A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY EPITOME BY ALBERT SCHWEGLER. TRANSLATED FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF THE ORIGINAL GERMAN BY JULIUS H. SEELYE. REVISED FROM THE NINTH GERMAN EDITION, WITH AN APPENDIX, BY BENJAMIN E. SMITH. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1890. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, BY JULIUS H. SEELYE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year l&SO, BY JULIUS II. SEELYE, la the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Stack Anrj^x D TEA^SLATOE'S PEEFACE. OCHWEGLER'S History of Philosophy originally appeared in the "Neue Encyklopadie fiir Wissen- schaften und Kiinste" Its great value soon awakened a call for its separate issue, in which form it has attained a very wide circulation in Germany. It is found in the hands of almost every student in the philosophical department of a German university, and is highly esteemed for its clearness, conciseness, and comprehensiveness. The present translation was commenced in Ger- many three years ago, and has been carefully fin- ished. It was undertaken with the conviction that the work would not lose its interest or its value in an English dress, and with the hope that it might be of wider service in such a form to students of philosophy here. It was thought especially, that a proper translation of this manual would supply a want for a suitable text-book on this branch of study, long felt by both teachers and students in our American colleges. The effort has been made to translate, and not IV PREFACE. to paraphrase the author's meaning. Many of his statements might have been amplified without dif- fuseness, and made more perceptible to the super- ficial reader without losing their interest to the more profound student, but he has so happily seized upon the germs of the different systems, that they neither need, nor would be improved by any farther devel- opment, and has, moreover, presented them so clearly, that no student need have any difficulty in appre- hending them as they are. The translator has there- fore endeavored to represent faithfully and clearly the original history. As such he offers his work to the American public, indulging no hope, and making no efforts for its success beyond that which its own merits shall ensure. J. H. S. SCHEXECTADY, N.Y., January, 1856. PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. A FTER this translation was first published, the ninth edition of the original work, containing some important revisions, appeared in Germany. These revisions, including some new matter and some modifications of the old, are here incorporated by my friend and former pupil, whose name appears upon the title-page, and who, at my request, has also added an appendix continuing the history in its more prominent lines of development since the time of Hegel. He has done his work thoroughly, and what- ever value belonged to the translation as originally presented, will be found decidedly augmented in its present form. J. H. S. AMHEKST COLLEGE, June, 1880. CONTENTS. PAOR TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE iii PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION v TABLE OF CONTENTS vii SECTION I. OBJECT AND METHOD OF THE HISTORY OF PHI- LOSOPHY 15 II. CLASSIFICATION 21 HI. GENERAL VIEW OF THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSO- PHY 22 1. The Ionics 22 2. The Pythagoreans 22 3. The Eleatics 22 4. Heraclitus 23 5. The Atomists 23 6. Anaxagoras 24 7. The Sophists 24 IV. THE EARLIER IONIC PHILOSOPHERS ... 25 1. Thales 25 2. Auaximanclcr 26 3. Anaximeues 27 4. Retrospect 27 V. PYTHAGOREANISM 23 1. Its Relative Position 28 2. Historical and Chronological 2S 3. The Pythagorean Principle 2!) 4. Carrying out of this Principle; 30 VI. THE ELEATICS 32 1. Relation of the Eleatic Principle to the Pythagorean . 32 2. Xeuophaues 33 3. Parmenides 34 4. Zeno 36 Vlll CONTENTS. SECT. VII. HERACLITUS .......... 33 1. Relation of the Heraclitic Principle to the Eleatic . 33 2. Historical and Chronological ...... 33 3. The Principle of Becoming ...... 3!) 4. The Principle of Fire ........ 40 5. Transition to the Atomists ...... 41 VIII. EMPEDOCLES .......... 42 1. General View ......... 42 2. The Four Elements ........ 43 3. The Two Powers ........ 43 4. Relation of the Empecloclean to the Eleatic and Hera- clitic Philosophy ........ 44 IX. THE ATOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY ..... 45 1. Its Propounders ......... 45 2. The Atoms .......... 45 3. The Fulness and the Void ....... 45 4. The Atomistic Necessity . ...... 4G 5. Relative Position oC the Atomistic Philosophy . . 47 X. ANAXAGORAS .......... 48 1. His Personal History , ...... 43 2. His Relation to his Predecessors ..... 4!) 3. The Principle of the vorvg . . . . . . . 4<> 4. Anaxagoras as the close of the Pre-Sorr;itic llcalism 51 XI. THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY ...... 52 1. The Relation of the Sophistic Philosophy to the Earlier Philosophies ......... 52 2. Relation of the Sophistic Philosophy to the General Life of that Age ......... S5 3. Tendencies of the Sophistic Philosophy . . . 55 4. Significance of the Sophistic Philosophy in its relation to the Culture of the Age ....... 57 5. Individual Sophists ........ 53 6. Transition to Socrates, and Character of the following Period ........... 60 XII. SOCRATES ........... 62 1. His Personal Character ....... (J2 2. Socrates and Aristophanes ...... (!(! 3. The Condemnation of Socrates ...... 07 4. Sources of the Socratic Philosophy .... 71 5. General Character of the Socratic Philosophy . . 72 6. The Socratic Method ....... 74 7. The Socratic Doctrine of Virtue ..... 7<> XIII. THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES. . . 79 1. Their Relation to the Socratic Philosophy ... 79 2. Antisthenes and the Cynics ...... SO 3. Aristippus and the Cyrenaics ...... 81 4. Euclid and the Megarians ...... S3 5. Plato as the complete Socratic ...... 84 CONTENTS. IX PAGE SECT. XIV. PLATO 85 I. PLATO'S LIFE &> 1. His Youth 85 2. Hia Years of Discipline 85 3. His Years of Travel 6 4. His Years of Instruction 87 II. THE INNER DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLATONIC PHI- LOSOPHY AND WHITINGS 89 III. CLASSIFICATION OF THE PLATONIC SYSTEM . . . 05 IV. THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC 97 1. Conception of Dialectic 97 2. What is Science? ....... 98 (1) As opposed to Sensation 98 (2) The Relation of Knowledge to Opinion . 100 (3) The Relation of Science to Thought . . 100 3. The Doctrine of Ideas in its Genesis . . . 101 4. Positive Exposition of the Doctrine of Ideas. . 106 5. The Relation of Ideas to the Phenomenal World 107 6. The Idea of the Good and the Deity .... 110 V. THE PLATONIC PHYSICS Ill 1. Nature Ill .2. The Soul 114 VI. THE PLATONIC ETHICS 116 1. The Highest Good 117 2. Virtue : ... 118 3. The State 119 VII. RETROSPECT 124 XV. THE OLD ACADEMY 125 XVI. ARISTOTLE 126 I. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE .... 1-26 II. GENERAL CHARACTER AND DIVISION OF THE ARISTO- TELIAN PHILOSOPHY . 128 III. LOGIC AND METAPHYSIC m 1. Nature and Relation of the Two .... 131 2. Logic 132 3. Metaphyslc 134 (1) The Aristotelian Criticism of the Platonic Doctrine of Ideas . . . . . 134 (2) The Four Aristotelian Principles, or Causes, and the Relation of Form and Matter . . 139 (3) Potentiality and Actuality .... 142 (4) The Absolute Divine Spirit .... 143 IV. THE ARISTOTELIAN PHYSICS 146 1. Motion, Matter, Space, and Time .... 146 2. The Collective Universe 147 3. Nature 148 4. Man 149 V. THE ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS 151 1. Relation of Ethics to Physics 151 2. The Highest Good 152 3. Conception of Virtue 154 4. The State . . 155 X CONTENTS. SECT. XVI. (continued.) PAGE VI. THE PERIPATETIC SCHOOL lo VII. TRANSITION TO THE POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY 157 XVII. STOICISM 160 1. Logic 1(51 2. Physics 1(52 3. Ethics 104 (1) Respecting the Relation of Virtue to Pleasure . 165 (2) The View of the Stoics concerning External Good 165 (3) Farther Verification of this View ... 166 (4) The Special Doctrine of Ethical Action . . .167 XVIII. EPICUREANISM 169 XIX. SCEPTICISM AND THE NEW ACADEMY ... 173 1. The Old Scepticism 174 2. The New Academy 175 3. The Later Scepticism 177 XX. THE ROMANS 177 XXI. NEO-PLATONISM 178 1. Ecstasy as a Subjective State 170 2. The Cosmical Principles 180 3. The Emanation Theory of the Neo-Platonists . . 181 XXII. CHRISTIANITY AND SCHOLASTICISM. . . . 184 1. The Christian Idea 184 2. Scholasticism 185 3. Nominalism and Realism 187 XXIII. TRANSITION TO THE MODERN PHILOSOPHY . . 188 1. Fall of Scholasticism 188 2. The Results of Scholasticism ...... 189 3. The Revival of Letters 180 4. The German Reformation 190 5. The Advancement of the Natural Sciences . . .192 6. Bacon of Vernlam 193 7. The Italian Philosophers of the Transition Epoch . . 194 8. Jacob Boehme 196 XXJV. DESCARTES .... 199 1. The Beginning of Philosophy with Doubt ... -200 2. Cogito ergo sum 201 3. The Nature of Mind deduced from this Principle . 201 4. The Universal Rule of all Certainty follows from the same 202 5. The Existence of God 202 6. Results of this Fact in Philosophy 204 7. The Two Substances 205 8. The Anthropology of Descartes 206 XXV.-GEULINCX AND MALEBRANCHE 209 1. Geulincx 209 2. Malebranche 211 3. The Defects of the Pliilosophy of Descartes . . . 212 CONTENTS. XI PAGE SECT. XXVI. SPINOZA . . 213 1. The One Infinite Substance 214 2. The Two Attributes 217 3. The Modes 219 4. His Practical Philosophy 220 XXVII. IDEALISM AND REALISM 222 XXVIII. LOCKE 224 XXIX. HUME ; ... 229 XXX. CONDILLAC 233 XXXI. HELVETIUS 235 XXXII. THE FRENCH CLEARING UP AND MATERIALISM 336 1. The Common Character of the French Philosophers of this Age 236 2. Voltaire 237 3. Diderot 238 4. La Mettrie's Materialism 239 5. Systeme de la Nature 239 XXXIII. -LEIBNITZ 243 1. The Doctrine of Monads 245 1. The Monads more accurately determined . . . 246 3. The Pre-established Harmony 247 4. The Relation of the Deity to the Monads .... 249 5. The Relation of Soul and Body 250 6. The Theory of Knowledge 251 7. Leibnitz's Theodicee ....... 252 XXXIV. BERKELEY ........... 254 XXXV. WOLFF . 256 1. Ontology 258 2. Cosmology 258 3. Rational Psychology 259 4. Natural Theology 260 XXXVI. THE GERMAN CLEARING UP 261 XXXVII. TRANSITION TO KANT 2(53 1. Examination of the Faculty of Knowledge . . .264 2. Three Chief Principles of the Kantian Theory of Knowledge 267 XXXVIII. KANT 269 I. CRITIQUE or PUKE REASON 272 1. The Transcendental Esthetics 273 (1) The Metaphysical Exposition ... 274 (2) The Transcendental Exposition . . .274 2. The Transcendental Analytic .... 276 3. The Transcendental Dialectic 283 (1) The Psychological Idea . 284 (2) The Antinomies of Cosmology .... 285 Xll CONTENTS. SECT. XXXVIII. (continued.) PAIB (3) The Ideal of the Pure Reason ... 286 (a) The Ontologic.il Proof .... 286 (b) The Cosmological Proof . . . 287 (c) The Physico-Theological Proof . . 287 II. CRITIQUE OF THE PRACTICAL REASON . . . . 290 (1) The Analytic 291 (2) The Dialectic : What is this Highest Good ? 294 (a) Perfect Virtue or Holiness ... 296 (b) Perfect Happiness 2% (c) Kant's Views of Religion .... 2U7 III. CRITIQUE OF THE FACULTY OF JUDGMENT ... 300 1. Critique of the ^Esthetic Faculty of Judgment . 302 (1) Analytic 302 (2) Dialectic 304 2. Critique of the Teleological Faculty of Judgment 305 (1) Analytic of the Teleological Faculty of Judg- ment 305 (2) Dialectic 306 XXXIX. TRANSITION TO THE POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY 308 XL. JACOBI 310 XLL FICHTE 319 I. THE FICHTIAN PHILOSOPHY IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM . 322 1. The Theoretical Philosophy of Fichte, his Wissen- schaftslehre, or Theory of Science . . . 322 2. Fichte's Practical Philosophy .... 336 II. THE LATER FORM OF FICHTE'S PHILOSOPHY ... 343 XLII.-HERBART 345 1. The Basis and Starting-Point of Philosophy ... 346 2. The First Act of Philosophy 346 3. Remodelling the Conceptions of Experience ... 347 4. Herbart's Reals 348 5. Psychology connected with Metaphysics .... 352 6. The Importance of Herbart's Philosophy ... 354 XLIII. SCHELLLNG 355 1. FIRST PERIOD: SCHELLING'S DERIVATION FROM FICHTE 357 II. SECOND PERIOD: STANDPOINT OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE AND OF MIND .... 361 1. Philosophy of Nature 302 (1) Organic Nature 363 (2) Inorganic Nature 364 (3) The Reciprocal Determination of the Organic and Inorganic World 365 2. Transcendental Philosophy 366 (1) The Theoretical Philosophy .... 367 (2) The Practical Philosophy .... 368 (3) Philosophy of Art 369 - CONTENTS. Xil> SECT. XLIII. (continued.) PAGE III. THIRD PERIOD : PERIOD OF SPINOZISM, OR THE IN- DIFFERENCE OF THE IDEAL AND THE REAL . . 371 IV. FOURTH PERIOD: THE MYSTICAL OR NEO-PLATONIC FORM OF SCHELLING'S PHILOSOPHY ... 378 V. FIFTH PERIOD : ATTEMPT AT A THEOGONY AND COS- MOGONY, AFTER THE MANNER OF JACOB BOEHMK . 380 (1) The Progressive Development of Nature to Man 382 (2) The Development of Mind in History ... 382 LIV. TRANSITION TO HEGEL 391 XL V. HEGEL 397 1. SCIENCE OF LOGIC 400 1. The Doctrine of Being . 401 (1) Quality 401 (2) Quantity . 402 (3) Measure 402 2. The Doctrine of Essence 403 (1) The Essence as such 403 (2) Essence and Phenomenon .... 404 (3) Actuality 405 3. The Doctrine of the Notion . . . . . .406 (1) The Subjective Notion 407 (2) Objectivity 408 (3) The Idea 408 II. THE SCIENCE OF NATURE 409 1. Mechanics 410 2. Physics 410 3. Organics 410 (1) Geological Organism 411 (2) Vegetable Organism 411 (3) Animal Organism 411 III. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 412 1. The Subjective Mind 412 2. The Objective Mind 414 3. The Absolute Mind 419 '!) Art 420 (a) Architecture 420 (6) Sculpture 420 (c) Painting . 421 (d) Music 421 (e) Poetry 421 (2) Philosophy of Religion 421 (a) The Natural Religion of the Oriental World ....... 421 (6) The Religion of Mental Individuality . 422 (c) Revealed, or the Christian Religion . 422 (3) Absolute Philosophy 422 XIV CONTEXTS. . APPENDIX PAGE I. REACTION AGAINST HEGEL 423 H. SCHOPENHAUER 427 m. HARTMANN 445 IV. COMTE 449 V. ASSOCIATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 453 VI. SPENCER 453 VII. HICKOK 45. A HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY, SECTION I. OBJECT AND METHOD OF THE HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY. O philosophize is to reflect ; to examine things, in thought. Tin's is not, however, a sufficiently exact definition of philosophy. Man also employs thought in those practical activities concerned in the adaptation of means to an end ; the whole body of sciences also, even those which do not belong to philosophy in the stricter sense, are products of reflective thought. By what, then, is philosophy distinguished from these sciences, e.j/., from that of astronomy, of medicine, or of jurisprudence ? Certainly not by its material, for this is identical with the material of the different empirical sciences. The constitution and disposition of the universe, the struc- ture and functions of the human body, property, law, and the state, all these are as truly the material of philosophy as of their appropriate sciences. That which is given in the world of experience, that which is real, is the content of both. It is not, therefore, in its material, but in its form, in its method, in its mode of knowledge, that philosophy is to be distinguished from the empirical sciences. These latter de- rive their material directly from experience ; they find it at hand and take it up just as they find it. Philosophy, on the 16 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. other hand, is never satisfied with receiving that which is given simply as it is given, but rather follows it out to its ultimate grounds ; it examines each individual thing in its relations to a final principle, and considers it as one element of a complete sj'stem of knowledge. In this way philosoplry removes from the particulars of experience their immediate, individual, and accidental character ; from the sea of empi- rical individualities it brings out the universal, and subordi- nates the infinite and orderless mass of contingencies to necessar}' laws. In short, philosophy deals with the totality of experience under the form of an organic system in harmon}- with the laws of thought. From the above it is seen, that philosophy (in the sense we have given it) and the empirical sciences have a reciprocal influence ; the latter conditioning the former, while they at the same time are conditioned by it. We shall, therefore, in the histor} r of thought, no more find an absolute and complete philosoplrv, than a complete empi- rical science. On the contrary, philosophy exists only in the form of different philosophical systems, which have appeared successively in the course of history, advancing hand in hand with the progress of the empirical sciences and universal social and civil culture, and showing in their advance the different stages in the development and improvement of human knowledge. The history of philosophy has, for its object, to exhibit the content, the succession, and the inner connection of these philosophical systems. The relation of these different systems to each other is thut already intimated. The historical and collective life of the race is bound together by the idea of a spiritual and intel- lectual progress, and manifests a regular order of advancing, though not always continuous, stages of development. In this, the fact harmonizes with what we should expect from antecedent probabilities. Since, therefore, every philosophi- cal sj'stem is only the philosophical expression of the collec- tive life of its tune, it follows that the different systems which have appeared in history will disclose one organic movement ITS OBJECT AND METHOD. 17 and form together one rational and internally articulated sys- tem, one order of development grounded in the constant en- deavor of the human mind to raise itself to a higher point of consciousness and knowledge, and to recognize the whole spiritual and natural universe, more and more, as its out- ward being, as its reality, as the mirror of itself. Hegel was the first to utter these thoughts and to consider the history of philosophy as a united process ; but this view, which is, in its principle, true, he has applied in a way which tends to destroy not only the freedom of human action but even the very conception of contingency, i.e., the possibility of the actual existence of the unreasonable. Hegel's view is, that the succession of the systems of philosophy which have appeared in history, corresponds to the succession of logical categories in a sj'stem of logic. According to him, if, from the fundamental conceptions of these different philosophical systems, we remove that which pertains to their outward form or particular application, etc., there will remain the different steps of the logical notion, being, becoming, existence, being per se, quantity, etc. And on the other hand, if we consider the logical process by itself, we find also in it all that is essen- tial in the actual historical process. This opinion, however, can be sustained neither in its prin- ciple nor in its historical application. It is defective in its principle, because history is a combination of contingency and necessity. If we consider its general movements and results, a rational (necessary) connection of events is clearly discernible ; but if we look solely at its individual elements, it exhibits merely a play of numberless contingencies, just as nature, taken as a whole, reveals a rational plan in its successions, but viewed only in its parts, mocks at every at- tempt to reduce them to a preconceived order. In history we have to do with individuals capable of originating actions with free subjectivity, a factor which does not admit of calcu- tion. For however accurately we may estimate the controll- ing conditions which may attach to an individual, from the 18 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. general circumstances in which he may be placed, his age, his associations, his nationality, etc., a free will can never be calculated like a mathematical problem. History does not admit of strict arithmetical calculation. The history of phi- losophy, therefore, cannot be constructed a priori; the actual occurrences should not be joined together to illustrate a pre- conceived plan ; but the facts, so far as they can be admitted, after a critical sifting, should be received as such, and their rational connection be analytical!}' determined. The specu- lative idea can only supply the law for the arrangement and scientific connection of that which may be historically fur- nished. A more comprehensive view, which contradicts the above- given Hegelian theory, is the following. The actual historical development is, very generally, different from the theoretical. Historically, e.g., the State arose as a means of protection against violence and spoliation, while theoretically it is de- rived from the idea of rights. So also in the history of philosoph}', while the logical (theoretical) process is an ascent from the abstract to the concrete, the historical devel- opment of philosophy is, quite generally, a descent from the concrete to the abstract, from intuition to thought, a separa- tion of the abstract from the concrete in those general forms of culture and those religious and social circumstances, in which the philosophizing subject is placed. A system of philosophy proceeds synthetically, while the history of phi- losophy, i.e., the history of the actual development of thought, proceeds analytically. We might, therefore, with great pro- priety, adopt directly the reverse of the Hegelian position, and say that what is theoretically the first, is for us, in fact, the last. The Ionic philosophy, for example, began not with being as an abstract conception, but with the most concrete, and most apparent, i.e., with the material conception of water, ah*, etc. Even if we leave the Ionics and advance to the being of the Eleatics, or the becoming of the Heraclitics, we find that these, instead of being determinations of pure ITS OBJECT AND METHOD. 19 thought, are only unpurified conceptions, and materially col- ored intuitions. Still farther, the attempt to refer every philosophy that has appeared in history to some logical cate- gory as its central principle is impracticable because the ma- jority of these philosophies have taken for their object the idea, not as an abstract conception, but in its realization as nature and mind ; and, therefore, for the most part, have to do, not with logical questions, but with those relating to natu- ral philosophy, psychology, and ethics. Hegel should not, therefore, limit his comparison of the historical and systematic process of development to logic, but should extend it to the whole system of philosophical science. Granting that the Eleatics, the Heraclitics, and the Atomists may have made a particular category the centre of their systems, we may find thus far the Hegelian logic in harmony with the Hegelian history of philosophy. But if we go farther, how is it ? How with Anaxagoras, the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle? We cannot, certainly, without violence, reduce the systems of these men to one central principle ; but if we should be able to do it, and could reduce, e.g., the philosophy of An- axagoras to the conception of design, that of the Sophists to the conception of appearance, and the Socratic Philosophy to the conception of the good, yet even then we have the new difficulty that the historical does not correspond to the logical succession of these categories. In fact, Hegel him- self has not attempted a complete application of his princi- ple, and indeed gave it up at the very threshold of Greek philosophy. To the Eleatics, the Heraclitics, and the Atom- ists, the logical categories of being, becoming, and being per se may be successively ascribed, and so far, as already re- marked, the parallelism extends, but no farther. Not only does Anaxagoras follow with the conception of reason work- ing according to an end, but if we go back before the Eleatics, we find in the very beginning of philosophy a total diversity between the logical and historical order. If Hegel had carried out his principle consistently, he would have 20 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. thrown away entirely the Ionic philosophy, for matter is no logical category ; he would have placed the Pythagoreans after the Eleatics and the Atomists, for in logic the catego- ries of quantity follow those of qualit}' ; in short, he would have been obliged to set aside all chronology. If we are unwilling to do this, we must be satisfied with subjecting the course which the thinking spirit has taken in its historj" to a theoretical interpretation only when we can see in the grand stages of history a rational progress of thought ; only when the philosophical historian, survej'ing a period of develop- ment, actually finds in it a philosophical acquisition, the acquisition of a new idea : but we must guard ourselves against applying to the transition and intermediate steps, as well as to the whole detail of history, the postulate of an immanent conformity to law and logical connection. History often winds its way like a serpent in lines which appear retro- gressive ; and philosoph} 5 , especially, has not seldom with- drawn herself from a wide and already fruitful field, in order to settle down upon a narrow strip of land, if only to culti- vate this latter the more assiduously. At one time we find a thousand years expended in fruitless attempts with only a negative result ; at another, a fulness of philosophical ideas are crowded together in the experience of a lifetime. There is here no sway of an immutable and regularly returning natural law ; but histoiy, the realm of freedom, will com- pletely manifest itself as the work of reason only at the end of time. CLASSIFICATION. 21 SECTION II. CLASSIFICATION. A FEW words will suffice to define our problem and clas- sify its elements. "Where and when does philosophy begin ? Manifestly, according to the anatysis made in Sect. I., where a final philosophical principle, a final ground of being is first sought in a philosophical way, and hence with Greek phi- losophy. The so-called Oriental philosophies, the Chinese and Indian, which are rather theologies or mythologies, and the mythic cosmogonies of Greece, in its earliest periods, are, therefore, excluded from our more limited problem. Like Aristotle, we shall begin the history of philosophy with Thales. For similar reasons we exclude also the philosophy of the Christian middle ages, or Scholasticism. This is not so much a philosophy, as a philosophizing or reflecting with- in the already prescribed limits of positive religion. It is, therefore, essentially theology, and belongs to the science of the history of Christian doctrines. The material which remains after this exclusion, may be naturally divided into two periods; viz., ancient Grecian and Graeco-Roman and modern philosophy. Since a pre- liminary comparison of the characteristics of these two epochs could not here be given without a subsequent repetition, we shall defer the discussion of their inner relations until we come to treat of the transition from the one to the other. The first epoch can be still farther divided into three pe- riods': (1) The Pre-Socratic philosophy, from Thales to the Sophists inclusive ; (2) Socrates, Plato, Aristotle ; (3) The Post- Aristotelian philosophy, including Neo-Platonism. 22 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. SECTION III. GENERAL VIEW OF THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 1 . THE universal tendency of the Pre-Socratic philosophy is to find some principle for the explanation of nature. Na- ture, the most immediate, that which first met the eye and was the most palpable, was that which first aroused the spirit of inquir}-. At the basis of its changing forms, beneath its manifold appearances, it was thought, must lie a first principle which abides the same through all change. "\Vhat, then, it was asked, is this principle? What is the original ground of things? Or, more accurately, what element of nature is the fundamental element? To answer this inquiiy was the problem of the earlier Ionic natural philosophers. One thought it to be water, another, air, and a third, an original chaotic matter. 2. The Pythagoreans attempted a higher solution of this problem. The proportions and dimensions of matter rather than its sensible concretion, seemed to them to furnish the true explanation of being. They, accordingly, adopted as the principle of their philosophy, that which expresses the ex- ternal relations of bodies, i.e., number. "Number is the essence of all things," was their thesis. Number is the mean between the immediate sensuous intuition and the pure thought. Number and measure have, to be sure, nothing to do with matter except as it possesses extension, and is capa- ble of division in space and time ; but yet we should have no numbers or measures if there were no matter, or sensuous intuition. This elevation above matter, which is at the same time a cleaving to matter, constitutes the essence and the position of Pythagoreanism. 3. Next come the Eleatics, who step absolutely beyond that which is given in experience, and make a complete PKE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 23 abstraction of every thing material. This abstraction, this negation of all division in space and time, they take as their principle, and call it pure being. Instead of the sensuous principle of the Ionics, or the quantitative principle of the P3'thagoreans, the Eleatics, therefore, adopt an intelligible principle. 4. Herewith, the first, or analytical period, in the devel- opment of Grecian philosophy closes, to make way for the second, or synthetic period. The Eleatics had sacrificed to their principle of pure being the existence of the world and every finite thing. But this denial of nature and the world could not be maintained. The reality of both forced itself upon the attention, and even the Eleatics themselves admitted it, though in guarded and hypothetical terms. But from their abstract being there was no passage back to the sensuous and concrete ; their principle ought to have ex- plained the actual facts of existence, but it did not. To find a principle for the explanation of these, a principle which would account for the fact of becoming, i.e., of change, vicis- situde, was now the problem. Heraditus solved it by as- serting that becoming, or the unity of being and not-being, is the absolute principle. He held that it belongs to the very essence of finite being to be in a continual flow, in an endless stream. "Every thing flows." We have here the concep- tion of a primordial energy, instead of the Ionic original matter, the first attempt to explain being and its motion from a principle analytically attained. From the time of Heraclitus, this inquiry after the cause of becoming remained the chief interest and the moving spring of philosophical de- velopment. 5. Becoming is the unity of being and not-being, and into these two elements is the Heraclitic principle consciously analyzed by the Atomists. Heraclitus had enunciated the principle of becoming, but only as a fact of experience. He had simply stated it as a law*, but had not explained it. The necessity for this universal law yet remained to be proved. 24 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. WHY is every thing in a perpetual flow, in an eternal move- ment? From the dynamical combination of matter and the moving force, the next step was to a consciously determined distinction, to a mechanical division of the two. Thus Em- pedodes considered matter to be the abiding being, and force the ground of movement. "We have here a combination of Heraclitus and Parmenides. But with Empedocles the mo- tive forces were mythical powers, love and hate ; while with the Atomists they were a pure, unconceived, and inconceiva- ble natural necessity. The result of this mechanical method of explaining nature was, therefore, rather the restatement than the explanation of becoming. G. Despairing of any merely materialistic explanation of the becoming, Anaxagoras placed a world-forming Intelligence by the side of matter. He recognized mind as the primal causality, to which the existence of the world, together with its determined arrangement and conformity to design must be referred. In this, philosophy gained an important ideal principle. But Anaxagoras did not know how to fully carry out his principles. Instead of a theoretical comprehension of the universe, instead of deriving being from the idea, he sought again for some mechanical explanation. His " world-forming reason" serves him only as a first impulse, only as a motive force. It is to him a Deus ex machina. Notwithstanding, therefore, his glimpse of something higher than matter, Anaxagoras was only a ph}-sical philosopher, like his predecessors. Mind had not manifested itself to him as a true force above nature, as an organizing soul of the universe. 7. The next step in the progress of thought is, therefore, to comprehend accurately the distinction between mind and nature, and to recognize mind as something higher and con- tra-distinguished from ah 1 natural being. This problem fell to the Sophists. They entangled the thinking which had been confined to the given object in contradictions, and brought that objectivity which had before been exalted above THE EARLIER IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. 25 the subject, into direct antagonism with the dawning con- sciousness of the superiority of subjective thought. The So- phists developed their principle of subjectivit} r (Egohood), though at first only negatively, into the form of a uni- versal religious and political revolution. They stood forth as the destroyers of the whole edifice of thought that had been thus far built, until Socrates appeared, and opposed to this principle of empirical subjectivity, that of absolute sub- jectivity, that of mind in the form of a free moral will, and comprehended thought positively as something higher than existence, as the truth of all reality. "With the Sophists closes our first period, for with them the oldest philosophy finds its self-destruction. SECTION IV. THE EARLIER IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. 1. THALES (640-550 B.C.) At the head of the Ionic natural philosophers, and therefore at the head of philosophy, the ancients are generally agreed in placing Thales of Mile- tus, a cotemporary of Croesus and Solon. The philosophi- cal principle to which he owes his place in the history of phi- losophy is, that, " the principle (the primal, original ground) of all things is water ; from water every thing arises, and into water ever}' thing returns." But the mere assumption that water is the original ground of things was no advance beyond his myth-making predecessors and their cosmologies. Aris- totle, himself, when speaking of Thales, refers to the old "theologians," meaning, doubtless, primarily Homer, who had ascribed to Oceanus and Tethys, the origin of all things. Thales, however, merits his place as the beginner of philosophy, because he made the first attempt to establish his physical principle, without resorting to a mythical expo- sition, and, therefore, introduced into philosophy a scientific 2 26 A HISTORY OP PHILOSOPHY. procedure. He was the first who attempted a logical expla- nation of nature. We cannot now say with certainty upon what grounds his theory was based, though he might have been led to it by perceiving that moisture is essential to the germination and nourishment of things ; that warmth is de- veloped from it ; and that, generally, it might be the plastic, living, and live-giving principle. From the condensation and expansion of this fundamental matter, he derives, as it seems, the changes of things ; though the way in which this is done, he did not accurately determine. The philosophical significance of Thales does not appear to extend any farther. He was not a speculative philosopher in the modern sense of the word. Philosophical literature was at that time unknown, and he does not seem to have given any of his opinions a written form. On account of his ethico- political wisdom, he is numbered among the so-called " seven wise men," and the anecdotes which the ancients relate of him only testify to his practical understanding. He is said, e .g. , to have first calculated an eclipse of the sun, to have super- intended the turning of the course of the Halys for Croesus, etc. When subsequent narrators relate that he had asserted the unity of the world, had conceived the idea of a world-soul, and had taught the immortality of the soul, it is doubtless an unhistorical reference of later ideas to a much less developed standpoint. 2. ANAXIMANDER. Anaximander of Miletus, sometimes represented by the ancients as a scholar and sometimes as a companion of Thales, but who was certainly a generation younger than the latter, sought to carry out still farther his principles. The original essence which he assumed, and which he is said to have been the first to name principle (dpx^)? he defined as the "unlimited, eternal, and undeter- mined ground fi-om which every thing proceeds, and into which all things, in order of time, return," as that which embraces all things and rules all things, and which, since it lies at the basis of all determinate ness of the finite and the THE EARLIER IOXIC PHILOSOPHERS. 27 changeable, is itself infinite and undeterminate. How we are to regard this original essence of Anaximander is a mat' ter of dispute. Evidently it was not one of the four common elements ; though we must not, therefore, think it was some- thing incorporeal and immaterial. Anaximander probably conceived it as the original matter before it had separated into determined elements, as that which was first in the order of time, or what is in our day called the chemical indifference of elementary opposites. In this respect his original essence is indeed " unlimited" and " undetermined," i.e., has no deter- mination of quality nor limit of quantity ; yet it is not, there- fore, in any way, a pure dynamical principle, as perhaps the " friendship " and " enmity " of Empedocles might have been, but it is only a more philosophical expression for the same thought, which the old cosmogonies attempted to express in their representation of chaos. Accordingly, Anaximander suffers the original opposition of cold and heat (i.e., the bases of the elements and of life) , to be separated from his original essence by virtue of an eternal movement immanent in it, a clear proof that this essence was only the undeveloped, unanalyzed, potential being of these elemental opposites. 3. ANAXIMENES. Anaximenes, who is called by some the pupil, and by others the companion of Anaximander, returned very nearly to the view of Thales, in that he conceived the principle of all things to be "the unlimited, all-embracing, ever-moving air," from which by expansion (fire) and conden- sation (water, earth, stone) , every thing is formed. The per- ception that air surrounds the whole world, and that breath is the condition of vital action, seems to have led him to this hypothesis . 4. RETROSPECT. The whole philosophy of the three ear- liest Ionic philosophers may be reduced to these three points : viz., (1) they sought for the universal essence of concrete being ; (2) they found this essence in a material substance or substratum ; (3) they gave some intimations respecting the derivation of the fundamental forms of nature from this original matter. 28 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. SECTION V. PYTHAGOREANISM. 1. ITS RELATIVE POSITION. The development of the Ionic philosophy discloses a tendency to abstract from the immedi- ately given, particular quality of matter. It is this same ab- straction carried to a higher step, when we look away from the sensible concretion of matter in general, and no more regard its qualitative determinateness as water, air, etc., but direct our attention solely to its quantitative determinateness, to its quantitative measure and relations ; when attention is directed not merely upon the substance of things, but also upon their spatial arrangement and form. But the peculiar nature of quantity is expressed by number, and this is the principle and stand-point of Pythagoreanism. 2. HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL. The Pythagorean doctrine of number is referred to Pj'thagoras of Samos, who is said to have flourished between 540 and 500 B.C. He dwelt during the latter part of his life at Crotona, in Magna Grecia, where, in order to effect the political and social regen- eration of the lower Italian cities, which were then wasted by the strifes of parties, he founded a societj* whose members bound themselves to purity and sanctity of life, to the closest friendship for one another, and to cooperation in maintain- ing the morality, discipline, order, and harmony of the whole community. What is related concerning the life of Pythag- oras, his journeys, his political influence in the lower Ital- ian cities, etc., is so thorough!}' interwoven with traditions, legends, and palpable fabrications, that we can be certain at no point that we stand upon a historical basis. Not only the old Pythagoreans, who have spoken of him, delighted in the mysterious and esoteric, but even his Neo-Platonic biogra- phers, Porphyry and Jamblichus, have treated his life as a PYTHAGOEEANISM. 