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ARNOLD, THOMPSON, _>____ 361 ELECTRICITY : Thales -------____ 362 Theophrastus -------___ 352 Pliny ----__--____ 362 Solinus --__-__..___ 362 Aristotle ---________ 363 Oppian ----__-____ 363 Claudian _----______ 363 Scribonius Largus ----_____ 363 Galen ------- _____ 36 3 Eustathius -------____ 353 M S P. REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION. [G. E. p.] FLOURISHED ABOUT B. C. 560. THE use of the allegory or fable, as a means of instruction, appears to have been one of the earliest dictates of enlightened reason ; and has been resorted to, in a greater or less degree, by the moralists and philosophers of all ages and countries. Hence it is, that throughout the classical historians we meet so often with the name of Jsop, perpetuated for no other reason than that he was the most famous of ancient fabulists ; or, as some writers have alleged, the very inventor of this mode of instruction. His life is totally unconnected with any public events of importance; his family were utterly obscure; no kingdoms were conquered by him, or settled in legislation; on the contrary, human nature appears in complete degradation in his person and circumstances : in condition a slave, and deformed, it is said, in person, even to the excitement of disgust in those who beheld him, he yet sustains a high rank amongst the sages of ancient times, and certainly more for his method of teaching than for anything extraor- dinary which he communicates. Indeed, what were his particular sentiments as a philosopher can now be very faintly traced : his fables, in which all his precepts appear to have been conveyed, are con- siderably mutilated ; and the majority of those which bear his name are the fabrication of a later period. In those which can with any degree of certainty be traced to Jsop as their author, his exact mean- ing is not always obvious ; and the occasion of their composition, which must have given a much greater propriety to their application, is, for the most part, unknown. The celebrity of JEsop is, perhaps, still more remarkable, as it appears to have been originally uncon- nected with any recommendation from the form of his compositions, or the mode of publishing them : they were not adorned by the graces of poetry, nor do they appear to have been delivered with eloquence. Their novelty, their liveliness, and their strict analogy to real life, appear to have been their only attraction; features of the genuine fable which, under every form of its development, are a tribute to the imperishable charms of truth. Several countries dispute the honour of giving birth to ^Esop : he Uncertainty is sometimes called a Thracian, and by other writers a Samian ; but J r f y !" s coun " the more commonly-received opinion is, that he was born in the town of Ammonius, in the Greater Phrygia. Perhaps these indications of the uncertainty, serve only to prove the meanness of his origin : of B2 4 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. the names of his parents we hear nothing. His person, as we have already noticed, was deformed in the highest degree ; an immense Person and protuberance of the back threw his head forward, and appears from complexion. ear jy jjf e to nave utterly stopped his growth : his complexion is said to have been swarthy; and hence some writers have supposed the name of ^Esop to be a corruption of ^Ethiop. In addition to these disadvantages, he had so serious an imperfection in his speech, that for a considerable period of his life he was unable to articulate any sounds distinctly. Camerarius, a learned German critic, to whose researches we shall be much indebted in this paper, mentions a tra- dition, to which, however, he refuses credit, that JEsop had the good fortune in his youth to relieve certain travelling priests of his country who were exhausted with hunger and had lost their way ; when, in requital of his kind offices, by virtue of their prayers to the gods, they first brought him to the use of his tongue. This is all we hear of his Slave of early life. And we next meet with him at the period of his being Xanthus. offered as a slave to his third master, Xanthus (or, as Herodotus calls him, Jadmon), of the island of Samos. He was carried by a factor to Ephesus, together with some other slaves, for the chance of sale, or on business for his master. As our future sage was feeble in his body, his companions allowed him his choice as to which of their different packages he would undertake to carry, and he, to their astonishment, selected the largest and heaviest, containing the pro- visions of the party ; an instance of what they deemed his folly, which excited no little merriment. In the morning ^Esop bore their ridicule and his own burden with patience. At noon, however, the basket of provender was considerably lightened, by the hearty meal which the slaves then made, and ^Esop was, of course, considerably relieved from the weight of his charge. In a few hours more, another meal completely consumed the food, and left the provident weakling entirely at his ease for the remainder of the journey. Upon his arrival at Ephesus with his slaves, the merchant soon disposed of them all by private bargain, excepting three, stated to have been a musician, an orator, and our poor neglected fabulist, of no apparent accomplishments, and of no profession. These he took to the open market, as the only place in which he was likely to dispose of them ; the two former accoutred with the implements of their profession, and the latter making little better appearance that that of a deformed idiot ; when Xanthus, a Samian philosopher, entering the area, was attracted by the appearance of ^Esop's companions, and inquired o .the merchant his price for them. Objecting to this as exorbitant, the philosopher was on the point of quitting the market, when some o the pupils, by whom he was attended, pointed out Msop to his notice. At their solicitation, and jocularly, more than with any] serious intention, he put the accustomed question to the despised, captive, of " What he could do?" " Nothing at all," replied ^Esop;j " for I have just overheard my companions answer your question, by JESOP. O affirming that they could do everything ; therefore there is nothing left for me to do." Xanthus, delighted with this answer, now entered into conversation with this unattractive wit, and became fully sensible of his superior powers. In answer to a question respecting the deformity of his person, JSsop boldly remarked, " that a philosopher like Xanthus should appreciate a man according to the vigour of his mind, and not to the appearance of his body;" an observation upon which that philosopher immediately acted. The factor being asked the price of his deformed slave, declared that could he obtain from the purchaser a proper sum for the other two, he would cheerfully part with jEsop for nothing. This offer was accepted ; Xanthus at once paid the price to which he had first objected for the musician and the orator, and returned home with all three of the slaves. JEsop here found his master in more hopeless bondage than himself, to a wife of a most furious arid jealous temper. On his first appearance amongst Anecdotes, the domestics, as her husband's slave, she asked, in scorn, of Xanthus, " whether it were a beast or a man that he had now brought home ?" when uEsop, unable to repress a similar disposition, is said to have exclaimed, " From the mercies of fire, water, and a wicked woman, great gods deliver us!" This of course awoke the vehement temper of his mistress, and Msop, with difficulty, brought himself through this awkward reception, by pretending that he only recited some lines of the poet Euripides, and observing, how practicable it was for her whom he addressed to make herself " as glorious in the rank of good women." This story, however, cannot be correct in its entire details, for the murder of JEsop, in Delphi, occurred at least eighty years before the Greek tragedian was born. It is stated, however, that the aptness of ^Esop's reply on this occasion conciliated the favour of the incensed lady. ^Esop had not been long in the service of the Samian philosopher, when the latter took his newly-acquired slave to a gardener for the purpose of purchasing some herbs; the agriculturalist, observing Xanthus in the habit of a philosopher, inquired the reason why those plants which grew of themselves, and without any artificial aid, should come up so fast and thrive so well, whilst others, though never so carefully cultivated, could scarcely be preserved from perishing. "Now," continued the gardener, " you who are a philosopher, pray disclose to me the meaning of this." Xanthus was, however, utterly at a loss for a satisfactory answer, and was obliged to content himself with saying, " That so Providence had ordered it to be." Here ^Esop interfered ; and, after a sarcasm upon the imperfection of the school of philosophy in which Xanthus was bred, requested to be permitted himself to give the solution. " For what," said the slave, "signifies a general answer to a general question, but an acknowledgment of complete ignorance on the subject proposed ?" To this Xanthus readily consented, observ- ing to the gardener, that it was beneath the dignity of a philosopher to answer minutely such a trivial question. " The earth, then," said 6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. JEsop, " may be considered as in the nature of a real mother to that which she brings forth out of her own bowels ; but she is only a step- dame in the production of those plants that are cultivated and assisted, nay, sometimes even forced under her care, by means of the sheer in- dustry of another. It is natural for her to withdraw her nourishment from the one, and to lavish her powers upon the other kind of plants." .This solution of the gardener's question is said to have so delighted him, that he not only refused to take money for the herbs that had been bought, but welcomed JSsop to the produce of his garden in future. Jsop had to bear with all the oppressions of slavery ; and many anecdotes, of dubious authority, are told of this part of his life. He is said to have interpreted an obscure inscription, which had utterly foiled his master ; and, emboldened by his success, to have demanded of him what reward he would offer, if he were to point out to him a considerable hidden treasure ? " One-half of it and your liberty," said Xanthus. Possessed of the property, however, the faithless Samian conveniently forgot the conditions upon which he acquired it, and re- turned to the defenceless - ^ s fa Q a g a j n passed through the various cities of the peninsula, he resumed his former habit of delivering his sentiments by way of fable, until he is said to have been barbarously assassinated by the inhabitants of Delphi. The object of the Phrygian sage in visiting this city in his last journey is related differently by different historians. Some have stated, that, satisfied with his travels, he arrived at length at the court of his first patron and protector, Croesus, intending to make Lydia his future home ; and that when resettled there, and under the accustomed favour of the king, he was deputed by him to consult the oracle at Delphi on some important occasion, a circumstance according with the well-known fact of the unusual partiality and liberality of Croesus to this famous oracle. Others report, that his own curiosity and thirst for general knowledge led our fabulist thither, and a desire to consult the oracle on some personal affairs. But, whatever were JESOP. 11 his objects, his disappointment at the barbarous manners of the people, and at the oracle itself ; his consequent sarcasms, and his death, are uniformly related. On his arrival at Delphi, then a place held sacred throughout Greece, he found the inhabitants, whom he had expected to see deserving of the reputation they had acquired for piety, wisdom, and learning, deeply immersed in pride, avarice, and barbarism. Unfortunately for himself, he did not conceal his sentiments concern- ing them, but allowed his contempt and aversion to become publicly apparent, although clothed in his usual allegory. " I find," said he, " the curiosity that brought me hither to be exactly similar to the expectation of those who, whilst standing on the shore, see something at a distance which the wind and the waves are floating towards them ; they imagine it to be of considerable bulk or value; but upon its approaching nearer, they discover it at last to be nothing more than a heap of floating sticks, weeds, and rubbish." This censure, it should seem, was levelled not at the lower class of the Delphian people only, but likewise at the magistracy, and perhaps at the juggles of the famous oracle itself; the cheats and extortions attendant upon which cannot be supposed altogether to have escaped the penetrating intellect of jEsop. Jealous of their reputation, and well knowing the credit with which the fabulist was received by princes and states of the first importance, and those by whom the Delphian oracle was, until then, highly reverenced, the magistracy of the city, and perhaps the priests of the temple, resolved to silence the censures of JEsop by depriving him of life. It was necessary, however, that he should appear to the public eye to deserve the ignominious death they meant to inflict on him, and the philosophic traveller had already quitted Delphi to depart, when he was seized only a few miles from the town, on a charge of sacrilege. jEsop at first ridiculed the accusation ; but the conspirators had laid their plot too sure. They had secreted amongst his baggage, for no benevolent design, a golden cup which belonged to the temple, and there, on inspection, it was found. This apparent proof of ^Esop's guilt was not exhibited to the people in vain: they were much enraged ; and the court at which he was afterwards regularly tried, condemned him to be thrown headlong from a rock. -ZEsop, to whom kings, states, and cities of the greatest celebrity had listened with admiration, could now with considerable difficulty obtain a hearing for the few words in which he endeavoured to expose the artifice under which his character was for the first time impeached. But in vain : he was hurried to execution. On the road, however, he is said to have succeeded in diverting their attention for awhile from its imme- diate object; and, evading those who held him, to have escaped to a neighbouring altar. From hence, however, he was dragged, with the remark, that those who robbed their sanctuaries were not entitled to protection from them ; when he made another and final attempt to move their compassion or awaken their justice, in the fable of the 12 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Eagle, the Hare, and the Beetle ; and to prove to them that injustice always meets with its due punishment, though practised by the strong upon the weakest of creatures. " Nor are you," continued the un- happy sage, "to flatter yourselves that the profaners of the holy altars, and the oppressors of the guiltless, can ever ultimately avoid the vengeance of the gods." All this served but the more to enrage his already exasperated judges, and the furious and unthinking multi- tude. They dragged him forward to the fatal spot, and the last words he uttered were characteristic of his history. He likened his miserable lot to that of an old man who had fallen into a pit, together with some asses : both he and the beasts having been beaten out of their road by the violence of a tempest, the animals, when they found themselves precipitated into this cavern, and confined to its narrow boundaries, began to kick the aged traveller, and gave him his death- wounds. " Unhappy wretch that I am," exclaimed ^Esop, in the person of this old man, " since die I must, it is doubly hard to die by means of, and surrounded by, these asses, the most senseless of beasts ! To suffer death unjustly were enough calamitous, but for it to be inflicted by the hands of a barbarous and ignorant people, alike devoid of humanity, honour, hospitality, or justice; ye gods, permit not my innocent death to pass unavenged!" In the midst of this harangue, the im- patient multitude precipitated him from the rock, and he fell lifeless His death, at its base. Thus perished, as he had lived, the sage and celebrated , mixing wisdom with wit, entertainment with instruction. The veneration with which the character of JEsop has been generally regarded by the historians of his time, cannot, perhaps, be more strongly exemplified than in their ascribing a dreadful plague, with which the Delphians were shortly afterwards visited, to the outrage thus com- mitted on the hospitality peculiarly due to great men, and their impiety to the gods. This the Pythoness herself declared to be but justice upon them for their crime, and directed a public atonement to be made for it. Accordingly we find that this clamorous arid capricious people, soon after his death, erected a pyramid to the memory of ^Esop. It was also a tradition of the best times of Greece, that the conspirators by whose wicked contrivance he fell, so severely suffered the stings of conscience, that they slew themselves in remorse ; a circumstance which is reported to have given pleasure to the more civilized nations of the Greeks around. Socrates is said to have amused and consoled himself, in several of the serious hours he spent in prison, shortly before he suffered, by rendering several of the compositions of into familiar verse. SOCRATES. BY CHARLES JAMES BLOMFIELD, D.D., BISHOP OF LONDON. REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION. SOCEATES. ' FROM B. C. 469 TO B. C. 399. THE biography of this remarkable person, who occupies so conspicuous a station in the history of the human mind, will be conveniently in- troduced by a short sketch of the previous history of philosophy in Greece. The earliest philosophy of the Greeks, which was derived to them Philosophy through Ionia, from Asia, consisted in devising both names and p^J early attributes for the various deities, who were supposed to preside over the different departments of the universe ; and in conveying to a simple people a system of theology and ethics in allegorical poems. Many fragments of these were incorporated into the works of Homer and Hesiod ; and some are to be found in the more ancient oracular verses which are quoted by the Greek historians. The ' Theogonia ' of Hesiod was no doubt taken, as to its principal features, from the cos- mogony of some more ancient philosophical poet ; and it is to be re- marked, that this philosophy, such as it was, and from whatever source derived, was coeval with the language in which it was taught ; for the names of the deities are not borrowed from the oriental mytho- logy, which probably supplied many of the deities themselves ; but are Greek names, significant of the attributes which they were intended to personify. Thus, void space is termed Xaoe, from the verb Xaw, ' to yawn,' Ai0//p, ' the sky,' is from a't'Ow, 'to be bright.' Certain of these poets or philosophers, for the professions were not then distinct, were employed professionally by some of the Grecian states, to compose useful mythological poems and hymns, appropriate to the worship of various deities: in particular we may mention Pamphus, and Orpheus, an imitation of whose hymns was in after ages forged by some falsary. 1 These were the masters of wisdom to the earliest Greeks, who for many ages had no philosophical writings in prose. Theognis con- signed his moral and political precepts to elegiac verse ; and the same kind of composition afforded even to Solon a vehicle for instruction of the most important kind to his fellow-citizens. It was not till history 1 It is amusing to see so grave a writer as Brucker seriously deducing a summary of the Orphic philosophy from these spurious fragments, many of which are of a date but little, if at all, anterior to the Christian era. An attempt was made in the fifth century before Christ to revive what was pretended to be the philosophy of Orpheus; and certain mystagogues seem to have made the initiation of votaries a gainful trade. But it appears, from some expressions iu Euripides, that the credit of this sect was, even in his time, at a very low ebb. 16 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. had descended from the car of poetry, that didactic philosophy sub- mitted to deliver her doctrines in the sober language of common life ; and it is very uncertain to what extent those philosophers, who first bore the name, committed the results of their speculations to writing. The verses of Orpheus, and Linus, and Musaeus, were undoubtedly preserved by oral tradition. The persons who are commonly known The Wise by the name of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, seem, with the ex- ception of Thales, to have been indebted for that honourable distinction, either to their political sagacity, or to their talent of expressing, with an oracular brevity, the most important maxims of morality. They are known to us chiefly by a few of their sayings ; and even of these the individual property is not very clearly ascertained. It may per- haps be contended, that a wise legislator is the greatest of all practical philosophers : and on this account Solon occupies the very highest station amongst those illustrious men, who have applied their wisdom and experience to the great ends of promoting public virtue and happiness. But, in the common acceptation of the term, Thales is the only one of the seven sages, who can be considered as one of the real fathers of Grecian philosophy. And it does not appear that he left any writings behind him. Even ^Esop, the celebrated inventor of moral apologues, probably committed none of his fables to writing. Many of them were traditionally preserved, and mentioned by later writers ; and furnished a basis for various superstructures, which were after- wards raised, and dignified with his name. Since neither Thales, nor any of the earlier teachers of wisdom in Greece, left any works to posterity, it is obviously very difficult to form anything like an accurate notion of the state of philosophy in Greece in the period during which they flourished. As from the time of Thales there was a continued succession of philosophers, it would of course happen in after times, that what the scholar had said was attributed to the master ; sometimes perhaps even by the scholar himself, when he was desirous of conciliating respect to his dogmas, by stamping them with the authority of a greater name than his own. The CLVTOQ etya of the Greek philosophical schools, especially of the Pythagorean, was a compendious form of citation, which gave to the founder of a sect the credit of many opinions of which he had never dreamed. But for the whole account of the earlier philosophers, and for any knowledge whatever of their doctrines, we are of course obliged to trust to writers of a more recent date, who were probably not very careful to discriminate between the claims of different individuals, nor to separate the primitive philosophy of their earliest teachers from the refinements of a later age. Indeed the principal sources from which our knowledge of these subjects is derived, must be confessed to be very corrupt. As far as we can collect our notions of the earlier systems from the writings of Plato, we may feel ourselves tolerably secure, although it is more than probable that the outlines are occasion- SOCRATES. 17 ally distorted, or the features too strongly marked, by the brilliant and inventive genius of that wonderful man. Even upon the testimony of Aristotle we cannot depend with certainty ; for he was notorious for his misrepresentations of the tenets of his predecessors. It is only in the deficiency of more authentic sources of information, that we can trust ourselves to the accuracy of such a writer as Plutarch ; and we can never rely with satisfaction upon the relation of Diogenes Laertius, unless his accounts be either corroborated by less doubtful writers, or bear in themselves the marks of consistency and credibility. Amongst the later authors, Cicero is the most trustworthy source of information concerning the Greek philosophers; yet even he lived at so great a distance of time from the earlier masters of wisdom, that it is more than probable, that their doctrines descended to him much altered and corrupted, through the channels of the more modern philosophy. It is commonly said of Socrates, that he was the first person who t brought down philosophy from the skies, and introduced her into the commerce of civil life. But although in his time the title of philoso- pher was almost entirely confined to those who busied themselves in physical researches, or speculated upon abstract notions ; yet at an earlier period the wise men of Greece (for the name of philosopher was not then invented) seem to have directed their attention to the laudable objects of improving the science of legislation and govern- ment ; in pursuit of which, they travelled into the more ancient and flourishing kingdoms of Egypt and the East. It is related by Hero- dotus (1. 29) that the court of Croesus was visited by all the Sophists?, 1 at that time living in Greece. Thales, however, appears to have merited the appellation chiefly by Thaies, bom his skill in astronomy and geometry, and by his theories upon the B ' * 640> formation of the universe ; they are the real foundations of his fame ; for as to his speculations upon the divine nature and government, it is extremely difficult, from the causes above mentioned, to ascertain what were really the doctrines of Thales. One instance will serve to illustrate this difficulty. We read in Aristotle (de An. 1. 5.) that Thales thought the universe to be full of gods. Diogenes Laertius says, Thales taught that the universe was animated, and full of daemons. But now comes Cicero, and tells us that Thales admonished mankind to bear in mind that the gods per- ceived all things, for that all things were full of them. Valerius Maximus goes one step farther, and asserts that Thales, being asked whether the actions of men escaped the notice of the gods, replied, Not even their thoughts ; " Nee cogitata, inquit. Ut non solum manus, sed etiam mentes puras habere velkmus ; cum secretis cogitationibus 1 2a

ot, " lovers of wisdom," after the example of Pythagoras. By degrees, these two classes of men became distinct from, and opposed to each other, chiefly through the influence of Socrates ; but in his time the distinction was not established. About that period, however, the sophists began to assume a tone of greater confidence, and professed to teach the principles of natural and moral philosophy as matters, not of investigation, but of certainty; and seeing the success which had attended the lectures of Anaxagoras, by whose advice Pericles had been enabled to obtain the control and direction of the Athenian republic, they joined the arts of logic and eloquence to the study of morality and natural history, and pretended to be masters and teachers of the whole circle of human knowledge. In reading the history of those times, as it regards the progress of philosophy, we must be careful not to confound the sophists of the Socrai-ic age with those of a later period, who confined themselves to the art of rhetoric : such were the sophistse whose lives were written by Philostratus. That the sophists of Athens combined natural phi- losophy with eloquence and politics, appears from the following senti- ments of Socrates, as reported by Xenophon. " No person ever saw or heard an irreligious or impious action or word of Socrates : for he was not accustomed to discourse concerning the nature of all things, as most of his contemporaries did, considering how that, which the sophists call the universe (/coer^oe), is constituted, and by what neces- sity each of the heavenly phenomena happens ; but he used to prove the folly of those who busied themselves about such things ; and he used to inquire, in the first place, whether they applied themselves to these pursuits, having previously obtained a complete knowledge of everything relating to man ; or whether they could reconcile it to their notions of propriety and duty to omit all consideration of human affairs, and study only divine things. And he expressed his surprise at their not clearly perceiving, that these things are not discoverable by the human intellect, since even those who most prided themselves upon discoursing on these subjects, did not think alike, but differed with one another like so many crazy people ; for some crazy persons are not afraid, even of things which are really formidable, while others see fear where there is none : some again make no scruple of saying or doing anything, even in a crowd, while others cannot bear even to appear in public : some respect neither temple nor altar, nor anything pertaining to the gods, while others worship sticks, and stones, and beasts. So amongst natural philosophers : some think that there is only one entity, others an infinite multitude ; some hold that all things are continually in motion, others that nothing can be moved ; some 28 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. assert that all things are generated and destroyed, others that nothing can be generated or destroyed." " The older sophists," says Phi- lostratus ({. e. those of the age of Socrates), " discoursed largely upon all philosophical questions ; for instance, concerning fortitude, justice, heroes, and gods, the formation and figure of the universe ; whereas the more recent sophists (not the latest of all, but those of a middle age) delineated characters, and discussed questions relating to indi- vidual persons (vTroOiffeig EIQ ovojjia) mentioned in history. The first of the older sophists was Gorgias of Leontium ; of the second class, ^schines, the son of Atrometus, who professed the art in Caria and Rhodes, after his political failure at Athens." He gives the fol- lowing account of the different modes pursued by the philosopher and the ancient sophist in their teaching. " The old sophistic art may properly be termed a philosophising rhetoric, for it discusses the same topics as the philosophers; but what they propose in the form of questions, advancing step by step, and professing not to know with certainty ; of all this the old sophist professes a perfect knowledge. He begins his discourses with I know, and / understand, and 1 have thoroughly considered, 1 and nothing is certain to man (fiifiaiov avQpuiry oveV, this seems to refer to the universal doubt of the sceptics)," It is a common remark, that Socrates was the first who transferred philosophy from the contemplation of natural history to the manners of men : but this is not literally true ; for although the Ionic school was chiefly employed in physiological researches, the sophists, who came to Athens about the time of Socrates, professed, at least, to combine ethics and politics with the more abstruse studies of nature. The principal merit, however, to which they laid claim, was that of communicating to their disciples a ready off-hand kind of knowledge, which might enable them to talk speciously and fluently upon all subjects whatever ; 2 and to impart to them that pernicious skill in dialectics, by which they might baffle their adversary, whether right or wrong, and " make the worse appear the better cause." In his celebrated dialogue, entitled 'The Sophist,' Plato has exposed the manners and arts of the sophists of his time, against whom Socrates declared interminable war. So successful were these pretenders to wisdom, in their endeavours to impose upon their countrymen, that the most eminent of them moved from city to city, attended by a vast 1 Ka/ veiXKf 'btiffxifx.fAu.i, which Olearius renders ac rursus, dubito, as if it were xu.} vrdKtv lictrKivropai. Philostratus seems to have had in his mind that verse of Aristophanes (Ran. 860), \yulas. rourov, x,tt\ "&iiffxip.ftcu vraiXat, " have thoroughly considered him." It was a word used by the Pyrrhonists. " When Socrates professed his desire to ask some questions concerning the art which Gorgias professed, Callicles says to him, " There is nothing like asking the man himself, Socrates ; for this is one part of his public exhibition : it was only just now that he desired any one of the party to ask him any question he pleased, and declared that he would give an answer to all." Upon which Chaerephon asks Gorgias whether this be true; to which he replies, "It is quite true, Chaerephon; I did make this promise ; and, moreover, I say that nobody has put a new question to me for these many years." Plato, Gorg. p. 447. SOCRATES. 29 train of scholars, who paid large sums, for the inestimable advantage of being taught the art of deceiving and overreaching their fellow- citizens : and, indeed, Xenophon tells us that Socrates applied the term sophist exclusively to those who sold wisdom for money, and would not allow them to be called either ao&oi or i\6 ffvyyodft/AKTi s art of some skill and success : Pausanias says, that he made the statues of Mercury and the Graces, which stood at the entrance of the Acropolis. His father having died, left him an inheritance of eighty minae, which he lost by the treachery of a relation, to whom he had lent it upon interest. Being thus reduced to the necessity of working at his pro- fession, he contented himself with doing just enough to bring him in a bare subsistence, and employed his leisure time in the study of philosophy. 2 Crito, a rich Athenian, is said to have furnished him with the means of procuring for himself such instruction as he desired. Becomes a At the age of seventeen, he became a hearer and favourite scholar of scholar of Archelaus. * This book is usually called the Memorabilia. Gellius describes it as " a trea- tise concerning the actions and sayings of Socrates :" y.-xo^wonvnt is ' to remind* a.ura,79i ] I. Oi/x oT3a, fta. A<" tyuyt XKTO, vroia$ rwXa;, n'. "Hxovir&f ayrjjf, olov il^uv&vtra.i ; " By what gates did you get into the city, you" baggage ? /. I protest I don't know by what gates. P. D' ye hear how she banters us ?" SOCRATES. 39 complained of, he applied himself to undermine their credit, and to open the eyes of their disciples. With this object in view, he pursued He opposes a line of conduct, in all respects, the reverse of that which distinguished SjJ^hfets the sophists. Instead of appearing in the places of public resort in a gorgeous robe, he was remarkable for the meanness of his dress, and of his whole appearance. Instead of professing the talent of harangu- ing copiously and elegantly, he declared himself wholly ignorant of such arts; and instead of delivering at length lectures upon given subjects, he conversed in the way of short questions and answers. He used to make his appearance, as it were by accident, amidst the nume- rous tribe of Athenians who were listening to Gorgias, or some other famous sophist; and professing his admiration of such talents and eloquence, lamented the straitness of his means, which debarred him from the advantage of becoming a scholar of so able a master. He would then, with seeming diffidence, propose a simple question to the sophist, to which an eloquent but diffuse reply would be given. Upon which, Socrates requests him so far to humour his infirmity and slow comprehension, as to proceed step by step. When this was done, he soon manifested the clearness and justice of his own ideas, and the confused and inconsistent notions of the sophists ; reducing him by a series of simple, but closely-connected questions, to admit the truth which Socrates desired to prove. It was in vain that the sophist ridiculed or found fault with his opponent for descending to minutiae, and arguing in detail, to the exclusion of all eloquence and common- place; in vain did he treat with contempt the maxims of common sense and of plain downright morality, which were at variance with his own notions as to the best methods of prospering in life. Socrates returned with coolness and temper to the charge ; and by a series of such attacks, closely followed up, he exposed the shallowness and in- consistency of those pretenders to wisdom. It does not appear very clearly, at what period of his life Socrates began to attract public notice as a teacher of philosophy, nor how long a period of time he continued his attacks upon the sophists, before he produced a strong impression upon the public mind. For some time he was himself considered to be one of that class of teachers ; and when Aristophanes introduced him upon the stage, he was probably just risen into eminence, although it should seem, from the represent- ation given of him in * The Clouds,' that his real character and mode of philosophising were not known to the great comic poet. Socrates was then about forty-six years of age. To this subject we shall revert presently. We may probably refer to his ironical mode of teaching the cele- The demon' brated ^aip.6viov, or genius of Socrates, which, he said, in various of Socrates * emergencies, admonished him what course to pursue, and enabled him to predict, in many cases, what was about to happen. It was, in fact, neither more nor less than common sense or right judgment ; a faculty which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which he made the 40 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. guide of his life. Other philosophers called this " opinion ;" Socrates chose to speak of it as his attendant genius. At the same time, it must be confessed, we are told by some authors that this daipoviov made itself heard only in those questions which were not determinable by human prudence. It is evident that most of those who have men- tioned the genius of Socrates, including his immediate scholars, have understood it literally to have been a being of a superior nature ; a very natural opinion for those who were acquainted with the doctrines of the older philosophers, who maintained the existence of a race of spiritual beings, intermediate between the gods and men. Socrates, who had full confidence in the conclusions of that judgment which he had cultivated with so much care, and was convinced that it would not mislead him in matters cognisable by human reason yet studious at the same time to avoid an appearance of laying down the conclu- sions of his own reason, as the sophists used to do, for infallible truths chose to speak of them as the suggestions of this invisible friend ; being at all times very careful not to exalt too highly the powers of the human mind ; and being aware, that even the dictates of right reason might, without impropriety, be referred to the inspiration of a superior power. It is even possible, that, convinced as he was of the existence of a supreme intelligence, and accustomed to find, that when he acted upon the suggestions of his reason, without having sought for them by laborious induction, he was always in the right it is possible, we say, that he might have referred them to the immediate influence of a spiritual adviser, as the enthusiasts of modern days are too apt to do, oftentimes with less reason. But it is truly surprising that any Chris- tian writer should have been found to adduce the genius of Socrates, in order to prove the truth of the Scripture doctrine of angels. It appears, that the great master himself would never vouchsafe to his most intimate friends any explanation touching this ctau/zoVtov. And it is very probable, that the few instances which they record, where Socrates appeared to have determined rightly rather from divination than from the inductions of reason, are not related agreeably to the real facts. Every explanation which has hitherto been given of this curious subject has its difficulties. It appears to us, that the most probable solution of the knot is that which we have proposed in the last place. We cannot, at any rate, coincide in opinion with Brucker, who thinks that Socrates enjoyed " a certain faculty or presentiment, approaching to divination." But, on the other hand, it will not be enough to con- clude, with Plutarch, P. Simon, and others, that this genius was no other than common sense ; unless at the same time we suppose that Socrates himself, struck by the justice and promptitude of his own conclusions in emergencies, which gave no scope to deliberation, did actually refer to the inspiration of a divine monitor, what were in fact the dictates of his own singular natural good sense. For many years he had been an attentive observer of human nature, and had narrowly scrutinised the motives and watched the consequences of actions ; the SOCRATES. 41 result of which was a matured and solid experience, and a degree of sagacity, which seemed at times to be almost more than human. The cracle which is said to have been delivered by the Pythian priestess, declaring Socrates to be the wisest of mankind, is well known : but there is good reason to suspect that it was a forgery, probably invented by Chaerephon, or by some other disciple of Socrates, after his master's death. It was, however, reported very soon after that event ; and at any rate serves to show the prevailing opinion in Greece respecting the superior wisdom of the deceased philosopher. Great, however, as that wisdom was, it was not greater than his modesty. The following observations, which Cicero has put into the mouth of Varro in his first book of * Academic Questions,' place in a strong light the good sense and modesty of Socrates : " It is agreed on all hands, and, I think, justly, that Socrates was the first person, who called away philosophy from the study of occult things, purposely concealed by nature herself, in which all the philosophers before him had been occupied, and in- troduced her to common life : making virtue and vice, good and evil, the objects of his inquiry ; but esteeming the higher branches of natural philosophy (ccelestia^) far removed from our cognizance, or at all events, if they were ever so well understood, of no importance towards living well. In all his discourses, which have been committed to writing by those who heard him, with great variety and copiousness of language, his method of disputing is, to affirm nothing himself, but to refute others : he professes to know nothing, except the fact itself of his knowing nothing : and says, that in this respect he excels other men, who fancy that they know that which they do not know ; whereas all his own knowledge consisted in the consciousness of knowing nothing ; and he supposes that Apollo had pronounced him to be the wisest of mankind, 1 because the whole of true wisdom consists in a man's not thinking himself to know that of which he is ignorant. This being the constant tenor of his discourses, and his fixed opinion, all his eloquence was expended in praising virtue, and in exhortmg all men to the study of virtue ; a fact sufficiently evident from the writings of the Socratic philosophers, and especially of Plato." It need hardly be remarked that this confession of ignorance, on the part of Socrates, was very different from the universal doubt and uncertainty professed by the sceptics ; his object being simply to inspire mankind with a distrust of that intuitive kind of knowledge to which the sophists laid claim, and to teach them that the road to true wisdom must be pur- sued through all the successive steps of patient investigation. With regard to his religious opinions, Socrates appears to have been His religion, firmly convinced of the existence of a Supreme Being, and of his superintending providence over the affairs of men. He was never heard, says Xenophon, to say anything which savoured of impiety ; 1 These words, it must be remembered, are put into the mouth of Socrates by Plato, and afford one proof, amongst many, that it is unsafe to place much reliance upon the accuracy of his representations. 42 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. but every part both of his conversation and his conduct was such, as might be expected from a man, deeply sensible of the truth and im- portance of religion. Upon these subjects, however, he found it necessary to speak with a certain degree of caution and reserve ; and even with all his care he did not escape the charge of impiety. It need hardly be proved that he disbelieved the popular mythology of his time ; and he appears to have admitted the existence of an inter- mediate race of spiritual beings, between the Supreme Deity and men. It is, however, not unreasonable to suspect, that when Socrates * referred to his friends, in questions not to be resolved by human sagacity, to auguries and divinations, he complied with what he con- sidered to be a harmless superstition, without intending to assert his own belief in it. At the same time that he maintained the purity and spirituality of the Supreme God, and strongly denied the weaknesses and vices imputed by the poets to the deities of the Pantheon, he practised himself, and recommended to others, a regular compliance with the established forms of worship, and even consulted oracles. At the same time he seems to have intimated his sense of the impropriety of addressing the Deity by any particular name, by his custom of in- troducing into his colloquial asseverations sometimes the name of Here (Juno) and sometimes that of a dog or a goose. The last words which Socrates uttered before his death, were to put his friends in mind, that he was indebted to JEsculapius a cock, which he had vowed, but never sacrificed. Such an expression, used at a moment when he was perfectly aware of his approaching dissolution, might seem to in- dicate an actual belief in the existence of the inferior gods. But it has been conjectured, and not improbably, that when those words were uttered, the poison which he had taken had affected his reason. Whatever may have been the language which he held in his public discourses, the sagacity of Aristophanes did not fail to perceive, that he rejected in fact the popular superstitions of his country. His moral His firmness of mind, in refusing to act contrary to the dictates of character, j^g consc j ence . n j s temperance and frugality, have been already men- tioned. The concurrent testimony of all antiquity proves him to have been one of the most irreproachable characters of the heathen world. And the virtues, for which he was most remarkable, will appear more worthy of admiration, if we reflect that he was destitute of those lights and helps which are possessed by the Christian moralist. " The singular merit of Socrates," observes Mr. Mitford, " lay in the purity and usefulness of his manners and conversation ; the clearness with which he saw, and the steadiness with which he practised, in a blind and corrupt age, all moral duties ; the disinterestedness and the zeal with which he devoted himself to the benefit .of others ; and the en- larged and warm benevolence, whence his supreme and only pleasure seems to have consisted in doing good. The purity of Christian mo- rality, little enough indeed seen in practice, nevertheless is become so familiar in theory that it passes almost for obvious and even congenial SOCRATES. 43 to the human mind. Those only will justly estimate the merit of that near approach to it which Socrates made, who will take the pains to gather, as they may from the writings of his contemporaries and prede- cessors, how little conception of it was entertained before his time ; how dull to a just moral sense the human mind has really been ; how slow the progress in the investigation of the moral duties, even where not only great pains have been taken, but the greatest abilities zealously employed ; and, when discovered, how difficult it has been to establish them by proofs beyond controversy, or proofs even that should be gene- rally admitted by the reason of men. It is through the light diffused by his doctrine, enforced by his practice, with the advantage of having both the doctrine and practice exhibited to the highest advantage, in the incomparable writings of disciples, such as Xenophon and Plato, that his life forms an era in the history of Athens, and of man." Our readers are w r ell aware that one imputation has been cast upon Calumnies the moral character of Socrates, of the most disgraceful kind : but it | 1 e i ^ ecting has been by writers of an age much more recent than that of Socrates, and chiefly by Porphyrv, and some fathers of the Christian church. The authorities upon which it rests have been collected by Mr. Cum- berland in the * Observer,' or rather by Dr. Bentley, whose papers his grandson is now known to have pillaged without scruple. But these authorities may justly be considered as destitute of weight, when put in competition with the total absence of any aspersion of the kind in ' The Clouds ' of Aristophanes, and with the direct and united testi- mony of Plato and Xenophon to the purity and integrity of Socrates. These charges, as Mr. Mitford justly observes, carry every appearance of having originated in the virulence of party-spirit ; and they have been propagated by writers in the profligate ages that followed : a propensity to involve men of the best report, in former times, in the scandal of that gross immorality which disgraced the fall of Greece and Rome, is conspicuous among some of the writers under the Roman empire. There cannot be a stronger negative argument "to rebut the charge of scandalous immorality, than the silence, both of Aristophanes, (who scrupled at no indecency of expression or of representation 1 ) and of the accusers of Socrates, who were not deterred from calumniating the object of their hatred, by any regard for truth. (The reader may see this question discussed more at length in a dissertation by the Abbe Fraguier, * Choix des Memoires de 1' Academic Royale,' t. iii. p. 29). The wisdom of Socrates, his benevolence, and the purity of his morals, were so remarkably superior to those of his contemporaries, that some Jewish and Christian writers have maintained, with more zeal than judgment, that he derived his knowledge of divine things from an acquaintance with the Scriptures of the Old Testament; while some of the defenders of natural religion affect to contrast the ethics of Socrates with those which are inculcated in the Gospel. But even if 1 The classical reader, who calls to mind the representation which the comic poet has given of Euripides, will consider this argument as almost conclusive. 44 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. we admit the justice of those commendations which are bestowed upon his moral precepts, we find the great and pervading deficiency, which revelation alone could supply, that of motive ; necessarily resulting from a state of uncertainty as to the retribution of a future life. His doctrines Socrates taught that the divine attributes might be inferred from SKhose of *ke wor ks f creation ; a notion asserted also by St. Paul. He main- Scripture. tained the omniscience, ubiquity, and providence of the Deity ; and from the existence of conscience in the human breast, he inferred that man is a moral agent, the object of reward and punishment ; and that the great distinction between virtue and vice was ordained by the Deity. This is the sum of those theological doctrines which Socrates taught with plainness and simplicity ; but which Plato expanded and corrupted with his own refined and abtruse speculations. It is easy to perceive how far superior, both in point of reasonableness and in their moral tendency, these doctrines were, to the metaphysical specu- lations of the Ionic school. The soul of man, according to Socrates, is given 'him by the Deity, whom it resembles in its powers and properties ; consequently it is immortal, and will receive, after the death of the body, the rewards of virtue. If Socrates expressed any doubt on this head, it related to the place of the soul in another life, not to its existence or happiness. The justness of his notions, upon these important subjects, naturally exalted and purified his moral system. The chief happiness of life he placed in a practical knowledge of virtue, of the ends which man is intended to answer, and of the right methods of pursuing them. This knowledge, when complete, teaches him that in every case that which is just is expedient ; arid that the purest pleasures are those which spring from an habitual rectitude of conduct. The great secret of ob- taining this desirable wisdom is to know ourselves ; a secret which Socrates, in his daily conversations with those who had the greatest reputation for wisdom, proved to be little understood. His moral Socrates taught that " to obey is better than sacrifice ;" that the precepts. most acceptable service to the gods is to perform their commands : that man ought simply to ask the gods to give what is good for him ; for that they know, far better than he does, what is really to his ad- vantage : that the gods are to be worshipped, according to the institu- tions of our country ; a precept which is also attributed to Pythagoras. He said that besides the written laws of men, there are certain un- written laws, 1 ordained by the Deity, such as those which enjoin the 1 "AygaQoivofAoi. This notion was not first entertained by Socrates. We find it expressed by Sophocles, in his Antigone, v. 453. eii'St fffavtiv rofovTov uoftyv 399% The disciples of Socrates, after having paid the last honours to their departed master, and testified their grief and indignation in the most public manner, quitted Athens for some time, for fear of the faction which had procured his condemnation. A general sentiment of indig- Revulsion of nation prevailed in the Grecian states, at the news of this event ; and it was not long before the Athenians themselves, being made sensible of the injustice of their proceedings, turned their anger against the accusers of Socrates ; of whom Melitus is said to have been condemned to death, and Anytus banished from Athens. The friends of the murdered philosopher were recalled, and a statue erected to his honour. A pestilence which happened not long afterwards, was considered to be a just punishment for their gross violation of justice ; and it is not a little remarkable that, from that time, the affairs of Athens grew continually worse. The grammarian who wrote the argument to that oration of Isocrates, which is called the Encomium of Busiris, relates, that when the 'Pala- medes' of Euripides was acted at Athens, and the chorus uttered the fol- lowing words : " O Greeks, ye have killed the wisest, sweetest songstress of the Muses, who injured no one, the best of the Greeks," the whole theatre shed tears, perceiving the allusion to Socrates. But Diogenes Laertius, after having observed, that Euripides intended, in the words above quoted, to reproach the Athenians with their injustice towards his illustrious friend, adds, " but Philochorus (a writer on the anti- quities of Attica) says that Euripides died before Socrates ;" which is perfectly true; for the poet died, OL. xciii. 1, the philosopher in OL. xciv. 1. But as the ' Palamedes' was brought upon the stage nine years after the first representation of ' The Clouds' of Aristophanes, Valck- [G. K. P.] E 50 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. enaer thinks it probable that Euripides might intend to shadow out, in the story of * Palamedes,' the ingratitude and injustice of the citizens of Athens towards their illustrious teacher, and to point to the pro- bable result of the popular outcry against him. As to the story of the commiseration expressed by the audience at the lamentation of the chorus, if it ever took place at all, it was, perhaps, at a second repre- sentation of the ' Palamedes,' after the death of Socrates. Left no Socrates never committed any of his speculations to writing : those writings. wn ieh have been attributed to him have been abundantly proved not to have been his productions ; especially the epistles, which go by his name, but which Bishop Pearson and Dr. Bentley have shown to be the forgery of a sophist of later times. He is reported to have assisted Euripides in writing some of his tragedies, for which rumour there was, probably, no foundation but the intimacy which subsisted between them. Person of The person of Socrates is so well known to our readers, that it need Socrates. hardly be described. Its resemblance to the representation usually given of Silenus, in the works of ancient art, is so strong, that he was called, with an allusion to the convivial excesses of his friend, the Silenus of Alcibiades. As Socrates, instead of addicting himself to any set of philosophical principles as a system, with which every moral and political pheno- menon must be made to square, passed his life in the investigation of truth, and delivered, in plain and unaffected language, the result of patient observations and inquiry, it is not to be wondered at, if some of his followers, who were not superior to the ambition of system- making, instead of treading in the footsteps of their master, struck off Sect8 in different directions, and became the founders of different sects in founded by philosophy. Such were Plato, the father of the Academic sect, Aris- rs * tippus of the Cyrenaic, Phsedo of the Eliac, Euclid of the Megaric, and Antisthenes of the Cynic ; all of whom, widely as they differed from one another, pretended to ground their notions upon the authority of their master. In the foregoing account of Socrates, we have endeavoured to ob- serve a just impartiality. It is not to be denied, that in some parts of his conduct there was an affectation of singularity, unworthy of so wise a man ; and that he sometimes bestowed much unnecessary labour upon the elucidation of a very common and obvious truth ; but he was undoubtedly the author of a far more genuine and practical philosophy than the Greeks had before been masters of; and taught a system of morality, which, with a very few exceptions, was defective only in its motives. And it is a strong argument of the necessity which existed, before the time of our Saviour, of a divine revelation, that a philosophy, so pure and rational as that of Socrates, enforced as it was by the ablest and most eloquent writers of antiquity, had but little effect in improving the religious or moral character of the most acute and ingenious people of the heathen world. PLATO. BY WILLIAM LOWNDES, ESQ., M.A., Q.C. BBAZENOSE COLLEGE, OXFOBD. E2 PLATO. FROM B. C. 428 TO B. C. 348. OUR readers have been already presented with the particulars of the life of Socrates, whose moral worth illustrated the age in which he lived, and whose pupils and admirers branched out into so many separate families or schools, that he has been very justly entitled the great patriarch of Grecian Philosophy. The first of those schools, that of the earlier Academics, as they have been called, was founded by the subject of the present memoir. Plato, the pupil of Socrates, who was one of his country's highest ornaments, and whose works remain as the great model of Athenian genius, elegance, and urbanity. Our memoir will contain a bare outline of the principal facts of the life of Plato, as far as they can be authenticated by the concurrent testimonies of Cicero, Apuleius, and Diogenes Laertius. We shall Fables con- reject all fables ; and think it unnecessary, for instance, to trouble our readers with the tale that Plato was born of a virgin mother, and that he had the honour of Apollo for his father, though Diogenes and Apuleius, and Plutarch and Lucian, concur in the story ; nor do we think it worth while to stay and inquire whether the fable might not originate in some circumstance of illegitimate birth, or in the fact that Plato was born on one of Apollo's festivals. In like manner, we cannot dwell on the account that a swarm of bees gathered round the cradle, and settled on the infant's lips, though Cicero, 1 in one passage, assumes the fact. We prefer relating what may be credited, and trust that our readers will approve our caution, though it may. deprive us of some amusing materials. Our narrative will be interspersed with brief abstracts of some of those Dialogues of Plato, which we think contain the best views of his sentiments, or in which we suspect the characters and objects of the speakers to have been generally misapprehended. To the narra- tive we shall subjoin a general outline of Plato's doctrines, with a few general reflections on the bearings of his philosophy ; and here we shall maintain the same reserve as in our relation of facts. We shall state Plato's own doctrines from his own writings, and we shall not trouble ourselves with the consideration of notions (and of such there is abundance) which are generally attributed to him, but of which we do not find the slightest trace in his own writings. Plato was born of Athenian parents, in the island of jEgina, in the His birth, 1 Platoni cum in cunis parvulo dormienti apes in labellis consedissent, responsum B * * 8 ' est, singulari ilium suavitate orationis fore, ita futura eloquentia provisa in infante cst. De Divinat. lib. i. 36. 54 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Becomes a disciple of Socrates . His early writings. first year of the eighty-eighth Olympiad (B.C. 428). In his early life he devoted himself much to poetry, and is said to have produced an epic poem, which he committed to the flames, and a drama, which was represented. When about the age of twenty, he became a disciple of Socrates, and continued with him for eight years, till that great and amiable philosopher fell a sacrifice to the rancour of party, disguised under the pretext of zeal for the national religion. Plato attended his master during his trial, was one of those who offered to speak in his defence (though the judges would not allow him to pro- ceed), and to be bound as a surety for the payment of his fine ; and after the fatal sentence, waited on him in prison, and was present during his last moments. It appears that Plato had written one or two dialogues in the life- time of Socrates ; and there is much reason to believe that if those dialogues exist in the present collection of his works, they are ' The Lysis,' ' Phaedrus,' The Banquet,' and perhaps the ' Protagoras.' All these bear strong marks of youthful fancy. In the three first the dramatic character so completely predominates, that the arguments seem only introduced as illustrative of the manners and temper of the individuals. ' The Banquet ' is a perfect comedy. The choice phrases and pretty turns of Lysias, the grandeur and affected antitheses of Gorgias, covertly represented in the speeches of their respective admirers, Phaadras and Pausanias, are finely contrasted with the plain severity of Pericles's style, in the speech of Eryxamachus ; and the broad humour and wild ribaldry of Aristophanes are but a foil to the less prominent but more significant irony of Socrates. It is to be lamented that the subject of the dialogue, Love, leads to illustrations from the grossest sensuality and vilest depravity; but Socrates has evidently aims of a high moral cast in the part which he takes in the conversation. Indeed, Alcibiades, whilst he does justice to his pre- ceptor's moral character, has introduced an admirable description of the manner by which Socrates in general proceeded from the most familiar subjects, and from trite and obvious topics to insinuate reflec- tions of a graver nature, and to lead his hearer's mind into a train of useful thought. 1 The object of ' The Protagoras ' seems to be, in a great degree, to 1 OJog & ourotf} yiyovi rqv uTOfletv a.v6oufos xut ulro; XKI ai Xoyot envrav, oil? iyyu; av ii/goi rtg %t}Tuv,oun ruv vvv, oiiri Suxgarou; iffcwu. Convivium, pp. 221, 222. PLATO. 55 represent the style and doctrines of that ingenious and eloquent declaimer in contrast with those of Socrates. The dialogue, though intending an exposure of the artifices of rhetoric, and of the trickery of exterior pomp, is written in a grave and dignified style ; and the poetical imagery with which it is ennobled is of the highest cast. It is altogether one of the most elegant of Plato's dialogues ; and a more plausible or beautiful harangue cannot be imagined than the fine speech delivered by Protagoras, It is a masterpiece of the kind. But the lordly declaimer is much embarrassed by the close mode of combat practised by Socrates ; and, the first moment he can disengage him- self, expatiates afresh in that amplitude of discourse where the colour- ings of the imagination can be best used to dazzle and delude, and in which ingenious hypothesis and splendid illustrations may be sub- stituted for proofs with the greatest chance of success. For an outline of this dialogue, sketched by the hand of a master, we would beg to refer our English readers to Mr. Gray's posthumous works, published by Mr. Matthias ; l and we only regret that our limits will not permit us to insert an abstract, which is at once so just in the statement of the arguments, and gives such fine glimpses of the original in the colour of the diction. Another circumstance which makes it probable that these dialogues were written at that period of Plato's life is, that the poetical splen- dour with which they abound is rather of a mythological than a meta- physical cast. They are entirely destitute not merely of the subtilties and of the refined discussions which appear in some of the other productions of Plato, but of those grand and noble reveries into which his soul at a maturer age delighted to throw itself, when he had refuted the Sceptics by a logic of his own, still more subtle than theirs, and when his own system of intellectual existences had been formed and completed. The poetry in these dialogues, on the contrary, is rather popular than philosophical. Soon after the death of Socrates, Plato retired to Megara ; and it is Retires to generally believed that he there composed those three simple and Megara - beautiful dialogues connected with the fate of his master ; * The De- fence,' ' The Crito,' and ' The Pha?do.' The dramatic parts of these dialogues, and particularly that of ' The Phaedo,' abound with pathetic The Phado. touches ; and there is such an air of nature throughout, that the reader is impressed with a share of the author's sensibility, and is at once present and interested in the scene described. The last conversation of the great patriarch of Grecian philosophy is recorded by his affec- tionate pupil with every circumstance which can indicate the writer's devoted veneration and deep regret, or which can conciliate the reader's esteem and admiration. The plain integrity, the cheerful and even playful temper, the genuine intrepidity of Socrates on the eve of death, are so simply and forcibly represented, that we feel that whether imagination or memory supplied the particulars of the conver- 1 In quarto, 1814, vol. ii. p. 387. 56 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. sation recited, all the manners of the dialogue, the attitudes, and tones, and gestures of the speaker must have been drawn from life ; and every little circumstance speaks the language of a heart retracing its' fondest recollections. immortality The argument discussed is suitable to the occasion, the Immortality of the Soul, of the Soul. Upon this momentous subject, which should seem to defy and to confound the powers of human reason unenlightened by revelation, Socrates is represented as urging that the soul cannot be a modification of the body, for the soul gives life to the mass which it informs, it controls and regulates the functions of the perishable frame with which it is connected. The conditions in which beings exist are but a succession of changes and an alternation of extremes. Heat succeeds cold, and weakness strength ; and the existence of one state infers the succession of its opposite. Life, as it precedes, so it will probably succeed death ; and a state of insensibility and inaction is merely to be looked upon as a necessary state of transition to its opposite. But the human soul is capable of contemplating the eternal relations of things, which exist independently of those accidental combinations and mere casual phe- nomena which are presented to the senses. The soul has powers of meditating objects unconnected with time or space, and of a nature imperishable ; and, it should therefore seem, must be itself as im- perishable as the objects which it is its divine prerogative to be able to contemplate. The general principles with which the mind is fraught, arid which, so far from being acquired in this life by any collection from particulars, are the tests which the mind from our earliest infancy applies in the arrangement of particulars ; that inborn and inherent knowledge, which study and investigation do not create, but only develop, as they are strong arguments to show some pre- existent state, so also are they to be considered as indelible attesta- tions of the divine original of the mind. Upon the whole, the parti- cles of the visible world undergo not any destruction, but merely a transformation : the powers and faculties of the mind embrace those universal essences which have a far higher nature than the accidents of this visible world : they bear with them strong marks of a pre- existent state, and are endowed with a divination and strange presen- timent of some future state. What the condition of individuals may be in that future state must be but matter of conjecture ; but the good will safely rely upon the conviction, that in doing what is right they have done what is accept- able to the Deity ; and, in the distribution of future conditions, it is not to be apprehended that those will be reduced to a lower state who have done all in their power to deserve a higher. But these difficulties* can only be met by conjecture. Some of these arguments bear the cast of doctrines which are prevalent in those writings of Plato which are acknowledged to be the productions of a much later period in his life. And though * The PLATO, 57 Phaedo ' might be sketched at Megara, it probably received touches from the author's hand at a much more advanced stage of his life than his residence in that state. We should be inclined to attribute to an early period of Plato's life The Alci- i 'The Alcibiades' (generally termed * The First Alcibiades'). It is biades * written with much simplicity ; and, at the same time that it inculcates the necessity of gaining thorough information of the details of public affairs before a young man enters into political life, it intimates, in many marked passages, the coincidence between true policy and virtue, and may be read by the students of Plato's works with great propriety, as introductory to and illustrative of the ' Books on the Commonwealth.' The notion that virtue is the perfection of a state, just in the same manner that it is the perfection of an individual, is developed in those books at great length ; but the great principle, that the duty of justice is invariable and eternal, and that whatever is productive of disorder is as noxious to the exorbitant individual as it is to society ; or, in the case of a state, equally prejudicial to itself as it is encroaching on its neighbours, is glanced at in this dialogue in a manner very forcible. The vanity of Alcibiades is pleasantly flattered by Socrates in the beginning of the dialogue. His spirit and readiness are very characteristic ; but his self-sufficiency gradually abates, and he is, before the conclusion, in a manner, rebuked and abashed. But a certain liveliness is preserved throughout, and the reader cannot help feeling an interest for the frank and ingenuous youth in spite of all the embarrassment into which he is thrown, and which is a just punish- ment for his forwardness and self-complacency. From Megara, Plato proceeded on a course of travels ; and first he Plato visits visited Italy : and perhaps we shall be excused if we premise here Italy ' a brief sketch of the opinions which seem to have prevailed in Italy at the time of Plato's visit. In his progress through life he introduced and ingrafted on the doctrines of Socrates many notions, of which we find no account in Xenophon, as having been entertained by that philo- sopher ; and many of his dialogues, on the other hand, are occupied in controverting other classes of opinions, the nature and bearings of which cannot indeed be understood without particular examination. The philosophy of Italy seems to have been at this time divided The Phiio- between the opposite schools of Heraclitus and Pythagoras. The S^ of former, whilst they reduced all the operations of the mind ultimately Heraclitus. to sense, and considered sense as produced by the impression of external species on the animal frame, fixed their attention upon the changes of external phenomena, and the fluctuations and alterations taking place in the animal frame itself; and concluded that there was nothing permanent or settled in nature; that abstract science was a mere pretence, experimental philosophy an arrangement of dreams, sensation itself an illusion ; for how could there be any reality when the things which seemed to impress the body were but the exuviae or fleeting shadows of objects which were themselves shadows equally 58 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. unsubstantial ; and when the feeling arising from the impression depended on the momentary and accidental state of the body im- pressed ? Pythagoras The followers of Pythagoras pursued a directly-opposite course in lowers! fol ~ tneir investigations. Perceiving that, from certain definitions, if the properties assumed were considered as the essential properties of figures, all the other properties might be deduced by an easy method, and a connected system might thus be formed of demonstrable truths, they satisfied themselves that such assumed properties were really original and primary ; and that in the course of nature, in like manner as in the course of their studies, the other properties flowed from them as their source. Numbers seemed with them to have been taken for something elementary. These the earlier Pythagoreans considered not only as the essences but as the causes and originative producers of all things ; and though their theory admitted of divini- ties, these seem only to have been higher natures, some harmonious products, as it were, of numbers, in the same manner as the visible world was a less harmonious product of the same causes. By what ingenuity the early Pythagoreans could have derived all the qualities of the visible world from combinations of mere numbers, Aristotle confessed himself incompetent to conceive. It is scarcely, therefore, to be hoped that this mystery of antiquity can be solved when the materials for information are still more deficient. Other followers of Pythagoras seemed to have reasoned in a manner less subtle, and to have arrived at some conclusions of the highest moment. These per- ceived or imagined in the external world, amidst its varying pheno- mena, the existence of certain substances of a more permanent nature. They perceived that whilst individual objects perish, the classes of objects still remain ; that whilst some qualities are transformed by attrition, or fusion, or other operations of nature or art, other proper- ties appear to be inherent and unchangeable. They concluded, there- fore, that there exist in nature two distinct classes, one of variable qualities, and the other of eternal essences. But as their principal attention was directed to mathematical studies, and as they found that in the external world no materials could be found exactly correspond- ing to their notions of quantity, whether continuous or discrete ; that physical squares or circles always involved some disproportion ; and that musical instruments, however formed, could never adequately give, through the medium of sense, the relations of their musical scales, though these last were formed of perfect consonances, they in- ferred that essences exist in some manner independent of phenomena, and that phenomena are but imperfect representatives of essences. They judged that the relations of things are eternal, but the things related fluctuating and accidental. They deemed that there is a perfect intellectual world discoverable by intellect ; and also a visible world, which is but a semblance and approximation to the other, the proper object of mere sense. PLATO. 