The Greek Philosophers [1]

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THE

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS VOL

I.

THE

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS BY *

I

ALFRED WILLIAM BENN

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rh

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rives 5e ot rvx^vres fiaKiirra Kcd

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vas

tiv

^iffKeij/airBai irpotr^Kei

Plotinus

Quamquam ab habemus

:

sect

omnes ingenuas quod nobis non liceat,

his philosophiam et

tamen

est aliquid

disciplinas liceat illis

Cicero

IN

TWO VOLUMES VOL.

I.

LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, &

CO.,

i

PATERNOSTER SQUARE ,^

1882

^c

V

\

I

1

-

-

"< holding, £ Plato did in the next generation, that one man can only d one thing well, he might have added that the heroes (

modern

would have done much nobler work had the concentrated their powers on a single task instead attempting half a dozen and leaving most of them incon art

(

plete.

This careful restriction of individual '

Nem.

III.

40-42.

(Donaldson.)

effort

to

a sing

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

3

province involved no dispersion or incoherence in the results achieved.

The

highest workers were airanimated

by a common

Each represented some one aspect of the glory and by all. Nor was the collective con-

spirit.

greatness participated in

sciousness, the uniting sympathy, limited to a single sphere. It

by a graduated

rose,

series,

from the city community,

through the Dorian or Ionian stock with which they claimed

more immediate kinship, to the Panhellenic race, the whole of humanity, and the divine fatherhood of Zeus, until it rested in that all-embracing nature which Pindar

knew

as the

one mother of gods and men.'

We

find some suggestion of this combined and comprehensiveness in the aspect and con-

may, perhaps,

distinctness

figuration of Greece itself

;

in its manifold varieties

and climate, and scenery, and productions clearness with which the features of fined

;

which

and all

the

parts of

its

;

of

soil,

in the exquisite

landscape are de-

development of coast-line by

admirable its territory,

while preserving their political

independence, were brought into safe and speedy communica-

The

tion with one another.

industrial

and commercial habits

of the people, necessitating a well-marked division of labour

and a regulated distribution of commodities, gave a further impulse in the same direction.

But what afforded the most valuable education in this sense was their system of free government, involving, as it did, the supremacy of an impersonal law, the subdivision of public authority among a number of magistrates, and the assignment to each of certain carefully defined functions

which he was forbidden to exceed together with the living interest felt by each citizen in the welfare of the whole state, ;

and

that,

parts,

conception of

which

is

it

as a whole

impossible where

all

composed of various

the public powers are

collected in a single hand.

A

people so endowed were the natural creators of philo'

Nem. VI. iub B 2

in.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

4

Sophy.

There came a time when the harmonious

of the Hellenic genius sought for

its

tion in a theory of the external world.

time, also,

when the decay of

universalit]

counterpart and comple

And

there

came

j

political interests left a larg{

fund of intellectual energy, accustomed to work under certair conditions, with the desire to realise those conditions in ar

Such is the most general significance we car memorable series of speculations on the nature of things which, beginning in Ionia, was carried by the Greek colonists to Italy and Sicily, whence, after receiving important additions and modifications, the stream of thought flowed back into the old country, where it was directed into ideal sphere.

attach to that

an entirely new channel by the practical genius of Athens. Thales and his successors down to Democritus were not exactly what we should call philosophers, in any sense of the word that would include a Locke or a Hume, and exclude a Boyle or a Black for their speculations never went beyond ;

the confines of the matejial universe

;

they did not even

sus-

pect the existence of those ethical and dialectical problems

which long constituted the sole object of philosophical discussion, and have continued since the- time when they were first

mooted to be regarded as

Nor yet can we look on them

its

most peculiar

province.

altogether or chiefly as

men

of

paramount purpose was to gather up the whole of knowledge under a single principle and they

science, for their

;

sought to realise this purpose, not by observation and experiment, but by the power of thought alone. It would, perhaps,

be truest to say that from their point of view philosophy and science were still undifferentiated, and that knowledge as a universal synthesis

was not yet divorced from

special investi-

gations into particular orders of phenomena. Here, as elsewhere, advancing reason tends to reunite studies which have been provisionally separated, and we must look to our own

contemporaries—to our Tyndalls and Thomsons, our Helmholtzes and

ZoUners—as

furnishing the fittest parallel to

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

5

A.naxrmander and Empedocles, Leucippus and Diogenes of ApoUonia. It has been the fashion in certaiS quarters to look dowir on these early thinkers to depreciate the value of their

—

we have

speculations because they were thinkers, because, as

already noticed, they reached their most important conclusions

by

means of truly

thinking, the

not being within their reach. services to

scientific

observation

Nevertheless, they performed

humanity comparable

for value with the legislation

of Solon and Cleisthenes, or the victories of Marathon and

Salamis

;

while their creative imagination was not inferior to

that of the great lyric and dramatic poets, the great architects

and

whose contemporaries they were.

sculptors,

taught

men

the illusions of sense

taught that space self-evident that ;

its

which

present form

declared that

all

solidity

life

things had arisen

to surmise that

But higher

man

still

;

of our planet, with the

to be found on

homogeneous attenuated vapour as

they

by the operation of mechanical confronted by the

will also effect its dissolution

innumerable varieties of

animal.

;

a conception so far from being

transcended the capacity of Aristotle to

seeming permanence and

far

atomic constitution

its

is infinite,

it

and

they held that the seemingly eternal universe was

brought into forces

;

first

they discovered or divined the inde-

matter and

of

structibility,

grasp

They

to distinguish between the realities of nature

is

;

by

its

surface,

differentiation

'

they

from a

while one of them went so

descended from an aquatic

than these fragmentary glimpses

and anticipations of a theory which still awaits confirmation from experience, we must place their central doctrine, that the universe

number and

is

a cosmos, an ordered whole governed by

law, not a blind conflict of semi-conscious agents,

or a theatre for the arbitrary interference of partial, jealous, '

The word

differentiation (iTepoiaais)

genes Apolloniates. Simpl. Phys. Phil., p. 126 (6th ed.)

326

fol.

?

.

seems to have been first used by Dioquoted by Ritter and Preller, Hist,

ff.,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

6

and vindictive gods ; that its changes are determined, if at that those all, by an immanent unchanging reason; and in every themselves which had luminaries drawn to celestial age the unquestioning worship of all mankind were, in truth, nothing more than fiery masses of inanimate matter. Thus, even

if

made

the early Greek thinkers were not

by substituting

science possible

universe which

is

direct negation,

its

scientific,

by Lucretius

first

for a theory of the

one that methodised

observation has increasingly tended to confirm.

of poetic praise woven

they

The

garland

for his adored master

should have been dedicated to them, and to them alone.

His

by their lessons, not by who knew little and cared

noble enthusiasm was really inspired the wearisome trifling of a moralist less

about those studies in which

Roman disciple was absorbed. When the power and value

the whole soul of

his

of these primitive speculations

can no longer be denied, their originality

is

sometimes ques-

tioned by the systematic detractors of everything Hellenic.

Thales and the

rest,

we

are told, simply borrowed their

acknowledgment

without

theories

from

a storehouse

of

Oriental wisdom on which the Greeks are supposed to have drawn as freely as Coleridge drew on German philosophy Sometimes each system is affiliated to one of the great Asiatic religions schools

;

sometimes they are

of Hindostan.

should agree,

when the

It

is

rival

all

natural

traced back to the

that no two

thing stronger than superficial analogies and accidental cidences.

(fritics

explanations are based on nocoin-

Dr. Zeller in his wonderfully learned, clear, and

sagacious work on Greek philosophy, has carefully sifted some of the hypotheses referred to, and shown how destitute thej are of internal or external evidence, and

to account for the

facts.

Plato and Aristotle,

oldest

how

utterly they

and best

knew nothing about such a

of Greek thought from indeed,

The

Eastern sources.

fail

authorities derivatior

Isocrates does

mention that Pythagoras borrowed his philosoph)

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT,

7

from Egypt, but Isocrates did not even pretend to be a truthful narrator. No Greek of the early period except those

regularly domiciled

in

Susa« seems

acquainted with any language but his own.

to

have been

Few

travelled

very far into Asia, and of those few, only one or two were

Democritus, who visited more foreign countries

philosophers.

than any

man

of his time, speaks only of having discussed

mathematical problems with the wise

men whom he

en-

countered; and even in mathematics he was at least their equal.'

was precisely at the greatest distance from Asia, and Sicily, that the systems arose which seem to

It

in Italy

have most analogy with Asiatic modes of thought.

Can we way

suppose that the traders of those times were in any qualified to transport the speculations of Confucius

Vedas

homes With far German merchant to carry

to such a distance from their native

better reason might one expect a

and the

.'

a knowledge of Kant's

philosophy from Konigsberg to But a more convincing argument than any is to show that Greek philosophy in its historical evolution ex-

Canton.

hibits

a perfectly natural and^ spontaneous progress from

simpler to more complex forms, and that system grew out of

system by a combination. Zeller,

we

strictly logical process of extension, analysis,

This

shall

is

and

what, chiefly under the guidance of

now attempt

to do,

II.

Thales, of Miletus, an Ionian geometrician and astronomer,

about whose age considerable uncertainty prevails, but

who

seems to have flourished towards the close of the seventh century before our

era, is

by general consent regarded

as the

Others before him father of Gr eek pWa^pl philosophy. had attempted to account for the world's origin, but none like him had traced it back to a purely natural beginning. According to T hj^lfp r]1 thinrrc Kaij'P rcvne. from water. That '

Ritter

and

Preller, p. 112.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

8

by water above and below as well the Western as all round was perhaps a common notion among Hebrews, as we the certainly believed was by It Asiatics. the earth

is

entirely enclosed

and the flood contained in Genesis. The Milesian thinker showed his originality by generalising still further and declaring that not only did water surround all things, but that all things were derived learn from the accounts of the creation

from

it

as their

cause and substance, that water was, so

first

Never have mofevpregfiant words been spoken they acted like a ferment on the Greek mind they were the grain whence grew a tree that has overshadowed the whole earth. At one stroke they substituted a

to speak, the material absolute. ;

;

comparatively

scientific,

because a verifiable principle for the

confused fancies of mythologising poets.

was an

atheist, or

the contrary, he full

of gods

;

Not

that Thales

an agnostic, or anything of that

is

reported to have said that

all

On

sort.

things were

and the report sounds credible enough.

Most

was a protest against the popular limitation of divine agencies to certain special occasions and favoured probably the saying'

localities.

continuity.

A true thinker seeks above all for consistency and He

more

will

readily accept a perpetual stream

of creative energy than a series of arbitrary and isolated

For the explain how water came

ferences with the course of Nature.

made no attempt

to

formed into other substances, nor

is it

rest,

to be trans-

likely that the necessity

of such an explanation had ever occurred to him. suspect that he and others after

inter-

Thales

We may

him were not capable of

dis-

tinguishing very clearly between such notions as space, time, cause, substance,

and

limit.

It is

almost as

difficult for us to

enter into the thoughts of these primitive philosophers as

would have been

them

it

comprehend processes of reasoning already familiar to Plato and Aristotle. Possibly the for

to

forms under which we arrange our conceptions may become equally obsolete at a more advanced stage of intellectual evolution,

and our sharp

distinctions

may

prove to be nol

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT. less artificial

9

than the confused identifications which they

have superseded.

The next

by

great forward step in speculation was taken

Anaximander, another Milesian, also of distinguished attainments in mathematics and astronomy. We have seen that to Thales water, the all-embracing element, became, as such, the first

cause of

all things,

the absolute principle of existence.

His successor adopted the same general point of view, but looked out from

it

with a more penetrating gaze.

water lay something else which he called the

Beyond

Infinite.

He

mean the empty abstraction which has stalked about in modern times under that ill-omened name, nor yet did he mean infinite space, but something richer and more concretfr did not

than either

a storehouse of materials whence the waste oT

;

existence could be perpetually

made good.

The growth and

decay of individual forms involve a ceaseless drain on Nature,

and the deficiency must be supplied by a corresponding influx For, be it observed that, although the Greek

from without.

thinkers were at this period well aware that nothing can

from nothing, they had not yet grasped truth inalienably

wedded

couplet, that nothing can

quite mistaken separable. tion

much

strictly

while

it

when he

Common

to

it

by Lucretius two as

hard to

;

one immortal

and Kant

is

historically in-

experience forces the one on our atten-

sooner than the other.

Our incomings

measured out and accounted is

in

return to nothing treats the

come

the' complementary

tell

what becomes of

physical and economical.

are very

for without difficulty, all

our expenditure^^

Yet, although the indestructibility

of matter was a conception which had not yet dawned on Anaximander, he seems to have been feeling his way towards the recognition

Nature.

movement pervading all must at last be reabsorbed^

of a circulatory

Everything, he says,

the Infinite as a punishment for the sin of ence,'

Some may

its

separate exist-

find in this sentiment a note of Oriental '

Ritter

and

Preller, p. 8.

:

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

lo

mysticism. Rather does

its

very sadness illustrate the healthj

which absorption seemed like th( punishment of a crime against the absolute, and not, as to sc many Asiatics, the crown and consummation of spiritual perBe this as it may, a doctrine which identified the fection. vitality of

Greek

feeling, to

death of the whole world with reality

its

reabsorption into a higher

would soon suggest the idea that

vanish only to reappear in

new

its

component

parts

combinations.

Anaximander's system was succeeded by a number

of

any order

oi

others which cannot be arranged according to linear progression.

Such arrangements

Intellectual

principle.

life,

are, indeed, false in

like every other

life, is

a product

of manifold conditions, and their varied combinations are

cer-

tain to issue in a corresponding multiplicity of effects. Anaxi-

menes, a fellow-townsman of Anaximander, followed most closely

in

would appear, to mediate between chose air for a primal element. Air water, which, as well as earth, sphere.

On

than the

Infinite, or

tion

As

the other hand,

may

it is

it

two predecessors, he more omnipresent than

enclosed within

is

as,

his is

its plastic

more tangible and

concrete

even be substituted for that concep-

by supposing it to extend as far as thought can reach. cosmogony grows out of cosmography the enclos-

before,

ing element

;

is

the parent of those embraced within

Speculation

now

leaves

the Greek colonists to

new modes

A

Attempting,

the footsteps of the master.

its

it.

Asiatic cradle and travels with

new homes

in Italy

of thought were fostered

and

by a new

Sicily,

where

environment.

name, round which mythical accretions have gathered

thickly that the original nucleus of fact almost defies tion, first claims

our attention.

Aristotle, as is well

so

defini-

known

avoids mentioning Pythagoras, and always speaks of th< Pythagoreans when he is discussing the opinions held by

Their doctrine, whoever originated it things are made out of number. Brandis regard

certain Italian school.

was that

all

Pythagoreanism as an entirely original

effort of speculation

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

ii

standing apart from the main current of Hellenic thought, and to be studied without reference to Ionian philosophy.

with more plausibility, treats

mander's system.

it

Zeller,

as arf outgrowth of

Anaxi-

and the

infinite

In that system the

finite

remained opposed to one another as unreconciled moments of thought.

Number, according

to the

Greek arithmeticians, was

a synthesis of the two, and therefore superior to

Pythagorean the

finite

and the

infinite

To

either.

a

were only one among

odd and even, light and darkness, male and female, and, above all, the one and the many whence everj"- number after unity is formed. The tendency to search for antitheses everjrwhere, and to manufacture them where they do not exist, became ere long an actual disease of the Greek mind. A Thucydides could no more have dispensed with this cumbrous mechanism than a ropeseveral antithetical couples, such as

dancer could get on without his balancing pole

;

and many a

schoolboy has been sorely puzzled by the fantastic contortions

which

Italiote reflection

imposed for a time on Athenian

oratory.

Returning to our more immediate subject, we must observe that the Pythagoreans did not maintain, in anticipation

of modern quantitative science, that

all

things are determined

by number, but that all things are numbers, or are made out of numbers, two propositions not easily distinguished by Numbers, in a word, were to them unpractised thinkers. what water had been to Thales, what Anaximenes, the absolute principle of existence

precisely

air ;

was

to

only with

them the idea of a limit, the leading inspiration of Greek thought, had reached a higher degree of abstraction. Number was, as it were, the exterior limit of the finite, and the interior limit of the infinite.

studies, cultivated in utility alone,

Add

that mathematical

to this

Egypt and Phoenicia

were being pursued

ing ardour for the sake of their

in Hellas

own

for their practical

with ever-increas-

delightfulness, for the

intellectual discipline that they supplied

—a

discipline

even

THE CREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

13

for the insight

more valuable then than now, and

which thej

bestowed, or were believed to bestow, into the secret constituand that the more complicated arithmetical tion of Nature ;

operations were habitually conducted with the aid of geometrical diagrams, thus suggesting the possibility of applying

Consider the

a similar treatment to every order of relations. lively

emotions excited

when

multiplication

among an

and

division, squaring

rule of three, the construction all their

and

intelligent people at a time

and cubing,

and equivalence of

manifold applications to industry, commerce,

tactics,

were just as strange and wonderful as

phenomena are still commonly

to us

;

the

figures, with fine art,

electrical

consider also the magical influence

attributed to particular numbers,

and

the

intense eagerness to obtain exact numerical statements, even

when they

are of no practical value, exhibited

are thrown back on primitive in

ways of

by

all

who

living, as, for example,

Alpine travelling, or on board an Atlantic steamer, and we

wonder that a mere form of thought, a lifeless should once have been regarded as the solution

shall cease to

abstraction,

of every problem, the cause of

all

existence

;

or that these

more than once revived in after ages, and perished only with Greek philosophy itself. We have not here to examine the scientific achievements speculations were

of Pythagoras and his school

;

they belong to the

history

of science, not to that of pure thought, and therefore He

out-

Something, however, must

side the present discussion.

be

said of Pythagoreanism as a social

reform.

scheme of moral, religious, and Alone among the pre-Socratic systems,

i1

undertook to furnish a rule of conduct as well as a theory, ol being. Yet, as Zeller has pointed out,' it was only an apparent anomaly, for the ethical teaching of the Pythagoreans was not based on their physical theories, except in so fai as a deep reverence for law

'

and order was common to both

Die Philosophic der Griechen,

I. p.

401 (3rd ed.)

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT. Perhaps, also, the separation

of soul and body, with the

may be

distinctive tenet of the school,

number

was a

former, which

ascription of a higher dignity to the

position given to

13

paralleled with the

as a kind of spiritual

power

creat-

ing and controlling the world of sense. So also political power

was

to be entrusted to an aristocracy trained in every noble

accomplishment, and

by

others

for

fitted

self-discipline,

by mutual

obedience to a rule of right.

authority over

exercising fidelity,

Nevertheless,

and by habitual we must look,

with Zeller, for the true source of Pythagoreanism as a moral

movement

in that great

wave of

religious enthusiasm

which

swept over Hellas during the sixth century before Christ, intimately associated with the importation of Apollo-worship from Lycia, with the concentration of

spiritual authority in

the oracular shrine of Delphi, and the political predominance

of the Dorian race, those

Normans of the

ancient world.

connexion into a poetical form by

Legend has thrown making Pythagoras the son of Apollo this

although himself an Ionian, chose

Southern Italy as a favourable

;

and the Samian the Dorian

field for his

new

sage,

cities

of

teaching,

Calvinism found a readier acceptance in the ad-

just as

vanced posts of the Teutonic race than among the people whence its founder sprang. Perhaps the nearest parallel, although on a far more extensive

scale, for

the religious

movement of which we are speaking, is the spectacle offered by mediaeval Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of our era, when a series of great Popes had concentrated all spiritual power in their own hands, and were sending forth army after army of Crusaders to the East; when all Western Europe had awakened to the consciousness of

common

its

by a

Christianity,

and each individual was

thrilled

sense of the tremendous alternatives committed to his

when the Dominican and Franciscan orders were founded when Gothic architecture and Florentine painting arose; when the Troubadours and Minnesangers were pour-

choice

;

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

14

and th ing out their notes of scornful or tender passion, as lofty an( love of the sexes had become a sentiment enduring as the devotion of friend to friend had been

ii

Greece of old. The bloom of Greek religious was more exquisite and evanescent than that of feuda Catholicism inferior in pure spirituality and of more re

enthusiast!

;

stricted significance as a factor in the evolution of it

at least

remained

from the

free

humanity

ecclesiastical tyranny,

the

murderous fanaticism, and the unlovely superstitions o mediaeval faith. But polytheism under any form was fatallj incapable of coping with the

by philosophy, and the crudities,

new

spirit

of enquiry awakened

old myths, with their naturalistic

could not long satisfy the reason and conscience

who had

of thinkers

learned in

another school to

seeli

everywhere for a central unity of control, and to bow

theii

imaginations before the passionless perfection "^of^eternal law.

III.

Such a thinker was Xenophanes, of Colophon. Driven, Pythagoras, from his native city by civil discords, he

like

spent the greater part of an unusually protracted

life

wander-

ing through the Greek colonies of Sicily and Southern

Italy,

and reciting his own verses, not always, as it would appear, to a very attentive audience. Elea, an Italiote city, seems to have been his favourite resort, and the school of philosophy which he founded there has immortalised the name of this otherwise obscure Phocaean settlement. Enough remains of his verses to show with what terrible strength of sarcasm he assailed the popular religion of Hellas.

he exclaims,

'

Homer and Hesiod,'^ have attributed to the gods everything that is a '

shame and reproach among men— theft, adultery, and mutual Nor is Xenophanes content with attacking deception.' '

'

Ritter

and

Preller, p. 54,

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT,

ij

these unedifying stories, he strikes at the anthropomorphic

conceptions which lay at their root.

Mortals think that the

'

gods have senses, and a voice and a body

The

snub-nosed, the Thracians give theirs if

like their

own.

negroes fancy that their deities are black-skinned and fair hair

and blue eyes

;

horses or lions had hands and could paint, they too would

make gods

in their

own

image.''

It was,

he declared, as

impious to believe in the birth of a god as to believe in the possibility of his death.

'There

false.

The

current polytheism was equally

one Supreme God among gods and men,

is

unlike mortals both in mind and body.'

one God,

for

God

to dispute his

shaped

like

will.

things

There can be only

Omnipotent, so that there must be none

He must

also

be perfectly homogeneous,

a sphere, seeing, hearing, and thinking with every

part alike, never all

is

*

by an

moving from place to effortless exercise

place, but governing

of thought.

Had

such

daring heresies been promulgated in democratic Athens, their

author would probably have soon

found himself and his works handed over to the tender mercies of the Eleven. Happily at Elea, and in most other Greek states, the gods

were

left

to take care of themselves.

Xenophanes does not seem to have been ever molested on account of his religious opinions.

enough that people preferred uneducated athletes engrossed ration, that he,

He

fiction

far too

complains bitterly

to philosophy,

that

much popular admi-

Xenophanes, was not sufficiently appreciated

;

but of theological intolerance, so far as our information goes, he says not one single word. It will easily be conceived that

Greek speculation was singularly favoured by such unbounded freedom of thought and speech. The views just set forth have often been regarded as a step towards spiritualistic monotheism, and so, considered in the the rapid

progress

of

light of subsequent developments, Still,

they unquestionably were.

looking at the matter from another aspect, '

Ritter

and

Preller, p. 54.

'

lb.

we may say

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

i6

shattered the idols of popular

when he

that Xenophanes,

was returning to the past rather than anticipating the future feeling his way back to the deeper, more primorreligion,

;

Aryan race, or even of that Aryan and Turanian alike diverged.

dial faith of the old

stock whence

from the

brilliant,

still

older

He

turns

passionate, fickle Dyaus, to Z6n, or Ten,

the ever-present, all-seeing, all-embracing, immovable vault of Aristotle, with a sympathetic insiglit unfortunately

heaven.

too rare in his criticisms on earlier systems, observes that Xenophanes did not make it clear whether the absolute unity

he taught was material or

ideal,

but simply looked up at the

whole heaven and declared that the One was God.' Aristotle was himself the real creator of philosophic monotheism, just because the idea of

self-conscious personality had a

living,

greater value, a profounder meaning for him than for any

other thinker of antiquity, one

other thinker whatever.

It

is,

may

almost say than

any

for

-

therefore, a noteworthy circum-

warmly acknowledging the anticipations of Anaxagoras, he nowhere speaks of Xenophanes as a predecessor in the same line of enquiry. The latter might be stance that, while

called a pantheist

much

were

it

not that pantheism belongs to a

later stage of speculation, one, in fact, not reached

the Greek mind at any period

of

its

development.

by

His

by a confusion of mytho-logical with purely physical ideas, and could only bear full fruit when the religious element had been entirely eliminated leading conception was obscured

from

its

composition.

This elimination was accomplished by

a far greater thinker, one

with philosophic depth

;

who combined poetic inspiration who was penetrating enough to

discern the logical consequences involved in a fundamental principle of thought, and bold

enough to push them to

their

legitimate conclusions without caring for the shock to sense and common opinion that his merciless dialectic might inflict. 4.

I. V.

'

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.".

17.

Parmenides, of Elea, flourished towards the beginning' of the

century

fifth

We know

B.C.

very

According to Plato, he

history.

about his personal

little

Athens

vis?lfed

late in life,

and there made the acquaintance of Socrates, at that time a very young man. But an unsupported statement of Plato's

must always be received with extreme caution probably not

particular story

is

dialogue which

serves to introduce.

it

less

and

;

this

than the

fictitious

Parmenides embodied

theory of the world in a poem, the most important

his

They show

passages of which have been preserved.

that,

while continuing the physical studies of his predecessors, he

proceeded on an entirely different method.

was

to

fundamental variety '

Their object

deduce every variety of natural phenomena from a

He

unity of substance.

declared that

all

and change were a delusion, and that nothing existed

but one indivisible, unalterable, absolute reality

;

just

as

Descartes' antithesis of thought and extension disappeared in

the infinite substance of Spinoza, or as the Kantian

dualism of object and subject was eliminated in absolute idealism. to the

Hegel's

Again, Parmenides does not dogmatise

same extent

as

his predecessors

he attempts to

;

demonstrate his theory by the inevitable necessities of being

and thought.

Existence, he

and non-existence

is

tells

us over and over again,

is,

not, cannot even be imagined or thought

of as existing, for thought

is

the same as being.

This

is

not an anticipation of Hegel's identification of being with

thought

;

it

only amounts to the very innocent proposition

that a thought

is

something and about something

therefore, into the general undiscriminated

He

next proceeds to prove that what

into being nor pass out of

it

the non-existent, for that

is

again.

It

is

—enters,

mass of being.

can neither come-

cannot come out of

inconceivable; nor out of the

and the same argument proves that it cannot cease to exist. Here we find the indestructibility of matter, a truth which Anaximander existent, for nothing exists but being itself;

c

—

'

.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

is

had not yet grasped,

We

history.

virtually affirmed fof the first time in

find also that our philosopher is carried

by the enthusiasm of a new ground than he can defend

and covers more permanence of

discovery,

in maintaining the

The reason

existence whatever.

all

that to him, as to

is

every other thinker of the pre-Socratic period,

was

material, or, rather, all reality

one vague conception, of which

is

it

To

it

proceed

can be separated or held apart

or less existent, but in his

grand style

:

Being cannot

there

;

;

nor

is

is it

nothing by ever more

Parmenides goes on

of being.

:

Therefore the whole extends continuously, Being by Being set ; immovable, Subject to the constraint of mighty laws Both increate and indestructible, Since birth and death have wandered far away

'

*

all is full

resisting extension

capable of condensation or

expansion (as the lonians had taught)

which

existence

all

was confounded under

visible

supplied the most familiar type.

be divided from being, nor

away

;

By true conviction into The same, in self-same

exile driven

place,

>

;

and by

itself

Abiding, doth abide most firmly fixed, strong Necessity.

And bounded round by

•

Wherefore a holy law forbids that Being Should be without an end, else want were And want of that would be a want of all,'

Thus does the

there,

everlasting Greek love of order, definition,

limitation, reassert its

supremacy over the

intelligence of this

noble thinker, just as his almost mystical enthusiasm has

reached

its

highest pitch of exaltation, giving him back a

world which thought can measure, circumscribe, and Being, then, its

is

finite in extent, and, as

control.

a consequence of

absolute homogeneity, spherical in form.

There

is

good

reason for believing that the earth's true figure was

first

discovered

was

in

the

fifth

century

B.C.,

but whether

it

suggested by the d priori theories of Parmenides, or was '

Ritter

and

Preller, p. 63.

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT. by him

generalised

iiito

a law of the whole

more than

whether there was

an

univei-se,

or

connexion

accidental

between the two hypotheses, we cannot

any

19

Aristotle, at

tell.

was probably as much indebted to the Eleatic system contemporary astronomy for his theory of a finite sphe-

rate,

as to

rical universe.

It will easily

be observed that the distinction

between space and matter, so obvious to

Greek thinkers of a Parmenides.

As

us, and even to had not yet dawned upon the former conception, most of

later date,

applied to

his affirmations are perfectly correct, but his belief in the

finiteness of

Being can only be

on the supposition

justified

must be clearly understood- (and Zeller has the great merit of having proved

that Being

is

For

identified with matter.

it

by incontrovertible arguments)' that the Eleatic Being was not a transcendental conception, nor an abstract

this

fact

unity,

as

phenomenal can

only

erroneously supposed, nor a Kantian

Aristotle

noumenon, nor a

spiritual

reality of the

not

call

any kind, but a

of

essence

most concrete

Parmenides

a

description.

materialist,

We

because

materialism implies a negation of spiritualism, which in his

time had not yet come into existence.

He

tells

us plainly

that a man's thoughts result from the conformation of his

body, and are determined by the preponderating element in its

composition.

Not much, however, can be made of

rudimentary essay in psychology, connected as

it

this

seems to be

with an appendix to the teaching of our philosopher, in

which he accepts the popular dualism, although still convinced

and uses

under protest, as an explanation of that very genesis which he had rejected as inipossible. of

its falsity,

it,

As might be expected, the Parmenidean paradoxes provoked a considerable amount of contradiction and ridicule. The Reids and

Beatties of that time

drew sundry absurd

consequences from the new doctrine, and offered them as a sufficient refutation of its truth. '

Zeno, a young friend and

O/.cii. p. 475-

c 2

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

20

favourite of Parmenides, took

up arms

in his master's defence

and sought to prove with brilliant dialectical ability that consequences still more absurd might be deduced from the opposite

He

belief.

originated a series of famous puzzles

lespecting the infinite divisibility of matter and the possibility

employed as a disproof of all certainty by the Sophists and Sceptics, and occasionally made to serve as arguments on behalf of agnosticism by of motion, subsequently

of our

writers

own

time.

Stated generally, they

may

infinitum must be either infinitely great or infinitely infinitely great if its parts

they have not.

line, for it

difficulty

have magnitude,

little

infinitely little

if

A moving body can never come to the end of

must remainder, and so on a given

be

A whole composed of parts and divisible cd

reduced to two.

first

traverse half the line, then half the

Aristotle thought that the

for ever.

about motion could be solved by taking the

divisibility of time into account

;

infinite

and Coleridge, according

to

his custom, repeated the explanation without acknowledgment.

But Zeno would have refused to admit that any infinite series could come to an end, whether it was composed of successive or of co-existent parts.

So long

as the abstractions of our

understanding are treated as separate similar puzzles

metaphysicians.

will

Our

these and

entities,

continue to exercise the ingenuity present business, however,

show how they

solve Zeno's difficulties, but to

leading characteristic of Greek thought,

its

is

of

not to

illustrate

tendency to

a

per-

petual analysis, a tendency not limited to the philosophy

of

the Greeks, but pervading the whole of their literature and

even of their

art.

Homer

carefully distinguishes the succes-

and leads up to every catastrophe graduated finely of transitions. series by a Like Zeno, again, he pursues a system of dichotomy, passing rapidly over the first half of his subject, and relaxes the speed of his narrative sive steps of every action,

by going reached.

into ever-closer detail until the

consummation "is Such a poem as the Achilleis of modern critics '

'

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

21

would have been perfectly intolerable to a Greek, from the too rapid and uniform march of its action. Herodotus proceeds after a precisely similar fashion, advancing from a broad

and

free treatment

of history to elaborate

minuteness of

detail.

So, too, a Greek temple divides itself into parts so

distinct,

yet so closely connected, that the eye, after separating,

them into a whole. The evolution of the same tale of progressive subdivision, illustrated by the passage from long speeches to

as easily recombines

Greek music which

is

also

single lines,

tells

and from these again to half lines

of a Greek drama.

No

in the dialogue

other people could have created

mathematical demonstration, for no other would have had skill

and patience enough to discover the successive

identities

interposed between and connecting the sides of an equation.

The

dialectic of Socrates

and

Plato, the

distinctions of Aristotle, and, last of

all,

somewhat wearisome

the fine-spun series of

by Proclus between the superessential One and the fleeting world of sense, were all products of the same fundamental tendency, alternately most fruitful and most triads inserted

—

barren in

from obeying

It

results.

its

may

this tendency, followed a diametrically opposite

principle, that of absolutely

the

'

be objected that Zeno, so far

Eleatic Palamedes

wrested out of their real existence,

'

unbroken continuity.

True

;

but

fought his adversaries with a weapon

own hands

;

rejecting analysis as a law of

he continued to employ

it

as a logical artifice

with greater subtlety than had ever yet been displayed in

pure speculation.' '

"the tendency which

it has been attempted to characterise as a fundamental of Greek thought can only be called analytical in default of a better word. a process by which two related terms are at once parted and joined together

moment It is

by the

insertion of one or

more intermediary

links

;

as,

for instance,

when a

between column and architrave, or when a proposition is demonstrated by the interposition of a middle term between its. subject and prediThe German words Vermitteln and Vermittelung express what is meant cate. with sufficient exactitude. They play a great part in Hegel's philosophy, and it will be remembered that Hegel was the most Hellenic of modern thinkers. So understood, there will cease to be any contradiction between the Eleates and capital is inserted

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

22

Besides Zeno, Parmenides seems to have had only one Samian statesman and general

disciple of note, Melissus, the

j

but under various modifications and combined with othei elements, the Eleatic absolute entered as a permanent factor into

Greek speculation.

From

it

were

lineally descended the

Sphairos of Empedocles, the eternal atoms of Leucippus, the Nous of Anaxagoras, the Megaric Good, the supreme solar idea of Plato, the self-thinking thought of Aristotle, the im-

perturbable tranquillity attributed to their model sage by Stoics and Epicureans alike, the sovereign indifference of the Sceptics,

and

finally,

the .Neo-platonic One.

Modern

philo-

sophers have sought for their supreme ideal in power, move-

ment, activity,

life,

rather than in

among them we

yet even

find

any stationary substance

Herbart partially reviving

the

Eleatic theory, and confronting Hegel's fluent categories with his

own

We

inflexible

plicated,

most

monads.

have now to study an analogous, though

antagonism

in ancient Greece,

brilliant period of physical

far less com-

and to show how

philosophy arose from

combination of two seemingly irreconcilable systems.

hei

the

Par-

menides, in an address supposed to be delivered by Wisdom to her '

disciple,

warns us against the method pursued by

ignorant mortals, the blind, deaf, stupid, confused

tribes,

hold that to be and not to be are the same, and that

move round by an

inverted path.'

'

What

Parmenides

nounced as arrant nonsense was deliberately proclaimed the highest truth '

of Ephesus.

by

who

all things

de-

to be

his illustrious contemporary, Heracleitus,

This wonderful thinker

is

popularly known

as

weeping philosopher, because, according to a very he never went abroad without shedding tears over the follies of mankind. No such mawkish sentimentality but bitter scorn and indignation, marked the attitude o:

the

silly tradition,

Greek thought generally, at least from one point of view, as their object was up the vacant spaces supposed to separate one mode of existence from another ' Ritter and Preller, p. 62. t(

fill

'

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

A

Heracleitus towards his fellows.

23

self-taught sage, he

.no respect for the accredited instructors of Hellas.

'

had

Much

he says, does not teach reafon, else it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hecataeus.'

learning,'

'

Homer, he

ought to be flogged out of the public

declares,

When

assemblages, and Archilochus likewise. reputations

met with so little mercy,

it

the highest

be imagined

will readily

The

what contempt he poured on the vulgar herd.

feelings

of a high-born aristocrat combine with those of a lofty genius

and wing

to point

are the good.

his words.

The

'

The many

perpetual well-spring of fame, while the

One man

appetites like beasts.

he

is

the best.'

bad and few

are

best choose one thing instead of

is

This contempt was

many

all,

^qual to ten thousand still

a

glut their

further intensified

if

by

the veiy excusable incapacity of the public to understand

profound thought conveyed in a style proverbial for obscurity.

'

Men

cannot comprehend the eternal law

;

its

when

I

have explained the order of Nature they are no wiser than

What, then, was

before.'

this eternal

which Heracleitus found so look back for a

moment

difficult to

law, a

knowledge of

popularise

Let us

.'

at the earlier Ionian systems.

They

had taught that the universe arose either by differentiation or by condensation and expansion from a single primordial substance, into which, as Anaximander, at least, held, every-

thing at last returned. transformation process

;

that

is

all

a

Now, Heracleitus taught

universal,

things are

stream in which no stability are the law,

man

never-ending,

moving

;

not of

life,

;

series of sharply distinguished

cleitus either directly identified the

or regarded '

them

is

like

a

that rest and

but of death.

Pythagorean school, as we have seen, divided a

never-resting

that Nature

can bathe twice

that this

all

Again, the things into

antithetical pairs.

Hera-

terms of every opposition,

as necessarily combined, or as continually

For the originals of this and the succeeding quotations from Heracleitus, and Preller, pp. 14-23.

see Ritter

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

24

Perhaps we shall express his meaning most thoroughly by saying that he would have looked on all three propositions as equivalent statements of a In accordance with this principle he calls war single fact. the father and king and lord of all, and denounces Homer's passing into one another.

prayer for the abolition of against the universe

strife

itself.

as an unconscious blasphemy

Yet, even his powerful

intellect

could not grasp the conception of a shifting relativity as the

law and

life

material

of things without embodying

in

Following the Ionian

substratum.

sought for a world-element, and found

which enveloped the

it

terrestrial

it

a particular

tradition,

he

in that cosmic

fire

atmosphere, and of which the

heavenly luminaries were supposed to be formed.

'

Fire,'

says the Ephesian philosopher, no doubt adapting his language to the comprehension of a great commercial c6mmunity,

the general

medium

of exchange, as gold

is

'is

given for every-

and everything for gold.' ' The world was not created by any god or any man, but always was, and is, and shall be, an ever-living fire, periodically kindled and quenched.' By thing,

cooling and condensation, water

is

formed from

fire,

and

by a converse process called the way up as the other was the way down, earth again passes into water and water into fire. At the end of certain stated earth from water ; then,

periods the whole world to enter

—a

on a new cycle

conception, so

science.

The whole

flagration,

far,

is

to be reconverted into

fire,

but only

in the series of its endless revolutions

repiarkably confirmed by modern

theory, including a future world -con-

was afterwards adopted by the

Stoics,

and probably

exercised a considerable influence on the eschatology. of the

Church. Imagination is obliged to work under forms which thought has already superseded and Heracleitus as a philosopher had forestalled the dazzling con-

early Christian

;

summation to which as a prophet he might look forward in wonder and hope. For, his elemental fire was only a picturesque presentation indispensable to him, but not to

us,

of the

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT. sovereign law wherein

all

things live and

25

move and have

their

To have

introduced such an idea into speculation was and inestimable achievement, although it may have been suggested by the si/iapfj,dv7] or destiny of the theological poets, a term occasionally employed in his writings. It had a moral as well as a physical meaning, or rather it hovers ambiguously between the two. 'The sun being.

his distinctive

shall not transgress his

him

justice will find

common

the

State.

It is

evil,

laws,

it

men

together, therefore they

even more firmly than by the laws of the

not only all-wise but all-good, even where

seems to be the reverse

and

help

It is the source of

reason which binds

should hold by

who human

bounds, or the Erinyes

out.'

and

just

;

for

it

our distinctions between good

unjust, vanish in the divine

harmony of

Nature, the concurrent energies and identifying transformations of her universal

According to

life.

Aristotle, the Heracleitean flux

sistent with the highest

tion impossible.

It

was incon-

law of thought, and made all'predica-

has been shown that the master himself

recognised a fixed recurring order of change which could be affirmed

if

nothing else could.

But the principle of change,

once admitted, seemed to act like a corrosive solvent, too powerful for any vessel to contain.

found who pushed of abolishing

all

it

to

Disciples were soon

extreme consequences with the In Plato's time

.certainty whatever.

impossible to argue with a Heracleitean tied

down

false as

to a definite statement.

soon as

it

was

the speaker's mouth. school declined to

had

set in.

Every proposition became

uttered, or rather before

At

last,

At

dumb

was

he could never be

it

was out of

a distinguished teacher of the

commit himself by using words, and

puted exclusively in crisis

;

effect it

show.

A dangerous

dis-

speculative

either extremity of the Hellenic world

the path of scientific inquiry was barred

;

on the one hand by

a theory eliminating non-existence from thought, and on the other

hand by a theory identifying

it

with existence.

The

^

'

THh GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

26

luminous beam of reflection had been polarised into twc divergent rays, each light where the other was dark and darl where the other was light, each denying what the othei

For a century

what the other denied.

asserted and asserting

physical speculation had taught that the universe was formed

by the modification of a

single eternal substance, whatever

By the end of that period, all becoming was absorbed into being at Elea, and all being into becoming at Ephesus. Each view contained a portion of the that substance might be.

and one which perhaps would never have been clearly perceived if it had not been brought into exclusive prominence. But further progress was impossible until the two truth,

had been recombined.

half-truths

We may

compare Par-

menides and Heracleitus to two lofty and precipitous peaks on either side of an Alpine pass. Each commands a wide prospect, interrupted only on the side of its opposite neighbour.

And

the fertilising stream of European thought originates

with neither of them singly, but has

source midway

its

between.

IV.

We

now

enter on

the last period of purely objective

philosophy, an age of mediating and reconciling, but

profoundly orignal speculation. with

whom

Atomists,

There

is

order in

alone

we have

still

Its principal representatives,

to deal, are

Empedocles, the

Leucippus

and Democritus, and Anaxagoras, considerable doubt and difficulty respecting the which they should be placed. Anaxagoras was

unquestionably the oldest and Democritus the youngest of the four, the difference is

between

their ages being forty years.

also nearly certain that the Atomists

cles.

But

if

we take

literally (as there is Tj!

lAv

fiKiKtif

came

after

It

Empedo-

a celebrated expression of Aristotle's'

no reason why

irpirepos

i>v,

Toij

S'

it

should not be taken)j

Ipyqis Sa-Tfpos.

Meiaph.

I.

iii.

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

27

Anaxagoras, although born before Empedocles, published his views at a later period. Was he also anticipated by Leucippus

We

?

cannot

tell

with certainly, but

it

seems likely

from a comparison of their doctrines that he was cases the

man who

who by his theory

;

and

in all

naturalised philosophy in Athens, and

of a creative reason furnishes a transition to

the age of subjective speculation, will be most conveniently

placed at the close of the pre-Socratic period.

A splendid tribute has cles

fame of Empedoby Lucretius, the greatest didactic poet of all time, and been paid

to the

by a great didactic poet of our own time, Mr. Matthew Arnold. But the still more rapturous panegyric pronounced by the Roman enthusiast on Epicurus makes his testimony a little suspicious, and the lofty chant of our own contemporary must be taken rather as an expression of his own youthful opinions respecting man's place in Nature, than as a faithful exposition of the Sicilian thinker's

name from

Many

creed.

another

the history of philosophy might with better reason

have been prefixed to that confession of resigned and scornful

The

scepticism entitled Emptdocles on Etna.

real doctrines

would hardly have been so But perhaps no other cordially endorsed by Mr. Swinburne. character could have excited the .deep sympathy felt by one of an essentially religious teacher

poetic genius for another,

them thought is Empedocles was the last

when with both

habitually steeped in emotion.

Greek of any note who threw

of

his philosophy into a metrical

form.

Neither Xenophanes nor Parmenides had done this

with so

much

success.

No

less

a

critic

than Aristotle extols

the Homeric splendour of his verses, and Lucretius, in this

them

respect an authority, speaks of

judging from the fragments

still

as almost divine.

extant,

But,

their speculative

content exhibits a distinct decline from the height reached

by

his

immediate predecessors.

Empedocles betrays a

dis-

trust in man's power of discovering truth, almost, although

not quite,

unknown

to them.

Too much

certainty

would be

—

'

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

28

He

impious.

muse

'

calls

on the 'much-wooed white-armed

virgin

to '

Guide from the seat of Reverence thy bright

car,

And bring to us the creatures of a day, What without sin we may aspire to know.'

We

also miss in

him

their single-minded devotion to phi-

losophy and their rigorous unity of doctrine. tine sage credit,

was a party leader

(in

The Acragan-

which capacity,

he victoriously upheld the popular

to his great

cause), a rhetorician,

The

an engineer, a physician, and a thaumaturgist.

known legend

relating to his death

may be taken

deserved satire on the colossal self-conceit of the

claimed divine honours during his half-rationalist,

lifetime.

well-

as a not un-

man who

Half-mystic and

he made no attempt to reconcile the two

in-

may

be

consistent sides

of his intellectual character.

It

compared to one of those grotesque combinations in whichj according to his morphology, the heads and bodies of widely different aninials

were united during the beginnings of

before they had learned to

fall

into their proper places.

life

He

believed in metempsychosis, and professed to remember the

somewhat miscellaneous series of forms through which his own personality had already run. He had been a boy, a girl, a bush, a bird, and a fish. Nevertheless, as we shall presently see, his

theory of Nature altogether excluded such a notion

as the soul's separate existence.

We

have now to consider

what that theory actually was. It will be remembered that Parmenides had affirmed the perpetuity and eternal selfidentity of being, but that he had deprived this profound divination of all practical value by interpreting it in a sense which excluded diversity and change. Empedocles also declares creation and destruction to be impossible, but explains that the appearances so denominated arise from the

—

union and separation of four everlasting substances earth, and water. This is the famous doctrine of the four

air, fire,

'

Ritter

and

Preller, p. go.

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

29

by Plato and Aristotle, was long word of chemistry^ and still survives in popular phraseology. Its author may have been guided by elements, wKich, adopted

regarded as the

last

an unconscious reflection on the character of his own philosophical method, for

was not

he, too, constructing

a new

system out of the elements supplied by his predecessors

They had

successively fixed on water,

primordial form of existence

;

he added a

effected a sort of reconciliation

equal footing.

tems had a

air,

and

fire

?

as the

and on an

fourth, earth,

by placing them

all

Curiously enough, the earlier monistic sys-

relative justification

which his crude eclecticism

All matter, may exist either in a solid, a liquid, or a

lacked.

gaseous form condition

and

;

after

matter has reached

all solid

its

present

passing through the two other degrees of

That the three modifications should be found coown experience is a mere accident of the present regime, and to enumerate them is to substitute a description

consistency.

existing in our

for

an explanation, the usual fault of

nides,

puts in'

made

it,

Empe-

a real contribution to thought when, as Aristotle

he sought for a moving as well as for a material cause

when he asked not only composed, but also by what

other words,

the world

is

brought together. Strife,

eclectic systems.

happy improvement on Parme-

docles, however, besides his

He

tells

;

of what elements forces were .they

us of two such causes.

Love and

the one a combining, the other a dissociating power.

If for these half-mythological

names we read

attractive

and

repulsive forces, the result will not be very different from our

own

current cosmologies.

Such terms, when so used as to

assume the existence of occult

qualities in matter, driving its

them close together, are, in truth, as completely mythological as any figments of Hellenic fancy. Unlike their modern antitypes, the Empedoclean goddesses parts asunder or drawing

did not reign together, but succeeded one another in alternate

dominion during protracted periods of time. The victory of Love was complete when all things had been drawn into a

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

30

perfect sphere, evidently the absolute Eleatic

Being subjecte

to a Heracleitean law of vicissitude and contradiction. Fc Strife lays hold on the consolidated orb, and by her disintt

grating action gradually reduces

it

to a formless chaos,

till, a

the close of another world-period, the work of creation begin

Yet growth and decay are so inextricably intertwinei that Empedocles failed to keep up this ideal separation, am was compelled to admit the simultaneous activity of botj again.

powers to be

our everyday experience, so that Nature turns ou

in

composed of

which perceives

it

six elements instead of four, the mine

being constituted in a precisely

But Love, although on the whole

manner.

similai

victorious, car

only gradually get the better of her retreating enemy, and Nature, as

we know

it, is

the result of their continued

Empedocles described the process of it,

much

interest to us, his alleged

in

Two

somewhat minute detail.

ceived

conflict

evolution, as he con-

points only are

ol

anticipation of the Dar-

winian theory and his psychology.

The

former, such as

it

was, has occasionally been attributed to Lucretius, but the

Roman

poet most probably copied Epicurus, although the

very brief

summary of that philosopher's physical by Diogenes Laertius contains no allusion

system

preserved

to such

a topic.

We

identical

with that of Lucretius weis held by those who

know, however, that in

Aristotle's time a theory

rejected teleological explanations of the world in general

and of

living

organisms in particular.

