r V UNivs- 5:ty of CALIFOR-NIA SAN DIE«0 ■It ^. History of Philosophy BY ALFRED WEBER PROFESSOR IN THE L'NIVEKSITY OF STRASBUKQ ^utf)orijeti ^Translation FRANK THILLY, A.M., Ph.D. PBOFE8SOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI FROM THE FIFTH FRENCH EDITION V^^gvy NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNKR'S SONS 1901 [All riyhts retei-ved] 100 ^3 6 LI B lyAR Y S C R I P P S ly'^S t\ T U T I O N OF OC2ANOGRA,PHY UNlVER^Si;»V OF CALIFORNIA ft.LA. CALIFOJ^IA Copyricjhf, 1,996, By Chaklks Scribnkk's Sons. John Wilson and Son. Cambkidoe, U.S.A. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE There is, in my opinion, no book so admirably fitted for acquainting the student with the development of thought as the able work of Professor Weber of the University of Strasburo-. The author combines in his person the best elements of French and German scholarship. His knowl- edge of the subject is thorough and extensive, his judgment sound, his manner of expression simple, clear, and precise. His expositions remind one vividly of Kuno Fischer's fas- cinating presentation of philosophical teachings. They reproduce the essential thoughts of the great masters in language which is singularly free from obscurities and un- defined technical terms. The different systems are not mechanically joined together like so many dominos ; the history of philosophy is not conceived as an aggregate of isolated, disconnected theories, but as an evolution, as a more or less logical development, as a process from the simple to the complex. It is not a comedy of errors, a Sisyphus labor, a series of mighty efforts and corresponding failures, but a gradual advance towards truth. There are differences and contradictions, it is true, and many devia- tions from the ideal straight line which the historian, overlooking the entire course of development, may draw between the beginning and the end. Pliih)sophy often follows false paths and loses itself in l»Iind alle3^s. Yet this does not mean that it is a wild-goose chase. iv PREFACE We have long wanted a text-book of tlie liistoiy of phi- losopliy that covers the whole field, and presents the subject in a manner suited to the needs of the beginner. Zeller's admirable compendium of Greek philosophy and Falcken- berg's History of Modem Philosophy deal with special periods. Windelband's voluminous History of Philosophy^ with its arbitrary divisions and unfortunate method of cut- ting up a system into parts and discussing these separately, under entirely different heads, hopelessly confuses the stu- dent. Besides, its account of philosophy since the days of Kant — a period in which our age is especially interested — is wholly inadequate. Professor Weber's work is the most serviceable manual thus far published. It begins as simply as the history of philosophy itself, and gradually introduces the reader to the complex problems of modern thought, to wliich it devotes more than one-half of its entire space. The portions dealing with Kant and his successors are particularly admirable. The clear and comprehensive ex- position of the Hegelian philosophy will greatly assist the student in his endeavors to understand that much abused system. And the modern theory of evolution, wliich has revolutionized the thought of our century, and which is barely mentioned by Falckenberg and Windelband, surely deserves the attention and criticism it here receives. This translation is made from the fifth French edition (1892), and includes a number of changes and additions which the author kindly communicated to me in manu- script. I have taken pains to render the original into clear and simple English, and to increase the usefulness of the book wherever it seemed possible and proper to do so, al- ways keeping in mind the demands of the readers for whom the work is intended. All material inserted by me is PREFACE V placed in square brackets. I have increased the bibliog- raphy (1) by adding the titles of standard American, Eng- lish, German, Frencli, and Italian works ; (2) by mentioning translations of foreign books referred to in the text and notes ; (3) by giving the names of important philosoph- ical journals published in tliis country and abroad ; (4) by placing at the end of the volume a list of the best modern works on logic, epistemology, psychology, anthropology, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of history, the philosophy of religion, jurisprudence, politics, etc. I have also pre- pared an index. FRANK THILLT, University of Missouri, May, 1896. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Paob § 1. Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Science 1 § 2. Division • ^ § 3. Sources I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY THE AGE OF METAPHYSICS PROPER, OR PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE (b. c. COO-400) § 4. The Origin of Greek Philosophy 17 § 5. The School of Miletus. Thales, Anaximander, axaximenes 21 § 6. The Problem of Becoming 24 A. The Negation of Becoming § 7. Eleatic Philosophy. Xexophanes, Parmenides, Melissus, Zexo, Gokgias 24 B. The Apotheosis of Becoming § 8. ITeraclitu8 33 Viii CONTENTS C. The Explanation of Becoming Page § 9. The Pythagorean Speculation ^7 § 10. Empedocles 44 § 11. Anaxagoras */ 48 § 12. Diogenes of Apollonia, Archelaus, Leucippus, De- mocritus 53 THE AGE OF CRITICISM, OR PHILOSOPHY OF MIND § 13. Protagoras o9 § 14. Socrates ... 63 § 15. Aristippus and Hedonism. — Antisthenes and Cyni- cism. — Euclides and the School of Megara . 71 A. The Negation of Matter. — The Apotheosis of Thought § 16. Plato 75 (1) The Idea 81 (2) Nature 91 (3) The Highest Good 98 § 17. Aristotle 1*^4 (1) First Philosophy 108 (2) Second Philosophy, or the Philosophy of Nature 118 B. The Apotheosis of Matter. — The Negation of the Thought- Substance § 18. Epicurus 134 C. The Apotheosis of Will § 19. Stoicism 140 §20. The Sceptical Reaction. — Pyrrhonism .... 148 § 21. Academic Scepticism 150 CONTENTS IX Page § 22. Sensationalistic Scepticism 152 § 23. The Scientific Movement 159 § 24. Eclecticism 162 § 25. Plotinus and Xeo-Platoxism 167 § 26. The Last Neo-Platonic Polvtheists. — Porphyry, Jaaiblichus, Proclus 179 II. PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES THE REIGN OF PLATONIC-CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY § 27. Christian Platonism 18y § 28. St. Augustine 188 § 29. The Death Struggles of the Roman World. — Barbarism. — The First Symptoms of a New Philosophy 198 § 30. Scholasticism 201 § 31. ScoTus Erigena 204 § 32. St. Anselmus 210 § 33. Realism and Xominalism 219 § 34. Abelard 222 § 35. Hugo of St. Victor 227 § 36. The Progress of Free Thought 230 THE REIGN OF PERIPATETIC SCHOLASTICISM A. Semi-Reallsttc Penpateticism § 37. Growing Influence of the Philosophy of Aristotle 235 § 38. The Tekipatetics of the Thiktkenth Century . 239 § .39. St. Thomas of \iiv\s 241 S 40. Duns SctjTus 246 X. CONTENTS B. Nominalistic Peripateticism Txas § 41. The Reappearaxce of Nominalism. — Dukand, Oc- cam, BURIDAN, D'AlLLY 252 §42. The Downfall of Scholasticism. — The Revival OF THE Interest in Nature and Experimental Science. — Roger Bacon. — Mysticism .... 256 § 43. The Revival of Letters 261 §44. Neo-Platonism. — Theosophy. — Magic 265 § 45. Aristotle versus Aristotle, or the Liberal Peri- patetics. — Stoics. — Epicureans. — Sceptics . 267 § 46. The Religious Reform 274 § 47. Scholasticism and Theosophy in the Protestant Countries. — Jacob Bohme 277 § 48. The Scientific Movement 281 III. MODERN PHILOSOPHY THE AGE OF INDEPENDENT METAPHYSICS (From Bruno to Locke and Kant) § 49. Giordano Bruno 286 § 50. ToMMASO Campanella 291 § 51. Francis Bacon 295 § 52. Thomas Hobbes ,300 § 53. Descartes 305 § 54. The Cartesian School 317 § 55. Spinoza 323 I. Definitions 325 II. Deductions 326 (1) Theory of Substance 326 (2) Theory of Attributes 329 (3) Theory of Modes 334 S 56. Leibniz 343 CONTEXTS XI THE AGE OF CRITICISM Page § 57. John- Locke • 370 § 58. Berkeley 391 § 59. CONDILLAC 399 § 60. The Progress of Materialism 404 § 61. David Hume 417 § 62. Immaxuel Kant 434 I. Critique of Pure Reason 437 II. Critique of Practical Reason 462 III. Critique of Judgment 468 § 63. Kant and German Idealism 473 § 64. Fichte .481 §65. SCIIELLING 487 § 66. Hegel 496 I. Logic, or Genealogy of Pure Concepts . 501 II. Philosophy of Nature 510 III. Philosophy of Mind 513 § 67. Herbart 535 § 68. Schopenhauer 544 § 69. Darwin and Contemporary INIonism 560 § 70. Positivism and Xeo-Criticism 573 § 71. Conclusion 587 Bibliography 605 LvDEx 613 HISTORY (3F PHILOSOPHY INTRODUCTION § 1. Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Science Philosophy is the search for a comprehensive view of nature, an attempt at a universal explanation of things. It is both the summaiy of the sciences and their completion ; both general science and a specialty distinguished from science proper ; and, like its elder sisters, religion and poe- try, forms a separate branch among tlie manifestations of the human mind. The different sciences have special groups of facts for their subject-matter, and seek to discover the causes of these phenomena, or to formulate the laws according to which they are produced. In philosophy, on the other hand, the human mind endeavors to rise beyond such groups and their particular laws, and to explain the world as a whole, or the universal fact or phenomenon^ by the cause of the causes, or the fii-st cause. In other words, it attempts to answer the question, Why does this world exist, and how does it happen to be what it is ? ^ ' As a searcli for the first cause, pliilosophy is defined, more par- ticularly, as melaphysics, ontology, or apeculcitive philosophy. The phil- osophy which abandons this search, and contents itself with being scientific synthesis, is called po.tilive philosophy or positivivn. Posi- tivism may simply be groiinderl upon the historical fact that systems constantly contradict each other, in which case it rests on a purely empirical basis, or it may be based upon the rational analysis of the human understanding. In the former case, it is scepticism, in the latter, criticism. Opposed to scepticism we have dofjmatism, that is, the naive or deliberate belief iu the ability of the liiinian mind to 1 2 INTRODUCTION But though philosophy has its own subject-matter and a separate sphere of its own, it is none the less connected with positive science by the closest of ties ; and science cannot break these bonds without danger to itself. It is from the positive