valid,  since  all  are  due  to  a  defective  logic.  The  subject- 
predicate  logic,  which  all  such  philosophers  in  the  past  assumed, 
either  ignores  relations  altogether,  or  produces  fallacious  argu- 
ments to  prove  that  relations  are  unreal.  Leibniz  is  guilty  of  a 
special  inconsistency  in  combining  the  subject-predicate  logic 
with  pluralism,  for  the  proposition  "there  are  many  monads"  is 
not  of  the  subject-predicate  form.  To  be  consistent,  a  philosopher 
who  believes  all  propositions  to  be  of  this  form  should  be  a 
monist,  like  Spinoza.  Leibniz  rejected  monism  largely  owing  to 
his  interest  in  dynamics,  and  to  his  argument  that  extension 
involves  repetition,  and  therefore  cannot  be  an  attribute  of  a 
single  substance. 

Leibniz  is  a  dull  writer,  and  his  effect  on  German  philosophy 
was  to  make  it  pedantic  and  arid.  His  disciple  Wolf,  who  dominated 
the  German  universities  iintil  the  publication  of  Kant's  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,  left  out  whatever  was  most  interesting  in  Leibniz, 
and  produced  a  dry  professorial  way  of  thinking.  Outside  Ger- 
many, Leibniz's  philosophy  had  little  influence;  his  contemporary, 
Locke,  governed  British  philosophy,  while  in  France  Descartes 

618 


LEIBNIZ 

continued  to  reign  until  he  was  overthrown  by  Voltaire,  who 
made  English  empiricism  fashionable. 

Nevertheless,  Leibniz  remains  a  great  man,  and  his  greatness 
is  more  apparent  now  than  it  was  at  any  earlier  time.  Apart  from 
his  eminence  as  a  mathematician  and  as  the  inventor  of  the 
infinitesimal  calculus,  he  was  a  pioneer  in  mathematical  logic,  of 
which  he  perceived  the  importance  when  no  one  else  did  so.  And 
his  philosophical  hypotheses,  though  fantastic,  are  very  clear, 
and  capable  of  precise  expression.  Even  his  monads  can  still  be 
useful  as  suggesting  possible  ways  of  viewing  perception,  though 
they  cannot  be  regarded  as  windowless.  What  I,  for  my  part, 
think  best  in  his  theory  of  monads  is  his  two  kinds  of  space,  one 
subjective,  in  the  perceptions  of  each  monad,  and  one  objective, 
consisting  of  the  assemblage  of  points  of  view  of  the  various 
monads.  This,  I  believe,  is  still  useful  in  relating  perception  to 
physics. 


619 


Chapter  XII 
PHILOSOPHICAL  LIBERALISM 

E  •  IHE  rise  of  liberalism,  in  politics  and  philosophy,  provides 
I  material  for  the  study  of  a  very  general  and  very  important 

JL  question,  namely:  What  has  been  the  influence  of  political 
and  social  circumstances  upon  the  thoughts  of  eminent  and  ori- 
ginal thinkers,  and,  conversely,  what  has  been  the  influence  of 
these  men  upon  subsequent  political  and  social  develop- 
ments? 

Two  opposite  errors,  both  common,  are  to  be  guarded  against. 
On  the  one  hand,  men  who  are  more  familiar  with  books  than  with 
affairs  are  apt  to  over-estimate  the  influence  of  philosophers.  When 
they  see  some  political  party  proclaiming  itself  inspired  by  So- 
and-So's  teaching,they  think  its  actions  are  attributable  to  So-and- 
So,  whereas,  not  infrequently,  the  philosopher  is  only  acclaimed 
because  he  recommends  what  the  party  would  have  done  in  any 
case.  Writers  of  books,  until  recently,  almost  all  exaggerated  the 
effects  of  their  predecessors  in  the  same  trade.  But  conversely,  a 
new  error  has  arisen  by  reaction  against  the  old  one,  and  this  new 
error  consists  in  regarding  theorists  as  almost  passive  products  of 
their  circumstances,  and  as  having  hardly  any  influence  at  all 
upon  the  course  of  events.  Ideas,  according  to  this  view,  are  the 
froth  on  the  surface  of  deep  currents,  which  are  determined  by 
material  and  technical  causes:  social  changes  are  no  more  caused 
by  thought  than  the  flow  of  a  river  is  caused  by  the  bubbles  that 
reveal  its  direction  to  an  onlooker.  For  my  part,  I  believe  that  the 
truth  lies  between  these  two  extremes.  Between  ideas  and  practical 
life,  as  everywhere  else,  there  is  reciprocal  interaction;  to  ask 
which  is  cause  and  which  effect  is  as  futile  as  the  problem  of  the 
hen  and  the  egg.  I  shall  not  waste  time  upon  a  discussion  of  this 
question  in  the  abstract,  but  shall  consider  historically  one  im- 
portant case  of  the  general  question,  namely  the  development  of 
liberalism  and  its  off-shoots  from  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  to  the  present  day! 

Early  liberalism  was  a  product  of  England  and  Holland,  and 
had  certain  well-marked  characteristics.  It  stood  for  religious 
toleration;  it  was  Protestant,  but  of  a  latitudinarian  rather  than 

620 


PHILOSOPHICAL   LIBERALISM 

of  a  fanatical  kind;  it  regarded  the  wars  of  religion  as  silly.  It 
valued  commerce  and  industry,  and  favoured  the  rising  middle 
class  rather  than  the  monarchy  and  the  aristocracy ;  it  had  immense 
respect  for  the  rights  of  property,  especially  when  accumulated 
by  the  labours  of  the  individual  possessor.  The  hereditary  prin- 
ciple, though  not  rejected,  was  restricted  in  scope  more  than  it 
had  previously  been ;  in  particular,  the  divine  right  of  kings  was 
rejected  in  favour  of  the  view  that  every  community  has  a  right, 
at  any  rate  initially,  to  choose  its  own  form  of  government. 
Implicitly,  the  tendency  of  early  liberalism  was  towards  demo- 
cracy tempered  by  the  rights  of  property.  There  was  a  belief— 
not  at  first  wholly  explicit — that  all  men  are  born  equal,  and  that 
their  subsequent  inequality  is  a  product  of  circumstances.  This 
led  to  a  great  emphasis  upon  the  importance  of  education  a? 
opposed  to  congenital  characteristics.  There  was  a  certain  bias 
against  government,  because  governments  almost  everywhere 
were  in  the  hands  of  kings  or  aristocracies,  who  seldom  either 
understood  or  respected  the  needs  of  merchants,  but  this  bias 
was  held  in  check  by  the  hope  that  the  necessary  understanding 
and  respect  would  be  won  before  long. 

Early  liberalism  was  optimistic,  energetic,  and  philosophic, 
because  it  represented  growing  forces  which  appeared  likely  to 
become  victorious  without  great  difficulty,  and  to  bring  by  their 
victory  great  benefits  to  mankind.  It  was  opposed  to  everything 
medieval,  both  in  philosophy  and  in  politics,  because  medieval 
theories  had  been  used  to  sanction  the  powers  of  Church  and  king, 
to  justify  persecution,  and  to  obstruct  the  rise  of  science;  but  it 
was  opposed  equally  to  the  then  modern  fanaticisms  of  Calvinists 
and  Anabaptists.  It  wanted  an  end  to  political  and  theological 
strife,  in  order  to  liberate  energies  for  the  exciting  enterprises  of 
commerce  and  science,  such  as  the  East  India  Company  and  the 
Bank  of  England,  the  theory  of  gravitation  and  the  discovery  of 
the  circulation  of  the  blood.  Throughout  the  Western  world 
bigotry  was  giving  place  to  enlightenment,  the  fear  of  Spanish 
power  was  ending,  all  classes  were  increasing  in  prosperity,  and 
the  highest  hopes  appeared  to  be  warranted  by  the  most  sober 
judgment.  For  a  hundred  years,  nothing  occurred  to  dim  these 
hopes;  then,  at  last,  they  themselves  generated  the  French  Revo- 
lution, which  led  directly  to  Napoleon  and  thence  to  the  Holy 
A  liance.  After  these  events,  liberalism  had  to  acquire  its  second 

6ai 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

wind  before  the  renewed  optimism  oi  the  nineteenth  century 
became  possible. 

Before  embarking  upon  any  detail,  it  will  be  well  to  consider 
the  general  pattern  of  the  liberal  movements  from  the  seventeenth 
to  the  nineteenth  century.  This  pattern  is  at  first  simple,  but 
grows  gradually  more  and  more  complex.  The  distinctive  character 
of  the  whole  movement  is,  in  a  certain  wide  sense,  individualism; 
but  this  is  a  vague  term  until  further  defined.  The  philosophers 
of  Greece,  down  to  and  including  Aristotle,  were  not  individualists 
in  the  sense  in  which  I  wish  to  use  the  term.  They  thought  of  a 
man  as  essentially  a  member  of  a  community;  Plato's  Republic, 
for  example,  is  concerned  to  define  the  good  community,  not  the 
good  individual.  With  the  loss  of  political  liberty  from  the  time 
of  Alexander  onwards,  individualism  developed,  and  was  repre- 
sented by  the  Cynics  and  Stoics.  According  to  the  Stoic  philo- 
sophy, a  man  could  live  a  good  life  in  no  matter  what  social  cir- 
cumstances. This  was  also  the  view  of  Christianity,  especially 
before  it  acquired  control  of  the  State.  But  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
while  mystics  kept  alive  the  original  individualistic  trends  in 
Christian  ethics,  the  outlook  of  most  men,  including  the  majority 
of  philosophers,  was  dominated  by  a  firm  synthesis  of  dogma, 
law,  and  custom,  which  caused  men's  theoretical  beliefs  and 
practical  morality  to  be  controlled  by  a  social  institution,  namely 
the  Catholic  Church:  what  was  true  and  what  was  good  was  to 
be  ascertained,  not  by  solitary  thought,  but  by  the  collective 
wisdom  of  Councils. 

The  first  important  breach  in  this  system  was  made  by  Pro- 
testantism, which  asserted  that  General  Councils  may  err.  To 
determine  the  truth  thus  became  no  longer  a  social  but  an  indi- 
vidual enterprise.  Since  different  individuals  reached  different 
conclusions,  the  result  was  strife,  and  theological  decisions  were 
sought,  no  longer  in  assemblies  of  bishops,  but  on  the  battle-field. 
Since  neither  party  was  able  to  extirpate  the  other,  it  became 
evident,  in  the  end,  that  a  method  must  be  found  of  reconciling 
intellectual  and  ethical  individualism  with  ordered  social  life. 
This  was  one  of  the  main  problems  which  early  liberalism 
attempted  to  solve,  v 

Meanwhile  individualism  had  penetrated  into  philosophy. 
Descartes9  fundamental  certainty,  "I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  made 
the  basis  of  knowledge  different  for  each  person,  since  for  each 

622 


PHILOSOPHICAL   LIBERALISM 

the  starting-point  was  his  own  existence,  not  that  of  other  indi- 
viduals or  of  the  community.  His  emphasis  upon  the  reliability 
of  clear  and  distinct  ideas  tended  in  the  same  direction,  since  it  is 
by  introspection  that  we  think  we  discover  whether  our  ideas  are 
clear  and  distinct.  Most  philosophy  since  Descartes  has  had  this 
intellectually  individualistic  aspect  in  a  greater  or  less  degree. 

There  are,  however,  various  forms  of  this  general  position, 
which  have,  in  practice,  very  different  consequences.  The  outlook 
of  the  typical  scientific  discoverer  has  perhaps  the  smallest  dose 
of  individualism.  When  he  arrives  at  a  new  theory,  he  does  so 
solely  because  it  seems  right  to  him;  he  does  not  bow  to  authority, 
for,  if  he  did,  he  would  continue  to  accept  the  theories  of  his 
predecessors.  At  the  same  time,  his  appeal  is  to  generally  received 
canons  of  truth,  and  he  hopes  to  persuade  other  men,  not  by  his 
authority,  but  by  arguments  which  are  convincing  to  them  as 
individuals.  In  science,  any  clash  between  the  individual  and 
society  is  in  essence  transitory,  since  men  of  science,  broadly 
speaking,  all  accept  the  same  intellectual  standards,  and  therefore 
debate  and  investigation  usually  produce  agreement  in  the  end. 
This,  however,  is  a  modern  development;  in  the  time  of  Galileo, 
the  authority  of  Aristotle  and  the  Church  was  still  considered  at 
least  as  cogent  as  the  evidence  of  the  senses.  This  shows  how  the 
element  of  individualism  in  scientific  method,  though  not  pro- 
minent, is  nevertheless  essential. 

Early  liberalism  was  individualistic  in  intellectual  matters,  and 
also  in  economics,  but  was  not  emotionally  or  ethically  self- 
assertive.  This  form  of  liberalism  dominated  the  English  eighteenth 
century,  the  founders  of  the  American  Constitution,  and  the 
French  encyclopaedists.  During  the  French  Revolution,  it  was 
represented  by  the  more  moderate  parties,  including  the  Girondins, 
but  with  their  extermination  it  disappeared  for  a  generation  from 
French  politics.  In  England,  after  the  Napoleonic  wars,  it  again 
became  influential  with  the  rise  of  the  Benthamites  and  the 
Manchester  School.  Its  greatest  success  has  been  in  America, 
where,  unhampered  by  feudalism  and  a  State  Church,  it  has 
been  dominant  from  1776  to  the  present  day,  or  at  any  rate  to  1933. 

A  new  movement,  which  has  gradually  developed  into  the  anti- 
thesis of  liberalism,  begins  with  Rousseau,  and  acquires  strength 
from  the  romantic  movement  and  the  principle  of  nationality. 
In  this  movement,  individualism  is  extended  from  the  intellectual 

623 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

sphere  to  that  of  the  passions,  and  the  anarchic  aspects  of  indivi- 
dualism are  made  explicit.  The  cult  of  the  hero,  as  developed  by 
Carlyle  and  Nietzsche,  is  typical  of  this  philosophy.  Various 
elements  were  combined  in  it.  There  was  dislike  of  early  indus- 
trialism, hatred  of  the  ugliness  that  it  produced,  and  revulsion 
against  its  cruelties.  There  was  a  nostalgia  for  the  Middle  Ages, 
which  were  idealized  owing  to  hatred  of  the  modern  world. 
There  was  an  attempt  to  combine  championship  of  the  fading 
privileges  of  Church  and  aristocracy  with  defence  of  wage-earners 
against  the  tyranny  of  manufacturers.  There  was  vehement 
assertion  of  the  right  of  rebellion  in  the  name  of  nationalism,  and 
of  the  splendour  of  war  in  defence  of  "liberty."  Byron  was  the 
poet  of  this  movement;  Fichte,  Carlyle,  and  Nietzsche  were  its 
philosophers. 

But  since  we  cannot  all  have  the  career  of  heroic  leaders,  and 
cannot  all  make  our  individual  will  prevail,  this  philosophy,  like 
all  other  forms  of  anarchism,  inevitably  leads,  when  adopted,  to 
the  despotic  government  of  the  most  successful  "hero."  And  when 
his  tyranny  is  established,  be  will  suppress  in  others  the  self- 
assertive  ethic  by  which  he  has  risen  to  power.  This  whole  theory 
of  life,  therefore,  is  self-refuting,  in  the  sense  that  its  adoption 
in  practice  leads  to  the  realization  of  something  utterly  different: 
a  dictatorial  State  in  which  the  individual  is  severely  repressed. 

There  is  yet  another  philosophy  which,  in  the  main,  is  an  off- 
shoot of  liberalism,  namely  that  of  Marx.  I  shall  consider  him  at  a 
later  stage,  but  for  the  moment  he  is  merely  to  be  borne  in  mind. 

The  first  comprehensive  statement  of  the  liberal  philosophy  is 
to  be  found  in  Locke,  the  most  influential  though  by  no  means 
the  most  profound  of  modern  philosophers.  In  England,  his  views 
were  so  completely  in  harmony  with  those  of  most  intelligent 
men  that  it  is  difficult  to  trace  their  influence  except  in  theoretical 
philosophy;  in  France,  on  the  other  hand,  where  they  led  to  an 
opposition  to  the  existing  regime  in  practice  and  to  the  prevailing 
Canesianism  in  theory,  they  clearly  had  a  considerable  effect  in 
shaping  the  course  of  events.  This  is  an  example  of  a  general 
principle:  a  philosophy  developed  in  a  politically  and  economically 
advanced  country,  which*  is,  in  its  birthplace,  little  more  than  a 
clarification  and  systematization  of  prevalent  opinion,  may 
become  elsewhere  a  source  of  revolutionary  ardour,  and  ultimately 
of  actual  revolution.  It  is  mainly  through  theorists  that  the 

624 


PHILOSOPHICAL   LIBERALISM 

maxims  regulating  the  policy  of  advanced  countries  become 
known  to  less  advanced  countries.  In  the  advanced  countries, 
practice  inspires  theory;  in  the  others,  theory  inspires  practice. 
This  difference  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  transplanted  ideas  are 
seldom  so  successful  as  they  were  in  their  native  soil. 

Before  considering  the  philosophy  of  Locke,  let  us  review  some 
of  the  circumstances  in  seventeenth-century  England  that  were 
influential  in  forming  his  opinions. 

The  conflict  between  King  and  Parliament  in  the  Civil  War 
gave  Englishmen,  once  for  all,  a  love  of  compromise  and  modera- 
tion, and  a  fear  of  pushing  any  theory  to  its  logical  conclusion, 
which  has  dominated  them  down  to  the  present  time.  The  prin- 
ciples for  which  the  Long  Parliament  contended  had,  at  first,  the 
support  of  a  large  majority.  They  wished  to  abolish  the  king's 
right  to  grant  trade  monopolies,  and  to  make  him  acknowledge 
the  exclusive  right  of  Parliament  to  impose  taxes.  They  desired 
liberty  within  the  Church  of  England  for  opinions  and  practices 
which  were  persecuted  by  Archbishop  Laud.  They  held  that 
Parliament  should  meet  at  stated  intervals,  and  should  not  be 
convoked  only  on  rare  occasions  when  the  king  found  its  colla- 
boration indispensable.  They  objected  to  arbitrary  arrest  and  to 
the  subservience  of  the  judges  to  the  royal  wishes.  But  many, 
while  prepared  to  agitate  for  these  ends,  were  not  prepared  to 
levy  war  against  the  king,  which  appeared  to  them  an  act  of 
treason  and  impiety.  As  soon  as  actual  war  broke  out,  the  division 
of  forces  became  more  nearly  equal. 

The  political  development  from  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War 
to  the  establishment  of  Cromwell  as  Lord  Protector  followed  the 
course  which  lias  now  become  familiar  but  was  then  unprecedented. 
The  Parliamentary  party  consisted  of  two  factions,  the  Presby- 
terians and  the  Independents;  the  Presbyterians  desired  to 
preserve  a  State  Church,  but  to  abolish  bishops;  the  Independents 
agreed  with  them  about  bishops,  but  held  that  each  congregation 
should  be  free  to  choose  its  own  theology,  without  the  interference 
of  any  central  ecclesiastical  government.  The  Presbyterians,  in 
the  main,  were  of  a  higher  social  class  than  the  Independents, 
and  their  political  opinions  were  mont  moderate.  They  wished  to 
come  to  terms  with  the  king  as  soon  as  defeat  had  made  him 
conciliatory.  Their  policy,  however,  was  rendered  impossible  by 
two  circumstances:  first,  the  king  developed  a  martyr's  qtubborn* 

fas 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

i  about  bishops;  second,  the  defeat  of  the  king  proved  difficult, 
and  was  only  achieved  by  Cromwell's  New  Model  Army,  which 
consisted  of  Independents.  Consequently,  when  the  king's 
military  resistance  was  broken,  he  could  still  not  be  induced  to 
make  a  treaty,  and  the  Presbyterians  had  lost  the  preponderance 
of  armed  force  in  the  Parliamentary  armies.  The  defence  of 
democracy  had  thrown  power  into  the  hands  of  a  minority,  and 
it  used  its  power  with  a  complete  disregard  for  democracy  and 
parliamentary  government  When  Charles  I  had  attempted  to 
arrest  the  five  members,  there  had  been  a  universal  outcry,  and 
his  failure  had  made  him  ridiculous.  But  Cromwell  had  no  such 
difficulties.  By  Pride's  Purge,  he  dismissed  about  a  hundred 
Presbyterian  members,  and  obtained  for  a  time  a  subservient 
majority.  When,  finally,  he  decided  to  dismiss  Parliament  alto- 
gether, "not  a  dog  barked" — war  had  made  only  military  force 
seem  important,  and  had  produced  a  contempt  for  constitutional 
forms.  For  the  rest  of  Cromwell's  life,  the  government  of  England 
was  a  military  tyranny,  hated  by  an  increasing  majority  of  the 
nation,  but  impossible  to  shake  off  while  his  partisans  alone  were 
armed. 

Charles  II,  after  hiding  in  oak  trees  and  living  as  a  refugee  in 
Holland,  determined,  at  the  Restoration,  that  he  would  not  again 
set  out  on  his  travels.  This  imposed  a  certain  moderation.  He 
claimed  no  power  to  impose  taxes  not  sanctioned  by  Parliament. 
He  assented  to  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  which  deprived  the  Crown 
of  the  power  of  arbitrary  arrest.  On  occasion  he  could  flout  the 
fiscal  power  of  Parliament  by  means  by  subsidies  from  Louis  XIV, 
but  in  the  main  he  was  a  constitutional  monarch.  Most  of  the 
limitations  of  royal  power  originally  desired  by  the  opponents  of 
Charles  I  were  conceded  at  the  Restoration,  and  were  respected 
by  Charles  II  because  it  had  been  shown  that  kings  could  be 
made  to  suffer  at  the  hands  of  their  subjects. 

James  II,  unlike  his  brother,  was  totally  destitute  of  subtlety 
and  finesse.  By  his  bigoted  Catholicism  he  united  against  himself 
the  Anglicans  and  Nonconformists,  in  spite  of  his  attempts  to 
conciliate  the  latter  by  granting  them  toleration  in  defiance  of 
Parliament.  Foreign  policy  also  played  a  part  The  Stuarts,  in 
order  to  avoid  the  taxation  required  in  war-time,  which  would 
have  made  them  dependent  upon  Parliament,  pursued  a  policy 
of  subservience,  first  to  Spain  and  then  to  France.  The  growing 

626 


PHILOSOPHICAL    LIBERALISM 

power  of  France  roused  the  invariable  English  hostility  to  the 
leading  Continental  State,  and  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  made  Protestant  feeling  bitterly  opposed  to  Louis  XIV. 
In  the  end,  almost  everybody  in  England  wished  to  be  rid  of 
James.  But  almost  everybody  was  equally  determined  to  avoid  a 
return  to  the  days  of  the  Civil  War  and  Cromwell's  dictatorship. 
Since  there  was  no  constitutional  way  of  getting  rid  of  James, 
there  must  be  a  revolution,  but  it  must  be  quickly  ended,  so  as 
to  give  no  opportunity  for  disruptive  forces.  The  rights  of  Parlia- 
ment must  be  secured  once  for  all.  The  king  must  go,  but 
monarchy  must  be  preserved;  it  should  be,  however,  not  a 
monarchy  of  Divine  Right,  but  one  dependent  upon  legislative 
sanction,  and  so  upon  Parliament.  By  a  combination  of  aristocracy 
and  big  business,  all  this  was  achieved  in  a  moment,  without  the 
necessity  of  firing  a  shot.  Compromise  and  moderation  had 
succeeded,  after  every  form  of  intransigeance  had  been  tried  and 
had  failed. 

The  new  king,  being  Dutch,  brought  with  him  the  commercial 
and  theological  wisdom  for  which  his  country  was  noted.  The 
Bank  of  England  was  created ;  the  national  debt  was  made  into  a 
secure  investment,  no  longer  liable  to  repudiation  at  the  caprice 
of  the  monarch.  The  Act  of  Toleration,  while  leaving  Catholics 
and  Nonconformists  subject  to  various  disabilities,  put  an  end 
to  actual  persecution.  Foreign  policy  became  resolutely  anti- 
French,  and  remained  so,  with  brief  intermissions,  until  the 
defeat  of  Napoleon. 


027 


Chapter  XIII 
LOCKE'S  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

JOHN  LOCKE  (1632-1704)  is  the  apostle  of  the  Revolution  of 
1688,  the  most  moderate  and  the  most  successful  of  all  revo- 
lutions. Its  aims  were  modest,  but  they  were  exactly  achieved, 
no  subsequent  revolution  has  hitherto  been  found  necessary 
in  England.  Locke  faithfully  embodies  its  spirit,  and  most  of  his 
works  appeared  within  a  few  years  of  1688.  His  chief  work  in 
theoretical  philosophy,  the  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding, 
was  finished  in  1687  and  published  in  1690.  His  First  Letter  on 
Toleration  was  originally  published  in  Latin  in  1689,  in  Holland, 
to  which  country  Locke  had  found  it  prudent  to  withdraw  in 
1683.  Two  further  letters  on  Toleration  were  published  in  1690  and 
1692.  His  two  Treatises  on  Government  were  licensed  for  printing 
in  1689,  and  published  soon  afterwards.  His  book  on  Education  was 
published  in  1693.  Although  his  life  was  long,  all  his  influential 
writings  are  confined  to  the  few  years  from  1687  to  1693.  Suc- 
cessful revolutions  are  stimulating  to  those  who  believe  in  them. 
Locke's  father  was  a  Puritan,  who  fought  on  the  side  of  Parlia- 
ment. In  the  time  of  Cromwell,  when  Locke  was  at  Oxford,  the 
university  was  still  scholastic  in  its  philosophy;  Locke  disliked 
both  scholasticism  and  the  fanaticism  of  the  Independents.  He 
was  much  influenced  by  Descartes.  He  became  a  physician,  and 
his  patron  was  Lord  Shaftesbury,  Dryden's  "Achitophel."  When 
Shaftesbury  fell  in  1683,  Locke  fled  with  him  to  Holland,  and 
remained  there  until  the  Revolution.  After  the  Revolution,  except 
for  a  few  years  during  which  he  was  employed  at  the  Board  of 
Trade,  his  life  was  devoted  to  literary  work  and  to  numerous 
controversies  arising  out  of  his  books. 

The  years  before  the  Revolution  of  1688,  when  Locke  could 
not,  without  grave  risk,  take  any  part,  theoretical  or  practical, 
in  English  politics,  were  spent  by  him  in  composing  his  Essay 
Concerning  Human  Understanding.  This  is  his  most  important 
book,  and  the  one  upon  which  his  fame  most  securely  rests;  but 
his  influence  on  the  philosophy  of  politics  was  so  great  and  so 
lasting  that  he  must  be  treated  as  the  founder  of  philosophical 
liberalism  as  much  as  of  empiricism  in  theory  of  knowledge. 

628 


LOCKE'S  THEORY   OF   KNOWLEDGE 

Locke  is  the  most  fortunate  of  all  philosophers.  He  completed 
his  work  in  theoretical  philosophy  just  at  the  moment  when  the 
government  of  his  country  fell  into  the  hands  of  men  who  shared 
his  political  opinions.  Both  in  practice  and  in  theory,  the  views 
which  he  advocated  were  held,  for  many  years  to  come,  by  the 
mo$t  vigorous  and  influential  politicians  and  philosophers.  His 
political  doctrines,  with  the  developments  due  to  Montesquieu, 
are  embedded  in  the  American  Constitution,  and  are  to  be  seen 
at  work  whenever  there  is  a  dispute  between  President  and 
Congress.  The  British  Constitution  was  based  upon  his  doctrines 
until  about  fifty  years  ago,  and  so  was  that  which  the  French 
adopted  in  1871. 

His  influence  in  eighteenth-century  France,  which  was  immense, 
was  primarily  due  to  Voltaire,  who  as  a  young  man  spent  some 
time  in  England,  and  interpreted  English  ideas  to  his  compatriots 
in  the  Lettres  pk*lo$opfttques.  The  pfclosophes  and  the  moderate 
reformers  followed  him;  the  extreme  revolutionaries  followed 
Rousseau.  His  French  followers,  rightly  or  wrongly,  believed  in 
an  intimate  connection  between  his  theory  of  knowledge  and  his 
politics. 

In  England  this  connection  is  less  evident.  Of  his  two  most 
eminent  followers,  Berkeley  was  politically  unimportant,  and 
Hume  was  a  Tory  who  set  forth  his  reactionary  views  in  his 
History  of  England.  But  after  the  time  of  Kant,  when  German 
idealism  began  to  influence  English  thought,  there  came  to  be 
again  a  connection  between  philosophy  and  politics:  in  the  main, 
the  philosophers  who  followed  the  Germans  were  Conservative, 
while  the  Benthamites,  who  were  Radical,  were  in  the  tradition 
of  Locke.  The  correlation,  however,  is  not  invariable;  T.  H. 
Green,  for  example,  was  a  Liberal  but  an  idealist. 

Not  only  Locke's  valid  opinions,  but  even  his  errors,  were 
useful  in  practice.  Take,  for  example,  his  doctrine  as  to  primary 
and  secondary  qualities.  The  primary  qualities  are  defined  as 
those  that  are  inseparable  from  body,  and  are  enumerated  as 
solidity,  extension,  figure,  motion  or  rest,  and  number.  The 
secondary  qualities  are  all  the  rest:  colours,  sounds,  smells,  etc. 
The  primary  qualities,  he  maintainsf  are  actually  in  bodies;  the 
secondary  qualities,  on  the  contrary,  are  only  in  the  percipient. 
Without  the  eye,  there  would  be  no  colours;  without  the  ear,  no 
sounds,  and  so  on.  For  Locke's  view  as  to  secondary  qualities 

629 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

there  are  good  grounds— jaundice,  blue  spectacles,  etc.  But 
Berkeley  pointed  out  that  the  sairie  arguments  apply  to  primary 
qualities.  Ever  since  Berkeley,  Locke's  dualism  on  this  point  has 
been  philosophically  out  of  date.  Nevertheless,  it  dominated 
practical  physics  until  the  rise  of  quantum  theory  in  our  own 
day.  Not  only  was  it  assumed,  explicitly  or  tacitly,  by  physicists, 
but  it  proved  fruitful  as  a  source  of  many  very  important  dis- 
coveries. The  theory  that  the  physical  world  consists  only  of 
matter  in  motion  was  the  basis  of  the  accepted  theories  of  sound, 
heat,  light,  and  electricity.  Pragmatically,  the  theory  was  useful, 
however  mistaken  it  may  have  been  theoretically.  This  is  typical 
of  Locke's  doctrines. 

Locke's  philosophy,  as  it  appears  in  the  Essay,  has  throughout 
certain  merits  and  certain  demerits.  Both  alike  were  useful:  the 
demerits  are  such  only  from  a  theoretical  standpoint.  He  is  always 
sensible,  and  always  willing  to  sacrifice  logic  rather  than  become 
paradoxical.  He  enunciates  general  principles  which,  as  the  reader 
can  hardly  fail  to  perceive,  are  capable  of  leading  to  strange  conse- 
quences; but  whenever  the  strange  consequences  seem  about  to 
appear,  Locke  blandly  refrains  from  drawing  them.  To  a  logician 
this  is  irritating;  to  a  practical  man,  it  is  a  proof  of  sound  judg- 
ment. Since  the  world  is  what  it  is,  it  is  clear  that  valid  reasoning 
from  sound  principles  cannot  lead  to  error;  but  a  principle  may 
be  so  nearly  true  as  to  deserve  theoretical  respect,  and  yet  may 
lead  to  practical  consequences  which  we  feel  to  be  absurd.  There 
is  therefore  a  justification  for  common  sense  in  philosophy,  but 
only  as  showing  that  our  theoretical  principles  cannot  be  quite 
correct  so  long  as  their  consequences  are  condemned  by  an  appeal 
to  common  sense  which  we  feel  to  be  irresistible.  The  theorist 
may  retort  that  common  sense  is  no  more  infallible  than  logic. 
But  this  retort,  though  made  by  Berkeley  and  Hume,  would  have 
been  wholly  foreign  to  Locke's  intellectual  temper. 

A  characteristic  of  Locke,  which  descended  from  him  to  the 
whole  Liberal  movement,  is  lack  of  dogmatism.  Some  few  cer- 
tainties he  takes  over  from  his  predecessors:  our  own  existence, 
the  existence  of  God,  and  the  truth  of  mathematics.  But  wherever 
his  doctrines  differ  from  those  of  his  forerunners,  they  are  to  the 
effect  that  truth  is  hard  to  ascertain,  and  that  a  rational  man  will 
bold  his  opinions  with  some  measure  of  doubt.  This  temper  of 
mind  is  obviously  connected  with  religious  toleration,  with  the 

630 


LOCKE'S   THEORY   OF   KNOWLEDGE 

success  of  parliamentary  democracy,  with  laissez-faire,  and  with 
the  whole  system  of  liberal  maxims.  Although  he  is  a  deeply 
religious  man,  a  devout  believer  in  Christianity  who  accepts 
revelation  as  a  source  of  knowledge,  he  nevertheless  hedges  round 
professed  revelations  with  rational  safeguards.  On  one  occasion 
he  says :  "The  bare  testimony  of  revelation  is  the  highest  certainty/' 
but  on  another  he  says:  "Revelation  must  be  judged  by  reason/9 
Thus  in  the  end  reason  remains  supreme. 

His  chapter  "Of  Enthusiasm"  is  instructive  in  this  connection. 
"Enthusiasm"  had  not  then  the  same  meaning  as  it  has  now;  it 
meant  the  belief  in  a  personal  revelation  to  a  religious  leader  or 
to  his  followers.  It  was  a  characteristic  of  the  sects  that  had  been 
defeated  at  the  Restoration.  When  there  is  a  multiplicity  of  such 
personal  revelations,  all  inconsistent  with  each  other,  truth,  or 
what  passes  as  such,  becomes  purely  personal,  and  loses  its  social 
character.  Love  of  truth,  which  Locke  considers  essential,  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  love  of  some  particular  doctrine  which 
is  proclaimed  as  the  truth.  One  unerring  mark  of  love  of  truth,  he 
says,  is  "not  entertaining  any  proposition  with  greater  assurance 
than  the  proofs  it  is  built  upon  will  warrant/'  Forwardness  to 
dictate,  he  says,  shows  failure  of  love  of  truth.  "Enthusiasm 
laying  by  reason,  would  set  up  revelation  without  it;  whereby  in 
effect  it  takes  away  both  reason  and  revelation,  and  substitutes  in 
the  room  of  it  the  ungrounded  fancies  of  a  man's  own  brain/' 
Men  who  suffer  from  melancholy  or  conceit  are  likely  to  have 
"persuasions  of  immediate  intercourse  with  the  Deity/'  Hence 
odd  actions  and  opinions  acquire  Divine  sanction,  which  flatters 
"men's  laziness,  ignorance,  and  vanity/'  He  concludes  the  chapter 
with  the  maxim  already  quoted,  that  "revelation  must  be  judged 
of  by  reason/' 

What  Locke  means  by  "reason"  is  to  be  gathered  from  his  whole 
book.  There  is,  it  is  true,  a  chapter  called  "Of  Reason,"  but  this  is 
mainly  concerned  to  prove  that  reason  does  not  consist  of  syllo- 
gistic reasoning,  and  is  summed  up  in  the  sentence:  "God  has 
not  been  so  sparing  to  men  to  make  them  barely  two-legged 
creatures,  and  left  it  to  Aristotle  to  make  them  rational."  Reason, 
as  Locke  uses  the  term,  consists  of  t*o  parts:  first,  an  inquiry  as 
to  what  things  we  know  with  certainty;  second,  an  investigation 
of  propositions  which  it  is  wise  to  accept  in  practice,  although 
they  have  only  probability  and  not  certainty  in  their  favour.  "The 

631 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

grounds  of  probability,"  he  says,  "are  two:  conformity  with  our 
own  experience,  or  the  testimony  of  others'  experience."  The 
King  of  Siam,  he  remarks,  ceased  to  believe  what  Europeans 
told  him  when  they  mentioned  ice. 

In  his  chapter  "Of  Degrees  of  Assent"  he  says  that  the  degree 
of  assent  we  give  to  any  proposition  should  depend  upon  the 
grounds  of  probability  in  its  favour.  After  pointing  out  that  we 
must  often  act  upon  probabilities  that  fall  short  of  certainty,  he 
says  that  the  right  use  of  this  consideration  "is  mutual  charity 
and  forbearance.  Since  therefore  it  is  unavoidable  to  the  greatest 
part  of  men,  if  not  all,  to  have  several  opinions,  without  certain 
and  indubitable  proofs  of  their  truth ;  and  it  carries  too  great  an 
imputation  of  ignorance,  lightness,  or  folly,  for  men  to  quit  and 
renounce  their  former  tenets  presently  upon  the  offer  of  an  argu- 
ment which  they  cannot  immediately  answer  and  show  the 
insufficiency  of;  it  would,  methinks,  become  all  men  to  maintain 
peace  and  the  common  offices  of  humanity  and  friendship  in  the 
diversity  of  opinions,  since  we  cannot  reasonably  expect  that  any 
one  should  readily  and  obsequiously  quit  his  own  opinion,  and 
embrace  ours  with  a  blind  resignation  to  an  authority  which  the 
understanding  of  man  acknowledges  not.  For,  however  it  may 
often  mistake,  it  can  own  no  other  guide  but  reason,  nor  blindly 
submit  to  the  will  and  dictates  of  another.  If  he  you  would  bring 
over  to  your  sentiments  be  one  that  examines  before  he  assents, 
you  must  give  him  leave  at  his  leisure  to  go  over  the  account 
again,  and,  recalling  what  is  out  of  his  mind,  examine  the  parti- 
culars, to  see  on  which  side  the  advantage  lies;  and  if  he  will  not 
think  over  arguments  of  weight  enough  to  engage  him  anew  in 
so  much  pains,  it  is  but  what  we  do  often  ourselves  in  the  like 
case;  and  we  should  take  it  amiss  if  others  should  prescribe  to 
us  what  points  we  should  study:  and  if  he  be  one  who  wishes  to 
take  his  opinions  upon  trust,  how  can  we  imagine  that  he  should 
renounce  those  tenets  which  time  and  custom  have  so  settled  in 
his  mind  that  he  thinks  them  self-evident,  and  of  an  unquestion- 
able certainty;  or  which  he  takes  to  be  impressions  he  has 
received  from  God  himself,  or  from  men  sent  by  him?  How  can 
we  expect,  I  say,  that  opinions  thus  settled  should  be  given  up  to 
the  arguments  or  authority  of  a  stranger  or  adversary?  especially 
if  there  be  any  suspicion  of  interest  or  design,  as  there  never  fails 
to  be  where  men  find  themselves  ill-treated.  We  should  do  well 

632 


LOCKE'S   THEORY  OF   KNOWLEDGE 

to  commiserate  our  mutual  ignorance,  and  endeavour  to  remove 
it  in  all  the  gentle  and  fair  ways  of  information,  and  not  instantly 
treat  others  ill  as  obstinate  and  perverse  because  they  will  not 
renounce  their  own  and  receive  our  opinions,  or  at  least  those 
we  would  force  upon  them,  when  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
we  are  no  less  obstinate  in  not  embracing  some  of  theirs.  For 
where  is  the  man  that  has  uncontestable  evidence  of  the  truth  of 
all  that  he  holds,  or  of  the  falsehood  of  all  he  condemns;  or  can 
say,  that  he  has  examined  to  the  bottom  all  his  own  or  other 
men's  opinions?  The  necessity  of  believing  without  knowledge, 
nay  often  upon  very  slight  grounds,  in  this  fleeting  state  of  action 
and  blindness  we  are  in,  should  make  us  more  busy  and  careful 
to  inform  ourselves  than  to  restrain  others.  .  .  .  There  is  reason 
to  think,  that  if  men  were  better  instructed  themselves,  they 
would  be  less  imposing  on  others."1 

I  have  dealt  hitherto  only  with  the  latest  chapters  of  the  Essay, 
where  Locke  is  drawing  the  moral  from  his  earlier  theoretical 
investigation  of  the  nature  and  limitations  of  human  knowledge. 
It  is  time  now  to  examine  what  he  has  to  say  on  this  more  purely 
philosophical  subject. 

Locke  is,  as  a  rule,  contemptuous  of  metaphysics.  A  propos  of 
some  speculation  of  Leibniz's,  he  writes  to  a  friend:  "You  and 
I  have  had  enough  of  this  kind  of  fiddling."  The  conception  of 
substance,  which  was  dominant  in  the  metaphysics  of  his  time, 
he  considers  vague  and  not  useful,  but  he  does  not  venture  to 
reject  it  wholly.  He  allows  the  validity  of  metaphysical  arguments 
for  the  existence  of  God,  but  he  does  not  dwell  on  them,  and  seems 
somewhat  uncomfortable  about  them.  Whenever  he  is  expressing 
new  ideas,  and  not  merely  repeating  what  is  traditional,  he  thinks 
in  terms  of  concrete  detail  rather  than  of  large  abstractions.  His 
philosophy  is  piecemeal,  like  scientific  work,  not  statuesque  and 
all  of  a  piece,  like  the  great  Continental  systems  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

Locke  may  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  empiricism,  which  is 
the  doctrine  that  all  our  knowledge  (with  the  possible  exception 
of  logic  and  mathematics)  is  derived  from  experience.  Accordingly 
the  first  book  of  the  Essay  is  concerned^  arguing,  as  against  Plato, 
Descartes,  and  the  scholastics,  that  there  are  no  innate  ideas  or 
principles.  In  the  second  book  he  sets  to  work  to  show,  in  detail, 

1  Ettay  Canctrmw  Human  Undcntandinx,  Book  IV,  chap,  xvi,  tec.  4. 

633 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

how  experience  gives  rise  to  various  kinds  of  ideas.  Having  rejected 
innate  ideas,  he  says: 

"Let  us  then  suppose  the  mind  to  be,  as  we  say,  white  paper, 
void  of  all  characters,  without  any  ideas;  how  comes  it  to  be 
furnished?  Whence  comes  it  by  that  vast  store,  which  the  busy 
and  boundless  fancy  of  man  has  painted  on  it  with  an  almost 
endless  variety?  Whence  has  it  all  the  materials  of  reason  and 
knowledge?  To  this  I  answer  in  one  word,  from  experience:  in 
that  all  our  knowledge  is  founded,  and  from  that  it  ultimately 
derives  itself"  (Book  II,  chap,  i,  sec.  2). 

Our  ideas  are  derived  from  two  sources,  (a)  sensation,  and 
(b)  perception  of  the  operation  of  our  own  mind,  which  may  be 
called  "internal  sense."  Since  we  can  only  think  by  means  of 
ideas,  and  since  all  ideas  come  from  experience,  it  is  evident  that 
none  of  our  knowledge  can  antedate  experience. 

Perception,  he  says,  is  "the  first  step  and  degree  towards  know- 
ledge, and  the  inlet  of  all  the  materials  of  it."  This  may  seem,  to 
a  modern,  almost  a  truism,  since  it  has  become  part  of  educated 
common  sense,  at  least  in  English-speaking  countries.  But  in  his 
day  the  mind  was  supposed  to  know  all  sorts  of  things  a  priori, 
and  the  complete  dependence  of  knowledge  upon  perception, 
which  he  proclaimed,  was  a  new  and  revolutionary  doctrine.  Plato, 
in  the  Theaetetus,  had  set  to  work  to  refute  the  identification  of 
knowledge  with  perception,  and  from  his  time  onwards  almost 
all  philosophers,  down  to  and  including  Descartes  and  Leibniz, 
had  taught  that  much  of  our  most  valuable  knowledge  is  not 
derived  from  experience.  Locke's  thorough-going  empiricism  was, 
therefore  a  bold  innovation. 

The  third  book  of  the  Essay  deals  with  words,  and  is  concerned, 
in  the  main,  to  show  that  what  metaphysicians  present  as  know- 
ledge about  the  world  is  purely  verbal.  Chapter  III,  "Of  General 
Terms,"  takes  up  an  extreme  nominalist  position  on  the  subject 
of  universal*.  All  things  that  exist  are  particulars,  but  we  can 
frame  general  ideas,  such  as  "man,"  that  are  applicable  to  many 
particulars,  and  to  these  general  ideas  we  can  give  names.  Their 
generality  consists  solely  in  the  fact  that  they  are,  or  may  be, 
applicable  to  a  variety  of  particular  things;  in  their  own  being,  as 
ideas  in  our  minds,  they  are  just  as  particular  as  everything  else 
that  exists. 

Chapter  VI  of  Book  III,  "Of  the  Names  of  Substances,"  is  con* 

634 


LOCKE'S    THEORY   Of   KNOWLEDGE 

cerned  to  refute  the  scholastic  doctrine  of  essence.  Things  may 
have  a  real  essence,  which  will  consist  of  their  physical  constitution, 
but  this  is  in  the  main  unknown  to  us,  and  is  not  the  "essence" 
of  which  scholastics  speak.  Essence,  as  we  can  know  it,  is  purely 
verbal ;  it  consists  merely  in  the  definition  of  a  general  term.  To 
argue,  for  instance,  as  to  whether  the  essence  of  body  is  only 
extension,  or  is  extension  plus  solidity,  is  to  argue  about  words: 
we  may  define  the  word  "body"  either  way,  and  no  harm  can 
result  so  long  as  we  adhere  to  our  definition.  Distinct  species  are 
not  a  fact  of  nature,  but  of  language;  they  are  "distinct  complex 
ideas  with  distinct  names  annexed  to  them."  There  are,  it  is  true, 
differing  things  in  nature,  but  the  differences  proceed  by  con- 
tinuous gradations:  "the  boundaries  of  the  species,  whereby  men 
sort  them,  are  made  by  men."  He  proceeds  to  give  instances  of 
monstrosities,  concerning  which  it  was  doubtful  whether  they  were 
men  or  not.  This  point  of  view  was  not  generally  accepted  until 
Darwin  persuaded  men  to  adopt  the  theory  of  evolution  by  gradual 
changes.  Only  those  who  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  afflicted 
by  the  scholastics  will  realize  how  much  metaphysical  lumber  it 
sweeps  away. 

Empiricism  and  idealism  alike  are  faced  with  a  problem  to 
which,  so  far,  philosophy  has  found  no  satisfactory  solution.  This 
is  the  problem  of  showing  how  we  have  knowledge  of  other  things 
than  ourself  and  the  operations  of  our  own  mind.  Locke  considers 
this  problem,  but  what  he  says  is  very  obviously  unsatisfactory. 
In  one  place1  we  are  told:  "Since  the  mind,  in  all  its  thoughts  and 
reasonings,  hath  no  other  immediate  object  but  its  own  ideas, 
which  it  alone  does  or  can  contemplate,  it  is  evident  that  our 
knowledge  is  only  conversant  about  them."  And  again:  "Know- 
ledge is  the  perception  of  the  agreement  or  disagreement  of  two 
ideas."  From  this  it  would  seem  to  follow  immediately  that  we 
cannot  know  of  the  existence  of  other  people,  or  of  the  physical 
world,  for  these,  if  they  exist,  are  not  merely  ideas  in  my  mind. 
Each  one  of  us,  accordingly,  must,  so  far  as  knowledge  is  Con- 
cerned, be  shut  up  in  himself,  and  cut  off  from  all  contact  with 
the  outer  world. 

This,  however,  is  a  paradox,  and  ixfcke  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  paradoxes.  Accordingly,  in  another  chapter,  he  sets  forth  a 
different  theory,  quite  inconsistent  with  the  earlier  one.  We  have, 
»  Op.  nl.,  Book  IV,  chap.  i. 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

be  tells  us,  three  kinds  of  knowledge  of  real  existence.  Our  know- 
ledge of  our  own  existence  is  intuitive,  our  knowledge  of  God's 
existence  is  demonstrative,  and  our  knowledge  of  things  present 
to  sense  is  sensitive  (Book  IV,  chap.  iii). 

In  the  next  chapter,  he  becomes  more  or  less  aware  of  the 
inconsistency.  He  suggests  that  someone  might  say:  "If  knowledge 
consists  in  agreement  of  ideas,  the  enthusiast  and  the  sober  man 
are  on  a  level."  He  replies:  "Not  so  where  ideas  agree  with  things." 
He  proceeds  to  argue  that  all  simple  ideas  must  agree  with  things, 
since  "the  mind,  as  has  been  showed,  can  by  no  means  make  to 
itself9  any  simple  ideas,  these  being  ail  "the  product  of  things 
operating  on  the  mind  in  a  natural  way."  And  as  regards  complex 
ideas  of  substances,  "all  our  complex  ideas  of  them  must  be  such, 
and  such  only,  as  are  made  up  of  such  simple  ones  as  have  been 
discovered  to  coexist  in  nature."  Again,  we  can  have  no  knowledge 
except  (i)  by  intuition,  (2)  by  reason,  examining  the  agreement 
or  disagreement  of  two  ideas,  (3)  "by  sensation,  perceiving  the 
existence  of  particular  things"  (Book  IV,  chap,  iii,  sec.  2). 

In  all  this,  Locke  assumes  it  known  that  certain  mental  occur- 
rences, which  he  calls  sensations,  have  causes  outside  themselves, 
and  that  these  causes,  at  least  to  some  extent  and  in  certain  respects, 
resemble  the  sensations  which  are  their  effects.  But  how,  con- 
sistently with  the  principles  of  empiricism,  is  this  to  be  known  ? 
We  experience  the  sensations,  but  not  their  causes;  our  experience 
will  be  exactly  the  same  if  our  sensations  arise  spontaneously.  The 
belief  that  sensations  have  causes,  and  still  more  the  belief  that 
they  resemble  their  causes,  is  one  which,  if  maintained,  must  be 
maintained  on  grounds  wholly  independent  of  experience.  The 
view  that  "knowledge  is  the  perception  of  the  agreement  or  dis- 
agreement of  two  ideas"  is  the  one  that  Locke  is  entitled  to,  and 
his  escape  from  the  paradoxes  that  it  entails  is  effected  by  means 
of  an  inconsistency  so  gross  that  only  his  resolute  adherence  to 
common  sense  could  have  made  him  blind  to  it. 

This  difficulty  has  troubled  empiricism  down  to  the  present 
day.  Hume  got  rid  of  it  by  dropping  the  assumption  that  sensations 
have  external  causes,  but  even  he  retained  this  assumption  when- 
ever he  forgot  his  own  principles,  which  was  very  often.  His 
fundamental  maxim,  "no  idea  without  an  antecedent  impression," 
which  he  takes  over  from  Locke,  is  only  plausible  so  long  as  we 
think  of  impressions  as  having  outside  causes,  which  the  very 

636 


LOCKE'S   THEORY   OF    KNOWLEDGE 

word  "impression"  irresistibly  suggests.  And  at  the  moments 
when  Hume  achieves  some  degree  of  consistency  he  is  wildly 
paradoxical. 

No  one  has  yet  succeeded  in  inventing  a  philosophy  at  once 
credible  and  self-consistent.  Locke  aimed  at  credibility,  and 
achieved  it  at  the  expense  of  consistency.  Most  of  the  great  philo- 
sophers have  done  the  opposite.  A  philosophy  which  is  not  self- 
consistent  cannot  be  wholly  true,  but  a  philosophy  which  is  self- 
consistent  can  very  well  be  wholly  false.  The  most  fruitful  philo- 
sophies have  contained  glaring  inconsistencies,  but  for  that  very 
reason  have  been  partially  true.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  a  self-consistent  system  contains  more  truth  than  one  which, 
like  Locke's,  is  obviously  more  or  less  wrong. 

Locke's  ethical  doctrines  are  interesting,  partly  on  their  own 
account,  partly  as  an  anticipation  of  Bentham.  When  I  speak  of 
his  ethical  doctrines,  I  do  not  mean  his  moral  disposition  as  a 
practical  man,  but  his  general  theories  as  to  how  men  act  and  how 
they  should  act.  Like  Bentham,  Locke  was  a  man  filled  with 
kindly  feeling,  who  yet  held  that  everybody  (including  himself) 
must  always  be  moved,  in  action,  solely  by  desire  for  his  own 
happiness  or  pleasure.  A  few  quotations  will  make  this  clear. 

4 'Things  are  good  or  evil  only  in  relation  to  pleasure  or  pain. 
That  we  call  'good'  which  is  apt  to  cause  or  increase  pleasure,  or 
diminish  pain,  in  us." 

"What  is  it  moves  desire?  I  answer,  happiness,  and  that  alone." 

44  Happiness,  in  its  full  extent,  is  the  utmost  pleasure  we  are 
capable  of." 

"The  necessity  of  pursuing  true  happiness  [is]  the  foundation 
of  ail  liberty.0 

"The  preference  of  vice  to  virtue  [is]  a  manifest  wrong  judg- 
ment." 

"The  government  of  our  passions  [is]  the  right  improvement 
of  liberty."1 

The  last  of  these  statements  depends,  it  would  seem,  uponlhe 
doctrine  of  rewards  and  punishments  in  the  next  world.  God  has 
aid  down  certain  moral  rules ;  those  who  follow  them  go  to  heaven, 
and  those  who  break  them  risk  going  to  hell.  The  prudent  pleasure- 
seeker  will  therefore  be  virtuous.  With  the  decay  of  the  belief  that 
sin  leads  to  hell,  it  has  become  more  difficult  to  make  a  purely 
1  The  above  quotations  are  from  Book  II,  chap.  xx. 

637 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

self-regarding  argument  in  favour  of  a  virtuous  life.  Bentham, 
who  was  a  free-thinker,  substituted  the  human  lawgiver  in  place 
of  God:  it  was  the  business  of  laws  and  social  institutions  to  make 
a  harmony  between  public  and  private  interests,  so  that  each  man, 
in  pursuing  his  own  happiness,  should  be  compelled  to  minister 
to  the  general  happiness.  But  this  is  less  satisfactory  than  the 
reconciliation  of  public  and  private  interests  effected  by  means 
of  heaven  and  hell,  both  because  lawgivers  are  not  always  wise 
or  virtuous,  and  because  human  governments  are  not  omniscient. 

Locke  has  to  admit,  what  is  obvious,  that  men  do  not  always  act 
in  the  way  which,  on  a  rational  calculation,  is  likely  to  secure  them 
a  maximum  of  pleasure.  We  value  present  pleasure  more  than 
future  pleasure,  and  pleasure  in  the  near  future  more  than  pleasure 
in  the  distant  future.  It  may  be  said — this  is  not  said  by  Locke — 
that  the  rate  of  interest  is  a  quantitative  measure  of  the  general 
discounting  of  future  pleasures.  If  the  prospect  of  spending  £  i  ,000 
a  year  hence  were  as  delightful  as  the  thought  of  spending  it  to-day, 
I  should  not  need  to  be  paid  for  postponing  my  pleasure.  Locke 
admits  that  devout  believers  often  commit  sins  which,  by  their 
own  creed,  put  them  in  danger  of  hell.  We  all  know  people  who 
put  off  going  to  the  dentist  longer  than  they  would  if  they  were 
engaged  in  the  rational  pursuit  of  pleasure.  Thus,  even  if  pleasure 
or  the  avoidance  of  pain  be  our  motive,  it  must  be  added  that 
pleasures  lose  their  attractiveness  and  pains  their  terrors  in  propor- 
tion to  their  distance  in  the  future. 

Since  it  is  only  in  the  long  run  that,  according  to  Locke,  self- 
interest  and  the  general  interest  coincide,  it  becomes  important 
that  men  should  be  guided,  as  far  as  possible,  by  their  long-run 
interests.  That  is  to  say,  men  should  be  prudent.  Prudence  is  the 
one  virtue  which  remains  to  be  preached,  for  every  lapse  from 
virtue  is  a  failure  of  prudence*  Emphasis  on  prudence  is  charac- 
teristic of  liberalism.  It  is  connected  with  the  rise  of  capitalism, 
for  the  prudent  became  rich  while  the  imprudent  became  or 
regained  poor.  It  is  connected  also  with  certain  forms  of  Protes- 
tant piety:  virtue  with  a  view  to  heaven  is  psychologically  very 
analogous  to  saving  with  a  view  to  investment. 

Belief  in  the  harmony  between  private  and  public  interests  is 
characteristic  of  liberalism,  and  long  survived  the  theological 
foundation  that  it  had  in  Locke. 

Locke  states  that  liberty  depends  upon  the  necessity  of  pursuing 

638 


LOCKE'S   THEORY    OF   KNOWLEDGE 

% 

true  happiness  and  upon  the  government  of  our  passions.  This 
opinion  he  derives  from  his  doctrine  that  private  and  public  in- 
terests are  identical  in  the  long  run,  though  not  necessarily  over 
short  periods.  It  follows  from  this  doctrine  that,  given  a  com- 
munity of  citizens  who  are  all  both  pious  and  prudent,  they  will 
all  act,  given  liberty,  in  a  manner  to  promote  the  general  good. 
There  will  be  no  need  of  human  laws  to  restrain  them,  since 
divine  laws  will  suffice.  The  hitherto  virtuous  man  who  is  tempted 
to  become  a  highwayman  will  say  to  himself:  "I  might  escape 
the  human  magistrate,  but  I  could  not  escape  punishment  at  the 
hands  of  the  Divine  Magistrate."  He  will  accordingly  renounce 
his  nefarious  schemes,  and  live  as  virtuously  as  if  he  were  sure 
of  being  caught  by  the  police.  Legal  liberty,  therefore,  is  only 
completely  possible  where  both  prudence  and  piety  are  universal ; 
elsewhere,  the  restraints  imposed  by  the  criminal  law  are  indis- 
pensable. 

Locke  states  repeatedly  that  morality  is  capable  of  demonstra- 
tion, but  he  does  not  develop  this  idea  so  fully  as  could  be  wished. 
The  most  important  passage  is: 

"Morality  capable  of  demonstration.  The  idea  of  a  Supreme 
Being,  infinite  in  power,  goodness,  and  wisdom,  whose  workman- 
ship we  are,  and  on  whom  we  depend ;  and  the  idea  of  ourselves, 
as  understanding,  rational  beings,  being  such  as  are  clear  in  us, 
would,  I  suppose,  if  duly  considered  and  pursued,  afford  such 
foundations  of  our  duty  and  rules  of  action  as  might  place  morality 
among  the  sciences  capable  of  demonstration:  wherein  I  doubt 
not,  but  from  self-evident  propositions,  by  necessary  consequences, 
as  incontestable  as  those  in  mathematics,  the  measures  of  right 
and  wrong  might  be  made  out,  to  any  one  that  will  apply  himself 
with  the  same  indifferency  and  attention  to  the  one  as  he  does 
to  the  other  of  these  sciences.  The  relation  of  other  modes  may 
certainly  be  perceived,  as  well  as  those  of  number  and  extension: 
and  I  cannot  see  why  they  should  not  also  be  capable  of  demon- 
stration, if  due  methods  were  thought  on  to  examine  or  pulfeue 
their  agreement  or  disagreement.  'Where  there  is  no  property, 
there  is  no  injustice,'  is  a  proposition  as  certain  as  any  demon- 
stration in  Euclid:  for  the  idea  of  property  being  a  right  to  any- 
thing, and  the  idea  to  which  the  name  'injustice*  is  given  being  the 
invasion  or  violation  of  that  right,  it  is  evident  that  these  ideas 
being  thus  established,  and  these  names  annexed  to  them,  I  can 

639 


WB8TBRN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

as  certainly  know  this  proposition  to  be  true  as  that  a  triangle  has 
three  angles  equal  to  two  right  ones.  Again :  'No  government  allows 
absolute  liberty9:  the  idea  of  government  being  the  establishment 
of  society  upon  certain  rules  or  laws,  which  require  conformity 
to  them;  and  the  idea  of  absolute  liberty  being  for  any  one  to  do 
whatever  he  pleases:  I  am  as  capable  of  being  certain  of  the  truth 
of  this  proposition  as  of  any  in  the  mathematics."1 

This  passage  is  puzzling  because,  at  first,  it  seems  to  make  moral 
rules  dependent  upon  God's  decrees,  while  in  the  instances  that 
are  given  it  is  suggested  that  moral  rules  are  analytic.  I  suppose 
that,  in  fact,  Locke  thought  some  parts  of  ethics  analytic  and  others 
dependent  upon  God's  decrees.  Another  puzzle  is  that  the  in- 
stances given  do  not  seem  to  be  ethical  propositions  at  all. 

There  is  another  difficulty  which  one  could  wish  to  see  con- 
sidered. It  is  generally  held  by  theologians  that  God's  decrees  are 
not  arbitrary,  but  are  inspired  by  His  goodness  and  wisdom.  This 
requires  that  there  should  be  some  concept  of  goodness  antecedent 
to  God's  decrees,  which  has  led  Him  to  make  just  those  decrees 
rather  than  any  others.  What  this  concept  may  be,  it  is  impossible 
to  discover  from  Locke.  What  he  says  is  that  a  prudent  man  will 
act  in  such  and  such  ways,  since  otherwise  God  will  punish  him; 
but  he  leaves  us  completely  in  the  dark  as  to  why  punishment 
should  be  attached  to  certain  acts  rather  than  to  their  opposites. 

Locke's  ethical  doctrines  are,  of  course,  not  defensible.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  there  is  something  revolting  in  a  system  which 
regards  prudence  as  the  only  virtue,  there  are  other,  less  emotional, 
objections  to  his  theories. 

In  the  first  place,  to  say  that  men  only  desire  pleasure  is  to  pu\ 
the  can  before  the  horse.  Whatever  I  may  happen  to  desire,  1  shall 
feel  pleasure  in  obtaining  it;  but  as  a  rule  the  pleasure  is  due  to 
the  desire,  not  the  desire  to  the  pleasure.  It  is  possible,  as  happens 
with  masochists,  to  desire  pain ;  in  that  case,  there  is  still  pleasure 
in  the  gratification  of  the  desire,  but  it  is  mixed  with  its  opposite. 
EvtSn  in  Locke's  own  doctrine,  it  is  not  pleasure  as  such  that  is 
desired,  since  a  proximate  pleasure  is  more  desired  than  a  remote 
one.  If  morality  is  to  be  deduced  from  the  psychology  of  desire, 
as  Locke  and  his  disciple*  attempt  to  do,  there  can  be  no  reason 
for  deprecating  the  discounting  of  distant  pleasures,  or  for  urging 
prudence  as  a  moral  duty.  His  itgument,  in  a  nutshell,  is:  "We 
1  Op.  eit,,  Book  IV,  chap,  lit,  tec.  18. 

640 


LOCKE'S    THEORT    OF    KNOWLEDGE 

only  desire  pleasure.  But,  in  fact,  many  men  desire,  not  pleasure 
as  such,  but  proximate  pleasure.  This  contradicts  our  doctrine 
that  they  desire  pleasure  as  such,  and  is  therefore  wicked."  Almost 
all  philosophers,  in  their  ethical  systems,  first  lay  down  a  false 
doctrine,  and  then  argue  that  wickedness  consists  in  acting  in  a 
manner  that  proves  it  false,  which  would  be  impossible  if  the 
doctrine  were  true.  Of  this  pattern  Locke  affords  an  example. 


«/ U'*ti<**  WtJcnof  Ay  64! 


Chapter  XIV 
LOCKE'S    POLITICAL    PHILOSOPHY 

(a)  THE  HEREDITARY  PRINCIPLE 

IN  the  years  1689  and  1690,  just  after  the  Revolution  of  1688, 
Locke  wrote  his  two  Treatises  on  Government,  of  which  the 
second  especially  is  very  important  in  the  history  of  political 
ideas. 

The  first  of  these  two  treatises  is  a  criticism  of  the  doctrine  of 
hereditary  power.  It  is  a  reply  to  Sir  Robert  Filmer's  Patriarcha:  or 
The  Natural  Power  of  Kings,  which  was  published  in  1680,  but 
written  under  Charles  I.  Sir  Robert  Filmer,  who  was  a  devout 
upholder  of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  had  the  misfortune  to  live  till 
1653,  and  must  have  suffered  acutely  from  the  execution  of 
Charles  I  and  the  victory  of  Cromwell.  But  Patriarcha  was  written 
before  these  sad  events,  though  not  before  the  Civil  War,  so  that 
it  naturally  shows  awareness  of  the  existence  of  subversive  doc- 
trines. Such  doctrines,  as  Filmer  points  out,  were  not  new  in  1640. 
In  fact,  both  Protestant  and  Catholic  divines,  in  their  contest  with 
Catholic  and  Protestant  monarchs  respectively,  had  vigorously 
affirmed  the  right  of  subjects  to  resist  tyrannical  princes,  and  their 
writings  supplied  Sir  Robert  with  abundant  material  for  controversy. 
Sir  Robert  Filmer  was  knighted  by  Charles  1,  and  his  house  is 
said  to  have  been  plundered  by  the  Parliamentarians  ten  times. 
He  thinks  it  not  unlikely  that  Noah  sailed  up  the  Mediterranean 
and  allotted  Africa,  Asia,  and  Europe  to  Ham,  Shcm,  and  Japheth 
respectively.  He  held  that,  by  the  English  Constitution,  the  Lords 
only  give  counsel  to  the  king,  and  the  Commons  have  even  less 
power;  the  king,  he  says,  alone  makes  the  laws,  which  proceed 
solely  from  his  will.  The  king,  according  to  Filmer,  is  per- 
fediy  free  from  all  human  control,  and  cannot  be  bound  by  the 
acts  of  his  predecessors,  or  even  by  his  own,  for  ''impossible  it 
is  in  nature  that  a  man  should  give  a  law  unto  himself.'1 

Filmer,  as  these  opinion!  show,  belonged  to  the  most  extreme 
section  of  the  Divine  Right  party. 

Patriarcha  begins  by  combating  the  "common  opinion"  that 
"mankind  is  naturally  endowed  and  bora  with  freedom  from  all 

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LOCKE'S   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

subjection,  and  at  liberty  to  choose  what  form  of  government  it 
please,  and  the  power  which  any  one  man  hath  over  others  was 
first  bestowed  according  to  the  discretion  of  the  multitude."  "This 
tenet,"  he  says,  "was  first  hatched  in  the  schools."  The  truth, 
according  to  him,  is  quite  different;  it  is,  that  originally  God 
bestowed  the  kingly  power  upon  Adam,  from  whom  it  descended 
to  his  heirs,  and  ultimately  reached  the  various  monarchs  of  modern 
times.  Kings  now,  he  assures  us,  "either  are,  or  are  to  be  reputed, 
the  next  heirs  to  those  first  progenitors  who  were  at  first  the  natural 
parents  of  the  whole  people."  Our  first  parent,  it  seems,  did  not 
adequately  appreciate  his  privilege  as  universal  monarch,  for  "the 
desire  of  liberty  was  the  first  cause  of  the  fall  of  Adam."  The  desire 
of  liberty  is  a  sentiment  which  Sir  Robert  Kilmer  regards  as 
impious. 

The  claims  made  by  Charles  I,  and  by  his  protagonists  on  his 
behalf,  were  in  excess  of  what  earlier  times  would  have  conceded 
to  kings.  Filmer  points  out  that  Parsons,  the  English  Jesuit,  and 
Buchanan,  the  Scotch  Calvinist,  who  agree  in  almost  nothing  else, 
both  maintain  that  sovereigns  can  be  deposed  by  the  people  for 
misgovernment.  Parsons,  of  course,  was  thinking  of  the  Protestant 
Queen  Elizabeth,  and  Buchanan  of  the  Catholic  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots.  The  doctrine  of  Buchanan  was  sanctioned  by  success,  but 
that  of  Parsons  was  disproved  by  his  colleague  Campion's  execution. 

Even  before  the  Reformation,  theologians  tended  to  believe  in 
setting  limits  to  kingly  power.  This  was  part  of  the  battle  between 
the  Church  and  the  State  which  raged  throughout  Europe  during 
most  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  this  battle,  the  State  depended  upon 
armed  force,  the  Church  upon  cleverness  and  sanctity.  As  long  as 
the  Church  had  both  these  merits,  it  won ;  when  it  came  to  have 
cleverness  only,  it  lost.  But  the  things  which  eminent  and  holy 
men  had  said  against  the  power  of  kings  remained  on  record. 
Though  intended  in  the  interests  of  the  Pope,  they  could  be  used 
to  support  the  rights  of  the  people  to  self-government.  "The  subtle 
schoolmen,"  says  Fiiiner,  "to  be  sure  to  thrust  down  the^hig 
below  the  Pope,  thought  it  the  safest  course  to  advance  the  people 
above  the  king,  so  that  the  papal  power  might  take  the  place  of  the 
regal."  He  quotes  the  theologian  Bellafrmine  as  saying  that  secular 
power  is  bestowed  by  men  (i.e.  not  by  God),  and  "is  in  the  people 
unless  they  bestow  it  on  a  prince";  thus  Bellarmine,  according  to 
Filmer,  "makes  God  the  immediate  author  of  a  democratic*! 

643 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

estate" — which  sounds  to  him  as  shocking  as  it  would  to  a  modern 
plutocrat  to  say  that  God  is  the  immediate  author  of  Bolshevism. 

Filmer  derives  political  power,  not  from  any  contract,  nor  yet 
from  any  consideration  of  the  public  good,  but  entirely  from  the 
authority  of  a  father  over  his  children.  His  view  is:  that  the  source 
of  regal  authority  is  subjection  of  children  to  parents;  that  the 
patriarchs  in  Genesis  were  monarchs;  that  kings  are  the  heirs  of 
Adam,  or  at  least  are  to  be  regarded  as  such ;  that  the  natural  rights 
of  a  king  are  the  same  as  those  of  a  father ;  and  that,  by  nature,  sons 
are  never  free  of  paternal  power,  even  when  the  son  is  adult  and 
the  parent  is  in  his  dotage. 

This  whole  theory  seems  to  a  modern  mind  so  fantastic  that  it  is 
hard  to  believe  it  was  seriously  maintained.  We  are  not  accustomed 
to  deriving  political  rights  from  the  story  of  Adam  and  Eve.  We 
hold  it  obvious  that  parental  power  should  cease  completely  when 
the  son  or  daughter  reaches  the  age  of  twenty-one,  and  that  before 
that  it  should  be  very  strictly  limited  both  by  die  State  and  by  the 
right  of  independent  initiative  which  the  young  have  gradually 
acquired.  We  recognize  that  the  mother  has  rights  at  least  equal 
to  those  of  the  father.  But  apart  from  all  these  considerations,  it 
would  not  occur  to  any  modern  man  outside  Japan  to  suppose  that 
political  power  should  be  in  any  way  assimilated  to  that  of  parents 
over  children.  In  Japan,  it  is  true,  a  theory  closely  similar  to 
Filmer's  is  still  held,  and  must  be  taught  by  all  professors  and 
school-teachers.  The  Mikado  can  trace  his  descent  from  the  Sun 
Goddess,  whose  heir  he  is;  other  Japanese  are  also  descended  from 
her,  but  belong  to  cadet  branches  of  her  family.  Therefore  the 
Mikado  is  divine,  and  all  resistance  to  him  is  impious.  This  theory 
was,  in  the  main,  invented  in  1868,  but  is  now  alleged  in  Japan 
to  have  been  handed  down  by  tradition  ever  since  the  creation  of 
the  world. 

The  attempt  to  impose  a  similar  theory  upon  Europe— of  which 
attempt  Filmer's  Patriarchs  is  part— was  a  failure.  Why?  The 
ao€bptance  of  such  a  theory  is  in  no  way  repugnant  to  human 
nature;  for  example,  it  was  held,  apart  from  Japan,  by  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  and  by  the  Mexicans  and  Peruvians  before  the  Spanish 
conquest.  At  a  certain  stage  of  human  development  it  is  natural. 
Stuart  England  had  passed  this  stage,  but  modern  Japan  has  not. 

The  defeat  of  theories  of  divine  right,  in  England,  was  due  to 
two  main  causes.  One  was  the  multiplicity  of  religions;  the  other 

644 


LOCKE'S   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

was  the  conflict  for  power  between  the  monarchy,  the  aristocracy, 
and  the  higher  bourgeoisie.  As  for  religion:  the  king,  since  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII,  was  the  head  of  the  Church  of  England,  which 
was  opposed  both  to  Rome  and  to  most  of  the  Protestant  sects. 
The  Church  of  England  boasted  of  being  a  compromise:  the  Pre- 
face to  the  Authorized  Version  begins  "It  hath  been  the  wisdom 
of  the  Church  of  England,  ever  since  the  first  compiling  of  her 
public  liturgy,  to  keep  the  mean  between  two  extremes."  On  the 
whole  this  compromise  suited  most  people.  Queen  Mary  and  King 
James  II  tried  to  drag  the  country  over  to  Rome,  and  the  victors 
in  the  Civil  War  tried  to  drag  it  over  to  Geneva,  but  these  attempts 
failed,  and  after  1688  the  power  of  the  Church  of  England  was 
unchallenged.  Nevertheless,  its  opponents  survived.  The  Non- 
conformists, especially,  were  vigorous  men,  and  were  numerous 
among  the  rich  merchants  and  bankers  whose  power  was  con- 
tinually increasing. 

The  theological  position  of  the  king  was  somewhat  peculiar,  for 
he  was  not  only  head  of  the  Church  of  England,  but  also  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland.  In  England,  he  had  to  believe  in  bishops  and 
reject  Calvinism;  in  Scotland,  he  had  to  reject  bishops  and  believe 
in  Calvinism.  The  Stuarts  had  genuine  religious  convictions,  which 
made  this  ambiguous  attitude  impossible  for  them,  and  caused 
them  even  more  trouble  in  Scotland  than  in  England.  But  after 
1688  political  convenience  led  kings  to  acquiesce  in  professing  two 
religions  at  once.  This  militated  against  zeal,  and  made  it  difficult 
to  regard  them  as  divine  persons.  In  any  case,  neither  Catholics 
nor  Nonconformists  could  acquiesce  in  any  religious  claims  on 
behalf  of  the  monarchy. 

The  three  parties  of  king,  aristocracy,  and  rich  middle  class  made 
different  combinations  at  different  times.  Under  Edward  IV  and 
Louis  XI,  king  and  middle  class  combined  against  the  aristocracy; 
under  Louis  XIV,  king  and  aristocracy  combined  against  the  mid- 
dle class;  in  England  in  1688,  aristocracy  and  middle  class  Com- 
bined against  the  king.  When  the  king  had  one  of  the  other  paraes 
on  his  side,  he  was  strong;  when  they  combined  against  him,  he 
was  weak. 

For  these  reasons  among  others,  lx>cke  had  no  difficulty  in 
demolishing  Kilmer's  arguments.  * 

So  far  as  reasoning  is  concerned,  Locke  has,  of  course,  an  easy 
task.  He  points  out  that,  if  parental  power  is  what  is  concerned, 

645 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

the  mother's  power  should  be  equal  to  the  father's.  He  lays  stress 
on  the  injustice  of  primogeniture,  which  is  unavoidable  if  inheri- 
tance is  to  be  the  basis  of  monarchy.  He  makes  play  with  the 
absurdity  of  supposing  that  actual  monarchs  are,  in  any  real  sense, 
the  heirs  of  Adam.  Adam  can  have  only  one  heir,  but  no  one  knows 
who  he  is.  Would  Filmer  maintain,  he  asks,  that,  if  the  true  heir 
could  be  discovered,  all  existing  monarchs  should  lay  their  crowns 
at  his  feet  ?  If  Filmer 's  basis  for  monarchy  were  accepted,  all  kings, 
except  at  most  one,  would  be  usurpers,  and  would  have  no  right 
to  demand  the  obedience  of  their  de  facto  subjects.  Moreover 
paternal  power,  he  says,  is  temporary,  and  extends  not  to  life  or 
property. 

For  such  reasons,  apart  from  more  fundamental  grounds,  here- 
dity cannot,  according  to  Locke,  be  accepted  as  the  basis  of  legiti- 
mate political  power.  Accordingly,  in  his  Second  Treatise  on 
Government  he  seeks  a  more  defensible  basis. 

The  hereditary  principle  has  almost  vanished  from  politics. 
During  my  lifetime,  the  emperors  of  Brazil,  China,  Russia,  Ger- 
many, and  Austria  have  disappeared,  to  be  replaced  by  dictators 
who  do  not  aim  at  the  foundation  of  a  hereditary  dynasty.  Aris- 
tocracy has  lost  its  privileges  throughout  Europe,  except  in  Eng- 
land, where  they  have  become  little  more  than  a  historical  form. 
All  this,  in  most  countries,  is  very  recent,  and  has  much  to  do  with 
the  rise  of  dictatorships,  since  the  traditional  basis  of  power  has 
been  swept  away,  and  the  habits  of  mind  required  for  the  successful 
practice  of  democracy  have  not  had  time  to  grow  up.  There  is  one 
great  institution  that  has  never  had  any  hereditary  element, 
namely,  the  Catholic  Church.  We  may  expect  the  dictatorships, 
if  they  survive,  to  develop  gradually  a  form  of  government  analo- 
gous to  that  of  the  Church.  This  has  already  happened  in  the  case 
of  the  great  corporations  in  America,  which  have,  or  had  until  Pearl 
Harbour,  powers  almost  equal  to  those  of  the  government. 

It  »s  curious  that  the  rejection  of  the  hereditary  principle  in 
pduttcs  has  had  almost  no  effect  in  the  economic  sphere  in  demo- 
cratic countries.  (In  totalitarian  states,  economic  power  has  been 
absorbed  by  political  power)  We  still  think  it  natural  that  a  man 
should  leave  his  property  to  his  children;  that  is  to  say,  we  accept 
the  hereditary  prixmple  as  regards  economic  power  while  rejecting 
it  as  regards  political  poWer.  Political  dynasties  have  disappeared, 
but  economic  dynasties  survive.  I  am  not  at  the  moment  arguing 

646 


LOCKE'S    POLITICAL    PHILOSOPHY 

either  for  or  against  this  different  treatment  of  the  two  forms  of 
power;  I  am  merely  pointing  out  that  it  exists,  and  that  most  men 
are  unconscious  of  it.  When  you  consider  how  natural  it  seems 
to  us  that  the  power  over  the  lives  of  others  resulting  from  great 
wealth  should  be  hereditary,  you  will  understand  better  how  men 
like  Sir  Robert  Filmer  could  take  the  same  view  as  regards  the 
power  of  kings,  and  how  important  was  the  innovation  represented 
by  men  who  thought  as  Locke  did. 

To  understand  how  Filmer's  theory  could  be  believed,  and  how 
Locke's  contrary  theory  could  seem  revolutionary,  we  have  only 
to  reflect  that  a  kingdom  was  regarded  then  as  a  landed  estate  is 
regarded  now.  The  owner  of  land  has  various  important  legal 
rights,  the  chief  of  which  is  the  power  of  choosing  who  shall  be 
on  the  land.  Ownership  can  be  transmitted  by  inheritance  and 
we  feel  that  the  man  who  has  inherited  an  estate  has  a  just  claim 
to  all  the  privileges  that  the  law  allows  him  in  consequence.  Yet 
at  bottom  his  position  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  monarchs  whose 
claims  Sir  Robert  Filmer  defends.  There  are  at  the  present  day 
in  California  a  number  of  huge  estates  the  title  to  which  is  derived 
from  actual  or  alleged  grants  by  the  king  of  Spain.  He  was  only 
in  a  position  to  make  such  grants  (a)  because  Spain  accepted  views 
similar  to  Filmer's,  and  (b)  because  the  Spaniards  were  able  to 
defeat  the  Indians  in  battle.  Nevertheless  we  hold  the  heirs  of 
those  to  whom  he  made  grants  to  have  a  just  title.  Perhaps  in  future 
this  will  seem  as  fantastic  as  Filmer  seems  now. 


B.    THE  STATE  OP  NATURE,   AND  NATURAL  LAW 

Ixxrke  begins  his  second  Treatise  on  Government  by  saying  that, 
having  shown  the  impossibility  of  deriving  the  authority  of  govern- 
ment from  that  of  a  father,  he  will  now  set  forth  what  he  conceives 
to  be  the  true  origin  of  government. 

He  begins  by  supposing  what  he  calls  a  "state  of  nature, "Ante- 
cedent to  all  human  government.  In  this  state  there  is  a  "lav?Sf 
nature,"  but  the  law  of  nature  consists  of  divine  commands,  and 
is  not  imposed  by  any  human  legislator.  It  is  not  clear  how  far  the 
state  of  nature  is,  for  Locke,  a  mere'illustrative  hypothesis,  and 
how  far  he  supposes  it  to  have  had  a  historical  existence;  but  I  am 
afraid  that  he  tended  to  think  of  it  as  a  stage  that  had  actually 
occurred.  Men  emerged  from  the  state  of  nature  by  means  of  a 

64? 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

social  contract  which  instituted  civil  government.  This  also  he 
regarded  as  more  or  less  historical.  But  for  the  moment  it  is  the 
state  of  nature  that  concerns  us. 

What  Locke  has  to  say  about  the  state  of  nature  and  the  law 
of  nature  is,  in  the  main,  not  original,  but  a  repetition  of  medieval 
scholastic  doctrines.  Thus  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  says: 

"Every  law  framed  by  man  bears  the  character  of  a  law  exactly 
to  that  extent  to  which  it  is  derived  from  the  law  of  nature.  But  if 
on  any  point  it  is  in  conflict  with  the  law  of  nature,  it  at  once  ceases 
to  be  a  law;  it  is  a  mere  perversion  of  law."1 

Throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  the  law  of  nature  was  held  to 
condemn  "usury/9  i.e.  lending  money  at  interest.  Church  property 
was  almost  entirely  in  land,  and  landowners  have  always  been 
borrowers  rather  than  lenders.  But  when  Protestantism  arose,  its 
support — especially  the  support  of  Calvinism — came  chiefly  from 
the  rich  middle  class,  who  were  lenders  rather  than  borrowers. 
Accordingly  first  Calvin,  then  other  Protestants,  and  finally  the 
Catholic  Church,  sanctioned  "usury."  Thus  natural  law  came  to 
be  differently  conceived,  but  no  one  doubted  there  being  such 
a  thing. 

Many  doctrines  which  survived  the  belief  in  natural  law  owe 
their  origin  to  it;  for  example,  laissez-faire  and  the  rights  of  man. 
These  doctrines  are  connected,  and  both  have  their  origins  in 
puritanism.  Two  quotations  given  by  Tawney  will  illustrate  this. 
A  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  1604  stated: 

"All  free  subjects  are  born  inheritable,  as  to  their  land,  and  also 
as  to  the  free  exercise  of  their  industry,  in  those  trades  whereto 
they  apply  themselves  and  whereby  they  are  to  live." 

And  in  1656  Joseph  Lee  writes: 

"It  is  an  undeniable  maxim  that  every  one  by  the  light  of  nature 

and  reason  will  do  that  which  makes  for  his  greatest  advantage 

The  advancement  of  private  persons  will  be  the  advantage  of  the 

pubpc-" 

Except  for  the  words  "by  the  light  of  nature  and  reason/'  this 
might  have  been  written  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

In  Locke's  theory  of  government,  1  repeat,  there  is  little  that 

is  original.  In  this  Locke  Asembles  most  of  the  men  who  have 

won  fame  for  their  ideas.  As  a  rule,  the  man  who  first  thinks  of 

a  new  idea  is  so  much  ahead  of  his  time  that  everyone  thinks  him 

1  Quotrd  by  Tawney  in  Religion  and  iht  Rut  of  Capitalism. 

64* 


LOCKE'S   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

silly,  so  that  he  remains  obscure  and  is  soon  forgotten.  Then, 
gradually,  the  world  becomes  ready  for  the  idea,  and  the  man  who 
proclaims  it  at  the  fortunate  moment  gets  all  the  credit.  So  it  was, 
for  example,  with  Darwin ;  poor  Lord  Monboddo  was  a  laughing- 
stock. 

In  regard  to  the  state  of  nature,  Locke  was  less  original  than 
Hobbes,  who  regarded  it  as  one  in  which  there  was  war  of  all 
against  all,  and  life  was  nasty,  brutish,  and  short.  But  Hobbes  was 
reputed  an  atheist.  The  view  of  the  state  of  nature  and  of  natural 
law  which  Locke  accepted  from  his  predecessors  cannot  be  freed 
from  its  theological  basis;  where  it  survives  without  this,  as  in 
much  modern  liberalism,  it  is  destitute  of  clear  logical  foundation. 

The  belief  in  a  happy  "state  of  nature"  in  the  remote  past 
is  derived  partly  from  the  biblical  narrative  of  the  age  of  the 
patriarchs,  partly  from  the  classical  myth  of  the  golden  age.  The 
general  belief  in  the  badness  of  the  remote  past  only  came  with 
the  doctrine  of  evolution. 

The  nearest  thing  to  a  definition  of  the  state  of  nature  to  be  found 
in  Locke  is  the  following: 

"Men  living  together  according  to  reason,  without  a  common 
superior  on  earth,  with  authority  to  judge  between  them,  is  properly 
the  state  of  nature.'* 

This  is  not  a  description  of  the  life  of  savages,  but  of  an  imagined 
community  of  virtuous  anarchists,  who  need  no  police  or  law-courts 
because  they  always  obey  "reason,"  which  is  the  same  as  "natural 
law,*'  which,  in  turn,  consists  of  those  laws  of  conduct  that  are  held 
to  have  a  divine  origin.  (For  example,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill"  is  part 
of  natural  law,  but  the  rule  of  the  roads  is  not.) 

Some  further  quotations  will  make  Locke's  meaning  clearer. 

"To  understand  political  power  right  [he  says],  and  derive  it 
from  its  original,  we  must  consider  what  state  men  are  naturally 
in,  and  that  is,  a  state  of  perfect  freedom  to  order  their  actions  and 
dispose  of  their  possessions  and  persons,  as  they  think  fit,  within 
the  bounds  of  the  law  of  nature ;  without  asking  leave,  or  dependTSg 
upon  the  will  of  any  other  man. 

"A  state  also  of  equality,  wherein  all  the  power  and  jurisdiction 
is  reciprocal,  no  one  having  more  than  toother ;  there  being  nothing 
more  evident,  than  that  creatures  of  the  same  species  and  rank, 
promiscuously  born  to  all  the  same  advantages  of  nature,  and  the 
use  of  the  same  faculties,  should  also  be  equal  one  amongst  another 

649 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

without  subordination  or  subjection;  unless  the  lord  and  master 
of  them  all  should,  by  any  manifest  declaration  of  his  will,  set  one 
above  another,  and  confer  on  him,  by  an  evident  and  clear  appoint- 
ment, an  undoubted  right  to  dominion  and  sovereignty. 

"But  though  this  [the  state  of  nature]  be  a  state  of  liberty,  yet 
it  is  not  a  state  of  licence:  though  man  in  that  state  has  an  uncon- 
trollable liberty  to  dispose  of  his  person  or  possessions,  yet  he  has 
not  liberty  to  destroy  himself,  or  so  much  as  any  creature  in  his 
possession,  but  where  some  nobler  use  than  its  bare  preservation 
calls  for  it.  The  state  of  nature  has  a  law  of  nature  to  govern  it, 
which  obliges  every  one;  and  reason,  which  is  that  law,  teaches 
all  mankind,  who  will  but  consult  it,  that  being  all  equal  and 
independent,  no  one  ought  to  harm  another  in  his  life,  health, 
liberty,  or  possessions9'1  (for  we  are  all  God's  property).2 

It  presently  appears,  however,  that,  where  most  men  are  in  the 
state  of  nature,  there  may  nevertheless  be  some  men  who  do  not 
live  according  to  the  law  of  nature,  and  that  the  law  of  nature 
provides,  up  to  a  point,  what  may  be  done  to  resist  such  criminals. 
In  a  state  of  nature,  we  are  told,  every  man  can  defend  himself  and 
what  is  his.  "Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood 
be  shed"  is  part  of  the  law  of  nature.  I  may  even  kill  a  thief  while 
he  is  engaged  in  stealing  my  property,  and  this  right  survives  the 
institution  of  government,  although,  where  there  is  government, 
if  the  thief  gets  away  I  must  renounce  private  vengeance  and 
resort  to  the  law. 

The  great  objection  to  the  state  of  nature  is  that,  while  it  persists, 
every  man  is  the  judge  in  his  own  cause,  since  he  must  rely  upon 
himself  for  the  defence  of  his  rights.  For  this  evil,  government  is 
the  remedy,  but  this  is  not  a  natural  remedy.  The  state  of  nature, 
according  to  Locke,  was  evaded  by  a  compact  to  create  a  govern- 
ment. Not  any  compact  ends  the  state  of  nature,  but  only 
that  of  making  one  body  politic.  The  various  governments  of 
independent  States  are  now  in  a  state  of  nature  towards  each 


The  state  of  nature,  we  are  told  in  a  passage  presumably  directed 
against  Hobbes,  is  not  the  same  as  a  state  of  war,  but  more  nearly 
its  opposite.  After  explaining  the  right  to  kill  a  thief,  on  the  ground 

1  Cf.  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

1  "They  are  his  property,  whose  workmanship  they  are,  made  to  latt 
during  bit,  not  mother*!  pleasure." 

650 


LOCKE'S   POLITJCAL   PHILOSOPHY 

that  the  thief  may  be  deemed  to  be  making  war  upon  me,  Locke 
says: 

"And  here  we  have  the  plain  'difference  between  the  state  of 
nature  and  the  state  of  war/  which,  however  some  men  have  con- 
founded, are  as  far  distant,  as  a  state  of  peace,  goodwill,  mutual 
assistance  and  preservation,  and  a  state  of  enmity,  malice,  violence 
and  mutual  destruction  are  from  one  another. " 

Perhaps  the  law  of  nature  must  be  regarded  as  having  a  wider 
scope  than  the  state  of  nature,  since  the  former  deals  with  thieves 
and  murderers,  while  in  the  latter  there  are  no  such  malefactors. 
This,  at  least,  suggests  a  way  out  of  an  apparent  inconsistency  in 
Locke,  consisting  in  his  sometimes  representing  the  state  of  nature 
as  one  where  everyone  is  virtuous,  and  at  other  times  discussing 
what  may  rightly  be  done  in  a  state  of  nature  to  resist  the  aggres- 
sions of  wicked  men. 

Some  parts  of  Locke's  natural  law  are  surprising.  For  example, 
he  says  that  captives  in  a  just  war  are  slaves  by  the  law  of  nature. 
He  says  also  that  by  nature  every  man  has  a  right  to  punish 
attacks  on  himself  or  his  property,  even  by  death.  He  makes 
no  qualification,  so  that  if  I  catch  a  person  engaged  in  petty 
pilfering  I  have,  apparently,  by  the  law  of  nature,  a  right  to  shoot 
him. 

Property  is  very  prominent  in  Locke's  political  philosophy,  and 
is,  according  to  him,  the  chief  reason  for  the  institution  of  civil 
government: 

"The  great  and  chief  end  of  men  uniting  into  commonwealths, 
and  putting  themselves  under  government,  is  the  preservation  of 
their  property;  to  which  in  the  state  of  nature  there  are  many 
things  wanting.0 

The  whole  of  this  theory  of  the  state  of  nature  and  natural  law 
is  in  one  sense  clear  but  in  another  very  puzzling.  It  is  dear  what 
Locke  thought,  but  it  is  not  clear  how  he  can  have  thought  it. 
Locke's  ethic,  as  we  saw,  is  utilitarian,  but  in  his  consideration  of 
44 rights"  he  does  not  bring  in  utilitarian  considerations.  Son£t*qjgg 
of  this  pervades  the  whole  philosophy  of  law  as  taught  by  lawyers. 
Legal  rights  can  be  defined:  broadly  speaking,  a  man  has  a  legal 
right  when  he  can  appeal  to  the  taw  to  safeguard  him  against 
injury.  A  man  has  in  general  a  legal  right  to  his  property,  but  if 
he  has  (say)  an  illicit  store  of  cocaine,  he  has  no  legal  remedy 
against  a  man  who  steals  it*  But  the  lawgiver  has  to  decide  what 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

without  subordination  or  subjection;  unless  the  lord  and  master 
of  them  all  should,  by  any  manifest  declaration  of  his  will,  set  one 
above  another,  and  confer  on  him,  by  an  evident  and  clear  appoint- 
ment, an  undoubted  right  to  dominion  and  sovereignty. 

"But  though  this  [the  state  of  nature]  be  a  state  of  liberty,  yet 
it  is  not  a  state  of  licence:  though  man  in  that  state  has  an  uncon- 
trollable liberty  to  dispose  of  his  person  or  possessions,  yet  he  has 
not  liberty  to  destroy  himself,  or  so  much  as  any  creature  in  his 
possession,  but  where  some  nobler  use  than  its  bare  preservation 
calls  for  it.  The  state  of  nature  has  a  law  of  nature  to  govern  it, 
which  obliges  every  one;  and  reason,  which  is  that  law,  teaches 
all  mankind,  who  will  but  consult  it,  that  being  all  equal  and 
independent,  no  one  ought  to  harm  another  in  his  life,  health, 
liberty,  or  possessions"1  (for  we  are  all  God's  property).2 

It  presently  appears,  however,  that,  where  most  men  are  in  the 
state  of  nature,  there  may  nevertheless  be  some  men  who  do  not 
live  according  to  the  law  of  nature,  and  that  the  law  of  nature 
provides,  up  to  a  point,  what  may  be  done  to  resist  such  criminals. 
In  a  state  of  nature,  we  are  told,  every  man  can  defend  himself  and 
what  is  his.  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood 
be  shed"  is  part  of  the  law  of  nature.  I  may  even  kill  a  thief  while 
he  is  engaged  in  stealing  my  property,  and  this  right  survives  the 
institution  of  government,  although,  where  there  is  government, 
if  the  thief  gets  away  I  must  renounce  private  vengeance  and 
resort  to  the  law. 

The  great  objection  to  the  state  of  nature  is  that,  while  it  persists, 
every  man  is  the  judge  in  his  own  cause,  since  he  must  rely  upon 
himself  for  the  defence  of  his  rights.  For  this  evil,  government  is 
the  remedy,  but  this  is  not  a  natural  remedy.  The  state  of  nature, 
according  to  Locke,  was  evaded  by  a  compact  to  create  a  govern- 
ment. Not  any  compact  ends  the  state  of  nature,  but  only 
that  of  making  one  body  politic.  The  various  governments  of 
independent  States  are  now  in  a  state  of  nature  towards  each 


The  state  of  nature,  we  are  told  in  a  passage  presumably  directed 
against  Hobbes,  is  not  the  same  as  a  state  of  war,  but  more  nearly 
its  opposite.  After  explaining  the  right  to  kill  a  thief,  on  the  ground 

1  Cf.  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

•  "They  are  his  property,  whose  workmanship  they  are,  made  to  last 
during  his,  not  another's  pleasure." 

650 


LOCKE'S   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

that  the  thief  may  be  deemed  to  be  making  war  upon  me,  Locke 
says: 

"And  here  we  have  the  plain  'difference  between  the  state  of 
nature  and  the  state  of  war/  which,  however  some  men  have  con- 
founded, are  as  far  distant,  as  a  state  of  peace,  goodwill,  mutual 
assistance  and  preservation,  and  a  state  of  enmity,  malice,  violence 
and  mutual  destruction  are  from  one  another." 

Perhaps  the  law  of  nature  must  be  regarded  as  having  a  wider 
scope  than  the  state  of  nature,  since  the  former  deals  with  thieves 
and  murderers,  while  in  the  latter  there  are  no  such  malefactors. 
This,  at  least,  suggests  a  way  out  of  an  apparent  inconsistency  in 
Locke,  consisting  in  his  sometimes  representing  the  state  of  nature 
as  one  where  everyone  is  virtuous,  and  at  other  times  discussing 
what  may  rightly  be  done  in  a  state  of  nature  to  resist  the  aggres- 
sions of  wicked  men. 

Some  parts  of  Locke's  natural  law  are  surprising.  For  example, 
he  says  that  captives  in  a  just  war  are  slaves  by  the  law  of  nature. 
He  says  also  that  by  nature  every  man  has  a  right  to  punish 
attacks  on  himself  or  his  property,  even  by  death.  He  makes 
no  qualification,  so  that  if  I  catch  a  person  engaged  in  petty 
pilfering  I  have,  apparently,  by  the  law  of  nature,  a  right  to  shoot 
him. 

Property  is  very  prominent  in  Locke's  political  philosophy,  and 
is,  according  to  him,  the  chief  reason  for  the  institution  of  civil 
government : 

"The  great  and  chief  end  of  men  uniting  into  commonwealths, 
and  putting  themselves  under  government,  is  the  preservation  of 
their  property;  to  which  in  the  state  of  nature  there  are  many 
things  wanting/' 

The  whole  of  this  theory  of  the  state  of  nature  and  natural  law 
is  in  one  sense  clear  but  in  another  very  puzzling.  It  is  clear  what 
Locke  thought,  but  it  is  not  clear  how  he  can  have  thought  it. 
Locke's  ethic,  as  we  saw,  is  utilitarian,  but  in  his  consideration  of 
"rights"  he  does  not  bring  in  utilitarian  considerations.  SonJtAJgg 
of  this  pervades  the  whole  philosophy  of  law  as  taught  by  lawyers. 
Legal  rights  can  be  defined:  broadly  speaking,  a  man  has  a  legal 
right  when  he  can  appeal  to  the  tow  to  safeguard  him  against 
injury.  A  man  has  in  general  a  legal  right  to  his  property,  but  if 
he  has  (say)  an  illicit  store  of  cocaine,  he  has  no  legal  remedy 
against  a  man  who  steals  it  But  the  lawgiver  has  to  decide  what 

651 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

legal  rights  to  create,  and  falls  back  naturally  on  the  conception 
of  "natural"  rights,  as  those  which  the  law  should  secure. 

I  am  attempting  to  go  as  far  as  is  possible  towards  stating  some- 
thing like  Locke's  theory  in  untheological  terms.  If  it  is  assumed 
that  ethics,  and  the  classification  of  acts  as  "right"  and  "wrong/* 
is  logically  prior  to  actual  law,  it  becomes  possible  to  restate  the 
theory  in  terms  not  involving  mythical  history.  To  arrive  at  the 
law  of  nature,  we  may  put  the  question  in  this  way:  in  the  absence 
of  law  and  government,  what  classes  of  acts  by  A  against  B  justify 
B  in  retaliating  against  A,  and  what  sort  of  retaliation  is  justified 
in  different  cases?  It  is  generally  held  that  no  man  can  be  blamed 
for  defending  himself  against  a  murderous  assault,  even,  if  neces- 
sary, to  the  extent  of  killing  the  assailant.  He  may  equally  defend 
his  wife  and  children,  or,  indeed,  any  member  of  the  general  public. 
In  such  cases,  the  existence  of  the  law  against  murder  becomes 
irrelevant,  if,  as  may  easily  happen,  the  man  assaulted  would  be 
dead  before  the  aid  of  the  police  could  be  invoked;  we  have, 
therefore,  to  fall  back  on  "natural"  right.  A  man  also  has  a  right 
to  defend  his  property,  though  opinions  differ  as  to  the  amount 
of  injury  he  may  justly  inflict  upon  a  thief. 

In  the  relations  between  States,  as  Locke  points  out,  "natural" 
law  is  relevant.  In  what  circumstances  is  war  justified  ?  So  long 
as  no  international  government  exists,  the  answer  to  this  question 
is  purely  ethical,  not  legal;  it  must  be  answered  in  the  same  way 
as  it  would  be  for  an  individual  in  a  state  of  anarchy. 

Legal  theory  will  be  based  upon  the  view  that  the  "rights"  of 
individuals  should  be  protected  by  the  State.  That  is  to  say,  when 
a  man  suffers  the  kind  of  injury  which  would  justify  retaliation 
according  to  the  principles  of  natural  law,  positive  law  should 
enact  that  the  retaliation  shall  be  done  by  the  State.  If  you  see  a 
man  making  a  murderous  assault  upon  your  brother,  you  have 
a  right  to  kill  him,  if  you  cannot  otherwise  save  your  brother.  In 
a  state  of  nature—so,  at  least,  Locke  holds— if  a  man  has  succeeded 
iijJpSTing  your  brother,  you  have  a  right  to  kill  him.  But  where  law 
exists,  you  lose  this  right,  which  is  taken  over  by  the  State.  And 
if  you  kill  in  self-defence  or  in  defence  of  another,  you  will  have 
to  prove  to  a  law-court  that  this  was  the  reason  for  the  killing. 

We  may  then  identify  "natural  law"  with  moral  rules  in  so 
fir  as  they  are  independent  of  positive  legal  enactments.  There 
must  be  such  rules  if  there  is  to  be  any  distinction  between 

65* 


LOCKE'S   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

good  and  bad  laws.  For  Locke,  the  matter  is  simple,  since 
moral  rules  have  been  laid  down  by  God,  and  are  to  be  found  in 
the  Bible.  When  this  theological  basis  is  removed,  the  matter 
becomes  more  difficult.  But  so  long  as  it  is  held  that  there  is  an 
ethical  distinction  between  right  actions  and  wrong  ones,  we  can 
say:  Natural  law  decides  what  actions  would  be  ethically  right,  and 
what  wrong,  in  a  community  that  had  no  government;  and  positive 
law  ought  to  be,  as  far  as  possible,  guided  and  inspired  by  natural 
law. 

In  its  absolute  form,  the  doctrine  that  an  individual  has  certain 
inalienable  rights  is  incompatible  with  utilitarianism,  i.e.  with  the 
doctrine  that  right  acts  are  those  that  do  most  to  promote  the 
general  happiness.  But  in  order  that  a  doctrine  may  be  a  suitable 
basis  for  law,  it  is  not  necessary  that  it  should  be  true  in  every 
possible  case,  but  only  that  it  should  be  true  in  an  overwhelming 
majority  of  cases.  We  can  all  imagine  cases  in  which  murder 
would  be  justifiable,  but  they  are  rare,  and  do  not  afford  an  argu- 
ment against  the  illegality  of  murder.  Similarly  it  may  be — I  am 
not  saying  that  it  is— desirable,  from  a  utilitarian  point  of  view, 
to  reserve  to  each  individual  a  certain  sphere  of  personal  liberty. 
If  so,  the  doctrine  of  the  Rights  of  Man  will  be  a  suitable  basis 
for  the  appropriate  laws,  even  though  these  rights  be  subject  to 
exceptions.  A  utilitarian  will  have  to  examine  the  doctrine,  con- 
sidered as  a  basis  for  laws,  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  practical 
effects ;  he  cannot  condemn  it  ab  initio  as  contrary  to  his  own  ethic. 

C.  THE  SOCIAL  CONTRACT 

In  the  political  speculation  of  the  seventeenth  century,  there 
were  two  main  types  of  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  government.  Of 
one  type  we  have  had  an  example  in  Sir  Robert  Filmer:  this  type 
maintained  that  God  had  bestowed  power  on  certain  persons,  and 
that  these  persons,  or  their  heirs,  constituted  the  legitimate  govern- 
ment, rebellion  against  which  is  not  only  treason,  but  itll^v. 
This  view  was  sanctioned  by  sentiments  of  immemorial  antiquity! 
in  almost  all  early  civilizations,  the  king  is  a  sacred  person.  Kings, 
naturally,  considered  it  an  admirable  theory.  Aristocracies  had 
motives  for  supporting  it  and  motives  for  opposing  it.  In  its  favour 
was  the  fact  that  it  emphasized  the  hereditary  principle,  and  that 
it  gave  august  support  to  resistance  against  the  upstart  merchant 

653 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

class.  Where  the  middle  class  was  more  feared  or  hated  by  the 
aristocracy  than  the  king  was,  these  motives  prevailed.  Where  the 
contrary  was  the  case,  and  especially  where  the  aristocracy  had 
a  chance  of  obtaining  supreme  power  itself,  it  tended  to  oppose 
the  king,  and  therefore  to  reject  theories  of  divine  right. 

The  other  main  type  of  theory — of  which  Locke  is  a  fepresen- 
tative — maintained  that  civil  government  is  the  result  of  a  contract, 
and  is  an  affair  purely  of  this  world,  not  something  established  by 
divine  authority.  Some  writers  regarded  the  social  contract  as  a 
historical  fact,  others  as  a  legal  fiction;  the  important  matter,  for 
all  of  them,  was  to  find  a  terrestrial  origin  for  governmental 
authority.  In  fact,  they  could  not  think  of  any  alternative  to  divine 
right  except  the  supposed  contract.  It  was  felt  by  all  except  rebels 
that  some  reason  must  be  found  for  obeying  governments,  and 
it  was  not  thought  sufficient  to  say  that  for  most  people  the 
authority  of  government  is  convenient.  Government  must,  in  some 
sense,  have  a  right  to  exact  obedience,  and  the  right  conferred 
by  a  contract  seemed  the  only  alternative  to  a  divine  command. 
Consequently  the  doctrine  that  government  was  instituted  by  a 
contract  was  popular  with  practically  all  opponents  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings.  There  is  a  hint  of  this  theory  in  'lliomas  Aquinas, 
but  the  first  serious  development  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  Grotius. 

The  contract  doctrine  was  capable  of  taking  forms  which  justified 
tyranny.  Hobbes,  for  example,  held  that  there  was  a  contract 
among  the  citizens  to  hand  over  all  power  to  the  chosen  sovereign, 
but  the  sovereign  was  not  a  part)'  to  the  contract,  and  therefore 
necessarily  acquired  unlimited  authority.  This  theory,  at  first, 
might  have  justified  Cromwell's  totalitarian  State;  after  the  Res- 
toration, it  justified  Charles  II.  In  Locke's  form  of  the  doctrine, 
however,  the  government  is  a  party  to  the  contract,  and  can  be 
justly  resisted  if  it  fails  to  fulfil  its  part  of  the  bargain.  Locke's 
doctrine  is,  in  essence,  more  or  less  democratic,  but  the  democratic 
element  is  limited  by  the  view  (implied  rather  than  expressed)  that 
thjfs'  who  have  no  property  are  not  to  be  reckoned  as  citizens. 

Let  us  now  see  just  what  Locke  has  to  say  eft  our  present  topic. 

There  is  first  a  definition  of  political  power: 

"Political  power  I  take  to  be  the  right  of  making  laws,  with 
penalty  of  death,  and  consequently  aU  less  penalties  for  the  regu- 
lating and  preserving  of  property,  and  of  employing  the  force  of 
the  community  in  the  execution  of  such  laws,  and  in  the  defence 

654 


LOCKE'S   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  commonwealth  from  foreign  injury,  and  all  this  only  for 
the  public  good/' 

Government,  we  are  told,  is  a  remedy  for  the  inconveniences 
that  arise,  in  the  state  of  nature,  from  the  fact  that,  in  that  state, 
every  man  is  the  judge  in  his  own  cause.  But  where  the  monarch 
is  a  party  to  the  dispute,  this  is  no  remedy,  since  the  monarch  is 
both  judge  and  plaintiff.  These  considerations  lead  to  the  view 
that  governments  should  not  be  absolute,  and  that  the  judiciary 
should  be  independent  of  the  executive.  Such  arguments  had  an 
important  future  both  in  England  and  in  America,  but  for  the 
moment  we  are  not  concerned  with  them. 

By  nature,  Locke  says,  every  man  has  the  right  to  punish  attacks 
on  himself  or  his  property,  even  by  death.  There  is  political  society 
there,  and  there  only,  where  men  have  surrendered  this  right  to 
the  community  or  to  the  law. 

Absolute  monarchy  is  not  a  form  of  civil  government,  because 
there  is  no  neutral  authority  to  decide  disputes  between  the 
monarch  and  a  subject;  in  fact  the  monarch,  in  relation  to  his 
subjects,  is  still  in  a  state  of  nature.  It  is  useless  to  hope  that  being 
a  king  will  make  a  naturally  violent  man  virtuous. 

"He  that  would  have  been  insolent  and  injurious  in  the  woods 
of  America  would  not  probably  be  much  better  in  a  throne,  where 
perhaps  learning  and  religion  shall  be  found  out  to  justify  all  that 
he  shall  do  to  his  subjects,  and  the  sword  presently  silence  all  those 
that  dare  question  it." 

Absolute  monarchy  is  as  if  men  protected  themselves  against 
pole-cats  and  foxes,  "but  are  content,  nay  think  it  safety,  to  be 
devoured  by  lions." 

Civil  society  involves  the  rule  of  the  majority,  unless  it  is  agreed 
that  a  greater  number  shall  be  required.  (As,  for  example,  in  the 
United  States,  for  a  change  in  the  Constitution  or  the  ratification 
of  a  treaty.)  This  sounds  democratic,  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  Locke  assumes  the  exclusion  of  women  and  the  poor  from 
the  rights  of  citizenship.  ^, 

"The  beginning  of  politic  society  depends  upon  the  conserSef 
the  individuals  to  join  into  and  make  one  society."  It  is  argued — 
somewhat  half-heartedly— that  such  consent  must,  at  some  time, 
have  actually  taken  place,  though  it  is  admitted  that  the  origin 
of  government  antedates  history  everywhere  except  among  the 
Jews. 

655 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

The  civil  compact  which  institutes  government  binds  only  those 
who  made  it;  the  son  must  consent  afresh  to  a  compact  made  by 
his  father.  (It  is  clear  how  this  follows  from  Locke's  principles, 
but  it  is  not  very  realistic.  A  young  American  who,  on  attaining 
the  age  of  twenty-one,  announces  "I  refuse  to  be  bound  by  the 
contract  which  inaugurated  the  United  States"  will  find  himself 
in  difficulties.) 

The  power  of  the  government  by  contract,  we  are  told,  never 
extends  beyond  the  common  good.  A  moment  ago  I  quoted  a 
sentence  as  to  the  powers  of  government,  ending  "and  all  this 
only  for  the  public  good."  It  seems  not  to  have  occurred  to  Locke 
to  ask  who  was  to  be  the  judge  of  the  common  good.  Obviously, 
if  the  government  is  the  judge  it  will  always  decide  in  its  own 
favour.  Presumably  Locke  would  say  that  the  majority  of  the 
citizens  is  to  be  the  judge.  But  many  questions  have  to  be  decided 
too  quickly  for  it  to  be  possible  jto  ascertain  the  opinion  of  the 
electorate;  of  these  peace  and  war  are  perhaps  the  most  important. 
The  only  remedy  in  such  cases  is  to  allow  to  public  opinion  or 
its  representatives  some  power — such  as  impeachment — of  sub- 
sequently punishing  executive  officers  for  acts  that  are  found  to 
have  been  unpopular.  But  often  this  is  a  very  inadequate  remedy. 

I  quoted  previously  a  sentence  which  I  must  now  quote  again: 

"The  great  and  chief  end  of  men  uniting  into  commonwealths, 
and  putting  themselves  under  government,  is  the  preservation 
of  their  property." 

Consistently  with  this  doctrine  Locke  declares  that: 

"The  supreme  power  cannot  take  from  any  man  any  part  of 
his  property  without  his  own  consent." 

Still  more  surprising  is  the  statement  that,  although  military 
commanders  have  power  of  life  and  death  over  their  soldiers,  they 
have  no  power  of  taking  money.  (It  follows  that,  in  any  army,  it 
would  be  wrong  to  punish  minor  breaches  of  discipline  by  fines, 
but  permissible  to  punish  them  by  bodily  injuty,  such  as  flogging, 
s  the  absurd  lengths  to  which  Locke  is  driven  by  his 
ip  of  property.) 

The  question  of  taxation  might  be  supposed  to  raise  difficulties 
for  Locke,  but  he  perceives  npne.  The  expense  of  government,  he 
says,  must  be  borne  by  the  citizens,  but  with  their  consent,  i.e. 
with  that  of  the  majority.  But  why,  one  asks,  should  the  consent 
of  the  majority  suffice?  Every  man's  consent,  we  were  told,  is 

656 


LOCKE'S    POLITICAL    PHILOSOPHY 

necessary  to  justify  the  government  in  taking  any  part  of  his 
property.  I  suppose  his  tacit  consent  to  taxation  in  accordance 
with  majority  decision  is  presumed  to  be  involved  in  his  citizen- 
ship, which,  in  turn,  is  presumed  to  be  voluntary.  All  this  is,  of 
course,  sometimes  quite  contrary  to  the  facts.  Most  men  have  no* 
effective  liberty  of  choice  as  to  the  State  to  which  they  shall 
belong,  and  none  have  liberty,  nowadays,  to  belong  to  no  State. 
Suppose,  for  example,  you  are  a  pacifist,  and  disapprove  of  war. 
Wherever  you  live,  the  government  will  take  some  of  your  pro- 
perty for  warlike  purposes.  With  what  justice  can  you  be  com- 
pelled to  submit  to  this?  I  can  imagine  many  answers,  but  I  do 
not  think  any  of  them  are  consistent  with  Locke's  principles. 
He  thrusts  in  the  maxim  of  majority  rule  without  adequate  con- 
sideration, and  offers  no  transition  to  it  from  his  individualistic 
premisses,  except  the  mythical  social  contract. 

The  social  contract,  in  the  sepse  required,  is  mythical  even 
when,  at  some  former  period,  there  actually  was  a  contract  creating 
the  government  in  question.  The  United  States  is  a  case  in  point. 
At  the  time  when  the  Constitution  was  adopted,  men  had  liberty 
of  choice.  Even  then,  many  voted  against  it,  and  were  therefore 
not  parties  to  the  contract.  They  could,  of  course,  have  left  the 
country,  and  by  remaining  were  deemed  to  have  become  bound 
by  a  contract  to  which  they  had  not  assented.  But  in  practice  it 
is  usually  difficult  to  leave  one's  country.  And  in  the  case  of  men 
born  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  their  consent  is  even 
more  shadowy. 

The  question  of  the  rights  of  the  individual  as  against  the 
government  is  a  very  difficult  one.  It  is  too  readily  assumed  by 
democrats  that,  when  the  government  represents  the  majority,  it 
has  a  right  to  coerce  the  minority.  Up  to  a  point,  this  must  be 
true,  since  coercion  is  of  the  essence  of  government.  But  the 
divine  right  of  majorities,  if  pressed  too  far,  may  become  almost 
as  tyrannical  as  the  divine  right  of  kings.  Locke  says  little  on  this 
subject  in  his  Essays  on  Government,  but  considers  it  at  some  teHgt^ 
in  his  Utters  on  Toleration,  where  he  argues  that  no  believer  in 
God  should  be  penalized  on  account  of  his  religious  opinj 

The  theory  that  government  was  qpated  by 
course,  pre-cvolutionary.  Government,  like  i 
cough,  must  have  grown  up  gradually,  though, 
be  introduced  suddenly  into  new  regions  sudflfoAfc  South  Sea 

657 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Islands.  Before  men  had  studied  anthropology  they  had  no  idea 
of  the  psychological  mechanisms  involved  in  the  beginnings  of 
government,  or  of  the  fantastic  reasons  which  lead  men  to  adopt 
institutions  and  customs  that  subsequently  prove  useful.  But  as  a 
legal  fiction,  to  justify  government,  the  theory  of  the  social  contract 
has  some  measure  of  truth. 


D.   PROPERTY 

From  what  has  been  said  hitherto  about  Locke's  views  on 
property,  it  might  seem  as  though  he  were  the  champion  of  the 
great  capitalists  against  both  their  social  superiors  and  their  social 
inferiors,  but  this  would  be  only  a  half-truth.  One  finds  in  him, 
side  by  side  and  unreconciled,  doctrines  which  foreshadow  those 
of  developed  capitalism  and  doctrines  which  adumbrate  a  more 
nearly  socialistic  outlook.  It  is  easy  to  misrepresent  him  by  one- 
sided quotations,  on  this  topic  as  on  most  others. 