All sorts of animals

were produced by spontaneous generation only those survived which were accidentally furnished with appliances for ;

procuring nourishment and for propagating their kind. notion

itself

suppositions

connexion.

originated with

Empedocles,

have already been mentioned Most assuredly he did not offer

of problems which

in his

whose in it

different

as a solution

time had not yet been mooted, but

as an illustration of the. confusion which prevailed

had only advanced a

a

The

fanciful

little

way

in

when Love

her ordering, harmonising,

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

31

Prantl, writing a few years before the ap-

unifying task.

pearance of Mr. Darwin's bodk on the Origin of Species, and therefore without

any prejudice on the %ubject, observes with

truth that this theory of

Empedocles was deeply rooted

the mythological conceptions of the time.'

in

Perhaps he was

seeking for a rationalistic explanation of the centaurs, minotaurs,

hundred-handed

he had

and so

giants,

forth, in

whose existence

not, like Lucretius, learned completely to disbelieve. •

His strange supposition was afterwards freed from extravagances

;

but even as stated in the

its

De Rerum

worst

Naturd,

has no claim whatever to rank as a serious hypothesis. Anything more unlike the Darwinian doctrine, according to it

which

existing species have been evolved from less highly-

all

organised ancestors by the gradual accumulation of minute differences,

it

would be

difficult to conceive.

Every thinker

of antiquity, with one exception, believed in the immutability

They had existed unchanged from all eternity, or had sprung up by spontaneous generation from the earth's bosom in their present form. The solitary dissentient was Anaximander, who conjectured that man was of natui-al species.

descended from an aquatic animal.^

Strange to say, this

lucky guess has not yet been quoted as an argument against the Ascidian pedigree.

ism who

It

are eager to find

Lucretius.

By

is

chiefly the

it

enemies of Darwin-

anticipated in

Empedocles or

a curious inversion of traditionalism,

it

is

modern discovery can be upset by showing that somebody said something of the kind more than two fancied that a

thousand years ago.

Unfortunately authority has not the

negative value of disproving the principles which

We must be

it

supports.

content to accept the truths brought to light

by

observation and reasoning, even at the risk of finding ourselves in humiliating

agreement with a philosopher of an-

tiquity.* '

Prantl, Arisiotelei Physik, p. 484.

'

Since the above remarks were

first

'

Ritter

and

Preller, p. 11.

published, Mr. Wallace, in his

work on

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

32

Passing from

life

to mind,

we

Empedocles

find

teachi'n

an even more pronounced materialism than Parmenides, inas much as it is stated in language of superior precision. Od souls are, according to him,

made up

of elements like thos

which constitute the external world, each of these being pet ceived

by a corresponding portion of the same substance fire by fire, water by water, and so on witl

within ourselves

—

the

a mistake to suppose that speculation begin

It

rest.

is

from a subjective stand-point, that men consciousness of their struct less

own

start with

a clea

and proceed to con the same pattern. Doubt

personality,

an objective universe

after

they are too prone to personify the blind forces o

Nature, and Empedocles himself has just supplied us with

example of

this tendency>

but they err

still

more by

ai

reading

outward experience into their own souls, by materialising th( processes of consciousness, and resolving human personalitj •

into a loose confederacy of inorganic units.

Even

Plato,

whc

did more than anyone else towards distinguishing between

mind and body, ended by laying down lines of

his

psychology on

Meanwhile, to have

an astronomical system.

rated the perception of an object from the object

the

sepa-

itself, in

ever so slight a degree, was an important gain to thought Epicureanism, has stated that, according to Epicurus, ' the very animals which are found upon the earth have been made what they are by slow processes of selection and adaptation through the experience of life ; and he proceeds to call the theory '

in question, 'ultra-Darwinian' {Epicureanism, p. 114)-.

Lucretius

—the authority

—says nothing

about 'slow processes of adaptation,' nor yet does he say that the animals were 'made what they are by selection,' but by the procreative power of the earth herself. Picking out a ready-made pair of boots from among a number which do not fit is a very different process from manufacturing the same To call the Empedoclean theory pair by measure, or wearing it into shape.

quoted

'

ultra-Darwinian,

is

like calling the

tion ultra-Newtonian.

'

Democritean or Epicurean theory of gravitaseems to admit as much, when he pro-

And Mr. Wallace

ceeds to say on the very same page, ' Of course in this there is no implication of the peculiarly Darwinian doctrine of descent or development of kind fix)m kind with structure modified and complicated to meet changing circumstances.' (By this is fwi a peculiarly Darwinian doctrine, for it originated with Lamarck, spontaneous variation and selection being the additions made by the English naturalists). But what becomes then of the slow processes of adaptation and the 'ultra-Darwinian theory s] oken of just before ?

the way,

'

'

'

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

33

We

must not omit to notice a hypothesis by which Empedocles sought to elucidate the mechanism of sensation, and which was subsequently adopted by the atomic school indeed, as will presently be shown, we have reason to believe ;

was developed out of

that the whole atomic theory

He

it.

held that emanations were being continually thrown off from the surfaces of bodies, and that they penetrated into the

This

organs of sense through fine passages or pores.

seem a crude

guess, but

it is

bilities

any

at

than Aristotle's explanation.

tive

;

we

by the

pre-

when and because

subject.

have seen how Greek thought had arrived at a per-

fectly just conception of the process

by which

physical

all

The whole extended

transformations are effected. is

feel

scientific

latter, possi-

a safe assertion, but hardly an addition to our posi-

knowledge of the

We

much more

of feeling are converted into actualities

sence of an object. In other words,

we do

rate

According to the

may

an aggregate of bodies, while each single body

universe

is

formed

by a combination of everlasting elements, and is destroyed by their separation. But if Empedocles was right, if these primary substances were no other than the

fire, air,

water,

and earth of everyday experience, what became of the Heracleitean law, confirmed by common observation, that, so far

from remaining unaltered, they were continually passing

into one another

To

.'

this question the

an answer so conclusive,

by

that,

atomic theory gave

although ignored or contemned

was revived with the great revival of was successfully employed the explanation of every order of phenomena, and still later schools, it

science in the sixteenth century, in

remains the basis of theory of

light,

all

physical enquiry.

The undulatory

the law of universal gravitation, and the

laws of chemical combination can only be expressed

terms

implying

the

existence

of

atoms

;

the

laws

in

of

gaseous diffusion, and of thermodynamics generally, can only

be

understood

with their help

P

;

and the

latest

develop-

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

34

merits of chemistry have tended

still

further to establisl

their reality, as well as to elucidate their remarkable proper

In the absence of sufficient information, it is difficul by what steps this admirable hypothesis wai determine to evolved. Yet, even without external evidence, we may fairlj ties.

some

conjecture that, sooner or later,

philosopher, possessec

of a high generalising faculty, would infer that continually throwing their surfaces, they

and that

if

bodies an

must be

similarly subdivided all through

the organs of sense are honeycombed with imper-

ceptible pores, such

may ^Iso

Now, according to

matter.'

if

off a flux of infinitesimal particles froir

be the universal constitution

oi

Aristotle, Leucippus, the foundei

of atomism, did actually use the second of these arguments,

and employed visible

solids.*

it

prove the existence of indi-

in particular to

Other considerations equally obvious

gested themselves from another quarter. expressible in terms of matter

change implied

interstitial

sug-

Tf all change was

and motion, then

gradual

motion, which again involved the

necessity of fine pores to serve as channels for the incoming

and outgoing molecular streams. Nor, as was supposed, could motion of any kind be conceived without a vacuum, the Here its second great postulate of the atomic theory. advocates directly joined issue with Parmenides. The chief of the Eleatic school had, as

we have

seen, presented being

under the form of a homogeneous sphere, absolutely continuous but limited in extent. Space dissociated from matter

was to him, as afterwards to Aristotle, non-existent and imIt was, he exclaimed, inconceivable, nonsensical.

possible.

Unhappily inconceivability criterion of truth ever

is

about

yet invented.

the

worst

negative

His challenge was now

' By a curious coincidence, the atomic constitution of matter still finds its Light is propagated by transverse waves, strongest proof in optical phenomena. and such waves are only possible in a discontinuous medium. But if the luminiferous ether is composed of discrete particles, so also must be the matter which it

penetrates in

all directions.

De

Gen. et Corr.,

»

Ar.

I., viii.,

325, b, 5.

;

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT. taken up by the Atomists, being meant empty space, as necessary as being.

who was

it

A

3$

boldly affirmed that just as conceivable

may

further stmiulus

if

non-

and just

have been

whose doctrines had, just at this time, been systematised and committed to writing by Philolaus, its most eminent disciple. The hard saying that all things were made out of number might be explained and received from the Pythagorean school,

confirmed It

the integers were interpreted as material

if

will

have been observed

that,

so

atoitis.

the merit of

far,

atomism has been attributed toLeucippus, instead of to the more celebrated Democritus, with whose name it is usually associated. The two were fast friends, and seem always to have worked together in perfect harmony. But Leucippus, originating

although next to nothing

is

known

of his

life,

we can make

the older man, and from him, so far as

emanated the great

idea,

which his

and

set forth in

was not

less

the encyclopaedic range of their contents.

born at Abddra, a Thracian

470

city,

remarkable than

Democritus was

B.C.,

Socrates, and lived to a very advanced age

hundred, according to some accounts.

he was probably,

immense

most of

like

vitality.

whom

—

more than a However this may be,

His early manhood was spent not a

numerous countries which he had with

a year before

his great countrymen, possessed

Eastern travel, and he was

men

works

loss to literature as well as to science, for the

poetic splendour of their style

of

out,

brilliant coadjutor carried

into every department of enquiry,

which are a

was apparently

little

visited,

he had conversed.

proud

of

in

the

and the learned

His time was. mostly

occupied in observing Nature, and in studying mathematics the sages of Asia and Egypt

many

may

have acquainted him with

we have seen that his philosophy was derived from purely Hellenic sources. few fragments of his numerous writings still survive the relics useful scientific facts, but

—

In them are briefly shadowed

of an intellectual Ozymandias. forth the conceptions

which Lucretius, or D

A

2

at least his

modern

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

36

English interpreters, have

made

and women.

is

Everything

the result of mechanical causa-

worlds are formed by the collision of

tion.

Infinite

atoms

falling for ever

place

is

left for

men

familiar to all educated

downward through

supernatural agency

;

infinite

No

infinite space.

nor are the unaided

operations of Nature disguised under Olympian appellations.

Democritus goes even further than Epicurus in

His system provides no

of the popular mythology. stellar

his rejection

refuge for abdicated gods.

He

inter-

attributed a kind of

objective existence to the apparitions seen in sleep, and even

a considerable influence for good or

The

they were immortal.

arisen from their activity

for evil, but denied that

old belief in a Divine Power had

and from meteorological phenomena

of an alarming kind, but was destitute of any stronger foundation.

For

his

own

part,

he looked on the

fiery spherical

atoms as a universal reason or soul of the world, without, however, assigning to them the distinct and commanding

by a somewhat analogous principle in the system which we now proceed to examine, and with

position

occupied

which our survey of early Greek thought

most

will

fitly

terminate.

V.

Reasons have already been suggested goras last in order

among

for placing

Anaxa-

the physical philosophers, notwith-

standing his priority in point of age to more than one of them,

He was born,

according to the most credible accounts, 500

Ionian city, and settled in Athens wher

at Clazomenae, an

There he spent much the

twenty years of age. of a long

life,

illustrating

Euripides— expressly sage

—has described '

greaiter pari

the type of character whicl

referring, as is supposed, to the loniar

in the following choric lines

Happy is he who has learned To search out the secret of things, Not

B.C.,

to the

townsmen's bane.

:

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

37

Neither for aught that brings An unrighteous gain. But the ageless order he sees Of nature that cannot die, And the causes whence it springs, And the how and the why. Never have thoughts like these To a deed of dishonour been turned.'

The dishonour was

for the

townsmen who,

in

an outbreak of

insane fanaticism, drove the blameless truthseeker from his

Anaxagoras was the intimate companion

adopted home.

of Pericles, and Pericles had

made many enemies by

A

domestic as well as by his foreign policy.

his

coalition of

harassed interests and offended prejudices was formed against

A cry

him.

arose that religion and the constitution were in

The Athenians had

danger.

too

much good

sense to dismiss

their great democratic Minister, but they permitted the illus-

opponents to strike at him through

trious statesman's political his friends.^

Aspasia was saved only by the tears of her lover.

Pheidias, the grandest, most spiritual-minded artist of all time, was arrested on a charge of impiety, and died in a prison of the city whose temples were adorned with the imperishable

monuments of his religious inspiration. A decree against astronomers and atheists was so evidently aimed at Anaxa'

'

goras that the philosopher retired to Lampsacus, where he died at the age of seventy-two, universally admired and revered.

Altars dedicated to Reason and Truth were erected

and for centuries his memory continued to be celebrated by an annual feast.' His whole existence had in his honour,

been devoted to living,

he answered,

of the universal

page to '

When asked what made life worth The contemplation of the heavens and cosmic order.' The reply was like a title-

science.

his

works.

'

We

Eurip. Frag. Incert. Fab.,

version to Miss A.

M.

can see that specialisation was

CXXXVI.

Didot, p. 850.

F. Robinson, the translator of the

'

Curtius, GrUchische Geschichte, 342-5 (3rd ed.).

'

Zeller, op. cit., p. 791.

[I

am indebted for this

Crowned Hij>polytiK,\

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

38

beginning, that the positive sciences were separating themselves from general theories about Nature, and could be cultivated

independently of them.

A

single

individual

might, indeed, combine philosophy of the most comprehensive kind with a detailed enquiry into

some

particular order

of phenomena, but he could do this without bringing the two into any immediate connexion with each other. Such seems to have been the case with Anaxagoras. He was a professional astronomer and also the author of a

studies

This, from

modified atomic hypothesis. plexity,

its

greater com-

seems more likely to have been suggested by the

'purely quantitative conception of Leucippus than to have

preceded

it

in

between

Democritus, and

the order of evolution.

probably his teacher

also,

drew a very sharp

what were afterwards

secondary qualities of matter.

the

called

distinction

primary and

Extension and

resistance

alone had a real existence in Nature, while the attributes

corresponding to our special sensations, such as temperature, taste, it,

and

colour,

were only subjectively,

conventionally true.

or,

less strongly

sum

of being can

than his younger contemporaries that the neither be increased nor diminished, that

perish

as he expressed

Anaxagoras affirmed no

by combination and

division,

all

things arise and

and that bodies

formed out of indestructible elements

;

are

like the Atomists,

again, he regarded these elementary substances as infinite

number and inconceivably minute; only he considered them as qualitatively distinct, and as resembling on an infinitesimal scale the highest compounds that they build up. Not only were gold, iron, and the other metals formed of homogeneous particles, but such substances as flesh, bone, and in

blood were, according to him, equally simple, equally decomposable,

into

molecules of

like

nature with

Thus, as Aristotle well observes, he reversed the

themselves.

method of

Empedocles, and taught that earth, air, fire, and water were really the most complex of all bodies, since they supplied

;

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT.

39

and therefore must contain within themselves the multitudinous variety of units by whose nourishment to the living

tissues,

aggregation individualised organic substance

is

made

up.'

Furthermore, our philosopher held that originally this inter^

mixture had been qualities ticles

lasted

more thoroughgoing,

still

possible

all

being simultaneously present in the smallest par-

The

of matter. until

confusion

resulting state. of chaotic

Nous, or Reason, came and segregated the

heterogeneous elements by a process of continuous differentiation leading

to the present arrangement of things.

up

Plato and Aristotle

have commended Anaxagoras

Both for

in-

troducing into speculation the conception of Reason as a

cosmic world-ordering power

•making so

little

use of his

both have censured him for

;

own

great thought, for attributing

almost everything to secondary, material, mechanical causes for not

everywhere applying the teleological method

for not anticipating the Bridgewater Treatises

that the world

Less fortunate

than

the

;

in fact,

and proving

constructed on a plan of perfect

is

and goodness.

;

wisdom

Athenians,

we

cannot purchase the work of Anaxagoras on Nature at an orchestral book-stall for the moderate price of a

but

we know enough about

its

drachma

contents to correct the some-

what petulant and superficial criticism of a school perhaps less in sympathy than we are with its author's method of research.

Evidently the Clazomenian philosopher did not

mean by Reason an human happiness or

ethical force, a virtue,

power which makes

for

nor yet a reflecting intelligence,

a designer adapting means to ends. To all appearances the Nous was not a spirit in the sense which we attach, or which Aristotle attached to the term. goras, the subtlest

It was,

and purest of

a:ll

Anaxaunmixed

according to

things, totally

with other substances, and therefore able to control and* bring them into order.

This

is

not

immaterial inextended consciousness. '

Ar. DeCoelo, III.,

iii.,

how men speak of an The truth is that no

302,

a, 28,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

40

amount of physical science could lead towards

a spiritualistic

create,

although

philosophy.

migltf

it

Spiritualism

first

arose from the sophistic negation of an external world, from

the exclusive study of man, from the Socratic search afta: general definitions.

how

gence,

come is,

could

it

Yet,

Nous

meant

originally

lose this primary signification

mere mode of matter

identified with a

that Anaxagoras,

if

whose whole

life

.'

intelli-

and be-

The

answer

was spent in tracing

out the order of Nature, would instinctively think of his own intelligence as

a discriminating, identifying faculty

consequently, conceive

its

;

would,

objective counterpart under the

form of a differentiating and integrating power.

All pre-

ceding thinkers had represented their supreme being under material conditions, either aa one element singly or as a sum total

where elemental

differed

frotn

drawn between

The

them

differences chie;fly

hy

were merged. tfee

his informing principle

Anaxagoras

very sharp distinction

^nd the

rest of Nature.

absolute int^rmij^ture of qualities vfhich he presupposes

bears a very strong res^rnbl^ijce bpt^i to the Sphairos of

Empedpgl^s and to the fiery consumi^atiog of Heracleitus, it eyeri haye been suggested by them. Only, what with

may

them

\yas the highest

the lowest

;

thought

form of existence becomes with him is

asserting itself

more and more, and its own

interpreting the law of evolution in accordance with imperious, demands,

A

world where ordering reason was not only supreme power, but ajsp jealously secluded from

raised to all

com-

munion with lower forms of existence, meant to popular imagination a, world itOTS\ which divinity had bieen withdrawn. The a,strQnomical tea,ching of Anaxagoras was well calculated tq increa,se a not unfounded alarm.

Underlying the n^ythology of Athens and of Greece generally, was an older, deeper Nature-worship, chiefiy directed towards those heavenly luminaries which shone so graciously on all

local

triba,!

men, and to which

all

nien yielded, or were supposed to yield,

EARLY GREEK THOUGHT. homage

grateful

Every Athenian his

own

Two

if possible,

by such a

generations

conviction, severely

would,

To

from Nicias to Strepsiades would

belief strengthened

of authority.

same

Securus judicat orbis terrarum.

in return.

citizen

41

later,

denouncing

feel

universal concurrence

Plato held fast to the

its

impugners,

whom

he

have silenced with the heaviest penalties. heavenly bodies were something far

Aristotle, also, the

more precious and

perfect than Jinything in our sublunary

sphere, something to be spoken of only in language of enthu-

and passionate

siastic

love.

At

a far later period Marcus

Aurelius could refer to them as visible gods

; '

and

just before

the final extinction of Paganism highly-educated offered

up

their orisons in silence

men

still

and secresy to the moon.^

Judge, then, with what horror an orthodox public received

Anaxagoras's announcement that the moon shone only by reflected light, that she

surface

was an earthy body, and that her

was intersected with mountains and

being partially built over.

The

ravines, besides

bright Sel6n^, the

Queen of

Heaven, the most interesting and sympathetic of goddesses,

whose phases so vividly recalled the course of human was firmly believed to bring take

it

away

at her departure,

senseless clod.*

in the

was degraded

into a cold, dark, all this

had been

Eastern countries where he had

had been a brand-new discovery. was a red-hot stone larger than a somewhat unwieldy size even for a Homeric

sun, too, they

Peloponnesus god.

—

Socrates,

if it

were

little

told,

as he cared about physical investiga-

tions generally, took this theory very seriously to heart,

„

who

Possibly; but fathers of families could not have

been more disturbed

The

life,

weather at her return and to

Democritus observed that

known a long time travelled.

fine

'

M. Antoninus, XII,,

2

Zeller,

Pk.

and

28.

d. Cr., III., b, p. 669.

" Even regulating the calendar by the sun instead of by the moon seems to have been regarded as a dangerous and impious innovation by the more conservative Athenians at least judging from the half-seiious pleasantry of Aristophanes, Nuh., 608-26. (Dindorf.)

—

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

42

attempted to show by a series of distinctions that sun-heai and fire-heat were essentially different from each other. A duller people than the Athenians would probably hav
.

Still

and convention, which, so with

sively

Hippias.

far as

We

we know,

have

originated exclut

already

observed

that

and necessity were, with the Greeks, standing marks of naturalness. The customs of different countries

universality

were, on the other hand, distinguished

by extreme variety, amounting sometimes to diametrical opposition. Herodotus was fond of calling attention to such contrasts; only, he drew from them the conclusion that law, to be so arbitrary must needs possess supreme and sacred authority. According to the

and

more

plausible interpretation of Hippias, the variety,

at least in

proved that

it

Greek democracies, the changeability of law was neither sacred nor binding. He also

looked on

artificial social institutions as the sole cause of and discord among mankind. Here we already see the dawn of a cosmopolitanism afterwards preached by Cynic and

division

G

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

82

Furthermore, to discover the natural rule oi

Stoic philosophers.

he compared the laws of different nations, and selected were held by all in common as the basis of an which those Now, this is precisely what was done by ethical system.' right,

the

Roman

long afterwards under the inspiration

jurists

We

Stoical teaching.

Henry Maine is,

have

it

on the high

Jus Gentium,

that they identified the

the laws supposed to be observed by

with the Jus Naturale, that

governed

is,

of

aiithority of Sir

all

that

nations alike^

by which men were

the code

in their primitive condition of innocence.

It

was

by a gradual application of this ideal standard that the numerous inequalities between different classes of persons, enforced by ancient Roman law, were removed, and that Above all, the abolition contract was substituted for status. of slavery was, if not directly caused, at any rate powerfully aided, by the belief that it was against Nature. At the beginning of the fourteenth century

we

find Louis Hutin,

King of France, assigning as a reason for the enfranchise-* ment of his serfs, that, according to natural law, everybody ought to be born free,' and although Sir H. Maine holds this '

to have been a mistaken interpretation of the juridical axiom

omnes homines ideal to

aequales sunt,' which means not an

riaturS,

be attained, but a primitive condition from which we

have departed

nevertheless

:

it

very faithfully reproduces, the

theory of those Greek philosophers from natural law

was

derived.

grounds of right Politics.

holding

'

is

Some

leasts

to slaveryjofv theoretical

perfectly evident from the language of the

is

persons,' says Aristotle,

against nature, for that one

'

think that slave

man

another free by law, while by nature there

between them,

the idea of a

That, in Aristotle's time at

who were opposed

a party existed

whom

for

which reason

And

result of

force.' "

length.

The same

it

is

is

is

-i

a slave and

no

difference

unjust as being the

he proceeds to prove the contrary

at

doctrine of natural equality led to im-

portant political consequences, having, again according to Sir '

Xenophon, Memor., IV.,

iv., 19.

»

Pol.,

I.,

ii.

GREEK HUMANISTS: NATURE AND LAW.

83

H. Maine, cdhtributed both to the American Declaration of Independence and to the French Revojjitioh.

one more aspect deserving our attention, under Which the theory of Nature has been presented both in dialogue Which', whether ancient and modern times.

There

is

A

rightly or

wrongly attributed to Plato,

evidence on the subject

it

Character of a universal genius, Science

may

be taken as good

relates to,' exhibits Hippias in the

who can

hot only teach every

practise every kind of literary composition, but

and

has also manufactured

all

the clothes and other articles about

Here we have precisely the sort of versatility which

his person.

dharacterises

uncivilised society,

and which

believers

The

state of nature love to encourage at all times.

of labour, while

it

carries us ever

master of

many

arts,

An

other.

Odysseus

is

a Themistocles of two, a Demosthenes

A Norwegian

of only one.

a

from barbarism,

farther

makes us more dependent on each

in

division

peasant can do niore for himself

than an English countryman, and therefore makes a better colonist.

If

we must

return to Nature, our

first

step should

be to learn a number of trades, and so be better able to shift for ourselvesi

Such was the

ideal of Hippias,

the ideal of the eighteenth century.

with Robinson Crusoe^ the story of a

Its

and it was

literature

also

begins-

man who is accidentmany years, with

ally compelled to provide himself, during all

the necessaries of

France,

life.

Its educational

Rousseau's l^mile; in

England,

manuals

are, in

Day's Sandford

and Merton, both teaching that the young should be thrown as much as possible on their own resources. One of its types is Diderot, who learns handicrafts that he may describe them in the

EneydopMie.

and Goethe, who, ture,

Its

two great spokesmen are Voltaire

after cultivating every

take in statesmanship as well.

Schiller's Letters

department of

And

its last

litera-

word

is

on Aesthetic Culture, holding up totality

of existence as the supreme ideal to be sought after. »

The mppias Minor. G 2

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

84

There is no reason to believe that Hippias used his dis tinction between Nature and convention as an argument foi .

despotism.

would rather appear

It

among men.

he anc

equality

Others, however, both rhetoricians and prac-

tical statesnien,

They saw

that, if anything,

more complete

his school desired to establish a

were not slow to draw an opposite

that where no law was

conclusion.

recognised, as between

different nations, nothing but violence

and the

right of the

was once believed that aggressions which human law could not reach found no favour with the stronger prevailed.

It

gods, and dread of the divine displeasure may have, done something towards restraining them. But religion had partly

been destroyed by the new sanction for wrong-doing.

Zeus himself father,

Had

reign.'

culture, partly perverted into a

By what

was asked,

did

he not unlawfully dethroned

his

Cronos^ and did he not

virtue of superior strength

right,. it

now hold power

simply by

Similar reasonings were soon

}

applied to the internal government of each state.

trolled

It

was

that the ablest citizens could lay claim to uncon-

alleged

supremacy by a

title

older than any social

fiction.

Rules of right meant nothing but a permanent conspiracy of the

weak to withdraw themselves from the legitimate dominion born master, and to bamboozle him into a voluntary

of their

surrender of his natural privileges. superficial

utterance

resemblance

among

to

ourselves.

these

Sentiments bearing a

have occasionally found

Nevertheless,

it

would be most

unjust to compare Carlyle and Mr. Froude with Critias and Callicl^s.

We

believe that their preference of despotism to

representative government

know

them

is

an entire

mistake.,

But we

as with us the

good of the governed The gentlemen of Athens sought; is the sole end desired. after supreme power only as a means for gratifying their that with'

worst passions without

they were ready to

let

or hindrance

;

and

for that purpose,

ally themselves with every foreign

in turn, or to flatter the caprices of the

D6mos,

if

enemy

that policy

GREEK HUMANISTS NATURE AND LAW.

85

:

The

promised to answer equally well. these

'

young

lions,'

by their enemies and do nor seem to have been

as they were called

sometimes by themselves

also,

supported by any public teacher.

Napoleon of

If

we

are to believe Plato,

did indeed regard Archelaus, the

Pdlus, a Sicilian rhetor,

abler Louis

antisocial theories of

his time, with

sympathy and envious

admiration, but without attempting to justify the crimes of his hero

by an appeal

among

theoretical morality

The

to natural law.

corruption of

the paid teachers took a

more

subtle form.

Instead of opposing one principle to another,

they held that

all

law had the same source, being an emana-

tion from the will of the stronger, to

promote

his interest.

and exclusively designed

Justice, according to

in the Republic, is another's good,

which

except under compulsion

to practise

it

ever Grote

may

say,

is

is

Thrasymachus

true enough,

is foolish,

and

which, what-

a grossly immoral doctrine.

V.

We have seen

how

physical philosophy,

the idea of Nature,

was taken by some,

first

at least,

Sophists as a basis for their ethical teaching interpretation utterly opposed practical

men, and how

this

generalised

by

denial of

morality whatever.

all

to theirs

;

evolved by

among the how an

then

was put on

by

it

second interpretation was so

the younger rhetoricians as to involve the

Meanwhile, another equally

important conception, destined to come into speedy and prolonged antagonism with the idea of Nature, and like it to exercise a powerful

almost

influence

contemporaneously

on

been

ethical

reflection,

elaborated

materials which earlier speculation

out

of

peremptorily insisted on the fact that his theory

common

belief.

the

From Parphilosopher, who had

supplied.

menides and Heracleitus down, every propounded a theory of the world, had also more or widely from

had

Those who held

less

difi'ered

that change

is

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

86

who taught that everything is incessantly changing those who asserted the indestructibility of matter, and those who denied its continuity those who took away objective reality from every quality except extension and resistance, and those who affirmed that the and

impossible,

those ;

;

more or less of every attribute sense— all these, however much they

smallest molecules partook

that

revealed to

is

might disagree among themselves, agreed

in declaring that

the received opinions of mankind were an utter delusion.

Thus, a sharp distinction came to be drawn between the misleading sense-impsessions and the objective

which thought alone could penetrate.

reality to

was by combining

It

these two elements, sensation and thought, that the idea of

mind was

originally constituted.

And mind when

materialistic hypotheses at first differ

so under-

by any of the proposed. The senses must

stood could not well be accounted

for

profoundly from that of which they give such an

unfaithful report

while reason, which Anaxagoras had so

;

carefully differentiated from every other form of existence,

carried

back

its

distinction to the

became clothed with a new

subjective sphere,, and

spirituality

when

reintegrated

in

the consciousness of man.

The

first result

of this separation between

man and

world was a ccmplete breach with the old physical

sophy, shown, on the one hand, by an abandonment speculative studies, on the other,

by a

the

philool

substitution of con-

vention for Nature as the recognised standard of

right

Both consequences were drawn by Protagoras, the mos eminent of the Sophists, We have now to consider mor particularly

we

what was

his part in the great

drama of

whicl

are attempting to give an intelligible account.

Protagoras was born about 480

townsman

B.C.

He was

a

fellow

of Democritus, and has been represented, thoug

on good authority, as a disciple of that illustripi It was rather by a study of Heracleitus that h thinker.

.not

GREEK HUMANISTS : NATURE AND LAW. philosophical opinions, so far as they were

87

borrowed from

seem to have been most decisively determined.

others,

In

was the ^incipal occupation of his life. He gave instruction for payment in the higher branches of a liberal education, and adopted the name of Sophist, which before had simply meant a w^ise man, as an honourable title for his new calling. Protagoras was a very any case,

practice, not theory,

The news of his arrival in a strange city immense enthusiasm, and he was followed from At Athens he place to place by a band of eager disciples. was honoured by the friendship of such men as Pericles and Euripides. It was at the house of the great tragic poet that he read out a work beginning with the ominous declaration, popular teacher. excited

'

I

cannot

for such

tell

whether the gods exist or not

difficult .investigations.'

alarm directly.

The book

;

life is

too short

Athenian bigotry took

•

containing this frank confession

of agnosticism was publicly burned,

all

purchasers being

compelled to give up the copies in their possession.

The

author himself was

and

banished

either

or took

flight,

perished by shipwreck on the way to Sicily before completing his seventieth year.

The

scepticism of Protagoras went beyond theology and

extended to

all

science whatever.

Such, at

.

least,

seems to

have been the force of his celebrated declaration that is

the measure of

and

all things,

their non-existence.'

^

'

man

both as regards their existence

According to Plato,

this doctrine

followed from the identification of knowledge with sensible perception, which in

its

turn was based on a modified form of

The

the Heracleitean theory of a perpetual flux. external changes which constitutes Nature, series of internal

changes which

constitutes

personality, .produces particulai: sensations,

are the true reality:

'

Diog. L., IX.,

They vary with every

viii.,

54.

»

series of

acting on

each

the

man's

and these alone variation in the

Diog. L., IX.,

viii.,

51.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

88 factors,

and therefore are not the same

Each man's perceptions

for separate individuals.

are true for himself, but for himself

Plato easily shows that such a theory of truth

alone.

variance with ordinary opinion, and that true,

it

must necessarily stand

observe that

if

is

at

opinions are

if all

We may also

self- condemned.

nothing can be known but sensation, nothing

can be known of

its

conditions.

would, however, be unfair

It

to convict Protagoras of talking nonsense on the unsupported

authority of the Theaetitus,

Plato himself suggests that a

better case might have been

made

doctrine could

We may

its

out for the incriminated

authpr have been heard in

self-defence.

conjecture that Protagoras did not distinguish very

accurately between existence, knowledge, and applicability to

we assume, what

If

practice.

there seems good reason to

believe, that in the great controversy of

Protagoras sided with the

become

elear,

When

Nature versus Law,

latter, his position

will at once

the champions of Nature credited her

with a stability and an authority greater than could be claimed for

merely

human

arrangements,

it

was a judicious

step to

carry the war into their territory, and ask, on what foundation

then does Nature herself stand changing, and do

we

Is not she, too, perpetually

}

not become acquainted with her entirely

through our own feelings

.' ,

Ought not those

taken as the ultimate standard in

wrong

Individual opinion

?

is

all

feelings to be

questions of right and

a f^ct which must be reckoned

which can be changed by persuasion, not by appeals to something that we none of us know anything about. Man with, but

is

the measure of

all things,

existence

Nature.

Human

must take precedence of every Hector meant nothing else when he

interests

other considpration. preferred the obvious

drawn from the

We

not the will of gods whose very

uncertain, nor yet a purely hypothetical state of

is

flight

dictates

of patriotism

to inferences

of birds.

now understand why

Protagoras, in

the

Platonic

dialogue bearing his name, should glance scornfully at the

— GREEK HUMANISTS NATURE AND LAW.

89

:

method of

instruction pursued

on astronomy, and

The

in the poets.

why he

by Hippias, with

quarrel between a classical and a scientific

education was just then beginning, and

Humanist, sided with the classics.

much

of the

would

not, like the Cynics, take

Man, he animal

;

'

his lectures

prefers to discuss obscure passages

Protagoras, as

He

great and sane and noble race of brutes.'

says,

is

a

Again, he does not think

them as examples of conduct. provided for than any of wisdom would not save him

naturally worse

even the divine

gift

from extinction without the priceless

and reverence, that

is,

social virtues of justice

the regard for public opinion which

Mr. Darwin, too, has represented as the strongest moralising

power

in primitive society.

qualities constituted the

And, as the possession of these

fundamental distinction between

brutes, so also did the advantage of

land

civilisation

men over

barbarism rest on their superior development, a development

due to the

ethical instruction received

his earliest infancy, reinforced

through

correction of legal punishments,

by every citizen from by the sterner

after-life

and completed by the elimina-

tion of all individuals demonstrably unfitted for the social

Protagoras had no sympathy with those

state.

who

affect

to prefer the simplicity of savages to the fancied corruption

of civilisation.

Hear how he answers the Rousseaus and

Diderots of his time

:

would have you consider that he who appears to you to be the who have been brought up in laws and humanities would appear to be a just man and a master of justice if he were to be compared with men who had no education, or courts of justice, or '

I

worst of those

laws, or

virtue

any

— with

restraints

upon them which compelled them to

the savages, for example,

whom

practise

the poet Pherecrates

exhibited on the stage at the last year's Lenaean festival.

were living among

If

you

men

such as the man-haters in his chorus, you would be only too glad to meet with Eurybates and Phrynondas, and

you would sorrowfully long to world.' '

revisit the rascality of this part

of the

>

Plato, Protagoras,

327; JoweU's Transl.,

vol.

I., p.

140,

On

the superior

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

go

We

same theory reproduced and enforced with weighty illustrations by the great historian of that age. It is not known whether Thucydides owed any part of his culture find the

to Protagoras, but the introduction to his history breathes the

same He,

isolation,

we have just transcribed.

the observatipns which-

spirit as

too, characterises

and lawless

antiquity

a scene of barbarism,

as

violence, particularly remarking that

piracy was not then counted a dishonourable profession.

He

points to the tribes outside Greece, together with the most

backward among the Greeks themselves, as representing the low condition from which Athens and her sister states had only emerged within a comparatively recent period. And in the funeral oration which he puts into the mouth of

Pericles,

the legendary glories of Athens are passed over without the slighest allusion,' while exclusive

proud position as the

prominence

is

given to her

intellectual centre of Greece.

Evidently

a radical change had taken place in men's conceptions since

They were

Herodotus wrote.

learning

to

despise

the

mythical glories of their ancestors, to exalt the present at the fix their attention exclusively on

expense of the past, to

immediate human

interests, and, possibly, to anticipate the

coniing of a loftier civilisation than had as yet been seen.

The

evolution of Greek tragic poetry bears witness to the

same transformation of taste. On comparing Sophocles with we are struck by a change of tone analogous to

Aeschylus,

that which distinguishes Thucydides from Herodotus.

been shown

in

our

first

delights in tracing events origin,

and

chapter

and

how

genealogical sequence.

himself to a

close

has

the elder dramatist

back to

institutions

in following derivations

It

their

first

through the steps of a

Sophocles, on the other hand, limits analysis

represented, the motives

of

the

by which

his

action immediately

characters are

in-

morality which accompanies advancing civilisation, as evinced by the great crease of mutual trust, see Maine's Ancient Law, pp. 306-7. '

This point

is

noticed by Zeller, Ph. d. Cr., II., 22.

in-

GREEK HUMANISTS NATURE AND LAW.

91

:

and the arguments

fluenced,

We

or condemned.

justified

by which

their

conduct

iS

have already touched on the

by these two Here we have only to add that while Aeschylus dramas with supernatural beings, and frequently

very different attitude assumed toward! rehgion great poets. fills

his

mortal actors to the interpretation or execution

restricts-his

of a divine mandate, Sophocles, representing the spirit of

Greek Humanism, only once brings a god on the

stage,

and

dwells exclusively on the emotions of pride, ambition, revenge,

by which men and women of a lofty Again (and this is one of his poetic superiorities), Aeschylus has an open sense for the external world his imagination ranges far and wide from land to land his pages are filled with the fire and light, the music and movement of Nature in a Southern country. He leads and

terror, pity,

affection,

type are actuated.

;

;

before us in splendid procession the starry-kirtled night bright

rulers

dazzling

that bring round

the forked

sunshine.;

roaring thunder

;

under rough

;

with

its

and

fierce ;

the

its

;

the

rain

now

rippling with

shingle,

growing hoary

waveless, windless,

noonday

volleys of fire-breathing spray

the eddying whorls of mountain-torrent ; the meadow-dews ;

•

the flowers of spring and fruits of

and

the

lightning; the

snowrflakes

the sea

jaws of devouring lava resistless

of

;

summer; the

eastern waves dashing against the

or, again, lulled to

the volcano with

dust

;

now moaning on the

blasts,

new-risen sun, sleep

flashes

the white- winged

descending on thirsty flowers infinite laughter,

winter and

summer

;

the evergreen

trees that give leafy shelter

from dogstar heat. For all this world of wonder and beauty Sophocles offers only a few meagre allusions to the phenomena presented by olive,

sunshine and storm.

No

poet has ever so entirely concen-

human deeds and human passions. Only the grove of Col6nus, interwoven with his own earliest ;recollections, had power to draw from him, in extreme old age, trated his attention on

a song such as the nightingale might have warbled amid those

— THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

•'

92

and laurel, the vine and gave a never-failing shelter against sun and wind alike.

inviolable recesses where the ivy olive

Yet even

is but an image of the poet's own by outward influences, self-involved, and self-sustained. Of course, we are only re-

this leafy covert

imagination, undisturbed self-protected,

stating in different language

what has long been known, that

the epic element of poetry, before so prominent, was with

Sophocles entirely displaced by the dramatic cles

became the

precisely because

;

but

if

Sopho-

it was work out a through the action of mind on mind,

greatest

dramatist of antiquity,

no other writer could,

catastrophe solely

like him,

any intervention

of physical force and if he was because Greek thought as a whole had been turned inward because he shared in the dewithout

possessed this faculty,

;

it

;

votion to psychological studies equally exemplified

younger contemporaries,

whom

crates, all of

Pro'tagoras, Thucydides,

might have taken

for their

by

his

and So-

motto the

noble lines '

On earth there is nothing great but man, man there is nothing great but mini'

In

We have

said that Protagoras

or convention, against Nature.

was a partisan of Nomos, That was the conservative

side of his character. Still, Nomos was not with him what it had been with the older Greeks, an immutable tradition indistinguishable from physical law. It was a human creation, and represented the outcome of inherited experience,

admitting always of change for the better.

Hence the

vast

importance which he attributed to education. This, no doubt, was magnifying his own office, for the training of youth was his profession. liberal

But, unquestionably, the feelings of his more

contemporaries went with him.

A generation before,

Pindar had spoken scornfully of intellectual culture as a vain attempt to make up for the absence of genius which the gods alone could give.

Yet Pindar himself was always

careful to

dwell on the services rendered by professional trainers to the

GREEK HUMANISTS NATURE AND LAW.

93-

:

whose praises he sang, and there waff really no reason why genius and culture should be permanently

victorious athletes

A

dissociated.

Themistocles might decide offhand on the

questions brought before him

more

complex

;

much

a Pericles, dealing with a more

already needed

interests,

careful

preparation.

On

other hand, conservatives like Aristophanes con-

the.

tinued to oppose the spread of education with acrimonious '

zeal.

Some

ring.

Intellectual pursuits, they said,

of their arguments have a curiously familiar

were bad

for the health,

made young people quite and were somehow or other con-

led to irreligion and immorality,

unlike their grandfathers,

nected with loose company and a fast

was

tion

in

This

life.

one respect the very reverse of

last insinua-

So

true.

personal morality went, nothing could be better for the change introduced

by Protagoras from amateur

than

to paid

who wished

Before this time, a Greek youth

teaching.

far as it

for

something better than the very elementary instruction given-

some older and wiser whose conversation might be very improving, but who

at school, could only attach himself to friend,

was pretty sure {o introduce a sentimental element into

their

A similar danger

relationship equally discreditable to both.'

has always existed with regard to highly intelligent women,,

although duals

;

it

may

and the

have threatened a smaller number of indivinow being made to provide them with

efforts

a systematic education under

official

superintendence will

incidentally have the effect of saving our future Julies from the tuftion

and

of

H61oises

an Ab^lard or a Saint-

Preux. It

the

was their habit of teaching

fiercest

rhetoric as

an

his colleagues.

The endeavour

>

which raised

to discover rules for address-

ing a tribunal or a popular assembly in the This phase of Greek

to Cyrnus.

art

storm of indignation against Protagoras and

life is

manner best

cal-

well illustrated by the addresses of Theognis

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

94

culated to win their assent

had originated quite independently

of any philosophical theory. order, that

is

On

the re-establishment of

to say of popular government, in Sicily,

lawsuits arose out of events which

many

had happened years before

and, owing to the lapse of time, demonstrative evidence was not available. Accordingly, recourse was had on both sides to arguments possessing a greater or less degree of probability.

The

art of putting such probable inferences so as to

produce persuasion demanded great technical Sicilians,

Corax and

Tisias

skill

by name, composed

and two

;

on

treatises

would appear that the new-born art was taken up by Protagoras and developed in the direction of the subject.

It

increased dialectical subtlety.

We

are informed that he

undertook to make the worse appear the better reason this very

plishment taught by rest.

;

and

soon came to be popularly considered as an accom-

But

if

philosophers, Socrates

all

among

the

Protagoras merely meant that he would teach

the art of reasoning, one hardly sees

how he

could have ex-

pressed himself otherwise, consistently with the antithetical style of his age.

We

should say more simply that a case

strengthened by the ability to argue

been shown that the Protagorean facilities for

in

it

properly.

connexion with the humanistic teaching, sceptical tendency.

law,

and law was the

Taken, however,

All belief and

all

it

had an unsettling

practice rested on

made among

result of a convention

men and ultimately produced by individual What one man had done another could undo. tradition

and natural

already disappeared.

right,

all

conviction.

Religious

the sole external standards, had

There remained the

ency, and against this

is

has not

dialectic offered exceptional

maintaining unjust pretensions.

and

It

test

of self-consist-

the subtlety of the

new

dialectic

was turned. The triumph of Eristic was to show that a speaker had contradicted himself, no matter how his statements might be worded.

Moreover,

now

that reference to an

objective reality was disallowed, words were put in the place

;

GREEK HUMANISTS: NATURE AND LAW.

95

of things and treated like concrete realities. The next step was to tear them out of the gramijjatical construction, where

any truth or meaning, each being simulany time it knew one man might be made to fulfil. For example, if a thing he knew all, for he had knowledge, and knowledge is of

alone they possessed

taneously credited with all the uses which at

everything knowable.

Much

that seems to us tedious or

superfluous in Aristotle's expositions was intended as a safe-

guard against

Finally, negation itself

this endless cavilling.

was eliminated along with the possibility of falsehood and For

contradiction.

existence

it

was argued that

'

nothing

'

had no

and could not be an object of thought*

VI.

From

utter confusion to

This step was taken by Gorgias, the Sicilian

a single step. rhetorician,

extreme nihilism there was but

who

held the same relation towards western

Hellas and the Eleatic school as that which Protagoras held

towards eastern Hellas and the philosophy of Heracleitus,

He,

like

thinkers ture of

his eminent contemporary, was opposed to the whom, borrowing a useful term from the nomenclathe last century, we may call the Greek physiocrats.

To confute On Nature exists

;

them, he wrote a book with the significant or Nothing

secondly, that

thirdly, that if

if

:

maintaining,

anything

we know it,

there

is

cating our knowledge to others.

exists,

no

first,

that

title.

nothing

we cannot know it communi-

possibility of

The

first

thesis

was estab-

by pushing the Eleatic arguments against movement and change a little further the second by showing that thought and existence are different, or else everything that is lished

;

thought of would exist

;

the third

by

establishing a similar

incommensurability between words and sensations.

Grote

' Eristicism had also points of contact with the philosophies of Pannenides and Socrates which will be indicated in a future chapter.

THE GREEK- PHILOSOPHERS^.

9&

has attempted to show that Gorgias was only afguing against

noumenon underlying phenomena, such

the existence of a all idealists

that Gorgias, in

that'

common

was ignorant of

Plato, it

as

Zeller has, however, convincingly proved

deny.

with every other thinker before

this distinction

would leave the second and

and we may add

;

'

third theses absolutely

We

must take the whole together as constituting a declaration of war against science, an assertion, in unimpaired.

still

stronger language, of the agnosticism taught by Prota-

The

goras.

truth

is,

that a Greek controversialist generally

overproved his case, and

in

order to overwhelm an adversary

pulled down the whole house, even

among

buried

the ruins himself.

at

the

of being

risk

A modern reasoner, taking

from Gorgias, without pushing the matter to such an extreme, might carry on his attack on lines running parallel

his cue

with those laid down by the Sicilian Sophist. He would for begin by denying the existence of a state of Nature *

'

such a state must be either variable or constant. constant, how could civilisation ever have arisen > variable,

If

it

is

If

it

is

what becomes of the fixed standard appealed

Then, again, supposing such a state ever

how

;

could authentic information about

to us through the ages of corruption

have intervened

?

And,

it

to.'

to have existed,

have come down

which are supposed

to

granting that a state of Nature

lastly,

accessible to enquiry has ever existed,

how can we

reorganise

society on the basis of such discordant data as are presented

to us

by the

physiocrats, no

two of whom agree with regard

one saying that it is and a third despotism ? We do not say that these arguments are conclusive, we only mean that in relation to modern thought they very fairly represent to the

first

principles of natural order

;

equality, another aristocracy,

the dialectic artillery brought to bear by Greek humanism against its naturalistic opponents.

We

have seen how Prodicus and Hippias professed Ph.

d. Gr., I.,

903 (3rd ed.).

to

GREEK HUMANISTS NATURE AJ^D LAW. :

teach

all

We

ments. .

and

science, all" literature,

have seen

how

all

97

virtuous accomplish-

Protagoras rejected every kind of

knowledge unconnected with

We

social culture.

now

find

In his later years, at least, he

Gorgias going a step further.

professes to teach nothing but rhetoric or the art of persua'r

We

sion.

say in his later years, for at one time he seems to

have taught ethics and psychology as

well.'

But the Gorgias power of pro-

of Plato's famous dialogue limits himself to the

ducing persuasion by words on

all

possible subjects, even

Wherever the rhetorihe will beat him for every will preferred to be him on his own ground, and public office. The type is by no means extinct, and flourishes Like Pendennis, a like a green bay-tree among ourselves. those of whose details he

comes

cian

is

ignorant.

into competition with the professional

any book from the height of knowledge acquired by two hours' reading in the

writer of this kind will review superior British

Museum

;

or, if

he

is

adroit enough, will dispense with

even that slender amount of preparation.

superficial acquaintance

him

to pass

phy.

But

He

judgment on it

He

read the book which he

trouble himself to

need not even criticises.

A

with magazine articles will qualify all

life, all

religion,

and

all

philoso-

politics that, the finest career lies before

is in

power by attacking the measures of real by adopting them. He becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer by gross economical blundering, and Prime Minister by a happy mixture of epigram and

him.

rises to

statesmen, and remains there

adulation.

Rhetoric conferred even greater power in old Athens than

modern England. Not only did mastery of expression lead to public employment but also, as every citizen was permitted by law to address his assembled fellow-countrymen and propose measures for their acceptance, it became a direct passport to supreme political authority. Nor was this all. At Athens the employment of professional advocates was not

in

;

'

See Plato's Meno, sui.

H

in.