59 Whilst these schools, of the physical analysts and annihilators of existence on the one hand, and of the metaphysical realists and assertors of eternal relations on the other, were in full vogue and in daily colli- sion, Plato paid his visit to Italy. He embraced the doctrines of Plato modi- Heraclitus as far as they related to physics ; but the sceptical inferences JfneTthe m which were attempted to be drawn from those doctrines, met in him systems of with a decided and unwearied opponent. He adopted the notions of anTpytha- the Pythagoreans as to the permanence of essences, but he modified s ras - the doctrine considerably, by incorporating with it those notions of a moral system and of an organizing Providence, which he had inherited from Socrates, as part of the purer creed of Anaxagoras. In another very important particular too, he qualified the metaphysical system of Pythagoras : he considered the intellectual world as being in some degree embodied in the visible one. Instead of inferring, as the Pythagoreans had done, that things related were a semblance of the abstract relations, he thought that they participated in those relations. 1 Some other differences subsisted between his notions and those of the Pythagoreans, on the origin and the nature of numbers, which are involved in considerable obscurities. 2 They seem to have merged sensible objects in numbers, or in some manner to have identified them ; he, on the contrary, insisted on their separate existence from numbers. In these, as in many other particulars of ancient philosophy, it is to be feared that we must be satisfied with glimpses of meaning, and must be careful of introducing our own conjectures as expositions of what we cannot clearly apprehend. But it may be remarked as singular, that in one case Plato is represented as allowing a greater affinity between sensible objects and their essences, than the Pythagoreans did ; and in the other, that he made greater distinctions than they did between sensible things and numbers, when it is admitted by all that the Pythagoreans at least identified numbers with essences. From Italy, the general account is, that Plato proceeded to visit He visits Egypt ; but we have no information which can be depended upon, sypt * either as to the circumstances of his visit, or the length of his stay in that country. Some accounts state that this journey was undertaken for the sake of merchandise, and that Plato was there trafficking in oil. 3 But nothing can be more improbable than such a circumstance. Others relate that he there visited the priests, and was initiated in their most profound mysteries. 4 But Plato himself acquaints us with the reserve maintained in Egypt towards strangers with regard to the peculiar institutions of the country ; and assures us, that so far from their mysteries being accessible to foreigners, " the animals of the * O< f&tv yat.o Tltitfx'yo/juoi ftifiqfftv t fJt-'iSiQv *j rt7v. Arist. Metaph. lib. i. c. 6. 2 TaBs avr* PK;, xa.} sorts of watery, aerial, earthy, and fiery substances are enumerated; and definitions are given of the opposite properties of heat and cold, hardness and softness, heaviness and lightness, smoothness and rough- ness, and of the sensations of pleasure and pain. A description ensues of the different senses, and of the whole animal economy ; and the subject of divination is transiently glanced at in a manner ambiguous at least, if not ironical. Several medical observations ensue, particularly on the preferable- ness of diet and regimen to violent medicines. The distempers of the mind are incidentally touched upon, as sometimes connected with physical causes, and as at other times originating in the defects of early education, in which case the parents or guardians are much more blameworthy than the unfortunate subject of the malady. The ascendency of reason is asserted to be something divine ; and the pure enlightened reason is designated as a demon or superior spirit. The dialogue closes with a scale of the animal creation. It is somewhat difficult to conjecture for what reason Plato has formed so strict a connexion between his ' Dialogue on Justice ' and ' The Timaaus,' except, perhaps, it might be his intention to intimate to his disciples the course in which he wished such studies to be pur- sued, and that he would have them perfect themselves in morals before they proceeded to the study of these sublime metaphysical investiga- tions. The scope of ' The Critias ' seems to have been to introduce the peculiar political sentiments set forth in the ' Dialogue on Justice,' and to familiarize them to the Athenians by a sort of popular romance. By assuring his countrymen that his ideal commonwealth once existed, and that their own was the favoured country in which such political institutions had flourished in days of which the memory had long since passed, he might think to propitiate in favour of his scheme, those national vanities and prepossessions, which he before probably offended. Plato attempted a work of more practical utility, when he wrote his System of ' System of Laws.' The five first books of these, besides containing Laws ' many profound speculations on the general principles of laws on the duties of a legislator, on the propriety of accompanying laws with a statement of the reasons which produce them, of visiting offences with proportionate punishments, and of considering punishments as exem- plary and admonitory, rather than vindictive abound with more pithy and pregnant apophthegms of moral wisdom than any equal portion * Tpirov $t a.u yivo; TO 0&pxv TWV TOIXVTVIV j iv wte'urroi; rovro KVTO tvri'b&tx'rw XKI fAa.Xtffrx iv oA.j T>J HaXir'na. -- Albini, iiira-y. tts TO. v V&VTK TO. KUTOV tig TOVTO ffWTtivcts fiiufftTKi^ vrpurov fttv TO, O.VTM ctXXa art/uaeav y t'lfov rwv TOU ffu(&tt,ir.c % xctXo; 'terTXi t lav p.v\ xxi erutpgovriffiiv ftiXXri ctf KVTUV XX* ce.it TVV Iv Tea ffeafAXTt agpovixv Ttis Iv Tti tyux*] ixixx %uftTTO- IAIVOS tyxiwiTxi. De Republ. ix. p. 591. PLATO. 73 is the noblest good; and a man who would enjoy happiness, is desirous at the earliest moment to partake of Truth, that he may spend as much of his time as possible in the course of sincerity, for such an one is a sincere character. But he is insincere who practises voluntary falsehood ; and he is simple who practises it involuntarily. Nor is either of these conditions to be admired. For every insincere and simple person is friendless, and his true character being detected in course of time, he ends his days in dreary solitude. Since, whether his family and acquaintance still live or not, his life is almost equally lonely. That man is to be respected, who is guilty of no injustice himself, but doubly or more than doubly does he deserve respect, who will not allow injustice to be committed by others. " Let that man who assists the magistrates in punishing vice, be proclaimed a great and perfect character, and let him receive the crown of virtue. And let the same praise be given respecting tem- perance and wisdom, and all other good qualities which a man not only possesses in himself, but is able to impart to others. The person able so to impart, should be respected in the highest degree ; and next to him, he who, though unable, is at least willing to impart. But the man of an envious nature, who would grudge to others the blessings which he himself enjoys, deserves reprehension. Nor ought we to disparage any virtue which is misapplied, but rather to be desirous to attain it if we can. And let every one enter on a course of virtuous emulation, but devoid of envy. For, by such conduct, while men improve themselves, instead of engaging in calumnies and detraction against others, they benefit the community. But an envious character, who seeks to raise himself by depreciating others, not only makes no advances himself towards real virtue, but by his aspersions, he does, as far as he has power, discourage others from the pursuit of excellence, and checks the advance of his country towards real eminence. "It is also right that a man should be at once courageous and mild ; for it is impossible to rid oneself of the severe, and extreme or irremediable injuries of others, otherwise than by struggling against them, and by overcoming them, and executing exemplary vengeance. And such a struggle cannot be entered upon without courage and resolution. On the other hand, with regard to such injuries as are remediable, we ought to reflect first of all, that injustice originates not^ in any perverseness of the will, but in a defect of the understanding; for the perpetrator of evil does the greatest mischief to his own mind ; and no one voluntarily and intentionally seeks what is mischievous to himself, least of all, when it is mischievous in the highest degree. But a man's mind, as we before observed, is that which is deserving of the greatest respect. Now, in that part of himself which is de- serving of the greatest respect, no one would voluntarily bring on the greatest evil, when that evil too would continue through life. But a man who is unjust, and who is possessed with evil propensities, is 74 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. truly an object of commiseration ; and we ought to pity such a being while the malady is remediable, and restrain our sentiments of resent- ment, and not be carried off with the violence and zealous indignation of the weaker sex. But, where a man is incurably mischievous, and irretrievably wicked, we ought then to administer justice unmingled with mercy. And for this reason it was, we said, that a virtuous character ought at once to be resolute and mild. But the greatest evil is that which takes deepest root in the heart of man, and for which, whilst each shows some indulgence to himself, no cure can be devised ; and this proceeds from that self-love which is supposed to be innate in man's nature, and which, under proper regulations, is itself an important duty. But the excess of this is the source of all crimes, for affection blinds the judgment in this, as in all other cases ; and the man who, instead of regarding the real relations of things, is constantly observing his own situation, will very imperfectly discern what is just, or honourable, or proper. For a man who would be really great, ought not to attach his regard to self or his own vulgar interests, but to virtue ; whether the results lead to his own personal gratification, or to that of others. But it is from an error on this point that many deem their own folly to be wisdom, and whilst in a state of the grossest delusion believe themselves in a manner omni- scient. From the same cause we sometimes undertake what we are incapable of performing, because we will not allow those to perform it who are capable ; and would rather blunder ourselves than admit that others are better informed, whilst in truth we ought to feel no shame in following and imitating those who are really our superiors. There are other points too, which, though they are of less importance than those which we have touched upon, and of a very trite nature, may yet bo equally serviceable, and which it may be well to recall to mind. For the stream of knowledge, as it seems constantly to flow away from the mind, should be constantly replenished ; and recollec- tion is but the reflux of ebbing knowledge. All extremes in the expression of joy and grief are to be avoided, and the excesses of the passions themselves are to be restrained ; so that we may acquire and maintain a dignified moderation, whether our fortunes are suc- cessful and our guardian spirit seems to smile upon us, or whether the spirits of nature seem to be engaged in opposition to us, com- pelling us to surmount by our own virtue the arduous and steep ascent. We should then rely on the favour which Providence always shows to the good, that he will smooth the path of pain, and requite grief with gladness, and that the day of prosperity will follow the night of sorrow. Every man should support himself under trials with such hopes ; and, whether in serious or in cheerful mood, each should revolve in his own mind, and communicate to those around him, such cheering and such consolatory views of the dispensations of Providence. " So far with regard to models of excellence, and the perfection of PLATO. 75 the human character. But, since perfection is, in fact, not attainable by man, we must proceed in a less elevated strain, and consider whafc is practicable, and give such rules as may be of use in the regulation of conduct. Man's sensations and desires form a very considerable part of his constitution. By these he is influenced in all he does, and upon the nature of these his happiness, in a great degree, de- pends. We certainly ought to commend the most virtuous sort of life, not merely because it is most conducive to good character, but because, if steadily and uniformly pursued from youth upwards, it far exceeds any other in those particulars which are the objects of universal desire, in the attainment of pleasure, and in the exemption from pain. This, indeed, is evidently the case where a man's desires are well regulated. But by what means this just regulation of desire is effected, whether by the power of some inherent and connate facul- ties, or by the light of experience, may require some consideration. But we may form a comparative estimate of the pleasurableness or painfulness of some modes of life upon the following grounds. We wish to partake of pleasure, but pain we neither prefer nor desire. A state of indifference we do not wish for, as compared with plea- sure, but yet we prefer it to pain. Nor can we say that we wish to have an equal share of pleasure, if attended with equal pain. In number, therefore, and magnitude and intensity, pleasures and pains surpass or equal, or are less one than another, as objects whether of desire or of aversion. " Such being the state of things, a life, in which there are many of both sorts, and these great and intense, but where the pleasures pre- dominate, we should wish, but where the contrary, we should not wish. So again, a life in which there were few of each sort, and these small and moderate, but where the pains exceeded, we should not wish ; but where the contrary, we should wish. So that where there is an equi- librium of pleasures and pains, the mind feels a kind of indifferency ; it would wish a course of life where the objects of desire preponderate, and would decline a course of life where the objects of aversion pre- ponderate. " These are all the different modes of life; and if we imagine there are any others besides these, we only imagine such things from an ig- norance and inexperience of the nature of things. It may be well, therefore, to arrange and classify the different modes of life, that each man, by selecting that which is best calculated to produce a more un- alloyed succession of pleasures, or a greater uniformity and permanence of satisfaction, may so best insure his own general happiness. ** We may term one sort of life a life of temperance, another of prudence, another of valour, another of health. To these we may op- pose four others, a life of folly, of cowardice, of intemperance, of dis- ease. Whoever is acquainted with a life of temperance, knows that it is moderate in all particulars, that it affords moderate pleasures, mode- rate desires and affections. That an intemperate man is violent in all 7 6 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. these particulars; that his pains and pleasures are in excess, that his desires are tempestuous, and his affections frantic and irregular. That in a temperate life the pleasures exceed the pains ; but that in an intem- perate life, the pains exceed the pleasures, in extent, in number, and in intensity. According to the constitution of nature, therefore, one of these modes of life is more agreeable and the other more painful ; and no man who desires to live a life of real enjoyment, would volun- tarily prefer a life of intemperance. If this be so, every intemperate man is such not by the exercise of a free will ; but either from some defect in their understandings, or from the unruliness of their passions, or from a concurrence of these circumstances, the mass of mankind pass their lives destitute of temperance. With regard to a. life of disease or of health, we must form the like reflections ; that they both have their pleasures and their pains; that in a state of health the pleasures exceed the pains, but in a state of disease the pains exceed the pleasures. Now the object of our selection with regard to the modes of life, was not one in which pain predominates ; but, on the contrary, we agreed that was preferable in which the pain was surpassed by the pleasures. But a temperate man surpasses an intemperate one, a prudent man an imprudent one, inasmuch as the pains which he has are fewer, and less intense, and of shorter con- tinuance. The modes of life then of the temperate, the brave, the prudent, and the healthy, are far more desirable than those of the das- tardly, and the intemperate, the imprudent, and the diseased. So that, to sum up all, the man who has any excellence, whether bodily or mental, so far passes a more agreeable life than the man who has any infirmity or depravity. And besides this direct agreeableness, such excellence is preferable on account of its comeliness, its consistency with nature, its serviceableness to others, and the character which ac- companies it. So that one who is blessed with virtuous habits, passes a life more happy than one under opposite circumstances in every par- ticular whatsoever." Plato as a As a politician, Plato considered that the great object of laws was ian> to provide for the natural accommodation of the members of the com- munity, as subsidiary and in subordination to the cultivation of their moral virtues. 1 He considered the perfection of the state to consist not solely in the health, beauty, strength, and wealth of the individuals composing it, but also in their prudence, temperance, justice, and for- titude. 8 He complains that legislators in general had only attended to the inferior qualities, and had neglected all the superior, with the ex- ception of fortitude. In Crete and in Sparta, prudence and justice were notoriously disregarded, and temperance was only so far con- sidered, as the practice of it was necessary to one species of fortitude. 3 Plato illustrates with great ability the decline and decay of states from that momentary elevation and meridian of grandeur which success in 1 De Legg. lib. i. Ibid. lib. i. 3 Ibid. lib. i. PLATO. 77 arms had obtained, in consequence of sacrificing to vulgar conceptions of interest and policy, and to an overweening ambition, the duty of self-command and the eternal principles of justice. 1 Plato perceived the inconveniences resulting from the Cretan and Lacedaemonian system of public messes and of naked exercises ; yet he seemed to think that convivial meetings under proper directions might be of great service both in promoting humanity and fellowship, and in discovering the true characters of individuals. 2 He defined education to be that which qualifies men to become good citizens, and renders them fit to govern or to obey. 3 He thought it most important that the early principles instilled into the minds of youth should be those of strict moral virtue, and considered that if poems and fables early taught were able to impress the mind through life with a belief of the most improbable fictions, that the same means might be applied with not less success for inculcating realities and important truths. 4 Wine, he was so far from prohibiting, that he recommended the moderate use of it from eighteen to forty, and after that age a more free indulgence. 5 He considered idleness as the bane of all virtue, and urged to industry as the grand source not only of wealth but of happiness. 6 He per- ceived with great clearness the advantages resulting from the sub- division of labour, and pointed out the necessity and natural progress of such subdivision in proportion as civilization advances. 7 As to crimes, Plato considered them as originating in a love of pleasure, in passion, or in ignorance and folly. 8 He esteemed it the duty of every citizen to respect the established religion of the country, and he recom- mended that the religious ceremonies should be accompanied with fes- tivities, and be enlivened by the association of songs and dances. 9 It may, however, be incidentally remarked, as a strong argument against the opinions which many have entertained in modern times of the nature of the Orphic and Bacchic mysteries, that Plato misses no op- portunity of animadverting on the verses which were current under the name of Orpheus, 10 and that he excludes the Bacchic dance, as some- thing unaccountable and unsuited to any purpose of policy, from any new state that may be established, and barely tolerates it in any old state, in which it may happen already to exist among ancient usages. 11 Plato observes, too, on the necessity of accommodating laws to the character and prevailing temper of the inhabitants, and remarks that 1 De Legg. lib. ii. * Ibid. lib. viii. 3 Ibid. lib. ii. 4 Ibid. lib. ii. s Ibid. lib. ii. 6 Ibid. lib. vii. 7 De Republic*, lib. i. 8 De Legg. lib. ix. Ibid. lib. ix. 10 De Republic^, lib. ii. KX.%'ucc, T Iffr'i .} /? piv &o?t.&f&txot>, ")^uis o iigrivtxoti IV-TKS tiwttv us ov* iffTi foXirMov TOUTO %ri oLxOlfilffTtaK XIX,} TtXturt fffiixp^u, xou fjt,iyo.^.oc, uvrtgycifyvrar rov $1 6tov ovrtx, n. ffotyurctrov (2>ov\d[Jt,iv6v r X.i7ff@Ki XKI ^uvoifAtvov uv [&iv folov w trfifA&Ti&vvai fffjt.ix.puv cvruv (jt,v$a,(jw {wifAiXiitrtla.i x,a,6u,'7fio d-p^yov t] Js/XoV rivet S/a vrovov; pexfoftouvra, ruv $1 pt,ya.\uv. De Legg. lib. x. p. 902. 4 TJti&uftsv rov veaviKv \ Z.i)<.n6i compounded of two different and, indeed, opposite ingredients : per- manent and invariable essences, and fleeting accidents. His essences seem to have been endued by him with some inherent j)owers of motion, and his accidents with the property of being acted upon. All 1 K/ TO /MV uQtXiiv oLya,$ov a.u vrityvx'bs offov JJ ouTi ffu {jt-WTOTi ovTt it aXXflj ctTU'fcr); yivoftsvo; "' O.%av T\ oi TK^XVTSS iuv rl 2 Kara %l yt TTIV iftyv ^o^xv u -ruXt o K^IXUV T\ xoCi o a$izo$ ufoivruv p.lv dtiXittiTioo; f&\v TOIVVV ka,v f/,ri ^i!)u %ixw, [*$ Tvy^iivyi Tif^upioc,? oCbixcav. r,TTov s lav SiSiv *oixnv, xou Tvy^Kvn %ixt]$ uvro 6iuv T\ xcti nvfyuvrcov. In Gorgia. 3 Oil ya,^ u./u.iXw0riO"/i Tori UK O.VTYI; [TJJJ "btxw;~\ ol- OVTU fffiixoo; civ luffy XKTK TO i"ns yns fia/Jo;' olio v^'/iXos yivoftivos tl; TOV ovgozvov KvctWTWff'/i' Titrti; %t U.VTUV TWV xrgotrrixov/rKv Tipu^'iav I'IT iv&ubt ft'tvuv, t'tTt. xcci \v KOOU 'oia.'Xo^tufa};, i'lTt xxi TOVTUV it; KyoiuTtoov 'in oiotxo[jt,i(rⅈ Tortov. o UVTO; ol Xcyog eoi xot,} culty iu reconciling such opposite subjects, and therefore devised a medium, which he described as being neither uniform in its nature, like the one, nor incapable of permanence, like the other, but in some respect compound and stable. It is very difficult to collect what Plato meant by these intermediate or connecting materials. And it may, perhaps, rather obscure than elucidate the subject to remark, that in many passages of Plato, 3 and in some of Aristotle, 4 connected 1 Aio TV>V TOV ytyovotos ogarov xoti VUVTO; aufftivTou fttiTigx TIVCC, xoti i/volo%yiv (Jt-fiTl yr t v fityTt 0,1^0. ftriTt rfvg [AYITI y,o&ig Xtyofx.iv ftWTi otru tx TOVTUV ftriTt 1% uv Taunt yiyovtv aXX.' dogarov sTSa; Llf4<7!'0^tiys7 VTOOtVOfAtVOV XOU ffVyXUXA.it' TOTt d' aivtixtv, o'rav a,l wtgiobot TOU ff^offvxovros O.UTU ft'trgov tiXytyaffiv w$n %govav TO $1, vraXtv auTOftKT.'jv th TKVKvnot, JTiptK'yi'rc&i, l^uov ov } xtti typitvviffiv tlXvi^os Ix TOV ffuvapfAOffctvTOf CCVTO XKT' a^^aj. TOIITO ol UVTCV TO o.vd.a. TO, KlffSviTa, xcti TO. tfiq TO, [Aa^npoiTixcc, TUV etffi ^v, ^KnfyipovrK TUV /*v ctlySriTuv TU a.'i'^tx xa,} axivriTci sHvar TUV ^' ti^uv s o ovaitzv TO tv. 1^ txtivuv yu(> TO, XOLTOL [AlSifyv TOU s. Aristotel. Metaphys. lib. i. c. 6. PLATO. 81 with this point, the term essences seems to be applied to numbers, and these intermediate materials to quantities. The notion, however, Matter in- of some inherent power in matter of itself tending to confusion and Sbora and inordinate, and only restrained and subjected to certain rules by a inordinate. Supreme intelligence, and by a coercing and counteracting Providence, was a fixed part of Plato's system, and is glanced at in his moral writings, as well as insisted upon where physical subjects are more directly the subject of his investigation. But wherever complete order prevailed, and regularity was observed in the movement of any body or system, it was inferred by Plato that that order must have been produced by the infusion of some part of the divine mind ; and by the continuing and predominant energy of such infused spirit, over- ruling the untoward propensities of the material body or system which it informed. Such infused spirits he supposed to regulate the movements of the heavenly bodies, and he inferred them to be akin to the soul of man, when the soul had attained its highest perfection, and had reduced the appetites and passions of the body under its absolute control. 1 No trace is to be found in Plato of the existence of malignant spirits. His doctrine of the resistance of matter may, perhaps, be looked upon as an ingenious theory, adopted in an imperfect state of knowledge, to solve the great problem of the existence of evil. In the sense which we have explained, Plato taught the existence of actuating spirits or divinities ; but the passages in which he seems to adopt, in the number of these, the deities of the popular mythology, are generally prefaced by words of reserve ; and may, perhaps, be justly considered as instances of cautious, if not honourable, accommo- dation to popular superstition. With the fate of Anaxagoras and of Socrates but too strongly impressed on his memory, Plato may perhaps be excused for not openly defying and exposing the vulgar polytheism. The more gross and practically-mischievous effects of the' supersti- Reprobates tion that prevailed among his countrymen, he reprobates on every supers occasion. He incessantly ridicules that weakness which, instead of the offering of a pure heart, would attempt to propitiate a perfect being by gifts and sacrifices, and would make such bargains with an all-just God as would be an insult if proposed to any of their fellow- * Tool w fg) fov XV^IUTKTOU ifao' vifjuv "^v%ii$ t'l^ous 'biix.voilffQKi ^{t rridt, u; 0.00, aura ^a,ifjt.ova, iog tx/iffrca $&coxi, TOVTO o ^>j q>u,[x,iv olxitv pli wpuv \v O.K^U aX^5/j s Atovvffiov oios rt^o; Aiuvx. Plutarch, in opp. vol. viii. p. 193. Ed. Reiske. a Diogenes Laertius, Valerius Maximus, Bayle. PLATO. 89 with the courtezan Lais. Neither Speusippus nor Xenocrates appear to have deviated in the slightest degree from the general system of Plato. But Polemo, who succeeded Xenocrates, atoned for a youth of intemperance, by rushing in his more sedate years into an extreme bordering on asceticism. The austerities of his own practice, the strictness of his sense of duty, and the ambiguous language which he seems to have employed as to the soul of the universe, almost make one imagine that he anticipated the system of Zeno. Polemo was succeeded by his intimate friend Crates, who had long been connected with him by congeniality of disposition, but who died after a short sway in the Academy. It is not improbable, indeed, that the positive and dogmatic manner of Polemo and Crates produced that revulsion which ensued upon the death of the latter, and occasioned their suc- cessors to indulge in greater latitude of speculation, and in more of that temperate and modest suspense of judgment, which is con- tent to consider the conclusions of practical reason as merely ap- proximations to certainty ; but is at the same time willing to act upon probabilities, since man must act somehow or other, and it is most reasonable to act according to such semblances of truth as the mind can arrive at. Such was the course of the old Academy. The history of the new Academy, (for we agree with Middleton in rejecting the distinction of a middle Academy), beginning with Arcesilas, will be connected with the history of its great ornament, Cicero. Some account of the later Platonists will be presented to our readers in the life of Plotinus, who wasted a genius of the highest order in idle reveries, and whose writings, clouded as they are with mysticism and the spirit of ascetical illusion, occasionally glow with the fervour of the richest imagination, and with an exuberance of philosophic imagery. Indeed, without a powerful genius, he could never have affected that wonderful change in the Platonic school which he did effect, though to us it appears a Modern lamentable corruption. From this time, Plato has seldom been studied except with the aid of the commentaries, or in conjunction with the treatises of this later school ; and at the revival of learning, the learned Florentine, Ficino, who procured the printing of Plato, performed the same service for the illustrious leaders of the later school, and illus- trated his edition of Plato with many commentaries, in which he showed himself at least an equal adept in the mysteries of Plotinus and Porphyry, as in the sense of Plato. Cardinal Bessario was a Platonist of more discrimination, and one whose intercourse with the world had perhaps given him more tact and address in selecting the practical works of Plato, and in illustrating those of a more obscure cast, than the learned but recluse Florentine. Bessario's work, in reply to George of Trebizond, " the calumniator of Plato," is a very masterly performance, but its celebrity has not continued equal to its merit. Bessario has there fully developed many of those arguments which have been used of late years by the admirers of Plato, particularly 90 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. among the German controvertists. Serranus has conferred great obli- gations by his excellent edition of Plato ; and as the paging of that edition has been universally adopted by scholars for reference, it has been very judiciously continued in the margin of the Bipont edition, and of the edition published by Mr. Bekker. The abstract of Plato's ' Dialogues,' by Mr. Tiedemann, annexed to the Bipont edition, is executed with considerable ability ; but the author is somewhat too fond of deviating into mystical disquisitions, and has rendered the work less intelligible and less generally useful than it otherwise would have been, by a constant reference to the philosophy which then prevailed in Germany. In Germany, indeed, Plato has uniformly been the favourite of the ablest philosophers ; and whether the mystic Reuchlin, or Leibnitz, 1 or Kant, brought their own theories to light, they all equally acknow- ledged Plato to be the great object of their admiration among ancient English writers. In Britain, the professed translators of Plato have been omato ns Sydenham, Spens, and Taylor. Of Sydenham's translation, every scholar will speak with respect, and every man of taste with regard and fondness. Its imperfect and unfinished condition bears with it a deep interest as a memorial of Sydenham's melancholy fate ; when a man of the highest talents, and the most elegant accomplishments, after struggling with the inequalities of fortune, and suffering mortifications not the less galling because concealed and uncommunicated, gave way to the sudden impulse of his indignant spirit, and quitted a world which he disdained to flatter. Spens' work bears marks of being a version from the French, and not from the original. It is impossible to speak otherwise than with respect of Mr. Taylor, as a self-taught scholar, and a student of unwearied industry ; but his translation of Plato is in every higher quality a lamentable contrast to the work of his predecessor Sydenham. It is written without spirit, without taste, without, as it should seem, even a suspicion of the lighter shades of language, and it is disfigured throughout with the unintelligible jargon of the Alexandrian school. His admirers Among the British admirers of Plato, besides the cabalists Gale in Britain. an( j More, and the indefatigable and eloquent pupil of the Alexandrian school, Cud worth, we may mention several of our ablest philosophers and poets. Bacon never speaks of the political or moral works of Plato without marked respect. Berkeley's enthusiastic admiration is well known, and his dialogues are, perhaps, the only productions in the lan- 1 The testimony of Leibnitz is very explicit. In one letter to Bierling, after making some remarks on Cicero's 'Dialogues/ he continues thus: "Platonis dialogi paulo minus accommodati sunt ad ingenium nostri sseculi. Mihi tamen vix quicquam in illis spernitur ; adeo multa agnosco consideratione profundiore digna." And in another letter, in reply to some vague remarks made by the same cor- respondent, he observes, " De Platone non sentio tarn con tern tim. Meditationes ejus mihi et profundas passim et utiles videntur. Et habeo Giceronem non malum judicem mecum sentientem. Non ita pridem didicimus plus Platonem in recessu habere quam vulgo apparet." Leibnitii Epistol. in opp. vol. v. p. 368. PLATO. 91 guage which can give to a mere English reader a sense of the art, the dignity, and the gracefulness of his Athenian model. Lord Shaftes- bury's essays on the contrary, though written more with the air of a professed imitation, have about them an inflation and a stilted grandeur, which never deforms the serious works of Plato. The minds, both of Milton and Gray, were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Plato's writings. The whole of the * Comus,' and particularly the beautiful eulogy upon Philosophy, the solemn introduction of the unsphering Plato's spirit in the * Penseroso,' and the express praise of the remnants of the Socratic school in the ' Tractate on Education,' and ' The Answer to Smectymnus,' show at once how fully Milton's mind had been stored with the sublimer parts of Plato's philosophy, and how great his ad- miration was of the plainer and more practical parts. His larger poems breathe everywhere, as it were, inadvertently, intimations of the deep fountains of ancient wisdom, in which his genius had delighted to re- fresh and invigorate itself; and every casual turn displays glances of the sky robes of the Athenian sage, and drops rich distillations of the choicest dew from Hymettus. The poems of Gray, in like manner, bear a strong tincture from their author's studies ; and the intelligent, to whom they are addressed, 1 would need no further evidence than the colour of the language, and imagery with which they abound, to satisfy them that Plato was Gray's favourite author. This point, however, has been put out of all question by the publication of his posthumous works before referred to ; which show, not only his earnest study of Plato's own writings, but his minute and laborious research into other writers of antiquity, to procure illustration even of the most petty par- ticulars of dates or characters anywise connected with them. But we perceive that we are dwelling too long upon details, which at best can be considered but as an appendage to a sketch of Plato's life. The neglect, however, with which Plato's writings are in the present day indiscriminately treated, even among persons of general learning and intelligence, must be our excuse for resting on the names of any who have entertained a different opinion of his writings, although they were not themselves deficient in genius, or accustomed to any servile admiration of antiquity. But upon this head, of the disregard shown to Plato in our public schools and universities, upon which it might seem impertinent or presumptuous for us to enlarge further, we willingly shelter ourselves under the authority of Berkeley, and close our sketch with recommending the perusal of Plato's writings, in the words of that learned and virtuous dignitary : " It might very well be thought serious trifling to tell my readers, that the greatest men had ever an high esteem for Plato ; whose writings are the touchstone of a hasty and shallow mind ; whose philosophy has been the admiration of ages ; which supplied patriots, magistrates, and lawgivers to the most flourishing states, as well as fathers to the church, and doctors to the schools. Albeit, in these days, the depths 92 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. of that old learning are rarely fathomed, and yet it were happy for these lands, if our young nobility and gentry, instead of modem maxims, would imbibe the notions of the great men of antiquity. But in these freethinking times, many an empty head is shook at Aristotle and Plato, as well as at the Holy Scriptures. And the writings of those celebrated ancients are by most men treated on a foot with the dry and barbarous lucubrations of the schoolmen. It may be modestly presumed there are not many among us, even of those who are called the better sort, who have more sense, virtue, and love of their country than Cicero, who, in a letter to Atticus, could not forbear exclaiming, * O Socrates et Socratici viri ! Nunquam vobis gratiam referam.' Would to God many of our countrymen had the same obligations to those Socratic writers." ' Siris,' in Berkeley's Works, vol. ii. p. 613. ARISTOTLE. THE KEY. J. W. BLAKESLEY, M.A., VICAR OF WARE, LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITT COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION. ARISTOTLE. FROM B. C. 384 TO B. C. 323. IN the account which we are about to give of the founder of the Peripatetic school, we shall confine ourselves strictly to the pro- vince of the biographer. 1 We shall enter more into detail respecting the documents which exist for our purpose than has been done in the lives of Plato and Socrates, and in the sketch of the earlier philosophers of Greece, because an acquaintance with this subject is absolutely necessary for estimating the value of any information relative to the lives of these remarkable men, and the existing sources of all our possible knowledge in any one case, are very nearly the same as those for every other. If the acquaintance we possessed with the private life of individuals were at all proportioned to the influence exerted by them on the destinies of mankind, the biography of Aristotle would fill a library ; for without attempting here to discuss the merits of his philosophy as compared with that of others, it may safely be asserted that no man ever yet lived who exerted so much influence upon the world. Absorbing into his capacious mind the whole existing philosophy of his age, he reproduced it, digested and transmuted, in a form of which the main outlines are recognised at the present day, and of which the language has penetrated into the inmost recesses of our daily life. Translated in the fifth century of the Christian era into the Syriac language by the Nestorians who fled to Persia, and from Syriac into Arabic four hundred years later, his writings furnished the Moham- medan conquerors of the East with a germ of science which, but for the effect of their religious and political institutions, might have shot up into as tall a tree as it did produce in the West ; while his logical works in the Latin translation which Boethius, " the last of the Eomans," bequeathed as a legacy to posterity, formed the basis of that extraordinary phenomenon, the philosophy of the schoolmen. An empire like this, extending over nearly twenty centuries of time, sometimes more, sometimes less, despotically, but always with great force, recognised in Bagdat and in Cordova, in Egypt and in Britain, and leaving abundant traces of itself in the language and modes of thought of every European nation, is assuredly without a parallel. Yet of its founder's personal history all that we can learn is to be gathered from meagre compilations, scattered anecdotes, and accidental 1 For an analysis of Aristotle's philosophical doctrines, see th* volume of this Encyclopedia on ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.' GREEK PHILOSOPHY. sophers. Indirect information in ancient writers on the subject. notices, which contain much that is obviously false and even contra- dictory, and from which a systematic account, in which tolerable Early his- confidence maybe placed, can only be deduced by a careful and critical Aristotle and investigation. It is not, however, to the indifference of his contempo- other phiio- raries, or 'to that of their immediate successors, that the paucity of details relating to Aristotle's life is due. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second of the Macedonian dynasty in Egypt, not only bestowed a great deal of study upon the writings of the great philosopher, but also is said to have written a biography of him. 1 About the same time Hermippus of Smyrna, one of the Alexandrine school of learned men, whose research and accuracy are highly praised by Josephus, 9 composed a work extending to considerable length, ' On the Lives of Distinguished Philosophers and Orators.' in which Aristotle appears to have occupied a considerable space. 8 Another author, whose date there is no direct means of ascertaining, but who probably is to be placed somewhere about the end of the third century before the Christian era, 4 Timotheus of Athens, is also to be added to the number of his early biographers. But independently of such works as these, antiquity abounded in others which contained information on this subject in a less direct form. Aristoxenus of Tarentum, who, during a part of his life, was himself a pupil of Aristotle, in his biographies of Socrates and Plato had frequent occasion to speak of the great Stagirite. Epicurus, in a treatise which is cited under the title of ' A Letter on the Pursuits and Habits of former Philosophers,' related several stories to his disparagement. 5 The same, perhaps, was the case with Aristippus (apparently the grandson of the founder of the Cyrenean school) in his work ' On the Luxury of Antiquity.' 6 And yet more valuable materials than were furnished by the two last- mentioned works, of which at least the former appears to have been composed in the vulgar spirit that delights in finding something to degrade to its own level all that is above it, 7 probably were contained in the treatises of Demetrius the Magnesian, and Apollodorus the Athenian. The first of these was a contemporary of Cicero and his 1 David the Armenian, in a commentary on the Categories, cited by Brandis, in the Rheinisches Museum, vol. i. p. 250, and since published from two Vatican MSS., says, Tuv 'Agiffroikou %*'&, is the expression of Diogenes. 5 Suidas, sub v. Ntxo^a^aj. 6 Cited and translated by Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. iii. p. 385. See also Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 8. ARISTOTLE. 103 came necessary for the student." And we have another, although slighter, presumptive evidence that the childhood of the great philo- sopher was spent with his father at the Macedonian court, in the circumstance of his being selected by Philip, at a period long sub- sequent, to conduct the education of Alexander. This we shall find an opportunity of reverting to in the sequel. Whatever influence, however, was exercised by Nicomachus over the future fortunes of his son, he had not the happiness of living to be a witness of its effects. He, as well as his wife Pha?stis, a descendant of one of the Chalcidian colonists of Stagirus, died while Aristotle was yet a minor, leaving Becomes an him under the guardianship of Proxenus, a citizen of Atarneus in Asia, who appears to have been settled in the native town of his ward. How long this person continued in the discharge of his trust we have no means of determining ; it was sufficiently long, however, to imbue the object of it with a respect and gratitude which endured throughout life. At the age of seventeen, however, it terminated ; and Aristotle, master of himself and probably of a considerable fortune, came to Comes to Athens, the centre of the civilization of the world, and the focus of l en!> ' everything that was brilliant in action or in thought. It is not pro- bable that anything but the thirst for knowledge which distinguished his residence there was the cause of its commencement. Plato was at that time in the height of his reputation, and the desire to see and enjoy the intercourse of such a man would have been an adequate motive to minds of much less capacity and taste for philosophy than Aristotle's to resort to a spot, where, besides, every enjoyment which even an Epicurean could desire was to be found. 1 It was reserved for Absurd the foolish ingenuity of later times, when all real knowledge of this thereason. period had faded away, to invent the absurd motive of " a Delphic oracle, which commanded him to devote himself to philosophy." 2 For another account, scarcely less absurd, the excuse of ignorance cannot be so easily made. Epicurus, in the work we have before spoken of, Calumny of related that Aristotle, after squandering his paternal property, adopted the profession of a mercenary soldier, and, failing in this, afterwards that of a vender of medicines ; that he then took advantage of the free manner in which Plato's instructions were given to pick up a know- ledge of philosophy, for which he was not without talent, and thus gradually arrived at his views. 3 It is at once manifest that this story Refuted, is incompatible with the account of Apollodorus, according to which Aristotle attached himself to the study of philosophy under Plato before he had completed his eighteenth year. Independently of the difficulty of conceiving that a mere boy should have already passed through so many vicissitudes of fortune, it is obvious that he could 1 See Xenophon, Rep. Ath. cap. ii. sec. 7, 8. 2 Pseudo-Ammonius, Vit. Arist. 8 Athenaeus, Deipnosoph. viii. p. 354 ; Julian, Var. Hist. v. 9. That these two accounts are derived from the same source appears no less from their similarity of phrase than from the remark of Athenaeus, " that Epicurus was the only authority for this story against Aristotle." 104 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Aristotle's other dis- accounts. not before that time have squandered his property, except through the culpable negligence of his guardian, Proxenus ; and any supposition of this sort is precluded by the singular respect testified for that indi- vidual in his ward's will, the substance of which or perhaps a codicil to it has been preserved to us by Diogenes Laertius. 1 In it he . directs the erection of a statue of Proxenus and of his wife, he ap- points their son Nicanor (whom he had previously adopted) to be joint guardian, with Antipater, of his own son Nicomachus, and also bestows his daughter upon him in marriage. It is impossible to con- ceive that such feelings could have been aroused in the ward by a negligent or indiscreetly-indulgent guardian; and we should hardly have reverted to the story in question, except to remark how the very form of the calumny seems to indicate that the favourite studies of Aristotle, in the early part of his life, were such as his father's pro- fession would naturally have led him to, Physiology and Natural History. 8 Indeed, nothing is more probable than that he might have given advice to the sick; science and practical skill being in those times so inseparably connected, that the Greek language possesses no terms which formally distinguish them and from this circumstance the report may have arisen, that he attempted medicine as a pro- fession. There are some other accounts equally discrepant with the chro- no ^g7 f Apollodorus, which we have taken as our standard. One of these is, that Aristotle did not attach himself to Plato until he was thirty years of age : another, that on his first arrival at Athens he was for three years the pupil of Socrates. 3 The first of these, which rests on the sole authority of one Eumelus, 4 a writer of whom nothing more whatever is known, may perhaps be a feature of the story of Epicurus which we have just discussed: it has been conjectured, however, with great appearance of probability, that its sole foundation is the well-known maxim of Plato, that the study of the higher phi- losophy should not be commenced before the thirtieth year. The second, as it stands, is absolutely unintelligible, Socrates having been 1 Vit. Arist. sec. 1116. The genuineness of this document is confirmed by the notice which Athenseus (xiii. p. 589) gives from Hermippus, relative to the provision for Herpyllis, which quite agrees with what we find in it. Compare, too, the author of the Latin Life (ad fin.), from whom it appears that Ptolemy and An- dronicus had each of them inserted a testament of Aristotle in their works. 2 Athenseus tells the story, after mentioning several tenets of Aristotle on matters of natural history, in reference to which he calls him *' the medicine-vendor" (o q>a,pa.i>a*.ws). There is a curious passage, too, in a work of Aristotle's (the Politics, p. 1258, line 12, ed. Bekker), which seems to have some bearing upon this matter. It may almost be taken as an explanation of his conduct, if it was such as we have supposed. Timseus of Tauromenium related, that at a late period of his life (tyl TVS >./*/;) he served an obscure physician in a menial capacity. (Aristocles, ap Euseb. xv. 2.) For the character of Timseus, see Oasaubon ad Diog. Laert. x. 8. 3 Pseudo-Ammonius. Vita Latina. 4 Ap. Diog. Laert. Vit. Arist. sec. 6. All other accounts are unanimous in repre- senting him as becoming Plato's disciple while very young. ARISTOTLE. 105 put to death in the archonship of Laches (B.C. 400-399), that is, fifteen years before the birth of Aristotle. But it has been ingeni- ously remarked, 1 that at the time when Aristotle first came to Athens, Plato was absent in Sicily, from whence he did not return till Olymp. ciii. 4, the third year afterwards ; 2 so that if Aristotle was then intro- duced to the philosophy of the Academy, it must have been under the auspices of some other of the Socratic school, whom the foolish compilers of later times mistook for its founder. Under this natural explanation, the absurd story becomes a confirmation of the account of Apollodorus, which we have followed a coincidence the more satisfactory as it is quite undesigned. We shall now proceed, as* well as the scanty information which has Aristotle at come down to us will allow, to sketch the course of Aristotle's life during the ensuing period of nearly twenty years which he spent at Athens. It appears to have been mainly, although not entirely, occupied in the acquisition of his almost encyclopaedic knowledge, in collecting, criticising, and digesting. Of his extraordinary diligence His industry. in mastering the doctrines of the earlier schools of philosophy we may form some notion from the notices of them which are preserved in his works, which indeed constitute the principal source of our whole knowledge upon this subject. That this information should have been acquired by him during this part of his life is rendered likely both by the nature of the case and by the scattered anecdotes which relate that his remarkable industry and intelligence elicited the strongest expressions of admiration from Plato, who is said by Pseudo- Ammonius to have called Aristotle's house " the house of the reader" The Latin translator adds, that in his absence his master would ex- claim, " that the intelligence of the school was away, and his audience but a deaf one !" 3 A treatise on Rhetoric, not that which works of has come down to us, but one which, as we shall have occasion to this time> show in the sequel, was probably written during this period of his life, is described by Cicero 4 as containing an account of the theories of all his predecessors upon this subject, from the time of Tisias, the first who wrote upon it, so admirably and perspicuously set forth, that all persons in his time who wished to gain a knowledge of them, preferred Aristotle's description to their own. We may take occasion 1 Stahr, Aristotelia, i. p. 43. 2 Corsini (De die n. Platonis) cited by Ast. Platons Leben und Schriften, p. 30. Heraclides of Pontus presided in the school of Plato during his absence. But Xenocrates, who is known to have been an intimate associate of Aristotle in after life, may possibly have been the means of drawing his attention to intellectual phi- losophy; the social intercourse in which this might be effected would to later ages appear in the light of formal instruction, and, when this was the case, the name Xenocrates would readily, by the carelessness or meddling criticism of a transcriber, be altered into Socrates. 3 " Intellectus ab est; surdum est auditorium." This story is probably only an expansion of a saying of Plato's, recorded by Philoponus (De ^Eternitate, Mundi, vi. 27), that Aristotle was "the soul of his school" (o vov; marked contrast observable in the modes of thought of the two philosophers, sueh a difference indeed as seems incompatible with con- geniality, although quite consistent with the highest mutual admira- 1 Eurip. Suppl. 892. s xsy rou$ (ttrotxouvTus %ivous, old' lt^to'TYt? ruv Xoyuv, ohv fAKXiffT &v ilvt orifAOTri; iv. But Dionysius utterly fails where he attempts literary criticism. Witness the absurd principles on which he proceeds in his comparison of Herodotus and Thucydides. [G. E. p.] i 114 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. whether a man speak them as ancient or make them his own." Proverbs are the apophthegms of a people ; and from this point of view Aristotle appears to have formed his estimate of their import- ance. He is said to have regarded them as exhibiting in a compressed form the wisdom of the age in which they severally sprang up ; and, as in many instances, having been preserved by their compactness and pregnancy through vicissitudes which had swept away all other 1 traces of the people which originated them. 1 Aristotle at We now pass to another stage in the life 'of Aristotle. After Hernia?. & twenty years' stay at Athens, he, accompanied by the Platonic- 34 7' 345 4 P^^ os P^ er Xenocrates, passed over into Asia Minor, and took up his ' residence at Atarneus or Assos (for the accounts vary), in Mysia, at the court of Hermias. 2 Of the motives which impelled him to this step we have, as is natural, very conflicting accounts. His enemies imputed it to a feeling of jealousy, arising from Speusippus having been appointed by Plato, who had died just before, as his successor in the school of the Academy. 3 Others attributed it to a yet more vulgar motive, a taste for the coarse sensualities and ostentatious luxury of an oriental court.* But the first of these reasons will seem to deserve but little credit when we consider that the position which Plato had held was not recognised in any public manner ; that there was neither endowment nor dignity attached to it ; that all honour or profit arising from it was due solely to the personal merits of the philoso- pher ; that in all probability Aristotle himself had occupied a similar position before the death of Plato ; and that, if he felt himself injured by the selection of Speusippus (Plato's nephew), he had every oppor- tunity of showing by the best of all tests, competition, how erroneous a judgment had been formed of their respective merits. And with regard to the second view, it will be sufficient to remark, that for the twenty years preceding this epoch, as well as afterwards, he possessed the option of living at the court of Macedonia, where he probably had connexions, and where there was equal scope for indulging the tastes in question. We shall, therefore, feel no scruple in referring this journey to other and more adequate causes. The reader of Grecian 1 Synesius, Encom. Calvitii, p. 59, ed. Turneb. fi Strabo, xiii. p. 126, ed. Tauchnitz. Diodorus Siculus, xvi. 53. 3 .Elian, Var. Hist. iii. 19. Eubulides (ap. Aristocl. Euseb. Prsep. Ev. xv. 2) alleged that Aristotle refused to be present at Plato's deathbed. 4 To this the epigram of Theocritus of Chios (ap. Aristocl. loc. cit.) perhaps alludes : 'Egpiott ilvov-^ov 6iv xet vrov9Vf sec . 4. 3 Ibid, sec, 16. * De Oratore, iii. 35. 120 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. over, he is said, although neither the time nor the occasion is specified, to have rendered services to the Athenians as ambassador to the court of Macedon. 1 But if this letter be genuine, how are we able to account for the absence of the philosopher from his charge during the thirteen years which elapsed between its professed date and the second year of the 109th Olympiad, in which we know for certain that he entered upon his important task ? For that it was not because he considered the influences exerted upon this tender age unimportant, is clear from the great stress he lays upon their effect in the eighth book of his ' Politics,' which is entirely devoted to the details of this sub- Alexander's ject. 2 And although Alexander was only thirteen years old when his early masters connex j on w ith Aristotle commenced, yet the seeds of many vices had even at that early period been sown by the unskilful hands of former instructors ; and perhaps the best means of estimating the value of Aristotle's services is to' compare what his pupil really became with what he would naturally have been had he been left under the care of these. Two are particularly noticed by Plutarch, 3 of totally opposite dispositions, and singularly calculated to produce, by their combined action, that oscillation between asceticism and luxury which, in the latter part of his life especially, was so striking a feature in Alexander's Leonidas. character. The first was Leonidas, a relation of his mother Olympias, a rough and austere soldier, who appears to have directed all his efforts to the production of a Spartan endurance of hardship and con- tempt of danger. He was accustomed to ransack his pupil's trunks for the purpose of discovering any luxurious dress or other means of indulgence which might have been sent by his mother to him : and, at the outset of Alexander's Asiatic expedition, on the occasion of an entertainment by his adopted mother, a Carian princess, he told her that Leonidas's early discipline had made all culinary refinements a matter of indifference to him ; that the only cook he had ever been allowed to season his breakfast was a good night's journey ; and the only one to improve his supper, a scanty breakfast. 4 An education of which these traits are characteristic might very well produce the personal hardiness and animal courage for which Alexander was distinguished ; it might enable him to tame a Bucephalus, to surpass all his con- temporaries in swiftness of foot, to leap down alone amidst a crowd of enemies from the ramparts of a besieged town, to kill a lion in single combat ; 5 it might even inspire the passion for military glory, which vented itself in tears when there was nothing left to conquer ; 6 but it would be almost as favourable to the growth of the coarser vices as to the development of these ruder virtues ; and we learn that, to the day of his death, the ruffianly and intemperate dispositions which belong 1 Diog. Vit. sec. 2. 2 See especially p. 1334, col. 2, line 25, et seq.; p. 1338, col. 1, line 5, et. seq. ed. Bekker. 3 Vit. Alex. sec. 5. 4 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 22. 5 Ibid. 640, &c. 6 Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis. Juv. Sat. x. 168. ARISTOTLE. 121 to barbarian blood, and which the influences of Leonidas had tended rather to increase than diminish, were never entirely subdued by Alexander. 1 The character of Lysimachus, the other instructor espe- Lysimachus.. daily noticed by Plutarch, was very different, but hardly likely to have produced a much more beneficial effect. He was by birth an Acarnanian, and an expert flatterer, by which means he is said to have gained great favour. His favourite thought appears to have been to compare Alexander to Achilles, Philip to Peleus, and himself to Phoenix, as the characters are described in the epic poetry of Greece ; and this insipid stuff it was his delight to act out in the ordinary business of life. At a later period, this passion for scene-making nearly cost poor Phoenix and his master their lives ; 2 and to it is pro- bably due, in^ a great measure, the cormorant appetite for adulation which is the most disgusting feature in the history of the latter. To neither, then, of these two individuals and if not to these, of course much less to the crowd of masters in reading, writing, horsemanship, harp-playing, and the other accomplishments included by ancient education in its two branches of fiovaiKrj and yv/zmort/aj can we ascribe a share in the production of that character which distinguishes Alexander from any successful military leader. But to Aristotle Alexander's some of the ancients attribute a degree and kind of merit in this respect which is perfectly absurd. Plutarch says that his pupil gained from him more towards the accomplishment of his schemes than from Philip. 3 Alexander himself was accustomed to say, that he honoured Aristotle no less than his own father ; that to the one he owed life, but to the other all that made life valuable : 4 and it is very likely that the misinterpretation of such phrases as these led to the belief that the conqueror had received from his instructor direct advice for the accom- plishment of the great exploit which has made him known to posterity. But the obligations to which he really alluded were probably of a totally different kind. Philip is said to have perceived, at a very early age, that his son's disposition was a most peculiar one, sensible in the highest degree of kindness, and tractable by gentle' measures, but absolutely ungovernable by force, and consequently requiring, instead of the austerity of a Leonidas, or the flattery of a Lysimachus, the influence of one who could, by his character and abilities, com- 1 " Leonidas Alexandri paedagogus, ut a Babylonio Diogene traditur, quibusdam eum vitiis imbuit, quse robustum quoque et jam maximum regem ab ilia institu- tione puerili sunt prosecuta."* Quintilian, Inst. Or. i. 1, 8. Is it not probable that Aristotle, in the seventh book of his Politics (p. 1324, col. 1, line 23, et seq., and p. 1333, col. 2, line 10, et seq.) has a particular reference to the views of Leonidas ? 2 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 24. 3 Plutarch, De Fortun. Alexandri. See Ste. Croix, Examen Historique, p. 84. Such expressions as these led later writers to yet more extravagant ones ; such as Roger Bacon's, " per vias sapientiae mundum Alexandro tradidit Aristoteles;" and probably to the same source is to be traced the romance of the philosopher having personally attended his pupil in his expedition. 4 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 8. 122 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. His literary tastes. His mental cultivation. Rapidity of his education mand respect, and by his tact and judgment preserve it. Such quali- fications he found in Aristotle, and the good effects seem to have speedily shown themselves. From a rude and intemperate barbarian his nature expanded and exhibited itself in an attachment to philosophy, a desire of mental cultivation, and a fondness for study. So com- pletely did he acquire higher and more civilized tastes, that being at the extremity of Asia, in a letter to Harpalus he desires that the works of Philistus the historian, the tragedies of ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the dithyrambs of Telestes and Philoxenus, should be sent to him. Homer was his constant travelling companion. A copy, corrected by Aristotle, was deposited by the side of his dagger, under the pillow of the couch on which he slept ; l and, on the occa- sion of a magnificent casket being found among the spoils of Darius's camp, when a discussion arose as to how it should be employed, the king declared that it should be appropriated to the use of containing this copy. 2 But his education had not been confined to the lighter species of literature ; on the contrary, he appears to have been intro- duced to the gravest and most abstruse parts of philosophy, to which the term of acroamatic was specifically applied. We shall, in the sequel, examine more fully what exact notion is to be attached to this term : 8 in the meantime it will be sufficient to observe that it included the highest branches of the science of that day. In a letter, then, preserved by Plutarch and Aulus Gellius, 4 Alexander complains that his preceptor had published those of his works to which this phrase was applied. " How," he asks, " now that this is the case, will he be able to maintain his superiority to others in mental accomplish- ments a superiority which he valued more than the distinction he had won by his conquests?" Gellius likewise gives us Aristotle's answer, in which he excuses himself by saying, " that although the works in question were published, they would be useless to all who had not previously enjoyed the benefit of his oral instructions." What- ever may be our opinion as to the genuineness of these letters, which Gellius says he took from the book of the philosopher Andronicus (a contemporary of Cicero's, to whom we shall on a future occasion again revert), it is quite clear that if they are forgeries, they were forged in accordance with a general belief of the time, that there was no depart- ment of knowledge, however recondite, to which Aristotle had not taken pains to introduce his pupil. But the most extraordinary feature in the education of Alexander is the short space of time which it occupied. From the time of Aristotle's arrival in Macedonia to the expedition of his pupil into Asia there elapsed eight years ('. e.,) from Olymp. cix. 2. to Olymp. cxi. 2.) But of this only a part, less than the half, can have been devoted to 1 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 7, 8. 2 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 26 ; Strabo, xiii. ; Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 30. 3 See below, p. 159. 4 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 7 ; Gellius, Noc. Att. xx. 5. ARISTOTLE. 123 the purpose of systematic instruction. For in the fourth year of this period, 1 we find Philip during an expedition to Byzantium leaving his son sole and absolute regent of the kingdom. Some barbarian subjects having revolted, Alexander undertook an expedition in person against them, and took their city, which he called after his own name, Alexandropolis. From this time he was continually engaged in busi- ness, now leading the decisive charge at Cha3ronea, and now involved in court intrigues against a party who endeavoured to gain Philip's confidence, and induce him to alter the succession. 2 It is clear, there- fore, that all instruction in the stricter sense of the word, must have terminated. Yet that a very considerable influence may have been Aristotle's still exerted by Aristotle upon the mind of Alexander, is not only in o"er e Aiex- itself probable, but is confirmed by the titles of some of his writings ander. Which are now lost. Ammonius, in his division of the works of the philosopher, mentions a certain class 8 as consisting of treatises written for the behoof of particular individuals, and specifies among them those books " which he composed at the request of Alexander of Macedon, that ' On Monarchy,' and ' Instructions on the Mode of establishing Colonies.' " The titles of these works may lead us to conjecture that the distinguishing characteristics of Alexander's subsequent policy, the attempt to fuse into one mass his old subjects and the people he had conquered, the assimilation of their manners, especially by education and intermarriages, the connexion of remote regions by building cities, making roads, and establishing commercial enterprises, may be in no small measure due to the counsels of his preceptor. A modern writer, indeed, has imagined an analogy between this assimilative policy of the conqueror, and the generalizing genius of the philosopher. 4 And there really does seem some ground for this belief, in spite of an ob- servation of Plutarch's, 5 which is at first sight diametrically opposed to it. After speaking of the Stoical notions of an universal republic, he says, that magnificent as the scheme was, it was never realized, but remained a mere speculation of that school of philosophy ; and he adds that Alexander, who nearly realized it, did so in opposition to the advice of Aristotle, who had recommended him to treat the Greeks as a general (//ye^on/cwc), but the barbarians as a master (deo-Trorucwg), the one as friends, the other as instruments. But there is no other authority than Plutarch for this story ; and it seems far from impro- 1 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 9 ; Diodorus, xvi. 77. See Clinton, Fast. Hell. a. 340, 339. 2 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 9, 10. 3 TO, Mooixai. Ammon. Hermeneut. ad Aristot. Categor. p. 7, ed. Aid. The two works alluded to are cited by the anonymous author of the Life printed by Buhle in his edition of Aristotle, pp. 60-67, under the titles vifi /3au/j and 'AAs'gav^fl;, % vvrl^ aLveixtuv. Diogenes mentions the latter by the same name, and Pseudo-Ammonius the former. The anonymous writer adds a third fyev, TJ wig} priro^o; } WS^ITIXOU, by which he probably means the p av^av, which we have. 4 Joh. von Mueller, Allgemeine Geschichte, i. p. 160. 5 De Virt. et Fort. Alexandri, p. 329. 124 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. bable that it is entirely built upon certain expressions used by Aristotle His views in the first book of his * Politics.' In that place he recognizes the relation between master and slave as a natural one ; and he also main- tains the superiority of Greeks over barbarians to be so decided and permanent as to justify the supremacy of the one over the other. Of the latter he argues that they have not the faculty of governing in them, and that, therefore, the state of slavery is for them the natural and proper form of the social relation. But it should not be over- Misrepre- looked, as by some modern writers it has been, 1 that Aristotle expli- citly distinguishes between a slave de facto and a slave de jure, and that he grounds his vindication of slavery entirely on the principle that such a relation shall be the most beneficial one to both the parties con- cerned in it. Where this condition is wanting, wherever the party governed is susceptible of a higher order of government, he distinctly maintains that the relation is a false and unnatural one. If, therefore, his experience had brought him into contact with the highly-cultivated and generous races of upper Asia to which Alexander penetrated, he must in consistency with his own principle, that every man's nature is to be developed to the highest point of which it is capable, have advised that these should be treated on the same footing as the Greeks, and Alexander's conduct would only appear a natural deduction from Exculpated, the general principles inculcated by his master. 2 As far as concerned the barbarians, with whom alone the Greeks previously to Alexander's expedition had been brought into contact, the neighbours of the Greek cities in Asia Minor and the Propontis, the savage hordes of Thrace, or the Nomad races inhabiting the African Syrtis, Aristotle's position was a most reasonable one. Christianity seems the only possible means for the mutual pacification of races so different from one another in every thought, feeling, and habit, as these and the polished Greeks were : and Christianity itself solves the problem not by those modifi- cations of social life through which alone the statesman acts, or can act ; but by awakening all to the consciousness that there exists a common bond higher than all social relations ; it does not aim at ob- literating national peculiarities, but it dwarfs their importance in com- parison with the universal religious faith. If we would really under- stand the opinions of a writer of antiquity, we must understand the ground on which he rests, and must rest. We have no right to require of a pagan philosopher three centuries before Christ, that in his system he should take account of the influences of Christianity ; and they who scoff at the importance which he attaches to the difference of race, would do well to point out any instance in the history of the world of a barbarous people becoming amalgamated with a highly-civilized one by any other agency. stagirus re- If Aristotle might reasonably feel proud of the talents and acquire- 1 Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy, c. v. p. 12. 2 From this point of view too, the assertion of Plutarch, quoted above (p. 123), acquires a plausibility, which otherwise we could never allow it. ARISTOTLE. 125 ments of his pupil, his gratification would be yet more enhanced by the nature of the reward which his services received. We have men- tioned above the unhappy fate of Stagirus, Aristotle's birthplace. Although his own fortunes were little affected by this calamity, his patriotism, if we may believe the account in Plutarch, induced him to demand as the price of his instructions, the restoration of his native town. It was accordingly rebuilt, such of the inhabitants as were living in exile were restored to the home of their infancy, such as had been sold for slaves were redeemed, and in the days of Plutarch strangers were shown the shady groves in which the philosopher had walked, and the stone benches whereon he used to repose. 1 The constitution under which the new citizens lived was said to be drawn up by him, 2 and long afterwards his memory was celebrated by the Stagirites in a solemn festival, and, it is said, one month of the year (perhaps the one in which he was born) called by his name. 3 There is every reason to believe that during the latter part of his connexion with Alexander, when the more direct instruction had ceased, the newly-built town furnished him with a quiet retreat, and that he then and there composed the treatises we have mentioned above, for the use of his absent pupil. While their personal communication lasted, Pella, the capital of Macedonia, was probably his residence, 4 as it is scarcely probable that Philip would have liked to trust the person of the heir-apparent out of his dominions. We shall conclude the account of this portion of Aristotle's life by Fellow- the mention of three other remarkable persons who probably all shared pupiisof i i i i 11 n i* i IT 11. Alexander. with Alexander in the beneht of his instructions, although this is only positively stated of the last of them. 5 The first of these was Callis- 1 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. sec. 7. In this matter the accounts are confused. ^Elian (Var. Hist. iii. 17 ; xii. 54), Diogenes (v. 4), and Pliny (vii. 29), attribute the restoration to Alexander. If it took place at the commencement of the regency, these may be reconciled with Plutarch. But the testimony of Valerius Maximus (v. 6) would refer both the destruction and rebuilding of Stagirus to Alexander, and that too at a time when Aristotle was very old and residing in Athens. The gentlest mode of reconciling this inaccurate epitomizer with possibilities, is to sup- pose that he has confounded Stagirus with Eressus, the birthplace of Theophrastus, of whom Diogenes and Pseudo-Ammonius relate a somewhat similar story. 2 Plutarch, adv. Colot. extr. 3 Pseudo-Ammon. and Vit. Lat. The name " Stagirites " shows the very late rise of this feature of the story. It may be built, however, on a true foundation. 4 This has been by Stahr (Aristotelia, i. p. 104) inferred from the expression fioofiogou iv yrgox.oa'ts in Theocritus's Epigram, quoted above, p. 114, note. The Macedonians, he says, called the river, on whose banks Pella stood, by the name Bdg&ogos. We cannot find any authority except Plutarch for this assertion; and should be inclined to recognize in the expression in question a moral rather than a physical allusion. * Suidas, v. Marsyas. That Callisthenes and Theophrastus were together pupils of Aristotle appears from Diogenes (Vit. Theoph. sec. 39) ; and the Macedonian connexions of both would incline us to believe that it was in that country that this relation existed. Theophrastus was personally known to Philip, and treated with distinction by him. (./Elian, Var. Hist. iv. 19.) And if Callisthenes had been Aristotle's pupil at Athens, his character would surely have been sufficiently 126 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. thenes, a son of Aristotle's cousin, who afterwards attended Alexander in his Asiatic expedition, and to whom we shall have occasion to revert in the sequel. The second was, Theophrastus, Aristotle's suc- cessor in the school of the Lyceum some years afterwards ; and the third was one Marsyas, a native of Pella, brother to the Antigonus, who, after the death of Alexander, when the generals of the monarch divided their master's conquests among them, became King of Lycia and Pamphylia. He was a soldier and a man of letters ; and one work of his ' On the Education of Alexander' is, perhaps, as great a loss to us as any composition of antiquity which could be named. Aristotle On Alexander commencing his eastern expedition, Aristotle, leaving Athens to kis relation and pupil Callisthenes to supply his own place as a friendly B.C. 335-4. adviser to the youthful monarch, whom he accompanied in the osten- sible character of historiographer, 1 returned to Athens. Whether this step was the consequence of any specific invitation or not, it is difficult to say. Some accounts state that he received a public request from the Athenians to come, and conjointly with Xenocrates to suc- ceed Speusippus. 2 But these views appear to proceed upon the essentially false opinion that the position of teacher was already a publicly recognized one, and besides to imply the belief that Xenocrates and Aristotle were at the time on their travels together ; whereas we know that the latter was in Macedonia till B.C. 335, and that the former had four years before this time succeeded Speusippus, not by virtue of any public appointment, but in consequence of his private why- wish. 3 If any more precise reason be required for the philosopher's change of residence than the one which probably determined him at first to visit Athens, namely, the superior attractions which that city possessed for cultivated and refined minds, we should incline to believe that the greater mildness of climate was the influencing cause. 4 His health was unquestionably delicate ; and, perhaps, it was a regard for this, combined with the wish to economize time, that induced him to deliver his instructions (or at least a part of them) not sitting or standing, but walking backwards and forwards in the open air. The extent to which he carried this practice, although the example of Pro- tagoras 5 in Plato's Dialogue is enough to show that he did not originate it, procured for his scholars, who of course were obliged to conform to Peripatetics, this habit, the soubriquet of ' Peripatetics,' or ' Walkers backwards and developed eleven years afterwards to exhibit his unfitness as an adviser of Alexander to any eye, certainly to the sharp-sighted one of Aristotle. Besides, it is not likely that Alexander would have chosen one whom he was not already acquainted with, to attend him in such a capacity as Callisthenes did. 1 Arrian, iv. 10. 2 Pseudo-Ammon. Vit. Lat. 3 Diog. Laert. iv. 3. 4 This seems to be the true interpretation of the expression of Aristotle cited by Demetrius (De Elocut. sec. 29, 155), \yu IK ju.lv 'Afavuv il$ ^rctyti^tn v\6ov liu TOV /Sair/Xsa j JJxi/v rivet \6pa /u.t\eiv virfp O.VT&V, yu^re fir?5ei> /teAetj/. Pausanias (vi. 4, 8) speaks of a statue at Olympia said to be his : but it had no name, nor was it known who had placed it there. 3 Nicom. Ethic, iv. p. 1123, col. 1, line 34. 4 Aristotle himself said of him, on hearing of his behaviour at court, that he was \6y

