HANDBOOK
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
DR. ALBERT STOCKL PART I .
PRE-SCnOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY.
TRANSLATE. D BY
T. A. FINLAY, S.J., M.A.
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, PROFESSOR OP MENTAL SCIEXCK, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
EX LIBRIS ST, BASIL'S SCHOLASTICATE
No.
DUBLIN 1C. II. (JILL AND SON
o'< '..\XKI.I. -11:1:1:1 l887
-2 1953
-5 "^
M. H. GILL AND SON, PRINTERS, DUBLIN.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
THIS translation of a work, well-known and largely used in the Catholic Schools of Germany, has been made with a view to provide for Catholic students of philosophy in our English speaking Colleges, a trustworthy manual of the History of Philosophy. Students will find in this work a fulness of infor mation unusual in a handbook. And they will further find that the Schools of Philosophy which have grown up within the Church, or have stood in close relation with her teaching, here receive explicit and adequate notice. In this respect the work offers an advantage not provided by the text-books on which our Catholic Schools have hitherto been forced to rely. Perhaps the manual hitherto most largely used by our Catholic students, in their study of the History of Philosophy, has been Schwegler's Hand book, translated by Dr. Stirling. How far such a work falls short of the requirements of Catholic students is shown by the fact that the author omits from his history all treatment of Scholastic Philosophy. His reasons for this omission are thus set forth : " We exclude also Scholasticism, or the Philosophy of the Christian middle ages ; which belongs (being not so much philosophy as rather a reflecting or a philosophizing within the pre-suppositions of a positive religion, and therefore essentially theology) to the historical science of the Christian dogmas." Philosophy within the limits of a positive religion is of prime im portance to the Catholic student, and a work from which the history of this portion of philosophy is excluded, must be a defective aid in the studies he is supposed to prosecute. Another advantage which the history here offered possesses over most Ger man works on the same subject, is its clearness of statement, and
"VI TRANSIATOK S 1'RKKACE.
general intelligibility of language. For the beginner at all events, such phrases as Schwegler's definition of philosophy : "the thought totality of the empirical finite," are neither very definite nor very luminous. The simple phraseology and definite conceptions of Dr. Stockl's work contrast strongly with this vagueness of ex pression and mistiness of thought. Readers of Ueberweg's His tory of Philosophy will notice that in many parts of his work Dr. Stockl has followed not only the thought but the very words of that writer. In the German text of his book, Dr. Stockl is careful to acknowledge by italics what he borrows from Ueber- weg. In the translation these italics are not always inserted ; it was not considered that the quotation marks would be of import ance to our students. The Translator acknowledges gratefully the courtesy of Dr. Stockl and of his German publisher, Herr Kirchheim, in authorising this translation.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, June, 1887.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
IT is not without cause that in the modern teaching of philosophy great importance is attached to the History of Philosophy. In itself it is a deeply interesting study to follow the progress of philosophical thought through the course of its development. But our interest in the study increases when we observe that the History of Philosophy teaches us into what by-paths the human mind wanders when it abjures the guidance of Christi anity, and that it indicates to us the safe route to follow if we would arrive at the true term of speculative inquiry.
A " Handbook of the History of Philosophy " which sketches the course philosophy has followed in its development, and the leading philosophical systems through which that progress had been effected, cannot fail to have its use for the student who seeks a safe way through this vast and varied field of study.
In the present Handbook I have endeavoured to provide for the student a help of this sort. There are, indeed, many Handbooks already in existence. But these, for the most part, do not view the subject from the Catholic standpoint, and are not sufficiently safe guides for Catholic students. In this re spect, the present work, will, it is hoped, meet a want not hitherto satisfied. In composing this Handbook, I have fol lowed the plan of my larger work on the History of Philosophy. I have, also largely made use of the well-known works of Ritter, Sigwart, Nixner, Zeller, Use hold, Erdmaim, and Ueberweg. I am specially indebted to Uebcrweg's work, which is very com plete in its account of the literature of this subject, and I have largely drawn on it in this respect.
VI AUTHORS PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
In the case of each philosopher, I have cited, as far as pos sible, the original works in which his opinions are contained, and have indicated with regard to the more important, the modern works in which their systems are discussed. To enter at further length into the literature connected with their systems, or to cite from their works in greater detail was not permitted by the character of the manual on which I was engaged.
The present work will serve as a sort of complement to my Handbook of Philosophy (2nd Edit., Kirchheim, Mainz). In every science the complement of scientific theory is the history of the science, that is of the actual process of development through which the science has passed. The rule holds good for Philosophy.
May this work, by the blessing of God, be found of avail to promote the study of philosophy in union with the spirit of Christianity, and to advance the philosophical education of our Catholic youth.
Munster, Sth September, 1870.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
IN offering to the public this Second Edition of the Handbook of the History of Philosophy, I have not to announce any change in the arrangement of the work. Here and there some slight omissions have been supplied, and certain needful expla nations added. The literature of the subject has, however, been noticed more fully, and the developments of recent philosophy have been accorded more attention than in the First Edition. These changes have added somewhat to the size of the volume.
History, it is said, is a good teacher. This is specially true of the History of Philosophy. It teaches us that anarchy has invaded the realm of mind whenever and wherever Kevelation, and the depository of revelation — the Church — have been discarded ; wherever the peoples " have risen up against the Lord and against His Christ " ; and it shows that anarchy has subsided only when men have returned to God and to His Church. The History of Philosophy thus throws light upon our present surroundings. If the men who now " have risen up against the Lord and against His Christ " were capable of instruction, they would learn from history that they are draw ing society in Europe to the verge of an abyss. We have no hope that they will learn any such lesson. But for those who " have not bowed the knee to Baal," who have not sacrificed their in dependence of thought to the prejudices of party, the History of Philosophy will serve as an incitement to hold fast to truth, though it be persecuted and despised, certain that now, as ever, it must triumph in the end.
Eichstdtt, list June, 1875.
INTRODUCTION.
1. LOOKED at from the subjective standpoint, Philosophy is nothing more than the effort of discursive thought to reach the highest and ultimate reasons of all things that are, in the measure in which this end is attainable by mere reason. The task which the human mind undertakes in this study is very vast and very difficult. For this reason it lay in the nature of things that Philosophy should not reach its perfect development at a bound — that in the course of centuries many thinkers should set themselves to the solution of the great problem, and should devote the power of intellect allotted them to attain, as best they could, the end of philosophical inquiry. In this way the course of time has brought forth many philosophical systems. Each of these represents the labour which its author has expended in the investigation of the ultimate reasons of things that are, and the results he has attained by this inquiry.
2. The philosophical systems with which the history of the human race confronts us are not only many in number ; they furthermore differ from one another as well in Matter as in Form. The sum of truth is greater in one than in another ; and some seem in this respect to have failed altogether ; some systems are of wider comprehensive range, taking in the whole domain of speculative thought ; others are devoted to a special field of philosophical inquiry ; some are, in their arrange ment, rigidly systematic — in others the several parts seem loosely bound together, the effort after system is not prominently apparent. If we seek the reasons of this diversity, we shall find them, partly in the givat range and difficulty of the task which Philosophy sets the human mind, partly in the different points of view adopted by the several thinkers, and partly in extrinsic conditions — in the influences exercised upon the several thinkers by the circumstances in which they lived.
3. In spite, however, of this diversity we find a certain inner connection between the several philosophical systems which succeed one another in time. The results attained by earlier philosophers were not lost upon those who succeeded them. The latter made the theories of their predecessors part of their own systems, when they held them to be satisfactorily established. If they considered them insufficiently' proved, or wholly false, they set up in opposition to them other principles which appeared to them more tenable. Thus there came to be established a
2
INTBODUCTION.
certain intrinsic order of connection between the successive systems, corresponding to the extrinsic order of succession in time. One philo sophic system refers us to another, and each can be understood in its full significance only in connection with others to which it stands immediately related.
4. This inner connection between the successive systems of Philosophy gives a reason why, with the progress of time, a continuous development of Philosophy and philosophic thought is observable. Each succeeding thinker had before him, in the systems of his predecessors, the results hitherto achieved by philosophical inquiry. These were in part available for the construction of his own system. In part they had to be refuted, and the philosopher, in order to set right the teaching in question, was led to a deeper study of the subject matter concerned. His system would naturally be more highly perfected than those of his predecessors — a distinct advance upon them. The succession of philosophical systems in time is thus seen to involve a progressive development of Philosophy itself, a constant advance towards the perfection of philosophic know ledge.
5. It must, indeed, be admitted that this advance has not always been uninterrupted. The human race does not advance to the goal of per fection fixed for it by God in undisturbed progress. It passes through periods of storm and profound disturbance, though these, in their measure, seem ultimately to purify and perfect it. So it is with the progress of Philosophy. Periods of difficulty and danger arise, which sometimes interrupt for centuries the progress of philosophical thought. Systems imposing in their grandeur, and rich in the possession of truth, are abandoned for others that are at once poor and pretentious ; and these failing to satisfy the human mind, a moment comes when philo sophical inquiry is thrown aside as without utility and without fruit, and Scepticism or Materialism reigns instead. These, however, are but moments of crisis. They do not last for ever. They even serve to impel the human mind to higher efforts of inquiry when the crisis is past. For the errors which come to the surface in these periods of stormy confusion call for repression and competent refutation, and thus oblige the philosopher to make deeper the foundations, and more extended the range of his philosophic knowledge.
6. It will appear from what we have been saying that it is a profitable study to make acquaintance with the successive philosophical systems, as well in themselves as in their mutual connection, and in this way to follow step by step the development of philosophic knowledge as it manifests itself in the series. " The mind is roused and strengthened by observing how many highly-gifted men have, out of mere love of truth, laboured with untiring zeal to build up the great structure of philosophical science, and have furthered by their efforts the har monious development of man's spiritual life ; while at the same time it is protected against pride and self-deception by learning how weak it is, notwithstanding the great thoughts with which it teems. Furthermore, he who will achieve anything like a higher philosophical knowledge must
INTRODUCTION.
make acquaintance with (ho opinions and methods which philosophical investigation has already called into existence, that he may estimate the , problems before him aright, and avoid every one-sidedness from which others have already escaped." Wo cannot, however, be required to study all philosophical systems with the same attention. We must chiefly occupy ourselves with those which stand out prominently above the rest, and round which the others group themselves as round so many centres.
7. We are now in a position to form a right notion of the history of Philosophy. Objectively considered, it is nothing more than the series of philosophical systems which have appeared in time, and the de velopment of philosophical knowledge as manifested in them. In the subjective sense — with which we are now concerned — the history of Philosophy is an exposition of the successive systems of Philosophy, setting forth their contents, their mutual connection, and the pro gressive development of philosophical knowledge represented in them.
8. A history of Philosophy thus involves three requirements :
The contents of the several philosophical systems must be set forth with the greatest attainable clearness, and with all possible com pleteness. The historian must address himself to his task cautiouslv, thoughtfully, dispassionately and impartially. It must be his first , effort to set forth each philosophical system exactly according to the mind of its author, to omit nothing which is essential, and to add nothing.
In the second place, the history of Philosophy has to make clear the relation in which each system stands to those which preceded it, what elements it has borrowed from them, or in what antagonism it stands to them. And again, it has to show what influence each system has exercised upon those that followed, how its principles have been subsequently expanded, transformed, or otherwise modified, that its bearing and significance may be fully understood.
In the third place, the history of Philosophy must indicate how far a given system has been an advance or a falling back in philo sophical knowledge, that we may be able to fix its place in the order of development which philosophy has followed.
9. As regards the method to be applied by the historian of Philosophy in the execution of his task, the question arises, which of the two methods, the a priori or the ci posteriori, meets the requirements of a history of Philosophy such as we have described ? To this we reply :
The a priori method lays down a pre-established principle as the foundation of the whole historical system, and from this derives all the systems which have appeared in time, showing their contents and the order of succession in which they have appeared to be alike necessary results of the development of the principle assumed. It is thus that Hegel, in his " History of Philosophy," has endeavoured to establish, on a priori grounds, that the several philosophical systems which the course of time has brought forth are no more than isolated, imperfect elements of the Absolute Philosophy — the Hegelian. This successive
INTRODUCTION.
realisation of the several elements of the Absolute Philosophy was required, in order that the gradual synthesis of contradictions might at last give rise to the perfect Philosophy, that is to say, that God might attain to perfect consciousness in the mind of man. This a priori method of Hegel has found many imitators, though the pantheistic principle has not in all cases been an assumption in these methods.
But a priori constructions of history after this fashion must be peremptorily rejected as unjustifiable and mistaken. In the first place, an exact knowledge of the various systems, as their authors framed them, is not possible if we view their development in the light of a philosophical theory of our own, and study them only as seen through this medium. Under such circumstances the several systems will be judged according to the standard and the requirements of our own. The tendencies and opinions of the historian himself will be apparent at every turn, but what the authors of the systems under discussion thought, and aimed at, will not be put before us. In the second place — and this argument is decisive — systems of Philosophy come before us as facts of history, and as such they are contingent, not necessary. The contingent cannot be proved a necessity ; he who undertakes such a proof is forced to deny the contingent character of all historical facts — a pro ceeding which involves assumptions that belong cither to Pantheism or Materialism.
The a posteriori method is the only method which accords with the notion of a history of Philosophy. In this matter, as in history generally, we have to do with questions of fact ; we have first to make acquaintance with the several systems of Philosophy, as with so many facts, before we proceed to seek the reasons of these facts, that is, before we inquire how they have come to be, in what relations of dependence they stand to other systems, and what progress of philosophical thought is manifested in them. Nor shall we proceed further in this latter direction than the sense attributed by the authors to the systems which they actually framed will warrant. The historian must, therefore, make his own philoso phical system subserve the purposes of history. He must not make of it the criterion or the measure of others. Only in this way can he present us with a history of Philosophy true in its details and faithful to fact>. 10. Again, " the development of Philosophy is, in many respects, dependent upon the development of other sciences (of the empirical sciences more particularly), and upon the religious convictions and opinions as well of the individual philosopher as of the people to which he belongs. Its progress or decline is influenced by the intercourse of nations with one another, by the conditions of social life peculiar to the several peoples, by the family organisation as maintained among them, by their political institutions, by the state of art among them, and, lastly it is affected by the peculiar circumstances which have shaped the lives of the individuals who have specially contributed to its development. It is true a hist or v of Philosophy cannot enter minutely into all these details. They are the material for other departments of history. But it cannot avoid occasional allusions to them, since they have exercised an important influence on
INTRODUCTION. •>
the progress of Philosophy. For the same reason, it cannot omit from view the outward lives of the several philosophers. On this point, too, it must furnish adequate information."
11. The sources from which a history of Philosophy must be drawn are: —
Primarily, such works of the philosophers as have reached us, or such fragments of their writings as are still preserved. But, before using such works or fragments of works for the purposes of history we must first be assured of their authenticity and integrity. Historical criticism, by which this assurance is given us, must, therefore, prepare the way for a history of Philosophy.
In dealing with philosophical theories and systems where the author's own exposition is not accessible to us, we must, of course, con tent ourselves with the statements of others. In such cases these state ments are most reliable which are based immediately on the writings of the philosophers ; and next to these, the statements of disciples as to the oral teachings of their masters. If the purpose of the writer whose statements are our source of information be not so much historical nar ration as proof of the doctrines he is stating, we must, in order to make his utterances available for purposes of history, discover from them the exact thoughts of the author of the theories in question, and we must test each statement made by its bearing on this issue. The source from which the writer drew, and the purpose of his writings, are of first im portance ; next in importance, as a criterion of his trustworthiness, is his own education in Philosophy, his capacity to understand the doctrines with which he is dealing.
12. In seeking a division of the history of Philosophy, we find two great divisions obviously suggested — the history of the pre-Christian (ancient) Philosophy, and the history of Philosophy since Christ. Christ is the central point for all history. His coming into the world has been called by the Apostle " the fulness of time " (plenitude tonporis). He was the scope and the consummation of the times that preceded Him, He was the point of departure for the time that followed ; for the events that have filled it have all been hallowed by the Redemption he effected. For the Christian all history is thus divided into two great periods, and with the rest, the history of Philosophy. This view is in strict accord ance with the facts of the case. The Philosophy which preceded, and that which followed Christ, differ more widely in character than the philosophies of any of the several periods subordinate to these. The world has never witnessed such a revolution in human thought, such an enlargement of the range of human knowledge as that effected by the introduction of Christianity. We cannot, therefore, find elsewhere a more appropriate point at which to divide the history of Philosophy into its main divisions than at the point where Christianity appears in the world.
13. If we inquire what are the characteristic features of these two chief eras of Philosophy, we find them in their respective relations to Chri^- tiaiiity which we have indicated above.
0 INTRODUCTION.
To speak first of pre-Christian Philosophy.
Pre-Christian Philosophy is characterised generally by persistent vigorous efforts to attain a purer knowledge of that truth which was era- bodied in the religious tenets and traditions of the several ancient peoples. Religious traditions, though derived from an untainted source (the primary tradition), had undergone so many transformations among various nations, and had been so thickly overlaid with errors, that in the state they had reached they could no longer satisfy the longing of the human mind for truth. The mind of man set itself, therefore, to reach by rational investigation what it no longer possessed in the tradi tions of religion. Its innate desire of knowledge was the force which impelled it to consecrate its energies to the search after truth.
This effort of the human mind was, it must be admitted, in many respects successful. The philosophers of antiquity arrived at the know ledge of many important and lofty truths. But the path they had entered on did not lead them to the whole truth, and of this the ablest thinkers amongst them were only too well aware. Manifold errors, too, found entrance into and disfigured their systems. No one of the ancient philosophies stated the whole truth, and all contained many errors. Philosophy could not maintain itself at the level reached in these systems; it sank after a time into Materialism and Scepticism.
From this point of view Philosophy, in its earlier development, appears as a preparation of the human mind for the Christian Revelation which was made to the world in the fulness of time. This preparation was accomplished in three ways :
In the first place, the great thinkers of antiquity, having attained a knowledge of many important truths, but not of the whole truth, had roused that longing after the fulness of truth, to which, as we know, Plato gave such striking expression. By exciting this desire for truth in its fulness, and thus rendering the human mind more ready to receive it, ancient Philosophy did its most important work in pre paration for Christian Revelation.
Furthermore, Philosophy, having failed to maintain itself at the level reached in the more celebrated systems, had fallen into Materialism and Scepticism. And these had called forth in the human mind the feeling of need for higher assistance, for some divine revela tion which should help man to a fuller knowledge of the truth. This feeling of the need of a revelation further contributed to dispose the human mind for the due reception of revealed teaching.
A third service, important to be remembered, was rendered by the ancient Philosophy to Christianity. On the one hand it thoroughly investigated the conditions and laws of scientific thought ; and on the other, by its efforts of speculation, it amassed a considerable body of truths of the natural order. In both these ways it prepared materials for the fabric of speculative Philosophy, which, after the time of Christ, was raised in connection with Christian Revelation. Thinkers of the Christian schools found abundant materials ready to hand, and these, as we shall see, thev \ised in the fullest measure.
INTRODUCTION. 7
14. We come now to the Philosophy of the newer or Christian period.
The Philosophy of this period is characterised in general by the effort to reach a profounder understanding of truth, to dig deeper the foundations of knowledge. But the founders of the newer systems have pursued this effort on widely different lines.
Some have fallen in with the ordinances of God, have submitted to divine revelation, and, in submission to it as the guiding principle of their inquiries, have sought to penetrate the truth more profoundly, and to establish it on a more unassailable foundation. Following this path, they have achieved most brilliant successes, the systems which such thinkers have built up being amongst the most imposing with which the history of Philosophy presents us.
Others again have followed a course at variance with the divinely-established order. They have adopted a false and perverted attitude towards divine revelation, have even rejected Christianity altogether, and by a method thus opposed to the order established by God, have sought. to discover the truth and to demonstrate it. Thinkers of this class have never attained satisfactory results. The philosophic movements begun by them have led always, in course of due develop ment, to far-reaching errors, and have at length lost themselves in Scepticism and Materialism.
But whatever road philosophers may have followed, whatever results they may have produced, the final outcome has ever been to place the truth of Christian revelation in clearer light before the scientific mind. To this end one set of philosophers have directly contributed by systems developed in harmony with, and in support of revelation. Others have contributed to the same effect indirectly. By the very errors into which they have fallen in consequence of their perverseness of thought they furnish proof that it is only when in accord with divine revelation, and when unreservedly obedient to its teachings, that the human mind can know the truth profoundly, and vindicate it successfully.
If, then, we regard pre-Christian Philosophy as a preparation for the Christian revelation, we must recognise in the newer Philosophy a continued confirmation of the same revelation, a power which has served to bring out more clearly, more comprehensively, and more forcibly the truth of Christianity.
PART FIRST.
HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
GENERAL VIEW. DIVISION.
§2.
1. In any general view of the history of the pre-Christian period, our attention is first drawn to the East, the cradle of human civilization. The history of Philosophy will therefore begin with an exposition of the Philosophy of the Eastern nations. Generally speaking, however, Phi losophy, among these nations, is not met with as an independent science, standing apart from systems of religious teaching. Among them, philo sophical theories are, as a rule, identified with doctrines of religion. In India alone do we find a system of strictly philosophical doctrines ; but even here Philosophy stands in close relation to Religion. It is either a speculative development of religious doctrines, or it is framed in antagonism to a religious system whose principles it directly or indirectly combats. The history of Eastern Philosophy will, therefore, do no more than, firstly, bring into prominence the philosophical elements of the several Oriental religions ; and secondly, give an account of those more strictly philosophical systems which, in India, took their place beside the doctrines of Religion. Oriental Philosophy, as we have said, does not exhibit the characteristics of a philosophy in the strict sense of the term ; but it cannot, for this reason, be left out of sight altogether. As we shall show further on, an attempt was made at a later date to blend together certain notions derived from the East with certain conceptions of the Greek mind, and the attempt gave rise to peculiar systems of Philosophy.
2. From the East we turn to the "West, and first of all to Greece. Here we come upon the birthplace of Philosophy strictly so called — Philosophy which is no longer a body of religious doctrines. The Eastern mind, with its innate tendency to inactive Quietism, did not possess that mobility and energy which the construction of strictly philosophical systems demanded. But these gifts were abundantly possessed by the Greeks. To them genuine Philosophy owes its origin. The history of ancient Philosophy is, therefore, mainly concerned with the creations of the Greek mind. To the Greeks we are indebted for
10 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
those great and strikingly original systems which mark the highest level of philosophic thought in antiquity, and which, for this reason, have exercised an incalculable influence upon succeeding ages. The Philo sophy of the Romans was an offshoot from the Greek, not a development of it. The Romans adopted the ideas and systems current in Greece, explaining or modifying them after their fashion. But they have given us no philosophical system of their own creation.
3. Later, about the time when the Christian Revelation was first
? reached to the world, in the city of Alexandria, which under the 'tolemies and the Romans had become a great centre of intellectual activity, there arose a philosophical school which strove to unite the religious doctrines of the East with the teachings of Greek Philosophy. " From the philosophical systems of the Greeks and the religious doc trines which had obtained currency chiefly in the East it chose out what seemed likely to meet the moral and intellectual needs of mankind." Its procedure was purely eclectic — a method by which it hoped to reach the goal of perfect knowledge. The movement lasted far into the Christian period ; not before the sixth century of . our era did it come finally to an end. It is, nevertheless, to be treated as belonging to ancient Philosophy. It lay without the sphere of Christianity ; the Christian doctrines seem to have exerted no influence on the authors of the systems that belong to it.
4. We thus perceive that the ancient Philosophy did not at once make way for the Christian Revelation. Just as Paganism did not disappear as soon as Christianity was preached, but yielded slowly before it ; so was it with the ancient Philosophy. Though it had fallen from its high estate, and had degenerated partly into Scepticism, partly into Materialism, it gathered all its remaining energies together in the effort to make head against the might of Christianity, and to maintain its hold on the minds of men. The effort, it is true, ended in failure ; the old Philosophy paled before the light of the Gospel, and perished at last from the sheer weakness of age. But, for all this, it played an important part in the history of the early ages of Christianity, and the writer of a History of Philosophy must not omit to take notice of it as it appeared in its latest phases.
5. The history of ancient Philosophy, then, may be divided into three sections : —
The first section deals with Oriental Philosophy, whether em bodied in religious systems or developed in close relation with them.
The second section comprises the history of Greek Philosophy and of the Roman Philosophy which arose out of it, and follows both as far as they extend into the*Christian period.
The third section embraces the Grtcco- Oriental Philosophy, its rise in Alexandria out of the blending of Oriental religion with Greek Philosophy, and its course through the ages that followed till its final extinction in the sixth century.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE EAST. 11
SECTION I.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE EAST.
Ix this section we shall treat first of Philosophy among the Chinese ; then of the philosophical systems of India ; next of the Philosophy embodied in the Medo-Persian religions ; and lastly of the Philosophy embodied in the religions of the other nations of Western Asia.
1. PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE CHINESE.
53.
1. The sacred books of the Chinese are called Kinya (y-King and Chou-King). Fohi is regarded as the founder of a religious civilization among them. To him the authorship of the i/-King is ascribed. The precise period at which he lived has not been determined. He is credited with having discovered the eight primordial kua — at once elements of written language and symbols of the primary agents which are at work in all the transformations of nature. In their first significance they give rise, by transposition and multiplication, to the 40,000 characters of the Chinese syllabic alphabet ; in their second significance they contain the elements of all physical science, as their combinations repre sent the processes by which material bodies are formed. " This com bination takes place in four figures, the complete symbols in which represent perfect and active being ; the incomplete symbols, imperfect and passive being. As three lines are united to form each figure, we have eight figures in all, four with a preponderance of the perfect, representing aether, pure fire, pure water, and thunder ; four with a preponderance of the imperfect, the expressions for wind, water, mountains, earth."
2. Turning now to the religious notions of the Chinese, we find that they regard Heaven and Earth as the primary powers. " The thing of irreaiest excellence in the universe is Heaven — the object, consequently, of divine homage. Next in excellence comes the centre of the earth (China), for here the opposing principles are maintained in that equi librium on which the existence of the world depends. Man is the link that binds Heaven and Earth together. His duty is to preserve har mony in the world. The fixed, unbending law, according to which the life of man must be fashioned in the fulfilment of this duty, emanates from the Sovereign, who, in the ' Empire of the Centre,' is the ' centre' in the strict sense, and who, as ' Son <it' Hraven,' is in immediate relation with the celestial order. The law thus given is a rule of domestic or family life. The Emperor is the father of his people. In union with him they form one great family, which is subdivided into smaller family groups." Obedience to domestic law, the thorough observance of the i'amily ordinances, whether general or particular, is the fundamental
12 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
obligation of all members of the " Empire of the Centre." On this obedience depends the maintenance of harmony and equilibrium in the world. Violations of this obedience must be rigorously punished by the Emperor, that order may be restored.
3. It is clear that these religious notions contain no element of speculation. We have in this circumstance an explanation of the fact that there is no genuine speculative Philosophy of Chinese origin. There was no basis for such a Philosophy in the religion of the people. Wherever we discover products of abstract thought among the Chinese, we shall find, on inquiry, that these have been received from without. The Chinese seem to have been incapable of an independent effort of speculation. This is evident even in the man whom they regard as their greatest sage, the reputed author of the lesser Kings — Confucius.
4. Confucius (Kung-f u-dsu), who lived about five hundred years before Christ, turned his whole attention to the principles of moral law. His career was that of a great reformer of the moral life of his nation. His teaching was wholly practical. It exhibited no tendency to abstract speculation. Even in his practical theories he was not original. His merit is that he collected and reduced to orderly arrangement the prin ciples of morality which already governed the popular mind. His teaching was, in brief — self-restraint and moderation. " Harmony and concord among reasoning beings is the primary requirement of reason. This concord is possible only when each man restricts himself to a determined sphere of action, and in all his actions maintains a fixed standard, beyond which he will not pass, and short of which he will not fall. Only that which is done in this wise is good and just ; what departs from this rule, on the one side or the other, is ever and always bad. The wise man is a man of action, but always within his own determined sphere, always observing that law of moderation which secures him against any violation of the general harmony."
5. About the time of Confucius, Laotsee promulgated a peculiar teaching at variance with the popular religion. The tenets of his system, however, point to India as the place of its origin. His doctrine, the exposition of which is contained in the book Taokinf/, assumes the existence of one primary being, infinite and unchangeable, which he names Tao — Reason. In itself this being is an indeterminate unity ; but it is, nevertheless, the primary source of all determinate being. From it the latter, in all its forms, emanates, but only to return to it again. " The end of all human effort is the supremacy of the spiritual in man's nature, freedom from passion, the undisturbed contemplation of the Eternal Reason, and ultimate union with the Primary Being in untroubled rest and deliverance from all corporeal motion." The votaries of this doctrine form the sect of the T(U)s?c.
6. Last in order comes the teaching of Fo, or Fob. This doctrine is nothing more than a degenerate form of Buddhism, and is supposed to have reached China from India (according to others, from Japan) about the sixty-fifth year of the Christian era. The leading principle of this system of doctrine may be stated thus : " Strive to annihilate self. In
I'lm.nsol'HY OF INDIA 1 •'{
the measure in which you cease to exist for self, you begin to be one with God, and to enter 'again into his being. All activity is evil ; com plete inactivity — absolute rest — is the only supreme perfection. The nearer the sage approaches the state of the plant or the stone, by closing the avenues of sense, the higher is his perfection." This, it is manifest, is a theory of absolute Quietism.
2. PHILOSOPHY OF INDIA.
§ 4.
1. It is usual to distinguish four periods in Indian literature ; the period of the Vedas, of sacred writings of the Brahmins ; the period of the Epic Poems or Itihasas ; the period of the more refined poetry of the Court of the Rajah Vikramaditja ; and, lastly, the period of the Commentaries on the earlier writings — a period which falls within the Christian era.
(a.) The Veclas, which some writers make as old as the fourteenth or sixteenth century before Christ, are four in number : the Rig- Veda, the yajur — Sama — and Atharva-Veda. They are the work of different authors, and consist partly of prayers, partly of religious ordinances, and partly of theological doctrines — the parts standing in no definite relation to one another. In these writings we find certain elements of a distinctly speculative character, chiefly in the so-called UjMiiixhculs, or extracts from the Brahmanas (Commentaries), which make the second part of every Veda. It is usual to connect with the Vedas the Book of Laws of Menu, which is assigned to a period mid-way between the time of the Vedas and the time of the Itihasas — though some writers assign it a far later date.
(ft.) The Itihaans (Heroic poems) are two in number — the Ramajana and the Mahal- harata. The Ramajana is attributed to an ancient sage, Valmiki. There is little reference hi it to speculative doctrines. The Mahabharata is of more importance in this respect, chiefly because of the episode it contains, on which the name Bhagavad- Gita has been bestowed, and which is of distinctly philosophical character. This poem is attributed to the mythical Vyasa, — who is also credited with having collected the Vedas. The composition of the eighteen Puranas — likewise attributed to Vyasa — has also been said to belong to this period ; but it has been shown that these are of much more recent date. They may be compared to our encyclopedias, as they embrace the whole range of science known to the Hindus. This characteristic seems of itself to indicate a comparatively modern origin.
(c.) In the third period we find the Gita-Govinda, a lyrical poem, the author of which is named Dshayaveda, and the Sakuntala, the most celebrated of the Hindu dramas, the work of Kalidasa. There are grounds for believing that Kalidasa lived in the century immediately preceding the Christian era.
(fl. ) Last in order comes the age of the Commentaries on the earlier writings. There is little doubt that this period gave birth to a considerable philosophical literature. Certain mythical beings, belonging to a remote antiquity, are named as the authors of these writings. Judged by internal evidence, however, these writings are not of very ancient origin ; it has been surmised that they do not date from a period more remote than the last century before Christ.
2. Philosophy among the Hindus has been developed in intimate con nection with Religion. Even in its most modern form, this Philosophy bears traces of its origin, since it professes to be still an exposition of the Vedas. To understand it aright we must, therefore, cast a glance at the religious system of the Hindus.
3. In the earliest form of the Hindu Religion with which the
14 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Vedas make us acquainted, we find three supreme elemental divinities — In(/ra, Vantni and Ayni — the God of the Firmament, the God of Night, and the God of Fire. This doctrine was succeeded later by that of the Trimurti. In the latter system the supreme object of all religions is the Deity — the absolute unity which exists in all things, but is not represented by any notion we can form — Brahma. Buried in deep repose, this being is absorbed in self-contemplation. His awakening from this slumber gives existence to concrete and individual objects, all of which come forth from him. In this process he becomes the creator, and it is as creator that he, properly speaking, is called by the name Brahma ; as the Sustaining Power in nature he is called Vishnu ; as Destroying Power, effecting constant changes in the forms of things, he is called Shiva. These three divinities form together the Hindu Trimurti, and to these divine worship is rendered. The metamorphoses of Vischnu, or the Incarnations of the Divinity, are the main subject of the sacred books. Every thing returns again to Brahma, the absolute unity. It is the duty of man to strive after union with Brahma. This is attainable by sacrifice and penance, and these presupposed, by the effort to rise to undisturbed contemplation of the Supreme Unity. The man who cannot reach this perfection has still to undergo a transmigration of soul, with the miseries and sufferings attending it.
4. In the later Itihasas we find these religious doctrines so far modified that heroes and penitents are honoured as gods. Even here, however, it is not deeds of heroism which win divine honours, but rather sacrifices of special worth (sacrifices of horses), or extraordinary practices of penance — the stifling of all sense of earthly pleasure and pain. " When a king offers steeds in sacrifice, or betakes himself to the desert to practise superhuman penance, or devotes himself to superhuman contemplation, then do Indra and the gods of heaven tremble lest he should push them from their thrones, for in this way they, too, have reached their dignities." This, it will be perceived, is no more than a polytheism of the anthropomorphic kind.
5. Buddhism had its rise about the fifth or sixth century before Christ. The author of this religious system is said to have been Sakja Muni — the first Buddha. The Buddhist doctrines are nihilistic. Sakja Muni had no God but nothingness. Nothingness, so runs the first of the four " great truths " of Buddhism, is the true being of all things, all that we take to be reality is void and without substance. Existence, or rather the clinging to individual existence, is the cause of evil, the source of suffering. It is, therefore, man's duty to shake himself free from this vain semblance of existence, or rather from his attachment to it. His end is to attain to the primary, the only true state — non-existence, to the extinction of his personal being and personal consciousness — " Nirvana."
6. A system of mystical asceticism is the appointed way by which man must reach this end. He must pass through a course of frightful penance, in order to extinguish individual consciousness in himself, and thus lose himself in Nirvana. Should he achieve this, he becomes one
PHILOSOPHY OF INDIA. 15
with God, and in his knowledge of the nothingness of all things .becomes lord of all. He is raised above all moral law, he cannot sin any more, he has freed himself from the trammels of nature, and becomes the benefactor and redeemer of his kind. The ideal of Buddhism the Buddhists naturally find to have been realised in the founder of their sect. " Master of self- forgetting contemplation, hero of self-annihilating asceticism, Sakja Muni, — Buddha is the ideal and the refuge of his disciples. He lives in those who imitate his per fection. Whoever resembles the first Buddha shares in the divine honours which are his due. In the holy disciples of Buddha the deity is ever generated anew, to vanish anew into Nothing ; is in fact nothing else than man delivering himself from existence." Whosoever fails to reach the perfection of Buddhist mysticism is not permitted after death to enter into Nirvana, but is condemned to wander over the earth in some spectral form. To avoid this fate the Buddhist must not shrink from penance, be it ever so appalling.
7. The Buddhists became divided into several sects. Their resist ance to the authority of the Brahmins, and their opposition to the system of castes, provoked sanguinary religious wars. During these struggles large numbers of them were forced into exile, and in this way Buddhism was propagated in many countries of Eastern Asia.
8. With this general outline of the religions of India before us, we may now pass to the systems of Hindu Philosophy. These we may divide into the Philosophy of Mimansa and Vedanta, of Sankhya and Yoga, of Nyaya and Vaiseshika. We may further add the doctrines of the Dshainas, of the Tscherwakas, and of the Lokayatikas, but of these enough is not yet known to allow us to give an account of them in detail.
PHILOSOPHY OF MIMANSA AND VEDANTA.
§5.
1. The Mimansa-Darcanam (system of investigation) is divided into two closely related parts : the Karamimansa (investigation of actions) — the practical, and the Brahmamimansa (investigation of Brahma), or Vedanta — the speculative. This system of doctrines is looked upon as the most ancient form of Hindu Philosophy, though some authors, like Colebrooke, are of opinion that it is of later origin than the other systems, since it deals polemically with them. Be this as it may, it is certain that this system professes to be the orthodox Philo sophy of the Brahminical religion, that it constantly appeals to passages of the Vedas in proof of its theories, and refers to a certain number of the Upanishads as the source from which it is derived. For this reason we give it the first place in our exposition.
2. The object of the Karamimansa (of which Gaimini is said to be the author) is to interpret rightly the maxims of the sacred books, to explain the contradictions that appear in them, and by careful inquiry
16 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
to determine exactly what are the religious obligations really imposed by the Vedas. At the same time it sets forth the motives and the purpose of these obligations, namely, the deliverance from sin, and the attainment of blessing and proportionate happiness through the fulfil ment of duty. It is thus no more than an exegesis of the sacred books, and possesses but little interest for the philosopher. It is otherwise with the Brahmamimansa or Vedanta Philosophy ; in this the speculative element is predominant.
3. The Vedanta is a fully developed system of Pantheism at once mystical and idealistic. " What is, is Brahma (God) ; what is not Brahma is nothing ;" such is the fundamental teaching of the Vedantists. Brahma is the Infinite, and as such he alone has being. The multi tudinous objects of the universe, inasmuch as multitudinous, are non existent — mere non-being. The objects seen by us in their individuality and in their multiplicity appear to us different from Brahma and from one another, but this is a mere deception — we are still far from real knowledge. Brahma alone has being, he is One without another, un changeable, eternal, unspeakable, Lord, Spirit, Truth, Wisdom, Bliss. As Spirit, he is the indivisible unity of all being, the whole, but not anything of the whole. To admit that Brahma could produce anything distinct from himself would be to admit in him a principle of finiteness and limitation, since what is distinct from him must be finite ; and thus he would cease to be infinite. Brahma is Being, and being out of him there is none.
4. What is called the created universe is no more than an unfold ing of the divine being, or rather a transformation of Brahma in varying forms. Brahma is at once the efficient and the material cause of the world. He is at once that which is changed and that by which change is effected. As milk is transformed into curds, and water into ice, so does Brahma transform himself variously. As the spider spins her web from out herself, as the sea sends forth its foam, so does Brahma produce all things from himself, and transforms himself in them. This transformation is effected by successive processes. First comes aether ; out of this is formed the air ; out of air water ; out of water the earth. In this wise the Universe comes to be.
5. Although Brahma is the being of all things, the subject in every change, yet in himself he is not affected by change or transformation. In his own being he is infinitely raised above all things. He takes every form, but his own being has no determined form, nor does it occupy any determined place. He is like pure space ; all things exist and move in him, but he is not himself changed thereby. And as his being enters into all things without undergoing change in those transformations, so does he take all things again into himself without any accession to his being. The elements come forth from God in determined order ; in the same order do they return to him. But no increase of perfection thereby accrues to Brahma, for this return to him is merely the undoing of his previous transformations.
6. In this theory creation is merely a sport of Brahma with him-
I'HII.OSOI'IIY ()K INDIA. 17
si'lt'; oiii- notion of all matter ivsN upon a delusion — in fact, mathT i-- ii-M-lf deception (Maya). The conservation and duration of the universe i> no inoiv than the sheen and shadow of Brahma's eternal existence. Nothing of it all has real existence or continuance. It is a mere appearance which soon vanishes in the abyss of the Divine unity. Brahma is at once the generating and the destroying power. There is no essential difference between things in the world. All are forms of Brahma transformations. Our sense cognition is but a delusion ; it has no truth, no reality.
7. To the human soul, however, the Vedantists allot a special place in their system. The soul is indeed one in being with Brahma, but it is not a transformation of Brahma, it is a part of him. The soul is a spark shot forth from the eternal spirit, it is therefore of immortal nature like Brahma himself. Birth and death affect it not ; it is not born, neither does it die. It is not immediately united with the body. The Vedantists seek to remove the soul as far as possible from contact with the body, and for this reason they will not admit an immediate union between them.
8. They therefore distinguish between the subtle invisible body — Linfiasurirfi, and the material body — Stliulasarira. The soul is im mediately invested by the invisible body, and through this is united to the material body. In the body immediately investing it the soul is enclosed as in a sheath, but this sheath is itself formed of three successive envelopes. The inmost is the rational, then follows the imaginative, and lastly the vital part. This triple envelope is in time enveloped by the material body.
9. This union with a material body is an evil for the soul, not an advantage ; for by this connection it is held fast in the domain of delusion, it is deprived of the repose towards which it naturally aspires, and is made to act and to suffer. Brahma reposes eternally in himself, and finds bliss in this repose. The soul is destined to a like repose and a like bliss ; but of this it is deprived by its union with the body, and is forced into action and to suffering. The action and the sufferings of this life are not, then, to be attributed to the soul's own nature — they are occasioned by the body and its organs. Thus the material body is like a chain which confines the soul to a state wholly at variance with its nature.
10. Since the soul is one in being with Brahma, in fact only a part of Brahma, there can be no question of independent action, nor con sequently of free self-determination. Brahma is the principle of bring in the soul, he is the one principle of its action also. " Brahma alone works in me. I myself am without will or act." Brahma is not, how ever, for this reason the author of evil. The transmigrations of the soul have been going on throughout eternity. Each new life of the soul is determined in all respects, even to its moral condition, by that which immediately preceded. Every soul brings with it into this life special predispositions, and according to these predispositions the moral character of its activity during its earthly career is determined. Brahma
3
18 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
can act in each individual man only after the manner which the moral predispositions received from an antecedent life require. This being so, it is evident that guilt for evil deeds lies on man alone. Brahma has no part therein.
11. To turn again to the consideration of the relations between soul and body : since the union of the soul with the material body is not a natural condition of the soul, it follows that the task devolving upon the soul in life is to free itself from the burden of the body, and again become one with Brahma. This brings us to the practical part of the Vedantist theories. Deliverance is the highest object after which the soul can strive and must strive — this is the fundamental principle of the practical teaching of the Vedanta. Deliverance is the highest moral duty ; the question next arises how this deliverance is to be attained.
12. The deliverance of the soul is attained by " knowledge," i.e., by the perfect comprehension of Brahma, which involves an apprehension of the truth that the soul is one with Brahma, and with all that emanates from him or has part in his being. This knowledge, according to the Vedantists, is of the mystical not of the rational order. It is reached by immediate intuition. In immediate mystical contemplation of Brahma, and in the consciousness thence arising of the soul's oneness with him, and of the oneness with him of all other things, consists the deliverance of the soul — the highest end of the soul's life here below. In this deliverance by mystical contemplation the soul attains that quietude and bliss to which it naturally tends. In its union with the body it has lost its repose and thereby lost the happiness to which it naturally aspires, but it recovers both when, in mystical contemplation, it emancipates itself from the burden of the body and again unites itself to Brahma.
13. In accordance with these theories the Yedantists teach that the supreme end of man is to be attained by the practices of a mystical asceticism. The process of the deliverance of the soul through " knowledge " must begin with works of penance and sacrifice. Without these the first step in this deliverance is impossible. In the next place, the soul must withdraw from the world of sense — the domain of illusion, and become concentrated within itself. As long as it expends itself on the phantoms of sense, deliverance is out of the question ; it must turn from these and fix its gaze upon itself. Through this concentration of the soul within itself we reach the third stage in the process of deliver ance — repose in God. In this state the soul maintains itself entirely passive and merely permits God to work in it. It " leaves itself " to God. This condition of soul is described by the Vedantists as tranquil bearing, self-control, endurance, special sitting and standing attitude, holding of the breath, focussing of thought, faith.
14. This, then, is the mystical process of deliverance. When this has been completed, final deliverance in the knowledge of Brahma follows of itself. When the soul has succeeded in giving itself wholly to God, the light of contemplation dawns upon it, the spirit shines within it in its native brilliancy, the soul recognises itself as the immacu-
PHILOSOPHY OF INDIA. 19
late Brahma ; it perceives all other things to be one with Brahma ; it is united with God ; it knows no longer, it is itself knowledge. Like the river which loses itself in the sen the soul loses itself in God. Knowing Brahma it becomes Brahma himself. " All illusion is at an end, the soul in all things sees only Brahma." In this wise has it reached quietude and bliss. The deliverance of the soul through contemplation of God means, then, complete identification with the (rod-head, absorption into the Divine Being. Individual personality is something to be got rid of, it must be sacrificed in order that man may come forth from the flame of the holocaust a part of the Universal Divine Spirit.
15. The man who has reached this condition of complete emanci pation has become, by the fact, cleansed of all sin and made independent of all moral law. As soon as he reaches " knowledge " his past sins are wiped out, and future misdeeds are not admissible. Water does not moisten the leaf of the lotus, neither does sin touch the soul that knows God. It is sinless and cannot sin. There is no vice left nor any virtue. For virtue too is a fetter, and it matters not that the fetter should be of gold rather than of iron ; eternal liberty admits of neither. Evil disappears and so also does every virtue with the activity corresponding to it ; the soul is raised above both alike, it has entered into rest. The Yogi (perfect contemplative) has therefore no account to render ; he is as independent as the Divine nature itself.
16. The eschatology of the Yedantists is in keeping with these principles. Entire deliverance, complete absorption of the soul in Brahma, is impossible here below. Perfect Emancipation, complete quietude and bliss in God, is attainable only after the death of the body. But different souls enter into different states after death. The Yogi properly so-called, i. c., the man who has reached such perfection of knowledge as is possible on earth, enters immediately into the Divine Being, is absorbed into it, and is not subject to further change. But the soul whose "knowledge" has been imperfect, which can reach only Brahma's home, but is not prepared for absorption into his being, remains invested after death with its invisible body, is not, indeed, subject to further change during the duration of the world now existing, but may be subject to it in the new worlds that are to follow, unless exempted 'by special favour of Brahma.
17. As to other souls, those, to wit, which have not followed the ways of mystical asceticism — they too, invested with the inner or invisible body, enter, after death, into other spheres, to receive the reward of their good or evil deeds. Sinners are condemned to various regions of punishment where Tschitragupta, and other mythological personages hold rule in the realms of Yama (Death). The virtuous, on the other hand, ascend into the moon, and there enjoy the reward of their good deeds. But they have yet to return to this world, and to enter again into new bodies. They are still subject to the conditions involved in the trans migration of souls. The cycle of change from one body to another must last till they enter at length upon the path of mystical asceticism, and by the process of self-deliverance enter into eternal rest.
20 HISTORY OK PHILOSOPHY.
18. Such, in outline, are the doctrines of the Vedanta. They are, in truth, what they purport to be — the speculative development of the religious notions of the Yedas. They are, in their entirety, u characteristic product of the Eastern Mind. This indolent quietism, this merging of the personal spirit in the universal divinity, this contempt of activity, this emancipation of the sage from the require ments of the moral law — all these things bear upon them the stamp of Oriental thought. They mark, as we shall see later, the characteristic difference between the Oriental and the Greek Philosophy.
THE SAXKHYA AND YOGA PHILOSOPHY.
1. The Yedantist Philosophy may be described as a mystico- idealistic Monism ; the Sankhya on the other hand (of which Capila is said to be author) is a well-marked Dualism. According to the Sankhya, all that exists is either producing and not produced, or at once produced and producing, or produced and not producing, or finally neither produced nor producing.
(a.) What produces without being produced is Nature (Prakriti) natura naturans, — the ultimate basis of all material things, a subtle but yet a corporeal substance.
(b.} What produces and is produced is Reason (Buddhi), the Reason of nature, its rational condition.
(c.) What is produced without producing is Self-consciousness (Ahankara), the basis of the Ego.
((/.) What is neither producing nor produced, is the Soul, the spirit (Puruscha) .
2. Of the four members of this division, the first and last, Nature and Spirit — stand farthest apart, while the intermediate members form a connecting link between them, and are dependent on them.
Nature — Prakriti, is uncreated, eternal, but wholly blind, working without consciousness and without knowledge. It is a single principle, by the forces inherent in which is evolved everything that we find in the material world.
Next comes Reason — Buddhi. This reason is not something raised above nature; it is something indwelling in it. It manifests itself in the purpose visible in all nature's works. It is the rational element in nature, nature itself being merely matter.
From Nature and Reason is further evolved Consciousness (Ahan kara). By this is not meant the pure Ego, eternally self -knowing — the spirit in itself, but rather that Ego which is always studiously asserting itself, that more or less empty consciousness, that spon taneity in which the wavering reason seeks to establish for itself a- centre for the relations created by its activity. Ahankara is the groundwork of Avarice and Pride; through it all evil comes into the world. Ahankara is furthermore the principle in man on which depend the internal Sense, the understanding (Manas), the organs of sensation
PHILOSOPHY OF INDIA. 21
and movement, and the bodily condition in general. By the term Ali;mk;ira, Sankhya would seem to signify a kind of brute soul.
Above Nature thus developed, and essentially differing from it stands the Soul — Puruscha. Sankhya proves the existence of a soul distinct from nature in this wise: —
(a.) We find an organic formation existing in blind material nature, such a formation as we may compare to a workman's instru ment. This implies the existence of something else for whose benefit the instrument exists. This something else must be a being of know ledge — a soul. As there exists an object to be made use of, there must exist a being to use it; this being is the soul.
(/3.) Again, the effort after supreme happiness supposes an abstrac tion which rises above the passing world, the world of sense. This effort, which we recognise in ourselves, is proof of the existence of a soul, for the soul alone is capable of such abstraction.
(-y.) Lastly, the members of an antithesis mutually suppose one another. From the existence of a force in nature exercised in blind, unreasoning outward action, we may argue the existence of an in telligent self-contained soul.
tf. From what has been said, it is now apparent in what relation the two members of the antithesis — Nature and Soul — stand to one another. The principle of all activity and all motion is Nature, and Nature alone. The Soul is neither active nor productive, it is merely a tranquil spectator of what goes on in Nature. There are, however, mutual dependences between them. Nature, as a blind principle of action, can have no purpose in itself, it can exist only for something else, for something which is intelligent; Nature, then, exists for the Soul. On the other hand, the Soul cannot, apart from Nature, attain to know ledge, especially to the knowledge of itself as of something distinct from Nature. They are to one another as the blind and the lame; the Soul has no power of movement or action, Nature cannot see the way before it ; the one supplies what is wanting to the other, and from both together arises the whole order of spiritual and material phenomena.
4. Sankhya does not make the Soul a single principle as it makes Nature; it admits a plurality of souls. "This it takes to be proved by the fact, that different destinies befall souls; that different pains and pleasures are experienced by them; that they are engaged in different occupations." We have also to distinguish in man between the subtle body — Linga, and the gross material body by which the former is enveloped. The former consists of Buddhi (Reason), Ahankara, Manas, the ten senses, and the five subtle elements. The Linga has not in itself a personal character, it attains this perfection in virtue of its union with the Soul, to which it is united until the latter is finally emancipated.
5. AVith regard to the duty of man in life, Sankhya makes the deliverance of the Soul (from the trammels of Nature) the highest end of all human effort. And here, too, "knowledge" is the means by which deliverance is accomplished. Human works avail nothing. The
22 HISTORY OF PHIl-OSnl'llY.
required knowledge consists in ""this, that the Soul apprehends the essential difference between itself and Nature. "Deliverance" is no more than the divesting of the Soul, by right knowledge, of that which belongs to it in appearance only, and which hides it from the eye of sense. All that happens in Nature, happens that the Soul may at tain this self-knowledge, this view of its own being.
6. When the Soul has reached this term; when it has attained the conviction that nothing of all that happens in the world is its work, or its concern, it is freed thereby from earthly disquiet, from all the influences, and hampering forces of Nature. It may still remain in. union with the body, just as the potter's wheel continues to revolve, though it is no longer in use ; but the movements of the body no longer trouble the Soul, they can be of no further use to it. Prakriti, like a dancing girl, presents itself before Puruscha to lead it to knowledge, and then modestly withdraws when the task is finished. If deliverance is not complete in this life, it will be perfected after death, and the man who has attained it, is exempted from those transmigrations to which other souls are subject.
7. Connected with Sankhya, and probably an offshoot from it, is the philosophical system of Yoga. Respecting this system, we have little detailed knowledge. It is to a great extent in accord with Sankhya, but it differs from it in this, "that it admits a supreme God, ruler of all things, who is a Spirit or Soul, distinct from other souls, untroubled by the evils to which they are subject, free from good and free from evil deeds and their consequences, infinite, eternal, omnis cient." What relations Yoga established between this God and the world we do not know. It may have been the object of the teaching of Yoga to set up a Divinity which should unite in one being the elements Nature and Soul, so sharply contrasted in Sankhya.
PHILOSOPHY OF NYAYA AND YAISESHIKA.
1. The Philosophy of Nyaya, of which Gotama is said to be the author, is a system of Logic. But this Logic is the path of " deliverance " for the Soul — not a mere means to deliverance, but in itself actual deliverance, and thus a certain way to bliss. Logic, to wit, leads to true knowledge (the knowledge of the essences of things), and in this precisely consists the emancipation of the Soul.
2. The further development of Nyaya is effected in the Philosophy of Yaiseshika, of which Kanada is reputed the founder. This system may be said to be a Philosophy of Nature, as it deals chiefly with the corporeal world. Yaiseshika advocates the atomic theory. All bodies, according to the disciples of this Philosophy, are formed from homo geneous, minute, indivisible atoms. In dividing bodies we must ulti mately reach parts that are no longer divisible ; otherwise corporeal substances would contain parts infinite in number, and everything in nature would thus be infinite, and the least equal to the greatest.
3. The combinations of atoms form bodies. " The first combination
OK INDIA. 23
of two atoms is the simplest. The bipartite elements thus formed com bine in threes ; the tripartite elements thus arising, in fours ; and so on in every increasing number. Only those elements can unite to form a perceptible substance between which there is mutual adaptability. The smallest perceptible magnitude is that of the mote of the sunbeam. This is a combination of the second order, and consists, accordingly, of six atoms. The size of the ultimate atom is, therefore, one-sixth that of the mote of the sunbeam."
4. The combination of atoms to form perceptible bodies is governed, according to Vaiseshika, by a fixed law. The chance combinations of the Greek atomistic doctrines are therefore excluded. Vaiseshika also assumes the existence of a higher force which controls the combinations of the atoms. It will not admit the possibility of spontaneous combi nations among them ; the action of God must intervene to determine them to union.
5. Vaiseshika furthermore undertakes an explanation of man's nature : there is a soul in man distinct from the body, for he possesses attributes different from the attributes of other things ; to wit, intelligence, desire, aversion, will, pleasure, and pain. In the body, on the other hand, are located action and the effort after that which gives pleasure, the organs of sense, and the feeling of sensuous pleasure and pain. Intermediary between soul and body is Ahankara (self -consciousness), which, although united to each individual soul, is yet wholly distinct from it. But everything which in this life is united to the soul is an evil for the soul : " the body is evil, the senses are evil, the objects of sense, the elements, consciousness of the external world, consciousness of self, action, pleasure, and pain."
6. And thus we are again conducted to the term in which all Hindu systems eventually end — the Deliverance of the Soul. It is the task of the Soul to free itself from the evils of the body, by means of that sacred knowledge in which it contemplates itself as a thing distinct from the body and independent of it. Through this realization of its own essence the Soul rises above the sphere of action, above merit and responsibility, and attains to perfect quietude and bliss.
7. To the systems hitherto set forth we must add three others, with the details of which, however, we are but imperfectly acquainted. They have this in common, that they are materialistic in character, and :nv therefore at variance with the religious doctrines of the Hindus. The first system is that of the Dschainas. In this system a distinction is allowed between the animate and the inanimate, but both, it is con tended, are constituted by atoms only. It admits no supramundane existence, and will not acknowledge a Providence. Closely connected with tliis system is that of the Tscherwakas, which maintains that the corporeal alone is real ; that spirit is merely an empty word. Last in order comes the system of the Lokayatikas, an offshoot of the previous school. Here, too, the body is the only reality ; spirit is mere nothing. Sensation, consciousness, intelligence, though they do not formally exist in the several dements exist potentially in them, subject to the con-
24 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
dition that these elements combine to form organic bodies. Thought has, therefore, no other cause than a certain definite combination of the elements ; it is merely a mode of their co-existence, in the same way as the fermenting together of several substances produces an exciting beverage, which could not be procured from each substance taken sepa rately, nor from all taken together, unless when mixed in the required manner. As long, therefore, as the body exists a fully constituted organism, so long will thought and feeling, joy and suffering, endure ; but these cease to exist when the body ceases to be.
8. We may notice that Hindu Philosophy has covered a tolerably wide field during its development. From the loftiest Idealism it descend's by many stages to Materialism, and — if we take the Buddhist doctrines into our reckoning — even to Nihilism. Many of the notions which we have met with here will confront us again in various guises during the further course of the History of Philosophy. To this extent the Phi losophy of India cannot be devoid of special interest for us.
RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF THE MEDO-PERSIANS.
1. Turning westward from India, we encounter the Persians, a people which holds a prominent place in ancient history. A Philosophy, in the strict sense of the term, we do not find amongst them. But their system of religion has many elements of a philosophical character, and, besides, has exercised an important influence on the doctrinal systems of sub sequent ages, notably on the heretical theories current in the early Christian times. For both reasons it deserves careful notice. Zoroaster, who is said to have lived in the sixth century before Christ, was, if not the founder, at least the reformer of the religion of the Medo-Persians. To him is ascribed the Zendavesta, an exposition of their religious doctrines.
2. The Zendavesta assumes two ultimate principles of all things — Ormuzd and Ahriman. The synthesis of these two principles in a higher Zeruane-Akerene (Infinite Time), from which both are derived, is a doctrine of later origin. These two principles, Ormuzd and Ahriman, are mutually antagonistic. Ormuzd is the unclouded infinite light, the being of supreme wisdom and perfection, and, as such, the author of all good. Ahriman, on the other hand, is a being of defilement and gloom, and, as such, the principle of darkness and author of all evil. He is, therefore, the enemy of Ormuzd. Ahriman was originally a being of light, but he envied Ormuzd, thereby lost his brightness, and became the antagonist of Ormuzd. The dualism involved in these two principles is not, therefore, a primary, eternal state ; it arose in consequence of the falling away of the one principle from the other.
3. Ormuzd uttered his " /ionovcr" (I am), and thereby created the good spirits and all that is good in the visible world. Ahriman, on the other hand, brought forth the spirits of evil (Dews), and, in alliance
PHII.OSOI'HY OK PI. KM \. 25
with these, perverted the creation of Orrauzd by opposing to its bright ness and its blessings destroying activities and works of evil. '1 his explains why good and evil arc blended in the world, and why the course of the universe puts before us a constant struggle between good and evil.
4. The spirits created by Ormuzd are ranged in a certain hierarchical order. The Amshaspands occupy the first rank ; the Izeds the second. Last in order come the Fervors — protecting spirits, and archetypes whose perfection men must strive to reproduce. In the same way, the Dews created by Ahriman have their differences of rank.
5. The souls of men were created by Ormuzd, and dwelt originally in heaven. But their union with material bodies has involved them in the struggle between good and evil that fills the world. It is, therefore, the duty of man to serve Ormuzd, and to combat Ahriman and his works. The latter obligation is fulfilled by benevolence towards others, by cultivating the soil, by exterminating the living things that have been created by Ahriman, &c. ; the former by sacrifice and the worship of fire, the symbol of Ormuzd. If man fulfils these duties here below, his soul is admitted to the presence of Ormuzd on the second day after the death of the body. Should he offend against these obligations — i.e., should he serve Ahriman in life — his soul is condemned after death to companionship with Ahrimau in hell.
6. The antagonism and strife between Ormuzd and Ahriman are not however to last for ever. Ahriman will eventually be overcome, will then reconcile himself with Ormuzd, will enter with all his following into the kingdom of the latter, and eternal peace shall ensue. The resurrection of the body will be part of this restitution of all things. In this wise is the final triumph of good over evil announced.
7. There is, it is clear, a distinctly ethical principle involved in this system, inasmuch as it binds man to resist evil. But this resistance is something altogether external. Man is bound to combat evil in the outer world, and in the corporeal part of his own being ; further than this his obligation does not go. The perfecting of the inner self is not insisted upon nor suggested. Good and evil are both extrinsic to man. Of an interior moral perfection the Zendavesta knows nothing.
8. It is further deserving of remark that the religious system of the Persians speaks of a Mediator between the two antagonistic principles to whom it gives the name Mithras. Mithras stands between Ormuzd and Ahriman to aid the former in his struggle with the principle of evil, and to lead the latter to final transfiguration in Ormuzd. Through Mithras light and life flow out upon creation, in the strength of which evil is combated in the world and everything at last brought to union with Ormuzd. He it is who introduces to Ormuzd the souls which, after the death of the body, are found fully purified.
9. The religious worship of the Persians was concerned chiefly with fire — the symbol of Ormuzd; their priests were for this reason styled Athrava (provided with fire), and bore different names according to their sacrificial functions. The Athrava were replaced in later times by
26 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
the Magi — at once a caste of priests charged with the functions of religious worship, and a caste of sages in exclusive possession of the wisdom of the nation. They were particularly devoted to Theology and Astronomy, to Physics and to Medicine. Beyond this we know little of the wisdom of the Magi.
PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES EMBODIED IN THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF EGYPT AND WESTERN ASIA.
1. The religions of the peoples of Egypt and Western Asia are, throughout, forms of nature-worship, and contain few speculative elements. A short outline of them will be sufficient.
2. The religion of Egypt was a system of nature-worship, inclining, however, to Dualism. In it primeval night (Athor) is Primary Matter. This Matter is not itself endowed with any formative; power, but within it there is lodged an active principle of generation. In consequence, there comes forth from it, self -generated, self-delivered from the maternal womb, the divinity of action — the sun, from which in turn all life and plastic energy in nature is derived. This active principle of generation appears in Egyptian mythology under the name Osiris, the passive or maternal principle under the name Isis. These are the two prominent Egyptian divinities ; around these and subordinate to the relations they bear to one another are ranged the other mythical divinities of the Egyptians. The worship of animals was part of this system of nature- worship. We also find among the Egyptians the doctrine of the trans migration of souls, and belief in a judgment after death.
3. The Egyptian priests seem to have been adepts in a higher knowledge. The ancients were at one in ascribing a higher wisdom to them. What their esoteric doctrines were we cannot determine with exactness. They loved to shroud their philosophic teaching in a veil of mystery ; and the hieroglyphics of their monuments have not yet been interpreted with sufficient accuracy to enable us to build any trustworthy theory upon them. They seem to have devoted themselves specially to Mathematics and Astronomy. That they exercised an influence on the course of thought in Greece is proved by the journeys of the Greek Philosophers to Egypt to make acquaintance with the wisdom of its priests. We have, however, no means of determining the extent of this influence.
4. A system of nature-worship, much resembling the Egyptian, is found amongst the peoples of Western Asia — the Babylonians, Assy rians, Phoenicians, &c., and here again we find particular prominence given to the sexual differentiation of the powers of Nature (the at-iive and passive). The Sun- God is the active principle, the Ruler of Heaven, the great fecundating power. By his side is the Moon-Goddess — the passive, fecundated principle in generation, a deity who sometimes seems to stand also for the fecundated Earth. All thing! in nature
I'lltl.oMH'iIY 01 I UK GKKKKS. .' T
owe their origin to the fecundation of the passive clement by the active ; all came forth from the womb of the Great Mother, images of the generating parent, to be destroyed In him ;i^ain, and to return to the womb whence they have issued. The two powers of nature, thus personified, take different names with different peoples. The Baby lonians name them Baal and Mylitta, the Syrians Baal and Astarte, the Phoenicians Moloch (Melkarth) and Astarte, &c.
5. Among the Babylonians, the order of the learned — on whom the name Chaldeans was bestowed — were, like the Persian Magi, devoted to star-worship, astrology, and magic. They specially cultivated the science of Mathematics and Astronomy. The Cosmogony of the Chaldean Berosus dates from the time of Alexander the Great. In this system, Baal (the supreme divinity) creates Heaven and Earth by dismemberment of the goddess Omorka (the Sea), man himself being produced from drops of the blood of Baal. Differing from this is the Cosmogony of the Phoenician Sanchuiiiaton, who is said to have lived about 1,200 B.C. He assumes a primeval Chaos, which, by the breath of God brooding over it, is divided into Heaven and Earth. Only fragments of these systems have reached us; and the true date of the latter system is a matter of complete uncertainty.
6. Thus much for the wisdom of the East. What has been said will suffice to make known the speculative ideas of the Oriental peoples, and the essential character of these ideas. Any closer examination of them, especially as regards their connection with forms of religious worship, belongs to the history of Religion. We leave them, therefore, to turn our attention to the true home of Philosophy — to Greece.
SECTION II.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. Outline nnd Division.
§ 10.
1. It is undeniable that the Greeks received from the East many of the elements of their civilisation. Colonists from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Phrygiu carried with them into Greece their arts and inventions, their knowledge of agriculture and of music, their religious hymns, their poetry, and their mysteries. There can be no doubt that philosophical notions also, those especially which were connected with religious beliefs, were introduced into Greece in the same fashion. This is clearly indicated by the close resemblance which we observe to exist between the secret dogmas of the oldest Greek mysteries, and the earliest teach ings of the East. But we should not be warranted in concluding from this that the Greeks owe their civilisation whollv to the East, that the
28 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
philosophy of Greece was drawn entirely from foreign sources, and was no more than a special development of Oriental notions. The Greek mind was stimulated by influences that reached it from the East, but it was independent in its growth ; the philosophy of Greece, in its entirety, is a product of the Greek mind, though certain Oriental notions are unmistakably embodied in it.
2. "With all peoples religion has been the basis and first beginning of civilisation. The Greeks are no exception to the rule. Their poetry and their philosophy alike grew out of their religion. Their poetry was first in its growth ; for the effort of the poetic imagination to picture to itself the being and evolution of things human and divine precedes and prepares the way for genuine philosophical investigation. In the case of the nation, as in the case of the individual, activity of the imagination comes before activity of the intellect, the inquiries of the philosopher come after the efforts of the poet. It happened so in Greece. We may see in this truth an explanation of the fact that the poetic genius of Greece had reached its highest expression in the Drama of Athens, long before Attic philosophy had taken full possession of the riches of thought amassed by earlier thinkers, as of the further fact that the golden age of Attic philosophy outlasted, by a considerable time, the golden age of Attic poetry.
3. There are two sides to the religion of the Greeks, an internal and an external one. We notice among the Greeks what we may style an esoteric religion, embodied in the so-called mysteries, which, under sense-images and allegories, propagated certain higher religious notions, and an exoteric, or popular, religion, wholly concerned with these grace ful outer forms, and with no thought for their primary meaning. Both these aspects of the religion of the Greeks found early expression in their poetry. The poems of Hesiod and Homer reproduce in many forms the myths of the popular religion, while the esoteric religion found expression in the so-called songs of Orpheus, a species of poetry much more speculative in character, and manifesting a much higher development of religious feeling.
4. Historians and poets alike inform us that Orpheus (as well as Linus and Musaeus) lived in the thirteenth century before Christ, and that he was the founder of the Thracian system of Bacchus-wor ship. They furthermore tell us that these men were not mere singers or poets, but that they were sages as well, who could tell of the birth of the gods and the origin of the universe. Orpheus cannot, however, be credited with all the songs which bear his name. At an early period, metrical compositions on Cosmogony — the work of Onomacritus, who lived about the time of the Pisistratida}, in the sixth century before Christ, and of other authors — were falsely attributed to him. For the most part, the songs of Orpheus, of which we have accurate knowledge, belong to a comparatively recent period. But the matter they contain comes down from a distant antiquity, for the later poets either reproduce the Orphic songs and legends, or model their own upon them. This observation applies also to Pherecydcs, Epimenides, Antiphanes and
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREI.K-. 29
Acusilaus, who, in the sixth century before Christ, imitated the Orphic lav> in their poems on the origin oi the world.
5. If we inquire what influence thr religion of the Greeks exercised upon the rise and the structure of Greek philosophy, we shall find that the popular religion, with its merely external forms, was of little avail in giving a positive stimulus to philosophic thought. The gods of the Greek Olympus are no more than men, of ideal beauty it is true, but moving, nevertheless, in the same sphere of thought, will, feeling, and passion as other men. Some of the many myths connected with the several divinities seem to have a deeper meaning, to give a glimpse occasionally of an ancient faith of higher purity ; but there are many other legends of the gods which have no such higher meaning, which belong purely and simply to the region of human passions, vices, and hateful animosities.
6. The popular religion contributed negatively rather than positively to rouse philosophic thought. The myths in which a deeper thought lay concealed might, perhaps, do positive service to the philosopher in his inquiry ; and we notice that Plato has embodied many such in his philosophic writings, in order to bring higher truths within the reach of sense. But the other legends of the gods provoked philosophic thought to antagonism by the palpable errors and absurdities which they contained, and in this way impelled philosophy to seek, by reason, a higher theological knowledge. In this negative way, principally, did the popular religion of Greece contribute to stimulate philosophic inves tigation. And to this we may attribute the fact that philosophy in Greece, at an early stage, set itself to combat the popular faith, with its polytheistic doctrines and its theological myths. We remember Plato's censures of the popular religious legends, and his efforts to exclude them from the education of the young, and to replace them by higher notions of God and things divine (cfr. de Hep. Lib. 2 and 3).
7. The esoteric religion, on the other hand, and principally those notions which were embodied in the so-called Orphic hymns, must have exercised a positive influence on the early course of philosophy in Greece. This appears from the fact that these songs are already highly philosophic in character. The philosophic notions contained in them are no doubt still shrouded under a mythical veil, but they show clearly through the en veloping myth, and must naturally have stirred the thinking mind to a further advance on the road of philosophic research. We may, indeed, assert that the Oqjhic songs were themselves the first beginnings of philosophy among the Greeks, that in them the spirit of philosophy in Greece first warmed into life.
8. These songs deal for the most part with principles of Cosmogony andTheogony — they contain indeed little more than theories of the kind. The fundamental notion in all these theories is the same — that all things were originally contained in one being, one primal matter, out of which everything (heaven and earth) was formed by plastic forces, in accord ance with the principle of dualism which divided the universe from the beginning. We have many accounts as to the form in which this
30 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
common origin of all things was represented. According to Suidas the elements in the Orphic Cosmogony were, .^ther, Chaos, and Night ; * according to Simplicius, Time, JEther, Chaos ; according to Apollonius of Rhodes, Heaven, Earth, Sea ; while Athenagoras understands the primeval chaos to have signified a kind of ovum from which the universe grew. However this may be, we are warranted in attributing to the influence of these theories the fact that the earliest philosophers of Greece devoted themselves to the search after a single principle from which the cosmical order was evolved, and strove to trace back the origin of all things to primary matter.
9. In the maxims of the " Seven Sages " of Greece, we have the transition from the philosophy of religious belief to rational philosophy proper. The Seven Sages were — Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mitylene, Bias of Priene, Solon of Athens, Cleobulus of Lindus, Chylon of Sparta, and Periander of Corinth. It was not philosophic principles scientifi cally evolved and combined which formed the subject of their brief and pithy maxims, but certain laws of human life and human society appre hended with precision, and enunciated with simplicity. We find in them, besides rules of prudent action, special commendation of self-knowledge, sagacitv, control of the passions, abstinence and temperance. We have here a practical wisdom — not yet philosophy strictly so-called, for it does not rest on a strictly philosophic basis ; but an advance from the obscurity of the myth, a creation of the reflecting mind. These maxims could not fail to affect the development of the practical side of the philosophy of Greece.
10. The history of Greek philosophy may be divided into three periods — the period of its rise and early development, the period of its maturity and its perfection, and the period of its decline and decay. In its highest development Greek philosophy did not compass the whole truth — the light of a higher revelation was wanting to it. It could not, therefore, maintain itself at the height it reached at the period of its greatest glory. Notwithstanding its extraordinary fruitfulness at this time, it bore within it the seeds of dissolution ; the point which marked its highest development marked also the beginning of its decline. It was during the epoch of its decline that the philosophy of Greece found its way to Rome.
11. We divide, then, the history of Greek Philosophy into three periods. The first period, embracing the rise and gradual development of philo sophy among the Greeks, extends from Thales to Socrates. The second, the period of its highest perfection, extends from Socrates to Aristotle. The third, the period of its decline and decay, extends from Aristotle (end of the fourth century, B.C.) to the close of its history. This period falls partly within the Christian era. To this period belongs the Philosophy of Rome, which was, as we have already remarked, in contents and in general character, a mere offshoot of the Philosophy of Greece.
* Epimenides, Antipbanee, and Acusilaus likewise represent all things as coming forth from "Night."
1'Illl.nsol'HY OK THK (iKKl-K-v -11
12. On the plan of this division, we shall set forth the history of Greek and Roman Philosophy. In the first period we shall observe a number of different philosophic schools — the Ionic, Py thagorean,Eleatic — grow up, side by side, with little interchange of influence during their growth, but towards the close of this period, mutually acting upon one another, and tending thereby to union. In the second period, the in dependent existence of the several schools comes virtually to an end, and there ensues a common movement of philosophic progress, repre sented in the three greatest philosophers of Greece — Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. At first, indeed, several Socratic schools came into exist ence ; but this was owing to the fact that the pupils of Socrates had not all been able to comprehend the spirit of his philosophy. The true development of Greek Philosophy, subsequently to Socrates, is repre sented in Plato and Aristotle. In the third period, Greek Philosophy was again divided into a number of independent schools. Union in progress was lost, and the decline of Philosophy among the Greeks was therebv assured.
13. "The sources from which the history of Greek Philosophy may be drawn are im mediate or mediate. Among the former are to be reckoned the writings of the philo sophers themselves, which have been preserved to us sometimes in their entirety, sometimes only in a fragmentary state. The latter include the accounts which con temporary or subsequent writers give us of the doctrines of the several philosophers. Of special importance in this respect are the writings of Plato and Aristotle, in which frequent allusion is made to the opinions of earlier philosophers. " Plato indicates in various dialogues the views of Heraclitus, Parmeiiides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Prota goras, Gorgias and other sophists, and in a special manner those of Socrates and of his several followers. Aristotle, in all his writings, follows the plan of beginning the dis cussion of every problem with a review of the tenable theories of earlier philosophers, and in this way he gives us — particularly in the introduction to his Metaphysics — a critical examination of the principles of his predecessors from Thales to Plato." The writings of Plato and Aristotle are thus important sources from which the historian of Greek Philosophy must draw. The writings of Xenophon, more particularly his Memorabilia, are of special importance for the history of Socratic Philosophy.
14. Among the Platonists, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Heraclides ot Sinope in Pontus, and at a later date Clitomachus, have, in their writings, either treated expressly of the earlier philosophers, or otherwise furnished data for a history of philosophy. Like ser vice has been rendered by the Aristotelians, Theophrastus, Eudemus, Aristoxenus, De- caearchus, Phanias of Lesbos, Clearchus, Strato, and others. The same may be said of a few of the Stoics and Epicureans. But the works of these writers, of which later philosophers made use, are no longer extant. The schools of Alexandria took up the work which the earlier philosophers had carried on. Ptolemy Philadelphia (B.C. 284- 247), established the library of Alexandria, in which the works of the philosophers were collected. Callimachus of Cyrene (B.C. 260), Superintendent of this library, drew up a cata logue of celebrated authors and theii works (\\ivaKff rCav iv iraoy iraiFtitp fiaXa^avrutv Kai uv ffvv'fypa\^av). Aristophanes, of Byzantium, pupil of Callimachus and Zenodotus, arranged the dialogues of Plato, dividing them into trilogies and independent dialogues. Eratosthenes (B.C. 276-194), whom Ptolemy Euergetes set over the library of Alexandria. reviewed tin- various schools of philosophic thought (Mf^t rfav Kara <f>i\otto<piai> a'tpiffuav), and his writings Apollodorus made the basis of his metrical chronicle, which he com posed about B.C. 140. The lives, the disciples, and the doctrines of the philosophers, also furnished a theme to Duris of Samos (aoout B.C. 270), to Neanthes of Cyzicus( about B.C. 240, Uepi iv£o£uv dvlpur), to the Peripatetic Hermippus of Smyrna (B.C. 220), from whom Diogenes Laertius draws largely (Tltpi riav <ro<£uh', irrpl pdyuv, lltpl TlvOayopov, irt.pi 'ApioroTiXovf, Ttpl O?o0pd<rrou /3ioi), to the Peripatetic Sotiou (B.C. 200 — lltol Fiafoxwv TWV (fiiXoaoipiav), to Sosicrates (about B.C. 180 — Aiafo>xa«')> Satyrus (B.C. 160 — /3ioi), Apol lodorus (B.C. 140 — \POVIKCL and Htpi rwv ^iXoffd^wv a'tptaiw), and Alexander Polyhixtor (in the time of Sylla — ^.taSo^ai TUV <f>iXoa6<j>wv), Heraclides Lembus, son of Serapion, made a compilation of extracts from the AtaSoxai of Sotion, and the Bi'ot of Satyrus, to
32 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
which Diogenes Laertius makes frequent allusion. Demetrius Magnes, one of Cicero's teachers, was the author of a critical work on the earlier philosophers, and from this also Diogenes Laertius borrows largely.
15. Of the later writers whose works have come down to us, and who furnish us with materials for the history of Greek Philosophy, we may mention (a) Cicero, Lucre tius, and Seneca, whose writings are of special importance in this connection ; (6) Plu tarch (A.D. 120, De placitis philosophorum, sive de physicis philosophorum decretis LI. 5) ; (c) the physician Galen (A.D. 131-200), whose works contain many references to Greek Philosophy — the treatise Tltpi (f>i\oa6<pwv taropia^ which has been attributed to him is not genuine; (</) Sextus Empiricus (A.D. 200, Pyrrhoniarum Institutionum LI. 3, ami Adv. Mathematicos LI. 11) ; (e) Diogenes Laertius (A.D. 230, of Laerte in Cilicia, D«- viti.-, dogmatibus et apophthegmatibus clarorum philosophorum LI. 10) ; (/) Flavius Philos- tratus (Vitse sophistarum) ; (*/) Eunapius of Sardis (A.D. 400, Vitse philosophorum et sophistarum). Further materials for a history of Greek Philosophy are supplied by (h) Justin Martyr ; (i) by Clement, of Alexandria, in his works : Cohortatio ad Graecos, Pasdagogus, and Stromata ; (k) by Origen, chiefly in his <t>iXoffo0ot'|t£j/a ; (/) by Hippo- lytus in his treatise : Refutationes omnium heresium, LI. 10 ; (m) by Eusebius in his Prseparatio Evangelica ; (n) by the Neo-Platonists and the Commentators of Aristotle, notably by Simplicius, Comm. ad Arist. physicas auscultationes ; also (o) by Gellius (A.D. 150) in his Noctes Attica? ; (p) by Athenseus (A.D. 200) in his Deipuosophistc ; (q) by Joannes Stobams (A.D. 500) in his Florilegium, and Eclogse physicae et Ethion ; (r) by Hesychius of Melitus (A.D. 520) in the treatise Il»pi r&v iv TratCtip StaXa^dvTuv oo<t>uv ; (*) by Photius (A.D. 880) in his Lexicon and Bibliotheca ; (t) and by Suidas (A.D. 1000) in his Lexicon.
16. Of modern writers on the history of Greek Philosophy, it will be enough to mention (a) W. Traugott Krug, Geschichte der Philosophic alter Zeit, vornehmlich unter Griechen und Romern, Leipzig, 1815 ; (b) Christ. Aug. Brandis. Handbuch der Geschichte der griechischen Philosophic, Berlin, 1835 ; and Geschichte der Entwickelung der griechischen Philosophic und ihrer Nachwirkungen im romischen Reiche 1862-64 ; (c) Aug. Bernh. Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Philosophie, Bd. I. ; Die theologischen Lehren der griechischen Denker, 1840 ; (d) Ed. Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen, Eine Untersuchung iiber Charakter, Gang, und Hauptmomente ihrer Entwickelung, 3 Thle. ; Aufl. 1, 1844-46-52. Aufl. 2, under the title : Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung, 3 Thle. ; (e) Historia philosophise Gneco-Romante, ex fontium locis contexta. Locos collegerunt, disposuerunt, notis auxerunt H. Ritter et L. Preller., Ed. 3 ; Goth. 1864 ; (/) Ludw. Striimpell, Die Ges chichte der griechischen Philosophie, zur Uebersicht, Repetition und Orientirung bei eigenen studien entworfen, Leipz. 1854-61, Abth. 2.; (fj) Albert Schewgler, Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, herausg. von Costlin, Tubing. 1858 ; (h) N". T. Schwarz Manuel de 1'Histoire de la Philosophic Ancienne, Liege, 1842 ; (i) Ch. Leveque, Etude de la Philosophie Grecque et Latine, Paris, 1864 ; (k) Ed. Roth, Geschichte unserer Abend- landischen Philosophie, Bd. 2 Griechsiche Philosophie, Mannheim, 1858 ; (/) Karl Prantl, Uebersicht der griechisch-romischen Philosophie, Stuttgart, 1854 ; (m) 0. Cas- pari Die Irrthiimer der altclassischen Philosophen in ihrer Bedeutung fur das philoso- phische Princip., Heidelberg, 1868.
Among the writers on the Greek and Roman systems of Jurisprudence and Political Philosophy may be mentioned : K. Hildenbrand, Geschichte und System der Rechts- und Staatsphilosophie, Leipzig, 1860 ; A. Veder, Historia philosophic juris apud veteres, Lugd. Batav. 1832 ; H. Henkel, Lineamenta artis grsecorum politicse, Berol. 1847 ; M. Voigt, Die Lehre vom jus naturale, zequum et bonum und jus gentium der Romer, Leipzig, 1856. On the history of Philology among the Ancients we have the work of H. Steinthal, Geschichte der sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Romern, Berl. 1863-64. We may add to the list of authors here given : Grote, Plato, and other Com panions of Socrates ; London, 1865 ; G. H. Lewes, A Biographical History of Philosophy. Ancient Philosophy, Vol. I. and II. ; London, 1845. W. H. Butler : Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy, 2 Vols. ; Cambridge, 1866. Cfr. Ueberweg.
rilll.OSOI'HY OF THE ORKKKS. M
FIRST PERIOD. PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY.
1. In the pre-Socrutic period of Greek Philosophy, we can distinguish three well-marked currents of thought. The first is that of the Ionic School — of the philosophers of external nature, who, true to the character of the lonians, devoted themselves to the study of the world accessible to sense, and sought to discover an ultimate principle of all things in nature, and to explain their origin and their dissolution. The second is that of the Pythagoreans, whose investigations were more speculative in character, but who embodied their speculative notions in mathematical f ormuhe, and, in general, made mathematics the basis of their speculative structure. The third is that of the Eleatics, who, passing beyond the sphere of mathematical conceptions into the realm of pure thought, aimed at building up a science of Metaphysics, strictly so called. The doctrines of the Pythagoreans and Eleatics spread chiefly among the Greeks of the Doric race, especially among the Greeks of Southern Italy. In this way the lonians and the Dorians — the most remarkable of the Hellenic races throughout the historic period — were also the re presentatives of the earliest forms of Greek Philosophy. But the pre- Socratic philosophy was, in every school, merely a one-sided effort ; the truth after which it aspired could not be reached by its methods ; scepticism, as an ultimate result, was unavoidable. This stage of ulti mate scepticism was reached in the teachings of the Sophists.*
2. We shall therefore treat first of the Ionic Philosophy, or Philosophy of Nature ; then of the doctrines of the Pythagoreans ; next of the Eleatic Philosophy ; and finally, of the teaching of the Sophists.
IONIC PHILOSOPHY— PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE.
1. When we speak of the Ionic Philosophy of Nature we do not mean to imply that the representatives of this Philosophy form what is called a " Philosophic School " in the strict sense of this term. There was no cent ic among them from which a common movement of thought spread abroad. We have to do only with a number of Philosophers who had a common subject of investigation — Nature, and whose philosophic views had certain common characters. These Philosophers do not even belong without exception to the Ionian race. They do not form a sect Acknowledging one founder whose doctrines they uphold, and therefore it is only by a somewhat strained use of the term that we can speak of an " Ionic School."
* The fragments of the writings of the Pre-Socratic philosophers that still remain h.-iv • l>rrn published by Guil. Aue. Mullach (Fraementa philosophorum irrivcoruni. Paris, 1860-1867.)
4
34
HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
2. "We can, however, divide these Philosophers of Nature into two classes — the earlier and the later. The earlier (Ionic " Physiologists," (jivaioXoyoi) are the representatives of the Greek Philosophy of Nature in its rudimentary stage ; while the later, having before them the works as well of the earlier Ionic Philosophers as of the Pythagoreans and Eleatics, were enabled to give this Philosophy a wider development. It is, how ever, worth noticing that the earlier Ionic Philosophers for the most part adopted a dynamical principle to explain the origin of things, while the later as generally incline to mechanical conceptions.
3. We shall treat, in order, first the earlier, and then the later Ionic Philosophers.
THE EARLIER IONIC PHILOSOPHERS.
The earlier Ionic Philosophers had this in common, that in their inquiry as to how things in nature come into being and cease to be, they identified the active and the passive principles, the cama efficiem and the causa mate Halts (ap-\fi KOI OTOXHOV), and strove to explain the rise of the order of nature by a dynamical process from this principle. Their doctrines are thus fundamentally forms of Hylozoism (Doctrine of Animated Matter). Amongst the earlier Ionic Philosophers are to be numbered Thales of Miletus, Aiiaximander, Anaximenes, and Diogenes of Apollonia, whose theories bear chiefly on the primal material basis of all things ; and Heraclitus who concerned himself mainly with the processes of origin and decay.
THALES OF MILETUS.
1. Thales of Miletus, of Phoenician extraction, born B.C. 640, is described by Aristotle (Met 1. 3.) as the founder of the Ionic Philosophy, and so the founder of Greek Philosophy as a whole. He is said to have studied Geometry in Greece ; at least Proclus makes this statement regarding him (on Euclid, p. 19). He is furthermore credited with having foretold an eclipse of the sun which occurred during the reign of the Lydian King, Alyattes.
2. The fundamental theory of his Philosophy of Nature may be thus stated : — Out of water all things are made. Water is the primal matter, and writh this primal matter, the force which is active in nature is identified. From this primal matter, probably by a process of rarefaction or condensation, he derives the origin of all things. According to Aristotle (Met. 1. 3.) " Thales wras perhaps led to this opinion by observing that the nutriment of all things is moist, that heat itself, hy which living things are maintained in life, is educed from moisture, — but that from which another thing is derived is a principle of that other thing — and further by observing that the seed (from which living organisms spring) is of its nature moist. But the principle making moist objects moist is water." In consequence of this viowThules could
PHILOSOl'HY OF THE (iKKl.Ks. .}.>
regard all things as penetrated and vivified by the Divine power, and in this MOM could say that the gods filled all thing, irdvTa irXi'ipi] 8f<t»i' ilvut. (Arist. de aniin. 1. 0.) lie held the magnet to be animated because .it its attraction of iron. He was of opinion that the earth floated upon water.
:?. In later times Hippo of Samos or of Rhegium— a Physicist of the time of Pericles, who seems to have lived for a considerable time at Athens, adopted the theory of Thales. He discovers in water, or the moist element, the ultimate principle of all things. He does not seem to have attracted much attention. Aristotle mentions him but seldom, and not always in terms of praise. (De aniin. 1. 2. Met. 1. 3.)
ANAXIMANDER, ANAXIMEXES, DIOGENES OF APOLLOXIA.
1. Anaximandcr of Miletus (born about B.C. 611), was the first of the Greeks to compose a treatise " On Nature." The primal basis of all being (a/o^j)), and out of which all things came forth is, in his view, the Unlimited (TO airupov). From this arrupov till things derive their origin. At first it differentiates itself into the opposing elements, hot and cold, moist and dry — kindred elements standing in antithesis. " As a result of a perpetual movement of revolution, condensations of the air are effected, and in this way numberless worlds come into being — heavenly divinities — in the midst of which the earth, cylindrical in form, maintains itself at rest owing to its being equally distant from all points of the heavenly sphere." The earth was evolved from the primeval moisture under the influence of heat emanating from the sun, and, fecundated by heat, it gave birth to living beings. The latter thus derive their being from the element of moisture, and this explains why the nvatures now living on the land were originally of the fish kind, and acquired their present form only as the surface of the earth became dry. It is said that Anaximander described the soul as of gaseous nature. All things come forth from the airtipov, and all things are fated to re turn to it again.
•J. \Vith regard to the question, what Anaximander really meant by the uTTtipov, opinions are divided. Some (Hitter) maintain that he understood by the term a congeries of the primary elements ; that the origin of things from the airtipov is nothing more than a separation of elements, and that thus the evolution of the order of nature is, in his theory, a purely mechanical process. Others (Ilerbart) are of opinion that Anaximander meant by the airttpov a primary matter indeterminate in quality and unlimited in quantity, and that he thus conceived the evolution of the natural order to be a dynamical process. Aristotle, it must be admitted, speaks of a /uly/ma 'Avas^uai/S/oou (Met. 12. 2.), but he also mentions (Phys. 3. 4.) that Anaxiinander taught that the a-tipm- was divine, embracing all and controlling all — a notion which accords with a dynamical theory. The latter was more probably the theory of this Philosopher. It would, however, appear that Anaxi mander was not very explicit in his teaching as to the nature of the uTrttpov, and that Aristotle was thus unable to set forth his do-trims with assured accuracv.
36 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
3. Anaximenes of Miletus, a successor of Anaxiraander, perhaps his pupil (about K.C. 528), held air to be the primary principle of all things. "As the soul within us," he says, "which is air, holds our being to gether, so does the breath and the air embrace the world." — (Stob. Eclog. Phys. p. 296). This air, infinite in extension, is instinct with life, i.e., it is not merely the material, it is also the efficient cause of all things. Out of this primary being, by the process of condensation (-jrvKwaiq} and rarefaction (/uavftHric or apatwaig) are derived all other things — fire, wind, clouds, water, earth. The earth — a smooth mass of circular outline, and the earliest of the formations of the Universe — is supported by the air. Anaximander describes this infinite primal principle of things as the Deity, though he also speaks of other gods who have derived their being from it.
4. This view of Anaximenes, with regard to the first principle of all things, was also held by Diogenes of Apollonia, a philosopher who lived in the fifth century before Christ. He holds the air to be the primary principle and permanent basis of all things.
He discovers a proof that all substance is one in the fact of the assimilation by plants of the various elements of the earth's crust, and of the elements of the vegetable world by animal organisms (Simpl. in Phys. fol. 32 B). The same theories were held by an other philosopher, Idanis of Himera, of whom nothing further is known.
HEKACLITUS OF EPHESUS. 13.
Heraclitus, surnamed "The Obscure" (6 o-Korstvo^), the most brilliant portion of whose career extended from B.C. 504 to B.C. 500, was a member of a noble family of Ephesus. His theory is hylozoistic, but his doctrine of the continual flux of all things gives special prominence to the restless activity of nature. We possess only fragmentary remains of his treatise, Iltpi c^uo-f^c.
2. Heraclitus holds Fire to be the ultimate principle of all things, but understands by the term an ethereal fire. This ether he, at the same time, regards as a divine spirit, which has knowledge of all things, and directs all things. In his view, therefore, the activity of the primal principle of all things is not a blind exercise of force, it is guided by reason, for he considers the eternal Fire-Spirit to be Reason, Aexyoc- He seems to have reached this conception from a consideration of the order and regularity prevailing throughout the universe. Reason is not, however, with him a transcendental entity ; it is merely a deter mining attribute of the eternal material basis of tilings — of Fire. On this point he is distinctly at variance with the later philosopher of nature — Anaxagoras.
3. "NVith regard to the origin of the world, Heraclitus teaches that by condensation all things are produced from Fire, and that by rare faction all things return to it again. The process of condensation he describes as the way downwards (oSoc KUTW), the process of rarefaction as the way upwards (oSoc avw). The way downwards leads to AVater and Earth, and so to Death ; the way upwards leads to Air and Fire, and
IMIII.osol'HY <>l- TIIK (iKKKKS. 'J7
thus to Life. On the way downwards, too, lies Evil, and hence all things in the region of the earth are filled with evils ; on the way up wards lies Good. Both sides of the dual process are, however, every where found in conjunction.
4. The forces at play in this dual process, and which initiate and maintain it, are, on the one hand, Strife and Hatred, on the other, Con cord and Peace. By Strife and Hatred things come forth from the Primal Fire ; by Harmony and Concord they return thither, Strife, or Enmity is, thus, the parent of all things (TroXf/uoc TTOTTJ/D rravrwv) ; the power of Peace and Concord, on the other hand, brings things into union, and guides them buck to the principle from which they emanated. Both forces must, therefore, be regarded as cosmical powers, indwelling in the Primal Fire. The world itself is nothing more than the Deity differentiated.
5. In this theory, the whole course of nature is merely a continuous movement in a circle ; the cosmical force Strife, brings things forth from the Primal Fire by the downward way ; and then the cosmical force, Con cord, restores them to the Ethereal Fire again. From such assumptions these conclusions are deduced : —
(a.) All things in the world are in perpetual flnx; there is nothing permanent, nothing persistent. Everything is moving in a current (Tra'vra /oft). "We cannot step twice into the same stream, says Heracli- tus. No thing is at any one moment exactly the same thing that it was the moment before. The rotation of beginning to be and perishing is uninterrupted ; — All things pass.
(b.) The world has come forth from the Primal Fire because of the preponderance of Strife over Concord ; but the time will come in which Concord shall gain the ascendency, and then the world shall be absorbed again into the fiery Ether. Not that the process will then be at an end : Strife will again become predominant, and a new world will arise, to be consumed again as before. And so the round of changes goes on for ever. The Deity, in sport, is ever constructing worlds, which it permits, in due time, to end in fire, only, however, to renew them again.
6. The Soul of man is of the nature of fire ; the driest element is the \\iscst and the best ; it shoots through the body as the lightning through the cloud. The Soul is, as it were, a wandering spark shot forth from that Universal Fire or Universal Reason, which encompasses heaven and rules all things, and it is maintained only by constant accessions from the source whence it came. It derives no advantage from its union with the material body ; the birth of man is a misfortune, inasmuch as he is born only to die. It is only when the soul returns again to the Primal 1 'ire that its true life begins.