29 historicb-philosophical romance. "We have the same uncer- tainty in reference to his doctrines, i.e., in reference to his share in the number-theory. Aristotle, e.gr., does not ascribe this to Pythagoras himself, but only to the Pythagoreans generally ; from which we may suppose that it first received its complete development within the societ}^ which he founded. The accounts which are given respecting his school have no certainty till the time of Socrates, a hundred years after Pythagoras. Among the few sources of light which we have upon this subject, are the mention made in Plato's Phcedo of the Pythagorean Philolaus and his doctrines, and the writ- ings of Archytas, a cotemporary of Plato. We possess in fact the P3 : thagorean doctrine only in the manner in which it was taken up by Philolaus, Eurytus, and Archytas, since its earlier adherents left nothing in a written form. 3. THE PYTHAGOREAN PRINCIPLE. The fundamental thought of the Pythagorean philosophy is that of proportion and harmony. This thought is, for it, both the principle of practical life, and the supreme law of the universe. The Pythagorean cosmology regards the universe as a symmet- rically ordered whole, uniting harmoniously in itself all the differences and antitheses of being, a view which is most clearly expressed in the Pythagorean doctrine, that all cos- mical bodies or spheres (including the earth) revolve in fixed orbits about a common middle point, a central fire, from which light, warmth, and life stream forth into the whole universe. The more strictly metaptrysical confirmation of this idea, that the world is a whole, harmoniously articu- lated in accordance with fixed forms and proportions, is the Pythagorean doctrine of number. Through number alone, the quantitative relations of things, extension, magnitude, figure (triangular, quadrangular, cubic, etc.), combination, distance, etc., obtain their peculiar character; the forms and proportions of things can all be reduced to number. There- fore, it was concluded, since without form and proportion nothing can exist, number must be the principle of things 30 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. themselves, as well as of the order in which the}- manifest themselves in the world. The accounts of the ancients are not at one as regards the question, whether the P}-thagoreans supposed number to be an actual, material, or a purely ideal principle of things, i.e., the archetype in accordance with which every thing is formed and ordered. Even the expres- sions of Aristotle seem to contradict each other. At one time he speaks of Pythagoreanism in the former, and, at an- other, in the latter sense. From this circumstance modern scholars have concluded that the P}-thagorean doctrine of numbers had several forms of development ; that some of the Pythagoreans regarded numbers as the substances and others as the archetypes of things. Aristotle, however, Intimates how the two statements may be reconciled with each other. Originally, without doubt, the P}'thagoreans regarded number as the material, the inherent essence of things, and therefore Aristotle places them together with the Hylicists (the Ionic natural philosophers), and sa}-s of them, that " the}' held things to be numbers" (Metaph. I., 5, 6). But, as even the Ityli- cists did not identify their matter, e.g., water, immediately with the sensuous thing, but only assumed it to be the funda- mental element, the original form of the individual thing, so, on the other side, numbers also might be regarded as similar fundamental types ; and therefore Aristotle might say of the Pythagoreans, that "they held numbers to be a more ade- quate expression of the original form of being than water, air, etc." But, if there still remains a degree of uncertainty in the expressions of Aristotle respecting the sense of the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers, it can only have its ground in the fact that the Pythagoreans did not make any distinc- tion between an ideal and material principle, but contented themselves with the undeveloped view, that number is the essence of things, that every thing is number. 4. THE CARRYING our OF THIS PRINCIPLE. From the very nature of the "number-principle," it follows that its complete application to the real world could only lead to a fruitless PYTHAGOREANISM. 31 and empty symbolism. By separating number into its two species, even and odd, as well as into the antithesis of limited and unlimited, which is inherent in the principle of all num- ber, unity, and applying it in this form to astronomy, music, psychology, ethics, etc., there arose combinations like the following : one, is the point, two, the line, three, the superfi- cies, four, extension in three dimensions, five, the constitu- tion of a body, etc. Still farther, the soul is a musical harmony, as is also virtue, etc. Not only the philosophical, but even the historical interest here ceases, since the ancients themselves as was unavoidable from the arbitrary nature of such combinations have given the most contradictory accounts of them, some affirming that the Pythagoreans re- duced righteousness to the number three, others, that they reduced it to the number four, others again to five, and still others to nine. Naturally, from such a vague and arbitrary philosophizing, there would early arise, in this, more than in other schools, a great diversity of views, one ascribing one signification to a certain mathematical form, and another an- other. In this mysticism of numbers, that which alone has truth and value, is the thought, which lies at the ground of it all, that there prevails in the phenomena of nature a ra- tional order, harmony, and conformity to law, and that these laws of nature can be expressed by measure and number. But the Pythagorean school hid this truth under extravagant fancies, as vapid as they are unbridled. The physics of the Pythagoreans possesses little scientific value, with the exception of their cosmological doctrine re- specting the circular motion of the earth and stars. Their ethic is also defective. What we have remaining of it relates more to the Pythagorean life, i.e., to the practice and disci- pline of their order, than to their philosophy. The whole tendency of Pythagoreanism was, in a practical respect, as- cetic, and directed to a strict culture of the character. As showing this, we need only to cite their conception of the body as the prison of a soul which has descended from a 32 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. higher world ; their doctrine of the transmigration of souls into the bodies of brutes, from which only a pure and pious life afforded exemption ; their representations of the terrible torments of the lower world ; and their prescript that man should regard himself as the property of God, should obey God in all things, and strive to become like Him, ideas to which Plato refers (particularly in the P/icedo), and which he carried to a more complete development. SECTION VI. THE ELEATICS. 1 . RELATION OF THE ELEATIC PRINCIPLE TO THE PYTHAGO- REAN. While the Pythagoreans had made matter, in so far as it is quantitative, manifold, and divisible, the basis of their philosophizing, and had in this only abstracted from the definite elementary constitution of matter, the Eleatics carried this process of abstraction to its ultimate limit, and made, as the principle of their philosophy, a total abstrac- tion from every finite determinateness, from every change and vicissitude which belongs to concrete being. "WTiile the P3'thagoreans had held fast to the form of being as it exists in space and time, the Eleatics reject this, and make the negation of all juxtaposition in space and succession in time their fundamental thought. " Only being is, and there is no not-being, nor becoming." This being is the purely undeter- mined, changeless ground of all things. It is not being in becoming, but it is being as exclusive of all becoming ; in other words, it is pure being which can be apprehended only in thought. Eleaticism is, therefore, Monism, in so far as it strove to refer the manifoldness of all being to a single ultimate princi- THE ELEATICS. 33 pic ; but on the other hand it becomes Dualism, in so far as it could neither carry out its denial of concrete existence, i.e., the phenomenal world, nor yet derive the latter from its presupposed original ground. The phenomenal world, though it might be explained as only an empty appearance, did yet exist ; and, since the sensuous perception of it could not be altogether ignored, there must be allowed it, hypothetically at least, the right of existence. Its origin must be explained, even though with reservations. This contradiction of an un- reconciled Dualism between being and existence, is the point where the Eleatic philosophy is at war with itself, though, in the beginning of the school, with Xenophanes, this does not yet appear. The principle itself, with its results, is only fully apparent in the lapse of time. It has three periods of formation which successively appear in three successive gen- erations. The foundation of the Eleatic philosophy belongs to Xenophanes; its systematic development to Parmenides; its completion, and, in part, its dissolution, to Zeno and Me- lissus, the latter of whom we can pass by. 2. XENOPHAKES. The originator of the Eleatic tendency was Xenophanes. He was born at Colophon in Asia Minor ; emigrated to Elea, a Phocaean colony in Lucania, and was a younger cotemporary of Pythagoras. He appears to have first uttered the proposition, " all is one," without, how- ever, indicating by more exact definitions of this unity, whether it was intellectual or material. Turning his atten- tion, sa}'s Aristotle, upon the world as a whole, he called the unity which he found there, God. God is the One. The Eleatic "One and All" (ev KO! irav) had, therefore, with Xenophanes, a theological and religious character. The idea of the unity of God, and opposition to the anthropomor- phism of the popular religion, is his starting-point. He de- claimed against the delusion that the gods were born, that they had a human voice or form, and railed at Homer and Hesiod for attributing to the gods robbery, adultery, and deceit. According to him, the Godhead is all eye, all ear, 34 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. all understanding, unmoved, undivided, calmty ruling all things by his thought, like men neither in form nor in under- standing. In this way, thinking mainly of removing from the Godhead all finite determinations and predicates, and holding fast to its unity and unchangeableness, he declared this doctrine of its nature to be the highest philosophical principle, without, however, directing this principle polemi- cally against finite being, or carrying it out in its negative application. 3. PARMENIDES. The proper head of the Eleatic school is Parmenides of Elea, a pupil, or at least an adherent, of Xenophanes. Though we possess but little reliable informa- tion respecting the circumstances of his life, yet we have, in inverse proportion, the harmonious voice of all antiquity in an expression of reverence for the Eleatic sage, and of admi- ration for the depth of his mind, as well as for the earnest- ness and elevation of his character. The saying "a life like that of Parmenides," became afterwards 'a proverb among the Greeks. Parmenides, like Xenophanes, embodied his philosophy in an epic poem, of which we have still important fragments. It is divided into two parts. In the first he discusses the conception of being. Rising far above the yet unmediated view of Xenophanes, he attains a conception of pure, simple being, which he posits as absolutely opposed to the manifold and changeable, inasmuch as this latter has no existence, and consequently cannot be thought. From this conception of being he not only excludes all becoming and departing, but also all relation to space and time, all divisibility, diver- sity, and movement. Being he explains as something which has not become and which does not depart, as complete and of its own kind, as unalterable and without limit, as indivisi- ble and present though not in time, as completely and uni- versally self-identical ; and, since all these are only negative, he ascribes to it, also, as a positive determination thought. " Being and thought " are, therefore, with Parmenides, " one THE ELEATICS. 35 and the same." This pure thought, directed upon pure be- ing, he declares to be the only true and undeceptive knowl- edge, in opposition to the deceptive notions which are based upon the manifoldness and mutability of the phenomenal. Nor does he hesitate to assert that to be non-existent and an illusion which mortals regard as truth, viz., becoming and departing, being and not-being, change of place and vicissi- tude of circumstance. We must, therefore, be careful not to mistake " the One " of Parmenides, for the collective unity of all concrete being. So much for the first part of Parmenides' poem. After the principle that being alone is has been developed according to its negative and positive aspects, the system would seem to be completed. But there follows a second part, which is occupied solely with a hypothetical attempt to explain the phenomenal world, the " non-existent," and give it a plrysical derivation. Though firmly convinced that according to rea- son and conception " the One " alone exists, Parmenides was yet unable to avoid recognizing the manifoldness and muta- bility of the phenomenal. Forced, therefore, by sensuous perception to enter upon a discussion of the phenomenal world, he prefaces this second part of his poem with the remark, that he had now concluded what he had to say re- specting the truth, and was thereafter to deal only with the opinion of a mortal. Unfortunately, this second part has been very imperfectly transmitted to us. Enough, however, remains to show, that he explained the phenomena of nature from the mingling of two unchangeable elements, which Aris- totle designates as heat and cold, fire and earth. Concern- ing these two elements, Aristotle remarks still farther that Parmenides associated warmth with being, and the other ele- ment with not-being. All things are composed of these two opposites : the more fire, so much the more being, life, con- sciousness ; the more cold and immobility, so much the more lifelessness. The principle of the unity of all being is re- tained only in the Parmenidean doctrine, that, in man, the 36 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. sensitive and rational principles, body and soul, are one and the same. It is scarcely necessary to remark that between the two parts of the Parmenidean philosophy between the doctrine of being and the doctrine of appearance there can exist no inner scientific connection. What Parmenides absolutely denies in the first part, and indeed declares to be unutterable, viz., the non-existent, the many and the changeable, he yet in the second part admits to have an existence at least in the conceptions of men. But it is clear that the non-existent cannot exist even in conception, if it does not exist generally and everywhere, and that the attempt to explain a non- existent of conception is in complete contradiction with his exclusive recognition of being. This contradiction, this un- explained juxtaposition of being and not-being, of the one and the many, Zeno, a disciple of Parmenides, sought to remove, bj r dialectically annihilating sensuous conception, and with it the world of the non-existent, by means of the con- ception of being. 4. ZENO. The Eleatic Zeno was born about 500 B.C., and was a disciple of Parmenides. He perfected, dialectically, the doctrine of his master, and carried out to its limit the ab- straction of the Eleatic One, in opposition to the manifold- ness and determinateness of the finite. He justified the doctrine of a single, simple, and unchangeable being indi- rectly, by showing up the contradictions in which the ordi- nary conceptions of the phenomenal world become involved. While Parmenides affirms that there is only the One, Zeno shows polemically that there can be neither (1) multiplicity, nor (2) movement, since these conceptions lead to contra- dictory results. (1) The many is the sum of the units of which it is composed ; an actual unit (an absolute simple, which can never involve multiplicit}-) , however, is indivisible ; but that which is indivisible has no magnitude (magnitude being the condition of divisibility) ; therefore the many can have no magnitude and must be infinitely little. If this con- THE ELEATICS. 37 elusion is rejected (on the ground that what has no magni- tude is equal to zero nothing) the component units of the man}' must be posited as independent quanta. But that alone is an independent quantum, which both itself possesses magnitude, and is separated from other quanta by something which also possesses magnitude (for otherwise it would coa- lesce with them). Moreover, these separating magnitudes must, for the same reason, be separated from those which they separate, and so on. Every thing, therefore, is sepa- rated from ever}- thing else by infinitely numerous quanta; all limited and definite magnitude disappears ; infinite magni- tude alone is left. Further, if the many exists, it must be limited in number ; for there must be in it just as man}- units as are in it, no more and no less. But the many must be just as truly unlimited in number; for between any two particular quanta (units) there must exist a third (the separating quantum or unit) and so on. (2) A moving bod}-, in order to traverse a given space, must first pass through one -half of the distance, then through one-half of what is left, and so on ; i.e., it must pass through an infinite number of spaces which is impossible. Therefore there can be no transition from one point in space to another, no move- ment. In fact, motion cannot even be begun, for every por- tion (including the first unit) of the space which is to be traversed is separable into an infinite number of parts. Again, rest signifies continued existence in one and the same place. Now, if we divide the time occupied by the flight of an arrow into instants (nows) , during each of these instants the arrow will be in one place only ; therefore it is continually at rest [transition from one position to another, in time, is impos- sible] , and its motion must be merely apparent. On account of these arguments, which first pointed out, with at least approximate correctness, the difficulties and antinomies which lie in the thought of the infinite divisibility of matter, space, and time, Aristotle called Zeno the discoverer of dialectic. Zeno also exerted a strong influence upon Plato. 38 A HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY. Although the philosophizing of Zeno is the completion of the Eleatic principle, it is at the same time the beginning of its dissolution. Zeno apprehended the opposition of being and existence, of the one and the many, so abstractly, and carried it so far, that with him the inner contradiction of the Eleatic principle comes forth still more boldly than with Parmenides ; for the more logical he is in the denial of the phenomenal world, so much the more striking must be the contradiction, of applying, on the one hand, his whole philosophical activity to the refutation of the sensuous representation, while, on the other, he sets over against it a doctrine which destroys the very possibility of a false representation. SECTION VII. HERACLITTJS. 1. RELATION OF THE HERACLITIC PRINCIPLE TO THE ELE- ATIC. Being and existence, the one and the man}-, could not be united by the principle of the Eleatics ; the Monism which they had striven for had resulted in an ill-concealed Dualism. Heraclitus reconciled this contradiction by affirming the truth of being and not-being, of the one and the many, to be the coexistence of both, becoming. While the Eleatics could not extricate themselves from the dilemma that the world is either being or not-being, Heraclitus removes the difficulty by answering it is neither being nor not-being, because it is both. 2 . HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL . Heraclitus , surnamed by later writers the obscure, was born at Ephesus, and flour- ished about 460 B.C., somewhat later than Xenophanes, and nearly cotemporaneously with Parmenides. He was the pro- foundest of the Pre-Socratic philosophers. He embodied his HERACLITUS. 39 philosophical thoughts in a work " Concerning Nature," of which we possess only small fragments. Its rapid transi- tions, its expressions concise and full of meaning, the general philosophical originality of Heraclitus, and the antique char- acter of the earliest prose writings, all combine to make this work so hard to understand that its difficulty very early be- came proverbial. Socrates said concerning it, that " what he understood of it was excellent, and he had no doubt that what he did not understand was equally good ; but the book re- quired an expert swimmer." Later writers, particularly the Stoics, have written commentaries upon it. 3. THE PRINCIPLE OF BECOMING. The ancients unite in ascribing to Heraclitus the principle that the totality of things should be conceived to be in an eternal flow, in an uninter- rupted movement and transition, and that all permanence is illusory. " Into the same stream," so runs a saying of Hera- clitus, "we descend, and at the same time we do not de- scend. For into the same stream we cannot possibly descend twice, since it is alwaj-s scattering and collecting itself again, or rather it at the same time flows to us and from us." Noth- ing, he said, remains the same ; every thing comes and goes, vanishes and reappears under different forms ; out of all comes all, from life death, from death life. There is eternally and everywhere only this one process of change, of origination and destruction. There is, therefore, ground for the asser- tion that Heraclitus had banished all rest and continuance from the totality of things ; and it is doubtless in this very respect that he accuses the e}-e and the ear of deception, be- cause they deceive men with an appearance of permanence where there is in reality only an uninterrupted change. Heraclitus exhibits more clearly the nature of his princi- ple, becoming, when he intimates that all becoming is to be thought of as the product (synthesis) of conflicting antitheses, as the harmonious union of opposing characteristics. If being did not continually separate itself into opposites which are distinct from one another and mutually antithetical, which 40 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. partly repel and destroj*, partly attract and supplement one another, every thing would be destroyed, all reality and all life would cease. Hence the two well-known propositions : "strife is the father of things," and, "the one, separating itself from itself, reunites with itself like the harmon}- of the bow and the lyre," i.e., unity exists in the world onh" so far as the world-life separates into antitheses in whose reunion and adjustment this very unity consists. Unit}- pre-supposes duality, harmony discord, attraction repulsion, and only through the latter can the former be realized. "Unite," so runs another of his sayings, "whole and part, centripe- tence and centrifugence, harmony and discord, then will the one become all and the all one." 4. THE PRINCIPLE OF FIRE. In what relation does the principle of fire, which is also ascribed to Heraclitus, stand to the principle of the becoming? Aristotle says that he adopted fire as the principle of things in the same way that Thales adopted water, and Anaximenes air. But it is clear we must not interpret this to mean that Heraclitus regarded fire as the original material or fundamental element of things, after the manner of the Hy Heists. If he ascribed realit}* only to becoming, it is impossible that he should have added to this becoming an elemental matter as fundamental substance. When, therefore, Heraclitus calls the world an ever-living fire, which in definite stages and degrees extinguishes and again enkindles itself, when he sa}-s that eveiy thing can be exchanged for fire, and fire for every thing, just as we barter things for gold and gold for things, he can only mean thereby that fire, that restless, all-consuming, all-transforming, and yet, through heat, all-vivifying element, represents the abid- ing power of this eternal transformation and transposition, in other words, the conception of life, in the most obvious and effective way. "We might call fire, in the Heraclitic sense, the S}-mbol or the manifestation of becoming, if it were not also with him the substratum of movement, i.e., the means of the power of movement, which is antecedent to all HERACLITTJS. 41 matter, avails itself in order to bring out the living process of things. In the same way Heraclitus goes on to explain the manifoldness of things, b} r affirming that they arise from certain hindrances and a partial extinction of this fire, in consequence of which it becomes condensed into material ele- ments, first air, then water, then earth. But on the other hand the fire just as truly obtains the preponderance over these obstructions and enkindles itself anew. These two pro- cesses of the extinction and re-ignition of this fire-force, according to Heraclitus, interchange perpetually in an eternal alternation ; and from this he concluded that at certain defi- nite periods the world resolves itself into this primal fire, in order therefrom to reconstruct itself anew, and so on. More- over he asserts fire to be also the principle of movement in individual things, of physical as well as of spiritual vitality. The soul itself is a fiery vapor ; its power and perfection de- pend upon its freedom from all coarser and duller materials. Heraclitus, in his practical philosophy, bids us follow reason instead of the deceitful illusions of sensuous intuition and conception which fetter us to the transitory and perishable ; he teaches us to perceive the true, the abiding, in the change- able, and leads us to yield quietly to the necessary order of the universe, and to recognize in that which appears to be evil an element cooperating for the harmony of the whole. 5. TRANSITION TO THE ATOMISTS. The Eleatic and Hera- clitic principles are diametrically opposed to one another. While Heraclitus destroys all abiding being in an absolutely flowing becoming, so, on the other hand, Parmenides destroys all becoming in an absolutely abiding being ; and while the former charges the eye and the ear with deception, in that they transform the flowing becoming into a quiescent being, the latter also accuses these same senses of an untrue repre- sentation, in that they draw the abiding being into the move- ment of the becoming. We can therefore say that the being and the becoming are equally valid antitheses, which demand a further synthesis and reconciliation. Heraclitus regarded 42 A HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY. the phenomenal world as an existing contradiction, and clung to this contradiction as to an ultimate fact. But the mere assertion that this becoming, which the Eleatics had thought themselves obliged to deny entirely, is the only true principle, was no explanation of it. The question continually returned why is all being a becoming ? Why does the one contin- ually differentiate itself into the many? To give an answer to this question, i.e., to explain becoming from the pre-sup- posed principle of being, forms the standpoint and problem of the Empedoclean and Atomistic philosophj'. SECTION VIII. EMPEDOCLES. 1. GENERAL VIEW. Empedocles of Agrigentum is ex- tolled by the ancients as a statesman, orator, natural phi- losopher, physician, and poet, and also as a seer and worker of miracles. He flourished about 440 B.C., and was conse- quently younger than Parmenides and Heraclitus. He wrote a didactic poem concerning nature, which has been preserved to us in quite extensive fragments. His philosophical system may be characterized in brief, as an attempt to combine the Eleatic being and the Heraclitic becoming. Starting with the Eleatic thought, that neither can any thing which has previously existed become, nor any thing which now is de- part, he assumed as unchangeable being, four eternal original materials, which, though divisible, are independent, and un- derived from each other. In this we have what in our day are called the four elements. With this Eleatic thought he united also the Heraclitic view of nature, and conceived these four elements to become mingled together, and molded by the operation of two motive forces, a unifying force, which EMPEDOCLES. 43 he names friendship, and a diremptive force, which he names strife. Originally, these four elements were absolutely alike and immovable, dwelling together in the sphairos, that is, in the pure and perfect, spherical divine primordial universe, where friendship united them, until gradually strife pressing from the circumference to the centre of the sphere (i.e., attaining a separating activity), broke this union, whereupon the formation of the world of contrarieties immediately began as the result. 2. THE FOUR ELEMENTS. With his doctrine of the four elements, Empedocles, on the one side, may be joined to the series of Ionic physicists ; but, on the other hand, he is ex- cluded from this by his assumption that the original elements are four in number. He is distinctly said by the ancients to have originated the theory of the four elements. He is more definitely distinguished from the Hylicists, from the fact that he ascribed to his four "root-elements" a changeless being, by virtue of which they neither arise from each other nor are transformed into each other, and are capable of no alteration in themselves, but only of a change in their mutual relations. Every thing which is called arising and departing, every change, rests therefore only upon the commingling and sep- aration of these eternal original elements ; the inexhaustible manifoldness of being rests upon the different proportions in which these elements are combined. All becoming is thus conceived to be only change of place. In this we have a mechanical in opposition to a dynamical explanation of nature. 3. THE Two POWERS. Whence now can becoming arise, if in matter itself there is found no principle which can afford an explanation of change? Since Empedocles did not, like the Eleatics, deny that there was change, nor yet, like Hera- clitus, introduce it as an indwelling principle in matter, there was no other course left him but to place, by the side of matter, a moving power. The opposition of the one and the many which had been set up by his predecessors, and which demanded an explanation, led him to ascribe to this mov- 44 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. ing power two originally diverse directions, one separation, diremption (repulsion) , the other attraction. The separation of the one into the many, and the union again of the many into the one, had indicated an opposition of powers which Heraclitus had already recognized. While now Parmenides starting from the one had made love his principle, and Hera- clitus starting from the many had made strife his, Empedo- cles makes the combination of the two the principle of his philosophy. He did not, however, sufficiently define the spheres of action of these two forces in their mutual limi- tation. Although to friendship belongs peculiarly the attrac- tive, and to strife the repelling function, yet Empedocles, on the other hand, suffers strife to have in the formation of the world a unifying, and friendship a dividing effect. In fact, the complete separation of a dividing and unifying power in the movement of the becoming, is an unmaintainable abstrac- tion. 4. RELATION OF THE EMPEDOCLEAN TO THE ELEATIC AN*D HERACLITIC PHILOSOPHY. Empedocles, by placing, as the principle of the becoming, a moving power by the side of matter, makes his philosoph}* a mediation, or more properly a collocation, of the Eleatic and Heraditic principles. He has interwoven these two principles in equal proportions in his system. With the Eleatics he denied all arising and de- parting, i.e., the transition of being into not-being, and of not-being into being ; and with Heraclitus he endeavored to find an explanation for change. From the former he derived the abiding, unchangeable being of his fundamental matter, and from the latter the principle of the moving power. With the Eleatics, in fine, he conceived true being in an original and undistinguishable unity as a sphere, and with Heraclitus, he regarded the present world as a continuous product of con- tending forces and antitheses. He has, therefore, been prop- erty called an Eclectic, who united the fundamental thoughts of his two predecessors, though not always in a logical way. THE ATOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 45 SECTION IX. THE ATOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 1. ITS PROPOUNDERS. Empeclocles had sought to effect a combination of the Eleatic and Heraclitic principles, the same was attempted, though in a different way, by the Atom- ists, Leucippus and Democritus. Democritus, the younger and better known of the two, was the son of rich parents, and was born about 460 B.C. in Abdera, an Ionian colony. He travelled extensively, and no Greek before the time of Aristotle possessed such varied attainments. He embodied the wealth of his collected knowledge in a series of writings, of which, however, only a few fragments have come down to us. For rhythm and elegance of language, Cicero compared him with Plato. He died in a good old age. 2. THE ATOMS. The Atomists did not, like Empedocles, derive all specific phenomenal quality from a certain num- ber of qualitatively determined and distinguishable original materials, but they derived it from an originally unlimited number of constituent elements, or atoms, which were homo- geneous in quality, but diverse in quantity. These atoms are unchangeable material particles, possessing indeed extension, but yet indivisible, and differing from one another only in size, form, and weight. As being, and without quality, they are entirely incapable of any transformation or qualitative change ; and, therefore, all becoming is, as with Empedocles, only a change of place. The manifoldness of the phenomenal world is only to be explained from the different form, dispo- sition, and arrangement of the atoms as they become, in various ways, united. 3. THE FULNESS AND THE VOID. The atoms, in order to be atoms, i.e., undivided and impenetrable unities, must be mutually limited and separated. There must be some- 46 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. thing set over against them which preserves them as atoms, and which is the original cause of their separateness and mutual independence. This is the void space, or more strictly the intervals which are found between the atoms, and which prevent their mutual contact. The atoms, as being and absolute fulness, and the interval between them, as the void and not-being, are two determinations which only repre- sent in a real and objective waj*, what are in thought, as logical conceptions, the two elements in the Heraclitic becom- ing, viz., being and not-being. But since the void space is one determination of being, it must possess objective reality no less than the atoms ; and Democritus even went so far as to expressly affirm, in opposition to the Eleatics, that " being is no more real than nothing." 4. THE ATOMISTIC NECESSITY. Democritus, like Empe- docles, though far more extensively than he, attempted to answer the question Whence arise change and movement ? Why do the atoms enter into these manifold combinations, and bring forth such a wealth of inorganic and organic forms ? Democritus attempted to solve this problem by affirming that the ground of movement lies in the nature of the atoms them- selves, which the void space permits alternately to unite and separate. Atoms of different weight, floating about in the void, impinge on one another. In this way there arises an ever-widening movement throughout the entire mass, by vir- tue of which, since atoms of similar form tend to group them- selves together, different combinations of the atoms come into existence. These combinations again, by their very na- ture, tend to dissolution ; hence the transitoriness of indi- vidual things. But this explanation of the formation of the world really explains nothing. It is merely a very abstract conception of an infinite causal series, but not a final ground of all the manifestations of becoming and of change. Such a final ground was still to be sought, and as Democritus ex- pressly declared that it could not lie in reason (vov?) , where Anaxagoras placed it, he could only find it in an absolute THE ATOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 47 necessitj', or a necessary pre-detenninateness (dvay/0;) . This he adopted as his " final ground," and is said to have named it chance (TVX^) in opposition to the inquiry after final causes, or the Anaxagorean teleology. Polemical attacks upon the popular deities, the common belief in whose exist- ence Democritus explained to be the result of fear occasioned by atmospheric and celestial phenomena, and a more and more openly declared atheism and naturalism were the promi- nent characteristics of the later Atomistic school, which, with Diagoras of Melos, the so-called atheist, culminated in a complete sophistic. 5. RELATIVE POSITION OP THE ATOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY. Hegei characterizes the relative position of the Atomistic Philosophy as follows : "In the Eleatic Philosophy being and not-being stand as antitheses, being alone is, and not-being is not ; in the Heraclitic idea, being and not-being are the same, and the unity of the two, i.e. the becoming, is the predicate of concrete being ; but being and not-being, as ob- jectively determined, or in other words, as appearing to the sensuous intuition, constitute the antithesis of the fulness and the void. Parmenides, Heraclitus, and the Atomists all sought for the abstract universal ; Parmenides found it in being, Hera- clitus in process, and the Atomists in being per se." So much of this as ascribes to the Atomists the characteristic predicate of being per se is doubtless correct, but the real thought of the Atomistic system is rather analogous with the Empedoc- lean, namely, to explain by the pre-supposition of these inde- pendent unqualified substances (atoms) the possibility of the becoming. To this end the not-being or the void, i.e., the side which is opposed to the Eleatic principle, is elaborated with no less care than the side which harmonizes with it, i.e., the view that the atoms are without quality and unchangeable. The Atomistic Philosophy is, therefore, a mediation between the Eleatic and the Heraclitic principles. It is Eleatic in affirming the indestructible individuality of the atoms ; Hera- clitic, in declaring their multeity and manifoldness. It ia 48 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. Eleatic in its assumption of an absolute fulness in the atoms, and Heraclitic in maintaining the realit}- of not-being, i.e., the void space. It is Eleatic in its denial of becoming, i.e., of arising and departing, and Heraclitic in its affirmation that to the atoms belong movement and a capacit}- for un- limited combinations. Democritus carried out his leading thought more logicall}' than Empedocles, and we might even say that his system is the perfection of a purely mechanical explanation of nature, since all subsequent Atomists, even to our own da}', have only repeated his fundamental conceptions. But the great defect which cleaves to every Atomistic sj'stem Aristotle has justly recognized, when he shows that it is a contradiction to set up that which is corporeal or space-filling as indivisible, and thus to derive the extended from that which has no extension ; and that, finally, the unconscious and un- intelligible necessity of Democritus is especially defective, in that it totally banishes from nature all conception of design. It is this latter fault, common to all previous sj'stems, which Anaxagoras attempted to remove b}* his doctrine of an in- telligence acting in accordance with design. SECTION X. ANAXAGORAS. 1 . His PERSONAL HISTORY. Anaxagoras was born at Clazomenae, about 500 B.C., of a rich and influential family. Soon after the Persian war he removed to Athens and lived there until, having been accused of impiety, he fled to Lamp- sacus, where he died at the age of seventy-two. He was an- other of those thinkers who recognized in the investigation of nature and its laws their life-problem. He it was who first planted philosophy at Athens, which from that time on ANAXAGORAS. 49 became the centre of intellectual life in Greece. Through his personal relations to Pericles, Euripides, and other important men, he exerted a marked influence upon the culture of the age. It was on account of this that the charge of defaming the gods was brought against him, doubtless by the political opponents of Pericles. Anaxagoras wrote a work " Concern- ing Nature" which in the time of Socrates was widely circu- lated. 2. His RELATION TO HIS PREDECESSORS. The system of Anaxagoras rests wholly upon the presuppositions of his predecessors, and is simply another attempt at the solution of the same problem. Like Empedocles and the Atomists, Anaxagoras denied becoming, in the stricter sense. "The Greeks" so runs one of his sayings "maintain the reality of becoming and departing erroneously ; for nothing can ever be said to become or depart, but each thing arises through the combination and perishes through the disintegration of pre-existent things ; hence it is more correct to call becoming combination, and departing separation." From this view, that every thing arises through the mingling of different ele- ments, and perishes through the separation of these elements, Anaxagoras, like his predecessors, was obliged to separate matter from the moving power. But it is just here that Anaxagoras adopts that line of thought which is peculiar to himself. It was evident that hitherto the moving power had been unsatisfactorily defined. The n^thical powers love and hate, and the unconscious necessity of the purely mechanical comprehension of nature explained nothing, least of all the existence of design in the movements of nature. The con- ception of an activity which could thus work designedly, must, therefore, be brought into the conception of the moving power, and this Anaxagoras accomplished by setting up the idea of a world-forming intelligence (voSs) , absolutely separated from all matter and working with design. 3. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE vovs. Anaxagoras described this intelligence as spontaneously active, unmingled with any 50 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. thing, the ground of movement, but itself unmoved, every where active, and the most refined and pure of all things. Although these predicates rest partly upon a physical analogy, and do not exhibit purely the conception of immateriality, yet on the other hand the attributes of thought and of conscious action from design, which he ascribes to the vovs, admit no doubt to remain of the decided idealistic character of the Anaxagorean principle. Nevertheless, Anaxagoras went no farther than to enunciate his fundamental thought without attempting its complete application. The explanation of this is obvious from the reasons which first led him to adopt his principle. It was only the need of an original cause of motion, to which also might be attributed the capacity to work designedly, which had led him to the idea of an imma- terial principle. His vovs, therefore, is primarily nothing but a mover of matter, and in this function nearly all its activity is expended. Hence the universal complaint of the ancients, especially of Plato and Aristotle, respecting the mechanical character of his doctrine. In Plato's Phcedo Socrates relates that, in the hope of being directed bej'ond a simple occasion- ing, or mediate cause to a final cause, he had turned to the book of Anaxagoras, but had found there only a mechanical instead of a truty teleological explanation of being. Aris- totle also finds fault with Anaxagoras for admitting mind to be the ultimate ground of things, and yet resorting to it for the explanation of phenomena only as to a Deus ex machina, i.e., only when he cannot show that they are the necessa^ results of natural causes. Anaxagoras, therefore, rather pos- tulated than proved mind to be an energy above nature, and the truth and actuality of material being. By the side of the vous, according to Anaxagoras, and equally original with it, stands the mass of the primitive con- stituents of things. "All things were together, infinite in number and infinitesimal in size ; then came the vovs and set them in order." These primitive constituents are not general elements, like those of Erapedocles, fire, air, water, earth ANAXAGORAS. 