AEISTOTLE. 139 charged directly towards the king. The page, influenced probably more by the ardour of the chase, and his own youthful spirits, than by any just apprehension for his sovereign's safety, struck the creature a mortal wound before it came up to him. Alexander, the keenest of huntsmen, balked of his expected sport, in the passion of the moment, ordered Hermolaus to be flogged in the presence of his brother pages, insulted by and deprived him of his horse (apparently the sign of summarily A1 exander. degrading him from his employment). Such an insult to a Greek could only be washed out in the blood of the aggressor, and Her- molaus found ready sympathy among his compeers. It was agreed among them to assassinate Alexander while asleep, and the execution Plots his of the design was fixed for a night on which Antipater, the son of death- Asclepiodorus (whom Alexander had made lord-lieutenant of Syria), was to be the groom in waiting. It so happened that on that night Alexander did not retire to bed at all, but sat at table carousing until the very morning; whether by accident, or in consequence of the advice of a Syrian female, to whom in the character of a soothsayer he paid great respect, is not agreed by the contemporary historians. But this circumstance, whatever was the cause of it, saved the king and led to the detection of the plot. The next day, Epimenes, one of the conspirators, mentioned the matter to an individual who was strongly attached to him. This person spoke of it to Eurylochus, the brother of Epimenes, perhaps considering that his relationship was a sufficient guarantee for secrecy. Eurylochus, however, at once laid an information before Ptolemy Lagides, subsequently the first of the Greek dynasty in Egypt, and then one of the guard of honour in attendance on Alexander. He reported to the king the names of is detected, those who he had been told were concerned in the affair : they were arrested, and on being put to the torture confessed their crime and gave up the names of others who were participators. 1 So far all accounts agree as to the substantial facts of this story, but here a great discrepancy commences. Ptolemy and Aristobulus 2 both asserted inculpation that the pages named Callisthenes as the instigator of their design. J^SS 1 *" This, however, was denied^ by the majority of contemporary writers on the subject, who related that the ill-will towards Callisthenes pre- viously existing in the mind of Alexander, united with the intimacy between Hermolaus and the former, furnished ample means to his 1 Arrian, iv. 13, 14. 2 Aristobulus was one of Alexander's generals, and wrote an account of his cam- paigns. He did not, however, commence this work till his eighty-fourth year (Lucian, De Macrob.), long enough, therefore, after the transaction in question, to allow us to suppose that by a slip of the memory he may have confused circum- stantial with direct evidence. Moreover, as there was nothing which made Alex- ander so unpopular as the execution of Callisthenes (Quintus Curtius, De rebus gestis Alex. viii. c. 3), so there was nothing which his biographers took so much pains to extenuate. See Ste. Croix, p. 360, et seq. ; Arrian (iv. 14,/n.), at the same time that he speaks of the opportunities of knowledge possessed by Ptolemy and Aristobulus, and of their general fidelity, yet remarks that their accounts of the details of this affair differ from one another. 140 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. enemies to raise a strong suspicion against him. 1 They alleged, that to a question from Herrnolaus, " How a man might make himself the most illustrious of his species?" he replied, " By slaying him that is most illustrious ;" and that to incite the youth to the rash act he bade him " not be in awe c of the couch of gold, but remember that such a one often holds a sick or a wounded man ;" also, that when Philotas had asked him whom the Athenians honoured most of all men, he replied, '* Harmodius and Aristogiton, the tyrannicides ;" and when the querist expressed a doubt whether such a person would at the existing time find countenance and protection anywhere in Greece, he replied, " That if every other city shut its gates against him, he would certainly find a refuge in Athens ;" and in support of this opinion quoted the instance of the Heraclidse who there found protec- tion against the tyrant Enrystheus. 2 It requires but little penetration to see how, under circumstances of such peculiar irritation, the words of Callisthenes might, with very little violence and with the greatest plausibility, be interpreted in a treasonable sense, although they were nothing more than Macedonian principles expressed in a strong and antithetical manner. Indeed, the very admixture of legendary history in the instance of the sons of Hercules seems to betray the common- places of the rhetorician. And that this account of the matter, to which Arrian, following the majority of contemporary accounts, inclines, is the true one, seems proved beyond all doubt by two letters of Alexander himself, which are cited by Plutarch. In the former of these, written immediately after the event to his general, Craterus, he states, " that the pages on being put to the torture confessed their own treason, but denied that any one else was privy to the attempt." He wrote to Attains and Alcetas to the same effect. But afterwards in a letter to Antipater, he says, " the pages have been stoned to Inculpation death by the Macedonians ; but as for the sophist, I intend to punish of Amtotle. j^^ an( j fa ose too W } 1O sen ^ h[ m ou ^ an( j a } so the cities which harbour conspirators against me." In the latter part of this phrase, according to Plutarch, he alludes to Aristotle, as being the great-uncle of Callis- thenes, and him by whose advice he had joined the court. It seems plain that in the interval between the writing of these letters, Alexander's mind had been worked upon by those whose interest it was to identify the cause of manliness and virtue with that of disloyalty and treason, by Anaxarchus and the crew of court sycophants whose practice he sanctioned by his example, and attempted to justify by his philosophy. The tide of hatred, however, was setting too strong against Callisthenes for him to stem it. He was placed under confinement, and according to accounts, which there is too much reason to fear are true, cruelly mutilated. It is said to have been Alexander's intention to bring 1 Arrian, loc. cit. 8 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 55 ; Arrian, iv. 10. This Philotas is not the son of Par- menio, put to death, together with his father, on a former occasion, but a page, the son of Cards, a Thracian. See Arrian, iv. 13. ARISTOTLE. 141 him to a trial in the presence of Aristotle on his return to G reece ; but the unfortunate man, after remaining in his deplorable situation for a considerable time, died from the effects of ill-treatment. Whatever prejudices against his old master may have been raised in ineffective the mind of Alexander on the score of Callisthenes, and whatever ill Jj* 1 ^ the consequences might perhaps have followed if the conqueror had lived Alexander, to revisit Europe, intoxicated with his military successes, and hardened bv the influence of those flatterers who, after Callisthenes's death, reigned supreme at court, it is explicitly stated by Plutarch, that while he lived, his estrangement never led him to injure Aristotle in the slightest degree. Mortification, therefore, at the degeneracy of his pupil, and sorrow at the loss of an affection in which he doubtless took both pride and pleasure, were the only evils which the latter during his remaining days had to endure. But a few years after the death of Report both, a story began to be circulated which at last grew into a form in ^J^ * 6 the highest degree detrimental to his character. It is impossible to death of doubt that Alexander died from the fever of the country, caught im- both mediately after indulgence in the most extravagant excesses. At the time no suspicion to the contrary was entertained. 1 But some time afterwards, the ambitious and intriguing Olympias, who had long in- dulged a bitter hostility towards Antipater (a hostility which the suc- cessful establishment of the latter in the government of Macedonia after her son's death had inflamed into a fiendish hatred), seized the oppor- tunity which Alexander's rapid illness afforded, to throw the suspicion of poisoning him upon her enemy, whose younger son lolaus had been his cupbearer. It was not till the sixth year after the fatal event that this story was set on foot ; and it seems to have originated in nothing but Olympias's desire of vengeance, which then first found a favour- able vent. The bones of lolaus, who had died in the interim, were torn from their grave, and a hundred Macedonians, selected from among the most distinguished of Antipater's friends, barbarously butchered. 2 The accusation of poisoning the king seems at first to at first vague; have been vaguely set on foot, the only circumstantial part of the story being the point necessary to justify Olympias's malignity, namely that lolaus was the agent in administering the poison. But in afterwards process of time the minutest details of the transaction were supplied. detaile d- We give them in the last form which they assumed. The fears of Antipater, it was said, arising from the growing irritation of Alex- ander incessantly stimulated by Olympias, induced him, on hearing that he was superseded by Craterus and ordered into Asia with new levies, to plot against his master's life. A fit means for this purpose was pointed out to him by his friend Aristotle, who dreaded the per- sonal consequences to himself which seemed likely to follow from Alexander's anger against Callisthenes. 3 The nature of this is quite in 1 Plutarch, Vit. sec. 77. 2 Diodorus, xix. 11; Plutarch, foe. cit. a Although Callisthenes had been put to death five years before, *'. e, in B. c, 328 ! See Clinton, Fast. Hel. ii. p. 376. 142 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. keeping with the other features of the narrative. It was no other than the water of the river Styx, which fell from a rock near the town of Nonacris in Arcadia, and which, according to a local superstition which is not extinct to this day, 1 possessed not only the property of destroying animal life by its cold and petrifying qualities (^v^pov KCU Trayfrw^ec), but also that of dissolving the hardest metals, and even precious stones. One substance alone was proof against its destructive influences the hoof of a Scythian ass ! In a vessel made out of this, a small portion of the fluid was conveyed by Cassander, lolaus's elder brother, into Asia, and, on the occasion of the debauch at which Alex- ander was taken ill, administered to him by the latter. lolaus was stimulated to the act by the desire of revenging an outrage upon him- self committed by the king, and attachment to him induced Medius, a Thessalian, at whose palace the debauch took place, to be an accom- plice in the treason. The assassin, according to the author of the * Lives of the Ten Orators,' falsely attributed to Plutarch, 2 was re- warded by a proposition of the demagogue Hyperides at Athens, to confer public honours upon him as a tyrannicide, and the horn cup in which the fatal draught had been conveyed from Greece deposited in the temple of Delphi. 3 its refutation The absurdity of this account is glaringly manifest to readers of the present day, of whom nine out of every ten are probably better ac- quainted with the nature and operation of petrifying springs than the best informed of the Greek naturalists were. The ancients were not in possession of the touchstone for the discovery of falsehood which modern science affords ; but even they were long before they attached any credence to the calumny. " The greater part of the writers on the subject," says Plutarch, 4 " consider the whole matter of the alleged poisoning a mere fiction ; and in confirmation of this view they quote the fact, that although the royal remains lay for several days unem- balmed in consequence of the disputes of the generals and that too in a hot and close place they exhibited no marks of corruption, but remained fresh and unchanged." Arrian 5 too, who, as well as Plu- tarch, derives his account of the king's illness and death from the court gazettes (i^psplhg), and confirms the statements of these by the 1 See Col. Leake's Travels in the Morea, vol. iii. pp. 165-9. The natives say that the water, which they call ra Mavpa-vepia (the black waters), and ra Apaico- vepia (the terrible waters), is unwholesome, and also that no vessel will hold it. It is a slender perennial stream falling over a very high precipice, and entering the rock at the bottom, which is said to be inaccessible, from the nature of the ground. Col. Leake quotes the phrases of Homer, Karfi^^vov 'Srvybs vScap, and ^rvybs vSaros a'ura peeQpa, as exact descriptions of it. See also Herod, vi. 74 ; Hesiod, Theog. 785, 805. 2 P. 849. The same is stated by Photius, Biblioth. p. 496. 3 Epigr. ap. -(Elian, De Nat. Animal, x. 40. That it should have been deposited there, as the Epigram states, by Alexander himself, is a circumstance which will not add much, in the opinion of modern critics, to the incredibility of the story. 4 Vit. Alex. ult. 5 vii. 27. ARISTOTLE. 143 narratives of Ptolemy and Aristobulus, says of the charge of poison- ing, which he afterwards mentions, that he has alluded to it merely to show that he has heard of it, not that he considers it to deserve any credit. In fact, the sole source of the story in its details appears to have been one Hagnothemis (an individual of whom nothing else is known), who is reported to have said that he had heard it told by king Antigonns. 1 But its piquancy was a strong recommendation to later writers ; and it is instructive and amusing to observe how their state- ments of it increase in positiveness, about in proportion as they recede Itsgradual from the time in which the facts of the case could be known. Dio- rowth - dorus Siculus and Vitruvius, living in the time of the two first Ca3sars, merely mention the rumour that Alexander's death was occasioned by poison through the agency of Antipater, but do not pretend to assert its credibility. Quintus Curtius, writing under Vespasian, considers the authorities on that side to preponderate. The epitomizer of a degenerate age, Justin, flourishing in the reign of Antoninus Pius, slightly alludes to the intemperance which he allows had been as- signed as the cause of Alexander's death, but adds that, in fact, he died from treason, and that the disgraceful truth was suppressed by the in- fluence of his successors. And finally Orosius, in the fifth century, states broadly and briefly that he died from poison administered by an attendant, without so much as hinting that any different belief had ever even partially obtained. 2 But it is remarkable that, of all these writers, not one mixes up Aristotle's name with the story ; and it is probable that the foolish charge against him, mentioned (and discoun- tenanced) by Plutarch and Arrian, fell into discredit very soon after it arose, and perhaps was only remembered as a curious piece of scan- dalous history, until the half-lunatic Caracalla thought proper to revive it, in order to gratify at once the tyrant's natural hatred for wisdom and virtue, and his own morbid passion for idolizing the memory of Alex- ander. It is recorded of him that he persecuted the Aristotelian sect of philosophers with singular hatred, abolishing the social meetings of their body, which appear to have taken place in Alexandria, confis- cating certain funds which they possessed, and even entertaining the 1 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. loc. cit. 2 Diodorus, xvii. 117; Vitruvius, viii. 3; Q. Curtius, x. 10; Justin, xii. 14; Orosius, iii. 20. It is possible that some readers may quote Tacitus (Annal. ii. 73) as opposing the view we have given in the text of the gradual progression of credulity. But the exception is only apparent. Tacitus does not give his own view, but merely that of those who chose to draw a parallel between the circum- stances of Germanicus's life and those of Alexander ; for which purpose this ver- sion of the death of the latter was necessary, and, perhaps, to this it owed much of its subsequent popularity. With respect, too, to the silence respecting Aristotle, it is to be remarked that the expressions of Pliny (" magn& Aristotelis infamia excogitatum," Hist. Nat. xxx. M^.), if they are genuine, do not imply a belief, either on his own part or that of people in general, that the philosopher was guilty of abetting Antipater. But they seem more likely to be a marginal note, implying that " the story of the poisoning by such water was a figment that had done Aris- totle's character much harm." 144 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. design of destroying their master's works, on no other ground than that Aristotle was thought to have aided Antipater in destroying Alexander. 1 its possible To attempt to account for the origin of so absurd a charge as that . we have been discussing may perhaps appear rash. We cannot, how- ever, resist the temptation to hazard a conjecture that while the in- timacy of Aristotle with Antipater undoubtedly furnished a favourable soil for the growth of the story, the actual germ of it is to be looked for at Delphi. The cup in the treasure-house there, which the epigram we have quoted above represents as presented by Alexander, was pro- bably of onyx, a stone of which the coloured layers, resembling as they do the outer coats of a hoof, procured it the name by which it goes. Now, it is obvious that in the time of which we are speaking, when the merchant who sold the wares was, for the most part, himself a traveller in distant countries, marvellous tales would be related respecting the strange commodities which he imported. The onyx might to the ad- miring Greek be represented as the solid hoof of some strange animal, with no less plausibility than in the fourteenth century a cocoa-nut could be sold as a griffin's egg a long univalve shell represented as the horn of a land animal or the ammonites of Malta regarded as serpents changed into stone by St. Paul. 2 And although the more extensive communication with the East, which commenced after Alex- ander's expedition, would, in process of time, spread more correct views on the subject of natural productions, the old legends would linger in the temples, handed down traditionally by the attendants, who showed the curiosities to strangers, and were expected to be provided with a story for every relic. 3 If any one of these Ciceroni (|iyyjjrat), aware of 1 Xiphilinus, Epitom. Dionis. pp. 329, 330. Caracalla wore arms and used drink- ing cups which had belonged to Alexander, erected a great number of statues to him both in Rome and at the several military stations, and raised a phalanx of Macedonians, armed all after the manner of five centuries back, which he named after the Conqueror of the East. [In his wish to destroy the philosopher's works (/cal TO. )3tj3Ata avrov KaTUKavffai e0eA.7j(Tat) he had the precedent of Caligula, who threatened to do the same with the works of the jurists and of Livy, and in the case of the latter carried his threat out to a considerable extent. Suetonius, Vit. Calig. 34.] See also Dio Cassius. Ixxvii. 7. 2 Compare, for instance, the stories related by Herodotus (iii. 102-111) of the way in which gold-dust and the various spices brought from the East were pro- cured. The account which he gives of cinnamon is confirmed, with a little varia- tion in the details, by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. ix. 13, p. 616, col. 1, Bekk. Theophrastus (Hist. PI. iv. 7, 8) represents various corals as plants growing in the Indian Ocean. The Madrepora muricata is termed by him " stone thyme." The informant of Herodotus was no doubt some one of the travelling merchants which came by the caravans to Egypt. 3 It has been remarked by Heeren, that Herodotus's account of the history of Egypt is derived entirely from local narrations connected with public monu- ments. (Manual of Ancient History, pp. 52, 53, Eng. transl.) This remark admits of far wider application. It would not be difficult to show that almost all the early events recorded by that author rest on the same basis. For instance, the history of the Lydian kings in the first book is obviously entirely made up of stories connected with offerings in the temples of Apollo at Delphi and Miletus. This is plain from the fact that every narrative at all circumstantial of any of these ARISTOTLE. 145 the intimate friendship which subsisted between Aristotle and An- tipater, and also of the rumour that Alexander had been poisoned through the agency of the latter, had either chanced to stumble him- self, or to be directed by a more learned visitor to a passage in a work of Theophrastus (Aristotle's favourite scholar and successor), at that time extant, which stated " that in Arcadia there was a streamlet of water dropping from a rock, called the water of Styx, which those who wished for, collected by means of sponges fastened to the end of poles; and that not only was it a mortal poison to whoever drank it, but it possessed the property of dissolving all vessels into which it was put, except they were of horn^ 1 he must have possessed much less fancy, and a much greater regard for historical accuracy than the rest of his countrymen, if he did not, when the next pilgrim visited the temple, add at least a conjecture or two as to the connexion which the relic in question had with a story possessing so much interest to all. It should not be forgotten, in reference to that part of the account which repre- sents Aristotle as the discoverer of this peculiar property of the " Stygian water " that Theophrastus is the earliest authority for its possessing it, and that if Aristotle had been aware that such a belief existed, we should hardly fail to find it in the book Trepl Qavpaaiujv ajcoucr/jarwv, in the 121st chapter of which there is an account of a pestilential fountain in Thrace, the water of which was said to be clear and spark- ling, and to the eye like any other, but fatal to all who drank of it. We must now return from the discussion of the imputed share of Death of Aristotle in the death of his illustrious pupil, to the narrative of his Anstotle - own. He did not long survive his departure from the city in which he had spent so large a portion of his life. He retired to Chalcis in the year of Cephisodorus's archonship (B.C. 323-322), and early in that of his successor Philocles died (as we are justified by Apollo- dorus's authority in stating positively 2 ) from disease. At nearly the same time the greatest orator that the world ever saw, the leader of that party whose influence had expelled Aristotle from Athens, was driven to have recourse to poison to escape a worse fate. There are not wanting accounts that the philosopher also met a violent death. That he poisoned himself to avoid falling into the hands of his various accusers is the view of Suidas and the anonymous author of his Life. 3 accounts - monarchs terminated with a reference to one of these temples. The historians before him, with, perhaps, the exception of Hellanicus, made use even of the topo- graphical form of composition. 1 Theophrastus, ap. Antigonum Carystium, Hist. Mirab. sec. 174. Pausanias, where he describes the water and its singular effects, speaks of the story of Alex- ander having been destroyed by it as one which he had heard, but not as if it had been told him at the place. Beckmann (ap. Antig. Caryst. loc, cit.) supposes that a part of the legend is due to the fact that the water contained a volatile acid which exercised a corrosive effect upon metallic cups. 2 Ap. Diog. Vit. sec. 10, and Dionys. Hal. Ep. Amm. p. 728. 3 They appear to follow one Eumelus, whom Diogenes (Vit. Arist. sec. 6) cites and contradicts. He related that Aristotle died by drinking hemlock, at the age of seventy, and had become a pupil of Plato at that of thirty. See p. 104. [G. R. P.] L 146 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. But independently of the superior authority of Apollodorus, and the evidence which Aristotle's own opinions, expressed in more than one place, on the subject of suicide, afford, in contradiction of this story, the fact of Chalc.is being then under Macedonian influence, and, conse- quently, a perfectly secure refuge for any one persecuted for real or . supposed participation in Macedonian politics, is quite enough to induce us to reject this story. A yet more absurd one is repeated by some of the early Christian wiiters. Mortification, according to them, at being unable to discover the cause of the Euripus ebbing and flowing seven times every day, induced him to throw himself headlong into the current. 1 Of this story it is scarcely necessary to say more than that the phenomenon which produced such fatal consequences to the philosopher does not really exist. The stream constantly sets through the narrow channel between Eubcea and the mainland from north to south, except when winds blowing very strongly in an oppo- site direction produce for a time the appearance of a current from south to north. 2 But instead of wasting time upon the refutation of these foolish accounts, we shall perhaps please our readers better by bringing together a few circumstances which appear to confirm the statement of Apollodorus, to which independently of them we should not be justified in refusing belief. Confirmation Aulus Gellius 3 relates that Aristotle's scholars, when their master doss's 1 stlte- k a d passed his sixty-second year, and being in a state of extremely xnent. bad health, gave them but little hopes that he would survive for any length of time, entreated him to appoint some one of their body as his successor, to keep their party together and preserve the philosophical views which he had promulgated. There were at that time, says Gellius, many distinguished men among his disciples, but two pre- eminently superior to the rest. Menedemus (or, as some suppose it should be written, Eudemus), a Rhodian, and Theophrastus, a native Aristotle's of Eresus, a town in the island of Lesbos. Aristotle, perhaps un- o?a slTccestor willing that his last moments should be disturbed by the heartburnings which a selection, however judicious, might produce, contrived to avoid the invidious task, and at the same time to convey his own sen- timents on the subject. He replied, that at the proper time he would satisfy their wishes ; and shortly afterwards, when the same persons who had made the request happened to be present, he took occasion to complain that the wine which he usually drank did not agree with him, and to beg that they would look out for some sort which might suit him better for instance, said he, some Lesbian or Rhodian ; two 1 Pseudo Justin Martyr, Parsenet. ad Grsecos, p. 34. Sta TroAAV afio^iav /cat alffxvvnv Au7T7j0eis, /jLereffTfj TOV fttov. Gregor. Nazienz. Orat. i. in Julian, p. 23. Later writers go so far as to put various sentiments into his mouth immediately before the perpetration of this rash act. Elias Cretensis (Comm. in S. Greg. Orat. iv.) attributes to him the words " Quoniam Aristoteles Euripum non cepit, Aristotelem Euripus habeat." 2 Tanaquil Faber, Epp. Critic, i. 14. 8 Noct. Att. xiii. 5. ARISTOTLE. 147 wines which, as is notorious, were beyond almost any others cele- brated in antiquity. When a sample of each had been brought to him, he first tasted the latter, and praised it for its soundness and agreeable flavour. Then trying the Lesbian, he seemed for a time to doubt which he should choose, but at last said, " Both are admirable wines, but the Lesbian is the pleasanter of the two." He never made any further allusion to the matter of a successor, and the disciples universally concluded that this observation relative to the Rhodian and Lesbian vintages was meant as an answer to their question, Theophrastus the Lesbian being a man singularly distinguished for suavity both of language and manners ; and accordingly, on the death of Aristotle, they unanimously acknowledged him as the chosen successor. That this anecdote implies the belief that a disease of some duration was the cause of the philosopher's death is quite obvious ; and there is some ground for supposing that this disease was an affection of the intestines, from which he had long suffered. His probable This affection, says another ancient author, 1 which he bore with the ' mp ai greatest fortitude, was of such a nature that the wonder is that he contrived to prolong his life to the extent of sixty-three years, not that he died when he did. For complaints of this kind warm foment- ations of oil applied to the stomach were recommended in the medical practice of antiquity. 2 Now Lycon the Pythagorean, 3 a bitter calum- niator of Aristotle, grounded a charge of inordinate luxury against him upon the assertion that he indulged himself in the habit of taking baths of warm oil : an assertion which, if we should fail at once to recognise it as a misrepresentation of the medical treatment alluded to, will be unequivocally explained by the more accurate description of another writer, 4 who obviously alludes to the same circumstance. Diogenes Laertius, as we have mentioned in an earlier part of this His will, essay, speaks of having seen Aristotle's will, and proceeds to give the substance of it. 5 That this is not an abstract of the authentic docu- ment is obvious from the circumstance that no mention whatever is made in it of his literary property, which was very considerable, and which we know from other sources came to Theophrastus. 6 Neither, however, does there seem to us any well-grounded suspicion that the account of Diogenes is either a forgery, or the copy of a forgery. The whole document bears the stamp, in our judgment, of a codicil to a previously-existing will, drawn up at a time when the testator was dangerously ill, and had but little expectation of recovery. Thus, at the very commencement, Antipater, the regent of Macedonia, is 1 Censorinus, cited above, p. 6. 2 Celsus, ii. 17, iii. ult. 8 Cited by Aristocles, ap. Euseb. loc. cit. He adds, that his avarice induced him to sell the oil after this use had been made of it. * Diog. Laert. Vit. sec. 16. He adds to Lycon's account, ej/tot 5e /col affitiov Qepfiov eA.ai'ou eiriTidei/ai avrbv T< ffrofj-d^cf, 5 Vit. Arist. sec. 1216. 6 Strabo, xiii. p. 124. L2 148 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. appointed the supreme arbiter and referee, and four other persons besides Theophrastus, " if he be willing and able" are directed to administer, until Nicanor, the son of Proxenus to whom he gives his orphan daughter in marriage and the guardianship of his orphan son Nicomachus, together with the whole management of his pro- perty shall take possession (2we av Kara\af3y). Nicanor was appa- rently abroad on some service of danger. If he escapes, he is directed by the codicil to erect certain statues of four cubits in height in Sta- gira to Jupiter and Athene the Preservers (Aa Zwrf/pt Kal 'Adnva, ffwra'pj), in pursuance of a vow which the testator had made on his account. If anything should happen to Nicanor before his marriage, or after his marriage before the birth of children, and he should fail to leave instructions, Theophrastus is to take the daughter, and stand for all purposes of administration in the place of Nicanor. Should he decline to do so, the four provisional trustees are to act at their own - discretion, guided by the advice of Antipater. Besides these arrange- ments, all which seem adapted to meet a sudden emergency, such as that of a man dying away from the person in whom he put the most confidence, and in doubt whether the one whom he next trusted would be able to act, we find legacies to more than one individual which apparently imply a former bequest, 1 and a trifling want of arrangement in the latter part, quite characteristic of a document drawn up under the circumstances we have supposed. Thus, he orders statues to be erected to Nicanor, and Nicanor' s father and mother ; also to Arimnestus (his own brother), " that there might be a memorial of him, he having died childless." A statue of Ceres, vowed by his mother, is to be set up at Nemea or elsewhere. Then, as if the mention of one domestic relation had suggested another, he commands that wherever he should be buried, the bones of his deceased wife should be taken up and laid by his side, according to her desire ; and after this he again reverts to the subject of statues to be set up, and gives directions for the fulfilment of the vow which he had made for the safety of Nicanor. Aristotle's Aristotle left behind him a daughter named after her mother, descendants. Py t hj as> She is said to have been three times married; first, to Nicanor, the son of Aristotle's guardian Proxenus, and his own adopted child ; secondly, to Procles, a descendant apparently son or grandson of Demaratus, King of Lacedaemon, by whom she had two J A legacy is left to Herpyllis, irpbs rots irptTepov SiSo/j.evois (sec. 13), and one Simus is to have X U P^ S r v ifp&repov apyvpiov, another slave, or money to buy one (sec. 15). The battle of Cranon took place in August, B. c. 322; but it is very probable that it could not be safely conjectured till some time after what course Greek politics would take. If now Theophrastus was in Athens, and not with Aristotle at Chalcis, as seems far from improbable (see Diog. Laert. Vit. Theo- phrasti, sec. 36), Aristotle might reasonably fear that he, perhaps, would not be able to act as his executor. Thus, too, when he directs a house and furniture to be pro- vided for Herpyllis, he selects Chalcis and Stagira, both places where she would be safe from Athenian hatred, for her to choose between as a residence (sec. 14), ARISTOTLE. 149 sons named Procles and Demaratus, scholars of Theophrastus ; and, thirdly, to Metrodorus, an eminent physician, to whom she bore a son named after his maternal grandfather. 1 He also left behind him an infant son, named after his paternal grandfather, Nicomachus, by a female of the name of Herpyllis, of whom it is very difficult exactly to say in what relation she stood to him. To call her his mistress would imply a licentious description of intercourse which the name by which she is described (vraXXajc?)) by no means warrants us in sup- posing, and which the character of Aristotle, the absence of any allusion to such a circumstance in the numerous calumnies which were heaped upon him, and the terms of respect in which she is spoken of in his will, 2 would equally incline us to disbelieve. It seems most probable that he was married to her by that kind of left-handed marriage which alone the laws of Greece and Rome permitted between persons who were not both citizens of the same state. The Latin technical term for the female in this relation was concubina. She was recognised by the law, and her children could inherit the sixth part of their father's property. Mark Antony lived in this kind of concubinage with Cleopatra, and Titus with Berenice. The two Antonines, men of characters the most opposite to licentiousness, were also instances of this practice, which indeed remained for some time after Christianity became the religion of the state, and was regulated by two Christian emperors, Constantine and Justinian. 3 The Greek term is not used so strictly in a technical sense, and may be said to answer with equal propriety to either of the Latin words pellex and concubina. Where, however, the legal relation was denoted, there was no other word selected in preference ;* and we may safely say that this, in the case 1 Stahr. Aristotelia, p. 164. 4 He provides amply for her, and enjoins his executors, if she should desire to marry, to take care that she is not disposed of in a way unworthy of him, remind- ing them, that she has deserved well of him (fcrt ffirovSaia -rrepl e//,e fyeyero). Diog. Laert. sec. 13. 3 Taylor, Elements of the Civil Law, p. 273. The terms " semi-matrimonium " and " conjugium inaaquale" were applied to this connexion, which was entered into before witnesses ("testatione interposita ") and with the consent of the father of the woman. Both contracting parties, too, were obliged to be single. See Gibbon, vol. v. c. xliv. pp. 368-370. 4 The author of the oration against Neaera thus uses it in the distinction which he draws (p. 1386), ras juei/ yap fraipas ^Soi/fjs eVe/ca exo/xez/, TO.S Se 7roA\a/cas TTJS /ca0' T)/j.fpav Oepcnrsias rov ffd/JLaros, TU.S 8e yvva'iKas TOV TraiSoTroteTo'flcu yvyfficas Kal TUV ei/Soj/ tyvXaica TTKTT^V ex* iu - It must not be concealed that Athenaeus, p. 589 (and perhaps Hermippus, whom he quotes), called Herpyllis by the term erdipa. But possibly the word eratpa was used by him in that sense which Athenseus (p. 571, c.) speaks of. And even if Herpyllis had been originally an adventurer of the same description as Aspasia, we shall not necessarily think the worse of Pericles for marrying the latter, or Aristotle the former, when we con- sider that everything which elevates marriage above a faithful intercourse of this kind is due to the religious sanction and the religious meaning which it derives from Christianity. In Paganism the superiority of the one to the other was purely legal and conventional. The wife was the housekeeper and the breeder of citizens, and nothing whatever more. 150 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. before us, is the probable interpretation, although there is no positive authority that it is the true one. The son Nicomachus was brought up by Theophrastus, and if we are to credit Cicero's assertion, that the Nicomachean Ethics which are found among Aristotle's works, were by some attributed to him, must have profited much by his master's instructions. It seems, however, more likely that Aristocles's account of him is the correct one, who relates that he was killed in battle at a very early age. 1 Fate of ^ The works of Aristotle are said to have met with a most singular orks. tle S mischance. They are related to have been buried some time after his death, and not to have been recovered till two hundred years after- wards. This story is so curious in itself, and of such vital importance in the history of philosophy, that we shall make no apology for in- vestigating it thoroughly, in spite of the length to which this article has already been extended. stiaho's The main authority for the opinion is Strabo, in a passage of his unt ' geographical work, 2 where, having occasion to speak of Scepsis, a town in the Troad, he mentions two or three persons of eminence who were born there. One of these is Neleus, the son of Coriscus, a person who was a scholar both of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and who succeeded to the library of the latter, in which too was contained that of the former. " For Aristotle," Strabo goes on to say, " made over his own library to Theophrastus (to whom he also left his school), and was the first that I know of who collected books and taught the kings in Egypt to form a library. Theophrastus made them over to Neleus ; he took them over to Scepsis, and made them over to his heirs (ro7c juer' avrov) uneducated men, who let the books remain locked up without any care. When, however, they observed the pains which the kings of the Attalic dynasty (in whose dominions the town was) were at to get books to furnish the library at Pergamus, they buried them under ground in a sort of cellar, and a long time 1 Aristocles, ap. Euseb. loc. cit. ; Cicero, De Fin. v. 5. 2 Geogr. xiii. p. 124, ed. Tauchnitz. We have translated the whole of this cele- brated passage as it stands in the text of all the printed editions. But besides the words Tt\o(TO(f)e1v TrpaypariKw^ a\\a Qiaeiq \r)Kvdieiv^), while their successors after the time when these books came out, speculated better and more in Aristotle's spirit than they, although they too were forced to explain most of his views by guess-work (TO. TroAXa tiKora \iyziv) from the multitude of errors. And to this inconvenience Rome con- tributed a large share. For immediately after the death of Apellicon, Sylla, having taken Athens, seized upon the library of Apellicon ; and after it had been brought here, Tyrannic the grammarian, who was an admirer of Aristotle, had the handling of it ( cte-^eipiffaro 1 ) by the favour of the superintendent of the library ; and [so had] some book- sellers, who employed wretched transcribers, and neglected to verify the correctness of the copies, an evil which occurs in the case of all other authors too when copied for sale, both here 2 and in Alexandria." Plutarch, in his biography of Sylla, 3 confirms a part of this account, rintareh's and adds a feature or two which is wanting here. His authority is account - obviously Strabo himself in another work now lost, and he is, there- fore, not to be reckoned as an additional witness, but as the repre- sentative of the one last summoned, again recalled to explain some parts of his own testimony. From him we learn that Sylla carried the library of Apellicon, containing the greater part of" the books of Aristotle and Theophrastus, with which up to that time most people had no accurate acquaintance, 4 to Rome. "There," he continues, "it is said Tyrannic the grammarian, arranged (IvaKevaaaaQnC) the prin- cipal part of them, and Andronicus the Rhodian, obtaining copies from him, published them, and drew up the syllabuses (^ivaKag) which are now current." He confirms the account of Strabo that the early Peripatetics had neither a wide nor an accurate acquaintance with the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, from the circumstance of the property of Neleus, to whom Theophrastus bequeathed his books, falling into the hands of illiterate and indifferent persons ; but of the story of burying the books he says nothing, nor yet of the endeavours of Apellicon to repair the damaged manuscripts. 1 In the parallel narrative of Plutarch the term ei/Te- \6yv ffvyypa/ji. l u.dT(av , ra Se Kowd re Kal e'lcoTep^' and that as the Pythagoreans have their y and p.aO'n/j.aTiKov, so the Peripatetics have their ev$oov and eViTept/cta is often applied by him not in reference to these discourses. For instance, rois ecu0ez> \6yois (Polit. p. 1264, line 39), " with dis- cussions foreign to the subject:" QurepiKT) apx^l (Id. p. 1272, line 19), "external rule :" e|coTepo> Triirrova-i TCUS irXticrTais ruv ir6hfO)V (Id. p. 1295, line 32), " do not apply to the generality of states." 1 Suetonius, De Cl. Grammat. cap. 2, "plurimas acroases subinde fecit, assi- dueque disseruit." Here is obviously a distinction intended between the disserta- tions which he continually delivered, and the lectures which he gave from time to time. 2 An illustration may, perhaps, be useful in clearing up what we apprehend to have been the real division. For the demonstration of Pythagoras' s celebrated theorem (the forty-seventh proposition of the first book of Euclid) the whole of the preceding part of the book is requisite. This, then, is an example of a \6yos Kara. i\offofy(av. But in the particular case of a square, the property of the square of the diameter being equal to twice the square of the side, may be directly shown to a person ignorant of geometry, as it is by -Socrates in Plato's dialogue, Meno. This we conceive might be described as a \6yos e|wrepi/cds. [G. R. P ] M 162 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. to be illustrated in a striking light. But we must be very careful not to confuse these resulting distinctions with the primitive one from which they flowed, and still more not to suppose that they were the cause of it ; for we shall see presently that want of attention to this caused in later writers first of all most inaccurate expressions as to the nature of this celebrated division, and, finally, an utterly erroneous view of it, and of the spirit in which it originated. Cicero's Cicero, in two of his letters to Atticus, 1 speaks of having composed imitations. ^ wo works in the manner of Aristotle's exoteric ones. The points of comparison which these two treatises (the ' De Finibus ' and the ' De Republica) offer, consist in the dialogic form in which they are written, and the prefaces which serve to introduce the dramatis personce who carry on the discussion to the reader. The objections interposed by some of these to the view which it is the design of the author to elu- cidate are turned into a means of bringing it out in stronger and bolder relief. This mode of treatment in the hands of a master obviously offers many advantages. The dramatic interest keeps the attention of the reader from flagging ; and the peculiar obstacles which the differences of individual temperament not unfrequently interpose to the reception of any doctrine may be in this way most clearly set forth and most easily removed. The dialogues of Plato are an obvious ex- ample of this. But if we consider the ' De Oratore,' * De Finibus,' and * De Republica ' of Cicero to represent with tolerable accuracy the character of the Aristotelian Dialogues, we see at once a very con- siderable change. The genial productive power of the artist has given way to the systematic reflection of the philosopher. The personages introduced are not living and breathing men, with all their feelings, prejudices, and individual peculiarities, they are mere puppets which speak the opinions entertained by those whose name they bear. These opinions may be fairly and lucidly stated, they may be backed by all the pomp and power of rhetoric, as they are in Cicero, and as they probably were in Aristotle, but the speakers have no life, the scene no reality ; and in spite of the pains taken by the author to prevent it by allusions to particular times, places, and circumstances, we rise from the perusal with our opinions more or less modified, but with no more dis- tinct recollection of the parties by whom the discussion has been carried on than if they had been distinguished by the letters of the alphabet instead of the names of known characters. 2 But what these produc- 1 Ad Attic, iv. 16. Hanc ego de Republica, quam institui disputationem in Africani personam et Phili et Laelii et Manilii contuli : adjunxi adolescentes, Q. Tuberonem, P. Rutilium, duo Laelii generos, Scaevolam et Fannium. Itaque cogi- tabam, quoniam in singulis libris utor procemiis, ut Aristoteles in iis, quos e|v avrov ru>v crvyypa/j.- fj.d.Ts TO /JLI] &Kpas aKptfitias <$>povr(ovra, /cat ets ra a/cpoa^art/ca, &c. (ad Phys. Auscult. init.), and the latter, speaking of the exoteric writings, says, among which are the Dialogues, of which the Eudemus is one (ad Arist. De Anima, i. 138). 2 De Consolat. ad Apollon. p. 115. He also alludes to the same work in his Life of Dion, cap. 22. 8 De Natural Deorum, ii. 37 ; De Officiis, ii. 16. 4 y Eu5rj|Uos' r) Trepl ^U^TJS. It is probably this treatise which is referred to in the Nicomachean Ethics, p. 1102, col. 1, line 26, and which was quoted by Cicero in his Dialogue Hortensius (ap. Augustin. c. Julian, vol. x. p. 623, ed. Benedict). The fragment is given by Orelli in the seventh volume of his edition of Cicero's works, pp. 485, 486. M2 164 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. which these sentiments are embodied is of proportionate dignity to the theme: it is totally unlike the dry and jejune style in which the works which have come down to us are written ; on the contrary, it is rather diffuse and ornamented, and fully enables, us to understand the expression of Cicero, "Aristotle, with his golden flood of language," 1 which, judging from his rigidly demonstrative works alone, we should deem singularly inappropriate. One of the passages preserved in Cicero is even more gorgeous and eloquent than the one in Plutarch, and for the sake of the subject we will endeavour to give some notion of its rhythm and structure, although, of course, a translation twice removed from the original can do this but very inadequately. The argument is the common one of natural theology, the evidence which the wonders of the universe afford of the existence of an intelligent Creator, Aristotle's reasoning appears to be directed against those who asserted that such an inference was the result of a traditional belief handed down from generation to generation, and interpreting all phenomena into an accordance with itself. He attempts by an illus- tration to show that this is not the case, but that it proceeds from the natural, conviction of the human mind, unswayed by any particular bias, as soon as its attention is roused to these objects. " Suppose there to exist," says he, " a race of beings, who had always inhabited a region in the heart of the earth, dwelling in fair and lordly mansions adorned by statues and pictures, and provided with all the appliances of luxury in which those whom the world envies abound, but who never had visited the surface. Now, if these had heard by rumours and hearsay that there was a certain Divine power, living and acting ; and then at some time the jaws of the earth were to open and allow them to quit their obscure dwelling-place and come forth into the region which we inhabit, then, when all at once they beheld earth, sea, and sky, the enormous clouds, the mighty winds, when they gazed on the sun, and perceived how vast, how beautiful it was, how potent in its operation, how, by diffusing its light through the whole of the heaven, it was the cause of the day ; when, again, after night had veiled the earth in darkness, they observed the whole firmament studded and lit up with stars, the moon with her varying phases, now increasing, now waning, and all rising, and setting, and running on their courses steadily and unvaryingly for an eternity of ages ; surely, when they beheld all this they would believe both that there were gods, and that these mighty works were from their hand !" The passage in the 4 De Officiis ' appears rather to be a summary of Aristotle's expressions in his own words than a translation like the above ; but even there the reader will easily recognise an oratorical structure quite unlike what is to 1 Veniet, flumen orationis aureum fundens. (Aristoteles, Acad. Pr. ii. 38.) In another passage, Torquatus alleges that his adversary is prepossessed against Epi- curus, hecause his writings are deficient in those " ornaments of style " which he finds in Plato, Theophrastus, and Aristotle. (De Fin. i. 5.) To the scientific works this description is about as applicable as to the Elements of Euclid. ARISTOTLE. 165 be found in any of the philosopher's works which have come down to us. From these few and meagre specimens of the exoteric works of Popularity of Aristotle, we may observe without any difficulty that in every respect ^^ oietic they were calculated in a rhetorical and superficial age, such as that of the successors of Theophrastus was, to supersede the others. Litera- ture became fashionable in high places. Philosophers thronged to the courts of an Antigonus, a Ptolemy, or an Attains, and exerted themselves in making royal roads to knowledge for the sake of their patrons. A general acquaintance with the doctrines of the school to which they attached themselves was all that these latter could pretend to, and the instructor soon found out that very little more would be sufficient for himself. Why should he bestow time and labour on what would not be available to his purposes ? Why should he trouble himself with thinking out the results which he could find ready pro- vided to his hand ? Above all, why should he neglect works which supplied food to his fancy and grace to his style, agreeably and lucidly written, and generally acceptable in literary society, for the dry and laborious systematic treatise, whose only merit was its rigidly logical connexion. The very discipline of the Lyceum, as we have shown in an earlier part of this essay, contributed its share to the work of deterioration, by producing an unconscious indifference to the truth of opinions provided only they were plausible and coherent ; and the vanity of possessing a multifarious knowledge lost the only check which could have restrained it. The age of thought gave way to an age of mere accumulation of learning ; and in such a one what could attract any man to works like Aristotle's scientific ones ? In the time of Cicero a considerable impulse had certainly been given to philosophy. Yet how instructive is the story which he relates in the introduction to his 'Topica!' His friend Trebatius had stumbled while looking over his library upon the ' Topica ' of Aristotle, of which he had never heard, and on learning from Cicero the nature of the work was seized with a strong desire to read it. The obscurity of the book repelled Difficulty of him, and an eminent rhetorician to whom he applied for assistance ^ sc told him that of those works of Aristotle he knew nothing. " This I was by no means surprised at," says Cicero, " that a rhetorician should know nothing of a philosopher, of whom philosophers themselves, with the exception of a very few, knew nothing" 1 And although Cicero deservedly prides himself upon being the introducer of Greek philosophy among his countrymen, it is extremely questionable whether, with the exception of those works which have a direct application to oratory, his knowledge of Aristotle was not confined to the exoteric writings. It is certainly these which he takes as his model and his basis in his own philosophical works. Where a writer's opinions are studied rather than his principles and 1 Topica, i. 1. So, too, in a fragment in Nonius, voce contendere, he says, Magna etiam animi contentio adhibenda est explicando Aristoteli. ones. 166 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. imputed method, where readers do not take the trouble to put themselves upon between n ' s standing-ground, to enter into his thoughts, and follow them out Aristotle's through the ramifications of his system, there will often appear a want of harmony between the results at which he arrives. There is a point from which all these will appear in their true perspective ; but this point is on an eminence which it requires both time and labour to ascend. Such a want of agreement in his results was imputed to Aristotle at an early period, before the time of Cicero, who notes it and gives a partial explanation of it. " On the subject of the chief good," says he, " there are two kinds of works, the one written in a popular manner, and termed by them exoteric, the other worked up with greater care (limatius), which they left in the form of notes (quod in commentariis 'reliquerunt). This makes them thought not always to say the same thing; although in the upshot there is no variation at all, in those at least whom I mentioned [Aristotle and Theophrastus], nor do the two differ the one from the other." 1 Here Cicero only speaks of those works which the author kept by him and continually made additions to, a class of works which did not form a Exoteric and large proportion of the scientific ones. 2 But it is quite plain that the esoteric doc- remark might be extended to the whole of these latter : in every one of them might be found instances where Aristotle might u appear not to say the same thing " as in his more popular publications, but where at the same time " in the upshot there w^ould be no variation at all." Now here we have the fact which formed the basis of the subsequent opinion that Aristotle had an inner and an outer doctrine, an opinion which gathered strength and distinctness as it passed from one hand to another, and is in modern times repeated with a confidence that would lead one to suppose that it rested on the explicit assertion of the author himself. Neither in Strabo, Plutarch, nor Gellius, is there any hint of a wilful suppression of sentiments on the part of Aristotle, 3 although all three of these authors allude to a division of his works into two classes adapted to different mental qualifications in the readers. Growth of I n Clement of Alexandria appears the first trace of any such notion, and the expressions which he makes use of are hardly sufficient to 1 De Finibus, v. 5. 2 Aminonius (Introd. ad Arist. Categ.) describes those writings which he calls vTro/j-vrj/jiaTiKa, answering to Cicero's Commentarii, as common-place books kept by Aristotle for his own use, some of them devoted to one subject, some miscellaneous. Simplicius says of them (Proleg. in Cat.), So/ce? Se TO vTTOp.vnfJia.TiKO. /*)) irdvrr) o-TrouSyjs &ia eivai. He, however, does not seem to know much about them him- self, for he quotes Alexander Aphrodisias as his authority. But all the ancient commentators are agreed in making the acroamatic works a separate and more important class than the hypomnematic. 3 The word aTrdpfara may seem opposed to this statement (Plut. Vit. Alex, sec. 7), but it seems only intended to indicate those writings which were not pub- lished, and which were kept secret, not because they contained peculiar doctrines, but from the same reasons which prevent any man from showing a work yet growing under his hands to any but his particular friends. One of these works was the Rhetoric, as has been remarked by Niebuhr in a note to the History of Eome, vol. i. p. 19, Eng. Trans. ARISTOTLE. 167 justify us in concluding that he had any decided opinion on this score. 1 But it was a view which would not fail to be caught hold of in an age singularly attached, as the declining Roman empire was, to mystical orgies and secret associations. Before Clement, indeed, Lucian had taken advantage of it for the purposes of a jest, where, in his * Sale of Philosophers,' he puts Aristotle up to auction as a double man ; 2 but obviously this is only a ludicrous version of the fact that his works were of very different kinds, stated, as very likely the later Aristotelians would themselves be fond of doing, in a paradoxical form. Nay, even when we get down to the close of the fourth century, to the rhetorician Themistius, a very great allowance must be made for the conceits of his affected style, before we form our estimate of his real sentiments. No one can dream of taking in their literal sense such phrases as those of " Aristotle shutting up and fortifying his meaning in a rampart of obscure phraseology, to secure it from the ravages of uninitiated plunderers;" 3 or "considering that knowledge was like food and drugs, one sort proper for the healthy, another for the sick," and therefore " involving his meaning in a wall of cloud, the doors of which two guardians, Perspicuity and Obscurity, like the Homeric Hours, stood ready to open to the initiated and close upon the pro- fane." 4 But after making all proper allowance, there is no question that in the time of Themistius the opinion of a double meaning of Establish- Aristotle was widely received. 5 Ammonius in the fifth century thinks mentofthe i . . i TIT/- opinion or it necessary to state, apparently in opposition to the popular belief, Aristotle's " that the Dialogues of Aristotle differ very much from the direct du P llclt y- treatises (airoTrpoo-wTra) ; that in the latter, as directing his discourse to genuine students, he not only delivers his real opinions, but employs the severest methods, such as people in general cannot follow ; while in the latter, as they are written for general use, he delivers his real opinions, but employs methods not rigidly demonstrative, but of the kind that the generality of people are able to follow." 6 But his scholar Simplicius no longer swims against the tide ; he asserts that in the " acroamatic works Aristotle aimed at obscurity, in order* through it 1 Stromm. loc. supra cit. After speaking of double doctrines of the Pythago- reans, Plato, Epicurus, and the Stoics, he adds, \eyovffi 5e Kal ol 'ApttTToreAous TO yuev etrcorepiKa elt/a: TU>V ffvyypa^p.ar(av ai>Ta>v, TO. 8e Koivd re Kal e'|a?Tepi/ca, where the true reading would seem to be avrov instead of avrwv. 2 Vol. iii. p. 112, ed. Bipont. 3 Orat. xxiii. p. 294. 4 Orat. xxvi. p. 319. The allusion is to Iliad, v. 750 ; and there are some others in the context, equally tasteless andstrained, to the marshalling of the Median army by Cyaxares (Herod, i. 98), and to the palace of Agbatana with its concentric sevenfold walls. (Herod, i. 98.) 5 One great reason of this, no doubt, was the desire of reconciling him with Plato, which is observable in Themistius, and was by his time the great object of phi- losophers. See especially Orat. xx. pp. 235, 236. Utterly unable to ascend to the point which would enable them to appreciate both, they endeavoured to establish a spurious agreement by the help of fictions like this. 6 Ammonius, loc. supra cit. 168 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. to repel the more indolent from him." 1 The wit of the satirist and the flourishes of the rhetorician were thus translated into plain prose ; and from this time forward the duplicity of Aristotle's doc- trines may be considered as reckoned among the most indisputable facts. Qualification Having now thoroughly satisfied ourselves that the narrative of >f Strabo's Strabo requires much qualification, we may inquire whether there is any part of it which is consistent with what from other sources we know really was the case. And there seems nothing to prevent us from believing that Neleus's heirs really possessed some books which had belonged to Aristotle and Theophrastus, that Apellicon pur- chased these, and that they were brought by Sylla to Rome, and there first made known to people in general. But that these were works of any great importance we have seen could not be the case ; nor was the decay of the Peripatetic school owing to the want of them. A part of the story relates to matters of fact, for which Strabo is a most respectable witness ; a part to a matter of opinion, on which he is no authority whatever. The one half is reconcilable with the fact that the principal acroamatic works of Aristotle were in the hands of his successors and in the library at Alexandria, during the interval between Neleus and Apellicon ; it is in accordance with the notice of Athenaeus that Ptolemy bought the libraries of Aristotle and Theo- phrastus; and with various other stories which, having a less ob- vious bearing upon the question, we have omitted for the sake of brevity in their proper place, but which will be found stated shortly below in the note. 2 The other is inconsistent with these and many other facts, and may be rejected without invalidating the reputation of Strabo either for veracity or accuracy as regards matters which came within his knowledge a reputation which we should be the last persons to desire to destroy. What then was the nature of these documents, the preservation of which was the foundation for so re- markable a story ? We can only guess an answer, but we will never- theless make the attempt. Character of Athenseus, 3 quoting from the work of Posidonius the historian, a ti e Teian contemporary of Pompey the Great, gives a sketch of the character of Apellicon, which will, perhaps, throw a light upon this question. A 1 Ad Auscult. Physic, fol. 2, 6, line 22. 2 I. Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions it as a prevalent opinion that Demo- sthenes owed his skill in oratory to the study of Aristotle's Rhetoric, and takes some trouble to prove, by quotations in that work from Demosthenes, that all his famous Orations (the twelve Philippics, as they were 4 called) were delivered before that work was written. (Ep. i. ad Ammseum.) II. Theophrastus corresponded with Eudemus concerning certain errors in the copies of the fifth book of the Physical Lectures (Andronicus Rhodius, ap. Simplicium, quoted by Brandis, p. 245). III. Valerius Maximus relates that Aristotle first of all gave his Rhetoric to a favourite scholar, Theodectes, and that it was published under his name ; but that his greediness for reputation afterwards induced him to claim it for himself, by quoting from it in another work as his own production (viii. 14). 3 Athenaeus, v. cap. liii. pp. 214, 215. ARISTOTLE. 169 man of vast wealth and restless disposition, and an adopted citizen of Athens, he appears to have alternately plunged himself into the turbulent politics of his time, and cultivated literature in a spurious kind of way. His taste for letters was a mere bibliomania, and brought him into trouble. He purchased, while the fit for philosophy was upon him, " the Peripatetic books and the library of Aristotle, and a great many others, being a man of large property. Moreover he surreptitiously obtained possession of the ancient original decrees of the Assembly, which were preserved in the temple of the Mother of the Gods, and from the other cities too he got hold of whatever was ancient and curious." This theft obliged him to save his life by His passion flying the country : in the troublous times, however, which soon fur cunositie after succeeded, he contrived to procure his recall by joining the party of the demagogue Athenion. This individual had induced his country- men to take a part in the confederacy which Mithridates had organized against the power of Rome. In an evil hour Apellicon quitted book- collecting for military service. He took the command of an expedi- tion against Delos, which was occupied by Orbiits the Roman praetor ; but displayed such utter ignorance of the commonest duties of a com- mander that his enemy soon found an opportunity of attacking him unawares, destroyed or captured the whole of his troops, and burnt all the machines which he had constructed for storming the city. The unfortunate dilettante escaped with his life, but died, in what way is not known, before Sylla stormed Athens, and seized on the library which had cost him so dear. 1 It seems almost certain from this account of Apellicon, that it was the possession not of the works but of the autographs of them which was the attraction to him. Can what the we then conceive that it was the original autographs of Aristotle and 5 Aristotle* Theophrastus which he purchased from the representatives of Neleus's were which family ? Autographs of what w T orks ? Not of the exoteric : for these were so generally known that he would have had no difficulty in filling up the gaps which the damp and worms had caused in his copy. Nor of the systematic treatises ; for if the original manuscript of these had existed, Andronicus would have had no difficulty in determining what was by Aristotle, and what not, in the various cases where that question arose. Of neither of these classes of writing- then can we imagine that the story of Strabo is to be understood. But if we suppose Aristotle to have left behind him, as every literary man whose energies last to the end of his life will do, collections on various subjects, rough draughts of future works, common-place books, some of a miscellaneous nature, some devoted to particular matters, containing, it may be, extracts from other writers, references to their opinions, germs of thoughts hereafter to be worked out, lines of argument merely indicated; it is very conceivable that these docu- ments, so long as a healthy and lively philosophical spirit existed in the Peripatetic school, would receive very little attention. If they 1 Stahr, Aristotelia, ii. p. 119. 170 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. were too fragmentary and unsystematic for publication they would remain in the possession of Theophrastus and Neleus, 1 too curious to destroy, too unfinished to make any use of; and if the heirs of Neleus were illiterate men, they would see nothing in them, but so many slovenly and disjointed scrawls, and not dream of putting them among the sumptuous collection of books which they sold to king Ptolemy. But in the time of Apellicon, the state of things was changed. The relics of the founder of the school would have acquired a sacred character ; and unsaleable as they might have been to Ptolemy, who appears to have been a real lover of literature and not a mere book-fancier, would fetch a good price with the purchaser of stolen records. And it is not at all inconsistent with this view, that a person whose acquaintance with philosophy was of such a kind, should mistake the nature of the documents he had got hold of, " attempt to supply the gaps when he transcribed the text in new copies, fill these up the reverse of well, and send the books out into the world full of mistakes." 8 Such is the theory which, it appears to us, will reconcile the vary- ing accounts respecting Aristotle's writings, and which, while it sweeps away all that is adventitious in the statement of the Greek geographer, will leave his testimony substantially unimpaired. And this theory is, in fact, confirmed by the state in which some of the works of Aristotle have come down to us. For some of these are not merely books kept by the author, and continually worked at, like the ' Rhetoric,' and Theophrastus's ' History of Plants,' nor are they mere notes for lectures, a dry skeleton of the subject, complete in them- selves, and only requiring the illustration and development which would be supplied by the extemporaneous efforts of the instructor. Neither of these two descriptions will explain all the phenomena which strike the reader in the ' Poetics' and the * Politics,' as these two treatises are Nature of the found in our manuscripts. Neither of them complete the discussion 'Poetics 8 ' and f *ke ran g e f topics which they promise; and it is impossible to receive as a satisfactory explication of this fact that they are only fragments of complete works of which the remainder has been lost. This is quite incompatible with what we find in them, namely, redun- dancies whole paragraphs recast, and standing together with those for which they seem meant as a substitute. 3 Such appearances are only to be understood on the supposition that the work in which they 1 Parts of some of them may very likely have been incorporated by Theophrastus, Strabo, and others in works of their own a proceeding which, in those days, would not have been considered a plagiarism. Such, too, was doubtless the case with all mere collections, such as the Problems and the book irepi Qavpaffiuv a/coucr/uaTwj/, which, as we have it now, probably contains additions from several hands. 2 Strabo, toe. supra cit. 3 A remarkable instance of this is Politic, iii. p. 1287, col. 1, line 1, col. 2, line 36, which the passage p. 1285, col. 2, line 37, p. 1286, col. 2. line 40, is obviously intended to supersede. The latter is a more digested and orderly arrangement of the topics in the former. Reconcilia- tion of the several notices on the subject. AEISTOTLE. 171 occur was an interleaved draught of a future treatise, itself never published (nor yet intended for publication) by the author. In such a case we should expect to find what we do find here, and certainly not, to the same extent, in any other work, scholia containing archaeological or historical notes inserted in the midst of metaphysical divisions, imperfect analyses, defective enumerations, tacit references to writings of others or to opinions current at the time, allusions to questions treated on by the author in the work, which are nowhere to be found, gaps where obviously something was to be inserted, and expressions so slovenly as to be almost or wholly ungrammatical. To give instances of all these incongruities would extend this article to a much greater length ; and therefore we must oblige our readers to take the assertion on our credit, assuring them that an attentive perusal of the works will supply them with several instances of each. 1 And if we suppose them to be note-books devoted to the particular subjects on which they treat, kept by the author until the materials they contained had been worked up and published in a complete form, and then discarded by him, we shall see in what relation they pro- bably stood to the works read by Cicero, 2 and named in the catalogues of Diogenes Laertius and the anonymous biographer, 3 and understand what kind of writings those in all probability were, which descended with the rest of Aristotle's library to Theophrastus, and from Theo- phrastus to INeleus, which were neglected by the librarians of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and emerged from their obscurity in the vault of Scepsis to be purchased by the antiquarian Apellicon. Only in making this estimate we must not forget the different importance which such writings possess for us, deprived for ever of those which were formed out of them, and for their author and his immediate successors, to whom they would appear in no other light than the scaffold, by the aid of which the cathedral has been erected, does to the architect. And perhaps we may properly imagine that the greater 1 We must stipulate, however, that the investigator shall not make use of any text previous to that of Bekker for this purpose. The former editors, partly from the want of MSS., and partly from ignorance of the style of thought and language peculiar to their author, have made strange havoc with these writings. 2 De Legg. iii. 6 ; De Divin. ii. 1 ; Epp. ad Quint. Frat. iii. 5. 3 Diogenes quotes irepl TTOITITUV in three books, Trpcry^uareia rexvns TTOI^TIK^S in two books, TronjTt/ca in one book (perhaps the treatise we have), Trepl rpaywSitov in one book all of which had some relation to the Poetics ; and TTO\ITIKOS in two books, inrfp a-roiKoav in one book, irepl j8o(TtAeias in one book, Trepl irajSetas in one book, olKovop.iKbs in one book, TroAmwa in two books, iroAmKT? a/cppd.) The genuineness of this work was much disputed in the time of the old commentators. Adrastus found a work on the same subject, bearing the name of Aristotle, and, singularly enough, consisting of exactly the same number of lines. It was, however, de- termined to be genuine by them, with the exception of the last part, which treats on what the Latin logicians term the ' Postpragdicamenta.' This extends from the tenth chapter to the end. The work of Harris, called ' Philosophical Arrangements,' is an exposition, very much in the manner of the old commentators, of this treatise. A short but most masterly critique on it will be found in Kant's * Kritik der reinen Vernunft,' p. 79. Adrastus wished to call the work ra Trpo ru>v roTrtjcwj/, considering it as merely an introduction to the ' Topics,' a proposition which Porphyry disapproves of. II. On Interpretation, (jrepl ep/ir/veme.) A philosophical treatise on grammar, as far as relates to the nature of nouns and verbs. Some of the old commentators from its obscurity imagined it to be a mere collection of notes, and Andronicus considered it not to be Aristotle's. Alexander of Aphrodisias, however, and Ammonius, prove it to be his, and to have been used by Theophrastus in a treatise of the same name which he wrote. III. Former Analytics, (i. n.) Latter Analytics, (i. n.) (avaXvrt/ca Trporepa, ava\vm*a iWfpa.) Of the former of these treatises the true and ancient title was Trept o-vXXoyioyiov, and that of the latter 7Tpt a7roc)aW. The old commentators found forty books on this subject, professedly by Aristotle, and determined on the genuineness of these only, rejecting all the rest. Their subject is that which in modern times is especially termed logic, but would be more properly called dialectics, that is, an examination of the possible forms in which an assertion may be made, and a conclusion established. Theophrastus, Eudemus, and Phanias, scholars of Aristotle, wrote treatises on the same subjects as these three of their master, and called by the same name, a circumstance which probably had some con- nexion with the number of ' Analytics' ascribed to him. IV. Topics, (i. n. m. iv. v. vi. vn. vin.) (roTrtm.) An analysis of the different heads from which demonstrative arguments may be brought. It was considered by the ancient commentators as the easiest of all Aristotle's systematic works. The Romans, however, as Cicero tells us in the preface to his work of the same name, found it so difficult as to be repelled by it, although he himself praises it no less for its language than for its scientific merits. His own work is ARISTOTLE. 173 an epitome of it, made by himself from memory, during a sea voyage from Velia to Rhegium. V. On Sophistical Proofs, (i. II.) (?rpt aotyiariKuv eXey^wi/.) An analysis of the possible forms of fallacy in demonstration. This work has a natural connexion with the * Topics,' as Aristotle himself remarks in the beginning of the last chapter of the second book. The preceding works taken together complete Aristotle's logical writings, and with Porphyry's Introduction to the ' Categories,' have gone generally in modern times by the name of the ' Organum,' from the circumstance of Aristotle having called logic opyavov opyavw. The philosopher gave this name to the art, because of all others it is the most purely instrumental, that is, the most entirely a means to something else, and the least an end to be desired for its own sake. The term, however, was in subsequent ages misapplied to mean that it was the best of all instruments for the discovery of truth, as opposed to the observation of facts, and the art was correspondently abused. VI. Physical Lectures, (i. n. in. iv. v. vi. vn. vm.) (^ucrtfo) ctKpocHTic.) It is a very questionable thing whether this treatise was published by the author as one organic whole. The three last books probably formed a treatise by themselves under the name Trcpt lavj/orfwc;, 1 and the first five another under that of tyvaiKa. Again of these the first one is quite independent of the rest, and is devoted to the discussion of the first principles (ap^ca), 2 to which everything in nature may be resolved. This book is extremely valuable for the history of philosophy before the time of Aristotle. He discusses in it the theories of Melissus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and others. The second is taken up with an examination of the ideas of Nature, Necessity, and Chance ; and the next three with the properties of Body, or rather with the analysis of those notions of the under- standing which are involved in the idea of Body. Of this work ab- stracts and syllabuses (fce^aXata KOI avvo^u^) were very early made by the Peripatetic school, 3 and these keeping their attention fixed upon the connexion of a system of dogmas, contributed perhaps much to divert them from the observation of nature, and to keep up that con- fusion between laws of the Understanding and laws of Nature which pervades the whole of the ancient physical speculations. VII. On the Heavens, (i. n. m. iv.) (vrept ovpavov.) Alexander of Aphrodisias considered that the proper name for this work was Trtpl Kofffj.ov, as only the first two books are really on the subject of the heavenly bodies and their circular motion. The two last treat on the 1 Sim pi. ad. Phys. Auscult. f. 216. Diogenes, however, gives a work (irepl Kij'Tjo-eoJs) in two books. This is not conclusive against the opinion quoted in the text. See below, the notice respecting the Rhetoric. 2 Perhaps it is to this book that the title nepl apx^s, in Diogenes' Catalogue, refers. 3 Simplicius, Introd. ad Phys. Ausc. vi. and vii. 174 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. four elements and the properties of gravity and lightness, and afford much information relative to the systems of Empedocles and Demo- critus. VIII. On Generation and Decay, (i. n.) (7^ yereffewg rat fydopag.) This work treats on those properties of bodies which in our times would be considered to be the proper subject of physiological and of chemical science. Many other notions, however, of a meta- physical nature are mixed up with these, and it is only for its illustra- tion of the history of philosophy that this work, like the rest of the physical treatises, is of any value to the modern student. IX. Meteorology, (i. n. HI. IV.) (peTtupoXoytKa.) The first of these books was by some in the time of the old commentators held not to be genuine; and Ammonius and others considered that the fourth should immediately follow the second of the last treatise, with which the subjects on which it treats, the changes effected in bodies by heat and cold, moisture and dryness, &c., are certainly more con- nected. X. To Alexander, on the World, (wept Koarpov irpoQ 'AXt'favdpov.) The titles of this tract in the various MSS. differ much from one another. In one it is called irepi KoapoypafylaQ ; in another TTE^I Koapov KCU Irepwv avayKai(t)v ; in a third GVVO^IQ 0iAoV Trepl wu)v icrropia. Pliny (' Nat. Hist.' viii. 17), where he speaks of Aristotle's magnificent work ' On Animals,' in fifty books, appears to include together with this all the treatises on natural history which follow it (and indeed are naturally connected with it), as well as some on comparative anatomy, now lost. The same may be said of Cicero's notice of them (* De Fin.' v. 4.) This work was illustrated by dia- grams of the several parts of animals, which, together with the neces- sary explanations, perhaps formed a treatise by themselves. They are alluded to in several passages by the phrases r/ kv avaroucuz cJmypa^r;- at avaTOfj-ai- at ava.TOfj.al ^laytypajUjufVm. Schneider, who has pub- lished an edition of this work, most learnedly illustrated as regards the subject, not perceiving in it any traces of the injury which Aristotle's works, according to Strabo's account, received, was induced to con- sider it as one of the exoteric publications. But, in fact, the whole of the works on natural history are as closely connected with one another as the several parts of the ' Organum,' and it would be difficult to assign any reason why the one class should be regarded as exoteric and the other not so. XV. On the Parts of Animals. (Trepl tyuv popicjv.) (l. II. in. iv.) XVI. On the Movement of Animals, (-repl &W Ktrrj^ewg-) A curious tract investigating the influences which operate ab extra upon animals. This treatise, together with the one following, and that 'On Breath,' are often put together with the eight tracts before mentioned (No. XII.), and make up what is called the ' Parva Naturalia.' 176 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. XVII. On the Locomotion of Animals. (Kepi Tropa'ae XVIII. On the Engendering of Animals, (i. II. in. IV. V.) XIX. On Colours, (vrept This has been considered by some critics to be the work of Theo- phrastus. Plutarch speaks of a treatise by Aristotle of the same name in two books. XX. From the Book on Sounds. (EK rov nepl a.Kov'.) Aristotle wrote two books on plants, but not these which we have. They are a translation into Greek from the Latin ; and even this ver- sion was considerably removed from a Greek original, having been made by some Gaul from an Arabian version, which, again, was only derived from a more ancient Latin translation. The original of all these, according to Scaliger, was only a cento of scraps, taken partly from Aristotle, and partly from the first book of Theophrastus's ' His- tory of Plants.' Aristotle's work was already lost in the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias. XXIII. On Wonderful Stories. (Trepi flav/iao-iW .) This book, in spite of its title, is nothing more than a collection of strange accounts, nor does it appear to have formed a part of a larger work of at all a different description. The latter part is obviously spurious, and with respect to the remainder various opinions have been held. Dodwell considers Theophrastus to have been the author ; Scaliger, Aristotle. Buhle regards the whole as a patchwork of extracts from the works of the latter. Our opinion is that the germ of the work is to be looked for in one of those note-books or I/TTO/ZV?/- /mra which were appropriated to collections, and from which supplies were occasionally drawn for more systematic works ; and that this was in its transmission down to our times added to by several hands, and some of these most unskilful ones. See our notice of the ' Pro- blems ' below. (No. XXV.) XXIV. Mechanics, (/ur/^avtfca.) The first part of this work touches upon the principles of me- chanics, and is followed by a number of questions, which are resolved by a reference to them. This latter part is probably only a few of the 7rpo/3/\j?/Liara cyjcvArXta, or questions on the whole cycle of science, which we find mentioned as a work of Aristotle's, in two books, by Diogenes Laertius, and which is quoted by Aulus Gellius. ARISTOTLE. 177 XXV. Problems. (/T|Oo/3Xj//jara.) This is a collection of questions on various subjects, in thirty-eight divisions, of which the first relates to medical, the fifteenth to mathe- matical, the eighteenth to philological, the nineteenth to musical, tho twenty-seventh and three following to ethical, and the rest mainly to physical and physiological matters. Theophrastus is also said to have compiled a collection of problems; and Pliny quotes him as the authority for a circumstance which we find mentioned in this work. 1 In his treatises, too, Trepl KOWV and Trepl t^pwrwy, there are several coincidences with the ' Problems ' of Aristotle ; and hence some have held him really to be the author of these, while others have con- sidered those works to be nothing more than a patchwork of Aris- totle's ' Problems.' Besides the 7rpoy6Xr;/iara ty/cv/cXia, which we mentioned under the last head, Diogenes mentions two books of TrpofiXrjpara eTrire- deapeva ('Problems reviewed'), and two of 7rpo/3X///zara ex rwy A^juofv-piVov ; and Plutarch and Athenseus, and other authors, quote from his 7rpoft\rip,ara v&LKa. That the work which has come down to us is neither any one of these, nor the aggregate of them all, is certain. Sylburg, in his preface, points out several instances in which Aristotle himself speaks of questions discussed in them, which will be looked for in vain in the present treatise. Neither do we find some of the quotations made by Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, Apuleius, and Alexander of Aphrodisias. On the other hand, some citations which Gellius makes from the Trpo^X^para ty/cv/cXta, and one of Macrobius from the TrpoGXrj^ara i>, ft'. 5 5 1 Trepl T&V Trocra^ws \eyo/J.ev i (Trepl eiotSu iced yevooVy ft. ) 8 8 9 Trepl v\f]s. 1 9 9 10 irepl evepyetas. 10 10 2 T] eK\oyr] rcav evavrlfav. 11 13 14 Trepl e7Ti(rTi7yU77S. 12 14 13 Trepl ias, d. 13 11 11 irepl island of Samos, to which his father had removed as a colonist from Athens. This did not prevent Epicurus from being considered an Athenian by birth, and as belonging to the deme Gargettus and the tribe J^geis. Although the family would seem to have been origi- His parents, nally not without distinction, his parents were in rather indigent cir- cumstances. His father, Neocles, is said to have been a schoolmaster, and his mother, Chcerestrate, to have practised arts of magic. It was afterwards made a matter of reproach to Epicurus that while young, when his mother went about among the cottages performing purifica- tions, he had accompanied her and read the formula of incantaton ; and that he had assisted his father to keep a school at very low te r ms. He had three brothers, Neocles, Chceredemus, and Aristobulus, w horn Plutarch cites as models of the rarest fraternal affection. Epicurus lived at Samos and Teos to the age of eighteen, when he Visits repaired to Athens. Xenocrates was then teaching in the Academy, Athens - and Theophrastus, the successor of Aristotle, in the Lyceum, and it is probable that Epicurus may have been a pupil of one or both ; for we His masters are told that he had begun the study of philosophy at the age of ^^Jo- fourteen, and had received lessens in Samos from Pamphilus, a Plato- nist. A number of other philosophers are mentioned, by various authors, as having been at one time or other his instructors ; but he himself used to boast that he was self-taught. Of the older philoso- phers he was most attached to Anaxagoras and Democritus. The writings of Democritus are said to have first attracted him to the study of philosophy ; and his system of physics is evidently built upon the atomic speculations of Democritus. His stay at Athens on this occasion was short: the troubles in Attica that followed the death of Alexander caused him to remove first to Colophon, and then to Mitylene and Lampsacus. It was at opens school Mitylene, in his thirty-second year, that he first opened a school ; and ^^^ ene> there and at Lampsacus he taught for five years. Epicurus now returned to Athens, B. C. 306, and there founded Returns to that school which ever after was called by his name. The followers Athens - of Plato occupied the Academy, those of Aristotle the Lyceum, the 186 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Cynics the Cynosargus, and the Stoics the Portico ; Epicurus esta- blished his school in a garden which he purchased for 80 minse (about 350?.), and laid out for the purpose. From this circumstance his followers were called the philosophers of the garden. His . In this garden he and his pupils lived in a state of friendship to with hV P which, if the accounts given are to be trusted, there have been few j pupils. parallels. Pythagoras had made his followers throw their property i into a common stock, saying that the possessions of friends should be j held in common ; Epicurus disapproved of this, as implying a distrust i of one another inconsistent with real friendship. The friendship of 1 Epicurus and his pupils has been extolled by Cicero in the highest ; terms. 1 Manner of Although Epicurus laid down the doctrine that pleasure is the chief ; good, the life that he and his friends led was one of the greatest tem- perance and simplicity. They were content, we are told, with a small ] cup of light wine, and all the rest of their drink was water. And an inscription over the gate promised to those who might wish to enter no better fare than barley-cakes and water. The chastity of Epicurus was so incontestable that Chrysippus, one of his principal opponents, in order to deprive him of all merit on the score of it, ascribed it to his being without passions. Calumnies of Many stories, it is true, of an opposite character were put in circu- nes ' lation. The Stoics, whose system he chiefly set himself against, hated him bitterly, and broached all manner of calumnies on his mode of life ; which, as he professed himself the advocate of pleasure, would j naturally find ready belief with those who did not know him. Timo- ; crates, who had been his pupil but abandoned him, represented Epicurus as gluttonous and licentious, reporting that he spent a mina (above 41.) a-day on the luxuries of the table, and was in the habit of 1 vomiting twice a-day from surfeit ; and that many immodest women j lived in his garden with him and his friends. Diotimus, the Stoic, j carried this system of persecution so far, as to publish a set of obscene j letters and attribute them to Epicurus. refuted. Diogenes Laertius, who relates all these stories, declares his utter disbelief of them ; and, besides citing direct testimonies to the con- trary, appeals to the universal esteem in which he was held by his friends and pupils, and to the public statues which were erected to = him by his countrymen after his death. If the reports in question had been generally believed in Athens, that could hardly have taken place ; and that they were disbelieved in a city where slander against eminence was always so readily listened to, is a strong proof that they were without foundation. His success The success of Epicurus as a teacher was signal. Great numbers as a teacher. fl oc k ec [ to hi s school from all parts of Greece, and from Asia Minor. | The attractiveness of his leading doctrine the very name pleasure I might have considerable effect in bringing together hearers ; but it 1 De Fin. i. 20. EPICURUS. 187 required something more to produce that steady adherence for which the school was remarkable. While many left other teachers to join Epicurus, only two instances were on record of Epicurus being deserted by a pupil. This could arise only from the ascendency which his character was calculated to acquire. That ascendency must have been due partly to the force of intellect which is otherwise manifest in his speculations ; but partly also to the amiability and benevolence for which he was distinguished. He is said to have had so many friends, " that they could not be contained in whole cities." It says as much, perhaps, for the personal character of Epicurus as for his doctrines, that his three brothers were adherents of his system, and also one of his slaves, Inus, whom he made free at his death. Epicurus never married : according to his theory of happiness, marriage was not con- sistent with prudence ; but in the important relations of a son, a brother, and a friend, he was confessedly most exemplary. He continued to conduct a flourishing school till his death, in the His death, seventy-second year of his age, thirty-six years after he had settled as B - c - 27 - a teacher in Athens. He died of the stone, after a fortnight's illness. Writing to his friend Idomeneus during this illness, he says, that the violence of his sufferings were such that nothing could be added to it. " But the joy of mind arising from the habitual recollection of all my philosophical speculations, counterbalances all these afflictions." Dio- genes Laertius gives us a glimpse, as it were, of his last moments. Finding his end approaching, " he entered a warm bath, called for a cup of pure wine and drank it, and having recommended his friends to remember his doctrines, he expired." He left his house and garden for the use of the adherents of his philosophy, and appointed Hermarchus of Mitylene as his first suc- cessor. Metrodorus, to whom of all his followers he was most attached, died seven years before him ; and Epicurus at his death made generous provision for the children of his friend. His will, His will, which we fortunately possess, is an interesting document, and gives us much more genuine insight into the affectionateness and generosity of Epicurus's character, than any of the third-hand reports that we are obliged to content ourselves with on other points concerning him. The following are extracts : l " Out of the income which is derived from that property, which is here bequeathed by me to Amynomachus and Timocrates (the executors), I will that they, consulting with Hermarchus, shall arrange in the best manner possible the offerings to the manes in honour of the memory Appoints of my father, and mother, and brothers, and myself; and that my jJemSy rf birth-day may be kept, as it has been in the habit of being kept, on his parents, the tenth day of the month Gamelion; and that the reunion of all His birth -day the philosophers of our school, established in honour of Metrodorus to be kept * and myself, may take place on the twentieth day of every month. They shall also celebrate, as I have been in the habit of doing myself, 1 Quoted from the translation in Bohn's Classical Library. 188 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. the day consecrated to my brothers, in the month Poseideon ; and the day consecrated to the memory of Polygenus, in the month Meta- geitnion. Makes " Amynomachus and Timocrates shall be the guardians of Epicurus, 5 children' the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polypus ; * * * also of the of two daughter of Metrodorus ; and when she is of marriageable age, they shall give her to whomsoever Hermarchus shall select of his com- panions in philosophy, provided she is well-behaved and obedient to Hermarchus. And Amynomachus and Timocrates shall, out of my income, give them such a sum for their support, as shall appear sufficient, year by year, after due consultation with Hermarchus.* * * And as for the dowry for the girl, when she is come to marriageable age, let them take for the purpose such a sum from my property as shall seem to them, in conjunction with Hermarchus, to be reasonable. And let them also take care of Nicanor, as we ourselves have done ; in order that all those who have studied philosophy with us, and who have assisted us with their means, and who have shown great friend- ship for us, and who have chosen to grow old with us in the study of philosophy, may never be in want of anything as far as our power to Emancipates prevent it may extend. Of my slaves, I hereby emancipate Inus and Nicias, and Lycon : I also give PhaBdrium her freedom." PART II. DOCTRINES. The writings Epicurus was a most voluminous writer. According to Diogenes Laertius, he left three hundred volumes ; " and in the whole of them there is not one citation from other sources, but they are filled wholly with the sentiments of Epicurus himself." Among others, he had thirty-seven books on Natural Philosophy ; a treatise on Atoms and the Vacuum ; one on Love ; one on Choice and Avoidance ; another on the Chief Good ; four essays on Lives ; one on Sight; one on Touch ; another on Images ; another on Justice and the other Virtues, &c. Almost all these works are lost : the only writings of Epicurus that have come down to us are three letters, and a number of detached sentences, or sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, in his life of the philosopher. sources Some knowledge of the doctrines of Epicurus may be gathered knowledge from scattered notices in several ancient writers, among others in of his Cicero ' De Finibus,' and ' De Nat. Deorum, and in Seneca. The poem also of Lucretius, ' De Rerum Natura,' contains substantially the philosophy of Epicurus. But the principal and only direct source are the letters and the sentences above mentioned. These letters were written for the express purpose of giving to some of his friends an epitome of what he had taught in his discourses and books. In attempting, therefore, to give some account of the philo- sophical system of Epicurus, we mean to confine ourselves, for the most part, to this direct source ; and as it has been the fate of EPICURUS. 189 Epicurus, perhaps more than any other philosopher, to be misre- presented and maligned, we will leave him, as far as possible, to speak for himself, only giving such hints as to put the reader in the point of view necessary for seeing the drift of the argument. We shall not stop to point out the errors and deficiencies of the system even though that were necessary. Our business is not to criticise the Epicurean philosophy, but to give our readers an idea of Object of what it was ; and for this purpose they are not to be put into a ScT." 8 hostile attitude, but rather led to look at it, for a time, with Epicurus's eyes. The worthlessness of most of the physical speculations, as regards positive science, will be readily enough apparent; and an appreciation of the moral doctrines will be found in another volume of this series. 1 Are we to look upon Epicurus as a natural, or as a moral philo- is Epicurus sopher ? Judging by the comparative space that these two kinds of orTmoial speculation severally occupy in Epicurus's own epitome, one would philosopher ? suppose that he held physical science to be more important than ethical. And we are still more liable to form this impression from a cursory reading of Lucretius's poetical version of the Epicurean philosophy ; for to expound the nature and causes of physical and psychological phenomena seems the grand aim of that work, and moral reflections appear to be only incidental. It is really, however, the very reverse. The end of all philosophy, according to Epicurus, is to teach men how to live happily. If he appears chiefly occupied in speculating on the material world, it is because he looks upon a knowledge of that as the chief road to happiness ; and all philosophy that does not seem to him to bear upon a happy life, he holds in the utmost contempt. We shall fail, however, to appreciate rightly the Epicurean system Epicurus's of natural philosophy, unless we bear in mind how Epicurus conceived ^^ f the physical science to affect human happiness. We seek for knowledge physical because it is power ; we explore the laws of nature, that we may sc control the material world, and thus avert physical evils, and extract for ourselves the means of enjoyment. This view of the end of physical inquiry had hardly been distinctly conceived in ancient times by any school of philosophers ; in fact there was, as yet, scarcely any science of a nature sufficiently positive and exact to be turned to practical account. At all events this was not Epicurus's view of the use of natural philosophy. According to him, the great evil that afflicted men the incubus on human happiness was fear ; fear of the gods, and fear of death. To get rid of these two fears and thus secure the negative, and, in his view, the chief condition of happiness, was the ultimate aim of all Epicurus's speculations on nature. This he prided himself on having effected ; and his disciple, Lucretius, points to this service as his chief claim to our gratitude and admira- tion : 1 Vol. X. Maurice's ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.' 190 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. The subjective use of science the chief. The chief destroyers of human happiness. Them [men] long the tyrant power Of SUPERSTITION swayed, uplifting proud Her head to heaven, and with horrific limbs Brooding o'er earth ; till he, the man of Greece, Auspicious rose, who first the combat dared, And broke in twain the monster's iron rod. * * * * And, hence, we, Triumphant too, o'er Superstition rise, Contemn her terrors, and unfold the heavens. 1 He even goes so far as to profess his belief that, for delivering mankind from these and other disturbers of the soul, Epicurus has done more for their happiness, and is better entitled to divine honours at their hands, than Ceres and Bacchus who gave them corn and wine, or Hercules who delivered them from so many monsters. 2 The use of physical theories, then, according to Epicurus, is sub- jective and not objective ; and unless we advert to this at every step, not only will most of his reasonings and opinions appear trifling and ridiculous, but he will often seem to speak nonsense as his com- mentators and translators not seldom make him to do. If we look at his explanations of phenomena from his own point of view, we shall be able to discern " a method in the madness " of even the wildest of them. That we are not misrepresenting the view with which Epicurus philosophised, the following passages from his letters will prove : " You are striving, you say in your letter, to store up in your memory those opinions and speculations that tend to a happy life. " In seeking a knowledge, then, of the phenomena of the heavens and. it is the same with every other science we are to propose no other end than freedom from perturbation of mind and firmness of belief. ** The leading disturber of men's souls and destroyer of their happiness is the belief that the stars are happy and immortal beings, with whose wills the w r ills and actions of men may not be in accord- ance ; they also torment themselves with looking forward to fabulous eternal evils, and suffer by anticipation the insensibility of death. * ' Tranquillity of mind consists in being delivered from all such myths, and in knowing and remembering the general laws of the world. " If no anxious suspicions about the heavenly bodies, or about death troubled us, and if the limits and mode of regulation of the 1 Good's Translation of Lucretius, i. 62 : Humana ante oculos fsede cum vita jaceret In terris oppressa gravi sub religione, Quae caput a cseli regionibus ostendebat Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans, Primum Graius homo mortalis tendere contra Est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra. * # * * * Quare religio pedibus subjecta vicissim Opteritur, nos exaequat victoria coelo. 2 Lucr. v. 14. EPICURUS. 191 desires were understood, we should have no need of physical science " It would not be possible to banish fear about the most important things, if we continued ignorant of the nature of the universe, or if any suspicion lurked of there being truth in the myths." We learn from Diogenes Laertius that Epicurus divided philosophy Divisions of into three parts, the canonical, the physical, and the ethical. He p a rejected dialectics as superfluous and trifling. Language in itself, and the mere arts of reasoning and disputing, he seems to have despised. In his treatise on rhetoric, the one point he laid stress on was clear- ness, and this was the only thing he attended to in his own writings. To one department of language, indeed, he urges assiduous attention, that of general names ; by observant exercise of the senses we are to form for ourselves clear and determinate notions of the things that correspond to such names, as foundations and tests of all other knowledge. The canonical division of Epicurus's philosophy treated of the Sources and primary sources of knowledge, or, as he calls them, the criteria of JJ u t t e 1 " a of truth ; which he held to be, the sensations (cuo-flrjVaf), the ideas (TrpoXjf^ae), and the feelings or passions (naQ-n). The senses were pronounced to be independent of reason, and incapable of memory. Their testimony must be received without question, for there is nothing that can decide upon it. One sense even cannot judge another : and reasoning, instead of establishing the truth of the sensations must be founded upon them. Ideas 1 are defined to be, recollections of external things previously perceived by the senses. When the word man, for instance, is pronounced, a form of him is perceived by the mind, owing to previous operations of the senses. These ideas furnish us with direct and certain truth, no less than the senses do. The passions or feelings are two, pleasure and pain, affecting every living thing. Their testimony also is direct and certain, and by it are to be tried all questions as to what is to be chosen and what is to be avoided. In opposition to knowledge derived from these three sources, which Deductive was considered self-evident and certain, was placed the knowledge knowled s e - that is arrived at by inference or reasoning. This must always be founded on self-evident knowledge, and is suggested by seme analogy or resemblance, or results from combination. What is thus arrived at was called judgment or opinion (c)o'a), or supposition (vTroX/^te), and might be either true or false ; true, if supported by testimony (of the criteria) or not contradicted by testimony ; false, if not supported, or if contradicted. In accounting for the origin of error, Epicurus seems in some passages Origin or to admit a sort of active initiative on the part of the intellect itself error - something not unlike the spontaneous creative power attributed to it by some modern psychologists. This doubtless breaks in upon the 1 irpoATjif/ets absurdly rendered by the Latin word anticipatio, or the English preconception. 192 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Nothing Everything The universe and space, simplicity and apparent sureness of his method ; just as the admission of irregular deviations from the straight line in the motion of atoms, disfigures his physical theory. Such then, according to Diogenes Laertius, were the canons or rules of method laid down by Epicurus in his treatise called ' The Canon.' This, therefore, was not so much a separate division of philosophy, as an introduction to the other two. The physics, or natural philosophy, is discussed in the first two of the letters before mentioned ; the one being occupied with the constitution of the world in general, and the other with the phenomena of the heavens. His moral philosophy is delineated, briefly, in the third letter ; and the select sentences contain maxims on both subjects. We will now present such a series of extracts from these authentic documents, preceded by necessary ex- planations, as to give some idea of Epicurus's leading dogmas, and of the sort of reasoning on which he founded them. We take no more liberty with the original than is necessary to render the passages intelligible to a modern reader. Physics. The Universe. After enjoining attention to the exact import of names, and to the primary knowledge that we get from the three sources above mentioned, Senses, Ideas, and Passions, he proceeds : " Having ascertained all this, we may then proceed to the study of things depending on indirect evidence. And first to the truth, that Nothing is produced from what does not exist ; for otherwise, every- thing would be produced from everything, without the necessity of seed. Again, if what disappears were so destroyed as to be non- existent, then all things would perish, the elements into which they are resolved no longer existing. But in truth this All, this universe, was always such as it is now, and will always be such. For there is nothing into which it may change ; for there is nothing besides the All, which, entering into it, could effect a change. The All or universe is body (corporeal). For it is by sensation that the existence of palpable objects is perceived, arid it is by analogy with these that what cannot be directly observed, must be proved. (Now in this way we make out legitimately the existence of space). For if what we call vacuum, or space, or the intangible nature, did not exist, bodies would not have where to exist or move, as we see that they do. (Thus we get a knowledge of two kinds of existence, of bodies and of the vacuum). But besides these two, we can arrive at no notion, either through direct perception or by analogy to things perceived, of anything which we can conceive as a separate existence, and not as a property or accident of body or space. " The universe is infinite. For that which is finite has an extreme, an d an extreme implies something else beyond. (But something else than ' the All ' (TO TTOIV) is an absurdity ; the universe therefore has no extreme). So that having no extreme, it is infinite. And it is in- EPICTJKUS. 193 finite both in respect of the number of bodies that compose it, and of the extent of the vacuum or space. For if space we* infinite and the bodies were limited in number, the bodies would be able to remain in no place, but would be carried hither and thither, and scattered through the infinitude of space, not supporting and keeping one another in their places. On the other hand, if space were limited, and the bodies infinite, the bodies would have nowhere to exist." Atoms. " Of bodies some are compounds, and some are elements of which the compounds are formed. These elements are indivisible (aro/^a, atoms) and unchangeable, being ' full ' and admitting nowhere and no- tibie atoms. how of dissolution. This is absolutely necessary to prevent the disintegration of bodies from ending in the annihilation of all things." Among other properties, these atoms are stated to be of various Atoms are of shapes, this being necessary to account for the observed differences of ^g 1 ? bodies ; for the same reason they are assumed to be of various magni- tudes. In this respect, however, there are limits, otherwise we should be meeting with visible atoms, which is never the case ; nor in fact can we conceive such a thing possible. On the other hand, we are to guard against the notion of unlimited smallness, or infinite divisibility. There is a great deal of elaborate argument in disproof No infinite of this notion, none of it very cogent. Perhaps this attempt at a dlvlslbllltv - reductio ad absurdum is the best. " For when one has once said that there are in any object an infinite number of particles, it is manifestly impossible to think any longer of that object as finite in magnitude." Atoms, then, have some determinate magnitude. They possess none of the changeable properties of bodies ; but only the essential properties of form, magnitude, and weight. The grand problem in the Epicurean cosmogony was : Given How were infinite space and an infinite number of atoms, to account for the fhat ^ ow are tnev ever to come together to form the world? Are we to assume that they have different velocities, and that one atom overtakes another? Epicurus had observed with sufficient accuracy the motions of bodies in free space, not to admit that supposition ; and argues acutely enough against the idea that heavy bodies move faster than light ones. They meet At this rate atoms could never have combined. It only remained frontthe Cti n tnen to suppose that some of them deviated from the straight line. straight line. This, too, regard intent ; that primal seeds When down direct their potent path they urge, In time uncertain, and uncertain space, Oft from the right decline. 2 According to Cicero, 3 " this supposition is mere puerility; for he 1 The translator of Lucretius, in Bohn's Classical Library, after noticing this assumed absurdity (page xiii), accuses his author of afterwards contradicting him- self, when he says that nil est funditus imum. There is, however, no more contra- diction in the one case than there is absurdity in the other. Lucretius holds, following Epicurus, that there is an up and a down, but denies that there is an upmost or a downmos ; there is a downwards, but no bottom. The translator of Diogenes Laertius, from the same misapprehension of this part of the Epicurean, physics, makes Epicurus actually contradict himself: "Moreover, we must not say (while speaking of the infinite) that such a point is the highest point of it, or the lowest. For height and lovcness must not be predicated of the infinite." The sentence in italics is in direct contradiction of what Epicurus says immediately after. But the sentence in question has nothing corresponding to it in the original ; it is a gloss of the translator, thinking to explain the preceding posi- tion. Epicurus again and again asserts that the motion caused by weight is always from high to low ; he only cautions against thinking of any points in these two opposites as the highest or the lowest. 2 Illud in his quoque te rebus cognoscere avemus, Corpora cura deorsum rectum per inane feruntur, Ponderibus propriis incerto tempore ferme Incertisque loci spatiis decellere paulum. Lucr. ii. 216. 3 Quse res tota ficta est pueriliter ; nam et ipsa declinatio ad libidinem fipgitur EPICURUS. 195 introduces the deviation arbitrarily, making some atoms decline from the straight course without cause ; and he also takes ublllia - Treatise on Consolation, with a view to alleviate his mental sufferings ; and, with the same object, he determined on dedicating a temple to his daughter as a memorial of her virtues and his affection. His friends were assiduous in their attentions ; and Caesar, who had treated him with extreme kindness on his return from Egypt, signified the respect he bore his character, by sending him a letter of condolence from Spain, 7 where the remains of the Pompeian party still engaged him. Caesar had shortly before given a still stronger proof of his favour, by replying to a work which Cicero had drawn up in praise of Cato ; 8 but no attentions, however considerate, could soften Cicero's vexation at seeing the country he had formerly saved by his exertions, now subjected to the tyranny of one master. His speeches, indeed, for Marcellus and Ligarius, exhibit traces of inconsistency; but for 1 Ad Atticum, xi. 8, 9, 10 and 12. 2 Ibid. xi. 13. 3 Ad Fam. iv. 14 ; Middleton, vol. ii. p. 149. 4 Ibid. 5 Ad Fam. iv. 6. 6 Ad Atticum, xii. 15, &c. 7 Ibid. xiii. 20. 8 Ibid. xii. 40 and 41. virtues. 214 ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. the most part he retired from public business, and gave himself up to the composition of those works, which, while they mitigated his political sorrows, have secured his literary celebrity. The murder of Caesar, which took place in the following year, once more brought him on the stage of public affairs ; but, as we intend our present paper to be an account of his private life and literary character, we reserve the sequel of his history, including his unworthy treatment of Brutus, his coalition with OctaVius, his orations against Antonius, his proscription and death, for another department of our private work. On the whole, antiquity may be challenged to produce an indivi- dual more virtuous, more perfectly amiable than Cicero. None interest more in their life, none excite more painful emotions in their death. Others, it is true, may be found of loftier and more heroic character, who awe and subdue the mind by the grandeur of their views, or the intensity of their exertions. But Cicero engages our affections by the integrity of his public conduct, the correctness of his private life, the generosity, 1 placability, and kindness of his heart, the playfulness of his temper, the warmth of his domestic attachments. In this respect his letters are invaluable. " Here we may see the genuine man with- out disguise or affectation, especially in his letters to Atticus ; to whom he talked with the same frankness as to himself, opened the rise and progress of each thought ; and never entered into any affair without his particular advice." 2 Apologies for It must, however, be confessed that the publication of this corre- Stenc 0n in s P on dence has laid open the defects of his political character. Want public life, of firmness has been repeatedly mentioned as his principal failing ; and insincerity is the natural attendant on a timid and irresolute mind. On the other hand it must not be forgotten that openness and candour are rare qualities in a statesman at all times, and while the duplicity of weakness is despised, the insincerity of a powerful, but crafty mind, though incomparably more odious, is too commonly regarded with feelings of indulgence. Cicero was deficient, not in honesty, but in moral courage; his disposition too was conciliatory and forgiving; and much which has been referred to inconsistency, should be attri- buted to the generous temper which induced him to remember the services rather than the neglect of Plancius, and to relieve the exiled and indigent Verres. 8 Much too may be traced to his professional habits as a pleader ; which led him to introduce the licence of the forum into deliberative discussions, and (however inexcusably) even into his correspondence with private friends. Some writers, as Lyttleton, have considered it an aggravation of Cicero's inconsistencies, that he was so perfectly aware of what was philosophically upright and correct. It might be sufficient to reply, 1 His want of jealousy towards his rivals was remarkable ; this was exemplified in his esteem for Hortensius, and still more so in his conduct towards Calvus. See Ad Fam. xv. 21. * Middleton, vol. ii. p. 525, 4to. 3 Pro Plane. ; Middleton, vol. i. p. 108. MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 215 that there is a wide difference between calmly deciding on an abstract point, and acting on that decision in the hurry of real life ; that Cicero in fact was apt to fancy (as all will fancy when assailed by interest or passion,) that the circumstances of his case constituted it an exception to the broad principles of duty. As he eloquently expresses himself in his defence of Plancius : " Neque enim inconstantis puto, sententiam, tanquam aliquod navigium, et cursum, ex reipublicse tempestate moderari. Ego vero hsec didici, hasc vidi, haec scripta legi ; haec de sapientissimis et clarissimis viris, et in hac republica, et in aliis civi- tatibus, monumenta nobis literae prodiderunt ; non semper easdem sententias ab iisdem, sed quascunque reipublicaa status, incliuatio temporum, ratio concordiaa postularet, esse defendendas." 1 Thus he seems to consider it the duty of a mediator alternately 2 to praise and blame both parties more than truth allows, if by these means it be possible either to flatter or to frighten them into an adop- tion of temperate measures. But the argument of the objectors proceeds on an entire miscon- The Phiio- ception of the design and purpose with which the ancients prosecuted anclentsf th philosophical studies. The motives and principles of morals were Dot more specu- so seriously acknowledged as to lead to a practical application of them to the conduct of life. Even when they proposed them in the form of precept, they still regarded the perfectly virtuous man as the creature of their imagination rather than a model for imitation a character whom it was a mental recreation rather than a duty to contemplate ; and if an individual here or there, as Scipio or Cato, attempted to conform his life to his philosophical conceptions of virtue, he was sure to be ridiculed for singularity and affectation. Even among the Athenians, by whom philosophy was, in many cases, cultivated to the exclusion of every active profession, intellectual amusement, not the discovery of truth, was the principal object of their discussions. That we must thus account for the ensnaring ques- tions and sophistical reasonings of which their disputations consisted, has been noticed in our article on LOGIC ; 3 and it was their extension of this system to the case of morals, which brought upon their sophists the irony of Socrates, and the sterner rebuke of Aristotle. But if this took place in a state of society in which the love of speculation pervaded all ranks, much more was it to be expected among the 1 C. 39. [" Xor do I regard it as any mark of inconsistency to regulate my opinions and my course, like a vessel, by the condition of the political weather. All that 1 have learned, witnessed, and read all that has been recorded of the wisest and most illustrious men, both in our state and in other political commu- nities, has taught me that the same man is not always to defend the same opinions, but rather those which the position of the state, the bias of the times, and the interests of peace may require." Editor."] * Ad Fam. vi. 6, vii. 3. 'I5i ffwefiov\evev 6 Ki/cepw?/, 7ro/\.Aa /it-j/ Kaura/?i ypatycav, iro\\a 5'avrov no/X7T7]'iou Seoy.ez/os, Trpauj/cuj/ eKarepov xal Trapajji.v8ovfj.eyos. Plutarch, in Vita Cic. See also in Vita Pomp. 3 In the Philosophical division of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitan . 216 EOMAN PHILOSOPHY. Romans, who, busied as they were in political enterprises, and deficient in philosophical acuteness, had neither time nor inclination for abstruse investigations ; and who considered philosophy simply as one of the many fashions introduced from Greece, " a sort of table furniture," as Warburton well expresses it, a mere refinement in the arts of social enjoyment. 1 This character it bore both among friends and enemies. Hence the popularity which attended the three Athenian philosophers, who had come to Rome on an embassy from their native city ; and hence the inflexible determination with which Cato procured their dismissal, through fear, as Plutarch tells us, 2 lest their arts of dispu- tation should corrupt the Roman youth. And when at length, by the authority of Scipio, 8 the literary treasures of Sylla, and the patronage of Lucullus, philosophical studies had gradually received the counte- nance of the higher classes of their countrymen, we still find them, in consistency with the principle above laid down, determined in the adoption of this or that system, not so much by the harmony of its parts, or by the plausibility of its reasonings, as by its suitableness to the profession and political station to which they respectively belonged, introduction Thus because the Stoics were more minute than other sects in incul- p1iiiSo ( P h e y ek eating the moral and social duties, we find the Jurisconsulti professing to Eome. themselves followers of Zeno ; 4 the orators, on the contrary, adopted the disputatious system of the later Academics ; 5 while Epicurus was the master of the idle and the wealthy. Hence, too, they confined the profession of philosophical science to Greek teachers ; considering them the sole proprietors, as it were, of a foreign and expensive luxury, which the vanquished might have the trouble of furnishing, but which the conquerors could well afford to purchase. First appiica- Before the works of Cicero, no attempts worth considering had been made for using the Latin tongue in philosophical subjects. The natural stubbornness of the language conspired with Roman haughti- ness to prevent this application. 6 The Epicureans, indeed, had made the experiment, but their writings were even affectedly harsh and slovenly ; 7 and we find Cicero himself, in spite of his inexhaustible flow of rich and expressive diction, making continual apologies for his learned occupations, and extolling philosophy as the parent of every- ero tmn g g reat > virtuous, and amiable. 8 philosophical Yet, with whatever discouragement his design was attended, he writings. ultimately triumphed over the pride of an unlettered people, and the 1 Lactantius, Inst. iii. 16. 2 Plutarch, in Vita Caton. See also de Invent, i. 36. 3 Paterculus, i. 12, &c. Plutarch, in Vit Lucull. et Syll. 4 G ravin. Origin. Juriscivil. lib. i. c. 44. 5 Quinct. xii. 2. Auct. Dialog, de Orator. 31. 6 De Nat. Deor. i. 4; de Off. i. 1 ; de.fin. Acad. Qusest., &c. 7 Tusc. Qusest. i. 3 ; ii. 3 ; Acad. Quaast. i. 2 ; de Nat. Deor. i. 21 ; de Fin. i. 3, &c. ; de Clar. Orat. 35. 8 Lucullus, 2 ; de Fin. i. 13 ; Tusc. Qusast. ii. 1, 2 ; iii. 2 ; v. 2 ; de Legg. i. 2224 ; de Off. ii. 2 ; de Orat. 41, &c. MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 217 difficulties of a defective language. He was possessed of that first requisite for eminence, an enthusiastic attachment to the studies he was recommending. But occupied as he was with the duties of a states man, mere love of literature would have availed little, if separated from the energy and range of intellect by which he was enabled to pursue a variety of objects at once, with equally persevering and inde- fatigable zeal. " He suffered no part of his leisure to be idle, or the least interval of it to be lost ; but what other people gave to the public shows, to pleasures, to feasts, nay, even to sleep and the ordinary refreshments of nature, he generally gave to his books, and the en- largement of his knowledge. On days of business, w T hen he had any- thing particular to compose, he had no other time for meditating, but when he was taking a few turns in his walks, when he used to dictate his thoughts to his scribes who attended him. We find many of his letters dated before daylight, some from the senate, others from his meals, and the crowd of his morning levee." 1 Thus he found time, without apparent inconvenience, for the business of the state, for the turmoil of the courts, and for philosophical studies. During his con- sulate he delivered twelve orations in the senate, rostrum, or forum. His treatises ' de Oratore ' and ' de Republic^,,' the most finished per- haps of his compositions, were written at a time when, to use his own words, " not a day passed without his taking part in forensic disputes." 2 And in the last year of his life, he composed at least eight of his phi- losophical works, besides the fourteen orations against Antony, which are known by the name of Philippics. Being thus ardent in the cause of philosophy, he recommended it to the notice of his countrymen, not only for the honour which its introduction would reflect upon himself (which itself was with him a motive of no inconsiderable influence), but also with the fondness of one who esteemed it " the guide of life, the parent of virtue, the guardian in difficulty, and the tranquillizer in misfortune." 3 Nor were his mental endowments less adapted to the accomplishment of his object, than the spirit with which he engaged in the work. Gifted with versatility of talent, with acuteness, quick- ness of perception, skill in selection, art in arrangement, fertility of illustration, warmth of fancy, and extraordinary taste, he at once seizes upon the most effective parts of his subject, places them in the most striking point of view, and arrays them in the liveliest and most inviting colours. His writings have the singular felicity of combining brilliancy of execution, with never-failing good sense. It must be allowed, that he is deficient in depth ; that he skims over rather than dives into the various departments of literature ; that he had too great command of the plausible, to be a patient investigator or a sound reasoner. Yet if he has less originality of thought than others, if he does not grapple with his subject, if he is unequal to a regular and lengthened disquisition, if he is frequently inconsistent in his opinions, 1 Middleton's Life, vol. ii. p. 254. 2 Ad Quint, fratr. iii. 3. 3 Tusc. Quaest. v. 2. 218 ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. we must remember that mere soundness of thought, without talent for display, has few charms for those who have not yet imbibed a taste even for the outward form of knowledge, 1 that system nearly precludes variety, and depth almost implies obscurity. It was this very absence of scientific exactness, which constituted in Roman eyes a principal charm of Cicero's compositions. 2 Nor must his profession as a pleader be forgotten in enumerating the circumstances which concurred to give his writings their peculiar character. For however his design of interesting his countrymen in Greek literature, however too his particular line of talent, may have led him to explain rather than to invent ; yet he expressly informs us it was principally with a view to his own improvement in oratory that he devoted himself to philosophical studies. 3 This induced him to undertake successively the cause of the Stoic, the Epicurean, or the Platonist, as an exercise for his powers of argumentation ; while the wavering and unsettled state of mind, occasioned by such habits of disputation, led him in his private judgment to prefer the sceptical tenets of the New Academy. Here, then, before examining Cicero's philosophical writings, an opportunity is presented to us of redeeming the pledge we gave in our memoir of PLATO, by considering the system of doctrine which the reformers (as they thought themselves) of the Academic school intro- duced about 300 years before the Christian era. The New We have already traced the history of the OLD ACADEMY, and Academy, spoken of the innovations on the system of Plato, silently introduced by the austere Polemo. When Zeno, however, who was his pupil, advocated the same rigid tenets in a more open and dogmatic ibrm, 4 Arcesiias. the Academy at length took the alarm, and reaction ensued. Arcesilas, who had succeeded Polemo and Crates, determined on reverting to the principles of the elder schools ; 5 but mistaking the profession of 1 De Off. i. 5, init. 2 Johnson's observations on Addison's writings may be well applied to those of Cicero, who would have been eminently successful in short miscellaneous essays, like those of the Spectators, had the manners of the age allowed it. 3 Orat. iii. 4; Tusc. Qusest. ii. 3; de Off. i. 1. prcefat. Paradox. Quint, de Instit. xii. 2. Lactantius, Inst. iii. 16. 4 Acad. Qusest. i. 10, &c. ; Lucullus, 5 ; de Legg. i. 20 ; iii. 3, &c. 5 Acad. Qusest. i. 4, 12, 13 ; Lucullus, 5 and 23 ; de Nat. Deor. i. 5 ; de Fin. ii. 1; de Orat. iii. 18; Augustin. contra Acad. ii. 6. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. lib. vii- 'O 'Ap/ce(rtAaos roffovrov aWSei TOV KaivoTo^las riva 86av aya-rrav Kcxl viroTTOte'iffQai T&V TraAcucoj/, &aivojJi.f: CONTEMPORARIES WITH DlOGENES. CRATES, J STOICS : ZENO ---------- B.C. 362 CLEANTHES- ---_-___ B. c. 320 CHRYSIPPUS _-___--_ B .c. 280 PANJETIUS -------- DIED B.C. 236 POSIDONIUS -------- BORN B. C. 135 SENECA _--_-___ BORN B. c. 8 DION PRUS^EUS, CONTEMPORARY WITH SENECA. EPICTETUS -------- DIED A. c. 161 MARCUS AUBELIUS - BEGAN TO REIGN A. c. 170 LUCIUS ANJSMEUS SENECA. THE STOICAL PHILOSOPHY. FROM B. C. 420 TO A. C. 170. STOICISM IN GREECE. THE Stoical Philosophy, though of Greek origin, found in Rome the Progress of people to whose disposition and character it was best adapted ; and 2 1 Rome! iy it was only among them, and at a comparatively late period, under the empire, that it attained the height of its development. In the early days of the Republic many glorious examples of Stoical virtue were displayed ; and Cicero, in illustrating the paradoxes of the sect, reverts with patriotic triumph to those memorable instances of practical Stoicism. But such developments of character were rather the result of natural temperament, operated upon by circumstances, than the effect of system or discipline. It was at a later period that the Stoical philosophy may be said to have truly flourished at Rome ; after the literature of Greece had been introduced, and when, according to the habits of individuals, or the temper of the times, the different systems of philosophy prevailed in succession. The manliness of the Roman character for a long time gave the preference to the doctrines of the Porch. Pomponius, indeed, amidst the convulsions attending succes- sive usurpations, cultivated the milder and more soothing sentiments of Epicurus ; but the delicacy of his nature and of his studies was looked upon as scarcely of a Roman mould, and his Attic surname was but an ambiguous compliment to his refinement. Although the practice of Academic disputation captivated the youthful imagination of Cicero, and opened an attractive field for the display of his inex- haustible treasures of eloquence, yet the practical morality of the Stoics seems always to have commanded his respect, and to have had a latent ascendency in his heart. It certainly advanced in his esteem in his declining years ; and his treatises on the Duties of Life, and on the Paradoxes of the Stoics, show an affectionate anxiety to extricate a school, so eminent for virtuous practice, from some of its theoretical extravagances, and if possible to reconcile the dogmas of visionaries to the circumstances of society and the real exigencies of life. The Stoical philosophy, hardy and severe as it was in its discipline, Cynicism the traced its descent from a sect still more austere and repulsive ; l and though many of the writers in the Stoical school attempted to ingraft on it the doctrines of other sects, as was the case with Seneca; or l Ab Antisthene, qui patientiam et duritiam in Socratico sermone maxime ada- marat, Cynici primum, delude Stoici manarunt. Cic. de Or. 3, 17 ; and Diog. Laert. vi. 103. 250 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. gave way to the suggestions of common sense and humanity, as may be instanced in Panaetius and Antoninus ; yet Stoicism, as such, always bore strong traces of its Cynical origin. It will be necessary, there- fore, in developing the doctrines of the Porch, to premise a short account of the parent school, that of the Cynics. Antisthenes. Antisthenes, the founder of this sect, was born in the year 420 B.C. at Athens, of a Thracian mother. In his early youth he studied the art of eloquence under Gorgias ; but his admiration of the independence and severe morality of Socrates, induced him to quit the rhetorician, that he might become a pupil of the philosopher. That love of singu- larity and perverse ambition, which formed a remarkable trait in the character of Antisthenes, and which attempted to disguise itself under the show of mortification and peculiar homeliness of apparel, did not escape the observation of his new master. " I can spy," said he, " the wearer's pride peeping out through the holes of those ragged garments." It does not appear whether he quitted Athens on the occasion of the death of Socrates, as other disciples of that philosopher did ; but a sarcasm of his is recorded, as having contributed to accele- rate the punishment of those who effected that judicial murder. Some foreigners, unapprised of the event, are said to have asked Antisthenes where they could find Socrates' house : he assured them that Socrates was not worth inquiring after, but that he could refer them to a far superior and more accomplished personage; and he directed them accordingly to the house of Anytus. Soon after his master's death, Antisthenes seems to have given full scope to the peculiarities of his own character ; and whether he happened to select a place which had been previously called the Dogs from some incident now unknown, 1 or that he first obtained the name of dog, and that the place was so called in honour of his Academy, certain it is, that he inveighed and scoffed in ' Cynosarges ;' and that his adherents and imitators were with great propriety termed Cynics, or the School of Barkers. Little more is known of the particulars of his history. It cannot be doubted that his own conduct must have been irreproachable, and that he must have had a robust sort of satirical wit, to have atoned for, and sanctioned, the absurdities and extravagances of his outward demeanour. He was a man in many respects superior to the generality of his followers. Instead of decrying science and literature, he was himself an author ; and he is said to have left behind him ten volumes of his works, though they have all now perished. We learn from Cicero, that he maintained the unity of the Supreme Being, in opposition to the polytheism of the vulgar, 2 and that his writings were valuable, as monuments rather of his sagacity than of his erudition. 