I  will  put  down,  in  the  order  in  which  they  occur,  Locke's 
principal  dicta  on  the  subject  of  property. 

We  are  told  first  that  every  man  has  private  property  in  the 
produce  of  his  own  labour— or,  at  least,  should  have.  In  pre- 
industrial  days  this  maxim  was  not  so  unrealistic  as  it  has  since 
become.  Urban  production  was  mainly  by  handicraftsmen  who 
owned  their  tools  and  sold  their  produce.  As  for  agricultural  pro- 
duction, it  was  held  by  the  school  to  which  Locke  belonged  that 
peasant  proprietorship  would  be  the  best  system.  He  states  that 
a  man  may  own  as  much  land  as  he  can  till,  but  not  more.  Me 
seems  blandly  unaware  that,  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe,  the 
realization  of  this  programme  would  be  hardly  possible  without 
a  bloody  revolution.  Everywhere  the  bulk  of  agricultural  land 
belonged  to  aristocrats,  who  exacted  from  the  farmers  either  a 
fixed  proportion  of  the  produce  (often  a  half),  or  a  rent  which 
could  be  varied  from  time  to  time.  The  former  system  prevailed 
j^ffance  and  Italy,  the  latter  in  England.  Farther  East,  in  Russia 
and  Prussia,  the  workers  were  serfs,  who  worked  for  the  land* 
owner  and  had  virtually  no  rights.  The  old  system  was  ended  in 
France  by  the  Frcpch  Revolution,  in  northern  Italy  and  western 
Germany  by  the  conquests  of  the  French  revolutionary  armies. 
Serfdom  was  abolished  in  Prussia  as  a  result  of  defeat  by  Napoleon, 
and  in  Russia  as  a  result  of  defeat  in  the  Crimean  War.  But  in 

658 


LOCKE'S   POLITICAL    PHILOSOPHY 

both  countries  the  aristocrats  retained  their  landed  estates.  In 
East  Prussia,  this  system,  though  drastically  controlled  by  the 
Nazis,  survived  till  the  present  day;  in  Russia  and  what  are 
now  Lithuania,  Latvia,  and  Esthonia,  the  aristocrats  were  dis- 
possessed by  the  Russian  Revolution.  In  Hungary  and  Poland 
they  survived ;  in  Eastern  Poland  they  were  "liquidated"  by  the 
Soviet  Government  in  1940.  The  Soviet  Government,  however, 
has  done  everything  in  its  power  to  substitute  collective  fanning 
rather  than  peasant  proprietorship  throughout  Russia. 

In  England  the  development  has  been  more  complex.  In  Locke's 
day,  the  position  of  the  rural  labourer  was  mitigated  by  the 
existence  of  commons,  on  which  he  had  important  rights,  which 
enabled  him  to  raise  a  considerable  part  of  his  food  himself. 
This  system  was  a  survival  from  the  Middle  Ages,  and  was 
viewed  with  disapproval  by  modern-minded  men,  who  pointed 
out  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  production  it  was  wasteful. 
Accordingly,  there  was  a  movement  for  enclosure  of  commons, 
which  began  under  Henry  VIII  and  continued  under  Cromwell, 
but  did  not  become  strong  until  about  1750.  From  that  time 
onward,  for  about  ninety  years,  one  common  after  another  was 
enclosed  and  handed  over  to  the  local  landowners.  Each  enclosure 
required  an  Act  of  Parliament,  and  the  aristocrats  who  controlled 
both  Houses  of  Parliament  ruthlessly  used  their  legislative  power 
to  enrich  themselves,  while  thrusting  agricultural  labourers  down 
to  the  verge  of  starvation.  Gradually,  owing  to  the  growth  of 
industry,  the  position  of  agricultural  labourers  improved,  since 
otherwise  they  could  not  be  prevented  from  migrating  to  the 
towns.  At  present,  as  a  result  of  the  taxation  introduced  by  Lloyd 
George,  the  aristocrats  have  been  compelled  to  part  with  most  of 
their  rural  property.  But  those  who  also  own  urban  or  industrial 
property  have  been  able  to  hang  on  to  their  estates.  There  has 
been  no  sudden  revolution,  but  a  gradual  transition  which  is 
still  in  progress.  At  present,  those  aristocrats  who  are  still  rich 
owe  their  wealth  to  urban  or  industrial  property. 

This  long  development  may  be  regarded,  except  in  Russia,  as 
in  accordance  with  Locke's  principles.  The  odd  thing  is  that  he 
could  announce  doctrines  requiring  90  much  revolution  before 
they  could  be  put  into  effect,  and  yet  show  no  sign  that  he  thought 
the  system  existing  in  his  day  unjust,  or  that  he  was  aware  of  its 
being  different  from  the  system  that  be  advocated. 

659 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

The  labour  theory  of  value — i.e.  the  doctrine  that  the  value  of 
a  product  depends  upon  the  labour  expended  upon  it — which 
some  attribute  to  Karl  Marx  and  others  to  Ricardo,  is  to  be  found 
in  Locke,  and  was  suggested  to  him  by  a  line  of  predecessors 
stretching  back  to  Aquinas.  As  Tawney  says,  summarizing 
scholastic  doctrine: 

"The  essence  of  the  argument  was  that  payment  may  properly 
be  demanded  by  the  craftsmen  who  make  the  goods,  or  by  the 
merchants  who  transport  them,  for  both  labour  in  their  vocation 
and  serve  the  common  need.  The  unpardonable  sin  is  that  of  the 
speculator  or  middleman,  who  snatches  private  gain  by  the 
exploitation  of  public  necessities.  The  true  descendant  of  the 
doctrines  of  Aquinas  is  the  labour  theory  of  value.  The  last  of  the 
schoolmen  was  Karl  Marx/' 

The  labour  theory  of  value  has  two  aspects,  one  ethical,  the 
other  economic.  That  is  to  say,  it  may  assert  that  the  value  of  a 
product  ought  to  be  proportional  to  the  labour  expended  on  it,  or 
that  in  fact  the  labour  regulates  the  price.  The  latter  doctrine  is 
only  approximately  true,  as  Locke  recognizes.  Nine  tenths  of 
value,  he  says,  is  due  to  labour;  but  as  to  the  other  tenth  he  says 
nothing.  It  is  labour,  he  says,  that  puts  the  difference  of  value  on 
everything.  He  instances  land  in  America  occupied  by  Indians, 
which  has  almost  no  value  because  the  Indians  do  not  cultivate 
it.  He  does  not  seem  to  realize  that  land  may  acquire  value  as  soon 
as  people  are  willing  to  work  on  it,  and  before  they  have  actually 
done  so.  If  you  own  a  piece  of  desert  land  on  which  somebody 
else  finds  oil,  you  can  sell  it  for  a  good  price  without  doing  any 
work  on  it.  As  was  natural  in  his  day,  he  does  not  think  of  such 
cases,  but  only  of  agriculture.  Peasant  proprietorship,  which  he 
favours,  is  inapplicable  to  such  things  as  large-scale  mining, 
which  require  expensive  apparatus  and  many  workers. 

The  principle  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  the  produce  of  his  own 
labour  is  useless  in  an  industrial  civilization.  Suppose  you  are 
gptfrioyed  in  one  operation  in  the  manufacture  of  Ford  cars,  how 
is  anyone  to  estimate  what  proportion  of  the  total  output  is  due 
to  your  labour?  Or  suppose  you  are  employed  by  a  railway  com- 
pany  in  the  transport  of  goods,  who  can  decide  what  share  you 
shall  be  deemed  to  have  in  the  production  of  the  goods?  Such 
considerations  have  led  those  who  wish  to  prevent  the  exploitation 
of  labour  to  abandon  the  principle  of  the  right  to  your  own  produce 

660 


LOCKE'S   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

in  favour  of  more  socialistic  methods  of  organizing  production  and 
distribution. 

The  labour  theory  of  value  has  usually  been  advocated  from 
hostility  to  some  class  regarded  as  predatory.  The  Schoolmen,  in 
so  far  as  they  held  it,  did  so  from  opposition  to  usurers,  who 
were  mostly  Jews.  Ricardo  held  it  in  opposition  to  landowners, 
Marx  to  capitalists.  But  Locke  seems  to  have  held  it  in  a  vacuum 
without  hostility  to  any  class.  His  only  hostility  is  to  monarchs, 
but  this  is  unconnected  with  his  views  on  value. 

Some  of  Locke's  opinions  are  so  odd  that  I  cannot  see  how  to 
make  them  sound  sensible.  He  says  that  a  man  must  not  have  so 
many  plums  that  they  are  bound  to  go  bad  before  he  and  his  family 
can  eat  them ;  but  he  may  have  as  much  gold  and  as  many  diamonds 
as  he  can  lawfully  get,  because  gold  and  diamonds  do  not  go  bad. 
It  does  not  occur  to  him  that  the  man  who  has  the  plums  might 
sell  them  before  they  go  bad. 

He  makes  a  great  deal  of  the  imperishable  character  of  the 
precious  metals,  which,  he  says,  are  the  source  of  money  and 
inequality  of  fortune.  He  seems,  in  an  abstract  and  academic  way, 
to  regret  economic  inequality,  but  he  certainly  does  not  think 
that  it  would  be  wise  to  take  such  measures  as  might  prevent  it. 
No  doubt  he  was  impressed,  as  all  the  men  of  his  time  were,  by 
the  gains  to  civilization  that  were  due  to  rich  men,  chiefly  as 
patrons  of  art  and  letters.  The  same  attitude  exists  in  modern 
America,  where  science  and  art  are  largely  dependent  upon  the 
benefactions  of  the  very  rich.  To  some  extent,  civilization  is 
furthered  by  social  injustice.  This  fact  is  the  basis  of  what  is 
most  respectable  in  conservatism. 

E.  CHECKS  AND  BALANCES 

The  doctrine  that  the  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  func- 
tions of  government  should  be  kept  separate  is  characteristic  of 
liberalism;  it  arose  in  England  in  the  course  of  resistance  tfrtfce 
Stuarts,  and  is  clearly  formulated  by  Locke,  at  least  as  regards 
the  legislature  and  the  executive.  The  legislative  and  executive 
must  be  separate,  he  says,  to  prevent  abuse  of  power.  It  must,  of 
course,  be  understood  that  when  he  speaks  of  the  legislature  he 
means  Parliament,  and  when  he  speaks  of  the  executive  he  means 
the  king;  at  least  this  is  what  he  means  emotionally,  whatever  he 

661 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

may  logically  intend  to  mean.  Accordingly  he  thinks  of 
the  legislature  as  virtuous,  while  the  executive  is  usually 
wicked. 

The  legislative,  he  says,  must  be  supreme,  except  that  it  must 
be  removable  by  the  community.  It  is  implied  that,  like  the 
English  House  of  Commons,  the  legislative  is  to  be  elected  from 
time  to  time  by  popular  vote.  The  condition  that  the  legislative 
is  to  be  removable  by  the  people,  if  taken  seriously,  condemns  the 
pan  allowed  by  the  British  Constitution  in  Locke's  day  to  King 
and  Lords  as  part  of  the  legislative  power. 

In  all  well-framed  governments,  Locke  says,  the  legislative  and 
executive  are  separate.  The  question  therefore  arises:  what  is  to 
be  done  when  they  conflict  ?  If  the  executive  fails  to  summon  the 
legislative  at  the  proper  times,  we  are  told,  the  executive  is  at 
war  with  the  people,  and  may  be  removed  by  force.  This  is 
obviously  a  view  suggested  by  what  happened  under  Charles  I. 
From  1628  to  1640  he  tried  to  govern  without  Parliament;  this 
sort  of  thing,  Locke  feels,  must  be  prevented,  by  civil  war  if 
necessary. 

"Force,"  he  says,  "is  to  be  opposed  to  nothing  but  unjust  and 
unlawful  force."  This  principle  is  useless  in  practice  unless  there 
exists  some  body  with  the  legal  right  to  pronounce  when  force  is 
"unjust  and  unlawful."  Charles  I's  attempt  to  collect  ship-money 
without  the  consent  of  Parliament  was  declared  by  his  opponents 
to  be  "unjust  and  unlawful,"  and  by  him  to  be  just  and  lawful. 
Only  the  military  issue  of  the  Civil  War  proved  that  his  inter- 
pretation of  the  Constitution  was  the  wrong  one.  The  same  thing 
happened  in  the  American  Civil  War.  Had  States  the  right  to 
secede?  No  one  knew,  and  only  the  victory  of  the  North  decided 
the  legal  question.  The  belief,  which  one  finds  in  Ixickc  and  in 
most  writers  of  his  time,  that  any  honest  man  can  know  what  is 
just  and  lawful,  is  one  that  does  not  allow  for  the  strength  of  party 
bias  on  both  sides,  or  for  the  difficulty  of  establishing  a  tribunal, 
u4iAher  outwardly  or  in  men's  consciences,  that  shall  be  capable 
of  pronouncing  authoritatively  on  vexed  questions.  In  practice, 
such  questions,  if  sufficiently  important,  are  decided  simply  by 
power,  not  by  justice  and  law. 

To  some  degree,  though  in  veiled  language,  Locke  recognizes 
this  fact  In  a  dispute  between  legislative  and  executive,  he  says 
there  is,  in  certain  cases,  no  judge  under  Heaven.  Since  Heaven 

662 


LOCKE'S   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

does  not  make  explicit  pronouncements,  this  means,  in  effect, 
that  a  decision  can  only  be  reached  by  fighting,  since  it  is  assumed 
that  Heaven  will  give  the  victory  to  the  better  cause.  Some 
such  view  is  essential  to  any  doctrine  that  divides  governmental 
power.  Where  such  a  doctrine  is  embodied  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, the  only  way  to  avoid  occasional  civil  war  is  to  practise 
compromise  and  common  sense.  But  compromise  and  common 
sense  are  habits  of  mind,  and  cannot  be  embodied  in  a  written 
constitution. 

It  is  surprising  that  Locke  says  nothing  about  the  judiciary, 
although  this  was  a  burning  question  in  his  day.  Until  the  Revo- 
lution, judges  could  at  any  moment  be  dismissed  by  the  king; 
consequently  they  condemned  his  enemies  and  acquitted  his 
friends.  After  the  Revolution,  they  were  made  irremovable  except 
by  an  Address  from  both  Houses  of  Parliament.  It  was  thought 
that  this  would  cause  their  decisions  to  be  guided  by  the  law;  in 
fact,  in  cases  involving  party  spirit,  it  has  merely  substituted 
the  judge's  prejudice  for  the  king's.  However  that  may  be,  wher- 
ever the  principle  of  checks  and  balances  prevailed  the  judiciary 
became  a  third  independent  branch  of  government  alongside  of 
the  legislative  and  executive.  The  most  noteworthy  example  is 
the  United  States'  Supreme  Court. 

The  history  of  the  doctrine  of  checks  and  balances  has  been 
interesting. 

In  England,  the  country  of  its  origin,  it  was  intended  to  limit 
the  power  of  the  king,  who,  until  the  Revolution,  had  complete 
control  of  the  executive.  Gradually,  however,  the  executive  became 
dependent  upon  Parliament,  since  it  was  impossible  for  a  ministry 
to  carry  on  without  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
executive  thus  became,  in  effect,  a  committee  chosen  in  fact, 
though  not  in  form,  by  Parliament,  with  the  result  that  legislative 
and  executive  powers  became  gradually  less  and  less  separate. 
During  the  last  fifty  years  or  so,  a  further  development  took  place, 
owing  to  the  Prime  Minister's  power  of  dissolution  and  tt  the 
increasing  strictness  of  party  discipline.  The  majority  in  Parlia- 
ment now  decides  which  party  shall  be  in  power,  but,  having 
decided  that,  it  cannot  in  practice  decide  anything  else.  Proposed 
legislation  is  hardly  ever  enacted  unless  introduced  by  govern- 
ment. Thus  the  government  is  both  legislative  and  executive, 
and  its  power  is  only  limited  by  the  need  of  occasional  general 

663 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

elections.  This  system  is,  of  course,  totally  contrary  to  Locke's 
principles. 

In  France,  where  the  doctrine  was  preached  with  great  force 
by  Montesquieu,  it  was  held  by  the  more  moderate  parties  in  the 
French  Revolution,  but  was  swept  into  temporary  oblivion  by  the 
victory  of  the  Jacobins.  Napoleon  naturally  had  no  use  for  it,  but 
it  was  revived  at  the  Restoration,  to  disappear  again  with  the  rise 
of  Napoleon  III.  It  was  again  revived  in  1871,  and  led  to  the 
adoption  of  a  constitution  in  which  the  President  had  very  little 
power  and  the  government  could  not  dissolve  the  Chambers. 
The  result  was  to  give  great  power  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
both  as  against  the  government  and  as  against  the  electorate. 
There  was  more  division  of  powers  than  in  modern  England,  but 
less  than  there  should  be  on  Locke's  principles,  since  the  legis- 
lature overshadowed  the  executive.  What  the  French  Constitution 
will  be  after  the  present  war  it  is  impossible  to  foresee. 

The  country  where  Locke's  principle  of  the  division  of  powers 
has  found  its  fullest  application  is  the  United  States,  where  the 
President  and  Congress  are  wholly  independent  of  each  other, 
and  the  Supreme  Court  is  independent  of  both.  Inadvertently,  the 
Constitution  made  the  Supreme  Court  a  branch  of  the  legislature, 
since  nothing  is  a  law  if  the  Supreme  Court  says  it  is  not.  The 
fact  that  its  powers  are  nominally  only  interpretative  in  reality 
increases  those  powers,  since  it  makes  it  difficult  to  criticize  what 
are  supposed  to  be  purely  legal  decisions.  It  says  a  very  great 
deal  for  the  political  sagacity  of  Americans  that  this  Constitution 
has  only  once  led  to  armed  conflict. 

Locke's  political  philosophy  was,  on  the  whole,  adequate  and 
useful  until  the  industrial  revolution.  Since  then,  it  has  been 
increasingly  unable  to  tackle  the  important  problems.  The  power 
of  property,  as  embodied  in  vast  corporations,  grew  beyond  any- 
thing imagined  by  Locke.  The  necessary  functions  of  the  State— 
for  example,  in  education — increased  enormously.  Nationalism 
bjoufent  about  an  alliance,  sometimes  an  amalgamation,  of  econo- 
mic and  political  power,  making  war  the  principal  means  of 
competition.  The  single  separate  citizen  has  no  longer  the  power 
and  independence  that  he  had  in  Locke's  speculations.  Our  age 
is  one  of  organization,  and  its  conflicts  are  between  organizations, 
not  between  separate  individuals.  The  state  of  nature,  as  Locke 
says,  still  exists  as  between  States.  A  new  international  Social 

664 


LOCKERS    POLITICAL    PHILOSOPHY 

Contract  is  necessary  before  we  can  enjoy  the  promised  benefits 
of  government.  When  once  an  international  government  has  been 
created,  much  of  Locke's  political  philosophy  will  again  become 
applicable,  though  not  the  part  of  it  that  deals  with  private 
property. 


66  ^ 


Chapter  XV 
LOCKE'S    INFLUENCE 

FROM  the  time  of  Locke  down  to  the  present  day,  there  have 
been  in  Europe  two  main  types  of  philosophy,  and  one  of 
these  owes  both  its  doctrines  and  its  method  to  Locke,  while 
the  other  was  derived  first  from  Descartes  and  then  from  Kant. 
Kant  himself  thought  that  he  had  made  a  synthesis  of  the  philo- 
sophy derived  from  Descartes  and  that  derived  from  Locke ;  but 
this  cannot  be  admitted,  at  least  from  a  historical  point  of  view, 
for  the  followers  of  Kant  were  in  the  Cartesian,  not  the  Lockean, 
tradition.  The  heirs  of  Locke  are, first,  Berkeley  and  Hume ;  second, 
those  of  the  French  philosophes  who  did  not  belong  to  the  school 
of  Rousseau;  third,  Bentham  and  the  philosophical  Radicals; 
fourth,  with  important  accretions  from  Continental  philosophy, 
Marx  and  his  disciples.  But  Marx's  system  is  eclectic,  and  any 
simple  statement  about  it  is  almost  sure  to  be  false ;  I  will,  therefore, 
leave  him  on  one  side  until  I  come  to  consider  him  in  detail. 

In  Locke's  own  day,  his  chief  philosophical  opponents  were  the 
Cartesians  and  Leibniz.  Quite  illogically,  the  victory  of  Locke's 
philosophy  in  England  and  France  was  largely  due  to  the  prestige 
of  Newton.  Descartes'  authority  as  a  philosopher  was  enhanced, 
in  his  own  day,  by  his  work  in  mathematics  and  natural  philo- 
sophy. But  his  doctrine  of  vortices  was  definitely  inferior  to 
Newton's  law  of  gravitation  as  an  explanation  of  the  solar  system. 
The  victory  of  the  Newtonian  cosmogony  diminished  men's 
respect  for  Descartes  and  increased  their  respect  for  England. 
Both  these  causes  inclined  men  favourably  towards  Locke.  In 
eighteenth-century  France,  where  the  intellectuals  were  in 
rebellion  against  an  antiquated,  corrupt,  and  effete  despotism, 
they  regarded  England  as  the  home  of  freedom,  and  were  pre- 
disposed in  favour  of  Locke's  philosophy  by  his  political  doctrines. 
In  the  last  times  before  the  Revolution,  Locke's  influence  in 
France  was  reinforced  bgr  that  of  Hume,  who  lived  for  a  time  in 
France  and  was  personally-acquainted  with  many  of  the  leading 
tavants. 

The  diief  transmitter  of  English  influence  to  France  was 
Voltaire. 

666 


LOCKE'S  INFLUENCE 

In  England,  the  philosophical  followers  of  Locke  until  the 
French  Revolution,  took  no  interest  in  his  political  doctrines. 
Berkeley  was  a  bishop  not  much  interested  in  politics;  Hume  was 
a  Tory  who  followed  the  lead  of  Bolingbroke.  England  was 
politically  quiescent  in  their  time,  and  a  philosopher  could  be 
content  to  theorize  without  troubling  himself  about  the  state  of 
the  world.  The  French  Revolution  changed  this,  and  forced  the 
best  minds  into  opposition  to  the  status  quo.  Nevertheless,  the 
tradition  in  pare  philosophy  remained  unbroken.  Shelley's 
Necessity  of  Atheism,  for  which  he  was  expelled  from  Oxford,  is 
full  of  Locke's  influence.1 

Until  the  publication  of  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  in  1781, 
it  might  have  seemed  as  if  the  older  philosophical  tradition  of 
Descartes,  Spinoza,  and  Leibniz  were  being  definitely  overcome 
by  the  newer  empirical  method.  This  newer  method,  however, 
had  never  prevailed  in  German  universities,  and  after  1792  it  was 
held  responsible  for  the  horrors  of  the  Revolution.  Recanting 
revolutionaries  such  as  Coleridge  found  in  Kant  an  intellectual 
support  for  their  opposition  to  French  atheism.  The  Germans,  in 
their  resistance  to  the  French,  were  glad  to  have  a  German 
philosophy  to  uphold  them.  Even  the  French,  after  the  fall  of 
Napoleon,  were  glad  of  any  weapon  against  Jacobinism.  All  these 
factors  favoured  Kant. 

Kant,  like  Darwin,  gave  rise  to  a  movement  which  he  would 
have  detested.  Kant  was  a  liberal,  a  democrat,  a  pacifist,  but  those 
who  professed  to  develop  his  philosophy  were  none  of  these  things. 
Or,  if  they  still  called  themselves  Liberals,  they  were  Liberals  of 
a  new  species.  Since  Rousseau  and  Kant,  there  have  been  two 
schools  of  liberalism,  which  may  be  distinguished  as  the  hard- 
headed  and  the  soft-hearted.  The  hard-headed  developed,  through 
Bent  ham,  Ricardo,  and  Marx,  by  logical  stages  into  Stalin;  the 
soft-hearted,  by  other  logical  stages,  through  Fichte,  Byron, 
Carlylc,  and  Nietzsche,  into  Hitler.  This  statement,  of  course,  is 
too  schcmat  c  to  be  quite  true,  but  it  may  serve  as  a  map*and  a 
mnemonic.  The  stages  in  the  evolution  of  ideas  have  had  almost 
the  quality  of  the  Hegelian  dialectic:  doctrines  have  developed, 
by  steps  that  each  seem  natural,  into  their  opposites.  But  the 

1  Take,  e.g.,  Shelley's  dictum;  "When  a  proposition  is  offered  to  the 
mind,  it  perceives  the  agreement  or  disagreement  of  the  ideas  of  which 
it  is  composed." 

667 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

developments  have  not  been  due  solely  to  the  inherent  movement 
of  ideas;  they  have  been  governed,  throughout,  by  external  cir- 
cumstances and  the  reflection  of  these  circumstances  in  human 
emotions.  That  this  is  the  case  may  be  made  evident  by  one 
outstanding  fact:  that  the  ideas  of  liberalism  have  undergone  no 
part  of  this  development  in  America,  where  they  remain  to  this 
day  as  in  Locke. 

Leaving  politics  on  one  side,  let  us  examine  the  differences 
between  the  two  schools  of  philosophy,  which  may  be  broadly 
distinguished  as  the  Continental  and  the  British  respectively. 

There  is  first  of  all  a  difference  of  method.  British  philosophy  is 
more  detailed  and  piecemeal  than  that  of  the  Continent ;  when  it 
allows  itself  some  general  principle,  it  sets  to  work  to  prove  it 
inductively  by  examining  its  various  applications.  Thus  Hume, 
after  announcing  that  there  is  no  idea  without  an  antecedent  im- 
pression, immediately  proceeds  to  consider  the  following  objec- 
tion: suppose  you  are  seeing  two  shades  of  colour  which  are 
similar  but  not  identical,  and  suppose  you  have  never  seen  a  shade 
of  colour  intermediate  between  the  two,  can  you,  nevertheless, 
imagine  such  a  shade?  He  does  not  decide  the  question,  and 
considers  that  a  decision  adverse  to  his  general  principle  would 
not  be  fatal  to  him,  because  his  principle  is  not  logical  but 
empirical.  When — to  take  a  contrast — Leibniz  wants  to  establish 
his  monadology,  he  argues,  roughly,  as  follows:  Whatever  is 
complex  must  be  composed  of  simple  parts ;  what  is  simple  cannot 
be  extended;  therefore  everything  is  composed  of  parts  having 
no  extension.  But  what  is  not  extended  is  not  matter.  Therefore 
the  ultimate  constituents  of  things  are  not  material,  and,  if  not 
material,  then  mental.  Consequently  a  table  is  really  a  colony  of 
souls. 

The  difference  of  method,  here,  may  be  characterized  as  follows: 
In  Locke  or  Hume,  a  comparatively  modest  conclusion  is  drawn 
from  a  broad  survey  of  many  facts,  whereas  in  Leibniz  a  vast 
edifice  of  deduction  is  pyramided  upon  a  pin-point  of  logical 
principle.  In  Leibniz,  if  the  principle  is  completely  true  and  the 
deductions  are  entirely  valid,  all  is  well;  but  the  structure  is 
unstable,  and  the  slightest  flaw  anywhere  brings  it  down  in  ruins. 
In  Locke  or  Hume,  on  the  contrary,  the  base  of  the  pyramid  is 
on  the  solid  ground  of  observed  fact,  and  the  pyramid  tapers 
upward,  not  downward;  consequently  the  equilibrium  is  stable, 

668 


LOCKE'S   INFLUENCE 

and  a  flaw  here  or  there  can  be  rectified  without  total  disaster. 
This  difference  of  method  survived  Kant's  attempt  to  incorporate 
something  of  the  empirical  philosophy:  from  Descartes  to  Hegel 
on  the  one  side,  and  from  Locke  to  John  Stuart  Mill  on  the  other, 
it  remains  unvarying. 

The  difference  in  method  is  connected  with  various  other 
differences.  Let  us  take  first  metaphysics. 

Descartes  offered  metaphysical  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God, 
of  which  the  most  important  had  been  invented  in  the  eleventh 
century  by  St.  Anselm,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Spinoza  had 
a  pantheistic  God,  who  seemed  to  the  orthodox  to  be  no  God  at 
all;  however  that  may  be,  Spinoza's  arguments  were  essentially 
metaphysical,  and  are  traceable  (though  he  may  not  have  realized 
this)  to  the  doctrine  that  every  proposition  must  have  a  subject 
and  a  predicate.  Leibniz's  metaphysics  had  the  same  source. 

In  Locke,  the  philosophical  direction  that  he  inaugurated  is 
not  yet  fully  developed;  he  accepts  as  valid  Descartes'  arguments 
as  to  the  existence  of  God.  Berkeley  invented  a  wholly  new  argu- 
ment; but  Hume — in  whom  the  new  philosophy  comes  to  com- 
pletion— rejected  metaphysics  entirely,  and  held  that  nothing  can 
be  discovered  by  reasoning  on  the  subjects  with  which  metaphysics 
is  concerned.  This  view  persisted  in  the  empirical  school,  while 
the  opposite  view,  somewhat  modified,  persisted  in  Kant  and  his 
disciples. 

In  ethics,  there  is  a  similar  division  between  the  two  schools. 

Locke,  as  we  saw,  believed  pleasure  to  be  the  good,  and  this  was 
the  prevalent  view  among  empiricists  throughout  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries.  Their  opponents,  on  the  contrary, 
despised  pleasure  as  ignoble,  and  had  various  systems  of  ethics 
which  seemed  more  exalted.  Hobbes  valued  power,  and  Spinoza, 
up  to  a  point,  agreed  until  Hobbes.  There  are  in  Spinoza  two 
unreconciled  views  on  ethics,  one  that  of  Hobbes,  the  other  that 
the  good  consists  in  mystic  union  with  God.  Leibniz  made  no 
important  contribution  to  ethics,  but  Kant  made  ethics  supreme, 
and  derived  his  metaphysics  from  ethical  premisses.  Kant's  ethic 
is  important,  because  it  is  anti-utilitarian,  a  priori,  and  what  is 
called  "noble/1  • 

Kant  says  that  if  you  are  kind  to  your  brother  because  you  are 
fond  of  him,  you  have  no  moral  merit:  an  act  only  has  moral  merit 
when  it  is  performed  because  the  moral  law  enjoins  it.  Although 

669 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

pleasure  is  not  the  good,  it  is  nevertheless  unjust — so  Kant 
maintains— that  the  virtuous  should  suffer.  Since  this  often 
happens  in  this  world,  there  must  be  another  world  where  they 
are  rewarded  after  death,  and  there  must  be  a  God  to  secure 
justice  in  the  life  hereafter.  He  rejects  all  the  old  metaphysical 
arguments  for  God  and  immortality,  but  considers  his  new  ethical 
argument  irrefutable. 

Kant  himself  was  a  man  whose  outlook  on  practical  affairs  was 
kindly  and  humanitarian,  but  the  same  cannot  be  said  of  most  of 
those  who  rejected  happiness  as  the  good.  The  sort  of  ethic  that 
is  called  "noble"  is  less  associated  with  attempts  to  improve  the 
world  than  is  the  more  mundane  view  that  we  should  seek  to 
make  men  happier.  This  is  not  surprising.  Contempt  for  happiness 
is  easier  when  the  happiness  is  other  people's  than  when  it  is  our 
own.  Usually  the  substitute  for  happiness  is  some  form  of  heroism. 
This  affords  unconscious  outlets  for  the  impulse  to  power,  and 
abundant  excuses  for  cruelty.  Or,  again,  what  is  valued  may  be 
strong  emotion;  this  was  the  case  with  the  romantics.  This  led 
to  a  toleration  of  such  passions  as  hatred  and  revenge;  Byron's 
heroes  are  typical,  and  are  never  persons  of  exemplary  behaviour. 
The  men  who  did  most  to  promote  human  happiness  were — as 
might  have  been  expected — those  who  thought  happiness  im- 
portant, not  those  who  despised  it  in  comparison  with  something 
more  "sublime."  Moreover,  a  man's  ethic  usually  reflects  his 
character,  and  benevolence  leads  to  a  desire  for  the  general 
happiness.  Thus  the  men  who  thought  happiness  the  end  of  life 
tended  to  be  the  more  benevolent,  while  those  who  proposed 
other  ends  were  often  dominated,  unconsciously,  by  cruelty  or 
love  of  power. 

These  ethical  differences  are  associated,  usually  though  not 
invariably,  with  differences  in  politics.  Locke,  as  we  saw,  is 
tentative  in  his  beliefs,  not  at  all  authoritarian,  and  willing  to 
leave  every  question  to  be  decided  by  free  discussion.  The  result, 
both'm  his  case  and  in  that  of  his  followers,  was  a  belief  in  reform, 
but  of  a  gradual  sort.  Since  their  systems  of  thought  were  piece- 
meal, and  the  result  of  separate  investigations  of  many  different 
questions,  their  political  vi* ws  tended  naturally  to  have  the  same 
character.  They  fought  shy  of  large  programmes  all  cut  out  of 
one  block,  and  preferred  to  consider  each  question  on  its  merits. 
In  politics,  as  in  philosophy,  they  were  tentative  and  experi- 

670 


LOCKE'S  INFLUENCE 

mental.  Their  opponents,  on  the  other  hand,  who  thought  they 
could  "grasp  this  sorry  scheme  of  things  entire/'  were  much 
more  willing  to  "shatter  it  to  bits  and  then  remould  it  nearer  to 
the  heart's  desire."  They  might  do  this  as  revolutionaries,  or  as 
men  who  wished  to  increase  the  authority  of  the  powers  that  be; 
in  either  case,  they  did  not  shrink  from  violence  in  pursuit  of 
vast  objectives,  and  they  condemned  love  of  peace  as  ignoble. 

The  great  political  defect  of  Locke  and  his  disciples,  from  a 
modern  point  of  view,  was  their  worship  of  property.  But  those 
who  criticized  them  on  this  account  often  did  so  in  the  interest  of 
classes  that  were  more  harmful  than  the  capitalists,  such  as 
monarchs,  aristocrats,  and  militarists.  The  aristocratic  landowner, 
whose  income  comes  to  him  without  effort  and  in  accordance 
with  immemorial  custom,  does  not  think  of  himself  as  a  money 
grubber,  and  is  not  so  thought  of  by  men  who  do  not  look  below 
the  picturesque  surface.  The  business  man,  on  the  contrary,  is 
engaged  in  the  conscious  pursuit  of  wealth,  and  while  his  activities 
were  more  or  less  novel  they  roused  a  resentment  not  felt  towards 
the  gentlemanly  exactions  of  the  landowner.  That  is  to  say,  this 
was  the  case  with  middle-class  writers  and  those  who  read  them; 
it  was  not  the  case  with  the  peasants,  as  appeared  in  the  French 
and  Russian  Revolutions.  But  peasants  are  inarticulate. 

Most  of  the  opponents  of  Locke's  school  had  an  admiration  for 
war,  as  being  heroic  and  involving  a  contempt  for  comfort  and  ease. 
Those  who  adopted  a  utilitarian  ethic,  on  the  contrary,  tended  to 
regard  most  wars  as  folly.  This,  again,  at  least  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  brought  them  into  alliance  with  the  capitalists,  who 
disliked  wars  because  they  interfered  with  trade.  The  capitalists' 
motive  was,  of  course,  pure  self-interest,  but  it  led  to  views  more 
consonant  with  the  general  interest  than  those  of  militarists  and 
their  literary  supporters.  The  attitude  of  capitalists  to  war,  it  is 
true,  has  fluctuated.  England's  wars  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
except  the  American  war,  were  on  the  whole  profitable,  and  were 
supported  by  business  men ;  but  throughout  the  nineteenth  century 
until  its  last  years,  they  favoured  peace.  In  modern  times,  big 
business,  everywhere,  has  come  into  such  intimate  relations  with 
the  national  State  that  the  situation  i»  greatly  changed.  But  even 
now,  both  in  England  and  in  America,  big  business  an  the  whole 
dislikes  war. 

Enlightened  self-interest  is,  of  course,  not  the  loftiest  of  motives, 

671 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

but  those  who  decry  it  often  substitute,  by  accident  or  design, 
motives  which  are  much  worse,  such  as  hatred,  envy,  and  love 
of  power.  On  the  whole,  the  school  which  owed  its  origin  to 
Locke,  and  which  preached  enlightened  self-interest,  did  more  to 
increase  human  happiness,  and  less  to  increase  human  misery, 
than  was  done  by  the  schools  which  despised  it  in  the  name  of 
heroism  and  self-sacrifice.  I  do  not  forget  the  horrors  of  early 
industrialism,  but  these,  after  all,  were  mitigated  within  the 
system.  And  I  set  against  them  Russian  sertdom,  the  evils  of  war 
and  its  aftermath  of  fear  and  hatred,  and  the  inevitable  obscu- 
rantism of  those  who  attempt  to  preserve  ancient  systems  when 
they  have  lost  their  vitality. 


672 


Chapter  XVI 
BERKELEY 

GEORGE  BERKELEY  (1685-1753)  is  important  in  philo- 
sophy through  his  denial  of  the  existence  of  matter — a 
denial  which  he  supported  by  a  number  of  ingenious  argu- 
ments. He  maintained  that  material  objects  only  exist  through 
being  perceived.  To  the  objection  that,  in  that  case,  a  tree,  for 
instance,  would  cease  to  exist  if  no  one  was  looking  at  it,  he 
replied  that  God  always  perceives  everything;  if  there  were  no 
God,  what  we  take  to  be  material  objects  would  have  a  jerky  life, 
suddenly  leaping  into  being  when  we  look  at  them;  but  as  it  is, 
owing  to  God's  perceptions,  trees  and  rocks  and  stones  have  an 
existence  as  continuous  as  common  sense  supposes.  This  is,  in 
his  opinion,  a  weighty  argument  for  the  existence  of  God.  A 
limerick  by  Ronald  Knox,  with  a  reply,  sets  forth  Berkeley's 
theory  of  material  objects: 

There  was  a  young  man  who  said,  "God 
Must  think  it  exceedingly  odd 

If  he  finds  that  this  tree 

Continues  to  be 
When  there's  no  one  about  in  the  Quad." 

REPLY 

Dear  Sir: 

Your  astonishment's  odd: 
/  am  always  about  in  the  Quad. 
And  that's  why  the  tree 
Will  continue  to  be, 
Since  observed  by 

Yours  faithfully \ 

GOD. 

Berkeley  was  an  Irishman,  and  became  a  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two.  He  was  presented  at 
court  by  Swift,  and  Swift's  Vanessa  left  him  half  her  property. 
He  formed  a  scheme  for  a  college  in  the  Bermudas,  with  a  view 
to  which  he  went  to  America;  but  after  spending  three  years 

Hut tffy  of  I*'*****  rkUwpky  673  V* 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

(1728-31)  in  Rhode  Island,  he  came  home  and  relinquished  the 
project.  He  was  the  author  of  the  well-known  line: 

Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way, 

on  account  of  which  the  town  of  Berkeley  in  California  was  called 
after  him.  In  1734  he  became  Bishop  of  Cloyne.  In  later  life  he 
abandoned  philosophy  for  tar-water,  to  which  he  attributed  mar- 
vellous medicinal  properties.  It  was  concerning  tar-water  that  he 
wrote:  "These  are  the  cups  that  cheer,  but  do  not  inebriate" — 
a  sentiment  more  familiar  as  subsequently  applied  by  Cowper 
to  tea. 

All  his  best  work  was  done  while  he  was  still  quite  young:  A 
New  Theory  of  Vision  in  1709,  The  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge 
in  1710,  The  Dialogues  of  Hylas  and  Philonous  in  1713.  His  writings 
after  the  age  of  twenty-eight  were  of  less  importance.  He  is  a 
very  attractive  writer,  with  a  charming  style. 

His  argument  against  matter  is  most  persuasively  set  forth  in 
The  Dialogues  of  Hylas  and  Philonous.  Of  these  dialogues  I  propose 
to  consider  only  the  first  and  the  very  beginning  of  the  second, 
since  everything  that  is  said  after  that  seems  to  me  of  minor  im- 
portance. In  the  portion  of  the  work  that  I  shall  consider,  Berkeley 
advances  valid  arguments  in  favour  of  a  certain  important  con- 
clusion, though  not  quite  in  favour  of  the  conclusion  that  he 
thinks  he  is  proving.  He  thinks  he  is  proving  that  all  reality  is 
mental;  what  he  is  proving  is  that  we  perceive  qualities,  not 
things,  and  that  qualities  are  relative  to  the  percipient. 

I  shall  begin  with  an  uncritical  account  of  what  seems  to  me 
important  in  the  Dialogues;  I  shall  then  embark  upon  criticism; 
and  finally  I  shall  state  the  problems  concerned  as  they  appear 
tome. 

The  characters  in  the  Dialogues  are  two:  Hylas,  who  stands  for 
scientifically  educated  common  sense;  and  Philonous,  who  is 
Berkeley. 

After  a  few  amiable  remarks,  Hylas  says  that  he  has  heard 
strange  reports  of  the  opinions  of  Philonous,  to  the  effect  that  he 
does  not  believe  in  material  substance.  "Can  anything,"  he 
exclaims,  "be  more  fantastical,  more  repugnant  to  Common  Sense, 
or  a  more  manifest  piece  of  Scepticism,  than  to  believe  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  matter  ?"  Philonous  replies  that  he  does  not 
deny  the  reality  of  sensible  things,  i.e.  of  what  is  perceived  imme- 

674 


BERKELEY 

diately  by  the  senses,  but  that  we  do  not  see  the  causes  of  colours 
or  hear  the  causes  of  sounds.  Both  agree  that  the  senses  make 
no  inferences.  Philonous  points  out  that  by  sight  we  perceive 
only  light,  colour,  and  figure;  by  hearing,  only  sounds;  and  so 
on.  Consequently,  apart  from  sensible  qualities  there  is  nothing 
sensible,  and  sensible  things  are  nothing  but  sensible  qualities 
or  combinations  of  sensible  qualities. 

Philonous  now  sets  to  work  to  prove  that  "the  reality  of  sensible 
things  consists  in  being  perceived,9'  as  against  the  opinion  of  Hylas, 
that  "to  exist  is  one  thing,  and  to  be  perceived  is  another.'9  That 
sense-data  are  mental  is  a  thesis  which  Philonous  supports  by  a 
detailed  examination  of  the  various  senses.  He  begins  with  heat 
and  cold.  Great  heat,  he  says,  is  a  pain,  and  must  be  in  a  mind. 
Therefore  heat  is  mental ;  and  a  similar  argument  applies  to  cold. 
This  is  reinforced  by  the  famous  argument  about  the  lukewarm 
water.  When  one  of  your  hands  is  hot  and  the  other  cold,  you  put 
both  into  lukewarm  water,  which  feels  cold  to  one  hand  and  hot 
to  the  other;  but  the  water  cannot  be  at  once  hot  and  cold.  This 
finishes  Hylas,  who  acknowledges  that  "heat  and  cold  are  only 
sensations  existing  in  our  minds."  But  he  points  out  hopefully 
that  other  sensible  qualities  remain. 

Philonous  next  takes  up  tastes.  He  points  out  that  a  sweet  taste 
is  a  pleasure  and  a  bitter  taste  is  a  pain,  and  that  pleasure  and  pain 
are  mental.  The  same  argument  applies  to  odours,  since  they  are 
pleasant  or  unpleasant. 

Hylas  makes  a  vigorous  effort  to  rescue  sound,  which,  he  says, 
is  motion  in  air,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  there  are  no 
sounds  in  a  vacuum.  We  must,  he  says,  "distinguish  between 
sound  as  it  is  perceived  by  us,  and  as  it  is  in  itself;  or  between  the 
sound  which  we  immediately  perceive  and  that  which  exists 
without  us."  Philonous  points  out  that  what  Hylas  calls  "real" 
sound,  being  a  movement,  might  possibly  be  seen  or  felt,  but  can 
certainly  not  be  heard;  therefore  it  is  not  sound  as  we  know  it 
in  perception.  As  to  this,  Hylas  now  concedes  that  "souncls  too 
have  no  real  being  without  the  mind." 

They  now  come  to  colours,  and  here  Hylas  begins  confidently: 
"Pardon  me:  the  case  of  colours  is  yery  different.  Can  anything 
be  plainer  than  that  we  see  them  on  the  objects?"  Substances 
existing  without  the  mind,  he  maintains,  have  the  colours  we  see 
on  them.  But  Philonous  has  no  difficulty  in  disposing  of  this  view. 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

He  begins  with  the  sunset  clouds,  which  are  red  and  golden,  and 
points  out  that  a  cloud,  when  you  are  close  to  it,  has  no  such 
colours.  He  goes  on  to  the  difference  made  by  a  microscope,  and 
to  the  yellowness  of  everything  to  a  man  who  has  jaundice.  And 
very  small  insects,  he  says,  must  be  able  to  see  much  smaller 
objects  than  we  can  see.  Hylas  thereupon  says  that  colour  is  not 
in  the  objects,  but  in  the  light ;  it  is,  he  says,  a  thin  fluid  substance. 
Philonous  points  out,  as  in  the  case  of  sound,  that,  according  to 
Hylas,  "real"  colours  are  something  different  from  the  red  and 
blue  that  we  see,  and  that  this  won't  do. 

Hereupon  Hylas  gives  way  about  all  secondary  qualities,  but 
continues  to  say  that  primary  qualities,  notably  figure  and  motion, 
are  inherent  in  external  unthinking  substances.  To  this  Philonous 
replies  that  things  look  big  when  we  are  near  them  and  small 
when  we  are  far  off,  and  that  a  movement  may  seem  quick  to  one 
man  and  slow  to  another. 

At  this  point  Hylas  attempts  a  new  departure.  He  made  a 
mistake,  he  says,  in  not  distinguishing  the  object  from  the  sensation ; 
the  act  of  perceiving  he  admits  to  be  mental,  but  not  what  is 
perceived;  colours,  for  example,  "have  a  real  existence  without 
the  mind,  in  some  unthinking  substance."  To  this  Philonous 
replies:  "That  any  immediate  object  of  the  senses — that  is,  any 
idea  or  combination  of  ideas— should  exist  in  an  unthinking  sub- 
stance,or  exterior  to  J// minds,  is  in  itself  an  evident  contradiction." 
It  will  be  observed  that,  at  this  point,  the  argument  becomes 
logical  and  is  no  longer  empirical.  A  few  pages  later,  Phiionous 
says:  "Whatever  is  immediately  perceived  is  an  idea;  and  can 
any  idea  exist  out  of  the  mind  ?" 

After  a  metaphysical  discussion  of  substance,  Hylas  returns  to 

the  discussion  of  visual  sensations,  with  the  argument  that  he 

sees  things  at  a  distance.  To  this  Philonous  replies  that  this  is 

equally  true  of  things  seen  in  dreams,  which  everyone  admits  to 

be  mental;  further,  that  distance  is  not  perceived  by  sight,  but 

Judged  as  the  result  of  experience,  and  that,  to  a  man  born  blind 

"but  now  for  the  first  time  able  to  see,  visual  objects  would  not 

appear  distant. 

At  the  beginning  of  theasecond  Dialogue,  Hylas  urges  that 
certain  traces  in  the  brain  are  the  causes  of  sensations,  but  Philo- 
nous retorts  that  "the  brain,  being  a  sensible  thing,  exists  only 
in  the  mind." 

676 


BERKELEY 

The  remainder  of  the  Dialogues  is  less  interesting,  and  need 
not  be  considered. 

Let  us  now  make  a  critical  analysis  of  Berkeley's  contentions. 

Berkeley's  argument  consists  of  two  parts.  On  the  one  hand,  he 
argues  that  we  do  not  perceive  material  things,  but  only  colours, 
sounds,  etc.,  and  that  these  are  "mental"  or  "in  the  mind."  His 
reasoning  is  completely  cogent  as  to  the  first  point,  but  as  to  the 
second  it  suffers  from  the  absence  of  any  definition  of  the  word 
"mental."  He  relies,  in  fact,  upon  the  received  view  that  every- 
thing must  be  either  material  or  mental,  and  that  nothing  is  both. 

When  he  says  that  we  perceive  qualities,  not  "things"  or 
"material  substances,"  and  that  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  different  qualities  which  common  sense  regards  as  all 
belonging  to  one  "thing"  inhere  in  a  substance  distinct  from  each 
and  all  of  them,  his  reasoning  may  be  accepted.  But  when  he  goes 
on  to  say  that  sensible  qualities — including  primary  qualities — 
are  "mental,"  the  arguments  are  of  very  different  kinds,  and  of 
very  different  degrees  of  validity.  There  are  some  attempting  to 
prove  logical  necessity,  while  others  are  more  empirical.  Let  us 
take  the  former  first. 

Philonous  says:  "Whatever  is  immediately  perceived  is  an  idea: 
and  can  any  idea  exist  out  of  the  mind  ?"  This  would  require  a  long 
discussion  of  the  word  "idea."  If  it  were  held  that  thought  and 
perception  consist  of  a  relation  between  subject  and  object,  it 
would  be  possible  to  identify  the  mind  with  the  subject,  and  to 
maintain  that  there  is  nothing  "in"  the  mind,  but  only  objects 
"before"  it.  Berkeley  discusses  the  view  that  we  must  distinguish 
the  act  of  perceiving  from  the  object  perceived,  and  that  the  former 
is  mental  while  the  latter  is  not.  His  argument  against  this  view  is 
obscure,  and  necessarily  so,  since,  for  one  who  believes  in  mental 
substance,  as  Berkeley  does,  there  is  no  valid  means  of  refuting  it. 
He  says:  "That  any  immediate  object  of  the  senses  should  exist 
in  an  unthinking  substance,  or  exterior  to  all  minds,  is  ip  itself 
an  evident  contradiction."  There  is  here  a  fallacy,  analogous  to, 
the  following:  "It  is  impossible  for  a  nephew  to  exist  without  an 
uncle;  now  Mr.  A  is  a  nephew;  therefore  it  is  logically  necessary 
for  Mr.  A  to  have  an  uncle."  It  is,  *>f  course,  logically  necessary 
given  that  Mr.  A  is  a  nephew,  but  not  from  anything  to  be  dis- 
covered by  analysis  of  Mr.  A.  So,  if  something  is  an  object  of  the 
senses,  some  mind  is  concerned  with  it;  but  it  does  not  follow 

67? 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

that  the  same  thing  could  not  have  existed  without  being  an 
object  of  the  senses. 

There  is  a  somewhat  analogous  fallacy  as  regards  what  is  con- 
ceived Hylas  maintains  that  he  can  conceive  a  house  which  no 
one  perceives,  and  which  is  not  in  any  mind.  Philonous  retorts 
that  whatever  Hylas  conceives  is  in  his  mind,  so  that  the  supposed 
house  is,  after  all,  mental.  Hylas  should  have  answered:  "I  do 
not  mean  that  I  have  in  mind  the  image  of  a  house ;  when  I  say 
that  I  can  conceive  a  house  which  no  one  perceives,  what  I  really 
mean  is  that  I  can  understand  the  proposition  'there  is  a  house 
which  no  one  perceives,'  or,  better  still,  'there  is  a  house  which 
no  one  either  perceives  or  conceives.'  "  This  proposition  is  com- 
posed entirely  of  intelligible  words,  and  the  words  are  correctly 
put  together.  Whether  the  proposition  is  true  or  false,  I  do  not 
know;  but  I  am  sure  that  it  cannot  be  shown  to  be  self-contra- 
dictory. Some  closely  similar  propositions  can  be  proved.  For 
instance:  the  number  of  possible  multiplications  of  two  integers 
is  infinite,  therefore  there  are  some  that  have  never  been  thought 
of.  Berkeley's  argument,  if  valid,  would  prove  that  this  is 
impossible. 

The  fallacy  involved  is  a  very  common  one.  We  can,  by  means 
of  concepts  drawn  from  experience,  construct  statements  about 
classes  some  or  all  of  whose  members  are  not  experienced.  Take 
some  perfectly  ordinary  concept,  say  "pebble" ;  this  is  an  empirical 
concept  derived  from  perception.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  all 
pebbles  are  perceived,  unless  we  include  the  fact  of  being  per- 
ceived in  our  definition  of  "pebble."  Unless  we  do  this,  the 
concept  "unperceived  pebble"  is  logically  unobjectionable,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  it  is  logically  impossible  to  perceive  an  instance 
of  it. 

Schematically,  the  argument  is  as  follows.  Berkeley  says: 
"Sensible  objects  must  be  sensible.  A  is  a  sensible  object.  There- 
fore A/nust  be  sensible."  But  if  "must"  indicates  logical  necessity, 
,jthe  argument  is  only  valid  if  A  must  be  a  sensible  object.  The 
argument  does  not  prove  that,  from  the  properties  of  A  other 
than  its  being  sensible,  it  can  be  deduced  that  A  is  sensible.  It 
does  not  prove,  for  example,  that  colours  intrinsically  indistin- 
guishable from  those  that  we  see  may  not  exist  unseen.  We  may 
believe  on  physiological  grounds  that  this  does  not  occur,  but 
such  grounds  are  empirical;  so  far  as  logic  is  concerned,  there  is 

678 


BERKELEY 

no  reason  why  there  should  not  be  colours  where  there  is  no  eye 
or  brain. 

I  come  now  to  Berkeley's  empirical  arguments.  To  begin  with, 
it  is  a  sign  of  weakness  to  combine  empirical  and  logical  arguments, 
for  the  latter,  if  valid,  make  the  former  superfluous.1  If  I  am  con- 
tending that  a  square  cannot  be  round,  I  shall  not  appeal  to  the 
fact  that  no  Square  in  any  known  city  is  round.  But  as  we  have 
rejected  the  logical  arguments,  it  becomes  necessary  to  consider 
the  empirical  arguments  on  their  merits. 

The  first  of  the  empirical  arguments  is  an  odd  one:  That  heat 
cannot  be  in  the  object,  because  "the  most  vehement  and  intense 
degree  of  heat  [is]  a  very  great  pain0  and  we  cannot  suppose  "any 
unperceiving  thing  capable  of  pain  or  pleasure."  There  is  an 
ambiguity  in  the  word  "pain,"  of  which  Berkeley  takes  advantage. 
It  may  mean  the  painful  quality  of  a  sensation,  or  it  may  mean 
the  sensation  that  has  this  quality.  We  say  a  broken  leg  is  painful, 
without  implying  that  the  leg  is  in  the  mind ;  it  might  be,  similarly, 
that  heat  causes  pain,  and  that  this  is  all  we  ought  to  mean  when 
we  say  it  is  a  pain.  This  argument,  therefore,  is  a  poor  one. 

The  argument  about  the  hot  and  cold  hands  in  lukewarm  water 
strictly  speaking,  would  only  prove  that  what  we  perceive  in  that 
experiment  is  not  hot  and  cold,  but  hotter  and  colder.  There  is 
nothing  to  prove  that  these  are  subjective. 

In  regard  to  tastes,  the  argument  from  pleasure  and  pain  is 
repeated:  Sweetness  is  a  pleasure  and  bitterness  a  pain,  therefore 
both  are  mental.  It  is  also  urged  that  a  thing  that  tastes  sweet 
when  I  am  well  may  taste  bitter  when  I  am  ill.  Very  similar  argu- 
ments are  used  about  odours:  since  they  are  pleasant  or  unpleasant, 
"they  cannot  exist  in  any  but  a  perceiving  substance  or  mind/' 
Berkeley  assumes,  here  and  everywhere,  that  what  does  not  inhere 
in  matter  must  inhere  in  a  mental  substance,  and  that  nothing 
can  be  both  mental  and  material. 

The  argument  in  regard  to  sound  is  ad  hominem.  Hylas  ^ys  that 
sounds  are  "really91  motions  in  the  air,  and  Philonous  retorts  that 
motions  can  be  seen  or  felt,  not  heard,  so  that  "real"  sounds  an 
inaudible.  This  is  hardly  a  fair  argument,  since  percepts  of  motion, 
according  to  Berkeley,  are  just  as  subjective  as  other  percepts.  The 
motions  that  Hylas  requires  will  have  to  be  unperceived  and 

1  E.g., "  I  was  not  drunk  last  night.  I  had  only  had  two  glasses :  besides, 
it  is  well  known  that  I  am  a  teetotaller/9 

679 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

imperceptible.  Nevertheless  it  is  valid  in  so  far  as  it  points  out 
that  sound,  as  heard,  cannot  be  identified  with  die  motions  of 
air  that  physics  regards  as  its  cause. 

Hylas,  after  abandoning  secondary  qualities,  is  not  yet  ready  to 
abandon  primary  qualities,  viz.  Extension,  Figure,  Solidity, 
Gravity,  Motion,  and  Rest.  The  argument,  naturally,  concentrates 
on  extension  and  motion.  If  things  have  real  sizes,  says  Philonous, 
the  same  thing  cannot  be  of  different  sizes  at  the  same  time,  and 
yet  it  looks  larger  when  we  are  near  it  than  when  we  are  far  off. 
And  if  motion  is  really  in  the  object,  how  comes  it  that  the  same 
motion  may  seem  fast  to  one  and  slow  to  another  ?  Such  arguments 
must,  I  think,  be  allowed  to  prove  the  subjectivity  of  perceived 
space.  But  this  subjectivity  is  physical:  it  is  equally  true  of  a 
camera,  and  therefore  does  not  prove  that  shape  is  "mental." 
In  the  second  Dialogue  Philonous  sums  up  the  discussion,  so 
far  as  it  has  gone,  in  the  words:  "Besides  spirits,  all  that  we  know 
or  conceive  are  our  own  ideas."  He  ought  not,  of  course,  to  make 
an  exception  for  spirits,  since  it  is  just  as  impossible  to  know 
spirit  as  to  know  matter.  The  arguments,  in  fact,  are  almost 
identical  in  both  cases. 

Let  us  now  try  to  state  what  positive  conclusions  we  can  reach 
as  a  result  of  the  kind  of  argument  inaugurated  by  Berkeley. 

Things  as  we  know  them  are  bundles  of  sensible  qualities:  a 
table,  for  example,  consists  of  its  visual  shape,  its  hardness,  the 
noise  it  emits  when  rapped,  and  its  smell  (if  any).  These  different 
qualities  have  certain  contiguities  in  experience,  which  lead 
common  sense  to  regard  them  as  belonging  to  one  "thing,"  but 
the  concept  of  "thing"  or  "substance"  adds  nothing  to  the 
perceived  qualities,  and  is  unnecessary.  So  far  we  are  on  firm 
ground. 

But  we  must  now  ask  ourselves  what  we  mean  by  "perceiving." 
Philonous  maintains  that,  as  regards  sensible  things,  their  reality 
consistent  their  being  perceived;  but  he  does  not  tell  us  what  he 
means  by  perception.  There  is  a  theory,  which  he  rejects,  that 
perception  is  a  relation  between  a  subject  and  a  percept.  Since  he 
believed  the  ego  to  be  a  substance,  he  might  well  have  adopted 
this  theory;  however,  he  decided  against  it.  For  those  who  reject 
the  notion  of  a  substantial  ego,  this  theory  is  impossible.  What, 
then,  is  meant  by  calling  something  a  "percept"?  Does  it  mean 
anything  more  than  that  the  something  in  question  occurs?  Can 

680 


BERKELEY 

we  turn  Berkeley's  dictum  round,  and  instead  of  saying  that  reality 
consists  in  being  perceived,  say  that  being  perceived  consists  in 
being  real?  However  this  may  be,  Berkeley  holds  it  logically 
possible  that  there  should  be  unperceived  things,  since  he  holds 
that  some  real  things,  viz.  spiritual  substances,  are  unperceived. 
And  it  seems  obvious  that,  when  we  say  that  an  event  is  perceived, 
we  mean  something  more  than  that  it  occurs. 

What  is  this  more?  One  obvious  difference  between  perceived 
and  unperceived  events  is  that  the  former,  but  not  the  latter,  can 
be  remembered.  Is  there  any  other  difference? 

Recollection  is  one  of  a  whole  genus  of  effects  which  are  more 
or  less  peculiar  to  the  phenomena  that  we  naturally  call  "mental." 
These  effects  are  connected  with  habit.  A  burnt  child  fears  the 
fire;  a  burnt  poker  does  not.  The  physiologist,  however,  deals 
with  habit  and  kindred  matters  as  a  characteristic  of  nervous 
tissue,  and  has  no  need  to  depart  from  a  physicalist  interpretation. 
In  physicalist  language,  we  can  say  that  an  occurrence  is  "per- 
ceived" if  it  has  effects  of  certain  kinds;  in  this  sense  we  might 
almost  say  that  a  watercourse  "perceives"  the  rain  by  which  it  is 
deepened,  and  that  a  river  valley  is  a  "memory"  of  former  down- 
pours. Habit  and  memory,  when  described  in  physicalist  terms, 
are  not  wholly  absent  in  dead  matter;  the  difference,  in  this 
respect,  between  living  and  dead  matter,  is  only  one  of  degree. 

In  this  view,  to  say  that  an  event  is  "perceived"  is  to  say  that 
it  has  effects  of  certain  kinds,  and  there  is  no  reason,  either  logical 
or  empirical,  for  supposing  that  all  events  have  effects  of  these  kinds. 

Theory  of  knowledge  suggests  a  different  standpoint.  We  start, 
here,  not  from  finished  science,  but  from  whatever  knowledge  is 
the  ground  for  our  belief  in  science.  This  is  what  Berkeley  is  doing. 
Here  it  is  not  necessary,  in  advance,  to  define  a  "percept."  The 
method,  in  outline,  is  as  follows.  We  collect  the  propositions  that 
we  feel  we  know  without  inference,  and  we  find  that  most  of 
these  have  to  do  with  dated  particular  events.  These  events  we 
define  as  "percepts."  Percepts,  therefore,  are  those  events  that 
we  know  without  inference;  or  at  least,  to  allow  for  memory,  such 
events  were  at  some  time  percepts.  We  are  then  faced  with  the 
question:  Can  we,  from  our  own  percepts,  infer  any  other  events? 
Here  four  positions  are  possible,  of  which  the  first  three  are  forms 
of  idealism. 

(i)  We  may  deny  totally  the  validity  of  all  inferences  from  any 

681 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

present  percepts  and  memories  to  other  events.  This  view  must 
be  taken  by  anyone  who  confines  inference  to  deduction.  Any 
event,  and  any  group  of  events,  is  logically  capable  of  standing 
alone,  and  therefore  no  group  of  events  affords  demonstrative  proof 
of  the  existence  of  other  events.  If,  therefore,  we  confine  inference 
to  deduction,  the  known  world  is  confined  to  those  events  in  our 
own  biography  that  we  perceive— or  have  perceived,  if  memory 
is  admitted. 

(2)  The  second  position,  which  is  solipsism  as  ordinarily  under- 
stood, allows  some  inference  from  my  percepts,  but  only  to  other 
events  in  my  own  biography.  Take,  for  example,  the  view  that, 
at  any  moment  in  waking  life,  there  are  sensible  objects  that  we  do 
not  notice.  We  see  many  things  without  saying  to  ourselves  that 
we  see  them;  at  least,  so  it  seems.  Keeping  the  eyes  fixed  in  an 
environment  in  which  we  perceive  no  movement,  we  can  notice 
various  things  in  succession,  and  we  feel  persuaded  that  they  were 
visible  before  we  noticed  them;  but  before  we  noticed  them  they 
were  not  data  for  theory  of  knowledge.  This  degree  of  inference 
from  what  we  observe  is  made  unreflectingly  by  everybody,  even 
by  those  who  most  wish  to  avoid  an  undue  extension  of  our 
knowledge  beyond  experience. 

(3)  The  third  position — which  seems  to  be  held,  for  instance, 
by  Eddington — is  that  it  is  possible  to  make  inferences  to  other 
events  analogous  to  those  in  our  own  experience,  and  that,  there- 
fore, we  have  a  right  to  believe  that  there  are,  for  instance,  colours 
seen  by  other  people  but  not  by  ourselves,  toothaches  felt  by 
other  people,  pleasures  enjoyed  and  pains  endured  by  other  people, 
and  so  on,  but  that  we  have  no  right  to  infer  events  experienced 
by  no  one  and  not  forming  part  of  any  "mind."  This  view  may 
be  defended  on  the  ground  that  all  inference  to  events  which 
lie  outside  my  observation  is  by  analogy,  and  that  events  which  no 
one  experiences  are  not  sufficiently  analogous  to  my  data  to  warrant 
analogical  inferences. 

(4)  The  fourth  position  is  that  of  common  sense  and  traditional 
physics,  according  to  which  there  are,  in  addition  to  my  own 

and  other  people's,  also  events  which  no  one  experi- 


ences—for example,  the  furniture  of  my  bedroom  when  I  am 
asleep  and  it  is  pitch  dark.  G.  E.  Moore  once  accused  idealists  of 
holding  that  trains  only  have  wheels  while  they  are  in  stations, 
on  the  ground  that  passengers  cannot  see  the  wheels  while  they 

682 


BERKELEY 

remain  in  the  train.  Common  sense  refuses  to  believe  that  the 
wheels  suddenly  spring  into  being  whenever  you  look,  but  do  not 
bother  to  exist  when  no  one  is  inspecting  them.  When  this  point 
of  view  is  scientific,  it  bases  the  inference  to  unperceived  events  on 
causal  laws. 

I  do  not  propose,  at  present,  to  decide  between  these  four  points 
of  view.  The  decision,  if  possible  at  all,  can  only  be  made  by  an 
elaborate  investigation  of  non-demonstrative  inference  and  the 
theory  of  probability.  What  I  do  propose  to  do  is  to  point  out 
certain  logical  errors  which  have  been  committed  by  those  who 
have  discussed  these  questions. 

Berkeley,  as  we  have  seen,  thinks  that  there  are  logical  reasons 
proving  that  only  minds  and  mental  events  can  exist.  This  view, 
on  other  grounds,  is  also  held  by  Hegel  and  his  followers.  I  believe 
this  to  be  a  complete  mistake.  Such  a  statement  as  "there  was  a 
time  before  life  existed  on  this  planet,"  whether  true  or  false, 
cannot  be  condemned  on  grounds  of  logic,  any  more  than  "there 
are  multiplication  sums  which  no  one  will  have  ever  worked  out." 
To  be  observed,  or  to  be  a  percept,  is  merely  to  have  effects  of 
certain  kinds,  and  there  is  no  logical  reason  why  all  events  should 
have  effects  of  these  kinds. 

There  is,  however,  another  kind  of  argument,  which,  while  it 
does  not  establish  idealism  as  a  metaphysic,  does,  if  valid,  establish 
it  as  a  practical  policy.  It  is  said  that  a  proposition  which  is  un- 
verifiable  has  no  meaning ;  that  verification  depends  upon  percepts ; 
and  that,  therefore,  a  proposition  about  anything  except  actual  or 
possible  percepts  is  meaningless.  I  think  that  this  view,  strictly 
interpreted,  would  confine  us  to  the  first  of  the  above  four  theories, 
and  would  forbid  us  to  speak  about  anything  that  we  have  not 
purselves  explicitly  noticed.  If  so,  it  is  a  view  that  no  one  can  hold 
in  practice,  which  is  a  defect  in  a  theory  that  is  advocated  on 
practical  grounds.  The  whole  question  of  verification,  and  its 
connection  with  knowledge,  is  difficult  and  complex^  I  will, 
therefore,  leave  it  on  one  side  for  the  present. 

The  fourth  of  the  above  theories,  which  admits  events  that  r 
one  perceives,  may  also  be  defended  by  invalid  arguments.  *•, 
may  be  held  that  causality  is  kno\qp  a  priori,  and  that  causal  laws 
are  impossible  unless  there  are  unperceived  events.  As  against 
this,  it  may  be  urged  that  causality  is  not  a  priori,  and  that  what- 
ever regularity  can  be  observed  must  be  in  relation  to  percepts. 

683 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Whatever  (here  is  reason  to  believe  in  the  laws  of  physics  must,  it 
would  seem,  be  capable  of  being  stated  in  terms  of  percepts.  The 
statement  may  be  odd  and  complicated;  it  may  lack  the  charac- 
teristic of  continuity  which,  until  lately,  was  expected  of  a  physical 
law.  But  it  can  hardly  be  impossible. 

I  conclude  that  there  is  no  a  priori  objection  to  any  one  of  our 
four  theories.  It  is  possible,  however,  to  say  that  all  truth  is  prag- 
matic, and  that  there  is  no  pragmatic  difference  between  the  four 
theories.  If  this  is  true,  we  can  adopt  whichever  we  please,  and  the 
difference  between  them  is  only  linguistic.  I  cannot  accept  this 
view;  but  this,  also,  is  a  matter  for  discussion  at  a  later  stage. 

It  remains  to  be  asked  whether  any  meaning  can  be  attached  to 
the  words  "mind"  and  "matter."  Everyone  knows  that  "mind" 
is  what  an  idealist  thinks  there  is  nothing  else  but,  and  "matter" 
is  what  a  materialist  thinks  the  same  about.  The  reader  knows 
also,  I  hope,  that  idealists  are  virtuous  and  materialists  are  wicked. 
But  perhaps  there  may  be  more  than  this  to  be  said. 

My  own  definition  of  "matter"  may  seem  unsatisfactory;  I 
should  define  it  as  what  satisfies  the  equations  of  physics.  There 
may  be  nothing  satisfying  these  equations;  in  that  case  either 
physics,  or  the  concept  "matter,"  is  a  mistake.  If  we  reject  sub- 
stance, "matter"  will  have  to  be  a  logical  construction.  Whether  it 
can  be  any  construction  composed  of  events— which  may  be  partly 
inferred — is  a  difficult  question,  but  by  no  means  an  insoluble  one. 

As  for  "mind,"  when  substance  has  been  rejected  a  mind  must 
be  some  group  or  structure  of  events.  The  grouping  must  be 
effected  by  some  relation  which  is  characteristic  of  the  sort  of 
phenomena  we  wish  to  call  "mental."  We  may  take  memory  as 
typical.  We  might — though  this  would  be  rather  unduly  simple — 
define  a  "mental"  event  as  one  which  remembers  or  is  remembered. 
Then  the  "mind"  to  which  a  given  mental  event  belongs  is  the 
group  of  events  connected  with  the  given  event  by  memory- 
chains,  Backwards  or  forwards. 

It  will  be  seen  that,  according  to  the  above  definitions,  a  mind 
*and  a  piece  of  matter  are,  each  of  them,  a  group  of  events.  There 
is  no  reason  why  every  event  should  belong  to  a  group  of  one 
kind  or  the  other,  and  there  ift.no  reason  why  some  events  should 
not  belong  to  both  groups;  therefore  some  events  may  be  neither 
mental  nor  material;  and  other  events  may  be  both.  As  to  this, 
only  detailed  empirical  considerations  can  decide. 

684 


Chapter  XVII 
HUME 

DAVID  HUME  (1711-76)  is  one  of  the  most  important  among 
philosophers,  because  he  developed  to  its  logical  conclusion 
the  empirical  philosophy  of  Locke  and  Berkeley,  and  by 
making  it  self-consistent  made  it  incredible.  He  represents,  in  a 
certain  sense,  a  dead  end:  in  his  direction,  it  is  impossible  to  go 
further.  To  refute  him  has  been,  ever  since  he  wrote,  a  favourite 
pastime  among  metaphysicians.  For  my  part,  I  find  none  of  their 
refutations  convincing;  nevertheless,  I  cannot  but  hope  that  some- 
thing less  sceptical  than  Hume's  system  may  be  discoverable. 

His  chief  philosophical  work,  the  Treatise  of  Human  Nature, 
was  written  while  he  was  living  in  France  during  the  years  1734 
to  1737.  The  first  two  volumes  were  published  in  1739,  the  third 
in  1740.  He  was  a  very  young  man,  not  yet  in  his  thirties;  he  was 
not  well  known,  and  his  conclusions  were  such  as  almost  all  schools 
would  find  unwelcome.  He  hoped  for  vehement  attacks,  which 
he  would  meet  with  brilliant  retorts.  Instead,  no  one  noticed  the 
book;  as  he  says  himself,  "it  fell  dead-born  from  the  press." 
"But,"  he  adds,  "being  naturally  of  a  cheerful  and  sanguine 
temper,  I  very  soon  recovered  from  the  blow."  He  devoted  himself 
to  the  writing  of  essays,  of  which  he  produced  the  first  volume  in 
1741.  In  1744  he  made  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  obtain  a  pro- 
fessorship at  Edinburgh;  having  failed  in  this,  he  became  first 
tutor  to  a  lunatic  and  then  secretary  to  a  general.  Fortified  by  these 
credentials,  he  ventured  again  into  philosophy.  He  shortened  the 
Treatise  by  leaving  out  the  best  parts  and  most  of  the  reasons  for 
his  conclusions;  the  result  was  the  Inquiry  into  Human  Under- 
standing, for  a  long  time  much  better  known  than  the  Treatise. 
It  was  this  book  that  awakened  Kant  from  his  "c|pgmatic 
slumbers";  he  does  not  appear  to  have  known  the  Treatise. 

He  wrote  also  Dialogues  Concerning  Natural  Religion,  which  he 
kept  unpublished  during  his  lifetime.  By  his  direction,  they  were 
published  posthumously  in  1779.  His  Essay  on  Miracles,  which 
became  famous,  maintains  that  there  can  never  be  adequate 
historical  evidence  for  such  events. 
His  History  of  England,  published  in  1755  and  following  years, 

685 


WBSTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

devoted  itself  to  proving  the  superiority  of  Tories  to  Whigs  and 
of  Scotchmen  to  Englishmen;  he  did  not  consider  history  worthy 
of  philosophic  detachment.  He  visited  Paris  in  1763,  and  was 
made  much  of  by  the  pUhsophes.  Unfortunately,  he  formed  a 
friendship  with  Rousseau,  and  had  a  famous  quarrel  with  him. 
Hume  behaved  with  admirable  forbearance,  but  Rousseau,  who 
suffered  from  persecution  mania,  insisted  upon  a  violent  breach. 

Hume  has  described  his  own  character  in  a  self-obituary,  or 
"funeral  oration,"  as  he  calls  it:  "I  was  a  man  of  mild  dispositions, 
of  command  of  temper,  of  an  open,  social  and  cheerful  humour, 
capable  of  attachment,  but  little  susceptible  of  enmity,  and  of 
great  moderation  in  all  my  passions.  Even  my  love  of  literary 
fame,  my  ruling  passion,  never  soured  my  temper,  notwithstanding 
my  frequent  disappointments/9  All  this  is  borne  out  by  everything 
that  is  known  of  him. 

Hume's  Treatise  of  Human  Nature  is  divided  into  three  books, 
dealing  respectively  with  the  understanding,  the  passions,  and 
morals.  What  is  important  and  novel  in  his  doctrines  is  in  die 
first  book,  to  which  I  shall  confine  myself. 

He  begins  with  the  distinction  between  "impressions'1  and 
"ideas.**  These  are  two  kinds  of  perceptions,  of  which  impressions 
are  those  that  have  more  force  and  violence.  "By  ideas  I  mean  the 
faint  images  of  these  in  thinking  and  reasoning/'  Ideas,  at  least 
when  simple,  are  like  impressions,  but  fainter.  "Every  simple  idea 
has  a  simple  impression,  which  resembles  it;  and  every  simple 
impression  a  correspondent  idea."  "All  our  simple  ideas  in  their 
first  appearance  are  derived  from  simple  impressions,  which  are 
correspondent  to  them,  and  which  they  exactly  represent." 
Complex  ideas,  on  the  other  hand,  need  not  resemble  impressions. 
We  can  imagine  a  winged  horse  without  having  ever  seen  one, 
but  the  constituents  of  this  complex  idea  are  all  derived  from 
impressions.  The  proof  that  impressions  come  first  is  derived 
from  yperience;  for  example,  a  man  born  blind  has  no  ideas  of 
colours.  Among  ideas,  those  that  retain  a  considerable  degree  of 
the  vivacity  of  the  original  impressions  belong  to  memory,  the 
others  to  ttnag&uxtoon. 

There  is  a  section  (Book  Impart  i,  sec.  vii)  "Of  Abstract  Ideas," 
which  opens  with  a  paragraph  of  emphatic  agreement  with 
Berkeley's  doctrine  that  "all  general  ideas  are  nothing  but  par- 
ticular ones,  annexed  to  a  certain  term,  which  gives  them  a  more 

686 


HUMS 

extensive  significance,  and  makes  them  recall  upon  occasion  other 
individuals,  which  are  similar  to  them.91  He  contends  that,  when 
we  have  an  idea  of  a  man,  it  has  all  the  particularity  that  the 
impression  of  a  man  has.  "The  mind  cannot  form  any  notion  of 
quantity  or  quality  without  forming  a  precise  notion  of  degrees 
of  each."  "Abstract  ideas  are  in  themselves  individual,  however 
they  may  become  general  in  their  representation."  This  theory, 
which  is  a  modern,  form  of  nominalism,  has  two  defects,  one 
logical,  the  other  psychological.  To  begin  with  the  logical  objec- 
tion :  "When  we  have  found  a  resemblance  among  several  objects," 
Hume  says,  "we  apply  the  same  name  to  all  of  them."  Every 
nominalist  would  agree.  But  in  fact  a  common  name,  such  as 
"cat,"  is  just  as  unreal  as  the  universal  CAT  is.  The  nominalist 
solution  of  the  problem  of  universals  thus  fails  through  being 
insufficiently  drastic  in  the  application  of  its  own  principles;  it 
mistakenly  applies  these  principles  only  to  "things,"  and  not  also 
to  words. 

The  psychological  objection  is  more  serious,  at  least  in  con- 
nection with  Hume.  The  whole  theory  of  ideas  as  copies  of  im- 
pressions, as  he  sets  it  forth,  suffers  from  ignoring  vagueness. 
When,  for  example,  I  have  seen  a  flower  of  a  certain  colour,  and 
I  afterwards  call  up  an  image  of  it,  the  image  is  lacking  in  pre- 
cision, in  this  sense,  that  there  are  several  closely  similar  shades 
of  colour  of  which  it  might  be  an  image,  or  "idea,"  in  Hume's 
terminology.  It  is  not  true  that  "the  mind  cannot  form  any  notion 
of  quantity  or  quality  without  forming  a  precise  notion  of  degrees 
of  each."  Suppose  you  have  seen  a  man  whose  height  is  six  feet 
one  inch.  You  retain  an  image  of  him,  but  it  probably  would  fit 
a  man  half  an  inch  taller  or  shorter.  Vagueness  is  different  from 
generality,  but  has  some  of  the  same  characteristics.  By  not 
noticing  it,  Hume  runs  into  unnecessary  difficulties,  for  instance, 
as  to  the  possibility  of  imagining  a  shade  of  colour  you  have 
never  seen,  which  is  intermediate  between  two  closely  similar 
shades  that  you  have  seen.  If  these  two  are  sufficiently^similar, 
any  image  you  can  form  will  be  equally  applicable  to  both  of 
them  and  to  the  intermediate  shade.  When  Hume  says  that  ideas 
are  derived  from  impressions  which  they  exactly  represent  he 
goes  beyond  what  is  psychological!/  true. 

Hume  banished  the  conception  of  substance  from  psychology, 
as  Berkeley  had  banished  it  from  physics.  There  is,  he  says,  no 

687 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

impression  of  self,  and  therefore  no  idea  of  self  (Book  I,  pan  iv, 
sec.  vi).  "For  my  part,  when  I  enter  most  intimately  into  what  I 
call  myself 9  I  always  stumble  on  some  particular  perception  or 
other,  of  heat  or  cold,  light  or  shade,  love  or  hatred,  pain  or 
pleasure.  I  never  catch  myself  at  any  time  without  a  perception, 
and  never  can  observe  anything  but  the  perception."  There  may, 
he  ironically  concedes,  be  some  philosophers  who  can  perceive 
their  selves;  "but  setting  aside  some  metaphysicians  of  this  kind, 
I  may  venture  to  affirm  of  the  rest  of  mankind,  that  they  are 
nothing  but  a  bundle  or  collection  of  different  perceptions,  which 
succeed  each  other  with  inconceivable  rapidity,  and  are  in  a 
perpetual  flux  and  movement." 

This  repudiation  of  the  idea  of  the  Self  is  of  great  importance. 
Let  us  see  exactly  what  it  maintains,  and  how  far  it  is  valid.  To 
begin  with,  the  Self,  if  there  is  such  a  thing,  is  never  perceived, 
and  therefore  we  can  have  no  idea  of  it.  If  this  argument  is  to  be 
accepted,  it  must  be  carefully  stated.  No  man  perceives  his  own 
brain,  yet,  in  an  important  sense,  he  has  an  "idea"  of  it.  Such 
"ideas,"  which  are  inferences  from  perceptions,  are  not  among 
the  logically  basic  stock  of  ideas;  they  are  complex  and  descriptive 
— this  must  be  the  case  if  Hume,  is  right  in  his  principle  that  all 
simple  ideas  are  derived  from  impressions,  and  if  this  principle 
is  rejected,  we  are  forced  back  on  "innate"  ideas.  Using  modern 
terminology,  we  may  say:  Ideas  of  unperceived  things  or  occur- 
rences can  always  be  defined  in  terms  of  perceived  things  or 
occurrences,  and  therefore,  by  substituting  the  definition  for  the 
term  defined,  we  can  always  state  what  we  know  empirically  with- 
out introducing  any  unperceived  things  or  occurrences.  As  regards 
our  present  problem,  all  psychological  knowledge  can  be  stated 
without  introducing  the  "Self."  Further,  the  "Self,"  as  defined, 
can  be  nothing  but  a  bundle  of  perceptions,  not  a  new  simple 
"thing."  In  this  I  think  that  any  thoroughgoing  empiricist  must 
agree  with  Hume. 

It  ddfcs  not  follow  that  there  is  no  simple  Self;  it  only  follows 
that  we  cannot  know  whether  there  is  or  not,  and  that  the  Self, 
except  as  a  'bundle*  of  perceptions,  cannot  enter  into  any  part  of 
our  knowledge.  This  conclusion  is  important  in  metaphysics,  as 
getting  rid  of  the  last  surviving  use  of  "substance."  It  is  important 
io  theology,  as  abolishing  all  supposed  knowledge  of  the  "soul." 
It  is  important  in  the  analysis  of  knowledge,  since  it  shows  that 

688 


HUME 

the  category  of  subject  and  object  is  not  fundamental.  In  this 
matter  of  the  ego  Hume  made  an  important  advance  on  Berkeley. 

The  most  important  part  of  the  whole  Treatise  is  the  section 
called  "Of  Knowledge  and  Probability."  Hume  does  not  mean  by 
"probability"  the  sort  of  knowledge  contained  in  the  mathematical 
theory  of  probability,  such  as  that  the  chance  of  throwing  double 
sixes  with  two  dice  is  one  thirty-sixth.  This  knowledge  is  not  itself 
probable  in  any  special  sense;  it  has  as  much  certainty  as  know- 
ledge can  have.  What  Hume  is  concerned  with  is  uncertain  know- 
ledge, such  as  is  obtained  from  empirical  data  by  inferences  that 
are  not  demonstrative.  This  includes  all  our  knowledge  as  to  the 
future,  and  as  to  unobserved  portions  of  the  past  and  present.  In 
fact,  it  includes  everything  except,  on  the  one  hand,  direct  obser- 
vation, and,  on  the  other,  logic  and  mathematics.  The  analysis 
of  such  "probable"  knowledge  led  Hume  to  certain  sceptical 
conclusions,  which  are  equally  difficult  to  refute  and  to  accept. 
The  result  was  a  challenge  to  philosophers,  which,  in  my  opinion, 
has  still  not  been  adequately  met. 

Hume  begins  by  distinguishing  seven  kinds  of  philosophical 
relation:  resemblance,  identity,  relations  of  time  and  place,  pro- 
portion in  quantity  or  number,  degrees  in  any  quality,  contrariety, 
and  causation.  These,  he  says,  may  be  divided  into  two  kinds: 
those  that  depend  only  on  the  ideas,  and  those  that  can  be  changed 
without  any  change  in  the  ideas.  Of  the  first  kind  are  resemblance, 
contrariety,  degrees  in  quality,  and  proportions  in  quantity  or 
number.  But  spatio-temporal  and  causal  relations  are  of  the 
second  kind.  Only  relations  of  the  first  kind  give  certain  knowledge ; 
our  knowledge  concerning  the  others  is  only  probable.  Algebra 
and  arithmetic  are  the  only  sciences  in  which  we  can  carry  on  a 
long  chain  of  reasoning  without  losing  certainty.  Geometry  is  not 
so  certain  as  algebra  and  arithmetic,  because  we  cannot  be  sure 
of  the  truth  of  its  axioms.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose,  as  many 
philosophers  do,  that  the  ideas  of  mathematics  "must  be  com- 
prehended by  a  pure  and  intellectual  view,  of  which  the  superior 
faculties  of  the  soul  are  alone  capable."  The  falsehood  of  this  view 
is  evident,  says  Hume,  as  soon  as  we  remember  that  "all  our 
ideas  are  copied  from  our  impressioqp." 

The  three  relations  that  depend  not  only  on  ideas  are  identity, 
spatio-temporal  relations,  and  causation.  In  the  first  two,  the  mind 
does  not  go  beyond  what  is  immediately  present  to  the  senses, 

689 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

(Spatio-temporal  relations,  Hume  holds,  can  be  perceived,  and 
can  form  parts  of  impressions.)  Causation  alone  enables  us  to 
infer  some  thing  or  occurrence  from  some  other  thing  or  occur- 
rence: "  Tis  only  causation,  which  produces  such  a  connexion, 
as  to  give  us  assurance  from  the  existence  or  action  of  one  object, 
that  'twas  followed  or  preceded  by  any  other  existence  or  action." 
A  difficulty  arises  from  Hume's  contention  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  an  impression  of  a  causal  relation.  We  can  perceive,  by 
mere  observation  of  A  and  B,  that  A  is  above  B,  or  to  the  right  of 
B,  but  not  that  A  causes  B.  In  the  past,  the  relation  of  causation 
had  been  more  or  less  assimilated  to  that  of  ground  and  consequent 
in  logic,  but  this,  Hume  rightly  perceived,  was  a  mistake. 

In  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  as  in  that  of  the  Scholastics,  the 
connection  of  cause  and  effect  was  supposed  to  be  necessary,  as 
logical  connections  are  necessary.  The  first  really  serious  challenge 
to  this  view  came  from  Hume,  with  whom  the  modern  philo- 
sophy of  causation  begins.  He,  in  common  with  almost  all  philo- 
sophers down  to  and  including  Bergson,  supposes  the  law  to 
state  that  there  are  propositions  of  the  form  "A  causes  B,"  where 
A  and  B  are  classes  of  events;  the  fact  that  such  laws  do  not 
occur  in  any  well-developed  science  appears  to  be  unknown  to 
philosophers.  But  much  of  what  they  have  said  can  be  translated 
so  as  to  be  applicable  to  causal  laws  such  as  do  occur;  we  may, 
therefore,  ignore  this  point  for  the  present. 

Hume  begins  by  observing  that  the  power  by  which  one  object 
produces  another  is  not  discoverable  from  the  ideas  of  the  two 
objects,  and  that  we  can  therefore  only  know  cause  and  effect 
from  experience,  not  from  reasoning  or  reflection.  The  statement 
"what  begins  must  have  a  cause,"  he  says,  is  not  one  that  has 
intuitive  certainty,  like  the  statements  of  logic.  As  he  puts  it: 
"There  is  no  object,  which  implies  the  existence  of  any  other  if 
we  consider  these  objects  in  themselves,  and  never  look  beyond 
the  ideas  which  we  form  of  them."  Hume  argues  from  this  that 
it  must  be  experience  that  gives  knowledge  of  cause  and  effect, 
but  that  it  cannot  be  merely  the  experience  of  the  two  events  A 
and  B  which  are  in  a  causal  relation  to  each  other.  It  must  be 
experience,  because  the  correction  is  not  logical;  and  it  cannot 
be  merely  the  experience  of  the  particular  events  A  and  B,  since 
we  can  discover  nothing  in  A  by  itself  which  should  lead  it  to 
produce  B.  The  experience  required,  he  says,  is  that  of  the  con* 

690 


HUME 

slant  conjunction  of  events  of  the  kind  A  with  events  of  the  kind 
B.  He  points  out  that  when,  in  experience,  two  objects  are  con** 
stantly  conjoined,  we  do  in  fact  infer  one  from  the  other.  (When 
he  says  "infer/9  he  means  that  perceiving  the  one  makes  us  expect 
the  other;  he  does  not  mean  a  formal  or  explicit  inference.) 
"Perhaps,  the  necessary  connection  depends  on  the  inference/9 
not  vice  versa.  That  is  to  say,  the  sight  of  A  causes  the  expectation 
of  B,  and  so  leads  us  to  believe  that  there  is  a  necessary  connection 
between  A  and  B.  The  inference  is  not  determined  by  reason, 
since  that  would  require  us  to  assume  the  uniformity  of  nature, 
which  itself  is  not  necessary,  but  only  inferred  from  experience. 

Hume  is  thus  led  to  the  view  that,  when  we  say  "A  causes  B," 
we  mean  only  that  A  and  B  are  constantly  conjoined  in  fact,  not 
that  there  is  some  necessary  connection  between  them.  "We  have 
no  other  notion  of  cause  and  effect,  but  that  of  certain  objects, 
which  have  been  always  conjoined  together.  ...  We  cannot 
penetrate  into  the  reason  of  the  conjunction.99 

He  backs  up  his  theory  with  a  definition  of  "belief,99  which  is, 
he  maintains,  "a  lively  idea  related  to  or  associated  with  a  present 
impression.99  Through  association,  if  A  and  B  have  been  con- 
stantly conjoined  in  past  experience,  the  impression  of  A  produces 
that  lively  idea  of  B  which  constitutes  belief  in  B.  This  explains 
why  we  believe  A  and  B  to  be  connected:  the  percept  of  A  & 
connected  with  the  idea  of  B,  and  so  we  come  to  think  that  A  is 
connected  with  B,  though  this  opinion  is  really  groundless. 
"Objects  have  no  discoverable  connexion  together;  nor  is  it  from 
any  other  principle  but  custom  operating  upon  the  imagination, 
that  we  can  draw  any  inference  from  the  appearance  of  one  to  the 
experience  of  another.99  He  repeats  many  times  the  contention 
that  what  appears  to  us  as  necessary  connection  among  objects  is 
really  only  connection  among  the  ideas  of  those  objects:  the  mind 
is  determined  by  custom,  and  "  'tis  this  impression,  or  determina- 
tion, which  affords  me  the  idea  of  necessity.99  The  repetition  of 
instances,  which  leads  us  to  the  belief  that  A  causes  B,  gives 
nothing  new  in  the  object,  but  in  the  mind  leads  to  an  association 
of  ideas;  thus  "necessity  is  something  that  exists  in  the  mind, 
not  in  objects.99 

Let  us  now  ask  ourselves  what  we  are  to  think  of  Hume's 
doctrine.  It  has  two  parts,  one  objective,  the  other  subjective. 
The  objective  part  says:  When  we  judge  that  A  causes  B,  what 

691 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

has  in  fact  happened,  so  far  as  A  and  B  are  concerned,  is  that  they 
have  been  frequently  observed  to  be  conjoined,  i.e.  A  has  been 
immediately,  or  very  quickly,  followed  by  B;  we  have  no  right 
to  say  that  A  must  be  followed  by  B,  or  will  be  followed  by  B 
on  future  occasions.  Nor  have  we  any  ground  for  supposing  that, 
however  often  A  is  followed  by  B,  any  relation  beyond  sequence 
is  .involved.  In  fact,  causation  is  definable  in  terms  of  sequence, 
and  is  not  an  independent  notion. 

The  subjective  part  of  the  doctrine  says:  The  frequently  ob- 
served conjunction  of  A  and  B  causes  the  impression  of  A  to 
cause  the  idea  of  B.  But  if  we  are  to  define  "cause"  as  is  suggested 
in  the  objective  part  of  the  doctrine,  we  must  reword  the  above. 
Substituting  the  definition  of  "cause,"  the  above  becomes: 

"It  has  been  frequently  observed  that  the  frequently  observed 
conjunction  of  two  objects  A  and  B  has  been  frequently  followed 
by  occasions  on  which  the  impression  of  A  was  followed  by  the 
idea  of  B." 

This  statement,  we  may  admit,  is  true,  but  it  has  hardly  the 
scope  that  Hume  attributes  to  the  subjective  part  of  his  doctrine. 
He  contends,  over  and  over  again,  that  the  frequent  conjunction 
of  A  and  B  gives  no  reason  for  expecting  them  to  be  conjoined  in 
the  future,  but  is  merely  a  cause  of  this  expectation.  That  is  to  say: 
Experience  of  frequent  conjunction  is  frequently  conjoined  with 
a  habit  of  association.  But,  if  the  objective  part  of  Hume's  doctrine 
is  accepted,  the  fact  that,  in  the  past,  associations  have  been 
frequently  formed  in  such  circumstances,  is  no  reason  for  sup- 
posing that  they  will  continue,  or  that  new  ones  will  be  formed  in 
similar  circumstances.  The  fact  is  that,  where  psychology  is  con- 
cerned, Hume  allows  himself  to  believe  in  causation  in  a  sense 
which,  in  general,  he  condemns.  Let  us  take  an  illustration.  I  see 
an  appk,  and  expect  that,  if  I  eat  it,  I  shall  experience  a  certain 
kind  of  taste.  According  to  Hume,  there  is  no  reason  why  I 
should  experience  this  kind  of  taste:  the  law  of  habit  explains  the 
existence  of  my  expectation,  but  does  not  justify  it.  But  the  law 
of  habit  is  itself  a  causal  law.  Therefore  if  we  take  Hume  seriously 
we  must  say:  Although  in  the  past  the  sight  of  an  apple  has  been 
conjoined  with  expectation  *f  a  certain  kind  of  taste,  there  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  continue  to  be  so  conjoined:  perhaps  the 
next  time  I  tee  an  apple  I  shall  expect  it  to  taste  like  roast  beef. 
You  may,  at  the  moment,  think  this  unlikely;  but  that  is  no  reason 

692 


HUME 

for  expecting  that  you  will  think  it  unlikely  five  minutes  hence. 
If  Hume's  objective  doctrine  is  right,  we  have  no  better  reason 
for  expectations  in  psychology  than  in  the  physical  world.  Hume's 
theory  might  be  caricatured  as  follows:  "The  proposition  'A 
causes  B'  means  'the  impression  of  A  causes  the  idea  of  B.' " 
As  a  definition,  this  is  not  a  happy  effort. 

We  must  therefore  examine  Hume's  objective  doctrine  more 
closely.  This  doctrine  has  two  parts:  (i)  When  we  say  "A  causes 
B,"  all  that  we  have  a  right  to  say  is  that,  in  past  experience,  A 
and  B  have  frequently  appeared  together  or  in  rapid  succession, 
and  no  instance  has  been  observed  of  A  not  followed  or  accom- 
panied by  B.  (2)  However  many  instances  we  may  have  observed 
of  the  conjunction  of  A  and  B,  that  gives  no  reason  for  expecting 
them  to  be  conjoined  on  a  future  occasion,  though  it  is  a  cause  of 
this  expectation,  i.e.  it  has  been  frequently  observed  to  be  con- 
joined with  such  an  expectation.  These  two  parts  of  the  doctrine 
may  be  stated  as  follows:  (i)  in  causation  there  is  no  indefinable 
relation  except  conjunction  or  succession ;  (2)  induction  by  simple 
enumeration  is  not  a  valid  form  of  argument.  Empiricists  in 
general  have  accepted  the  first  of  these  theses  and  rejected  the 
second.  When  I  say  they  have  rejected  the  second,  I  mean  that 
they  have  believed  that,  given  a  sqfficiently  vast  accumulation  of 
instances  of  a  conjunction,  the  likelihood  of  the  conjunction  being 
found  in  the  next  instance  will  exceed  a  half;  or,  if  they  have  not 
held  exactly  this,  they  have  maintained  some  doctrine  having 
similar  consequences. 

I  do  not  wish,  at  the  moment,  to  discuss  induction,  which  is  a 
large  and  difficult  subject ;  for  the  moment,  I  am  content  to  observe 
that,  if  the  first  half  of  Hume's  doctrine  is  admitted,  the  rejection 
of  induction  makes  all  expectation  as  to  the  future  irrational,  even 
the  expectation  that  we  shall  continue  to  feel  expectations.  I  do 
not  mean  merely  that  our  expectations  may  be  mistaken;  that,  in 
any  case,  must  be  admitted.  I  mean  that,  taking  even  our  Ijrmest 
expectations,  such  as  that  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow,  there  is 
not  a  shadow  of  a  reason  for  supposing  them  more  likely  to  be 
verified  than  not.  With  this  proviso,  I  return  to  the  meaning  of 


"cause. 


Those  who  disagree  with  Hume  maintain  that  "cause"  is  a 
specific  relation,  which  entails  invariable  sequence,  but  is  not 
entailed  by  it.  To  revert  to  the  clocks  of  the  Cartesians:  two 

693 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

perfectly  accurate  chronometers  might  strike  the  hours  one  after 
the  other  invariably,  without  either  being  the  cause  of  the  other's 
striking.  In  general,  those  who  take  this  view  maintain  that  we 
can  sometimes  perceive  causal  relations,  though  in  most  cases  we 
are  obliged  to  infer  them,  more  or  less  precariously,  from  constant 
conjunction.  Let  us  see  what  arguments  there  are  for  and  against 
Hume  on  this  point 

Hume  summarizes  his  argument  as  follows: 

"I  am  sensible,  that  of  all  the  paradoxes,  which  I  have  had,  or 
shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  advance  in  the  course  of  this 
treatise,  the  present  one  is  the  most  violent,  and  that  'tis  merely 
by  dint  of  solid  proof  and  reasoning  I  can  ever  hope  it  will  have 
admission,  and  overcome  the  inveterate  prejudices  of  mankind. 
Before  we  are  reconciled  to  this  doctrine,  how  often  must  we 
repeat  to  ourselves,  that  the  simple  view  of  any  two  objects  or 
actions,  however  related,  can  never  give  us  any  idea  of  power,  or 
of  a  connexion  betwixt  them:  that  this  idea  arises  from  a  repeti- 
tion of  their  union:  that  the  repetition  neither  discovers  nor 
causes  anything  in  the  objects,  but  has  an  influence  only  on  the 
mind,  by  that  customary  transition  it  produces:  that  this  cus- 
tomary transition  is,  therefore,  the  same  with  the  power  and 
necessity,  which  are  consequently  felt  by  the  soul,  and  not 
perceiv'd  externally  in  bodies?" 

Hume  is  commonly  accused  of  having  too  atomic  a  view  of  per- 
ception, but  he  allows  that  certain  relations  can  be  perceived. 
"We  ought  not,"  he  says,  "to  receive  as  reasoning  any  of  the 
observations  we  make  concerning  identity,  and  the  relations  of 
time  and  place;  since  in  none  of  them  the  mind  can  go  beyond 
what  is  immediately  present  to  the  senses.'9  Causation,  he  says, 
is  different  in  that  it  takes  us  beyond  the  impressions  of  our  senses, 
and  informs  us  of  unperceived  existences.  As  an  argument,  this 
seems  invalid.  We  believe  in  many  relations  of  time  and  place 
whicjt  we  cannot  perceive:  we  think  that  time  extends  backwards 
and  forwards,  and  space  beyond  the  walls  of  our  room.  Hume's 
real  argument  is  that,  while  we  sometimes  perceive  relations  of 
time  and  place,  we  never  perceive  causal  relations,  which  must 
therefore,  if  admitted,  bo  inferred  from  relations  that  can  be 
perceived.  The  controversy  is  thus  reduced  to  one  of  empirical 
Act:  Do  we,  or  do  we  not,  sometimes  perceive  a  relation  which 
ca*  be  called  causal?  Hume  says  no,  his  adversaries  say  yes,  and 

694 


HUME 

it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  evidence  can  be  produced  by  either  side. 

I  think  perhaps  the  strongest  argument  on  Hume's  side  is  to 
be  derived  from  the  character  of  causal  laws  in  physics.  It  appears 
that  simple  rules  of  the  form  "A  causes  B"  are  never  to  be  admitted 
in  science,  except  as  crude  suggestions  in  early  stages.  The  causal 
laws  by  which  such  simple  rules  are  replaced  in  well-developed 
sciences  are  so  complex  that  no  one  can  suppose  them  given  in 
perception ;  they  are  all,  obviously,  elaborate  inferences  from  the 
observed  course  of  nature.  I  am  leaving  out  of  account  modern 
quantum  theory,  which  reinforces  the  above  conclusion.  So  for 
as  the  physical  sciences  are  concerned,  Hume  is  wholly  in  the 
right ;  such  propositions  as  "A  causes  B"  are  never  to  be  accepted, 
and  our  inclination  to  accept  them  is  to  be  explained  by  the  laws 
of  habit  and  association.  These  laws  themselves,  in  their  accurate 
form,  will  be  elaborate  statements  as  to  nervous  tissue — primarily 
its  physiology,  then  its  chemistry,  and  ultimately  its  physics. 

The  opponent  of  Hume,  however,  even  if  he  admits  the  whole 
of  what  has  just  been  said  about  the  physical  sciences,  may  not 
yet  admit  himself  decisively  defeated.  He  may  say  that  in  psy- 
chology we  have  cases  where  a  causal  relation  can  be  perceived. 
The  whole  conception  of  cause  is  probably  derived  from  volition, 
and  it  may  be  said  that  we  can  perceive  a  relation,  between  a 
volition  and  the  consequent  act,  which  is  something  more  than 
invariable  sequence.  The  same  might  be  said  of  the  relation 
between  a  sudden  pain  and  a  cry.  Such  views,  however,  are  ren- 
dered very  difficult  by  physiology.  Between  the  will  to  move  my 
arm  and  the  consequent  movement  there  is  a  long  chain  of  causal 
intermediaries  consisting  of  processes  in  the  nerves  and  muscles. 
We  perceive  only  the  end  terms  of  this  process,  the  volition  and 
the  movement,  and  if  we  think  we  see  a  direct  causal  connection 
between  these  we  arc  mistaken.  This  argument  is  not  conclusive 
on  the  general  question,  but  it  shows  that  it  is  rash  to  suppose 
that  we  perceive  causal  relations  when  we  think  we  do.  The 
balance,  therefore,  is  in  favour  of  Hume's  view  that  there  is 
nothing  in  cause  except  invariable  succession.  The  evidence, 
however,  is  not  so  conclusive  as  Hume  supposed. 

Hume  is  not  content  with  reducing  the  evidence  of  a  causal 
connection  to  experience  of  frequent  conjunction;  he  proceeds  to 
argue  that  such  experience  does  not  justify  the  expectation  of 
similar  conjunctions  in  the  future.  For  example:  when  (to  repeat 

695 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

a  former  illustration)  I  see  an  apple,  past  experience  makes  me 
expect  that  it  will  taste  like  an  apple,  and  not  like  roast  beef;  but 
there  is  no  rational  justification  for  this  expectation.  If  there  were 
such  a  justification,  it  would  have  to  proceed  from  the  principle 
"that  those  instances,  of  which  we  have  had  no  experience,  re- 
semble those  of  which  we  have  had  experience."  This  principle 
is  not  logically  necessary,  since  we  can  at  least  conceive  a  change 
in  the  course  of  nature.  It  should  therefore  be  a  principle  of  pro- 
bability. But  all  probable  arguments  assume  this  principle,  and 
therefore  it  cannot  itself  be  proved  by  any  probable  argument, 
or  even  rendered  probable  by  any  such  argument.  "The  supposi- 
tion, that  the  future  resembles  the  past,  is  not  founded  on  arguments 
of  any  kind,  but  is  derived  entirely  from  habit."1  The  conclusion 
is  one  of  complete  scepticism: 

"All  probable  reasoning  is  nothing  but  a  species  of  sensation. 
'Tis  not  solely  in  poetry  and  music,  we  must  follow  our  taste  and 
sentiment,  but  likewise  in  philosophy.  When  I  am  convinced  of 
any  principle,  'tis  only  an  idea,  which  strikes  more  strongly  upon 
me.  When  I  give  the  preference  to  one  set  of  arguments  above 
another,  I  do  nothing  but  decide  from  my  feeling  concerning  the 
superiority  of  their  influence.  Objects  have  no  discoverable  con- 
nexion together;  nor  is  it  from  any  other  principle  but  custom 
operating  upon  the  imagination,  that  we  can  draw  any  inference 
from  the  appearance  of  one  to  the  existence  of  another."1 

The  ultimate  outcome  of  Hume's  investigation  of  what  passes 
for  knowledge  is  not  what  we  must  suppose  him  to  have  desired. 
The  sub-title  of  his  book  is:  "An  attempt  to  introduce  the  experi- 
mental method  of  reasoning  into  moral  subjects."  It  is  evident 
that  he  started  out  with  a  belief  that  scientific  method  yields  the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth;  he  ended, 
however,  with  the  conviction  that  belief  is  never  rational,  since 
we  know  nothing.  After  setting  forth  the  arguments  for  scepticism 
(Book  I,  part  iv,  sec.  i),  he  goes  on,  not  to  refute  the  arguments, 
but  to  fall  back  on  natural  credulity. 

"Nature,  by  an  absolute  and  uncontrollable  necessity,  has  deter- 
mined us  to  judge  as  well  as  to  breathe  and  feel ;  nor  can  we  any 
more  forbear  viewing  certain  objects  in  a  stronger  and  fuller  light, 
upon  account  of  their  customary  connexion  with  a  present  im- 
pression, than  we  can  hinder  ourselves  from  thinking  as  long  as 

1  Book  I,  part  iii,  tec.  iv.  *  Book  I,  pan  tti,  arc.  viti. 

696 


HUM! 

we  are  awake,  or  seeing  the  surrounding  bodies,  when  we  turn 
our  eyes  towards  them  in  broad  sunshine.  Whoever  has  taken  the 
pains  to  refute  this  total  scepticism,  has  really  disputed  without 
an  antagonist,  and  endeavoured  by  arguments  to  establish  a 
faculty,  which  nature  has  antecedently  implanted  in  the  mind, 
and  rendered  unavoidable.  My  intention  then  in  displaying  so 
carefully  the  arguments  of  that  fantastic  sect,  is  only  to  make  the 
reader  sensible  of  the  truth  of  my  hypothesis,  that  all  our  reasonings 
concerning  causes  and  effects  are  derived  from  nothing  but  custom; 
and  that  belief  is  more  properly  an  act  of  the  sensitive,  than  of  the 
cogitative  part  of  our  natures. " 

"The  sceptic,"  he  continues  (Book  I,  part  iv,  sec.  ii),  "still  con- 
tinues to  reason  and  believe,  even  though  he  asserts  that  he  cannot 
defend  his  reason  by  reason ;  and  by  the  same  rule  he  must  assent 
to  the  principle  concerning  the  existence  of  body,  tho'  he  cannot 
pretend  by  any  arguments  of  philosophy  to  maintain  its  veracity 
.  .  .  We  may  well  ask,  wliat  causes  us  to  believe  in  the  existence  of 
body?  But  'tis  vain  to  ask,  whether  there  be  body  or  not?  That  is  a 
point,  which  we  must  take  for  granted  in  all  our  reasonings." 

The  above  is  the  beginning  of  a  section  "Of  scepticism  with 
regard  to  the  senses."  After  a  long  discussion,  this  section  ends 
with  the  following  conclusion : 

"This  sceptical  doubt,  both  with  respect  to  reason  and  the  senses, 
is  a  malady,  which  can  never  be  radically  cured,  but  must  return 
upon  us  every  moment,  however  we  may  chase  it  away,  and  some- 
times may  seem  entirely  free  from  it.  ...  Carelessness  and 
inattention  alone  can  afford  us  any  remedy.  For  this  reason  I  rely 
entirely  upon  them ;  and  take  it  for  granted,  whatever  may  be  the 
reader's  opinion  at  this  present  moment,  that  an  hour  hence  he 
will  be  persuaded  there  is  both  an  external  and  internal  world." 

There  is  no  reason  for  studying  philosophy — so  Hume  main- 
tains—except that,  to  certain  temperaments,  this  is  an  agreeable 
way  of  passing  the  time.  "In  all  the  incidents  of  life  wrought 
still  to  preserve  our  scepticism.  If  we  believe,  that  fire  warms,  or 
water  refreshes,  'tis  only  because  it  costs  us  too  much  pains  to 
think  otherwise.  Nay,  if  we  are  philosophers,  it  ought  only  to  be 
upon  sceptical  principles,  and  from  gn  inclination  which  we  feel 
to  be  employing  ourselves  after  that  manner."  If  he  abandoned 
speculation,  "I  feel  I  should  be  a  loser  in  point  of  pleasure;  and 
this  is  the  origin  of  my  philosophy." 

697 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Hume's  philosophy,  whether  true  or  false,  represents  the  bank- 
ruptcy of  eighteenth-century  reasonableness.  He  starts  out,  like 
Locke,  with  the  intention  of  being  sensible  and  empirical,  taking 
nothing  on  trust,  but  seeking  whatever  instruction  is  to  be  obtained 
from  experience  and  observation.  But  having  a  better  intellect 
than  Locke's,  a  greater  acuteness  in  analysis,  and  a  smaller  capacity 
for  accepting  comfortable  inconsistencies,  he  arrives  at  the 
disastrous  conclusion  that  from  experience  and  observation 
nothing  is  to  be  learnt.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  rational  belief: 
"If  we  believe  that  fire  warms,  or  water  refreshes,  'tis  only  because 
it  costs  us  too  much  pains  to  think  otherwise."  We  cannot  help 
believing,  but  no  belief  can  be  grounded  in  reason.  Nor  can  one 
line  of  action  be  more  rational  than  another,  since  all  alike  are 
based  upon  irrational  convictions.  This  last  conclusion,  however, 
Hume  seems  not  to  have  drawn.  Even  in  his  most  sceptical 
chapter,  in  which  he  sums  up  the  conclusions  of  Book  I,  he  says: 
"Generally  speaking,  the  errors  in  religion  are  dangerous;  those 
in  philosophy  only  ridiculous. "  He  has  no  right  to  say  this. 
"Dangerous"  is  a  causal  word,  and  a  sceptic  as  to  causation 
cannot  know  that  anything  is  "dangerous." 

In  fact,  in  the  later  portions  of  the  Treatise,  Hume  forgets  all 
about  his  fundamental  doubts,  and  writes  much  as  any  other 
enlightened  moralist  of  his  time  might  have  written ;  he  applies 
to  his  doubts  the  remedy  that  he  recommends,  namely  "careless- 
ness and  inattention."  In  a  sense,  his  scepticism  is  insincere, 
since  he  cannot  maintain  it  in  practice.  It  has,  however,  this 
awkward  consequence,  that  it  paralyses  every  effort  to  prove  one 
line  of  action  better  than  another. 

It  was  inevitable  that  such  a  self-refutation  of  rationality  should 
be  followed  by  a  great  outburst  of  irrational  faith.  The  quarrel 
between  Hume  and  Rousseau  is  symbolic:  Rousseau  was  mad 
but  influential,  Hume  was  sane  but  had  no  followers.  Subsequent 
British  empiricists  rejected  his  scepticism  without  refuting  it; 
Rousseau  and  his  followers  agreed  with  Hume  that  no  belief  is 
based  on  reason,  but  thought  the  heart  superior  to  reason,  and 
allowed  it  to  lead  them  to  convictions  very  different  from  those 
that  Hume  retained  in  practice.  German  philosophers,  from  Kant 
to  Hegel,  had  not  atsimilatrd  Hume's  arguments.  I  say  this  deli- 
berately, in  spite  of  the  belief  which  many  philosophers  share 
with  Kant,  that  his  Critique  of  Putt  Ruuo*  answered  Hume.  In 

698 


HUMB 

fact,  these  philosophers— at  least  Kant  and  Hegel— represent  a 
pre-Humian  type  of  rationalism,  and  can  be  refuted  by  Humian 
arguments.  The  philosophers  who  cannot  be  refuted  in  this  way 
are  those  who  do  not  pretend  to  be  rational,  such  as  Rousseau, 
Schopenhauer,,  and  Nietzsche.  The  growth  of  unreason  through- 
out the  nineteenth  century  and  what  has  passed  of  the  twentieth 
is  a  natural  sequel  to  Hume's  destruction  of  empiricism. 

It  is  therefore  important  to  discover  whether  there  is  any  answer 
to  Hume  within  the  framework  of  a  philosophy  that  is  wholly 
or  mainly  empirical.  If  not,  there  is  no  intellectual  difference 
between  sanity  and  insanity.  The  lunatic  who  believes  that  he  is 
a  poached  egg  is  to  be  condemned  solely  on  the  ground  that  he  is 
in  a  minority,  or  rather — since  we  must  not  assume  democracy — 
on  the  ground  that  the  government  does  not  agree  with  him. 
This  is  a  desperate  point  of  view,  and  it  must  be  hoped  that  there 
is  some  way  of  escaping  from  it. 

Hume's  scepticism  rests  entirely  upon  his  rejection  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  induction.  The  principle  of  induction,  as  applied  to 
causation,  says  that,  if  A  has  been  found  very  often  accompanied 
or  followed  by  B,  and  no  instance  is  known  of  A  not  being  accom- 
panied or  followed  by  B,  then  it  is  probable  that  on  the  next 
occasion  on  which  A  is  observed  it  will  be  accompanied  or  followed 
by  B.  If  the  principle  is  to  be  adequate,  a  sufficient  number  of 
instances  must  make  the  probability  not  far  short  of  certainty.  If 
this  principle,  or  any  other  from  which  it  can  be  deduced,  is  true, 
then  the  causal  inferences  which  Hume  rejects  are  valid,  not 
indeed  as  giving  certainty,  but  as  giving  a  sufficient  probability 
for  practical  purposes.  If  this  principle  is  not  true,  every  attempt 
to  arrive  at  general  scientific  laws  from  particular  observations  is 
fallacious,  and  Hume's  scepticism  is  inescapable  for  an  empiricist. 
The  principle  itself  cannot,  of  course,  without  circularity,  be 
inferred  from  observed  uniformities,  since  it  is  required  to  justify 
any  such  inference.  It  must  therefore  be,  or  be  deduced  from, 
an  independent  principle  not  based  upon  experience.  *fo  this 
extent,  Hume  has  proved  that  pure  empiricism  is  not  a  sufficient 
basis  for  science.  But  if  this  one  principle  is  admitted,  everything 
else  can  proceed  in  accordance  with  tfie  theory  that  all  our  know- 
ledge is  based  on  experience.  It  must  be  granted  that  this  is  a 
serious  departure  from  pure  empiricism,  and  that  those  who  are 
not  empiricists  may  ask  why,  if  one  departure  is  allowed,  others 

699 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

are  to  be  forbidden.  These,  however,  are  questions  not  directly 
raised  by  Hume's  arguments.  What  these  arguments  prove — and 
I  do  not  think  the  proof  can  be  controverted — is,  that  induction 
is  an  independent  logical  principle,  incapable  of  being  inferred 
either  from  experience  or  from  other  logical  principles,  and  that 
without  this  principle  science  is  impossible. 