7. Man is possessed of the gift of Reason only in as far as he is united with the Universal (Divine) Reason, and shares therein. Hence it is only in his waking hours that he is really a rational being; during sleep he is an irrational being, for his share in the Universal Reason i> then limited to the mere function of respiration. These notions lead Heraclitus to these further conclusions : —
38 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(ft.) The senses are deceptive, they are worthless for the attainment of truth; truth is in the reason alone. Hence the estimate of the indi vidual is not the standard of truth ; that alone is true which all acknow ledge as such, for that alone is an object of knowledge to the Universal (Divine) Reason. Herein lies the criterion of truth. Divergence of one's own opinion from the universal reason is to be avoided, for in this is the source of error.
(b.) The Divine Reason is the universal immutable law as well of the physical as of the moral world. All human laws are upheld by the Divine law, " for this can do all that it wills, and it satisfies all and over comes all" (Stob. Serm. 3. 84). The people should, therefore, defend the law as the wall of a fortress, and stifle self -asserting arrogance as they would a conflagration.
(c.) The summum boniini of man is Contentment (cwplmpit) or Equanimity, a condition of mind arising from the conviction that events happen precisely as they have been predetermined by the supreme law. For "it is not best for men that what they wish should come to pass. Sickness makes health a pleasure and an advantage ; hunger, in like manner, prepares for satiety, and labour for rest " (Stob. Serm. 3. 83, 84). Contented resignation to the universal and necessary course of events is the secret of human happiness.
LATER PHILOSOPHERS OF NATURE.
1. The later philosophers of nature substituted for the dynamical principle, which had been invoked to explain the origin of the physical world, a principle of the mechanical order. The hylozoism of the earlier philosophers entirely disappeared. But though some of the later philosophers contented themselves with a mere cosmical mechanism, others postulated, besides this, a higher co-operating cause, and this admission of a dual principle in their cosmogony indicates an important advance in philosophic thought.
2. Amongst the later philosophers of nature are to be reckoned Empe- docles of Agrigentum, Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera, and Anaxagoras of Clazomenao, with whom also we must connect Arcesilaus.
EMPEDOCLES OF AGRIGENTUM.
1. Empedocles was born at Agrigentum (about the year H.C. 500). His family belonged to the democratic party in the state, and for this party Empedocles, like his father, Meton, exerted himself successfully. He wandered through the Greek cities of Sicily and Italy in the several characters of physician, priest, orator, and worker of miracles. He pro claimed himself possessed of magical powers. Of his writings we know
PHILOSOPHY OF THK (iKKKK-. 69
the names of only two, which can, with certainty, be ascribed to him, irtpl 0iWu>c and KaOapfjioi (Diog. Laert. 7, 77). Fragments of the first of these an- still preserved.
•J. Kmpedoclcs did not, like the older lonians, assume a single primal matter from which all things are produced. According to him all things come from a mingling of the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire. This mingling or mixture he views in the light of the causa materialia of all things in nature. He does not explain the origin and dissolution of things by a process of condensation and rarefaction such as was adopted by the older lonians. His process is purely mechanical — a mere separation and subsequent commingling of the primary elements or " Radical Principles " of all things. To account adequately for this separation and commingling, he assumes, in addition to the causa materials already described, two active forces which he names, in sym bolical language, Love and Hatred (^tXorrjc KOI vtticoe). Hate he makes the dissociating separating principle ; Love the principle of mixture and of union.
3. This being premised, he explains as follows the origin of the world : —
(a.} At first the four elements all mixed together formed a great globe or S^aipo? (fy&ujuov&rraroc &o'e Arist. Met. 3.) which held all things within itself, in which Love was predominant and Hate without power. But Hate forced its way from the periphery to the centre of the ^(ftalpog, it gained the mastery over Love ; the elements were sundered and stood apart in separate existence.
(b.) It is clear that the undisputed supremacy of Hate would have entailed absolute separation of the elements which would have rendered it impossible for individual objects to come into being. But in the process of the world's formation Love strove against Hate and succeeded in uniting again the elements which had been separated. And so the several objects in this world were brought into existence.
(c.) It thus appears that the world can exist only as long as equi librium is preserved between the rival cosmical forces. In the end, however, Love will gain the upper hand, the individual objects in the world will lose their individuality, and return to their first union. But at this sta^e Hate will again rise in its might to bring about the formation of another world — and so on through endless periodic changes. Of the whole cycle of changes Necessity is the only law.
4. The first outcome of the formative process above described is Heaven with its luminous bodies, the formation of which is followed by that of the earth, and finally by that of the animal kingdom. " Amongst organic beings, plants first germinated from the earth while it was yet in process of formation ; animals followed, but their several parts were first separately formed and then united by Love. There have been beings which were all eyes, others which were all arms, and so forth ; from the union of these resulted many monsters which perished. But there also resulted some other organisms fitted to live, and these main tained themselves in existence and propagated their kind" (Arist. de
40 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
coelo, 3. 2). " The influence of distant bodies upon one another as well as the possibility of mixture, Empedocles explains by admitting effluences (airoppoai) from all things, and pores (irop' i) into which these effluences enter." All things are animated.
5. The human soul, like other things, is a mixture of the four elements, with Love and Hate as moving forces. For as like alone knows like, it follows that the soul, which knows all the elements, must contain within its own being the " radical principles " of all things — the four elements — otherwise, not resembling them in nature, it could possess no knowledge of them. Perception by the senses is explained by the theory of " effluences " already described. In the act of vision, e.g., two currents flow in different directions, there is an efflux from the visible objects to the eye, and an efflux through the pores of the eye of the internal elements, fire and water, and in the encounter of these currents the sense-image is generated. In analogous fashion the perceptions of the other senses are effected (Arist. de sensu, c., 2, 4. Theophr. de sensu, 9.) Empedocles ascribed Feeling and Desire tp plants as well as to animals.
6. Empedocles describes the Deity as the self -satisfying, blissful Spirit. Its relation to the world is that of the One to the Many, of Love to Disunion. As a consequence of this view he frequently describes the cosmical force of unifying Love as God — the two notions seem to be identified in his theory. " In the doctrine of Empedocles God knows Himself alone as Union and Love, the opposite He knows not at all. Having his being and habitation outside the sphere of strife he cannot be troubled by aught unlike himself, by life in contention, by evil, by the plurality and differences of things." Since like can alone know like, it follows that the soul can know God only on condition of its possessing, besides the four elements, some element of the divinity. This element is Reason.
7. The ethical principles involved in the teaching of Empedocles are no more than a tracing of the moral notions, Good and Evil, back to the contrast between the cosmical forces. " As in the physical order the individual comes forth by separation from the unity of the S^at/ooc, so in the moral order Evil is that which has fallen away from God, which has been separated from His friendship, and from harmony with His being." From this doctrine to the doctrine of Metempsychosis the transition was easy. & The souls that have fallen away from God arc relegated to the earth where they pass through various corporeal forms till at last they are purged from Evil and return to the Divine Being again.")
THE ATOMISTS.
LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITI s. §15.
1. In the teaching of Empedocles we have had the first distinct out lines of a doctrine of Dualism. .Btet-fmlv does he assume, over and above
PIIII.osol'HY OF T11K OKKKKS. 41
tin- t-(tuN<i imitt'i-idlix of Xature, certain motive and formative forces, but he further sets the One, the force of Love, above Matter, since he assigns to it the attributes of the Deity. In contrast with Empedocles, the Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, denied all immaterial force ; they admitted matter and nothing more. Moreover, their notion of matter was not that of the earlier louians, who represented it as a principle at once material and dynamical ; to them it was material in the strictest sense of the term. Their attempt to explain the origin of things from nuch a principle necessarily brought them to a lower system than hylozoism, to pure Materialism and Casualism (i.e., the doctrine which attributes the origin of things to chance, caxns).
2. Little is known as to the time at which Leucippus lived, and as to the incidents of his life. It is not even known with certainty whether he was an inhabitant of Abdera, of Miletus, or of Elea. His pupil Democritus was born (about B.C. 400) at Abdera. The desire for knowledge, it is said, led Democritus to make long journeys into Egypt and the East. He was the author of many works, among which the
AiaKO(T/uo£ was the most celebrated.
3. According to Aristotle (Met. 1, 4) the Atomists assumed as the fundamental principle of all things the Empty (icevov) and the Full (irXfipeg), characterising the former as non-being (/ufi ov), the latter as being (ov), whence their dictum that non-being exists as well as being. Closer inquiry into the nature of these conceptions shows us that the Empty is another expression for the notion of boundless space, the Full another expression for an infinite number of atoms contained within it. These two principles of things the Atomists held to be sufficient for the explanation of the origin of the Universe.
To establish the existence of empty space Democritus adduced the following proofs (Arist. Phys., 4, 6) : — 1st. Motion requires a vacuum, for what is full cannot receive any thing into itself. 2nd. Rarefaction and condensation are possible only on the supposition that empty interstices exist in bodies. 3rd. Growth depends on the penetration of nutriment into the empty spaces of the organic body. 4th. A vessel containing ashes does not admit a quantity of M'ater less by a volume equal to the space occupied by the ashes, the one must therefore in part enter into the empty interstices of the other.
4. The Atomists understand by atoms minute indivisible particles out of which all things corporeal are made. The atoms are all alike in specific character, but they differ in shape or conformation (<r\Fj/ua). They differ also in size ; the weight of each atom corresponds to its size. It is useless to ask any question as to the origin of the atoms — they are eternal and therefore are not dependent on a cause.
5. In explaining the origin of corporeal things from these atoms, the Atomists suppose them endowed with a primordial eternal motion. If we ask what is the cause of this motion we are answered that we must not look for any cause above themselves. Like the atoms themselves, their movement has no cause, their motion is a necessary condition of their existence, and for this necessity no ulterior reason can be assigned.
6. This movement it is which determines the existence of the world. Owing to the difference in weight the heavier atoms fall, and the lighter atoms rise, and the collisions of the atoms also give rise to lateral move-
42 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
ments. In this way an eddying motion (S/vrj) is produced, which, extend ing ever further and further, brings about the formation of worlds. In the revolution many atoms unite permanently together, and in such wise too, that like is joined to like, a vacuum is created in the interstices of the aggregate thus formed, and so larger composite bodies, and finally whole worlds come to exist. In all this process there is neither Purpose nor Law, mere Chance governs the whole (Casualism). Worlds without number come into being in this fashion.
7. The differences between things in nature are explained by the Atomists on the same principles. In the countless worlds which come into existence, different combinations of atoms are formed, and these assume different shapes ; the round, the angular, the hook- shaped atoms arrange themselves in combination to form various kinds of surfaces. These surfaces, affecting our organs of sense, occasion perceptions, which we style sensible qualities of things, but which in reality are nothing more than an arrangement of figures. The qualities of a given body are merely something corresponding to the figures which go to make up their surfaces.
8. " The earth was at first in motion, and so continued as long as it was small and light ; gradually, however, it was brought to rest. Organic structures were evolved from the moistened earth, and are all alike animated. The soul consists of subtle, smooth, round atoms, which are also the atoms that constitute fire. Atoms of this kind are scattered through the whole body, but they exercise different functions in different organs. The brain is the region of thought, the heart of anger, the liver of desire. At every inhalation we draw in physical atoms out of the air, at every exhalation we give them out again ; and life lasts as long as this process continues." The soul is not immortal. But it is, never theless, the noblest part of man ; he who seeks the good of the soul seeks what is divine ; who seeks the good of the body — the covering or tent of the soul, seeks what is human.
9. The perceptions of sense are due to an efflux of atoms from the objects perceived. These atoms form themselves into images (tj&uAa), which strike the organs of sense, and find entrance through them. The knowledge which rests on sense-perception alone is an obscure know ledge (o-Kort'r/), from which we must carefully distinguish genuine know ledge (yvotr/'r}), which is the fruit of inquiry by the understanding.
10. The supreme good is Happiness. "This is attained by the avoidance of extremes, and the observance of moderation, not by any external good." A necessary means to the same end is a right insight into the nature of things. Knowledge seems the highest contentment. Our dispositions, not our acts, determine our moral character.
11. Among the many supporters of the atomist theories of Leucippus and Democri- tus, Metrodorus of Chios and his pupils, Anaxarehus and Hippocrates, are specially- worthy of mention. These philosophers seem to have emphasised and developed the elements of scepticism involved in Democritus' theory of sensuous perception.
nm.osoi'HY or TIII-: <;KK!-:KS. 43
AXAXAGORAS OF CUUBOMBNJE.
§ 16.
1. While the Atomists, in their purely mechanical theory of external nature, were constructing a system of thorough-going materialism, A ii a. \agoras, adopting the notion of a mechanism in nature, was develop ing upon this basis the Dualism already outlined by Empedocles, and was thereby bringing about the transition from the mere philosophy of nature to the higher Ideal Philosophy of the Attic school.
2. Anaxagoras was born of a distinguished family of Clazomenac, in Asia Minor, about B.C. 500. In his later life he removed to Athens, where he lived in intimacy with Euripedis and Pericles, till the political rivals of the latter made the opinions of the philosopher the ground of a charge of impiety against him. To escape the results of the prosecu tion, Anaxagoras retired to Lampsacus, where he soon after died. He is the author of a treatise, ntpl ^eWwc, of which Plato (Phajdo, p. 97) makes mention.
3. The theory of Anaxagoras regarding external nature rests upon five main principles : —
There is no beginning of things and no dissolution, in the strict sense of these terms. Nothing comes out of nothing. All that begins to be must come from something already existing. What we call the origin of things and their dissolution depends entirely upon a conjunc tion ((TvjKpHTis) and a separation (Smic/ot<rtc) of parts previously existing.
There are bodies which consist of homogeneous parts, and bodies of which the parts are heterogeneous. The constituent parts which unite to form bodies are not all of the same nature ; a radical difference exists between them, and this difference is primary, original, not secondary or derivative.
Airnin, each of the various constituent parts of which bodies consist is itself constituted by smaller homogeneous parts, so minute as to be indivisible. These minute parts differ from the whole into which they enter, in quantity only, not in quality.
Hence it follows that primary matter, the cama materialis from which all things come, is an infinite multitude of iunnitesimally small particles, not specifically alike, but distinguished by essential differences of nature. These primary particles, thus distinguished (\piifiara), must be regarded as the ultimate constituents, the " seeds " (o-Trtp/uaTa) of all dungs,
From these ultimate constituents material bodies are thus formed : Homogeneously constituted bodies, i.e., those whose constituent parts are all of like nature, as for example, Flesh, lUood, Bone, Gold, Silver, &c. are composed of primitive particles, like in kind to one another, homoe- omerioo (fyioioftlpuu) ; heterogeneously constituted bodies, on the other hand, i.e., those whose parts differ in kind from one another, as, for
44 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
example, organic structures, are composed of primary particles differing in kind.*
4. This being premised, Anaxagoras proceeds to explain the process of the world's formation : —
At first the primary particles, or " seeds," of things were promis cuously mixed together in one common mass, and as a consequence of this mixture, no one of them could exhibit itself in its proper specific character. Before the world could be formed, a separation of the pri mitive particles — homceomeriaD — :had to be effected. On no other con dition could they unite for the formation of the bodies which now actually exist.
The cause of this separation, and of the various subsequent combina tions of primitive particles, was not in the primary matter itself, for material particles do not, of their own accord, separate or enter into union. We are therefore forced to admit a cause higher than matter, but exerting an influence upon it, and by this influence effecting the separation of the primary particles and their subsequent combina tions. And since everything in the world is formed and arranged in accordance with a definite plan, and plan and order suppose Reason, it follows that the efficient cause which presides over matter must be Mind (vovg).
"We have here two distinct principles contributing to the formation of the world, the material — a medley of all the " seeds " of things, and the efficient — the spirit or mind (vowc)- This is the dualistic doctrine in all plainness. According to the teaching of Anaxagoras, Mind is dis tinguished from Matter by its simplicity, its independence, its know ledge, and its control over matter. All things else have some admixture of the particles of all other things ; the mind alone is pure, unmixed, subject only to itself, the most subtle of all things.
The formation of the world was brought about by motion. After the primary matter had rested in its inertness through countless ages, it was at last set in motion by the Divine Mind, and by this motion the world was evolved from chaos. This movement was a movement of rotation, established by the Mind at a single point, but gradually taking in further and further masses, and extending its range through the in finitude of matter. Everywhere, however, this movement follows a definite plan, everything in the world is formed and disposed for a pur pose, there is no Fate (tl/uapiutvT)), no Chance (rux*»)-t
* Homogeneously constituted bodies were called by Aristotle o/zoto/^pij, in contra distinction to the heterogeneously constituted, avo/ioio^tp//. These terms, originally applied to fully constituted bodies, were transferred to the constituent elements of the bodies. In this way the elements, or "seeds," of the homogeneous bodies of Anaxagoras came to be designated o/io(o^£p/} by Aristotle. Anaxagoras himself does not appear to have used the term.
t It is, however, worthy of remark that Anaxagoras avoids the application of this principle of design in nature to particular cases. Individual phenomena he almost always tries to explain by purely physical causes, without recurrence to the plan of the Divine Mind — a procedure on which Plato and Aristotle comment unfavourably. Aris totle (Met. 1. 4.) reproaches him with making the vovg a Dtus ex machiita, which lie calls upon only when he is at a loss to find the natural cause of some phenomenon.
PHILOSOPHY OK THK (iKKKKS. 45
In consequence of the revolving motion, " Air and Ether were separated from the primary mass, and filled all space — there is no such thing as a vacuum — contrary elements, the rarefied and the dense, the hot and the cold, the bright and the gloomy, the moist and the dry, were severally separated from each other ; the dense, the cold, the gloomy, and the damp sank to the region now occupied by the earth, while the others mounted to the sphere of the ether. Here they formed hard stony masses, which, set in due order, and raised by the revolving movement to a white heat, became stars ; while, fur below, the elements that had fallen downwards became solidified into earth and stones." The earth rests in the middle of the world. It is shaped like a short cylinder, and is borne up by the air. Plants and animals owe their being to the germs which the earth, while yet moist and slimy, received from the air, and which were developed in the bosom of the earth under the influence of celestial heat. Once brought into being they continued to propagate themselves.
5. Everywhere in his Cosmogony, Anaxagoras is careful to make the Mind pre-eminent, to keep it aloof from the processes of nature ; the latter he strives to account for solely by that movement originally im pressed upon things by the vouc- In his psychology, on the other hand, he shows no disposition of this kind. On the contrary, in his explana tion of the psychical element in living beings, he feels driven to assume the indwelling in them of the (Divine) Mind, and so to make Mind the psychical principle of all living things. Whilst then the VOVQ in its relation to the Maisrokosmos is merely an external motive force, in rela tion to organic beings it assumes the character of an intrinsic psychical principle. Moreover, its functions in the latter respect are not confined to men and animals, they extend to plants also ; for they too, in the opi nion of Anaxagoras, are animated, and have their joy sand their sorrows. The " Soul " of the living thing is perfect in proportion to the perfection of the corporeal organism with which it is associated, or, to express the same thing in the language of Anaxagoras, the Divine Spirit manifests itst It' in the living thing in proportion as the organism is perfect. It follows that the most perfect ("greatest") soul is possessed by man; that in him God manifests himself most fully.
6. The sense-faculties of man are too weak to attain to truth ; they are unable to distinguish sufficiently between the constituent elements of things. It is Mind that attains knowledge of things. All things are known to the Divine Krason ; the mind of man, being a factor of the Divine Mind, can therefore attain to knowledge. The highest content ment is to be found in the knowledge of the universe obtained by thought. Whatever is good, just, or beautiful, is to be ascribed to the Spirit or Mind ; evil, moral and physical, is from matter.
7. Along with Anaxagoras, we may include among the philosophers of Xature, Hennotimus of Clazomenas (whom some writers make the teacher of Anaxagoras), who
i'l to have held similar views regarding the world-ordering mind ; and Archelaus, the physicist (of Miletus, or, according to others, of Athens) a pupil of Anaxagoras, who seems to have held the primary mixture of all things to be equivalent to Air, and who also seems to have laid less stress on the contrasts between mind and matter, and thus to have again approached the teaching of the older lonians. He is credited with the
46 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
doctrine that the distinction between Right and Wrong is not founded on the nature of tilings (<j>vaei), but is of human institution (vofmt). Metrodorus, of Lampsacus, was also a disciple of Anaxagoras. He is known by his allegorical interpretation of the Homeric Myths.
PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY. PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS.
1. About the time that Ionic Philosophy attained its highest develop ment in Asia Minor, another phase of philosophical thought had its rise in the Greek Colonies of Italy. Here the inquiries of philosophers were no longer directed to the origin of things from Primary Matter, they turned rather on the Being or Essence of things in themselves. The Pythagorean school was the first to give this direction to philoso phical investigation, but it made mathematics the basis of all its inquiries, and thus was led to certain mathematico-philosophical conceptions of the nature of things, which are altogether peculiar to the Pythagoreans.
2. Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, was born at Samos about the year B.C. 582. So many legends have become associated with his name tlvit it is difficult to obtain a trust worthy account of his life and labours. Legends and traditions are, however, at one in representing him as a man of extraordinary knowledge. He is reckoned amongst the most remarkable of the founders of mathematical science. It is recorded of him that he succeeded in measuring the pitch of musical notes, and that he also made many dis coveries in Astronomy. Some accounts make him the disciple of Pherecydes and Anaximander. It is probable that he travelled into Egypt, and there made acquaint ance with the lore of the priests. About the year B.C. 529 he settled in Crotona, in Southern Italy, and there established a society whose aims were at once ethical, reli gious, and political.
3. In this Pythagorean association a rigid ethico-religious rule of life was enjoined. " A period of probation, during which the fitness of the candidate was tested, preceded admission into the society. The disciples were bound for a long time to mute obedience, and to unconditional subjection to the authority of the traditional teaching (ai'>ro£ t<j>a) ; strict self-examination was required from all ; it was forbidden to propagate the doc trines of the sect among the people." The members of the society were divided into classes, according to the extent of their initiation into the Pythagorean "orgies."
teric, and Exoteric, are usually employed to distinguish them.* They exercised them selves in gymnastics and music. They had their meals in common (nwaiTin), and they were subject to certain rules as to diet ; for example, they were forbidden to eat beans, fish, or flesh. Hunting was not allowed amongst them.
4. In politics the Pythagorean sect belonged to the aristocratic party. Hence the
Pythagorean doctrines gained supporters among the aristocratic classes in many Italian cities, and secured for the aristocratic party a certain intellectual standing. But these aristocratic leanings excited the opposition of the democratic party, and brought about the final extinction of the sect. Pythagoras himself, it is said, after twenty years' resi dence at Crotona, was expelled by a rival party under Cylon, and forced to retire to Metapontum, where he died soon after. The attacks of the democratic party on the
According to lamblichus the Esoteric* were further divided into the class of the strivcrs (riav 'v), the elites of the spiritualized (TOIV fai/JOi'iwv), and the class of the divinized (TWV
rilll.nsol'HY 01 THK f.KKI K-. 47
Pythagoreans were renewed in subsequent times. A century after the death of Pytha goras, the Pythagoreans of Crotona were attacked by the " Cylonites " during a con ference in the " house of Milo ;" the house was set on fire, and all perished, with the exception of Archippus of Tarentum and Lysis. Soon after this the political import ance and power of the Pythagoreans in Italy came to an end ; in the time of Plato, however, the Pythagorean Archytas was at the head of the administration in Tarentum.
5. The following are named as the most distinguished of the ancient Pythagoreans : Philolaus, a contemporary of Socrates, the first to make public in a written work the system of the school ; Simmias and Cebes, who, according to Plato's " Phanlo," were friends of Socrates ; Ocellus, the Lucanian ; Timajus, of Locri ; Ecchecrates and Acrio Archytas, of Tarentum ; Lysis and Eurytus ; Alcmseon, of Crotona, a youthful contem
Kirary of Pythagoras, who held the doctrine of contraries, of which he enumerated ten ippasus, of Metapontum, who held Fire to be the material principle of all things Kc'phantus, who combined the atomistic theory with that of the world-guiding Spirit, and who taught the revolution of the earth on its axis ; Hippodamus, of Miletus, archi tect and politician. Epicharmus, the comic poet, and others, are stated to have held doctrines akin to those of the Pythagoreans. — (Cfr. Ueberweg. )
6. As for the sources from which our knowledge of the Pythagorean doctrines is derived, we have to rely chiefly on Aristotle. Pythagoras himself left no written work (the " Carmen Aureum " attributed to him is undoubtedly spurious). Nor has any work of the older Pythagoreans come down to us which we can trust as genuine. Bockh has collected fragments of a work by Philolaus. They would help us to a know ledge of the early Pythagorean teaching if we could be certain they were genuine ; but they have been subjected to damaging criticism, and have been finally assigned to the last century before Christ. In the same way the fragments of Archytas of Tarentum, collected by Orelli, have been disparaged. The same may be said of the treatise of Ocellus Lucanus : De rerum natura, and of Timaeus Lucanus. We have, therefore, to recur to Aristotle for our knowledge of the older Pythagorean system. Other accounts of the system we can accept only in so far as they are in accord with his.
7. All that we can with certainty trace back to Pythagoras himself are the doctrine of Metempsychosis, the system of Mathematico-theo- logical speculation, and the fixing of certain ethical and religious rules of conduct. When, then, we speak of Pythagorean doctrines, we mean no more than the teaching of Pythagoras as developed by his disciples and followers. We have here to do not so much with the personal opinions of the philosopher himself, as with the tenets of the Pytha gorean school.
8. According to Aristotle (Met. 1, 2, 5), the Pythagoreans contem plating the order of nature, and the regularity of natural formations, with minds formed to mathematical conceptions, were led to make num bers the essential constituents of things. .It was the fundamental principle of their teaching that Number is the essence (ouo-m) or ulti mate basis (U/O\TJ) of all things. Every individual thing is a number, and the aggregate of all things is a vast system of numbers (Arist. Met. 1, 5., 6-12, 6., 8-13, 6). According to this view, all things are not only arranged in numerical order, numbers are not merely symbols of the cosmical system, they constitute the substantial essence of all things. Aristotle states expressly that the Pythagoreans did not conceive num bers to be actually distinct from things (Met. 1, 6-13, 6) :
9. " Everything which is the object of knowledge includes Number; without this element it could not possibly be the object of thought or knowledge. Now truth is a peculiar innate attribute of Number: it is of the very nature of Number or Harmony to reject deception as inimical and antagonistic. It is its function to rule and regulate, and to teach the hitherto unknown. Hence the conclusion that what is the most
48 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
fixed and indefectible in our knowledge must also be the unchangeable essence of things in themselves." Things are therefore to be regarded as copies of numbers, because in them the universal nature of Number is reduced to individual existence.
10. The originating principles of Number are Indefiniteness and Limit. The union of both constitute Number, as well of the " monadic " (mathematical) order, as of the " geometrical ; " in each case, Number is the outcome of the combination in harmony of the two principles. Number is either odd or even ; the former is the symbol of the Perfect, the latter of the Imperfect. The Pythagoreans assigned specially pro minent functions in their system to the numbers four (TiTpaicrvz) and ten (<Wic).
11. If it be true that Number constitutes the essential being of all things, it follows that the generating principles of Number — Indefinite- ness and Limit — are the ultimate principles of all things. Everything consists of an unlimited and a limited (limiting) element, whereby its being is constituted. The unlimited is the indeterminate basis of being (in Aristotelian phraseology, the Matter) ; the limit is the determining principle by which the indeterminate is reduced to definite being (in Aristotelian phraseology, the Form). These two elements when com bined constitute the essence of the determinate object.
12. We have now to consider in what fashion the Pythagoreans ap plied these general principles to explain the actual being of things in themselves, and in their relation to one another. Here we come upon their teaching regarding the nature of bodies. Having assumed that the ultimate elements of all things are the LTndefined, and the Defining or Limiting, the Pythagoreans, when investigating corporeal nature, seem to have regarded the Undefined as vacuum, the Limit or defining element as a multitude of points fixed in some way or other in this empty space. So that their general principle : " All things are either numbers, or consist of numbers that are contained in them," is in this con nection transformed into the other: "All bodies consist of points or units in space, which when taken together constitute a number." This is an assertion of the theory that the constitutent parts of the corporeal substance are themselves simple elements, and on this theory only can their nature be explained.
13. True to their mathematical conceptions the Pythagoreans regarded material bodies as proximately formed of super- imposed surfaces ; these surfaces as formed of lines, and the lines formed of points. These purely mathematical conceptions they transferred to the real order, and taught accordingly that the single constituent elements of the mathe matical body were also the real constituent elements, or, to use the words of Aristotle, the substance of the body in nature (Met. 7. 2.) By the juxtaposition of several points a line is generated, not merely in the scientific imagination of the mathematician but in external reality also ; in the same way the surface is generated by the juxtaposition of several lines, and finally the body by the combination of several surfaces. Points, lines, and surfaces are therefore the real units which compose all
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 49
bodies in nature, and in this sense all bodies must be regarded as numbers. In fact every material body is an expression of the number Four (rtrpaicTuc) since it results, as a fourth term, from three constituent elements (Points, Lines, Surfaces).
14. Simple points are not, however, enough of themselves to explain the nature of material bodies ; we must also call to our aid the notion of vacuum, for it is by this that intervals of space are interposed between the points, without which they could not form lines, surfaces and bodies. If we suppose two points to co-exist without an interposed space, they coalesce and become one, and the formation of a line or body becomes impossible. Combinations of the unextended cannot produce extension unless we suppose intervals of space interposed, and this supposition becomes possible only when we assume the existence of a vacuum in which the points are distributed.
15. This vacuum is the Undefined which we must assume as the substratum of the defining element — the points. This vacuum affording intervals of empty space between the points, they are able to arrange themselves in juxtaposition and so to form bodies. In this way then do the Undefined and Defining constitute the very being of material bodies. Vacuum, the Undefined, is, however, something negative in character, it does not contribute positively to the formation of bodies, it is merely a condition pre-supposed in order to make it possible for the positive unextended units to combine in a natural formation and constitute a body. The positive elements in the body are these units — their "number;*" they are the "substance" of all things corporeal.
16. It is thus that the Pythagoreans developed their principle that everything is Number in its application to material things, arriving in this fashion at a purely idealistic conception of the material world. Matter, as such, disappears, and there remain only ideal elements and ideal relations. The differences between bodies are explained by assuming different modes of combination on the part of the units, i.e., different intervals of separation between them. In the same way are explained the several mathematical forms with which the Pythagoreans invested the several bodies, the Cube — the form of the Earth, the Icosahedron — the form of the Air, the Sphere — the form of Water, the Pyramid — the form of Fire.
17. It would also appear that the Pythagoreans not only regarded each individual body as a number, but furthermore regarded the entire world as a vast arrangement of numbers. This numerical system of the Universe was framed upon the number ten. As the number ten is the most prominent in the system of numbers, so the whole Universe consists of ten bodies, namely — the heaven of the fixed stars, the five planets, the sun, the moon, the earth, and the counter-earth.* The wholly unchangeable portion of the Universe is that which stretches from the heaven of the fixed stars to the moon.f A less perfect part of the
* By Counter-earth the Pythagoreans meant a hemisphere detached from that which we inhabit, and moving parallel to it.
t lieyond the sphere of the fixed stars lies the encompassing fire (irip\i\ov iriip)
5
50 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Universe extends from the moon to the earth ; here again we meet with defect and change in individuals, immutability only in genera and species.
18. In the centre of the Universe is the Middle Fire. This is the animating principle of the whole. It diffuses light and heat through the Universe and is the source of life to all things. The great bodies composing the world revolve round this Middle Fire. Their motion is not purely natural, i.e., determined by a blind necessity of nature ; the evidences which it gives of Reason and Purpose force us to attribute it to self-impulsion, and lead us to the conclusion that these bodies are endowed with Reason. In accordance with this reasoning the Pytha goreans reverenced the stars as gods.
19. An all-embracing harmony prevails throughout the Universe. For as the numerical system, reducing to unity a number of constituent parts, is harmony in itself, so must the Universe, which is the numerical system actualized, be regarded as a harmoniously arranged whole, and be described as the »c6oyioe in the veritable sense of the word. Admitting that the heavenly bodies are arranged in an order determined by mathematical relations it follows that their movements must con tribute to this general harmony, that from their movements a musical harmony must result — the music of the spheres.
20. This peculiar notion of a music of the spheres w-as thus set forth in more detailed explanation by the Pythagoreans. The velocity of the celestial bodies in their motion round the Middle Fire must be propor tioned to their distance from one another, and as every regularly vibrating body emits a note, it follows that harmony must result from the simultaneous movements of the heavenly bodies ; that the sphere of the fixed stars must emit the deepest note, the sphere of the moon the highest, while the intermediate spheres will emit intermediate notes. Our ears are not sensible to the music of the spheres. But this arises either from the circumstance that we have been hearing it from our birth, and we distinguish a note only when we can contrast it with a previous silence, or because the harmony of the universe is a combina tion of sounds too intense to affect our sense of hearing.
'21. Above the Universe, which is thus disposed in whole and in part according to number and measure, stands the Divine Monad, the Divine Spirit. As the unit is above all numbers, and is yet the basis of all numbers, so the Divine Being, though raised above all things which are numbered and measured, is yet the source of the being of all God is the one, eternal, enduring, unchangeable Being, resembling only Himself, different from all other things, the one cause of all corporeal reality, who from eternity determines and upholds the universal order. Under the rule of this Divine Being, the world has subsisted from eter nity, and will so subsist without end, for neither within it nor without it is there any other cause which can affect it. God is the ruler and guide of all things. He alone is wise. Nearest to Him in the perfec tion of its nature is that Fire which occupies the centre of the world. There is a sense, therefore, in which it may be said that the Middle Fire
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 51
is the home of God. Hence the Pythagoreans sometimes named it the Watch-station, or Citadel of Jove (Atoc <f>v\aKi'i, Znt^c frvpyos). The demons occupy an intermediate position between God and man.
22. In their view of the human soul the Pythagoreans are also in fluenced by their mathematical speculations. The Soul, too, is a number ; it moves itself (Arist. de anim. 1, 2). They hold it to be an efflux from the Middle Fire, and to share in the divine nature in the same way as the source from which it comes. By number and harmony it is bound to the body, which is at once its instrument and its prison. A distinc tion must be made between what is rational and what is irrational in the soul. The latter alone is possessed by brutes, man possesses both.
23. The soul is indestructible ; it outlives the body. The present life must be regarded as a process of purification for the soul. This process is continued after death, the soul is fated to inhabit other bodies, animal or human (metempsychosis). "With this theory is associated the doctrine of retribution. The souls that are incurable are at last flung into Tartarus, while those which purify themselves rise higher and higher in the scale of life, and at last attain to life incorporeal.
24. The Pythagoreans seem to have held the view that the supreme good for man was assimilation with God, and the bliss thence resulting. The means to reach this end is Virtue. Virtue is essentially Harmony. It consists in the harmonious equilibrium of the faculties of the soul, by which the tendencies of the irrational part of the soul are subordinated to Reason. To establish this interior harmony in himself is the task of man in life. He can effect it by striving after true knowledge (philosophy), and by ascetic exercises. To this end the ordinances and the rule of life of the Pythagoreans were directed. They all aimed at repressing the tendencies "of the irrational soul, and bringing them under the control of Reason. The moral maxims which were expressed in the symbolical language of the Pythagoreans were no more than the com mendations of virtue as the harmony of man's inner nature. The Pytha goreans also employed music to charm the passions to rest, and to excite healthy energy. Gymnastics served the same purpose. The essence of justice consists in retribution (TO avTiirtirovBos). Justice is a number •which taken an equal number of times is equal (apiO/jibs Ivdus to-oc — square number).
3. THE ELEATICS.
1. The Eleatics resembled the Pythagoreans in this, that they applied themselves to investigating the being, or essence of things, rather than their origin. They differed from the Pythagoreans in abandoning mathe matical formula), and conducting their speculations on lines more strict 1 v metaphysical. They made no attempt to explain the being of things by sjn 'i-ulations on their origin, they left the beginning of things completely out of sight, and by this method arrived at a theory of inert abstract Monism. The lonians had fixed their thought exclusively upon the origin of things, and this exclusiveness had led them to deny all endur-
52 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
ing, unchanging being ; the Eleatics, on the other hand, gave suchl prominence to the enduring, unchanging being of things, that a begin-/ ning of things came to appear to them impossible, a view which they distinctly asserted, at least as a speculative truth.
2. To understand aright the Monism of the Eleatics, we must, how ever, remark that the representatives of that philosophy, while asserting as a speculative principle the oneness_of_aUjthings, added to this a physical theory which was at variance with the metaphysical principle, - and which explained the origin of things from a certain primary matter. While the metaphysical speculation of the Eleatics denied a) beginning of things their physical theories re-asserted it and sought to/ explain it. This inconsistency the Eleatics endeavoured to justify by maintaining that physical science is concerned only with the world of appearances, that its task is to explain things as they appear, and so far as they appear in the world of phenomena. Pure speculation, on the- other hand, is concerned with real being which lies behind these appearances ; it takes no heed of mere phenomena, and may thus deny a beginning of things, since this belongs to the world of appearances, not to the sphere of real being. It is not necessary to point out that the inconsistency cannot be got rid of in this way.
3. The leading representatives of Eleatic Monism are Xenophanes, who formed the doctrines of the school into a theological system ; Parmenides, by whom they are expounded in metaphysical form as a theory of being ; Zeno, whose exposition is chiefly dialectic — a defence of the teaching of the school against the vulgar belief in the plurality of things, and in their origin and dissolution ; and Melissus, who in his teaching approached again to the views of the early Philosophers of Nature.
XENOPHANES or COLOPHON. §18.
1. Xenophanes was born at Colophon in Asia Minor about B.C. 569. As a wandering rhapsodist he visited many of the Hellenic cities, but finally settled at Elea in Lower Italy, where he founded the Eleatic School. Fragments of his poetical compositions have come down to us, but hardly anything of his philosophical writings has been preserved. "What remains of his works has been collected and edited by Fulleborn (Fragmente aus den Gedichten des Xenophanes, und Parmenides, in den Beitragen zur Gesch. der Phil., Stiicke 6 and 7, Jena, 1795), by Karsten (Philosophorum Graecorum Veterum operum reliquiae, vol. 1, 1. Xenophanis Colophonii Carminum reliquiae, Amsterd. 1835), and by Mullach (Arist. de Melisso/Xenoph. et Gorgia disputationes cum Eleati- corum philos. fragmentis, Berol. 1845.) The principal philosophical didactic poem of Xenophanes bears the title wtpl QvatuG-
2. Starting with the principle that " nothing comes from nothing," Xenophanes arrives at the conclusion that things cannot begin to be, for if we suppose a thing to come into existence we must suppose it to come either from nothing or from something else. It cannot come from
PHILOSOPHY OF THK (JKKKKS. /}•!
nothing; ex nihilo nihil ; it must therefore come from something else. But if it comes from something else there is no need why it should begin to be since it already existed. An origin of things is therefore unnecessary and inadmissible. It is wholly unthinkable. There is Being, but no Becoming.
3. The plurality of things depends upon a beginning of things. If there is no beginning there are no different things which begin to be. It follows, since existences do not begin, that no plurality of things exists. As there is a Being of things, but no origin of things, so there is but one Being of things, not a multiplicity. Hence the dictum of Xenophanes " All is One, One is All." This universal One is in itself undivided and indivisible, eternal and unchangeable, like to itself throughout, as a globe.
4. This One Being Xenophanes describes as rational, and names God. God is the One Only Being, existing tranquilly in himself, always like himself, excluding all new existence, multiplicity and change, perfect in himself ; he is hearing, sight, thought, all eye, all ear, all intellect. On the strength of this theory Xenophanes assails Polytheism, as well as the anthropornophic and anthropopathic conceptions of the deity adopted by Homer and Hesiod, and maintains the doctrine of one all- ruling God.
5. In the science of Physics, Xenophanes advocates empirical knowledge, which, however, he holds to be merely opinion, and to be unworthy of entire confidence. He believes Water and Earth to be the primary elements from which corporeal things have been evolved by a purely natural process. The principal of life in living things is a breath of ethereal fire. The Earth extends downwards and the Air upwards without limit. The stars are fiery clouds. The sea at one time covered what is at present the dry land. This is proved by the petrified remains of marine animals found on high mountains. We must, therefore, admit alternating conditions of mixture and separation between Earth and Water.
PARMENIDES OF ELEA. §19.
1. Parmenides, whom Aristotle (Met. 1, 5.) makes a pupil of Xeno phanes, was born at Elea about B.C., 515, or 510, and was therefore a younger contemporary of Xenophanes. Following in the wake of this philosopher he formulated in its fulness the metaphysical principle of the Eleatic doctrine, and in such fashion that the Monistic theory in his hands attained a thoroughly idealistic development. He appears to have exercised an influence for good on the legislation and on the morals of his native city. Pluto pays the highest tribute to his moral character as well as to his philosophy. His principal work was a didactic poem 7re/ot tyuaiwc;, of which fragments have been preserved by Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. 7, 111.), by Diogenes Laertius (9, 22), by Proclus (on the Timaeus of Plato), and by Simplicius (on Aristotle's Physics).
54 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
2. The speculative doctrines of Parmenides may be summed up in the following propositions : —
Being alone exists ; Non-being is nothing. Hence there is no be ginning of Being. How could that which exists begin to be ? It could not come from the non-existent, for this is nothing ; it could not come from the existent, for it is itself the existent.
Being is absolutely one ; outside the unit of Being there is nothing, consequently the supposed plurality of things, and the changes of things dependent on this plurality are mere appearances.
Being is eternal and unchangeable, without birth or beginning, im mutable, limited only by itself. In form it is a beautifully rounded sphere, one and eternal, the space within which is occupied without any vacuum.
Being is, furthermore, nothing else than the thought in which it is known. The thought itself is Being. Being and the concept of Being are one. In this sense all Being is pregnant with reason, and reason permeates all things.
Truth belongs entirely to thought. As Being alone is thinkable, so also that alone which is thinkable and thought is Being. The senses do not bring us truth. They only deceive us, and it is precisely this deception of the senses which seduces men into the belief in, and the graceful tricks of speech about the multiplicity and the changes of things.
3. In his physical theories Parmenides endeavours to explain (hypo- thetically) that phenomenal world which the operations of thought show to be unreal. In this explanation he sets out from two opposing- principles which bear to one another in the sphere of appearances the same relation that exists between Being and Non-being. These principles are Light and Night, with which the antithesis of Warm and Cold, Fire and Earth, is connected. On the proportions in which these principles or elements are mingled depend the plurality and differences of things in the world of phenomena. The force at work in these processes is Eros, the oldest of the gods. The soul is a mixture of the four elements.
ZENO OF ELBA.
1. Zeno was born about B.C. 490-485, and was the friend and pupil of Parmenides. It is said that he took part in the efforts of this philosopher for the ethical and political amelioration of his fellow- citizens, but that having failed in an enterprise against the tyrant Nearchus, he was taken prisoner, and died under tortures heroically endured. In his philosophy he aimed at developing in dialectic form the idealistic Monism of Parmenides. He brought forward a number of "proofs" to show that the admission of plurality and change, as of motion or space, leads to inexplicable self-contradiction.*
* In the Parmeirides of Plato mention is made of a prose work (o-uyypcyi/ia) by Zeno, which was divided in to series of arguments, each of which set up some hypothesis (v7r<>&tm<;)t which was then proved absurd, and so the Oneness of Being was indirectly established. On account of this method of demonstration Aristotle has styled Zeno the founder of dialectic.
I'llll.n-ol'HY OK THK OKKI.Kv ~>~>
'J. The principal proofs adduced by Zeno in his attempt to give in <liuL M'tie form an indirect demonstration of the Monism of Pannenides are the following : —
.•V-riiust the iv.-Uity of motion he argues (Arist. Phys. 6, 2-9.) : —
(a.) Motion cannot begin, for a body cannot reach a new position without passing through innumerable intervening positions. The moving body must first pass through half the intervening space, and then again through half this space, and so on indefinitely.
(6. ) Achilles cannot overtake the tortoise, for, no matter what the position he reaches, he will find that the tortoise has advanced still further.
(c. ) The arrow, though flying through the air, is, nevertheless, at rest, for at every moment it is in some one place, now here, now there, but always, as long as it is in any one place, it is at rest.
(a.) The half of a given period of time is equal to the whole, for the same point moving with different velocities in passing through the same space will at one time occupy half the period, at another the whole.
As these contradictions cannot be explained away it follows that there can be no motion at all, and that what we call movement is merely an appearance.
Against the reality of space Zeno argued thus (Arist. Phys. 4, 3) : —
If Being exists in space this space itself should exist in another space, and so on with out end. As this is impossible, it follows that there is no such thing as space.
Against the plurality of things Zeno adduces the following arguments (Simplicius in Phys. Arist. fol. 30, 6) :—
(a.) If a plurality of things exist the number of these things is either determinate or infinite. " These things are as many as they are, neither more nor less ; but if they are as many as they are, they exist in determinate number." On the other hand "if a plurality of things exist they must be infinite in number ; for between things that are different other things must be interposed, and between these again others, and so on till tlie number becomes infinite." The admission of a plurality of things thus involves » contradiction which it is impossible to solve.
(b.) Again if a plurality of objects existed, the aggregate should be at once infinitely great ana infinitesimally small. Each object must nave some magnitude. But magni tude is only possible when the component parts of the object are separated by an interval. The interval which must thus be admitted has itself a magnitude, and must therefore be .-rjciratod by another interval from the things which it separates, and so on without end. It follows from this that every object must be infinitely great since it is composed of an infinitude of parts each of which has some magnitude. On the other hand, from the same premises we must conclude that every object must be infinitesimally small. For if the parts of a thing are infinite in number, eo ipso they must be infinitesimally small. But an aggregate of infiuitesimally small magnitudes must be infinitesimally small In this way the admission of a plurality of things again leads us to a con tradiction.
Against the truth of sensuous preceptions Zeno argues as follows : —
If a measure of corn in falling produces a sound, then each single grain, and each part <>f a grain, must also produce a sound. If this be not the case, then the whole measure, the action of which is only the sum of the action of its parts, cannot produce a sound. Here again we have a contradiction from which we cannot escape as long as we admit the truth of sensuous perceptions.
3. In his theory of physical nature Zeno is in accord with the other Kk'utics. He admits four elements, the Warm, the Cold, the Dry, and the Moist — in which we recognise the familiar four elements. He furthermore admits a moving force which controls everything — Necessity, of which then- ;uv two species, Discord and Love. With regard to the soul he holds with Parrnenides, that it is a mixture of the four elements. In this compound some elements may predominate, but none can be entirely absent. He seems to have made the purity and godliness of the soul consist in the preponderance of the purer elements over the impure.
56 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
MELISSUS OF SAMOS. §21.
1. Melissus, a native of the island of Samoa, took an important part in the political concerns of his country. He was commander in a naval battle in which the Athenian fleet was defeated (B.C. 440). Simplicius has preserved several fragments of a work of Melissus irtpl rov oi/roc. or Tre/oi (j)v<Ti<D£. Its purpose is to establish the principle of Eleatic Monism by direct demonstration. " Oneness seems, however, to him to consist rather in the continuity of substance than in the notional unity of being."
2. Being exists, says Melissus, for if there were no being it would be impossible to speak of it. It cannot have become what it is, for it could only have arisen out of Non-being or out of Being. From Non- being nothing can arise, and it cannot have come from Being, for thus it would already have existed, and would not have arisen. Nor can Being perish ; for it cannot become Non-being ; and if it again become Being it has not ceased to be. Being is therefore eternal. From this we may deduce the following essential attributes of Being : —
Being is infinite. Since it is eternal it has neither beginning nor end. And what is without beginning or end is infinite. (Observe this transition from infinitude of time to infinitude of extension).
Being is one. If there were two existent beings the one would limit the other, and Being, it has been shown, is without end or limit.
Being is immovable and immutable. It is immovable, for motion supposes a vacuum, and vacuum there is none, since vacuum is Non-being and Non-being has no existence. It is immutable for (a.) change would involve plurality. Suppose for example, from rarefied it became dense, or from dense rarefied, the first would involve its becoming more, the second its becoming less. (b. ) In case of change the actually existent should pass away, and, in part at least, become non-existent. If in the course of thirty thousand years this happened to the whole, the whole would in that time have passed away.
Being is furthermore indivisible. This follows from its unity and its immutability. Since it is indivisible it has no parts, and consequently is not a body — a body without parts is unthinkable. It is, therefore, incorporeal.
3. What we see, hear and feel, is not true Being ; otherwise it should have the attributes enumerated above. The multiplicity of things, motion and change are, therefore, appearances, not realities. In his physical theories Melissus does not differ materially from his pre decessors of the same school.
THE SOPHISTS.
1. The period of pre-Socratic Philosophy ended with the Sophists. Neither the Philosophy of Nature nor the Idealism of the Eleatio could satisfy the human intellect ; both would appear to have helped it along the way to Scepticism. The seeds of the sceptical doctrines were sown in the earlier philosophies. The teaching of Heraclitus which denied persistent, enduring being — in which alone knowledge can find its object, the Eleatic theory that everything represented in experience is
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. ~n
only delusive appearance, and the fallacies employed to combat the truths irresistibly forced upon our natural consciousness : all this must have misled the human mind with regard to truth, must have suggested the view that there is no knowledge of truth, and consequently no truth at all, and that the sceptical attitude of mind towards what claims to be such is alone reasonable and safe.
2. This was the view professed by the Sophists. Their philosophical teaching is nothing else than a Scepticism which at first hesitates to believe in the possibility of truth, and at length boldly denies it. Under the influence of this Scepticism the Sophists not only made profession of not having attained to knowledge themselves, but furthermore denied to the human mind the power to attain to it. The difference between them and the later Sceptics seems to lie chiefly in this — that they selected their formulae with less caution, and were not careful to hide their real assumptions behind a pretence of speaking only for themselves. They lx)ldly proclaimed that there is no such thing as truth, and they endeavoured to impart this conviction to others to save them a useless expenditure of labour in the search after it. When truth ceases to be a reality, Morality, Justice and Religion must lose their objective value ; they too must perish in the abyss of doubt.
3. In an inquiry into the causes which gave rise to the peculiar teaching of the Sophists, we must not omit from view the social and political condition of Greece at the time. The unphilosophical and frivolous temper of mind of the Sophists could find favour only in an age when men had ceased to take a serious view of life, and to pursue serious aims. This was certainly the case in Greece at the time when the Sophists came into prominence. At the close of the struggle with Persia Athens found herself in a position of pre-eminence and power. A rapid advance in art and science followed upon this increase of her political importance. But avarice and sensuality were also stimulated into activity, and in proportion as these passions extended their ravages, morals became corrupt, the sense of religion became enfeebled, and the attitude of mind towards objective truth more sceptical. Such a spirit found its natural expression in a system of empty Sophistry which lightly set aside all Truth, Religion, Morality and Justice.
4. The causes which more immediately and directly contributed to create the system of the Sophists were connected with the rise and steadily growing power of the Athenian democracy — a movement which favoured the development of Rhetoric as the art of speaking. Oratory ceased to be the mere expression of the speaker's mind, seeking to convince by the substance rather than the form ; it became an art of language designed to impress the listeners by the sound and pomp of mere words, and it encouraged the effort after captious devices of speech calculated mi-rely for passing effect. In this field the labours of the Sophists were expended. They were the founders of the Schools of Rhetoric, in which young men were instructed in the Arts of Oratory. In this way they largely influenced education. Speech was for them only a means to gain over an audience by skilful exposition of the subject of discourse.
58 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
apart altogether from any consideration for the truth or falsehood, Tightness or wrongness of ths matter advocated. Their skill in oratory was mere deftness in defending or refuting any position whatever. This was expressed in the well-known saying : " They understood how to make the weaker reason (the worse cause) the stronger (the better),
and contrariwise They were skilled to assert and to
dispute everything, and to reyresent things the most widely different as identical."
5. It was to be expected that the Sophists would make philosophical inquiry, which had hitherto sought objective truth, subserve the pur poses of empty rhetoric, and use knowledge merely as a means to success in oratory. Objective truth, as such, was of no importance in their eyes. They were concerned to put forward as true or false that which it was their interest for the moment that their audience should accept as true or false. What more natural than to maintain as a theoretical axiom what was tacitly assumed in practice, and to assert that there is no objective truth at all, that everything is true which the individual, for the moment, takes to be true ; that objectively there is neither Goodness nor Justice, that everything is good and right which the in dividual, for the time, holds to be such ? In these principles the main doctrine of the Sophists was enunciated ; it remained only to embody this doctrine in appropriate formula and give it further development. To do this was the whole effort of the Sophists in the field of Philosophy.
6. The teaching of the Sophists was destructive of that Philosophy which consists in the knowledge of objective truth. The Sophists went about from city to city advertising themselves as professional thinkers, and offering their knowledge for sale. Such a procedure could only be fatal to science. We must not, however, deny them all scientific merit. Their efforts after success in oratory naturally led them to the study of Language and of Logic, for readiness in exposition and in argumentative development and proof were indispensable for their purposes. That they did something to promote a study of the forms of speech and to establish a Scientific Method is not to be denied.
7. We may add that the Sophists helped also to further the progress of the empirical sciences. They were not mere talkers ; they could boast, or at least the more distinguished could boast, attainments of a high order. Professing to be politicians they were obliged to have at command a store of historical knowledge, and to be acquainted with the various forms of government. In the case of many of the Sophists we are further told that they held an acquaintance with the ancient poets and a knowledge of the art of exposition to be essential to a man of cultivated mind. Many of tlem applied themselves to physical science. Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy, and Music were also in favour with individuals amongst them. They were the first to devise a system of Mnemonics or Art of Memory, and to fix the forms of expression adapted to the investigation and discussion of a given subject. But'all these services rendered in other departments of knowledge cannot atone for the destructive influence which they exercised upon Philosophy proper.
• PHILOSOPHY OK Tin: <;KKKKS. 59
8. The most remarkable amongst the Sophists are Protagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of Leontini, Ilippias of Elis and Prodicus of Ceos.
Protagoras was born at Abdera about B.C. 486, and exercised his cilling as teacher of oratory chiefly in Sicily, in Italy, and in Athens. He styled himself a Sophist (2o$/<rr?'/c), *.<"•» a teacher of wisdom.* He did not undertake to teach any special science, he professed to instruct youth in the virtues becoming citizens and statesmen, eliminating from their education all useless learning. He was accused of impietv at Athens on account of a treatise which began with the words " Regarding the gods I have no knowledge whether they exist or exist not. There is much to prevent our attaining this knowledge — the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of human life." His treatise was burnt, he himself escaped on board a ship, but perished, it is said, in the wreck of the vessel (B.C. 416). The principal points of his teaching may be thus stated : —
Starting with the notion of a flux in all things, as asserted by Heraclitus, and applying this to the thinking subject as such, he arrived at the principle : " Man is the measure of all things, of the existent as it is, and of the non-existent as it is not," by which formula he merely stated that for each individual things are what they appear to be, in other words truth is for each individual that which he holds to be true. Subjective truth is the only truth.
Even the axioms of geometry have no objective worth, for iu the world which we perceive there are no straight and curved lines such as are assumed in these axioms.
No object has a fixed determinate nature ; contradictory attributes may be predicated of everything ; we can make no statement about anything which shall have objective value, nor on the other hand can any statement made be validly contradicted. All propositions are alike true, and alike false ; one and the same thing can be true to one mind and false to another, or even to the same mind true at one time and false at another, for truth and falsehood are relative and subjective.f
Gorgias, who was born in Leontini, in Sicily, was an elder con temporary of Socrates, whom, however, he outlived. About the year B.C. 427, he came to Athens as Ambassador from his native city to obtain assistance from the Athenians against Syracuse. In later years he taught the art of oratory in various places with great success. But oratory was to him no more than the art of persuasion — the arts which undertook to teach virtue he laughed to scorn ; he- despised a virtue which he took no pains to cultivate in himself. The chief contents of his work, ntpl TOV urj OI/TOC n vepl fyvatus are to be found in the treatise
* The word Sophist acquired its meaning as a term of reproach owing to its use by Aristophanes, and after him by the Socratic Philosophers, notably Plato ami Aristotle, who styled tlu-m.s.-lv. s " Philosophers" in contrast with the "Sophists." Sophists like l'i»t;igoras were held in high esteem, although a respectable and well-to-do Athenian citizen would not become a Sophist himself, and earn money by public lessons.
7 According to Diogenes Laertius (1, 3, 37 and 57) Protagoras composed a treatise on tlu State ('AvnXoyuca, AXtjtiiia or Knra/SaXXovrff) from which Plato oorrowed many of the notions embodied in his scheme of an ideal state.
60 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
"De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia" (Aristotle). His teaching is thoroughly nihilistic ; it may be summed up in the following proportions :
(a.) There is no Being at all. For if anything existed its being should be derived, or it should be eternal. Being cannot be derived either from the existent or the non-existent (as the Eleatics prove). Nor can it be eternal, for the eternal is infinite, and the infinite cannot be anywhere since it cannot be in itself, nor in anything else — and what is nowhere does not exist.
(b.) Even if anything existed, it could not be known. For if a knowledge of any being were possible, the thought should resemble this being, nay, should be the existent thing itself, otherwise the existent thing would not be known. Hence the non-existent could not be known. This being so, there could be no error ; there could be no error, e.g., in the assertion that a battle of chariots took place on the ocean — con clusions which are clearly absurd.
(c.) Lastly, even granting that being exists, and is the object of knowledge, this knowledge is incommunicable. For a symbol is some thing different from the thing symbolized. How can anyone by a word communicate his mental image of a colour — the ear does not hear colour, but sounds ? And how can the same mental image be in two persons who are different from one another ?
Hippias of Elis, a younger contemporary of Protagoras, was renowned for his Mathematical, Astronomical and Archaeological knowledge. He was also remarkable for his ready eloquence ; he boasted that he was able to say something new on any subject whatever, as often as he discussed it. Plato has ascribed to him a saying which exhibits distinctly the ethical standpoint of the Sophists, " The law is the tyrant of men, since it forces them to act against their nature." This is clearly an antinomy. Hippias does not appear to have insisted upon the application of the principle in detail.
Prodicus of Ceos was an eminent master in the art of dialectics. He applied himself to fixing the distinction between words allied in meaning, and herein he was the predecessor of Socrates who acknow ledged him as his master. He was held in high esteem by the ancients for his hortatory discourses on moral subjects, e.g., on the choice of a career in life (" Hercules at the cross-roads") ; on External Goods and their use ; on Life and Death, and on other such themes. In these dis courses he exhibits a refined moral sense and muchacutenessof observation.
Besides those whom we have here mentioned we have further to include among the Sophists : the dialectical jugglers Euthydemus and Dionysidorus, the Rhetorician Polus, a pupil of Gorgias, Callicles, Thrasymachus, and Critias. These far surpassed the other Sophists in the boldness of their assertions. Callicles and Thrasymachus openly maintained that reckless gratification of passion is the law of nature. They proclaimed that right is on the side of the stronger, and that prohibitory laws are but a cunning device of those in power for the oppression of the weak. In a poem by Critias, the ablest, but at the same time the most unscrupulous of the Thirty Tyrants, belief in the gods is represented as the invention of crafty statesmen who have en deavoured to secure an easy obedience from the citizens by imposing on them this deception. He held the blood to be the seat of the soul. Lycophron, Antiphon, Hippodamus of Miletus, and Phaleas of Chalcedon are also named among the Sophists who propounded political theories.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 61
SECOND PERIOD. SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY.
1. We have now made acquaintance with the purely negative tendency of the teachings of the Sophists, and the destroying influence which they exercised on Philosophy. But their teachings were not without their positive effect on the progress of Philosophy in Greece. This positive service they rendered by provoking a reaction which not only brought about the downfall of their own system but initiated a new progressive movement which carried Philosophy in Greece to its highest stage of development. Out of the reaction against the procedure of the Sophists came the Socratic Philosophy, represented in its three masters, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who have won for themselves undying fame in the history of Philosophy.
2. Anaxagoras had, as we know, carried the Ionic Philosophy to Athens, Parmenides and Zeno had there represented the Eleatic School, while Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans were known at Athens by their writings, or it may be that some of the latter visited the city in person. In this way Athens became the centre in which the various schools of Greek Philosophy were brought into contact, and were enabled to in fluence one another. A first consequence of this conflux of philosophical doctrines was the breaking up of the several philosophical systems — a result which we observe in the teaching of the Sophists. But this disaster was soon followed by a new development of philosophic thought. The new movement was favoured by the circumstance that its leaders had before them philosophical systems whose defects and onesidedness they were warned to avoid, and were thereby incited to seek a new point of departure for philosophic inquiry. Athens thus became not only the central seat of Art in Greece, but also the home of Greek Philosophy in the period of its greatest glory.
>\. If we inquire what was the new point of departure which Greek Philosophy adopted at this period we shall find that philosophic thought, instead of making external nature the only subject of investigation, turned back upon itself, and proclaimed that self-knowledge, theoretical and practical (ethical), was of more importance for the attainment of truth than the knowledge of Nature. Self-knowledge, the investigation of the moral order, had hitherto been neglected in favour of the study of the physical world ; it was now accorded the first place in the estimation of the philosopher. Hereby a purer knowledge of the Divine Nature became attainable. And Attic Philosophy thus rose to a Theology that stands high above the opinions regarding God and things divine offered by the earlier philosophical systems of Greece. Theology now became the centre and the crown of philosophical science.
52 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
4. Socrates was the founder of Attic Philosophy, or, better, his labours may be said to have prepared the way for it. He did not aim at constructing a complete system of Philosophy. The instruction, to which he applied himself exclusively, was directed to incite his pupils to a deeper study of things, and to guide them in the right path of in vestigation. All his pupils did not, however, apprehend rightly the mind of their master ; many of them fastened upon some one or other of the special points in his teaching, and devoted themselves to the develop ment of the point so selected. These philosophers are said to have been "imperfectly Socratic." Plato, on the other hand, gave compre hensive development to the principles of his master, and, with his clear idealistic mind, brought to its fullest perfection the germs contained in the instructions of Socrates.* Plato was succeeded by his pupil Aristotle, who on many points is at variance with his master. But Socrates by his wonderful acuteness and penetration of mind, his quick power of observation, his vast knowledge, and his methodical procedure, was enabled to build up a system which is worthy to take an independent place by the side of Plato's.
Following the order here indicated,
5. We shall first treat of Socrates and the "imperfectly Socratic Philosophers," and then we shall set forth the Philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle.
SOCRATES. §24.
1. In their sketches of the life of Socrates, Xenophon (Socr. Memorabilia) and Plato (Apolog.) are at one on all essential points. Socrates was born at Athens about the year B.C. 471. His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor, and his mother, Phanaenarete, a midwife. In youth he was trained to his father's calling, and he is said to have shown some skill in the practice of it. It is probable, however, that he gave himself early in life to philosophical investigations. The story that he was a pupil either of Anaxagoras or of Archelaus rests upon no good authority. He seems however, to have been well acquainted with the earlier philosophical systems of the Greeks. The meeting between Socrates and Parmenides mentioned by Plato may be accepted as historically true.
2. Socrates served as a soldier in the military expeditions of Potidaca, of Delium, and of Amphipolis, but he declined to take any further part in political affairs. His mission he believed to be the education of youth, and this duty he believed to have been assigned him by an oracle. (Plato, Apol. p. 21.) He did not invite pupils, but allowed any one who
* Among the immediate disciples of Socrates we may further mention Aeschines an Athenian, Cebes a Theban, Simon a shoemaker of Athens, Xenophon an Athenian general ;md writer. The latter wrote a life of Socrates and contributed to the Philosophy of Education the well-known Cyrojia dia.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. fi'i
chose to listen to his instructions. His personal demeanour and his mode of life were calculated to attract attention, and to win favour. His external appearance bespoke his poverty and simple habits, while his peculiarities of face and manner, his practice of staring about him, and of halting suddenly as he walked, could not fail to attract notice. He esteemed it a desirable thing to have few necessities. By the dignity and the gentleness of his disposition he drew to himself a large number of youths and men, many of whom he formed to higher aims, and trained to become distinguished citizens. To the boastful Sophists he opposed his plain common sense, his " irony," and his strength of character ; but for all this he was himself represented on the stage as a Sophist. He believed that he had by him a " Demon " whose warning voice directed him what to do and what to avoid.
3. In his old age, shortly after the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants, the democratic party, represented by Miletus, brought a charge against him which was supported by the democratic politician Anytus, and the orator Lycon. The charge was to the effect that Socrates had offended by rejecting the gods recognised by the state, and by introducing a new and strange Demon, and that he had furthermore offended by corrupting the young men. The charge was, therefore, the same as had been made at an earlier period by Aristophanes, in the Clouds. After a bold and somewhat haughty defence of himself, Socrates was declared guilty by the judges and condemned to die by poison. He submitted his conduct but not his convictions to the sentence of the tribunal. He refused the means of escape provided for him by Crito, and in the presence of his disciples, and friends who had assembled in his prison, he drank the poisoned draught (B.C. 399). His death, justly glorified by his followers, secured for his teaching an universal and enduring recognition.
4. Socrates pursued in his instructions a double purpose. His first object was to form his disciples to a higher morality, and to save them from the libertinism to which they were led by the teaching of the Sophists. For this end he insisted specially on self-knowledge, for he saw clearly that the man who knows himself is the only man who can bridle and control his appetites and passions. Hence the well-known maxim " Fvw0i (Teav-rov," know thyself. Socrates was not blind to the necessity of self-knowledge as a means to the attainment of truth, but in framing this maxim he had in view primarily ethical considerations.
5. The second object of Socrates was to lead his disciples to a clear and certain knowledge of truth. In pursuance of this purpose he invented a peculiar method of instruction which has been called by his name, and the essential character of which is implied in the name Eurixtic (method of discovery) which is sometimes given to it. He did not lay down fully formulated principles, but endeavoured by continued questioning to lead his hearers to discover for themselves the principles he had in view. The tendency of the Socratic method was at once positive and negative.
Beginning with commonplace things and every day events, he inter rogated his pupil regarding them, and out of every answer given divw
64 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
material for a now question, till he at last obliged him to confess that what he had taken for truth was not really true. Throughout the interrogatory, however, he was careful to express deference for the superior intelligence and wisdom of his pupil, till they finally gave way under the dialectical test applied to them. In this negative process consisted the Socratic "Irony" (tlpuvtia). But his method led to positive results also. Socrates endeavoured by the same plan of con tinued questioning to lead his disciples to the discovery of positive truth. He named his method Maieutic, or intellectual midwifery, as it aimed at bringing truth into life in the minds of his pupils, and in this respect he found an analogy between his task and the duties undertaken by his mother.
6. We may observe that the method of Socrates is wholly inductive. In his questioning he endeavours to pass by induction from the par ticular to the general. The object of the entire method, as far as it aims at a positive result, is to gain clear and accurate notions of things as they exist, in order to attain thereby to objective truth — to universal principles. Aristotle has justly observed (Met. 13, 4) that we owe to Socrates the method of Induction and Definition (TOUC r'tTraicriKoue Xoyouc KOL TO bpi&aBai KaOoXov). Induction from the particular to the general, and the clear definition of general notions to which this process leads, was established by the Socratic method, and in this consists its lasting importance to philosophical science.
7. With regard to the peculiar philosophical tenets of Socrates, we know only what his disciples have told us ; he was not, as we know, a writer. As far as his teaching regarding the Divine Xature can be gathered from these accounts, he seems to have held with Anaxagoras that God is a spirit who rules the world. He grounds his belief in the gods on the teleological argument furnished by the structure of living organisms in which the parts serve the requirements of the whole, taking a.s the basis of his reasoning the principle that whatever exists for a useful end must be the work of intelligence Trpiirti /uiv TO. eir' <I><£eA«V yiyvd/jLtva yva>/j.ri^ tpya tlvai. (Xenoph. Memorab. I. 4, 4 sqq. IV. 3, 3 sqq.) Just as in our own actions we are ourselves guided by reason, so the entire world is guided by the Divine Reason. The Wisdom (</>jodvT]<Tie) which rules in all that exists determines everything according to its good pleasure, it frames and upholds the universal order : rbv oXov KOff/mov (TVVT TTwv T£ Koi ovvi\ti)\>. Socrates combats the belief which attributes human passions to the gods, but he does not seek to destroy the old mythology, or even to explain it allegorically. The gods, like the human soul, are invisible, but their operations give unmistakable evidence of their existence. The gods are omniscient and omnipresent, they govern all things according to the rules of righteousness, and have their sufficiency in themselves. (Xen. Mem. I. 3, 3. IV. 3, 13.)
8. Regarding the immortality of the soul, Socrates expresses himself doubtfully, in the Apology of Plato. But his conviction that the present life would be little worth, and not at all preferable to death, if the life to follow did not furnish more favourable conditions for human
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GUKI.K-. 65
effort is proof of his leanings on this question. His own boundless trust in the care of the gods for the just man, and the unanimity among his followers on the point (Plato Phaod. ; Xenoph. Cyrop. VIII., 7, 3 sqq.) sufficiently confirm the view that Socrates held the soul to be immortal. He expressed no definite view regarding the soul's condition after death ; he was satisfied to maintain that the soul of the just man is set free by death from the embarrassments of the body and enters into the fuller enjoyment of truth.
9. The Supreme Good of man is happiness. Not a happiness that depends on some accident of fortune (tvrv\ia) but the happiness attained by action and knowledge (tvirpafya). This happiness is attained through assimilation with the Divinity. External goods avail nothing ; to have no need of anything is a divine attribute, to want as little as possible is the nearest approach to the Divinity. Scientific knowledge is a further condition of this assimilation with the Divine Nature. Practical excel lence is identified with this knowledge. Both in one make Wisdom. Wisdom must therefore be the ultimate end of man's moral action. In his moral life he must strive after knowledge, and true knowledge is the knowledge of the Good — the knowledge of that Divine Reason which governs all things. This leads immediately to moral goodness, for theoretical knowledge and practical excellence are ethically one. What is good is at the same time useful.
10. In the light of these principles, the further ethical teaching of Socrates, especially his theory of Virtue, becomes easily intelligible. Virtue and Knowledge are one. The knowledge of what is right, and the doing of it, are inseparable, because they are identical. It follows that no man can knowingly do wrong ; for if he knows what is good, he also chooses it. The man who acts wrongly does not act so with deliberation, but in ignorance : he is deficient in perfect knowledge of what is good. The evil doer is only involuntarily (nKwv) wicked. It may even be said that the man who knowingly is guilty of lying, or other misdeeds, is better than the man who unwittingly lies, or other wise does wrong (Xen. Mem. III. 9, 4 ; IV. 2, 20. Plat. Gorg., p. 461. Apol. p. 25. Prot. p. 345. Arist. Eth. Nic. VII. 3, &c.) * As a con sequence of its identity with the knowledge of what is good, Virtue is one, and is a matter of instruction.
11. The State is of divine institution. The true rulers are those whose rule is guided by understanding. The laws are either written 01- unwritten. Tin- latter are the rule and standard of the former; their divine origin is manifested by the fact that any violation of them en tails a punishment determined by Nature itself.
" IMPERFECTLY SOCRATIC " PHILOSOPHERS.
1. By the "imperfect" or "partial" followers of Socrates we mean those of his disciples who, failing to comprehend the whole mind of their
* The man who knowingly does wrong is in a better position than the man who does it unwittingly, for the reason that ignorance and neglect of knowledge are the greatest of all sins, and the source of all moral evil.
6
66 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
master, addressed themselves to one or other of the special points of his teaching, which they developed to the exclusion of the others. Two characteristics, we have observed, were strongly marked in the teaching of Socrates, the dialectical and the ethical. The former we may call the operative element in the instructions of Socrates, the latter the re sult in which his instructions culminated. These two elements became separated in the teaching of the " imperfectly Socratic " philosophers. One class devoted themselves mainly to the development of the dialec tical side of the teaching of Socrates, the other gave exclusive prominence to the ethical, which they strove to develop in conjunction with certain principles borrowed from the pre-Socratic schools. To the first class belong the Megaric or Eristic, and the Elian or Eretrian Schools ; to the second, the School of the Cynics, and the Cyrenaic or Hedonist School.
THE MEGARIC AND THE ELIAN (ERETRIAN) SCHOOLS. §25.
The founder of the Megaric or Eristic School was Euclid of Megara, who must not be confounded with the Alexandrian mathema tician of the same name, who lived a century later. The story is told of him that in order to enjoy the society of Socrates he often came to Athens in the gloom of the evening, at the time when the Athenians had forbidden the Megarians, under pain of death, to enter Athens. He was present at the death of Socrates (Pha;d. p. 59, C). Soon after, the greater number of the disciples of Socrates quitted Athens to join him at Megara. He appears to have lived for several decades after the death of Socrates at the head of the school which he had founded.
2. The main end of the teaching of Euclid seems to have been to combine the ethical views of Socrates with the Eleatic theory of the One. Adopting unreservedly the principle of Parmenides, he represents the One, not under the concept of Being, but under the Socratic concept of the Good. Socrates had made the knowledge of the Good the basis and the principle of our moral life ; Euclid gave an objective subsistence to this concept of the Good, and made the Good the only thing existent. He, accordingly, lays down the principle : The Good is One, though it is called by many names, such as Intelligence, God, Reason. "Whatever is opposed to the Good, is non-existent. The Good is unchangeable.
3. This fundamental principle the Megarians tried, after the manner of the Eleatics, to establish by indirect demonstration. Dialectic best served their purposes in such an attempt. Hence they were led to give it special prominence in their teaching. They endeavoured, by dia lectical devices, to show that merely empirical knowledge abounds in real or apparent contradictions, and that our notions of things, derived from mere experience, are wholly untenable. They thus sought to esl ab- lish the Oneness of all Being in the Good by a method wholly similar to that of the Eleatics. This sophistical procedure procured for their
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREKKs. 67
teaching the name "Eristic" (doctrine which contends against current opinions). The denial of the Many led them to the further view that there is no diversity between concepts ; that the so-called difference be tween concepts is only a difference between the names of the One, or the Good, and that we have, consequently, no right to speak of one thing as differing from another.
4. The most remarkable of the followers of Euclid were Eubulides the Milesian, and Alexinus, noted for their invention of the sophistical arguments known as " the Liar," " the Concealed," " the Heap of Corn," "the Horned Man," "the Bald-head" (Diog. Laert. II. 108), and Uiodorus Cronus, who brought forward new arguments against motion, and who also maintained the view that the necessary alone is real, and the real alone is possible. Stilpo of Megara combined the Megaric doctrines with those of the Cynics. He combated the doctrine of Ideas. To him is ascribed the dialectical theory that a thing can be predicated only of itself, and the ethical principle that the wise man is superior to pain, and that the goal of all moral effort is Insensibility (d-n-aOna). Stilpo is the most famous of the Megarians ; he won renown not alone by his philosophy, but also by his firmness of character, his indifference to worldly possessions, his moderation, his evenness of temper, and his activity in public life.
5. The Elian or Eretrian School is another branch of the Megaric Philosophy. This school was founded by Phocdo of Elis, a favourite disciple of Socrates — the same whom Plato, in the dialogue named after him, introduces as communicating to his friend Echecrates the last dis courses of Socrates. After the death of his master he founded in his native city a school of philosophy, which seems to have had much in common with the Megarians. Menedemus, the Eretrian, a pupil of Phredo (352-278) transferred this school to Eretria, whence its later name. Soon after his death this school, like the Megaric, was absorbed by the Stoa.
6. We have little information regarding Phoedo's doctrines. Of Menedemus, we are told by Diogenes Laertius (II. 135), that he shared the views of Plato, but that he employed Dialectic only to play with it. Like the Megarians, the Eretrians declared Intelligence to be" the only good. This is virtue also. Virtue, therefore, is one, as the Good is one.
THE CYNICS. §26.
1. The founder of the Cynics was Antisthenes, an Athenian, a pupil first of Gorgias, and then of Socrates. After the death of the latter philosopher, he taught in the gymnasium, called Cynosarges (whence the name of his school), to which he was restricted, as not being of purely Athenian extraction.* The influence of the teachings of Gorgias was manifested in the rhetorical form of his dialogues. He resembled Socrates in external appearance, and he was bound to his master by the ties of an intimate friendship.
•J. Ant ist hones brought into special prominence the ethical element in the teaching of Socrates. He asserted that Virtue is the only, as it is the highest good for man ; it is all-sufficient, it alone can give happi-
* He was the son of an Athenian father, but of a Thracian mother.
68 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
ness. Virtue is, therefore, in the theory of Antisthenes, the highest purpose of human life, and sufficient of itself to create perfect happiness. What is intermediate between Virtue and Wickedness is indifferent (a$tfi<j>opov). The good is congenial to us (otKtiov), the bad is some thing foreign (aAAor/otov). Pleasure, sought as an end, is evil.
3. According to Antisthenes the essence of Virtue consists in Self- Control, and this is dependent on right understanding. It is, therefore, one in itself, and it can be imparted by instruction. The strongest bul wark is that knowledge which is founded on safe conclusions. The Self- Control, in which consists the essence of Virtue, is nothing more than independence of all casual needs, that sufficiency in self, which manifests itself in a contempt for conventional customs, as well as in the renun ciation of every calling and pursuit in life. Once acquired, Virtue cannot be lost ; the man who has once become virtuous can never cease to possess this perfection.
4. The virtuous man is wise, and he only is wise. Virtue and wis dom are to some extent identical. The wise man despises everything — noble birth, riches, fame, &c. ; he has all he wants in himself. With regard to marriage, family, and the social life of the State, he is in different. No form of government existing, or possible, is suitable to him. He restricts himself to the inner consciousness of his own virtue, and withdraws from existing society, but only to become a citizen of the world. The faith of the multitude has as little binding force for the wise man as its laws. There is but one God (Cic de Nat. deor. 1, 13, 32). He cannot be known by images. Virtue is the only true worship.
5. Antisthenes was not wholly a stranger to dialectical investiga tions, though they seem to have chiefly furnished him with matter for sportive sophistries. He explains Definition to be an exposition of the essence of a thing (Xo'-yoc tvnv 6 rt> ri fiv ij tort £»?Xwv). He admits as valid only identical judgments. He maintains, furthermore, that self- contradiction is impossible : " for in the propositions supposed contra dictory, we either speak of the same subject, or we do not ; if we are speaking of the same thing, we are really making identical assertions, for each thing has only one o«K£toc Xiryoc ; if we are speaking of dif ferent things, there is, of course, no contradiction." (Arist. Met. V. 29). He combats the Platonic doctrine of Ideas.
6. To the School of the Cynics belong " Diogenes of Sinope, Crates of Thebes, with his wife Hipparchia, and her brother Metrocles, Menippus, a pupil of Crates, and others." Diogenes made himself ridiculous by his extravagance in applying the prin ciples of his master. He is said to have accepted without protest the name " Dog" (KVWV) bestowed upon him. He was also called "Socrates gone mad" (Swicpdrijc fian 6^/evoc). He rejected the immorality of his age ; but he, at the same time, rejected its morality and its refinement. In its later development, Cynicism, so far as it was not lost in Stoicism, degenerated into mere insolence and indecency.
I'Mll.osol'HY OF THE GHKEKS. 69
THE CYRENAICS. §27.
1. The founder of the Cyrenaic or Hedonist School was Aristippus (the Elder), described by Aristotle as a Sophist. He was a native of Cyrene (whence the name Cyrenaic given to his philosophy). The fame of Socrates attracted him to Athens, where he joined the circle of the philosopher's disciples. He would seem to have been acquainted, pre viously, with the philosophy of Protagoras, traces of which appear in his own teaching. The manners which prevailed in the wealthy and luxurious city where he was born, were not without influence in deter mining his love for pleasure. He is said to have been a frequent guest at the courts of the elder and younger Dionysii of Sicily, and to have made there the acquaintance of Plato.
2. Aristippus gave special prominence to the theory of Happiness propounded by Socrates, but he interpreted it in a fashion which accorded with the peculiarities of his own disposition, and his own ten dencies. He makes Happiness the supreme good of man, and the supreme end of human life. But Happiness, according to Aristippus, consists in the pleasure of the moment, and this pleasure is the sensation of gentle motion. The motion of which we have sensation is of three kinds : feeble motion, to which we remain indifferent ; violent motion, which is in disaccord with nature, and which we describe as pain or suffering ; and lastly, motion of the easy and gentle kind, which is con genial to nature, and which we describe as a movement of pleasure. Pleasure is, therefore, not merely the absence of pain, it consists in an active movement ; it is the pleasure that passes — the pleasure of the moment. This alone can make us happy ; it is the highest good of man. Our true duty is to enjoy the present, for that alone is in our power.
3. The details of this theory are in accord with these fundamental principles. The primary form of pleasure, according to Aristippus, is bodily pleasure, and every pleasure is accompanied by an affection of the bodily organism. Pleasure, as such, is never bad, though some pleasures are derived from causes which are evil. One pleasure does not differ from another in quality, nor is one superior to another, their intensity and their duration alone determine their worth. The differ ence between good and evil pleasures is therefore a question of custom ; there is no intrinsic distinction in the things themselves.
4. But to enjoy aright the pleasure of the moment, we require In telligence and Virtue. Intelligence must subdue the passions and pre judices which disturb enjoyment, and prevent men from giving them selves to pleasure at every moment, and at the same time it must enable the individual so to take advantage of passing circumstances, and so to direct them, that he shall be able to derive enjoyment from every situa tion in life. Virtue, on the other hand, being the same thing as Self- Control, must enable man to enjoy pleasure without becoming a slave
70 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
to it, must enable him to give himself to pleasure in such a way as not to bring upon himself suffering, sickness, or disease. Control of plea sure, in the midst of pleasure, must be secured by Virtue. Intelligence and Virtue are, therefore, valuable as means to pleasure. The man who possesses them for this end is truly wise.
5. In keeping with the Hedonistic ethics of Aristippus is his theory of cognition, which restricts all our knowledge to sensation. The Cyrenaics distinguish between subjective affection (TO iraQoq) and the external object which produces this affection (TO SKTOC VTTOKH pivot* KOL TOV iraOovz -KOSTIKOV). The former belongs to the sphere of our own consciousness ; the latter exists, but more than this we do not know re garding it. Whether the sensations of other men correspond with our own we have no means of knowing ; the application of the same names to the same objects proves nothing. This, it is clear, is no more than a further development of the subjectivism propounded in the Prota- gorean theory of cognition.
6. To the Cyrenaic School belong Arete, daughter of Aristippus, and her son Aris tippus the Younger, surnamed " the mother-taught " (/*rjrpo£icaicroc), who was probably the first to give systematic form to the hedonistic doctrines, and to whom we owe the comparison of the three conditions of sensation — trouble, pleasure, indifference, to the tempest, the gentle wind, and the tranquil sea ; Theodoras, who was surnamed "the Atheist " because of his denying the existence of the gods and of moral law, and who held that a particular momentary pleasure was indifferent, that enduring joy (Cheerful ness) was the end to be sought by the truly wise ; the pupils of Theodoras, Bio and Evemerus, who explained the belief in the gods to have arisen out of the custom of honouring men ; Hegesias, surnamed the "death-adviser," who, despairing of positive happiness, taught that true wisdom consisted in indifference to pleasure and pain, and even to life itself, which he held to be valueless ; finally, Anniceris (the younger) who endeavoured to give a higher interpretation to the theory of pleasure by making friend ship, gratitude, love of parents and country, social intercourse, and the pursuit of honour, means to happiness ; he is, however, careful to remark that every effort on behalf of others has its cause, and its purpose in the pleasure procured to ourselves by this benevolence ; he thus continues to maintain the egoistic principles of Hedonism.
PLATO.
PLATO'S LIFE AND WRITINGS — GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PHILOSOPHY.
§28.
1. We come now to the greatest and most renowned of the pupils of Socrates, for whom it was reserved to complete the work planned and begun by the master. We speak of Plato. The Socratic doctrines formed the basis of his philosophic system ; but he did not confine him self to these ; he borrowed also from Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Parmenides, such notions as he found suitable to his purpose. But Plato did not merely collect and reproduce for us the opinions of these philosophers, he constructed for himself an original philosophy. The final results of the philosophical investigations of others he took only as the materials for the structure which he had planned in his own mind.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 71
The prominent feature of his philosophy is its thoroughly ideal character. " As the blood," says a modern writer, " flows from the heart to all parts of the body, and returns to the heart again, so in the Platonic philosophy everything proceeds from the Idea as from a centre, and everything returns thither again." Hence the great wealth of material which we observe in the Platonic Philosophy. With this wealth of material is united a grace of style and of exposition which has never been surpassed.
2. Plato was born at Athens, B.C. 428. He was originally named Aristocles. He was the son of Aristo, a descendant of Codrus, and of Perictone, who was a descendant of Dropides — a near relative of Solon, and who was also a cousin of Cretias, one of the Thirty Tyrants. He is said to have devoted himself to poetry in his youth, a statement which the graceful style of his later writings renders probable. The weakness of his voice rendered him unfit for- the duties of the public speaker. The stories regarding his military service rest on slender foundation. He appears to have pursued philosophical investigations at the same time that he was cultivating the poetic art, for he made acquaintance with Cratylus while still a youth, and learned from him the doctrines of Heraclitus. But Socrates seems to have been the first to give an entirely new direction to his efforts. He was twenty years old when he attached himself to Socrates, and he continued till the death of his master to enjoy the benefit of his teaching, and to be ranked among the most faithful and most esteemed of the philosopher's disciples.
3. After the death of Socrates, Plato, with some other disciples of the philosopher, joined Euclid at Megara. His intimacy with Euclid must have exercised considerable in fluence on the system formed by Plato. After his stay at Megara he undertook his first great journey (probably not before returning to Athens and sojourning for some timeinthat city). He visited Cyrene in Africa, and there made acquaintance with the mathemati cian Theodorus. He next proceeded to Egypt to pursue the study of Mathematics and Astronomy under its priests, and thence he continued his journey to Asia Minor. After another sojourn at Athens, lie undertook, at the age of forty, a journey into Italy, to make acquaintance with the Pythagoreans. Thence he travelled to Sicily, where he formed a close intimacy with Dion, brother-in-law of the tyrant Dionysius the Elder. His moral admonitions are said to have provoked the tyrant himself to such a degree that he induced the Spartan envoy, Pollis, to sell the philosopher into slavery in ^Egina, as a prisoner of war. He was ransomed by Anuiceris, and returned to Athens, where he founded, B.C. 387, his school of philosophy in the garden of Academus (Academy). His teaching, as we observe in his writings, and as we learn from an express statement in the Phaedrus (p. 275), took the form of dialogue ; though he seems, at a later period, especially for his more advanced pupils, to have delivered sustained discourses.
4. In the year B.C. 367, after the death of Dionysius the elder, Plato undertook another journey to Sicily. He did so at the suggestion of Dion, who hoped that the teaching of Plato would influence the new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger, and would help to induce a chance in the government of Sicily to the aristocratic form. The plan failed owing to the weak and sensual temperament of Dionysius ; he suspected Dion of aiming at the sovereign power, and he condemned him to exile. In these cir cumstances Plato could no longer maintain his position, and he therefore returned once more to Athens. He visited Sicily a third time in B.C. 361, in the hope of effecting a re conciliation between Dionysius and Dion. But he failed in his purpose. His own life was in peril from the suspicions of the tyrant, and he owed his safety to the interposi tion of the Pythagorean, An -iiytas of Tarentum. Returning to Athens he again began to teach by writings and oral instruction, and to this task he devoted the remainder of his life. He died at the age of eighty-one in the year B.C. 348 (or 347).
5. " The works of Plato, which have come down to us, consist of thirty-six treatises, (the letters being counted as one), besides which others, pronounced spurious by the ancients, bear his name. Aristophanes of Byzantium, a grammarian of Alexandria, diviili-d a certain number of the treatises of Plato into five trilogies, and the neo-Pytha- gorean Thrasyllus (of the time of the Emperor Tiberius), divided the treatises which he accepted as genuine into nine trilogies." In recent times many hypotheses have been framed iv^anlin_' tin- nnler, and the succession in time of the dialogues of Plato. The most important theories on this point are those of Schleiermacher, Hermann, and Munk.
(«) Sehleiermacher assumes that Plato had a definite plan of instruction before him when composing his several works (his occasional treatises excepted), and that they were
72 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
composed in the order required by this plan. He accordingly divides them into three groups : elementary dialogues, mediatory dialogues, and constructive dialogues. In the first group he sets down as the leading dialogues : Phaedrus, Protayoras, and Par- menides; subsidiary dialogues, Lysis, Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro ; occasional trea tises, the Apoloyy of Socrates and Crito ; partly or wholly spurious, lo, Hippias II. , Hipparchus, Minos, Alcibiades II. To the second group he assigns as the leading dia logues : Theaetetus, Sophistes, Politicus, Phcedo, Philebus ; subsidiary dialogues : Goryias, Me.no, Euthydemus, Cratylus, the Banquet ; partly or wholly spurious, Theages, Erastce, Alcibiades I., Menexenus, Hippias I., Clitopho. To the third group belong as leading dialogues : The Republic, Timceus, Critias, and, as subsidiary dialogue, the Laws.
(b.) On the other hand, K. F. Hermann maintains that there is no single plan trace able in Plato's works, that they are merely the expression of the philosophical develop ment of his own mind. He fixes, therefore, in the literary career of Plato three periods, each of which has its distinguishing characteristics. The first period extends to the death of Socrates ; the second covers the time of Plato's stay at Megara, and includes his subsequent travels in Egypt and Asia Minor ; the third begins with Plato's return from his first visit to Sicily, and ends with his death. He assigns to the first period the dia logues : Hippias II., lo, Alcibiades I., Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protayoras, Euthy demus ; and to the "transition stage " between the first and second periods : the Apoloyy, Crito, Gorgias, Euthyphro, Meno, Hippias I. To the second period he assigns the dia logues : Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophistes, Politicus, Parme.nides ; to the third : Phcfdrus, Menexenus, the Banquet, Phcedo, Philebus, the Republic, Timoeus, Critias, and the Laws, (c). Munk is of opinion that Plato in his writings followed an order ideally repre senting the life of Socrates, the genuine philosopher, and that this order portrayed the several stages of the life of Socrates. Accordingly he distinguishes three series of trea tises : (a) corresponding to Socrates' devoting himself to philosophy, and his attacks upon the current false teaching (B.C. 389-384) ; Parmenides, Protayoras, Charmides, Laches, Goryias, Hippias I., Cratylus, Euthydemus, the Banquet ; (/3) corresponding to Socrates' teaching of true wisdom (B.C. 383-370) : Phcrdrus, Philebus, Republic, Timmw, Critias ; (y) corresponding to Socrates' defence of his own teaching by criticism of rival schools, and to his death (after B.C. 370) : Meno, Theaetetus, Sophistes, Politicus, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phcedo. Cfr. Ueberweg, Vol. I., p. 95.
6. The controversy regarding the arrangement and succession in time of Plato's dia logues is not yet ended ; no certain result has yet been obtained. It seems to us that the hypothesis of Hermann is the simplest and most natural ; all the more than there is observable in the dialogues of Plato an unmistakable development of philosophic thought. Whether the classification given by Hermann is perfect in all its details, may be left an open question. Without attempting to discuss it, we shall indicate briefly the substance of the several dialogues, adopting the order suggested by Hermann.
First series : Hippias II. treats of Free Will in Wrong-doing ; lo, of Inspiration and Reflection ; Alcibiades I., of Human Nature ; Charmides, of the virtue of Temper ance ; Lysis, of Friendship ; Laches, of Courage ; Protagoras, of Virtue — it is directed against the Sophists ; Euthydemus, is a treatise on the same subject ; the Apoloyy of Socrates is a defence of that philosopher against his accusers ; Crito treats of Right Action ; Goryias is a discussion upon Rhetoric, and a condemnation of the abuse of it by the Sophists ; Euthyphro treats of Holiness ; Meno of Virtue, and the possibility of its being taught ; Hippias 1. is directed against the Sophists.
In the second series : Cratylus contains philosophical investigations on Language ; Theaetetus is an inquiry into the nature of Knowledge ; it is chiefly a refutation of the Sophists, and contains little positive teaching ; Sophistes is a treatise on the concept of Being ; Politicus on the Statesman, what he should know, and how he should act ; Par menides treats of Ideas, and the notion of the One.
In the third series : Phaedrus treats of Love, and the Beautiful as the object of love ; Menexemts of the Useful ; the Banquet again of Love ; Phaede of the Soul and Im mortality ; Philebus of the Good, more particularly of the Supreme Good ; the Ifrj'ii/i/;,- is a treatise on Political Philosophy, but the ten books of which it is composed contain many important questions of large philosophic interest ; Timceus is a treatise on Cosmogony ; Critias is a pretended nistory of primeval political institutions ; the LtHM, a treatise, in twelve books, on the State ; not an inquiry as to the best possible (ideal) state, like the Republic (TroXirtla) but a discussion as to that State which will best suit certain given conditions. (The genuineness of the Meno and Epinomis, which treat of Laws, is disputed.)
7. The writings of Plato were first published in a Latin translation in 1483-84 ; the translation was the work of Marsilius Ficinus. A Greek edition was published at Venice in 1583 by Aldus Manutius, aided by Marcus Muslims.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 73
The edition of Oporinus and Grynaeus was published at Basle in 1534, followed by another edition in the same city in 1556. Then came the edition of Henricus Stephanus, accompanied by the translation of Serranus, Paris, 1578, the paging of this edition is inserted in the more recent editions, and is usually cited in quotations. Of the com plete editions which have been published in recent times we have : the Editio Jiifiontina (1781-87) by Croll, Exter, and Embser ; the Tauchnitz edition (1813-19) by Beck; the edition of Immanuel Bekker (Berlin, 1816-23) ; the editions of Ast, of Stallbaum, of Baiter, Orelli, and Winkelman (Zurich), of Schneider, and of Hermann.
Philosophy, according to Plato, is the science of the Unconditioned and the Unchangeable — of that which is the basis of all phenomena. The Unconditioned and the Unchangeable are for him the ideas of things, for these he holds to be really existent (OVTWQ &v), and thus to stand in contrast with the changeable fleeting things of the phenomenal world. Accordingly he holds Philosophy, rightly defined, to be the science of Ideas, the science of the really existent. But Philosophy is not mere theory, in Plato's estimate, it essentially includes a practical element also ; it directs the whole man, Reason and Will alike, towards the Ideal, and is thus the complement of man's intellectual and moral life. Perfect wisdom belongs to God alone ; man can only be a striver after wisdom (0tAo<ro0oe) , his business is to approach ever nearer and nearer to the perfect wisdom of God. This effort must spring from a love of the Good and the Beautiful, and from wonder at the great phenomena which the objective order of things sets before the mind as so many problems to solve. These feelings give rise to a desire for a certain knowledge of the ultimate reasons of all things, and all phenomena, and thus the efforts of the philosopher are called forth.