98

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

allowed, and

it

was easy to prosecute an enemy on the most If the defendant Happened to be wealthy,

frivolous pretexts.

condemnation involved a loss of property, there was a prejudice against him in the minds of the jury, confiscatbn

and

if

being regarded as a convenient resource for replenishing the

Thus the possession of rhetorical ability became a formidable weapon in the hands of unscrupulous citizens, who were enabled to extort large sums by the mere threat of putting rich men on their trial for some real or pretended offence. This systematic employment of rhetoric national exchequer.

much

for purposes of self-aggrandisement bore

tion to the teaching of Protagoras

and violent

seizure of

the same

and Gorgias

rela-

as the open

supreme power on the plea of

natural

way

superiority bore to the theories of their rivals, being the in

which practical

men

applied the principle that truth

termined by persuasion.

It

de-

was also attended by considerably

danger than a frank appeal to the right of the

less

is

so far at least as the aristocratic

stronger,

party were concerned.

For

they had been taught a lesson not easily forgotten by the and

downfall of the oligarchies established in 411 and 404

;

the second catastrophe especially proved that nothing but a

popular government was possible in Athens. the nobles set themselves to study their ultimate end, trolled

With wealth

why enjoy its

and fortunes of

lives

purchase

to

Sophists, with leisure to ability often

practise

accompanying high

and with

oratory,

and

was no

Critias

the

reason

should not

the pleasures of tyranny unaccompanied by any

Here,

drawbacks.

between

their fellow-

instruction from the

birth, there

the successors of Charmides all

for obtaining

which was always the possession of uncon-

power over the

citizens.

Accordingly,

new methods

again,

ancient Greece and

Continent, where theories

prevalent than with us,

trampled down

;

it

a

parallel

modern

of natural is

by brute

suggests

Europe.

law

are

On far

of

itself

the

more

force that justice

is

the one great object of every ambitious

m'

GREEK HUMANISTS: NATURE AND LAW. intriguer

one

to possess himself of the military mathine, his

is

great

wresting

terror,

it

a stronger

that

from him

;

looks to rhetoric as his

power has

99

to dread the hailstorm of

directed against

Besides

its

man may

him by

epigrammatic invective

abler or younger rivals.'

influence

on the formation and direction of

political eloquence, the doctrine professed

a far-reaching

effect

succeed in

England the political adventurer only resource, and at the pinnacle of in

on the

by Protagoras had development of

subsequent

Just as Cynicism was evolved from the theory of

thought.

Hippias, so also did the teaching which denied Nature and

concentrated

all

tendency towards

study on subjective phenomena, with individualistic, isolation,

system of Aristippus. called a Sophist

by

The founder Aristotle,

appellation be doubted.

He

companion of Socrates, but related to Protagoras.

a

lead on to the

of the Cyrenaic school

is

nor can the justice of the

was,

it

is

intellectually

true,

he

is

a friend and

more nearly

Aristippus rejected physical studies,

knowledge to the consciousness of our own and made immediate gratification the end of life. Protagoras would have objected to the last principle, but it was only an extension of his own views, for all history proves that Hedonism is constantly associated with sensationalism. Q^he theory that knowledge is built up out of feelings has an reduced

all

sensations,

elective affinity for the theory that action I

determined

in the last resort

is,

or ought to be,

by the most prominent

feelings,

which are pleasure and pain. ,

Both theories have since been strengthened by the introduction of a new and more ideal element into each. We have come to see that knowledge is

II

constituted not

by sensations alone, but by

sensations grouped

I

I

•

according to certain laws which seem to be inseparable from the existence of any consciousness whatever. And, similarly, Lord Beaconsfield recently [written in February 1880] spoke of the Balkans an 'intelligible' frontier for Turkey. Continental telegrams substituted natural frontier.' The change was characteristic and significant. ; '

as forming jl

'

H

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

loo

we have

learned to

happiness as well, and

merely the

not

take into account,

momentary enjoyments of an

individual, but his whole

not his happiness only,

of the whole community to which he belongs. in"

both cases

it

is

life's

but also that Nevertheless,

rightly held that the element of feeling

preponderates, and the doctrines of such thinkers as

Mill

J. S.

are legitimately traceable through Epicurus and Aristippus to

Protagoras as their

first

originatbrA

Notwithstanding the importance of

this impulse,

it

does

not represent the whole effect produced by Protagoras on

His

philosophy.

eristic

Megaric school, and at

method

first

was taken

up

by

the

conibined with other elements

borrowed from Parmenides and Socrates, but ultimately extricated from them and used as a critical solvent of all

dogmatism by the a

long

later Sceptics.

of

interval

From

enforced^ silence,

their writings, after it

passed over

to

Montaigne, Bayle, Hume, and Kant, with what redoubtable consequences to received opinions need not here be

Our

object

is

specified.

simply to illustrate the continuity of thought,

and the powerful influence exercised by ancient Greece on

its

subsequent development.

Every variety of opinion current among the reduces

itself,

antithesis

in

between Nature and Law, the

what ambiguously conceived by

human

reason or

together,

Sophists

the last analysis, to their fundamental

human

will,

combining to assert

its

latter

being some-

supporters as

either

or more generally as both their

self-dependence

emancipation from external authority.

and

This antithesis was

prefigured in the distinction between Chthonian and Olympian divinities.

Continuing afterwards to inspire the rivalry of

opposing schools. Cynic against Cyrenaic, Stoic against Epicurean, Sceptic against Dogmatist, it was but partially

overcome by the mediatorial schemes his

successors.

to the

Then came

Catholicism,

of

Socrates

and

equally adverse

pretensions of either party, and held

them down

;

;

GREEK HUMANISTS: NATURE AND LAW. under

pressure

suffocating^

its

for

lOi

more than a thousand'

years. '

Natur und

Darum Natur

Geist, so spricht

verbrennt

ist

man

Sunde, Geist

man

nicht zu Christen,

Atheisten ist

Teufel.'

Both slowly struggled back into consciousness

dreams of mediaeval astrology with

Nature was represented by

sleep.

predetermination

fatalistic

its

by the alchemical

idealism

in the fitful

was

which

lore

neutralisation of theology

again in glorious

life,

and

literature

classic

by

give

to

its

With the

possessor eternal youth and inexhaustible wealth.

complete revival of

events

of

the temporary

internal discord, both sprang

up

and produced the great art of the

sixteenth century, the great science and philosophy of the

Later on, becoming self-conscious, they divide, and their partisans draw off into two opposing armies, Rousseau against Voltaire, Herder against Kant, Goethe seventeenth.

against

Hume

Schiller,

against

bring about the Revolution to the destruction of

company,

and,

confront one acolytes,

its

;

Together they

himself.

but after marching hand in hand

existing institutions they again part

all

putting on the frippery of a dead faith,

another,

own

each with

intolerance,

its

own

ritual,

with feasts of

goddesses of Reason, in mutual and murderous

When laid

the storm subsided,

down, and the cause of

new

lines of

own

its

Nature and hostility.

demarcation were

political liberty

was dissociated

from what seemed to be thoroughly discredited figments. Nevertheless, imaginative literature

still

preserves traces of

the old conflict, and on examining the four greatest English novelists of the last fifty years we shall find that Dickens

and Charlotte Bronte, though personally most

unlike, agree

in representing the arbitrary, subjective, ideal side of

subjugation of things to figuring

them

self,

in the light of

not of self to things

;

humour, fancy, sentiment

transforming them by the alchemy of.inward passion

Kk,.

life,

the

he trans-

;

;

she

while

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

102

Thackeray and George

Eliot

represent

the

natural forces over rebellious individualities

;

triumph

of

the one writer

depicting an often crude reality at odds with convention and conceit

while the other, possessing,

;

not an intrinsically

if

greater genius, at least a higher philosophical culture, dis-

us the primordial

of existence,

closes

to

pitiless

conformations of circumstance, before which egoism,

necessities

the

ignorance, illusion, and indecision must bow, or be crushed to pieces

they

if

resist.

VII.

now before them everything of importknown about the Sophists, and something more not known for certain, but may, we think, be reason-

Our

readers have

ance that that

is

is

ably conjectured.

Taking the whole class together, they

repre-

sent a combination of three distinct tendencies, the endeavour to supply an encyclopaedic training for youth, the cultivation

of political rhetoric as a special

art,

and the search

after a

scientific foundation for ethics derived from the results of

previous philosophy.

With regard

to

the last point, they

agree in drawing a fundamental distinction between Nature

and Law, but some take one and some the other for their The partisans of Nature lean to the side of a more

guide.

comprehensive education, while their opponents tend more

and more to lay an exclusive

Both schools are at

on oratorical proficiency. by the moral corruption of

stress

last infected

the day, natural right becoming identified with the interest of the stronger, and reality,

humanism leading

to the denial of objective

the substitution of illusion for knowledge, and the

confusion of

momentary

gratification with

moral good.

dialectical habit of considering every question

The

under contra-

dictory aspects degenerates into eristic prize-fighting and deliberate disregard of the conditions

ment

possible.

Finally, the

which alone make argu-

component elements of

Sophisti-

— GREEK. HUMANISTS: NATURE :ism are dissociated from one another,

ately developed or pass over into ipart

m

103

either sepa-

and are

new combinations,

Rhetoric,

from speculation, absorbs the whole time and talent of

Isocrates

:lass

AND LAW.

;

general culture

is

imparted by a professorial

without originality, but without reproach

jlefion for the

naturalism

;

comand unhappily fastened by Aristotle on

ind sensuous idealism are

worked up

into systematic

sake of their philosophical interest albne

he name of sophistry

is

3aid exhibitions of verbal

;

wrangling which the great Sophists

vould have regarded with indignation and disgust. It

remains for us to glance at the controversy which has

ong been carried on respecting the true position of the Sophists in Greek life and thought. We have already alluded :o the by no means favourable judgment passed on them by Socrates condemned iome among their contemporaries. :hem severely, but only because they received payment for and the sentiment was probably echoed by nany who had neither his disinterestedness nor his frugality. To make profit by intellectual work was not unusual in ;heir lessons

Pheidias sold his statues.; Pindar spent his

jreece.

vriting for

vith

;

money

life

Simonides and Sophocles were charged

;

showing too great eagerness in the pursuit of

gain.'

But a man's conversation with his friends had always been gratuitous,

and the novel idea of charging a high

jxcited considerable offence.

—the

sale of that

Socrates called

which should be the

it

fee for

it

prostitution

free gift of love

vithout perhaps sufficiently considering that the

same

privi-


Mem.,

III., X.

and Dionysus

THE PLACE OF SOCRATES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY. So

of Bacchic inspiration. historical,

1ST

also dramatic art, once completely

even with Aristophanes, jjow chose for

its

subjects

such constantly-recurring types as the ardent lover, the stern father, the artful slave, the boastful soldier,

and the fawning

parasite.'

Nor was

this

Thought,

all.

wandered away from

it

would seem,

empty

abstractions,

after having, as

reality in search of

by the help of those very abstractions regained possession of concrete existence, and acquired a far fuller intelligence of its complex manifestations.

For, each individual character

an

is

assemblage of qualities, and can only be understood when

having been separately studied, are

after

those qualities, finally

Thus, biography

recombined.

is

a very late production

of literature, and although biographies are the favourite reading of those

who most

despise philosophy, they could never

have been written without ters

its

help.

can be described they must

Moreover, before charac-

Now,

exist.

it

is

partly

by sedulous by consolidat-

philosophy which calls character into existence inculcation of self-knowledge

and

self-culture,

ing a man's individuality into something independent of cir-

cumstances, so that

it

but what sculptors

comes to form, not a

call

figure in bas-relief,

Such was

a figure in the round.

Socrates himself, and such were the figures which he taught

and portray.

Character-

drawing begins with them, and the Memorabilia

in particular

Xenophon and Plato

to recognise

the earliest attempt at a biographical analysis that

is

possess.

From

was

this to Plutarch's Lives there

still

we

a long

journey to be accomplished, but the interval between them less considerable

is

than that which divides Xenophon from his

immediate predecessor, Thucydides.

And when we remember

how intimately the substance of Christian with the literary form of

its first

teaching

record,

we

is

shall

connected still

better

appreciate the all-penetrating influence of Hellenic thought, '

Curtius, Griechische Geschichte, III.,

revolution in art

is

526-30 (3rd

ed.),

attributed to the influence of the Sophists,

where, however, the

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

158

vying, as

it

does, with the forces of nature in subtlety and

universal diffusion.

Besides

transforming

method helped communicated exhausted.

The

and

art

literature,

to revolutionise social

allude to

its

the dialectic

and the impulse

still

very far from being

influence

on female education.

in this direction

We

life,

is

blossoming of Athens was aided, in

its first

development, by a complete separation of the sexes.

There

intellectual

were very few of talked so

little

whom

his friends to

as to his wife.'

an Athenian gentleman

Colonel

Mure

aptly compares

her position to that of an English housekeeper, with consider-

ably

less liberty

than

is

enjoyed by the

latter.

Yet the union

of tender admiration with the need for intelligent sympathy

and the Athens

desire to in

full

awaken interest in noble pursuits existed at and created a field for its exercise.

force,

Wilhelm von Humboldt has observed that at this time chivalrous love was kept alive by customs which, to us, are intensely That so valuable a sentiment should be preserved repellent. and diverted into a more legitimate channel was an object of the highest importance.

did much, but

it

The

could not do

method of ethics more was required than Here the method of mind

naturalistic

all,

for

a return to primitive simplicity.

stepped in and supplied the deficiency. soul of dialectic as practised

love

demands a

by

Reciprocity was the

Socrates,

and the

dialectic of

reciprocity of passion which can only exist

between the sexes. But in a society where the free intercourse of modern Europe was not permitted, the modern sentiment could not be reached at a single bound for the conversation of intelligent

;

and those who sought

women had

to seek for

it

among aclassofwhich Aspasiawas the highest representative. Such women played a great part in later Athenian society they attended philosophical lectures, furnished heroines to the New Comedy, and on the whole gave a healthier tone Their successors, the Delias and Cynthias of to literature. '

Xenoph., Oeconom.,

iii.,

12.

THE PLACE OF SOCRATES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Roman

159

elegiac poetry, called forth strains of exalted affection

which need nothing but a worthie^object to place them on a with the noblest expressions of tenderness that have

level

since been heard.

and we

be

shall

Here

at least, to understand

less scandalised

than certain

even refuse to admit that Socrates

when we hear

moralist,

beauty of this

class,

into

we

critics,*

;

shall

below the dignity of a

that he once visited a celebrated

Theodot^ by name

her in a playful conversation

more mind

fell

to forgive

is

;

and that

;

^

that he engaged

he. taught

her to put

her profession; to attract by something

deeper than personal charms

;

to

show

of interest in the welfare of her lovers

;

at least

an appearance

and to stimulate

their

ardour by a studied reserve, granting no favour that had not

been repeatedly and passionately sought

after.

Xenophon gives the same interest a more edifying direcwhen he enlivens the dry details of his Cyropa^diay^ith

tion

touching episodes of conjugal affection, or presents lessons in

economy under the form of conversations between a Plato in some respects transcends, in others falls short of his less gifted contemporary. For his

-domestic

newly-marrjed couple.'

doctrine of love as an educating process

and

sneers

perversions

—a true —though

doctrine, all

notwithstanding

readily

by him and his project of a common training for men and women, though suggestive of a great advance on the existing applicable to the relation of the sexes,

is

not applied

to, it

;

system

if

rightly carried out, was, from his point of vjew,

a retrograde step towards savage or even animal

life,

an

attempt to throw half the burdens incident to a military organisation of society on those

who had become

absolutely

incapable of bearing them; Fortunately, the dialectic method proved stronger than

own

creators, and,

'

*

Mem.,

its

once set going, introduced feelings and ex-

Mure, History of Grecian Literature, lY., 451. III., xi.

'

Oeconom.,

vii.,

4

ff.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

i6o

periences

which they had never dreamed, within the It was found that if

of

horizon of philosophic consciousness.

women had much

much

to learn,

also

might be learned from

Their wishes could not be taken into account without

them.

giving a greatly increased prominence in the guidance of

conduct to such sentiments as

fidelity, purity,

and pity

;

and

to that extent the religion which they helped tg establish has,

no room

at least in principle, left

On

the other hand,

feminine

exclusively

it

any

for

further progress.

only by reason that the more can be freed from their

is

impulses

primitive narrowness and elevated into truly human emotions.

Love, when

left

to

itself,

causes

more pain than

pleasure, for

remain true which associate it with jealousy as cruel as the grave pity, without prevision, the words of the old idyl

still

;

creates

more

instinctively

We are still

suffering than

it

relieves

;

and blind

fidelity is

opposed even to the most beneficent changes. suffering from the excessive preponderance which

Catholicism gave to the ideas of listen to those

who

tell

women

;

but we need not

us that the varied experiences of

humanity cannot be organised

into a rational, consistent, self-

supporting whole.

A survey of which There

the Socratic philosophy would be incomplete

comment on an element

without some

at first sight is

no

seems to

lie

in the

life

of Socrates,

altogether outside philosophy.

fact in his history

more

certain than that he

believed himself to be constantly accompanied by a

Daemo-

nium, a divine voice often restraining him, even in trifling matters, but never prompting to positive action, That it was neither conscience in our sense of the word, nor a supposed is now generally admitted. Even those who supernatural origin and authority of our moral believe in the feelings do not credit them with a power of divining the

familiar spirit,

accidentally good or evil consequences which

our most

trivial

and

indifferent actions

;

may

while,

attend on

on the other

hand, those feelings have a positive no less than a negative

THE PLACE OF SOCRATES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY. which

function,

is

exhibited whenever the performance of

That the Daemonium was not

good deeds becomes a duty. a personal attendant

is

proved by the invariable use of an

indefinite neuter adjective to designate

menon

itself

pathologists.

put upon

it

should be explained

We have here by

naturally

quite

Socrates,

Greek.

it.

How the

pheno-

a question for professional

and

this, in

our judgment, follows

from his charactefistic mode of thought

oracles

by

their pleasure

visible signs

was an experience familiar to every

Socrates, conceiving

the whole universe, would

presence in his

is

to account for the interpretation

That the gods should signify and public

i6i

God

as a

mind

diffused through

look for traces of the Divine

own mind, and would

readily interpret

inward suggestion, not otherwise to be accounted manifestation of this all-pervading power. invariably appear under the form of a restraint

The only explanation seems

Why is

for, it

any as a

should

less obvious.

to be that, as a matter of fact,

such mysterious feelings, whether the product of unconscious experience or not, do habitually operate as deterrents rather

than as incentives. VII.

This Daemonium, whatever it may have been, formed one of the ostensible grounds on which its possessor was

We might have spared ourselves the trouble of going over the circumstances connected with that. tragical event, had not various

prosecuted and condemned to death for impiety.

attempts been

made

in

some well-known works

to extenuate

the significance of a singularly atrocious crime.

The case In the year 399 B.C. Socrates, who was then over seventy, and had never in his life been brought before a

stands thus.

law-court,

new

was indicted on the threefold charge of introducing

divinities, of

denying those already recognised by the

and of corrupting young men. His principal accuser was one Meletus, a poet, supported Ijy Lycon, a rhetorician, State,

M

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

i62

and by a much more powerful backer, Anytus, a leading The charge was tried citizen in the restored democracy. before a large popular tribunal, numbering

indifference.

When

urged to prepare a defence, he

with justice, that he had been preparing

it

his

whole

replied,

life

long.

could not, indeed, have easily foreseen what line the

Our own information on

this point

meagre enough, being principally derived from

allusions

prosecutors would take. is

hundred

five

Socrates regarded the whole affair with profound

members.

He

some

.

made by Xenophon, who was

not himself present at the

trial.

There seems, however, no unfairness in concluding that the charge of irreligion neither was nor could be substantiated.

The

evidence of

Xenophon

is

quite sufficient to establish the

unimpeachable orthodoxy of his an offence at Athens to believe State, Socrates

niuni

in

was not a new

divinity,

If

it

•

really

was

gods unrecognised by the

was not guilty of that

established divinities, such as all

friend.

offence, for his

Daemo-

but a revelation from the individual believers have at

times been permitted to receive even by the most jealous

religious

communities.

The imputation

of infidelity, com-

monly and indiscriminately brought against all philosophers, was a particularly unhappy one to fling at the great opponent of physical science, who, besides, was noted for the punctual discharge of his religious duties. That the first two counts of the indictment should be so frivolous raises a strong prejudice against the third.

The

charges of corruption seem

—

alleged encouragement of to have come under two heads disrespect to parents, and of disaffection towards democratic institutions.

In support of the former some innocent expres-

sions let

by Socrates seem

fall

cruelly perverted.

By way

to have been taken

up and

of stimulating his young friends

had observed that relations were only of value when they could help one another, and that to do so they musfbe properly educated. This was twisted into an assertion that ignorant parents might properly be placed to improve their minds, he

THE PLACE OF SOCRATES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY. under restraint by their better-informed children.

163

That such

an inference could not have been sanctioned by Socrates himself is obvious- from his insisting on the respect due even to so intolerable a

mother as Xanthippl^

opinions of the defendant presented a iiii

political

He thought the custom of choosing magistrates hy lot absurd, and did not conceal his contempt for it. There is, however, no reason for believing that such purely theoretifor attack.

cal criticisms itte

The

more vulnerable point

any

were forbidden by law or usage at Athens.

much more

rate,

At

revolutionary sentiments were tolerated

That Socrates would be no party to a violent subversion of the Constitution, and would regard it with high disapproval, was abundantly clear both from his life and on the stage.

from the whole tenor of his teaching.

In opposition to

Hippias, he defined justice as obedience to the law of the lisllB

mini

The chances of the lot had, on one memorable occahim to preside oyer the deliberations of the

land.

sion, called

A

I''"

Sovereign Assembly.

^f-

law, that the generals

ittj,»

the crews of their sunken ships at Arginusae should be tried

pl!^

in

tatif

proposition was made, contrary to

who were accused of having abandoned

In spite of tremendous popular clamour,

a single batch.

Socrates refused to put the question to the vote on the single

jsjiS

day for which his office lasted. The just and resolute man, who would not yield to the unrighteous demands of a crowd, had shortly afterwards to face the threats of a frowning

^i

tyrant.

jjjjji

and

tlej*

ittffl*

,|j(i([j

gitof ij,|i

^i^

When the

Thirty were installed in power, he publicly, life, expressed disapproval of their

at the risk of his

The

sanguinary proceedings. as

many

oligarchy, wishing to involve

respectable citizens as possible in complicity with

their crimes, sent for five persons, of

whom

and ordered them he might be put to death

Leo from Salamis, that

to bring a certain ;

Socrates was one,

the others obeyed, but Socrates

iti'fflB'

refused to

accompany them on

their

disgraceful

errand.

am"*

Nevertheless,

it

told

heavily against '

Mem.,

M

II.,

2

:

the philosopher that

1

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

64

Alcibiades, the most mischievous of demagogues, and Critias,.

the most savage of aristocrats, passed for having been edu-

was remembered, also, that he was in the habit of quoting a passage from Homer, where Odysseus is cated by him.

It

described as appealing to the reason of the chiefs, while he brings

inferior

men

to their senses with rough words and

rougher chastisement.

In

reaility,

Socrates did not

the poor should be treated with brutality by the

would have been the

first

had such

to suffer

mean

that

rich, for

he

license been

permitted, but he meant that where reason failed harsher

methods of coercion must be applied. expressions of opinion

in support of a capital

alleged,

conversation are so

be misunderstood or purposely perverted, to adduce

liable to

them

let fall in private

Precisely because

charge where no overt act can be

the most mischievous form of encroachment on

is

individual liberty.

Modern

critics,

beginning with Hegel,* have discovered

reasons for considering Socrates a dangerous character, which

apparently did not occur to Meletus and his associates. are told that the whole system of applying

morality had an unsettling tendency, for

men

if

We

dialectics

to

were once

taught that the sacredness of duty rested on their individual conviction they might refuse to be convinced, and act accordingly.

And

it is

further alleged that Socrates

this principle of subjectivity into morals. spirit

is

opinions,

so insatiable that in default of

and

in default

general tendencies.

We

first

The acts

of specific opinions

know

it

introduced

persecuting it

attacks

fastens on

that Joseph de Maistre was

suspected by his ignorant neighbours of being a Revolutionist

because most of his time was spent in study and but the other day a French preacher was sent into exile by his eccle;

siastical superiors for

daring to

on rational grounds.^ '

'

Geseh. d. Ph., 11., lOO flF. Written in the spring of 1880.

that time rusticated in Corsica.

support Catholic morality

Fortunately Greek society was not The allusion

is

to

Father Didon, who was

at

THE PLACE OF SOCRATES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY. subject to the rules of the

where

Dominican Order.

in Greece, certainly not at

AAens,

165

Never any-

did there exist that

all-comprehensive, unquestionable fabric of traditional

solid,

assumed by Hegel and Zeller is conceding far much when he defends Socrates, on the sole ground that

obligation

too

;

the recognised standards of right had fallen into universal

contempt during the Peloponnesian war, while admitting that he might

fairly

have been silenced at an

earlier period, if

indeed his teaching could have been conceived as possible before

it

For from the

actually began.*

first,

both

in litera-

by an ardent desire to get to the bottom of every question, and to discover arguments of universal applicability for every decision. Even ture

in

and

in life,

Greek thought

is

distinguished

the youth of Pericles knotty ethical problems were eagerly

discussed without authorities.

any

interference

on the part of the public

Experience had to prove how far-reaching was

the effect of ideas before a systematic attempt could be

made

to control them.

In what terms Socrates replied to his accusers cannot be stated with absolute certainty.

Reasons have been already

given for believing that the speech put into his mouth by Plato

is

not entirely historical

a further reason that the

Xenophon

;

;

and

may mention

as

charges mentioned by

Thus much, howwas of a thoroughly dignified

are not even alluded to in

ever, is clear, that the defence

character

and here we

specific

it.

that, while the allegations of the prosecution

were successfully rebutted, the defendant stood entirely on his innocence, illegal

and refused

to

make any

of the customary but

appeals to the compassion of the court.

We

are

assured that he was condemned solely on account of this

and by a very small majority. Mel^tus had demanded the penalty of death, but by Attic law Socrates had the right of proposing some milder sentence as defiant attitude,

an alternative.

According to Plato, he began by stating that '

Ph.

d. Gr., II., a, 192.

1

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

66

the justest return for his entire devotion to

t^he

public good

would be maintenance at the public expense during the j'emainder of his life, an honour usually granted to victors at the Olympic games. In default of this he proposed a fine of minae,

thirty

to

be

by

raised

contributions

According to another account,' he

friends.

ground of

his innocence, to

name any

among

refused,

his

on the

alternative penalty.

On

a second division Socrates was condemned to death by a

much

larger majority than that which

eighty of those

who had voted

had found him

for his acquittal

guilty,

now voting for

his execution.

Such was the transaction which some moderns, Grote

among

the number, holding Socrates to be one of the best

and wisest of men, have endeavoured to excuse.

Their argu-

ment is that the illustrious victim was jointly responsible own fate, and that he was really condemned, not for

his

teaching, but for contempt of court. is

a distinction without a difference.

To us it seems What has been

for

his

that this so finely

and time may be said also of the Socratic life and the Socratic doctrine each was contained entire in Such as he appeared to the every point of the other.

said of space

;

he appeared ever5/where, always, and

"Dicastery, such also

to all men, offering

them the

sible in a court of law, if

justice

evasions, tised

?

could

and

truth,

the whole truth, and

was not permiswas not permissible at all

If conduct like his

nothing but the truth.

then

it

j

be administered without

not

disguises,

reticences,

where was sincerity ever to be prac-

If reason was not to be the paramount arbitress

questions

of public

interest,

entrusted to her decision

.'

what

could

in

ever

he

Admit every extenuating

cir-

issues

cumstance that the utmost ingenuity can devise, and from every point of view one fact will come out clearly, that Socrates was impeached as a philosopher, that he defended

himself like a philosopher, and that he was condemned to '

In the Apologia altiibiUed to Xenophon.

THE PLACE OF SOCRATES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

167

Those who attempt to from the character of the Athenian people

death because he was a philosopher.

remove

this stain

will find that, like the blood-stain it

rubbed out on one" side

is

on Bluebeard's key, when

reappears on the other.

it

way

punish Socrates for his teaching, or for the

in

To

which he

defended his teaching, was equally persecution, and persecu-

which attacks not thp

tion of the worst description, that results of free

thought but free thought

when he says

then agree with Grote of Socrates in

'

ought to count as one of the

an essentially gloomy catalogue.'

the gloomiest of any, because

it

We

itself

cannot

that the condemnation least

On

gloomy items

the contrary,

it

is

reveals a depth of hatred for

pure reason in vulgar minds which might otherwise have re-

There

mained unsuspected. cutors, for Caiaphas, quisition,

and

and

St.

is

some excuse

for other perse-

Dominic, and Calvin

for the authors of the

:

for the In-

dragonnades

;

for the

judges of Giordano Bruno, and the judges of Vanini

:

they

were striving to exterminate particular opinions, which they believed to be both false and pernicious

excuse for the Athenian dicasts, least of

there

;

all for

is

no such

those eighty

who, having pronounced Socrates innocent, sentenced him to death because he reasserted his innocence

;

if,

indeed, inno-

cence be not too weak a word to describe his life-long battle against that very irreligion and corruption which were laid to his charge.

Here, in this one cause, the great central issue

between two abstract

principles, the principle of authority

and the principle of reason, was cleared from all adventitious circumstances, and disputed on its own intrinsic merits with the usual weapons of argument on the one side and brute force

on

the

On

other.

condemned, and on

it

that

issue

his judges

Socrates was finally

must be condemned by

us.

Neither can we admit Grote's further contention, that in city but Athens would Socrates have been per-

no Greek

mitted to carry on his cross-examining activity for so long a

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

i68

period.

On

we agree with Colonel

the contrary,

Mure,' that in

Xenophanes and Parmenides, Heracleitus and Democritus, had given utterance no other state would he have been molested.

to far bolder opinions than his, opinions radically destructive

of Greek religion, apparently without running the slightest

personal risk

while Athens had more than once before

;

shown the same

spirit

of fanatical intolerance, though without

proceeding to such a fatal extreme, thanks, probably, to the timely escape of her intended victims.

M. Ernest Renan has

quite recently contrasted the freedom of thought accorded by

Roman

despotism with the narrowness of old Greek Repub-

licanism, quoting

sample of the

what he

calls the

The word

latter.

Athenian Inquisition as a

inquisition

is

not too strong,

only the lecturer should not have led his audience to believe that Greek Republicanism

sented by

very

its

most

little free

was

in this respect fairly repre-

brilliant type, for

had such been the case

thought would have been

left

for

Rome

to

tolerate.

During the month's

respite

accidentally allowed

him,

Socrates had one more opportunity of displaying that stedfast

obedience to the law which had been one of his great guiding principles through

The means

life.

of escaping from prison

were offered to him, but he refused to avail himself of them, according to Plato, that the implicit contract of loyalty to which his citizenship

had bound him might be preserved unbroken.

Nor was death unwelcome he courted alien

it,

any

him although

to

not true that

desire to figure as a martyr being quite

from the noble simplicity of his character.

reached an age when the daily growth

him alone made changed

life

worth

for a gradual

was to be continued

in itself

But he had

wisdom which

living, .seemed likely

decline.

for

to be ex-

That

this

he never doubted, whether

in other worlds, or

happiness of an eternal sleep. '

in

and melancholy

past progress was a good it

it is

succeeded by the

And we may

Hist, of Gr. Lit,, IV.,

App. A.

be sure that he

THE PLACE OF SOCRATES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY. would have held

his

own

whole human

for the

highest good to be equally desirable

race,

collective aspirations

its

169

eVen withi»the clear prevision that

and

efforts

cannot be prolonged for

ever.

Two

philosophers only can be

named who,

in

modern

have rivalled or approached the moral dignity of

times,

Socrates.

Like, him, Spinoza realised his

and happy

life.

own

ideal of a

good

Like him, Giordano Bruno, without a hope

of future recompense, chose death rather than a to the highest truth,

and death,

form, not the painless extinction

too,

under

life

unfaithful

most

its

by hemlock

terrible

inflicted in a

heathen city, but the agonising dissolution intended by Catholic love to serve as a foretaste of everlasting

fire.

neither can the parallel be extended further

;

Yet with

for Spinoza,

wisely perhaps, refused to face the storms which a public profession and propagation of his doctrine would have raised

;

and the wayward career of Giordano Bruno was not in keeping

The complex and distracting conditions was cast did not permit them to attain that statuesque completeness which marked the classic age of Greek with

in

its

heroic end.

which their

lot

and thought. Those times developed a wilder energy, a more stubborn endurance, a sweeter purity than any that the ancient world had known. But until the scattered elements life

are recombined in a for perfection

can be

must remain the

still loftier

harmony, our sleepless

satisfied at

one spring alone.

thirst

Pericles

ideal of statesmanship, Pheidias of artistic

production, and Socrates of philosophic power.

we have passed

Before the ideas which forth

on their world-conquering mission,

only that Socrates should

die,

by being absorbed

it

review could go was necessary, not

in

but that his philosophy should

into the more splendid generalisaThat system has, for some time past, been made an object of close study in our most famous seats of learning," and a certain acquaintance with it has almost become part of a liberal education in England. No

die also, tions

of Plato's system.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

170

better source of inspiration,

be found better

by

lations

but

;

first

we

combined with

discipline, could

and appreciate Plato still extricating the nucleus round which his specushall understand

have gathered

and

in successive deposits,

only do with the help of Xenophon, whose

little

well deserves attention for the sake of

own

The

candid beauty. Platonic writings

relation

may be

which

in

it

we can

work

also

chaste and

stands to the

symbolised by an example familiar

to the experience of every traveller.

we

ing a Gothic cathedral,

its

this

As

sometimes, in

visit-

are led through the wonders of the

—

more modern edifice under soaring pavements, and between long rows of

arches, over tesselated

clustered columns, past

frescoed walls, storied windows, carven pulpits, and sepulchral

monuments, with

— down into

their endless wealth of mythologic imagery

the oldest portion of any, the bare stern crypt,

severe with the simplicity of early art, resting on pillars taken

from an ancient temple, and enclosing the tomb of some martyred

saint, to

whose

glorified spirit

intercession before the mercy-seat

honour also

all

is

an

office of perpetual

assigned, and in whose

that external magnificence has been piled up

we pass through

;

so

the manifold and marvellous construc-

tions of Plato's imagination to that austere memorial where

Xenophon has enshrined with

pious care, under the great

primary divisions of old Hellenic

virtue,

an authentic reliquary

of one standing foremost among those who, having worked out their own deliverance from the powers of error and evil,

would not be saved alone, but published the secret of redemption though death were the penalty of its disclosure and who, by their transmitted influence, even more than by their ;

eternal example, are

development of social,

all

that

still is

contributing to the progressive

most

rational,

and therefore most truly human

most

consistent, most

in ourselves.

171

CHAPTER

IV.

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. I.

In studying the growth of philosophy as an

historical evolu-

and anticipations must necessarily be of frequent occurrence. Ideas meet us at every step which can repetitions

tion,

we trace out their later developwhen we refer them back to modes of thought. The speculative

only be appreciated when

ments, or only understood earlier

tissue

that

and half-forgotten is

woven out of filaments so

it is

delicate

and so complicated

almost impossible to say where one begins and the

Even conceptions which seem

other ends.

to

have been

transmitted without alteration are constantly acquiring a

new value according

to the connexions into

which they enter

or the circumstances to which they are applied.

But if the method of evolution, with its two great principles of continuity and relativity, substitutes a maze of intricate lines, often returning on themselves, for the straight path along

which progress was once supposed to move, we are more than compensated by the new sense of coherence and rationality

reign

where

supreme.

intellect

may

and extravagance once seemed to teaches us that the dreams of a great

illusion It

be better worth our attention than the waking

perceptions of ordinary men.

Combining fragments of the

old order with rudimentary outlines of the new, they lay open

the secret laboratory of spiritual chemistry, and help to bridge

over the interval phases of

life

separating the

and thought.

accustomed ourselves

to break

most widely contrasted

Moreover, when we have once

up past systems of philosophy

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

172

component elements, when we see how heterothis and that

into their

geneous and ill-cemented were the parts of

proud

edifice

once offered as the only possible shelter against

dangers threatening the very existence of shall

be prepared

civilisation

contemporary systems of equally ambitious distinguishing that which

and temporary

provisional

dead

resuscitation of a

value,

it is

is

and proof merely

not the literary

past, visionary, retrograde,

And we

chievously wrong.

when

to

pretensions

vital, fruitful, original,

is

gressive in their ideal synthesis from that which

—we

method

for the application of a similar

and mis-

be reminded that the

shall also

most precious ideas have orly been shaped, preserved, and transmitted through association with earthy and perishable ingredients.

The

Browning's

Roman

fiery acid

of purifying analysis which dissolves away the

inferior

'

function of true criticism jeweller,

metal and

leaves

to turn

on them

it

seems to

like '

Robert

the proper

behind the gold ring whereby

thought and action are inseparably and Such, as

is,

us, is

fruitfully united.

the proper spirit in which we

should approach the great thinker whose works are to occupy us in this and the succeeding chapter.

No

philosopher has

ever offered so extended and vulnerable a front to hostile criticism.

own

None has

so habitually provoked reprisals by his

incessant and searching attacks on

sions, customs,

and

beliefs.

It

all

existing profes-

might even be maintained

that

none has used the weapons of controversy with more unscrupulous zeal. And it might be added that he who dwells so

much on

the importance of consistency has occasionally

denounced and ridiculed the very principles which he elsewhere upholds as demonstrated truths. It was an easy matter for others to complete the work of destruction which

he had begun.

up of

first sight to be made one more outrageous than another.- The

His system seems at

assertions,

ascription of an objective concrete separate reality to verbal

abstractions

is

assuredly the most astounding paradox ever

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. Yet

maintained even by a metaphysician.

That bodj^is

article of Plato's creed.

iTi

this is the central

essentially different

from extension might, one would suppose, have been ciently clear to a mathematician

coming

after

who had

suffi-

the advantage of

Leucippus and Democritus.

Their identity

is

That the soul cannot be

implicitly affirmed in the Timaeus.

both created and eternal that the doctrine of metempsychosis ;

is

incompatible with the hereditary transmission of mental

qualities

;

that a future immortality equivalent to, and proved

by the same arguments

as,

our antenatal existence, would be

neither a terror to the guilty nor a consolation to the right-

eous

:

— are

implicitly

denied by Plato's psy-

Passing from theoretical to practical philosophy,

chology. "it

propositions

might be observed that respect

for

human

truthfulness, are generally

life,

respect for

and respect

individual property, respect for marriage,

for

numbered among the strongest

moral obligations, and those the observance of which most completely distinguishes civilised from savage

man

;

while

communism, promiscuity, and the occasional employment of deliberate deceit, form part of Plato's scheme for the redemption of mankind. We need not do more than allude to those Dialogues where the phases and symptoms of unnameable passion are delineated with matchless eloquence,, and apparently with at least as much sympathy as censure. Finally, from the standpoint of modern science, it might be infanticide,

urged that Plato used

all his

powerful influence to throw back

physical speculation into the theological stage

;

that he de-

liberately discredited the doctrine of mechanical causation

which, for us,

thought

who

;

is

the most important achievement of early Greek

that he expatiated

on the criminal

held the heavenly bodies to be, what

folly of those

we now know them

to be, masses of dead matter with no special divinity about

them

;

and that he proposed

to punish this

with a severity distinguishable from the native city only by

its

more

disciplined

and other heresies

fitful

fanaticism of his

and rigorous application.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

174

A

plain

man might

find

difficult to

it

understand how

such-extravagances could be deliberately propounded by the

Athens ever produced, except on the .principle, dear to mediocrity, that genius is but little removed from madness, and that philosophical genius resembles it greatest intellect that

more nearly than any

much

other.

And his

surprise

ages have looked up with reverence to Plato of the most opposite schools have resorted to

and stimulation

tion

would become

greater on learning that the best and wisest

;

;

men

of

all

that thinkers

him

for instruc -

that his writings have never been

more

own age — an age which has of so many illusive reputations and

attentively studied than in our

witnessed the destruction

;

that the foremost of English educators has used

all

his

influence to promote the better understanding and appreciation of Plato as a prime element in academic culture

now extended

fluence

beyond the

far

limits

— an in-

of his

own

university through that translation of the Platonic Dialogues

which part,

is

known

too well

but which we

to need

any commendation on our

may mention

as one of the principal

authorities used for the present study, together with the

of a

German

scholar, his obligations

to

whom

work

Prof. Jowett

has acknowledged with characteristic grace.'

As it

a set-off against the

list

would be easy to quote a

of paradoxes cited from Plato,

still

tributions to the cause of truth

between the two,

arjd to

on the positive side verdict of posterity.

longer

and

list

of brilliant con-

right, to strike

a balance

show that there was a preponderance

sufficiently great to justify the favourable

We believe, however, that such

would be as misleading as

it

is

superficial.

a method

Neither Plato

nor any other thinker of the same calibre— if any other there ^

be

—should be estimated by a simple

We '

must go back The

ed., 1875.

Plato

analysis of his opinions.

to the underlying forces of which individual

Dialogites of Plato translated into English. Zeller,

und die

alte

Die Philosofhie der Criechen. Academic, 3rd ed., 1875.

By B. Jowett, M.A. 2nd Zweiter Theil, erste Abtheilung.

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

I7S

Every

opinions are the resultant and the revelation.

syste-

matic synthesis represents certain prqjound intellectual tendencies, derived partly

from previous philosophies, partly from

the social environment, partly from the thinker's

Each of such tendencies may be

and character.

necessary, according to the conditions under

and yet two or more of them

into play,

unstable and

explosive compound.

which

may form

Nevertheless,

speculative combinations that they are preserved

with the greatest distinctness, and for

them

if

our race.

own genius salutary

and

comes

it

a highly it

is

in

and developed we must seek

there that

it is

we would understand the psychological history of And this is why we began by intimating that the

lines of our investigation

may

take us back over ground which

has been already traversed, and forward into regions which

cannot at present be completely surveyed.

We have this

great advantage in dealing with Plato

his philosophical writings

the thinkers

have come down to us

who preceded him

are

fragments and second-hand reports.

entire,

while

known only through Nor is the difference

was the creator of speculative properly so called he was the first and also the

merely accidental. literature,

—that

Plato

:

greatest artist that ever clothed abstract thought in language of

appropriate majesty and splendour their beauty of form that writings.

we owe

;

and

it

is

probably to

the preservation of his

Rather unfortunately, however, along with the

genuine works of the master, a certain number of pieces have

been handed down to us under

his

name, of which some are

almost universally admitted to be spurious, while the authenticity still

of others

divided.

is

a question on which the best scholars are

In the absence of any very cogent external

immense amount of industry and learning has been expended on this subject, and the arguments employed on both sides sometimes make us doubt whether the reasonevidence, an

ing powers of philologists are better developed than, according to Plato, were those, of mathematicians in his time.

The

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

176

two extreme positions are occupied by Grote, who accepts the whole Alexandrian canon, and Krohn, who admits nothing but the Republic;^ while

much more

serious

such as

critics,

Schaarschmidt, reject along with a mass of worthless compo-

Dialogues almost equal in interest and import-

sitions several

ance to those whose authenticity has never been doubted.

The

great historian of Greece seems to have been rather

undiscriminating both in his scepticism and in his belief the exclusive importance which

he

testimony, or to what passed for such with him,

unduly biassed

his

judgment

in

may have As it

both directions.

happens, the authority of the canon

Grote imagined

and

;

attributed to contemporary

much weaker

is

than

but even granting his extreme contention,

;

our view of Plato's philosophy would not be seriously affected

by it,

for the pieces

which are rejected by

all

The

no speculative importance whatever.

critics

have

who impugn

were we to agree with those

different

other

case would be far the

genuineness of the Parmenides, the Sophist, the Statesman,

and the Laivs

t\i» Phil^bu's,

new departure formation of of the

in

its

reasons

for these compositions

;

mark a

Platonism amounting to a complete

fundamental principles, which indeed

why

their

authenticity

has been

transis

one

denied.

Apart, however, from the numerous evidences of Platonic authorship furnished by the Dialogues themselves, as well as

by the

indirect references to

them

in Aristotle's writings,

seems utterly incredible that a thinker scarcely, inferior to the

master himself

assuredly have been

if

at

it

all,

— as the supposed imitator must

— should

have

consented

let

his

reasonings pass current under a false name, and that,

too,

the

name

troverted

of one whose teaching he in ;

while there

is

some

to

respects con-

a further difficulty in assuming that

existence could pass unnoticed at a period marked by

his

intense '

literary

and philosophical

Krohn, Der Plaionische Stoat, Halle 1876.

activity.

Readers who

know

work only through

[I

this

Chiapellij Delia Interpretazione panteistica di Platone, Florence, l88i.]

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

177:

wish for fuller information on the subject will find in Zeller's

of^he whole

pages a careful and lucid digest

controversy

Others

leading to a moderately conservative conclusion.

will

doubtless be content to accept Prof Jowett's verdict, that '

on the whole not a sixteenth part of the writings which

name of Plato, if we exclude the works by the ancients themselves, can be fairly doubted by those who arq willing to allow that a considerable change and pass under the

rejected

growth

may have

we may add

To

which-

that the Platonic dialogues, whether the

work

taken place

in his philosophy.'

'

of one or more hands, and however widely differing,

among

themselves, together represent a single phase of thought, and are appropriately studied as a connected series.

We have assumed discover

some

in

our

last

remark that

sort of chronological

it is

possible to

order in the Platonic

Dialogues, and to trace a certain progressive modification in the general tenor of their teaching from

here also the positive evidence

first

of conflicting theories have been propounded scholars.

Where

so

much

is left

can be said for any hypothesis according to

known laws

evolution

of

making- it

we

by

Plato's

that

it

emintilt

explains the facts

It

own attempt to

will

be for the

trace the gradual

system

satisfies this condition. In a basis the arrangement adopted

shall take as

Prof. Jowett, with

by

to conjecture, the best that

is

of thought.

reader to judge whether our

But

to last.

very scanty, and a variety

is

some

reservations

hereafter

to

be

specified.

Before entering on our task, one more difficulty remains Plato, although the greatest master of prose

to be noticed.

composition that ever

and for his time a remarkably voluminous author, cherished a strong dislike for books, and even affected to regret that the art of writing had ever been invented.

A

down

ideas

his

man, he

lived,

might amuse himself by putting on paper, and might even find written said,

'

III., 418.

N

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

178

memoranda

useful

private

for

struction worth speaking of cation,

which made

it

reference,

but the only

was conveyed, by

oral

in-

communi?

possible fpr objections unforeseen

the teacher to be freely urged and answered.'

by Such had

been the method of Socrates, and such was doubtless the it was possible for him to

practice of Plato himself whenever set forth

his philosophy

by word of mouth.

It has been

supposed, for this reason, that the great writer did not take

own books

his

in earnest,

and wished them to be regarded

no more than the elegant recreations of a

deeper and more serious thoughts were reserved

his

as

leisure hour, while for

and conversations, of which, beyond a few allusions That such, however, in Aristotle, every record has perished. was not the case, may be easily shown. In the first place it is evident, from the extreme pains taken by Plato to throw lectures

his philosophical expositions into

conversational form) that

he did not despair of providing a literary substitute

spoken dialogue. this

Secondly,

for

a strong confirmation of

it is

theory that Aristotle, a personal friend and pupil of

Plato during

many

years, should so frequently refer to the

Dialogues as authoritative evidences of his master's- opinions

And, lastly, if it can be do actually embody a shown comprehensive and connected view of life and of the world, on the most important

topics.

that the documents in question

we

shall feel satisfied that the oral teaching of Plato,

been preserved, would not modify

in

any

had

it

material degree the

impression conveyed by his written compositions.

II.

There

is

a story that Plato used to thank the gods,

in

what some might consider a rather Pharisaic spirit, for having made him a human being instead of a brute, a man instead of a woman, and a Greek instead of a barbarian but more than ;

'

Phaedr., p. 274

B

ff.

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

179

hing else for having permitted him to be born in the It will be observ^ that all these blessings one direction, the complete supremacy in his

of Socrates.

ed

in

acter of reason

To

impulse and sense.

assert,

and organise that supremacy was the object of his

nd, le

over

Such, indeed, had been

life.

the object of

all

his

lecessors, and such, stated generally, has been always and ywhere the object of philosophy but none had pursued consciously before, and none has proclaimed it so ;

lusiastically since then. e

done

Now, although Plato could not

without a far wider range of knowledge and

this

erience than Socrates

method that

Socratic

ue of the

uisitions could

had possessed, his

was only by other gifts and if

be turned to complete account;

while,

was only when brought to bear upon these new :erials that the full power of the method itself could be ;aled. To be continually asking and answering questions :licit information from everybody on every subject worth versely,

it

;

»wing berial 1

and to elaborate the resulting mass of intellectual into the most convenient form for practical applica;

or for further transmission,

was the

secret of true

wisdom But

h the sage of the market-place and the workshop. process of dialectic investigation as an end in

itself,

:nse personal interest of conversation with living

men of all ults,

classes, the

the

men and

impatience for immediate and visible

had gradually induced Socrates

to restrict within far

narrow limits the sources whence his ideas were derived which they were applied. And the 1 the purposes to I

method ^elopment by lectic

>ics

itself

this

submitted to

could not but be checked in

its

want of breadth and variety its

grasp.

however lamentable

Therefore

the

internal in

the

death of

was an unxed benefit to the cause for which he laboured, by arrestf (as we must suppose it to have arrested) the popular and crates,

liscriminate

in its occasion,

employment of N

his 2

cross-examining method,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

i8o

liberating hi$ ablest diSciple from the ascendency of a revered

master, and inducing

him to reconsider the whole question

human knowledge and For, be

of

action from a remoter point of view;.

observed that Plato did not begin where Socrates

it

had left off; he went back to the germinal point of the whole system, and proceeded to reconstruct it on new lines '

The

of his own.

loss of those

whom we

our thoughts back to the time of our them,

acquaintance with

these are ascertainable, to the circumstances, of

or, if

In this manner Plato seems to have been at occupied exclusively with the starting-point of his

their early first

love habitually leads

first

life.