sciences, and particularly from psychol- ogy and allied branches, that philosophy derives its methods and the matter for its systems. The sciences, without phil- osophy, are an aggregate without unity, a body without a soul; philosophy, without the sciences, is a soul without a body, differing in nothing from poetry and its dreams. Science is the indispensable foundation and the matter, as reach an objective knowledge of things and their first cause. Ration- alism claims to arrive at this knowledge by a priori reasoning ; em- piricism assumes no other method than observation and induction, or a posteriori reasoning. Pui'e, or a priori, speculation is the method pre- ferred by idealism, which regards thought as the original fact, prior and superior to all reality. Empiricism, on the contrary, is based iipon the view that thought, far from being the first cause, is derived from a pre-existing reality ; that is, upon realism in the modern sense of the word. (See also § 33.) When the action of the first cause is considered unconscious and involuntary, as distinguished from teleo- logical (or making for an end), realism becomes materialism and mech- anism. Idealism in tm-n becomes spiritualism when it personifies the first cause, and regards it, not merely as an idea that realizes itself, but also as a heing that hovers above things (supranaturalism, transcen- dentalism') and governs them according to its free-will (theism), or by means of unchangeable laws (deism) ; this is the dualism of mind and matter, of creator and nature, as opposed to pantheism, naturalism, or monism. Pantheism, naturalism, or monism identifies the idea of cause with the concept of substance, and considers the first cause as the innermost substance of things (immanency of God), and the totality of its modes or phenomena, the universe, as a living unity (monism), as one and the same collective being governed according to the laws which follow from its own nature (natm'alism) . Monism is either absolute or plural, according as it considers the cosmic substance as an absolute unity, or as a collection of irreducible unities ; it is atomism or dynamism, according as these imities are regarded as infinitely small extensions (atoms), or as absolutely unextended centres of force (dyna- mides or monads). PHILOSOPHY, METAPHYSICS, AND SCIENCE 3 it were, of pliilosopliy ; it is, to use an Aristotelian pkrase, potential philosophy. Philosophy, in turn, is science in actu, the most exalted function of the scholar, the supreme satisfaction of the scientific spirit and its natural tendency to comprehend everything into a unity. Philosophy and science are intimately related, not only in essence and in interests, but also as to their origin and destiny. Animated by the same all-powerful instinct to discern the causes of tilings — rerum cognoscere causas — and to comprehend them into the unity of a first cause, the human mind no sooner reaches certain elementary truths in physics, mathematics, and morals, than it hastens to synthesize them, to form them into universal theories, into ontological and cosmological systems, i. e. to philosO' pliize, to make metaphysics. It makes up for its ignorance of realit}^ either by means of the imagination, or by that wonderful instinct of childhood and of genius which divinea the truth without searching for it. This accounts for the aprioristic, idealistic, and fantastic character of the philoso- phy of the ancients, as well as for its incomparable grandeur. In proportion as our stock of positive knowledge is in- creased, as scientific labor is divided and consequently de- veloped, philosophy becomes more and more differentiated from poetry; its methods are recognized, its theories gain in depth what the sciences acquire in scope. Every scientific movement gives rise to a philosophical movement ; every new philosophy is a stimulus to science. Though this bond of union seems to have Ijeen ruptured during the Middle Ages, the breach is but an apparent one. Whatever hostil- ity or indifference is manifested towards science, comes from the official pliilos()])hy of the School ; it is never found among the independent philosophers, l)e they Christians, Jews, or Arabians. Tliere may be as much opposition between sci-. ence and a certain pliilosopliy in the nineteenth century as there was in the times of Roger Bacon and Lord Verulam. 4 INTRODUCTION True science and true philosopliy have always been in perfect accord, and though there may be a sembhmce of rivalry, their relations are to-day as harmonious as tliey can be.^ § 2. Division To the Ionian Greeks belongs the honor of having crea- ted 2 European pliilosophy ; to the Neo-Latins and the Ger- mans, that of having given to it its modern development. Hence there are, in the history to be outlined by us, two great and wholly distinct epochs, which are connected by the Middle Ages (period of transition). 1 [On the nature and import of pliilosophy, and its relation to other sciences, consult Ladd, Introduction to Philosojihy, New York, 1891 ; Volkelt, Vortriige zur Einfiihrung in die Philosophie der Gegen- wart, Munich, 1892; Paulsen, Einleitung in die Philosophie, 3d ed., Berlin, 1895 ; English translation by Frank Thilly, New York, 1895. -Tr.] 2 By this word we do not mean to imply the absolute originality of Hellenic philosophy. The influence exercised upon its development by the Orient cannot be doubted. There is no trace of philosophy, properly so called, among the Greeks before they come in contact with Egypt, that is, before the reign of Psammetichus, who admits them into the country. Moreover, the fathers of Greek philosophy are all lonians ; from Asia Minor philosophy was imported, first into Italy, and at a comparatively recent period into Athens, that is, into Greece proper. But what is most important, we find in Ionian phil- osophy, and that too at its very outset, conceptions the boldness of which is in marked contrast with the comparative timidity of Attic philosophy, — conceptions which pre-suppose a long line of intellectual development. The influence of Egj^tian and Chaldean science, which is, moreover, attested by Herodotus, may be compared to that exer- cised by the Arabian schools upon the development of Clu-istian thought in the Middle Ages. It has been exaggerated by Roth {Ge- schichte unserer abendldndischen Philosophie, vol. I., 1846, 1862 ; vol. II., 1858) and unjustly denied by Zeller (Die Philosophie der Griechen, 5th ed. 1892, vol. I.; English translation by Sarah AUeyne). Concerning the relation of Pythagoreanism and Platonism to Indian and Iranian speculation, and the part played by Babylon as the centre of intellec tual exchange between the Orient and the Occident, see § 9. DIVISION 5 I. In the development of Greek philosophy, we have two separate periods, — a period of spontaneous creation, and one of sceptical reflection and re^^roduction. 1. The problem which dominates the former is the problem of the origin of things : the problem of lecoming. Among the lonians, tliis pliilosophy assumes the form of materialistic pantheism; among the Italian philosophers, who are influenced by the Doric spirit, it is essentially spiritualistic pantheism. The systems produced by these two schools contain in germ all the doctrines of the future, especially the monistic and atomistic hj^^otheses, the two poles of modern scientific speculation. — From Thales to Protagoras, or from 600 to 440 b. c. 2. The age of critical reflection is inaugurated by the irdvT(ov fxerpov avdpco7ro<; of the Sophists. This period evolves the important truth, foreshadowed by Zeno, Par- menides, and Anaxagoras, that the human understanding is a coefficient in the production of the phenomenon. To the problems of nature are added the problems of the soul ; to the cosmological questions, logical and critical questions ; to the speculations on the essence of things, investigations concerning the criterion of truth and the end of life. Greek philosophy reaches its highest development in Plato, as far as depth is concerned ; in Aristotle and in the sci- ence of Alexandria, as regards analysis and the extent of its inquiries. II. Scientific progress, and consequently speculation, was arrested by the invasion of the Northern races. The philosophical spirit was extinguished for want of something to nourish it. Ten centuries of uninterrupted labor were followed by ten centuries of sleep, — a sleep that was deep at first, and then broken by bright dreams of the past (Plato and Aristotle) and forecasts of the future. Altliougli the logic of liist^jry is less transparent during the middle ages tlian before and after this period of transition, wo 6 INTRODUCTION notice two epoclis that run parallel with those of Attic philosoph}- : one, Platonic, realistic, turned towards the past (from St. Augustine to St. Anselm), the other, Peri- patetic, nominalistic, big with the future. III. Modern philosophy dates from the scientific and literary revival in the fifteenth century. Its history, like that of Greek speculation, presents, — 1. A period of expansion and ontological synthesis (Bruno, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz), and, 2. A period of critical reflection and analysis (essays concerning the human understanding : Locke, Hume, Kant, and liis successors). § 3. Sources The principal sources for the history of jDliilosophy are : For pre-Socratic speculation : Plato and Aristotle. ^ For Socrates: Xenophon^ and Plato, particularly the Apologj/, the CrtYo, and the Fhcedo. For Plato : the Republic^ the Timceus^ the Syviposium, the Fhcedrtcs, the Thecetetiis, the Gorgias, the Protagoras.^ For Aristotle : the Meta])hysics, the Logic, the Ethics, the Physics, the Psychology, the Politics ; the commentators of Aristotle, especially Simplicius.* * Especially the first book of the Metaphysics (see § 17, first note), which is a historical summary of philosophy from Thales to Aristotle. The fragments of the pre-Socratic authors have been collected by Mullach, Fragmenta phil. grcec. ante Socratem, 3 vols., Paris, 1860 [also by Ritter and Preller (mentioned on page 8). English trans- lations in Burnet's Early Oreek Philosophy (page 8), and of Heraclitus, in Patrick's Heraclitus on Nature. For translations of classical writers, consult Bohn's Classical Library. — Tr.]. 