9. Plato distinguishes between Philosophy and the preparatory sciences. Among the latter he reckons Mathematics. The science of Mathematics is not a part of philosophy ; for it assumes certain notions and certain principles without giving any account of them, taking them as if they were evident to all — a proceeding which philosophy as a pure science cannot admit. Furthermore it makes use, in its demonstrations, of visible images, though it does not treat of these, but of something which the mind alone perceives. It stands, therefore, midway between mere correct opinion and science ; clearer than the one, more obscure than the other. But though Mathematics is not philosophy, it is never theless an indispensable means for training the mind to philosophical thought, a necessary step to knowledge, without which no one can be come a philosopher. It is, in a certain sense, the vestibule of philosophy.
10. The organon proper of philosophical knowledge is Dialectic. Dialectic is the art of reducing what is multiple and manifold in our experience to unity in one concept, and of establishing an organic order and interdependence among the concepts so acquired. The dialectician is skilled to discover the several single concepts which underlie the many and varying objects of our cognition, and to arrange and classify these concepts according to their mutual relations. In the latter process the method he follows will be either the analytical method — proceeding from below upwards, or tlio synthetical — proceeding from above down-
74 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
wards. Dialectic will thus include the twofold process — ascent from, the particular to the general, and descent from the general to the particular.*
11. How and to what extent this Dialectic is the organon — the operative factor in philosophical knowledge — we find indicated in the relations which, according to Plato, subsist between the concepts to which it leads, and Ideas — the really existent entities, which are the proper object of philosophy. Ideas are the objects of these concepts ; in forming these concepts we are apprehending in them the ideas of things — we are apprehending the really existent, and are arriving at the knowledge which is the ultimate end of all the efforts of the philosopher. Dialectic is thus the real organon, the vivifying centre of all philosophy. Hence it is that Plato not unfrequently uses Dialectic and Philosophy as synonymous terms.
12. Mythical notions prepare the way for dialectical knowledge, and, where it fails, come in to supplement it. The myth is an aid to the mind in its efforts to form right conceptions, but it is, in itself, an imperfect way of representing things ; the dialectical method is the only method which leads to philosophical knowledge. The myth must, however, be appealed to when dialectical knowledge is either unattain able, or very difficult of attainment. Plato himself makes use largely of the mythical form in his expositions ; he very frequently introduces the ancient myths and legends in order to state his theories through them.
that
into Dialectics, Physics, and Ethics. According to Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. VII., 16), this division was formally made by Plato's dis ciple Xenocrates, though Plato may be considered to have virtually (Swd/mti) established it himself. If this division is not expressly mentioned in Plato's writings, it is nevertheless practically adopted in his exposition of his theories. It will, therefore, be the most suitable for us to follow in setting forth Plato's doctrines. As, however, we have already indicated the general character of the Platonic Dialectic, it only remains for us to set forth, under the first head, Plato's theory of Ideas — the central doctrine of the Dialectic, and indeed of the entire Platonic philosophy, and his theory of Knowledge. We shall therefore treat in order, first, Plato's theory of Ideas, in conjunction with his theory of Knowledge, which arises out of it, and depends on it ; next, his Physics ; and finally his Ethics, in which we shall include his Political Philosophy.
* Plato himself describes these two methods, which together constitute the whole dialectical process (Pha;dr. 265), as, on the one hand, the union in intuition of several individuals, and their reduction by this means to unity of essence ; and on the other the division of unity into plurality, in accordance with natural classifications. The first method leads to Definition — the knowledge of the essence of things ; the second is the Division of the generic notion into the subordinate specific concepts.
PHiLosornv in MII; (.KKE:KS. 75
PLATO'S DOCTRIXK OF IDEAS AXD THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE.
§29.
1. It is, as we have seen, the function of Dialectic to form general (or universal) Notions, and to reduce them, when formed, to organic arrangement, in accordance with their mutual relations. The objects re sponding to these general notions are Ideas. By immediate apprehension we have knowledge of the individual object ; by the concept we have knowledge of the Idea. The question naturally presents itself, — how are we to conceive of these Ideas in their objective state, and what rela tions are we to conceive them as holding to individual objects, and to God ? Plato's manner of answering these questions determines the fundamental character of his whole philosophy.
2. To the first question : How we are to conceive of the Ideas in their objective existence ? Plato replies :
(a) The objective correlatives of the Universal Concepts given in our thought, are Universal Ideas. The Universal, as such, is not there fore a mere product of dialectical thought ; as Universal, it is objectively real. To the Universal in thought corresponds an Universal in objec tive reality, and this objective Universal is the Idea. In this wise Plato gives objective existence to the Idea not only as regards the things it represents, but also as regards the form of universality which belongs to our thought of these things — to our concept.
(b) This being so, Universal Ideas are not something indwelling in individual objects, i.e., an Idea is not the essentia which enters into the being' of the several individuals of the same species ; since it is Uni versal, it must be held to transcend all merely individual objects. Universal Ideas, as such, have therefore an independent existence apart from the world of phenomena ; the true essences of things represented in these Ideas have being above and apart from things as they exist in dividually. In a word, we must admit a world of Ideas, distinguished from and transcending the world of phenomena.*
* Plato discovers a proof of this (Tim. p. 51) in the difference between scientific knowledge and mere right opinion (rovy and Sf>Ka aAj;0»jc). "If they are," he says, " two different kinds of knowledge, there must exist an order of Ideas having distinct existence, of which we have knowledge not by sense-perception, but by thought (titti v ovfitva) ; on the other hand, if they are one and the same, as some have thought, ideas cease to have objective existence, and become mere subjective concepts. In point of fact, however, they tire two ditlerent kinds of knowledge, and the difference is one of origin (the one being induced l>y conviction, the other by persuasion), as well as of nature (the one being certain and immutable, the other untrustworthy and changeable.) It follo\\s that there are two classes of objects; the one class including all that is Unchangeable, that does not come into being, and does not cease to be, that does not receive anything of alien nature into its being, nor pass itself into anything else, i.e., all Transcendental I'liiversal Ideas ; the other class includes those individual objects which bear the same name and belong to the same species as the Ideas, which exist in a deter minate place, which come into existence and cease to be, and are unceasingly in motion."
76 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(c] The mutual relations subsisting between these transcendental Uni versal Ideas are the same as the relations subsisting between the corres ponding general notions in our thought. As general notions form, in thought, a logical unity, so do the Ideas corresponding to them enter into union in the objective order. But this union is not, like the One Being of Parmenides, a lifeless, motionless thing ; it involves a dialec tical movement towards plurality. As in the process of our thought our concepts are differentiated, and thereby pass from the universal to the particular, so in the objective order of Ideas there is a differentia tion of the Universal and the One into the Many. To every Idea be longs " identity with another thing " (TUVTOV), i.e., it is a member in one Unity of Ideal Being ; to every Idea belongs also " difference from other things" (OaTtpov], it carries within it a determinate character which distinguishes it from other Ideas, and by which it becomes other than these. The world of Ideas must therefore be regarded as unity in plurality, and plurality in unity. To admit unity without plurality would be to involve ourselves inextricably in contradiction ; to admit plurality without unity would lead to a like result. Reason requires that we should assume both. (Parmenides, p. 137, s. 99 ; Sophist., p. 254, s. 99).
3. Turning now to the second question : How Plato understands the individual objects of the phenomenal world to be related to the Ideas, we find his teaching to be as follows :
(a) Ideas alone have real being ; they alone are perfect, unchange able, enduring, eternal, imperishable. Unchanging in itself, the ideal world moves in viewless majesty above the world of phenomena, repre senting within itself the full perfection of Being. The phenomenal world, on the other hand, is the sphere of imperfection, of change, of transition, the region wrhere things exist in time, and begin to be. The existence of material things is a perpetual flux, there is nothing fixed or permanent in them ; they are always passing out of existence. In the material world all things oscillate between Being and Non-being. Nothing ever attains perfection, for at each moment things cease to be what they were a moment before. All things are at the transition point from Being to Non-being, and from Non-being to Being ; they are, and are not, at the same time. It follows that there can be no question here of Being in its perfection.*
* We may observe that Plato here endeavours to combine the principles set in con trast by the pre-Socratic philosophy — the principle of continual change or unceasing flux held by the lonians, and the principle of unchanging Being held by the Eleatics. He adopts at once a sphere of immutable being, and another of continuous change, but makes the one distinct from the other, in order to preserve to each its characteristic attributes. Aristotle (Met. I., 6 and XIII. 4. 9.) describes Plato's doctrine of Ideas as the common product of Heraclitus' theory of constant flux, and the Socratic tendency to fixed concepts. The view that the world of sense is subject to ceaseless change was borrowed by Plato from Cratylus, a disciple of Heraclitus, and was thenceforth main tained by him. Accordingly, when Socrates made him acquainted with these concepts of things which, once formed, can be held without change, he was precluded from referring these to sensible objects, and was thus forced to assume the existence of things of another order— special objects of conceptual knowledge — and those he named Ideas."
PHILOSOPHY OF II IK (iKKKKS. 77
(b) Ideas, and the objects of the phenomenal world, are here set in contrast ; they have, however, contact with one another (Koivwv(a). The individual objects of the phenomenal order have part in the Ideas (fj.tTt-)(ov<Ti), each individual object has part in the Idea corresponding to it, and this participation makes it to be what it is (Phaod., p. 101). The Idea is as the real essence of the object ; it follows that the object becomes the thing it is only by participating in the Idea corresponding to it. Thus it is that participation in these Ideas determines the proper being of individual objects, as well as the characteristics which distin guish them from one another. In this way things are good in the visible world by participation in the self-subsistent Good, beautiful by participation in self-subsistent Beauty, wise, holy, just, by participation in self-subsistent "Wisdom, Holiness, Justice. (Phacd. 100, 6. sqq. ; Meno. p. 73, &c.)
(c) But in what consists this participation (/um^ftv) ? According to Plato it consists in "imitation" (^//urjcrtc? 6^o/w<r«e) by the pheno menal objects of the corresponding Ideas. The Ideas are the models, the prototypes (Tra/oaSa-y^ara) ; phenomenal objects are the copies, ectypes (ti'ewXa o/uotw/mTa) of these models. The Ideas reflect them selves in the objects as in so many mirrors, and by this reflection of themselves manifest their existence. But this reflection of the Ideas is all the while very imperfect. Sensible objects reproduce but imper fectly the models they represent. Ideas are reflected in them as in a dimmed mirror. For, in the first place, Matter is not in itself capable of reflecting the Idea in its fulness ; and in the second place, the process of continual change which involves all things of the phenomenal world in a constant movement of generation and decay, disturbs the clearness of the representation. There is, therefore, no comparison possible be tween the lustre and grandeur of the Idea in itself, and the copy of it which appears in the world of phenomena. In the supersensible world all is pure and unclouded ; in the sensible world, all is dimness and confusion. In the one we have completeness and perfection, in the other incompleteness and imperfection. Phenomenal objects hold, therefore, an intermediate position between Being and Non-being. They are inasmuch as they participate in real Being ; they are not inas much as they participate in it imperfectly. They do 'not, however, stand without the realm of Being, for Being is present to them (trapovaia) as their true essence, even though it be not indwelling (immanent) in them.
4. To our third question : What are the relations of these Ideas to God, Plato's writings furnish this answer :
(a) The Idea of God seems in the mind of Plato — as far at least as his doctrine rests on mere Dialectic — to have been one with the Idea of the Good. To the Idea of the Good, as to every other Idea, he attri butes real being, but he does not identify it with the other Icloa-^. It is not a logico-mctaphysical unit including all Ideas; no trace of such a conception is to be found in the teachings of Plato. On the con trary, he assigns to the Idea of the Good a transcendental position above
78 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
all other Ideas. The oneness of an Idea Plato describes as outrta, meaning thereby that the Idea is the true essence (ovvia) of the objects of sense ; but he states expressly that the Idea of the Good is not the ovaia itself, but is of a higher order. (Do Rep. VI. p. 508, VII. p. 517). He makes the Idea of the Good the sun of his world of Ideas. As the sun in this visible world not only renders things visible, but furthermore causes their generation, growth, and continued existence, without however being generated itself, so the Idea of the Good not only makes knowable all things that are known, but gives them also Being and Essence, not however becoming itself this Being or Essence, but surpassing them immeasurably in dignity and power. (De Rep. VI. 506-510, VII. p. 517, p. 540, p. 532.)
(b) Respecting the relations established by Plato between the Ideas of mundane things and the Idea of the Good, i.e., the Idea of God, two distinct views have prevailed. Aristotle asserts that Plato estab lished a difference between the Ideas of things and the things themselves, and then attributed to the Ideas, thus isolated, independent existence ; and on the strength of this interpretation he sets himself to combat this theory of separation (y/«>/otT«v). According to this interpretation, Plato not only assigns to Ideas an existence transcending all individual objects, but he gives them furthermore subsistence apart from the being of God. The later scholastic philosophers have, as a rule, adopted this interpreta tion. On the other hand, hardly any of the earlier Christian exponents of Plato's philosophy, hardly any of the Fathers of the Church, ascribe to Plato this doctrine of an order of Ideas subsisting apart from the Divine Mind. They assert, almost unanimously, that Plato located his world of Ideas wholly in the Divine Intellect, and regarded the so-called KoafjLog vorjroe as a system of Divine Conceptions.
(c) For ourselves, we will not venture to take sides in the contro versy. It seems to us highly probable that Plato regarded the Divine Intellect as the source, and if we may so say, the habitat of Ideas. For he employs, to describe the oneness of the Ideas, the terms vnvg , aofyla, Xoyoc, and this he regards not as a lifeless thing, but as a living and moving being. (Phileb. p. 30, De Rep. VII., p. 517, Soph. p. 248). Moreover, he states expressly regarding the vovg that it can exist only in a soul, i.e., in a spiritual being. Again Plato distinctly asserts that God is the First Author, the tyvTovpyog of all Ideas (De Rep. X., p. 597), and teaches that the vov% and a\ii9ua are brought forth by that cause which is the cause of all things (Phileb. p. 30). These assertions seem to warrant the view that Plato did not attribute to Ideas independent subsistence apart from God, but rather regarded them as conceptions of the Divine Intellect. However, the authority of Aristotle in the matter cannot be lightly set aside, as is sometimes done ; for he was the imme diate disciple of Plato. It is not to be assumed that a man of Aristotle's wonderful acuteness of intellect failed to understand his master, and there does not seem to be any reason to believe that he wilfully mis represented his teaching. It has indeed been asserted that Aristotle, not admitting Ideas into his own system, deliberately misrepresented
PHILOSOPHY OF THK (.Kl.l.KS. 79
1'latn's theory of Ideas in order the more easily to refute it. But this is an accusation for which no positive proofs can be adduced. We therefore hold as more probable the opinion that Plato regarded Ideas us conceptions of the Divine Mind ; but, for the reasons assigned, we refrain from stating this opinion as absolutely certain.*
5. Plato's Theory of Knowledge is intimately connected with his doctrine of Ideas. Considering knowledge in its subjective aspect, we find that Plato distinguishes various kinds of knowledge according to the various objects. The prominent difference established in this con nection is the difference between sensible and supersensible objects (oparov KOI voi)Tov ytvoe). Sensible objects are of two kinds — real bodies and the semblances of these bodies, such as are produced by art ((Tw/Kira and aicoi'te). Supersensible objects are also of two kinds ; they are either mathematical entities or Ideas proper (/uadq/ucmKa and iSiai).
6. Accordingly, we must first of all distinguish in human cognition between Sd£a and vo^aiQ. The S6£a is concerned with sensible objects ; the v6i\aiq with supersensible. Our sensuous perception must be de scribed as Sd£a, because sensuous perception can do no more than enable us to form an opinion ; it does not issue in complete certainty. Opinion is not indeed absolute uncertainty, but neither is it complete certainty ; it is something intermediate between both, partaking of the character of each, just as the sensible order with which it has to do is intermediate between Being and Non-being, and has something of the nature of each. On the other hand, i/dij(rtc» which is concerned with the super sensible, attains to absolute certainty of cognition ; the mind in this stage passes out of the vacillating state of mere opinion, and reaches the light of true yvwais ; v6i}<Jig is therefore the form of cognitive action which leads to scientific knowledge — fTi-tori^r). There is, therefore, an essential difference between the two kinds of knowledge, the sensuous and the intellectual, a difference due as well to the essential difference between the objects of cognition as to the nature of the cognitive act itself
7. AVe must make a further distinction still in the case both of So'£a and v6r)ais. As has already been observed, Sd£a may be concerned
* In his old age Plato is said to have occupied himself in resolving Ideas into Ideal numbers. Aristotle is our authority for this. "In point of fact we find certain traces of notions of this kind in some of the dialogues, as for example in the Philebux, where Ideas are described as tixicig or ftovdSn:, and (in Pythagorean fashion) iripae and u
appear as their elementary constituents. According to Aristotle's account (Met. I. 6. 14, 1) Plato held that there were two elements (ffrot^«'«) of Ideas, as of all other things, a form-giving element (iripac) and an element formless in itself, but receptive of a form (djTEtpov). He appears to have assumed for every class of objects (Ideas, mathematical entities, sensible objects) aroix^a of this kind, and to have considered every object as a third term formed out of the two combined (HIKTOV). In sensible objects the airtipov is matter, as described in / hint'itu, and the irkpa^ is Form and (Duality; whereas in the vorjra, the Trtpat; is Unity (tv), and the uTriipnv is the More and the Less, the (ireat and the Little. From these elements, says Aristotle /Met. I. 6) number arises naturally (tv<pvijjc). We can derive Ideas from them only when we reduce them to numbers. Plato distinguishes between those numbers which constitute Ideas, and Mathematical numbers. To the latter he assigns a place intermediate between Ideas and sensible objects. The one (tv) he identifies with the Idea of the Good." Cf. Ueberweg.
80 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
either with bodies or with the semblances of bodies. In the first case it becomes iriaTiq ; in the latter it is mere aicao-ta. To iriariq a real something corresponds objectively ; to iiKaaia only a picture of fancy — the one is Perception, the other Imagination. On the other hand, vorjo-tc deals either with mathematical entities or with Ideas ; in the former case it becomes Stdvota (ratio] ; in the latter, vovq (intcllcctu-s) .
8. In accordance with these notions, Plato sketches (De Rep. VII. p. 534) the following scheme of human cognition : —
OBJECTS.
Norjrov
OparJv ytvoz-
MODE OF COGNITION.
A''£a. A<tivo<a. Tiicm^. EticatTia.
9. These distinctions having been established with regard to human cognition viewed from its subjective side, Plato's Theory of Knowledge is further developed as follows : —
(a.) From our sensuous experience we cannot derive a knowledge of the supersensible. As long as our knowledge has to do with the phe nomena manifested through the senses, so long are we like to men in a dream ; like men inebriated or insane, we drift upon the current of mere phenomena, without light from any ray of higher knowledge. If we wish to rise to knowledge of true Being — of Ideas — we must with draw from the sphere of mere sense ; we must retire within ourselves, and there, with the pure, untroubled gaze of reason, contemplate the Ideal and the Divine. Sensible objects can help us to knowledge of the Ideal only in so far as the blurred reflection of the Ideas which manifest themselves in the world of sense move us to turn from these things and fix our gaze upon the objects of which they are the reflection. And this being so, sensible objects not being for us a means of reaching the Supersensible and the Ideal, the question at once arises, How is the chasm bridged over which separates us from the world of Ideas ? In other words, How is contact of the human mind with Ideas — which, as such, are wholly transcendental entities — possible and conceivable ?
(b.) To this question Plato cannot obtain from mere science an adequate answer. He is, therefore, obliged to recur to an hypothesis. This hypothesis he offers us in his doctrine of the antecedent existence of the soul. The soul, he teaches, has lived an extra-corporeal, purely spiritual life before its union with the body, and lived this life in the sphere of the ideal, not of the phenomenal world. In this state, Ideas were the immediate objects of its contemplation, and in this contem plation it found its happiness. But in consequence of its union with the body (how it came to be united to a body will be explained further on), it has forgotten the objects presented to its contemplation in that extra-corporeal existence. Yet it has not lost the faculty of recalling
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GRKKKx 81
them to memory. It is stimulated to remembrance of them when it is confronted by the dim and confused pictures of Ideas presented by the objects of the sensible world. The picture awakes in it the remem brance of the prototype, and thus revives the knowledge of the Idea which had been forgotten. The acquisition of knowledge by man is thus no more than a process of memory — a recollection (avdfjLvr\ais) "Discere est reminisci." (Phacdo, p. 72. Meno, p. 81. Phaedr., p. 249.) Plato endeavours to support this hypothesis by certain scientific arguments. He adduces in its favour three principal proofs :
1. When we perceive objects in the world of sense, we form judg ments regarding them, we judge them, e.g., to be more or less like, or more or less good, or beautiful, and where there is question of human actions we judge them to be more or less just, holy, and so forth. But this clearly supposes that the notion of Likeness in itself, of Goodness, Beauty, Justice, Holiness, in se, existed antecedently in our minds ; for we can judge of the more and less of Likeness, Goodness, Beauty, &c., in things only in so far as we compare them with Likeness, Goodness, Beauty, &c., in themselves, and determine whether they approach to or recede from the latter. Now man forms judgments of this kind at the moment that he first begins to use his reason ; these notions must, there fore, have existed in his mind antecedently to all experience. It follows necessarily that the soul must have made acquaintance with the Ideas in question before its union with the body, that it has brought these notions with it into its present condition, and that the renewed know ledge of them in its present life is no more than mere remembrance. (Phaxlo, p. 74.)
2. The same conclusion is suggested by the Heuristic Method of in struction. In this method the learner is led by a series of questions, arranged in logical sequence, to the knowledge of a given truth. In this process the truth is not given him from without ; he is led to find it in himself. The questioning is merely an aid to a discovery which he makes in his own mind, it is merely a condition of the re-awakening of knowledge in the mind of the learner. This being so, it follows that the truths which the mind thus draws out of itself must have been pre sent within it antecedently to all teaching and to all experience, that the mind must have acquired them before its present life began, that it must, consequently, have brought them with it into this terrestrial exist ence, and that the renewed knowledge of them is no more than a recol lection of what, at some previous time, was the object of the mind's contemplation. (Phaxlo, p. 73, Men. p. 82.)
10. Thus much with regard to Plato's doctrine of Ideas and Theory of Knowledge. We pass now to his Physics, in which arc included his Theology, his Cosmogony, and his Psychology.
82 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
PHYSICS OF PLATO. THEOLOGY, COSMOGONY, AND PSYCHOLOGY.
§30.
1. To begin with the Theological system of Plato ; we find a three fold proof for the existence of Good :
(a) The older Philosophy of Nature took irrational Matter as the basis of all things, and held Reason, i.e, the rational soul of man, to be evolved from it. Against this assumption Plato protests. We must begin, not with inert Matter, but with the Rational Soul. Matter is not the cause of its own motion ; its motion supposes a moving cause different from itself. This moving cause cannot itself be of such kind that it also requires to be moved from without ; such an hypothesis would in volve us in an endless series. It must, therefore, be of that kind which is self-moving. This self-movement is the essential charac teristic of the spiritual or psychical being, as contrasted with the material. Matter, according to this reasoning, necessarily postulates the existence of a " Soul." This Soul is the Divine Spirit, or Divine " Soul." Atheism, as a theory, is therefore absolutely irrational. (De Leg. X., p. 893 ; Phsedr. p. 245.)
(b] In the world Order and Design are everywhere manifest ; they are observable in the lower regions of the universe, but more notably still in the regions of the stars. Order and Design, however, are not possible unless we suppose a Reason, and Reason (VOVQ) can exist only in a soul (^x^) or Personal Spirit. We are thus forced to admit a Personal Divine Spirit, which presides over the universe, and is the cause of the Order and Design which prevail in it. (Phaodr. p. 30.)
(f) The ultimate elements of things are the Unlimited and the Limit, for it is only by limitation of the Indefinite that a determinate definite object is possible. But the determination of the Undefined by limitation supposes a determining cause, which, as such, is above the thing determined. This determining cause must be some supra- mundane divine principle. (Phileb. p. 23.)
2. We have next to inquire what are the attributes which Plato assigns to the Divine Being. We may sum up his teaching on the point as follows :
(a) The Divine nature is supremely perfect ; it is endowed with every conceivable attribute ; no perfection (aptr//) is wanting to it. God is, therefore, the Absolute Good — by no other notion is his nature more perfectly represented than by the notion of the Good, for this notion combines in itself all the perfections with which the Divine Nature is endowed. For this reason God is the cause of all that is good, and of that only which is good ; wickedness, evil, cannot be attributed to Him as to its cause ; He is the Author of good, and of good only. When the poets describe the gods as doing wicked deeds, they are dishonouring
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 83
the Divine Nature. God is, furthermore, the Absolute Truth ; it is im possible that He should deceive men, or lead them astray ; the mytho logical stories of deceptions practised on men by the gods are absurd.
(b) God, being supremely perfect in his Nature, is immutable. If God could undergo any change, the cause of that change would be within His own Being, or without Him. The latter alternative is not ad missible, for the nature which is supremely perfect cannot be changed by another. The former is also inconceivable, for if God could chango Himself, He should change either to a more perfect or to a less perfect state : the former He cannot do, since He is already absolutely perfect ; nor can He effect the latter, for no being, and least of all the most per fect, changes of its own accord from a more perfect to a less perfect condition. God is, therefore, unchangeable ; He does not take one form at one time, another at another, as the poets tells us ; He retains throughout eternity one simple, immutable form. (De Rep. TL, p. 380.)
(c) God is a Personal Spirit, and, as such, is transcendently raised above the world. As Personal Spirit, He rules all things, and directs and guides all according to Reason and Providence. He is a supra- mundane being, and is therefore above the temporal order. Time affects only things of earth ; God is above Time ; He is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things ; the Absolute Present. (Tim. p. •37 ; De Leg. IV, p. 715.)
(d) In addition to the sovereign Divinity, Plato admits the existence of subordinate gods, to whom he assigns an intermediate rank be tween the Supreme God and the world, i.e., man. He teaches that these subordinate divinities are ministers through whom God exercises His providence and His guiding influence upon earthly things, and that through them also the prayers and sacrifices of men are transmitted to God — for which reasons men owe them reverence. The highest rank among the subordinate gods is held by the star-gods — the souls of the stars ; next come the demons, amongst whom the aether demons, i.e., those whose bodies are formed of aother, hold the first place ; below these are the Air and Water demons, with bodies formed of air or water. (Conviv, p. 202 ; De Leg. X., p. 895 ; Tim. p. 39.)
3. We pass now to Plato's theory of Cosmogony. He assumes three principles as necessary to explain the origin and present existence of the world : Matter, the underlying basis of the physical world (cama materials) ; God, the Demiurgos, or efficient cause (cama cfficiens) ; and Ideas, the models or prototypes of things (causa exemplaris). Assuming the existence of these ultimate causes, Plato, in Timacus, explains the process of the formation of the world.
(a) Matter existed, and exists eternally, side by side with God. It was not produced by Him; it exists apart from Him, though side by side with Him. At first it was purely indeterminate, and therefore without any definite qualities. In this original condition it was without order — a wild, fluctuating mass, a chaotic thing, assuming, without rule or law, ever-changing forms. It was blind Necessity (cii/a'yicij), the antithesis of Mind acting by a plan
84 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(b) But God was good, and free from jealousy ; He resolved that Matter should not be abandoned to this disorder. He fixed His gaze upon the eternal, unchangeable prototype (Ideas), and after this model fashioned Matter into a well-ordered world. Being Himself the Supreme Good, He made all things to be good, and to be like Himself. The formation of the world was accomplished in this order :
First God, as Demiurgos, created the Soul of the World. Combining two elements, one of which was indivisible and immutable, the other divisible and changeable, He formed a third or intermediary substance. In this way the World-Soul came into existence.* The Soul thus formed was placed by God in the middle of the world, and extended in the form of a cross through the entire universe.
The Demiurgos next invested the World- Soul with a body of spherical form, this form being the most perfect. This body is composed of the four elements, each of which has a mathematical figure peculiar to itself. The elements of cubical form made the Earth, the pyramidal formed Fire, while midway between these, in the order of geometrical figures, came Water, composed of icosahedral elements, and Air com posed of octahedral.
The Architect of the Universe has distributed the nobler, the un changeable element of the World-Soul along the line of the Celestial Equator ; the less noble, the changeable element, along the line of the Ecliptic. The inclination of the Ecliptic is a consequence of the less perfect nature of the spheres beneath the heaven of the fixed stars. The intervals that separate the celestial spheres are proportional to the lengths of a vibrating string which emit harmonizing tones. The Earth is placed in the middle of the universe ; it forms a sphere through which passes the axis of the world.
From these fundamental premises Plato deduces the following con clusions regarding the world :
The world, as such, is not eternal. It had a beginning, at the moment when God began to impress order upon Matter. Time began with the beginning of the world ; it is, however, the image of eternity. The world, once formed, cannot come to an end.
The world, as at present constituted, is the only possible world ; any other is wholly inconceivable. The whole system of Ideas, forming the KOO-/UOC I'ojjroc, and serving as the model or prototype of the material world, reveals itself in the world actually existent. There is no Idea of the KOO-^OC vo»jrt>c which has not its corresponding species existent in the world of phenomena. There is only one prototype, there is only one ectype.
The world, as it exists, is the most perfect world possible. A more perfect could not be. God, who is all goodness, and free from all
* Plato, in Tinuvux, describes the former element as ravrov, the latter as Odrepov. As we have noticed above, he introduces these two elements into the world of Ideas, in order to make possible the transition from unity to plurality in the ideal order ; here he seems to separate them, making TCIVTUV the Idea, and 9drtf,i>v Matter. In this explana tion the \\Orld-Soul is not purely spiritual, it includes a material element as well.
'
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 85
iealousy, has made the world as like the ideal prototype as possible. He has made it to resemble Himself as closely as the nature of Matter per mitted. Being the most perfect, and the most beautiful of all the things which have come into existence, the world must be endowed with life and reason, and this perfection is given it by the World-Soul ; its motion is the most perfect, and the most constant — motion in a circle ; it is in truth a second God.
4. Admitting that this world is the most perfect world possible, we are at once confronted with the question : How is it possible that evil can exist in the world, and what are the causes of this evil ? In his answer to this question Plato has recourse to the nature of Matter. Good alone can come from God. But Matter is not only incapable of receiving to the full the action of the Divine, world-forming Goodness, it further withstands the formative and co-ordinating action of God upon it. In virtue of this resistance it becomes the principle of all dis order, wickedness, and evil in this world. It stands, to a certain extent, in opposition to God, and its activity in this opposition generates evil. The world, as the work of God, is perfect in good ; but inasmuch as Matter withstands the action of God, evil must necessarily exist in the world. God cannot vanquish evil.
5. We pass now to Plato's Psychology. Plato discusses, in great detail, the problems of psychology, and endeavours, at all points, to tind solutions in harmony with his theological and cosmological theories. He condemns emphatically the doctrine that the Soul is nothing more than a harmonious arrangement of the constituents of the body. For in such an hypothesis the strivings of the Soul against the tendencies of Sense would be impossible ; and furthermore, since every harmony admits of increase and diminution, one soul would be more a soul than another — an assertion which is clearly absurd. Again, harmony is incompatible with its antithesis — discord ; if then the Soul were merely harmony, it could not admit into itself the discord of evil or of vice. It follows that we must hold the Soul to be a spiritual substance, simple in its nature, and distinct from the body. The further argument used by Plato to establish this doctrine is analogous to the proof adduced above to prove the existence of God. Psychical, or spiritual being, is of its nature prior to the ma terial and corporeal, for the latter can receive its motion only from the former. This principle must apply to the relations between Soul and Body. The psychical element in man's nature cannot be a product of the corporeal ; on the contrary, the psychical element must exist as a cama morens antecedently to the body, for without a Soul as cama morons a living body capable of movement would be impossible. The Body IK ing a composite substance, belongs to the same order of being as the things of Sense, whereas the Soul is a simple substance, allied in nature i.' that unchanging, simple Being which exists above the world of pheno mena. The Body we know through the senses, the Soul through reason.
6. What are the relations subsisting between Soul and Body ? This question Plato answers as follows : The Soul stands to the Body in the relation of a an<xn t»<>mtN, and in this relation only. The Soul dwells
8G HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
within the Body somewhat as the charioteer in the chariot ; the Body is merely the organ which it uses to exert an external activity. The real man is the Soul only ; in the concept " man," the notion " body " does not enter as a constituent element in the same way as the notion " Soul." Man is, properly speaking, a Soul, which uses a body as the instrument by which it exercises an activity on things without itself (anima utcns corpore).
7. In accordance with this view of the relations between Soul and Body is the further opinion of Plato, that along with the rational Soul there also exists in man an irrational Soul, which is made up of two dis tinct parts ; thus giving us, ultimately, three Souls in man.
The rational Soul, the \OJOQ, is the Soul proper of man. It is like to God, it may be called the Divine element in man ; it has its seat in the head. To this Soul belongs all rational knowledge. Subordinate to this are two other Souls, dependent on the body, and subject to death (according to the Timaeus], the one is called by Plato the irascible (TO Ovimoti$t£, Ovfjio^}, and this he locates within the breast ; the other he calls the appetitum (TO £7ri0ityo?rticov, erriOujU/a), and locates in the abdo men. The functions of these two Souls are purely sensuous ; on them the life of sense in man is dependent. The appetitive Soul is found in plants, the irascible Soul is possessed by brutes.
The method which Plato adopts to establish the existence of this threefold psychical element in man is interesting. "We notice, in man, he says, a conflict of opposing tendencies ; the appetite strives after something which the reason forbids, and anger rises up in opposition to reason. No being which is really one can come into contradiction with itself ; to explain the internal conflict of these opposing tendencies which clash within us, we are forced to admit internal principles of action really different from one another. And as these conflicting movements are of three different kinds, we are obliged to admit a triple Soul in man— the appetitive, the irascible, and the rational. (De Rep. IV. p. 456).
In what relation do these three Souls stand to one another ? Plato is of opinion that the rational Soul and the appetitive are, as it were, two extremes, between which the irascible Soul takes its place as a sort of middle term. Plato compares the OV/JLOQ to a lion, the Inrtfoftfm to a many-headed hydra, and also to a perforated or bottomless vessel. Of its nature the 6v/m6s is on the side of reason, and supports the reason against the many-headed hydra which is always in rebellion against it.
8. Regarding the origin of the human Soul, Plato, in Timn HX, teaches that it is produced by God — in the same way as the "World-Soul — by a mixture of those elements which he calls the " identical " and the " different." * This, however, applies only to the rational Soul. The irrational Soul is produced by the subordinate gods. It would be
* This seems to indicate that Plato did hold the human Soul, as well as the World- Soul, to be a being not purely spiritual, but containing some admixture of matter. How this can be reconciled with his distinct assertion of the immaterial nature of the human Soul, is not easy to understand.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 87
unworthy of the Supreme God to create a merely mortal thing, so He entrusted to the subordinate divinities the task of forming the mortal •Soul, and uniting it to the immortal. In Phcedrux, p. 245, Plato seems to represent the Soul as not produced (a^iv^roq}. We have already learned that the Soul is not united to the body in the first moment of its existence, that it has already existed in an incorporeal condition. We have now to inquire why it is united to a body with which it is not by nature destined to enter into union.
9. In Phcedrus, Plato furnishes an answer to this question under the form of an allegory. The Soul, before its imprisonment in the body, lived an incorporeal life among the gods. Mounted upon heavenly chariots the gods career through that ultra-celestial region whose beauty no poet has ever worthily sung ; in the midst of the gods, the Soul equipped with heavenly wings, and guiding a chariot drawn by two steeds, held its course through the ultra- celestial sphere, enjoying the vision of truth. But one of the steeds was restive and ungovernable, and it happened that many souls could not control this steed. In con sequence confusion was created in their ranks ; in the tumult the wings of many were injured, and they fell ever lower and lower, till at last they fell to the earth to the region of material substance, i.e., to the cor poreal condition. The Soul that in its previous state had enjoyed most fully the vision of Being, became the Soul of a philosopher ; the Soul that stood next in rank became the Soul of a king, and so on through a graduated series of human conditions down to the tyrants and sophists who hold the lowest places of all. In this first generation Souls do not enter into the bodies of brutes.
10. The meaning of this myth seems to be that the Soul in its incor poreal state had committed some offence for which it was punished by imprisonment in the body. Hence it is that Plato everywhere speaks of its union with the body not as an advantage, but as an evil. He calls the body the grave in which the Soul is shut in as a corpse ; he calls it a prison, in which the Soul is confined like a captive ; a heavy chain which binds the Soul, and hinders the free expansion of its energy and its activity. The culpability which has been punished by the imprison ment of the Soul within the body must have consisted, as indicated by the myth we have quoted, in the tendency towards the objects of sense ; for we can hardly understand the restive steed to signify other than the tTTiOv/uita which we have seen to be that part of our nature which is in continual revolt against the law of reason.
11. The immortality of the (rational) Soul is emphatically asserted by Plato, and in P/tcedo the theory is supported by several arguments. These arguments may be briefly stated thus :
(a) Everywhere opposites generate opposites. Death follows life, and out of death life is again generated. Man cannot form an exception to this universal law. As man, therefore, passes from life to death, so must he again awake from death to life. This would be impossible if the Soul, the principle of life, came to an end in death. It must, therefore, live on, that in its re union with a body man may wake to life again.
HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(b) Being a simple substance, the Soul is kindred in nature to that which is absolutely simple and immutable (the Idea) ; in the same way as the body, being a composite substance, is kindred in nature to things sensible and changeable. As then the body, because of this affinity with that which is destructible, is itself destructible, so must the Soul, because of its affinity with the indestructible, be itself indestructible.
(c) If the Soul has existed by itself before its union with the body, it follows that it must exist after separation from it. Now it is proved from the peculiar character of our cognitions that the Soul existed be fore its union with the body, it follows then that it will outlive its separation from the body.
(d) Furthermore, nothing can be at once itself, and the opposite of itself ; it is impossible that the same object should have a share in two contradictory Ideas at the same time. Now the Soul is essentially life, for life is self-movement, and self-movement is the very essence of the Soul. But if the Soul participates in the Idea of " life," and is a Soul only in so far as it participates in this Idea, it follows that it cannot ad mit into itself the opposite of life, i.e., death. A dead Soul is a contra diction in terms. The Soul is, therefore, not merely immortal, its life is absolutely eternal, essentially excluding every possibility of dissolution.
(?) Again, the dissolution of any being whatever can be accom plished only by some evil antagonistic to the nature of that being. The one evil which is antagonistic to the nature of the Soul is vice, i.e., moral evil. But this is clearly not capable of destroying the being of the Soul, consequently the Soul cannot be destroyed ; it is therefore in corruptible, immortal (De Rep. X., p. 608). This argument gains ad ditional force if we consider that the destruction of the Soul by moral evil would mean that the wicked have no punishment to expect — a con sequence which is wholly at variance with the Moral Order. (Phaxlo, p. 107.)
(/) Lastly, Plato, in Timmts, appeals in proof of the Soul's immor tality to the goodness of God, who could not destroy a creature of beauty, even though it were a thing destructible by nature. In Phcedo he appeals to the conduct of the philosopher whose effort after knowledge is a constant effort after incorporeal existence, a striving to die.
12. Plato always connects the notion of immortality with the notion of retribution after death. The latter principle he holds as firmly as the immortality of the Soul. The good are rewarded after death, the wicked punished according to their deserts. In his exposition of this doctrine, Plato frequently introduces the ancient myths ; for, according to him, nothing truer or better can be said on this theme than what is contained in these myths. The several myths which he introduces are not, however, always consistent with one another, and it would hardly be possible to explain away their differences. The fundamental notions which are put forth in these several myths may be stated as follows :
(a) The man whose life has been good and pleasing to God, and has been purified by philosophic effort, enters immediately after death into a condition of bliss ; those who have cultivated the merely social virtues
riin.nsoi'HY OF Tin-: C;KI;I:K-. 89
must pass through a previous process of purification ; those who pass out of life answerable for some misdeeds, but only for such as can still he cured, have a temporary punishment to suffer; those whose misdeeds are incurable, are doomed to eternal reprobation. These who are not fully purified, retain after death something of corporeal being, which forms a shroud in which they hover restlessly over the graves of their bodies till their tutelary demons conduct them to the nether world.
(6) Souls, after death, do not remain permanently in the disembodied state, they enter into other bodies (metempsychosis), but into such as cor respond to the moral condition in which they have quitted life. The good enter into the bodies of men ; the less perfect into the bodies of women ; the wicked into the bodies of beasts; the species of brute body into which each soul enters is determined by the species of vice or passion to which it was addicted in life.
(c) All these processes are accomplished within a period of ten thousand years. When this term has been completed, all souls return to the condition out of which they passed in their first process of genera tion, and a new cosmical period begins. Plato sometimes speaks of an earlier period, which may be described as a golden age. There was then no evil, and no death ; the earth spontaneously brought forth food in abundance ; man and beast lived together in friendly concord ; there was no distinction of sexes ; men were produced from the earth by spontaneous generation. All this came to an end at the beginning of the next great period — a period which was introduced by a great cosmical revolution. It was then that the world, as we know it now, first came into existence (Polit. p. 290.) It was then that the distinction of the sexes wras first established, and that the human species was reproduced by carnal gene ration. We have here distorted traditions of a happier and more highly privileged condition of existence enjoyed by the first men.
PLATO'S ETHICS AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. §31.
1. We begin our account of Plato's ethical system with his inquiries into the nature of pleasure, and into its bearing upon man's moral life. In this connection Plato endeavours to establish a mean between the Hedonism of the Cyreuaic school and the doctrines of the Cynics. He distinguishes between true and false pleasures. The first are those which arise from virtue, and, in a special manner, from the knowledge of truth. False pleasures, on the other hand, are those which have not their source in virtue, and are, moreover, antagonistic to virtue, and de structive of it. True enjoyment, real pleasure, is pure, and does not affect the purity of the Soul ; false pleasure is impure, and defiles the Soul.
2. It follows from this that all pleasures are not evil, nor to be
90 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
avoided as evil. The Cynics are not justified in their absolute condemna tion of pleasure. But neither is it true that every pleasure is good, and a thing to be striven for. Hedonism with its unqualified exaltation of pleasure is as one-sided as Cynicism. The truth lies between the two theories. To secure the pure and real pleasure which springs from virtue must be the object of human endeavour ; such pleasure is the true good for man ; but he must fly the impure and false pleasures which the senses supply, and which are at variance with virtue ; they are an evil for him.
3. The relations which Plato further establishes between pleasure and virtue are analogous to those which he establishes between Matter and Ideas. Matter, by participating in the ideal order, takes form and orderly arrangement ; analogously, pleasure receives from virtue its true significance and its rightful limitation. Pleasure is further like matter in this that it exists in a condition of continual change, that it is unstable and transient, and by virtue only is made to share in the good — i.e., in the enduring. Not pleasure by itself, nor virtue by itself, is the true good of men, but only the combination of both — the union of virtue as the formal, determining element, with pleasure as the material and determined.
4. So much being premised, we are now in a position to deal with the further question — What, according to Plato, is the Supreme Good for man ? To understand rightly Plato's teaching on this point, we must distinguish between the Supreme Good in the objective sense of the term and the Supreme Good in the subjective sense. This distinction being drawn, we find that Plato teaches : —
(a.} Man's Supreme Good, in the objective order, is the " Idea of the Good;" and as this is one with God, it follows that man must find his Supreme Good in God. Goods are either goods of the soul, or goods of the body, or external goods of fortune ; the goods of the soul surpass all the others, but amongst these the Idea of the Good — God, holds the highest place. Man must, therefore, endeavour to rise to God, and find his Chief Good in Him.
(I.) Subjectively considered, the Chief Good of man is Happiness. The basis of Happiness is the assimilation of man with God. (l)e Rep. X., p. 613 ; Theact. p. 176.) The assimilation with God is effected by knowledge and by enthusiastic love of God as the Supreme Good. In the knowledge and love of God as the Supreme Good consists, then, the supreme happiness of man.
5. The means by which man must reach his highest happiness in God is virtue. Plato's description of virtue resembles that of the Pythagoreans : virtue is Harmony, vice is Discord ; man is virtuous if his inner nature is rightly ordered, if the parts of his Soul hold their natural relations to one another ; man is wicked if this interior order is wanting, if the parts of his Soul are unnaturally at variance with one another. Virtue is, therefore, the health of the Soul ; vice is its disease ; in virtue consists its beauty and its strength ; vice makes its weakness and deformity. Virtue must be loved for its own sake, not for sake of external goods.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GRKKK«. 91
6. Virtue, being the inner harmony of the Soul, is essentially one ; it admits, however, of a division into four cardinal virtues, a division which is based on the distinction between the three parts of the Soul. The four cardinal virtues are Wisdom, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice. Wisdom (aofyia) belongs to the rational Soul, and consists in true knowledge. Fortitude or courage (av$pn'a) is a virtue of the Ovfios, and is exercised in resolute striving after the Good, without any regard for the attendant difficulties. Temperance ((rwQpoavvri) belongs to the appetitive Soul (tTriOv/jn'a), and manifests itself in the control of the desires and their restraint within proper limits. Justice (Stk-aioo-uvrj) belongs at once to all three parts of the Soul, and consists in this, that each part of the Soul, occupying the position assigned it by nature, discharges its proper functions, without passing beyond its own sphere. Justice is thus the bond and union of the other virtues, the principle of order within the Soul. Justice, as applied to the relations of man and the gods, is called Piety (oo-torrjc).
7. The principal among the four cardinal virtues is Wisdom. The other virtues can be acquired by practice and habitual exercise ; but if they are not associated with Wisdom, they are mere shadows of true virtue, and they must degenerate — Temperance into stupidity, and Forti tude into brutish impulse. Plato goes so far in his commendation of the virtue of Wisdom as to assert that the man who possesses this virtue possesses all the other virtues, and has no further need to acquire them by practice. He is thus led at last to the Socratic theory that the man who possesses true knowledge cannot do wrong. No one does wrong knowingly; the evil-doer acts in ignorance; ignorance is the real evil, and the source of all evil. We can now understand why and to what extent Plato holds that virtue can be imparted by instruction.
8. From these doctrines the conclusion follows that the effort to gain Wisdom (Philosophy) is the highest ethical duty of human life. This effort after Wisdom, sustained by the love of the good and the beautiful, has two aspects, a theoretical and a practical.
(a.) In its practical aspect it consists in the emancipation of the rational Soul from the body ; for the body is only a hindrance to the Soul in its effort to attain true knowledge. The philosopher must give his first attention to the Soul ; he must give thought to the body only in so far as extreme necessity requires. The life of the philosopher must be a continual effort to rid himself of the body, a constant prepa ration for death ; nay, it should be, in a certain sense, a continual death.
(6.) In its theoretical aspect this striving after Wisdom consists in the constant endeavour of man to extend and to perfect his knowledge of truth. lie must ever increase in the knowledge of things divine, until he at length attains to that contemplation of the divinity of which the Soul is deprived at its first entrance into the body. In this way ii i;in reaches assimilation with God, the Supreme Good, and becomes possessed of the bliss which it confers. In the present life he can IU-V»T reach this goal ; his perfection is to be attained in the life to follow.
HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
9. The man who by virtue, and chiefly by the virtue of Wisdom, makes himself like to God, becomes thereby the friend of the gods. The gods love the virtuous man, and bestow favours upon him ; the evils that overtake him are no more than punishments of previous faults. Virtue brings man into relation with the Divinity ; and man is, there fore, not virtuous if he does not honour the gods. Irreligion is not only the most egregious folly, it is also the grossest immorality. Moreover, the attainment of virtue is a task of much difficulty ; the aid of the gods is absolutely necessary in accomplishing it ; virtue may, in fact, be regarded as a gift of the gods.
10. We pass now to the political philosophy of Plato. Here we notice that Plato emphatically rejects the notion of the Sophists that all right and all law are derived from the State, and exist only within it. He holds that there exist a natural right and a natural law, which have their validity without the concurrence of the State, and independently of the State. Nevertheless, he follows his leaning towards the abso lutism of civil authority so far, that in his theory the rights of indi viduals are practically effaced by the rights of the State. In his opinion, the State, as the totality, has absolute power over individuals. The well-being of the whole is first in importance ; the prosperity of indi viduals is admissible only as far as it comports with the weU-being of the whole. Individuals are, therefore, bound to render to the State entire submission and unconditional obedience ; private interests must be sacrificed to the public good, and nothing can be permitted which does not serve the common interests. In this portion of his system Plato has not succeeded in rising above that absolutism of civil authority which was recognised in practice by almost all ancient States.*
11. Beginning with these principles, Plato, in his work "De Repub- lica," constructs his ideal State — i.e., he sketches a State which would correspond perfectly to the Idea of the State. In this sketch we find he borrows many details from the Hellenic polities, in particular from the Doric system of legislation. After sketching the "perfect State" in the Republic, he proceeds, in the Laics, to describe the "second-best ;" for he is aware that, in view of the actual circumstances of society, the "perfect" State can be realised only with great difficulty, if at all.
12. In his sketch of the Ideal State, we observe that Plato looks on the State as but the human individual magnified, and that he models his sketch on the nature of man. As the inner nature of man, the Soul, has three parts, so the State consists of three orders : the order of husband men, artisans, and traders (productive class), corresponding to the appe titive soul (tiriOvfjiia) ; the order of guardians or warriors (defensive class), corresponding to the Ovpos ; and the order of rulers, corresponding to the rational soul, Xoyoc. And as the perfection of the individual depends on virtue, the divisions of which correspond to the several parts of the Soul, so the perfection of the State consists in this, that the
* Plato exempts religion from this absolute jurisdiction of the State ; it belongs to God only (i.e., to the Apollo of Delphi) to regulate religious practices and concerns.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 93
producing class is guided by temperance, the defensive class by valour, the ruling class by wisdom, and that, finally, the entire body politic should be controlled by justice — i.e., that each order, according to its rank in the State, should faithfully and fully discharge its own functions, without passing out of its own sphere. In order that the State may reach this perfection, it must engage its citizens to the practice of the virtues becoming their position. This is the primary duty which self- interest imposes upon it.
13. Plato bestows little attention on the productive order, which he places lowest in the State ; he assigns to its members little more than the duties of slaves. But he occupies himself at length with the defen sive order, for from this order the rulers come. In this portion of his system he is an advocate of the principle of absolutism in government, and of absolutism of the socialistic type. He insists on a community of goods in the order of guardians ; no individual shall possess property. All shall eat and lodge together. Money shall not be allowed. In the order of guardians Plato also requires community of wives ; there shall be no marriage, no family. The rulers shall assign certain women to certain men ; these shall cohabit for a period to be determined by law ; the children generated must not know their parents ; they shall be taken from them immediately after birth, and shall be brought up in common in a separate place, under the care of the State. Cohabitation may be allowed beyond the period fixed by the law, but any fruit of this inter course must be destroyed in embryo.
14. The public education of children shall be continued till their twentieth year. In the first stage of this education, the development of the body must be the chief object of the educator ; then follows the learning of myths ; and then, in succession, gymnastics, reading and writing, poetry, music, mathematics, and finally military exercises. At this point a division of the pupils must be made : those who are less apt for knowledge, but adapted for deeds of valour, remain warriors ; the others study the sciences till their thirtieth year. Then comes a second division. The less capable are devoted forthwith to the less important public offices ; the more distinguished pursue the study of Dialectic from their thirtieth to their thirty-fifth year, and are then appointed to posts of command till their fiftieth. After this they finally reach the per fection of philosophy — the contemplation of the Idea of the Good ; they become philosophers in the true sense of the word, and as such are ad mitted into the number of the rulers, and undertake the highest offices of State functions. The course of education is the same for boys and girls alike. It has been seen that poetry forms part of this system of educa tion, but this must be understood of that species of poetry which is an imitation of the Good — i.e., of religious hymns ; the art which imitates only the world of phenomena in which good and evil are mingled together must be excluded, for it serves only to excite the passions. Poets who cultivate this species of art are to be banished from the State. This kind of imitative poetry is not real art, for the Good alone is really beautiful.
9-r HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
15. We sec that Plato's Ideal State can be realised only when philo sophers become rulers of the State or the rulers are guided by a sound philosophy. This requirement Plato abandons in the " second-best" State. Here the theory of Ideas is not introduced as the basis of the scheme for the rulers' education ; stress is chiefly laid on training in mathematics ; the mode of divine worship is more nearly in accord with the notions prevalent in Hellas ; private property and marriage remain untouched.
THE PLATONIC SCHOOL.
1. It is customary to distinguish among the followers of Plato three, •or in more detailed division five, successive phases or schools of thought : the Old Academy, the Middle, and the New. The Old Academy includes the first of the five schools ; the Middle, the second and third ; the New Academy, the fourth and fifth.
2. By the representatives of the Old Academy the central doctrine of Plato's system, his theory of Ideas, was interpreted, under the influence of Pythagorean notions, in combination with a theory of numbers. With this was associated a theology partly mystical, and partly popular, in which, at a later period, demonology occupied an important place. To the Old Academy belong : —
(a.) Speusippus, a son of Plato's sister, and his successor in his teaching functions (head of the Academy, 347-339). Speusippus is said to have maintained the doctrine that to define anything we must know everything, for in definition we must state the differences between things, and to do this we must discover all the resemblances and differences of things. (Speusippus himself is said to have attempted this in a work containing ten books). He asserted further that the Good and the Perfect in se cannot be the first basis of things or the One ; that which is best and most beautiful does not exist at the beginning, it is the ultimate term of evolution from the beginning. His fundamental ethical principle is happiness, obtained by acting as nature directs.
(b.) Xenocrates of Chalcedon, successor of Speusippus as leader of the Academy (339-314), " endeavoured to reduce philosophical concepts to mathematical formulae. In the effort to express, in all clearness, by numerical notation the manner in which God, by many intermediate stages and processes, enters into and manifests Himself in the world of phenomena, he was led into all kinds of sensuous, fantastic, and superstitious notions."
(c.) Heraclides of Pontus — "a distinguished astronomer, who discovered the diurnal revolution of the earth on its axis from west to east, and the immobility of the heaven of the fixed stars" — Philip the Opuntian — the reputed author of the L'piiiomi-a — Polemo, Grantor, and Crates, who devoted themselves mainly to ethical studies, and abandoned more and more completely the speculative or dialectical elements of the Platonic philosophy.
3. The Middle Academy is characterized by an ever-increasing tendency to scepticism. To it belong : —
(a.) Arcesilaus (315-241), a pupil of Grantor and Polemo, the founder of the so-called Second Academy. He combated the dogmatism of the Stoics, and professed the opinion that certain knowledge is not possible, and that the wise man should never give assent to any assertion. This attitude of mind he calls Forbearance (dvoxn), i.e-i forbearance
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 95
from the exercise of judgment. Equally valid reasons can always be adduced in favour of cither of two contradictory propositions. We cannot, therefore, know anything, not even the fact that we know nothing. Accordingly, Arcesilaus himself did not advance any proposition whatever, but permitted his disciples to dispute amongst themselves or with him. Certain knowledge is impossible, but probable opinion is attainable, and this is sufficient in order to act rationally. Arcesilaus was followed by Lacydes, Telecles, and Evander.
(6.) Carneades of Cyrene (214-129), the founder of the Third Academy, who, in the year B. c. 155, was sent as ambassador to Rome, in company with Diogenes the Stoic and Critolaus the Peripatetic. He advanced still further in the path marked out by Arcesilaus. If, he says, we wish to decide whether a given perception be true or false, we must have some certain standard to judge by ; this can be no other than the true perception ; with this we must compare the perception of whose truth or falsity we wish to judge. But the true perception is precisely what we are seeking to find ; sensuous perception cannot, therefore, be a criterion of truth. Neither can the concept of the intellect ; for our concepts are derived from the perceptions of sense. There is, therefore, no criterion of truth. What we take to be truth is only the appearance of truth, is only a Aaivo/^evoi/ d\T}9if, triVavii fyavraaia, probabile vi«um (Cic.). We can attain no more than probability. We experience certain perceptions repeated fre quently, occurring in the same way, and in accord with one another. In consequence, a certain feeling of complacency or approval arises within us, and on this ground we hold them to be true, and we assert them (t^i<i>affiQ ) ; the perceptions of a different kind we hold to be false, and we deny them (a7r!/z0a<ric). In this probability there are, however, different degrees. We must distinguish three degrees of probability : the perception is either probable in itself only ; or, when taken in relation to other percep tions, it is found uncontradicted and probable ; or lastly, it is not only probable and uncontradicted, but is confirmed in all respects (Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. vii. 166). We have further to mention that Carneades was celebrated as an orator. Clitomachus was a pupil of Carneades.
4. The New Academy returned again to dogmatism. It includes : —
(a.) Philo of Larissa, the founder of the Fourth Academy, a pupil of Clitomachus, who lived in the time of the first Mithridatic war. He seems to have reverted to the older Platonic teaching, and to have given his attention chiefly to ethics, inclining in his views to the system of the Stoics.
(b.) Antiochus of Ascalou, a pupil of Philo, and founder of the Fifth Academy, who, in the effort to combine the theories of Plato with certain Aristotelian principles, and still more largely with principles adopted from the Stoics, prepared the way for the Neo-Platonists. He endeavoured to show that the scepticism of the later Academy was not justified by the Platonic doctrine, and that the chief points of the doctrine of the Stoics are to be found in Plato. He differed from the Stoics by denying the equality of vices, as well as by asserting that virtue, though it leads to a happy life, does not of itself produce the happiest life. Otherwise he is almost entirely in accord with them. .(Cic. Acad. Part II. 43.)
4. ARISTOTLE.
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE. GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PHILOSOPHY.
§ 33.
1. " "With Aristotle the philosophy of Greece, which in the hands of Plato was in form and outline the philosophy of a particular people, becomes universal ; it loses its special Hellenistic character ; the Platonic dialogue is changed to a sober prose, and, instead of myths and poetic imagery, we have a fixed, unimpassioned, scientific language." A new
96 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
tendency of thought, radically different from the Platonic, enters the sphere of philosophy with Aristotle. Aristotle does not, like Plato, begin with the Idea, and from the standpoint thus assumed proceed to study the data of experience. He begins with the data of experience, the empirical, the actual, and thence rises to universal, ultimate reasons. He does not proceed synthetically and progressively, like Plato, but for the most part analytically and regressively ; his method is not of the a priori, or deductive kind ; it is rather a posteriori, or inductive. " Hence his deliberate examination of facts, phenomena, circumstances, and possibilities as a means of rising to universal truths; hence his marked predilection for physical science, for nature is that which is nearest to us, and most actual in our experience ; hence, too, his tendency to push scientific investigation in every direction, for in his mind all facts have equal claims to consideration. This tendency led him to become the founder of sciences which were either unknown till his time, or had previously received little attention, such as Logic, Empirical Psychology, Natural History, Jus Natures."
Aristotle was born in the year B.C. 384 in Stagira, a Greek Colony of Thrace. His father, Nicomachus, was a physician, and was a friend of Amyntas, King of Macedonia. The former circumstance may have had some influence in determining Aristotle's love of natural science ; the latter may have had something to do with his subsequent invitation to the Macedonian Court. He lost his parents while still young, and in his eighteenth year he came to Athens, where he followed for twenty years the instructions of Plato. Many stories are told of his intercourse with Plato. In one anecdote Plato is made to say of him that he needed the rein ; that he was like a colt which kicks at its mother. He is charged with envy and ingratitude towards his teacher. What truth there is in the accusation we have no means of knowing. After the death of Plato (347), Aristotle, accompanied by Xenocrates, repaired to the Court of Hermias, Ruler of Atarneus, in Mysia, where he resided for three years, after which he went to Mitylene. In the year 343 he was invited by Philip, King of Macedonia, to undertake the education of his [son Alexander, then thirteen years old. He was held in high honour by both princes, and Alexander subsequently assisted him in his studies with princely generosity. Soon after Alexander's accession to the throne, Aristotle returned to Athens, where he founded his school in the gymnasium, called the Lyceum (because dedicated to Apollo Aikaof). Walking up and down in the shaded valleys (irtpiiraroi) of the Lyceum, Aristotle discoursed on philosophy with his disciples. His school was hence called the "Peripatetic." He presided over it for twelve years. In the morning he taught his more advanced pupils the more recondite truths of science (acroamatic investigations) ; in the evening he discoursed to a large crowd (exoteric discourses) on the sciences which belong to general culture (Gellius.) After the death of Alexander he was accused of impiety (aaifitia} by the Macedonian party at Athens. He withdrew from the prosecu tion, and sought refuge at Chalcis, in Euboea, where he died soon after, B.C. 322.
3. The writings of Aristotle were composed partly in popular, and partly in scientific (acroamatic) form. The latter have, in large part, come down to us ; of the former only fragments survive. The strictly scientific works of Aristotle, which were, with scarce an exception, composed during his stay at Athens, are divided, according to the nature of the subject-matter, into logical, metaphysical, physical, and ethical ; in addition to which we have an incomplete treatise on Poetry, and a treatise on Rhetoric.
(a) The whole of the logical treatises of Aristotle are included under the title " Organon." To the Organon belong: — (1) the Kor»/yo()iai, a treatise on the highest or fundamental concepts ; (2) Iltpi ipfujvtia^ (de interpretatione) a treatise on Judgments and Propositions ; (3) 'AvaXvnicd Trporipa, on Inference, and 'AvoAurira varipa on Proof, Definition, Division, and the Knowledge of Principles ; (4) ToirtKu treating of "dialectical" or probable conclusions ; and (5) Iltpi oofpiartKuiv tXiyx^" on Fallacies, and the means of detecting them.
(/') The works called the "Metaphysics" of Aristotle received this name from the circumstance th;it in t lie arrangement of the writings of Aristotle one of the editors of
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 97
hia works (most likely Andronicua of Rhodes), in view of the distinction drawn by Aristotle between the irportpov Trpoc »//*oc and the irportpov ipuaei, placed these books next in order to the Physics, and included them all under the title TO. fitrd <f>voiicd. Aristotle himself gave the name Trpoirr; (f>i\oao6ia to what we now call Metaphysics. The Metaphysics consist of fourteen books, which, however, do not stand in any strictly logical relations to one another ; the second book is said to be spurious. We shall see later what, according to Aristotle, is the scope and subject-matter of Metaphysics.
(c) Of the works relating to Physics or Natural Science, the following are of special importance to philosophy: — (1) The Qvoiicri dicpoaaiQ (de physica auscultatione, also called QvoiKa or ra iripi ^IKTEWC) in eight books — a treatise on physical nature ; (2) Ilepi ovpavov (de coelo), on the heavens, in four books ; (3) Iltpl y£vf<T£o»c <cai <ptiopa£ (de genera- tione et corruptione) in five books — an exposition of the principles of generation and dissolution in nature ; (4) MErtajpoXoyisd or Trtpl /xmwptov (de meteoris) in four books ; (5) II*pt rd £ya laropiai (de historia animalium) in ten books, of which, however, the tenth is said to be spurious — a natural history and comparative physiology of animals ; to which are to be added (6) Htpi £y'wv popiwv (departibus animalium) in four books, and
(7) Iltpi frftiuv ytvtfffojf (de generatione animalium) in five books. *
(d) The psychological treatises of Aristotle are usually included in the list of his treatises on physical nature. (1) First in this section comes his treatise Tltpi ^v\iic in three books, in which Aristotle develops his theory of psychology. We have, in addi tion, a number of smaller treatises, dealing with special psychological questions ; (2) Ilfpi ala9riatti>G Knl aiaQi]rov (de sensu et sensili) ; (3) ITepi /II/J/^T/C xai dvcifivrjattuG (de memoria et reminiscentia) ; (4) Tltpi iwirviuv (de insomniis) ; (5) Ilfpi virvov cat typrjyopfffwr (de sonmo et vigilia); (6) Hepl /lavrucjjr rjjc fv role VTTVOIQ (de divinatione per somnium) ; (7) lltpi /ia(cpo/3to7-7/roe xrai /3paxi'/3ior;jrof (de longitudine et brevitate vitae) ;
(8) ITtpi gwqc xai Oavdrov (de vita et morte) ; (9) Ilepi' vtor^rof KUI yjjpwc (de juventute et senectute).
(e) In the list of Aristotle's ethical and political writings we find: (1) The 'HOiicd ftiKOftdxita, in ten books ; (2) the 'ROiicd JZvEi]p.£ta, in seven books ; and (3) the IWticd /jfydXa in two books. The Nicomachean Ethics is undoubtedly the work of Aristotle himself ; the Eudemian Ethics is regarded as the work of his pupil Eudemus — not how ever an original work, but merely the lectures of Aristotle preserved and reproduced ; the ' ' greater ethics " — Magna Moralia — appears to be an extract from the two former works. We have furthermore (3) the HoXirtica, apolitical philosophy based on the ethics, in eight books ; the (4) O/icoi/o/uica, and (5) the treatise JTUpt dptrwv KOI KUKMV (de virtutibus et vitiis), judged by many critics to be spurious — an opinion which cannot be received without question. The treatise IloXireiaj, an account of the Constitutions of 158 States, is lost. Lastly, we may class with the ethical writings the treatise lltpl iroifjnicf/e ; the treatise lltpi pjjropjo/c in three books : the Ilpo/jXrj/zara, a collection made on the basis of Aristotle's notes ; and the Mrfxawica.
4. The writings here enumerated were not, it would appear, published by Aristotle at the time his lectures on the several subjects were delivered. This work of publication seems to have been done by his pupils. In some cases, as already noticed witli regard to the Eudemian Ethics, the treatise would appear to have been written or compiled by the pupils on the basis of a written treatise or lecture by Aristotle. This may account for the fact that in many instances the exposition is interrupted or defective, and that we frequently meet with mutilated sentences. The chronological order of the several treatises cannot be determined with certainty. The earliest were doubtless the logical treatises, then followed in all probability the ethical, and after these the physical, the psychological, and the metaphysical.
5. According to Strabo (xiii. 1, 54), and Plutarch (Vit. Suit. c. 26) a strange fortune befell the works of Aristotle after the death of Theophrastus. " The library of Aristotle came first into the possession of Theophrastus, who bequeathed it to Neleus of Scepsis in Troas. After the death of the latter it passed into the hands of his relatives in his own country, and they out of fear lest the princes of Pergamus should take the books for their own library, concealed them in a cellar or pit (ftwpv£), where they suf- f(i> d considerable injury. At last (about B.C. 100) Apellicon, of Tros, a rich bibliophile, discovered the manuscripts, purchased them, and carried them to Athens. He endea voured, as best he could, to fill up the gaps, and then publish the works. The difficulty of filling up the hiatuses in the much disfigured manuscripts accounts for the defective
* The Treatises TTfpi Kofffiov, wtpi tftvruv, Trtpt £y'o)v Kivi)aiiaq, 0v<noyvw/iiica and irtpl Qavpaoiuv OKOVff/jaruv, are declared spurious by the critics, the genuineness of the irtpi drofiwv lwl' is also a matter of doubt.
8
HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
condition of the text of Aristotle's works in subsequent times. Soon after this, on the taking of Athens by the Romans (B.C. 87), the manuscripts fell into the hands of Sylla. A grammarian named Tyrannion had access to them, and from him the Peripatetic An- dronicus of Rhodes received copies, upon which he based a new edition of the works of Aristotle, arranging them in suitable order."
6. A Latin translation of the works of Aristotle, accompanied by the Commentaries of the Arabian philosopher Averroes (written about A.D. 1180), was printed at Venice in 1489 ; and again in the same city in 1496, 1507, 1538 ; and at Basle in 1538 ; the Greek text was printed for the first time at Venice, apud Aldum Manutium, in 1495-98, and then under the supervision of Erasmus and Simon Grynaeus, Basilea? 1531 ; again at Basle in 1539 and 1550 ; and then in many various editions, among which we may note as specially important the editions of Fried. Sylburg, Francof. 1584-87 ; of Isaac Casaubon (with a Latin translation) Ludg. 1590 ; of Du Val (Greek and Latin) Par. 1629 and 1639. Many of the special treatises, especially the Nicomachean Ethics, were published in repeated editions up to the middle of the seventh century. After this, editions of the special treatises rarely appear, and no edition of the complete works is published till the close of the eighteenth century, when Buhle published a new edition (Greek and Latin), Biponti et Argentorati, 1794-1800. The most remarkable edition of the present century is that published by the Academy of Science, Berlin, Vols. I. and II. ; Aristoteles Grace ex rec. Imm. Bekker, Berol. 1831, Vols. 3 ; Aristoteles latine, interpretibus variis, Ib. 1831, Vols. 4 ; Scholia in Arist. Coll. Christ. Aug. Brandis, Ib. 1836. We have further a valuable Parisian edition, Didot 1848-1857, and a stereotyped Tauchnitz edition, 1831-32, and 1843. (Cfr. Ueberweg.)
7. Aristotle, like Plato, makes no rigid distinction between philosophy and the other sciences. With him the notion of philosophy is one with the notion of science in general. He regards philosophy as the know ledge of facts and phenomena in their causes. But this definition refers only to such facts and phenomena as are unchangeably the same, or at least such as constitute the usual order of things. With the merely casual, the casus fortuitus, science is not concerned. The complete definition of philosophy, as understood by Aristotle, has been expressed by the later exponents of his teaching in the formula : Cognitio rerum necessariarum et immutabilium per veras et proprias causas."
8. But Aristotle goes further. He distinguishes between " First " and "Second" philosophy. Under the notion " Second " philosophy, he includes all the sciences which deal with special branches of know ledge ; the " First " philosophy is the universal science, and, as such, is the only philosophy, in the stricter sense of the word. Each science selects for investigation a special province, a special department of Being, but there is none which deals with Being in general. We want, therefore, a science which shall take as the subject of its investi gations that which the others assume. This science is the "First" philosophy. It deals with all Being, which it studies in its ultimate causes and principles. This is the ultimate basis of all the other sciences, inasmuch as it traces the principles peculiar to them back to the ultimate principles from which they are derived, and thus lays the ultimate foundation which all must rest on.
9. Philosophy is not pursued because of any advantage or utility external to itself. It is its own object ;. it is of such a nature that it can and must be sought for itself alone. It is rightly called divine wisdom, partly because God alone can possess it in perfection, partly because the highest point which philosophical knowledge strives i<> reach is God — the first and fundamental cause of all things. Philosophy
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 99
is the best and most excellent science. Other systems of mental dis cipline may be more necessary for certain special purposes, but there is none of greater worth or excellence ; for philosophy has knowledge for its aim, and is no mere means to particular practical ends. It is the queen of sciences ; all others are to it as hand-maidens.
10. Aristotle has not given us a complete division of philosophy, at least he has not established any such division as the basis of his system. He speaks indeed of different parts of philosophy, but he does not always enumerate the same parts, and he has not followed in practice any one of the divisions he indicates. He distinguishes between theo retical, practical, and poetical philosophy ; and he includes in the first division Mathematics, Physics, and the "First" Philosophy — the logical studies of the Organon he appears to have regarded merely as a science of method preparatory to philosophy. Again, he speaks of philosophy as consisting of three parts : Logic, Physics, Ethics. But he does not follow either of these divisions in his exposition ; he sets little store by such divisions.
11. In separating the several parts of philosophy in our exposition of Aristotle's teaching, we are not following any order traced by Aristotle himself. We are making our own division. We select, as the most appropriate order of treatment, first Logic and Theory of Knowledge, then Metaphysics, then Psychology, and finally Ethics and Political Philosophy.
LOGIC AND THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. §34.
1. Plato dissociated intellectual knowledge from experience, and made the latter the occasion which gave rise to knowledge. Aristotle, on the other hand, makes experience the foundation of all intellectual knowledge, and lays it down as a principle that intellectual cognition has its source exclusively in experience. " Nihil in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu" — this is the fundamental principle of the Aristotelian Theory of Knowledge, as it is also the point at which the- fundamental difference between the views of Plato and Aristotle begins. Without sense, intellectual knowledge is impossible. Experience is, therefore, the basis and source of all intellectual cognition, i.e., of all science.
2. In experience, however, we have to do only with individual ob jects. The world of sense, which is the world of experience, consists wholly of single objects or individuals (t£ dSmt/otrwi/ »pa TO irav, Eth. Nic. VI. c. 12.) It follows that the individual is that which comes first in our knowledge, and that it is only in a second stage we pass from th<> individual to the general. Intellectual knowledge, knowledge properly so called, is concerned only with the general, and this know ledge has its source in experience ; experience, however, brings us into
100 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
contact only with the individual ; it follows that what in our knowledge is general, must be evolved from the individual. Of its nature, then, the universal takes precedence of the individual, and is more an object of knowledge ; butybr us the individual comes first, is more immediately the object of knowledge, and from it we must set out in order to reach the universal. Plato takes the universal, the Idea, as the point of depar ture in his attempt to explain by an a priori method the existence of individual things, and to form a philosophical conception of the world as a whole. Aristotle, on the contrary, begins with the individual, and endeavours by a posteriori methods to derive from this the universal, and thus to arrive at a philosophical comprehension of the universe. Herein we have a second fundamental difference between the systems of Plato and Aristotle.
3. It follows from the principles thus laid down by Aristotle that the universal is not something standing apart from the individual ; in other words, the universal cannot be regarded as having being of its own really distinct from the being of the several individual objects. In such a supposition it would be impossible to derive the universal from the individual. The universal must be immanent in the individual ; this is the only supposition on which a progress in thought from the individual to the universal becomes possible. "Whilst, then, Plato separates the universal from the individual, and establishes a real distinction between them, Aristotle emphatically asserts the doctrine that the universal is in the individual, not without it. This constitutes the third fundamental difference between Plato's Theory of Knowledge and that of Aristotle.
4. The universal existing in the individual, not apart from it, it follows, according to the reasoning of Aristotle, that, as invested with the formal character of universality which it possesses in our thought, it cannot be objectively real. The universal is that which is common to the several individual objects, viz., that which can be predicated of all alike. It is not a single entity in itself, it is merely a " predicabile de multis." What we find existing in a number of different objects, what these objects all alike possess, and what we can, in consequence, predi cate of them all, is an universal. If, then, we wdsh to define the uni versal, we must describe it as that which of its nature is such that it can be predicated of many individual things. "We see then that whereas Plato holds the universal, taken formally in its universality, to be objectively real, Aristotle will admit the material entity represented under this form of universality, to be objectively real, but will by no means admit this objective reality to be a single universal being. And here we have the fourth essential difference between the Platonic and Aristotelian Theory of Knowledge.
5. On the principles here set forth rest the whole Logic and Noetic of Aristotle. We proceed to the exposition of his logical and noetk-al system, as based upon these principles. It will be made clear to us as we advance, that Aristotle does not understand the principles quoted, in the sense of the empiricist or nominalist, though this might appear at first sight to be the case. It will be seen that his theory of knowledge
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 101
avoids Empiricism and Idealism alike, and finds a middle course between the two extremes, which secures at once the rights of Reason and of Experience.
6. The psychological assumption underlying Aristotle's Theory of Knowledge is the essential difference between Sense and Intellect, be tween sensuous perception and thought (aiaQwiq and i/or/ov?.) Sense and Intellect, sensuous perception and thought, are not to be made one ; they must be taken as essentially different functions ; Sense is concerned with the sensible (r6 ai<T0ijn5i>), Intellect has to do with the supersensible (T» vor\T6v) ; Sense has for its object the individual, Intellect, the uni versal. The two classes of objects being essentially different, the cor responding faculties must be regarded as essentially different sources of knowledge.
7. This being premised, the question arises : In what way does the Intellect pass from the individual object which appears in the sensuous perception to the universal ? To answer this question Aristotle has re course to the distinction between the ovuta TT/OWTJJ and the ovvia Stvrtpa, and with the help of this distinction he unfolds his theory as follows :
(«) First in order, says Aristotle, we have substance (ovo-m 7rpo>r»j) — that which does not exist in anything else, and which cannot be predi cated of anything else, but in which all else exists, and of which all else can be predicated. This notion, it is clear, can be applied only to the individual object, for the individual is not a predicament, but is rather the subject in which the predicaments have existence ; what does not exist in the individual has no existence at all. The individual must therefore be described as the ouo-ta irpw-rr] (substantia prima.)
(b) Examining more closely this ovaia TrpwTt], we distinguish in each individual two constituent elements — a real substratum (viroKtipfvov) of being, and another element by which it is made to be that individual which is actually presented to us («8oc). The former is the determined element, the latter the determining. The former is the substratum of the Idea, the latter is the Idea itself as realized in the individual. The former is Matter (i/Xrj), the latter is Form (/uo/o^/j). United they form the constituent principles of individual being, of the ovaia irpwTr). Without these two principles the ovala. Trp^orr] is unthinkable.*
(c) Keeping in view the distinction here laid down, we are led at once to the notion of the ouo-ta Sturtpa. The Form, being that by which the individual is made to be what it is, is the thing which we call the Essence of the individual. This essence is something more than the permanent unchanging element in the being of the individual ; it is, at the same time, the basis of all its attributes ; it is of the essence that all the properties or attributes which in any way belong to the individual
* It is clear that Aristotle understands by /*op0v or ildoc when he uses the term to sig nify constituent principles of individual objects, not the outward form or species of the individual which manifests itself to the senses, but the inner form or species which the intellect alone can perceive. Aristotle is, however, careful to make his meaning unmis takable, for when he uses itSoc and popQi'i in the sense of their inner forms or species, lie adds the epithet " Karri Xdyov."
102 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
are predicated. It thus becomes identified with the Substance of the- Individual. This Substance of individual being, which is identical with its Essence, is the ovaia Stvrtpa.
(d) The notions overt a TT/OWTTJ and ovaia Stv-npa being thus defined, the question next arises : What are the relations of the one to the other ? If the ovaia StvTtpa be no more than the determining principle in the individual being, it follows that the question what the individual is can be answered only by assigning its ovaia Sivrtpa. The latter, in the words of Aristotle, is therefore the TO TI riv tlvai of the former, or its quiddity (quid est). Hence the notions juop^Tj, et£oc» ovala StvTtpa, TO TI ?]v tivai, as applied to the individual, represent, according to Aristotle, one and the same thing.
(e) Comparing several individuals, in point of quiddity or TO TI ijv tlvai, we find several individuals to have the same quiddity — to be such that the same TO ri 7]v avert must be asserted of all of them. Thus, for example, all human individuals, when compared together, are found to have the same quiddity, the same TO TI r\v tlvai, the same ova la vtvTtpa, for each man stands on the same level of nature with all other men, possesses a being determined by the same essential characteristics. From this it follows that the same quiddity or overt a StvTtpa can be common to several individuals in this sense that each of these individuals has a like quiddity or overt a Stvrtpa with the rest.
(/) On the other hand, the second constituent principle of the ovala TTjoairrj, Matter, is of such a nature that it can never, in any way, be common to several individuals. Matter, as the substratum of the quiddity or determinate being of a given individual, belongs exclusively to the individual in question ; it can in no wise be shared with another, and precisely for the reason that the Matter belonging to the individual is exclusively its own, is the individual distinct from all other indi viduals, and possessed of completed being in itself.
(g) From this it follows that in the individual Form (the ova'ia Stv-rtpa or TO TI r\v tlvai) is the principle of Specification ; Matter, or the viroKtifjitvov, the principle of Individuation. The Form or quiddity being the same in several individuals, unites these individuals into one species : Matter being different in each individual, determines the in dividuality of each to the exclusion of all the others. On the Form or quiddity — the principle of specification, depends the unity of several individuals in one species ; on the Matter — the principle of individuation, depends the plurality of individuals within the same species.
(K) We are now in a position to give an answer to the question : How does thought rise from the particular to the Universal ? The faculty of sense puts before us the individual object as it appears individually in the world of phenomena; thought penetrates to the Form, ovaia or quiddity, underlying the individual, abstracts this from the individual, and makes it the object of its thinking activity. The ovaia thus ap prehended as an abstraction, we again predicate of the individual, attributing it to the individual as its proper quiddity. We next come to perceive that this quiddity belongs not to one individual merely
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 103
— th:il a number of individuals possess a quiddity like the first; this quiddity, which our thought thus represents as common to many in dividuals, we naturally conceive of as predicable of many individuals, i.e., we conceive of it as universal, and we unite under this common con cept all the individuals of which the ovaia in question is predicable. By this perfectly natural process are we led from the individual to the universal.
8. In this process three further points are worthy of note :
(a) In the first place it is clear that according to the mind of Aristotle the universal is not merely an e/w rationia, a purely notional entity ; the thing represented in the con cept is objectively real in the several individuals, for it is nothing else than the ovaia or quiddity of these individuals. It is only in so far as this ovaia is thought as universal, that it can be called a product of thought, and even in this respect the procedure of thought cannot be said to be arbitrary, for it rests upon that likeness of the ouaia in the several individuals which exists as an objective fact.
(6) In the second place it becomes evident how and in what sense Aristotle was led to assert that the universal is inseparable from the individual ; that it is indwelling (immanent) (Iwrrapxov) in the individual. For the ovaia ttvTtpa has not independent existence, it exists in the individual or ovaia irpurti as the quiddity of the latter ; and this oi'dt'a Stvrtpa is the thing represented in the universal notion. .
(c) In the third place it becomes apparent why and in what sense Aristotle asserted that the universal, taken objectively, is not one single being, that in the objective order it manifests itself only in different individuals. For every individual, owing to the material element included in it, is a being completed in itself, and the common possession of the oi'iuia by several individuals, is not to be regarded as constituting oneness in being, but only as implying a likeness of ovaia between many individuals.
9. Having now set forth the fundamental principles of Aristotle's theory of Knowledge, we pass on to his Logic. What we have first to notice here is the place assigned to the Concept. The Concept (Ao-yoc), according to Aristotle, has to do with the Essence (ou<rJa) of things. "When our thought represents the Essence of things in abstracto, it repre sents it in the form of a Concept. It follows that the universal, as such, exists only as an universal Concept in the thinking mind. The deter mination and exposition of the Concept (opia^s) is effected by Definition. Definition is, therefore, nothing more than the exposition of the Essence of a thing.
10. If we consider closely any concept which represents the Essence of certain things to the exclusion of all others, we shall distinguish in it two elements, a general and a special. The general is possessed by the individuals included under the given concept in common with certain other individuals, the special element is peculiar to the former indi viduals and serves to distinguish them from the latter. The general element is the common element, the special is the differentiating element (Difference). The general is the indeterminate, the special is the deter mining element; and they may, therefore, be regarded as standing to one another in the relation of Matter and Form.
11. It is owing to this distinction between the elements of our con cepts that our conceptual knowledge does not stop at the first specific differences of things ; we are led to subordinate particular concepts to more general concepts. For the characteristics which are common to several concepts can be conceived, per oMnMlMNMM, only as themselves forming a concept, and thus we have a higher concept under which the
104 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
first are subsumed. In this way we proceed from the Specific to the Generic concept, from the Species to the Genus. If we push this pro cess of abstraction to the utmost limit permitted by our concepts, we arrive at ultimate generic notions which cannot be subordinated to (sub sumed under) any others : i.e., we arrive at the so-called Categories.
12. Aristotle enumerates ten categories, or ultimate generic notions (suprema genera) : Substance (oixrm), Quantity (iroadv), Quality (iroi6v), Relation (trpoq T'I), Place (TTOU), Time (TTOTE), Position (KtloBai), Posses sion (txtiv), Action (irottiv), and Passion (jraa\Hv}. Everything that can be predicated of the objects of cognition falls under one or other of these concepts, and for this reason Aristotle regards them as the most universal or highest generic notions, and describes them as the Cate gories of things. It is, however, only in the book " On the Categories " (Karri jop'tai) that they are distinctly set forth to the number of ten. In other places Aristotle reduces the Categories to a smaller number. For example, in the Analyt. Post. I. 22, we find the ovaia contrasted with the remaining Categories as with so many accidents, auju/Sf/BrjicoTa (accidentia). And in Met. XIV. 2 only three are mentioned: ra /utv yap ova tat, ra St 7ra0r), TO. & TT/OOC -ri (substances, attributes, relations).
13. From the Concept our thought proceeds to the Judgment. In a judgment we effect the union or the separation of two concepts by
It
affirming or denying the one or the other (KaraQaaic; and is in judgment that truth or falsity in our knowledge first appears ; we can predicate neither truth nor falsity of the unconnected concepts. The truth of our knowledge consists in the accord of our judgment with the objective order of things, in the fact that things are in objective reality as we judge them to be. The falsity of our knowledge consists in the contradiction between our judgment and the objective order, in our judging things to be what in reality they are not.
14. When a judgment has once been formed, another judgment may be derived from it — this is the process of Inference. From judg ment, then, we proceed to inference. Inference is defined by Aristotle (Top. I. 1) as Xd-yoc iv w TtBivTWV TIVMV trf/oov ri TWV Ket/ueVtuv i£ avajKrjg crv/ufiaivti cia TWV Kt^utvwv — a discourse in which from certain premises, and by means of these premises, something different from the
g remises necessarily follows. We must, however, distinguish between yllogistic and Inductive Inference.
(a) The Syllogism draws a particular conclusion from an universal major premise by means of a third proposition (minor premise), evolving in this process a proposition which was already virtually contained in the universal. In other words, by means of the Middle Term it con nects the Major Term as predicate, with the Minor as subject. In his teaching regarding the syllogism, Aristotle has in view only the cate gorical syllogism. He distinguishes three syllogistic Figures (o'x>7A'ara) according as the Middle Term (o/ooc niaoq} is subject in one premise and predicate in the other, or as it is predicate in both premises, or as it is subject in both premises. (The Fourth Figure was introduced at a much later period.)
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 105
(4) Inductive inference, on the other hand, follows an opposite direction ; it proceeds from particular to general propositions ; it con cludes from the fact that a certain concept belongs to all those members of a class of which we have experience that it belongs to the entire class, and is an essential attribute of the class. In other words, Induc tion (tTrtryoryij, « t£ tTrayaryfjc truAAoytoy^c) concludes "that a concept of greater extension is predicate of a concept of smaller extension, from the fact that it is predicated of several or of all of the objects included under the latter." (Anal. Prior. III. 23.)
(c) The syllogism is, of its nature, antecedent to the Inductive pro cess, for it proceeds from that which is first in order of nature (the Universal) to that which is subsequent in nature (the particular). But for us the Inductive Inference comes first, since it proceeds from what is first in our experience (the individual) to that which we attain to sub sequently (the universal). In itself the syllogism is a more rigorous and a clearer form of inference ; for us Induction is the form more im mediately within reach, and it is therefore the clearer and more con vincing.
15. The syllogism, in its turn, is the means of Proof. Proof con sists in the demonstration of the truth of one proposition from the truth of another ; and as this can be effected only by deducing the one from the other, it follows that Proof is not possible without this syllogism. The syllogism, regarded as the means of Proof, is of different kinds :
(a) The Apodictical (Demonstrative) Syllogism, when our conclusion is drawn from true, certain, and indisputable premises.
(b) The Dialectical Syllogism, which draws its conclusion from merely probable pre mises, t£ iv£6$<ijv, ex probabilibus.
(c) The Eristic Syllogism draws its conclusion from premises which have only an alleged or apparent probability (tic <j>atvoft£vtitv ivdofav). (Top. I. 1.) *
16. Proof, as obtained by the syllogism, cannot be carried back in definitely. It must ultimately arrive at the undemonstrable, and here come to an end. For if proof were to continue indefinitely, it could never be completed — the endless can never be traversed — and we should thus have no proof at all. In such a supposition proof would become wholly an impossibility. The undemonstrable, which fixes the limit of the process of proof, must, therefore, consist of certain propositions which do not adjnit of proof, and which, moreover, do not need it, their truth being self-evident to the intellect. These propositions are, in the first place, the truths of Immediate Experience ; and, in the second, the First Principles of Reason (ap-^ai). Without these no proof is possible, they are the basis of all demonstration.
17. The First Principles of Reason belong to the vovg. The mind arrives immediately at the knowledge of them on comparing together the highest or most general concepts, which it obtains by the process of abstraction, from the individual objects presented to it. They differ in
• The Sophistical Syllogism is a fallacy, a conclusion obtained from false premises, or by means of an illegitimate combination of the members of the syllogism.
106 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
kind, just as the ultimate concepts from which they are formed differ in kind. The highest of these principles is the Principle of Contradiction : TO avro a/jLa wrdp'YtUt re icai ^17 VTrap^fiv aSuvarov r<£ avrtj) Kai Kara TO avr6 (Met. IV. 3) : at the same time, and under the same respect, a thing cannot at once be and not be. Next in order comes the principle of Excluded Middle. These principles are not only the first or highest in the order of thought, they are also the highest in the order of Real Being. Thought follows Being, and what is first in order of thought must be first also in the order of Being. These principles, then, control not only the whole domain of Logic, but also the whole domain of Metaphysics.
18. The syllogism being the means of proof is also the instrument or operative element in science. Knowledge is acquaintance with the causes from which phenomena necessarily result ; we have knowledge of an object only when we understand why it is thus, and not otherwise. It is the task of science to penetrate to the ultimate causes and reasons of phenomena, to deduce and explain phenomena from these causes. This task can be accomplished only by the use of the rational syllogism,, which reasons from the result to the cause, or from the cause to the re sult. The syllogism is, therefore, the indispensable instrument of science. Hence three important consequences : —
(a) In the first place, science, considered in its subjective aspect, holds a middle place between immediate experience and the first principles of Reason — these being the opposite extremes in human knowledge. Neither mere experience, nor a knowledge of first principles, can be called science. Scientific knowledge is intermediary between both, it is established by the rational syllogism, on the basis furnished, to which Expe rience and the principles of Reason alike contribute.
(b) Scientific knowledge, properly so called, is attainable only in the case of those phenomena which are of constant, or at least usual occurrence, not in the case of those which appear only occasionally or accidentally ; for the former permit us to argue the existence of a cause uniformly effective ; the latter warrant no such conclusion.
(c) Lastly, since the truths reached by the scientific syllogism are necessary truths, it follows that not only has science to deal with the unchangeable and necessary elements of things, but further that its aim is to obtain knowledge of that which is necessary. Hence the general maxim : Scientia est de necessariis.
19. We may sum up our exposition of this part of Aristotle's philosophy in the words of the philosopher himself (Anal. post. I. 18) : There are two means to intellectual knowledge — Induction, or rather the abstraction obtained through Induction, and the rational Syllogism. Everything that we know scientifically we know by the one means or by the other. Induction — which enables us to reach general notions by a process of abstraction — conducts us immediately to the concepts of widest universality, and mediately to the First Principles which result from comparing these concepts together. The rational Syllogism, on the other hand, adopting as its basis both Experience and the First Prin ciples of Reason, conducts us to the causes of phenomena, and aiding us to reach the ultimate and highest causes of all Being, lifts us at last to Philosophy — the crown of intellectual knowledge, the queen of all the sciences.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 107
METAPHYSICS. §35.
1. We have already indicated what Aristotle conceives to be the province of Metaphysics, or the First Philosophy. It deals with Real Being as such ; it investigates the principles or ultimate causes of Being. The first question which Metaphysics has to answer is this : What are the common principles of all Being. In answering this question, Aristotle first replies indirectly, examining and refuting the opinions of earlier philosophers. He then replies directly, setting forth his own teaching on the subject.
2. With regard to his refutation of other philosophers, we shall here confine ourselves to his arguments against Plato's theory of Ideas. Ideas, in Plato's sense of the word, he says, are not the principles of Being ; nay, such Ideas are not admissible at all ; and this for the following reasons : —
(a.) In the first place, the Platonic Theory of Ideas is wholly barren : " These ideas are only a meaningless duplication of sensible objects (a kind of aicrfj/ra dicin, eternal sensibles)," and do not in anywise help to explain the existence of individual objects. They contain only the forms of things, and these must be combined with Matter in order to give the things actual ^existence. This combination can only be effected through motion ; and Ideas are not the moving principles of things. (Met. I. 7, 9 ; XII. b' ; XIII. 5.)
(b.) Ideas are said to represent and to contain the essences of things. Now, it is altogether impossible that the essence of a thing and the thing itself should exist apart from one another. This the more, that such an admission leads to manifest contradiction. For "if an universal idea, v.y., 'animal' exists apart from the 'man' and 'horse' con- tamed under this universal idea, we may ask whether this idea as it is in the latter is numerically one and the same in all, or are there different ideas in the different objects ? The first alternative cannot be admitted, for a notion cannot remain numerically one in things that are different, otherwise the generic concept would be simultaneously deter mined by the specific differences of several species, i.e., by opposite attributes — an evident contradiction. Nor can the second alternative be accepted, for in this case the genus would be really multiplied in the species, and thereby the unity of the concept would be destroyed — and it is Plato's aim to maintain the unity of the concept." (Met. VII. 14.)
(c.) "Again, these Ideas, described as distinct from the objects which participate in them, either have nothing in common with these objects beyond the name, or they have a certain community of nature with them. In the first case, they are entirely without effect for the knowledge of the objects in question ; in the second, the community of nature supposes participation in a third entity common to both" — i.e. the Ideas and the corresponding individual objects require a third common prototype, on which both shall be modelled ; v.g. the individual man and the Idea of man require a "third man" (rj'roc
th
Met. I. 9; VII. 13. (This argument of the "third man" seems to have become proverbial among the opponents of the Platonic theory.)
((/.) Plato calls the Ideas " prototypes" of the objects of sense, and describes the relation in which the latter stand to them as a " participation." But these are empty words, mere poetical metaphor, which explains nothing, and, besides, entails absurd consequences. For, since one and the same object is frequently included under several dill, rent concepts — v.g. Socrates is included not only under the concept ' man," but also under the concepts ' animal' and ' biped' — it follows that for one and the same object we must have several prototypes, and that Ideas are not prototypes of sensible objects, but are derived from them in the same way as the generic concepts are derived from the species. Met. I. 9 ; XIII. 5.