;

and we know, from the narrative given in the Apologia, under what form he came to conceive it. We

friend's philosophy,

have attempted to show that the account alluded to cannot be entirely historical. Nevertheless it seems sufficiently Socrates began with a conviction

clear that

ignorance, and

prefaced

on their

that his

efforts

by the extraction of a part.

to

of his own

improve others

were

similar confession of ignorance

It is also certain that

phenomena

through

life

he regarded

beyond the reach of human reason and reserved by the gods for their own exclusive cognisance, pointing, by way of proof, to the the causes of physical

as placed

notorious differences of opinion prevalent

among

who Thus, his scepticism had meddled with such matters. worked in two directions, but on the one side it was only provisional and on the other it was only partial; Plato began

by combining is

knowledge for

men

is

the two.

He maintained that human

and necessary

universal

those

for themselves

;

;

nescience

had reserved all and that the only wisdom left that the gods

a consciousness of their absolute ignorance.

Socratic starting-point gave the centre of his agnostic

the

Socratic

described.

theology gave the distance at which

Here we have

breadth of generiilisation

from the master

;

to

note two things

—

which distinguishes the

and, secondly, the

The circle-;

it

first,

was the

disciple

symptoms of a

strong

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

nd of the Peloponnesian War, evi^nce

and

ppeared,

sstimony to

the Bacchae

its

Even before the had

Greek humanism.

eligious reaction against

of

gloomy and

i8r

of this reaction

striking

bears

Euripides

fanatical character.

The

last

gony of Athens, the collapse of her power, and the subseuent period of oligarchic terrorism, must have, given a timulus to

superstition

like

rimages almost too childish for

movement, although

eneral

looking

belief.

on

his

much higher

plane.

countrymen, he was equally opposed

New

the irreligion of the

Learning, and, had an oppor-

been given, him, he would, like the Reformers of the

Linity

ixteenth

century,

^verity.

Nor was

have

put

down both

all

with

impartial

only analogy between his position

this the

nd that of a Luther or a Calvin. ke

a

pil-

Plato followed the

down with undisguised contempt on the

nmoral idolatry of D

recently

quite

France with an epidemic of apparitions and

fflicted

Vhile

which

that

Like them, and indeed

great religious teachers, he exalted the Creator

tilarging

on the nothingness of the creature

anity exhibits the holiness of ith the sinfulness of

God

by

;

just as Chris-

in contrast

and correlation

unregenerate hearts

;

just as to Pindar

seemed but the fleeting shadow in a dreani when Dmpared with the beauty and strength and immortality of ie Olympian divinities so also did Plato deepen the gloom lan's life

;

f

human

;lief

ignorance that he might bring out in dazzling

the fulness of that knowledge which

he had been

lught to prize as a supreme ideal, but which, for that very ;ason,

seemed proper

e shall presently see

to the highest, existences alone.

how

And

Plato also discovered a principle

man by

virtue of which he could claim kindred with the ipernatural, and elaborated a scheme of intellectual media1

on by which the

fallen spirit could be regenerated and partaker in the kingdom of speculative truth.

Yet

if

haracter,

Plato's theology,

made

from its predominantly rational seemed to neglect some feelings which were better-

THE CREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

i82

satisfied

by the

cannot say that

mankind, we

earlier or the later faiths of it

excluded them.

really

The

tinfading

strength of the old gods was comprehended in the

self-

existence of absolute ideas, and moral goodness was only a particular application of reason to the conduct of

An

life.

emotional or imaginative element was also contributed by the theory that every faculty exercised without a reasoned consciousness of

its

processes and aims was due to some

saving grace and inspiration from a superhuman power.

It

was' thus, according to Plato, that poets and artists were able to produce intelligent

works of which they were not able to render an account and it was thus that society continued to ;

hold together with such an exceedingly small amount of

wisdom and virtue. Here, however, we have to observe a marked difference between the religious teachers pure and simple, and the Greek philosopher who was a dialectician For Plato held that even more than he was a divine. providential government was merely provisional that the ;

inspired prophet stood on a distinctly lower level than the critical,

self-conscious thinker

;

that ratiocination and not

poetry was the highest function of mind should

be

reorganised

in

accordance

;

and that

action

with demonstrably

certain principles.*

This search

after

a

but Plato seems to have set very

in the spirit of Socrates, little

conduct was quite

scientific basis for

value on his master's positive contributions to the sys-

tematisation of life.

We have seen that the

sceptical in its tendency;

and we

find a

Apologia

is

purely

whole group of Dia-

logues, probably the earliest of Plato's compositions, marked tone, These are commonly spoken of as Socratic, and so no doubt they are in reference

by the same negative, inconclusive to the subjects discussed

;

but they would be more accurately

described as an attempt to turn the Socratic method against its first originator. '

See

We

Zellei's note

know from another

on the

fle^o /uo^pa, op. cit.

source that tem-

p. 497,

PLATO ^ HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. and piety were the

perance, fortitude,

and practised by Socrates

;

r&3

chief virtues inculcated

while friendship,

not

if

strictly

speaking a virtue, was equally with them one of his prime interests in

It is clear that

life.

he considered them the most

appropriate and remunerative subjects of philosophical discussion

;

that he could define their nature to his own satisfaction

and that he had,

in fact, defined

them

as so

many

;

varieties of

Now, Plato has devoted a separate Dialogue to each

wisdom.

of the conceptions in question,' and in each instance he represents Socrates,

who

is

tne principal spokesman, as professedly

ignorant of the whole subject under discussion, offering no

own

definition of his

(or at least

but asking his interlocutors for pieces

when

it

is

We

given.

none that he theirs,

will stand by),

and pulling

to resolve the virtues into knowledge, and, so identify

them with one

another, or to carry

To

unity of a higher idea. footsteps

satisfied Socrates

became the

them up

have merely restated is

it

starting-point of a

If virtue

is

new

knowledge,

under another form, or

And

this

is

was so obvious

it

investi-

must be

Thus the rather^

we

For, to ask

what

equivalent to asking what

is its

in different terms.

temperance or fortitude,

use.

into the

had completely

knowledge of what we most desire—of the good. original difficulty returns

either to

far,

this extent Plato follows in the

of his master, but a result which

gation with his successor.

to

it

a tendency

do, indeed, find

to Socrates, that, apparently,

he

never thought of distinguishing between the two questions. But no sooner were they distinguished than his reduction of all morality to a single principle was shown to be

illusive,

For

each specific virtue had been substituted the knowledge of a specific utility, and that was all. Unless the highest good

were one, the means by which it was sought could not converge to a single point; nor, according to the new ideas, could their mastery come under the jurisdiction of a single art. '

The Charmides,

Laches, Euthyphro, and Lysis

1

TliE

84

We may

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.,

also suspect that Plato

with the positive results obtained the Socratic rise

was

by

dissatisfied not only

Socrates, but also with

method of constructing general

To

definitions.

from the part to the whole, from particular instances to

general notions, was a popular rather than a scientific process

;

and sometimes it only amounted to taking the current explanations and modifying them to suit the exigencies of ordinary

The

experience.

resulting definitions could never be

than tentative, and a

skilful dialectician

more

could always upset

them by producing an unlooked-for exception, or by discovering an ambiguity in the terms "by which they were conveyed.

Before ascertaining in what direction Plato sought for an outlet from these accumulated difficulties,

we have

to glance

at a Dialogue belonging apparently to his earliest compositions,

but

one respect occupying a position apart from the

in

The

Crito tells us for

from the

fate

rest.

what reasons Socrates refused to escape

which awaited him

in prison, as,

with the

assist-

The

ance of generous friends, he might easily have done.

aged philosopher considered that by adopting such a course he would be getting the Athenian laws at defiance, and doing

what

in

him lay

to destroy their validity.

Now, we know

that the historical Socrates held justice to consist in obedience to the law of the land

;

and here

for

once we find Plato agree-

ing with him on a definite and positive issue.

Such a sudden

and singular abandonment of the sceptical attitude merits our attention.

It

encies defy

niight, indeed,

all

be said that Plato's inconsist-

attempts at reconciliation, and that

in this

instance the dgsire tQ set his maligned friend in a favourable

triumphed over the claims of^^ impracticable

light

We

think, however, that a deeper

found.

If the Crito inculcates obedience to the laws

binding obligation,

it

is

logic.

and trugr solution can be as a

not for the reasons which, according

t

to

Xenophon, were adduced by the

dispute with the Sophist Hippias interest

;

real

Socrates in his

general utility and private

were the sole grounds, appealed to then.

Plato,

on

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. the

other hand, ignores his usual

such external considerations.

all

.

True to

method, he redijpes the legal conscience to

a purely dialectical process.

Just as in an argument the dis^

putants are, or ought to be, bound so also the citizen

\^

bound by a

is

by

own

their

compact

tacit

admissions, to

the

fulfil

laws whose protection he has enjoyed arid of whose claims his protracted residence

is

Here there is none

an acknowledgment.

no need of a transcendent foundation but logical considerations come

for morality, as

And

into play.

also

it

deserves to be noticed that, where this very idea of an obligation. based on acceptance of services

Socrates,

it

was discarded by

had been employed by

Plato.

In the £luthyphro, a

Dialogue devoted to the discussion of piety, the theory that religion rests

and men

is

on an exchange of good

offices

mentioned only to be scornfully

between gods

rejected.

Equally

remarkable, and equally in advance of the Socratic standpoint,

is

a principle enunciated in the Crito, that retaliation

wrong, and that

And

should never be returned for

evil

both are distinct anticipations of the

by the

called religious services celebrated in Christian churches,

of a divine retributiorr which

doctrine

retaliatory because

it is

evil.'

earliest Christian

teaching, though both are implicitly contradicted

by the

is

is

so-

and

only not

infinitely in excess of the provocation

received. If the earliest of Plato's enquiries, while they deal with the

same

subjects and are conducted on the

those cultivated by

Socrates,

evince a

same method

.as

breadth of view

surpassing anything recorded of him by Xenophon, they also exhibit traces of an influence disconnected with and inferior

On more

in value to his.

than one occasion

'=

Plato reasons,

or rather quibbles, in a style which he has elsewhere held up to ridicule as characteristic of the Sophists, with such success that

the

name

of sophistry has '

^

P. 49,

A

ff.

clung

Zeller, 142.

Chdrmidcs, 161

E;

Lysis, 212 C.

to

it

ever since.

^HE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

1 86

Indeed, some of the verbal fallacies employed are so trans-

parent that

we can hardly suppose them

and we are forced human wisdom was

to be unintentional,

to conclude that the

young

And

weapons, good or bad, which came to hand.

much

more

despiser pf

resolved to maintain his thesis with any

the eristic art from

he learned

likely that

seems

it

Protagoras or from his disciples than from Socrates. spent a large part of his is

Plato

— that

opposing the Sophists

life in

wisdom and

to say, the paid professors of

virtue

but

;

in

spite of, or rather perhaps because of, this very opposition, he

was profoundly

affected

by

quite conceivable, although

that he resorted to

them

their teaching

we do

and example.

not find

for instruction

it

It is

stated as a

fact,

when a young man,

and before coming under the influence of Socrates, an event which did not take place until he was twenty years old or he may have been directed to them by Socrates himself. With ;

.

all

its

originality^

his

style

bears traces

training in the niore elaborate passages,

of a rhetorical

and the Sophists

were the only teachers of rhetoric then to be found.

His

habit of clothing philosophical lessons in the form of a

myth

seems also to have been borrowed from them.

It

would,

therefore, not be surprising that he should cultivate their

argumentative legerdemain side by side with the more

and severe

strict

discipline of Socratic dialectics.

Plato does,

no doubt, make

it

a charge against the

Sophists that their doctrines are not only false and immoral,

but that they are put together without any regard for logical It would seem, however, that this style of attack coherence. belongs rather to the later and constructive than to the

earlier

The

and receptive period of

original

teachers

his intellectual

development

cause of his antagonism to the professional

seems to have been

their general pretensions to the which, from knowledge, standpoint of universal scepticism,

were, of course, utterly aristocratic

contempt

for

i

llusiv e

together with a feeling of a calling in which considerations of ;

1

J

.

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

187

pecuniary interest were involved, heightened in this instance

by a conviction that the buyer received nothing better than a sham article in exchange for his money. Here, again, a

i

il

i|

parallel suggests itself with the first preaching of the Gospel,

E

The

» ^

also

III

understand

and Pharisees, as

attitude of Christ towards the scribes

that of St. Paul towards

how

Simon Magus^

will help us to

Plato, in another order of spiritual teaching,

mast have regarded the hypocrisy of wisdom, the intrusion

h 1

of fraudulent traders into the temple of Delphic inspiration,

K.

ti

\^f'-:

and the

sale of a priceless blessing

Should have been

lir'

its

own and only

whose unlimited

diffusion

reward.

Yet throughout the philosophy of Plato we meet with a

141

tendency to ambiguous shiftings and reversions of which, here

ml

due account must be taken.

That curious blending of

tral:

also,

;ii|[

love and hate which forms the subject of a mystical lyric in

II

Mr. Browning's Pippa Passes,

tuy

in purely rationalistic discussion.

method

jjjj

to

dissolve

is

away much

incomplete, in Socratism, he used

not without

its

counterpart

If Plato used the Socratic

that it

was untrue, because

also to absorb

much

that

1

xj|.,

was deserving of development in Sophisticism. If, in one sense, the latter was a direct reversal of his master's teaching, in another it served as a sort of intermediary between that teaching and the unenlightened cpnsciousness of mankind.

.|^

The shadow should not be confounded with the substance, but it might show by contiguity, by resemblance, and by

jj. j^' Ijj^j

J

contrast where the solid reality lay, what were

u

and how Such is the mild and conciliatory mode of treatment at first adopted by Plato in dealing with the principal represent its characteristic lights

I

^ J,

tative of the Sophists

,

bears his

,1

name

its

outlines,

might best be viewed,

—Protagoras.

the famous humanist

In the Dialogue which is

presented to us as a

'atom

professor of popular unsystematised morality, proving

by a

iioiisl'

variety of practical arguments and ingenious illustrations that virtue can be taught, and that the preservation of social order

^,. ' t

lions"

depends upon the

possibility of teaching

it

;

but unwilling to

;

1

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS,

88

go along with the reasonings by which Socrates shows the of rigorously scientific principles to

applicability

Plato has here taken up one side of the Socratic

developed

it

into a complete

doctrine inculcated

is

conduct.

and

ethics,

and self^onsistent theory.

The

that form of utilitarianism to which Mr.

Sidgwick has given the name of egoistic hedonism. We are brought to admit that virtue is one because the various virtues reduce themselves in the last analysis to prudence. It is

assumed that

absence of pain,

securing a

and

like

pain,

maximum

is

mathematics

;

Duty

life.

and

all

virtuous action

is

constituted

;

it

a means

is

of the one together with a

and so

identified

is

a calculus for computing quantities

Ethical science

the other.

and the

happirtess, ia the sense of pleasure

the sole end of

Morality

with interest. of pleasure

is

who

professes to

know

nothing,

of

can be taught

far the Sophists are right,

but they

have arrived at the truth by a purely empirical process Socrates,

for

minimum

by simply

;

while

following

the dialectic impulse strikes out a generalisation which at once

confirms and explains their position

;

yet from self-sufficiency

or prejudice they refuse to agree with

stand on

in

its

him

That Plato put forward the ethical theory of the Protagoras perfect good faith cannot, we think, be doubted although ;

in other writings

ous aversion

;

he has repudiated hedonism with contemptu-

and

it

seems equally evident that

Of

earliest contribution to positive thought. it

in taking their

only logical foundation.

is

the simplest and most Socratic

;

this

was

his

all his theories

for Socrates, in

en-

deavouring to reclaim the foolish or vicious, often spoke as

if

was the paramount principle of human nature although, had his assumption been formulated as an abstract proposition, he too might have shrunk from it with something self-interest

of the uneasiness attributed to Protagoras.

evidence of another description the Dialogue in question

we have

And

from

internal

reason to think that

a comparativelyjuvenile production, remembering always that the period of youth was much more is

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. protracted

among

among

the Greeks than

189

One

ourselves.

almost seems to recognise the hand of a boy just out of college,

who

delights in drawing caricatures of his teachers

and who, while he looks down on

classical scholarship in

;

com-

more living and practical topics, is not sorry to show that he can discuss a difficult passage from Simonides parison with

.better

than the professors themselves.

III. first period is now complete and we more arduous task of tracing out the circumstances, impulses, and ideas by which all the scattered materials of Greek life, Greek art, and Greek thought were shaped into a new system and stamped with the impress of

Our survey

of Plato's

have to enter on the

;

far

an imperishable genius.

At

the threshold of this second

period the personality of Plato himself emerges into greater

and we have to consider what part it played in an evolution where universal tendencies and individual leanings were inseparably combined. Plato was born in the year 429, or according to some distinctness,

accounts 427, and died 347

B.C.

Few incidents

can be fixed with any certainty

most general

;

most

facts are also the

in his

biography

but for our purpose the interesting,

and about His family

we have tolerably trustworthy information. was one of the noblest in Athens, being connected on the father's side with Codrus, and on the mother's with Solon these

;

while two of his kinsmen, Critias and Charmides, were

among

It is uncertain whether he any considerable property, nor is the question one of much importance. It seems clear that he enjoyed the best education Athens could afford, and that through life he pos-

the chiefs of the oligarchic party. inherited

-

sessed a competence sufficient to relieve material existence. pressed,

when

far

him from the

cares of

Possibly the preference which he ex-

advanced

in

life,

for

moderate health and

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

igo

wealth arose from having experienced tho: e advantages himIf the busts which bear his name are to be trusted, he self.

was remarkably

beautiful, and, like

very careful of

some other

personal appearance.

his

philosophers,

Perhaps some

may

be

mingled with those pictures of youthful loveliness and of

its

reminiscences of the admiration bestowed on himself

exciting effect on the imaginations of older

men which

give

We know

such grace and animation to his earliest dialogues.

not whether as lover or beloved he passed unscathed through the storms of passion which he has so powerfully described,

nor whether his apparent^ intimate acquaintance with them

due to divination or to regretful experience. We may pass by in silence whatever is related on this subject, with the ceris

tainty that, whether true or not, scandalous stories could not fail

to be circulated about him. It

was natural that one who united a great

intellect to a

glowing temperament should turn his thoughts to poetry. Plato wrote a quantity of verses fashionable just then

—but

—verse-making had become

wisely committed them to the

flames on making the acquaintance of Socrates.

It

may

well

be doubted whether the author of the Phaedrus and the

Symposium would ever have attained eminence

in

metrical

composition, even had he lived in an age far more favourable to poetic inspiration than that which

time of Attic fancy,

a

art.

and dramatic

seems as

skill,

if

came

lacked the most essential quality of

;

easily felt than described.

Aristotle,

whom we

hard and dry and cold, sometimes comes true lyric cry. distinctly

power.

after the flowering

Plato, with all his fervour,

his finest passages are on a level with the highest and yet they are separated from it by a chasm more

singer

poetry,

It

And,

from every

The

as

if

to

other,

mark out it

is

much

think of as

nearer to the

Plato's style

still

more

also deficient in oratorical

philosopher evidently thought that he could beat

the rhetoricians on their

own ground

genuine, he tried to do so and failed

;

;

if the Menexenus be and even without its

;

PLATO : HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. testimony

we

191

are entitled to say as niuch on the strength of

We

shorter attempts.

must even take leave to doubt whether was Plato's forte. Where one

dialogue, properly so called,

speaker

is

placed at'such a height above the others as Socrates,

or the Eleatic Stranger, or the Athenian in the Laws, there

cannot be any real conversation.

good

listeners,

The

other interlocutors are

and serve to break the monotony of a con-

tinuous exposition by their expressions of assent or even

by

their occasional inability to follow the argument, but give

no

And when

real help or stimulus.

allowed to offer an opinion

of their own, they, too, lapse into a monologue, addressed, as

our silent trains of thought habitually are, to an imaginary

sympathy and support are necessary but are Yet if Plato's style is neither exactly poetical,

auditor whose also secure.

nor oratorical, nor conversational, these three varieties

;

it

it

has

which they spring, and brings

affinities

with each of

common

the

represents

root from

us, better than, any other species

of composition, into immediate contact with the mind of the writer. trait

The

Platonic Socrates has eyes like those of a por-

which follow us wherever we turn, and through which read his inmost soul, which is no other than the uni-

we can

versal reason of

humanity

in the delighted surprise of its

feels for us

;

the orator

fii'st

The poet

thinks and

makes our thoughts and

feelings his

awakening to self-conscious

activity.

own, and then restores them to us in a concentrated form,

what he gives back in a flood.' Plato removes every obstacle to the free development of our faculties

'

receiving in vapour

he teaches up by for ourselves.

his

own example how

reproduced the personification in masterly effect that all

to think

and to

feel

If Socrates personified philosophy, Plato has

its

artistic

form with such

influence has been extended through

ages and over the whole civilised world.

stands as an intermediary between

its

This portrait

original

and the

far-

reaching effects indirectly due to his dialectic inspiration, like that universal soul which Plato hfmself has placed between

— THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

192

the supreme artificer and the material world, that '

bring the fleeting contents of space and time into

it

might

harmony

with uncreated and everlasting ideas.

To

paint Socrates at his highest and his best,

was neces-

it

sary to break through the narrow limits of his historic individuality,

and

to

show how, had they been presented

to him, he

would have dealt with problems outside the experience of a home- staying Athenian citizen. The founder of idealism that

is

to say, the realisation of reason, the systematic applica-

tion of thought to life— had succeeded in his task because be

had embodied the noblest elements of the Athenian Demos, orderliness, patriotism, self-control, and publicity of defbate, together with a receptive intelligence for improvements effected, in other states.

But, just as the impulse which enabled those

qualities to tell decisively

inestimable importance

with

its

on Greek history

at a

came from the Athenian

Dorian sympathies,

keen attention to foreign

its

moment of aristocracy,,

adventurous ambition, and

affairs,

its

so also did Plato, carrying

the same spirit into philosophy, bring the dialectic method

and broader currents of speculation,' to recognise the whole spiritual activity of his

into contact with older

and employ .

it

race.

A deep is

strong desire for reform must always be preceded by a dissatisfaction with things as they are

to be very sweeping the discontent

prehensive.

Hence

and if the reform must be equally com-

the great renovators of

been remarkable for the severity with

denounced the

;

failings of the

human

life

have

which they have

world where they were placed,

whether as regards persons, habits,

institutions, or beliefs.

to speak of their attitude as pessimistic

would

either'

be

Yet

unfair,

or would betray an unpardonable inability to discriminate

between two

"utterly different theories

of existence.

Nothing,

can well be more unlike the systematised pusillanimity of those lost souls, without courage and without hope, who find a consolation for their

own

failure in the belief that everything

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. is

a

failure,

than the

what yet effort

may

contrast of vjjiat

But

be.

energy which

fiery

by the

petual tension

if

is

drawn

193:

into a per-

with the vision of

is

pessimism paralyses every generous

and aspiration by teaching that misery

is

the irremedi-

able lot of animated beings, or even, in the last analysis, of

all

being, the opposing theory of optimism exercises as deadly

an influence when condition

is,

it

men

induces

on the whole, a

to believe that their present

satisfactory one, or that

at

worst wrong will be righted without any criticism or inter-

Even those who

ference on their part.

have been, so

far,

the most certain fact in

believe progress to

human

history, can-

not blind themselves to the existence of enormoiis forces ever

tending to draw society back into the barbarism and brutality of

its

primitive condition

ground we have won

is

who were never weary

;

and they know

due to the

efforts

also, that

whatever

of a small minority,

of urging forward their more sluggish

companions, without caring what angry susceptibilities they

might arouse

—risking

recrimination, insult, and outrage, so

that only, under whatever form, whether of divine

mandate

or of scientific demonstration, the message of humanity to her

children

might be delivered

in time.

Nor

immobility that they have had to contend.

by

direction are frequently balanced at certain periods there

whole lower

line.

And

it

is

is

may

it

only with

Gains in one

losses in another

;

w:hile

a distinct retrogression along the

well

amid the general decline to a not heard proclaiming that the

if,

level, sinister voices are

multitude

is

safely trust to their

own promptings, and

self-indulgence or self-will should be the only law of

life.

that It

is also on such occasions that the rallying cry is most needed, and that the born leaders of civilisation must put forth their

most strenuous efforts to arrest the disheartened fugitives and to denounce the treacherous guides. It was in this aspect that Plato viewed his age

;

and he

set himself to con-

tinue the task which Socrates had attempted, but had been

trampled down in endeavouring to achieve.

';

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

194

The

illustrious Italian

poet and essayist, Leopardi, has

observed that the idea of the world as a vast confederacy banded together for the repression of everything good and great and true, originated with Jesus Christ'

It is surprising

that so accomplished a Hellenist should not have attributed

the priority to Plato.

It is true that

he does not speak

of

him

it

meant

something different-^a divinely created order which

it

would

the world itself in Leopardi's sense, because to

have been blasphemy to

revile

but the thing

;

is

everywhere

present to his thoughts under other names, and he pursues

with relentless hostility.

human

He

it

looks on the great majority of

and

and and blinded to such an extent that they are ready to turn and rend any one who attempts to lead them into a better path. The many know

the

race, individually

socially, in their beliefs

in their practices, as utterly corrupt,

'

not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony

and

Like

sensuality.

down and

their

cattle,

with their eyes always looking

heads stooping,

not, indeed, to the earth, but

to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and in their excessive love of these delights

they kick and butt at

one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust.' is the man who nurses up his desires to the utmost and procures the means for gratifying them by

Their ideal intensity,

The assembled multitude resembles a strong and fierce brute expressing its wishes by inarticulate grunts, which the popular leaders make it their business to fraud or violence.

understand and to comply with.

kind

who

A

statesman of the nobler

should attempt to benefit the people by thwarting

be denounced as a public enemy by the demagogues, and will stand no more chance of acquittal than a physician if he were brought before a jury of children their foolish appetites will

by

the pastry-cook. '

Pensieri, Ixxxiv

2

Repub., 586, A.

and Ixxxv. Jowett, III

,

p. 481.

PLA TO HIS TEA CHERS AND HIS TIMES. :

That an Athenian,

1

95

any Greek gentleiAan, should regard the common people wif h contempt and aversion indeed,

or,

was nothing strange. A generation earlier such feelings would have led Plato to look on the overthrow of democracy and the establishment of an aristocratic government as the reihedy for every

The upper

evil.

classes,

accustomed to

had actually come to believe that all who belonged to them were paragons of wisdom and goodness. With the rule of the Thirty came In a few months more atrocities were a terrible awakening. perpetrated by the oligarchs than the D^mos had been guilty decorate themselves with complimentary

of in as

many

gentlemen

common

generations.

like

Critias

was shown that accomplished

were only distinguished from the

herd by their greater impatience of opposition and

by the more

destructive fury of ttheir appetites.

at least, all allusions '

It

titles,

on

this

With

Plato,

He now

head came to an end.

smiled at the claims of long descent,' considering that

'

every

man has had thousands and thousands of progenitors, and among them have been rich and poor, kings and slaves, and even the Hellenes and barbarians, many times over ; '

possession of a large landed property ceased to inspire

with any respect

when he compared

it

him

with the surface of the

whole earth.

There

still

remained one form of government to be

the despotic rule of a single individual. travels Plato

came

into contact with

specimen of the tyrant

class, the elder

tried,

In the course of his

an able and powerful Dionysius.

A number

of stories relating to their intercourse have been preserved

;

but the different versions disagree very widely, and none of

them can be

entirely trusted.

It

seems

certain,

however,

by his freedom of death, and that he was sold escaped narrowly that he speech, into slavery, from which condition he was redeemed by the

that Plato gave great offence to the tyrant

generosity of Anniceris, a

Cyrenaean philosopher.

It

is

supposed that the scathing description in which Plato has O 2

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

10

held up to everlasting infamy the unworthy possessor of absolute power a description long afterwards applied by

—

Tacitus to the vilest of the

—was suggested

Roman

emperors

by the type which had come under

own

his

observation in

Sicily.

Of

all

existing constitutions that of Sparta approached

nearest to the ideal of Plato, or, rather, he regarded

He

least degraded.

as the

it

liked the conservatism of the Spartans,

their rigid discipline, their

haughty courage, the

participation

of their daughters in gymnastic exercises, the austerity of their manners,

much

and

their respect for old

age

but he found

;

to censure both in their ancient customs

and

in the

which the possession of empire had recently developed among them. He speaks with disapproval of characteristics

their exclusively military organisation, of their

contempt

for

philosophy, and of the open sanction which they gave to

And

practices barely tolerated at Athens.

on

he also comments

their covetousness, their har.shness to inferiors,

and

their

haste to throw off the restraints of the law whenever detection

could be evaded.'

So

far

we have spoken

as

false polities existing around

connected types.

Plato regarded the various

if

him

as so

many

was not the

This, however,

present state of things was bad enough, but

become worse wherever worse was tions exhibiting a mixture of

fixed and dis-

possible.

good and

it

The

case.

threatened to

The

constitu'

evil contained within

themselves the seeds of a further corruption, and tended to pass into the form standing next in order on the downward

Spartan timocracy must

slope.

in

time become an oligarchy,

to oligarchy would succeed democracy, and this would end

tyranny, beyond which no further

fall

was

The

possible.*

degraded condition of Syracuse seemed likely to be the

outcome of Hellenic civilisation. gloomy. forebodings of Plato •

Zeller, op.cit., 777-8-

We

know not how

may have '

been

justified

in

last

far the

by

Rtpub., VIII. and IX.

his

;

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. own

197

experience, but he sketched with prophetic insight the

future fortunes of the

Roman

progressive degeneration

and the order of

Even

is

Every phase of the

Republic.

exemplified in

their succession

most

is

later history,

its

faithfully preserved.

dema-

his portraits of individual timocrats, oligarchs,

gogues, and despots are reproduced to the Plutarch, of Cicero,

life in

the pages of

and of Tacitus.

If our critic found so little to

admire

in Hellas, still less

did he seek for the realisation of his dreams in the outlying

The

world.

had not been wasted on

lessons of Protagoras

him, and, unlike the nature-worshippers of the eighteenth century, he never

had

home

their

fell

in

into the delusion that

For him, Greek

despotisms.

wisdom and

virtue

primaeval forests or in corrupt Oriental civilisation,

with

all its faults,

was the best thing that human nature had produced, the only hearth of intellectual culture, the only soil where

periments in education and government could be

down

could go society

new

;

style,

from the foundation up

tendencies that follow

tried.

to the roots of thought, of language,

he could construct a new

polity,

new ex-

them out

came under

his

;

a

new

He

and of

system, and a

he could grasp

all

the

immediate observation, and

to their utmost possibilities of expansion

but his vast powers of analysis and generalisation remained subject to this restriction, that a Hellene he was and a Hellene

he remained to the end. Hellene, and an aristocrat as

A

in its

most comprehensive

aristocrat

all

sense,

well.

word was an

Or, using the

we may say

that he

round, a believer in inherent superiorities of

I

I

race, sex, birth, breeding,

and

age.

Everywhere we

find

him

restlessly searching after the wisest, purest, best, until at last,

passing beyond the limits of existence

itself,

words

fail

him

to describe the absolute ineffable only good, not being arid

not knowledge, but creating and inspiring both.

came

Thus

it

to pass that his hopes of effecting a thorough reform

did not

lie

in

an appeal to the masses, but in the selection and

1

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

98

seclusion from evil influences of a few intelligent youths.

Here we may detect a remarkable divergence between him and his master. Socrates, himself a man of the people, did not like to hear the Athenians abused. If they went wrong, it

was, he said, the fault of their leaders.'

Plato,

it

But according

to

was from the people themselves that corruption

originally proceeded,

it

was they who

instilled false lessons

them from their very show to substance, success to merit, and pleasure to virtue making the study of popular caprice the sure road to power, and poisoning the very sources of morality

into the

most

intelligent minds, teaching

infancy to prefer

;

-by circulating blasphemous stories about the gods

—

which represented them as weak, sensual, capricious

stories

beings,

example of iniquity themselves, and quite willing to pardon it in men on condition of going shares in the spoil. The poets had a great deal to do with the manufacture of these discreditable myths and towards poets as a class Plato entertained feelings of mingled admiration and contempt As an artist, he was powerfully attracted by the beauty of their works as a theologian, he believed them to be the setting an

;

;

channels

of

divine

;

but as a

at their incapacity to explain the

especially

when

omniscience

;

it

and

inspiration,

guardians of a sacred tradition

sometimes critic,

also

the

he was shocked

meaning of their own works,

was coupled with

and he regarded the

ridiculous pretensions to

imitative character of their

productions as illustrating, in a particularly flagrant manner, that substitution of appearance for reality which, according to his philosophy,

was the deepest source of

error

and

evil.

If private society exercised a demoralising influence on

most

gifted

members, and

debasement by

in

turn suffered a

listening to their opinions,

still

its

further

the same fatal more actively in public life, so far, at least, as Athenian democracy was concerned. The people would tolerate no statesman who did not pamper

interchange of corruption went on

'

Xenophon, Mtm.,

still

III., v., i8.

;

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. their appetites

and the statesmen,

;

199

own ambitious

for their

purposes, attended solely to the material wants of the people,

In this respect,

entirely neglecting their spiritual interests. Pericles, the most admired of

sinners

for

;

made them

'

he was the

idle

first

had been the chief of who gave the people pay and all,

and cowardly, and encouraged them

love of talk and of money.' tion overtook him, for

'

at the very

end of

him of theft, and almost put him

victed

in the

Accordingly, a righteous retribuhis life

to death.'

they con-

So

it

had

been with the other boasted leaders, Miltiades, Themistocles,

and Cimon

;

all

suffered

ingratitude of the people.

made

from what

the animal committed to their charge fiercer instead of

gentler, until

savage propensities were turned against

its

Or, changing the comparison, they were like

themselves.

purveyors of luxury,

who

fed the State on a diet to which

present 'ulcerated and swollen condition

had

'

the

falsely called

is

Like injudicious keepers, they had

filled

the city

full

was due.

'

its

They

of harbours, and docks, and walls, arid

and had

no room

and

revenues and

all

temperance.'

One only among the elder statesmen, Aristeides,

is

that,

left

for justice

excepted from this sweeping condemnation, and, similarly,

Socrates

is

declared to have been the only true statesman of

his time.i

On

turning from the conduct of State affairs to the

administration of justice in the popular law courts,

the same

tale of iniquity repeated,

telling satire, as Plato is

experience.

He

we

find

but this time with more

speaking from his

own immediate

considers that, under the manipulation

of

dexterous pleaders, judicial decisions had come to be framed with a total disregard of righteousness.

That disputed claims

should be submitted to a popular tribunal and settled by

counting heads

was,

virtual admission that

indeed,

Eiccording

to

his

a

no absolute standard of justice existed

that moral truth varied with individual opinion. '

view,

Gorgias, 515,

C,

ff.

Jowett,

II.,

396-400.

And

this

— THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

200 is

the character of the lawyer had been

how

consequence

He

moulded

in

:

has become keen and shrewd ; he has learned how to flatter word and indulge him in deed ; but his soul is small

his master in

and unrighteous. His slavish condition has deprived him of growth and uprightness and independence ; dangers and fears which were too much for his truth and honesty came upon him in early years, when the tenderness of youth was unequal to them, and he has been driven into crooked ways ; from the first he has practised deception and retaliation, and has become stunted and warped. And so he has passed out of youth into manhood, having no soundness in him, and is now, as he thinks, a master in wisdom.'

To make

matters worse, the original of this unflattering

portrait

was rapidly becoming the most powerful man

State.

Increasing specialisation had completely separated

in the

the military, and political functions which had formerly been

discharged by a single eminent individual, and the business of legislation was also becoming a distinct profession.

No

who had

not a

orator could obtain a hearing in the assembly

technical acquaintance with the subject of deliberation,

if it

much more

fre-

admitted of technical treatment, which was quently the case

now

than in the preceding generation.

a consequence of this revolution, the

As

ultimate power of

supervision and control was passing into the hands of the

law courts, where general questions could be discussed in a more popular style, and often from a wider or a more senti-

They

mental point of view.

an authority press in direct

like

that

and formidable.

deprive a statesman of

itself.

civil

by the was much more

exercised until quite lately

modern Europe, only

deprive him of life

were, in fact, beginning to wield

A

that

action

vote of the

office-:

rights,

its

Eccl^sia could only

a vote of the Dicastery might

home, freedom, property, or even

Moreover, with the loss of empire and the de-

cline of public spirit, private interests

proportionately larger share of attention '

TheaetHus, 173, A.

had come to attract a and unobtrusive citi;

Jowetl, IV., 322.

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

20i

who had formerly escaped from the storms of party passion, now found themselves marked out as a prey by every fluent and dexterous pleader who could find an excuse for zens

dragging them before the courts.

supreme

art,

enabling

Rhetoric was hailed as the

possessor to dispense with every

its

young men were encouraged to Even look on it as the most paying line they could take up. those whose civil status or natural timidity precluded them from speaking in public could gain an eminent and envied position by composing speeches for others to deliver. Behind

other study, and promising

these, again, stood the professed masters

of rhetoric, claim-

ing to direct the education and the whole public opinion of the age

by

Philosophy was

and pamphlets.

their lectures

not excluded from their system of training, but strictly

looked on of

Studied

subordinate place. it

in

as a bracing mental exercise

sounding commonplaces,

if

fashioned notions of honesty

;

it

occupied a

they

moderation,

and a repertory

not as a solvent for old-

but a close adherence to the

laws of logic or to the principles of morality seemed puerile

pedantry to the elegant

stylists

who made themselves

the

advocates of every crowned filibuster abroad, while preaching

a policy of peace at any price at home. It is evident that the fate of Socrates

Plato's thoughts,

and greatly embittered

tude as well as for those

who made

was constantly

in

his scorn for the multi-

themselves

its

ministers

and minions. It so happened that his friend's three accusers had been respectively a poet, a statesman, and a rhetor thus ;

aptly typifying to the philosopher's lively imagination the triad of charlatans in

priate

whom

representatives

and

public opinion found

spokesmen.

its

appro-

Yet Plato

ought

consistently to have held that the~ condemnation of Socrates

was, equally with the persecution of Pericles, a satire on the teaching which, after at least thirty years' exercise, had its

auditors

more corrupt than

the ostracism

fc.,.

of Aristeides

it

found them.

left

In like manner

might be set against similar

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

203

sentences passed on less puritanical statesmen.

purpose of the argument

show that

it

would have been

For the

sufficient to

existing circumstances the office of public

in

We must always remember that when Plato is speaking of past times he is profoundly influenced by aristocratic traditions, and also that

adviser was both thankless and dangerous.

under a retrospective disguise he

And

porary abuses.

if,

is

really attacking contem-

even then, his denunciations seem

excessive, their justification may be found in that continued decay of public virtue which, not long afterwards, brought

about the

catastrophe of Athenian independence.

final

IV.

To own

illustrate the relation in

times,

we have

which Plato stood towards

his

already had occasion to draw largely on

the productions of his maturer manhood.

We

have now to

take up the broken thread of our systematic exposition, and to

trace

the development of his philosophy through that

wonderful series of compositions which entitle him to rank

among

the greatest writers, the most comprehensive thinkers,

and the purest

religious teachers of all ages.

In the presence

of such glory a mere divergence of opinion must not, be

permitted to influence our judgment.

High above

all parti-

cular truths stands the principle that truth itself exists,

was

for this that Plato fought.

If there

and

it

were others more

completely emancipated from superstition, none so persistently appealed to the logic before which superstition must ultimately vanish. society ignore

many

force the necessary

pleasure; and their

ground to the

If his

schemes

obvious

facts,

for the reconstruction of

they assert with unrivalled

supremacy of public welfare over private avowed utilitarianism offisrs a common

rival reformers

who

will

have nothing to do

with the mysticism of their metaphysical foundation. again,

who

hold, like the youthful

Those,

Plato himself, that the

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

of existence belongs to a science

ultimate interpretation

human

transcending

203

reason, will Ij^re find the doctrines of

And

their religion anticipated as in a dream.

even those

who, standing aloof both from theology and philosophy,

live,

as they imagine, for beauty alone, will observe with interest

how

the spirit of Greek art survived in the denunciation of its

idolatry,

fading

and the

light that never

'

away from

was on sea or

land,' after

the lower levels of Athenian fancy,

came

once more to suffuse the frozen steeps of dialectic with

and divinest

latest

The glowing enthusiasm

of Plato

is,

however, not entirely

derived from the poetic traditions of his native city

perhaps

its

rays.

we should

or

;

and the great writers

rather say that he

who preceded him drew from a common

fount of inspiration.

Mr. Emerson, in one of the most penetrating criticisms ever

on our philosopher,' has pointed out the existence of

written

two

distinct elements in the Platonic

sive, practical, prosaic

;

The American

petal,

Dialogues

—one

disper-

the other mystical, absorbing, centrischolar

however, as

is,

we

think, quite

mistaken when he attributes the second of these tendencies to Asiatic influence.

extremely doubtful whether' Plato

It is

ever travelled farther east than his stay in that country

Egypt

;

it

probable that

is

was not of long duration

;

and

it is

certain that he did not- acquire a single metaphysical idea

from

its

He

inhabitants.

liked their rigid conservatism

liked their institution of a their

dominant priesthood

;

\

he

he liked

system of popular education, and the place which

it

gave to mathematics made him look with shame on the

own countrymen but on the whole he classes them among the '

swinish ignorance

'

of his

devoted to money-making, and places

them

far

home from

'

The

"

Legg. 819, D.

lecture

on Plato

Very his

philosophy he

different

visits

in Representative

Jowett, V., 390.

'^

;

races exclusively

in aptitude for

below the Greeks.

impressions brought

in that respect

to

Men.

were the

Sicily

and

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

204

Southern thought

-There he became acquainted with modes of

Italy,

in

which the search after hidden resemblances and

analogies was a predominant passion

;

there the existence of

all phenomena was maintained, and common opinion, with the intensity of a there alone speculation was clothed in poetic

a central unity underlying as against sense religious creed

language

;

thought into

and

;

there

first

life

by

had an attempt been made to carry it with a reform of manners

associating

There, too, the arts of dance and song had assumed a more orderly and solemn aspect; the chorus beliefs.

received

constitution from a Sicilian master

its final

loftiest strains of

tation

Greek

poetry were composed for

lyric

in the streets of Sicilian

Sicilian kings.

and the

;

Then, with the

cities

reci-

or at the courts of

of rhetoric, Greek prose

rise

was elaborated by Sicilian teachers into a sort of rhythmical composition, combining rich imagery with studied harmonies and contrasts of sense and sound. And as the hold of Asiatic civilisation on eastern Hellas

grew weaker, the atten^

was more and more attracted to of wonder and romance. The stream of new region

tion of her foremost spirits this

colonisation

set

thither in

a steady flow

;

the scenes of

mythical adventure were rediscovered in Western waters it

was imagined

that,

by grasping the

;

and

resources of Sicily; an

empire extending over the whole Mediterranean might be won.

Perhaps, without being too fanciful,

likeiiess

we may

trace a

between the daring schemes of Alcibiades and the

more remote but not more visionary kingdom suggested by an analogous inspiration to the idealising soul of Plato.

Each had learned

to practise,

although

purposes, the royal art of Socrates

for

far

different

—the mastery over men's

minds acquired by a close study of their interests, passions, But the ambition of the one defeated his own beliefs.

and

aim, to the destruction of his country and of himself

;

while

the other drew into Athenian thought whatever of Western force

and fervour was needed

for the

accomplishment of

its

mS

PLATO:

TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

203

We may say of

imperial task.

own Theaet^tus,

that 'he

successfully in the path of

making progress

Plato what he has said of his moves ^rely and smoothly and knowledge arid inquiry always ;

like the noiseless flow of

a river of oil

'

;

'

but

we

everywhere beside or beneath that placid lubricating flow

may

trace the action of another current,

and

fresh

It will

clear as at

sparkles,

still

be remembered that in an earlier section of

we accompanied

chapter

where

the fiery Sicilian wine.

first,

when he had

Plato to a period

provisionally adopted a theory in which

the Protagorean

contention that virtue can be taught was confirmed

explained ledge

by the

Socratic contention that virtue

the pleasures

and pains consequent on our

to trace the lines of thought

and

knowin

the

and comparison of

sense of a hedonistic calculus, a prevision

now

is

knowledge again was interpreted

while, this

;

this

actions.

We have

by which he was guided

to

a different conception of ethical science.

After resolving virtue into knowledge of pleasure, the

next questions which would present themselves, to so keen a thinker were obviously. pleasure

"i

The

What

Theaetitus

is

knowledge

.'

and What

sion of the various answers already given to the enquiries.

It seems, therefore, to

the Protagoras firmation

come

;

first

of these

naturally next after

and our conjecture receives a further con-

;

when we

find that here also a large place

to the opinions of the Sophist after

named

is

chiefly occupied with a discus-

is

whom

is

given

that dialogue

is

the chief difference being that the points selected for

controversy are of a speculative rather than of a practical

There is, however, a close connexion between the character. argument by which Protagoras had endeavoured toprovethatall mankind are teachers of virtue, and his more general principle that man is the measure of all things. And perhaps it was the more obvious led Plato, after

difficulties

some '

attending the latter view which

hesitation, to reject the former along

Theaet., 144.

Jowett's Transl.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

2o6

with

we gave some

In an earlier chapter

it.

reasons for

believing that Protagoras did not erect every individual into

an

arbiter of truth in the

He

his words.

sweeping sense afterwards put upon

was probably opposing a

or a naturalistic standard.

gical

follow

that

There are plenty of people

ancient traditions

place

its

most

still

maintain

good as another's immediately takes is

a survival

^we

may

of

is

a very

from holding that the majority should be

diiferent principle

—

its

And when

are told that the majority must be right—^which

obeyed

it

broken down, the doctrine that one

is

as

is

traditionalism in an extremely pulverised form.

we

does not

literal interpreta-

who would

or rather the doctrine in question

;

it

Wherever and whenever the authority of

to that extent.

man's opinion

to a theolo-

was fighting with a shadow when he

Plato

pressed the Protagorean dictum to tion.

human

Nevertheless,

take

it

as a sign that the loose particles

are beginning to coalesce again.

The

substitution

individual for a universal standard of truth Plato, a direct consequence of

is,

of

an

according to

the theory which identifies

knowledge with sense-perception. It is, at any rate, certain that the most vehement assertors of the former doctrine are also those

who

their friends

are fondest of appealing to

have seen, heard, or

cated

among them

They

are

of fact

is

felt

;

what they and

and the more edu-

place enormous confidyice in

also fond of repeating the

statistics.

adage that an ounce

worth a ton of theory, without considering that

theory alone can furnish the balance in which facts are

weighed.

Plato does not go very deep into the rationale of

observation, nor in the infancy of exact science

expected that he should.

He

was

it

to be

fully recognised the presence

of two factors, an objective and a subjective, in every sensation,

but

lost his

trace a like

hold on the true method in attempting to

dualism through the whole of consciousness.

Where we should

distinguish between the mental

energies

and the physical processes underlying them, or between the

PLATO r HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. elements

respectively contributed

to

2a^

by

every cognition

immediate experience and reflection he conceived the inner

and outer worlds as two analogous another as an image to

At

this last point

its

we touch on

which Plato extended the

and

readmitted

from

provisionally excluded

examining elenchus, at

first

been turned with destructive

and every

made

to

and

to one

related

final generalisation

method to

it

by

all

by

existence,

speculations

earlier

The

Socrates.

cross-

applied only to individuals, had efifect

polity, until the

on every

class,

every

whole of human

appear one mass of self-contradiction,

insti-

life

was

instability,

had been held by some that the order of a contrast and a correction to this bewildering on the other hand, sought to show that the

It

illusion.

nature offered chaos.

the

dialectic

philosophy the

into

tution,

series

original.

Plato,

ignorance and evil prevalent

among men were only a

part of

the imperfection necessarily belonging to derivative existence

For

of every kind.

this

purpose the philosophy of Heraclei-

The

tus proved a

welcome

auxiliary.

been taught

in early

youth by Cratylus, an adherent of the

Ephesian school, that movement,

pupil of Socrates

relativity,

had

and the con-

junction of opposites are the very conditions under which

Nature works.

We may

conjecture that Plato did not at

detect any resemblance between the Heracleitean flux and the mental bewilderment produced or brought to light by the master of cross-examination. But his visit to Italy would probably enable him to take a new view of the Ionian first

speculations,

by bringing him

into contact with schools

taining a directly opposite doctrine.

The

main^

Eleatics held that

existence remained eternally undivided, unmoved, and un-

changed.

The Pythagoreans arranged

all

things according

to a strained and rigid antithetical construction.

the identifying '

tion

flash.'