700 


Part  2. — From  Rousseau  to  the  Present  'Day 

Chapter  XVIII 
THE   ROMANTIC  MOVEMENT 

FROM  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  present 
day,  art  and  literature  and  philosophy,  and  even  politics,  have 
been  influenced,  positively  or  negatively,  by  a  way  of  feeling 
which  was  characteristic  of  what,  in  a  large  sense,  may  be  called 
the  romantic  movement.  Even  those  who  were  repelled  by  this 
way  of  feeling  were  compelled  to  take  account  of  it,  and  in  many 
cases  were  more  affected  by  it  than  they  knew.  I  propose  in  this 
chapter  to  give  a  brief  description  of  the  romantic  outlook,  chiefly 
in  matters  not  definitely  philosophical;  for  this  is  the  cultural 
background  of  most  philosophic  thought  in  the  period  with  which 
we  are  now  to  be  concerned. 

The  romantic  movement  was  not,  in  its  beginnings,  connected 
with  philosophy,  though  it  came  before  long  to  have  connections 
with  it.  With  politics,  through  Rousseau,  it  was  connected  from 
the  first.  But  before  we  can  understand  its  political  and  philo- 
sophical effects  we  must  consider  it  in  its  most  essential  form, 
which  is  as  a  revolt  against  received  ethical  and  aesthetic  standards. 
The  first  great  figure  in  the  movement  is  Rousseau,  but  to  some 
extent  he  only  expressed  already  existing  tendencies.  Cultivated 
people  in  eighteenth-century  France  greatly  admired  what  they 
called  la  scnsibilitc,  which  meant  a  proneness  to  emotion,  and  more 
particularly  to  the  emotion  of  sympathy.  To  be  thoroughly  satis- 
factory, the  emotion  must  be  direct  and  violent  and  quite  unin- 
formed by  thought.  The  man  of  sensibility  would  be  moved  to 
tears  by  the  sight  of  a  single  destitute  peasant  family,  but  Vould 
be  cold  to  well-thought-out  schemes  for  ameliorating  the  lot  of 
peasants  as  a  class.  The  poor  were  supposed  to  possess  more 
virtue  than  the  rich ;  the  sage  was  thought  of  as  a  man  who  retires 
from  the  corruption  of  courts  to  enjoy  the  peaceful  pleasures  of 
an  unambitious  rural  existence.  As  a  passing  mood,  this  attitude 
is  to  be  found  in  poets  of  almost  all  periods.  The  exiled  Duke  in 

701 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

As  You  Like  It  expresses  it,  though  he  goes  back  to  his  dukedom 
as  soon  as  he  can;  only  the  melancholy  Jaques  sincerely  prefers 
the  life  of  the  forest  Even  Pope,  the  perfect  exemplar  of  all  that 
the  romantic  movement  rebelled  against,  says: 

Happy  the  man  whose  wish  and  care 

A  few  paternal  acres  bound, 
Content  to  breathe  his  native  air 

On  his  own  ground. 

The  poor,  in  the  imaginations  of  those  who  cultivated  sensibility, 
always  had  a  few  paternal  acres,  and  lived  on  the  produce  of  their 
own  labour  without  the  need  of  external  commerce.  True,  they 
were  always  losing  the  acres  in  pathetic  circumstances,  because 
the  aged  father  could  no  longer  work,  the  lovely  daughter  was 
going  into  a  decline,  and  the  wicked  mortgagee  or  the  nicked  lord 
was  ready  to  pounce  either  on  the  acres  or  on  the  daughter's  virtue. 
The  poor,  to  the  romantics,  were  never  urban  and  never  industrial ; 
the  proletariat  is  a  nineteenth-century  conception,  perhaps  equally 
romanticized,  but  quite  different. 

Rousseau  appealed  to  the  already  existing  cult  of  sensibility, 
and  gave  it  a  breadth  and  scope  that  it  might  not  otherwise  have 
possessed.  He  was  a  democrat,  not  only  in  his  theories,  but  in  his 
tastes.  For  long  periods  of  his  life,  he  was  a  poor  vagabond, 
receiving  kindness  from  people  only  slightly  less  destitute  than 
himself.  He  repaid  this  kindness,  in  action,  often  with  the  blackest 
ingratitude,  but  in  emotion  his  response  was  all  that  the  most 
ardent  devotee  of  sensibility  could  have  wished.  Having  the  tastes 
of  a  tramp,  he  found  the  restraints  of  Parisian  society  irksome. 
From  him  the  romantics  learnt  a  contempt  for  the  trammels  of 
convention — first  in  dress  and  manners,  in  the  minuet  and  the 
heroic  couplet,  then  in  art  and  love,  and  at  last  over  the  whole 
sphere  of  traditional  morals. 

The  romantics  were  not  without  morals;  on  the  contrary,  their 
moral  judgments  were  sharp  and  vehement.  But  they  were  based 
on  quite  other  principles  than  those  that  had  seemed  good  to  their 
predecessors.  The  period  from  1660  to  Rousseau  is  dominated  by 
recollections  of  the  wars  of  religion  and  the  civil  wars  in  France 
and  England  and  Germany.  Men  were  very  conscious  of  the 
danger  of  chaos,  of  the  anarchic  tendencies  of  all  strong  passions, 
of  the  importance  of  safety  and  the  sacrifices  necessary  to  achieve 

702 


THF    ROMANTIC   MOVEMENT 

it.  Prudence  was  regarded  as  the  supreme  virtue;  intellect  was 
valued  as  the  most  effective  weapon  against  subversive  fanatics; 
polished  manners  were  praised  as  a  barrier  against  barbarism. 
Newton's  orderly  cosmos,  in  which  the  planets  unchangingly 
revolve  about  the  sun  in  law-abiding  orbits,  became  an  imaginative 
symbol  of  good  government  Restraint  in  the  expression  of 
passion  was  the  chief  aim  of  education,  and  the  surest  mark  of  a 
gentleman.  In  the  Revolution,  pre-romantic  French  aristocrats 
died  quietly;  Madame  Roland  and  Danton,  who  were  romantics, 
died  rhetorically. 

By  the  time  of  Rousseau,  many  people  had  grown  tired  of 
safety,  and  had  begun  to  desire  excitement.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion and  Napoleon  gave  them  their  fill  of  it.  When,  in  1815,  the 
political  world  returned  to  tranquillity,  it  was  a  tranquillity  so 
dead,  so  rigid,  so  hostile  to  all  vigorous  life,  that  only  terrified 
conservatives  could  endure  it.  Consequently  there  was  no  such 
intellectual  acquiescence  in  the  status  quo  as  had  characterized 
France  under  the  Roi  Soleil  and  England  until  the  French  Revo- 
lution. Nineteenth-century  revolt  against  the  system  of  the  Holy 
Alliance  took  two  forms.  On  the  one  hand,  there  was  the  revolt 
of  industrialism,  both  capitalist  and  proletarian,  against  monarchy 
and  aristocracy;  this  was  almost  untouched  by  romanticism,  and 
reverted,  in  many  respects,  to  the  eighteenth  century.  This  move- 
ment is  represented  by  the  philosophical  radicals,  the  free-trade 
movement,  and  Marxian  socialism.  Quite  different  from  this  was 
the  romantic  revolt,  which  was  in  part  reactionary,  in  part  revo- 
lutionary. The  romantics  did  not  aim  at  peace  and  quiet,  but  at 
vigorous  and  passionate  individual  life.  They  had  no  sympathy 
with  industrialism  because  it  was  ugly,  because  money-grubbing 
seemed  to  them  unworthy  of  an  immortal  soul,  and  because  the 
growth  of  modern  economic  organizations  interfered  with  indi- 
vidual liberty.  In  the  post-revolutionary  period  they  were  led  into 
politics,  gradually,  through  nationalism:  each  nation  was^elt  to 
have  a  corporate  soul,  which  could  not  be  free  so  long  as  the 
boundaries  of  States  were  different  from  those  of  nations.  In  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  nationalism  was  the  most 
vigorous  of  revolutionary  principles,  §nd  most  romantics  ardently 
favoured  it. 

The  romantic  movement  is  characterized,  as  a  whole,  by  the 
substitution  of  aesthetic  for  utilitarian  standards.  The  earth-worm 

703 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

is  useful,  but  not  beautiful;  the  tiger  is  beautiful,  but  not  useful. 
Darwin  (who  was  not  a  romantic)  praised  the  earth-worm;  Blake 
praised  the  tiger.  The  morals  of  the  romantics  have  primarily 
aesthetic  motives.  But  in  order  to  characterize  the  romantics,  it 
is  necessary  to  take  account,  not  only  of  the  importance  of  aesthetic 
motives,  but  also  of  the  change  of  taste  which  made  their  sense 
of  beauty  different  from  that  of  their  predecessors.  Of  this,  their 
preference  for  Gothic  architecture  is  one  of  the  most  obvious 
examples.  Another  is  their  taste  in  scenery.  Dr.  Johnson  preferred 
Fleet  Street  to  any  rural  landscape,  and  maintained  that  a  man 
who  is  tired  of  London  must  be  tired  of  life.  If  anything  in  the 
country  was  admired  by  Rousseau's  predecessors,  it  was  a  scene 
of  fertility,  with  rich  pastures  and  lowing  kine.  Rousseau,  being 
Swiss,  naturally  admired  the  Alps.  In  his  disciples*  novels  and 
stories,  we  find  wild  torrents,  fearful  precipices,  pathless  forests, 
thunder-storms,  tempests  at  sea,  and  generally  what  is  useless, 
destructive,  and  violent.  This  change  seems  to  be  more  or  less 
permanent:  almost  everybody,  nowadays,  prefers  Niagara  and 
the  Grand  Canyon  to  lush  meadows  and  fields  of  waving  corn. 
Tourist  hotels  afford  statistical  evidence  of  taste  in  scenery. 

The  temper  of  the  romantics  is  best  studied  in  fiction.  They 
liked  what  was  strange:  ghosts,  ancient  decayed  castles,  the  last 
melancholy  descendants  of  once-great  families,  practitioners  of 
rism  and  the  occult  sciences,  falling  tyrants  and  levantinc 


pirates.  Fielding  and  Smollett  wrote  of  ordinary  people  in  circum- 
stances that  might  well  have  occurred;  so  did  the  realists  who 
reacted  against  romanticism.  But  to  the  romantics  such  themes 
were  too  pedestrian;  they  felt  inspired  only  by  what  was  grand, 
remote,  and  terrifying.  Science,  of  a  somewhat  dubious  sort,  could 
be  utilized  if  it  led  to  something  astonishing;  but  in  the  main  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  what  was  most  medieval  in  the  present,  pleased 
the  romantics  best  Very  often  they  cut  loose  from  actuality, 
either  past  or  present,  altogether.  The  Ancient  Marina  is  typical 
in  this  respect,  and  Coleridge's  Kubla  Khan  is  hardly  the  historical 
monarch  of  Marco  Polo.  The  geography  of  the  romantics  is  in- 
teresting: from  Xanadu  to  "the  lone  Chorasmian  shore,"  the  places 
in  which  it  is  interested  are  remote,  Asiatic,  or  ancient. 

The  romantic  movement,  in  spite  of  owing  its  origin  to  Rousseau, 
was  at  first  mainly  German,  lite  German  romantics  were  young 
in  the  last  yean  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  it  was  while  they 


TUB  ROMANTIC  MOVEMENT 

were  young  that  they  gave  expression  to  what  was  most  charac- 
teristic in  their  outlook.  Those  who  had  not  the  good  fortune  to 
die  young,  in  the  end  allowed  their  individuality  to  be  obscured 
in  the  uniformity  of  the  Catholic  Church.  (A  romantic  could 
become  a  Catholic  if  he  had  been  born  a  Protestant,  but  could 
hardly  be  a  Catholic  otherwise,  since  it  was  necessary  to  combine 
Catholicism  with  revolt.)  The  German  romantics  influenced 
Coleridge  and  Shelley,  and  independently  of  German  influence 
the  same  outlook  became  common  in  England  during  the  early 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  France,  though  in  a  weakened 
form,  it  flourished  after  the  Restoration,  down  to  Victor  Hugo.  In 
America  it  is  to  be  seen  almost  pure  in  Melville,  Thoreau,  and 
Brook  Farm,  and,  somewhat  softened,  in  Emerson  and  Hawthorne. 
Although  romantics  tended  towards  Catholicism,  there  was  some- 
thing incradicably  Protestant  in  the  individualism  of  their  outlook, 
and  their  permanent  successes  in  moulding  customs,  opinions,  and 
institutions  were  almost  wholly  confined  to  Protestant  countries. 

The  beginnings  of  romanticism  in  England  can  be  seen  in  the 
writings  of  the  satirists.  In  Sheridkn's  Rivals  (1775),  the  heroine 
is  determined  to  marry  some  poor  man  for  love  rather  than  a  rich 
man  to  please  her  guardian  and  his  parents ;  but  the  rich  man  whom 
they  have  selected  wins  her  love  by  wooing  her  under  an  assumed 
name  and  pretending  to  be  poor.  Jane  Austen  makes  fun  of  the 
romantics  in  Northanger  Abbey  and  Sense  and  Sensibility  (1797-8). 
Northanger  Abbey  has  a  heroine  who  is  led  astray  by  Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe's  ultra-romantic  Mysteries  of  Udolpho,  which  was  published 
in  1794.  The  first  good  romantic  work  in  England — apart  from 
Blake,  who  was  a  solitary  Swedenborgian  and  hardly  part  of  any 
"movement" — was  Coltridge'&Anrient  Mariner, published  in  1799. 
In  the  following  year,  having  unfortunately  been  supplied  with 
funds  by  the  Wedgwoods,  he  went  to  Gftttingen  and  became 
engulfed  in  Kant,  which  did  not  improve  his  verse. 

After  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  and  Southey  had  become  reac- 
tionaries, hatred  of  the  Revolution  and  Napoleon  put  a  tenf)x>raiy 
brake  on  English  romanticism.  But  it  was  soon  revived  by  Byron, 
Shelley,  and  Keats,  and  in  some  degree  dominated  the  whole 
Victorian  epoch. 

Mary  Shelley's  Frankenstein,  written  under  the  inspiration  of 
conversations  with  Byron  in  the  romantic  scenery  of  the  Alps, 
contains  what  might  almost  be  regarded  as  an  allegorical  prophetic 

Hutaty  of  W*Ur*  P*ifewl*x  705  X  ' 


WB8TERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

history  of  the  development  of  romanticism.  Frankenstein's  monster 
is  not,  as  he  has  become  in  proverbial  parlance,  a  mere  monster: 
he  is,  at  first,  a  gentle  being,  longing  for  human  affection,  but  he 
is  driven  to  hatred  and  violence  by  the  horror  which  his  ugliness 
inspires  in  those  whose  love  he  attempts  to  gain.  Unseen,  he 
observes  a  virtuous  family  of  poor  cottagers,  and  surreptitiously 
assists  their  labours.  At  length  he  decides  to  make  himself  known 
to  them: 

"The  more  I  saw  of  them,  the  greater  became  my  desire  to  claim 
their  protection  and  kindness;  my  heart  yearned  to  be  known  and 
loved  by  these  amiable  creatures;  to  see  their  sweet  looks  directed 
towards  me  with  affection,  was  the  utmost  limit  of  my  ambition. 
I  dared  not  think  that  they  would  turn  from  me  with  disdain  and 
honor." 

But  they  did.  So  he  first  demanded  of  his  creator  the  creation  of 
a  female  like  himself,  and,  when  that  was  refused,  devoted  himself 
to  murdering,  one  by  one,  all  whom  Frankenstein  loved.  But  even 
then,  when  all  his  murders  are  accomplished,  and  while  he  is 
gazing  upon  the  dead  bod/  of  Frankenstein,  the  monster's 
tentimcnti  remain  noble: 

"That  also  is  my  victim!  in  his  murder  my  crimes  are  con- 
summated; the  miserable  genius  of  my  being  is  wound  to  its 
close!  Oh,  Frankenstein  I  generous  and  self-devoted  being!  What 
does  it  avail  that  I  now  ask  thee  to  pardon  me?  1,  who  irretrievably 
destroyed  thee  by  destroying  all  that  thou  lovedst.  Alas !  he  is  cold, 
he  cannot  answer  me. . . .  When  1  run  over  the  frightful  catalogue 
of  my  sins,  I  cannot  believe  that  I  am  the  same  creature  whose 
thoughts  were  once  filled  with  sublime  and  transcendent  visions 
of  the  beauty  and  the  majesty  of  goodness.  But  it  is  even  so;  the 
fallen  angel  becomes  a  malignant  devil.  Yet  even  that  enemy  of 
God  and  man  had  friends  and  associates  in  his  desolation ;  I  am 
alone." 

Robbed  of  its  romantic  form,  there  is  nothing  unreal  in  this 
psychology,  and  it  is  unnecessary  to  search  out  pirates  or  Vandal 
kings  in  order  to  find  parallels*  To  an  English  visitor,  the  ex-Kaiser, 
at  Doom,  lamented  that  the  English  no  longer  loved  him.  Or.  Bun, 
in  his  book  on  the  juvenile  delinquent,  mentions  a  boy  of  seven 
who  drowned  another  boy  to  the  Regent's  Canal.  His  reason  was 
that  neither  his  family  nor  his  contemporaries  showed  him  affec- 
tion. Dr.  Btut  was  kind  to  him,  and  he  became  a  respectable 


THE   ROMANTIC   MOVEMENT 

citizen;  but  no  Dr.  Burt  undertook  the  reformation  of  Franken- 
stein's monster. 

It  is  not  the  psychology  of  the  romantics  that  is  at  fault:  it  is 
their  standard  of  values.  They  admire  strong  passions,  of  no  matter 
what  kind,  and  whatever  may  be  their  social  consequences. 
Romantic  love,  especially  when  unfortunate,  is  strong  enough  to 
win  their  approval,  but  most  of  the  strongest  passions  are  des- 
tructive— hate  and  resentment  and  jealousy,  remorse  and  despair, 
outraged  pride  and  the  fury  of  the  unjustly  oppressed,  martial 
ardour  and  contempt  for  slaves  and  cowards.  Hence  the  type  of 
man  encouraged  by  romanticism,  especially  of  the  Byronic  variety, 
is  violent  and  anti-social,  an  anarchic  rebel  or  a  conquering  tyrant. 

This  outlook  makes  an  appeal  for  which  the  reasons  lie  very 
deep  in  human  nature  and  human  circumstances.  By  self-interest 
Man  has  become  gregarious,  but  in  instinct  he  has  remained  to 
a  great  extent  solitary;  hence  the  need  of  religion  and  morality  to 
reinforce  self-interest.  But  the  habit  of  foregoing  present  satis- 
factions for  the  sake  of  future  advantages  is  irksome,  and  when 
passions  are  roused  the  prudent  restraints  of  social  behaviour 
become  difficult  to  endure.  Those  who,  at  such  times,  throw  them 
off,  acquire  a  new  energy  and  sense  of  power  from  the  cessation 
of  inner  conflict,  and,  though  they  may  come  to  disaster  in  the 
end,  enjoy  meanwhile  a  sense  of  godlike  exaltation  which,  though 
known  to  the  great  mystics,  can  never  be  experienced  by  a  merely 
pedestrian  virtue.  The  solitary  part  of  their  nature  reasserts  itself, 
but  if  the  intellect  survives  the  reassertion  must  clothe  itself  in 
myth.  The  mystic  becomes  one  with  God*  and  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  Infinite  feels  himself  absolved  from  duty  to  his 
neighbour.  The  anarchic  rebel  does  even  better:  he  feels  himself 
not  one  with  God,  but  God.  Truth  and  duty,  which  represent  our 
subjection  to  matter  and  to  our  neighbours,  exist  no  longer  for  the 
man  who  has  become  God ;  for  others,  truth  is  what  he  posits,  duty 
what  he  commands.  If  we  could  all  live  solitary  and  without  Jabour, 
we  could  all  enjoy  this  ecstasy  of  independence;  since  we  cannot, 
its  delights  are  only  available  to  madmen  and  dictators. 

Revolt  of  solitary  instincts  against  social  bonds  is  the  key  to  the 
philosophy,  the  politics,  and  the  segments,  not  only  of  what  is 
commonly  called  the  romantic  movement,  but  of  its  progeny  down 
to  the  present  day.  Philosophy,  under  the  influence  of  German 
idealism,  became  solipststic,  and  self-development  was  proclaimed 

TO? 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

as  the  fundamental  principle  of  ethics.  As  regards  sentiment,  there 
has  to  be  a  distasteful  compromise  between  the  search  for  isolation 
and  the  necessities  of  passion  and  economics.  D.  H.  Lawrence's 
story,  "The  Man  Who  Loved  Islands/'  has  a  hero  who  disdained 
such  compromise  to  a  gradually  increasing  extent  and  at  last  died 
of  hunger  and  cold,  but  in  the  enjoyment  of  complete  isolation; 
but  this  degree  of  consistency  has  not  been  achieved  by  the  writers 
who  praise  solitude.  The  comforts  of  civilized  life  are  not  obtain- 
able by  a  hermit,  and  a  man  who  wishes  to  write  books  or  produce 
works  of  an  must  submit  to  the  ministrations  of  others  if  he  is  to 
survive  while  he  does  his  work.  In  order  to  continue  to  feel  solitary*, 
he  must  be  able  to  prevent  those  who  serve  him  from  impinging 
upon  his  ego,  which  is  best  accomplished  if  they  are  slaves.  Pas- 
sionate love,  however,  is  a  more  difficult  matter.  So  long  as  pas- 
sionate lovers  are  regarded  as  in  revolt  against  social  trammels, 
they  are  admired;  but  in  real  life  the  love-relation  itself  quickly 
becomes  a  social  trammel,  and  the  partner  in  love  comes  to  be 
hated,  all  the  more  vehemently  if  the  love  is  strong  enough  to 
make  the  bond  difficult  to  break.  Hence  love  comes  to  be  conceived 
as  a  battle,  in  which  each  is  attempting  to  destroy  the  other  by 
breaking  through  the  protecting  walls  of  his  or  her  ego.  This  point 
of  view  has  become  familiar  through  the  writings  of  Strindberg, 
and,  still  more,  of  D.  H.  Lawrence. 

Not  only  passionate  love,  but  every  friendly  relation  to  others, 
is  only  possible,  to  this  way  of  feeling,  in  so  far  as  the  others  can 
be  regarded  as  a  projection  of  one's  own  Self.  This  is  feasible  if 
the  others  are  blood-relations,  and  the  more  nearly  they  are  related 
the  more  easily  it  is  possible.  Hence  an  emphasis  on  race,  leading, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Ptolemys,  to  endogamy.  How  this  affected 
Byron,  we  know;  Wagner  suggests  a  similar  sentiment  in  the  love 
of  Siegmund  and  Sieglinde.  Nietzsche,  though  not  scandalously, 
preferred  his  sister  to  all  other  women:  "How  strongly  I  feel,"  he 
writes^to  her,  "in  all  that  you  say  and  do,  that  we  belong  to  the 
same  stock.  You  understand  more  of  me  than  others  do,  because 
we  come  of  *the  same  parentage.  This  fits  in  very  well  with  my 
'philosophy.' " 

The  principle  of  nationality,  of  which  Byron  was  a  protagonist, 
is  an  extension  of  the  same  "philosophy."  A  nation  is  assumed  to 
be  a  race,  descended  from  common  ancestors,  and  sharing  some 
kind  of  "btood-consciousncts/*  Mazztni,  who  constantly  found 


THE   ROMANTIC   MOVEMENT 

fault  with  the  English  for  their  failure  to  appreciate  Byron,  con- 
ceived nations  as  possessed  of  a  mystical  individuality,  and  attri- 
buted to  them  the  kind  of  anarchic  greatness  that  other  romantics 
sought  in  heroic  men.  Liberty,  for  nations,  came  to  be  regarded, 
not  only  by  Mazzini,  but  by  comparatively  sober  statesmen,  as 
something  absolute,  which,  in  practice,  made  international  co- 
operation impossible. 

Belief  in  blood  and  race  is  naturally  associated  twith  anti- 
semitism.  At  the  same  time,  the  romantic  outlook,  partly  because 
it  is  aristocratic,  and  partly  because  it  prefers  passion  to  calcula- 
tion, has  a  vehement  contempt  for  commerce  and  finance.  It  is 
thus  led  to  proclaim  an  opposition  to  capitalism  which  is  quite 
different  from  that  of  the  socialist  who  represents  the  interest  of 
the  proletariat,  since  it  is  an  opposition  based  on  dislike  of 
economic  preoccupations,  and  strengthened  by  the  suggestion  that 
the  capitalist  world  is  governed  by  Jews.  This  point  of  view  is 
expressed  by  Byron  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  condescends 
to  notice  anything  so  vulgar  as  economic  power: 

Who  hold  the  balance  of  the  world  ?  Who  reign 
O'er  conquerors,  whether  royalist  or  liberal  ? 

Who  rouse  the  shirtless  patriots  of  Spain  ? 
(That  make  old  Europe's  journals  squeak  and  gibber  all.) 

Who  keep  the  world,  both  Old  and  New,  in  pain 
Or  pleasure?  Who  make  politics  run  glibber  all? 

The  shade  of  Buonaparte's  noble  daring? 

Jew  Rothschild,  and  his  fellow  Christian  Baring. 

The  verse  is  perhaps  not  very  musical,  but  the  sentiment  is 
quite  of  our  time,  and  has  been  re-echoed  by  all  Byron's  followers. 

The  romantic  movement,  in  its  essence,  aimed  at  liberating 
human  personality  from  the  fetters  of  social  convention  and  social 
morality.  In  part,  these  fetters  were  a  mere  useless  hindrance  to 
desirable  forms  of  activity,  for  every  ancient  community  has  de- 
veloped rules  of  behaviour  for  which  there  is  nothing  to4>e  said 
except  that  they  are  traditional.  But  egoistic  passions,  when  once 
let  loose,  are  not  easily  brought  again  into  subjection  to  the  needs 
of  society.  Christianity  has  succeeded,  to  some  extent,  in  taming 
the  Ego,  but  economic,  political,  andWntellectual  causes  stimulated 
revolt  against  the  Churches,  and  the  romantic  movement  brought 
the  revolt  into  the  sphere  of  morals.  By  encouraging  a  new  lawless 
Ego  it  made  social  co-operation  impossible,  and  left  its  disciples 

709 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

faced  with  the  alternative  of  anarchy  or  despotism.  Egoism,  at  first, 
made  men  expect  from  others  a  parental  tenderness;  but  when 
they  discovered,  with  indignation,  that  others  had  their  own  Ego, 
the  disappointed  desire  for  tenderness  turned  to  hatred  and 
violence.  Man  is  not  a  solitary  animal,  and  so  long  as  social  life 
survives,  self-realization  cannot  be  the  supreme  principle  of  ethics. 


710 


Chapter  XIX 
ROUSSEAU 

• 

JACQUES  ROUSSEAU  (1712-78),  though  a  pkUosophe  in 
the  eighteenth-century  French  sense,  was  not  what  would 

^  now  be  called   a  "philosopher."  Nevertheless   he    had   a 

Swerful  influence  on  philosophy,  as  on  literature  and  taste 
and  manners  and  politics.  Whatever  may  be  our  opinion  of  his 
merits  as  a  thinker,  we  must  recognize  his  immense  importance 
as  a  social  force.  This  importance  pame  mainly  from  his  appeal 
to  the  heart,  and  to  what,  in  his  day,  was  called  "sensibility."  He 
is  the  father  of  the  romantic  movement,  the  initiator  of  systems  of 
thought  which  infer  non-human  facts  from  human  emotions,  and 
the  inventor  of  the  political  philosophy  of  pseudo-democratic 
dictatorships  as  opposed  to  traditional  absolute  monarchies.  Ever 
since  his  time,  those  who  considered  themselves  reformers  have 
been  divided  into  two  groups,  those  who  followed  him  and  those 
who  followed  Locke.  Sometimes  they  co-operated,  and  many 
individuals  saw  no  incompatibility.  But  gradually  the  incompati- 
bility has  become  increasingly  evident.  At  the  present  time, 
Hitler  is  an  outcome  of  Rousseau;  Roosevelt  and  Churchill,  of 
Locke. 

Rousseau's  biography  was  related  by  himself  in  his  Confessions 
in  great  detail,  but  without  any  slavish  regard  for  truth.  He  enjoyed 
making  himself  out  a  great  sinner,  and  sometimes  exaggerated  in 
this  respect ;  but  there  is  abundant  external  evidence  that  he  was 
destitute  of  all  the  ordinary  virtues.  This  did  not  trouble  him, 
because  he  considered  that  he  always  had  a  warm  heart,  which, 
however,  never  hindered  him  from  base  actions  towards  his  best 
friends.  I  shall  relate  only  so  much  of  his  life  as  is  necessary  in 
order  to  understand  his  thought  and  his  influence.  , 

He  was  born  in  Geneva,  and  educated  as  an  orthodox  Calvinist. 
His  father,  who  was  poor,  combined  the  professions  of  watch- 
maker  and  dancing- master ;  his  mother  died  when  1 
and  he  was  brought  up  by  an  aunt^He  left 
twelve,  and  was  apprenticed  to  various  tradesy 
and  at  the  age  of  sixteen  fled  from  Geneva 
mean*  of  subsistence,  he  went  to  a  Catholic 

711 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

himself  as  wishing  to  be  converted.  The  formal  conversion  took 
place  at  Turin,  in  an  institution  for  catechumens;  the  process 
lasted  nine  days.  He  represents  his  motives  as  wholly  mercenary: 
"1  could  not  dissemble  from  myself  that  the  holy  deed  I  was  about 
to  do  was  at  bottom  the  act  of  a  bandit."  But  this  w»s  written  after 
he  had  reverted  to  Protestantism,  and  there  is  reason  to  think  that 
for  some  years  he  was  a  sincerely  believing  Catholic.  In  1742  he 
testified  that  a  house  in  which  he  was  living  in  1730  had  been 
miraculously  saved  from  a  fire  by  a  bishop's  prayers. 

Having  been  turned  out  of  the  institution  at  Turin  with  twenty 
francs  in  his  pocket,  he  became  lackey  to  a  lady  named  Madame 
de  Vercelli,  who  died  three  months  later.  At  her  death,  he  was 
found  to  be  in  possession  of  a  ribbon  which  had  belonged  to  her, 
which  in  fact  he  had  stolen.  He  asserted  that  it  had  been  given  him 
by  a  certain  maid,  whom  he  liked ;  his  assertion  was  believed,  and 
she  was  punished.  His  excuse  is  odd:  "Never  was  wickedness 
further  from  me  than  at  this  cruel  moment;  and  when  I  accused 
the  poor  girl,  it  is  contradictory  and  yet  it  is  true  that  my  affection 
for  her  was  the  cause  of  what  I  did.  She  was  present  to  my  mind, 
and  I  threw  the  blame  from  myself  on  the  first  object  that  pre- 
sented itself."  This  is  a  good  example  of  the  way  in  which,  in 
Rousseau's  ethic,  "sensibility"  took  the  place  of  all  the  ordinary 
virtues. 

After  this  incident,  he  was  befriended  by  Madame  de  Warens, 
a  convert  from  Protestantism  like  himself,  a  charming  lady  who 
enjoyed  a  pension  from  the  king  of  Savoy  in  consideration  of  her 
services  to  religion.  For  nine  or  ten  years,  most  of  his  time  was 
spent  in  her  house;  he  called  her  "maman"  even  after  she  became 
his  mistress.  For  a  while  he  shared  her  with  her  factotum ;  all  lived 
in  the  greatest  amity,  and  when  the  factotum  died  Rousseau  felt 
grief,  but  consoled  himself  with  the  thought:  "Well,  at  any  rate 
I  shall  get  his  clothes." 

During  his  early  years  there  were  various  periods  which  he  spent 
as  a  vagabond,  travelling  on  foot,  and  picking  up  a  precarious 
livelihood  as  bait  he  could.  During  one  of  these  interludes,  a  friend, 
with  whom  he  was  travelling,  had  an  epileptic  fit  in  the  streets  of 
Lyons;  Rousseau  profited  by,  the  crowd  which  gathered  to  abandon 
his  friend  in  the  middle  of  the  fit.  On  another  occasion  he  became 
secretary  to  a  man  who  represented  himself  as  an  archimandrite 
on  the  way  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre;  on  yet  another,  he  had  an  affair 


ROUSSEAU 

with  a  rich  lady,  by  masquerading  as  a  Scotch  Jacobite  named 
Dudding. 

However,  in  1743,  through  the  help  of  a  great  lady,  he  became 
secretary  to  the  French  Ambassador  to  Venice,  a  sot  named 
Montaigu,  wht>  left  the  work  to  Rousseau  but  neglected  to  pay  his 
salary.  Rousseau  did  the  work  well,  and  the  inevitable  quarrel  was 
not  his  fault.  He  went  to  Paris  to  try  to  obtain  justice;  everybody 
admitted  that  he  was  in  the  right,  but  for  a  long  time  nothing  was 
done.  The  vexations  of  this  delay  had  something  to  do  with  turning 
Rousseau  against  the  existing  form  of  government  in  France, 
although,  in  the  end,  he  received  the  arrears  of  salary  that  were 
due  to  him. 

It  was  at  about  this  time  (1745)  that  he  took  up  with  Therese  le 
Yasseur,  who  was  a  servant  at  his  hotel  in  Paris.  He  lived  with  her 
for  the  rest  of  his  life  (not  to  the  exclusion  of  other  affairs) ;  he  had 
five  children  by  her,  all  of  whom  he  took  to  the  Foundling  Hos- 
pital. No  one  has  ever  understood  what  attracted  him  to  her.  She 
was  ugly  and  ignorant ;  she  could  neither  read  nor  write  (he  taught 
her  to  write,  but  not  to  read) ;  she  did  not  know  the  names  of  the 
months,  and  could  not  add  up  money.  Her  mother  was  grasping 
and  avaricious ;  the  two  together  used  Rousseau  and  all  his  friends  as 
sources  of  income.  Rousseau  asserts  (truly  or  falsely)  that  he  never 
had  a  spark  of  love  for  Therese ;  in  later  years  she  drank,  and  ran 
after  stable-boys.  Probably  he  liked  the  feeling  that  he  was  in- 
dubitably superior  to  her,  both  financially  and  intellectually,  and 
that  she  was  completely  dependent  upon  him.  He  was  always 
uncomfortable  in  the  company  of  the  great,  and  genuinely  pre- 
ferred simple  people;  in  this  respect  his  democratic  feeling  was 
wholly  sincere.  Although  he  never  married  her,  he  treated  her 
almost  as  a  wife,  and  all  the  grand  ladies  who  befriended  him  had 
to  put  up  with  her. 

His  first  literary  success  came  to  him  rather  late  in  life.  The 
Academy  of  Dijon  offered  a  prize  for  the  best  essay  on  tht  ques- 
tion: Have  the  arts  and  sciences  conferred  benefits  on  mankind? 
Rousseau  maintained  the  negative,  and  won  the  prize  (1750).  He 
contended  that  science,  letters,  and  the  arts  are  the  worst  enemies 
of  morals,  and,  by  creating  wants,  art  the  sources  of  slavery;  for 
how  can  chains  be  imposed  on  those  who  go  naked,  like  American 
•tvages?  As  might  be  expected,  he  is  for  Sparta,  and  against  Athens. 
He  had  read  Plutarch's  Lives  at  the  age  of  seven,  and  been  much 

7'3 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

influenced  by  them ;  he  admired  particularly  the  life  of  Lycurgus. 
Like  the  Spartans,  he  took  success  in  war  as  the  test  of  merit ; 
nevertheless,  he  admired  the  "noble  savage,"  whom  sophisticated 
Europeans  could  defeat  in  war.  Science  and  virtue,  he  held,  are 
incompatible,  and  all  sciences  have  an  ignoble  origin.  Astronomy 
comes  from  the  superstition  of  astrology ;  eloquence  from  ambi- 
tion ;  geometry  from  avarice ;  physics  from  vain  curiosity ;  and  even 
ethics  has  its  source  in  human  pride.  Education  and  the  art  of 
printing  are  to  be  deplored ;  everything  that  distinguishes  civilized 
man  from  the  untutored  barbarian  is  evil. 

Having  won  the  prize  and  achieved  sudden  fame  by  this  essay, 
Rousseau  took  to  living  according  to  its  maxims.  He  adopted  the 
simple  life,  and  sold  his  watch,  saying  that  he  would  no  longer 
need  to  know  the  time. 

The  ideas  of  the  first  essay  were  elaborated  in  a  second/  a 
"Discourse  on  Inequality"  (1754),  which,  however,  failed  to  win 
a  prize.  He  held  that  "man  is  naturally  good,  and  only  by 
institutions  is  he  made  bad" — the  antithesis  of  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin  and  salvation  through  the  Church.  Like  most  political 
theorists  of  his  age,  he  spoke  of  a  state  of  nature,  though  somewhat 
hypotheticaliy,  as  "a  state  which  exists  no  longer,  perhaps  never 
existed,  probably  never  will  exist,  and  of  which  none  the  less  it  is 
necessary  to  have  just  ideas,  n  order  to  judge  well  our  present 
state."  Natural  law  should  be  deduced  from  the  state  of  nature, 
but  as  long  as  we  are  ignorant  of  natural  man  it  is  impossible  to 
determine  the  law  originally  prescribed  or  best  suited  to  him.  All 
we  can  know  is  that  the  wills  of  those  subject  to  it  must  be  con- 
scious of  their  submission,  and  it  must  come  directly  from  the 
voice  of  nature.  He  does  not  object  to  natural  inequality,  in  respect 
of  age,  health,  intelligence,  etc.,  but  only  to  inequality  resulting 
from  privileges  authorized  by  convention. 

The  origin  of  civiJ  society  and  of  the  consequent  social  inequali- 
ties is  to  be  found  in  private  property.  "The  first  man  who,  having 
enclosed  a  piece  of  land,  bethought  himself  of  saying  'this  is  mine,' 
and  found  people  simple  enough  to  believe  htm,  was  the  real 
founder  of  civil  society/'  He  goes  on  to  say  that  a  deplorable 
revolution  introduced  metallurgy  and  agriculture;  grain  if  the 
symbol  of  our  misfortune.  Europe  is  the  unhappiest  Continent, 
because  it  has  the  most  grain  and  the  most  iron.  To  undo  the 
£vil,  it  it  only  necessary  to  abandon  civilization,  for  man  is  natur- 

7'4 


ROUSSEAU 

ally  good,  and  savage  man,  when  he  has  dined,  is  at  peace  with  all 
nature  and  the  friend  of  all  his  fellow-creatures  (my  italics). 

Rousseau  sent  this  essay  to  Voltaire,  who  replied  (1755):  "I  have 
received  your  new  book  against  the  human  race,  and  thank  you 
for  it.  Never  .was  such  a  cleverness  used  in  the  design  of  making 
us  all  stupid.  One  longs,  in  reading  your  book,  to  walk  on  all 
fours.  But  as  I  have  lost  that  habit  for  more  than  sixty  years,  I  feel 
unhappily  the  impossibility  of  resuming  it.  Nor  can  I  embark  in 
search  of  the  savages  of  Canada,  because  the  maladies  to  which 
I  am  condemned  render  a  European  surgeon  necessary  to  me; 
because  war  is  going  on  in  those  regions;  and  because  the  example 
of  our  actions  has  made  the  savages  nearly  as  bad  as  ourselves." 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Rousseau  and  Voltaire  ultimately  quar- 
relled; the  marvel  is  that  they  did  not  quarrel  sooner. 

In  2754,  having  become  famous,  he  was  remembered  by  his 
native  city,  and  invited  to  visit  it.  He  accepted,  but  as  only  Cal- 
vinists  could  be  citizens  of  Geneva,  he  had  himself  reconverted 
to  his  original  faith.  I  ie  had  already  adopted  the  practice  of  speaking 
of  himself  as  a  Genevan  puritan  and  republican,  and  after  his 
reconversion  he  thought  of  living  in  Geneva.  He  dedicated  bis 
Discourse  on  Inequality  to  the  City  Fathers,  but  they  were  not 
pleased;  they  had  no  wish  to  be  considered  only  the  equals  of 
ordinary  citizens.  Their  opposition  was  not  the  only  drawback  to 
life  in  Geneva ;  there  was  another,  even  more  grave,  and  this  was 
that  Voltaire  had  gone  to  live  there.  Voltaire  was  a  writer  of  plays 
and  an  enthusiast  for  the  theatre,  but  Geneva,  on  puritan  grounds, 
forbade  all  dramatic  representations.  When  Voltaire  tried  to  get 
die  ban  removed,  Rousseau  entered  the  lists  on  the  Puritan  side. 
Savages  never  act  plays ;  Plato  disapproves  of  them ;  the  Catholic 
Church  refuses  to  marry  or  bury  actors ;  Bossuet  calls  the  drama 
a  "school  of  concupiscence."  The  opportunity  for  an  attack  on 
Voltaire  was  too  good  to  be  lost,  and  Rousseau  made  himself  the 
champion  of  ascetic  virtue.  , 

This  was  not  the  first  public  disagreement  of  these  two  eminent 
men*  The  first  was  occasioned  by  the  earthquake  of  Lisbon  (1755), 
about  which  Voltaire  wrote  a  poem  throwing  doubt  on  the  Provi- 
dential government  of  the  world.  Rousseau  was  indignant.  He 
commented:  "Voltaire,  in  seeming  always  to  believe  in  God,  never 
really  believed  in  anybody  but  the  devil,  since  his  pretended  God 
is  *  maleficent  Being  who  according  to  him  finds  all  his  pleasure 

7»5 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

in  working  mischief.  The  absurdity  of  this  doctrine  is  especially 
revolting  in  a  man  crowned  with  good  things  of  every  sort,  and 
who  from  the  midst  of  his  own  happiness  tries  to  fill  his  fellow- 
creatures  with  despair,  by  the  cruel  and  terrible  image  of  the 
serious  calamities  from  which  he  is  himself  free."  H 

Rousseau,  for  his  part,  saw  no  occasion  to  make  such  a  fuss 
about  the  earthquake.  It  is  quite  a  good  thing  that  a  certain  number 
of  people  should  get  killed  now  and  then.  Besides,  the  people  of 
Lisbon  suffered  because  they  lived  in  houses  seven  stories  high ; 
if  they  had  been  dispersed  in  the  woods,  as  people  ought  to  be, 
they  would  have  escaped  uninjured. 

The  questions  of  the  theology  of  earthquakes  and  of  the  morality 
of  stage  plays  caused  a  bitter  enmity  between  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau,  in  which  all  the  philosopher  took  sides.  Voltaire 
treated  Rousseau  as  a  mischievous  madman;  Rousseau  spoke  of 
Voltaire  as  "that  trumpet  of  impiety,  that  fine  genius,  and  that 
low  soul."  Fine  sentiments,  however,  must  find  expression,  and 
Rousseau  wrote  to  Voltaire  (1760):  "I  hate  you,  in  fact,  since  you 
have  so  willed  it ;  but  I  hate  you  like  a  man  still  worthier  to  have 
loved  you,  if  you  had  willed  it.  Of  all  the  sentiments  with  which 
my  heart  was  full  towards  you,  there  only  remain  the  admiration 
that  we  cannot  refuse  to  your  fine  genius,  and  love  for  your 
writings.  If  there  is  nothing  in  you  that  I  can  honour  but  your 
talents,  that  is  no  fault  of  mine." 

We  come  now  to  the  most  fruitful  period  of  Rousseau's  life.  liis 
novel  La  noweUe  Heloite  appeared  in  1760;  EmiU  and  The  Social 
Contract  both  in  1762.  Emile,  which  is  a  treatise  on  education 
according  to  "natural"  principles,  might  have  been  considered 
harmless  by  the  authorities  if  it  had  not  contained  "The  Confession 
of  Faith  of  a  Savoyard  Vicar,"  which  set  forth  the  principles  of 
natural  religion  as  understood  by  Rousseau,  and  was  irritating  to 
both  Catholic  and  Protestant  orthodoxy.  The  Social  Contract  was 
even  more  dangerous,  for  it  advocated  democracy  and  denied  the 
divine  right  of  kings.  The  two  books,  while  they  greatly  increased 
hit  feme,  brought  upon  him  a  storm  of  official  condemnation.  He 
was  obliged  to  fly  from  France ;  Geneva  would  have  none  of  him  ;> 

1  The  Council  of  Geneva  ordtfrtd  the  two  books  to  be  burnt,  and  gave 
instniction*  that  Rousseau  was  to  be  arrested  if  he  came  to  Geneva.  The 
French  Government  had  ordered  his  wrest:  the  Sorbonne  and  the 
Pariement  of  Paris  condemned  £Wb. 

716 


ROUSSEAU 

Bern  refused  him  asylum.  At  last  Frederick  the  Great  took  pity 
on  him,  and  allowed  him  to  live  at  Motiers,  near  Neuchatel,  which 
was  part  of  the  philosopher-king's  dominions.  There  he  lived  for 
three  years;  but  at  the  end  of  that  time  (1765)  the  villagers  of 
Motiers,  led  by  the  pastor,  accused  him  of  poisoning,  and  tried 
to  murder  him.  He  fled  to  England,  where  Hume,  in  1762,  had 
proffered  his  services. 

In  England,  at  first,  all  went  well.  He  had  a  great  social  success, 
and  George  HI  granted  him  a  pension.  He  saw  Burke  almost  daily, 
but  their  friendship  soon  cooled  to  the  point  where  Burke  said: 
"He  entertained  no  principle,  either  to  influence  his  heart,  or 
guide  his  understanding,  but  vanity."  Hume  was  longest  faithful, 
saying  he  loved  him  much,  and  could  live  with  him  all  his  life  in 
mutual  friendship  and  esteem.  But  by  this  time  Rousseau,  not 
unnaturally,  had  come  to  suffer  from  the  persecution  mania  which 
ultimately  drove  him  insane,  and  he  suspected  Hume  of  being  the 
agent  of  plots  against  his  life.  At  moments  he  would  realize  the 
absurdity  of  such  suspicions,  and  would  embrace  Hume,  exclaim- 
ing "No,  no,  Hume  is  no  traitor,"  to  which  Hume  (no  doubt  much 
embarrassed)  replied,  "Quai,  man  cher  Monsieur!"  But  in  the 
end  his  delusions  won  the  day  and  he  fled.  His  last  years  were 
spent  in  Paris  in  great  poverty,  and  when  he  died  suicide  was 
suspected. 

After  the  breach,  Hume  said:  "He  has  only  felt  during  the  whole 
course  of  his  life,  and  in  this  respect  his  sensibility  rises  to  a  pitch 
beyond  what  I  have  seen  any  example  of;  but  it  still  gives  him 
a  more  acute  feeling  of  pain  than  of  pleasure.  He  is  like  a  man  who 
was  stripped  not  only  of  his  clothes,  but  of  his  skin,  and  turned 
out  in  this  situation  to  combat  with  the  rude  and  boisterous 
elements/' 

This  is  the  kindest  summary  of  his  character  that  is  in  any 
degree  compatible  with  truth. 

There  is  much  in  Rousseau's  work  which,  however  important 
in  other  respects,  does  not  concern  the  history  of  philosophical 
thought.  There  are  only  two  pans  of  his  thinking  that  I  shall 
consider  in  any  detail;  these  are,  first,  his  theology,  and  second, 
his  political  theory.  , 

in  theology  he  made  an  innovation  which  has  now  been  accepted 
by  the  great  majority  of  Protestant  theologians.  Before  him,  every 
philosopher  from  Plato  onwards,  if  he  believed  in  God,  offered 

7*7 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

intellectual  arguments  in  favour  of  his  belief.1  The  arguments  may 
not,  to  us,  seem  very  convincing,  and  we  may  feel  that  they  would 
not  have  seemed  cogent  to  anyone  who  did  not  already  fed  sure 
of  the  truth  of  the  conclusion.  But  the  philosopher  who  advanced 
the  arguments  certainly  believed  them  to  be  logically  valid,  and 
such  as  should  cause  certainty  of  God's  existence  in  any  unpre- 
judiced person  of  sufficient  philosophical  capacity.  Modern  Protes- 
tants who  urge  us  to  believe  in  God,  for  the  most  pan,  despise 
the  old  "proofs,"  and  base  their  faith  upon  some  aspect  of  human 
nature— emotions  of  awe  or  mystery,  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong, 
the  feeling  of  aspiration,  and  so  on.  This  way  of  defending  religious 
belief  was  invented  by  Rousseau.  It  has  become  so  familiar  that 
his  originality  may  easily  not  be  appreciated  by  a  modern  reader, 
unless  he  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  Rousseau  with  (say) 
Descartes  or  Leibniz. 

"Ah,  Madame  I"  Rousseau  writes  to  an  aristocratic  lady,  "some- 
times in  the  privacy  of  my  study,  with  my  hands  pressed  tight  over 
my  eyes  or  in  the  darkness  of  the  night,  I  am  of  opinion  that  there 
is  no  God.  But  look  yonder:  the  rising  of  the  sun,  as  it  scatters  the 
mists  that  cover  the  earth,  and  lays  bare  the  wondrous  glittering 
scene  of  nature,  disperses  at  the  same  moment  all  cloud  from  my 
soul.  I  find  my  faith  again,  and  my  God,  and  my  belief  in  Him. 
I  admire  and  adore  Him,  and  I  prostrate  myself  in  His  presence." 
On  another  occasion  he  says:  "I  believe  in  God  as  strongly  as 
I  believe  any  other  truth,  because  believing  and  not  believing  are 
the  last  things  in  the  world  that  depend  on  me."  This  form  of 
argument  his  the  drawback  of  being  private ;  the  fact  that  Rousseau 
cannot  help  believing  something  affords  no  ground  for  another 
person  to  believe  the  same  thing. 

He  was  very  emphatic  in  his  theism.  On  one  occasion  he 
threatened  to  leave  a  dinner  party  because  Saint  Lambert  (one  of 
the  guests,  expressed  a  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of  God.  "A/at, 
Momjfur"  Rousseau  exclaimed  angrily,  4>  crou  en  Ditu!" 
Robespierre,  in  all  things  his  faithful  disciple,  followed  him  in 
this  respect  also.  The  "Ffte  de  1'Etre  Suprtme"  would  have  bad 
Rousseau's  whole-hearted  approval. 

"The  Confession  of  Fa^h  of  a  Savoyard  Vicar,"  which  is 
an  interlude  in  the  fourth  book  of  Entile,  is  the  most  explicit 

1  We  mutt  except  Ptecml.  "The  heart  has  its  reason*,  of  which 
~  ifDomu**  is  quite  in  HOUMCMI'S  «tyle. 


ROUSSEAU 

and  formal  statement  of  Rousseau's  creed.  Although  it  professes 
to  be  what  the  voice  of  nature  has  proclaimed  to  a  virtuous  priest, 
who  suffers  disgrace  for  the  wholly  "natural"  fault  of  seducing 
an  unmarried  woman,1  the  reader  finds  with  surprise  that  the  voice 
of  nature,  when  it  begins  to  speak,  is  uttering  a  hotch-pot  of 
arguments  derived  from  Aristotle,  St.  Augustine,  Descartes,  and 
so  on.  It  is  true  that  they  are  robbed  of  precision  and  logical  form ; 
this  is  supposed  to  excuse  them,  and  to  permit  the  worthy  Vicar 
to  say  that  he  cares  nothing  for  the  wisdom  of  the  philosophers. 

The  later  parts  of  "The  Confession  of  Faith"  are  less  reminis- 
cent of  previous  thinkers  than  the  earlier  parts.  After  satisfying 
himself  that  there  is  a  God,  the  Vicar  goes  on  to  consider  rules  of 
conduct.  "I  do  not  deduce  these  rules,"  he  says,  "from  the  prin- 
ciples of  a  high  philosophy,  but  I  find  them  in  the  depths  of  my 
heart,  written  by  Nature  in  ineffaceable  characters."  From  this  he 
goes  on  to  develop  the  view  that  conscience  is  in  all  circumstances 
an  infallible  guide  to  right  action.  "Thanks  be  to  Heaven,"  he 
concludes  this  part  of  his  argument,  "we  are  thus  freed  from  all 
this  terrifying  apparatus  of  philosophy;  we  can  be  men  without 
being  learned;  dispensed  from  wasting  our  life  in  the  study  of 
morals,  we  have  at  less  cost  a  more  assured  guide  in  this  immense 
labyrinth  of  human  opinions."  Our  natural  feelings,  he  contends, 
lead  us  to  serve  the  common  interest,  while  our  reason  urges 
selfishness.  We  have  therefore  only  to  follow  feeling  rather  than 
reason  in  order  to  be  virtuous. 

Natural  religion,  as  the  Vicar  calls  his  doctrine,  has  no  need  of 
a  revelation ;  if  men  had  listened  to  what  God  says  to  the  heart, 
there  would  have  been  only  one  religion  in  the  world.  If  God  has 
revealed  Himself  specially  to  certain  men,  this  can  only  be  known 
by  human  testimony,  which  is  fallible.  Natural  religion  has  the 
advantage  of  being  revealed  directly  to  each  individual. 

There  is  a  curious  passage  about  hell.  The  Vicar  does  not  know 
whether  the  wicked  go  to  eternal  torment,  and  says,  sonewhat 
loftily,  that  the  fate  of  the  wicked  does  not  greatly  interest  him; 
but  on  the  whole  he  inclines  to  the  view  that  the  pains  of  hell  are 
not  everlasting.  However  this  may  be,  he  is  sure  that  salvation  is 
not  confined  to  the  members  of  anyone  Church. 

It  was  presumably  the  rejection  of  revelation  and  of  hell  that  so 

1  "Un  prttre  en  bonne  rfcglc  ne  doit  fair*  dei  enfants  qu'aux  feraraes 
marifea,"  he  ebewhew  reports  a  Savoyard  priest  a»  saying. 

719 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

profoundly  shocked  the  French  government  and  the  Council  of 
Geneva. 

The  rejection  of  reason  in  favour  of  the  heart  was  not,  to  my 
mind,  an  advance.  In  fact,  no  one  thought  of  this  device  so  long 
as  reason  appeared  to  be  on  the  side  of  religious  bdief.  In  Rous- 
seau's environment,  reason,  as  represented  by  Voltaire,  was  op- 
posed to  religion,  therefore  away  with  reason!  Moreover  reason 
was  abstruse  and  difficult;  the  savage,  even  when  he  has  dined, 
cannot  understand  the  ontological  argument,  and  yet  the  savage 
is  the  repository  of  all  necessary  wisdom.  Rousseau's  savage — who 
was  not  the  savage  known  to  anthropologists — was  a  good  husband 
and  a  kind  father;  he  was  destitute  of  greed,  and  had  a  religion  of 
natural  kindliness.  He  was  a  convenient  person,  but  if  he  could 
follow  the  good  Vicar's  reasons  for  believing  in  God  he  must  have 
had  more  philosophy  than  his  innocent  naivete  would  lead  one 
to  expect. 

Apart  from  the  fictitious  character  of  Rousseau's  "natural  man," 
there  are  two  objections  to  the  practice  of  basing  beliefs  as  to 
objective  fact  upon  the  emotions  of  the  heart.  One  is  that  there  is 
no  reason  whatever  to  suppose  that  such  beliefs  will  be  true;  the 
other  is,  that  the  resulting  beliefs  will  be  private,  since  the  heart 
says  different  things  to  different  people.  Some  savages  are  per- 
suaded by  the  "natural  light"  that  it  is  their  duty  to  eat  people, 
and  even  Voltaire's  savages,  who  are  led  by  the  voice  of  reason 
to  hold  that  one  should  only  eat  Jesuits,  are  not  wholly  satisfactory. 
To  Buddhists,  the  light  of  nature  does  not  reveal  the  existence  of 
God,  but  does  proclaim  that  it  is  wrong  to  eat  the  flesh  of  animals. 
But  even. if  the  heart  said  the  same  thing  to  all  men,  that  could 
afford  no  evidence  for  the  existence  of  anything  outside  our  own 
emotions.  However  ardently  I,  or  all  mankind,  may  desire  some- 
thing, however  necessary  it  may  be  to  human  happiness,  that  is 
no  ground  for  supposing  this  something  to  exist.  There  is  no  law 
of  nature  guaranteeing  that  mankind  should  be  happy.  Everybody 
can  see  that  this  is  true  of  our  life  here  on  earth,  but  by  a  curious 
twist  our  very  sufferings  in  this  life  are  made  into  an  argu- 
ment for  a  better  life  hereafter.  We  should  not  employ  such 
an  argument  in  any  other  connection.  If  you  had  bought  ten 
dozen  eggs  from  a  man,  and  the  first  dozen  were  all  rotten, 
you  would  not  infer  that  the  remaining  nine  dozen  must  be  of 
surpassing  excellence;  yet  that  is  the  kind  of  reasoning  that 

720 


ROUSSEAU 

"the  heart"  encourages  as  a  consolation  for  our  sufferings  here 
below. 

For  my  part,  I  prefer  the  ontological  argument,  the  cosmological 
argument,  and  the  rest  of  the  old  stock-in-trade,  to  the  sentimental 
illogicality  that  has  sprung  from  Rousseau.  The  old  arguments  at 
least  were  honest:  if  valid,  they  proved  their  point;  if  invalid,  it 
was  open  to  any  critic  to  prove  them  so.  But  the  new  theology  of 
the  heart  dispenses  with  argument;  it  cannot  be  refuted,  because 
it  does  not  profess  to  prove  its  points.  At  bottom,  the  only  reason 
offered  for  its  acceptance  is  that  it  allows  us  to  indulge  in  pleasant 
dreams.  This  is  an  unworthy  reason,  and  if  I  had  to  choose 
between  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Rousseau,  I  should  unhesitatingly 
choose  the  Saint. 

Rousseau's  political  theory  is  set  forth  in  his  Social  Contract, 
published  in  1762.  This  book  is  very  different  in  character  from 
most  of  his  writing;  it  contains  little  sentimentality  and  much  dose 
intellectual  reasoning.  Its  doctrines,  though  they  pay  lip-service 
to  democracy,  tend  to  the  justification  of  the  totalitarian  State. 
But  Geneva  and  antiquity  combined  to  make  him  prefer  the  City 
State  to  large  empires  such  as  those  of  France  and  England.  On 
the  tide-page  he  calls  himself  "citizen  of  Geneva,"  and  in  his 
introductory  sentences  he  says:  "As  I  was  born  a  citizen  of  a  free 
State,  and  a  member  of  the  Sovereign,  I  feel  that,  however  feeble 
the  influence  of  my  voice  may  have  been  on  public  affairs,  the  right 
of  voting  on  them  makes  it  my  duty  to  study  them."  There  are 
frequent  laudatory  references  to  Sparta,  as  it  appears  in  Plutarch's 
Life  of  Lycurgus.  He  says  that  democracy  is  best  in  small  States, 
aristocracy  in  middle-sized  ones,  and  monarchy  in  large  ones.  But 
it  is  to  be  understood  that,  in  his  opinion,  small  States  are  pre- 
ferable, in  pan  because  they  make  democracy  more  practicable. 
When  he  speaks  of  democracy,  he  means,  as  the  Greeks  meant, 
direct  participation  of  every  citizen;  representative  government 
he  calls  "elective  aristocracy."  Since  the  former  is  no£  possible 
in  a  large  State,  his  praise  of  democracy  always  implies  praise  of 
the  City  State.  This  love  of  the  City  State  is,  in  my  opinion,  not 
sufficiently  emphasized  in  most  accounts  of  Rousseau's  political 
philosophy.  « 

Although  the  book  as  a  whole  is  much  less  rhetorical  than  mosft 
of  Rousseau's  writing,  the  first  chapter  opens  with  a  very  forceful 
piece  of  rhetoric;  "Man  is  born  free,  and  everywhere  he  is  in 

721 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

chains.  One  man  thinks  himself  the  master  of  others,  but  remains 
more  of  a  slave  than  they  are."  Liberty  is  the  nominal  goal  of 
Rousseau's  thought,  but  in  fact  it  is  equality  that  he  values,  and 
that  he  seeks  to  secure  even  at  the  expense  of  liberty. 

His  conception  of  the  Social  Contract  seems,  at  first,  analogous 
to  Locke's,  but  soon  shows  itself  more  akin  to  that  of  Hobbes.  In 
the  development  from  the  state  of  nature,  there  comes  a  time  when 
individuals  can  no  longer  maintain  themselves  in  primitive  inde- 
pendence; it  then  becomes  necessary  to  self-preservation  that  they 
should  unite  to  form  a  society.  But  how  can  I  pledge  my  liberty 
without  harming  my  interests?  "The  problem  is  to  find  a  form 
of  association  which  will  defend  and  protect  with  the  whole  com- 
mon force  the  person  and  goods  of  each  associate,  and  in  which 
each,  while  uniting  himself  with  all,  may  still  obey  himself  alone, 
and  remain  as  free  as  before.  This  is  the  fundamental  problem 
of  which  the  Social  Contract  provides  the  solution." 

The  Contract  consists  in  "the  total  alienation  of  each  associate, 
together  with  all  his  rights,  to  the  whole  community ;  for,  in  the 
first  place,  as  each  gives  himself  absolutely,  the  conditions  are  the 
same  for  all;  and  this  being  so,  no  one  has  any  interest  in  making 
them  burdensome  to  others."  The  alienation  is  to  be  without 
reserve:  "If  individuals  retained  certain  rights,  as  there  would  be 
no  common  superior  to  decide  between  them  and  the  public,  each, 
being  on  one  point  his  own  judge,  would  ask  to  be  so  on  all;  the 
state  of  nature  would  thus  continue,  and  the  association  would 
necessarily  become  inoperative  or  tyrannical." 

This  implies  a  complete  abrogation  of  liberty  and  a  complete 
rejection  of  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man.  It  is  true  that,  in  a 
later  chapter,  there  is  some  softening  of  this  theory.  It  is  there  said 
that,  although  the  social  contract  gives  the  body  politic  absolute 
power  over  all  its  members,  nevertheless  human  beings  have 
natural  rights  as  men.  "The  sovereign  cannot  impose  upon  its 
subjects  any  fetters  that  are  useless  to  the  community,  nor  can 
it  even  wish  to  do  so."  But  the  sovereign  is  the  sole  judge  of  what 
is  useful  or  useless  to  the  community.  It  is  dear  that  only  a  very 
feeble  obstacle  is  thus  opposed  to  collective  tyranny. 

It  should  be  observed  that  the  "sovereign"  means,  in  Rousseau, 
not  the  monarch  or  the  government,  but  the  community  in  its 
collective  and  legislative  capacity. 

The  Social  Contract  can  be  stated  in  the  following  words:  "Each 

7" 


ROUSSEAU 

of  us  puts  his  person  and  all  his  power  in  common  under  the 
supreme  direction  of  the  general  will,  and,  in  our  corporate 
capacity,  we  receive  each  member  as  an  indivisible  pan  of  the 
whole/1  This  act  of  association  creates  a  moral  and  collective 
body,  which  is  called  the  "State**  when  passive,  the  "Sovereign" 
when  active,  and  a  'Tower9*  in  relation  to  other  bodies  like  itself. 

The  conception  of  the  "general  will,"  which  appears  in  the 
above  wording  of  the  Contract,  plays  a  very  important  part  in 
Rousseau's  system.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  about  it  shortly. 

It  is  argued  that  the  Sovereign  need  give  no  guarantees  to  its 
subjects,  for,  since  it  is  formed  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it, 
it  can  have  no  interest  contrary  to  theirs.  "The  Sovereign,  merely 
by  virtue  of  what  it  is,  is  always  what  it  should  be."  This  doctrine 
is  misleading  to  the  reader  who  does  not  note  Rousseau's  some- 
what peculiar  use  of  terms.  The  Sovereign  is  not  the  government, 
which,  it  is  admitted,  may  be  tyrannical;  the  Sovereign  is  a  more 
or  less  metaphysical  entity,  not  fully  embodied  in  any  of  the  f  isible 
organs  of  the  State.  Its  impeccability,  therefore,  even  if  admitted, 
has  not  the  practical  consequences  that  it  might  be  supposed  to 
have. 

The  will  of  the  Sovereign,  which  is  always  right,  is  the  "general 
will/*  Each  citizen,  qud  citizen,  shares  in  the  general  will,  but  he 
may  also,  as  an  individual,  have  a  particular  will  running  counter 
to  the  general  will.  The  Social  Contract  involves  that  whoever 
refuses  to  obey  the  general  will  shall  be  forced  to  do  so.  "This 
means  nothing  less  than  that  he  will  be  forced  to  be  free.** 

This  conception  of  being  "forced  to  be  free**  is  very  meta- 
physical. The  general  will  in  the  time  of  Galileo  was  certainly  anti- 
Copernican;  was  Galileo  "forced  to  be  free1'  when  the  Inquisition 
compelled  him  to  recant?  Is  even  a  malefactor  "forced  to  be  free'* 
when  he  is  put  in  prison?  Think  of  Byron's  Corsair: 

O'er  the  glad  waters  of  the  deep  blue  sea, 

Our  thoughts  as  boundless  and  our  hearts  as  fjee. 

Would  this  man  be  more  "free"  in  a  dungeon?  The  odd  thing  is 
that  Byron's  noble  pirates  arc  a  direct  outcome  of  Rousseau,  and 
yet,  in  the  above  passage,  Rousseau  forgets  his  romanticism  and 
speaks  like  a  sophistical  polkcm&n.  Hegel,  who  owed  much  ty 
Rousseau,  adopted  hi*  misuse  of  the  word  "freedom,**  and  defined 
it  as  the  right  to  obey  the  police,  or  something  not  very  different. 

7*3 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Rousseau  has  not  that  profound  respect  for  private  property 
that  characterizes  Locke  and  his  disciples.  "The  State,  in  relation 
to  its  members,  is  master  of  all  their  goods."  Nor  does  he  believe 
in  division  of  powers,  as  preached  by  Locke  and  Montesquieu. 
In  this  respect,  however,  as  in  some  others,  his  later  detailed 
discussions  do  not  wholly  agree  with  his  earlier  general  principles. 
In  Book  HI,  chapter  i,  he  says  that  the  part  of  the  Sovereign  is 
limited  to  making  laws,  and  that  the  executive,  or  government,  is 
an  intermediate  body  set  up  between  the  subjects  and  the  Sovereign 
to  secure  their  mutual  correspondence.  He  goes  on  to  say:  "If  the 
Sovereign  desires  to  govern,  or  the  magistrate  to  give  laws,  or 
if  the  subjects  refuse  to  obey,  disorder  takes  the  place  of  regularity, 
and  ...  the  State  falls  into  despotism  or  anarchy."  In  this  sentence, 
allowing  for  the  difference  of  vocabulary,  he  seems  to  agree  with 
Montesquieu. 

I  come  now  to  the  doctrine  of  the  general  will,  which  is  both 
important  and  obscure.  The  general  mil  is  not  identical  with  the 
will  of  the  majority,  or  even  with  the  will  of  all  the  citizens.  It 
•seems  to  be  conceived  as  the  will  belonging  to  the  body  politic 
as  such.  If  we  take  Hobbes's  view,  that  a  civil  society  is  a  person, 
we  must  suppose  it  endowed  with  the  attributes  of  personality, 
including  will.  But  then  we  are  faced  with  the  difficulty  of  deciding 
what  are  the  visible  manifestations  of  this  will,  and  here  Rousseau 
leaves  us  in  the  dark.  We  are  told  that  the  general  will  is  always 
right  and  always  tends  to  the  public  advantage ;  but  that  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  deliberations  of  the  people  are  equally  correct, 
for  there  is  often  a  great  deal  of  difference  between  the  will  of 
all  and  the  general  will.  How,  then,  are  we  to  know  what  is  the 
general  will?  There  is,  in  the  same  chapter,  a  son  of  answer: 

"If,  when  the  people,  being  furnished  with  adequate  informa- 
tion, held  its  deliberations,  the  citizens  had  no  communication 
one  with  another,  the  grand  total  of  the  small  differences  would 
always  give  the  general  will,  and  the  decision  would  always  be 
good."  * 

The  conception  in  Rousseau's  mind  seems  to  be  this:  every 
man's  political  opinion  is  governed  by  self-interest,  but  self- 
interest  consists  of  two  parts,  one  of  which  is  peculiar  to  the  indi- 
vidual, while  the  other  is  common  to  all  the  members  of  the 
community.  If  the  citizens  have  no  opportunity  of  striking  log- 
rolling bargains  with  each  other,  their  individual  interests,  being 


ROUSSEAU 

divergent,  will  cancel  out,  and  there  will  be  left  a  resultant  which 
will  represent  their  common  interest;  this  resultant  is  the  general 
will.  Perhaps  Rousseau's  conception  might  be  illustrated  by  ter- 
restrial gravitation.  Every  particle  in  the  earth  attracts  every  other 
particle  in  the  universe  towards  itself;  the  air  above  us  attracts  us 
upward  while  the  ground  beneath  us  attracts  us  downward.  But 
all  these  "selfish"  attractions  cancel  each  other  out  in  so  far  as 
they  are  divergent,  and  what  remains  is  a  resultant  attraction 
towards  the  centre  of  the  earth.  This  might  be  fancifully  conceived 
as  the  act  of  the  earth  considered  as  a  community,  and  as  the 
expression  of  its  general  will. 

To  say  that  the  general  will  is  always  right  is  only  to  say  that, 
since  it  represents  what  is  in  common  among  the  self-interests  of 
the  various  citizens,  it  must  represent  the  largest  collective  satis- 
faction of  self-interest  possible  to  the  community.  This  inter- 
pretation of  Rousseau's  meaning  seems  to  accord  with  his  words 
better  than  any  other  that  I  have  been  able  to  think  of.1 

In  Rousseau's  opinion,  what  interferes  in  practice  with  the 
expression  of  the  general  will  is  the  existence  of  subordinate  asso- 
ciations within  the  State.  Each  of  these  will  have  its  own  general 
mil,  which  may  conflict  with  that  of  the  community  as  a  whole. 
"It  may  then  be  said  that  there  are  no  longer  as  many  votes  as 
there  are  men,  but  only  as  many  as  there  are  associations."  This 
leads  to  an  important  consequence:  "It  is  therefore  essential,  if 
the  general  will  is  to  be  able  to  express  itself,  that  there  should  be 
no  partial  society  within  the  State,  and  that  each  citizen  should 
think  only  his  own  thoughts:  which  was  indeed  the  sublime  and 
unique  system  established  by  the  great  Lycurgus."  In  a  footnote, 
Rousseau  supports  his  opinion  with  the  authority  of  Machiavelli. 

Consider  what  such  a  system  would  involve  in  practice.  The 
State  would  have  to  prohibit  churches  (except  a  State  Church), 
political  parties,  trade-unions,  and  all  other  organizations  of  men 
with  similar  economic  interests.  The  result  is  obviously  the  Cor- 
porate or  Totalitarian  State,  in  which  the  individual  citizen  is 
powerless.  Rousseau  seems  to  realize  that  it  may  be  difficult  to 

1  E.g.,  "There  if  often  much  difference  between  the  will  of  all  and  the 
general  will:  the  latter  considers  onlynhe  common  interest:  the  former 
looks  to  private  interest,  and  is  only  a  sum  of  particular  wills:  but  take 
away  from  these  tame  wills  the  more  and  the  less  which  destroy  each 
other,  and  the  general  will  remains  as  the  sum  of  the  differences." 

7*5 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

prohibit  all  associations,  and  adds,  as  an  afterthought,  that,  if 
there  must  be  subordinate  associations,  then  the  more  there  are 
the  better,  in  order  that  they  may  neutralize  each  other. 

When,  in  a  later  pan  of  the  book,  he  comes  to  consider  govern- 
ment, he  realizes  that  the  executive  is  inevitably  an  association 
having  an  interest  and  a  general  will  of  its  own,  which  may  easily 
conflict  with  that  of  the  community.  He  says  that  while  the  govern- 
ment of  a  large  State  needs  to  be  stronger  than  that  of  a  small 
one,  there  is  also  more  need  of  restraining  the  government  by 
means  of  the  Sovereign.  A  member  of  the  government  has  three 
wills:  his  personal  will,  the  will  of  the  government,  and  the 
general  will.  These  three  should  form  a  crescendo,  but  usually  in 
fact  form  a  diminuendo.  Again:  "Everything  conspires  to  take 
away  from  a  man  who  is  set  in  authority  over  others  the  sense  of 
justice  and  reason." 

Thus  in  spite  of  the  infallibility  of  the  general  will,  which  is 
"always  constant,  unalterable,  and  pure/'  all  the  old  problems  of 
eluding  tyranny  remain.  What  Rousseau  has  to  say  on  these 
problems  is  either  a  surreptitious  repetition  of  Montesquieu,  or 
an  insistence  on  the  supremacy  of  the  legislature,  which,  if  demo- 
cratic, is  identical  with  what  he  calls  the  Sovereign.  The  broad 
general  principles  with  which  he  starts,  and  which  he  presents 
as  if  they  solved  political  problems,  disappear  when  he  condescends 
to  detailed  considerations,  towards  the  solution  of  which  they 
contribute  nothing. 

The  condemnation  of  the  book  by  contemporary  reactionaries 
leads  a  modern  reader  to  expect  to  find  in  it  a  much  more  sweeping 
revolutionary  doctrine  than  it  in  fact  contains.  We  may  illustrate 
this  by  what  is  said  about  democracy.  When  Rousseau  uses  this 
word,  he  means,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  direct  democracy 
of  the  ancient  City  State.  This,  he  points  out,  can  never  be  com- 
pletely realized,  because  the  people  cannot  be  always  assembled 
and  always  occupied  with  public  affairs.  "Were  there  a  people  of 
gods,  their  government  would  be  democratic.  So  perfect  a 
government  is  not  for  men.'* 

What  we  call  democracy  he  calls  elective  aristocracy;  this,  he 
says,  is  the  best  of  all  governments,  but  it  is  not  suitable  to  all 
Oxmtries.  Hie  climate  must  be  neither  very  hot  nor  very  cold ;  the 
produce  must  not  much  exceed  what  is  necessary,  for,  where  it 
does,  the  evil  of  luxury  is  inevitable,  and  it  it  better  that  this 

7*6 


ROUSSEAU 

evil  should  be  confined  to  a  monarch  and  his  Court  than  diffused 
throughout  the  population.  In  virtue  of  these  limitations,  a  large 
field  is  left  for  despotic  government.  Nevertheless  his  advocacy  of 
democracy,  in  spite  of  its  limitations,  was  no  doubt  one  of  the 
things  that*  made  the  French  Government  implacably  hostile 
to  the  book;  the  other,  presumably,  was  the  rejection  of  the 
divine  right  of  kings,  which  is  implied  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Social  Contract  as  the  origin  of  government. 

The  Social  Contract  became  the  Bible  of  most  of  the  leaders  in 
the  French  Revolution,  but  no  doubt,  as  is  the  fate  of  Bibles,  it 
was  not  carefully  read  and  was  still  less  understood  by  many  of 
its  disciples.  It  reintroduced  the  habit  of  metaphysical  abstractions 
among  the  theorists  of  democracy,  and  by  its  doctrine  of  the 
general  will  it  made  possible  the  mystic  identification  of  a  leader 
with  his  people,  which  has  no  need  of  confirmation  by  so  mundane 
an  apparatus  as  the  ballot-box.  Much  of  its  philosophy  could  be 
appropriated  by  Hegel1  in  his  defence  of  the  Prussian  autocracy. 
Its  first-fruits  in  practice  were  the  reign  of  Robespierre;  the 
dictatorships  of  Russia  and  Germany  (especially  the  latter)  are 
in  part  an  outcome  of  Rousseau's  teaching.  What  further  triumphs 
the  future  has  to  offer  to  his  ghost  I  do  not  venture  to  predict. 

1  Hegel  selects  for  special  praise  the  distinction  between  the  general 
will  and  the  will  of  all.  He  says;  "Rousseau  would  have  made  a  sounder 
contribution  towards  a  theory  of  the  State,  if  he  had  always  kept  this 
distinction  in  sight"  (/*o£ir,  sec.  163). 


737 


Chapter  XX 
KANT 

A.  GERMAN  IDEALISM  IN  GENERAL 

PHILOSOPHY  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  dominated  by 
the  British  empiricists,  of  whom  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume 
may  be  taken  as  the  representatives.  In  these  men  there  was  a 
conflict,  of  which  they  themselves  appear  to  have  been  unaware, 
between  their  temper  of  mind  and  the  tendency  of  their  theoretical 
doctrines.  In  their  temper  of  mind  they  were  socially  minded 
citizens,  by  no  means  self-assertive,  not  unduly  anxious  for  power, 
and  in  favour  of  a  tolerant  world  where,  within  the  limits  of  the 
criminal  law,  every  man  could  do  as  he  pleased.  They  were  good- 
natured,  men  of  the  world,  urbane  and  kindly. 

But  while  their  temper  was  social,  their  theoretical  philosophy 
led  to  subjectivism.  This  was  not  a  new  tendency ;  it  had  existed 
in  late  antiquity,  most  emphatically  in  St.  Augustine;  it  was 
revived  in  modern  times  by  Descartes 's  cogito,  and  reached  a 
momentary  culmination  in  Leibniz's  windowless  monads.  Leibniz 
believed  that  everything  in  his  expedience  would  be  unchanged  if 
the  rest  of  the  world  were  annihilated ;  nevertheless  he  devoted 
himself  to  the  reunion  of  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  Churches. 
A  similar  inconsistency  appears  in  Locke;  Berkeley,  and  Hume. 

In  Locke,  the  inconsistency  is  still  in  the  theory.  We  saw  in  an 
earlier  chapter  that  Locke  says,  on  the  one  hand:  "Since  the  mind, 
in  all  its  thoughts  and  reasonings,  hath  no  other  immediate  object 
but  its  own  ideas,  which  it  alone  does  or  can  contemplate,  it  is 
evident  that  our  knowledge  is  only  conversant  about  them." 
And:  "Knowledge  is  the  perception  of  the  agreement  or  dis- 
agreemertf  of  two  ideas."  Nevertheless,  he  maintains  that  we  have 
three  kinds  of  knowledge  of  real  existence:  intuitive,  of  our  own ; 
demonstrative,  of  God's;  and  sensitive,  of  things  present  to  sense. 
Simple  ideas,  he  maintains,  are  "the  product  of  things  operating 
on  the  mind  in  a  natural  way."  How  he  knows  this,  he  does  not 
ficplain;  it  certainly  goes  beyond  "the  agreement  or  disagreement 
of  two  ideas." 

Berkeley  took  an  important  step  towards  ending  this  incon- 

728 


KANT 

sistency.  For  him,  there  are  only  minds  and  their  ideas;  the 
physical  external  world  is  abolished.  But  he  still  failed  to  grasp 
all  the  consequences  of  the  epistemological  principles  that  he 
took  over  from  Locke.  If  he  had  been  completely  consistent,  he 
would  have  denied  knowledge  of  God  and  of  all  minds  except  his 
own.  From  such  denial  he  was  held  back  by  his  feelings  as  a 
clergyman  and  as  a  social  being. 

Hume  shrank  from  nothing  in  pursuit  of  theoretical  consistency, 
but  felt  no  impulse  to  make  his  practice  conform  to  his  theory. 
Hume  denied  the  Self,  and  threw  doubt  on  induction  and  causa- 
tion. He  accepted  Berkeley's  abolition  of  matter,  but  not  the 
substitute  that  Berkeley  offered  in  the  form  of  God's  ideas.  It  is 
true  that,  like  Locke,  he  admitted  no  simple  idea  without  an 
antecedent  impression,  and  no  doubt  he  imagined  an  "impression" 
as  a  state  of  mind  directly  caused  by  something  external  to  the 
mind.  But  he  could  not  admit  this  as  a  definition  of  "impression," 
since  he  questioned  the  notion  of  "cause."  I  doubt  whether 
either  he  or  his  disciples  were  ever  clearly  aware  of  this  problem 
as  to  impressions.  Obviously,  on  his  view,  an  "impression" 
would  have  to  be  defined  by  some  intrinsic  character  distin- 
guishing it  from  an  "idea,"  since  it  could  not  be  defined  causally. 
He  could  not  therefore  argue  that  impressions  give  knowledge 
of  things  external  to  ourselves,  as  had  been  done  by  Locke,  and, 
in  a  modified  form,  by  Berkeley.  He  should,  therefore,  have 
believed  himself  shut  up  in  a  sotipsistic  world,  and  ignorant  of 
everything  except  his  own  mental  states  and  their  relations. 

Hume,  by  his  consistency,  showed  that  empiricism,  carried  to 
its  logical  conclusion,  led  to  results  which  few  human  beings  could 
bring  themselves  to  accept,  and  abolished,  over  the  whole  field 
of  science,  the  distinction  between  rational  belief  and  credulity. 
Locke  had  foreseen  this  danger.  He  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a 
supposed  critic  the  argument:  "If  knowledge  consists  in  agree- 
ment of  ideas,  the  enthusiast  and  the  sober  man  are  on^a  level." 
Locke,  living  at  a  time  when  men  had  grown  tired  of  "enthusiasm," 
found  no  difficulty  in  persuading  men  of  the  validity  of  his  reply 
to  this  criticism.  Rousseau,  coming  at  a  moment  when  people 
were,  in  turn,  getting  tired  of  reason,  revived  "enthusiasm,"  and, 
accepting  the  bankruptcy  of  reason,  allowed  the  heart  to  decid? 
questions  which  the  head  left  doubtful.  From  1750  to  1794,  the 
heart  spoke  louder  and  louder;  at  last  Thermidor  put  an  end, 

7*9 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

for  a  time,  to  its  ferocious  pronouncements,  so  for  at  least  as 
France  was  concerned.  Under  Napoleon,  heart  and  head  were 
alike  sitenocd, 

In  Germany,  the  reaction  against  Hume's  agnosticism  took  a 
form  far  more  profound  and  subtle  than  that  which  Rousseau 
had  given  to  it.  Kant,  Fichtc,  and  Hegel  developed  a  new  kind 
of  philosophy,  intended  to  safeguard  both  knowledge  and  virtue 
from  the  subversive  doctrines  of  the  late  eighteenth  century.  In 
Kant,  and  still  more  in  Fichte,  the  subjectivist  tendency  that 
begins  with  Descartes  was  carried  to  new  extremes ;  in  this  respect 
there  was  at  first  no  reaction  against  Hume.  As  regards  sub- 
jectivism, the  reaction  began  with  Hegel,  who  sought,  through 
his  logic,  to  establish  a  new  way  of  escape  from  the  individual 
into  the  world. 

The  whole  of  German  idealism  has  affinities  with  the  romantic 
movement.  These  are  obvious  in  Fichte,  and  still  more  so  in 
Schelling;  they  are  least  so  in  Hegel. 

Kant,  the  founder  of  German  idealism,  is  not  himself  politically 
important,  though  he  wrote  some  interesting  essays  on  political 
subjects.  Fichte  and  Hegel,  on  the  other  hand,  both  set  forth 
political  doctrines  which  had,  and  still  have,  a  profound  influence 
upon  the  course  of  history.  Neither  can  be  understood  without  a 
previous  study  of  Kant,  whom  we  shall  consider  in  this  chapter. 

There  are  certain  common  characteristics  of  the  German 
idealists,  which  can  be  mentioned  before  embarking  upon 
detail. 

The  critique  of  knowledge,  as  a  means  of  reaching  philosophical 
conclusions,  is  emphasized  by  Kant  and  accepted  by  his  followers. 
There  is  an  emphasis  upon  mind  as  opposed  to  matter,  which 
leads  in  the  end  to  the  assertion  that  only  mind  exists.  There  is 
a  vehement  rejection  of  utilitarian  ethics  in  favour  of  systems 
which  are  held  to  be  demonstrated  by  abstract  philosophical 
arguments.  There  is  a  scholastic  tone  which  is  absent  in  the 
earlier  French  and  English  philosophers;  Kant,  Fichte,  and 
Hegel  were  university  professors,  addressing  learned  audiences, 
not  gentlemen  of  leisure  addressing  amateurs.  Although  their 
effects  were  in  pan  revolutionary,  they  themselves  were  not 
intentionally  subversive;  Fichte  and  Hegel  were  very  definitely 
concerned  in  the  defence  of  the  State.  The  lives  of  all  of  them 
were  exemplary  and  academic;  their  views  on  moral  questions 

730 


RANT 

were  strictly  orthodox.  They  made  innovations  in  theology,  but 
they  did  so  in  the  interests  of  religion. 
With  these  preliminary  remarks,  let  us  turn  to  the  study  of  Kant. 

B.  OUTLINE  OF  KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY 

Immanuel  Kant  (1724-1804)  is  generally  considered  the  greatest 
of  modern  philosophers.  I  cannot  myself  agree  with  this  estimate, 
but  it  would  be  foolish  not  to  recognize  his  great  importance. 

Throughout  his  whole  life,  Kant  lived  in  or  near  Konigsberg, 
in  East  Prussia.  His  outer  life  was  academic  and  wholly  uneventful, 
although  he  lived  through  the  Seven  Years'  War  (during  part  of 
which  the  Russians  occupied  East  Prussia),  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  the  early  part  of  Napoleon's  career.  He  was  educated 
in  the  Wolfian  version  of  Leibniz's  philosophy,  but  wz?  led  to 
abandon  it  by  two  influences:  Rousseau  and  Hume.  Hume,  by 
his  criticism  of  the  concept  of  causality,  awakened  him  from  his 
dogmatic  slumbers — so  at  least  he  says,  but  the  awakening  was 
only  temporary,  and  he  soon  invented  a  soporific  which  enab'ed 
him  to  sleep  again.  Hume,  for  Kant,  was  an  adversary  to  be  refuted, 
but  the  influence  of  Rousseau  was  more  profound.  Kant  was  a 
man  of  such  regular  habits  that  people  used  to  set  their  watches 
by  him  as  he  passed  their  doors  on  his  constitutional,  but  on  one 
occasion  his  time-table  was  disrupted  for  several  days;  this  was 
when  he  was  reading  Emile.  He  said  that  he  had  to  read  Rousseau's 
books  several  times,  because,  at  a  first  reading,  the  beauty  of  the 
style  prevented  him  from  noticing  the  matter.  Although  he  had  been 
brought  up  as  a  pietist,  he  was  a  Liberal  both  in  politics  and  in 
theology ;  he  sympathized  with  the  French  Revolution  until  the ; 
Reign  of  Terror,  and  was  a  believer  in  democracy.  His  philosophy/ 
as  we  shall  see,  allowed  an  appeal  to  the  heart  against  the  cold 
dictates  of  theoretical  reason,  which  might,  with  a  little  exaggera- 
tion, be  regarded  as  a  pedantic  version  of  the  Savoyard  Vicar. 
His  principle  that  every  man  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  end  in  himself 
is  a  form  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Rights  of  Man ;  and  his  love  of 
freedom  is  shown  in  his  saying  (about  children  as  well  as  adults) 
that  "there  can  be  nothing  more  4feadful  than  that  the  actions  of 
a  man  should  be  subject  to  the  will  of  another/'  * 

Kant's  early  works  are  more  concerned  with  science  than  with 
philosophy.  After  the  earthquake  of  Lisbon  he  wrote  on  the  theory 

73* 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

of  earthquakes;  he  wrote  a  treatise  on  wind,  and  a  short  essay 
on  the  question  whether  the  west  wind  in  Europe  is  moist  because 
it  has  crossed  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Physical  geography  was  a 
subject  in  which  he  took  great  interest. 

The  most  important  of  his  scientific  writings  is  his  General 
Natural  History  and  Theory  of  the  Heavens  (1755),  which  antici- 
pates Laplace's  nebular  hypothesis,  and  sets  forth  a  possible  origin 
of  the  solar  system.  Parts  of  this  work  have  a  remarkable  Miltonic 
sublimity.  It  has  the  merit  of  inventing  what  proved  a  fruitful 
hypothesis,  but  it  does  not,  as  Laplace  did,  advance  serious  argu- 
ments in  its  favour.  In  parts  it  is  purely  fanciful,  for  instance  in 
the  doctrine  that  all  planets  are  inhabited,  and  that  the  most 
distant  planets  have  the  best  inhabitants — a  view  to  be  praised 
for  its  terrestrial  modesty,  but  not  supported  by  any  scientific 
grounds. 

At  a  time  when  he  was  more  troubled  by  the  arguments  of 
sceptics  than  he  was  earlier  or  later,  he  wrote  a  curious  work 
called  Dreams  of  a  Ghost-seer,  Illustrated  by  the  Dreams  of  Meta- 
physics (1766).  The  "ghost-seer*1  is  Swedenborg,  whose  mystical 
system  had  been  presented  to  the  world  in  an  enormous  work 
of  which  four  copies  were  sold,  three  to  unknown  purchasers  and 
one  to  Kant.  Kant,  half  seriously  and  half  in  jest,  suggests  that 
Swedenborg's  system,  which  he  calls  "fantastic,"  is  perhaps  no 
more  so  than  orthodox  metaphysics.  He  is  not,  however,  wholly 
contemptuous  of  Swedenborg.  His  mystical  side,  which  existed 
though  it  did  not  much  appear  in  his  writings,  admired  Sweden- 
borg, whom  he  calls  "very  sublime." 

Like  everybody  else  at  that  time,  he  wrote  a  treatise  on  the 
sublime  and  the  beautiful,  Night  is  sublime,  day  is  beautiful;  the 
sea  is  sublime,  the  land  is  beautiful ;  man  is  sublime,  woman  is 
beautiful ;  and  so  on. 

The  Encyclopaedia  Britanmca  remarks  that  "as  he  never  married, 
he  kept, the  habits  of  his  studious  youth  to  old  age."  I  wonder 
whether  the  author  of  this  article  was  a  bachelor  or  a  married 
man. 

Kant's  most  important  book  is  The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason 
j[fim  edition,  1781 ;  second  edition,  1787).  The  purpose  of  this 
"work  is  to  prove  that,  although  none  of  our  knowledge  can  trans- 
cend experience,  it  is,  nevertheless,  in  part  a  priori  and  not 
inferred  inductively  from  experience.  The  put  of  our  knowledge 

732 


KANT 

which  is  a  priori  embraces,  according  to  him,  not  only  logic,  but 
much  that  cannot  be  inducted  in  logic  or  deduced  from  it.  He 
separates  two  distinctions  which,  in  Leibniz,  are  confounded.  On 
the  one  hand  there  is  the  distinction  between  "analytic"  and 
"synthetic"  .propositions;  on  the  other  hand,  the  distinction 
between  "a  priori"  and  "empirical"  propositions.  Something 
must  be  said  about  each  of  these  distinctions. 

An  "analytic"  proposition  is  one  in  which  the  predicate  is  part 
of  the  subject ;  for  instance,  "a  tall  man  is  a  man,"  or  "an  equilateral 
triangle  is  a  triangle."  Such  propositions  follow  from  the  law  of 
contradiction ;  to  maintain  that  a  tall  man  is  not  a  man  would  be 
self-contradictory.  A  "synthetic"  proposition  is  one  that  is  not 
analytic.  All  the  propositions  that  we  know  t  only  through  ex- 
perience are  synthetic.  We  cannot,  by  a  mere  analysis  of  concepts, 
discover  such  truths  as  "Tuesday  was  a  wet  day"  or  "Napoleon 
was  a  great  general."  But  Kant,  unlike  Leibniz  and  all  other 
previous  philosophers,  will  not  admit  the  converse,  that  all 
synthetic  propositions  are  only  known  through  experience.  This 
brings  us  to  the  second  of  the  above  distinctions. 

An  "empirical"  proposition  is  one  which  we  cannot  know  except 
by  the  help  of  sense-perception,  either  our  own  or  that  of  some- 
one else  whose  testimony  we  accept.  The  facts  of  history  and  geo- 
graphy are  of  this  sort ;  so  are  the  laws  of  science,  whenever  our 
knowledge  of  their  truth  depends  on  observational  data.  An  "a 
priori"  proposition,  on  the  other  hand,  is  one  which,  though  it 
may  be  elicited  by  experience,  is  seen,  when  known,  to  have  a 
basis  other  than  experience.  A  child  learning  arithmetic  may  be 
helped  by  experiencing  two  marbles  and  two  other  marbles,  and 
observing  that  altogether  he  is  experiencing  four  marbles.  But 
when  he  has  grasped  the  general  proposition  "two  and  two  are 
four"  he  no  longer  requires  confirmation  by  instances;  the  pro- 
position has  a  certainty  which  induction  can  never  give  to  a 
general  law.  All  the  propositions  of  pure  mathematics  aje  in  this 
sense  a  priori. 

Hume  had  proved  that  the  law  of  causality  is  not  analytic,  and 
had  inferred  that  we  could  not  be  certain  of  its  truth.  Kant 
accepted  the  view  that  it  is  synthetic,  but  nevertheless  maintained 
that  it  is  known  a  priori.  He  maintained  that  arithmetic  ancf 
geometry  are  synthetic,  but  are  likewise  a  priori.  He  was  thus  led 
to  formulate  his  problem  in  these  terms: 

733 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

How  are  synthetic  judgments  a  priori  possible? 

The  answer  to  this  question,  with  its  consequences,  constitutes 
the  main  theme  of  The  Critique  of  Pur*  Reason. 

Kant's  sotetioa  of  the  problem  was  one  in  which  he  felt  great 
confidence.  He  had  spent  twelve  years  in  looking  for  it,  but  took 
only  a  few  months  to  write  his  whole  long  book  after  his  theory 
had  taken  shape.  In  the  preface  to  the  first  edition  be  says;  "1 
venture  to  aasert  that  there  is  not  a  single  metaphysical  problem 
which  has  not  been  solved,  or  for  the  solution  of  which  the  key 
at  least  has  not  been  supplied/1  In  the  preface  to  the  second 
edition  he  compares  himself  to  Copernicus,  and  says  that  he  has 
effected  a  Copernican  revolution  in  philosophy. 

According  to  Kant,  the  outer  world  causes  only  the  matter  of 
sensation,  but  our  own  mental  apparatus  orders  this  matter  in 
space  and  time,  and  supplies  the  concepts  by  means  of  which 
we  understand  experience.  Things  in  themselves,  which  are  the 
causes  of  our  sensations,  are  unknowable;  they  are  not  in  space 
or  time,  they  are  not  substances,  nor  can  they  be  described  by 
any  of  those  other  general  concepts  which  Kant  calls  "categories/* 
Space  and  time  are  subjective,  they  are  part  of  our  apparatus  of 
perception.  But  just  because  of  this,  we  can  be  sure  that  whatever 
we  experience  will  exhibit  the  characteristic*  dealt  with  by  geo- 
metry and  the  science  of  time.  If  you  always  wore  blue  spectacles, 
you  could  be  sure  of  seeing  everything  blue  (this  is  not  Kant  I 
illustration).  Similarly,  since  you  always  wear  spatial  spectacles  in 
your  mind,  you  are  sure  of  always  seeing  everything  in  space. 
Thus  geometry  is  a  priori  in  the  sense  that  it  must  be  true  of 
everything  experienced,  but  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  thst 
anything  analogous  is  true  of  things  in  themselves,  which  we  do 
not  experience* 

Space  and  time,  Kant  says,  are  not  concepts;  they  are  forms  of 
"intuition/*  (The  German  word  is  "An*chauxnf>;  which  means 
HteraUy^'looking  at"  or  "view."  The  word  "intuition."  though 
the  accepted  translation,  is  not  altogether  a  satisfactory  one.)  There 
are  also,  however,  a  priori  concepts;  these  are  the  twelw  "cate- 
gories," which  Kant  derives  from  the  forms  of  the  syllogism-  The 
twelve  categories  are  divided  ipto  four  sets  of  three :  ( i )  of  quantity : 
unity,  plurality,  totality;  (2)  of  quality:  reality,  negation,  limita- 
tion;  (3)  of  relation:  substaiuxsand-accidem,  cause-tnd-effect, 
redorocity;  (4)  of  modality:  possibility,  existence,  necessity.  These 

734 


*ANT 

are  subjective  in  the  same  sense  in  which  space  and  time 
that  is  to  say,  our  mental  constitution  is  such  that  they  are  applic- 
able to  whatever  we  experience,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
them  applicable  to  things  in  themselves.  As  regards  cause,  however, 
there  is  an  inconsistency,  for  things  in  themselves  are  regarded 
by  Kant  as  causes  of  sensations,  and  free  volitions  are  held  by  him 
to  be  causes  of  occurrences  in  space  and  time.  This  inconsistency 
is  not  an  accidental  oversight;  it  is  an  essential  part  of  his  system. 

A  large  pan  of  The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  is  occupied  in  show* 
ing  the  fallacies  that  arise  from  applying  space  and  time  or  the 
categories  to  things  that  are  not  experienced.  When  this  is  done, 
so  Kant  maintains,  we  find  ourselves  troubled  by  "antinomies"— 
that  is  to  say,  by  mutually  contradictory  propositions  each  of 
which  can  apparently  be  proved.  Kant  gives  four  such  antinomies, 
each  consisting  of  thesis  and  antithesis. 

In  the  first,  the  thesis  says:  "The  world  has  a  beginning  in  time, 
and  is  also  limited  as  regards  space."  The  antithesis  says:  "The 
world  has  no  beginning  in  time,  and  no  limits  in  space ;  it  is  infinite 
as  regards  both  time  and  space." 

The  second  antinomy  proves  that  every  composite  substance 
both  is,  and  is  not,  made  up  of  simple  parts. 

The  thesis  of  the  third  antinomy  maintains  that  there  are  two 
kinds  of  causality,  one  according  to  the  laws  of  nature,  the  other 
4hat  of  freedom ;  the  antithesis  maintains  that  there  is  only  causality 
according  to  the  laws  of  nature. 

The  fourth  antinomy  proves  that  there  is,  and  is  not,  an 
absolutely  necessary  Being. 

This  pan  of  the  Critique  greatly  influenced  Hegel,  whose 
dialectic  proceeds  wholly  by  way  of  antinomies. 

In  a  famous  section,  Kant  sets  to  work  to  demolish  all  the 
purely  intellectual  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God.  He  makes  it 
clear  that  he  has  other  reasons  for  believing  in  God;  these  he 
was  to  set  forth  later  in  The  Critique  of  Practical  Reason.  But  for 
the  time  being  his  purpose  is  purely  negative. 

There  are,  he  says,  only  three  proofs  of  God's  existence  by  pure 
reason;  these  are  th£  ontological  proof,  the  cosmologies!  proof, 
and  the  physico-theological  proof. 

The  ontological  proof,  as  he  sets  It  forth,  defines  God  as  the  en? 
reatimmum,  the  most  real  being;  i.e.  the  subject  of  all  predicates 
that  belong  to  being  absolutely.  It  is  contended,  by  thoae  who 

735 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

believe  the  proof  valid,  that,  since  "existence"  is  such  a  predicate, 
this  subject  must  have  the  predicate  "existence/1  i.e.  must  exist. 
Kant  objects  that  existence  is  not  a  predicate.  A  hundred  dialers 
that  I  merely  imagine  may,  he  says,  have  all  the  same  predicates 
as  a  hundred  real  thalers. 

The  cosmological  proof  says:  If  anything  exists,  then  an  abso- 
lutely necessary  Being  must  exist;  now  I  know  that  I  exist; 
therefore  an  absolutely  necessary  Being  exists,  and  this  must  be 
the  ens  realissimum.  Kant  maintains  that  the  last  step  in  this 
argument  is  the  ontological  argument  over  again,  and  that  it  is 
therefore  refuted  by  what  has  been  already  said. 

The  physico-theological  proof  is  the  familiar  argument  from 
design,  but  in  a  metaphysical  dress.  It  maintains  that  the  universe 
exhibits  an  order  which  is  evidence  of  purpose.  This  argument  is 
treated  by  Kant  with  respect,  but  he  points  out  that,  at  best,  it 
proves  only  an  Architect,  not  a  Creator,  and  therefore  cannot  give 
an  adequate  conception  of  God.  He  concludes  that  "the  only 
theology  of  reason  which  is  possible  is  that  which  is  based  upon 
moral  laws  or  seeks  guidance  from  them." 

God,  freedom,  and  immortality,  he  says,  are  the  three  "ideas 
of  reason."  But  although  pure  reason  leads  us  to  form  these  ideas, 
it  cannot  itself  prove  their  reality.  The  importance  of  these  ideas 
is  practical,  i.e.  connected  with  morals.  The  purely  intellectual 
use  of  reason  leads  to  fallacies ;  its  only  right  use  is  directed  u, 
moral  ends. 

The  practical  use  of  reason  is  developed  briefly  near  the  end  of 
The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  and  more  fully  in  The  Critique  of 
Practical  Reason  (1786).  The  argument  is  that  the  moral  law 
demands  justice,  i.e.  happiness  proportional  to  virtue.  Only 
Providence  can  insure  this,  and  has  evidently  not  insured  it  in 
this  life.  Therefore  there  is  a  God  and  a  future  life;  and  there 
must  be  freedom,  since  otherwise  there  would  be  no  such  thing 
as  virtue. 

Kant's  ethical  system,  as  set  forth  in  his  Metaphysic  of  Morals 
(1785),  has  considerable  historical  importance.  This  book  contains 
the  "categorical  imperative,1'  which,  at  least  fcs  a  phrase,  is  familiar 
outside  the  circle  of  professional  philosophers.  As  might  be 
'expected,  Kant  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  utilitarianism,  or 
with  any  doctrine  which  gives  to  morality  a  purpose  outside  itself. 
He  wants,  he  says,  "a  completely  isolated  metaphysic  of  morals, 

736 


KANT 

which  is  not  mixed  with  any  theology  or  physics  or  hyperphysics." 
All  moral  concepts,  he  continues,  have  their  seat  and  origin 
wholly  a  priori  in  the  reason.  Moral  worth  exists  only  when  a  man 
acts  from  a  sense  of  duty;  it  is  not  enough  that  the  act  should  be 
such  as  duty  wight  have  prescribed.  The  tradesman  who  is  honest 
from  self-interest,  or  the  man  who  is  kind  from  benevolent 
impulse,  is  not  virtuous.  The  essence  of  morality  is  to  be  derived 
from  the  concept  of  law;  for,  though  everything  in  nature  acts 
according  to  laws,  only  a  rational  being  has  the  power  of  acting 
according  to  the  idea  of  a  law,  i.e.  by  Will.  The  idea  of  an  objective 
principle,  in  so  far  as  it  is  compelling  to  the  will,  is  called  a 
command  of  the  reason,  and  the  formula  of  the  command  is 
called  an  imperative. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  imperative:  the  hypothetical  imperative 
which  says  "You  must  do  so-and-so  if  you  wish  to  achieve  such- 
and-such  an  end";  and  the  categorical  imperative,  which  says  that 
a  certain  kind  of  action  is  objectively  necessary,  without  regard 
to  any  end.  The  categorical  imperative  is  synthetic  and  a 
priori.  Its  character  is  deduced  by  Kant  from  the  concept  of 
Law: 

"If  I  think  of  a  categorical  imperative,  I  know  at  once  what  it 
contains.  For  as  the  imperative  contains,  besides  the  Law,  only 
the  necessity  of  the  maxim  to  be  in  accordance  with  this  law, 
out  the  Law  contains  no  condition  by  which  it  is  limited,  nothing 
remains  over  but  the  generality  of  a  law  in  general,  to  which  the 
maxim  of  the  action  is  to  be  conformable,  and  which  conforming 
alone  presents  the  imperative  as  necessary.  Therefore  the  cate- 
gorical imperative  is  a  single  one,  and  in  fact  this:  Act  only 
according  to  a  maxim  by  which  you  can  at  the  same  time  mil  that  it 
shall  become  a  general  law."  Or:  "Act  as  if  the  maxim  of  your  action 
were  to  becotne  through  your  will  a  general  natural  law." 

Kant  gives  as  an  illustration  of  the  working  of  the  categorical 
imperative  that  it  is  wrong  to  borrow  money,  because  jf  we  all 
tried  to  do  so  there  would  be  no  money  left  to  borrow.  One  can 
in  like  manner  show  that  theft  and  murder  are  condemned  by  the 
categorical  imperative.  But  there  are  some  acts  which  Kant 
would  certainly  think  wrong  but  which  cannot  be  shown  to  be 
wrong  by  his  principles,  for  instance  suicide;  it  would  be  quite^ 
possible  for  a  melancholic  to  wish  that  everybody  should  commit 
suicide.  His  maxim  seems,  in  fact,  to  give  a  necessary  but  not  a 

(•/  H  t*t<rn  /V 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

sufficient  criterion  of  virtue.  To  get  a  sufficient  criterion,  we  should 
have  to  abandon  Kant's  purely  formal  point  of  view,  and  take 
some  account  of  the  effects  of  actions.  Kant,  however,  states 
emphatically  that  virtue  does  not  depend  upon  the  intended 
result  of  an  action,  but  only  on  the  principle  of  wljich  it  is  itself 
a  result;  and  if  this  is  conceded,  nothing  more  concrete  than 
his  maxim  is  possible. 

Kant  maintains,  although  his  principle  does  not  seem  to  entail 
this  consequence,  that  we  ought  so  to  act  as  to  treat  every  man 
as  an  end  in  himself.  This  may  be  regarded  as  an  abstract  form 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man,  and  it  is  open  to  the  same 
objections.  If  taken  seriously,  it  would  make  it  impassible  to  reach 
a  decision  whenever  two  people's  interests  conflict.  The  diffi- 
culties are  particularly  obvious  in  political  philosophy,  which 
requires  some  principle,  such  as  preference  for  the  majority,  by 
which  the  interests  of  some  can,  when  necessary,  be  sacrificed  to 
those  of  others.  If  there  is  to  be  any  ethic  of  government,  the  end 
of  government  must  be  one,  and  the  only  single  end  compatible 
with  justice  is  the  good  of  the  community.  It  is  possible,  however, 
to  interpret  Kant's  principle  as  meaning,  not  that  each  man  is  an 
absolute  end,  but  that  all  men  should  count  equally  in  deter- 
mining actions  by  which  many  are  affected.  So  interpreted,  the 
principle  may  be  regarded  as  giving  an  ethical  basis  for  democracy. 
In  this  interpretation,  it  is  not  open  to  the  above  objection. 

Kant's  vigour  and  freshness  of  mind  in  old  age  are  shown  by 
his  treatise  on  Perpetual  Peace  (1795).  lathis  work  he  advocates 
a  federation  of  free  States,  bound  together  by  a  covenant  for- 
bidding war.  Reason,  he  says,  utterly  condemns  war,  which  only 
an  international  government  can  prevent.  The  civil  constitution 
of  the  component  States  should,  he  says,  be  "republican,"  but 
he  defines  this  word  as  meaning  that  the  executive  and  the  legis- 
lative are  separated  He  does  not  mean  that  there  should  be  no 
king;  in  fact,  he  says  that  it  is  easiest  to  get  a  perfect  government 
under  ac  monarchy.  Writing  under  the  impact  of  the  Reign  of 
Tenor,  he  is  suspicious  of  democracy;  he  says  that  it  is  of 
necessity  despotism,  since  it  establishes  an  executive  power. 
"The  'whole  people/  so-called,  who  carry  their  measures  are 
realty  not  all,  but  only  a  majority:  so  that  here  the  universal  will 
is  in  contradiction  with  itself  and  with  the  principle  of  freedom*'1 
The  phrasing  shows  the  influence  of  Rousseau,  but  the  important 

738 


KANT 

idea  of  a  world  federation  as  the  way  to  secure  peace  is  not  derived 
from  Rousseau. 

Since  1933,  this  treatise  has  caused  Kant  to  fall  into  disfavour 
in  his  own  country. 

• 

c.  KANT'S  THEORY  OF  SPACE  AND  TIME 

The  most  important  part  of  The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  is  the 
doctrine  of  space  and  time.  In  this  section  I  propose  to  make  a 
critical  examination  of  this  doctrine. 

To  explain  Kant's  theory  of  space  and  time  clearly  is  not  easy, 
because  the  theory  itself  is  not  clear.  It  is  set  forth  both  in  The 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  and  in  the  Prolegomena;  the  latter  exposi- 
tion is  the  easier,  but  is  less  full  than  that  in  the  Critique.  I  will 
try  first  to  expound  the  theory,  making  it  as  plausible  as  I  can; 
only  after  exposition  will  I  attempt  criticism. 

Kant  holds  that  the  immediate  objects  of  perception  are  due 
partly  to  external  things  and  partly  to  our  own  perceptive  appara- 
tus. Locke  had  accustomed  the  world  to  the  idea  that  the  secondary 
qualities — colours,  sounds,  smells,  etc. — are  subjective,  and  do 
not  belong  to  the  object  as  it  is  in  itself.  Kant,  like  Berkeley  and 
Hume,  though  in  not  quite  the  same  way,  goes  further,  and  makes 
the  primary  qualities  also  subjective.  Kant  does  not  at  most  times 
«pnestion  that  our  sensations  have  causes,  which  he  calls  "things- 
in-themselves"  or  "noumena"  What  appears  to  us  in  perception, 
which  he  calls  a  "phenomenon/'  consists  of  two  parts:  that  due 
to  the  object,  which  he  calls  the  "sensation,"  and  that  due  to  our 
subjective  apparatus,  which,  he  says,  causes  the  manifold  to  be 
ordered  in  certain  relations.  This  latter  part  he  calls  the  form  of 
the  phenomenon.  This  part  is  not  itself  sensation,  and  therefore 
not  dependent  upon  the  accident  of  environment;  it  is  always 
the  same,  since  we  carry  it  about  with  us,  and  it  is  a  priori  in  the 
sense  that  it  is  not  dependent  upon  experience.  A  pure  form  of 
sensibility  is  called  a  "pure  intuition"  (Anschauung);  there  are 
two  such  forms,  namely  space  and  time,  one  for  the  outer  sense, 
one  for  the  inner. 

To  prove  that  space  and  time  are  a  priori  forms,  Kant  has  two 
classes  of  arguments,  one  metaphysfcal,  the  other  epistemologicalv 
or,  as  he  calls  it,  transcendental.  The  former  class  of  arguments 
are  taken  directly  from  the  nature  of  space  and  time,  the  latter 

739 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

indirectly  from  the  possibility  of  pure  mathematics.  The  argu- 
ments about  space  are  given  more  fully  than  those  about  time, 
because  it  is  thought  that  the  latter  are  essentially  the  same  as  the 
former. 

As  regards  space,  the  metaphysical  arguments  are  four  in 
number. 

(1)  Space  is  not  an  empirical  concept,  abstracted  from  outer 
experiences,  for  space  is  presupposed  in  referring  sensations  to 
something  external,  and  external  experience  is  only  possible 
through  the  presentation  of  space. 

(2)  Space  is  a  necessary  presentation  a  priori,  which  underlies 
all  external  perceptions;  for  we  cannot  imagine  that  there  should 
be  no  space,  although  we  can  imagine  that  there  should  be  nothing 
in  space. 

(3)  Space  is  not  a  discursive  or  general  concept  of  the  relations 
of  things  in  general,  for  there  is  only  one  space,  of  which  what  we 
call  "spaces"  are  parts,  not  instances. 

(4)  Space  is  presented  as  an  infinite  given  magnitude,  which 
holds  within  itself  all  the  parts  of  space;  this  relation  is  different 
from  that  of  a  concept  to  its  instances,  and  therefore  space  is  not 
a  concept  but  an  Anschauung. 

The  transcendental  argument  concerning  space  is  derived  from 
geometry.  Kant  holds  that  Euclidean  geometry  is  known  a  priori, 
although  it  is  synthetic,  i.e.  not  deducible  from  logic  alone.  Get* 
metrical  proofs,  he  considers,  depend  upon  the  figures;  we  can 
see,  for  instance,  that,  given  two  intersecting  straight  lines  at  right 
angles  to  each  other,  only  one  straight  line  at  right  angles  to  both 
can  be  drawn  through  their  point  of  intersection.  This  knowledge, 
he  thinks,  is  not  derived  from  experience.  But  the  only  way  in 
which  my  intuition  can  anticipate  what  will  be  found  in  the  object 
is  if  it  contains  only  the  form  of  my  sensibility,  antedating  in  my 
subjectivity  all  the  actual  impressions.  The  objects  of  sense  must 
obey  geometry,  because  geometry  is  concerned  with  our  ways 
of  perceiving,  and  therefore  we  cannot  perceive  otherwise.  This 
explains  why  geometry,  though  synthetic,  is  a  priori  and  apodcictic. 

The  arguments  with  regard  to  time  are  essentially  the  same, 
except  that  arithmetic  replaces  geometry  with  the  contention  that 
counting  takes  time.  » 

Let  us  now  examine  these  arguments  one  by  one. 

The  first  of  the  metaphysical  arguments  concerning  space  says: 

740 


KANT 

"Space  is  not  an  empirical  concept  abstracted  from  external 
experiences.  For  in  order  that  certain  sensations  may  be  referred 
to  something  outside  me  [i.e.  to  something  in  a  different  position 
in  space  from  that  in  which  I  find  myself],  and  further  in  order 
that  I  may  b$  able  to  perceive  them  as  outside  and  beside  each 
other,  and  thus  as  not  merely  different,  but  in  different  places, 
the  presentation  of  space  must  already  give  the  foundation  [zum 
Grunde  Uegen}"  Therefore  external  experience  is  only  possible 
through  the  presentation  of  space. 

The  phrase  "outside  me  [i.e.  in  a  different  place  from  that  in 
which  I  find  myself]99  is  a  difficult  one.  As  a  thing-in-itself,  I  am 
not  anywhere,  and  nothing  is  spatially  outside  me;  it  is  only  my 
body  as  a  phenomenon  that  can  be  meant.  Thus  all  that  is  really 
involved  is  what  comes  in  the  second  part  of  the  sentence,  namely 
that  I  perceive  different  objects  as  in  different  places.  The  image 
which  arises  in  one's  mind  is  that  of  a  cloak-room  attendant  who 
hangs  different  coats  on  different  pegs;  the  pegs  must  already 
exist,  but  the  attendant's  subjectivity  arranges  the  coats. 

There  is  here,  as  throughout  Kant's  theory  of  the  subjectivity 
of  space  and  time,  a  difficulty  which  he  seems  to  have  never  felt. 
What  induces  me  to  arrange  objects  of  perception  as  I  do  rather 
than  otherwise?  Why,  for  instance,  do  I  always  see  people's  eyes 
above  their  mouths  and  not  below  them  ?  According  to  Kant,  the 
<Jes  and  the  mouth  exist  as  things  in  themselves,  and  cause  my 
separate  percepts,  but  nothing  in  them  correspond*  to  the  spatial 
arrangement  that  exists  in  my  perception.  Contrast  with  this  the 
physical  theory  of  colours.  We  do  not  suppose  that  in  matter 
there  are  colours  in  the  sense  in  which  our  percepts  have  colours, 
but  we  do  think  that  different  colours  correspond  to  different 
wave-lengths.  Since  waves,  however,  involve  space  and  time, 
there  cannot,  for  Kant,  be  waves  in  the  causes  of  our  percepts.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  space  and  time  of  our  percepts  have 
counterparts  in  the  world  of  matter,  as  physics  assunjes,  then 
geometry  is  applicable  to  these  counterparts,  and  Kant's  arguments 
fail.  Kant  holds  that  the  mind  orders  the  raw  material  of  sensation, 
but  never  thinks  it  necessary  to  say  why  it  orders  it  as  it  does  and 
not  otherwise. 