51 (which, according to Anaxagoras, are composite and not simple materials) ; but they are the similar and infinitely numerous materials of which individual things are composed (stone, gold, bone, etc., and hence by later writers called 6//,oio//.epeiai, i.e., parts which are similar to the wholes which they compose) ; they are the infinitely minute and simple "germs of all things," which exist prior to things themselves, though in a thoroughly chaotic intermixture. The vovs sets this in itself inert mass in a vortical, eternall}' perduring movement. Through this movement the homogeneous par- ticles are differentiated from the general mass and aggregated together, not, however, to the exclusion of all dissimilar ele- ments. "In every thing there is something of all;" each thing consists primarily of the homogeneous, but it contains also together with these something of all the remaining primi- tive elements of the universe. The matter-moving vo? is especially conspicuous in organization ; it is immanent in all living beings (plants, animals, men), in different degrees of quantity and power, as their vital principle or soul. The voD?, therefore, arranges all things, each in accordance with its peculiar nature, into a universe which comprehends with- in itself the most diverse forms of existence, and also mani- fests itself in this universe as the vitality of individual organ- isms. 4. ANAXAGORAS AS THE CLOSE OF THE PRE-SOCRATIC REAL- ISM. With the Anaxagorean principle of the voSs, i.e., with the acquisition of an immaterial principle, closes the realistic period of the old Grecian Philosophy. Anaxagoras combined together the principles of all his predecessors. The infinite matter of the Hylicists is represented in his chaotic original mingling of things ; the Eleatic pure being appears in the idea of the vovs; the Heraclitic power of becoming and the Empedoclean moving energies are both seen in the creating and arranging power of the eternal mind, while the Democritic atoms come to view in the homoiomeria. Anaxagoras is the conclusion of the old and the beginning of a new course of 52 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. development, the latter through the enunciation of his ideal principle, and the former through the defective and completely physical manner in which this principle was yet again applied. SECTION XI. THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 1. RELATION OF THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY TO THE EAR- LIER PHILOSOPHIES. The preceding philosophers had tacitly assumed that subjective consciousness is dependent upon objective realtty, that the objective world is the source of all our knowledge. But with the Sophists a new principle ap- peared, that, namely, of subjectivity , the thought that things are only as they appear to the individual Ego, and that there- fore universally valid truth has no existence. This standpoint was, however, the direct result of the preceding philosophy. The Heraclitic doctrine of the flux of all things, and Zeno's dialectic against the phenomenal world furnished weapons enough for a sceptical attack upon all fixed and objective truth ; and even in the Anaxagorean doctrine of the vovs, thought was virtually declared to be a higher principle than objectivity. On this newly opened field the Sophists now bustled about, -enjoying with childish delight the exercise of this new power of subjectivity, and destro}-ing by means of a subjective dialectic all that had previously been objectively established. The subject recognized himself as superior to the objective world, especialby as higher than the laws of the state, customs, religious traditions, and popular creeds. He sought to apply his own laws to the objective world ; and instead of seeing in the given objectivity the historical real- ization of reason, he recognized in it only a dead, unspiritual matter upon which his arbitrary will might be exercised. THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 53 The Sophistic philosophy should be characterized as the clearing up reflection. It is, therefore, no philosophical sj^s- tem, for its doctrines and affirmations exhibit often so popular and even trivial a character that for their own sake they would merit no place at all in the history of philosophy. It is also no philosophical school in the ordinary sense of the term, for Plato cites a vast number of persons under the common name of " Sophists," but it is a widely spread in- tellectual movement of the age, which had struck its roots into the whole moral, political, and religious character of the Hellenic life of that time, and which may be called the Greek clearing-up period. 2. RELATION OF THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY TO THE GENE- RAL LIFE OF THAT AGE. The Sophistic philosophy is theo- retically, what the whole political life of Greece during the Peloponnesian war was practically. Plato justly remarks in his Republic that the doctrines of the Sophists only gave formal expression to the principles which guided the course of the great mass of men of that time in their civil and social relations, and the hatred with which they were pursued by the practical statesmen, clearly indicates the jealousy with which the latter saw in them their rivals and the destroyers of their policy. If the absoluteness of the empirical subject i.e., the theory that the individual Ego can arbitrarily deter- mine what is true, right, and good is in fact the theoretical principle of the Sophistic philosophy, the unlimited egoism which meets us everywhere in the public and private life of that age is merely its practical application. Public life had become an arena of passion and selfishness ; those party struggles which racked Athens during the Peloponnesian war had blunted and stifled the moral feeling ; every individual accustomed himself to set his own private interest above that of the state and the common weal, and to seek in his own arbitrary desires and advantage the standard for all his actions and the guide of his practical conduct. The Protago- rean dictum, " man is the measure of all things," was only too 54 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. faithfully acted upon, and the influence of the orator in the assemblies of the people and the courts, the corruptibility of the great masses and their leaders, and the weak points which showed to the adroit student of human nature the covetous- ness, vanity, and factiousness of others around him, offered only too man}' opportunities for the practical application of this rule. Custom had lost its weight ; civil ordinances were regarded as arbitrary restrictions, the moral feeling as the effect of shrewd political training, the faith in the gods as a human invention to intimidate free action, while piety was looked upon as a statute of human origin which every one is justified in using all his eloquence to change. This degradation of a necessary, which is conformable to nature and reason and of universal validity, to an accidental human ordinance, is the main point in which the Sophistic philosophy allied itself with the general consciousness of the more edu- cated classes ; and we cannot with certainty determine what share science and what share practical life may have had in producing this connection, whether the Sophistic philosophy found onty the theoretical formula for the practical life and tendencies of the age, or whether the moral corruption was rather a consequence of that destructive influence which the principles of the Sophists exerted upon the whole course of cotemporary thought. It would be, however, to mistake the spirit of histor}' to condemn the epoch of the Sophists without admitting for it a relative justification. These phenomena were in part the necessary product of the general historical development of the age. Faith in the popular religion was quickly destroyed simply because it possessed in itself no inner, moral support. The grossest vices and acts of baseness could all be justified and excused from the examples of nythology. Even Plato himself, though otherwise an advocate of a devout faith in the traditional religion, accuses the poets of his nation with leading the moral feeling itself astray, through the unworthy representations which they had given of the gods and the THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 55 hero world. It was moreover unavoidable that advancing science should clash with tradition. The ph}-sical philoso- phers had already long lived in open hostility to the popular religion, and the more convincingly they demonstrated by analogies and laws that many things which had hitherto been regarded as the immediate effect of Divine omnipotence were only the results of natural causes, so much the more easily would it happen that the educated classes would become per- plexed in reference to all their previous convictions. It was no wonder then that the transformed consciousness of the time permeated all the provinces of art and poes}* ; that in sculpture, in close analogy to the rhetorical arts of the So- phists, the emotive should supplant the elevated style ; that Euripides, the sophist among tragedians, should bring the whole philosophy of the time and its manner of moral reflec- tion upon the stage ; and that, instead of, like the earlier poets, bringing forward his actors to represent an idea, he should use them onby as means of exciting a momentary emotion or some other stage effect. 3. TENDENCIES OF THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. To give a definite classification of the Sophistic philosophy, which should be derived from the conception of the general phe- nomena of the age, is exceedingly difficult, since, like the French ' ' clearing up " of the last century, it entered into every department of knowledge. The Sophists rendered general culture universal. Protagoras was known as a teacher of virtue, Gorgias as a rhetorician and politician, Prodicus as a grammarian and teacher of synonyms, Hippias as a man of various attainments, who besides astronomical and mathematical studies busied himself with a theory of mnemonics ; others took for their problem the art of educa- tion, and others still the explanation of the old poets; the brothers Euthj'demus and Dion}-sidorus gave instruction in the bearing of arms and military tactics ; many among them, as Gorgias, Prodicus, and Hippias, were intrusted with em- bassies : in short, the Sophists, each one according to his 56 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. individual tendency, took upon themselves every variet}- of calling and entered into every sphere of science ; their method is the only thing common to all. Moreover, the relation of the Sophists to the educated public, their striving after popu- larity, fame, and mone}", disclose the fact that their studies and occupations were for the most part controlled, not by an objective scientific interest, but by some external motive. With that roving spirit which was an essential peculiarity of the later and more characteristic Sophists, travelling from city to city, and announcing themselves as thinkers by pro- fession, and giving their instructions with prominent refer- ence to a good recompense and the favor of the rich private classes, it was very natural that they should discourse upon the prominent questions of universal interest and of public culture, with occasional reference also to the favorite occu- pation of this or that rich man with whom they might be brought in contact. Hence their peculiar strength lay far more in a formal dexterit} T , in an acuteness of thought and a capacity of bringing it readily into exercise, in the art of dis- course than in any positive knowledge ; their instruction in virtue was either disputatious quibbling or empty bombast, and even where the Sophistic philosophy became really poly- mathic, the art of speech still remained as the great thing. So we find in Xenophon, Hippias boasting that he can speak repeatedly upon every subject and say something new each time, while we hear it expressly affirmed of others, that they did not consider it necessary to have positive knowledge in order to discourse satisfactorily upon ever}' thing, and to answer every question extemporaneously ; and when many Sophists made it a great point to hold a well-arranged dis- course about something of the least possible significance (e.g., salt) , we see that with them the thing was only a means while the word was the end, and we ought not to be surprised that in this respect the Sophistic philosophy sunk to that empty technicality which Plato, in his Phcedrus, on account of its want of character, subjects to so rigid a criticism. THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY, 57 4. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY IN ITS RELATION TO THE CULTURE OF THE AGE.: The scientific and moral defect of the Sophistic philosophy is self-evident ; and, since certain modern writers of history with over-officious zeal have painted its dark side in black, and complained loudly of its frivolity, immorality, and greediness for pleasure, its conceitedness and selfishness, its false show of wisdom and disputatiousness, it needs here no farther elucidation. But the point most apt to be overlooked is the merit of the Sophists as regards their effect upon the culture of the age. To say, as is done, that they had only the negative merit of calling out the opposition of Socrates and Plato, is to leave the immense influence and the high fame of so many among them, as well as the revolution which they effected in the thought of a whole nation, an inexplicable phenomenon. It were inexplicable that, e.g., Socrates should attend the lec- tures of Prodicus, and direct to him other students, if he did not acknowledge the value of his grammatical acquirements, or recognize his services in the promotion of a sound logic. Moreover, it cannot be denied that Protagoras also hit upon many correct principles of rhetoric, and satisfactorily estab- lished certain grammatical categories. It may in general be said of the Sophists that they gave the people a great profu- sion of general knowledge ; that they strewed about them a vast number of fruitful germs of development; that they called out investigations in the theory of knowledge, in logic and in language ; that they laid the basis for the methodical treatment of many branches of human knowledge, and that the} r partly originated and partly assisted the wonderful in- tellectual activity which characterized Athens at that time. Their greatest merit is their service in the department of lan- guage. They may even be said to have created and formed Attic prose. They are the first who made style as such a separate object of attention and study, and who instituted rigid investigations respecting rhythm and the art of rhetorical expression. "With them Athenian eloquence, which they first 58 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. incited, begins. Antiphon as well as Isocrates the latter the founder of the most flourishing school of Greek rhetoric are offshoots of the Sophistic philosophy. In all this there is ground enough for regarding this whole phenomenon as something more than a symptom of decay. 5. INDIVIDUAL SOPHISTS. The first, who is said to have been called, in the received sense, Sophist, is Protagoras of Abdera, who flourished about 440 B.C. He taught and was the first who demanded payment for his services in Sicily and in Athens, but was driven out of the latter place as a re viler of the gods, and his book concerning the gods was burnt \>y the herald in the public market-place. It began with these words : " I can know nothing concerning the gods, whether they exist or not ; for we are prevented from gaining such knowedge not only by the obscurity of the thing itself, but by the brevity of human life." In another writing he develops his doctrine of knowledge or nescience. Starting from the Heraclitic position that ever} 7 thing is in a constant flow, and apptying this preeminently to the thinking subject, he taught that man is the measure of all things, of being that it may be, and of not-being that it may not be, i.e., that is true for the perceiving subject which he, in the constant move- ment of things and of himself, at each moment perceives and is sensible of and that hence he has theoretically no other relation to the external world than sensuous intuition, and practically no other than sensuous desire. But, since per- ceptions and sensations are as diverse as the subjects them- selves which experience them, and are in the highest degree variable at different times in the very same subject, there fol- lows the farther result that nothing has objective validity and determination, that contradictory affirmations in reference to the same object must be received as alike true, and that error and contradiction cannot exist. This principle, that nothing exists per se, but that every thing is mere subjective concep- tion, opinion, and arbitrariness, was applied, by the Sophists, especially to law and ethics. Nothing, they said, is by THE SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 59 nature (y the philo- sophical education of the new ruler, to unite philosophy and the reins of government in one and the same hand, or at least 88 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. in some way by means of philosophy to achieve a healthy change in the Sicilian state constitution, in an ai'istocratic direction. His efforts were however fruitless ; the circum- stances were not propitious, and the character of the young Dionj-sius, who was one of those mediocre natures who strive after renown and distinction, but are capable of nothing pro- found and earnest, deceived the expectations concerning him which Plato, from Dion's account, thought he had reason to entertain. When we look at Plato's philosophical labors in the Acad- emy, we are struck with the different relations to public life which philosophy had already assumed. Instead of canying philosophy, like Socrates, into the streets and public places, and making it there a subject of social conversation with any one who desired it, he lived and labored entirely withdrawn from the movements of the public, satisfied to influence the disciples who surrounded him. In proportion as philosophy becomes a system, and s3 - stematic form is seen to be essen- tial, it loses its popular character and begins to demand pre- paratory scientific training, and to become a topic for the school, an esoteric affair. Yet such was the respect for the name of philosopher, and especially for the name of Plato, that requests were made to him by different states to compose for them a code of laws, a work which in some instances it was said he actuall}' performed. Attended by a retinue of de- voted disciples, among whom were even women disguised as men, and receiving reiterated demonstrations of respect, he reached the age of eighty-one years, with his powers of mind unweakened to the latest moment. The close of his life seems to have been clouded by dis- turbances and divisions which arose in his school, and for which Aristotle was mainly responsible. While engaged in writing, or as others state, at a marriage feast, death came upon him as a gentle sleep, 348 B.C. His remains were buried in the Ceramicus, not far from the Academy. PLATO. 89 II. THE INNER DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLATONIC PHILOSO- PHY AND WRITINGS. That the Platonic philosophy is essen- tially a development ; in other words, that it should not be apprehended as a perfectly finished system to which the dif- ferent writings stand related as constituent elements, but that these are rather stages of its inner development, stages as it were passed over in the philosophical journeyings of the philosopher is a view of the highest importance for the true estimate of Plato's literary labors. Plato's philosophical and literary labors may be divided into three periods, which we can characterize in various ways. Looking at them chronologically or biographically, we might call them respectively the periods of his years of discipline, of travel, of instruction; or, if we view them in reference to the prevailing external influence under which they were formed, the)* might be termed the Socratic, Heraclitic-Eleatic, and the Pythagorean ; or, if we looked at the content alone, we might term them the antisophistic-ethic, the dialectic or mediating, and the systematic or constructive periods. THE FIRST PERIOD the Socratic is marked externally by the predominance of the dramatic element, and in refer- ence to its philosophical standpoint, b} r an adherence to the method and the fundamental principles of the Socratic doc- trine. Not yet accurately informed of the results of former inquiries, and rather repelled from the study of the history of philosophy than attracted to it by the character of the So- cratic philosophizing, Plato confined himself to an analytical treatment of conceptions, particularly of the conception of virtue, and to a reproducing of his master, which, though something more than a mere recital of verbal recollections, had yet no philosophical independence. His Socrates ex- hibits the same view of life and the same scientific standpoint which the historical Socrates of Xenophon had had. His efforts were thus, like those of his contemporary fellow dis- ciples, directed prominently toward practical wisdom. His struggles, like those of Socrates, were rather with the pre- 90 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. vailing want of science and the shallow sophisms of the day than with the antagonistic tendencies of science. The whole period bears an eclectic and hortatory character. The high- est point in which the dialogues of this group culminate is the attempt, which at the same time is found in the Socratic doctrine, to determine the certainty of an absolute content the absolute existence (objective reality) of the good. The history of the development of the Platonic philosophy would assume a very different form if the view of some mod- ern scholars respecting the date of the Phcedrus were correct. If, as they claim, the Phcedrus were Plato's earliest work, this circumstance would betray from the outset an entirely different course of culture for him than we could suppose in a mere scholar of Socrates. The doctrine in this dialogue of the pre-existence of souls, and their periodical transmigra- tions, of the relation of earthly beauty with heavenly truth, of divine inspiration in contrast to human wisdom, the con- ception of love, the Pythagorean ingredients, are all so dis- tinct from the original Socratic doctrine that we must transfer the most of that which Plato creatively produced during his whole philosophical career, to the beginning of his philosophi- cal development. The improbability of this, and numerous other grounds of objection, claim a far later composition for this dialogue. Setting aside for the present the Phcedrus, the Platonic development assumes the following form : The earliest of his works (if they are genuine) are the small dialogues which treat of Socratic questions and themes in a Socratic way. Of these, e.gr., the Charmides discusses tem- perance, the Lysis friendship, the Laches valor, the lesser Hippias knowing and wilful wrong-doing, the first Alcibiades the moral and intellectual qualifications of a statesman, etc. The immaturity and the crudeness of these dialogues, the use of scenic means which have only an external relation to the content, the scantiness and want of independence in the con- tent, the manner of investigation which is indirect and lacks a satisfactory and positive result, the formal and analytical PLATO. 91 treatment of the conceptions discussed all these features indicate the early character of these minor dialogues. The Protagoras may be taken as a proper type of the Socratic period. Since this dialogue, though directing its whole polemic against the Sophistic philosophy, confined it- self almost exclusively to the outward manifestation of this S3'stem, to its influence on its age and its method of instruc- tion in opposition to that of Socrates, without entering into the ground and philosophical character of the doctrine itself; and, still farther, since, when it comes in a strict sense to philosophize, it confines itself to an indirect investigation of the Socratic conception of virtue according to its different aspects (virtue as knowledge, its unity and its teachableness, cf. Sect. XII. 8), it represents in the clearest manner the tendency, character, and defects of the first period of Plato's literary life. The Gorgias written soon after the death of Socrates, rep- resents the third and highest stage of this period. Directed against the Sophistical identification of pleasure and virtue, of the good and of the agreeable, i.e., against the affirmation of an absolute moral relativity, this dialogue attempts to prove that the good, far from owing its origin only to the right of the stronger, and thus to the arbitrariness of the sub- ject, has in itself an independent reality and objective valid- ity, and, consequently, alone is truly useful, and that, there- fore, the standard of pleasure must be subordinate to the higher standard of the good. In this direct and positive polemic against the Sophistic doctrine of pleasure, in its ten- dency to view the good as something firm and abiding, and secure against all subjective arbitrariness, consists pi'imarily the advance which the Gorgias makes be} T ond the Protagoras. In the first Socratic period the Platonic philosophizing be- came ripe and ready for the reception of Eleatic and Pythago- rean categories. To grapple by means of these categories with the higher questions of philosophy, and so to free the Socratic philosophy from its close connection with practical life, was the problem of the second period. 92 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. THE SECOND PERIOD the dialectic or the Megaric is marked externally, by a less prominence of form and poetic coloring, and not unfrequently indeed, by obscurit}" and diffi- culties of style, and internally, by the attempted mediation with the Eleatics through the complete exposition and dialec- tical establishment of the doctrine of ideas. By his exile at Megara, and his journeys to Itaty, Plato became acquainted with other and opposing philosophical tendencies, with which he was obliged to come to an under- standing in order to elevate the Socratic doctrine to its true significance. It was now that he first learned to know the philosophic theories of the earlier sages, for the study of which the necessary means could not at that period, so want- ing in literary publichy, be found at Athens. Through his comprehension of these varying standpoints, as his older fellow pupils had already striven to do, he attempted, over- stepping the narrow limits of ethical philosophizing, to reach the final ground of knowledge, and to perfect the art of gene- ralization as brought forward by Socrates to a science of conceptions, i.e., to the doctrine of ideas. That all human action rests upon knowledge, and all thinking upon concep- tions, were results to which Plato might already have attained through the scientific generalization of the Socratic doctrine itself; but now to bring this Socratic wisdom within the circle of speculative thought, to establish dialectically that the con- ception in its simple unity is that which abides in the change of phenomena, to disclose the fundamental principles of knowledge which had been evaded by Socrates, to grasp the scientific theories of opponents immediately in their scientific grounds, and follow them out in all their ramifications, this is the problem which the Megaric group of dialogues attempts to solve. The Theatcetus stands at the head of this group. It is chiefly directed against the Protagorean theory of knowledge, against the identification of thought and sensuous perception, or against the claim of an absolute relativity of all knowl- PLATO. 93 edge. As the Gorgias before it had sought to establish the independent being of the ethical, so does the Theatcetus, ascending from the ethical to the theoretical, endeavor to prove an independent being and objective reality for the logi- cal conceptions which lie at the ground of all representation and thinking, in a word, to prove the objectivity of truth, tWi fact that there lies a sphere of knowledge immanent in thought and independent of the perceptions of the senses. These conceptions, whose objective reality is thus affirmed, are those of a species, likeness and unlikeness, identity and difference, etc. The Theatcetus is followed by the trilogy of the Sophist, the Statesman, and the Philosopher, which completes the Megaric group of dialogues. The first of these dialogues examines the conception of appearance, that is of the not-being, the last (represented by the Parmenides) the conception of being. Both dialogues are attempts at a reconciliation with the Eleatic doctrine. After Plato had recognized the unity of thought and the logical categories as that which is permanent amid the alterations of phenomena, his attention was natu- rally turned towards the Eleatics, who in an opposite way had attained the similar result that in unity consists all true substantiality, and to multiplicity as such no true being belongs. In order more easily on the one side to carry out this fundamental thought of the Eleatics to its legitimate re- sult, in which the Megarians had already preceded him, he was obliged to elevate his abstract conceptions of species, i.e., ideas to the position of metaphysical substances. But on the other side, he could not agree with the inflexibility and exclusiveness of the Eleatic unity without wholly sacrificing the multiplicity of things ; he was rather obliged to attempt to show by a dialectic development of the Eleatic principle that the one must be at the same time a totalit}', organically connected, and embracing multiplicity in itself. This double relation to the Eleatic principle is carried out by the Sophist and the Parmenides; by the former polemically against the 94 A HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY. Eleatic doctrine, in that it proves the being of the appearance or the not-being, i.e., demonstrates the multiplicity of ideas and their antithetical character (which arises from the mutual negation of opposites) ; and by the latter ironicalby, in that it reduces the Eleatic one by its own logical consequences to a manifold. The inner progress of the doctrine of Ideas in the Megaric group of dialogues is therefore this, viz., that Ae Tlie.aice.tus, in opposition to the Heraclitico-Protagorean theory of the absolute becoming, affirms the objective and indepen- dent reality of ideas, and the Sophist shows their reciprocal relation and power of combination, while the Parmenides in fine exhibits then* whole dialectic complex, their relation to the phenomenal world, and their self- mediation with the latter. THE THIRD PERIOD begins with the return of the philoso- pher to his native city. It unites the completeness of form belonging to the first with the profounder philosophical con- tent of the second. The memories of his 3'outhful years seem at this time to have risen anew before the soul of Plato, and to have imparted again to his literary activity the long lost freshness and fulness of that period, while at the same time his abode in foreign lands, and especially his acquaintance with the Pythagorean philosophy, had greatly enriched his mind with a store of images and ideals. This reviving of old memories is seen in the fact that the writings of this group return with fondness to the personality of Socrates, and rep- resent in a certain degree the whole philosophy of Plato as the exaltation of the doctrine and the ideal embodiment of the historical character of his early master. In opposition to both of the first two periods, the third is marked exter- nally by an excess of the mythical form together with the growing influence of Pj'thagoreanism in this period, and in- ternally by the application of the doctrine of ideas to the concrete spheres of psychology, ethics, and natural science. That ideas possess objective reality, and are the foundation of all essentiality and truth, while the phenomena of the sen- PLATO. 95 sible world are only copies of these, was a theory whose vin- dication was no longer attempted, but which was presupposed as already proved, and as forming a dialectical basis for the pursuit of the different branches of science. With this was connected a tendency to unite the hitherto separate branches of science into a systematic whole, as well as to fuse together the previous philosophical developments, i.e., the Socratic ethics, the Eleatic dialectic, and the Pythagorean ph}*sics. Upon this standpoint, the Phcedrus, Plato's inaugural to his labors in the Academy, together with the Symposium, which is closely connected with it (both proceeding from the conception of love as the true originating impulse to philoso- phy) attempts to subject the rhetorical theory and practice of that time to a thorough criticism, in order to show in opposition to this theory and practice that only in an exclu- sive reference to the idea, the true Eros, is found that con- scious certainty and distinctness of a scientific principle which is the only means of escaping arbitrariness, absence of principle, and crudeness. On the same standpoint the Phcedo attempts to proA r e the immortality of the soul from the doctrine of ideas ; the Philebus to examine the concep- tions of pleasure and the highest good in the light of the highest categories of the system ; and finally the Republic and Timceus, which are his latest works, to unfold the essence of the state and of nature, of the physical and spiritual uni- verse. Having thus sketched the inner development of the Pla- tonic philosophy, we now turn to a systematic statement of its principles. III. CLASSIFICATION OF THE PLATONIC SYSTEM. The phi- losophy of Plato, as left by himself, is without a systematic statement, and has no comprehensive principle of classifi- cation. He has given us only the history of his thought, the statement of his philosophical development ; we are there- fore limited in this regard to simple intimations. Accord- ingly, some have divided the Platonic system into theoretical 96 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. and practical science, and others into a philosophy of the good, the beautiful, and the true. Another classification, which has some support in old records, is more correct. Some of the ancients say that Plato was the first to unite in one whole the scattered philosophical elements of the earlier sages, and so to obtain for philosophy the three parts, logic, physics, and ethics. The more accurate statement is given by Sextus Empiricus, that Plato laid the foundation for this threefold division of philosophy, but that it was first expressly recognized and affirmed by his scholars, Xenocrates and Aris- totle. The Platonic S3*stem ma}', however, without difficulty, be divided into these three parts. True, there are man}- dia- logues which combine in different proportions the logical, the ethical, and the ph}-sical element, and though even where Plato treats of some special discipline, the three are suffered constantl}' to interpenetrate each other, still there are some dialogues in which this fundamental scheme can be clearly recognized. It cannot be mistaken that the Timceus is pre- dominantly physical, and the Republic as decidedly ethical, and if dialectic is expressly represented in no separate dia- logue, }'et the whole Megaric group which closes with the Parmenides, and which was expressly declared by Plato to be a connected tetralog}', pursues the common end of bringing out the conception of science and its true object, being, and is, therefore, in its content decidedly dialectical. Plato must have been led to this threefold division b}- even the earlier de- velopment of philosophy, and since Xenocrates would scarcely have invented it, and Aristotle presupposes it as universally admitted, we need not scruple to make it the basis on which to present the Platonic s}-stem. The order which these different parts should take, Plato himself has not declared. Manifestly, however, dialectic should have the first place as the ground of all philosophy, since Plato uniformly directs that every philosophical inves- tigation should begin with accurately determining the idea (Phced., p. 99 ; Phcedr., p. 237) , while he subsequently exain- PLATO. 97 ines all the concrete spheres of science from the standpoint of the doctrine of ideas. The relative position of the other two parts is not so clear. Since, however, physics culminates in ethics, and ethics, on the other hand, has for its basis physical investigations into the animating principle of nature, we may assign the precedence to physics. The mathematical sciences Plato has expressly excluded from philosophy. He considers them as helps to philosophi- cal thinking (Rep. VII. 526) , as necessary steps of knowledge, without which no one can come to philosophy (Ib. VI. 510) ; but mathematics with him is not itself philosoph}', for it assumes its principles or axioms, without at all accounting for them, as though they were manifest to all, a procedure which is not permitted to pure science ; it also for its demon- strations avails itself of illustrative figures, although it does not treat of these, but of that which they represent to the understanding (Ib.). Plato thus places mathematics mid- way between a correct opinion and science, clearer than the one, but more obscure than the other. (Ib. VII. 533.) IV. THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. 1. CONCEPTION OF DIA- LECTIC. The conception of dialectic or logic, is used by the ancients for the most part in a very wide sense, while Plato employs it in repeated instances interchangeably with phi- losoph}', though at other times he treats it also as a separate branch of philosophy. He distinguishes it from physics as the science of the eternal and unchangeable from the science of the changeable, which never is, but is only ever becoming ; he distinguishes also between it and ethics, so far as the latter treats of the good not absolutely, but in its concrete exhibi- tion in morals and in the state ; so that dialectic may be termed philosophy in a higher sense, while physics and ethics follow it as two less exact sciences, or as a not yet perfected philosophy. Plato himself defines dialectic, according to the ordinary signification of the word, as the art of evolving knowledge conversationally by questions and answers (Rep. VII. 534) . But since the art of communicating correctly in 5 98 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. dialogue is, according to Plato, at the same time the art of thinking correctly, for thinking and speaking could not be separated by the ancients, but every process of thought was a living dialogue, Plato would more accurately define dialectic as the science which brings speech to a correct issue, and which combines or separates the species, i.e., the conceptions of things correctly (Soph., p. 253; P/icedr., p. 266). Dia- lectic with him has two divisions, to know what can and what cannot be connected, and to know how division or combina- tion can be accomplished. But as with Plato these concep- tions of species or ideas are the only actual and true exist- ence, so have we, in entire conformity with this, a third definition of dialectic which is quite frequently employed by him (Philebus, p. 57), namely, the science of being, the science of that which is true and unchangeable, the science of all other sciences. We ma}* therefore briefly characterize it as the science of absolute being or of ideas. 2. WHAT is SCIENCE? (1) As opposed to sensation and sensuous conception. The Theatcetus is devoted to the dis- cussion of this question in opposition to the Protagorean sensualism. That all knowledge consists in perception, and that the two are one and the same thing, was the Protago- rean proposition. From this it followed, as Protagoras him- self had inferred, that things are as they appear to me, that perception or sensation is infallible. But since perception and sensation are infinitely diversified with different indi- viduals, and even vary greatly at different times in the same individual, it follows farther, that no determinations and predicates are objective, that we can never affirm what a thing is in itself, that all conceptions, great, small, light, heavy, to increase, to diminish, etc., have only a relative sig- nificance, and consequently that general conceptions, since they are combinations of the changeful many, are wholly wanting in constancy and stability. In opposition to this Protagorean thesis, Plato urges the following objections and contradictions. First, The Protagorean doctrine leads to PLATO. 