This expression

is

by Resemblance

in

Unchangeable

Then came

reality, divine order,

borrowed from Prof. Bain. See the chapter on AssociaThe Senses and the Intellect.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

2oS

mathematical truth—these were the objective counterpart of the Socratic definitions, of the consistency which Socrates

The Heracleitean system

introduced into conduct. to

applied

and it faithfully reflected the incoherent and disorderly actions of uneducated men. We are

phenomena only

beliefs

;

brought into relation with the fluctuating sea of generated

and perishing natures by sense and opinion, and these reproduce, in their irreconcilable diversity, the shifting character of the objects with which they are conversant. see

and

feel is

not, at the

a mixture of being and unreality

same

time.

Whatever we and

it is,

;

is

Sensible magnitudes are equal or

greater or less according as the standard of comparison

is

Yet the very act of comparison shows that there is something in ourselves deeper than mere sense something

chosen.

;

to which all individual sensations are referred as to a centre,

and

in

which their images are stored up.

common

Knowledge,

then, can no longer be identified with sensation, since the

mental reproductions of external objects are apprehended in the

absence of their

originals,

and since thought possesses

the further faculty of framing abstract notions not representing any sensible objects at

We need not follow

all.

Plato's investigations into the

meaning

of knowledge and the causes of illusion any further cially as

;

espe-

they do not lead, in this instance, to any positive

conclusion.

The

general tendency

rather than without

is

to seek for truth within

and to connect error partly with the

;

dis-

turbing influence of sense-impressions on the higher mental faculties, partly

the

with the inherent confusion and instability of

phenomena whence those impressions

principal concern here

generalisation which

from

man

to Nature

public opinion

is

are derived.

Our

expansive power of

was carrying philosophy back again

—the

— and

to note the

deep-seated contempt of Plato for

the incipient differentiation of demon-

strated from empirical truth.

A somewhat similar vein of reflection

is

worked out

in the

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. Cratylus, a Dialogue

209

some important points of

presenting

contact with the Tkeaetitus, and pipbably belonging to the

same

There

period.

Heracleitus,

the same constant reference to

is

whose philosophy

is

measure, but not entirely, true

Parmenides a

as

is

here also treated as in great

and the opposing system of much more briefly;

;

again mentioned, though

valuable

against

set-off

The

extravagances.

its

Cratylus deals exclusively with language, just as the Theae-^ titus

had. dealt with sensation and mental imagery, but in

such a playful and ironical tone that

ance

is

speculative import-

Soine of the Greek philo-

be overlooked.

likely to

its .

sophers seem to have thought that the study of things might

advantageously be replaced by the study of words, which were

supposed to have a natural and necessary connexion with their accepted meanings.

by

the Heracleiteans,

This view was particularly favoured

who

found, or fancied that they found,

a confirmation of their master's teaching in etymology. professes to adopt the theory in question,

a

number of derivations which

may

but which

to us

and supports

Plato it

with

seem ludicrously absurd,

possibly have been transcribed from the pages

of contemporary

philologists.

At

last,

however, he turns

round and .shows that other verbal arguments, equally good, might be adduced on behalf of Parmenides. But the most valuable part of the discussion

is

a protest against the whole

theory that things can be studied through their names.

Plato

justly observes that an image, to be perfect, should not re-

produce

its

original,

but only certain aspects of

framers of language were not infallible

;

it

;

that the

and that we are just

as competent to discover the nature of things as they could be.

One can imagine

the delight with which he would have

welcomed the modern discovery that sensations, too, are a language and that the associated groups into which they ;

most readily gather are determined

by the necessary connexions of things in themselves than by the exigencies of self-preservation

and reproduction

less

in sentient beings.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

2IO

on the popular sources of inforpublic opinion Plato refers to and mation an ideal of perfect knowledge which he assumes without being able to define it. It must satisfy the negative con-

Through

—

all his criticisms

—

sense, language

dition of being free

from self-contradiction, but further than

we cannot

Yet, in the hands of a metaphysician, no

this

more than

demand

was required to reconstruct the world.

The

for consistency explains the practical philosophy of

Socrates.

explains, under another form, the philo-

It also

both

sophy,

go.

this

practical

and

of

speculative,

his

disciple.

Identity and the correlative of identity, difference, gradually

came

to cover with their manifold combinations all

ledge, all It

life,

and

all

know-

existence.

was from mathematical science that the light of first broke. Socrates had not encouraged the study

certainty

of mathematics, either pure or applied

;

nor, if

we may judge

from some disparaging allusions to Hippias and in the Protagoras,

did Plato at

first

He may have

particular favour.

arithmetic and geometry at school

regard

with any some notions of

acquired ;

his lectures it

but the intimate acquaint-

ance with, and deep interest in them, manifested throughout his later works, probably dates from his visits to Italy, Sicily,

Cyrend, and Egypt.

In each of these places

sciences were cultivated with in southern Italy they

more assiduity than

had been brought

the exact at

Athens

;

into close connexion

with philosophy by a system of mystical interpretation.

The

glory of discovering their true speculative significance was reserved for Plato.

Just as he had detected

a profound

analogy between the Socratic scepticism and the Heracleitean

by another

definitions

he saw in the and demonstrations of geometry a type of true

reasoning,

a particular application

flux,

so

'also,

vivid

intuition,

of the

Socratic

logic.

Thus the two studies were brought into fruitful reaction, the one gaining a wider applicability, and the other an exacter method of proof.

The mathematical

spirit

ultimately proved

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES.

211

too strong for Plato^ and petrified his philosophy into a less

formalism

but no extraneous ijjfluence helped so

;

to bring about the

life-

much

complete maturity of his constructive

powers, in no direction has he more profoundly influenced the

thought of later ages.

Both the TheaetHus and the Cratylus contain allusions to mathematical

be taught,

its

significance

full

Here the old

the Meno.

in

virtue can

entirely

but

reasoning,

exhibited

first

is

question, whether

again raised, to be discussed from an

is

new point of view, and resolved into the more general Can anything be taught ? The answer is, Yes and No.

question,

You may stimulate the

native activity of the intellect, but you Take a totally uneducated man, and, under proper guidance, he shall discover the truths of geometry for himself, by virtue of their self-evident clearness. Being independent of any traceable experience, the elementary principles of this science, of all science, must have been acquired in some antenatal period, or rather they were never

cannot create

acquired at

much

it

;

they belong to the very nature of the soul unfolded

doctrine here

and

it

The

that their

our-

the very front of philosophical

in

and the general public have been brought to feel dearest interests hang on its decision. The subject ;

much

of

adventitious interest to those

its

who know

that the d priori position

years ago,

by Kant.

that, granting

mind adds the

The

was turned, a hundred

philosopher of Konigsberg showed

knowledge to be composed of two elements,

nothing

to

outward' experience but

system of connexions

groups phenomena.

Deprive

these

according to

a vacuum.

The

left

own it

beating her

doctrine that knowledge p 2

its

which

forms of the content

given to them by feeling, and the soul will be in

among

masters of English thought have placed the issue

has, however, lost

wings

future

has never, perhaps, been discussed with so

by Plato

raised

controversy

forms,

had a great

eagerness as during the last half-century

selves. first

all,

The

herself.

before

it.

is

not a

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

212

dead deposit in consciousness or memory, but a living energy whereby phenomena are, to use Kant's words, gathered up into the synthetic unity of apperception, has since found a

And

physiological basis in the theory of central innervation.

the experiential school of psychology have simultaneously

come

recognise the existence of fixed conditions under

to

which consciousness works and grows, and which,

in the last

analysis, resolve themselves into the apprehension of resem-

blance, difference, coexistence, and

complex

cognition

categories

;

and

more

no

involves

probable that they

it is

The most

succession.

all

than

these

four

co-operate in the

most elementary perception.

The

here touched on seem to have been dimly

truths

He

present to the mind of Plato.

knowledge must, experience

;

some way

in

never doubts that

and, accordingly, he assumes that

what cannot

have been learned in this world was learned in another.

he does not

(in

Meno

the

ever had a beginning.

express in figurative

It

all

or other, be derived from

But

at least) suppose that the process

would seem that he

language the distinction,

trying to

is

lost

almost as

soon as found, between intelligence and the facts on which intelligence

is

which Meno's

An

exercised. slave

is

examination of the steps by

brought to perceive, without being

directly told, the truth of the

Pythagorean theorem,

that his share in the demonstration

is

will

show

limited to the intuition

of certain numerical equalities and inequalities.

Now, to

Plato,

the perception of sameness and difference meant everything.

He

would have denied that the sensible world presented ex-

amples of these relations in their ideal absoluteness and purity. In tracing back their apprehension to the self-reflection of the soul,

the consciousness of personal identity, he would not

have transgressed the

limits of a legitimate enquiry.

But

self-

consciousness involved a possible abstraction from disturbing influences,

which he interpreted as a

mind and matter

;

and, to

make

it

real separation

between

more complete, an

inde-^

PLATO: HIS TEACHERS AND HIS TIMES. pendent pre-existence of the former. Npr was

knowledge

is

this

all.

213

Since

of likeness in differen|p, then the central truth

of things, the reality underlying

all

appearance, must be an

abiding identity recognised by the soul through her previous

communion with

it

The inevitable tendency

in a purer world.

of two identities, one subjective and the other objective, to coalesce in

an absolute unity where

and space would

have

all

carrying

disappeared,

mythical machinery along with them

;

was

distinctions of time

and

the whole

Plato's logic is

always hovering on the verge of such a consummation without being able fully to accept

which is

it

was reserved

always

working

present,

it.

Still,

the mystical tendency,

for Plotinus to carry out in its entirety,

though

restrained

by other motives, and for

for the ascertainment of uniformity in theory

the enforcement of uniformity in practice.

We have to see his

accompanied Plato to a point where he begins

way towards a

radical reconstruction of all existing

and institutions. In the next chapter we shall attempt show how far he succeeded in this great purpose^ how

beliefs

to

much, in

his positive contributions to

thought

and how much of merely biographical or

is

of permanent,

literary value.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

214

/

CHAPTER

V.

PLATO AS A REFORMER. I.

In the

last

chiefly

under

chapter

we

its critical

considered the philosophy of Plato

and negative

aspects.

We

saw how

was exclusively from that side that he at first apprehended and enlarged the dialectic of Socrates, how deeply his scepticism was coloured by, the religious reaction of the age, and it

how he

attempted, out of his master's mouth, to overturn the

positive teaching of the master himself.

We saw how,

in the

Protagoras, he sketched a theory of ethics, which was no it became the starting-point of a still more extended and arduous enquiry. We followed the widening horizon of his speculations until they embraced the

sooner completed than

whole contemporary

life

common condemnation

of Hellas,

and involved

in

it

a

as either hopelessly corrupt, or con-

taining within itself the seeds of corruption.

We

then saw

how, by a farther generalisation, he was led to look for the sources of error in the laws of man's sensuous nature and of the phenonienal world with which

it

holds

communion

;

how,

moreover, under the guidance of suggestions coming both

from within and from without, he reverted to the earlier schools of Greek thought, and brought their results into

main lines of Socratic dialectic. And planting a firm foothold on the basis him we watched

parallelism with the finally,

of mathematical demonstration seeking in the very constitution of the soul itself for a derivation of the truths which ;

sensuous experience could not impart, and winning back from

—

5

PLA TO AS A REFORMER,

2

1

a more profoundly reasoned religion the hope, the self-con-

knowledge, which had been

fidence, the assurance of perfect

formerly surrendered in deference to the demands 0/ a merely external and traditional faith.

That God alone

by consequence alone good, might ciple with Plato

;

but

it

still

wise,

is

and

remain a fixed prin-

ceased to operate as a restraint on

human aspiration when he had come to recognise an essential unity among all forms of conscious life, which, though it might be clouded and forgotten, could never be entirely

And when

Plato

tells us,

effaced.

at the close of his career, that God,

more than any individual man, is the measure of all things,' who can doubt that he had already learned to identify the far

human and versal soul

common

4ivine essences in the

notion of a uni-

?

The germ of this new dogmatism was present in Plato's mind from the very beginning, and was partly an inheritance The Apologia had reproduced fitom older forms of thought. one important feature

in the positive teaching of Socrates

the distinction between soul and body, and the necessity of

attending to the former rather than to the latter

and this had now acquired such significance as to leave no standingroom for the' agnosticism with which it had been incompatible from the first. The same irresistible force of expansion which had brought the human soul into communion with absolute truth,

was to be equally

Plato was too diverted from

perhaps,

much

verified

a different direction.

in

interested in practical questions to

them long by any

we should

:

theoretical philosophy

rather say that this interest

panied and inspired him throughout.

It is

;

be or,

had accom-

from the essential

mind, the profound craving for intellectual sympathy with other minds, that all mystical imaginations and relativity of

super-subtle abstractions take rise

;

transcendent absorption and ecstasy

so that, is

when

the strain of

relaxed under the chill-

ing but beneficent contact of earthly experience, they become ^-

Legg. 716, C.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

2i6

life and society and of self-devotion

condensed into ideas for the reconstitution of

on a basis of reciprocity, of

self-restraint,

commonwealth greater and more enduring than any same time, presenting to each in objective form the principle by virtue of which only, instead of being divided, he can become reconciled with himself. Here we have the creed of all philosophy, whether theological, to a

individual, while, at the

metaphysical, or positive, that there

is,

or that there should

be, this threefold unity of feeling, of action,

and of thought, of

the soul, of society, and of universal existence, to win which everlasting

life,

while to be without

it

is

is

everlasting death.

This creed must be re-stated and re-interpreted at every revolution of thought.

time, stated

We have

to see

and interpreted by

The principal object

how

it

was, for the

of Plato's negative criticism had been

to emphasise the distinction between reality in

without, between

the world

reason in the

human

Greek thought,

sense,

and appearance

or imagination,

True to the mediatorial

soul.

his object

ingly impassable gulf.

first

Plato.

now was

We

and

spirit

of

to bridge over the seem-

must not be understood to say some extent contrasted, tend-

that these two distinct, and to encies correspond to life.

tion

two

definitely divided

periods of his

It is evident that the tasks of dissection

and reconstruct

were often carried on conjointly, and represented two

aspects of an indivisible process.

good reason to believe that

But on the whole there is men, was more

Plato, like other

inclined to pull to pieces in his youth later days. critics

who

We

are, therefore,

and to build up

assign both the Phaedrus

and the Symposium

comparatively advanced stage of Platonic speculation. less easy to decide

in his

disposed to agree with those

which of the two was composed

to a It is

first,

for

there seems to be a greater maturity of thought in the one and of style in the other. For our purposes it will be most

convenient to consider them together.

We

have seen how Plato pame to look on mathematics

as

PLATO AS A REFORMER.

2i7

He now discovered

an introduction to absolute knowledge.

method of approach towar^ perfect wisdom order of experience which to most persons might seem

in

parallel

as possible feelings

removed from exact science

which were excited

in the

spectacle of youthful beauty,

There was, at

least

among

a

an

as far

—in those passionate

Greek imagination by the

without distinction, of sex.

the Athenians, a strong intellect-

ual element in the attachments arising out of such feelings

and the strange anomaly might often be seen of a

man

;

devot-

ing himself to the education of a youth

whom

other respects, doing his utmost to corrupt.

Again, the beauty

he was,

in

by which a Greek felt most fascinated came nearer to a visible embodiment of mind than any that has ever been known, and such could be associated with the purest philosophical

as

aspirations.

And,

manifestations

is

finally,

the passion of love in

an essentially generic

instinct,

its

normal

being that

which carries an individual most entirely out of himself, making

him instrumental to the preservation of the race

of ever-increasing comeliness and vigour

;

in

forms

so that, given a

wise training and a wide experience, the maintenance of a

noble breed

may safely

be entrusted to

its infallible selection.'

All these points of view have been developed by Plato with

such copiousness of illustration and splendour of language that his

name

is still

associated in popular fancy with an ideal of

exalted and purified desire.

So love.

far,

however,

The

tion, is

we only stand on

the threshold of Platonic

earthly passion, being itself a kind of generalisa-

our

first

step in the ascent to that highest stage of

existence where wisdom and virtue and happiness are one

good

to

But love

which is

all

not only an introduction to philosophy,

of philosophy itself.

it is a type Both are conditions intermediate between

vacuity and fulfilment 1

-

—the

other goods are related as means to an end.

;

desire being

by

its

very nature dis-

See the chapter on the Metaphysics of Sexual Love in Schopenhauei-'s

Welt ah Wille und Vorstellung.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

2i8

and vanishing at the instant that

satisfied,

The

attained.

fore not wise

;

philosopher

is

and yet not wholly ignorant,

he knows nothing.

its

object

is

a lover of wisdom, and there-

he knows that Thus we seem to be thrown back on the for

standpoint of Plato's earliest agnosticism.

Nevertheless,

if

Symposium agrees nominally with the Apologia, in reality it marks a much more advanced point of speculation. The idea of what knowledge is has begun to assume a much

the

clearer expression.

gestions that

We

gather from various hints and sug-

the perception of likeness

it is

;

the very process

of ascending generalisation typified by intellectual love. It is

worthy of remark that

germ

the

in the Platonic

Er6s we have

—or something more than the germ—of

Aristotle's

whole metaphysical system.'

According to the usual law of speculative evolution, what was subjective in the one becomes

With Plato the passion for knowledge had been merely the guiding- principle of a few chosen spirits. objective in the other.

With

Aristotle

it is

the living soul of Nature, the secret spring

of movement, from the revolution of the outermost starry

sphere to the decomposition and recomposition of our mutable terrestrial elements

whole scale of organic

;

and from these again through the up to the moral culture of man

life,

and the search for an ideally-constituted state. What enables these myriad movements to continue through eternity, returning ever in an unbroken circle on themselves, is the all

yearning of unformed matter

— towards

power

—that

,

is

to say, of unrealised

the absolute unchanging actuality, the

self-

thinking thought, unmoved, but moving every other form of

by the desire to participate in its ineffable perfection. Born of the Hellenic enthusiasm for beauty, this wonderful conception subsequently became incorporated with the official

existence

teaching of Catholic theology. '

I.,

Cf. for the

286-8.

»vith

It

What had once been

whole following passage Havet, Le Christianisme

a theme

et ses Origines,

was, however, written before the author had become acquainted

M. Havet's work.

PLATO AS A REFORMER.. for ribald

219

merriment or for rhetorical ostentation among the

golden youth of Athens, furnished

tjie

motive for his most

transcendent meditations to the Angel of the Schools

;

but the

which lurked under the dusty abstractions of Aquinas it could be

fire

needed the touch of a poet and a lover before

eyes of Beatrice completed what

The

rekindled into flame.

the dialectic of Plato had

begun

;

and the hundred cantos of

her adorer found their fitting close in the love that moves the

sun and the other

We

stars.

must, however, observe that, underlying

poetical imaginations, there

human

all

these

a deeper and wider law of

is

nature to which they unconsciously bear witness— the

intimate connexion of religious mysticism with the passion of

By

love.

this

we do not mean

the constant interference of

the one with the other, whether for the purpose of stimulation, as with the naturalistic religions, of for the purpose of restraint,

but we mean that they seem to them a common fund of nervous energy, so

as with the ethical religions

divide between

;

that sometimes their manifestations

are inextricably con-

founded, as in certain debased forms of

modern

sometimes they utterly exclude one another

which

is

Christianity

;

and sometimes, the most frequent case of any, the one is transformed

into the other, their substantial identity

;

and continaity being

by their use of the same language, the and the same aesthetic decoration. And this

indicated very frankly

same ritual, will show how the decay of religious belief may be accompanied by an outbreak of moral licence, without our being obliged to draw the inference that passion can only be held in

check by irrational

macy

is fatal

beliefs,

or

by organisations whose supreand intellectual progress.

to industrial, political,

our view of the case be correct, the passion was not really restrained, but only turned in a different direction, and For,

if

frequently nourished into hysterical excess inevitable decay of theology,

bringing with

it

it

;

returns to

seven devils worse than the

so that, with the its first.

old haunts,

After the

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

220

Crusades came the Courts of Love

;

after the

Franciscan movements, the Renaissance the Restoration

;

Dominican and Puritanism^

after

Nor

after Jesuitism, the Regency.

;

this

is

we are speaking, when abnormally developed and unbalanced by severe intellectual exercise, is

The

all.

passion of which

habitually accompanied

On

by

deceit.

its

evil associates

by

delirious jealousy,

and

cruelty,

immediately becomes manifest

pression of alien creeds, in the tortures adherents, and in the

maxim

in the sup-

inflicted

on

their

that no faith need be kept with

Persecution has been excused on the ground that

a heretic.

any means were

justifiable for the

purpose of saving souls

But how came

from eternal torment.

such a consequence was involved

The

by

taking the form of religion, the influence of

in

it

to be believed that

a mere error of judgment

?

faith did not create the intolerance, but the intolerance

created the

and so gave an idealised expression to the accompanying a passion which no spiritual

faith,

fury

jealous

alchemy can purify from turning this object that

most

instinct

we should combat

and masculine

It

original aflSnities.

its

terrible

it,

is

not by

towards a supernatural

but by developing the active

in preference to the emotional

and feminine

side of our nervous organisation.'

In addition to

its

other great lessons, the

Symposium

has afforded Plato an opportunity for contrasting his

own

method of philosophising with pre-Socratic modes of thought. For

it

consists of a series of discourses in praise of love, so

arranged as to typify the manner in which Greek speculation, after beginning with

mythology, subsequently advanced to

physical theories of phenomena, then passed from the historical to the contemporary method, asking, not

come, but what are they

in

themselves

;

whence did and

things

finally arrived

at the logical standpoint of analysis, classification, and

in-

duction. ' In order to avoid misconception it may be as well to mention that the above remarks apply only to mystical passion assuming the form of religion ; they have nothing to do with intellectual and moral convictions.

PLATO AS A REFORMER. The

nature of dialectic

Phaedrus, where

it

still

is

221

further elucidated in the

also contrasted with the method, or

is

Here, again, dis-

rather the no-method, of popular rhetoric. cussions about love are chosen as an

on the subject by no

less

A discourse

illustration.

a writer than Lysias

quoted and

\t,

most elementary requisites of The different arguments are strung tological exposition. gether without any principle of arrangement, and ambiguous terms are used without being defined. In insisting on the

shown to be

deficient in the

necessity of definition, Plato followed Socrates

but he defines

Socrates had arrived

according to a totally different method. at his general notions partly

;

by a comparison of

particular

instances with a view to eliciting the points where they agreed,

partly

We

by amending the conceptions already

have seen that the

in circulation.

Dialogues attributed to Plato

earliest

are one long exposure of the difficulties attending such a pro-

cedure

and

;

his

subsequent investigations

all

went

to prove

that nothing solid could be built on such shifting foundations as sense

and opinion.

Meanwhile increasing familiarity with

the great ontological systems had taught

him

down The consequence was that

to begin with

the most general notions, and to work

fr'om

most

dialectic

particular.

mean nothing but

them to the came to

classification or logical division.

Definition

was absorbed into this process, and reasoning by syllogism was not yet differentiated from

meant to its

fix its place in

individual existence

same determination. circles,

If

it.

To

was

sufficiently

we imagine

first

what a thing was,

accounted for by the a series of concentric

then a series of contrasts symmetrically disposed on

either side of a central dividing line,

transitions descending from the

most

tell

the universal order of existence, and

irregular

diversity—we

and

finally a series of

most absolute unity

shall,

by combining the

to the three'

schemes, arrive at some understanding of the Platonic dialectic. To assign anything its place in these various sequences

was

at once to define

it

and to demonstrate the necessity

of.

'

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

222

The arrangement

existence.

its

also equivalent to a theory

has a function to perform, and bringing it into relation with

for everything

of final causes

;

marked out by

its

position,

Such a system would

the universal order. the denial of

is

evil,

were not

inevitably lead to

evil itself interpreted as the neces-

sary correlative of good, or as a necessary link in the descend-

ing manifestations of reality.

saw

identifying principle, Plato

or reflection of the highest. cessions,

and

Hence the many

shadow

surprises, con-

abandoned positions which we

retifrns to

The

his later writings.

Moreover, by virtue of his in the lowest forms a

three

circumscription, antithesis,

moments

find in

of Greek thought,

and mediation, work

in such close

union, or with such bewildering rapidity of alternation, through all his dialectic,

us,

that

we

are never sure whither he

is

leading

and not always sure that he knows In the opening chapter of this work we endeavoured to it

explain

how

himself.

the Pythagorean philosophy arose out of the in-

by a first acquaintance with the manifold properties of number and figure. If we would enter into the spirit of Platonism, we must similarly throw ourselves back into the time when the idea of a universal classification We must remember how it first dawned on men's minds. love of order combined with individuality; Greek the gratified toxicated delight inspired

what unbounded questions tion

it

it

held out.

baffled efforts

for asking and answering and what promises of practical regenera-

opportunities

supplied

;

Not without a shade of sadness for

and so many blighted hopes, yet

so

many

also with a

grateful recollection of all that reason has accomplished, and

with something of his

we

listen to Plato's prophetic

than

intellectual enthusiasm, shall

words

—words of deeper Import

own author knew-— If I find any man who is able One and Many in Nature, him I follow and walk in

their

to see a

his steps as '

own high '

if

he were a

PAaedr., 266, B.

Jowett,

god.' II., 144.

Fehden im vierten Jahrhundert uor Chr.,

According to Teichmiiller (Ziferamf/S« p. 135)— the god here spoken of is no

PLATO AS A REFORMER. It

is

interesting to

see

how

223

the most compfehensive

systems of the present century, even j^hen most opposed to the metaphysical

spirit,

are

ago sketched by Plato.

still

constructed on the plan long

Alike in his classification of the

sciences, in his historical deductions,

reorganisation of society;

and

in his plans for the

Auguste Comte adopts a scheme of

ascending or descending generality.

The conception

of dif-

and integration employed both by Hegel and by Mr. Herbert Spencer is also of Platonic origin only, what ferentiation

;

with the ancient thinker was a statical law of order has

become with his modern successors a dynamic law of progress while, again, there

is

this distinction

;

between the German

and the English philosopher, that the former construes as successive moments of the Idea what the latter regards as simultaneous and interdependent processes of evolution.

II.

The study

of psychology with Plato stands in a fourfold

The

relation to his general theory of the world.

dialectic

method, without which Nature would remain unintelligible, a function of the soul, and constitutes activity

;

then

soul, as distinguished

most

its

from body, represents

the higher, supersensual element of existence objective dualism of reality

is

essential

and appearance

the subjective dualism of reason and sense

is

;

thirdly, the

reproduced in

and lastly, soul, movement, mediates between the which are unmoved and the material pheno;

as the original spring of

eternal entities

mena which

are subject

to a continual flux. It is very he .first strains an antithesis to the utmost and then endeavours to reconcile its extremes by the characteristic of Plato that

interposition of one or more intermediate links. So, while assigning this ofiice to soul as a part of the universe, he .

other Ihan Plato himself.

ism to be

true, this

Even granting the

pantheistic interpretation of Platon-

seems a somewhat strained application of

it.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

224

the psychic functions themselves according to a

classifies

On- the inte'llectual side he places true what we should now call empirical knowledge,

principle.

similar

opinion,

or

midway between demonstration and

sense-perception.

Such

at least seems to be the result reached in the Tkeaetiius and

the Meno.

In the Republic a further analysis leads to a

somewhat different arrangement. Opinion is placed between knowledge and ignorance while the possible objects to which ;

it

corresponds form a transition from being to not-being.

Subsequently mathematical reasoning

is

distinguished from

the higher science whfch takes cognisance of

and thus serves

to connect

again, dealing as

it

it

first principles,

with simple opinion

does with material objects,

while this

;

is

related to

the knowledge of their shadows as the most perfect science

is

related to mathematics.'

Turning from

manner

dialectic to ethics, Plato in like

the need

of interposing a mediator

appetite.

The

feels

between reason and

quality chosen for this purpose he calls BvyAs,

a term which does not, as has been erroneously supposed, correspond to our word Will, but rather to pride, or the feeling of personal honour.

It is

both the seat of military

courage and the natural auxiliary of reason, with which co-operates in restraining the animal desires. teristic difference

It

is

it

a charac-

between Socrates and Plato that the former

should have habitually reinforced his arguments for virtue by appeals to self-interest while the latter, with his aristocratic ;

of looking at things, prefers to enlist the aid of a

way

haughtier feeling on their behalf

same

track

when he taught

Aristotle followed in the

discreditable than to be overcome by

less

none of the

by anger

that to be overcome

instincts tending

to

is

In reality

desire.

self-preservation

is

more

praiseworthy than another, or more amenable to the control Plato's tripartite division of mind cannot be made of reason. >

tion

:

Adapting Plato's formula knowledge of the world

to :

:

modern

ideas

mathematics

;

we might say

:

A literary educa-

physical science.

PLATO AS A REFORMER. to

modern psychology, which are

into the classifications of

fit

225

adapted not only to a more advanced -giate of knowledge but also to

more complex conditions of

life.

But the characters

by their greater simplicity and uniformity, show some extent what those of men "may once have been and of women,

;

will,

to it

perhaps, confirm the analysis of the Phaedriis to recall

the fact that personal pride

associated with moral

still

is

principle in the guardianship of female virtue. If the soul served to connect the eternal realities with the

appearances by which they were at once darkened,

fleeting relieved,

and shadowed

forth, it

was

also,

a bond of union

between the speculative and the practical philosophy of Plato

and

from the one to the other. easier if

ledge

} '

;

psychology we have already passed

in discussing his

we remember

The

become still 'What is knoworiginally suggested by a

transition will

that the question,

was, according to our view,

theory reducing ethical science to a hedonistic calculus, and that along with

pleasure

? '

it

would

arise another question,

'What

is

This latter enquiry, though incidentally touched

on elsewhere,

is

not fully dealt with in any Dialogue except

we agree, with Prof. Jowett in referring to a very late period of Platonic authorship. But the line of argument which it pursues had probably been long familiar

the PhiUbus, which

At any rate, the Phaedo, the Republic, and perhaps the Gorgias, assume, as already proved, that to our philosopher.

pleasure

is

not the highest good.

which thinkers are

still

divided.

The It

question

is

one on

seems, indeed, to He

outside the range of reason, and the disputants are accordingly obliged to invoke the authority either of individual;

consciousness or of

common

respective opinions.

We

consent on

behalf

have, however, got so far

of their

beyond

the ancients that the doctrine of egoistic hedonism has been abandoned by almost everybody. The substitution of another's pleasure for our

own

as the object of pursuit

not a conception which presented

Q

itself to

was any Greek moralist,

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

236

although the principle of

some of them, and

was maintained by

self-sacrifice

especially

by

Plato,, to its fullest extent.

Pleasure-seeking being inseparably associated with selfishness, the latter was best attacked through the former, and logic does not

admit that

The

was employed

it

be

its

general dialectic

if

in defence of a

adopted on

Plato's

we must

our understanding,

itself to

style of polemics

may

else

commend

noble cause.

whatever

this occasion,

value, will serve excellently to illustrate the

method of

When

attack.

Plato particularly

disliked a class of persons, or an institution, or an art, or a

theory, or a state of consci©usness, he tried to prove that

was confused, full

unstable,

and

self-contradictory

;

it

besides taking

advantage of any discredit popularly attached to

All

it.

these objections are brought to bear with full force against

Some

pleasure.

them tially

falls far

pleasures are delusive, since the reality of

short of the anticipation

all

;

pleasure

is

essen-

transitory, a perpetual becoming, never a fixed state,

and therefore not an end of action

pleasures which ensue on

;

the satisfaction of desires are necessarily accompanied

pains and disappear simultaneously with intense,

and

for that reason the

most

them

;

typical, pleasures, are

associated with feelings of shame, and their enjoyment fully

by

the most

is

care-

hidden out of sight.

Such arguments have almost the air of an afterthought, and Plato was perhaps more powerfully swayed by other conwhich we shall now proceed to analyse.

siderations,

pleasure was assumed to be

was agreed

When

the highest good, knowledge

to be the indispensable

means

for its attainment

and, as so often happens, the means gradually substituted itself

for

the

end.

Nor was

reason) being not only the

when

called

this

for knowledge (or means but the supreme arbiter, all

;

on to adjudicate between

would naturally pronounce in

its

own

.

conflicting

favour.

claims,

Naturally, also*

a moralist who made science the chief interest of his own life would come to believe that it was the proper object of all

PLATO AS A REFORMER. life,

And

irj

whether attended or not by any pleasurable emotion. so, in direct

opposition to the utilitarian theory, Plato

declares at last that to brave a lesser pain in order to escape

from a greater, or to renounce a lesser pleasure secure a greater,

is

in order to

cowardice and intemperance in disguise

;

and that wisdom, which he had formerly regarded as a means to other ends,

is

the one end for which everything else should

Perhaps

be exchanged.' this attitude to

may have

it

strengthened him in

observe that the many, whose opinion he so

thoroughly despised,

made

pleasure their aim; in

the fastidious few preferred knowledge.

while

life,

Yet, after a time,

even the latter alternative failed to satisfy his restless

spirit.

For the conception of knowledge resolved itself into the deeper conceptions of a knowing subject and a known object,

became

the soul and the universe, each of which

supreme virtue

What

ideal.

in turn the

should be given

interpretation

depended on the choice between them.

to

According to

was a purification of the higher principle within Sensual gratifications us from material wants and passions. should be avoided, because they tend to degrade and pollute the one view

it

Death should be

the soul. will release

fearlessly encountered, because

her from the restrictions of bodily existence.

Plato had too strong a grasp on the realities of satisfied

objective side,

to

But

remain

Knowledge, on the

with a purely ascetic morality.

brought him

life

-it

into relation with an organised

universe where each individual existed, not for his

but for the sake of the whole, to

fulfil

own sake

a definite function in

the system of which he formed a part.

And

if

from one

point of view the soul herself was an absolutely simple indivisible substance,

from another point of view she

reflected the

external order, and only fulfilled the law of her being when each separate faculty was exercised within its appropriat-e, sphere.

There

still

remained one '

last

Phaedo, 69, A.

Q 2

problem to Jowett,

I.,

442.

solve,

one point

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

228

where the converging streams of ethical and metaphysical Granted that knowledge is the speculation met and mixed. highest energy, what

soul's

vision

Granted that

?

common

purpose, what

dinated

Granted that

?

is

the object of this beatific

particular energies co-operate for a

all

is

the end to which they are subor-

dialectic leads us

up through ascending

gradations to one all-comprehensive idea,

be defined

by

?

re-stating

at once gives

Nature

that idea to

is

Plato only attempts to answer this last question it

under the form df an

life

to all

As

illustration.

Nature, and light to the eye

perceived, so also the idea of

is

how

Good

as an absolute unity, of which for the distinction of subject

we cannot even

them both sSy that

it

and predicate would bring

Here we seem

back relativity and plurality again. Sbcratic paradox reversed.

by which

the cause of

is

existence and of knowledge alike, but transcends

is,

the sun

to

have the

Socrates identified virtue with

knowledge, but, at the same time, entirely emptied the latter of

speculative content.

its

Plato,

inheriting the

idea of

in its artificially restricted significance, was irredrawn back to the older philosophy whence it had been originally borrowed then, just as his master had given

knowledge

sistibly

;

an ethical application to science, so did he, travelling over the same ground in an opposite direction, extend the theory of ethics far

beyond

its

legitimate range, until a principle which

seemed to have no meaning, except in reference to human conduct, became the abstract bond of union between all and ail thought. Whether Plato ever succeeded

reality

in

making the idea of Good is more than we can

quite clear to others, or even to himself, tell.

In the Republic he declines giving further explanations

on the ground that ,

his pupils

necessary .mathematical

have not passed through the

initiation.

Whether

quantitative

reasoning was to furnish the form or the matter of transcendare told that on one ent dialectic is left undetermined.

We

occasion a large audience assembled to hear Plato lecture on

PLATO AS A REFORMER,

229

the Good, but that,

much

to their disappointment, the dis-

course was entirely

filled

with gesmetrical and astronomical

Bearing in mind, however, that mathematical

investigations.

science deals chiefly with

equations,

according to Plato, had for

its

and that astronomy,

object to prove the absolute

we may perhaps conclude Good meant no more than the abstract of identity or indistinguishable likeness. The more

uniformity of the celestial motipns, that the idea of

notion

complex idea of law as a uniformity of relations, whether cohad not then dawned, but it has since

existent or successive,

been similarly employed to bring physics into harmony with ethics

and

logic.

III.

So

far

sophy as

we have followed the it

may have been

We

purely theoretical motives.

evolution of Plato's philo-

effected

under the impulse of

have now to consider what

by the more imperious exigencies of we find Plato taking up and continuing the work of Socrates, but on a vastly greater There was, indeed, a kind of pre-established harmony scale. between the expression of thought on the one hand and the increasing need for its' application to life on the other. For the spread of public corruption had gone ov\. pari passuv^'x^ form was imposed on

practical experience.

it

Here, again,

the development of philosophy.

The teaching

of Socrates

and dealt chiefly with private morality. On other points he was content to accept the law of the land and the established political constitution as He was not accustomed to- see sufficiently safe guides. was addressed to

them

individuals,

defied or perverted into instruments of selfish aggrand-

isement

;

nor,

apparently,

had the

contingency occurred to him. all

social

institutions

Hence the personal his

system than the

possibility

Still less

of such a

did he imagine that

then existing were radically wrong.

virtues held a social virtues.

more important place in His attacks were directed

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

230

against slothfulness and self-indulgence, against the ignorant

temerity which hurried

was

their education

some young men

into politics before

and the timidity or

finished,

fastidious-

ness which prevented others from discharging the highest

Nor, in accepting the popular religion

duties of citizenship.

of his time, had he any suspicion that

sanctions might be

its

invoked on behalf of successful violence and fraud.

how how much deeper

already shown

We have

differently Plato felt towards his age,

and

more shameless was the demoralisation with which he set himself to contend. It must also be remembered how judicial proceedings had come to as well as

overshadow every other public

interest

and how the highest

;

become

culture of the time had, at least in his eyes,

identified

with the systematic perversion of truth and right. considerations will

why Greek

explain

philosophy,

These while

moving on a higher plane, passed through the same orbit which had been previously described by Greek poetry. Precisely as the

followed

of moderation

lessons

by the

in

Homer had been

lessons of justice in Aeschylus, precisely as

the religion which was a selfish

and had

little

by the nobler

to tell of a

life

traffic between gods and men, beyond the grave, was replaced

a divine guardianship of morality and

faith in

a retributive judgment after death ethics

made

—so

a:lso

did the Socratic

and the Socratic theology lead to a system which justice the essence of morality

and

religion its ever-

lasting consecration.

Temperance and our minds.

justice are very clearly distinguished in

The one

is

mainly a self-regarding, the other

But

would be a mistake to suppose that the distinction was equally clear to Plato. He had learned from Socrates that all virtue is one. He found himmainly a social

virtue.

it

by men who pointedly opposed interest to honour and expediency to fair-dealing, without making any

self confronted

secret of their preference for the former.

Here, as elsewhere,

he laboured to dissolve away the vulgar antithesis and to

PLATO AS A REFORMER. substitute for

—the

a deeper one

it

He was

and apparent goods. case of a

man who might have

in the practice of justice

and death

;

231

antithesis bet\yeen real

qi^jte

ready to imagine the

to incur all sorts of suffering

even to the extent of infamy, torture,

but without denying that these were evils, he held

that to practise injustice with the accornpaniment of worldly

prosperity was a greater evil

still.

And

this conviction

quite unconnected with his belief in a future

not have agreed with St. Paul that virtue

without the hope of a reward for is

absolutely independent

is

right

and

;

is

a bad calculation

hereafter.

His morality

of any extrinsic considerations.

Nevertheless, he holds that in our

what

it

own

interest

we should do

never seems to have entered

it

his

thoughts that there could be any other motive for doing

We have to explain how such Plato seems to have action tends towards a

porary sacrifice which

felt

it

a paradox was possible.

very strongly that

good exceeding iit

is

He. would

life.

may

involve

;

all

in value

virtuous

any tem-

and the accepted

connotation of ethical terms went entirely along with this belief

But he could not see that a particular action might

be good for the community at large and bad for the individual

who performed same

it,

not in a different sense but in the very

sense, as involving a diminution of his happiness.

from Plato's abstract

For

view good was homogeneous, and the welfare of ..the individual was absolutely identified with the welfare, of the whole to which

As

he belonged.

arid generalising point of

who made

all

dependent on might and erected self-indulgence into the law of life He showed that Plato occupied an impregnable position. against those,

right

such principles niade society irhpossible, and that without

honour even a gang of thieves cannot, hold also

saw that

it is

relation with the

He

whole and enables him to understand his

obligations towards

it

R^uK,

I.,

>-

tc^ether.'

reason which brings each individual into

;

but at the same time he gave this

348,

B

ff.

r Zeller,

0/. «?., y^^-?^.

THE CREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

232

reason a personal character which does not properly belong to

it

;

what comes

or,

to the

same

thing,

he treated human removing the

beings as pure entia rationis, thus unwittingly necessity for having

any morality

at

all.

On

his assumption

would be absurd to break the law but neither yirould there be any temptation to break it, nor would any unpleasant

it

;

consequences follow on

its

violation.

as an injury to the soul's health, evil that

can

befall

a

human

Plato speaks of injustice

and therefore as the

being, without observing that

the inference involves a confusion of terms.

ment

that soul should

requires

conscious

life

it

For

his argu-

the, whole of

All crime

is

co-operate with our

a serious disturbance to the

fellow-

latter, for

cannot without absurdity be made the foundation of a

general rule impair,

;

but, apart

and may

While Plato

by

mean both

and the system of abstract notions through

which we communicate and creatures.

greatest

from penal consequences,

it

does not

benefit the former. identified the individual with the

community

slurring over, the possible divergence of their interests, he

still

further contributed to their logical confusion

by resolving

the ego into a multitude of conflicting faculties and impulses

supposed to represent the different classes of which a State

made

up.

is

His opponents held that justice and law emanate

body politic and theiy were supreme power is properly vested in the

from the ruling power brought to admit that

wisest and best citizens.

in the

;

Transferring these principles to the

inner forum, he maintained that a psychological aristocracy '

could only be established by giving reason a similar control

over the animal passions.'

At

first sight, this

seemed

to

imply no more than a return, to the standpoint of Socrates, or of Plato himself in the Protagoras.

The man who by a regard

his desires within the limits prescribed

safe satisfaction through his whole

ate and reasonable, but he '

is

life,

may

for their

be called temper-

not necessarily just.

See especiallylhe argument with Caliicles

indulges

in the Gorgias.

If,

how-

PLATO AS A REFORMER. ever,

we

there

is

233

paramount authority within with the paramount authority without, we sJiall have to admit that identify the

a faculty of justice in the individual soul correspond-

ing to the objective justice of political law

supreme virtue

is

agreed on

reasonable to be just

of injustice

is

reason, or that

is

the height of

folly.

Moreover, this fallacious

temperance was

in the latter, the latter is to

the rights of others tates a considerable

We made

;

the

not involved

carries with

it

a respect for

but where such respect exists

it

necessi-

amount of self-control. a

difficult

by the foregoing analysis

process has been

is

a very great extent involved in the

by no means

trust that the steps of

clear

by

facilitated

circumstance that although the former virtue

Self-control

it

and that by consequence the height

;

substitution of justice for

former.

and since the

hands to be reason, we must

all

go a step further and admit that justice is

;

shown

to hinge

;

argument have been

and that the whole

on the ambiguous use of such

notions as the individual and the community, of which the one is

paradoxically construed as a plurality and the other as a

unity

;

justice,

exercised

trol

which

is

by the

alternately taken in the sense of conworthiest,

of passion in the

control

general interest, control of our passions in the interest of others,

and control of the same passions in our own interest and wisdom or reason, which sometimes means any kind of excellence, ;

sometimes the excellence of a harmonious

society,

times the excellence of a well-balanced mind. self-regarding virtue social virtue

is elicited,

and some-

Thus, out of

the whole process

being ultimately conditioned by that identifying power w hich

was

at once the strength

Plato

men

knew perfectly

and the weakness of

of the world might be silenced, they could not be con-

verted nor even convinced far

Plato's genius.

well that although rhetoricians and

from thinking

it

by such arguments

possible to reason

men

as these.

into virtue,

So

he has

observed of those who are slaves to their senses that you must

improve them before you can teach them the

truth.

And

he

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

234 felt

that

if

the complete assimilation of the individual and the

community was to become more than a mere logical formula, it must be effected by a radical reform in the training of the one and in the institutions of the other. Accordingly, he set himself to elaborate a scheme for the purpose, our knowledge of which

We

is

chiefly derived

from

his greatest work, the TS^^w^/iV.

have already made large use of the negative

scattered through that Dialogue positive teaching

by which

;

criticism

we have now to examine the

was supplemented.

it

IV. Plato, like Socrates,

makes

religious instruction the basis

But where the master had been content to

of education.

old beliefs on a

new

basis of demonstration, the disciple

set

aimed

at nothing less than their complete purification from irrational

and immoral that

God

is

ingredients.

good, and that

He lays down two great principles, He is true.' Every story which is

inconsistent with such a character

must everything

in the poets

must be rejected

;

so also

which redounds to the discredit

of the national heroes, together with everything tending in the

remotest degree to

make

It is evident that Plato,

vice attractive or virtue repellent.

like>Xenophanes, repudiated not only

the scandalous details of popular mythology, but also the

anthropomorphic conceptions which lay at although he did not think with equal frankness.

it

its

foundation

;

advisable to state his unbelief

His own theology was a sort of star-

worship, and he proved the divinity of the heavenly bodies by

an appeal to the uniformity of their movements.^ He further taught that the world was created by an absolutely good Being

;

but we cannot be sure that this was more than a

popular version of the theory which placed the abstract idea of

Good

at the

summit of the

dialectic series.

The

truth

is

that there are two distinct types of religion, the one chiefly '

Repub.,

II.,

379,

Aj

380, D.

=

Zeller,

678-8.

PLATO AS A REFORMER. interested in the existence

and

23S

attributes of God, the other

chiefly interested in the destiny of thg human soul. is

best represented

by Judaism, the

The former

by Buddhism. Plato the theistic type. The

latter

belongs to the psychic rather than to

doctrine of immortality appears again and again in his Dia^ logues,

and one of the most

devoted to proving that he

He

it.

beautiful

among them

arguing in favour of a paradox.

is

is

entirely

seems throughout to be conscious Here, at

least,

there are no appeals to popular prejudice such as figure so largely in similar discussions

among

immortality had long been stirring root

among

;

ourselves.

We

the Ionian Greeks.

The

belief in

had not taken deep cannot even be sure that

but

it

was embraced as a consoling hope by any but the highest minds anywhere in Hellas, or by them for more than a brief

it

It would be easy to maintain that this arose from some natural incongeniality to the Greek imagination in thoughts which drew it away from the world of sense and the But the explanation breaks down imdelights of earthly life. mediately when we attempt to verify it by a wider experience. No modern nation enjoys life so keenly as the French. Yet, quite apart from traditional dogmas, there is no nation that

period.

counts so

many

earnest supporters of the belief in a spiritual

existence beyond

example, it

is

the grave.

just the

keen

And, to take an individual which Mr. Browning's Cleon

relish

has for every sort of enjoyment which makes him shrink back

with horror from the thought of annihilatiom, and grasp at any

A

promise of a happiness to be prolonged through eternity.

needed to show us by what causes the current of Greek thought was swayed.

closer examination

The

great religious

centuries

—

movement of the sixth and fifth by the names of Pytha-

chiefly represented for us

goras, Aeschylus, entirely

is

won

and Pindar

—would

in all probability

have

over the educated classes, and given definiteness

to the half-articulate utterances of popular tradition,

had

it

not been arrested. prematurely by the development of physical

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

236

We

speculation.

philosophy in

showed

its earliest

differed, indeed,

;

the

chapter that Greek

first

It

from modern materialism in holding that the

soul, or seat of conscious

body

in

stages was entirely materialistic.

life,

is

an entity

distinct from the

but the distinction was one between a grosser and a

between a simpler and a more complex arrangement of the same matter, not between an extended and an indivisible substance. Whatever theories, then, were finer matter, or else

entertained with respect to the one would inevitably

be entertained also with respect to the other. exception of the Eleates,

who denied

come to Now, with the

the reality of change

and separation altogether, every school agreed that all particular bodies are formed either

or

by

in teaching

differentiation

by decomposition and recomposition out of the same

From

primordial elements.

this

it

followed, as

a natural

consequence, that, although the whole mass of matter was eternal,

each particular aggregate of matter must perish

in

order to release the elements required for the formation of

new

aggregates.

material,

its

doctrine as

It is

obvious that, assuming the soul to be

immortality was irreconcilable with such

this.

A

a

combination of four elements and two

Empedocles supposed the human mind to be, could not possibly outlast the organism in which it was enclosed; and if Empedocles himself, by an inconsistency not uncommon with men of genius, refused to draw conflicting forces, such as

the only legitimate conclusion from his

discrepancy could not Still

more

fail

own

principles, the

on

his successors.

to force itself

fatal to the belief in a

continuance of personal

was the theory put forward by Diogenes there is really no personal identity even in of Apollonia, that identity after death

life

— that consciousness

is

only maintained by a perpetual

halation of the vital air in which

very

literally left

all

reason resides.

The

in-

soul

the body with the last breath, and had a poor

chance of holding together afterwards, especially, as the wits observed,

if

a high wind happened to be blowing at the time.

PLATO AS A REFORMER.