(e.) The fact that there is such a thing as scientific knowledge is no argument in favour of this theory ; " we may, indeed, conclude from this fact that the universal has a real existence, but not that it has a separate existence. If the latter consequence fol lowed, other consequences would follow which the Platonists would not and could not
108 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
admit. For example, it would follow that there exist Ideas corresponding to works of art, and even to things which have no substantial being, such as attributes and relations, for we have single concepts of each of these things (TO vorjpa ft>).*
3. From the negative side of Aristotle's teaching we pass to the positive. The principles of all Being, as given by Aristotle, are four : Matter (vXrj), Form (nopfft or tlSoc), Efficient or Moving Cause (TO KivririKov), and Final Cause or End (TO ov eVeica). These are the neces sary assumptions, the ultimate basis of all Being, and are not themselves derived from anything else ; they are, therefore, Principles (ap^ai) of things (Phys. I. c. 6, 2) ; they are also Causes (ai'rm), inasmuch as the Existence as well as the Being of things is dependent on them (Met. I. 3 ; Phys. II. c. 3, 1, seq.}. "The earlier Greek philosophers," remarks Aristotle (Met. I. 3, seq.}, "investigated only the Material Principles of things ; Empedocles and Anaxagoras inquire into the Cause of motion ; the Formal Principle has not been clearly indicated by any of the earlier philosophers, the nearest approach to it has been made by the authors of the Theory of Ideas ; lastly, the Principle of Final Causes has been understood and recognized by the older philosophers only in a relative, not in an absolute sense."
4. The first of the four principles of Being is Matter. Matter is that which is indeterminate in itself, but capable of determination. As such, it is the substratum of all that comes to be — that out of which all things are made. Everything that comes into being arises out of a condition the opposite of that on which it enters, and everything that perishes passes into a condition the opposite of that in which it existed. Out of Non-being arises Being ; the Existent passes in turn into the Non-existent. This process is impossible unless we suppose an under lying substratum in which the origin and the dissolution of things are accomplished ; this substratum is Matter. Matter is not, therefore, a determinate Being ; it is merely the indeterminate substratum of all determinate Being.
5. The second principle of Being is Form, a principle in immediate relation with Matter. Matter is the indeterminate but determinable element ; Form is the determining element — i.e. it is a principle, within the object, giving it determinate character. Matter is that out of which a thing is made ; Form is that into which it is made. What comes to be comes to be something, and the element by which it comes to be this determinate something is its Form. Form, as conceived by Aristotle, is not merely external shape or conformation, it is an intrinsic principle of Being, by which the inner nature of the object becomes what it is.
6. The union of Matter and Form constitutes the Substance — the concrete Being of the object. Neither Matter by itself nor Form by itself is, properly speaking, a being ; it is only the union of both that can be so designated. Matter and Form united constitute the specific nature, which, being realized in the individual, comes before us as
* It is observable that, in his refutation of the Platonic theory, Aristotle assumes throughout that Plato regarded Ideas as possessed of independent existence, apart from sensible things, and apart also from the Being of God. This assumption being granted, his arguments are conclusive. But this could not be said of them if we assume the right explanation of Plato's theory to be that he regarded Ideas only as conceptions of the Divine mind.
PHILOSOPHY OK I UK GREEKS. 109
Substance or determinate being. Considering Matter and Form in their relations to the determinate being that results from their union, we are able to fix still more distinctly their relations to one another.
(a.) Matter is naturally destined to receive a Form ; hence its ten dency towards Form resembles the tendency of the female to the male. This lack of Form in Matter does not mean mere negation ; it is the want of something which should be present, it is Privation (<rrlpi)<nc). Privation (artp-nai^} is the peculiar characteristic of Matter considered in itself, apart from Form. Taken thus by itself, it appears to possess merely negative characteristics. There is, however, a positive charac teristic involved in the notion before us; namely, its disposition to become determinate by means of a Form ; without this disposition the lack of the Form could not be called Privation.
(6.) The privation of Form as applied to Matter can be understood in two senses — absolutely and relatively. A substance which already possesses definite Form may stand in the relation of Matter to a higher substance, inasmuch as it may receive a higher Form, and thus become a higher substance. In this case, the privation which affects the Matter in question is merely relative, involving only the want of that higher Form to which the Matter can and should attain. We can, however, in thought, separate Matter from any and every Form, and consider it as entirely formless. In this case the privation is absolute. Matter con sidered as subject to this absolute privation, represented in thought as deprived of all Form, is called " Primal Matter" (I"ATJ irpior^), Matcria Prima. This is Matter «car' e£o\Y/v ; whenever we speak of Matter without qualification we must be understood to speak of " Primal Matter."
(c.) That Form maybe realized in fact, Matter must be presupposed ; the actual reality, however, depends upon the union of Form with Matter. In a substance composed of Matter and Form, Matter may thus be regarded as the Potentiality (Svva/nig), Form as the Actuality (ti/TfXf\fta). The element which constitutes the possibility of the sub stance is Matter ; the element constituting its actuality is Form. Matter apart from Form, in the order of actual existence, is therefore wholly unthinkable. "We must, indeed, suppose a Matter without any Form what ever, as the basis of all existent substances, but, as such, it is itself never actually existent, and can never so exist, for the reason that it is in itself mere potentiality. The predicate of Being can be attributed to it only if we understand it to be in the order of possibility, not in the actual order.
(<l.) Form, or ivreAt'xfta, is the actuality of things ; but we must draw a distinction between tvTt\t\ita Tiyxorij and ivtpytia. The tvrfXt^fia Tr/owirrj is the actuality of the object, the complement or completion of the substance in the order of actual being ; the evtpytia, on the other hand, is its Activity, of which the actual substance is the principle and the source. Form, it will be observed, can be called Entclechy only when understood to be one with the €VTt\t\tia TT/OWTI) ; ivtpyua,*on the other hand, is dependent on the Form, for Form is the principle of actuality. Aristotle does not, however, maintain strictly this distinction between the two concepts; he not imfrequently describes Form as ii"'pytia.
110 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
7. The third principle of Being is Efficient (or Moving) Cause. It is a fact of experience that there is movement in the world about us. Movement supposes a moving cause ; without this it is unthinkable. The moving cause, whatever be its nature, cannot be conceived as mere potentiality, it must always be an actual being; for only the actual being can exert an tvtpytia, or, in the present instance, actively produce movement. Every movement, then, supposes an actual cause, an ente- lechy proper, from which the movement proceeds.
8. With regard to motion itself (rfvijmc)> the following are the chief points of Aristotle's teaching : —
(a.) Motion, in general, is the actualization of the possible, 17 TOV Suvarov, r\ $uva7ov ti/TtXe)(£ta (Phys. III. 1). It is, therefore, the transition from the possible to the actual. "Wherever a process of transi tion from possibility to actuality is in progress, we can say of the thing involved in the process that it is in motion.
(b.) There are, however, different kinds of motion. "We must distin guish between the motions which suppose a fully constituted, determinate object, and are accomplished in this object, and the motions which affect the existence or non-existence of the object. To the former class belong quantitative, qualitative, and local motions ; that is to say, increase and diminution (au^rjo-tc xal tyBiaig}, change or alteration (aAAozwrrte), and locomotion (<popa). To the second class belong origin or generation and dissolution or corruption (tyOopa).*
(c.) Quantitative, qualitative, and local motions differ from generation and corruption in this, that they involve only a transition from one condition of the subject to another, whereas in generation and corruption we have a transition from non-existence to existence, or conversely. In generation the terminus a quo is non-existence, the terminus ad qucm is existence. In corruption we have the converse process. Matter, however, cannot, as we have already seen, exist without some form or other. Non- existence, therefore, can apply to the two cases we have been considering only in a relative sense ; i.e. the terminus a quo in generation is not absolute non-existence, but only the non-existence of that which is generated. The same, in its measure, holds good with regard to cor ruption. There is not, then, any absolute origin of things, nor any absolute destruction. Everything that begins to be comes into existence by the corruption of something else, and everything that perishes passes into another being — " Generatio unius est corruptio alterius, et corruptio unius est generatio alterius."
(d.) The first and most excellent form of motion is locomotion. On this all the others depend. But locomotion introduces two further notions, Spice and Time.
* The word Kinjfftc is sometimes employed by Aristotle (v.g. Phys. III. 1) as equi valent to fifTa(3o\r) (change), since every movement involves a change. He says, however (Phys. V. 1;, that, although every /ch'jjaic is a ^fro/3oX//, every nerafioXi'i is not, conversely, a Ktvr]<n£ ; for example, such as affects the very existence of the object, i.e. yertmr or <j>9op<r. Accordingly, ykvtrn^ and tyOopu should, properly speaking, be included, not under the notion KU'jjrric, but under the notion /x£ror/3oAjj. This has not been noticed above, as Aristotle does not uniformly maintain the distinction.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. Ill
(a.) Place (locus, rf>iroc) is defined by Aristotle as the first immovable limit of the enclosing body (TO TOV irtptix°VT°Q iripttf dt!vt]Tov irputrov, Phys. IV. c. 6. 15, 24) — a definition which makes an empty place impossible. Enlarging this notion of the roiroc, and extending it to the great bodies of the universe, we obtain by this means the notion of universal space. The universe, taken as a whole, cannot, it is evident, exist in space (or in a place), for there is no enclosing body by which it could be surrounded. Space exists only within the world ; outside it there is no space. Space extends only to the outer limits of the world.
(6.) Time is defined by Aristotle as the measure of motion in order of antecedence and consequence (dpiOpoc jcivrjfffwc Kara. TO irponpov KO.I vaTipov, Phys. IV. c. 16, 7). The unit of time is the present, and from the motion of this unit time is produced. Time has neither beginning nor end ; it is eternal in both directions, for every present supposes a past and a future, and thus no point can be found at which time could arrest its course. Time is measured by uniform movement ; to this purpose circular movement is particu larly adapted.
9. Lastly, the fourth principle is the End or Final Cause. The End is that to which the motion issuing from the Efficient Cause is directed. Movement without this term to which it is directed is inconceivable ; the End must, therefore, be one of the necessary principles of actual Being. It is, indeed, possible that in a given movement a result may ensue which was not intended, which is the effect of some collateral cause attaching to the means employed to attain a certain end — this is ruv»?, chance, casus fortuitus. But this does not in any way prejudice me notion of purpose as belonging to motion ; on the contrary, chance, rv^n, necessarily presupposes this notion. The End is always a Good, to be obtained by the motion ; the Ratio boni cannot be dissociated from the notion of End.
10. Having laid down these general principles regarding the notion of the Final Cause, we may now proceed to examine the notion in its special applications : —
(a.) When we apply the notion of End to that movement which we have called generation, we observe at once that the End to which this movement tends and the Form are one and the same thing ; in other words, the Form is not only the result, it is also the end or purpose of the generative process. The realization of the Form in Matter is the scope of the process. Thus, the Form is not only the principle of determinateness and actuality in the substance, which consists of Matter and Form, it is further the end or purpose intrinsic to the substance.
(b.) The relation already pointed out between Matter and Form leads us further to observe that, in substances of the kind under consideration, Matter is the irrational element, whereas Form, being the element on which plan or purpose is based, betokens Reason, and is the object of a mental concept. Matter is, therefore, the ava-yicf/, or blind necessity ; Form is the end or purpose, the rational element in the thing (\6yos).
(c.) In the generation of things Form and Final Cause are one ; it may also happen that the Moving Cause and the Final Cause become identical. This occurs when the Moving Cause occasions movement, not by physical impulse, but as an object of desire. In this case, the Moving Cause is unquestionably the End towards which the movement excited is directed. The KIVIITIKOV and the ov tvtKa are, therefore, one and the same.
112 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
11. Thus much regarding the principles of Being. On the basis thus established, Aristotle proceeds to construct his theory regarding the World and God. A prominent point in his teaching on the first of these points is his doctrine of the eternity of the world, which he strives to establish by the aid of the foregoing metaphysical principles. In his reasoning he proceeds as follows : —
(a.) Matter cannot have had a beginning. For Matter, as we are aware, is the basis of all things, necessarily antecedent to the origin of all other things. It is the potentiality of everything having actual existence ; what comes into being must come from Matter. If we suppose Matter to have itself come into being, we are driven to assume another Matter, which shall be the basis or potentiality out of which it shall arise ; in other words, Matter must be supposed to exist before it existed. This is self-contradiction. Matter, then, has not begun to be ; that is to say, it is eternal.
(b.) Again, we know Matter cannot exist without Form. If, then, we admit that Matter is eternal, we must admit that Form also is eternal. We cannot, in consequence, allow that Matter was at first shapeless and formless, and has gradually assumed its present form and condition, as Plato thinks ; we must, on the contrary, assume that, as regards both Matter and Form, all things have been without beginning ; in other words, that the world, as it is, is eternal.
(c.) We are led to the same conclusion when we consider the nature of Motion : —
(1.) If Motion had a beginning, there could have existed previously to this beginning only the possibility of Motion. To account for the beginning of Motion, we must suppose this possibility to have been ren dered actual. But this could be effected only by Motion. Motion must, therefore, have existed before its beginning — an evident contradiction.
(2.) Furthermore, Time, as has been shown, has had no beginning. But Time is inseparably identified with Motion, for it is nothing more than the measure of Motion in the succession of 'before' and 'after.' It follows that, if Time is eternal, Motion is also eternal.
Now, if Motion is eternal, so also is that which is moved. As the thing moved is the world, the world, like Motion, must be without beginning ; it also must be eternal.
(d.) The world is thus proved eternal a part e ante. That it is eternal in this sense is proof that it is also eternal a parte post. For, in the first place, Time, as it is without beginning, is also without end ; it follows that Motion and the thing moved, both of which the notion of Time supposes, must be without end. In the second place, all corruption is transition from one Form to another, since the corruption of one thing is the generation of another, Matter the while, not being liable to change, as it is wholly incorruptible. This being so, it is impossible that the Forms existent in the world, taken in their totality, should be subject to corruption. Matter cannot exist without Form ; the corruption of all existing Forms would, therefore, involve the corruption of Matter — which has already been shown to be impossible. The world, being one
PHILOSOPHY OF THI-; (;i;i;EKS. 113
aggregate of things which consist of Matter and Form, is thus shown to be without end ; the notion of generation is inapplicable to the world, so also is the notion of corruption.
(e) Generation and corruption take place only within the world. And even here, generation and corruption only affect the individual, they do not reach the species or the genus. Individuals alone come and go ; species and genera are eternal. If a species were to perish, then would one determinate Form disappear from the world — a con sequence which is inadmissible, since it has been proved that existing Forms, taken as a whole, are incorruptible. As regards individuals, the succession of generation and dissolution is from eternity like the world itself. "\Vithin the world, the process of the rise, origin, and de struction of individuals, has not had a beginning, nor will it have an end.
12. Aristotle further seeks to prove that the world is one — that there can exist only one world. This he proves from the principle already laid down, that the basis of all plurality in things within any one species is Matter. If there were more worlds than one, each should have Matter peculiar to itself. But Matter, as the substratum of all generation and corruption, is absolutely one ; if this were not the case, there would be no one substratum in which the origin and dissolution of things could be effected. There can, then, be only one Matter ; and this being so, there cannot be several worlds, with several different material substrata. There is, therefore, only one world, and beyond this no other world is possible.
13. Thirdly, the world is limited or finite. "We must distinguish two kinds of infinitude. A thing may be either potentially or actually- infinite. It is potentially infinite when it is capable of indefinite in crease ; actually infinite when it excludes all augmentation, and all capability of increase. Now it is clear that the world cannot be actually infinite, for let us imagine its extent to be as great as we will, it is always possible to suppose it still greater. The world can therefore be only potentially infinite. But what is potentially infinite— for the reason that its infinitude is only potential — must always be actually finite, bt> its actual extension what it may. It follows that the actual world must always be finite or limited. The same holds good of space ; for space, as we have already seen, extends only to the outside limit of the world.
14. In his teaching regarding God, Aristotle is guided by the meta physical principles here set forth. His proofs for the existence of Gcd first claim our attention. These proofs are as follows :
(a) It has been shown that motion is eternal. Now every motion supposes a moving cause. If this cause derives its motion from some thing else, this something else must in its turn have a moving cause, and so on successively. But the series of moving causes cannot be in finite, for the infinite cannot be traversed, and besides, what is actual is always finite. We must, therefore, assume a Primal Motor, which does not receive motion from anything else, and from which, in the last resort, all motion proceeds. This Prime Motor (TTOMTOV KIVOVV a»ai»)roi') is God.
9
114 HISTORY OF ANCIKNT PHILOSOPHY.
(A) Furthermore, the actual is, of its nature, antecedent to the potential. For the potential supposes a cause which can give it actua lity, and this cause must itself be actual, otherwise it could not be productive. Potentiality is, therefore, not conceivable apart from an antecedent actuality. Now, Matter is eternal, but Matter is mere poten tiality ; we must therefore admit an eternal actuality, an eternal ente- lechy, which, as such, is antecedent to Matter, and which we name God:
15. It is now easy to determine what are the attributes of God. As to the Being of God, Aristotle teaches :
(a) God is pure actuality, pure cntclechy. He excludes all com position of Matter and Form. If the Divine Being were a compound of Matter and Form, it should have had a beginning of existence, and it could begin to exist only by the action of a higher cause moving the Matter to union with the Form. In this supposition God would cease to be the Prime Mover. God is, therefore, pure Form, pure Quiddity, pure Energy.
(/>) God is further an absolutely Simple Being, essentially excluding all plurality of parts. For if the Being of God were composed of parts, it would have magnitude. This magnitude would be cither finite or infinite. It could not be infinite, for an infinite magnitude actually existent is an impossibility. Nor could it be finite, for in that case the might of God would be finite, and He would be unable to furnish motion through unending time, i.e., keep in motion an eternal world. It follows that the Divine Being excludes all plurality, all parts ; it is absolutely simple, and therefore immutable.
(c] Finally, God must be One. For the principle of plurality is Matter — the basis of individuality within the same species. But Matter is wholly foreign to the Being of God. Hence there can be no question of a plurality of gods. In the same way we may show that to the Divine Being there is no opposite term. For opposition can occur only in the case of two beings having a common Matter, within which opposite Forms exist. To admit that anything could stand in opposition to God would be to admit Matter in the Being of God — an admission we have seen to be unwarrantable.
16. With reference to the activity of God, we must hold as a primary truth that God, as absolute actuality, is also absolute life. As absolute life, He is all-sufficient in Himself, and possesses in Himself perfect bliss. For His happiness He needs not any external goods ; He is Himself the Highest Good, and is therefore happy in Himself. But the further question arises : What are the definite characteristics of this absolute life of God ? Aristotle answers :
(a) The life of God is not an operative life. We cannot admit in Him activity of Will, productive of effects external to Himself. If we admitted such an activity of Will in God, we should then be forced to admit that God has need of goods external to Himself, and that He seeks to obtain these goods by the activity in question. This admission is incompatible with the principle that God is absolutely sufficient to Himself.
PHILOSOPHY OK Tin: OKBEK8. 115
(/>) The life of God is a life of contemplation, and of contemplation only: God lives by thought, and by thought alone. God is reason (VOVQ), and only reason. lie is a purely contemplative spirit ; and, as such, excludes all volitional action.
(c) But what is the object of this contemplative action ? Aristotle's answer to this question is as follows :
(1) The object of the Divine Thought is not anything external to the Divine Being. For the thing known is to this extent superior to the knowing subject, that the latter is dependent on it. If, then, God were to have knowledge of things external to Himself, He would be dependent on these things, and there would exist something superior to God. This conclusion is inadmissible. To which we may add that there are many things apart from God which it is better not to know — things so base that they are not worthy objects of knowledge.
(2) Hence it follows that the sole object of the knowledge of God is God Himself. God is the only worthy object of the Divine know ledge ; it is, therefore, restricted to Him. Man attains his happiness by attaining knowledge of other things ; God is made happy only by the knowledge of Himself. In the vision of His own Being, then, consists that contemplation which makes the absolute immanent life of God.
(3) This Divine self-knowledge is not of the same kind as our knowledge of ourselves. In us being and knowledge of the being are different things. In God the knowledge and the thing known are absolutely one and the same. God's self-knowledge is not merely r'or/cnci it is voqcrtc fotj<re(o? — absolute identity of thinking and object thought. (Met. XII. 9.)
17. The relations of God to the world can be deduced from what has here been laid down. Aristotle's doctrine on this point may be summarised as follows :
(a) God is not indwelling (immanent) in the world ; He exists above it — the Absolute Substance, the Absolute Archetype. His relation to the world is that of the general to his army. As Prime Mover he is not at the centre of the world, but without its utmost boundary. For the more rapidly a thing moves the nearer must it be to the Prime Mover. The motion of the heaven of the fixed stars is the most rapid ; it follows that this heaven is nearest to God, and since this heaven forms the uttermost limit of the world, God must be beyond this extreme limit. Aristotle, it thus appears, had no knowledge of the omnipresence of God.
(b) God, as the Prime Mover, communicates motion necessarily and eternally. The motion which proceeds immediately from God must, therefore, be necessary and eternally continuous. It must further be one, for on the oneness of the motion which proceeds from God depends the oneness of the world. This motion must be locomotive, for it is only a motion of this sort which can be continuous and one. Not all locomotion, however, has these properties ; but only the motion which proceeds indefinitely in a straight line, or motion in a circle. The former of these cannot exist, for it supposes an infinite space. There remains only motion in a circle. We thus conclude that the motion proceeding immediately from God is motion in a circle.
116 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(c) Action upon things external to Himself cannot be attributed to God ; it follows that He cannot communicate motion to the world by physical impulse. He can excite motion only as an object of desire. He is at once the archetype and the ultimate end, and chief good of all things in the world ; He is, consequently, an object of desire to these things, and, as such, He gives the world its motion. God being the supreme good, and the object of desire, standing above all things, all things move towards Him, and by their motion seek to share in His eternity and immortality. According to the different position held by each object in the mundane order, is the mode of its motion towards this end. Hence the differences of motion.
(d) Athough God's relation to the world is that of Prime Mover, yet there cannot be question of a Divine Providence, in the sense that God provides immediately for each and every thing in the world. Such a Providence supposes that God knows all things in the world. But we already have seen that this is not the case ; God does not, therefore, exercise a providence over the world. The motion which God commu nicates to the world assures the existence and the order of the universe, the permanence of the celestial spheres, and of the genera and species of things on the earth. Individuals, as such, are merely transient pheno mena, which appear on the stream of time only to sink into it again. They are not subject to any higher guiding providence.
18. His teaching with regard to God is undoubtedly the weakest point in the system of Aristotle. He regards God merely as the Prime Mover of the world, and assigns Him no other relations to the world than those which depend on the motion he communicates. As this motion is necessarily communicated by God, it is clear that Aristotle makes Necessity control all things. He knows nothing of Ideas within the Divine Mind, which are the archetypes of created things ; he recog nises no Divine Providence which guides the universe, no Divine Will, which, of its free accord, gave origin to the world. Under the stern law of Necessity nature runs its eternal course, and individual things are but products of the necessary evolution of nature, appearing for a moment, and then disappearing again. Motionless, though communi cating movement, God is separated from the world. What occurs in the world, takes place without concurrence from Him ; He does not even know what is taking place. In his theological notions, Plato is clearly far in advance of Aristotle ; his teaching regarding God is nearer the truth than Aristotle's theory of the " Prime Mover."
PHYSICS AND PSYCHOLOGY.
1. In his physics Aristotle distinguishes between simple and com posite bodies. He reckons as simple the four elements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire. Fire has a natural tendency upwards ; the Earth
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 117
naturally tends downwards, i.e. towards the centre of the world. "Water and Air are intermediate between these extremes. The Earth occupies the lowest position ; above it is Water ; above Water, Air ; and above Air, the sphere of Fire. In addition to these four simple elements, we have a fifth — the jEther, extending from the heaven of the fixed stars to the moon, out of which the celestial spheres and heavenly bodies arc formed. Composite or natural bodies are formed from the four first simple substances, and every composite body contains all four elements combining in different proportions. Aristotle rejects the World-Soul.
2. The Earth is at rest, and occupies the centre of the world. Beyond the sphere of Fire, which forms the extreme limit of the terrestrial region, the celestial spheres begin. The lowest of these is the sphere of the moon ; then follow the spheres of the sun and of the planets ; and lastly, forming the boundary of the celestial region, comes the sphere of the fixed stars. These celestial spheres revolve eternally round the Earth. The most rapid in its movement of revolution is the sphere of the fixed stars. As we descend the revolving movement becomes slower, and the lower spheres revolve in a direction contrary to the higher. The sphere of the fixed stars alone receives its motion imme diately from the Prime Mover. The lower spheres have each its own mover, who, analogously to the Prime Mover, must be a pure entclechy, and therefore a voi>c, or Intelligence.
3. The celestial spheres are not subject to any process of generation or corruption, to any increase or diminution, or alteration. For the heavens are formed of the fifth element, and so do not contain any opposing elements which could render change possible ; all change must therefore be excluded from them. It follows that what we style increase and diminution, alteration, generation and corruption, is wholly confined to the terrestrial or sublunary region. Nevertheless, the movements of the several parts of the universe affect one another. The motion of the lower celestial spheres depends upon that of the higher, and all genera tion, corruption, alteration, increase or diminution occurring in the sublunary region is dependent on the determining influence of the lowest of the celestial spheres, i.e. on its motion. The end of this common movement throughout the universe is to bring all things, each according to its position in the whole, to likeness with the Eternal Archetype. The heavens, by their eternal movement, most nearly attain to this perfection ; it is attained in the lowest degree by sub lunary things, the movements of which arc imperfect and limited.
4. The sublunary region is the domain of what we call Nature. In all the changes which take place within it, Nature is working with a plan ; it strives in every case after a determined end, and at all times aims at what is best. For this reason there is in its products a continuous gradation. Lowest in its scale are the inorganic, inanimate bodies ; then follow organic beings with merely vegetable life (plants) ; next come organic beings with animal life (brutes) ; at the top of the scale stands man, superior to all other beings by his gift of reason, and by his reason sharing in the attributes of God. He is the ultimate end and purpose
118 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
of Nature. The principle of life in organic beings Aristotle calls the Soul. The question naturally arises, What is the nature of the Soul in general, and what, especially, is the nature of the human Soul ? Here we arrive at the Psychology of Aristotle.
5. In his treatise flepl ^/u^fjc, Aristotle, according to his custom, first refutes the opinions of earlier philosophers regarding the nature of the Soul.
(a.) He refutes the opinion that the Soul is merely a Harmony between the parts of the body ; his principal argument being that, in this case, the Soul could not be the principle of movement.
(b.) He refutes the opinion that the Soul is formed from one of the four natural elements, or by a combination of all four ; his chief argument being that, in this case, the Soul would be capable only of those modifications which are characteristic of the four elements, whereas the activity and modifications of the Soul are of a wholly different kind.
(c.) He combats Plato's view that self -movement constitutes the essential being of the Soul, and this chiefly on the ground that, in this case, the Soul would occupy space, and would, therefore, be a corporeal being, and free to quit the body at pleasure.
6. So much being premised, Aristotle proceeds to give in positive terms his own notion of the Soul. He begins with the principle that every being of specifically determinate nature consists of Matter and Form. Accordingly, he holds that, in the case of the living being, the principle of life, or Soul, is the Form ; the Body is the Matter. Form, as we have seen, is the entelechy — the first, not the second, entelechy. The Soul, being the Form, is, therefore, the first entelechy of the Body. Not every body, however, can become the Matter in which a Soul is received, but only a physical body, and among physical bodies only such as are capable of sustaining life. To this class belong only organized bodies, for the unorganized, as such, exclude vitality. The Soul must, therefore, be defined as the first entelechy of a physical body, having life potential///, or briefly, the first entelechy of a physical organised body
Ti] awfJLaTog QvatKOV £on)v t^oi/roc $vva/nti ; or, ivrcXl^CM (jtvcriKOV bpyaviKOv. Do Anim. II. c. 1.)
The Soul, being the Form or first entelechy of a physical organic body, it follows that it is also the end, as well as the moving principle, of the latter. It is the end ; for, as has been remarked, the Form, in the case of individual things, is always the end of their being, their ov tvtKa ; it is the moving principle ; for, as has been shown, the first entelechy is, in every case, the principle of energy or activity in the individual, and therefore, in the case of the living being, the vital energy is dependent on and arises from the first entelechy or Soul. The Soul, being on the one hand the end of the body, and on the other its moving principle, it becomes apparent that the body is the organ or instrument of the Soul ; hence the thorough adaptation of parts observed in the bodily organism.
8. Having determined thus the general characteristics of the Soul as such, we must distinguish the various kinds of souls. There are us many different kinds of souls as there are different kinds of organized, living, animated beings. Lowest in this scale is the Soul of the plant. The functions of this Soul are purely vegetative. A degree higher is
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 119
the brute Soul. This is the immediate principle of the animal functions in brutes. And, since it is the general law that the higher power vir tually includes the lower, the brute Soul includes the virtue of the vegetative Soul, and is, therefore, the principle of the vegetative or organic functions of brute life. Highest in order comes the Soul of man, with which we have chiefly to concern ourselves.
9. Aristotle assigns five principal faculties to the human Soul: Vegetative Power (TO OptirrtKov), on which the maintenance of the cor poreal organism depends ; Appetitive Faculty (TO 'J/OEKTIKOV), which is exerted in striving after what is good and agreeable, and in repelling what is disagreeable (Siw^tc; KOI tyv-yi]} ; the faculty of Sensuous Percep tion (TO aloOnriKov), by which the objects perceptible by sense are represented in our cognition ; the Locomotive Faculty (TO KIVIITIKOV), by which we are enabled to move the body and its members, and make use of them for external action ; and lastly, the Reason (TO BiavoriTiKov) .
10. The four faculties first named belong to brutes as well as to man. Reason, on the other hand, is the characteristic which distinguishes man from the brutes. The Vegetative Power is not subject to the control of the Reason. The Appetitive Faculty is so connected with Reason, that its tendencies can and must be brought into accord with the requirements of Reason. This Appetitive Power is of two kinds — the Concupiscible (TO iiriOv Ustinov) and the Irascible (TO SV^TIKOV), according as it merely strives for what is good, or rises in opposition to the hindrances which stand between it and the attainment of the good it is seeking. External movement is dependent on the Locomotive Power of the Soul, though it is executed by the bodily organs in which the Soul has its seat. In man this faculty also is subject to the controlling influence of Reason.
11. With regard to the faculty of Sensuous Perception (TO alaOnriKov),
rcepton
we must distinguish between Simple diaOnais (Perception by sense), Imagination ((pavraaia), and Memory, including Reminiscence KOI
(a.) In Sensuous Perception (ai(T0/;<nc) we must suppose the existence of a perceptible object, which exerts its influence on the Sense. In this process Sense is passive. Under the influence exerted by the object on Sense, there arises in Sense a sensuous image (e«co<.- aioOijTov*) of the object, which represents the sensible Form of the object, without the Matter ; and through the Form thus presented the faculty of Sense has cognisance of the object. Each sense has its proper (formal) object, but the same (concrete) thing may be perceived by several senses. The sense of Touch is the fundamental and most import ant sense ; it is much more perfect in man than in brutes. Besides the External Senses, there is an Internal or Common Sense, underlying the former, and forming a common centre in which they all unite. Each of the several senses judges of the objects corre sponding to itself ; the Common Sense distinguishes between the objects of the several senses, and passes judgments regarding them.
(6.) By the faculty of Imagination man is enabled to retain and reproduce the ttfj) a!o9i)rd of sensible objects without the immediate presence of these objects. The action of the Imagination is necessary for intellectual cognition, inasmuch as we must keep the iilijt-ct of intrlli^rnee before us under a sensuous image, and this sensuous image (^avraa/io) is presented by the Imagination.
(c.) The Memory (/xi/r/joj) preserves the sensuous forms as the wax preserves the impression of the seal ; and this is necessary to make possible the recollection of an object previously perceived. This recollection may be either involuntary, as in brutes ; or it may be voluntary, i.e. the representations of things may be deliberately recalled to consciousness. The latter process is Reminiscence (aro/«'ij«ic), and is peculiar to man.
120 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
The primary function of Memory is to preserve the sensible forms of things ; but inasmuch as the objects of intelligence are presented under sensuous images, it happens that intel lectual concepts also may be stored up in the memory.
12. To make possible the action of the Intellect (vovq}, a previous sensuous perception is necessary. The intellectual operation consists in this, that it divests the objects presented in sense of their material adjuncts, and apprehends the intelligible forms which attain actual existence under sensible conditions. As a result of this operation, there is generated in the Intellect an intellectual form (ttSoc vo»;roi/), which represents the intelliyibk bciny of the object, and by means of which the Intellect knows the object, and knows it, moreover, in its inner nature. It is evident that, in this process, the Intellect is not, like Sense, altogether passive, that we must distinguish in this connec tion its active from its passive (receptive) functions. We are thus led to distinguish between the Active Intellect and the Passive (intcllcctus a gens anidipossibilis).
(a.) The Active Intellect (vouc Trotrjrtk-oe) renders actually intelligible the objects of sense, which, in themselves, are only potentially intelligible ; and this it effects by a process of abstraction, which divests these objects of their material envelopment, and thus renders knowable the intelligible being of the object. It is a light rendering cognizable the intelligible being of things, in the same way that light in external nature renders sensible objects visible. The Active Intellect is pure energy without any potentiality ; its activity is continuous.
(b.) The Passive Intellect (VOVQ TraOrjTiKos), on the other hand, receives the intelligible forms evolved by the abstractive process of the Active Intellect, and through these apprehends the intelligible being of the sensible objects. The Passive Intellect is thus, in a certain sense, moved to action by the Active Intellect, and holds towards the latter the relation of potency to activity. It is, so to speak, the locus of the intel ligible process — of the ti'Sij vorjru. And, inasmuch as it receives into itself the intelligible form of the object, it becomes, ideally, the thing which it apprehends, for it takes into itself the form of the object apprehended, and is put in action by it.
13. In this way the Intellect arrives at Concepts, and through these attains to the knowledge of First Principles, which are involved in the ultimate or highest concepts. The foundation is thus laid for the process of Inference, by which the mind, from knowledge possessed, advances to further knowledge. Inference is the function of the &OVOM or Reason. The §(ai/oia differs from the vovg only in a relative sense. One and the same faculty is Intellect in one respect, Reason in another.
14. All the faculties of the Soul, other than the i/oi/e, are essentially connected with the bodily organism, and their functions can be exercised only by means of the organs in which they are located. It is otherwise with the vouc- This power does not act in combination with the bodily organism ; it is a free faculty, and exercises activity without a corporeal organ. The reasons for this view are evident :
(a.) If the i'oi"c, like Sense, acted in combination with a bodily organ, the rorr, like
PHILOSOPHY OK Till. (.KI.I.Ks. 121
ould lie impaired and corrupted by t<><> strong an impression of its proper ol>ject. Tin- ronti-iiry, however, is found to be the case: the more intelligible the object repre sented hi its cognition, the more fully and more perfectly is it able to apprehend the object.
(ft.) If the »'o»~c, as such, were immanent in the bodily organism, and could not act independently of the body, it would be touched by the affections of Sense, such as heat, cold — an evident absurdity.
(c.) The functions which are exercised in combination with the body become im paired in proportion as the body grows weaker and more enfeebled. The vof'c, on the other hand, is neither altered nor enfeebled. If age and sickness sometimes exert a disturbing influence on the vof-c, this arises from the circumstance that the powers of sense on which it depends for its knowledge are yielding to progressive decay ; in itseli the vouf is not affected by suffering, it is incapable of pain.
15. This is Aristotle's account of the psychical faculties in man. The results of his inquiry into the nature of the Soul's faculties enable him to determine M'ith greater exactness the relations of the Soul to the Body. The following are the propositions which he lays down in this connection : —
(a.) The Soul (^v\{)), regarded merely as the principle of vegetative and sensitive life, abstracting from the vov?, is inseparable from the body. For, apart from the circumstance that it can exercise no function without the body, it is the entelechy of an organized body, and cannot, therefore, have actual existence apart from the body, of which it is the entelechy. It is separable from the body in our concept, but not in reality ; it is not the body itself, but is aa»^aroc TI, i.e., it belongs neces sarily to the body. The i>ov$, on the other hand, is scparatus et innnixtus ; as it possesses an activity of its own distinct from the activity of the body, so does it possess actual being distinct from, and independent of, the'body.
(6.) The Soul ($v\ii), as the principle of vegetative and sensitive life, is produced by generation. In generation the male communicates the KtvrjTiKov, the female gives the Materia. The body is thus derived from the female parent, the soul from the male, the element derived from the male parent being the entelechy of the element derived from the female. But the vovq is not produced by generation, it comes to man from with out, and unites itself with him (Xenrtrat £f, TOV vovv OvpaOtv iirii<ntvaii De Anim. II., c. 3.)
(c.) The Soul, as the principle of vegetative and sensitive life, is mortal ; it comes into existence with the body, and it decays with the body. But the VOVQ is incorruptible and immortal. Not having its origin with the body, and in the body, it cannot be dissolved with the body ; it has actual being independent of the body.
16. These principles at once suggest a question as to the relations subsisting between the ^u\i? and the vouc- The views of Aristotle on this point are not expressed with clearness, and in consequence two different interpretations of his teaching have been given by his later interpreters.
(a) One section — the earlier interpreters of Aristotle, who in this matter are fol lowed by the Arabian philosophers of the Middle Ages — assume that Aristotle makes the I'of'c something distinct from the individual soul, that he regards it as a principle
122 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
distinct in being from the individual, a tiling universal in nature, communicating itself to individual men, and thereby rendering them rational, without, however, losing it* own essential unity. The reasons adduced in support of this interpretation of Aristotle are:
(1) Aristotle describes the vovq as t'repov ykvoQ i//ux»lti and teaches that it is not in trinsic to the soul, but comes to it from without, that it is in a certain sense implanted in the souM;nivs<T&u). (De Anim. II., c. 2. 11, I. c. 5. 5.)
(2) This is the only interpretation which gives the 6vpa9tv tlaiivai of Aristotle in telligible meaning.
(3.) Aristotle holds the lower faculty to be included in the higher, and hence will have the virtue of the vegetative soul to be included in the sensitive ; but this principle he will not allow to have any application in the case of the vovg and sensitive soul. (De Anim. II., c. 3, 9. 10.)
(b) Those who adopt this interpretation are further divided into two classes : the older interpreters, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, assume that Aristotle, in this teaching, is dealing only with the vovy 7roi»jrtKOf, and that he makes the voi'c naOrjTiKo^ a faculty of the individual ^v\r]. They base this view on the fact that Aristotle asserts (De Anim. III., c. 6, 5), that the voii<; TraVifTim^ is corruptible (QGaproc), whereas he asserts of the VOVQ -rroitjTiKOQ (De Anim. III., c. 6, 4), that it alone is •%wp(aC>[iq (separate), and, as such, is aOdraro^ KUI didtof (immortal and everlasting). Later interpreters, as for example, Averroes, separate both vote 7roi»/riKo<,* and vof'c iraQi]TiKoq from the indi vidual soul, and consider both to form one universal being, transcending all individual souls.
(e) The Christian Scholastics of the Middle Ages, on the other, unanimously adopt the view that Aristotle understood the VOVQ to be a faculty of the individual soul ; and that when he describes it as separates et immixtux, he only means to signify that it is. not essentially dependent on the corporeal organism. His statements regarding the cor ruptibility, generation, &c., of the soul, they held only to apply to the sensitive soul, as such, not to the rational human soul ; to the latter they considered his doctrines of the vovf to refer. In support of this interpretation they point out that Aristotle describes the intellect as a part of the soul, by which the soul thinks and becomes wise, that he asserts the soul reasons by means of the intellect — a thing which would be impossible if the intellect were not an essential faculty of the soul.
17. "We will not undertake to decide between these two views of Aristotle's teaching ; they can each claim reasons in their favour. We may, however, point out, as somewhat remarkable, the circumstance that Aristotle, in his psychology, nowhere speaks of a personal immor tality of the Soul ; nay, the denial of such immortality appears to be involved in his assertion that the (active) Intellect, although immortal, preserves no memory of former events, i.e., individual thought and con sciousness cannot be ascribed to it. (De Anim, III., c. 6, 5.) Even in his Ethics, where the doctrine of a personal immortality of the Soul would be of peculiar importance, no passage is to be found in which the doctrine is unequivocally laid down. On the contrary, we find it stated there (Eth. Nic. III., c. 9), that death is terrible, because it is tlir end of all, and because neither good nor evil awaits the dead beyond the grave. It is therefore, at best, highly doubtful whether Aristotle held the Soul to be personally immortal. On this point, again, he falls far behind Plato. If we hold that Aristotle does not teach a personal im mortality, we must accept the view of his teaching taken by the older interpreters.
18. In conclusion, we must add a few words as to Aristotle's doc trine regarding the seat of the Soul. He is of opinion that the Soul is placed in the heart, for this, he thinks, is the centre of the body, and to this all the organs of sense converge. The Soul animates the body by
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 123
means of the vital warmth, which has its source in the heart, and is maintained by the process of breathing. The more intense the animal hrat in the living being, the more excellent is the Soul by which it is animated. Death is the extinction of this animal heat.
ETHICS AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. §37.
1. In his Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between the two parts of the Soul — the rational part and the irrational — of which, however, the latter participates in the former. The rational part is the Reason (Stdvoia) ; the irrational the Appetitive Faculty (6/ots<c). lie further distinguishes the Speculative from Practical lleason ; the former is concerned with truth in itself and for its own sake ; the object and end of the latter is the guidance of human actions. He also distinguishes between /3owAi/<ri£ and TT/ooti/jotdte- The fiov\iiai£ is directed towards the (essen tial) end. In this , respect man is not free ; the end, which is one with the good, is necessarily desired by man, for the reason that man cannot strive for anything but the good. The npouiptaiz, on the other hand, is concerned with the means to the end. With regard to the means of attaining the end man is free ; between the several means he can exer cise a choice. In the irpoaipiais, or Election, the two faculties, the Siavoia and opi£,i£ always co-operate with one another ; the former exer cises consideration and deliberation, the latter the act of choice. There are thus two causes, under the influence of which an act may cease to be free — Ignorance and Violence.
2. The goods which are the object of desire Aristotle divides into three classes — the morally good, the useful, and the agreeable (k-aA6i', (TVfjitytpov KOI i'i$v), according as a good is desirable for its own sake, or merely for sake of another good, or lastly for sake of pleasure. He further distinguishes between goods of the soul, goods of the body, and external goods, according as they benefit the soul, or the body, or en hance our external condition. Lastly, he distinguishes between the highest good and subordinate goods, understanding by the highest good that which is desired for its own sake, and for sake of which all other things are desired, and by subordinate goods all those which are desired as means to the attainment of the highest.
3. These preliminary notions being defined, Aristotle sets himself to determine wherein the highest good consists. He observes, at the out set, that he does not, like Plato, understand by this term that good which is absolutely the highest, but only the good, which relatively to •man, is the highest; that good, to wit, which it is possible for man to reach by his efforts in this life. Now it is evident that the highest good, in this sense of the word, is happiness (ti»£ui/*on'u), for experience teaches us that in all that we do, and leave undone, we are ever striving
124 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
to attain this object. But in a discussion of this question, the important point is to define happiness, to determine what is involved in this notion — What is the nature of happiness ?
4. The teaching of Aristotle on this question is directed to show that the happiness of man does not consist in mere passive enjoyment — for this the brute possesses — but rather in action (tvipyfut), and in action of that kind which is peculiar to man, as contrasted with other living beings — intellectual action. It is not, however, intellectual action of any kind whatever which constitutes happiness, but only virtuous action, that action which springs from virtue, and is in accordance with its laws (Eth. Nic. X. c. 6), for this alone is appropriate to the nature of man. It follows that the highest happiness corresponds to the highest virtue. Though happiness does not consist in pleasure, but in virtuous action, we are not to conclude that pleasure is altogether excluded from happiness. Virtuous action gives rise to the highest form of pleasure, and to the keenest enjoyment. We must, therefore, include pleasure in our concept of happiness, in so far as it is a result of virtuous action, and is thus, in a certain sense, the ultimate complement of our notion of happiness.
5. This analysis of the notion of happiness indicates only the essen tial elements of the concept ; happiness, to be complete, requires further :
(«) That it be enjoyed not merely for a short time, but through a life-time, which shall reach at least the average length ; "one swallow does not make a summer, "neither does the bliss of one day make happiness.
(b) That man shall be provided with the goods of the body, and with external goods ; for it can hardly be said of a man whom fortune has entirely deserted, and who is the victim of bodily pain, that he is truly happy.
(c) Lastly, that man shall have friends ; for intercourse with friends effectually en courages and promotes virtuous action, and thus leads to a happy life.
6. Since happiness consists in virtuous action, it is evident that virtue is a necessary means to attainment. We are thus led to seek a definition of the notion of virtue. Virtue, says Aristotle, may be denned as a habit (habitus, t^ig), by which man exercises the proper functions of his nature with ease, with promptness, and with steadfast ness. It follows that virtue cannot be learned, but must be acquired by practice. Virtue is not one ; there are as many kinds of virtue as there are different ends to which the rational activity of man can be directed.
7. In classifying the virtues, Aristotle bases his classification on the distinction already indicated between the rational part of the soul and that part which is irrational, though participating in reason. He distin guishes two kinds of virtue — the ethical and the dianoetical ; the former belong to the appetitive faculty (o/oe£te), the part of the soul which is itself irrational, though participating in reason ; the latter belongs to the rational part of the soul.
8. The ethical virtues are, in part, concerned with the Traflrj. Passions, or sensuous affections, in so far as these are governed and guided by reason ; in part they have to do immediately with external action, in so far as it is controlled by reason. It is characteristic of all ethical vir-
lV <>K HIT. «.KKEKS. 125
tucs that they maintain a just mean between two opposing vices, one of which denotes excess (tnrfp/3oX^), the other defect (t'AAtn//tc)- This just mean is that which eacli iiiiiu fixes for himself by rational deliberation medium rationis). It is only in the case of Justice that the medium nil i( mis (the mean of reason) is the medium rei (the objective mean.)
9. According to Aristotle, the ethical virtues can be reduced to the following cardinal virtues : Fortitude (avSptta} maintains the mean be tween fear and rashness (/UE<TOT»)C irtpl 0o/3oi>c KOI tiuppi)) ; Temperance ((TwQpovvvTi) guards the mean between pleasures and pains (//to-orrje 7re/ui TjSova? »cat \viraf;), but refers to pleasure rather than to pain, and chiefly to those pleasures which are lowest in kind, and which are com mon to men and to brutes ; Liberality (tXtvOfpiurriz) and Magnificence (ntyaXoTrptTrtia) preserve the mean in giving and receiving (//eo-JriK Trtpl Soaiv KOI \7i\friv), avoiding the extremes of prodigality and niggard liness. Liberality is concerned with small values, magnificence with great. Highmindedness and Ambition (/utyaXo^v^ta nal (fnXort/nia) ob serve the proper mean in matters respecting honour and dishonour (jufdorrjc trtpl TI/ATJV KOI UTI/HIOV) ; Mildness preserves the proper mean in the seeking of revenge (/«<Torrjc rrtpl opyi'iv) ; Truthfulness, Readiness in social intercourse, and Friendliness (aXi'ititta, tvTpcnrtXtia, ^tA/a) pre serve the mean in the use of words and actions in society (^£(ror»/rtc Trtpl Xby<vv KOI Trpa^etov Kotvuvtav). The first of these three virtues re gards veracity (aArj&'e) in words and actions, the two others are con cerned with the agreeable (i/Su) — the one tvTpa-rrtXtta. having its place in social pastimes (iv rate Trat&atc), the other <fn\ia, in all other social re lations (iv rate Kara TOV aXXov /3tov o/uiXtaig). A further virtue is Shame.
10. But the most important and the most excellent of the ethical virtues is Justice (St«ato(rui'»;). In the widest sense Justice is the prac tice of all the ethical virtues towards our fellow-men, in which sense it is equivalent to the observance of law. In a narrower sense, as a special virtue, it is concerned with equality (taov) in the matter of gain or dis advantage. In this sense it is of two kinds : either it deals with the distribution (iv rdlg Stai/ojua7e) of honours or possessions among the members of a community (justitia distributiva), or it deals with the transactions of men infer sc (iv ro7c cfvvu\\ay/j.a(riv). This equalising process is partly voluntary, partly involuntary ; to the first kind belongs justice in contracts (justitia commutativa) ; to the second belongs justice in inflicting punishment (justitia vindicativa.*) Equity (iirttiKtia} is
* " Distributive Justice (TO iv ra?c Eiavopalc MKCUOV) rests upon a geometrical pro portion : As the several persons in question are to one another in moral worth (a£i'n), BO must be that which ia allotted to each. Commutative Justice (ri> Iv role uvvoXXay fiaffi fiicaiov, or TO oiopflwrtjcov, o yivtTai Iv To'if oin>a\\dyna<n icai roif ticovoioif, KOI r<i7f aKoi'<n'o<c) is also an equalising principle (Iffov), but rests on an arithmetical rather than on a geometrical proportion ; for tne moral worth of the several persons is not, in this case, taken into consideration, but only the gain secured, or the loss suffered. Commutative justice removes the difference between the original possession and the diminished (or increased) possession which results from loss (or gain), by causing a gain (or loss) equal to the diminution (or the increase). The original condition thus re-estab lished is a mc'in between the less and the greater, according to arithmetical proportion."
126 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
connected with Justice. Eights are of two kinds, natural and positive (BiKatov <}>v<nKov teal vofUKov] . Equity applies to positive rights established by legal enactments, and is an emanation from or complement of legal justice to meet the needs of individual cases. The provisions of the law must be general and applicable to the normal condition of things ; individual cases do not always accord with this common standard ; in such cases equity makes good the defects of the law, it prescribes a course of action conformable to the intention of the law-giver, such a course as he would require were he present himself.
11. The Dianoetic Virtues are of two kinds, those which belong to the Practical Reason, and those which belong to the Speculative Reason. In the first class are included Art (T-SXVIJ) and Practical Wisdom (^povijo-te), of which the former regulates the action directed to produce some ex trinsic result (TroteTu) ; the latter fixes the right method in attaining the goodness intrinsic to actions in themselves (irparTtiv}. To the second class belong Understanding (vovg], Science (brurHj/uif), and Wisdom (<ro<f>la). Of these Understanding has to do with the knowledge of first principles, Science with the demonstration of truth, and Wisdom with speculative inquiry into the ultimate causes of all being.
12. In order of importance these virtues are related to one another as the faculties of the Soul to which they respectively belong. Lowest in the scale are the ethical virtues. Above these are the virtues of the Practical Reason, and highest in order the virtues of the Speculative Reason. Among the virtues of the Speculative Reason, Wisdom holds the first place. We have seen that happiness consists in virtuous — action, and that in the highest virtue is found the highest happiness. This being so, it is clear that it is not in the active life, in which the ethical virtues are exercised, that the highest happiness is attained, but in the contemplative life, in which the dianoetic virtues, Understandin, Science, and Wisdom, are practised.
13. From this it follows that it is in pure speculation, Oiupia, that- the highest degree of happiness is reached. Thought of this kind springs from the highest virtue ; it is furthermore concerned with the » highest object of our knowledge, and thus results in the highest kind of pleasure. The happiness which this Btwpia brings with it does not sup pose any busy activity, it can be enjoyed in rest and retirement.*' More over it does not require to be supplemented by external goods so largely as the happiness of the active life. By the Biwpia man approaches the divinity ; for since the happiness of the gods consists in Otwpia, i.e., the knowledge of themselves, man's happiness attained by Bewpia is of the divine order. In this condition of happiness man lives, in a certain * sense, a divine life. Everything that goes to make up the notion of supreme happiness is found in this Otwpia. All men, however, cannot attain to it ; the bulk of mankind must content themselves with the happiness of the active life.
14. In the attainment of that happiness which is the end of life,* the individual man is forced to depend on his fellow-men. Man is, of his nature, destined for society. The social bond begins in
Y OF THK GHKF.KS. 127
the family, and is perfected in the State. It is only in the State that num's moral duty can be adequately fulfilled. This brings us to Aris totle's political philosophy.
15. Aristotle teaches that the State is above the individual in the same sense in which the whole is above the part, or the end above the means. But for this very reason it is only in the State that the indi vidual attains his true worth, his true importance. The individual thing, in so far as it is a member of the whole, has its work and its im portance only in the whole and by the whole ; and the principle holds as applied to the individual in his relation to the State. The State is its own end ; the individual exists for the State. The whole worth, and whole destiny of the individual is attained if he is a good citizen, a worthy member of the body politic. (State Absolutism.)
16. The duties of the individual towards the State, and of the State towards the individual, can now be easily determined :
(a) It is the duty of the individual to make himself a capable and useful citizen. The means by which he may attain this end are in dicated by Ethics. Ethical Science is, therefore, a department of Poli tical Philosophy. The happiness which it proposes to man as the object of his efforts can be attained only in civil society. It is only the good citizen who can be a happy man. Hence the notion of virtue in general, and of civic virtue, are one and the same.
(b) It is the duty of the State, on the other hand, to lead the citizen to that happiness which Ethical Science sets before him as the object of his efforts. It has to take thought for the well-being of all. There is, however, only one way of discharging this duty, and that is by edu cating all who belong to the State, so as to make them good and virtuous citizens ; for in virtuous action primarily consists the happiness of men. As, however, material goods and the external goods of fortune are re quisite to the perfection of this happiness, the State must, further, pro vide for the external well-being of its citizens. The question how the State must be constituted, and after what manner it must direct its action in order to secure the ends here specified, it is the province of the Science of Politics to determine.
17. In dealing with the first part of the question — how the State should be constituted in order to secure its end — we must distinguish its social from its political constitution.
(a) In the social constitution, Aristotle does not, like Plato, propose the abolition of the family or of private property. Both must be upheld and protected in the State. According to Aristotle the family is, of its nature, antecedent to the State ; the State, must, therefore, maintain it intact. Liberty of marriage should, however, be restricted by law. More than this : children of defective bodily formation should not be ivaivd, a maximum number of births should be fixed by law, any ex cess beyond this number should be destroyed in embryo. Private pro perty, which, of its nature, is likewise antecedent to the State, must also be inviolate ; the State, should, however, reserve a certain amount of public property for public uses.
128 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(b) It is specially worthy of remark, in connection with the social philosophy of Aristotle, that he is distinctly an advocate of slavery. According to him the individual who is formed for obedience, not for intelligence, is by nature destined to be a slave. The slave is merely an animated instrument ; a sort of detached portion of the body of his- master, and has no rights whatever as against his master. He should, of course, be treated with humanity, but the master who fails so to treat him does him no injustice.
(c) With regard to the political constitution of the State, Aristotle distinguishes three usual forms of government : Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Timocracy (TroAt'rem). Tyranny, Oligarchy, and Democracy (in the sense of ochlocracy, or as it is sometimes styled, mobocracy), are the re spective corruptions of these forms. Of these corruptions, tyranny is the worst, as being the corruption of the form which is the best — the monarchical. The characteristic difference between the good and the bad form of government is found in the end which the governing authority pursues ; the good government seeks the common weal, the evil seeks private interests. The constitution which embraces elements of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, is the most enduring, but in particular cases the form of government must conform to particular needs.
18. In reference to the second question — what must be the action of the State, in order to attain its end ? — the general good, as far as it depends on the action of the State, must be secured by the law and by the N administration of the law. The law, as the expression of reason, must be supreme in the State ; the ruler is merely a living law. A special object of the legislator's attention must bo the education of the young. The final purpose of all education is, of course, virtue. Things which subserve external ends can, however, be subject of instruction, but only in so far as they do not render the learner vulgar (i.e., a pursuer of ex ternal gain for its own sake.) Grammar, Gymnastics, Music, and Arithmetic are the subjects of an elementary general education.
19. The political philosophy of Aristotle is an advance on that of Plato, inasmuch as it does not push the theory of State Absolutism to the length of Socialism. On the other hand, the ethical teaching of Aristotle is inferior to that of Plato, for it does not fix any higher end to which the moral action of man is to be directed, but confines man's- destiny wholly within earthly life, and the sphere of earthly aims. There is no prospect put before him of a higher retribution after death.
20. If, in conclusion, we glance at Aristotle's teaching on the sub ject of Art, we find that he holds it to consist in the imitation (/ui/un<n^) ^ of nature. This imitation " is not, however, a mere copying of indi vidual objects in nature, with their manifold defects, it looks rather to their essential being, and the perfection to which nature tended in their formation, so that while preserving likeness, it is the function of Art to idealise ; it imitates, but it improves in the imitation." The purpose of Art is threefold — delight and recreation ; the calming, purifying,
PHILOSOPHY OF THK OKKKKS. 129
and ennobling of the affections (naBapaiq TWV iraOiifiarujv), and ultimately rtlnVal culture. Tragedy, a special form of Art, is the artistic dramatic representation of some incident which excites pity and fear.
THE CHIEF PERIPATETICS.
§38.
1. The disciples of Aristotle, during the two or three centuries following his death, for the most part abandoned metaphysical specu lation, and derated themselves, some to physical science, and others to the popular treatment of Ethics, from the naturalistic standpoint. The later Peripatetics, on the other hand, returned again to the genuine views of Aristotle, and rendered service chiefly by their interpretation of his writings.
2. Prominent among the older Peripatetics are :
(a) Eudemus of Rhodes, and Theophrastus of Lesbos, the latter of whom is said to have been appointed by Aristotle himself as his successor, and for thirty-five years presided over the Peripatetic School. Eudemus seems to have followed Aristotle with fidelity : Theophrastus exercised more independence in his teaching. In the details in which they differ from Aristotle, it will be observed that Eudemus shows a tendency to be theological, Theophrastus to be naturalistic. In Logic, Eudemus and Theophrastus gave fuller development to the doctrine of Problematical Judgments and the Syllogism.
(ft) The chief merit of Theophrastus lies in the extension he gave to natural science, especially to botany (phytology), and in his life-like delineation of human character. His chief work : 'HOiKin xnnaKT^ptf, is on the latter subject. In metaphysics and psychology he shows a disposition to adopt a theory of immanence, in the solution of problems to which Aristotle had applied the notion of transcendence. Hut he remains faithful, in the main, to the Aristotelian views. He holds the vovc to be the better and more divine part of man, and to come from an external source ; he asserts it possesses a certain separateness in existence (xwpurpoc), and yet he will have it to be in some way or other congenital with man's nature (irvn<t>i>To^). It is not clear what is the precise drift of his teaching on this point. The activity of thought he describes as motion (fivriaic), but not a motion in space. In his ethics he lays special stress on the " Choregia " secured to virtue by tne possession of external goods, without which, he thinks, happiness is not attainable.*
Praxiphanes, a pupil of Theophrastus (B.C. 300), gave special attention to the study of Grammar.
(c) Aristoxenus of Tarentum, the " Musician," and Dictearchus of Messene. The former held the soul to be the Harmony of the body. The latter assumes that in dividual substantial souls do not exist, but that a single living sensitive force is diffused through all organic beings, which is transiently individualized in corporeal forms (Cic. Tuac. I. 10.) He ex;ilts practice over theory, and holds speculation to be of little moment. Phanias, Clearchus, and Demetrius follow him.
((/) Strato of Lampsacus, the "Physicist," who succeeded Theophrastus in his teaching functions about B.C. 288 or 287, and presided over the school for eighteen years. He transformed the teaching of Aristotle into a consistent system of Naturalism. He abandons the Aristotelian notion of a voi>c distinct from Matter, and he asserts that in everything which is produced, we have no more than the mere natural effects of
• Cfr. Meuren. Perijxitetirorum Philmophia morali* srrttndiim Stobtritm. "Wicmar, 1859. In lati r times, Theophrastus was frequently n-proiirhnl with having approved the maxim of the poet: Vitam rfgit furtuna, turn iapirntia ; but it would appear that ho admitted the principle only in reference' to goods. Theophrastus distinctly holds that Tirtue is to be sought for its own sake, and that without virtue all external Roods are worthless (Cic. Time. 5,9; Dr Ley., 1, 13). A slight departure from moral virtue, Theophrastus w,,uld wrmit. nnd even enjoin, when it is necessary to aid a friend, to avoid some great evil, or attain some important good.
10
130 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
gravity and motion. Nature is merely the comprehensive concept of the divine powers, which work unconsciously in the physical world. There is no difference between Per ception and Thought ; the seat of Thought is in the head, between the eyebrows ; there the (material) traces (virofiuvrj) oTthe images of perception persist — to revive again when memory is exercised.
A similar line of speculation seems to have been followed by Plato's successors : — Lyco, his pupil, Aristo, Critolaus, Diodorus, Staseas, and Cratippus.
3. The most remarkable of the later Peripatetics are :
(a) Andronicus of Rhodes, the editor of the writings of Aristotle (B.C. 70) ; Boethus of Sidon (about the time of Julius Caesar) ; Nicolas of Damascus (under Augustus and Tiberius). These writers rendered important service in promoting the study of Aristotle's writings, and helping to make them understood. Andronicus, in his exposition of Aristotle's teaching, began with Logic. His pupil, Boethus, was of opinion that Physics is the science which first presents itself to us, which is more intelligible to us, and with which, therefore, philosophy should begin. The followers of these philosophers include Alexander of /Eg*, Nero's tutor (A.D. 50) ; Adrastus of Aphrodisias (A.D. 100) ; Aspasias (A.D. 150), and Herminus.
(ft) Aristocles of Messene, and his pupil Alexander of Aphrodisias, the "Exegete'' (A.D. 200). In Aristocles we find a tendency to Stoicism — an eclecticism which prepared the way for the fusion of the chief philosophical systems in Neo-Platonism. Alexander of Aphrodisias, was the most famous of the interpreters of Aristotle ; he is the Exegete KCIT' iloxi'iv. He distinguishes in man a vo\>s f>\i*c6e, a vovc TTOIJJTKCOC, and a vovs in-iicn/roc or voi>e KO.(? i£iv, but identifies the vove TTOITITIKOQ with the Godhead, as already indicated.
(c) From the Neo-Platonist school came also some distinguished interpreters of Aristotle, e.g., Porphyry (in the third century) ; Philoponus and Simplicius (sixth century.)
The celebrated physician, Galenas (born about A.D. 131), may be included amongst the interpreters of Aristotle. He was indeed an Eclectic, but his views are, on the whole, in accord with the Peripatetic teaching. We shall, however, have to notice him again when we speak of the Eclectics.
THIRD PERIOD. DECAY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. §39.
1. The golden age of Greek Philosophy closes with Aristotle. The freedom of Greece was lost in the battle of Chacronea (B.C. 338). The military power which rose on the northern frontier of the Peninsula, laid its iron hand upon the free land of Greece, and stifled the life which had hitherto pulsated within it. It was in vain that the great orator, Demosthenes, a " particularist " in the best sense of the term, strove to rouse the Greeks by his potent eloquence to watchfulness and to union against the danger. Philip of Macedon was able to paralyse his efforts. He was able to form in Greece itself a party which withstood the efforts of the great Demosthenes, dissolved the bonds of union among the Greeks, and so prepared the way for the final blow at Cha?ronca.
PHILOSOPHY OF Till. (.KKKKS. Itfl
The party of Aeschines triumphed over the patriotism of Demosthenes, and made Greece a prey to the Northern State.
2. The loss of liberty and independence was followed by its natural result — the torpor of the creative powers of the Greek mind. Under a military tyranny Art and Science cannot flourish. This was signally exemplified in the philosophy of Greece. The Greek mind, held in thrall by the Macedonian power, could no longer attempt an indepen dent solution of speculative problems. It contented itself with returning xipon the results attained by earlier thinkers, and reproducing these in new guise for philosophic study. In executing this task the philoso phers of this period were not so much guided by love of pure specula tion as by practical aims. To discover the conditions and methods by which the individual may reach happiness here below, was the chief end they proposed to themselves. The theoretic elements which the philosophers of this period adopted from earlier systems were utilised chiefly to establish and to justify the practical doctrines regarding sub jective happiness on earth, which the several philosophers professed. The lofty mystical flights of Plato, the preference for the Otupia over practical philosophy, which we observe in Aristotle, are not to be found in this period ; the Greek mind was no longer capable of this elevation of thought.
3. We cannot be surprised to find that the sum of truth contained in the systems of Greek Philosophy subsequently to the time of Aristotle is reduced to a small compass, and to observe that the ideal or super- sensuous element finds no place in the philosophy of this period. The lofty speculative ideas of Plato and the sharply-defined metaphysical conceptions of Aristotle are succeeded by the realistic pantheism of the vStoics and the dull materialism of the Epicureans. Plato's mystical view of the nature of knowledge and Aristotle's well-marked distinction between intellectual and sensuous cognition disappear, and we have instead Empiricism and Sensualism. Virtue is no longer connected with a higher spiritual destiny of man, as in the Platonic system ; it is either made its own end, as in the system of the Stoics, or regarded merely as a means to pleasure, as in the view of the Epicureans. The primitive philosophical notions, beyond which the Socratic systems had advanced, were again brought into prominence, and thus a retrograde movement began, which must be described as a decline of philosophy. In due course the scepticism which this relaxation of the earnest philo sophical spirit was sure to call forth, made its appearance, and its wasting action utterly destroyed the diminished sum of truth still remaining. This scepticism was the expression of the utter impotence of the philo sophical spirit, the death of philosophy, the quagmire in which the current of Greek philosophy was lost.
4. The old spirit of Greek independence and liberty seemed to revive for a time in Sparta when Cleomenes restored the constitution of Lycurgus, and again in the .^Etolian and Achaian Leagues, under Aratus and Philopccmen (B.C. 210). But soon another military power — that of the Romans, took the place of Macedon. By the full of Corinth
132 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(B.C. 145) Greece became subject to Rome, and was reduced to the con dition of a Roman province. A consequence of its subjugation was that the language, literature, and refinement of Greece were introduced into Rome. • At an earlier period (B.C. 155), three Greek philosophers, Critolaus (a Peripatetic), Carneades (an Academic), and Diogenes (a Stoic), had visited Rome as ambassadors of Athens, and had taken advantage of their visit to recommend by their discourses the philo sophy and science of Greece to the Roman youth. After the conquest of Greece, this kind of intercourse between Greeks and Romans was more actively carried on. But no higher development of philosophical speculation was attained by the Greeks, nor did the leaven of Greek civilization introduced at Rome give rise to an original Roman phi losophy.
5. The Romans were a people of a practical turn, devoted to practical political aims, and took little pleasure in philosophical speculations. Such mental occupations they held to be useless, aimless, and undig nified. The concerns of his country, the promoting of its prosperity at home and of its glory and power abroad, were the only objects which the Roman thought worthy of his efforts. Moreover, he had an interest in preserving Roman principles and Roman morals from the corrupting influences of the later philosophy of Greece. His national pride, too, disdained to imitate the despised Grcfculi in their scientific labours. All these causes combined to prevent the growth of an independent philo sophy in Rome. The philosophy of the Romans is merely a more or less modified reproduction of the philosophical theories of Greece ; and in their choice of systems the Romans confined themselves almost exclu sively to those of later origin, chiefly to those of the Stoics and Epicu reans. The systems of Plato and Aristotle, which involved profound and far-reaching speculation, were not to their taste. We find in much favour amongst them a certain Eclecticism, which borrowed from the different systems what appeared to be most probable in each.
What is called the philosophy of Rome is merely an offshoot of Greek philosophy transplanted to a foreign soil, which occasionally assumes a somewhat peculiar character, but which cannot be regarded as a creation of the Roman mind. In the time of the Ca?sars, Epicurean I notions affected more and more profoundly the life of the Roman people ; I but this is to be attributed to the profoun'd moral corruption which grew' and spread abroad under the Empire.
6. In accordance with the general outlines which we have here traced, we proceed to treat first of Stoicism, then of Epicureanism, and lastly of Scepticism and Eclecticism. Roman philosophy we shall not treat apart ; we shall refer to the several Roman philosophers when dealing with the school of Greek philosophy to which they happen to belong. For since Roman philosophy is no more than an offshoot from the Greek, it can be rightly treated only in connection with the latter.
PHILOSOPHY <>1 NIK GREEKS. 133
THE STOICS.
ZENO, CLEAXTHES, AND CHRYSIPPUS. GENERAL REMARKS.
§40.
1. The School of the Stoics was founded by Zeno of Cittium (in Cyprus), a pupil of Crates the Cynic, of Stilpo the Megarian, and of the Academics Xenocrates and Polemon. He lived between B.C. 350 and B.C. '258. Zeno was the son of a merchant, and was himself, for a time, engaged in trade. It is said that he was compelled to take up his residence in Athens in consequence of a shipwreck. At Athens he attached himself successively to the philosophers named above. .Shortly after the year B.C. 310, he founded his own school in the aroa iroiKiXr] — a portico adorned with the paintings of Polygnotus, whence the title "Stoic," bestowed on his school. He is said to have taught for fifty - eiglit years. The Athenians held him in high esteem. His writings (on the State, on Life in accordance with Nature, &c.) have all been lost. His pupils were : Pers.'tus of Cittium, Aristo of Chios, Herillus of Carchedon (Carthage), and, most remarkable of all, Cleanthes.
2. Cleanthes of Assus, in Troas, the successor of Zeno in his teaching functions, was originally a pugilist, and during the period of his instruction by Zeno earned his liveli hood by working during the night, carrying water and kneading dough. "It was only slowly and with difficulty that he mastered philosophical theories, but when he had once mastered them, he held them tenaciously, for which reason Zeno compared him to a hard slab, on which it is difficult to make an impression, but which preserves indelibly the lines traced on it." Cleanthes has left us a " Hymn to the Most High God." His other writings have perished. Sphaerus of Bosphorus, Booth us, and Chrysippus were his pupils.
3. Chrysippus of Soli or Tarsus, in Cilicia (B.C. 282-209), was the successor of Cleanthes in his school. By his thoroughly systematic development of the doctrines of Stoicism, he deserved to be reckoned the second founder of the Stoic school. He was a very prolific writer. He is said to have written 500 lines daily, and to have composed 750 books. These works contained many quotations from other writers, specially from the poets, and contained also many repetitions and corrections (Diog. Laert. VII. 180). The successors of Chrysippus were Zeno of Tarsus and Diogenes of Babylon — the same who has been mentioned in connection with the embassy to Koine. After these the next head of the school was Antipater of Tarsus.
Thus much witli reference to the "older" Stoics, who founded and developed the system of the school. The " later" Stoics we shall have occasion to notice further on. \Ve shall occupy ourselves for the present with the doctrines of Stoicism.
4. The Stoics regarded philosophy as primarily a practical concern. Regarded in this light, it was for them a striving after virtue, after that which is alone worthy of our desires, and on which the whole happiness of man is based. In a secondary sense, it had a theoretical character. Considered from the theoretical 'point of view, they regarded it as right insight, depending on a knowledge of things divine and human. The theoretical aspect was, however, subordinate to the practical and found in the latter its end and purpose. For right insight must teach us that Virtue is the highest good, and must show us the way by which we can and must attain to Virtue.
5. These principles being premised, the Stoics divided philosophy into three parts : Logic, Physics, and Ethics. Theology is included in Physics. For this reason Physics would, of itself, take precedence of
- HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Ethics. As a matter of fact, however, it is subservient to the latter. The Logic of the Stoics is their theory of the Xo-yot, i.e. of thoughts and language ; and they therefore divide it into Dialectic and Rhetoric. Dialectic includes the Theory of Knowledge, Logic (in the Aristotelian sense), and Grammar. To Grammatical Science the Stoics rendered important services, but it would be beyond the scope of our present work to follow them into this field of study. We shall confine ourselves to an exposition, first, of their Logic and Theory of Knowledge ; then, of their Physics ; and lastly, of their Ethics.
LOGIC AND THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE STOICS.
§ 41.
1. The Stoics teach that all intellectual knowledge takes rise in sensuous perception. The soul, at first, is like a sheet of blank paper, on which representations of things are afterwards delineated by the senses. The beginning of all knowledge is, therefore, the aiaQr\aiq (perception of sense). This, as soon as we are conscious of it, becomes a Representation (fyavTaaia] or mental image. During the formation of this Representation the Soul is purely passive, the Representation is like the impression of a seal on wax (rviruais "tv ^v^j, for which duysippus, to modify the doctrine, substituted tTtpo'idxns ;/-I;Y/JCJ an alteration in the Soul). According to this view, the object of itself produces its Representation on the subject, and this Representation manifests itself, and in itself the corresponding object, to the subject. "When we have apprehended an object, the remembrance of this object remains after the object has been removed. A large number of memo ries of this kind constitute experience (t/unrtipia}.
2. In the further progress of the process of thought, Concepts are formed from these Representations. The formation of Concepts is effected in two ways. Some arc formed spontaneously and without con scious co-operation on our part (avf7rtre\''jrwc)- Others are the outcome of a deliberate and methodical process of thought. A number of similar Representations having been produced within us, there arise, spon taneously and without any reflex thought on our part, certain universal notions, which form a basis for the reflex and methodical formation of Concepts. These notions are called by the Stoics TrpoXtytis or Kotvat tvvoiai. In a second stage, the reflex activity of thought is exercised. It detects resemblances and analogies, transforms and combines notions, and so forms artificially reflex Concepts, called by the Stoics tvrotai. For the ten categories of Aristotle the Stoics substitute, as ultimate universal concepts (jtviKwrara), Substance (or Substratum), Essential Quality, Accidental State or Condition, and Relation.
3. Judgment and Inference depend upon Concepts. The Stoics added to the theory of inference their doctrine regarding the hypo-
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 135
theticul syllogism — a form of reasoning which Aristotle did not specially investigate. By inference, say the Stoics, we are able to advance from one truth to another, and thus are in a position to investigate the causes of phenomena. In this way Science (t7r«rrij)ui)) is created — the highest form of human knowledge. The right formation both of Concepts and of Judgments and Inferences is regulated by certain rules, which it is the province of Dialectic to lay down.
4. With regard to the relation subsisting between Concept and Being, the Stoics seem to have adopted the view which, in the Middle Ages, was known as that of the Nominalists. They combat alike the Platonic and the Aristotelian doctrine of the objective reality of Con cepts ; they assert that the Concept is something purely subjective, formed by a process of abstraction, to which, however, no real being corresponds in the objective order. The individual, as such, is the only thing which has real existence ; the universal concept is a purely sub jective product of the process of thought, whether we consider the form of the thought, or the thing given in the thought. In this doctrine we have distinctly brought before us the purely empirical character of the Stoic Theory of Knowledge. For in this theory Concepts are deprived of all relation to the essential being of things, and are thus reduced to mere generalized sensuous perceptions.
5. The Stoics, in their Theory of Knowledge, occupy themselves largely with the question of a criterion of truth. They find this cri terion in the icaraXr^te (Apprehension). This KaraXrj^tc is attained when the object is represented in the mind with such clearness, force, and energy of conviction, that the truth of the representation cannot be denied. In such circumstances, the representation, and in the represen tation the object, is grasped or apprehended ((caraXa/u/Sai/trat) with absolute certainty. A representation thus clear, and thus forcing conviction (^ai/rao-m »caraX»]7r7-<icj/), is necessarily recognised as indubi tably true, while the representation which does not exhibit this clearness or carry this force of conviction (^avraaia aKaraXrjTrroc) does not give the same certainty, and must, therefore, be regarded only as more or less probable.
0. In accordance with these principles, the Stoics define Knowledge as (Stob. Eel. Eth. II. 128) RarttXq^«C acr^aXj)c KOI a^raTTTOjroe viro \6yov — certain and indisputable apprehension by means of a concept, and define Science as a system from such apprehensions. According to Cicero (Acad. II. 47), Zeno compared Perception to the extension of the fingers, Assent ((riryKara&crte) to the hand half-closed, the Appre hension of the object (KaraXii^tg) to the hand fully closed (the fist), and Knowledge to the grasping of the fist by the other hand, whereby it is more strongly and securely closed. Knowledge, according to this account of the theory, is KaraXr/^ perfected. It is, however, to be remarked that on the point here in question the several Stoics differ widely from one another.
136 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
PHYSICS OF THE STOICS. §42.
1. Empiricists in their logical teaching, the Stoics are realists in their views regarding physical nature ; that is to say, they maintain that all real being is corporeal, that there is no incorporeal existence. In their physics they do no more than largely develop the doctrine of Heraclitus that Fire is the ultimate principle of all things, and the further doctrine of the perpetual flux of generation and decay.
2. For the four Aristotelian principles of things the Stoics substitute two — TO TTOIOVV and TO traayov, the active principle and the passive, Matter and Force. In order that a thing may come to exist, there must be a Matter, uArj, out of which the thing is formed, and a Force, which communicates to it the form it receives. Matter is, in itself, without motion and without form, but capable of receiving any motion and any form. Force, on the other hand, is the active, moving, formative prin ciple. It is inseparably united with Matter.
3. On these notions are constructed the theological and cosmological systems of the Stoics. To explain the origin of the world, two principles, they think, must be assumed — Matter, out of which the world is formed, and a formative principle. The latter is God. These two principles, God and Matter, must not, however, be regarded as substantially differ ent from one another. God, being the active force, is substantially one writh the passive principle — Matter. The relation of God to the world is the relation of soul to body. The world is the body of God. This pantheistical view, which unites God and the world in one being, is resolutely maintained by the Stoics.
4. But, we may ask, what is the nature of this God, who is the active formative force of the universe ? To this question the Stoics reply :—
(a] God, as the Efficient Cause in the Universe, must be conceived as of the nature of Fire or ^Ether, who under the form of heat pervades the universe, and thereby gives it actual existence (TO TTU/O Tt\vtKov, the creative or forming fire). For experience shows us that being and life in nature are dependent upon internal vital heat. Under this aspect, God appears as universal energy in nature (^vatc), pervading, animating, and vivifying the world ; hence we sometimes find that the Stoics use interchangeably the notions " Nature " and " God."
(b) God, as the formative principle of the world, is to be regarded as an universal cosmical Reason, which forms the universe, and estab lishes it in order, in obedience to the inherent law of His being, which obliges Him to act according to plan and purpose. That the divine nature must be regarded as a Living Reason, is evident from the facts •
(1) That beauty, order, and purpose, prevail throughout the uni verse, and these suppose a reasoning cause ;
PHILOSOPHY OF TIIK (iRKKKS.
(2) That certain parts of the universe of things are possessed of con sciousness, an impossibility, if the universe, as a whole, were not con scious ; for the whole, as such, must always be more perfect than any of its parts.
(c) The divine nature is, therefore, to be conceived as a rational, artistically working Fire, which is at once the Soul and the Reason of the universe. As Universal Reason, God contains within Himself, in the rational state, the germs of the objects which constitute the world (Aoyoc (TirepnaTiKuq, " seminal reason ") ; these germs receive actuality, and become manifest in the individual objects of the real world by the action of God as the Soul of the Universe.
5. After this statement of general principles, the Stoics further dis tinguish two aspects of the divine nature. The Divine Fire manifests itself, on the one hand, as vital heat ; as such it is wholly sunk in ma terial nature ; in another of its manifestations it is, to a certain extent, liberated and independent. This nobler portion of the Divine Being is the pure luminous ^Ether, the proper region of which is the higher parts of the universe. This luminous a)ther is, therefore, the iiytnoviKov fttpoQ,
or governing part of the Godhead, the Zeus of mythology, the proper principle of universal Reason, the highest wisdom, and the supreme law of all things.
6. Having thus explained the nature of God — the creative and for mative principle in the universe — the Stoics next describe the process by which the universe was formed. The Divine Primal Fire was first con densed into Air and Water; the Water in part turned into Earth, in part remained Water, and in part was rarefied into Air, which again returned to the state of Fire. The two more condensed elements, Earth and AVater, are chiefly passive, the two more rarefied, Air and Fire, arc chiefly active. This theory, like that of Heraclitus, involves the universe in a cycle of perpetual changes. By continual condensation, the elements are ever coming forth from the Primal Fire, and by continual rarefactions they are returning to it again. The denser elements give rise to individual objects, in which the \6joi airtp^aTinoi attain actual existence.
7. From the principles here laid down are readily deduced the attri butes which the Stoics assigned to the world. Considered as forming one being :
(a) The visible, or, as we may say, corporeal world, is indeed the body of God ; but the world, taken in its entirety, is God himself. In essential intrinsic nature, it is nothing more than the Being of God, evolving itself into a visible world.
(b) The world being, in a certain sense, God rendered concrete, is furthermore the best^and most excelle^jiajrld^onceivablc. All the predicate's which express the highest perfection, may therefore be attri buted to it It is rational, wise, provident, and the fulness of beauty. How could rational beings form part of it, if it were not rational it sell :•"
(c) The world, as a whole, is God ; its parts considered as forming subordinate wholes, in which the Divine Force manifests itself, must be regarded as subordinate gods. This is more especially true of the Stars
138 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
and the Elements. By the aid of this principle the Stoics endeavour to explain the whole mythological system.
8. In its material aspect, i.e., viewed as it manifests itself to our experience, the world, according to the Stoics, is a well-ordered unity, limited in extent, and spherical in shape. Beyond the world there is only an endless vacuum. Time is the range of the world's motion ; it is without limit in the past, and without limit in the future. Indi vidual objects in the universe are all different from one another. No two leaves, no two living things, are perfectly alike.
9. Turning from the consideration of the constitution of the universe as a whole, and directing our attention to the course of its existence, i.e., to the succession in time of the events that are accomplished in the world, we meet with another notion, to which special prominence is given in the system of the Stoics — the notion of Providence (-n-povoia.) Since God is the Reason of the universe, it follows that the whole series of events accomplished in the world is controlled and guided by the Divine Reason. Here we arrive at the notion of a Providence. This Reason acts according to plan and purpose, and guides all things with intelligence and wisdom.
10. Owing to their pantheistical conceptions, the Stoics could not. admit a theory of Providence which would leave room for liberty, and for the occurrence of merely casual incidents in the world. Their notion of Providence led immediately to the notion of Destiny or Fate (c(/ua/>julvn.) They taught that all things happen from necessity, and this necessity, they explained, rests upon an inexorable Fate. God Himself is not free. He must act according to the necessities of His nature ; the same necessity must control the course of events in the world, for the world is nothing more than the evolution of the Divine Nature. This necessity is called Fate. To the dominion of Fate all things are subject.
11. It is clear that the liberty of the human will could not be recon ciled with these fatalistic notions. Hence we find that it was peremp torily denied by the older Stoics. Chrysippus, however, endeavoured to assert it in a modified form. He distinguished between a man's indi vidual acts, and his general inner character, from which these individual acts proceed. The general inner character, according to which a man is obliged to act, is, in every case, determined by Fate, and to this extent is pro-determined, but in individual actions man determines himself, and in this sense acts with freedom.
12. Man must, therefore, be compared to a stone rolling down a mountain. The stone, once set in motion, rolls downwards of itself without a further impulse ; so the human will, once determined by Fate, accomplishes the individual acts in which its general character manifests itself, without need of a further impulse from Fate. This is sufficient for freedom. If we fancy at times that we are acting with absolute freedom, i.e., without any pre- determination whatever, this is because, in certain cases, we are not conscious of the motives which influence our will.
PHILOSOPHY OP TIIK CJKKKKS. 131)
13. The course of events in the world comes to an end when, after a certain period, the Godhead absorbs all things into itself. This is accomplished by a general conflagration, in which all things perish in fire. But after every such catastrophe a new world is again evolved, which in all its parts resembles the old — the all-controlling Necessity not permitting a difference. These successive processes of the destruc tion and renewed creation of the world continue without end.
14. The human soul is a part of the Deity, an emanation from God, between whom and the soul there is mutual action and re-action. The soul, like God, is of the nature of fire ; it is the wann breath within us ; the heart is the centre from which its influence radiates. It is generated at the same time as the body. It consists of eight parts — one principal part rrytpoviKov [*tpi£*-to which Reason belongs, located in the heart ; five Senses ; the Faculty of Speech ; and the Reproductive Faculty. The last-named parts may be described, in contrast with the first or rational part, as the irrational parts of the soul. These extend like so many polyps from the central part, and ramify through their respective organs.
15. The soul is, of its nature, destructible ; it can, however, survive the body. Whether the soul does actually outlive the body, is a point on which the Stoics are divided. Cleanthes asserted that all souls sur vive till the conflagration of the world ; Chrysippus allowed this privi lege only to the souls of the wise. Panrctius (Cic. Tusc. I. 32), appears to have denied all immortality to the soul. He would, however, seem to have been alone in this opinion. Those who held that all souls exist till the conflagration of the world, taught further chat only the souls of the wise lived after this life in the condition of pure fire ; the souls of fools, they held, retained a kind of body after death.
16. Man is the most perfect product of nature. He stands at the top of the scale of natural beings ; the gods alone are above him. All things else exist for the gods and for man ; man's destiny is to contem plate and admire the universe. The human race, in conjunction with the gods, forms a sort of divine polity, the fundamental law of which is that Natural Law which reveals itself on all sides in the world. This leads us to the Ethical Svstem of the Stoics.
ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE STOICS. §43.
1. In accordance with the fundamental principles of their physical theories, the Stoics taught iluit the supreme duty and highest purpose of man's life is " to live according to Nature." By Nature they did not here understand the individual nature of man ; they used the term in its wide and universal >eiise. In Nature the eternal and divine law mani fests itself, and as this law is the measure to which all tilings in the
140 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
universe must couform in their action, it is the standard to which human action must conform, the standard according to which man must live if he would fulfil the purpose of his existence. The expression, ''to live according to Nature" (6/ioAoyou^e'vwe rrj (frvaei £jjv) means no more than the accord of man's conduct with the sovereign law of Nature, or the accord of man's will with the Divine Will. The fundamental law of human conduct may therefore be expressed in the formula : " Thou shalt live according to Nature, i.e., according to the Divine Law which manifests itself in Nature."
2. The highest purpose of human life is not, then, to be found in 0£(0jofa (contemplation), but in action, and in that action which is according to Nature. Virtue consists in thus living according to Nature. The man who acts in accordance with right understanding is the only man who acts virtuously, and the man who acts according to the natural law, as manifested to reason, is the only man who follows right under standing. We have found it to be the ultimate destiny of man that he should live according to Nature ; we may now substitute the notion of Virtue in the formula, and say that to strive after virtue, or to be vir tuous, is the highest duty of man.
3. If Virtue is the ultimate destiny of man, it follows that Virtue is to be sought not for sake of anything apart from itself, but for its own sake only. Virtue is its own end. If it were directed to a higher pur pose, it would, by the fact, cease to be the ultimate destiny and the highest purpose of human life. Man must be virtuous for Virtue's sake.
/4. We must not, then, make Pleasure or Self -gratification the end of our actions. Pleasure is merely an accessory of our action — not the end after which we must strive. The instinctive impulse of nature is not directed to gratification or pleasure as to its end, but to self-preservation, to integrity and health of body, to true knowledge and science, &c. ; in all these cases pleasure accompanies the satisfaction of nature's ten dency, but is not the end at wrhich nature aims. Much more should this be the case when there is question of a rational action. Virtue is here the only end.
5. This being so, it follows further that Virtue is the supreme good of man, as well as his highest end. The supreme good must be that good which is sought purely for its own sake, which cannot serve as a means for the obtaining of something else. From what we have said, it is manifest that Virtue is an ultimate good of this kind, for it is essen tially its own end. Virtue is, then, the highest good of man, and the true and highest happiness of man can only be found in Virtue.
6. More than this : Virtue is not only the highest good, it is the only true good of man. There is, in fact, only one good, the KaXor, /.>'., that good which is desirable for its own sake, not for sake of the advan tage which it confers, and this good is Virtue, and Virtue only. Every thing other than Virtue which men regard as good, is merely an a$id(f>opov — something indifferent, not a good in the proper sense of the term. Such things cannot contribute to happiness. Virtue alone is the measure of happiness.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GKEKKS. 141
7. We must, however, make a distinction between various kinds of indifferent objects. Some are to be preferred (irpo^yfjiiva), others not to be preferred (airoirpoiij^iva) ; others again not worthy of prefer ence or rejection, indifferent in the strictest sense of the word. There are, therefore, certain things of value (a£tav i:\ovra), and certain things of no value, and worthy rather of contempt (ava^iav t\ovra), and lastly, things that are not of the one class or the other. Things in the first of these categories are to be preferred, things in the second to be rejected, things in the third are absolutely indifferent.
8. The irponyptva accord with the natural desires of man, and can, therefore, be the aim of his efforts ; but they do not contribute to real happiness, and must, therefore, be included in the category of things indifferent. On the other hand, the Inroirpo^yniva have no power to dis turb or diminish the happiness of the virtuous man. This, with greater reason, is true of things which are absolutely indifferent. The true and highest good is, therefore, Virtue. Virtue alone is not subject to abuse ; everything besides can be abused.
9. Virtue is essentially one. If a distinction is drawn between virtues, the difference is a difference of relation — that is, it is a question of one and the same virtue manifesting itself in different ways. In this sense we may distinguish between cardinal and secondary or derivative virtues. In the first class are included Prudence or Practical "Wisdom (0/aovrjo-tc). Courage, Temperance, and Justice. In their definition of these several virtues the Stoics follow the teaching of Aristotle. In the second category are included Magnanimity, Continence, Patience, Diligence, Deliberation. All these virtues depend upon right under standing, and can, therefore, be communicated by teaching.
10. The principles here established as to the nature of Virtue lead to the following conclusions :
(a) The person who possesses one virtue possesses all; for virtue being essentially one, each single virtue includes in itself all the others.
(b) There is no difference of degree in virtue, i.e., virtue cannot be attained in a higher or lower degree. The nature of virtue does not admit of a more and a /e*s. A man cannot live according to nature in a greater or less degree — and the essence of virtue consists in living thus. Ihe good actions of virtuous men are, therefore, all equally good ; in the goodness of actions more and less are not admissible.
11. The opposite of Virtue is Vice. A man is vicious who lives not in harmony with the law of nature, but at variance with it. What is true of virtue is true analogously of vice.
(a) The man who is stained with one vice is stained with all vices. As a man cannot be virtuous in one respect, without being virtuous in every respect, so he cannot be wicked in one respect without being wicked in every respect.
(b) In the same way, there cannot be a distinction of degree in vice any more than in virtue. A man cannot be wicked in a higher or lower degree ; as all virtuous im-n are equally virtuous, so all wicked men are equally wicked. And for this reason all evil deeds are equally evil (omnia peccata paria), there is not in this matter a more and a less.
12. Furthermore, the Stoics teach that there is no mean between
142 HISTORY OF AXCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Virtue and Vice (uptn] KOI Kcucia). There is indeed such a thing as ai approximation to virtue. But the individual who only approaches virtue, is still without virtue quite as much as the absolutely wicked. A middle state does not exist. Man either possesses virtue, or docs not possess it. In the former case he is virtuous, in the latter wicked ; he is not, and can never be, neither virtuous nor wicked.
13. In human actions, considered in themselves, the Stoics distin guish between icarojofla^a, or complete fulfilment of duty, and KO^KOV, or mere right action. A rightful, befitting action is, no doubt, con formable to nature, and is therefore justifiable ; it is not, however, per formed from a purely virtuous motive, but for the attainment of some ulterior end to which it leads. An action is the perfect fulfilment of duty Knr6p9u)fj.a, when it is performed purely out of a virtuous disposition, and for sake of the good done. The KaropOwfjia. alone fulfils the require ments of virtue, for virtue essentially excludes the notion of a further
. end.
14. No act is, in itself, praiseworthy or reprehensible ; all acts, even I those which are accounted wicked, are good if performed with a right - • eous, virtuous disposition. "With a contrary disposition every action is
evil, even though, in outward appearance, it seem good. The wicked man sins in every action ; the virtuous man in every action is doing good. " Unnatural love, prostitution, violation of tombs, and the like deeds, are no longer immoral in themselves ; it is no longer forbidden to eat the flesh of men ; the deeds of Oedipus and Jocasta become indifferent in character." The virtuous man, as such, is incapable of Avickedness ; the wicked man, as such, is incapable of good.
15. The emotions (7ra0rj), be they of what kind they may, are aber rations from the right practical judgment as to what is good and evil. The principal forms of emotion are Fear and Anxiety, resulting from the apprehension of a future or present evil ; Desire and Delectation, which result from the apprehension of a future or present good. The emotions proceed from a false practical judgment ; they are not, therefore, in any
. case, in accordance with nature, and thus they cannot be reconciled with virtue. The virtuous man must yield to no emotion or iraOog, he I must be raised above them all.
16. In keeping with these ethical principles is the Ideal of the Sage which the Stoics put before us. The true sage is the man who possesses virtue. As such he is indifferent to everything except virtue, for he
| understands that other things are not truly and really good. He is I indifferent to pleasures and desires, for he knows that neither any plea- i sure nor any desire is in accordance with nature and with virtue. He is indifferent to all pain, to all fear, and to all anxiety, for he knows that these things cannot trouble the happiness which he possesses in virtue. He frees himself from all passions ; and if, in certain cases, he cannot help feeling pain or pleasure, he docs not permit himself to be influenced by these feelings, but remains always unmoved and immov able. In every gratification and success, in every misfortune and accident of life, he maintains ^imperturbable equanimity ; no sickness
I'lllhOMH'HY OF I UK (iltKKKS. 143
•can trouble this evenness of mind, no fear can disturb him, no fate, however hard, affect him — in a word, he is airaOfa (without feeling). In this airaOtia consists the ideal perfection of the sage.
17. The sage is thus the really five man, the really rich man, the true king and ruler, the true priest, prophet, and poet ; he unites in himself all perfection ; in intrinsic dignity he is second to no rational being, not even to Zeus himself, except that he is not, like Zeus, immortal. HO i& n. godjiftcr his fashion. All that he docs is good, he cannot lose his virtue. " Notwithstanding this moral independence, he is yet in practical communion with other rational beings. He has his part in the affairs of the State, and this part is the larger the nearer the State approaches the perfection of that one ideal State in which all men are embraced. But he exercises towards other men, as towards himself, not forbearance, but justice. He is permitted community of wives. He/ is master of his own life, and of his own choice can put an end to it 3 suicide is allowed him."
18. The fool is, in all respects, the contrary of the sage. We may assert of him the contrary of all that we have attributed to the wise man. The fool, not possessing virtue, is subject to the influence of every emotion and every passion ; he is a slave in the true sense ; a godless being, who sins in every action that he performs. Betwreen the sage and the fool a chasm intervenes, so wide that we can institute 110 com parison between them. As there is no middle state betwreeii the con dition of virtue and the condition of vice, it follows that all men are either sages or fools, either perfect in goodness (o-TrouSatot) or thoroughly wicked \<ftav\ot).