3 It is probable that some of the tales related of him by the followers of his school are mere fictions ; and, in fact, only descriptions of a Cynical model, vv6ffap'yi .. ., rives Kal rfyv KVISLK^V tyi\offofyiav tya-criv ti/revBev bvop-affQ^vai. Diog Laert. vi. 13. 2 De Nat. Deor. i. 13. ' 3 Ad Att. xii. 38. SENECA. THE STOICS. 251 according to their own notions. It is not likely, for instance, that one, who had himself been a pupil of Socrates, and who was certainly a man of sense as well as humour, should have treated Diogenes, when he expressed himself willing to come under his tuition, as if he already had been really a dog ; and should have done his best to beat him away with his large staff, and that the novice only prevailed by his resolute perseverance and endurance of honest blows. 1 Diogenes, as has been the case with many others, rushed from the Diogenes, one extreme of licentiousness to the contrary one of asceticism, and B ' * sought to retrieve the dissoluteness of his youth, by the mortification and moroseness of his later years. His temperament is represented by all writers, as fervid and enthusiastic; his humour was coarse, homely, and caustic ; and the specimens of it which have been pre- served, exhibit a tartness in which it is difficult to say whether the character of sagacity or of scurrility most predominates. His prede- cessor was, by constitution, hardy and temperate ; and observation of the world had confirmed him in his opinion of the dangerous nature of the passions. His lectures, therefore, and declamations against pleasure, were those of a humane, though an austere and rugged monitor. Diogenes, on the contrary, was of a nature altogether impetuous and excitable ; his humour of restraint had as little relation to any rational purpose as his previous indulgences. He did not attempt to instruct, but professed to reprove others. He gave no lessons of prudence or severity ; but disgorged his spleen, or envy, in bitter and insolent contumelies. His own uncomfortable feelings found vent in his taunts on all around him ; and, by assuming a sort of misanthropy on principle he furnished abundant exercise to all the malignity of his wit. Such satirists and ribalds, by profession, are perhaps necessary characters in the great theatre of the world, and may serve well as the antidotes to parasites and sycophants, but they have little claim to be canonized amongst philosophers and moralists. The following are, perhaps, amongst the happiest of the recorded sarcasms uttered by this accredited scoffer : " He often found it necessary in life," he said, " to have ready an answer or a rope." He was indignant at people for praying to the gods for health, and at the same time doing what they could to destroy it by feasting. Calling out once, " Men, come hither ;" and numbers flocking about him, he beat them all away with a stick, saying, " I called for men, and not varlets." Dining one day at a common eating-house, he saw Demosthenes pass by, and invited him in. Demosthenes refusing, " What," said Diogenes, " should you be ashamed to dine here, when your master does so every day ?" " Against fortune," said he, " we must oppose courage ; against nature, law ; against passion, reason." 1 Hieron. adv. Jovin. 252 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Onesicritus. Monimus. Crates. Review of the Cynical doctrines. Being asked, what animals were most dangerous in the bite ? "Of wild animals," he replied, " a detractor; of tame, a flatterer." Seeing some women hanged upon an olive-tree, " I wish," remarked he, " that all trees bore the same fruit !" To one who reproached him with living in dirty and discreditable places, "The sun," replied he, "can shine upon kennels, without disparagement to himself!" Upon seeing an old woman painted, he observed, " If you do this to gratify the living, you are mistaken in the effect; if it is for the dead, lose no time in joining them." Among the friends of Diogenes are mentioned Onesicritus, Monimus, and Crates ; the first of these, however, did not continue in the school of the Cynics at Athens, but attended the army of Alexander the Great in his Indian expedition. Monimus seems to have been pos- sessed with much of the extravagance of his friend and model Diogenes ; and a saying of his is preserved, which is at once very suitable to his character as a man of lively and changeful impressions, and veiy remarkable as containing the germ of the Sceptical system. It is recorded to have been his doctrine, that there is no such thing as reality ; but that all objects are the conceptions and creations of our own mind producing fantastic illusions, or semblances of external objects ; and that the whole is but a dream or show. Crates was a philosopher of a very different cast, and seems to have aimed at moral instruction under the guise of levity and petulance. He w r as not at all of a saturnine complexion ; but made it his aim to give much oblique reproof, and to qualify many salutary but offensive reflections, with the appearance of ridicule and humour. The real good nature and kindness of his purpose were duly appreciated by his fellow- citizens ; and whilst he was admired by strangers for his festive wit, and for the poignancy and vivacity of his sallies, he was frequently used as an umpire by his fellow-townsmen in their mercantile or family disputes ; and his good sense and impartiality gave authority to his verdicts. He was the last, and, with the exception, perhaps, of Antisthenes, the most creditable teacher in the school of derision ; and, indeed, his good sense and his constitutional vivacity seem so much to have modified his character, that if he was a Cynic by system and profession, he was in practice such a philosopher as might have belonged to any age, and as any school might have been proud to own. Such was the course of the Cynical school among the Greeks. Its prevailing characters were a contempt of pleasure, a disregard to the distinctions of society, and an utter insensibility to decorum. With regard to pleasure, moralists of all sects have concurred in admitting, that it is not, in its vulgar sense, to be made an ultimate object of pursuit ; that first impressions are to be distrusted ; and that mere prudence and self-regard will point out the superiority of the intellectual and moral enjoyments, over the hollow gratifications of SENECA. THE STOICS. 253 sense ; and that it is an equally gross fallacy in calculation, as it is a deviation from propriety, to prefer a personal pleasure to a social duty. But it is surely a strange error to suppose that pleasure, as such, must be an object of aversion to rational beings. When limited by prudence as to ourselves, and by a proper regard to the rights of society, a gratification of our own desires, and a sympathy in the enjoyments of others, are things innocent and commendable. Asceticism and morti- fication, for the sake of misery without any reference to utility, are the virtues of a misanthropic disposition or of a deranged intellect. As to the distinctions of society, the Cynics of antiquity showed much more of spleen than sense, in their insolent disregard of them. Industry can never be encouraged effectually without permanent security to property ; nor can any means be devised for giving such security which will not, in the end, produce an unequal distribution of wealth. Differences in the conditions of men are inevitable, as long as there are' differences in their capacities, the degree of exertion which they employ, and the extent of their industry. The accumula- tion of wealth, and the rights of inheritance, cannot be prevented or interfered with, without reducing the bonus of industry, and taking away the stimulants to exertion. Orders which are not open to merit, and privileges which benefit particular classes to the oppression of the community, are indeed abuses which should be removed wherever they exist ; but some distinction of classes is inevitable in the course of national advancement : abilities and services must procure power and consideration, and wealth will always command influence. The Cynics, who derided these arrangements in society, did not so much exhibit any magnanimity of character, as they exposed their ignorance and contracted views. In their indiscriminate scoffing at what they termed ambition, they little perceived how much they injured the cause of virtue, by repressing every spirited exertion, by extinguishing the flame of worthy emulation, by deadening that enthusiasm without which nothing good and great was ever accomplished. Whilst they decried vanity, they rooted up at the same time much of that regard for the feelings and opinions of others ; much of that social affection, which is in some instances the guarantee of propriety, as it is in others the incentive to virtue. When Diogenes trod upon Plato's robe, and exclaimed, " I trample under foot the pride of Plato," the sage's reply to the Cynic seems not without its justice : ** True, but it is with the greater pride of Diogenes." In regard to the insensibility of the Cynics to decorum, several of their outrages upon public manners are enumerated by Sextus Empiricus; and, perhaps, there may be some exaggeration in the descriptions given by this avowed enemy to them, and to their derivative sect the Stoics. But other particulars in the history of the Cynics, show that they were not slow or timid in illustrating by their example the doctrines which they promulgated ; and if, as it is agreed, it was one of their leading principles, that time and place 254 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. could make no difference in the morality of actions, and that no ex- pression could be improper which related to transactions which were proper, 1 it is easy to imagine what extravagances of conduct these philosophical caricaturists may have exhibited, and in what licentious- ness of language they may have indulged. These aliens and obtruders into civilized society, when they treated shame as a factitious senti- ment, and decried modesty and self-respect, showed a systematic perverseness which has provoked the reprehension of Cicero for its profligacy, 2 and the opposition even of the licentious Mandeville, from the ignorance which it implies in the principles of human nature. The Stoics. We proceed, however, to a history of the scion school of the Stoics; and we may premise, that the characters of the individuals belonging to it varied so materially from one another, and so materially also influenced the doctrines which they promulgated, that the system of the Stoics, as delivered by Zeno, can scarcely be recognised in the ostentatious pretensions and quibbling paradoxes of Chrysippus; and that it requires something like chemical art to detect any remnant of the same ingredients, when the compound has been filtered by the good sense of Panastius, or sublimed into the gasconade of Seneca. After detailing, therefore, a few particulars in the life of Zeno, we shall subjoin a brief summary of the physical and moral doctrines of the Stoics, as they appear to have been expounded by him ; and shall interweave in the narrative of his successors those prominent points in which they extended or deviated from the notions of their founder. Zeno was born at Citium, a town on the coast of Cyprus. His father was a merchant, and in his voyages to Athens, brought home some of the pieces written by the pupils of Socrates. The young Zeno was charmed with the style of these philosophical productions. At the age of thirty-two he visited Athens, and from that time forwards devoted himself exclusively to philosophy. He attached himself at first to the Cynic Crates, and then for ten years placed him- self under the tuition of Stilpo. He afterwards listened to Xenocrates The Porch, and to Polemo. After this long course of discipline, he ventured to open his own school, and selected the Portico, a public building, ornamented with the paintings of Polygnotus, Myco, and Pandamus, the brother of Phidias. This place was, it seems, before his time one of general resort, and was, from these paintings and from its statues, denominated the Painted Porch ; but the lectures and discussions of which it became the theatre, soon imparted to it a celebrity sufficient to distinguish it from other buildings of the same nature ; and the 1 Non audiendi sunt Cynici, aut siqui fuerunt Stoici paene Cynici, qui reprehend- unt et irrident, quod ea, quse turpia re non sint, nominibus ac verbis flagitiosa dicamus: ilia autem, quse turpia sint, nominibus appellemus suis. Latrocinari, fraudare, adulterare, re turpe est; sed dicitur non obsccene : liberis dare operam, re honestum est, nomine obsccenum : pluraque in earn sententiam ab eisdem contra verecundiam disputantur. Off. 1 , 35. 2 Cynicorum vero ratio tota est ejicienda. Est enim inimica verecundias sine qua 1 nihil rectum esse potest, nihil honestum. Off. 1, 41. Zeno. B. c. 362. SENECA. THE STOICS. 255 followers of Zeno have been long handed down in history, as the philosophers of Tlie Porch. The regularity of Zeno's life, as well as the severity of his doctrines, and the keenness of his logic, ensured to him the respect and admiration of the Athenians. The keys of the city were delivered into his custody. A golden crown was presented to him, and a statue of brass raised to his honour. Antigonus Gonatas, the king of Macedon, whenever he visited Athens, attended his lectures, and was anxious to prevail on him to come to the Macedonian court. Zeno's fame seems to have continued increasing to the end of his life, and in his latter days excited the jealousy, or at least incurred the reprehension, of Epicurus He died at the age of ninety-eight, after having presided many years in the Porch. He was tall in stature, thin in person, abstemious, with a countenance somewhat repulsive and scowling. He wrote a work on the Commonweal, in which he animadverted on the errors of Plato with much acrimony. Of this work nothing remains, except some few passages incidentally cited by ancient authors. The Stoics considered the present system of the world as wrought His doctrines out of an original chaos ; but they distinguished between the rude materials and the vivifying principle. From the materials they held that the different elements were produced by the operation of that mighty and pervading principle, which existed prior to their pro- duction, and which will survive their decay. The Stoical masters system of differed in their account of the process by which the elements were the world - divided from one another. Zeno seems to have considered that the earth was separated by its own gravity and adhesion ; that the water consisted of such fluid particles as were not solid enough so as to conglomerate into earth, and yet were of too settled a nature to evaporate altogether into air ; that the air itself was produced by exhalation; and that fire was produced from the air by flashes or coruscations. Zeno seems to have had a tolerably distinct notion of the universality centripetal of a centripetal force. He maintained that all things which exist by force - themselves are moved towards the middle of the whole, and likewise of the world itself, and that there is the same cause of the rest of the world in infinite space, and of the rest of the earth in the world, in the midst of which it is constituted as a point. It is true that Zeno stated that heavy bodies are principally influenced by this propensity, but he at the same time insisted that the lighter elements, as air and fire, did in some respect tend towards the centre of the world. As the Stoics considered water to be, in one sense, the basis of all phenomena the elements, and fire itself to be produced from water after having of Nature, been previously refined into air, it is not surprising that they defined the sun to be a self-guiding or intelligent mass of fire, gathered and kindled originally and still constantly nourished by exhalations from the great ocean ; and that they deemed the moon to be nourished in the like manner from the exhalations of fresh water. Thev traced 256 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Supreme Being. the variations of the seasons to the approach or remoteness of the sun. The rainbow they considered as a reflection of the sun's rays from a humid cloud. The following were the principal arguments advanced by the Stoics, in proof of the existence of the Supreme Being. 1 If anything exists in nature which it would surpass the ingenuity, the wisdom, and the capacity of man to produce, the power which did produce such things must surpass the nature of man. But man could not form and arrange the heavenly bodies and the mighty system of the universe. The Being, therefore, who produced these must be something superior to human intelligence or power; and what can we term such a superior Being, otherwise than a Divinity ? Everything in nature seems to admit of gradations. In the parts of creation which appear inanimate, there are different degrees of utility, of completeness, and of beauty ; there are greater or lesser approaches towards perfection. In the animated world there are all the varieties of susceptibility ; rising from the merest torpor to the most exquisite sensation, and to the most lively and accurate instinct. But in reason, man stands alone ; and is it to be supposed that this intelligence, which in his nature is coupled with a frame so full of impressions and infirmities, should not exist in some higher degree, and be able to exercise its operations in some nobler mould, in some form less fettered by incumbrance, and less exposed to casualty ? It is probable, surely, that man, high as he stands, and far transcending all mere animals, may yet be but the lowest and most imperfect of rational and intelligent beings. The universe is not a confused mass of unconnected and isolated materials. It is coherent. It is organized. It is a system. In every system there is some pre-eminent point, some spring of nourish- ment, some centre of vitality, in dependence upon which all the other parts exercise their functions, and in reference to which they act. From this all the supplies of the machinery are drawn, to this they all 'seem to revert. In the vegetable kingdom, the roots are con- sidered the grand and primary organs ; in the animal, the heart or the brain. Can such an anomaly then be supposed, as that the system of the universe itself is without a centre of life, and motion, and intelligence ? Must it not be inferred, that there is some sovereign principle or sensorium of the universe, from the ocean of whose beauty all the energies of nature are derived, and into which, after having refreshed every part of the system with their tides of health and beauty, they will eventually be reabsorbed ? The Stoics, however, at the same time that they maintained the unity of the pervading principle, accommodated themselves to the prevailing Polytheism, superstitions, by adopting them in a modified sense. They con- sidered the popular divinities as figurative representations of the various powers of nature ; and all the idle fables connected with the 1 Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 6, 12, and 13 ; 7, 38, 45, and 46. SENECA. THE STOICS. 257 vulgar polytheism were resolved into allegories, and treated as treasures of mysterious wisdom. 1 In considering the moral doctrine of the Stoics, it will be only Morals, necessary to advert to those peculiarities by which they were dis- tinguished from the other philosophical sects of antiquity. In opposi- tion to the Epicureans, instead of resolving reason into instinct, and considering the pursuit of happiness as a quest of pleasure on a more enlarged scale, they proceeded to the other extreme, and maintained that the first impulses of nature are evidences of an inherent and connatural self-love. They argued that the first gleams of desire, as they are directed to things appropriate and conducive to welfare, are scintillations of an innate reason and prudential faculty. Since the natural desire of infants in their earliest moments are directed to things beneficial, and their aversions are calculated to guard them from things that would be injurious, this school stoutly maintained that these particular affections imply a deliberate preference of what is good for the whole nature, and that those movements which have the appearance of senseless organic impulse, are the evolutions of an inherent prudence, and of a native self-love. They argued further, that the seminal principle of self-preservation must be the ground of all original appetite and aversion, and not any pursuit of pleasure as such, or any declination from pain as such ; for that pleasure and pain are merely the result and consequences of certain actions ; now these consequences cannot be anticipated before experience, and therefore cannot originally, in the first instance, be the ground of the actions themselves. In the inanimate creation, where pleasure cannot be felt, there is still some inherent principle which directs the roots of trees to feel their way into appropriate layers of soil or moisture, and their branches to shoot upwards into the congenial atmosphere. In the lower orders of animals, life and health are preserved by some salutiferous influence of the same kind. If in human nature these original motives to action were mere animal propensities to the blind quest of pleasure, nature, which in other instances is so vigilant and conservative, would in the case of man often impel to injury and destruction. So far, therefore, from reason being resolved into blind appetite, what is termed instinct in the earliest impulses of the human frame ought to be exalted into a modification of reason. The Stoics further argued, that though utility is a great object of desire, and a great test of the morality of actions, it is not the only consideration which impels to action ; that all knowledge is desirable on its own account, without reference to the practical benefits which it produces ; that the curiosity of children is an indication of a character inseparable from the human mind ; and that, however disguised or counteracted by circumstances, a thirst for information and a yearning after truth are constituent parts of our nature. The gratification of these intellectual longings and aspirations was therefore held by them 1 Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 24. [G. E. P.] S 258 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. to be in itself an ultimate object of desire ; and as we have seen, that they considered the appetites merely as modes of self-love, or expres- sions of the endeavour after perfection, it was in perfect consistency with such principles, that they held the virtues, and the acquisitions of science, to be desirable in themselves, without reference to the benefits resulting from them to the individual, or to the community. The great excellence of the Stoical morals consisted in the elevation which they gave to the sense of duty. When the understanding once ascertained what was proper to be done, the dictates of an enlightened conscience were, in their estimation, the universal and invariable rale of conduct. Their moral rules, though they may sometimes sound as if they had a speculative cast, were all applied to, and intended for, sound practical use. They considered the conclusions of experience respecting the happiness of mankind, as the voice of nature announcing the destinations and duties of individuals. No progress can be made towards the perfection, scarcely any even to the development, of the human faculties, without society. Society, therefore, is the natural state of man ; the nature of his body and his mind as clearly indicating, that it was intended by Providence that he should live in a social state, as the structure of other animals shows them to be adapted to the peculiar elements in which they live. The faculty of reasoning and language prove that man was intended for intercourse of this kind, as clearly as the construction of his lungs indicates that he was calculated for the atmosphere which he respires. The moment that the social nature of man is recognised by the understanding, the duties which that condition involves are implicitly comprehended as matters of paramount import- ance. The process by which, in general, the affections extend them- selves from the individual to his home, his country, and mankind at large, is indeed somewhat reversed in the reflective and unimpassioned system of the Stoics ; and the pupils of that school are taught rather to know their duties, by applying the conclusions of their reason to their particular situation, than to feel them by having their sympathies gradually expanded. But the coincidence between these deductions of the understanding, and the natural suggestions of the heart, is mutually illustrative of both. ideal perfec- The character which the Stoics have given of a wise man has been i!uman the occasion of much misrepresentation. It was their aim to describe character. suc h a being as should be a constant model for the admirers of virtue to mould their own characters by, as far as human infirmities would permit. So far were the pupils of the Stoical school from pretending that they had attained such a degree of perfection themselves, that they expressly declared that their great masters, Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, were themselves far deficient, and that although worthy of all veneration, they did not attain to the ideal of human excellence. The Stoic masters in their description of the wise man have, as might be expected, concurred in accumulating such qualities as tend to make a man at once most independent and most useful to others ; thus SENECA. THE STOICS. 259 they attributed to him an absolute command over his passions, and a rnind so well acquainted with the course of nature, as not to be sur- prised at its apparent deviations and irregularities. There was indeed some variation in the notions of their different masters, whilst some regarded independence of mind, and others usefulness, as the great object of pursuit. Thus Chrysippus urged, that a wise man ought to apply himself to some office in the commonwealth, whilst Apollodorus maintained that a wise man ought to imitate the Cynics. It is a striking proof of the superstition of the Stoics, that amongst the qualities of their ideal character, they attributed to him the spirit of prophecy and divination ; they held that he must know those signs which are communicated by gods and daemons in the relations of human life; that he must be able to interpret dreams, and be versed in the mystery of augury. They not only held that their wise man would on adequate occasions willingly sacrifice his life for his country and friends, but they held that he would destroy himself when subjected to the torture of continued and racking pain, or afflicted by some lingering and incurable disease. As far as the Stoics endeavoured to raise themselves, by the con templation of a perfect character, to something above humanity, their design was good and likely to be beneficial. On the other hand, the perpetual contrast between these strange and exaggerated notions, associated as they were with the name of Stoicism, was calculated to estrange the pupils of that school from the ordinary habits and feelings and affections of society. Whilst they revolved in their imagination the perfections of the wise man, they felt an additional disgust or a sanctified pity for the prejudices, the errors, and the delusions of those around them. Though they expressly disavowed the presumption, yet they unconsciously identified themselves with the model of their admiration. When they considered their imaginary wise man exempt from the failings and infirmities of nature, and that in the satisfaction of his own mind he concentrated all the honours which power and dignity seemed to bestow, the young aspirants w T ould often feel a cynical aversion from the conflicts of life, and rest contested with that superiority which vanity easily generates in the fancy. They were taught to consider their wise man as a character mighty, elevated, and possessed of great power, yet at the same time void of all pride ; he was the only person qualified to be a king or magistrate; and in accordance with their model, the conceit of their own importance was often disguised from others, and sometimes concealed from themselves, by the appearance of a rough independence or a virtuous humility. But from this general criticism on the doctrines of Zeno, we must turn to pursue the history of his school, and to glance at the modifi- cations introduced by his successors. Cleanthes was a native of Assus, cieanthes. a city in JSolia. He was originally a wrestler, and he preserved B< c * 320> through life that vigour and hardiness of frame which qualified him for his first profession. His povertv was extreme ; and whilst attending s2 260 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. the school of Zeno in the daytime, he was compelled to work for his subsistence during the greater part of the night, as a common carrier and drawer of water. It is related, that his healthy appearance, whilst he was apparently without any means of support, excited the attention of the police ; and when he was summoned to give an account of his means of providing a livelihood, the gardener under whom he drew water, and a woman for whom he ground flour, came forward to attest his extraordinary industry. His faculties were not quick, but his application compensated for the defects or peculiarities of his natural disposition. Zeno admired him for his zeal and perseverance, and instituted him his successor. He wrote fifty-six volumes, all of which are lost. But Cicero has noticed one of his illustrations, and Diogenes Laertius and Stoba?us have preserved a few of his memorable sayings. The illustration given by Cicero is this : *' To place in a conspicuous point of view the impropriety of considering pleasure as the ultimate object of pursuit, and virtue as merely subservient and subsidiary, Cleanthes desired his hearers to suppose a fair tablet placed before their sight, in which pleasure was represented enthroned in majesty, with the virtues ministering to her as attendants upon her state, whispering to her that they were born to do her service, and that their only end and aim in existence was to show her honour by waiting in her train, or executing her commands." Chrysippus. Chrysippus was a native of Solis, a town of Cilicia, but early in life B . c. 280. Devoted himself to philosophy, and, fixing his residence in Athens, attended the school of Cleanthes. He soon distinguished himself by that logical subtilty, and that faculty of quick discrimination, which constituted at once the strength and the foible of his character. His ingenuity and address were inexhaustible ; and as he pressed keenly and without reserve upon the weak points of his antagonist's arguments, spoke without reference to any system on his own part, and seemed regardless of everything except the point immediately under discussion, he was found to be a most redoubtable and vexatious disputant, and his character stood high as a leader in that warfare of words in which the Athenians so much delighted. To him the stoical philosophy owes that store of perverse and exaggerated conceits, with which it was embarrassed and disfigured. It procured applause for Chrysippus, and amazed the bystanders, when he advanced that all crimes were of equal magnitude, because all were equally deviations from right ; or maintained that the virtuous man alone was possessed of absolute power, and was incapable of error. To show his logical skill, he adopted and insisted upon many of the most absurd and revolting of the Cynical notions ; and we must refer to Sextus Empiricus for details which may prove Chrysippus to have been a hardy controversialist, but which cannot impress any one with a favourable opinion of him, either as a champion of good sense or as a friend of virtue. SENECA. THE STOICS. 261 STOICISM AMONG THE ROMANS. After Chrysippus, Pangetius and Posidonius supported the character Panaetius, of the Stoical school, and indeed did much to retrieve it from his B ^ n f 36 extravagances. But the philosophy of Greece was naturalized at Rome p os id on iu s , by Cicero. The opinions of the Stoics were a favourite study of the nat.B. c. 135. Roman lawyers in particular ; and it has been said, that some of those terse maxims of the Roman code, which have been incorporated into the general law of Europe, may be traced as having originated in that school. By the Roman poets, too, the doctrines of Stoicism were stoicism much cultivated ; and Lucan has condensed into a few lines the lead- "J^Kome ing principles of the sect, when giving the character of Cato. 1 But Seneca, Epictetus, and Antoninus, are the three principal names which supported the glory of Stoicism under the Roman emperors ; and we shall proceed to speak of their several characters and merits somewhat compendiously, since, considering the limits of our general work, we have perhaps already expatiated somewhat too largely in developing the peculiarities of stoicism. Lucius Annasus Seneca was born at Cordova, in the eighth year Seneca, before Christ. His father was Marcus Annseus Seneca, a rhetorician B- c ' s ' of eminence, some of whose productions have come down to us. His mother's name was Helvia. He had two brothers, Marcus Annasus Novatus and Lucius Annaeus Mela. Seneca was of a delicate frame of body, and was during the early period of his life much afflicted with ill health. He commenced his studies under his father ; but lectures Education, on the media of proof, and on the modes of awakening the passions, served rather to stimulate than to satisfy his curiosity. He was anxious to inquire deeper into the nature of man, and to learn what could be known about the system of the universe. For this purpose he commenced his studies under Sotio the Pythagorean, a man whose exemplary habits at once sanctified and illustrated the doctrines which he expounded. But the ardour of Seneca's mind was such as not to allow him to acquiesce in the system inculcated by Sotio, to the ex- clusion of further research. He was initiated by Attains in the peculiarities of the Stoical doctrine. He studied the Peripatetic philosophy under Papirius Fabian ; and he learned, as far as an institution which despises all learning can be taught, the whimsies of the Cynics from Demetrius. This latitude of inquiry, and rejection of exclusive partialities, continued with Seneca through life ; and to this habit we may attribute the characteristic excellences, as well as some of the peculiar blemishes, of his writings. His intercourse with Demetrius ripened into intimacy ; and in his progress in the world, when fortune had heaped honours upon him, the courtier and the favourite did not abate his esteem or his familiarity with the Cynic. But the system of the Stoics was, upon the whole, the favourite with Seneca. By his father's advice he then mixed in the active concerns of life, 1 Lib. ii. 380. 262 ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. His appear- and commenced his exertions as a pleader at the bar. At Rome, the pursuits of a lawyer and of an advocate were kept much more distinct than they usually have been in modern times. It required the labour of many years to qualify a man to practise as a jurist ; and the con- tinued and tedious comparison of texts, and cases, and precedents, was preliminary to the formation of that character of an authorised and solemn expositor of law, which is most nearly expressed by the modern term of a chamber-counsel. A few hours' study, on the contrary, such as could give a smattering of the terms of art, and a sketch of the general principles of law, was all that was thought necessary by the ancient Romans for the qualification of an advocate or pleader at the bar. We are informed by the unknown author of the ' Dialogue on the Causes of the Decline of Eloquence,' that Seneca distinguished himself during the short period whilst he practised at the bar, by the weight and pointedness of his remarks ; but that he was as deficient in his pleadings, as he afterwards showed himself to be in his writings, in" that uniform progression and flow of thought, which is almost inse- parable from the character of eloquence. His success, however, was such, that he became desirous of advancing himself in public. He Quaestor. discharged the duties of the qusestorate, and became at length a dis- tinguished favourite in the court of Claudius. But in consequence of an imputed familiarity with Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, he, with some others, fell into disgrace, and was banished to the island of Banishment. Corsica. His conduct during exile deserves to be remarked, as illus- trative of the tendency of that philosophy which he advocated and pro- fessed. In his letters to his own friends, he boasts of the opportunities now allowed him for retirement and study, and makes an ostentatious display of the means of wisdom and independence which were afforded him by solitude and retreat ; he vaunted that his happiness was inde- pendent of external circumstances, and that a wise man could find a home and a country in any quarter of the earth. In his letters to the emperor, however, his submissions are abject ; and his solicitations for leave to return are unqualified, spiritless, and pitiful. Lord Boling- broke, in his Reflections on Exile,' has adopted the spirit and the style of Seneca's Stoical letters ; and we know that the magnanimity of this modem courtier and philosopher was on a par with that of his ancient prototype. Cicero, on the contrary, though the occasion of his banish- ment reflected honour rather than disgrace upon his character, instead of playing off the idle jargon of words, or making any hypocritical boast, or affecting an indifference to the regard and esteem of his countrymen, gave way too much to the painfulness of an exile which was unjustly inflicted upon him ; and indulged in expressions of sensi- bility, which, however natural, and however amiable, have been reflected upon as amongst the blemishes of his character. Cicero, however, with whatever frankness he may have unbosomed his own feelings of weakness during exile, was recalled by the unsolicited and spontaneous SENECA. THE STOICS. 263 summons of his own free countrymen. Seneca, whilst affecting to the world to pride himself in his compulsory seclusion, procured a remis- sion of his sentence by undignified and unmanly entreaties to a tyrant. Besides his own direct submissions, his return is said to have been accelerated by the mediation of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. After his return, Seneca was engaged first as the tutor of Nero, and after- Tutor and wards as his minister ; in both capacities he seems to have deserved gjjjf er of well of his pupil and of the Roman people, but in neither of. them did his conduct escape obloquy. As a tutor it is said, that he sanctioned the excesses of his pupil ; whilst, in fact, he probably only modified irregularities which he could not restrain. As a minister, he has been made responsible for several of the outrages of his sovereign ; though he may, perhaps, deserve the credit of repressing, rather than the imputation of instigating such perversions of power. Certain it is, that that part of Nero's reign in which Seneca participated in the administration of government, is not marked by atrocities so numerous or so intolerable as those which disgraced the latter part of it. The amplitude of Seneca's fortune, whilst minister, is another particular which has been objected to him by the censurers of his character. But, however inconsistent it may be with some of his Stoical eulogies upon poverty, and Cynical tirades against wealth and luxury, the acquisition of opulence cannot be otherwise a reproach to him ; since extortion, or any dishonourable practice, is not imputed to him. Still less can there be any serious charge brought against him from his mode of enjoying his property. His own personal habits are admitted to have been temperate, and even abstemious; and if he delighted in the ele- gance of his gardens, or gratified himself by the number and extent of his villas, such indulgences were suitable to his condition and circum- stances, though not to his pretensions to austerity ; and were a rational and creditable mode of enjoyment. Umbrage, however, was given to Nero, by some particular in Seneca's conduct ; and the tyrant made Piso's conspiracy a pretext for the destruction of the philosopher. The particulars of Seneca's death are recorded with much minuteness by His death. Tacitus. That author mentions the frivolous circumstances by which Nero endeavoured to entrap him into an acknowledgment of his fami- liarity with the conspirators, as well as the dignified answer of Seneca ; in which, after explaining his own refusal to see Piso on one occasion, as being unwell, and having no reason to prefer another man's welfare to his own, " Csesar himself," he added, " knew that he was not a man of compliment, having received more proofs of his freedom than of his flattery." This answer of Seneca's was delivered to Nero in the pre- sence of Poppaea and Tigellinus, his infamous favourites. Nero inquired whether it could be collected from Seneca's manner, that he had any intention of suicide. The tribune answered, that Seneca was so little discomposed by his visit, that he afterwards continued a story which he happened to be relating at the time. Nero sent him back, with peremptory orders for Seneca to put himself to death. The tribune, 264 ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. who himself had been engaged in Piso's conspiracy, had not resolution enough to be the bearer of such a message ; and therefore despatched one of his officers with it. Seneca, upon receiving the command, ex- pressed his desire to make some alterations in his will ; but the officer refusing to allow him access to his papers, he turned to his friends, and told them, that, since nothing else was left to him, he could at least bequeath to them the picture of his life; and intimated that some of the features of his own character were the best model for them on the present occasion. When some of them gave way to their feelings of grief, he rebuked them for their want of fortitude, or of foresight : " Where now," said he, " is our boasted philosophy ; or of what avail is it, if it fails us when the most required ? We cannot any of us have been unaware of the character of Nero : after the murder of his mother and his brother, it was scarcely to be expected that he would spare his preceptor." The death of Seneca was a lingering one, from the exhausted and the emaciated state of his frame. He opened the veins in his arms, in the presence of his wife, and other friends, and afterwards those in his legs. Finding this course in- effectual, he persuaded his wife to quit the room, and procured a draught of poison to be administered to him. As this, too, seemed to fail in its influence, he desired to be removed into a warm bath ; and, as he entered, he sprinkled those who stood near him, saying, " I offer this libation to Jupiter the deliverer." His life-blood then gushed forth, and he speedily expired. His works. Seneca's works consist of separate treatises, on ' Anger ;' ' Consola- tion ;' * Providence ;' * Tranquillity of Mind ;' ' Constancy ;' ' Cle- mency;' 'The Shortness of Life;' 'A Happy Life;' 'Retirement;' * Benefits;' of one hundred and twenty-four ' Epistles;' and of seven books of questions in ' Natural Philosophy and History.' As a philo- sopher, Seneca is certainly not entitled to very high respect, either for the consistency or the temperateness of his opinions. His general principles are those of the Stoics ; but his fondness for display and exaggeration, makes him caricature even some of their paradoxes. He thus maintains, in one place, that the wise man of the Stoics is not an ideal figment ; but, that it has been realised in many individuals of the sect, and that it is such a model, as it is expected others should attain to. In another place he proposes Bion's insensibility as a model of Stoical wisdom, when after the loss of his wife and children in the course of a siege, he boasted that he was consummately happy, because he had escaped himself: for a wise man has no concern about anything else ; his own person is the whole of his property. But Seneca does not scruple to adopt any notion, however incon- sistent with the leading principles of Stoicism, if it gives him an opportunity of showing some of his turns and niceties of diction. He is, indeed, to be considered rather as a moral declaimer, than as a philosopher of any sect. As a moralist, his theory inclined to the asperities and singularities of Cynicism. His love of effect, and con- SENECA. THE STOICS. 265 stant affectation of brilliant sentences, naturally carried him to such an extreme. As a writer, Seneca may be commended for occasional felicities ; and as he was always striving to add wit to reason, and to express something weighty and solid in a striking manner, it is not to be won- dered, that he should sometimes have succeeded. But he is justly termed the grand corrupter of Roman eloquence; and his style, brilliant as it is, is the more dangerous on account of the author's abilities. 1 It is a perpetual succession of efforts ; and in the range of antitheses, of points, of figures, prettinesses and exaggerations, the reader finds him- self without intermission, amused, surprised, dazzled, baffled, and fatigued. There is no repose in the composition, and thoughts and expressions which singly might make some impression, are lost in the crowd of others which are protruded with equal ostentation, and with the same glare. A sentiment which, in the pages of Tully, we should find reflected in one continued impression, as from a clear mirror, is dealt out to us in the sentences of Seneca, as from a glass fantastically cut into a thousand spangles. Contemporaneous with Seneca flourished Dio of Prusa, surnamed DionPruaeus Chrysostom. His character is handed down as that of a severe and unsparing censurer of the follies and vices of his time. His speeches which remain to us are rather remarkable for their abruptness and affected importance, than for any genuine vigour or eloquence. Epictetus was the great ornament of the Stoic school during the Epictetus, reigns of Domitian and Hadrian. Born a slave, and maimed in person, ^^Teif he obtained his manumission by the excellence of his conduct; and not only instructed the age in which he lived, by his irreproachable example and illustrious doctrine, but has edified succeeding ages by those precepts which his pupil and admirer Arrian collected into a manual of moral wisdom, and illustrated with a commentary. No philosopher has surpassed Epictetus in urging the claims of virtue to independence. His maxims are terse and pregnant with sense, and his exhortations earnest and affectionate. Though there is much severity of discipline recommended, there is no sternness in the rrjanner of the teacher. He speaks, perhaps, with some degree of injustice of the world at large ; and too often describes virtue as necessarily in a state of persecution. But no production of any heathen writer is better adapted than the manual which is inscribed with the name of Epic- tetus, to summon virtue to a proper steadiness and reliance upon itself, or to arm a wavering mind with resolution amidst the occasional dis- couragements and untoward circumstances of life. Next in succession to this illustrious slave among the ornaments of Marcus the Stoic school, appears the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. It lUtoirnus. is unnecessary here even to glance at those victories on the Euphrates A - c - 17 - 1 Quintilian has very justly sketched the character of Seneca (x. 125). " Abundat dulcibus vitiis," is one of the terse and closely applicable strokes by which he por- trays him. 266 ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. and on the Danube, by which the philosophic monarch protected the boundaries and ensured the subsequent tranquillity of the Roman empire. His reign forms part of the happy period in which the vast extent of that empire has been characterised, as having " been governed by absolute power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom." The predilection of Antoninus for the Stoical system displayed itself early in his life. At the age of twelve years he commenced that discipline of patience and self-restraint, which in after-life enabled him to be the master of himself, whilst he was the sovereign of the world. Through- out life his self-command was complete and exemplary. In his youth he was not a slave to the fervour of his passions, nor was he the play- thing of ambition in his maturer age. In his palace he preserved the strictness and system of a general. In his camp he composed a great part of those philosophical meditations which will immortalize his name. Even his own favourite sect never carried him away captive from good sense, or led him to indulge in their extravagant pretensions and paradoxes. His character is a bright example of the best influence of the Stoical tenets, operating upon a mild temper and amiable dis- position; and supplying that firmness and energy which are most required for, but are rarely found combined with such a nature. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. BY JAMES AMIRAUX JEREMIE, D.D, KEGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. FLOURISHED circtter A. c. 190. THE Sceptical Philosophy, as developed in the writings of Sextus Empiricus, forms one of the most curious portions in the history of the human mind, and it is on this account that we have separated his name from those of the other writers who flourished under the Anto- riini. To mark by what process and through what gradations an entire deviation from the general opinions and feelings of mankind was effected, is in itself a study neither destitute of interest, nor unproduc- tive of utility. But in a work intended to exhibit in one distinct and comprehensive view the rise and advancement, and multifarious rela- tions of science, it is peculiarly necessary to describe the nature of that system which attempts to overthrow the fundamental principles of universal knowledge. To little purpose indeed have we laboured to sketch the magnificent structure which the genius of ages has raised and adorned, if it be but an unsubstantial fabric, which vanishes at the approach of scrutiny. The causes, from which a tendency to perpetual doubt was first Causes of derived, have been variously sought, in the affectation of superior p y rrhon)sm - acuteness ; in the confusion of ill-directed studies ; in the habit of sophistical disputation ; in the attractions of brilliant paradox ; and, above all, in the extreme difficulty of separating truth from falsehood, strangely as they are intermixed and scattered in a mass of diversified opinions. But most commonly excessive scepticism springs, as by a kind of reaction from excessive dogmatism. " If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts," is an observation of the great reformer of learning, in his examination of the different disorders which have checked its growth and perverted its application. 1 And Socrates has shown, 2 with that simplicity and clearness with which he unfolded the most complicated operations of the mind, that, as an un- natural aversion to mankind arises in general from a detection of treachery in those persons in whom confidence had been reposed, so a settled distaste for all reasoning originates in a discovery of unsound- ness in those arguments on which reliance had been placed. It is in- Probable deed impossible to consider that singular union of ignorance, presump- tion, and obstinacy, which characterised the ancient dogmatists, without 1 Lord Bacon, Of the Advancement of Learning, book i. p. 31. 2 In Phadon. 270 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. feeling that, antecedently to experience, it must have been most pro- bable, that some more candid, as well as more intelligent, reasoner, impressed with a sense of our intellectual weakness, and disgusted with unmeaning propositions, however magisterially delivered, and how- ever disguised under a variety of pompous technicalities, would at length draw the mortifying contrast between the boundless extent of science, and the circumscribed powers of our understanding. It might also have been expected, that his indignation would rise in proportion as he saw more fully the effects of a system which substituted conjec- ture for experiment and authority for proof ; or, as he observed more frequently the efforts of its defenders in maintaining the most palpable absurdities with as much pertinacity and violence, as if they were contending for the most evident and the most important demonstrations. It might also have been naturally supposed, that the vivacity of im- patient genius might lead him, in his zeal against learned despotism, to sacrifice strong arguments indiscriminately with weak, and to sink from sober caution into a morbid state of complete distrust. But it could hardly have been foreseen, that a sect would arise, the avowed object of which would be to evince, by a long train of reasoning, that all reasoning is fallacious, and to establish as its principle, that all the principles of human knowledge are too dubious to command the slightest degree of assent. That one man should be so perplexed by cavils, and so confounded by difficulties and contradictions crossing him in all the paths of literary or scientific research, as to deny at once the evidence of his senses, is no extraordinary circumstance ; but that a body of men should systematically profess to doubt, and labour to persuade others to doubt, whether truth be discovered or discover- able, must be regarded as one of the most striking phenomena which the annals of philosophy present. Such, however, was that class of philosophers of whom we shall endeavour succinctly to trace the rise and progress, and to delineate the features and character, in connexion with our biographical notice of the celebrated disciple who has collected their arguments, and illus- trated their method. History of From the earliest ages of philosophy we may remark a frequent ex- ' sm ' pression of doubt, bordering on despondency, in the language of its most distinguished followers. 1 They seem nearly all, at some time, to have made the melancholy confession, that ** whatever we look upon within the amplitude of heaven and earth is evidence of human igno- rance." To imagine, however, that such reflections materially influ- enced their opinions and pursuits, is to deny the tenour of their general reasoning. We are far, therefore, from supposing, what Huet has laboured to prove, 2 that a system of scepticism existed in the most ancient times : his conclusions are drawn from a few partial facts, hastily recorded by writers who were more anxious to enliven their meagre 1 See Diog. Laert. in Vit. Pyrrhon. 2 Traite" Philosophique de la Foiblesse de 1' Esprit Humain. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE PYRRHONISTS. 271 narratives, than to ascertain and deliver the truth. It cannot be denied, however, that some philosophers proceeded to considerable lengths in throwing doubt on the most common maxims ; and that both the minute controversies of the sophists, and the embarrassing objections of Socrates, operated in a powerful manner in unsettling the notions of subsequent inquirers. Without reverting to remote periods, or renew- ing the details which we have already given of the ACADEMIC sects, we shall content ourselves with some observations on those who are strictly called the members of the Sceptic or Pyrrhonic school, Pyrrho was a native of Elis, and flourished about the CXth Olym- p vrr h . piad. Even from the scanty details of his life which have been B - c - 34 - transmitted to us, we can perhaps trace, with a considerable degree of probability, the source of that entire scepticism on all points of moral evidence and of abstract reasoning, for which he was peculiarly distinguished. We learn, that after having abandoned the study of painting, to which he had applied himself in early youth, and having devoted his time to philosophical pursuits, he directed his attention principally to the works of Democritus, and received the instructions of Anaxarchus, whom he accompanied in the expedition of Alexander the Great into India, where he conversed with the magi and gymno- sophists. 1 Now we know that Democritus expressed in most positive terms his opinion of the uncertainty of human knowledge, and the impossi- bility of finding truth, which he was in the habit of describing as sunk in some deep well ; 2 we know, too, that from the school of Democritus came Metrodorus the Chian, who placed in the very beginning of one of his works the maxim, That we are ignorant of all things, and even of the truth of this very assertion ; 3 and that among the disciples of Metrodorus was Anaxarchus, the tutor of Pyrrho. When to these circumstances we add the fact mentioned by Strabo, that the Brach- mans, a branch of the sect of Indian gymnosophists, maintained that nothing was in its nature good or bad, but was only such in appearance, 4 we possess some of the principal points which, if considered in conjunction with the effects of natural disposition, enable us in a great measure to account for that tendency to scepticism in P) T rrho, which was no doubt increased and elicited by the overbearing arrogance of 1 Diog. Laert. in Vit. ; Aristocl. ap. Euseb. de Praepar. Evang. lib. xiv. c. 18 ; Lucian, in Bis Accusat. ; Suid. in Hvppcav. 2 Democritus (pronunciat) quasi in puteo quodam sic alto ut fundus sit nullus veritatem jacere demersam. Lactant. Instit. lib. iii. c. 27. Comp. Cic. Academ. Quaest. ; Diog. Laert. lib. ix. sec. 72. 3 Cic. Academ. Quaest. lib. i. Chius Metrodorus initio libri qui est de Natura 1 : Nego, inquit, scire nos, sciamusne aliquid, an nihil sciamus ; ne id ipsum quidem nescire, aut scire, scire nos ; nee omnino, sitne aliquid, an nihil sit. JSee also Diog. Laert. in Vit. Anaxarch. lib. ix. sec. 58. 4 Strab. lib. xv. Sects of men who professed universal doubt, seem to have flourished in many other nations, e. g. the Hairetis among the Turks, the Medab- berim among the Arabians, &c. 272 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. the dogmatic teachers. When, however, his biographers proceed to relate, that he adopted in practice those principles which he defended in theory, it is, we think, sufficiently manifest that they have mistaken for authentic anecdotes the satirical inventions of his enemies, whose design was, probably, to prove that, whatever might be the triumphs of Pyrrhonism in the shade of the schools, the slightest occurrence in real life dispelled the illusion, and left the refined caviller precisely in the same situation as vulgar mortals. 1 What, indeed, can be more ridiculously absurd than the idle tales of Antigonus Carystius, 2 that Pyrrho would not stir a step to avoid a chariot or a precipice, and was frequently indebted to the kind assistance of the friends who attended him, for the preservation of his life ! 3 The honours which were paid to him, may be deemed a proof that the tenour of his conduct was not at variance with the received customs of society, customs which he considered as causing, by their arbitrary decision, the only difference between right and wrong. In conformity with existing prejudices, he suffered himself to be appointed one of the priests of a religion, 4 the truth of which his own opinions must have led him to question, if not to deny. This circum- stance will, however, excite no surprise in those who have attended to the peculiar train of thinking, with respect to the political utility of polytheism, which pervades the writings of the ancient philosophers, and appears to have produced the same effect on the least scrupulous as on the most superstitious sects. Impressed with a conviction of the vanity of earthly pursuits, Pyrrho is said to have constantly repeated the well-known lines, in which Homer compares the race of men to leaves, " now green in youth, now with'ring to the ground," and from which he probably passed, by an easy transition, to reflections on the vicissitudes of fortune, the fluctuations of fashion, and the mutability of opinion. The remaining instances, intended to illustrate his manner of life, which may be found in the ill-connected, but enter- taining collections of Diogenes Laertius, are trivial and contradictory : at one time he is represented as secluding himself even from his nearest relations, whilst at another he is described as joining his family in the management of their domestic affairs, and as performing the meanest duties with cheerfulness and indifference. From the general language of his biographers, however, we may conclude that both the 1 See Hume's Essays, vol. ii. pp. 183-186. Having observed, that " the great subverter of Pyrrhonism is action and employment, and the occupations of common life," he allows, that even the determinate Sceptic will " be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess, that all his objections are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to show the whimsical condition of mankind, who must act, and reason, and believe ; though they are not able, by their most diligent inquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections which may be raised against them." 2 Quoted by Diog. Laert. in Vit. Pyrrhon. 3 Comp. La Mothe le Vayer, De la Vertu des Payens, p. 243 ; Bayle, Diet. Hist, art. Pyrrhon. 4 Diog. Laert. in Vit.j Hesych. Miles. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE PYRRHONISTS. 273 powers of reasoning which he displayed in his discourses, and the remarkable composure which he evinced in the midst of danger and suffering, attracted the notice and commanded the respect not merely of the multitude, but of his philosophical opponents. Of his disciples, scarcely any facts of importance are related ; the Disciples of most eminent among them was Timon the Phliasian, a philosopher ximon' who joined to an indolent and unobtrusive disposition a keen and sar- castic vein of humour, which manifested itself in numerous poems, dramas, and dialogues against the Dogmatists. Fragments of his chief work, entitled * Silli,' in which he attacked his adversaries with caustic ridicule, are found interspersed in many subsequent writers. From the saying of a Peripatetic philosopher, that " as the Scythians shot flying, so Timon gained disciples bv shunning them," l we may infer that he was not without followers ; yet no regular successor seems to have transmitted the principles of the Pyrrhonic school, which, per- haps, by being identified with the later Academics, was considered as extinct in the time of Cicero. 2 It had been renewed, however, by Ptolemy the CyrenaBan ; and was defended at Alexandria about the very period when the Roman philosopher thought it no longer in existence, by ^Enesidemus, who wrote eight books of Pyrrhonian discourses. From this last author, the tenets of the Sceptics were taught by a succession of masters, of whom little, but the name, is recorded, till the age of Sextus Empiricus, a writer of considerable learning and ingenuity, in whose works, replete with a curious variety of recondite knowledge, which would otherwise have been totally lost, the method, principles, and design of his sect are copiously detailed, and syste- matically explained. Of his life scarcely any account is to be found in succeeding writers, or to be extracted by inferential reasoning from his extant treatises. Conjectures have been resorted to as substitutes for facts, and have perplexed, rather than informed, the historical examiner. Suidas identifies Sextus Empiricus with Sextus Chaeronensis, 3 a whether the nephew of Plutarch, and one of the tutors of Marcus* Antoninus. f u f This account is rejected by Salmasius, 4 Rualdus, 5 Jonsius, 6 Casaubon, 7 ch^ro- nensis ? 1 A6yos yovv etire?^ 'lepcavv/j-ov riv TrepnraTTjriKbv eV avrov, us irapa. TOIS Kal ol (pevyovres To|evoucrt Kal ol 8i(*>KovTfS' 6vTW TU>V fpi\oa"6iA.aSeA(/>cuotr i\v Se TT?S Ilvppca- vei6v ayvyris- KOI roffovrov irpbs TI^S T$ j8atAoS6\(/)Oiov %v Se Tlvfipwyedu aywy^s and Kal S/cew- 5e/ca are interpolations. 4 In Not. ad Capitolin. 5 In Plutarch. Vit. c. v. 6 De Script. Hist. Phil. lib. iii. c. 12. 7 In Not. ad Capitolin., though he adopts a different opinion in Not. ad Diog. Laert. [G. R. P.] T 274 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Kuster, 1 Menage, 2 and Fabricius; 3 and defended by Hervetus, 4 G. Vossius, 5 and Huet in his sceptical treatise on ' The Weakness of the Human Mind.' The chief argument in its favour is drawn from the circumstance, that the names of both philosophers, and also that of their preceptor, Herodotus, are the same : to which it is easy to reply, that several learned men, the two Zenos for instance, have borne the same name, and that this very coincidence, by perplexing the inter- preters, may have led them to assert that one Herodotus was master to both. And, not to insist on the difference of their sirnames, the rules of conduct which the philosophic emperor acknowledges he had received from Sextus Chaeronensis, 6 rather tend to confirm the opinion of those commentators who infer from a passage, somewhat ambi- guous, in Capitolinus, 7 that he was a Stoic, and certainly seem less likely to have formed the main subject of a Sceptic's instructions. Sextus belonged to that sect in medicine called Empirics, who, judging Nature to be incomprehensible, followed experience in preference to reasoning. 8 His country is unknown : his works refute the assertion of Suidas, that he was a native of Libya, 9 and indeed rather enable us to discover where he did not, than where he didj live. His age may perhaps be referred to the reign of the Emperor Commodus. 10 Works of The extant works of Sextus consist of three books of Pyrrhonic Institutes or Sketches, and ten, or, according to a different arrange- ment, eleven books against the mathematicians, by which word are meant all who profess any kind of knowledge. The former treatise is designed to be a summary of the principles, method, and end of Scepticism. In pursuance of our plan, therefore, we shall present such an outline of its contents as may assist the reader in forming some idea of the instruments employed by the ancient Pyrrhonists, Avhen they attempted to destroy the basis of reasoning, and in dis- covering the stamina of those modern systems which, in a more expanded shape, have been maintained with the most refined subtilty and address. Sextus begins his ' Institutes ' by dividing the ancient philosophers 1 Ad Suid. torn. iii. p. 299. 2 In Observat. ad Diog. Laert. p. 444. 3 Biblioth. Grsec. torn. v. p. 527. 4 In Prsef. ad Sext. Empiric. 5 In Libr. de Phil. p. 99. 6 In Meditat. lib. i. c. 9. 7 Audivit et Sextum Chseronensem Plutarchi nepotem, Junium Rusticum, Clau- dium Maximum, et Cinnam Catulum, Stoicos. 8 Sextus, indeed, maintains that the Methodic sect in medicine was more favour- able to Pyrrhonism than the Empirical (Pyrrh. Hyp. lib. i.), whence Marsilius Cognatus contends that he belonged to the former ; in which opinion he is seconded by D. Le Clerc (Hist. Med. part ii. p. 378); but it is justly observed by Fabricius, that the Sceptics never professed to follow their maxims in common life, and there- fore not in the practice of medicine (Bibl. Grgec. ed. Harles. torn. v. p. 527). 9 In lib. iii. sec. 213, of his Pyrrh. Instit., he contrasts the customs of his country with those of the Libyans. 10 Fabr. Bibl. Graec. torn. v. p. 527. Menage places Sextus Empiricus about the time of Trajan and Adrian. (Obs. in Diog. Laert. p. 1.) Brucker refers his age to the third century, in the reign of the emperor Severus. (Hist. Grit. Philos. p. 636.) SEXTUS EMPIEICUS. THE PYRRHONISTS. 275 into three classes : the Dogmatists, such as were the Peripatetics, the Analysis of Epicureans, and the Stoics, who asserted that they had discovered institutes"" truth ; the Academics, who denied the possibility of such a discovery; and the Sceptics, who neither asserted nor denied, but doubted. He then proceeds to explain the character and arguments of the latter sect. Scepticism is defined to be, the art of comparing in every way Definition of sensibles and intelligibles, the reports of our senses and the concep- Sc ep ticism - tions of our minds. The end of this comparison is to find as strong reasons for the rejection as for the admission of any point whatever. The great principle on which the whole system is allowed to rest, is, Funda- that to every proposition a contrary proposition possessing equal ^p{^ tal prin " weight may be opposed. This maxim, however, was not laid down as incontrovertible. The Sceptic perceived the inconsistency of assert- ing that no assertion is true, and therefore consented to doubt even whether he doubted. He agreed, moreover, with the mass of mankind respecting appearances ; but he hesitated to receive opinions founded on them, with regard to the real nature of things. His conduct was consequently regulated in compliance with the state of established usages and institutions. In theory, he withheld his assent from the most general maxims of physics and of morals, because he did not see any infallible criterion by which he could distinguish truth from false- hood ; in practice, he followed the instinct of nature, the bent of passion, the laws of society, and the common rules of art and science. His speculations, however, though confessedly not productive of any alteration in the employments of life, were represented as leading to results of a most important nature. The entire suspension of judg- End of ment (eiroxn) induced by the impossibility of discerning reality from ^me'S illusion, in our internal thoughts and external impressions, was said to by which it beget a state of perfect indifference and tranquillity, a total freedom ls obtamed - from the fretful variety of cares and sorrows which agitate the human breast. The Sceptic pursues not with feverish anxiety what cannot be shown to be really good ; he shuns not in perpetual alarm what cannot be proved to be essentially evil. The process by which this mental imperturbability (arapa^ia) was effected, is described as entirely fortuitous. As Apelles, despairing to imitate the foam in his cele- brated picture of a horse, flung against it his sponge, still stained with the different colours which he used, and thus, by a fortunate accident, produced that exact effect which the most exquisite skill was incapable of accomplishing : so the Sceptic, who had attempted the separation of truth from falsehood, with a view of releasing his mind from the troubles which oppressed it, unable to attain this object, suffered his judgment to remain suspended by the equal force of contrary reasons, and through this very suspension eventually obtained that tranquillity which he sought in vain from another source. In order to maintain this desirable indecision, the Sceptic resorted to Sceptical a variety of methods, which were dexterously opposed to the several arguments of the Dogmatists. He endeavoured to show, that the T2 276 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. evidence derived from our perceptions was, considered under every Difference point of view, fallacious. For, in the first place, since animals, arising aSmXs. f rom different species and in different manners, possess a different con- formation of the organs of sense, they cannot be affected in the same way by the same external objects. But, as the parts of the. material world seem to us of different colours, in consequence of the jaundice or a suffusion, and of different figures, according as we press the sides of the eye, or as we view them in convex or concave mirrors ; so it is possible that animals, some of whom have the eye red, some white, some narrow, some oblique, some prominent, some depressed, receive impressions from objects dissimilar from those which they convey to man. And the same remark is equally applicable to the remaining senses. Even as digested food becomes veins, arteries, bones, or sinews, according to the difference of the recipient parts, or as water, when poured on plants, becomes bark, boughs, or fruits ; so he con- cludes that objects are variously felt, according to the constitution and temperament of the animal creation. Indeed, it must be in conse- quence of the incongruity of their sensations, that the same substance is eagerly desired by some, and utterly loathed by others ; and that what is wholesome to one class is deadly to another. If, therefore, the question be put to the Sceptic, whether hemlock be nourishment or poison, he will answer, that it is the former to quails, the latter to men ; but he will cautiously avoid pronouncing that it is either the one or the other, in the nature of things. For man, being an inte- rested party, cannot be qualified to judge between his own sensations and those of animals, in order to decide to which the preference ought justly to be given. Nor can any demonstration be adduced; for though the demonstration be apparent to us, to determine on that ac- count that it is true, is to assume the very point which it was meant to prove. Diversity of The Sceptic, having thus far reasoned to show that man has no men. right to pretend that his own perceptions are more correspondent with the real nature of things than those of animals termed irrational, is willing to argue even on the supposition that men have the exclusive privilege of discerning truth, and to evince that a suspension of judg- ment is even then altogether necessary. So various are the corporeal frames and constitutions of mankind, that the same objects produce different effects upon different persons, and it is impossible to be certain that our particular apprehension is entitled to superior credit. We cannot, he will add, place confidence in all men, for we should thus admit the most palpable contradictions ; we cannot discover, by a re- view of the universe, on what side the majority of mankind in any question ought to be ranked ; and if we are required to follow a few, we must immediately ask, who are these few ? the Platonists will refer us to Plato, the Epicureans to Epicurus ; and, amidst this con- trariety, the Sceptic will rest in his usual indecision. After having thus argued on the concession, that men in general SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE PYERHONISTS. 