237

It would appear that even in the Pythagorean school there

had been a reaction against a doctrine which

had been the

first

its

founder

The Pythagoreans

to popularise in Hellas.

had always attributed great importance to the conceptions of harmony and numerical proportion and they soon came to ;

think of the soul as a ratio which the different elements of ihe

animal body bore to one another resulting

from the joint action of

or as a musical, concord

;

various members, which

its

might be compared to the strings of a '

When

the lute

is

Sweet tones are remembered

And

so,

lute.

But

broken not.'

with the dissolution of our bodily organism, the

music of consciousness would pass

away

for ever.

Perhaps

no form of psychology taught in the Greek schools has approached nearer to modern thought than professed

at

Thebes by two

Simmias, in the time of Plato.

was Pythagoreans, Cebes and He rightly regarded them as this.

It

formidable opponents, for they were ready to grant whatever

he claimed

for the

soul

the

in

way

of immateriality and

superiority to the body, while denying the possibility of

separate existence.

We may

its

so far anticipate the course of

our exposition as to mention that the direct argument by which he met them was a reference to the moving power of mind, and to the constraint exercised by reason over passionate impulse

;

musical harmony

characteristics

which the analogy with a But his chief reliance

failed to explain.

was on an order of considerations, the which we It

shall

now proceed

historical genesis of

to trace.

was by that somewhat slow and circuitous

process, the

negation of a negation, that spiritualism was finally estabThe shadows of doubt gathered still more thickly lished.

around futurity before another attempt could be made to remove them. For the scepticism of the Humanists and the ethical dialectic of Socrates,

if

they tended to weaken the

dogmatic materialism of physical philosophy, were at

first

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

238

not more favourable to the

had suddenly

which that philosophy

and the other did not attempt to go behind

;

what had been

faith

For the one rejected every kind of

eclipsed.

supernaturalism

new

directly revealed

by the gods, or was

coverable from an examination of their handiwork. theless, the

direction,

new

dis-.

Never-

enquiries, with their exclusively subjective

paved the way

for a return to the religious develop-

ment previously in progress. By leading men to think of mind as, above all, a principle of knowledge and deliberate action, they altogether freed

which brought

tions

where every

finite

it

from those material associa-

under the laws of external Nature,

'it

existence was destined, sooner or

later, to

The position was comwhen Nature was, as it were, brought up before the bar of Mind to have her constitution determined or her very existence denied by that supreme tribunal. If the subjective idealism of Protagoras and Gorgias made for be reabsorbed and to disappear.

pletely reversed

spiritualism, so also did the teleological religion of Socrates. It was impossible to assert the priority and superiority of mind to matter more strongly than by teaching that a designing intelligence had created the whole visible universe

for the exclusive

was

in its turn

logical still

enjoyment of man.

absorbed by the

The

infinite

infinite within.

without

Finally, the

method of Socrates contained

in itself the germs of a which Plato now proceeded to work

subtler spiritualism

out.

The

dialectic theory, considered in its relation to physics,

tended to substitute the study of uniformity mechanical causation. lished

by

for the

study of

But the general conceptions

science were a kind of soul in Nature

immaterial, they could not be perceived

by

;

estab-

they were

sense,

and

yet,

remaining as they did unchanged in a world of change, they

were

far truer, far

more

they gave unity and ideas,

being subjective

real,

than the phenomena to which

definition. in their

Now

these self-existent

origin, readily

reacted

on

PLATO AS A REFORMER. mind, and communicated to

it

239

those attributes of fixedness

and eternal duration which had in truth been borrowed by them from Nature, not by Nature from them. Plato argued

was

that the soul

in possession of ideas too

pure to have

been derived from the suggestions of sense, and therefore traceable to the reminiscences of an ante-natal experience.

But we can see that the reminiscence was the ideas

it

;

limitation of man's faculties

clung to them

still

on the side of

their human origin by and finality betokening the and the interest of his desires—^

—

the birthmark of abstraction

which

all

was they that betrayed

when from a temporary law of

thought they were erected into an everlasting law of things.

As Comte would what he had.

was taking out of put into them himself.

say, Plato

first

consideration applies to

all his

his conceptions

And,

if this

reasonings on the. subject of

what he regards as the There is oije idea, he tells us, with which the soul is inseparably and essentially associated namely, the idea of life. Without this, soul can no more be conceived than snow without cold or fire without immortality,

it

applies especially to

most convincing demonstration of any.

—

heat

;

nor can death approach

To assume

contradiction.

the body, and that

life

is

it

without involving a logical

that the soul

is

separable from

inseparable from the soul, was

To a modern, it would have the further disadvantage of proving too much. For, by parity of reasoning, every living thing must have an immortal soul, and every soul must have existed from all certainly an expeditious

eternity.

Plato frankly accepted both conclusions, and even

incorporated

them with

degradation to

own

,

possible for

his ethical system.

He

looked on

many stages in a progressive which human beings had descended through

the lower animals as

their

method of proof.

so

violence or sensuality,

them

but from which

it

was

to return after a certain period of penitence

At other times he describes a hell, a and probation. purgatory, and a heaven, not unlike what we read of in

—

'

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

240

Dante, without apparently being conscious of any inconsistency between the

inconsistency such as

two representations.

we

the inconsistency of one

between

naturalistic

ethical individualism It

an

It was, indeed,

find in the highest order of intellects,

who mediated between two

metempsychosis on the one

on the

worlds,

side,

and

other.

was not merely the immortality,

it

was the

eternity of

For him the expectation of a life beyond the grave was identified with the memory of an antenatal existence, and the two must stand or fall together. When Shelley's shipwrecked mother exclaims to her child

the soul that Plato taught.

:

'

what is life, what is death, what are we, That when the ship sinks we no longer may be What to see thee no more, and to feel thee no more, To be after life what we have been before

Alas

!

!

!

!

Her despair

is

but the inverted image of Plato's hope, the

return to a purer state of being where knowledge will no

longer be obscured

of sight and touch.

by passing through the perturbing medium Again, modern apologists for the injustice

and misery of the present system' argue that its inequalities Plato conversely regarded will be redressed in a future state. the sufferings of good men as a retribution for former sin, or as the result of a forgotten choice.

The

authority of Pindar

and of ancient tradition generally may have influenced his belief, but it had a deeper ground in the logic of a spiritualThe dualism of soul and body is only one istic philosophy. form of

his

fundamental antithesis between the changeless

essence and the transitory manifestations of existence. A pantheism like Spinoza's was the natural outcome of such a

system

;

but his practical genius or his ardent imagination

kept Plato from carrying

it

so

far.

Nor

progress was the result to be regretted

;

in

the interests of

for theology

had

to

pass through one more phase before the term of its beneficent Ethical conceptions gained a new activity could be reached. '

Un monde

'

p. 139-

qui est I'injustice meme.'

—Ernest

Renan, VEglise Chritientu,

PLATO AS A REFORMER. significance in the blended

physics

those who

;

made

fountain-head might

it

still

light of

241

mythology and meta-

their trad^'to pervert justice at its

tremble before the terrors of a

siipernatural tribunal; or if Plato could, not regenerate the

of his

life

own people he could

common

faith of Europe memory, if not hope, is the

in

what was to be the another thousand years and foretell

;

richer for those magnificent visions

where he has projected the eternal conflict'between good and evil into

in

the silence and darkness

on every

by which our

lives are

shut

side.

V. Plato had begun it

by condemning poetry only

was inconsistent with true

religion

in so far as

and morality.

At

with his usual propensity to generalise, he condemned

by

implication, every imitative art

qud

art,

last,

it

and,

as a delusion

and

a sham, twice removed from the truth of things, because a copy of the phenomena which are themselves unreal representations

His iconoclasm may remind us of other ethical theologians both before and after, whether Hebrew, Moslem, or Puritan. If he does not share their fanatical hatred for plastic and pictorial representations, it is

of an archetypal idea.

only because works of that

class,

character, exercised far less

power over the Greek imagination

than epic and dramatic poetry.

besides being of a chaster

Moreover, the tales of the

poets were, according to Plato, the worst

lies

of any, since

they were believed to be true whereas statues and pictures differed too obviously from their originals for any such illusion ;

Like the Puritans, again, Plato sanctioned the use of religious hymns, with the accompani-

to be produced in their case.

ment of music them,

also,

in its simplest

and most elevated forms.

he would have approved of literary

was employed

for edifying purposes.

Works

fiction

Like

when

like the

it

Faery

Queen, Paradise Lost, and the Pilgrim's Progress, would have

been his favourites

in

English literature

;

and he might have

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

242

extended the same indulgence to fictions of the Edgeworthiar type, where the virtuous characters always come ofif best in the end.

The reformed system

of education was to be not only

moral and religious but also severely

The

scientific.

given to mathematics as the foundation of a right training

is

most remarkable, and shows how

truly

apprehended the conditions under which knowledge quired and enlarged.

place

intellectual

Here, as in other respects, he

Plato is

ac-

more

is,

He

even than Aristotle, the precursor of Auguste Comte.

arranges the mathematical ^sciences, so far as they then existed, in their logical order

;

and

his

remarks on the most general

ideas suggested by astronomy read

a divination of rational

like

That a recommendation of such studies should be put into the mouth of Socrates is a striking fncongruityi The older Plato grew the farther he seems to have advanced mechanics.

from the humanist to the

naturalistic point of view and, had Hippias confess it, and to Prodicus willing were been the he teachers with whom he finally found himself most in sympathy. ;

Macaulay has spoken as

if

the Platonic philosophy was

totally unrelated to the material wants of men. ever,

is

a mistake.

This, how-

It is true that, in the Republic, science is

not regarded as an instrument for heaping up fresh luxuries, or for curing the diseases which luxury breeds

because

its

purpose

is

;

but only

held to be the discovery of those

conditions uftder which a healthy, happy, and virtuous race

can best be reared. The art of the true statesman is to weave the web of life with perfect skill, to bring together those couples from whose union the noblest progeny shall issue it is

only by

;

and

mastering the laws of the physical universe that

can be acquired. Plato knew no natural laws but those of mathematics and astronomy consequently, he set fkr too much store on the times and seasons at which bride this art

;

and bridegroom were to meet, and on the numerical ratios by which they were supposed to be determined. He even tells

PLATO AS A REFORMER.

243

us "about a mysterious formula for discovering the nuptial

number, by which the ingenuity of commentators has been

The true laws by which marriage among a civilised people have remained

considerably exercised.

should be regulated

wrapped

instill

be the best

Whatever may

more impenetrable darkness.

solution,

it

can hardly

respects from our present customs.

the most important act in the

life

fail

many

to differ in

cannot be right that

It

human being

of a

should

be determined by social ambition, by avarice, by vanity, by

by accident

pique, or

impulses of which

—

in

human

a word, by the most contemptible nature

is

susceptible

;

nor

is it

to be

expected that sexual selection will always necessitate the

employment of

and bribery by one of

insincerity, adulation,

the parties concerned, while fostering in the other credulity,

egoism, jealousy, capriciousness, and petty tyranny qualities

which a wise training would have

—the very

for its object

to

root out.' It

seems

difficult to reconcile

views about marriage involv-

ing a recognition of the fact that mental and moral qualities are hereditarily transmitted, with chosis elsewhere professed

by

hesion to the latter doctrine

is

the belief in

metempsy-

But perhaps his

Plato.

ad-,

not to be taken very seriously.

In imitation of the objective world, whose essential truth half hidden

and half disclosed by

its

is

phenomenal manifesta-

he loves to present his speculative teaching under a and so he may have chosen the old mythical disguise

tions,

;

doctrine of transmigration as an apt expression for the unity

and continuity of

life.

And,

at worst,

greater inconsistency than

he would not be guilty

chargeable to those any who, while they admit that mental modern philosophers

of

qualities

are inherited, hold

is

each individual soul to be

2,

separate and independent creatioij.

The

rules for breeding

and education

set forth in

the

Republic are not intended for the whole community, but only '

Cf. LysU, 210, E.

R 2

Jowett,

I., 54.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

244

It was by the corruption of t was most distressed, and the sah higher classes that Plato tion of the State depended, according to him, on their refc mation. This leads us on to his scheme for the reconstitutii

for the ruling

minority.

It is intimately

of society.

and

definition

logical

connected with his method

by the

He

classification.

force that the collective action of

division of labour;

human

shows with gre

beings

and argues from

is

condition(

this that eve:

individual ought, in the interest of the whole, to be restricte

to a single occupation.

Therefore, the industrial classes, wl

form the bulk of the population, are to be excluded

bol

The

Pel(

from military service and from ponnesian

War had

political

power.

led to a general substitution of profe:

sional soldiers for the old levies of untrained citizens in Gree

by the dangers, as we That each profe; as by the advantages, of this revolution. sion should be exercised only by persons trained for it, suite warfare.

Plato was deeply impressed

his notions alike as a

logician,

a teacher, and a practice

But he saw that mercenary fighters might us power to oppress and plunder the defenceless citizen!

reformer. their

And, holding

or to establish a military despotism.

government should,

like strategy,

tionaries naturally fitted

he saw

their passions. first

and expressly trained

equally that a privileged class

abuse their position

in order to

He proposed

fill

for the work

would be tempted t( and to gratifi

their pockets

to provide against these dangers

by the new system of education already

described, anc

secondly by pushing the division of labour to conclusion.

That

,they

might the

specific duties, the defenders

the

be exercised only by func

and the

better

its

logica

attend to

theii

rulers of the State were

not to practise the art of money-making; in other words they were not to possess any property of their own, but were to

be supported by thei labour of the industrial

Furthermore, that they need not quarrel

among

classes,

themselves,

he proposed that every private interest should be eliminated

;

PLATO AS A REFORMER. from their

and that they should, as a

lives,

345

class,

be united by

This purpose was to

the closest bonds of family affectioiu

be effected by the abolition of marriage and of domesticity.

The couples chosen

for breeding

the object of their union

were to be separated when

had been attained

;

children were to

be taken from their mothers immediately after birth and brought up at the expense and under the supervision of the Sickly and deformed infants were to be destroyed.

State.

Those who

fell

short of the aristocratic standard were to be

and

degraded,

their

places filled

up by the exceptionally

Members

gifted offspring of low-class parents.

of the milir

tary and governing caste Avere to address each other accordr ing to the kinship which might possibly exist between them.

In the absence of home-employments,

men

far as possible, assimilated to

bodily and and,

if

mental training

;

to

;

women were

to be, so

to pass through the same

be enrolled

army

in the

they showed the necessary capacity, to discharge the

highest

political functions.

In this practical dialectic the

power of

identifying no less than the differentiating

displayed,

and displayed

modern

as in the

also in defiance of

classifications of

logic

common

zoology and botany.

is

ideas,

Plato

introduces distinctions where they did not before exist, and

The sexes were was to be identified with family and the whole community was to present an exact

annuls those which were already recognised. to be assimilated, political life,

parallel

life

with the individual

soul.

The

ruling

corresponded to reason, the army to passionate industrial

classes to the

animal desires

;

committee

spirit,

and the

and each,

in

its

perfect constitution, represented one of the cardinal virtues as

reinterpreted

by

Plato.

Wisdom belonged

to the ruling part,

courage to the intermediate executive power, and temper-

ance or obedience to the organs of material existence; while

meant the general harmony resulting from the fulfilment of their appropriate functions by all. We may add

justice

that the whole State reproduced the Greek family in a

much

THE CREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

246

deeper sense than Plato himself was aware aristocracy represents the man,

Gorgias, was to

; '

and

his

words of

his industrial

woman, whose duty was to and keep what is indoors, and obey her

class takes the place of

order her house, husband.'

whose

administer the State

'

For

of.

virtue, in the

the

'

•

Such was the celebrated scheme by which Plato proposed to regenerate mankind. We have already taken occasion to show how it was connected with his ethical and dialectical

We

philosophy.

have now to consider

stands to the political experience of his

in

what

own and

relation

it

other times,

as well as to the revolutionary proposals of other speculative reformers.

VI.

According to Hegel,^ the Platonic

polity, so far

being an impracticable dream, had already found

Greek

tion in

life,

he

tells

commonwealth.

There

stages in the moral development of

us, three

The

mankind.

realisa-

and did but give a purer expression to the

constitutive principle of every ancient are,

its

from

purely objective.

is

first

It represents

a

regime where rules of conduct are entirely imposed from without; they society

;

they

are, as rest,

authority and tradition questioned, their

for,

embodied

were,

it

in the

framework of

not on reason and conscience, but on

they will not suffer themselves to be

;

being unproved, a doubt would be

Here the individual

very existence.

sacrificed to the. State

is

fatal

to

completely

but in the second or subjective stage

;

he breaks

loose, asserting the right of his private judgmient

and

as against the

will

revolution

was,

Sophists and

with the

still

according to

Socrates.

spirit

of

Meno,

71, E.

Jowett,

270.

Hegel, begun by the

civilisation,

The I.,

This

proved altogether incompatible

It

Greek

shattering to pieces. '

established order of things.

subjective 2

which

it

ended by

principle, found

Gesch. d. Ph., II

,

272.

an

PLATO AS A REFORMER.

247

appropriate expression in Christianity, which attributes an

importance to the individual muI

infinite

;

that

it

and

it

appears also

We may

observe

corresponds very nearly to what Auguste

Comte

in the political philosophy of Rousseau.

The modern

meant by the metaphysical period.

State re-

conciles both principles, allowing the individual his

full

de-

velopment, and at the same time incorporating him with a larger whole, where, for the first time, fully realised.

he finds his own reason

Now, Hegel looks on the Platonic

republic

as a reaction against the subjective individualism, the right of

private judgment, the self-seeking impulse, or whatever else

be

to

it is

called,

which was

To

civilisation.

fast eating into the heart of

counteract this fatal tendency, Plato goes

back to the constitutive principle of Greek society say, the omnipotence, or,

petence, of the State

suppression

Greek

;

— that

is

exhibiting

of individual

it,

liberty

in ideal perfection, as the

under every form, more

especially the fundamental forms of property, marriage,

domestic It

to

in Benthamite parlance, omnicoin-

and

life.

seems to us that Hegel,

in

his

process into the narrow

historical

anxiety to crush every

symmetry of a

favourite

metaphysical formula, has confounded several entirely distinct conceptions under the there

is

common name

of subjectivity.

individual to have a voice in the affairs of the State,

the free

management of

his

so far from being modern,

Aryan

First,

the right of private judgment, the claim of each

race

;

own

is

and

personal concerns.

to

have

But

this,

one of the oldest customs of the

and perhaps, could we look back to the oldest

now despotically governed, we should among them also. It was no new nor un-

history of other races find

it

prevailing

heard-of privilege that Rousseau vindicated for the peoples of his

by

own

time, but their ancient birthright, taken

from them

the growth of a centralised military system, just as

it

had

been formerly taken from the qity communities of the GraecoRoman world. In this respect, Plato goes against the whole

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

248

of his country, and no period of

spirit

even the age of Homer, would have

We

him.

have next the disposition of individuals, no longer to

interfere in

into

development, not

its

satisfied

making the

an instrument

law, but to override

own

for their

it,

or to bend

it

Doubtless there

purposes.

existed such a tendency in Plato's time, and his polity was

very largely designed to hold

it

principled ambition was nothing

mode

of

its

in

new

But such unhowever the

check.

in Greece,

What had

manifestations might vary.

been seized by armed violence was now sought

formerly

after with the

more subtle weapons of rhetorical skill just as at the present moment, among these same Greeks, it is the prize of parliamentary intrigue. The Cretan and Spartan institutions may ;

very possibly have been designed with a view to checking this spirit of selfish lawlessness,

minimum and mind when he pushed

to a

institutidns

by reducing private

interests

Plato most certainly had them in his

;

the

same method

still

further

but those

;

were not types of Hellenism as a whole, they only

represented one, and that a very abnormal, side of

borrowed some elements from

it.

this quarter, but, as

we

Plato shall

them with others of a widely Sparta was, indeed, on any high theory

presently show, he incorporated different character.

of government, not a State at

among

all,

a plundered population

cared to conciliate.

How

little

but a robber-clan established

whom

to the interests of the State as such,

Peloponnesian War,

the

when

they never tried or

weight her rulers attributed

was well exhibited during

political

utmost importance were surrendered

in

advantages of the deference to the

noble families whose kinsmen had been captured at Sphacteria,

and whose

sole object

was

to rescue

them from the

fate

with which they were threatened by the Athenians as a mean; of extorting concessions

Rome may

to

ransom the

;

— conduct with

soldiers

who had

which the

refusal

o

surrendered at Canna(

be instructively contrasted.'

We

have, thirdly, to consider a form of individualisxi

PLATO AS A REFORMER. directly is

opposed

249 It

in character to those already specified.

the complete withdrawal from pubjjc affairs for the sake of

attending exclusively to one's private duties or pleasures.

Such individualism

who

the characteristic weakness of conserva-

is

by their very nature, the party of timidity and quiescence. To them was addressed the exhortation of Cato, capessenda est respublica. The two other forms of which we

tives,

are,

have spoken

on the contrary, diseases of

are,

We

liberalism.

them exemplified when the leaders of a party are harassed by the perpetual criticism of. their professed supporters or, again, when an election is lost because the votes of the But Liberal electors are divided among several candidates. when a party—generally the Conservative party loses an see

;

—

election because its voters will not

to the lazy individualism gether.

was of

It

really perished

although

action

its

we

in antiquity,

which shuns

poll, that is

far,

Hegel

is

owing

political contests alto-

this disease that the public life of

and, so

;

go to the

Athens

on the right track

but

;

was more obviously and immediately by no means safe from a repetition of the fatal

are

same experience

modern

in

Nor can

society.

it

be said that

Plato reacted against an evil which, in his eyes, was an evil

only when

deprived a very few properly-qualified persons of

it

With regard

supremacy.

political

common custom— namely, istration of affairs in

that

it is

to all others he proposed

and systematise what was already becoming a

to sanction

only a single

republic which

is

entire withdrawal

peace and war. class,

from the admin-

Hegel seems to forget

and that the smallest,

in Plato's

not "allowed to have any private interests

;

while the industrial classes, necessarily forming a large majority of the

whole population, are not only suffered to retain

their property

back these.

for

and

their families, but are altogether

The

resulting state of things

best parallel, not in old Greek city as

it

thrown

mental occupation on the interests arising out of

life,

would have found

its

but in modern Europe,

was between the Reformation and the French Revolution.

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

T//£

250

The

three forms of individualism already enumerated do

Accord-

not exhaust the general conception of subjectivity. ing to Hegel,

we understand him

if

most important

aright, the

aspect of the principle in question would be the philosophical side,

the return of thought on

itself,

already latent in physical

by the Sophists as an all-dissolving and worked up into a theory of life by Socrates. was such a movement is, of course, certain but

speculation, proclaimed scepticism,

That there that

it

;

contributed perceptibly to the decay of old Greek

morality, or that spirit,

cannot,

was

it

we

opposed to the old Greek

essentially

think,

be truly asserted.

What

has been

already observed of political liberty and of political -

may be

scrupulousness

rationalism, scepticism, or

question

is

to be called

been a source of it '

became

—

by whatever name the tendency

it

Greek

characteristic of the

lin-

repeated of intellectual inquisitiveness,

always was, and race.

It

may

in

essentially

still is,

very possibly have

political disintegration at all times,

but that

so to a greater extent after assuming the form of

systematic speculation has never been proved.

If the study

of science, or the passion for intellectual gymnastics, drew

men away from more

private

the duties of public

interest

life, it

among many,

was simply

just like

as one

feasting,

or

lovemaking, or travelling, or poetry, or any other of the occupations in which a wealthy Greek delighted

any

intrinsic incompatibility

or a soldier.

So

liberal studies,

far,

;

not from

with the duties of a statesman

indeed, was this from being true, that

even of the abstrusest order, were pursued

with every advantage to their patriotic energy by such citizens as Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, and, above

Epameinondas. it

If Socrates stood aloof

all,

by

Pericles and

from public business

was that he might have more leisure to train others for and he himself, when called upon

proper performance

;

serve the State, proved fully equal to the emergency.

the Sophists, give

it

is

well

young men the

known

that their profession

sort of education

its

to

As for was

to

which would enable

.

PLATO AS A REF01iM£R. them

to

the highest political offices with honour and

fill

advantage.

It is true that

end by throwing increased

which

was

it

251

such a

preparation would

sjaecial

difficulties in

the

way

of a career

by

raising the

originally intended to facilitate,

standard of technical proficiency in statesmanship

many

possible aspirants

back on

arduous pursuits.

less

and. that

;

would, in consequence, be driven

But Plato was so

far

opposing this specialisation that he wished to carry

it

from

much

and to make government the exclusive business of a small class who were to be physiologically selected and to

farther,

an education

receive

far

Sophists could give.

new

the constructor of a politics of his

own

time,

was used to

fluence

temptible

So

light.

sented by him, in just the

his idea of

it

If,

more elaborate than any that the however,

we

consider Plato not as

constitution but in relation to the

we must admit

set public

far, therefore,

must count

same degree we

that his whole in-

affairs in a

hateful

as philosophy

was

for a disintegrating force.

repre-

But

are precluded from assimilating

a State to the old Hellenic model.

rather say, what he himself would have said, that realised

and con-

anywhere; although, as we

shall

it

We

must

never was

presently see, a

it was made in the Middle Ages. Once more, looking at the whole current of Greek, philosophy, and especially the philosophy of mind, are we entitled

certain approach to

to say that

it

encouraged,

if it

did not create, those other forms

of individualism already defined as mutinous criticism on the part of the people, and selfish ambition on the part of its chiefs

Some

historiaris

.'

have maintained that there was such a con-

nexion, operating,

if

not directly, at least through a chain of

intermediate causes.

Free thought destroyed religion, with

religion fell morality,

and with morality whatever restraints

had hitherto kept anarchic tendencies of every description These are interesting reflections but they do

within bounds.

;

not concern us here, for the issue raised by Hegel different. It matters

is

entirely

nothing to him that Socrates was a staunch

:

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

2S2

defender of supernaturalism and of the received morality.

The

essential antithesis

and the Socratic

between the Socratic introspection

is

dialectics on the

one

side,

and the unquestioned

authority of ancient institutions on the other.

If this

Hegel means, we must once more record our

be what

We

dissent.

cannot admit that the philosophy of subjectivity, so interpreted,

was a decomposing ferment nor that the spirit of Plato's republic was, in any case, a protest against it. The Delphic ;

precept,

'

Know

Let every man

find out

stick to that, without

The

qualified.

meant

thyself,'

what work he

meddling

mouth of Socrates

in the

is

best fitted

in matters for

Socratic dialectic

meant

of knowledge be similarly studied subjects be so systematised that

we

;

:

not

is

Let the whole

field

our ideas on

let

shall

and

for,

which he

all

be able to discover

moment's notice the bearing of any one of them on any of the others, or on any new question brought up for decision. Surely nothing could well be less individualistic, in a bad at a

sense, less

anti-social,

less

anarchic than

Nor does

this.

Plato oppose, he generalises his master's principles

;

he works

out the psychology and dialectic of the whole state the

members

of his

;

and

if

governing class are not permitted to have

any separate

interests

individual soul

is

in their

individual

capacity,

each

exalted to the highest dignity by having the

community reorganised on the model of its own internal economy. There are no violent peripeteias in this great

drama

of thought, but everywhere harmony, continuity, and

gradual development.

We have

entered at

Republic, because

it

some length

seems

to

into Hegel's theory of the

embody a misleading

conception

not only of Greek politics but also of the most important

attempt at a social reformation ever made by one history of philosophy.

studying

if it

Thought would be much

man

in the

less

worth

only reproduced the abstract form of a very

limited experience, instead of analysing and recombining the

elements of which that experience

is

composed.

And

our

PLATO AS A REFORMER. faith in the will

power of conscious

efforts

much depend on which

veiy

253

towards improvement

side of the alternative

we

accept.

taking a

Zeller, while

much wider view than

Hegel,

still

assumes that Plato's reforms, so far as they were suggested

by experience, were simply an adaptation of Dorian practices.' He certainly succeeds in showing that private property, marriage, education, individual liberty, and personal morality were subjected, at

least in Sparta, to

many

sembling those imposed in the Platonic himself,

by

existing polities

all

declarations of the tinct

;

own made

ideal,

it

and

after

form of

was

it.

much more

Timaeus"^ are, however,

Egypt that he found the nearest first,

first

Plato

seems to indicate that this

the nearest approach to

and according to them

of social reorganisation.

came

And

treating the Spartan system as the

degeneration from his of

restrictions re-

state.

The dis-

in the caste-divisions of

parallel to his

own scheme men

There, too, the priests, or wise

them the

warriors, while the different

branches of industry were separated from one another by rigid demarcations.

free admission of

exclusively

He may

women

have been struck by that to employments elsewhere filled also

by men, which so

Herodotus, from

surprised

—the

more advanced compared with Greek society.^

his inability to discern its real cause

differentiation of

Egyptian as

vn. But a profounder analysis of experience before

we can come

is

necessary

to the real roots of Plato's scheme.

It

must be remembered that our philosopher was a revolutionist of the most thorough-going description, that he objected not to this or that constitution of his time,

'

op.

• Cf.

but to

all

existing consti-

' Timaeus, 24, A. cit., p. 777. Jowett, III., 608. the excellent remarks of TeichmuUer, Lit. FeMen, p. 107.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

25^

Now, every great revolutionary movement,

tutions whatever.

some

if in

respects an advance

respects a retrogression

complex forms of

and

and an evolution,

political association are

What

is

true of practice

is

the most

broken up, the

older or subordinate forms suddenly acquire

meaning.

other

is in

When

a dissolution.

new

and

life

true also of speculation.

Having broken away from the most advanced civilisation, Plato was thrown back on the spontaneous organisation of industry, on the army, the school, the family, the savage tribe,

and even the herd of

cattle, for

types of social union.

It was by taking some hints from each of these minor aggre-

gates that he succeeded in building up his ideal polity, which,

notwithstanding

its

supposed simplicity and consistency,

The

of the most heterogeneous ever framed.

which

it

quences

The

is

one

principles on

rests are not really carried out to their logical conse;

they interfere with and supplement one another.

power to a

restriction of political

single class

based on the necessity for a division of labour. are told, can only do one thing well.

seen that the producer

monopolist

;

and

is

avowedly

One man, we

But Plato should have

not for that reason to be made a borrow his own favourite example,

is

that, to

shoes are properly manufactured because the shoemaker

kept in order by the competition of his

rivals

and by the

freedom of the consumer to purchase wherever he

Athenian democracy, so political

economy, was,

government.

articles in a

in truth, their logical application to

The people

did not really govern themselves,

in

shop or different tenders

accepted the most

by

pleases.

from contradicting the lessons of

any modern democracy, but they listened to proposals, just as they might choose among different

nor do they different

far

is

suitable,

for building a house,

and then

left

own

rule

it

to be carried out

their trusted agents.

Again, Plato

is

false to his

when he

philosophic, governors out of the military caste.

selects his

If the

same

individual can be a warrior in his youth and an administrator

PLATO AS A REFORMER. in his riper years,

not at the

same

man can do two

one

If the

time.

255

things well, though

same person can be born with and of a politician, and

the qualifications both of a soldier

can be fitted

much

surely a

by education for each calling in succession, number can combine the functions of a

greater

manual labourer with those of an

What

elector.

Plato from perceiving this obvious parallel

of the paterfamilias

youth

;

connected with the life

of

The

power.

civil

to

have also a great deal to do with

women and

tradition

warrior in his

keep the army closely analogies of domestic

his

proposed community

Instead of undervaluing the family

children.

he immensely overvalued them

affections,

was the

who had always been a

and a commendable anxiety

prevented

as

;

shown by

is

his

supposition that the bonds of consanguinity would prevent dissensions

from arising among

many

have known that

and

wrangling,

that

bitterest of any.

school, Plato

credulity of

time

;

a

his

home

quarrels

is

kinsfolk

scholars could be kept

docility,

and life-

;

and that middle-aged

could be sent into

officers

that statesmen must necessarily be formed in question

is

another scholastic

teacher attributes far

more

To

by the

The

trait.

He

to wait for the indirect influence which they

some remote period and

in

combination

perhaps a widely different character.

and

telling results.

He

likeness, or at least

capable than other Plato, instead

men

is

professional

He

to

exert at

forces

of

imme-

looks for

imagines that the highest truth

of

making

its

all

things into

learners

of doing the world's work.

of being

his

not content

may

with

must have a mysterious power of transforming

own

suppose

discipline

importance

practical

abstruser lessons than they really possess.

also

the

up through a

obedience,

retirement for several years to study dialectic.

its

are

Then, looking on the State as a great

that full-grown citizens would swallow the absurdest in-

ventions

diate

should

the scene of constant

between

imagined that the

young

He

warriors.

too

logical,

was not

more Here

logical

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

256

enough.

By

following out the laws of economy, as appliec

to mental labour, he might have arrived at the separation o

the spiritual and temporal powers, and thus anticipated

the

best established social doctrine of our time.

With regard

the propagation

to

of

the race,

Plato';

methods are avowedly borrowed from those practised bird-fanciers, horse-trainers,

and

cattle-breeders.

had

It

b)

lonj

been a Greek custom to compare the people to a flock o sheep and their ruler to a shepherd, phrases which stil survive in

ecclesiastical

ployed the same simile rhetoricians used

em

Socrates habitually

parlance.

in his political discussions

and

;

thi

as a justification of the governors wh(

it

enriched themselves at the expense of those committed their,

charge.

t(

Plato twisted the argument out of their hand

and showed that the shepherd, as such, studies nothing bu

He

the good of his sheep.

failed to perceive that the paralle

could not be carried out in every detail, and that, quite apar

from more elevated considerations, the system which secure a healthy progeny in the one case cannot be transferred creatures

organisation.

children

ti

possessing a vastly more complex and delicat

could

The

only be justified on

none but physical

Our

munity.

of

destruction

qualities

sickly

the

and

deforme(

hypothesis

tha

were of any value to the com

philosopher

forgets

his

own

distinctioi

between soul and body just when he most needed to

member The

re

it.

women by

position assigned to

Plato

may

perhap

have seemed to his contemporaries the most paradoxical all his projects,

and

it

has been observed that here he

advance even of our own age.

deduced from

false

;

and Plato's conclusion

even identical with that reached

claims.

The author

is

nc

on other grounds by

th

rights, or rather of their equitabl

of the Republic detested democracy

the enfranchisement of

i

But a true conclusion may b

premises

modern advocates of women's

c

is

women

is

now demanded

;

an

as a part

(

PLATO AS A REFORMER. the general democratic

with

no

that

liberals,

programme.

attended to which

is

an

It is

without a voice in the election of

more obviously

;

and the

interests of the sexes

principle

is

and

identical than those of producers

Another demo-

consumers, or of capitalists and labourers. cratic

axiorri, at least

class will have^its interests properly left

parliamentary representatives are not

257

that individuals are, as a rule, the best

judges of what occupation they are

fit

for;

and as a con-

demanded that women should be every employment on equal terms with men

sequence of this

admitted to

further

it is

;

leaving competition to decide in each instance whether they are suited for

it

or not.

military profession

Their continued exclusion from the

would be an exception more apparent than

male

real ; because, like the majority of the sically disqualified for

it.

Now, the

sex, they are

profession of

arms

phyis

the

very one for which Plato proposes to destine the daughters of

without the least intention of consulting

his aristocratic caste,

on the

their wishes

own

subject.

He

is

perfectly aware that his

principle of differentiation will be quoted against him,

but he turns the difficulty in a very dexterous manner.

He

contends that the difference of the sexes, so far as strength

and

intelligence are concerned,

degree; for

women

is

one not of kind but of

are not distinguished from

possession of any special aptitude, none of

do anything that some men cannot do

men by

the

them being able

better.

to

Granting the

truth of this rather unflattering assumption, the inference

drawn from

it

will still

remain economically unsound.

The

division of labour requires that each task should be performed,

who

not by those

by those who are relaIn many cases we must be content

are absolutely, but

tively, best fitted for

it.

with work falling short of the highest attainable standard, that the time

and

abilities of

the best

clusively devoted to functions for

petent.

Even

if

women

workmen may be ex-

which they alone are com-

could be trained to

follow that their energies might not be

fight, it

does not

more advantageously

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

25«

expended in another direction. Here, again, Plato improper! reasons from low to high forms of association. He appea to the doubtful example of nomadic tribes, whose women too part in the defence of the camps, and to the fighting powc possessed

by the females of predatory

elimination of

ment

home

life left

peculiar to themselves

his ;

animals.

women

and

so,

In truth,

th

without any emploj

not to leave them con

pletely idle, they were drafted into the army,

more with

th

hope of imposing on the enemy by an increase of its apparer strength than for the sake of any real service which they wei expected to perform.'

proved

ability should

more

When

Plato proposes that

women

be admitted to the highest

c

politic

sympathy with modern reformers is all the more remarkab when we consider that no Greek lady (except, perhap offices,

and

he

his

is

far

in

freedom from prejudice

Artemisia)

is

known

to

have ever displayed a talent

government, although feminine interference

in politics

f(

w;

common enough at Sparta and that personally his feelir towards women was unsympathetic if not contemptuou; Still we must not exaggerate the importance of his concessio The Platonic polity was, after all, a family rather than a tn State and that women should be allowed a share in tl ;

;

regulation of marriage and in the nurture of children,

was on! one hand what had with been taken awa back them giving with the other.

Already,

among

voice in educational matters

;

ourselves,,

women

have

and were marriage brougl

under State control, few would doubt the propriety of makir them eligible to the new Boards which would be charged wil supervision.

its

The

foregoing analysis will enable us to appreciate

true significance of the resemblance pointed out

by

tl

Zellei

Refuh., v., 47«. 15. He mentions as one of the worst effects of a democracy that it made th( assume airs of equality with men. Repub., 563, B. ; cf. 569, E. Timaeus, 90, •

'

be feared that Plato regarded woman as the missing link. In his Vortrage und AbhMidlungen, first series, p. 68.

It is to '

;

PLATO AS A REFORMER.

259

between the Platonic republic and the organisation of mediaeval

The importance given

society.

ing

;

tion

to

r^gious and moral

train-

the predominance of the priesthood ; the sharp distincdrawn between the military caste and the industrial

population

the exclusion of the latter from political power

;

the partial abolition of marriage and property

be added, the high position enjoyed by

;

and,

women

it

might

as regents,

and sometimes even as warriors or professors, are all innovations more in the spirit of Plato than in the spirit of Pericles, Three converging influences united

chitelaines, abbesses,

—

to bring about this extraordinary verification of a philosophical

The profound

ideal.

by Greek

spiritual revolution effected

thought was taken up and continued by Catholicism, and un-

same practical conclusions the had in great part originally inspired. Social differentiation went on at the same time, and led to the political consequences logically deduced from it by Plato. consciously guided to the

teaching which

And

it

the barbarian conquest of

Rome

brought in

its

train

some of those more primitive habits on which his breach with civilisation had equally thrown him back. Thus the coincidence between Plato's Republic and mediaeval polity is due in

one direction to causal agency,

insight,

and

in

another to speculative

in a third to parallelism of effects,

independent of

each other but arising out of analogous conditions. If,

we proceed

now,

to

compare the Republic with more

recent schemes having also for their object the identification

of public with private interests, nothing, at to resemble

munism

;

it

first sight,

so closely as the theories of

especially those which advocate the abolition not

only of private property but also of marriage. however,

is

merely

superficial,

Communism

at

all,

members of the

into a

common

fund

in

is

similarity,

not a system of

our sense of the word.

It is

not that

ruling caste are to throw their property ;,

neither as individuals nor as a class s

MM

The

and covers a radical divergence.

For, to begin with, the Platonic polity

the

seems

modem Com-

2

do

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

26o

Their wants are pro-

they possess any property whatever.

who apparently continue under the old system of particularism. What Plato view was not to increase the sum of individual enjoy-

vided for by the industrial classes, to live

had in ments by enforcing an equal

division of their material means,

but to eliminate individualism altogether, and

human

feeling the

admired

absolute generality which he so

On

in abstract ideas.

Communism

mistaken, modern

thus give

property as such, could

it

the other hand, unless

much we are

has no objection to private

remain divided either with absolute

equality or in strict proportion to the wants of

holders

its

but only as the inevitable cause of inequalities which advancing civilisation

seems to aggravate rather than to

also with marriage

object to

it

;

as a restraint

on the freedoip of individual

which, according to them, would secure the

by perpetually varying

pleasure

So

redress.

the modern assailants of that institution

objects.

its

passion,

maximum

of

Plato would

have looked on such reasonings as a parody and perversion of own doctrine as in very truth, what some of them have

his

;

professed to be, pleas for the rehabilitation of the flesh in original

supremacy over the

spirit,

and therefore the

opposite of a system which sought to spiritualise ralising the interests of

gives

his

Communistic

life.

And

principles

so,

when

their

in the

its

direct

by gene-

Laws he

complete

logical

development by extending them to the whole population, he careful

is

to preserve their philosophical character as the

absorption of individual in social existence.'

The parentage

of the two ideas will further elucidate their

essentially heterogeneous character.

For modern Communism

an outgrowth of the democratic tendencies which Plato and as such had its counterpart in ancient Athens, detested is

;

if

we may

it is

trust the

EccUsiazusae of Aristophanes, where also

associated with unbridled licentiousness.^

Jowett, v., 311. first published, Teichmiiller has brought forward

^

Zegff., 739,

'

[Since the above was

'^-

Plato, on the

new

PLATO AS A REFORMER. seems to have received the

contrary,

Communism from fraternities

have

all

first

Pythagoreaai and

the

261

suggestion of his aristocratic

con-

of Southern Italy, where the principle that friends

things in

common was an

accepted maxim.

If Plato stands at the very antipodes of Fourier

and

St.

by a real relationship with those thinkers who, like Auguste Comte and Mr. Herbert Spencer, have based their social systems on a wide survey of physical Simon, he

science

connected

is

and human

history.

It

is

even probable that his

ideas have exercised a decided though not a direct influence

on the two writers

whom we

many

avowedly took

of

his

have named.

For Comte

reforms from the

proposed

organisation of mediaeval Catholicism, which was a translation of philosophy into

tivism

is

dogma and

discipline, just as Posi-

a re-translation of theology into the

from which

sprang.

"it

And

Mr. Spencer's system, while

seems to be the direct antithesis of kindred with

human thought

Plato's,

it

might claim

through the principle of differentiation and

it

from Greek thought into

integration, which, after passing

economy and physiology, has been restored by our illustrious countryman to something more than its original political

generality.

has also to be observed that the application of

It

very abstract truths to political science needs to be most jealously guarded, since their

proportion to their width.

elasticity increases in

When

direct

one thinker argues from

the law of increasing specialisation to a vast extension of

governmental interference with personal thinker to it

its

liberty,

and another

restriction within the narrowest possible limits,

seems time to consider whether experience and expediency

are not, after

all,

the safest guides to trust.

arguments to prove that it was Plato's scheme of Communism which Aristophanes intended to satirise [Lit. Fehden, pp. 14, ff.) but I do not think that even the first half of the Republic could possibly have been composed at such an ejriy date ;

as that assigned to

it

by

this learned

and ingenious

critic]

THE CREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

262

VIII.

The

social studies

through which we have accompanied

Plato seem to have reacted on his more abstract speculations,

and to have largely modified the extreme opposition in which these had formerly stood to current notions, whether of a popular or a philosophical

becomes perceptible on which,

in his

The change

character.

theory of Ideas.

This

for the sake of greater clearness,

it

a subject

we have

hitherto

and that we should have succeeded so long wOuld seem to prove that the doctrine

refrained from entering in avoiding

is

first

;

much less important part of his commonly imagined. Perhaps, as some

in question

forms a

philo-

sophy than

is

think,

it

was not an

original invention of his own, but

from the Megarian school which

it

name

it.

was borrowed

and the mythical connexion

makes us doubtful how

frequently figures

thoroughly accepted

;

The theory

or conception of the

is,

far

in

he ever

that to every abstract

mind there corresponds an

objec-

tive entity possessing a separate existence quite distinct from

that of the scattered particulars

by which

our senses or to our imagination. flux represented the confusion of

it is

exemplified to

Just as the Heracleitean

which Socrates convicted

his interlocutors, so also did these Ideas represent the defini-

tions

by which he sought

their opinions.

It

may

to bring

be

method and

that, as

certainty into

Grote suggests, Plato

adopted this hypothesis in order to escape from the

common

It is

seem to place true beyond the reach of human knowledge. And

defini-

certain that his earliest Dialogues tions

difficulty

notions in a satisfactory manner.

of defining

beginning of Plato's constructive period

we

at the

find the recogni-

tion of abstract conceptions, whether mathematical or moral,

traced to the remembrance of an ante-natal state, where the soul held direct converse with the transcendent realities to

which those conceptions correspond. Justice, temperance, beauty, and goodness, are especially mentioned as examples

PLATO AS A REFORMER.

263

Subsequent investigations

of Ideas revealed in this manner.

must, however, have led Plato to believe that the highest truths are to be found

by analysing not the

the fixed forms of consciousness

;

and

loose contents but

that, if

each virtue

expressed a particular relation between the various parts of the soul, no external experience was needed to

acquainted with

its

arising out of her

meaning

;

still

less

make her

could conceptions

connexion with the material world be

explained by reference to a sphere of purely spiritual existence.

At

the

same

time, innate ideas

required to prove her incorporeality,

reason over sense furnished so

ground all

for believing the

who have

would no longer be

when

the authority of

much more

two to be of

satisfactory a

different origin.

To

studied the evolution of modern thought, the

substitution of Kantian forms for Cartesian ideas will

once elucidate and confirm our

hypothesis of

at

a similar

reformation in Plato's metaphysics.

Again, the new position occupied by Mind as an interreality and the world of appearmore and more to obliterate or confuse the demarcations by which they had hitherto been separated. The most general headings under which it was usual to contrast them were, the One and the Many, Being and Nothing, the Same and the Different, Rest and Motion. Parmenides employed the one set of terms to describe his Absolute, and the other to describe the objects of vulgar

mediary between the world of ance, tended

belief.

They

also served respectively to designate the wise

and the ignorant, the dialectician and the sophist, the knowledge of gods and the opinions of men besides offering ;

points of contact with the antithetical couples of Pytha-

goreanism.

But Plato gradually found that the nature of

Mind could not be understood without taking both view into account. difference,

Unity

and

equally entered into

plurality, its

points of

sameness

and

composition; although

undoubtedly belonging to the sphere of

reality, it

was

aelfi

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

264

moved and

the cause of

dialectic or classificatory

all

motion

in other things.

method, with

its

The

progressive series

of differentiations and assimilations, also involved a continual use of categories which were held to be mutually exclusive.

And

on proceeding to an examination of the summa genera,

the highest and most abstract ideas which to distinguish

by

their absolute purity

it

had been sought

and simplicity from .

the shifting chaos of sensible phenomena, Plato discovered

maze of confusipn and conby a sincere application of the cross-examining For example, to predicate being of the One was up with a heterogeneous idea and let in the very which it denied. To distinguish them was to

that even these were reduced to a tradiction

elenchus. to

mix

it

plurality

predicate difference of both, and thus open the door to fresh

embarrassments. Finally,'

definition all

while the attempt to attain extreme accuracy of

was leading

to the destruction of all thought

had been taken up and parodied

in

a very coarse style by a

These men had, to some

class of persons called Eristics.

extent, usurped the place of the elder Sophists structors of

youth

;

as paid in-

but their only accomplishment was to

upset every possible assertion

One

and

method

Socratic school, the dialectic

reality within the

by

a series of verbal juggles.

of their favourite paradoxes was to deny the reality

of falsehood on

cannot

exist.'

the Parmenidean principle that

Plato satirises

their

dimus, and makes a much more the Sophist

posed not siderable

;

far

method

'

nothing

in the Etithy-

serious attempt to

meet

it

in

two Dialogues which seem to have been comfrom one another.'

simplification

in

the

The ideal

Sophist effects a con-

theory by resolving

negation into difference, and altogether omitting the notions of unity and plurality,

—perhaps as a

result of the investiga-

' [Here, also, the recent arguments of Teichmiiller {Lit. Fehden, p. 51) deserve attention, but they have failed to convince me that an earlier date should

be assigned to the Eulhydlmus.]

PLATO AS A REFORMER. tions

contained in

the

265

Parmenides, another dialogue be-

same group, where the ipouple

longing to the

referred to are

analysed with great minuteness, and are shown to be infected with numerous self-contradictions.

The remaining

of Existence, Sameness, Difference, Rest,

allowed to stand is

is

;

but the fact of their inseparable connexion

The enquiry

brought out with great force and clearness.

one of considerable

earliest

known

five ideas

and Motion, are

interest, including,

analysis of predication,

as

it

does, the

and forming an

indis-

pensable link in the transition from Platonic to Aristotelian logic

—that

is

to say,

from the theory of definition and classifi-

cation to the theory of syllogism.

Once the Ideas had been brought into mutual relation and shown to be compounded with one another, the task of connecting them with the external world became considerably easier and the same intermediary which before had linked them to it as a participant in the nature of both, was now raised to a higher position and became the efficient cause of ;

Such

their intimate union.

where

all

existence

is

is

divided into four classes, the limit, the

unlimited, the union of both,

Mind belongs

the standpoint of the PhiUbus,

to the last

and the cause of

and matter

to the second class.