19. It must be allowed that the later Stoics abandoned to some ex tent this extravagant exaltation of the wise man, and this exaggerated contrast between the condition of the sage and of other men. They taught that no individual attains to the ideal state of the wise man, that in actual fact the only distinction existing is the distinction between the state of fools and the state of those who are advancin to wisdom
20. Such, in brief, is the ethical system of the Stoics. It is notice able that this system, though it denies the very basis of moral life — liberty, immortality, &c., — increases nevertheless the measure of man'sj moral obligations exorbitantly. Herein it is unreasonable and un natural, and leads finally to excesses, with which its first principles are in glaring contradiction. The demands made upon the Stoic sage be come wholly unnatural in their extent, and are wholly irreconcilable with the needs of practical life. Yet the only ultimate result is that the sage proudly exalts himself to an equality with the gods, and looks down with contempt on all men who have not reached the level he has attained; that he is permitted every licence, even the most shameful, and that ethical antinomies are made the laws of morals. The principles which underlay the system of the Stoics, notably their thoroughly pantheistical doctrine of Necessity, and denial of Immortality, could lead to no more than a caricature of ethical science, and it was in the nature of things
144 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
that such a system should at last degenerate into unrestrained im morality.
21. We have now to notice briefly the " later " Stoics, followers of the older school, who either maintained its principles intact, or accepted them with some modification. To the later Stoics belong :
(a) Pametius of Rhodes (B.C. 180-111), a pupil of Diogenes. He modified somewhat the rigid^cBaraCteT'ol the S^oTc teaching (Cic. De Fin. IV., 28), and gave it that special form which secured it favour among the Romans. He himself won for the Stoic school such Roman nobles as Laelius and Scipio. " He aimed at a less rugged, and a more brilliant exposition of the Stoic philosophy ; and in his exposition he appealed not only to the older Stoics, but also to Plato, Aristotle, Xenocrates, Theophrastus, and Dicaearchus, and by this method prepared the way for Eclecticism." He rejected the astrological soothsaying and divination which had been in favour with the older Stoics, in consequence of their fatalistic notions ; he abandoned the doctrine of a conflagration of the world, and with Socratic modesty disclaimed all title to perfect wisdom. His work (irtpi rov /ca0»//covrof) is the foundation of Cicero's work, De Ojficii.i. (Cic. De Off. III. 2.)
(b) Posidonius of Apamea, in Syria (B.C. 90), held his school at Rhodes, where, amongst others, Cicero and Pompey attended his lectures. He was esteemed the most learned (iro\v^iaBidTaro^ icai £7rt<rnj^o»<iicwraroc) of the Stoics. He inclined to Eclecticism, blended Platonic and Aristotelian with Stoic doctrines, and delighted in a lofty rhetorical style.
We may further mention : Apollodorus of Athens (B.C. 144) ; Athenodorus of Tarsus, President of the Library of Pergamus, and, at a later period, friend and com panion of Cato the Younger (Uticensis), who strove to confirm the Stoic doctrines by the example of his own life ; Antipater of Tyre (B.C. 45), a teacher of Cato the Younger ; Apollonides, a friend of Cato ; Diodotus (B.C. 85), one of Cicero's instructors, later a member of his household, and his friend ; and lastly, Athenodorus, the teacher of Octavianus Augustus. Cfr. Ueberweg.
(c) Under the Roman Empire immorality and corruption were ever on the increase. The men who set themselves to struggle against the prevailing evils, turned for the most part to Stoicism, seeking from the calmer study of this philosophy consolation and tran quillity of mind, or borrowing from it a haughty virtue to resist the masters of the State. It thus came to pass that, at this period, the philosophy of the Stoics began to assume a political character, to render those who professed it objects of suspicion, and even to expose them to persecution. The most remarkable amongst the Stoics of this period are :
(a) L. Annreus Seneca, a native of Cordova, in Spain (B.C. 3 to A.D. 63), the tutor of Nero. He directed his attention to Ethics rather than to Physics, and he was more con cerned to exhort to the practice of virtue than to inquire into its nature. His views on the latter point do not differ materially from those of the older Stoics. Of his philosophical writ ings the following have been preserved: QutBttionum Xaturalium, Libri VII., and a number of religious and moral treatises : De Procidentia ; De Breritate Vitce ; De Otio ant Secessu Sapient is ; De Animi Tranquillitate ; De Constantia; De Ira; De Clementia ; De Bene- ficiis ; and the Epp. ad Luci/ium. He exalted the Stoic Sage above the gods ; for the in dependence of the Sage, he holds, is the work of his own will, and this is not the case with ||the gods. Nevertheless he is profuse in despairing lamentations over the corruption and Imisery of human life, and he makes large concessions indeed to human weakness. The same contradiction he exhibited in his private life. In theory a gloomy Stoic, looking down with contempt on all things human, he was in practice a dainty courtier, by no means averse to the pleasures of the table and other like indulgences.
(/3) Following Seneca, we have L. Annams Cornutus (B.C. 20 to A.D. 66), the Satirist A. Persius Flaccus (B.C. 34 to A.D. 62) a pupil and friend of Cornutus, and C. Musonius Rufus of Volsinium, a Stoic whose views corresponded with those of Seneca. Musonius Rufus was banished from Rome by Nero at the same time as the other philosophers (A.D. 65) ; he was recalled at a later period, probably by Galba ; he was eiempted from the order of banishment issued against the philosophers by Vespasian, and was personally acquainted with Titus. His pupil, Pollio, composed the diro^i'ij/jovii'fiaTa Mouwvioi; (Memoirs of Musonius), from which Stobaeus has probably derived what he tells us of the life of Musonius. To him is attributed the maxim: "If thou doest good under difficulty, the difficulty will pass, but the good will endure ; if thou doest evil with pleasure, the pleasure will pass, but the evil will endure."
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GRKI.lv-. 145
(y) Epictetus, a native of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, was first the slave, and afterwards the freednian of a soldier of Nero's body-guard. He was u pupil of Musonius Rufus, and subsequently taught philosophy in Rome till the philosophers were banished from Italy by Domitian (A.I). 94.) He then retired to Nicopolis, in Epirus, where Arrian became his pupil, and wrote down his lectures. According to Epictetua, the whole duty of man , onsists in living entirely for God, in reverencing God, and being obedient to Him rather I
'
than to man. The god within us (fooc or SaifHtiv) we should reverence most. The efforts of the Sage are directed to make himself independent of all external goods which are not under his own control ; man must endeavour to have all his fortune in himself. He will attain this perfection by self-denial and patience. Hence the rule of life : " Bear and forbear." (dvs\ov icai dtri\ov.)
~~ (^) Lastly, we must mention herethe Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Stoicism had hitherto been only on the side of those who were discontented with the circumstances of the time, and the general condition of society ; but with Marcus Aurelius it took possession of the imperial throne. The treatise of this prince (TO, df lavrov*), the last remarkable outcome of Stoic philosophy, contains short proverbs and aphorisms, in which the doctrines of philosophy are applied to the concerns of practical life. In this teaching a certain tendency to mysticism betrays itself, revealing an affinity between this form ot the Stoic doctrines and the Neo-Platonism, which was soon to succeed them. Theoretical views are adopted by the Emperor merely as a basis for some religious or moral pre cept. We also notice that concentration in self, and an abandonment to the will of the Deity, are the dispositions of mind which his moral teaching requires from man.
EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY.
1. Epicurus, the founder of the Epicurean school, was born at Gar- gettus, near Athens, in the year B.C. 341. He passed his youth at Samos, whither an Athenian colony had been sent, to which his father, a schoolmaster, was attached. Epicurus is said to have turned his attention to philosophy at the age of fourteen. The story goes that he gave himself to this study on finding that the teacher who was instruct ing him in grammar and literature, not being able to give him a satis factory account of the Chaos of Hesiod, referred him to philosophy for an explanation. He began his new studies with the works of Demo- critus, and these works made such an impression on him that he never afterwards abandoned the principles of the system of Democritus. Nausiphanes, a philosopher of Democritus' school, whose lectures he attended, may also have helped to this result. At the age of thirty-two he appeared as a teacher of philosophy in Mitylene. Thence he passed to Lampsacus, and finally to Athens, where he founded in a garden (whence his piipils were called ot airb rrov KJ/TT^V) the school over which he presided till his death (B.C. 270). His doctrines may be broadly described as a modified form of the Hedonism of Aristippus, combined with the Atomistic theory of Democritus.
2. In the school of Epicurus a cheerful, social tone prevailed. He reduced the fundamental principles of his philosophy to short formulae (Kvptai So'£at) which he gave to his pupils to learn 'by heart, In the composition of his exceedingly numerous works he showed great care lessness, thus proving in practice the truth of his own maxim : " It costs no trouble to write." The one merit allowed his writings is, that they are easily understood ; in other respects their form is generally condemned — notably by Cicero (Dc Nat. Deo., I. 26). He is said to
146 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
have composed, in all, 300 volumes. Diogenes Laertius gives a list of his
works (X. 27.) Of these a few fragments, collected by Orelli (Leipzig,
1868) remain.
3. Epicurus defines philosophy, considered from its practical side, as
" the art of securing a happy life." It follows that philosophy, con- I sidered in its theoretical aspect, must also be directed to this end. The . t scope of theoretical philosophy is to procure that understanding of 'things which will enable man to secure for himself a happy life. Epi-
curus divides philosophy into Canonic (Logic), Physics, and Ethics.
Canonic is subservient to Physics, and Physics to Ethics. We shall
treat the philosophy of Epicurus in the order indicated in this division.
CANONIC OF EPICURUS.
§44.
1. Canonic lays down the laws (canons) according to which know ledge is acquired, and assigns the criteria of truth. This science, then, holds in the Epicurean system the place assigned in other philosophies to Logic and the Theory of Knowledge. Epicurus rejected Dialectic in the strict sense. His Canonic, too, is restricted to a very few principles, which he holds to be enough for the attainment of truth.
2. In his theory of human cognition, Epicurus is thoroughly sensual- istic. Sensuous perception is produced by certain material images (ctSwAa) detached from corporeal objects (airoppoal), and penetrating the channels of the senses. These images are detached from the outer sur faces of bodies, and make their way through the intervening air to our eye ; they pass in through the eye, and so occasion Perception (aiaOriGig).
3. But it is not Perception alone which depends on these material images ; they, furthermore, give rise to Thought in the understanding. These images penetrate through the senses to the understanding, and excite in it the thought corresponding to their nature. Not only are our perceptions effected by means of these images, it is by them also that we think (Cic. De Fin., I. 6.) What we call our faculty of
f thought is passively recipient of these images, quite as much as our faculty of perception. This theory, it will be observed, is wholly sen- sualistic.
4. Out of the individual perceptions there arises gradually in the understanding a persistent universal thought-image, due to our memory of several similar perceptions of external things. It comes into con sciousness at the mention of the word by which the object in question is designated. These universal thought-images (or, better, representative images) are the so-called Tr/ooXj/^ftc- The Tr/ooXrj^/tc, in the Epicurean theory, is no more than that one common image, under which the imagination subsumes a number of similar perceptions. This notion is in keeping with the general sensualistic character of the Epicurean teaching.
nill.OSOPHY OF THE GREEKS,
147
5. The aiaftr\(Ti<; and TrpoXr^iq form the basis of the v-rroX^ig or Judgment. In a judgment something is always assumed ; a iudgment, therefore, always expresses an opinion (So£a), hence the viroArr^is and So£a are identical with one another. But an opinion of this kind may be either true or false. The question then arises : What is the criterion by which we distinguish the true from the false ?
6. Epicurus holds that the criterion of first importance is the! aiaQr\ais, or immediate perception. Perception, as such, is always true. (1 There is nothing which can disprove a perception. For neither other perceptions, nor reason, which has its rise in perception, have any higher authority. It follows that the only opinion to be esteemed true, is that opinion which is corroborated by the testimony of the senses, or at least not disproved by them, and that those opinions are to be held false, against which the senses give testimony. Second in order, as a criterion^ of truth, is the irpoX^i^. This is to be regarded as a criterion of truth,! for the reason that it is a product of sensuous perception. What has a(\ common |mayo of this kind as evidence in its favour is true. What has evidence of this kind against it is false. In the category of criteria we must also include the feelings (iraQi}}. The feelings of pleasure and of I pain are the criteria of practical action, i.e., they indicate what is to be sought and what to bo avoided.
7. It may be objected that all perceptions are not true ; for instance, a tower in the distance appears to us round and small, while, in reality, it is angular and large. To this Epicurus replies, that in our perceptions we, strictly speaking, perceive not the objects themselves, but the ma terial images that are detached from them. An image of this sort, in its passage through the air, may lose its first outlines and dimensions, and this actually takes place in the case of the tower referred to. As it penetrates our senses in this altered form, our r^rr^p^^n^exactly cor responds to the image, and is therefore true. Tne false opinion arises froufThe circumstance that we do-Jipt restrict our judgment to the image, but extend it to the object.
8. Epicurus dispenses himself from stating any theory regarding Judgment and Inference ; he considers that artificial definitions, divi sions, and syllogisms cannot take the place of perceptions.
EPICUREAN PHYSICS. §45.
1. In his physical theories, Epicurus is, in the main, at one with Democritus. He admits no transcendental Divine cause to account for the origin and dissolution of things. In Matter hc_.fiii<ia tl]Q adequate cause__of all things. Everything that comes into existence has its pnysical cause ; there is no need of any higher agent to explain the phenomena of our experience. We may not, in each case, be able to
148 PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS.
assign the physical cause with complete certainty, but this is not a reason why we should recur to the notion of a higher Divine Cause. This side of the Epicurean theory is distinctly Atheistical.
2. Starting with the general principle that nothing is produced from nothing, and that no being of any kind can be reduced to nothing, Epicurus assumes as the primary principles of things vacuum and atoms. We must assume a vacuum, or space ; for the bodies, of whose existence sensuous perception assures us, must have being and motion somewhere. Atoms, too, we must assume, since bodies are composite, and therefore divisible. Continuing the division of the composite mass, we must at last come to parts which are indivisible and unchangeable, unless things be said to be reducible to absolute nothing. These ultimate indivisible corpuscles are atoms (cfro^ua). Space and atoms exist from eternity.
3. These atoms are of different dimensions, but they are all, alike, too minute to be visible. Size, form, and weight are their only attributes. jOthcr qualities, such as heat, colour, &c., are produced by the union of the atoms. The number of these atoms is infinite. But how are~t)OdH!8 formed from these atoms ? To this question Epicurus answers :
4. The atoms move in space, with a downward vertical movement, determined by their weight, all moving with the same velocity. In this movement a certain number of atoms deviate from the perpendicular line of descent. This deviation brings about collisions with the other atoms. These collisions sometimes lead to permanent combinations of the atoms, sometimes, by the rebound of the atoms from one another, they produce upward or lateral movements, which uniting to form rotatory motion, produce, in turn, new combinations of atoms. In this wise are formed bodies, which, it will be seen, are no more than complex arrangements of atoms.*
5. The aggregate of the bodies thus formed, united into a definite
I whole, constitute a world. The number of such worlds is infinite, for the number of atoms is without limit. The earth, and the stars visible from the earth, form one world. But an infinite number of other worlds also exist. These worlds are involved in a continuous process of forma tion and dissolution. But among the many worlds some are found which are possessed of life, and these endure for a longer time ; the others pass quickly away.
6. The stars are not animated. Their real size is the same as their apparent : " for if their (real) magnitude were (apparently) diminished by distance, the same diminution should be effected in their brilliancy, which is, evidently, not the case. Animals and men are produced from the earth ; man has been evolved, by successive stages, from a lower form."
7. The movement of the atoms, and the origin of the world thereby
(brought about, is, as has been said, a result of mere chance (Theory of Casualism). There is, therefore, in nature, neither final cause, nor any
• The explanation of the collision of the atoms by their deviation from the perpen dicular line of descent is peculiar to Epicurus ; Democritus does not make this assumption.
HISTORY OF AXCIKXT I' 1 1 1 1.< iMiI'HY. 149
i, or Fate, resulting from a fixed necessity. Chance alone rules everything.
8. The existence of the gods is not to be denied ; for we have a clear evidence of their existence in the fact that they frequently appear to men in dreams, and leave representative images of themselves (7rooA/;i//Eie) behind in the mind. Moreover, since there are so many finite and mortal things in existence, the law of contraries requires that there should also exist beings which are eternal and blissful. Men are, how ever, in error when they picture to themselves the gods as supremely happy, and nevertheless assign to them the task of governing the world, and endow them with human feelings. These things are perfectly irreconcilable. It is only the ignorance which fails to find an explana tion of natural phenomena in the forces and laws of nature itself which has recourse to the gods. The gods inhabit the spaces interposed be tween the stars, and lead there a happy life, ^aof. troubling themselves aj)out the world, or tMj£QJlg£ma-C£j3ien. The wise man docs ^not reverence tllttm "oul of iear, but out of admiration for their excellence. As for their nature : they are compacted of the finest atoms.
9. The human soul is a corporeal substance ; for if it were incorporeal I it could neither. act on the body, nor be acted on. Moreover, it is in* contact with the body ; but it is only the corporeal which can maintain contact with the corporeal. But the soul is a very refined, subtto body, composed of very minute smooth and rounded atoms, otherwise it could not permeate the entire body] Besides, if the soul were not so con stituted, the body would lose something of its weight after death. The psychical atoms are of various kinds : some are of the nature of fire, &/ others of the nature of air, others of the nature of wind or breath ; . according to the preponderance of one or the other kind, is the tempera ment of the human individual.
10. There are, however, in the soul atoms of an unknown and un named fourth quality, in virtue of which man is capable of feeling and thought. These atoms constitute the XOJIKOV (rational element ) which is located in the breast, whereas the other atoms form the oXoyov, which is distributed through the whole body, and is the medium through which the mutual action of the \OJIKOV and the body is maintained. At death the atoms of the soul are dispersed ; and since sensation becomes im possible when the combination of atoms is dissolved, it follows that the immortality of the soul is a mere chimera. But we have no need of im mortality ; for when death has come we are not present, and as long as we are here death has not come, so that death does not at all affect us. " Tola TCH Jicfn r.sV jtitfri/ifcr." Cic.
11. The Will is stimulated by the images in the mind, but it is not necessarily determined. As there is no EI/UCI/D/UEI'?), we are not controlled in our actions by an extrinsic force, our acts are our own, i.e., we are free. .Without, this liberty, praise and blame would have no meaning. Freedom of will is nothing more than chance applied to human actions. In the world everything is subject to chance, i.e., uncontrolled by neces sity. The acts of human beings are like other tilings in this respect.
150 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
EPICUREAN ETHICS. $46.
1. In his Ethics, Epicurus follows, in the main, the teaching of the Cyrenaic school. He holds Self-gratification, Pleasure, to be the Supreme Good of man, and Pain to be the Supreme Evil. In proof of this doc trine he appeals to our own consciousness, which informs us that pleasure is what man is seeking, and that pain is what he avoids. He deduces the same conclusion from the fact that all living things, from the first moment of their existence, seek sensuous pleasure, and find enjoyment in it, while they strive as far as possible to escape from pain. The contrast between this teaching and Stoicism, both in method of argument and ultimate conclusion, need hardly be pointed out.
2. In the detailed exposition of this fundamental principle of his system, Epicurus distinguishes the Pleasure of Motion (77 KUTU KIVTKTIV tjSovT/) and the Pleasure of Rest (jcaTctoTrj^cmKr) ?jSov>; — between Voluptas in Notu and Stabilitas Voluptatis (Cic. DC Fin., II., c. 3). In the first division are included all the pleasures which are accompanied by a stimulus of sense ; in the second is signified that condition which is free from all pain or unpleasant feeling.
3. Epicurus teaches that the highest happiness cannot be obtained by the pleasure of motion. In this view he is at variance Avith the Cyrenaics, who, as we know, regarded the pleasure of motion as the highest good. According to the opinion of Epicurus, the highest hap- biness is attained in that condition which is called the " Pleasure of Rest'-' — in freedom from all pain or unpleasant feeling — in a word, in jhe condition of painlessness (ara/oa£ta KOI airovia). When man has
attained this summit of happiness, he experiences, indeed, a variety and a succession of pleasurable feelings, but the measure of his happiness is not increased thereby.
4. We have now to inquire how this condition of painlessness may be arrived at. Epicurus, on this point, gives us the following answer : " Pain is the disagreeable feeling experienced under the pressure rof some need or some desire ; pain is absent either when we can satisfy the needs or desires we have, or when we have no needs or desires which call for satisfaction. We can, therefore, attain to painlessness either by
Ptisfying all the needs and desires we have, or by restricting our needs id desires to that measure which it is in our power to satisfy."
5. " The first means here suggested is not possible to man ; firstly, because he has not at his disposal the means to satisfy all his needs and desires ; and, secondly and chiefly, because his needs and desires are, in themselves, unlimited and insatiable. There is, then, nothing left for those who would attain to the state of freedom from pain, except to restrict their needs and desires to that measure which it is possible to satisfy. Considered from the point of view we have now reached, Pain-
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 151
lessness may bo said to be the absence of all needs or desires which we are not in a position to satisfy."
6. From this exposition it appears that tlm Tiigftoflf, gpnrl nl JJ»» Epicureans is not somflthyy wholly negative (Ppjplnaanpsa), but that it Has its positive aide also ; for this Painleasnesa is attained by satisfying the desires, that is to say, by positive pleasure. It is true this positive factor must be restricted within certain limits ; i.e., the satisfying of the desires must be effected in determined measure, otherwise the state of Puinlessness cannot be reached. In the light of this conclusion, we may state the fundamental law of life, according to the Epicurean Philosophy, in the following formula : " Restrain your needs and desires within the measure in which you will be able to satisfy them."
7. This principle furnishes an explanation of the further tenets of the Epicurean Ethics, such as the following :
(a) We must distinguish between those desires which are natural and necessary> those which are natural but not necessary, and those which are neither natural nor neces sary. Due moderation in the satisfying of our desires demand that we should refuse satisfaction to the desires of the last class, and restrict ourselves to desires of the first and second kind only.
(6) There are cases in which pleasure arises from pain, and other cases in which pain follows from, pleasure. "We must not, therefore, allow ourselves to be carried away by the excitement of present pleasure, nor permit ourselves to be blinded and misled by the desire of the moment ; we must renounce pleasure when it would be fol lowed by a greater pain, and accept pain when it would be followed by a greater pleasure." Moderation in satisfying our desires requires that we should act thus.
(c ) There is a spiritual pleasure as well as a bodily pleasure, just as there is pain of mind as well as pain of body. For the purposes of human life spiritual pleasures are of far higher wortli than bodily. The body experiences only the pleasure which is actually present ; the soul has the gratifying remembrance of its pleasures past, and the enticing prospect of pleasure to come. Spiritual is, therefore, to be preferred to bodily pleasure. Spiritual pleasure, however, has its ultimate cause in the pleasures of sense, for it consists^ in the remembrance or anticipation of the pleasures of sense. Epicurus was, therefore,^ warranted by his own theory in saying (Diog. Laert. X. 6) that he had no notion of any good apart from the pleasures derivable from taste, hearing, sight, and the gratification of sexual tendencies.
((/) But he is willing to admit that bodily pain is assuaged by the psychical pleasure derivable from pleasant memories and from hope, in the same way that sensuous pleasure is diminished by unpleasant memories and by fear. And thus we again find indicated the rule already laid down, that the one class of feelings must be moderated by the other, in order to secure complete absence of pain.
8. On these doctrines is based the fundamental law of Epicurean Ethics. " Ca^ub|g the pleasure and pain that are so closely linked in human life, sotnat^ou may procure from your life the greatest possible sum of pleasure, and the smallest possible amount of pain." To this end Epicurus particularly recommends frugality, the cultivation of simple habits, abstinence from costly and extravagant enjoyments, or at least a sparing participation in them, in order that health may be preserved, and the relish for enjoyment may remain unimpaired. lie also specially recommends intercourse with friends ; friendship, according to Epi curus, being the best means of assuring every pleasure of life.
9. The function which Epicurus assigns to virtue in man's moral life is now apparent. Virtue is not good or praiseworthy in itself, as the
152 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Stoics maintained. It is good and estimable merely because it is useful in securing the happiness of life. It is, therefore, essentially directed to pleasure as a means to an end, and it is of importance only in so far as it subserves this purpose. The virtues, according to the reckoning of Epicurus are four in number : Prudence, Temperance, Courage, and Justice.
(a.) Prudence (0p6v»/<T(£) is the chief of the virtues. It has a theoretical as well as a practical side. In the first sense, it is that knowledge of the true causes of things which delivers men from foolish fear of the gods, and of their judgments, and of death, and which thus makes possible a happy life. In the second sense, it enables us so to regulate our pleasures that one pleasure shall not hinder another, nor any pleasure be so intensified that it shall pass into the opposite pain, and it furthermore enables us to maintain our enjoyments at suitable intensity, contrives that they shall mutually enhance one another, and brings within our reach not only the pleasures actually present, but also past pleasures which we remember and future pleasures to which we look forward.
(o.) To Temperance it belongs to keep our enjoyments within due bounds, and to exercise self-control in the enjoyment of the several pleasures. Courage consists in "excluding the disturbing and distressing emotions which Prudence perceives to be unwarranted, in foregoing pleasure and accepting suffering as often as prudence warns us that this will contribute to happiness, and finally in putting an end to life when it can afford no more pleasure, but has only pain in store for us."
(c.) As regards Justice, Epicurus holds that all right is based upon a compact or engagement existing between men not to hinder one another. Justice consists in ob serving the law of the general safety founded on this compact. Justice contributes to a happy life, inasmuch as the just man has no punishment to dread, can count upon the protection of the law, can acquire property, and gains the good will and confidence of his fellow-citizens ; all which give earnest of a happy life.
10. The virtuous man is the true sage. He alone reaches the goal of perfect happiness, and he alone cannot miss it. Virtue is the only way to happiness, it is also the certain way. The sage is, therefore, always happy. The duration of existence does not in any way affect the measure of happiness.
11. The Epicurean doctrines present us with a system of Materialistic Hedonism, which, however, full of contradictions, flatters and favours the sensual tendencies of man. We cannot, in consequence, be surprised to find that this doctrine was in high favour under the Roman Empire, when the stern morality of the older Romans was perishing under despotic rule. It contained no principles of morality strictly so-called. If there is nothing intrinsically good or bad in our actions, no immut able objective law according to which the morality of our actions is de termined ; if pleasure and profit are the only standard according to which we are to act ; if pleasure of every kind is good in itself and be comes an evil only in the injury it may possibly entail upon the indi vidual ; then is there an end of everything which could give a moral character to our acts. The Epicurean Philosophy is a theory of effeminate ethics, wholly incompatible with an earnest morality. Cicero calls special attention to the fact that the notion of honour finds no place in the Epicurean teaching. The reproach is deserved. But it is by no means the most serious objection which can be urged against the system.
12. The doctrines of Epicurus received little development from subsequent philosophers. The most remarkable of his followers were : Metrodorus of Lampsacus,
I'im.OMil'IIY OK THE GREEKS. 103
Polyaenus the Mathematician, Hernmrchus of Mytilene, who succeeded Epicurus in his •school, Polystratus the successor of Herinarchus, Timocrates, Leonteus, Coloteg, Idomeneus, Apollodorus, the author of four hundred volumes, Zeno of Sidon the pupil of Apollodorus (born B.C. 150), who was the teacher of Cicero and Atticus, and whom CHITO distinguishes among the Epicureans for his logical, dignified, and ornate style, and on whose lectures were based the works of his pupil Philodemus, the two Ptolemies i-f Alexandria, Demetrius of Lacon, Diogenes of Tarsus, Orion, Phaedrus an earlier con temporary of Cicero, and lastly Titus l^u-rot.ina Car us (B.C. 95-."»2) who in his didactic poem, Dt lierum Natura, gave a complete expojrition of the Epicurean •yrtem
tmrnfli^br convIncTiiL' <--i the truth, ami iTflivcrin^ UR-III fi«m
rtr7^Gyr. Uebent-eg.
SCEPTICISM AND ECLECTICISM.
§47.
1. The Stoics and Epicureans had endeavoured to secure a scientific basis for their theory of happiness by assuming certain fundamental theoretical principles. Scepticism abandoned this method, asserting that the supreme good and highest happiness could be attained by man only under condition of foregoing all dogmatical principles, and with holding all definitive judgment as to the nature of existent things. To disclaim all knowledge was therefore a first principle with the Sceptics.
2. There were three successive schools of Sceptics, or three sections of philosophers whose teaching was sceptical in its tendency : (a.) Pyrrho of Elis and his early followers; (b.) the so-called Middle Academy, i.e., the Second and Third Academic Schools ; and lastly (c.) the later Sceptics, subsequent to yEnesidemus, who again reverted to the teachings of Pyrrho. We shall notice the representatives of these three schools of Scepticism in order.
3. Pyrrho of Elis, who lived about the time of Alexander the Great (B.C. 330), followed the teaching of Democritus, and despised the other philosophers as Sophists. He held the view that speculative thought cannot lead to any result. " In reality," he said, " there is nothing beautiful and nothing hateful ; in itself everything is just as much the one as it is the other, everything depends on human institution and custom." (Diog. Laert., IX. 61.) This is the celebrated ovSiv /uaXAov, which became a shibboleth among the Sceptics. According to Pyrrho's teachingj " things are inaccessible to our faculties of knowledge, inap prehensible (anaTaXri^ia) and it is our duty to abstain from all judg ment regarding them (t7ro\//). This t7ro\Y/ is the first condition of happi ness, for happiness consists in imperturbable peace of soul (arapa^ia). "All the external circuinst;mces of human life are of their nature in different (d$ia<j>opov) , it becomes the wise man to preserve in every event complete tranquillity of mind and to permit nothing to disturb his equanimity."
4. Among the friends and pupils of Pyrrho were Philo of Athens and Nuusiphaues of Teos, and, more remarkable than the others, Timon of Phlius (B.C. 325-335). He was the author of certain satirical poems
154 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(trtXXot) in three books, in which he treated the Dogmatic Philosophers as sophists and babblers. His own peculiar views may be thus stated :
(a.) Perception and mental apprehension give us no certain know ledge of things. For in order to decide conclusively with regard to objects apprehended by our minds we must not only perceive what things are and how they exist, but we must also know what is their relation to us and what their influence upon us. But neither knowledge is possible to us. Not the former, for there are no fixed differences be tween existing things, they are unstable, and therefore beyond the reach of knowledge. Not the latter, for the senses themselves are deceptive. We have therefore no means of deciding whether an object possesses the properties which are manifested to us or not. "We cannot, in con sequence, trust either our perceptions or mental apprehensions of things.
(£>.) Nor is any certain judgment regarding things possible. For in favour of every proposition which we enunciate, and in favour of its contradictory, the grounds are equally cogent, i.e., there are as many reasons against the proposition as for it. Certain knowledge is there fore, unattainable, we cannot even know with certainty that we have no certain knowledge of things.
(c.) Nothing then remains but to refrain from all judgment, to take up a position of non-decision (aQacria). This is the position assumed by the wise man. By this means, and by this means only, he secures that tranquillity of soul (arapa^ta), which is the highest good. This state follows the suspension of judgment (t.roY//) as the shadow follows the body. We must renounce the craze of knowledge, and spare ourselves the futile labour of inquiring into the nature of things ; it is only by acting in this wise that we shall attain to tranquillity of soul, and the true happiness which it involves.
5. We have already spoken of the Scepticism of the Middle Academy (p. 94). It will be observed that the Scepticism of this school is not so radical as that of Pyrrho. The Academics acknowledged at least an apparent knowledge, and in this knowledge they furthermore recognised differences of degrees. The Middle Academy directed its teaching chiefly against the dogmatism of the Stoics. It refused to admit the Stoic Catakpsis as the criterion of truth, but it set up no other criterion instead ; it renounced certainty altogether, and acknowledged only probable opinion.
6. The Scepticism of Pyrrho was revived at a later date by -ZEnesidemus of Gnossus, who, as it appears, taught at Alexandria to wards the end of the last century before Christ, or in the beginning of the first century of the new era. He composed the nvppuvtiwv Atrywy OKTW j3«j3Am (Diog. Laert, IX. 116). His theory is not a thorough scepticism. The purpose of his sceptical teaching was to establish the Philosophy of Heraclitus. Scepticism was, in his view, not a system in itself but the introduction to a system (a-yoryj)). The distinctive character of Scepticism consists, according to .^Enesidemus, in this, that whereas the Dogmatists maintain that they have found truth, and the
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 155
Academics assert that it is impossible to find it, the genuine Sceptic docs not assert the one or the other; he refrains from judgment on this question.
7. To justify this Scepticism .^Enesidemus invented the ten " grounds for doubt" (rpoTTovg rr/c (TKI/^E&IC). They are the following : —
(a.) The first ground for doubt is found in the general differences existing between animated beings and more especially in the structural differences in their organs of sense. The same object must appear differently to these different beings according as their organs are differently formed, and there is no means of determining which of them perceives the object aright or whether it is manifested to any one of them all as it really exists.
(6.) The second reason for donbt is furnished by the differences between men both as to body and as to soul. As a result of these differences sensation and mental apprehensions are different in different men, and we can never decide in which case they represent things as they really are.
(c.) The third reason for doubt is given us by the differences of sense in the same subject. The different senses perceive one and the same object differently, or perceive different qualities in the same object, and we have no means of determining which is the true sensation, or whether the object really possesses the qualities which we perceive.
(</.) The fourth reason for doubt is taken from the differences caused by passing changes taking place in the knowing subject, owing to which a certain knowledge of the object is impossible.
(e.) The fifth consists in this that the objects according to their different position and distance present to us wholly different appearances, and thus the conclusion is again arrived at that a certain judgment is impossible.
(/. ) The sixth reason for doubt is supplied by the circumstance that with all our sensations is mingled some element derived either from other objects or from the sensitive subject itself.
(g.) The seventh consists in this that objects -excite different sensations and mental apprehensions according as their quantity and structure change.
(A.) The eighth is given in the fact that we perceive things as they are related either to the subject knowing, or to other things, and that all our knowledge is thus relative.
(t.) The ninth is drawn from the circumstance that things appear differently to us according as the sensation and the object are something habitual or something unusual.
(k.) The tenth reason for doubt is furnished by the opposition prevailing amongst human opinions as to justice and injustice, good and evil, religion and law, &c., as well as by the opposition between philosophers in their opinions. By this, as by the other reasons, the conclusion is warranted that there is nothing certain in our knowledge.
8. In addition to these general reasons for Scepticism .ZEnesidemus (according to Sext. Empir. adr. Math. IX. 207) adduces special reasons against the principle of Causality. " Cause," he says, " belongs to the category of llelation, and relation is not anything real, it is something rivaled by our thought. Furthermore, the cause must be synchronous with the effect, or it must precede the effect, or follow it. It cannot be synchronous with it, otherwise both would exist together, and there would be no reason why one should be called the producer and the other the product. The cause cannot precede the effect, for it is not a cause so long as its effect does not exist. It is clear that it cannot follow it. The notion of causality is thus wholly meaningless."
9. To the later Sceptics belong Agrippa, Menodotus of Nicomedia, and notably Sextus Empiricus (A.D. 200). Saiurninus was the pupil of Sextus. The grammarian and antiquarian Favorinus of Aries (under Hadrian) belongs to the same school. The later Sceptics reduced the " reasons for doubt" laid down by ^Enesidemus to five : —
15G HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(a.) The differences of opinion among philosophers.
(ft.) The necessity of a regressus in injinitum in every demonstration, since every proposition has to be proved from another proposition.
(c.) The relativity of all our notions, since the object appears different, according to the constitution of the individual perceiving it, and according to its relations to other objects.
(d.) The arbitrary character of the assumption by the dogmatists of certain first principles, which they assume in order to escape from the regres^us in injinitum.
(e.) The circle which is unavoidable in every demonstration since the proposition on which the proof rests (major) requires for its truth the truth of the proposition to be established (conclusion).
The later Sceptics directed their attacks in a special manner against the teaching of the Stoics regarding God and Providence. The existence of Evil, which God either will not remove or cannot remove, they held to be at variance with the very notion of God.
10. With regard to Sextus Empiricus, two works are still extant in which he has expounded his Sceptical theory : Pyrrhon. Institut., Libri. •J. ; and Adv. Mathematicos., Libri. 11. He examines critically the dogmatic systems of Greek Philosophy, and endeavours to show that all their principles are untenable. He makes a large use of sophisms in this criticism. These works of Sextus Empiricus are, however, of much importance for the student of the history of Greek Philosophy.
11. Along with Scepticism we find in this period of the decline of Greek Philosophy an Eclecticism which borrowed from the several systems what seemed most probable in each. "We have called attention to the eclectic tendency manifested by many of the philosophers we have noticed, notably by some of the Stoics. But the most distinguished re presentative of this phase of thought was Cicero.
12. M. Tullius Cicero (B.C. 106-43) had pursued the study of philo sophy at Athens and at Rhodes. In his early youth he attended the lec tures of Phaedrus the Epicurean, and of Philo the Academician, and was intimate with Diodotus the Stoic ; subsequently he followed the teaching of the Academician, Antiochus of Ascalon, of Zeno the Epicurean, and of Posidonius the Stoic. We are not concerned with his career as an orator and a statesman. In his old age he again devoted himself to philo sophy ; it was the chief occupation of the last three years of his life.
13. Of the philosophical writings of Cicero the following have come down to us : (a.) Academicarum Qusestionum, Libri 4, of which, however, only the first and fourth books are extant ; (b.) De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Libri 5 ; (c.) Tusculanarum Quaes- tionum, Libri 5 ; ((/.) De Natura Deorum, Libri 3 ; (e.) De Divinatione, Libri 2 ; (/.) De Fato, of which only a part is preserved ; (.7.) De Legibus, an unfinished treatise of which only fragments, in three books, are preserved; (h.) De Omciis, Libri 3; (i.) Cato Major seu De Senectute ; (&.) Laelius sive De Amicitia, and Faradoxa Stoicorum sex ; (7.) Consolatio, of which only fragments are extant ; fragments of the Hortensius ; (m.) and lastly De Republica, Libri 6, of which only a third part has come down to us, first published by A. Mai from a palimpsest in the Vatican Library. We may add to this list the rhetorical works : De Oratore, Libri 3 ; Brutus sive De Claris Oratoribus, Liber 1 ; and Orator, Liber 1.
14. Cicero's services to philosophy consist less in original inquiry than in the zeal and ability which he exhibited in rendering Greek Philosophy, especially the Stoic doctrines, acceptable to his countrymen,
1'IIII.OSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 157
and introducing it among the cultured classes at Rome. To effect this he modified Greek theories in many material points, softened down some of their more repulsive tenets especially those regarding the Highest Good, and the character of the Sage, and in his exposition was at once easily intelligible and attractive. He admits that knowledge is valuable for its own sake, and that it confers genuine pleasure on its possessor, but he is at the same time convinced that the end to which it leads is action, and that action is therefore of more importance than theory.
15. In his theory of cognition Cicero follows the Middle Academy. The differences between philosophers on the most essential points lead him to despair of certainty in knowledge, and to content himself with probability. According to his view, probability is enough for the pur poses of practical life. Probability, he holds, may be best attained by a comparison and criticism of different views. Hence his Eclectical Method, his comparison of the opinions of the several philosophers, and his adoption of the view which seems to him most probable. He is not, however, without certain guiding principles in his choice of opinions. He holds fast by the evidence of the senses and of consciousness, and in the domain of higher rational knowledge he appeals to the immediate evidence furnis'hed by the moral faculty, to the consensus gentium, and to certain fundamental principles which, according to his view, arc innate in man (notiones innatao, natura iiobis insitao).
16. In Physics, Cicero's attitude is one of doubt ; he admits, how ever, that investigation on this subject is an agreeable and worthy field of exercise for the human mind. He asserts the existence and the spiritual nature of God, and insists that everything unworthy of the gods shall be excluded from mythology. He esteems highly the belief in the providence of God and in His government of the world. He sets forth, indeed, the grounds on which the Academy rejected the belief, as well as the grounds on which the Stoics adopted it, but he is distinctly in favour of the latter. He regards the human soul as a being of supra- mundane origin, and enters at length into the proofs of its immortality.
17. In his Ethics Cicero is a Stoic, but he blends the rigid theories of Stoicism with Platonic and Peripatetic elements after the fashion of the later Stoics, and thus mitigates their severity. The question whether virtue is of itself sufficient for happiness he is inclined to answer af firmatively, but remembering his own weakness and that of mankind generally he hesitates, and seems to look with favour on the distinction made by Antiochus of Ascaloii between the vita beata assured by virtue in all circumstances, and the rita leatissiina which is enhanced by the enjoyment of external goods (De Fin., V. c. 26). Virtue, however, he holds to be the good compared to which all others are only of secondary worth. " He combats the Peripatetic doctrine that virtue is nothing- more than the reducing of the irddn to due order ; he holds with the Stoics that the wi«- man has no 7ra0»j." In political philosophy his i<lc;il of government is a constitution which combines monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements — an ideal which he finds to
158 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
have been approximately realised in the Roman State (De Rep., I. 29 ; II. 23).
18. He also asserts the freedom of the human will. He would rather admit that a proposition may be neither true nor false, than admit that everything happens by Fate. Without liberty there could be no room for praise or blame, for reward or punishment. If you object that the freedom of the will contradicts the principle that nothing happens without a cause, he answers that the freedom of the will only excludes an external antecedent cause of our actions, but not all cause, for the will is itself the cause of our actions. Cicero will, however, permit such concessions to popular superstition as auguries and the like.
19. An Eclecticism of the same kind as Cicero's was adopted by the Sextian School founded by Q. Sextius (born about B.C. 70). Amongst the followers of Sextius were his son Sextius, Sotion of Alexandria the teacher of Seneca, Cornelius Celsus, L. Crassitius of Tarentum, and Papirius Fabianus. This school seems to have held an intermediate position between Pythagoreanism, Cynicism, and Stoicism. Abstinence from animal nesh, daily self-examination, metempsychosis, exhortation to moral excellence, to forti tude of soul, and to independence of all external things seems to have been the chief points in their teaching. The school had only a short existence. Cfr. Ueberweg and Sigwart.
THIRD SECTION.
GRAECO- ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
GENERAL CHARACTER or THIS PHILOSOPHY.
§48.
1. Greek Philosophy found its way, at an early period, into the East. The immediate causes of its extension in this direction were the con quests of Alexander the Great. In consequence of his intercourse with Aristotle, Alexander took a personal interest in the encouragement and the spread of philosophical knowledge. This interest passed to the men who divided his kingdom after his death. The rulers of the several states which were created by the partition of the Macedonian Empire protected and favoured Greek learning and Greek art, and endeavoured to make them known and appreciated by the peoples they governed. This remark applies equally to the Seleucidse in Syria, to the Attali of Pergamus, and the Ptolemies of Egypt. Institutions for the advance of science and learning were founded in Syria, the most noteworthy being those of Antioch and Tarsus, and also in Pergamus ; but these cities were all surpassed in scientific renown by the Alexandria of the Ptolemies. Under the reign of these monarchs Alexandria became not only the mercantile centre of the civilized world, but the centre also of the science and art of the age.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 159
2. Ptolemy Lagus (Soter) invited learned Greeks to Alexandria, and collected works of science from Greece, Italy, Asia, and Africa. His most important service to learning was, however, the founding of the so-called museum. This museum was a portion of the royal palace pro vided with gardens and porticoes, where men of learning lived together, forming a sort of community. A special fund was devoted to the main tenance of the museum ; it had its own president, appointed by the kings of Egypt, and at a later period by the Roman Emperors. The various departments of learning were there represented ; it included philo sophers, grammarians, critics, poets, mathematicians, astronomers, geo graphers, physicians, naturalists, of whom all, with few exceptions, were Greeks or the descendants of Greeks.
3. The museum also contained a library of Greek, Roman, Jewish, Persian, ./Ethiopian, Babylonian, Phoenician, and Indian literature, which increased to such proportions that the temple of Serapis — Serapeum — was assigned to it. When Julius Caesar burned the Egyptian fleet, the museum and the portion of the library contained within it were destroyed by fire, but the library of the Serapeum was preserved, and Marcus Antonius endeavoured to repair the loss by purchasing the library of the Kings of Pergamus. At a later time the Emperor Claudius founded a new museum. Alexandria thus possessed all the conditions which favoured a new development of science in general, and of philosophy more especially.
4. At an earlier period a society of learned men, of Jewish race, ap peared in Alexandria side by side with the learned Greeks. Judea was a part of the Egyptian kingdom, and it was to be expected that close relations should be established between the home of the Jewish race and Alexandria. Under Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 280), the Greek trans lation of the Old Testament, which is known as the " Septuagint," was made by certain learned Jews in Alexandria. The Ptolemies were favourably disposed towards the Jews, and, in consequence, Alexandria became a favourite resort of Jewish savants, and a centre of Jewish learning.
5. The course of events led to a revival of the ancient philosophy in the East, and more especially in Alexandria. If we examine the char acter of this revival we shall find that it is essentially a syncretism (blending) of the philosophical conceptions of Greece with the tenets of the oriental religions. In the East, and especially in Alexandria, Greek philosophy was brought into contact with the oriental religions, and the form in which it now appeared was largely determined by this contact. The attempt was made to blend philosophy and religion, to embrace in a higher unity the mind of Greece and the mind of the East.
6. In making this effort it was assumed that the religious notions of the East and the philosophy of Greece were derived from a common source — from a primeval religious tradition, which had its origin in a divine revelation. The founders of the Alexandrine philosophy set themselves to determine exactly what was contained in this tradition, in order to make this the basis of their philosophical teaching. The entire
160 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Graoco- Oriental philosophy thus came to be essentially a philosophy of religion, for it made use of philosophical concepts and principles only for the purpose of giving philosophic form, and establishing, by philoso phic proof, what it rightly or wrongly regarded as primeval religious tradition.
7. This philosophy of religion had a practical as well as theoretic aim. Its disciples used it to prepare the way for, and to effect, a reform of the popular religion. In the heathen world, corruption of the gross est kind had undermined the religious and moral life of society. The public religion commanded no faith, and inspired no reverence ; the public worship was neglected, religious doctrines and ritual were often the objects of contempt and mockery, and frivolity and vice prevailed as perhaps they have never prevailed at any other period.
8. To counteract these evils, the religious philosophers of the period endeavoured to recover the teachings of the primitive tradition, and uniting these with the notions of Greek philosophy to bring about a re ligious reform, by which the contradictions of the popular religion might be reconciled, and a broad and comprehensive system established, which should include in it all the elements of truth within the popular creed. In this wise they hoped to check the spreading corruption, and at the same time to oppose to Christianity, which was already growing into prominence, a power which would dispute its empire over the minds of men.
9. The strain of mysticism and theosophism which pervades this philosophy and forms one of its characteristic features, is in keeping with this design. Apart from the natural tendency to mysticism of the Eastern mind, the effort after religious reform by the religious philosophy of Alexandria was calculated to develop this characteristic. To reform religion, man, it was believed, should be again brought into close com munion with God. But this, it was thought, could only be achieved by making mystical union with God, in contemplation, the aim of human life, and this union was in turn made possible by a system of mystical asceticism. Mystical contemplation was at once the beginning and the end of hiiman knowledge, the source whence light was diffused over every region of human thought. In this doctrine we have the principles and the germs of mystical theosophy.
10. The religious and mystical character of the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophies adapted them specially to the aims of this move ment. We must, therefore, be prepared to find the philosophers of this period devote themselves chiefly to the philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato. The idealism of Plato was specially congenial to the imaginative Eastern mind. But the Alexandrian philosophers did not confine them selves to the school of Plato. They borrowed from other systems, from the Aristotelian, and even the Stoic, what they found suited to their pur pose, and embodied all in their own teaching. The Alexandrians ex tended very widely this eclecticism.
11. Thus much as to the general character of this philosophical movement. In the broad stream we have, however, to distinguish dif-
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 161
ferent currents. In the first place we find a combination of Greek philo sophy with Jewish religious doctrines, which had its rise in Alexandria, the scientific metropolis of the age, and which attained to a very wide development. Of the Gracco-Jewish religious philosophy, Philo is the chief representative. In conjunction with this school we find another — that of the Neo-Pythagoreans and Pythagorean Platonists — who held to the old beliefs of heathenism, but who, following the method of the Gracco- Jewish school, strove to combine into one system the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato, and the doctrines of the heathen faith. This system, likewise, had its origin in Alexandria. It reached its perfection, as a system of heathen philosophy, in Neo-Platonism, the principal non- Christian system of this period.
12. We shall, in our treatment of this subject, deal first with the Grocco- Jewish philosophy, then with the Neo-Pythagorean doctrines and Pythagorean Platonism, and lastly with Neo-Platonism.
GRJECO-JEWISH PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
PHILO THE JEW.
§49.
1. We observed above that under the Ptolemies not only the Jewish element of the population secured a footing and obtained protection, in Alexandria, but also that Jewish men of learning settled in the city, and cultivated there the sacred lore of their nation. Here they made acquaint ance with the philosophers of Greece, and this circumstance could not but affect their system of thought. They had, indeed, too high an esteem for their ancient traditions, and were too firmly persuaded of the divine origin of these traditions, not to believe them the ultimate source of all wisdom. But they could not refuse their admiration to the great works of Greek philosophy which confronted them. They were obliged to seek out a method which would permit them to maintain the supe riority of their sacred books to all philosophy, and, at the same time, to secure for philosophy its rightful place in the realm of knowledge.
2. As a first step in furtherance of this object, the following prin ciples were laid down :
(a). Revelation is the highest philosophy and, as such, includes within itself all the tenets of Greek philosophy, and this with a per fection and a fulness of truth not found in the Greek systems them selves.
(i). The Greek philosophers have derived their wisdom from the revealed doctrines of the Jews, that is, from the sacred books. The ultimate source of their lofty doctrines is, therefore, not human reason but Jewish tradition.
(c). The difference between the revealed doctrines of the Jews and the philosophy of the Greeks consists chiefly in this, that in the sacred
12
162 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
books of the Jews truth is expressed by symbols and figures, \vhereas Greek philosophy puts the figure aside and sets before us the thought which was expressed under the figure.
3. These assumptions formed the basis of the whole Groeco-Jewish philosophy. It was the aim of this philosophy to develop these notions in every sphere of philosophical knowledge. It strove to show that re velation and Greek philosophy corresponded, part for part — that revelation contained all that was found in Greek philosophy, though in more perfect form. In this wise the Jewish religion, it was presumed, would maintain itself in the face of Greek philosophy ; and at the same time a deeper in sight into its teaching, and a reform of the Jewish religion (meaning thereby a more spiritual and more ideal view of its tenets), would be brought about.
4. It is clear that this end could be attained only by accommodating the doctrines of the Jewish faith to the principles of Greek philosophy, that is to say, by interpreting these doctrines in accordance with the philosophical notions of the Greeks. This was essentially the method pursued by the Graeco- Jewish philosophers of this period. They endea voured to adapt the Scriptures to the doctrines of Greek philosophy, and by the light of this philosophy to determine their meaning. Looked at from the standpoint of revelation this method was rationalistic.
5. Another aspect of this philosophy remains to be noticed. On the supposition that it is characteristic of the Sacred Scriptures to present us with truth in images or figures, it would follow that the only method of arriving at the truth they contain is to seek the meaning that lies hidden under images, to strip the truth of the figures wrhich envelop it. This must be effected by determining the allegorical sense of the Sacred Scriptures. Hence it is that we find the allegorical sense of Scripture occupying so prominent a place in the Graeco-Jewish philosophy. The literal meaning of the text was abandoned, and the allegorical substi tuted, not only in cases where this was required by the subject-matter, but frequently also even in cases where the subject-matter demanded that the literal sense should be maintained. On other occasions literal and allegorical meanings were simultaneously maintained. In a word there was no limit to the liberties which interpreters permitted them selves.
6. In this way it came to be assumed that under the scnsus obrius of the Sacred Scriptures a deeper meaning was concealed, and that this deeper meaning alone was the genuine sense of the Scripture. Thinkers who held to the mere letter (the sensus obvius) were of no account ; only those were credited with wisdom and knowledge who were privileged to penetrate the hidden meaning of the Books of Revelation. This was the method adopted to bring about a reform of the Jewish faith in accord ance with the requirements of the times.
7. As early as the second century B.C., the way had been prepared for the combination of Jewish theology with the doctrines of Greek philosophy. In this century arose the three Jewish sects — the Essenes, the TherapeuteB, and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were a school of
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 163
materialistic free-thinkers, while the Essenes and the Therapeutae adopted a course of mystical asceticism. Among the Therapeutae certain Pythagorean notions seern to have found favour, and it is among them, perhaps, we are to seek the first beginnings of the Gracco-Jewish philo sophy.
8, In Aristobulus (about B.C. 160) we have distinct evidence of an union already effected between Jewish theology and Greek philosophy. " He appealed to certain (spurious) Orphic lays, into which he had intro duced certain points of Jewish doctrine, in proof of his contention that the Greek philosophers and poets had derived their wisdom from an early translation of the Pentateuch." He composed a commentary on the Pentateuch, fragments of which are preserved by Clement of Alexandria, Stromata I., VI. ; and by Eusebius, Pratpar. Evany. VII., VIII., IX., XIII. He asserts the inspiration of Scripture, but he adopts the alle gorical meaning. God, he teaches, is invisible, His throne is in heaven, He is not in contact with the earth, He influences it only by His power (Svva/mis). He created the world out of pre-existent matter. To justify the keeping of the Sabbath, Aristobulus appeals to the Pythago rean argument from the symbolism of numbers. After Aristobulus we may mention Aristeas, to whom is ascribed a (spurious) letter to Philo- crates, in which is told the story of the translation of the Sacred Scrip tures by the seventy interpreters.
9. The chief representative of the Graeco- Jewish philosophy is, how ever, Philo, who was the first to give it completeness as a system. He lived in Alexandria, and was descended from one of the most distin guished families of the country. According to Eusebius and Jerome, his family was of priestly rank. In the year B.C. 40 he was sent to Home as delegate from the Alexandrian Jews to the Emperor. He was equally conversant with the various systems of Greek philosophy and with the ancient traditions of his own people.
10. His writings are very numerous. The names of his works are as follows: — (a.) De mundi opificio ; (b.) Leyia AUegoriarum, Lib. 2; (c.) De Cherubim; (d.) De Sacrificiti Abeli et Caini ; (d.)Quod dcterius potiori insidiari soleat ; (f.) De Agricultu.ro. ; (g.) De Plan- tatione Noe ; (h.) De Temultntia; (i.) De kisverbis: 'Resipuit Noe'; (k.) De Gigantibus ; (1.) Quod J)eus sit immutabilis ; (m.) De Confusione Linguarum ; (n.) De Abrahamo ; (o.) De
Mujratione Abrahami ; (p.) De coiigressu quaereiidce eruditionis gratia ; (q.) De Profiujis ; (r.) Quis rerum divinarum haeres sit ; (s.) De Josepho ; (t.) De Somniis ; (u.) De Vita Mosis, Lib. 3; (v.) De Caritate Mosis ; (w.) De Creatione Principis ; (x.) De Fortitudine ; (y.) De Decalogo ; (z.) De Specialibus Leaibus ; (aa.) De Circumfusione ; (bb. ) De Monarchia ; (cc. ) Dt Stitrdotum Honoribus ; (dd.) De Victimis ; fee.) De Victima* Ofiercntibus ; (S.) Mer- cedem meretricis non esse recipiendam ; (gg. ) Quod omnisprobu* liber ; (hh.) De vita contem pt at iva ; (ii.) De nobi/itate; (kk.) DP Prwmiis et Pcenis ; (11.) De Execratione ; (mm.) Quod mitndttJt Kit incomiptibilis ; (nn.) In Flaccum ; (oo.) De Legatione ad Caiiim; (pp.) De Nomi- num Mutationc ; (cjq.) Quod a Deo irnmittantur somnia.
11. Adopting the principle that the prophets were merely the instru ments through which the Spirit of God spoke, Philo makes free use of the allegorical sense. To hold to the mere literal meaning of S;uTrd Scripture he considers undignified, unbecoming, and superstitious, and he stigmatises his opponents as " infected with an incurable passion for
164 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
logomachy, and blinded by the delusions of custom." "God cannot, in the strict sense, go hither and thither, nor has He feet to walk with. These anthromorphic methods of expression are used by Sacred Scrip ture for the advantage of the sensual man ; at the same time it explains to the spiritual man that God is not like man, nor like heaven, nor like earth." This, no doubt, is undeniable. But Philo goes further, and applies his allegorical interpretation to other things, especially to histo rical incidents which are narrated in the Scriptures. We must, how ever, allow that he does not always reject the literal meaning. In the case of many historical narratives he admits a literal as well as an alle gorical meaning ; but he will never allow that the latter is absent.
12. But Philo's censure is not reserved for the " literalists " only. He is equally severe upon the " symbolists," whose teaching threatened Judaism as a system of positive religion. The symbolists attributed a figurative meaning not only to the teachings of the Law, but also to the ordinances of the Jewish ceremonial, and held that the observance of these ordinances according to the letter was superfluous, that no more was necessary than to observe the moral precepts which they typified. Philo is ready to acknowledge that even in these ordinances there is a recondite and higher sense as well as a literal sense, but the precepts must be observed in accordance with the latter sense, since the two are united as soul and body. Allowing that circumcision signifies restraint upon passion and the renunciation of luxury and impious thoughts, we must not for this interfere with the established practice ; otherwise we should have to give up the worship of the Temple and a thousand other necessary solemnities.
13. After this exposition of fundamental principles, we may now proceed to examine Philo's system of doctrine. We must observe, at the outset, that in this system there is scarcely any trace of unity of plan and harmony of principles. Philo's aim is to bring the revealed doctrines of the Jews into accord with the teachings of Greek philosophy, in other words to make the latter supply the interpretation of the former. In doing this, his eclecticism reaches to every system of Greek philo sophy, and he uses them all for his purpose. He incorporated the Platonic doctrines in his system, side by side with the Aristotelian or the Stoic, as the one or the other seemed to serve for the interpretation of a given passage. In this way the several systems are introduced to gether in all parts of his writings, and unity and harmony thus rendered impossible.
14. God, the First Cause of all things, is above everything created. We argue His existence from a consideration of His works and by a conclusion, thence warranted, to the author of these works. But it is not given us to comprehend His Being, or express determinately what He is. God is above our comprehension, and above our powers of ex pression. He alone has comprehensive knowledge of Himself. For our part, we describe Him but by that name which He bestowed upon Himself, when He said, "I am who am" (6 &v). No attribute, no perfection can be predicated of God in the proper sense of the term.
PHILOSOPHY OF TIIK (.KKEKS. 105
He is above everything. He is not Wisdom, nor Virtue, nor the Good, nor the One ; He is more than all these.
15. However we are not debarred from speaking of God after our own manner. In the order of our conceptions God comes before us as the Unbegotten (d-ytWijToe), a Being who contains within Himself the ultimate cause of His own existence — the fulness of perfection and bliss, the Eternal, the Unchangeable, the Imperishable. In Him there is no before and no hereafter, no past and no future, all things are pre sent to Him. He is simple in His nature, not restricted to any part of space, and is, therefore, at once everywhere and nowhere. He is all- sufficient in Himself, and has no need of anything outside Himself. God alone is free, i.e. independent of everything not Himself.
16. The world is the work of God, but the world is not God. To identify the world with God is to commit the error and the wickedness of maintaining that God has created all things out of nothing (tic pi} OVTWV). It follows from this that the world is not eternal. It has had a beginning. The reason for the Creation was the goodness of God, the ultimate purpose of the Creation the manifestation of this divine good ness. The duration of the world is dependent on the exercise of God's conserving power. It is everlasting, God's goodness having assigned it an unending duration. But God did not Himself directly create matter and reduce it to form and order ; it was not fitting that He, the supremely Pure, should come into immediate contact with matter. The world comes mediately from God. He created it by His Logos (Word). We have now to examine Philo's doctrine of the Logos.
17. The Logos of Plato is the aggregate in which all Ideas are com prehended — the intelligible world which, in this respect, Philo describes as the region of Ideas. Before the creation of the world God formed in His intellect its ideal prototype. This prototype of the world is the Logos, created things are the ectypes of this Logos. As the seal is im pressed upon the wax and is represented in it, so the Logos is the original mould or stamp of created things and is represented in all their various forms. And here it is to be remarked that all the ideas con tained in the Logos find actual expression in the world, the most perfect expression, too, of which they are capable. It follows that the world is the only world possible, and also the best possible.
18. Philo goes still further. He distinguishes between the Arfyoc IvSiatiiTos and the Aoyoc Trpo<f>opiic6(,, and this distinction he borrows from the Ao-yoe in man. In man we distinguish between the indwelling reason, which is the active faculty of thought, and the extrinsic word, in which the thought finds expression. We may describe the former as the Ao-yoc ivSidStroq, and the latter as the Acryoc irpo^optKo^. An analogous distinction must be applied to the divine Logos. It is a Ao-yoc ivStaOtToc;, inasmuch as it is constituted by the aggregate of all ideas in dwelling in the mind of God; it is a Ao-yoc irpotyoptKog, as expressed in things created — the ectypes and outward expression of the ideas con tained in the divine mind.
19. The \6yos irpufyopiKOQ of Philo appears to be a divine power or
166 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
force which pervades all things, giving them life and form. The \OJOQ tvSiaOtroG he seems to regard merely as the ideal conception of the world ; but the Xoyoc irpofyopiKOQ is the creative, formative power by which God produces and forms the universe. Under the influence of this notion he makes the several ideas contained in the Logos so many distinct forces, which proceed like rays of light from God, but in such wise that they are all united in the Logos. In ihis way the Logos, with its various distinct forces, becomes the organ or instrument by means of which God, who cannot Himself come into immediate contact with the defilements of matter, creates and fashions the world.
20. This theory enables Philo to assert that God is present in all things, not by His Being, but by His power. Philo, is in the same way led to regard the Logos as the differentiating element in the universe, as the power which gives to matter its different forms, as the architect of the universe, working from within outwards, effecting the formation of the world : as the Xoyoc crwip/naTiKoz, inasmuch as the ideas it con tains manifest themselves in the several objects by its formative energy ; as the bond which unites all things in the universe ; as the universal and unchanging cosmical law ; as the universal World-Reason or Pro vidence which pervades and governs all things, guiding and controlling the course of the universe. The universe is, so to speak, the garment by which the Logos is enveloped.
21. This, however, is not the -whole of Philo's doctrine regarding the divine Logos. With him the Aoyoc TT/OO^O/HKOC is not merely a divine power, it appears ultimately in his teaching, as a personal being. Thus conceived it becomes a kind of intermediate nature between God and the world, separating the one from the other, but at the same time bringing them both into relation with one another. The Logos, in this capacity, is neither a thing ungenerated and Avithout a beginning, nor yet is it generated and produced as all other things. It is the Son of God — the eldest, first-begotten Son, the world being the younger Son of God. The Divine Wisdom (the Ao-yoc ivStdOtToc;) is the Mother of this Word, God is his Father. He may be called God, not in the strict sense of the term, but only in so far as in his action he appears as the representative of God. He is intermediary between God and man, he conveys the commands and ordinances of God to men, and is on the other hand intercessor with God for man. In the former character he is the " Angel of God," in the latter " the High Priest."
22. But the Logos is not, according to Philo, the only power by which God creates, fashions, and maintains the world. Philo speaks of other Divine Powers distinct from the Logos, though subordinate to it. He does not appear to have formed a definite opinion as to the number of these powers. At one place he speaks of two powers — the creative and the controlling ; at another he mentions five such powers — the creative, the ruling, the commanding, the forbidding, and the forgiving. Furthermore, Philo's conception of these powers or potencies is some what undetermined. At one time he seems to conceive of them as attri butes of God, or modes in which the divine power manifests itself, as, for
PHILOSOPHY OF THK GREEKS. 107
» \;ini]>l( , when he identifies the creative and ruling powers with the omnipotence and goodness of God, and says that God, in virtue of the one attribute, is called Lord, in virtue of the other God. Again, how ever, he seems to represent them as personal beings ; for example, when he describes them as ministers of God in the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, and puts them under the control of the Logos, as steeds under the guidance of a charioteer.
23. In accordance with the latter conception is his further assump tion of the existence of other beings intermediate between God and the world. In this category he reckons the stars, which, after the Platonic fashion, he endows with reason, and makes akin to the Divinity, and the angels, to whom he assigns the atmospheric region as an abode. These beings also fulfil, after their manner, the functions of interme diaries between God and man ; they execute the Divine commands, and intercede with God on man's behalf. The series of beings is thus brought down without interruption from the highest to the lowest, from God to man, and the universe thus resembles a great state in which the supreme authority is held by God, but exercised through subordinate powers.
24. In his physical theories, Philo for the most part follows Aristotle. The six days in which, according to Sacred Scripture, the world was created, must not be regarded as actual periods of time ; they merely mark the order in which things followed one another in the Divine con ceptions. This order is based upon the number six, for this is the most perfect number. The cause of the imperfections, of the evil, and the wickedness which prevail in these sublunary regions is to be found in matter, which opposes itself to the formative energy of the Loyos. It would be blasphemy to assert that God was Himself the author of evil or wickedness.
25. In his doctrine regarding man, Philo draws, at the outset, a dis tinction between the ideal man and the man of our experience. He endeavours to justify this distinction by an appeal to the Scripture. In the first chapter of Genesis it is said that God created man to His own image and likeness. According to Philo, it is the ideal man of whom there is question in this passage. The second chapter recounts that God created man out of the slime of the earth, and breathed into him a living soul ; here there is question of the man of our actual experience, the earthly man. Philo describes the ideal man as the primal man, and this concept he ultimately identifies with that of the Logos.
26. In man as actually known to experience, Philo, like Plato, dis tinguishes the rational soul — a' simple, indivisible, immortal essence — from the irrational soul, which he locates in the blood. The former he describes as the true man within man, the ego proper in man. In the irrational soul he, at one time, distinguishes with Aristotle between the vegetative, the concupiscible, and the irascible parts ; at another time he inclines to the Stoic doctrines, and distinguishes in the soul (the rational soul included) eight parts. He adopts now one of these dis tinctions, now another, according to the requirements of the subject he is treating
168 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
27. Explaining in further detail the nature of the rational soul, Philo, adopting the Stoic notions, regards the soul as an airoairaafjia (a shred) of the Divinity, and accordingly describes it as a Divine spirit. When God breathed into man a living soul, something of the Divine Being was in the act, transfused into man, and this something is the rational soul. This is the Divine impression which stamps man as the image of God. The body, with its irrational soul, is the creation of in ferior powers. It would be unworthy of God to give existence to the body, for it is the seat of concupiscence, and concupiscence is the source of all evil, vice, and unrighteousness.
28. The souls of men do not differ specifically from the angelic nature. Before their union with human bodies they lived an angelic life among the angels, and it is in consequence of their own faults that they are degraded to union with matter. Some angels always hold themselves aloof from contact with corporeal nature ; others on the con trary inclining to contact with it, sink down into the corporeal element, and become human souls. The Platonic theory of pre- existence of the soul could hardly fail in a theory such as Philo's.
29. With regard to the human faculties of cognition, Philo dis tinguishes between the aiaQr}aiq, \6jog and vowc- The a'/o-flrjove is con cerned with sensible objects, the Arryoe is the reasoning faculty ; the vovz is the faculty of immediate intellectual contemplation. The VOVQ is the eye of the soul in the strict sense, it is to the Acfyoe what the Divine vovg is to the Divine Aoyoc- The knowledge which the Aoyoe obtains discursively or by reasoning, is uncertain and unstable ; perfect certainty is attainable only by intellectual contemplation as accomplished by the vovg. This contemplation, however, is dependent on the irradia tion of the vovs by the Divine light. God alone can bestow the know ledge of contemplation, and He bestows it when we pray for it, through the Logos. God is thus the sun of our souls ; the Logos is the dispenser of wisdom, the food of the soul, the manna on which it subsists.
30. In this contemplation of the Divinity consists, moreover, the supreme happiness of man ; it is the highest purpose of his life. To at tain to it, the soul must detach itself from the body and withdraw within itself; for the operations of sense are a hindrance to the soul in its up ward flight towards this highest end of life. But this is not enough. The Reason must not only abandon the ato-flrjovc, but it must renounce the \6yog also, and reduce it to silence, if it will attain to the height of its destiny. Nay, more, the Reason must, to a certain extent, renounce it self, must go out of itself to become wholly one with the Divine Wisdom, if its contemplation is to be perfect. In a word, the highest attainment of man is only possible in mystical ecstasy. By this means alone does man become really divine. Sense must be absorbed in the Atfyoe, the Aoyoc in the vouc, and this in its turn in God, if man is to attain that bliss which is the highest end of life.
31. In accordance with this teaching, Philo distinguishes the active from the contemplative life. The active life has, no doubt, its justifica tion in the fact that it is a necessary condition of human society ; the
PHILOSOPHY OK II IK ORKKKS. 169
contemplative life, however, is of a much higher order. The latter is the true priesthood ; contemplation is the true and proper sacrifice, for it is possible only when man renounces his individuality, and offers it in sacrifice to God. The active life is human, the contemplative life is divine. From the eminence of mystical contemplation, the spirit looks forth as from a watch-tower upon the universe, viewing it not from the periphery inwards, but from the centre outwards.
32. Virtue is the path which leads to the highest end of life. "We must, however, distinguish between the virtues which belong to the active and those which belong to the contemplative life. To the former class belong the four cardinal virtues : prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. In defining these virtues, Philo at one time adopts the notions of Plato, at another those of Aristotle. The virtues which be long to the contemplative life either prepare and purify, or confer per fection. To the former belong faith, hope, piety, penance ; the virtue conferring perfection is wisdom — that virtue which is founded on the contemplation of the Divinity. All virtues exist in ideal fashion in the Divine Logos. He is, therefore, the dispenser of all virtues, He bestows them by His grace.
33. The true sage is he who, devoting himself to the contemplative life, attains to mystical contemplation. All other men are fools. Sen- suality has no power over the true sage. He cannot be drawn to evil by the solicitations of concupiscence ; for the Divine Logos dwells within him, and so long as he is the dwelling-place of the Logos, so long is he protected against the contamination of matter. The sage is not only the truly wise, he is also the truly free, for the possession of wisdom rescues him from the dominion of matter. The fool, on the other hand, is the victim of ignorance, and is, by this fact, the slave of sensuality and passion.
34. The character of Philo's system being thus purely mystical, we naturally expect to encounter in it the principle of (Oriental) Quietism. This principle has, as a matter of fact, its place in the system. Philo teaches expressly that whereas the active life demands man's own ener gies, in the contemplative life everything depends exclusively on the action of God — on the Divine grace. Man's will has no part in the mystical elevation of human nature ; it is not our work, it is wholly the work of God. Nay, it is a fundamental requirement in the elevation of man to mystical contemplation that he should cease to act himself and permit God to act in him. This absolute Quietism is essential to the attainment of man's highest end.
35. The history of man's first state and subsequent fall, as narrated in Scripture, Philo reduces to an allegory. The first man, whom God created "after his own image and likeness," is, according to the explanation already given, the ideal man. The differ ence between this first man and man as he is now created is infinite. Man, us now created, is a being of sense, possessed of different qualities, composed of body and soul, is either male or female, and is of his nature mortal. The first man, on the other hand, was a pure spirit, without a body, sexless, immortal by nature. This was the heavenly man, as distinguished from the earthly man, or " Adam." Paradise, in which man was placed by God, was not a part of space allotted to man ; by the term we must under
170 HISTORY OF ANCIBNT PHILOSOPHY.
stand the jioi\-, that is to say we must understand the term to signify that God in giving Reason to man, bestowed upon him, at the same time, dominion over all subordinate crea tures. The Tree of Life was the Wisdom bestowed upon man, and the Four Rivers were the four Virtues which flow from Wisdom.
36. As for the Fall, the narrative of Scripture is thus explained as an allegory. Woman is Sense, man is Reason, the Tree of Knowledge is the good of Sense, which con ceals evil under a fair exterior. The serpent which approached the woman to deceive her, and through her to seduce the nrm, is sensual pleasure, arising out of the faculties of sense, and seducing Reason itself. In this way sin was committed, and in this way the sin of the, h'rst man furnished the prototype, and tells the story of every sin which man has since committed. Philo gives also another interpretation of the Scripture narrative. As soon, he says, as the woman was created and presented to the man, mutual love was enkindled in both. Evil desires grew up within them, they were drawn towards one another like separated parts of a single whole, and at lust their desires found satisfac tion in carnal intercourse. Thus sensual desire, consummated in carnal intercourse, was the first sin, and as it was the first sin, so it has been through all time the source of all unrighteousness and of all evil.
37. But Philo does not regard the fall of man as something wholly abnormal or excep tional. He is of opinion that there is nothing fixed or stable in the universe, that every thing is subject to change and transformation, and thus that the natural course of things required that man should meet with opposing influences, and that he should, in conse quence, fall from a higher to a lower grade of existence. Everything loses its perfection in proportion as it recedes from its prototype. So it is with man. Philo assumes, as a consequence of this view, an ever increasing degeneracy of the human race in body and spirit. In reference to the doctrine of the Messiah, Philo is satisfied with the view cur rent among his contemporaries, he expresses a hope that the Jewish laws and constitutions will one day be adopted by all nations, and that thus a sort of universal Jewish kingdom will be established.
38 This system, it will be observed, covers a very wide field of theory, but the notions which are here blended together are very diverse in character. It is not, therefore, surprising that in subsequent times the system of Philo failed to exercise any far-reaching influence. "VVe shall see later how the heretics of the first centuries of Christianity, as well as the Fathers of the Church, borrowed from Philo, though with different meanings and with different purposes. Perhaps we should also take into account, in this connection, the attractive and pleasing form in which Philo expresses himself in his writings. The undoubted ingenuity shown in many of his allegories had certainly its effect.
2. NKO-PYTHAGOREANS, AND ECLECTIC PLATONISTS.
1. Cicero mentions, as the restorer of the Pythagorean teaching, P. Nigidius Figulus, who lived in Alexandria during the latter half of the century preceding the birth of Christ. Many works, written in the time of Augustus, and ascribed to the older Pythagoreans, contain Neo- Pythagorean ideas. About the same period, Sotion, pupil of the Pytha gorean Eclectic, Sextius, flourished in Alexandria. But the principal representatives of the Neo-Pythagorcan philosophy were Apollonius, of Tyana (in the time of Nero) Moderatus of Gades (also in the time of Nero), and Nicomachus, of Gerasa, who lived before the age of the Antonines. Secundus of Athens (under Hadrian) would also appear to deserve a place among the philosophers of this school.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREKK-. 171
(a.) Apollonius of Tyana, in his travels through the Roman Empire, and especially through the Kast, appeared in the character of a worker of miracles. He was a man of action rather than of systematic thought. His chief purpose waste revive the doctrines of Pythagoras in their purity, and to blend the lore of the Kast with the theories of the West. Kusebius (Prsep. Ev. 13) has preserved a fragment from a treatise of Apollonius on sacrifice : "Apollonius here distinguishes between the one God, who is separated from all else, and other gods. No sacrifice should be ottered to the former. He should not even be mentioned by name, but only thought of by the VCH'C. All things of earth, because of their material state, are unclean, and unfit to come in contact with the supreme God. To the subordinate gods Apollonius seems to have assigned bloodless sacrifices ! "*
(b.) Moderatus of (Jades, who lived about the same time as Apollonius, endeavoured to justify the introduction of Platonic and new theological notions into the Pythagorean teaching, by contending that the older Pythagoreans had purposely expressed the highest truths in symbols, and nad for this purpose made use of numbers. The number One was the symbol of unity and similarity, the principle of harmony and of the constitution of all things; the number Two, on the other hand, was the symbol of diversity, of dissimi larity, of separation, and of change.
(c.) Nicomachus of Gerasa, in Arabia, appears to have lived about 150 B.C. In his work Arithmetics, Libri II., he taught the existence of numbers in the mind of the Creator antecedently to the formation of the universe ; these numbers gave the plan after which all things were fashioned. In this wise Nicomachus makes the numbers of Pytha goras what Philo had made his Id fan — conceptions of the Divine mind. Furthermore, he holds the number One to be itself the Divinity, Reason, the Principle of form and good ness ; the number Two is the Principle of dissimilarity, of change, of matter, and of evil. The ethical duty of man is to withdraw from contact with the impure, and to attain again to union with God ! t
2. Eclectic Platonism had its rise in the first century of our era, and attained a considerable diffusion in the second. Its aim was to combine in one system the Ideas of Plato and the Categories of Aristotle, and further to establish a harmonious accord between the philosophy of Greece and the religious and mythical notions of the East. It strove, in particular, to renew and propagate the transcendentalism of Plato in opposition to the pantheism of the Stoics and the naturalism of the Epicureans. This system was the forerunner of Neo- Platonism, and led up to it.
• A century later Philostratus. at the instigation of the Empress Julia, wife of Alexander Severus, com posed a treatise on Apollonius, which purports to be a biography. This work is a romance at once philoso- j'hir.il ami religious in character, and written for a purpose. In the person of Apollonius the Neo-Pythagorean ideal is sketched with the design of setting another ideal and wonder-working personage in opposition to the .•irist.andof thus maintaining the repute of the heathen religion against the advance of Christianity. In this work we are told of the wonders which befel at the birth of Apollonius; for example, a streak of lightning which sunk into the earth, rose again into the air, and there disappeared. We are told of the . of Apollonius, and of the higher knowledge he possessed, and by which he was enabled to read the future, and to speak in tongues which he had never learned. -We are told how he journeyed to India to con verse with the Brahmins, and to interchange knowledge with them. His miracles are described at length. He is .-aid to have cast out devils, to have raised a dead girl to life, and to have learned from the whining of a tame lion that it possessed a human soul — the soul of Amasis, King of Egypt, and so forth. We are also told that he travelled into Egypt and there confounded the wisdom of the Gymnosophists. Apollonius enjoyed t lie personal aniuaintanee of Vespasian and Titus. Under Domitian ho suffered imprisonment in consequence of an unguarded prophecy regarding Nerva's succession to the Empire. But he escaped miracu lously from pri-on, and announced at Kphesus the death of Domitian at the moment that the Emperor died in Home. His own death was accompanied by miracles. Some say he entered the temple of Athene, in Lindus, and there disappeared ; others assert that he went into the temple of Athene, in Crete, and thence raised himself into heaven, an unsoen choir of maidens singing the while : " Rise up from earth ; ascend to heuven." Philos tratus relates these and other fantastic stories, professing to found his narrative on a written document left by a certain Pamis, a pupil and companion of Apollonius; but of this document there is no further trace. The d.-iirn to rai-e Apollonius to the position of a heathen saint and worker of miracles, and to set him against Christ, in order to drive Christianity from the field, is unmistakable.
t To Sccundus. of Athens, the "silent philosopher," who lived under Adrian, are attributed certain answers to philosophical questions put by the Emperor, which arc in accord with the notions of the Neo- Pythagoreans. These answers are found in the philosopher's " Lifts "—a work which dates from tho second oentury.
172 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
3. Among the Eclectic Platonists, the most renowned are Arius, Didymus, and Eudorus (in the time of Augustus) ; Dercyllides and Thrasyllus (under Tiberius, A.D. 30) ; Theon of Smyrna, Plutarch of Chacronea (under Trajan, A.D. 100) ; Maximus of Tyre (under the Anto- nines, A.D. 170) ; Apuleius of Madaura in Numidia ; Alcinous, Albiuus, and Severus (about the same period) ; Calvisius Taurus (A.D. 150), and Atticus (A.D. 174), the physician Galen (A.D. 175) ; Celsus, the antagonist of Christianity (A.D. 200), and Numenius of Apamea (A.D. 170).
(a). Eudorus of Alexandria wrote a commentary upon the Timanis of Plato, as well as upon the works of Aristotle, and composed a treatise on the Divisions of Philosophy. Arius Didymus, a pupil of Antiochus of Ascalon, wrote a work, iripi dptoKovrwv IlXdrwi'i, and others besides. Thrasyllus of Egypt (A.D. 30), to whom we owe an arrange ment of the Platonic dialogues, combined with his Platoyism Pythagorean speculations about numbers, and Chaldean doctrines regarding magic. Dercyllides was the first to divide the Platonic dialogues into tetralogies. Theon of Smyrna composed a work on the mathematical principles involved in the Platonic theories.
(b). Plutarch of Chaeronea regarded it as the chief end of philosophy to instruct men in their moral and religious obligations, and so came to consider as chief in importance the doctrines which affect the character and temperament of the learner. In the exposi tion of his views he professes to follow Plato, even where he is very distinctly at variance with Plato's teaching. He combats the Monism of the Stoics, and returns to Plato's assumption of two cosmical principles, God (the Monas), the author of good, and matter (the Duas), on which depends the existence of evil. God is in Himself, unknowable, it is only His creative action which comes within reach of our knowledge. Intermediate between God and matter, Plutarch places Ideas. This lower world, the soul of man in cluded, appears to him a being debased by the disturbing influences of matter. He holds the existence of an evil World-Soul, as well as a good. His ethical doctrines are lofty, temperate, and pure.
Maximus of Tyre, who lived about half a century later than Plutarch, followed the same lines, but shows himself more inclined to religious syncretism and a superstitious demonology.
(c). Apuleius of Madaura holds God, Ideas, and Matter to be the primary principles of all things. He distinguishes between the sensible and super-sensible world. The latter includes God, Reason, or the Unity of Ideas, and the Soul ; the former rests upon matter as its basis. Alcinous likewise holds God, Ideas, and Matter to be the ultimate principles of being ; but he confounds in one system the notions of Plato, of Aristotle, and of the Stoics. Severus denies that the world had a beginning. Atticus protests against the combination of Aristotelian and Platonic theories, and is a vigorous opponent of Aristotle ; that the world had its beginning in time he holds to be established.
(d). Claudius Galen, the celebrated teacher of the medical art, who first traced the connection between the nerves and the brain, devoted much attention to philosophy, and occupied himself with the exposition of the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus,
and Chrysippus. He esteems philosophy, which for him is the same thing as religion, as
syllogistic Figure. He inclines to the Platonic notion of an immortal soul, but he is unable to
. , ,
the greatest of the benefits conferred by the gods. To him we owe the Fourth syllogistic
conquer his doubts upon this point as upon all others where experience is not available. He lays special stress on the general religious belief in the existence of the gods, and the rule of a Providence. Celsus, the opponent of Christianity, is known to us by the refuta tion with which Origen met the arguments against Christianity which he had put for ward in his \6yo£ a
• As to the substance of Celsus' work— it is remarkable that his first objection to Christianity is, that it aims at becoming not a national religion, but a universal religion. All the heathen creeds were national, the claim of Christianity to be a universal faith was unintelligible to the pagan world. Celsus (le.-pi-M ,1 ihe Jews us heartily as he despised the Christians, but he held that the Jews had an advantage over the Christians in this, that they possessed a national religion. He furthermore reproached the Christians with insisting always on blind faith, and refusing all rational inquiry into their articles of belief. He failed to understand the nature of Christian faith ami its relation to reason. He denied the supernatural manner of the birth of Christ. The Jewish fable of the Roman soldier Pantheus and his relations with Mary he accepts •without question. The whole life of Christ seems to him to be a refutation of the Christian belief in His divinity. He cannot reconcile the lowliness and poverty of the Saviour with his own epicurean conception-. <>f the happiness and immunity from suffering enjoyed by the god*. He makes mockery of the god wno hid
PHU.OSOl'HY OK THE GREEKS. 173
(e). The most unmistakable forerunner of Neo-Platonism is, however, Numenius of Apamea. He traces the philosophy of the Greeks back to the lore of the East, and speaks of Plato as the Attic Moses. There can be no doubt that he was well acquainted with I'lnln, and with the Jewish theosophy of Alexandria. He formulated a distinct system of Tritheism. He distingushes the Platonic Demiurgos from the Supreme Deity, making the former subject to the latter, and thus proceeds : The first God is goodness in itself and of itself, he is pure activity of thought (vof'c), and the ultimate reason for all existence (oieriaf dp\tj). The second god (6 civripoQ fttoc), the Demiurgos, is good by participation in the being of the first, he contemplates the super-sensible archetypes of things, and so acquires knowledge ; he exerts his activity upon matter, fashions it after the archetypes he has beheld, and thus becomes the creator of the world: The world, the creation of the Demiurgos, is the third god. This doctrine Numenius ascribes to Plato, and even to Socrates. He holds that the soul has been degraded from a pre vious incorporeal state of existence in punishment of a fault. Harpocration and Cronius seem to have held similar views.
3. NEO-PLATONISM.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
§51.
1. It lias already been made clear that ancient philosophy in the first centuries of our era had altogether ceased to receive original develop ment. Nothing new was added. The great conceptions of earlier times were discussed and modified with, perhaps, more erudition than insight. This was the whole work of the philosophers of the time.
2. One system only could claim to form an exception to this rule — the system of Neo-Platonism. It might have seemed that the brilliant epoch of Greek philosophy was to be revived in Neo-Platonism. But it was only an appearance ; for at bottom Neo-Platonism was no more than a system in which the religious notions of the East were blended with the conceptions and doctrines of the older Greek philosophers, though it differed from the other eclectic systems in this — that the fusion was more intimate and complete. For this reason Neo-Platonism could not maintain its position against the rising sun of Christianity. It com bated Christianity, but in so doing it was working its own overthrow. Neo-Platonism was merely the last violent flickering of the light of ancient philosophy which immediately preceded total extinction.
3. Neo-Platonism, described by its fundamental characteristic, may be called a theory of emanation. This notion of emanation is essentially an Oriental concept. We find no trace of it in the history of Greek philosophy. There is no room, therefore, to doubt that Neo-
himself when the Jews accused him, who wandered about the country, was betrayed by one of his disciples, taken prisoner, and crucified. lie altogether denies the resurrection of Christ. He laughs at the trid«IU» in favour of the resurrection. If Jesus really meant to display his divine power, he would have n him-'lf to his torturers and executioners; but he did not appear to them: he showed himself to a foolish woman, and then to his own companions. Moreover, how could the Son of God descend from heaven J Such a thins could not be accomplished without effecting a change in God himself from a better state to a worse. And if he came to bring tho true religion into the world, why did he not come sooner? In a word, Celsus maintains that the whole teaching regarding the person of Christ is no more than an attempt to deify a dead man ; it is no better than any oth.T heathen apothro-is. Finally, what do the Christians mean by the resur rection of the body ! Such a belief is wholly irrational ; for the body is altogether unclean, and subject to every kind of misery, &c., &c.
174 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Platonism borrowed it from the East. But the scientific form in which this notion was put forward was drawn from the Greek systems, es- specially the Platonic. They furnished the scientific principles which helped out in detailed development the system of emanation. In this respect Neo-Platonisra is the most remarkable representation of that union of Eastern and Greek thought, which is the characteristic of this period of ancient philosophy.
4. A further characteristic feature of Neo-Platonism, and one which stands in close relation to the former, is its mysticism— a mysticism of the extreme type. This again is of Oriental origin. Its combination with Greek philosophy was made all the more easy by the fact that Plato's writings had already given evidence of a mystical tendency. In Neo-Platonism mysticism was pushed to the extreme limit. A consequence of this exaggerated mysticism was that the superstitions of theurgy ; magic, and necromancy found their way into the system, and were there established and justified by scientific methods.
5. Neo-Platonism has three representative schools — the Alexandrino- Roman, to which the system owes its origin and thorough development ; the Syrian, which was chiefly occupied with a fantastic theurgy, and lastly,* the Athenian, which returned again to saner methods. With the last-named school we may associate the Neo-Platonist commentators of later times. We proceed to take a survey of these three schools in order.
NEO-PLATONISM IN ITS EARLIEST FORM.
PLOTINUS.
§52.
1. The founder of Neo-Platonism was Ammonius Saccas, of Alexandria (A.D. 176-250). He is said to have been brought up as a Christian by his parents, but to have returned to paganism in maturer life. The nickname, Saccas, refers to the trade by which Ammonius at first pro cured a livelihood. His teaching was all delivered orally. We have no further account of him. He is said to have maintained that there was no essential difference between the doctrines of Plato and of Aristotle. This, however, is not beyond doubt.
2. The most remarkable of his disciples were Origen,* Errenius, Longinus the physiologist, and, most famous of all, Plotinus. We have no precise account of Origen and Erennius. Longinus is rather a grammarian than a philosopher ; he has, however secured a place among philosophers by his treatise " On the Sublime," (Ilf/oi ityouc), which abounds in acute and striking observations. He, moreover, maintained,
* We must distinguish this Neo-Platonist from the early ecclesiastical writer, Origen. The latter was, however, a pupil of Ammonias, as will be seen later.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 175
in opposition to the other Neo-Platonists, the doctrine that ideas exist apart from the i/ou?. But the chief disciple of Ammonius was, as we have stated, Plotinus — the philosopher who gave to Neo-Platonism its scientific form and scientilic basis.
3. Plotinus (A.D. 205-270) always declined to state where he was born or to give any information regarding his parents or the date of his birth ; these things lie despised as mere earthly matters ; according to his pupil, Porphyrius, he felt it a humiliation to be bur- ilt-ni'd with a body. (He was born in Lycopolis, in Egypt.) When twenty-eight years old he turned his attention to philosophy, but he could not satisfy himself with any of the then celebrated teachers in Alexandria, until at length he found in Ammonius the teacher he sought for. At the age of forty-eight he arrived in Rome. Here he began to teach, and soon secured pupils. He even carried his success so far as to win to belief in his theories the Emperor Gallienus, and his wife, .Salonina. His writings show that he had made acquaintance with all the schools of Greek philosophy by a study of the chief works of each. The writings of Numenius exercised much influence upon him.
4. It was not until his fiftieth year that Plotinus set himself to commit his teaching to writing. According to the statement of Porphyrius, Origen, Erennius, and Plotinus entered into a compact not to publish the doctrines of Ammonius. But Erennius having broken the engagement, the others held themselves released from their promise. The manuscripts of Plotinus were revised after his death by his pupil, Porphyrius, the style amended and the whole published in six enneads. These six cnneadts are the source from which we draw our knowledge of the teaching of Plotinus. In his exposition, Plotinus lacks the aesthetic grace of the Platonic dialogues, and still more their dialectical power, but he appeals to us by his earnest trust in his own thoughts and the enthusiasm with which he expresses them.
5. As the starting point of his system, Plotinus takes the One, which he also describes as the Good. We cannot begin with the VOVQ. For in knowledge we always have duality — the act of cognition and the object known (voi>£ KOI vor\r6v). This duality is inseparable from the vovg, for if we separate the VOTJTOV from the voDc, there is no voue left us, there being no object of knowledge. We cannot, however, start with duality, for duality presupposes unity. The vovg is, consequently, not the primary element. For this element we must look higher than the vovg. We must not then begin with reason or with the vouc, but with the One or the Good, which, as such, is above the Reason. This is the first or ultimate principle of all things.
6. The primal One (primal Good) is absolute unity, simplicity, and infinity. In itself it is absolutely devoid of definite form. No attribute, in the proper sense of the term, can be predicated of it. It is above all attributes and all designations : there is no expression for it in language. It is only by denying all forms and attributes in regard to it that we can bring it in any degree within reach of our intelligence. It is not that which is (TO ov), not ovcria, not life, not beauty, not vovq ; it is above being, existence, life, beauty, reason, <fcc. Even the predicates of unity and goodness are not applicable to this first principle in their strict sense. It transcends even these, it is the One and the Good in a tran scendent sense.
7. From this primal One, as from an ultimate first principle, is evolved the multiple. This evolution is not to be understood in the sense that the primal One loses its transcendent unity while the many are evolved, and becomes a lv KOI irav. Plotinus energetically rejects such a notion. The One does not become All, it ever remains above all
176 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
(irpo TrdvTOiv}. The One may be said to be All, in the sense that all things proceed from it, but it is not one out of the number of all things ; because all things exist subsequently to it, and after their existence it continues to transcend all. Still less can the multiple be formed from the One by a process of division, for in this the unity of the One would be wholly destroyed.
8. The evolution of the multiple from the One must be regarded as a process of emanation, of such a nature that the One, while permitting the multiple to emanate from it, loses nothing of what is its own in the process. The possibility of this emanation is given "in the transcendent virtue of the One, which as a being of supreme excellence admits the evolution of a lower excellence from the fulness of its perfection, without containing this lower excellence formally within itself ." That this ema nation is actually effected is due to the fact that this first principle is not only the primal One — it is also the primal Good. Now, it is the nature of the good to diffuse itself. The good would not be the good if it did not bestow itself on something other than itself. The primal One, as being the primal Good, must, therefore, bring forth something other than itself ; that is, cause something else to emanate from itself. This act is neither a free act nor a necessary act ; such terms have no application to the primal One. The something else thus produced is not unity — it must be plurality — for it is not the first principle, it is a consequence of the existence of the first principle.
9. The immediate emanation from the primal One is the vovg — the image (iiKwv) of the One. It is diffused around the One, like an ocean of light. In itself it is essential being (ouorta), but this essence produced by the One, turns itself to the One from which it derives its origin, and in the act attains knowledge, that is to say, becomes the vovg. This rove, therefore, as such, has knowledge of itself. In this voiig we find a duality already established. For, although in its self-knowledge the subject knowing and object known are one in fact, they are yet distin guished in thought. A principle of differentiation (trapdrrje) is thus inherent in the vov<;, for in it there is at least an ideal distinction between the knowing subject and the thing known. If then the primal One be the first or Supreme God, the VOVQ is a second divinity — the Son of the Supreme God.
10. If we inquire, in what relation this vovg stands to the world of Ideas, Plotinus, in. distinct opposition to Longinus, tells us that Ideas do not lie without the VOVQ, but rather are implanted in it. When Plato in the Timaeus asserts that Ideas are objects of contemplation to the vovq, it might be supposed that Plato held Ideas to exist without the VOVQ ; but, remarks Plotinus, " If this were the case then the vovq would have within it merely a perception of that which really is, not the reality itself, and thus would not possess the truth which, as such, would be beyond its reach. This, however, cannot be admitted. The Divine VOVQ cannot err. But if it possessed within it, not the genuine being (oX>}0(vov), but only images (aSwXa) of this being, it would err, for it would deem itself to possess the truth, and yet would not possess it."
PHILOSOPHY OK THE GREEKS. 177
Ideas, then — the VOTJTOI/ in this strict sense — must be indwelling (immanent) in the vouc > this, it cannot be doubted, is the genuine teaching of Plato.