99 the most startling consequences. If being and appearance, knowledge and perception are one and the same thing, then is the irrational brute, which is capable of perception, as fully entitled to be called the measure of all things, as man, and if representation, as the expression of my subjective state at a given time is infallible, then need there be no more instruc- tion, no more scientific conclusion, no more strife, and no more refutation. Second, The Protagorean doctrine is a logical contradiction ; for according to it Protagoras must yield the question to every one who disputes with him, since, as he himself affirms, no one is incorrect, but all perceptions and conceptions are equally true ; the pretended truth of Protagoras is therefore true for no man, not even for him- self. Third, Protagoras destroys the knowledge of future events. That which is regarded as profitable by me does not because I so regard it necessarily prove itself such in the result. To determine that which is really profitable im- plies a calculation of the future, but' since the ability of men to form such a calculation is very diverse, it follows from this that not man as such, but only the wise man can be the measure of things. Fourth, The theory of Protagoras de- stroys perception itself. Perception, according to him, rests upon a distinction of the perceived object and the perceiving subject, and is the common product of the two. But in his view the objects are in such an uninterrupted flow, that they can neither become fixed in seeing nor in hearing. This condition of constant change renders all knowledge from sense, and hence (the identity of the two being assumed) , all knowledge in general impossible. Fifth, Protagoras over- looks the a priori element in knowledge. It is seen in an analysis of the sense-perception itself, that all knowledge cannot be traced to the activit} r of the senses, but that there must also be presupposed besides these, intellectual func- tions, and hence an independent province of supersensible knowledge. We see with the eyes, and hear with the ears, but to group together the perceptions attained through these 100 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. different organs, and to hold them fast in the unity of self- consciousness, is beyond the power of the activity of the senses. Again, we compare the different sense-perceptions with one another, a function which cannot belong to the senses, since each sense can only furnish its own distinctive perception. Still farther, we bring forward determinations respecting the perceptions which we manifestl}' cannot owe to the senses, in that we predicate of these perceptions, being and not-being, likeness and unlikeness, etc. These determinations, to which also belong the beautiful and the odious, good and evil, constitute a peculiar province of knowledge, which the soul, independently of every sense- perception, brings forward through its own independent ac- tivity. The ethical consequences of this Protagorean doctrine are also exhibited by Plato, in other dialogues, by his polemic against sensualism. He maintains (in the Sophist), that men holding such opinions must be improved before they can be instructed, and that when made morally better, the}' will readily recognize the truth of the soul and its moral and rational capacities, and affirm that these are real things, though objects of neither sight nor of feeling. (2) The Relation of Knowledge to Opinion. Opinion is just as little identical with knowledge as is sense-perception. An incorrect opinion is certainly different from knowledge, and a correct one is not identical with it, for it can be engen- dered by the art of speech without therefore attaining the validity of true knowledge. Correct opinion, so far as it is true in matter though imperfect in form, stands rather mid- way between knowing and not-knowing, and participates in both. (3) The Relation of Science to Thought. In opposition to the Protagorean sensualism, there has been alread}' estab- lished an energy of the soul independent of sensuous per- ception and sensation, competent in itself to examine the universal, and grasp true being in thought. There is, there- fore, a double source of knowledge, sensation and conception. PLATO. 101 and rational thinking. Sensation refers to that which is con- ceived in a constant becoming and perpetual change, to the pure momentary, which is in an incessant transition from the was, through the now, into the shall be (Farm., p. 152) ; it is, therefore, the source of dim, impure, and uncertain knowl- edge ; thought on the other hand refers to the abiding, which neither becomes nor departs, but remains ever the same. (Tim., p. 51.) Existence, says the Timceus (p. 27), is of two kinds, "that which ever is but has no becoming, and that which ever becomes but never is. The one kind, which is always in the same state, is comprehended through reflec- tion by the reason, the other, which becomes and departs, but never properly is, may be apprehended by sensuous per- ception without the reason." True science, therefore, flows alone from that pure and thoroughly internal activity of the soul which is free from all corporeal qualities and every sen- suous disturbance. (Phced., p. 65.) In this state the soul looks upon things purely as they are (Phced., p. 66) in their eternal nature and unchangeable condition. Hence the true state of the philosopher is announced in the Phfjedo (p. 64) , to be a willingness to die, a longing to fly from the body, as from a hindrance to true knowledge, and become pure spirit. According to all this, science is the thinking of true being or of ideas ; the means to discover and to know these ideas, or .the organ for their apprehension is dialectic, or the art of separating and combining conceptions ; the true objects of dialectic are ideas. 3. THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS IN ITS GENESIS. The Platonic doctrine of ideas is the common product of the Socratic method of forming conceptions, the Heraclitic doctrine of absolute becoming, and the Eleatic doctrine of absolute be- ing. To the first of these Plato owes the idea of knowledge through conceptions, to the second the recognition of the sensuous as mere becoming, to the third the positing of a sphere of absolute reality. Elsewhere (in the Philebus) Plato connects the doctrine of ideas with the Pythagorean thought 102 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY that ever}' thing may be formed from unity and multiplicity, from the limit and the unlimited. The aim of the Theataztus, the Sophist, and the Parmenides is to determine its relations to the principles of the Eleatics and Heraclitics ; this is effected in the Theatcetus by combating directly the principle of an absolute becoming, in the Sophist by combating directly the principle of abstract being, and in the Parmenides ironi- cally b} r taking up the Eleatic one and showing its true rela- tions. We have already spoken of the Theatcetus; we will now look for the development of the doctrine of ideas in the Sophist and Parmenides. The ostensible end of the former of these dialogues is to show that the Sophist is really but a caricature of the philoso- pher, but its true end is to establish the reality of phenomena, i.e., of the not-being, and to discuss speculatively the relation of being and not-being. The doctrine of the Eleatics ended with the rejection of all sensuous knowledge, declaring that the multiplicity of things, or the becoming, which we think we perceive, is in reality a mere appearance. In this there was clearly a contradiction ; the not-being was absolutely denied, and yet its existence in human thought was admitted. Plato at once draws attention to this contradiction, showing that a delusive opinion, which gives rise to a false image or repre- sentation, is not possible upon this theory which rests upon the assumption that the false, the not-true, i.e., not-being cannot even be thought. This, Plato continues, is the great difficulty in thinking of not-being, that both he who denies and he who affirms its reality is driven to contradict himself. For though it is inexpressible and inconceivable either as one or as many, still, when speaking of it, we must attribute to it both being and multiplicity. If we admit that there is such a thing as a false opinion, we assume in this ven' fact the notion of not-being, for only that opinion can be said to be false which supposes either the not-being to be, or makes that, which is, not to be. In short, if there actually exists a false notion, so does there actually and truly exist a not-being. PLATO. 103 After Plato had thus established the reality of not-being, he discusses the relation of being and not-being, i.e., the rela- tion of conceptions generally in their combinations and an- titheses. If not-being has no less realit}" than being, and being no more than not-being, if, therefore, e.g., the not-great is as truly real as the great, then every conception may in the same way be apprehended as one side of an antithesis, as being and not-being at the same time : it is a being in ref- erence to itself, as something identical with itself, but it is not-being in reference to every one of the numberless other conceptions which can be referred to it, and with which, on account of its difference from them, it can have nothing in common. The conceptions of the same (TO.VTOV) and the differ- ent (Odrcpov) represent the general form of an antithesis. These are the universal formulae of combination for all con- ceptions. This reciprocal relation of conceptions as at the same time being and not-being, by virtue of which they can be arranged among themselves, forms the basis of the art of dialectic, which has to judge what conceptions can and what cannot be joined together. Plato illustrates this by taking the conceptions of being, motion (becoming) , and rest (existence), and showing from them the results of the com- bination and reciprocal exclusion of ideas. The conceptions of motion and rest cannot well be joined together, though both of them may be joined with that of being ; the concep- tion of rest is therefore in reference to itself a being, but in reference to the conception of motion a not-being or different. Thus the Platonic doctrine of ideas, after having in the Thea- tcetus attained its general foundation in fixing the objective reality of conceptions, becomes now still farther developed in the Sophist to a doctrine of the community of conceptions, i.e., of their reciprocal subordination and co-ordination. The category which conditions these reciprocal relations is that of not-being or difference. This fundamental thought of the Sophist, that being is not without not-being and not-being is not without being, may be expressed in modern phraseology 104 A HISTOEY OF PHILOSOPHY. thus : negation is not not-being but determinateness, and on the other hand all determinateness and concreteness of con- ceptions, all affirmation arises only through negation ; in other words the conception of contradiction is the soul of a philosophical method. The doctrine of ideas appears in the Parmenides as the positive consequence and progressive development of the Eleatic principle. Indeed in this dialogue, in that Plato makes Parmenides the chief speaker, he seems willing to allow that his doctrine is in substance that of the Eleatic sage. True, the fundamental thought of the dialogue that the one is not conceivable in its complete singleness without the many, nor the many without the one, that each neces- sarily presupposes and reciprocally conditions the other stands in the most direct contradiction to Eleaticism. Yet Parmemdes himself, b}" dividing his poem into two parts, and treating in the first of the one and in the second of the many, postulates an inner mediation between these two external!}' so disjointed parts of his philosophy, and in this respect the Platonic theory of ideas might give itself out as the farther elucidation, and the true sense of the Parmenidean philoso- phizing. This dialectical mediation between the one and the not-one or the many Plato now attempts in four antinomies, which have ostensibly only a negative result in so far as they show that contradictions arise both whether the one be adopted or rejected. The positive sense of these antinomies, though it can be gained only through inferences which Plato himself does not expressly utter, but leaves to be drawn by the reader is as follows. The first antinomy shows that the one is inconceivable as such if it is only apprehended in its abstract opposition to the many ; the second, that in this case also the reality of the many is inconceivable ; the third, that the one or the idea cannot be conceived as not-being, since there can be neither conception nor predicate of the absolute not-being, and since, if not-being is excluded from all fellowship with being, all becoming and departing, all PLATO. 105 similarity and difference, every representation and explana- tion of it must also be denied ; and lastly, the fourth affirms that the not-one or the many cannot be conceived without the one or the idea. What now is Plato's aim in this dis- cussion of the dialectic relations between the conceptions of the one and the many? Would he use the conception of the one only as an example to explain his dialectic method with conceptions, or is the discussion of this conception itself the very object before him? Manifestly the latter, or the dialogue ends without result and without any inner connec- tion of its two parts. But how came Plato to make such a special investigation of this conception of the one? If we bear in mind that the Eleatics had already perceived the an- tithesis of the actual and the phenomenal world in the antith- esis of the one and the man} r , and that Plato himself had also regarded his ideas as the unity of the manifold, as the one and the same in the many since he repeatedly uses " idea" and " the one " in the same sense, and places (Rep. VII. 537) dialectic in the same rank with the faculty of reducing a manifold to unity then is it clear that the one which is made an object of investigation in the Parmenides is the idea in its general sense, t.., in its logical form, and that Plato consequently in the dialectic of the one and the many would represent the dialectic of the idea and the phenomenal world, or in other words would dialectically determine and establish the correct view of the idea as the unity in the manifoldness of the phenomenal. In that it is shown in the Parmenides, on the one side, that the many cannot be conceived without the one, and on the other side, that the one must be some- thing which embraces in itself manifoldness, so have we the ready inference on the one side, that the phenomenal world, or the man}', has a true being only in so far as it has the one or the conception within it, and on the other side, that since the conception is not an abstract one but manifoldness in unity, it must actually have manifoldness in unity in order to be able to be in the phenomenal world. The indirect re- 106 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. suit of the Parmenides is that matter as the infinitely divisible and undetermined mass has no actualit}-, but is in relation to the ideal world a not-being, and though the ideas as the true being are manifested in it, yet the idea itself is all that is actual in the appearance or phenomena ; the phenomenal world derives its whole existence from the ideal world which appears in it, and has being only so far as it has a conception or idea for its content. 4. POSITIVE EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS. Ideas may be defined according to the different sides of their historical connection, as the common in the manifold, the universal in the particular, the one in the many, or the con- stant and abiding in the changing. Subjectively the} r are principles of knowledge which cannot be derived from expe- rience, they are the intuitively certain and innate regulators of cognition. Objectively they are the immutable principles of being and of the phenomenal world, incorporeal and simple unities which have no relation to space, and which may be predicated of every thing which can in any way be posited as self-subsistent. The doctrine of ideas grew original!}' out of the desire to gain a definite conception of the inner essence of things, of what things are in themselves, to express by thought whatever of being is identical with thought, and to comprehend the real world as a harmoniously connected in- tellectual world. This desire for scientific knowledge Aris- totle cites expressl}' as the motive to the Platonic doctrine of ideas. "Plato," he says (Metapli. XIII. 4), "came to the doctrine of ideas because he was convinced of the truth of the fleraclitic view which regarded the sensible world as a ceaseless flowing and changing. His conclusion from this was, that if there be a science of an} 7 thing there must be, besides the sensible, other substances which have perma- nence, for there can be no science of the fleeting." It is, therefore, the idea of science which demands the reality of ideas, a demand which cannot be met unless Ideas or con- ceptions are also the ground of all being. This is the case PLATO. 107 with Plato. According to him there can be neither true knowledge nor true being without ideas and conceptions which have an independent reality. What now does Plato mean by idea? From what has already been said it is clear that he means something more than ideal conceptions of the beautiful and the good. An idea is found, as the name itself (eZSos) indicates, wherever a universal conception of a species or kind is found. Hence Plato speaks of the idea of a bed, table, strength, health, tone, color, ideas of simple relations and properties, ideas of mathematical figures, and even ideas of not-being, and of that, which in its essence is merely a contradiction of the idea, baseness, and vice. In a word, we may put an idea wherever many things may be characterized by a common name (Rep. X. 596) : or as Aristotle expresses it (Met. XII. 3), Plato posits an idea for every class of being. In this sense Plato expresses himself in the beginning of the Parme- nides. Parmenides asks the 3~oung Socrates what he calls ideas. Socrates answers by naming unconditionally the moral ideas, the ideas of the true, the beautiful, the good, and then after a little delay he mentions some plrysical ones, as the ideas of man, of fire, of water ; he will not allow ideas to be predicated of that which is only a formless mass, or which is a part of something else, as hair, mud, and clay, but in this he is answered by Parmenides, that if he would be fully imbued with philosophy, he must not consider such things as these to be wholly despicable, but should look upon them as truly though remotely participating in the idea. Here at least the claim is asserted that no province of being is ex- cluded from the idea, that even that which appears most acci- dental and irrational is yet a part of rational knowledge, in fact that every thing existing may be conceived as rational. 5. THE RELATION OF IDEAS TO THE PHENOMENAL WORLD. Analogous to the different definitions of idea are the differ- ent names which Plato gives to the sensible and phenomenal world. He calls it the many, the divisible, the unbounded, 108 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. the undetermined and measureless, the becoming, the rela- tive, great and small, not-being. But in what relation these two worlds of sense and of ideas stand to each other is a question which Plato has answered neither fully nor consist- ently with himself. If, as is most common, he characterizes the relation of things to conceptions as a participation, or calls things the copies and adumbrations, while ideas are the archetypes, these metaphorical definitions do not explain, but on the contrary merely hide the chief difficulties in the doc- trine of ideas. The difficulty lies in the contradiction which grows out of the fact that while Plato admits the reality of the becoming and of the province of the becoming, he still affirms that ideas, which are substances ever at rest and ever the same, are the only actualities. Now in this Plato is indeed formally consistent with himself, in that he characterizes the materiel of matter not as a positive substratum but as not- being, and guards himself with the express affirmation that he does not consider the sensuous as being, but only as some- thing similar to being. (Rep. X. 597.) The position laid down in the Parmenides is also consistent with this, that a perfect philosophy should look upon the idea as the cogniza- ble in the phenomenal world, and should follow it out in the smallest particulars until every part of being should be known and all dualism removed. In fine, Plato in man}' of his ex- pressions seems to regard the world of sensation only as a subjective appearance, as a product of subjective representa- tion, as the result of a confused way of representing ideas. In this sense phenomena are entirely dependent on ideas ; they are nothing but the ideas themselves in the form of not- being ; the phenomenal world derives its whole existence from the ideal world which appears in it. But }*et when Plato calls the sensuous a mingling of the same with the different or the not-being (Tim., p. 35), when he characterizes the ideas as vowels which run through every thing like a chain (SopJi., p. 253) , when he himself conceives the possibility that matter might offer opposition to the formative energy of ideas (Tim., PLATO. 109 p. 56) , when he speaks of an evil soul of the world (de Leg. X. 896), and gives intimations of the presence in the world of a principle in nature hostile to God (Polit., p. 268), when he in the Phcedo treats of the relation between body and soul as one wholly discordant and malignant, in all this there is evidence enough, even after allowing for the mythical form of the Timoeus, and the rhetorical composition which prevails in the Phcedo, to substantiate the contradiction mentioned above. This is most clear in the Timoeus. Plato in this dialogue makes the sensible world to be formed by a Creator who uses ideas as patterns, but posits as a condition of the creative activity of this Demiurge or Creator a something which should be apt to receive and exhibit this ideal image. This something Plato compares to the matter which is fash- ioned by the artisan (whence the later name liyle) . He char- acterizes it as wholly undetermined and formless, but possess- ing in itself an aptitude for every variety of form, an invisible and shapeless thing, a something which it is difficult to char- acterize, and which Plato even does not seem inclined very closely to describe. In this the actuality of matter is denied ; even when Plato makes it equivalent to space it is only the place, the negative condition of the sensible ; it possesses being only as it receives in itself the ideal form. Still matter remains the objective and phenomenal form of the idea : the visible world arises onh* through the mingling of ideas with this substratum, and if matter be metaphysically expressed as " the different," then does it follow with logical necessity in a dialectical discussion that it is just as truly being as not-being. Plato does not conceal from himself this diffi- culty, and therefore attempts to represent with comparisons and images this presupposition of a liyle which he finds it as impossible to do without as to express in an intelligible form. If he would do without it he must rise to the conception of an absolute creation, or consider matter as an ultimate emanation from the absolute spirit, or else explain it as appearance only. Thus the Platonic system is only a fruit- less struggle against dualism. 110 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 6. THE IDEA OF THE GOOD AND THE DEITY. If the true is exhibited in general conceptions which are so related to each other that every higher conception embraces and com- bines under it several lower, so that any one starting from a single idea may eventually discover all (Meno., p. 81), then must the sum of ideas form a connected organism and succes- sion in which the lower appears as a stepping-stone and pre- supposition to a higher. This succession must end in an idea which needs no higher idea or presupposition to sustain it. This highest idea, the ultimate limit of all knowledge, and itself the independent gi'ound of all other ideas, Plato calls the idea of the good, i.e., not of moral but of meta- physical good. (Rep. VII. 517.) What this good is in itself, Plato undertakes to show only in images. "In the same manner as the sun," he says in the Republic (VI. 506), " is the cause of sight, and the cause not merely that objects are visible but also that they grow and are produced, so the good is of such power and beaut}-, that it is not merely the cause of science to the soul, but is also the cause of being and reality to whatever is the object of science ; and as the sun is not itself sight or the object of sight but presides over both, so the good is not science and truth but is superior to both, they being not the good itself but Of a goodly nature." The idea of the good excludes all presupposition, in so far as the good has unconditioned worth and lends value to every thing else. It is the ultimate ground at the same time of knowing and of -being, of the perceiver and the perceived, of the subjective and the objective, of the ideal and the real, though itself exalted above such a distinc- tion. (Rep. VI. 508-517.) Plato, however, did not attempt a derivation of the remaining ideas from the idea of the good ; his course here is wholly an empirical one ; a certain class of objects are taken, and having been referred to their common essence, this latter is given out as their idea. He treated individual conceptions so independently, and made each one so complete in itself, that it is impossible to find a proper PLATO. Ill division or establish an immanent continuation of one into another. It is difficult to say precisely what relation, in the Platonic view, this idea of the good, and the ideal world in general, bore to the Deity. On the whole it seems clear that Plato regarded the two as identical, but whether he conceived this highest cause to be a personal being or not is a question which hardly admits of a definite answer. The logical result of his system would exclude the personality of God. If only the universal (the idea) truly exists, then must the only abso- lute idea, the Deity, be only the absolute universal ; but that Plato was himself conscious of this logical conclusion we can hardly affirm, any more than we can say on the other hand that he was clearly a theist. For though in numberless mythical or popular statements he speaks of God and the gods, this only indicates that he is speaking in the language of the popular religion, and when he speaks in an accurate philosophical sense, he only makes the relation of the per- sonal deity with the idea a very uncertain one. Most prob- able, therefore, is it that this whole question concerning the personality of God was not yet definitely before him, that he took up this idea and defended it in the interests of morality against the anthropomorphism of the mythic poets, and that he sought to establish it by arguments drawn from the evidences of design in nature, and the universal prevalence of a belief in a God, while as a philosopher he made no use of it. V. THE PLATONIC PHYSICS* 1. NATURE. The connec- tion between the Physics and the Dialectic of Plato lies prin- cipally in two points, the conception of becoming, which forms the chief characteristic of nature, and that of real being, which, when apprehended as the good, is the basis of every teleological explanation of nature. Since nature be- longs to the province of irrational sensation it cannot claim the same accuracy of treatment as is exhibited in dialectic. Plato therefore applied himself with much less zest to physi- cal investigations than to those of an ethical or dialectical 112 A HISTOEY OF PHILOSOPHY. character, and indeed only attended to them in his later years. Only in one dialogue, the Timceus, do we find any extended evolution of physical doctrines, and even here Plato seems to have gone to his work with much less than his wonted in- dependence, this dialogue being more strongly tinctured with P3 r thagoreanism than "any other of his writings. The diffi- culty of the Timceus is increased by its mythical form, by which the old commentators themselves were puzzled. If we take the first impression that it gives us, it appears to posit as prior to the creation of the world, a Creator (or Demiurgus) as moving and reflecting principle, with on the one side the ideal world existing immovable as the eternal archetype, and on the other side, a chaotic, formless, irregu- lar, fluctuating mass, which holds in itself the germ of the material world, but has no determined character nor sub- stance. From these two elements the Creator now constructs the world-soul, i.e., the invisible dynamical principle (which is, however, conceived as extended in space) of the order and movement of the world. The Demiurgus spreads out this world-soul like a vast net or frame throughout the entire space which the world when created is to occup}', dividing this space thus into two spheres, viz., the region of the fixed stars and the planetary heavens, and sub-dividing the second into seven smaller circles corresponding to the orbits of the seven planets. The material world, which has become actual through the arrangement of the chaotic mass into the four elements, is built into this frame, and the process thus begun is completed in its internal structure by the formation of the organic world. It is difficult to separate the mythical and the philosophical elements in this cosmogony- of the Timceus, especially difficult to determine how far that which is historical in this construc- tion, the succession of creative acts in time, belongs to the mere form. The significance of the world-soul is clearer. In the Platonic system the soul is, in general, a mean be- tween the ideas and corporeal existence, the medium through PLATO. 113 which matter is formed, individualized, animated, and gov- erned ; or, in a word, is raised from disorderly multiplicity to organic uuit}^ and maintained in this condition. In a sim- ilar way, with Plato, number is a mean between the idea and phenomena, in so far as through it the totality of material being is brought into the definite quantitative relations of multitude, magnitude, figure, parts, position, distance, etc., in a word, articulated arithmetically and geometrically, in- stead of existing as a limitless and undifferentiated mass. In the world-soul both these functions are united. It is the universal medium between ideas and phenomena, the great world-schema which on a grand scale forms and articulates matter, the mighty world-force by which matter (e.g., the heavenly bodies) is kept within this order, moved (revolved), and, through this ordered movement raised to a real copy of the idea. The Platonic view of nature, in opposition to the mechanical explanations of the earlier philosophers, is entirely teleological, and based upon the conception of the good. Plato conceives the world as the image of the good, as the work of divine munificence. Constructed by its Derniurgus in accordance with the eternal idea it is perfect, the ever- abiding, never-changing image of the good, vitalized and rationalized through the indwelling soul, infinitely beau- tiful, nay divine. As it is the image of the perfect it is therefore only one, corresponding to the idea of the single all-embracing substance, for an infinite number of worlds is not to be conceived as actual. For the same reason the world is spherical, after the most perfect and uniform struc- ture, which embraces in itself all other forms ; its movement is in a circle, because this, by returning into itself, is most like the movement of reason. The particular points of the Timwus, the derivation of the four elements, the separation of the seven planets according to the musical scale, the opin- ion that the stars were immortal and heavenly substances, the affirmation that the earth holds an abiding position in the middle of the world, a view which subsequently became elab- 114 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. orated to the Ptolemaic system, the reference of all material figures to elementary geometrical forms, the division of inani- mate nature, according to the four elements, into beings of fire and light (gods and demons), and of earth, water, and air, the discussions respecting organic nature, and especialty respecting the construction of the human body all these we need here only mention. Their philosophical worth consists not so much in their material content, for they rather serve to show the entire worthlessness of the natural science of that age, as in their fundamental idea, that the world should be conceived as the image and the work of reason, as an organism of order, harmony, and beauty, as the good actualizing itself. 2. THE SOUL. The doctrine of the soul, considering it simply as the basis of moral action, and leaving out of view all questions of concrete ethics, is the completion, the cope- stone of the Platonic physics. The individual soul possesses the same nature and character as the world-soul. It is essen- tial to the perfection of the world that it should contain a plurality of souls, through which the principle of rationality and vitality ma}' be particularized in a plenitude of indi- viduals. The soul is in itself indestructible, and by virtue of its rationality is of a divine nature ; it is formed for the knowledge of the divine and eternal, for a pure and blessed life in the contemplation of the ideal world. But no less essential to it is its connection with a material, perishable bod}*. A race of perishable beings must, for the sake of completeness in the genera of things, be represented in the universe ; and this is accomplished by individual souls through their residence in the body. The soul, while it is united to the body, participates in its movements and changes ; it is, thus, in this respect, related to the perishable, and subject to the changing conditions of sensuous life, to the influence of sensuous impressions and impulses. It cannot, therefore, retain its pure divinity ; it sinks from the heavenly to the earthly, from the Godlike to the perishable. In the indi- PLATO. 115 vidual soul is exhibited the conflict between the higher prin- ciple and the lower ; intellect yields to the power of sense ; the latent dualism between idea and reality, which in the universe taken as a whole is reduced to unity, finds here, in the soul, its complete actuality. Though on the one hand the souls rules and restrains the body, it is on the other hand just as truly swayed by the body, bound down by it to the lower sensuous life, to forge tfulness of its nobler origin, and to the finitude of perception and volition. This interac- tion of soul and body is mediated through an inferior, sensu- ous faculty of the soul ; hence Plato distinguishes in the soul two constituents, the divine and the perishable, the rational and the irrational, between which is placed, as a mediating link, courage (0v/*o?) , which, though nobler than sensuous im- pulse, 3 r et, since it is exhibited by children and even by brutes, and often allows itself to be carried away blindly without reflection, belongs to man's sensuous nature, and must not be confounded with reason. Thus, according to the Platonic doctrine, the soul, during its connection with the body, is in a condition totally inadequate to its nature. Potentially it is divine, in possession of true knowledge, self-subsistent, free, actually it is precisely the reverse, weak, sensuous, subject to the influence of its physical nature, entangled in evil and sin by all the disquietudes, impulses, passions, and conflicts which originate in the predominance of the sensuous principle, in the necessity of physical self-preservation, and in the strug- gle for possession and enjoyment. A dim consciousness of its loftier origin, a longing for its home, the ideal world, does in- deed remain with it, and manifest itself as love of knowledge, enthusiasm for the beautiful (Eros) , and in the endeavor of the spirit to become master of the body. But this very long- ing shows that the true life of the soul cannot be this present sensuous existence, but must lie in a future to be realized only after its separation from the body. The soul which has abandoned itself to sensualit}' is condemned to enter into other bodies or even into lower forms of existence from 116 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. which it is released only when in the course of time it has returned to its original purity. The pure soul which has endured unsoiled the test of association with the corporeal world returns at death immediately to its state of blessed rest ; then, after a brief period of enjoj'ment, it resumes once more its life in the body. Plato's accounts of these future states of the soul do not always accord one with another ; the statements of the Phcedrus and PAcecZo, of the Republic and Timceus, differ in man}* respects. Plato is, however, like the Pythagoreans, really in earnest in the matter. It is really his opinion that the progress of the world, the his- tory of the universe, has for its content just this perpetual transition of souls from the higher to the lower, from the divine to the human world. The soul is of too noble a nature to merely begin with this life and then vanish ; it is divine and eternal. It is not, however, pure being, like the idea ; it has in itself something of " the other" ; it is at once spiritual and unspiritual, free and not free. These two con- tradictory elements are manifested in that change from the superior to the inferior state under the form of a succession in time. The soul exhibits the enigma of an equal inclina- tion toward the ideal and the sensuous ; and this enigma is solved, according to Plato, by just this doctrine of the con- stitution and destiny of the soul itself. All this appears to be very different from Socrates. The Socratic postulate that man ought not to act from sensuous impulses, but intelli- gently, seems to be transformed into a speculative philoso- pheme which endeavors to explain how the sensuous and rational are united in man. But it is just this fact, that the whole of Plato's philosophy is concentrated upon this point, i.e., upon the ethical nature and character of the soul, which proves him to be a true disciple of the master who had aroused in him this lofty idea of the exaltation of spirit over sense. VI. THE PLATONIC ETHICS. The main problem of Plato's ethics (which is nothing but the practical application of his PLATO. 117 theory of ideas), as with the ethics of the other Socratics, is to define the highest good, the end which all volition and action posit as their goal. From the definition of the summum bonum is deduced the theory of virtue, which in turn is the basis of the doctrine of the state, i.e., of the objective real- ization of the good in human society. (1) The Highest Good. What this supreme aim must be is at once evident from the general character of the Platonic system. Not life amid the nonentities, mortality, and vicis- situdes of sensuous existence, but exaltation to the ideal, to the only true being, is both in itself and for man that which is absolute!}- good. The soul's problem and vocation is to flee from the internal and external evils of sense, to purify and free itself from the influences of the body, and to strive to become pure, upright, and thus godlike (Thecetetus; Phcedo). The way to attain this is to withdraw the mind from sensuous conceptions and desires, and direct it upon that cognition of the truth which reflection alone can give,* in a word, upon philosophy. Philosophy is with Pato as with Socrates, not something purely theoretical, but the return of the soul to its true nature, a spiritual regeneration in which the soul regains its lost knowledge of the ideal world, and thus the consciousness of its own higher origin, of its original superiority to the sensuous world. In philoso- phy the mind purifies itself from all admixture of sense ; it comes to itself and re-obtains that freedom and rest of which its immersion in the material had deprived it. Such being Plato's conception of the highest good, it was natural that he should vehemently oppose the hedonism of the Sophistic- Cyrenaics. The Gorgias and Philebus are especially de- voted to the refutation of their views. In these dialogues he endeavors to prove that pleasure is something insubstan- tial and indefinite, which can give to life neither order nor harmony ; that it is altogether relative since it can readily be transformed into pain, and induces pain just in proportion to its own intensity ; and that it is a contradiction to place 118 A HISTORY OP PHILOSOPHY. pleasure, which in itself is worthless, above the power and virtue of the soul. Yet. on the other hand, Plato no more in his practical than in his theoretical philosophy approved of the C3"nic-Megaric abstraction which would recognize noth- ing positive except cognition, no concrete spiritual activity, no special science or art, nor any refinement of life through pleasure. The concrete sciences and arts, and those kinds of pleasure which do not impair the harmony of the spiritual, those pure, painless, passionless, innocent delights which spring from the contemplation of spiritual and natural beaut} 7 , have their proper sphere as well as pure philosophy. The good is not a life of mere knowledge or mere pleasure, but the unity of the two ; yet it is a life in which knowledge predominates, since it is the element through which volition and action are reduced to rationalit}-, order, and measure. A certain vacil- lation in Plato's opinions in regard to the highest good must not, however, be overlooked. As sensuous existence is for him, at one tune, a pure nonentity, the mere disturbance and distortion of ideal being, and at another a beautiful cop}' of the ideal archetype ; so in the ethics we perceive sometimes a tendency towards a purely ascetic view of sense as the source of sin and evil (P/tcedo), and at others, a more positive view (Symposium; Pliilebus) which considers a life without pleasure to be too abstract, monotonous, and spirit- less, and therefore permits the beautiful to maintain a posi- tion coordinate with the good. 2. VIRTUE. In his theory of virtue, Plato is at first wholly Socratic. He holds fast to the opinion that it is knowledge (Protagoras), and therefore teachable (Meno) ; and as to its unity, though it follows from his later dialectical investi- gations that the one can be manifold, or the manifold one, and that, therefore, virtue must both be regarded as one, and also as many, he nevertheless emphasizes prominently the unity and connection of all virtues, and is fond of painting, especially in the introductory dialogues, some single virtue as comprising in itself the sum of all the rest. Plato follows PLATO. 119 for the most part the fourfold division of virtues, as popu- larly made ; and only in the Republic (IV. 441) does he attempt a scientific derivation of them, by referring to each of the three faculties- of the soul its appropriate virtue. The virtue of the reason he calls prudence or wisdom, the direct- ing or measuring virtue, since reason must govern the soul ; the virtue of the heart is valor, the helpmeet of reason, or it is the heart imbued with true knowledge, which in the struggle against pleasure and pain, desire and fear, asserts itself to be the correct judge of that which ought or ought not to be feared ; the virtue of sensuous desire, whose function is to restrain this within its proper limits, is temperance ; and, lastly, that virtue to which belong the due regulation and mutual adjustment of the several powers of the soul, and which, therefore, constitutes the bond and the unity of the three other virtues, is justice. In this last conception, that of justice, all the elements of moral culture meet together, and centre, exhibiting the moral life of the individual as a perfect whole, and then, by requir- ing an application of the same principle to communities, the moral consideration is advanced beyond the narrow circle of individual life. Thus is established the whole of the moral world Justice " in great letters," the moral life in its com- plete totalit}', is the state. In this is first realised the de- mand for the complete harmony of the human life. In and through the state comes the complete elaboration of matter for the reason. 