There can hardly be a doubt that the identical with the Ideas or

fills

their union.

first

class is either

the place once

occupied

by them. The third class is the world of experience, the Cosmos of early Greek thought, which Plato had now come to look on as a worthy object of study. In the Timaeus, also a very late Dialogue, he goes further, and gives us a complete cosmogony, the general conception of which is clear enough, although the details are avowedly con-

and figurative nor do they seem to have exercised any influence or subsequent speculation until the time of

jectural

;

Descartes.

who

is

that all

We

are told that the world

was created by God,

absolutely good, and, being without jealousy, wished things should be like himself. He makes it to consist

a

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

266

of a soul and a body, the former constructed in imitation of

now seem

the eternal archetypal ideas which three

— Existence,

the world

is

to be reduced to

The

Sameness, and Difference.'

soul of

formed by mixing these three elements together,

and the body

is

an image of the

Sameness

soul.

is

repre-

by the starry sphere rotating on its own axis Difference by the inclination of the ecliptic to the equator; Existence, perhaps, by the everlasting duration of the heavens. The same analogy extends to the human figure, of sented

;

which the head

is the most essential part, all the rest of the body being merely designed for its support. Plato seems to

regard the material world as a sort of machinery designed to

meet the

necessities of sight

and touch, by which the human

soul arrives at a knowledge of the eternal order without direct reversal of his

earlier

;

—

according to which,

theories,

matter and sense were mere encumbrances impeding the soul in

her efforts after truth.

What elements

remains of the visible world after deducting is

pure space.

This,

clearest of all conceptions,

He

can only describe

the four elements,

was

just

one of the obscurest.

as the formless substance out of which

it

fire, air,

water, and earth, are -differentiated.

Good

and even

in the

same scale at the other end. two principles are opposed absolute self-separation

;

half outside

Republic transcends

We may as

lies

the

absolute self-identity

and

the whole intermediate series of forms

then be easy to understand how, as Aristotle finally

it,

conjecture that the

serving to bridge over the interval between them.

came

ideal

which to some seems the

to Plato

It closes the scale of existence

as the Idea of

its

to adopt the

It will

tells us,

Plato

Pythagorean nomenclature and

designated his two generating principles as the

monad and the Number was formed by their combination, things were made out of number. Aristotle

indefinite dyad.

and >

all

We

other may even

say that they are reduced to two

Sameness and Difference.

;

for Existence is a product of

'

PLATO AS A REFORMER.

267

complains that the Platonists had turned philosophy into

mathematics

;

and perhaps

in the jnterests of science

To

fortunate that the transformation occurred.

it

was

suppose that

matter could be built up out of geometrical triangles, as Plato teaches in the Timaeus, was, no doubt, a highly reprehensible

confusion

;

but that the systematic study of science should be

based on mathematics was an equally new and important

The impulse

apergu.

seen directions

;

given to knowledge followed unfore-

and at a later period Plato's true spirit was by Archimedes and Hipparchus than by

better represented

Arcesilaus and Carneades. It

remarkable that the spontaneous development of

is

Greek thought should have led to a form of Theism not unlike that which some persons still imagine was supernaturally revealed to the

Hebrew

nexion between the two

Modern

race

may

for the

absence of any con-

universally admitted.

up the attitude of Laplace towards question and those critics who, like Lange, ;

most imbued with the

regard

;

now almost

science has taken

the hypothesis in are

is

its

scientific spirit, feel

inclined

adoption by Plato as a retrograde movement.

to

We

to a certain extent agree with them, without admitting

was injured by departing from An intellectual like an animal organism may sometimes have to choose between retrograde metamorphosis and total extinction. The course of events drove speculation to Athens, where it could only exist on the condition of assuming a theological form. Moreover, action

that philosophy, as a whole,

the principles of Democritus.

and reaction were equal and contrary.

much

as philosophy lost.

gredients, is

It

was

Mythology gained as from immoral in-

purified

and raised to the highest level which supernaturalism If the Republic was the forerunner

capable of attaining.

of the Catholic Church, the Timaeus was the forerunner of the Catholic faith.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

268

IX.

The

marked by

old age of Plato seems to have been

less activity in

more

works which were never were never begun.

He began

directions than one.

and projected others which

finished,

He became

zeal for- social reform.

It

by a devouring

possessed

seemed to him that nothing was

wanting but an enlightened despot to make

According to one

reality.

his ideal State a

he fancied that such an

story,

instrument might be found in the younger Dionysius. his

self to

man

be guided by another

of half measures will allow him;

and such a man would lack the

However

energy needed to carry out Plato's scheme.'

may

If so,

As Hegel

expectations were speedily disappointed.

acutely observes, only a

rest-

various

be, the philosopher does not

seem

to

idea that absolute monarchy was, after

have given up

all,

this

his

the government

A

from which most good might be expected.

process of

substitution which runs through his whole intellectual evolution

was here exemplified

ethical

for the last time.

Just as in his

system knowledge, after having been regarded solely

means for procuring an ulterior end, pleasure, subsequently became an end in itself just as the interest in knowledge was superseded by a more absorbing interest in the dialectical machinery which was to facilitate its acquisition, as the

;

and

this

again by the social re-organisation which was to

make education beneficent

a department of the

;

so also the

despotism originally invoked for the purpose of

establishing an aristocracy on the

be regarded by Plato as Such, at

State

least,

itself

seems to be the

called the Statesman,

new model, came

drift

of a remarkable Dialogue

which we agree with

and others have placed

series of Platonic compositions. '

Prof.

Some have

placing immediatly before the Laws. authenticity,

at last to

the best form of government.

it

But

Jowett in denied

its

very early in the entire it

Gesck. d. Ph., II., 175.

contains passages of

PLATO AS A REFORMER.

269

man

such blended wit and eloquence that no other

have written them

;

and passages so destitute of

could only have been written

and

into mathematical pedantry it

when

his

that they

life

system had stiffened Moreover,

scholastic routine.

seems distinctly to anticipate the scheme of detailed

lation

which Plato spent his

could

legis-

After

last years in elaborating.

covering with ridicule the notion that a truly competent ruler

should ever be hampered by written enactments, the principal

spokesman acknowledges that, in the absence of such a ruler, a definite and unalterable code offers the best guarantees for political stability.

This code Plato set himself to construct in his longest work, the Laws.

however,

is

last

and

Less than half of that Dialogue,

occupied with, the details of legislation.

The

remaining portions deal with the familiar topics of morality, religion, science,

and education.

The

first

book propounds a

very curious theory of asceticism, which has not,

been taken up by any subsequent moralist.

On

we

believe,

the principle

of in vino Veritas Plato proposes that drunkenness should be systematically employed for the purpose of testing self-control.

True temperance is not abstinence, but the power of resisting and we can best discover to what extent any man possesses that power -by surprising him when off his

temptation

guard.

If

;

he should be proof against seductive influences we shall be doubly sure of his constancy

even when in his cups,

Jowett rather maliciously suggests that a personal proclivity may have suggested this extraordinary at other times.

Prof.

apology for hard drinking.

Were

minded of the successive revelations another kind were permitted to case in which

We

it

so,

we should be

re-

by which indulgences of

Mohammed, and

divorce was sanctioned

of the one

by Augiiste Comte.

should also remember that the Christian Puritanism to

which Plato approached so near has always been singularly lenient

to this

disgraceful vice.

But perhaps a somewhat

higher order of considerations will help us to a better under-

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

270

Plato was averse from rejecting

standing of the paradox,

any tendency of

age that could possibly be turned to

his

Hence, as we have seen, the use

account in his philosophy.

which he makes of love, even under its most unlawful forms, in the Symposium and the Phaedrus. Now, it would appear, from our scanty sources of information, that social

festivities,

always very popular at Athens, had become the chief interest in life

about the time when Plato was composing his Laws.

According to one graceful legend, the philosopher himself breathed his last at a marriage-feast.

It

may,

therefore,

have

occurred to him that the prevalent tendency could, like the

amorous passions of a former generation, be utilised for moral training and made subservient to the very cause with which, at

seemed to

first sight, it

The

concessions to

conflict.

common

sense and to contemporary

schools of thought, already pointed out in those Dialogues

which we suppose to have been written still

more conspicuous

in the

after the Republic, are

We

Laws.

do not mean merely

the project of a political constitution avowedly offered as the best possible in existing circumstances, though not the best

absolutely

;

we mean

but

that there

present philosophy from

popular

side.

morality

(p.

its

most

The extremely

is

throughout a desire to

intelligible, practical,

838) seems, indeed, more akin to

ancient notions, but

it

was

and

rigorous standard of sexual

in all probability

modern than

to

borrowed from

the naturalistic school of ethics, the forerunner of Stoicism for not only

is

that connexion

nature believe,

'

and

;

there a direct appeal to Nature's teaching in

'

than in

;

but throughout the entire work the terms

naturally all

'

occur with greater frequency,

we

the rest of Plato's writings put together.

When, on the other hand, it is asserted that men can be governed by no other motive than pleasure (p. 663, B), we seem to see in this declaration a concession to the Cyrenaic school, as well as a return to the forsaken standpoint of the Protagoras.

The increasing

influence of Pythagoreanism

is

shown by

— PLATO AS A REFORMER.

271

the exaggerated importance attributed to exact numerical

The theory

determinations.

observes, entirely absent, tinction

The by

of ideas

is,

as

place being taken

its

Prof.

Jowett

by the

dis-

between mind and matter.* political constitution

Plato to his

new

and code of laws recommended adapted to a great extent from

city are

As

the older legislation of Athens.

such they have supplied

some valuable But from a philosophic point of view the general impression produced is wearisome and even offensive. universal system of espionage is established, and the odious trade of informer receives ample encouragement. Worst of all, it is proposed, in the true spirit of Athenian intolerance, to uphold religious orthodoxy by persecuting laws. Plato had actually come to think that disagreement with the vulgar theology was a folly and a crime. One passage may be

the historians of ancient jurisprudence with indications.

A

quoted as a warning to those truths

who would set early associaand who would overbear new

do the work of reason by a method which at one time might have been used

tions to

;

with fatal effect against their

Who

own

opinions

:

can be calm when he

of the gods ?

Who

is called upon to prove the existence can avoid hating and abhorring the men who are

and have been the cause of this argument ? I speak of those who not believe the words which they have heard as babes and sucklings from their mothers and nurses, repeated by them both in jest and earnest like charms ; who have also heard and seen their parents offering up sacrifices and prayers sights and sounds delightful to children sacrificing, I say, in the most earnest manner on behalf of them and of themselves, and with eager interest talking to the gods and beseeching them as though they were firmly convinced of their existence ; who likewise see and hear the genuflexions and prostrations which are made by Hellenes and barbarians to the rising and setting sun and moon, in all the various turns of good and evil forwill

—

—

In the work already referred

to, TeichmuUer advances the startling theoiy Nicomachean Ethics was published before the completion of the Laws, and that Plato took the opportunity thus offered him for replying to the '

that Aristotle's

criticisms of his former pupil.

{Lit.

Fehden, pp. 194-226).

'

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

272

tune, not as if they thoujght that there were no gods, but as if therd could be no doubt of their existence, and no suspicion of their non-

existence

;

when men, knowing

these things, despise

all

real grounds, as would be admitted by intelligence,

and when they

force us to

them on no

who have any particle of say what we are now saying, all

how can any one in gentle terms remonstrate with the like of them, when he has to begin by proving to them the very existence of the gods?

Let

it

whom

be remembered that the gods of

speaking are the sun, moon, and stars

Plato

whom

that the atheists

;

he denounces only taught what we have long known to be

which

is

more

that those luminaries are no

divine,

true,

no more

animated, no more capable of accepting our sacrifices or

sponding to our

cries

than

is

the earth on which we tread

if

they were not inconsistent with

mechanics, would

still

;

re-

and

by arguments which,

that he attempts to prove the contrary

even

is

that we

all

know about

be utterly inadequate to the purpose

for

which they are employed.

Turning back once more from the melancholy decline of a great genius to the splendour of

endeavour

briefly

entitle Plato to

to

and

five greatest thinkers

dialectics but also the

of social science, of fine education.

applied to

art,

will

until

it

of

Greeks,

all time.

He

embraced not only

study of politics, of religion,

of economy, of language, and of

In other words, he showed life

we

achievements which

five or six greatest

extended the philosophy of mind ethics

meridian prime,

recapitulate the

rank among the

and among the four or

its

how

on the most comprehensive

ideas could be

scale.

Further, he

saw that the study of Mind, to be complete,. necessitates a knowledge of physical phenomena and of the underlie

them

;

accordingly, he

made a

realities

which

return on the object-

which had been temporarily abandoned, thus mediating between Socrates and early Greek thought ; while ive speculations

on the other hand by his theory of classification he mediated between Socrates and Aristotle. He based physical science >

Legg., 887-8.

Jowett, V., 456.

PLA TO AS A REFORMER. on mathematics, thus

establishing a

273

method of research and

of education which has continued^n operation ever since.

He

new

sketched the outlines of a

was to be substituted

God

which morality

religion in

for ritualism,

for blind obedience to his will

and

intelligent imitation of

a religion of monotheism,

;

of humanity, of purity, and of immortal

And

life.

he em-

bodied all these lessons in a series of compositions distinguished

by such beauty of form that their would entitle them to rank among

the greatest masterpieces

He

took the recently-created

that the world has ever seen.

literary excellence alone

instrument of prose style and at once raised pitch of excellence that art already distorted tricious

it

by

has ever attained. false taste

it

to the highest

Finding the new

and overlaid with mere-

ornament, he cleansed and regenerated

primal fount of intellectual

life,

it

in

that

that richest, deepest, purest

source of joy, the conversation of enquiring spirits with one another,

when they have awakened

have not learned to despair of

its

Jo the desire for truth

Thus

attainment.

it

that the philosopher's mastery of expression gave added phasis to his protest against those for

knowledge,

instrument

or,

by

and

was em-

who made style a substitute

a worse corruption, perverted

of profitable \yrong.

it

into an

They moved along

the

and of penetrated through all those dumb images animal desires he and blind instincts, to the central verity and supreme end surface in a confused world of words, of sensations, ;

which alone can inform them with meaning, consistency, permanenpe,

and

value.

To

conclude:

that nobly practical school of idealists detail? of reality before

attempting

its

Plato belonged to

who master

all

the

reformation, and ac-

complish their great designs by enlisting and reorganising

whatever spontaneous forces are already working in the same direction but the fertility of whose own suggestions it needs ;

ipore than one millennium to exhaust.

Jieaven or earth that

was not dreamt

T

There

is

of in his

nothing in philosophy

;

274

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

some of his dreams have already come

true

;

others

still

awail

and even those which are irreconcilable wit! demands of experience will continue to be studied witt the their fulfilment

;

the interest attaching to every generous and daring adventure, in .the spiritual

existence.

no

less

than in the secular order

oi

275

CHAPTER

VI.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. I.

Within

the last twelve years several books, both large and

small, have appeared, dealing either with the philosophy of

Aristotle as a whole, or with the general principles on which it

is

The

constructed.

Berlin edition of Aristotle's collected

870 by the publication of a magnearly nine hundred quarto pages, for

works was supplemented nificent index, filling

which we have Then came the

in

1

to thank the learning

and industry of

Bonitz.'

unfinished treatise of George Grote, planned on

so vast a scale that

it

would,

if

completely carried out, have

of Greece in bulk, and perhaps exceeded the authentic remains of the Stagirite himself. As

rivalled the author's History

it

is,

we have a

full

account, expository and

Organon, a chapter on the

on other Aristotelian writings, derful sagacity and good

critical,

De Animd, and some

sense.

all

of the

fragments

markpd by Grote's won-

In

1

879 a new and greatly

/feller's work or Greek Philosophy which deals with Aristotle and the Peripatetics ^ fully up to the level of its companion volumes and

enlarged edition brougjjt that portion of

;

we

are glad to see that, like them,

an English

same its

older

ground, and, though

knowledge, of

The

dress.

may

still

it

is

shprtly to appear in

work of Brandis ^ goes over the

much behind

the present state of

be consulted with advantage, on account

copious and clear analyses of the Aristotelian texts.

Edidit Academia Regia Bomssica. Berlin. /Iristotelis Ofera. 1831-70. Die Philosophie der GrUchen. Zweiter Thpil, Zweite Abtheilung ArisBy Dr. Eduard Zeller. Leipzig. 1879. tpfeles u. d. alien Peripatetiker. ' AristoteUs. By Christian Aug. Brandis, Berlin. 1853-57. '

2

:

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

276

Together with these ponderous tomes, we have to mentiot the little work of Sir Alexander Grant/ which, althougl intended primarily for the unlearned,

a real contributior

is

to Aristotelian scholarship, and, probably as such, received

the honours of a first

its

German

publication.

-

Philosophy of Aristotle'''

it

is

of a different and

much

th.

less populai

Originally designed for the use of the author's own

character. pupils,

translation almost immediately aftei

Mr. Edwin Wallace's Outlines of

does for Aristotle's entire system what Trendelen-

burg has done

for his logic,

Greek philosophy

— that

is

and Ritter and

to say,

Preller for

all

brings together the most

it

important texts, and accompanies them with a remarkably

and interesting

lucid

interpretation.

Finally

Barth^lemy Saint-Hilaire's Introduction to

we have

Aristotle's Metaphysics, republished in a pocket volume.^

can safely recommend

who

to those

it

M

his translation oi

We

wish to acquire

a

knowledge of the subject with the least possible expenditure of trouble.

The

style

is

delightfully simple,

and that

author should write from the standpoint of the French istic

school

is

not altogether a disadvantage, for that school

partly of Aristotelian origin, and

most

the

spiritual-

its

is

adherents are, therefore,

likely to reproduce the master's theories with

sympathe-

tic appreciation.

In view of such extensive labours,

,

we might

almost

imagine ourselves transported back to the times when Chaucer could describe a student as being

made

perfectly

happy by

having At his beddes hed Twenty bookes clothed in blake or red Of Aristotle and his philosophic.' '

It

seems as

if

we were

Aristotle.

By

Sir

I

witnessing a revival of Mediaevalism

Alexander Grant, Bart., LL.D.

Edinburgh and London.

1877. "

Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle. 1880.

Compiled by Edwin Wallace, M.A.

Oxford and London. '

De

la

Mkaphysique : Introduction a

thelemy Saint-H'ilaire.

Paris.

1879.

la Metaphysiqite tfAristote.

By

Bat-

—

;

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. under another form

as

;

if,

after

Raphaelitism, and ritualism,

277

neo-Gothic architecture, pre-

we werq^hreatened with a

return

to the scholastic philosophy which the great scientific reformers

of the seventeenth century were supposed to have irrevocably

And, however chimerical may seem the hopes of such a restoration, we are bound to admit that they do actuOne of the most cultivated champions of Ultraally exist. montanism in this country, Prof. St. George Mivart, not long ago informed us, at the close of his work on Contempodestroyed.

rary Evolution, that,

'if

and never was or

not,

metaphysics are possible, there will be,

which, properly understood, unites errors

all

It

may

the

all truths

and eliminates

Philosophy of the Philosopher

be mentioned

a

also, as

is

more than one philosophy

symptom

—

of the

Aristotle.'

same move-

ment, that Leo XIII. has recently directed the works of

Thomas Aquinas

St.

colleges

360,000

;

to be reprinted for use

Catholic

in

according to the newspapers, laid aside

having,

lire for that

present necessities

;

purpose

eighteen folio volurries.

sophy of Aquinas

is

—a

but not too

Now,

large sum, considering his

much

it is

for the republication of

well

known

that the philo-

simply the philosophy of Aristotle, with

such omissions and modifications as were necessary in order to piece

it

Hence, in giving hi^

on to Christian theology.

sanction to the teaching of the Angelio Doctor, Leo-XIII. indirectly gives

teaching

is

it

to the source

from which so much of that

derived.

may, perhaps, be considered natural that obsolete authorities should command the assent of a Church whose It

boast

But

is

to maintain the traditions of eighteen centuries iiitact.

the. Aristotelian .reaction

extends to some

who

stand

M. Saint-Hilaire speaks he has in his preface of theology with dislike and sus^picion anti-clerical Government recently held office in a bitterly

altogether aloof from Catholicism.

;

yet his acceptance of unreserved.

Aristotle's

The same tone

is

metaphysics

common

to

is

all official

almost

teaching

— —

'

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

278

and any departure from the strict Peripatetic standard has to be apologised for as if it were a dangerous in

France

;

On

heresy.

turning to our

own

country,

we

find, indeed,

a

marked change since the time when, according to Mr. Matthew Arnold, Oxford tutors regarded the Ethics as absolutely

The

infallible.

tion,

great place given to Plato in public instruc-

and the rapidly increasing ascendency of evolutionary enough to hold any

ideas, are at present

check

still,

;

system beginning

Aristotle's

which

rival authority in

not only are the once neglected portions of to attract fresh attention

an altogether corrimendable movement

is

— but we also

find the eminent Oxford teacher, whose work on the subject

has been already referred

We

are

still

to,

expressing himself as follows

know whether our

anxious to

:

perception of a real

world comes to us by an exercise of thought, or by a simple impreswhether it is the universal that gives the individual sion of sense reality, or the individual that shapes itself, by some process not

—

explained,

into

a universal

—whether

bodily movements are the

causal antecedents of mental functions, or

mind

rather the reality

which gives truth to body— whether the highest hfe is a life of thought or a life of action whether intellectual also involves moral progress-—whether the state is a mere combination for the preservation of goods and property, or a moral organism developing the idea of right. And about these and such like questions Aristotle His theory of a creative reason, has still much to tell us

—

fragmentary as that theory theories

is

left, is

To

of the universe.

the answer to

preacher [Principal Caird] 'the real ledge, or the thought which

is

all

materiaUstic

a subtle Scottish pre-supposition of all know-

Aristotle,

as

to

\ht.prius of all things,

is

not the

indi-

vidual's consciousness of himself as individual, but a thought or

self-consciousness which

unity of

all

objects of

Our

is

beyond all individual selves, which is the and their objects, of all thinkers and all

individual selves

all

thought.'

critics

are not content with bringing up Aristotle as

an authority on the metaphysical controversies of the present day, and reading into '

him theories of which he never dreamed

Wallace's Outlines, preface, pp.

vi-viii.

:

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

279

they proceed to credit him with modern opinions which he

would have emphatically repudiated, and modern methods Thus Sir A. scientific teaching.

which directly reverse his

Grant takes advantage of an ambiguity in the word Matter, used respectively

as

by

Aristotle

and by

contemporary

writers, to claim his support for the peculiar theories of Prof.

Ferrier

although the Stagirite has recorded his belief in the

;

reality

and independence of material objects

called

matter) with a positiveness which one

thought

left

(if

not of what he

would have

And

no possibility of misunderstanding him.'

Mr. Wallace says that Aristotle

'

recognises the genesis of ;

by evolution and development a statement which, standing where it does, and with no more qualifications than are added to it, would make any reader not versed in the things

'

subject think of the Stagirite rather as a forerunner of Mr.

Darwin and Mr. Herbert Spencer, than as the intellectua ancestor of their opponents while, on a subsequent occasion, he quotes a passage about the variations of plants under do;

work considered to be un-Aristotelian by the best critics, apparently with no other object than that of finding a piece of Darwinism in his author.^ In Germany, Neo-Aristotelianism has already lived out the appointed term of all such movements having, we believe, been brought into fashion by Trendelenburg about forty mestication, from a

;

years ago.

Since then, the Aristotelian system in

all its

branches has been studied with such profound scholarship that any illusions respecting

its

value for our present needs

must, by this time, have been completely dissipated the Hegelian dialectic, which

it

was

;

while

originally intended to

combat, no longer requires a counterbalance, having been entirely driven from

German

university tea-ching.

Moreover,

Lange's famous History of Materialism has dealt a staggering

blow to the reputation of

Aristotle, not

relatively to the services of early '

As

will

be shown in the next chapter.

merely in

Greek thought *

Ovittines,

itself, ;

but

although

pp. 39 and 38.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

28o

Lange goes

too far into the opposite extreme

We

Democritus at his expense.'

when exalting

have to complain, however,

that Zeller and other historians of Greek philosophy start

with an invariable prejudice in favour of the later speculators as against the earlier,

against

them

all

and especially

in favour of Aristotle as

his predecessors, even Plato included,

weak

to slur over his

points,

excellencies into disproportionate

cannot be approached

with the same perfect dispassionateness

He

is, if

which must be reckoned with

His admirers of quoting

We

persist in

him

a force

still

making an authority of him, or at least

bound

to

sift

own

favourite convictions.

his claims with a severity

which would not be altogether gracious

At

the other great

contemporary controversy.

in behalf of their

are, therefore,

as'

not a living force,

in

his

relief.^

It is evident, then, that Aristotle

thinkers of antiquity.

which leads

and to bring out

in

a purely historical

same time it is hoped that historical justice We shall be the will not lose, but gain, by such a procedure. better able to understand what Aristotle was, after first showing what he neither was nor could be. And the utility review.

the

of our investigations will be

show

still

further enhanced

if

we can

that he represents a fixed type regularly recurring in the

revolutions of thought.

n. Pei"sonally>

we know more about

Aristotle than about any

other Greek philosopher of the classic period

know

does not amount to much.

It is little

but what we more than the ;

a bald enumeration of names and dates and

skeleton of a

life,

places, with a

few rriofe or

less

doubtful anecdotes interspersed.

These we shall now relate, together with whatever inferences the facts seem to warrant. Aristotle was born 384 B.C., at Stageira, a

Greek colony

in Thrace.

It is

remarkable

that

every single Greek thinker of note, Socrates and Plato alone '

Zeller, op. cit., p. 513.

"

Ibid., p. 407,

'

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. came from the

excepted, ism.

Hellenedom and barbar-

confines of

how much

not with in

were

reason, that reh'gious traditions

the colonies than in the parent states, and thus

allowed freer play to independent speculation. the accumulation of wealth was greater leisure for thought life

we know

has been conjectured by i^guste Comte,

It

weaker

281

;

more

Perhaps, also,

rapid, thus affording

while the pettiness of political

liberated a fund of intellectual energy, which in

more

powerful communities might have been devoted to the service

Left an orphan in early youth, Aristotle was

of the State.

brought up by one Proxenus, to whose son, Nicanor, he afterwards repaid the debt of gratitude.

In his eighteenth

year he settled at Athens, and attended the school of Plato until the It

is

death of that philosopher twenty years afterwards.

not clear whether the younger thinker was quite con-

scious of his

vast

debt to the elder, and he

intellectual

continually emphasises the points on which they differ

;

but

personally his feeling towards the master was one of deep

In some beautiful

reverence and affection.

he speaks of an '

of

whom

or

who

altar of

the bad should not speak even in praise

first

among

mortals, proved

his system, that goodness

and

lines, still extant,

solemn friendship dedicated to one

by

his

own

;

who alone,

life

and happiness go hand

in

and by

hand

;

generally agreed that the reference can only be to

it is

Plato.

Again, in his Ethics, Aristotle expresses reluctance to

criticise

the ideal theory, because

of his

own

;

was held by dear friends adding the memorable declaration, that to a it

philosopher truth should be dearer

formed of his most

still.

What

opinion Plato

illustrious pupil is less certain.

to one tradition, he surnamed Aristotle the Nous of It could, indeed,

that

the

According his school.

hardly escape so penetrating an observer

omnivorous appetite

for

knowledge, which he

regarded as -most especially characteristic of the philosophic

temperament, possessed never before paralleled

this

among

young learner

to

the .sons of men.

a

degree

He may,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

282

however, have considered that the Stagirite's method acquiring knowledge was unfavourable to

An

apprehension.

its

fresh

and

of

vivid

expression has been preserved which can

hardly be other than genuine, so distinguished

compliment and

delicate mixture of

He

particularly excelled.

house the house of the

is

by

that

which Plato

in

said to have called Aristotle's

The author

reader.'

'

satire

is it

of the Phaedrus,

himself a tolerably voluminous writer, was, like Carlyle, not

an admirer of

philosophical student,

own

lectures,

Probably

literature.

who had

intercourse,

thought.

We

tistic

and the divine

human

inspiration of

inspiration

of solitary

Aristotle's writings a storehouse of ancient

but from

;

froni the

moderns have no reason to regret a habit

which has made speculations

the privilege of listening to his

might do better than shut himself up with a

heap of manuscripts, away social

occurred to him that a

it

a_ scientific,

no

less

than from an

ar-

point of view, those works are overloaded with criticisms

of earlier opinions, some of them quite undeserving of serious discussion.

Philosophy was no sooner domiciled at Athens than professors alities

came

its

in for their full share of the scurrilous person-

which seem to have formed the staple of conversation

in that enlightened capital.

Aristotle, himself a

trenchant

and sometimes a bitterly scornful controversialist, did not escape and some of the censures passed on him were, rightly ;

or wrongly, attributed to Plato.

The

Stagirite,

who had been

brought up at or near the Macedonian Court, and had herited considerable means, was,

what foppish

in his dress,

if

and luxurious,

would not be surprising

his habits.

It

own master

at so early

an age had

in-

report speaks truly, some-

if

if

not dissipated

one who was

at first

in

left his

exceeded the

limits

of that moderation which he afterwards inculcated as the

golden rule of morals

;

but the charge of extravagance was

such a stock accusation at Athens, where the continued ence of country

life

seems to have bred a prejudice

influ-

in favour

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. of parsimony, that

may be

it

from graver imputations Plato, if

any was needed,

tion for figuring as a

We

cannot

afterwards

tell

made

most extreme

;

taken almost as an exoneration

and, perl^^ps, an admonition from

check his

sufficed to

man

283

disciple's

ambi-

of fashion.

what extent the divergences which

to

Plato and Aristotle pass for types of the

were already manifested

intellectual opposition

The

during their personal intercourse.'

tradition

is

that the

teacher compared his pupil to a foal that kicks his mother after draining

There

her dry.

is

a certain rough truth as well

;

but the author of the Par-

as rough wit about the remark

much

menides could hardly have been

affected

by criticisms on

the ideal theory which he had himself reasoned out with equal

candour and acuteness

and

;

to conjecture, those criticisms

Aristotle in conversation,

were received without

it

as

if,

we sometimes

were

will

be

first

still

feel

tempted

suggested to him

by

more evident that they

offence.^

In some respects, Aristotle began not only as a disciple

but as a champion of Platonism.

On

the popular side, that

was distinguished by its essentially religious character, and by its opposition to the rhetorical training then in vogue. Now, Aristotle's dialogues, of which only a few fragments have been preserved, contained elegant arguments in favour of a creative First Cause, and of human immortality:; doctrine

although in the writings which embody his maturer views, the first is

of these theories

is

absolutely rejected.

considerably modified, and the second Further,

we are informed that Aristotle

expressed himself in terms of rather violent contempt for Isocrates, the greatest living professor of declamation '

;

and

Written before the appearance of Teichmiiller's Lit. Fehden (already re-

ferred to in the preceding chapter). ^

Zeller's opinion that all the Platonic Dialogues except the

posed before Aristotle's

satisfactory evidence. [Since the vievif

Laws were com-

does not seem to be supported by any^ first published I have found that a similar

arrival in Athens,

above viras

of the Farmenides had already been maintained

niche, p. 105); III. 363).

by Tocco {Ricerche Plato' and afterwards, but independently, by Teichmiiller {Note Studiek,

See Chiapelli, Delia Interpretaiione panteistica di Platone,

p. 152.]

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

284

opened an opposition school of his own. This step has, curiously enough, been adduced as a further proof of disagree-

ment with

Plato, who,

teaching whatever.

It

it

is

said, objected to all rhetorical

seems to us that what he condemned

was rather the method and aim of the then fashionable rheand a considerable portion of his Phaedrns is devoted to toric proving how much more effectually persuasion might be produced by the combined application pf dialectics and psycho;

Now,

logy to oratory.

wards attempted preserved

among

to

this is precisely

work out

what Aristotle

in the treatise

his writings

on Rhetoric

and we may

;

after-

safely

still

assume

that his earlier lectures at Athens were composed on the same principle.

In 347 Plato died, leaving his nephew Speusippus to succeed him in the headship of the Academy. Aristotle then left

Athens, accompanied by another Platonist, Xenocrates, a

circumstance tending to prove that his relations with the school

The two

continued to be of a cordial character.

fellow-student from the

settled in

its

tyrant Hermeias, an old

Academy.

Hermeias was a eunuch

Atarneus, at the invitation of

who had

risen

and then,

after his master's death, to the possession of

power.

from the position of a slave to that of

Three years subsequently a

more abrupt turn of

still

fortune brought his adventurous career to a close. crates,

vizier,

supreme

Like Poly-

he was treacherously seized and crucified by order of

the Persian Government.

Aristotle,

who had married

his deceased patron's niece, fled with her to MityldnS.

Pythias,

Always

grateful, and singularly enthusiastic in his attachments, he

celebrated the

memory

of Hermeias in a

manner which gave

great offence to the religious sentiment of Hellas, by dedicating astatue-to him at Delphi, and composing an elegy,

still

extant, in which he compares the eunuch-despot to Heracles,

the Dioscuri, Achilles, and tality

from the Muses

When we

in

Ajax

;

and promises him immor-

honour of Xenian Zeus.

next hear of Aristotle he

is

at the

Macedonian

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. Court,' acting as tutor to

Alexander, the future conqueror of

who remained under

Asia,

thirteen

and sixteen

285

years.

between the ages of

his chajee

The

philosopher

is

more likely to

appointment by Court interest

—his father

was Court-physician to Alexander's grandfather,

Amyntas^

have obtained than by

this

which could hardly have been made

his reputation,

Much has been made

until several years afterwards.

nexion which, although

it

and opens a large

to the imagination,

of a con-

did not last very long, appeals strongly field for surmise.

The

and the greatest practical genius of that some might say pf all ages could not, one would think,

greatest speculative

age

—

—

come

into such close contact without leaving a deep impres-

Accordingly, the philosopher is supposed

on each other.

sion

to have prepared the hero for his future destinies.

how

told us

Aristotle

Hegel

world.'

tells

•

which purpose,

required

the

;

silly

it

full

assurance of his

seems, the infinite

and he observes that the talk

by giving him the own powers daring of thought was

us that this was done

consciousness of himself, the for

Milton has

bred great Alexander to subdue the

;

result is a refutation of

about the practical inutility of philosophy.*

It

would be unfortunate

to

show

if philosophy

had no better testimonial

for herself than the character of Alexander.

It is

not

the least merit of Grote's History to have brought out in

full

relief the first

to

savage

last.

superstitious,

traits

by which

his

conduct was marked from

Arrogant, drunken, cruel, vindictive, and grossly

he united the vices of a Highland chieftain to

the frenzy of an Oriental despot.

No man

ever stood further

from the gravity, the gentleness, the moderation the S6phrosyn6 of a true Hellenic hero.

—

in

a word,

The time came when

Aristotle himself would have run the most risk '

had he been within the Teichmiiller

infers,

Isocrates, that Aristotle

from

tyrant's

certain

imminent personal immediate grasp. His

expressions in the

had returned from Mitylene

to

Panathenaicus of Athens and resumed his

former position as a teacher of rhetoric when the summons to Pella reached him. (Lit. Fehden, z6l.) 2

Gesch. d. Phil., II., 302.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

286

nephew, Callisthenes, had incurred deep displeasure by protesting against the servile adulation, or rather idolatry, which

Alexander exacted from his attendants. A charge of conspiracy was trumped up against him, and even the exculpatory evidence, taken under torture, of his alleged accomplices did

not save him.

'

I will

punish the sophist,' wrote Alexander,

and those who sent him

It

out.'

was understood that

old tutor was included in the threat. observes, Aristotle

was not

at

his

Fortunately, as Grote

Ecbatana but

therefore escaped the fate of Callisthenes,

at

who

Athens

he

;

suffered death

some accounts, of great atrocity. good qualities in Alexander pre-

in circumstances, according to

Zeller

several

finds

—

extension of Hellenic

cocious statesmanship, zeal for the civilisation,

sistible

long-continued self-restraint under almost

temptation, and through

irre-

subsequent aberrations

all his

a nobility, a moral purity, a humanity, and a culture, which

him above every other great conqueror and these he attributes, in no small degree, to the fostering care of Arisraise

totle

;

;

'

yet,

probably an

with the exception of moral purity, which was affair of

ap equal extent

was surpassed, the ruthless exhibited

temperament, and has been remarked

in other

men

by Julius Caesar; while which was his worst passion,

in all these respects,

vindictiveness,

the very beginning of his reign by the

itself at

destruction of Thebes.

doubtedly had, and

any ordinary

to

of the same general character, he

A

varnish of literary culture he un-

for this Aristotle

may be thanked

;

but

sophist would probably have effected as much.

As to the Hellenising of Western Asia, this, according to Grote, was the work, not of Alexander, but of the Diadochi

after

him.

The "

profit

reaped by Aristotle from the connexion seems

equally doubtful.

Tradition

tells

us

thaj:

enormous sums

of

money were spent in aid of his scientific researches, and a whole army of crown servants deputed to collect information "

Zeller, op. cit., p. 25.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. bearing on his zoological studies. ever,

Modern explorations, how-

have proved that the conqueste of Alexander, at

did not, as has been pretended, supply

specimens

;

least,

him with any new

nor does the knowledge contained in his extant

exceed what could be obtained either by his own

treatises

observations or

may

287

by

At

private enquiries.

the same time

we

suppose that his services were handsomely rewarded,

and that

his official position at the

him numerous opportunities

Macedonian Court gave

for conversing with the grooms,

huntsmen, shepherds, fishermen, and others, from

whom most

of what he tells us about the habits of animals was learned.

In connexion with the favour enjoyed by Aristotle,

it

must be

mentioned as a fresh proof of his amiable character, that he obtained the restoration of Stageira, which had been ruthlessly destroyed

by

Philip, together with the other

Greek

cities

of

the Chalcidic peninsula.

Two

passages in Aristotle's writings have been supposed

to give evidence of his admiration for Alexander.

description of the

other

is

magnanimous man

in

One is the The

the Ethics.

a reference in the Politics to an ideal hero, whose him so high above the common run of mortals

virtue raises

obey him as if he were a god. But the magnanimous man embodies a grave and stately type of that their duty

is

to

character quite unlike the chivalrous, impulsive theatrical

nature of Alexander,' while probably not unfrequent

among

and the god-like statesman of the Politics is spoken of rather as an unattainable ideal than as a contemreal Hellenes

;

On

we must conclude that the these two extraordinary spirits has left intercourse between no distinct trace on the actions of the one or on the thoughts porary

fact.

the whole, then,

of the other.

On

Alexander's departure for the East, Aristotle returned where he now placed himself at the head of a new

to Athens,

philosophical school. '

The ensuing

period of thirteen years

Cf. Teichmiiller, Lit. Fehden, 192.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

288

was

fully occupied

delivery of public lectures, and by

by the

the composition of those encyclopaedic writings which will preserve his memory for ever, along, perhaps, with many

Like Anaxagoras, he was

others which have not survived.

not allowed to end his days in the city of his adoption.

His

made him many supposed by Grote,

youthful attacks on Isocrates had probably

enemies among that rhetor's pupils.

but warmly disputed by

It is

Zeller, that his trenchant criticisms

on Plato had excited a similar animosity among the sectaries of the Academy.' Anyhow, circumstances had unavoidably associated him with the detested Macedonian party, although him from

his position, as a metic, or resident alien, debarred

taking any active part in the storm broke loose. Aristotle,

With Alexander's death

politics.

A

charge was trumped up against

on the strength of

unlucky poem

his

in

honour of

Hermeias, which was described as an insult to religion. That such an accusation should be chosen is characteristic of Athenian bigotry, even should there be no truth in the story that certain philosophical opinions of his were likewise singled out for prosecution.

Before the case

came on

for trial, Aristotle

availed himself of the usual privilege allowed on such occasions,

and withdrew to Chalcis,

in order, as

he

said, that the Athe-

nians need not sin a second time against philosophy. constitution, naturally a feeble one,

was nearly worn

But his

A

out.

year afterwards he succumbed to a stomach complaint, aggravated,

if

not produced, by incessant mental application.

His

contemporary, Demosthenes, perished about the same time,

and at the same age, sixty-two. Within little more than a twelvemonth the world had lost its three greatest men and ;

after three centuries of uninterrupted glory, Hellas

was

left

unrepresented by a single individual of commanding genius.

We

are told that

when

his

end began to approach, the

dying philosopher was pressed to choose a successor headship of the School. The manner in which he did '

Zeller, p. 38,

in the this

is

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

289

characteristic of his singular gentleness ancj unwillingness to

giye offence.

between

his

was understood thdt the choice must

It

two most distinguished

Lesbos, and

Eud^mus

of Rhodes.

pupils,

lie

Theophrastus of

Aristotle asked for speci-

mens of the wine grown in those islands. He first essayed the Rhodian vintage, and praised it highly, but remarked after tasting the other,

'

The Lesbian is sweeter,' thus revealing his who accordingly reigned over the

preference for Theophrastus,

Lyceum

in his stead.'

A document preserved tions to

purporting to be Aristotle's will has been

by Diogenes

its

Laertius,

and although some objec-

authenticity have been raiised

by

Sir A. Grant,

they have, in our opinion, been successfully rebutted by

The

Zeller.^

philosopher's testamentary dispositions give one

more proof of his thoughtful consideration those about him, and his devotion to the

Careful provision

friends.

is

made

for the welfare of

memory

of departed

for the guardianship of his

youthful children, and for the comfort of his second, wife,

he says, had been good to him.

Herpyllis, who, slaves,

specified

receive legacies. ,

him '

if

'

are to be sold,

they deserve

it'

and on growing up they are

The bones

of his

by

as she herself desired, to be laid

be

erected in

Certain

'

by name, are to be emancipated, and to None of the young slaves who waited on

memory

particularly Proxenus,

first

to

be set free

wife, Pythias, are,

Monuments

his.

are to

of his mother, and of certain friends,

who had been

Aristotle's guardian,

and

his family.

In person Aristotle resembled the delicate student of

modern times rather than the

athletic figures of his prede-

He was not a soldier like Plato.^ To judge from several

cessors. like

Socrates, nor a

gymnast

allusions in his works,

put great faith in walking as a preservative of health

when

lecturing he liked to pace

And,

probably, a constitutional

'

Ritter

and

up and down a shady avenue. was the severest exercise' that

Preller, Hist. Ph., p. 329.

U

he

— even

=

Zeller, p. 41, note 2.

'

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

290

he ever tbok.

He

pression of his

mouth

spoke with a sort of is

said to have been siarcastic

traits preserved to us in marble

A

perhaps of pain.

replied,

He

'

He may

When

own account.

body had been abusing him

in his

beat me, too,

might be abused, even

if

critic,

When

affronts.

he was

absence, the philosopher

he

in his

likes

own

—

in

my

by more

absenceJ

presence,

disappointment of his petulant assailants. slightly disturbed

th(

told that some-*

departing from the same attitude of calm disdain,

was but

but

;

only of meditation, anc

tell

free-spoken and fearless

not over-sensitive on his

and the ex

lisp,

without

much

to the

His equanimity

public and substantial

certain honorary distinctions, conferred on

him by a popular vote at Delphi, were withdrawn, probably on the occasion of his flight from Athens, he remarked with his usual studied moderation, that, while

he did not

feel

very deeply concerned

;

not entirely indifferent, a trait which

the character of the magnanimous man •

thing related of Alexander.

replied,

'

Two other sayings have

an almost

when asked how we should treat our friends, and on As we should wish them to treat us

Christian tone

he

'

illustrates

far better than any-

;

;

'

being reproached with wasting his bounty on an unworthy object,

he observed,

being that Still,

'

was not the person, but the human

it

I pitied.'

taking

it

altogether, the life of Aristotle gives one

the impression of something rather desultory and dependent, not proudly self-determined, like the lives of the thinkers who

went before him.

We

are reminded of the fresh starts and

the appeals to authority so frequent in his writings. first

detained at Athens twenty years

I'lato

;

and no sooner

is

by the

Plato gone, than he

influence of an entirely different character

when

attraction

falls

under

— Hermeias.

no longer needed he

his services are

He

is

ol

thf

Evei

lingers near

thi

Court, until Alexander's departure leaves hin

Macedonian once more without a patron. •

The most

Diog. L., v., 17-21,

dignified

period o

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. whole career

his

and

influence,

it

that during which he presided over the

loses

it

A longer life

liberty.

Athens

to

is

School; but he owes

Peripatetic

tl»s position to

would probably have seen him return

in the train of his last patron Antipater,

sort of character to lay great stress

and popular opinion.

of sensation

will.

whom,

This was

just'

as

the

on the evidentiary value It

was

also the character

who was likely to believe that always been very much what they were in his of a conservative

would continue to remain so ever afterwards.

man

foreign

with the temporary revival of Greek

was, he appointed executor to his

not the

agr

things had time,

Aristotle

to imagine that the present order of nature

and was

had

sprung out of a widely different order in the remote past, nor encourage such speculations

to

by

He would

others.

when they were

offered to

him

not readily believe that phenomena, as

he knew them, rested on a reality which could neither be seen nor

felt.

Nor,

finally,

could he divine the movements which

were slowly undermining the society in which he construct an ideal polity for

and broader

And

basis.

of the chief difference

its

lived, still less

reorganisation on a higher

we at once become conscious separating him 'from his master, Plato. here

III. It is

an often-quoted observation of Friedrich

that every If

man

is

born

either. a Platonist or

we narrow the remark to human

author recognised as

Schlegel's

an Aristotelian.-

the only class which, perhaps,

its

beings, namely, all thinking

men, be found to contain a certain amount of truth, though probably not what Schlegel intended at any rate something

it

will

;

be supplemented by other truths before its full meaning can be understood. The common opinion seems to

rejquiring to

be that Plato was a transcendentalist, while Aristotle was an

and that between them.

experientialist distinction

;

this constitutes It

the most typical

would, however, be a mistake to

V 2

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

292

suppose that the d. priori and

d,

posteriori

off with such definiteness in Plato's

methods were markeic

time as to render

possible

a choice between them. The opposition was not betweer general propositions and particular facts, but between the

most comprehensive and the most limited notions. It was as if the question were now to" be raised whether we should begin

by at once dividing the organic from the by directing the learner's attention to some one vital act. Now, we are expressly told that Plato hesitated between these two methods and in his Dialogues, at least, we find the easier and more popular one employed by preferto teach physiology

inorganic world, or

;

ence.

It is true that

do not

rest

he often appeals to wide principles which

on an adequate basis of experimental evidence

but Aristotle does so

also,

more frequently

even, and, as the

event proved, with more fatal injury to the advance of knowledge.

In his Rhetoric he even goes beyond Plato, construct-

ing the entire art from the general principles of

dialectics,

psychology, and ethics, without any reference, except for the

sake of

illustration, to existing

models of eloquence.

According to Sir A. Grant,

it

by

is

the

mystical

and

poetical side of his nature that Plato differs from Aristotlie.

The one knowledge definite.'

aspired

'

'

;

a truth above the truth of

the other to

Now,

'

to

'

scientific

methodised experience and the

setting aside the question

whether there

is

any truth above the truth of scientific knowledge, we doubt very much whether Plato believed in its existence. He held that the most valuable truth to others

reasoning

a process even

was that which could be imparted more rigorous than mathematical

by and there was no ;

however transcendent,

reality,

that he did not hope to bring within the grasp of a dialectic without which even the meanest could not be understood.

He

did, indeed, believe that, so far, the best

and wisest

of

mankind had owed much more to a divinely implanted instinct than to any conscious chain of reflection but he distinctly ;

>

Grant's AHsiotIt, p.

7.

;

CHARACTERISTICS QF ARISTOTLE. asserted the

that

inferiority

knowledge,

scientific

On

could.

it

of such guidance to the light of

if this

could be^obtained, as he hoped

the other hand, Aristotle was probably

Superior to Plato as a poet realities

;

and

in

speaking about the highest

he uses language which, though

than his master's,

293

is

not inferior to

and ornate and fervour

less rich

in force

it

while his metaphysical theories contain a large element

what would now be considered mysticism, that sees evidence of

in definiteness

disputable, but this was, perhaps, because

and

profited

by

of

he often

purpose and animation where they do not

His advantage

really exist.

is,

is,

of course, in-

he came

after Plato

his lessons.

Yet there was a difference between them, marking off each as the

or the

head of a whole School much wider than the

Lyceum

a difference which

;

we

Academy

can best express by

saying that Plato was pre-eminently a practical, Aristotle"

pre-eminently a speculative genius.

was to reorganise organise

all

human

Had

human knowledge.

all

The

object of the one

that of the other to re-

life,

the one lived

earlier,

he would more probably have been a great statesman or a great general than a great writer

;

the other would at no time

have been anything but a philosopher, a mathematician, or a Even from birth they seemed to be respectively,

historian.

marked but

for

an active and

for a contemplative life

one, a citizen of the foremost State in Hellas, sprung

:

the

from a

family in which political ambition was hereditary, himself strong, beautiful, fascinating, eloquent,

and gifted with the

keenest insight into men's capacities and motives

a Stagirite and an Asclepiad, that

is

;

the other

to say, without oppor-

tunities for a public career, and possessing a hereditary aptitude for anatomy and natural history, fitted by his insignificant

person and delicate constitution for sedentary pursuits,

and better able to acquire a knowledge even of human nature from books than from a living converse with men and affairs.

Of course, we

are not for a

moment denying

to Plato a fore-

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

294

he most place among the masters of those \Vho know great extent •embraced all the science of his age, and to a marked out the course which the science of future ages was to pursue nevertheless, for him, knowledge was not so much ;

;

an end

in itself as a

among which

means

for the "attainment of other ends,

the preservation of the State seems to have

been, in his eyes, the most important.