11. Accordingly, the vouc as ovaia, is to be regarded as the union of all voijra — of all intelligible essences, that is, of all Ideas. This vouc turns its thought upon itself, and in this act of thought the unity is differentiated and a plurality of Ideas arises. Thus, then, the ovo'iu, taken in its original unity and as known immediately in itself, is the Indeterminate — intelligible matter — but by thought the indeterminate becomes determinate, that is to say, reduced to a plurality or difference of Ideas. These Ideas are, therefore, in respect of the intelligible matter which underlies them, so many intelligible forms. The intelli gible matter is thus seen to be that element which Plato styles " the one and the same," for it is contained in every particular idea ; whereas the intelligible forms, by means of which the one ovaia is differentiated and a plurabty of ideas created, is that element which Plato names " the other." But this development of the one into the many does not pro ceed beyond the sphere of Universals, for the universal alone is really existent, and this, therefore, can alone find place in the VOVQ.
12. But although plurality, as has been explained, is given in the vouc, there is not any dissociation of the things so differentiated. For as the vouc is not itself separated into parts, so the elements which differ from one another within it are inseparable. The vouc is the one Universal Reason, and, as such, is an indivisible entelechy. The separa tion of the differentiated elements can be accomplished only in the world of phenomena, and in this sphere such separation must be accomplished, for matter can exhibit and manifest ideas only in a state of separation from one another. In this severance, the ideas manifest themselves not only as archetypal causes, but also as efficient and formative forces. For as the vouc is itself an active vital principle, so also must the ideas it contains be vital principles which exhibit their activity as soon as they appear in matter.
13. Nevertheless, ideas cannot become immediately active in matter as operative and formative principles ; an intermediate element must be interposed. This element is the soul. The soul is, therefore, the third principle, following the primal One and the vouc-* It is an emanation from the vouc, as the latter is an emanation from the One ; and as the vouc is an image of the One, so is the soul an image of the vouc- The soul, therefore, is not a body, nor the inseparable entelechy of a body ; it is an immaterial substance, distinct from everything corporeal. The productof the vouc, in one aspect of its being it communicates with the vouc, in another aspect it communicates with that product which em anates from itself — with matter. In this wise it possesses an ideal indivi sible element within it, as well as a divisible element which enters into matter, for it may be said to pervade the material world. In this sense,.
* These three principles, the One, the voDf, and the Soul, constitute the threefold divinity of the Neo- Phitouists.
13
178 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Plato might with truth assert that the soul is made up of an indivisible and a divisible element.
14. There is a real plurality of souls. But all stand in close relation to the supreme soul — ihe universal soul, or the world-soul. The relation of the latter to the former is not that of a whole to its parts. The world-soul is a sort of universal entity which includes in itself the .several individual souls, undistinguished from one another, and which brings these souls forth from itself by emanation, in the same way as the One produces the voue, and the VOVQ produces the world-soul itself. The world- soul is no more separated from the vovg than the vouc is separated from the One. It exists in the vove as the latter exists in the One. But it at the same time exists in the world, for it is the soul of the world. The One and the soul form the extreme limits of the divine or super- sensible world ; beneath this we have the sensible or material world.
15. Below the state of existence represented by the soul the process of emanation issues in the corporeal order. The substratum of all cor poreal things is matter. Matter must therefore stand last in the series of emanations. In the process of emanation, says Plotinus, there must be a last member as well as a first. This last which produces nothing below itself, but in which the productive force is wholly exhausted — this ultimate member of the series — is matter. Matter is, in a certain sense, the dregs or precipitate of the process of emanation ; it represents the ultimate enervation of the Ideal, in which, so to speak, the Ideal becomes extinct and issues in its contrary. It is no more than the .shadow wrhich the light of the higher emanations flings back to its utter most boundary.
16. Accordingly, Plotinus describes matter as absolutely indetermi nate and unlimited, as wanting in form, quality, and quantity. It is being without essential character, non-being (TO /ufi o"v) in contradistinc tion to that which really is (the Idea) ; avayicr) (necessity) in contra distinction to the Aoyoc (rational energy) ; privation in contradistinction to reality ; darkness as opposed to the light of the Aoyoc- Matter is not corporeal substance, but the unseen substratum, the shadowy j3a0oe (deep-lying element) of the corporeal. Thus, matter at every point stands in distinct contrast to the ideal.
17. The ideal is not only the really existent, it is furthermore that which alone is good. Into this sphere, too, its contrast with matter is carried. Matter i& evil and the source of evil. It is, no doubt, receptive of the Form communicated to it, and, to this extent, it may be called good, but in itself it is absolutely evil (KOKOV). Hence, all evil, in the last resort, comes from matter. Matter is evil itself, and defiles everything with which it comes in contact.
18. Between matter, which thus forms the utmost limit of the pro cess of emanation, and the cosmic soul, there is interposed, as a sort of third principle, the sensible world. Its constituent principles are matter and the cosmic soul in so far as by the latter, ideas, which, are the deter minative principles, are infused into matter. The world-soul has, so
PHILOSOPHY OF THE (.RI.KKs. 179
to speak, one aspect of its being turned towards the vouc, from which it receives idc;is (Aoyouc) ; while, in another direction, it is in contact with iii-it trr, ;uid, in this direction, becomes the universal world-soul, the universal principle of life and nature. Plotinus also styles this soul of Nut are the ta^arov ^u^K- It is in this wise that the forming of matter into the sensible world becomes possible.
10. The soul being identified with the vovg receives ideas from the latter, and by its formative activity as cosmical soul gives them existence in matter. By this formative action of the world-soul the ideas become forms (f'i%j) realised in matter, and manifest themselves in the entelechies of individual objects. These individual objects are the things perceptible to sense, of which the sensible world is made up. This explains the origin of the sensible as contradistinguished from the intelligible world.
20. The world of sense is thus a universal likeness of the super sensible world or vov%. But this likeness, it must be allowed, is very imperfect. For, apart from the circumstance that the vovq is not repre sented as that unit of being which it is, but by the plurality of ideas which it contains and which manifest themselves in the world of pheno mena, representing only the Xoyoi cnrtp/j.a.TiKot of the vovq, it is further to be noted that matter is, in itself, but little adapted to represent the ideal, partly because, at every point, it is opposed to the ideal, and partly because it is in a state of constant flux.
21. This being so, the further question arises : What of the reality of the world of sense ? The answer to this question reveals to us the essential character of the Neo-Platonic Philosophy. It is clear that, at this point, matter can no longer be regarded as a real substratum of the objects of sense — the conception under which it was represented in the Platonic system proper. For here matter is no longer something apart from, though co-existent with, the ideal ; it is itself made part of the process of emanation, described as its last product — a notion which leads to the conclusion that its attributes are all of the negative kind. But if matter is not the real substratum of the sensible world, then the sen sible world itself ceases to be intelligible as a reality. The reality of the phenomenal world disappears, and objects of sense are reduced to mere 'appearances.
22. How just these deductions are, appears from the manner in which Plotinus explains the nature of corporeal substance. On this point, he asserts that, taken in the entirety of their being, bodies consist of qualities which are of the intelligible not of the sensible order. The accidents which are peculiar to bodies, as such, for example, quantity, density, shape, &c., &c., are, in themselves, purely concepts of the in telligence. Now, if we take away from a body all these accidents, there is nothing left which we can call a body ; the whole body, as such, dis appears. It follows, therefore, that what we call a body is nothing more than the result of the combination of certain accidents, which, in them selves, are purely of the intelligible order. From the combination of these accidents arises the appearance of corporeal nature, which, how ever, disappears as soon as thought comes to bear upon it, and the pro-
180 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
cess of abstraction dissolves the combination in which those accident* are held together. We may say, then, that corporeal things are no more than appearances ; that there is, in fact, nothing corporeal ; what is, is ideal only.
23. In this theory, we find it clearly intimated that the ideal, as far as it appears in the world of sense under corporeal appearances, is in a state at variance with its true nature. The ideal is here found in a condition of degradation from its higher nature — in a condition of alienation from its transcendental origin. The existence of the world of sense supposes, therefore, a degradation or fall of the ideas from the world of intelligence. This downfall of ideas to the material order is, at the same time, their fall from the unity and perfection which belonged to them in the vovg. This downfall can alone explain the fact that the sensible world, though it mirrors in itself the ideal, is, nevertheless, in itself, unreality and nothingness, and cannot bear comparison with its prototype.
24. Hitherto we have been considering merely the general principles of Neo-Platonisin. Let us now glance at its system of psychology. Plotinus adduces many arguments to establish the incorporeal and im material nature of the soul — following Plato for the most part and reproducing his reasonings. The soul, he says, is the principle of life ;, it cannot, therefore, be an outcome of the action of the body, it must come before the body, and, therefore, it must be something incorporeal. Furthermore, the soul has cognizance of the intelligible and immaterial, but this it could not have if it were not itself of the intelligible and immaterial order. The soul perceives an impression made upon the body at the point where the impression is made. It must, therefore, be present in all parts of the body at once, but this, again it could not be
» if it were not immaterial, &c.
25. The individuality of the soul depends upon its union with the I body. This is the principle of individuation. The soul permeates the
body as lire permeates the air. It is whole in the entire body, and whole in every part. It is the soul which binds the body together and , holds its parts united ; it would, therefore, be more appropriate to speak ! of the body as being in the soul than to speak of the soul as being in the body. The soul is united to the body in one respect only ; in another respect it is free. It is free so far as it is active in thought,, for this function not only has no need of a sensible organ, it wholly excludes it. The soul is in union with the body in so far as it is the principle of vitality and sensation ; for in these functions the organs of the body are a necessity. And yet, even the faculties of sense are not, strictly speaking, located in the body, they are present within it only in. so far as the soul bestows upon the organs of the body the energy which, is required for their several functions.
26. The soul is not, of its nature, destined to union with the body. This union is merely the consequence of its downfall from the super sensible world. The soul, in its original state, was above the corporeal state, but inclining downwards towards matter it forgot its higher
PHILOSOPHY OF THK CJKKKKx. 181
dignity, and fell, in consequence, in the state of union with the body. Tin- body is, therefore, an outward adjunct of the soul — a mere acci- J dental accretion— it is no more than t lie instrument of the soul. But the) sold lias not lost its freedom of action in its fall, and hence its return to the Absolute is possible.
27. The universal world-soul is intimately united to the voi/c, from which it derives its origin, and through this union is endowed with reason ; this being so, the divine vouc must be immanent in human souls which have their being in the universal soul, and to this indwelling of the youc , they, too, owe their possession of reason. The vouc is thus the <ientre of the soul — the basis of its personality. But the vouc in its turn is derived from the One, and maintains its existence in the One as the source of its being ; through the vouc, therefore, the soul is brought into contact with the ultimate first principle — the One — and is inti mately united to it in vital union.
28. These principles determine the theory of cognition held by Plotinus. Plotinus, like Plato, makes no account of sensuous cognition > ;is a means of attaining truth. Sense perception is no more than a / dream of the soul. To attain the cognition of intelligible truth, the soul must retire from the avenues of sense and fall back upon its own •centre — the vouc. Here it already possesses truth a priori, and it needs only to call this truth into consciousness and to develop it there. This, as has been said, it can do only when it withdraws from sense and con centrates itself in the vouc, as *n the central point of its being.
29. Cognition, in this theory, is not an appropriation of objective truth by the mind, it is the drawing out of truth by the mind from| within itself. The whole process of cognition is accomplished by a I certain self -contemplation of the vouc within the soul, and involves a I consciousness of the identity of subject knowing and object known.1^ But as the soul rises to the sphere of intellectual knowledge, it enters upon a path which leads to a still higher order of knowledge, namely, the •contemplation of the One. For the vouc — the universal reason — being in union with the source of its being — the primal One — and contemplat ing the One, is enabled to rise from its act of self- contemplation in man to the contemplation of the One. And this explains how it is that man, through the vouc that dwells within him, can attain to the contempla tion of the Supreme Being.
30. This perfection, however, is not attainable unless the One sheds into the soul of man a special light, and thereby opens his eyes to higher contemplation. This light man cannot secure by any dialectical efforts ; it must come to him suddenly. But when it shines within him, then apprehension, self-consciousness and thought disappear : in a word, all the lower degrees of knowledge are absorbed into this contemplation of the One, and man is raised to the state of ecstasy. It is only in this ecstatic condition that contemplation of the primal One is possible : this ecstatic contemplation is thus the highest stage of human cognition.
31. The basis is here laid for the teleological doctrine regarding man. Everything comes from the primal One, or primal Good, and
182 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
everything must return to it again. Hence, we observe that all things — and men more especially — necessarily strive after good. The highest good is the primal Good or first principle ; the highest good of man is, therefore, attained in the knowledge of the primal Good. Now, this knowledge is attainable only in the state of ecstasy. Hence, the ecstatic contemplation of the primal Good is not only the highest degree of man's knowledge, it is also the highest form of his happiness. Plotinus is at a loss for words in which to depict the bliss which is secured by this ecstatic contemplation.
32. Ecstatic contemplation, as we have seen, can be reached only by withdrawing the soul from the things of sense. This principle leads us at once to the ethical duty of man. Mystical asceticism must be prac tised if man is to attain to the height of his destiny. By this asceticism the soul must combat the bodily nature with its sensual impulses and tendencies, and so deliver itself from the body and sensuality. The body hangs round the soul like a heavy burden, which weighs it down : in fact the soul has found its way into the body only in consequence of a fault committed — an all-sufficient reason why it should crush more and more completely the energies and tendencies of sense, in order to rise again into the pure atmosphere of the intelligible world. The man who gives himself effectually to this asceticism, and, as far as may be, delivers his soul from the body, not only attains to mystical contempla tion, he furthermore enters into a higher relation with the gods and with the super-sensible forces that are at work in nature, and is enabled by this communication to perform miracles and to read the future. He becomes a thaumaturgus and a prophet.
33. From the same principles Plotinus deduces his theory of moral evil. As has been observed, evil, generally speaking, has its origin in matter ; it is, therefore, in the strict sense, a cosmical force. Now, man's body is composed of matter ; in man, therefore, the source of evil is the body. It thus appears that moral evil consists in this : lhat the soul follows the impulses and tendencies of the body, surrenders itself to their control ; whereas moral goodness, on the other hand, is founded on the deliverance of the soul, by ascetical practices, from the dominion of the body.
34. Connected with these notions of moral good and moral evil, we find another, which, however, is in the last analysis, identical with the former The soul we have been told, is individualized by its union with the body, and this union with the body not being the connatural state of the soul, the same may also be said of its individuality. We may, therefore, describe the essence of moral evil as the assertion of its indi viduality bv the soul. The soul becomes wicked by its effort to assert its own individuality and its own will, in contradistinction to the uni versal existence within which it has its being. It becomes good when it raises itself above this individuality and merges itself in the universal.
35. In these theories we notice an unmistakable effort after a genuine morality, and to this extent Neo-Platonism may be regarded as a protest against the moral depravity of the paganism of the age. But
PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS. 183
the asceticism which Neo-Platonism sought to promote rested upon an entirely false principle and was, in consequence, powerless to effect any great moral reformation. This principle was that the body is the sourcojf of all evil. Based upon this notion, Neo-Platonic asceticism could not fail to assume a stern and hostile attitude towards the body and the outer world, and the earnestness of character which it was calculated to develop tended to become exaggerated beyond what a right conception of the natural order would warrant. The Neo-Platonic asceticism being directed against corporeal nature as evil and antagonistic in itself, was liable to degenerate into a wholly unnatural system, and so to lose all power for the regeneration of paganism. And further, it was the distinct scope of this Neo-Platonic asceticism to attain union in contem plation with the primal One, and by this means to become capable of working wonders. So far as this end was assumed to be attained, the system could lead only to arrogance and folly — a result largely produced among the Neo-Platonists. But arrogance and folly are opposed to morality.
36. Plotinus gives various definitions of virtue. Looking to the end attained by it, he defines it as " likeness to God" ; considering the character of virtuous conduct in itself, he holds it to be " action in ac cordance with the nature of things " (t vtpytiv KUTU TIJV ovaiav), or "obedience to reason." He distinguishes between social, purifying and deifying virtues. The first class are concerned with external social relations, and in this class are included the four cardinal virtues : prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance. The purifying virtues (KaOapaus) are concerned with the freeing of the soul from sin (a/uapria), by divorc ing it from the things of sense ; the deifying virtues are those by which men return again to the Absolute, and, in a certain sense, become one with God.
37. There are three classes of men. One class are held captive by sense, they esteem pleasure good and pain evil, they strive to attain the one and avoid the other, and herein is their wisdom expended. Another class — capable indeed of a certain elevation, but unable to see what belongs to higher spheres— give themselves to the practice of social virtues, devote themselves to practical pursuits, and strive to make a right choice among these lower objects. But there is a third class of men of diviner sort, endowed with higher energy and keener vision, who turn to the light that shines from on high, and rising towards the source of that light, are lifted above the regions of gloom, men who despise the things of earth and make their dwelling-place in that region where they may participate in true joy. They cannot, indeed, remain always in this state. Not having freed themselves wholly from the earth, they easily turn to it again. And thus it happens that it is but seldom even the wisest, best, and most virtuous men, enjoy the contemplation of the supreme God. (Plotinus himself, during the six years in which Porphyry, his disciple, was his associate, succeeded in reaching this height of contemplation on four occasions only.)
184 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
38. Plotinus uses the same arguments as Plato in proof of the immor tality of the soul. The Platonic notion, that souls which quit the body, imperfectly purified, take with them a kind of corporeal vesture, in which they afterwards appear, is found among the doctrines of Plotinus. So, too, the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, the theory of suc cessive generations, and the doctrine of demons. The demons are to be reverenced as well as the gods. With their aid, too, wonders may be worked. The same may also be effected by magic.
39. The most remarkable of the disciples of Plotinus were Amelius and Porphyry. Little is known regarding Amelius, but Porphyry holds an important place among the Neo-Platonists. He lived from A.D. 233 to 304, and from the year 263 onwards was a pupil of Plotinus in Rome. He professes to explain and defend the teaching of Plotinus, not to develop it. This teaching he holds to coincide with that of Plato, and to be the same in substance with that of Aristotle also. He composed a great many works. Of these the fiffafwyij tig rac (' ApiffroriXovc) earijyopj'af, is usually prefixed to editions of Aristotle's Organon. His sketch of the system of Plotinus is set forth in a series of Latin aphorisms. We have already mentioned his arrangement of the treatises of Plotinus in six Enneada. In all these undertakings, his extensive learning and his subtle intelligence, which enabled him to enter into views the most divergent, as well as his readiness and grace of exposition, stood him in good stead.
40. The doctrine of Porphyry is distinguished from that of Plotinus by possessing a practical rather than a religious character. Porphyry defended necromancy, theurgy, and the worship of demons, but he advised caution in the use of them. He maintains that the world has not had a beginning, and he appeara to have taught the emanation of matter and of the world-soul more distinctly than Plotinus himself. He combated the doctrines of the Christians, in particular the Divinity of Christ, in fifteen books Kara Xpiffrtcivwv many refutations of which were written by the Fathers of the Church.*
SYRIAN SCHOOL OF NEO-PLATOXISM.
IAMBLICHUS AND HIS DISCIPLES.
§ 53.
1. lamblichus of Chalcis, in Ccele-Syria, was a pupil of Porphyry and died in the reign of Constantine (A.D. 330.) By his disciples he was credited with the power of working miracles, and was by them named " the divine " 6 Snog. They narrate that in prayer he was raised into the air ten ells high ; that his garments shone with golden light, and his face assumed an expression of celestial beauty. He was the author of several works, the most remarkable of which, in point of philosophical
• Porphyry held Christ in contempt because He was born of a woman, and in the end crucified. IJke the other pagans, he laid the blame of all public calamities upon the Christians. They were ruled, he said, by an assembly of aped matrons, and the priestly dignity among them was conferred 'by the favour of women. lie was particularly offended by the doctrine of the resurrection of the body— a doctrine wholly incompatible with the Neo-Platonist view that the body is essentially evil and impure. He attacks the vacred writings of the Christians, and decries and discredits the exegesis then in vogue.
"We may here mention another controversial work against Christianity— the Aoyoi 0tXa\Tj0<Jf Trpoc rovf "Xpiffnavovc published A.D. 303, by Hierocles, governor of Bithynia, one of the most cruel of the persecutors under Diocletian. The polemical portion of this work, so far as we can gather from Eusebius* "Book" against I'hMostrates. is a tissue of falsehoods nnd calumnies directed against Christianity. Even these are not original, but for the most part copied word for word from Celsus. Every effort is made to exalt Apolloniue.
PHILOSOPHY OF 'I UK (MU.I.KS. 185
interest, arc the treatises, lltpl TOV TruOayopiKov /3/ou, \t'ryo(, *i(,% tytXoaotytav, and the 0faXoyo6ffftNi rfjc apiO^riKrif-
2. In the system of lamblichus, philosophy, as a science, loses its place, and becomes a mere device for the support of polytheism. He <levotes his chief inquiries to the details of an elaborate demonology, in which all the gods of Greece and the East (the Christian God ex- cepted), as well as the gods of Plotinus and many others, find a place. He also treats of theurgy, by which he understands the procuring of mysterious effects which God is pleased to accomplish, as also the power of bringing down the gods into communication with men by means of certain ineffable symbols, known only to God. In this connection we find certain Pythagorean mystic numbers play an important part. Plotinus taught that the soul could lift itself to that eminence of wisdom and virtue where it might be united with God. lamblichus taught that this union might be accomplished by a contrary method — that man, by means of mystical practices, ceremonies, and words (<ru^/3oAa, (TwOii^ara) could draw down the gods to himself (Bpcurruni tvwais). In the mind of lamblichus, theurgy is the complement of philosophy.
3. Above the One (tv) of Plotinus, lamblichus sets another — the Absolutely First — in which there are no contrary elements of any kind, which is not the Good, but something which, being absolutely without "distinctive characteristics, is higher than the Good. Under this One comes the One of Plotinus. The latter produces the intelligible world (KOO-/L/OC vorjroc) and this in turn produces the intellectual world (KOO-//OC vofjooe). The former includes the objects of thought (Ideas), the latter .all thinking essences. The elements of the former are irtpa^, airtipov and HIKTUV, the elements of the latter are VOVQ, Svva/nig and Sij/^ou/o-yoc- Next in succession comes the psychical world, which is again divided into three orders — the world-soul, and, produced from it, two other souls. To this world belong the gods of the popular polytheism, angels, demons, and heroes, a whole host of whom lamblichus makes us acquainted with, and whom he arranges according to certain numerical combina tions derived from Pythagorean sources. Last, in the order of existence, stands the sensible world.
4. It is worth noting that lamblichus endeavoured to introduce a formal worship of Pythagoras, the religious reverence for Apollonius being already antiquated. His work, Utpl rov flvBajopiKov /St'ou, is written after the manner of the " Apollonius " of Philostrates, only that Pythagoras is put in the place of Apollonius. lamblichus endeavours to show that the contemporaries of Pythagoras, with whom he came in contact, esteemed him a god who had come from heaven to toach men wisdom. He narrates a number of prodigies regarding him, and exalts his piety, which was set as an example to all men. That in this teach ing lamblichus had in view the doctrine of the Incarnation of God, •which is the basis of Christianity, appears evident. Paganism also wanted its heaven-sent Messiah, and since Apollonius would not serve the purpose any longer, Pythagoras was substituted.
5. lamblichus is probably the author of the work I)c Mi/xfcriis JEgyp~
186 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
tiorum. The mention of this work gives us occasion to call attention to another characteristic of Neo-Platonism, especially of the Syrian School of that Philosophy. Since the time of Porphyry, Neo-Platonism had progressively assumed an attitude of greater hostility to Christianity. It had set up in Pythagoras a Messiah in opposition to the Messiah of the Christians, and it then endeavoured to secure divine authority for his teaching. The Christians had their Scriptures which they attri buted to Divine revelation and Divine inspiration, the reformed Paganism of the Neo-Platonist school would have its Scriptures also, to be on a level with Christianity. These Scriptures were actually produced. Such were the " Chaldoic Oracles," the " Orpine Poems" and the " Works of Hermes," to which appeal was made and which, it was contended, were inspired by the gods.
6. The Cha/ilaic Oracles seem to have been a selection from the maxims of the different Chaldaic seers and astrologists, who were very numerous at this time. The Neo- Platonists of the fifth century made great account of this fund of Chaldaic wisdom. The Orphic Soiiys, which had already been known at an earlier period of Grecian history in connection with the Orphic religion (see above p. 29.) were also included in the category of sacred writings. The Writings of Hermes (Alysteria ^Egyptiorum) received their name from Hern.es — the Egyptian god, Thot or Taut— and were supposed to contain the secret lore of the Egyptians. They were ascribed to Hermes in the sense that the doctrines they contained purported to rest on the authority of the P^gyptian priests, who had received them from the god, Thot. There exists a considerable number of these writings, and the number was still greater in earlier times. They treated of questions of medicine, and chemistry, as well as of religious and philosophical subjects. They enjoyed a high reputation. For Egypt was regarded as a holy land, which the gods had chosen for their abode, when they descended in visible form to impart divine wisdom to men. It was, therefore, to be expected that the writings of Hermes would become the sacred book or Bible of the heathens.
7- The most important of these writings — so far as religious and philosophical questions are concerned — are the Poemandcr and the Dialogue of Asclepius. The latter is an epitome of the notions current during the rise of Neo-Platonism, a medley of Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and mythical doctrines, reduced to one system, and set forth, not in the form of philoso phical investigation, but in authoritative dogmatic fashion. These dogmas are put into the mouth of Hermes Trismegistos. The Poemander has not any consecutive order in its parts. It consists of fourteen treatises in which widely different and unconnected ele ments of doctrine are laid down.
8. Among the immediate disciples of lamblichus was Theodorus of Asine, who sketched the system of Triads in greater detail than lamblichus, and thus prepared the way for Proclus. Between the (One) Primal Being and the psychical he interposes a triad of beings — the intelligible, the intellectual, the demiurgical. We may also name among the disciples of lamblichus, Sopater of Apamea whom Constantine put to death on suspicion of his having used magical arts to deprive the Corn-fleet of a favourable wind ; Dexippus, Aedesius of Cappadocia, successor of lamblichus, and teacher of Chrysanthus of Sardis, of Maximus of Epheaus, of Priscus of Molossus, and of Eusebius of Myndus •who were the instructors of the Emperor Julian the Apostate,* Sallust, the companion
• Julian the Apostate, is known as the last persecutor of the Christians. This is not the place to dwell upon his efforts in the cause of persecution. He composed a work " Against the Christians," which is not now extant, but the leading ideas of which have been preserved to us by Cyril, in his reply Contra Jitlianuni. Julian holds the view that there is one supreme God, but that under him, there are a number of inferior divinities, who rule the several parts of the created world. On this principle he explains the diversity of nations. The differences between nations, he thinks, are accounted for by the differences between the gods who preside over these nations. As a consequence of this view he recognises only national pods and national religions. He has no sympathy with the notion of one universal religion exhibited in Christianity. It is on this ground that he combats Christianity nnd justifies polytheism. The God of the Jews is, in Julian's view, a merely national God, and if the Jews were wrong in recognising only their own God, and denying those of other nations the same charge is doub'y true of the Christians. Christianity, in Julian's estimate, is not only a false— it is also a pitiful religion, which cannot sustain comparison 'with the glory and greatness of the paganism of the past. The doctrine of the Divinity of Christ he considers a mere invention of Christ's followers. He exalts the civilisation of the pagans, contrasting it with the ignorance of the Christians, and taunts them with having pioduced from their schools no man of enlightened or vigorous character.
rilll.OMH'HY OF THK (JKKKKS. 187
of Julian in his youth, and author of a compendium of Neo-Platonic Philosophy ; also Kustachius, of Cappadocia. These men devoted themselves, for the moat part, rather to the practices of theurgy than to philosophical theories. In proportion to the insig nificance of their achievements in philosophy was the growth of their reverence for the chiefs of their school, and principally for lamblichus. Commentaries upon the writings of the older philosophers were the principal works of the peri oil. In this connection Themistius, of Paphlagonia, surnatiied Luphrades, rendered considerable service to philosophy. We may further mention, as connected with the school, Aurelius Macrobus, author of the Saturnalia, the elder Olympiodorus, and the lady-philosopher, Hypatia (murdered A.D. 415).
ATHENIAN SCHOOL OF NEO-PLATONISM.
PHOCLUS.
§ 54.
1. The efforts of the Neo-Platonists to reform the religion of Paganism and to hold in check the growth of Christianity, had not the effect which was expected. The pagan religion had had its day, it could not be upheld, it fell before the Divine power of the Christian faith which was everywhere extending its sway. Its hour was come. Even the Neo- Platonists were at last forced to recognise this. Having failed to effect their aims against Christianity by material methods, and having failed to revive the old worship and the old beliefs, the representatives of Neo-Platonism addressed themselves with renewed zeal to scientific expedients, among which the study and exposition of the writings of Plato and Aristotle were of chief importance. This plan was followed in a marked way by the Athenian School. To this school belong Plutai-ch, son of Nestorius (died A.D. 433) ; his pupil, Syrianus, who ex pounded the writings of Plato and Aristotle; Hierocles of Alexandria, who devoted himself to the exposition of the Pythagorean writings ; his pupil, Syrianus, of Alexandria ; and, most remarkable of all, Proclus (A.D. 411-485), the pupil of Olympiodorus (the elder), of Plutarch, and of Syriaims. He was the most renowned of the later Neo-Platonists — the "scholastic of the Greek philosophers." He collected and ar ranged and gave dialectical form to the philosophy which had come down from the past, adding to it from his own resources, and reducing the whole to a kind of system which presented the appearance of strictly scientific method. He taught at Athens. Among his writings are found : — Prodi in Plat. Jtmmtm Ccmmcnt., Bas. 1534 ; In theologian* Platonic liLri ,v s im« cunt JSJarini rita Prodi et Prodi instit. theolog., Hamb. 1618 ; Excerpta ex Prodi Sc/io/iis in Plat. Cratyl., Lips. 1820 ; In Plat. Alcib. c<L Ctnwr, Francof. 1820-1825 ; In Plat. Parmenitiem. ciL Stall- bawn, Lips. 1839. Opp.oiiinia. Ed. C(,u*int Paris 1820-25.
2. According to Proclus, the One is the absolute first principle. Frtm this everything comes forth, and to this everything is striving to
188 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
return. The thing produced is at once like the producing cause and unlike it. In virtue of its likeness it remains in its cause, in virtue of its unlikeness it is separated from it. By establishing in itself a resem blance with its first principle, the separated product returns to that prin ciple again, and the return has the same number of stages as the preceding evolution. The One is also the Ineffable ; it is above all affirmation and negation. Even the notion of Oneness describes it inadequately, for it is higher than this notion also. But everything coming forth from this one principle is differentiated in a series of successive triads. The oftcner this process is repeated the more differentiated and imperfect is the result — that is to say, the farther things recede from the first principle, the more complicated in their structure and restricted in their sphere of action do they become.
3. The first emanation from the Primal One are the Ilenades (tva&te)- The absolutely first being has no relation with the world, but the Ilenades — their number is not definitely fixed by Proclus — exercise an influence upon the world ; they are the gods in the highest sense of the term ; to them belong the functions of Providence. They are elevated above being, life, reason, and knowledge, but among themselves they have a certain order of rank, some being nearer the primal entity, some further removed.
4. Next in order after the Ilenades comes the Trias of intelligible, intelligible-intellectual, and intellectual being (TO vorjroy, ro vorjrov ana Kal votp6v, TO votpov). The vorjrov is represented by the notion Being (ovata), the vorjrov a/ua Kal votpov, by the notion Life (£iin/), the votpov by the notion Thought (vovg). The first and second of these orders of being are again divided in triadic fashion ; the division of the third order, which responds to the vovg is sevenfold. Proclus divides each member of this sevenfold division into seven members, and thus obtains seven intellectual Hebdomades (sevenfold orders), to the several members of which he refers a number of the divinities of the popular creed, and many of the Platonic and Neo-Platonic fictions.
5. From the Intellectual order emanates the Psychical. Every soul is, in its essence, eternal, but in its action existing in time. The world- soul is composed of divisible, indivisible, and intermediate substances, combined in harmonious proportions. There are divine and demoniacal as well as human souls. Situated midway between the sensible order and the divine order, the soul is endowed with liberty. It is responsible for its own evils. It is capable of turning again to the divine, but its contemplation can reach no higher than the vov$. Every man has his special demon, and it is only through this demon that he can hold communication with the gods. Man must surrender himself blindly to the demon, in order to attain his highest end. (Cfr. Ueberweg.)
6. Among the disciples of Proclus the following deserve special mention : — Marinus, the successor of Proclus in the presidency of the school at Athens ; the physician, Asclepiodotus of Alexandria ; Ammonius the son of Hermeas ; Zenodotus ; Isidorus, the successor of Marinus in the headship of the school ; Hegias, another successor of
PHILOSOPHY 01 TIM; (;KKK.KS. ISO
Marimis ; ami Dainascius, who presided over the school in Athens about A.D. .">20. \\"ith him the school i ume to an end. It was closed liy the Emperor Justinian in the year A. n. .VJi). This emperor forbade the teaching of the Neo-Platonic philosophy at Athena,
The N
ami appointed ( 'hristian teachers to take the place of the Platonists. The Neo-1'latonkt*
n for their philosophy in after the peace between
tatook themselves to Persia, where they hoped to find a patron for their philosophy in the king, Chosroes. But experience dispelled this hope, and
IVi-sia and the Empire, A.D. 533. they returned home. But they were not permitted to reopen their schools. Neo-Platonism thus came to an end. But the commentaries on the writings of Aristotle and Plato, which at this and later periods were composed by the Neo-PIatonists, enabled some of them, and notably Simplicius of Cilicia (A.D. 520) and the younger Olympiodorus, to take an important part in the work of transmitting to later generations tne philosophy of Greece.
PART SECOND.
HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. GENERAL VIEW. — DIVISION.
§ 55.
1. The Divine Revelation accomplished in Christ, together with the Redemption achieved through Him, forms the turning point of all history. It is the end of the pre-Christian order of things and the beginning of the new. The pre-Christian period prepared the way for the redemption to come. In the moment when the Son of God became man its purpose was accomplished and its duration at an end. A new era began. The fulness of grace which flowed from the sacrifice of redemption infused a new life into humanity, and this newness of life affected not merely the practical side of human existence, it had its influence also on the domain of knowledge.
2. In pre-Christian times, virtue was recognised by the philosophers as a thing of worth, but it did not enter into the life of the people. In the new order of things, virtue found its place in practical life to an extent unknown before. The ideal of supernatural perfection, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which the Saviour had bidden His followers to strive after, was realised in the actual lives of men, and brought forth a heroism of virtue such as the world had not yet witnessed. Through the revelation made by the Son of God a fulness of truth was brought within reach of the human mind of which men had previously no notion. And if it be true, as the ancients had it, that truth is the food of the mind, on which it lives and thrives, the revelation through the Redeemer formed an inexhaustible store from which the human mind might ever more draw new increase of the knowledge which is its life.
3. At the same time the way was prepared for speculation of an entirely new order. The older philosophy had striven to break through the barriers of error which shut out the gaze of the mind from the sun of truth, and had expended much energy in the effort. Its endeavours were not wholly without result, but it had failed to reach the fulness of truth. By this fact it furnished proof that after the fall of man the human mind, left to its o\vn resources, without any revelation, was incapable of attaining to truth in its fulness. But in the Logos made
OF i in: CIIIMSTIAN KKA. 191
111:111 the fulness of truth was manifested in the body : what the anciente hud longingly sought for was now granted to men through the mercy of God. The human mind was now fully irradiated by the light of truth ; it had no need to strive against the obstacles that shut out the light, and in this way the standpoint and the purpose of its speculations were made other than they had been.
4. The human mind could adopt either of two attitudes towards revelation. It might accept revelation as truth communicated by God, and make this truth the criterion and guiding principle of its specula tions. If it did this, revelation became an end to which natural know ledge was to be subservient. Natural knowledge became the means to penetrate the mysteries of Christianity, and to acquire a speculative knowledge of them, so far, at least, as supernatural truths are accessible to speculation. Speculative philosophy could only culminate in a specu lative theology, which, without denying the incomprehensible nature of the Christian mysteries, would strive after a deeper knowledge of their meaning.
5. Again, the human mind, in virtue of its natural freedom of election, might abandon the objective standpoint and fall back upon its own subjective resources. It might permit its own reason to deal with revelation in a more unseemly fashion ; it might give reason the first place and revelation the second, so that instead of reason being subject to revelation, revelation should be accommodated to the subjective opinions of the individual ; or, on occasion, entirely denied. This would, no doubt, be a perversion of right order, but just as man can set himself against the divinely- established order in the sphere of morals, so can he set himself in opposition to the divine order in the sphere of knowledge.
6. These divergent lines have both been followed in the philosophy of the newer era. Side by side with the representatives of the objective or Christian view, we find everywhere the representatives of the rational istic or subjective. The opposition between these opposing forces of thought proceeds to open conflict, as often as the one endeavours by the arms of science to overcome the other. In this way is maintained a sort of intellectual conflict between truth and error, between the Christian .and un-Christian view, which runs through the whole history of the newer philosophy. This conflict has not been without its advantages to the cause of truth, for it has put upon the combatants the necessity of studying more deeply, and thus establishing more securely the truth which was assailed.
7. These divergent currents of thought, it has been said, run through the entire philosophy of the later era. But we are not, for this, to assume that at every period of that time they were both equally powerful. So far is it otherwise, that the entire time may be divided into two periods, in one of which the objective or Christian view was predominant, while in the other the subjective or rationalistic view obtained the mastery. The first period lasted till the fifteenth century, the second extends from the fifteenth century to our own time. We do not mean that in either
192 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
period one current of thoxight prevailed to the exclusion of the other : we mean that in each period one current of thought was distinctly pre dominant.
8. In this way we obtain two great divisions of the newer philosophy, each marked by its distinctive characteristic. The first of these periods we again divide on another basis of division. In the early Christian centuries, and in the hands of the Fathers of the Church, Christian philosophy was in the first stage of its creation : the stones out of which the structure was to be built were being collected and prepared. In the period following, which we speak of as the Middle Ages, the structure itself was raised. The great systems of philosophy and speculative theology, which are characteristic of the Middle Ages, were then elabo rated, and remain, like our mediaoval cathedrals, monuments to later times of Christian faith and Christian intellect. In this period the elements of Christian speculation contained in the writings of the Fathers were reduced to systematic form and received considerable development in the process.
9. We may, therefore, most appropriately divide the philosophy of the Christian era into three main periods :
(a.) The Patristic Philosophy, extending to the period of the invasion of the barbarians ;
(6.) Philosophy of the Middle Ages, extending to the fifteenth century ;
(c.) Modern Philosophy, from the fifteenth century to our own times.
We shall treat of the philosophy of the new era in the order of this threefold division.
FIRST SECTION.
PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY.
GENERAL VIEW AND DIVISION.
§56.
1. The age of the Fathers was the age which gave birth to Christian philosophy. When we speak of the birth of Christian philosophy we do not mean to imply that this philosophy was in its origin wholly independent of the philosophy which had preceded it. The life o*f humanity is continuous. A complete break Avith the past is impossible. The human mind cannot, even if it would, withdraw itself from the influence of the past. Christian philosophy, in its origin, was connected with the older philosophy ; whatever of truth the latter contained was adopted by the Christian thinkers, made subservient to, and given u
fi
riin.osoi'iiv <>K i in. CIII:INII\N KKA. I!M
place in, the body of their teaching; they rejected only that which could not stand the light of Christian truth, or bear the scrutiny of the reason which that truth had enlightened.
J. \Ve notice, however, even in the first beginnings of Christian philosophy, the appearance of those two divergent lines of thought to which we have called attention above. Some thinkers in the construc tion of their systems gave the first place to the older philosophy, made it their rule of guidance, and interpreted the doctrines of Christianity in accordance with its requirements. This method gave rise to the heretical systems which encounter us in the history of the first centuries of Christianity. An analogous method had already been followed by Philo the Jew, in his attempt to reconcile the religion of the Jews with Greek ihilosophy. What Philo had done in the case of Judaism, the heretics d in the case of Christianity. A distinctively rationalistic character was thus the essential feature of the heretical systems of early Christian times, the feature in which they contrasted most strongly with positive Christianity.
3. Other thinkers, again — and these represented the true Christian philosophy — accepted the ancient philosophy as an aid to Christian speculation, but they made the positive truths of Christianity their highest and guiding principles, and utilised the ideas and doctrines of the ancient philosophy in their speculations only so far as these were found in accord with Christian truth. In this method the positive faith of the Christian became the criterion of speculative knowledge ; philosophical opinions were not the standard which determined the articles of faith, that is to say, fixed their meaning. This was the position taken up by all the Fathers of the Church, and to this method we owe those brilliant speculations in which their works abound.
4. Holding these principles, the Fathers of the Church, never theless, acknowledged the worth and the importance of the pre-Christian philosophy, and recognised the utility of the study of the philosophy of the Greeks. They had, it is true, no hesitation in exposing the errors of Greek philosophy, and the mutual contradiction of its various systems, and some thinkers — Tertullian, for example — did much effect to this. But this was not done with the purpose of entirely discrediting the ancient philosophy, or of denying its claim to the possession of a certain sum of truth ; the design of the writers was to prove that philosophy, of itself, is not all-sufficient, that only the Incarnate Son of God and 1 Eis Church are in possession of the fulness of truth.
5. The chief aim of the Fathers and writers of the Church in their scientific labours was, on the one hand, to defend the Christian doctrine- against attacks and misconceptions, and oil the other to develop and support as far as possible, on speculative grounds, the truths of revela tion. It roa tor this purpose Only that they made use of the ancient philosophy: it was to defend and establish by speculative theorie- the articles of the Christian faith that they employed it. In its characteristic features the patristic philosophy is a philosophy of religion. The heretical sv-teins were not purely philosophical, tlicv claimed to be
14
194 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
philosophies of religion : in the same way, the speculations of the Fathers of the Church have in every case a scope which is religious as well as philosophical.
6. The central doctrine of this religious philosophy was, as might have been expected, the doctrine of the divine Logos : what He is in Himself, how He became man, and how He redeemed mankind. The notion of a divine Logos we have met with frequently in the pre- Christian philosophy. But philosophy was incompetent to give definite- ness and completeness to this notion ; for in its completeness this notion supposes the idea of the Trinity. Philo, who wrote under the influence of the revealed doctrines of the Old Testament, makes the Logos a kind of personality ; but in his theory this personality is not something within the Godhead, it is something extraneous to it.
7. In the great dictum: 'Ev of\y nv u Ad-ycc, KOI 6 Xo-yoc fjv Trpoc TOV Qeov. KOI 0foc r\v o \6jog. Christianity on the one hand confirmed the truth of the notion, and on the other gave completeness and definiteness to the conception. It asserted the personality of the Logos, and at the same time declared this personality to be intrinsic to the Godhead. This was a great step in advance. The idea of a personal Logos — the Son of God identical in nature with the Father — spread light where darkness had hitherto prevailed ; and the doctrine that the Logos had become man in order to bring mankind from darkness into light and from death to salvation, made the Incarnate Logos the centre of human history and the spring of life to humanity. It is not then to be wondered at that the whole religious philosophy of the Fathers seems concentrated upon this central point of doctrine.
8. Thus much may be stated regarding the patristic philosophy in general. We may, however, distinguish in the creation of Christian philosophy during the patristic age two well-marked periods. We have remarked that a twofold purpose is observable in the Fathers and Christian writers of the first centuries — one to defend the doctrines of Christianity from assaults and misconceptions, another to develop and establish the Christian truths by speculative inquiries, conducted under the guidance and control of the Christian revelation. This twofold purpose is manifest in all the representatives of patristic philosophy, but in the earlier centuries, that is, up to the Council of Nicaea, the former purpose — the defensive — is the more prominent, whilst in the post- Nicene period the effort to give speculative development to Christian truth becomes the primary end aimed at. We may thus describe the ante-Nicene period as the Age of the Apologists, the post-Nicene as the Age of Positive Speculation.
9. Following the lines here indicated, we will treat the history of patristic philosophy on which we are about to enter in the following order :
(a.) The heretical systems of the period; after which we will proceed to the patristic philosophy proper, which we may divide into :
(b.) The ante-Nicene philosophy, which is chiefly apologetic in character, and
(c.) The post-Nicene philosophy, in which positive speculation is predominant.
I'HIl.dMd'HV Hi- 1111. (IIKl>ll.\N ERA. 195
HERETICAL SYSTEMS OF THE FIRST CENTURIES.
1. We do not undertake the task of giving a detailed account of all the heretical systems which appeared during the patristic age ; we confine our attention to those which were philosophical in character ; others, which were exclusively dogmatic, belong to the history of religious dogmas. Among the heresies of more or less philosophical character, the first to claim our notice are Gnosticism and Manicheism, systems which, under the influence of Hellenic, Philonic, and Parsee notions, established a dualism between God and Matter, and which, cany- ing this antithesis out of the sphere of metaphysics into the domain of ethics, gave this notion its most exaggerated development.
2. Gnosticism called forth as an opposite extreme the system of Monarchianism. The teaching of the Gnostics involved a sort of poly theism. To bridge over the chasm between God and Matter, and thus to account for the existence of the world, they assumed the existence of a number of intermediate beings, which emanated from the Supreme God, and to which, therefore, a certain divine character was to be attri buted. The reaction against this polytheism took the form of Monur- chianism — an extreme theory in the opposite sense. Monarchianism denied the existence of any distinctions whatever in the Divinity, even the existence of those distinctions which the doctrine of the Trinity involves, and held fast the doctrine of fixed abstract unity.
3. Last in order came Arianism, with its offshoot, Apollinarism, theories which embodied elements of Gnosticism and Monarchianism, and in which the doctrines of the two opposing heresies were blended. In historical order, Arianism follows the two other heresies ; it follows them also in the order of theoretical development.
4. We will treat, then, in the first place, of Gnosticism, in the next, of Manicheism, then of Monarchianism, and lastly of Arianism and Apollinarism.
GNOSTICISM. § 57.
1. Contemporary accounts inform us that Gnosticism had its rise in the question : What is the origin of evil? (HoOtv TO KOKOV;). It was natural that such a question should occur to thinking minds at that period. The circumstances of the time suggested it. According to contemporary records, the religious and moral degeneracy of the age had become appalling. The deification of vice had been fatal to morality. The Christians had been subjected to fierce and cruel persecution both from Jews and pagans, and were the objects of general contempt. The sight of all the evil which surrounded them must have suggested to many
196 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
of them to ask, whence this evil came, and urged them to seek a solution of the problem.
2. But this question, by itself, was not enough to account for the origin of Gnosticism. For the question as to the origin of evil had already been answered by Christianity ; and to have the problem solved it was only necessary to appeal to positive Christian teaching. The chief cause to which the rise of Gnosticism was attributable lay in the fact that the Gnostics, as well in the question of the origin of evil as in those which regarded the nature of God's relation to the world, the nature of man, and other questions were not content with the positive doctrines of Christianity as expounded by the Church, but sought a solution of these problems in non-Christian philosophy, outside the region of revelation. They did not, however, for this, separate themselves from Christianity. The result could only be the introduction into the Christian teaching of notions borrowed from the non-Christian philosophy, and the attempt to adapt the doctrine of Christianity to these preconceived philosophical opinions.
3. That this result actually occurred is shown both by the method which the Gnostics adopted in the exposition and development of their doctrines, and by their peculiar conception of the Gnosis. With regard to their method, St. Irenocus tells us that with them, reason, that is to say, their preconceived philosophical opinions, was the standard and criterion of all truth ; that to meet the requirements of their system, they carried their arbitrary treatment of the Scriptures so far as to reject some parts of it altogether, and to mutilate and falsify past recognition the portions they retained. Philosophy was to them of much greater authority than the positive teaching of the Church, and conse quently the portions of Scripture which established the teaching of the Church had to be put aside.
4. In the characteristics which they assign to their Gnosis, they follow in the footsteps of Philo. Philo had appealed in support of his opinions to a secret lore which had reached him by oral tradition ; the Gnostics put forward pretensions of the same kind. Christ, they maintained, in His exoteric teaching had accommodated Himself to the views of his contemporaries ; but in private He had imparted to His apostles a higher (esoteric) teaching, which constitutes the essence of Christian truth, and which, to a large extent, is contradictory of the exoteric doctrines. This teaching, the apostles had promulgated among the initiated ; for the mere people the exoteric doctrines were sufficient.
5. The teaching of the Church is nothing more than the exoteric doctrines ; it does not contain the pure truth, but only the truth as adapted to the capacity of the people, and it contains, besides, an ad mixture of many errors. To learn the pure and perfect truth, we must .seek it in that secret lore, acquaintance with which is the true Gnosis. The faith of the Church is merely a grade of knowledge. The Gnostics claimed to be alone in the possession of the true and genuine Gnosis which they endeavoured to expound in their works — hence the name Gnosticism. The Fathers of the Church, on the other hand, described
1'HIl.osnniY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 197
this Gnosi.s as false and delusive, and on this ground set themselves to combat it.
6. On the lines we have described, Gnosticism endeavoured at once to accomplish and to justify the overthrow of Christianity by the aid of non- Christian philosophy. Pursuing this design the Gnostics, in re ference to the special question of the origin of evil, arrived at the gloomy dualistic notion which represents man as surrounded on all sides by hostile powers, the external world as wholly evil, matter as not created by God, spirit and body as ethically opposed to one another. The Paganism of an earlier period had deified nature ; the Gnostics regarded nature as the principle of evil, and thus changed the distinction between nature and spirit into an absolute opposition.
7. The Gnostic systems were, as a rule, specially antagonistic to Judaism. The Church, in its explanation of the relation borne by the old dispensation to the new, asserted that the former was a pre paratory dispensation, the latter the consummation for which the way had been prepared. But the Gnostics explained the relation to consist in a distinct opposition of the one dispensation to the other. They held that the older dispensation was under the control of a principle which was not only distinct from the supreme God who had revealed Himself in Christianity, but (in greater or less degree), opposed and even hostile to that God. The ethical dualism which they had set up in the sphere of being, they here endeavoured to introduce into history, and the con trast which they found to exist between the external and rigid character of the Jewish law and the internal gracious Christian dispensation gave encouragement to the attempt.
Gnosti
. The sources from which our knowledge of Gnosticism is drawn, apart from the itic work, Pistis Sophia (Berlin, 1851), and a few fragments, are the writings of the opponents of Gnosticism ; notably, Irena?us (adv. Ifareses), the Pseudo Origen (Hip- polytus) (f\tyx°£ Kara iraauiv a'ineaiiuv), as well as the writings of Justin, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Kpiphanius, Theodoretus and Augustine. We may add to these the treatise of the Neo-Platonist Plotinus against the Gnostics. Kim. 2.
We may mention among the more recent writers who have treated of Gnosticism : Neander, Ge.netixche Enticickelung der vornehmattn ynoztixchen System*, Berlin, 1818; F. A. Lewald, Commentate de doctrina gno*tica, Heide'lb., 1818; J. Matter, Hint. Crit. du Gnosticisme, 1828; Mohler, Ursprung des Gnosticiymux, Tubing, 1831,
THE SEVERAL GNOSTIC SYSTEMS.
1. The earliest Gnostic teachings are ascribed by Irenocus to Simon Magus, to his pupil Meiiander, and to Cerinthus, the last of whom St. John the Evangelist had it in his mind to refute, when he wrote his Gospel. (Vrinthus is said to have taught that the world was not made by God, but by an inferior power which had no knowledge of the true God. The true (Jod caused the J-'.nn Christ to descend upon Jesus the Son of Joseph and Mary, at his baptism, fitting Him thereby to preaeh the unknown Father, and to work miracles. This JKon separated him-
198 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
self from Jesus before the death of the latter, and had no share in His sufferings.
2. But the chief representatives of Gnosticism were Saturninus, Valentinus, Carpocrates, and Marcion, with a few others of less note. In the teaching of these Gnostics, more especially of those first men tioned, the conceptions of the thinkers are so shrouded in a cloud of fantastic conceits, that it is difficult to penetrate these extravagances of a deranged imagination, and discern the rational thought which under lies them. We must, however, try to find a path through their laby rinth of fantastic trifles.
SATURNINUS.
§58.
3. Saturninus, a pupil of Menander, was born at Antioch, and spent his life there. The most brilliant portion of his career corres ponds with the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 125). He taught the existence of an unknown God — the Father. This God created a number of spirits — archangels, powers, principalities, and angels — which succeed one another, in descending order. The last seven angels, who close the series, created the world. To them also is due the creation of man, but only the creation of the animal portion of his nature.
4. From the Supreme Power, a luminous image issued, which reached the angels charged with the creation of the world. To retain this image they resolved to create man after its likeness. But the likeness whicli they succeeded in producing could not be other than imperfect, owing to the imperfection of the beings producing it. It could not lift itself up, it sank to the earth and crawled like a worm. The Supreme Power took pity on its condition, and as man had been created after its likeness, this Power shot a spark of its own spiritual nature into the image. Man then, for the first time, became man in the true sense, became a being at once spiritual and corporeal. That divine spirit returns after death to the source whence it came, all that then remains of man undergoes dissolution.
5. In hostile opposition to the dominion of the unknown Father is the Kingdom of Satan. The evil principle works upon man through sensuality, and endeavours by this means to bring him under its sway. Everything is evil which tends to draw men down towards material or sensible things, and to involve him more deeply in matter. On this ground, Saturninus condemned marriage and the carnal generation of children. Both he held to be derived from Satan. For similar reasons, there can be no resurrection of the body, for the body is derived from the principle of evil — matter — and could not, therefore, have any share in the glorified state.
6. Men were at first ruled by the Jewish God — one of those inferior angels who created the world. But this deity was too weak to shield
OK mi: i IIKI-M \\ I.K\. l!U»
them I'roin the attacks of Satan, and, besides, it was not fitting that men, in whom a spark of the Divine nature was burning, should be ruled • >vt-r l»y a power of such a low order. Therefore, the unknown Father M-iit His Son Christ into the world, to overthrow the reign of the Jewish God, to save the good and the believing, and to condemn the wicked and the incredulous. But since the flesh is from the principle of evil, the Son did not assume a real body, but only the semblance of a human body. (Docetism.) *
7. In this teaching on the subject of man's creation we recognise the Platonic notions of Philo ; the dualism between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan, the rejection of marriage, and other such theories, are clearly borrowed from the East. The more fantasti cal elements of Gnosticism do not yet appear prominently.
BASILIDES. §59.
8. Basilidcs, also a native of Antioch, lived, like Saturninus, under the Emperor Hadrian. Towards the close of his life (A.D. 130) he taught in Egypt and chiefly in Alexandria. AVe have two accounts of his system differing widely from one another ; the one furnished by Irenoms, the other by Hippolytus. AVe give first the account of Irenajus.
9. According to Irenscus, Basilides held the Unbegotten and Un- nameable to be first in the scale of being ; from him proceeded the Nous, from this again the Logos, from the Logos the Phronesis, from the Phronesis the Sophia and Dynarnis, from "these the Virtues and the chief angels. By these angels the first or highest heaven was formed. From the highest angels proceeded other angels who formed the second heaven (or sphere), and thus the process continued, until 3G5 orders of angels had been successively produced, and as many celestial spheres successively formed. The ruler of the celestial spheres is Abraxas, whose name contains the number 365 (1 + 2+100 + 1 + 60 + 1 + 200 according to the numerical significance of the Greek letters). The angels who formed the lowest sphere, fashioned our world also, and are its rulers.
10. The interposing of so many intermediate beings between God and the world indicates the dualistic character of the entire system. This feature becomes still more marked in the doctrines regarding physical nature and the origin of man. The body of man was given him by the lower or world-creating powers, his soul comes from a higher realm.
* The prophecies of the Old Testament were deelared to have been inspired, partly by the world-creating angels, and partly l.y Satan, who contended against all tln»'.- angels, but chiefly against the god of the Jews.
200 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
The soul has had its origin in the realm of light, and therefore it lives here below in a strange land. It has been degraded to life within the body in punishment of a fault. All the evil that man has to endure in this life is, consequently, the punishment of guilt which his soul has contracted, either in the present life or in a prior state. Martyrdom itself Basilides holds to be a punishment of this kind. These chastise ments may, however, be means of purification for the soul.
11. It is the duty of the soul to free itself from the material element with which, contrary to the requirements of its nature, it is invested. This deliverance is to be accomplished by subduing sensuality and sensual appetite, and by rising through faith to the consciousness of the soul's higher nature. Basilides does not condemn marriage ; he would retain it as a means of resisting the persistent assaults of sensual passion. The complete purification of the soul is also helped by the process of transmigration. There cannot be a resurrection of the body, for the body is derived from matter, it is of its nature antagonistic to the soul, and its reunion with the soul would be a misfortune for the latter, not an advantage.
12. The human race was originally placed under the rule of the angels who created this world. These angels divided among themselves the government of the peoples of the earth, their Archon or chief ruler reserved to himself the government of the Jewish people. lie then strove to subject all other peoples to his own chosen nation. But he was opposed by the other nations and their ruling angels, and thus conflict and confusion arose. In pity, the Supreme God sent His own Son amongst men to free them from the control of the powers which rule the world, to make known to them their own higher nature, and to point out to them the way in which they could and should rise above the angels who formed the world, and even above the Archon himself.
13. The Nous, thereupon took the semblance of man, in order to manifest himself to mankind. He was not himself crucified. He sub stituted Simon of Gyrene for himself, by exchanging outward appear ance with the latter. Whoever believes in the individual who was crucified, is still under the dominion of the world-ruling angels. We must believe in the eternal Nous, who underwent the death of the cross in appearance only. The real believers are the elect, the men of real knowledge, the Gnostics. These are above the law ; nothing can defile them, not even the offering of sacrifice to the heathen gods ; the difference between good and evil is no longer of importance to them.
14. The account of Hippolytus agrees with that of Irenoous in this, that in it Basilides assigns the god of the Jews (as well as the gods of the heathen) a limited power, and ascribes the redemption accomplished through Christ to the Supreme God. But Ilippolytus differs from IrenoDus in this, that he represents as interposed between God and the angels not the Nous, Phronesis, &c., but three vlor^TtQ (sonships), produced by the Supreme God — the Non-existent. The mutual relations which his arrangement of these three worrjrte involves, and the various functions which they discharge belong to the domain of fable. We give some
PHILOSOPHY OF THK CHRISTIAN EK\. 201
details below.* Which of these two accounts represents the genuine teaching of Basilides, and which represents merely the teaching of hi* followers is a question still undecided. The teaching of Basilides was continued by his son Isidorus.
VALENTINUS AND THE OPHITES. §60.
15. The most comprehensive of the Gnostic systems is that of Valentinus, among whose followers may be reckoned Heracleon and Ptolemy, Secundus and Marcus, and many others. Valentinus was by birth an Egyptian. He taught in Alexandria about A.I). 140, and subsequently in Home, and died, about A.D. 160, in Cyprus. He sets up as that which is the highest in existence, the incomprehensible, un- nameable, eternal, and unbegotten God, to whom he gives the name Jiythos, and sometimes the name llari'ip or Il/oo7raray>. From him proceed, as from a first cause, a series of supernatural powers or JEom, who together constitute the Pleroma.
16. Associated with the liythos was a sexually different principle, Sige (aiy{i or tvvoia), from whom the primal Father, under the influence of Love, begat the two highest yEous, Nous and Aktt.cia. The Nous is called also the juovoycviyc (only-begotten), and also 7rar»;p *at ap\ri TWV
* According to Hippolytus, Easilides taught that, originally there was absolute nothing. From this nothing came forth the germ of the world, the non-existent god having produced by an act of will (not by emanation), that original unity which carried within it the irarviripua (or, according to Clement of Alexandria, the ovyxiioti; apxiK>l) °f the universe. In this germ was contained a threefold sonship (I'l'orijt) ; the first raised itself at once to the non-existent god, the second, less subtle and less pure, was raised aloft by the first, who bestowed the holy spirit upon it ; the third, which remains unpurified, was detained in the mass of the iravowtpna. The non-existent Cod and the two first uidrijrtf inhabit the supramundane space which surrounds the world, but is separated from it by a fixed sphere (arfpcat^a). The holy spirit having risen with the second sonship to the supramundane region, returned subsequently to the middle sphere, and thus became the vvtv^ia ptOopiov. \Vithin this nether world dwells the world-ruler, unable to rise above the aTtpiw^a, but fondly imagining that he is the supreme god, that there is nothing above him. The law-giving god occupies a position below him. Each of these divinities has genera ted a son. The first of these ap^ovrtv dwells in the ethereal region ; his is the Ogdoas who ruled the earth from Adam to Moses. The second — the Hebdomadas, dwells in the region beneath the moon ; he ruled from Moses to Christ. As soon as the gospel or knowledge of the supramundane world (»; rOtv vmfHCQVMitt* yi'uiff«c) was proclaimed, and the son of the world-ruler, through the medium of the spirit, received the light of the supramundane vid'-fjc, the World-ruler came to have knowledge of the supreme Cod, and was seized with fear. But this fear was the beginning <>f wisdom. He repented of his arrogance, in common with the god who is subordinate to him ; and all the principalities and powers of the 36.~> heavens, received the preaching of the gospel. The light which proceeded from the suprainnndane sonship enlightened Jesus. The third nion/c was now purified, and rose to the sphere already inhabited by the beatified sonship- to the non-existent < 'ml. As soon as these several essences reach their proper spin-re, each becomes ignorant of the degrees above itself, that there may be no jealousy. Cfr. Ueberweg.
202 HISTORY OK ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
travTuv. Bythos, Sige, Nous, and Aletheia produced in turn the Logos and the Zoc, and these in their turn the Antlropoa and the Ecc/cxi». The last four form in conjunction with the first four (rtr/oaicrve) the system of eight (Ogdoas). The Logos in union with Zoo begets ten (eEKac) .^Eons, and Anthropos in union with Ecclesia begets twelve (S(t>Se>cac) -ZEons. This generation is effected by successive stages ; in each stage a male and female .ZEoii being produced, who then unite to continue the generative process. These thirty ^Eons form, as has been said, the Plcroma, or Fulness of Divine Life. The last of the twelve jJEon.s which stand at the end of the series — and, consequently, the last of the entire thirty ./Eons — is Sophia a female _ZEon.
17. The inborn Nous alone has knowledge of the unbegotten Father. This knowledge is not vouchsafed the other -/Eons. But their desire to behold the Father is excited by this privation ; and this desire becomes so powerful in Sophia that it almost leads to her dissolution. In the effort, however, this female ^Eon gives birth to a formless substance. But Horos is sent to her by the Father, and he succeeds with much difficulty in persuading her that the Supreme God is unknowable (aKaTaXrj7rroc\ and thus preserves her from destruction and restores her to her first estate. The abortion she has brought forth — that formless substance to which she has given birth — is expelled by Horos from the Pleroma, and sinks into the Kenoma or empty space. By command of the Father, Nous and Aletheia hereupon bring forth by emanation two new -ZEons — Christ and the Holy Ghost; these enlighten the other -ZEons as to their relation with Bythos, and order is again restored among them. In the joy that follows, all the other ./Eons produce in common a new ^Eon of higher excellence, who is known by the several names— Jesus, Logos, Soter, or Christ, and him they offer as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father.
18. All this takes place within the Pleroma. But the Christ who has been generated by Nous and Aletheia takes pity on that formless substance named Achamoth, the offspring of Sophia, which Horos has relegated to the Kenoma, and having given it essence and form, retires again within the Pleroma. As soon as Achamoth becomes sensible of the light which Christ has imparted to it, the desire springs up within it to enter into the Pleroma, but being hindered by Horos, it becomes the victim of fear, and sorrow, and want.* In response to its petitions, the Pleroma sends the vEon, Jesus, to deliver it from suffering, to rescue it from the UdOri (Fear, Sorrow, Want, Supplication), and to reconcile it with God. But for all this, it does not succeed in attaining to the Pleroma ; it reaches no further than a sphere bordering on the Pleroma, separated from the latter by Horos and the Cross, and called the lower Ogdoas. Achamoth generates the Demiurgus. The latter is a purely physical being, and has therefore no knowledge of his parent. The Demiurgus in his turn produces the sensible world, the matter of which
* In the book Pistia Sophia we have the romance of the sufferings of this Achamoth — i.e., of this Sophia excluded from the divinity — written in detail, with full account of its penitential hymns and lamentations.
1MI1I.OMMMIY «>!•• TIIM (IIKIsTIAN l.l;\. 203
is constituted l>y the fluOii which Jesus separated from A<-liaim>tli. Tin Pleroina forms the archetype for the hemiurgus in his labours; the sensible world is, accordingly, modelled after the Pleroma. But in tin- imitation the Demiurgus is an imitator unconsciously; he does not know the Pleroma, and cannot know it, for he is a purely physical being. The place of the Demiurgus is in heaven, below Achamoth ; the earth is the habitation of the Demon.
19. Man is a creation of the Demiurgus. He is formed from matter (vXrj), receives a soul (^v\i't) from the Demiurgus, and a spirit (irvtv^a) from Achamoth. The nature of man is thus a compound formed of three elements, Body, Soul, and Spirit. The body of man was at first an ethereal nature, immaterial, and without difference of sex. It was only when man fell into sin that he was invested with a coarse material body. The spirit which Achamoth had implanted in him without know ledge of the Demiurgus impelled man to raise himself above the latter. The Demiurgus, with his angels, took alarm, and to keep man in subjec tion forbade him to eat of the tree of knowledge. Man disobeyed the command, and thereupon was driven from the ethereal region of Paradise into the coarse material sphere of this nether earth. Here he was invested with a material body. In this condition he is saved from complete subjection to matter only by the aid of Achamoth.
20. The Law and the Prophets are from the Demiurgus. He had promised a Messiah — but a Messiah of a psychical nature only. Man, endowed as he was with a spiritual nature, was not, however, to remain for ever under the dominion of the Demiurgus. The Saviour, Jesus, descended from the Pleroma to make known to men the mysteries of the life of God, and to free them from the dominion of the Demiurgus. For this end the man Jesus was formed from the three elements of human nature, Spirit, Soul, and Body, but in such wise that his body was not of coarse material constitution, but of ethereal form. This man came into the world, passing through the body of Mary as through a channel. In the ceremony of Baptism he united himself with the ./Eon, Jesus, and remained in union with him till the trial before Pilate. At this point he abandoned him and returned into the Pleroma. (Other Valentinians taught that the -ZEoii, Jesus, was united with the man Jesus from the time of the conception of the latter).
21. Jesus came into the world to redeem men ; that is to say, to reveal to them the divine mysteries, and to free them from subjection to the Demiurgus ; but all men do not participate in this redemption. The Valentinians distinguish three classes of men, the Hylicists, the Psychi- cists, and the Pneumatists. The Ilylicists (heathens) are wholly outside the region of the higher life, the spirit is not imparted to them in any degree, they have, therefore, no existence after death. The Psychicists, on the other hand (/>., the members of the Church who are content with mere i'aitln, although they do not participate in the spirit, and are subject to the dominion and to the law of the Demiurgus, yet if they fulfil this law, and wage the fight against matter, and practise good works, may after death attain to the kingdom of the Demiurgus. I>ut
204 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
the Pneumatists, i.e., the Gnostics, have been made partakers of the spirit by Jesus ; they rise above faith to the Gnosis ; in the Gnosis they have knowledge of the mysteries of the Pleroma, and the knowledge leads to supreme happiness. They are not subject to the law of the Demiurgus ; the difference between good and evil is of no moment to them. Marriage is not only permitted them, it is a matter of obligation. They cannot be deprived of the salvation they have attained. After death they return to Achamoth their mother. There is no resurrection of the body.
22. When the course of this world is run, Achamoth and all the spirits of the Pneumatists that are associated with her, return again to the Pleroma ; the spirits mingle with the angels, to whom they are united connubially, and with whom their existence is thenceforward continued. The Demiurgus, with the souls that belong to him, ascends to the realm previously inhabited by Achamoth. As for the nether material world, the fire which was latent in matter bursts forth and entirely con sumes it, and nothing is left but the Pleroma and the kingdom of the Demiurgus.
23. There are, no doubt, elements of sane philosophy in all this. The three constituent elements of hiiman nature — body, soul, spirit — recall the Platonic theories. So, too, the yEons of the Pleroma are no more than personifications of the ideas of the Platonists, as is apparent from the circumstance that they arc made the archetypes of creation. But these philosophical elements are lost in a chaos of fantastic images, the product of a disordered and unrestrained imagination. For this reason the Valentinian, like the other Gnostic systems, is of small scientific value. The sexual excesses which the Valentinians permitted them selves, as a consequence of their doctrines, deprived their system of ethical \alue. In every respect it remains a melancholy monument of the aberrations of human intelligence.
24. Akin to the Valentinians were the Ophites (Naassenes). Both sects may have been derived from a common origin, for the principles of the Ophites are, throughout, in accord with those of the Valentinians, the differences are merely accidental. The Ophites owe their name to a party amongst them — the Perates — in whose system the serpent of the Book of Genesis plays a prominent part. They go so far as to identify the serpent with Christ, the mediator between God and the world, and accordingly assign it divine honour.
CAKPOCRATES, MARCION, AND OTHER GNOSTICS. § 61.
25. Carpocrates of Alexandria, who lived about the year A.D. 130, taught a kind of universalistic rationalism. According to him the Monas is the first parent, or ultimate source of all things. From this being proceeded a series of spirits, who rebelled against him, and created the world. The true Gnosis consists in the contemplation which lifts
rilll.OSOI'IlY OK I I IK CHRISTIAN M:\. 200
us above this created world to the primal .Monas, and by which we acquire dominion over nature and the spirits. This degree of elevation \v;i< attained by Pythagoras and Plato, and in more especial manner by • !• MIS, the son of Joseph and Mary — the perfect man. It was only in virtue of his union with the Monas that Jesus was enabled to work miracles. We ourselves can attain to the same state, and thus acquire dominion over the powers that govern the world.
26. Carpocratcs further taught the pro-existence of souls, and this in thoroughly Platonic fashion. The same may be said of his teaching regarding the transmigration of souls. The souls that have not lived entirely free from fault must, in punishment, enter successively into various bodies, until at length, having done sufficient penance, they are set free, and live in communion with God and those angels who have formed the world. Furthermore, Carpocrates teaches contempt for the moral law. He does not attribute any efficacy to prayer. Man is saved by faith and love. Every work is of itself indifferent, and becomes good or bad merely by the intention of the individual who performs it. All that the earth brings forth, everything that conduces to human enjoy ment must be held in common. This communism was further developed by Epiphanes, the son and disciple of Carpocrates. The religious wor ship of the followers of Carpocrates was a kind of demoniacal magic.
27. Marcion of Pontus was a pupil of Cerdo — a Syrian, who taught in Rome about A.D. 140, and whose doctrines resembled those of Cerinthus. Marcion taught at Home, in succession to Cerdo, about A.D. 160, after he had been excommunicated at Sinope (A.D. 140) by his father, the Bishop of that city, in punishment of a heinous crime. Marcion, like the other Gnostics, distinguishes between the Demiurgus and the Supreme God, but he does not derive the Demiurgus by emanation from the Supreme God, or by a fall from some higher state. He makes him equal to God, and eternal like God, but establishes an antagonism between him and God.
28. The consideration of the evil which exists in the world leads Marcion to deny that a God of goodness could have created such a world. He, therefore, supposes a God higher than the Creator of the world. The difference between the Supreme God and the Creator consists in this, that the Supreme God is good, the Demiurgus is not good, but only just. He is not good, for, as he is the Creator of the world, he is the author of the evil and the wickedness of the world, and is besides, a lover of war, is of changeable mood, self -contradictory — such, in fact, as he appears to us in the Old Testament. He is merely just, that is to say, he executes the law he has laid down relentlessly, without mercy, and without compassion ; of this we have evidence in the Old Testament.
20. The whole of the Old Testament must be ascribed to the Demi urgus. All the books it contains refer to his doctrines and his legisla tion. He ruled the .lews with a sceptre of iron, and carried out all his designs with unbending rigour (Justice). Up to the time of Christ's appearance in the world the God of goodness was unknown in this world.
206 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
Even the Demiurgus had no knowledge of Him. He had not been re vealed in nature nor in reason ; not in the former, for nature was full of evils which could not exist in an order of things which was to stand as u manifestation of God's goodness ; nor was God manifested to reason : on this point the contradictory doctrines of philosophers are evident proof. Nor had He revealed Himself in the Old Testament ; this is evident from the contradiction between the Old Testament and the New. The God of goodness was, therefore, unknown. Christ was the first to reveal His existence.
30. To destroy the work of the Demiurgus or World-Creator, his ordinances, and everything connected therewith, and to deliver men from his oppressive yoke, the God of goodness revealed Himself in Jesus, who appeared as Man in Judaea. In Him was manifested the fulness of love and mejcy, as rigour had been manifested in the God of the Old Testament. "Matter, being the work of the Demiurgus, is essentially evil ; Christ, the Son of the Father, could not, therefore, assume a real body, nor be born in the usual way. He appeared in the semblance merely of a body (Docetisin ). For reasons similar to those here adduced there can be no question of the resurrection of the body.
31. Christ revealed the God of goodness to men, and made known to them also the nature of the Demiurgus, and thus delivered them from the dominion of this latter. He promulgated no new Law ; it was His mission to deliver men from the Law, not to subject them to a new Law. Christ is a Saviour only ; He is not a law-giver. In rescuing mankind from the dominion of the Demiurgus He roused against Himself the hatred of the latter, and the Demiurgus in consequence excited his fol lowers to put Christ to death. The sufferings of Christ were, however, merely apparent, for His body was no more than an appearance. The Jews still expect the Messiah promised them by the Demiurgus to gather them together out of the Dispersion.
32. The ethical principles of Marcion are of the most rigid kind. He forbade his followers the use of flesh and wine ; bound them to rigorous fasts, especially 011 the Sabbath, as on this day the Creator rested, and fasting is a symbol of sorrow. All this was contrived in opposition to the Demiurgus. Marriage and the procreation of children are contri vances of the Demiurgus, who, in the Old Testament, made marriage obligatory ; both were forbidden by Marcion. He admitted to baptism only persons who were unmarried and continent. One of his followers, however, deduced from his principles entirely opposite rules of conduct. Opposition to the Demiurgus was adduced by them as justification of prostitution, adultery, and other vices, for by indulging in these vices they considered they were resisting the World-Creator, who had for bidden these offences in the Old Testament. In this way the system of Marcion led to the same excesses as that of Carpocrates. Apelles was the most remarkable of his disciples.
33. We have yet to mention the two Gnostics, Bardesanes and Hermogenes. Bar- desanes, a native of Edessa, lived towards the close of the second century, and taught
IMIII.nsnl'HY OK [|||, <H KIM I \N KRA. 207
.!.>> ti ims analogous to those of Y;il. MI: imis. He assumes two essential principles, the unknown F;itln-r, and Matter, from wliich Satan was produced, From the fonner emanated seven .Eons, who, in conjunction with the Father, constitute tlie I'li-roin.i. The soul of man is derived from the Pleroma, hut it has been relegated to this I<>\MT world in punishment of its faults. To redeem it Christ appeared in the world. He was born of Mary, but His body was formed of celestial elements.
.'! t. Ifermogenes lived at the beginning of the second century, and was, probably, an inhabitant of Carthage. According to Tertullian, he supposed God and Matter to be the primary dual elements. God could not produce the world from His own substance, for He is indivisible and unchangeable. He could not produce it from nothing, for in this case His infinite goodness would have forced him to make all things good ; whereas, in actual fact, there is much wickedness and evil in the world. We must, therefore, assume an eternal Matter, out of which God formed the world. This is the only assumption which enables us to explain the existence of evil. This assumption gives us an element which is antagonistic to the action of God, and this element is Evil. According to Her- mogenes, the soul of man is formed from Matter.
MANICHEISM.
§ 62.
1. The dualistic theory which we observe to be a part of all the Gnostic systems in greater or less degree, reached its extreme develop ment in Municheism. This doctrine is nothing more than the Parsee system in Christian garb. According to the most trustworthy accounts, Manes, the founder of the system, was a member of a family distin guished amongst the Magi, and was well versed in the lore of the Persians. He became a Christian, but his false opinions soon brought about his excommunication from the Church. In the year A.D. 238, he began to teach publicly. He lived at the court of the Persian king, Sapor. In consequence of a quarrel with the Magi he was obliged to fly from the court, and ultimately (about A.D. 277) he was executed. We are indebted chiefly to the controversial writings of Saint Augustine for our knowledge of the Manichean theories. Manicheism, like Gnosti cism, was the creation of an exuberant fancy rather than of speculative thought, and its attitude towards Christianity was almost identical with that of the Gnostics. We may, therefore, content ourselves with a brief sketch of its leading outlines. In the one system, as in the other, the appeal to hidden or esoteric doctrine is a prominent characteristic.
2. The Manicheans, in answering the question: What is the origin of evil ? assume the existence of two eternal principles ethically opposed to each other — a principle essentially good, and a principle essentially evil. The good principle is the God of Light, who dwells in the region of pure light, surrounded by an infinite number of the Spirits of Light. The evil principle is the Prince of Darkness, who is surrounded by the Spirits of Darkness, and dwells in darkness, i.e., in the region of chaotic Matter. The Spirits of Darkness live in a state of perpetual conflict ; but at length they come to have knowledge of the Kingdom of Light, where upon they conclude a peace among themselves, and agree to attack the Kingdom of Light, and to destroy it.
208 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
3. To defend Himself against this attack the God of Light causes a force to emanate from Himself, which He opposes to the onset of the Powers of Darkness. This force is primeval man, the parent of the Living. This being enters into the struggle, but is unable long to main tain it ; whereupon God causes a new force, the Spirit of Life, to emanate from Himself, which comes to the aid of primeval man. This Spirit of Life rescues primeval man from the grasp of the Powers of Darkness. But in the conflict primeval man had been deprived by these Powers of many of the rays of light which belonged to his being. These rays remain behind in chaotic matter, and thus become the World- soul. This World-soul is Christ, the Son of primeval man.
4. This does not, however, bring the strange drama to a close. The Spirit of Life which delivered man becomes, in its turn, the author of a new world. It gathers whatever of light is left in matter, or at least whatever has not been lost in chaotic matter, and this it concentrates in the sun and moon ; the demons it fixes in the firmament as stars. We must, therefore make a distinction between the suffering Jesus — the light which matter has absorbed, and the Jesus whose throne is in the sun and moon. The latter seeks to deliver the former from his subjec tion to matter. For this purpose he causes the forces of light in the sun to assume the forms of beautiful maidens, to excite in this way the desires of the Powers of Darkness, and thus to produce a condition of disorder which shall permit the imprisoned light to escape. The flesh, or animal nature, is produced by the female demons that arc fixed in the firmament.
5. Man, too, is the offspring of the demons. The Prince of Darkness, observing that the World-soul might soon be set free, persuaded his com panions to resign their light to him, and then begot Adam, and subse- qiiently Eve, that Adam's sensual passion might be excited, and the process of generation continued. In this way he sought to individualise more and more this World-soul or light, and by imprisoning it thus repeatedly to weaken its power to rise.
6. We must distinguish in man two souls — the soul which animates the body, and the soul of Light, which is a part of the universal World- soul. The animal soul is derived from the principle of evil, and is, therefore, evil by nature ; the soul of light on the other hand, coming from the principle of goodness, is good of its nature. These two souls are perpetually in conflict ; the antagonism which divides the world is renewed in man. The evil soul manifests itself in concupiscence, and concupiscence is, therefore, essentially evil. Every wicked deed is the outcome of this concupiscence ; the soul of light commits no sin, nothing but good can proceed from it ; its share in sin is not active volition, but merely weakness yielding to conciipiscence. But, for this wr.-iknrss, strictly speaking, it is not responsible, for man is at all times under the control of cosmical forces ; there can be no question of the freedom of will in his regard.
7. In the Old Covenant the Prince of Darkness was supreme ; the Old Testament is wholly his work. The God of goodness would not,
I'HII.OSOI'IIY OK TIIK CHK1STI \N |K\.
however. leave the world-soul in everlasting captivity, He sent Christ, His Son, into the world to set it free. Christ came into the world a man in appearance only ; He instructed human souls as to their true nature, and taught them the way of deliverance. To reveal to them the deeper meaning of His doctrines He sent them the spirit of life, which appeared in Manes.
8. The members of the Munichean sect were divided into three classes. On the lowest class was imposed merely the siffnctculunt cm, that is to say, they were forbidden to partake of flesh, eggs, milk or fish ; they were also forbidden the use of wine, and, more stringently still, of pro fane language. On the second class was imposed the aiynaculum inanunm, i.e,, they could not possess property, were not permitted to labour, and were bound to give themselves exclusively to contemplation. They were forbidden to destroy plants or animals. On the highest class, that is to say, on the class of the elect, was imposed the wjnncttlnm sinus, i.r., they were forbidden to marry, or indulge in sexual intercourse. Despite this unnatural rigour, the grossest excesses were committed by the Manicheans, excesses to which they were encouraged by their belief that nothing could deprive the elect of their sanctification.
9. The souls of the elect return, immediately after the death of the body, into the kingdom of light ; other souls, according to their moral character in this life, pass after death into various bodies, until they are at length purified. The world is finally consumed by fire. The souls which, by reason of their profound corruption, are incapable of purification, are condemned to eternal fire.
MONARCHIANISM.
63.
1. The reaction against the polytheism of the Gnostics, and par ticularly against the antagonism established in their doctrine between the Supreme God and the Creator of the world, led to another extreme view, in which the Unity of God was so strongly insisted on that the distinctions involved in the Trinity disappeared, and the divine persons became so many different relations or modes of the one divine substance. Thisdoct rinr \\ -as known as Monarchianism, or the Antitriuitarian doctrine. In this, the teaching regarding the person of Christ was necessarily reduced to the Ebionite theory, more or less modified. "We proceed to notice the most remarkable of the Monarchianists or Antitrinitarians, and to give some outline of their teaching.
2. First, amongst them are the so-called Patripassiani, amongst whom an- Praxeas, Noetus and Beryllus. Praxeas lived towards the close of the second century. He taught that tin- Father became man in Christ ; that He was born of the Virgin Mary ; that He died and
15
210 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
rose from the dead. Praxeas distinguished the divine from the human element in Christ ; the one, he called Spirit and the other Flesh. Christ suffered only as man ; to the Father he ascribed a sort of co-passion (compati). Somewhat later (about A.n. 230), Noetus taught the same doctrine at Smyrna. In God, he held, there is but one person. This person existing from eternity was begotten of Mary in time. In His eternal existence He is named Father, as existing in time He is named Son. Beryllus of Bostra, a contemporary of Noetus, taught that Christ, before His birth, had no personal existence ; that during His earthly life He was not God, that the divinity of the Father only dwelt in Him.
3. A second class of Monarchianists is formed by Sabellius and Paul of Samosata. Sabellius, a native of Libya, and Presbyter of Ptolemais in the Pentapolis of Africa, taught his peculiar doctrines publicly under Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, and at Rome, under Pope Sixtus II. (A.D. 257-8). The gist of his teaching was embodied in the formulas : ft /uovof ir\aTvvdti(ra ytyove rpiag — the monas expanded, becomes a trinity : and 6 Tran-j/o o auroc fJ.iv fort, TrXaruvtrat St tig viov Kat irvtvpa — as Father He is one and the same, but He is expanded into the Son and Holy Ghost (Athan. Or. IV., Contra Arianos, 3). He thus admits only one Hypostasis or Person in God. This Hypostasis, accord ing to the several relations it assumes, becomes Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. These three terms express no more than names for various relations of the one monas. Sabellius compares the Divine Trinity to the triple principle — soul, spirit, and body in man ; which, although different one from another, unite, nevertheless, to form one person ; and again, to the sun which, although one in itself, unites the three elements — power to illumine, power to heat, and rotundity of form.
4. In accordance with these views is the further opinion attributed to Sabellius, that for the creation of the world, and more particularly of man, the Logos came forth from the Father — not as a Divine Person, but merely as a power emanating from God. The Logos assumed a personal character in Christ, but this only for a time. As the sun sends forth its rays, and receives them again within itself, so did the Logos enter into Christ, and there assume personal existence, to return again to the Father later as an impersonal power.
5. Paul of Samosata became Bishop of Antioch A.D. 260. He was a man of considerable dialectical skill, but filled with vanity. He taught that Christ had no existence previous to His conception, that the Divine Logos — which is not itself a person — descended upon Him when He was conceived, and remained with Him till his Passion. Hence, Jesus, though begotten in a supernatural manner, is no more than man. But the moral perfection He attained, rendered Him God. It is true that He was endowed with intellectual power of a Divine order, but this was not because of a substantial union between God and man, but merely in consequence of a special divine influence exerted upon a human intellect and human will.
6. A third class of Monarchianists is formed by the Antitrinitarians of the Ebionite school. To this class belong the two Theodoti (the
PHILOSOPHY OK THK OHBUTIA1I KIM. 'J 1 1
o! lei- and younger), who taught that Christ was no more than man ; and A '-trmon, who hold like opinions, but admitted a certain influence exerted upon Jesus by the Supreme God, which raised Him above all other men, and made Him the Son of God. The notion of the Logos does not form part of this phase of Monarehianism.
AUIANISM AND APOLLINAUISM.
§64.
1. Arianism unites in one system the prominent points of doctrine peculiar both to Gnosticism and to Monarehianism. The Gnostic teach ing is represented in the principle that God cannot enter into immediate contact with matter, that He can work upon it only through the agency of intermediate beings. The Monarchical teaching is represented in the doctrine that the Logos, as a person, is extraneous to the Divinity, not intrinsic to it — a proposition equivalent to a denial of the distinctions involved in the notion of the Trinity. But the construction of the Arian system indicates, at every point, the influence of the notions of 1'hilo — a source from which, at an early period, the Gnostics had borrowed.
2. Arius, the founder of the system called by his name, was probably a native of Libya. He was a man of considerable exegctical knowledge, eloquent and .skilled in dialectics, but he was remarkable for his vanity and his desire of renown. He was a presbyter of Alexandria, and subsequently to the year A.D. 313, when he failed in an attempt to secure for himself the episcopal see of that city, he publicly taught his peculiar theories. He died A.D. 336. We may reduce his doctrines to the following heads : —
3. God is the tTnbegotten (ayei/vijroe), find as such He must be one
— two unbegotten beings are inconceivable. This principle, which, as applied to the Divine Nature, is unimpeachable, was applied by Arius to the Divine Person*, and he was in consequence led to such conclu sions as these : The Son of God, the Logos, is begotten ; He cannot, therefore, be God ; He must be regarded merely as a creature. From this it follows that He cannot be eternal, like God ; He must have had a beginning ; there must have been a time when He did not exist (i}i/ Trort, ort OVK >». We are thus forced to admit a dual Logos — one intrinsic to the Divinity, which is not a personal entity, and another cxtrin-ic lu the Divinity, which possesses the character of personality; but the latter He only a creature, and can be called Wisdom or Logos only in so tar as it part icipates in that uncreated divine wisdom which is an in- niiiMr but impersonal attribute of God. This is clearly Philo's teach ing reproduced.
4. The Logos, being ft creature, was endowed with a freewill, which He could use for good or for evil. God foresaw that He would use Hi-> liberty aright, and as a reward He bestowed up< n Him, at His creation,
212 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
a glory which gave Him a title to be called God. But He is not God in the strict sense of the term, and therefore He is not omniscient ; He has not a perfect knowledge of the Father, nor even of His own nature. God enjoyed the title of Father from the moment that He gave being to the Logos as His Son.
5. The Logos is the instrument by means of which God created the world. God could not create the world immediately — He, the absolutely Pure, could not produce matter which is impure and unholy. He had need of an instrument to create the world, and this instrument was furnished in the Logos. The Logos was formed at the moment when God resolved to create the world. The world, then, does not exist for sake of the Logos ; the Logos exists for sake of the world.
6. The Logos is, furthermore, the instrument by which God rules the world. God cannot dispense with an instrument of this kind, for He is no more able to come into immediate contact with the defilements of matter than He is able to create matter. Accordingly, a series of beings are interposed between God and the world — these supernatural powers (angels) being made subordinate to the Logos. The incarnation of the Logos is explained to signify that the Logos assumed flesh, i.e., a human body, but not a human soul ; and in this way actually underwent the sufferings of the Passion.
7. Apollinarism was an offshoot of Arianism ; it owes its origin to Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea in Syria (about A.D., 375.) The Apollinarists, like the Manicheans, recognise three constituent elements in man, the body, the carnal soul (^VXH aapKitri]}, and the spirit. The relation between the carnal soul and the spirit resembles that established by the Manicheans, for the Apollinarists find the source of evil in the •^v\i) aapKiKi}. As to the origin of the soul, they are in favour of the theory of generation. They object to the doctrine of creation on the ground that such a doctrine involves the co-operation of God in fornica tion, adultery, and other such crimes, and they further maintain that the doctrine is opposed to Sacred Scripture which teaches that God ceased to create on the sixth day.
8. Regarding Christ, they taught that the Logos had not assumed human nature in its entirety, but only a body and T/-U\>) aapKiKi'i — to the exclusion of the vovg. In Christ the functions of the vouc were dis charged by the Logos. It is only in this hypothesis that the conflict between spirit and flesh in Christ becomes intelligible. A section of the Apollinarists went still further, and taught that the body of Christ was not formed from terrestrial matter, but was consubstantial with Ihe Logos. They ascribed to this body qualities of the immaterial order, and asserted that the Logos had brought it with Him from heaven, not received it from Mary.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 213
PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
1. The attacks and misrepresentations to which the faith was sub jected by pagans and heretics made it incumbent upon the Christians to adopt the weapons of science in defence of their belief. But to undertake a defence of the faith, they were first obliged adequately to penetrate its meaning, and to attain such speculative knowledge of its truths as the human reason could obtain. Thus much they were obliged to by the needs of the defence they were forced to undertake. A further incentive to this study was supplied by the character of the truths of faith themselves, so comprehensive and so lofty ; for the human mind is formed for truth, and the more truth manifests itself in its brightness, the more strenuous will be the effort of the mind to enter into its light.
2. It was to be expected, then, that the Christian speculation of the Ante-Nicene period, which at first was apologetic and controversial, should, as time went by, become more and more a study of Christian truth for its own sake. At a comparatively early period we find Christian schools cultivating science after the Christian fashion, as a means to a deeper knowledge of the truths of faith, and this in the service of the Church. The most remarkable of the Christian teachers and writers of the Ante-Nicene period belong to the schools of Edessa, of Antioch, and more especially of Alexandria. These schools were modelled upon the imperial schools of Rome, and in them were taught scientific theology, scriptural exegesis, philosophy, rhetoric, physics, astronomy, &c. Philosophy was made the basis of speculative theology ; it was not employed in the hope of adding to the sum of revealed truth, but only to aid towards its speculative development.
3. Christian philosophy, being employed as an aid to Christian faith, was permeated throughout by a spirit of lofty morality. The Christian teachers were deeply imbued with the spirit of Christianity, and the earnest Christian spirit of their lives reflected itself in their scientific teaching. Before the tribunals of the pagan magistrates and in presence of the horrors of the gibbet they gave evidence of the supernatural energy of Christian faith and Christian morality by which they were animated ; the same spirit of faith and moral rectitude was manifested no less unequivocally in the monuments of Christian thought which they reared.
4. "NVe begin our sketch of the period with the Apologists who de fended Christianity against paganism ; we shall then notice the opponents of Gnosticism and Monarchianism, and lastly we shall pass in review the thinkers who cultivated Christian speculation for its own sake, apart from the needs of controversy.
214
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
THE APOLOGISTS. JUSTIN, TATIAN, ATHENAGOR\S, AND THKOFHILUS.
1. In the writings of the Apostolic Fathers — the Fathers who were the immediate disciples of the Apostles — we find no traces of a philo sophy, in the strict sense of the term. These writings are valuable chiefly as evidence of the early Christian traditions, and belong, there fore, to the history of religious dogmas rather than to the history of philosophy.* But in the writings of the Apologists philosophy is a pro minent feature. It is, no doubt, employed chiefly for the purpose of controversy against the pagans, but it is employed in all thoroughness. The first of the Apologists was :
2. Flavius Tustinus, a native of Flavia Neapolis (Sichem) in Pales tine. (A.D., 1 00-160.) While yet a youth, he occupied himself with the great problems regarding God, the immortality of the soul, &c., and, as he tells us himself (Dial. c. Tryph. c. 2, 8) turned to the schools of the philosophers in the hope of finding a solution of them. lie first tried a Stoic, then a Peripatetic, next a Pythagorean, lastly a Platonist — the last of whom afforded him, he thought, the satisfaction he desired. While he was in the midst of his speculation, he one day, during a walk by the sea-shore, encountered an old man, with whom he entered into conversation. The old man, by his arguments, made a speedy end of the hopes Justin had conceived, and then advised him to address himself to Christianity for the solution of his difficulties. Justin followed the ad vice, and found at length what he had been seeking — the only true philosophy. He became a convert to Christianity, and defended his new faith against Jews, pagans, and heretics. He died a martyr's death at Rome. Of the treatises composed by Justin, the principal which have reached us are the Dialogue with flic Jnr Tryp/io, and the Greater and Lesser Apologies.!' The genuineness of the Cohortatio ad Gra'cos has been called in question in modern times, but only on intrinsic grounds which are by no means decisive.
3. Justin will not exclude the ancient philosophy from the economy of Redemption. In the Christian system the Divine Logos has mani fested Himself in the flesh, and, therefore, we possess in Christianity the fulness of truth. But even in pre-Christian times the Logos was not
* The Apostolic Fathers are St. Barnabas, one of whose letters is preserved ; Hermas who has left us a treatise with the title Pastor ; Clement of Rome, the author of t\vo letters to the Corinthians ; St. Ignatius, several of whose letters are ex t.-uit : St. 1'olycarp, one of whose letters (to the Philippijius) i.s preserved. We may also include in the number the unknown author of the Letter to Diognetm (which is sometimes attributed to Justin).
t The First or Greater Apology is addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, his two sons Lucius and Vems. the Senate and the Roman people, A.D., 139 ; the Second or Lesser to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Vems, ;md tlie Roman Senate, A.D. 162.
PHILOSOPHY OF -IIIK <IIKIMI\N i.i;\. 'J 1 :>
wholly unrevealed. He was revealed as the omnipresent Ao-yoc <T7rtp^emic<>c» us well in the works of creation as in human reason, which is reason only in so far as it participates in the Divine Logos. This Logos enabled the philosophers and poets of antiquity to attain knowledge of the truth. Whatever of truth they possessed and set forth in their writings they owed to the Logos. The measure of their knowledge was determined by the measure of their participation in the Logos ; hence their knowledge of truth was only partial, and they were frequently involved in self-con tradictions. The fulness of truth was revealed only in the Incarnate Logos.