In  regard  to  time  this  difficulty  is  even  greater,  because  of  the* 
intrusion  of  causality.  I  perceive  the  lightning  before  I  perceive 
the  thunder ;  a  thing-in-itself  A  caused  my  perception  of  lightning, 

74' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

and  another  thing-in-itself  B  caused  my  perception  of  thunder, 
but  A  was  not  earlier  than  B,  since  time  exists  only  in  the  relations 
of  percepts.  Why,  then,  do  the  two  timeless  things  A  and  B  pro- 
duce effects  at  different  times?  This  must  be  wholly  arbitrary  if 
Kant  is  right,  and  there  must  be  no  relation  between  A  and  B 
corresponding  to  the  fact  that  the  percept  caused  by  A  is  earlier 
than  that  caused  by  B. 

The  second  metaphysical  argument  maintains  that  it  is  possible 
to  imagine  nothing  in  space,  but  impossible  to  imagine  no  space. 
It  seems  to  me  that  no  serious  argument  can  be  based  upon 
what  we  can  or  cannot  imagine ;  but  I  should  emphatically  deny 
that  we  can  imagine  space  with  nothing  in  it.  You  can  imagine 
looking  at  the  sky  on  a  dark  cloudy  night,  but  then  you  yourself 
are  in  space,  and  you  imagine  the  clouds  that  you  cannot  see. 
Kant's  space,  as  Vaihinger  pointed  out,  is  absolute,  like  Newton's, 
and  not  merely  a  system  of  relations.  But  I  do  not  see  how 
absolute  empty  space  can  be  imagined. 

The  third  metaphysical  argument  says:  "Space  is  not  a  dis- 
cursive, or,  as  is  said,  general  concept  of  the  relations  of  things  in 
general,  but  a  pure  intuition.  For,  in  the  first  place,  we  can  only 
imagine  [rich  vonUllen]  one  single  space,  and  if  we  speak  of 
'spaces'  we  mean  only  parts  of  one  and  the  same  unique  space. 
And  these  parts  cannot  precede  the  whole  as  its  parts  .  .  .  but 
can  only  be  thought  as  in  if.  It  [space]  is  essentially  unique,  tflt 
manifold  in  it  rests  solely  on  limitations."  From  this  it  is  concluded 
that  space  is  an  a  priori  intuition. 

The  gist  of  this  argument  is  the  denial  of  plurality  in  space 
itself.  What  we  call  "spaces"  are  neither  instances  of  a  general 
concept  "a  space,"  nor  parts  of  an  aggregate.  I  do  not  know 
quite  what,  according  to  Kant,  their  logical  status  is,  but  in  any 
case  they  are  logically  subsequent  to  space.  To  those  who  take, 
as  practically  all  moderns  do,  a  relational  view  of  space,  this  argu- 
ment becomes  incapable  of  being  stated,  since  neither  "space" 
nor  "spaces"  can  survive  as  a  substantive. 

The  fourth  metaphysical  argument  is  chiefly  concerned  to  prove 
that  space  is  an  intuition,  not  a  concept.  Its  premiss  is  "space  is 
imagined  [or  presented,  vorgcstellt]  as  an  infinite  given  magnitude." 
1  This  is  the  view  of  a  person*  living  in  a  flat  country,  like  that  of 
Kfinigsberg;  I  do  not  see  how  an  inhabitant  of  an  Alpine  valley 
could  adopt  it.  It  i*  difficult  to  see  how  anything  infinite  can  be 

742 


RANT 

"given."  I  should  have  thought  it  obvious  that  the  pan  of  space 
that  is  given  is  that  which  is  peopled  by  objects  of  perception,  and 
that  for  other  parts  we  have  only  a  feeling  of  possibility  of  motion. 
And  if  so  vulgar  an  argument  may  be  intruded,  modern  astronomers 
maintain  that  space  is  in  fact  not  infinite,  but  goes  round  and 
round,  like  the  surface  of  the  globe. 

The  transcendental  (or  epistemological)  argument,  which  is 
best  stated  in  the  Prolegomena,  is  more  definite  than  the  meta- 
physical arguments,  and  is  also  more  definitely  refutable.  "Geo- 
metry/' as  we  now  know,  is  a  name  covering  two  different  studies. 
On  the  one  hand,  there  is  pure  geometry,  which  deduces  conse- 
quences from  axioms,  without  inquiring  whether  the  axioms  are 
"true";  this  contains  nothing  that  does  not  follow  from  logic, 
and  is  not  "synthetic,"  and  has  no  need  of  figures  such  as  are 
used  in  geometrical  text-books.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  geo- 
metry as  a  branch  of  physics,  as  it  appears,  for  example,  in  the 
general  theory  of  relativity ;  this  is  an  empirical  science,  in  which 
the  axioms  are  inferred  from  measurements,  and  are  found  to 
differ  from  Euclid's.  Thus  of  the  two  kinds  of  geometry  one  is 
a  priori  but  not  synthetic,  while  the  other  is  synthetic  but  not 
a  priori.  This  disposes  of  the  transcendental  argument. 

Let  us  now  try  to  consider  the  questions  raised  by  Kant  as 
regards  space  in  a  more  general  way.  If  we  adopt  the  view,  which 
If  taken  for  granted  in  physics,  that  our  percepts  have  external 
causes  which  are  (in  some  sense)  material,  we  are  led  to  the  con- 
clusion that  all  the  actual  qualities  in  percepts  are  different  from 
those  in  their  unperceived  causes,  but  that  there  is  a  certain 
structural  similarity  between  the  system  of  percepts  and  the 
system  of  their  causes.  There  is,  for  example,  a  correlation  between 
colours  (as  perceived)  and  wave-lengths  (as  inferred  by  physicists). 
Similarly  there  must  be  a  correlation  between  space  as  an  ingredient 
in  percepts  and  space  as  an  ingredient  in  the  system  of  unper- 
ceived causes  of  percepts.  All  this  rests  upon  the  maxim  "same 
cause,  same  effect,"  with  its  obverse,  "different  effects,*different 
causes."  Thus,  e.g.,  when  a  visual  percept  A  appears  to  the  left 
of  a  visual  percept  B,  we  shall  suppose  that  there  is  some  corre- 
sponding relation  between  the  cause  of  A  and  the  cause  of  B. 

We  have,  on  this  view,  two  sj&ces,  one  subjective  and  on* 
objective,  one  known  in  experience  and  the  other  merely  inferred. 
But  there  is  no  difference  in  this  respect  between  space  and  other 

743 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

aspects  of  perception,  such  as  colours  and  sounds.  All  alike,  in 
their  subjective  forms,  are  known  empirically;  all  alike,  in  their 
objective  forms,  are  inferred  by  means  of  a  maxim  as  to  causation. 
There  is  no  reason  whatever  for  regarding  our  knowledge  of  space 
as  in  any  way  different  from  our  knowledge  of  colour  and  sound 
and  smell. 

With  regard  to  time,  the  matter  is  different,  since,  if  we  adhere 
to  the  belief  in  unperceived  causes  of  percepts,  the  objective  time 
must  be  identical  with  the  subjective  time.  If  not,  we  get  into  the 
difficulties  already  considered  in  connection  with  lightning  and 
thunder.  Or  take  such  a  case  as  the  following:  You  hear  a  man 
speak,  you  answer  him,  and  he  hears  you.  His  speaking,  and  his 
hearing  of  your  reply,  are  both,  so  far  as  you  are  concerned,  in  the 
unperceived  world;  and  in  that  world  the  former  precedes  the 
latter.  Moreover  his  speaking  precedes  your  hearing  in  the  objec- 
tive world  of  physics;  your  hearing  precedes  your  reply  in  the 
subjective  world  of  percepts;  and  your  reply  precedes  his  hearing 
in  the  objective  world  of  physics.  It  is  clear  that  the  relation 
"precedes"  must  be  the  same  in  all  these  propositions.  While, 
therefore,  there  is  an  important  sense  in  which  perceptual  space  is 
subjective,  there  is  no  sense  in  which  perceptual  time  is  subjective. 

The  above  arguments  assume,  as  Kant  does,  that  percepts  are 
caused  by  "things  in  themselves,"  or,  as  we  should  say,  by  events 
in  the  world  of  physics.  This  assumption,  however,  is  by  no  mea&* 
logically  necessary.  If  it  is  abandoned,  percepts  cease  to  be  in  any 
important  sense  "subjective,"  since  there  is  nothing  with  which 
to  contrast  them. 

The  "thing-in-itself"  was  an  awkward  element  in  Kant's  philo- 
sophy, and  was  abandoned  by  his  immediate  successors,  who 
accordingly  fell  into  something  very  like  solipsism.  Kant's  incon- 
sistencies were  such  as  to  make  it  inevitable  that  philosophers  who 
were  influenced  by  him  should  develop  rapidly  either  in  the  em- 
pirical or  in  the  absolutist  direction;  it  was,  in  fact,  in  the  latter 
direction  that  German  philosophy  moved  until  after  the  death  of 
Hegel. 

Kant's  immediate  successor,  Fichtc  (1762-1814),  abandoned 
"things  in  themselves,"  and  carried  subjectivism  to  a  point  which 
%eems  almost  to  involve  a  kind  of  insanity.  He  holds  that  the  Ego 
is  the  only  ultimate  reality,  and  that  it  exists  because  it  posits 
itself;  the  non-Ego,  which  has  a  subordinate  reality,  also  exists 

744 


KANT 

only  because  the  Ego  posits  it.  Fichte  is  not  important  as  a  pure 
philosopher,  but  as  the  theoretical  founder  of  German  nationalism, 
by  his  Addresses  to  the  German  Nation  (1807-8),  which  were 
intended  to  rouse  the  Germans  to  resistance  to  Napoleon  after  the 
battle  of  Jena.*  The  Ego  as  a  metaphysical  concept  easily  became 
confused  with  the  empirical  Fichte;  since  the  Ego  was  German, 
it  followed  that  the  Germans  were  superior  to  all  other  nations. 
"To  have  character  and  to  be  a  German,"  says  Fichte,  "un- 
doubtedly mean  the  same  thing."  On  this  basis  he  worked  out 
a  whole  philosophy  of  nationalistic  totalitarianism,  which  had 
great  influence  in  Germany. 

His  immediate  successor  Schelling  (1775-1854)  was  more 
amiable,  but  not  less  subjective.  He  was  closely  associated  with 
the  German  romantics;  philosophically,  though  famous  in  his 
day,  he  is  not  important.  The  important  development  from  Kant's 
philosophy  was  that  of  Hegel. 


745 


Chapter  XXI 

CURRENTS    OF    THOUGHT 
IN    THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

E  •  IHE  intellectual  life  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  more 
I  complex  than  that  of  any  previous  age.  This  was  due  toi 

JL  several  causes.  First:  the  area  concerned  was  larger  than 
ever  before;  America  and  Russia  made  important  contributions, 
and  Europe  became  more  aware  than  formerly  of  Indian  philo- 
sophies, both  ancient  and  modern.  Second:  science,  which  had 
been  a  chief  source  of  novelty  since  the  seventeenth  century,  made 
new  conquests,  especially  in  geology,  biology,  and  organic  chemis- 
try. Third:  machine  production  profoundly  altered  the  social 
structure,  and  gave  men  a  new  conception  of  their  powers  in 
relation  to  the  physical  environment.  Fourth:  a  profound  revolt, 
both  philosophical  and  political,  against  traditional  systems  in 
thought,  in  politics,  and  in  economics,  gave  rise  to  attacks  upon 
many  beliefs  and  institutions  that  had  hitherto  been  regarded  as 
unassailable.  This  revolt  had  two  very  different  forms,  one  roman- 
tic, the  other  rationalistic.  (I  am  using  these  words  in  a  liberal 
sense.)  The  romantic  revolt  passes  from  Byron,  Schopenhauer, 
and  Nietzsche  to  Mussolini  and  Hitler;  the  rationalistic  revolt 
begins  with  the  French  philosophers  of  the  Revolution,  passes  on, 
somewhat  softened,  to  the  philosophical  radicals  in  England, 
then  acquires  a  deeper  form  in  Marx  and  issues  in  Soviet 
Russia. 

The  intellectual  predominance  of  Germany  is  a  new  factor, 
beginning  with  Kant.  Leibniz,  though  a  German,  wrote  almost 
always  in  Latin  or  French,  and  was  very  little  influenced  by 
Germany  in  his  philosophy.  German  idealism  after  Kant,  as  well 
as  latei  German  philosophy,  was,  on  the  contrary,  profoundly 
influenced  by  German  history;  much  of  what  seems  strange  in 
German  philosophical  speculation  reflects  the  state  of  mind  of  a 
vigorous  nation  deprived,  by  historical  accidents,  of  its  natural 
share  of  power.  Germany  had  owed  its  international  position  to 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  but  the  Emperor  had  gradually  lost 
control  of  his  nominal  subjects.  The  last  powerful  Emperor  was 
Charles  V,  and  he  owed  his  power  to  his  possessions  in  Spain  and 

746 


CURRENTS    OF    THOUGHT    IN    THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

the  Low  Countries.  The  Reformation  and  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
destroyed  what  had  been  left  of  German  unity,  leaving  a  number 
of  petty  principalities  which  were  at  the  mercy  of  France.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  only  one  German  state,  Prussia,  had  success- 
fully resisted  .the  French;  that  is  why  Frederick  was  called  the 
Great.  But  Prussia  itself  had  failed  to  stand  against  Napoleon, 
being  utterly  defeated  in  the  battle  of  Jena.  The  resurrection  of 
Prussia  under  Bismarck  appeared  as  a  revival  of  the  heroic  past 
of  Alaric,  Charlemagne,  and  Barbarossa.  (To  Germans,  Charle- 
magne is  a  German,  not  a  Frenchman.)  Bismarck  showed  his  sense 
of  history  when  he  said,  "We  will  not  go  to  Canossa." 

Prussia,  however,  though  politically  predominant,  was  culturally 
less  advanced  than  much  of  Western  Germany;  this  explains  why 
many  eminent  Germans,  including  Goethe,  did  not  regret  Napo- 
leon's success  at  Jena.  Germany,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  presented  an  extraordinary  cultural  and  economic  diver- 
sity. In  East  Prussia  serfdom  still  survived;  the  rural  aristocracy 
were  largely  immersed  in  bucolic  ignorance,  and  the  labourers 
were  completely  without  even  the  rudiments  of  education.  Western 
Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  had  been  in  part  subject  to  Rome 
in  antiquity;  it  had  been  under  French  influence  since  the  seven- 
teenth century;  it  had  been  occupied  by  French  revolutionary 
armies,  and  had  acquired  institutions  as  liberal  as  those  of  France. 
38me  of  the  princes  were  intelligent,  patrons  of  the  arts  and 
sciences,  imitating  Renaissance  princes  in  their  courts;  the  most 
notable  example  was  Weimar,  where  the  Grand  Duke  was  Goethe's 
patron.  The  princes  were,  naturally,  for  the  most  part  opposed 
to  German  unity,  since  it  would  destroy  their  independence.  They 
were  therefore  anti-patriotic,  and  so  were  many  of  the  eminent 
men  who  depended  on  them,  to  whom  Napoleon  appeared  the 
missionary  of  a  higher  culture  than  that  of  Germany. 

Gradually,  during  the  nineteenth  century,  the  culture  of  Protes- 
tant Germany  became  increasingly  Prussian.  Frederick  tl$  Great, 
as  a  free-thinker  and  an  admirer  of  French  philosophy,  had 
struggled  to  make  Berlin  a  cultural  centre;  the  Berlin  Academy 
had  as  its  perpetual  President  an  eminent  Frenchman,  Maupertuis, 
who,  however,  unfortunately  became  the  victim  of  Voltaire's 
deadly  ridicule.  Frederick's  endeavours,  like  those  of  the  other 
enlightened  despots  of  the  time,  did  not  include  economic  or 
political  reform;  all  that  was  really  achieved  was  a  claque  of 

747 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

hired  intellectuals.  After  his  death,  it  was  again  in  Western  Ger- 
many that  most  of  the  men  of  culture  were  to  be  found. 

German  philosophy  was  more  connected  with  Prussia  than  were 
German  literature  and  art.  Kant  was  a  subject  of  Frederick  the 
Great;  Fichte  and  Hegel  were  professors  at  Berlin.  Kant  was  little 
influenced  by  Prussia ;  indeed  he  got  into  trouble  with  the  Prussian 
Government  for  his  liberal  theology.  But  both  Fichte  and  Hegel 
were  philosophic  mouthpieces  of  Prussia,  and  did  much  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  later  identification  of  German  patriotism  with 
admiration  for  Prussia.  Their  work  in  this  respect  was  carried  on 
by  the  great  German  historians,  particularly  by  Mommsen  and 
Treitschke.  Bismarck  finally  persuaded  the  German  nation  to 
accept  unification  under  Prussia,  and  thus  gave  the  victory  to  the 
less  internationally  minded  elements  in  German  culture. 

Throughout  the  whole  period  after  the  death  of  Hegel,  most 
academic  philosophy  remained  traditional,  and  therefore  not  very 
important.  British  empiricist  philosophy  was  dominant  in  England 
until  near  the  end  of  the  century,  and  in  France  until  a  somewhat 
earlier  time;  then,  gradually,  Kant  and  Hegel  conquered  the 
universities  of  France  and  England,  so  far  as  their  teachers  of 
technical  philosophy  were  concerned.  The  general  educated  public, 
however,  was  very  little  affected  by  this  movement,  which  had 
few  adherents  among  men  of  science.  The  writers  who  carried  on 
the  academic  tradition — John  Stuart  Mill  on  the  empiricist  side, 
Lotze,  Sigwart,  Bradley,  and  Bosanquet  on  the  side  of  German 
idealism — were  none  of  them  quite  in  the  front  rank  among 
philosophers,  that  is  to  say,  they  were  not  the  equals  of  the  men 
whose  systems  they,  on  the  whole,  adopted.  Academic  philosophy 
has  often  before  been  out  of  touch  with  the  most  vigorous  thought 
of  the  age,  for  instance,  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
when  it  was  still  mainly  scholastic.  Whenever  this  happens,  the 
historian  of  philosophy  is  less  concerned  with  the  professors  than 
with  the  unprofessional  heretics. 

Most  of  the  philosophers  of  the  French  Revolution  combined 
science  with  beliefs  associated  with  Rousseau.  Helvetius  and  Con- 
dorcet  may  be  regarded  as  typical  in  their  combination  of  rational- 
ism and  enthusiasm.  |§ 

Helvetius  (1715-71)  had  the  honour  of  having  his  book  De 
ly Esprit  (1758)  condemned  by  the  Sorbonne  and  burnt  by  the 
hangman.  Bentham  read  him  in  1769  and  immediately  determined 

74* 


CURRENTS    OF    THOUGHT    IN    THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

to  devote  his  life  to  the  principles  of  legislation,  saying:  "What 
Bacon  was  to  the  physical  world,  Helvetius  was  to  the  moral.  The 
moral  world  has  therefore  had  its  Bacon,  but  its  Newton  is  still 
to  come."  James  Mill  took  Helvetius  as  his  guide  in  the  education 
of  his  son  John  Stuart. 

Following  Locke's  doctrine  that  the  mind  is  a  tabula  rasa, 
Helvetius  considered  the  differences  between  individuals  entirely 
due  to  differences  of  education :  in  every  individual,  his  talents  and 
his  virtues  are  the  effect  of  his  instruction.  Genius,  he  maintains, 
is  often  due  to  chance:  if  Shakespeare  had  not  been  caught  poach- 
ing, he  would  have  been  a  wool  merchant.  His  interest  in  legis- 
lation comes  from  the  doctrine  that  the  principal  instructors  of 
adolescence  are  the  forms  of  government  and  the  consequent 
manners  and  customs.  Men  are  born  ignorant,  not  stupid;  they 
are  made  stupid  by  education. 

In  ethics,  Helvetius  was  a  utilitarian ;  he  considered  pleasure  to 
be  the  good.  In  religion,  he  was  a  deist,  and  vehemently  anti- 
clerical. In  theory  of  knowledge,  he  adopted  a  simplified  version 
of  Locke:  "Enlightened  by  Locke,  we  know  that  it  is  to  the  sense- 
organs  we  owe  our  ideas,  and  consequently  our  mind."  Physical 
sensibility,  he  says,  is  the  sole  cause  of  our  actions,  our  thoughts, 
our  passions,  and  our  sociability.  He  strongly  disagrees  with 
Rousseau  as  to  the  value  of  knowledge,  which  he  rates  very  highly. 

His  doctrine  is  optimistic,  since  only  a  perfect  education  is 
needed  to  make  men  perfect.  There  is  a  suggestion  that  it  would 
be  easy  to  find  a  perfect  education  if  the  priests  were  got  out  of 
the  way. 

Condorcet  (1743-94)  has  opinions  similar  to  those  of  Helvetius, 
but  more  influenced  by  Rousseau.  The  rights  of  man,  he  says,  are 
a'l  deduced  from  this  one  truth,  that  he  is  a  sensitive  being,  capable 
of  making  reasonings  and  acquiring  moral  ideas,  from  which  it 
follows  that  men  can  no  longer  be  divided  into  rulers  and  subjects, 
liars  and  dupes.  "These  principles,  for  which  the  generous  Sidney 
gave  his  life  and  to  which  Locke  attached  the  authority  of  his 
name,  were  afterwards  developed  more  precisely  by  Rousseau/' 
Locke,  he  says,  first  showed  the  limits  of  human  knowledge.  His 
"method  soon  became  that  of  all  philosophers,  and  it  is  by  applying 
it  to  morals,  politics,  and  economics,  that  they  have  succeeded 
in  pursuing  in  these  sciences  a  road  almost  as  sure  as  that  of  the 
natural  sciences." 

74Q 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Condorcet  much  admires  the  American  Revolution.  "Simple 
common  sense  taught  the  inhabitants  of  the  British  Colonies  that 
Englishmen  born  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  had 
precisely  the  same  rights  as  those  born  on  the  meridian  of  Green- 
wich." The  United  States  Constitution,  he  says,  is  based  on  natural 
rights,  and  the  American  Revolution  made  the  rights  of  man 
known  to  all  Europe,  from  the  Neva  to  the  Guadalquivir.  The 
principles  of  the  French  Revolution,  however,  are  "purer,  more 
precise,  deeper  than  those  that  guided  the  Americans."  These 
words  were  written  while  he  was  in  hiding  from  Robespierre; 
shortly  afterwards,  he  was  caught  and  imprisoned.  He  died  in 
prison,  but  the  manner  of  his  death  is  uncertain. 

He  was  a  believer  in  the  equality  of  women.  He  was  also  the 
inventor  of  Malthus's  theory  of  population,  which,  however,  had 
not  for  him  the  gloomy  consequences  that  it  had  for  Malthus, 
because  he  coupled  it  with  the  necessity  of  birth  control.  Malthus's 
father  was  a  disciple  of  Condorcet,  and  it  was  in  this  way  that 
Maltbus  came  to  know  of  the  theory. 

Condorcet  is  even  more  enthusiastic  and  optimistic  than  Hel- 
vetius.  He  believes  that,  through  the  spread  of  the  principles  of 
the  French  Revolution,  all  the  major  social  ills  will  soon  disappear. 
Perhaps  he  was  fortunate  in  not  living  beyond  1794. 

The  doctrines  of  the  French  revolutionary  philosophers,  made 
less  enthusiastic  and  much  more  precise,  were  brought  to  England4 
by  the  philosophical  radicals,  of  whom  Bentham  was  the  recog- 
nized chief.  Bentham  was,  at  first,  almost  exclusively  interested 
in  law;  gradually,  as  he  grew  older,  his  interests  widened  and  his 
opinions  became  more  subversive.  After  1808,  he  was  a  republican, 
a  believer  in  the  equality  of  women,  an  enemy  of  imperialism,  and 
an  uncompromising  democrat.  Some  of  these  opinions  he  owed 
to  James  Mill.  Both  believed  in  the  omnipotence  of  education. 
Bentham *s  adoption  of  the  principle  of  "the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number"  was  no  doubt  due  to  democratic  feeling,  but 
it  involved  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man,  which 
be  bluntly  characterized  as  "nonsense." 

The  philosophical  radicals  differed  from  men  like  Helvetius  and 
Condorcet  in  many  ways.  Temperamentally,  they  were  patient 
and  fond  of  working  out  their  theories  in  practical  detail.  They 
attached  great  importance  to  economics,  which  they  believed 
themselves  to  have  developed  as  a  science.  Tendencies  to  en* 

7SO 


CURRENTS    OP    THOUGHT    IN    THE    NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

thusiasm,  which  existed  in  Bentham  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  but 
not  in  Malthus  or  James  Mill,  were  severely  held  in  check  by  this 
"science,"  and  particularly  by  Malthus's  gloomy  version  of  the 
theory  of  population,  according  to  which  most  wage-earners  must 
always,  except  just  after  a  pestilence,  earn  the  smallest  amount 
that  will  keep  them  and  their  families  alive.  Another  great  dif- 
ference between  the  Benthamites  and  their  French  predecessors 
was  that  in  industrial  England  there  was  violent  conflict  between 
employers  and  wage-earners,  which  gave  rise  to  trade- 
unionism  and  socialism.  In  this  conflict  the  Benthamites,  broadly 
speaking,  sided  with  the  employers  against  the  working  class.  Their 
last  representative,  John  Stuart  Mill,  however,  gradually  ceased 
to  give  adherence  to  his  father's  stern  tenets,  and  became,  as  he 
grew  older,  less  and  less  hostile  to  socialism,  and  less  and  less 
convinced  of  the  eternal  truth  of  classical  economics.  According 
to  his  autobiography,  this  softening  process  was  begun  by  the 
reading  of  the  romantic  poets. 

The  Benthamites,  though  at  first  revolutionary  in  a  rather  mild 
way,  gradually  ceased  to  be  so,  partly  through  success  in  con- 
verting th$  British  government  to  some  of  their  views,  partly 
through  opposition  to  the  growing  strength  of  socialism  and  trade- 
unionism.  Men  who  were  in  revolt  against  tradition,  as  already 
mentioned,  were  of  two  kinds,  rationalistic  and  romantic,  though 
^!!f  men  like  Condorcet  both  elements  were  combined.  The  Ben- 
thamites were  almost  wholly  rationalistic,  and  so  were  the  Socialists 
who  rebelled  against  them  as  well  as  against  the  existing  economic 
order.  This  movement  does  not  acquire  a  complete  philosophy 
until  we  come  to  Marx,  who  will  be  considered  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  romantic  form  of  revolt  is  very  different  from  the  rationalist 
form,  though  both  are  derived  from  the  French  Revolution  and 
the  philosophers  who  immediately  preceded  it.  The  romantic  form 
is  to  be  seen  in  Byron  in  an  unphilosophical  dress,  but  in  Schopen- 
hauer and  Nietzsche  it  has  learnt  the  language  of  philosophy.  It 
tends  to  emphasize  the  will  at  the  expense  of  the  intellect,  to  be 
impatient  of  chains  of  reasoning,  and  to  glorify  violence  of  certain 
kinds.  In  practical  politics  it  is  important  as  an  ally  of  nationalism. 
In  tendency,  if  not  always  in  fact,  it  is  definitely  hostile  to  what 
is  commonly  called  reason,  and  tends  to  be  anti-scientific.  Some* 
of  its  most  extreme  forms  are  to  be  found  among  Russian  anar- 
chists, but  in  Russia  it  was  the  rationalist  form  of  revolt  that 

751 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

finally  prevailed.  It  was  Germany,  always  more  susceptible  to 
romanticism  than  any  other  country,  that  provided  a  governmental 
outlet  for  the  anti-rational  philosophy  of  naked  will. 

So  far,  the  philosophies  that  we  have  been  considering  have  had 
an  inspiration  which  was  traditional,  literary,  or  political.  But  there 
were  two  other  sources  of  philosophical  opinion,  namely  science 
and  machine  production.  The  second  of  these  began  its  theoretical 
influence  with  Marx,  and  has  grown  gradually  more  important 
ever  since.  The  first  has  been  important  since  the  seventeenth 
century,  but  took  new  forms  during  the  nineteenth  century. 

What  Galileo  and  Newton  were  to  the  seventeenth  century, 
Darwin  was  to  the  nineteenth.  Darwin's  theory  had  two  parts.  On 
the  one  hand,  there  was  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  which  main- 
tained that  the  different  forms  of  life  had  developed  gradually 
from  a  common  ancestry.  This  doctrine,  which  is  now  generally 
accepted,  was  not  new.  It  had  been  maintained  by  Lamarck  and 
by  Darwin's  grandfather  Erasmus,  not  to  mention  Anaximander. 
Darwin  supplied  an  immense  mass  of  evidence  for  the  doctrine, 
and  in  the  second  part  of  his  theory  believed  himself  to  have 
discovered  the  cause  of  evolution.  He  thus  gave  to  the  doctrine 
a  popularity  and  a  scientific  force  which  it  had  not  previously 
possessed,  but  he  by  no  means  originated  it. 

The  second  part  of  Darwin's  theory  was  the  struggle  for  exis- 
tence and  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  All  animals  and  plants  multiply 
faster  than  nature  can  provide  for  them ;  therefore  in  each  genera- 
tion many  perish  before  the  age  for  reproducing  themselves.  What 
determines  which  will  survive?  To  some  extent,  no  doubt,  sheer 
luck,  but  there  is  another  cause  of  more  importance.  Animals  and 
plants  are,  as  a  rule,  not  exactly  like  their  parents,  but  differ 
slightly  by  excess  or  defect  in  every  measurable  characteristic.  In 
a  given  environment,  members  of  the  same  species  compete  for 
survival,  and  those  best  adapted  to  the  environment  have  the  best 
chance.  Therefore  among  chance  variations  those  that  are  favour- 
able wilf  preponderate  among  adults  in  each  generation.  Thus 
from  age  to  age  deer  run  more  swiftly,  cats  stalk  their  prey  more 
silently,  and  giraffes'  necks  become  longer.  Given  enough  time, 
this  mechanism,  so  Darwin  contended,  could  account  for  the  whole 
long  development  from  the  protozoa  to  homo  tapien*. 

This  pan  of  Darwin's  theory  has  been  much  disputed,  and  is 
regarded  by  most  biologists  as  subject  to  many  important  quali- 

75* 


CURRENTS    OF    THOUGHT    IN    THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

fications.  That,  however,  is  not  what  most  concerns  the  historian 
of  nineteenth-century  ideas.  From  the  historical  point  of  view, 
what  is  interesting  is  Darwin's  extension  to  the  whole  of  life  of 
the  economics  that  characterized  the  philosophical  radicals.  The 
motive  force, of  evolution,  according  to  him,  is  a  kind  of  biological 
economics  in  a  world  of  free  competition.  It  was  Malthus's  doctrine 
of  population,  extended  to  the  world  of  animals  and  plants,  that 
suggested  to  Darwin  the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  as  the  source  of  evolution. 

Darwin  himself  was  a  liberal,  but  his  theories  had  consequences 
in  some  degree  inimical  to  traditional  liberalism.  The  doctrine  that 
all  men  are  born  equal,  and  that  the  differences  between  adults  are 
due  wholly  to  education,  was  incompatible  with  his  emphasis  on 
congenital  differences  between  members  of  the  same  species.  If, 
as  Lamarck  held,  and  as  Darwin  himself  was  willing  to  concede 
up  to  a  point,  acquired  characteristics  were  inherited,  this  oppo- 
sition to  such  views  as  those  of  Helvetius  could  have  been  some- 
what softened;  but  it  has  appeared  that  only  congenital  charac- 
teristics are  inherited,  apart  from  certain  not  very  important 
exceptions.  Thus  the  congenital  differences  between  men  acquire 
fundamental  importance. 

There  is  a  further  consequence  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  which 
is  independent  of  the  particular  mechanism  suggested  by  Darwin. 
Tff  men  and  animals  have  a  common  ancestry,  and  if  men  developed 
by  such  slow  stages  that  there  were  creatures  which  we  should  not 
know  whether  to  classify  as  human  or  not,  the  question  arises:  at 
what  stage  in  evolution  did  men,  or  their  semi-human  ancestors, 
begin  to  be  all  equal?  Would  Pithecanthropus  erect  us,  if  he  had 
been  properly  educated,  have  done  work  as  good  as  Newton's? 
Would  the  Piltdown  Man  have  written  Shakespeare's  poetry  if 
there  had  been  anybody  to  convict  him  of  poaching?  A  resolute 
egalitarian  who  answers  these  questions  in  the  affirmative  will  find 
himself  forced  to  regard  apes  as  the  equals  of  human  beings.  And 
why  stop  with  apes?  I  do  not  see  how  he  is  to  resist  an*argument 
in  favour  of  Votes  for  Oysters.  An  adherent  of  evolution  should 
maintain  that  not  only  the  doctrine  of  the  equality  of  all  men,  but 
also  that  of  the  rights  of  man,  must  be  condemned  as  unbiological, 
since  it  makes  too  emphatic  a  distinction  between  men  and  other 
animals. 

There  is,  however,  another  aspect  of  liberalism  which  was  greatly 

753 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

strengthened  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  namely  the  belief  in 
progress.  So  long  as  the  state  of  the  world  allowed  optimism, 
evolution  was  welcomed  by  liberals,  both  on  this  ground  and 
because  it  gave  new  arguments  against  orthodox  theology.  Marx 
himself,  though  his  doctrines  are  in  some  respects  pre-Darwinian, 
wished  to  dedicate  his  book  to  Darwin. 

The  prestige  of  biology  caused  men  whose  thinking  was  in- 
fluenced by  science  to  apply  biological  rather  than  mechanistic 
categories  to  the  world.  Everything  was  supposed  to  be  evolving, 
and  it  was  easy  to  imagine  an  immanent  goal.  In  spite  of  Darwin, 
many  men  considered  that  evolution  justified  a  belief  in  cosmic 
purpose.  The  conception  of  organism  came  to  be  thought  the  key 
to  both  scientific  and  philosophical  explanations  of  natural  laws, 
and  the  atomic  thinking  of  the  eighteenth  century  came  to  be 
regarded  as  out  of  date.  This  point  of  view  has  at  last  influenced 
even  theoretical  physics.  In  politics  it  leads  naturally  to  emphasis 
upon  the  community  as  opposed  to  the  individual.  This  is  in 
harmony  with  the  growing  power  of  the  State ;  also  with  national- 
ism, which  can  appeal  to  the  Darwinian  doctrine  of  survival  of 
the  finest  applied,  not  to  individuals,  but  to  nations.  But  here  we 
are  passing  into  the  region  of  extra-scientific  views  suggested  to  a 
large  public  by  scientific  doctrines  imperfectly  understood. 

While  biology  has  militated  against  a  mechanistic  view  of  the 
world,  modern  economic  technique  has  had  an  opposite  effecf* 
Until  about  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  scientific  technique, 
as  opposed  to  scientific  doctrines,  had  no  important  effect  upon 
opinion.  It  was  only  with  the  rise  of  industrialism  that  technique 
began  to  affect  men's  thought.  And  even  then,  for  a  long  time, 
the  effect  was  more  or  less  indirect.  Men  who  produce  philoso- 
phical theories  are,  as  a  rule,  brought  into  very  little  contact  with 
machinery.  The  romantics  noticed  and  hated  the  ugliness  that 
industrialism  was  producing  in  places  hitherto  beautiful,  and  the 
vulgarity  (as  they  considered  it)  of  those  who  had  made  money 
in  "trade/'  This  led  them  into  an  opposition  to  the  middle  class 
which  sometimes  brought  them  into  something  like  an  alliance 
with  the  champions  of  the  proletariat.  Engels  praised  Carlyle,  not 
perceiving  that  what  Carlyle  desired  was  not  the  emancipation  of 
fage-earners,  but  their  subjection  to  the  kind  of  masters  they  had 
had  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Socialists  welcomed  industrialism, 
but  wished  to  free  industrial  workers  from  subjection  to  the  power 

754 


CURRENTS    OP    THOUGHT    IN    THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

of  employers.  They  were  influenced  by  industrialism  in  the  prob- 
lems that  they  considered,  but  not  much  in  the  ideas  that  they 
employed  in  the  solution  of  their  problems. 

The  most  important  effect  of  machine  production  on  the  imagi- 
native picture  of  the  world  is  an  immense  increase  in  the  sense  of 
human  power.  This  is  only  an  acceleration  of  a  process  which 
began  before  the  dawn  of  history,  when  men  diminished  their  fear 
of  wild  animals  by  the  invention  of  weapons  and  their  fear  of 
starvation  by  the  invention  of  agriculture.  But  the  acceleration  has 
been  so  great  as  to  produce  a  radically  new  outlook  in  those  who 
wield  the  powers  that  modern  technique  has  created.  In  old  days, 
mountains  and  waterfalls  were  natural  phenomena;  now,  an  in- 
convenient mountain  can  be  abolished  and  a  convenient  waterfall 
can  be  created.  In  old  days,  there  were  deserts  and  fertile  regions; 
now,  the  desert  can,  if  people  think  it  worth  while,  be  made  to 
blossom  like  the  rose,  while  fertile  regions  are  turned  into  deserts 
by  insufficiently  scientific  optimists.  In  old  days,  peasants  lived  as 
their  parents  and  grandparents  had  lived,  and  believed  as  their 
parents  and  grandparents  had  believed ;  not  all  the  power  of  the 
Church  could  eradicate  pagan  ceremonies,  which  had  to  be  given 
a  Christian  dress  by  being  connected  with  local  saints.  Now  the 
authorities  can  decree  what  the  children  of  peasants  shall  learn  in 
school,  and  can  transform  the  mentality  of  agriculturists  in  a 
generation ;  one  gathers  that  this  has  been  achieved  in  Russia. 

There  thus  arises,  among  those  who  direct  affairs  or  are  in  touch 
with  those  who  do  so,  a  new  belief  in  power:  first,  the  power  of 
man  in  his  conflicts  with  nature,  and  then  the  power  of  rulers  as 
against  the  human  beings  whose  beliefs  and  aspirations  they  seek 
to  control  by  scientific  propaganda,  especially  education.  The  result 
is  a  diminution  of  fixity;  no  change  seems  impossible.  Nature  is 
raw  material ;  so  is  that  part  of  the  human  race  which  does  not 
effectively  participate  in  government.  There  are  certain  old  con- 
ceptions which  represent  men's  belief  in  the  limits  of  human  power ; 
of  these  the  two  chief  are  God  and  truth.  (I  do  not  mean  that  these 
two  are  logically  connected.)  Such  conceptions  tend  to  melt  away; 
even  if  not  explicitly  negated,  they  lose  importance,  and  are  re- 
tained only  superficially.  This  whole  outlook  is  new,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  say  how  mankind  will  adapt  itself  to  it.  It  has  alreaUy 
produced  immense  cataclysms,  and  will  no  doubt  produce  others 
in  the  future.  To  frame  a  philosophy  capable  of  coping  with  men 

755 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

intoxicated  with  the  prospect  of  almost  unlimited  power  and  also 
with  the  apathy  of  the  powerless  is  the  most  pressing  task  of  our 
time. 

Though  many  still  sincerely  believe  in  human  equality  and 
theoretical  democracy,  the  imagination  of  modern  people  is  deeply 
affected  by  the  pattern  of  social  organization  suggested  by  the 
organization  of  industry  in  the  nineteenth  century,  which  is  essen- 
tially undemocratic.  On  the  one  hand  there  are  the  captains  of 
industry,  and  on  the  other  the  mass  of  workers.  This  disruption 
of  democracy  from  within  is  not  yet  acknowledged  by  ordinary 
citizens  in  democratic  countries,  but  it  has  been  a  preoccupation 
of  most  philosophers  from  Hegel  onwards,  and  the  sharp  oppo- 
sition which  they  discovered  between  the  interests  of  the  many 
and  those  of  the  few  has  found  practical  expression  in  Fascism. 
Of  the  philosophers,  Nietzsche  was  unashamedly  on  the  side  of 
the  few,  Marx  whole-heartedly  on  the  side  of  the  many.  Perhaps 
Bentham  was  the  only  one  of  importance  who  attempted  a  recon- 
ciliation of  conflicting  interests ;  he  therefore  incurred  the  hostility 
of  both  parties. 

To  formulate  any  satisfactory  modern  ethic  of  human  relation- 
ships, it  will  be  essential  to  recognize  the  necessary  limitations  of 
men's  power  over  the  non-human  environment,  and  the  desirable 
limitations  of  their  nower  over  each  other. 


Chapter  XXII 
HEGEL 

• 

HEGEL  (1770-1831)  was  the  culmination  of  the  movement 
in  German  philosophy  that  started  from  Kant;  although 
he  often  criticized  Kant,  his  system  could  never  have 
arisen  if  Kant's  had  not  existed.  His  influence,  though  now 
diminishing,  has  been  very  great,  not  only  or  chiefly  in  Germany. 
At  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  leading  academic  philo- 
sophers, both  in  America  and  in  Great  Britain,  were  largely 
Hegelians.  Outside  of  pure  philosophy,  many  Protestant  theolo- 
gians adopted  his  doctrines,  and  his  philosophy  of  history  pro- 
foundly affected  political  theory.  Marx,  as  everyone  knows,  was 
a  disciple  of  Hegel  in  his  youth,  and  retained  in  his  own  finished 
system  some  important  Hegelian  features.  Even  if  (as  I  myself 
believe)  almost  all  Hegel's  doctrines  are  false,  he  still  retains  an 
importance  which  is  not  merely  historical,  as  the  best  represen- 
tative of  a  certain  kind  of  philosophy  which,  in  others,  is  less 
coherent  and  less  comprehensive. 

His  life  contained  few  events  of  importance.  In  youth  he  was 
much  attracted  to  mysticism,  and  his  later  views  may  be  regarded, 
to  some  extent,  as  an  intellectualizing  of  what  had  first  appeared 
to  him  as  mystic  insight.  He  taught  philosophy,  first  as  Privatdozent 
at  Jena — he  mentions  that  he  finished  his  Phenomenology  of  Mind 
there  the  day  before  the  battle  of  Jena — then  at  Nuremberg,  then 
as  professor  at  Heidelberg  (1816-1818),  and  finally  at  Berlin  from 
1818  to  his  death.  He  was  in  later  life  a  patriotic  Prussian,  a  loyal 
servant  of  the  State,  who  comfortably  enjoyed  his  recognized 
philosophical  pre-eminence;  but  in  his  youth  he  despised  Prussia 
and  admired  Napoleon,  to  the  extent  of  rejoicing  in  the  French 
victory  at  Jena.  • 

Hegel's  philosophy  is  very  difficult — he  is,  I  should  say,  tthe 
hardest  to  understand  of  all  the  great  philosophers.  Before  entering 
on  any  detail,  a  general  characterization  may  prove  helpful. 

From  his  early  interest  in  mystjcism  he  retained  a  belief  in  the 
unreality  of  separateness ;  the  world,  in  his  view,  was  not  a  col- 
lection of  hard  units,  whether  atoms  or  souls,  each  completely 
self-subsistent.  The  apparent  self-subsistence  of  finite  things 

757 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

appeared  to  him  to  be  an  illusion;  nothing,  he  held,  is  ultimately 
and  completely  real  except  the  whole.  But  he  differed  from 
Parmenides  and  Spinoza  in  conceiving  the  whole,  not  as  a  simple 
substance,  but  as  a  complex  system,  of  the  sort  that  we  should  call 
an  organism.  The  apparently  separate  things  of  which  the  world 
seems  to  be  composed  are  not  .simply  an  illusion ;  each  has  a 
greater  or  lesser  degree  of  reality,  and  its  reality  consists  in  an 
aspect  of  the  whole,  which  is  what  it  is  seen  to  be  when  viewed 
truly.  With  this  view  goes  naturally  a  disbelief  in  the  reality  of 
time  and  space  as  such,  for  these,  if  taken  as  completely  real, 
involve  separateness  and  multiplicity.  All  this  must  have  come  to 
him  first  as  mystic  "insight1';  its  intellectual  elaboration,  which 
is  given  in  his  books,  must  have  come  later. 

Hegel  asserts  that  the  real  is  rational,  and  the  rational  is  real. 
But  when  he  says  this  he  does  not  mean  by  "the  real"  what  an 
empiricist  would  mean.  He  admits,  and  even  urges,  that  what  to 
the  empiricist  appear  to  be  facts  are,  and  must  be,  irrational ;  it  is 
only  after  their  apparent  character  has  been  transformed  by  viewing 
them  as  aspects  of  the  whole  that  they  are  seen  to  be  rational. 
Nevertheless,  the  identification  of  the  real  and  the  rational  leads 
unavoidably  to  some  of  the  complacency  inseparable  from  the 
belief  that  "whatever  is,  is  right/1 

The  whole,  in  all  its  complexity,  is  called  by  Hegel  "the  Abso- 
lute." The  Absolute  is  spiritual;  Spinoza's  view,  that  it  has  thl 
attribute  of  extension  as  well  as  that  of  thought,  is  rejected. 

Two  things  distinguish  Hegel  from  other  men  who  liave  had  a 
more  or  less  similar  metaphysical  outlook.  One  of  these  is  emphasis 
on  logic:  it  is  thought  by  Hegel  that  the  nature  of  Reality  can  be 
deduced  from  the  sole  consideration  that  it  must  be  not  self- 
contradictory.  The  other  distinguishing  feature  (which  is  closely 
connected  with  the  first)  is  the  triadic  movement  called  the 
"dialectic.**  His  most  important  books  are  his  two  /xgja,  and 
these  must  be  understood  if  the  reasons  for  his  views  on  other 
subjects  are  to  be  rightly  apprehended. 

Logic,  as  Hegel  understands  die  word,  is  declared  by  him  to  be 
the  same  thing  as  metaphysics;  it  is  something  quite  different  from 
what  is  commonly  called  logic.  His  view  is  that  any  ordinary  pre- 
dicate, if  taken  as  qualifying  the  whole  of  Reality,  turns  out  to  be 
self-contradictory.  One  might  take  as  a  crude  example  the  theory 
of  Pannenidet,  that  the  One,  which  alone  u  real,  i*  spherical. 

758 


HEGEL 

Nothing  can  be  spherical  unless  it  has  a  boundary,  and  it  cannot 
have  a  boundary  unless  there  is  something  (at  least  empty  space) 
outside  of  it.  Therefore  to  suppose  the  Universe  as  a  whole  to  be 
spherical  is  self-contradictory.  (This  argument  might  be  questioned 
by  bringing*  in  non-Euclidean  geometry,  but  as  an  illustration  it 
will  serve.)  Or  let  us  take  another  illustration,  still  more  crude — 
far  too  much  so  to  be  used  by  Hegel.  You  may  say,  without 
apparent  contradiction,  that  Mr.  A  is  an  uncle;  but  if  you  were 
to  say  that  the  Universe  is  an  uncle,  you  would  land  yourself  in 
difficulties.  An  uncle  is  a  man  who  has  a  nephew,  and  the  nephew 
is  a  separate  person  from  the  uncle ;  therefore  an  uncle  cannot  be 
the  whole  of  Reality. 

This  illustration  might  also  be  used  to  illustrate  the  dialectic, 
which  consists  of  thesis,  antithesis,  and  synthesis.  First  we  say: 
"Reality  is  an  uncle."  This  is  the  thesis.  But  the  existence  of  an 
uncle  implies  that  of  a  nephew.  Since  nothing  really  exists  except 
the  Absolute,  and  we  are  now  committed  to  the  existence  of  a 
nephew,  we  must  conclude:  "The  Absolute  is  a  nephew."  This 
is  the  antithesis.  But  there  is  the  same  objection  to  this  as  to  the 
view  that  the  Absolute  is  an  uncle;  therefore  we  are  driven  to  the 
view  that  the  Absolute  is  the  whole  composed  of  uncle  and  nephew. 
This  is  the  synthesis.  But  this  synthesis  is  still  unsatisfactory, 
because  a  man  can  be  an  uncle  only  if  he  has  a  brother  or  sister 
who  is  a  parent  of  the  nephew.  Hence  we  are  driven  to  enlarge 
our  universe  to  include  the  brother  or  sister,  with  his  wife  or  her 
husband.  In  this  sort  of  way,  so  it  is  contended,  we  can  be  driven 
on,  by  the  mere  force  of  logic,  from  any  suggested  predicate  of 
the  Absolute  to  the  final  conclusion  of  the  dialectic,  which  is  called 
the  "Absolute  Idea."  Throughout  the  whole  process,  there  is  an 
underlying  assumption  that  nothing  can  be  really  true  unless  it 
is  about  Reality  as  a  whole. 

For  this  underlying  assumption  there  is  a  basis  in  traditional 
logic,  which  assumes  that  every  proposition  has  a  subject  and  a 
predicate.  According  to  this  view,  every  fact  consists  in  something 
having  some  property.  It  follows  that  relations  cannot  be  real, 
since  they  involve  two  things,  not  one.  "Uncle"  is  a  relation,  and 
a  man  may  become  an  uncle  without  knowing  it.  In  that  case, 
from  an  empirical  point  of  view,  the  man  is  unaffected  by  becoming 
an  uncle;  he  has  no  quality  which  he  did  not  have  before,  if  by 
"quality"  we  understand  something  necessary  to  describing  1pm 

759 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

as  he  is  in  himself,  apart  from  his  relations  to  other  people  and 
things.  The  only  way  in  which  the  subject-predicate  logic  can 
avoid  this  difficulty  is  to  say  that  the  truth  is  not  a  property  of  the 
uncle  alone,  or  of  the  nephew  alone,  but  of  the  whole  composed 
of  uncle-and-nephew.  Since  everything,  except  the  -Whole,  has 
relations  to  outside  things,  it  follows  that  nothing  quite  true  can 
be  said  about  separate  things,  and  that  in  fact  only  the  Whole  is 
real.  This  follows  more  directly  from  the  fact  that  "A  and  B  are 
two"  is  not  a  subject-predicate  proposition,  and  therefore,  on  the 
basis  of  the  traditional  logic,  there  can  be  no  such  proposition. 
Therefore  there  are  not  as  many  as  two  things  in  the  world ;  there- 
fore the  Whole,  considered  as  a  unity,  is  alone  real. 

The  above  argument  is  not  explicit  in  Hegel,  but  is  implicit  in 
his  system,  as  in  that  of  many  other  metaphysicians. 

A  few  examples  of  Hegel's  dialectic  method  may  serve  to  make 
it  more  intelligible.  He  begins  the  argument  of  his  logic  by  the 
assumption  that  "the  Absolute  is  Pure  Being";  we  assume  that  it 
just  u,  without  assigning  any  qualities  to  it.  But  pure  being  without 
any  qualities  is  nothing;  therefore  we  are  led  to  the  antithesis: 
"The  Absolute  is  Nothing."  From  this  thesis  and  antithesis  we 
pass  on  to  the  synthesis:  the  union  of  Being  and  Not-Being  is 
Becoming,  and  so  we  say:  "The  Absolute  is  Becoming."  This  also, 
of  course,  won't  do,  because  there  has  to  be  something  ths" 
becomes.  In  this  way  our  views  of  Reality  develop  by  the  continue 
correction  of  previous  errors,  all  of  which  arose  from  undue  ab- 
straction, by  taking  something  finite  or  limited  as  if  it  could  be 
the  whole.  "The  limitations  of  the  finite  do  not  come  merely  from 
without;  its  own  nature  is  the  cause  of  its  abrogation,  and  by  its 
own  act  it  passes  into  its  counterpart," 

The  process,  according  to  Hegel,  is  essential  to  the  understand- 
ing of  the  result.  Each  later  stage  of  the  dialectic  contains  all  the 
earlier  stages,  as  it  were  in  solution ;  none  of  them  is  wholly  super- 
seded, but€  is  given  its  proper  place  as  a  moment  in  the  Whole. 
It  is  therefore  impossible  to  reach  the  truth  except  by  going  through 
all  the  steps  of  the  dialectic. 

Knowledge  as  a  whole  has  its  triadic  movement.  It  begins  with 
sense-perception,  in  which  there  is  only  awareness  of  the  object. 
Then,  through  sceptical  criticism  of  the  senses,  it  becomes  purely 
subjective.  At  last,  it  reaches  the  stage  of  self-knowledge,  in  which 
subject  and  object  are  no  longer  distinct.  Thus  self-consciousness 

760 


HBGBL 

is  the  highest  form  of  knowledge.  This,  of  course,  must  be  the  case 
in  Hegel's  system,  for  the  highest  kind  of  knowledge  must  be  that 
possessed  by  the  Absolute,  and  as  the  Absolute  is  the  Whole  there 
is  nothing  outside  itself  for  it  to  know. 

In  the  best  thinking,  according  to  Hegel,  thoughts  become  fluent 
and  interfuse.  Truth  and  falsehood  are  not  sharply  defined  oppo- 
sites,  as  is  commonly  supposed ;  nothing  is  wholly  false,  and  noth- 
ing that  we  can  know  is  wholly  true.  "We  can  know  in  a  way  that 
is  false";  this  happens  when  we  attribute  absolute  truth  to  some 
detached  piece  of  information.  Such  a  question  as  "Where  was 
Caesar  born?"  has  a  straightforward  answer,  which  is  true  in  a 
sense,  but  not  in  the  philosophical  sense.  For  philosophy,  "the 
truth  is  the  whole,"  and  nothing  partial  is  quite  true. 

"Reason,"  Hegel  says,  "is  the  conscious  certainty  of  being  all 
reality."  This  does  not  mean  that  a  separate  person  is  all  reality; 
in  his  separateness  he  is  not  quite  real,  but  what  is  real  in  him  is 
his  participation  in  Reality  as  a  whole.  In  proportion  as  we  become 
more  rational,  this  participation  is  increased. 

The  Absolute  Idea,  with  which  the  Logic  ends,  is  something  like 
Aristotle's  God.  It  is  thought  thinking  about  itself.  Clearly  the 
Absolute  cannot  think  about  anything  but  itself,  since  there  is 
nothing  else,  except  to  our  partial  and  erroneous  ways  of  appre- 
hending Reality.  We  are  told  that  Spirit  is  the  only  reality,  and 
tffat  its  thought  is  reflected  into  itself  by  self-consciousness.  The 
actual  words  in  which  the  Absolute  Idea  is  defined  are  very 
obscure.  Wallace  translates  them  as  follows: 

"The  Absolute  Idea.  The  idea,  as  unity  of  the  Subjective  and 
Objective  Idea,  is  the  notion  of  the  Idea — a  notion  whose  object 
(Gegcnstand)  is  the  Idea  as  such,  and  for  which  the  objective 
(Objekt)  is  Idea — an  Object  which  embraces  all  characteristics 
in  its  unity." 

The  original  German  is  even  more  difficult.1  The  essence  of  the 
matter  is,  however,  somewhat  less  complicated  than  Hegel  makes 
it  seem.  The  Absolute  Idea  is  pure  thought  thinking  about  pure 
thought.  This  is  all  that  God  does  throughout  the  ages— truly  a 
Professor's  God.  Hegel  goes  on  to  say:  "This  unity  is  consequently 
the  absolute  and  all  truth,  the  Idea§which  thinks  itself." 

1  The  definition  in  German  is;  "Zfcr  Begriff  tier  Idee,  dem  die  Idee  als 
wlche  der  Gegcnstand,  dem  das  Objekt  fif  uf."  Except  in  Hegel,  Gcgen- 
ttand  and  Objekt  are  synonyms. 

761 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

I  come  now  to  a  singular  feature  of  Hegel's  philosophy,  which 
distinguishes  it  from  the  philosophy  of  Plato  or  Plotinus  or 
Spinoza.  Although  ultimate  reality  is  timeless,  and  time  is  merely 
an  illusion  generated  by  our  inability  to  see  the  Whole,  yet  the 
time-process  has  an  intimate  relation  to  the  purely  logical  process 
of  the  dialectic.  World  history,  in  fact,  has  advanced  through  the 
categories,  from  Pure  Being  in  China  (of  which  Hegel  knew 
nothing  except  that  it  was)  to  the  Absolute  Idea,  which  seems  to 
have  been  nearly,  if  not  quite,  realized  in  the  Prussian  State.  I 
cannot  see  any  justification,  on  the  basis  of  his  own  metaphysic, 
for  the  view  that  world  history  repeats  the  transitions  of  the 
dialectic,  yet  that  is  the  thesis  which  he  developed  in  his  Philosophy 
of  History.  It  was  an  interesting  thesis,  giving  unity  and  meaning 
to  the  revolutions  of  human  affairs.  Like  other  historical  theories, 
it  required,  if  it  was  to  be  made  plausible,  some  distortion  of 
facts  and  considerable  ignorance.  Hegel,  like  Mane  and  Spengler 
after  him,  possessed  both  these  qualifications.  It  is  odd  that  a 
process  which  is  represented  as  cosmic  should  all  have  taken  place 
on  our  planet,  and  most  of  it  near  the  Mediterranean.  Nor  is 
there  any  reason,  if  reality  is  timeless,  why  the  later  parts  of  the 
process  should  embody  higher  categories  than  the  earlier  parts— 
unless  one  were  to  adopt  the  blasphemous  supposition  that  the 
Universe  was  gradually  learning  Hegel's  philosophy. 

The  time-process,  according  to  Hegel,  is  from  the  less  to  fflt* 
more  perfect,  both  in  an  ethical  and  in  a  logical  sense.  Indeed 
these  two  senses  are,  for  him,  not  really  distinguishable,  for  logical 
perfection  consists  in  being  a  closely-knit  whole,  without  ragged 
edges,  without  independent  parts,  but  united,  like  a  human  body, 
or  still  more  like  a  reasonable  mind,  into  an  organism  whose  pans 
are  interdependent  and  all  work  together  towards  a  single  end ; 
and  this  also  constitutes  ethical  perfection.  A  few  quotations  will 
illustrate  Hegel's  theory: 

"Ijke  ihe  soul-conductor  Mercury,  the  Idea  is,  in  truth,  the 
leader  of  peoples  and  of  the  world;  and  Spirit,  the  rational  and 
necessitated  will  of  that  conductor,  is  and  has  been  the  director 
of  the  events  of  the  world's  history.  To  become  acquainted  with 
Spirit  in  this  its  office  of  guidance,  is  the  object  of  our  present 
Undertaking.0  * 

"The  only  thought  which  philosophy  brings  with  it  to  the  con- 
templation of  history  is  the  simple  conception  of  Reason;  that 


HEGEL 

Reason  is  the  sovereign  6f  the  world ;  that  the  history  of  the  world, 
therefore,  presents  us  with  a  rational  process.  This  conviction 
and  intuition  is  a  hypothesis  in  the  domain  of  history  as  such.  In 
that  of  philosophy  it  is  no  hypothesis.  It  is  there  proved  by 
speculative  cognition,  that  Reason— and  this  term  may  here  suffice 
us,  without  investigating  the  relation  sustained  by  the  universe 
to  the  Divine  Being— is  Substance,  as  well  as  Infinite  Power  \  its 
own  infinite  material  underlying  all  the  natural  and  spiritual  life 
which  it  originates,  as  also  the  Infinite  Form,  that  which  sets  the 
material  in  motion.  Reason  is  the  substance  of  the  universe." 

'That  this  'Idea'  or  'Reason'  is  the  True,  the  Eternal,  the  abso- 
lutely powerful  essence;  that  it  reveals  itself  in  the  world,  and  that 
in  that  world  nothing  else  is  revealed  but  this  and  its  honour  and 
glory — is  the  thesis  which,  as  we  have  said,  has  been  proved  in 
philosophy,  and  is  here  regarded  as  demonstrated." 

"The  world  of  intelligence  and  conscious  volition  is  not 
abandoned  to  chance,  but  must  show  itself  in  the  light  of  the 
self-cognizant  Idea." 

This  is  "a  result  which  happens  to  be  known  to  me,  because  I 
have  traversed  the  entire  field." 

All  these  quotations  are  from  the  introduction  to  The  Philosophy 
of  History. 

Spirit,  and  the  course  of  its  development,  is  the  substantial 
'  (ftject  of  the  philosophy  of  history.  The  nature  of  Spirit  may  be 
understood  by  contrasting  it  with  its  opposite,  namely  Matter. 
The  essence  of  matter  is  gravity;  the  essence  of  Spirit  is  Freedom. 
Matter  is  outside  itself,  whereas  Spirit  has  its  centre  in  itself. 
"Spirit  is  self-contained  existence."  If  this  is  not  clear,  the 
following  definition  may  be  found  more  illuminating: 

"But  what  is  Spirit?  It  is  the  one  immutably  homogeneous 
Infinite — pure  Identity— which  in  its  second  phase  separates 
itself  from  itself  and  makes  this  second  aspect  its  own  polar 
opposite,  namely  as  existence  for  and  in  Self  as  contiyted  with 
the  Universal. " 

In  the  historical  development  of  Spirit  there  have  been  three 
main  phases:  The  Orientals,  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  the 
Germans.  "The  history  of  the  world  is  the  discipline  of  the  un- 
controlled natural  will,  bringing  it  into  obedience  to  a  universal 
principle  and  conferring  subjective  freedom.  The  East  knew,  and 
to  the  present  day  knows,  only  that  On*  is  free;  the  Greek  anfd 

763 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Roman  world,  that  some  are  free;  the  German  world  knows  that 
All  are  free."  One  might  have  supposed  that  democracy  would 
be  the  appropriate  form  of  government  where  all  are  free,  but 
not  so.  Democracy  and  aristocracy  alike  belong  to  the  stage  where 
some  are  free,  despotism  to  that  where  one  is  free,  pnd  monarchy 
to  that  in  which  all  are  free.  This  is  connected  with  the  very  odd 
sense  in  which  Hegel  uses  the  word  "freedom."  For  him  (and 
so  far  we  may  agree)  there  is  no  freedom  without  law;  but  he 
tends  to  convert  this,  and  to  argue  that  wherever  there  is  law 
there  is  freedom.  Thus  "freedom/9  for  him,  means  little  more  than 
the  right  to  obey  the  law. 

As  might  be  expected,  he  assigns  the  highest  role  to  the  Ger- 
mans in  the  terrestrial  development  of  Spirit.  "The  German 
spirit  is  the  spirit  of  the  new  world.  Its  aim  is  the  realization  of 
absolute  Truth  as  the  unlimited  self-determination  of  freedom — 
that  freedom  which  has  its  own  absolute  form  itself  as  its  purport/* 

This  is  a  very  superfine  brand  of  freedom.  It  does  not  mean 
that  you  will  be  able  to  keep  out  of  a  concentration  camp.  It  does 
not  imply  democracy,  or  a  free  press,1  or  any  of  the  usual  Liberal 
watchwords,  which  Hegel  rejects  with  contempt.  When  Spirit 
gives  laws  to  itself,  it  does  so  freely.  To  our  mundane  vision,  it 
may  seem  that  the  Spirit  that  gives  laws  is  embodied  in  the 
monarch,  and  the  Spirit  to  which  laws  are  given  is  embodied  in 
his  subjects.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Absolute  the  dR* 
Unction  between  monarch  and  subjects,  like  all  other  distinctions, 
is  illusory,  and  when  the  monarch  imprisons  a  liberal-minded 
subject,  that  is  still  Spirit  freely  determining  itself.  Hegel  praises 
Rousseau  for  distinguishing  between  the  general  will  and  the  will 
of  all.  One  gathers  that  the  monarch  embodies  the  general  will, 
whereas  a  parliamentary  majority  only  embodies  the  will  of  all. 
A  very  convenient  doctrine. 

German  history  is  divided  by  Hegel  into  three  periods:  the 
first,  up  to  Charlemagne;  the  second,  from  Charlemagne  to  the 
Reformation;  the  third,  from  the  Reformation  onwards.  These 
three  periods  are  distinguished  as  the  Kingdoms  of  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  respectively.  It  seems  a  little  odd 

•  '  Freedom  of  the  Press,  he  say*,  does  not  consist  in  being  allowed  to 
write  what  one  wants:  this  view  is  crude  and  superficial.  For  instance, 
the  Pras  should  not  be  allowed  to  muter  the  Government  or  the  polirr 
contemptible. 

764 


HEGEL 

that  the  Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost  should  have  begun  with  the 
bloody  and  utterly  abominable  atrocities  committed  in  suppressing 
the  Peasants'  War,  but  Hegel,  naturally,  does  not  mention  so 
trivial  an  incident.  Instead,  he  goes  off,  as  might  be  expected,  into 
praises  of  Machiavelli. 

Hegel's  interpretation  of  history  since  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire  is  partly  the  effect,  and  partly  the  cause,  of  the  teaching 
of  world  history  in  German  schools.  In  Italy  and  France,  while 
there  has  been  a  romantic  admiration  of  the  Germans  on  the  part 
of  a  few  men  such  as  Tacitus  and  Machiavelli,  they  have  been 
viewed,  in  general,  as  the  authors  of  the  "barbarian"  invasion, 
and  as  enemies  of  the  Church,  first  under  the  great  Emperors, 
and  later  as  the  leaders  of  the  Reformation.  Until  the  nineteenth 
century  the  Latin  nations  looked  upon  the  Germans  as  their 
inferiors  in  civilization.  Protestants  in  Germany  naturally  took  a 
different  view.  They  regarded  the  late  Romans  as  effete,  and 
considered  the  German  conquest  of  the  Western  Empire  an 
essential  step  towards  revivification.  In  relation  to  the  conflict 
of  Empire  and  Papacy  in  the  Middle  Ages,  they  took  a  Ghibelline 
view:  to  this  day,  German  schoolboys  are  taught  a  boundless 
admiration  of  Charlemagne  and  Barbarossa.  In  the  times  after 
the  Reformation,  the  political  weakness  and  disunity  of  Germany 
was  deplored,  and  the  gradual  rise  of  Prussia  was  welcomed  as 
.naking  Germany  strong  under  Protestant  leadership,  not  under 
the  Catholic  and  somewhat  feeble  leadership  of  Austria.  Hegel,  in 
philosophizing  about  history,  has  in  mind  such  men  as  Theodoric, 
Charlemagne,  Barbarossa,  Luther,  and  Frederick  the  Great.  He 
is  to  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  their  exploits,  and  in  the  light 
of  the  then  recent  humiliation  of  Germany  by  Napoleon. 

So  much  is  Germany  glorified  that  one  might  expect  to  find  it 
the  final  embodiment  of  the  Absolute  Idea,  beyond  which  no 
further  development  would  be  possible.  But  this  is  not  Hegel's 
view.  On  the  contrary,  he  says  that  America  is  the  land  of  the 
future,  "where,  in  the  ages  that  lie  before  us,  the  burden  of  the 
world's  history  shall  reveal  itself— perhaps  [he  adds  characteris- 
tically] in  a  contest  between  North  and  South  America/'  He  seems 
to  think  that  everything  important  takes  the  form  of  war.  If  it 
were  suggested  to  him  that  the  attribution  of  America  to  world 
history  might  be  the  development  of  a  society  without  extreme 
poverty,  he  would  not  be  interested.  On  the  contrary,  he  says 

765 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

that,  as  yet,  there  is  no  real  State  in  America,  because  a  real  State 
requires  a  division  of  classes  into  rich  and  poor. 

Nations,  in  Hegel,  play  the  part  that  classes  play  in  Marx.  The 
principle  of  historical  development,  he  says,  is  national  genius. 
In  every  age,  there  is  some  one  nation  which  is  changed  with  the 
mission  of  carrying  the  world  through  the  stage  of  the  dialectic 
that  it  has  reached.  In  our  age,  of  course,  this  nation  is  Germany. 
But  in  addition  to  nations,  we  must  also  take  account  of  world- 
historical  individuals;  these  are  men  in  whose  aims  are  embodied 
the  dialectical  transitions  that  are  due  to  take  place  in  their  time. 
These  men  are  heroes,  and  may  justifiably  contravene  ordinary 
moral  rules.  Alexander,  Caesar,  and  Napoleon  are  given  as 
examples.  I  doubt  whether,  in  Hegel's  opinion,  a  man  could  be  a 
"hero"  without  being  a  military  conqueror. 

Hegel's  emphasis  on  nations,  together  with  his  peculiar  con- 
ception of  "freedom,"  explains  his  glorification  of  the  State — a 
very  important  aspect  of  his  political  philosophy,  to  which  we 
must  now  turn  our  attention.  His  philosophy  of  the  State  is  de- 
veloped both  in  his  Philosophy  of  History  and  in  his  Philosophy  of 
Law.  It  is  in  the  main  compatible  with  his  general  metaphysic, 
but  not  necessitated  by  it;  at  certain  points,  however— e.g.,  as 
regards  the  relations  between  States — his  admiration  of  the 
national  State  is  carried  so  far  as  to  become  inconsistent  with 
his  general  preference  of  wholes  to  parts.  ^ 

Glorification  of  the  State  begins,  so  far  as  modern  times  are  con- 
cerned, with  the  Reformation.  In  the  Roman  Empire,  the  Emperor 
was  deified,  and  the  State  thereby  acquired  a  sacred  character; 
but  the  philosophers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  with  few  exceptions, 
were  ecclesiastics,  and  therefore  put  the  Church  above  the  State* 
Luther,  finding  support  in  Protestant  princes,  began  the  opposite 
practice;  the  Lutheran  Church,  on  the  whole,  was  Erastian.  Hobbes, 
who  was  politically  a  Protestant,  developed  the  doctrine  of  the 
suprpnap  of  the  State,  and  Spinoza,  on  the  whole,  agreed  with 
him.  Rousseau,  as  we  have  seen,  thought  the  State  should  not 
tolerate  other  political  organizations.  Hegel  was  vehemently  Pro- 
testant, of  the  Lutheran  section ;  the  Prussian  State  was  an  Erastian 
absolute  monarchy.  These  reasons  would  make  one  expect  to  find 
*thc  State  highly  valued  by  H^gel,  but,  even  so,  he  goes  to  lengths 
which  are  astonishing. 

We  are  told  in  The  Philosophy  of  History  that  "the  State  is  the 

766 


HBGBL 

actually  existing  realized  moral  life,"  and  that  all  the  spiritual 
reality  possessed  by  a  human  being  he  possesses  only  through  the 
State.  "For  his  spiritual  reality  consists  in  this,  that  his  own 
essence — Reason — is  objectively  present  to  him,  that  it  possesses 
objective  immediate  existence  for  him.  .  .  .  For  truth  is  the 
unity  of  the  universal  and  subjective  Will,  and  the  universal  is 
to  be  found  in  the  State,  in  its  laws,  its  universal  and  rational 
arrangements.  The  State  is  the  Divine  Idea  as  it  exists  on  earth." 
Again:  "The  State  is  the  embodiment  of  rational  freedom, 
realizing  and  recognizing  itself  in  an  objective  form.  .  .  .  The 
State  is  the  Idea  of  Spirit  in  the  external  manifestation  of  human 
Will  and  its  Freedom." 

The  Philosophy  of  Law,  in  the  section  on  the  State,  develops 
the  same  doctrine  somewhat  more  fully.  "The  State  is  the  reality 
of  the  moral  idea — the  moral  spirit,  as  the  visible  substantial  will, 
evident  to  itself,  which  thinks  and  knows  itself,  and  fulfils  what 
it  knows  in  so  far  as  it  knows  it."  The  State  is  the  rational  in  and 
for  itself.  If  the  State  existed  only  for  the  interests  of  individuals 
(as  Liberals  contend),  an  individual  might  or  might  not  be  a 
member  of  the  State.  It  has,  however,  a  quite  different  relation 
to  the  individual:  since  it  is  objective  Spirit,  the  individual  only 
has  objectivity,  truth,  and  morality  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  member  of 
the  State,  whose  true  content  and  purpose  is  union  as  such.  It  is 
admitted  that  there  may  be  bad  States,  but  these  merely  exist, 
and  have  no  true  reality,  whereas  a  rational  State  is  infinite  in  itself. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Hegel  claims  for  the  State  much  the  same 
position  as  St.  Augustine  and  his  Catholic  successors  claimed  for 
the  Church.  There  are,  however,  two  respects  in  which  the 
Catholic  claim  is  more  reasonable  than  Hegel's.  In  the  first  place, 
the  Church  is  not  a  chance  geographical  association,  but  a  body 
united  by  a  common  creed,  believed  by  its  members  to  be  of 
supreme  importance;  it  is  thus  in  its  very  essence  the  embodi- 
ment of  what  Hegel  calls  the  "Idea."  In  the  second  pl|ce9  jhere 
is  only  one  Catholic  Church,  whereas  there  are  many  States. 
When  each  State,  in  relation  to  its  subjects,  is  made  as  absolute 
as  Hegel  makes  it,  there  is  difficulty  in  finding  any  philosophical 
principle  by  which  to  regulate  the  relations  between  different 
States.  In  fact,  at  this  point  Hegfcl  abandons  his  philosophical 
talk,  falling  back  on  the  state  of  nature  and  Hobbcs's  war  of  all 
against  all. 

767 


WfcSTfifcN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

The  habit  of  speaking  of  "the  State/9  as  if  there  were  only  one, 
is  misleading  so  long  as  there  is  no  world  State.  Duty  being,  for 
Hegel,  solely  a  relation  of  the  individual  to  his  State,  no  principle 
is  left  by  which  to  moralize  the  relations  between  States.  This 
Hegel  recognizes.  In  external  relations,  he  says,  the  State  is  an 
individual,  and  each  State  is  independent  as  against  the  others. 
"Since  in  this  independence  the  being-for-self  of  real  spirit  has 
its  existence,  it  is  the  first  freedom  and  highest  honour  of  a  people." 
He  goes  on  to  argue  against  any  sort  of  League  of  Nations  by 
which  the  independence  of  separate  States  might  be  limited.  The 
duty  of  a  citizen  is  entirely  confined  (so  far  as  the  external  relations 
of  his  State  are  concerned)  to  upholding  the  substantial  indivi- 
duality and  independence  and  sovereignty  of  his  own  State.  It 
follows  that  war  is  not  wholly  an  evil,  or  something  that  we 
should  seek  to  abolish.  The  purpose  of  the  State  is  not  merely 
to  uphold  the  life  and  property  of  the  citizens,  and  this  fact 
provides  the  moral  justification  of  war,  which  is  not  to  be  regarded 
as  an  absolute  evil  or  as  accidental,  or  as  having  its  cause  in 
something  that  ought  not  to  be. 

Hegel  does  not  mean  only  that,  in  some  situations,  a  nation 
cannot  rightly  avofd  going  to  war.  He  means  much  more  than 
this.  He  is  opposed  to  the  creation  of  institutions — such  as  a 
world  government — which  would  prevent  such  situations  from 
arising,  because  he  thinks  it  a  good  thing  that  there  should  T5e* 
wars  from  time  to  time.  War,  he  says,  is  the  condition  in  which 
we  take  seriously  the  vanity  of  temporal  goods  and  things.  (This 
view  is  to  be  contrasted  with  the  opposite  theory,  that  all  wars 
have  economic  causes.)  War  has  a  positive  moral  value:  "War 
has  the  higher  significance  that  through  it  the  moral  health  of 
peoples  is  preserved  in  their  indifference  towards  the  stabilizing 
of  finite  determinations."  Peace  is  ossification;  the  Holy  Alliance, 
and  Kant's  League  for  Peace,  are  mistaken,  because  a  family  of 
States  nr^ds  an  enemy.  Conflicts  of  States  can  only  be  decided 
by  war;  States  being  towards  each  other  in  a  state  of  nature,  their 
relations  are  not  legal  or  moral.  Their  rights  have  their  reality  in 
their  particular  wills,  and  the  interest  of  cadi  State  is  its  own 
highest  law.  There  is  no  contrast  of  morals  and  politics,  because 
mates  are  not  subject  to  ordinary  moral  laws. 

Such  is  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  State — a  doctrine  which,  if 
Accepted,  justifies  every  internal   tyranny  and   every  external 

768 


HEGEL 


aggression  that  can  possibly  be  imagined.  The  strength  of  his 
bias  appears  in  the  fact  that  his  theory  is  largely  inconsistent  with 
his  own  metaphysic,  and  that  the  inconsistencies  are  all  such  as 
tend  to  the  justification  of  cruelty  and  international  brigandage. 
A  man  may  be  pardoned  if  logic  compels  him  regretfully  to  reach 
conclusions  which  he  deplores,  but  not  for  departing  from  logic 
in  order  to  be  free  to  advocate  crimes.  Hegel's  logic  led  him  to 
believe  that  there  is  more  reality  or  excellence  (the  two  for  him 
are  synonyms)  in  wholes  than  in  their  parts,  and  that  a  whole 
increases  in  reality  and  excellence  as  it  becomes  more  organized. 
This  justified  him  in  preferring  a  State  to  an  anarchic  collection 
of  individuals,  but  it  should  equally  have  led  him  to  prefer  a 
world  State  to  an  anarchic  collection  of  States.  Within  the  State, 
his  general  philosophy  should  have  led  him  to  feel  more  respect 
for  the  individual  than  he  did  feel,  for  the  wholes  of  which 
his  Logic  treats  are  not  like  the  One  of  Parmenides,  or  even 
like  Spinoza's  God:  they  are  wholes  in  which  the  individual 
does  not  disappear,  but  acquires  fuller  reality  through  his 
harriK>nious  relation  to  a  larger  organism.  A  State  in  which  the 
individual  is  ignored  is  not  a  small-scale  model  of  the  Hegelian 
Absolute. 

Nor  is  there  any  good  reason,  in  Hegel's  metaphysic,  for  the 
exclusive  emphasis  on  the  State,  as  opposed  to  other  social 
urbanizations.  I  can  see  nothing  but  Protestant  bias  in  his  pre- 
ference of  the  State  to  the  Church.  Moreover,  if  it  is  good  that 
society  should  be  as  organic  as  possible,  as  Hegel  believes,  then 
many  social  organizations  are  necessary,  in  addition  to  the  State 
and  the  Church.  It  should  follow  from  Hegel's  principles  that 
every  interest  which  is  not  harmful  to  the  community,  and  which 
can  be  promoted  by  co-operation,  shou  d  have  its  appropriate 
organization,  and  thai  every  such  organization  should  have  its 
quota  of  limited  independence.  It  may  be  objected  that  ultimate 
authority  must  reside  somewhere,  and  cannot  reside  elsewhere 
than  in  the  State.  But  even  so  it  may  be  desirable  that  thisTiltimate 
authority  should  not  be  irresistible  when  it  attempts  to  be 
oppressive  beyond  a  point.  . 

This  brings  us  to  a  question  which  is  fundamental  in  judging 
Hegel's  whole  philosophy.  Is  there  more  reality,  and  is  there  more  < 
value,  in  a  whole  than  in  its  parts?  Hegel  answers  both  questions 
in  the  affirmative.  The  question  of  reality  is  metaphysical,  the 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

question  of  value  is  ethical.  They  are  commonly  treated  as  if 
they  were  scarcely  distinguishable,  but  to  my  mind  it  is  impor- 
tant to  keep  them  apart.  Let  us  begin  with  the  metaphysical 
question. 

The  view  of  Hegel,  and  of  many  other  philosophers,  is  that  the 
character  of  any  portion  of  the  universe  is  so  profoundly  affected 
by  its  relations  to  the  other  parts  and  to  the  whole,  that  no  true 
statement  can  be  made  about  any  part  except  to  assign  it  its  place  in 
the  whole.  Since  its  place  in  the  whole  depends  upon  all  the  other 
parts,  a  true  statement  about  its  place  in  the  whole  will  at  the 
same  time  assign  the  place  of  every  other  part  in  the  whole.  Thus 
there  can  be  only  one  true  statement ;  there  is  no  truth  except  the 
whole  truth.  And  similarly  nothing  is  quite  real  except  the  whole, 
for  any  part,  when  isolated,  is  changed  in  character  by  being 
isolated,  and  therefore  no  longer  appears  quite  what  it  truly  is. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  a  part  is  viewed  in  relation  to  the  whole, 
as  it  should  be,  it  is  seen  to  be  not  self-subsist  en  t,  and  to  be 
incapable  of  existing  except  as  pan  of  just  that  whole  which  alone 
is  truly  real.  This  is  the  metaphysical  doctrine. 

The  ethical  doctrine,  which  maintains  that  value  resides  in  the 
whole  rather  than  in  the  parts,  must  be  true  if  the  metaphysical 
doctrine  is  true,  but  need  not  be  false  if  the  metaphysical  doctrine 
is  false.  It  may,  moreover,  be  true  of  some  wholes  and  not  of 
others.  It  is  obviously  true,  in  some  sense,  of  a  living  body.  'Wle* 
eye  is  worthless  when  separated  from  the  body;  a  collection  of 
disjecta  membra,  even  when  complete,  has  not  the  value  that  once 
belonged  to  the  body  from  which  they  were  taken.  Hegel  conceives 
the  ethical  relation  of  the  citizen  to  the  State  as  analogous  to  that 
of  the  eye  to  the  body:  in  his  place  the  citizen  is  part  of  a  valuable 
whole,  but  isolated  he  is  as  useless  as  an  isolated  eye.  The  analogy, 
however,  is  open  to  question;  from  the  ethical  importance  of 
some  wholes,  that  of  all  wholes  does  not  follow. 

The  above  statement  of  the  ethical  problem  is  defective  in  one 
important  respect,  namely,  that  it  does  not  take  account  of  the 
distinction  between  ends  and  means.  An  eye  in  a  living  body  is 
useful,  that  is  to  say,  it  has  value  as  a  means ;  but  it  has  no  more 
intrinsic  value  than  when  detached  from  the  body.  A  thing  has 
•intrinsic  value  when  it  is  prufed  for  its  own  sake,  not  as  a  means 
to  something  eke.  We  value  the  eye  as  a  means  to  seeing.  Seeing 
may  be  a  means  or  an  end ;  it  is  a  means  when  it  shows  us  food  or 


HEGEL 


enemies,  it  is  an  end  when  it  shows  us  something  that  we  find 
beautiful.  The  State  is  obviously  valuable  as  a  means:  it  protects 
us  against  thieves  and  murderers,  it  provides  roads  and  schools, 
and  so  on.  It  may,  of  course,  also  be  bad  as  a  means,  for  example 
by  waging  an  unjust  war.  The  real  question  we  have  to  ask  in 
connection  with  Hegel  is  not  this,  but  whether  the  State  is  good 
per  se,  as  an  end:  do  the  citizens  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  State, 
or  the  State  for  the  sake  of  the  citizens?  Hegel  holds  the  former 
view;  the  liberal  philosophy  that  comes  from  Locke  holds  the 
latter.  It  is  clear  that  we  shall  only  attribute  intrinsic  value  to  the 
State  if  we  think  of  it  as  having  a  life  of  its  own,  as  being  in  some 
sense  a  person.  At  this  point,  Hegel's  metaphysic  becomes  relevant 
to  the  question  of  value.  A  person  is  a  complex  whole,  having  a 
single  life;  can  there  be  a  super-person,  composed  of  persons  as 
the  body  is  composed  of  organs,  and  having  a  single  life  which  is 
not  the  sum  of  the  lives  of  the  component  persons?  If  there  can 
be  such  a  super-person,  as  Hegel  thinks,  then  the  State  may  be 
such  a  being,  and  it  may  be  as  superior  to  ourselves  as  the  whole 
body  is  to  the  eye.  But  if  we  think  this  super-person  a  mere  meta- 
physical monstrosity,  then  we  shall  say  that  the  intrinsic  value  of 
a  community  is  derived  from  that  of  its  members,  and  that  the 
State  is  a  means,  not  an  end.  We  are  thus  brought  back  from  the 
ethical  to  the  metaphysical  question.  The  metaphysical  question 
itself,  we  shall  find,  is  really  a  question  of  logic. 

The  question  at  issue  is  much  wider  than  the  truth  or  falsehood 
of  Hegel's  philosophy;  it  is  die  question  that  divides  the  friends 
of  analysis  from  its  enemies.  Let  us  take  an  illustration.  Suppose 
I  say  "John  is  the  father  of  James."  Hegel,  and  all  who  believe 
in  what  Marshal  Smuts  calls  "holism,"  will  say:  "Before  you  can 
understand  this  statement,  you  must  know  who  John  and  James 
are.  Now  to  know  who  John  is,  is  to  know  all  his  characteristics, 
for  apart  from  them  he  would  not  be  distinguishable  from  any 
one  else.  But  all  his  characteristics  involve  other  people  tr  things. 
He  is  characterized  by  his  relations  to  his  parents,  his  wife,  and 
his  children,  by  whether  he  is  a  good  or  a  bad  citizen,  and  by 
the  country  to  which  he  belongs.  All  these  things  you  must  know 
before  you  can  be  said  to  know  wljom  the  word  'John*  refers  to.. 
Step  by  step,  in  your  endeavour  to  say  what  you  mean  by  the 
word '  John,'  you  will  be  led  to  take  account  of  the  whole  universe, 
and  your  original  statement  will  turn  out  to  be  telling  you  some-/ 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

thing  about  the  universe,  not  about  two  separate  people,  John 
and  James." 

Now  this  is  all  very  well,  but  it  is  open  to  an  initial  objection. 
If  the  above  argument  were  sound,  how  could  knowledge  ever 
begin?  I  know  numbers  of  propositions  of  the  form  "A  is  the 
father  of  B,"  but  I  do  not  know  the  whole  universe.  If  all  know- 
ledge were  knowledge  of  the  universe  as  a  whole,  there  would  be 
no  knowledge.  This  is  enough  to  make  us  suspect  a  mistake  some- 
where. 

The  fact  is  that,  in  order  to  use  the  word  "John"  correctly  and 
intelligently,  I  do  not  need  to  know  all  about  John,  but  only  enough 
to  recognize  him.  No  doubt  he  has  relations,  near  or  remote,  to 
everything  in  the  universe,  but  he  can  be  spoken  of  truly  without 
taking  them  into  account,  except  such  as  are  the  direct  subject- 
matter  of  what  is  being  said.  He  may  be  the  father  of  Jemima  as 
well  as  of  James,  but  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  know  this  in 
order  to  know  that  he  is  the  father  of  James.  If  Hegel  were  right, 
we  could  not  state  fully  what  is  meant  by  "John  is  the  father  of 
James"  without  mentioning  Jemima:  we  ought  to  say  "John,  the 
father  of  Jemima,  is  the  father  of  James.*'  This  would  still  be 
inadequate;  we  should  have  to  go  on  to  mention  his  parents  and 
grandparents,  and  a  whole  Who's  Who.  But  this  lands  us  in 
absurdities.  The  Hegelian  position  might  be  stated  as  follo^g:4 
"The  word  'John*  means  all  that  is  true  of  John."  But  as  a  defini- 
tion this  is  circular,  since  the  word  "John0  occurs  in  the  defining 
phrase.  In  fact,  if  Hegel  were  right,  no  word  could  begin  to  have 
a  meaning,  since  we  should  need  to  know  already  the  meanings 
of  all  other  words  in  order  to  state  all  the  properties  of  what  the 
word  designates,  which,  according  to  the  theory,  are  what  the 
word  means. 

To  put  the  matter  abstractly:  we  must  distinguish  properties 
of  different  kinds.  A  thing  may  have  a  property  not  involving  any 
othef  thitig;  this  sort  is  called  a  quality.  Or  it  may  have  a  property 
involving  one  other  thing;  such  a  property  is  being  married.  Or 
it  may  have  one  involving  two  other  things,  such  as  being  a 
brother-in-law.  If  a  certain  thing  has  a  certain  collection  of 
Dualities,  and  no  other  thing  Jias  just  this  collection  of  qualities, 
then  it  can  be  defined  as  "the  thing  having  such-and-such 
qualities."  From  its  having  these  qualities,  nothing  can  be  deduced 
4>y  pure  logic  as  to  its  relational  properties.  Hegel  thought  that, 

77* 


•       HEGEL 

if  enough  was  known  about  a  thing  to  distinguish  it  from  all 
other  things,  then  all  its  properties  could  be  inferred  by  logic. 
This  was  a  mistake,  and  from  this  mistake  arose  the  whole  im- 
posing edifice  of  his  system.  This  illustrates  an  important  truth, 
namely,  lhat  the  worse  your  logic,  the  more  interesting  the 
consequences  to  which  it  gives  rise. 


773 


Chapter  XXIII 
BYRON 

t  i   <HE  nineteenth  century,  in  comparison  with  the  present  age, 
I      appears  rational,  progressive,  and  satisfied ;  yet  the  opposite 

A  qualities  of  our  time  were  possessed  by  many  of  the  most 
remarkable  men  during  the  epoch  of  liberal  optimism.  When  we 
consider  men,  not  as  artists  or  discoverers,  not  as  sympathetic  or 
antipathetic  to  our  own  tastes,  but  as  forces,  as  causes  of  change 
in  the  social  structure,  in  judgments  of  value,  or  in  intellectual 
outlook,  we  find  that  the  course  of  events  in  recent  times  has 
necessitated  much  readjustment  in  our  estimates,  making  some 
men  less  important  than  they  had  seemed,  and  others  more  so. 
Among  those  whose  importance  is  greater  than  it  seemed,  Byron 
deserves  a  high  place.  On  the  Continent,  such  a  view  would  not 
appear  surprising,  but  in  the  English-speaking  world  it  may  be 
thought  strange.  It  was  on  the  Continent  that  Byron  was  influential, 
and  it  is  not  in  England  that  his  spiritual  progeny  is  to  be  sought. 
To  most  of  us,  his  verse  seems  often  poor  and  his  sentiment  often 
tawdry,  but  abroad  his  way  of  feeling  and  his  outlook  on  life  were 
transmitted  and  developed  and  transmuted  until  they  became  * 
wide-spread  as  to  be  factors  in  great  events. 

The  aristocratic  rebel,  of  whom  Byron  was  in  his  day  the 
exemplar,  is  a  very  different  type  from  the  leader  of  a  peasant  or 
proletarian  revolt.  Those  who  are  hungry  have  no  need  of  an 
elaborate  philosophy  to  stimulate  or  excuse  discontent,  and  any- 
thing of  the  kind  appears  to  them  merely  an  amusement  of  the 
idle  rich.  They  want  what  others  have,  not  some  intangible  and 
metaphysical  good.  Though  they  may  preach  Christian  love,  as 
the  medieval  communist  rebels  did,  their  real  reasons  for  doing 
BO  are  very  simple:  that  the  lack  of  it  in  the  rich  and  powerful 
causes  the  sufferings  of  the  poor,  and  that  the  presence  of  it 
among  comrades  in  revolt  is  thought  essential  to  success.  But 
experience  of  the  struggle  leads  to  a  despair  of  the  power  of  love, 
teaving  naked  hate  as  the  driving  force.  A  rebel  of  this  type,  if, 
like  Marx,  he  invents  a  philosophy,  invents  one  solely  designed 
to  demonstrate  the  ultimate  victory  of  his  party,  not  one  con- 
cerned with  values.  His  values  remain  primitive:  the  good  is 

774 


BYRON 

enough  to  cat,  and  the  rest  is  talk.  No  hungry  man  is  likely  to 
think  otherwise. 

The  aristocratic  rebel,  since  he  has  enough  to  eat,  must  have 
other  causes  of  discontent.  I  do  not  include  among  rebels  the 
mere  leaders  of  factions  temporarily  out  of  power;  I  include  only 
men  whose  philosophy  requires  some  greater  change  than  their 
own  personal  success.  It  may  be  that  love  of  power  is  the  under- 
ground source  of  their  discontent,  but  in  their  conscious  thought 
there  is  criticism  of  the  government  of  the  world,  which,  when  it 
goes  deep  enough,  takes  the  form  of  Titanic  cosmic  self-assertion 
or,  in  those  who  retain  some  superstition,  of  Satanism.  Both  are 
to  be  found  in  Byron.  Both,  largely  through  men  whom  he  in- 
fluenced, became  common  in  large  sections  of  society  which  could 
hardly  be  deemed  aristocratic.  The  aristocratic  philosophy  of 
rebellion,  growing,  developing,  and  changing  as  it  approached 
maturity,  has  inspired  a  long  series  of  revolutionary  move- 
ments, from  the  Carbonari  after  the  fall  of  Napoleon  to  Hitler's 
coup  in  1933;  and  at  each  stage  it  has  inspired  a  correspond- 
ing manner  of  thought  and  feeling  among  intellectuals  and 
artists. 

It  is  obvious  that  an  aristocrat  does  not  become  a  rebel  unless 
his  temperament  and  circumstances  are  in  some  way  peculiar. 
Byron's  circumstances  were  very  peculiar.  His  earliest  recollec- 
tftns  were  of  his  parents*  quarrels;  his  mother  was  a  woman 
whom  he  feared  for  her  cruelty  and  despised  for  her  vulgarity; 
his  nurse  combined  wickedness  with  the  strictest  Calvinist 
theology ;  his  lameness  filled  him  with  shame,  and  prevented  him 
from  being  one  of  the  herd  at  school.  At  ten  years  old,  after  living 
in  poverty,  he  suddenly  found  himself  a  Lord  and  the  owner  of 
Newstead.  His  great-uncle  the  "wicked  Lord,"  from  whom  he 
inherited,  had  killed  a  man  in  a  duel  thirty-three  years  ago,  and 
bc*n  ostracized  by  his  neighbours  ever  since.  The  Byrons  had 
been  a  lawless  family,  and  the  Gordons,  his  mother's^nc^stors, 
even  more  so.  After  the  squalor  of  a  back  street  in  Aberdeen,  the 
boy  naturally  rejoiced  in  his  title  and  his  Abbey,  and  was  willing 
to  take  on  the  character  of  his  ancestors  in  gratitude  for  their 
lands.  And  if,  in  Decent  years,  their  bellicosity  had  led  them  into 
trouble,  he  learnt  that  in  former  centuries  it  had  brought  them 
renown.  One  of  his  earliest  poems/'On  Leaving  Newstead  Abbey/' 
relates  his  emotions  at  this  time,  which  are  of  admiration  for  hi* 

775 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

ancestors  who  fought  in  the  Crusades,  at  Crecy,  and  at  Marstor 
Moor.  He  ends  with  the  pious  resolve: 

Like  you  will  he  live,  or  like  you  will  he  perish : 
When  decay'd,  may  he  mingle  his  dust  with  your  own. 

This  is  not  the  mood  of  a  rebel,  but  it  suggests  "Childe"  Harold, 
the  modern  peer  who  imitates  medieval  barons.  As  an  under- 
graduate, when  for  the  first  time  he  had  an  income  of  his  own, 
he  wrote  that  he  felt  as  independent  as  "a  German  Prince  who 
coins  his  own  cash,  or  a  Cherokee  Chief  who  coins  no  cash  at  all, 
but  enjoys  what  is  more  precious,  Liberty.  I  speak  in  raptures  of 
that  Goddess  because  my  amiable  Mama  was  so  despotic."  He 
wrote,  in  later  life,  much  noble  verse  in  praise  of  freedom,  but  it 
must  be  understood  that  the  freedom  he  praised  was  that  of  a 
German  Prince  or  a  Cherokee  Chief,  not  the  inferior  sort  that 
might  conceivably  be  enjoyed  by  ordinary  mortals. 

In  spite  of  his  lineage  and  his  title,  his  aristocratic  relations 
fought  shy  of  him,  and  he  was  made  to  feel  himself  socially  not 
of  their  society.  His  mother  was  intensely  disliked,  and  he  was 
looked  on  with  suspicion.  He  knew  that  she  was  vulgar,  and 
darkly  feared  a  similar  defect  in  himself.  Hence  arose  that  peculiar 
blend  of  snobbery  and  rebellion  that  characterized  him.  If  he 
could  not  be  a  gentleman  in  the  modern  style,  he  would  be  a 
bold  baron  in  the  style  of  his  crusading  ancestors,  or  perhaps  fo 
the  more  ferocious  but  even  more  romantic  style  of  the  Ghibelline 
chiefs,  cursed  of  God  and  Man  as  they  trampled  their  way  to 
splendid  downfall.  Medieval  romances  and  histories  were  his 
etiquette  books.  He  sinned  like  the  Hohenstaufen,  and  like  the 
crusaders  he  died  fighting  the  Moslem. 

His  shyness  and  sense  of  friendle&sness  made  him  look  for 
comfort  in  love-affairs,  but  as  he  was  unconsciously  seeking  a 
mother  rather  than  a  mistress,  all  disappointed  him  except  Augusta. 
Calvinism,  which  he  never  shook  off — to  Shelley,  in  1816,  he 
described  himself  as  "Methodist,  Calvinist,  Augustinian"— made 
him  feel  that  his  manner  of  life  was  wicked ;  but  wickedness,  he 
told  himself,  was  a  hereditary  curse  in  his  blood,  an  evil  fate  to 
which  he  was  predestined  by  the  Almighty.  If  that  were  indeed 
the  case,  since  he  must  be  rertlarkable,  he  would  be  remarkable 
as  a  sinner,  and  would  dare  transgressions  beyond  the  courage  of 
the  fashionable  libertines  whom  he  wished  to  despise.  He  loved 

776 


BYRON 

Augusta  genuinely  because  she  was  of  his  blood— of  the  Ishmaelite 
race  of  the  Byrons— and  also,  more  simply,  because  she  had  an 
elder  sister's  kindly  care  for  his  daily  welfare.  But  this  was  not 
all  that  she  had  to  offer  him.  Through  her  simplicity  and  her 
obliging  -good-nature,  she  became  the  means  of  providing  him 
with  the  most  delicious  self-congratulatory  remorse.  He  could 
feel  himself  the  equal  of  the  greatest  sinners— the  peer  of  Manfred, 
of  Cain,  almost  of  Satan  himself.  The  Calvinist,  the  aristocrat, 
and  the  rebel  were  all  equally  satisfied ;  and  so  was  the  romantic 
lover,  whose  heart  was  broken  by  the  loss  of  the  only  earthly  being 
still  capable  of  rousing  in  it  the  gentler  emotions  of  pity  and  love. 

Byron,  though  he  felt  himself  the  equal  of  Satan,  never  quite 
ventured  to  put  himself  in  the  place  of  God.  This  next  step  in  the 
growth  of  pride  was  taken  by  Nietzsche,  who  says:  "If  there  were 
Gods,  how  could  I  endure  it  to  be  not  God !  Tlierefore  there  are 
no  Gods.M  Observe  the  suppressed  premiss  of  this  reasoning: 
"Whatever  humbles  my  pride  is  to  be  judged  false."  Nietzsche, 
like  Byron,  and  even  to  a  greater  degree,  had  a  pious  upbringing, 
but  having  a  better  intellect,  he  found  a  better  escape  than 
Satanism.  He  remained,  however,  very  sympathetic  to  Byron. 
He  says: 

"The  tragedy  is  that  we  cannot  believe  the  dogmas  of  religion 
^pd  metaphysics  if  we  have  the  strict  methods  of  truth  in  heart 
and  head,  but  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  become  through  the 
development  of  humanity  so  tenderly  sensitively  suffering  that 
we  need  the  highest  kind  of  means  of  salvation  and  consolation: 
whence  arises  the  danger  that  man  may  bleed  to  death  through 
the  truth  that  he  recognizes.  Byron  expresses  this  in  immortal 
lines: 

Sorrow  is  knowledge:  they  who  know  the  most 
Must  mourn  the  deepest  o'er  the  fatal  truth, 
The  Tree  of  Knowledge  is  not  that  of  Life.1' 

Sometimes,  though  rarely,  Byron  approaches  more  nearly  to 
Nietzsche's  point  of  view.  But  in  general  Byron's  ethical  theory, 
as  opposed  to  his  practice,  remains  strictly  conventional. 

The  great  man,  to  Nietzsche,  is  godlike;  to  Byron,  usually,  a 
Titan  at  war  with  himself.  Some'times,  however,  he  portrays  a 
sage  not  unlike  Zarathustra— the  Corsair,  in  his  dealings  with  his 
followers, 

777 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Still  sways  their  souls  with  that  commanding  art 
That  dazzles,  leads,  yet  chills  the  vulgar  heart. 

And  this  same  hero  "hated  man  too  much  to  feel  remorse/'  A 
foot-note  assures  us  that  the  Corsair  is  true  to  human  -nature,  since 
similar  traits  were  exhibited  by  Gensertc,  King  of  the  Vandals, 
by  Ezzelino  the  Ghibelline  tyrant,  and  by  a  certain  Louisiana 
pirate. 

Byron  was  not  obliged  to  confine  himself  to  the  Levant  and  the 
Middle  Ages  in  his  search  for  heroes,  since  it  was  not  difficult  to 
invest  Napoleon  with  a  romantic  mantle.  The  influence  of 
Napoleon  on  the  imagination  of  nineteenth-century  Europe  was 
very  profound;  he  inspired  Clausewitz,  Stendhal,  Heine,  the 
thought  of  Fichte  and  Nietzsche,  and  the  acts  of  Italian  patriots. 
His  ghost  stalks  through  the  age,  the  only  force  which  is  strong 
enough  to  stand  up  against  industrialism  and  commerce,  pouring 
scorn  on  pacifism  and  shop-keeping.  Tolstoy's  War  and  Peace  is 
an  attempt  to  exorcize  the  ghost,  but  a  vain  one,  for  the  spectre 
has  never  been  more  powerful  than  at  the  present  day. 

During  the  Hundred  Days,  Byron  proclaimed  his  wish  for 
Napoleon's  victory,  and  when  he  heard  of  Waterloo  he  said,  'Tm 
damned  sorry  for  it."  Only  once,  for  a  moment,  did  he  turn  against 
his  hero:  in  1814,  when  (so  he  thought)  suicide  would  have  been 
more  seemly  than  abdication.  At  this  moment,  he  sought  con- 
solation in  the  virtue  of  Washington,  but  the  return  from  Elba 
made  this  effort  no  longer  necessary.  In  France,  when  Byron  died, 
"It  was  remarked  in  many  newspapers  that  the  two  greatest  men 
of  the  century,  Napoleon  and  Byron,  had  disappeared  almost  at 
the  same  time/'1  Carlyle,  who,  at  the  time,  considered  Byron  "the 
noblest  spirit  in  Europe,"  and  felt  as  if  he  had  "lost  a  brother," 
came  afterwards  to  prefer  Goethe,  but  still  coupled  Byron  with 
Napoleon : 

"for  your  nobler  minds,  the  publishing  of  some  such  Work  of 
Art,  in  one  or  the  other  dialect,  becomes  almost  a  necessity.  For 
what  is  it  properly  but  an  altercation  with  the  Devil,  before  you 
begin  honestly  Fighting  him  ?  Your  Byron  publishes  hi*  Sorrows 
ff  Lard  George,  in  verse  and  in  prose,  and  copiously  otherwise: 
your  Bonaparte  presents  his  Sonv&s  of  Napoleon  Opera,  in  an 
ail  too-ttupcndous  style ;  with  music  of  canon-volleys,  and  murder- 
1  Mfturoit,  Li/r  of  Byron, 

778 


BYRON 

shrieks  of  a  world;  his  stage-lights  are  the  fires  of  Conflagration; 
his  rhyme  and  recitative  are  the  tramp  of  embanded  Hosts  and 
the  sound  of  falling  Cities."1 

It  is  true  that,  three  chapters  further  on,  he  gives  the  emphatic 
command:  "Close  thy  Byron;  open  thy  Goethe."  But  Byron  was 
in  his  bl&ocf,  whereas  Goethe  remained  an  aspiration. 

To  Carlyle,  Goethe  and  Byron  were  antitheses;  to  Alfred  de 
Musset,  they  were  accomplices  in  the  wicked  work  of  instilling 
the  poison  of  melancholy  into  the  cheerful  Gallic  soul.  Most  young 
Frenchmen  of  that  age  knew  Goethe,  it  seems,  only  through  The 
Sorrows  of  Werther,  and  not  at  all  as  the  Olympian.  Musset 
blamed  Byron  for  not  being  consoled  by  the  Adriatic  and  Countess 
Guiccioli— wrongly,  for  after  he  knew  her  he  wrote  no  more 
Afanfreds.  But  Don  Juan  was  as  little  read  in  France  as  Goethe's 
more  cheerful  poetry.  In  spite  of  Musset,  most  French  poets, 
ever  since,  have  found  Byronic  unhappiness  the  best  material 
for  their  verses. 

To  Musset,  it  was  only  after  Napoleon  that  Byron  and  Goethe 
were  the  greatest  geniuses  of  the  century.  Born  in  1810,  Musset 
was  one  of  the  generation  whom  he  describes  as  "conpts  entre  deux 
batai/tes"  in  a  lyrical  description  of  the  glories  and  disasters  of  the 
Krnpirc.  In  Germany,  feeling  about  Xapoleon  was  more  divided. 
There  were  those  who,  like  Heine,  saw  him  as  the  mighty  mis- 
sionary of  liberalism,  the  destroyer  of  serfdom,  the  enemy  of 
legitimacy,  the  man  who  made  hereditary  princelings  tremble; 
there  were  others  who  saw  him  as  Antichrist,  the  would-be 
destroyer  of  the  noble  German  nation,  the  immoralist  who  had 
proved  once  for  all  that  Teutonic  virtue  can  only  be  preserved  by 
unquenchable  hatred  of  France.  Bismarck  effected  a  synthesis: 
Napoleon  remained  Antichrist,  but  an  Antichrist  to  be  imitated, 
not  merely  to  be  abhorred.  Nietzsche,  who  accepted  the  com- 
promise, remarked  with  ghoulish  joy  that  the  classical  age  of  war 
is  coming,  and  that  we  owe  this  boon,  not  to  the  French  Revolution, 
but  to  Napoleon.  And  in  this  way  nationalism,  Satahisni,  and 
hero-worship,  the  legacy  of  Byron,  became  part  of  the  complex 
soul  of  Germany. 

Byron  is  not  gentle,  but  violent  like  a  thunderstorm.  What  he 
saya  of  Rousseau  is  applicable  *o  himself.  Rousseau  was,  he 
says 

1  Parlor  Ht tart  us,  Book  11,  chap.  vi. 
779 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

He  who  threw 

Enchantment  over  passion,  and  from  woe 
Wrung  overwhelming  eloquence  .  .  . 

yet  he  knew 

How  to  make  madness  beautiful,  and  cast 
O'er  erring  deeds  and  thoughts,  a  heavenly  huQ, 

But  there  is  a  profound  difference  between  the  two  men.  Rousseau 
is  pathetic,  Byron  is  fierce ;  Rousseau's  timidity  is  obvious,  Byron's 
is  concealed ;  Rousseau  admires  virtue  provided  it  is  simple,  while 
Byron  admires  sin  provided  it  is  elemental.  The  difference,  though 
it  is  only  that  between  two  stages  in  the  revolt  of  unsocial  instincts, 
is  important,  and  shows  the  direction  in  which  the  movement  is 
developing. 

Byron's  romanticism,  it  must  be  confessed,  was  only  half 
sincere.  At  times,  he  would  say  that  Pope's  poetry  was  better  than 
his  own,  but  this  judgment,  also,  was  probably  only  what  he 
thought  in  certain  moods.  The  world  insisted  on  simplifying  him, 
and  omitting  the  element  of  pose  in  his  cosmic  despair  and  pro- 
fessed contempt  for  mankind.  Like  many  other  prominent  men, 
he  was  more  important  as  a  myth  than  as  he  really  was.  As  a 
myth,  his  importance,  especially  on  the  Continent,  was  enormous. 


Chapter  XXIV 
SCHOPENHAUER 

SCHOPENHAUER  (1788-1860)  is  in  many  ways  peculiar 
among  philosophers.  He  is  a  pessimist,  whereas  almost  all 
the  others  are  in  some  sense  optimists.  \Hc  is  not  fully 
academic,  like  Kant  and  Hegel,  nor  yet  completely  outside  the 
academic  tradition.  He  dislikes  Christianity,  preferring  the  religions 
of  India,  both  Hinduism  and  Buddhism.  He  is  a  man  of  wide 
culture,  quite  as  much  interested  in  art  as  in  ethics.  He  is  un^ 
usually  free  from  nationalism,  and  as  much  at  home  with  English 
and  French  writers  as  with  those  of  his  own  country.  His  appeal 
has  always  been  less  to  professional  philosophers  than  to  artistic 
and  literary  people  in  search  of  a  philosophy  that  they  could 
believe.  He  began  the  emphasis  on  Will  which  is  characteristic  of 
much  nineteenth*  and  twentieth-century  philosophy ;  but  for  him 
Will,  though  metaphysically  fundamental,  is  ethically  evil — an 
opposition  only  possible  for  a  pessimist.  He  acknowledges  three 
sources  of  his  philosophy,  Kant,  Plato,  and  the  Upanishads,  but 
I  do  not  think  he  owes  as  much  to  Plato  as  he  thinks  he  does. 
I  lis  outlook  has  a  certain  temperamental  affinity  with  that  of  the 
IWlcnistic  age;  it  is  tired  and  valetudinarian,  valuing  peace  more 
than  victor)-,  and  quietism  more  than  attempts  at  reform,  which 
he  regards  as  inevitably  futile. f 

Both  his  parents  belonged  to  prominent  commercial  families  in 
Danzig,  where  he  was  born.  His  father  was  a  Voltairian,  who  re- 
garded England  as  the  land  of  liberty  and  intelligence.  In  common 
with  most  of  the  leading  citizens  of  Danzig,  he  hated  the  encroach- 
ments of  Prussia  on  the  independence  of  the  free  city,  and  was 
indignant  when  it  was  annexed  to  Prussia  in  1793—50  indignant 
that  he  removed  to  Hamburg,  at  considerable  pecuniary  t  loss. 
Schopenhauer  lived  there  with  his  father  from  1793  to  *797;  then 
he  spent  two  years  in  Paris,  at  the  end  of  which  his  father  was 
pleased  to  find  that  the  boy  had  nearly  forgotten  German.  In  1803 
he  was  put  in  a  boarding-school  in  England,  where  he  hated  the 
cant  and  hypocrisy.  Two  years  liter,  to  please  his  father,  he* 
became  a  clerk  in  a  commercial  house  in  Hamburg,  but  he  loathed 
the  prospect  of  a  business  career,  and  longed  for  a  literary  and. 

781 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

academic  life.  This  was  made  possible  by  his  father's  death,  pro- 
bably by  suicide;  his  mother  was  willing  that  he  should  abandon 
commerce  for  school  and  university.  It  might  be  supposed  that 
he  would,  in  consequence,  have  preferred  her  to  his  father,  but 
the  exact  opposite  happened :  he  disliked  his  mother,  and  retained 
an  affectionate  memory  of  his  father. 

Schopenhauer's  mother  was  a  lady  of  literary  aspirations,  who 

settled  in  Weimar  two  weeks  before  the  battle  of  Jena.  There  she 

kept  a  literary  salon,  wrote  books,  and  enjoyed  friendships  with 

men  of  culture.  She  had  little  affection  for  her  son,  and  a  keen 

eye  for  his  faults.  She  warned  him  against  bombast  and  empty 

Bathos ;  he  was  annoyed  by  her  philanderings.  When  he  came  of 

if*  he  inherited  a  modest  competence ;  after  this,  he  and  his  mother 

ajojially  found  each  other  more  and  more  intolerable.  His  low 

dip  jtf  of  women  is  no  doubt  due,  at  least  in  part,  to  his  quarrels 

*69op  9  mother. 

jnq  'spiy  at  Hamburg  he  had  come  under  the  influence  of  the 
aajtp  soL>  especially  Tieck,  Novalis,  and  Hoffmann,  from  whom 
UB — [IAS  o  admire  Greece  and  to  think  ill  of  the  Hebraic  elements 
miif  joj  ianity.  Another  romantic,  Fried  rich  Schlegel,  confirmed 
jo  Dn&iais  admiration  of  Indian  philosophy.  In  the  year  in  which 
of  age  (1809),  he  went  to  the  university  of  G&tingen, 
he  learnt  to  admire  Kant.  Two  years  later  he  went  to  Berlin, 
he  studied  mainly  science;  he  heard  Fichte  lecture,  Kjt 
icspised  him.  He  remained  inditicrent  throughout  the  excitement 
of  the  war  of  liberation.  In  1819  he  became  a  Prrvaidozent  at 
Berlin,  and  had  the  conceit  to  put  his  lectures  at  the  same  hour  as 
Hegel's;  having  failed  to  lure  away  Hegel's  hearers,  he  soon  ceased 
to  lecture.  In  the  end  he  settled  down  to  the  life  of  an  old  bachelor 
in  Frankfurt.  He  kept  a  poodle  named  Anna  (the  world-soul), 
walked  two  hours  every  day,  smoked  a  long  pipe,  read  the  Ixmdon 
Times,  and  employed  correspondents  to  hunt  up  evidences  of  his 
fame.  He  was  anti-democratic,  and  hated  the  revolution  of  1848; 
he  believed  in  spiritualism  and  magic;  in  his  study  he  had  a  bust 
of  Kant  and  a  bronze  Buddha.  In  his  manner  of  life  he  tried  to 
imitate  Kant  except  as  regard*  t,.r!y  rising. 

His  principal  work,  The  World  as  \\  ill  and  Idea,  was  published 
'at  the  end  of  1818.  He  believed  it  to  l>c  of  great  importance,  and 
went  so  far  as  to  say  that  some  paragraphs  in  it  had  been  dictated 
by  the  Holy  Ghost.  To  his  great  mortification  it  fell  completely 

78* 


SCHOPENHAUER 


flat.  In  1844  he  persuaded  the  publisher  to  bring  out  a  second 
edition ;  but  it  was  not  till  some  years  later  that  he  began  to  receive 
some  of  the  recognition  for  which  he  longed. 

Schopenhauer's  system  is  an  adaptation  of  Kant's,  but  one  that 
emphasizes  quite  different  aspects  of  the  Critique  from  those 
emphasized  by  Fichte  or  Hegel.  They  got  rid  of  the  thing-in- 
itself,  and  thus  made  knowledge  metaphysically  fundamental. 
Schopenhauer  retained  the  thing-in-itself,  but  identified  it  with 
will.  He  held  that  what  appears  to  perception  as  my  body  is  really 
my  will.  There  was  more  to  be  said  for  this  v.'ew  as  a  development 
of  Kant  than  most  Kantians  were  willing  to  recognize.  Kant  had 
maintained  that  a  study  of  the  moral  law  can  take  us  behind 
phenomena,  and  give  us  knowledge  which  sense-perception  cannot 
give;  he  also  maintained  that  the  moral  law  is  essentially  concerned 
with  the  will.  The  difference  between  a  good  man  and  a  bad 
man  is,  for  Kant,  a  difference  in  the  world  of  things-in-themselves, 
and  is  also  a  difference  as  to  volitions.  It  follows  that,  for  Kant, 
volitions  must  belong  to  the  real  world,  not  to  the  world  of  pheno- 
mena. The  phenomenon  corresponding  to  a  volition  is  a  bodily 
movement ;  that  is  why,  according  to  Schopenhauer,  the  body  is 
the  appearance  of  which  will  is  the  reality. 

But  the  will  which  is  behind  phenomena  cannot  consist  of  a 
number  of  different  volitions.  Both  time  and  space,  according  to 
Kant— and  in  this  Schopenhauer  agrees  with  him— belong  only 
to  phenomena;  the  thing-in-itself  is  not  in  space  or  time.  My  will, 
therefore,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  real,  cannot  be  dated,  nor 
can  it  be  composed  of  separate  acts  of  will,  because  it  is  space  and 
time  that  are  the  source  of  plurality— the  "principle  of  individua- 
tion,"  to  use  the  scholastic  phrase  which  Schopenhauer  prefers. 
My  will,  therefore,  is  one  and  timeless.  Nay,  more,  it  is  to  be 
identified  with  the  will  of  the  whole  universe;  my  separateness  is 
an  illusion,  resulting  from  my  subjective  apparatus  of  spatio- 
temporal  perception.  What  is  real  is  one  vast  will,  appearing  in 
the  whole  course  of  nature,  animate  and  inanimate  alike. 