3. THE STATE. The Platonic state is generally regarded as an ideal or chimera, which it is impracticable to realize among men. This view of the case has even been ascribed to Plato, and it has been said that in his Republic he attempted to sketch only a fine ideal of a state constitution, while in the Laws he traced out a practicable philosophy of the state from the standpoint of the common consciousness. But in the first place, this was not Plato's own opinion. Although he acknowledges that the state he describes cannot be found 120 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. on earth, and is only a heavenly archetype adapted merely to the instruction of the philosopher (IX. 592), still he de- mands that efforts should be made to realize it here, and he even attempts to show the conditions and means under which such a state could be made actual, b}' adapting its particular institutions to counteract the defects arising from the different characters and temperaments of men. A constitution, disso- ciated from the idea, could onlj- appear untrue to a philoso- pher like Plato, who saw the actual and the true only in the idea ; and the common view which supposes that he wrote his Republic in the full consciousness of its impracticability, mistakes entirely the standpoint of the Platonic philosophy. Still farther the question whether such a state as the Platonic is attainable and the best, is in itself idle and irrelevant. The Platonic state is the Grecian idea of a state presented in the form of a narrative. But the idea, that which is rational in the world's history, since it is absolutely actual, that in the existent which is essential and necessary, is no inane and impotent ideal. The truly ideal is not to be actual, but is actual, and the only actual ; if an idea were too good for existence, or the empirical actuality too bad for it, then were this a fault of the ideal itself. Plato has not given him- self up merely to abstract theories ; the philosopher cannot transcend his age, but can onl} r see and grasp it in its true significance. This Plato has done. His standpoint is his own age. He looks upon the political life of the Greeks as then existing, and it is this life, exalted to its idea, which forms the real content of the Platonic Republic. Plato has here represented Greek morality on its substantial side. If the Platonic Republic seems prominent!}' an ideal which can never be realized this is owing much less to its ideality than to the defects of the political life of the ancients. The most prominent characteristic of the Hellenic conception of the state, before the Greeks began to fall into unbridled licen- tiousness, was the constraint thrown upon personal subjective freedom, in the sacrifice of every individual interest to the PLATO. 121 absolute sovereignty of the state. With Plato also, the state is all in all. His political institutions, so loudly ridiculed by the ancients, are only the undeniable consequences follow- ing from the very idea of the Grecian state, which in distinc- tion from the modern state, allowed neither to the individual citizen nor to a corporation, any lawful sphere of action inde- pendent of itself. It did not recognize the principle of sub- jective freedom ; and it is just this non-recognition of the subject, which Plato, in opposition to the ruinous tendencies of his age, made the fundamental principle of his state. The grand feature of the Platonic state is, as has been said, the sacrifice of the individual to the universal state, the re- duction of moral to political virtue. Plato desires that social ethics shall become universal and attain a firmly established existence ; sense must everywhere be restrained and subor- dinated to intelligence. But if this is to be accomplished, a universal, i.e., a political, authority must undertake the education of all in virtue, and the preservation of good morals, and all individual self-will and selfishness must be subordinated to the common will and the common good. The sensuous principle in man is so mighty that it can be ren- dered powerless only by the superior strength of social insti- tutions, through the suppression of all selfish activity for private ends, and the merging of the individual in the uni- versal. Only in this way is virtue, and thus true blessedness possible. Virtue must be realized first in the state and then in the individual citizen. Hence the severity and rigor of the Platonic theory of the state. In a perfect state all things, joy and sorrow, and even eyes, ears, and hands, must be common to all, so that the social life would be as it were the life of one man. This perfect universality and unity, can only be actualized when every thing individual and particular falls away. Private property and domestic life (in place of which comes a community of goods and of wives) , education and instruction, the choice of rank and profession, the arts and sciences, all these must be subjected and placed under 6 122 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. the exclusive and absolute control of the state. The indi- vidual may lay claim only to that happiness which belongs to him as a constituent element of the state. From this point Plato goes down into the minutest particulars, and gives the closest directions respecting gymnastics and music, which form the two means of culture of the higher ranks ; respect- ing the stud} r of mathematics, and philosophy, the choice of stringed instruments, and the proper measure of verse ; re- specting bodily exercise and the service of women in war ; respecting marriage settlements, and the age at which any- one should study dialectic, many, and beget children. The state with him is only a great educational establishment, a family in the mass. Lyric poetry he would allow only under the inspection of competent judges. Epic and dramatic poe- try, even Homer and Hesiod, should be banished from the state, since they rouse and lead astray the passions, and give un worth}' representations of the gods. Exhibitions of physi- cal degeneracy or weakness should not be tolerated in the Platonic state ; deformed and sickly infants should be aban- doned, and food and attention should be denied to the sick. In all this we find the chief antithesis of the ancient to the modern state. Plato did not recognize the will and choice of the individual, and yet the individual has a right to demand this. The problem of the modern state has been to unite these two sides, to bring the universal end and the particular aims of the individual into harmony, to reconcile the highest possible freedom of the conscious individual will, with the highest possible supremacy of the state. The political institutions of the Platonic state are decidedly aristocratic. Grown up in opposition to the extravagances of the Athenian democracy, Plato prefers an absolute mon- arch}' to ever)' other constitution, though this should have as its absolute ruler only the perfect philosopher. It is a well- Known expression of his, that the state can only attain its end when philosophers become its rulers, or when its present rulers have prosecuted their studies so far and so accurately, PLATO. 123 that they can unite philosophy with a superintendence of public affairs (V. 473). His reason for claiming that the sovereign power should be vested only in one, is the fact that very few are endowed with political wisdom. This ideal of an absolute ruler who should be able to govern the state per- fect^, Plato abandons in the Laws, in which work he shows his preference for a mixed constitution, embracing both a monarchical and a democratic element. From the aristo- cratic tendency of the Platonic state, follows farther the sharp division of ranks, and the total exclusion of the third rank from a proper political life. In reality Plato makes but two classes in his state, the subjects and the sovereign, an- alogous to his twofold psychological division of sensible and intellectual, mortal and immortal ; but as in ps}"chology he had introduced a middle term, spirit, to stand between his two divisions there, so in the state he brings in the military class between the ruler and those intended to supply the ph} r sical wants of the community. We have thus three ranks, that of the ruler, corresponding to the reason, that of the warrior, answering to the heart (courage), and that of the craftsman, which is made parallel to appetite or sen- suous desire. To these three ranks belong three separate functions : to the first, that of legislation and caring for the general good ; to the second, that of defending the common- wealth from attacks of external foes ; and to the third, the care of separate interests and wants, as agriculture, me- chanics, etc. From each of these three ranks and its func- tions the state derives a peculiar virtue wisdom from the ruler, bravery from the warrior, and temperance from the craftsman, so far as he lives in obedience to his rulers. In the proper union of these three virtues is found the justice of the state, a virtue which is thus the sum of all other virtues. Plato pays little attention to the lowest rank, that of the craftsman, who exists in the state only as means. He held that it was not necessary to give laws and care for the rights of this portion of the community. The separation between the 124 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. ruler and the warrior is not so broad. Plato suffers these two ranks to interpenetrate each other, and analogous to his origi- nal ps} - chological division, as though the reason were but courage in its highest development, he makes the oldest and the best of the warriors rise to the dignity and power of rulers. The education of its warriors should therefore be a chief care of the state, in order that their spirit, though losing none of its peculiar energy, may yet be imbued with reason. The best endowed by nature and culture among the warriors, may be selected at the age of thirty, and put upon a course of careful training. When he has reached the age of fifty and looked upon the idea of the good, he may be bound to actualize this archetype in the state, provided always that every one wait his turn, and spend his remain- ing time in philosophy. Onl}' thus can the state be raised to the unconditioned rule of reason under the supremacy of the good. VII. RETROSPECT. With Plato Greek philosophy- reached the highest point of its development. The Platonic system is the first complete construction of the entire natural and spiritual universe in accordance with one single philosophical principle ; it is the type of all higher speculation, of all meta- ph} - sical as well as ethical idealism. Based upon the com- paratively simple foundation laid by Socrates philosophy here for the first time attained a complete realization ; here, with Plato, the spirit of philosophy elevated itself to that full self-consciousness, which with Socrates was only a dim, un- certain instinct. Plato's soaring genius was required to com- pletely realize that for which Socrates had prepared the way. But at the same time Plato placed philosoph}' in an idealistic opposition to the given actuality, which, springing more from his individual character and surroundings than from the na- ture of the Greek mind, needed to be supplemented by a realistic view of things. This was supplied by Aristotle. THE OLD ACADEMY. 125 SECTION XV. THE OLD ACADEMY. IN the old Academy we find no spirit of invention, and with few exceptions, no movements of progress, but rather a gradual retrogression of the Platonic philosophizing. After the death of Plato, Speusippus, his nephew and disciple, taught in the Academy during eight years. He was suc- ceeded by Xenocrates, after whom came Polemo, Crates, and Grantor. It was a time in which schools for higher culture were established, and the older teacher yielded to his j-ounger successor the post of instruction. The general characteristics of the old Academy, so far as can be gathered from the scanty accounts concerning it, were great attention to learning, the prevalence of P3*thagorean elements, especially the doctrine of number, and lastly, the reception of fantastic and demon- ological notions, among which the worship of the stars pla3~ed a part. The prevalence of the Pythagorean doctrine of num- ber in the later instructions of the Academy, gave to mathe- matical sciences, particularly arithmetic and astronomy, a high place, and at the same time assigned to the doctrine of ideas a much lower position than Plato had given it. Subse- quentty, the attempt was made to get back to the unadul- terated doctrine of Plato. Grantor is said to be the first editor of the Platonic writings. As Plato was the only true Socratic, so was Aristotle the only genuine disciple of Plato, though often accused by his fellow-disciples of being unfaithful to his master's principles. We pass on at once to him, without stopping now to inquire into his relation to Plato, or the advance which he made be- yond his predecessor, since these points will come up before us in the exposition of the Aristotelian philosophy. (See Sect. XVI., in. 1.) 126 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. SECTION XVI. ARISTOTLE. I. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE. Aristotle was born 385 B.C. at Stagira, a Greek colon}' in Thrace. His father, Nicomachus, was a physician, and the friend of Amyntas, king of Macedonia. The former fact ma}* have had its influ- ence in determining the scientific tendencies of the son, and the latter may have procured his subsequent summons to the Macedonian court. Aristotle at a very early age lost both his parents. In his seventeenth year he came to Plato at Athens, and continued with him twenty years. On account of his indomitable zeal for stud}', Plato named him "the Reader," and said, upon comparing him with Xenocvates, that the latter required the spur, the former the bit. Among the man}' charges made against his character, most prominent are those of jealousy and ingratitude towards his master, but most of the anecdotes in which these charges are embodied merit little credence. It is certain that Aristotle, after the death of Plato, stood in friendly relations with Xenocrates ; still, as a writer, he can hardly be absolved from a certain want of friendship and regard towards Plato and his philoso- phy, though all this can be explained on psychological grounds. After Plato's death, Aristotle went with Xenocrates to Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus, whose sister Pythias he mar- ried after Hermias had fallen a victim to Persian treachery. After the death of Pythias he is said to have married his con- cubine, Herpyllis, who was the mother of his son Nicomachus. In the year 343 he was called by Philip of Macedon, to take the charge of the education of his son Alexander, then thirteen years old. Both father and son honored him highly, and the latter, with royal munificence, subsequently supported him in his studies. When Alexander went to ARISTOTLE. 127 Persia, Aristotle betook himself to Athens, and taught in the Lyceum, the only gymnasium then vacant, since Xenocrates had possession of the Academy, and the Cynics of the Cyno- sarges. From the shady walks (TrepiVaroi) of the Lyceum, in which Aristotle was accustomed to walk and expound his philosophy, his school received the name of the Peripatetic. Aristotle is said to have spent his mornings with his more mature disciples, exercising them in the profoundest questions of philosophy, while his evenings were occupied with a greater number of pupils in more general and preparatory instruc- tion. The former investigations were called acroamatic, the latter exoteric. Pie abode at Athens, and taught thirteen years, and then, after the death of Alexander, whose dis- pleasure he had incurred, he is said to have been accused by the Athenians of impiety towards the gods, and to have fled to Chalcis, in order to escape a fate similar to that of Socrates. He died in the year 322 at Chalcis, in Eubcea. Aristotle left a vast number of writings, of which the smaller (perhaps a sixth) , but unquestionably the more im- portant poi'tion have come down to us, though in a form which admits of man}' doubts and objections. The story of Strabo about the fate of the Aristotelian writings, and the injury which they suffered in a cellar at Scepsis in Troas is confessedly a fable, or at least limited to the original manu- scripts ; but the fragmentary and descriptive form of many among them, and especially of the most important (e.g., the Metapliysic) , the fact that scattered portions of one and the same work (e.g., the Ethics) are repeatedly found in different treatises, the irregularities and striking contradictions in one and the same treatise, the disagreement found in other par- ticulars among different works, and the distinction made by Aristotle himself between acroamatic and exoterical writings, all this gives reason to believe that we have, for the most part, before us only his oral lectures written down, and sub- sequently edited by his scholars. 128 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. II. GENERAL CHARACTER AND DIVISION OF THE ARISTOTE- LIAN PHILOSOPHY. With Plato, philosophy had been na- tional in both its form and content, but with Aristotle it loses its Hellenic peculiarity, and becomes universal in scope and meaning ; the Platonic dialogue changes into ban-en prose ; a rigid, technical language takes the place of the mythical and poetical dress ; the thinking which had been with Plato intui- tive, is with Aristotle discursive ; the immediate intuition of reason in the former, becomes reflection and conception in the latter. Turning away from the Platonic unit}' of all being, >Aristotle prefers to direct his attention to the manifoldness of the phenomenal ; he seeks the idea only in its concrete ac- tualization, and consequently grasps the particular, far more prominently in its peculiar determinateness and reciprocal differences, than in its connection with the idea. He em- braces with equal interest the facts given in nature, in his- tory, and in the inner life of man. But he ever tends toward the individual, he must ever have a fact given in order to develop his thought upon it ; it is always the empirical, the actual, which solicits and guides his speculation ; his whole philosophy is a description of the facts given, and only merits the name of a philosophy because it comprehends the empiri- cal in its totality and synthesis, because it has carried out its induction to the farthest extent. Only because he is the alt- solute empiricist may Aristotle be called the truest philosopher. This character of the Aristotelian philosophy explains at the outset its encyclopedic tendency, inasmuch as every thing given in experience is equally worth}* of regard and inves- tigation. Aristotle is thus the founder of man}' departments of science unknown before him ; he is not only the father of logic, but also of natural history, empirical psychology, and the science of rights. This devotion of Aristotle to the given facts will also ex- plain his predominant inclination towards physics, for nature is the most immediate and actual. Connected also with this is the fact that Aristotle is the first among philosophers who ARISTOTLE. 129 gave to history and its tendencies an accurate attention. The first book of the Metapliysic is also the first attempt at a history of philosophy, as his Politics is the first critical account of the different historical states and constitutions. In both these cases he brings out his own theorj^ only as a deduction from historical data, basing it in the former case upon the works of his predecessors, and in the latter case upon the constitutions which lie before him. It is clear that according to this, the method of Aristotle must be a different one from that of Plato. Instead of pro- ceeding like the latter, synthetically and dialectically, he pursues for the most part an analytic and regressive course, that is, going backward from the concrete to its ultimate ground and determination. While Plato would take his standpoint in the idea, in order cT explain from this position and set in" a clearer light that which is given and empirical, Aristotle on the other hand, starts with that which is given, in order to find and exhibit the idea in it. His method is, hence, induction ; that is, the derivation of certain principles and maxims from a sum of given facts and phenomena ; his mode of procedure is, usually, argument, an impartial bal- ancing of facts, phenomena, circumstances and possibilities. He appears to be for the most part only a thoughtful ob- server. Renouncing all claim to universality and necessity in his results, he is content to have brought out that which has an approximate truth, and the highest degree of proba- bility. He often affirms that science does not simply relate to the changeless and necessary, but also to that which ordi- narily takes place, that being alone excluded from its prov- ince, which is strictly accidental. Philosoplry, consequently, has with him the character and worth of a computation of probabilities, and his mode of exposition assumes not unfre- quently the form of a hesitating deliberation. Hence there is in him no trace of the Platonic ideals ; hence, also, his re- pugnance to a glowing and poetic style in philosophy, a repugnance which, while it induces in him a fixed, philo~ 130 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. sophlcal terminology, also frequently leads him to mistake and misrepresent the opinions of his predecessors. Hence, also, in whatever he treated, his thorough adherence to the actual facts. Connected, in fine, with the empirical character of the Aristotelian philosophizing, is the fragmentary form of his writings, and their want of a systematic division and arrange- ment. Proceeding always from particular to particular, he considers ever}- province of the actual by itself, and makes it the subject of a separate treatise ; but he, for the most part, fails to indicate the lines by which the different parts are united and comprehended in a systematic whole. Thus he founded a number of co-ordinate sciences, each one of which has an independent basis, but he fails to give us the Mkost_ science which embraces them all. It is sometimes affirmed that all his writings follow the idea of a whole ; but in their procedure there is such a want of all systematic connection, and ever}- one of his writings is a monograph so thoroughly independent and complete in itself, that we are sometimes puzzled to know what Aristotle himself received as a part of philosophy, and what he excluded. We are never furnished with an independent scheme or outline, we rarely find definite results or summary explanations. Even the different divisions of philosophy which he gives, vary essential!}' from one another. At one time he divides science into theoretical and practical, at another, he adds to these two a poetical creative science, while still again he speaks of the three parts of sci- ence, ethics, physics, and logic. At one time he divides the- oretical philosophy into logic and physics, and at another into theology, mathematics, and physics. But no one of these divisions has he expressly given as the basis on which to represent his system ; he himself places no value upon this method of division, and, indeed, openly declares himself op- posed to it. It is, therefore, only for the sake of uniformity that we can give the preference here to the threefold division of philosophy as already adopted by Plato. ARISTOTLE. 131 III. LOGIC AND METAPHTSIC. 1. NATURE AND RELATION OF THE Two. The word metaplrysic was first employed by the Aristotelian commentators. Plato had used the term dialectic, and Aristotle had characterized the same thing as " first philosophy," while he calls physics the "second phi- losophy." The relation of this first philosophy to the other sciences Aristotle determines in the following way. Every science, he says, must have for investigation a determined province and particular form of being, but none of these sci- ences reaches the conception of being itself. Hence there is needed a science which shall investigate that which the other sciences take up hypothetically, or through experience. This is done by the ' ' first philosoplry " which has to do with being as such, while the other sciences relate only to determined and concrete being. The metaphysic, which is this science of being and its primitive grounds, is the first philosophy, since it is presupposed by every other discipline. Thus, says Aris- totle, if there were only a physical substance, then would physics be the first and the only philosophy, but if there be an immaterial and unmoved essence whfch is the ground of all being, then must there also be an antecedent, and because it is antecedent, a universal philosoplry. The first ground of all being is God, whence Aristotle occasionally gives to the first philosophy the name of theology. It is difficult to determine the relation between this ' ' first philosophy " as the science of the ultimate ground of things, and that science which is ordinarily termed the logic of Aris- totle, and which is exhibited in the writings bearing the name of the Organon. Aristotle himself has not accurately exam- ined the relations of these two sciences, the reason for which is doubtless to be found in the incomplete form of the Meta- physic. But since he has embraced them both under the same name of logic ; since the investigation of the essence of things (VII. 17), and the doctrine of ideas (XIII. 5), are expressly called logical ; since he repeatedly attempts in the Metaphysic (Book IV.), to establish the logical principle of 132 A HISTORY OP PHILOSOPHY. contradiction as an absolute presupposition for all thinking and speaking and philosophizing, and emploj-s the method of argument belonging to that science which has to do with the essence of things (III. 2, IV. 3) ; and since, in fine, the cat- egories to which he had ahead}- devoted a separate book in the Organon are also discussed again in the Metaphysic (Book V.), it follows that this much at least may be affirmed with certainty, that he would not absolutely separate the investiga- tions of the Organon from those of the Metaphysic, and that he would not approve the ordinary division of formal logic and metaplvysic, although he has omitted to show their inner connection. 2. LOGIC. The great problem both of the logical faculty and also of logic both as science and art, is to form and judge of syllogisms, and through syllogisms to be able to establish a proof. Sy^ogi-fP 111 - h^yever, arise from propositions, and prorjosijions froniconceptions. From this point of view, ~which arises from the very nature of the case, Aristotle has in the different books of the Organon discussed the details of his theory of logic and dialectic. The first treatise in the Organon is that containing the categories, a work which treats of the universal determinations of being, and is the first at- tempt at an ontology. Of these categories Aristotle enumer- ates ten; substance, magnitude, .quality, relation, the where, the when, position, possession, acjjoftr-aud^passion. The second treatise (l)e Interpretation?) investigates speech as the expression of thought, and discusses the doctrine of the parts of speech, propositions and judgments. The third con- sists of the " Analytics" which show how conclusions may be referred back to their principles and arranged in accordance with their premises. The first Analytic contains in two books the general theory of the syllogism. Syllogisms are accord- ing to their content and aim either apodictic, which possess a certain and incontrovertible truth, or dialectic, which are directed toward that which may be disputed and is probable, or, finally, sophistic, which lead deceptivel}' to incorrect con- ARISTOTLE. 133 elusions. The doctrine of apodictic sj'llogisms and thus of proofs is given in the two books of the second Analytic, that of dialectic is furnished in the eight books of the Topic, and that of sophistic in the treatise concerning " Sophistical Proofs." A detailed statement of the Aristotelian logic would be familiar to every one, since the formal representations of this science ordinarily given, employ for the most part only the material furnished by Aristotle. Kant has remarked, that since the time of the Grecian sage, logic has made neither progress nor retrogression. Only in two mal logic of our time advanced be}-ond that of Aristotle ; first, in adding to the categorical SA'llogism, which was the onlj- one Aristotle had in mind, the hypothetical_and disjunc- tive, and second, in adding the fourth to the first three figures of the syllogism. But the incompleteness of the Aristotelian logic, which might be pardoned in the foundation of the science, still remains, and its thoroughly empirical method not onl}' still continues, but has even been exalted to a prin- ciple b} r means of the un- Aristotelian antithesis between the form of a thought and its content. Aristotle, in reality, only attempted to collect the logical facts in reference to the for- mation of propositions, and the method of syllogisms ; he has given in his logic only the natural history of finite thinking. However highly we may rate the correctness of his abstrac- tion, and the clearness with which he brings into conscious- ness the logical operation of the understanding, we must make equally conspicuous with this the want of all scientific derivation and foundation. The ten categories which he, as already remarked, has discussed in a separate treatise, he simply mentions, without furnishing any ground or principle for this enumeration ; that there are this number of categories is only a matter of fact to him, and he even cites them differ- ently in different writings. In the same way also he takes up the figures of the syllogism empirically ; he considers them only as forms and relations of formal thought, and I 134 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. remains thus within the province of the logic of the under- standing, although he declares the syllogism to be the only form of science. Neither in his Metaphysic nor in his Physics does he apply the rules of formal inference which he develops in the Organon, clearly proving that he has nowhere in his S3*stem properly elaborated either his categories or his analytic ; his logical investigations do not influence generally the de- velopment of his philosophical thought, but have for the most part only the value of a preliminar}" investigation of language. 3. METAPHYSIC. Among all the Aristotelian writings, the Metaphysic is least entitled to be called a connected whole ; it is only a collection of sketches, which, though they follow a certain fundamental idea, utterly lack inner mediation and perfect development. "We ma}* distinguish in it seven distinct groups. (1) Criticism of the previous philosophic systems from the standpoint of the four Aristotelian principles, Book I. (2) Exposition of the apories or philosophical prelimi- naiy questions, III. (3) The principle of contradiction, IV. (4) Definitions, V. (5) Examination of the conception of essence (ouo-t'a) and intelligible being (the ri ty eTmi) or the conception of matter (vA.i;), form (e?8os), and that which arises from the connection of these two (a-vvoXov), VII., VIII. (G) Potentiality and actuality, IX. (7) The Divine Spirit moving all, but itself unmoved, XII. (8) To these we may add the polemic against the Platonic doctrine of ideas and numbers, which runs through the whole Metaphysic^ but is especially carried out in Books XIII. and XIV. (1) The Aristotelian Criticism of the Platonic Doctrine of Ideas. In Aristotle's antagonism to the Platonic doctrine of ideas, we must seek for the specific difference between the two systems, a difference which Aristotle avails himself of every opportunity (especially Metaph. I. and XIII.) to ex- press. Plato had beheld all actuality in the idea, but the idea was to him a rigid truth, which had not yet become in- terwoven with the life and the movement of existence. Such a view, however, had this difficulty ; the idea, however little ARISTOTLE. 135 Plato would have it so, found standing over against it in independent being the phenomenal world, while it furnished no principle on which the being of the phenomenal world could be affirmed. This Aristotle recognizes, and charges upon Plato, that his ideas were only ' 4 immortalized things of sense," from which the being and becoming 6f1th"e" sensible could not be explained. In order to avoid this consequence, he himself makes out an original reference of mind to phe- nomena, affirming that the relation of the two is that of the actual to the possible, or that of form to matter, and consid- ering also mind as the absolute actuality of matter, and matter, as the potentially mind. His argument against the Platonic doctrine of ideas, Aristotle makes out in the follow- ing way : Passing by the fact that Plato furnished no satisfactory [ proof for the objective and independent reality of ideas, and I that his theory is without vindication, we may affirm in the I first place that it is wholly unfruitful, since it possesses no ground of explanation for being. The ideas have no proper and independent content. To see this we need only refer to their origin. In order to make science possible Plato posited certain substances independent of the sensuous particulars, aiicl uninfluenced by tneir changes. But to serve such_a purpose, there was offered to him nothing other than this in- dividual thing of sense. Tlence he gave to this individual a universal form, which was with him the idea. From this it resulted, that his ideas can hardly be separated from the sen- sible and individual objects which participate in them. The ideal duality and the empirical duality have one and the same import. The truth of this we can readily see, when- ever we gain from the adherents to the doctrine of ideas a definite statement respecting the peculiar character of their unchangeable substances, in comparison with the sensible and individual things which participate in them. The only differ- ence between the two consists in appending per se to the names expressing the respective ideas ; thus, while the indi- 136 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. vidual things are, e.g., man, horse, etc., the ideas are man per se, horseer se,,_etc. There is only this formal eliaimv for the Hoctrine of ideas to rest upon ; the flpi'tp content is not removed, but is only characterized as eternal. This ob- jection, that in the doctrine of ideas we have in reality only the sensible posited as a not-sensible and endowed with the predicate of immutabilit}*, Aristotle urges as above remarked when he calls the ideas " immortalized things of sense," not as though they were actually something sensible and spacial, but because in them the sensible individual merely loses its individuality, and becomes a universal. He compares them in this respect with the gods of the popular and anthropo- morphic religion ; as these are nothing but deified men, so the ideas are only things of nature endowed with a super- natural potency, the sensuous exalted to the non-sensuous. This identity between the ideas and their corresponding indi- vidual things amounts moreover to this, that the introduction of ideas doubles the objects to be known in a burdensome manner, and without any good results. Why set up the same thing twice? Why besides sensuous twofoldness and threefoldness, affirm a twofoldness and threefoldness in the idea? The adherents of the doctrine of ideas, when they posit an idea for every class of natural things, and through Ithis theory set up two equivalent series of sensible and not- sensible substances, seem therefore to Aristotle like men who think they can reckon better with many numbers than with few, and who therefore go to multiplying their numbers before the}* begin their reckoning. Again the doctrine of ideas is tautological, and wholly unfruitful as an explanation of being. " The ideas do not assist us to the knowledge of the indi- vidual things participating in them, since the ideas are not immanent in these things, but separate from them." Equally unfruitful are the ideas when considered in reference to the arising and departing of the things of sense. The}' contain no principle of becoming, of movement. There is in them no causality which might bring about the event, or explain ARISTOTLE. 187 the event when it had actually happened. Themselves with- out motion and process, if they had any effect, it could only be that of perfect repose. True, Plato affirms in his Phcedo that the ideas are causes both of being and becoming, but in spite of the ideas, nothing ever becomes without a moving force ; the ideas, by their separation from the becoming, have no such power of movement. This indifferent relation of ideas to the actual becoming, Aristotle brings under the categories, potentiality and actualit}*, and affirms that the ideas are only potential, are only bare possibility and essen- tiality because they are wanting in actuality. The inner contradiction of the doctrine of ideas is in brief this, Adz., that it posits an individual immediately as a universal, and at the same time pronounces the universal, the species, to be numerically an individual ; the ideas are posited on the one side as separate individual substances, and on the other side as participant, and therefore as universal. Although the ideas, as the original conceptions of species, are universals which arise when being is fixed in existence, and the one brought out in the many, and the abiding given a place in the changeable, yet according to the Platonic notion, that they are individual substances, they are indefinable, for there can be neither definition nor derivation of an absolute individual, since even the word (and only in words is a definition possi- ble) is in its nature a universal, and belongs also to other objects ; consequent^/, every predicate by which I attempt to determine an individual thing cannot belong exclusively to that thing. The adherents of the doctrine of ideas, are therefore not at all in a condition to give an idea an intelligi- ble definition ; their ideas are indefinable. In general, Plato has left the relation of individual objects to ideas very ob- scure. He calls__the_ideas archetypes, and allows that the objects may participate in them ; yet are these only poetical metaphors. How shall we represent to ourselves this " par- ticipation," this copying of the original archet}-pe? We seek in vain for more accurate explanations of this in Plato. It 138 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. is impossible to conceive how and why matter participates in the ideas. In order to explain this, we must add to the ideas a still higher and wider principle, which contains the cause for this "participation" of objects, for without a moving principle we find no ground for " participation." Alike above the idea (e.g., the idea of man), and the phenomenon (e.g., the individual man), there must stand a third common to both, and in which the two are united, i.e., as Aristotle was in the habit of expressing this objection, the doctrine of ideas leads to the adoption of a " third man." The result of this Aristotelian criticism is the immanence of the uni- versal in the individual. The method of Socrates in trying to find the universal as the essence of the individual, and to give definitions according to conceptions was as correct (for no science is possible without the universal) as the theory of Plato in exalting these universal conceptions to an independ- ent subsistence as real individual substances, was erroneous. Nothing universal, nothing which is a kind or a species, exists besides and separate from the individual ; a thing and its conception cannot be separated from each other. With these principles Aristotle hardly deviated from Plato's funda- mental idea that the universal is the only true being, and the essence of individual things ; it may rather be said that he has freed this idea from its original abstraction, and given it a more profound mediation with the phenomenal world. Notwithstanding his apparent contradiction to Plato, the fun- damental position of Aristotle is the same as that of his master, viz., t.h^f. thp p^ Q r.r.o pf a thing (TO ri eoriv, TO ri yv eu/at) is[ k nfMgT f and represented in the conception ; Aristotle however recognizes the universal, thy conception, to be as little separated from the determined phenomenon as form from matter, and essence or substance (ovo-ia) in its most proper sense is, according to him, only that which cannot be predicated of another, but of which every other may be pre- dicated ; it is that which is a this (roSe n) , the individual thing and not a universal. ARISTOTLE. 