2 Memorabilia Socratis recens. J. G. Schneider, Oxf., 1813. « [See § 16, note 2. — Tr.] * Comment, in Arist. physicorum libros, ed. by Hermann Diels, Berlin, 1882 ; Comment, in libros de anima, ed. by M. Hayduck, Berlin, 1882. SOURCES 7 For the post-Aristotelian schools and Greek philosophy in general : Lucretius,^ Cicero,^ Seneca,^ Plutarch,* Sextus Empiricus,^ Diogenes Laertius,^ Clement of Alexancb.ia,7 Origeu,^ Hippolytus,^ Eusebius,!^ Plotiniis," Porphyry,ii 1 Lucretii Cari de rerum natura libb. C. Lachmaun rec. et illustr., Berlin, 1850 ff. [edited also by Bernays, Munro, and others]. 2 The De divinatione et defato, the De natura deorum, the De offi- ciis, the Dejinihus, the Tusculance disputationes, and the Academica; Opera omnia, ed. I-^e Clerc, Bouillet, Lemau-e, 17 vols., Paris, 1827-32 ; Opera philosophica, ed. Goerenz, 3 vols., Leipsic, 1809-1813 ; Ciceronis historia pldlosophics antiquce, ex omnibus illius scriptis collegit F. Gedike, Berlin, 1782, 1801, 1814. 3 Opera qu£e extant c. not. et comment, varior., 3 vols., Amsterdam, 1672. * De physicis philosophorum decretis libb., ed. Beck, Leipsic, 1777; Scripta mornlia, 6 vols., Leipsic, 1820 ; Opera omnia graece et latine ed. Reiske, 12 vols., Leipsic, 1774-82. s Sexti Empirici opera (Uvpfxoveicop vTrorvnuaeoiv libb. IIL ; Ad ver- sus mathematicos libb. XL) graic. et lat. ed. Fabricius, Leipsic, 1718 and 1842 ; ed. Emm. Bekker, Berlin, 1842. 8 Diogenis Laertii de vitis, dogmatibus et apopTithegmatibus darorum. philosophorum libb. X. grsece et latine ed. Hiibner, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1828, 1831 ; D. L. 1. X. ex Italicis codicibus nunc primum excussis recensuit C. Gabr. Cobet, Paris, 1850. Diogenes Laertius flourished about 230 of oiir era. ' dementis Alexandrini opera, Leipsic, 1830-34 (Adyo? TrporpfnTiKos TT/joy 'EXXj^ms- ; IlatSaycoyos ; Srpco/xaTf Is) . 8 De principds gr. ed. c. interpret, lat. Rufini, et annot. instruxit ed. R. Redepeuuing, Leipsic, 183G ; Contra Celsum libb. ed. Spencer, Cam- bridge, 1671 ; Origenis opera omnia quje graece vel latine tantum ex- stant et ejus nomine circumferuntur, ed. C. et C. V. Delarue, denuo recens. emend, castig. C. H. E. Lommatzsch, 25 vols., Berlin, 1831-48. * S. Ilippolyti refutalionis omnium hceresium libror. X. quae super- Bunt graice et latine ed. Duncker et Schneidewin, Gbtt. 1856-59. The firbt book, known by the title ({)iXo(To(f)oCixfva, was for a long time attributed to Origen ; l)Ooka TV.-X., whioli were discovered in Greece in 1842, were first pu]>]i9hed by Emm. Miller, Oxford, 1851, under the title Origenis philosophumena, etc. 1* Eu.seliii Paniph. Pncparatio evangelica, ed. Ileiiiichen, Leipsic, 1812. u See § 25. 8 INTRODUCTION Proclus,! Eunapms,^ Stobseus,^ Photius,* Suidas,^ and mod- ern historical Works.^ 1 See § 25. 2 Euiiapii Sard. VitCB philosophorum et sophistarum, ed. Boissonade, Paris, 18i9. 8 Stobfei Eclogarwn physicarum et ethicarwn libb. graece et latine ed. Heeren, 2 vols., Gdtt. 1791, 1801 (out of print) ; id. ed. Meineke, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1860, 1864; Stobsei Florilegium, ed. Th. Gaisford, 4 vols., Oxford, 1822 ; Leipsic, 1823 ; Meineke, 4 vols., Leipsic, 1855-57. * MyriobihUon, ed. Hdschel, Augsburg, 1801. The patriarch Pho- tius flourished in the 9th century. ^ Lexicon of Suidas, ed. Gaisford, London, 1834 ; Bernhardi, 2 vols., Halle, 1834. Suidas flourished about 1000. 6 Especially : [jNIuUach, Fragmenia jihilosophorum Grcecorum, 3 vols., 1860-1881; Diels, Doxographi Grceci, Berlin, 1879] ; Ritter and PreUer, Historia philosophice Graeco-Romance ex fontium locis contexta [7th ed., Schultess and Wellmann, Gotha, 1888] ; Ritter, Geschichte der Philo- sophie alter Zeil, Berlin, 1829 ; Brandis, Handhuch der Geschichte der griechisch-rbmischen Philosophie, 3 vols., Berlin, 1835-1860 ; same author, Geschichte der Entwickelungen der gr. Philosophie, etc., 2 vols., 1862-64 ; Roth, Geschichte unserer abend land ischen Philosophie, 2 vols., Mannheim- 1848-58 ; Laforet, Histoire de la philosophie ancienne, 2 vols., Brussels, 1867 ; Ed. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung [(five editions since 1844), 5th ed. begun in 1892, 3 pts. in 5 vols., Leipsic (Engl, transl. of all but part dealing with Ai'istotle and elder Peripatetics, by S. F. AUeyne and O. J. Reichel, London and New York, 1876-1883. Same author's smaller work, Grundriss der Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, 4th ed., Leipsic, 1893 ; Engl, transl. by S. F. AUeyne and Evelyn Abbot, Xew York, 1890. — Tr.]. Tlie following may also be consulted with profit : Grote, Histoi-ij oj Greece, 6th ed., 10 vols., London, 1888 ; the same author, Plato and the other Companions of Socrates, 5th ed., London, 1888 ; [same author, Aristotle, 2 vols., 2d ed., 1879; Schwegler, Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, 3d ed. Tiibingen, 1886 ; Ferrier, Lectures on Greek Philoso- phy, 2 vols., Edinburgh and London, 1866 ; London, 1888 ; Teichmiiller, Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe, Berlin, 1874 ; Neue Studien, Gotha, 1876-79; Byk, Die vorsokratische Philosophie, Leipsic, 1875-77; Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, London and Edinburgh, 1892 ; INIayor, A Sketch oJ Ancient Philosophy from Tholes to Cicero, Cambridge, 1881 If. ; Benn, The Greek Philosophers, 2 vols., London, 1883 ; Windelband, Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, 2d ed., Munich, 1894 ; Marshall, A Short SOURCES 9 For the Patristic period : the polemical writiugH of the Fathers, 1 especially the X0709 TrpoTpeirrLKo^ 7rpoy L. Geiger, Leipsic, 1886 (Engl, transl. l)y S. G. C. Middleman, London, 1878 and 1890); Geiger, Rennv ment, plays but a subordinate and intermittent part in history. Religion, on the other hand, guides its destinies. It is the primordial and permanent expression of what lies at tlie very root of our nature, that is, the will, and consists essentially in the rvill to be, until the evolu- tion of consciousness enables it to foresee its highest and absolute end, the good. To will-to-live means to resist annihilation, conse- quently, to dread everything that is supposed to have the power of destroying and of preserving life. Now, the horror of death and of the forces which produce it, the passionate desire for life and what- fver is able to preserve it, is precisely what constitutes the essence of (iiaififia, the characteristic trait of the religious phenomenon. This is 80 true that we find the ])elief \\\ immortality and the worship of tlie dead ax beings that continue to live in spite of all, intimately con- nected with all religions. Such a belief simply represents the desire of tlio will-to-live to continue even after death and beyond the grave. 3 609-^ 18 GREEK PHILOSOPHY and the physical conditions under which it developed, forms its starting-point. This naturalism had passed the period of infancy long before the appearance of philoso- phy. The luminous Ether (Diaus-Zeus), the Sun and its fire (Apollo), the Storm-cloud and its thunderbolts (Pallas- Athene), were originally taken for the gods them- selves. Just as the child transforms its surroundings into an enchanted world, and regards its doll and wooden horse as living beings, so the humanity-child makes na- ture after its own image. For the contemporaries of Homer and Hesiod, such objects are merely the sensible manifestations of the invisible divinity concealed behind them, a being that is similar to the human soul, but superior to it in power, and, like it, invested with immortality. The gods form a kind of idealized, transcendent humanity, whose vices as well as virtues are magnified. The world is their work, their empire, the theatre of their wishes. The Old Testament, which might be cited against us, and which is cer- tainly far from being explicit on the subject of individual immortality, is so much the more outspoken on the question of the immortality of Israel. Nay, the immortality of Israel is its fundamental dogma. It has been well said, men would have no religion at all if there were no death ; and the essence of the religious phenomenon was excellently characterized by the preacher who once remarked : " I never have such well-disposed hearers as on Good Friday, and what makes them so religious is the memento mori." Hence we may define religion as fol- lows : Subjectively, it is the fear with which the givers of life and death, be they real or imaginary, inspire us ; objectively, it is the sum of ideas, doctrines, and institutions resulting from this feeling. Religious theory, or theology, and religious practice, or worship, the orig- inal form of morality, are constitutive, but derived and secondary elements, the products of an essentially emotional, instinctive, and {esthetical phenomenon called religion. By reflecting upon itself religion becomes theology ; theology, in its turn, reflects upon itself, and becomes religious criticism, philosophy (Xenophanes). [Concern- ing the origin and evolution of religion, see Paulsen's Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 266 ff.] ORIGIN OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY 19 defeats, and triumphs. Man, whom they envy rather than love, exists for their pleasure. They are the highest personifications of the will-to-live, and are jealous of their unquestioned superiority, hence they deny him perfect happiness. The most assiduous worship, the richest sacri- fices, the most perfect fidelity, cannot move them when our prosperity displeases them. Hence the melancholy which breathes in the gnomic poetry of a Solon or a Theognis, who prefer death to life, and esteem them happy who have never been born or who die young.^ In the measure in which the moral conscience is devel- oped and re lined, religious ideas are transformed and spirit- ualized. The gods of Homer, who reflect the exuberant, versatile, and quarrelsome youth of the Hellenic nation, are succeeded by tlie just and wise gods, the creations of its riper manhood (Pindar, ^Eschylus, Sophocles). This qual- itative transformation of the religious ideas is accompanied by a quantitative transformation. Polytheism aims at greater simplicity. The good, which the will perceives as its highest end, is synonymous with harmony, and harmony means unity in diversity. Religious and moral progress is, in consequence, a progress in the unitary and monotheistic direction. The moral consciousness, which among the Greeks is identical witli the sense of the beautiful, finds a powerful ally in reason and its natural tendency to unity. Guided by the monistic instinct, theology asks itself tlie question, Who is the oldest of tlie gods, and in what order do they spring from their common Father ? and receives an answer in the theogonies of Hesiod, Pherecydes of Syros,^ and Orpheus.