So  far,  we  might  expect  Schopenhauer  to  identify  his  cosmic 
will  with  God,  and  teach  a  pantheistic  doctrine  not  unlike  Spinoza ,  s, 
in  which  virtue  would  consist  in  conformity  to  the  divine  will. 
But  at  this  point  his  pessimism  leads  to  a  different  development. 
The  cosmic  will  is  wicked;  will,  altogether,  is  wicked,  or  at  any 
rate  is  the  source  of  all  our  endless  suffering.  Suffering  is  essential* 

783 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

to  all  life,  and  is  increased  by  every  increase  of  knowledge.  Will 
has  no  fixed  end,  which  if  achieved  would  bring  contentment. 
Although  death  must  conquer  in  the  end,  we  pursue  our  futile 
purposes,  "as  we  blow  out  a  soap-bubble  as  long  and  as  large  as 
possible,  although  we  know  perfectly  well  that  it  wrll  burst." 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  happiness,  for  an  unfulfilled  wish  causes 
pain,  and  attainment  brings  only  satiety.  Instinct  urges  men  to 
procreation,  which  brings  into  existence  a  new  occasion  for 
suffering  and  death;  that  is  why  shame  is  associated  with  the 
sexual  act.  Suicide  is  useless;  the  doctrine  of  transmigration,  even 
if  not  literally  true,  conveys  truth  in  the  form  of  a  myth. 

All  this  is  very  sad,  but  there  is  a  way  out,  and  it  was  discovered 
in  India. 

The  best  of  myths  is  that  of  Nirvana  (which  Schopenhauer 
interprets  as  extinction).  This,  he  agrees,  is  contrary  to  Christian 
doctrine,  but  "the  ancient  wisdom  of  the  human  race  will  not  be 
displaced  by  what  happened  in  Galilee."  The  cause  of  suffering 
is  intensity  of  will;  the  less  we  exercise  will,  the  less  we  shall 
suffer.  And  here  knowledge  turns  out  to  be  useful  after  all,  pro- 
vided it  is  knowledge  of  a  certain  sort.  The  distinction  between 
one  man  and  another  is  pan  of  the  phenomenal  world,  and  dis- 
appears when  the  world  is  seen  truly.  To  the  good  man,  the  veil 
of  Maya  (illusion)  has  become  transparent ;  he  sees  that  all  things 
are  one,  and  that  the  distinction  between  himself  and  another  is 
only  apparent.  He  reaches  this  insight  by  love,  which  is  always 
sympathy,  and  has  to  do  with  the  pain  of  others.  When  the 
veil  of  Maya  is  lifted,  a  man  takes  on  the  suffering  of  the  whole 
world.  In  the  good  man,  knowledge  of  the  whole  quiets  ail 
volition;  his  mil  turns  away  from  life  and  denies  his  own 
nature.  "There  arises  within  him  a  horror  of  the  nature  of 
which  his  own  phenomenal  existence  is  an  expression,  the  kernel 
and  inner  nature  of  that  world  which  is  recognized  as  full  of 
misery."* 

Hence  Schopenhauer  is  led  to  complete  agreement,  at  least  as 
regards  practice,  with  ascetic  mysticism.  Eckhard  and  Angclus 
Stksius  are  better  than  the  New  Testament.  There  are  itome  good 
jhings  in  orthodox  Christianity »  notably  the  doctrine  of  original 
sin  as  preached,  against  "the  vulgar  Pclagtanism,"  by  St.  Augus- 
tine and  Luther;  but  the  Gospels  are  sadly  deficient  in  meta- 
physics. Buddhism,  he  says,  in  the  highest  religion ;  and  his  ethical 

784 


SCHOPENHAUER 

doctrines  are  orthodox  throughout  Asia,  except  where  the  "detest- 
able doctrine  of  Islam"  prevails. 

The  good  man  will  practise  complete  chastity,  voluntary  poverty, 
fasting,  and  self-torture.  In  all  things  he  will  aim  at  breaking  down 
his  individual  will.  But  he  does  not  do  this,  as  do  the  Western 
mystics,  to  achieve  harmony  with  God ;  no  such  positive  good  is 
sought.  The  good  that  is  sought  is  wholly  and  entirely  negative: 

"We  must  banish  the  dark  impression  of  that  nothingness  which 
we  discern  behind  all  virtue  and  holiness  as  their  final  goal,  and 
which  we  fear  as  children  fear  the  dark;  we  must  not  even  evade 
it  like  the  Indians,  through  myths  and  meaningless  words,  such 
as  reabsorption  in  Brahma  or  the  Nirvana  of  the  Buddhists.  Rather 
do  we  freely  acknowledge  that  what  remains  after  the  entire  aboli- 
tion of  will  is  for  all  those  who  are  still  full  of  will  certainly  nothing; 
but,  conversely,  to  those  in  whom  the  will  has  turned  and  has 
denied  itself,  this  our  world,  which  is  so  real,  with  all  its  suns  and 
milky  ways — is  nothing." 

There  is  a  vague  suggestion  here  that  the  saint  sees  something 
positive  which  other  men  do  not  see,  but  there  is  nowhere  a  hint 
as  to  what  this  is,  and  I  think  the  suggestion  is  only  rhetorical. 
The  world  and  ail  its  phenomena,  Schopenhauer  says,  are  only  the 
ohjectification  of  will.  With  the  surrender  of  the  will, 

*  "  all  those  phenomena  arc  also  abolished ;  that  constant  strain  and 
effort  without  end  and  without  rest  at  all  the  grades  of  objectivity 
in  which  and  through  which  the  world  consists;  the  multifarious 
forms  succeeding  each  other  in  gradation ;  the  whole  manifestation 
of  the  will ;  and.  finally,  also  the  universal  forms  of  this  manifesta- 
tion, time  and  space,  and  also  its  last  fundamental  form,  subject 
and  object;  all  are  abolished.  No  will:  no  idea,  no  world.  Before 
us  there  is  certainly  only  nothingness." 

We  cannot  interpret  this  except  as  meaning  that  the  saint's 
purpose  is  to  come  as  near  as  possible  to  non-existenc^  which,  for 
some  reason  never  clearly  explained,  he  cannot  achieve  by  suicide. 
Why  the  saint  is  to  be  preferred  to  a  man  who  is  always  drunk 
is  not  very  easy  to  see;  perhaps  Schopenhauer  thought  the  sober 
moments  were  bound  to  be  sadly  frequent. 

Schopenhauer's  gospel  of  resignation  is  not  very  consistent  and 
not  very  sincere.  ,The  mystics  to  whom  he  appeals  believed  in 
contemplation;  in  the  Beatific  Vision  the  most  profound  kind  pf 

7«S 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

knowledge  was  to  be  achieved,  and  this  kind  of  knowledge  was  the 
supreme  good.  Ever  since  Parmenides,  the  delusive  knowledge 
of  appearance  was  contrasted  with  another  kind  of  knowledge, 
not  with  something  of  a  wholly  different  kind.  Christianity  teaches 
that  in  knowledge  of  God  standeth  our  eternal  life.  But  Schopen- 
hauer will  have  none  of  this.  He  agreed  that  what  commonly  passes 
for  knowledge  belongs  to  the  realm  of  Maya,  but  when  we  pierce 
the  veil,  we  behold  not  God,  but  Satan,  the  wicked  omnipotent 
will,  perpetually  busied  in  weaving  a  web  of  suffering  for  the 
torture  of  its  creatures.  Terrified  by  the  Diabolic  Vision,  the  sage 
cries  "Avaum!"  and  seeks  refuge  in  non-existence.  It  is  an  insult 
to  the  mystics  to  claim  them  as  believers  in  this  mythology.  And 
the  suggestion  that,  without  achieving  complete  non-existence, 
the  sage  may  yet  live  a  life  having  some  value,  is  not  possible  to 
reconcile  with  Schopenhauer's  pessimism.  So  long  as  the  sage 
exists,  he  exists  because  he  retains  will,  which  is  evil.  He  may 
diminish  the  quantity  of  evil  by  weakening  his  will,  but  he  can 
never  acquire  any  positive  good. 

Nor  is  the  doctrine  sincere,  if  we  may  judge  by  Schopenhauer's 
life.  He  habitually  dined  well,  at  a  good  restaurant;  he  had  many 
trivial  love-affairs,  which  were  sensual  but  not  passionate;  he  was 
exceedingly  quarrelsome  and  unusually  avaricious.  On  one  occa- 
sion he  was  annoyed  by  an  elderly  seamstress  who  was  talking  to 
a  friend  outside  the  door  of  his  apartment.  He  threw  her  down- 
stairs, causing  her  permanent  injury.  She  obtained  a  court  order 
compelling  him  to  pay  her  a  certain  sum  (15  thalcrs)  even-  quarter 
as  long  as  she  lived.  When  at  last  she  died,  after  twenty  years,  he 
noted  in  his  account-book:  "Obit  anus,  abit  onus."1  It  is  hard  to 
find  in  his  life  evidences  of  any  virtue  except  kindness  to  animals, 
which  he  carried  to  the  point  of  objecting  to  vivisection  in  the 
interests  of  science.  In  all  other  respects  he  was  completely  selfish. 
It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  a  man  who  was  profoundly  convinced 
of  the  jiiti^e  of  asceticism  and  resignation  would  never  have  made 
any  attempt  to  embody  his  convictions  in  his  practice. 

Historically,  two  things  are  important  about  Schopenhauer:  his 
pessimism,  and  his  doctrine  that  will  is  superior  to  knowledge.  His 
pessimism  made  it  possible  for  men  to  take  to  philosophy  without 
having  to  persuade  themselves  t&at  all  evil  can  be  explained  away, 
and  in  this  way,  as  an  antidote,  it  was  useful.  From  a  scientific 
1  "The  old  woman  dies,  the  burden  departs/' 

786 


SCHOPENHAUER 

point  of  view,  optimism  and  pessimism  are  alike  objectionable: 
optimism  assumes,  or  attempts  to  prove,  that  the  universe  exists 
to  please  us,  and  pessimism  that  it  exists  to  displease  us.  Scien- 
tifically, there  is  no  evidence  that  it  is  concerned  with  us  either 
one  way  or  the  other.  The  belief  in  either  pessimism  or  optimism 
is  a  matter  *of  temperament,  not  of  reason,  but  the  optimistic 
temperament  has  been  much  commoner  among  Western  philo- 
sophers. A  representative  of  the  opposite  party  is  therefore  likely 
to  be  useful  in  bringing  forward  considerations  which  would  other- 
wise be  overlooked. 

More  important  than  pessimism  was  the  doctrine  of  the  primacy 
of  the  will.  It  is  obvious  that  this  doctrine  has  no  necessary  logical 
connection  with  pessimism,  and  those  who  held  it  after  Schopen- 
hauer frequently  found  in  it  a  basis  for  optimism.  In  one  form  or 
another,  the  doctrine  that  will  is  paramount  has  been  held  I  y  many 
modern  philosophers,  notably  Nietzsche,  Bergson,  James,  and 
Dcwey.  It  has,  moreover,  acquired  a  vogue  outside  the  circles  of 
professional  philosophers.  And  in  proportion  as  will  has  gone  up 
in  the  scale,  knowledge  has  gone  down.  This  is,  I  think,  the  most 
notable  change  that  has  come  over  the  temper  of  philosophy  in 
our  age.  It  was  prepared  by  Rousseau  and  Kant,  but  was  first 
proclaimed  in  its  purity  by  Schopenhauer.  For  this  reason,  in  spite 
of  inconsistency  and  a  certain  shallowness,  his  philosophy  has 
considerable  importance  as  a  stage  in  historical  development. 


7*7 


Chapter  XXV 
NIETZSCHE 

NIETZSCHE  (1844-1900)  regarded  himself,  rightly,  as  the 
successor  of  Schopenhauer,  to  whom,  however,  he  is 
superior  in  many  ways,  particularly  in  the  consistency 
and  coherence  of  his  doctrine.  Schopenhauer's  oriental  ethic  of 
renunciation  seems  out  of  harmony  with  his  metaphysic  of  the 
omnipotence  of  will ;  in  Nietzsche,  the  will  has  ethical  as  well  as 
metaphysical  primacy.  Nietzsche,  though  a  professor,  was  a  literary 
rather  than  an  academic  philosopher.  He  invented  no  new  tech- 
nical theories  in  ontology  or  epistemology ;  his  importance  is 
primarily  in  ethics,  and  secondarily  as  an  acute  historical  critic. 
I  shall  confine  myself  almost  entirely  to  his  ethics  and  his  criticism 
of  religion,  since  it  was  this  aspect  of  his  writing  that  made  him 
influential. 

His  life  was  simple.  His  father  was  a  Protestant  pastor,  and  his 
upbringing  was  very  pious.  He  was  brilliant  at  the  university  as 
a  classicist  and  student  of  philology,  so  much  so  that  in  1869, 
before  he  had  taken  his  degree,  he  was  offered  a  professorship 
of  philology  at  Basel,  which  he  accepted.  His  health  was  never 
good,  and  after  periods  of  sick  leave  he  was  obliged  to  retire  fma% 
in  1879.  After  this,  he  lived  in  Switzerland  anJ  Italy;  in 
1888  he  became  insane,  and  remained  so  until  his  death,  lie  had 
a  passionate  admiration  for  Wagner,  but  quarrelled  with  him, 
nominally. over  Parsifal,  which  he  thought  too  Christian  and  tcx) 
full  of  renunciation.  After  the  quarrel  he  critio/cd  Wagner 
savagely,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  accuse  him  of  being  a  Jew. 
His  general  outlook,  however,  remained  very  airniUr  to  that  of 
Wagner  in  the  Rtng\  Nietzsche's  superman  is  very  like  Siegfried, 
except  that  he  knows  Greek.  This  may  seem  odd,  but  that  in  not 
my  faftlt.  • 

Nietzsche  was  not  consciously  a  romantic;  indeed  he  often 
severely  criticizes  the  romantics.  Consciously  his  outlook  was 
Hellenic,  but  with  the  Orphic  component  omitted.  He  admired  the 
pre*Socratics,  except  Pythagoras.  He  ha»  a  close  affinity  to 
Hcraditu*.  Aristotle'*  magnanimous  man  IB  very  like  what 
Nietzsche  calls  the  "noble  man/'  but  in  the  main  he  regards  the 

788 


NIETZSCHE 

Greek  philosophers  from  Socrates  onwards  as  inferior  to  their 
predecessors.  He  cannot  forgive  Socrates  for  his  humble  origin; 
he  calls  him  a  "roturier,"  and  accuses  him  of  corrupting  the  noble 
Athenian  youth  with  a  democratic  moral  bias.  Plato,  especially, 
is  condemned  on  account  of  his  taste  for  edification.  Nietzsche, 
however,  Obviously  does  not  quite  like  condemning  him,  and  sug- 
gests, to  excuse  him,  that  perhaps  he  was  insincere,  and  only 
preached  virtue  as  a  means  of  keeping  the  lower  classes  in  order. 
He  speaks  of  him  on  one  occasion  as  "a  great  Cagliostro."  He 
likes  Democritus  and  Epicurus,  but  his  affection  for  the  latter 
seems  somewhat  illogical,  unless  it  is  interpreted  as  really  an 
admiration  for  Lucretius. 

As  might  be  expected,  he  has  a  low  opinion  of  Kant,  whom  he 
calls  "a  moral  fanatic  a  la  Rousseau." 

In  spite  of  Nietzsche's  criticism  of  the  romantics,  his  rut  look 
owes  much  to  them;  it  is  that  of  aristocratic  anarchism,  like 
Byron's,  and  one  is  not  surprised  to  find  him  admiring  Byron. 
He  attempts  to  combine  two  sets  of  values  which  are  not  easily 
harmonized:  on  the  one  hand  he  likes  ruthlessness,  war,  and 
aristocratic  pride;  on  the  other  hand,  he  loves  philosophy  and 
literature  and  the  arts,  especially  music.  Historically,  these  values 
coexisted  in  the  Renaissance;  Pope  Julius  II,  fighting  for  Bologna 
and  employing  Michelangelo,  might  be  taken  as  the  sort  of  man 
whom  Nietzsche  would  wish  to  see  in  control  of  governments.  It 
is  natural  to  compare  Nietzsche  with  Machiavelli,  in  spite  of 
important  differences  between  the  two  men.  As  for  the  differences: 
Machiavelli  was  a  man  of  affairs,  whose  opinions  had  been  formed 
by  close  contact  with  public  business,  and  were  in  harmony  with 
his  age;  he  was  not  pedantic  or  systematic,  and  his  philosophy 
of  politics  scarcely  forms  a  coherent  whole;  Nietzsche,  on  the 
contrary,  was  a  professor,  an  essentially  bookish  man,  and  a  philo- 
sopher in  conscious  opposition  to  what  appeared  to  be  the  domi- 
nant political  and  ethical  trends  of  his  time.  The  similarities, 
however,  go  deeper.  Nietzsche's  political  philosophy  is  Analogous 
to  that  of  The  Prince  (not  The  Discourses),  though  it  is  worked 
out  and  applied  over  a  wider  field.  Both  Nietzsche  and  Machiavelli 
have  an  ethic  which  aims  at  power  and  is  deliberately  anti-Chris- 
tian, though  Nietzsche  is  more  frank  in  this  respect.  What  Caesas 
Borgia  was  to  Machiavelli,  Napoleon  was  to  Nietzsche:  a  great 
man  defeated  by  petty  opponents. 

789 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

Nietzsche's  criticism  of  religions  and  philosophies  is  dominated 
entirely  by  ethical  motives.  He  admires  certain  qualities  which 
he  believes  (perhaps  rightly)  to  be  only  possible  for  an  aristocratic 
minority;  the  majority,  in  his  opinion,  should  be  only  means  to 
the  excellence  of  the  few,  and  should  not  be  regarded  as  having 
any  independent  claim  to  happiness  or  well-being.  Fie  alludes 
habitually  to  ordinary  human  beings  as  the  "bungled  and  botched/9 
and  sees  no  objection  to  their  suffering  if  it  is  necessary  for  the 
production  of  a  great  man.  Thus  the  whole  importance  of  the 
period  from  1789  to  1815  is  summed  up  in  Napoleon:  "The 
Revolution  made  Napoleon  possible:  that  is  its  justification.  We 
ought  to  desire  the  anarchical  collapse  of  the  whole  of  our  civiliza- 
tion if  such  a  reward  were  to  be  its  result.  Napoleon  made  national- 
ism possible:  that  is  the  latter's  excuse."  Almost  all  of  the  higher 
hopes  of  this  century,  he  says,  are  due  to  Napoleon. 

He  is  fond  of  expressing  himself  paradoxically  and  with  a  view 
to  shocking  conventional  readers.  He  docs  this  by  employing  the 
words  "good"  and  "evil"  with  their  ordinary  connotations,  and 
then  saying  that  he  prefers  "evil"  to  "good."  His  book,  Beyond 
Good  and  Evil,  really  aims  at  changing  the  reader's  opinion  as  to 
what  is  good  and  what  is  evil,  but  professes,  except  at  moments, 
to  be  praising  what  is  "evil"  and  decrying  what  is  "good."  He 
says,  for  instance,  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  regard  it  as  a  duty  to  aim 
at  the  victor}'  of  good  and  the  annihilation  of  evil ;  this  vte\»  is 
English,  and  typical  of  "that  blockhead,  John  Stuart  Mill,"  a  man 
for  whom  he  has  a  specially  virulent  contempt.  Of  him  he  says: 

"I  abhor  the  man's  vulgarity  when  he  says  'What  is  right  for 
one  man* is  right  for  another';  'Do  not  to  others  that  which  you 
would  not  that  they  should  do  unto  you.*1  Such  principles  would 
fain  establish  the  whole  of  human  traffic  upon  mutual  irrruri,  so 
that  every  action  would  appear  to  be  a  ca&h  payment  for  something 
done  to  us.  The  hypothesis  here  u  ignoble  to  the  la*t  degree:  it 
is  taken  for  granted  that  there  is  some  sort  of  cqunalencc  in  value 
betwfen  rlty  actions  and  thine"* 

True  virtue,  as  opposed  to  the  conventional  son,  is  not  for  all, 
but  should  remain  the  characteristic  of  an  aristocratic  minority 
It  is  not  profitable  or  prudent ;  it  bolate*  its  potscutor  from  other 
men;  it  is  hostile  to  ondcr,  amkdoe*  harm  to  inferiors.  It  is  necc*- 

1  I  teem  to  remember  that  iomcon*  anticipated  Mill  in  thi»  dictum. 
1  In  all  quotations  from  Nietzsche,  the  italics  »nr  in  the  original 

790 


NIETZSCHE 

sary  for  higher  men  to  make  war  upon  the  masses,  and  resist  the 
democratic  tendencies  of  the  age,  for  in  all  directions  mediocre 
people  are  joining  hands  to  make  themselves  masters.  "Everything 
that  pampers,  that  softens,  and  that  brings  the  'people'  or  'woman' 
to  the  front,  operates  in  favour  of  universal  suffrage — that  is  to 
say,  the  dominion  of  'inferior'  men."  The  seducer  was  Rousseau, 
who  made  woman  interesting;  then  came  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe 
and  the  slaves;  then  the  Socialists  with  their  championship  of 
workmen  and  the  poor.  All  these  are  to  be  combated. 

Nietzsche's  ethic  is  not  one  of  self-indulgence  in  any  ordinary 
sense ;  he  believes  in  Spartan  discipline  and  the  capacity  to  endure 
as  well  as  inflict  pain  for  important  ends.  He  admires  strength  of 
will  above  all  things.  "I  test  the  power  of  a  will"  he  says,  "according 
to  the  amount  of  resistance  it  can  offer  and  the  amount  of  pain 
and  torture  it  con  endure  and  know  how  to  turn  to  its  own  advan- 
tage ;  I  do  not  point  to  the  evil  and  pain  of  existence  with  the  finger 
of  reproach,  but  rather  entertain  the  hope  that  life  may  one  day 
become  more  evil  and  more  full  of  suffering  than  it  has  ever  been." 
He  regards  compassion  as  a  weakness  to  be  combated.  "The  object 
is  to  attain  that  enormous  energy  of  greatness  which  can  model  the 
man  of  the  future  by  means  of  discipline  and  also  by  means  of  the 
annihilation  of  millions  of  the  bungled  and  botched,  and  which 
ca^  yet  avoid  going  to  ruin  at  the  sight  of  the  suffering  created 
thereby,  the  like  of  which  has  never  been  seen  before."  He 
prophesied  with  a  certain  glee  an  era  of  great  wars;  one  wonders 
whether  he  would  have  been  happy  if  he  had  lived  to  see  the 
fulfilment  of  his  prophecy. 

He  is  not,  however,  a  worshipper  of  the  State;  far  from  it.  He 
is  a  passionate  individualist,  a  believer  in  the  hero.  The  misery  of 
a  whole  nation,  he  says,  is  of  less  importance  than  the  suffering 
of  a  great  individual:  "The  misfortunes  of  all  these  small  folk 
do  not  together  constitute  a  sum-total,  except  in  the  feelings  of 
mighty  men."  •  ; 

Nietzsche  is  not  a  nationalist,  and  shows  no  excessive  admiration 
for  Germany.  He  wants  an  international  ruling  race,  who  are  to 
be  the  lords' of  the  earth:  "a  new  vast  aristocracy  based  upon  the 
most  severe  self-discipline,  in  which  the  will  of  philosophical  men 
of  power  and  artUt-tyrants  will  6e  stamped  upon  thousands  of 
years." 

He  is  also  not  definitely  anti-Semitic,  though  he  thinks  Germany 

79* 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

contains  as  many  Jews  as  it  can  assimilate,  and  ought  not  to  permit 
any  further  influx  of  Jews.  He  dislikes  the  New  Testament,  but 
not  the  Old,  of  which  he  speaks  in  terms  of  the  highest  admiration. 
In  justice  to  Nietzsche  it  must  be  emphasized  that  many  modern 
developments  which  have  a  certain  connection  with  his  genera] 
ethical  outlook  are  contrary  to  his  clearly  expressed  opinions. 

Two  applications  of  his  ethic  deserve  notice:  first,  his  contempt 
for  women ;  second,  his  bitter  critique  of  Christianity. 

He  is  never  tired  of  inveighing  against  women.  In  his  pseudo- 
prophetical  book,  Thus  Spake  Zarathiutra,  he  says  that  women  are 
not,  as  yet,  capable  of  friendship;  they  are  still  cats,  or  birds,  or 
at  best  cows.  "Man  shall  be  trained  for  war  and  woman  for  the 
recreation  of  the  warrior.  All  else  is  folly."  The  recreation  of  the 
warrior  is  to  be  of  a  peculiar  sort  if  one  may  trust  his  most  em- 
phatic aphorism  on  this  subject:  **Thou  gocst  to  woman?  Do  not 
forget  thy  whip." 

He  is  not  always  quite  so  fierce,  though  always  equally  con- 
temptuous. In  the  Will  to  Power  he  says:  "We  take  pleasure  in 
woman  as  in  a  perhaps  daintier,  more  delicate,  and  more  ethereal 
kind  of  creature.  What  a  treat  it  is  to  meet  creatures  who  have 
only  dancing  and  nonsense  and  finery  in  their  minds!  They  have 
always  been  the  delight  of  every  tense  and  profound  male  soul." 
However,  even  these  graces  are  only  to  be  found  in  women  so  l^ng 
as  they  are  kept  in  order  by  manly  men ;  as  soon  as  they  achieve 
any  independence  they  become  intolerable.  "Woman  has  so  much 
cause  for  shame;  in  woman  there  is  so  much  pedantry,  super- 
ficiality, schoolmasterliness,  petty  presumption,  unbridledness, 
and  indiscretion  concealed  .  .  .  which  has  really  been  best  res- 
trained and  dominated  hitherto  by  the/rar  of  man."  So  he  says 
in  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  where  he  adds  that  we  should  think  of 
women  as  property,  as  Orientals  do.  The  whole  of  his  abuse  of 
women  is  offered  as  self-evident  truth;  it  i*  not  backed  up  by 
evidence /rom  history  or  from  his  own  experience,  which,  »o  far 
as  women  were  concerned,  was  almost  confined  to  his  sister. 

Nietzsche's  objection  to  Christianity  is  that  it  caused  acceptance 
of  what  he  calls  "slave  morality."  It  is  curious  to  observe  the 
contrast  between  his  arguments  and  those  of  the  French  philosopher 
who  preceded  the  Revolution.  Yhey  argued  that  Christian  dogmas 
are  untrue;  that  Christianity  teaches  submission  to  what  is  deemed 
*o  be  the  will  of  God,  whereas  self- respecting  human  beings  should 

792 


NIETZSCHE 

not  bow  before  any  higher  Power;  and  that  the  Christian  Churches 
have  become  the  a  lies  of  tyrants,  and  are  helping  the  enemies  of 
democracy  to  deny  liberty  and  continue  to  grind  the  faces  of  the 
poor.  Nietzsche  is  not  interested  in  the  metaphysical  truth  of  either 
Christianity  or  any  other  religion ;  being  convinced  that  no  religion 
is  really  true,  he  judges  all  religions  entirely  by  their  social  effects. 
He  agrees  with  the  philosophes  in  objecting  to  submission  to  the 
supposed  will  of  God,  but  he  would  substitute  for  it  the  will  of 
earthly  "artist-tyrants."  Submission  is  right,  except  for  these 
supermen,  but  not  submission  to  the  Christian  God.  As  for  the 
Christian  Churches*  being  allies  of  tyrants  and  enemies  of  demo- 
cracy, that,  he  says,  is  the  very  reverse  of  the  truth.  The  French 
Revolution  and  Socialism  are,  according  to  him,  essentially  iden- 
tical in  spirit  with  Christianity;  to  all  alike  he  is  opposed,  and  for 
the  same  reason:  that  he  will  not  treat  all  men  as  equal  in  any 
respect  whatever. 

Buddhism  and  Christianity,  he  says,  are  both  "nihilistic"  reli- 
gions, in  the  sense  that  they  deny  any  ultimate  difference  of  value 
between  one  man  and  another,  but  Buddhism  is  much  the  less 
objectionable  of  the  two.  Christianity  is  degenerative,  full  of 
decaying  and  excrcmcntal  elements ;  its  driving  force  is  the  revolt 
of  the  bungled  and  botched.  This  revolt  was  begun  by  the  Jews, 
and  brought  into  Christianity  by  "holy  epileptics"  like  St.  Paul, 
wHb  had  no  honesty.  "The  New  Testament  is  the  gospel  of  a 
completely  ignoble  species  of  man."  Christianity  is  the  most  fatal 
and  seductive  lie  that  ever  existed.  No  man  of  note  has  ever 
resembled  the  Christian  ideal;  consider  for  instance  the  heroes 
of  Plutarch's  Lir«.  Christianity  is  to  be  condemned  for  denying 
the  value  of  "pride,  pathos  of  distance,  great  responsibility, 
exuberant  spirits,  splendid  animalism,  the  instincts  of  war  and  of 
conquest,  the  deification  of  passion,  revenge,  anger,  voluptuous- 
ness, adventure,  knowledge."  AH  these  things  are  good,  and  all  are 
said  by  Christianity  to  l>c  bad— so  Nietzsche  contends.  ^  t 

Christianity,  he  argues,  aims  at  taming  the  heart  in  man,  but 
this  is  a  mistake.  A  wild  beast  has  a  certain  splendour,  which  it 
loses  when  it  is  tamed.  The  criminals  with  whom  Dostoevsky 
associated  were  better  than  he  was,  because  they  were  more  self- 
respecting.  Nietzsche  is  nauseated  fey  repentance  and  redemption? 
which  he  calls  a/ote  circulate.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  free  ourselves 
from  this  way  of  thinking  about  human  behaviour:  "we  are  heirs§ 

793 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

to  the  conscience- vivisection  and  self-crucifixion  of  two  thousand 
years."  There  is  a  very  eloquent  passage  about  Pascal,  which 
deserves  quotation,  because  it  shows  Nietzsche's  objections  to 
Christianity  at  their  best: 

"What  is  it  that  we  combat  in  Christianity?  Tfcat.it  aims  at 
destroying  the  strong,  at  breaking  their  spirit,  at  exploiting  their 
moments  of  weariness  and  debility,  at  converting  their  proud 
assurance  into  anxiety  and  conscience-trouble ;  that  it  knows  how 
to  poison  the  noblest  instincts  and  to  infect  them  with  disease, 
until  their  strength,  their  will  to  power,  turns  inwards,  against 
themselves — until  the  strong  perish  through  their  excessive  self- 
contempt  and  self-immolation:  that  gruesome  way  of  perishing, 
of  which  Pascal  is  the  most  famous  example." 

In  place  of  the  Christian  saint  Nietzsche  wishes  to  see  what  he 
calls  the  "noble"  man,  by  no  means  as  a  universal  type,  but  as 
a  governing  aristocrat.  The  "noble"  man  will  be  capable  of  cruelty, 
and,  on  occasion,  of  what  is  vulgarly  regarded  as  crime;  he  will 
recognize  duties  only  to  equals.  Me  will  protect  artists  and  poets 
and  all  who  happen  to  be  masters  of  some  skill,  hut  he  will  do  so 
as  himself  a  member  of  a  higher  order  than  those  who  only  know 
how  to  do  something.  From  the  example  of  warriors  he  will  learn 
to  associate  death  with  the  interests  for  which  he  is  fighting;  to 
sacrifice  numbers,  and  take  his  cause  sufficiently  seriously  not  to 
spare  men;  to  practise  inexorable  discipline;  and  to  allow  him&lf 
violence  and  cunning  in  war.  He  will  recognize  the  part  played 
by  cruelty  in  aristocratic  excellence:  * 'almost  even-thing  that  we 
call  'higher  culture*  is  based  upon  the  spiritualizing  and  inten- 
sifying of  cruelty''  The  "noble*1  man  is  essentially  the  incarnate 
will  to  power. 

What  are  we  to  think  of  Nietzsche's  doctrines?  1  low  far  are  they 
true?  Are  they  in  any  degree  useful?  I*  there  in  them  anything 
objective,  or  are  they  the  mere  power-phantasies  of  an  invalid? 

It  js  undeniable  that  Nietzsche  has  had  a  great  influence,  not 
among  technical  philosophers,  but  among  people  of  literary  and 
artistic  culture.  It  must  also  be  conceded  that  hi*  prophecies  a*  to 
the  future  have,  so  far,  proved  more  nearly  right  than  those  of 
liberals  or  Socialists.  //  he  is  a  mere  symptom  of  disease,  the 
disease  must  be  very  widespread  in  the  modern  world. 

Nevertheless  there  is  a  great  deal  in  him  that  must  be  dismissed 
t*  merely  megalomaniac.  Speaking  of  Spinoza  he  says:  "How  much 

794 


NIETZSCHE 

of  personal  timidity  and  vulnerability  does  this  masquerade  of  a 
sickly  recluse  betray  I"  Exactly  the  same  may  be  said  of  him,  with 
the  less  reluctance  since  he  has  not  hesitated  to  say  it  of  Spinoza. 
It  is  obvious  that  in  his  day-dreams  he  is  a  warrior,  not  a  professor; 
all  the  mefc  he  admires  were  military.  His  opinion  of  women,  like 
every  man's,  is  an  objectification  of  his  own  emotion  towards  them, 
which  is  obviously  one  of  fear.  " Forget  not  thy  whip"— but  nine 
women  out  of  ten  would  get  the  whip  away  from  him,  and  he 
knew  it,  so  he  kept  away  from  women,  and  soothed  his  wounded 
vanity  with  unkind  remarks. 

He  condemns  Christian  love  because  he  thinks  it  is  an  outcome 
of  fear:  I  am  afraid  my  neighbour  may  injure  me,  and  so  I  assure 
him  that  I  love  him.  If  I  were  stronger  and  bolder,  I  should  openly 
display  the  contempt  for  him  which  of  course  I  feel.  It  does  not 
occur  to  Nietzsche  as  possible  that  a  man  should  genuinely  feel 
universal  love,  obviously  because  he  himself  feels  almost  universal 
hatred  and  fear,  which  he  would  fain  disguise  as  lordly  indifference. 
His  "noble"  man — who  is  himself  in  day-dreams — is  a  being  wholly 
devoid  of  sympathy,  ruthless,  cunning,  cruel,  concerned  only  with 
his  own  power.  King  Lear,  on  the  verge  of  madness,  says: 

I  will  do  such  things — 

What  they  are  yet  I  know  not — hut  they  snail  be 
The  terror  of  the  earth. 

This  is  Nietzsche's  philosophy  in  a  nutshell. 

It  never  occurred  to  Nietzsche  that  the  lust  for  power,  with 
which  he  endows  his  superman,  is  itself  an  outcome  of  fear.  Those 
who  do  not  fear  their  neighbours  see  no  necessity  to  tyrannize  over 
them.  Men  who  have  conquered  fear  have  not  the  frantic  quality 
of  Nietzsche's  "artist-tyrant"  Neros,  who  try  to  enjoy  music  and 
massacre  while  their  hearts  are  filled  with  dread  of  the  inevitable 
palace  revolution.  1  will  not  deny  that,  partly  as  a  result  of  his 
teaching,  the  real  world  has  become  very  like  his  nighfcnart,  but 
that  docs  not  make  it  any  the  less  horrible. 

It  must  IK  admitted  that  there  is  a  certain  type  of  Christian 
ethic  to  which  Nietzsche's  strictures  can  be  justly  applied.  Pascal 
and  Dostocvsky— hi*  own  illustrations— have  both  something 
abject  in  their  virtue.  Pascal  sacrificed  his  magnificent  mathe- 
matical intellect  to  his  God,  thereby  attributing  to  Him  a  barbarity 
which  was  a  cosmic  enlargement  of  Pascal's  morbid  mental  tor* 

795 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

tures.  Dostoevsky  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  "proper  pride*'; 
he  would  sin  in  order  to  repent  and  to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  con- 
fession. I  will  not  argue  the  question  how  far  such  aberrations  can 
justly  be  charged  against  Christianity,  but  I  will  admit  that  I  agree 
with  Nietzsche  in  thinking  Dostoevsky's  prostration 'contemptible. 
A  certain  uprightness  and  pride  and  even  self-assertion  of  a  sort, 
I  should  agree,  are  elements  in  the  best  character ;  no  virtue  which 
has  its  roots  in  fear  is  much  to  be  admired. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  saints:  the  saint  by  nature,  and  the  saint 
from  fear.  The  saint  by  nature  has  a  spontaneous  love  of  mankind ; 
he  does  good  because  to  do  so  gives  him  happiness.  The  saint  from 
fear,  on  the  other  hand,  like  the  man  who  only  abstains  from  theft 
because  of  the  police,  would  be  wicked  if  he  were  not  restrained 
by  the  thought  of  hell-fire  or  of  his  neighbours'  vengeance. 
Nietzsche  can  only  imagine  the  second  son  of  saint ;  he  is  so  full 
of  fear  and  hatred  that  spontaneous  love  of  mankind  seems  to  him 
impossible.  He  has  never  conceived  of  the  man  who,  with  all  the 
fearlessness  and  stubborn  pride  of  the  superman,  nevertheless  does 
not  inflict  pain  because  he  has  no  wish  to  do  so.  Does  anyone 
suppose  that  Lincoln  acted  as  he  did  from  fear  of  hell?  Yet  to 
Nietzsche  Lincoln  is  abject,  Napoleon  magnificent. 

It  remains  to  consider  the  main  ethical  problem  raised  by 
Nietzsche,  namely:  should  our  ethic  he  aristocratic,  or  shoulcfrit, 
in  some  sense,  treat  all  men  alike:  This  is  a  question  which,  as  I 
have  just  stated  it,  has  no  very  clear  meaning,  and  obviously,  the 
first  step  is  to  try  to  make  the  issue  more  definite. 

We  must  in  the  first  place  try  to  distinguish  an  aristocratic  ethic 
from  an  aristocratic  political  theory.  A  believer  in  Bemham's  prin- 
ciple of  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  has  a  demo- 
cratic ethic,  but  he  may  think  that  the  general  happiness  is  best 
promoted  by  an  aristocratic  form  of  government.  This  is  not 
Nietzsche's  position.  He  holds  that  the  happiness  of  common 
peopfc  is  fto  part  of  the  good  pn  $t.  All  that  is  good  or  bad  in  itself 
exists  only  in  the  superior  few;  what  happen*  to  the  rest  i§  of  no 
account. 

The  next  question  is:  How  are  the  superior  few  defined?  In 
practice,  they  have  usually  beer  a  conquering  race  or  a  hereditary 
aristocracy —and  aristocracies  have  usually  been,  at  least  in  theory, 
descendants  of  conquering  races.  I  think  Nietzsche  would  accept 
this  definition.  "No  morality  is  possible  without  good  birth/'  he 

796 


NIETZSCHE 


tells  us.  He  says  that  the  noble  caste  is  always  at  first  barbarian, 
but  that  every  elevation  of  Man  is  due  to  aristocratic  society. 

It  is  not  clear  whether  Nietzsche  regards  the  superiority  of  the 
aristocrat  as  congenital  or  as  due  to  education  and  environment. 
If  the  latter, 'it  is  difficult  to  defend  the  exclusion  of  others  from 
advantages  for  which,  ex  hypothesi,  they  are  equally  qualified.  I 
shall  therefore  assume  that  he  regards  conquering  aristocracies 
and  their  descendants  as  biologically  superior  to  their  subjects, 
as  men  are  superior  to  domestic  animals,  though  in  a  lesser 
degree. 

What  shall  we  mean  by  "biologically  superior"?  We  shall  mean, 
when  interpreting  Nietzsche,  that  individuals  of  the  superior  race, 
and  their  descendants,  are  more  likely  to  be  "noble"  in  Nietzsche's 
sense:  they  will  have  more  strength  of  will,  more  courage,  more 
impulse  towards  power,  less  sympathy,  less  fear,  and  less  gentle- 
ness. 

We  can  now  state  Nietzsche's  ethic.  I  think  what  follows  is  a 

fair  analysis  of  it: 

Victors  in  war,  and  their  descendants,  are  usually  biologically 
superior  to  the  vanquished.  It  is  therefore  desirable  that  they  should 
hold  all  the  power,  and  should  manage  affairs  exclusively  in  their 
own  interests. 

JTicre  is  here  still  the  word  "desirable"  to  be  considered.  What 
is  "desirable"  in  Nietzsche's  philosophy?  From  the  outsider's 
point  of  view,  what  Nietzsche  calls  "desirable"  is  what  Nietzsche 
desires.  With  this  interpretation,  Nietzsche's  doctrine  might  be 
stated  mure  simply  and  honestly  in  the  one  sentence:  i'l  wish  I 
had  lived  in  the  Athens  of  Pericles  or  the  Florence  of  the  Medici. 
But  this  is  not  a  philosophy ;  it  is  a  biographical  fact  about  a  certain 
individual.  The  word  "desirable"  is  not  synonymous  with  desired 
by  me";  it  has  some  claim,  however  shadowy,  to  legislate  univer- 
sally. A  theist  may  say  that  what  is  desirable  is  what  God  desires, 
but  Nietzsche  cannot  say  this.  He  could  say  that  he  kllows  what 
is  good  by  an  ethical  intuition,  but  he  will  not  say  this,  because 
it  sounds  too  Kantian.  What  he  can  say,  as  an  expansion  of  the 
word  "desirable,"  is  this:  "If  men  will  read  my  works,  a  certain 
percentage  of  them  will  come  to  tfiare  my  desires  as  regards  th* 
organization  of  society;  these  men,  inspired  by  the  energy  and 
determination  which  my  philosophy  will  give  them,  can  preserve 
and  restore  aristocracy,  with  themselves  as  aristocrats  or  (like  mef 

797 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

sycophants  of  aristocracy.  In  this  way  they  will  achieve  a  fuller 
life  than  they  can  have  as  servants  of  the  people/' 

There  is  another  element  in  Nietzsche,  which  is  closely  akin  to 
the  objection  urged  by  "rugged  individualists"  against  trade- 
unions.  In  a  fight  of  all  against  all,  the  victor  is  likely  <o  possess 
certain  qualities  which  Nietzsche  admires,  such  as  courage,  re- 
sourcefulness, and  strength  of  mil.  But  if  the  men  who  do  not 
possess  these  aristocratic  qualities  (who  are  the  vast  majority) 
band  themselves  together,  they  may  win  in  spite  of  their  individual 
inferiority.  In  this  fight  of  the  collective  canaille  against  the  aris- 
tocrats, Christianity  is  the  ideological  front,  as  the  French  Revo- 
lution was  the  fighting  front.  We  ought  therefore  to  oppose  every 
kind  of  union  among  the  individually  feeble,  for  fear  lest  their 
combined  power  should  outweigh  that  of  the  individually  strong; 
on  the  other  hand,  we  ought  to  promote  union  among  the  tough 
and  virile  elements  of  the  population.  The  first  step  towards  the 
creation  of  such  a  union  is  the  preaching  of  Nietzsche's  philosophy. 
It  will  be  seen  that  it  is  not  easy  to  preserve  the  distinction  between 
ethics  and  politics. 

Suppose  we  wish-  as  I  certainly  do  -to  find  arguments  against 
Nietzsche's  ethics  and  politics,  what  arguments  can  we  find  ? 

There  are  weighty  practical  arguments,  showing  that  the  attempt 
to  secure  his  ends  will  in  fact  secure  something  quite  differqpt. 
Aristocracies  of  birth  are  nowadays  discredited;  the  only  prac- 
ticable form  of  aristocracy  is  an  organization  like  the  Fascist  or 
the  Nazi  party.  Such  an  organization  rouses  opposition,  and  is 
likely  to  be  defeated  in  war ;  but  if  it  is  not  defeated  it  must,  before 
long,  become  nothing  but  a  police  State,  where  the  rulers  live 
in  terror  of  assassination,  and  the  heroes  are  in  concentration 
camps.  In  such  a  community  faith  and  honour  are  sapped  by 
delation,  and  the  would-be  aristocracy  of  supermen  degenerates 
into  a  clique  of  trembling  poltroons. 

Thiae, However,  are  arguments  for  our  time;  they  would  not 
have  held  good  in  past  ages,  when  aristocracy  was  unquestioned. 
The  Egyptian  government  was  conducted  on  Ntetzschcan  prin- 
ciples for  several  millennia.  The  governments  of  almost  all  large 
States  were  aristocratic  until  tlje  American  and  the  French  Revo- 
lutions. We  have  therefore  to  ask  ourselves  whether  there  is  any 
good  reason  for  preferring  democracy  to  a  form  of  government 
which  has  had  such  a  long  and  successful  history— or  rather,  since 

798 


NIETZSCHE 

we  are  concerned  with  philosophy,  not  politics,  whether  there  are 
objective  grounds  for  rejecting  the  ethic  by  which  Nietzsche 
supports  aristocracy. 

The  ethical,  as  opposed  to  the  political,  question  is  one  as  to 
sympathy.JSypipalhy,  in  the  sense  of  being  made  unhappy  by  the 
suffering  of  others,  is  to  some  extent  natural  to  human  beings; 
young  children  are  troubled  when  they  hear  other  children  crying. 
But  the  development  of  this  feeling  is  very  different  in  different 
people.  Some  find  pleasure  in  the  infliction  of  torture ;  others,  like 
Buddha,  feel  that  they  cannot  be  completely  happy  so  long  as  any 
living  thing  is  suffering.  Most  people  divide  mankind  emotionally 
into  friends  and  enemies,  feeling  sympathy  for  the  former,  but  not 
for  the  latter.  An  ethic  such  as  that  of  Christianity  or  Buddhism 
has  its  emotional  basis  in  universal  sympathy;  Nietzsche's,  in  a 
complete  absence  of  sympathy.  (He  frequently  preaches  against 
sympathy,  and  in  this  respect  one  feels  that  he  has  no  difficulty 
in  obeying  his  own  precepts.)  The  question  is:  If  Buddha  and 
Nietzsche  were  confronted,  could  either  produce  any  argument 
that  ought  to  appeal  to  the  impartial  listener?  I  am  not  thinking 
of  political  arguments.  We  can  imagine  them  appearing  before  the 
Almighty,  as  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Job,  and  offering 
advice  as  to  the  sort  of  world  He  should  create.  What  could 
either  say  ? 

Buddha  would  open  the  argument  by  speaking  of  the  lepers, 
outcast  and  miserable;  the  poor,  toiling  with  aching  limbs  and 
barely  kept  alive  by  scanty  nourishment;  the  wounded  in  battle, 
dying  in  slow  agony;  the  orphans,  ill-treated  by  cruel  guardians; 
and  even  the  most  successful  haunted  by  the  thought  bf  failure 
and  death.  From  all  this  load  of  sorrow,  he  would  say,  a  way  of 
salvation  must  be  found,  and  salvation  can  only  come  through  love. 

Nietzsche,  whom  only  Omnipotence  could  restrain  from  inter- 
rupting, would  burst  out  when  his  turn  came:  "Good  heavens, 
man,  you  must  learn  to  be  of  tougher  fibre.  Why  go  about  snivelling 
because  trivial  people  suffer?  Or,  for  that  matter,  because  great 
men  suffer?  Trivial  people  suffer  trivially,  great  men  suffer  greatly, 
and  great  sufferings  are  not  to  be  regretted,  because  they  are  noble. 
Your  ideal  is  a  purely  negative  one,  absence  of  suffering,  which 
can  be  completely  secured  by  non-existence.  I,  on  the  other  hand? 
have  positive  ideals:  I  admire  Alcibiades,  and  the  Emperor 
Frederick  II,  and  Napoleon.  For  the  sake  of  such  men,  any  misery, 

799 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

13  worth  while.  I  appeal  to  You,  Lord,  as  the  greatest  of  creative 
artists,  do  not  let  Your  artistic  impulses  be  curbed  by  the  degene- 
rate fear-ridden  maunderings  of  this  wretched  psychopath." 

Buddha,  who  in  the  courts  of  Heaven  has  learnt  all  history  since 
his  death,  and  has  mastered  science  with  delight  in  the  knowledge 
and  sorrow  at  the  use  to  which  men  have  put  it,  replies  with  calm 
urbanity:  "You  are  mistaken,  Professor  Nietzsche,  in  thinking  my 
ideal  a  purely  negative  one.  True,  it  includes  a  negative  clement, 
the  absence  of  suffering;  but  it  has  in  addition  quite  as  much  that 
is  positive  as  is  to  be  found  in  your  doctrine.  Though  I  have  no 
special  admiration  for  Alcibiadcs  and  Napoleon,  I,  too,  have  my 
heroes:  my  successor  Jesus,  because  he  told  men  to  love  their 
enemies;  the  men  who  discovered  how  to  master  the  forces  of 
nature  and  secure  food  with  less  labour;  the  medical  men  who 
have  shown  how  to  diminish  disease;  the  poets  and  artists  and 
musicians  who  have  caught  glimpses  of  the  Divine  beatitude.  Love 
and  knowledge  and  delight  in  beauty  are  not  negations ;  they  are 
enough  to  fill  the  lives  of  the  greatest  men  that  have  ever  lived." 

"All  the  same,"  Nietzsche  replies,  "your  world  would  be  insipid. 
You  should  study  Heraclitus,  whose  works  survive  complete  in  the 
celestial  library.  Your  love  is  compassion,  which  is  elicited  by  pain ; 
your  truth,  if  you  are  honest,  is  unpleasant,  and  only  to  be  known 
through  suffering;  and  as  to  beauty,  what  is  more  beautiful  than  the 
tiger,  who  owes  his  splendour  to  his  fierceness?  No,  if  the  Lord 
should  decide  for  your  world,  I  fear  we  should  all  die  of  boredom." 

"  You  might,"  Buddha  replies,  "because  you  love  pain,  and  your 
love  of  life  is  a  sham.  But  those  who  really  love  life  would  be 
happy  as 'no  one  can  be  happy  in  the  world  as  it  is." 

For  my  part,  I  agree  with  Buddha  as  I  have  imagined  him.  But 
I  do  not  know  how  to  prove  that  he  is  right  by  any  arguments  such 
as  can  be  used  in  a  mathematical  or  a  scientific  question.  I  dislike 
Nietzsche  because  he  likes  the  contemplation  of  pain,  because  he- 
erects  conceit  into  a  duty,  because  the  men  whom  he  most  admires 
are  conquerors,  whose  glory  is  cleverness  in  causing  men  to  die. 
But  I  think  the  ultimate  argument  against  his  philosophy,  as 
against  any  unpleasant  but  internally  self-consistent  ethic,  lies  not 
in  an  appeal  to  facts,  but  in  an  appeal  to  the  emotions.  Nietzsche 
despises  universal  love;  I  feel  it  the  motive  power  to  all  that  I 
desire  as  regards  the  world.  His  followers  have  had  their  innings* 
but  we  may  hope  that  it  it  coming  rapidly  to  an  end. 

Ron 


Chapter  XXVI 
THE    UTILITARIANS1 

THROUGHOUT  the  period  from  Kant  to  Nietzsche,  pro- 
fesional  philosophers  in  Great  Britain  remained  almost 
completely  unaffected  by  their  German  contemporaries, 
with  the  sole  exception  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  who  had  little 
influence.  Coleridge  and  Carlyle,  it  is  true,  were  profoundly 
affected  by  Kant,  Fichte,  and  the  German  Romantics,  but  they 
were  not  philosophers  in  the  technical  sense.  Somebody  seems 
to  have  once  mentioned  Kant  to  James  Mill,  who,  after  a  cursory 
inspection,  remarked:  "I  see  well  enough  what  poor  Kant  would 
be  at."  But  this  degree  of  recognition  is  exceptional;  in  general, 
there  is  complete  silence  about  the  Germans.  Bentham  and  his 
school  derived  their  philosophy,  in  all  its  main  outlines,  from 
Locke,  Hartley,  and  Helvetius;  their  importance  is  not  so  much 
philosophical  as  political,  as  the  leaders  of  British  radicalism,  and 
as  the  men  who  unintentionally  prepared  the  way  for  the  doctrines 
of  socialism. 

Jeremy  Bentham,  who  was  the  recognized  leader  of  the  "Philo- 
sophical Radicals,"  was  not  the  sort  of  man  one  expects  to  find 
at^he  head  of  a  movement  of  this  sort.  He  was  born  in  1748,  but 
did  not  become  a  Radical  till  1808.  He  was  painfully  shy,  and 
could  not  without  great  trepidation  endure  the  company  of  stran- 
gers. He  wrote  voluminously,  but  never  bothered  to  publish;  what 
was  published  under  his  name  had  been  benevolently 'purloined 
by  his  friends.  His  main  interest  was  jurisprudence,  in  which  he 
recognized  Helvetius  and  Beccaria  as  his  most  important  pre- 
decessors. It  was  through  the  theory  of  law  that  he  became  in- 
terested in  ethics  and  politics. 

He  bases  his  whole  philosophy  on  two  principles,  the  "as^ocia- 
tion  principle,"  and  the  "greatest-happiness  principle.  The  asso- 
ciation principle  had  been  emphasized  by  Hartley  in  1749;  before 
him,  though  association  of  ideas  was  recognized  as  occurring,  it 
was  regarded,  for  instance  by  Locke,  only  as  a  source  of  trivial 
errors.  Bentham,  following  Hartley,  made  it  the  basic  principle 

1  For  a  fuller  treatment  of  this  subject,  as  also  of  Marx,  see  Part  II  of 
my  Freedom  and  Organization,  1814-2914.  » 

//iifriry  o/  Wait**  PktoMpkv  8O I  20 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

is  worth  while.  I  appeal  to  You,  Lord,  as  the  greatest  of  creative 
artists,  do  not  let  Your  artistic  impulses  be  curbed  by  the  degene- 
rate fear-ridden  maunderings  of  this  wretched  psychopath." 

Buddha,  who  in  the  courts  of  Heaven  has  learnt  all  history  since 
his  death,  and  has  mastered  science  with  delight  in  the  knowledge 
and  sorrow  at  the  use  to  which  men  have  put  it,  replies  with  calm 
urbanity:  "You  are  mistaken,  Professor  Nietzsche,  in  thinking  my 
ideal  a  purely  negative  one.  True,  it  includes  a  negative  element, 
the  absence  of  suffering;  but  it  has  in  addition  quite  as  much  that 
is  positive  as  is  to  be  found  in  your  doctrine.  Though  I  have  no 
special  admiration  for  Alcibiades  and  Napoleon,  I,  too,  have  my 
heroes :  my  successor  Jesus,  because  he  told  men  to  love  their 
enemies;  the  men  who  discovered  how  to  master  the  forces  of 
nature  and  secure  food  with  less  labour;  the  medical  men  who 
have  shown  how  to  diminish  disease;  the  poets  and  artists  and 
musicians  who  have  caught  glimpses  of  the  Divine  beatitude.  Love 
and  knowledge  and  delight  in  beauty  are  not  negations ;  they  are 
enough  to  fill  the  lives  of  the  greatest  men  that  have  ever  lived." 

"All  the  same,"  Nietzsche  replies,  "your  world  would  be  insipid. 
You  should  study  Heraclitus,  whose  works  survive  complete  in  the 
celestial  library.  Your  love  is  compassion,  which  is  elicited  by  pain ; 
your  truth,  if  you  are  honest,  is  unpleasant,  and  only  to  be  known 
through  suffering ;  and  as  to  beauty,  what  is  more  beautiful  than  the 
tiger,  who  owes  his  splendour  to  his  fierceness?  No,  if  the  Lcrd 
should  decide  for  your  world,  I  fear  we  should  all  die  of  boredom." 

"You  might,"  Buddha  replies,  "because  you  love  pain,  and  your 
love  of  life  is  a  sham.  But  those  who  really  love  life  would  be 
happy  as 'no  one  can  be  happy  in  the  world  as  it  is." 

For  my  part,  I  agree  with  Buddha  as  I  have  imagined  him.  But 
I  do  not  know  how  to  prove  that  he  is  right  by  any  arguments  such 
as  can  be  used  in  a  mathematical  or  a  scientific  question.  I  dislike 
Nietzsche  because  he  likes  the  contemplation  of  pain,  because  he 
erects  conceit  into  a  duty,  because  the  men  whom  he  most  admires 
are  conquerors,  whose  glory  is  cleverness  in  causing  men  to  die. 
But  I  think  the  ultimate  argument  against  his  philosophy,  as 
against  any  unpleasant  but  internally  self-consistent  ethic,  lies  not 
in  an  appeal  to  facts,  but  in  an  appeal  to  the  emotions.  Nietzsche 
despises  universal*  love;  I  feel  it  the  motive  power  to  all  that  I 
desire  as  regards  the  world.  His  followers  have  had  their  innings, 
but  we  may  hope  that  it  is  coming  rapidly  to  an  end. 

800 


Chapter  XXVI 

THE    UTILITARIANS1 

•    • 

THROUGHOUT  the  period  from  Kant  to  Nietzsche,  pro- 
fesional  philosophers  in  Great  Britain  remained  almost 
completely  unaffected  by  their  German  contemporaries, 
with  the  sole  exception  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  who  had  little 
influence.  Coleridge  and  Carlyle,  it  is  true,  were  profoundly 
affected  by  Kant,  Fichte,  and  the  German  Romantics,  but  they 
were  not  philosophers  in  the  technical  sense.  Somebody  seems 
to  have  once  mentioned  Kant  to  James  Mill,  who,  after  a  cursory 
inspection,  remarked:  "I  see  well  enough  what  poor  Kant  would 
be  at."  But  this  degree  of  recognition  is  exceptional;  in  general, 
there  is  complete  silence  about  the  Germans.  Bentham  and  his 
school  derived  their  philosophy,  in  all  its  main  outlines,  from 
Locke,  Hartley,  and  Hclvetius;  their  importance  is  not  so  much 
philosophical  as  political,  as  the  leaders  of  British  radicalism,  and 
as  the  men  who  unintentionally  prepared  the  way  for  the  doctrines 
of  socialism. 

Jeremy  Bentham,  who  was  the  recognized  leader  of  the  "Philo- 
sophical Radicals,"  was  not  the  sort  of  man  one  expects  to  find 
at^he  head  of  a  movement  of  this  sort.  He  was  born  in  1748,  but 
did  not  become  a  Radical  till  1808.  He  was  painfully  shy,  and 
could  not  without  great  trepidation  endure  the  company  of  stran- 
gers. He  wrote  voluminously,  but  never  bothered  to  publish;  what 
was  published  under  his  name  had  been  benevolently 'purloined 
by  his  friends.  His  main  interest  was  jurisprudence,  in  which  he 
recognized  Hclvetius  and  Beccaria  as  his  most  important  pre- 
decessors. It  was  through  the  theory  of  law  that  he  became  in- 
terested in  ethics  and  politics. 

He  bases  his  whole  philosophy  on  two  principles,  the  "a^ocia- 
tion  principle,"  and  the  " greatest-happiness  principle.  The  asso- 
ciation principle  had  been  emphasized  by  Hartley  in  1749;  before 
him,  though  association  of  ideas  was  recognized  as  occurring,  it 
was  regarded,  for  instance  by  Locke,  only  as  a  source  of  trivial 
errors.  Bentham,  following  Hartley,  made  it  the  basic  principle 

1  For  a  fuller  treatment  of  this  subject,  as  also  of  Marx,  see  Pan  II  of 
my  Freedom  and  Organisation,  1814-1914.  , 

8O I  2C 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

of  psychology.  He  recognizes  association  of  ideas  and  language, 
and  also  association  of  ideas  and  ideas.  By  means  of  this  principle 
he  aims  at  a  deterministic  account  of  mental  occurrences.  In 
essence  the  doctrine  is  the  same  as  the  more  modern  theory  of 
the  "conditioned  reflex,"  based  on  Pavlov's  experiments..  The  only 
important  difference  is  that  Pavlov's  conditioned  reflex  is  physiolo- 
gical, whereas  the  association  of  ideas  was  purely  mental.  Pavlov's 
work  is  therefore  capable  of  a  materialistic  explanation,  such  as 
is  given  to  it  by  the  behaviourists,  whereas  the  association  of  ideas 
led  rather  towards  a  psychology  more  or  less  independent  of 
physiology.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  scientifically,  the  principle 
of  the  conditioned  reflex  is  an  advance  on  the  older  principle. 
Pavlov's  principle  is  this:  Given  a  reflex  according  to  which  a 
stimulus  B  produces  a  reaction  C,  and  given  that  a  certain  animal 
has  frequently  experienced  a  stimulus  A  at  the  same  time  as  B, 
it  often  happens  that  in  time  the  stimulus  A  will  produce  the 
reaction  C  even  when  B  is  absent.  To  determine  the  circumstances 
under  which  this  happens  is  a  matter  of  experiment.  Clearly,  if 
we  substitute  ideas  for  A,  B,  and  C,  Pavlov's  principle  becomes 
that  of  the  association  of  ideas. 

Both  principles,  indubitably,  are  valid  over  a  certain  field ;  the 
only  controversial  question  is  as  to  the  extent  of  this  field.  Bentham 
and  his  followers  exaggerated  the  extent  of  the  field  in  the  case 
of  Hartley's  principle,  as  certain  behaviourists  have  in  the  dfee 
of  Pavlov's  principle. 

To  Bentham,  determinism  in  psychology  was  important,  because 
he  wished  to  establish  a  code  of  laws — and,  more  generally,  a 
social  system — which  would  automatically  make  men  virtuous. 
His  second  principle,  that  of  the  greatest  happiness,  became 
necessary  at  this  point  in  order  to  define  "virtue." 

Bentham  maintained  that  what  is  good  is  pleasure  or  happiness 
— he  used  these  words  as  synonyms — and  what  is  bad  is  pain. 
Therefore  one  state  of  affairs  is  better  than  another  if  it  involves 
a  greater  balance  of  pleasure  over  pain,  or  a  smaller  balance  of 
pain  over  pleasure.  Of  all  possible  states  of  affairs,  that  one  is  best 
which  involves  the  greatest  balance  of  pleasure  over  pain. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  this  doctrine,  which  came  to  be  called 
"Utilitarianism."  It  had  been  advocated  by  Hutcheson  as  early  as 
1725.  Bentham  attributes  it  to  Priestley,  who,  however,  had  no 
Special  claim  to  it.  It  is  virtually  contained  in  Locke.  Bcntham's 

802 


THE   UTILITARIANS 

merit  consisted,  not  in  the  doctrine,  but  in  his  vigorous  application 
of  it  to  various  practical  problems. 

Bentham  held  not  only  that  the  good  is  happiness  in  general,  but 
also  that  each  individual  always  pursues  what  he  believes  to  be  his 
own  happiness.  The  business  of  the  legislator,  therefore,  is  to 
produce  harmony  between  public  and  private  interests.  It  is  to  the 
interest  of  the  public  that  I  should  abstain  from  theft,  but  it  is 
not  to  my  interest  except  where  there  is  an  effective  criminal  law. 
Thus  the  criminal  law  is  a  method  of  making  the  interests  of 
the  individual  coincide  with  those  of  the  community;  that  is  its 
justification. 

Men  are  to  be  punished  by  the  criminal  law  in  order  to  prevent 
crime,  not  because  we  hate  the  criminal.  It  is  more  important  that 
the  punishment  should  be  certain  than  that  it  should  be  severe.  In 
his  day,  in  England,  many  quite  minor  offences  were  subject  to  the 
death  penalty,  with  the  result  that  juries  often  refused  to  convict 
because  they  thought  the  penalty  excessive.  Bentham  advocated 
abolition  of  the  death  penalty  for  all  but  the  worst  offences,  and 
before  he  died  the  criminal  law  had  been  mitigated  in  this  respect. 

Civil  law,  he  says,  should  have  four  aims:  subsistence,  abun- 
dance, security,  and  equality.  It  will  be  observed  that  he  does  not 
mention  liberty.  In  fact,  he  cared  little  for  liberty.  He  admired 
th^  benevolent  autocrats  who  preceded  the  French  Revolution — 
Catherine  the  Great  and  the  Emperor  Francis.  He  had  a  great 
contempt  for  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man.  The  rights  of  man, 
he  said,  are  plain  nonsense;  the  imprescriptible  rights  of  man, 
nonsense  on  stilts.  When  the  French  revolutionaries  ipade  their 
"Declaration  des  droits  de  l*homme,"  Bentham  called  it  "a  meta- 
physical work — the  ne  plus  ultra  of  metaphysics."  Its  articles,  he 
said,  could  he  divided  into  three  classes:  (i)  Those  that  are  un- 
intelligible, (2)  those  that  are  false,  (3)  those  that  are  both. 

Bent  ham's  ideal,  like  that  of  Epicurus,  was  security,  not  liberty. 
"Wars  and  storms  are  best  to  read  of,  but  peace  and»calms  are 
better  to  endure." 

His  gradual  evolution  towards  Radicalism  had  two  sources:  on 
the  one  hand,  a  belief  in  equality,  deduced  from  the  calculus  of 
pleasures  and  pains ;  on  the  other  hand,  an  inflexible  determination 
to  submit  everything  to  the  arbitrament  of  reason  as  he  under- 
stood it.  His  love  of  equality  early  led  him  to  advocate  equal 
division  of  a  man's  property  among  his  children,  and  to  oppose 

803 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

testamentary  freedom.  In  later  years  it  led  him  to  oppose  monarchy 
and  hereditary  aristocracy,  and  to  advocate  complete  democracy, 
including  votes  for  women.  His  refusal  to  believe  without  rational 
grounds  led  him  to  reject  religion,  including  belief  in  God;  it 
made  him  keenly  critical  of  absurdities  and  anomalies  in  the  law, 
however  venerable  their  historical  origin.  He  would  not  excuse 
anything  on  the  ground  that  it  was  traditional.  From  early  youth 
he  was  opposed  to  imperialism,  whether  that  of  the  British  in 
America,  or  that  of  other  nations ;  he  considered  colonies  a  folly. 

It  was  through  the  influence  of  James  Mill  that  Bentham  was 
induced  to  take  sides  in  practical  politics.  James  Mill  was  twenty- 
five  years  younger  than  Bentham,  and  an  ardent  disciple  of  his 
doctrines,  but  he  was  also  an  active  Radical.  Bentham  gave  Mill 
a  house  (which  had  belonged  to  Milton),  and  assisted  him  finan- 
cially while  he  wrote  a  history  of  India.  When  this  history  was 
finished,  the  East  India  Company  gave  James  Mill  a  post,  as  they 
did  afterwards  to  his  son  until  their  abolition  as  a  sequel  to  the 
Mutiny.  James  Mill  greatly  admired  Condorcet  and  Hclvetius. 
Like  all  Radicals  of  that  period,  he  believed  in  the  omnipotence  of 
education.  He  practised  his  theories  on  his  son  John  Stuart  Mill, 
with  results  partly  good,  partly  bad.  The  most  important  bad 
result  was  that  John  Stuart  could  never  quite  shake  off  his  influence, 
even  when  he  perceived  that  his  father's  outlook  had  been  narrow. 

James  Mill,  like  Bentham,  considered  pleasure  the  only  good 
and  pain  the  only  evil.  But  like  Epicurus  he  valued  moderate 
pleasure  most.  He  thought  intellectual  enjoyments  the  best,  and 
temperance  the  chief  virtue.  "The  intense  was  with  him  a  bye- 
word  of  scornful  disapprobation,"  says  his  son,  who  adds  that  he 
objected  to  the  modern  stress  laid  upon  feeling,  Like  the  whole 
utilitarian  school,  he  was  utterly  opposed  to  every  form  of  roman- 
ticism. He  thought  politics  could  be  governed  by  reason,  and 
expected  men's  opinions  to  be  determined  by  the  weight  of 
evidence.! If  opposing  sides  in  a  controversy  are  presented  with 
equal  skill,  there  is  a  moral  certainty—so  he  held  -that  the  greater 
number  will  judge  right.  His  outlook  was  limited  by  the  poverty 
of  his  emotional  nature,  but  within  his  limitations  he  had  the 
pieritt  of  industry,  disinterestedness,  and  rationality. 

His  son  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  was  born  in  1806,  carried  on  a 
somewhat  softened  form  of  the  Benthamite  doctrine  to  the  time 
rf  his  death  in  1873. 


THE    UTILITARIANS 

Throughout  the  middle  portion  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
influence  of  the  Benthamites  on  British  legislation  and  policy 
was  astonishingly  great,  considering  their  complete  absence  of 
emotional  appeal. 

Benthafn  advanced  various  arguments  in  favour  of  the  view 
that  the  general  happiness  is  the  summum  bonum.  Some  of  these 
arguments  were  acute  criticisms  of  other  ethical  theories.  In  his 
treatise  on  political  sophisms  he  says,  in  language  which  seems  to 
anticipate  Marx,  that  sentimental  and  ascetic  moralities  serve  the 
interests  of  the  governing  class,  and  are  the  product  of  an  aristo- 
cratic regime.  Those  who  teach  the  morality  of  sacrifice,  he  con- 
tinues, are  not  victims  of  error:  they  want  others  to  sacrifice  to 
them.  The  moral  order,  he  says,  results  from  equilibrium  of 
interests.  Governing  corporations  pretend  that  there  is  already 
identity  of  interests  between  the  governors  and  the  governed,  but 
reformers  make  it  clear  that  this  identity  does  not  yet  exist,  and 
try  to  bring  it  about.  He  maintains  that  only  the  principle  of 
utility  can  give  a  criterion  in  morals  and  legislation,  and  lay  the 
foundation  of  a  social  science.  His  main  positive  argument  in 
favour  of  his  principle  is  that  it  is  really  implied  by  apparently 
different  ethical  systems.  This,  however,  is  only  made  plausible 
by  a  severe  restriction  of  his  survey. 

<f  here  is  an  obvious  lacuna  in  Bentham's  system.  If  every  man 
always  pursues  his  own  pleasure,  how  are  we  to  secure  that  the 
legislator  shall  pursue  the  pleasure  of  mankind  in  general? 
Bentham's  own  instinctive  benevolence  (which  his  psychological 
theories  prevented  him  from  noticing)  concealed  the*  problem 
from  him.  If  he  had  been  employed  to  draw  up  a  code  of  laws  for 
some  country,  he  would  have  framed  his  proposals  in  what  he 
conceived  to  be  the  public  interest,  not  so  as  to  further  his  own 
interests  or  (consciously)  the  interests  of  his  class.  But  if  he  had 
recognized  this  fact,  he  would  have  had  to  modify  his  psychological 
doctrines.  He  seems  to  have  thought  that,  by  means  of  cfemocracy 
combined  with  adequate  supervision,  legislators  could  be  so  con- 
trolled that  they  could  only  further  their  private  interests  by 
being  useful  to  the  general  public.  There  was  in  his  day  not  much 
material  for  forming  a  judgment  a»  to  the  working  of  democratic? 
institutions,  and  his  optimism  was  therefore  perhaps  excusable, 
but  in  our  more  disillusioned  age  it  seems  somewhat  naive. 

John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  Utilitarianism*  offers  an  argument 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 

which  is  so  fallacious  that  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  he  can 
have  thought  it  valid.  He  says:  Pleasure  is  the  only  thing  desired; 
therefore  pleasure  is  the  only  thing  desirable.  He  argues  that  the 
only  things  visible  are  things  seen,  the  only  things  audible  are 
things  heard,  and  similarly  the  only  things  desirable  are  things 
desired.  He  does  not  notice  that  a  thing  is  "visible"  if  it  can  be 
seen,  but  "desirable"  if  it  ought  to  be  desired.  Thus  "desirable" 
is  a  word  presupposing  an  ethical  theory;  we  cannot  infer  what  is 
desirable  from  what  is  desired. 

Again:  if  each  man  in  fact  and  inevitably  pursues  his  own 
pleasure,  there  is  no  point  in  saying  he  ought  to  do  something 
else.  Kant  urged  that  "you  ought"  implies  "you  can";  conversely, 
if  you  cannot,  it  is  futile  to  say  you  ought.  //  each  man  must 
always  pursue  his  own  pleasure,  ethics  is  reduced  to  prudence: 
you  may  do  well  to  further  the  interests  of  others  in  the  hope 
that  they  in  turn  will  further  yours.  Similarly  in  politics  all  co- 
operation is  a  matter  of  log-rolling.  From  the  premisses  of  the 
utilitarians  no  other  conclusion  in  validly  deducible. 

There  are  two  distinct  questions  involved.  First,  does  each  man 
pursue  his  own  happiness?  Second,  is  the  general  happiness  the 
right  end  of  human  action  ? 

When  it  is  said  that  each  man  desires  his  own  happiness,  the 
statement  is  capable  of  two  meanings,  of  which  one  is  a  truism 
and  the  other  is  false.  Whatever  I  may  happen  to  desire,  I  shall 
get  some  pleasure  from  achieving  my  wish;  in  this  sense,  what- 
ever I  desire  is  a  pleasure,  and  it  may  be  said,  though  somewhat 
loosely,  that  pleasures  are  what  I  desire.  This  is  the  sense  of  the 
doctrine  which  is  a  truism. 

But  if  what  is  meant  is  that,  when  I  desire  anything,  I  desire  it 
because  of  the  pleasure  that  it  will  give  me,  that  is  usually  untrue. 
When  I  am  hungry  I  desire  food,  and  so  long  as  my  hunger 
persists  food  will  give  me  pleasure.  But  the  hunger,  which  is  a 
desire,  comes  first;  the  pleasure  is  a  consequence  of  the  desire. 
I  do  not  deny  that  there  are  occasions  when  there  is  a  direct 
desire  for  pleasure.  If  you  have  decided  to  devote  a  free  evening 
to  the  theatre,  you  mil  choose  the  theatre  that  you  think  will  give 
you  the  most  pleasure.  But  the  actions  thus  determined  by  the 
direct  desire  for  pleasure  are  exceptional  and  unimportant. 
Everybody's  main  activities  are  determined  by  desires  which  art 
anterior  to  the  calculation  of  pleasures  and  pains. 

806 


THE    UTILITARIANS 

Anything  whatever  may  be  an  object  of  desire;  a  masochist  may 
desire  his  own  pain.  The  masochist,  no  doubt,  derives  pleasure 
from  the  pain  that  he  has  desired,  but  the  pleasure  is  because  of  the 
desire,  not  vice  versa.  A  man  may  desire  something  that  does  not 
affect  him  personally  except  because  of  his  desire — for  instance, 
the  victory  of  one  side  in  a  war  in  which  his  country  is  neutral. 
He  may  desire  an  increase  of  general  happiness,  or  a  mitigation 
of  general  suffering.  Or  he  may,  like  Carlyle,  desire  the  exact 
opposite.  As  his  desires  vary,  so  do  his  pleasures. 

Ethics  is  necessary  because  men's  desires  conflict.  The  primary 
cause  of  conflict  is  egoism:  most  people  are  more  interested  in 
their  own  welfare  than  in  that  of  other  people.  But  conflicts  are 
equally  possible  where  there  is  no  element  of  egoism.  One  man 
may  wish  everybody  to  be  Catholic,  another  may  wish  everybody 
to  be  Calvinist.  Such  non-egoistic  desires  are  frequently  involved 
in  social  conflicts.  Ethics  has  a  twofold  purpose:  first,  to  find  a 
criterion  by  which  to  distinguish  good  and  bad  desires;  second, 
by  means  of  praise  and  blame,  to  promote  good  desires  and 
discourage  such  as  are  bad. 

The  ethical  part  of  the  utilitarian  doctrine,  which  is  logically 
independent  of  the  psychological  part,  says:  Those  desires  and 
those  actions  are  good  which  in  fact  promote  the  general  happiness. 
Ttys  need  not  be  the  intention  of  an  action,  but  only  its  effect.  Is 
there  any  valid  theoretical  argument  either  for  or  against  this 
doctrine?  We  found  ourselves  faced  with  a  similar  question  in 
relation  to  Nietzsche.  His  ethic  differs  from  that  of  the  utilitarians, 
since  it  holds  that  only  a  minority  of  the  human  race  have  ethical 
importance — the  happiness  or  unhappiness  of  the  remainder 
should  be  ignored.  I  do  not  myself  believe  that  this  disagreement 
can  be  dealt  with  by  theoretical  arguments  such  as  might  be  used 
in  a  scientific  question.  Obviously  those  who  are  excluded  from 
the  Nietzschean  aristocracy  will  object,  and  thus  the  issue  becomes 
political  rather  than  theoretical.  The  utilitarian  ethic  is  democratic 
and  anti-romantic.  Democrats  are  likely  to  accept  it,  but  those 
who  like  a  more  Byronic  view  of  the  world  can,  in  my  opinion, 
be  refuted  only  practically,  not  by  considerations  which  appeal 
only  to  facts  as  opposed  to  desires.  ft 

The  Philosophical  Radicals  were  a  transitional  school.  Their 
system  gave  birth  to  two  others,  of  more  importance  than  itself, 
namely  Darwinism  and  Socialism.  Darwinism  was  an  application 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

to  the  whole  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  of  Malthus's  theory  of 
population,  which  was  an  integral  part  of  the  politics  and  econo- 
mics of  the  Benthamites — a  global  free  competition,  in  which 
victory  went  to  the  animals  that  most  resembled  successful 
capitalists.  Darwin  himself  was  influenced  by  Mai  thus,  and  was 
in  general  sympathy  with  the  Philosophical  Radicals.  There  was, 
however,  a  great  diilerence  between  the  competition  admired  by 
orthodox  economists  and  the  struggle  for  existence  which  Darwin 
proclaimed  as  the  motive  force  of  evolution.  "Free  competition," 
in  orthodox  economics,  is  a  very  artificial  conception,  hedged  in 
by  legal  restrictions.  You  may  undersell  a  competitor,  but  you 
must  not  murder  him.  You  must  not  use  the  armed  forces  of  the 
State  to  help  you  to  get  the  better  of  foreign  manufacturers. 
Those  who  have  not  the  good  fortune  to  possess  capital  must  not 
seek  to  improve  their  lot  by  revolution.  "Free  competition,11  as 
understood  by  the  Benthamites,  was  by  no  means  really  free. 

Darwinian  competition  was  not  of  this  limited  sort ;  there  were 
no  rules  against  hitting  below  the  belt.  The  framework  of  law 
does  not  exist  among  animals,  nor  is  war  excluded  as  a  competitive 
method.  The  use  of  the  State  to  secure  victor}'  in  competition 
was  against  the  rules  as  conceived  by  the  Benthamites,  but  could 
not  be  excluded  from  the  Darwinian  struggle.  In  fact,  though 
Darwin  himself  was  a  Liberal,  and  though  Nietzsche  never  rr^n- 
tions  him  except  with  contempt,  Darwin's  "Survival  of  the 
Fittest"  led,  when  thoroughly  assimilated,  to  something  much 
more  like  Nietzsche's  philosophy  than  like  Bentham's.  These 
developments,  however,  belong  to  a  later  period,  since  Darwin's 
Origin  of  Species  was  published  in  1859,  and  its  political  impli- 
cations were  not  at  first  perceived. 

Socialism,  on  the  contrary,  began  in  the  heyday  of  Benthamism, 
and  as  a  direct  outcome  of  orthodox  economics.  Ricardo,  who  was 
intimately  associated  with  Bentham,  Malthus,  and  James  Mill, 
taught  that  the  exchange  value  of  a  commodity  is  entirely  due  to 
the  labour  expended  in  producing  it.  He  published  this  theory 
in  1817,  and  eight  years  later  Thomas  Hodgskin,  an  ex-naval 
officer,  published  the  first  Socialist  rejoinder,  Labour  Defended 
Against  the  Chums  of  Capital,  (le  argued  that  if,  as  Ricardo  taught, 
all  value  is  conferred  by  labour,  then  all  the  reward  ought  to  go 
to  labour;  the  share  at  present  obtained  by  the  landowner  and  the 
'  capitalist  must  be  mere  extortion.  Meanwhile  Robert  Owen,  after 

808 


THE   UTILITARIANS 

much  practical  experience  as  a  manufacturer,  had  become  con- 
vinced of  the  doctrine  which  soon  came  to  be  called  Socialism. 
(The  first  use  of  the  word  "Socialist"  occurs  in  1827,  when  it  is 
applied  to  the  followers  of 'Owen .)  Machinery,  he  said,  was  dis- 
placing Igbotir,  and  laisser-faire  gave  the  working  classes  no 
adequate  means  of  combating  mechanical  power.  The  method 
which  he  proposed  for  dealing  with  the  evil  was  the  earliest  form 
of  modern  Socialism. 

Although  Owen  was  a  friend  of  Bentham,  who  had  invested  a 
considerable  sum  of  money  in  Owen's  business,  the  Philosophical 
Radicals  did  not  like  his  new  doctrines;  in  fact,  the  advent  of 
Socialism  made  them  less  Radical  and  less  philosophical  than  they 
had  been.  Hodgskin  secured  a  certain  following  in  London,  and 
James  Mill  was  horrified.  He  wrote: 

14 Their  notions  of  property  look  ugly;  .  .  .  they  seem  to  think 
that  it  should  not  exist,  and  that  the  existence  of  it  is  an  evil  to 
them.  Rascals,  I  have  no  doubt,  are  at  work  among  them.  .  .  . 
The  fools,  not  to  see  that  what  they  madly  desire  would  be  such 
a  calamity  to  them  as  no  hands  but  their  own  could  bring  upon 
them." 

This  letter,  written  in  1831,  may  be  taken  as  the  beginning  of 
the  long  war  between  Capitalism  and  Socialism.  In  a  later  letter, 
James  Mill  attributes  the  doctrine  to  the  "mad  nonsense"  of 
H&dgskin,  and  adds:  "These  opinions  if  they  were  to  spread, 
would  be  the  subversion  of  civilized  society;  worse  than  the 
overwhelming  deluge  of  Huns  and  Tartars." 

Socialism,  in  so  far  as  it  is  only  political  or  economic,  does  not 
come  within  the  purview  of  a  history  of  philosophy.  But  in  the 
hands  of  Karl  Marx  Socialism  acquired  a  philosophy.  His 
philosophy  will  be  considered  in  the  next  chapter. 


809 


Chapter  XXVII 
KARL  MARX 

•         i 

KARL  MARX  is  usually  thought  of  as  the  man  who  claimed 
to  have  made  Socialism  scientific,  and  who  did  more  than 
anyone  else  to  create  the  powerful  movement  which,  by 
attraction  and  repulsion,  has  dominated  the  recent  history  of 
Europe.  It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  the  present  work  to 
consider  his  economics,  or  his  politics  except  in '  certain  general 
aspects;  it  is  only  as  a  philosopher,  and  an  influence  on  the  philo- 
sophy of  others,  that  I  propose  to  deal  with  him.  In  this  respect 
he  is  difficult  to  classify.  In  one  aspect,  he  is  an  outcome,  like 
Hodgskin,  of  the  Philosophical  Radicals,  continuing  their  rational- 
ism and  their  opposition  to  the  romantics.  In  another  aspect  he  is  a 
revivifier  of  materialism,  giving  it  a  new  interpretation  and  a 
new  connection  with  human  history.  In  yet  another  aspect  he  is 
the  last  of  the  great  system-builders,  the  successor  of  Hegel,  a 
believer,  like  him,  in  a  rational  formula  summing  up  the  evolution 
of  mankind.  Emphasis  upon  any  one  of  these  aspects  at  the 
expense  of  the  others  gives  a  false  and  distorted  view  of  his 
philosophy. 

The  events  of  his  life  in  part  account  for  this  complexity.  He 
was  born  in  1818,  at  Trcves,  like  St.  Ambrose.  Treves  had  been 
profoundly  influenced  by  the  French  during  the  revolutionary 
and  Napoleonic  era,  and  was  much  more  cosmopolitan  in  outlook 
than  most  parts  of  Germany.  His  ancestors  had  been  rabbis,  but 
his  parents  became  Christian  when  he  was  a  child.  He  married 
a  gentile  aristocrat,  to  whom  he  remained  devoted  throughout 
his  life.  At  the  university  he  was  influenced  by  the  still  prevalent 
Hegelianism,  as  also  by  Feuerbach's  revolt  against  Hegel  towards 
matecalisgi.  He  tried  journalism,  but  the  Rheinischc  Zeitung, 
which  he  edited,  was  suppressed  by  the  authorities  for  its  radical- 
ism. After  this,  in  1843,  he  went  to  France  to  study  Socialism. 
There  he  met  Engels,  who  was  the  manager  of  a  factory  in 
Manchester.  Through  him  he  came  to  know  English  labour 
conditions  and  English  econoriiics.  He  thus  acquired,  before  the 
revolutions  of  1848,  an  unusually  international  culture.  So  far  as 
^Western  Europe  was  concerned,  he  showed  no  national  bias. 

810 


KARL   MARX 

This  cannot  be  said  of  Eastern  Europe,  for  he  always  despised 
the  Slavs. 

He  took  part  in  both  the  French  and  the  German  revolutions 
of  1848,  but  the  reaction  compelled  him  to  seek  refuge  in  England 
in  1849.  He  spent  the  rest  of  his  life,  with  a  few  brief  intervals,  in 
London*  trdubled  by  poverty,  illness,  and  the  deaths  of  children, 
but  nevertheless  indefatigably  writing  and  amassing  knowledge. 
The  stimulus  to  his  work  was  always  the  hope  of  the  social 
revolution,  if  not  in  his  lifetime,  then  in  some  not  very  distant 
future. 

Marx,  like  Bentham  and  James  Mill,  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  romanticism;  it  is  always  his  intention  to  be  scientific.  His 
economics  is  an  outcome  of  British  classical  economics,  changing 
only  the  motive  force.  Classical  economists,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, aimed  at  the  welfare  of  the  capitalist,  as  opposed 
both  to  the  landowner  and  to  the  wage-earner;  Marx,  on  the 
contrary,  set  to  work  to  represent  the  interest  of  the  wage-earner. 
He  had  in  youth — as  appears  in  the  Communist  Manifesto  of 
1848 — the  fire  and  passion  appropriate  to  a  new  revolutionary 
movement,  as  liberalism  had  had  in  the  time  of  Milton.  But  he 
was  always  anxious  to  appeal  to  evidence,  and  never  relied  upon 
any  extra-scientific  intuition. 

He  called  himself  a  materialist,  but  not  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  sort.  His  sort,  which,  under  Hegelian  influence,  he  called 
"dialectical,"  differed  in  an  important  way  from  traditional 
materialism,  and  was  more  akin  to  what  is  now  called  instru- 
mcntalism.  The  older  materialism,  he  said,  mistakenly  regarded 
sensation  as  passive,  and  thus  attributed  activity  primarily  to  the 
object.  In  Marx's  view,  all  sensation  or  perception  is  an  inter-, 
action  between  subject  and  object ;  the  bare  object,  apart  from  the 
activity  of  the  percipient,  is  a  mere  raw  material,  which  is  trans- 
formed in  the  process  of  becoming  known.  Knowledge  in  the 
old  sense  of  passive  contemplation  is  an  unreal  abstraction; 
the  process  that  really  takes  place  is  one  of  handling  \hings. 
"The  question  whether  objective  truth  belongs  to  human  think- 
ing is  not  a  question  of  theory,  but  a  practical  question," 
he  says.  "The  truth,  i.e.  the  reality  and  power,  of  thought  must 
be  demonstrated  in  practice.  tThe  contest  as  to  the  realky 
or  non-reality  of  a  thought  which  is  isolated  from  practice, 
is  a  purely  scholastic  question.  .  .  .  Philosophers  have  only 

8xi 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

interpreted  the  world  in  various  ways,   but  the  real  task  is  to 
alter  it."1 

I  think  we  may  interpret  Marx  as  meaning  that  the  process 
which  philosophers  have  called  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  is  not, 
as  has  been  thought,  one  in  which  the  object  is  constant  while  all 
the  adaptation  is  on  the  part  of  the  knower.  On  the  'contrary, 
both  subject  and  object,  both  the  knower  and  the  thing  known, 
are  in  a  continual  process  of  mutual  adaptation.  He  calls  the 
process  "dialectical"  because  it  is  never  fully  completed. 

It  is  essential  to  this  theory  to  deny  the  reality  of  "sensation" 
as  conceived  by  British  empiricists.  What  happens,  when  it  is 
most  nearly  what  they  mean  by  "sensation,"  would  be  better 
called  "noticing,"  which  implies  activity.  In  fact—so  Marx  would 
contend — we  only  notice  things  as  part  of  the  process  of  acting 
with  reference  to  them,  and  any  theory  which  leaves  out  action 
is  a  misleading  abstraction. 

So  far  as  I  know,  Marx  was  the  first  philosopher  who  criticized 
the  notion  of  "truth"  from  this  activist  point  of  view.  In  him  this 
criticism  was  not  much  emphasized,  and  I  shall  therefore  say 
no  more  about  it  here,  leaving  the  examination  of  the  theory  to  a 
later  chapter. 

Marx's  philosophy  of  history  is  a  blend  of  Hegel  and  British 
economics.  Like  Hegel,  he  thinks  that  the  world  develops  accord- 
ing to  a  dialectical  formula,  but  he  totally  disagrees  with  Heg«;l 
as  to  the  motive  force  of  this  development.  Hegel  believed  in  a 
mystical  entity  called  "Spirit,"  which  causes  human  history  to 
develop  according  to  the  stages  of  the  dialectic  as  set  forth  in 
Hegel's  Logic.  Why  Spirit  has  to  go  through  these  stages  is  not 
clear.  One  is  tempted  to  suppose  that  Spirit  is  trying  to  under- 
stand Hegel,  and  at  each  stage  rashly  objectifies  what  it  has  been 
reading.  Marx's  dialectic  has  none  of  this  quality  except  a  certain 
inevitableness.  For  Marx,  matter,  not  spirit,  is  the  driving  force. 
But  it  is  matter  in  the  peculiar  sense  that  we  have  been  considering, 
not  tM  whtlly  dehumanized  matter  of  the  atomists.  This  means 
that,  for  Marx,  the  driving  force  is  really  man's  relation  to  matter, 
of  which  the  most  important  part  is  his  mode  of  production.  In 
this  way  Marx's  materialism,  in  practice,  becomes  economics. 

•The  politics,  religion,  philosophy,  and  ait  of  any  epoch  in  human 
history  arc,  according  to  Marx,  an  outcome  of  its  methods  of  pro* 
1  Eleven  These*  on  Feverbach,  1845. 
8l2 


KARL   MARX 

duction,  and,  to  a  lesser  extent,  of  distribution.  I  think  he  would 
not  maintain  that  this  applies  to  all  the  niceties  of  culture,  but 
only  to  its  broad  outlines.  The  doctrine  is  called  the  "materialist 
conception  of  history."  This  is  a  very  important  thesis;  in  par- 
ticular, it,cogcerns  the  historian  of  philosophy.  I  do  not  myself 
accept  the  thesis  as  it  stands,  but  I  think  that  it  contains  very 
important  elements  of  truth,  and  I  am  aware  that  it  has  influenced 
my  own  views  of  philosophical  development  as  set  forth  in  the 
present  work.  Let  us,  to  begin  with,  consider  the  history  of 
philosophy  in  relation  to  Marx's  doctrine. 

Subjectively,  every  philosopher  appears  to  himself  to  be 
engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  something  which  may  be  called  "truth." 
Philosophers  may  differ  as  to  the  definition  of  "truth,"  but  at  any 
rate  it  is  something  objective,  something  which,  in  some  sense, 
everybody  ought  to  accept.  No  man  would  engage  in  the  pursuit 
of  philosophy  if  he  thought  that  all  philosophy  is  merely  an  ex- 
pression of  irrational  bias.  But  every  philosopher  will  agree  that 
many  other  philosophers  have  been  actuated  by  bias,  and  have 
had  extra-rational  reasons,  of  which  they  were  usually  unconscious, 
for  many  of  their  opinions.  Marx,  like  the  rest,  believes  in  the 
truth  of  his  own  doctrines;  he  does  not  regard  them  as  nothing 
but  an  expression  of  the  feelings  natural  to  a  rebellious  middle- 
class  German  Jew  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  What 
cart  be  said  about  this  conflict  between  the  subjective  and  objective 
views  of  a  philosophy  ? 

We  may  say,  in  a  broad  way,  that  Greek  philosophy  down  to 
Aristotle  expresses  the  mentality  appropriate  to  the  City  State; 
that  Stoicism  is  appropriate  to  a  cosmopolitan  despotism;  that 
scholastic  philosophy  is  an  intellectual  expression  of  the  Church 
as  an  organization;  that  philosophy  since  Descartes,  or  at  any 
rate  since  Locke,  tends  to  embody  the  prejudices  of  the  commercial 
middle  class;  and  that  Marxism  and  Fascism  are  philosophies 
appropriate  to  the  modern  industrial  State.  This,  I  think,  is,  both 
true  and  important.  I  think,  however,  that  Marx  is  wrong  in 
two  respects.  First,  the  social  circumstances  of  which  account 
must  be  taken  are  quite  as  much  political  as  economic;  they  have 
to  do  with  power,  of  which  wealth  is  only  one  form.  Second, 
social  causation  largely  ceases  to*  apply  as  soon  as  a  problem 
becomes  detailed  and  technical.  The  first  of  these  objections  I 
have  set  forth  to  my  book  Power,  and  I  shall  therefore  say  no, 

813 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

more  about  it.  The  second  more  intimately  concerns  the  history 
of  philosophy,  and  I  will  give  some  examples  of  its  scope. 

Take,  first,  the  problem  of  universals.  This  problem  was  first 
discussed  by  Plato,  then  by  Aristotle,  by  the  Schoolmen,  by  the 
British  empiricists,  and  by  the  most  modern  logicumsv  It  would 
be  absurd  to  deny  that  bias  has  influenced  the  opinions  of  philo- 
sophers on  this  question.  Plato  was  influenced  by  Parmenides 
and  Orphism;  he  wanted  an  eternal  world,  and  could  not  believe 
in  the  ultimate  reality  of  the  temporal  flux.  Aristotle  was  more 
empirical,  and  had  no  dislike  of  the  every-day  world.  Thorough- 
going empiricists  in  modern  times  have  a  bias  which  is  the 
opposite  of  Plato's :  they  find  the  thought  of  a  super-sensible  world 
unpleasant,  and  are  willing  to  go  to  great  lengths  to  avoid  having 
to  believe  in  it.  But  these  opposing  kinds  of  bias  are  perennial, 
and  have  only  a  somewhat  remote  connection  with  the  social 
system.  It  is  said  that  love  of  the  eternal  is  characteristic  of  a 
leisure  class,  which  lives  on  the  labour  of  others.  I  doubt  if  this 
is  true.  Epictetus  and  Spinoza  were  not  gentlemen  of  leisure.  It 
might  be  urged,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  conception  of  heaven 
as  a  place  where  nothing  is  done  is  that  of  weary  toilers  who 
want  nothing  but  rest.  Such  argumentation  can  be  carried  on 
indefinitely,  and  leads  nowhere. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  come  to  the  detail  of  the  con- 
troversy about  universals,  we  find  that  each  side  can  invent  argu- 
ments which  the  other  side  will  admit  to  be  valid.  Some  of 
Aristotle's  criticisms  of  Plato  on  this  question  have  been  almost 
universally  accepted.  In  quite  recent  times,  although  no  decision 
has  been  reached,  a  new  technique  has  been  developed,  and  many 
incidental  problems  have  been  solved.  It  is  not  irrational  to  hope 
that,  before  very  long,  a  definite  agreement  may  be  reached  by 
logicians  on  this  question. 

Take,  as  a  second  example,  the  ontological  argument.  This,  as 
we  tave  £een,  was  invented  by  Anseim,  rejected  by  Thomas 
Aquinas,  accepted  by  Descartes,  refuted  by  Kant,  and  reinstated 
by  Hegel.  I  think  it  may  be  said  quite  decisively  that,  as  a  result 
of  analysts  of  the  concept  "existence,"  modern  logic  has  proved 
this  argument  invalid.  This  is  not  a  matter  of  temperament  or  of 
the  social  system;  it  is  a  purely  technical  matter.  The  refutation 
of  the  argument  affords,  of  course,  no  ground  for  supposing  its 
^conclusion,  namely  the  existence  of  God,  to  be  untrue;  if  it  did, 

814 


KARL   MARX 

we  cannot  suppose  that  Thomas  Aquinas  would  have  rejected 
the  argument. 

Or  take  the  question  of  materialism.  This  is  a  word  which  is 
capable  of  many  meanings;  we  have  seen  that  Marx  radically 
altered  its  significance.  The  heated  controversies  as  to  its  truth 
or  falsehood  have  largely  depended,  for  their  continued  vitality, 
upon  avoidance  of  definition.  When  the  term  is  defined,  it  will 
be  found  that,  according  to  some  possible  definitions,  materialism 
is  demonstrably  false;  according  to  certain  others,  it  may  be  true, 
though  there  is  no  positive  reason  to  think  so;  while  according  to 
yet  other  definitions  there  are  some  reasons  in  its  favour,  though 
these  reasons  are  not  conclusive.  All  this,  again,  depends  upon 
technical  considerations,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  social 
system. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  really  fairly  simple.  What  is  conven- 
tionally called  "philosophy"  consists  of  two  very  different  ele- 
ments. On  the  one  hand,  there  are  questions  which  are  scientific 
or  logical;  these  are  amenable  to  methods  as  to  which  there  is 
general  agreement.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  questions  of 
passionate  interest  to  large  numbers  of  people,  as  to  which  there 
is  no  solid  evidence  either  way.  Among  the  latter  are  practical 
questions  as  to  which  it  is  impossible  to  remain  aloof.  When  there 
is  a  war,  I  must  support  my  own  country  or  come  into  painful 
conflict  both  with  friends  and  with  the  authorities.  At  many  times 
there  has  been  no  middle  course  between  supporting  and  opposing 
the  official  religion.  For  one  reason  or  another,  we  all  find  it 
impossible  to  iftaintain  an  attitude  of  sceptical  detachment  on 
many  issues  as  to  which  pure  reason  is  silent.  A  "p&losophy," 
in  a  very  usual  sense  of  the  word,  is  an  organic  whole  of  such  extra- 
rational  decisions.  It  is  in  regard  to  "philosophy"  in  this  sense 
that  Marx's  contention  is  largely  true.  But  even  in  this  sense  a 
philosophy  is  determined  by  other  social  causes  as  well  as  by 
those  that  are  economic.  War,  especially,  has  its  share  jp  historical 
causation ;  and  victory  in  war  docs  not  always  go  to  the  side  with 
the  greatest  economic  resources. 

Marx  fitted  his  philosophy  of  history  into  a  mould  suggested 
by  Hegelian  dialectic,  but  in  fact  there  was  only  one  triad  that 
concerned  him:  feudalism,  represented  by  the  landowner; 
capitalism,  represented  by  the  industrial  employer;  and  Socialism, 
represented  by  the  wage-earner.  Hegel  thought  of  nations  as  the 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

vehicles  of  dialectic  movement ;  Marx  substituted  classes.  He  dis- 
claimed always  all  ethical  or  humanitarian  reasons  for  preferring 
Socialism  or  taking  the  side  of  the  wage-earner;  he  maintained, 
not  that  this  side  was  ethically  better,  but  that  it  was  the  side 
taken  by  the  dialectic  in  its  wholly  deterministic  movement.  He 
might  have  said  that  he  did  not  advocate  Socialism,  but  only 
prophesied  it.  This,  however,  would  not  have  been  wholly  true. 
He  undoubtedly  believed  every  dialectical  movement  to  be,  in 
some  impersonal  sense,  a  progress,  and  he  certainly  held  that 
Socialism,  once  established,  would  minister  to  human  happiness 
more  than  either  feudalism  or  capitalism  have  dope.  These  beliefs, 
though  they  must  have  controlled  his  life,  remained  largely  in  the 
background  so  far  as  his  writings  are  concerned.  Occasionally, 
however,  he  abandons  calm  prophecy  for  vigorous  exhortation  to 
rebellion,  and  the  emotional  basis  of  his  ostensibly  scientific 
prognostications  is  implicit  in  all  he  wrote. 

Considered  purely  as  a  philosopher,  Marx  has  grave  short- 
comings. He  is  too  practical,  too  much  wrapped  up  in  the  problems 
of  his  time.  His  purview  is  confined  to  this  planet,  and,  within 
this  planet,  to  Man.  Since  Copernicus,  it  has  been  evident  that 
Man  has  not  the  cosmic  importance  which  he  formerly  arrogated 
to  himself.  No  man  who  has  failed  to  assimilate  this  fact  has  a 
right  to  call  his  philosophy  scientific. 

There  goes  with  this  limitation  to  terrestrial  affairs  a  readineVs 
to  believe  in  progress  as  a  universal  law.  This  readiness  charac- 
terized the  nineteenth  century,  and  existed  in  Marx  as  much  as 
in  bis  contemporaries.  It  is  only  because  of  the  belief  in  the 
inevitability  of  progress  that  Marx  thought  it  possible  to  dispense 
with  ethical  considerations.  If  Socialism  was  coming,  it  must  be 
an  improvement.  He  would  have  readily  admitted  that  it  would 
not  seem  to  be  an  improvement  to  landowners  or  capitalists,  but 
that  only  showed  that  they  were  out  of  harmony  with  the  dialectic 
movement € of  the  time.  Marx  professed  himself  an  atheist,  but 
retained  a  cosmic  optimism  which  only  theism  could  justify. 

Broadly  speaking,  all  the  elements  in  Marx's  philosophy  which 
are  derived  from  Hegel  are  unscientific,  in  the  sense  that  there  is 
no  reason  whatever  to  suppose  them  true. 
*  Perhaps  the  philosophic  draft  that  Marx  gave  to  his  Socialism 
had  really  not  much  to  do  with  the  basis  of  his  opinions.  It  is 
easy  to  restate  the  most  important  part  of  what  he  had  to  say 

816 


KARL  MARX 

without  any  reference  to  the  dialectic.  He  was  impressed  by  the 
appalling  cruelty  of  the  industrial  system  as  it  existed  in  England 
a  hundred  years  ago,  which  he  came  to  know  thoroughly  through 
Engels  and  the  reports  of  Royal  Commissions.  He  saw  that  the 
system  v&s  .likely  to  develop  from  free  competition  towards 
monopoly,  and  that  its  injustice  must  produce  a  movement  of 
revolt  in  the  proletariat.  He  held  that,  in  a  thoroughly  indus- 
trialized community,  the  only  alternative  to  private  capitalism  is 
State  ownership  of  land  and  capital.  None  of  these  propositions 
are  matters  for  pliilosophy,  and  I  shall  therefore  not  consider 
their  truth  or  falsehood.  The  point  is  that,  if  true,  they  suffice  to 
establish  what  is  practically  important  in  his  system.  The  Hegelian 
trappings  might  therefore  be  dropped  with  advantage. 

The  history  of  Marx's  reputation  has  been  peculiar.  In  his  own 
country  his  doctrines  inspired  the  programme  of  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic Party,  which  grew  steadily  until,  in  the  general  election  of 
1912,  it  secured  one  third  of  all  the  votes  cast.  Immediately  after 
the  first  world  war,  the  Social  Democratic  Party  was  for  a  time 
in  power,  and  Ebert,  the  first  president  of  the  Weimar  Republic, 
was  a  member  of  it;  but  by  this  time  the  Party  had  ceased  to 
adhere  to  Marxist  orthodoxy.  Meanwhile,  in  Russia,  fanatical 
believers  in  Marx  had  acquired  the  government.  In  the  West, 
no  large  working-class  movement  has  been  quite  Marxist;  the 
Ijfitish  labour  Party,  at  times,  has  seemed  to  move  in  that  direc- 
tion, but  has  nevertheless  adhered  to  an  empirical  type  of 
Socialism.  Large  numbers  of  intellectuals,  however,  have  been 
profoundly  influenced  by  him,  both  in  England  and  in  America. 
In  Germany  all  advocacy  of  his  doctrines  has  bedh  forcibly 
suppressed,  but  may  be  expected  to  revive  when  the  Nazis  are 
overthrown.1 

Modern  Europe  and  America  have  thus  been  divided,  politically 
and  ideologically,  into  three  camps.  There  are  Liberals,  who  still, 
as  far  as  may  be,  follow  Locke  or  Bentham,  but  with  \arying 
degrees  of  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  industrial  organization.  There 
are  Marxists,  who  control  the  Government  in  Russia,  and  are 
likely  to  become  increasingly  influential  in  various  other  countries. 
These  two  sections  of  opinion  are  philosophically  not  very  widely 
separated,  both  are  rationalistic,  and  both,  in  intention,  drc 
scientific  and  empirical.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of  practical 
1  I  am  writing  in  1943. 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

politics  the  division  is  sharp.  It  appears  already  in  the  letter  of 
James  Mill  quoted  in  the  preceding  chapter,  saying  "their  notions 
of  property  look  ugly." 

It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  there  are  certain  respects  in 
which  the  rationalism  of  Marx  is  subject  to  limitations..  Although 
he  holds  that  his  interpretation  of  the  trend  of  development  is 
true,  and  will  be  borne  out  by  events,  he  believes  that  the  argu- 
ment will  only  appeal  (apart  from  rare  exceptions)  to  those  whose 
class  interest  is  in  agreement  with  it.  He  hopes  little  from  per- 
suasion, everything  from  the  class  war.  He  is  thus  committed  in 
practice  to  power  politics,  and  to  the  doctrine  of  a  master  class, 
though  not  of  a  master  race.  It  is  true  that,  as  a  result  of  the  social 
revolution,  the  division  of  classes  is  expected  ultimately  to  dis- 
appear, giving  place  to  complete  political  and  economic  harmony. 
But  this  is  a  distant  ideal,  like  the  Second  Coming;  in  the  mean- 
time, there  is  war  and  dictatorship,  and  insistence  upon  ideological 
orthodoxy. 

The  third  section  of  modern  opinion,  represented  politically  by 
Nazis  and  Fascists,  differs  philosophically  from  the  other  two  far 
more  profoundly  than  they  differ  from  each  other.  It  is  anti- 
rational  and  anti-scientific.  Its  philosophical  progenitors  are 
Rousseau,  Fichte,  and  Nietzsche.  It  emphasizes  will,  especially 
will  to  power;  this  it  believes  to  be  mainly  concentrated  in  certain 
races  and  individuals,  who  therefore  have  a  right  to  rule. 

Until  Rousseau,  the  philosophical  world  had  a  certain  unity. 
This  has  disappeared  for  the  time  being,  but  perhaps  not  for  long. 
It  can  be  recovered  by  a  rationalistic  recon quest  of  men's  minds, 
but  not  in  any  other  way,  since  claims  to  mastery  can  only 
breed  strife. 


Chapter  XXVIII 
BERGSON 


HENRI  BERGSON  was  the  leading  French  philosopher  of 
the  present  century.  He  influenced  William  James  and 
Whitehead,  and  had  a  considerable  effect  upon  French 
thought.  Sorel,  who  was  a  vehement  advocate  of  syndicalism  and 
the  author  of  a  book  called  Reflections  on  Violence,  used  Bergsonian 
irrationalism  to  justify  a  revolutionary  labour  movement  having 
no  definite  goal.  In  the  end,  however,  Sorel  abandoned  syndicalism 
and  became  a  royalist.  The  main  effect  of  Bergson's  philosophy 
was  conservative,  and  it  harmonized  easily  with  the  movement 
which  culminated  in  Vichy.  But  Bergson's  irrationalism  made  a 
wide  appeal  quite  unconnected  with  politics,  for  instance  to 
Bernard  Shaw,  whose  Back  to  Methuselah  is  pure  Bergsonism. 
Forgetting  politics,  it  is  in  its  purely  philosophical  aspect  that  we 
must  consider  it.  I  have  dealt  with  it  somewhat  fully  as  it  exempli- 
ties  admirably  the  revolt  against  reason  which,  beginning  with 
Rousseau,  has  gradually  dominated  larger  and  larger  areas  in  the 
lifb  and  thought  of  the  world.1 

The  classification  of  philosophies  is  effected,  as  a  rule,  either 
by  their  methods  or  by  their  results:  "empirical"  and  "a  priori" 
is  a  classification  by  methods,  "realist"  and  "idealist"  is  a  classi- 
fication by  results.  An  attempt  to  classify  Bergson's  philosophy 
in  either  of  these  ways  is  hardly  likely  to  be  successful,  since  it 
cuts  across  all  the  recognized  divisions. 

But  there  is  another  way  of  classifying  philosophies,  less  precise, 
but  perhaps  more  helpful  to  the  non-philosophical;  in  this  way, 
the  principle  of  division  is  according  to  the  predominant  desire 
which  has  led  the  philosopher  to  philosophize.  Thus  Wfc  shall  have 
philosophies  of  feeling,  inspired  by  the  love  of  happiness;  theoret- 
ical philosophies,  inspired  by  the  love  of  knowledge;  and  practical 
philosophies,  inspired  by  the  love  of  action. 

Among  philosophies  of  feeling  we  shall  place  all  those  which 

1  The  remainder  of  this  chapter  i*  in  the  main  a  reprint  of  an  article 
published  in  Tk*  Montr*  for  1911. 

8l9 


WESTERN  PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

we  primarily  optimistic  or  pessimistic,  all  those  that  offer  schemes 
of  salvation  or  try  to  prove  that  salvation  is  impossible;  to  this 
class  belong  most  religious  philosophies.  Among  theoretical  philo- 
sophies we  shall  place  most  of  the  great  systems;  for  though  the 
desire  for  knowledge  is  rare,  it  has  been  the  sourcp  of*  most  of 
what  is  best  in  philosophy.  Practical  philosophies,  on  the  other 
hand,  will  be  those  which  regard  action  as  the  supreme  good, 
considering  happiness  an  effect  and  knowledge  a  mere  instrument 
of  successful  activity.  Philosophies  of  this  type  would  have  been 
common  among  Western  Europeans  if  philosophers  had  been 
average  men;  as  it  is,  they  have  been  rare  until  recent  times;  in 
fact  their  chief  representatives  are  the  pragma tists  and  Bergson. 
In  the  rise  of  this  type  of  philosophy  we  may  see,  as  Bergson 
himself  does,  the  revolt  of  the  modern  man  of  action  against  the 
authority  of  Greece,  and  more  particularly  of  Plato;  or  we  may 
connect  it,  as  Dr.  Schiller  apparently  would,  with  imperialism 
and  the  motor-car.  The  modern  world  calls  for  such  a  philosophy, 
and  the  success  which  it  has  achieved  is  therefore  not  surprising. 

Bergson 's  philosophy,  unlike  most  of  the  systems  of  the  past,  is 
dualistic:  the  world,  for  him,  is  divided  into  two  disparate  portions, 
on  the  one  hand  life,  on  the  other  matter,  or  rather  that  inert 
something  which  the  intellect  views  as  matter.  The  whole  universe 
is  the  clash  and  conflict  of  two  opposite  motions :  life,  which  climbs 
upward,  and  matter,  which  falls  downward.  Life  is  one  great  forte, 
one  vast  vital  impulse,  given  once  for  all  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world,  meeting  the  resistance  of  matter,  struggling  to  break  a  way 
through  matter,  learning  gradually  to  use  matter  by  means  of 
organization;  divided  by  the  obstacles  it  encounters  into  diverging 
currents,  like  the  wind  at  a  street-corner;  partly  subdued  by 
matter  through  the  very  adaptations  which  matter  forces  upon  it ; 
yet  retaining  always  its  capacity  for  free  activity,  struggling  always 
to  find  new  outlets,  seeking  always  for  greater  liberty  of  movement 
amid  the  opposing  walk  of  matter. 

Evolution  is  not  primarily  explicable  by  adaptation  to  environ* 
meat;  adaptation  explains  only  the  turns  and  twists  of  evolution, 
like  the  windings  of  a  road  approaching  a  town  through  hilly 
country.  But  this  simile  is  not  quite  adequate;  there  is  no  town, 
06  definite  goal,  at  the  end  06  the  road  along  which  evolution 
travels.  Mechanism  and  teleology  suffer  from  the  same  defect: 
suppose  that  there  is  no  essential  novelty  in  the  world. 

824 


BERGSON 

Mechanism  regards  the  future  as  implicit  in  the  past,  and  tele- 
ology, since  it  believes  that  the  end  to  be  achieved  can  be  known  in 
advance,  denies  that  any  essential  novelty  is  contained  in  the  result. 

As  against  both  these  views,  though  with  more  sympathy  for 
teleology*  than  fpr  mechanism,  Bergson  maintains  that  evolution 
is  truly  creative,  like  the  work  of  an  artist.  An  impulse  to  action, 
an  undefined  want,  exists  beforehand,  but  until  the  want  is  satis- 
fied it  is  impossible  to  know  the  nature  of  what  will  satisfy  it.  For 
example,  we  may  suppose  some  vague  desire  in  sightless  animals 
to  be  able  to  be  aware  of  objects  before  they  were  in  contact  with 
them.  This  led  to  efforts  which  finally  resulted  in  the  creation  of 
eyes.  Sight  satisfied  the  desire,  but  could  not  have  been  imagined 
beforehand.  For  this  reason,  evolution  is  unpredictable,  and  deter- 
minism cannot  refute  the  advocates  of  free  will. 

This  broad  outline  is  filled  in  by  an  account  of  the  actual  devel- 
opment of  life  on  the  earth.  The  first  division  of  the  current  was 
into  plants  and  animals;  plants  aimed  at  storing  up  energy  in  a 
reservoir,  animals  aimed  at  using  energy  for  sudden  and  rapid 
movements.  But  among  animals,  at  a  later  stage,  a  new  bifurcation 
appeared:  instinct  and  intellect  became  more  or  less  separated. 
They  arc  never  wholly  without  each  other,  but  in  the  main  intellect 
is  the  misfortune  of  man,  while  instinct  is  seen  at  its  best  in  ants, 
bees,  and  Bergson.  The  division  between  intellect  and  instinct  is 
fundamental  in  his  philosophy,  much  of  which  is  a  kind  of  Sand- 
ford  and  Meiton,  with  instinct  as  the  good  boy  and  intellect  as  the 
bad  boy. 

Instinct  at  its  best  is  called  intuition.  uBy  intuition"  he  says,  "I 
mean  instinct  that  lias  become  disinterested,  self-oonscious, 
capable  of  reflecting  upon  its  object  and  of  enlarging  it  inde- 
finitely.'1 The  account  of  the  doings  of  intellect  is  not  always  easy 
to  follow,  but  if  \ve  are  to  understand  Bergson  we  must  do  our  best. 