4. The truth which was taught by the ancient philosophers and poets is to be ascribed to that Logos who was manifested in the flesh in the fulness of time. If this be so, then the truth taught by the philo sophers and poets of paganism is essentially Christian, and, as such, belongs to Christianity. It follows also that those who, before the Incarnation of the Logos, lived according to reason, i.e., according to the law of the Logos, which manifests itself in reason, were Christians, even though they may have been esteemed atheists by their contem poraries. Such were Socrates, Heraclitus, and others among the Greeks, and Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, Elias, and others among the outer nations. But these were only privileged individuals : the know ledge of God and of His law was first made general by the Incarnate Logos.
5. Besides the inner connection thus established between Greek philosophy and Christianity, Justin holds that there existed also an ex ternal bond of union. He maintains that the Greek philosophers for the most part had knowledge of the teaching of Moses and of his writings, and that they drew from this source. " The doctrine of free will," says Justin, " Plato borrowed from Moses, and he was further more acquainted with the whole of the Old Testament. Moreover, all that the philosophers and poets have taught regarding the immortality of the soul, punishment after death, the contemplation of things divine and kindred subjects, was derived, in the first instance, from the Jewish prophets ; from this one source the seeds of truth ((nrtpnara rfj£ aA»j0tmc) have been sent forth in all directions, though at times being wrongly apprehended by men they have given rise to differences of opinion." (ApoL I. 44.)
b'. God is the Eternal, the Unbcgotten, the Unnameable. The idea of God is implanted by nature in the mind, in the same way as the idea of the moral law. But along with (;ra/rm), though subordinate to (viro], God the Creator, we must admit another God (tVtpoc &oc), through whom God the Creator reveals Himself, and who became man in Christ. This is the Son of God. In proof of this, Justin, in his controversy with the .Jr\v Trypho, who insisted on the doctrine of the unity of God, appeals to the Old Testament. He cites BS establishing the existence of " another God," the divine apparitions (theophanies) of the Old Testament. It eannot, he holds, be God theCreator who is referred to in these scenes, for it wotiH lie a contradiction to admit that the Creator of heaven and earth
210 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
should quit the super-celestial region, and manifest Himself on a small point of the earth's surface. Justin also appeals to those passages of Scripture, in which "Lord" is opposed to " Lord" and " God" to "God."
7. The question now suggests itself : In what relation does this "other God" stand to God the Creator? Justin answers this question as follows : As a beginning (or first principle) , God, before things created began to exist, produced from Himself an intellectual power (Svvafnv riva XoytKi'iv), which in the Scripture is variously named " Glory of the Father," "Son," "Wisdom," "Angel," "God," "Lord," and "Word." This Logos is that "other God" who must be assumed to exist as a being different from the Creator. This Logos had existence with the Father antecedently to the existence of created things, and as Son of God was eternal and without beginning. When God wished to create the world, He, by a new generation, made the Son in a certain way extrinsic to Himself, that the Son might act as an instrument and servant of the Father in the creation of the world. Justin then assumes a twofold generation of the Logos, an intrinsic and an extrinsic ; the former occurs within the Godhead, and is properly the eternal generation of the Son by the Father ; the latter is connected with the revelation of the Son of God as the Logos in the creation of the world.
8. The generation of the Logos by the Father, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, does not mean that the Logos acquired an existence apart from the Father. This generation must be understood in a sense analogous to the production of the spoken word by man, or of the light by the sun. In these cases the thing generated does not separate itself from the generating principle, but remains intimately identified with it. In the same way the Logos was not, in the act of generation, separated from the Father, He continued still to be one with Him (in being.) Thus the generation of the Logos has not any parallel in the procreation of created things ; it is essentially different in kind. When, then, Justin asserts that the Logos is subject (671-0) to the Father, he must be understood to mean a subordination of a personal (hypostatical) kind, not of being or nature. The same is true of the Holy Ghost, who is described by Justin as the third member of the Divine Trinity.
9. God, as has been said, created the world through the Logos. He has furnished man with a free will, which enables him to decide for good and for evil. The same Logos, by which the universe was created, be came man for the salvation of the world. He abrogated the Old Law, and proclaimed a New Law. He is then the New Lawgiver (6
i'o/io0s'rtK'). The soul of man does not perish at death, it enters on a new life where eternal happiness or eternal punishment awaits it. The dead rise again to life. The first resurrection is for the just only, and occurs at the second coming of Christ. Thereupon, follows the reign of Christ on earth with His elect, for a thousand years (Chiliasm.) At the termination of this period, the general resurrection takes place, and the Last Judgment is held ; after which each man receives, according to his works, eternal reward or eternal punishment.
10. With Justin we must associate his pupil Tatian. An Assyrian
PHILOSOPHY OF Mil. ( IIKISIIVN ERA. 'J 1 7
by birth, Tatian mado acquaintance with every branch of Greek litera ture, and studied the wisdom of paganism in all its forms. But his inquiries left him unsatisfied. The corruption of the pagan world Inspired him with horror; even the morals of the philosophers them selves he regarded as degenerate, and he is severe in his reprobation of their shortcomings. At length he found in the Christian system the satisfaction he sought. Under the instruction of Justin he became a convert to Christianity (A.D. 162.) His excessive rigorism involved him later in error, and he became the head of a Gnostic sect — the Encratites, who condemned marriage and the use of flesh and wine as sinful. He has left a work with the title 0 ratio contra (ad) Grcpcos.
11. In his teaching regarding the Divine Logos, Tatian follows Justin. Before creation God existed alone, but with Him and in Him, in virtue of His attribute of intelligence, subsisted (vTrtaniat ) the Logos. This Logos proceeded from the Father, not by separation, but by partici pation, and in thus proceeding from the Father became the Creator of the world. Here again, we have the distinction between the intrinsic generation of the Logos and the extrinsic. In his further exposition of this view, Tatian adduces the analogy of the internal and external word in man, and remarks at the same time, that the Logos, while proceeding from God like light from light, becomes the first-begotten work of God (TT/OWTOTOICOI' c'pyov Otov], but is not, for this reason, a creature, inasmuch as He is not separated from God. God is not only the cause, He is also the hypostasis of the universe — that by which the continued existence of the universe is conditioned.
12. The entire universe isanimated by one vital spirit, which manifests itself in the several beings in a manner peculiar to each. We must dis tinguish in man the soul from the spirit ('^v\ij KOI irvtvfjia] ; the latter is the image and likeness of God. He who possesses this spirit is the true pneumatist, the mere psychicist is distinguished from the brute by the faculty of speech only. The soul is mortal ; it is the spirit alone that can make it immortal. Man lost the irvtv/jia by sin ; only a glimmering of the divine light is left in him ; he is the slave of matter. To rise to spiritual life he must despise matter, and free himself from its dominion ; he will thus conquer the demon who makes use of matter to seduce the soul.
13. Athenagoras of Athens, an adept in Greek and more especially in Platonic philosophy, was at first a supporter of paganism. He is said to have read the Scriptures for the purpose of making an attack on Christianity, but to have been himself converted to Christianity in consequence of this study. His work as a Christian writer is said to have been carried out between A.D. 177 and A.D. ISO. He has left two treatises : an apology addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius under the title Let/at fo pro C/i)-i«tinHi*, and a treatise 1)< Jtrxttn-ictioiti' Jloi'fnonti/t. In the former work he defends the Christians against the triple charge of atheism, oi lewdncss, and of feasting on the flesh of children. In the latter he en deavours to prove the resuiTeetioii of the dead from reason.
14. In his defence of Monotheism, Athenagoras introduces an ar^u-
218 PHILOSOPHY OF Till: ( IIUISTIAN KKA.
ment which we meet here for the first time in Christian literature. If there be several Gods, he says (Leg. c. 8), they must either be all like to one another, or they must be different. Neither alternative is admissible. Not the former, for, as uncreated beings, these Gods could not be subordinated to the higher archetype to which all should conform. Not the latter, for in this case they should exist in different places, and there is no place for a second God, since the space without the boundary of the world is occupied by that one God who is a supramundane being.* For this reason the Greek poets and philosophers taught the unity of God, but a clear and certain knowledge on the point was not attained till God's revelation was made to the prophets.
15. We hold, then, continues Athenagoras, the unity of God, but admit also the existence of the Son. of God. This Son of God is, accord ing to us, the Logos of the Father in thought and actuality (\v i&^t ictu tvtpyttq) inasmuch as everything has been created after Him as arche type, and through Him as instrument. Father and Son are, however, one. The Son is indeed the first offspring (irpwrov jtwri^a) of the Father, but not in the sense that He ever began to be, for God possessed the Logos within Him from eternity, God being Xoytnoz from eternity. The term only means that the Logos came forth from God to be the ideal element and the source of energy for all material things (Leg. c. 10.) Further, we have the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from God like a ray of light from the sun. Who then would not wonder to hear those described as atheists who acknowledge God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holv Ghost, who assert their power by maintaining their unity, and maintain a distinction by establishing an order of procession !
16. The proofs adduced by Athenagoras to establish the resurrection of the body are as follows :
(a) Man is one being composed of soul and body. As such he is destined by God to a fixed end, which end is attained beyond the grave. It follows that he must attain that end as man, and this can be secured only by supposing the body to be united to the soul after death. Furthermore, (b) eternal life in God, eternal contemplation of divine truth, is the supreme good of man. In this supreme good, precisely because it is the supreme good of man, the body must have its share, and this again, is impossible without a resur rection of the body. Lastly, (c) it is not the soul only, but the man, as such, who does the good and the evil of this life ; it must therefore be tfie man who receives reward or punishment in the life to come, and this again necessarily supposes the resurrection of the body. To assert that the resurrection is impossible, we must deny to God the will <>r the power to 7-aise men from death to life. Such a denial is absurd. If God has power to create man, He has also the power to raise him from death; nor can He be wanting in the will to do so, for the resurrection of the dead is neither unrighteous in itself nor unworthy of God.
17. Theophilus of Antioch, was, according to his own account, con verted to Christianity by the study of the Sacred Scriptures. In his treatise, Ad Aiitolycum, composed soon after A.D. 180, he advises Autolycus to believe, in order to escape the eternal punishment of hell. In reply to the challenge of Autolycus : " Show me thy God," Theo philus writes (I. 1) : "Show me thy man ;" that is to say, Prove to me
* It is possible indeed to suppose the second God existing in another world or beyond its periphery, but such a God would have no concern with us, and, moreover, being restricted as to the sphere of his existence and his action.he would not be really < !<>d at all.
I'llll.osolMlY OF THE CHRISTIAN KRA. 219
that you are free from sin, for it is only the pure can see God. To the challenge, " Describe your God for me," he replies (I. 3) : " The being of God is not describable ; His dignity, greatness, sublimity, power, wisdom, goodness and mercy, surpass human conception." He is the absolute, the ungenerated, the immutable, the immortal. He is known from His works, just as the orderly movement of a ship argues the pre sence of the pilot. He has called all things forth from non-being to being (j£ OVK ovrwv tic TO dvat) in order that His greatness might be manifested by the things which He created.
18. It was by means of the Logos that He created all things. An tecedently to all other existence, God had with Him the Logos ; for the Logos is His Intelligence and His Wisdom. The Logos had an eternal existence (as Xoyoc sv&ta&roc) within the being — in the heart of God (tv KapSlq Otov.) But when God wished to give existence to the things which He had determined to create, He brought forth the Logos from Himself — Xoyoc irpotyoptKos, as the first-born of all creatures, but not in such wise that He separated Himself from the Logos; the Logos though begotten remained still united to Him. Through the X^GC TT/OO- ^o/otk-oc He created the world. The three days which preceded the creation of light typify the Trinity which consists of God, his Word, and his Wisdom (Holy Ghost).
1!). God who has created us can and will create us again at the resurrection. The titles of the gods of the Greeks arc the names of deified mortals. The worship of the images of the gods is wholly irra tional. The teachings of the heathen poets and philosophers are folly. The sacred writings of Moses and the Prophets are the most ancient of all, and contain the truth which the Greeks forgot or neglected.
20. Examining the teaching of the Apologists, regarding the Divine Logos, we notice that all of them distinguish a triple generation of the Word — His generation within the divinity as a Divine Person, an extrinsic generation in order to the creation of the world, and lastly, His generation in the flesh or Incarnation. In their teaching regarding the intrinsic and extrinsic generations of the Logos, they adopt the dis tinction established by Philo between the Xoyoe ii'&a&roc and the Xrryoe TTpofyoptKoq — expression? which we find in Justin as well as in Theo- philus. Their modes of expression might at times appear to suggest the notion that they made the personal existence of the Logos to begin with His extrinsic generation. But this is not their meaning. The pre dicates which they attribute to the Xcfyoc ivSiaOtrot; prove convincingly, as we have seen, that they were far from ascribing to the Xffyo? tvSidQtTo? a merely impersonal existence, or from reducing the Xo-yoe to a mere modality, or form of Divine power.*
* In addition to tin1 Apologists named above, we may further mention : Quadratus, Aristides, Mile to of Sardis. ^ ho addrosed an Apology to tin.1 Kmperor Marcus Aurelius (aliout A.D. IT*1*: Apollinaris of Hierapolis, who also addressed a Aoyof to the Emperor in favour *of the Christians. ai:d \\ 1 « wrote IIpo<; "KAXijnn- fVYjp&fUUtTt Tr'tvTt; Miltiades. a Christian rhetorician, who eomposed an Apology as well as Aoyorf fl-pof "l-.X\;;r«c and -nit; 'l^rt'aiuvQ (none of these writings arc extant), and Herniias, whose work Jrrixio /'ftil< .-«./,//«; inn <;> nlil'mm, is still preserved. Aristo of Pella in 1'alt -- tine, a Jew liv liirtli, like Justin in his Ihaln-ue I'nin Tri/i>hom , composed a treatise against Judaism fal.ont A.D. 140).
220 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
THE ANTI-GNOSTICS AND ANTI-MONARCHIANISTS.
IREXJEUS, HIPPOLITUS, TERTULLIAX.
§66
1. We have now arrived at those ecclesiastical writers of the Ante- Nicene period, whose efforts were chiefly directed to defend Christianity against the misrepresentations of the Gnostic and Monarchianist heretics. These writers did not, indeed, omit to defend Christianity against the pagans, but their immediate concern was the confutation of the Gnostic and Monarchianist errors, and this was also the chief part of their work. The most remarkable of these Apologists are Irenoous, Ilippolytus and. Tertullian.
2. Irenocus, born in Asia Minor, A.D. 140, a disciple of the martyr Polycarp, was, at a later period, presbyter of the church of Lyons, and ultimately bishop of that city. lie died a martyr in the persecution of Severus, A. p. 202. His chief work, " Exposure and Refutation of the False Gnosis" (t'Apy^oe KCU avarpoirr] TJJC ipivSovvfiov yvwatwg) has come down to us in an ancient Latin translation (Adv. ILvrcs. II. 5). Several fragments of the original text, notably a large portion of the first book, have also been preserved.
3. The Gnostics had appealed in support of their system to certain secret doctrines supposed to have been communicated by Jesus. Against this assumption Irenacus emphatically protests. The true doctrine, the real Gnosis, is the teaching of the Church, the doctrine handed down in the Church from the Apostles. Whoever departs from this teaching departs from truth. It must not be supposed that the human mind can comprehend all things. Whoever thinks to understand everything — to leave no secret to God — falls into error. God is incomprehensible, and cannot be measured by man's power of thought. Our concepts of Him are all imperfect. "It is better, knowing nothing, to believe in God, and to persevere in His love, than to pursue subtle inquiries which end in atheism."
4. The Gnostics further distinguished between God and the Demiurgos, assigning to the latter a subordinate rank. Here again Ireneeus meets them with denial. God is Himself the Creator of the world. He has created all things by Himself, that is, by His Worn and His Wisdom. In the work of creation He had no need of angels or other powers different from Himself. He could Himself execute
PIlll.osoniY ()!•• 111). (IIUISTIAN ERA. ~'Jl
whatever I If proposed. For tliis purpose, the Logos, with the Spirit, wi-; always with Iliiu, and through these and in these He created the world.
5. In opposition to the Gnostic view, representing; Christ as a sub ordinate ^Ron, Irenncus maintains that the Logos (as well as the Spirit) is eternal, like the Father, and one with Him in being. The Son of God, he asserts, has not had a beginning, He is co-existent with the Father from eternity. The heretics find an analogy between the spoken word of man (Aoyoc TTpofyofiiKOQ} and the Eternal Word of God, and argue that the latter has had a beginning and has been produced, just as the spoken word begins to exist and is produced, when it is uttered. But how, then, does the Word of God, who is Himself God, differ from the word of man, if both came into existence after the same fashion ? No, the Word of God is co-existent with the Father from eternity, nor has He ever passed through any process of production, but has ever been a perfect Word. The same is true of the Spirit.
6. We must also acknowledge not only an equality in eternity but also a likeness of being between the Logos and the Father. The Divine Being is absolutely simple ; the emanation of a world of YEonsfrom God is absurd ; the possibility of a partition of the Divine Being among a world of YEons is wholly impossible. The "emission" of the Logos by the Father is, therefore, not to be understood as a separation from the Father's being ; for the Divine being does not admit of such partition ; the Son, proceeding from His Father, remains one with Him in being. In this unity of being with the Father, the Son becomes, so to speak, the organ of divine revelation, the minister of the divine decrees, the dis penser of divine grace, the delegate of the Father. It is only in so far as the Father is the origin of the being and activity of the Son that the Son can be said to be subordinated to Him. In essence and being, the Son is His equal.
7. The Valentinians had maintained that the Demiurgus created the world, according to a plan given him from above ; Irenacus, on the other hand, asserts that God Himself created the world, and in his work fol lowed a plan not derived from other sources, but contained within His own mind. The Marcionites tad asserted that the true God was unknown till the coming of Christ. Irenauus teaches that the true God could not remain unknown, for He had manifested Himself in creation, and men could rise from this creation to the knowledge of God. If, as a fact, they had not knowledge of Him, the fault was their own. God, it is true, is invisible and incomprehensible, but He is not so completely hid den that man could have no knowledge of Him without the Incarnation of the Logos. The better minds of paganism had actually attained knowledge of Him through His works.
8. Irenacus is equally emphatic in his rejection of the doctrine of the Marcionites that the Old and the .New Testament are derived from two different sources — the Demiurgus and the " good " God. The Old Testament and the New, he holds, are the same in nature, and are both derived from the one true God. The natural law of morals God has
222 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN KUA.
written in the heart of man, the ceremonial law, in which Christianity was typified, was given to the Jews because of their tendency to fall away from God. Christ fulfilled the type, and by the fact, the ceremonial law was fulfilled and abrogated, but the moral law remains. The Old Law was thus merely the forerunner of the New, and is, therefore, of the same nature.
9. The Gnostics had taught that man was formed of body, soul, and spirit. Irenocus teaches that man is composed of body and soul ; the Soul being the vital principle of the compound. The (Divine) Spirit is not an attribute of man's nature, it is given only that man may become perfect. Man, by his soul, is the image of God (imago Dei), by the Spirit he is raised to likeness with God (ad similitudmem Dei). Man participates in the (Divine) Spirit by grace only. This Spirit is bestowed on those who restrain and control their passions. Such men become Pneumatists ; other men are merely Psychicists. As for the body or flesh, it is not at all the source of evil, as the Gnostics asserted ; it is, like everything else, created by God. The source of evil is the abuse of free will, the deliberate surrender of man to his sensual appetites. There is no such thing as immediate contemplation (Gnosis) of truth in its fulness, such as the Gnostics lay claim to. Man must learn ; his knowledge is only a partial knowledge, which grows in proportion as man learns.
10. The soul of man is immortal. But it cannot lift itself to God immediately after death. It must first enter into Hades, and there remain till the resurrection. The doctrine of the heretics regarding the resurrection of the body, as well as regarding the human nature of Christ, must be met with a peremptory denial. The reign of Antichrist, that is of Satan incarnate, precedes the resurrection by a short period. Christ, then, comes again, destroys the Kingdom of Antichrist, and restores the just to life. Thereupon begins the reign of Christ with His elect on earth — a reign which lasts a thousand years, after which follows the General Judgment. The just enter, with Christ, into the Kingdom of the Father, the wicked are condemned to eternal reprobation.
11. With Irenocus is associated his pupil, Ilippolytus, a presbyter of Home, who was banished to Sicily about A.D. 235. We possess a treatise written by him with the title, Kara TTCHTMV aiptaiuv t\ty\o£, of which, till a late period, onlv the first book was known to the learned, under the name Origems Philosophonmena. In this work Ilippolytus sets himself to prove that " the Gnostic errors have been derived, not from Sacred Scripture, nor from Christian Tradition, but from the lore of the Greeks, the teachings of philosophers, the mysteries, and astrology," an opinion to which Ireneeus had already given expression. For the rest, Hippolytus deals with the teaching of the Gnostics in much the same way as his master, Irenoous.
12. His polemical work, Contra Hccrcsim Nocti, is of more importance. Hippolytus here attacks the system of the Monarchianists, and maintains, in opposition to their teaching, the Trinity of God. The Lord, he points out, does not say, "I and the Father am one," but, "I and the Father
Y <>1 Mil iHUIsTMN ERA. 'J-J-'J
nreoi\v" — an rxpiv^imi \\hidi indicates that Father and Son are two I>.T«>H^ i 7r/>ofTd)7ra) whose power is one and the same. "And, therefore, must Noetus, whether lie will or no, confess God the Almighty Father, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God who has become man, and to \\ horn the Father has subjected all things — Hi'iiself and the Holy Ghost excepted — and he must further acknowledge that these (the Father, Son, ;uid Holy Ghost) are really three." God is, therefore, one in power; but as regards the Economy of the Godhead (intrinsic relations), He is threefold. " We do not admit two Gods but only one, but we admit two Persons, with a third intrinsic relation (Economy) which we name the grace of the Holy Ghost. The Father is one, but there are two Persons, for there is also the Son ; a third Person also is the Holy Ghost: •jrarri/) pivyap flc, Trporrwira $t Suo. on KOI 6 vlotj, TO St rptrov (irpoawTrov) TO trytoi' rh'tf'jua. '
13. The world has been created by the Logos, at the command of the Father, and has been created from nothing. The world, therefore, is not God, and may cease to be, if the Creator so wills it. Man has been created a dependent being, but endowed with freedom of will ; it is in the misuse of this free will that evil has its origin. God imposed the Law upon man as upon a free being ; the beast is ruled by the whip and the bridle, man by law, reward and punishment. The Law was promul gated from the beginning through just men, notably through Moses; the Logos, who at all times had been active impelling and exhorting men to its observance, at last appeared on earth as the Son of the Virgin. Man is not God ; " but if you wish to become divine (tt St Oi\m KOI foot, •ytvf'afleu), obey the Creator and do not transgress His law, so that, being found faithful in a few things, you may be placed over many."
14. We pass now to Tertullian. Tertullian was born at Carthage, A.D. 160, of heathen parents. Nature had endowed him with a quick and penetrating intellect, and u vivid imagination. He studied phil osophy and the fine arts, and adopted the law as a profession. The circumstances which led to his conversion to Christianity — an event which happened in his thirtieth year — have not been recorded. After his conversion, he entered the ranks of the priesthood, and devoted him self to the defence of Christianity with voice and pen. Unfortunately, the rigorism of his views led him ultimately to join the Montanists (A.D. 203.) Whether he again returned to the Catholic Church is un certain, lie died A.D. 240.
15. The writings of Tertullian are, some of them apologies on behalf of the Christian teaching, and of the condiiet of the Christians under persecution ; some of them dogmatic and polemical treatises against the heretics (Gnostics and Monarchianists) ; and some of tli. in treatises on ethical questions. To the first class belong: the Apoloyeticus, De Idololn/i-i'i, Ail \niioi,. *. A>l Mtn-tiinx, 1>< Ny. <-///,W/x, l)r 7\xtimonio aiiiinn , J)< i' Militix, j>, finji! iii Penteutione, Contra Onotticot Scorpiaee, A<< .V«/<«/r<>». To the second el;iss belong : l>i dm* Ilm-i tlcor >nu, Adi: Murrionrm, Adi: ll< i-ino<i>-nem, Adi: }'(i!' iitin id/in", Adi: 1'i-i'j •> "///, l>< t':ii-/n (.'///- i<<'fio/ii Carnix,l)< .1
To the third class belong: 7A I'atn nfin. />< Orainiit, . !>• /', /,/V, /,//,,, J,/
Uxorem, D> Cut/a J-'c/iii/Kirmn. ]>* fxkortatione L'<i.*/ifatis, De Monogomia, JJe Fin- De Jfjuniis, De Viryimbug Vc/aiidis and De Pallio. The last six treatise* are M<'iitani.-tii-, so are the last two of the first class, and all in the teennd, with tl .«• exception of that first named.
224 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
16. Tertullian is not so great an admirer of Greek philosophy as Justin. lie takes pleasure in exposing the errors of the Greek philo sophers, in order to exalt Christianity by comparison with them. But this antipathy is not directed against Greek philosophy for its own sake ; Tertullian's zeal is aroused chiefly by the misuse which the heretics had made of the philosophy of the Greeks to establish their own systems, and to misrepresent Christianity. It is against the heretics his con demnation is primarily directed. His constant complaint is, that the philosophers have been the patriarchs of heresy. Valentinus, he says, was equipped by the Platonists, Marcion by the Stoics ; from the Epicureans comes the denial of the immortality of the soul, and from every school of philosophy the denial of the resurrection of the dead.
17. In his apologetic writings, Tertullian directs his very sharp con troversial weapons against the polytheism of paganism and the super stitions connected with it. He asks the advocates of polytheism to hear the voice of nature in themselves. If they will but listen to this voice, they will be forced to acknowledge the unity of God. The soul, in a moment of sudden fright, or under the influence of any eager desire, turns involuntarily to the one true God, and not to an idol. This is shown by the exclamations which are used involuntarily on such occasions, v.g., "God grant it," " if God wills it," or, "please God," &c. In this way the soul of itself gives testimony to the one true God, nature itself is the teacher, through whom God instructs us regarding Himself. The Soul is, by nature, Christian. (Dc Test. Animce.)
18. In his celebrated work, DC Proscription /bus Hcereticorum , Tertullian maintains the prescriptive right of the Church against all heretics. The Church is antecedent to all heresies. Her teaching is thus the original, and therefore the only true teaching. Whatever has separated itself from her at a later period, and set itself up in opposition to her, is eo ipso false ; the Church's teaching has a prescriptive right as opposed to these innovations. We can receive as truth only that which comes to us b}r ecclesiastical tradition. The tradition transmitted to us by the Apostles is the tradition transmitted by the Church, and conversely. The traditional teaching of the Church must not be abandoned under pretext of following the tradition received from the Apostles, as the heretics make profession of doing. " If thoxi art a Christian," says Tertullian, " believe what has been handed down."
19. In his controversies with the Marcionites, Tertullian, like Justin, endeavours to prove that knowledge of the true God does not come exclusively from the revelation made through Christ ; that there is a twofold knowledge of God, a natural knowledge which begins with the works of creation, and thence ascends to the Creator, and a knowledge bestowed through prophecy (revelation). The first knowledge pre cedes the second. The soul exists first, prophecy comes after. But, as we have seen, the soul, of its nature, gives testimony to the true God. The consciousness of God's existence is one of its natural endowments. The true God cannot be entirely beyond its knowledge, as the Marcionites hold. He is knowable without the aid of prophecy (revelation).
run uxiH'iiY OK IIIK CHRISTIAN KRA. 225
20. The Marrionites arc equally in error when they assume the <-x I'M< 'tin- of two Gods — the God of Goodness and the God of Justice
t!u- Supreme God, and the Demiurgus.) God is the Sumnunn Maijnutn, the hignest and greatest being of whom we can have conception. If this is so, God must be one. If there were another like Himself, He \yiiild cease to be the Suniniuin Maynuin, for a still higher being would bo conceivable, namely, the being who would have no other like him self. It follows that if God is not one, He does not exist at all ; it is easier to believe that a thing does not exist at all, than to believe that it exists otherwise than is required by its nature. The heretics are in error when they assert goodness and justice to be incompatible with one another, and ascribe them in consequence to two different Gods ; so far is it from the truth that goodness and justice exclude one another, that it may be said of either that it includes the other ; for the man who is not just, cannot be good, and rice versa. (Adr. Marc. I., c. 3.)
21. The heretics had represented the being of God as purely ideal, and had pushed this conception so far that the belief in the reality of the Divine Being was endangered. Tertullian protests emphatically against this view. He goes so far in the contrary direction, that while holding God to be spiritual in his nature, he ascribes to Him a body also. All reality, he says, is corporeal ; it is only the non-existent which can be described as incorporeal. Tertullian cannot conceive of a substance which is not of the corporeal order. " Ipsa substantia corpus est rei cuj usque ; " such is his formula. (Adr. Hcnnoy., c. 35.) Following the analogy of man's nature, he distinguishes in God the body from the spirit, and understands the expressions of Scripture regarding the eyes, hands, feet, &c., of God in a strictly literal sense. This is certainly a peculiar view. We must, however, allow that he docs not attribute to God a material body ; such a doctrine would be in absolute contradiction with other points of his teaching regarding the nature of God. He attributes a corporeal being to God in the same sense in which he attri butes a corporeal element to the human soul, a peculiarity of his system which we shall presently examine.
22. In opposition to the Monarchianists, Tertullian upholds the one ness of God in a Trinity of intrinsic Divine relations (Economy) Praxeas and his followers, he says, assert that we cannot maintain the unity of God, if we do not regard the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as one and the same thing. "Just as if all were not one, when all came from one, in virtue, that is to say, of the oneness of substance, while at the same time the mystery of the Economy (system of intrinsic relations) is maintained which determines this unity to threefold Being, distin guishing from cne another the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, not indeed separating them in rank, but establishing a gradation (order) among them ; not differentiating them in substance but in form (Person) ; not in power but in character (species). They are one in substance, in rank, and in power, for there is only one God, from whom arise these gradations, forms, or characters, which bear the names Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," (Adc. Pra.r., c. 2.)
1C
226 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN' KKA.
23. Eternal matter, according to the conception of Hermogene.s, can not exist. " Before all things God existed alone, constituting in Himself His own universe, place of abode, and all the rest. And yet, even then, He was not wholly alone, for He had by Him that Reason (ratio) which the Holy Scripture names Sopliitt. With this Sophia, which He estab lished in Himself as a Second Person, He deliberated, so to say, on all which He had determined to produce extrinsically to Himself. When He began the creation of the world He sent forth this Sophia as His Word, in order to create all things through it. It was thus the world came into existence. In this procession of the Word from God at the creation, the perfect generation of the Word is, furthermore, accom plished. For thenceforward the Word takes a position of perfect equa lity with Him from whom He issues and whose Son He becomes — the First-born Son, because generated before all other things — the Only- begotten, because He alone is generated by God, generated from the very depth of the Divine Being, from the generative centre of the heart of God." (Adv. Prar., c. 6).
24. Here we encounter again the notion of a twofold generation of the Logos, an intrinsic, and an extrinsic, which we have already found set forth by the Apologists. Tertullian, however, expressly repudiates the notion of an extrinsic generation in the sense of the Valentinian TT/oo/SoX}'/. " We do not hold the Son to be a being separated from the Father, as Valentinus does : according to our teaching this Word remains ever in the Father ; and with the Father, He is never separated from the Father nor becomes other (in essence) than the Father ; for ' I and the Father are one.' " Tertullian is equally emphatic in asserting that the intrinsic generation precedes the extrinsic, that the Sophia, before it issued forth to create the world, had previously existed in God as " Secunda Persona condita." The peculiar point of his doctrine is that in which he maintains that the Sophia was fully generated, and could properly be named " Son/' only when it issued forth for the creation of the world.
25. The world has been created from nothing, not formed from a pre-existent matter, as the heretics suppose ; it follows that the world has not existed from eternity. God was God before the creation ; sub sequently to creation He wras Lord ; the former is a term which designates His Being, the latter designates His Power. (Adv. Hcrmog., c. 3.) Man has been created to the image of God, for, in forming the first man, God took as model the manhood of the future Christ. (De Ih'surr. Cam., c. 6.) The gods of the heathens are fallen angels, who were seduced from allegiance to God by love of mortal women. (De C nit. Fern., I. 2.)
26. In his teaching regarding the nature of the human soul, Tertullian meets his heretical opponents with arguments similar to those which led him to attribute a body to God. The soul, according to him, is not an incorporeal essence. Just as in the whole man we distinguish two constituent parts — soul and body— so in the soul we must make a distinction between the spiritual and corporeal elements. These elements
I'HII.O-Ol'lIY OK I Hi; CHRISTIAN ERA. 227
jnv, no doubt, bound together in essential unity, and are inseparable from one another ; the former, however, may, in a certain sense, be styled the soul of the soul, and the latter its body. To establish this view of the corporeal nature of the soul, Tertullian has recourse to the argu ments of the Stoics. If the soul were not corporeal, it could not be ;iflVcted by the action of the body, nor would it be capable of suffering. Xo union could be effected between the corporeal and the incorporeal, for there could be no contact between them. Children resemble their parents in mind as well as in body — a phenomena which is inexplicable if we do not suppose the soul to be corporeal. (Dc Auima, c. 5.)
27. In our concept of the soul, we must represent to ourselves a subtle, luminous, ethereal essence. It is possessed of the same form and the same organs as the body, inasmuch as it is diffused through every part of the body. It grows with the growth of the body ; not by any addition to its substance, but rather by a development of its faculties and organs. Its growth may be compared to the gradual expansion of a plate of gold under the hammer ; the metal does not increase in sub stance, but grows in extent and in brilliancy. Though the soul is cor poreal, its substance cannot be increased or diminished ; it is indivisible and indissoluble. (De Anim. c. 37.)
28. With regard to the origin of the soul, Tertullian is in favour of the theory of generation (Traducianism) . The soul is generated by the parents at the same time as the body and in the same way. In generation a twofold germ is produced, a psychical and a bodily ; and just as the latter is detached from the bodies of the parents, so is the former from their souls. These two elements are at first blended together, but they gradually separate, and the soul of the child is formed from the one, its body from the other. In accordance with this view it may be said that Adam's soul was the parent of all other souls. (D( Anima, c. 19, 20, 29.)
29. Tertullian rejects the Gnostic view regarding the three consti tuents of man's nature — body, soul, and spirit. According to him, man is made up of body and soul, he is one being composed of soul and flesh. What we call reason (i>oue, mens, animus), is merely a faculty of the soul — that faculty by which it thinks and wills. Tertullian, furthermore, establishes the closest relations between intellect and sense. Intellect is indebted to sense for all its cognitions, the latter is the guide, the author, and the foundation of all intellectual activity ; it is not second in rank to intellect, it rather takes rank above it.
30. The degradation and condemnation of the flesh, which formed a leading heretical tenet, receives no support from Tertulliau. Soul and body are, according to his view, intimately bound together, are the com plements of one another. The soul is the vital principle of the body, and the body, in its turn, is an organ for the accomplishment of the special functions of the soul. Without the soul the flesh could not live ; without the flesh the soul could not act. There is no activity of the soul which is not dependent on the body and effected by means of it. So closely are soul and body united, that we might well be ill doubt
228 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN KK \.
whether the soul sustains the body or the body the soul, whether the soul obeys the body or the body obeys the soul. Following this line of thought, Tertullian was able at length to propose the question : " What is man other than flesh ?" (De Resurr. Carnis, c. 15.)
31. This reasoning disposed of the heretical notion that the body is the source of evil. Evil, according to Tertullian, has its source exclusively in the abuse of human liberty. It is not the flesh, as such, which stands in the way of man's salvation, but the works of the flesh, which the soul accomplishes in the body, and with its co-operation. The first man sinned by an abuse of his free will, and the souls of all other men being derived from the soul of the first man, his sin has been transmitted to his posterity. From the same source has come wrhat we term the irrational part of the soul — that element within it which rebels against reason. Sin was implanted in the soul, and grew with its development, till at last it seemed a part of its very nature. This is the irrational element within the soul, which may rightly be said to come from the devil. There remains in us, however, a remnant of good, something of the divine image ; what comes from God may be obscured, it cannot be extinguished. (Dc Anima, c. 16.)
32. The heretics had taught that the flesh had not shared in the Redemption effected by Christ, that it had been the scope of the Redemption to deliver the soul from the body. This doctrine Tertullian combats with all his dialectical resources. So little is it true that the flesh is excluded from the benefits of the Redemption, that the redemp tion and sanctification of the soul is dependent upon the body. Redemp tion first affects the body, and through the body reaches the soul. In Baptism the flesh is first washed and then the soul thereby purified. In Penance the body is subjected to the imposition of hands, in order that the soul may be enlightened and purified by the fire of the Spirit. The body is refreshed with the Body and Blood of Christ, that the soul may be nurtured by God. The flesh is, therefore, the corner-stone of salvation. "Be comforted, flesh and blood," cries Tertullian, "you have won the kingdom of Christ." (Dc Resurr. Carnis, c. 51.)
33. Tertullian maintains the immortality of the soul against pagans and heretics. Here again he appeals to the voice of nature. An instinct of our nature forces us to wish well to the dead, to bewail them or to account them happy. If the soul is not immortal, this voice of nature has no meaning. Moreover, we have a natural fear of death. Now, if the soul is mortal, why should we fear death which is a deliver ance from the ills of life ? Finally, we ambition lasting renown among men. To what purpose this ambition if the soul be not immortal ? ( Ue Test. Aninm, c. 4. ; De Carnc Christi, c. 12.)
34. Tertullian is not content with the immortality of the soul. His teaching, regarding the nature and destiny of the body, furnishes him with arguments by which to maintain, against the heretics, the resur rection of the dead. There is no transmigration of souls. No souls, with the exception of the souls of martyrs, enter heaven immediately after death ; but neither do they enter into other bodies ; they are all
i.i;\. 229
krjit in Hades till the Day of Judgment. When that time comes, the bodies of men will be raised from the dead and united again to their souls. Man, in his composite nature of soul and body, has done the good and the evil of life ; soul and body must, therefore, each have a share in the final retribution. Moreover, the resurrection of the dead is typified in nature, and, in a certain sense, assured, by the fact that in every sphere of nature new life springs from things inanimate. (Do Rfsurr. Cam is, c. 14.)
35. It is hardly necessary, after this exposition of Tertullian's teach ing, to mention that he was strongly adverse to the Docetism of the Gnostics. In his treatise, De Carne Christi, he sets himself to establish irrefragably the reality of the human nature of Christ. The Chiliasm, which we have seen to be a part of the doctrines of Irenacus, we find in favour with Tertullian also. On the whole, the writings of Tertullian furnish evidence of his acuteness of intellect, his zeal for the truth, and his strong moral sense. The errors which we meet in his works may impair our admiration for his intellectual greatness, but cannot wholly destroy it. Heresy found in him a dauntless and powerful opponent.
THE BEGINNING OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION.
1. As Christianity spread, and its influence in stimulating the moral and religious sense of mankind became more widely felt, the tendency to study it, not merely for purposes of defence, but writh a view to the establishment of an independent system of Christian speculation, was gradually evoked. Apology was not, indeed, wholly laid aside. The defence of Christianity against the attacks of heathen philosophers and heretics was still recognised as an essential part of the work of the Christian scholar. But the Christian controversialists now aimed at achieving this result by the construction of a system of positive Christian science. This was all the more desirable now that the training of the members of the Christian priesthood called for the foundation of higher Christian schools, and the instruction which it was necessary to impart to these schools made an advance upon mere apology indispensable.
2. The earliest beginnings of this independent Christian speculation belong to the ante-Nicene period, and are due to the so-called Cateche tical Schools which flourished in the second century, chiefly at Alexan dria. The Catechetical Schools of Alexandria may have been founded in imitation of the schools of Greek learning, for Athenagoras is said to have helped in their establishment. In the year A.D. 180, we find them under the control of Pantacnus, who had been a Stoic before his conver sion to Christianity. His colleague and (subsequently to A.D. IS!)) his successor, Titus Flavius Clement, of Alexandria, taught there also, and after Clement, his pupil, Origen. Under the two last-named teachers those schools attained their highest renown, and it is to these men
230 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
Christianity is indebted for the first beginnings of un independent body of speculative science.
3. During the third century the effort to replace the earlier apology by a positive Christian philosophy, which should supplement and perfect it, was exhibited in the west as well as in the east. In the west, how ever, there were no remarkable Christian schools to form a centre for this movement. But the desire for a more profound insight into revealed truth impelled certain eminent men to do for the west what the teachers of the Catechetical Schools were doing for the east. Amongst these men we may mention Minutius Felix, Arnobius, and Lactantius, all of whom lived and laboured in the ante-Nicene period.
4. We shall notice in order Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and then Minutius Felix, Arnobius, and Lactantius.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.
§ 67.
1. Clement was born about the middle of the second century, at Alexandria, as some maintain — at Athens, as it is asserted by others. Gifted with extraordinary powers of intellect, he applied himself to the study of the various systems of Greek philosophy, and acquired in the study a knowledge wrhich was at once comprehensive and profound. Under the influence of divine grace he became a Christian. But the character of his labours did not change with his conversion. His aim was to acquire a profounder knowledge of truth, and his ambition to lead others to share his knowledge. After many wanderings he settled at Alex andria, became a member of the Catechetical School, and after the death of its president, Pantasnus, succeeded to his office. In this capacity he laboured with unceasing energy in the cause of science and education. When the persecution of Septimus Severus began (A.D. 202), he retired to Cappadocia. It is not known whether he again returned to Alexan dria. He died A.D. 217.
2. The writings of Clement which have come down to us, are : (a) The Cohortatio ad Gentes (Xoyoc irporpnrTiKbs Trpoc 'E\\r;vae), in which he cites the extravagances and im proprieties of the heathen mythology and mysteries as arguments against paganism, and exhorts all to come to Christ. (6) The Paedagogux, an exposition of the moral law of the Christian system, (c) The Stromata, in eight books, scientific studies of Christian truth, and discussions on the Christian Gnosis, not arranged in any systematic order (as Clement himself declares, and as the title of the work, which implies its resemblance to a variegated carpet, signifies), but expressed in the form of aphorisms ; and lastly (d) A treatise under the title Quis Dives Salvetur (rlc 6 Odo&fitvoc nXovvioc), with fragmentary remains of other works.
3. With regard to the position providentially assigned to Greek philosophy, as preparatory to Christianity, Clement is at one with Justin, lie draws a distinction between the sum of truth that philosophy contains
PHILOSOPHY OF TIIK CHRISTIAN KRA. 231
and its errors. The former he attributes to the Divine Logos, as its ultimate source, the latter he ascribes to man. In a twofold sense the Divine Logos is, for him, the author of the truth contained in Greek philosophy. In the first place, he maintains, the Greek philosophers learnt from the Jews, and were then so far wanting in honesty as to claim as their own discovery what the Jews had taught them, and what they had themselves only falsified and perverted. In the second place, he appeals to the saying of Sacred Scripture that the Divine Logos has enlightened all men, and he holds that the Greek philosophers were themselves led to the discovery of certain truths in virtue of the germs of the Divine Logos implanted in the faculty of reason.
4. From this point of view, Greek philosophy — so far as its sum of truth is concerned, appears to Clement to be a gift of God, bestowed through the Logos ; as Revelation was given through Moses and the Prophets, and designed, like Revelation, to prepare the way for Christ. It was given to the heathens to lead them to righteousness, and hence, they who, in pre-christiau times, lived according to the law of reason, were justified before God, inasmuch as their lives were in accord with the laws of the Divine Logos revealed in their own reason. The heathen philosophers had, however, but a partial knowledge of the truth, the fulness of truth was revealed for the first time in Christ. Plato is the most excellent of the Greek philosophers ; in the system of the others there are seeds of truth, but the difficulty is to find these out and separate them from the errors.
5. This estimate of the essential character of the Greek philosophy leads up to Clement's theory regarding the Christian Gnosis. In his view, faith in the Christian teaching, as maintained in the Church, is the starting point and the basis of the Christian Gnosis. Whoever aban dons ecclesiastical traditions, ceases, by the fact, to be of God. Faith, then, in its relation to the Christian Gnosis holds a position analogous to that of the Tr/ooXij^/tc of the Stoics. According to these philosophers the 7r^oA»ji///c is a condition pre-requisite to the l-mari'mr] ; such too is the re lation of faith to the Gnosis. Faith is a npoAq^tc ficouo-ioe, a free assent to the unseen ; without which a Gnosis is impossible (Strom. II., 2, 4, 5).
6. The mere TT'KJTI^ (faith) is not yvweri£. The Christian Gnostic in comparison with him who believes, without deeper knowledge, is what the man is compared with the child. To advance from TTIUTI^ to yiauatc the aid of philosophy is necessary. Philosophy alone can help us to pass from mere belief to profounder speculative knowledge. The man who seeks to reach the Gnosis without philosophy, dialectic, and the study of nature, is like the man who would gather grapes without rearing the vine. (Strom. I., 9.) Philosophy is essentially a gift of the Divine Logos; the character of a means to the attainment of the Christian Gnosis can and must be accorded to it ; in a right view of Christianity it cannot be set aside.
7. Philosophy is, however, only a theoretical requirement of the Christum Gnosis ; there is a practical requirement also. The man who passes from Faith to Gnosis must repent of his sins, and enter
232 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN EKA.
upon the path of moral improvement. He must fight against the desires and appetites of his own heart, and overcome them effectually. He must strive to cultivate in himself all kinds of virtue, and put forth every energy to attain personal sanctity. It is only where this previous purification and perfection of self has been accomplished, that philosophic effort, based upon Faith, can lead to the Gnosis.
8. With regard to the Gnosis itself, it essentially includes two factors. The first concerns the intelligence. In the Gnosis, the Gnostic attains to the understanding of that which before had been obscure and unin telligible. He has knowledge of everything that is, that has been, and that will be, in their ultimate causes. Christian truth stands clear and luminous before his eyes. The second factor concerns the will. It is the perfection of love. Knowledge without love is nothing ; in love know ledge attains its final perfection. Love must therefore be united with knowledge, if the Gnosis is perfect. And since love in its turn, is nothing without the good works in which it reveals itself, it follows that good works must attend upon the Gnosis as the shadow upon the body. (Strom. VII., 10, 12.)
9. This doctrine of the Christian Gnosis furnishes Clement with the outlines of that picture of the Christian Gnostic which he presents as the ideal of Christian perfection. In setting up this ideal he is imitating the Stoics, substituting his " Christian Gnostic" for their " Sage." "We even find the fundamental outlines of ihe "Stoic Sage" reproduced in the "Christian Gnostic." The chief characteristic of the Christian Gnostic is, as in the Stoic ideal, the unaOfia or complete absence from the soul of all affections and excitements of passion (-rraOri), and the tran quillity of mind thence resulting in every situation and vicissitude of life. (Strom. IV., 22.1
10. The following is the description of the Christian Gnostic pre sented to us by Clement : The Gnostic is united in perfect and immediate love with Infinite Beauty, and beyond this he desires nothing. He does not do good from fear of any punishment, nor from hope of any reward, but merely for God's sake, and for sake of the good done. Even if he were assured that he would not be punished for evil deeds, he would not perform such actions, and this for the sole reason that they are against right reason, that they are evil. He is not mastered by any inclination or any appetite ; only those appetites are admitted in his nature which are indispensable for the support of bodily life, and they are satisfied only so far as the support of life requires. Affections and passions do not disturb his lofty calm of mind ; to such influences he is inaccessible. This inraOtta of the Gnostic raises him to a certain divine condition, for in it he attains to likeness with God who is essentially airaOiiz. In this state his works are wholly perfect (Karopdw^aTa), for they are performed purely for righteousness' sake.
11. It will be seen that Clement makes very exorbitant demands on the Christian Gnostic. The ideal "Stoic Sage " is not in keeping with the nature of man as it exists : the same may perhaps be said of the ideal set up by Clement. He makes practically the same demands upon the
I'HII.OSOI'IIY OF nil. rmilSTlAX KKA. 288
"Gnostic " thai the Stoics made upon the "Sage." He docs not, indeed, impose it as a duty upon every Christian to attain to this height of per- iertion, he restricts this obligation to the chosen few, but it is somewhat ominous to find him characterising the knowledge reached in the Gnosis as a kind of hidden lore, which has come down by oral tradition from the Apostles (Strom. L. 6. c. 7, p. 246. Edit., Oberthiir). At this point, Clement, it is clear, yields too much to the false theory of the Gnosis.
12. According to Clement, God, in his proper being, is incompre hensible to human understanding. We do not so much understand what lie is, as what He is not. We call Him the Good, the One, the Existent, or Spirit, God, Father, Lord, but these terms do not express what He is in Himself. We use these excellent names merely that the understanding may have whereon to support itself in its contemplation of the Divinity. God is infinitely exalted above all things created ; they have all their being from Him, for they are the work of His infinite goodness, but their being is not the same as His being, they are merely created by Him.
13. There exists a " Sacred Trias" of which the Father is the first member, the Son the second, and the Holy Ghost the third (Strom. L.v., c. 14, p. 255). There is a Father of all things, says Clement, a Logos of all things, and a Holy Ghost, the same everywhere (Pcedagog, L. c. 6, p. 45, Ed. Oxon.) The Father is Being, unqualifiable, incompre hensible, and ineffable ; the Son is Wisdom, Knowledge, Truth, and all that is akin to these attributes. To Him predicates may be attributed, and to Him positive attributes assigned ; all the powers of the spiritual brought together in unity are concentrated in the Son. The Son is not the same unity (as the Father), nor one with the same oneness of being as the Father, but yet He is not many, divided by difference and contrast ; He is the All-one, from whom all things come. In Him, as in a common centre all perfections meet, whence he is styled the A and £1 of all things (Strom., L. iv., c. 25, p. 230). Finally, the Holy Ghost is the light of truth, the true light without shadow or obscurity, the Spirit of the Lord, which, without division in Itself bestows Itself on all who are sanctified by truth (If). L. vi., c. 16).
14. It has been asserted that in his teaching on the subject of the Divine Logos, rifinent displayed something of the hesitation of Philoas to whether he should assign the Logos ti subordinate position or give Him merely a modal existence. In the first place, Clement most decidedly does not favour the notion of modal existence, for the Son of (Joel is. in his teaching, always a personal being. He is our instructor, says Clement, the Holy ( ;<><!, Jesus, the Logos, the leader of the human kind, the merciful, lovable, but just God. ( /'" '/. L. vii., p. 48, 2, 8, p. 79). " We offer praise and thanksgiving," he says again (Pad. L. iii., p. 14), "to the Father and Son, to the Son and the Father, to the Son as to our Instructor and Master, and to the Holy Ghost ; to the one God in whom are all things, in whom all things are one. and through whom eternity exists." Here we have Father, Son and Holy Ghost set on the same level of perfection ; as, therefore, the Father is a Per son, so also must it be witli the Son and tin- Holy Ghost.
1.1. Clement must also be absolved from tin; charge of assigning to the Son a subordinate position. He attributes to the Son not only the same eternity as the Father, but he fur- tin r asserts with special emphasis the oneness of essence in Father and Son, n doctrine with which the theory of subordination is wholly incompatible. God, says Clement,
PHILOSOPHY OF 'JHE CHRISTIAN KHA.
does not liate anything, neither does His Logos, for both are One— God (iv yi'i o 0t6c, P(cd. i, 8, p. 50). Moreover, Clement expressly teaches the equality of t with the Father, for he asserts that the Divine Logos, as true ( Jod, is in every respect equal
6 0tt£, Peed, i, 8, p. 50). Moreover, Clement expressly teaches the equality of thr Son with the Father, for he asserts that the Divine Logos, as true ( Jod, is in every respect equal to the Lord of all tilings, and we are therefore bound to love Him equally with the Father
(Quis Dii> Salv., c. 29). When, therefore, Clement describes the Son as a nature " which stands next in order to the One Supreme Ruler " (Strom, vii., c. 2, p. 298), we must, in order to save him from self-contradiction, understand him to speak of a subordination, not of the substantial, but of an hypostatical or personal kind.
16. The Logos is, then, an image of the Father, equal in all respects to the Father, and He is, moreover, the archetype of the universe. In Him are all ideas united. But not only is He the archetype of creation, He is furthermore its efficient cause, inasmuch as the Father has created the world through Him. It is the nature of God to do good, He has, therefore, created the world by means of the Logos, in order to display His goodness in it. In the world we have an immediate manifestation of the Logos, through the Logos we attain to the knowledge of the Father. Everything created is good, evil is not a substantial entity, it has its source only in the misuse of human liberty.
17. According to Clement, the human soul is an incorporeal, simple, and invisible substance. He distinguishes, hoAvever, after the fashion of the Stoics too parts in the soul — the iiyt/jLovinbv jut/oog — reason, and the aXoyov «j|OOc, which he also styles Trvtvfm aapKiKdv or ^w^ii aapKiKi]. The iiytnoviKov ptpog comprehends intelligence and will, and to it nature has as signed dominion over the faculties of sense, inasmuch as the functions of the latter are dependent upon the will, and must be brought into subjection to it under the guidance of reason. The divine law may be divided according to its reference to the different parts of the soul ; the laws of the Second Table concern the irvtvua aapKiKuv, those of the First Table the
ORIGEN. §68.
1. Still more renowned than Clement is his pupil, Origen. Origen was born in the year A. D. 185, most probt»bly in Alexandria. His parents were Christians, and Origen received from them a Christian education. At an early age he attended the lectures of the ( 'athc- chists Pantamus and Clement, and laid the foundation of that erudition for which he was, later, so remarkable. His father, Leonidas, suffered martyrdom in the persecution of Septimius Severus, and thenceforward Origen devoted himself with new ardour to his studies. In these he made such progress that, at the age of eighteen, and while still a lay man, he became the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. With his assumption of thisoffice began his marvellous literary activity.His position as teacher required from himan accurate knowledge of the systems of philosophy ; he therefore read the works of the ( Jreek philosophers, and in his twenty-first year attended the school of Ammonius Saccas, the founder of Neo-Platonism, and in this way made acquaintance with Neo-Platonism itself. ;is well as with the doctrines of Philo. At a later period, he came into conflict with his bishop, because of his having delivered public discourses in churches, at the solicitation of his friends, Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, and Theoctistus, Bishop of Cwsarea, and
' Elsewhere Clement, following the Stoics, assigns ten faculties to the soul, the five senses, the faculty of speech, the procreative faculty, the vital principle of the flesh, reason (iiyf^toviKuv) and lastly the Divine Spirit, infused into the soul by faith, and impressing on it a higher character.
PHIInsni'HY OF THK rilKIsTIAN ERA. 235
obtained priestly ordination in spite of the opposition of his bishop, who probably rocntnl some erroneous opinions whi< li he held. He was deprived of his position as teacher }>y a synodirul dtvirr, and by the decree of another synod expelled from the ranks ol the clergy. But he found a new home in Palestine with the friends already named, and there established a new school, from which many famous men went forth. I!* \\.is imprisoned in the persecution of Decius, A.D. 249, and after his liberation died in ci.n-t IJIK n. i (.f the hardships he had endured during his captivity, A.I>. 254.
'-'. Oiigen's chief work M'as his interpretation of Holy Scripture. He composed Com mentaries on many liooks, the most important of which are his Commentaries on Miitt/it-w and John. He exhibits a marked liking for allegorical interpretation, without, however, sacrificing the literal. We have further, his work Contra Celtium, in eight books, a defence of Christianity against that Philosopher. In this work Origen gives proof, in an extraordinary degree, of intellectual subtlety and erudition. The work of chief importance in determining the special character of his scientific views is his De Prinri/nix (-rfpi iipx^t-), a treatise on the fundamental truths of Christianity, in four books. This work may be regarded as at least a first attempt at scientific exposition and justification of the doctrines of Christianity in systematic order.1 Clement had sketched the Gnostic ideal in its several outlines, Origen set himself to determine in greater minuteness the knowledg possessed by the Gnostic. In doing this he expounded the rational grounds which confirmed the teachings of the Faith, and endeavoured to reduce them to a well-ordered system of con nected truths. In the latter part of his task, his success was only partial, and as to the first, the attempts at a development of the Christian teaching which he here offers us are not at any point very successful.
3. Origen recognises the fact that it is only from the standpoint fixed by Christum Faith that a right comprehension of things human and divine is attainable. To avoid error it is essential that there should be no departure from ecclesiastical tradition. In spite of these salutary principles Origen did not succeed in avoiding the danger he was providing against. The philosophical opinions which he had borrowed from the Greek philosophers, and chiefly from the followers of Philo and from the Neo-Platonists, became blended in his mind with the dogmas of Faith and affected his appreciation of Christian truth. The errors thence arising became distinctly manifest in his work DC Frincipiis. In his translation of this work, Rufinus has toned down or wholly changed many of the more objectionable passages ; but even with this improvement the errors are not wholly put out of sight. Origen himself seems to have felt at times that his assertions were at variance with truth, for he desired that this work — one of the earliest he composed — should not be published ; many propositions contained in it he reprobated later, and many he put forward as mere surmises — mere opinions, about which every one may form what estimate he will. This, however, is not sufficient excuse for erroneous assertions, the more so that we find him speaking of an esoteric teaching not intended for the people, but only for the wise and the initiated.
4. According to Origen, God is exalted in nature above all things, ineffable, and incomprehensible, He is above truth, wisdom, being. He is not fire, nor light, nor air, but an absolute incorporeal unity f/jovae or tva^). He is neither part, nor a totality, He does not admit in Himself a greater and a less, He is unchangeable and without limit, space and time are excluded from His Being. He is omnipotent, but His omnipotence is qualified by His wisdom and His goodness; lit
'. The ^renter part <>f this work has been preserved to us in a Latin translation executed by Kufinug, the friend ujid disciple of
236 PHILOSOPHY OF TIIK ( HKISTIAN ERA.
cannot act in opposition to these attributes. We cannot contemplate God immediately in His own being. How could our weak vision bear the effulgence of His light ? We have knowledge of Him only from His works.
5. There is but one God ; plurality in God is a contradiction in terms. The one plan which we observe in the world is inconceivable, unless we assume it to have been planned by one mind. Heresy asserts that goodness and justice are incompatible, and for this reason holds the existence of two Gods, the one good and the other just. This, how ever, is absurd. Goodness and justice are so far from being incompatible that the one perfection supposes the other. God would not be good if He were not just, and would not be just if He were not good. The two perfections are inseparable.
6. Origen's teaching on the subject of the Divine Trinity was, even in the days of the Fathers, differently viewed by different critics. Some Fathers, as Epiphanius, Jerome, and Augustine, regarded him as the fore runner of Arianism, and reproached him with anticipating in his writings the teachings of that heresy. Others, as Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius of Alexandria, Pamphilus Martyr, and even Athanasius himself, did not question the orthodoxy of Origen's teaching regarding the Trinity. The last named writer did not scruple to quote arguments from the works of Origen, in his controversy with the Arians. Our own opinion is that Origen's doctrine regarding the Trinity is, in substance, orthodox ; but we admit that in the scientific exposition of his opinions, he makes use of formulas and phrases which might easily give rise to misconceptions. It is not necessary to enter deeply into this question. We may dismiss it with the following remarks : —
7. In expounding the allegorical sense of the Scriptural saying, " Drink water from the fountain of three springs" (Prov. v. 15), Origen remarks: •' To the inquiry, What is the one source of these several streams? I would answer : the knowledge of the unbegotten Father is one stream, the knowledge of the Son another, and finally, the knowledge of the Holy Ghost a third. For the Son is different from the Father, and the Holy Ghost different from the Father and the Son. The plurality of streams refers to the difference in person between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But these several streams have one single source — in other words, the Divine Trinity is one in substance and in nature " (In Num. Horn. xii. 1). " We must, therefore, acknowledge one God, but admit in this confession of Faith, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Herein consists the rpidf dp-^iKri, the rpiac TrpoaKvvr}Ti) to which everything that is is subject " (In Math. t. 15, n. 31).
8. The Son is begotten from the substance of the Father, not created from nothing. But our notion of this conception must exclude every corporeal imagination ; we must not, therefore, allow that in this generation the Son is separated from the Father's sub stance. His personal character is not something extrinsic to the Godhead, it exists within the Divinity. As light goes forth from light, and the will proceeds from the spirit without separation from the source, so does the Son proceed from the Father, for the Divine nature is indivisible. This generation is from eternity. The Son exists from eternity as well as the Father. The generative act is not transient, it is eternally per sistent, without any order of sequence, accomplished nimul et ttfme/. All that is in the Father is in the Son also (In Jerem. Horn. 8, n. 2). " The God of all things is not alone in His greatness ; He shares His greatness with His Sou, the First-born of creatures. This Son is the image of the invisible God, and represents in image the greatness of the Father " (C. Gels. vi. 69).
9. The meaning of these assertions regarding the Trinity, or rather, regarding th Son of God, is unmistakable. But there are other propositions laid down by Origen, on
1'IIII.OSOl'HV OF THK ( IIKIMI \N KK \.
tliis point of Christian belief, which are ii"t so irreproachable. For example, he states in one place (///. Joan. t. '2, n. '2.) that " He who is auro9(Hf, that is to say, Oo<l ot Hi- own nature, is called in the Gospel <'> Hn'><_- ; whereas everything other than the aliroOto^, all tliat becomes God by virtue of participation in the Godhead of the latter, (titoiroiovfirvov), is, it \\ e speak accurately, not » Otc>(;, but merely 9t6{j. This latter appell.it inn must be bestowed tirst of all on the Frst-born of creatures, for He, being irpbc TOI- 9f6r, is the first to receive divinity from God, and is, therefore, superior to, and more excellent than, the other "gods,'' to whom He (the On'it;) is, as it were, a «'» 9t<'><;. They owe it to Him and to His !_'oo<tness that they are gods, for He derives airb rov 9eov the fulness of the nature whieh renders them gods. The true God is, therefore, o 0tof ; the beings who receive the form of God are images of this divine archetype. But of these images the first and primal image is that Logos which is Trpof TOV Ofdv, that Logos which has been from the beginning and ever remains rrpoc rov tiiov, which would not, however, possess Divine Being were He not 7rpt>c TOV 9inv, and would not remain God did He not eternally con tinue to contemplate the depth of the Father's being."
10. Another passage (In. Joan. t. 13, n. 2o) seems to be still more explicitly in favour of the subordination of the Son : " Although the Son of God," says Origen, "surpasses all (created natures) in essence, dignity, power, and divinity, inasmuch as He is the living Word and the living Wisdom, yet He is in no wise the equal of the Father. For He is (merely) the image of the Father's goodness, the reflection, not of God, but of God's glory and eternal radiance — a pure emanation from His glory — the untarnished mirror of His action." The Son and the Holy Ghost surpass all created things, but they are them selves surpassed by the Father, of whom the Redeemer says : " The Father who hath sent Me is greater than I." In accordance with this teaching is the view put forward by Origen (In. Joan. 32, 449), that the knowledge possessed by the Son is lower in kind than that possessed by the Father. The Son, lie says, has knowledge of the Father, but a less perfect knowledge than the Father has of Himself.
11. These expressions, to which many others of the same kind might be added, do not affect the general orthodoxy of Origen's opinions regarding the Trinity, for Origen in numberless other passages expresses himself with unequivocal correctness on the subject, and the doubtful passages must be interpreted in the light of the others, as meaning not a subordination of essence or nature but of person. Origen would appear to signify by these phrases that the Father is the primum principium, from whom the Son receives the Divine nature, being generated by Him. He attributes to the Father merely the auctoritas primi principii in the Divine Trinity, and, in this respect only, puts Him above the Son and the Holy Ghost, without establishing in the latter a subordination of essence or nature to the Father. This becomes still more evident from the passages in which he expressly describes the Son as aitroXofof, ai'irocvi>ani<;, avrofiKatoavvi], ai'Toa\i)9tia, etc., and teaches that the Son does not participate in Wisdom, Justice, etc.. but that He it these things (in essence). (C. Cd». vi., c. 64.) But it is not to be denied that the ex pressions we have quoted are not above reproach as they stand, and might easily give •occasion to misunderstanding. It is hardly surprising that, at a later period, the Arians
appealed to the writings of Origen in support of their doctrines, and that many of th Fathers expressed themselves dissatisfied
d with Origen's views regarding the Trinity.
12. To proceed in our exposition. The Logos is the hypostatical Wisdom of God, and is, by the fact, the Archetype of all things, the iS/a l$i(Dv. Through the Logos which thus, in archetypal fashion, con tains all things in Himself, are all things created. By His power the universe exists. He penetrates and permeates the entire creation, giving being to and maintaining everything. He is the comprehensive force which embraces and upholds all things. He is, as it were, the soul of the universe. To Him is every revelation due. He is the source of reason in man ; all knowledge of truth is, in the last analysis, attribu table to Him. The motive which led to the creation of the world by the Logos is the Divine Goodness. God created the world out of love. He did not find matter already existent and fashion it into the universe ; He is the author of matter also. "Otherwise some providence older
238 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
than His must have been at work to give thought expression in matter, or some happy chance must have played the part of providence."
13. Creation has, however, had no beginning ; it is eternal. The Divine omnipotence and goodness require that it should be so. God's omnipotence and goodness are eternal as God Himself. But God could not be eternally omnipotent if there were not from eternity something on which He could exert His power and His sovereignty ; nor could He be eternally good if there were not from eternity creatures towards which His goodness might be exercised. Created being must, therefore, have existed from eternity. This the more, that to admit a beginning in time of this created world would suppose a change to have taken place in God at the moment when He began to create. Furthermore, since God could not have a foreknowledge of everything, if the duration of the world were without limit, we must assume an endless series of worlds, or cosmical rcons, in which the end of one period is the beginning of the next. There has been no cosmical period in which a world did not exist. These numberless worlds are all different from one another ;. no one of them is wholly like another (De Princ. I. 2, 10. ; III. 5, 3. ; II. 5, 3. ; II. 3, 4).
14. The created universe consists of two component parts — the world of spirits and the material world. Matter is only notionally different from the qualities that modify it ; it cannot exist without these qualities. Therefore, in determining the nature of corporeal things as such, the Neo-Platonists are not far from the truth when they assert that a body is nothing more than a sum of qualities ; for, if we separate the qualities from it, there is absolutely nothing left of the body. (De Princ. II. 1, 4. ; IV. 34). With regard to spiritual beings, they are not distin guished by specific differences. God has made them all alike. If any differences are observed in them, these are to be attributed, not to their natural constitution, but to the free determining of their own condition. Created spirits are not, like God, essentially good ; they can choose good or evil of their own free will, and, according to their choice, and their consequent merit or culpability, is their place in the universe assigned them. No being is of itself evil ; its own action makes it what ever it is. All rational creatures resemble, at the outset, a homogeneous mass, from which God forms vessels for honour or dishonour, according to their several deserts (De Princ. III. 1, 21. ; III. 5, 4. ; II. 9, 6).
15. From these principles important consequences are deducible. In the first place, Origen finds in them a proof of the pre- existence of souls. Rational beings were, he holds, all created at once by God, alike in nature and alike in perfection. Of these many remained faithful to God, and by their faithful service preserved their original union with God. These are the angels. Others were too indolent to make the effort of will necessary to maintain their union with good, and in this way have separated themselves more or less from God. This sepa ration, being a deliberate act on their part, and being a violation of the divine law, was an abandonment of God, and, as such, implied guilt in them. In punishment of this fault, the fallen spirits were repelled from
I'HII.OSMIMIY OF THK rmUSTIXX ERA. 239
God, and became reduced to a condition out of accord with their ideal state and destiny. Those that had separated themselves from God by the longest interval became demons; those whose fault was less were imprisoned in human bodies, and became human souls. It is, therefore, to this separation from God that we must attribute the origin of the demon world and of the human race. And to this separation must be attributed not only the origin of the human race, but also the differences which exist between men, as well in their individual qualities as in the external conditions of their existence — these differences being de termined by the various degrees of the guilt which occasioned their entrance into the life of earth.
16. The consequences of this fall extend yet further. To it is also to be traced the origin of the material world of our experience. God created at once not only all spirits but all matter also, and, foreseeing the fall of the spirits, He created it in quantity sufficient for the forma tion of the world. Matter, however, existed at the outset, in a higher, supersensuous state, not exhibiting those rude sensible qualities under which it presents itself now. The possibility of such a higher state is intelligible from the fact that matter is, in its essence, merely an aggre gate of intelligible qualities, which only in combination become sensible and corporeal. But when the spirits fell away from God, and in punishment of their offence were invested with bodies of flesh, all matter was reduced to a condition perceptible by sense ; and out of this matter God formed the various objects of the sensible world for the use of man, and for the fulfilment of His plan of the universe. This is the " vanity " to which, according to the words of the apostle, even irrational things are made subject in consequence of the fall (Dc Princip. III. 5. ; IV. 5).
17. These are the general principles of Origen'g system. Let us now examine the details of his teaching : Origen asserts the human soul to be of a spiritual nature, and endeavours to establish the same truth by demonstration. For this purpose he appeals to the essential qualities of the human faculty of cognition, urging that the range of human cognition, as well as the supersensuous character of the objects with which it is concerned, are inexplicable unless we admit the spiritual nature of the principle at work. Further, if real objects respond to the perceptions of sense, so also must a real object respond to that intellec tual cognition which has for its object the eyo itself, and this proves the soul to be no mere accident of the body. Lastly, if man were merely a body, God should also be regarded as a corporeal being, for man has knowledge of God, and the corporeal can have knowledge only of the corporeal (Dc Princ., I. 1, 7).
IS. Distinctly as Origen asserts the immaterial and spiritual nature of the soul, he, nevertheless, will not admit it to be possible that a created spiritual substance could exist without a body. This pre rogative, he holds to belong exclusively to God. He, therefore, main tains that all created spirits — human souls included — are, in their extra- mundane state, invested with a glorified body, and that this bodily adjunct is separate from them in thought only — not in fact. On these
240 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
principles is based his teaching regarding the immortality of the soul. He holds it for indisputable that the soul is, of its nature, immortal ; for, being a spiritual essence, it is, in a certain sense, like God, and must, therefore, be immortal like Him. A further argument is found in the fact that there would not be a perfect manifestation of the divine goodness if God did not bestow His benefits on rational creatures throughout eternity. Lastly, man could not be said to be made to the image of God, if the immortality of that image — i.e., of the Logos — had not its counterpart in man. But the soul, on quitting its earthly body, does not enter into a purely incorporeal state ; it still preserves that ethereal body which is essential to it, and which, during this life, is hidden under the veil of the flesh (II. II., 2, 2).
19. Regarding the relations which subsist between soul and body, Origen teaches expressly that the body of flesh has life, sense, and movement from the soul. He cites the arguments currently used in support of the theory of three constituent elements in man's nature, but he sets forth the reasons which prove them ineffectual. As for the conflict between " the spirit and the flesh," which was a favourite argument with the supporters of that theory, he observes that "the flesh " denotes merely the sensual tendencies and appetites, and that the conflict between " spirit and flesh " refers merely to the antagon ism between these desires and reason. Origen, indeed, distinguishes between vovg and ^vx>i, but ^he distinction is a distinction of relations, and is explained by Origeu in a peculiar fashion. In the Greek language, the term ^vyj] is connected with the idea of cold, and Origen is of opinion that the spirit (VOVQ) becomes I//VY/; or vital principle of the body, because of its having grown cold in the love of God. It is. therefore, the present duty of the soul so to advance in the love of God, that it may divest itself of this character, and thus at length become the spirit again (Ib. II., 8, 3).
20. Origen holds the freedom of the will to be undeniable. The voice of consciousness, he says, speaks decisively on the point. Virtue without freedom is impossible. A being which can distinguish between different actions, which can approve of one and reprobate another, must necessarily be in a position to elect between them. Good and evil are founded on liberty. Evil is a turning away from the fulness of true being to emptiness and nothingness, and is therefore a privation ; life in sin is a life of death. Evil has not its source in matter, it has its cause in the abuse of human liberty.
21. We have, in the last place, to examine the eschatology of Origen : The human soul has been condemned to imprisonment in the body, because of its sin in a previous state. This punishment is, however, a saving punishment. Healed of sin, the soul is destined to return to its first state. This return is, in the present soon of the universe, depen dent on the Redemption. Here we have the explanation of the Re deemer's mission. The Logos assumed human nature, and died for us, in order to obtain pardon and grace from God. The soul of Christ, like all other souls, existed antecedently to its union with the Logos ; but
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 241
by the unchanging, enduring love with which it remained faithful to God, this soul merited union with the Logos. In this sense, the union may be said to be the work of this soul itself.
22. The Redemption from sin is not efficacious for this life only, it extends its influence into the life to come. In that further life too, the punishment suffered is a saving punishment. Purified souls pass into glory immediately after the death of the body ; for the others, the process of salvation through suffering is continued after death. This suffering is inflicted by fire, inasmuch as the consciousness of sin, and the stings of conscience resemble the torment caused by fire. This fire will purify the soul ; and, the purification accomplished, the soul sooner or later enters into glory. The process of the purification of souls will extend over many centuries, and evil will thus gradually diminish, until at last it dis appears wholly, and the mercy of God reaches down to him who has sunk lowest — to Satan. Accordingly, the final restoration will extend to all the spirits which have fallen away from God ; to all human souls and to all the demons. The Apocatastasis will be universal (Ib. I., 6, 3.)
23. The Apocatastasis culminates in the resurrection of the body. When, at length, all souls have been purified, the bodies will be raised from the dead, and united to the souls in a glorified state. When all this has been accomplished, the material world returns again to its higher condition ; the differences between material beings cease to exist, and the original unity and perfection of the entire creation is re-established. God will then be all in all. Then begins a new cosmical period, a new falling off takes place, and a new world appears in place of the old. And so the series of never-ending changes proceeds.*
24. Origen left behind him many famous disciples, from whose ranks came the most remarkable ecclesiastical teachers of the third century. We may mention, as specially worthy of note, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Dionysius the Great. There were not wanting also many able writers to oppose what they regarded as the en
errors of his system. To
the number of his opponents belongs Methodius, Tiishop, first of Olympus, and subsequently of Tyre, who suffered martyrdom, probably, under Diocletian (A.D. 290.) Methodius attacked the theories of Origen regarding the likeness of nature in rational beings and the pre-existence of souls, as also his theory regarding the eternity of creation. Methodius composed two treatises (lltpl yfvjjruiv and TLipi dvaarafftm^), in which he puts forward his refutation of these theories in the form of dialogues.
25. The specific and generic differences between things, Methodius holds, cannot be the consequence of the fall of the spirits ; they are, on the contrary, the original condi tions of existence, beginning with the beginning of the world ; they are wholly natural, and, therefore, preconceived in the divine idea of things. In his opinion, the human soul cannot be regarded as like in nature to the angels, for the soul is destined to be united to the body, whilst the angelical nature excludes the notion of a body of flesh. Man is not
* In his treatise Contra Celsum, composed at the request of his friend Ambrosius, Origen maintains the accord between Christianity and reason, and the demonstrability of the Christian Faith. His proofs are, the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Old Testa ment ; the miracles daily worked on behalf of the sick and the possessed by the reading of the Gospel ; the triumphant spread of the Gospel, and its purifying effect, and the conspicuous purity of life in the Christian communities in the midst of the general corruption. Origen then proceeds to establish the several dogmas by appropriate arguments, as in the treatise Ilepi dpxuiv. He maintains the right of the Christian com munities to establish themselves against the will of the state, in the name of the natural law, which is derived from God and superior to written law.
17
242 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
soul alone ; he consists of soul and body ; both unite to constitute one form of beauty. The soul, therefore, cannot exist before the body ; it must, as the form of the body, be created at the moment the body is created. Man exists from the beginning, as man, in the same way as all other things. Origen's arguments for the eternity of creation are worthless. God would possess His entire perfection, without a created world ; no neces sity whatever constrained Him to create the universe. If we admitted that the begin ning of creation in time would imply a change in God, we should also be obliged to admit that the same would be implied in His ceasing to create. Whatever is created supposes a pre-existent cause of its being, is produced by this cause, and must, as thus produced, have had a beginning.
26. It is evident that Methodius had detected the errors in the teaching of Origen ; nor was he deterred by the great reputation which Origen enjoyed from vigorously attack ing, in the name of science, what he conceived to be the defects of his system. In this he rendered to Christian science, which was not yet established on a solid basis, a service which it is impossible to estimate too highly.
MINUTIUS FELIX, ARNOBIUS AND LACTANTIUS. §69.
1. While the Hellenistic theologians were developing a scientific theology, chiefly with regard to the nature of Christ, the ecclesiastical writers of the "West were giving special prominence to the points of Christian teaching which regarded belief in God and the immortality of the soul, as well as the anthropological and ethical elements of Christian belief. Amongst these writers, a foremost place is occupied by Minutius Felix, a Roman lawyer, who lived probably towards the close of the second century. In his work Octavius, he describes the conversion of the heathen Cecilius, by Octavius, a Christian. He de fends the belief in the unity of God — a truth which he finds received by philosophers of the greatest renown ; he condemns the polytheism of popular superstition as contrary to reason and to the moral sense, and defends against all objectors the Christian doctrine regarding the mutability of the world, the immortality of the soul, and the resurrec tion of the body.
2. Cecilius maintains that, in our present uncertainty regarding all that transcends experience, we ought not, with vain self-confidence, to trust to our own judgment ; that we ought to remain true to the traditions that have come down to us ; that if we will play the philosopher we must be content to deal with human things only ; and for the rest be satisfied that our best knowledge is to know that we are ignorant. Against this scepticism Octavius protests. Our knowledge of God is not uncertain ; on the contrary, nothing is so evident to the human mind as the existence of God, if we but consider the order established in nature, and in par ticular, the purposed structure of living organisms, more especially of the human body. There must be a Divine Being who rules and governs the world as well in its totality as in its various parts. The unity of plan in nature is proof of the unity of this God. To this unity of God the consciousness of man spontaneously bears testimony (Si Dens dcdcrif, 4*c.), and it is distinctly acknowledged by almost all philosophers.
IMIII.oMUMlY OF THE CHRISTIAN KKA. 43
3. God is in finite, omnipotent, eternal ; before the world lie was u to Himself — tinff Mundnnt tSibi Ipxc fuit pro Miaido — He alone has
adequate knowledge of Himself; He is beyond the comprehension of our understanding. The gods of the popular superstition are deified king.N or discoverers. Impure demons also are worshipped as gods. The true God is not in one place or another, He is omnipresent. The world passes ; man is immortal. The immortality of the soul is only half the truth, the body also will rise again, and everything in nature will be renewed. It is just that Christians should 'enjoy a better fate in the future life than the pagans ; for ignorance of God is in itself culpable, and knowledge of God is a claim on forgiveness. Moreover, the lives of the Christians are morally much better than those of the pagans. The sufferings of the Christians serve to test and preserve them in their conflict with hostile powers. They are fully justified in abstaining from worldly pleasures, for these are dangerous in their effect upon the moral and religious character. The doctrine of Divine Pre destination does not conflict with the justice of God ; God foresees the dispositions of men, and determines their lot according to this foreknow ledge. Fate is nothing more than the decree of God.
4. The lines of discussion traced by Minutius Felix were followed by Arnobius in his treatise Adcersus (rentes, published soon after A.U. 300. Arnobius, while a pagan, had been a stubborn opponent of Christianity, and, in his profession of teacher of rhetoric, had ample op portunity of expressing this hostility. After his conversion to the Christian Faith, the Bishop of Sicca required him to publish a treatise in defence of Christianity, as proof of the genuineness of his conversion. In compliance with this requirement, he published the treatise Adversm Gentes. Jn this work, he follows Minutius in his attack upon polythe ism, but treats the question with greater fulness of detail. The popular superstition he reprobates as absurd and immoral, and defends the doctrine of one eternal God. He summarily rejects the allegorical significance attributed to the myths of polytheism. Doubt as to the existence of God he does not regard as deserving of serious refutation ; for belief in God is inborn in every man ; nay, the very beasts and plants, if they could only speak, would proclaim God to be the ruler of the universe. God is infinite and eternal — the place and space in which all things are.
5. Arnobius proves the Divinity of Christ chiefly from the change wrought by Christ in the opinions and manners of mankind, and from His miracles. On the last argument he lays the chief weight. The philosophers, he says, in whom the pagans put their trust, were, for the most part, men of pure lives and were versed in science, but they could not, like Christ, work a minirlc. Wherefore we must hold Christ in higher esteem than the philosophers, and set Him above them all. As to the human soul — Arnobius assigns it a condition of being intermediate between the divine and material, and on this ground controverts the Platonic view that the soul is, of its nature, immortal. The immortality of the soul, he holds, is not a consequence of the nature of the soul, but
244 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
is a gracious gift of God. This, however, should not make men doubt of the soul's immortality ; for, if the soul were mortal, it would not only be a great error, but also a great folly, to control passion, since no reward in a future life would await so difficult a struggle. But the existence of the soul before the body is not to be admitted. The Platonic argument founded on our recollection of things is futile ; the correct answers which we return to questions regarding geometrical figures are not derived from knowledge previously acquired, but from present consideration under the guidance of skilful questioning.
6. About the same time as Arnobius, lived and laboured the Rhe torician, Lactantius.
Lactantius was appointed teacher of Rhetoric, at Nicomedia, by the Emperor Diocletian. He became a Christian, probably about A.D. 303, and forthwith undertook the scientific defence of Christianity against his former associates. This defence he con ducted by positive exposition of doctrine, as well as by refutation of objections. He endeavoured to render the truth of Christianity intelligible to his adversaries by setting forth the philosophical reasons which justified the Christian teaching. At a later period he became tutor to Crispus, son of the Emperor Constantino. He died about A.D. 325. His principal work is the Institutiones Divince, in which he maintains the right of Christianity to recognition as a religious system, and, at the same time, gives an exposi tion of many points of Christian doctrine. He also published a compendium of the Institu- tiones under the title Epitome Dicinarum Imtitutionum, ad Pentadium Fratrem. We have also from his pen : Liber de Opificio Dei, ad Demetrianum ; Liber de Ira Dei ; De Mortibius Per- xecutorum ; Fragmenta et Carmina. In these writings lie unites to a pleasing manner of presenting his subject a purity of style worthy of Cicero, and a tolerably comprehensive and exact knowledge of his subject. It must, however, be allowed that at times his clear and graceful exposition is not accompanied by thoroughness of treatment and depth of thought.
7. To refute polytheism and demonstrate the unity of God, is a primary task with Lactantius. That there is a God who rules the world with foreknowledge and controlling power cannot be denied in view of the marvellous order which reigns on all sides of the universe. It is equally evident that this God is one. For unity is clearly deducible from the notion of God as an infinitely perfect being. If there were several gods, there would be a division of perfections, and so no one of them would be God any longer. Moreover, the one plan of order established in the world supposes one ordaining power and one pro vidence. If there were several gods, a conflict of wills would be pos sible, and contentions between them would follow, which must disturb the general order. As one spirit rules the body of man, so one God rules the world. Polytheism has its origin only in aberrations of the human mind ; in their misfortunes men call instinctively on the one God, it is only when fortunate and happy that they turn to gods and to idols.
8. The world has been created by God. If matter were eternal it would be unchangeable, and the formation of the world would be, by the fact, impossible. The human soul is a luminous or fiery essence, so delicate and subtle that it escapes not merely the eye of the body, but even the glance of the mind. It is not propagated by procreation, each soul is created immediately by God. In the soul, we must distinguish between
PHILOSOPHY OF TIIK CHKI^TIVN ERA. 245
the animus (mom) by which we think, and the anima by which we live. It is only in a relative sense, however, that the one can be said to be different from the other. Reason has its seat in the head, it is this faculty which perceives by means of the senses ; the senses may be said to be the windows through which it beholds the external world. The body has life from the soul, and from the soul only.
9. The highest good attainable by man must be of such a kind that it is not shared with other living things, and that it is adapted not to the body but to the nobler element in human nature. It must also be of a kind which is incapable of increase or diminution ; otherwise it would not be the highest good. This character of the good in question requires that it should be eternal. It follows that the highest good cannot be sensual pleasure, for this the beasts also enjoy ; nor can it be virtue, for virtue requires a courageous endurance of the sufferings and burdens of this life, and sometimes even demands the sacrifice of life itself — all which is incompatible with the notion of supreme happiness. The highest good cannot, therefore, be anything of the mere temporal order ; it awaits us in a future life — it is nothing else than immortality, that is, a life of eternal happiness in God.
10. This being so, the supreme good is attainable only through the knowledge and worship of God, that is, through religion. Religion, not philosophy, leads to happiness. Man differs from the beasts essentially in this that he is an animal religiosum. This is his chief excellence. Furthermore, without religion there is no virtue. If there is no im mortality, that is to say, no future life, in which reward and punishment are bestowed on the deeds of this life, virtue has no longer any meaning. Since virtue, then, is a thing worth striving for, only in the hypothesis of a future immortality, it is evident there can be no true virtue without religion. Religion is the mother, the soul of all virtues. But virtue must be united to religion, if religion is to lead man to the goal of life. Religion and virtue are the pathway to the sovereign good. Virtue does not consist in an entire suppression of the passions (TTO^?;), such a course would be unnatural, and only a fool would enter upon it ; nor does virtue consist in the weakening of the passions, it is rather to be found in a right use of the -rrdOii, i.e., in directing them to the attain ment of the supreme good.
11. Lactantius having asserted that the sovereign good of man is immortality, it might have been expected that he would have demon strated scientifically the immortality of the soul, and proofs to this effect are not wanting in his works ; but he holds, like Arnobius, that this immor tality does not result from the nature of the soul, but is to be accounted for by the conserving power of God. This being premised, he infers the immortality of the soul from its capacity to know and love God and from its natural destination to these acts. God, the object of its knowledge and love, is eternal ; it follows that the soul which is created to know and love Him must also be eternal, i.e., immortal. An analogous argu ment may be drawn from the notion of virtue : virtue being, in its essence, enduring and eternal, it follows that the soul, which is capable of virtue,
246 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
must share in these attributes. Finally, the immortality of the soul may be demonstrated from its Divine origin, and from this, further, that it* works, in contrast with those of the body, are destined to endure eternally.
12. Into his teaching regarding the resurrection of the body Lac- tantius introduces the fantastic notions of the Chiliasts. The souls of men, after death, are retained together in one place, till the resurrec tion. The resurrection of all the dead does not take place at once. The resurrection of the just takes place first, after which follows the reign of a thousand years. Then comes the second resurrection — that of the just and the unjust, and, after this, the Last Judgment.
PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY OF THE POST-NICENE PERIOD. GENERAL REMARKS.
1. The Council of Nicooa (A.D. 325) forms one of the most re markable events in the history of the Christian Church. At the moment when the Church, after long and sanguinary persecu tion, had at length obtained liberty, a heresy, springing from within the body of the Church itself, denying the fundamental truths of Christianity — the Divinity of Christ, and the Incarnation of God — threatened to destroy that Church which the rude methods of the persecutors had not been able to shake. This heresy was known as Arianism. It had already worked great confusion in Christendom when the bishops of the Church met at Nicrea, and in a solemn confession of faith proclaimed the divinity of the Logos, and His oneness in sub stance with the Father. This definition of the Church's faith stayed the progress of the heresy, and though the controversy with the Arians was not at an end, this solemn declaration formed a bulwark against which heresy was destined to expend itself in vain.
2. The Council of Nicaca formed a turning-point for Christian philo sophy, as well as for the history of the Christian Church. The dogmatic definition of this unity in substance of the Son and the Father, became a centre of truth, from which the defenders of Christianity proceeded in giving scientific development to the dogmas of Faith. The freedom secured to the Church, under Constantine, contributed not a little to an enlarged activity of thought, and increased, in considerable measure, the fruitfulness of scientific investigation. In this wise, Christian philosophy attained a remarkable development in the Post-Nicene period, and produced results which were destined to influence profoundly the course of thought in the ages that followed. What had been begun in the period preceding was now progressively developed. Still main taining its conflict with heresy, Christian philosophy was growing into a structure which could defy attack.
3. In the Patristic philosophy of this period, we have to notice two
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 247
distinct currents of thought. The one is represented by the Greek, the otlu-r by the Latin, Fathers. In the speculative opinions of the former, the influence of Origen, and even of the Neo-Platonists, is much more marked t IKUI in those of the latter. The Platonic philosophy was, indeed, the philosophy which the Latin Fathers pressed into the service of ( liristian speculation, but the distinctively Neo-Platonic views, and the allied opinions of Origen, find no favour with them, whereas these views occupy a foremost place in the speculations of many of the Greek Fathers. In both alike, orthodoxy of Faith is a guiding principle, but the philosophic differences we have noticed are so evident in their works that they cannot fail to force themselves on the attentive student.
4. In our exposition we will treat first of the Greek, and then of the Latin, Fathers and ecclesiastical writers.
GREEK FATHERS AND ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS. ATHANASIUS, BASIL THE GREAT, AND GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS.
* 70.
1. It does not fall within the scope of our undertaking to trace in detail the chequered life of Athanasius, on whom posterity has rightfully bestowed the title of " Great." This task belongs to the writer of ec clesiastical history. Athanasius was born between A.D. 296 and A.D. 298, in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. He assisted, with his bishop Alexander, at the Council of Nicaca, and on the death of that prelate succeeded to his See, A.D. 326. At this point began the long struggle of his life. He stands in the midst of the fierce conflict which the Arian heresy had roused, like a rock in the midst of the sea, and the genius as well as the unshaken firmness with which he upheld the fundamental dogma of Christianity have made his name imperishable through all time. He was expelled four times from his See, by violence and calumny ; but his courage could not be shaken, and he was at length permitted to end his days in comparative peace. He died A.U. 373.
2. The writings of Athanasius are, for the most part, devoted to the proof and explan ation of the dogma of Christ's Divinity, and His Unity in Substance with the Father. They belong, there-fore, rather to the history of dogmas, than to the history of philosophy. Two only of his treatises have spi'<-i;il intrust for the philosopher, the work Contra Gertie*, an apology for Christianity against the pagans, and the work De Incaniatione Verf>i, in \\ liieh Athanasius set forth his psychological theories. It will be enough to notice these two works.
3. Athanasius, in his work Contra Gentes, begins, like other Apologists, with a demonstration of the unity of God. He appeals to the universal order and harmony which prevail in the universe, and argues that this order, being one in itself, proves the ordaining intelligence to be one.
248 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
From the organic unity which binds the members of the body together we argue the existence of one soul, the principle of this unity ; so from the unity of the world our reason is forced to infer the existence of one God. There can be but one God. A plurality of gods are not gods at all. Polytheism is Atheism.
4. This proof seems to Athanasius so evident, that he holds it must compel the reason even of the pagan who is the slave of sensual passion. But it is only sensual men who need the aid of such proofs as this ; the man whose soul is lifted above the desires of sense and the sensuous pictures of imagination which they provoke, and whose heart is purified from sin and from all attachment to sin, has no need of such arguments. He can see within himself, as in an image, the Logos, and, through the Logos, the Father ; for man is created to the image of God. To know the one God we need only know ourselves, need only know our own soul. This explains why the denial of God is followed by the denial of the soul, and conversely. The pagans denied the one God, and they also denied the existence of a soul.
5. This one God is infinitely perfect, and cannot be comprehended by human thought. He is incomprehensible and inscrutable. We can obtain an imperfect knowledge of Him from His works. Creation gives a knowledge of the Logos, through whom God has made the world ; and through the Logos — the channel of revelation, we have knowledge of the Father. But from the works of God we know what God is not, rather than what He is. He is incorporeal, immutable, all-sufficient. He is the Good, and more than the Good. He transcends being itself. It is supreme folly to identify Him with the created world, or with any part of it. The gods of the heathens are phantoms conjured up by the diseased imaginations of men.
6. The soul of man is a spiritual substance, essentially distinct from the body. The irrational beast concerns itself only with things present to its senses, and has neither the power to pass beyond these, nor even to render an account to itself of that which it perceives. But man's thought not only reaches to things other than those present to his senses, but furthermore judges of the things presented to sense, and decides that one object is to be preferred to another. There must, therefore, exist in him some higher principle to which belong the functions thus distinguished from the functions of sense. Again, man's faculty of thought can rise to a sphere which transcends all experiences. He can contemplate and can love things perishable and mortal, but he can under stand and love the imperishable and the immortal as well. How could this be, if he had not in himself some element of being which does not pass and is not doomed to die ?
7. Again, it is a law of the senses that, when they are directed to their proper object, and this object is within their reach, they cannot cease to act upon the object in question. This being so, how shall we explain the phenomenon that man not unfrequently diverts his senses from the proper object and forbids them to enjoy it, unless we assume that there exists in him some principle of action different from the body, and hold-
PHILOSOPHY OF TMK CHRISTIAN ERA. 241)
ing control over the senses ? It is only because he is possessed of a spirit ual soul that man becomes capable of receiving the law which commands good and forbids evil. Suppose him deprived of tin's spiritual soul, and he can no more distinguish good from evil, and elect between both, than can the beast.
8. The human will is free, and this freedom is the root of the good and the evil in man. Evil is not a positive entity ; it is merely a privation. Man is bound to use his liberty to know and love God : this is goodness ; should he turn from God and to the things of sense, this want of the knowledge and love of God is evil. For this he is responsible to God, for he has not been overborne by any external force, but has deliberately incurred the guilt himself.
9. With Athanasius are connected two remarkable men, who, from their early youth, were bound together by the closest ties of friendship, Basil the 'Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Basil was born in CaDsarea of Cappadocia, about A.D. 330, he received his education first at Constanti nople and then at Athens, and subsequently became Archbishop of Cacsarea, where he was a foremost champion of the Church in her struggle with Arianism (379). Gregory, on the other hand, was born at Nazianzus, in the south-west of Cappadocia, about the same year, A.D. 330. He too received his education at Athens ; while here he formed the acquaintance of Basil, and a friendship was cemented which united them closely for the remainder of their lives. Gregory became, at a later period, Bishop of Constantinople, and in this capacity laboured strenuously in the cause of Faith. The intrigues of the Arians ulti mately forced him to resign his See, and he thereupon withdrew into retirement (390).
10. To the works of both these writers the remark made with reference to Athanasius will apply. The defence of the dogma of the Trinity and a fuller study of its signifi cance was their chief task, though they sometimes discussed other theological themes. Both held Origen in profound veneration. Of Basil's writings the most important for the history of philosophy are the Ilexwrneron, his Homiliex, and the treatise Contra Eunomitim. Gregory was an orator ; his so-called theological discourses are amongst the best examples of oratory that have come to us from the age in which he lived..