^ Here, for the first time, the philosophical spirit ' Cf. ZclliT, vol. I., Introduction. ^ F^herecydis frafjmpnta coll. et illustr. Fr. G. Sturz, 2il ed., Leipsic, 1834. ' See concerning Orjilu'us llif scholarly work of Lobcck, Aglaopha' mux sive de theologice mysticat Grcccorum causis, 2 vols., 1829. 20 GREEK PHILOSOPHY finds satisfaction; tliese fantastic conceptions are anticipa- tions of the rational explanation of nature. To conscience and reason a third factor, experience, is added. Tliis, too, assists in the transformation of religious ideas by demonstrating, with increasing evidence, the im- possibility of explaining all phenomena, without exception, by capricious wills. The facts of mathematics, because of their universality and necessity, especially defy theo- logical interpretation ; how indeed can we assume the fact that twice two is four or that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, to be the result of caprice and not of absolute necessity ? In the same way the obser- vation of astronomical and physical facts, and their constant regularity and periodicity, gives rise to the idea of a Will that is superior to the whims of the gods {ava<^Kif]^ aSpdareia, fiolpa^ rvxv)-> of ^^ immutable Justice (Sikj], elixap/xevr]), of a divine Law (delo^ v6/MofiaTa, V., p. GOl C ; ibid., p. 711 15 ; Bulile, Commentatio de oriu et profjressu panlheisjni inde a Xenophane, etc., Golt., 1790; V. Cousin, Xenophane, fondateur de Vecole d'Ele'e (in the Nouveaux frarpnents phi- losophiquex), Paris, 182S; Kern, Qurestiones Xenophanece, Naumburg, 1846; MuUach, Frarjmenta, I., pp. 101 ff. ; Ritter and Preller, pp. 75- 84; [Burnet, pp. 115 if.]; J. Freiidenthal, Ueber die Theologie des Xenophanrx, P>roslau, 1880. Freudouthal bases his view partly on the words iv roU 0(ol(n (Mullacli, p. 101), and makes Xenophanos a polytlieist. This is a strange misconception of the spirit for the letter, and would be like reckoning Spinoza among the theists, becausa he call.s nature God, and God a thinking thing. 26 GREEK PHILOSOPHY all things by his thought alone. Mortals, of course, accept the authority of Homer and Hesiod, and think that the gods are born as they are, and like them have feeling, voice, and body ; and they ascribe to the gods all things that are a shame and disgrace among men, — theft, adultery, and falsehood. They do as the oxen or lions would do if they could paint: they would certainly represent their gods in the form of lions or oxen. In place of these imaginary beings, let us adore the one infinite Being, who bears us in his bosom, and in whom there is neither generation nor corruption, neither change nor origin.^ 2. Parmenides 2 completes the teachings of his master, and makes them the starting-point for a strictly monistic 1 MuUach, pp. 101-102 : Eis 6fos €V T€ 6(01(71 KM dvOpanoicn fxeyidTOS, 0VT€ 8e'/xas 6vr]Toi(HV ofioi'ios ovre v6r]fia. OvXos opa, ouXos Se wet, ovXos 8f t uKOvei. *AXX* aTrdvevde novoio vSov (j)p(v\ navra Kpabaivet. Atfi S' fV TCIVTM T( p.€V(LV KLVOVflfVOV Ov8fV, ovbe fierepxfo'dal p.iv ennrpeTTfi aWore aWr/. ciXXa fipoTo\ boKiovai deoiis yevmadat T^v iT(f>fTepr]v T aiadrjaiv e'x^"' 4'^''^^ '''^ Befiai re. ndvTa Bfols dvedrjKav Onrfpos ff HcrioSo? rf ocrtra Trap' dvdpdnroicnv 6vfi8ea Koi "^oyos eariv, Itai TrXeicr' ecfiSey^avro 6fa>v d6fni(TTia tpya, KXfTTTfiu, noL^ev€Lv Tf KOI dWrjXovi anareveiv. AXX' etVot ;(etpdy y* (tx°^ /3ofS rje Xfocrff, T] ypd\j/ai ;^fipe(Tcrt Koi i'pya TfXf'iu dnep livhpfi, Xirrroi p.iv 6' Iitttoktu ^oes Se re ^ovaiv o/j-oias Kai K€ 6(u>v ideas typacpop * Sextus Empiricus, Adv. malh., VII., Ill ; Simplicius, Inphys., f. 7, 0, 19, 25, 31, 38 ; Proclus, Comment, in Plat. Timceum, p. 105 ; Clem, of Alex., Strom., V., pp. 552 D, 614 A ; MuUach, Fragm. phil. gr., I., pp. 109 ff.; Ritter and PreUer, pp. 85 ff.; [Burnet, pp. 218 ff.]. ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY 27 system. Since there is no change in God, and since God is everything, that which we call change (aWoiovadaL) is but an appearance, an illusion (86^a), and there is in reality neither origin nor decay. The eternal being alone exists : tliis thesis forms the subject of a philosophical poem, the fragments of which are the most ancient monu- ment in our possession of metaphysical speculation proper among the Greeks. In the ih-st part, dedicated to Trutli, he demonstrates by means of specious arguments that our notions of change, plurality, and limitation contradict reason. In the second part, which deals with the merely illusory, he attempts to give an explanation of nature from the standpoint of illusion. Starting out with the idea of being, he proves that that which is cannot have become what it is, nor can it cease to be, nor become something else ; for if being has begun to exist, it has come either from being or non-being. Now, in the former case, it is its own product, it has created itself, which is equivalent to saying that it has not origi- nated, — that it is eternal. The latter case supposes that something can come from nothing, which is absurd. For the same reasons, that which exists can neither change nor perish, for in death it would pass either into being or into non-being. If being is changed into being, then it does not change ; and to assume that it becomes nothing is as impossible as to make it come from nothing. Consequently being is eternal. It is, moreover, immovable ; for it could move only in space ; now space is or is not ; if space is, it is identical with l)eing, and to say of being that it is moved in space is to say that being is moved in being, which means that it is at rest. If space is nothing, there cannot be any movement either, for movement is possible only in space. Hence, movement cannot be conceived in any way, and is but an appearance. Being is a continuous (a-vvex^) and indivisible whole. There is no void anywhere. There 28 GKEEK PHELOSOPHY is no break between being and being ; consequently these are no atoms. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that there existed a void, a break between the assumed parts of the universe. If this interval is something real, it is what being is, it continues being, instead of interrupt- ing it ; it unites the bodies instead of dividing them into parts. If the void does not exist, then it can no longer divide them. There is then no interval between being and being, and all beings constitute but one single being. Being (the universe) is absolute and self-sufficient ; it has neither desires nor wants nor feelings of any kind. If it were relative, it could depend only on that which is or on that which is not. If being depends on being, it depends upon itself or is independent ; if it depends on that which does not exist, it is still independent ; which excludes from it all desire, all need, all feeling. When one is everything, one has no desires. Finally, being is one; for a second being or a third being would be but a continuation of it, that is, itself. Hence, to sum up : Being can only be conceived as eternal, immutable, immovable, continuous, indivisible, infuiite, unique. There is for the thinker but one single being, the All-One, in whom all individual dif- ferences are merged. The being that thinks and the being that is thought are the same thing (tcovtov 8' eVrl voelv re Kul ovv€K€v icrrt vojjfxa).^ In the second part of his poem, Parmenides deals with opinion (86^a)^ which depends on the senses and is con- cerned with what is merely illusory. The universe, which reason conceives as an indivisible unity, is divided by the senses into two realms or rival elements : night or cold ; and light, fire, or heat. The universe, which to reason is without beginning or end, has its a]3parent origin, its genesis ; and this genesis is the successive victory of the principle of 1 Simplicius I?i Phys., f. 19 A, 31 B. ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY 29 light over the principle of darkness. Night is the mother, the luminous principle is the father, of all forms {etSi]). The world shows the traces of the two elements to which it owes its origin even in its smallest parts. The warm and the cold, the clear and the obscure, are universally combined in constant proportions. The universe is com- posed of a series of concentric spheres, in which the light and warm spheres alternate with the dark and cold spheres. The outermost sphere, which encloses all the rest (to 7re/3ie%oy), is solid, cold, and dark ; beneath it lies the fiery sphere of the fixed stars ("OXu^ttTro? eaxaro^). The central sphere is also solid and cold, but it is surrounded by a sphere of light and life. This fiery sphere which encircles the solid core of the earth is the source of movement (that is, of illusion i), the hearth of universal life (eana rov iravTo^), the seat of the Divinity (Aaifxcov), the Queen of the world (/cu/SepyjyT?/?), Justice (Ai'/c?;), Necessity (AvdyKr]), the Mother of Love (A(}>poBiTi]). These doctrines, which partially reproduce Ionian and Pythagorean speculations, are not offered as the truth, but as hypotheses intended to orient us in the world of illu- sion. They have not for Parmenides the importance which they have for the louians. Inasmuch as he does not grant the existence of motion, but rejects as illusory that which constitutes the essence of nature, he accepts no other science than metaphysics, no other metaphysics than that of a priori reasoning. On account of the opposition which he creates between the real and the intelligible, he is the chief fore- runner of Platonic idealism, witliout, however, being a spir- itualist in tlie modern sense. Spiritualism distinguishes between corporeal substance and soul-substance; Eleatic metaphysics makes no such distinction. Tlic being which it allinns is neither l)ody nor soul, neither matter nor spirit; it is being, nulliiug but l)cing; and everything else 1 Cf. tlif! Miija of the Iliiuloos, the luuther of illusions. 30 GREEK PHILOSOPHY is merely an accident, an appearance, an illusion. Nay, if we interpret the word matter in the subtle, metaphysical sense of suhstance or universal suhstratiwi, we may reckon Parmenides among the materialists, like his modern imi- tator Spinoza. But it would be a mistake to call liim a materialist in the sense in which the term is applied to Democritus and the modern materialists ; for materialism, properly so-called, exists only in opposition to spiritualism, wliich is later than Parmenides. The monism of Par- menides and Heraclitus is like the block of marble which may be formed into a basin or a Jupiter, or like the mother- cell from which, according to circumstances, a Socrates or an Erostratus may come ; it is capable of being differ- entiated and developed into materialistic or spiritualistic monism. 