277 have the power of judging, he will consent to meet his adversaries Diversity of even by granting, that there may be some one individual on whom JJJJJ man he reliance might possibly be placed, and he will merely ask, to which of the senses of this individual must credit be attached ? For different organs present things in different modes. Painting sets forth to the sight some objects as standing out, others as sinking backwards, but to the touch the picture presents no inequalities. Honey, which is luscious to the palate, is offensive to the eye ; and balm, which is de- lightful to the organs of smell, is repulsive to those of taste. It is, besides, impossible to ascertain, whether substances have all the quali- ties which they appear to possess ; or only one quality, which seems different, owing to the diversity of our senses ; or many more qualities than our limited number of senses is capable of perceiving. And if our senses cannot comprehend external objects, neither can our intel- lectual faculties arrive at the knowledge of their real nature, and sus- pension is again requisite. But still the Sceptic is content to pursue the discussion, and to Different grant to his adversary, for the sake of argument, that we can confide states of tne /* * i i i i- -Hi same senses. m one sense of one individual ; yet, again, this one sense will be variously disposed, according as its possessor is young or old, in health or in sickness, asleep or awake, sated or hungry, or, in short, agitated by one or more of the numerous passions, owing to which the senses give different reports, and the understanding forms different deductions. All, therefore, that can be asserted of anything is, that it appears to us in a certain manner, at a certain period of life, and under certain circumstances ; but that we know not whether it be really such in its nature. For, continues the Sceptic, by introducing one of his favourite cavils, it cannot be proved that one of these states is preferable to another, unless we have some criterion which itself can only be made credible by a demonstration. But how can the demonstration be judged to be true but by a criterion ? The demonstration, therefore, will require a criterion to confirm it, while the criterion requires a demonstration to prove it true. Thus the Sceptic having, with an air of triumph, destroyed by his alternate method both the demonstration and the criterion, by which alone one sensation can he shown to be preferable to another, finds an additional reason for his boasted suspension. He proceeds, however, to confirm it by several other commonplaces. He urges the dissirni- Situation and larity of objects in consequence of distance, place, and position : the same tower from afar seems round, from a nearer point square ; the same oar under water seems broken, above water straight ; the same light in the sunshine is dim, in darkness bright ; the same image, which when laid flat, seems smooth, when inclined, seems uneven ; the same feathers on the dove's neck assume various hues, according as they are variously turned. 1 Now, since there is nothing which is 1 Compare Senec. Nat. Qusest. lib. i. c. 5, and Tertullian, de Anim. c. 17. The arguments of the latter have been sketched by Bishop Kaye, with great perspicuity, 278 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. not in some position and place, and at some distance, the absolute nature of things is undiscoverable, and their appearance only can be determined according to these three points. Mixtures in He derives another argument from the mixtures in the objects which which? 6 !? P resent themselves to our senses. The images which proceed from sent them- surrounding objects reach us not in a pure and uncompounded state, senses t0the but tnev are blended and modified by the medium through which they pass ; for the same thing will wear a different aspect, as the im- pressions take place through a medium which is warm or cold, dry or moist, curved or straight, broad or narrow, hence the varieties of sounds, smells, and colours. And that, too, without mentioning the coats and humours of the eye, through which the images of objects, with all their external admixtures, are conveyed. And as the senses err, so also will the intellect, which is guided by them. err. Indeed it is possible, that the intellect itself produces an alteration in what it receives from the senses, in consequence of the humours which exist in its material seat. Quantity and But, besides this, the Sceptic will urge the confusion which arises fr m tfte quantity and constitution of the subject. For instance, the shavings of goat's horn seem white, though the horn itself seems black ; and filings of silver seem black, though silver itself seems white ; grains of sand, which are rough and uneven, when viewed singly, are smooth and plane, when viewed jointly ; the same medicine, which, in a small quantity, refreshes and heals, in a larger, oppresses and destroys. All, therefore, that can be asserted of an object is, that it appears in a certain manner, when in a certain quantity, and in a certain state ; but not that it is such in its nature. Eelation. He will contend, moreover, that all things are relative : relative to the thing which judges, namely, the animal, the man, the sense, and the state of the sense ; relative to things seen with it, to the composition, quantity, and position of objects ; relative also as genus and species, as like and unlike, as equal and unequal. And of this relation alone can we be assured. Frequency He likewise draws an argument from frequency and rareness of or rareness of occurrence : comets attract more attention than the sun, because seen occurrence. ,/.*,, , 1/^1 less often ; gold is more prized than water, because more rarely found : but let the novelty alter, and language will alter ; the sun will be more admired than comets, and water more valued than gold ; so that there is no fixed measure by which we can determine the intrinsic merit of anything. Variety of But the Sceptic borrows his most powerful argument from the ac- tuo'nT Stl ~ knowledged variety of laws, customs, institutions, fabulous creeds, fables, per- and dogmatic opinions. By constantly opposing all these with promp- in his excellent analysis of the Treatise De Anima (Eceles. Hist, of the Second and Third Centuries, illustrated from the writings of Tertullian, p. 200). The reason- ing of the Sceptic drawn from the deceptibility of the senses is ridiculed by Epic- tetus. (Ap. Arrian, lib. ii. Diss. c. 20.) SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE PYKRHONISTS. 279 titude and address, and by showing them to be repugnant and destruc- tive one to another, he learns to repeat with additional confidence the necessity of a complete indecision. It were unnecessary to detail all the other methods, however in- other genious, which .Sextos has enumerated. It is sufficient to observe, that by their means the Pyrrhonist was furnished with a kind of panoply of cavils against every species of reasoning. If an hypothesis was made, he would counterpoise it by some contrary hypothesis; if Reduction ad a proof was offered, he would ask how the proof itself was demon- mfimtum - strated ; and, if an additional proof was given, he would require this additional proof to be proved, and so on ad infinitum. But why, it may be asked, such subtile definitions of terms, if all Observations is equally uncertain ? Why such careful attempts to avoid confusion, p^^, nfc if all is equally confused ? Why pretend to understand the systems Philosophy, of the Dogmatists, if nothing can be understood ? Why determine contradic- that their proofs are weak, if man is not qualified to determine any- turns, thing ? Why style those who mistake his object ignorant, unless the Sceptic himself possess some knowledge of which they are exempt? 1 How can one hypothesis be opposed to another, unless that other be comprehended ? How is it ascertained that contrary reasons of equal force can be raised against other reasons, unless equality of force can be inferred ? And, if as many and as valid arguments may be urged in favour of any one proposition as against it, what shadow of use can all his own reasoning possess ? Might not the Dogmatist turn round on the Sceptic, and accuse him of obstinate dogmatism of believing everything of asserting everything ; and when the disciple of Pyrrho replied, " Nay, but I assert nothing, I believe nothing ;" might not the same Dogmatist exclaim, " I maintain that you are one of my sect, and to every argument you may bring to show the contrary, I will affirm that a contrary argument of as much weight may be opposed to it; things seem to me different from what they seem to you, and you have no right to suppose your own senses are superior to mine : nay, be not indignant, if you attempt to give me a proof that you are not a Dog- matist, on your own principles I will require a proof of that proof, and so on without end." Indeed the great body of the Tyrrhenian philosophy seems to have Considera- depended on no better assertion than the following : some things are JJJ?^ t on lts false, therefore, perhaps, all things are false; some men differ in opinion, therefore, perhaps, no man's opinion is correct. But the Pyrrhonist urged, that the effects of his system were an unvaried state of internal tranquillity. It requires but little knowledge of human nature to be convinced of the falsehood of this assertion. There will always be the reaction of a natural propensity to belief against the pressure of adopted doubt, and this struggle will necessarily destroy the mental equipoise. The truth of this fact is abundantly exempli- fied in the history of man : Sylla, Tiberius, Louis XI. of France, not 1 See the objections more fully stated in Crousaz's Examen du Pyrrhonisme. 280 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. to mention other instances, will prove that the disbeliever in religion is often a believer in divination and astrology. And even in the works of professed Sceptics, in Sextus Empiricus, 1 in La Mothe le Vayer, in Huet,'in Glanvile, we discern an extreme facility in admitting re- ports, which would have been rejected with pointed ridicule by men but little inclined to indulge in unreasonable doubts. But if perfect Scepticism were really attainable, still the conflict of our passions and our opinions would disturb and poison the sources of enjoyment ; or, even granting that the appearances of pain would be then incapable of inflicting pain, the Sceptic must admit, by parity of reasoning, that the appearances of pleasure would be unable to excite pleasure ; and if our hopes must be sacrificed with our fears, and our joys with our sorrows if all our feelings, in short, must be deadened into a state of torpid lethargy, it can hardly be supposed that the happiness of life would be eventually promoted. Such are the obvious faults of ex- cessive Pyrrhonism. objections It cannot be denied, however, that when the Sceptic expatiated on our tota ^ ^g 110 ^ 1106 f tne essence of matter, and when he laboured to prove that the sensible qualities of bodies are not inherent, but only secondary and relative to the perceptions of the mind, his arguments were no less ingenious than forcible and just. It must also be remarked, that though he often resorted to puerile devices in order to elude the sober arguments of common reasoners, yet he sometimes stated objections to the distempered theories of the Dogmatists, which seem worthy of the better Scepticism introduced in after times by Descartes, as a necessary preparative to philosophical investigation. He discarded with profound contempt the prevalent practice of suffer- ing the mind to be preoccupied by hypothesis ; of alleging reasons neither self-evident nor demonstrated ; of ascribing to one single cause phenomena which might arise from several joint causes ; of attributing a series of regular effects to the operation of unconnected and unob- served causes ; of drawing a false analogy between the visible and the invisible world ; of offering explanations inconsistent with their own principles; and of seeking reasons for facts before they were well assured of the facts themselves. Observations It would be inconsistent with our plan to enter into a detailed two^BoSof accoimt f tne l as t two books of this singular work, it will be sufficient Pyirhonic to state their general design. The second book treats chiefly of ltes> dialectics : it is employed in proving, in opposition to the opinions of the logicians, that there is no method by which truth can be discovered. Sextus returns continually to his favourite objection : there is no 1 The works of Sextus teem with tales which would hardly be equalled by the anecdotes of the most credulous : e. g. that Deinophon was cold in the sunshine and warm in the shade ; that the Tentyrites in Egypt are not hurt by crocodiles ; that the elephant flies from the ram, the lion from the cock, and whales from the crackling of bruised beans, &c. (book i. c. 13 and 14). Sir Thomas Brown might have enriched his Treatise on Vulgar Errors by having added Sextus to the writers whom he consulted. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE PYRRHONISTS. 281 criterion, and all demonstration, by which the existence of such a criterion is to be shown, requires itself another demonstration, and so on for ever. We cannot trust our senses they deceive us ; we cannot confide in advisers they differ. And here it may be remarked, that the cavils of Sextus are not, like the dexterous subtilties of Bayle, adroitly insinuated in some lively anecdote, curiously wrought into some brilliant train of reasoning, and unexpectedly introduced in various historical articles which in themselves possess intense in- terest ; but they are methodically and heavily brought out, with tedious and insipid repetition. He argues, that there is no such thing as a demonstration, because it would consist of connected propositions, and this connexion can never be proved. The Stoic objected with great acuteness, You must allow that there may be a demonstration, if you can, as well as if you cannot, prove the contrary : if you cannot, you have no right to deny it ; and if you can, your reasoning is a demonstration. All the Sceptic could answer was, that maxims which destroy others destroyed themselves also ; that the medicine passed away with the disease which it removed. 1 He felt that the maxim, " all is false, " is self-contradictory ; for if it be true, all is not false. Sextus proceeds to attack syllogisms a mode of reasoning unquestionably liable to objection, and after- wards produces the following cavil against definitions : " Either you Definitions, know what you are defining, before you define it, or you do not ; if you do not, you cannot define ; if you do, you need not : but, you will answer, I define for the use of others ; but if you understood the point without a definition, why should not they ?"' As if a definition were not the result of a gradual succession of ideas, linked together and developed in a manner useful to ourselves by the simplification, and, for the same reason, still more useful to others. He objects, that a definition, in consequence of the limited nature of our knowledge, may perhaps never embrace all the qualities of the subject; but such reasoning would rather tend to show it to be incomplete, than dangerously false. He objects also, that wrong definitions have been often given ; but does it follow that none are true ? is it because some men have defined light to be the act of a luminous body, that no definition of light can ever be given ? After having next examined the various divisions of logic, he devotes Existence of his third book to the consideration of physics, and begins with its the Deity * most important branch, the existence of the Deity premising, how- ever, that in practice he conformed to the established religion, and admitted the necessity of worshipping the gods. And it is fortunate for the happiness of mankind, that the arguments by which he en- deavours to contradict the voice of universal nature are as feeble as they are trite : they are derived from the impossibility of comprehend- ing his essence ; of forming any defined idea of his substance ; and from the diversity of opinions respecting his form and nature. And 1 Sext. c. Mathem.; Aristocl. ap. Euseb.; Diog. Laert. lib. ix. sec. 76. 282 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Puerile sophisms. Treatise: against the Mathema- ticians. if we know not his essence, says the Sceptic, we cannot know his attributes. As well might he argue, that because we are utterly ignorant of the essence of matter and of spirit, that we are therefore ignorant of their properties and their operations. It cannot but excite a smile to observe the ridiculous contradictions into which the habit of cavilling will lead even men of considerable penetration : it is impious, says Sextus, to believe in God, because it is impious to allow, as we must, in consequence of such a belief, allow, that he has either not the will, or not the power to remedy existing evils ; but what is the meaning of impiety ? is it not want of reverence towards the Deity, which is an assumption of his existence ? l If there be no Deity, there can be no impiety ; and if there be, it cannot be impiety to assert his existence. But these sophisms are plausible in comparison with many which occur in other parts of the work, and which were, surely, rather intended as playful means of tormenting the Dogmatists, than as serious objections. For instance, his arguments against a cause: a cause cannot be posterior to its effect, neither can it be anterior, for it would then be a cause before it produced an effect, that is, a cause without being a cause, since it is a cause only, inasmuch as it produces an effect : or, his arguments against motion : if a thing be moved, it is either moved in the place in which it is, or in that in which it is not ; but not in the place in which it is ; for if it be in it, it continues in it ; nor in the place in which it is not, for where a thing is not there it cannot act or be acted upon. After having urged a variety of cavils not very dissimilar from the egregious trifling which we have just noted (and which we should have passed over with the contempt it merits, were it not calculated to give a view of ancient Pyrrhonism), on our notions of augmentation, diminution, subtraction, addition, generation, corruption, place, time, and number, Sextus examines the grounds of the ethical part of philosophy, and attempts to annihilate the essential difference between right and wrong, by showing that there is nothing in itself good, bad, or indifferent. His arguments are nearly the same as those which modern writers have urged as disproving the existence of a moral sense, and are replete with a rich variety of facts, illustrative of the customs of antiquity, and of the sentiments of pagan philosophers. He concludes, by confessing that he has employed reasoning sometimes strong, and sometimes comparatively weak, in order to adapt himself to the capacities of mankind in his attempt to check the temerity, and to humble the arrogance of the Dogmatists. The treatise against the mathematicians, or professors of any kind of knowledge, is a work of greater extent, containing a copious collection of extracts, explanatory of the systems of the different schools in every branch of ancient literature and science. Objections are successively directed against the grammarians, rhetoricians, geometers, arithmeti- 1 See Crousaz, Examen du Pyrrhonisme. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE PYRRHONISTS. 283 'cians, astrologers, musicians, and writers on physical and on ethical subjects. The Pyrrhonic Institutes have been partially explained byM. Sorbiere in his Lettres et Discours,' and by Le Clerc in his * Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne (torn. xiv. p. i.), and have been translated into English by Stanley, in his ' History of Philosophy.' The whole body of ancient and modern Scepticism has been reviewed with considerable attention by M. Crousaz in his ' Examen du Pyrrhonisme ;' a work in which the fallacies of perverse ingenuity are refuted with that sound- ness of reasoning which results from long discipline in habits of rigid logic and accurate research. It is melancholy, however, to reflect, that a keen insinuation, conveyed in one smart sentence, produces an effect on the mind which a folio of elaborate discussion can with difficulty remove. The lively versatility of Bayle is strikingly contrasted by the cautious, and often prolix, and tedious method of his more exact, but less able, opponent. The paradoxes of Sextus are more easily detected and exposed ; but still the absence of that spirited attack, which, neglecting all subordinate errors, seizes at once on the most prominent, and strips them of their attractions with unrelenting severity, render his dissertation, not perhaps less intrinsically valuable, but less interesting and less popular. The first treatise of Sextus was Editions, &c. translated by Henry Stephens, and the second by Gentian Hervet : these translations contain some inaccuracies, arising chiefly from an inadequate acquaintance with the peculiarities of the Stoic dialectics. 1 The best edi- tion of the entire works of Sextus is undoubtedly the following : Sexti Empirici ' Opera. Graece et Latine.' * Pyrrhoniarum Institutionum/ lib. iii. cum Henrici Stephani versione et notis. ' Contra Mathemati- cos, sive disciplinarum Professores,' lib. vi. contra Philosophos, lib. v. cum versione Gentiani Herveti.' Graeca ex MSS. codicibus castigavit, versiones emendavit supplevitque, et toti operi notas addidit Io.' Albert. Fabricius, Lipsiensis, &c. Lipsiae, 1718, fol. Further information may be found in Morhoff, ' Poly hist.' torn. ii. 1. i. c. 6 ; and in Fabri- cii * Bibliotheca Grasca,' torn. v. p. 527, ed. Harles. 1 Menage, who passes the highest praise on the works of Sextus, seems to have been inclined to comply with the request of a learned friend, who urged him to write observations on them : it is to be regretted that he was prevented from exe- cuting a task for which his varied erudition rendered him eminently qualified. See his Obs. in Diog. Laert. lib. ix. sec. 116. PLOTINUS. THE ECLECTICS, OR LATER PLATONISTS. BY JAMES AMIRAUX JEKEMIE, D.D. KEGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE. THE ECLECTICS, OR LATER PLATONISTS. POTAMO - - FLOURISHED TOWARDS THE CLOSE OF THE SECOND CENTURY. AMMONIUS SACCAS _______ DIED POSTEA A. c. 243 DlONYSIUS LONGINUS --------- DIED A. C. 273 PORPHYRY ------- BORN A, c. 233, DIED A. c. 304 JAMBLICUS --------- DIED CIRCITER A. c. 363 HlEROCLES ------- FLOURISHED CIRCITER A. C. 485 PROCLUS - _--_-._- BORN A. c. 412, DIED A. c. 485 PLOTINUS. BORN A. C. 205, DIED A. C. 270. THE history of ancient philosophy may be divided into the age of invention and the age of illustration: the one gave birth to those earlier speculations, in which, amid all their incompleteness, the stamp of original genius is of too bold and brilliant a cast to be mistaken: the other was marked by general attempts to explain, to methodize, to expand, or to modify existing theories. In this latter period arose the singular system, or, more properly speaking, combination of systems, which forms the subject of the present rapid sketch. Dogmatism, as we have already remarked, had produced, by a Rise of reaction natural to the human mind, its opposite, Pyrrhonism. 1 But Ecle ' the state of universal doubt into which many of the philosophers, who flourished in the first ages of the Christian era, had been thrown, was too unnatural to be long held even in theory, much less to be practised in the conduct of life. A desire, therefore, was soon felt to reject the most objectionable, and to select the most excellent, doctrines of the various schools, which divided the philosophic world in general, and Alexandria, the seat of motley disputants of all countries and characters, in particular. This amalgamation of dogmas was calculated to pro- mote many objects. It associated the traditions of the East with the method of the Greeks ; and, as a consequence of this union, 2 the reli- gious enthusiasm with which the Oriental spirit was deeply imbued, infused itself into every part of the new philosophy. Hence it dis- guised by allegorical ingenuity the deformities of polytheism, and borrowed many of the peculiarities of the Christian ethics, which were gradually imparting a more elevated tone to the morals of the time. Hence, too, it was distinguished by the vehemence with which, breaking beyond the limited range of reason into the mystical contem- plation of abstract truths, it sought, in process of time, supernatural aid from the arts of theurgy. 3 In this manner arose the school com- 1 See above, SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. 2 Cousin, Cours de 1'Hist. de la Philosoph. torn. i. p. 317. 3 M. Degerando looks upon the school of the new Platonists as dividing itself into three branches : the school of Rome, that of Alexandria, that of Athens. In the first, the chiefs are Plotinus and Porphyry ; in the second, Jamblicus and Hierocles; in the third, Plutarch and Syrianus : it .is represented to us by Proclus, the only one well known to us. Ammonias Saccas is the common source. The School of Rome has this distinctive character, that it is essentially a philosophical eclecticism ; that it shows itself but little tinctured with Oriental traditions ; that it does not yet invoke the services of the ancient mythology. The School of Alex- 288 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Potamo. Ammonius Saccas. monly called Eclectic? and also, perhaps, with more propriety, by reason of its fundamental principles, Neo- Platonic. Though experience soon showed the difficulty of forming a consistent whole from materials often discordant ; and though it naturally followed, that the diversity of tastes and feelings which had occasioned an original difference of views and schemes, would operate to prevent an universal acquiescence in the propriety of subsequent rejection, or selection ; still this strange system, conversant with themes which exalt the mind beyond " this dim spot which men call earth," attractive, too, by its pantheistic r>ature no less than by its spiritual ecstacies and theurgic pretensions, exerted extraordinary influence on the course of philosophic opinions. Although the habit of uniting parts of different philosophical sys- tems may be traced to much earlier times, and is particularly ob- servable in the writings of Plutarch, Galen, and the learned of a later period, the first who instituted the Eclectic sect, at least the first who systematically introduced it into the Alexandrian school, is said to have been Potamo, who appears to have flourished at the close of the second century. 2 His works, one of which was a ' Commentary on the Timasus of Plato,' and another, a treatise entitled * Elementary Science,' are lost ; and the very meagre account of Diogenes Laertius is wholly insufficient to enable us to judge of his method of reasoning, 3 which probably was not attended with distinguished success, but it appears not from it that he made Platonism the basis of his new scheme. The first philosopher of importance who attempted a regular com- bination of the various elements of the different schools, especially the Platonic, was Ammonius, surnamed Saccas, who lived about the com- mencement of the third century. According to Porphyry, he passed from Christianity, in which he had been educated, to paganism: according to Eusebius he was converted from paganism to Christianity. The contradiction may perhaps be correctly solved by supposing that andria, on the contrary, plunges deeply into mystic theology : it is a syncretism of philosophical and religious opinions. The School of Athens, he thinks, holds a middle course, adopting faith as a sort of medium between direct revelation and reason, and preferring to reascend to the sources of Greek wisdom : Orpheus is its hero. Hist. Comp. des Syst. Phil. torn. iii. p. 477, note m. 1 Almost the only sect with which the Alexandrian school could not coalesce, was the Epicurean, which was fundamentally different from the Platonic. It shrank from the contact of a scheme of morals which would degrade and deaden the feelings it was its aim to infuse, as well as from a system in which man is but " the abandon'd orphan of blind chance Dropp'd by wild atoms in disorder'd dance." 2 Suidas places Potamo in the age of Augustus. But Diogenes Laertius, who wrote in the beginning of the third century, says that Potamo founded the Eclectic sect, irpl) 6\iyov, " a little before." Degerando thinks it probable that the Potamo mentioned by Porphyry is a different person. Hist. Comp. des Syst. Phil. torn. iii. p. 151. 3 See, however, Diderot, (Euvres, torn. ii. pt. i. p. 402. See also Glaechner, Dissert, de Potamon. Alexandrini Philosophia. Leips. 1745, in 4to. PLOTINUS. THE LATER PLATONISTS. 289 the latter alludes to another Ammonias, who wrote a Harmony of the Gospels. From a fragment of Hierocles, preserved by Photius, it appears that Ammonius Saccas, disgusted with the scandal brought upon philosophy by the acrimonious disputes which existed among the Platonists, Aristotelians, and others, and which had even led them to corrupt the writings of their great masters, attempted, by the rejec- tion of certain superfluous parts, to demonstrate that, in the main, the doctrines of Plato were in harmony with those of Aristotle. He had some eminent disciples, in which number are reckoned Herennius, Origen, Longinus, and Plotinus. Of Herennius, nothing is known. Origen is, probably, not the same Herennius. who acquired so distinguished a name in ecclesiastical history. Dionysius Longinus, 1 a native of Emesa, in Syria, is known to pos- Longinus. terity, not in consequence of his philosophical opinions, of which we have scarcely any extant memorials, but through his celebrated work 'On the Sublime;' which, occasionally fired with all the enthusiasm which the finished models of better days would naturally excite in a high and noble spirit, continues to charm and to instruct the great educated mass, while the barren speculations of his Platonic contem- porary who refused to concede to him the title of philosopher, 2 are confined to the closets of a few learned and meditative men. His private history, too, is of a nature which interests our common feelings in a high degree. After having studied under the most distinguished masters, and visited the most noted seats of literature, and acquired so extensive a fame by the profundity of his erudition, as to be called the Living Library, he fell a victim to the fury of the A. D. 273. Roman soldiery, at the downfal, and, perhaps, by the ingratitude, of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, whom he had assisted by his instructions and defended by his counsels. From the slight shreds still remaining of his philosophical works, it is gratifying to perceive that he rejected the sophistical hypotheses, which had transferred the properties of matter to the operations of spirit, and had resolved all mental pheno- mena into the effects of mere mechanical action. But, undoubtedly, in philosophical history, the most celebrated fol- Plotinus, lower of Ammonius was Plotinus, from whom, as having completed the Eclectic system, that school afterwards took its name. He was born at Lycopolis, in Egypt, 3 in the year 205. His family is not known, and the events of his early life are involved in obscurity. 1 Called Cassius Longinus in Phot. Lex. v. 2eps. 3 Eunap. in Plotin. Plotinus himself would not tell the place of his birth or his family. On the same principle contempt for his body he refused to have his picture painted. " As if, forsooth, it were not enough," he said to Amelius, " to carry the image in which Nature has enclosed us ; you think we should transmit to posterity, as a sight worthy of its attention, the image of an image !" And from the same cause, perhaps, he observed great abstemiousness, avoiding the flesh even of tame animals, and abstaining from baths. Porphyr. in Plotin. [G. K. P.] U 290 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. After having finished his grammatical studies at Alexandria, in his twenty-eighth year, he felt anxious to attend philosophical lectures, but the mixture of collateral knowledge on literary subjects, which entered into their composition, dissatisfied and saddened his mind, which yearned for pure metaphysical speculations. The method of Ammonius was far more congenial to his turn for mysticism ; and the instant he heard that philosopher, he declared that he was the man whom he sought, and he continued to receive his instructions eleven years. The praises which this preceptor had lavished on the transcendental wisdom of the Magi and Brahmins, filled him with an ardent desire of visiting the East ; and he availed himself of the opportunity of gratifying it which was presented by the expedition of Gordian against A.D. 243. the Persians. But, in consequence of the disastrous death of that emperor, he was forced to save himself by flight to Antioch, whence he proceeded to Rome. Here he observed for some time the secrecy which Ammonius had enjoined respecting the esoteric portion of his lessons ; but, on learning that it had been violated by his fellow-pupils, Herennius and Origen, he considered himself released from all scruples on the subject. His lectures, during ten years, were only orally delivered ; but afterwards he committed parts of his precepts to writing, and communicated them to persons whose judgment he respected. At length the accession of Porphyry to the number of his disciples, induced him to write some works, in order to explain with greater accuracy the difficulties which occasionally arose. During the six years that Porphory studied under him, he wrote four-and-twenty books ; before that disciple's arrival, he composed twenty-one ; and after his departure, nine. The different ages at which they were written have been, perhaps fancifully, marked bf the different style of these several parts before it reached, when it fully possessed, and after it had passed its mature strength. His mind was trained to the difficult task of going through the plan or composition of a whole work with so much accuracy, that his sentences, when delivered, required no alteration, and casual interruptions were not known to disturb the thread of his meditations. To the badness of his handwriting, the incorrectness of his orthography, and more especially the neglect of revision on his part, may, perhaps, be ascribed in some degree the con- fusion which is still complained of in his works, notwithstanding the corrections of Porphyry. Though the lectures of Plotinus were of too abstruse a nature to become very popular, they were attended by Romans of senatorian rank, and proved sufficiently powerful to induce some to resign their magisterial duties in order to indulge in a philosophic life. So deep was the respect which was entertained for his integrity, that numerous lawsuits were referred to his arbitration, and many persons on their deathbeds intrusted him with the guardianship of their children. The emperor Gallienus and the empress Salonina paid him marked regard ; and it is attributed to the opposition of malevolent courtiers, that he was unsuccessful in his plan to have a city in Campania rebuilt, to be PLOTINUS. THE LATER PLATONISTS. 291 peopled by philosophers, and governed by the laws of Plato's ideal His intended commonwealth. Various illnesses and infirmities, occasioned, perhaps, or^hTioso? 18 ' by his neglect of his health, filled with pain his latter days. When picai he felt his end drawing nigh, he said, in the language of his philosophy, co " I strive to return the divine principle within me to the Divine Being who animates the universe." He died in the year 270, in his sixty- sixth year. 1 Longinus acknowledged that he could not understand many of the subjects treated of by Plotinus, but that he loved beyond measure and venerated his manner of writing, the variety of his knowledge, and the philosophical arrangement of his questions. 2 His mind, naturally ardent and enthusiastic, appears to have been deeply tinged with fanaticism ; and his ecstatic contemplations, or pretended visions of the Supreme Being, bear a resemblance to the wild extravagances of modern mystics. To express the most profound contempt for the cor- poreal prison in which the soul, an emanation from the Divine nature, is confined, and to aspire by a high degree of mental elevation and illumination to an union with the God who fills the universe, seems not to have been entirely peculiar to the later Platonists. " In all ages," as Locke remarks, " men, in whom melancholy has mixed with devotion, or whose conceit of themselves has raised them into an opinion of a greater familiarity with God, and a nearer admittance to His favour than is afforded to others, have often flattered themselves with a persuasion of an immediate intercourse with the Deity, and frequent communications from the Divine Spirit." 3 The Plotinian school was propagated by many eminent men. Succession of Amelius (whose true .name was Gentilianus), a Tuscan, in the year sc 1 hooi? tmian 246, embraced the principles, and drew up in writing some of the in- Amelias, structions of Plotinus. One of the books which he wrote was to show the difference between the doctrine of Numenius and that of Plotinus, in answer to the accusation brought against the latter of having borrowed from the former. But the most distinguished of its members Porphyry, was Porphyry 4 (or in Syrian, Malchus), a Tyrian, born in the year 1 4>TJcras Tretpatrflat rb ev rj/juv Qslov avdyeiv irpbs rb ev T$ iravTi Qtiov. (Porphyr. Vit. Plotin.) The Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry, gives an account of his familiar spirit, and represents him as possessed of miraculous powers. See Bayle, Diet. Hist. 2 Ap. Porphyr. Vit. Plotin. The only Latin translation of Plotinus is that of Marsil. Ficinus. The first Greek and Latin edition is that of P. Perna, 1580. A complete critical edition of his works, which is much wanted, has been undertaken by the learned Fred. Creuzer, professor at Heidelburg, who has already published an edition of the book De Pulchro, with a revised translation, notes, and a com- mentary. 3 Essay on the Human Understanding, book iv. c. 19. 4 St. Jerome calls him Bataneotes. " Ce mot a fort tourmente les interpretes. S'agit-il de Be'ten ou Basan en Palestine, comme le suppose Baronius ? Faut-il voir dans Batane'ote une alteration de Bt0uj/iwT7js, Bithynien ; ou de Btoflavaros, sce'le'rat ; ou de BaA.avectJTTjs, curieux, affaire' ; ou de BoTcwajimjs, mangeur d'herbes, selon le regime de Pythagore, ou bien 1' equivalent de nouveau Battus, et u2 292 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 233, in the reign of Alexander Severus. His early education was first directed by a Christian preceptor, Origen, and afterwards in Athens by Longinus, to which latter philosopher we may, perhaps, in a great measure, ascribe the elegance of his style, the extent of his learning, 1 and his adoption of the opinions of Plotinus, of whom we find him a disciple in Rome, about his thirtieth year. His attainments recom- mended him to the especial favour of his master, whose tenets he defended and explained, and whose writings he revised and corrected. The morbid turn of mind, in which he indulged, may be inferred from the circumstance which he relates, that Plotinus deterred him from a resolution which he had taken, in his thirty-sixth year, of releasing himself from the burthen of life. After the death of Plotinus, Porphyry, who had passed from Rome to Sicily, appeared as one of the most determined and formidable enemies of Christianity, against which he wrote fifteen different treatises, of which, as they were destroyed by the Emperor Theodosius, we have extant only such fragments as remain in ecclesiastical writers. He was attacked with great zeal, particularly by Methodius, Apollinaris, and Eusebius. On his return to Rome, Porphyry publicly taught the tenets of his master, and pretended to have received Divine communications, with a confidence which is only to be ascribed to enthusiastical illusion, not unaccom- panied, perhaps, with imposture. He died about the year 304, towards the end of Dioclesian's reign.* d'expression de la battologie, de la prolixite reproche'e quelque-fois i Porphyre ? Ni cette derniere hypothese, proposee par Gundling, ni les pre'ce'dentes imagine'es par Sirmond, Holstenius, Tannegui Lefebvre, Heumann, &c., ne nous semblent assez plausibles ; et nous trouverions une explication plus immediate du terme employe par Saint Jerome, dans ce qui dit Etienne de Bysance, d'un bourg de Syrie, appele' Batanea, et peuple d'une colone'e Tyrienne ; il se pourroit que, ne en ce lieu, Por- phyre eut pris, pour se rehausser, ce nom de Tyrien, et que Saint Jerome 1'eut replace' dans son bourg natal. Biog. Univ. Art. Porphyre. 1 His learning was acknowledged. " Doctissimus philosophorum Porphyrius, quamvis Christianorum acerrimus inimicus." S. August, de Civ. Dei, xix. 22 ; Comp. Euseb. Praep. Evang. V. 14, &c. 2 The life of Porphyry was written by Eunapius, and, in modem times, by Lucas Holstenius, in his edition of Porphyry's Life of Pythagoras. Of the works of Por- phyry, many of which are lost, his treatise De AbstinentiS. ab Esu Animalium ; De Vita Pythagorae ; Sententise ad Intelligibilia ducentes ; De Antro Nympharum, with a fragment, De Styge, found in Stobaeus, were printed at Cambridge in 1655, 8vo, with a Latin version. The Life of Pythagoras, of which the beginning and end are wanting, was published under the name of Malchus, by Conrad Ritter- shusius, in 1610, by J. Donatus in 1629, and by Lucas Holstenius in 1630. It was afterwards published by Kuster, at Amsterdam, in 1707, and also by M. Theoph. Keissling, together with that written by Jamblicus. The treatise On Abstinence from the Flesh of Animals, is one of the best works of Porphyry : he endeavours to prove that animal food is to be avoided, at least by those who aspire to a perfect life, as soliciting too strongly the senses ; he treats of the origin and object of sacri- fices, to answer the objection drawn from the immolation of animals ; he maintains that animals are gifted with reason, and entitled to the same justice which is exer- cised by men one to another ; and, lastly, he collects authorities, drawn from the examples of persons and nations famed for wisdom, in favour of his reasoning, and concludes by an exhortation to purity. (See the Abbe Ricard, (Euvres Morales de PLOTINUS. THE LATER PLATONISTS. 293 The most distinguished disciple of Porphyry was Jamblicus, of jambiicus. Chalcis, in Ccelo-Syria. He taught 1 the Plotinian theories, if with less eloquence and learning, with even greater celebrity and success. Not content with the aim of his enthusiastic predecessor to elevate the mind to an ecstatic intuition of the Divinity, he laid claim to theurgic powers, pretending by certain forms and ceremonies to call down and command the assistance of supernatural beings. The fame of his miracles was so great, that he acquired the name of wonderful and divine teacher. His character seems to us more liable to the charge of studied imposture than of overheated fanaticism. But we are aware how unsafe it is to judge by the cold rules of ordinary life the conduct of such men as are born with intensely ardent imaginations, and with a sensibility more tremblingly alive to the varied impulses of nature, and, it may be, not untinged with hypochondriacal gloom. His writings, though they evince much reading and throw light on the Alexandrian school, are destitute of clearness, method, and originality. 8 Plutarque, torn. xiii. ; Schoell, Hist, de la Litterature Grecque, torn, v.) The best edition is that of J. de Rhoeur (Utrecht, 1767, in 4to). It has been joined in one volume to the edition of the work, On the Cave of the Nymphs, which had been published in 1765 by R. M. Van Goens. The Researches, or Questions respecting Homer ('O/xTj/Ji/ca rjT^uaTa), which belonged to a large work on the Iliad, were pub- lished by J. Lascaris, at Rome, in 1518 ; by And. d'Asola, in 1521 ; by J. Bedout, in 1539; and are to be found in the editions of Homer by J. Camerarius and Micyllns (Basle, 1541, 1543, and 1551), and J. Barnes (Cambridge, 1714). His work, On Prosody, was published by Villoison (Anecdota Graeca, vol. ii. p. 103). The piece Ilept rrjs e/c Koy'uav fyiKoffotyias, On Philosophy according to the Oracles, and his Letter to Marcella, his wife, were first published by M. Ang. Maius (Milan, 1816, in 8vo), and have been reprinted, with critical remarks, in the Gnomic Col- lection of J. C. Orelli, vol. i. See also some remarks on the Letter to Marcella, by Raoul-Rochette, in the Journal des Savans, Avril, 1817. For an account of his other extant works, and his treatise on the Categories of Aristotle, &c., see Fabricius, Hist. Graec. ; Schoell, De la Litt. Grecq. torn. v. ; and his Life by M. Daunou, in the Biog. Univ. torn. xxxv. 1 His first teacher had been Anatolius, who presided in a Peripatetic school at Alexandria. There is a fragment of Anatolius still extant, entitled, Of Sympathies and Antipathies, which was published with the version and notes of J. Rendtorf, by Fabricius, in the old edition of his Biblioth. Graec. torn. iv. p. 295. 2 There is no entire collection of the works of Jamblicus. His Life of Pytha- goras was edited by Theoph. Kiessling (Leips. 1813, 2 vols. 8vo). The piece Flepl Koivfjs /j.adr][ji.aTiKTJs eTrttTT^/iTjs, which contains fragments of the old Pythagorean philosophers, was first published by Villoisou, in his Anecdota Graeca, vol. ii. p. 188, and reprinted by J. G. Firis. (Copenhagen, 1790, in 4to.) His commentary, On Nicomachus's Institutes of Arithmetic, was published by Sam. Tennulius, in 1667 and 1668 (2 vols. 4to). The curious work, To eo\oyovfj.fva TY)S A/nfl/rjjTiKrJy, was printed at Paris, in 1543, 4to, by Christ. Wechel, and at Leipzig in 1817, 8vo, with notes, by Fr. Ast. The treatise on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, which is, under the name of Abammon Magister, ascribed to Jamblicus, was edited by Th. Gale, Oxford, 1678, fol. Christ. Meiners thinks it is not a work of Jamblicus. It was composed in order to solve the difficulties proposed by Porphyry in his Letter to the Egyptian Anebo. (" Judicium de libro qui de Mysteriis ./Egypt, inscribitur," in Comm. Soc. Scient. Getting, torn, iv.) His arguments are answered by Tenne- mann. Stobaeus has preserved a fragment of the work of Jamblicus On the Soul, and also several parts of his Letters. 294 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Under Con- Under Juhan. Eusebius of Myndus, ' c ' Euna ius Hierocies. School at Athens. Plutarch, son of Nestorius. Synanus. Though the time and place of the death of Jamblicus are not known, it probably preceded that of Constantine, and may have taken place about the year 363. The Neo-Platonic school, though widely spread, naturally suffered a considerable diminution of influence from the ascendency which Christianity had gained over the declining cause of paganism during the reign of Constantine and Constantius. But on the accession of Julian, himself an enthusiastic philosopher and patron of philosophers, an( j t j ie conse q uen t restoration of the ancient superstitions which it had attempted by various allegoircal refinements to preserve, it resumed its importance, and exercised with renewed lustre the magical powers to which it presumptuously laid claim. Though Eusebius of Myndus strove to restore only the Platonic intuitive contemplation of intel- ligibles, jEdesius of Cappadocia, and others, made numerous and suc- cessful experiments on the credulity of their followers. Maximus, Priscus, and Chrysanthius swell the list of philosophers, to whom the zealous Emperor extended his favour or his reverence. Eunapius of Sardis, in the reign of Theodosius, recorded in his ( Lives,' 1 still extant, the extravagances of a school, to which he was blindly devoted ; and, towards the close of the fifth century, Hierocles, 2 the advocate of Eclecticism, maintained in his treatise ' On Providence,' that the sentiments of Plato and Aristotle were reconcilable, and followed the same method in his * Commentaries on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras.' 3 Although Alexandria, where Pythagorico-Platonic notions found warm admirers, was the cradle of the Eclectic school, it was also established at Athens, in which ancient seat of learning the chair of philosophy was supported, at first, by imperial, and afterwards by private, liberality. There Plutarch, the son of Nestorius, and after him Syrianus, the author of a ' Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics,' an( ^ Q n fa e Rhetoric of Hermogenes,' 4 still remaining, propagated the Alexandrian system. 1 See the edition of his works by M. Boissonade, 1807. 2 This is not the Hierocles of Bithynia, who wrote a work against Christianity, which was refuted by Eusebius. 3 The first edition of the complete works of Hierocles was published in Greek and Latin, by John Pearson, London, 1654 and 1655, in 2 parts, small 8vo. The first contains the Golden Verses, the Commentary, and the work called Facetiae (A(TT?a) ; the second, the abridgment of the work On Providence, with the extract of Photius, and the fragments preserved by Stobaeus, together with the version of Curterius; and the notes of Sylburg, Lilius Gyraldus, and Merio Casaubon. The second edition is that of P. Needham, Cambridge, 1709, in 8vo. Rich. Warren published, at London, in 1742, a critical edition of the Commentaiy only. For further information, see Schoell, Hist, de la Litt. Grecq. torn. vii. p. 99. 4 The Greek text of the Commentary on Aristotle has not yet been published. Jerome Bagotini has published the Latin translation of the part which relates to books iii. xiii. and xiv., Venice, 1558, 4to. The Commentary on Hermogenes may be found in the Aldine edition of the Greek rhetoricians. PLOTINUS. THE LATER PLATONISTS. 295 Proclus, a favourite disciple of the latter philosopher, holds a con- Procius. spicuous place in the new school. He was born in the year 412 at Constantinople, though, as his parents had inhabited Xanthus in Lycia, where he received the first elements of his knowledge, he is often called a Lycian. After having studied at Alexandria, and having learned from Olympiodorus 1 to blend together the Aristotelian and Platonic doctrines, he visited Athens, where, by the successive instruc- tions of Plutarch, the son of Nestorius, and of Syrianus 2 he was in- troduced into the mysteries of their philosophy. So rapid was the progress which he made in these obscure pursuits, that at the age of twenty-eight he had composed, besides other pieces, his best work, a * Commentary 3 on the Timasus of Plato.' 4 The skill which he acquired in the theurgic art, as well as in the mysterious science of his school, pointed him out as worthy of filling the office of public professor. His lectures, full of dark mysticism, harmonized well with the taste of the age, and won him many followers. His very credulous, or very in- ventive, biographer and successor Marinus, 5 relates that he prepared himself by abstinence from animal food, by long fastings and repeated prayers, for immediate intercourse with the Divine Being, and that he possessed the power of expelling diseases, and of commanding the elements. Proclus died of the gout in the year 485. His works, 6 a strange mass of varied fanaticism, discover marks of a rich, but unchecked, fancy, and extensive, but misapplied, learning. Marinus chose as his successor Isidorus, who soon after removed to Marinus. Alexandria, and left the Platonic chair at Athens to Zenodotus. The Isido s - succession of the school at Athens ended with Damascius of Syria, who suffered from the persecution of the Emperor Justinian. His ' Lives of Isidorus and others,' and some fragments of his philosophy, still remain. 1 This is not the Olympiodorus who wrote commentaries on four dialogues of Plato, the First Alcibiades, the Phsedo, the Gorgias, and the Philebus. 2 The following modest epitaph is a testimony of the affection which Proclus felt for his master Syrianus : tos ojucu/S&j/ 7)5 Bptye 8e Mar. Vit. Prod. 36, p. 29, ed. Boisson. 3 As this Commentary does not extend to the whole of the Timseus, it may be, perhaps, incomplete. It contains the work of Timaeus the Locrian. 4 See an account of the life of Proclus, and an interesting notice of a manuscript containing some of his unpublished works by M. de Burigny, in Hist, de I'Acade'm. des Inscrip. torn. i. p. 139-153. 5 The work of Marinus was published by Fabricius (Hamburgh, 1700, 4to), and afterwards subjoined to the Biblioth. Latin. 1703, 8vo. The best edition is that of Boissonade. (Leips. 1814, in 8vo.) 6 For an account of the editions of the various works of Proclus, see Schoell, Lit. Grecq. torn. vii. M. V. Cousin has published some of his works, hitherto unedited. Some of the works of Proclus have been translated into English by Mr. Thomas Taylor, an enthusiastic Platonist. 296 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Hypatia. One of the Alexandrian philosophers was Hypatia, the celebrated daughter of the able mathematician Theon. Her acquirements, both in literature and in science, were so remarkable as to qualify her in an eminent degree to become a public preceptress in the Plotinian School. In this capacity she undertook to reconcile Plato and Aristotle with an eloquence which flowed from a highly-cultivated genius, and which was regulated by a sober judgment. While the gracefulness of her address and lustre of her personal attractions were unobscured by vanity, the purity of her character continued untainted by suspicion. Among the crowd who enjoyed her acquaintance, and admired her talents and virtues, was Orestes, the Praefect of Alexandria, who had opposed the measures and incurred the enmity of Cyril, who rilled the A.D. 415. patriarchal chair in that city. Orestes, insulted by a body of seditious monks, had put one of their leaders to death, and Cyril had buried him in the church, and caused his name to be registered among the martyrs. The partisans of the bishop extended their resentment to the unfortunate Hypatia. As she was one day returning home from the schools, an infuriated mob seized her, drew her from her chair, and dragged her to the church called Ca?sarea, where, after having stripped off her garments, they killed her, and, with monstrous bar- barity, consigned her mangled limbs to the flames. Cyril, violent and haughty, was reproached, perhaps not without foundation, as having connived in this atrocious murder. 1 Many learned men, though not professed philosophers, em- braced the new Platonic doctrines. Among the most noted was Macrobius. Macrobius, 2 who lived in the reign of Honorius and Theodosius II., and wrote, among other books, ' A Commentary on Scipio's Dream, as described by Cicero,' and ' Saturnalia,' or conversations between the most eminent men of Rome; a curious work, full of critical and antiquarian lore, but written without much spirit or accuracy. Themistius. Themistius may also be added, an orator, whose honest eloquence, which shines with a stronger glare on the darkened theatre of degene- rate literature, procured for him the successive favours of Constantius, Julian, Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius. 3 The historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, 4 also speaks with much 1 Her life was written by the Abbe' Goujet, in torn. v. of the Memoires de Littera- ture, by Desmolets. See also Enfield's Hist, of Phil. vol. ii. 2 The best edition of Macrobius is that of Leyden (1676, in 8vo), with the Vari- orum notes. There is also a good edition published in London (1694, in 8vo). 3 The best edition of Themistius is that of Harduin, fol. Paris, 1684. See par- ticularly the extracts from his Harangues or Panegyrics in Thomas, Essai sur les Eloges, c. xxi. 4 The style of Ammianus is harsh, inflated, and obscure. But it should be re- membered that it is the style, not only of a soldier, but of a Greek, who wrote in Latin, at a period when most historical works were destitute of elegance. He thus concludes his history : Haec ut miles quondam et Graecus, a principatu Caesaris Nervaa exorsus adusque Valentis interitum, pro virium explicavi mensura, opus veritatem professum nunquam (ut arbitror) sciens silentio ausus corrumpere vel mendacio. Scribant reliqua potiores estate, doctrinis florentes. Quos id (si libuerit) Ammianus Marcellinus. PLOTINUS. THE LATER PLATONISTS. 297 respect of the Platonic philosophers. A few passages, in which Ammianus mentions Christianity in favourable terms, 1 have been adduced to prove that he was himself a Christian. But it is surely one thing to approve of the morality, another to have embraced the doctrines, of a religion; it is one thing to contrast the intemperate conduct of certain Christians with the benevolent spirit of their pro- fessed principles, and another to have himself adopted those principles. A Jew not unfrequently appeals to Christian charity, yet it by no means follows that he is converted. The manner in which he ascribes sudden relief, in a moment of distress, to sacrifices offered in the temple of Castor, 2 is, perhaps, of itself sufficient to show that the author was a pagan. Some, who devoted their time chiefly to the illustration of the Aristotelian philosophy, may be, with more propriety, considered in the class of Peripatetic philosophers, such, for instance, were Olym- piodorus, the preceptor of Proclus, and Simplicius. Although the exalted conceptions of Plato had filled the minds of his character of later followers with high and fervent aspirations, they appeared to have despaired of attaining to the magic of his immitable style. The lan- guage of Plotinus, teeming with ideas, is yet confused, immethodical, and unadorned. It is a task, therefore, of considerable difficulty to develop arguments which are rather sketched than completed, and to present in a clear light the whole of a system, of which the parts are not only, separately considered, obscure, but, in their general relations, ill-connected. The labours of Porphyry, however, insufficient as we cannot but deem them, have doubtless prevented the confusion from being still greater than it is at present. At the request of Plotinus, whose theories his habits of intimacy The enabled him to ascertain, he distributed his works into ' Enneades,' to which he added some comments of his own. This work, one of the most curious of ancient monuments, is highly useful as an exposition, for such it is, rather than an elementary view, of the transcendental philosophy of his age. We shall endeavour to point out, though in a very concise manner, its most leading features. Each of the six ' Enneades' is composed of nine books. The first, aggressuros, procudere linguas ad majores moneo stylos. Of the thirty-one books, into which the History of Ammianus was divided, only the last eighteen, beginning after the death of Magnentius, in 353, are extant ; though full of digressions, they are highly valuable for the information they contain, and the candour they evince. There is a good edition of Ammianus, with the notes of F. Lindenbrogius, Hen. and Hadr. Valesius, Jas. Gronovius, Th. Reinesius, and J. Augustin. Wagner, by C. Gottlob. Aug. Erfurdt, in 3 vols. 8vo, Leips. The Dictionnaire Bibliographique remarks: II y a une traduction Fran9aise d'Ammien Marcellin dont j'ignore le nom de 1'auteur, elle est en 3 vols. in-12, d'abord imprime'e a Berlin, puis a Lyon en 1778 (torn. iv. p. 18). The author of the translation in question was M. de Moulines, who undertook it at the request of Frederick II. 1 Especially because he says of George, the bishop, " Professionis suae oblitus, quae nihil nisi justum suadet et lene, ad delatorum ausa feralia desciscebat" (lib. xxii.) 2 Lib. six. c. 10. 298 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. The Qrst principle. Absolute unity. The second principle. Supreme intelligence. The third principle. The soul. touching essentially on moral subjects, treats, among other points, of Man, of the Virtues, of Happiness, of Beauty, of the Chief Good, of the Origin of Evils, of the Emancipation of the Soul from the Body. The second, relating essentially to Physics, treats, besides other subjects, of the World, of Circular Motion, of the Action of the Stars, of the two kinds of Matter. The third treats of Destiny, of Providence, of each man's Demon, of Love, of Eternity and Time, and other general considerations on the Laws of the Universe. The fourth is on the Essence, the Nature, Lhe Faculties, and the Immortality of the Soul ; its descent into the body and its diversities. The fifth is on Intelligence on the three principal Substances, on Unity, on Ideas, &c. The sixth and last is a kind of recapitulation, treating on Being, Unity, Numbers, Ideas, Liberty, &c. The six Enneades are composed of three divisions : the 1st contains the first three Enneades ; the 2d, the fourth and fifth ; and the 3d, the sixth. 1 The Plotinian doctrine has been defined u the theory of absolute unity, perfect and primordial, and the graduated relations by which variety proceeds." The triads of Pythagoras and Plato, and the doctrines of the Christians, probably suggested the idea of three Principles. The First Principle is above all things. From it all things proceed ; without it nothing could be. It is One. It is simple. From it emanate motion and rest; but itself, having no place, has neither motion nor rest. It is infinite, not as matter is immense, but as being one, and as having nothing by which it can be limited. As there can be nothing better than that from which all things proceed, it is the best of all things. It is essentially good. It is the source and end of beauty. It is free, but its freedom, and its other attributes, must not be understood in the sense in which they are ascribed to other beings, but in a manner altogether inexplicable. From this First Principle proceeds mind, or intellect, its lively image. It proceeds from it without action and without will, without altering or modifying the First Principle, even as light proceeds from the sun. Intelligence is at once the object conceived ; the subject which conceives ; the act of conceiving : these three things are identical. It contemplates itself incessantly ; this contemplation is its essence. The third Principle, subordinate to the two others, is the universal soul, the principle of life, subsisting, as well as intellect, of which it is the image, in the Divine essence. It is supramundane. It is the source of the principle which is diffused through and animates the world. This procession is not operated in time; it is from all eternity. The three Principles, though forming a hierarchy in order and dignity, are contemporaneous. 2 1 The ninth book of the second Ennead is Against the Gnostics. The object of Plotinus is to refute the theory of the two principles and that of successive emana- tions. 2 Brucker thus describes the Plotinian Trinity. Plotinus, he says, taught, " Prin- TLOTINUS. THE LATEK PLATONISTS. 299 Matter is considered merely as the receptacle of forms, the basis of Matter, &c. qualities ; itself has neither figure, quality, magnitude, nor place, and must, therefore, be defined negatively. The intelligible world unchangeable and eternal alone embraces true essences, of which this visible world merely presents the appear- ance. The intelligible world, or plenitude of ideas, rales over and penetrates into all parts of the sensible world by the excellence and energy of its power. Among celestial natures are different orders, possessing different gradations of excellence, gods, demons, genii, heroes. The human soul, derived from the suprarnundane soul, is in this respect sister, as it were, to the soul of the world. Pre-existing before its union with the body, from which all its vices arise, it returns, after its separation, to the Divine source whence it emanated. Here below, the soul is not in the body, as in its place or receptacle, nor as a part of a whole, nor as form is united with matter, but it is present to the body as its animating principle. The human soul may unite itself with the Divine soul, and by this with the Divinity, whence it derives all its knowledge ; for the most pure and exalted source of knowledge is in the contemplation of Divine forms. 1 The soul perceives by cipium omnium non esse omnia, sed super omnia et potestatem omnium, nempe super-ens ; illud intellectual! s vitae causam esse, et infinitum modo singulari optimum sibi sufficientissimum, pulcherrimum, liberrimum, unum, ipsam essentiam ; nee hoc in alia principia deducendum, sed hoc proposito intellectum deinde, quodve primo intelJigit, mox animam post eum collocanda, et ita tria tantum in divinis principia ponenda esse. Hujus trinitatis centrum esse lucidissimum, lucem ex se scaturiens, atque divino modo generans ; hinc maximum post illud, mentem esse, a Deo geni- tam, illi vero cohaarentem, quse sit imago Dei, ut lux solis ; intellectum hunc gene- rare animam. Intellectum istum multa (nempe objective) in se habere, et hinc esse multum et unum ; ejus actionem esse intelligentiam, ipsum suo modo multiplicem esse, et compositum, nempe complecti res revera existentes, id est, intelligibilia et ideas pro conditione rationum seminalium in mundo : ideas autem istas ab intellectu non differre, sed actum tantum accedere, ut multa fiant in entibus. Mentem divinam per ideas in materiam agere intrinsece, non tamen eas esse, ut rerum irra- tionalium, sed praestantiori gradu. In ccelo incorporeo esse Deos duplices intelli- gibiles et intellectuals ; illos ideas esse, hos intellectus omnes aeterna idearum contemplatione beatos. Animam mundi non mundanam tantum esse, sed et supra- muudanam. Veneremque duplicem, terrestrem et ccelestem. Hanc supramundanam esse essentiam ex essentist emanantem et existentem simul at minorem generante : ab eo generari animas reliquas, licet unum totum sit ubique. Nunquam fuisse tempus, quo universum non animatum fuerit ; neque materiam unquam informem potuisse existere. Nisi enim corpus sit, animam non fuisse progressuram ex lumine, earn cum umbram inveniret in extremis mundum fecisse, tanquam aedificium speciosum, non separatum ab effectore, at nee illi tamen commixtum. Quicquid attingat ani- mam, sic inde perfici, prout essentia animae naturaliter se habeat ; ornatum vero esse ex animae potestate ; eum in rebus inanimatis non consopitam jacere, sed tendere in aliud ; earn rotare omnia & summis ad una per circulum. Haec de principiorum trinitate Plotinus tradidit, quae cum Christianorum trinitate confundenda haud sunt." (Inst. Hist. Phil. p. 335.) 1 In this system the human mind may also act, and receive knowledge in two ordinary ways ; one by participating in intelligence, the other by forms : in the first, being in a manner filled and illuminated by intelligence, it feels and sees it 300 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. means of the First Principle, even as the eye by means of light. The vision, or intuition of God, the great point of perfection and felicity, by which the mind, a link in the chain of intelligence, ascends, by the various steps of purification, to the great source of life and being, was the high object of the Plotinian school. Porphyry relates that Plotinus had four times during his life enjoyed an intimate commu- nication with the Divine Being, and that he himself had attained that favour once. 1 The liberation of the soul from its corporeal prison, was the end of the new Platonic morals, to attain which it was to pass through several degrees of human and divine virtues. 2 The human virtues are physical, economical, and political ; they relate to the care of the body and the duties of private and public life. The Divine virtues are purgative, requiring abstinence and mortification ; theoretic, comprising the intel- lectual exercise of contemplating intelligible natures; and theurgic, lead- immediately ; in the other, it uses certain laws or characters engraven in us, for God has imprinted in the human mind the rational forms of things. But true knowledge is that in which the thing known is identical with the subject knowing : such is that which the understanding has of itself. (Enn. iv. lib. viii. c. 4 ; Enn. v. lib. iii. c. 4 ; Enn. iii. lib. viii. ; Enn. vi. lib. i. c. 4.) The faculties of the soul are of two sorts ; one, directing themselves above themselves, constitute reason ; the others, descending to the lower regions, form sensibility and vegetation. Eeason is, as it were, intermediate between the understanding and the senses, it acts not by means of corporeal organs, but by the sole force of intelligence. (Enn. v. lib. iii. c. 2 ; Enn. ii. lib. i. c. 7.) The understanding is never passive, it receives not forms from without ; it is not even passive in sensation, as some philosophers suppose. In sensation, it is not modified by an impression reaching it; on the contrary, it acts and carries itself without. Light comes not from the object lighted, but from the luminous subject. (Enn. iii. lib. i. c. 10; lib, ii. c. 1; Enn. v. lib. v. c. 6.) In vision, the mind places, but at a distance, the object perceived, and attributes to it a size very different from that of which it has the image. (See Enn. iv. lib. vi. c. 1, 2, &c.) Memory consists, not in the preservation or trace of received impressions, but, on the contrary, in a development of the energy of the soul, powerful in proportion as this energy is intense. (See Enn. iv. lib. iv. c. 3, &c.) Degerando, Hist, des Syst. Philos. torn. iii. c. 21. 1 There are three ways of elevating oneself to the First Principle. Harmony, love, wisdom ; these are expressed by Plotinus when he distinguished three states, called the Musician, the Lover (Epom/cbs), and the Philosopher. The first is still placed in the midst of lower objects, but the admiration which is raised within him by the image of beauty reflected on them prepares his soul for truth : the second resides in a more exalted sphere; he is engaged in the love of immaterial things : the third soars, as if borne on wings, to the sphere sublime, to the contemplation of intel- ligibles in their very source. Plotinus recommends, therefore, his followers to prepare themselves by purifications, by prayers, by exercises, which adorn the mind, to ascend to the intellectual world, to nourish themselves with the celestial food which it contains ; to raise themselves to that height where the spectacle becomes identical with the spectator ; where the mind not merely sees itself in itself, but everything else ; where essence is one with intelligence ; where, confounded in a manner with the universality of beings, it embraces it not as being external, but as belonging to it. Enn. vi. lib. vii. c. 36 ; Degerando, Hist. Comp. des Syst. Phil, torn. iii. p. 382. 