139 (2) The four Aristotelian Principles or Causes, and the Relation of Form and Matter. From the criticism of the Pla- tonic doctrine of ideas arose directly the groundwork of the Aristotelian system, the determinations of matter (^A^), and form (eTSos). Aristotle enumerates four metaphysical prin- ciples or causes : matter, form, efficient cause ? and jindy In a house, for instance, the matter is the wood, the form is the conception of the house, the efficient cause is the builder, and the end is the actual house. These four determinations of all being resolve themselves upon a closer scrutiny into the fundamental antithesis of matter and form. The conception of the efficient cause is involved with the two other ideal prin- ciples of form and of end. The efficient cause is that which secures the transition of the incomplete actuality or poten- tiality to the complete actuality, or induces the becoming of matter to form. But in every movement of the incomplete to the complete, the latter is the logical prius, the logical motive of the transition. The efficient cause of matter is therefore form. So is man the efficient cause of man ; the form of the statue in the understanding of the artist is the cause of the movement by which the statue is produced ; health must be in the thought of the physician before it can become the efficient cause of convalescence ; so in a certain sense is medicine health, and the art of building the form of the house. But in the same way, the efficient or first cause is also identical with the final cause or end, for the end is the motive for all becoming and movement. The efficient cause of the house is the builder, but the efficient cause of the builder is the end to be attained, i.e., the house. From such examples as these it is seeYi that the determinations of form and end may be considered under one, in so far as both are united in the conception of actuality (evepyeia), for the end of every thing is its completed being, its conception or its form, the bringing out into complete actuality that which was potentially contained in it. The final cause of the hand is its conception, the final cause of the seed is the tree, which is at 140 A HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY. the same time the essence of the seed. The only fundamen- tal determinations, therefore, which cannot be wholly resolved into each other, are matter and form. Matter when abstracted from form in thought, Aristotle re- garded as that which is entirely without predicate, determi- nation, and distinction. It is that abiding thing which lies at the basis of all becoming ; but which in its own being is different from every thing which has become. It is capable of the widest diversity of forms, but is itself without deter- minate form ; it is every thing in possibility, but nothing in actuality. There is a first matter which lies at the basis of every determinate thing, precisely as the wood is related to the bench and the marble to the statue. "With this concep- tion of matter Aristotle prides himself upon having conquered the difficulty so frequently urged of explaining the possibility that any thing can become, since being can neither come out of being nor out of not-being. For it is not out of not-being absolutely, but only out of that which as to actuality is not- being, but which potentially is being, that any thing becomes. Possible or potential being is no more not-being than actual- ity. Every existing object of nature is hence only a potential thing which has become actualized. Matter is thus a far more positive substratum with Aristotle than with Plato, who had treated it as absolutely not-being. From this is clearly seen how Aristotle could apprehend matter in opposition to form as something positively negative and antithetic to the form, and as its positive negation (O-TC'/D^O-IS) . As matter coincides with potentiality, so does form coin- cide with actuality. It is that which makes a distinguishable and actual object, a this (roSe n) out of the undistinguished and indeterminate matter ; it is the peculiar virtue, the com- pleted activity, the soul of every thing. That which Aris- totle calls form, therefore, is not to be confounded with what we perhaps may call shape ; a hand severed from the arm, for instance, has still the outward shape of a hand, but ac- cording to the Aristotelian apprehension, it is only a hand AKISTOTLE. 141 now as to matter and not in form : an actual hand, a hand in form, is only that which can do the proper work of a hand. Pure form is that which, in truth, is without matter (TO ri rjv eu/cu) ; or, in other words, the conception of being, the pure conception. But such pure form does not exist in the realm of determined being ; every determined being, ever} r indi- vidual substance (oio-ta), ever} r thing which is a this, is rather a totality of matter and form, a m the state, freedom from morality, andspirit and Got! from nature, though all this was done oul}- in scat- tered, and, for the most part, timorous intimations. In Diderot's independent writings we find talent of much philo- sophic importance united with great earnestness. But it is very difficult to fix and accurately to limit his philosophic views, since they were very gradually formed, and Diderot expressed them always with some reserve and accommoda- tion. In general, however, it may be remarked, that in the progress of his speculations he constantly approached nearer the extreme of the philosophical direction of his age. In his THE FEENCH CLEAEING UP. 239 earlier writings a Deist, he afterwards avowed the opinion thai__all--48^GUitl. At first defending the immateriality and immortality of the soul, he expressed himself at a later period decidedly against these doctrines, affirming that the species alone has an abiding being while the individual passes away, and that immortality is nothing other than to live in the thoughts of coming generations. But Diderot did not ven- ture to the real extreme of logical materialism ; his moral earnestness restrained him from this. 4. The last word of materialism was spoken with reckless audacity bj- the plrysician La Mettrie (1709-1751), a cotem- porary of Diderot : every thing spiritual is a delusion, and physical enjoj-ment jsjtheju'ghest end of man. Faith in the existence or a U^oaTsays La Mettrie, is as groundless as it is fruitless. The world will not be happy till atheism becomes universally established. Then only will there be no more re- ligious strife, then only will theologians, the most odious of combatants, disappear, and nature, poisoned at present by their influence, will come again to its rights. In reference to the human soul, there can be no philosophy but materialism. All the observation and experience of the greatest philosophers and physicians declare this. Soul is nothing but a mere name, which has a rational signification only when we understand by it that part of our body which thinks. This is the brain, which has its fibres of cogitation, just as the limbs have their muscles of motion. That which gives man his advantage over the brutes is, first, the organization of his brain, and second, its capacity for receiving instruction. Otherwise, is man a brute like the beasts around him, though in many respects surpassed by these. Immortality is an absurdity. The soul perishes with the body of which it forms a part. With death every thing is over, la farce est jouee! The practical and selfish application of all this is let us enjoy ourselves as long as we exist, and not throw away any satis- faction we can attain. / 5. The Systeme de la Nature afterwards attempted to 240 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. elaborate with greater earnestness and scientific pi'ecision, that which had been uttered so superficially and so supercil- iously by La Mettrie, viz., the doctrine that matter alone exists, while mind is nothing other than matter refined. The Systeme de la Mature appeared in London under a ictitious name in 1 770. It was then published as a posthu- nous work of Mirabaud, late secretary of the Academy. It doubtless had its origin in the circle which was wont to assemble with Baron Holbach, and of which Diderot, Grimm, and others were leaders. Whether the Baron Holbach him- self, or his tutor Lagrange is the author of this work, or whether it is the joint production of a number, cannot now be determined. The Systeme de la Nature is hardly a French book : the style is too heavy and tedious. There is everywhere, says the Systeme de la Nature, noth- ing hut matter qpH^motion. Both are inseparably connected. If matter is at rest, it is only because it is prevented from moving, for in its essence it is not a dead mass. Motion is twofold, attraction and repulsion. The different motions which we perceive are the product of these two, and through these different motions arise the different connections and the whole manifoldness of things. The laws which direct in all this are eternal and unchangeable. The most weighty con- sequences of such a doctrine are : (1) The materiality of man. Man is no twofold being compounded of mind and matter, as is erroneously believed. If the inquiry is closelj" made what the mind is, we are answered, that the most accurate philosophical investigations have shown, that the principle of activity in man is a sub- stance whose peculiar nature cannot be known, but of which we can affirm tliat ills indivisible, unextended, invisible, etc. But how can we form am* definite conception of a being winch is only the negation of that which constitutes knowl- edge, a being the idea of which is peculiarly only the absence of all ideas ? Still farther, how can it be explained upon such a hypothesis, that a substance which itself is not material THE FRENCH CLEARING UP. 241 can work upon material things, and set these in motion, when there is no point of contact between the two? In fact, those who distinguish their soul from their bod}-, have only to make a distinction between their brain and their bod}'. Thought is_Qnly {^modification of our brain, just as volition is another modilication of the same bodily organ. (2) Another chimera, the belief in the being of a God, is connected with the twofold division of man into body and soul. This belief arises like the hypothesis of a soul-sub- stance, because mind is falsely divided from matter, and na- ture is thus made twofold. The evil which men experienced, and whose natural cause they could not discover, they as- signed to a deity which they imagined for the purpose. The first notions of a God have their source therefore in sorrow, fear, and uncertainty. We tremble because our forefathers for thousands of years have done the same. This circum- stance awakens no auspicious prepossession. But not only the rude, but also the theological idea of God is worthless, for it explains no phenomenon of nature. It is, moreover, full of absurdities, for, since it ascribes moral attributes to God, jt renders him human ; while on the other hand, by a mass of negative attributes, it seeks to distinguish him abso- lutely from every other being. The true system, the system of nature, is hence atheistic. But such a doctrine requires a culture and a courage which neither all men nor most men possess. If we understand by the word atheist one who be- lieves only in dead matter, or who designates the moving power in nature with the name God, then is there no atheist, or whoever would be one is a fool. But if the word means one who denies the existence of a spiritual being, a being whose attributes can only be a source of annoyance to men, then are there indeed atheists, and there would be more of them, if a correct knowledge of nature and a sound reason were more widely diffused. But if atheism is true, then should it be diffused. There are, indeed, many who have cast off the yoke of religion, who nevertheless think it is 11 242 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. necessary for the common people in order to keep them within proper limits. But this is just as if we should determine to give a man poison lest he should abuse his strength. Every kind of Deism leads necessarily to superstition, since it is not possible to continue on the standpoint of pure Deism. f (3) With such premises the freedom and immortality of the soul both disappear. Man, like every other substance in nature, is a link in the chain of necessaiy connection, a blind instrument in the hands of necessitj*. If any thing should be endowed with self-motion, that is, with a capacity to produce motion without any other cause, then would it have the power to destroy motion in the universe ; but this is contrary to the conception of the universe, which is only an endless series of necessary motions spreading out into wider circles continually. The claim of an individual immortality is absurd. For to affirm that the soul exists after the destruction of the body, is to affirm that a modification of a substance can exist after the substance itself has disappeared. There is no other immor- tality than to live in the remembrance of posterity. (4) The practical consequences of these principles arc in the highest degree favorable for the System of Nature, the utility of any doctrine being ever the first criterion of its truth. While the ideas of theologians are productive only of disquiet and anxiety to man, the System of Nature frees him from all such unrest, teaches him to enjoy the present mo- ment, and to quietly yield to his destiny, while it gives him that kind of apathy which every one must regard as a bless- ing. If morality would be active, it can rest only upon sejf- love and"" self-interest : it must show man whither his well- considered interest would lead him. He is a good man who gams his own interest in such a way that others will find it for their interest to assist him. The system of self-interest, there- fore, demands the union of men among each other, and iu this we have true morality. The logical dogmatic materialism of the Systeme de la Na- ture is the farthest limit of an empirical direction in philoso- LEIBNITZ. 243 phy, and consequently closes that course of the development of a one-sided realism which had begun with Locke. The attempt first made by Locke to explain and derive the ideal world from the material, ended in materialism with the total reduction of every thing spiritual to the material, with the to- tal denial of the spiritual. We must now, before proceeding farther, according to the classification made Sect. XXVII., consider the idealistic course of development which ran par- allel with the sj'stems of a partial realism. At the head of this course stands Leibnitz. SECTION XXXIII. LEIBNITZ. As empiricism sprang from the attempt to subordinate the intellectual to the material, to materialize the spiritual, so on the other hand, idealism had its source in the effort to spirit- ualize the material, or so to construct the conception of mind that matter could be subsumed under it. To the empiric- sensualistic philosophy, mind was nothing but rcfincd_jnatter, while to the idealistic, matter was only a grosser form_of jnind ("a confused notion," as Leibnitz expressesTly] The former, in its logical development, was driven to the principle that only inntnri'nl filings; ovist, the latter (as with Leibnitz and Berkeley) comes to the opposite principle, that there arejjnly souls and their ideas. For the partial realistic standpoint, material things were the truly substantial. But for the ideal- istic standpoint, substantialit}- belongs alone to the intellec- tual world, to the Ego. Mind, to partial realism, was essen- tially void, a tabula rasa, its whole contenLcamo to it from the external wjatkL But a partial idealism sought to carry out the principle that nothing can come into the mind which had not at least been preformed within it, that all its knowledge is 244 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. furnished it by itself. According to the former view knowl- edge was a passive relation ; according to the latter it was wholly active. "While, lastty, a partial realism had attempted to explain the becoming in nature for the most part through real, i.e., through mechanical grounds (L'Homme Machine is the title of one of La Mettrie's writings) , idealism had sought an explanation of the same through ideal grounds, i.e., teleo- logically. While the former had made its prominent inquiry for moving causes, and had, indeed, often ridiculed the search for a final cause ; it is final causes toward which the latter directs its chief aim. The mediation between mind and mat- ter, between thought and being, will now be sought in the final cause, in the teleological harmony of all things (pre- established harmony} . The standpoint of Leibnitz may thus be characterized in a word. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born in 1646, at Leipsic, where his father was professor. Having ohosen the law as his profession, he entered the university in 1661, and in 1663 he defended for his degree of doctor in philosophy, his disser- tation De Prindpio Individui, a theme very characteristic of the direction of his later philosophizing. He afterwards went to Jena, and subsequently to Altdorf, where he took the de- gree of Doctor of Laws. At Altdorf he was offered a pro- fessorship of jurisprudence, which he refused. The rest of his life was unsettled and desultory, spent for the most part in courts, where, as a versatile courtier, he was ernpk^ed in the most varied duties of diplomacy. In the year 1672 he went to Paris, in order to induce Louis XIV. to undertake the con- quest of Egypt, and thus to direct his military schemes from Germany. He subsequently visited London, whence he was afterwards called to Hanover, as councillor and librarian of the learned Catholic duke, John Frederic. Here he spent the most of his subsequent life, though interrupted by occasional journeys to Vienna, Berlin, etc. He was intimateh' associated with the Prussian Queen, Sophia Charlotte, a highl}- talented woman, who surrounded herself with a circle of the most dis- LEIBNITZ. 245 tinguished scholars of the time, and for whom Leibnitz wrote, at her own request, his Theodicee. In 1700 an academy was established at Berlin, through his efforts, and he became its first president. Similar, but fruitless efforts were made by him to establish academies in Dresden and Vienna. In 1711 the title of imperial court councillor, and a baronage, was be- stowed upon him by the emperor Charles VI. Soon after, he betook himself to Vienna, where he remained a considerable period, and wrote his Monadology, at the solicitation of Prince Eugene. He died in 1716. Next to Aristotle, Lejbnita_gas flic most highly gifted scholar that had ever lived ; with the richest and most extensive learning, he united the highest and most penetrating powers of mind. German}' has reason to be proud of him, since, after Jacob Boehme, he is the first philosopher of any note among the Germans. With him phi- losophy found a home in Germany. It is to be regretted that the great variety of his efforts and literary undertakings, to- gether with his roving manner of life, prevented him from giving any connected exposition of his philosophy. His views are for the most part developed only in brief and occasional writings and letters, composed frequently in the French lan- guage!! Jt 13 hence~hot easy to state his philosophy in its in- ternal connection, though none of his views are isolated, but all stand strictly connected with each other. The following are the chief points : 1. THE DOCTRINE OF MONADS. The fundamental pecu- liarity of Leibnitz's theory is its opposition to Spinozism. Substance, as the indeterminate universal, was with Spinoza the only positive. With Leibnitz also the conception of sub- stance lay at the basis of philosophy, but his definition of it was entirely different. While Spinoza had sought to exclude from his substance every positive determination, and espe- cially all action, and had apprehended it simply as puce being, Leibnitz viewed it as living activit}' and activejmerg)', an example of which might be found in a stretched bow, which moves and straightens itself through its own energy 246 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. as soon as the external hindrances are removed. That this active energy forms the essence of substance is a principle to which Leibnitz ever returns, and from which, in fact, all the other chief points in his philosophy may with strictest logical sequence be derived. From this there follow at once two determinations of substance directly opposed to Spino- zism ; first, that it ia j"'* i ' y iflV'' 1 1 mnnaf * ' and second, that there are a multiplicity of monads. Substance, in so far as it exercises an activity similar to that of an elastic body, is essentially an excluding activity, or repulsion ; the concep- tion of an individual or a monad being that which excludes another from itself. But this involves also the second deter- mination, that of the multiplicity of monads; one monad cannot exist alone, there must be others. The conception of one individual postulates other individuals, which stand over against the one as excluded from it. Hence the funda- mental thesis of the Leibnitz philosoph}* in opposition to Spiuozism is this, viz., there is a multiplicity of individual substances or monads^ They are the elements of all reality, the basis of the whole universe, physical as well as spiritual. 2. THE MONADS MORE ACCURATELY DETERMINED. The monads of Leibnitz are similar to atoms in their general fea- tures. Like these they are punctual T 1 " 1 '*]?, independent of any external influence, and indestructible by any external power. But notwithstanding this similarity, there is an im- portant and characteristic difference between the two. First, the atoms are not distinguished from each other, they are all qualitatively alike ; but each one of the monads is different in qualitj* from every other, ever} r one is a peculiar world for itself, every one is different from every other. According to Leibnitz, there are "^twf - f hingfl in the world which are ex- actly alike^ Secondly, atoms can be considered as extended and divisible, but the monads are metaphysical points, and actually indivisible. Here, lest we should stumble at this proposition (for an aggregate of unextended monads can never give an extended world) , we must take into considera- LEIBNITZ. 247 tion Leibnitz's view of space, which, according to him, is not something real, but only conflised, subjective representation. Thirdly, the monad is a living, sensitive being, a soul. Among the atomists such an idea has no place ; but with Leibnitz it has a ver}' important part to pla}'. Everywhere in the world, according to him, there is life, individual vitality, and a vital connection of individual beings. The monads are not dead, not mere extended substance, but self-subsistcnt, self-identical, and determined by nothing external, (a) Con- sidered in themselves, however, they are to be thought of as existing in living mutation and activity. As the human soul, a monad of a higher order, is never, even when unconscious, without some activity of obscure imagination and volition ; so every monad continually undergoes various modifications or states, which accord with its peculiar quality. Everywhere there is motion, nowhere perfect rest. (6) And as the human s^uPsympathizSirvVlHl "aft r the "varying conditions of nature, and mirrors the universe in itself, so do the monads univer- sally. Each of the infinitely numerous monads is a micro- cosm, a centre, a mirror of the universe. Each in itself reflects ever}- thing which is and happens ; and it does so through its own spontaneous power, by virtue of which it holds ideallj' in itself, as it were in embryo, the totality of things. In each monad, therefore, an all-seeing eye might read every thing which is occurring, has occurred, or will occur in the universe. This vitality of the monads, and their vital connection with the rest of the world Leibnitz charac- terizes more definitely thus : the life of the monads consists in a continuous succession of perceptions, i.e., obscure or clear conceptions of its own states and of the states of the others. The monads proceed from perception to perception. Every monad is a soul. lu this consists the perfection of the world. 3. THE PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY. The universe is thus the sum of all the monads. Every thing, every com- posite, is an aggregate of monads. Thus every bodily organ- 248 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. ism is not one substance, but many, it is a multiplicity of monads, like a machine which is made up of a number of distinct pieces of mechanism. Leibnitz compared bodies to a fish-pond, which might be full of living elements, though dead itself. The ordinary view of things is thus wholly re- versed ; true substantiality does not belong to bodies, i.e., to the aggregates, but to their original elements. Matter in the as somethiflg^conceived to be without mind, dnpp nftfr .at All pYi'sf. How now must the inner connection of the universe be conceived ? In the following way. Every monad is a representative being, and at the same time, each one is different from every other. This difference, therefore, depends alone upon the difference of representation : there are just as many different degrees of representation as there are monads, and these degrees ma}- be fixed according to some of their prominent stages. An important principle of classification is the distinction between confused and distinct cognition. Hence a monad of the lowest rank (a monad toute nue) will be one which merely represents, i.e.. which possesses only the most confused knowledge. Liebnitz com- pares this state with a swoon, or with our condition in a dreamless sleep, in which w\Tare not without representations (notions) , for otherwise we vjpuld have none when awaking, but in which the representations are so numerous that they neutralize each other and do not come into the con- sciousness. This is the stage of fagrffimn nafn r in which the life of the monads manifests itself only in the form of motion. In a higher rank are those monads in which the representation is nr>fclvp as a formative vital force, though still without-conaqiousiaess. This is the stage of the vegeta- ble world. Still higher ascends the life of the monad when it attains to sensajjujn_ad-eiory, as is the case in the ani- mal kinifii'.!;!. Tin- lower monads may be -ai-1 to >lt-q>. and the brute monads to dream. When still farther the soul rises to reason or reflection, we call it mind, srjjri. The distinc- tion of the monads from each other is, therefore, this, that LEIBNITZ. 249 each one, though mirroring the whole and the same universe in itself, does it differentl}', the one more, and the rest less perfectly. Each one contains the whole universe, the whole infinity within itself, and in this respect is like God (parvus in suo genere deus) , the only difference being that God knows every thing with perfect distinctness, while the monad repre- sents it confusedly, though one monad may represent it more confusedly than another. The limitation of a monad does not, therefore, consist in its containing less than another or than God, but only in its containing more imperfectly or in its representing less distinctly. Upon this standpoint the universe, in so far as ever}* monad mirrors one and the same universe, though each in a different way, represents a specta- cle of the greatest possible difference , as well as of the great- est possible unity and order, i.e., of the greatest possible perfection, or the absolute harmony. For variety in unity is harmony. But in still another respect the universe is a sys- tem of harmon}'. Since the monads do not work upon each other, but each one follows only the law of its own being, there is danger lest the inner harmony of the universe may be disturbed. How is this danger removed? Through this, that each monad stands in a vital connection with the same universe (and with the whole of it) : each reflects the uni- versal life. The changes of the collective monads, therefore, run parallel with each other, and in this consists the harmony of all as pre-established b}- God. 4. THE RELATION OF THE DEITY TO THE MONADS. "What part does the conception of God play in the system of Leib- nitz? An almost idle _one. Following the strict conse- quences of his system, Leibnitz should have held to no proper theism, but the harmony of the universe should have taken the place of the Deity. Ordinarily he considers God as the sufficient cause of all monads. But he was also accustomed to consider the final cause of a thing as its sufficient cause. In this respect, therefore, he almost identifies God and the absolute final cause. Elsewhere he considers the Deity as 250 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. a simple primitive substance, or as the individual primitive unit}*. Again, he speaks of God as a pure immaterial actu- ality, actus purus, while to the monads belongs matter, that is, an actuality unfree, restricted, and obstructed through a principle of passive resistance to spontaneous movement (striving, appetitio). Once he calls him a monad, though this is in manifest contradiction with the determinations otherwise assigned him. It was for Leibnitz a very difficult problem to bring his monadology and his theism into har- mony with each other, without giving up the premises of both. If he held fast to the substantiality of the monads, he was in danger of making them independent of the Deity, and if he did not, he could hardly escape falling back into Spinozism. 5. THE RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY is readily explained on the standpoint of the pre-established harmony. This rela- tion, taking the premises of the monadology, might seem enigmatical. If no monad can work upon any other, how can the soul work upon the body to lead and move it ? The enigma is solved by the pre-established harmony. While the body and soul, each one independently of the other, follows the laws of its being, the body working mechanically, and the soul pursuing ends, yet God has established such a con- cordant harmony of the two activities, such a parallelism of the two functions, that there is in fact a perfect unity for body and soul. There are, says Leibnitz, three views re- specting the relation of body and soul. The first and most common supposes a reciprocal influence between the two, but such a view is untenable, because there can be no interchange between mind and matter. The second, that of occasion- alism (c/. Sect. XXV. 1), brings about this interchange through the constant assistance of God, which is nothing more nor less than to make God a Deus ex machina. Hence the only solution for the problem is the Ivypothesis of a pre- established harmony. Leibnitz illustrates these three views in the following example. Let one conceive of two watches, LEIBNITZ. 251 whose hands ever accurately indicate the same time. This agreement may be explained, first (the common view), b}- supposing an actual connection between the hands of each, so that the hand of the one watch might draw the hand of the other after it, or second (the occasionalistic view) , by con- ceiving of a watch-maker who continually keeps the hands alike, or lastly (the pre-established harmony) , by ascribing to each a mechanism so exquisitely wrought that each one goes in perfect independence of the other, and at the same time in entire agreement with it. That the soul is immortal (indestructible), follows at once from the doctrine of monads. There is properly no such thing as death. That which is called death is only the soul losing a part of the monads which compose the mechanism of its body, while the living element goes back to a condition similar to that in which it was before it came upon the theatre of the wprld. 6. The monadology has very important consequences in reference to the theory of knowledge. As, with reference to ontology, the philosoph}- of Leibnitz was determined b}* its opposition to Spinozism, so with reference to the theory of cognition it was determined b}- its opposition to the empiri- cism of Locke. Locke's Essay concerning Human Under- standing had attracted Leibnitz without satisfying him, and he therefore attempted a new investigation in his Nouveaux Essais, in which he defended the doctrine of innate ideas. But this hypothesis of innate ideas Leibnitz now freed from that defective view which had justified the objections of Locke. The innateness of the ideas must not be held as though they were explicitly and consciously contained in the mind, but rather the mindjjossesses them potentially arirl nn\y virtually, though with the capacity to produce them out of itself. All thoughts are properly innate, i.e., they do not come into the mind from without, but are rather produced By it from itself. Any external influence upon the mind is inconceivable, it even needs nothing external for its sensations. "While Locke had compared the mind to an unwritten piece of paper, Leibnitz 252 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. likened it to a block of marble, in which the veins prefigure the form of the statue. Hence the common antithesis be- tween rational and empirical knowledge disappears with Leib- nitz in the degrees of greater or less distinctness. Among these theoretically innate ideas, Leibnitz recognizes two of special prominence, which take the first rank as principles of all knowledge and all ratiocination, the principle of con- tradiction (principium contradictionis) , and the principle of sufficient cause {principium rationis sufficientis} . To these, as a principle of the second rank, must be added the princi- pium indiscemibilium, or the principle that there are in nature no two things wholly alike. 7. The most elaborate exposition of Leibnitz's theological views is given in his Theodicte. The Tlieodicee, is, however, his weakest work, and has but a loose connection with the rest of his philosgphy . "Written at the instigation of a woman , it belies this origin neither in its form nor in its content not in its form, for in its effort to be popular it becomes diffuse and unscientific, and not in its content, for it accommodates itself to the positive dogmas and the premises of theology farther than the scientific basis of the system of Leibnitz would permit. In this work, Leibnitz investigates the rela- tion of God to the world in order to show a conformity in this relation to a final cause, and to free God from the charge of acting without or contrary to an aim. "Why is the world as it is? God might have created it very differentl}'. True, answers Leibnitz, God saw an infinite number of worlds as possible before him, but out of all these hejchoge tha^one arhich actually is as the best,. This is the famous doctrine of the best possible world, according to which no more per- fect world is possible than the one which is. But how so? Is not the existence of evil at variance with this ? Leibnitz answers this objection by distinguishing three kinds of evil, the metaphysical, the physical, and the moral. The meta- physical evil, i.e., the finiteness and incompleteness of things, is necessary because inseparable from finite existence, and is LEIBNITZ. 253 thus unconditionally willed by God. Physical evil (pain, etc.), though not unconditionally willed by God, is often a good conditionally, i.e., as a punishment or means of improve- ment. Moral evil or wickedness can in no way be charged to the will of God. Leibnitz took various ways to account for its existence, and obviate the contradiction lying between it and the conception of God. At one time he says that wickedness is only permitted by God as a conditio sine qua non, because without wickedness there were no freedom, and without freedom no virtue. Again, he reduces moral evil to metaphysical, and makes wickedness nothing real but merely a want of perfection, a negation, a limitation, playing the same part as do the shadows in a painted picture, or the dis- cords in a piece of music, which do not diminish the beaut}', but only increase it through contrast. Again, he distin- guishes between the material aad the formal element in a wicked act. The material of sin, the power to act, is from God, but the formal element, the wickedness of the act, be- longs wholly to man, and is the result of his limitation, or, as Leibnitz here and there expresses it, of his eternal self-pre- destination. In no case can the harmony of the universe be destroyed through such a cause. These are the chief points of Leibnitz's philosophy. The general characteristic of it as given in the beginning of the present section, will be found to have been substantiated by the specific exposition that has now been furnished. 254 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. SECTION XXXIV. BERKELEY. LEIBNITZ had not carried out the standpoint of idealism to its extreme. He had indeed, on the one side, explained space and motion and bodily things as phenomena which had their existence only in a confused representation, but on the other side, he had not wholly denied the existence of the corporeal world, but had recognized as a realit}' lying at its basis the world of monads. The phenomenal or corporeal world had its fixed and substantial foundation in the monads. [Thus Leibnitz, though an idealist, did not wholly break with realism. The ultimate consequence of a pure subjective idealism would have been to wholly deny the reality of the objective, sensible world, and explain corporeal objects as simply phenomena, as nothing but subjective notions without any objective reality as a basis. This consequence, the ideal- istic counterpart to the ultimate realistic result of materialism appears in George Berkeley, who was born in Ireland, 1684, made bishop of the Anglican Church in 1734, and died in 1753. Hence, though he followed the empiricism of Locke, and sustained no outward connection with Liebnitz, we must place him in immediate succession to the latter as the perfecter of a subjective idealism. Our sensations, says Berkeley, are entirely subjective. We arc wholly in error if we believe that we have a sensa- tion of external objects or perceive them. That which we have and perceive is only our sensations themselves. It is, e.g., clear, that by the sense of sight we can see neither the distance, the size, nor the form of objects, but that we only conclude that these exist, because our experience has taught us that a certain sensation of sight is always attended by cer- tain sensations of touch. That which we see is only colors, clearness, obscurity, etc., and it is false therefore to say that BERKELEY. 255 we see and feel one and the same thing. So also we never go out of ourselves for those sensations to which we ascribe most decidedly an objective character. The peculiar objects of our understanding are only our own affections ; all ideas are therefore only our own sensations. But just as there can be no sensations outside of the sensitive subject, so no idea can have existence outside of him who possesses it. The so- called objects exist only in our notion, and have a being only as the}' are perceived. It is the great error of most philoso- phersthat they ascribfl_ia_CQrporeal objects a beinfi outside tfie cc-nceiying-HftiHd, and do not see that the}' are only men- talT^It is not possible that material things should produce any thing so wholly distinct from themselves as sensations and notions. There is, thus, no such thing as a material ex- ternal world ; minds alone exist, i.e., thinking beings, whose nature consists in thinking and willing. But whence then arise all our sensations which come to us without our agency, and which are not, thus, like the images of fancy, products of our will? They arise from a spirit superior to ourselves, for only a spirit can produce conceptions within us, even from God. God gives us ideas ; but as it would be contradictor}- to assert that a being could give what it does not possess, so ideas exist in- God, and we derive them from him. These ideas in God may be called archetypes, and those in us ectypes. In consequence of this view, says Berkeley, we dqmrt denyan independent reality of things, we__only_deny that they can exist elsewhere than in an under- standing. Instead, therefore, of speaking of a nature in which, e.g., the sun is the cause of warmth, etc., the accurate expression would be this : God announces to us through the sense of sight that we are soon to^perceive a sensation of warmth. Hence by nature we are only to understand the succession or the connection of ideas, and by natural laws the constant order in which the}- proceed, i.e., the laws of the association of ideas. This thorough-going subjective ideal- ism, this complete denial of matter, Berkeley considered as the surest way to oppose materialism and atheism. 256 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. SECTION XXXV. WOLFF. THE idealism of Berkeley, as was to be expected from the nature of the case, remained without an}' farther develop- ment, but the philosophy of Leibnitz was taken up and sub- jected to a farther revision by Christian Wolff. He was born in Breslau in 1679. He was chosen professor at Halle, where he became obnoxious to the charge of teaching a doctrine at variance with the Scriptures, and drew upon himself such a violent opposition from the theologians of the university, that a cabinet order was issued for his dismissal on the 8th of No- vember, 1723, and he was enjoined to leave Prussia within forty-eight hours on pain of being hung. He then became professor in Marburg, but was afterwards recalled to Prussia by Frederick II. immediately upon his accession to the throne. He was subsequently made baron, and died 1754. In his chief thoughts (though omitting the bolder ideas of his pred- ecessor) he followed Leibnitz, a connection which he himself admitted, though he protested against the identification of his philosophy with that of Leibnitz, and objected to the name, Philosophia Leibnitio- Wolfiana, which was originated bj T his disciple Bilfinger. The historical merit of Wolff is threefold. First, and most important, he laid claim again to the whole domain of knowledge in the name of philosophy, and sought again to build up a systematic scheme of doctrine, and make an encj'clopedia of philosophy in the highest sense of the word. Though he did not himself furnish much new material for this purpose, yet he carefully elaborated and arranged that which he found at hand. Secondly, he made again the philo- sophical method as such, an object of attention. His own method is, indeed, one altogether external to the content, namely, the Tnat.hpmntiVfll or the mathematico-syllogistical, recommended by Leibnitz ; and by the application of this his WOLFF. 257 whole philosophizing sinks to a flat formalism. (For instance, in his Principles of Architecture, the eighth proposition is *' a window must be wide enough for two persons to recline together conveniently," a proposition which is thus proved : " we are more frequently accustomed to recline and look out at a window in company with another person than alone, and hence, since the builder of the house should satisfy the owner in every respect (Sect. 1), he must make a window wide enough for two persons conveniently to recline within it at the same time, q.e.d") Still this formalism is not without its advantage, for it subjects the philosophical content to a logical treatment. Thirdly, "Wolff taught philosophy to speak Ger- man, an art which it has not since forgotten. Next to Leib- nitz, he is entitled to the merit of having made the German language for ever the organ of philosophy. The following remarks will suffice for the content and the scientific classification of Wolff's philosophy. He defines philosoph}' to be the science of the possible as such. But that is possible which contains no contradiction. "Wolff de- fends this definition against the charge of presumption. It is not affirmed, he says, in this definition that either he or any other philosopher knows every thing which is possible. The definition only claims for philosophy the whole province of human knowledge, and it is certainly proper that philosophy should be described according to the highest perfection which it can attain, even though it has not 3~et actually reached it. In what now does this science of the possible consist? Relying upon the perception that there are within the soul two faculties, cognition and volition, Wolff divides philoso- phy into two great divisions, theoretical philosophy (an expression, however, which first appears among his follow- ers), or metaphysic, and practical philosophy. Logic pre- cedes both as a preliminary training for philosophical study. Metaphysic is still farther divided by Wolff into ontology, cosmology, psychology, and natural theolog}" ; practical phi- losophy he divides into ethics, whose object is man as man ; 258 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. economics, whose object is man as a member of a family ; and politics, whose object is man as a citizen of the state. 