3. Plato deduces idealism from it, while Melissus of Samos^ (440) interprets it in an altogether materialistic sense. This philosopher, who was also a brave general and a clever politician, opposes the Ionian cosmogonies with the Eleatic doctrine of the eternity of the world. If becoming is impossible, it is henceforth useless and absurd to inquire into the manner in which the universe originated. Being (to 6v) is infinite in time, and — which is contrary to the view of Parmenides, who conceived it as a sphere — infinite in spfice {coairep icrrl alei^ ovrco koI to fx.€jado<; anreipov aid xpv €lvaL). This latter trait, which leaves no doubt as to the materialism of Melissus, gives his system a wholly modern stamp, and distinguishes it from most of the an- cient systems, particularly from that of Aristotle. For the Greek, who judges of things artistically, regards the infi- nite as the imperfect, as without limitation ; and the uni- verse, which is the acme of perfection, is surely the perfect 1 The author of a book, iripi tov ovtos (in the Ionian dialect), quoted in different passages by Simplicins, Ln Pkys., f . 22, and paxsim ; [Ritter and Preller pp. 106-111 ; MuUach, I., pp. 261 ff. ; Burnet, 338 ff. — Tr.]. ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY 31 sphere, one half of which is revealed to us by the sense of sight, and of which the earth is the centre. 4. Zeko,^ a pupil and follower of Parmenides, is the controversialist of the school, the inventor of the process of demonstration called reductio ad ahsu?rhim, the father of dialectics and sophistry. The One alone is conceivable; extension, magnitude, motion, and space, cannot be con- ceived. If there is such a thing as a (limited) magnitude, it must be infinitely great and infinitely small : infinitely great, because, being infinitely divisible, it is composed of an infinite number of parts ; infinitely small, because unex- tended parts, even though multiplied by infinity, cannot produce extension or magnitude. Movement cannot be conceived ; for the line which sep- arates its starting-point from its point of rest is composed of points, and, since the point has no extension, of an infi- nite number of points. Hence every distance, even the smallest, is infinite, and the stopping-point can never be reached. However near you may imagine the swift Achilles to be to the slow tortoise, he will never be able to overtake it, since, in order to do so, he would first have to pass over one half of tlie distance', however small, which separates him from the tortoise, and, in order to pass over this half, he would first have to pass over the half of the half, and so on to infinity. The infinite divisibility of the line is for liim an insurmountable oljstacle. You have an idea that the arrow flies through space. But in order to reach its destination, it must pass over a series of points in space ; lience it must successively occupy these diiferent points. Now, to occupy a point of space, at a given mo- ment, means to be at rest : therefore tlie arrow is at rest and its movement is but illusory. » Aristotle, Pk;/s., VI., 2, 9 ; Siinplicius, In IVn/s., f. 30, 1.30, 255; MuUach, I., pp. 266 IT.; Ritter and Preller, pp. 100 £f.; [Burnet, pp. 828 ff.]. 32 GREEK PHILOSOPHY Fiu-thermore, if movement takes place, it can take place only in space. Now, if space is a reality, it exists some- where, that is, in a space, which in turn exists in another space, and so on ek direipov. Motion is, therefore, impos- sible from every point of view, and we cannot suppose it to be real, unless we are willing to affirm an absurdity. Being alone exists, and this being is immutable matter.^ 5. GoRGiAS 2 of Leontinum, the rhetorician, a pupil of Zeno, who was sent by his country as an ambassador to Athens in 427, deduces the ultimate consequences from the Eleatic principle and ends in nihilism. He is not, like Zeno, content with denying motion and space ; as his treatise, irepl rou fir] 6vT0pfi f«' ovhkv fxevei k. t. X. HERACLITUS 35 re-ascends into the heavens, and strives to change earth into fire. It is this continuous battle between two con- trar}" currents that produces all vegetable, animal, and intellectual life on the sui'face of the earth. Everything arises from the strife of opposites.^ Organic life is pro- duced by the male and the female ; musical harmony, by sharp and flat notes ; it is sickness that makes us appre- ciate health ; ^dthout exertion, there can be no sweet repose ; without danger, no courage ; without evil to over- come, no \drtue. Just as fire lives the death of air, air, the death of fu-e, water, the death of air, earth, the death of water; so, too, the animal lives the death of the vege- table, man, the death of the animal, the gods, the death of man, virtue, the death of vice, and vice, the death of virtue. Hence, good is a destroyed evil, evil, a vanished good ; and since evil does not exist without the good, nor the good without the evil, evil is a relative good, and good i relative evil. Like being and non-being, good and evil disappear in the universal harmon3^ The emphasis which Heraclitus la3S on the perpetual flux and the absolute instability of things, on the vanity of all inaLpa (the ciro/xa of the atomists). Since, from the geometrical point of view, quality is reduced to quantity and form, these particles differ only in quantity and in figure. They form either cubes or pyramids (tetrahedrons) or octahedrons or icosahedrons or dodecahedrons. The unity reacts against this endless separation, and the parti- cles are joined together again according to their geometric affinities and form elementary bodies: earth, fire, air,- water, and etlier. Fire is the element par excellence^ being formed of tetrahedric particles. It is the symbol of the divine principle in nature and is concentrated into a central sun, the hearth of the universe and the abode of the Supreme God {karla rov iravTO'i), around which revolve (1) tlie Oura- nos, embracing the coufiter-earth (avrix^av) and the earth ; (2) the Cosmos proper, consisting of the moon, the sun (?) and the planets ; (3) the Olympus with the fixed stars. Pythagoras substitutes for the earth a central fire (which is invisible because the earth keeps facing it with the part that is opposite to the one we inhabit), and makes the earth revolve around this centre. But tliis does not mean, of course, that he advanced the heliocentric theory ; he merely foreshadowed the system which his school formulated during the following centuries without succeeding in hav- ing it accepted by the majority of scientists. The distances separating the spheres are proportional to the numbers which express the relations that exist between tones and the respective lengths of vibrating strings ; and the result of their revolutions around the axis of the world is a divine harmony which the musical genius alone can perceive. This harmony is the soul of the universe. The different beings form an ascending scale according to the degree of perfection with which they reflect the universal harmony. The motion of the elementary being, the physical point, produces the line ; the line moves and produces the plane ; THE PYTHAGOREAN SPECULATION 43 the plane produces the body, from which sensation, percep- tion, and intelligence gradually arise (emanation). The individual is mortal in so far as he springs from the temporary union of corporeal elements, according to a ratio that varies witliin certain limits. When these limits are passed, proportion becomes disproportion, an unequal strug- gle, disease, decay, and death. But the ideal contents of the broken vase are secure against destruction. The soul is a fixed number in the eternal scale of things, a portion of the world-soul, a spark of the celestial fire, a thought of God. In this respect it is immortal; at death it enters upon a state that is superior or inferior to our present life or like it, according as the soul has lived for God, for the world, or for itself (metempsychosis and palingenesis). Although the Pythagoreans, like Parmenides and Hera- clitus, accentuate one of the constitutive elements of reality and eventually negate concrete existence in order to exalt the Idea, they none the less introduce into Greek thought one of the most important factors in the solution of the Eleatic-Heraclitean problem: What is becoming or the process of perpetual change affirmed by the philosopher of Ephesus, and how can it be reconciled with the con- ception of the permanence and immutability of matter, which is advanced, no less authoritatively, by the school of Elea? We mean their theory of monads : the infinitosimal particles or physical points of which matter is made up. The subsequent systems all attempt to reconcile Elea and Ei)hesus by means of the physico-arithmetical theory of elementary units. Thought discovers in the atomistic hypothesis the middle term that unites Parmenides, who denies the great empirical fact of generation and change, and Heraclitus^ who sacrifices being and its permanence to becoming, — tliereby combining the two rival systems into a liigher synthesis, — and lays the foundation for every rational explanation of the process of becoming. Hence- 44 GREEK PHILOSOPHY forth philosophy no longer regards matter as a continuous mass, the essential properties of which are incessantly transformed. It breaks them up into parts that are in themselves immutable, but which continually change their relative positions. As a consequence, there can be both perpetual change in the aspects of matter (bodies) and per- manence in the essence and properties of matter. All change is reduced to change of j)lace : mechanism. Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus, who hold this theory, differ from each other as Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Anaximander differ among themselves ; that is to say, the first makes motion, the second, the Idea (i^ou?), the third, matter, the keystone of his system. § 10. Empedocles Empedocles,! of Agrigentum, in Sicily (450), who in consequence of his knowledge of medicine, the cures which he effected, and the mystery with which he loved to sur- round himself, was regarded as a magician and a god, is the author of a grand philosophical poem, the fragments of which seem to place him in an intermediate position between the Eleatics and the lonians. He sides with the Eleatics in his denial of becoming, as Heraclitus understands it ; and approaches the lonians in assuming the reality of motion. Matter is immutable in its essence, but bodies are in a state of constant change ; their constituent elements are combined and separated in different proportions. We cannot conceive how fire as such can become air, air, water, and so on ; Init it is con- 1 Sext. Emp., Adv. math., VTL, 123; Simplicius, In PJn/s., f. 24, f. 76; Plutarch, De plac. pJnl; Aristotle (Met., Phys., and Psychology), etc.; Fragments of Empedocles, collected by A. Peyron (Leipsic, 1810), S. Karsten (Relii/mce pUl vet. gr., vol. IT., Amst., 1838), Th. fBergk (Leipsic, 1843), II. Stein (Bonn, 1852), Mullach (I., pp. 1 ff.), Rittei and PreUer (pp. 125 ff.) ; [Burnet, pp. 218 ff.]. EMPEDOCLES 45 ceivable that the thousand different combinations of these elements should produce an infinite variety of bodies. Hence we must abandon the notion of elementary unity ; we must cease deriving air from ether, water from air, earth from water, and consider these four elements as equally original. Hsi\e the fo^ir elements {arofxela) movement of their own, or have they received it from a distinct principle, from a Irigher force? It is hard to separate the thought of the philosopher from his poetical phraseology, encumbered as it is by images and contradictions. We may, it seems, con- clude from his poem that he no longer assumes hylozoism, the eternity of motion, and the original vitality of matter in the same sense as the Ionian physicists. He appears to explain movement by an immaterial principle, or rather, by two distinct immaterial principles, one of which unites the elements, while the other separates them: Love {(f)iXia, ^fXoT?;?, aTopyrj) or the principle of union, and Discord (veiKO'i, epL<;, e;^^o?), the principle of separation.^ These two motive causes, which the imagination of the poet interprets as opposing divinities, alternately rule the elements. Love first unites them and forms them into a single spherical body {(r(f)alpo<;). Discord ensues and divides them ; as a result, the earth, the ocean, the atmosphere, the heavenly ether, and the stars arise. This period of })rimitive crea- tion, which is tlie A\'ork of Discord, is followed by an epoch of struggle between Discord and Love, during which plants, animals, and men originate. Discord lias, in sepa- rating the elements, prepared for each class of beings the habitation adapted to them, l)ut it coidd not form tlie organ- isms themselves, which are a mixture of the four elcmoits and consecpiently tlie work of the unifying i)rinciple, the product of Love reacting against tli(; exclusive sway of vVn- ^ Nowaflays we should usart TIL, vol. 2, R.-rlin, 1S.'5S) ; Panzerbieter, De Ding A. vita et scriptis, Mciningcn, 1823. — Tk.]. 54 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY principle, is wholly dependent on air. This is proved by the fact that the spirit leaves the body as soon as the breath is taken away. Hence we cannot say that air is the product of mind or thought ; nay, the reverse is true, mind is the product of air. Without air there can be no life, no consciousness, no intelligence ; hence air, that is, matter, is the only principle. Intelligence is not a distinct sub- stance, but an attribute of air. It is obvious, says Dio- genes, that the principle we assume is both great and mighty and eternal and undying and of great knowledge (jxeya Kol ia')(ypov kol athiov re ical aOdvarov koX ttoWo, eiSo9). It is the opinion of this physicist, whose views are closely akin to those of Melissus and the Eleatics, that dualism is the negation of the fundamental principle of science (e^ ez'o? aTravra). I believe, he goes on to say, that all things are differentiations of the same thing, and are the same thing ; and this seems obvious to me. How, indeed, could the so-called elements, earth, water, air, etc., mix with one another, if they were not fundamentally the same ? How could they help or harm each other ? How could the earth produce plants, and plants animals ? Let us therefore confess, with the ancient physicists, that all things arise from the same substance, and are destined to return to the same thing.^ 2. Aechelaus.^ — Archelaus of Athens, or, according to others, of Miletus, is a disciple of Anaxagoras. He ad- heres to his teacher's atomism, but protests against the dualistic interpretation of his system. The vov'i is a sepa- rate thing like water, gold, and iron. It differs from these substances as these substances differ among themselves. Gold is not iron, but iron and gold are both matter. So, too, mind, though neither gold nor iron, is, nevertheless, i MuUach, p. 254. [Ritter and Preller, p. 173.] 2 Diog. L., II. ; SimpL, In Arist. Phjs., fol. 6 ; [Ritter and Preller, pp. 178 ; Mullach, I,, pp. 257 ff . ; Burnet, pp. 367 ff.]. THE ATOMISTS 55 material ; it is the finest, the most subtle, the most intan- gible substance, without, however, being a simple tiling. A simple substance is a substance that is composed of nothing, and consequently does not exist. Matter and substance are, therefore, synonymous terms. 3. The ATo:\nsTS. — That is also, on the whole, the teaching of Leucippus and his cUsciple, Democritus of Abdera, in Thrace, the most learned of the Ionian physi- cists and the head of the ancient and modern materialistic ^ school (420 B.C.). His numerous writings have been lost, but important fragments remain. Besides, direct sources being wanting, we may refer to the exposition of atomistic principles in the poem of Lucretius.^ The somewhat vague doctrines of Anaximenes, Dio- genes, and Anaxagoras, on the nature and organization of matter, are clearly formulated by Democritus.^ With Anaximenes and Diogenes, he affirms the homogeneity of all bodies; but, with Anaxagoras, he conceives this indeterminate matter as divided into an infinite num- ber of infinitely small molecules, which come together and separate. In that way bodies are formed and destroyed. These molecules are infinite in number and indivisible 1 We say muterialistic, and not atomhtic. For atomism is as old as Anaxagoras and his theory of the ^pr^fiaTa "meipa kqi n'KTJdos Km afiiKpo- TT]Ta, in fact if not in name. 2 [De natiira rerum, ed. by Lachmann (1850), Bernays (1852), Munro, with Eng. tr. (1886). See Masson, The Atomic Theory of Lucretius, London, 1884. — Tr.] « Aristotle, Met., I., 4; De coelo, III., 2; De mwna, I., 2; Sext. Emp., Adv. math., VII., 135; Diog. L., IX.; Lucretius, De rerum natura; Clem, of Alex., Stromaleix; Mullach, I., pp. 330 ff . ; Ritter and Preller, ])p. 154 ff. ; [Liard, De Democrito philofopho, Paris, 1873; Brii.'ger, Die Urhm-egnng der Atome, Ilalle, 1884; Natorp, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Erlcenntnis.sprohletnx im Alterlhum, Berlin, 1884; Liepmann, Die Mechanik der Leucipp-Dcmolritschen Atome, Leipsic, 1885; Hart, Zur Seelen- und Erkcnntnisdehre des Demnkrit, Mu\hauseu. 1880; Xatorp, Die Ethika des Demokrilos, Marburg, 1803. — Th.]. 56 GREEK PHILOSOPHY (aTOfxa), without, however, being mathematical points, for an unextendecl thing would be nothing. They are identi- cal in chemical quality (to yevo'i eV), but differ in size (lu,€ye6o<;) and form (ax^f^a,)- They are endowed with pe]> petual motion, which they do not receive from a tran^ scendent principle, but which belongs to their essence. The force which moves them acts according to necessity (Ka6' elfxapfievr] vtt avdjKi]'i), and not, as Anaxagoras seems to think, according to design (vov-i) and purpose (reXo^;). Democritus rejects all teleology, but denies chance also, though he sometimes employs the word ruxv in the sense of necessity {avdLX6cT0(f)0'i, but a o-o^to-T779, that is, a teacher of piiilosophy who received pay for his lessons. His example was fol- lowed by a number of talented men, who undertook to acquaint the educated public with the conceptions of the pliilosophers, which had hitherto been restricted to the narrow confines of the schools. The laxness of their moral principles and their unbelief in polytheism caused these clever popularizers of knowledge to be stigmatized as Sophists. Their work, however, ranks in importance with that of the Humanists and Encyclopedists. Pampered as he was by the cultured, wealthy, and sceptical youths of the age, but detested by the common people, who remained pas- 1 The Thecetetus of Plato ; Diog. L., IX. ; Sext. Emp., Hiipohjp., I., 217; Adv. math., VII.; [Mullach, vol. II., Iviii., pp. 130 ff.] ; R'itter and Preller, pp. 183 ff. ; Vitringa, De Profogorce vita et philosnphla, Groeniiigen, 18.52; [Xatorp, For.schiingcn zitr Geschichte des Erlennl- nissprohlems (see above, page 55) ; Harpf, Die Ethik des Protaijoras, Heidelberg, 1884. For the Sophists in general, see Grote, Hislory oj Greece, vol. VIIT. ; Hegel ; Hermann, Geschichte und System der plato- nischen Philosnphie, pp. 179 ff., 290 ff.; J. Geel, Hisloria critica sophisla- rum, etc., Utrecht, 1823; Valat, Essai historique sur les sophistes grecs (Investiqaleur, Paris, 1859) ; Schanz, Bp.itrdge zur vorsok-ratischen Philo- xophie, I.; Die Sophislen, fliittingen, 1807; Blass, Die allische Beredsavi- kfiilvon Gorf/ias bis zu Lysias, Leipsic, 1808; II. Sidgwick, The Sophists {Journal of Philology, IV., 1872, pp. 288-300; V., 1873, pp. 00-80); Siebeck Untersuchungcn znr Philosophic der Griechen (I. : Uebev So krates' Verhaltniss zur Sophistik), 2d ed., Freilnirg, 1888. — Tu.]. 