2 See the learned dissertation of Fabricius, De Gradibus Virtutum, secundum quas Proclum laudat Marinus, in his Prolegomena to the Life of Proclus by Marinus. PLOTINUS. THE LATER PLATONISTS, 301 ing by immediate communications with superior beings, to obtain power over demons, and to attain to the enjoyment of the Divine vision. It is evident that there is the greatest similarity between the Comparison mysticism of the Plotinian school and that of the Quietists in later j5SSan he times, who regarded an intense and undisturbed contemplation of the school and divine perfections as a means of obtaining an intimate union with the the Quie Deity. Indeed, it would be no uninteresting speculation to compare the Plotinian reveries with those of the Hesychasts and of the Illuminati, as well as with those of Molinos, Malaval, Mad. Guyon, and Fenelon names which show (and it is the best lesson of charity) how often mistaken, and even dangerous, opinions may find admission into minds, to which it would be unjust to deny the praise of amiable and benevo- lent and pious feelings. It is to be remarked that Plotinus not merely extended, but even Difference departed from, the doctrines of Plato. For instance, according to Jj^J $* Plato, matter is coeternal with the Divinity, to whom he alone Plato and attributes those ideas, of which it imposes the forms on matter ; Plotmus - according to Plotinus, all that is real is in the Divinity, emanates from it ; matter is only a vain appearance, a mere negation. According to Plato, the object of man is to draw near to God, to endeavour to resemble Him ; according to Plotinus, man may unite, and, as it were, identify himself with God. According to Plato, ideas are only present to the Supreme Intelligence j 1 according to Plotmus, they are substances identified with that intelligence. 2 , 1 This Platonic doctrine has been described with exquisite beauty by one of our own poets, whose genuis, "warm from the schools" of Athens, and truly "en- chanted with Socratic sounds," was peculiarly adapted to lend attractions no less to the philosophical than to the political sentiments of ancient Greece : Ere the radiant sun Sprang from the East, or 'mid the vault of night The moon suspended her serener lamp : Ere mountains, woods, or streams, adorn'd the globe, Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore Then lived the Almighty One, then, deep retired, In his unfathomed essence, view'd the forms, The forms eternal of created things ; The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp, The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe, And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd, His admii-ation, till, in time complete, What he admir'd and lov'd, his vital smile Unfolded into being. Hence the breath Of life, informing each organic frame ; Hence the green earth, and wild-resounding waves ; Hence light and shade, alternate warmth and cold, And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers, And all the fair variety of things. Akenside Pleasures of Imagination, book i. It would be curious to compare the above systems with that of Malebranche. 2 Degerando, Hist. Comp. des Syst. Phil. torn. ii. c. 21. The following may 302 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Manner in It is scarcely necessary to point out the consummate art with which Eclectic? 16 *ke Eclectic philosophy was adapted to thwart and perplex the progress philosophy of revealed religion. By the help of allegory, of all devices the most latedto 011 " accommodatingly flexible, it endeavoured to detect and trace the impede features of hidden wisdom in those monstrous fictions of paganism, im y> which afforded so much scope to the sarcastic severity of the early advocates of Christianity. By adopting, too, the oriental theory of a scale of Divine emanations, and by representing those inferior spirits as mediators between the Supreme Deity and mankind, it justified and enjoined polytheistic worship. Moreover, by attempting to mould into accordance the chief tenets of various schools, it undertook to remove the objection to which philosophy was repeatedly exposed by the dis- putes of its most eminent professors on momentous questions. 'Again, by the elevated tone of morality and mysticism which it assumed, a strong effort was made to remove the stigma of inconsistency which rested on the character of a philosopher. And while many of the peculiarities of the new religion were adroitly introduced, in the dis- guise of expanded and embellished Platonism, every art of falsehood was taxed to maintain the pretensions of ineffable communications with, and miraculous control over, the powers of the invisible world. 1 In brief, for our limits forbid us from entering into the obscurity of of the Neo-Platonic subtilties, the doctrines of Plotirms may be thus recapitulated. He considers the metaphysical generation of ideas as the type of the generation of beings, or rather he represents both generations as identical, for he admits no beings but spirits? Spirit in its turn is identical with its own ideas, it has no object out of itself; the intuition, immediate or reflex, is also the source of all knowledge, and as particular notions are, according to metaphysical order, com- prised in the most general notion, the First Principle comprises all serve as an instance of their manner of combining, or rather confounding, the opinions of different sects. After having explained the Plotinian cosmology, Brucker adds, " Luculenter ex hoc Plotinianse physologise systemate constare potest, quo pacto setemitatem mundi Aristotelicam cum Platouis opinione, mundum a Deo factum esse, Plotinus conciliaverit. Intelligi autem ex eo quoque potest, quomodo Plotiniana secta eandem de rerum origine hypothesin Christianorum decretis, omnia ex nihilo esse producta, assimilaveilt. Nam idem quoque dicere ausi sunt, sed sig- nificatione diversa : nempe Deum omnia, ipsamque materiam non preexistentem et sibi subjectam habuisse, sed ex suo sinu libero voluntatis suae actu, adeoque ex nullo preexistente subjecto eduxisse. Quod exemplum esse potest, quam turpiter horum hominum syncretismus decreta philosophorum, et ipsam veritatem coalestem corruperit." Instit. Hist. Phil. p. 282. 1 See Brucker, Instit. Hist. Phil. p. 275. 2 Tiedemann, in his work on the Spirit of Speculative Philosophy, regards the Plotinian system as gross Spinosism, because Plotinus considers all existing things as parts of the Divinity, and the Divinity itself as the first matter, which, by diverse transformations, reproduces itself under forms infinitely varied ; and as subtle Spi- nosism, because he makes the Divinity the original subject of all the varied appear- ances which present themselves on the theatre of experience, and wishes to deduce all things from the sole notions of the understanding. PLOTINUS. THE LATER PLATONISTS. 303 realities ; the first intelligence is at the same time the universal intelli- gence, and it contains necessarily all other intelligences. 1 " Even the errors of great men are fruitful of truths ;" arid this one practical advantage at least may be derived from a survey, however brief, of philosophical errors that, in enabling us to trace, it teaches us to avoid, the source from which they have arisen, and the mazes through which they run. The history of the Plotinian school of men who rendered profitless the high mental endowments they had received from nature, by substituting " ungrounded fancies" and mystical aspirations for those sober inquiries which lie within the reach of the human intellect affords, we think, a useful exemplification of that species of error, which the great Bacon has placed among the " peccant humours" by which learning has been corrupted. It has proceeded " from too great a reverence and a kind of adoration of the mind and under- standing of man, by means whereof men have withdrawn themselves from the contemplation of nature, and the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits. Upon these intellectualists, which are, notwithstanding commonly taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just censure, saying, * men sought truth in their own little w r orlds, and not in the great and common world ;' for they disdain to spell, and so by degrees to read in the volume of God's works ; and contrariwise, by continual meditation and agitation of wit, do urge and, as it were, invocate their own spirits to divine and give oracles unto them, where- by they are deservedly deluded." 1 Such is a faint and naturally very imperfect outline of the peculiar philosophy, 2 which, generally spread, exerted mighty influence from the third to the seventh century ; which, after having reappeared in the middle ages, shone with great lustre in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; 3 and which, notwithstanding its wildness and extravagance, 1 Degerando, Hist. Comp. des Syst. Phil. torn. ii. c. 21. 2 Of the Advancement of Learning, lib. i. c. 5. 3 Our object having been merely to present a clear outline of the most prominent features of the Eclectic school, together with a succinct view of its most noted pro- pagators, we have been obliged to avoid entering into a detail of its metaphysical and theological principles, or into notices of the long train of eminent men who have successively adopted and extended Platonic notions. Among the authors of a marked Platonic cast, who adorn the annals of English Literature, it is sufficient to mention the celebrated names of Theophilus Gale, of Henry More, and, above all, of R. Cudworth. 4 Degerando, Hist. Comp. des Syst. Phil. Besides this able work, by which, together with the learned Brucker's Hist. Critic. Phil. torn. ii. and Enfield's Hist, of Phil, we have been chiefly guided, the reader will find additional information in the writings of Mather, Tiedemann, Tennemann, Buhle, and V. Cousin. See also Cudworth's Intellectual System, with Mosheim's valuable notes to his Latin trans- lation ; Mosheim de turbata per recentiores Platonicos Ecclesia ; Fabric. Biblioth. Grasc. torn. ix. Ed. Harles; Creuzer's Letter to Wyttenbach, prefixed to his edition of the fragment of Plotinus, De Pulchro ; to which may be added the following works, noticed by Degerando (torn. iii. note p, p. 478), Beausobre, Hist, de 304 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. still perhaps may be destined to rise into new importance by the united efforts of learning in Germany and enthusiasm in France. 1'Eclectisme; Obarius, Dissert, de Eclecticis, prefixed to the German translation of Stanley ; (Erich's Commert. de Doctrina Platon, &c. ; Koth. Dissert. Trinit. Pla- tonic. ; Leder Muller, Dissert, de Theurgia 1 , &c.; Dicell. Majer, Series veterum in Schol. Alexandr. Doctor.; Rosier, De Commentitiis Phil. Ammonianse fraudib. et noxis; Feussling, De tribus Hypostasibus Plotini; Habenftreet, Dissert, de Jamblic. Phil. Syr. Doctrin. ; Hilscher, De Schola 1 Alexandrin. ; a Letter by M. de Ste. Croix, in a new edition of the Eclectics ; a Dissertation by the son of Fichte, De Philosophise novae Platonic, origine ; Neander, Uber den Kaiser Julian and sein Zeitalter, &c. ARCHIMEDES. GREEK MATHEMATICS. BY WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., F.R.S., MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. [G. R. p.] GREEK MATHEMATICIANS. THALES ----- ANAXIMANDER ----- PYTHAGORAS - EMPEDOCLES - ANAXAGORAS - ARCHYTAS ----- DEMOCRITUS - ZENODORUS ---- HIPPOCRATES - - - - ANTIPHON AND BRYSON - METON AND EUCTEMON - - PLATO _____ MENECHMUS ---- DlNOSTRATUS ---- EUDOXUS ----- ARISTOTLE - AUTOLYCUS - EUCLID ----- ARISTILLUS AND TIMOCHARIS - ARISTARCHUS - - - - ARATUS _____ ARCHIMEDES - - - - CONON _____ ERATOSTHENES - - - - APOLLONIUS ---- CTESIBIUS ____ HERO ----- _ DIED B.C. 546 - B. C. 547, AGED 72 B. C. 507, AGED 98 B. C. 413, AGED 60 B. C. 428, AGED 72 B.C. 360 B. C. 361, AGED 109 FLOURISHED B.C. 438 - DIED B. C. 348, AGED 81 - DIED B. C. 322, AGED 63 FLOURISHED B. C. 330 - - - B.C. 320 - B.C. 280 - - - B.C. 281 - DIED B.C. 212, AGED 75 FLOURISHED B. C. 240 - DIED B. C. 194, AGED 82 FLOURISHED B.C. 215 - - - B.C. 150 - - - B.C. 140 GREEK MATHEMATICS. AT the time when the state of eloquence and the arts among the Greek Greeks showed most strongly the extraordinary powers of their geometry, minds, they were employed in forming and advancing the singularly beautiful and intellectual structure of the GREEK GEOMETRY. This science, associated in its birth with their earliest philosophy, generally continued combined with their favourite speculations ; and in its pro- gress was more rapid, or at least more certain, than any of them. In the school of PLATO it had already engaged in the most intricate and difficult researches; and when transferred to the college of Alexandria, it produced those profound investigations, on which the first intellects of later times have been content to employ themselves without hoping to add to its discoveries. Among the names which the history of this subject offers, that of ARCHIMEDES has been, by the suffrage of all judges, considered as standing highest; and possessing the same pre-eminence in the ancient world with that of Newton in modern times. It will, there- fore, be natural to combine with what can be collected of his biography, some account of the history, about that time, of the sciences which he cultivated. This sketch of what was then known, may be considered as the only view which we can give of that which is generally the most interesting part in the life of a mathematician, his education : for it is clear that Archimedes was familiar with all that had been done in mathematics up to his time. Without such knowledge, few have been fortunate enough to extend, as he did, the limits of their province in the world of science. THALES of Miletus, the first of the Greeks who is mentioned as Thaies. having turned his attention to geometry, is to be looked on as the B< c - 60 - father of their mathematical science, as indeed he appears to have been of the rest of their philosophy. The discoveries attributed to him are of the most elementary kind; but enough was done to give an impulse to the subject; and his followers in the Ionic school imitated him also in these researches. ANAXIMANDER is said to have Anaximan. written an * Introduction to Geometry.' PYTHAGORAS was a scholar of J er t ' h orag Thaies ; and did much for the progress of mathematics, besides the B. c. 540'. discovery of his celebrated theorem, for which he is said, it must be acknowledged with little probability, to have sacrificed a hetacomb. The theories of which he was the author, and the reception which they met with, show the strong tendency of the Greeks to such inquiries. In his hands and those of his successors, music became a x2 308 GREEK SCIENCE. mathematical subject ; the properties of numbers were pursued with an inquisitiveness which led to a curious spirit of mysticism ; and the doctrine of the sphere was applied to the explanation of astronomical phenomena. Under these circumstances geometry and its related sciences soon became of considerable extent. We have the titles of several treatises Democritus. upon a variety of its branches by DEMOCRITUS and others of the times before Pericles; and at the period of the Peloponnesian war, geometers had not only travelled over most elementary problems, but had, in some instances, struck against those limits which they have been ever since vainly struggling to pass. According to Anaxagoras. Plutarch, ANAXAGORAS, the friend of Pericles, employed himself B.C. 530. i . '. . .' . , , /> 7 7 Squaring the m ms P nson m investigations on the quadrature of the circle; and circle. steps of the same problem were also attempted by Antiphon and Bryson, whose reasonings Aristotle calls paralogisms, though it would Hippocrates, seem undeservedly with respect to the former. HIPPOCRATES, who was originally a merchant of Chio, and became a geometer at Athens, whither he had gone in consequence of pecuniary misfortunes, entered upon a train of research, which at first seemed to promise success, in measuring the circle. He went so far as to find the area of a space Limes. comprehended between two circular areas, and called a lune, from its resemblance to the horned moon ; but it was found impossible to extend this to a whole circle. Another problem, now also known to be impracticable by plane geometry, namely, the discovery of two mean proportionals, excited much interest about this time. It is Doubling the identical with the problem of doubling the cube, said to have been cube. proposed by the oracle at Delos ; though this story is probably only one of those fictions in which mathematicians used often to present their questions. However that may be, it is certain that we have several solutions of this problem, purporting to be of the time of Plato, given by Eutocius in his commentary on Archimedes. Archytas. ARCHYTAS, a Pythagorean, the master of Plato, solved it by a some- what complicated construction, in which a conical and cylindrical Menechmus. surface are made to intersect. MENECHMUS, a scholar of Plato, obtained the result by the intersection of two conic sections. Eudox US; EUDOXUS, another of Plato's scholars, is said to have applied to it B. c. 370. curve ij nes invented by himself. Plato himself devised a kind of parallel ruler, by means of which it might easily be mechanically executed. Indeed, the Greek geometry seems sometimes to have had a rather curious tendency to solve its problems by mechanical con- trivances: of which practice, according to Plutarch, in his account of Archimedes, Plato strongly disapproved ; notwithstanding the instance we have just given of his adoption of it. 1 1 Plutarch, in. Marcello. Plutarch obviously confounds, as it was easy for a writer to do who was not a mathematician, the solution of problems by mechanical contrivances (opydvtKi)'), with the application of mathematics to problems concerning MATHEMATICS. 309 The admiration of Plato for geometry is well known, from the in- Plato, scription which he is said to have placed over the door of the place B * c ' 40 * where he taught : " Let no one enter who is without geometry." The acquisitions which are attributed to him and his school show how rapidly the science advanced ; for the discoveries which we have now to notice are no longer particular propositions, but general methods, and long trains of investigation. We shall consider them in order. It appears by what has been just said of Menechmus, that the Conies. conic sections had already been discovered. They are sometimes ascribed to Plato himself, and many of their properties were known soon after his time. Plato is said to have invented the geometrical analysis ; the method Analysis. by which, assuming a problematical result to be true, we reason back- ward to the other propositions which its truth presupposes, till we arrive at something which is known to be true or to be false ; and thus establish or overturn the proposition assumed. Another invention of this illustrious mathematical school was the Loci, doctrine of geometrical loci. By this proceeding, when a required point cannot be found by the intersections of straight lines and circles, some new curve is constructed, consisting of the places which the point might assume by leaving out one of the conditions ; and in this curve the remaining condition enables us to determine the point de- manded. The quadratrix (rrpaywWov Ptolemy Philadelphus, under whom Alexandria, then the principal seat of science, contained several of the mathematicians whom we have already mentioned. To this school he travelled, but at what precise time does not appear. He was probably too late to be a personal scholar of Euclid ; but, among the other mathematicians with whom he became acquainted, he frequently in his works mentions CONON, with particular expressions of attachment. Conon is known to have resided in Egypt, under Ptolemy Euergetes, in honour of whose queen he formed the constellation of Berenice's Hair. It is said to have been for the purpose of raising water out of the canals of Egypt that Archimedes invented the machine, which yet has the name of his screw ; and the Arabian historian attributes to him the mounds and bridges, which are rendered necessary by the inundations of the Nile. The greater part of his life, however, appears to have been spent at Syracuse ; and his mathematical researches are given in " his beloved Doric dialect," as one of his ancient commentators calls it ; the form of Greek which was spoken in Sicily, and with which the pastoral poets have made us associate something of picturesque simplicity. It was there that he pursued his investigations, and carried forwards the mathematical knowledge of his time by those wide advances, which we shall shortly mention. It would appear that then, as in later times, mathematicians used to announce their discoveries in part, in such a manner as to challenge the ingenuity of their contemporaries by what they kept concealed. Archimedes had sent to Conon a long list of propositions on various subjects, of which he required the demonstrations; and, it would appear, that he employed the artifice of stating some false theorems along with the true ones: "In order," he says, " that if any assert themselves to have discovered the whole, and produce no demon- strations, they may be convicted, as pretending to have done what is impossible." These discoveries refer to the area of the parabola, the surface and solidity of the sphere and cylinder, the properties of spheroids, and of that spiral, which is called indifferently the spiral of Conon or of Archimedes. Conon, however, died before he had obtained the demonstration of these propositions, to the great grief of Archimedes. " If he had lived," he says, " he would have found out these, and invented more, and would have done much for the advance- 316 GREEK SCIENCE. ment of geometry ; for I well know his uncommon talents, and his indefatigable industry in these studies." When Conon was dead, years elapsed without any one attempting the proposed theorems. The demonstrations were sent by Archimedes himself, at different times, to Dositheus, an Athenian, whom he knew, as he tells him, to be both a friend of Conon and a lover of mathematics ; and who, after receiving a part, had pressed him much for the remaining portions. These successive epistles form his treatises * On the Quadrature of the Parabola,' 4 On the Sphere and Cylinder,' ' On Helices or Spirals,' and ' On Spheroids and Conoids.' Quadrature The 'Treatise on the Quadrature of the Parabola,' was the first of parabola. j ns t ance j n w hich a geometer had been able to determine the exact space bounded by a curve line ; for though several before him had pretended to assign the area of the circle and of portions of it, their assumptions, as Archimedes asserts, were inadmissible : and their conclusions must have been false, since the problem, as we have already observed, is not soluble. The method which he employs is most remarkable for its ingenuity and novelty. He divides the para- bola into an endless series of decreasing terms ; and we may observe in his process the tendency to that passage from finite to infinite, by resolving a curve into its smallest portions, which, after assuming various forms in the hands of Barrow, Cavallerius, Newton, &c., produced at last the differential and integral calculus. And though by means of these modern methods, a mere scholar in mathematics may now obtain the answers to such questions as that of which we are speaking, we cannot but regret, in the facilities of our technical rules, the elegance and evidence of the ancient geometry. Difficult as the problem appears in the way in which Archimedes has treated it, his only axiom is, that of two unequal spaces, the excess of the greater above the less, may be multiplied so as to exceed any given space; and from this he proves, by the strictest reasoning, that a parabola can be neither greater nor less than two-thirds of the paral- lelogram described about it. The speculations respecting the sphere and cylinder are those with which the author appears to have been most delighted, for he wished to have his grave marked by these solids, as some more recent mathe- maticians have had their discoveries engraved on their tomb-stones. Indeed, all who have the perception of geometrical beauty, must be struck both with his results and his methods. As he had been the first to find the area of a plane curve, he here finds the. surface of a curvilinear solid ; and determines the sphere to be two-thirds, both in content and in surface, of the cylinder which circumscribes it; with many other remarkable properties of these solids compared with each other and with the cone. The subject of spiral lines, was also, so far as we know, altogether new. In the one which he has examined he has discovered many remarkable properties with respect to its area, tangent, &c. Sphere and cylinder. Spirals. MATHEMATICS. 317 The conoids and spheroids are solids described by the revolution of conoids and a conic section about its axis. These he considers, as also the sections s P heroids - which are made in them by planes, the solid content of the parabolic conoid, &c. This subject appears to have given him more trouble than the rest, for he informs his correspondent that he long kept back the proofs of his theorems on it, because he found some difficulty and j doubt; "at least," he says, "going over them more carefully, I | satisfied my scruples." Besides these works which are addressed to Dositheus, we have his measurement of the circle ; in which he determines the circumference to be between 3 and 3f times its diameter. The method which he uses might easily be extended to greater accuracy by the assistance of a proper system of arithmetic. The Greek arithmetic is the subject of his ' Psammites, or Number- Numbering ing of the Sand,' of which he thus explains the purpose to Gelo, the the sand< son of his king Hiero, and associated with him in the throne : " There are persons, king Gelo, who think that the grains of the sand are infi- finite in number ; I mean not merely the sands about Syracuse and the rest of Sicily, but those of the whole earth, inhabited and uninha- bited. Others think that they are not infinite, but that no number can be expressed which shall exceed this multitude. Now, I shall attempt to show by geometrical proofs, which you will be able to follow, that among the numbers which I have expressed and pub- lished in my books to Zeuxippus, there are some which exceed, not only the multitude of the sands which would fill the earth, but of those which would fill the universe. You understand that by the universe is meant, by most astronomers, the sphere of which the centre is the earth, and the radius the distance of the sun from the earth." He then proceeds to some reasonings to establish that this distance is less than 10,000 of the earth's radii ; l and to show that if we conceive a globe of this magnitude to be formed of grains of sand, the fortieth of an inch in diameter, their number may be reckoned. With our present mode of notation, there is no difficulty in increasing numbers to any magnitude whatever. But the Greek system, less perfect than the Arabic, though much superior to the numeration of other countries, required some contrivance to carry it to the requisite extent. The Greek geometer answered this purpose by dividing the figures into periods, the unit in each period being a myriad myriad, or ten million times the unit in the preceding. The Greeks could thus go on with their numbers as far as they might choose, though still their method i did not afford them the same facilities which we derive from ours, in | arithmetical operations. Of the astronomical labours of Archimedes, none have reached our Astronomy. 1 It is, in fact, about 24,000 of the earth's radii ; but this difference does not 1 effect the reasonings of Archimedes. He founded his calculations on the supposition i made by Aristarchus of Samos, that the sun's diameter was not greater than thirty i times the earth's. 318 GREEK SCIENCE. Mechanics. Mechanical nventions. times, if we except the method of determining the sun's apparent diameter, which has been extracted in the ' History of Astronomy.' 1 , The accuracy of his result is remarkable, if we consider, not only the imperfection of his means in other respects, but that he does not appear to have known any way of observing with one eye at a time, and is obliged to make allowance for the double vision of his two eyes. He was, as were all the mathematicians of that age, a diligent practical observer ; and we are told, that he thought he had discovered the distances of the heavenly bodies from the earth, and from each other ; but that his measures were rejected by the Platonists, as not following that imagined perfection of mathematical proportions, which, they asserted, must necessarily exist. Cicero speaks of an orrery, as we should call it, made by Archimedes, and exhibiting the motion of the sun, the moon, and the planets ; which he uses as an argument against those who deny a Providence. " Shall we," says he, " attri- bute more intelligence to Archimedes for making the imitation, than to nature for framing the original ?" Perhaps the most remarkable part of his discoveries were those which he made in mechanics, and his applications of them to practice. We have already seen, that before his time, this branch of science did not exist. In his work on the equilibrium of bodies, he gives a proof of the fundamental properties of the lever, which has never yet been surpassed in simplicity and evidence ; and applies his principles to find the centre of gravity of various spaces, with great ingenuity. In his work on the * Floating of Bodies in Fluids,' he shows a complete in- sight into the nature of fluid equilibrium ; and determines the position in which bodies float in some cases, which can, by no means, be con- sidered as easy, even to modern mathematics. Indeed, without any addition to the principles of Archimedes, the doctrine of equilibrium was capable of being carried to its utmost extent, though among the ancients it appears to have stopped with him. We are told by Pappus, that HERO, a little after his time, proved in what cases there could be an equilibrium in the five mechanical powers; viz., the lever, the wheel and axle, the polyspact or pulley, the wedge, and the screw ; and that he reduced them all to one in principle ; but we cannot be certain that these proofs were strict, for there is nothing satisfactory in the demonstrations given by authors before the time of Stevinus and Galileo ; and an attempt made by Pappas himself to determine the mechanical advantage of the inclined plane is remarkably erroneous. We read of many mechanical contrivances of Archimedes, some, probably, merely attributed to him from the celebrity of his name. For instance, an invention something like what are now called Chinese puzzles, in which certain angular pieces of ivory are to be put together, so as, by different arrangements, to produce the resemblance of various objects. But he seems to have turned much of his attention to the construction of machines of extraordinary powers ; and he boasted of 1 Page 337 of this volume. MATHEMATICS. 319 the unlimited extent of his art in the well-known expression, " Give me a spot to stand on, and I will move the earth." The mechanicians of that time employed themselves, not merely in proving the possibility of making a given force move any weight, however large, but studied to combine the best material means for carrying it into effect. Athenaeus describes a ship of extraordinary magnitude, which Hiero caused to be made with twenty ranks of rowers, and containing so enormous a space, as to have on board gardens, baths, walks, a gymnasium, a large library, &c. This unwieldy mass, Archimedes is said, by means of some mechanical power, to have enabled Hiero to push into the sea, by his individual strength. We have already mentioned the screw of Archimedes, which is said, also, to have been used as the pump of this vessel. Though the study of mathematics is generally considered dry and His habits, repulsive by persons not engaged in it, there seem to be few pursuits which have the power of exciting so strong and engrossing an interest in the student. Like our own Newton, when absorbed in the current of discovery, Archimedes is said to have required to be reminded of the common duties of eating and drinking by those about him ; and while his servants were placing him in the bath, he employed himself in drawing mathematical diagrams in the ashes which were spread on the floor, or in the oil with which his skin was covered. " So that this abstraction made people say, and not unreasonably," Plutarch tells us, " that he was accompanied by an invisible siren, to whose song he was listening." A lively fancy might easily imagine a discoverer, in the enthusiasm of his speculations, to be absorbed in his attention to the voice, audible only to his ears, which reveals to him truths con- cealed from all the world beside. Another story told of Archimedes, is that of Hiero's crown. King Hiero's Hiero sent to a goldsmith a certain weight of gold, to be made into a crown - crown. The crown was sent home of the proper weight ; but it was suspected that some silver had been substituted for a part of the gold, and Archimedes was asked to detect the quantity of the fraud. He had sought in vain for some time, the means of doing it ; when one day, going into the bath, the rising of the water as his body became more immersed, suggested a method, which he instantly saw to be infallible, and he immediately sprung out, exclaiming, " I have found it ! I have found it !" (evprjica, evprjKa). Vitruvius explains the process by which he is said to have solved the problem. He placed the crown, and a wedge of gold, and one of silver, each of equal weight, in a full vessel of water. In each case the quantity of water which ran over, gave the size of the mass ; and by comparing these, he found the quantity of silver in the crown. The principles explained in his * Equilibrium of Bodies in Fluids,' afford the means of a more accurate and scientific solution, which we should have been disposed to attri- bute to him, but for this testimony to the contrary. We now come to the last and most remarkable events in the life of 320 GREEK SCIENCE. Siege of Archimedes, those connected with the siege of Syracuse, which ended Sy ^2i2. B. c. 212. Hiero the friend of Archimedes had closed his reign a few years sooner. Gelo his son, and apparently the pupil of the mathe- matician, had died before his father. Hieronymus, the son of Gelo, succeeded to the throne, but not to the popularity of his grandfather ; he shortly fell the victim of a conspiracy, and Syracuse became a prey to contending factions, who soon engaged her in a quarrel with the Eomans. Marcellus by sea, and Appius by land, laid siege to the city, and it would probably have been soon taken had it not been for the extraordinary resources of mechanical skill which Archimedes produced in its defence. We have an account of them in Polybius, one of the most intelligent and scrupulous of historians, and who was bora a few years only after the time. He says, that when the Roman fleet appeared sailing towards the city, it was assailed at a distance from the walls by powerful machines, which threw darts and stones : that when it got too near for the range of these, others were used so actively that Marcellus was obliged to approach the city, under pro- tection of the night : and that when they were near it, such an artillery of arrows and other missiles was played upon them, that they were unable to make the assault and suffered great loss. To protect the besiegers from such attacks in their approaches, they built upon vessels, certain machines in use among the ancients, and called sambucse. When these came near, there suddenly started above the walls large cranes carrying stones of ten talents and heavy masses of lead : these were brought over the sambucas and then let fall, so as to break through the whole structure and nearly to sink the ships on which it was carried. Large levers were also made, to project over the walls, from which iron claws were suspended ; by these the vessels were seized by the prows and hoisted half way out of the sea, and then let fall, with such violence, as to be sometimes dashed under water : so that, as Marcellus observed, Archimedes used his ships like buckets. By these contrivances the Roman soldiers suffered so much, that at last, the appearance of a rope or a pole above the walls, threw them into a panic, for fear of some new instrument of annoyance. There does not seem to be any reason to doubt these statements, which are confirmed by the universal consent of historians. In fact, while modern artillery was unknown, much greater attention was paid to improving those instruments which were used ; and the effects pro- duced exceeded, in many cases, anything that we should think possible, without the use of gunpowder. The powers which were employed, were sometimes the elasticity of large beams of wood, of which a gigantic bow was made, and worked by machinery ; and sometimes the forces of cords of different substances, which being violently twisted, were allowed to untwist, and thus to give motion to a lever inserted in them. We have descriptions of such machines, by Hero of Alexandria, who lived not long after Archimedes. With respect to the latter kind, he says that the best materials for the cords, are the MATHEMATICS. 321 muscles of the shoulders of various animals, of the legs of stags, and the necks of bulls. He also observes, that long female hair, having been saturated with essences, possesses a powerful elasticity for this purpose. And, in considering the effects ascribed to the other machines, we must recollect how much smaller the Roman vessels were than ours. Another of the inventions ascribed to Archimedes at this siege are His burning the mirrors with which he is said to have burnt the Roman fleet, of mirrors - which relation the authenticity is more disputed. In the ' History of Optics,' 1 some account is given of the ancient authorities and modern experiments on this subject. The silence of Polybius and Livy on this point, while they give us other details of the siege, would lead us to imagine that if Archimedes did execute something of the kind, it was not very important or decisive. And at the same time the distinctness of the latter evidence, and the demonstrated practicability of the fact, hardly allow us to suppose that it is entirely without foundation. Lucian in the second century says, that Archimedes by his mechanical skill burnt (KaTetyXefc) the Roman ships. Galen, a little later, alludes to it as a known fact. Anthemius, the architect of Saint Sophia, in the sixth century, says, that it is undeniable, and mentioned by numerous historians; and explains the method in which it might be executed as was afterwards done by Buffon and others. And the later authors, Zonaras and Tzetzes, mention it with an unusual distinctness of reference to the earlier historians Dio Cassius, Diodorus, &c., as if to remove any doubt which might exist. So that, perhaps, we may come to the conclusion of Gibbon, who says, " Since it is possible, I am more disposed to attribute the act to the greatest mathematician of antiquity than to give the merit of the fiction to the idle fancy of a monk or a sophist." By the ingenuity of Archimedes the siege of Syracuse was pro- Taking of tracted for some time ; but at last the fortune of the Romans pre- Syracuse. vailed. They discovered a w r eak place in the fortifications ; made an attack when the citizens had relaxed their vigilance in the celebration of a feast to Diana; and soon became masters of part of, the city. Marcellus is said to have wept at the approaching ruin of this populous and opulent state, which, old in prosperity, and rich in historical recollections, was now tending to a catastrophe so different from that of its former great siege by the Athenians. After some difficulties and fluctuations of success, the unfortunate town was taken by the Romans, and given up to be plundered by the soldiers. Archimedes, j who had so long been its safety, perished in the confusion of the ! capture. It is said that Marcellus had given strict orders to preserve j a person of whose genius he had had such extraordinary proofs ; but 5 that these were disregarded in the licence of war. While the Romans ] were plundering from house to house, Archimedes, unaffected by the violence which surrounded him, was absorbed in the contemplation of 1 Page 355 of this yolume. [G. E. P.] Y 322 GREEK SCIENCE. a mathematical diagram ; and, when a soldier burst into the room, refused to attend to him, till he had finished his demonstration : on which the man, with the carelessness of human life which such scenes produce, killed the venerable philosopher upon the spot. According to some, when about to be put to death, he pleaded, like Lavoisier in modern times, for a short respite to finish the philosophical inquiries on which he was engaged, which, as in that case, was also refused. Death of Thus died, at the age of seventy-five, one of the most extraordinary Archimedes, mathematical geniuses of any age or nation. Marcellus was grieved at the fmitlessness of his attempt to save him, and honoured his memory by liberality towards his surviving relations. A sepulchre was built for him on which was placed a sphere and a cylinder, figures which had been the subject of some of his most beautiful discoveries. But neither his mathematical fame, nor his defence of Syracuse, seem to have kept him long in the memory of his countrymen. When Cicero, travelling in Sicily less than 140 years afterwards, inquired for his tomb, he was told by the Syracusans that nothing of the kind existed. " I recollected," he says, " some verses, which I had understood to be inscribed on his monument, which indicated that on the top of it there was a sphere and a cylinder. On looking over the burying- ground (for at the gate of the city the tombs are very numerous and crowded), I saw a small pillar just appearing above the brushwood, with a sphere and a cylinder upon it, and immediately told those who were with me, who were the principal persons in Syracuse, that I believed that to be what I was seeking. Workmen were sent in with bills to clear and open the place, and when it was accessible we went to the opposite side of the pedestal : there we found the inscription, with the latter portions of the lines worn away, so that about half of it was gone. And thus one of the most illustrious cities of Greece, and one formerly of the most literary, would have remained ignorant of the monument of a citizen so distinguished for his talents, if they had not learnt it from a man of a small Samnite village." Archimedes was incomparably the most inventive and original of ancient mathematicians, and seems to have possessed the power of applying his geometry to a greater diversity of subjects, and of over- coming difficulties of a more various kind. If he had had one or two successors of equal genius with himself, it is not easy to see to what extent or in what direction the science of the ancients would have advanced ; but it must certainly have anticipated some of the dis- coveries of modern times, though probably by methods a good deal different from ours. The mechanics of equilibrium, hydrostatics, and catoptrics might have been brought nearly to perfection, for they were in possession of the principles on which these depend. In fact, how- ever, no advance of consequence was made in mixed mathematics. In astronomy alone had they adopted the only source of knowledge, assiduous and accurate observation. And the discoveries of mathe- MATHEMATICS. 323 maticians from that time were made almost entirely in pure geometry, and even these are very limited, if we except what was done by Apollonius ; and of his propositions it is said that he owed some to Archimedes, whose results were left unedited and fell into his hands. In practical mechanics the ancients appear to have gone somewhat further than we have yet mentioned. Hero seems to have been well acquainted with the effects, if not with the theory, of the elasticity of the air ; and we have a treatise of his called ' Pneumatica ' or * Spiritalia,' describing divers machines depending upon that property, and most of them containing the principle of the syphon. We have also a treatise by him ' On Automatons ;' his automatons, which are principally toys moved by very simple machinery. And besides several mechanicians who are remarked for their inventions of warlike machines, CTESIBIUS, the master of Hero, who lived apparently about ctesibius. 150 B. c. invented a pump which is yet considered of a very efficient construction. In order to finish what relates to the great age of Greek geometry, we shall notice some of the eminent characters who flourished with, or immediately after, Archimedes. These all seemed to have belonged to the college of Alexandria. ERATOSTHENES was a cotemporary of Eratosthenes, the Sicilian mathematicians, and was a remarkable instance of great B - c< 277 ~ 194 - acquirements in very different branches of knowledge. He is generally called by the ancients " Eratosthenes the grammarian " or philologer ; and though he comes under our notice as a great geometer and astronomer, he was also a poet and an antiquary. It is seldom that one person attempts to master so many subjects, without incurring the charge, and perhaps the danger, of being superficial. His enemies gave him the name of Beta, as occupying only the second place in his pursuits : his admirers called him the Pentathlete, thus comparing him to a person who at the public games had been victorious in all the subjects of emulation. He was appointed superintendent of the library of Alexandria, under the third Ptolemy (Euergetes 246-221 B. c.) : and he had the merit of inducing that monarch to place in the vestibule of the museum the arrmllce, or combinations of graduated circles which were the principal instruments of observation among the ancients. These instruments were about 20 inches diameter, and the observations made with them are quoted in the ' Almagest.' The mode of observing was by placing a pin on one limb of the circle, so that its shadow might fall upon another at the opposite extremity of the diameter, and thus indicate the position of the sun. By this means Eratosthenes is said to have found, that the interval between the tropics was -j^ of the circumference, which makes the obliquity of the ecliptic 23 J 51' 19*5". His measurement of the earth is remarkable and celebrated, and has been described in the ' History of Astronomy.' 1 He also gave determinations of the magnitude and distance of the sun, which appear, from their discordance with 1 Page 336 of this volume. Y2 324 GREEK SCIENCE. each other, to be erroneously reported to us. Besides his astronomical merits, he was an eminent geometer. He turned his attention to conic sections ; and we have his description of a mesdabium, or instrument for finding any number of mean proportionals, which is ingenious, though it is said to have been ridiculed by Nicomedes ; who, probably soon after, invented the conchoid for a similar object. He is said to have written ' De locis ad medietates,' the subject of which treatise can only be a matter of conjecture; and he is also known for what is called his * Sieve,' which is a method of finding prime numbers. We possess likewise his ' Catasterism,' which is a description of the constellations. After living to the age of eighty-three, he found his sight fail and his health decay, and came to the resolution that life was not worth preserving under such circumstances. He died by voluntarily abstaining from food, B. c. 194. The principal remaining name which offers itself to our notice in us the Alexandrian school, is the illustrious one of APOLLONIUS, whom ?c!28i-204. antiquity distinguished by the name of " The Great Geometer," and who has been considered with corresponding admiration by some of the most profound of modern mathematicians. He was born at Parga hi Pamphylia, in the time of Ptolemy Euergetes : was instructed in mathematics by those who had been the disciples of Euclid: and flourished at the museum under Philopater (221 to 204 B. c.). We learn from Pappus that he employed himself in what has been a favourite, but not very profitable, speculation of the most acute mathematicians, an attempt to prove the elementary axioms on which geometry is founded. The works of his which remain are a treatise on conic sections. The four first books of this, which were all that were known in Europe till 1658, contain the properties observed previously to his time ; but the three following ones, which were brought from the East and translated from the Arabic, give his own discoveries. They are principally on the greatest and least lines which can be drawn from any point to the curve of a conic section. They show wonderful powers in the management of the ancient geometry, and though it might be imagined that the instrument was scarcely capable of such results, they lead to the borders of the modern theories of evolute curves and centres of osculation. 1 Besides 1 The history of the recovery of these books is remarkable. Upon the syllabus given by Pappus of the lost books of Apollonius's conies, several persons had attempted to form a conjectural restoration, or divination, as it was called. In particular, Viviani had been for some time silently and laboriously engaged in this investigation, when it was discovered by Borelli (in 1658) that the fifth, sixth, and seventh books existed in Arabic in the Medicean library. Viviani saw himself on ; the point of losing the credit due to several years of research by this unexpected ; discovery. He, however, obtained from the Grand Duke an attestation of the state \ of forwardness in which his own MSS. then were, signed by his hand ; and an injunction to Borelli to keep secret his translation tiU Viviani's book had been , published. The Divinatio in V. Apollonii Conicorum appeared in 1 659, and the j V - MATHEMATICS. 325 this treatise, Apollonius wrote others on several very general and difficult problems of geometrical analysis, which he pursued into all their detail of cases. Their titles and subjects are given us by Pappus. Many of them have since exercised the ingenuity of the most skilful of modern mathematicians. For instance, the problem of 4 Tactions,' of which the most difficult case is to draw a circle touch- ing three given circles, has been solved by Vieta and Newton. ' The Section of Ratio ' and ' The Section of Space ' have been restored by Halley. This problem is to draw a line through a given point, cutting segment from two given straight lines : in the first place so that they may have a given ratio ; in the next place so that they may contain a given rectangle. In * The Determinate Section ' it was required to find a point in a straight line, such that the rectangles of its distances from given points should have a given ratio : this w T as resolved by Dr. Simson. The problem of ' Inclinations ' proposed to draw through a given point a straight line, so that a given portion of it should be intercepted between two given straight lines. Some of these problems had been solved by Euclid, and Pappus blames Apollonius for the harsh manner in which he speaks of the solution of his predecessor, which did not pretend to be complete. Like the other mathematicians of his time he also applied to astronomy, as we learn from his having, like Eratosthenes, a sobriquet derived from a Greek letter. He was called Epsilon (e) from his perpetual attention to the moon, which resembled the form in which that letter was written. After his time, the principal progress of Greek mathematicians was made in astronomy. Either that the powers of the Greek geometry had reached their limit, or that inventive genius became more scarce, succeeding generations con- tented themselves almost entirely with commenting upon what had been done by the giants in geometry who were the first race. Thus Hypatia the daughter of Theon, Pappus, Serenus, and Eutocius wrote commentaries upon Apollonius ; Eutocius also upon Archimedes ; Theon upon Euclid : and it is from such of these as are still extant that much of the preceding information is derived. They Had means of knowledge which have since been lost; and we might have been able to give a much more complete and accurate account of the extensive series of inventions which the old mathematics exhibited, if time had spared the histories of this science by Theophrastus and Eudemus, from which later writers seem to have drawn the light whose scattered rays reflected from them we have been attempting to collect. translation from the Arabic in 1661. The comparison of the conjectural with the ancient Apollonius is to the credit of both. Viviani's propositions are more varied and extensive, but perhaps those of the ancient geometer are more recondite and difficult GREEK PHYSICS. BY PETER BARLOW, ESQ., F.RS., PROFESSOR AT THE ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY, WOOLWICH; AND THE LATE REV. FRANCIS LUNN, M.A., F.R.S., ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION. THE Historical Introductions, prefixed by Professor BARLOW to his Treatises on the Physical Sciences, contained in the Second Division of the Encyclopedia Metro- politana, are frequently referred to in Professor WHEWELL'S History of Greek Mathematics, which precedes this article'. The following- passages have, on that account, been extracted from those Treatises and appended here, for the sake of easy reference. The last of the six extracts is made from the ' History of Electricity,' by the late Rev. FRANCIS LUNN. The reader who desires further information than is afforded by the passages now cited, is referred to the History of Greek Physics, contained in the History of the Inductive Sciences, by Professor WHEWELL. EDITOR. GREEK PHYSICS. I. ASTRONOMY. IT would be useless, if even the nature of our work would admit of it, General to attempt to trace the history of this science from its earliest state of view * infancy, which is probably nearly coeval with that of society itself; at least if we regard the rude observations of shepherds and herdsmen as exhibiting the first dawn of astronomy. A man must be strangely divested of the curiosity peculiar to his species, who, while exposed to the varying canopy of the heavens, through successive nights and seasons, could suffer such a brilliant spectacle to pass repeatedly before him, without noticing the fixed or variable objects there presented to his view ; and his attention, once drawn to a contemplation of the fir- mament, he would remark the invariable position of the greater number of those bodies with regard to each other ; the irregular motion of others ; and hence, by some denomination or other, we should have a distinction made between what we now call the fixed stars and the planets ; while the sun and moon are, in their appearances, sufficiently distinct from the rest of the heavenly bodies, to have called for a farther distinguishing appellation, and to have claimed the particular regard of these rude observers. Such was probably the origin of astronomy ; and in this state, in all likelihood, it might remain for many ages, and in many countries unknown to and unconnected with each other. The length of the year, the duration of a lunar revolution, the particular rising of certain stars at certain seasons, and a few other common and obvious phe- nomena, might therefore be predicted with a certain degree of accu- racy, long before those observations assumed anything like a scientific form, and long anterior to that time from which we date the origin of astronomy as a science, properly so called. The honour of being the first inventors of this sublime study has Claims of the been attributed to various nations ; the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Indians, have each had their advocates amongst our as- tronomical historians ; and even a certain unknown people have been created by the enthusiasm of some writers, of whom all traces are supposed to have been long lost, but to whom all original knowledge of astronomy has been attributed. The more closely, however, we examine the claims of these actual or imaginary people, the more we shall be convinced that their astronomy consisted of little more than we have indicated above ; viz., a tolerable approximation to certain periods, and to the reappearance of certain phenomena, that required nothing more than a continued and patient observation of stated occur- 330 GREEK SCIENCE. rences, which, as we have observed, could not long remain unnoticed even in the most infant state of society. Egyptians. We may judge of the state of Egyptian astronomy from the circum- stance of Thales having first taught them how to find the heights of the pyramids from the length of their shadows. It is true that they had some idea of the length of the year, and had, in a certain measure, approximated towards a determination of the obliquity of the ecliptic, or of the path of the sun, which they stated to be 24. The Chaldeans appear to have made some rude observations on eclipses, but still little scientific knowledge can be attributed to this people ; who, after ob- serving these phenomena, were contented to explain them by teaching that the two great luminaries of the heavens were only on fire on one side, and that eclipses were occasioned by the accidental turning of their- dark sides towards us. And again, that these bodies were carried round the heavens in chariots, close on all sides except one, in which there was a round hole, and that a total or partial eclipse was occasioned by the complete or partial shutting of this aperture. Si- milar absurd and extravagant notions will be found amongst all the early pretenders to the study of astronomy ; but we cannot concede to such knowledge and pretences the term science ; they had, in fact, no science, they had amassed together a number of rude observations, and had been thus enabled to determine certain periods, and to predict some few phenomena; but we have no proof, nor even any reason whatever to imagine, from any facts that have been handed down to us, that these predictions rested upon any other basis than that of simply observing the repeated returns of these appearances within certain periods. If to the knowledge above indicated, we add an arbitrary collection of certain clusters or groups of stars into constellations ; the division of the zodiac into twelve signs, corresponding to the twelve months of the year ; into twenty-seven or twenty-eight hours, answering to the daily motion of the moon ; an obscure idea of the revolution of the earth upon its axis, which was afterwards lost; a knowledge of five planets; and some contradictory notions respecting the nature and motion of comets, we shall have a pretty correct picture of the state of astronomy as it was received amongst the Greeks; from whom it first derived its scientific character. It is, therefore, only from this period that we shall commence our historical sketch. Thales is generally considered as the founder of astronomy amongst the Greeks. This philosopher, who must have flourished about 600 years before the commencement of the Christian era, is said to have taught that the stars were fire, or that they shone by means of their own light ; the moon received her light from the sun, and that she became invisible in her conjunctions, in consequence of being hidden or absorbed in the solar rays, which it must be acknowledged is but an obscure way of saying that she then turned towards us her unen- lightened hemisphere. He taught farther that the earth is spherical, Astronomy as it was received by the early Greeks. Thales. B. c. 600. ASTRONOMY. 331 and placed in the centre of the world ; he divided the heavens, or rather found them divided by five circles : the equator, the two tropics, and the arctic and antarctic circles. The year he made to consist of 365 days ; and determined " the motion of the sun in declination." What is meant by this expression is not very easy to comprehend ; if it only means that he discovered such a motion, it can scarcely be considered as correct, as it must have been known prior to his time ; viz., to the first observers ; and it cannot mean that he laid down rules for computing it, as we have every reason to know that the most simple principles of trigonometry were not propagated till many cen- turies after his time. Thales is also said to have first observed an eclipse, and to have Predicts an predicted that celebrated one which terminated the war between the ecll P se - Medes and the Lydians ; an eclipse on which much has been written, but no very satisfactory conclusion arrived at. Herodotus says, " it happened that the day was changed suddenly into night, a change which Thales the Milesian had announced to the people of Ionia, as- signing for the limit of his prediction, the year in which the change actually took place." Thales had therefore neither predicted the day nor the month ; and, in all probability, he had no other principle to proceed upon, than the Chaldean period of eclipses already alluded to in the preceding part of this article. The pointed declaration of the historian, that the limits assigned by the astronomer for the appearance of this phenomenon was the year in which it happened, is a pretty obvious proof of the low state of astronomical science at this time, and it would be of little importance whether the eclipse was itself partial or total ; but as there is little doubt that such an event actually took place, it becomes a matter of high importance in chronology, to ascertain whether it was such as it is described, viz., a total eclipse; for no partial obscuration of the sun's light would accord with the description of Herodotus, of the day being suddenly changed into night ; and such a phenomenon in any par- ticular place being an extremely rare occurrence, it would, if correct, enable us to determine not only the year, but the very day^ and hour at which it happened, and thus furnish at least one indisputable period in chronology and history. Various dates have been assigned to this eclipse. Pliny places it in Dates the fourth year of the forty-eighth Olympiad which answers to the ^jfe year 585 B.C. (' Hist. Nat.' lib. 2, cap. 12) ; a similar opinion has been advanced by Cicero (' De Divinat.' lib. 1, 49), and probably by Eudemus (' Clement. Alex. Strom.' lib. 1, p. 354) ; by Newton (' Chron. of Anc. Kings/ amended) ; Riccioli (' Chron. Reform,' vol. i. p. 228); Desvignoles, ('Chronol.' lib. 4, cap. 5, 7, &c.); and by Brosses (' Mem. de 1'Acad. des Belles Lettres,' torn. xxi. Mem. p. 33). Scaliger, in two of his writings ('Animad. ad Euseb.,' p. 89, and in 'OXv/Lt. avaypatyr)'}, has adopted also the opinion of Pliny; but 332 GREEK SCIENCE. in another work (' De Emen. Temp, in Can. Isag.' p. 321), he fixes the date of this eclipse to be the 1st of October, 583 B.C. Calvisius states it in his ' Opus Chron.,' to have taken place in 607 B. c. Pe- taviussays it happened July 9th, 597 B.C. (* De Doct. Temp.' lib. 10, cap. 1), which date has likewise been adopted by Marsham, Bouhier, Corsini, and by M. Larcher the French translator of Herodotus (torn. i. p. 335.) Usher is of opinion that it happened 601 B. c. ; and Bayer, May 18, 603 B. c. ; which latter opinion has been supported by two English astronomers, Costard and Stukeley ('Phil. Trans/ for 1753). But Volney attempts to show, in his ' Chronologic d'Herodote,' that it could be no other than the eclipse which happened February 3rd, 626 B. c. Mr. F. Bailly has examined with great care and labour the proba- bility of these several statements, from which it appears, that most of the eclipses above alluded to happened under circumstances which render it absolutely impossible any of them should be that alluded to by Herodotus ; most of them were not even visible in that country, which must necessarily have been the scene of action between the Medes and the Lydians, and none of them was total in those places. He has, therefore, with great perseverance, by means of the latest as- tronomical tables of the ' Bureau des Longitudes,' computed backward to find whether any eclipse of the sun actually happened within the probable limits of the event recorded by the historian, arid the result of his research is, that on the 10th of September, 610 B. c., there was a solar eclipse, which was total in some parts of Asia Minor ; and which, he therefore concludes, with great probability, was the identical one referred to by Herodotus. Admitting, therefore, the conclusion, we have one decided point of time to which we are enabled to refer with confidence, at which time, the state of astro- nomy is known to have been such as we have described. See 'Phil. Trans.' for 1811. Anaximan- The successors of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Anaxa- goras, contributed considerably to the advancement of astronomy, ^e ^ rst * s sa ^ * nave mvente d or introduced the gnomon into Greece ; to have observed the obliquity of the ecliptic ; and taught that the earth was spherical, and the centre of the universe, and that the sun was not less than it. He is also said to have made the first globe, and to have set up a sun-dial at Lacedaemon, which is the first we hear of among the Greeks ; though some are of opinion that these pieces of knowledge were brought from Babylon by Pherecydes, a contemporary of Anaximander. Anaxagoras also predicted an eclipse which happened in the fifth year of the Peloponnesian war ; and taught that the moon was habitable, consisting of hills, valleys, and waters, like the earth. His contemporary Pythagoras, however, greatly im- proved not only astronomy and mathematics, but every other branch of philosophy. He taught that the universe was composed of four elements, and that it had the sun in the centre ; that the earth was ASTRONOMY. 333 round, that we had antipodes ; and that the moon reflected the rays of the sun ; that the stars were worlds, containing earth, air, and ether ; that the moon was inhabited like the earth ; and that the comets were a kind of wandering stars, disappearing in the superior parts of their orbits, and becoming visible only in the lower parts of them. The white colour of the milky-way he ascribed to the bright- ness of a great number of small stars ; and he supposed the distances of the moon and planets from the earth to be in certain harmonic pro- portion to one another. He is said also to have exhibited the oblique course of the sun in the ecliptic and the tropical circles, by means of an artificial sphere ; and he first taught that the planet Venus is both the evening and morning star. This philosopher is said to have been taken prisoner by Cambyses, and thus to have become acquainted with all the mysteries of the Persian magi ; after which he settled at Crotona in Italy, and founded the Italian sect. About 440 years before the Christian era, Philolaus, a celebrated Phiioiaus. Pythagorean, asserted the annual motion of the earth round the sun ; B ' c ' 441 and soon after Hicetas, a Syracusan, taught its diurnal motion on its own axis. About this time also flourished Meton and Euctemon at Athens, who took an exact observation of the summer solstice 432 years before Christ ; which is the oldest observation of the kind we have, excepting some doubtful ones of the Chinese. Meton is said to have composed a cycle of nineteen years, which still bears his name ; and he marked the risings and settings of the stars, and what seasons they pointed out : in all of which he was assisted by his companion Euctemon. The science, however, was obscured by Plato and Aris- totle, who embraced the system afterwards called the ' Ptolemaic,' which places the earth in the centre of the universe. After Philolaus, the next astronomer we meet with of great repu- Eudoxus. tation is Eudoxus, who flourished 370 B.C. He was a contemporary B - c - 370 - with Aristotle though considerably older, and is greatly celebrated for his skill in this science. He is said to have been the first to apply geometry to astronomy, and is supposed to be the inventor of many of the propositions attributed to Euclid. Having travelled into Egypt in the early part of his life, he obtained a recommendation' from Age- silaus to Nectanebus, king of Egypt, and by his means got access to the priests, who were then held to have great knowledge of astronomy ; after which he taught in Asia and Italy. Seneca tells us, that he brought the knowledge of astronomy, i. e., of the planetary motions, from Egypt into Greece ; and according to Archimedes, his opinion was, that the diameter of the sun was nine times that of the moon. He was also acquainted with the method of drawing a sun-dial on a plane. Soon after Eudoxus, we meet with Calippus, whose system of the Caiippus. celestial sphere is mentioned by Aristotle ; but he is better known for B ' c< 33U- a period of seventy-six years, containing four corrected Metonic periods, and which had its beginning at the summer solstice, in the year 330 B. c. And it was about this time, or rather earlier, that the Greeks 334 GREEK SCIENCE. having begun to plant colonies in Italy, Gaul, and Egypt, became ac- quainted with the Pythagorean system, and the notions of the ancient Druids concerning astronomy. Autoiycus. Passing over the names of various other astronomers of this period, who appear to have done very little towards the advancement of the science, we come to Autoiycus, the most ancient writer whose works have been handed down to our time. He wrote two books, viz., ' Of the Sphere which moves,' and the other, * On the Risings and Settings of the Stars.' These works were composed about 300 B. c. We have now passed over a period of three hundred years from the time of Thales, and, therefore, by making a few extracts from these works of Autoiycus, we shall be enabled to form some idea of the progress of astronomy during this period. In the work on the move- able sphere, we have several propositions, of which the following are the most important : Earliest work 1. If a sphere move uniformly about its axis, all the points on its sur ^ ace which are not in its axis, will describe parallel circles, having for their common poles, those of the sphere itself, and of which all the planes will be perpendicular to the axis. 2. All these points will describe, of their respective circles, similar arcs in equal times. 3. Reciprocally, similar arcs will indicate equal time. 4. If a great fixed circle, perpendicular to the axis, divide the sphere into two hemispheres, the one visible, the other invisible, and that the sphere turns about its axis, those points on the surface that are hidden will never rise, and those that are visible will never set. This is what we now denominate a parallel sphere ; the great fixed circle corresponding with our equator. 5. If a great circle pass through the poles, all the points of the surface will rise and set alternately. This corresponds to our horizon, and to our right sphere. 6. If the great circle be oblique to the axis, it will touch two equal parallel circles ; of which, that adjacent to the one pole will be always apparent, the other always invisible. The first of these circles was called by the Greeks (although not by this author), as we still denominate it, the arctic circle, and the other the antarctic circle. 7. If the horizon be oblique, the circles, perpendicular to the axis, will always have their points of rising and setting in the same points of the horizon, to which they are all equally inclined. 8. The great circles which touch the arctic and antarctic circle, will, during the complete revolution of the sphere, twice coincide with the horizon. 9. In the oblique sphere, of all the points which rise at the same instant, those which are nearest to the visible pole will set last ; and of the points which set at the same instant, those that are nearest the same pole will rise first. ASTRONOMY. 335 10. In the oblique sphere, every circle which passes through the poles, will be perpendicular to the horizon twice in the course of one complete revolution. We omit some other propositions of this author, which are of less ^ e .