Intelligence  or  intellect,  "as  it  leaves  the  hands  of  nature,  has 
for  its  chief  object  the  inorganic  solid";  it  can  only  form  a  clear 
idea  of  the  discontinuous  and  immobile;  its  concepts  are  oiltside 
each  other  like  objects  in  space,  and  have  the  same  stability.  The 
intellect  separates  in  space  and  fixes  in  time;  it  is  not  made  to 
think  evolution,  but  to  represent  becoming  as  a  series  of  states.  "The 
intellect  is  characterized  by  a  natuqil  inability  to  understand  life"< 
geometry  and  logic,  which  are  its  typical  products,  are  strictly 
applicable  to  solid  bodies,  but  elsewhere  reasoning  must  be  checked 

821 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

by  common  sense,  which,  as  Bergson  truly  says,  is  a  very  different 
thing.  Solid  bodies,  it  would  seem,  are  something  which  mind  has 
created  on  purpose  to  apply  intellect  to  them,  much  as  it  has 
created  chess-boards  in  order  to  play  chess  on  them.  The  genesis 
of  intellect  and  the  genesis  of  material  bodies,  ,we  are  told,  are 
correlative;  both  have  been  developed  by  reciprocal  adaptation. 
"An  identical  process  must  have  cut  out  matter  and  the  intellect, 
at  the  same  time,  from  a  stuff  that  contained  both/* 

This  conception  of  the  simultaneous  growth  of  matter  and  in- 
tellect is  ingenious,  and  deserves  to  be  understood.  Broadly,  I 
think,  what  is  meant  is  this:  Intellect  is  the  power  of  seeing  things 
as  separate  one  from  another,  and  matter  is  that  which  is  separated 
into  distinct  things.  In  reality  there  are  no  separate  solid  things, 
only  an  endless  stream  of  becoming,  in  which  nothing  becomes 
and  there  is  nothing  that  this  nothing  becomes.  But  becoming  may 
be  a  movement  up  or  a  movement  down :  when  it  is  a  movement 
up  it  is  called  life,  when  it  is  a  movement  down  it  is  what,  as 
misapprehended  by  the  intellect,  is  called  matter.  I  suppose  the 
universe  is  shaped  like  a  cone,  with  the  Absolute  at  the  vertex,  for 
the  movement  up  brings  things  together,  while  the  movement 
down  separates  them,  or  at  least  seems  to  do  so.  In  order  that  the 
upward  motion  of  mind  may  be  able  to  thread  its  way  through 
the  downward  motion  of  the  falling  bodies  which  hail  upon  it,  it 
must  be  able  to  cut  out  paths  between  them;  thus  as  intelligence 
was  formed,  outlines  and  paths  appeared,  and  the  primitive  flux 
was  cut  up  into  separate  bodies.  The  intellect  may  be  compared 
to  a  carver,  but  it  has  the  peculiarity  of  imagining  that  the  chicken 
always  was  the  separate  pieces  into  which  the  carving-knife 
divides  it. 

"The  intellect,"  Bergson  says,  "always  behaves  as  if  it  were 
fascinated  by  the  contemplation  of  inert  matter.  It  is  life  looking 
outward,  putting  itself  outside  itself,  adopting  the  ways  of  unor- 
ganized nature  in  principle,  in  order  to  direct  them  in  fact."  If 
we  n£ay  te  allowed  to  add  another  image  to  the  many  by  which 
Bergson 's  philosophy  is  illustrated,  we  may  say  that  the  universe  is 
a  vast  funicular  railway,  in  which  Ufe  is  the  train  that  goes  up,  and 
matter  is  the  train  that  goes  down.  The  intellect  consists  in  watch- 
ing the  descending  train  as  it  ppsses  the  ascending  train  in  which 
we  are.  The  obviously  nobler  faculty  which  concentrates  its  atten- 
tion on  our  own  train  is  instinct  or  intuition.  It  is  possible  to  leap 

822 


DPRGSON 

from  one  train  to  the  other;  this  happens  when  we  become  the 
victims  of  automatic  habit,  and  is  the  essence  of  the  comic.  Or 
we  can  divide  ourselves  into  parts,  one  part  going  up  and  one 
down ;  then  only  the  part  going  down  is  comic.  But  intellect  is  not 
itself  a  <Je8(¥nding  motion,  it  is  merely  an  observation  of  the 
descending  motion  by  the  ascending  motion. 

Intellect,  which  separates  things,  is,  according  to  Bergson,  a 
kind  of  dream;  it  is  not  active,  as  all  our  life  ought  to  be,  but 
purely  contemplative.  When  we  dream,  he  says,  our  self  is  scat- 
tered, our  past  is  broken  into  fragments,  things  which  really  inter- 
penetrate each  other  are  seen  as  separate  solid  units:  the  extra- 
spatial  degrades  itself  into  spatiality,  which  is  nothing  but  separate- 
ness.  Thus  all  intellect,  since  it  separates,  tends  to  geometry;  and 
logic,  which  deals  with  concepts  that  lie  wholly  outside  each  other, 
is  really  an  outcome  of  geometry,  following  the  direction  of 
materiality.  Both  deduction  and  induction  require  spatial  intuition 
behind  them;  "the  movement  at  the  end  of  which  is  spatiality 
lays  down  along  its  course  the  faculty  of  induction,  as  well  as  that 
of  deduction,  in  fact,  intellectuality  entire."  It  creates  them  in 
mind,  and  also  the  order  in  things  which  the  intellect  finds  there. 
Thus  logic  and  mathematics  do  not  represent  a  positive  spiritual 
effort,  but  a  mere  somnambulism,  in  which  the  will  is  suspended, 
and  the  mind  is  no  longer  active.  Incapacity  for  mathematics  is 
therefore  a  sign  of  grace  —fortunately  a  very  common  one. 

As  intellect  is  connected  with  space,  so  instinct  or  intuition  is 
connected  with  time.  It  is  one  of  the  noteworthy  features  of  Berg- 
son's  philosophy  that,  unlike  most  writers,  he  regards  time  and 
space  as  profoundly  dissimilar.  Space,  the  characteristic!  of  matter, 
arises  from  a  dissection  of  the  flux  which  is  really  illusory,  useful, 
up  to  a  certain  point,  in  practice,  but  utterly  misleading  in  theory. 
Time,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  essential  characteristic  of  life  or 
mind.  "Wherever  anything  lives,"  he  says,  "there  is,  open  some- 
where, a  register  in  which  time  is  being  inscribed."  But  tfye  time 
here  spoken  of  is  not  mathematical  time,  the  homogeneous  assem- 
blage of  mutually  external  instants.  Mathematical  time,  according 
to  Bergson,  is  really  a  form  of  space;  the  time  which  is  of  the 
essence  of  life  is  what  he  calls  duration.  This  conception  of  duration 
is  fundamental  in  his  philosophy t  it  appears  already  in  his  earliest 
book  Tune  and  Free  Will,  and  it  is  necessary  to  understand  it  if 
we  art  to  have  any  comprehension  of  his  system.  It  is,  however 

§•3 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

a  very  difficult  conception.  I  do  not  fully  understand  it  myself,  and 
therefore  I  cannot  hope  to  explain  it  with  all  the  lucidity  which  it 
doubtless  deserves. 

"Pure  duration/'  we  are  told,  "is  the  form  which  our  conscious 
states  assume  when  our  ego  lets  itself  live,  when  it  refrains  from 
separating  its  present  state  from  its  former  states."  It  forms  the 
past  and  the  present  into  one  organic  whole,  where  there  is  mutual 
penetration,  succession  without  distinction.  "Within  our  ego,  there 
is  succession  without  mutual  externality;  outside  the  ego,  in  pure 
space,  there  is  mutual  externality  without  succession." 

"Questions  relating  to  subject  and  object,  to  their  distinction 
and  their  union,  should  be  put  in  terms  of  time  rather  than  of 
space.*'  In  the  duration  in  which  we  see  ourselves  acting,  there  art 
dissociated  elements;  but  in  the  duration  in  which  we  act,  our 
states  melt  into  each  other.  Pure  duration  is  what  is  most  removed 
from  externality  and  least  penetrated  with  externality,  a  duration 
in  which  the  past  is  big  with  a  present  absolutely  new.  But  then 
our  will  is  strained  to  the  utmost ;  \ve  have  to  gather  up  the  past 
which  is  slipping  away,  and  thrust  it  whole  and  undivided  into 
the  present.  At  such  moments  we  truly  possess  ourselves,  but  such 
moments  are  rare.  Duration  is  the  very  stuff  of  reality,  which  is 
perpetual  becoming,  never  something  made. 

It  is  above  all  in  memory  that  duration  exhibits  itself,  for  in 
memory  the  past  survives  in  the  present.  Thus  the  theory  *of 
memory  becomes  of  great  importance  in  Bergson's  philosophy. 
Matter  and  Memory  is  concerned  to  show  the  relation  of  mind  and 
matter,  of  which  both  are  affirmed  to  be  real,  by  an  analysis  of 
memory,  frhich  is  "ju&t  the  intersection  of  mind  and  matter." 

There  are,  he  *ay$,  two  radically  different  things,  both  of  which 
are  commonly  called  memory  ;  the  distinction  between  the*c  two 
i*  much  emphasized  by  ikrgson*  "The  part  survive*,"  he  *ay*. 
"under  two  distinct  forms:  first,  in  motor  mechanUm*  *,  secondly, 
in  independent  recollection*."  For  example,  a  man  i*  said  to 
remember*  poem  if  he  can  repeat  it  by  houn,  that  t*  to  say,  if  he 
has  acquired  a  certain  habit  or  mechanism  enabling  him  to  repeat 
a  former  action.  But  he  might,  at  icart  theoretically,  be  able  to 
repeat  the  poem  without  any  recollection  of  the  previous  occasion* 
oh  which  he  ha*  read  it;  thus^here  t*  no  con*cioutne**  of  part 
events  involved  in  thi*  sort  of  memory.  The  *ecood  ton,  which 
Alone  really  deserve*  to  be  called  memory,  t*  exhibited  in  rtcol- 


BERGSON 

lections  of  separate  occasions  when  he  has  read  the  poem,  each 
unique  and  with  a  date.  Here,  he  thinks,  there  can  be  no  question 
of  habit,  since  each  event  only  occurred  once,  and  had  to  make  its 
impression  immediately.  It  is  suggested  that  in  some  way  every- 
thing that  has  happened  to  us  is  remembered,  but  as  a  rule  only 
what  is  useful  comes  into  consciousness.  Apparent  failures  of 
memory,  it  is  argued,  are  not  really  failures  of  the  mental  part  of 
memory,  but  of  the  motor  mechanism  for  bringing  memory  into 
action.  This  view  is  supported  by  a  discussion  of  brain  physiology 
and  the  facts  of  amnesia,  from  which  it  is  held  to  result  that  true 
memory  is  not  a  function  of  the  brain.  The  past  must  be  acted  by 
matter,  imagined  by  mind.  Memory  is  not  an  emanation  of  matter; 
indeed  the  contrary  would  be  nearer  the  truth  if  we  mean  matter 
as  grasped  in  concrete  perception,  which  always  occupies  a  certain 
duration. 

44 Memory  must  be,  in  principle,  a  power  absolutely  independent 
of  matter.  If,  then,  spirit  is  a  reality,  it  is  here,  in  the  phenomena 
of  memory,  that  we  may  come  into  touch  with  it  experimentally." 

At  the  opposite  end  from  pure  memory  Bergson  places  pure 
perception,  in  regard  to  which  he  adopts  an  ultra-realist  position. 
"In  pure  perception,"  he  says,  "we  are  actually  placed  outside 
ourselves,  we  touch  the  reality  of  the  object  in  an  immediate 
intuition."  So  completely  does  he  identify  perception  with  its 
object  that  he  almost  refuses  to  call  it  mental  at  all.  "Pure  percep- 
tion," he  says,  "which  is  the  lowest  degree  of  mind — mind  with- 
out memory — is  really  pan  of  matter,  as  we  understand  matter/' 
Pure  perception  is  constituted  by  dawning  action,  its  actuality  lies 
in  its  activity.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  brain  becomes  relevant  to 
perception,  for  the  brain  is  not  an  instrument  of  action.  The 
function  of  the  brain  is  to  limit  our  mental  life  to  what  is  practically 
useful.  But  for  the  brain,  one  gathers,  everything  would  be  per- 
ceived, but  in  fact  we  only  perceive  what  interests  us.  "The  body, 
always  turned  towards  action,  has  for  its  essential  function  to  limit, 
with  a  view  to  action,  the  life  of  the  spirit."  It  is,  in  fact,  an 
instrument  of  choice. 

We  must  now  return  to  the  subject  of  instinct  or  intuition,  as 
opposed  to  intellect.  It  was  necessary  first  to  give  some  account 
of  duration  and  memory,  since  tfergson's  theories  of  duration  and 
memory  are  presupposed  in  his  account  of  intuition.  In  man,  as 
he  how  exists,  intuition  is  the  fringe  or  penumbra  of  intellect: 

•825 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

it  his  been  thrust  out  of  the  centre  by  being  tow  useful  in  action 
than  intellect,  but  it  has  deeper  uses  which  make  it  desirable  to 
bring  it  back  into  greater  prominence.  Bergson  wishes  to  make 
intellect  "turn  inwards  on  itself,  snd  awaken  the  potentialities  of 
intuition  which  still  slumber  within  it/'  The  relation  between 
instinct  and  intellect  is  compared  to  that  between  sight  and  touch. 
Intellect,  we  are  told,  will  not  give  knowledge  of  things  at  a  dis- 
tance; indeed  the  function  of  science  is  said  to  be  to  explain  sll 
perceptions  in  terms  of  touch. 

"Instinct  alone/'  he  says,  "is  knowledge  at  a  distance*  It  has  the 
same  relation  to  intelligence  that  vision  has  to  touch/'  We  may 
observe  in  passing  that,  as  appears  in  many  passages,  Bcrgson  u 
a  strong  visualizer,  whose  thought  is  always  conducted  by  means 
of  visual  images. 

The  essential  characteristic  of  intuition  is  that  it  Joes  not  divide 
the  world  into  separate  things,  a*  the  intellect  docs;  although 
Bergson  does  not  use  these  words,  *e  might  datcnbt  it  su  syn- 
thetic rather  than  analytic.  It  apprehends  a  multiplicity,  but  a 
multiplicity  of  interpenetrating  processes,  not  of  *patul!v  c*tcrtul 
bodies.  There  are  in  truth  no  thingi    "  things  ami  «utr»  arc  only 
views,  taken  by  our  mind,  of  becoming.  Thrrc  arc  no  thtn#*,  there 
are  only  actions/'  This  view  of  the  world,  which  appear*  difficult 
and  unnatural  to  intellect,  is  easy  and  natural  to  intuition.  Mcmojy 
affords  an  instance  of  what  is  meant,  for  in  memory  the  pan  live* 
on  into  the  present  and  interpenetrates  it.  Apart  from  mmd,  the 
world  would  be  perpetually  dying  and  being  bom  ajrain ;  the  past 
would  have  no  reality,  and  therefore  thcrrc  would  be  no  past.  It  i» 
memory,  with  its  correlative  desire,  that  makes  the  past  and  the 
'future  real  and  therefore  creates  true  duration  and  true  time. 
Intuition  alone  can  understand  this  mingling  of  past  and  future: 
to  the  intellect  they  remain  external,  spatially  external  as  it  were, 
to  one  another.  Under  the  guidance  of  intuition,  we  perceive  that 
"form  is  only  a  snapshot  view  of  a  transition/'  and  the  philosopher 
"will  see  the  material  world  mete  back  into  a  single  flux/' 

Closely  connected  with  the  merits  of  intuition  are  Bcrgaon's 
doctrine  of  freedom  and  his  praise  of  action.  "In  reality/'  he  says, 
"a  living  being  is  a  centre  of  action.  It  represents  a  certain  sum 
of  contingency  entering  into  the*  world,  that  is  to  say,  a  certain 
quantity  of  possible  action/'  The  arguments  against  free  will 
depend  partly  upon  assuming  that  the  intensity  of  psychical  states 


BERG80N 

is  a  quantity,  capable,  at  least  in  theory,  of  numerical  measure- 
ment; this  view  Bergson  undertakes  to  refute  in  the  first  chapter 
of  Time  and  Free  Will.  Partly  the  determinist  depends,  we  are 
told,  upon  a  confusion  between  true  duration  and  mathematical 
time,  whteh  'Bergson  regards  as  really  a  form  of  space.  Partly, 
again,  the  determinist  rests  his  case  upon  the  unwarranted  assump- 
tion that,  when  the  state  of  the  brain  is  given,  the  state  of  the 
mind  is  theoretically  determined.  Bergson  is  willing  to  admit  that 
the  converse  is  true,  that  is  to  say,  that  the  state  of  brain  is  deter- 
minate when  the  state  of  mind  is  given,  but  he  regards  the  mind 
as  more  differentiated  than  the  brain,  and  therefore  holds  that 
many  different  states  of  mind  may  correspond  to  one  state  of 
brain.  He  concludes  that  real  freedom  is  possible:  "We  are  free 
when  our  acts  spring  from  our  whole  personality, when  they  express 
it,  when  they  have  that  indefinable  resemblance  to  it  which  one 
sometimes  finds  between  the  artist  and  his  work." 

In  the  above  outline,  I  have  in  the  main  endeavoured  merely 
to  state  Bergson 's  views,  without  giving  the  reasons  adduced  by 
him  in  favour  of  their  truth.  This  is  easier  than  it  would  be  with 
most  philosophers,  since  as  a  rule  he  does  not  give  reasons  for  his 
opinions,  but  relies  on  their  inherent  attractiveness,  and  on  the 
charm  of  an  excellent  style.  Like  advertisers,  he  relies  upon 
picturesque  and  varied  statement,  and  on  apparent  explanation 
of  many  obscure  facts.  Analogies  and  similes,  especially,  form  a 
very  large  part  of  the  whole  process  by  which  he  recommends 
his  views  to  the  reader.  The  number  of  similes  for  life  to  be 
found  in  his  works  exceeds  the  number  in  any  poet  kngwn  to  me. 
Life,  he  says,  is  like  a  shell  bursting  into  fragments  which  are 
again  shells.  It  is  like  a  sheaf.  Initially,  it  was  "a  tendency  to 
accumulate  in  a  reservoir,  as  do  especially  the  green  parts  of 
vegetables.11  But  the  reservoir  is  to  be  filled  with  boiling  water 
from  which  steam  is  issuing;  "jets  must  be  gushing  out  un- 
ceasingly, of  which  each,  falling  back,  is  a  world. "*\gaift  "life 
appears  in  its  entirety  as  an  immense  wave  which,  starting  from 
a  centre,  spreads  outwards,  and  which  on  almost  the  whole  of  its 
circumference  is  stopped  and  converted  into  oscillation:  at  one 
single  point  the  obstacle  has  bcent forced,  the  impulsion  has  passed 
freely."  Then  there  is  the  great  climax  in  which  life  is  compared 
to  a  cavalry  charge.  "All  organized  beings,  from  the  humblest  to 
the  highest,  from  the  first  origins  of  life  to  the  time  in  which  wt 


WESTERN   PHILOSOFHICAt  THOUdHt 

are,  and  in  ill  places  ss  in  til  times,  do  but  evidence  a  single 
impulsion,  the  inverse  of  the  movement  of  milter,  and  in  itself 
indivisible.  All  the  living  hold  together,  and  all  yield  to  the  same 
tremendous  push.  The  animal  takes  its  stand  on  the  plant,  man 
bestrides  animality,  and  the  whole  of  humanity,  intpfce  and  in 
time,  is  one  immense  army  galloping  beside  and  before  and  behind 
each  of  us  in  an  overwhelming  charge  able  to  beat  down  every 
resistance  and  to  clear  many  obstacles,  perhaps  even  death/* 

But  a  cool  critic,  who  feels  himself  a  mere  spectator,  perhaps 
an  unsympathetic  spectator,  of  the  charge  in  which  man  is  mounted 
upon  animality,  may  be  inclined  to  think  that  calm  and  cartful 
thought  is  hardly  compatible  with  this  form  of  eaercise.  When  he 
is  told  that  thought  i*  a  mere  means  of  action,  the  mere  impuUc 
to  avoid  obstacles  in  the  field,  he  may  feel  that  such  a  view  w 
becoming  in  a  cavalry  officer,  hut  not  in  a  philosopher,  whose 
business,  after  all,  is  with  thought :  he  may  fcrl  that  in  the  paatton 
and  noise  of  violent  motion  there  is  no  nx»m  for  the  fainter  rou*»c 
of  reason,  no  leisure  for  the  diaintcrrstrd  contemplation  in  which 
greatness  is  sought,  not  by  turbulence,  but  by  the  grratne*»  of 
the  universe  which  is  mirrored.  In  that  oue,  he  nuy  he  tempted 
to  ask  whether  there  are  any  reason*  fur  accepting  §uch  a  re* tic** 
view  of  the  world.  And  if  he  a&k*  this  question,  he  uill  find,  if 
I  am  not  mistaken,  that  there  ui  no  reason  uhatctcr  for  accrptifg 
this  view,  either  in  the  universe  <*r  in  the  urttm&r*  of  M  Bergton. 


The  two  foundations  of  Bergsun's  philosophy,  in  K>  far  an  it  i* 
more  than  an  imaginative  and  j>octic  \iew  of  the  ut»rld,  arc  hi* 
doctrines  of  space  and  linur.  Hi*  doctrine  of  space  it  required  for 
his  condemnation  of  the  intellect,  and  if  he  fail*  in  hit  condemna- 
tion of  the  intellect,  the  intellect  will  succeed  in  it*  condemna- 
tion of  him  for  between  the  two  it  is  war  to  the  knife.  !ii»  doctrine 
of  time  is  necessary  for  his  vindication  of  freedom,  for  his  escape 
from  what  William  Jam« called  a  "block  universe,"  for  htf  doctrine 
of  a  perpetual  flux  in  which  there  is  nothing  that  flows,  and  for  his 
whole  account  of  tiie  relations  between  mind  and  matter.  It  mil  be 
well,  therefore,  in  criticism,  to  concentrate  on  these  two  doctrines, 
if  they  are  true,  such  minor  errors  and  inconsistencies  as  no  philo- 
dbpher  escapes  would  not  greatly  matter;  while  if  they  are  false, 

82* 


BBR080N 

nothing  remains  except  an  imaginative  epic,  to  be  judgfed  on 
aesthetic  rather  than  on  intellectual  grounds.  I  shall  begin  with 
the  theory  of  space,  as  being  the  simpler  of  the  two. 

Bergaon's  theory  of  space  occurs  fully  and  explicitly  in  his  Time 
and  Free  Will,  and  therefore  belongs  to  the  oldest  parts  of  his 
philosophy.  In  his  first  chapter,  he  contends  that  greater  and  let* 
imply  space,  since  he  regards  the  greater  as  essentially  that  which 
contains  the  less.  He  offers  no  arguments  whatever,  either  good 
or  bad,  in  favour  of  this  view;  he  merely  exclaims,  as  though  he 
were  giving  an  obvious  reductio  ad  absurdum:  "As  if  one  could 
still  speak  of  magnitude  where  there  is  neither  multiplicity  nor 
space!"  The  obvious  cases  to  the  contrary,  such  as  pleasure  and 
pain,  afford  him  much  difficulty,  yet  he  never  doubts  or  re- 
examines  the  dogma  with  which  he  starts. 

In  his  next  chapter,  he  maintains  the  same  thesis  as  regards 
number.  "As  soon  as  we  wish  to  picture  number  to  ourselves," 
he  says,  "and  not  merely  figures  or  words,  we  are  compelled  to 
have  recourse  to  an  extended  image,"  and  "every  clear  idea  of 
number  implies  a  visual  image  in  space."  These  two  sentences 
suffice  to  show,  as  I  shall  try  to  prove,  that  Bergson  does  not  know 
what  number  is,  and  has  himself  no  clear  idea  of  it.  This  is  shown 
also  by  his  definition:  "Number  may  be  defined  in  general  as  a 
collection  of  units,  or  speaking  more  exactly,  as  the  synthesis  of 
the  one  and  the  many." 

In  discussing  these  statements,  I  must  ask  the  reader's  patience 
for  a  moment  while  I  call  attention  to  some  distinctions  which  may 
at  first  appear  pedantic,  but  are  really  vital.  There  are  three  entirely 
different  things  which  are  confused  by  Bergson  in  the  above  state- 
ments, namely:  (i)  number,  the  general  concept  applicable  to  the 
various  particular  numbers;  (2)  the  various  particular  numbers; 
(3)  the  various  collections  to  which  the  various  particular  numbers 
are  applicable.  It  is  this  Lst  that  is  defined  by  Bergson  when  he 
says  that  number  is  a  collection  of  units.  The  twelve  ajjpstle«,  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  the  twelve  months,  the  twelve  signs  of  the 
zodiac,  are  all  collections  of  units,  yet  no  one  of  them  is  the 
number  12,  still  less  is  it  number  in  general,  as  by  the  above 
definition  it  ought  to  be.  The  number  12,  obviously,  is  something 
which  all  these  collections  have  ifl  common,  but  which  they  do 
not  have  in  common  with  other  collections,  such  as  cricket  elevens. 
Hence  the  number  12  is  neither  a  collection  of  twelve  terms,  nor ' 

8*9 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

fallacies  and  confusions,  to  support  them  in  their  attempt  to  prove 
all  mathematics  self-contradictory.  Thence  the  Hegelian  account 
of  these  matters  passed  into  the  current  thought  of  philosophers, 
where  it  has  remained  long  after  the  mathematicians  have  removed 
all  the  difficulties  upon  which  the  philosophers  rely.  Apd  so  long 
as  the  main  object  of  philosophers  is  to  show  that  nothing  can  be 
learned  by  patience  and  detailed  thinking,  but  that  we  ought  rather 
to  worship  the  prejudices  of  the  ignorant  under  the  title  of  "reason" 
if  we  are  Hegelians,  or  of  "intuition"  if  we  are  Bcrgsonians,  so 
long  philosophers  will  take  care  to  remain  ignorant  of  what  mathe- 
maticians have  done  to  remove  the  errors  by  which  Hegel  profited. 

Apart  from  the  question  of  number,  which  we  have  already 
considered,  the  chief  point  at  which  Bergson  touches  mathematics 
is  his  rejection  of  what  he  calls  the  "cinematographic"  represen- 
tation of  the  world.  Mathematics  conceives  change,  even  con- 
tinuous change,  as  constituted  by  a  scries  of  states;  Bergson,  on 
the  contrary,  contends  that  no  series  of  states  can  represent  what 
is  continuous,  and  that  in  change  a  thing  is  never  in  any  state  at 
all.  The  new  that  change  is  constituted  by  a  series  of  changing 
states  he  calls  cinematographic;  this  view,  he  says,  is  natural  to 
the  intellect,  but  is  radically  vicious.  True  change  can  only  be 
explained  by  true  duration;  it  involves  an  interpenetration  of  past 
and  present,  not  a  mathematical  succession  of  static  states.  This 
is  what  is  called  a  "dynamic"  instead  of  a  "static'*  view  of  the 
world.  The  question  is  important,  and  in  spite  of  its  difficulty  we 
cannot  pass  it  by. 

Bergson 's  position  is  illustrated— and  what  is  to  be  said  in 
criticism  may  also  be  aptly  illustrated-  by  Zcno's  argument  of 
the  arrow.  Zeno  argues  that,  since  the  arrow  at  each  moment 
simply  is  where  it  is,  therefore  the  arrow  in  its  flight  is  always 
at  rest.  At  first  sight,  this  argument  may  not  appear  a  very  powerful 
one.  Of  course,  it  will  be  said,  the  arrow  is  where  it  is  at  one 
moment,  but  at  another  moment  it  is  somewhere  cl*e,  and  this  is 
just  what  constitutes  motion.  Certain  difficulties,  it  is  true,  arise 
out  of  the  continuity  of  motion,  if  we  insist  upon  assuming  that 
motion  is  also  discontinuous.  These  difficulties,  thus  obtained, 
have  long  been  pan  of  the  stock-in-trade  of  philosophers.  But  if, 
ririth  the  mathematicians,  we  fcvoid  the  assumption  that  motion 
is  also  discontinuous,  we  shall  not  fall  into  the  philosopher's 
^difficulties.  A  cinematograph  in  which  there  are  an  infinite  number 


BERGSON 

of  pictures,  and  in  which  there  is  never  a  next  picture  because  an 
infinite  number  come  between  any  two,  will  perfectly  represent 
a  continuous  motion.  Wherein,  then,  lies  the  force  of*  Zeno's 
argument  ? 

Zeno  belonged  to  the  Eleatic  school,  whose  object  was  to  prove 
that  there'coilld  be  no  such  thing  as  change.  The  natural  view  to 
take  of  the  world  is  that  there  are  things  which  change;  for  example, 
there  is  an  arrow  which  is  now  here,  now  there.  By  bisection  of 
this  view,  philosophers  have  developed  two  paradoxes.  The  Eleatics 
said  that  there  were  things  but  no  changes;  Heraclitus  and  Bergson 
said  there  were  changes  but  no  things.  The  Eleatics  said  there  was 
an  arrow,  but  no  flight;  Heraclitus  and  Bergson  said  there  was  a 
flight,  but  no  arrow.  Each  party  conducted  its  argument  by  refu- 
tation of  the  other  party.  How  ridiculous  to  say  there  is  no  arrow! 
say  the  "static"  party.  How  ridiculous  to  say  there  is  no  flight! 
say  the  "dynamic"  party.  The  unfortunate  man  who  stands  in  the 
middle  and  maintains  that  there  is  both  the  arrow  and  its  flight 
is  assumed  by  the  disputants  to  deny  both;  he  is  therefore  pierced, 
like  St.  Sebastian,  by  the  arrow  from  one  side  and  by  its  flight 
from  the  other.  But  we  have  still  not  discovered  wherein  lies  the 
force  of  Zeno's  argument. 

Zeno  assumes,  tacitly,  the  essence  of  the  Bergsonian  theory  of 
change.  That  is  to  say,  he  assumes  that  when  a  thing  is  in  a  process 
of  .continuous  change,  even  if  it  is  only  change  of  position,  there 
must  be  in  the  thing  some  internal  state  of  change.  The  thing 
must,  at  each  instant,  be  intrinsically  different  from  what  it  would 
be  if  it  were  not  changing.  He  then  points  out  that  at  each  instant 
the  arrow  simply  is  where  it  is,  just  as  it  would  be  if  it  wore  at  rest. 
Hence  he  concludes  that  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  state  of 
motion,  and  therefore,  adhering  to  the  view  that  a  state  of  motion 
is  essential  to  motion,  he  infers  that  there  can  be  no  motion  and 
that  the  arrow  is  always  at  rest. 

Zeno's  argument,  therefore,  though  it  does  not  touch  the  mathe- 
matical account  of  change,  does,  prima  facie,  refute»a  vifew  of 
change  which  is  not  unlike  Bergson 's.  How,  then,  does  Bergson 
meet  Zcno's  argument  ?  He  meets  it  by  denying  that  the  arrow  is 
ever  anywhere.  After  stating  Zeno's  argument,  he  replies:  "Yes, 
if  we  suppose  that  the  arrow  can  ever  be  in  a  point  of  its  course. 
Yes,  again,  if  the  arrow,  which  is  moving,  ever  coincides  with 
a  position,  which  is  motionless.  But  the  arrow  never  is  in  any 

2D 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

point  of  its  course."  This  reply  to  Zeno,  or  a  closely  similar  one 
concerning  Achilles  and  the  Tortoise,  occurs  in  all  his  three  books. 
Bergson's  view,  plainly,  is  paradoxical ;  whether  it  is  possible,  is 
a  question  which  demands  a  discussion  of  his  view  of  duration. 
His  only  argument  in  its  favour  is  the  statement  that  the  mathe- 
matical view  of  change  "implies  the  absurd  proposition  that  move- 
ment is  made  of  immobilizes."  But  the  apparent  absurdity  of  this 
view  is  merely  due  to  the  verbal  form  in  which  he  has  stated  it, 
and  vanishes  as  soon  as  we  realize  that  motion  implies  relations. 
A  friendship,  for  example,  is  made  out  of  people  who  are  friends, 
but  not  out  of  friendships;  a  genealogy  is  made  out  of  men,  but 
not  out  of  genealogies.  So  a  motion  is  made  out  of  what  is  moving, 
but  not  out  of  motions.  It  expresses  the  fact  that  a  thing  may  be 
in  different  places  at  different  times,  and  that  the  places  may  still 
be  different  however  near  together  the  times  may  be.  Bergson's 
argument  against  the  mathematical  view  of  motion,  therefore, 
reduces  itself,  in  the  last  analysis,  to  a  mere  play  upon  words. 
And  with  this  conclusion  we  may  pass  on  to  a  criticism  of  his  theory 
of  duration. 

Bergson's  theory  of  duration  is  bound  up  with  his  theory  of 
memory.  According  to  this  theory,  things  remembered  survive  in 
memory,  and  thus  interpenetrate  present  things :  past  and  present 
are  not  mutually  external,  but  are  mingled  in  the  unity  of  con- 
sciousness. Action,  he  says,  is  what  constitutes  being;  but  mathe- 
matical time  is  a  mere  passive  receptacle,  which  does  nothing  and 
therefore  is  nothing.  The  past,  he  says,  is  that  which  acts  no  longer, 
and  the  present  is  that  which  is  acting.  But  in  this  statement,  as 
indeed  throughout  his  account  of  duration,  Bergson  is  uncon- 
sciously assuming  the  ordinary  mathematical  time;  without  this, 
his  statements  are  unmeaning.  What  is  meant  by  saying  "the  past 
is  essentially  that  which  acts  no  longer"  (his  italics),  except  that  the 
past  is  that  of  which  the  action  is  past?  the  words  "no  longer" 
are  words  expressive  of  the  past;  to  a  person  who  did  not  have 
the  ordiiury  notion  of  the  past  as  something  outside  the  present, 
these  words  would  have  no  meaning.  Thus  his  definition  is  cir- 
cular. What  he  says  is,  in  effect,  "the  past  is  that  of  which  the 
action  is  in  the  past/'  As  a  definition,  this  cannot  be  regarded  as 
4  happy  effort.  And  the  same  applies  to  the  present.  The  present, 
we  are  told,  is  "that  which  it  acting"  (his  italics).  But  the  word 
"is"  introduces  just  that  idea  of.  the  present  which  was  to  be 

'¥ 


BERGSON 

defined.  The  present  is  that  which  is  acting  as  opposed  to  that 
which  was  acting  or  will  be  acting.  That  is  to  say,  the  present  is 
that  whose  action  is  in  the  present,  not  in  the  past  or  in  the  future. 
Again  the  definition  is  circular.  An  earlier  passage  on  the  same 
page  will  ^illustrate  the  fallacy  further.  "That  which  constitutes 
our  pure  perception,"  he  says,  "is  our  dawning  action.  .  .  .  The 
actuality  of  our  perception  thus  lies  in  its  activity,  in  the  move- 
ments which  prolong  it,  and  not  in  its  greater  intensity:  the  past  is 
only  idea,  the  present  is  ideo- motor/'  This  passage  makes  it  quite 
clear  that,  when  Bergson  speaks  of  the  past,  he  does  not  mean  the 
past,  but  our  present  memory  of  the  past.  The  past  when  it  existed 
was  just  as  active  as  the  present  is  now;  if  Bergson 's  account  were 
correct,  the  present  moment  ought  to  be  the  only  one  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  world  containing  any  activity.  In  earlier  times  there 
were  other  perceptions,  just  as  active,  just  as  actual  in  their  day, 
as  our  present  perceptions;  the  past,  in  its  day,  was  by  no  means 
only  idea,  but  was  in  its  intrinsic  character  just  what  the  present 
is  now.  This  real  past,  however,  Bergson  simply  forgets;  what  he 
speaks  of  is  the  present  idea  of  the  past.  The  real  past  does  not 
mingle  with  the  present,  since  it  is  not  part  of  it;  but  that  is 
a  very  different  thing. 

The  whole  of  Bergson 's  theory  of  duration  and  time  rests 
throughout  on  the  elementary  confusion  between  the  present 
occurrence  of  a  recollection  and  the  past  occurrence  which  is 
recollected.  But  for  the  fact  that  time  is  so  familiar  to  us,  the 
vicious  circle  involved  in  his  attempt  to  deduce  the  past  as 
what  is  no  longer  active  would  be  obvious  at  once.  As  it  is,  what 
Bergson  gives  is  an  account  of  the  difference  between  perception 
and  recollection — both  present  facts — and  what  he  believes 
himself  to  have  given  is  an  account  of  the  difference  between  the 
present  and  the  past.  As  soon  as  this  confusion  is  realized,  his 
theory  of  time  is  seen  to  be  simply  a  theory  which  omits  time 
altogether. 

The  confusion  between  present  remembering  and  th€  past  event 
remembered,  which  seems  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  Bergson 's  theory 
of  time,  is  an  instance  of  a  more  general  confusion  which,  if  I  am 
not  mistaken,  vitiates  a  great  deal  of  his  thought,  and  indeed  a 
great  deal  of  the  thought  of  moat  modern  philosophers — I  mean 
the  confusion  between  an  act  of  knowing  and  that  which  is  known. 
In  memory,  the  act  of  knowing  is  in  the  present,  whereas  what  i\ 

135 


WESTERN  ruiLoaomrcAt  THOUGHT 

known  is  in  the  past;  thus  by  coofuafaf  them  the  ditdnction 
between  past  and  present  is  blumd. 

Throughout  A/aftifr  «rf  AJ«*w»y,  this  confusion  between  the  act 
of  knowing  and  the  object  known  it  indispensable.  It  beitahrincd 
in  the  use  of  the  word  "image/*  which  is  explained  a;  the  vm 
beginning  of  the  book.  He  their  states  that,  apart  from  phiW 
phial  theories,  eir/ytAii^p  rfari  ire  know  consist*  of  ''foi^gw/1 
mi/bi  indeed  constitute  the  whole  uwvcn*.  He  sayi;  '7  cat!  aw//^ 
regate  of  images,  and 


ftfemd  to  the  eventual  action  of  one  particular  image,  my  body/' 
It  will  be  observed  that  matter  and  the  perception  of  matter, 
according  to  him,  consist  of  the  very  same  things.  The  brain,  he 
aay*»  is  like  the  rest  of  the  material  universe,  and  is  therefore  an 
image  if  the  universe  is  an  image. 

Since  the  brain,  which  nobody  sees,  is  not,  in  the  ordinary  sciwr, 
an  image,  we  are  not  surprised  at  his  saying  that  an  image  can  be 
without  being  perceived;  but  he  explains  later  on  that,  as  regard* 
images,  the  difference  between  Mag  and  being  twwwuMly  /Xrmt  td 
is  only  one  of  degree.  This  is  perhaps  explained  by  another  passage 
in  which  he  says:  "What  can  be  a  non-perceived  material  object, 
an  image  not  imagined,  unless  it  is  a  kind  of  unconscious  mental 
state?"  Finally  he  says:  "Thar  even'  reality  ha*  a  kinship,  an 
analogy,  in  short  a  relation  with  consciousness    this  is  what  we 
concede  to  idealism  by  the  very  fact  that  we  term  things  'images?  " 
Nevertheless  he  attempts  to  allay  our  initial  doubt  by  saying  that 
he  is  beginning  at  a  point  before  any  of  the  assumptions  of  philo- 
sophers have  been  introduced.  "We  will  assume/9  he  says,  "for 
the  moment  that  we  know  nothing  of  theories  of  matter  and  theories 
of  spirit,  nothing  of  the  discussions  as  to  the  reality  or  ideality  of 
the  external  world.  Here  I  am  in  the  presence  of  images."  And  in 
the  new  Introduction  which  he  wrote  for  the  English  edition  he 
says:  "By  'image*  we  mean  a  certain  existence  which  is  more  than 
that  which  the  idealist  calls  a  repretentatian,  but  less  than  that 
which"  the1  realist  calls  a  thing—  an  existence  placed  half-way 
between  the  'thing*  and  the  'representation/  " 

The  distinction  which  Bergson  has  in  mind  in  the  above  is  not, 

I  think,  the  distinction  between  the  imaging  as  a  mental  occurrence 

a*,d  the  thing  imaged  as  an  object.  He  is  thinking  of  the  distinction 

between  the  thing  as  it  is  and  thing  as  it  appears.  The  distinction 

Between  subject  and  object,  between  the  mind  which  thinks  and 


BERO8ON 

remembers  and  has  images  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  objects 
thought  about,  remembered,  or  imaged— this  distinction,  so.  far 
as  I  can  see,  is  wholly  absent  from  his  philosophy.  Its  absence  is 
his  real  debt  to  idealism ;  and  a  very  unfortunate  debt  it  is.  In  the 
case  of  '*im*ges,"  as  we  have  just  seen,  it  enables  him  first  to  speak 
of  images  as  neutral  between  mind  and  matter,  then  to  assert  that 
the  brain  is  an  image  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  has  never  been 
imaged,  then  to  suggest  that  matter  and  the  perception  of  matter 
are  the  same  thing,  but  that  a  non-perceived  image  (such  as  the 
brain)  is  an  unconscious  mental  state;  while  finally,  the  use  of  the 
word  "image,"  though  involving  no  metaphysical  theories  what- 
ever, nevertheless  implies  that  every  reality  has  "a  kinship,  an 
analogy,  in  short  a  relation"  with  consciousness. 

All  these  confusions  are  due  to  the  initial  confusion  of  subjective 
and  objective.  The  subject — a  thought  or  an  image  or  a  memory — 
is  a  present  fact  in  me;  the  object  may  be  the  law  of  gravitation 
or  my  friend  Jones  or  the  old  Campanile  of  Venice.  The  subject 
is  mental  and  is  here  and  now.  Therefore,  if  subject  and  object  are 
one,  the  object  is  mental  and  is  here  and  now:  my  friend  Jones, 
though  he  believes  himself  to  be  in  South  America  and  to  exist 
on  his  own  account,  is  really  in  my  head  and  exists  in  virtue  of 
my  thinking  about  him ;  St.  Mark's  Campanile,  in  spite  of  its  great 
s^e  and  the  feet  that  it  ceased  to  exist  forty  years  ago,  still  exists, 
and  is  to  be  found  complete  inside  me.  These  statements  are  no 
travesty  of  Bergson's  theories  of  space  and  time ;  they  are  merely 
an  attempt  to  show  what  is  the  actual  concrete  meaning  of  those 
theories.  • 

The  confusion  of  subject  and  object  is  not  peculiar  to  Bergson* 
but  is  common  to  many  idealists  and  many  materialists.  Many 
idealists  say  that  the  object  is  really  the  subject,  and  many  mater- 
ialists say  that  the  subject  is  really  the  object.  They  agree  in 
thinking  these  two  statements  very  different,  while  yet  holding 
that  subject  and  object  are  not  different.  In  this  respect,  we  may 
admit,  Bergson  has  merit,  for  he  is  as  ready  to  identify  subject 
with  object  as  to  identify  object  with  subject.  As  soon  as  this 
identification*  is  rejected,  his  whole  system  collapses:  first  his 
theories  of  space  and  time,  then  Jys  belief  in  real  contingency,  then 
his  condemnation  of  intellect,  and  finally  his  account  of  the  rela- 
tions of  mind  and  matter.  ^ 

Of  course  a  large  pan  of  Bergson's  philosophy,  probably  the 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

part  to  which  most  of  its  popularity  is  due,  does  not  depend  upon 
argument,  and  cannot  be  upset  by  argument.  His  imaginative 
picture  of  the  world,  regarded  as  a  poetic  effort,  is  in  the  main  not 
capable  of  either  proof  or  disproof.  Shakespeare  says  life's  but 
a  walking  shadow,  Shelley  says  it  is  like  a  dome  of  many-coloured 
glass,  Bergson  says  it  is  a  shell  which  bursts  into  parts  that  are  again 
shells.  If  you  like  Bergson 's  image  better,  it  is  just  as  legitimate. 
The  good  which  Bergson  hopes  to  see  realized  in  the  world  is 
action  for  the  sake  of  action.  All  pure  contemplation  he  calls 
"dreaming,"  and  condemns  by  a  whole  series  of  uncomplimentary 
epithets:  static,  Platonic,  mathematical,  logical,  intellectual.  Those 
who  desire  some  prevision  of  the  end  which  action  is  to  achieve 
are  told  that  an  end  foreseen  would  be  nothing  new,  because  desire, 
like  memory,  is  identified  with  its  object.  Thus  we  are  condemned , 
in  action,  to  be  the  blind  slaves  of  instinct :  the  life-force  pushes 
us  on  from  behind,  restlessly  and  unceasingly.  There  is  no  room 
hi  this  philosophy  for  the  moment  of  contemplative  insight  when, 
rising  above  the  animal  life,  we  become  conscious  of  the  greater 
ends  that  redeem  man  from  the  life  of  the  brute*.  Thote  to  whom 
activity  without  purpose  teem*  a  sufficient  good  will  And  in  Berg- 
son's  books  a  pleasing  picture  of  the  universe.  But  those  to  whom 
action,  if  it  is  to  be  of  any  value,  must  txr  sntpircd  by  some  vision, 
by  some  imaginative  foreshadowing  of  a  world  low  painful,  Iqp 
unjust,  less  full  of  strife  than  the  wurld  of  our  everyday  life,  thuwr, 
in  a  word,  whose  action  is  built  on  <  umrmpbiion,  wit)  find  m  thw 
philosophy  nothing  of  what  they  icxri.  and  will  not  rqprcf  that  there 
is  no  reasoa  to  think  it  true 


Chapter  XXIX 
WILLIAM    JAMES 

•        • 

WILLIAM  JAMES  (1842-1910)  was  primarily  a  psychologist, 
but  was  important  in  philosophy  on  two  accounts:  he 
invented  the  doctrine  which  he  called  "radical  empiri- 
cism/9 and  he  was  one  of  the  three  protagonists  of  the  theory  called 
"pragmatism"  or  "instrumentalism."  In  later  life  he  was,  as  he 
deserved  to  be,  the  recognized  leader  of  American  philosophy.  He 
was  led  by  the  study  of  medicine  to  the  consideration  of  psycho- 
logy; his  great  book  on  the  subject,  published  in  1890,  had  the 
highest  possible  excellence.  I  shall  not,  however,  deal  with  it,  since 
it  was  a  contribution  to  science  rather  than  to  philosophy. 

There  were  two  sides  to  William  James's  philosophical  interests, 
one  scientific,  the  other  religious.  On  the  scientific  side,  the  study 
of  medicine  had  given  his  thoughts  a  tendency  towards  material- 
ism, which,  however,  was  held  in  check  by  his  religious  emotions. 
His  religious  feelings  were  very  Protestant,  very  democratic,  and 
very  full  of  the  warmth  of  human  kindness.  He  refused  altogether 
to  follow  his  brother  Henry  into  fastidious  snobbishness.  "The 
prince  of  darkness,"  he  said,  "may  be  a  gentleman,  as  we  are  told 
he  is,  but  whatever  the  God  of  earth  and  heaven  is,  he  can  surely 
be  no  gentleman."  This  is  a  very  characteristic  pronouncement. 

His  warm-heartedness  and  his  delightful  humour  caused  him 
to  be  almost  universally  beloved.  The  only  man  I  know  of  who  did 
not  feel  any  affection  for  him  was  Santayana,  whose  doctor's  thesis 
William  James  had  described  as  "the  perfection  of  rottenness."* 
There  was  between  these  two  men  a  temperamental  opposition 
which  nothing  could  have  overcome.  Santayana  also  liked  religion, 
but  in  a  very  different  way.  He  liked  it  aesthetically  and  historically, 
not  as  a  help  towards  a  moral  life;  as  was  natura^  he«greatly 
preferred  Catholicism  to  Protestantism.  He  did  not  intellectually 
accept  any  of  the  Christian  dogmas,  but  he  was  content  that  others 
should  believe  them,  and  himself  appreciated  what  he  regarded 
as  the  Christian  myth.  To  James,  such  an  attitude  could  not  but 
appear  immoral.  He  retained  frtrni  his  Puritan  ancestry  a  deep- 
seated  belief  that  what  is  of  most  importance  is  good  conduct,  and 
his  democratic  feeling  made  him  unable  to  acquiesce  in  the  notion 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

of  one  truth  for  philosophers  and  another  for  the  vulgar.  The 
temperamental  opposition  between  Protestant  and  Catholic  per- 
sists among  the  unorthodox ;  Santayana  was  a  Catholic  free  thinker, 
William  James  a  Protestant,  however  heretical. 

James's  doctrine  of  radical  empiricism  was  first  published  in 
1904,  in  an  essay  called  "Does  'Consciousness9  Exist?"  The  main 
purpose  of  this  essay  was  to  deny  that  the  subject-object  relation 
is  fundamental.  It  had,  until  then,  been  taken  for  granted  by 
philosophers  that  there  is  a  kind  of  occurrence  called  "knowing," 
in  which  one  entity,  the  knower  or  subject,  is  aware  of  another,  the 
thing  known,  or  the  object.  The  knower  was  regarded  as  a  mind 
or  soul;  the  object  known  might  be  a  material  object,  an  eternal 
essence,  another  mind,  or,  in  self-consciousness,  identical  with 
the  knower.  Almost  everything  in  accepted  philosophy  was  bound 
up  with  the  dualism  of  subject  and  object.  The  distinction  of  mind 
and  matter,  the  contemplative  ideal,  and  the  traditional  notion 
of  "truth,"  all  need  to  be  radically  reconsidered  if  the  distinction 
of  subject  and  object  is  not  accepted  as  fundamental. 

For  my  part,  I  am  convinced  that  James  was  partly  right  on  this 
matter,  and  would,  on  this  ground  alone,  deserve  a  high  place 
among  philosophers.  I  had  thought  otherwise  until  he,  and  those 
who  agreed  with  him,  persuaded  me  of  the  truth  of  his  doctrine. 
But  let  us  proceed  to  his  arguments. 

Consciousness,  he  says,  "is  the  name  of  a  nonentity,  and  Has 
no  right  to  a  place  among  first  principles.  Those  who  still  cling 
to  it  are  clinging  to  a  mere  echo,  the  faint  rumour  left  behind  by 
the  disappearing  'soul9  upon  the  air  of  philosophy."  There  is,  he 
continues,  f'no  aboriginal  stuff  or  quality  of  being,  contrasted  with 
'that  of  which  material  objects  are  made,  out  of  which  our  thoughts 
of  them  are  made."  He  explains  that  he  is  not  denying  that  our 
thoughts  perform  a  function  which  is  that  of  knowing,  and  that 
this  function  may  be  called  "being  conscious."  What  he  is  denying 
might  be  pi/t  crudely  as  the  view  that  consciousness  is  a  "thing." 
He  holds  that  there  is  "only  one  primal  stuff  or  material,"  out  of 
which  everything  in  the  world  is  composed.  This  stuff  he  calk 
"pure  experience."  Knowing,  he  says,  is  a  particular  sort  of  rela- 
tion between  two  portions  of  pure  experience.  The  subject-object 
relation  is  derivative:  "expericrtee,  I  believe,  has  no  such  inner 
duplicity."  A  given  undivided  portion  of  experience  can  be  in  one 
tontext  a  knower,  and  in  another  something  known. 


WILLIAM   JAMES 

He  defines  "pure  experience"  as  "the  immediate  flux  of  life 
which  furnishes  the  material  to  our  later  reflection." 

It  will  Be  seen  that  this  doctrine  abolishes  the  distinction  between 
mind  and  matter,  if  regarded  as  a  distinction  between  two  different 
kinds  o&wbat  James  calls  "stuff."  Accordingly  those  who  agree 
with  James  in  this  matter  advocate  what  they  call  "neutral 
monism,"  according  to  which  the  material  of  which  the  world  is 
constructed  is  neither  mind  nor  matter,  but  something  anterior 
to  both.  James  himself  did  not  develop  this  implication  of  his 
theory;  on  the  contrary,  his  use  of  the  phrase  "pure  experience" 
points  to  a  perhaps  unconscious  Berkeleian  idealism.  The  word 
1 'experience"  is  one  often  used  by  philosophers,  but  seldom 
defined.  Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  what  it  can  mean. 

Common  sense  holds  that  many  things  which  occur  are  not 
"experienced,"  for  instance,  events  on  the  invisible  side  of  the 
moon.  Berkeley  and  Hegel,  for  different  reasons,  both  denied  this, 
and  maintained  that  what  is  not  experienced  is  nothing.  Their 
arguments  are  now  held  by  most  philosophers  to  be  invalid — 
rightly,  in  my  opinion.  If  we  are  to  adhere  to  the  view  that  the 
"stuff"  of  the  world  is  "experience,"  we  shall  find  it  necessary 
to  invent  elaborate  and  implausible  explanations  of  what  we  mean 
by  such  things  as  the  invisible  side  of  the  moon.  And  unless  we 
are  able  to  infer  things  not  experienced  from  things  experienced, 
we  shall  have  difficulty  in  finding  grounds  for  belief  in  the  existence 
of  anything  except  ourselves.  James,  it  is  true,  denies  this,  but  his 
reasons  are  not  very  convincing. 

What  do  we  mean  by  "experience"?  The  best  way  to  find  an 
answer  is  to  ask :  What  is  the  difference  between  an  event  which  is 
not  experienced  and  one  which  is?  Rain  seen  or  felt  to  be  falling  is 
experienced,  but  rain  falling  in  the  desert  where  there  is  no  living 
thing  is  not  experienced.  Thus  we  arrive  at  our  first  point:  there 
is  no  experience  except  where  there  is  life.  But  experience  is  not 
coextensive  with  life.  Many  things  happen  to  me  wtych  I«do  not 
notice;  these  I  can  hardly  be  said  to  experience.  Clearly  I  expe- 
rience whatever  I  remember,  but  some  things  which  I  do  not 
explicitly  remember  may  have  set  up  habits  which  still  persist. 
The  burnt  child  fears  the  fire,  even  if  he  has  no  recollection  of 
the  occasion  on  which  he  was  bflrnt.  I  think  we  may  say  that*an 
event  is  "experienced"  when  it  sets  up  a  habit.  (Memory  is  one 
kind  of  habit.)  Broadly  speaking,  habits  are  only  set  up  in  living 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

organisms.  A  burnt  poker  does  not  fear  the  fire,  however  often 
it  is  made  red-hot.  On  common-sense  grounds,  therefore,  we  shall 
say  that  "experience"  is  not  coextensive  with  the  "stuff"  of  the 
world.  I  do  not  myself  see  any  valid  reason  for  departing  from 
common  sense  on  this  point.  -  ~ 

Except  in  this  matter  of  "experience/9 1  find  myself  in  agree- 
ment with  James's  radical  empiricism. 

It  is  otherwise  with  his  pragmatism  and  "will  to  believe."  The 
latter,  especially,  seems  to  me  to  be  designed  to  afford  a  specious 
but  sophistical  defence  of  certain  religious  dogmas — a  defence, 
moreover,  which  no  whole-hearted  believer  could  accept. 

The  Will  to  Believe  was  published  in  1896;  Pragmatism,  a  New 
Name  for  Some  Old  Ways  of  Thinking  was  published  in  1907.  The 
doctrine  of  the  latter  is  an  amplification  of  that  of  the  former. 

The  Will  to  Believe  argues  that  we  are  often  compelled,  in 
practice,  to  take  decisions  where  no  adequate  theoretical  grounds 
for  a  decision  exist,  for  even  to  do  nothing  is  still  a  decision. 
Religious  matters,  James  says,  come  under  this  head;  we  have, 
he  maintains,  a  right  to  adopt  a  believing  attitude  although  "our 
merely  logical  intellect  may  not  have  been  coerced."  This  is  essen- 
tially the  attitude  of  Rousseau's  Savoyard  vicar,  but  James's 
development  is  novel. 

The  moral  duty  of  veracity,  we  are  told,  consists  of  two  coequal 
precepts:  "believe  truth,"  and  "shun  error."  The  sceptic  wrongly 
attends  only  to  the  second,  and  thus  fails  to  believe  various  truths 
which  a  less  cautious  man  will  believe.  If  believing  truth  and 
avoiding  error  are  of  equal  importance,  I  may  do  well,  when 
presented  with  an  alternative,  to  believe  one  of  the  possibilities 
at  will,  for  then  I  have  an  even  chance  of  believing  truth,  whereas 
I  have  none  if  I  suspend  judgment. 

The  ethic  that  would  result  if  this  doctrine  were  taken  seriously 
is  a  very  odd  one.  Suppose  I  meet  a  stranger  in  the  train,  and 
I  ask  myself:  "Is  his  name  Ebenezcr  Wilkes  Smith?"  If  I  admit 
that  I  do  not  know,  I  am  certainly  not  believing  truly  about  his 
name;  whereas,  if  I  decide  to  believe  that  that  is  his  name,  there 
is  a  chance  that  I  may  be  believing  truly.  The  sceptic,  says  James, 
is  afraid  of  being  duped,  and  through  his  fear  may  lose  important 
truth;  "what  proof  is  there,"  he  adds,  "that  dupery  through  hope 
is  so  much  worse  than  dupery  through  fear?"  It  would  seem  to 
follow  that,  if  I  have  been  hoping  for  years  to  meet  a  man  called 

842 


WILLIAM  JAMBS 

Ebenezer  Wilkes  Smith,  positive  as  opposed  to  negative  veracity 
should  prompt  me  to  believe  that  this  is  the  name  of  every  stranger 
I  meet,  until  I  acquire  conclusive  evidence  to  the  contrary. 

"But/9  you  will  say,  "the  instance  is  absurd,  for,  though  you  do 
not  know  the  stranger's  name,  you  do  know  that  a  very  small 
percentage*  of  mankind  are  called  Ebenezer  Wilkes  Smith.  You 
are  therefore  not  in  that  state  of  complete  ignorance  that  is  pre- 
supposed in  your  freedom  of  choice."  Now  strange  to  say,  James, 
throughout  his  essay,  never  mentions  probability,  and  yet  there 
is  almost  always  some  discoverable  consideration  of  probability 
in  regard  to  any  question.  Let  it  be  conceded  (though  no  orthodox 
believer  would  concede  it)  that  there  is  no  evidence  either  for  or 
against  any  of  the  religions  of  the  world.  Suppose  you  are  a  Chinese 
brought  into  contact  with  Confucianism,  Buddhism,  and  Chris- 
tianity. You  are  precluded  by  the  laws  of  logic  from  supposing  that 
each  of  the  three  is  true.  Let  us  suppose  that  Buddhism  and 
Christianity  each  has  an  even  chance,  then,  given  that  both  cannot 
be  true,  one  of  them  must  be,  and  therefore  Confucianism  must 
be  false.  If  all  three  are  to  have  equal  chances,  each  must  be  more 
likely  to  be  false  than  true.  In  this  sort  of  way  James's  principle 
collapses  as  soon  as  we  are  allowed  to  bring  in  considerations  of 
probability. 

It  is  curious  that,  in  spite  of  being  an  eminent  psychologist, 
lames  allowed  himself  at  this  point  a  singular  crudity.  He  spoke 
as  if  the  only  alternatives  were  complete  belief  or  complete  dis- 
belief, ignoring  all  shades  of  doubt.  Suppose,  for  instance,  I  am 
looking  for  a  book  in  my  shelves.  I  think,  "It  may  be  in  this  shelf," 
and  I  proceed  to  look ;  but  I  do  not  think,  "It  is  in  this  shelf*  until 
I  see  it.  We  habitually  act  upon  hypotheses,  but  not  precisely  s$ 
we  act  upon  what  we  consider  certainties;  for  when  we  act  upon 
an  hypothesis  we  keep  our  eyes  open  for  fresh  evidence. 

The  precept  of  veracity,  it  seems  to  me,  is  not  such  as  James 
thinks.  It  is,  I  should  say:  "Give  to  any  hypothesis  which  is  worth 
your  while  to  consider  just  that  degree  of  credence  which  the 
evidence  warrants."  And  if  the  hypothesis  is  sufficiently  important 
there  is  the  additional  duty  of  seeking  further  evidence.  This  is 
plain  common  sense,  and  in  harmony  with  the  procedure  in  the 
law  courts,  but  it  is  quite  difljprcnt  from  the  procedure  recom- 
mended by  James. 

It  would  be  unfair  to  James  to  consider  his  will  to  believe  in 

,843 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

isolation;  it  was  a  transitional  doctrine,  leading  by  a  natural 
development  to  pragmatism.  Pragmatism,  as  it  appears  in  James, 
is  primarily  a  new  definition  of  "truth."  There  were  two  other 
protagonists  of  pragmatism,  F.  C.  S.  Schiller  and  Dr.  John  Dewey. 
I  shall  consider  Dr.  Dewey  in  the  next  chapter;  Schiller  was  of 
less  importance  than  the  other  two.  Between  James  and  Dr.  Dewey 
there  is  a  difference  of  emphasis.  Dr.  Dewey 's  outlook  is  scientific, 
and  his  arguments  are  largely  derived  from  an  examination  of 
scientific  method,  but  James  is  concerned  primarily  with  religion 
and  morals.  Roughly  speaking,  he  is  prepared  to  advocate  any 
doctrine  which  tends  to  make  people  virtuous  and  happy;  if  it 
does  so,  it  is  "true"  in  the  sense  in  which  he  uses  that  word. 

The  principle  of  pragmatism,  according  to  James,  was  first 
enunciated  by  C.  S.  Peirce,  who  maintained  that,  in  order  to  attain 
clearness  in  our  thoughts  of  an  object,  we  need  only  consider 
what  conceivable  effects  of  a  practical  kind  the  object  may  involve. 
James,  in  elucidation,  says  that  the  function  of  philosophy  is  to 
find  out  what  difference  it  makes  to  you  or  me  if  this  or  that 
world-formula  is  true.  In  this  way  theories  become  instruments, 
not  answers  to  enigmas. 

Ideas,  we  are  told  by  James,  become  true  in  so  far  as  they  help 
us  to  get  into  satisfactory  relations  with  other  parts  of  our  expe- 
rience: "An  idea  is  'true*  so  long  as  to  believe  it  is  profitable  to  our 
lives."  Truth  is  one  species  of  good,  not  a  separate  category.  Trutl. 
happens  to  an  idea;  it  is  made  true  by  events.  It  is  correct  to  say, 
with  the  intellectualists,  that  a  true  idea  must  agree  with  reality, 
but  "agreeing"  does  not  mean  "copying."  "To  'agree'  in  the 
widest  sense  with  a  reality  can  only  mean  to  be  guided  either 
ftraight  up  to  it  or  into  its  surroundings,  or  to  be  put  into  such 
working  touch  with  it  as  to  handle  either  it  or  something  con- 
nected with  it  better  than  if  we  disagreed."  He  adds  that  "the 
true  is  only  the  expedient  in  the  way  of  our  thinking  ...  in  the 
long  run  and  on  the  whole  of  course."  In  other  words,  "our 
obligati&n  tc  seek  truth  is  pan  of  our  general  obligation  to  do 
what  pays." 

In  a  chapter  on  pragmatism  and  religion  he  reaps  the  harvest. 
"We  cannot  reject  any  hypothesis  if  consequences  useful  to  life 
flow  from  it.'9  "If  the  hypothesis  of  God  works  satisfactorily  in 
the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  true."  "We  may  well  believe, 
on  the  proofs  that  religious  experience  affords,  that  higher  powers 

844 


WILLIAM   JAMES 

exist  and  are  at  work  to  save  the  world  on  ideal  lines  similar  to 
our  own." 

I  find  great  intellectual  difficulties  in  this  doctrine.  It  assumes 
that  a  belief  is  "true"  when  its  effects  are  good.  If  this  definition 
is  to  be  useful — and  if  not  it  is  condemned  by  the  pragmatist's 
test — we  must  know  (a)  what  is  good,  (b)  what  are  the  effects  of 
this  or  that  belief,  and  we  must  know  these  things  before  we  can 
know  that  anything  is  "true,"  since  it  is  only  after  we  have  decided 
that  the  effects  of  a  belief  are  good  that  we  have  a  right  to  call  it 
"true."  The  result  is  an  incredible  complication.  Suppose  you 
want  to  know  whether  Columbus  crossed  the  Atlantic  in  1492. 
You  must  not,  as  other  people  do,  look  it  up  in  a  book.  You  must 
first  inquire  what  are  the  effects  of  this  belief,  and  how  they  differ 
from  the  effects  of  believing  that  he  sailed  in  1491  or  1493.  This 
is  difficult  enough,  but  it  is  still  more  difficult  to  weigh  the  effects 
from  an  ethical  point  of  view.  You  may  say  that  obviously  1492 
has  the  best  effects,  since  it  gives  you  higher  marks  in  examina- 
tions. But  your  competitors,  who  would  surpass  you  if  you  said 
1491  or  1493,  may  consider  your  success  instead  of  theirs  ethically 
regrettable.  Apart  from  examinations,  I  cannot  think  of  any  prac- 
tical effects  of  the  belief  except  in  the  case  of  a  historian. 

But  this  is  not  the  end  of  the  trouble.  You  must  hold  that  your 
estimate  of  the  consequences  of  a  belief,  both  ethical  and  factual, 
is  true,  for  if  it  is  false  your  argument  for  the  truth  of  your  belief 
is  mistaken.  But  to  say  that  your  belief  as  to  consequences  is  true 
is,  according  to  James,  to  say  that  it  has  good  consequences,  and 
this  in  turn  is  only  true  if  it  has  good  consequences,  and  so  on 
ad  infinitum.  Obviously  this  won't  do. 

There  is  another  difficulty.  Suppose  I  say  there  was  such  a 
person  as  Columbus,  everyone  will  agree  that  what  I  say  is  true. 
But  why  is  it  true?  Because  of  a  certain  man  of  flesh  and  blood 
who  lived  450  years  ago— in  short,  because  of  the  causes  of  my 
belief,  not  because  of  its  effects.  With  James's  definitiqji,  it  night 
happen  that  "A  exists"  is  true  although  in  fact  A  does  not  exist. 
I  have  always  found  that  the  hypothesis  of  Santa  Claus  "works 
satisfactorily  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word";  therefore  "Santa 
Claus  exists"  is  true,  although  Santa  Claus  does  not  exist.  James 
says  (I  repeat):  "If  the  hypothesis  of  God  works  satisfactorily  in 
the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  true."  This  simply  omits  as 
unimportant  the  question  whether  God  really  is  in  His  heaven; 

45 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

if  He  is  a  useful  hypothesis,  that  is  enough.  God  the  Architect 
of  the  Cosmos  is  forgotten;  all  that  is  remembered  is  belief  in 
God,  and  its  effects  upon  the  creatures  inhabiting  our  petty  planet. 
No  wonder  the  Pope  condemned  the  pragmatic  defence  of  religion. 

We  come  here  to  a  fundamental  difference  between  James's 
religious  outlook  and  that  of  religious  people  in  the  past.  James 
is  interested  in  religion  as  a  human  phenomenon,  but  shows  little 
interest  in  the  objects  which  religion  contemplates.  He  wants 
people  to  be  happy,  and  if  belief  in  God  makes  them  happy  let 
them  believe  in  Him.  This,  so  far,  is  only  benevolence,  not  philo- 
sophy; it  becomes  philosophy  when  it  is  said  that  if  the  belief 
makes  them  happy  it  is  "true/*  To  the  man  who  desires  an  object 
of  worship  this  is  unsatisfactory.  He  is  not  concerned  to  say,  "If 
I  believed  in  God  I  should  be  happy";  he  is  concerned  to  say,  "I 
believe  in  God  and  therefore  I  am  happy."  And  when  he  believes 
in  God,  he  believes  in  Him  as  he  believes  in  the  existence  of 
Roosevelt  or  Churchill  or  Hitler;  God,  for  him,  is  an  actual  Being, 
not  merely  a  human  idea  which  has  good  effects.  It  is  this  genuine 
belief  that  has  the  good  effects,  not  James's  emasculate  substitute. 
It  is  obvious  that  if  I  say  "Hitler  exists"  I  do  not  mean  "the  effects 
of  believing  that  Hitler  exists  are  good/"  And  to  the  genuine 
believer  the  same  is  true  of  God. 

James's  doctrine  is  an  attempt  to  build  a  superstructure  of  belief 
upon  a  foundation  of  scepticism,  and  like  all  such  attempts  it  is 
dependent  on  fallacies.  In  his  case  the  fallacies  spring  from  an 
attempt  to  ignore  all  extra-human  facts.  Berkeleian  idealism  com- 
bined  with  scepticism  causes  him  to  substitute  belief  in  God  for 
God,  and  to  pretend  that  this  will  do  just  as  well.  But  this  is  only 
a  form  of  the  subjectivistic  madness  which  is  characteristic  of  most 
modern  philosophy. 


Chapter  XXX 
JOHN    DEWEY 

•         • 

JOHN  DEWEY,  who  was  born  in  1859,  is  generally  admitted 
to  be  the  leading  living  philosopher  of  America.  In  this  esti- 
mate I  entirely  concur.  He  has  had  a  profound  influence, 
only  among  philosophers,  but  on  students  of  education, 
aesthetics,  and  political  theory.  He  is  a  man  of  the  highest  character, 
liberal  in  outlook,  generous  and  kind  in  personal  relations,  inde- 
fatigable in  work.  With  many  of  his  opinions  I  am  in  almost  com- 
plete agreement.  Owing  to  my  respect  and  admiration  for  him, 
as  well  as  to  personal  experience  of  his  kindness,  I  should  wish 
to  agree  completely,  but  to  my  regret  I  am  compelled  to  dissent 
from  his  most  distinctive  philosophical  doctrine,  namely  the  sub- 
stitution of  "inquiry"  for  "truth"  as  the  fundamental  concept  of 
logic  and  theory  of  knowledge. 

Like  William  James,  DevVey  is  a  New  Englander,  and  carries 
on  the  tradition  of  New  England  liberalism,  which  has  been  aban- 
doned by  some  of  the  descendants  of  the  great  New  Englanders 
of  a  hundred  years  ago.  He  has  never  been  what  might  be  called 
a  'imerc"  philosopher.  Education,  especially,  has  been  in  the  fore- 
front of  his  interests,  and  his  influence  on  American  education  has 
been  profound.  I,  in  my  lesser  way,  have  tried  to  have  an  influence 
on  education  very  similar  to  his.  Perhaps  he,  like  me,  has  not 
always  been  satisfied  with  the  practice  of  those  who  pr.ofessed  to 
follow  his  teaching,  but  any  new  doctrine,  in  practice,  is  bound 
to  be  subject  to  some  extravagance  and  excess.  This,  however,  does 
not  matter  so  much  as  might  be  thought,  because  the  faults  of 
what  is  new  are  so  much  more  easily  seen  than  those  of  what  is 
traditional.  * 

When  Dewey  became  professor  of  philosophy  at  £hidtgo  in 
1894,  pedagogy  was  included  among  his  subjects.  He  founded  a 
progressive  school,  and  wrote  much  about  education.  What  he 
wrote  at  this  time  was  summed  up  in  his  book  The  School  and 
Society  (1899),  which  is  considered  the  most  influential  of  all  his 
writings.  He  has  continued  to  wnte  on  education  throughout  his 
life,  almost  as  much  as  on  philosophy. 

Other  social  and  political  questions  have  also  had  a  large  share 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

of  his  thought.  Like  myself,  he  was  much  influenced  by  visits  to 
Russia  and  China,  negatively  in  the  first  case,  positively  in  the 
second.  He  was  reluctantly  a  supporter  of  the  first  World  War. 
He  had  an  important  part  in  the  inquiry  as  to  Trotsky's  alleged 
guilt,  and,  while  he  was  convinced  that  the  charges  were  un- 
founded, he  did  not  think  that  the  Soviet  regime  would  have  been 
satisfactory  if  Trotsky  instead  of  Stalin  had  been  Lenin's  successor. 
He  became  persuaded  that  violent  revolution  leading  to  dictator- 
ship is  not  the  way  to  achieve  a  good  society.  Although  very  liberal 
in  all  economic  questions,  he  has  never  been  a  Marxist.  I  heard 
him  say  once  that,  having  emancipated  himself  with  some  difficulty 
from  the  traditional  orthodox  theology,  he  was  not  going  to  shackle 
himself  with  another.  In  all  this  his  point  of  view  is  almost  identical 
with  my  own. 

From  the  strictly  philosophical  point  of  view,  the  chief  impor- 
tance of  Dewey's  work  lies  in  his  criticism  of  the  traditional 
notion  of  "truth,"  which  is  embodied  in  the  theory  that  he  calls 
"instrumentalism."  Truth,  as  conceived  by  most  professional 
philosophers,  is  static  and  final,  perfect  and  eternal;  in  religious 
terminology,  it  may  be  identified  with  God's  thoughts,  and  with 
those  thoughts  which,  as  rational  beings,  we  share  with  God.  The 
perfect  model  of  truth  is  the  multiplication  table,  which  is  precise 
and  certain  and  free  from  all  temporal  dross.  Since  Pythagons, 
and  still  more  since  Plato,  mathematics  has  been  linked  with 
theology,  and  has  profoundly  influenced  the  theory  of  knowledge 
of  most  professional  philosophers.  Dewey's  interests  are  biological 
rather  than  mathematical,  and  he  conceives  thought  as  an  evolu- 
tionary process.  The  traditional  view  would,  of  course,  admit  that 
men  gradually  come  to  know  more,  but  each  piece  of  knowledge, 
when  achieved,  is  regarded  as  something  final.  Hegel,  it  is  true, 
does  not  regard  human  knowledge  in  this  way.  He  conceives 
human  knowledge  as  an  organic  whole,  gradually  growing  in  every 
part,  and  nit  perfect  in  any  part  until  the  whole  is  perfect.  But 
although  the  Hegelian  philosophy  influenced  Dcwey  is  his  youth, 
it  still  has  its  Absolute  and  its  eternal  world  which  is  more  real 
than  the  temporal  process.  These  can  have  no  place  in  Dewey's 
dywght,  for  which  all  reality  is  temporal,  and  process,  though 
evolutionary,  is  not,  as  for  Hegel,  the  unfolding  of  an  eternal  Idea. 

So  far,  I  am  in  agreement  with  Dewey,  Nor  is  this  the  end  of  my 
'agreement.  Before  embarking  upon  discussion  of  the  points  as  to 


JOHN    OEWET 

which  I  differ,  I  will  say  a  few  words  as  to  my  own  view  of  "truth." 
The  first  question  is:  What  sort  of  thing  is  "true"  or  "false"? 
The  simplest  answer  would  be :  a  sentence.  "Columbus  crossed  the 
ocean  in  1492"  is  true;  "Columbus  crossed  the  ocean  in  1776"  is 
false.  Tkis  answer  is  correct,  but  incomplete.  Sentences  are  true 
or  false,  as  the  case  may  be,  because  they  are  "significant/9  and 
their  significance  depends  upon  the  language  used.  If  you  were 
translating  an  account  of  Columbus  into  Arabic,  you  would  have 
to  alter  "1492"  into  the  corresponding  year  of  the  Mohammedan 
era.  Sentences  in  different  languages  may  have  the  same  signifi- 
cance, and  it  is  the  significance,  not  the  words,  that  determines 
whether  the  sentence  is  "true"  or  "false."  When  you  assert  a 
sentence,  you  express  a  "belief,"  which  may  be  equally  well  ex- 
pressed in  a  different  language.  The  "belief,"  whatever  it  may  be, 
is  what  is  "true"  or  "false"  or  "more  or  less  true."  Thus  we  are 
driven  to  the  investigation  of  "belief." 

Now  a  belief,  provided  it  is  sufficiently  simple,  may  exist  without 
being  expressed  in  words.  It  would  be  difficult,  without  using 
words,  to  believe  that  the  ratio  of  the  circumference  of  a  circle 
to  the  diameter  is  approximately  3.14159,  or  that  Caesar,  when  he 
decided  to  cross  the  Rubicon,  sealed  the  fate  of  the  Roman  repub- 
lican constitution.  But  in  simple  cases  unverbalized  beliefs  are 
common.  Suppose,  for  instance,  in  descending  a  staircase,  you 
make  a  mistake  as  to  when  you  have  got  to  the  bottom:  you  take 
a  step  suitable  for  level  ground,  and  come  down  with  a  bump.  The 
result  is  a  violent  shock  of  surprise.  You  would  naturally  say,  "I 
thought  I  was  at  the  bottom,"  but  in  fact  you  were  not  thinking 
about  the  stairs,  or  you  would  not  have  made  the  mistake.  Your% 
muscles  were  adjusted  in  a  way  suitable  to  the  bottom,  when  in 
fact  you  were  not  yet  there.  It  was  your  body  rather  than  your 
mind  that  made  the  mistake  -*t  least  that  would  be  a  natural  way 
to  express  what  happened.  But  in  fact  the  distinction  between  mind 
and  body  is  a  dubious  one.  It  will  be  better  to  speak  of  an  V organ- 
ism," leaving  the  division  of  its  activities  between  the  mind  and 
the  body  undetermined.  One  can  say,  then:  your  organism  was 
adjusted  in  a  manner  which  would  have  been  suitable  if  you  had 
been  at  the  bottom,  but  in  fact  was  not  suitable.  This  failure,  of 
adjustment  constituted  error,  did  one  may  say  that  you  were 
entertaining  a  false  belief. 
The  test  of  error  in  the  above  illustration  is  ntrprist.  I  think  thiS 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

is  true  generally  of  beliefs  that  can  be  tested.  A  false  belief  is  one 
which,  in  suitable  circumstances,  will  cause  the  person  enter- 
taining it  to  experience  surprise,  while  a  true  belief  will  not  have 
this  effect.  But  although  surprise  is  a  good  criterion  when  it  is 
applicable,  it  does  not  give  the  meaning  of  the  words-"tFue"  and 
"false,91  and  is  not  always  applicable.  Suppose  you  are  walking 
in  a  thunderstorm,  and  you  say  to  yourself,  "I  am  not  at  all  likely 
to  be  struck  by  lightning."  The  next  moment  you  are  struck,  but 
you  experience  no  surprise,  because  you  are  dead.  If  one  day  the 
sun  explodes,  as  Sir  James  Jeans  seems  to  expect,  we  shall  all 
perish  instantly,  and  therefore  not  be  surprised,  but  unless  we 
expect  the  catastrophe  we  shall  all  have  been  mistaken.  Such  illus- 
trations suggest  objectivity  in  truth  and  falsehood:  what  is  true 
(or  false)  is  a  state  of  the  organism,  but  it  is  true  (or  false),  in 
general,  in  virtue  of  occurrences  outside  the  organism.  Sometimes 
experimental  tests  are  possible  to  determine  truth  and  falsehood, 
but  sometimes  they  are  not;  when  they  are  not,  the  alternative 
nevertheless  remains,  and  is  significant. 

I  mil  not  further  develop  my  view  of  truth  and  falsehood,  but 
will  proceed  to  the  examination  of  Dewey's  doctrine. 

Dewey  does  not  aim  at  judgments  that  shall  be  absolutely  "true/9 
or  condemn  their  contradictories  as  absolutely  "false."  In  his 
opinion  there  is  a  process  called  "inquiry,"  which  is  one  form  gf 
mutual  adjustment  between  an  organism  and  its  environment.  If 
I  wished,  from  my  point  of  view,  to  go  as  far  as  possible  towards 
agreeing  with  Dewey,  I  should  begin  by  an  analysis  of  "meaning" 
or  "significance."  Suppose  for  example  you  are  at  the  Zoo,  and 
you  hear  a  voice  through  a  megaphone  saying,  "A  lion  has  just 
escaped."  You  will,  in  that  case,  act  as  you  would  if  you  saw  the 
lion — that  is  to  say,  you  will  get  away  as  quickly  as  possible.  The 
sentence  "a  lion  has  escaped"  truant  a  certain  occurrence,  in  the 
sense  that  it  promotes  the  same  behaviour  as  the  occurrence  would 
if  you  caw  y.  Broadly:  a  sentence  S  "means"  an  event  E  if  it 
promotes  behaviour  which  E  would  have  promoted.  If  there  has 
in  fact  been  no  such  occurrence,  the  sentence  is  false.  Just  the 
tame  applies  to  a  belief  which  is  not  expressed  in  words.  One  may 
•ajr :  a  belief  is  a  state  of  an  organism  promoting  behaviour  such 
as  a  certain  occurrence  would  (footnote  if  sensibly  present;  the 
occurrence  which  would  promote  this  behaviour  is  the  "signifi* 
6uioe"  of  the  belief.  This  statement  is  unduly  simplified,  but  it 

850' 


JOHN   DEWEY 

may  serve  to  indicate  the  theory  I  am  advocating.  So  far,  I  do  not 
think  that  Dewey  and  I  would  disagree  very  much.  But  with  his 
further  developments  I  find  myself  in  very  definite  disagreement. 

Dewey  makes  inquiry  the  essence  of  logic,  not  truth  or  know- 
ledge. Ije  Defines  inquiry  as  follows:  "Inquiry  is  the  controlled 
or  directed  transformation  of  an  indeterminate  situation  into  one 
that  is  so  determinate  in  its  constituent  distinctions  and  relations 
as  to  convert  the  elements  of  the  original  situation  into  a  unified 
whole."  He  adds  that  "inquiry  is  concerned  with  objective  trans- 
formations of  objective  subject-matter."  This  definition  is  plainly 
inadequate.  Take  for  instance  the  dealings  of  a  drill-sergeant  with 
a  crowd  of  recruits,  or  of  a  bricklayer  with  a  heap  of  bricks;  these 
exactly  fulfil  Dewey's  definition  of  "inquiry."  Since  he  clearly 
would  not  include  them,  there  must  be  an  element  in  his  notion 
of  "inquiry"  which  he  has  forgotten  to  mention  in  his  definition. 
What  this  element  is,  I  shall  attempt  to  determine  in  a  moment. 
But  let  us  first  consider  what  emerges  from  the  definition  as  it 
stands. 

It  is  clear  that  "inquiry,"  as  conceived  by  Dewey,  is  part  of  the 
general  process  of  attempting  to  make  the  world  more  organic. 
"Unified  wholes"  are  to  be  the  outcome  of  inquiries.  Dewey's  love 
of  what  is  organic  is  due  partly  to  biology,  partly  to  the  lingering 
influence  of  Hegel.  Unless  on  the  basis  of  an  unconscious  Hegelian 
ftictaphysic,  I  do  not  see  why  inquiry  should  be  expected  to  result 
in  "unified  wholes."  If  I  am  given  a  pack  of  cards  in  disorder,  and 
asked  to  inquire  into  their  sequence,  I  shall,  if  I  follow  Dewey's 
prescription,  first  arrange  them  in  order,  and  then  say  that  this 
was  the  order  resulting  from  inquiry.  There  will  be,  it  is  true,  an 
"objective  transformation  of  objective  subject-matter"  while  I  am 
arranging  the  cards,  but  the  definition  allows  for  this.  If,  at  the 
end,  I  am  told:  "We  wanted  to  know  the  sequence  of  the  cards 
when  they  were  given  to  you,  not  after  you  had  re-arranged  them," 
I  shall,  if  I  am  a  disciple  of  Dewey,  reply:  "Your  ideas ^re  alto- 
gether too  static.  I  am  a  dynamic  person,  and  \&en  I  inquire 
into  any  subject-matter  I  first  alter  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the 
inquiry  easy."  The  notion  that  such  a  procedure  is  legitimate  can 
only  be  justified  by  a  Hegelian  distinction  of  appearance  and  reality: 
the  appearance  may  be  confused  and  fragmentary,  but  the  nftlhy 
is  always  orderly  and  organic.  Therefore  when  I  arrange  the  cards 
I  am  only  revealing  their  true  eternal  nature.  But  this  part  of  the 

•851 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

doctrine  is  never  made  explicit.  The  mctaphysic  of  organism  under- 
lies Dewey's  theories,  but  I  do  not  know  how  far  he  is  aware  of 
this  fact. 

Let  us  now  try  to  find  the  supplement  to  Dewey's  definition 
which  is  required  in  order  to  distinguish  inquiry  from  othpr  kinds 
of  organizing  activity,  such  as  those  of  the  drill-sergeant  and  the 
bricklayer.  Formerly  it  would  have  been  said  that  inquiry  is  dis- 
tinguished by  its  purpose,  which  is  to  ascertain  some  truth.  But 
for  Dewey  "truth"  is  to  be  defined  in  terms  of  "inquiry,"  not  vice 
versa;  he  quotes  with  approval  Peirce's  definition :  "Truth"  is  "the 
opinion  which  is  fated  to  be  ultimately  agreed  to  by  all  who  inves- 
tigate." This  leaves  us  completely  in  the  dark  as  to  what  the 
investigators  are  doing,  for  we  cannot,  without  circularity,  say  that 
they  are  endeavouring  to  ascertain  the  truth. 

I  think  Dr.  Dewey's  theory  might  be  stated  as  follows.  The 
relations  of  an  organism  to  its  environment  are  sometimes  satis- 
factory  to  the  organism,  sometimes  unsatisfactory.  When  they  are 
unsatisfactory,  the  situation  may  be  improved  by  mutual  adjust- 
ment. When  the  alterations  by  means  of  which  the  situation  is 
improved  are  mainly  on  the  side  of  the  organism — they  are  never 
wholly  on  either  side — the  process  involved  is  called  "inquiry." 
For  example:  during  a  battle  you  are  mainly  concerned  to  alter 
the  environment,  i.e.  the  enemy;  but  during  the  preceding  period 
of  reconnaissance  you  are  mainly  concerned  to  adapt  your  own 
forces  to  his  dispositions.  This  earlier  period  is  one  of  "inquiry." 

The  difficulty  of  this  theory,  to  my  mind,  lies  in  the  severing 
of  the  relation  between  a  belief  and  the  fact  or  facts  which  would 
commonly  be  said  to  "verify"  it.  Let  us  continue  to  consider  the 
example  of  a  general  planning  a  battle.  His  reconnaissance  planes 
report  to  him  certain  enemy  preparations,  and  he,  in  consequence, 
makes  certain  counter-preparations.  Common  sense  would  say 
that  the  reports  upon  which  he  acts  are  "true"  if,  in  fact,  the 
enemy  have  made  the  moves  which  they  are  said  to  have  made, 
and  that,  in  that  case,  the  reports  remain  true  even  if  the  general 
subsequently  loses  the  battle.  This  view  is  rejected  by  Dr.  Dewey. 
He  does  not  divide  beliefs  into  "true"  and  "false,"  but  he  still 
has  two  kinds  of  beliefs,  which  we  will  call  "satisfactory"  if  the 
general  wins,  and  "unsatisfactory"  if  he  is  defeated.  Until  the 
btttk  has  taken  place,  he  cannot  tell  what  to  think  about  the 
flports  of  his  scouts* 


JOHN   DEWEY 

Generalizing,  we  may  say  that  Dr.  Dewey,  like  everyone  else, 
divides  beliefs  into  two  classes,  of  which  one  is  good  and  the  other 
bad.  He  holds,  however,  that  a  belief  may  be  good  at  one  time  and 
bad  at  another;  this  happens  with  imperfect  theories  which  are 
better  than  their  predecessors  but  worse  than  their  successors. 
Whether  a*  belief  is  good  or  bad  depends  upon  whether  the  activities 
which  it  inspires  in  the  organism  entertaining  the  belief  have  con- 
sequences which  are  satisfactory  or  unsatisfactory  to  it.  Thus  a 
belief  about  some  event  in  the  past  is  to  be  classified  as  "good" 
or  "bad,"  not  according  to  whether  the  event  really  took  place, 
but  according  to  the  future  effects  of  the  belief.  The  results  are 
curious.  Suppose  somebody  says  to  me:  "Did  you  have  coffee  with 
your  breakfast  this  morning?"  If  I  am  an  ordinary  person,  I  shall 
try  to  remember.  But  if  I  am  a  disciple  of  Dr.  Dewey  I  shall  say: 
"Wait  a  while;  I  must  try  two  experiments  before  I  can  tell  you." 
I  shall  then  first  make  myself  believe  that  I  had  coffee,  and  observe 
the  consequences,  if  any;  I  shall  then  make  myself  believe  that 
I  did  not  have  coffee,  and  again  observe  the  consequences,  if  any. 
I  shall  then  compare  the  two  sets  of  consequences,  to  see  which 
I  found  the  more  satisfactory.  If  there  is  a  balance  on  one  side 
I  shall  decide  for  that  answer.  If  there  is  not,  I  shall  have  to  confess 
that  I  cannot  answer  the  question. 

But  this  is  not  the  end  of  our  troubles.  How  am  I  to  know  the 
coifcequences  of  believing  that  I  had  coffee  for  breakfast?  If  I  say 
"the  consequences  are  such-and-such,"  this  in  turn  will  have  to 
be  tested  by  its  consequences  before  I  can  know  whether  what  I 
have  said  was  a  "good"  or  a  "bad"  statement.  And  even  if  this 
difficulty  were  overcome,  how  am  I  to  judge  which  set  of  con- 
sequences is  the  more  satisfactory?  One  decision  as  to  whether 
I  had  coffee  may  fill  me  with  contentment,  the  other  with  deter- 
mination to  further  the  war  effort.  Each  of  these  may  be  considered 
good,  but  until  I  have  decided  which  is  better  I  cannot  tell  whether 
I  had  coffee  for  breakfast.  Surely  this  is  absurd.  , 

Dewey 's  divergence  from  what  has  hitherto  been  fegarded  as 
common  sense  is  due  to  his  refusal  to  admit  "facts"  into  his  meta- 
physic,  in  the  sense  in  which  "facts"  are  stubborn  and  cannot  be 
manipulated.  In  this  it  may  be  that  common  sense  is  changing, 
and  that  his  view  will  not  seem  contrary  to  what  common  sen* 
is  becoming. 

The  main  difference  between  Dr.  Dewey  and  me  is  that  he 

853 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

judges  a  belief  by  its  effects,  whereas  I  judge  it  by  its  causes  where 
a  past  occurrence  is  concerned.  I  consider  such  a*  belief  "true/9 
or  as  nearly  "true"  as  we  can  make  it,  if  it  has  a  certain  kind  of 
relation  (sometimes  very  complicated)  to  its  causes.  Dr.  Dewey 
holds  that  it  has  "warranted  assertability" — which  he  substitutes 
for  "truth" — if  it  has  certain  kinds  of  effects.  This*  divergence  is 
connected  with  a  difference  of  outlook  on  the  world.  The  past 
cannot  be  affected  by  what  we  do,  and  therefore,  if  truth  is  deter- 
mined by  what  has  happened,  it  is  independent  of  present  or 
future  volitions;  it  represents,  in  logical  form,  the  limitations  on 
human  power.  But  if  truth,  or  rather  "warranted  assertability/' 
depends  upon  the  future,  then,  in  so  far  as  it  is  in  our  power  to 
alter  the  future,  it  is  in  our  power  to  alter  what  should  be  asserted. 
This  enlarges  the  sense  of  human  power  and  freedom.  Did  Caesar 
cross  the  Rubicon  ?  I  should  regard  an  affirmative  answci  as  unal- 
terably necessitated  by  a  past  event.  Dr.  Dcwcy  would  decide 
whether  to  say  yes  or  no  by  an  appraisal  of  future  events,  and  there 
is  no  reason  why  these  future  events  could  not  be  arranged  by 
human  power  so  as  to  make  a  negative  answer  the  more  satis- 
factory. If  I  find  the  belief  that  Caesar  crossed  the  Rubicon  very 
distasteful,  I  need  not  sit  down  in  dull  despair;  I  can,  if  I  have 
enough  skill  and  power,  arrange  a  social  environment  in  which 
die  statement  that  he  did  not  cross  the  Rubicon  will  have  "war- 
ranted assertability."  • 

Throughout  this  book,  I  have  sought,  where  possible,  to  connect 
philosophies  with  the  social  environment  of  the  philosophers  con- 
cerned. It  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  belief  in  human  power,  and 
the  unwillingness  to  admit  "stubborn  facts/*  were  connected  with 
the  hopefulness  engendered  by  machine  production  and  the  scien- 
tific manipulation  of  our  physical  environment.  This  view  is  shared 
by  many  of  Dr.  Dewey 's  supporters.  'I 'bus  George  Raymond 
Gciger,  in  a  laudatory  essay,  says  that  Dr.  Dewey 's  method  "would 
meaq  a  revolution  in  thought  just  as  middle-class  and  unspectacu- 
lar, but  just  as  stupendous,  as  the  revolution  in  industry  of  a 
century  ago/9  It  teemed  to  me  that  I  was  saying  the  samp  thing 
when  I  wrote  "Dr.  Dewey  has  an  outlook  which,  where  it  is 
distinctive,  is  in  harmony  with  the  age  of  industrialism  and  col- 
lective enterprise.  It  is  natural  that  his  strongest  appeal  should  be  to 
Americans,  and  also  that  he  should  be  almost  equally  appreciated 
by  the  progressive  elements  to  countries  like  China  and  Mexico/9 


JOHN   DEWEY 

To  my  regret  and  surprise,  this  statement,  which  I  had  sup- 
posed completely  innocuous,  vexed  Dr.  Dewey,  who  replied: 
"Mr.  Russell's  confirmed  habit  of  connecting  the  pragmatic  theory 
of  knowing  with  obnoxious  aspects  of  American  industrialism  . . . 
is  much  as  if  I  were  to  link  his  philosophy  to  the  interests  of  the 
English  landed  aristocracy/' 

For  my  part.  I  am  accustomed  to  having  my  opinions  explained 
(especially  by  Communists)  as  due  to  my  connection  with  the 
British  aristocracy,  and  I  am  quite  willing  to  suppose  that  my 
views,  like  other  men's,  are  influenced  by  social  environment. 
But  if,  in  regard  to  Dr.  Dewey,  I  am  mistaken  as  to  the  social 
influences  concerned,  I  regret  the  mistake.  I  find,  however,  that 
I  am  not  alone  in  having  made  it.  Santayana,  for  instance,  says: 
41  In  Dewey,  as  in  current  science  and  ethics,  there  is  a  pervasive 
quasi-Hegelian  tendency  to  dissolve  the  individual  into  his  social 
functions,  as  well  as  everything  substantial  and  actual  into  some- 
thing relative  and  transitional." 

Dr.  Dewey's  world,  it  seems  to  me,  is  one  in  which  human 
beings  occupy  the  imagination;  the  cosmos  of  astronomy,  though 
of  course  acknowledged  to  exist,  is  at  most  times  ignored.  His 
philosophy  is  a  power  philosophy,  though  not,  like  Nietzsche's, 
a  philosophy  of  individual  power;  it  is  the  power  of  the  community 
tfyjt  is  felt  to  be  valuable.  It  is  this  element  of  social  power  that 
seems  to  me  to  make  the  philosophy  of  instrumentalism  attractive 
to  those  who  are  more  impressed  by  our  new  control  over  natural 
forces  than  by  the  limitations  to  which  that  control  is  still  subject. 

The  attitude  of  man  towards  the  non-human  environment  has 
differed  profoundly  at  different  times.  The  Greeks,  with  their 
dread  of  hubris  and  their  belief  in  a  Necessity  or  Fate  superior 
even  to  Zeus,  carefully  avoided  what  would  have  seemed  to  them 
insolence  towards  the  universe.  The  Middle  Ages  carried  sub- 
mission much  further:  humility  towards  God  was  a  Christian's 
first  duty.  Initiative  was  cramped  by  this  attitude  and  great 
originality  was  scarcely  possible.  The  Renaissance  restored  human 
pride,  but  carried  it  to  the  point  where  it  led  to  anarchy  and 
disaster.  Its  work  was  largely  undone  by  the  Reformation  and  the 
Counter- reformation.  But  modern  technique,  while  not  altoget^fr 
favourable  to  the  lordly  individuat  of  the  Renaissance,  has  revived 
the  sense  of  the  collective  power  of  human  communities.  Man, 
formerly  too  humble,  begins  to  think  of  himself  as  almost  a  God.' 

$55 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

The  Italian  pragmatist  Papini  urges  us  to  substitute  the  "Imita- 
tion of  God"  for  the  "Imitation  of  Christ/' 

In  all  this  I  feel  a  grave  danger,  the  danger  of  what  might  be 
called  cosmic  impiety.  The  concept  of  "truth"  as  something  depen- 
dent upon  facts  largely  outside  human  control  has  been  one  of  the 
ways  in  which  philosophy  hitherto  has  inculcated  the  necessary 
element  of  humility.  When  this  check  upon  pride  is  removed,  a 
further  step  is  taken  on  the  road  towards  a  certain  kind  of  madness 
— the  intoxication  of  power  which  invaded  philosophy  with  Fichte, 
and  to  which  modern  men,  whether  philosophers  or  not,  are  prone. 
I  am  persuaded  that  this  intoxication  is  the  greatest  danger  of  our 
time,  and  that  any  philosophy  which,  however  unintentionally, 
contributes  to  it  is  increasing  the  danger  of  vast  social  disaster. 


Chapter  XXXI 
THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   LOGICAL   ANALYSIS 

•        • 

IN  philosophy  ever  since  the  time  of  Pythagoras  there  has  been 
an  opposition  between  the  men  whose  thought  was  mainly 
inspired  by  mathematics  and  those  who  were  more  influenced 
by  the  empirical  sciences.  Plato,  Thomas  Aquinas,  Spinoza,  and 
Kant  belong  to  what  may  be  called  the  mathematical  party;  Demo- 
critus,  Aristotle,  and  the  modem  empiricists  from  Locke  onwards, 
belong  to  the  opposite  party.  In  our  day  a  school  of  philosophy 
has  arisen  which  sets  to  work  to  eliminate  Pythagoreanism  from 
the  principles  of  mathematics,  and  to  combine  empiricism  wirh 
an  interest  in  the  deductive  parts  of  human  knowledge.  The  aims 
of  this  school  are  less  spectacular  than  those  of  most  philosophers 
in  the  past,  but  some  of  its  achievements  are  as  solid  as  those  of 
the  men  of  science. 

The  origin  of  this  philosophy  is  in  the  achievements  of  mathe- 
maticians who  set  to  work  to  purge  their  subject  of  fallacies  and 
slipshod  reasoning.  The  great  mathematicians  of  the  seventeenth 
century  were  optimistic  and  anxious  for  quick  results;  conse- 
quently they  left  the  foundations  of  analytical  geometry  and  the 
infinitesimal  calculus  insecure.  Leibniz  believed  in  actual  infini- 
tesimals, but  although  this  belief  suited  his  metaphysics  it  had 
no  sound  basis  in  mathematics.  Weierstrass,  soon  after  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  showed  how  to  establish  the  calculus 
without  infinitesimals,  and  thus  at  last  made  it  logically  secure. 
Next  came  Georg  Cantor,  who  developed  the  theory  of  continuity 
and  infinite  number.  "  Continuity "  had  been,  until  he  defined 
it,  a  vague  word,  convenient  for  philosophers  like  Hegel,  who 
wished  to  introduce  metaphysical  muddles  into  mathematics. 
Cantor  gave  a  precise  significance  to  the  word,  and  showed  that 
continuity,  as  he  defined  it,  was  the  concept  needecf  by  mathe- 
maticians and  physicists.  By  this  means  a  great  deal  of  mysticism, 
such  as  that  of  Bergson,  was  rendered  antiquated. 

Cantor  also  overcame  the  long-standing  logical  puzzles  about 
infinite  number.  Take  the  series  ofcwhole  numbers  from  i  onwards; 
how  many  of  them  are  there?  Clearly  the  number  is  not  finite. 
Up  to  a  thousand,  there  are  a  thousand  numbers;  up  to  a  million,- 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL  THOUGHT 

a  million.  Whatever  finite  number  you  mention,  there  are  evidently 
more  numbers  than  that,  because  from  i  up  to  the  number  in 
question  there  are  just  that  number  of  numbers,  and  then  there 
are  others  that  are  greater.  The  number  of  finite  whole  numbers 
must,  therefore,  be  an  infinite  number.  But  now  corpes^a  curious 
fact:  The  number  of  even  numbers  must  be  the  same  as  the 
number  of  all  whole  numbers.  Consider  the  two  rows: 

1.  a>  3»  4*    S»    6,  .... 

2,  4,  6,  8,  io,  12,  .... 

There  is  one  entry  in  the  lower  row  for  every  one  in  the  top  row ; 
therefore  the  number  of  terms  in  the  two  rows  must  be  the  same, 
although  the  lower  row  consists  of  only  half  the  terms  in  the  top 
row.  Leibniz,  who  noticed  this,  thought  it  a  contradiction,  and 
concluded  that,  though  there  are  infinite  collections,  there  are  no 
infinite  numbers.  Georg  Cantor,  on  the  contrary,  boldly  denied 
that  it  is  a  contradiction.  He  was  right;  it  is  only  an  oddity. 

Georg  Cantor  defined  an  "infinite"  collection  as  one  which  has 
parts  containing  as  many  terms  as  the  whole  collection  contains. 
On  this  basis  he  was  able  to  build  up  a  most  interesting  mathe- 
matical theory  of  infinite  numbers,  thereby  taking  into  the  realm 
of  exact  logic  a  whole  region  formerly  given  over  to  mysticism 
and  confusion. 

The  next  man  of  importance  was  Fregc,  who  published  his  first 
work  in  1879,  and  his  definition  of  "number"  in  1884;  but,  in 
spite  of  the  epoch-making  nature  of  his  discoveries,  he  remained 
wholly  without  recognition  until  I  drew  attention  to  him  in  1903. 
It  is  remarkable  that,  before  Frege,  even'  definition  of  number 
1  that  had  been  suggested  contained  elementary  logical  blunders. 
It  was  customary  to  identify  "number"  with  "plurality."  But  an 
instance  of  "number"  is  a  particular  number,  say  3,  and  an  instance 
of  3  is  a  particular  triad.  The  triad  is  a  plurality,  but  the  class  of  all 
triads-r-which  Frege  identified  with  the  number  3 — is  a  plurality 
of  pluralities,  and  number  in  general,  of  which  3  is  an  instance, 
is  a  plurality  of  pluralities  of  pluralities.  The  elementary  gram- 
matical mistake  of  confounding  this  with  the  simple  plurality  of  a 
given  triad  made  the  whole  philosophy  of  number,  before  Frege, 
a  tissue  of  nonsense  in  the  ftrictj*  sense  of  the  term  "nonsense." 

From  Frege's  work  it  followed  that  arithmetic,  and  pure  mathe- 
matics generally,  is  nothing  but  *  prolongation  of  deductive  logic. 

856 


THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF   LOGICAL   ANALYSIS 

This  disproved  Kant's  theory  that  arithmetical  propositions  are 
"synthetic"  and  involve  a  reference  to  time.  The  development  of 
pure  matiiematics  from  logic  was  set  forth  in  detail  in  Prindpia 
Mathematica,  by  Whitehead  and  myself. 

It  gradually  became  clear  that  a  great  part  of  philosophy  can  be 
reduced  to  something  that  may  be  called  "syntax/'  though  the 
word  has  to  be  used  in  a  somewhat  wider  sense  than  has  hitherto 
been  customary.  Some  men,  notably  Carnap,  have  advanced  the 
theory  that  all  philosophical  problems  are  really  syntactical,  and 
that,  when  etrors  in  syntax  are  avoided,  a  philosophical  problem 
is  thereby  either  solved  or  shown  to  be  insoluble.  I  think,  and 
Carnap  now  agrees,  that  this  is  an  overstatement,  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  utility  of  philosophical  syntax  in  relation 
to  traditional  problems  is  very  great. 

I  will  illustrate  its  utility  by  a  brief  explanation  of  what  is  called 
the  theory  of  descriptions.  By  a  "description"  I  mean  a  phrase 
such  as  "The  present  President  of  the  United  States/'  in  which 
a  person  or  thing  is  designated,  not  by  name,  but  by  some  property 
which  is  supposed  or  known  to  be  peculiar  to  him  or  it.  Such 
phrases  had  given  a  lot  of  trouble.  Suppose  I  say  "The  golden 
mountain  does  not  exist,"  and  suppose  you  ask  "What  is  it  that 
does  not  exist?"  It  would  seem  that,  if  I  say  "It  is  the  golden 
m<ymtain,"  I  am  attributing  some  sort  of  existence  to  it.  Obviously 
I  am  not  making  the  same  statement  as  if  I  said,  "The  round 
square  docs  not  exist."  This  seemed  to  imply  that  the  golden 
mountain  is  one  thing  and  the  round  square  is  another,  although 
neither  exists.  The  theory  of  descriptions  was  designed  to  meet 
this  and  other  difficulties. 

According  to  this  theory,  when  a  statement  containing  a  phrase 
of  the  form  "the  so-and-so"  is  rightly  analysed,  the  phrase  "the 
so-and-so"  disappears.  For  example,  take  the  statement  "Scott 
was  the  author  of  Waver  ley."  The  theory  interprets  this  statement 
as  saying:  •  • 

"One  and  only  one  man  wrote  Wavcrky,  and  that  man  was 
Scott."  Or,  more  fully: 

"There  is  an  entity  c  such  that  the  statement  '*  wrote  Waverty 
is  true  if  x  is  c  and  false  otherwise;  moreover  c  is  Scott."  . 

The  first  part  of  this,  before  the  word  "moreover/'  is  defined 
as  meaning:  "The  author  of  Waverley  exists  (or  existed  or  will 
exist)."  Thus  "The  golden  mountain  does  not  exist"  means: 

$59 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

"There  is  no  entity  c  such  that  '*  is  golden  and  mountainous' 
is  true  when  *  is  c,  but  not  otherwise/' 

With  this  definition  the  puzzle  as  to  what  is  meant  when  we  say 
"The  golden  mountain  does  not  exist"  disappears. 

"Existence/*  according  to  this  theory,  can  only  be  asserted  of 
descriptions.  We  can  say  "The  author  of  Waverley  exists/9  but 
to  say  "Scott  exists"  is  bad  grammar,  or  rather  bad  syntax.  This 
clean  up  two  millennia  of  muddlc-headedness  about  "existence/* 
beginning  with  Plato's  TheatMus. 

One  result  of  the  work  we  have  been  considering  is  to  dethrone 
mathematics  from  the  lofty  place  that  it  has  occupied  since 
Pythagoras  and  Plato,  and  to  destroy  the  presumption  against 
empiricism  which  has  been  derived  from  it.  Mathematical  know- 
ledge, it  is  true,  is  not  obtained  by  induction  from  experience; 
our  reason  for  believing  that  2  and  2  are  4  is  not  that  we  have  so 
often  found,  by  observation,  that  one  couple  and  another  couple 
together  make  a  quartet.  In  this  sense,  mathematical  knowledge 
is  still  not  empirical.  But  it  is  also  not  a  priori  knowledge  about 
the  world.  It  is,  in  fact,  merely  verbal  knowledge.  "3"  means 
"2  +  i,"  and  "4"  means  "3  +  i."  Hence  it  follows  (though  the 
proof  is  long)  that  "4"  means  the  same  as  "2  +  2."  Thus  mathe- 
matical knowledge  ceases  to  be  mysterious.  It  is  all  of  the  same 
nature  as  the  "great  truth"  that  there  are  three  feet  in  a  yard, 

Physics,  as  well  as  pure  mathematics,  has  supplied  material  for 
the  philosophy  of  logical  analysis.  This  has  occurred  especially 
through  the  theory  of  relativity  and  quantum  mechanics. 

What  19  important  to  the  philosopher  in  the  theory  of  relativity 
is  the  substitution  of  space-time  for  space  and  time.  Common 
sense  thinks  of  the  physical  world  as  composed  of  "things"  which 
persist  through  a  certain  period  of  time  and  move  in  space.  Philo- 
sophy and  physics  developed  the  notion  of  "thing"  into  that  of 
"material  substance/'  and  thought  of  material  substance  as  con- 
sisting of  prrtsdes,  each  very  small,  and  each  persisting  throughout 
all  time.  Einstein  substituted  events  for  particles;  each  event  had 
to  each  other  a  relation  called  "interval/'  which  could  be  analysed 
in  various  ways  into  a  time-element  and  a  space-element.  The 
cfeotce  between  these  various  ways  was  arbitrary,  and  no  one  of 
them  was  theoretically  preferable  to  any  other.  Given  two  events 
A  and  B,  in  different  regions,  it  might  happen  that  stcording  to 
one  convention  they  were  simultaneous,  according  to  another  A 

ftfo 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF    LOGICAL   ANALYSIS 

was  earlier  than  B,  and  according  to  yet  another  B  was  earlier  than 
A.  No  physical  facts  correspond  to  these  different  conventions. 

From  all  this  it  seems  to  follow  that  events,  not  particles,  must 
be  the  "stuff"  of  physics.  What  has  been  thought  of  as  a  particle 
will  hav^to  J>e  thought  of  as  a  series  of  events.  The  series  of  events 
that  replaces  a  particle  has  certain  important  physical  properties, 
and  therefore  demands  our  attention;  but  it  has  no  more  sub- 
stantiality than  any  other  series  of  events  that  we  might  arbitrarily 
single  out.  Thus  "matter"  is  not  part  of  the  ultimate  material  of 
the  world,  but  merely  a  convenient  way  of  collecting  events  into 
bundles. 

Quantum  theory  reinforces  this  conclusion,  but  its  chief  philo- 
sophical importance  is  that  it  regards  physical  phenomena  as 
possibly  discontinuous.  It  suggests  that,  in  an  atom  (interpreted 
as  above),  a  certain  state  of  affairs  persists  for  a  certain  time,  and 
then  suddenly  is  replaced  by  a  finitely  different  state  of  affairs. 
Continuity  of  motion,  which  had  always  been  assumed,  appears 
to  have  been  a  mere  prejudice.  The  philosophy  appropriate  to 
quantum  theory,  however,  has  not  yet  been  adequately  developed. 
I  suspect  that  it  will  demand  even  more  radical  departures  from 
the  traditional  doctrine  of  space  and  time  than  those  demanded 
by  the  theory  of  relativity. 

While  physics  has  been  making  matter  less  material,  psychology 
Idl  been  making  mind  less  mental.  We  had  occasion  in  a  former 
chapter  to  compare  the  association  of  ideas  with  the  conditioned 
reflex.  The  latter,  which  has  replaced  the  former,  is  obviously 
much  more  physiological.  (This  is  only  one  illustration;  I  do  not 
wish  to  exaggerate  the  scope  of  the  conditioned  reflex.)  Yhus  from 
both  ends  physics  and  psychology  have  been  approaching  each 
other,  and  making  more  possible  the  doctrine  of  "neutral  monism" 
suggested  by  William  James's  criticism  of  "consciousness."  The 
distinction  of  mind  and  matter  came  into  philosophy  from  religion, 
although,  for  a  long  time,  it  seemed  to  have  valid  groiyids.  i  think 
that  both  mind  and  matter  are  merely  convenient  ways  of  grouping 
events.  Some  single  events,  I  should  admit,  belong  only  to  material 
groups,  but  others  belong  to  both  kinds  of  groups,  and  are  there- 
fore at  once  mental  and  material.  This  doctrine  effects  a  gr^at 
simplification  in  our  picture  of  thfe  structure  of  the  world. 

Modern  physics  and  physiology  throw  a  new  light  upon  the 
ancient  problem  of  perception.  If  there  is  to  be  anything  that  can 

*6i 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

be  called  "perception/9  it  must  be  in  some  degree  an  effect  of  the 
object  perceived,  and  it  must  more  or  less  resemble  the  object  if 
it  is  to  be  a  source  of  knowledge  of  the  object.  The  first  requisite 
can  only  be  fulfilled  if  there  are  causal  chains  which  are,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  independent  of  the  rest  of  the  world,,  Accord- 
ing to  physics,  this  is  the  case.  Light-waves  travel  from  the  sun 
to  the  earth,  and  in  doing  so  obey  their  own  laws.  This  is  only 
roughly  true.  Einstein  has  shown  that  light-rays  are  affected  by 
gravitation.  When  they  reach  our  atmosphere,  they  suffer  refrac- 
tion, and  some  are  more  scattered  than  others.  When  they  reach 
a  human  eye,  all  sorts  of  things  happen  which  would  not  happen 
elsewhere,  ending  up  with  what  we  call  "seeing  the  sun."  But 
although  the  sun  of  our  visual  experience  is  very  different  from 
the  sun  of  the  astronomer,  it  is  still  a  source  of  knowledge  as  to 
the  latter,  because  "seeing  the  sun"  differs  from  "seeing  the  moon" 
in  ways  that  are  causally  connected  with  the  difference  between  the 
astronomer's  sun  and  the  astronomer's  moon.  What  we  can  know 
of  physical  objects  in  this  way,  however,  is  only  certain  abstract 
properties  of  structure.  We  can  know  that  the  sun  is  round  in  a 
sense,  though  not  quite  the  sense  in  which  what  we  see  is  round ; 
but  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it  is  bright  or  warm,  because 
physics  can  account  for  its  seeming  so  without  supposing  that 
it  is  so.  Our  knowledge  of  the  physical  world,  therefore,  is  only 
abstract  and  mathematical.  * 

Modern  analytical  empiricism,  of  which  I  have  been  giving  an 
outline,  differs  from  that  of  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume  by  tu 
incorporation  of  mathematics  and  iu  development  of  a  powerful 
t  logical  technique.  It  is  thus  able,  in  regard  to  certain  problems, 
to  achieve  definite  answers,  which  have  the  quality  of  science 
rather  than  of  philosophy.  It  has  the  advantage,  as  compared  with 
the  philosophies  of  the  system-builders,  of  being  able  to  tackle 
its  problems  one  at  a  time,  instead  of  having  to  invent  at  one  stroke 
a  block  theory  of  the  whole  universe.  Its  methods,  in  this  respect, 
resemble  those  of  science.  I  have  no  doubt  that,  in  so  far  as 
philosophical  knowledge  is  possible,  it  is  by  such  methods  that 
it  must  be  sought;  I  have  also  no  doubt  that,  by  these  methods, 
many  ancient  problems  are  completely  soluble. 

There  remains,  however,  a  vfcst  field,  traditionally  included  in 
philosophy,  where  scientific  methods  are  inadequate.  This  field 
'includes  ultimate  questions  of  value;  science  alone,  for  example, 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOGICAL  ANALYSIS 

cannot  prove  that  it  is  bad  to  enjoy  the  infliction  of  cruelty.  What- 
ever can  be  known,  can  be  known  by  means  of  science;  but  things 
which  are  legitimately  matters  of  feeling  lie  outside  its  province. 

Philosophy,  throughout  its  history,  has  consisted  of  two  parts 
inharmoniously  blended :  on  the  one  hand  a  theory  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  w&rlcl,  on  the  other  an  ethical  or  political  doctrine  as  to  the 
best  way  of  living.  The  failure  to  separate  these  two  with  sufficient 
clarity  has  been  a  source  of  much  confused  thinking.  Philosophers, 
from  Plato  to  William  James,  have  allowed  their  opinions  as  to 
the  constitution  of  the  universe  to  be  influenced  by  the  desire  for 
edification:  knowing,  as  they  supposed,  what  beliefs  would  make 
men  virtuous,  they  have  invented  arguments,  often  very  sophistical, 
to  prove  that  these  beliefs  are  true.  For  my  part  I  reprobate  this 
kind  of  bias,  both  on  moral  and  on  intellectual  grounds.  Morally, 
a  philosopher  who  uses  his  professional  competence  for  anything 
except  a  disinterested  search  for  truth  is  guilty  of  a  kind  of 
treachery.  And  when  he  assumes,  in  advance  of  inquiry,  that 
certain  beliefs,  whether  true  or  false,  are  such  as  to  promote  good 
behaviour,  he  is  so  limiting  the  scope  of  philosophical  speculation 
as  to  make  philosophy  trivial;  the  true  philosopher  is  prepared 
to  examine  all  preconceptions.  When  any  limits  are  placed,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  upon  the  pursuit  of  truth,  philosophy 
becomes  paralysed  by  fear,  and  the  ground  is  prepared  for  a 
government  censorship  punishing  those  who  utter  "dangerous 
thoughts"— in  fact,  the  philosopher  has  already  placed  such  a 
Censorship  over  his  own  investigations. 