1. ONTOLOGY is the first part of Wolff 's metaphysic. On- tology treats of what are now called categories, or those fun- damental conceptions which are applied to every object, and must therefore at the outset be investigated. Aristotle had already furnished a table of categories, but he had derived them wholly empirically. It is not much better with the ontology of Wolff ; it is laid out like a philosophical diction- an'. At its head he places the principle of contradiction, viz., it is not possible for any thing to be, and at the same time not to be. The conception of the possible at once fol- lows from this principle. ' That is possible which contains no contradiction. That is necessary, the opposite of which contradicts itself, and that is accidental, the opposite of which is possible. Every thing which is possible is a thing, though only an imaginary one ; that which neither is, nor is possible, is nothing. When many things together compose a thing, this is a whole, and the individual things compre- hended by it are its parts. The magnitude of a thing con- sists in the multitude of its parts. If A contains that by which we can understand the being of B, then that in A by which B becomes understood is the ground of B, and the whole A which contains the ground of B is its cause. That which contains the ground of its properties is the essence of a thing. Space is the arrangement of things which exist conjointl}-. Place is the determinate wa} r in which a thing exists in conjunction with others. Movement is change of place. Time is the arrangement of that which exists succes- sivel}*, etc. 2. COSMOLOGY. "Wolff defines the world to be a series of changing objects, which exist conjointly and successive!}*, but which are so connected together that one ever contains the ground of the other. Things are connected in space and in time. By virtue of this universal connection, the world is one united whole ; the essence of the world consists in the WOLFF. 259 mode of this connection. But this mode cannot be changed. It can neither receive any new ingredients nor lose any of those it possesses. From the essence of the world spring all its changes. In this respect the world is a machine. Events in the world are only hypothetically necessary in so far as previous events have had a given character ; they are acci- dental in so far as the world might have been directed other- wise. In respect to the question whether the world had a beginning in time, Wolff does not express himself explicitly. Since God is independent of time, but the world has been from eternity in time, the world therefore is in no case eternal in the same sense that God is eternal. But according to Wolff, neither space nor time has any substantial being. Body is a thing composed of matter, and possessing a mov- ing power within itself. The powers of a body taken together are called its nature, and the comprehension of all being is called nature in general. That which has its ground in the essence of the world is called natural, and that which has not is supernatural, or a miracle. At the close of his cosmology, Wolff treats of the perfection and imperfection of the world. The perfection of a world consists in this, that all things, whether simultaneous or successive, exist in perfect har- mony. But since every thing has its separate rules, the individual must give up so much from its perfection as is necessary for the symmetrj'" of the whole. 3. RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. The soul is that within us which is self-conscious. The soul is also conscious of other objects besides itself. Consciousness is either clear or indis- tinct. Clear consciousness is thought. The soul is a simple inporppro.il Hnbjstnnce. There dwells within it a power of perceiving a world. In this sense brutes also may have a soul, but a soul which possesses understanding and will is mind, and mind belongs alone to men. The soul of man is a mind joined to a body, and this is the distinction between men and superior spirits. The movements of the soul and of the body harmonize with each other by virtue of the pre- 260 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. established harmony. The freedom of the human soul is the power according to its own arbitrament, to choose of two possible things that which pleases it best. But the soul does not decide without motives ; it ever chooses that which it holds to be the best. Thus the soul would seem impelled to its action by its representations ; but the understanding is not constrained to accept any thing as good or bad, and hence also the will is not constrained, but free. As a simple being the soul is indivisible, and hence imperishable ; the souls of brutes, however, have no understanding, and hence enjoy no conscious existence after death. This belongs alone to the human soul, and hence the human soul alone is im- mortal. 4. NATURAL THEOLOGY. Wolff uses here the cosmolo- gical argument to demonstrate the existence of a God. God might have made different worlds, but has preferred the pres- ent one as the best. This world has been called into being by the will of God. His aim in its creation was the mani- festation of his own perfection. Evil in the world does not spring from the Divine will, but from the limited being of human things. God permits it only as a means of good. This brief aphoristic exposition of "Wolff's metaphysics, shows how closely it is related to the doctrine of Leibnitz. The latter, however, loses much of its speculative profound- ness b}- the abstract and logical treatment it receives in the hands of Wolff. For the most part with Wolff the specific elements of the monadology remain in the background ; his simple beings are not representative like the Monads, but more like the Atoms. Hence there is in his doctrines much that is illogical and contradictor} 7 , His peculiar merit in metaphysic is ontolog}-, which he elaborated far more accu- rately than his predecessors. A multitude of philosophical terminations owe to him their origin, and their introduction into philosophical language. The philosophy of Wolff, comprehensible and distinct as it was, and by its composition in the German language more THE GERMAN CLEARING UP. 261 accessible than that of Leibnitz, soon became the popular philosophy, and gained an extensive influence. Among the names which deserve credit for their scientific development of it, we may mention Thiimming, 1687-1728; Bilfinger, 1693- 1750; Baumeister, 1708-1785; Baumgarten the aesthetic, 1714-1762 ; and his disciple Meier, 1718-1777. SECTION XXXVI. THE GERMAN CLEARING UP. UNDER the influence of the philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolff, though without any immediate connection with it, there arose in Germany during the latter half of the eighteenth century, an eclectic popular philosophy, whose different phases may be embraced under the name of the German clearing up. It has but little significance for the history of philosophy, though not without importance in other respects. Its great aim was to secure a higher culture ; and hence a cultivated and polished stj'le of reasoning is the form in which it philosophized. It is the German counterpart of the French clearing up. As the lat- ter closed the realistic period of development by drawing the ultimate consequence of materialism, so the former closed the idealistic series by its tendency^ toan extreme subjectivism. "To the minkei's wno followed thiB direction, the empirical , individual Ego becomes the absolute ; they forget every thing else for it, or rather every thing else has value in their eyes only in proportion as it refers and ministers to the subject by contributing to its demands and satisfj'ing its inner cravings. Hence the question of immortality becomes now fV "^grent p^i"ni " f _philoQphy (in this relation we may mention Mendelssohn, 1727-1786, the most important thinker in this movement) ; the eternal duration of the individual soul 262 A HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY. is the chief point of interest ; the objective ideas or articles of faith, e.g., the personality of God, though not denied, cease to have an interest ; it was held as an established article of belief that we can know nothing of God. In an- other current of this direction, it is moral philosophy and aes- thetics (Garve, 1742-1798; Engel, 1741-1802; Abbt, 1738- 1766; Sulzer, 1720-1779) which find a scientific treatment, because both these possess a subjective interest. In general, every thing is viewed in its reference to utility, its adaptation to an end ; utility becomes the peculiar criterion of truth ; that which is not useful to the subject, or which does not minister to his subjective ends, is set aside. In connection with this turn of mind stands the prevailing teleological direction which the investigations of nature assumed (Reimarus, 1694-1765), and the utilitarian character given to ethics. -The happiness of the individual was considered as the highest principle and the supreme end (Basedow, 1723-1790). Even religion is , contemplated from this point of view. Reimarus wrote a J treatise upon the "advantages" of religion, in which he at- I tempted to prove that religion was not subversiveof earthly pleasure, Ijut rather increased itf aiifl steinowt(l 738-1 809) elaborated, in a number of treatises, the theme that all wis- dom consists alone in attaining happiness, i.e., enduring satis- faction, and that the Christian religion, instead of forbidding this, was rather itself the true doctrine of happiness. In other particulars Christianity received only a moderate degree of respect ; wherever it laid claim to any authority disagree- able to the subject (as in individual doctrines like that of future punishment) , it was opposed, and in general the effort was made to counteract, as far as possible, the positive dogma by natural religion. Reimarus, for example, the most zeal- ous defender of theism and of the teleological investigation of nature, is at the same time the author of the Wolfenbiittel Fragments. By criticizing the Gospel history, and ever}* thing positive and transmitted, and by rationalizing the su- pernatural iu religion, the subject displayed its new-found in- TRANSITION TO KANT. 20 3 dependence. In fine, the subjective standpoint of this period exhibits itself in the autobiographies and confessions then so prevalent, the isolated self is the object of admiring contem- plation (Rousseau, 1712-1778, and his Confessions) ; it be- holds itself mirrored in its particular conditions, sensations, and views a sort of flirtation with itself, which often sinks to sickly sentimentality. According to all this, it is seen to be the extreme consequence of subjective idealism which con- stitutes the character of the German clearing up period, which thus closed the course of the idealistic development. SECTION XXXVII. TRANSITION TO KANT. THE idealistic and the realistic developments to which we have been attending, each ended with a one-sided result. Instead of actually and internally reconciling the opposition between thought and being, the}' both issued in denying the one or the other of these factors. Realism had, one-sidedly, made n ttf r fl bpolute; and idealism, with equal one-sided- ness, had endowed the empiricaTEgo with the same attribute, extremes in which philosophy was threatened with total destruction. It had, in fact, in Germany as in France, be- come degraded to the most superficial popular philosophy. Then Kant arose, and brought again into one channel the two streams which, when separate from each other, threat- ened to lose themselves amid the sands. Kant is the great renovator of philosophy ; he reduced once more to unity and totality the one-sided efforts of those who had preceded him. He stands in some special relation, either antagonistic or harmonious, to all others to Locke no less than to Hume, to the Scottish philosophers no less than to the earlier Eng- A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. lish and French moralists, to the philosophy of Leibnitz and of Wolff, as well as to the materialism of the French and the utilitarianism of the German clearing up period. His relation to the development of a partial idealism and a one- sided realism may be stated somewhat as follows : Empiri- cism had made the Ego purely passive and subordinate to the sensible external world idealism had made it purely active, and given it a sovereignty over the sensible world ; Kan to atrifce a balance between these two^ claims, by affirming that the Ego as practical is free and autonomic, an unconditioned lawgiver for itself, while as theoretical it is receptive, and conditioned by the phenomenal world ; but at the same time the theoretical Ego contains the two sides within itself, for if, on the one side, empiricism ma}' be justi- fied upon the ground that the material and only field of all our knowledge is furnished by experience, so on the other side, idealism ma}- be justified on the ground that there is in all our knowledge an a priori factor and basis, fo_in_expe- rience itself we make u?e of conception^ v,-Lirh are not fur- nished by experience, but are contained a prtort,in^QUf-adr^ standing. In order to obtain a general view of the very elaborate framework of the Kantian philosophy, let us briefly glance at its fundamental conceptions, and notice its chief positions and results. Kant subjected the activity of the human mind in knowing, and the origin of our experience, to his critical investigation. Hence his philosophy is called critical phi- losophy, or criticism, because it aims to be essentially an examination of our faculty of knowledge ; it is also called transcendental philosophy, since Kant calls the reflection of the reason upon its relation to the objective world, a tran- scendental reflection (transcendental must not be confounded with transcendent), or, in other words, a transcendental knowledge is one " wMch^does not relate so much to objects of knowledge, as to our mode of knowing, tliejnjjn so far as knowledge is possible a priori" The examination of the TRANSITION TO KANT. 265 faculty of knowledge, which Kant attempts in his " Critique of Pure Reason" shows the following results. All knowl- edge is a product of two fo^top^ *fo<> knowing subject and ^^"^""^B^^,, pjai" 1 *"*""" 1 *' '" i iiipip" the external world. Of these two factors, me latter lends to our knowledge its material, the matter of experience, while the former furnishes the form, namely, the conceptions of the understanding, through which a connected knowledge or a synthesis of our perceptions into a whole of experience first becomes possible. If there were no external world., then would there be no phenomena ; if there were no understand- ing, then these phenomena, or percgptkujs_, which are infinitely manifold, would never be brought into the unity of a concep- tion, and thus no experience would be possible. Thus, while intuitions without conceptions are blind, and conceptions without intuitions are empty, cognition is a union of the two, since in it the form of conception is filled with the matter of experience, and the matter of experience is enmeshed in the net of the understanding's conceptions. Nevertheless, we do not know things as they are in themselves. First, because the categories, or the forms of our understanding prevent. By bringing that which is given as the material of knowledge into our own conceptions as the form, there is manifestly a change produced in the objects ; they are thought of not as they are, but only as we apprehend them ; the}' appear to us only as modified by the categories. But besides this subjective addition, there is yet another. Secondly, we do not know things as they are in themselves, because even the intuitions which we bring within the form of the under- standing's conceptions, are not pure and uncolored, but are already penetrated by a subjective medium, namely, by the universal forms of all objects of sense, space and time. Space and time are also subjective additions, forms of sensu- ous intuition, which are just as originally present in our minds as the fundamental conceptions or categories of our understanding. That which we would represent intuitively to Qursh^s_wemust plagfi-JQ^gpace and time, for_without 12 266 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. these no intuition is possible. From this it follows that we know only phenomena, and not things in themselves separate from space and tune. A superficial apprehension of these Kantian principles might lead one to suppose that Kant's criticism did not essen- tially go beyond the standpoint of Locke's empiricism. But such a supposition disappears upon a careful scrutiny. Kant was obliged to recognize with Hume that the conceptions, cause and effect, substance and attribute, and the other con- ceptions which the human understanding finds itself neces- sitated to think in the phenomena, and which constitute the essential elements of all thought, do not arisefrom anyexper rience of the jiense. HGk instance, when we are affected through different senses, and perceive a white color, a sweet taste, a rough surface, etc., and predicate all these of one thing, as a piece of sugar, there come from without only the plin^ality_Qf_sensations, while the conception of imjty cannot come through sensation, but is a category or conception added to the sensations b}- the mind itself. But instead of denying, for this reason, the reality of thc>e conceptions of the under- standing, Kant took a step in advance, assigning a peculiar province to this activity of the understanding, and showing that these forms of thought thus furnished to the matter of experience are immanent laws of the human intellect, the peculiar laws of the understanding's operations, which may be obtained b}- an accurate analysis of our thinking activity. (Of these laws or conceptions there are twelve, viz., unity, plurality, totalit} 1 ; realit}', negation, limitation ; substan- tiality, causality, reciprocal action ; possibility, actualit}', and necessity.) Kant's theory is thus not empiricism but ideal- ism ; not, however, a dogmatic idealism, transferring all real- ity to thought (conception), but a critical, subjective idealism, which distinguishes in the conception an objective and a sub- jective element, and vindicates for the latter a connection with knowledge just as essential as that of the former. From what has been said can be deduced the three chief principles of the Kantian theory of knowledge : TEANSITION TO KANT. 267 1. WE KNOW ONLY PHENOMENA AND NOT THINGS IN THEM- SELVES. The matter of experience furnished us by the exter- nal world becomes so adjusted and altered in its relations (for we apprehend it at first under the subjective forms of space and time, and then jinder jhe equally subjective forms of our understanding's conceptions) , that it no longer repre- sents the thing itself in its original condition, pure, and un- mixed. 2. NEVERTHELESS EXPERIENCE is THE ONLY PROVINCE OF OUR KNOWLEDGE, AND THERE is NO SCIENCE OF THE UNCON- DITIONED. This follows of course, for since all knowledge is the product of the matter of experience, and the form of the understanding, and depends thus upon the cooperation of the sense and the understanding, no knowledge is possible of objects for which one of these factors, experience, fails us ; cognition through intellectual conceptions alone is illusory, since for the conception of the unconditioned posited by the understanding, the sense can furnish no corresponding object. Hence the questions which Kant places at the head of his whole Critique : how are synthetical judgments a priori pos- sible? i.e., can we widen our knowledge a priori, by thought alone, beyond the sensuous experience? is a knowledge of the supersensible possible ? must be answered with an uncon- ditional negative. 3. If, nevertheless, human knowledge persists in endeav- oring to overstep the narrow limits of experience, i.e., to become transcendent, it involves itself in the greatest contra- dictions. The three ideas of the reason, the psychological, the cosmological, and the theological, viz., (a) the idea of an absolute subject, i.e., of the soul, or of immortality, (b) the idea of the world as a totality of all conditions and phe- nomena, (c) the idea of a most perfect being are so wholly without application to the empirical actuality, ai-e so evidently mere products of the reason, regulative, and not constitutive principles, to which no object in experience corresponds, that whenever they are applied to experience, i.e., are conceived 268 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. of as actually existing objects, they lead to mere logical errors, to the most obvious paralogisms, and sophisms. These errors, which are partly false conclusions and pai'alogisms, and parti}- unavoidable contradictions of the reason with itself, Kant undertook to demonstrate in reference to all the ideas of the reason. Take, e.g., the cosmological idea. Whenever the reason applies to the universe an}- transcendent conception, i.e., attempts to apply Jth^Jaimsjof^ the finite to the infinite, it is at once evident that the antithesis of sucn^a proposition can be proved just as well^^as *h p - *VfiiP- The affirmation that the world has a beginning in time, and limits in space, can be proved as well as, and no better than its opposite, that the world has no beginning in time and no spacial limits. Whence it follows that all speculative cosmol- ogy is an assumption by the reason. So also with the theo- logical idea ; it rests on mere logical paralogisms, and false conclusions, as Kant, with great acuteness, shows in reference to each of the proofs for the being of a God, which previous dogmatic philosophies had attempted. It is therefore impos- ' sible to prove and to conceive of the existence of a God as a Supreme Being, or of the soul as a real subject, or of a com- prehending universe. The peculiar problems of metaphysic lie outside the province of philosophical knowledge. Such is the negative part of the Kantian philosoph}- ; its positive complement is found in the " Critique of the Practical Reason." While the mind as theoretical and cognitive is wholly conditioned, and ruled by the objective and sensible world, and thus knowledge is only possible through intuition ; yet as practical it goes wholly beyond the given (the sense impulse) , and is determined only through the categorical im- perative, and the moral law, which is itself, and is therefore free and autonomic ; the ends which it pursues are those which itself, as moral spirit, places before itself; objects are no more its masters and lawgivers, to which it must yield if it would know the truth, but its servants, which it may use for its own ends in actualizing its moral law. While the KANT . 269 mind as theoretical is united to a world of sense and phe- nomena, a world obedient to necessary laws, the mind as practical, by virtue of the freedom essential to it, lay virtue of its direction towards an absolute aim, belongs to a purely intelligible and supersensible world. This is the practical idealism of Kant, from which he derives the three practical postulates of the immortality of the soul, moral freedom, and the being of a God, which, as theoretical truths, had been) before denied. "With this brief sketch for our guidance, let us now pass to a more extended exposition of the Kantian Philosophy. SECTION XXXVIII. KANT. IMMANTJEL KANT was born at Kouigsberg in Prussia, April 22, 1724. His father an honest saddlemaker, and bis mother a prudent and pious woman, exerted a good influence upon him in his earliest j'outh. In the year 1740 he entered the university as a student of theolog}', though he devoted the most of his time to philosophy-, mathematics, and physics. He commenced his literaiy career in his twent}'-third }'ear, in 1747, with a treatise entitled " Thoughts concerning the true Estimate of Living Force." He was obliged b}' his pecuniary circumstances to spend some j'ears as a private tutor in dif- ferent families in the neighborhood of Konigsberg. In 1755 he settled at the university as ' ' privat-docent" which position he held for fifteen j-ears, during which time he gave lectures upon logic, metaplrysic, physics, mathematics, and also, during the latter part of the time, upon ethics, anthropology, and plvysi- cal geography. At this period he adhered for the most part to the school of Wolff, though early expressing his doubts in 270 A HISTORY OP PHILOSOPHY. respect of dogmatism. From the publication of his first trea- tise he applied himself to writing with unwearied activity, though his great work, the " Critique of pure Reason" did not appear till his fifty-seventh year, 1781. His " Critique of the practical Reason" was issued in 1787, and his "Re- ligion 'within the Bounds of pure Reason," in 1793. In 1770, in his forty-sixth year, he was chosen ordinar}- professor of logic and rnetaphysic, a chair which he continued to fill unin- terruptedly till 1797, when the weakness of age obliged him to resign it. Invitations to professorships at Jena, Erlangen, and Halle, were given him and rejected. As soon as he be- came known, the noblest and most active minds flocked from all parts of Germany to Konigsberg, to sit at the feet of the sage who was master there. One of his admirers, Reuss, professor of philosophy at Wurzburg, who abode but a brief time at Konigsberg, entered his chamber, declaring that he had come one hundred and sixty miles in order to see Kant and to speak with him. During the last seventeen }'ears of his life he occupied a little house with a garden, in a quiet quarter of the city, where his calm and regular mode of life might be undisturbed. His mode of life was very simple, though he enjoyed good living and society. He never left his native province even to go as far as Dantzic. His long- est journeys were to visit some coiintiy-seats in the environs of Konigsberg. Nevertheless, as his lectures upon physical geography testify, he acquired by reading a ver}* accurate knowledge of the earth. He knew all of Rousseau's works ; Emile at its first appearance detained him for a number of days from his customary walks. Kant died Feb. 12, 1804, in the eightieth }*ear of his life. He was of medium stature, finely builtTwith blue eyes, and always enjo}-ed sound health till in his latter }'ears, when he became childish. He was never married. His character was marked by an earnest love of truth, great candor, and simple modest}'. Though Kant's great epoch-making work, the " Critiqiie of pure Reason" did not appear till 1781, yet had he previ- KANT. 271 ously shown an approach towards the same standpoint in several smaller treatises, and particularly in his inaugural dissertation which appeared in 1770, " Concerning the Form and the Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible Worlds." Kant himself refers the inner genesis of his critical stand- point to Hume. "I freely confess," he says, "that it was David Hume who first roused me from my dogmatic slumber, aixT gave a different direction to my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy." The critical view, there- fore, first became developed in Kant as he left the dogmatic metaphysical school, the Wolfian philosophy in which he had grown up, and went over to the study of a sceptical empiri- cism in Hume. " Hitherto," says Kant at the close of his Critique of pure Reason, "men have been obliged to proceed either dogmatical!}', like "Wolff, or sceptically, like Hume. The critical road alone is yet open. If the reader has had the courtesy and patience to travel along this in in}- com- pany, let him now contribute his aid in making this by-path into a highway, in order that that which man}* centuries could not effect may now be attained before the expiration of the present, namely, that the reason may be perfectly sat- isfied in respect of that which has hitherto, but in vain, engaged its curiosity." Kant had the clearest consciousness respecting the relation of his criticism to the previous phi- losophy. He compares the revolution which he himself had brought about in philosophy with that wrought by Coperni- cus in astronomy. "Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must regulate itself according to its objects ; but all attempts to make an}' thing out of them a priori, through notions whereby our knowledge might be enlarged, has proved, under this pre- supposition, abortive. Let us, then, try for once whether we do not succeed better with the problems of metaphysic by assuming that objects &- be adapted jto_the naturepf our knowledge, a mode of viewing the subject whicfi accords" much better with the desired possi- bility of a knowledge of objects a priori, which must decide 272 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. something concerning them before they are given us. The circumstances are, in this case, precisely the same as with the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, finding that his attempt to explain the motions of the heavenly bodies did not succeed, when he assumed the whole starry host to revolve around the spectator, tried whether he should not succeed better, if he left the spectator himself to move, and the stars on the con- trary at rest." In these words we have the principle of a subjective idealism, most clearly and decidedly expressed. In the succeeding exposition of the Kantian philosophy we shall most suitably follow the classification adopted by Kant himself. His principle of classification is a psychological one. All the faculties of the soul, he says, may be reduced to three, which are incapable of an}' farther reduction ; cogni- tion, emotion, volition. The first faculty contains the prin- ciples, the governing laws for all the three. In so far as the faculty of cognition contains the principles of knowledge it- self, is it theoretical reason, and so far as it contains the principles of volition and action, is it practical reason, while, so far as it contains the principles which regulate the feelings of pleasure and pain, is it a faculty of judgment. Thus the Kantian philosophy (on its critical side) divides itself into three critiques, (1) Critique of pure, i.e., theoretical Reason, (2) Critique of practical Reason, (3) Critique of the Judg- ment. 1. CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. The critique of pure rea- son, says Kant, is the inventor}' of all our possessions through pure reason, systematically arranged. What are these possessions? AVhat do we contribute to the act of cognition? To answer this question, Kant explores the two chief HeTds of our theoretical consciousness, the two chief factors of all knowledge, the sense and the understanding. Firstly : what does.scnse or the faculty of intuition pojssessjjt, priori? Secondly: what is the a priori possession of our understanding ? The first of these questions is discussed in the Transcendental ^Esthetic (a title which we must take not KANT. 273 in the sense now commonly attached to the word, but in its et}-mological signification as the "science of the a priori principles of the sense") ; and the second in the Transcen- cfentcd Logic, principally in the Analytic. Sense and under- standing are thus the two factors of all knowledge, the two ^as kant expresses it ~oi our Knowledge, which may spring from a common root, though this is unknown to us : sense is the receptivity, and understanding the spontaneity of our cognitive faculty ; by the sense, which can only furnish intuitions, objects are given to us ; by the understanding, which forms conceptions, these objects are thought. Concep- - tions without intuitions are empty; intuitions without coiW ' ceptions are blind. Intuitions and conceptions constitute the reciprocally complemental elements of our intellectual activ- ity. What now are the a priori principles respectively of our knowledge through the sense and through thought? The first of these questions, as already said, is answered by 1. THE TRANSCENDENTAL ^ESTHETIC. To anticipate at once the answer, we may say that the a priori principles of our knowledge through the sense, the original forms of sensu- ous intuition, are space jmd time. Space is the form of the external sengg, by means of which objects are given to us as existing outside_pf ourselves, and also outside of and beside one another ; time is the form of the inner sense, by means of which the circumstances of our own soul-life become objects to our consciousness. If we abstract from every thing be- longing to the matter of our sensations, space remains as the universal form in which all the materials of the external sense must be arranged. If we abstract from every thing which be- longs to the matter of our inner sense, time remains as the form which the movement of the mind had filled. Space and time are the highest forms of the outer and inner sense. That these forms lie a priori in the human mind, Kant proves, first, directly from the nature of these conceptions themselves ; and, secondly, indirectly by showing that without a priori pre- supposing these conceptions, certain sciences of undoubted 274 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. validit}* would be impossible. The first of these he calls the metaphysical, and the second the transcendental exposition. (1) In the metaphysical exposition it is to be shown, (a) that space and time are given a priori, (b) that they both belong to the sense (and therefore to the aesthetic) arid not to theunders'Ca'ncTihg (and therefore not to the logic) , i.e., that ""tiKey are intuitions and not conceptions, (a) That space and time are a priori is clear from the fact that ever}' experience, before it can be, must presuppose already a space and time. J perceive snni^iny flg external to me ; but this externality presupposes space. Again, I have two sensations either simultaneous or successive ; this presupposes~Eiin"e~: (5) Space and time, however, arc l>y no means conceptions, but forms of intuition, and intuitions themselves. For in every univer- sal conception the individual is comprehended under it, but not as a part of it ; but in space and time, all individual spaces and times are parts of and contained within the universal space and the universal time. (2) In the transcendental exposition Kant draws his proof indirectly by showing that certain sciences, universally recog- nized as such, can only be conceived upon the supposition that space and time are a priori. The science of pure mathe- matics is possible only on the ground that space and time are pure and not empirical intuitions. Kant therefore compre- hends the whole problem of the Transcedental ^Esthetic in the question, How are pure mathematical sciences possible? The sphere, says Kant, within which pure mathematics moves, is space and time. But mathematics posits its prin- ciples as universal and necessary. Universal and necessary principles, however, can never come from experience ; they must have an a priori ground ; consequently it is impossible that space and time, from which rnathematics~takes its iprin- eiples, should /be first givpn ffl pnst*>Trjnr> they must be given a priori as pure intuitions. Hence we have a knowledge a priori, and a science which rests upon a priori grounds ; and the matter simply resolves itself into this : whosoever would KANT. 275 deny that a priori knowledge can be, must also at the same time deny the possibility of mathematics. But if the funda- mental truths of mathematics are intuitions a priori, we might conclude that there may be also a priori conceptions, out of which, in connection with these pure intuitions, a meta- physic could be formed. This is the positive result of the Transcendental ^Esthetic, though with this positive side the negative is closely connected. Intuition or immediate per- ception can be attained by man only through the sense, whose universal intuitions are only space and time. But since these intuitions of space and time are not relations of objects them- selves, but only the subjective forms under which they are perceived by us, there is somftthi^g subjective mingled with all our intuitions ; we can know things not as they are in themselves, but only as they appear to us through these sub- jective media, space and time. This is the meaning of the Kantian principle, that jve do not know things in themselves, but onby phenomena. But if on this account we should affirm that all things are in space and time, this would be too much ; they are in space and time on]y for jj^_ all phenomena of / / the external sense appearing both in space and in time, and all phenomena of the inner sense appearing only in time. By this, however, Kant in no way intended to admit that the world of sense is mere appearance. He affirmed, that he con- tendedjor the empirical reality as well as for the trftnanypdei^- faTldeality of space and time : things external to ourselves exist just as certainly as 'do we and the circumstances within us, only thej' are not presented to us as they are in them- splvps f^nrl in f.hpir inrippendgn^ of space and of time. In regard to the thing-in-itself which stands back of the phenom- ena, Kant intimates in the first edition of his Critique that it is "*^Jjnp"? gi ^1a_that the_Ego and the thing-in-itself are one and the same thinking substance. This thought, which Kant threw out as a mere conjecture, was the source of all the wider developments of the latest philosophy. It was afterwards the fundamental idea of the Fichtian system, 276 A HISTOBY OF PHILOSOPHY. that the Ego does not become affected through a thing-in-itself essentially foreign to it, but purely through itself. In the sec- ond edition of his Critique, however, Kant omitted this sentence. The Transcendental ^Esthetic closes with the discussion of space and time, i.e., with the discovery of the a priori elements of sensation. But the human mind cannot be satis- fied with the mere receptivity of sense ; it does not simply receive objects, but it applies to these its own spontaneit}*, and attempts to think them through its conceptions, and embrace them in the forms of its understanding. It is the object of the Transcendental Analytic (which forms the first part of the Transcendental Logic), to examine these a priori conceptions or forms of thought which lie originally in the understanding, as the forms of space and time do in the intuitive faculty. 