^ o r n importance than the above ; and even those which we have given, are 4 such as one would imagine could not have escaped the observation of any one who would think of employing an artificial sphere to represent the celestial motions ; yet from the tenor of the work in question, it would seem, that if they were known, they were never before, at least, embodied in the form of a regular treatise. Here, then, we may begin to date the first scientific form of astro- nomy ; because in this work, however low and elementary, we have an application of geometry to illustrate the motions of the heavenly bodies ; but we shall still find two other centuries pass away, before the same principles were applied to actual computation. Contemporary with Autolycus was Euclid ; whose elements of geo- Eucli attempted to ascertain its actual circumference, by measuring, as exactly as could be done in his time, the length of a certain terrestrial arc, and then finding the astronomical arc in degrees intercepted between the zeniths of the two places. The segment of the meridian which he fixed upon for this purpose, was that between Alexandria and Syene. The measured distance of which was found to be 5,000 stadia. The angle of the shadow upon the scaphia, which was observed at Alex- andria, was equal to the fiftieth part of the circle ; and at Syene there was no shadow from this gnomon at noonday of the summer solstice. That this last observation might be the more accurately taken, they dug a deep well, which, being perpendicular, was completely illumi- nated at the bottom when the sun was on the meridian. The exact quantity which this philosopher assigned to the circumference of the earth is not known ; at least, different opinions have been advanced : ASTRONOMY. 337 some state it at 250,000, and others at 252,000 stadia : the length of this unit of measure is also somewhat uncertain. It is, however, of small importance, as we may be pretty well convinced that, by such means as he employed, no very accurate conclusion could be expected; it is sufficient that he attempted the solution of the problem in a very rational manner, to entitle him to the honour of being one of the most celebrated of the Grecian astronomers. Eratosthenes also observed the obliquity of the ecliptic, and made Obliquity of it to consist of -reV^h f a circumference, which answers to about l e ec lptlc< 23 51' 19 '5". This observation is commonly stated to have been made in the year 230 B. c. Archimedes, the justly-celebrated geometer of Syracuse, was con- Archimedes, temporary with Eratosthenes; and although most conspicuous as a B ' c * mechanic and geometrician, the great impulse which he gave to the sciences generally, will not admit of our passing him over in silence in this history. All that we have of this author with reference to astronomy, is found in his ' Arenarius,' a work which has been trans- lated into most modern languages ; where he undertakes to prove, that the numerical denominations which he has indicated in his books to Zeuxippus, are more than sufficient to express the grains of sand that would compose a globe, not only as large as our earth, but as the whole universe. He supposes that the circumference of the earth is not more than three million stadia ; that the diameter of the earth is greater than that of the moon, and less than that of the sun ; that the diameter of the sun is 300 times greater than that of the moon ; and moreover, that the diameter of the sun is greater than the side of the inscribed chiliagon, that is greater than ^Wo, or 21' 36". The manner in which he arrives at his conclusion is very interesting, Archimedes as showing the state of the sciences at this time, even in the hands of ?he er a p ent this great master : " I have used," says he, " every effort to deter- diameter of mine, by means of instruments, the angle which comprehends the sun, the sun * and has its summit at the eye of the observer ; but this is not easy ; for neither our eyes nor our hands, nor any of the means which it is possible for us to employ, have the requisite precision to obtain this measure. This, however, is not the place to enlarge upon such a subject. It will suffice to demonstrate that which I have advanced, to measure an angle which is not greater than that which includes the sun's apparent diameter, and has its summit in our eyes ; and then to take another angle which is not less than that of the sun, and which equally has its summit in our eyes. Having, therefore, directed a long ruler on a horizontal plane towards the point of the horizon where the sun ought to rise, I place a small cylinder perpendicularly on this ruler. When the sun is on the horizon, and we look at it without injury, I direct the ruler towards the sun, the eye being at one of its extremities, and the cylinder is placed between the sun and the eye in such a manner, that it entirely conceals the sun from view. I then remove the cylinder farther from the eye, until the sun begins [G. E. P.] z 338 GREEK SCIENCE. to be perceived by a thin stream of light on each side of the cylinder. Now, if the eye perceived the sun from a single point, it would suffice to draw from that point tangential lines to the two sides of the cylinder. The angle included between these lines would be a little less than the apparent diameter of the sun ; because there is a ray of light on each side. But as our eyes are not a single point, I have taken another round body, not less than the interval between the two pupils ; and placing this body at the point of sight at the end of the ruler, and drawing tangents to the two bodies, of which one is cylindric, I obtained the angle subtended by the suns (apparent) diameter. Now the body, which is not less than the preceding dis- tance (between the pupils), I determine thus: I take two equal cylinders, one white, the other black, and place them before me ; the white further off, the other near, so near indeed as to touch my face. If these two cylinders are less than the distance between the eyes, the nearer cylinder will not entirely cover the one that is more remote, and there will appear on both sides some white part of that remote cylinder. By different trials, we may find cylinders of such magnitude, that the one shall completely conceal the other : we then have the measure of our view (the distance between the pupils), and an angle, which is not smaller than that in which the sun appears. Now, having applied these angles successively to a quarter of a circle, I have found that one of them has less than its 164th part, and the other greater than its 200th part. It is therefore evident, that the angle which includes the sun, and has its summit at our eye, is greater than the 164th part of a right angle, and less than the 200th part of a right angle." By this process, Archimedes found the sun's apparent diameter to be between 27' and 32' 56". singular It is not a little remarkable, considering the obvious inaccuracy of S^TraSt!* the method, that the maximum limit thus obtained, differs only ^ of a minute from 32' 35'6", which is the largest angle actually subtended by the sun's diameter, and which is observed about the time of the winter solstice, when the sun is nearest to the earth. But this quo- tation from the ' Arenarius ' is extremely curious also on other accounts. We may learn from it, first, that Archimedes, with all his fecundity of genius, and with all the variety of his inventions, had no means of diminishing the effect of the sun's rays upon his eyes, and therefore performed this interesting experiment when the sun was in the horizon, that the optic organ might sustain its light without inconvenience. It also proves to us, that there was not then any instrument known to Archimedes, which he thought capable of giving the diameter of the sun, to within four or six minutes; since he found it necessary to devise means at which he stopped, after an attempt not very satis- factory. We see, further, that he carried his angles, or their chords, over a quarter of a circle ; but he does not say expressly that his arc had been divided; to render his language accurately, it is simply ASTRONOMY. 339 requisite to say, having carried one of the chords 200 times over upon the arc, he found it exhausted ; and that the other chords could only be applied 164 times upon the quadrant. We see, also, that Archimedes had not the means of computing the angle at the vertex of an isosceles triangle, of which he knew the base and the two equal sides. He was obliged to recur to a graphical operation as uncertain as the observation itself. Thus he was entirely ignorant even of rectilinear trigonometry, and he had not any notion of computing the chords of circular arcs. We now come to the great father of true astronomy, Hipparchus ; but our limits will not admit of our entering very deeply into his discoveries and improvements. One of his first cares was to rectify Finds the the length of the year, which before his time we have seen had been ^J ' made to consist of 365 days and 6 hours. By comparing one of his own observations at the summer solstice with a similar observation made 145 years before by Aristarchus, he shortened the year about 7 minutes; making it to consist of 365 days, 5 hours, 53 minutes; which, however, was not sufficient: but the cause of the mistake is said to have rested principally with Aristarchus and not with Hipparchus ; for the observations of the latter, compared with those of modern times, give 365 days, 5 hours, 48 min. 49^- sec. for the duration of the year ; a result which exceeds the truth very little more than a second. It is to be observed, however, that this is 110 very exact criterion, unless the same be compared with the observation of the more ancient observer ; for supposing all the error on the side of Hipparchus, it is more divided by comparing it with others at the distance of 19 or 20 centuries, than in comparing it with one, where the distance of time is only 145 years. One of the greatest benefits which astronomy derived from this Introduction philosopher was his enunciation and demonstration of the method of ^eSyTy" computing triangles, whether plane or spherical. He constructed a chords, table of chords, which he applied nearly in the same manner as we now do our tables of sines. As an observer, however, he rendered great service to the doctrine of astronomy, having made much more numerous observations than any of his predecessors, and upon far more accurate principles. He established the theory of the sun's Establishes motion in such a manner, that Ptolemy, 130 years afterwards, found o^elu'n's no essential alteration requisite ; he determined also the first lunar motion, inequality, and gave the motions of the moon's apogee and of its fij st lunar nodes, which Ptolemy afterwards very slightly modified. Hipparchus inequality, also prepared the way for the discovery of the second lunar inequality, and from his observation it was, that the fact of the precession of the equinoxes was first inferred. He employed the transit of the stars Hour of the over the meridian to find the hour of the night, and invented the S^the stars, planisphere, or the means of representing the concave sphere of the stars, on a plane, and thence deduced the solution of problems in spherical astronomy, with considerable exactness and facility. To him also we owe the happy idea of marking the position of towns and z2 340 GREEK SCIENCE. the stars. Ptolemy. A. c. 120. cities, as we do those of the stars, by circles drawn through the poles perpendicularly to the equator; that is, by latitudes and by circles parallel to the equator, corresponding to our longitudes. From his projection it is, that our maps and nautical charts are now principally constructed, and his method, by means of eclipses, was for a long time the only one by which the longitude could be determined. Catalogue of Another most important work of Hipparchus, was his formation of a catalogue of the stars* The appearance of a new star in his time, caused him to form the grand project of enabling future astronomers to ascertain whether the general picture of the heavens were always the same. This he aimed to effect, by attempting the actual enume- ration of the stars. The magnitude and difficulty of the undertaking did not deter this indefatigable astronomer ; he prepared and arranged an extensive catalogue of the fixed stars, which subsequently served as the basis of that of Ptolemy. So great, indeed, is the merit of this prince of Grecian astronomy, that the enthusiastic language in which Pliny speaks of him in his Hist. Nat. (lib. ii. cap. 26) may rather be admired than censured. After Hipparchus, we meet with no astronomer of eminence amongst the Greeks till the time of Ptolemy, who flourished between the years 125 and 140 of the Christian era; a space of nearly three hundred years. There were, however, some astronomical writers, both Greeks and Romans in the course of this time, whom it may not be amiss to enumerate, although the little progress that the science made in their hands will exempt us from the necessity of entering minutely into an analysis of their several works : these were, Geminus, who lived about 70 years B. c., whose book is entitled * Introduction to the Phenomena;' Achilles Tatius, of about the same period ; Cleomedes, who lived in the time of Augustus; Theodosius, Menelaus, and Hypsicles, who are supposed to have written about the year 50 B. c. ; Manilius, Strabo, Posidonius, and Cicero, who were about half a century later; after which, we meet with no one to whom it is at all necessary even to refer, till we come to Ptolemy, who was born in the year of Christ 70; and who made, as we have stated above, most of his observations between the years 125 and 140 of our era. Ptolemy has rendered all succeeding astronomers indebted to him, both for his own observations, which were very numerous, and his construction of various tables, but most of all for the important collec- tion which he made of all astronomical knowledge prior to his time, and which he entitled, MeyaX?/ Zvvraic, or Great Collection. 1 Of his own labours, we may mention his theory and calculation of tables of the planets, and his determination, with a precision little to be expected in his time, of the ratio of their epicycles to their mean dis- tances; that is to say, in other terms, the ratio of their mean distances to the distance of the earth from the sun. This theory, imperfect as 1 Called by the Arabs, who translated it, the Almagest (from the Arabic art. al, and the Greek superlative megistos, greatest). Various labours of Ptolemy. ASTRONOMY. 341 it was, was adopted and generally admitted, for the space of fourteen centuries, during which time, it was transmitted to the Arabs, the Persians, arid the Indians, with whom it is still held sacred. To this celebrated Grecian we also owe the substitution of the Sines sines of arcs instead of their chords ; as also the first enumeration of SnJ some important theorems in trigonometry. Ptolemy was the author of that system of astronomy which still Ptolemy's , , . -r i v i ." i L ' f ji arguments bears his name ; or, it he did not entirely invent it (as there is great to prove the reason to suppose he did not), he enforced it by such arguments as led immobility ' to its establishment ; and it was afterwards rendered sacred through the stupid bigotry and intolerance of the Romish church. He endeavours to prove the absolute immobility of the earth, by observing, " If the earth had a motion of translation common to other heavy bodies, it would, in consequence of its superior mass, precede them in space, and pass even beyond the bounds of the heavens, leaving all the animals and other bodies without any support but air ; which are consequences to the last degree ridiculous and absurd." In the same place he adds, " Some persons pretend, that there is nothing to prevent us from supposing that the heavens remain immoveable, while the earth turns on its own axis from west to east, making this revo- lution in a day nearly ; or that, if the heavens and the earth both turn, it is in a ratio corresponding with the relations we have observed between them. It is true, that as to the stars themselves, and con- sidering only their phenomena, there is nothing to prevent us, for the sake of simplicity, from making such a supposition. But these people are not aware how ridiculous their opinion is, when considered with reference to events which take place about us; for if we concede to them that the lightest bodies, consisting of parts the most subtle, are not possessed of levity (which is contrary to nature), or that they move not differently from bodies of a contrary kind (although we daily witness the reverse) ; or, if we concede to them that the most compact and heaviest bodies possess a rapid and constant motion of their own (while, it is well known, that they yield only with difficulty to the impulses we give to them), still, they would be* obliged to acknowledge, that the earth, by its revolution, would have a motion more rapid than any of those bodies which encompass it, in con- sequence of the great circuit through which it must pass in so short a period ; wherefore such bodies as are not supported on it, would always appear to possess a motion contrary to itself; and neither clouds, nor any projected bodies, nor birds in flight, would ever appear to move towards the east; since the earth, always preceding them in this direction, would anticipate them in their motion; and everything, except the earth itself, would constantly appear to be retiring towards the west." If we did not feel convinced that, in certain cases, even the errors and false reasoning of such a man as Ptolemy, possess a greater interest than the more correct and refined arguments of minor 342 GREEK SCIENCE. Analysis of the Almagest. Theorems in trigono- metry. Climates. Length of the year, &c. philosophers, we should certainly not have laid before our readers this extract from the introduction to the * Almagest ;' but considering it as the defence of an hypothesis, which maintained its ascendency for fourteen centuries amongst all nations, and which is still held sacred throughout every part of Asia, it is impossible to divest it of its interest and importance. The other part of this great work is more worthy of the talents of its author, and is more deserving of our attention ; but the limits of this article will not admit of our giving more than a very concise abstract of its contents. The first book, beside what we have hitherto mentioned, exhibits a highly-interesting specimen of the ancient trigo- nometry; and the method of computing the chords of arcs, which, in fact, involves our fundamental theorems of trigonometry, though expressed in a manner totally different. Ptolemy first shows, how to find the sides of a pentagon, decagon, hexagon, square, and equilateral triangle, inscribed in a circle, which he exhibits in parts of the diameter, this being supposed divided into 120. He next demonstrates a theorem equivalent to our expression sin (a b) = sin a cos b sin 6 cos a; by means of which he finds the chord of the difference of any two arcs, whose chords are known. He then finds the chord of any half arc, that of the whole arc being given, and then demonstrates what is equivalent to our formula for the sine of two arcs ; that is, sin (a-f-6) = sin a cos b -f- sin b cos a ; and by means of this he computes the chord to every half degree of the semicircle. These theorems it may be said belong rather to the history of trigonometry than to that of astronomy ; but we trust that the obvious dependence of the latter science upon the former, will be found to justify us in introducing them to the reader in this place. We are next presented with a table of climates nearly equivalent to our nonagesimal tables, and it is not a little singular, that amongst them, we find none appertaining to the latitude of Alexandria; because, without such an auxiliary, Ptolemy must have contented himself with interpolations, which were not only difficult to make, but attended at the same time with great inaccuracy ; a circumstance from which it has been concluded, that Ptolemy himself made few observations, or that he was not very particular concerning the accuracy of his calculations. The examination of this question would carry us too far out of our track to admit of our entering upon it in this place ; but the reader may see it developed in all requisite detail, in the learned ' History of Astronomy,' lately published by Delambre. Having passed over the above preliminary details, the author treats of the length of the year, the motion of the sun, the mean and apparent anomaly, &c. &c. The length of the year, according to the sexagesimal notation, he makes 365d. 14' 48", which answers to 365d. 5h. 55' 12" ; the diurnal motion of the sun is stated to be 59' 8" 1"' 13 iv 12 V 31 vi , and the horary motion 2' 27" 50'" 43 iv 3 V l vi . To this is also added two tables, one of the mean ASTRONOMY. 343 motion of the sun r and the other of the solar anomaly. The fourth book of the ' Almagest ' is employed in treating of the motion of the moon, being prefaced by a few remarks respecting the observations which are most useful for that purpose : he then gives an abstract of all the lunar motions, with a table of them ; in the first of which the motion is exhibited for periods of eighteen years : in the second for years and hours ; and in the third for Egyptian months and days. Four other columns of the same table present the number of degrees which belong to each of the times indicated in the first column ; viz. the second, the longitude ; the third, the anomaly ; the fourth, the ktitude ; and the fifth, the elongation. The author next treats of various subjects connected with the Lunar lunar motion ; as, for instance, its general anomaly ; its eccentricity ; motlon - the lunar parallax ; the construction of instruments for observing the parallax ; the distance of the moon from the earth, which he states at 38'4i terrestrial radii, when in the quadratures ; the apparent diameters of the sun and moon ; the distance of the sun from the earth, which is stated at 1210 radii of the latter; and the relative magnitudes of the sun, moon, and earth. The diameters of these are stated to be to each other, as the numbers 18 '8, 1, and 3| ; also their masses as 6644J, 1, and 39. The next book is entirely occupied with the doctrine of eclipses of the sun and the moon ; the determination of their limits and durations ; tables of conjunctions ; and methods of computation and construction, &c. We cannot extend the analysis of this important work to a greater Particular length ; but must content ourselves with a few remarks relative to jJfpJUJjUJ some of the deductions to which we have referred. We have seen that Ptolemy made the length of the year to be more than 365 days, 5h. 55m., which is about 6 minutes longer than it really is ; but considering that the observations before his time, with the exception of those of Hipparchus, were very imperfect ; and that the distance of time between these two celebrated astronomers, was not sufficient to determine such a question, with the means they possessed, to the greatest nicety, we may rather admire the near approximation to the truth, than be astonished at the difference between his result and that deduced from numerous and long-continued observations. His researches on the theory of the sun and moon were, however, -j^ ev ection attended with better success. Hipparchus had shown that these two discovered, bodies moved in orbits, of which the earth was not the centre ; and Ptolemy demonstrated the same truths by new observations. He, moreover, made another important discovery, which belongs exclusively to him, except so far as relates to the observations of Hipparchus, by a comparison of which with his own, his conclusion was deduced, we allude here to the second lunar inequality, at present distinguished by the term evection. It is known, generally, that the velocity of the moon in its orbit, is not always the same, and that it augments or 344: GREEK SCIENCE. diminishes, as the diameter of this satellite appears to increase or de- crease ; we know, also, that it is greatest and least at the extremities of the line of the apsides of the lunar orbit. Ptolemy observed that from one revolution to another, the absolute quantities of these two extreme velocities varied, and that the more distant the sun was from the line of the apsides of the moon, the more the difference between these two velocities augmented ; whence he concluded that the first inequality of the moon, which depends on the eccentricity of its orbit, is itself subject to an annual inequality, depending on the position of the line of the apsides of the lunar orbit with regard to the sun. When we consider Ptolemy's system of astronomy, as founded upon a false hypothesis, the complication of his various epicycles, in order to account for the several phenomena of the heavenly bodies, and the rude state of the ancient astronomy, it is impossible to withhold our admiration of the persevering industry and penetrating genius of this justly-celebrated philosopher; who, with such means, was enabled to discover an irregularity which would seem to require the most delicate and refined aid of modern mechanics to be rendered perceptible. The work of this author to which we have hitherto confined our remarks, is the ' Almagest;' 1 but Ptolemy also composed other trea- tises ; which, if not equal to the above in importance, are still such as to be highly honourable to his memory and talents, particularly his geography. Ptolemy's This work, although imperfect as to its detail, is notwithstanding geography. f oun( j e( j U p 0n correct principles ; the places being marked by their latitude and longitude agreeably to the method of Hipparchus. As to the inaccuracies of their position, although they cannot be denied, they will readily be pardoned, when we consider that he had for the determination of the situation of cities and places of which he speaks, only a small number of observations, subject to considerable errors ; and the mere report of travellers, whose observations we may readily grant were still more erroneous than those of his own. It requires many years to give great perfection to geography : even in the present time, when observations with accurate instruments have been made in every part of the globe, we are still finding corrections necessary ; a remark- able instance of which seems to have occurred lately (1818) to Captain Ross, in his voyage into Baffin's Bay, where he is said to have found some parts of the land laid down nearly a degree and a half out 1 The first printed edition of this celebrated performance was a Latin translation from the Arabic version of Cremoneus ; which, however, abounds so much in the idiom of that language, as to render it nearly unintelligible, without a constant reference to the Greek text. This was published at Venice in 1515 ; and in 1538 the collection appeared in its original language, under the superintendence of Simon Grynaeus, at Basil, together with the eleven books of the Commentaries of Theon. The Greek text was again republished at the same place, with a Latin version, in 1541 ; and again, with all the works of Ptolemy, in 1551 ; and lastly, a splendid French edition, with the Greek text, by M. Halma, in three beautiful volumes, royal quarto, Paris, 1813. MECHANICS. 345 of their proper places. Many other minor pieces on astronomy and optics are also attributed to this author ; but we have already extended our accounts of his works to a greater length than we had intended, and must now therefore pass on to his successors. After the time of Ptolemy we find no Greek astronomers of Greeks eminence, although we have some few writers on this subject. The science of astronomy had now obviously passed its zenith, and began rapidly to decline. The Alexandrian school, it is true, still subsisted ; but during the long period of five hundred years, all that can be said is, that the taste for, and the tradition of, the science was preserved, by various commentators on Hipparchus and Ptolemy ; of whom the most distinguished were Theon and the unfortunate Hypatia, his daughter. The latter is said to have herself computed certain astronomical tables, which are lost. We now arrive at that period, so fatal to the Grecian sciences. Destruction These had for a long time taken refuge in the school of Alexandria ; Alexandrian where, destitute of support and encouragement, they could not fail to school, degenerate. Still, however, they preserved, as we have said above, at least by tradition or imitation, some resemblance of the original ; but about the middle of the seventh century, a tremendous storm arose which threatened their total destruction. Filled with all the enthu- siasm a military government is calculated to inspire, the successor of Mahomet ravaged that vast extent of country, which stretches from the east to the southern confines of Europe. All the cultivators of the arts and sciences who had from every nation assembled at Alexandria, were driven away with ignominy : some fell beneath the swords of their conquerors, while others fled into remote countries, to drag out the re- mainder of their lives in obscurity and distress. The places and the instruments which had been so useful in making an immense number of astronomical observations, were involved with the records of them, in one common rain. The entire library, containing the works of so many eminent authors, which was the general depository of all human knowledge, was devoted to the devouring flames, by the Arabs ; the caliph Omar observing, " that if they agreed with the Koran, they were useless ; and if they did not, they ought to be destroyed' :" a senti- ment worthy of such a leader, and oif the cause in which he was en- gaged. In the midst of this conflagration, the sun of Grecian science, which had long been declining from its meridian, finally set; never, perhaps, again to rise in those regions once so celebrated for the culti- vation of every art and science that does honour to the human mind. II. MECHANICS. It is not our intention, in the present article, to enter upon the history of practical mechanics, but to confine ourselves exclusively to the theory of the science ; we shall not, therefore, have to travel into those dark ages in which historical facts and fables are so blended, that it 346 GREEK SCIENCE. Archimedes. B.C. 289. Centre of gravity. is nearly impossible to distinguish the one from the other. We learn at once from the writings of Aristotle, what the state of mechanical theory was in his time : for we find him maintaining, that if one body have ten times the density of another, it will move with ten times the velocity, and that both being let fall from the same height, the one will fall through ten times the space that the other will in the same time ; that the velocity of the same body, in different mediums, is reciprocally as their densities ; and other equally absurd and incon- sistent notions : and the difficulty which Galileo experienced in eradi- cating these false hypotheses, is a proof that, in the long interval between his time and that of the Stagirite, no theory of motion of a more intelligible and satisfactory description had appeared ; although the doctrine of equilibrium had already begun to assume a scientific form in the hands of Archimedes and Pappus. In the writings of Archimedes that are still extant, we find the earliest attempt to reduce the laws of equilibrium to order and con- sistency. His work ' De jEquiponderantibus ' first unites and assimi- lates them with the pure principles of geometry. With this view, he began by considering the case of a lever or balance, supported on a fulcrum, and loaded with a weight at each extremity ; then assuming it as an axiom, that when the two arms of the balance are equal, the two weights supposed in equilibrio are also necessarily equal, he de- monstrated that if one of the arms of this lever be augmented in length, the weight applied to it in order to preserve the equilibrium, must be reduced in the same ratio : and hence he concluded, that generally, when two weights suspended from the unequal arms of a lever are in equilibrio, these weights ought to be reciprocally propor- tional to the distance of their respective points of application from the centre of motion. He also observed, that each of these two weights produced the same pressure on the fulcrum or point of support as it would do if it were immediately applied at that point ; he next pro- ceeded to make this substitution mentally, and to combine the sum of the two weights with a third ; thus attaining the same conclusion for an assemblage of the three weights as for the first two ; and so on for any greater number. Hence he demonstrated, step by step, that there exists in every system of bodies, as well as in every single body, regarded as a system, a general centre, which we denominate the centre of gravity. He then applied this theory to certain examples, and determined the centres of gravity in the parallelogram, the tri- angle, the trapezium, the area of the parabola, &c. &c. This deduction, as we have above observed, was the first step towards establishing a rational theory of mechanics ; and the surprise expressed by Hiero at the famous assertion of our philosopher, " Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the earth," shows at once the novelty of the doctrine, and the wretched state of mechanical knowledge prior to this discovery. To the same author has also been attributed the theory of the inclined plane, the pulley, and the screw ; HYDROSTATICS. 347 much doubt, however, remains upon this subject, and he is too rich in honours to render it desirable to increase them by any of uncertain authority. The machines which he constructed for the annoyance of the Roman army, during the siege of Syracuse, astonish even our present proficients in the science ; but as no writings particularly de- scriptive of them have come down to us, we are in a great measure unacquainted with the nature of their powers : and while much of what is invaluable has been lost, much may have been exaggerated by succeeding writers, and little of scientific detail can be relied upon respecting them. No theory of mechanics, with the exception of what little is found in the collection of Pappus, and which is chiefly a repetition of the doctrines of Archimedes, appeared from the time of the latter philosopher, till near the end of the sixteenth century. III. HYDROSTATICS. We have seen, in the historical chapter prefixed to our treatise on Mechanics, that we are indebted to Archimedes for the first correct theoretical notions of the doctrine of statics ; and it was the same celebrated philosopher who first established the fundamental laws of hydrostatics, or that branch of hydrodynamics which relates to the equilibrium of fluids. With regard to the theory of the motion of bodies, whether solid or fluid, or the sciences of dynamics and hydraulics, they have had their birth wholly amongst the moderns ; the former of these we have already noticed in the chapter above alluded to, and the latter will be introduced in its proper place in the present article. According to some authors, the work which Archimedes composed Hydrostatics. on Hydrostatics, we owe, as it now exists, to a translation from the Archimedes. Arabic ; while others maintain that we have derived it from an imme- diate translation of the original Greek text. This work is entitled ' De Humido insidentibus,'* and is divided into two books. The basis on which this author founds his theory is this : that every particle of a fluid being supposed equal, and equally heavy, will renjain in the place in which it is found ; or that the whole mass will be in equi- librio when each particular particle is equally pressed in every direction. This equality of pressure, on which the state of equilibrium is made to depend, is demonstrated by experiment. The author afterwards examines the conditions which ought to obtain, in order that a solid homogeneous body, floating on a fluid, may take and preserve the situ- ation of equilibrium : he shows that the centre of gravity of the body, and that of the part immersed, must be situated in the same vertical right line ; that the weight of the body is equal to the portion of fluid displaced by it ; that the body will be entirely immersed when its spe- cific gravity is equal to, or exceeds that of the fluid ; and other princi- ples of the science of hydrostatics, which constitute the basis of the theory of present times. It appears, likewise, from his investigations, 348 GREEK SCIENCE. that two bodies of equal magnitude, both heavier than the fluid in which they are immersed, will lose equal parts of their weights ; and that reciprocally, when the weights lost in the same fluid are equal, the bodies are of equal magnitudes. The solution of the well-known problem of Archimedes, relative to the crown of Hiero, king of Syra- cuse, depends on the above principles. Screw of Besides the theoretical principles of Hydrostatics, we owe also to Archimedes. , -, . -, .-, i j. ,1 . . i j v this philosopher, according to some authors, an ingenious hydraulic engine, called, from the name of its supposed inventor, the screw of Archimedes. It is employed in elevating water to small heights ; and is very simple in its construction, and commodious in its appli- cation. Diodorus asserts, that Archimedes invented this machine in his voyage to Egypt, and that the Egyptians afterwards employed it for the purpose of draining the marshes of that country ; but Vitruvius, a contemporary of Diodorus, does not enumerate it amongst the dis- coveries of Archimedes, of whom he was nevertheless a great admirer j and Claudius Perrault, the translator and commentator of Vitruvius, adds, that the use Diodorus gives to this machine, namely, that it was employed to render Egypt habitable, by draining off the waters with which it was formerly inundated, makes it highly probable that the engine is of much earlier date than the time of the Syracusan philo- sopher. If this conjecture have any foundation, let us not mix with the legitimate claims of Archimedes, an invention which may be con- tested with him : he is too rich in other respects to render important the sacrifice of an equivocal right. ctesibiusand About a century after Archimedes, two mathematicians of the Hero. Alexandrian school, viz. : Ctesibius, and Hero, his disciple, invented thl^ump the pump, the siphon, and the fountain of compression ; the latter of and siphon. w hlch is to this day known under the appellation of Hero's fountain. We owe more especially to Ctesibius, a machine of the same kind, composed of a sucking and a forcing pump; so combined, that by their alternate action, the water is drawn and forced into a tube placed between them. The effects produced by these machines are in truth highly curious and interesting, and doubtless must have ap- peared very extraordinary to their original inventors, who, not know- ing to what principle to attribute them, had recourse to their grand scheme of occult qualities, so commodious for explaining all the phenomena of nature. The water rose in the pumps, according to these philosophers, because nature abhorred a vacuum, and consequently the place abandoned by the piston was immediately supplied by the water : we know not whether at that time philoso- phers were aware of the limit to which the elevation of the water was confined; but we do know, that when this was pointed out to the great Galileo, the father of modern physics, he could only explain it by stating, that nature's abhorrence of a vacuum only extended to about thirty-three or thirty-four feet ! Such were the illustrations of HYDROSTATICS. 349 the ancients : their whole science consisted in the operations of secret and occult powers ; they transferred from the moral to the physical world, the ideas of affection and hatred ; both celestial and terrestrial bodies had their sympathies and antipathies ; and philosophers con- sidered that they had explained a phenomenon, when they had, after one manner or another, brought it under the influence of these chi- merical agents. The Clepsydra, or water-clock, may be considered as an hydraulic Clepsydra, machine, of which the invention is attributable to the Egyptians. This instrument indicated the hours by the successive elevations of the water which entered into a vessel, in quantities, regulated according to the proposed divisions of time, or by means of a hand, which the falling water caused to revolve on a graduated face or dial-plate. Ctesibius, and even some moderns, as Tycho Brahe, Dudley, and others, have not disdained to turn their attention to the improvement of this machine ; the great perfection, however, that has been attained in the construction of clocks and w r atches, renders the clepsydra, in the present day, a mere matter of curiosity. Water-mills, which must be classed amongst the most valuable Water-mills, hydraulic engines, were also an ancient invention, of the date of which we are ignorant. An epigram of the Greek Anthology seems to indi- cate that water-mills were first invented in the time of Augustus ; but Vitruvius, who flourished under this prince, in his descriptions, does not speak of them as a recent invention; it is, therefore, highly pro- bable that they were known long before that period. As to wind-mills, Wind-mills, they were not employed in Europe till long after water-mills : some authors pretend, that the former were first invented by the French in the sixth century of the Christian era ; while others assert that we owe them to the Crusaders, who brought them from the East, where they were even then very ancient ; and generally preferred to water- mills, in consequence of the sources of the rivers being much more rare and uncertain in those countries than in Europe. But whether they are the invention, or merely the adoption of Europeans, this is certain that the progress of their improvement was very slow, and that we generally prefer the use of water-mills as more commodious and regular in their operation. Bossut, when speaking of these ancient and important constructions, observes, "In viewing so many labours, so many monuments of human genius, the man, alive to gratitude, asks, to whom do we owe all these useful and sublime discoveries ? What honours, what recom- penses, have these benefactors of man received of their country, or of the world at large ? history commonly answers nothing to these in- quiries : while great pains are taken to transmit the names and the exploits of conquerors, who have ravaged the earth, and left traces of misery and destruction in all their steps." It is, however, only the construction of certain hydraulic engines that we owe to the ancients ; for they were wholly ignorant of any 350 GEEEK SCIENCE. theoretical hydraulic principle : we may, therefore, easily conceive, that their first attempts were very rude and imperfect, and the defects of one machine were their only lessons for the construction of others less imperfect ; and it was thus, by successive attempts, and reiterated experiments and failures, that they were led by degrees to that state of perfection to which they ultimately attained. Frontinus, To Sextus Julius Frontinus is commonly attributed the first theo- first theorist. r ^ c notions of the motion of fluids. This author was inspector of the public fountains of Rome, under the emperors Nerva and Trajan, and he left, on this subject, a work entitled ' De aquaeductibus urbis Romse commentarms.' In this treatise, the author first describes the aqueducts of Rome, cites the names of those which the Romans had constructed, and the dates of their constructions ; he then fixes and compares with each other the measures of capacity which he employed at Rome for measur- ing the products of the adjutages. Thence he passes to a description of the means of distributing the waters of an aqueduct, or of a fountain. On these subjects he made several correct observations ; for example, he showed that the quantity of water issuing from an adjutage, did not wholly depend upon its magnitude or superficies, but that the height of the reservoir above it must also be considered ; a very obvious fact, but yet such an one as some more recent constructors have neglected to introduce into their investigations. He knew, also, that the tube designed to carry off part of the water of an aqueduct, ought to have, according to circumstances, a position more or less oblique with respect to the course of the fluid, &c. Notwithstanding all this, however, he did not exhibit a mathematical precision on this subject ; for he did not know the correct law which obtained between the velocity of the adjutage, and the height of the reservoir. No other ancient author approximated in any mariner towards a theoretical view of the principle of hydraulics ; we are, therefore, com- pletely justified in claiming the honour of the discovery of this science as wholly due to the moderns. IV. PNEUMATICS. As the science of Pneumatics is in a great measure involved in the general doctrine of the theory of fluids, many branches of its history are so connected with that of hydrodynamics, that it is difficult to separate them from it ; and, accordingly, many of the circumstances given under the latter head will equally apply to the former. There is, however, one important distinction : most of the properties of water are striking and obvious, while those of air are hidden and obscure ; that water is a heavy body is a fact which must have been known from the earliest observations, but the gravitating properties of atmo- spheric air were by no means so evident, and therefore long remained a matter of doubt, even after the idea of its ponderability had been PNEUMATICS. 351 suggested. That some of the ancients had formed certain vague ideas of the gravitating power of the air, is obvious from many of their works still extant ; but their notions were very confused, and involved in considerable obscurity. Thus Aristotle says, that all the elements Aristotle. have weight, with the exception of fire; adding, that a bladder inflated with air will weigh more than when it is quite empty. (De Caelo, lib. iv. c. i. op. torn. i. p. 485.) Plutarch and Stobasus quote Aristotle as teaching that the weight of air is between that of fire and earth; and the latter philosopher himself quotes Empedocles as attributing the act of respiration to the pressure of the air, by which it insinuates itself into the lungs. Again, Plutarch (De Placit., lib. iv. c. xxii. torn. ii. p. 903) expresses, in similar terms, the opinion of Asclepiades on this subject, and represents him as saying, that the external air, by its weight, opened its way by force into the breast. Hero of Alexandria, in his work ' Spiritalia,' applies the principle of Ctesibiusand the elasticity of the air to produce and explain various effects, in such Hero> a way, as sufficiently to convince us that he was no stranger to several of the properties of atmospheric air ; and Ctesibius, adopting the prin- ciple of its elasticity, constructed wind-guns, which afterwards passed for modern inventions. There is, however, some difference between the ancient and modern air-gun : in that of Ctesibius, for example, the ball was not immediately exposed to the action of the air, but was impelled by the longer arm of a lever, while the air acted on the shorter ; but the principle of operation is the same in both, and shows clearly that the elastic property of common air, if it could not be accu- rately measured, was at least known at that period. To this philo- sopher is also commonly attributed the invention of the sucking-pump. Hero, to whom we have above referred, was a contemporary and scholar of Ctesibius ; he describes in his treatise ' On Pneumatics,' a number of very ingenious inventions, a few of which are calculated for utility, but the greater part only for amusement ; they are principally siphons, variously concealed and combined, fountains and water-organs, besides the syringe and fire-engine. This machine is said to agree in principle with the common engine of the present day ; it consists of two barrels, discharging the water alternately into an air-vessel ; and it appears, from Vitruvius, that this was the original form in which Ctesibius invented the pump. Hero supposes the possibility of a vacuum in the intervals of the particles of a body, observing, that without it no substance could be compressible ; but he imagined that a vacuum could not have existed throughout a perceptible space, and thence derives the principle of suction. The air contained in a given cavity, he says, may be rarefied by sucking out a part of it, and he describes a cupping instrument, which approaches very nearly to an imperfect air-pump. It appears, therefore, that at this time, viz. (B. c. 100), many of the properties of air were fully understood, particularly its gravity and elasticity; but the followers of these philosophers, abandoning the 352 GREEK SCIENCE. opinions of their masters, maintained a different doctrine, and invented many absurd hypotheses to account for the operations of the various machines above alluded to. Mirrors. Hebrew mirrors. V. OPTICS. It would be more easy to become the encomiast of this science than to trace its history ; for there is no department of philosophy more deserving of our study, whether we consider its beauty or the multi- plicity of its phenomena. Air, which serves as the medium of speech, and the vehicle of sound, enables us to carry on an intellectual inter- course with our fellow- creatures ; but how considerably is that inter- course improved and facilitated by light, which brings before us their image their image which tells us so much of their character and of their thoughts! The eye, so susceptible of multifarious impressions, conveys to the mind ideas of the forms by which bodies are limited, the colours by which they are adorned, their relative positions, and their motions. By a single look this admirable organ enables us to seize the indefinite modifications of the numerous objects that diversify our richest landscapes ; and when it becomes aided by the instruments furnished by our knowledge of the laws of reflection and refraction, it contemplates the two kinds of infinity that would otherwise have re- mained unknown that of animalcule and of small inanimate objects, imperceptible by reason of their minuteness and that of the celestial bodies, invisible by reason of their remoteness ; thus opening to natural history a new field, to astronomy a new heaven, and inviting us suc- cessfully to contemplate the universe of the poet : " Without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, And time and place are lost." But our present employment must not be that of eulogy. The ancients for several centuries seem, as was naturally to be ex- pected, to have had no knowledge of the theory of optics, and to have made no advances of consequence in the construction of optical instru- ments. The observance of a straight rod, partially immersed in water, would suggest to them the idea of refraction ; and the sight of their own image, reflected from the smooth surface of a quiescent liquid, would naturally lead them to attempt the construction of artificial mirrors. Accordingly, we find mention not merely of mirrors, but of metallic mirrors, in the earliest writings now extant, those of Moses. In Exodus xxxviii. 8, though Luther, and some few after him, trans- late the passage " He made the hand-bason of brass, and its stand also of brass, in the presence of the women who served before the door of the tabernacle;" yet they have been censured for this, since the Sep- tuagint, the Vulgate, the English, and the Dutch Bibles, agree in translating ' Beramoth' " of the mirrors," made, say many of the com- mentators, of polished brass. In the book of Job, too, now generally OPTICS. 353 assigned by biblical critics to Moses as the author, we have (xxxvii. 18) in the address of Elihu to his afflicted friend, the inquiry : " Hast thou with him [God] spread out the heavens, Polished as a molten-mirror?" Pliny assures us 1 that the pagan women, when attending the worship of their deities, were ornamented with metallic mirrors ; and it seems extremely probable, as Cyril, of Alexandria, has affirmed, 2 that the Israelitish women borrowed this custom from the Egyptians, and attempted to introduce it into their own worship. These early mirrors were flat, and so they appear to have been, generally, down to the time of Prasitelis, who lived in the reign of Pompey the Great. His mirrors chiefly consisted of hammered plates of pure silver, as Prasiteiis's we learn from the words of Pliny : " Lamina duci et specula fieri mi " c j s ' 60 non nisi ex optimo (argento) posse creditum fuerat." But the silver was sometimes mixed with other metals : " Id quaque jam fraude corrumpitur." Pliny further informs us, that " Specula quoque ex eo (stanno) laudatissima, Brandusii temperabuntur, donee argenteis uti caspere et ancillse." Highly-praised mirrors were manufactured at Brundusium, till the very maid-servants began to use silver ones. The monster, Nero, who it seems was short-sighted, employed as a mirror an emerald, reduced to a polished surface, on which he viewed by re- flection, the combats of the gladiators. Here, however, is no optical science. Aristotle is the earliest author whose writings on the subject of Aristotle, optics have reached our times; but, unfortunately, he has not been B>c - 350 ' more successful in this branch of research than he was in reference to mechanics. His speculations on the nature of the rainbow, on the manner in which we perceive objects, and on different optical pheno- mena, are not merely crude, but generally erroneous; and in his treatise, Hepl Xpo/zarw*', ' De Coloribus,' everything is so vague and foreign from correctness of explication, that we should not hold our- selves justified in presenting any detail. Soon after Aristotle, the celebrated geometer Euclid composed a Euclid, book on this subject. It appears under the title, 'OTTTIKO. (neuter plural),. B * c> 300 ' and has been sometimes ascribed to another author bearing the same name. , We are of opinion, however, that it fairly belongs to the geometrician, and that it is the ' Introduction' only which was written by another hand. As the deductions of Euclid, though founded upon a wrong hypothesis, are curious, considering the state of mixed mathe- matics at the epoch in which they appeared, we shall present a synopsis of them in this place. Light propagates itself in right lines, as is shown by the shadows of Propositions, bodies, and by the passage of light through a door or window. If the luminous object be equal to the object illuminated, the sections 1 Lib. xxxiii. c. 9 ; lib. xxxiv. c. 17. 2 Lib. ii. De Adoratione in Spiritu. [G. E. P.] 2 A 354 GREEK SCIENCE. of the shadow are equal to the object, because the extreme rays are parallel. If the illuminated body be less than the luminous body, the shadow will gradually diminish : on the contrary, if the illuminated body be largest, the shadow will become gradually larger and larger. Hypothesis. Visual rays issue from the eyes in diverging right lines, so as to form a pyramid, or cone, whose vertex is in the eye, and whose base encircles the object which we contemplate. Objects to which these rays are directed are seen by us ; but we cannot see those to- wards which these visual lines do not point. Objects appear larger, smaller, or equal, according as the angles under which we see them, are greater, less, or equal. The object is always seen in the direction of the visual ray ; and those which are seen by the greatest number of rays are most distinct. We never see the whole of an object. Of two equal objects, the nearest will be seen most distinctly. Every visible object becomes invisible at a certain distance. Of equal parts of a right line, those which are most remote are seen under the smallest angle, and appear smallest. Equal magnitudes, seen at unequal distances, appear unequal ; that which is nearest will appear greatest. Parallel lines, viewed from a distance, appear to converge. If a horizontal surface be lower than the eye, the part which is most remote will appear to be elevated : if the horizontal surface be higher than the eye, the most remote portion will appear depressed. A circle, viewed in the direction of its own plane, will appear as a right line. When we look at a sphere with one eye, we never see so much as its half. Viewed from a distance, a sphere appears as a circle. When we look at a sphere with both eyes, if its diameter be equal to the distance between the two pupils, we see its half: if the interval between the pupils be greater, we see more than half; if the said in- terval be less, less than the sphere half will be seen. If we look at a cylinder with one eye, we shall not see its half; as we approach nearer to it, we see less and less. If the eye be in a line that passes through the centre of a circle per- pendicularly to its plane, all the radii of the circle appear equal. A circle, seen obliquely, appears flattened or contracted. If several objects are in motion, and only one quiescent, that one will seem to move in a contrary direction. If several bodies move with unequal velocities, and the eye is carried along in the same direction, those objects which have the same velocity as the eye will appear stationary ; those which have greater velocities will appear to advance, while those which have less velocities will seem to recede. If several objects have equal velocities, those which are most remote will appear to move most slowly. OPTICS. 355 If the eye advance, distant objects will appear to be left behind. If an object appear to augment, we judge that it is approaching towards the eye. Objects unequally distant, which are not in a right line, may some- times give the idea of a concave surface, and, at others, the idea of a convex surface. These propositions relate to direct vision : there are a few which relate to reflection. Among these we find the problem, to find the Problem, height of an object by its shadow, or, in the absence of the sun, by means of a mirror, on the principle of the equality of the angles of incidence and reflection. Euclid also attempts to determine the burning point of a concave spherical mirror, but errs in his conclusion ; for he supposes that this point is the centre of the concavity, or the centre of the sphere. How long this error in theoretical deduction remained unconnected, it is not easy to say : it is well known that the ancients employed concave mirrors to rekindle the vestal fires. Plutarch, in his ' Life of Numa,' gives a description, not very distinct, however, of the cxce^tta, Numa. or dishes, which they thus employed. They seem to have been con- B - c - 71 - cave polished hemispheres, or segments nearly hemispherical; and A.C. 98. Plutarch tells us, that the combustible matter was placed in their centre. This could not be ; for the focus is at the distance of half the radius. Imperfect, however, as the theory appears to have been, there can be no question that the practice of setting fire to substances by placing them in the foci of catoptric and dioptric instruments, was known some centuries before the Christian era. In addition to what is already Socrates, adduced, we may cite a passage from the * Clouds' of Aristophanes, in ? which he introduces Socrates as giving lessons to Strepsiades. The object of the dramatist is to ridicule the philosopher. Strepsiades proposes an expedient by means of which he intends to pay his debts : " Strep. You have seen at the druggists that fine transparent stone with which fires are kindled. " Soc. You mean glass, do you not ? " Strep. Just so. " Soc. Well, what will you do with that ? " Strep. When a summons is sent to me I will take this stone, and, placing myself in the sun, I will, though at a distance, melt all the writing of the summons." Writing, in those times, was traced on wax spread upon a more solid substance. Hence we see why Strepsiades should propose to melt the writing. From this use of burning glasses, the transition to the mirrors, said Archimedes* to have been employed by Archimedes, is not either so extraordinary, JjJJJJjjy or so difficult, as has been usually imagined. It has been repeatedly B.C. 218. affirmed, on the authority of Hero, Diodorus Siculus, Lucian, and 2 A2 356 GREEK SCIENCE. Zonaras. A.C. 1160. Proclus. A.C. 514. Tzetzes. A.C. 1160. Napier. A.C. 1596. Pappus, that Archimedes, by means of burning mirrors, set fire to the Roman fleet that was drawn up to besiege Syracuse. This, however, has been often denied. Descartes, and many after him, have regarded the thing as impossible. To the discussion of this question we cannot devote much space ; it will be expected, however, that we do not pass it over in total silence. Father Kircher, although he was among the incredulous, in reference to the Archimedean mirrors, concluded from an actual survey of the site of the town and harbour of Syracuse, that the distance to which the philosopher had to project the solar rays was not more than thirty paces. And whatever may have been the doubts formerly entertained on this subject, it is now well known, that the solar rays may, after reflection, be thrown to an effective focus at a much greater distance than this. Our deduction will not be speculative, but historical. Zonaras affirms, from the authorities above specified, that Archi- medes set fire to the Roman fleet by means of the solar rays collected and reflected by a polished mirror. He then adds, that Proclus, copying his example, burnt with mirrors of brass the fleet of Vitalian, who besieged Constantinople, under the emperor Anastasius, in the year 514. Tzetzes, who also quotes the same authorities, presents a particular explication of the mechanism of Archimedes' burning mirrors. " When Marcellus (says he), had removed his fleet out of the reach of the darts, Archimedes brought into play a hexagonal mirror, composed of several other smaller mirrors, each of which had twenty-four angles, and which could be moved by means of their hinges, and of certain plates of metal. He placed this mirror in such a position that it was in the midst of the meridional solar rays both in summer and in winter ; so that those rays, being received on the mirror, were reflected by it, and kindled such a fire as reduced the Roman vessels to ashes." This is much such a description as might naturally be expected from a person not skilled in either optics or mechanics ; and such a person was Tzetzes. A very obscure hint, however, is sufficient to bring real genius into action ; and it is highly probable, that the celebrated Napier, putting a happy construction upon the words of Tzetzes, recovered the admir- able invention of Archimedes. In a paper of Napier's, bearing date June 2, 1596, and containing hints of secret inventions, we meet with the following : " The invention, proof, and perfect demonstration, geometrical and algebraical, of a burning mirror, which, receiving of dispersed beams of the sun, doth reflex the same beams altogether united, and concurring precisely in one mathematical point, in the which point most neces- sarily it engendereth fire ; with an evident demonstration of their error, who affirm this to be made a parabolic section. The use of this in- vention serveth for the burning of the enemy's ships at whatsoever appointed distance. OPTICS. 357 2ndly. " The invention and sure demonstration of another mirror which, receiving the dispersed beams of any material fire, or flame, yieldeth also the former effect, and serveth for the like use." Long after this, viz., in 1726, M. Du Fay found that " at 200, 300, and even as far as 600 French feet (about 640 English), the rays of Ar](ri Trepl eavTOv, on ivdvofjievov TTOTE Kal eK^vopevov ai/rov, ffTTivdfipciQ a7T7n]C(i)v e^aiffioi, 'icmv ore Kal KTVTTOVVTEQ. kv'iole $ Kal 0Xoy 6'Xcu rareXajuTrov, ^ijtri, TO iuaTiov JJ.TJ jccuovacu." (Eustath. 4 in II.' E. p. 515, lin. 4, ed. Rom.) " Walimer, the father of Theodoric, (uncle, Trarpug ?) who con- quered, as they say, the whole of Italy, used to emit sparks from his own body; and a certain ancient philosopher says of himself, that once when he was dressing and undressing himself, sudden sparks 364 GREEK SCIENCE. were emitted, occasionally crackling, and sometimes, he says, entire flames blazed from him, not burning his garment." Although it is clear that philosophical speculations upon the natural properties of matter were by no means valued or pursued in what we should now call a truly scientific manner; yet the following singular passage from St. Jerome may afford a sufficient proof that the facts which had been before recorded, were neither lost nor forgotten. " Arguit in hoc loco Porphyrius et Julianus Augustus, vel imperitiam historic! mentientis, vel stultitiam eorum qui statim secuti sint Salvatorem, quasi irrationabiliter quemlibet vocentem hominem sint secuti : cum tantse virtutes, tantaque signa pracesserint, qua? Apostolos antequam crederent, vidisse non dubium est. Certe fulgor ipse, et majestas divinitatis occultae qua3 etiam in human& facie reluce- bat, ex primo ad se videntes trahere poterat aspectu. Si enim in magnete lapide et succinis haec esse vis dicitur, ut anulos et stipulam et festucas sibi copulent ; quanto magis Dominus omnium creaturarum ad se trahere poterat quos vocabat." Sti. Hieronymi, Presb. lib. i. 1 Com. in Matt.' cap. ix. INDEX. , birth, 4 a slave, 4 anecdotes, 5 liberation, 6 travels, 8 settles at Babylon, 9 precepts, 9 last journey to Greece, 10 death, 12 Alexander's early masters, 120 obligations to Aristotle, 121 education, 122 . fellow pupils, 125 . coolness to Aristotle, 134 Alexandrian school, destruction of, 345 Amelius, 291 Ammianus Marcellinus, 296 Ammonius Saccas, 288 Anaxagoras, birth, 21 , doctrines, 23, 308, 332 Anaximander, birth, 19 , doctrines, 20, 307, 332 Anaximenes, 20, 332 Ancient commentators on Aristotle, 155 Ancient Theists and Atheists, 21 Antisthenes, 250 Apellicon the Teian, 168 Apollodorus' Summary of Aristotle's Life, 101 Apollonius, 324 Arcesilas, 218 Archelaus, 24 , philosophy, 25 Archimedes, 315 , science and inventions, 314-321, 337, 346, 347 , birth, 315 , death, 322 Archytas, 308 Aristarchus, 314, 335 Aristillus, 314 Arithmetic, 311 Aristotle, 346, 351, 353, 363 , early histories of, 96 , birthplace, 101 , early education, 102 Aristotle comes to Athens, 103 , works, 105 , reputed ingratitude to Plato, 108 gives lectures, 113 at the court of Hermias, 114 flies to Mytilene, 116 marries Pythias, 117 is calumniated, 117 goes to Macedon to educate Alexander, 123 , influence over Alexander, 123 , misrepresented, 124 returns to Athens, 126 , division of his scholars, 127 , their social meetings, 127 , their public exercises, 128 , prosperity, 131 returns to Chalcis, 132 accused of impiety, 133 , defence, 133 advice to Callisthenes, 134 , death, 145 , will, 147 , descendants of, 148 , fate of his works, 150 , writings known to the early Peripatetics, 157 , style of his exoteric works, 163 , popularity of his exoteric works, 1 65 , difficulty of his scientific works, 165 , imputed variance in his views, 166 , literary notice of his existing writings, 172 , Categories, 172 , on Interpretation, 172 , Former Analytics, 172 , Topics, 172 , on Sophistical Proofs, 173 , Physical Lectures, 173 -, on the Heavens, 173 , on Generation and Decay, 174 , Meteorology, 174 , to Alexander, on the World, 174 , on the Soul, 174 , tracts on physical subjects, 174 366 INDEX. Aristotle, on Breath, 17 , Accounts of Animals, 175 . , on the Parts of Animals, 175 , on the Movement of Animals, 175 , on the Locomotion of Animals, 176 , on the Engendering of Animals, 176 , on Colours, 176 , from the Book on Sounds, 176 , Physiognomica, 176 , on Plants, 176 , on Wonderful Stories, 176 , Mechanics, 176 , Problems, 177 , on Indivisible Lines, 178 , the Quarters and Names of the Winds, 178 , on Xenophanes, Zeno, and Gorgias, 178 , the Metaphysics, 178 , Nicomachean Ethics, 179 , the Great Ethics, 180 , the Eudemian Ethics, 180 , on Virtues and Vices, 180 , Politics, 180 , Economics, 180 , the Art of Rhetoric, 180 , the Rhetoric to Alexander, 181 , on the Poetic Art, 182 Astronomy, 307, 329 Athenseus's account of Aristotle's works, 153 Athenian social intercourse, 128 Autolycus, 310, 334 BUFFON, 357 CALIPPUS, 333 Callisthenes, 134 Carneades, 219 Cephisodorus' book against Aristotle, 113 Chrysippus, 260 Cicero. Imitations of Aristotle, 162 , birth and education, 207 , Consulate, 209 , Triumvirate, 211 , exile and return, 211 , Governor of Cilicia, 212 , Philosophical Writings, 216-227 , Rhetorical Works, 227-230 , Moral and Physical Writings, 230-234 , Epistles, 235 , y Poetical and Historical Works, 235 , Orations, 235 , MSS., editions, &c., 242 Claudian, 363 Cleanthes, 259 Comparison between the Plotinian School and the Quielists, 301 Crates, 252 Ctesibius, 323, 348, 351 Cynical Doctrines, review of, 252 Cynicism the parent of Stoicism, 249 DAMASCIUS, 225 Democritus, 21, 308 Destruction of ancient literature, 154 Dialectics, 32 Difference between the Greek and Latin lan- guages, 238 Diogenes, 251 Diogenes Apolloniates, 24 Dion Prusaeus, 265 Dogmatism, effects of, 269 Du Fay, 357 ECLECTICISM, rise of, 287 Eclectic Philosophy calculated to impede Chris- tianity, 302 English translations of Plato, 90 Epictetus, 265 Epicurus, birth, 185 visits Athens, 185 opens school, 185 , manner of life, 186 , success as a teacher, 186 , death, 187 , will, 187 emancipates his slaves, 188 , doctrines, 188 , views of physical science, 189 , views of moral philosophy, 190 , divisions of his philosophy, 191 , Physics the universe, 192 , atoms, 193 , images, 196 , psychology, 197 , astronomy, 197 , Moral Philosophy the gods, 128 , death and pain, 200 , the chief good, 201 , justice, 203 , successors of, 204 Eratosthenes, 323, 336 Eubulus, 115 Euclid, 313, 335, 353 Eudoxus, 308, 333 Eustathius, 363 FABLE, use of, 3 Frontinus, 350 GALEN, 363 Gellius's account of Aristotle, 130 Gorgias, 29 Greek Geometry, 307 Mechanics, 312 Music, 312 Optics, 312 ItfDEX. 367 HERACLITUS, 57 Herennius, 289 Hermias, 114, 116 Hermolaus, a friend of Callisthenes, 138 Hero, 348, 351 Herpyllis, 149 Hiero's crown, 319 Hierocles, 294 Hipparchus, 339 Hippias, 30 Hippocrates, 308 Hostility between Aristotle and Isocrates, 112 Hypatia, 296 Hydrostatics, 347 IMMORTALITY of the soul, 56 Introduction of the Greek Philosophy to Rome, 216 Isocrates' hostility to Aristotle, 112 Isodorus, 295 JAMBLICDS, 293 LEONID AS, 120 Leucippus, 21 Literature fashionable in Rome, 98 Longinus, 289 Lysimachus, 121 MACROBIUS, 296 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 265 Marinus, 295 Mechanics, 312, 345 Menechmus, 308 Modern Platonists, 89 Monimus 252 Music, 311 NAPIER, 356 Neo-platonic School, 294 New Academy (the), 218 Numa, 355 ONESICRITUS, 252 Oppian, 363 Optics, 312 Orators before Cicero, 240 Origen, 289 PAMPHILA, 99 Pansetius, 261 Peripatetics, 126 Peyrard, 357 Phavorinus, 99 Philip's acquaintance with Aristotle, 119 Philo and Antiochus, 223 Philosophy of the ancients, more speculative than practical, 215 Philosophy of the early poets, 15 of Italy, 57 Philolaus, 333 Pisidas, 361 Plato, fables concerning, 53 , birth, 53 , a disciple of Socrates, 54 , early writings, 54 retires to Megara, 55 composes the Phaedo, &c., 55 visits Italy, 57 visits Egypt, 59 opens a school at Athens, 61 , Dialogues, 61 ridicules the Sophists, 61 visits Dionysius, 63 , doctrine of virtue, 63 , idea of a commonwealth, 64 , Cosmogony, 65 , on Time and Eternity, 66 , creation of living beings, 67 , properties of matter, 67 , system of Laws, 67 , death, 68 , spurious writings, 68 , Philosophy, 71 , Politics, 76 , Natural Theology, 79 , Physical System, 79 , reprobates superstition, 81 , opinions on Logic and Rhetoric, 82 , successors, 89 , admirers in Britain, 90 , English translations of, 90 sentiments towards Aristotle, 107 , as a mathematician, 309 Pliny, 361, 362 Plotinian school, 291 doctrines, 297, 301 Plotinus, 289 , intended Platonopolis or philosophical colony, 291 works, 297 Plutarch, 355 , account of Aristotle's works, 151 Pneumatics, 350 Porch, the, 255 Porphyry, 291 Posidonius, 261 Potamo, 288 Prasitelis, 358 Proclus, 295, 355 Prodicus, 29 Protagoras, 29 Ptolemy, 340, 357 Euergetes, 357 Pyrrho, birth of, 271 , disciples of, 273 368 INDEX. Pyrrhonism, causes of, 270 Pythagoras, 58, 307, 332 Pythias, wife of Aristotle, 117 QUIETISTS, the, 301 ROMAN eloquence, 240 SCEPTICAL Philosophy, 270 , history of, 270 , account of, 275-283 School of Alexandria, 313 Scribon Largus, 363 Seneca, birth, 261 , education, 261 , banishment, 262 , tutor of Nero, 263 , death, 203 , -works, 264 Sextus Chaeronensis, 273 Sextus Empiricus, 273 , works of, 274, 283 Socrates, birth, 34 , a student, 34 , a soldier, 35 ', marriage with Xanthippe, 36 , poverty, 37 , method of teaching, 37 , the ' Irony ' of, 38 , the ' Demon ' of, 39 , religion, 41 , moral character, 42 , calumnies regarding, 43 , doctrines, 44 , precepts, 44 Socrates, politics, 45 , accusation, 48 , trial and condemnation, 48 , death, 49 , sects founded by his followers, 50 Solinus, 362 Sophists, the, 26 , effects of their teaching, 32 , ridiculed by Plato, 61 Stagirus built, 124 Stoical philosophy, 249 Stoicism introduced into Rome, 261 Strabo's account of Aristotle's works, 150 Superstition in Greece, 26 THALES, birth, 17 , doctrines, 18, 307, 330, 362 Themistus, 296 Theophrastus, 362 Timocharis, 314 Timon the Phliasian, 273 Tzetzes, 356 UNCONGENIALITY of Plato and Aristotle, 110 WISE Men of Greece, 16 XANTHUS, master of ^Esop, 4 Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, 36 ZENO, 254 , his doctrines, 255259 Zenodorus, 309 Zenodotus, 295 Zonaras, 356 RETURN TO DM^M 5cH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. 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