Intellectually,  the  effect  of  mistaken  moral  considerations  upon 
philosophy  has  been  to  impede  progress  to  an  extraordinary  extent 
I  do  not  myself  believe  that  philosophy  can  either  prove  or  dis- 
prove the  truth  of  religious  dogmas,  but  ever  since  Plato  mos 
philosophers  have  considered  it  part  of  their  business  to  produce 
"proofs"  of  immortality  and  the  existence  of  God.  They  hav< 
found  fault  with  the  proofs  of  their  predecessors — St.  T^homai 
rejected  St.  Anselm's  proofs,  and  Kant  rejected  DeJbartes'— bu 
they  have  supplied  new  ones  of  their  own.  In  order  to  make  theii 
proofs  seem  valid,  they  have  bad  to  falsify  logic,  to  make  mathe- 
matics mystical,  and  to  pretend  that  deep-seated  prejudices  were 
heaven-sent  intuitions.  »  * 

All  this  is  rejected  by  the  philosophers  who  make  logical  analysis 
the  main  business  of  philosophy.  They  confess  frankly  that  the* 

J63 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

human  intellect  is  unable  to  find  conclusive  answers  to  many  ques- 
tions of  profound  importance  to  mankind,  but  they  refuse  to 
believe  that  there  is  some  "higher"  way  of  knowing,  by  which  we 
can  discover  truths  hidden  from  science  and  the  intellect.  For  this 
renunciation  they  have  been  rewarded  by  the  discovery  that  many 
questions,  formerly  obscured  by  the  fog  of  metaphysics,  can  be 
answered  with  precision,  and  by  objective  methods  which  intro- 
duce nothing  of  the  philosopher's  temperament  except  the  desire 
to  understand.  Take  such  questions  as:  What  is  number?  What 
are  space  and  time?  What  is  mind,  and  what  is  matter?  I  do  not 
say  that  we  can  here  and  now  give  definitive  answers  to  all  these 
ancient  questions,  but  I  do  say  that  a  method  has  been  discovered 
by  which,  as  in  science,  we  can  make  successive  approximations 
to  the  truth,  in  which  each  new  stage  results  from  an  improvement, 
not  a  rejection,  of  what  has  gone  before. 

In  the  welter  of  conflicting  fanaticisms,  one  of  the  few  unifying 
forces  is  scientific  truthfulness,  by  which  I  mean  the  habit  of  basing 
our  beliefs  upon  observations  and  inferences  as  impersonal,  and 
as  much  divested  of  local  and  temperamental  bias,  as  is  possible 
for  human  beings.  To  have  insisted  upon  the  introduction  of  this 
virtue  into  philosophy,  and  to  have  invented  a  powerful  method 
by  which  it  can  be  rendered  fruitful,  are  the  chief  merits  of  the 
philosophical  school  of  which  I  am  a  member.  The  habit  of  careful 
veracity  acquired  in  the  practice  of  this  philosophical  method  tan 
be  extended  to  the  whole  sphere  of  human  activity,  producing, 
wherever  it  exists,  a  lessening  of  fanaticism  with  an  increasing 
capacity  of  sympathy  and  mutual  understanding.  In  abandoning 
a  part  of  ris  dogmatic  pretensions,  philosophy  does  not  cease  to 
1  suggest  and  inspire  a  way  of  life. 


86V 


INDEX 


Aaron,  461 

Abbasid  dynasty,  442 

Abdera,  84,  97 

Abdon,  380 

Abel,  380,  461 

Abelard,  Pierre,  453  «.,  457-60, 461 

Abraham,  304,  348 

Absolute,  758-61,  769,  822,  848 

absolute  equality,  160,  161 

absolute  monarchy,  441,  655 

absolute  space,  89,  91 

absolutist  development,  744 

abstract  ideas,  830,  83 1 

Abu  \>qub  Yusuf,  446 

Abyssinia,  338,  389 

Academicians,  Academics,  369,  381, 

461 
Academy  of  Athens,  80,  182,  231, 

258,  259,  261,  276,  282,  300 
acceleration,  553,  554,  556,  500,  561 
Achaeans,  25,  26 
Achilles  and  the  Tortoise  834 
acquired  characteristics,  753 
Acragas,  72.  75.  3*6 
action,  222,  821,  826-8,  834.  838 
actuality,  189,  192,  704 
^am,  478,  578,  594,  613,  616;  and 

St.    Augustine,   378,    370,   3&T, 

kings  as  heirs  of,  643,  (144,  646 
adaptation,  820 
Adcimantus,  137,  144 
Adrlhard  of  Flith,  235,  460,  487 
aJjvi'tivcs,  185,  186 
Advance  **fnt     of     Learning.      The 

(Bacon).  564 
Ai'Kospourni,  101 
/KnciU,  380 
Acneaidemus,  261 
Aeschylus,  77,  100,  231 
aesthetics,  54,  701 
Aetius,  238 
Africa,   281,   320,   386,  401,  642; 

and  Arabs,  299,  326,  440;  and 

St.    Augustine    354.    364.    3^7* 

371 ;  and  monasticism,  396;  and 

Rome,  191,  304 
after  life,  25,  40-2,   109,  269-70,* 

272-4,  280-1,  499,  500.  Se*  also 

immortality 

f  865 


Against  Celsus  (Origen),  347,  348  n. 

Agatharcus,  231 

Agathon,  no 

Agilulph,  403 

Agnes  of  Poitou,  433 

agnosticism,  730 

agriculture,  22,  24,  29,  33,  341,  658, 
714,  755J  Arab,  443;  Greek  and 
Roman,  26,  243,  294,  295,  301 ; 
and  monasticism,  396,  432 

Agrippina,  282 

Ahab,  329 

Ahriman,  499 

Ahura  Mazda,  499 

Aigisthos,  30 

Ailly,  Pierre  d',  495  n. 

air,  46,  47,  62,  63,  73,  74,  229,  230, 

269,  276;  and  Plato,  166-9 
|  air  pump,  554,  557 
!  Alaric,  387,  421,  747 
j  Alberic  of  Tusculurn,  432 

Albertus   Magnus,    St.,   445,  472, 

j       474.  501 

i  Albi^enses,  464,  468,  470,  472 

j  AJbumazar,  487 

alchemy,  53,  62,  306,  343,  444.  4*8, 
486 

Alcibiades,  1 10,  799 

Alcuin,  413.  4H-I5 

Alexander  II,  Pope,  435 

Alexander  III,  Pope,  454  n. 

Alexander  VI,  Pope,  519.  526,  527, 

529  • 

Alexander  the  grammarian,  288    9 
Alexander  the  Great,  241-4,  *53» 
333.  615,  766;  and  Aristotle,  182, 
183,  207,  215,  299;  cities  founded 
by,  248,  249;  conquests  of,  31  »., 
248,  204,  302;  effect  of,  120,  183, 
241-2,  248-9.  296,  304-5,  490, 
524 ;  and  politics,*?29,  622 
Alexander  the  Paphlagoni.m,  303 
Alexander  the  Platonist,  288 
Alexander  Severus,  303 
Alexandria,  233,  244,  248,  255,  31 1 ; 
and    Christianity,    346,    3^-3. 
387,  410,  411;  and  culture,  80, 
240,   246,  306,  346;  and  Jews, 
330,  337.  341  . 

2E 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Alfarabi,  487 

Alfred  the  Great,  402,  423 

Algazel,  447 

algebra,  54,  306,  444.  5^3.  689 

Ali,  son-in-law  of  Mohammed,  442 

almsgiving,  328,  334,  349 

alphabet,  28 

Alphonso  V,  King  of  Aragon,  506, 
520 

Amasis  II,  48 

Ambrose,  St.,  354"$o,  39*.  575. 810 ; 
and  St.  Augustine,  327,  360,  363, 
369,  370,  371 ;  and  Church  and 
State,  327,  355.  3*3.  4p2,  4". 
434*  5°°i  influences  philosophy, 
3*7 

America,  215,  521,  646,  657,  662, 
663.  664,  671,  804;  and  Chris- 
tianity, 309;  and  culture,  04,  95, 
705,  746,  817;  and  Hegel,  757, 
765;  and  liberalism,  623,  668; 
and  Locke,  577,  655,  656.  Set 
alto  United  States 

American  philosophy,  839,  847,  $55 
American  Revolution,  511,  67 1 , 

75<>.  798 

Ammon,  242 

Ammonias  Saccas,  311,  346 

amnesia,  825 

Amsterdam,  570,  592 

Anabaptists,  382,  545.  577.  <»2i 

Anacreon,  49 

Anagni,  502,  503 

analysis,  #57-^4 

analytical  empiricism,  862 

analytical  geometry.  857 

Analytic*  (Agstodc),  462 

anarchism,  514,  624,  789 

Inarchy,  515,  577.  57*>,  579 

Anastasius  bibtiothtoinus,  424 

Anaxagoras,  7#*  81*3,  95,  227;  and 
other  philosophers,  84.  K6,  92 , 
107;  as  scientist,  73,  87,  236,  $58 

Anaxiirander,  45-6,  63,  134,  t(x>, 

AnaKunenes,  46,  47,  62,  83,  377 

Ancients,  534 

Ancona,  519 

Andalusia,  386 

•ngels,  338.  377*  37*.  4& 

Angelus  StJesms,  7*4 

Angilbert,  St.,  413 

Anifcs,  406,  421  ! 


Anglicans,  626 

Angus,  C.  F.,  251,  350  «. 

animal  faith,  226 

animism,  558 

Awchawtng.  734,  739 

Anselm,  St.,  327,  437"9.  457.  45«. 

488;  and  God,  60  8  ,,609,  669,  814, 

863 

Anselm  of  Laon,  458 
Antalcidas,  Peace  of,  31  n. 
Anthony,  St.,  395 
anthropology,  658 
Antichrist,  381/508,  779 
Antigonus  I,  244 
antinomies,  735 
Antioch,  244,  404,  410,  411 
Amiochus  1,  245,  250 
Antiochui  III,  249 
Antiochuft  IV  Kpiph.trus,  334,  n$, 

3?6 
Anttochus  of  A  sea  Km,  2*>i 

Antiphon,  149,  233 

antiquity:   contrasted    uith    nicJi- 

aeval  world,  323;  and  ob^cn.i- 

uun,  552;  and  Rctiuiwano,  510; 

late,  and  religion,  351;  btr,  and 

subjectivism,  728 
anti-Srmitism,  210.  342,  345,  34'). 

709,  79»~a 
Anusthcnrs,  254 
antitl)csta,  759 

Antoninus  PIU&,  2H4  ** 

Antonius,  Marcuji  (M,trk  Anror»» 

34i 

ants,  821 

AphrcxJitc,  74.  75 
A|xxr>pha,  333  4 
Apollo,  48,  24  S,  3V<^ 
Apollcmmt  of  Aicirtf»Jti.iA  ,240,  24' 
Apullonius  ^f  IVr«tt,  238 
Apollortiu»  of  T)an;i,  304 
,-l/Wojt»   r  I'll  to),  104-9,   in,   1  1  4. 

246 

Apofttks.  I7<»,  45^.  47Z.  5<>7 

A  frrtoFi  knottlcdyc,  161,  ^15,  683, 


733.  ««9,  H6o 

Ac|uifiat,  St.  Thomas,  56,  47  j,  474* 
85,  489,  547*  6o«,  M*.  *>*4.  7««. 
857;  and  Arittutlr,  309,  474  7- 
47^,  4«o(  4*J.  4^*4.  494.  501  i  *r*d 
t>rsoirtc«f  5^2,  5^9;  atul  rtlm*, 
480-2,  af»J  1  rmnt  J*c«<  >  plakita- 
phrn,  4**.  4^<*>;  and  God. 


866fl 


INDEX 


Aquinas,  St.  Thomas — contd. 
434,  438,  447,  476-82,  484,  608, 
863;  influence  of,  322,  324,  439, 
473.  483-5  J  and  labour  theory  of 
value,  660;  and  Occam,  494, 496; 
and  ontological  argument,  476, 
8x4,  815;  and  truth,  476,  478, 
485;  and  universals,  478,  480, 
484,  496 

Arab  conquests,  326,  389,  440 

Arab  Empire,  441 

Arab  mystics,  446 

Arab  philosophy,  45 «.  465.  474~5, 
496-7,  521 

Arabia,  441 

Arabian  Mights,  The,  442 

Arabic  language,  234-5,  343.  443. 
46*,  465,  486,  849 

Arabic  numerals,  307,  444 

Arab*,  234,  299,  306,  442-3,  486-8, 

529 

Arapon,  463,  506,  520 
Arcadia,  32,  117,  299,  363 
AreesiLms,  258,  259 
Archebus,  King  of  Macedon,  207 
Archimedes,  227,  233,  237,  240.  246 
Architecture,  428,  432,  509,  704 
Archy las  of  Tunis,  x  39 
Argenteuil,  458 
Argonaut*,  537 
4rpumentft  for  God,  608-12,  717- 

18,  735-6.   See  also  ontological 


Arianisin,  323,  358,  389,  392,  404. 
4<>5,  4°9.  459;  Cpnstantine  and, 
349.  35 »;  doctrine  of,  352-3; 
dominates  Western  Empire,  353, 

354 
Amtarchus  of  Samns.  153.  237-9, 

245,  246.  2So,  282,  54*,  549.  55« 
Ari«ttodemuftf  no,  118 
Aristophanes,  77.  100,  10*!,  105, 137 
Aristotle,  3$,  233,  283,  390,  449; 

and  Alexander,  1X2-3,  207,  299; 


Aristotle— contd. 
487;  cheerful  and  optimistic,  39- 
40,  191,  202,  205,  253,  255;  and 
Democritus,  85,  86;  and  Empe- 
docles,  73,  76;  ethics  of,  195- 
206;  and  God,  189,  190-1,  194, 
202,  203,  214,  373.  477, 478,  484, 
608;  on  the  Greeks,  209,  214, 
242;  harm  done  by,  93;  and 
Hobbes,  568,  574,  577;  and 
individualism,  622;  influence  of, 
121,  182,  205-6,  225,  230,  499, 
623 ;  knowledge  of,  307,  343, 439, 
462,  499,  501 ;  on  Leucippus,  84, 
88;  logic  of,  182,  218-25,  445, 
513,  6x5;  metaphysics  of,  182- 
94,  204,  218,  221;  and  modern 
philosophy,  534,  557,  580,  608, 
631.  719.  76i,  7*8,  814;  and 
Mohammedans,  443,  444.  445. 
447;  physics  of,  226-30;  and 
Plato,  80,  125,  182,  184,  199, 

202,  205,  210-ix,  218,  242,  306, 
307 ;  and  Platonic  theory  of  ideas, 
150,  184,  1 88;  and  politics,  201- 
2,  207-17,   299,  530,  813;  and 
Renaissance,  218,  521,  537,  547; 
and  scholastic  philosophy,  426, 
439,  451, 456, 459.  461, 472, 483- 
4,    487,    494.    507,    513;    and 
science,  93,  182,  580,  857;  and 
soul,  x88,  192-4.  309,  317,  480, 
585.  59o;  on  Sparta,  n6,  117, 
xi  9-20;  and  universals,   185-6, 
1 88,    478,    814;    cited,    183  n., 
200  ft ,  202. 208-9, 211-15, 235  ft. ; 
quoted,  88,   89,   tiQ,   185,   190, 
xgx,  192,  193,  194,  196-8,  2*1, 

203,  208-9,  212-13,  215,  228 
arithmetic,  21  n.t  54,  55,  221,  586, 

689,  740,  857-8;  and  the  Greeks, 
49  n.t  53,  152,  153,  x66,  x68,  177, 
232,  236,  313 
Anus,  352-3 


Arnauld,  Antoine,  605,  608,  614, 

616 
Arnold,  Matthew,  72 


and  Anaximandcr,  46,  235 '»  and     Army,  of  Rome,  297,  298,  302,  303, 
ancient  philosophy,  44,  4Q  »•.  64,          304,  308,  352,  363 
«2,  237,  253.  355.  257.  287,  311; 
and   Aquinas,   309,   324,   475*9, 
480,  4«3.  484;  and  astronomy 

153,  204,  229-30.  *35.  55«5  anjj     Arnod,  Thomas,  114  n. 
Averroes,     447;     and     Francis     Arnold  of  Brescia,  453, 462 
Ikcon,  566;  and  Catholic  philo-      Arrian,  287 
sophy,  218,  368,  377*  461,  472,     arrow,  Zeno's,  832-4 

86? 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 


Artemis,  23,  25,  30,  388 
asceticism,  323,  370,  396,  397.  499. 
784,  805;  in  ancient  world,  35, 
39.  61.  156,  254 
Asdepius,  163 

Asia,  165,  246,  249,  353.  468,  5&>. 
642,  704;  and  Alexander.  243-5  J 
and  culture,  419;  religions  of,  23, 
56,  302,  781 

Asia  Minor,  43,  246;  and  Greeks, 
26,  31,  loo,  119,  120,  241,  246; 
and  Persia,  31  ft.,  78 ;  refipons  of, 
23,24 
Asoka,  245 
Aspasia,  81,  95 
Assassins,  444 
association  and  habit,  692 
association  of  ideas,  802,  861 
Assur-bani-pal,  250 
Assyrians,  329 

astrology,  23,  53,  343.  4-f8,  714; 
and  Arabs,  306,  444;  and  St. 
Augustine,  369,  377;  and  Greek 
philosophy,  250,  261,  270,  279, 
319;  in  Renaissance,  516,  523; 
and  scholastic  philosophy,  481, 
488 

astronomy,  53,  66,  338,  369,  4*>8. 
586,  714,  860-2;  and  ancient 
philosophy,  44,  73,  152,  166-8, 
joo,  204,  229-30,  235-40,  280, 
548,  550,  552;  and  Copernicus, 
548,  550,  55*  I  «id  Galileo,  553; 
and  mathematics,  152-3,  235; 
and  modem  philosophy,  547. 
55*-7,  55*.  5&>,  7431  and 
Mohammedan*,  444,  448 ;  Ptolc- 
»maic,  218,  537 
<*U,  30 

Athanasiun,  St.,  352,  353,  396 
atheism,  81,   107,  57<>,  592,  667, 

816 

Athens,  136,  139,  158,  287,  422;  in 
age  oftPericle*,  160,  216,  287; 
and  culture,  (28,  40,  79-80,  81, 
09,  130,  183,  305 ;  democracy  in, 
94*  103,  108,  135,  212;  in  fifth 
century,  99-101 ;  St.  Paul  in,  424 ; 
philosophers  in,  81,  83,  84,  182, 
183,  258,  263,  264,  300.  393: 
Protagoras  in,  84,  96.  97;  and 
religion,  32,  3$,  40;  and  Rome, 
£59,  261 ;  and  Socrates,  102,  154, 


Athens — could. 

216;  and  Sparta,  31  *.,  114,  119, 
123,  125,  254 

Atlantic  Ocean,  281,  732 

Atlantis,  165 

atom(s),  53, 65-6,  85-6,  91,  92, 169, 
269;  and  quantum  theory,  86 1 

atomic  theory,  87-8,  oa,  188 

atomism,  47,  84-^3,  311,  457,  754. 
812 

Atrcus,  30 

Attica,  41,  78,  79,  xoo,  264 

Attila,  386-7,  388,  394,  421 

Aupiifttinc    (of    Canterbury),     St., 
406 

Aupustinr  (of  Hippo),  St.,  56,  294, 
338,  353,  35&.  364-71,  427  «•, 
435.  461,  719,  776;  and  St. 
Ambrose,  360,  364,  369,  371; 
and  Aquinas,  475,  482,  494;  and 
Church  and  State,  324,  348,  363, 
382,  767;  and  City  of  God,  288, 
324,  374-83.  5»5 :  and  Descarte*, 
58?,  5*»9;  and  Erasmus,  534,  538; 
and  F  ranctscan  ph  ilotophc  rs ; 
488,  494;  and  God,  373,  377; 
and  St.  Jerome,  360,  380;  and 
lather,  354,  538;  and  Mani- 
cha'ism,  344,  364,  368-9,  370, 
37>,  372;  and  monasticism,  396; 
and  Occam,  494 ;  and  original  sin, 
383-5*  480;  and  Pelagian  con- 
troversy, 383-5,  423;  and  philo- 
sophy,'322,  324,  360,  372- «3.  - 
438,  45 »»  497,  50«,  784;  and 
Plato,  309,  370,  372,  37<>,  377. 
475,  5<>9;  arul  politics.  327,  363; 
and  Reformation,  354,  366,  382, 
544-5,  546;  and  Renaissance, 
519;  and  sin,  364-7;  and  sub- 
jectivism, 374.  728 .  and  theology, 
354,  366,  383,  544-5'.  »»<*  ""^i 
373-4 

Augustus,  271,  2«>5  7,  341 

Austen,  Jane,  705 

Austria,  646,  765 

Avrrroes,    192,    445,   44*-7.    474, 
480,  487,  4&K,  4<X>,  497,  564 

Avicenna  (or  Ibn  Sinn).  444-5,  447, 
487,4*8,4*5.496 

Xvijfnon,  325,  491,  5°3,  5<H,  505, 

506 
**«imst  55,  58,  ajj 


868   * 


INDEX 


Babylon,  22,  207,  329-30,  331 
Babylonia,  21  ».,  22-4,  27,  44,  235, 

428,  499;  and  Greeks,  47,  231, 
235,  241,  250,  302 

Babylonian  captivity,  382 
Dacchae  (Euripides),  33,  38, 
Bacchus,*  3 2-3,  34-8,  61 
Bacon,   Francis,  285,  563-7,  568, 

569,  749 

Bacon,  Sir  Nicholas,  563 
Bacon,  Roger,  473,  4Sf*»8 
bacteria,  557 
Bactria,  241,  245 
Baghdad,  442 
Bailey,  Cyril,  S6n.,S9n..  <;i  «.,  263, 

267  «.,  268  n. 
Bakunin,  M.  A.,  514 
Ball,  John,  508 
Balliol  College,  507 
baptism,  328,  350,  366,  384,  385, 

429,  482 

barbarian  invasions,  of  Rome,  217, 
320,  323,  327,  354.  3^3.  3*H>.  394, 
765 

barbarians,    in    \\estem    Kmpire, 

323.  324.  325.  32**.  440 
Barb«irossa.  .SVe  Frederick  I 
liardas,  416 
barometer,  557 
Barth,  281  n. 
Ousel,   538,   788     Council   of,   506, 

Basil,  St.,  jgO 
Jlasil  I,  416 
Bavaria,  581 
Ha ylc,  Pierre.  564,  581 
beans,  50,  76 
Beatific  Viwon,  785 
beauty,  308,   309,   314,    3«5.   3 '&, 

3»9 

Be cc aria.  Hot 

Becket,  Thomas  a,  St.,  4^» 
Ixrtroming,  68,  760,  822 

Bede,  St.,  4U 

bees,  821 

behaviourists,  802 

being,  74,  312-3,  489,  496,  760 

Bel,  242,  250 

l*lief(»),  329,  348.  438,  489,  493, 
709,  804,  852,  853,  863;  an^ 
behaviour,  849-53:  and  Hume, 
691 ,  697-9 ;  in  progress,  754 ;  a™* 
Protestants,  493 » in  *ci^nce,  729; 


belief(s)— contd. 

and  truth,  849-53.  See  also  will 
to  believe 

Bellarmine,  St.  Robert,  643 

Bcloch,  Karl  Julius,  28  n.,  40 

Benedict,  St.,  389,  397-400,  406 

Benedict  IX,  Pope,  432 

Benedictine  Order,  400 

Benedictine  rule,  397,  400,  414, 432 

benevolence,  206,  290 

Benn,  A.  W.,  quoted,  183,  254,  303 

Bcntham,  Jeremy,  92,  252,  750, 
751,  756,  796,  802-5,  808,  809, 
8 1 1 ;  and  Epicurus,  268,  274;  and 
God,  638 ;  and  justice,  205 ;  and 
liberalism,  623,  667,  817;  and 
Locke,  629,  637,  666;  politics 
and  economics  of,  808 

Berbers,  440 

Berengar  of  Tours,  437 

Bcrgson,  Henri,  819-38;  and  causa- 
tion, 690;  and  evolution,  820-1; 
and  intuition,  821,  825-6,  831; 
and  memory,  824-5,  826,  834-6; 
mysticism  of,  857 ;  and  space  and 
time,  823,  824,  827,  829-35;  *"d 
will,  787 

Berkeleian  idealism,  841,  846 

Berkeley,  George,  673-84,  728, 
841 ;  and  ego,  687,  689;  and  em- 
piricism, 568,  728,  862 ;  and  God, 
669,  673;  and  Hume,  685,  686; 
and  Locke,  630,  666,  739;  and 
politics,  629,  667 ;  and  subjectiv- 
ism, 513,  739 ;  and  substance,  687 

Berlin,  747.  757,  782 

Bermudas,  673          * 

Bern,  717  » 

Bernard,  St.,  432,  453,  458,  459~6i 

Berosus,  250 

Bertha,  daughter  of  Charlemagne, 

413 

Bessarion,  521 

Bethlehem,  361       m         * 

Bevan,  Kdwyn,  59  ».,  245,  249 »., 
258,  262,  281  n.,  282  n..  333 

Beyond  Good  and  Evil  (Nietzsche), 
790,  792 

Bible,  229,  534,  $82,  653;  and 
Copernicus,  230,  550;  and  Eras- 
mus, 534,  537;  and  Jewish  his- 
tory, 332,  338;  and  St.  Jerome, 
354,  360.  36i 


•869 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


biblical  criticism,  592 

big  business,  671 

biology,  192,  228,  746,  754.  831, 
851 

birth  control,  481,  750 

bishops,  396,  401,  428,  430,  494, 
644 ;  and  investiture  struggle,  433, 
436-7;  power  of,  349,  418,  430; 
and  papacy,  402-3,  410,  414, 
416-17,  433.  45L  452.  504.  See 
also  episcopate 

Bismarck,  Prince,  747,  748,  779 

Black  Death,  491 

Black  Sea,  79 

Blake,  William,  338,  704,  705 

Boadicea,  283 

Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  455,  521 

body,  157,  347,  4*7,  629,  697,  783, 
849;  and  St.  Augustine,  378-9, 
381;  and  Bergson,  821-2;  and 
Cartesians,  583-4.  5&7.  589;  and 
Plotinus,  314,  317;  and  Socrates, 

15677 

Boethius,  234,  324,  356,  389,  39°-2. 
460;  and  mediaeval  philosophy, 

439 

Boghaz-Keui,  26 
Bogomiles,  469 
Bohemia,  470,  509 
Bokhara,  445 
Boleyn,  Anne,  539 
Bolingbroke,  Viscount  (Henry  St. 

John),  667 

Bologna,  437,  455.  7»9 
Bonaparte.  See  Napoleon  I 
Bonaventura,,  St.,  486,  488 
Boniface,  St.,  414 
Loniface  VIII,  Pope,  489,  502-3 
Book  of  Knock,  337-9,  340 
Borgia  family,  544 
Borgia,   Caesar,   519.   526-7,   5*8, 

789 

Bosanquet,  Bernard,  748 
Botiuet,  lacqur*  Benigne,  715 
Boswell,  James,  273 
Boyle,  Robert,  557 
Bradley,  F.  H.,  4*5  *•.  43*.  604, 

608,748 

Brahe,  Tycho,  550  i 
Brahms,  785 
brain,  825,  827,  836 
Bramhall,  John.  Bishop  of  Derry, 


Brazil,  646 

Britain,  283,  386,  401,  414 
British     philosophy,     618;      and 
Continental     philosophy,    668- 

«?2  *     o 

Bnttany,  457,  458,  5^0    ^ 

Bromios,  38 

bronze,  24,  26 

Brook  Farm,  705 

brotherhood  of  man,  254,  286,  287, 

288,  305 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  558 
Brunichild,  403 
Bruno  of  Cologne,  St.,  432 
Bruno  of  Toul.  See  l>eo  IX 
Brutus,  492,  527 
Buchanan,  George,  643 
Buddha,  31,  782,  790-800 
Buddhism,  241,  245,  249,  720.  781, 

785.  793.  799.  843 
Bulgaria,  469 
bull,  23,  32,  350 
bull-fights,  25 

Burckhardt,  Jakob,  522  n.,  523  n. 
BurRhlcy,  Lord.  See  Cecil 
Buridan's  ass,  235 
Burke,  Edmund,  717 
Burnct,  John,  52,  102 ;  cited,  44  *., 

86  n.,  105;  quoted,  41,  51,  68  n., 

84-5,  89  w.,  102 

Bums,  C.  Delisle.  411-12  * 

Burt,  Dr.,  706 
Burn,  1C.  A.,  549 
Bury,  J.  B.,  95.  »'4  "..  117-1* 
Butler,  Samuel,  310 
Byron,  George  Gordon,  lx>rd,  505, 

624,  705,  708,  774-80;  heroes  of, 

670,   777;  and   liberalism.  667, 

774;  and  nationalism,  709,  779; 

and    Nietzsche,    777,    789;    and 

romanticism,    708,    746,    780; 

quoted,  709,  723.  776,  777,  778 

780 
Byzantine  culture,  as  transmitter, 

44* 

Byzantine  Empire,  298,  401,  405, 
441,  501 ;  and  Gregory  the  Grrst. 
324,  402;  and  Ixxnbards,  326, 
394,  408,  409;  «nd  papacy,  4?*- 
10,  416.  See  a/to  Eastern  Em- 
pire 

Byzantine  scholarship,  and  Rrnats- 


870 


INDEX 


Caesar,  Julius,  294,  295,  492,  527, 

849 

Cagliari,  402 
Cain,  380,  777 
calculus,  233,  558,  605,  619,  831, 

857  .     . 
calendar,  444 

Caliban,  537 

California,  647,  674 

Caliphate,  419,  441,442 

Calixtus  II,  Pope,  452 

Callicles,  99 

Callinicus,  exarch  of  Italy,  403 

Calvin,  John,  210,  354,  384,  544, 

550,  608,  648 

Calvinism,  621,  645,  715,  776 
Camaldolese  Order,  432 
Cambrai,  League  of,  517 
Cambyses  II,  48 
Campania,  311 
Campion,  Edmund,  643 
Canada,  715 
canon  law,  464 
Canossa,  436,  747 
Cantor,  Gcorg,  857-8 
Cape  route  to  India,  517,  521 
capital,  209-10,  817 
capitalism,  283,  383,  638,  658-9, 

671,  709,  809,  811,  8x6,  817 
Carbonari,  775 
Carcassonne,  470 
Carlyle,   Thomas,   312,   624,   667, 

754.  7/8-9,  80 1,  807 
>  Camap,  859 
Cameades,  259,  260,  261,  262,  299, 

377  «.,  593 

Carolingian  renaissance,  414-15,428 
Carolingians,  408,  415,  428 
Cartesianism,  474,  585.  S&6  «.,  59°» 

624,  690,  693.  See  alto  Descartes 
Carthage,  49*-.  72,  140,  207,  243, 

367,  369,  440;  and  Rome,  260, 

294,  295 

Carthusians,  432,  538 
Casstua,  492 

categorical  imperative,  737-8 
CaUgoriet,    The    (Aristotle),    222, 

439.  495 

category,  -ies,  222-3,  734~5 
Cathari,  468-9.  See  alto  Albigense^ 
cathedral  schools,  461 
Catherine  of  Aragon,  539 
Catherine  II,  803 

'87 


Catholic  Church,  94, 305, 705, 715; 
claim  to  supremacy  of,  767 ;  and 
dictatorships,  642,  646.  See  also 
Church 

Catholic  faith,  in  Western  Empire, 

353,  354*  393.  395 

Catholic  orthodoxy,  93,  538 

Catholic  philosophy,  322-510,  628; 
and  Aquinas,  472-3,  474,  483-4; 
and  Aristotle,  218,  472, 473, 474; 
in  eleventh  century,  439;  and 
history,  326-7;  and  pseudo- 
Dionysius,  424;  in  twelfth  cen- 
tury, 450-62;  in  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, 463-73 ;  two  periods  of,  322 

Catholicism,  839-40 

Cato  the  Elder,  259-61,  301,  334, 
376 

causal  laws  in  physics,  695 

causality,  causation,  86,  683,  744; 
and  Hume,  689-96,  729,  731; 
and  Kant,  741 

cause-and-ciTect,  734 

cause(s):  and  belief,  845,  854;  and 
Aristotle,  191,  205;  and  Francis 
Bacon,  565;  and  Newton,  560; 
and  Plato,  167.  See  also  final 
cause ;  First  Cause ;  prime  causes 

cave,  Plato's  76,  126,  147,  152 

Cebes,  160,  162 

Cecrops,  288 

celibacy,  156,  481 ;  of  clergy,  133, 
430-1 ,  434,  435 

Celsus,  347-8 

censorship,  863 

Chalcedon,  Council^of,  352,  388, 

393 

Chaldeans,  250,  275  * 

Chalons,  387,  388 
Chamber  of  Deputies  (France),  664 
chance,  74.  76,  82,  86,  276 
change(s),  64,  65,  70,  74,  7.6,  88; 
and  Bergson,  833-4;  denied  by 
Eleatics,  833 ;  and  Henfclitus,  62, 
64,  67,  833;  mathematical  con- 
ception of,  832,  833,  834;  and 
Parmenidea,  67,  70,  71,  126;  and 
Plato,  126,  165,  180-1.  See  also 
flux 

Chanut,  582  ' 

Charlemagne,  408,414-13, 747;  and 
culture,  327,  413,  415.  &e  also 
Carolingian  renaissance  ' 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Charles  V,  Emperor,  5x7,  520,  526, 

Charles  I  of  England,  626,  642, 

643,  662 
Charles  II  of  England,  569,  626, 

654 
Charles  II  (the  Bald)  of  France, 

415, 421, 422,  423,  424 
Charles  VIII  of  France,  516,  520 
Charles  Mattel,  409,  414 
Charles,  R.  H.,  336  n.,  337  n.,  339- 

40 
Charlotte,  Queen  of  Prussia,  606, 

613 

Charmide*  (Plato),  1 1 1 
Chartres,  460,  461 
chastity,  397,  43°.  7$5 
checks  and  balances,  529,  530,  577, 

661-5 

cheerfulness,  64,  92 
chemistry,  53,  62,  65,  87,  306,  448, 

557,  695,  746 
Childe  Harold,  776 
China,  22,  243,  305.  443,  560,  646, 

762,  848,  854;  classics  of,  456; 

and  Greece,  32;  Nestorianism  m, 

388;  in  600-1000,  419 
Chosen  People,  328,  331,  344 
Christ,  304,  345.  348.  358,  3<>i -3. 

370,  404,  465,  470,  49*»  5^5.  536; 

and    Aristotle,    472;    death    of, 

154  «.,  378;  and  ethics,  139,  602; 

and  Jews,   339,   340,  342,   343, 

345.  347;  nature  of,  347,  387-9, 

482;  and  Nazis,  383;  and  the 

Pope,   461;  and   poverty,    363, 

542 ;  and  sin,  339 ;  »oul  of,  497  n. ; 

as  Word  or  Logos,  56,  313.  Ser 

alto  Jesus;  Messiah 
Christian  dogma(t),  154,  200,  277, 

4^2,  839 
Christian  ethics,  in,  197,  199,  200, 

*°5»  795 

Christian  Vnoralstu,  201 

Christian  philosophy:  and  belirf, 
348;  Aristotle  accorded  supre- 
macy in,  218;  development  of, 
500-1;  dualism  of,  590;  Plato* 
nic  till  thirteenth  century,  125, 

439 

Christian  Providence,  top 
Christian  republic,  within  Roman 

Empire,  350 


Christian  theology:  absorbs  six- 
teenth century,  547;  and  Aqui- 
nas, 438,  483-4;  and  arguments 
for  God,  608 ;  and  Francis  Bacon, 
564;  and  Boethius,  389;  and 
creation,  46,  318;  develops  with 
Hellenization,  346;  early  dis- 
putes in,  352;  and  Emperor,  in 
sixth  century,  393 ;  and  evil,  170; 
and  German  idealists,  731;  of 
Gospels,  346 ;  has  two  parts,  365 ; 
and  heliocentric  theory,  550;  and 
Irish  culture,  422;  of  Jesuits, 
546;  and  John  the  Scot,  423,  425, 
426;  and  Lan franc,  437;  and 
mathematics,  56;  and  mystery 
religions,  32,  34,  351;  and  Oc- 
cam, 4Q2ff.\  and  papal  revenues, 
522;  and  St.  Peter  Dam  tan,  437; 
and  Plato,  34,  125,  152,  308-9, 
501;  and  Plotinus,  308,  316; 
political  importance  of,  after 
Constantine,  352-3;  and  Pro- 
testants, 538;  and  Renaissance, 
262,  522;  and  self,  688;  and 
science,  559 

Christianity,  309,  316,  843;  and 
Aristotle,  190,  229;  growth  and 
triumph  of,  99,  246,  262,  302, 
307,  342-3.  344",  and  Jews,  328- 
9,  336,  33**»  342.  343.  38*,  46%, 
500;  and  French  Revolution, 
792;  and  immortality,  IOQ,  192, 
252,  272-4;  and  individual,  self,  - 
or  ego,  253,  320,  622,  709;  and 
Ireland,  386,  421,  426;  and 
Mane,  383,  810;  and  Moham- 
medans, 306,  440;  and  Nietzsche, 
788,  792-6,  799;  and  othrr 
religions,  23.  154,  230,  272,  304, 
328,  499-500;  and  1'lato,  121, 

15*.  154,  155.  156,  3<>*-9»  3^0, 
328;  and  Plotinui,  308-9,  317  «,, 
319,  320;  popular  character  of, 
*97,  35°-*,  799;  «nd  Roman 
Empire,  80.  241,  293,  *98,  304, 
328,  419;  and  Schopenhauer, 
781-7;  and  Stoic  Um,  280,  282, 
283,  284,  287,  288,  291,  293 

.Christina,  Queen  of  Sweden,  582 

Chrysippui,  280,  281 

Church,  141,  397.  605,  725,  755; 
aiul  Aristotle,  121,  182,  475;  and 


872* 


INDEX 


Church — contd. 
St.  Augustine,  324,  375,  380-1, 

3«4,  385,  514.  545.  767;  and 
Charlemagne,  413;  and  conflict 
of  emperor  and  pope,  492; 
before  dark  ages,  298,  389,  304, 
400  ;*n  chirk  ages,  386,  395,  408, 
418;  doctors  of,  354-71;  and 
double  truth,  564;  and  Eastern 
Church,  464,  501 ;  and  Eastern 
Empire,  382,  4x0,  4x6;  and 
feudal  aristocracy,  322,  409;  and 
Germans,  765;  government  of, 
349,  428;  and  Hobbes,  569,  57&, 
577;  and  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion, 489;  and  Incarnation,  387- 
8;  and  individual,  253,  365;  and 
Inquisition,  548,  556;  and  Mach- 
iavclii,  527,  53 x ;  and  Marx,  383; 
in  Middle  Ages,  305,  322,  326, 
4x5,  428,  43».  511,  62X,  643;  in 
modem  period,  sxx-X3;  and 
monasticism,  395;  and  philo- 
sophy, 326,  sxx,  8x3;  power  of, 
252,  322,  4i5-»7,  53i;  property 
of,  2x0,  357.  4J«,  430,  43'.  452, 
468,  648;  in  Renaissance,  332, 
5x0,  522,  523,  532;  and  sacrV 
ments,  482;  and  salvation,  253, 
384;  and  science,  512,  548,  585; 
and  secular  monarchs,  409-'  *» 
415-16*  577;  and  Stair,  326,  355, 
359,  382,408,  493,  513,  577,  593, 
*>43.  725,  7&9J  States  of  die,  129, 
41  x;  universal,  305;  and  Vul- 
gate, 342.  «SVe  also  bishops; 
conciliar  movement;  councils  of 
the  Church;  Doctors  of  the 
Church ;  Eastern  Church ;  Fathers 
iif  the  Church;  papacy;  Pope; 
schism ;  Western  Church 

churches,  42,  709,  7931  national, 
55«>,  5**2;  Protestant,  545,  7*8 

Cicero,  165,  234,  268,  295,  362, 
368,  487,  4«8.  534;  and  Stoics, 

239  «.,    280 

circleU),  23,  233-4,  552,  553,  849 
circulation  of  the  blood,  557,  5°«» 

5»3,  62  x 
circumcision,  332,  335,  330,  337, 

344 

Cistercian  Order,  432 
cities,  22,  285,  453,  454*  4&8,  501, 


cities — contd. 

S3';  Greek,  26,  31,  43,  47,  49, 

243»  285-6,  451.  See  also  City 

State ;  Lombard  cities 
Citium,  275 
citizen,  770,  771 

City  of  God,  The  (St.  Augustine), 
^  288,  323,  348,  372,  374-83,  515 
Cxty  State(s),  31,  241,  294,  295; 

and  Aristotle,  183,  207,  216,  813 ; 

eclipse  of,  241,  248,  253;  and 

HelJenism,  246,  247;  and  philo- 
sophy, 253,  287,  530,  813;  and 

Rousseau,  721,  726 
civil  law,  803 

Civil  War  (American),  662 
Civil  War  (English),  493,  569,  573, 

625-6,  627,  642,  645,  662,  702 
civil  war(s),  663,  702;  Roman,  295, 

206,  377 
civilization,  20-42,  243,  285-6,  305, 

419,  448,  661 
Clairvaux,  460 
Clarendon,  Earl  of  (Edward  Hyde), 

570 

Clarke,  Samuel,  90 
class  bias,  94 

class  struggle,  43,  578-9,  75'.  816 
class  war,  818 
classes,  766 
classification  of  philosophies,  819- 

20 

Claudius,  282 
Clausewitz,  Karl  von,  778 
Clazomenae,  81 
Cleanthcs,  238,  277,  280,  282 
Clement  V,  Pope,  5*3 
Clement  VI,  Pope,  504-5  % 

Clement  VII,  Pope,  520 
Clement  VII,  Antipope,  505 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  338 
Cleopatra,  241,  294 
clergy*  133*  323,  324.  325. 4*5, 4*8, 

429.  430,  43'.  468,  550 
Clcrmont,  Council  of,  451 
Clesippus,  96 
Clitomachus  (or  Hasdrubal),  261, 

262 
clocks,  557;  of  the  Cartesians,  584, 

590,  607,  693-4.  See  also  two 

clocks 
Clouds,   The    (Aristophanes),   102, 

105  H.  » 


873 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Clovis,  406,  409 

Cloyne,  674 

Chmy,  431,452,458 

cogito,  586-7.  728 

cognition,  425  n. 

coinage,  27,  121,  254 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  667,  704,  705,  801 

Colet,  John,  534 

collective  farming,  659 

Colloqities  (Erasmus),  538 

Cologne,  474 

colonies,  26,  139,  249 

colours),  175.  176.  177.  180,  668, 

675.  676.  74L  743 
Columba,  St.,  406 
Columban,  St.,  406 
Columbus,     Christopher,     282  it., 

487,  509,  537.  845,  849 
comets,  230,  551,  557,  55s.  560 
Commagene,  250 
commerce,  24,  27,  49,  210-11,  325, 

443,512,621 
Commodus,  284 
common  sense,  276,  630,  663,  682, 

842,  852,  860;  and  Aristotle,  184, 

185,  1 86,  187,  202,  203 
commons,  659 
Commons,  House  of,  463,  509.  642, 

662,  663 
communism,   131,   211,  508,  539, 

54*.  774 

Communist  Manifesto,  81 1 
Communist  Tarty,  130,  383,  855 
community,   211.  738,   803,   855; 

and  individual!  33-4.  205,  754 
competition,  664,  808,  817 
compromise,  603 
conception,  and  perception,  177 
conciiiar  movement,  492,  505,  519 
concubinage,  430 
conditioned  reflex,  802,  861 
Condorcet,  285,  749~5<>,  75 ».  804 
Confession  of  Faith  of  a  Smwyard 

Vicar,  The  (Rousseau),  536,  7 1 6,  j 

7«7-*o,  73 « 
Confeisums  (St.  Au{ru»tine).  364-71, 

372-4,  384 

Confessions  (Rousseau),  711 
Confucius,  31,  305,  419,  843 
congenital  difference*,  753 
Congress,  577,  664 
conic  sections,  234.  240 
conjunction,  and  causation,  691-4 


Conrad,   son  of  Emperor   Henry 

IV,  451 

conscience,  109,  719 

consciousness,  840 

consensus  gentium,  281 

consequences,  as  test  of  beliefs,  853 

consequent,  in  logic,  690    ' 

conservation:  of  energy,  561;  of 
momentum,  583 

conservatism,  66 1 

consistency  and  credibility,  637 

Consolation  of  Philosophy  (Boe- 
thius),  389-92 

Constance,  Council  of,  506,  509 

Constance  of  Sicily,  463,  465 

Constantine  the  Great,  298,  308, 
35 i-*»  356;  conversion  of,  304, 
323.  349.  35 «.  35*-  See  .also 
Donation  of  Constantine 

Constantinople,  298,  360,  410,  412; 
and  Arianism,  353;  and  Christ- 
ian philosophy,  501 ;  conquered 
by  Turks,  299,  440,  509.  5«7; 
and  Crusades,  456,  464,  517;  and 
Greek  classics,  461 ;  and  Gregory 
the  Great,  401,  405;  and  Mo- 
hammedans, 440 ;  and  Nestorian- 
ism,  387,  388;  and  papacy,  408, 
501 ;  patriarchs  of,  408,  410,  415, 
416 

Constantius  II,  356 

constitution^),  127.  129,  530; 
American,  623,  629,  655,  657, 
664;  British,  629,  642,  662,  663;  t 
French,  629,  664;  of  Holy 
Roman  Empire.  408;  Roman, 
295;  of  Sparta,  116-17.  124 

constitutional  government,  403 

contemplation,  52,  53,  104,  203, 
204,  317,  838.  840 

contempt.  58,  60 

Continental  philosophy,  568,  586, 
668 

continuity,  857,  H6i 

Contra  Crltunt.  See  Auuintt  Celsut 

contra  Jut  ion,  law  of,  615 

convention,  and  romanticism,  702, 
709 

co-ordinate    geometry,     55,     558, 

**** 

Copemican  hypothetic   239,   282, 

548;   in    antiquity,  236-8,  245; 
and  human  pride,  550 


INDEX 


Copernicus,  Nikolaus,  230,  498, 
509»  512,  547-50,  566,  723;  and 
Aristarchus  of  Samoa,  153,  238; 
disposes  of  man's  cosmic  im- 
portance 816;  and  Galileo,  555, 
556;  and  Kepler,  551,  552;  and 
Newt«n,  89,  557,  561 

Cordova,  343.  446,  448 

Corinth,  3 1 ;  league  of,  248 

Cornford,  F.  M.,  40,  50,  51,  60,  fti, 
165  n. 

Corporate  State,  725 

corporation  lawyers,  95 

Corsair,  Byron's,  777-8 

Cortes,  577 

Cos,  250 

cosmic  impiety,  856 

cosmic  justice,  45,  63,  160 

cosmic  strife,  46 

cosmogony:  of  Descartes,  585;  of 
Plato,  125,  165-9 

cosmological  argument,  608,  609- 
11,721,736 

cosmology,  in  ancient  philosophy, 
74-5,  82,  88,  91 

cosmopolitan  point  of  view,  243 

Cotes,  Roger,  585 

councils  of  the  Church,  423,  436, 
491,492,493,  506 

Counter- Reformation,  513,  520, 
544-6,  855 

Couturat,  Louis,  610,  614 

L'owper,  William,  674 

creation,  30,  165-6,  170,  317-18, 
425-7,  616-18;  and  St.  Augus- 
tine, 372,  373.  376; and  Jews,  46, 
152,  328;  and  theology,  46,  318 

creative  evolution,  821 

Creator,  86,  87,  156 

Crecy,  776 

credibility  and  consistency,  637 

credulity,  696,  729 

Crete,  24-6,  35,  121,  261 

Crimean  War,  658 

criminal  law,  803 

Critias,  101,  103 

critique  of  knowledge,  730 

Critique  of  Practical  Reason,  The 
(Kant),  735.  736  ^ 

Cntvjut  of  Pure  Reason,  The 
(Kant),  618,  667,  698,  732-6? 

739-43.  7«3 
Cn/o  (Plato),  154 


Croesus  43 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  545,  569,  575, 
625-8,  642,  654,  659 

Croton,  49 

Crucifixion,  154 

cruelty,  157,  278,  385,  670,  769, 
794.  861 

Crusades,  343,  450,  451,  455-6. 
466,  468;  and  Albigenses,  464, 
468,  470;  first,  451,  455,  460; 
second,  460;  third,  454,  455: 
fourth,  464,  517 

culture:  and  Athens,  77-80,  100; 
in  Carolingian  period,  414-15; 
in  later  antiquity,  217;  Mo- 
hammedan, 440-9;  and  Roman 
Empire,  294-307 

Cumont,  302  n.t  377  n.,  499  n. 

cycle  of  fire,  277 

Cymbeline,  544 

Cynics,  -ism,  in.  253-6,  275,  276, 
300,  622 

Cyprian,  St.,  204 

Cyril  of  Alexandria,  St.,  387-8,  392 

Cyrus,  31,43.  330,  525 

d'Ailly,  495  n. 

daimon,  75,  109,  277,  288 

Damascus,  442 

Damasus  1  (St.),  Pope,  356,  360, 

361 
Damian,  St.  Peter,  430,  432,  434, 

437 
damnation,  338,  37§.  3?i,  3?4.  3^5, 

560,  594;  of  unbaptized  infants, 

384,  3&5 

Danes,  326,  415,  419, 
Daniel,  337  • 

Dante,  192,  230,  309,  390, 455. 492, 

527 

Damon,  703 
Danube,  294,  3°3 
Danzig,  781 

Daphnae,  43  » 

Darius  I,  31,  47,  4?»  77.  244 
dark  ages,  80, 325-6,  354,  385,  4x8. 

448 ;  papacy  in,  408-20 
Darwin,  Charles,  635,  649,  667, 

704,  752-3.  807-8 
Darwin,  Erasmus,  752 
David,  329.  359.  575 
David  of  Dinant,  477 
day,  23 


875 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


De  Amtna  (Aristotle),  192, 444,  475 

De  Caelo  (Aristotle),  153,  235  n. 

De  Emendation*  (Aristotle),  439 

De  rEsprit  (Helvttius),  748 

De  Monarchic  (Dante),  492 

De  Principiis  (Origen),  346 

De  Tribus  Impostoribus,  465 

death  penalty,  803 

Decalogue,  328 

Decamnichus,  207 

Declaration  of  Independence,  55, 
650  n. 

"Declaration  des  droits  de  1'hom- 
mc,"  803 

Decline  and  Fall  of  tfte  Roman 
Empire,  see  Gibbon 

deduction,  823,  857 ;  and  Aristotle's 
logic,  2x9-23  ;and  Francis  Bacon, 
564,  567;  in  Continental  philo- 
sophy! 668 ;  in  geometry,  44. 234 ; 
Greek,  21  ».,  57-8,  79.  257,  292 ; 
in  mathematics,  48,  858 

Delos,  248 

Delphi,  6 1,  1 06 

Democedes  of  Croton,  49 

democracy,  135,  217,  540,  569,  593, 
764;  and  Aristotle,  211-12,  213; 
Athenian,  79t  94-5.  101.  103, 
1 08, 125,  216;  and  Bentham,  750, 
805 ;  and  churches,  492,  793 ;  and 
ethics,  738,  706,  807 ;  Greek,  27, 
72,  92,  213 ;  and  James,  839 ;  and 
Kant,  667,  73 1 ,  738 ;  and  liberal- 
ism, 621,  631;  and  Ix>ckc,  654; 
in  Middle  A#es,  325,  467,  493, 
502,509,  5 17;  modem,  200,  511, 
646, 756 ;  reasons  for, !  28, 798-9 ; 

-  in   Rome,   295,   296,   504;  and 
Rousseau,  713.  716,  721,  726-7; 
and  Sparta,  117/1.,  120 

Democritus,  84-6,  90,  91-3,  97, 
227,  232,  277,  565,  789;  and 
Am  tot  k,  182,  229;  and  Bpi- 
curuft,  164, 266, 269 ;  and  science, 
55&.  857;  ani  space,  90,  561 
demon(s),  demonology,  338,  377 
Descartes,  Rene*,  56,  292,  494.  $69, 
58o-9«.  593.  600.  623,  7»*; 
cogtto  of,  374,  586-7;  and  to- 
oatinate  geometry,  55,  558,  583; 
determinism  of,  590;  and  God, 

43^.  5*9.  593. 6°*.  fcoK*  6°9.  6*9. 

•  718,  814,  863;  influence  of,  568. 


Descartes,  Rene*  —  contd. 

5*0,  589,  593,  618,  666.  667,  813  ; 
and  Jesuits,  546,  580,  581  ;  and 
Locke,  628,  633,  669;  method  of 
(Cartesian  doubt),  585,  589;  and 
science,  547,  583.  5&».  59*  ;  and 
space,  90;  and  subjectivism,  513, 
586,  728,  730;  and  substance, 
594,  606,  614;  and  theory  of 
knowledge,  586-8,  589,  634 

descriptions,  theory  of,  859 

Dcsiderius,  bishop  of  V'iennc,  404 

design,  736 

desire,  806-7,  819 

Destiny,  29,  279 

determinism,  319,  571,  572,  616; 
and  atomisU,  86;  and  Ikrgson, 
821  ,  827  ;  and  Cartesian  ism  .JSQO  ; 
in  psychology,  802  ;  and  Spinoza, 
593.  594.  597  ;  a»d  Stoicism,  276, 
280.  289-90 

Deutero-  Isaiah,  332-3 

Devonshire.  2nd  Karl  of  (Xx>rd 
Hard  wick),  569 

Dewey,  John.  787,  844,  &47  56 

I>c  Witts,  the,  592 

Diabolic  Vision.  780 

dialectic  method.  111-13,  '4iX.  439. 
45^.  45^.  75«-*x>»  702,  815.  hid, 


. 
dhlecUcal 


3^3, 


, 


Diana  of  the  i:phc»tan*,  2\ 
dictator.  -&hip&,  52,  217,  646,  727 
Dietrich    von    licrn    (Thi-odum  ) 

3s6 

differential  ctjuaiiorm,  o' 
(JuKtuiun  I  »,  V;  > 

51 

l)\<>  C'a^iiu*.  283 
biockuan,  298,  30^,  3X6 
Diodoru*  Sicului,  49,  250 
I)i<H?cneH,  254-5,  37<j 
l)ioj?vritfc  LacrtiuA,  85,   263,  266, 

27*),  292  «, 
iJiognetus,  288 

I)  ton  vtm*  tlte  Areopagitr,  424-7 
Dionysius  tlie  Younger,  t  \runt  of 

Syracuse,  126,  144 
Dionysodorus,  </> 
^Dtonytus,  32-41,  50,  62 
Dittwn  df  la  Mttlfsde  (Descartes), 


876 


INDEX 


Discourse  on  Inequality  (Rousseau), 

7I4-I5 

Discourses  (Epictetus),  264  n. 
Discourses  (MachiaveIJi),  526,  527- 

.9.789 

disjunction,  281 
Dispersion,  >34 1 
distance,  90 
distribution,  813 
divination,  23,  279  • 

Divine  Comedy  (Dante),  492.  AW 

also  Paradiso 

Divine  Intellect  or  Mind.  313,  314 
divine   right:  of  kings,  621,  627, 

642-7.     653-4,    716,     726;    of 

majorities,  657 
division  of  powers,  724 
divorces,  415.  45 « 
Docetics,  345 

Doctors  of  the  Church,  354-71 
dogma(s),  -tism,  41    57.  266,  512, 

630-1,  863 

Dominic,  St.,  470,  472-3 
Dominican  Order,  470,  472-3,  474. 

486,  504 

Dornitian,  Emperor,  283.  284 
Don  Juan  ( Uyron  j,  779 
Donation  of  Constantino,  410-11. 

450,  5°**,  509.  5*9 
Donatiftt  horesv,  371 
Dorian  lurmonies,  131 
ftonans  25,  20,  114,  itS 
Dostoevsky,  F.  M.,  703.  795 
double  truth,  475,  s<>4 
doubt,  257,  309.  5'S5~6.  5^9 
drama,  131 
dreainU),  172,  823 
drugs,  290 
Dryden,  John,  628 
dualism,  156,  241.  252,  323.  469. 

500,  590,  820 
Duns  Scotus,  John,  473.  486,  489- 

90,  491.495 

duration,  823-4,  826,  832,  834-5 
duty,  707.  737-8,  768 
dynamic  pleasures,  267 
dynamics,   553,   557 

618 

Earty  Greek  Philosophy  (Hurnet), 
41,44*.,  51  *..  52  .  ' 

earth,  13,  62 ;  and  centre  of  uni- 
verse, 229,  235,  280,  559;  as 


earth— contd. 

element,  46,  59,  62,  63,  74,  166, 
167,  229,  230,  277;  in  Greek 
astronomy,  47,  153,  165-8,  229, 
235-9;  motions  of,  229,  235-7, 
547-50,  556,  562,  585;  and 
Newton,  55^-7,  55^-9 

East,  241, 274, 407 ;  and  Greece,  41, 
72,  307,  342;  and  Rome,  294, 
301,  303-4,  342.  See  also  Eastern 
Empire ;  Far  East 

East  India  Company,  621,  804 

Easter,  406,  414,  500 

Eastern  Church,  349,  384, 402, 404, 
410,  416,  430,  464,  521 

Eastern  Empire,  299,  386, 424, 464, 
517;  and  Arabs,  306,  326,  440; 
and  Church,  382,  408;  fall  of, 
440;  heresies  in,  353,  388;  and 
papacy,  304,  401,  405,  410,  416; 
and  Rome,  412,  417-18.  See  also 
Byzantine  Umpire ;  Constanti- 
nople 

Ebert,  Friedrich,  817 

Ecclesiasticus,  333-4 

F.cgbert,  archbishop  of  York,  414 

Kckhard,  Johannes,  784 

eclipses,  21,  24,  44,  73.  82,  235, 
236,  250 

economics,  285,  443,  646,  746,  750- 
*•  753*  808,  &°9»  $IO>  8n,  848; 
and  intellectual  goods,  160;  and 
Ix>cke,  660-1,  664-5;  and  war, 
741 

ecstasy,  41.  55.  3"4 

Eddington,  Sir  Arthur,  269  n.,  682 

Kddy,  Mrs.,  49          • 

Edessa,  444  • 

I  Edilbcrt,  406 
|  Edinburgh,  685 

education,  94.  3&6»  4*8,  546,  753; 
und  Aristotle,  213,  216;  in 
modem  times,  217,  621,  664, 
714,  716,  749,  750,  755.&H,  **47; 
and  Plato,  126,  ft9,  130-1,  133- 
4,  144,  152;  in  Sparta,  115,  119, 
122-3 

Edward  1,  502 

Edward  III,  492,  494 

Edward  JV,  509,  577.  645 

Edward  VIII,  415 

ego,  -ism,  680,  688,  710,  745.  &>7> 
824  • 


1877 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


„  pt,  iao,  334,  348,  353, 604;  and 
Alexander,  241,  242,  244*  246, 
302 ;  and  Aristotle,  207,  2 14 ;  and 
astronomy,  235;  civilization  of, 
21,  22,  24;  and  Crete,  24-5.  35  J 
and.  geometry,  44,  54,  231; 
government  of,  27, 136, 644, 798 ; 
Greek  philosophers  in,  44,  49, 
84,  231,  311;  and  Greek  world, 
35.  43.  47,  48,  49,  m.  231,  246, 
247,  302;  Jews  in,  331;  and 
Mohammedans,  306,  440;  mon- 
asticism  in,  395-6;  Monophy- 
sites  in,  389,  440 ;  priests  in,  428, 
499;  religion  of,  22,  23;  and 
Rome,  241,  294;  writing  in,  22, 
27-8.  See  also  Alexandria 

Einstein,  Albert,  49,  90.  239,  561, 
860,862 

Elagabalus.  Ste  Heliogsbalus 

EIea,67 

EJeatic  school,  833 

elect,  election,  328,  376,  381,  383, 
3^4,  482 

electrons,  66 

elements,  46.  47.  <>2,  74,  76,  82, 
1 66, 167,  1 68, 169,  170,  229,  230, 
276.  See  also  air;  earth;  tire; 
water 

Eleusinian  mysteries,  29,  38,  40 

Eleusis,  38 

Elias,  Brother,  472 

Eli*,  256 

Elisha,  592 

elixir  of  life,  62 

Elizabeth,  Princess,  582 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  252, 539.  545>643 

t'lipses,  234.  55«.  552,  561 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  705 

Emeu,  303 

EmiU  (Rousseau),  716,  718,  731 

Empedocle*,  62,  72-6.  81,  82,  85, 
87,  135,  228,  326 

Empero^  356,  388,  389,  502,  530; 
conflict  of  odpc  and,  325,  4o£~9» 
41$,  416, 428, 432-6, 450, 463-7. 
491-2;  interdependence  of  pope 
and,  323,  412-13,  492.  See  aJto 
Eastern  Empire;  Holy  Roman 
Empire;  papacy;  pope;  Roman 
Empire ;  Western  Empire 

empirical  knowledge,  53.  157,  161- 

«  2.  171,281,733,744,860 

8 


empiricism,  empirical  philosophy, 
158, 180,  568, 618,  635, 693, 758. 
819, 857 ;  and  Berkeley,  678,  679, 
685;  and  Greeks,  39,  45;  and 
James,  840-2;  and  Hume,  685; 
and  Kant,  667,  740,  741,  744; 
and  Locke,  628,  633-14;  and 
logic,  89,  679,  860;  British,  586, 
698,  728-30,  748,  812,  814; 
tnodem,  862;  and  science, 
112-13,  699,  743.  857;  social, 
817 

Enchiridion  miVito  Christian*  (Eras- 
mus), 537 

encyclopaedists,  623 

end  and  means,  201-2,  526,  530-1, 
770-1 

endogamy,  708 

endurance,  285 

Endymion,  303 

Engels,  Friedrich,  754.  #10.  817 

England,  130,  252,  274  386,  423, 
457,  5°a,  545.  569J  aristocracy 
in,  79,  646 ;  during  barbarian  in* 
vasions,  421-2;  checks  and  bal- 
ances in,  661-4;  and  Church. 

4*5.  45* .  545;  ci*»*  »""££**  ">> 
751;  conversion  of,  413-14; 
criminal  law  of,  803;  in  dark 
ages,  326,  414;  and  Descartei, 
581 ;  and  divine  right,  644-5 ;  m 
eighteenth  century,  121.  30!; 
and  French  revolutionary  philo- 
sopher*, 750;  and  freedom,  660: 
French  wars  with,  503;  gentle 
man  in,  130;  and  Inquisition,  470; 
Irish  miftftjonarieft  m.  406;  Jew* 
'"•  455;  landholdtng  in.  658-9; 
and  liberalism,  121,  620,  621-3; 
and  Mane,  810,  817;  Methodism 
in,  40,  272;  monarchy  in.  325, 
4t3.  577,  645  ;  Normans  in.  4*K; 
and  papacy,  464,  402,  501,  505. 
508,  509;  political  philosophy  in, 
629;  and  prudence.  703;  public 
schools  01,  1141.;  rationalistic 
revolt  in,  746;  Reformation  m, 
4  5;  and  Renaissance,  533,  544; 
and  revolution,  628 ;  and  roman- 
ticism, 703 ;  and  Rome,  294, 4 » 3* 
*  14,  419;  in  seventeenth  crntury. 
579.  S*«.  593.  625.  645,  703: 
Victorian  age  in.  95 ;  uniwrsitiet 

8l 


INDEX 


England  —  contd. 

in,   461;  and  wealth  in   four- 

teenth century,  502 
England,  Bank  of,  621,  627 
England,  Church  of,  539,  625,  645 
Enneads  (Plotinus),  311-20,  443 
em  realMmdm,  736 
cntekchy,  590 
enthusiasm,  34,  37.  184,  729 
environment,  820,  852,  854,  855^6 
envy,  157 
Ephesians,  23,  60 
Ephesua,  23,  59,  173.  388,  396,  4<H 
Epictetus,  264  «.,  276,  277,  282, 

283,  284,  285,  286-8,  290,  300 
Epicureanism,  192,  241,  253,  263- 

74,  275.  299.  300,  3",  320,  390, 

55& 

Epicurus,  84,  86,  263-74,  278,  411, 
789;  and  utilitarians,  803,  804 

epicycles,  552 

Enimenidcs,  346 

episcopate,  415-17.  See  aUo  bishops 

cpistemoloiry.  729,  739,  743.  788. 
See  also  theory  of  knowledge 

equality.  160,  16  1  ;  of  nun,  in 
ancient  philosophy,  136,  196, 
2ii.  213,  293;  of  man,  in  modern 
philosophy,  205,  572,  621,  722, 
753>  75<>.  793.  803;  of  women, 


-conUL 


Erasmus,  533-8,  544 
Eranianisrn,  382 
^KrastuH.  6V/  Ltiber 
hratosthcnes,  239.  246 
Erigena,    Johannes    Scotus.     See 

John  the  Scot 
Erinyes,  63 
Krc*.  37 
error(s),  849  ;  in  Aristotle,  184,  220- 

i,  223-5;  »n  Pbtonic  theory  of 

ideas,  148 
eschatology,  382-3 
Kssaii    pMosophiqutt    (Descartes), 


Essay  Contenting  Human   Under* 

standing  (Locke),  628,  630  # 
Essay  on  Man  (Pope),  390 
Rtsay  on  Mtraclts  (Hume),  685 
Essays  on  Government  (Locke),  657 
Essence,  148,  166,  167,  168,  317. 
425,  488,   489.  609,   635;  »nd 
Aquinas,  476,    477,    47$.    48»; 


and  Aristotle,  188-9,  191.  192, 
223-5 

essences,  158,  160,  162 

Essenes,  334  n. 

Essex,  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of, 
563 

Este  family,  605 

Esthonia,  659 

eternity,  56,  65,  166,  316,  786,  848 

ethic(s),  99,  136,  137-8,  326,  756, 
805-6,  863  ;  and  Aquinas,  480-2  ; 
aristocratic,  796;  and  Aristotle, 
*53.  195-206,  216;  and  Bentham, 
805;  Christian,  in,  320;  con- 
templative ideal  in,  53;  and 
differences  between  Continental 
and  Bridsh  philosophy,  669-70; 
and  Epicurus,  268  ;  and  good  of 
community,  738;  Greek,  52-3, 
6  1,  82,  92,  in,  320;  in  Hellen- 
istic world,  250;  and  Helvetjus, 
749;  and  James,  842-3;  Jewish, 
339-40;  and  Kant,  291,  736-8; 
and  Locke,  637-41,  651;  and 
Marx,  816;  and  More,  542;  and 
Nietzsche,  61,  789-9*.  795-7, 
799-800;  "noble,**  670;  and 
Plato,  126,  154,  377;  romantic, 
708;  and  Rousseau,  71  3  ./f.;  and 
Schopenhauer,  783-5,  788;  and 
Socrates,  93,  in,  126;  and 
Spinoza,  592,  593^-;  and  Stoic- 
ism, 275,  281,  289-92;  and 
utilitarians,  730,  807 

Ethics  (Spinoza),  S92ff->  605 

Etna,  72 

Eton,  245  n. 

Euclid,  55,  169,  232,  233-4,  246, 
257.  269,  460,  487.  595,  639.  740, 

743 

Eudoxus,  232-3 
Eugene,  Prince,  606 
Eugenius  IV,  Pope,^o6,  567,  519 
Eugenius,  usurper  in  Roman  Em- 

pire. 357 
eunuchs,  347 
Euripides,  33,  36,  37,  38,  77,  81 

loo,  107,  207,  568 
Eustochium,  361-2 


Evagrius,  393 

Evans,  Sir  Arthur,  24,  25 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Eve,  344,  379,  384,  578 

events,  860,  86 1 

evidence,  161,  489 

evil,  154,  169,  262,  315,  319,  369, 
370,  426,  597 ;  and  Aquinas,  479. 
480, 481 ;  and  Boethiu*,  390 ;  and 
Gnosticism,  315;  and  Leibniz, 
612,  613;  and  Persian  dualism, 
500;  Zproastrian  and  Mani- 
chsean  view  of,  345 

evolution,  649, 752-4 ;  and  Bergson, 
820-1;  and  Dewey,  848;  in 
Godhead,  64;  in  Greek  philo- 
sophy, 46,  73.  189.  191 ;  of  ideas, 
667 ;  and  Locke  657 ;  and  politics, 
532 

excess,  39 

exclusiveness,  331 

executive,  655,  661-4,  724,  726 

exhaustion,  233 

existence,  814,  859;  and  Aquinas, 
476-7,  484;  and  Kant,  734,  735 '. 
and  Leibniz,  609.  617;  and 
Locke,  728;  and  Plato,  176-7; 
and  Socrates,  157;  struggle  for, 
75*.  753,  808 

experience,  161,  633-4,  678,  698, 
600-700,  732.  733.  740,  74',  &4«- 
2,860 

experiment,  158,  488,  853 

extension,  594 

extinction,  784 

"Eye  of  Bel,"  250 

Ezekiel,  330,  331 

Ezra,  330,  331,  341 

Ezzelino  da  Romano,  778 
* 

«fact(s),  113, 138, 176,549.601,733, 

853,  856 

faith  and  works,  546 
falling  bodies,  549,  553*4,  55 
False  Decretals,  411 
family,  132-3,  197,  208,  211 
Far  Ease,  243.  546 
Farfa,  43*      * 
Faaci&m,  75^  798,  813,  818 
fate,  JM,  134,  250,  377,  «55 
.Fathcff  God  the,  352,  425,  457 
Fathers  of  the  Church.  154,  283,  { 

922,  328^.,  346,  426,  474  j 

Faustina,  284  1 

Fauatua,  368-9  1 

3*7  I 


feeling,  819,  863 

feminism,  33,  37 

Ferdinand  II,  of  Spain,  520,  577 

Ferrara,    Council    of,    501,    507, 

521 

fertility  cults,  23,  29,  32 
"Fete  de  1'Etre  Supreme-"  718 
feudal  aristocracy,  322,  324.  409, 

509.  577 
feudalism,  324,  327,  35611.,  418, 

430,436,450.454.  5»4.  816 
Feuerbach,  Ludwig  Andreas,  812  n. 
few,  the,  205,  756,  790 
Fichte,  Johann  Gottlieb,  512,  624, 

730,  744-5.  778,  782,  7«3.  856; 

influence  of,  667,  730.  748,  801, 

818;  and  subjectivism  514.  73O, 

744-5 

Fielding,  Henry,  704 
Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  382 
Kilmer,  bir  Robert,  642-7,  653 
filial  cause,  86 
Firdousi,  444 
fire,  47.  82,  88,  91.  167-^,  "9,  230, 

276,  277,  279 ;  as  element,  46,  62. 

74;  and   Herecliius,   61-4,   66, 

276;  and  Pythagoras,  236,  237; 

scientific  conception  of,  67 
First  Cause,  190,  477,  609,  6to 
Fine  World  War.  817,  848 
fittest,  survival  of  the,  73.  228,  7|2, 

753.  808 
fit*    Stage!    of    Gtftk     /?r/f£i<m 

(Murray),  30 «.,  25011.,  1S4  it^ 

264  n. 

Flanders,  502,  503 
flesh  and  spirit,  323 
Florence.  505,  516,  517,  518,  525, 

797 

Florentine  Academy,  521 

Hux,  59.  62,  63-5,  173^4.  «&>  •*« 
ativ  change 

force,  239,  556-7,  560-1;  centri- 
fugal, 73 ;  Locke  on  use  of,  663 

Ford  cars,  660 

form(s),  489;  and  Arototk,  185, 
187-9,  192,  193.  ***,  3*7.  47«; 
in  Platook  theory  of  idea*,  143 

fortune,  247,  250 

Foucsuh,  J.  B  L.,  562 

Foulque*,  Guy  de,  486 

Fountains  Abbey,  432 

France,  252,  301,  386,  463,  627. 


88* 


INDEX 


France— contd. 

701,  730,  779;  and  Albigenses, 
464,  468,  470;  and  Arabs,  326; 
British  empiricist  philosophy  in, 
748 ;  and  Byron,  779 ;  and  checks 
and  balances,  664;  and  Chris- 
tianity* 4ib;  and  Church,  451, 
462;  feudal  disorders  in,  417; 
and  Germany,  747,  765,  779; 
and  Inquisition,  470;  and  Itafy, 
516,  520,  528;  landholding  in, 
658;  and  liberalism,  121,  623-4; 
and  I-ocke,  624,  629,  666;  and 
Marx,  810,  81 1 ;  and  monarchy, 
325.  4»3.  576,  577;  and  Nor- 
mans,  415, 419,  428;  and  papacy, 
3*5.  492.  501,  502-3,  505,  506, 
50$;  and  Pelagian  heresy,  384; 
and  prudence,  702-3;  and  Re- 
naissance, 520,  533;  and  roman- 
ticism, 705 ;  and  Home,  294,  305 ; 
and  Rousseau,  703,  712-13,  716, 
720,  721,  727;  and  Sicily  and 
Naples,  520;  in  sixth  century, 
401;  and  State,  578;  in  tenth 
century,  417;  Visigoths  and 
Franks  in,  386;  and  wars  with 
England,  494 

Francis  I,  Emperor,  Ho 3 

Francis  I  of  France,  520 

I'^ancis  of  A**isi,  St.,  51,  463,  466, 
470-2.  473,  502 

Franciscan  Order,  447.  470-3,  504 
^Franciscan  schoolmen,  486-98 

rrankewUtn  (Mary  Shelley),  705-7 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  55  «.,  271 

Franks,  353,  386,  394>  403.  404. 
406,408,  409,  412 

Frederick  1  (Barbaras^),  452,  453. 
454.  463.  747,  765 

Frederick  II,  Emperor,  448,  463, 
464-8,  516,  520 

Frederick  II  of  Prussia,  7*7.  747. 

74*,  765 
free  press,  764 
free  will,  269,  318,  319,  34$,  54$, 

571. 572,  590;  and  St.  Augustine, 
J-4;  »nd  Bcrgson,  821, 


freedom,  92  n.t  121,  296,  581,  593, 
666,  723,  776,  827,  828;  and 
Hegel,  723,  763-4, 767,  768;  and 
Kant,  731,  735,  736;  and  Stoics, 

278,  293 

Freedom  and  Organization  (Russell), 
801  n. 

Frege,  858 

French  Revolution,  577,  658,  664, 
67i,  703, 706, 779, 798,803  ;Con- 
clorcet  on  principles- of,  750;  and 
democracy,  217,  511 ;  and  Kant, 
731;  and  liberalism,  621,  623; 
and  Nietzsche,  790,  793;  and 
philosophy,  665, 667, 74*.  748-9, 
792;  and  rights  of  man,  804; 
and  Rousseau,  727 

friendship,  202,  206,  264,  268,  278, 
390 

Frisia.  414 

From  Religion  to  Philosophy  (Corn- 
ford),  40,  51,  60 

From  7Vw/u  to  Plato  (Burnet), 
85  n.,  102,  105 

Fulbert,  458 

Fulda,  414 

future  life,  350,  736 

Galatians,  247,  249;  Epistle  to  the, 
361,  380/1, 

Galen,  445 .  448,  537 

Galileo,  112,  226,  547,  549,  553-7, 
752 ;  and  Aristotle,  226,  230;  and 
Copemican  theory,  512;  and 
Descartes,  581;  and  Hobbes, 
568,  569,  571 ;  and  Newton,  230; 
and  projectiles,  2/0,  234;  and 
religious  prejudices,  238,  368* 
548,  623,  723 ;  and  science,  226, 
547,  562;  and  truth,  139;  and 
war,  5x2 

Gall,  St.,  414 

Gallienus,  311 

Gama,  Vasco  da,  509,  517* 

Gandhi,  365  n. 

Gandia,  Duke  of,  519 

Garden  of  Eden,  530 

Garigliano,  417 

gases,  86 


827;  and  Utbni*,  607,  612;  and     «....  ,v  , 

Luther,    538;    and    scholastics,      Cr.issendi,  Pierre,  374,  605 

»35.  423,  4a6,  489;  «nd  Spinoza.  *}  Gaul,  49,  '39,  3O5,j|6o;  394,  390, 

594 ;  and  Stoics.  289-90  '  "" 

frte  voUtions,  735  s 

•881 


404,  422;  invasions  of,  386,  387, 
421 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Gauls,  249,  377 

Geiger,  George  Raymond,  854 

general  and  particular  concepts,  830 

general  law,  737 

general  will,  722, 723, 724,  7*5*  764 

Generis,  338, 372, 4*6, 487, 5^5. 644 

Geneva,  645,  711,  715,  716,  720 
721 

Genoa,  454.  465,  5*6 

Genseric,  778 

gentiles,  332,  333,  338,  339,  340, 
341,  344 

gentleman,  52-3,  130,  216-17,  839 

genus,  496 

geography,  158,  487,  732 

geology,  74 

geometry,  689,  714,  743.  857;  and 
astronomy,   239;  and    Bergson, 
821,  823;  and   Descartes,  580, 
583,  586;  and  Greeks,  21  «.,  44, 
54-5. 57-8, 112,  161,  231-5,  315 ; 
and    Hobbes,    570,    571 ;    and 
Kant,  733,  734,  74<>.  743;  *nd 
Leibniz,    615;    non-Euclidean, 
75 9*.  and  Pb to,  55,  126,  146,  152,  I 
*53»    169.   See  also  co-ordinate 
geometry ;  Euclid 
George  I,  605 
George  III,  717 
Gcrbert.  See  Sylvester  II,  Pope 
German  philosophy,  202,  618,  667, 
698,744-5.746-7,748,757.801; 
idealist,  629,  707,  73<>.  746 
German  invasions,  298,  209,  30$, 

355,  3&6,  394.  4*2 
Germanic  kingdoms,  386 
Germany,  1^7,  252,  523,  604  646, 

*  776,  810;  Anabaptists  in,  545; 
and  Charlemagne,  408,  412,413; 
and  Church,  322,  54$ ;  conflict* 
with  papacy,  464, 492 ;  converted, 
414;  dictatorship  in,  727;  feudal 
principles  in,  450;  and  Hegel, 
746-8?  764.  #5, 766 ;  and  Humr, 
730;  international   position   of, 
747;  intellectual  predominance 
?f.   746-7;  investiture  struggle  : 

'  in,  436-7;  tnd  Italy,  45*.  465;  j 
Jews  in,  455;  king  of,  as  em- 
ptror,  494;  Itndholdtng  in,  658;  ! 
MachiavelU  on,  529;  and  Man,  f 
811,  817;  and  Midintao),  304;  { 

*  and   Napoleon,  747,  778;  and  1 

882* 


•flat 


Germany- 
nationalism,  745,  747,  748;  new 
society  created  in,  532;  and 
Plutarch,  121 ;  power  of  govern- 
ment in,  577 ;  and  prudence,  702 ; 
and  Nietzsche,  791 ;  and  Re- 
formation, 544;  and  Renaissance, 
533;  and  romanticism,  121,  704, 
752,  801;  and  Rome,  305;  and 
Sicily,  465.  See  also  Holy  Roman 
Empire ;  Prussia 

Gerson,  Jean  de,  495  «•.  5°5.  534 

Geulincx,  Arnold,  583-4,  590 

Ghibellines,  465,  472,  492,  501, 
5««.  765,776,  778 

Gibbon,  Edward,  284,  303  w., 
311  «.,  349  a.,  351,  388,  390,  393. 
397  ». 

Gilbert,  William,  557.  566 

Gilbert  de  la  Porrec,  460 

Girondins,  623 

gladiators,  285 

globe,  166 

Gnosticism,  151,  2$2.  315,  316, 
3«K.  344.  345.  469,  500 

goat,  32 

God,  59,  60.  345,  434.  542,  564, 
720,  795;  and  St.  Ambrose,  356. 
357,  35H;and  St,  Anselm.  437-8; 
and  Aquinas,  447,  476  Ho,  482, 
484;  arguments  for  and  profit 
of,  56,  476,  608-12,  633,  669, 
813,  863;  and  Aristotle,  180-92. 
104,  202-3,  214,  3«*.  4/6,  47T** 
478, 761 ;  and  St.  Augustine.  368, 
370,  3*4 ;  and  Averrtx-*,  447 ;  and 
Brntham,  638,  804;  and  Ber- 
keley, 513,  669,  673,  729;  and 
Bucthsuft,  300,  391 ;  and  Caesar, 
326;  and  l>e§ainr»,  584.  586, 
589,  606,  669 ;  and  HOCK!  and  bud, 
138,  792-3;  and  Kovrmn»ent, 
575.  643.  653;  ami  llrgrl.  761; 
and  Htraclitut,  60,  63 ;  and 
James,  839,  845,  846;  and  Jews, 
165,  3»*.  33*.  365.  44«;  and 
John  the  Scot,  425-6,  478;  and 
Kant,  670,  736;  and  i^ibnu, 
606-13,  614,  615,  616-17,  618; 
and  Locke,  630,  633,  639*40, 
728;  and  man,  754.  776,  79»-3» 
855;  and  myaticft,  373,  707, 
785;  and  Nrwton,  559,  560, 


INDEX 


God—contd. 

585;  and  Nietzsche,  777, 
792-3,  798;  of  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  469,  608;  and  Ori- 
gen,  346-8 ;  and  Orphism,  37,  39, 
52;  and  Parmenides,  67,  150; 
and  permanence,  64;  and  Plato, 

130,  133.  «52,  1*5-70,  313,  377, 
863 ;  and  Platonic  ideas,  143, 146, 
149,  151,  1 52;  and  Plotinus,  312* 
313;  and  Pythagoras,  51,56;  and 
Reformation,  545 ;  and  Rousseau, 
717-20;  and  Sceptics,  262;  and 
Schopenhauer,  783,  785,  786; 
and  science,  559-60;  and  Soc- 
rates, too,  107,  108,  loo,  155; 
and  soul,  366,  545 ;  and  Spinoza, 
144.^92,  595-6oo,  606,  769;  and 
Stoics,  276,  277,  279,  280,  281, 
286-00,  314;  thoughts  of,  55, 
848 ;  and  Voltaire,  715 ;  and  \Vy- 
clirlc,  507.  See  also  Creator; 
One ;  pantheism ;  Trinity 

gcxi(s):  and  Alexander,  242;  in 
Bacchic  ritual,  34;  and  Empe- 
doclcs,  72,  75,  76;  and  Epicurus, 
i6<>,  270 ;  and  Greeks,  37,  44,  46, 
5*>.  61,  97,  227,  236,  319;  and 
Homer,  29,  130;  and  Jews,  330- 
it  338;  and  Plato,  130,  133,  165- 
?o ;  of  Home,  301 ;  and  Socrates, 
105,  107,  163,  164;  and  Stoics, 
277,  279.  See  alto  Olympian  gods 

Goethe,  252,  599.  747.  778 

XTbg  and  Magog,  381 

gold,  62,  132,  133,  306 

golden  age,  74,  75.  284 

golden  mean,  183,  196,  204,  212 

good,  -ness,  63,  156,  199,  201,  496, 
714,  738,  700;  and  Aristotle,  195. 
200,  201,  203;  and  cynics,  255; 
M*riichjeiun  view  of,  345;  in 
Persian  dualism,  499;  *"<*  Plttl0' 
126,  138-9,  146,  151-3;  and 
Plotinus,  308,  312;  standards  of, 

.,5*.  138 
Cordian  111,  311 
Gorgias,  98,  256 
f'Orfjai  (Plato),  99 
CiospcU,  309,  339,  340,  348,  7*4- 

Set  alto  Synoptic  Gospels 
Gotha,  360,  363;  conversion  of, 

405 ;  invasions  of,  389.  4*9.  42'  *> 


Goths— contcL 
and  Rome,  353,  375,  377,  386-7, 

^39* 

Gottingen,  705,  782 

Gottschalk,  423 

government,  23,  211-12,  302,  349, 
653.  738,  764,  805.  See  also 
politics;  State 

Gracchi,  the,  295,  361 

grammar,  281 

Gratian,  355,  356 

gravitation,  230,  239,  585,  621,  666 

Great  Britain,  757,  801 

Great  Fire,  570 

great  man,  777,  789,  799 

Great  Mother,  23,  25  n.t  36,  350 

Great  Schism,  325,  493,  505-6,  5<>8 

"greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest 
number,"  750,  796,  801,  802 

Greece,  Greekfs),  i2c,  210,  215, 
782 ;  and  Alexander,  242  ff.t  304 ; 
and  Arabs,  299,  443-4 ;  and  Asia 
Minor,  23,  77,  119,  246;  astro- 
nomy in,  227,  229,  231-40,  548; 
attitudes  of,  toward  the  world, 
170,  329,  855;  and  barbarians, 
242-3,  275,  363 ;  cities  of,  47,  72, 
78,  79,  121,  241,  243,  246,  247, 
249,  295 ;  civilization  and  culture 
of,  21-42,  77-8o,  117,  121,  216- 
17.  243,  299,  305.  334,  346; 
colonists  of,  23,  248,  249 ;  decline 
of,  296;  and  democracy,  72,  212; 
and  Egypt,  35,  43.  235;  and 
ethics,  in,  200-1;  genius  of, 
theoretical,  231^.;  and  Jews, 
246,  334,  342,  344;*™*  Hellen- 
ism, 241,  247,  248,  250,  275 ;  and% 
logic,  222,  257,  292;  and  low  of 
static  perfection,  192 ;  and  mathe- 
matics, 54-5*  *53J  nQt  addicted 
to  moderation,  67;  not  wholly 
serene,  37-9;  present-day  atti- 
tudes toward,  57,  820;  and 
Persia,  31,  77  J  an*  physics,  226- 
7 ;  and  politics,  52, 207,  208,  217, 
295,  524,  529;  religion  of,  40-2, 
44,  249,  428,  499.  500;  and. 
Renaissance,  525,  530;  revolu- 
tions in,  213,  241,  294 ff.\  a/id 
science,  87,  153*  239^-,  763; 
and  slavery,  208-9,  215,  243; 
and  Sparta,  117-18;  three  periods, 


«83 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Greece,  Greek(s)— cotad. 

of,  241;  tragedy  in,  37,  77;  *nd 

the  West,  299,  419;  women  in, 

115-16,  130.  See  also  Hellenic 

world ;  Hellenism 
Greek  Atomistt  and  Epicurus,  The 

(Bailey),  »4  «•,  86  «.,  89  «.,  91  w., 

263  it.,  267  n.,  268  n. 
Greek  Church,  380,  408,  482,  501, 

507.  See  also  Eastern  Church 
Greek  Emperor,  408,  409,  454 
Greek  Fathers,  426 
Greek  language,  25,  153,  245,  306, 

366,  537-8,  788;  and  Alexander, 

1 20 ;  and  Arabs,  306 ;  and  biblical 

books,  333,  338,  341,  534~5 ;  «*<* 

Crusades,    456;    and     Eastern 

Empire,  298,  299;  and  Erasmus, 

534-7;  «nd  Gregory  the  Great,  _    .  . 

401,  402;  in  Ireland,  421-2;  and  I  Cfrossctcste,  Robert,  488 

Jews,  343;  and  John  the  Scot,  |  Grotius,  Hugo,  654 


Greek  philosophy—  contd. 

after  Democrirus,  93.  See  also 

Hellenistic  philosophy 
Green,  T.  H.,  629 
Gregory  I  (the  Great— St.),  Pope, 

199,  3*4.  354,  3^9,  400-7,  414, 
417,  422,  435;  ami  St  Benedict, 
398-400;  and  growth  of  papal 
power,  395,  501 ;  period  follow- 
ing, 408 

Gregory  H  (St.),  Pope,  414 
Gregory  HI  (St.),  Pope,  410 
Gregory  VI,  Pope,  432-3.  435 
Gregory  VII  (St.),  Pope,  429,  432, 
435-7,  45L  501    See  also  Hildc- 
brand 
Gregory  IX,  Pope,  466,  467,  470, 

47«.  501 
Gregory  XI,  Pope,  505,  $o& 


421,  424;  in  Sicily,  465;  and 
translations,  333,  341.  424*  456, 
461,  475,  486,  535;  in  Western 
Empire,  301,  302 

Greek  Mathematics  (Heath  t,  54  n., 
85  n.,  169  ft.,  232  it.,  238  n. 

Greek   Philosophers,    The   (Benn), 
18111.,  25411.,  3031*. 

Greek  philosophy,  31;  and  anim- 
ism, 558 ;  and  Arabs,  306,  447*8 ; 
and  Aristotle,  182,222,253,813; 
in  Athens,  393 ;  atomism  avoids 
faults  of,  85;  and  barbarians, 
499-500;  and  change,  88;  and 
Christianity,  329,  346,  34**;  and 
Church,  501 ;  and  creation,  373 ; 
and  Dionysus  worship,  32;  and 
ethics,  200-1,  204;  and  future 
life,  350;  and  hypotheses,  549; 
and  individualism,  622;  and 
justice,  45»  »35,  »><;  «><*  land- 
owning, 210;  and  leisure,  127; 
and  t  mathematics,  55,  211  jff., 
247;  and  <nediev*J  synthcti*, 
499;  and  Nietzsche,  788;  ob- 
scurantist bias  in,  83 ;  and  Per- 
sians, 422;  and  Plato,  64,  98; 
and  politics,  253;  religions,  34, 
56 ;  scientific,  14,  74 ;  and  senses, 
256;  and  Sophists'  detachment,  < 
9$  ;and  Sparta,  i  M;*nd  Stoicism. 
275;  ««J  time,  17J~4I  vitiated 


guardian  angel, 

guardians,  in  Plato's  Republic,  129, 

tj»,  132,  134.  «47,  15*.  204 
Guelfo,  465,  472,  501,  518 
Gucrtcke,  Otto  von,  557 
Cfuicciardtnt.  FraiccMu.  522 
Cjuicci-ili,  Countess,  779 
Gut*;,  house  of,  577 
gunpowder,  4>>S,  509 

Habeas  Corpuft  Act,  626 

habit,  195,  6&o,  692,  Hij,  825,  841 

ll*<ie»,  41,  61,  62 

Hadrian  I  <St.i.  Pop*.  412          ^* 

lUdrum  IV,  Pope,  453.  454  a..  461 

Had  run,  Km  per  or,  300 

Hague,  'i*he,  5*12,  Nx> 

Halicarruiftcut.  78 

Hallcy,  Edmund,  55*.  *6o 

Hamburg,  7#i,  7 Ha 

Hamilton,  Sir  Wiiitum,  Hoi 

HimJct,  6#-9*  '  <X».  6ov 

Hamm,  Stephen,  557 

Hammurabi,  23 

handicraft  produi  lion,  658 

Hannibal,  294 

Hanover  60 $ 

Hanse  umm.  502 

happtnrat,  79.  310,  315,  316,  670. 
7 jo,  806-7;  Mid  Ansiodc,  201, 
203*4,  206,  21  a;  and  Bemhani, 
*>S<  750, 79<»,  80$ ;  and  Buethiut. 


884. 


INDEX 


happi  ness — contd. 

390;  and  Epicureans,  267,  268; 

and  James,  846;  and  Kant,  736; 

and   Locke,  637-8;  and   Mnrx, 

816;    and    Schopenhauer,    784; 

and  Stoics,  277,  284,  287.  See 

also  grctftesf  happiness 
Hardxvick,  Lord.  See  Devonshire, 

Earl  of 

Harrison,  Jane  E.,  32  «.,  40,  272    » 
Hartley,  David,  801,  802 
Harun  al  Rash  id,  234,  442 
Harvey,  William,  557,  566,  583 
Hnsdrubal.  See  Clitomachus 
Hasidim,  334,  33f».  33^,  34° 
llasmoncans.  .SW  Maccalxtj, 
hate,  774 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  705 
head,  729 

heart.  7««.  7*8  «••  7*9.  7*9,  73 1 
Heath,    Sir    Thomas,    54 «.,    85, 

171  «.,  232,  237,  238 
heaven,  30,  64,  329.  33^.  4*9.  500 
heavenly  bodies,  66,  134,  152,  227, 

230,  235/T.,  316,  556.  561;  and 

Aristotle,  190,  229- 30;  and  Jews, 

Hebraic  elements  in   Christianity, 

7*2 

Hebrew  alphabet,  28  it. 
Hebrew  language,   341,  343,   347, 

535;  and  Bible,  342,  340,  360, 

Hebrew  Law,  328.  Sef  <j*'«u  l-aw ; 


He^el— contd. 

815,  816,  817;  and  mathematics, 
832*  857;  and  Parmenides,  67, 
'5c,  758,  769;  and  Prussia,  748, 
75  7 »    765,    766;   and    relational 
propositions,   172,  759-60;  and 
Rousseau,  723,  727,  764,  766; 
and     State,    765-9,    771;    and 
subjectivism,  514,  730 
Hcgira,  440 
Heidelberg,  757 
Heine,  Heinrich,  778,  779 
Hciric  of  Auxerrc,  422 
heliocentric  theory,  548,  551,  556. 
Sec  also  Copcmican  hypothesis 
Heliogabalus,  303 
hell,  39,  282,  326,  378,  382,  429, 
482,  719;  and  Christianity,  272, 
500;    and    Judaism,    338;    and 
Marx,  383 

Hellenic  world,  78,  207,  227,  328; 
and  Alexander,  183;  and  Asia 
Minor,  31;  :nd  Ionia,  31,  46; 
and  Jews,  334,  336,  34i;  and 
Nietzsche,  788-9;  and  North, 
536 ;  and  the  rich, 94 ;  and  Sparta, 
loo,  120;  and  Rome,  240 
Hellenism,  Hellenistic  world,  241- 
51,  275;  and  Alexander,  120, 
242;  decline  of,  296;  freedom 
dies  in,  296;  and  Mohammed- 
ans, 294,  304-6;  and  other- 
worldliness,  253;  and  Rome, 
294,  295;  religiosity  in,  272-3; 
scepticism  of,  257 
Hellenistic  philosophy,  241,  253, 

•55.  263  • 

llrloisc,  458  i 

helots.  114-15,  118,  123 
Heivetius,  Claude  Adrien,  748,  749, 

750,  753.  801,  804 
Henry  111,  Emperor,  432,  433»  452, 

Henry  III  of  England,  502  • 
Henry   IV,  Emperof*  433,  435~7> 
i T-"*/**"  ,«•»•<**»•»•, ^jw,—--— •/ --    -»  45* 

Hi4;  and  h«tory,   761-7.   812;      Henry  IV  of  France,  577 
and  Hume,  698-9;  influence  of,      Henry  V,  Emperor,  452 
474.  730,  74»,  757;  «nd  Kant,      Ifcniy  VI,  Emperor.  463.405 
735.   74$.   757.   7^8,   783;  and      Henry  VII  of  England,  539         • 
knowledge,  760,  848;  and  logic,    'Henry  VIII  of  England,  4I5>  539, 
**•*.  75**.  759-6o,  771-3;  and         545.577.^45,659 
M*rx,  757,  767.  810,  811,  812,      Henry  Aristippus,  462  i 

98S 


Hecatacus  of  Mtlctus,  60 

Heddernheim,  304 

Hegel,  Cieorg  Wtlliclm  Fritfdrich, 

*>},  141.  201.  222.  514,  069,  756, 

7 57 "7 3  i  academic  and  schoUstu*, 
730,  781 ;  and  Alexander,  183, 
766 ;  And  Berkeley .  683,  84 1 ;  and 
Uewey,  848,  851,  85 5 ;  and 
dialectic,  667,  758-60,  702,  815; 
and  German  philosophy,  744* 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 


Heracljdes  of  Pontus,  237 

Hcraclitus,  56-66,  7*,  74.  81,  143. 
171-2;  and  fire,  61,  62,  65;  and 
flux  or  change,  50-60,  62-6,  172, 
833;  and  modem  physics,  90; 
and  Nietzsche,  61,  788,  800 ;  and 
opposites,  60,  62,  67 ;  and  Plato, 
63,  74,  126,  171-4;  and  Stoics, 
276,  280;  and  strife,  60-3,  135; 
and  war,  60,  6 1 

Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Lord,  569 

hereditary  power  or  principle,  27, 
642-7,  653 

heresy,  -ies,  352,  393,  437;  and 
Abelard,  458-9;  and  Arnold  of 
Brescia,  453 ;  and  St.  Augustine, 
365,  369.  371,  382,  519;  and 
Roger  Bacon,  486;  and  St. 
Bernard,  460;  and  Dominicans, 
474;  in  East,  401;  and  St. 
Francis,  471;  and  Frederick  II, 
467 ;  and  Great  Schism,  505 ;  and 
Jesuits,  546;  and  John  the  Scot, 
426,  427 ;  and  raonasticism,  306 ; 
and  Origen,  347;  and  Protest- 
antism, 550;  Puritan,  before 
Reformation,  455 ;  and  Wycliftr, 
508.  See  alto  Albtgenses;  Cath- 
ari;  iconoclast  heresy;  Inquisi- 
tion; Motiophysite  heresy;  Nes- 
torianiam;  Pelagian  heresy;  Sa- 
beUian  heresy;  Three  Chapters; 
Wakknse* 

Hermias,  182 

Hermits,  395-6 

Hermodorus  of  Kphesu*,  60 

hero,  -cs,  3*,  624,  766,  779 
«  Herod  the  Great,  335,  341 

Herodotus,  39,  78,  itS 

heroism,  671 

Hcsiod,  59,  60,  109,  130 

Heytrsbury,  495  «• 

High  Priests,  341 

Hildeb/md,  327.  Set  alto  Gregory 
VII  * 

Hilduin,  424 

Hinduism,  781 
.  Himalayas,  244 

Hincmar,  423 

Hinnom.  330 

Hipptrchus,  238,  239  * 

Hippttsos  of  Mctaponuon,  51 
t  Hippo,  354,  364 


Hiram,  King  of  Tyre,  28 

history,  21,  158,  733,  786;  and  St. 
Augustine,  375,  383 ;  and  Catho- 
lic philosophy,  326-7 ;  and  Hegel, 
762-7;  Jewish,  328,  329,  338 
383;  and  Mane,  812-16 

History  of  the  Ancunt  World.  See 
Rostovtscff 

History  of  England  (Hume),  629, 
685-6 

History  of  Greece  (Bury),  95,  1 14  ».. 
117-18 

History  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy,  A 
(Lea),  133  «.,  431  "• 

Hitler,  Adolf,  157,  526,  667,  711, 
746,  775.  846 

Hirtitc  tablets,  26 

Hobbcs,  Thomas,  568-79,  581, 
593.  649,  650,  669,  724;  and 
Church,  354,  576;  and  social 
contract,  572-31  654,  722;  and 
sovereign,  573~4.  575.  57*>;  and 
State,  568,  577~9.  766;  and  war, 
57*.  573.  767 

Hodgskin,  Thomas.  Ho 8,  809 

lloflmann,  August  Hcmnch,  782 

Hohenstaufcn  family,  465,  491, 
501,  776 

Holbein,  Ham  (the  Younger),  535 

Holland,  545.  5**o.  581,  582,  592, 
593;  freedom  and  tolerance^  in, 
579.  592;  liberalism  tn,  £20; 
Reformation  in,  455 

Holy  Alliance,  621,  703,  768 

Holy  Roman  Empire,  305,  31^ 
408,  4*0-13,  417,  45<>~*.  491. 
501  /?.,  746,  765 

Holy  Sepulchre,  712 

Homer,  25,  3*1,  59.  60.  77,  109,  351. 
444,  570;  and  Hellenic  civiliza- 
tion, 28-30,  79,  295 ;  and  Plato, 
130;  and  religion,  29,  4* 

homosexual  love,  123 

Hong  Kong,  243 

Hononus  i,  Pope,  409 

iiofionus  III,  Pope,  427,  465 

hope,  285,  854,  Set  0/jo  cheerful- 
ness; optimism 

Hormce,  297,  362 

Houtf  of  SeUfuna  (Bevan),  24$  **» 
249** 


Hugo, 


,  U5.    5 
,  Victor, 


70$ 


8ft, 


INDEX 


537 


Huguenots,  577,  581 

Huizinga,  John,  533  n., 

human  pride,  855 

humanism,  460,  509,  521,  523,  530, 

534, 537     . 

humamtarianisin,  816 

Hume,  Datid/258,  629,  630,  668, 
669,  685-700,  728,  720-30;  and 
Berkeley,  685,  686, 687,  689 ;  and 
causation,  690-6,  698,  699;  and* 
empiricism,  568,  636-7, 685. 698, 
699,  862;  influence  of,  669,  731 ; 
and  Ix>cke,  636-7,  668,  685,  698, 
739;  and  perception,  686,  688, 
694;  and  Rousseau,  698,  717; 
and  subjectivism,  256,  5x3,  739 

humility,  324,  339,  5^o,  855.  856 

Hundrcyi  Days,  778 

Hungarians.  417,  419,  428 

Hungary,  659 

hunger,  774 

Huns,  363.  386 

HUBS,  John.  506,  509 

Hussite*,  470 

Hutcheson,  Francis.  802 

Hutton,  Ven.  W.  11..  cited,  400 

hydrogen.  45 

Hyk&oH,  22,  24 

hymns,  460 

HypatU,  3*7 


hypotheses,  57*  146,  I4S.  153.  261,   j 

548,  540.    551,    552,    843;   and 
I-rancis      Itacon,      566-7;     and 
7;rcck*.     44-5.     47,     235;     and 
James,  844-5;  ^d  science,  153.  | 

549.  See  a/J<>  Copcrnican  hypo-  '. 
the*i»;  nebular  hypothesis 

hypothetical  imperative,  737  j 

Hyrcamtft,  John.  See  Maccab-rus      j 

i 

lachimo,  544 

Iw>.  544 

laklahaoth,  344 

Ibn  Uufthd.  See  Avrrroes 

Ibn  Sim.  See  Avicrtina 

iconoclast  heresy,  409 

idealism,  146,  635,  680-4,  819,  836, 

837»  841.  846*  See  u/io  German 

philosophy 

ideal*,  and  Utopias.  136-7 
ideatt):  association  of,  801-2,  H6i ; 

and    Bergion,    829,    831;    and 


idea(s)— omfcf. 

Berkeley,  676,  729;  and  Des- 
cartes, 588;  and  Hume,  686-7, 
7«9 ;  innate,  292, 688 ;  and  Locke, 
634»  729;  world  of,  158,  308. 
See  also  theory  of  ideas 

identity,  490,  689,  694 

ideograms,  22 

idolatry,  330-1,  3$5 

idols,  Francis  Bacon's,  566 

Ignatius,  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, 415,  416 

Ikhnaton  (Amenhotep  IV),  27,  471 

Iliad,  28 

illiteracy,  4x0 

imagination,  57,  687 

Immaculate  Conception,  489 

immortality,  64,  376;  and  Aristotle, 
192-4;  and  Aquinas.  476;  and 
Averroes,  447,  475;  and  Epi- 
curus, 269,  274;  and  Greeks, 
350;  and  Jews,  335,  346;  and 
Kant,  736;  and  More,  542;  and 
Plato,  125,  154-64,  276,  611, 
863;  and  Plotinus,  316;  and 
Pythagoras,  51,  56;  and  Socrates, 
109;  and  Spinoza,  594;  and 
Stoics,  276,  288.  See  also  after- 
life ;  resurrection ;  soul 

imperatives,  737 

imperialism,  420,  750,  804,  820 

impiety,  856 

impression(s),  686-7,  690,  729 

impulse.  33-4 

Incarnation,  152,  347,  352,  370, 
377,  387-8*  441,  475*  482,  535 

Incas,  136 

incest,  393,  481 

incommensu  rabies,  54 

independence,  215,  768 

Independents,  493,  577.  625,  626, 
628 

indeterminacy,  269  n. 

India,  245,  282  n.,  3g5.  4"J»  5*7, 
560,  804;  and  Alexander,  256; 
and  Arabs,  4*9,  44<>,  444,  448; 
Nestorianism  in,  388;  religions 
of,  42,  241,  781 

Indian  philosophy,  746.  781,  784, 

,  Indians,  American,  647,  660 

I  individual(s),  -ism,  201,  205,  284, 

[      366,  657,  664,  754;  and  Hegel, 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 


individual(s),  -ism — tontcL 
7*7  ff:,  855;  and  Hclveuus,  749; 
and  liberalism,  622;  and  Nietz- 
sche, 855 ;  and  Reformation,  545 ; 
and  Renaissance,  516,  524,  855; 
and  romanticism,  703,  705 ;  and 
Rome,  253;  and  Rousseau,  623, 
722;  and  Totalitarian  State,  725 
jndividuation,  489-90,  783 
induction,  58,  222,  571,  733,  823, 
860;  and    Francis   Bacon,   563, 
564-7;  and  Hume,  693,  729;  as 
independent    logical    principle, 
700;  by  simple  enumeration,  565, 
567,  693 

indulgences,  535,  545 
industrial  revolution,  664,  854 
industrialism,  52,  217,  621,  624, 
660,  672,  703,  754-5.  7/8,  854; 
and  Marx,  823,  817 
inequality,  213,  714 
inferences,  179-80,  221,  222 
infinite  collection  or  number,  857-8 
Inge,  W.  R.,  65,  130,  308-9 
injustice,  278 
Innocent   HI,   Pope,  463-5,  468, 

470,471,472,501,502 
Innocent  IV,  Pope,  467 
Innocent  VIII.  Pope,  523 
inquiry,  847,  850,  851-3 
Inquiry'  into  Human  L*ndtntatndtn& 

(Hume),  685 
Inquiry   into   .Meaning   and    Truth 

(Russell),  491 
Inquisition,  470, 472,  546,  548, 556, 

592,  723 

insight,  J-ft,  15**  i 

instinct,  82 1,  825-6,  838  ' 

instrumcrnfcilism,  52,  587,  81 1,  8iu, 

848, 855  I 

instruments,  557  i 

intellect,  -ualiarn,  158,  290,  437,  [ 
475.  4*$,  746.  75 1  i  »nd  Ikrgvon,  I 
faftSas-i.  &**,  831.  837;  *nd  ; 
God,  608;  736;  and  PUto,  126,  j 
148;  *nd  Pkttimis,  312-13,  318;  1 
and  truth,  845  1 

intelligence,  79,  821 

interest,  209-10  ! 

intemationalmn,  579.652.664,709,  I 
79>-  Sft  atw  world  federation  *  j 

intolerance,  350.  £W  alu>  religious  "• 
toleration  j 


intoxication,  32,  33,  34,  856 

intuition,  53,  482,  636,  728,  734, 
739,  74*.  821,  825-6,  831 

investiture,  435-6.  45*,  453 

lona,  396 

Ionia,  -ns,  25,  26, 27, 41, 43, 49, 59, 
110;  and  Athensr99;  100;  com- 
mercial cities  of,  43 ;  and  culture, 
47.  77;  *nd  Homer,  31 ;  laws  of, 
121 ;  and  Persia,  31,  46,  47,  77, 
99;  and  philosophy,  40,  59.  67, 
74,  81,  82,  85 

Iphigenia.  30,  272  it. 

Ireland,  362  ft.,  386,  396,  400,  406, 
414.  4*»-*.  4*6 

Irene,  Empress,  409,  412,  442 

iron,  26,  44.  134 

irrationals,  232-3,  234 

irrigation,  443 

Isabella,  Queen  of  Spain,  577 

Isaiah,  332-3 

I&htar,  23.  330 

Islam,  336,  345.  4«0.  44 1.  442.  45 », 
785.  6V r  also  Mohammedan* 

Ispahan,  445 

Israel,  329,  380 

iMna,  403 

Iuly.49,  35^.  3*3.  433>  5»6;  Ariam 
»n.  354.  355^6;  and  Attib,  387; 
and  Charlemagne,  40$,  412; 
cnics  of,  207,  454,  466,  504,^31 ; 
aviiizaiion  of,  394;  Clunwic 
Reform  in,  431;  cotmncrctdl 
ckftn  in,  324;  and  Donancn^ut' 
Consuntinc,  412;  Knismui  in, 
535*  in  fifteenth  century,  5<*> 
516,  526;  and  Frederick  II. 
466-7;  and  Germany,  452,  765; 
and  Goth*.  386,  389;  inquisi- 
tion in,  546;  humaniam  in,  509; 
rue  of  laity  in,  501 ;  land- 
holding  in,  658;  Ixmibard*  and 
Byxantiiiet  in.  408-9,  m  Middle 
A«r«,  450,  509;  modem  outlook 
bcjpn*  tn.  516;  and  Nspoktin, 
778;  Normant  in,  419.  43?  < 
politics  in,  324,  5»6^..  526  7, 
and  pap^y,  324,  408.  436,  502. 
power  of  gcntrrnmrni  in,  57^ 
pragmatism  in,  8<6;  Reforaiatum 
and  Coanicr-Kefomwtion  m*  re- 
bellion agiiiurt,  544;  Kenatstaruc 
in,  $16*24*  5*3^.  547;  a^ 


INDEX 


Italy— tontd. 

Rome,  285,  295.  322;  and 
science,  512,  556;  in  sixth  cen- 
tury, 393-4.  401 ;  under  Theo- 
doric,  389;  in  tenth  century,  417; 
unity  0^23.  528;  under  Valen- 
tinian  II,  350.  See  also  northern 
Italy;  Rome;  southern  Italy 

lacobins,  -ism,  664,  667  ' 

James,  St.,  344,  4<>3 

James  I,  563 

James  II,  626-7,  645 

James,  Henry,  839 

James,  M.  R.,  4« 

James,  William,  787.  819,  828.  839- 
46,  847,  861 ,  863  ;  and  belief,  348, 
842-4,  845-6;  and  truth,  145, 
842-6 

James  of  Venice,  461 

Janscnists,  354 

jansenius,  Cornelius,  364 

Japan.  134.  4«9.  5*>°,  577.  ^44 

Jarrow,  414 

Jason,  Jewish  high  priest,  334 

Jaxartes,  241 

Jeans.  Sir  J.  II..  55.  850 

Jehovah.  469 

Jena,  745.  747,  757.  782 

Jcnghiz  Khan,  304,  596 

JenftTuah,  330,  331 

Jerome,  St.,  283,  353,  356.  360-4, 
403,  487;  and  Bible,  33^.  34*. 
447,  354,  3<*>.  380,  535;  and 
ErasmuA,  535,  537*.  and  nvmasti- 
"«n,  354.  3<A  307 

Jerusalem,  319,  330,  331,  334,  335. 
359,  384,  411;  ami  Crusades, 
4'-4,  466;  fall  of,  337,  34-:  the 
(ioldcn.  326;  patriarch  of,  410 

Jesuits,  129,  545-6*  548,  $$o,  581, 
7^0 

Jesus,  329.  344,  345*  37O,  3<>7,  4«>o. 
482  a..  800 

Jews,  Judaism,  344,  358,  60 1 ;  and 
after-life.  350;  and  St.  Augustine, 
377.  380.  382-3 ;  *•  bankers  and 
capitalists,  210,  503,  709;  and 
Christianity,  304,  339>  343.  344 
345"6.  347,  340750.  35 »/  47«>, 
500;  and  civilization  of  western 
Europe,  302.  419;  and  God,  165, 
348;  and  Greeks,  43-4;  *nd 


Jews,  Judaism— contd. 

Gregory  the  Great,  403;  and 
Hellenism,  246,  249;  and  mira- 
cles, 351;  and  Mohammedans, 
306,  440;  and  Nietzsche,  788, 
792;  and  Old  Testament,  360, 
380;  pattern  of  history  of,  383; 
persecuted,  336-7,  342,  387, 44L 
452,  455;  religion  of,  249,  328- 
43.  349J  and  sense  of  sin,  365; 
in  Spain,  440,  448-9,  470; 
and  Spinoza,  592;  and  State, 
382;  theology  of,  346,  448-9; 
and  usury,  66 1.  See  also  Hebrew 
.  .  .;  law;  Mosaic  Law;  Yahweh 

Joachim  of  Flora,  460 

Joan  of  Arc,  St.,  109,  470 

Job,  799 

Johannes  Scotus.  See  John  the  Scot 

Johannesburg,  249 

John,  St.,  313,  346,  459,  482 

John  XI,  Pope,  418 

John  XII,  Pope,  418 

John  XXII,  Pope,  472,  491,  504 

John  XXIII,  Pope,  506 

John,  King  of  England,  464 

John  of  Gaunt,  504,  508 

John  of  Salisbury,  458,  461 

John  the  Scot  (Johannes  Scotus 
Erigena\  327,  415.  421-7,  437, 
439,  478 

Johnson,  Samuel,  704 

Jonathan,  high  priest,  335 

Jonson,  Ben,  569 

Joppa,  335 

Jordan  of  Saxony,  472 

Joseph  of  Arimathea,  4^7  n. 

Joshua,  550 

Jovtnian,  481 

Jowett,  Benjamin,  105  M.,  154  n. 

Jubilee,  502 

Judah,  329,  330.  33 « 

Judaism,  see  Jews 

Judas  Iscariot,  492,  jfcfo 

Jude,  St.,  338 

Judca,  245,  336,  341 

Judges,  380  ».,  382 

judiciary,  judicial    function,    655, 

661-3  -  . 

Julian,  the  Apostate,  31$,  35*.  353. 

356.  359.  5«5 

Julius  II.  Pope,  519,  532.  53« 
Juno,  375 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Jupiter,  375,  376,  404;  planet,  556 

jus  gentium,  292 

jus  naturalet  292 

justice,  205-6*  259,  662-3,  738; 
and  Aristotle,  196,  202,  213 ;  and 
Greeks,  45-6;  and  Heraclitus, 
6 1 , 63 ;  as  interest  of  the  stronger, 
99;  and  Plato,  129,  134-6 

Justin  I,  389 

Justina,  355.  357 

Justinian  I,  299,  353,  389,  393~4, 
418,  422;  closes  Academy,  80, 
300;  importance  of,  400,  406; 
law  of,  460 

Jutes,  421 

Kant,  Immanuel,  494,  629,  748; 
academic   and    scholastic,    730, 
781;  and  arithmetic,  740,  859; 
and    British    and    Continental 
philosophy,  568,  580,  666,  667, 
669;  and  Coleridge,  667,  705, 
801;  and  deductive   reasoning, 
55;  ethics  of,  205,  291,  660-70, 
736-8,  806;  and  German  philo- 
sophy, 6 1 8,  667, 730, 731-2. 746, 
757;  and  God,  438,  608,  609, 
610,  735-6,  814,  863;  and  Hume, 
685,  698;  influence  of,  474*  7JO, 
746,  748,  80 1 ;  and  knowledge, 
730,  732,  783;  and  liberalism, 
667,  731,  748;  and  mathematics, 
221,  740,  857;  and  Nietzsche, 
789,  797;  and  peace,  738,  768; 
philosophy  of,  outlined,  731-9; 
and    Schopenhauer,    781,    782, 
783;  an6  space  and  time,  168, 
*      374.  739-44;  «nd  subjectivism, 
514,  730,  734;  *nd  Stoics,  279. 
291 ;  and  will,  787 
Kantorouk/,  Hermann,  467  n. 
Keats,  John,  272,  705 
Kent,  406 

Keplei,  Joh}nnea,  153,  230,  234, 
55'-3. 56o,  569, 571 ; and  Coper- 
nicus,  512,  551;  and  Galileo, 
555;  ind  Newton,  561;  and 
science,  547 
Khiva,  445 

Khoraatan,  445  f 

Khwaraxmi,  «J»,  444 

Kindj,aJ-,  443. 487». 
1  kinetic  theory  of  gases,  85-6 


Kingdom  of  Heaven,  308,  329 

I  Kings,  4>4 

Klytaimnestra,  30 

knights,  in  Rome,  295 

knowledge,  87,  179,  689,  772,  786, 
819,  860,  862;  and  Christian 
ethics,  1 1 1 ;  arfd  Continental 
philosophy,  568;  and  Dewey, 
851 ;  and  Hume,  688;  and  Kant, 
!f  730,  732. 783  5  and  Locke,  633-4, 
636;  and  Marx,  812;  and  Mat- 
thew of  Aquasparta,  489;  of 
mystics,  785-6 ;  and  Occam,  495- 
7;  and  Plato,  125,  142,  143,  151, 
171-81 ;  and  Schopenhauer,  784, 
786;  and  Socrates,  112,  i$7ff.\ 
and  Spinoza,  596.  See  also  theory 
of  knowledge  , 

Knossos,  24,  261 

Knox,  Ronald,  673 

Kftnigsberg,  731.  742 

Koran,  44».446 

labour,  248,  658,  707 

Labour  Party,  817 

labour  theory  of  value,  660- 1,  So8 

Lacedaemon,   114,   119,  363.  See 

alto  Sparta 
Laches  (Plato),  i  j  i 
Laconia,  114,  115 
La  Flc4Ae,  580,  591  t 

latMUi-fasre,  631,  648,  So? 
toty,  322,  323,  410,409 
Lamarck,  752,  753  *~ 

Lampsacus,  248,  264 
land,  22,  658,  817 
landholding,   114,   115,   119,   121 

210,  296,  647,658^,  815 
Unfranc,  435.  437 
language,  68-71,  «43.  »4#-9,  *85. 