60 GREEK PHILOSOPHY sionately attached to the religion of their forefathers, Pro- tagoras, like his contemporaries Anaxagoras and Socrates, fell a victim to the fanaticism of the masses and the hypocrisy of the great. He was banished, and his writings burned in the market-place (411). We may assign as tlie immediate cause of his condemnation, the doubts Avhich he expressed concerning the existence of the gods in his book irepl deoiv. The scepticism of Protagoras represents the conclusion of a syllogism of wliich the Trdvra pel of Heraclitus forms the major, and the sensualism of Democritus, the minor premise. The sensible world is a perpetual metamori^hosis ; the senses show only the things that pass away ; they do not reveal the immutable, necessary, and universal. Hence, if we would know the truth, we must derive it from a better source than our deceptive senses ; we must appeal to reflection, to reason. But, according to Democritus, reflection is simply the continuation of sensation, from which it does not essentially differ. Consequently, if sen- sation is changeable, uncertain, and illusory, and is at the same time the only source of knowledge, it necessarily follows that all knowledge is uncertain. No one knows anything but his own sensations. Things that are not given to us in sensation do not exist for us. Whatever we feel exists for 7(s. Since the atoms of Democritus are not perceived by the senses, they are merely hypotheses without any real value, and the importance whicli the philosopher attaches to them is inconsistent with his doctrine. The same may be said of the germs of Anaxagoras, the elements of Empedocles, the principles of the school of Miletus; they are all purely hypothetical theories, and cannot be demonstrated. There is no truth for man except in what he perceives, feels, and experiences. And as sensations differ for different individuals, a thing seeming green to one and blue to another, large to one and small to another, PROTAGORAS 61 it follows that there are as many truths as"" individuals ; that the individual is tlie measure of the true and the false OjrdvTcov YprjfiaTcov fxerpov dvOpcoiro^, tcov jxev ovroiv co? ecrn, TMV S' ovK ovTcov w? ovK ecTTLv'^) \ that thcrc are no univer- sally valid truths or principles, or, at least, that we have no certain criterion (/cpn^pLov) by which to recognize the absolute truth of a metaphysical or moral proposition. The individual is the measure of the true and the good. An act that benefits one man harms another ; it is good for the former, bad for the latter. Practical truth, like theoretical truth, is a relative thing, a matter of taste, temperament, and education. ]Metaphysical controversies are therefore utterly vain. It is not possible for us to prove anything but the particular fact of sensation ; still more impossible is it to know the causes or ultimate contlitions of reality, which escape all sense-perception. Let man, therefore, occupy himself with the only really accessible object, with himself! Let him abandon his sterile speculations concerning ultimate causes, and concentrate his attention upon what is, after all, the only problem of importance, — the question concerning the conditions of happiness. Happiness consists in governing one's self and others ; to govern one's self means to be virtuous ; hence philosophy is the art of being virtuous. In order to gov- ern others — in a society that is captivated by the beauties of language and always ready to sacrifice the matter to the form — it behooves one to be eloquent, that is, to think correctly and to speak correctly. Hence, philosophy is the art of thinking correctly and of speaking correctly. It consists of the following three branches: practical ethics, dialectics, and rhetoric. These doctrines, in which tlie subject and the object are for the first time opposed to each other, exaggerate a 1 I Hog. L., IX., 51. 62 GREEK PHILOSOPHY highly important truth : the truth that realit}^ is not some- thing external to the thinking and feeling subject ; that the feeling and thinking subject is a coeflicient in the produc- tion of the phenomenon ; in a word, that thought — whether it be transformed sensation or something else — is one of the principles of things, one of those primary conditions of reality for which philosophy has been seeking, a principle which it divined in the Xo'70? of Heraclitus, the eV of Pythagoreanism, and the vov6i aeavTov of Socrates. It demolishes the past in order to make room for new and sounder theories based upon the consciousness of self, and inaugurates tlie age of criticism. The criticism of Protagoras and the Sophists yields many fruitful results. It destroys the mental foundations of polytheism and prepares the way for the religion of Socrates, Plato, and the Stoics. In the second place, it destroj's the naive dogmatism of fantastic speculation ; and its dialectical extravagances and sophistries compel thought to give an account of itself, its mechanism, its methods, and its laws. For several centuries, philosophy had used its reasoning powers without accounting for the nature and the forms of the syllogism; it had made its inferences and deductions without investigating the inductive and deductive methods. In this respect it resembled the mil- lions of creatures who see and hear without having the slightest notion of the mechanism of sight and hearing. Sophisticism, even though it abuses the laws of thought, SOCKATES 63 nay, let us say, precisely because it abuses them, makes the niind conscious of its laws and causes it to analyze them, and so becomes the forerunner of the science of logic, the development of which constitutes the glory of Aristotle. Simultaneously with the science of thought, it creates the science of its inseparable outer shell, language, — grammar, syntax, or philology in the broadest sense of the terra. By laying so much stress on form, and showing such care in the use of wortls, the Sopliists rendered the Greek language more flexible, and fashioned it into the wonderful instru- ment of thought wliicli we admire in the dialogues of Plato. The error of Protagoras and the subjectivistic Sophists consists in their interpreting dvdpcoTro^ to mean, not man in general but the indi\ddual, not the human understand- ing but the understanding of each particular inchvidual, and in assuming, in consequence, as many measures of the true and the false as there are individuals. Protagoras, like the majority of the Greek philosophers, exaggerates (1) the physiological and mental differences existing be- t^veen individuals ; (2) the illusions of sensation. He ignores the fact which science has since demonstrated, that the investigator may correct the data of the senses by means of each other, and his ignorance of this fact leads him to deny the existence of an objective criterion of truth. He fails to see that the human reason is essentially the same in all incUviduals. ^len hinder him from seeing man. It is this cardinal error in his philosophy which is recti- fied by Socrates. § 14. Socrates Socrates of Athens ^ (409-399), once a sculptor like liis father, was attracted to philosophy by the teachings of the 1 .Sources : Xenophon's Mpmnrnhilla and Spitposium ; Plato, Apol- og>/. Phuln, PJuetlrus, Metio, Thentetus, etc., Aristotle, Met., T., and 64 GREEK PHILOSOPHY Sophists, and, like them, devoted his life to the instruction and education of the youth. The brilliancy and spiritual- ity of his conversation, which was Attic to a fault, the grandeur of his ideas, the boldness of his political para- doxes, everything about the man, except his outward form, was calculated to charm and attract. The martyrdom which he suffered only helped to raise the admiration of his many disciples to the highest pitch. Though ar_ adver- sary of the Sophists, whose venality he condemned, he resembled them so much that he was mistaken for a Sophist. Like them, he expressed a contempt for meta- physics, natural science, which, he said, culminates in atheism, and mathematics, which, to his mind, consists of nothing but barren speculations. Like them and like the true Athenian that he was, he placed the study of the moral man and of the duties of the citizen in the veiy centre of education ; like them, finally, he rated the formal culture of the mind much more highly than material instruction, without calculating the effect of intellectual freedom on the religion and the constitution of the State. Hence, he was, not without some show of reason, identified with the Sophists, and the hatred of the conservative democracy in its turn destroyed him. Aristophanes opened the battle against the reformer. He ridiculed him in the Clouds and passim ; Cicero, Acad., I., 4, 15, and passim ; Ritter and Preller, 192 ff. ; Freret, Observations sur les causes de la condamnation de Socrate (an essay I'ead in the year 1736, printed in the M^moires de I'Acad^mie des inscriptions, vol. 47 B, pp. 209 if.) ; [Grote, History of Greece, vol. Vm., chap. 68; Kdchly, Sokrates und sein Volk {A kademische Vortrage und Reden, I.), Zurich, 1859 ; Alberti, Sokrates, ein Versuch iiber ihn nach den Quellen, Gottingen, 1869] ; Chaignet, Vie de Socrate, Paris, 1868 ; [Antonio Labriola, La dottrina di Socrate, Naples, 1871 ; Sie- beck, Ueher Sokrates' Verhdltniss zur Sophistik {Untersuchungen zur Philosophie der Griechen, 1873; 2d ed., Freiburg i. B., 1888)]; Fouillee, La philosophie de Socrate, 2 vols., Paris, 1874. [Wildauer, Sokrate^ Lehre vom Willen, Innsbruck, 1877. — Tr.] SOCRATES 65 at the same time aroused suspicion against his religious and political vie"\vs. After the fall of the Thirty Tyrants, Socrates was accused " of not believing in the gods of the State, of proclaiming other gods, and of corrupting the youth," and condemned to chink the hemlock (399). Although Socrates left no writings, we have a better knowledge of liim than of his predecessors. For this we are indebted to two of his enthusiastic pupils, Xenophon and Plato. Their accounts do not, by any means, agree with one another in all respects. The Socrates of the Memor- abilia is ' a moral philosopher and an apostle of natural religion rather than a metaphysician ; the Socrates of the Dialogues of Plato is a keen and profound thinker, the rival of Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras. The simplest explanation of the diiference is as follows : Xenophon pre- sents the teacliings of the master according to his under- standing of them ; while Plato, whose philosophical horizon is broader than that of Socrates, exaggerates the metaphy- sical import of his doctrine and uses Socrates as a mask for his own ideas. Happily we liave, besides the very detailed but sometimes uncertain data of the two disciples, the opinion of Aristotle to guide us, and he cannot, to say the least, be accused of partiality.^ The scepticism of Protagoras and the Sopliists forms the starting-point of the philosophy of Socrates. All he knows is that he knows nothing ; he is, furthermore, con- vinced tliat certainty is impossible in the case of physical science. However, though he is a sceptic in cosmology, his scepticism does not extend to the field of morals. He believes — and tliis conviction of liis forms a new and pos- itive element in tlie pliilosopliy of his times — lie believes that there is something in the universe tliat can be known, » Met., I., 6 ; XIII., 4. Top. I., 2. Eth. Nic, passim. [Cf. Klctt, SoLrdlfis Tifich lien Xenophontischen MfiiiordhUlcii, Canstatt 18n;i. — Joel, Der echtt und der Xenophonlische SoLrates, Berlin, 189:}. — Tu.]