11. The contest with Eunomius in which these two Fathers (as well as Gregory of Nyssa) engaged, is particularly worthy of notice. Eunomius, with Aetius, belonged to the sect known as Anomians — a sect which dis sented from the more extreme forms of Arianism. To maintain the fundamental Arian doctrine, and to combat the unity of essence (o^uoouo-ta) in the Trinity, Eunomius, with Aetius, maintained two singular pro positions with regard to our knowledge of God :
(a) In the first place he rejected wholly the notion of a knowledge of God derived from created things, i.e., through the Logos. He held the Logos to be a mere creature, and he could not, in consequence, allow the world, which the Logos had created, to be a revelation of Qod, or a means of attaining knowledge of Him. Accordingly he assumed our knowledge of God to be direct and immediate, and asserted that to know God we have no need of created things or other medium. Pursuing this idea, he maintained that
250 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
this immediate knowledge of God is ail exhaustive knowledge, and he consequently denied that God is incomprehensible. He knew God, he asserted, as well as he knew himself, or even better.
((>) But this was not all. He further held that between the attributes we assign in thought to God there is no difference whatever — not even a difference tear iirivmav (vir tual distinction). The assumption that the Divine Being is known directly and imme diately in all His fulness led him logically to the conclusion that no distinction is admissible between the essential attributes of God. If we admit the simplicity of the Divine Being, we are forced to admit that all the names applied to God are alike in significance, that they all designate directly and immediately the Divine Being in His completeness. Nor can it be asserted that God's attributes are distinguishable KOT' iirivoiav. For what is merely notional (icar' iirivoiav) has no existence except in terms or words, and vanishes with the utterance of the words. Our language is true only when it responds to existent objects. When one and the same object is designated by several names, either these names have no difference of meaning, or the differences exist in the object as well as in the names. The latter alternative is inadmissible with reference to God, because of His absolute sim plicity of being ; the former only can be allowed : that is to say, all names applied to the attributes of God are of equal significance ; between these attributes no differences exist.
12. The orthodox teachers strenuously combated these opinions. Basil and the two Gregories insisted strongly on the principle that the Divine Being exceeds our comprehension, and that we have not an im mediate knowledge of God, but know Him only from His works. This contention involved the denial of the other assertion that between the terms applied to God, i.e., between the Divine attributes, no distinction is allowable. "In point of fact," says Basil, (Cont. Eunom. I. 2.) " if what Eunomius asserts were true, it would follow that we might at will substi tute one of the Divine Names for another, just as we name the same apostle Peter or Cephas or Simon indifferently. Thus if I were asked what I mean by Supreme Judge I might answer, the Incrcated, and if asked what is signified by the term Justice, I might answer, Incorporeal Being. This is evidently absurd."
13. We must, therefore, allow a distinction of meaning (at least KaTtirivoiav} between the terms we apply to God. If it is true that we have not an immediate knowledge of God, nor comprehend Him in all the infinitude of His Being, but only obtain a practical knowledge of Him from his works, it must follow that we contemplate the being of God from various points of view, according to the various ways in which He reveals Himself in created things. Aid this being so, there must thence result different concepts by which we represent God to ourselves, and different names by which we designate Him ; and these different con cepts and different names, because of the distinction thus established between them, must not be exchanged with one another. We might assert as much as this with reference to objects of the least importance ; for example, we conceive differently the grain of corn as product of a vegetable growth, and as seed, and again as an article of food, and we apply different names to it accordingly. No one will, however, contend that these concepts and these names express one and the same thing, though they are applied to one and the same object.
14. The absolute oneness of the Divine Being is not denied or even imperilled by this doctrine. Light, Vine, Way, Life, Shepherd, etc., do not signify the same thing, and yet one and the same Christ is designated
OF THE CHRISTIAN KKA.
by all these terms. "The Divine Nature," says Basil, (C. Eunow. I. 12.) " is one, simple, formally indivisible (/uovoEt&jc), and without constituent parts ; but the human mind, attached to the earth and enclosed within an earthly body, being unable to attain the clear conception after which it strives, must represent to itself the Ineffable Being partially, and under various forms in a multiplicity of concepts ; it cannot succeed in com prehending in one conception the object of its thought." " They think unworthily of the Divine Being," says Gregory of Nazianzus (Or. 45, ad Eragr.), "who hold that, as the names applied to God are many, so the things signified by these names are manifold also. We know that the Being signified is absolutely indivisible, absolutely simple, though, for our advantage He submits Himself to a certain division in our thoughts." Cfr. Kleutgen. Philosophic der Vorzeit. Vol. I., p. 309.
GREGORY OF NYSSA, SYNESIUS, AND NEMESIUS. § 71.
1. Gregory of Nyssa is the third member of that remarkable group — " the three great Cappadocians " (Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa). He deserves from us a notice apart, because his place in the history of philosophy is much more important than that of the other two, whose renown was achieved principally in the field of theology and rhetoric. His philosophy is characterised by a strong leaning to the views of Origen and the Neo-Platonists, a tendency which led him to introduce into his writings many opinions which do not merit unqualified approval. It has, no doubt, been contended by many critics, that Gregory's writings have been largely interpolated by the Origenists ; but many opinions derived from Origen are so closely identified with his whole line of thought that their introduction cannot be accounted for by any theory of interpolation.
2. Gregory of Nyssa, born A.D. 331, was a younger brother of St. Basil. At the close of his school career he adopted the teaching of rhetoric as a profession. Later on, he became Bishop of Nyssa. He was one of the ablest supporters of the Church against Arianism, and maintained strenuously the struggle for the Faith during the lifetime of his brother Basil, and more strenuously still after his death. It was his endeavour to prove by philosophic arguments, to believers and unbelievers alike, the truth of the Christian religion and its divine origin, and then to make it acceptable to all. He took a prominent part in the Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381). He died A.D. .S<)4.
3. The writings of Gregory of Nyssa are very numerous. We shall mention only those that are of special interest to the philosopher. To this class belong : (a) The Dialogue De Anima et tjint Remirrectione ; (b) the treatise Contra Eunomium ; (c) the Hextemeran ; (d) De Hominin Ojrijicio ; (e) the Oratio Catechetica (Xtlyof (car»/x»;r*ic<'>*) ; (/) Deeo,(jitid Kit Ad imaijinem et similitudinem Dei ; (y) De Anlma ; (h) JJe I'M qui prcemature ul>/'ij>iuntur ; (i) De Mortuis ; (k) Contra Fatum ; (1) In dictum Apostoli, Tune etiam ipae Filius sulji- cietur, etc.; (m) De vita Mosin ; (n) Jti Christi Re#urrectionem ; (o) In verba, Faciamtt* hominem, etc. ; Oratt., etc.
252 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
4. Like Basil, Gregory of Nyssa controverts at every point the preten sions of the Anomians, who claimed to have comprehensive know ledge of the being of God. lie calls constant attention to the limits imposed on human knowledge. It is certain that sensible objects exist : it is equally certain that we have not an exhaustive knowledge of their being. Nay, we do not even possess perfect knowledge of our own being ; we cannot, for example, understand fully the mode in which our soul is united with our body. How much farther are we from posses sing a comprehensive knowledge of God ! The incomprehensibility of God is a point which must be unequivocally maintained.
5. While thus restricting the compass of human knowledge within due limits, Gregory is far from denying to man all power of attaining truth. He holds, on the contrary, that man's knowledge is his highest privilege — that gift in which the lofty nature of man's soul and its re semblance to God is made manifest. He dwells at length on the proofs which establish the existence and unity of God. The leading proof for God's existence appears to him to be the skilful and wise disposition of things in the universe ; his proof for the unity of God is founded on the " Supreme perfection of God in power, goodness, wisdom, eternity and every other attribute — a perfection which vanishes if we suppose the Divinity divided among a plurality of gods."
6. But in combating the polytheism of the heathens we must not be betrayed into the abstract monotheism of the Jews. Christianity holds an intermediate position between these two extremes, teaching as it does the triple personality of God. " God possesses a Logos," says Gregory. " He cannot be without reason. This Logos cannot be a mere attribute of God ; it must form a second Person in God. God is infinitely perfect, His Logos must be infinitely more perfect than the logos in man. It cannot, as in man, be something limited, nor can it, like speech in man, possess only transient existence ; it must be an eternal and living Hypos- tasis (Person), endowed with the same power and the same will as the Father." We may reason in like manner with regard to the Holy Ghost. Instituting a comparison with the breath we draw — which, however, is merely a current of air, an object quite different from ourselves — Gregory endeavours to prove the identity of substance between the Holy Ghost and God. In this way he establishes his contention that Christianity occupies an intermediate position between Judaism and paganism — hold ing with the Jews as to the unity of nature, holding with the pagans as to the plurality of persons. The question why the three Divine Persons are not three Gods, is answered by the statement that these three are not individuals of one species, but different Hypostases of one and the same Divine Essence.
7. Creation is a work of Divine power, wisdom and love. The world was created by the Divine Logos, not from necessity, but from an excess of love. God wished to share the riches of the Divinity with other beings. Participation in these riches only rational beings are capable of ; it follows that the whole visible world is destined for the service of man. For man's sake the world was created — to enable man to know God through
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 253
the work of creation, and, ultimately, to share in God's eternal happi ness.
8. The question here arises : how composite, changeable, in a word, corporeal beings could be produced by a Being who is Himself absolutely simple, incorporeal, and immutable ? We may not be able to say how all this has been effected, but we can give a sufficient answer to the question proposed if we consider the nature of the body. The body is composed of constituent elements which, considered in themselves, are purely of the ideal order, mere potencies, such as quality, quantity, figure, size, colour, etc. If, in thought, we abstract these elements from the body, nothing whatever remains. The body is, therefore, constituted by the combination of these qualities which, in themselves, are incor poreal. Fundamentally, therefore, and considered in its elements, it is something incorporeal. If this is so, the problem is solved ; it becomes intelligible that the body, being in its essence something incorporeal, can have been created by an incorporeal being. This explanation, it is evident, rests wholly on notions derived from Origen and the Neo- Platonists.
9. Gregory holds the soul of man to be an incorporeal, spiritual essence. In proof of this he appeals to the function of intelligence, to the faculty of speech, to the erect posture of the human body, to the conformation of the bodily organs, especially of the hand which is clearly destined to serve the needs of a rational being, and lastly to the fact that the soul does not subsist by material food, that it feeds on what is incorporeal — on ideal truth. If the soul were a composite being there would exist some principle of unity within it. And were this principle composite, a further principle of union would have to be supposed, and the hypothesis before made would have to be repeated. The process can not be prolonged into infinity, and we must, therefore, ultimately arrive at a principle which is simple and immaterial.
10. There is but one soul in man. Man consists of body and soul. Gregory knows nothing of a third constituent element. The body has life from the soul, and from the soul only ; the soul is its principle of vitality, and this one soul possesses at once the vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual powers. As regards the vegetative and sensitive faculties, the soul is dependent upon the body, and can exercise these faculties only in and through the body ; in its intellectual functions it is superior to the body, and is unaided by corporeal organs. Man is thus the Mic rocosm — he represents in himself the being of inanimate things, the life of plants, the sensitive nature of animals, and the intelligence of the angels. Furthermore, he is created to the image of God, inasmuch as the unbegotteu Psyche gives birth to the votpoc Xoyot;, and the vovq issues from both. We cannot fully comprehend the mode of union between soul and body, but this at least is certain that the soul is sub stantially present in every portion of the body. The body is the mirror of the soul, and the soul being the mirror of God, the body is the mir ror of this mirror.
11. It is not by mere chance that the soul is united to the body ; it
254 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
is of its nature destined to this union. The doctrine of the pro-exist ence of souls is, therefore, absurd. A further argument for this view appears in this, that the hypothesis of pre-existence makes sin the sole explanation of man's origin — an explanation which is not only absurd in itself, but, furthermore, makes it impossible that man should be delivered from sin, for it makes sin the very condition of his existence. The soul came into existence with the bod}'' ; living things generate only living things : it follows that the human embryo must be animated from the beginning. The origin of the soul must not, however, be accounted for by generation, the soul is created immediately by God.
12. Gregory maintains the freedom of the human will. Reason es sentially implies liberty, for the power to distinguish good from evil would be meaningless unless the will could elect between the good and the evil. Moreover, without liberty, all virtue, foresight, merit and culpa bility would be impossible. In liberty we have, therefore, the source of evil. The body is not evil in itself, and is not the cause of evil ; for it is God's creation. Evil is not a positive entity. It is the absence of good, the deflection of the will from the good which is positive being — that which ought to exist.
13. Up to this point Gregory's psychological views are above re proach. But other opinions follow which cannot receive the same com mendation. Gregory distinguishes between the true nature of man, and other elements which may be regarded as a mperadditum. The true being of man consists in his reason, which is created like to God ; what is ir rational in man, v.g., the material body with its sexual differences, and the faculties of sense, are extraneous to the reason or true nature of man, an adjunct of it, something superadded to it. Gregory compares the irrational faculties, with their appetites, tendencies and passions to ulcers which have fastened on the original nature of man, and which are, therefore, opposed to reason. In accordance with these notions he interprets the double narrative of the creation of man which we find in Genesis. He holds that the "man created after the image and likeness of God " is the true man, the ideal man whose being is reason ; whereas the " Adam " whom God formed from the earth, and into whom he breathed the soul, is the man of our experience, the man who is burdened with a material body and unreasoning faculties. But the question im mediately presents itself : Why is the true nature of man burdened with these additions ? This question Gregory answers as follows : —
14. The first man was placed by God in a state resembling that of the angels. His nature was pure and was not disfigured by union with elements extraneous to itself. He had not a material body, nor was there in him any mark of sexual difference ; he was free from un reasoning passions, not subject to suffering and death. In a word he was the perfect, the ideal man. If he had not sinned he would have continued to live in this state. Mankind would not have been propagated by the sexual reproduction of individuals, the existence of individual men would have been effected as the angelic nature is multiplied ; they would have been produced at once as a large but numerically definite multitude of individuals.
1'HII.osol'HY dl' Mil. MIKKilVN IK\. 255
15. But us God foresaw that man would sin, He invested the purer nature of man with a body of flesh. This was a new act on the part of the Creator, distinct from that act by which He created (the ideal) man after His image and likeness, and therefore it is related apart in the sacred narrative. The origin of man, as we now know him, is to be traced to sin, inasmuch as man's sin was foreseen by God, and God's action was deter mined in accordance with the prevision. In consequence of his descent to the level of the beast, man assumed the peculiarities of the brute. Unreasoning appetites and passions asserted themselves in him ; he be came subject to pain and death, and the human species became sexually differentiated. Human nature could no longer be multiplied in indivi duals after the manner of the angels, its increase would have to be accom plished by carnal procreation, and would, in consequence, be effected successively in time. The story of man's fall, as narrated in Scripture, is, according to Gregory, an allegory in which all this is signified. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is sensuality, under the influence of which evil appears as good to the unreasoning appetites ; the skins with which God clothed the h'rst man after the fall are nothing else than the body of flesh ; and so of the rest.
16. But though the material body with which man is invested and the unreasoning appetites that prevail in it are the consequence of sin, they, nevertheless, are not an unmixed evil for man. In God's design they are given as a means to moral perfection — to virtue. The appetites of sense are not wicked in themselves, they become wicked only by the im proper use made of them by the will. If reason asserts its authority over them, if it does not permit them unwarranted excesses, but uses them for purposes of good, they become the means and instruments of virtue. And such, in the plan of God, they should be. The grace of the Redeemer, is, however, necessary to enable man to carry out God's de sign in this respect. This leads us to Gregory's doctrine on the subject of Redemption :
17. It was intended that man should return to his original condition, and again attain supreme happiness in God. To make this possible for him, the Logos came down to earth, assumed human nature, and accom plished the work of redemption. He undertook to deliver man from the do- nion of Satan, and to lead him back to God. But it was not by putting forth His power that the Redeemer set Himself to conquer Satan. By atoning for the sin of man, He would acquire a right over man, a right which would abrogate the power which Satan had acquired over man in consequence of his sin. For this purpose He gave His life as a ransom for us. By taking upon Himself human nature, and shrouding therein His Godhead, He outwitted Satan, for Satan was thus led to incite his followers to bring about the Redeemer's death, and in this way co-operated in effecting the saving atonement.
IS. That man may participate in the Redemption, he must, as a primary requirement, possess the grace that admits him to its benefits. When he has been sanctified by Faith and the Sacraments, it is then his duty to renounce the lusts of flesh, and to live for virtue. Christ lias crushed the head of the serpent, but He has left the tail, that we may be
256 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
confirmed in goodness by the struggle against passion. Man in his creation, was made the image of Grod ; it lies within his own power to make the likeness perfect ; to do this is the essential task set him in life. He will attain this end if he strives at all times, and according to the measure of his powers, to imitate Christ, the ideal and perfect model of Christian life.
19. Gregory's teaching closes in his eschatology : Christ having risen from the dead, and entered into glory, has in His own person restored human nature to that original ideal condition from which it fell through sin. But that nature, as individualised in the multitude of men, has not yet been restored to its primal state. Nor can it be thus restored till the number of the human race is numerically complete. Ultimately this race must attain numerical completeness — this the law of human nature demands, for the number of individuals in whom this nature must attain actual existence is definitely fixed. It is only,, when, by the process of carnal procreation, man's nature has attained existence in all the individuals who are destined to possess it, that it can return thus individualised to its formal condition. "When this has been accomplished, the Apocatastasis (Restoration) will be universal, and will embrace all human creatures without exception.
20. It follows that the punishment inflicted on the wicked in the life to come, will be merely purificatory. After death they are subjected to the pain of fire, in the measure deserved by their misdeeds. This fire will gradually consume what is carnal and sinful in the souls of the wicked, at their departure out of this life, so that after a longer or shorter period of punishment these souls will be thoroughly purified, and delivered from everything that offends reason or partakes of sin. The cleansing pain to which the wicked are subjected in the life to come may be compared to the purifying of gold by fire. Fire separates the dross from the gold and restores the metal to its pure state : of like effect will be the process which the souls of the wicked are destined to undergo.
21. "When the human race has finally reached numerical completeness, the Resurrection will follow. As to the possibility of a Resurrection no doubt is possible. For, though the elements of the body are scattered to all the winds after death, the soul, in virtue of its natural love for the body, in a certain sense remains united to them still. And this union i& possible to the soul, because, being a simple substance, it has no need of actual extension to maintain union with these elements, wherever they may be. This union being maintained, the soul is enabled to draw to itself the scattered elements with which it is united. In this way we may assure ourselves of 'the possibility of the Resurrection. The body- will, however, rise in the glorified state, and will not, therefore, exhibit difference of sex, nor any of the characteristics of irrational nature.
22. The Resurrection is followed by the Last Judgment. Those who are then found entirely pure will enter forthwith into glory — the rest are gain consigned to the punishment of fire. But their punishment will not be eternal. A time must come when evil will be utterly extirpated
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 257
from the realm of being, for as evil has not been from eternity, so will it not exist for eternity. Those therefore who, after the Last Judgment, are consigned to further punishment, will, sooner or later, be wholly purified and enter into glory. And man's nature in every individual in whom it is represented will finally be glorified to the measure of the glory of Christ. Even the demons themselves will at length acknowledge the sovereignty of Christ, and the Apocatastasis will be universal, without any exception whatever. When this consummation has been achieved, then will God be all in all, for all will be in God, and God will be in all.
23. We have here set forth the doctrines of Gregory of Nyssa as we find them in his works. Whether we take these doctrines as his own throughout, or whether we hold that much has been interpolated by the Origenists, we cannot but allow that the general tone of his philoso phical opinions indicates the influence upon his mind of the doctrines of Origen and the Neo-Platonists. Wherever he deals with purely dog matic questions we find him entirely in harmony with the sense of the Church ; where he enters upon the field of philosophic speculation, the peculiar opinions of Origen and the Neo-Platonists appear prominently in his teaching. The peculiar views which he was thus led to form seem to have been regarded as mere eccentricities of private opinion. This is proved by the high reputation for orthodoxy which he has always enjoyed in the Church. His faith in the dogmas of Christianity being above suspicion, the Church did not make much account of the peculiarities of his philosophical opinions.
24. The same cannot be said of Synesius of Gyrene, for this philoso pher set his own opinions above Christian truth. He was born in the year 375, was first a Neo-Platonist, then became a Christian, a priest, and finally a bishop. The lady-philosopher, Hypatia, was his teacher, and throughout his after-career he maintained a friendly intercourse witli her. He did not believe in the ultimate destruction of the world, was inclined to a belief in the pro-existence of souls, admitted the immortality of the soul, but held the doctrine of the Resurrection to be merely a sacred allegory. In his public teaching he taught the current dogmas of belief, on the ground that myths are necessary for the crowd ; the pure unimaginative truth is accessible only to a few, and would only blind the weak eyes of the multitude. His notion of God is more Neo-Platonic than Christian. He represents God as " the unit of unities, the monad of monads, undifferentiated in contrarieties, which, issuing forth in inef fable fashion in the forms first-born from it, receives a three-fold shape — the transcendent source of Being crowned by the beauty of its children, which come forth from its centre, and stand in order around that centre. This eternal spirit, divided without division, entered into matter, and the world received form and motion, and in those who have fallen to this nether world it became a force to raise them again to heaven."
25. The same Neo-Platonic views are shared by Nemesius, bishop of Emesa, in Phoenicia, who lived, it is probable, towards the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century. In his work DC Naturu
18
258 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
Hominis, he combats the doctrine of the creation of souls on the ground that everything which has a beginning in time must be perishable and mortal, and that the created world must be supposed imperfect if souls are constantly being created. He, therefore, declares himself in favour of the doctrine of pre-existence. Everything supersensuous is eternal, the soul as well as other things. The corporeal and the incorporeal alike have been created from nothing, but the former has a beginning and an end, the latter has neither. The corporeal world will not, however, perish, for God will not destroy what rightly fulfils its end.
26. Origen's theory of the pre-existence of souls had, as we have seen, many sup porters, but it had also many antagonists. Foremost amongst these was jEneas of Gaza, a teacher of rhetoric in Egypt (about A.D. 487). He contends, in his work Theophrastus, that the soul, if it had existed before the body, would preserve a recollection of this earlier life ; and besides it is contrary to reason to inflict punishment for a fault of which the delinquent has no recollection. The life of the soul in the body cannot be a punishment, for the differences of external fortune, to which appeal is made, are not evidence of good or evil ; free will explains everything. Furthermore, the life of the soul before its union with the body would have been useless and superfluous, since the soul is of its nature pre pared for union with the body. ./Eneas also combats the doctrine of the eternity of the world. To the objection that in the supposition of a beginning of the world, God must previously have been inactive, he replies by reminding us of the life in the Trinity of Divine Persons — which God has lived eternally, and in which He is eternally active.
27. Following in the line of argument indicated by .ZEneas, in his attack upon the theory of an eternal world and of the pre-existence of souls, we find Zacharias Scholasti- cus, bishop of Mytilene (about A.D. 536), and Joannes Philoponus of Alexandria, a Monophysite (about the middle of the sixth century) and a commentator of Aristotle. The last mentioned writer incurred the accusation of teaching Tritheism, from the man ner in which he applied to the Trinity the Aristotelian doctrine, that "substantial
existence in the fullest sense of the word belongs to all individuals." He also adopts the theory of a triple soul in man — the vegetative, the sensitive, and the rational ; and holds that they are described as one soul because all these are mutually interdependent, and
.,11 .1 „. .1 TT- 1 • xl_ - T> .-i 1 J.L _ -
united by mutual sympathy. He explains the Resurrection, not by the restoration of life to the bodies formerly possessed by men, but by the creation of bodies entirely new.
PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, MAXIMUS CONFESSOR, AND
JOHN OF DAMASCUS. § 72.
1. The blending of Neo-Platonic with Christian notions is carried to the highest point in the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. The works of this author which have come down to us are a treatise De Divinis Nominilus, the Tlicologia Mystica, and the books De Coclesti ct Eccksiastica Hicrarchia, as well as ten " Letters." Other writings of the same author, to which allusion is made in the works we have quoted, amongst which is a Theologia Symbotica, have been lost. Critics are now agreed that these writings are not the work of the St. Dionysius the Areopa gite, of whom mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles, but of an anonymous writer who lived, most probably, in the latter decades of the fifth century, and who published his writings under the name of St. Dionysius, in order to secure them a greater notoriety.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. '2~)'.t
2. The writings in question are mentioned for the first time in the Monophysite con- rsy. Tin- S.-verians, a moderate section of the Monophysites, had, by command of
the Emperor Justinian, held a conference witli certain Catholic bishops at Constantinople, and in the conference they made appeal to the writings of Dionysiusthe Are.op i^iti-. in defence of their peculiar Monophysite doctrines. But the spokesman of the Catholic bishops, 1 1 vpatius, at once questioned their genuineness. Xo further dispute was for a time raised on this subject, and the works in question came eventually to be held in high estimation. This was particularly the case when the Popes Gregory, Martin, and Agatno quoted them in their writings. A coiumentury on these writings, composed by Maximus Confessor, a man of approved orthodoxy, contributed still more to establish them as authoritative. In the middle ages they were translated by Scotus Erigena, and thence forward their influence was still further enhanced. The Scholastics as well as the Mystics, drew largely upon them, and the most remarkable of the Scholastic writers not only quoted them freely, but even wrote lengthened commentaries upon them.
3. The influence of Neo-Platonism is specially prominent in these treatises. For the most part they follow Plotinus, but there also appears in them evidence of the influence of later members of the same school, such as lamblichus and Proclus, with both of whom they concur in exalting the One, not merely alx>ve the Existent, but also above the Good. Regarded from the standpoint of orthodox Faith, they are capable of an interpretation which is compatible with orthodox belief, and in this sense they were interpreted by the Christian teachers who undertook to explain them. But if the Neo-Platonic views con tained in them were strongly insisted on, they might easily give occasion to many errors — a result to which, in later times they did, in fact, lead.
4. According to the teaching of " Dionysius," God is exalted above all being, and above all qualifications of being, infinite in his self-existence. No predicates, therefore, can be attributed to Him, in the sense in which they are attributed to created objects. For God there is no name, no concept ; His inaccessible Being is lifted above all names and above all concepts ; the notion of the Good itself is not one with the notion of the Godhead, the latter transcends the notion of the Good as all others. God is transcendent being, trauscendently good, transcendentlv perfect. He is, therefore, in the strict sense of the word, the Ineffable. Transcending, as he does, all being and all perfection, He is beyond the range of every intellect, and every faculty of knowledge*
5. Though God is exalted above all being and above all qualities of being, He is, nevertheless, the cause of all being ; and since the cause must include in itself a priori whatever is in the effect, He must include in Himself all the perfections that belong to existent being. But we must not predicate these perfections of Him in the sense in which we predicate them of created objects, but in a far higher meaning. All the while, we must remember these predicates do not give us knowledge of Grod as He is in Himself ; in this respect He is above all predicates. In using terms of this kind, we are merely endeavouring to briiig God nearer to ourselves, we employ them to gain some glimpse of the transcendent being of God, and to state in some way our knowledge.
6. We must, in accordance with these principles, distinguish two kinds of theology — a positive and a negative. The positive or affirmative theology attributes all perfections to God, represents Him as infinitely wise, just, good, etc. The negative theology, on the other hand, denies
* According to " Dionysius," the following are the degrees of the ascending scale which leads to God. First we have the spirit or reason, more general than reason is sensation, more general than sensation is life, more general than life is being, more eneral than being is the Good, and lastly, above the Good is the Divine.
260 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
all such perfections in God, and aims at comprehending that being which absolutely transcends predicates of all and every kind. If we compare together these two kinds of theology, we shall' find the negative to be unquestionably the more excellent ; for by this method we make the nearest approach to understanding God in His exaltation above all other things. But negative theology itself is not the highest ; for the exalted being of God not only transcends positive predicates, it trans cends negative predicates also ; they do not give us knowledge of God as He is in Himself. The highest theology of all, as we shall presently see, is mystical theology.
7. All created things have ideal existence in God. The Holy Scrip ture styles ideas, as they exist in God, 7r/ooo/otoy/oue. These ideas are not merely archetypes of things, they are formative forces as well. By means of these ideas, created things come forth from God in their actual reality. This issuing of all things from God is thus explained : God in His transcendent elevation cannot allow His goodness to be unproductive ; the infinite goodness of God overflowed, as it wrere, and God, without losing His transcendental state and His absolute unity, diffused Himself through the universe of things, all of which, in their fashion, were thus made to partake of the Divine Being. A voice is heard by many ears, and a light is seen by many eyes, but, though thus diffused, the light and voice do not lose themselves while thus spread : so it is with the diffusion of the Divine Being in things created.
8. The further doctrines which "Dionysius" lays down with regard to creation are in accordance with these views. He asserts that, in creation, God multiplied Himself, in a certain sense, without however losing His unity ; that, without ceasing to exist in Himself, He went out of Himself, as it were, and diffused Himself through the multitudinous objects of creation ; that God is the universal being, that He exists in everything, and comes into being in everything. " Dionysius" even asserts that the being of all things is no other than the transcendental being of God. This notwithstanding, God, according to his view, is not a portion of the universe, nor anything existing in the universe ; admitting no ad mixture of any extraneous element, God stands aloof from the universe, and maintains Himself eternally in this transcendental state. Just as the sun sheds its light over everything outside itself, so does God diffuse His goodness through all things, without prejudice to His unity or His tran scendent elevation.
9. And as all things issue from God, so do all things tend to return to Him again. The reason of this, too, is to be found in His goodness. In virtue of His infinite goodness all things go forth from God ; in virtue of this same goodness He attracts them to Himself again. God's goodness diffuses itself in all things, but in thus diffusing itself it forms a bond which attaches all things to God — a chain which binds them all to Him. God is at once the first cause and final end of all things, and He is the one and the other because of His infinite goodness.
10. It will be observed that this doctrine, which makes all things issue from God, borders very closely on the Emanation theory of the
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 2G1
Neo-Platonists. It is true that "Dionysius" holds fust to the principle that things did not exist before they issued from God, and thus distinctly asserts that Creation had a beginning. We are, therefore, justified in Diving a favourable interpretation to the formulas of Neo-Platonism in which he has embodied the Christian notions ; and we may regard the principle that the being of things is the transcendental being of God, as applied only to the ideal being of things. But it is clear that doctrines thus formulated may give rise to very serious misconceptions, and may lead to very dangerous consequences. Of this we shall have proof later.
11. In consonance with these, the fundamental principles of his system, — "Dionysius," in his work DC Coelesti et Ecclcsiastica Hie rare/tin, makes God the centre of the spheres which are formed by the orders of created things. Around the Divine centre creatures arrange themselves, so to speak, in concentric circles; in such fashion, however, that these circles represent ever diminishing grades of perfection, the diminution in per fection being proportioned to the distance from the common centre. This gradually descending scheme of concentric orders of being is so bound together that each degree exerts a purifying, illuminating, and perfecting influence on that which stands immediately beneath it, and in this way unites it with one common centre. This arrangement of the orders of being, the vital relation thus established between them, is styled by " Dionysius," the Hierarchy of Things."
12. u Dionysius" further distinguishes between the celestial and the ecclesiastical hierarchies. The former is constituted by the three orders of angels — the h'rst consisting of the Thrones, the Seraphim, and the Cheru bim ; the second of the Dominations, the Virtues, the Powers; and the third of the Principalities, the Archangels, and the Angels. The ecclesiastical hierarchy, on the other hand, consists of Priests and People, each division being sub-divided into three orders. The former is divided into Bishops, Priests, and Ceremonial Ministers, of which the last is the purifying, the second the illuminating, and the third the perfecting order. The hierarchy, of the Laics consists of the perfect (the Monks), the sanctified laity, and the people unsanctified. In this way is constituted the scheme of hierarchical life — a scheme which is founded upon and determined by the Sacraments. Highest in the hierarchical system, and centre of the whole, is Christ. The ultimate purpose of this hierarchical arrangement is the deification or divinisation of man — a purpose which is achieved by mystical elevation.
13. To raise himself to this mystical eminence, in other words, to attain to immediate contemplation of God, man must rise above all things sensuous and supersensuous, above the existent and the non-existent ; must reduce all his cognitive faculties, whether of sense or intellect, to absolute inaction, and, in this sacred silence, immerse himself in the primal Divine Unity, and bury himself in the gloom of the Divine Being. This is that " Sacred Ignorance" which is the highest form of knowledge. It is by not knowing God, that is, by making abstraction from all attributes whether positive or negative, and by thus representing
262 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
God to ourselves in Ilia absolute incomprehensibility, that we attain tlie highest knowledge granted to the human mind : God as He is in His transcendental being, as He is in Himself. The divine light has shrouded itself with the creatures that have proceeded from it, as with a veil, but in this mystical process we penetrate the veil and approach the eternal light in which God dwells. In this state man is deified. The whole teaching of "Dionysius" culminates in mysticism.
14. Maximus Confessor (580-662), followed the teachingof "Dionysius" on the one hand, and of Gregory of Nyssa on the other. He was one of the most learned and subtle theologians of his time, and defended the orthodox faith against the Monothelites as well as against the so-called Ecthesis of the Emperor Heraclius. Under Constans II. he suffered cruel tortures for his faith, and was then sent into exile, where he died at an advanced age. He was the author of several works, of a Com mentary on the writings of "Dionysius Areopagita," Qucestiones in Scrip- turam, a Mystagogia, and others. The greater part of his works were published by Combefisius (Paris, 1675).
15. The opinions of Maximus, with regard to the mystical life, deserve special mention. In order to rise to the mystical state, the soul must free itself wholly from the things of sense, it must then " pass beyond all thought of the existent and the non-existent ; detach itself wholly from its own faculties, and from the supersensuous faculty of thought ; then may it become united with God who is above all rational thought." This union is not so much an activity of soul as a passivity, for it is caused entirely by the action of divine grace — a notion which was put already forward by "Dionysius the Areopagite." In the present life this union is not attainable in its perfection, it can be consummated only in the life to come. With this doctrine Maximus connects the theory of the final restitution of all souls, with regard to which he adopts the peculiar views of Gregory of Nyssa. The means of accomplishing this end are furnished by the Incarnation of Christ ; the Incarnation is the climax of divine revelation, and would therefore, have taken place had there been no fall of man by sin.
16. The last of the Greek Ecclesiastical writers who claims a place in the history of Philosophy is the monk Joannes Damascenus. He was born at Damascus in Syria, towards the close of the seventh century, was a strenuous opponent of the iconoclasm of Leo the Isaurian, and suffered grievous persecution in consequence. He composed a work which he entitled the Fount of Knowledge, (irriyri yvuxrtatg). He begins with a short exposition of (Aristotelian) Ontology, connects with this his re futation of heresy, and concludes with a systematic exposition of the orthodox teaching, under the title De Fide Orthodoxa. In this work he declares he will not set down anything of his own, but will merely bring together, and arrange systematically, what has been the teaching of holy and learned men. In this undertaking Philosophy, and more especially Logic and Ontology, will give efficient aid, for which reason, he styles Philosophy the Ancilla tlicoloyice. This work has been held in high esteem in the East, even to our day ; the scholastics of the West, too, have been largely influenced by it in the exposition of their theological doctrines.
rillLOSOl'IIY OK THK CHRISTIAN KKA. 263
LATIN FATHERS AND ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS. HILARY, AMBROSE, JEROME. § 73.
1. The three names we have set at the head of this section belong properly to the history of Dogma, but the history of Philosophy must not pass them wholly by. Philosophy, however, holds only a secondary place in their writings, and therefore we may be brief in our notice of them. We shall do no more than concisely indicate the general character of their teaching, dwelling chiefly upon those points which are of special philosophic interest.
2. Hilary was born at Poitiers, and about the middle of the fourth century was raised to the episcopal See of that city, at the time when Arianism, under the favour of the Emperor Constantius, was gaming the mastery everywhere. He opposed an energetic resistance to the Arians, and was, in consequence, banished to Phrygia by Constantius. There he composed his chief work, De Trinitatc. At a 'later period he was re called from banishment, and died A.I). 368.
3. A glance at the work De Trinitatc shows us that Hilary was averse to unrestrained license of investigation in Divine things, and that he re quired such inquiries to be based on Faith. The first thing necessary is to believe whatever God has revealed. It is only when this point is secured that we can go on to investigate what we believe, in order to be able to render an account of the grounds of our Faith.
4. With these principles in view, Hilary sets himself to combat the tortuous reasonings of the Arians. He reviews all their arguments, com bats each of them in turn, and exposes the sophistries that underlie them. His logic is inexorable, his demonstrations convincing, his language is sometimes obscure, but the thoughts expressed are always striking. He is the enemy of sophistry of all kinds, and his reasoning is always bold and honest.
5. It is somewhat strange to find him asserting that the human soul is a corporeal substance. There is not, he maintains, anything created which is not of corporeal nature. The different kinds of souls, whether they be united to bodies, or whether they be free from bodies, receive from nature a corporeal substance, for everything that has been created must exist in something (Comment, in Jhitt/i., c. 5, 8). But he docs not understand by this corporeal " substance " of the soul a terrestrial, material, perishable body, and he is thus enabled elsewhere (Tract, in Ps. 52, 7 ; in Ps. 118, Jitt. 10, 7,) to speak of the soul as a simple substance. In this teaching he seems to follow Tertullian's views on the subject of the " spiritual body."
6. But in his theory regarding the origin of the soul, he is not in favour of Tertullian's fradiicianism ; he supports the theory of creation. In his view, the soul cannot receive its being in the same way as the body. The body alone is produced by carnal generation ; the soul is
264 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
created immediately by God, to God's image and likeness, and at the moment of its creation is united with the body.
7. Ambrose next claims our notice. He was born in Treves, A.D. 340, and was the son of the governor of that city. He betook himself to Rome for the study of law, and there became remarkable as an orator. Subsequently he was appointed governor of Milan, and while holding this office was elected Archbishop of the city by the clergy and people. He discharged his episcopal duties with apostolic zeal; his faith was unwavering, his life peace, and his devotion to the interests of his flock unremitting. He died A.D. 397.
8. In his literary labours St. Ambrose occupied himself chiefly with the explanation of the Scriptures. He adopted, throughout, the allegorical method, after the manner of Philo, and many of Philo's notions are found in his explanations. Among the works which exhibit this tendency, are the Hexacmeron, the treatises DC Isaac et Anima, DC Abraham, De llono Mortis, De Noe et Area, DC Pamdiso, De Cain et Abel, De Jacob et Vita Beata, etc. Of special interest to the philosopher is his work De Officm Ministrorum, a treatise of Christian ethics modelled on the work of Cicero.
9. The ethical system of St. Ambrose differs from that of the pagan philosopher primarily in this, that it makes eternal life beyond the grave the ultimate end of all morality and virtue. Eternal happiness in God is the high destiny of man, and virtue must be practised only lor the sake of this end. Apart from this purpose, virtue has no value. Whatever is ethically good is also useful for the attainment of man's final end, and conversely whatever is really useful is also morally good.
10. Virtue and morality having immediate reference to God, that is to happiness in God, it follows that piety (pietas), as manifested in the religious worship of God, is the foundation of all virtues. It is the im mediate basis of the four Cardinal Virtues — Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice, in which the moral life of man reveals itself and takes shape. Deflection from virtue is evil ; and the evil has its source, not in the body, not in some substance other than our own per sonality, but solely in our own free will, which turns away from the path of righteousness.
11. Jerome was a contemporary of Ambrose. He was born A.D. 346, completed his education at Rome, and, after receiving Baptism, retired to the desert of Chalcis, where he lived the life of a hermit. Subsequently, he quitted the desert, and betook himself to Antioch, where he was ordained priest, and thence travelled to Constantinople and to Rome. After the death of Pope Damasus, he returned to the East, and selected Bethlehem as his place of abode. At this time began the most remark able period of his literary activity. He died A.D. 420.
12. We need not mention that Jerome occupied himself principally with the translation and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, ami that his fame rests chiefly on the important services he rendered on this subject. Philosophical disquisitions are to be found here and there in his work. He describes the human soul as an invisible incorporeal being
PHILOSOPHY OF THK CHRISTIAN KK\. 265
(Com. in Er. Mtttth., iv., c. 27,) but adds the restriction, "secundum crassiorem dico nostri corporis substantiam." It would appear from this that ho shaml the views of Hilary regarding the nature of the soul. He does not seem to have formed any definite opinion as to the origin of the soul, but he distinctly rejects the theory of pre-existence, for in this hypothesis, he holds, the union of the soul with the body and, con sequently the Resurrection, would be contrary to nature.
AUGUSTINE. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE.
$ 74.
1. We have now reached the remarkable man in whom ihe philosophy of the Patristic period attained its highest development. We refer to St. Augustine. He is the great luminary of the period to which he belongs. llis great mind gathered together all the elementsof Christian philosophy hitherto called into existence, reduced them to systematic unity, and left them to succeeding ages as a systematic whole, for further study and investigation. The world does not often bring forth a genius like that of Augustine. Such depth of thought, such delicacy of discrimination, a spirit of inquiry so fruitful in results, such a genuine appreciation of the ideal, such conclusive reasoning, are not often found in one man to the same degree. God and the soul — these were the objects to which his investigations were mainly directed ; the whole effort of his mind found expression in the pregnant words: Noverim Te (Deus), noverim me !
2. Aurelius Angustinus was born at Tagaste in Numidia, A.I). 353. His father Patricias was a pagan, his mother Monica a Christian of exemplary piety. The extra ordinary intellectual gifts of the boy manifested themselves at an early age, but passion awoke in him at the same time in all its energy, a circumstance which caused much sor row to liis mother. He received his education successively at Tagaste, Madaura, and Carthage. The vice and the excesses with which he was brought in contact in Madaura and Carthage affected his moral character most perniciously. All the while his great mind was not idle, it was restlessly seeking a solution for the great problems of life. He believed such a solution was offered by the Manicheans, and he accordingly joined their sect. When his education was finished, he adopted the profession of teacher of rhetoric, and in this capacity taught at Carthage, at Rome, and at Milan. During his stay at Milan the turning point of his life was reached.
3. The contradictions involved in the Manichean doctrines had bewildered him, and he had in consequence adopted the scepticism of the Academy, when his study of the writings of Plato at last roused him from his sensual degradation and awoke in him the love of the ideal. The preaching of St. Ambrose exercised a still more powerful influence on the mind of the young man. Augustine had gone to hear the discourses of the bishop for the sake of thegracesofhis oratory, buthesoon went for the sake of the exalted teaching which was clothed in these charms of eloquence. A further influence was that of his mother, who had followed him from Rome, and whose prayers and counsels were added to the other gracious impulses brought to bear on him. The decisive moment came, and after struggle the grace of (Jod triumphed.
4. After his conversion, Augustine, with several of his friends, retired to the country seat of Cassiciacum, near Milan, and in the year 387 he received Baptism. At this date began his great literary activity in the service of the Church. In the year 391 circum stances arose which obliged him to make a journey to Hippo. There he was forced by
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PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
the people to receive priest's orders, and to act as assistant to the aged bishop of that See. On the death of the bishop, Augustine was unanimously elected to succeed him (395). In his new office he laboured indefatigably for the establishment of the Catholic Faith and Christian morality, and defended the doctrines of the Church with signal energy against the Manicheans, Donatists and Pelagians. He died A.D. 430.
5. Of the writings of St. Augustine, those are of special interest for the history of philo sophy which were written in the first years after his conversion. In the later years of his life he was occupied mainly with questions affecting religious dogmas, as during that period he was engrossed by his struggle with the Donatists, Manicheans, and Pelagians. To the earlier writings belong : — (a) The treatise Contra Academico* ; (b), De Vita Beata; (c), De Online ; and (d), theSoliloquia. These works were composed previous to his baptism at Cassiciacum. Before his baptism also, but after his return to Milan, were composed (e), the treatise De Immortalitate Aninuv ; (/), the work, De Grammatica ; (g), the treatises De Magistro; and(A), the Principia Dialect ices. During his journey from Milan to Africa, he composed at Rome, (i), the treatise De Quantitate Anima*.; (k), the three books De Libero Arbitrio ; (1), the books De Moribun Ecdesicn ; and (m), De Moribus Manich&orum. At Tagaste he composed the treatises (n), De Musica ; (o), De Genesi contra Manichasos ; and (p), De Vera Religione.
6. The works which he wrote as a priest and a bishop, and which are of chief interest to the philosopher are : — (a), De Doc.trina Christiana, Libri iv. ; (6), De Fide et Symbolo ; (c), Enchiridion de Fide, Spe et Caritate ; (d), De Utilitate Credevdi ; (e), De Agone Chrixtiano ; (/), De Genesi ad Litteram, Libri xii. ; De Fide contra Manichcvos ; (h), De Duabus Animis contra Manichceos; (i), Contra Fortunatutn Manich. ; (k) Contra Adimantum Manichcei Discipulum ; (1), Contra Faustum Manlchceum ; (m) De Spiritu et Littera ; (n) De Anima et ejus Origine; (o), De Actis cum Felice Manichceo; (p), De Natura Boni contra Manichceos ; (q,) Contra Epistolam Manichifi quam vacant Fundamenti ; (r), Contra Secundinum Manichwum ; (s), Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, etc.
7. But the works of St. Augustine which are the most important of all, both to the theologian and to the philosopher, are his great works De Civitate Dei in 22 books, and his work De Trinitate in 15 books. The latter of these was composed between A.D. 400 and 410 ; the former was begun A.D. 413 and completed A.D. 426. Of importance also to the philosopher are his Confessions which he wrote about A.D. 400. His letters, sermons, and commentaries on the Scripture also contain much that throws light upon his philosophical opinions. Of his writings against the Pelagians we may mention : — (a), Coiitra Julianum Pdacjianum ; (b), De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia ; (c), De Peccatorum Mentis et Remissione ; (d) Opus imperjectum contra Julianum Pel ag. ; (e) Contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum; (./) De Correptione et Gratia ; (g), De Natura et Gratia ; (h), De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio ; (i), De Prcedestinatione Sanctorum; (k), De Dono Perseverantitv; (I), De Peccato Originate ; etc. The Rftractationes were composed by Augustine a few years before his death ; in this work he reviews his entire system and corrects many points of his earlier teaching.
8. We have mentioned that Augustine, after his conversion, devoted his scientific inquiries chiefly to two subjects — God and the soul. For the conduct of his inquiries it was necessary that he should lay down a definite theory of knowledge which should serve as a basis on which to establish his system of investigation. In order to set forth clearly the philosophy of St. Augustine, it will be necessary to ex plain first the principles of his theory of knowledge ; we shall then proceed to his teaching regarding God and the creation of the world ; and lastly we shall deal with his doctrine regarding man, and the ethical theories which are connected with this portion of his system.
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. § 75.
1. At this point of our exposition, it is of chief importance to set forth Ihe relation which Augustine conceives to exist between reason
PHILOSOPHY OK Till-: < IIKISTIAN KRA. 'J'''7
and authority. All that we learn, he says, we learn either from authority or from reason. Faith is the result of the former process, knowledge is the result of the latter. In the order of time authority comes first, in the order of the nature of things, reason is the first and most excellent. The usual course when we learn a thing is that authority comes before reason. Authority offers the truth which faith thereupon accepts, but this process leads on to scientific knowledge. For reason is thus enabled to direct its attention to the truth given by authority, to acquire scientific knowledge of it, and to establish it on a scientific basis. The latter kind of knowledge is of its nature higher than a mere knowledge of faith. In this wise does faith become the basis, the condition, and the first beginning of scientific knowledge (I)c Orel., Lib. 2, c. 9.)
2. These general principles Augustine applies to determine the relation between Divine Revelation and human reason. In any scientific investigation of revealed truth, faith must precede knowledge, it must be the basis and antecedent condition of knowledge. In other words, the truths of divine revelation must be received by faith before we can attain a scientific or a speculative knowledge of them. Faith is therefore indispensable for man. This the more that sin has entangled man in the love of things of earth, and diverted him from the eternal ; and in consequence, faith has become necessary to man as a means of salvation, as the means by which he must reach truth, and thus attain salvation (De Vera Rclig., c. 24).
3. This being premised, we may now take up the theory of know ledge, strictly so called, which Augustine offers us. To every act of knowledge, he teaches, two factors concur — an object known, and a sub ject knowing. Of its nature, the object is antecedent to the subject — without an object no knowledge is possible. This principle is of uni versal application. Now, the objects of knowledge are of two kinds, the sensible and the supersensuous ; we may, therefore, distinguish in man two kinds of knowledge — experience and reason. Sense, or experience, is concerned with the sensible ; reason deals with the supersensuous or intelligible. These two kinds of knowledge are essentially distinct from one another.
4. But the question arises : Is certainty possible in knowledge ? The Academics deny this, inasmuch as they teach that mere probability is all that we cun attain. But, in the first place, such probability could not be had unless we suppose the knowledge of truth possible, for the probable is probable only because it is like truth ; and it is measured by comparison with truth. In the next place, probability would not, by any means, suffice to make us happy, whatever the Academics may say to the contrary. For, no one can be happy who does not possess that which he desires to possess, and no one searches who does not wish to find. He, therefore, who seeks truth without finding it, does not pos sess that which he wishes to possess, and cannot, consequently, be happy. Nor can such an one be said to be really wise ; for the sage, as such, must be happy ; certainty in knowledge must, therefore, be attainable.
268 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
5. The same principle can further be established by positive argument. We cannot doubt that we are thinking, willing, and living. Conscious ness gives such indisputable evidence on this point that doubt or denial is impossible. If a person were to doubt whether he thinks or exists, he would, by his very doubt itself, admit that he thinks and exists ; if lie did not exist, he could not doubt. Furthermore, the man who knows that he doubts, has, by the fact, knowledge of a truth ; is certain of this truth, that he is doubting. The man who doubts whether there is any truth, acknowledges one proposition to be true ; and, as all things are true only because truth exists, he, by the fact, acknowledges the existence of truth and his own certainty with regard to it (De Lib. Arb., Lib. 2, c. 3. Soliloq., Lib. 2, c. 1, etc.)
6. Again, the truth of our sensuous knowledge is also beyond doubt. We may, indeed, be deceived in the use of our senses ; but the fault is not to be attributed to the senses, for these always represent the object, according to the impressions which they actually receive. It is not by our senses we are deceived, but by the judgment we form with regard to their perceptions. We form our judgment hastily on our present impressions, without closer inquiry into the relations which may pos sibly exist between these and external objects. As for the existence of an objective material world, sense renders us so certain that doubt is wholly impossible.
7. The truth of sensuous knowledge cannot be doubted ; the truth of knowledge gained by intellect is no less above suspicion. Nothing can be more absurd than to assert that what we see with our eyes exists, but what we perceive with our intellect does not exist ; for it would be irrational to suppose that reason or intelligence is not incomparably higher than bodily sense (Dc Immort. Anim., c. 10). Dialectical truths are, therefore, indisputable. No one, for instance, can doubt that the truth of the antecedent of an hypothetical proposition involves the truth of the consequent, or that, in a disjunctive proposition, the denial of all the members, except one, involves the truth of the member remaining. And so of other truths.
8. As to the possibility of attaining certain knowledge, there can, then, be no doubt. A further question now arises as to the conditions of intellectual knowledge ; and, first, as to the way in which intellectual knowledge is acquired. Augustine distinguishes two methods by which the knowledge of intelligible objects is attained. The first method begins with the faculties of sense. The intellect directs its attention to the objects perceived by the senses, inquires into their causes, and thus endeavours to reach the knowledge of the Ultimate, or First Cause, a process described in the words of the Apostle : " Invisibilia Dei per ea quac facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur" (De Gen. ad /iff., iv , c. 32j.
9. The second method begins with what is within man himself. Man must withdraw from sense, and retire within himself, if he would contemplate truth in all its purity. Augustine reminds us of this prin ciple at every turn. " Noli foras ire," he repeats, " in te redi ; in in- teriori homine habitat veritas " (Dc Vera Relig., c. 39) . The consider-
VHII.OSOIMIY OF THK CHRISTIAN ERA. 269
ation of himself and of the processes of his intellectual life is, for man, the second means to the knowledge of higher truth. And this way is the more excellent, for it is more within man's reach, and therefore leads more perfectly to the end pursued than the other, which begins with sense and leads to the supersensuous.
10. To enable man by these means successfully to reach intelligible truth another condition is necessary. This condition is virtue and purity of heart. Truth can find place only in a pure heart. The man who would successfully prosecute the search after truth must, therefore, purify his soul from all defilement, and the purer his heart is from sin, and the more it is adorned with virtue and holiness, the more clearly and more perfectly will truth be communicated to him.
11. This being premised, we may now penetrate more deeply into the nature of intellectual knowledge. The question which first arises concerns the ultimate or highest ground of all knowledge. Augustine answers that the ultimate ground or reason of all intellectual knowledge is the Absolute Truth — God. This principle Augustine proves after the fashion of Plato :
(a.) That we may have knowledge of anything as true, or good, or beautiful, and distinguish it from what is not true, or good, or beautiful, it is necessary to have a rule or standard, according to which the judg ment regarding the object is determined. This standard, according to which we estimate the truth, or goodness, or beauty of an object, must be absolutely immutable, otherwise it could not be a trustworthy stand ard of judgment. The standard of judgment must be present to our minds ; but, it is not the mind itself, for the mind is changeable, and, besides, we judge ourselves and our own actions by this standard, and must so judge ourselves. That immutable, invariable standard must, therefore, be something higher than our own minds ; and, since there is nothing immutable and invariable but God, this standard must be God Himself, in so far as He is absolute truth, goodness, and beauty (Dc Lib. Arb., II, c. 12, 16).
(b.) If a human teacher states any principle to us, we do not imme diately perceive the truth of the principle. We must have within our selves a criterion by which we test the truth of the proposition stated. And this criterion can, for the reason already given, be no other than the absolute truth itself. It appears, then, that the immutable, eternal Word of God is the teacher of the soul ; we consult this Word when we endea vour to assure ourselves of the truth of a proposition laid down by a human teacher ; and this truth the Word reveals to us with as much clearness and evidence as our moral condition permits. Instruction from without only leads us to consult the instructor within ourselves, to receive from Him an insight into the truth (De Mayistro, c. 11).
(c.) When two individuals understand and acknowledge as true an assertion advanced by one or the other, the question presents itself : How and by what means have both alike knowledge of the truth in question ? The one does not read it in the other ; there must be some common ground in which and by which both alike obtain knowledge of
270 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
r
it. This ground can, again, be no other than the absolute, immutable truth, which is above both, and in accordance with which both alike form their judgment (Conf. XII, c. 25).
12. It follows from these considerations that our minds are, in some mysterious way, united to the eternal unchanging truth. Without this union they would be incapable of attaining knowledge of truth. God is the Sun which illumines human minds. In His light we perceive truth. As we can observe nothing with the eye of the body, when the sun does not shed its light over the objects of vision ; so we cannot have knowledge of intellectual truth except in the light of God — the Sun of our faculty of intelligence. And, as the sun sheds its light upon all men, so that, in its light, all may be able to see, so does God give His light to all minds to make truth accessible to all. This gift is, how ever, bestowed upon different men in different degrees, as their apti tudes are differently determined by their moral condition.
13. The knowledge of the essences of created things depends upon the intellectual light thus furnished by the absolute divine truth. With out this light such knowledge would be impossible. The Divine Word includes within Himself the ultimate reasons (rationes) or archetypal forms, after which all things are created and of which all things are ectypes. God, as absolute truth, is thus the ultimate cause of all our knowledge of truth, and the Word of God is the ultimate cause which renders in telligible to us the essences of things, inasmuch as He includes within Himself the archetypal forms of all existence. It follows that we may assert, and must assert, that we have knowledge of the essences of things in their ultimate eternal causes (in rationibus acternis) which exist in God.
14. In this way the origin of our intellectual knowledge must be explained. It now becomes manifest how the consideration of our own activity of intellect leads us at once to the knowledge of God. When we see that all intellectual knowledge is dependent upon the absolute truth, which is the sun of our intelligence, we need only turn our gaze from the object illumined by that sun to the sun itself, and we, at once, have knowledge of God, the ultimate and supreme cause of all our knowledge.
15. If we consider the theory of knowledge here set forth, we shall observe that Augustine follows unmistakably the Platonic line of thought. But we should not be warranted in concluding, at once, from this, that his views are identical with those of the Ontologists. Augustine nowhere asserts that we have immediate intuition of God and of all truth in Him — the position maintained by the Ontologists. Nay, such a thing would be in flat contradiction with his subsequent teaching regarding God and created things. The later scholastics, it may be assumed, interpret him correctly, when they understand Augustine's theory, which holds that God is the sun of the mind, and that we have know ledge of truth only in the light which He diffuses, to mean that God is the ultimate principle, not of all being only, but of all knowledge as well ; that the intellect, by which we attain the truth, is a participation of
PHILOSOPHY OF 111! <HKISTIAN ERA. 271
the Divine intelligence ; that, moreover, the principles of reason which guide our judgments have their ultimate and highest source in God (in the Divine Word), and thut, when we judge in accordance with these principles, we are judging according to the standard fixed by the Ab solute Truth. We may also assume the Scholastics to be warranted in maintaining that Augustine's proposition as to our knowing the essences of things in rationibus (etc mis does not imply an immediate contempla tion of the Divine Ideas, but merely signifies that the essences of things could neither be nor be known, unless they were antecedently formed in the Divine Ideas, as in their highest cause. The thoroughly Platonic character of Augustine's theory of knowledge lent favour, however, to the interpretation put upon it by the Ontologist school at a later period.
TEACHING REGARDING GOD AND CREATION.
§ 76.
1. Augustine's chief proof for the existence of God is derived from our notion of the True and the Good. It is a fact that we know truth. Now, irrespective of the principle that an absolute truth must be sup posed, to enable us to know any truth whatever, it is to be noted that whatever is true is so only because of the absolute truth, that is, because it participates in that truth. There must, therefore, exist an absolute truth : this truth is God. God, therefore, exists. Again, it is undenia ble that we all strive after what is good, for we all seek to be happy. There are many kinds of changeable good after which we may strive. But, nothing changeable is good of itself ; it is good only because it participates in the good which is absolute and unchangeable. It fol lows that there must exist a good which is, in itself, absolute and un changeable. This good is God. God, therefore, exists (De Lib. Arb., II, c. 3, 15 ; De Trin., VIII, c. 3).
2. God, as He is in Himself, is above all predicates. No one of the categories can be applied to Him in the sense in which it is applicable to creatures. Even the category of Substance cannot be applied to Him in its proper sense ; if it were so, then it would follow that He could be the subject of accidents. In regard to God, it is better to employ the notion Essence (Essentia) than the notion Substance. From this it follows that God, as He is in Himself, is incomprehensible and ineffable ; there exists no term which is worthy of Him or which rightly signifies His Being. In the right understanding of this truth consists the right knowledge of God. Dm* ntc/iux xdtur ncsciendo. If, however, we speak of Him in human language, we must attribute to Him all that our thoughts can conceive of what is loftiest and most excellent.
3. God is absolute simplicity. He is not only free from every ad mixture of material element — an eternal immutable Form — but, further more, every attribute which belongs to Him is one and the same thing
'272 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
with His Essence. In God, being, life, wisdom, goodness, etc., are not different things ; all these are, in Him, one and the same thing — His absolute infinite Essence. God is not good or just because of par ticipated justice or goodness ; He is His own justice and goodness. The same holds of His other attributes. God is, therefore, absolutely immut able and imperishable ; no shadow of change can affect Him.
4. God is eternal. His existence is an unchanging present, without a past and without a future. God is immeasurable and omnipresent ; limitation and extension in space have no application to Him. He is above space and above time ; and yet He is in every space and at all times, whole in the whole, and whole in every part.
5. God is absolute intelligence and absolute will, and is, therefore, the absolute spirit. As spirit, God is Divine. Conceiving in thought His own Essence, He generates within Himself the Eternal, Personal "Word, in whom the whole infinitude of His Being is expressed. The Divine Word is thus the Son of God, the Personal Image of the Father. Again, the Father loves Himself in the Son, and the Son loves Himself in the Father, and in this love there proceeds from both Love rendered personal — the Holy Ghost. In the Divine Word, moreover, the Father expresses not merely Himself, He expresses all other things likewise. The Divine Word includes within Himself the ideas or primal causes of all things ; these ideas may even be said to be the Logos Himself, for nothing can exist in Him which is not His Being itself.
6. God is omniscient. Nothing is hidden from His gaze. His knowledge is antecedent to the existence of things which are. We have knowledge of things because they are, and in so far forth as they are ; but things are for the reason that God knows them, and after the manner that God knows them. God is absolutely free. He is sufficient for His own happiness. He has no need of any other thing. All His actions, therefore, producing effects extrinsic to Himself are absolutely free. No shadow of necessity can affect His will. Whatever He determines on, He chooses freely ; but His choice once made, He cannot change His decision ; such a change would imply imperfection of knowledge or im perfection of will.
7. God is omnipotent. Whatever He wills He can effect, and He can effect it by His mere will, without need of the concurrence of any other cause. God's will is co-extensive with God's power. Whatever is in contradiction with His essence or His attributes, that God cannot will, and, consequently, cannot effect. It would be weakness in Him to will or to effect anything of this kind. God is absolutely holy ; He can will nothing except what is good ; evil He can neither desire nor do. It is, therefore, impossible that He should be the author of evil in the world. God is infinitely good ; what He wills, He wills for the good of His creatures. He is, however, absolutely just ; He must therefore reward or punish each man according to his deserts.
8. There does not exist any eternal matter, apart from God, out of which He fashioned the created world ; for God, being omnipotent, has no need of a material substrate on which to exercise His productive
PHILOSOPHY OF Till! CIIKIMIAN MI\. 278
power; 1 1 is oi mi ipotence is competent to ^ive things their total being. Xor has God produced the world from out His own being ; in such a supposition the world would be like to Him in nature. The origin of the world can, therefore, be explained only by creation from nothing. God created the world from nothing. But lie did not effect this creation unconsciously. He reproduced in creation the eternal ideas of the Divine Word. Every species of being has its proper idea in the Divine Word, and is created to the likeness of that idea.
9. The creation of the world is the revelation of the Divine goodness. God was not, however, so moved by His goodness to create, that creation was for Him a necessity. On the contrary, the ultimate and highest reason for creation was the absolute and free choice of God. He has created the world because He willed so to do To eeek a higher reason for this Divine resolve would be to set above God a higher power on which He would be dependent, and so to deny His supremacy. The perfection and happiness of God have received no increase from creation ; the creative activity of God has been a benefit to creatures only.
10. Created things are not without beginning, and they are not eternal, for they are changeable and perishable, and what is changeable and perishable cannot be eternal. "Whatever is created is limited in time and space. Time is the measure of movement ; it can begin only with the beginning of motion. Hence the world is not in time ; contrariwise time was created in and with the world. Before the creation of the world there was no time. The same holds good of space, for without an extended world space is inconceivable.
11. God created all things simultaneously — the world of spirits and the world of matter. Crearit omnia simitL In the Scriptural express- sion : " God created the heavens and the earth," we are to understand by the term "heaven" the world of spirits, and by the term " earth " corporeal nature. ( Matter without form was the direct product of the Divine act of creation. This fonnless matter had no determinate — no actual character ; it was " almost nothing." It could not, therefore, exist for an instant in the formless condition ; it must have been clothed in some form or other from the beginning. Matter, then, does not come before form, in the order of time ; it takes precedence in the order of nature — that is to say, matter must be presupposed as the substrate of form ; it is only in this sense that matter can be said to have been created first. We must, further, distinguish between spiritual and corporeal matter, of which one is the substrate of the corporeal, the other of the spiritual world.
12. All things having been simultaneously created, we cannot under stand by the " six days" of the Mosaic narrative six successive periods of time. The six days represent no more than the order in which things follow one another in the gradations of being. The six days were con sequently only one day, or, more properly, one instant, which is men tioned six times, because the Scripture, at each mention of the term, in troduces a new order of being, which, of its nature, is next to that immediately preceding, its existence being dependent on the existence
19
274 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
of the preceding order. By the six days is meant no more than that the universe of things is divided into six gradations of being ; and as the number six is the most perfect number, the phrase may be under stood to signify the perfection of the world which God Las created.
13. The duration of the created world depends upon God's conser vation of its existence. If the sustaining power of God were for a moment withdrawn, the world would sink back into nothingness The Divine wisdom has furthermore established all things in a compre hensive order, and assigned to each being its determined place in this order ; and as He has made all things in order, so does He govern all things and guide them all by His providence to their appointed end. Evil itself is not excluded from this providence, for evil may be made to serve purposes of good.
14. God is not, indeed, the author of evil ; but evil could not exist in the world unless by permission of God, since nothing exists contrary to His will. Evil is opposed to the will of God in so far as He abhors it, but it is not opposed to the will of God in the sense that it exists in spite of Him. Consequently, though evil, in itself, is not good, yet it may be said that it is well it should exist, since it does not exist without God's (permissive) will. But it is well that it should only exist in so far as it is subservient to good. God can draw good out of evil. Evil, then, is against established order, in so far as it disturbs that order, but itis not for this reason extrinsic to established order, for when the evil exists it is made subject to that order, and hence subservient to good. God might, indeed, have prevented evil, but He preferred to draw good from evil, rather than not permit evil at all. The magnificence of the universal order is rendered more imposing by the presence of evil and by its sub ordination to good.
15. In the order of the universe there must be little things as well as great. We must not measure things by their usefulness to us ; we must not account evil whatever injures us ; we must judge each thing according to its own nature ; each has its own standard of perfection — its own form — its own harmony in itself. All creatures praise and glorify God, and this in such wise that they invite man to praise and glorify Him. Man stands at the summit of the visible world ; he is the microcosraos, for he has within himself the being of inanimate bodies, the vegetative life of the plant, the sensuous faculties of the brute, and, over and above this, is possessed of reason, which last attribute brings him into kinship with the angels. Thus, he forms the link of union between the world of spirit and the world of matter.
PSYCHOLOGY.
§77.
1. The human soul is a substance essentially different from the body — immaterial, simple, and spiritual. The category of Quantity cannoi be applied to it ; it has not extension in space. The proofs adduced by Augustine for this doctrine are, briefly, the following :
run osoriiY OK THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 275
(a.} If the soul were corporeal, it would be a body of determined quality. It would, in consequence, have knowledge of itself as being of this quality. This, however, is not the case. (Dc Trin., X. c. 7.)
(b.) Even the faculty of sensuous perception is inexplicable, if sup posed to belong to a principle wholly material. If the soul were cor- jx>real it could not contain at once within itself the vast number of sensuous images with which our memory is stored. Still less can our intellectual knowledge be attributed to a corporeal principle, for this knowledge is concerned with the immaterial and supersensuous, whereas the corporeal deals only with the corporeal and sensible ; to this only is its power proportioned. (Dc Anima et ejus Orig., c. 17. De Quant. Aniin., c. 13.)
(c.) When we reflect upon a truth, we penetrate and understand it more perfectly the more we withdraw from sense and retire within our selves, and so become immersed in the truth. Now, if the soul were merely the harmony of the body, and not a substance distinct from it. this divorce from the body and concentration of the soul within itself would be impossible. 'Dc Immort. Anim., c. 10.)
(d.) The soul perceives at every point of the body the impressions made at that point, and perceives them not by a portion of its being, but by the entire ego. It must, therefore, be whole in ever}' part of the body. This is possible only if the soul is of simple incorporeal nature, for a body, being an extended entity, can be present simultaneously at several points only by means of the several parts of which it is composed. (Ep. 166, ad Hicron., p. 4.)
2. From the immaterial and simple nature of the -soul we may argue to its further characteristics. In the first place it is essentially indivi dual. There is no such thing as an universal soul — each man has his own individual soul. In the second place, the soul of man, being essentially spiritual and rational, cannot be degraded to the condition of an irrational soul ; the doctrine of the migration of souls is, therefore, an absurdity. In the third place, the human soul is like in nature to the pure spirits or angels. Its nature, no doubt, disposes it to union with the body, but this does not make it specifically distinct from the • angels, for the angels, too, have bodies ttinuy^ fopan MT-P more -.periecJ in kind than the bodies of men, and arc imu ortaL- It follows that man being distinguished from the brutes, on the one side, and from the angels, on tlu> other, may be rightly defined an animal rationale mor tale. 3. The soul is not, as the Manicheans say, an emanation from God. If it were, it ought either to share in all the divine perfections, being of like nature with God, or the Divine substance ought to be capable of all those imperfections which we perceive in ourselves. The one alternative is as absurd as the other. The soul must, therefore, like other beings, have been originally created by God.
4. As to the point of time at which the soul of the first man was created, Augustine is led by his principle that God created all things at once, to the view that Adam's soul was created at the same time as all other spiritual beings, and was subsequently united to the body. That union, however, was not the punishment of any offence ; the nature of the soul
276 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN KK\.
required its union with the body, the union was not unnatural, nor was it for the soul a condition of misfortune.
5. Augustine rejects the notion that all human souls have been created simultaneously and are united successively to the several bodies which the}'
i - animate. The individual soul comes into existence with tbejndividual. bpdy to which it belongs. But Augustine is unable~lo arrive at a definite opinion as to the manner in which these souls come into being. Their origin by a generative process would seem to him to afford the best ex planation of the transmission of original sin ; but, on the other hand, it is inconceivable to him how one soul can be generated by another, if the soul be an immaterial and simple essence. The theory of generation de generates easily into Traducianism — a doctrine which must be totally rejected, for it has meaning only in the hypothesis that the soul is of a corporeal nature.
6. But the theory of creation is, according to Augustine, surrounded with insoluble difficulties. If God daily creates new souls, these souls as they come forth from His hand must be good in themselves. Now, in their union with the body they are made subject to original sin ; and as this union is not of their choice, but accomplished wholly by God, it is difficult to explain on what grounds those souls can be eternally repro bated which could not by any possibility be purified by baptism, such souls, for instance, as those of children who die unbaptized. God would be obliged to secure baptism for such children ; for if, by uniting their souls to their bodies, He makes them subject to original sin, He is bound to make provision for their deliverance from this sin. But, on the other hand, God cannot be held to owe anything to anyone.
7. In this way, Augustine sees difficulties on both sides, to which he can find no answer. He, therefore, holds it to be the more prudent, and the safer, course tojsuspend his judgment — and this all the more that Sacred Scripture does~~not lay down any definite teaching on the point. The passages which are cited in favour of the one theory or the other are not conclusive, because any one of them can be interpreted in the sense of either theory. This he undertakes to prove in regard to a number of such passages.
8. Augustine asserts emphatically the oneness of the soul in man. The essential constituent parts of man are soul and body, and nothing more. If an argument be built on the words of the Apostle,' ' the flesh wars against the spirit," to show that there are in man two souls substantially different from one another, each having a will of its own, it might be argued with equal force, that there is no reason why we should stop at a duality of wills ; we should admit as many wills as there are opposing tendencies in man, and these tendencies are numberless.
9. In one aspect of its being the soul of man is in close relation with the body, in another it is superior to the body. We may distinguish in the soul a pars inferior and a pars superior, according to the different characters of the faculties with which it is endowed. By the lower part of the soul we mean the vegetative and sensitive faculties, in virtue of which the soul is the principle of corporeal life, as well as of sensuous
1'IIII.OM.niY OF T11K (IIIMSIIAN KKA. 277
perception and locomotion. The functions of these faculties are essen tially dependent upon the bodily organs. The higher part of the soul, on the other hand, signifies the intellectual faculties — reason- and will — faculties whose functions are not dependent on the bodily organism. Herein lies the difference between "spirit" and "soul." The terms are altogether relative : In so far forth as the soul stands in immediate relation with the body by its sensitive and vegetative faculties, it may be called " soul " in the stricter sense of the term ; in so far as it is exalted above thebodyin its functions of thought and will, itmaybecalled "spirit."
10. The soul in its union with the body is the element which determines the nature or specific character of the composite entity : "Tradit speciem anima corpori, ut sit corpus, in quantum est." (De Immort. Anim., c. 15.) And hence, man, as man, is something different from either of the component elements of his being. The body is not man, neither is the soul ; man is the unit formed by both (De Mor. Eccl.t L, c. 4). Body and soul in conjunction form a single nature different from both consti tuents — this nature is man.
11. The relations which subsist between the body and the soul in man render it impossible for the body to exercise independently any in fluence upon the soul. This becomes more evident if we observe that to admit the opposite would be to give the soul the character of matter which receives in itself the action of the body —a supposition which is incom patible with the spiritual nature of the soul, and its superiority to the body. The body, then, does not act upon the soul, but the soul acts in and through the body. If the soul suffers, it is not that it is so affected by the body ; the affection comes from itself in so far as it has become capable of suffering by its union with the body, and by its activity in the organism.
12. The action of the soul in the body and on the body is not, how ever, immediate. Between the active soul and the organs of the body there is interposed a subtle element of a somewhat spiritual nature by means of which the action of the soul reaches the organs of the body. This element Augustine designates " Light " or " Air ; " that is, he atrributes to it a nature analogous to that of light and air. In this way he tries to bridge over the chasm that separates the spiritual soul from matter. He is, however, ready to admit that it remains a mystery im possible of adequate comprehension hoic the soul is united to a material body.
13. The human soul, in so far as it is a sensitive soul, shows its ac tivity in the functions of sensuous knowledge and sensuous appetite. To the faculty of sensuous knowledge belong the external senses, the Senfms Coinmunis or General Sense in which the external senses are united, the Imagination (vis spiritalis) and the Sensuous Memory. The Sensuous Appetite is the faculty of sensuous pleasure. To the soul, as spirit, Augustine assigns three fundamental faculties : — Intellectual Memory (memoria), Intelligence (intelligentia), and Will (voluntas). Furthermore, Intelligence is either intuitive or discursive, and we must, therefore distinguish between Intellect (mens) and Reason (ratio). In other parts of his work, (Dc Quant. Anim. c. 27), Augustine substitutes,
278 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
for the last two terms, the expressions Ratio and Ratiocinatio. The distinction here laid down is, it must be remembered, only relative.
14. The soul, being spirit, is created after the image of the Triune God. All other things exhibit the imprint (vestigia) of the Trinity in their unity, form, and order ; but in the soul we have the image (imago) of God. Augustine explains variously wherein the image of God con sists. He finds it in the trinity of elements — Being, Knowledge, Will ; in the three fundamental faculties — Memory, Intelligence, Will ; and lastly in the action of these three fundamental faculties when they are concerned with God. When the soul remembers God, the thought of God proceeds from this recollection, and with this thought is conjoined the love of God, which serves as it were to bind together the recollection and the thought. In this threefold action is reflected, in clear outline, the triune life of God.
15. The soul is, of its nature, immortal. For this proposition Augus tine adduces many proofs, akin, for the most part, to the Platonist reasoning ; of this kind are the following : —
(a) That thing in which the imperishable exists is itself imperishable. Now truth exists in the soul, inasmuch as the soul possesses it by know ledge. Truth is imperishable. Therefore, the soul must be imperishable also.
(b) The soul is identified with Reason. Now Reason, as such, is im mortal, for the principles of Reason are immortal. It follows that the soul is imperishable, if the soul be inseparable from Reason. That it is inseparable is proved by the fact that the union of the soul with Reason is not an union in space, and the one, by consequence, cannot be separated from the other. The soul, accordingly ,*is imperishable ; and, since Reason can exist only in a living subject, the union of Reason with the soul implies not only the indefectibility of the latter, but also the perpetuity of its life — namely, its immortality, in the true sense of the term.
(c) The essential distinction between soul and body consists in this, that the soul is life, whilst the body is merely animated. If the soul, like the body, could be deprived of life, it would cease to be a soul, it would be like the body, merely a something animated (animatum). The soul, therefore, cannot lose its life ; that is, it is immortal.
(d) Being has no contrary principle which can destroy it (essentioo nihil contrarium). The body though dissolved after death does not lose its being, for its elements remain ; so the soul also must endure, that is, it is imperishable. Nor is there any principle contrary to the life of the soul which can destroy it. The life of the soul is truth, and the con trary of truth is error ; but error, it is clear, cannot destroy the life of the soul. It follows that not only in its being, but also in its life, the soul is imperishable ; that is to say, it is immortal.
PHILOSOPHY OF THK rilKI-ll VN l.KA. 279
ETIIK B. $ 78.
1. The subjective basis of moral life is free will. Augustine uses the term liberty in a twofold sense : the one liberty of choice, the other freedom from evil, and freedom for (supernatural) good.
Free will, as a faculty of choice, is, according to Augustine, an essen tial attribute of man, for
(a) Will is will precisely because it is exempted from physical neces sity and determines itself to act or to forbear. Freedom is involved in this essential notion of will ; a will without freedom is inconceivable. (Dc Lib. Arb.t III. c. 3.)
(b) Furthermore, consciousness testifies clearly to the freedom of the will. Of what are we more keenly conscious than of the fact that we have a will, and that we act by our will, unconstrained by any necessity ? (Dc Lib. Arb., III. c. 1.)
(c) "Without free will, the distinction between good and evil becomes unintelligible. If we were not free we could not be bound by any moral law : merit and demerit, reward and punishment, praise and blame, would be wholly meaningless. The very remorse which we experience in reference to certain actions is evident proof of free will, for we could not feel remorse for an act the performance or omission of which was not in our power. (De Act. cont. Fclic. Man., II. c. 8.)
2. Freedom from evil and freedom for (supernatural) good is not, according to Augustine, an essential attribute of thehuman will, itdependson thegrace of God. This grace alone can free us from evil and bestow the capability for (supernatural) good, as well as the desire of attaining it. Free will, as a faculty of choice, the liberum arbitrium, cannot be lost, but the free dom from evil and the freedom for (supernatural) good may be forfeited, though not otherwise than by our own fault.
Free will, as a faculty of choice, is not destroyed or impaired by God's providence. God foresees the actions of men as they are, namely, as free acts, which we are at liberty to perform or to omit. The foreknowledge of God does not deprive free acts of their character of freedom. Man's act is not what it is, because God foresees it thus, but rather God foresees it thus, because it is what it is. If man's act were other than it is, God would have foreseen it to be otherwise.
3. With this teaching regarding free will we may associate Augus tine's doctrine regarding the Sovereign Good. He distinguishes two kinds of good, the enjoyable and the useful. The enjoyable is that which, when possessed, makes us happy, and which, therefore, we desire for its own sake ; the useful is that which is merely a means to the at tainment of another good, and which, therefore, we desire and strive after for sake of something else.
4. This being premised, it becomes clear that the Sovereign Good
280 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN KK.V.
must have the following characteristics : — It must be an enjoyable good, which being possessed makes us completely happy. It must be inalien able ; a happiness which could be lost would not be true or perfect happi ness at all. Lastly, it must be the source not only of our highest happiness, but also of our supreme perfection, for good, of its own nature, is calculated not only to make us happy but also to make us perfect.
5. If this be so, it follows that the Sovereign Good cannot consist either in sensual pleasure, or in virtue, for neither of these exhibits the characteristics which belong to the Sovereign Good. The Sovereign Good must be something higher than man ; it can be no other than God— the Infinite Good. The supreme happiness of man must, therefore, consist in the eternal contemplation and love of God, the Sovereign Good. It follows that for man God is the only enjoyable good, and that every other good is merely a useful good, that is to say, it should be used only for the attainment of eternal happiness in God.
6. It follows, further, that supreme happiness is not attainable in this life, and that it is reserved for us in the life to come. The ultimate end of man is to attain eternal happiness in God ; his ultimate end is, there fore, not attainable in this life, it must be secured hereafter. This leads at once to the rule of life for man. Man's duty here below is to strive after the Sovereign Good, that is, to live so as to attain to the Sovereign Good in the life to come.
7. The path of duty, in this respect, is marked for us by the Divine Law. We must act according to this law in order to fulfil the duty set us in life, and it is precisely in living and acting according to this law that moral goodness consists. But to fulfil this law in every respect, it is necessary to strive after virtue ; in virtue consists our moral perfection. Moral goodness is essentially connected with the final destiny of man ; so too, is virtue. Virtue is essentially the means to the attainment of the Sovereign Good ; this relation apart, virtue ceases to be virtue ; it becomes a mere form of self-deification which is vice, not virtue.
8. Virtue is defined by Augustine " Animi habitus, nature modo et rationi consentaneus " (Cont. Jul. Pelag., IV., c. 3) ; or, as " Ars bene recteque vivendi" (Dc Cirit. Dei, XIV., c. 9). It is, therefore, a capabi lity or tendency of the will for good, acquired by the practice of what is good, and which implies strength and firmness of will in well-doing. Virtue does not require that man should be wholly inaccessible to the movements of passion ; the so-called airaOtia is unnatural and contrary to virtue ; virtue requires only that the TrdOrj should be kept under control, that they should be restrained within the limits prescribed by the moral law, and thus made subservient to Tightness of life.
9. The Divine Law being the rule and standard of moral action, the point or precept of this law which is the basis of the whole and which includes within it all other precepts, is the Law of Love. First in this order is the love of God ; the love of God is our first and highest duty. This love leads us to refer to God all that we are, all that we have, and all that we do, and thus to make of ourselves an offering to Him. From the love of God is derived the true love of self, in virtue of which we
PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 281
<<vk what is best for us, our Supreme Good, God Himself. With this is united the love of our neighbour, which consists in this, that we desire for our neighbour as for ourselves his highest good, and, as far as in us lies, assist him to attain it.
10. As the law of love is the fundamental law of our moral life, so love is the fundamental virtue. It is the basis of all other virtues ; all other virtues are only special aspects of the virtue of love. In the first place, this holds good with regard to the Cardinal Virtues — Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice. Prudence is love, in so far as it discriminates clearly between what is a help to it and what is a hinde- rance. Fortitude is love, in so far as it boldly and readily undergoes all things for sake of the object it loves. Temperance is love, in so far as it maintains itself inviolate and undefiled for sake of what it loves. Finally, Justice is love, in so far as its service is wholly for the object loved, and it thus acquires dominion over all things else. (Dc Mor. EccL, I., c. 15.) Love is, thus, the source of all that is morally good, and no work has worth or merit before God if it be not done for love.
11. Evil is not a real substantial entity ; everything that is, in so far as it is, is both true and good. Evil is merely negation — negation of the good which ought to exist — that is to say, it is a privation of good. Evil is, therefore, possible only through good ; if there were no good, a privation of good or loss of good would not be possible. A being absolutely evil, in which no good whatever exists, is an impossibility ; be it ever so evil, inasmuch as it is or has being, it is to that extent good. Absolute evil is absolute negation — mere nothing.
12. These considerations exhibit to us the relation which subsists between evil and the natural order. Evil is contrary to nature, since it deprives nature of its befitting good. In this sense it may be described as a deterioration or corruption of nature. But evil cannot destroy nature, for the corruption induced by evil supposes a nature or substance corrupted, and the destruction of this would involve the disappearance of the evil.
13. With regard to the cause of evil, we must distinguish between the remote and the proximate cause. The remote cause is the finitencss and mutability of created things. It is only a being which is finite and changeable which can be subject to evil. God, the absolutely immu table, is beyond the reach of evil ; for the immutable, as such, cannot undergo a privation of good. The proximate source of evil is the free will of man. Free will alone can effect evil, as it alone can effect good. But beyond its freedom no further reason can be assigned why the free will docs evil rather than good. The Manich cans are absurd, when they assign man's bodily nature as a reason to explain why he does evil.
14. We must distinguish two kinds of evil (mahtm] : the ma htm and the tnahttn pcena?. The former is moral evil — evil in the strict
sense of the term ; the latter is a consequence of the former, and is occasioned by it. To begin with moral evil : it must consist in the privation of moral good, in man's turning away from his Sovereign Good, and giving himself to good that is changeable. Good that is
282 1'HILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
changeable is not, indeed, evil in itself ; but when man prefers it to the Sovereign Good, and sets it above the Sovereign Good, he perverts and disturbs right order, and precisely in this perversion of order lies the evil of his action. This turning away from the Sovereign Good, and turning to evil, takes place when man violates the Divine law, which marks for him the path to the Sovereign Good. Hence moral evil — sin — may be defined u Dictum, factum vel concupitum contra legeni Dei." (Contra Faust. Manich., XXII., c. 27.)
15. The malum pcence is the actual loss of the Sovereign Good, in curred as the punishment of moral evil. This last constitutes unhap- piness, for happiness can consist only in the possession of the Supreme Good. In the present life, this unhappiness is not felt in its full force, for the good of the mutable and created order goes some way to com pensate for the loss ; but in the life to come such compensation is not admissible, and the fulness of misery must then be experienced. Such is the punishment of moral evil. That it should be inflicted is a require ment of God's justice, and from this point of view it may be called good, since it is an effect of God's justice. It is, therefore, an evil only for the man on whom it falls ; and in so far as it is thus an evil it is caused by man himself, for he has provoked it by his sin. As a requirement of justice it is good, for it is a restoration of the order that had been dis turbed ; viewed in this light, it has God for its author.
16. We see, then, that a good action implies an approach to God, the Supreme Being ; whereas an evil action implies a separation from the Supreme Being — a movement towards nothingness. Hence, it is only the good action which is a positive entity in every respect ; the evil act is positive only as an act ; the direction in which it tends is to non-being, it is in this regard something merely negative. This analysis warranted Augustine in asserting that evil may be said to have, not a cama cfficiens but a causa deficiem, for it is essentially a defection from the highest perfection — a retrogression towards imperfection and nothing ness. (De Civ. Dei, XII., c. 7.)
17. So much with regard to the general lines of Augustine's Ethics. His teaching on the subject of Grace and Redemption falls, no doubt, under this section ; but we cannot follow him into these questions ; they belong to the history of dogma, not to the history of philosophy. We content ourselves with noticing a few points :
(a.) The first man, says Augustine, enjoyed freedom from evil and freedom for good, he consequently had power not to sin — " posse non peccare." He needed, it is true, for this the assistance of God, but this assistance was merely an culjutorium -fine quo non, that is, an aid without which he could not succeed in avoiding evil and doing good ; but not a grace by means of which he did good.
(b. ) But when the first man sinned, the guilt and the punishment of his sin descended upon all his posterity, for the reason that they were all contained seminaliter in him. In consequence of this inherited sin, man can no longer do that which is connected with his supernatural destiny, and he is thus made subject to evil. To the " posse non peccare " has succeeded the " non posse non peccare." Not that man is forced to evil by any intrinsic necessity, but that man is so hampered by sensual desires, that he can no longer shake himself free from evil, for sensuality is ever dragging him down to it again.
(c.) The human race was delivered from sin and its punishments by Christ. By His
PHILOSOPHY OK THK CHRISTIAN KRA. BOO
Passion and Drath, Christ has merited for us the grace which destroy* evil witliin us, and makes us again capable of good. This grace, by which we do good, is not a mere ("tjuforium sine quo non, it is an adjutorium quo, that is, it not only makes the good ix>ssible for us, it also effects the good within us, although not without our will, or further than our will co-operates. This grace restores the " posse non peccare," it leads us to the condition of eternal perfection, where the "posse non peccare" is replaced by tiie " non posse peccare."
(d.) Redemption is, on the part of God, a free act. He would not have acted unjustly had He left all men in original sin and under the condemnation which follows it. But He- was pleased to show, on the one hand, what the offence of man deserved, and on the other what His own mercy could effect. He, therefore, elected from the maxxa damna tioni« a portion of the human race to be saved by His gratuitous grace, while He left the rest in the maxxa damnations.
(e. ) This election is called in Scripture Predestination. The non-predestined are not altogether excluded from God's grace ; but it is only in the elect that grace produces its full effect, leading them effectually to their destined end. To the non-predestined it is not an injustice that they arc not elected ; they have deserved condemnation ; God does not predestine them to evil ; it is only because of His knowledge of the evil which they do that they are condemned. This is what the Scripture signifies by the term Reprobation.
(/.) From the outset, God's grace delivered a certain number of human beings from perdition, and this number constituted the kingdom of God, as opposed to the kingdom of the world. The entire time covered by the existence of the human race is no more than the period of development for these two kingdoms. In the end will come the com plete separation of the elect from the reprobate. After the general resurrection, the former will receive eternal reward, the latter eternal punishment. There is no restora tion of the reprobate, as imagined by Origan.
18. The vastness of the doctrinal system of Augustine is apparent from even this brief sketch. His inquiries covered the whole range of speculative knowledge, and his clear and penetrating mind diffused light in every region of its investigations. It is not a matter of surprise that Augustine's teaching should have exercised a larger influence on the development of Christian philosophy than that of any other thinker.
CLAIJDIANUS MAMERTUS, BOETHIUS, CASSIODORUS.
§ 79.
1. With Augustine, the development of Christian philosophy in the A Vest came for a time to an end. It was not, however, that the intel lects of the Christian Church had lost their power, or that the ardour for scientific investigation had grown cold. The cause was wholly external in character ; it is to be sought in the disturbances pro duced by the barbarian invasion. This migration of nations brought about the overthrow of existing social conditions ; and the long wars and turmoils which succeeded it rendered impossible the peaceful develop ment of intellectual life, and gave little leisure for philosophic thought. It was only in the retirement of the monasteries that Christian science could still find an asylum. Here it took refuge, and here it continued to exist through the long period of general catastrophe, waiting for times more favourable to its progress. It is noticeable that, after the time of Augustine, the labours of the men who concerned themselves
284 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
with science were directed chiefly to collecting and preserving what had already been created. They laboured to preserve and transmit to better times the results already achieved by Christian science. To this their efforts were directed and in this consisted their chief merit.
2. Of importance as a philosopher is the priest Claudianus Maniertus, of Vienne, in Gaul (about the middle of the 5th century), because of his defence of the doctrine of the spirituality of the soul, contained in his work De Statu Aninue. The Semi- Pelagians, Cassian, Faustus, and Gennadius (of the 5th century), following Tertullian and Hilary, had taught that the soul is of corporeal nature. God alone, they had held, is incorporeal; all created things are corporeal, the human soul with the rest. Kverything created, they argued, is limited, has consequently its place in space, and is therefore corporeal ; every thing created has quality and quantity ; God alone is above and beyond the Categories ; quality implies extension, and extension, without corporeal substance, is inconceivable. Furthermore, the soul dwells within the body, and for this reason is of limited extension, and is, consequently, a corporeal substance. In point of quality, it is of a nature resem bling light or air, but is, nevertheless, corporeal.
3. Against this doctrine Claudianus protests. The world, to be perfect, he argues, must contain in itself beings of all kinds ; hence God must have created incorporeal beings, and to this class belong the souls of men. A further reason for holding human souls to be incorporeal is the teaching of Scripture that they are made after the likeness of the incorporeal God. The soul cannot be brought under the category of quantity, for its faculties of memory, reason, will, have no extension ; and since these faculties are one with the substance of the soul, the soul also must be without extension or quantity. The in corporeal nature of the soul is further shown in the soul's intellectual activity. Sensible objects are perceived by it in unsensuous fashion, and besides, it is capable of compre hending thesupersensuous and incorporeal. From this we are forced to conclude that the soul is itself supersensuous and incorporeal, for it could not, otherwise, have knowledge of objects of this kind. Finally, the soul is present in every part of the body, for it has perception of the impressions made on the different parts of the body. But it could not be present simultaneously in these several parts if it were not incorporeal.
4. Boethius Senator of Rome, who flourished under Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths (A.D. 470-526), and whom the accusations of his enemies consigned to long captivity and finally to death, did much to preserve the learning of the ancients and of earlier Christianity. He translated the logical works of Aristotle, with the Isagoge of Porphyry, on which he wrote a commentary. He also wrote a commentary on Cicero's Topica. The aim of Boethius in these writings was purely didactic. He endeavoured to transmit the achievements of earlier philosophers, in the form most easy of under standing. The genuineness of the treatise De Trinitate is disputed.
5. But his most remarkable work is the book De Consolatione Philosophic!', composed by him while in prison. It is classical in style, and is written partly in prose and partly iu verse ; its contents may be described as a kind of Theodicea or Natural Theology. He endeavours to prove that the supreme good for man does not consist in riches or other possessions ; not in power or glory ; not in posts of honour or pleasure ; in a word not in finite good : that it lies beyond time, and can be no other than God. God, as the fulness'of good ness, is the sovereign good for man. In the possession of God consists the happiness after \vhich all are striving. To strive for this supreme good is the duty set us in life. The purpose of God's providence is to lead us to this end. In furtherance of this purpose, God makes use of the most varied means, some pleasing to man, other some an affliction to him. The good and the evil which happen to man in life are, in God's design, alike con trived for his salvation. The conviction that happiness awaits us beyond the grave, and that the good and the evil of life are means to attain it, is the firmest support of man in the vicissitudes of life : as long as he holds fast by this truth he cannot be dismayed.
6. The Senator Cassiodorus was a contemporary of Boethius (A.D. 468-575), and, like him, held important public offices under Theodoric. But he ultimately retired into the convent of Vivarium, near Squillace in Bruttii, and there, with his monks, devoted himself exclusively to study and education. He composed a treatise on theological education, and on the liberal arts(Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric — the Trivium; Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy— the Quadrivium.) These arts he held to be of much utility, as they aid us to acquire an understanding of Scripture and a knowledge of God. His treatise De Artibus ac Discijilini* Artium Liberalium was much used as a text- book in succeeding centuries.
PHII.OSOl'HY (•]•• -1111. MIKIMIAN KK\. 285
7. In hia work De Animn, Cassiodorus cites for the spirituality of the soul the same proofs as Claudianus. The human soul is not a part of God, for it is mutable ; hut it N created after the image of (!od, and is therefore incorporeal. The category,"!' i.'u.uitity cannot be applied to the soul, for the reason that it is present in every part of the body. As to the soul's Quality, it is of the nature of light. And, since it is cic.tti >i to the image of the immortal Creator, the soul, too, is immortal.
8. In the first half of the seventh century lived Isidore, Bishop of Seville, who did much for the spread of learning among the Visigoths. His chief work is the treatise Originum sive Etymologiarum, a work of encyclopaedic character, which embraces all the knowledge of the time, sacred and profane. He was also the author of three books of Sentences, a Handbook of Christian Doctrine, much prized in later times and largely used as a text-book in schools, and finally of the books De. Ordine Creaturarum and De Natura
9. Venerable Bede (A. D. 674-73.)), was the first to spread instruction and to diffuse knowledge among the Anglo-Saxons. His works are numerous and very varied in character, but they consist more of extracts and collections than original products of thought. He composed some excellent summaries for use in teaching. Most important iii connection with philosophy is his work De Natura Rerum, which followed the lines of the work bearing the same name by Isidore.
These were the men who handed down the inheritance of learning, and prepared the way for the new era — the middle ages.
STOCKL, Albert.
Handbook of the history of philosophy.
B 82 .38 v.l