1 86,    571.    See   olio   grammar; 

logical  analysis;  name*;  lyntux; 

words 

Laplace,  559,  73* 
U  RocheUe,  581 

Last  Judgment,  338,  375,  4*8,  476 
Latff  Grtek  Religion  (Be van),  262, 

279  n. 

Latcran,  411,  418 
Latin  America,  213 
Latin  Emperor,  464 
Latin  language,  366,  411,  448,  508, 

568,  570,  628,  746;  and  Burba- 


INDEX 


Latin  language — contd.  Leibniz — contd. 

rpssa,  451;  and  Bible,  354;  and         668-9;   and    plenum,    90;   and 

principle  of  individuation,  490; 
and  Spinoza,  592 ;  and  subjectiv- 
ism, 513, 728;  and  substance,  614 


Charlemagne,  414;  in   Eastern 

Empire,  301 ;  and  Erasmus,  534, 

537.  538;  and  Greeks,  299;  and  

hymns,  460.;  and  Ireland,  421 ;  Leipzig,  604 

and  philosophy,  306,  368;  and  leisure,  127,814 

Roman  Empire,  298;  and  trans-  Lenin,  848 

lations,  165,  235,  342,  380,  445*  Leo  I  (the  Great),  St.,  Pope,  387, 

448,  456,  535  388 

Latin  world,  and  Alexander,  499  Leo  III,  St.,  Pope,  412 

Latvia,  659  Leo  IX,  St.,  Pope,  433 

Laud,  Archbishop,  569,  601  Leo  X,  Pope,  518,  520,  527 

law(s),   legislation,    34,    120,   222,  Leo  XIII,  Pope,  474 

652-3,  663;  and  Aristotle,  213;  Leo  III  (the  Isaurian),  Emperor, 

in     Athens,     95,     154-5;    and  409 

Bentham,   638,   750,   802,   803,  Leonardo.  See  Vinci 

805  ?of  causality,  567 ;  of  gravita-  Leopardi,  252 

tion,  553-4,  556-7,  559-61 ;  and  Letter  of  Aristeas,  33411. 

Greeks,   135,   139;  of  Hammu-  Lettres    phUosophiquef    (Voltaire), 

rabi,    23;    Hebrew,   Jewish,   or  629 

Mosaic,  328,  332,  337,  34<>.  365 ;  Leucippus,  84,  85.  86,  88,  89  «.,  90, 

and  Hegel,  764;  and  Helvetius,  229.  266 

749;  of  inertia,  549,  553,  554;  Leuctra,  118 

and  Kant,  737;  of  motion,  553,  I^evant,  778 

556,  559;  natural,  86;  ol  nature,  Leviathan  (Hobbes),  568^. 

99,  650-1;  philosophy  of,  651; 

of     planetary     motion,     551-2, 


556-7;  and  Protagoras,  96 
tawrence,  O.  H.,  708 
£o*f  (Plato),  232 
I>ea.  Henry  C,  133,  431,  503 
League  for  Peace,  Kant's,  768 
I.tague  of  Cambrat,  517 
league  of  Nations,  768 
U-ar,  795 
learning,  342,  396,  397,  4<>4.  42 1, 

422,  472;  in  Renaissance,  $33 
IXT,  Joseph,  quoted,  648 
I^reuwenhock,  Anton  van,  557 
legal  Actions,  412.  658 
Icgul  rights,  651-2 
legal  theory  of  war,  652 
legislative  function,  legislature, 

66i-3.  726,  738 
Ix»gnano,  454 
Uibniz,  604-  IQ,  733 ;  and  calculus, 

55**,  857;  and  ethics,  669;  and 

Germany,  746;  and  God,  438, 


Leviticus,  332 

Lcyden,  University  of,  582 

liberal  culture,  513 

liberalism,  liberals,  577,  578, 620-1, 
649,  817;  and  Darwin,  753,  754. 
808;  and  Dewey,  847,  848;  in 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  cen- 
turies, I2i,  545,  774;  and  Hegel, 
764,  767;  in  Holland,  592;  and 
Kant,  667,  731,  748;,and  Locke, 
628 ;  and  Milton,  81 1 ;  and  More, 
542;  and  Napoleon,  779;  New 
England,  847;  and  Nietzsche, 
794;  philosophical,  620-7;  and 
State,  215,  771;  in  Western 
Germany,  747 

liberty,  624,  776;  and  Bentham, 
803;  and  Churches,  793;  and 
Filmer,  643;  and  Hobbes,  572, 
574-5;  and  Locke,  637-9,  650; 
and  Machiavelli,  530;  for  na- 
tions,  709;  and  Rousseau,  722; 
and  utilitarianism,  653 


5«9,  7i8;  and  infinite  number,    .life,  841;  and  Bergson,  820,  823, 
«<8;    influence    of,    667;    «nd         824,  827,  838;  elixir  of,  62 
Kant,  731 ;  *nd  knowledge,  634;     light-waves,  90,  862 
•nd  Locke,  633,  666;  method  of,fl  limitation,  734 

891 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Lincoln,  Abraham,  796 

Ljppershey,  Hans,  557 

Lisbon,  earthquake  of,  715,  731 

Lithuania,  659 

Liutprand,  409 

Lives  (Plutarch),  26011.,  300,  713, 

793 

Livy,  529 

Lloyd  George,  659 
Loches,  457 

Locke,  John,  285,  581,  711,  728, 
729,  813;  and  association  of 
ideas,  801 ;  and  Bentham,  802; 
and  British  philosophy,  618;  on 
checks  and  balances,  577;  and 
Condorcet,  749;  and  Democri* 
tus,  92;  on  division  of  powers, 
724;  and  empiricism,  685,  856, 
862 ;  and  greatest-happiness  prin- 
ciple, 802 ;  and  Helve'tius,  749 : 
and  Hobbes,  568,  573;  and 
Hume,  685,  698;  influence  of, 
666-72 ;  and  liberalism,  624,  817 ; 
and  mind,  749;  political  philo- 
sophy of,  642-5;  and  power, 
530;  and  private  property,  724; 
and  social  contract,  650,  653-8, 
722;  and  State,  652,  664,  771; 
and  subjectivism,  513,  739;  and 
theory  of  knowledge,  628-41 
Locri,  49 
logarithms,  558 

logic,  257,  633,  77«.  772,  815,  862; 
and  Abelard,  459;  and  Al- 
Mansur,  446 ;  and  Aquinas,  484 ; 
and  Arabs,  446,  447;  and  Aris- 
totle, I821,  187,  218*25,  447.  475. 
513;  and  atomists,  88  n.;  and 
Roger  Bacon,  487;  and  Bergton, 
82 J,  823,  830,  831;  deductive, 
and  mathematics,  858;  and  Dew- 
ey,  847,  851;  and  dialectic 
method,  113;  and  empiricism, 
87*  '678,  £62;  and  geometry. 
740,  742;  and  Greek  philosophy, 
87;  and  Hegel,  730, 758-60,  769, 
773;  .and  Hume.  688,  689.  690; 
and  induction,  700;  and  John 
of  Salisbury,  461 ;  and  Kant, 
*733;  language,  71 ;  and  Leibniz, 4 
614-15;  and  Locke,  630;  and 
Marx,  814;  and  Occam,  494, 
495*7;  «»d  Parmcnide*,  50,  67, 


logic— contd. 

142;  and  Plato,  143,  161,  179. 

181,  377;  and  Socrates,  158;  and 

space,  90;  and  Spinoza,  594,  599. 

618;  and  Stoics,  281.  See  also 

logical  analysis 
Logic  (Hegel),  758.  761, ^69 
logical  analysis,  495,  857-64.  See 

also  language 
'Logos.  313,  329,  346,  370,  425,  426, 

459 

Lollards,  509 

Lombard  cities,  450,  452,  453,  466 
Lombard  League,  452,  454,  466 
Lombards,  353,  394,  397-8,  403. 

420;  and  Byzantines,  326,  40^-9; 

and  Eastern  Empire,  401 ;  and 

papacy,  408,  412 
Ix>mbardy,  470,  503 
London,  569,  704.  809,  Si  i 
Long  Parliament,   545,   569,   570, 

625 

Lords,  House  of,  509,  574,  642,  662 
Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  r<v  \K- 

dici,  Lorenzo  dei 
Lothar  II,  King  of  Lorraine-,  4<5 
Lotze,  Rudolf  Hermann,  6oS.  74* 
Louis  1.  Emperor,  424 
Ixtuis  II,  Emperor,  415 
Louis  IV,  Emperor,  491 
IXHJIS  IX  of  France,  467  • 

Louis  XI  of  France.  509,  577.  645 
Louts  XII  of  France,  520 
Louis  XIV  of  France,  604,  6f/» 

627,  645 
Lou  vain,  538 
love,  708,  799,  Bop;  Christian,  602, 

774.  795  i  *nd  Empedodc*.  74-5. 

76;  of  the  eternal,  814 ;  and  t*od, 

345*  59&-6op,  608;  and  Judaism, 

340;  of  neighbours,   345,   7oS; 

and    Nietzsche,   795,   800;   and 

Plato,   312;  and   Plotinus.   315; 

and  Stoicism,  279,  287.  289 
Low  Countries.  747 
Loyola,    St.    Ignatius,    472,    544. 


Lucan,  183 
Lucsan,  262,  302 
Luck,  247 
Lucrrtia,  376 

Lucretius,   72,   266,    268,    270-3, 
*74.7«9 


INDEX 


Luther,  Martin,  493,  S**.  532.  544.      Manchester,  8xo 
765.   784;   and    St.    Augustine,      Manchester  School,  623 
354;  and  Copernicus,  550;  and 
Erasmus,   533,   538;  and  peas- 
ants* war,  508;  and  philosophy, 
546;  and  State,  545.  766 

Lutheran  Church,  766 

Luttcnvorth,  507,  509 

Lycurgus,    117,    119,    121-3,   529. 
53*.  714.  7*1,  7*5 


Lydia,  27,  4.1 
Lyons,   503,    712; 

469.  471 
Lysis  (Plato),  1 1 1 


Manfred,    King    of    Naples    and 

Sicily,  520,  777 
Manichaeism,  156,  345,  364,  368-9, 

370,  371,  372,  379,  469,  613 
Manichseus,  368 
Manilius,  260 
many,  the,  60,  74,  88,  756 
1    Marathon,  77,  99,  100 


Prior   Men   of, 


Macbeth,  602 

Maccabtrus,  John  Hyrcanus,  339 
Maccabeus,  Judas,  335 
Maccabees,  246,  335,  336,  338,  339 
Macedonia,  -ns(   182,  207,  241-6, 

297;  and  barbarians,  243;  and 

City  State,  215;  bring  disorder, 

241,  248,  273,  296;  and  Greek 

culture,  253,  305 ;  and  Rome,  294 
Machiavclii,  Nicco!6,  214,  513,  523, 

525-32,  547.  568,  578,  7*5.  765. 

788 
machine  production,  514,  746,  752, 

754~5.  809,  854 
McKcnna,  Stephen,  312 
Mawads,  35,  38 
maffic,  23,  49,  7*.   169.  250,  261, 

270,  319,  348,  4HS;  black.  499; 

ij»  Renaissance,  52^;  and  science, 

55* 

Maima  Carta.  463 
Matfiu  Graecin,  67.  77 
Magnanimous    man,    197-8,    199, 

200 

Ma«net,  44.  557.  5*6 
Maimonidrft,  343,  448-9 
majority,  97.   109,  492,  573.  $55. 

657,  7*4.  73».  764,  790 
Malchus.  6V*  Porphyry 
Makbrmnche,  474,  583,  605 
Malthus,  Humus  Robert,  750,  75 « • 

753.8o8 
man :  brotherhood  of,  287, 288,  289. 

305 ;  and  Copernicus,  816;  nieas- 


Marcion,  469 

Marcomanni,  303 

Marcus  Aucelius,  217,  263,  275, 
276,  282,  284,  285,  286,  287,  288, 
289,  296,  303 

Marduk,  23 

Mark  Antony .  See  Antonius,  Marcus 

Marozia,  418 

marriage,  122,  I3*~3.  *57>  '97, 
345.431.481,484,  541 

Mars,  552 

Marseilles,  404 

Marsiglio  of  Padua,  492,  493,  503- 
4.508 

Marston  Moor,  776 

Martel,  Charier.  See  Charles  Mattel 

Martin  I  (St.).  Pope,  409 

Martin  V,  Pope,  506 

Martin  of  Tours,  St.,  396 

Marx,  Karl,  75 »»  75*.  756,  801  n., 
809,  810-18;  and  Bentham,  805, 
811;  and  class  struggle,  578-9, 
766,  818;  and  Darwinism,  754; 
and  De\\  ey ,  848 ;  eclecticism,  666 ; 
and  Hegel,  757,  810,  811-12, 
815,  816,  817;  and  history,  383, 
762,  812-17;  and  labour  theory 
of  value,  660,  66 1 ;  and  liberal- 
ism,  624,  667,  817;  and  revolt, 
703,  746,  774J  and  Plato,  160; 
and  State,  813,  817 

Mary,  Queen  of  England,  645 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  643  f 

Master  of  Animals,  24 

Mssuccio  di  Salerno,  522 

materialism,  8911.,  9*.  *&9»  273. 
310,  570,  590,  837,  839;  and 
Marx,  383.  809,  810,  8n.  812, 
815;  in  psychology,  802;  and 


urcofall  things, 97. 17*.  173.  »75.  i  «  Stoics»  275.  *76.  *8i,  311 
1 79J  place  of,  muni  verse,  55<H>°;  I  mathematical  logic,  614-15,  619 
undue   emphasis   cm,   816.    S**  \  mathematics,  51,  53;  in  Athens, 
o/«o  rights  of  man  I      79.  &>,  »oo;  in  AJexandria,  80, 

893 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


mathematic 


it* 


246;  and  Aquinas,  484;  and 
Anbt,  448;  and  Aristotle,  193; 
and  astronomy,  153,  231,  235- 
40;  and  atoxnists,  88 it.;  and 
Francis  Bacon,  565;  and  Roger 
Bacon,  486,  487,  488;  and 
Bergson,  823,  830-2;  and  Con- 
tinental philosophy,  568;  and 
deductive  logic,  858;  and  Des- 
cartes, 580,  583,  589;  and  em- 
piricism, 568;  and  Greeks,  21, 
31,  57-8,  231,  235-40,  857,  862; 
in  Hellenistic  age,  241 ;  and 
Hobbes,  568;  and  Hume,  689; 
and  induction,  221;  and  Kant, 
733.  740;  and  knowledge,  161, 
633,  689.  860,  862;  and  Locke, 
630;  and  logical  analysis,  857, 
859;  in  Magna  Grecia,  67;  and 
nous,  313;  and  philosophy,  246, 
858,  862;  and  Plato,  126,  141, 
146,  148,  153,  158,  168-70,  177. 
1 81,  192;  and  Plotinus,  312;  and 
Pythagoras,  47.  49,  5*.  5*.  53-*. 
158.  857;  in  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, 546,  558;  and  Socrates, 
158;  and  Stoics,  281 ;  and  syllog- 
isms, 221-2;  and  theology,  56, 
848;  words  of,  181 

matter,  65,  82,  345,  860,  86 1 ;  and 
Aristotle,  187-9,  io*,  iQ3.  "9; 
defined,  684;  and  Bergson.  820, 
822,  823,  825,  836,  837;  and 
Berkeley,  673,  674, 679.  7^9;  and 
Descartes,  90 ;  and  Dun*  Scotut, 
490;  and  Hegel,  763 ;  and  Hume, 
729;  and  Kant,  73°.  74 »;  «r»d 
Manr,  812;  and  Plato,  169;  and 
Pkninus,  315-17;  *nd  space,  89* 
90;  and  truth,  707.  £**  alto 
mind  and  matter 

Motto  and  Memory  (Bergson), 
824-6,  83* 

Matthew  of  Aquasparta,  486, 488  9 

Maupemiis,  747 

Maurice,  I~mperor,  405 

Mauross,  Andre,  quoted,  778  *. 

fyfaximus,  Empeior,  355,  357 

Maya,  7*4,  7*6  f 

Maxztni,  Giuseppe,  708 

meaning,  850.  &*  oho  words 


Mecca,  440  n.,  443 

mechanical  explanations,   82,   86, 

87.  «6,  754 

mechanics,  227,  584-5,  821,  860 
Medta  (Euripides),  568 
Medes,  244,  303,  330 
Medici  family,  27/518,  520,  521, 

5«S.  5«6,  544.  797 
Medici,  Coaimo  dei,  518,  521 
f  Medici,  Giovanni  dei.  See  Leo  X, 

Pope 
Medici,  Giulio.  See  Clement  VII, 

Pope 

Medici,  Lorenzo  dei,  518,  52  tr  526 
Medici,  Fictro  dei,  518 
medicine, 49.  73.  334,445.448,  537, 

839 

medieval  synthesis,  463,  501 
Medina,  440  n. 

Mrditotiow  (Descartes),  569.  585-9 
Meditations  (Marcus  Aurclius),  284, 

287-9,  293 
Mediterranean,  236,  282,  294,  419, 

642 

Melctus,  105,  106,  107,  108 
N.lelot,  101 

|  Melville,  Herman,  705 
s  memory,  71,   173,   175,  3»«,  681, 
;       684,  841;  and   Uerg*on,  824-5, 
|       826,  835-6,  838 
1  Menandcr,  251,  346  • 

Menandcr,  king  of  India,  245 
Meno  (Plato),  112,  161,  46 2 
Mercury,  237  * 

Merovingians,  409,  575 
Mesopotamia,  22.  24,  245,  Ji  *.  396 
;  Messalins,  Valeria,  282 
j  Messenia,  us 
Messiah,  320,  332,  338,  339.  348, 

3&o.  383,  467 
|  metallurgy,  338,  714 

mctaU,  24 

!  metaphysics,  57,  71,  **,  «»»  3°9» 
688;  and  Arabs,  447,  448;  and 
Aristotle,  182-94,  205,  218,  222- 
4;  and  Borthiut,  390;  and  Con- 
tinental and  Bntttth  philosophy. 
669;  and  Fpicurus,  269;  ami 
Hrgrl.  67,  758.  769.  770;  "» 
HeUrnistic  world,  251 ;  and  Hem- 
clitus,  jJ9,  62*4;  Jewish,  320: 
and  Leibniz,  614-15,  6f7!  and 
Locke,  633 ;  and  Kant,  739.  74* ' 


894 


INDEX 


metaphysics — contd. 

3;  mistakes  in,  53,  220,  222;  and 
Occam,  495;  and  Parmenides, 
67,  151;  and  Plato,  143-4,  151, 
187, 189,  218;  and  Plottnus,  312; 
and  Spinoza,  594-5,  600- 1 ;  and 
Zeno,  296  • 

Metaphysics  (Aristotle),  229,  444 

Metapontion,  49,  51 

Methodism,  40,  272,  776 

Methuselah,  380 

metre,  161 

Metrodorus,  265 

Mexico,  22,  644,  854 

Michael  II,  424 

Michael  III,  416,  423 

Michael  of  Ccscna,  491 

Michchngclo,  523,  552,  789 

microscope,  557 

Middle  Ages,  28,  322,  624,  855; 
snd  Aristotle,  121,  207,  2 1 8,  230, 
257.  439,  494-5  I  and  St.  Augus- 
tine, 382;  and  Bocthius,  389, 
392;  and  Byron,  776,  778;  and 
Church,  1 2 1,  210,  305,  322,  354, 
415.  5«i~«3,  766;  and  City  of 
l*od,  375;  communist  rebels  in, 
774;  despised  in  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. 509;  die  hard.  509;  and 
Donation  of  Constantino,  411; 
dualism  of.  252 ;  snd  economics, 
754;  snd  Gregory  the  Great, 
402;  and  individualism,  622; 
fnd  Italian  cities,  207;  Jews  in, 
343 ;  and  kings,  359  «•  i  o"d  land- 
holdtng,  659;  snd  law  of  nature, 
648;  legal  fictions  in,  412;  and 
lope,  218,  292;  snd  Lucretius, 
271 ;  Mohammedan  civilization 
in.  343 ;  originality  and  archaism 
in,  450-1;  and  philosophy,  56, 
210,  222,  322,  354,  439.  S«  i.  766; 
snd  Pluto,  165,  438-9,  474;  and 
Plutintis,  309;  and  politics,  207. 
419;  and  pseudo-Dion ynius,  424, 
427 ;  snd  romanticism,  704 ;  and 
•in,  560;  submissive  toward  nan- 
human  environment,  855;  and 
superstition,  549;  and  Stoics, 
292 ;  and  transufatantiation,  429; 
universality  of  Church  and  Em- 
pire in,  305;  unscientific.  549 


Middle  Ages— contd. 

See  also  Church;  Holy  Roman 

Empire;  papacy 
middle  class,  509,  621,  654,  671, 

754,  813 

Mikado,  134,  644 

Milan,  355,  357,  359,  364,  367, 
369,  430;  in  conflict  of  Emperor 
and  Pope,  436,  451  j(f.;  Patarine 
movement  in,  434,  453,  455;  in 
Renaissance,  516-17,  520 

Milesian  school,  43-7,  60,  243 

Miletus,  43,  45,  47,  4$,  49,  81,  84, 
H7 

Milhaud,  Gaston,  88  n. 

Milky  Way,  555 

Mill,  James,  749,  750,  751,  801, 
804.  808,  809,  818 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  567.  669,  748, 
749.751,790,804,805-6 

millennium,  381,  383 

Milton,  John,  157,  247,  359  n.t  470, 
732,804,811 

mind,  849,  86 1;  and  Anaxagoras, 
81-3;  and  Aristotle,  192-4;  and 
Uergson,  823,  824,  827;  and 
Locke,  729:  and  Plato,  167, 
1 68,  174,  176;  and  Plotinus, 
312,  318;  and  Spinoza,  595,  600 ; 
and  Zeno,  279 

mind  and  matter,  156,  840;  and 
Bcrgson.  824-6,  828;  and  Carte- 
sians, 584,  588,  590;  defined, 
684;  and  James,  841 ;  and  Kant, 
730;  and  Leilniz,  606;  and 
i  logical  analysis,  86 1,  864 
!  Minoan  age  or  culture,  24-5,  26, 
I  27,  304 

!  miracle(s),  49,  72,  348,  35O,  360, 
398-400,  685 ;  of  the  mass,  429 

missionaries,  245,  395,  4«3»  4*i, 
456.  546 

Mistress  of  Animals,  24,  261 

Mithraism,  304  • 

Mitylene,  264 

Mnesarchos,  48 

modality,  734 

moderation,  61,  92 


Moh; 
*  46; 


77< 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Mohammedan(s) — cvntd* 
299;  and  algebra,  306;  and  Aris- 
totle, 447*  448,  449,  475;  and 
chemistry,  62, 448 ;  and  Christian 
philosophy,  447-8;  and  Church. 
305 ;  conquests  of,  245,  353,  388, 
410,  419,  440;  and  culture,  440- 
4;  and  Frederick  II,  465;  and 
Greek  culture,  299,  443,  444; 
and  Hellenistic  civilization,  294, 
306-7;  and  Italy,  419;  and  Jews, 
343,  441,  448;  and  philosophy, 
444-9;  and  Sicily,  465,  466.  See 
also  Arabs ;  Islam 

Mommsen,  Theodor,  748 

tnonadology,  monads,  606-7,  611, 
619,  668,  728 

monasteries,  395, 396, 4 14. 4«,  43 1 

monasticism,  349,  354,  39S~9»  406. 
4i8,430-i,535 

Monboddo,  Lord,  649 

Monde,  Lt  (Descartes),  581 

money,  160,  200-10 

Mongols,  386,  442,  444 

Monica,  St.,  367,  370,  371 

monism,  76,  85,  88,  135,  600,  6iS, 
841,861 

Mnnophysite  heresy,  388-9,  393, 

396,440 
monopoly,  817 
monotheism,  336,  441 
Mont  Cenis,  436 
Montaigne,  537 
Montaigu,  713 
Monte  Casstno,  397*8,  309,  4 '7, 

474 

Montesquieu,  Baron  de,  529,  573, 
629.  664,  724.  7*6 

Montfort,  Simon  de,  464 

Moody,  Ernest  E.,  494 

moan*  229,  315,  338,  369,  556;  and 
Greeks,  73,  81,  82,  91.  107,  «7, 
229.  236,  239,  270, *8o,  314 :  and 
BrmJle,  ssj;  and  Galileo  and 
Newton,  556 

Moore,  G.  E.,  682 

Moors,  299.  343*  4Oi,  409 

moral(s),  morality,  23,  33,  97,  W* 
206,  707,  863;  and  Uentham, 
'805;  and  Christianity,  200,  325, 
3^6*  350,  35>;  «nd  Oennarf 
idealists,  730;  in  Greece,  302 ;  in 
Hellenistic  world,  250-1,  260; 


),  morality  —  contd* 
and  James,  844;  Jewish,  334; 
and  Kant,  736-7,  783;  and 
Locke,  637  ./f.,  653  ;  and  Machia- 
velli,  528,  530;  and  Milesian 
school,  47;  and  reform  in  the 
eleventh  century,  428-,  and  reli- 
gion, 839;  in  Renaissance,  523; 
and  Rome,  260,  301-2;  and  ro- 

t,  manticism,  702,  709;  and  Rous- 
seau, 712,  719;  and  States,  768; 
and  Stoics,  263,  287.  See  al$o 
ethics 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  533,  534,  535, 

538-43.  544.  5*4 

Morocco,  446 

Mosaic  Law,  344,  345,  500 

Moses,  344.  34®,  349.  4<>i.  4?5,  5*5 

Motiers,  717 

motion,  movement,  46,  75,  82,  88, 
227,  228,  558,  861  ;  and  Aristotle, 
100,  228-9;  and  atomists,  84-6, 
88,  89.  92  ;  and  Descartes,  583-5  ; 
and  Heraclitus,  173  ».  ;  and  New* 
ton,  89,  230,  560,  585;  relativity 
of,  Hp,  229.  239,  550,  562;  and 
Zcno's  argument  of  the  arrow. 

HJ3-4 

multiplication  tablr,  K4& 
Munich,  491,  526 
murder,  652 
Murray,  Gilbert.  30,  36,  37,  3»~<;. 

250,  254.  264.  275.  276 
Musacus,  109 

music,  53,  131.  132,  «4«.  3*5-  ?*>*> 
MuftAct,  Alfred  dc,  779 
Mussolini,  Beniio,  746 
Mutiny,  Indian.  804 
Mycenaean  civilization  ,  25-6 
Myrtilos,  30 
myvtcrie*,  61.  62,  159,  49*;.  *SYr*i/j<> 

Pkrustnian    mystrric*  ;    my»trr> 


m>ttcry  rtliftions,  56,  328.  350, 
370,  500 

mytttcd),  my%tici*m,  56,  60,  65, 
373*  444.  459.  4#2,  504.  7<>7 
784-6  ;  Arab.  446,  448  ;  in  Diony- 
sus worship  and  Orphttrn,  32-3- 
37;  in  prt-Socratic  philosophy, 
67;  and  Hegrl,  757-«;  w>d 
mathematics,  48,  55.  857;  and 
Plato,  126,  148,  158.  159.  195; 


856 


INDEX 


mystic(s),  mystici* 


d. 


and  Plotinus,  314;  and  Pytha- 
goras, 48,  5*»  59,  148,  236 

Naaman,  576 

names,  68,  148,  167,  176,  179,  185, 

1 86,  22i,  49  x ;  and  meaning,  68- 

70 

Nantes,  457;  Edict  of,  627 
Napier,  John,  558  f 

Naples,  417,  466,  4745  Kingdom 

of,  516,  520 
Napoleon  I  (Bonaparte),  413,  528, 

604,  627,  664,  667,  775 ;  effect  of, 

136,  621,  703,  705,  730,  778^.; 

and  German  philosophers,  731, 

745.  757,  766,  789,  796,  800;  and 

Germany,  658.  747,  765,  810 
Napoleon  HI,  664 
Napoleonic  wars,  623 
national  independence,  530 
national  monarchies,  325 
National  Socialism,  114,  See  alto 

Nazis 
nationalism,   501,   504,   624,   664, 

703.  754.  779,  790,  791 ;  German, 

252,  745,  779;  Jewish,  332;  and 

romanticism,  708,  751 
natural  law(s),  277,  278,  292,  293. 

647J0r-.  7*4,  754  land  Greeks,  29, 

46,86,  134.277 
natural  man,  720 
nature,  227-8,  254,  314*  424*  427; 

law  of,  647,  650;  state  of,  647  j/., 
•  655,  664 

Nauatphajtes,  264,  265 
Nazis,  117,  383,  *°«»  659, 798,  817, 

818 

Near  East,  120,  328 
Nebuchadrezzar,  44,  329,  342 
nebula,  66,  230 
nebular  hypothesis,  732 
necessity,  29,  46,  82,  86,  134,  250, 

a*9. 734, 855 ;  and  Aristotle,  228 ; 

and  Empedodes,  74.  75.  7*;  *°d 

Plato,  167,  i?o 
negation,  734 

Nehemiah,  330,  331,  333.  337.  34 1 
Neopktonism,  241,  274.  301,  320, 

3*7.  499-500,   5*9;  and  Am- 

montua  Saccaa,  311,  34*; 

Afiba*  443.  444*  445.  447; 

Anatoli*.   447,   475.   5»«i 


Neoplatonism — contd. 
Christianity,  319-21,  328,  378, 
421,  426,  438,  499;  and  Plato, 
165,  323,  509,  521 ;  founded  by 
Plotinus,  308  # 

Neo-Pythagoreanism,  282,  342 

Nero,  283,  289,  594 

nervous  tissue,  68 1,  695 

Nestorianism,  393,  440,  444,  459 

Nestorius,  387-8 

Neuchatel,  717 

New  England,  249,  847 

New  Jerusalem,  339 

New  Testament,  323,  337,  338, 
345,  428,  469,  608,  784,  792,  793 

New  Theory  of  Vision,  A  (Berke- 
ley), 674 

Newstead  Abbey,  775 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  390,  557,  666, 
703,  749,  752,  7535  *nd  astrono- 
my, 239;  and  calculus,  558,  605; 
and  Euclid,  55;  and  God,  585; 
and  gravitation,  230,  556,  560; 
and  Leibniz,  90,  605;  and 
motion,  153,  230,  553;  and 
science,  547,  558^.;  and  space 
and  time,  89,  90,  561,  742 

Nicsea,  Council  of,  349,  353 

Nicene  Creed,  349,  353,  4" 

Nicholas  I  (Saint),  Pope,  409,  415- 
17,  418,  423,  424,  501 

Nicholas  II,  Pope,  433,  434 

Nicholas  V,  Pope,  411,  519 

Nicholas  of  Oresme,  498 

Nitomachxxn  Ethics  (Aristotle) 
183  ft.,  195-206,  216 

Nicopolis,  283  , 

Nkbelungen,  463  t 

Niebelungenlied,  386 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich  Wilhelm,  61, 
137, 199. 624, 699, 708, 756, 788- 
800;  and  Byron,  777,  789;  and 
Christianity,  197,  788,  792^., 
798,  799;  and  Darwin,  to8;  and 
ethics,  788, 792,  f95  #.  808;  and 
God,  777,  79*-3.  797;  «nd 
liberalism,  667,  794;  «*<*  Napo- 
leon, 778,  779,  789,  796,  799J 
and  Nazism,  798,  818;  and 
power,  795.  855;  and  romapti- 
casm,  746,  75«.  788,  789;  and 
Sparta,  114,  79i;«ndwillt  787, 
788 


897 


2P 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 


and 


Nile,  aa,  389 

Nilsson,  Martin  P.,  as  n. 

Nineveh,  43,  329 

Nirvana,  784,  785 

Noah,  488,643 

noble  man,  788,  793.  794,  79S 

noble  savage,  714 

nominalism,  185,  495,  57*  »  634,  687 

Nonconformists,  626,  645 

non-Euclidean  geometry,  334 

non-resistance,  603 

Normandy,  419,  437 

Normans,  3*6,  415,  417,  4»9t 

433.  435.  437.  463.  465; 

papacy,  433,  435.  451,  453 
North  Africa,  294,  306 
North  America,  243,  560,  765 
Northern  Italy,  305,  451,  460 
Northumbria,  406 
Norway,  453 
not-being,  88,  91,  425 

nous,  82,  92,  447;  and  Plotinus, 

312-14*  316,  347 
NotnelU  Ml***.  La  (Rousseau), 

716 

Novalis,  782 
numberfr),  53.  55.  i**»  *68,  175, 

177-9.  8*9-3  «.  857-8 
nuns,  396 
Nuremberg,  757 

Gates,  W.  J.,  cited,  266  «.,  286  it. 

obedience*  397 

object,  676,  810,  824,  836;  subject 

and,  600,  837,  840 
objectivity,  8f  o 

observation,  53,  58,  87-8,  549,  699 
Occam  (or  Ockham),  William  of, 

4W,  49«-S,  503.  547 
Occamssts,  534 
Occam's  razor,  494 
Ockham,  491 
OcfBviu%  See  Augustus 
Odo,  Saint,  43*? 
Odovmker,  386 
Odyssey,  a8 

OeoofMdes  of  Chios,  236 
Gesterfey  and  Robinson,  33411., 

350  *. 

Omomaos,  30 
Old  Believers,  403 
Old  Man  of  the  Mountain*  444 


Old  Testament,  351, 373.  ?83t  593. 
608,  792;  and  Christianity,  332- 
3.  347.  361,  3«3»  450,  469.  500; 
and  Jewish  history,  329 j(f. ;  trans- 
lations of,  341-2,  360,  380 

oligarchy,  desired  by  Plato,  127 

Olympian  attitude,  38 

Olympian  gods,  29,  30.  3*,  39.  42, 
47,  51,  262,  272,  362  n. 

C'ympias,  242 

Olympic  Games,  51,  216 

Omar  Khayyam,  444 

On  Generation  and  Corruption 
(Aristotle),  85,  88 

On  the  Heaoent  (Aristotle),  226, 
229-30 

On  Interpretation  (Aristotle),  185  n. 

On  the  Nature  of  Thing*  (Lucre- 
tius),  271-3 

On  the  Soul  (Aristotle).  See  De 
Anona 

One,  the,  60,  67,  74.  88,  9«.  3«*t 
3i3.3i4.3i9 

O'Neill,  Eugene,  39 

oncological  argument,  176,  437-8. 
476,  4*8,  608-9,  710,  711,  735. 
814-15 

opinion,  67-8,  I4*~3.  «4*.  »5«. 
165,  168 

opposite*,  60, 62-3, 67, 82, 160, 280 

optimism,  189,  205,  310,  604,  606, 
749,  750,  774,  7»7,  816;  of 
liberalism,  621,  622,  753*4,  774; 
philosophies  of,  92,  781.  7*7. 
820.  See  also  cheerfulness;  hofft 

oraclc(s),  61,  75,  106,  108,  109,  500 

Orange,  Council  of,  384 

Orsnge,  House  of,  582,  592 

Oreatts,  30 

organism,  188,  208,  754.  849  #. 

organizabons  and  individuals.  664 

OrfOHOfi,  495 

orgyf  4a,  $a 

Oriental  religions,  41,  262, 328, 499 

Oriental  Retigiow  m  Raman  Pagan- 
ism (Cumont),  3oaffM  377 «-. 

Oriental  view  of  women,  79* 
Orientals,  241, 763 

3*2,  346-*,  351,  3*1.4*7; 
Augustine,  jya,  378. 3«a; 
Old  Testament,  342;  and 
philosophy,  316,  477 


89* 


INDEX 


Origin  of  Species  (Darwin),  808 

Origin  of  Tyranny,  The  (Ure),  27  n. 

original  gin,  383,  384,  480,  714, 
784 

Orpheus,  35,  37, 41*  47,  109,  304 

Orphism,  35-42,  52,  56,  155,  159, 
272,  J50. '499;  and  Christianity, 
328,  370;  and* philosophy,  47,  50, 
52,  56,  08,  in,  156,  282,  788; 
and  Plato,  126, 141, 159, 184,  ^14 

orthodoxy,  100,  848;  Christian, 
349,  353,  456,  462,  470,  471,  486, 
487,  50°;  Jewish,  331,  342;  Mo- 
hammedan, 447 

Osiander,  Andreas,  548 

Osiris,  22 

Ostrogoths,  386 

Othello,  537 

other  world,  -Li ness,  51,  126,  141, 

253.  ?oH,  3*6,  329 

Otto  IV,  Emperor,  464-5 

Ottoman  Turks,  440 

Ovid,  362 

Owen,  Robert,  808,  809 

Oxford  University,  461,  483,  486, 
4&9,  401,  538,  628,  6*>7 ;  Hobbes 
at,  5<A;  WyciiiFe  at,  507,  508, 

509 
Ozyirandias,  250 


s,  St.,  395 
pacifism.  657,  778 
Palermo,  461,  465 
Palestine,  22,  330,  466 
Pan, 32 
Panaetius  of  Rhodes.  *Hi,  282,  295* 

299,  300 

Pangtafts,  Doctor,  604 
pantheism,  373.  39O,  421,  426,  477, 

594.  7*3 

papacy,  absolutism  of,  492,  5°4~5 '» 
at  Avignon*  491 ;  and  Crusades, 
455 ; »«  <*»«*  a«rs,  395.  4°o,  408- 
20;  decline.  409-510;  and  East- 
ern Empire,  4oH~io,  4*6;  and 
Empire,  45Ojfif.,  765;  and  Eng- 
hna,  s°#>  5°9»  powci;  of,  325, 
401*  406,  463,  501,  512,  527-8; 
reform  of.  432-3;  revenues  of, 
522-3;  and  Roman  population, 
503;  without  moral  power  in* 
fourteenth  century,  $oa,  504. 
J*f  a/to  pope 


'899 


Papal  States,  516,  519,  526 

Papini,  Giovanni,  856 

parabola,  230,  233,  234 

Paradise  Lost,  338 

Paraduo  (Dante),  230,  309 

Paraguay,  129 

parallelogram  law,  555 

Paris,  161,  183,  486,  489,  491,  569, 
605,  686,  713,  781 ;  Abllard  in, 
45^;  Aquinas  in,  484-5;  Roger 
Bacon  in,  486 ;  Descartes  in,  580, 
581 ;  Parlement  of,  716  «.;  Uni- 
versity of,  447,  474-5,  483,  489, 
505 

Parliament,  464,  539,  5&3.  663; 
conflict  between  king  and,  569, 
573,  577,  625-6,  627,  662;  and 
Hobbes,  569,  570,  573,  577;  and 
Locke,  628,  662-3.  See  also 
Commons ;  Long  Parliament ; 
Lords 

Parma,  414 

Parmenidcs,  67-71,  82,  87,  89,  112, 
256,  499,  786 ;  on  change,  67,  68, 
70-1,  88-9;  and  Hegel,  67,  758, 
769;  and  logic,  50,  67,  70,  6x8; 
and  meaning,  68-71 ;  monism  of, 
85,  135 ;  and  Plato,  67,  126,  141- 
3,  i?i.  174,  814;  and  other 
philosophers,  50,  71,  75,  7&,  81, 
82,  84,  87,  88,  90,  3«,  5945  and 
theory  of  ideas,  149-51 

Parmenides  (Plato),  112,  X49-5*» 
184,  258 

Parsifal  (Wagner),  788 

Parsons,  Robert,  643 

Parthenon,  78  » 

Parthians,  245  * 

particulars,  149,  15°,  l86>  "i,  424, 
478-9.  See  also  singulars;  uni- 
versals 

Pascal,  546,  718  ».,  794.  795 

Paschal  II,  Pope,  452 

paasion(s),  34,  3^,  39,  ««,  278, 
571-2,  595-7;  Ad  romanticism, 
703,  708 

Passover,  500 

Patahne  movement,  434.  453.  455 

patria  poles tast  301 

Patrutrcha  (FUmcr),  642-4      4 

Patrick,  St.,  386,  396,  406,  4*1 

Paul,  St.,  154*  160,  283,  323,  344. 
346,  361,  3**.  397,  410,  4".  43* 

* 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Paul,  St—  coitfcf. 
469,  793  ;  and  St.  Augustine,  371, 
381,  383,  385  ;  and  Dionysius  die 
Areopagite,  424,  426;  and  elec- 
tion. 381,  383*  384;  Epistle«  of, 
383  ;  and  Judaism,  337,  339 

Paula,  St.,  361 

Paulicians,  469 

Pausanias,  119 

P*via,  392,  437 

Pavlov,  I.  P.,  802 

Peace,  294-8 

Pearl  Harbor,  646 

peasants,  658,  660,  671,  755.  774 

Peasants*  Revolt,  508 

Peasants'  War,  765 

Peiice,  Charles  Sanders,  844,  852 

Peisistratus,  28,  79,  529 

IVIagianisfn,  372,  383-5.  4*i»  459, 
489.784 

Pelagius,  361.  422-3 

Pelagius  II,  Pope,  401 

Peloponnesian  War,  77,  79,  95.  '«>, 
103,  125 

Peloponnesus,  83,  114,  119 

Pdops,  House  of,  30 

Pentateuch,  34L44& 

Pepm,  4«*-«3.  5*8,  575 

perception,  02,  256,  497,  568,  634, 
681,  783.  81  1  ;  and  Bergson,  825, 
836,  837;  and  Berkeky,  673-6; 
and  Hume,  686jflT.,  604;  and 
Kant,  739-46;  and  Leibniz,  606, 
607,  619;  and  physics,  743-4. 
861*3;  and  Plato,  125,  147,  148, 
156,  171-81,  377.  5*8;  «nd 
Stoics,  281:  292 

Pericles,  77-8o,  81,  9$,  100,  160, 
*«7.  *87,  306,  797 

peritxci,  115,  11711. 

Peripatetics,  300 

Persephone,  35 

Persia,  31,  48.  7*.  77.  84,  1  18,  207. 
«45.  330,  33*.  4*2;  and  Alex- 
ander, 241,  &4*.  243.  *45.  302; 
and  Arabs,  442,  443.  444*  44«; 
and  Athens,  99,  119,  393;  cul- 

,  ture  of,  442,  443;  dualism  of  ,  and 
Christianity,  499,  500;  and  Mile- 
t»s,  46,  47;  and  Moham 


da 


440,  441,  444!  pnc*dy  cam  n. 
418,  499;  religions  of,  249,  304. 
44*;  rat  Rome,  304,  3'° 


Persian  wars,  32,  77,  78,  99-ico 

Peru,  22,  644 

pessimism,  252,  781,  783,  786-7 

Petelia  tablet,  36 

Peter,  St.,  344.  404.  4io,  4".  467 

Peter  III,  of  Aragon,  520 

Petition  of  Right,  569 

Petrarch,  504,  505,  516,  521 

Pfleiderer,  Edmund,  61 

P:3aedo  (Plato),  109,  112,  154-64, 
312,  462,  597 

Phaedrus  (Plato),  81 

Pharaohs,  242 

Pharisees,  338.  339,  340,  34 « 

Pheidias,  78,  81,  95*  1O°*  287 

phenomenon,  739 

Philhellencs,  305 

Philip  II,  of  Maccdon,  182,  241, 
242,  244,  206 

Philip  II,  of  Spain,  577 

Philip  IV  (the  Fair),  503 

Philippi,  297 

Philo  Judaeu«,  342,  346 

Philolaus  of  Thebes,  236 

philosopher^),  3«.  3».  34.  4O,  45. 
7».  «53.  «54,  208,  226,  377. 
378;  Aristotle  on,  203,  205;  and 
class  interests,  210;  and  indivi- 
dual circumstances,  284 ;  modern, 
and  deduction,  222;  modern, 
and  ethics,  201;  Plato  on,  i*y, 
I34>  n7 ff'.  142;  «nd  political 
and  social  developments,  620  ff. ; 
Pythagoras  on,  51,  139;  Socrates 
on,  107,  158,  162-3;  sympathy 
toward,  58;  and  time,  66 

philosopher's  stone,  62 

/hMtoopfof,  274.  629  666,  6X6,  716, 
792 

Philosophical  Radicals,  666,  703. 
746,  750~i,  753.  »oit  803,  807-8 

philosophy,  *ies:  and  Arabs,  306; 
and  Aristotle,  182,  222,  223;  in 
Athens,  78-9,  80,  too;  begun 
with  Thales,  at,  43;  classifica- 
tion of,  819-20;  consists  of  two 
pans,*  863;  ttamcmplatjve  ideal 
in,  53;  cosmopolitan  point  of 
view  mt  143;  and  dark  ages,  322; 
and  carry  Christianity,  329;  hun- 
ger and,  774;  invented  by 
Greeks,  21;  among  Jews  and 
Mohammedan,  in  Middle  Ages, 


900 


INDEX 


philospohy,  -ies— contd. 
344;  lacked  by  opposition  to 
Church  in  Middle  Ages,  323;  of 
logical  analysis,  857-64;  and 
Marx,  810-1  x ;  and  mathematics, 
48,  55,  S^;  mind  and  matter  in, 
156;  dpen*que*tions  in,  139;  and 
Plato,  98-9,  1x3;  of  power,  5x4; 
religious,  37, 47,  5&»  and  Renais- 
sance, 525;  and  seventeen<fi- 
century  science,  558^.;  and 
social  circumstances,  284 ;  stand- 
ard of  judgment  of,  308-9;  and 
substance,  71;  as  way  of  life, 
42,98 

Phocaea,  249 

Phocas,  Emperor,  405 

Phoenicians,  26,  27,  28,  243,  261, 

3<>3 

Photius,  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, 416 

physical  law,  684 

physicalist  interpretation,  681 

phystco-theological  argument,  608, 
611-12,  736 

physics,  630,  682,  714,  741-2;  and 
Aristotle,  226-9,  537;  causal 
laws  in.  695;  and  Descartes, 
584.  586,  590;  and  Greek  philo- 
sophers. 53,  66,  246,  276,  281, 

•  558;  and  Newton,  558-9;  and 
perception,  619,  743-4,  861 ;  and 
philosophy  of  logical  analysis, 
860-2;  in  seventeenth  century, 
580 ;  and  substance,  7 1 ,  687 ;  and 
modern  science,  90-1,  547,  561- 


Physic*  (Aristotle),  89,  226-30 

physiology,  695,  802,  86  1 

Piedmont,  470 

Pieiro  dells  Vigna,  4**,  4*7 

Pilate,  Pontius,  341 

Pillars  of  Hercules,  165 

Piltdown  Man,  753 

a,  454*  465,  5<>5 

nwfau,  753 


place,  aaa,  689,  694 

Plague,  570 

planets,  498,  561,  58$,  732  ;  ancient 
views  about,  152-3.  166,  130, 
23$-8,  55»;  and  Kepler,  234f 
55*,  557;  and  Tycho  Brahc,  55  « 

Plataea,  31,  118,  119 


Plato,  37,  104,  242,  258,  305,  537, 
715,  8x4,  820;  and  after-life, 
272;  and  ancient  philosophers, 
73,  78,  81,  83,  85,  86,  97,  253, 
267,  280,  282,  287;  and  Aquinas, 
474,  478,  484;  and  Arabs,  443, 
445 ;  and  Aristotle,  80, 93, 184-5, 
187,  x88,  192,  194,  195,  2X0-1  x, 
218,  241;  and  astronomy,  237, 
552 ;  and  Athens,  78,  80,  99 ;  and 
Boethius,  389,  390;  and  cave,  76, 
145,  147-8;  and  Christianity, 
I2i,  307-8,  323,  329.  346,  499; 
cosmogony  of,  165-70;  and  de- 
duction, 55-6,  222;  and  Des- 
cartes,  580,  590;  and  dialectic, 
x  12 ;  and  Doctors  of  the  Church, 
309,  370,  372,  376,  377,  378,  379, 
438;  dualism  of,  323,  590;  and 
Erasmus,  534,  537;  ethics  of, 
195;  and  existence,  860;  and 
Gnosticism,  315,  344,  7x7,  863; 
and  God,  55,  373, 478,  484,  608; 
and  Heraditus,  63-4,  74;  and 
immortality,  154-64,  194,  258, 
317,  350,  6xx,  863;  influence  of, 
141,  165, 171,  2x8,  24X,  307,  323, 
438-9,  499,  529;  and  justice, 
205 ;  and  Kepler,  551 ;  and  know- 
ledge, x  12, 171-81, 292, 320, 497, 
521 ,  547, 633 ;  knowledge  of,  439, 
474,  5<>9;  and  logic,  2x8,  6x8; 
and  love,  xxx,  122;  and  mathe- 
matics, 54-5,  153,  231,  232,  234, 
237,  313,  848,  857,  860;  and 
modern  philosophers,  141,  571, 
633.  762,  781,  7*9,  814;  and 
Orphism,  37,  184;  and  othor- 
worldltness,  3x7,  329;  and  Par- 
menides,  67,  141-2;  and  per- 
ception, 171-81,  256,  497,  568; 
and  Philo,  342;  and  pleasure, 
202;  and  Plotinus,  3x0-13,  3x7, 
593;  and  pohtics,  114^*25,  199, 
247,  253,  530?  576,  622;  and 
Pythagoras,  50,  56,  83,  141 ;  and 
religion,  34, 192 ;  and  Rome,  259, 
300 ;  and  scholastic  philosophers, 
424.  425,  438-9,  449,  456,  459, 
460, 461, 484, 488, 489, 4901496; 
and  science,  558;  and  Socrates, 

'        78,  82,  102-4,  HI,  112,  132,  1^4, 

I      258,  259,  484;  and  Sophists,  $6, 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Plato— COrtd. 

98-9;  and  soul,  195,  310,  346; 
sources  of  opinions  of,  125-8; 
and  Sparta,  114,  118,  120;  and 
Stoics,  275,  276,  280;  and  sub- 
jectivity, 320;  and  time,  229; 
vices  in  thought  of,  93, 98-9 ;  and 
virtue,  in,  199,  320,  596,  863; 
and  Wyclifle,  507.  See  also  theory 
of  ideas 

Piatonopolis,  311 

Pbutus,  362 

pleasure  and  pain,  33,  156-7,  202, 
287,  39p,  669,  749,  803-4,  829; 
and  Aristotle,  202-3;  and  Ben- 
tham,  802,  803-5 ;  and  Berkeley, 
675,  679;  *nd  Epicurus,  266-8; 
and  Locke,  638,  640-1,  669;  and 
utilitarians,  803-6 

plenum,  88,  89 

Pletho,  Gemistus,  521 

Pttny,  the  Elder,  537 

Ptotinus,  308-21,  344,  34*.  377, 
390,  424,  426,  438,  443,  762; 
originality  of,  451 ;  pagan  philo- 
sophy ends  with,  499  i  *nd  Plato, 

593 

pluralism,  85,  152,  618 

plurality,  734,  830,  858 

Plutarch,  114, 116, 120,  121-4,  238, 
260-1,  713,  721,  793 

plutocracy,  plutocrat,  52,  95*  644 

poets,  64-5,  72,  131,  136 

pogroms,  343,  387,  452 

Poland,  659 

politics,  108,  114,  125,  126-7,  138, 
247,  593.  62*  Jf.,  730,  818;  Arab. 
4*42;  and  Aristotle,  199.  200.  203, 
204,  207-17;  and  Bentham,  803, 
804,  805,  808;  and  Christianity, 
322, 348-9,  351-2.  353, 428, 430- 
i;  and  Darwin,  754,  808;  and 
Dcwey,  *47;  «d  ethic*.  109. 
200,  261,  20^  807,  863;  and 
Euclid,  55;  ana  evolution,  532; 
and  Greeks,  72*  99.  120-1,  247. 
252.  253,  299*  53o;  and  Locke, 
•629,  642-65;  and  Machiavetti, 
5*5-3*.  7«9;  «nd  MaisigBo  of 
Padua,  491*3;  «*•  M«r*.  810, 
*l 3,  *«5 ;  and  Middle  Ages,  419, 
463;  modern,  52,  326,  747,  817- 
'18;  and  NietBsche,  7*9,  796, 


903 


politics — contd. 

798;  and  Occam,  493-4;  and 
romanticism,  701*  707 »  and 
Rome,  273.  299,  530;  and  Rous- 
seau, 711,  721-7 

Polities  (Aristotle),  45,  119,  207-17 

Polo,  Marco,  704          '      ' 

Polybius,  282,  295.  299 

Polycrates,  48 

polygamy,  393,  443 

polytheism,  22,  249 

poor,  199,  248,  349,  357.  655,  701- 
2,  774.  793 

Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  469,  471 

Pope,  Alexander.  280,  390,  560, 
702,  780 

popc(»),  323.  3^8,  303.  394,  39^, 
501  #,  S38',  ««<*  emperor,  ,323, 
382,  412-13.  428,  432-6,  450, 
464  jff.,  491  ff. ;  and  philosophers, 

461,  482,  486,  491.  492,  493*  536, 
548,  576;  power  of,  349-50.  493. 
522,  $32,  544, 643 ;  and  Reforma- 
tion, 544,  545 ;  and  Renaissance, 
518-19.  523;  and  Roman  popu- 
lation, 429.  437.  S**al*u  papacy 

;  Pope  Joan,  418 

\  population,   theory-   of,    751,    753. 

!     808 

i  Porphyry,  221.  222,  310,  320,  37S. 

4*8,  495.  499  • 

i  Portugal,  388,  463,  592 
I  Porree,  Gilbert  de  la.  460 
;  Poaidonius,  239,  281-2,  300.  320    0 
)  Posterior  Analytic*  (Aristotle),  223. 

462,  476 

;  pm-crty,  92  «.,  208,  397,  469-70. 

471.  4*2,491.765,785 

power,  216,  348,  529.  603.  6oK, 
643,  644.  746,  755A  854;  and 
Kpicurus,  267;  and  ethics.  137, 
661-2;  and  Locke,  639,  654; 
love  of,  no,  157,  153,  775;  and 
Machiavelli,  531 ;  and  modem 
Stato,  514.  5«6,  577-8.  754.  855; 
and  Niettache,  794*.  tnd  philo- 
•ophy,  253, 514, 855-6;  in  Plato's 
Utopia.  135;  political,  520,  522. 
653-4.  664,  818;  social  514. 
855-6;  and  Socmtea,  103;  and 

*  Thnuymschu*,  09 

Amr  (Ruaaeli).  813 

practical  philosophies,  819 


INDEX 


pragmatism,   173.  820,  839,  842; 
3,  844  jfr. 
(Bntmut), 


,        . 

and  truth,  52,  97,  573,  844  jfr. 
The 


Praise   of  Folly, 

535-6 
predestination,  382,  423,  482,  545, 

546 

predicates,  211,  733 
premises,  21  ft.,  It  19,  292 
Presbyterians,  493,  625,  626 
pre-Socratics,  2iff.t  64,  92,   126, 

165,  788 

pressure  groups.  352 
pride,  560,  777.  856 
Pride's  Purge,  626 
priest(s),  priesthood,  41,  483.  499, 

500,  507,  508,  545-  See  also  clergy 
Priestley,  Joseph,  802 
primary  qualities,  629-30, 676, 677, 

680,  739 
Primitive  Culture  in  Greece  (Rose), 

3011. 

primogeniture,  646 
Prince,  The  (Machiavelli),  526-30, 

789 

Prtndpia  (Newton),  55,  558,  585 
Principia  Mathematica  (Whitehead 

and  Russell),  859 
principle  of  individuation,  489-90, 

783 
Principle*    of    Human    Knowledge, 

The  (Berkeley).  674 
/Vi«*r    Analytic*,    The    (Aristotle), 

122,  462 

private  interests,  638,  803 
jfnvate  judgment,  493 
probability,  a6i,  689,  696,  699,  843 
process,  65,  66,  848 
Prtxlus,  232,  439 
progress,  22,  57,  64,  309,  418,  428, 

57a,  754,  816 
projectiles,  554 
Probfomtna  to  the  Study  of  Greek 

Religion  (Harrison),  32  w.,  40 
proletariat,  285,  383,  702,  709,  754. 

774,  817 

Prometheus,  39,  *55»  338 
propaganda,    137,    138,   139,  *i7» 

350.  53L  755 
property,  34,  51, 135, 196, 21 1,  507, 

511,  621,  803,  809;  and  Hobbea, 

573,  575;  and  Locke,  639,  651, 

654,  656  j(f.,  664,  724;  and  Plato, 

>3*»  *33 ;  and  Rousseau,  714, 7*4 

I 


Prophet,  306,  440,  441,  443.  See 
also  Mohammed 

prophets,  330-3,  342,  345,  348,  350 

proportion,  233,  234,  689 

Protagoras,  84,  94-101,  139,  246, 
320,  374;  on  knowledge  and  per- 
ception, 171,  172,  173,  256;  on 
roan,  173, 179-80;  and  subjectiv- 
ism, 256 

Protagoras  (Plato),  78,  97 

protestants,  -ism,  352,  520,  538, 
545,  582,  645,  728,  757,  839-40; 
and  St.  Augustine,  354, 364, 382; 
and  Erasmus,  533,  538;  in  Ger- 
many, 747-8, 765 ;  and  God,  608, 
717;  and  individualism,  545, 
622;  and  interest,  210;  and 
liberalism,  620;  and  private 
judgment,  493;  and  prudence, 
638;  and  right  of  subjects  to 
resist,  642;  and  romanticism, 
705;  and  Rousseau,  712,  716, 
717;  and  science,  551,  556;  and 
soul,  366;  and  State,  582,  766, 
769;  and  Vulgate,  535;  and 
Wyclifle,  509 

protons,  66 

protozoa,  557 

Provence,  4 1 7,  448 

prudence,  33,  267,  271,  638,  640, 
703.806 

Prussia,  301,  613,  658,  727,  747~8, 
757.  762,  765,  766,  781 

pseudo-Dionysius,  424,  426,  427, 

439,489 

psychology,  71,  570,  593,  595,  658, 
706-7,  86 1 ;  and  Bentham,  8oa, 
805;  and  causality,  692-3,  695; 
and  Hume,  687,  692-3;  and 
James,  839;  and  substance,  71, 
687 

Ptolemaic  astronomy,  218,  239,  550 
Ptolemies,  246,  333,  708 
Ptolemy  I  (Soter),  292     » 
Ptolemy  II  (Philaflblphus),  380 
!  Ptolemy,  geographer,  239, 537, 55*, 

!    571 

1  public  good,  655,  656 
public  interests,  638,  802,  805 
Punic  Wars,  272, 294,  *99,  3°ir4i9 


Pure  Being,  760,  762 
purgatory,  429,  5",  535,  545 


903 


Puritans,  -ism,  141,  359".,  455* 

504,  5*8,  577,  648 
purpose,  74,  7*.  86,  92,  170,  559; 

snd  Aristotle,  93,  205,  208,  228 
pyramids,  22, 161,  214,  231 
Pynho,  256-7 
Pythagoras,  47,  48-5*,  67,  7*.  75, 

76,82,  313,  390;  and 


,  552;  and  Heraclitus,  58,  59, 
60;  influence  of,  56,  499;  and 
mathematics,  67,  232,  848,  857, 
860;  and  mysticism,  37,  59;  and 
Nietzsche,  788;  and  Plato,  126, 
139.  Hi,  148;  and  soul,  163, 192. 
See  also  Neo-Pythagoreanism; 
Pythagoreans) 

Pythagoreans,  -ism,  49-50,  59,  83, 
153,  165,  169,  857;  and  astron- 
omy, 153,  236,  237,  548,  55i; 
and  mathematics,  158,  169,  232; 
and  Plato,  226,  165,  166,  181; 
and  Ptotinus,  311;  and  politics, 
247,  253;  and  soul,  223 

Pythocles,  267 


WESTERN   PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 

,  35, 39, 5i,  62,  in,  159     reason,  33,  56,  65,  289,  313,  337, 

571,  718  fi.,  815;  and  Aquinas, 
476, 482, 484 ;  «nd  Aristotle,  194, 
195,  203;  and  Averroes,  447, 
474*5;  *nd  Bentham,  804;  and 
Catholic  philosophy,  3*4,  348, 
4«3. 437, 438, 456, 459, 46i,  564; 
and  Hegel,  761,  763,  767.  832; 
and  Kant,  732,  736;  and  Locke, 
4631*  636,  649;  and  Plato,  145, 
155.  '65;  and  revolt,  75«»  818; 
and  Rousseau,  720,  729;  suffi- 
cient, law  of,  615 

recurrence,  278 

reflection,  174,  310 

reform,  533,  670,  780;  ecclesi- 
astical, 409,  428-39,  45*,  464 

Reformation,  325,  413,  420,  531, 
544-6;  and  St.  Augustine;  354, 
366,  382;  economic  changes  in, 
210;  and  Erasmus,  536,  538; 
foreshadowed,  455,  468,  470, 
49*-3>  508-9;  and  Germany, 
747,  764-5 ;  and  politic*.  577, 
643 ;  as  reaction  to  corruption  in 
Church,  522,  532;  and  Renais- 
sance, 513.  520,  533,  855;  and 
State,  354,  382,  766 

refugees,  31.  44,  72,  325.  422,  569 

refutations,  71,  226 

regular  solids,  169,  170,  234.  55« 

Reichstag  fire,  526 

Reign  of  Terror,  731,  738 

relation-words,  186 

relational  propositions,  172  • 

relativity.  See  motion;  theory  of 
relativity 

religion(s),  23,  33,  56,  64,  138,  316, 
342,  499*  536,  7<>7;  «nd  ancient 
philosophy,  40,  61,  67,  75.  83, 
92,  98,  269,  271-3.  275;  *nd 
Aquinas,  474;  and  Aristotle,  184, 
192,  206;  of  the  East,  41,  311; 
and  Francis  Bacon,  564;  in 
Greek  world,  24-5,  29,  32-3. 4O- 
2, 47, 80,  241,  250,  275  i  of  India, 
241 ;  in  Ionia,  47,  67;  of  Jews, 
328-43 ;  and  John  the  Scot,  423 ; 
and  Machiavelli,  527 ;  and  medi- 
eval philosophy,  439;  Moham- 
medan, 441 ;  and  Nietzsche,  788, 
790;  non-Hellenic,  in  Western 
Empire,  302-3,  35°;  and  Plato, 


Quakers,  382,  602 
quality,  222,  689,  734.  772-3 
quantity,  47,  222,  734 
quantum  theory,  90,  173  it., 
630,  695,  861 


561, 


.709 

Radcliffe,  Mrs.,  705 

Radicalism,  801 

radio-activity,  66 

rainbow,  486,593 

Ranke,  Leopold  von,  517 

rationalism,  569, 571 , 698, 746, 75 « , 
758,  8 jo,  819;  in  Greek  world, 
33.  39*  40,  4^,  50,  55,  S^,  59.  83, 
84,  247;  and  science,  61,  729 

Ravenna,  393,  402,  403,  409,  4«o 

Raymond,  Abp.  of  Toledo,  461 

Raymond  VI,  tfount  of  Toulouse, 
464 

realism,  185,  424,  459,  489,  504* 

.  819,  825 

wdiry,  87, 158, 734,  836,  844,  M; 
ami  Hegel,  758-9,  761,  769-70, 
851;  and  Plato,  126,  141,  147, 
148,  156,  i«8,  188;  and  Phtonk 

•  theory  of  ideas,  143,  «5O,  15* 


904* 


INDEX 


religion(s) — contd. 

125,  192, 195;  and  Plotinus,  311, 
499;  primitive,  29;  and  Py- 
thagoras, 49-50,  53,  56;  and 
Socrates,  107-11,  157,  313;  wars 
of,  544,  545.  621,  702 

Religion*  and  the  Rise  of  Capitalism 
(Tawney),  20^),  647  n. 

religious  toleration,  441,  542,  545, 
620,  630 

reminiscence,  112,  125,  161,  102, 
163.  See  also  memory 

Remus,  351 

Renaissance,  121,  217,  218,  262, 
307,  410-20,  448,  513,  516,  747; 
and  Catholic  philosophy,  322, 
348;  and  Church,  411,  516,  533; 
disrupts  medieval  synthesis,  325 ; 
aifd  geometry,  235 ;  and  Greeks, 
57;  happiness  of,  285,  326;  and 
human  pride,  855;  and  Lucre- 
tius, 271,  273;  and  Nietzsche, 
789;  in  north,  533 ,/f.;  and 
philosophy,  93,  49$;  and  Plato, 
320,  439,  474;  «nd  politics,  525 ; 
and  science,  87,  537 

Renaissance  in  Italy  (Burckhardt), 
522  «.,  523  ii. 

Republic  (Plato),  99,  120,  125,  120- 

53.  165,  »95.  272,  311,  539.  622; 

influence    of,    141;    parable    of 

*cave  in,   145,   147-8;  theory  of 

ideas  in,  141  ff. 

republicanism,  republics,  526,  529, 

*    531.738,750 

Restoration :  English,  570,  577, 626, 
631,  654;  French,  664,  705 

resurrection,  332,  339,  347,  35°, 
376,  3«t,  401,  469,  482,  483 

retaliation,  650,  651,  652 

revelation,  41,  5».  4*3,  447,  44**, 
47S»  5*4*  631,  719;  and  Aquinas, 
476,  48*.  4«4*  485 

Revelation  of  St.  John,  382 

wvenge,  324,  329 

revival  of  learning,  307,  397 

revolt,  740,  774.  819 

revolution(s),  213-14,  383,  658, 
848;  of  1688,  628.  642,  663;  of 
1848.782,811 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  273  i 

Rhetras,  423,  457 

Rhine,  294 

•905 


Rhode  Island,  674 
Rjcardo,  David,  660,  661,  667,  808 
Richard  I  of  England,  455 
Richard  II  of  England,  508,  509 
Richard,   King  of  the  Visigoths, 

404,405 

Richelieu,  cardinal,  577 
Rienzi,  Cola  di,  504-5 
rights,  55,  530,  573,  575,  57$,  651, 

652,  657,  721-2;  of  man,  648, 

653.  7«,  731,  738,  750.  803 
Rimmon,  576 

roads,  443 

Robespierre,  718,  727,  75<> 
Roderic,  Count  of  Maine,  413 
Roland,  Madame,  703 
Roman  conquests,  245,  272 
Roman  Empire,  281,  291,  308,  341, 
412,  442,  500,  574,  766 ;  ends  an- 
archy, 514-15;  and  Christianity, 
80,  241,  324,  328,  346,  500;  and 
culture,  294-307,  389;  tall  of, 
363,  705;  and  Greek  world,  241, 
299-307;  memory  of,  in  Middle 
Ages,  451,452,  4^7 
Roman  law,   389,  393,  406,  450, 

452,  466 
Roman   republic,   270,   273,  450, 

529,  849 

Roman  roads,  443 

Roman  tradition,  and  Church,  322, 
395,  409,  4*> 

Romans,  Epistle  to  the,  384,  489 

romantic  movement,  romanticism, 
514,  670,  701-10,  745.  782,  804, 
810;  in  Germany,  121,  730,  752; 
and  industrialism,  754-5;  and 
Man,  810,  811;  and  Nietzsche, 
788,  789;  and  revolt,  703.  746, 
751-2;  and  Rousseau,  623,  711 

Rome,  240,  285,  310,  360-1,  369, 
396-8,  414, 457,  547  *,  »nd  Africa, 
440;  and  St.  Ambrose,  355,  356; 
and  Arnold  of  Brescia*  45  3;  and 
Attila,  388;  Macked  by  Bar- 
barossa,  452 ;  bishop  of,  402;  and 
Byzantines,  394.  4°9',  Carneades 
in,  259,  260,  261 ;  and  Charle- 
magne, 411;  and  Christianity, 
298, 321 ;  civilization  of,  285,;  un- 
der Cola  di  Rienzi,  504;  and 
culture,  217,  406;  and  Donation 
of  Constantine,  411-12;  East 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


Rome — contd. 

and,  301-4,  417-18;  economic 
system  of ,  285 ;  Emperor  marches 
on,  504;  and  Euclid,  234;  fall  of, 
246, 419, 4.63 ;  German  emperors 
crowned  in,  412;  and  Great 
Schism,  505;  and  Gregory  the 
Great,  401-2 ;  Henry  IV  in,  437 ; 
and  Greece,  26,  301-4,  763 ;  and 
Hellenic  world,  240;  influence 
of,  120,  747;  and  Irish  culture, 
422;  and  Jews,  335.  34*;  «nd 
Jubilee,  502;  in  Justinian's  wars, 
393-4;  and  Lampsacus,  249;  and 
Lombards,  409,  450;  manners 
in,  259;  and  Milan,  434;  and 
Monasticism,  396,  430;  and 
papacy,  408,  409.  4i7»  429* 
432  ff.,  45»jflr-  5«>i-2,  522;  and 
politics,  248,  253,  529,  576-7;  in 
Renaissance,  522,  529-30;  ruled 
by  Counts  of  Tusculum,  432; 
•acked,  326,  354,  358,  363, 
375-6,  387,  437,  520.  526; 
and  Saracens,  415;  in  seventh 
century,  409;  State  religion  of, 
284,  298;  and  Stoicism,  253,  275, 
281,  282-93;  in  tenth  century, 
417-18;  and  Venice,  517.  See 
QUO  Roman  Empire  \  Roman 
republic 

Romuald,  St.,  432,  434 

Romulus,  351,  525 

Rooaeveh,  F.  D.,  711.  846 

Roacelin,  437,  439,  457,  459,  461 

Rose,  H,  J.,  30,  32  it. 

Rosen,  Edward.  548  n. 

RcftovstefT,  M«,  28  ».,  43  ».,  285-6, 
296,  298  «.,  304,  352 

Rotrud,  daughter  of  Charlemagne, 

413 

Rotterdam,  533 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  255.  536, 
666,  701,  711-^7.  748,  764.  779-  J 
80,  8 1 8,  842;  *.d  St.  Augustine, 
364;  and  Condorcet,  748,  749; 
and  excitement,  703 ;  and  French 
Revolution,  748;  and  God,  608, 
'717-18;  and  Hume,  686,  69*-?, 
6, 717 ;  and  individualism*  623 ; 
atiam  of,  698;  and  Kant,  j 


73i.  738-9;  and  liberalism,  667; 
»and    MachiaveUt,    531*.,   725; 


Rousseau — -cantd. 
and  Nazism  and  Fascism,  818; 
and  Nietzsche,  789,  791;  and 
noble  savage,  714;  and  politics, 
71 1, 721  ff. ;  and  religion,  7i6jjf. ; 
and  revolutionaries,  629,  726; 
and  romanticism,  70*,  703,  704, 
711;  and  sensibility,  702,  710, 
712;  and  social  contract,  573, 
^16,  721  #;  and  Sparta,  114, 
713,  721;  and  State,  7*1.  7*3. 
724,  725.  726,  766;  and  sub- 
jectivism, 514;  and  will,  787 

Rudolf,  Duke  of  Swabia,  436-7 

Rudolf  II,  Emperor  551 

Rufinus,  Tyrannius,  361 

Rumania,  659 

Russell,  Demand,  211,  491*  &oi  «., 
813.  854-5.  859 

Russia,  183,  403,  577,  646,  659, 
671,  672,  73 i.  746,  848;  educa- 
tion in,  755;  Marxism  in,  817; 
military  strength  of,  419;  new 
society  in,  532;  rationalist  revolt 
in,  75 1 ;  Rousseau  and  dictator- 
ship in,  727;  State  in,  in  1917, 
578.  See  alto  South  Ku*»ia; 
Soviet  Russia;  U.S.S.R. 

Russian  anarchists,  751 

Russian  Revolution,  659,  671 

Rutbcus,  Quintus  Junius,  iHS 

Rutilianus,  303  * 

Sabbath,  139.  33*.  337 

Stbellum  heresy,  353  • 

Sabellius,  353 

Sacrament**),  37.  4»,  4*9.  4,1 5 -  4**2, 

483 

Sacred  Book,  351,  500 
sacrifice,  29,  32,  272,  332,  x>* 
Sadductcs,  335,  338 
aaim(*),  50,  in,  137, 164.  n>7,  276, 

378,  382,  396,  531,  794.  7V* 
St.  Denis,  424,  45« 
St.  Gildas,  458 

Saint-Lambert,  Marquis  tic,  718 
SL  Sophia,  393 
SsJanus,  31,  too 
Sallust,  363 

salvmtiofi,  36,  37.  253,  262,  333, 
•   546,    600,    799.    820;    and    St. 

Augustine.  370,  382,  384,  385; 

and  Christianity,  328,  366;  and 


906 


INDEX 


salvation — contd. 

St.   Paul,   346;  and   Rousseau, 

714,  719 
Salzburg,  414 
Samarcand,  241 
Samaria,  335 
Samos,  48-9^245.  264 
Samuel,  323,  359  n.,  450,  461 
Santa  Claus,  845 
Santayana,  George,  226,  839,  840, 

855  f 

Saracens,  394.  4X5.  417,  419.  4*8 
Sardes,  48 
Sardinia,  402-3 
Sargon  1,  250 
Sarmatians,  363 
Sarpi,  Paolo,  5x7 
Saun,  157,  378,  380,  385,  395.  4<x>, 

49 J,  500,  786;  and  Ahriman,  499 
Satanism.  775.  777,  779 
Satyric  drama,  no 
Saul,  323,  450 

savage(s),  33.  »33.  7U,  7*5.  72O 
Savonarola,    Girolamo,   509,    518, 

5*3.  5^5 

Savoy,  711 

Saxons,  401,  412,  421,  436 

Scandinavia,  470,  545 

Scandinavian  invasions,  421,  428 

acrpucmm,  97,  246,  593,  732,  760, 

K*5.  846;  »n  Greece  and  Home, 

*77,  93.  9*.  241,  252-3,  256-62, 

206,  299,  342;  and  Hume,  689, 

M»,  697,  699 

Shelling,   Phedrich  Wilhclm  Jo- 
seph von,  73<>»  745 

Schiller,  P.  C.,  97,  173  n,,  820,  844 

schiism,  550.  Stf  alto  Great  Schism 

Schlcgel,  Friedhch,  782 

Schmeidkr,  458 

ftcholastictsm,  564,  566,  605;  and 
Arabs.  307,  447-8;  and  Aristotle, 
187,  210,  219,  235,  439",  and 
Church,  326-7,  813;  and  Des- 
cartes, 580,  589,  591,  690;  and 
Krnsmus,  533,  534,  536;  and  free 
will,  235 ;  and  God,  608;  growth 
of,  428,  439.  447. 45<>~«.  45°-*a; 
and  Hildcbnind,  327 ;  and  labour 
theory  of  value,  660;  and  Locke, 
628,  633,  648;  and  logic,  219.*, 
513;  at  Oxford,  507,  568;  and  j 
Ptatoftism,  438;  and  realism,  i 


scholasticism  —  contd. 
424;  and  Renaissance,  322,  516, 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  699,  746, 


science,  41,  53,  62,  79,  137,  139, 
547,  690,  704,  854,  862;  in 
Alexandria,  80,  246;  and  Aris- 
totle, 86,  93,  182,  225,  226,  227; 
and  St  Augustine,  368;  and 
Babylonia,  23-4;  and  Francis 
Bacon,  563,  564,  565,  566;  and 
Roger  Bacon,  486,  488;  and 
Bergson,  826,  831;  and  causa- 
tion, 689;  and  civilization,  34, 
419-20;  and  Descartes,  580,  581, 
583,  59o;  and  Dewey,  844,  854- 
5;  and  economics,  160,  752;  and 
empiricism,  na,  567,  729,  857, 
862;  and  Epicurus,,  270;  and 
ethics,  204,  807;  and  flux,  64, 
65-6;  and  geometry,  55,  57-8; 
and  Greeks.  21,  29,  31,  41,  43, 
5  1  ,  58,  241  ,  243,  320  ;  and  Hume, 
689,  696;  and  induction,  699; 
and  instruments,  557  ;  and  James, 
839;  and  Kant,  731,  73*.  748; 
and  knowledge,  87,  862;  and 
liberalism,  621,  817;  and  Machi- 
avelli,  525,  531;  and  Marx,  810, 
811,  816,  818;  and  mind  and 
matter,  156;  modern,  85,  512, 
513;  in  nineteenth  century,  746, 
752;  and  Occam,  495,  497;  and 
optimism,  787;  and  philosophy, 
512-13,  749,  815,  862;  and 
Plato,  79,  136,  if  8;  and  pre- 
Socratics.43.44-7,  61,  7^-4.  7§, 
81,  83,  84#,  92;  and  purpose, 
86,  92;  and  Pythagoreanism,  51, 
72;  and  Renaissance,  87,  516, 
537;  and  Rousseau,  714;  and 
scepticism,  257,  259;  and  schol- 
asticism, 456;  of  seventeenth 
century,  512,  $57,  547-6*,  746, 
752;  and  Socrates,  105,  in,  158, 
164;  and  Spinoza,  593,  601  ;  and 
Stoics,  281,  282,  292;  and 
technique,  217,  5*4,  754*,  arid 
truth,  623,  696,  864.  See.  also 
empiricism 

Scipio  ("the  Elder"),  376 
Scipio  ("the  Younger"),  281,  2091 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 


53  T 

Scotland,    406,    489,    505,    645; 

Chinch  of,  645 
Scott,  Michael,  447 
script,  25, 27.  Set  also  writing 
Scriptures,  341-2,  348,  372,  380, 

385..458, 482,  487,  49*,  S°°.  550 

Sebastian,  St.,  o33 

Second  Coining,  383,  8x8 
secondary  qualities,  629-30,  676, 

68o,739 

security,  530,  803 
Seeliger,  Dr.  Gerhard,  413 
Seleucia,  245 

Seleucids,  244*  249*  281,  333 
Seleucus,  Greek  astronomer,  238, 

MS 

Seleucus  I  (Nkator),  244.  245 
self,  3*1.  688,  708,  729;  -assertion, 
77$ ;  •consciousness,  761 ;  -devel- 
opment. 707;  -government,  208; 
-interest,  637-8,  672,  707.  7*4; 
•murder,  51;  •realization,  710; 
•torture,  785 

Semele,  35 

semi-Pelagian  heresy,  384 

Semites,  22 

Senate  (Rome),  260,  295-7,  303, 

35».  3j9.4H,  5*9 
Seneca,  Lucius  Annaeus,  250,  275, 

277.  *79,  »82,  368,  300,  487 
Sens,  45^ 
sensation,  169,  634,  636,  676.  734. 

740,  812 
•ense(s),  53.  50.  67,  256,  310,  675, 

728;  -perception,   88,   92.    145. 

162, 760;  aqd  Plato.  93,  126,  142, 
,145,   146,   156,    172,    174.   t76; 

and    Socrates,    157.    162;    and 

Stoics,  276,  202 
sensibility,  701,  710,  712 
sensible  world,  126,  300,  314-16, 

3*9.  378 

Septuagtnt,  341-**,  360,  3^0 
serfdom,  22,  27,  1 14,  298, 658, 672, 

747 

Setgius  II.  Pope,  418 
Sfertnon  on  the  Mount,  154.  339 
serpent,  344 
•ma,  c$6 

Seven  Wise  Men  of  Gnsecr,  44 
8ran  Years'  War,  731 


Seville,  402,  446 

•«,  73.  9*.  *68,  345.  35 ».  379,  4*6, 
469,481 

Sextos  Empiricus,  238,  262,  288 

Sforza,  516-17 

Shaftesbury,  ist  Earl  of,  628 

Shahnama  (Fiidousi),«444* 

Shakespeare,  50*.;  64-5.  196,  537, 
544.  55*.  749.  795.  838 

Shanghai,  243,  456 

Shaw,  George  Bernard,  819 

Shelley,  Mary  WoUstonecraft,  70$ 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  91.  *5*.  *7L 
667,  705.  776,  838 

Sheol.338.339 

Shendan,  R.  B.,  705 

Shiah,  442 

Shinto  ideology ,  419 

ship-money,  662 

Slam,  632 

Sibyl,  6 1 

Sicilian  Vespers,  520 

Sicily:  and  Emperor  Frederick  II, 
463,  465,  466;  and  Greeks,  26, 
27,  41.  49  «•.  67,  7*.  74*  77.  «oo, 
139;  and  Lombard  League,  454; 
and  Mohammedan*.  307,  440; 
and  Naples,  520;  and  Normans, 
326,  417, 419, 4*8.  463.  464;  and 
papacy,  463;  and  Saracens.  41$, 
4*9.  4*8 

Sidney,  Algernon,  749 

Sidon,  243 

Siegfried,  788 

Sigwart,  74* 

Stlenu*,  110 

atlver,  132,  tjj 

Simeon  Stylitcs,  St.,  396 

Simon  de  Mention,  464 

simony.  401.  4<H,  43O-I,  43*.  433. 
434 

simple  life,  255 

««»,  339.  3*5-6.  375.  39».  4**.  560. 
5&4*  613;  and  St.  Augustine, 
364-7.  369.  J7»,  3«4J  «nd 
Gfteks.  39.  5°.  75"*.  3*6,  319; 
and  Jews,  338,  339,  365-6;  «** 
John  the  Scot,  4*5-6;  of  priests, 
4*3;  and  Sptnuta.  504-  ^«  ***> 
onginal  sin 

Smgaoonj,  143 

stngukrt,  478-9 

Sinopc,  254 


908 


INDEX 


slave  morality,  792 

alavery,  34,  43.  5«,  9»  w«,  130,  248, 
254,  260,  334,  405,  443;  and 
Aristotle  196,  197,  205,  208-9, 
211,  214,  215;  slid  Epictetus, 
286  287;  in  0x^606,27,94,217; 
in  Rome,«85,  293,  295,  302 

Slavs.  403,  811* 

Smith,  Sydney,  211 

Smollett,  Tobias  George,  704 

Smuts,  J.  C.,  771  * 

social  behaviour,  707,  709-10 

social  causation,  813 

social  circumstances,  social  en- 
vironment, 284,  322,  621,  815- 
16,  854-5 

social  cohesion,  247 

social  contract,  267,  572,  648,  650, 
6&#.  664 

Social  Contract,  Th*  (Rousseau), 
716,  721-7 

Social  Democratic  Party,  817 

social  organiiation(s)v  524,  769 

social  power,  514,  855 

social  revolution,  811 

social  science,  805 

•ocial  sy*tem(s).  27-8,  52,  200,  442, 
5*4»  543.  814 

socialism,  511,  658,  661,  709,  754, 
808,  810;  in  England,  508,  751, 

,  801,  807,  808-9.  817;  and  Man, 
383,  810,  8t6;  and  Nietzsche, 

791,703,  794 

society,  252.  253.  709-10,  848 

Socrates,  78,  81,  99.  too,  102-13, 
144,  too,  161,  171-2.  247,  ao6; 
and  Aristophanes,  77,  too;  and 
Boethius.  390;  character  of,  109- 
"•  »54jflr-t  5*»i  and  ethics,  93. 
127,  596;  and  Greek  philoso- 
pher*. 67,  82,  83,  86,  93.  12$. 
126,  253, 176;  and  justice,  137-$; 
and  knowledge,  i$?~8,  17*  i  and 
mathematics,  232;  and  Nietz- 
sche. 789;  prosecution  and  death 
of.  Hi,  &*,  99,  tot,  102,  104-9. 
«54»  I  55-6,  1*4,  *«6,  *77,  597; 
and  soul,  no.  156,  157.  158* 
I59jf.,  »7*;  and  subjectivity, 
3*o»  37$;  and  theory  of  ideas, 
149  • 

Soiasons,  4SB 

aokr  system,  666,  731 


solipsism,  682,  729,  744 

solitude,  707-8 

Solomon,  329,  337 

Solon,  78,  79,  139,  5*9,  53* 

Song  of  Solomon,  361 

Sophia,  344 

Sophist,  Tte  (Plato),  74,  96 

Sophistici  EUnchi  (Aristotle),  462 

Sophists,  78,  84,  88,  93,  94,  96,  98, 
99,  xoo,  102,  105,  137,  256 

Sophocles,  38,  77,  100 

Soracte,  4x1 

Sorbonne,  716  n.,  748 

Sorel,  Georges,  8x9 

soul,  22,  347,  480,  488,  497,  594, 
606,  607,  688,  840;  and  Aristotle, 
188,  192  ff.,  195,  3X7,  480,  585, 
590 ;  and  St.  Augustine,  366, 370, 
379,  381,  3^4 ;  and  Averroes,  447, 
475;  and  body,  22,  41,  5«t  *56, 
192-4;  and  Cartesians,  583,  587, 
590;  in  Christian  theology,  365- 
6;  and  Epicurus,  269-70;  and 
Greeks,  35,  37, 41, 46, 61,  86, 91, 
92;  and  Plato,  146,  156,  159^-. 
165,  166,  169-70,  276;  and 
Pkmnus,  312-19;  and  Pythag- 
oras, 50,  51,  163;  and  Reforma- 
tion, 545;  and  Socrates,  109, 
156,  157,  160-3;  and  Stoics,  276, 
280-1.  See  also  immortality; 
resurrection ;  transmigration 

sounds,  174*  178,  675,  679 

South  America,  560,  765 

South  Russia,  342 

South  Sea  Islands,  657 

Southern  France,  4^> 

Southern  Italy,  326,  415,  4*7,  4.13, 
440 ;  Greeks  in,  26, 27. 41, 47, 49, 
50,  59,  67,  73,  77,  139 

Southey,  Robert,  705 

sovereignty,  573-4 

Soviet  Russia,  659,  746,  848 

•pace,  55,  »5,  80-90,  151*  49O,  680, 
694,  75**,  78>;  and  Bergson, 
822  ff.t  828 #,  837;  and  Kant, 
734,  735,  739-44,  7»3J  .and 
Leibniz,  oo,  607;  modern  views 
on,  90-1,  7435  and  Newton,  40, 
91, 561, 743 ;  and  Plato,  168, 170; 
and  quantum  theory,  86x;  and 
time  and  principle  of  individu- 
stion,  489^00 


909 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


•pace-time,  178,  562 
Spain,  48,  49,  139.  281,  294,  320, 
401,  460,  592,  626,  647;  Arians 
in,  354;  under  Charles  V,  577, 
746;  conquests  of,  in  America, 
22,  644;  and  Counter-Reforma- 
tion, 544,  546;  feared,  621;  and 
Inquisition,  470;  and  Italy,  513, 
5«7,  519.  Sao,  528;  and  Jews, 
343,  44&-9.  4?o;  missionaries  of, 
388;  and  Mohammedans,  299, 
3<>6,  307,  3^6,  419.  440, 442, 443, 
446,  448;  and  papacy,  518;  mon- 
archy in,  325,  413;  and  Rome, 
305 

Sparta,  27,  28,  31,  77,  99,  *95.  79* ; 
and  Athens,  31  n.,  79,  99,  ico, 
101,  103;  influence  of,  114-24; 
and  Machiavelli,  529,  532;  and 
Plato,  124,  125,  136,  139;  and 
Rousseau,  714,  721 

Spengler,  Oswald,  762 

spermatozoa,  557 

Sphaerus,  292 

Spinoza,  56,  310,  465,  592-603. 
604,  783,  794,  8i4,  857;  «nd 
Descartes,  583,  593.  594*.  «nd 
ethics,  592,  593  #.  669;  «nd 
God,  144,  191,  4«5  *••  59*.  594, 
595  ff->  6*9;  *nd  Hegel,  514, 
758,  762,  769;  «n  Holland,  580, 
592;  influence  of,  667;  and 
Leibniz,  592,  604,  605,  606,  607, 
616;  and  logic,  594.  599.  600- 1, 
618;  and  Maimomdes,  343.  449 ; 
pantheism  oft  373,  594;  and 
State,  593,  ^66;  and  subjectiv* 
*sm,  513;  and  substance,  594, 
600*1,  606,  614 

spirit,  312,  313,  323,  345.  348;  «nd 
Hegel,  761,  762,  763.  7<»4,  767, 
812 

Spirituals,  471,  49i 

Spoleto,  307 

Stagyra,  182       * 

Stalm,  667,  84* 

«wi,  45.  *J,  *35.  3179,  3«6,  34®, 
3*9,  S4&;  *nd  Aristarchua,  238; 
'and  Aristotle,  230;  and  Hotinus, 
3'4,  319 

States),  «2, 302, 51 1. 579, 664, 754. 

770,   808,    817;   alternative   to 

«snardiy,    57§,    579;    and    St. 


State(s)— conld. 

Ambrose,  354,  3555  «»<*  Aris- 
totle, 183, 208-9, 210-if,  214-15 ; 
Athenian,  78,  154-5;  becomes 
Christian,  348,  352;  Corporate, 
725;  dictatorial,  624;  and  Fas- 
cism or  Nazism,  iff,  798,  813; 
and  Fichte,  730; 'and  Hegel,  730, 
706-9,  770,  771;  and  Hobbes, 
,«68,  577  J  Jewish,  333,  3** ;  Kant 
recommends  federation  of,  738; 
and  Locke,  652,  664;  and  Mace- 
donians, 253;  and  Machiavelli, 
568 ;  and  Marxism,  813 ;  modern, 
127,  200,  511;  and  Nietzsche, 
791 ;  and  Origen,  348;  and  Plato, 
126,  127,  133,  136,  139,  210;  and 
Protestants,  493.  545*  5***;  re- 
ligion, in  antiquity,  23,  38,  40, 
50,  262,  284;  and  Routseau, 
720/7".;  and  Socrates,  103,  105, 
107,  108,  173;  Spartan,  115,  116, 
1 1 8 ;  universal,  305 ;  world,  76$- 
9.  Set  oho  Church ;  totalitarian  • 
ism 

state  of  nature,  647  ff.t  664.  714, 
722 

States  of  the  Church,  1 20,  4  u 

stellar  parallax,  548 

Stendhal,  778 

Stephen  111,  Pope,  410 

Stephen  IX,  Pope,  433 

Steyr.  534 

Stockholm,  582 

Stau  and  Epicurean  Phdatophtn? 
THt  (Gates),  266,  286 

Stoic  Pkdt>toph\ .  Th*  (Murray), 
276 

Stoicism,  241,  »53,  »55.  *65.  *75- 
93.  3*«,  34<»,  377.  6oa;  and 
Academy,  261,  276,  282;  and 
Boethius,  390;  and  brotherhood 
of  man,  286,  287*  30$;  and 
Christianity,  280,  282.  283,  287, 
288, 291, 393<  3*&;c<Mniupoliian, 
243,  813;  and  determinism,  276, 
280,  289;  and  Epicureanism, 
363,  264,  374,  275;  «nd  ethics, 
275,  281,  189,  191-1;  and 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  322 ;  and 

*  God,  277,  »W»,  »»7.  ***>  W>, 
14 ;  and  individualism,  622 ;  and 
337;  and  majority,   199; 


910 


INDEX 


Stoicism — contd. 
and  materialism,  275,  276,  281 ; 
and  Philo,  342;  and  Plato,  275, 
276,  280,  282,  287-8,  292;  and 
Plotinus,  311;  and  politics,  253, 
299;  in  Rome,  275,  281,  282^., 
209-3*) ;  Ad  £ocrates,  in,  276, 
277 ;  and  soul,  276,  280,  317 ;  and 
Spinoza,  598;  and  theology,  289, 
320;  and  virtue,  277-8,  279,  28*)- 

Stous  and  Sceptics  (Bevan),  59  n., 
258  n.,  282  it. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beechcr,  791 

Strachey,  Lytton,  563 

Stratford,  Earl  of,  569,  577 

Stridon,  360 

strife.  61,  62.  63,  74,  76,  135 

Strindberg.  August,  708 

struggle  for  existence,  752,  753,  808 

Stuarts.  359*.,  626,  644,  645,  66 1 

subject,  175,  811-12;  and  object, 
689.  837,  840 

Subjective  Idea,  761 

subjectivism,  subjectivity,  253,  256, 
320,  374,  513-U,  586,  72^-30, 
735,  739,  740,  813.  846 

substance,    oo.    167,    224-5.    614, 

634-5,  6Ho,  734.  763,  H6o;  and 

Anstotlc,  185-93.  221,  224;  and 

JVftcartes,   594.  614;  and  early 

Greek  philosophy.  45-**  47.  60, 

65.  7 1 .  74,  90 ;  and  Hume,  687-8 ; 

^nnd     Lcibms,    606.    614;    and 

'principle  of  individuation,  490; 

and  Sptnosa,  594,  600,  614 

success,  530-1 

succession,  and  causality,  692,  695 

tutfenng.  7*3,  797-9 

sufficient  reason,  615 

Sufi  sect,  444 

Miicide,  155.  37*.  4<>9.  737,  7&4. 785 

Sutdgrr  of  Hamberg,  433 

Sumenans,  22 

Summa  contra  GV***/*i,  475-83 

•S'wwww  Tfoofafio*.  475,  477 

*un,  24,  66,  230,  239.  280,  S$tff<, 
561.  862;  and  Artstftrchus.  153* 
237,  138.  and  Bmhe,  551;  and 
Copernicus,  547 B*\  •«<*  t)w|- 
cartrs.  585 ;  and  St.  Francis,  47 1 : 
as  god,  2127,  303,  331,  539;  ««1 
Greek  philosophers.  A  73<  8l^ 


aun — contd. 

83,  91,  280,  282,  312;  and 
Gnosticism,  315 ;  and  Heraclides, 
237;  and  Jews,  338;  and  Kepler, 
*53»  55i  >  and  Manichaeism,  369; 
and  Plotinus,  314,  319;  and  Py- 
thagoreans, 236;  and  Socrates, 
107;  worship  of,  230 

Sun  Goddess,  644 

Sunni,  442 

superman,  788,  795.  796 

superstition(s) :  in  antiquity,  28,  32, 
76,  93»  241,  243,  250,  263,  302, 
320;  in  dark  ages,  326,  386,  395 ; 
in  Renaissance,  516,  523;  and 
science,  76,  549 

Supremacy,  Act  of,  539 

Supreme,  the,  3x3,  319 

Supreme  Court  (U.S.)   577,  664 

surprise,  as  test  of  error,  850 

survival  of  the  fittest,  73,  228,  752, 
753,  808 

Sweden,  582 

Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  705,  732 

Swift,  Jonathan,  673 

Swineshead,  495  it. 

Switzerland,  788 

Sybaris,  49 

syllogism(s),  218^.,  225,  281,  565 

Sylvester  I  (St.),  Pope,  411-12 

Sylvester  II  (Gerbert),  Pope,  404, 

4<>8,  430,  437 

symbols,  and  mathematics,  177, 
178 

Symmachus,  court  official,  356, 392 

Symmachua,  statesman,  356,  369, 
392 

sympathy,  799 

Symporium  (Plato),  100,  no,  312 

synagogues,  332 

syncretism,  346 

syndicalism,  819 

Synoptic  Gospels,  309,  346 

syntax,  176,  178,  l|6,  859* 

synthesis,  324.  4991  and  Hegel,  759 

Syracuse.  100,  126.  139,  144»  214, 
240,  204,  403 

Syria,  22,  24,  27,  120,  241,  245* 
281,  303,  3^9,  409,499;  neresy 
in,  353;  rod  Mohammedans, 
306,  440.  4431  monaaticism 
in,  395~7;  Nestorianism  in,  388  ^ 
and  Stoicism,  275 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT 


tabula  rasa,  749 

Tacitus,  245,  283,  765 

Tammany,  94 

Tammuz,  331 

Tang  dynasty,  419 

Tantalos,  30 

Taoists,  255 

Taos,a64 

Taranto,  139 

Taras,  139 

Tarn,  W.  W.,  245,  248,  275,  282 

Tartars,  560 

Tartessus,  48 

Taurobolium,  350 

Tawney,  R.  H.,  209,  648,  660 

taxation,  656 

technique,  514,  754.  855 

Teheran,  445 

teleologies!  argument,  484 

teleologies!  explanations,  87,   126, 

565 

teleology,  i&9.  228.  821 
Teles,  255,  256 
telescope,  55^.  557 
temperance,  804 
Templars,  503 
Temple  of  Jerusalem,   330,   331, 

332.  335.  341.  359 
temples,  375 

Ten  Commandments,  330,  341 
Teraunists,  534 
terms,  495-6 
Tertullian,  279,  338 
Testament*  of  the  Twehe  Patriarchs, 

339-42 

Teutamus,  60 
Thales,  21,  43-5,  47,  62,  208,  231, 

235,  37? 

Theaetetus,  232,  234  ! 

TheafUtut  (Plato),  63,  97,  17  iff.,  \ 

497.  634,  860  I 

Thebaid,  395 
Thebes,  118,  119 
theism,  f  18,  8tL 
tt*oc»cy,  333,  382 
Thcodebert,  King  of  the  Franks, 

4<>3 
Theodettnda,  wife  of  King  Agi- 


TModors,  393 

Theodore,  archbishop  of  Canter-  P 

bury,  422  I 

Theodora,  King  of  the  Franks,  403  ! 


Theodoric,  King  of  the  Ostrogoths, 

386,  389,  392-3.  405.  765 
Theodoras,  232 
Theodosius  I,  352,  353,  357.  358, 

359.  377.  575 

theology,  22,  53,  56,  138,  152,  222; 
and  Aristotle,   190!  arlU  Aver- 
roists,  475;  ana  barbarian  ele- 
ments in  Rome,  408;  and  Hera* 
fditus,  61-2;  Orphic,  35,  41-2; 
and  Plato,  133-4;  and  Plotinus, 
308;  and  Pythagoras,  56;  and 
Stoicism,    275,    277,    289;  and 
substance,  71 ;  and  Xenophancs, 
59.  See  oho  Christian  theology 
Thcophylact,  417 
theorem,  Pythagorean,  54,  232 
theoretical  philosophies,  8 19,, 820 
theories  and  pragmatism,  844 
theory,  52 

theory  of  descriptions,  859 
theory  of  duration,  834-6 
theory  of  ideas,  125,  141-53,  162, 

184-6,  188.  276,  424,  43»-^ 
theory  of  knowledge,  699;  and 
Abelard,  459;  and  Aristotk,  220, 
222 ;  and  Bergaon,  835 ;  and  Des- 
cartes, 587-8;  and  Dewey.  848; 
errors  in,  53,  220-1;  and  Hel- 
vethis,  749;  and  Hume.  729;  and 
James  ,840- 1 ;  and  Locke,  628-4* , 
729 ;  and  ma  thematic*,  5  3 , 848 ;  in 
modern  philosophy,  5 13- 14;  and 
Occam,  494  jET ;  and  perception, 
680-2  ;and  Plato,  292 ;  and  prag- 
matists,  855;  and  Sophist*.  93; 
and  Stoics,  281,  292.  »SYr  alto 
knowledge 

theory  of  memory,  834-6 
theory   of   population,    750,   751, 

808 
theory  of  relativity,  239.  490.  742, 

860,861 
"There,"  317  n. 
Thermidor,  729 
thermometer,  557 
Thermopylae,  118 
Theseus,  525 
thesis,  759 

Theaaalomca,  359,  575 
Thmaly,  154 

thing(s),  66,  490,  495,  406,  504. 
f  *a6,  833,  836,  860 


INDEX 


things-in-themselves,  734, 74",  744. 

783 

third  man,  150,  184 
Thirty  Tyrants,  101,  103,  108,  125 
Thirty  Years'  War,  546,  580,  747 
Thomas,  St.  See  Aquinas 
Thomas*of  Celqpo,  471 
Thomists,  534 
Thoreau,  Henry  David,  705 
Thrace,  32,  33,  35,  41,  59,  469    | 
Thrasymachus,  99,  137,  138.  139 
Three   Chapters,   heresy   of,  393, 

401,403 

Thucydides,  363,  569 

Thurii,  97,  139,  246 

Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  (Nietz- 
sche), 792 

Thysstca,  30 

thyrsus-bearers,  159 

Tieck,  Ludwtg,  782 

Tigris,  22,  245 

Timaeus  (Plato),  165-70,  234,  316, 
390,  439*449.  55> 

time,  694,  $«,  827,  834;  and 
Aristotle,  222,  229;  and  St. 
Augustine.  372,  373-4.  378;  and 
Bcrgson.  823,  826.  828.  831-4, 
835*  837;  and  Einstein,  90;  and 
eternity.  55.  65 ;  and  Hegel.  758, 
762 ;  and  John  the  Scot,  426 ;  and 
•  Hume.  689,  604;  and  Kant,  734. 
73$.  739-44.  7*3,  g59".  and 
Newton.  562;  and  Parmenides, 

9  65;  and  Plato,  143,  166-7,  170; 
and  poet*,  64-5;  and  principle 
of  indtviduatton.  489-90;  and 
quantum  theory,  861 ;  and  Scho- 
penhauer, 783;  and  Spinoza, 
596;  and  theology,  151.  See  also 
space;  space  time 

Tim*  and  Fw  Will  (Uergson),  823, 
827,  829 

Timon,  257-8 

Titans.  35 

Toledo,  461 

Toleration,  Act  of,  627 

Tolstoy,  254*  a$S.  3*4*  77* 

Topics  (Aristotle),  462 

Tomcelli,  357 

torture,  290,  381 

totalitarianism,  115,  646,  654, 

7«S,  745 
totality,  734 


touch,  826 

Toulouse,  469 

tournaments,  324 

Tours,  409 

Tower  of  London,  502,  539,  563, 

569 

trade,  209,  703 
trade  unions,  575,  725,  752 
traditionalism,  746,  752,  804 
tragedy,  37,  77 
Trajan,  297,  300 
transcendental  argument,  739-40, 

742 
translations,  421-2,  427,  448,  461- 

2,  508.  See  also  Greek  language; 

Latin  language ;  Vulgate 
transmigration  of  souls,  35,  50,  59, 

167,  170,  192,  223,  468,  784 
transubstantiation,  420,  437,  491, 

508,  535,  576 
Treatise  of  Human  Nature  (Hume), 


Treatises  on  Government  (Locke), 

628,  642,  646,  647  ff. 
Treitschke,  Heinrich  von,  748 
Trent,  Council  of,  517,  545,  548 
Trevelyan,    R.    C.,   cited,    271  it., 

273  «• 

Treves,  355.  810 
triadic  movement,  758,  760 
triads,  858 

triangles,  54,  168-9,  170 
trigonometry,  238 
Trinity,  312,  352,  389,  425,  441, 

457,  535 ;  and  Abelard,  458, 459; 

and  Aquinas,  476,  482;  and  Plo- 

tinus,  312,314,43* 

Trinity  College,  673 

Trojan  Women,  The  (Euripides), 
101 

Trotsky,  Leon,  848 

Troy,  30,  161,  351,  375 

true,  the,  52,  496 

truth,  52,  58,  144^259,  4*  w-t  755. 
TOO,  848-53;  and  Aquinas,  475. 
476,  478*  485;  and  Copemican 
hypothesis,  239;  and  Dewey, 
848-53;  and  dialectic  method, 
113;  double,  475.  5°4;  •** 
ethics,  138;  and  Galileo,  139; 
and  geometry,  146;  and  Hegel, 
761,  767;  and  Hobbes,  571 ;  and 
Hume,  696,  7.13;  »nd  industrial- 


Oil 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 


truth — contd. 

ism,  52;  and  James,  842-3,  845- 
6;  and  John  the  Scot,  423 ;  and 
Locke,  631 ;  and  logical  analysis, 
864;  and  Marx,  81 1 ;  and  mathe- 
matics, 55,  177;  and  moral  con- 
siderations, 98;  and  Nietzsche, 
777;  and  object-subject  relation, 
840;  and  Parmcnides,  67;  and 
past  and  future,  854;  and  per- 
ception, 173-5 ;  and  philosophy, 
309,  813,  863;  and  Plato,  142, 
144,  146,  147,  377;  and  Pro- 
tagoras, 97,  173;  *n<*  science, 
550, 606,  733 ;  and  Socrates,  164; 
and  words,  70;  and  Xenophanes, 

59 

Tully,  368.  See  also  Cicero 
Turin,  404,  712 
Turks,  299, 445»  5<>7,  5<>9>  5 '7,  5*3.  | 

560  i 

Tusculum,  417.  432  I 

Tyler,  Wat,  508 
tyranny,  27,  72.  79,  211-12.  295, 

302  ! 

Tyre,  243  j 

» 

Ucberwcg.  Friedrich,  275.  446,  457 

Ulphihs  (Ulfila).  405 

Umayyad  dynasty,  442 

Unam  Sanctum,  502 

unified  wholes,  851 

United  States,  121,  309,  470,  655,  , 
657,  663,  664,  750 

unity,  51,  60,  62-3,  221,  413,  734     j 

universality,  492 

tyuvenals:   atkd    Aristotle,    184*8,  ; 
221;  and   Avicenna,   445;  and  « 
Locke,    634;   and    Marx,    814;  , 
nominalism  and,  687 ;  and  Plato, 
125,  148,  149.  I77J  and  Porphy-  | 
ry,   488;   and   scholastics,    424* 
45*.  4J7.  459,  4*1,  47®.  4*0,  4&4, 
496-7  f 

univene,  57.  229,  2*8*  289*  5#3» 
759,  772,  7*7,  828,  862;  and 
Brrgson.  820.  822,  838;  and 

•  Copernicus,    546-9 ;    in    Greek 
philosophy.  4o,  75»  92,  §34,  *68, 
174,  229.  237,  318 
universities,  461 
unmoved  mover,  229,  477 
Upmiahads,  781  ! 


Urban  II,  Pope,  450,  451 

Urban  V,  Pope,  505 

Urban  VI,  Pope,  505 

Ure,  P.  N.,  27  n. 

Uriah,  575 

U.S.S.R.,  130 

usury*  209-10,  64^.  681     * 

utilitarianism,  utilitarians,  205, 653, 

671,  730,  736,  749,  801-9 
Utilitarianism  (John  Stuart  Mill), 

805-6 
Utopia(s),    124,    129-40,    210-11  f 

539-43 
Utopia  (More),  539-43 

Vaihinger,  742 
Vakntinian  1,  Emperor,  356 
Valentinian  II,  Emperor,  355-  356 
Valla,  Lorenzo,  411,  519,  534 
vahie{s),    707,    77<>-i,    774.    86*; 

labour  theory  of,  660 
Vandals,  353,  363,  386,  3^,  405. 

Vanessa,  673 

Vasacur,  'Hiereae  kr,  713 

Vaughan,  Henry.  65,  166  if. 

vegetarianism,  469 

Venice,  394.  454.  456*  4<»4.   5»6* 

5*7,  574.  7*3 
Venus,  237,  555 

veracity,  842.  843  • 

VerctUii,  Madame  dc,  712 
Verona,  386 ;  Council  of,  470 
Waalius,  Andnraa,  566  9 

Vichy,  819 
Victor  II.  Pope,  433 
Victor  IV,  Antipopr,  454  n 
Victory,  356,  392 
Vigna.  Pirtro  deila.  See  1'ictro  delb 

Vigna 
Vmci.  Ixronardo  da,  510.  512,  516. 

violence.  671,  707,  75 « 

Virgil,  297,  3*2 

Virgil,  bishop  of  Sabtburg,  414 

Virgin,  23,  333,  387,  3*H*  535 

virginity,  356,  359.  361.  363.  376, 

385 

virtue,  33,  200,  213,  320,  329.  802, 
and  Anatotle,  195-201,  203,  211. 
213,  216;  and  St.  Atiffu»iinr,  379. 
380;  and  Cynics,  255;  and 
ethical  thrones/  199*200;  and 


INDEX 


virtue—  omfcf. 

Jews,  328-*,  335;  and  Kant, 
737;  and  Machiavelli,  531;  and 
Nietzsche,  790-1  ;  and  Socrates, 
ii  i  ;  and  Stoka,  in,  199,  277-9, 
280,  286,  290-1 

Vjacontif  516* 

Visigoths,  386,  *oi,  404,  405,  440 

Vita  Nvova9  La  (Dante),  390 

void,  82,  86,  88,  89,  90,  91,  220, 
269  w 

Voltaire,  604,  619,  629,  666,  720, 
748;  and  Rouaaeau,  715,  716 

Vulgate,  342,  354,  360,  380,  508, 
533.  535 

wage-earner,  811,  816 

Wagner,    Wilhelm   Richard,   708, 


235,    402; 


Waiblingen,  465 

Waldenaea,  469 

Waldo,  Peter,  469 

Wallace.  William,  761 

Wallia,  John,  5?o 

Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  464 

war,  136,  520^-1,  579,  650,  652,  657, 
672,  782;  in  antiquity,  77,  234, 
247,  248;  and  Aristotle,  203,  209, 
214,  215  ;  aa  competitive  method, 
664.  808;  and  economics,  815; 
•nd  Hegel,  766,  768-9;  and 
tiefftditua,  60-1  ,  63  ;  and  Hobbes, 
57»,  573.  5791  «»d  Kant,  73*; 
and  Locke,  671  ;  and  More,  541- 

•  2;  and  Nietzsche,  779,  789,  79*  , 
794*  795.  797;  «nd  Plato,  131, 
«3*.  *59;  of  religion,  544*  546, 
622,  702  ;  and  Rouiaeau,  714;  and 
Sparta.  115,116.  117,  n8,  "9 

War  ami  /Vor*  (Tolstoy),  77$ 

Warms,  Madame  de,  712 

Waahington,  George,  778 

water,  45,  46,  47.  59.  13*.  *76;  and 
Aristotle,  229*30;  and  Empc- 
docfea,  62,  74;  and  Heraclitua, 
61,  63;  and  Plato,  166-9;  and 
Thalea,  4*,  43-5.  ** 

Waterloo,  778 

wealth.  27.  3°*.  443 

Weiemnsaa,   Kari  Theodor,  234* 


Wtlft  465 


were-wolves,  32 

West,    41,    43,    *W5»    *35,    ^f***i 
division  of  East  and,  349;  and 
Nicene  orthodoxy,  353 
Western  Church,  394,  416,  464, 

501 ;  Doctors  of,  354  jf. 
Western  Empire,  302,  355,  393, 
408,  412,  765;  Christianity  tri- 
umphs in,  353 ;  and  East,  302-4; 
fall  of,  325,  327,  353,  383,  3^6. 
387,  406,  419,  428,  440 
Whitehead.  A.  N.,  819,  859 
whole(s),  594,  75«,  76o,  761,  762, 

770,  851 
widows,  360 

will,  200,  227,  320,  572,  594,  786, 
787,   818;  of  all,   724,  725  *-, 
727  n.,  767;  and  St.  Augustine, 
370,  378,  379;  to  believe,  842-6; 
and  Kant,  291,  737,  783;  and 
romanticism,    751,     752;    and 
Schopenhauer,  780,  782-7;  and 
Stoicism,  277,  289,  290.  See  alto 
free  will;  general  will 
Will  to  Believe,  The  (James),  842 
Witt  to  Power,  The  (Nietzsche),  792 
William  the  Conqueror,  435,  437 
William  II  of  Germany,  706 
William  III  of  England,  627 
VTilliam  of  Champeaux,  458 
William  of  Malmesbury,  423 
William  of  Moerbeke,  475 
William  of  Occam.  See  Occam 
William  the  Pious,  431 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  573 
,  wine,  37,  44» 
I  witchcraft,  523,  558  • 
j  Wolf,  A.,  557  n. 
Wolf,  Baron  von,  618,  731 
Wolsey,  Thomas,  Cardinal,  539 
women,  33,  131, 157, 4*7, 655, 75°, 
782,  804;  in  Greece,  26,  92,  95. 
116,   119,  208;  and  Nietzsche, 
79i ,  79*.  795 1  «tB.d  Plate?  37, 132, 
167, 170,  211 ;  HP  Rome,  293, 301 
Word,  56,  370,  478 
words,  113,  174,  176-7.  306,  566, 
571, 771-2;  and  Aristotle,  i85-7a 
220-1,  223-4;  geqfral,  143*  *4*- 
9;  and  logic,  220*1,  223-4,  496, 
614 ;  and  logical  analysis,  859-60; 
and  meaning,  68-9,  175-' 
i,  77«-» 


915 


WESTERN    PHILOSOPHICAL   THOUGHT 


Wordsworth,  705 
working-class  movements,  817 


world(s),  46,  go,  162,  604,  612-13, 
618,  734,  862;  end  of,  277,  418 

World  o$  Witt  and  Idta>  The 
(Schopenhauer),  782 

world-animal,  165-6,  170 

world-conflagration,  277,  282 

world  federation,  739 

world  government,  768 

world  State,  768,  769 

Worms:  Concordat  of,  452;  Coun- 
cil of,  436 

writing,  22,  27-8 

Wyclifle,  John,  504,  506.  507-9 

Xenophanes,  31,  58,  59,  60 
Xenophon,  102-4,  no,  247 
Xerxes,  77,  100,  119,  3<>4 

Yahweh,  330-1,  334*  344.  346,  365, 

383 
Yaqub  Al-Mansur,  446 


Yaqub  Yusuf,  Abu,  446 
Yonas,  245 
York,  414,  415.  455 
Yorkshire,  414-15 

Zacharias  or  Zachary  (St.),  Pope, 

414*575^  .    « 

Zagrcus,  36 

Zarathustra.  Be*  Zoroaster 
Zealots,  341 

ZeUer,  Eduard,  84.  85,  98,  188 
Zeno,  Emperor,  444 
Zeno  of  Citmm,  263,  275-6,  279- 

80,  281,  292 
Zeno   the   Ekatic,   84,    112,    149, 

$33-4 

Zeu».  23,  35, 39,  236,  242,  272, 334; 
and  fate,  29,  134,  855;  and 
Socrates,  77,  105  n. ;  and  Stoics, 
277.  279.  280,  286,  287,  288 

Zeus  Lykaios,  32 

xoology,  444 

Zorosster  or  Zanthustra,  Zoroas* 
trians,  30.  241, 3<H,  345. 44L  777 


916'