. 5 66 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY and known absolutely ; this, as the words inscribed on the temple of Delphi : Know thyself^ indicate, is man. We can never know exactly what is the nature of the world, its origin, and its end, but we can know what we ourselves ought to be, what is the meaning and aim of life, the high- est good of the soul ; and tliis knowledge alone is real and useful, because it is the only possible knowledge. Outside of ethics there can be no serious philosophy. By making man the real object of science, Socrates evi- dently did not intend to create a scientific anthropology, or even to give us a psj^chology in the strict sense of the word. Man means for him the soul as the seat of" moral ideas. He accepts no other science than ethics, of which Aristotle calls him the founder ; but ethics is, in his opin- ion, a real, certain, and positive science resting on universal principles. Seemingly, indeed, Socrates does not get beyond the standpoint of Protagoras and his principle that man is the measure of all things. But the moral system of the great Sophist was not scientific, because it failed to recog- nize universal principles. By man as the measure of all things, Protagoras means the individual, and not human nature in general ; he means the particular, accidental, changreable individual, and not the immutable and neces- sary moral element which is common to all. He did not believe in tlie existence of such a fundamental human nature. Moral ideas do not, in his opinion, possess objec- tive and absolute value; goodness, justice, and truth depend upon individual taste, which is the sole and final judge. There are, therefore, as many systems of ethics as individuals, which amounts to saying that there is none. The Sophists were deceived by the diversity of opinions, judgments, and feelings which they discovered among men. This diversity is but apparent and on the surface. The moral ideas lie concealed and slumbering, as it were, be- neath individual prejudices. We have only to remove this SOCRATES 67 superficial layer by means of education, in order to dis- cover in all the same ideas and the same aspirations towards goodness, beauty, justice, and truth. Socrates' merit, therefore, consists in having attempted, at least in morals, to separate the general from the particu- lar ; in having advanced from the individual to the univer- sal ; in having again chscovered, beneath the infinite variety of men^ the one unchangeable man. Beneath the confused mass of opinions held by a demoralized century, he finds the true and immutable opinion, the conscience of the human race, the law of niinds.^ Hence Socrates not only rendered a service to ethics, he benefited metaphysics as well. In the midst of intellectual anarchy, he teaches thought how to infer and define, and helps to put an end to the confusion of ideas by giving words their exact meaning.^ Thus, as long as there is no exact definition of the notion of God, a man has as much right to espouse atheism as theism : theism, if by God is meant the one indivisible Providence that governs the world ; atlieism, if we mean those antlu'opomor^jhic beings with whom the Greek imagination peopled the Olympus. The main thing, therefore, is to come to some agreement as to the terms ; and to this end we must define them exactly, — an art in which Socrates excelled. He was, says Xenophon,^ untir- ing in his efforts to examine and define goodness and wick- edness, justice and injustice, wisdom and folly, courage and cowardice, the State and the citizen. He did not offer his definitions to his liearers ready-made. He differed from the sensualist Protagoras in his conviction that moral ideas are fundamental to humanity, that eveiy human mind is hi(j ivitli truth, that education creates notliiug tliat is not already tliere, but merely awakens and develops the latent 1 The Koivoi \6yoi of Ilcjiaclitiis. 2 AristoU.', Mri., I., (3; XIII., 4, 8-0, Z'>; Top., I., 12. « Mem., I., 1, 10. 68 GREEK PHILOSOPHY germs of knowledge. He contented himself with being a spiritual midivife^ and his chief delight lay in teaching his hearers how to discover the true definitions for themselves. A better teacher never lived. He practised his art, which he loved to compare with that of his mother,^ in the jDublic places, on the walks, and in the work-shops ; wherever he found an intelligent face before him. He was in the habit of plying those whom chance made liis pupils with questions, — questions that were often trifling in their natui'e. He began by chiming in with their views. Then, by means of the most skilful questioning, he gradually forced them to confess that they knew little or nothing, and, finally, brought them to see the truth. The dialogues of Plato give us an insight into the famous dialectical method, which enabled Socrates to confound the learned pretensions of his interlocutors, and which has been called the Socratic irony. Though Socrates sought to enlighten men, to teach them how to flunk correctly and to know the truth, his object was not to make them learned, but to make them happy and useful citizens.^ Ever since the days of Socra- tes, philosoph}" has regarded it as her prerogative to take the place of religion, morality, and positive faith, in the absence of a universally recognized official religion. This accounts for the peculiar character of the Socratic and post^Socratic schools, which are as much religious brother- hoods as learned schools. For Socrates, Avho is, to a cer- tain extent, a national tliinker, a full-fledged Athenian, and for whom actual life has greater charms than abstract theory, vrisdom or knowledge is not the goal ; it is the means, the indispensable means, of right living, as essential to the private individual as to the citizen and statesman. The intimate relation which exists between knowledge and 1 Plato, Thecetelus, 149 A, 151. Mem. IV., 7, 1. 2 Mevi., I., 1, 11 ; Aristotle, Met., I., 6; XIII., 4; De part, anim., I., 1, 642 ; Cicero, TuscuL, V., 4. SOCRATES 69 will constitutes the fundamental principle and, in a meas- ure, the very soul of his philosophy. The essential thought is that the more a man thinks and knows, the better will he act; that our moral value is directly proportional to our lights. From tliis principle the other cliaracteristic propo- sitions of his philosophy necessarily follow, namely : that virtue is teachable ; that it is o)ic^ which means that we cannot be virtuous in one thing without being so in all things, or vicious in one without being so in all ; finally, that no one is voluntarily bad; that evil is the fruit of ignorance.^ The ethical system of Socrates is a mean between the idealism of Pythagoras and the realism that is inseparable from the sensationalistic and materialistic trend of the Ionian schools. It aims at the ideal, but it loves to express this ideal in sensible forms, to reflect moral beauty in physical beauty. Socrates is far from being an ascetic : he strives to subdue nature, to make it the instrument of intelli- gence, to rule over it as an absolute master ; but he never di'eams of suppressing it.^ He is a Grecian and an Athen- ian above everything else, and so sensitive to external charms and phj-sical beauty that he feels himself obliged to wage constant yx-AY with the allurements of matter. He agrees with liis predecessors on religious matters in that he repudiates mythology and its fables, without, how- ever, being a free-thinker in the modern sense. His spirit- ualistic faith is not even devoid of superstition. He believes in the supernatural, in superior beings who watch over nations and insjiire individuals (Sai/xovia). But he strongly emphasizes the universality of Providence, and thereby attacks the particularism of the Athenians, thus paving tlie way for the notion of tlie universal brotherhood of man, tauglit l)y Stoicism and Cllnistiaiiity.^ ' Afcm., III. t); IV., 0; Arist., Kth. Nic, III., 1 ; Vi., 13. * T'lato, Si/mposium, lid, 214, 220. » Afem., I., 1, 18; IV., Vi, Vi. 70 GREEK PHILOSOPHY In short, the founder of Attic philosophy is very much inferior, as a theorist, to his modern antitype, Emanuel Kant. Owing to his heroic death, his importance, though great, was overrated at the expense of that of liis pre- decessors, who were philosophers of the highest order. But he is, nevertheless, one of those reformers whose sojourn on earth has been productive of lasting and fruitful re- sults. His great work consists in having given to con- science the honored place wliich it deserves, in having reinstated the absolute, immutable, and universal. At a time when men publicly declared that good and evil are relative, and that the rule for judging an act is not the " changing " law of conscience, but its success, he had the courage to proclaim the authority of a conscience that merely varies in ajDpearance, and the superiority of the moral law over individual caprice. Now, to maintain the absoluteness of morality meant the reform of philosophy as well as that of morals. For, in spite of what indepen- dent moralists may sa}^, human thought cannot, without contradiction, affirm the absolute in practice and jQi deny it in theory. Of the many disciples of the new school, some, like Aristippus and Antisthenes, develop the ethical teachings of Socrates in opijosition to the metaphysical speculations of the old schools ; others, like Euclides and Plato, unite the Socratic conception of the liighest good and the Eleatic notion of the absolute, the end of the moralists and the j^rs^ cause of the metaphysicians, and therebj^ re-establish the union between the philosophy of morals and the philosophy of nature, wliich had been dissolved by scepticism. AKItjTIPPUS, x^NTISTIIENES, EUCLIDES 71 § 15. Aristippus and Hedonism. — Antisthenes and Cynicism. Euclides and the School of Megara 1. Aeistippus of Cyrene ^ was a sensualistic Sophist before joining the Socratics, and adhered to the theoretical teachings of that school. With Protagoras, he maintains that all onr knowledge is subjective, and that we cannot know what things are in themselves. He sharply dis- tinguishes between the object of knowledge and Kant's thing-in-itself^ that is, the external and absolutely unknown cause of our sensations (to eixiTOLrjTiKov tov 7rddov