2. THE TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC. It is the first prob- lem of the Analytic to attain the pure conceptions of the understanding. Aristotle had already attempted to form a table of these conceptions or categories, but he had collected them empirically instead of deriving them from a common principle, and had numbered among them space and time, though these are no pure conceptions of the understanding, but only forms of intuition. But if we would have a com- plete and regularly arranged table of all the pure conceptions of the understanding, or all the a priori forms of thought, we must look for a principle from which we may derive them. This principle is the judgment. The general fundamental conceptions of the understanding maj* be accurately attained if we examine all the different modes or forms of judgment. For this end Kant considers the different kinds of judgment which are treated of in the science of common logic. Now logic shows that there are four kinds of judgment, viz., judg- ments of Quantity. Quality. Relation. Modality. Universal, Affirmative, Categorical, Problematical, Particular, Negative, Hypothetical, Assertory, Singular. Infinite or Limitative. Disjunctive. Apodictic. KANT. 277 From these judgments are obtained the same number of fundamental conceptions or categories of the understanding, viz. : Quantity. Quality. Relation. Modality. Totality, Reality, Substance and In- Possibility and Im- Plurality, Negation, herence, possibility, Unity. Limitation. Causality and DC- Being and Xot-be- pendence, ing, Reciprocity. Necessity and Con- tingency. From these twelve categories all the rest may be derived by combination. From the fact that these categories are shown to belong a priori to the understanding, it follows, (1) that these conceptions are a priori, and hence have a necessary and universal validity, (2) that by themselves they_ are empty forms,and attain a content only through intuition. But since our intuition 15 \VIi6lly llmjflg5"Tne sense, these categories have validity only in their application to sensuous intuition, which in turn is raised from mere perception to experience proper only when apprehended under the con- ceptions of the understanding. Here we meet a second question : how does this happen ? How do objects become subsumed under these forms of the understanding, which by themselves are so empty? There would be no difficulty with this subsumption if the objects and the conceptions of the understanding were the same in kind. But they are not. Because objects come to the understanding from the sense, they are by nature sen- suous. Hence the question arises : how can these sensible objects be subsumed under pure conceptions of the under- standing? how can the categories be applied to objects? how can rules be established in reference to the manner in which we must think things in accordance with the catego- ries ? This application of the categories to objects cannot be immediate ; there must be a mean between the two, a third, which must have something in common with each, i.e., which 278 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. is in one respect pure and a priori, and in another sensible. The two pure intuitions of the Transcendental ^Esthetic, space and time, especially the latter, are of such a nature. A transcendentally determined property of time, as for exam- ple, that of simultaneousness, is on the one hand homoge- neous with the categories, since it is a priori, and on the other homogeneous with phenomena, since every phenomenon must be represented as existing in time. For this reason Kant calls the transcendental determinations of time trans- cendental schema, and the use which the understanding makes of them, he calls the transcendental schematism of the pure understanding. The schema is a product of the imaginative faculty, which spontaneously gives to the inner sense this determination, though the schema is something other than a mere image. An image is always merely an individual and determinate intuition ; *tQj"frp ^n f he other hand is a, nnivrsal-&>rm.whiok-thp imagination produces as the repre- sentation of a category, and which is the mean through which the category becomes applicable to sensuous phenomena. Hence the schema can only exist in the conception, and never suffers itself to be brought within the sensuous intui- tion. If, now, we consider more closely the schematism of the understanding, and seek the transcendental time-deter- mination for every categor}-, we find that : (1) Quantity has for a universal schema series in time or number, i.e., the successive addition of homogeneous units. I can represent to nvvself the pure understanding conception of magnitude only b} r bringing into the imagination a number of units one after another. If I stop this process at its be- ginning, the result is unity ; if I let it go on farther I have plurality ; and if I suffer it to continue without limit, totality. If I wish to apply this conception of magnitude to phenomena, I find it to be possible only by means of this movement from one part of the homogeneous to another. (2) Quality has for its schema the content of time. If I would apply to any thing sensuous the pure conception of KANT. 279 realit}-, which is one of the categories of quality, I must rep- resent to myself a filled time, a content in time. That is real which fills a time. If also I would represent to myself the pure understanding conception of negation, I bring into thought a void time. (3) The categories of relation take their schemata from the order of time; for if I would represent to myself a deter- minate relation, I always bring into thought a determinate order of things in time. Substance appears as the persis- tence of the real in time ; causality as regular succession in time ; reciprocity as the regular coetaneousness of the deter- minations in the one substance, with the determinations in the other. (4) The categories of modality take their schema from the whole of time, i.e., from the manner in which an object be- longs to tune. The schema of possibility is the general har- mony of a representation with the conditions of time ; the schema of actuality is the existence of an object in a deter- mined time ; that of necessity is the existence of an object for ah 1 time. We are now, then, furnished with all that we need for sub- suming sensuous objects under the categories, or for applying the categories to phenomena in order to show how through this application experience a coherent series of phenomena arises. "We have (1) the different classes of categories, which, since they are valid for the entire sphere of intuition, render possible the synthesis of perceptions into a whole of experience ; and (2) the schemata by means of which we can apply these categories to the objects of sense. With every category and its schema is given a different method of bring- ing phenomena under a universally valid form of the under- standing, through which unity is introduced into cognition. With every category, therefore, there are given principles of cognition, a priori rules, points of view, to which we subject phenomena in order to elevate them to experience. These principles, these most general, universally valid synthetic 280 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. judgments, correspond to the four classes of the categories and are as follows: (1) All phenomena, since they can be apprehended only under the forms of space and time, are in form magnitudes, quanta, manifolds, which the conception of a definite space or time gives, and thus extensive magnitudes or wholes constructed out of parts successively added, tuition is Twymihle only hftpAi^se nnr i m ffinntin n phpjlftyppnit na Pvtengivp^/nMA^Jn space, find t.jfpp. For this reason, also, all intuitions are subject to the a priori laws of extensive quantity, e.g., to the law of infinite divisibility, to the laws of construction in space as they are unfolded in geometr}-, etc. These laws are the axioms of intuition, the universally valid rules of all intuition. (2) In respect of then* sensuous content, then* reality, all phenomena are inten- sive magnitudes ; since without a greater or less degree of impression on the sense no perception of a definite object, of a realit}', would be possible. This magnitude of the real, which is the object of sensation, is merely intensive, i.e., deterininable in degree, since sensation (as such) contains nothing extended in space or time. All the objects of per- ception thus are intensive as well as extensive quantities fill- ing space and time, and are therefore subject to the laws of both extension and intension. All the forces and qualities of things have an infinite number of degrees which may in- crease or decrease ; whatever is real has always an intensive magnitude, however small; this intensive may be indepen- dent of extensive magnitude, etc. These principles are the anticipations of perception, rules which are given antece- dently to all perception, and direct the investigation of it. (3) Jvrj2rippr-.e is possible only tJhrough the_conc.eption of^a necessary connection of perceptions . Without a necessary onl'T of things aii'l tlu-ir ivlatk>n> in time th) To the highest good belongs, in the second place, perfect happiness. Happiness is that condition of a rational creature in the world, in which every thing goes according to his desire and will. This can only occur when all nature is in accord with his purposes. But this is not the case ; as acting beings we are not causes of nature, and there is not the slightest ground in the moral law for connecting morality and happiness. Notwithstanding this, we ougJit to endeavor to secure the highest good. It must therefore be possible. There is thus postulated the necessary connection of these two elements, i.e., the existence of a cause of nature distinct from nature, and which contains the ground of this connec- tion. There must be a being as the common cause of the natural and moral world, a being who knows our characters, an intelligence, who, according to this intelligence imparts to us happiness. Such a being is God. Thus from the practical reason there issue the ideas of im- mortality and of God, as we have already seen to be the case with the idea of freedom. The reality of the idea of freedom is derived from the possibility of a moral law ; that of the idea KANT. 297 of immortality is borrowed from the possibility of a perfect virtue ; that of the idea of a God follows from the necessary demand for a perfect happiness. These three ideas, therefore, which the speculative reason has treated as problems that could not be solved, gain a firm basis in the province of the practical reason. Still they are not even now theoretical dog- mas, but as Kant calls them practical postulates, necessary premises of moral action. My theoretical knowledge is not enlarged by them : I only know now that there are objects corresponding to these ideas, but of these objects I can know no more. Of God, for instance, we possess and know no more than this very conception ; and if we should attempt to establish the theory of the supersensible grounded upon such categories, this would be to make theology like a magic lan- tern, with its phantasmagorical representations. Yet has the practical reason acquired for us a certainty respecting the objective reality of these ideas, which the theoretical reason had been obliged to leave undecided, and in this respect the practical reason has the primacy. This relative position of the two faculties of knowledge is wisely adapted to the nature and destiny of men. Since the ideas of God and immortality are theoretically obscure to us, they do not defile our moral motives by fear and hope, but leave us free space to act through reverence for the moral law. Thus far Kant's Critique of the practical Reason. In con- nection with this we may here mention his views of religion as they appear in his treatise upon ''Religion within the Bounds of Pure Reason" The fundamental idea of this treatise is the reduction of religion to morality. Between morality and religion there may be the twofold relation, that either morality is founded upon religion, or else religion upon morality. If the first relation were real, it would give us fear and hope as principles of moral action ; but this cannot be ; there remains, therefore, only the second. Morality leads necessarily to religion, because the highest good is a neces- sary ideal of the reason, and this can only be realized through 298 A HISTOKY OF PHILOSOPHY. a God ; but in no way may religion first incite us to virtue, for the idea of God may never become a moral motive. Re- ligion, according to Kant, is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands. It is revealed religion when I must first know that something is a divine command, in order to know that it is my duty : it is natural religion when I must first know that something is my duty, in order to know that it is a divine command. The Church is an ethical community, which has for its end the fulfilment and the most perfect exhibition of moral commands, a union of those who with united energies purpose to resist evil and advance moralhy. The Church, in so far as it is no object of a possi- ble experience, is called the invisible Church, which, as such, is merely the idea of the union of all the righteous under the divine moral government of the world. The visible Church, on the other hand, is that which represents the kingdom of God upon earth, so far as this can be attained through men. The requisites, and hence also the characteristics of the true visible Church (which are divided according to the table of the cate- gories since this Church is given in experience) are the fol- lowing : (a) In respect of quantity the Church must be total or universal; and though it may be divided in accidental opinions, yet must it be instituted upon such principles as will necessarily lead to a universal union in one single church. (5) The quality of the true visible Church is purity, as a union under no other than moral motives, since it is at the same time purified from the stupidness of superstition and the madness of fanaticism, (c) The relation of the members of the Church to each other rests upon the principle of free- dom. The Church is, therefore, a free state, neither a hie- rarchy nor a democracy, but a voluntary, universal, and en- during spiritual union, (d) In respect of modality the Church demands that its constitution should be unchangeable. The laws themselves may not change, though one may reserve to himself the privilege of changing some accidental arrange- ments which relate simply to the administration. That KANT. 299 alone which can establish a universal Church i3 the moral faith of the reason, for this alone can be shared by the con- victions of every man. But, because of the peculiar weakness of human nature, we can never reckon enough on this pure faith to build a Church on it alone, for men are not easily convinced that the striving after virtue and an irreproachable life is every thing which God demands : they always suppose that they must offer to God a special service prescribed by tradition, which only amounts to this that he is served. To establish a Church, we must therefore have a statutory faith historically grounded upon facts. This is the so-called faith of the Church. In ever}' Church there are therefore two elements the purely moral, or the faith of reason, and the historico-statutory, or the faith of the Church. It depends now upon the relation of these two elements whether a Church shall have any worth or not. The statutory element should ever be only the vehicle of the moral element. Just so soon as this element becomes in itself an independent end, claim- ing an independent validity, will the Church become corrupt and irrational, and whenever the Church passes over to the pure faith of reason, it approximates to the kingdom of God. Upon this principle we may distinguish the true from the spurious service of the kingdom of God, religion from priest- craft. A dogma has worth alone in so far as it has a moral content. The apostle Paul himself would scarcely have given credit to the dicta of the creed of the Church without this moral faith. From the doctrine of the Trinity, e.g., taken literally, nothing actually practical can be derived. Whether we have to reverence in the Godhead three persons or ten makes no difference, if in both cases we have the same rules for our conduct of life. The Bible also, with its interpre- tation, must ba considered in a moral point of view. The records of revelation must be interpreted in a sense which will harmonize with the universal rules of the religion of reason. Reason is in religious things the highest interpreter of the Bible. This interpretation in reference to some texts may 300 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. Beem forced, yet it must be preferred to any such literal in- terpretation as would contain nothing for morality, or per- haps go against every moral feeling. That such a moral signification may always be found without ever entirely repu- diating the literal sense, results from the fact that the foun- dation for an ethical religion lay originally in the human reason. We need only to divest the representations of the Bible of their mythical dress (an attempt which Kant has himself made, by an ethical interpretation of some of the weightiest doctrines) , in order to attain for them a rational meaning which shall be universally valid. The historical ele- ment of the sacred books is in itself of no account. The maturer the reason becomes, the more it can hold fast for itself the moral sense, so much the more unnecessary will be the statutory institutions of the faith of the Church. The transition from the creed of the Church to the pure faith of reason is the approximation to the kingdom of God, to which, however, we can only approach nearer and nearer in an infinite progress. The actual realization of the kingdom of God is the end of the world, the termination of histor}*. III. CRITIQUE OP THE FACULTY OP JUDGMENT. The con- ception of this science Kant gives in the following manner. The two faculties of the human mind hitherto considered were the faculty of knowledge and that of desire. It was proved in the Critique of Pure Reason, that the understand- ing alone of the faculties of the mind possesses a priori constitutive principles of knowledge ; while the fact that in reference to the faculty of desire the reason alone possesses a priori constitutive principles of action is shown in the Critique of Practical Reason. "Whether now the faculty of judgment, as the link between understanding and reason, can take its object the feeling of pleasure and pain as the mean between cognition and desire and furnish it a priori with principles which shall be constitutive and not simply regulative, is the problem with which the Critique of Judg- ment occupies itself. KANT. 301 The faculty of judgment is by virtue of its peculiar func- tion, the mean between the understanding as the faculty of conceptions, and the reason as the faculty of principles. The speculative reason has taught us to consider the world as wholly subject to natural laws ; the practical reason had inferred for us a moral world, in which every thing is deter- mined through freedom. There was thus a gulf between the kingdom of nature and that of freedom, which could not be passed unless the faculty of judgment should furnish a con- ception which should unite the two sides. That it is entitled to do this lies in the very conception of the faculty of judg- ment. Since it is the faculty of conceiving the particular as contained under the universal, it thus refers the empirical manifoldness of nature to a supersensible, transcendental principle, which embraces in itself the ground for the unity of the manifold. The object of the faculty of judgment is, therefore, the conception of design in nature ; for design is nothing but the supersensuous unity which contains the ground for the actuality of an object. And since all design and every actualization of an end is connected with pleasure, we may farther explain the faculty of judgment by saying, that it contains the laws for the feeling of pleasure and pain. Conformity to design in nature can be represented either subjectively or objectively. In the first case I perceive pleasure and pain, immediately through the representation of an object, before I have formed a conception of it ; my delight, in this instance, can only be referred to a designed harmony of relation between the form of an object, and my facult}' of beholding. The faculty of judgment viewed thus subjectively, is called the aesthetic faculty. In the second case, I form for myself at the outset a conception of the object, and then judge whether the form of the object corre- sponds to this conception. In order to find a flower that is beautiful to my sense of vision, I do not need to have a con- ception of the flower; but, if I would see design in the 302 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. flower, then a conception is necessaiy. The faculty of judg- ment, viewed as capacity to judge of objective design, is called the ideological faculty. 1. CRITIQUE OF THE ^ESTHETIC FACULTY OF JUDGMENT. (1) Analytic. The analytic of the aesthetic faculty of judg- ment is divided into two parts, the analytic of the beautiful, and the analytic of the sublime. In order to discover what is required in order to judge an object to be beautiful, we must analyze the judgments of taste, as the faculty for deciding upon the beautiful, (a) In respect of quality, the beautiful is the object of a pure, uninterested satisfaction. This disinterestness enables us to distinguish between the satisfaction in the beautiful, and the satisfaction in the agreeable and the good. In the agreeable and the good I am interested ; my satisfaction in the agreea- ble is connected with a sensation of desire ; my satisfaction in the good is, at the same time, a motive for my will to actualize it. My satisfaction in the beautiful alone is with- out interest. (6) In respect of quantity, the beautiful is that which universall}' satisfies. In respect of the agreeable, every one decides that his satisfaction in it is only a personal one ; but when any one affirms of a picture, that it is beauti- ful, he expects that not only he, but every one else, will also find it so. Nevertheless, these judgments of taste do not arise from conceptions ; their universal validity is therefore purely subjective. I do not judge that all the objects of a species are beautiful, but only that a certain specific object will appear beautiful to every beholder. All the judgments of taste are individual judgments, (c) In respect of rela- tion, that is beautiful in which we find the form of design, without representing to ourselves any specific end designed. (d) In respect of modality, that is beautiful which is recog- nized without a conception, as the object of a necessary sat- isfaction. Of every representation, it is at least possible, that it may awaken pleasure. The representation of the agreeable actually awakens pleasure. The representation of KANT. 03 the beautiful, on the other hand, awakens pleasure necessa- rily. The necessit}* which is conceived in an aesthetic judg- ment, is a necessity for the agreement of all in a judgment, which can be viewed as an example of a universal rule, though the rule itself cannot be stated. The subjective prin- ciple which lies at the basis of the judgment of taste r is therefore a common sense, which determines what is pleasing, and what displeasing, only through feeling, and not through thought. The sublime is that which is absolutely, or beyond all com- parison, great, compared with which every thing else is small. But now in nature there is nothing than which there is not something greater. The absolutely great is only the infinite, and the infinite is only to be met with in ourselves, as idea. The sublime, therefore, is not properly found in nature, but is only carried over to nature from our own minds. We call that sublime in nature which awakens within us the idea of the infinite. As in the beautiful there is prominent reference to quality, so, in the sublime, the most important element of all is quantity ; and this quantity is either magnitude of extension (the mathematically sublime), or magnitude of power (the dj'namicalby sublime) . In the sublime there is a greater satisfaction in the formless than in form. The sub- lime excites a vigorous movement of the heart, and awakens pleasure only through pain, i.e., through the feeling that the energies of life are for the moment restrained. The satisfac- tion in the sublime is hence not so much a positive pleasure, but rather an amazement and awe, which may be called a negative pleasure. The elements for an aesthetic judgment of the sublime are the same as in the feeling of the beautiful, (a) In respect of quantit}', that is sublime which is absolutely great, in comparison with which every thing else is small. The aesthetic estimate of greatness does not lie, however, in enumeration, but in the simple intuition of the subject. The magnitude of an object, which the imagination attempts in vain to comprehend, implies a supersensible substratum, '804 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. which is great beyond all the measures of the sense, and to which the feeling of the sublime is property related. It is not the object itself, as for example the surging sea, which is sublime, but rather the emotion in the mind of him who contemplates it. (&) In respect of qualitj-, the sublime does not awaken pure pleasure, like the beautiful, but first pain, and through this, pleasure. The feeling of the insufficiency of our imagination, in the aesthetic estimate of magnitude, gives rise to pain ; but, on the other side, the consciousness of our independent reason in its superiority to the imagina- tion, awakens pleasure. In this respect, therefore, that is sublime which immediately pleases us, through its opposition to the interest of the sense, (c) In respect of relation, the sublime causes nature to appear as a power, indeed, but as one in reference to which we have the consciousness of supe- riority, (c?) In respect of modality, the judgments concern- ing the sublime are as necessarily valid, as those in reference to the beautiful ; only with this difference, that our judgment of the sublime finds an entrance to some minds, with greater difficulty than our judgment of the beautiful, since in order to perceive the sublime, culture, and developed moral ideas, are necessary. (2) Dialectic. A dialectic of the aesthetic faculty of judg- ment, like ever}' dialectic, is only possible where we can meet with judgments which lay claim to universalit}" a priori. For dialectic consists in the opposition of such judgments. The antinom}' of the principles of taste rests upon the two oppo- site elements of the judgment of taste, viz., that it is purely subjective, and at the same time, lays claim to universal validity. Hence, the two commonplace sayings: "there is no disputing about taste," and " there is a contest of tastes." From these we have the following antinomy, (a) Thesis: the judgment of taste cannot be grounded on conception, else might we dispute it. (b) Antithesis : the judgment of taste must be grounded on conception, else, notwithstanding its diversity, there could be no contest respecting it. This KAXT. 305 antinoim*, sa} - s Kant, is, however, only an apparent one, and disappears as soon as the two propositions are more accurately apprehended. The thesis should be : the judg- ment of taste is not grounded upon a definite conception, and is not strictly demonstrable ; the antithesis should be : this judgment is grounded upon a conception, though an indefi- nite one, viz., upon the conception of a supersensible sub- stratum for the phenomenal. Thus apprehended, there is no longer any contradiction between the two propositions. In the conclusion of the investigation of the aesthetic faculty of judgment, we can now answer the question, whether the adaptation of things to our faculty of judgment (then* beauty and sublimity), lies in the things themselves, or in us? ^Esthetic realism claims that the supreme cause of nature designed to produce things which should affect our imagina- tion, as beautiful and sublime ; and the organic forms of nature strongly support this view. But on the other hand, nature exhibits even in her merely mechanical forms, such a tendency to the beautiful, that we might believe that she could produce also the most beautiful organic forms through mechanism alone ; and that thus the design would lie not in nature, but in our mode of apprehension. This is the stand- point of idealism, upon which it becomes explicable how we can decide a priori in reference to beauty and sublimity. But the highest view of the aesthetical, is its use as a S3inbol of moral good. Thus Kant makes the theory of taste, like religion, to be a corollary of ethics. 2. CRITIQUE OF THE TELEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF JUDGMENT. In the foregoing, we have considered the subjective aesthet- ical conformity to design in natural objects. But natural ob- jects stand to one another also in the relation of adaptation. This objective conformity to design is the object of the teleo- logical faculty of judgment. (1) Analytic of the Teleological Faculty of Judgment. The analytic has to determine the kinds of objective adapta- tion. Objective, material conformitj- to design, is of two 306 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. kinds, external and internal. External conformity to de- sign is onl}* relative, since it simply indicates a usefulness of one thing for another. Sand, for instance, which borders the sea shore, is of use in bearing pine forests. In order that animals can live upon the earth, the earth must produce nour- ishment for them, etc. These examples of external design show that here the design never belongs to the means in it- self, but only accidentally. "We should never get a concep- tion of the sand b}' saying that it is a means for pine forests ; it is conceivable for itself, without any reference to the con- ception of design. The earth does not produce nourishment, because it is necessary that men should dwell upon it. In brief, this external or relative conformity to design may be conceived as resulting from the mechanism of nature alone. Not so the inner adaptations, which show themselves promi- neutry in the organic products of nature. In an organism, ever}* one of its parts is end, and every one, means or instru- ment. In the process of generation, the natural product produces itself as species, in growth it appears as individual, and in the process of complete formation, ever}* part of the individual develops itself. This natural organization cannot be explained from mechanical causes, but only through final causes, or teleologically. (2) Dialectic. The dialectic of the teleological facult}-of judgment, has to adjust this opposition between this mechan- ism of nature and teleology. On the one side we have the thesis : the production of all material things, according to sim- ple mechanical laws must be judged possible. On the other side we have the antithesis : certain products of material na- ture cannot be judged as possible, according to simple me- chanical laws, but demand the conception of design for their explanation. If these two maxims are posited as constitutive (objective) principles for the possibility of the objects them- selves, then do they contradict each other, but as simply reg- ulative (subjective) principles for the investigation of nature, they are not contradictoiy. Earlier systems treated the con- KANT. 307 ception of design in nature dogmatically, and either affirmed or denied its essential existence in nature. But we, convinced that teleology is only a regulative principle, have nothing to do with the question whether an inner design belongs essen- tially to nature or not, but we only affirm that our faculty of judgment must look upon nature as designed. "We envisage the conception of design in nature, but leave it wholty unde- cided whether to another understanding, which does not think discursive!}' like ours, nature may not be understood, without any necessity for introducing this conception of design. Our understanding thinks discursively : it proceeds from the parts, and comprehends the whole as the product of its parts ; it cannot, therefore, conceive the organic products of nature, in which the whole is the ground and the prius of the parts, except from the point of view of the conception of design. If there were, on the other hand, an intuitive understanding, which could know the particular and the parts as co-deter- mined in the universal and the whole ; such an understanding might conceive the whole of nature under one principle, and would not need the conception of design. If Kant had thoroughly carried out this conception of an intuitive understanding as well as the conception of an im- manent design in nature, he would have overcome, in prin- ciple, the standpoint of subjective idealism, which he made numerous attempts, in his critique of the faculty of judgment, to- break through ; but these ideas he only propounded, and left them to be positively carried out by his successors. 308 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. SECTION XXXIX. TRANSITION TO THE POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY. THE Kantian philosophy soon gained in Germany an almost undisputed rule. The imposing boldness of its stand- point, the novelty of its results, the applicability of its princi- ples, the moral severit} 7 of its view of the world, and above all, the spirit of freedom and moral autonomy which ap- peared in it, and which was so directly opposed to the efforts of that age, gained for it an assent as enthusiastic as it was extended. It aroused among the cultivated classes a wider interest and participation in philosophic pursuits, than had ever appeared in an equal degree among any people. In a short time it had drawn to itself a very numerous school : there were soon few German universities in which it had not had its talented representatives, while in every department of science and literature, especially in theology (it is the parent of theological rationalism) , and in natural rights, as also in belles-lettres (Schiller), it began to exert its influ- ence. Yet most of the writers who appeared in the Kantian school, confined themselves to an exposition or popular appli- cation of the doctrine as Kant had stated it, and even the most talented and independent among the defenders and im- provers of the critical philosophy (e.g.,Iteinhold, 1758-1813 ; Scliulze, Beck, Fries, JK/rug, Bouterweck) , only attempted to give a firmer basis Jg the .Kantian philosophy as the}' had received it, to obviate some of its wants and deficiencies, and to carry out the standpoint of transcendental idealism more purely and consistently. Among those who earned out the Kantian philosophy, only two men, Ficlite and Herbart, can be named, who made by their actual advance an epoch in philosophy; and among its opposers (e.g., Hamann, Her- der), only one, JacobL,is of philosophic importance. These TRANSITION TO POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 809 three philosophers must therefore be first considered. In order to a more accurate development of their principles, we preface a brief and general characterization of their relation to the Kantian philosophy. 1 . Dogmatism had been critically annihilated by Kant ; 'his Critique of pure Reason had for its result the theoretical indemonstrableness of the three ideas of the reason, Gpd_, freedom, and immortality. True, these ideas which, from thlf standpoint of theoretical knowledge, had been thrust out, Kant had introduced again as postulates of the practical reason ; but as postulates, as only practical premises, they possess no theoretic certainty, and remain exposed to doubt. In order to do away with this uncertainty, and this despair- ing of knowledge which had seemed to be the end of the Kantian philosophy, Jacobi, a younger cotemporarj- of Kant, placed himself upon the standpoint of r^hilosophical faith in opposition to the standpoint of criticism. These highest ideas of thereasoll, the Eternal and the divine, cannot indeed be reached and proved by means of demonstration ; but it is the very nature of the divine tqjbe indemonstrable and un- attainable for the understanding. For attaining with cer- taint} r the highest, that which lies beyond the understanding, there is only one organ, viz., feeling. In feeling, therefore, in immediate knowledge, in faith, Jacobi thought he had found that certainty which Kant had sought in vain on the basis of discursive thinking. 2. While Jacobi stood in an antithetic relation to the Kan- tian philosophy, Fichte appears as its immediate consequence. The Kantian dualism, according to which the Ego, as theo- retic, is subjected to the external world, while as practical^it is its master, or, in other words, according to which the Ego stands related to the objective world, now receptively and again spontaneousl}', Fichte removed by emphasizing the primacy of the practical reason. He allowed the reason to be exclusively practical, as will alone, and spontanetty alone, and apprehended its theoretical and respective relation to the 810 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. objective world as only a circumscribed activity, as a limita- tion prescribed to itself by the reason. But for the reason, so far as it is practical, there is nothing objective except what itself produces. The will knows no being but only an ought. Hence the objective being of truth is universally denied, and the thing-in-itself which is essentially unknown must fall away of itself as an empty shadow. " 4"* fofl* is. is the ^ Ego," is the principle of the Fichtian system, and represents^ at the same time subjective idealism in its consequence and completion. 3. While the subjective idealism of Fichte was carried out in the objective idealism of Schelling, and the absolute ideal- ism of Hegel, there arose cotemporaneously with these systems a third offshoot of the Kantian criticism, viz., the philosophy of Herbart. Its relation to the Kantian philos- ophy was rather that of subjective origination than of objec- tive historical connection. It has no relation to historic continuity, and holds an isolated position in the history of philosoplry. Its general basis is Kantian, in so far as it takes for its problem a critical investigation of the subjective ex- perience. "We place it between Fichte and Schelling. SECTION XL. JACOBI. FRIEDKICH HEINRICH JACOBI was born at Dusseldorf in 1743. His father destined him for a merchant. After he had studied in Geneva and become interested in philosophy, he entered his father's mercantile establishment ; but after- wards abandoned this business, having been made chancellor of the exchequer and customs commissioner for Jiilich and Berg, and also privy councillor at Dusseldorf. In this city, JACOBI. 311 or at his neighboring estate of Pempelfort, he spent a great part of his life devoted to philosophy and his friends. In the 3'ear 1804 he was called to the newly-formed Academy of Sciences in Munich. In 1807 he was chosen president of this institution, a post which he filled till his death in 1819. Ja- cobi had a rich intellect and an amiable character. Besides being a philosopher, he was also a poet and man of the world ; and hence we find in his philosophizing an absence of strict logical arrangement and precise expression of thought. His writings are no sj'stematic whole, but are occasional treatises written " rhapsodically and in grasshopper gait," for the most part in the form of letters, dialogues, and romances. "^It was^ncver nry pin-pose," he says himsel_ t ' to set up a sys- fem for the schools. My writings have sprung from my inner- most life, and were only historically consecutive. In a certain sense I did not make them voluntarily, but they were pro- duced under the influence of a higher and b} r me irresistible power." This want of an inner principle of classification and of a systematic arrangement, renders a development of Ja- cobi's philosophy not easy. It may best be represented under the following three points of view : 1 . Jacobi's polemic against mediate knowledge. 2. His principle of immediate knowledge. 3. His relation to the cotemporaneous philoso- phy, especially to the Kantian criticism. 1. Spinoza was the negative starting-point of Jacobi's phi- losophizing. In his work "On the Doctrine of Spinoza, in Letters to Moses Mendelssohn" (1785), he directed public at- tention again to the almost wholly forgotten philosophy of Spinoza. The correspondence originated thus : Jacobi made the discovery that Lessing was a Spinozist, and announces this to Mendelssohn. The latter will not believe it, and thence grew the farther historical and philosophical examina- tion. The positive philosophic views which Jacobi expounds in this treatise can be reduced to the following three princi-\ pies: (1) Spiuozism is fatalism and atheism. (2) Every \ method of philosophic demonstration leads to fatalism and 812 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. atheism. (3) In order that we ma}- not fall into these, we must set a limit to demonstration, and recognize faith as the element of all human knowledge. (1) Spinozism is atheism, because, according to it, the cause of the world is not a person is not a being working for an end, and endowed with reason and will and hence is no God. It is fatalism, for, according to it, the human will regards itself only falsely as free. (2) This atheism and fatalism is, however, only the neces- sary consequence of all strictly demonstrative philosophizing. To conceive a thing, says Jacobi, is to refer it to its proxi- mate cause ; it is to find a possible for an actual, the condi- tion for a conditioned, the mediation for an immediate. We conceive only that which we can explain from another. Hence our conceiving moves in a chain of conditioned conditions, and this connection forms the mechanism of nature, in whose investigation our understanding has its immeasurable field. However far jve may carry conception and demonstration, we must hold, in reference to every object, to a still higher one which conditions it ; where this chain of the conditioned ceases, there do conception and demonstration also cease ; unless we give up demonstrating we can reach no infinite. If philosophy determines to apprehend the infinite with the finite understanding, thenjnust it cause tljgjliviQe to become {mite ; and here is where every preceding philosophy has been entangled ; and yet it is obviously absurd to attempt to discover the conditions of the unconditioned ; and make the absolutely necessary a possible, in order that we nw' be able to construe it. A God who could be proved is no God, for the ground of proof is ever above that which is to be proved ; the latter derives its whole reality from the former. If the existence of God should be proved, then God would be derived from a ground which were before and above him. Hence the paradox of Jacobi ; it is for the interest of science that there be no God, no supernatural and no extra or supra- mundane being. Only upon the condition that nature alone JACOBI. 313 is, and is therefore independent and all in all, can science hope to gain its goal of perfection, ajid become, like its object itself, all in all. Hence the result which Jacobi derives from the " Drama of the history of philosophy" is this: "There is no other philosophy than that of Spinoza. He who con- siders all the works and acts of men to be the effect of natural mechanism, and who believes that intelligence is but an accompanying consciousness, which has only to -lict the part of a looker-on, cannot be contended with and cannot be helped ; he must be let alone. No philosophical conclusion can reach him, for what he denies cannot be philosophically proved, and what he proves cannot be philosophically de- nied." Whence then is help to come? " The understanding, taken by itself, is materialistic and irrational ; it denies spirit and God. The reason taken by itself is idealistic, and has nothing to do with the understanding ; it denies nature and makes itself God." (3) Hence we must seek another way of knowing the supersensible, which is faith. Jacobi calls this flight from cCghition through conception to faith, the salto mortale of the human reason. Every certainty through a conception demands another certainty, but in faith we are led to an immediate certainty which needs no ground nor proof, and which is in fact absolutely exclusive of all proof. Such a confidence which does not arise from arguments, is called faith. We. know the__ sensible as well as the supersensible only through faith. All human knowledge springs from reve- lation ancTfaith. These principles which Jacobi brought out in his letters concerning Spinoza, did not fail to arouse a universal oppo- sition in the German philosophical world. It was charged upon him that he was an enemy of reason, a preacher of blind faith, a despiser of science and of philosophy, a fanatic and a papist. To rebut these attacks, and to justify his standpoint, he wrote in 1787, a year and a half after the first appearance of the work already named, his dialogue entitled 14 314 A HISTORY OP PHILOSOPHY. " David Hume on Faith, or Idealism and Realism," in which he develops more extensively and definitely his principle of faith or immediate knowledge. 2. Jacobi distinguished his faith at the outset from a blind belief in authority. A blind faith is one which supports it- self on the authority of another, instead of on the grounds of reason. But this is not the case with his faitb^ whigh rather rests upon the inner necessity felt by the subject itself. Still farther: his faith is not arbitrary imagination: we can imagine to ourselves every possible thing, but in order to regard a thing as actual, there must be an inexplicable neces- sity of our feeling, for which we have no other name than faith. Jacobi was not consistent in his terminology, and hence did not always express himself alike in respect of the relation in which this faith stood to the different sides of the human faculty of knowledge. In his earlier terminology he placed faith (or as he also called it, the faculty of faith) , on the side of the sense or the receptivity as opposed to the understanding and the reason, taking these two terms as equivalent expressions for the finite and mediate knowledge of previous philosophy; afterwards he followed Kant, and, distinguishing between the reason and the understanding, he called that reason which he had previously named sense and faith. According to him now, the faith or intuition of the reason is the organ for perceiving the supersensible. As ' such, it stands opposed to the understanding. There must be a higher faculty which can learn, in a way inconceivable to sense and the understanding, that which is true in and above phenomena. Over against the explaining understand- in cr stands thft raaann. or the natural faith of the reason, which clues nut explain, but positively reveals an