Aristotle,

on the other

hand, after declaring happiness to be the supreme end, defines it

as an energising of man's highest nature, which again he iden-

tifies

with the rteasoning process or cognition in

The same fundamental their respective theologies.

that

God

is

difference

its

purest form.

comes out strongly

in

Plato starts with the conception

good, and being good wishes everything to re-

semble himself

an assumption from which the divine origin and providential government of the world are deduced. ;

God

-Aristotle thinks of

as exclusively occupied in self-con-

templation, and only acting on Nature through the love which his perfection irispires.

tion the

If,

we

further,

two philosophies stand to

consider in what rela-

ethics,

we

shall find that, to

problems were the most pressing of any, that they

Plato, its

haunted him through his whole

life,

and that he made

butions of extraordinary value towards their solution to Aristotle,

it

was merely a branch of natural

contri;

while

history, a study

of the different types of character to be met with in Greek spciety, without the faintest perception that

to be set on a wider

standards of his age.

conduct required

and firmer basis than the conventional

Hence

it is

that, in

reading Plato,

are perpetually reminded of the controversies

among

He

ourselves.

gives

Hedonism

;

we

raging

us an exposition, to which

nothing has ever been added, of the theory Kgoistic

still

now known

as

he afterwards abandons that theory, and

passes on to the social side of conduct, the necessity of justice, the relation of private to public interest, the bearing of religion, education,

and

social institutions

on morality, along with

other kindred topics, which need not be further specified, as

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. they have been discussed with sufficient fulness ceding chapter. old Greek

life

295

in

on the contrary, takes us back into was before the*days of Socrates, noticing

Aristotle,

as

it

may

the theories of that great reformer only that he

them in favour of a narrow, common-sense standard. conduct, he tells us, consists in choosing a If we ask

extremes.

how the proper mean

he refers us to a faculty called but on further enquiry

men made moral

habits

the problem,

question

An

.'

or, at

any

virtuous.

he answers.

which amounts to

;

^povija-is,

reject

Virtuous

mean between two is

to be discovered,

or practical reason

;

turns out that this faculty is.possessed

it

by none who are not already are

the pre-

To the question, How By acquiring moral

more than a restatement of suggests another more difficult

little

rate,

— How are good habits acquired

.'

answer might conceivably have been supplied, had enable^ to complete that sketch of an ideal

Aristotle been

State which Politics.

was

originally

intended to form part of his

But the philosopher evidently found that to do so

was beyond

his powers.

If the seventh

and eighth books of

that treatise, which contain the fragmentary attempt in ques-

had originally occupied the place where they now stand

tion,

in

our manuscripts,

it

might have been supposed that Aristotle's

labours were interrupted

by

Modern

death.

criticism

has

shown, however, that they should follow immediately after the

first

three books, and that the author broke

off,

the beginning of his ideal polity, to take up the

almost at

much more

congenial task of analysing and criticising the'actually existing little

that he has done proves

have been profoundly unfitted

for the task of a practi-

Hellenic constitutions.

him

to

cal reformer.

are a

But the

What few

compromise

between the Republic and fails to

a

give us

summary

moderation

—

actual recommendations

it

contains

— somewhat in the spirit of Plato's Laws— real

life.

The

rest is

what he never fact, and

a mass of details about matters of

of his speculative ethics, along with counsels of in the spirit of his practical ethics

;

but not one

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

296

any value, not one remark to show that he understood what direction history was taking, or that he had mastered the elements of social reform as set forth in practical principle of

The

works.

Plato's

functions

progressive specialisation of political

the necessity of a spiritual power

;

;

the formation

of a trained standing army; the admission of women to public

employments selection

the elevation of the whole race

;

the radical reform of religion

;

education, both literary

property

and

scientific,

the enactment of a

;

which

agitate the

still

artificial

the reconstitution of

;

the redistribution of

new code;

opinion as an instrument of moralisaticn

by

;

the use of public

— these are the ideas

minds of men, and they are also the Laws.

ideas of the Republic, the Statesman, and the

Aristotle,

on the other hand, occupies himself chiefly with discussing how far a city should be built from the sea, whether it should be

fortified

;

how

its citizens

people should not marry mitted to see

Apart from

;

should not be employed

when per-

and what music they should not be taught.

;

his

enthusiasm for philosophy, there

generous, nothing large-minded, nothing inspiring. tory of the city

is

from other States

to be self-sufficing, that ;

dustrial occupations

it

is

nothing

The terri-

may be

isolated

the citizens are to keep aloof from ;

science

is

all in-

put out of relation to the

material well-being of mankind. city

;

what children should not be

It

was, in short, to be a

where every gentleman should hold an

idle fellowship

city where Aristotle could live without molestation,

and

;

enjoyment of congenial friendships just as the God of ;

system was a

still

study of formal

Even

in his

a

in the

his

higher Aristotle, perpetually engaged in the

logic.

much-admired

criticisms

on the actually exist-

ing types of government our philosopher shows practical weakness and vacillation of character. theni all

—

and even '

We

for

monarchy,

for

pure democracy.'

There

is

a good word fof

for aristocracy, for middle-class rule,

think, however, that Mr.

The

fifth

Edwin Wallace has

book, treating of

overstated the case,

when

;

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. political revolutions, is

interesting in the

297

unquestionably the ablest and most

whole work

;

but when Aristotle quits the

domain of natural history for that of practical suggestions, with a view to obviate the dangers pointed out, he can think of nothing better than the old advice

— to

be moderate, even

where the constitutions which moderation

by

preserve are

is to

their very nature so excessive that their readjustment

would be equivalent to their in fact, Aristotle's proposals amount to this

equilibration

by the middle

class should

aristocracy of education

ment

which the

in

is

destruction.

and

And

— that government

be established wherever the ideal impracticable

class interests of rich

;

or else a govern-

and poor should be

so nicely balanced as to obviate the danger of oligarchic or democratic injustice.

His error lay in not perceiving

only possible means of securing such a happy

break through the narrow circle of Greek city

life

that. the

mean was ;

to

to continue

the process which had united families into villages, and villages into

towns

;

to confederate groups of cities into larger

he makes Aristotle say that

' democracy is not unlikely with the spread of popubecome the ultimate form of government ; and may be anticipated without dread by considering that the collective voice of a people is as likely to be

lation to

sound in

on art,' pp. 57-8. In the first which are brought together in Mr. Wallace's summary are separated in the original text by a considerable interval— an imstate administration as in criticisms

place, the expressions of opinion

when we are dealing with so inconsistent a writer ; then what Aristotle says about the collective wisdom of the people, besides being advanced with extreme hesitation, is not a reassurance against any danger to be dreaded from their supremacy, but an answer to the argument that the few had a natural right to political power from their greater wealth and better education ; the whole question being, in this connexion, one of political justice, not of political expediency ; finally, not only is 'ultimate form of government a very strong rendering of the Greek words, but what Aristotle says on the subject in his third book is virtually retracted in the fifth, where oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny are regarded as succeeding each other in any order indifferently, and Plato (or the Platonic Socrates) is censured for assuming a constant sequence of revolutions. The explanation of this change seems to be that when Aristotle wrote his third book 'he was only acquainted with the history of Athens and a few other of the greater states, but that subsequently a vast collection of facts bearing on the subject came to his knowledge, showing that each form of government embraced more varieties and admitted of more mutations than he had been originally aware of portant circumstance

'

and

this led to a

complete recast of his opinions.

:

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

2^8

states

;

and

by striking an average of different

so,

to minimise

inequalities,

which had

the risk of those incessant revolutions

hitherto secured the temporary triumph of alternate factions

common

at the expense of their

And,

interest.

in fact, the

spontaneous process of aggregation, which Aristotle did not foresee,

has alone sufficed to remedy the evils which he saw,

but could not devise any effectual means of curing, and at the

same time has bred new took no account. But,

be

this

if

which

his diagnosis naturally

so, it follows that

Mr. Edwin Wallace's

evils of

appeal to Aristotle as an authority worth consulting on our

Take the quesWhether the State is a

present social difficulties cannot be upheld.

by Mr. Wallace himself

tion quoted

mere combination

:

'

goods and property,

for the preservation of

or a moral organism developing the idea of right

.'

Aristotle

'

certainly held very strong opinions in favour of State interfer-

ence with education and private morality,

second alternative implies

;

but does

if

that

what the

is

follow that, he would

it

who advocate a similar supervision at the By no means because experience has shown

agree with those present day

.'

;

that in enormous industrial societies like ours, protection

attended with

difficulties

is

and dangers which he could no more

foresee than he could foresee the discoveries on which our

physical science ethics, let '

Whether

is

based.

Or, returning for a

us take another

of

Mr.

intellectual also involves

possible light can be thrown on

it

by

when

to

problems

moral progress

}

'

What

Aristotle's exposure of

the powerlessness of right knowledge to virtuous,

moment

Wallace's

make an

individual

writers Ijke Buckle have transferred the whole

question from a particular to a general ground

;

from the

conduct of individuals to the conduct of

men

masses, and over vast periods of time

Or, finally, take the

.'

acting in lai^e

question which forms a point of junction between Aristotle's ethics

and

Whether the highest life is a of action Of what importance

his politics

thought or a

life

'

:

life

of

.'

'

is

his

'

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

decision to us,

who

attend far more to the social than to the

individual consequences of actior^i

;

who have

learned to take

into account the emotional element of happiness, totle neglected

;

who

blissful theorising

whom,

finally,

-yond

of gods in

may

which Aris-

his appeal to. the

do not believe

practice,

;

for

the

by showing

that

we

but

;

down

revolutionise the whole of

an interesting historical study

him

by

whom we

between knowledge and

antithesis

totle is

are uninfluenced

experience has altogether broken

speculative ideas

,299

life

?

Aris-

are as far be-

in social as in physical science.

IV.

On

turning to Aristotle's Rhetoric

we

practical point of view, his failure here

find that,

is,

if

from a

possible, still

more complete. This treatise contains, as we have already immense mass of more or less valuable information on the subject of psychology, ethics, and dialectic,

observed, an

but gives exceedingly

little

advice about the very essence of

you have to say in the most telling manner, by the arrangement of topics and arguments, by the use of illustrations, and by the choice of rhetoric as

an

art,

which

is

to say whatever

and that little is to be found in the third book, the genuineness of which is open to very grave suspicion. It may be doubted whether any orator or critic of oratory was language

;

ever benefited Aristotle's

in

rules.

the

slightest

His

degree

collections

of

nothing to our knowledge, but only throw into abstract formulas

;

by

the study of

scientific

data add

common experience

and even as a body of memoranda

they would be useless, for no

memory

could contain them, or

any man could remember them he would have intellect enough not to require them.' The professional teachers whom

if

' Many of the topics noted are not only trite enough, but have no possible For instance, in discussing bearing on the subject under which they stand. crime ; among judicial eloquence Aristotle goes into the motives for committing

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

300

more effectual method than his

made speeches

;

and learn by to do the rest.

to analyse

to the imitative instinct

who

to a master

to have followed a much they gave their pupils ready-

seem

Aristotle so heartily despised

heart, rightly trusting

He

compares them

should teach his apprentices

how

to

make

shoes by supplying them with a great variety of ready-made

But

pairs.

them

this

would be a much better plan than to give anatomy of the foot, witii a

an elaborate lecture on the

enumeration of

full

its

bones, muscles, tendons, nerves, and

is

the most appropriate parallel to his

blood-vessels, which

system of

The

instruction.

Poetics of Aristotle contains

of composition which entitle

The

connexion.

it

deficiencies,

some

hints

even from a purely theoretical

point of view, of this work, once pronounced last

become

infallible,

us

have at

so obvious that elaborate hypotheses have been

constructed, according to which the recension is

on the subject

to be mentioned in the present

handed down

a mere mutilated extract from the original

to

treatise.

Enough, however, remains to convince us that poetry was not, any more than eloquence, a subject with which Aristotle was He begins by defining it, in common with all fitted to cope. Here,

as an imitation.

we

at once recognise the

other

art,

spirit

of a philosophy, the whole power and interest of which

lay in knowledge

;

and, in fact, he tells us that the love of

derived from the love of knowledge.

But the truth seems to be that aesthetic enjoyment is due to an ideal exercise of our faculties, among which the power of perceiving art

is

identities is sometimes,

though not always, included.

the materials of which every artistic creation

is

That

composed

are

taken from the world of our experience makes no difference for

it is

by

the

new forms

in

are interested, not because

;

which they are arranged that we

we remember having met them

in

these are pleasurable feelings of every kind, including the remembrance of past Even the hero of a spasmodic tragedy would hardly have committed an

trouble.

offence for the purpose of procuring himself this form of experience.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

301

some natural combination already. Aristotle could not help seeing that this was true in the case of music at least and he can only save his principle by treating musical effects as ;

representations of passions in the soul.

To

say, however, that

musical pleasure arises from a perception of resemblance

between certain sounds and the emotions with which they are associated, would be an extremely forced interpretation ; the

due rather to a sympathetic participation

pleasure

is

emotion

itself.

And when

Aristotle goes on to

the characters imitated in epic and dramatic poetry either better or

worse than

in

ordinary

life,

he

in the

us that

tell

is

may be

obviously

admitting other aesthetic motives not accounted for by his general theory.

If,

on the other hand, we

start

energising as the secret of aesthetic emotion,

understand yielded

how an imaginary

by the

on which we stand.

we become momentarily action before our eyes

superiority

;

is

In the one case

invested with the strength put into

in the other, the consciousness of

amounts

not being put into

enjoyment.

easily

exaltation of our faculties

spectacle of something either rising above, or

falling below, the level

own

with ideal

we can

action,

.

is

entirely

available

this be the correct view,

for

And, if was quite wrong when he declared the it

our

which

to a fund of reserve power,

ideal

will follow

that Aristotle

plot to

be more important than the characters of a drama. The reason given for his preference is, even on the principles of his

own philosophy, a bad without

is

of

He but

says that there can be plot

never

character-drawing

Yet he has taught us elsewhere that the

without plot. soul

one.

character-drawing,

human

more value than the physical organism on which its This very parallel suggests itself to him

existence depends. in his Poetics

;

but,

by an almost inconceivable misjudgment,

the plot which he likens to the soul of the piece, whereas The practice in truth it should be compared to the body. helped to mislead have may and preference of his own time it is

him, for he argues (rather inconsistently, by the way) that plot

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

302

must be more indispensable, as young writers are able to construct good stories before they are able to portray character and more artistic, as it was developed much later ;

in us,

of

evolution

the historical

the Alexandrian

tragedy.

Fortunately for

were guided by other canons

critics

of taste, or the structurally faulty pieces of Aeschylus might

have been neglected, and the ingeniously constructed pieces of Agathon preserved in their place. It

is

probable, however, that

was

Aristotle's partiality

determined more by the systematising and analytical character

own

genius than by the public opinion of his age or same tendency was at work in philosophy and in rather, the art at the same time, and the theories of the one were uncon-

of his

;

sciously pre-adapted to the productions of the other.

In both

there was a decay of penetration and of originality, of

life

of inspiration

;

in

and

both a great development of whatever could

be obtained by technical proficiency

;

both an extension of

in

surface at the expense of depth, a gain of fluency, and a loss

of force.

change

;

But poetry lost far more than philosophy by the and so the works of the one have perished while the

works of the other have survived.

Modern

literature offers

Aristotle's theory,

decided against

abundant materials

and the immense majority of

it.

Even among

fairly

Maria Stuart

testing

critics,

have

educated readers few

would prefer Moli^re's L'Etourdi to Schiller's

for

his Misanthrope,

to Goethe's Faust, or

or

Lord Lytton's

Lucretia to George Eliot's Romola, or Dickens's Tale of Two Cities to the same writer's Nicholas Nickleby, or his Great Expectations to his instance the

David

work named

first

Copperfield,

although

in

each

has the better plot of the two.

may perform but actions are represented for the sake of the characters who do them, or who suffer by them. It is not so Characters, then, are not introduced that they

actions

much

;

a ghostly apparition or a murder which interests us as

the fact that the ghost appears to Hamlet, and that the murder

;

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

303

committed by Macbeth. And the same is true of the Greek drama, though not perhaps itfo the same extent. We is

may but

care for Oedipus chiefly on account of his adventures

we

care far

more

what Prometheus or Clytemnestra, Antigone or Ajax, say about themselves than for what they suffer or what they do. Thus, and thus only, are we enabled for

to understand the tragic element in poetry, the production

of

by the spectacle of pain. It is not the satisfaction caused by seeing a skilful imitation of reality, for few have pleasure

witnessed such awful events in real is it

pain, as such,

tragic

on the stage

they revolt and disgust an educated

emotion

is

than anything

;

it

The

itself,

nor

it is

purely mental

whom we

mission of the victims

and whom we love

still

;

by the

or

wish to

assist

more from our

true

but by

for this gives,

;

more

we can

the idea of a force with which

else,

synergise, because

taste.

produced, not by the suffering

the reaction of the characters against

lovable,

as

life

interests us, for the scenes of torture

some Spanish and Bolognese paintings do not

exhibited in gratify,

which

helpless sub-

because they are inability to assist

them, through the transformation of arrested action into feeling,

accompanied by the enjoyment proper to tender emotion.

Hence the peculiar importance of the female parts in dramatic Aristotle tells us that it is bad art to represent

poetry.

women

and braver than men, because they are not Nevertheless, he should have noticed that on

as nobler

so in reality.'

the tragic stage of Athe'ns

women

first

competed with men,

then equalled, and finally far surpassed them in loftiness of character."

But with

his philosophy

For,

if

he could not see

that, if

would be necessary to create them. women are conceived as reacting against outward cir-

heroines did not exist,

cumstances at

all,

their very helplessness will lead to the '

'

it

Poet., XV., p. I4S4, a, 20.

MrrriP Sp'

ViWei

els

ywatKas

i^ ivSpSiv

^6yos

Kivhv T6^eviui Kol kokSi \eyei.

ai 8' eta' iiieimvs

hfaivwv, iya Kiya. Euripides, Frag. 512.

(Didot.)

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

304

storing of a greater mental tension in the shape of excited

thought and feeling debarred from any manifestation except in words and it is exactly with this mental tension that the ;

The wrath

spectator can most easily synergise.

not interesting, because

is

profoundly interesting, because

impotent denunciations

schemes

of her

The

passion of

has no outlet but

oppressors,

and

abortive

Hence,

his greatest effects

male characters, to some extent,

either through their natural

it

from their yoke.

for her deliverance

Shakspeare produces some of his

is

entirely absorbed into the pre-

it is

meditation and execution of his vengeance. Electra

of Orestes

also,

by placing women,

in the position of

weakness and indecision, as with

Hamlet, and Brutus, and Macbeth, or through the paralysisof

unproved suspicion, as with Othello

;

while the greatest of

his heroines,

Lady Macbeth,

and

frame resolutions of dauntless ambition, and

will to

is

all

so because she has the intellect elo-

quence to force them on her husband, without either the physical or

cases

the moral force to execute them herself.

it is

the

most intense

by

their

arirest

heat, or the

extreme

to help them,

In

all

these

of an electric curi-ent which produces the

most

brilliant illumination.

Again,

and by the natural desire felt more pity, which, as we have said, than men and this in the highest degree

sensitiveness,

women

excite

means more love, when their sufferings are undeserved. We see, then, how wide Aristotle went of the mark when he made it a rule tliat ;

the sufferings of tragic characters should be partly brought on their own fault, and that, speaking generally, they should not be distinguished for justice or virtue, nor yet for extreme wickedness.' The immoderate moderation of the Stagirite

by

'

was never more

'

in felicitously exhibited.

duce truly tragic

effects,

but must, be employed.

For, in order to pro-

excess of every kind not only may, It is

by

the reaction of heroic

forti-

tude, either against unmerited outrage, or against the whole

pressure of social law, that our synergetic interest '

Poet., xiii., p. 1453, a, 8.

is

wound up

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. to the intensest pitch.

It

when we

is

lot,

see a beautiful soul

requited with evil for good that ovg eyes are filled with the

Yet so absolutely perverted have men's minds

noblest tears.

been by the Aristotelian dictum that Gervinus, the great Shakspearian

actually tries to prove that Duncan, to

critic,

some extent/ deserved- his self to the hospitality of

fate by imprudently trusting himMacbeth that Desdemona was very ;

imprudent in interceding for Cassio and that ;

for

Cordelia to bring a French army' into

it

was treasonable England! The

Greek drama might have supplied Aristotle with several deci-

He

sive contradictions of his canons.

the Prometheus, the Antigone, in proportion to the

The

should have seen that

and the Hippolytus are

affecting

pre-eminent virtue of their protagonists.

further fallacy of excluding very guilty characters

course, III.,

is,

of

most decisively refuted by Shakspeare, whose Richard

whose lago, and whose Macbeth excite keen

interest

by

with extraordinary

their association of extraordinary villainy intellectual gifts.

So

far Aristotle gives us a

tional

view of the drama.

there

was a moral element

show, as against Plato, that

The

on the audience.

purely superficial and sensa-

Yet he could not help seeing that and he was anxious to

in tragedy,

exercised an improving effect

it

result is his

Catharsis, so long misunderstood,

even now. (or

The

object of Tragedy, he tells us,

is

to purify

purge away) pity and terror by means of those emotions

themselves.

The

Poetics

an explanation of critics

on the

subject,

Aristotle did not mean.

which

seems originally to have contained

this mysterious utterance,

now

lost,

and

have endeavoured to supply the gap by writing eighty

treatises

is

famous theory of the

and not certainly understood

is

TheresulthasbeenatleasttoshowWhat

The popular

version of his dictum,

that tragedy purges the passions

clearly inconsistent with the

by pity and

terror,

wording of the original

text.

Pity and terror are both the object and the instrument of purification.

Nor yet does he mean,

X

as

was once supposed,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

3o6

emoti&ns

of these

that each

is"

counterbalance

to

and

would imply that they an opposed to one another, whereas in the Rhetoric he speak; while a parallel passage in the of them as being akin moderate the other

for this

;

;

Politics

'

shows him to have believed that the passions an

susceptible of homoeopathic treatment.

he

tells us, is

Violent enthusiasm

by a

to be soothed and carried off

strain

which are to be dealt with by tragic poetry?

terror

apparently, from the piece

new

with a

disease,

itself,

To judge from

Politics already referred to,

are always present in the

surface,

could dc

the passage in the

all,

that tragedy brings

is,

feeling.

terroi

to a certain extent

and enables them to be thrown

paniment of pleasurable

it,

he believes that pity and

minds of

and the theory apparently

Not

for to inoculate the patient

merely for the sake of curing

him no imaginable good.

o:

But whence come the pity anc

exciting, impassioned music.

ofif

Now, of

them

to the

with an accom-

course,

we have

a

constant capacity for experiencing every passion to which

human

nature

is

liable

;

but to say that in the absence of

its

we are ever perceptibly and by any passion, is to assert what is nol true of any sane mind. And, even were it so, were we constantly haunted by vague presentiments of evil to ourselves

appropriate external stimulus painfully affected

or others, tipns

anything but clear that

fictitious

representa-

of calamity would be the appropriate means

for enabling

it is

,

us to get rid of them.

Zeller explains that

it

is

the insighl

into universal laws controlling our destiny, the association

ol

misfortune with a divine justice, which, according to Aristotle,

produces the purifying tion of pity tual

and

framework

events, the

terror,

in

effect

^

but this would be the purga-

which they are

set,

intellec-

the concatenation

ol

workings of character, or the reference of every-

thing to an eternal

cause.

explanation of the moral '

;

not by themselves, but by the

The effect,

Pol., VIII., vii., p. 1342, a, lo."

truth

is

produced «

that

Aristotle's

by tragedy

Zeller, p. 780L

is

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. irrational,

because his whole conception of tragedy

The emotions

taken. terror

and

307

pity,

excited

by

its

is

mis-

highest forms are not

but admiration and love, which, in their ideal

exercise, afe too holy for purification, too high for restriction,

and top delightful

for relief.

Before parting with the Poetics

we must add

that

it

contains one excellent piece of ad-vice to dramatists, which

is,

to imagine themselves present at the scenes

which they are

supposing to happen, and also at the representation of their

own

This, however,

play.

an exception which proves the

exclusively theoretic standpoint herCj as

rule, for Aristotle's

will

is

sometimes happen, coincides with the truly practical

standpoint.

A somewhat similar observation soning, which

together

Organon.

all

it

applies to the art of rea-

would be possible to compile by bringing

the rules on the subject, scattered through the Aristotle has discovered

and formulated every

canon of theoretical consistency, and every tical

debate, with an industry

too highly extolled

;

and

artifice

of dialec-

and acuteness which cannot be

his labours in this direction

have

perhaps contributed more than those of any other single Tvriter to

the intellectual stimulation of after ages

but the

;

kind of genius requisit-e for such a task was speculative rather

than practical

;

there was no experience of

human

nature in

concrete manifestations, no prevision of real consequences

its

involved.

Such a code might

be,

and probably Was

great extent, abstracted from the Platonic dialogues

;

to a

but to

work up the processes of thought into a series of dramatic contests, carried on between living individuals, as Plato has done, required a vivid perception and grasp of realities which, and not any poetical mysticisni,

is

what

positively

distin-

guishes a Platonist from an Aristotelian.' As an illustration of the stimulating effect produced by the study of Aristotle's we quote the following anecdote from Uie notes to Whately's edition of Bacon's Essays :— The late Sir Alexander Johnstone, when acting as temporary '

logic,

'

Governor of Ceylon (soon

after its cession), sat

X 2

once as judge

in

a

trial

of a prisoner

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS,

3o8

V.

But

if

had not

Aristotle

his

practical reforms, nor his master's

by which humanity

raised to a higher

is

enthusiasm

master's

command

of

life,

all

he had, more

even than his master, the Greek passion for knowledge such, apart from

its

utilitarian applications,

foi

the force;

as

and embracing

in its vast orb the lowliest things with the loftiest, the mosi

fragmentary glimpses and the largest revelations of

He demanded

truth,

nothing but the materials for generalisation

and there was nothing from which he could not generalise There was a place for everything within the limits of his Never

world-wide system.

any human

soul did the

and the evidence seemed to him so conclusive, that he (who were native Cingalese) to find a verdict oi guilty. But one of the jurors asked and obtained permission to examine the He had them brought in one by one, and cross-examined witnesses himself. them so ably as to elicit the fact that they were themselves the perpetrators of the crime, which they afterwards had conspired to impute to the prisoner. And thej were accordingly put on their trial and convictfed. Sir Alexander Johnstone was greatly struck by the intelligence displayed by this juror, the more so as he was only a small farmer, who was not known to have had any remarkable advantages of education. He sent for him, and after commending the wonderful sagaoity he had shown, inquired eagerly what his studies had been. The man replied that he had never read but one book, the only one he possessed, which had long been in his family, and which he delighted to study in his leisure hours. This book he was prevailed on to show to Sir Alexander Johnstone, who put it into the hands of one who knew the Cingalese language. It turned out to be a translation intc for a robbery

was about

and murder

in

;

to charge the jury

language of a large portion of Aristotle's Organon. It appeare that the when they first settled in Ceylon and other parts of the East, translated into the native languages several of the works then studied in the European Universities, among which were the Latin versions of Aristotle. The Cingalese in question said that if his understanding had been in any degree cultivated and that

Portuguese,

book

he owed it. It is likely, however (as was observed Bishop Copleston), that any other book, containing an equal amount of close reasoning and accurate definition, might have answered the same purpose in sharpening the intellect of the Cingalese.' Possibly, but nol improved, to

me

to the

it

was to

that

[Whately] by the

same

What

effect.

that

late

the Cingalese got into his hands was a

triple-distille(!

The cross-examining elenchus was firsi essence of Athenian legal procedure. borrowed by Socrates from the Athenian courts and applied to philosophica purposes rules its

by

;

it

was

Aristotle

still ;

further elaborated

so that in using it^as

original purposes.

by

Plato, and finally reduced to abstraci he did the juror was only jrestoring It tc

:

'

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. Iheorising passion

Under

flame.

its

bum

with so clear and bright and pure a

more than once Breaks

inspiration his stjile

into a strain of sublime,

309

though simple and rugged eloquence.

Speaking of that eternal thought which, according to him, constitutes the divine essence,

he exclaims

On

this principle the heavens and Nature hang. This is that best which we possess during a brief period only, for there it is so always, which with us is impossible. And its activity is pure plealife

sure

;

wherefore waking, feeling, and thinking, are the most pleasure-

able states,

of

on account of which hope and memory exist .... And theorising is the most delightful and the best, so

activities

all

that if

God

moments,

we have in our highest more wonderful if he has more.

always has such happiness as

it is

wonderful, and

Agairi, he tells us that

still

—

If happiness consists in the appropriate exercise of

our

vital func-

then the highest happiness must result from the highest activity,

tions,

whether we choose to

call that reason or anything else which is the and guiding principle within us, and through which we form our conceptions of what is noble and divine ; and whether this be in-

ruling

or only the divinest thing in us,

trinsically divine,

appropriate

its

must be perfect happiness. Now this, which we call the theoretic activity, must be the mightiest ; for reason is supreme in our souls and supreme over the objects which it cognises ; and it is activity

also the

most continuous,

for of all activities tlieorising

is

that

which

can be most uninterruptedly carried on. Again, we think that some pleasure ought to be mingled with happiness ; if so, of all our proper activities philosophy is confessedly the most pleasurable, the enjoyments afforded by it being wonderfully pure and steady; for the

who

existence of those

more all

are in possession of knowledge

delightful than the existence of those

virtues

this is the

every other virtue

it

most

self-sufficing

;

is

naturally

who merely seek

for while in

it.

Of

common

with

presupposes the indispensable conditions of

life,

and temperance and courage, need human objects for its exercise theorising may go on in perfect solitude ; for the co-operation of other men, though helpful, is not wisdom does

not, like justice

;

absolutely necessary to for

some end

its activity.

All other pursuits are exercised

lying, outside themselves 1

Metapk, XII.,

vii.,

;

war

entirely for the sake of

p. 1072, b, 13.

— THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

310

peace, and statesmanship in great part for the sake of honour and power ; but theorising yields no extraneous profit great or small, and is

loved for

itself alone.

then, the energising of pure reason rises

If,

above such noble careers as war and statesmanship by its independence, by its inherent delightfulness, and, so far as human frailty will

must constitute perfect human more than human, and man can only partake of it through the divine principle within him ; wherefore let us not listen to those who tell us that we should have no interests except what are human and mortal like ourselves ; but so far as may be put on immortality, and bend all our efforts towards living up to

permit,

by

happiness

;

its

untiring vigour, this

or rather such a

life is

that element of our nature which, though small in compass,

is

in

power and preciousness supreme.'

for

Let us now see how he carries this passionate enthusiasm knowledge into the humblest researches of zoology ;

Among

natural objects,

some

exist

unchanged through

The former

while others are generated and decay,

glorious, but being comparatively inaccessible to our

servation, far less is

known

of them than

all eternity,

are divinely

means of ob-

we could wish

;

while

and animals offer abundant opportunities of study to us who live under the same conditions with them. Each science has a charm of its own. For knowledge of the heavenly bodies

perishable plants

is

all

so sublime a thing that even a earthly science put together

little

of

it is

niore delightful than

just as the smallest glimpse of a

is more delightful than the fullest and nearest revelaof ordinary objects; while, on the other hand, where there

beloved beauty tion

are greater facilities for observation, sciente can be carried much further ; and our closer kinship with the creatures of earth is some compensation for the interest felt in that philosophy which deals with

Wherefore, in our discussions on living beings we shall, so far as possible, pass over nothing, whether it rank high or low in the scale of estimation. For even such pf them as displease the

the divine.

when viewed with the eye of reason as wonderful works of Nature afford an inexpressible pleasure to those who can enter senses,

philosophically into the causes of things.

For, surely, it wonld be absurd and irrational to look with delight at the images of such objects on account of our interest in the pictorial or plastic skiD

which they

exhibit, '

and not

Eth. Nic, X.,

to take yii.

still

greater pleasure in a scien-

(somewhat condensed).

CHARACTERISTICS explanation of the

tific

realities,

OF,

ARISTOTLE.

We

themselves.

3"

ought not then to

shrink with childish disgust from an examination of the lower animals, for there is

may

something wonderful in

repeat what Heracleitus

is

all

tlffe

works of Nature

;

and we

reported to have said to certain

who had come to visit him, but hung back at the door when they saw him warming himself before a fire, bidding them come in boldly, for that there also there were gods not allowing ourselves to call any creature common or unclean, because there is a kind of natural beauty about them all. For, if anywhere, there is a pervading purpose in the works of Nature, and the realisation of this purpose is the beauty of the thing. But if anyone should look with contempt on the scientific examination of the lower animals, he must have the same opinion about himself; for the strangers

j

repugnance

is felt in Iboking at the parts of which the composed, such as blood, muscles, bones, veins, and the like.' Similarly, in discussing any part or organ we should consider that it is not for the matter of which it consists that we care, but for the whole form ; just as in talking about a house it is not bricks and mortar and wood that we mean ; and so the theory of

greatest

human body

is

Nature deals with the essential structure of objects, not with the elements which, apart from that structure, would have no existence at all.'

It is well

for the reputation of Aristotle that

h« could

apply himself with such devotion to the arduous and, in his tinie,

inglorious researches of natural history

anatomy, since

made any

real

it

was only

in those

departments that he

to physical

contributions

and comparative science.

In the

which were to him the noblest and most entrancing of any, his speculations are one long record of wearisome, studies

hopeless,

practice

ance at

unqualified

delusion.

and the philosophy of all,

in the

art,

If,

in

the

philosophy of

he afforded no real guid-

philosophy of Nature his guidance has

was not acquainted at first hand with But Sir A. Grant is hardly justified in observing that the words quoted above ' do not show the hardihood of the practised dissecter ' (AristQtle, p. 3). Aristotle simply takes the popular point of view in order to prove that the internal structure of the lower animals is no more offensive to the eye than that of man. And, as he took so much delight in the former, nothing but want of opportunity is likely to have prevented him from extending his researches to '

It is perfectly possible that Aristotle

human anatomy.

the latter.

'

DeParl. AH.,h

v.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

312

men

always led

fatally

astray.

So

observation extended, there was

as his

far

means of

nothing that he did not

attempt to explain, and in every single instance he was He has written about the general laws of matter and

wrong.

motion, astronomy, chemistry, meteorology, and physiology,

made more blunders on human being ever made before or

with the result that he has probably those subjects than any

And,

after him. his

unbroken

if

there

infelicity

is

one thing more astounding than

of speculation,

it is

the imperturbable

self-confidence with which he puts forward his fallacies as

demonstrated

scientific

Had

certainties.

he been

right,

it

was no slight or partial glimpses of the beloved that would have been vouchsafed him, but the fullest and nearest revelation of her beauties. But the more he looked the less '

'

'

'

he saw. Instead of drawing aside he only thickened and darkened the veils of sense which obscured her, by mistaking

them for the glorious forms that lay concealed beneath. Modern admirers of Aristotle labour to prove that his errors were inevitable, and belonged more to his age than to hjmsplf that without the mechanical appliances of modern times science could not be cultivated with any hope of success. But what are we to say when we find that on one point after another the true explanation had already been surmised by ;

Aristotle's predecessors or contemporaries, only to fully rejected

by

Aristotle himself.'

be scorn-

Their hypotheses

may

often have been very imperfect,

and supported by insufficient evidence but it must have been something more than chance which always led him wrong when they were so often right. ;

To it

begin with, the infinity of space

is

not even now, nor will

ever be, established by improved instruments of observation

and measurement

deduced by a very simple process of reasoning, of which Democritus and others were capable, ;

it is

while Aristotle apparently was not.

because tions

it is

and

He

rejects the idea

inconsistent with certain very arbitrary assump-

definitions of his own,

whereas he should Jiave

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

3'3

.

them because they were

rejected

inconsistent with

further rejects the idea of a vacuum,

and with

it

it.

He

the atomic

theory, entirely on d priori grounds, although, even in the

then existing state of knowledge, atomism explained various

phenomena

in a perfectly rational

manner which he could It had

only explain by unmeaning or nonsensical phrases.'

been already maintained, in his time, that the apparent

movements of the heavenly bodies were due of the earth on

own

its

how

theory one can imagine

We

been extolled. of

it

Had

axis.^

to the rotation

Aristotle accepted this

highly his sagacity would have

may, therefore,

fairly

take his rejection

as a proof of blind adherence to old-fashioned opinions.

When

he argues that none of the heavenly bodies rotate,

because

we can

see that the

her always turning the

moon does

same

not, as

is

evident from

side to us,' nothing

is

needed

but the simplest mathematics to demonstrate the fallacy of his reasoning.

Others had surmised that the Milky Way was

a collection of 'stars, and that comets were bodies of the same nature as planets.

Aristotle

is

satisfied that

ances like meteors, and the aurora borealis friction

A

both are appear-

—caused

by the

of our atmosphere against the solid aether above

similar origin

is

it,

ascribed to the heat and light derived

from the sun and stars

;

for

it

would be derogatory to the

dignity of those luminaries to suppose, with Anaxagoras, that

they are formed of anything so familiar and perishable as fire.

On

the contrary, they consist of pure aether like the

spheres on which they are fixed as protuberances

'

'

Compare the arguments in Phys., IV., ix. The hypothesis of the earth's diurnal rotation had

clearly

;

though

been suggested by

a celebrated passage in Plato's Timaetis, though whether Plato himself held it is still doubtiiil. That he accepted the revolution of the celestial spheres is absolutely certain ; but while to our niii.ds the two beliefs are mutually exclusive, Grote thinks that Plato overlooked the inconsistency. It seems probable that the one was at first actually a generalisation firom the other ; it was thought that the earth

must revolve because the accidentally struck out, "

De

crystal spheres revolved

was used

;

then, the

to destroy the old one.

Coel., II., viii., 290, a, 26.

new

doctrine, thus

;

THE CREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

314

how such an arrangement can

co-exist with absolute contact

between each sphere and that next below it, or how the effects of friction could be transmitted through such enormous thicknesses of solid crystal,

transmission declares

On

it

By a happy

unexplained.'

is left

of Roemer, Empedocles conjectured that the

anticipation

of

occupied a certain time

light

:

Aristotle

to be instantaneous.^

passing to terrestrial physics,

we

find that Aristotle

is,

as usual, the dupe of superficial appearances, against which other thinkers were on their guard.

moved

up,

he assumed that

tendency towards the

opposed to

The

earth,

Seeing that

did so

it

by

fire

circumference of the

universe,

which always moved towards the

atomists erroneously held

downwards through

that all

infinite space,

always

virtue of a natural as

centre.

matter gravitated

but correctly explained the

by the pressure of surrounding

ascent of heated particles

matter, in accordance, most probably, with the analogy of floating bodies.^

Chemistry as a science

is,'

of course, an

modern creation, but the first approach to it was made by Democritus, while no ancient philosopher stood entirely

from

farther

essential

its

than

principles

Aristotle.

He

analyses bodies, not into their material elements, but into the

sensuous qualities, hot and cold, wet and dry, between which

he supposes the underlying substance to be perpetually

oscil-

would make any

fixed

lating

a theory which,

;

if it

were

true,

laws of nature impossible. It

might have been expected

that,

on reaching physiology,

the Stagirite would stand on firmer ground than any of his contemporaries.

Such, however,

is

not the case.

As already

observed, his achieveia^ts belong entirely to the dominion

of anatomy and descriptive zoology.

economy of the animal body

is,

'

ZfUer, p. 469. "

'

De

Coel.~,

I.,

internal

according to him, designed

and moderating the

for the purpose of creating '

The whole

viii.,

De

vital heat

Sens., vi., 446, a, 26,

277, b,

2.

a

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. a'nd in is

3'S

apportioning their functions to the different organs he

entirely

common

dominated by

notion

among

this fundgjnental error.

obvious considerations, that the brain

It

by

the Greeks, suggested

was a

sufficiently

the seat of the

is

These, however, Aristotle transports to

psychic activities.

the heart, which, in his system, not only propels the blood

through the body, but centre

where the

is

also the source of heat, the

different

special

common

meet

sensations

to be

compared, and the organ of imagination and of passion. sole function of the brain is

purpose which the lungs believe that air

is

;

is

The

the blood

Some

subserve.

also

a kind of food, and

feed the internal fire

down

cool

to

—

persons

inhaled in order to

but their theory would involve the

all animals breathe, for all have Anaxagoras and Diogenes did, indeed, make assertion, and the latter even went so far as to say that

absurd consequence that

some that

heat.

fish breathe,

with their

gills,

absorbing the

by the water passed through them Aristotle,

—a

air

held in solution

misapprehension, says

which arose from not having studied the

of respiration.'

final

cause

His physiological theory of generation

is

In accordance with his metaphysical

equally unfortunate.

system, hereafter to be

explained, he

distinguishes

two

elements in the reproductive process, of which one, that con-

by the male, is exclusively formative and the other, by the female, exclusively material. The prevalent opinion was evidently, what we know now to be true, that each parent has both a formative and a material

tributed tjiat

;

contributed

share in the composition of the embryo.

Again, Aristotle,

Strangely enough, regards the generative element in both

sexes as an unappropriated portion of the animal's nutriment, the last and most refined product of digestion, and therefore not

a portion

of the parental system at

all

;

while other

biologists, anticipating Mr. Darwin's theory of pangenesis in a very wonderful manner, taught that the semen is a con, .'

De

Respir.,

i.

and

ii.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

3i6

flux of molecules derived from every part of the body,

and

thus strove to account for the hereditary transmission of individual peculiarities to offspring.'

All these, however, are mere questions of

It is

detail.

on

a subject of the profoundest philosophical importance that Aristotle differs

most consciously, most

from his predecessors.

fatally

radically,

They were

and most

evolutionists,

and

They were mechanicists, and he was They were uniformitarians, and he was a dualist. It is true that, as we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Mr. Edwin Wallace makes him recognise the genesis

he was a

stationarist.

a teleologist.

'

of things

by evolutioq and development,' but the meaning of

phrase requires to be cleared up.

this

course,

The

almost an identical proposition.

things must be

great question

only have

all

existing

it

is,

of

genesis of

by genesis of some kind or other. The what things have been evolved, and how

is,

have they been evolved

now

In one sense

Modem

?

science tells us, that not

particular aggregates of matter

come

and motion

into being within a finite period of time,

but also that the specific types under which aggregates have equally been generated

;

we arrange

those

and that

their

characteristics, whether structural or functional, can only be

understood by tracing out their origin and history. further teaches result

us

And

it

that the properties of every aggregate^

from the properties of its ultimate elements, which, within

the limits of our experience, remain absolutely unchanged.

Now,

He

Aristotle taught very nearly the contrary of all

we now know it, had existed,; unchanged through all eternity. and stars, together with the orbs

believed that the cosmos, as

and would continue to

The

this.

sun,

moon,

exist,

planets,

containing them, are composed of an absolutely ungenerable, incorruptible

sphere,

occupied

its

The

substance.

though

liable

to

earth,

superficial

a cold, heavy, solid changes, has

always,

present position in the centre of the universe,'

De

Gen. An.,

I., xvii.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. The

forms of animal

specific

life

—have,

produced spontaneously

3'7

—except

a few which are manner, been pre-

in Jjke

served unaltered through an infinite series of generations.

Man

the

shares

common

lot There is no continuous Every invention and discovery has

progress of civilisation.

made and

been

an

lost

infinite

number of

times.

Our

philosopher could not, of course, deny that individual living things

come

but he

insists that their

by

into existence

and gradually grow to maturity \

formation

is

teleologically determined

He

the parental type which they are striving to realise.

asks whether grows, or

we should study a

by examining

its

thing

by examining how

completed form

:

it

and Mr. Wallace

quotes the question without quoting the answer.'

Aristotle

method was followed by his predecessors, but that the other method is his. And he goes on # to censure Empedocles for saying that many things in the animal body are due simply to mechanical causation for

.tells

us that the genetic

;

example, the segmented structure of the backbone, which that philosopher attributes to continued doubling

jng-^the very same explanation,

given of

it

by a modern

we

believe, that

evolutionist.^

—that

is

twist-

would be

Finally, Aristotle

assumes the only sort of transformation which

which Democritus equally denied

and

we

deny, and

to say. the trans-

formation of the ultimate elements into one another by the oscillation

an

of

indeterminate matter between opposite

qualities. '

Outlines, p. 30.

'

There

a passage in the

Politics (I., ii., sub. in.) in which Aristotle dismethod of studying things by observing how they are first produced, and how they grow ; but this is quite inconsistent with the more deliberate opinion referred to in the text {De Part. An., I., i., p. 640, a, 10). Perhaps, in writing the first book of the Politics he was more immediately under the is

tinctly inculcates the

influence of Plato, in theory.

who

preferred the old genetic ihethod in practice, though not

3

;; ;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

31

VI.

The

truth

is

most powerful an

that while our philosopher

had one of the

by any man,

ever possessed

iiitellects

intellect strictly limited to the surface of things.

utterly

incapable of divining the hidden forces

it

was

He

was

by which

and human society are moved. He had neither the genius which can reconstruct the past, nor the genius which partly moulds, partly foretells the future. inorganic nature and

life

But wherever he has to observe or to

report, to

enumerate or

to analyse, to describe or to define, to classify or to compare

and whatever be the or an elephant

;

subject, a mollusc or a

mammal, a mouse

the structure and habits of wild animals

the different stages in the development of an embryo bird

;

the variations of ^ single organ or function through the entire zoological series

laws

the

of

mental

virtuous character

;

the hierarchy of intellectual faculties

;

association

the

;

the ideals of friendship

members of a household

;

types

specific

the relation of equity to law

of reason to impulse

possible

;

;

;

;

of

the relation

the different

the different orders in a State

;

the

variations of political constitutions, or within the

same constitution the elements of dramatic or epic poetry the modes of predication the principles of definition, classithe different systems of fication, judgment, and reasoning ;

;

;

philosophy

;

all varieties

sources of conviction

;

of passion,

all

motives to action,

all

—there we find an enormous accumula-

tion of knowledge, an unwearied patience of research, a sweep

of comprehension, a subtlety of discrimination, an accuracy of statement, an impartiality of decision, and an all-absorbing

enthusiasm for science, which,

supreme little

way below

It

if

they do not raise him to the

level of creative genius, entitle

him

to rank a very

it.

was natural that one who ranged with such consummate

mastery over the whole world of apparent believe in no

other reality

;

that for

him

reality,

should

truth should only

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. mean the

systematisatiori of sense

The

and of thought. his

visible order

3'?

and language, of opinion, nature was present to

^

imagination in such precise determination and fulness of

any attempt he might have made to

detail that

it

conceive

under a different form.

it

resisted

Each of

his conclusions

was supported by analogies from every other department of he carried the peculiar limitations of his

enquiry, because

thinking faculty with sciously

him wherever he

accommodated every subject

The

they imposed.

to

and unconthe framework which turned,

clearness of his ideas necessitated the use

of sharply-drawn distinctions, which prevented the free play

of generalisation and fruitful interchange of principles between

And we shall have occasion to show when he attempted to combine rival theories, was done by placing them in juxtaposition rather than by

the different sciences. hereafter, that, it

Again, with his vivid perceptions,

mutual interpenetration. it

was impossible

for

him

to believe in the justification of

method claiming to supersede, or even to supplement,

Hence he was hardly

authority.

less

any

their

opposed to the atomism

of Democritus than to the scepticism of Protagoras or the

Hence,

idealism of Plato.

also, his dislike for all

explanations

which assumed that there were hidden processes at work below the surface of things, even taking surface in

Thus,

literal sense. is salt,

he

will

in discussing the question

its

why

most

the sea

not accept the theory that rivers dissolve out

the salt from the strata through which they pass, and carry

down

to the sea, because river-water tastes fresh

pounds

in

its

;

it

and pro-

stead the utterly false hypothesis of a dry

saline evaporation

from the earth's surface, which he supposes

Even in his own especial province of natural history the same tendency leads him astray. He asserts that the spider throws off its web from the surface of its body like a skin, instead of evolving it from The same thinker had within, as Democritus had taught."'' to be

'

swept seawards by the wind.'

Meteor., II.,

iii.,

3S7,

a,

15

ff.

«

Hist. An., IX., xxxix.,

subfn.

320

THE

endeavoured

to

GTiEElC PHILOSOPHERS.

by

prove

that the

reasoning

analogical

invertebrate animals must have viscera, and that only their

extreme minuteness prevents us from perceiving them a view which his successor will not admit' In fact, wherever ;

the line between the visible and the invisible Aristotle's

powers are suddenly paralysed, as

crossed,

is

by enchant-

if

ment.

Another circumstance which led Aristotle to disregard the happy aper9us of earlier philosophers was his vast

them

superiority to

to

him that

because

its

in positive

their sagacity

exercise

was

knowledge.

It

never occurred

might be greater than

less

his, precisely

impeded by the labour of acquir-

ing and retaining such immense masses of irrelevant

And

his confidence

was

still

further enhanced

by the

facts.

convic-

tion that all previous systems were absorbed into his own, their

scattered truths co-ordinated, their aberrations corrected, and their discords reconciled.

But

in striking

a general average

of existing philosophies, he was in reality bringing them back to that

anonymous philosophy which

language and the minds of intellectual

common men with

master,

it

is

And

opinion.

embodied if

in

common

he afterwards ruled

a more despotic sway than any other

was because he gave an organised

expression to the principle of authority, which,

if it

would stereotype and perpetuate the existing type of

could,

civilisa-

tion for all time.

Here, then, are three main points of distinction between

our philosbpher and his precursors, the advantage being, so far,

entirely

on

their

side.

He

did not, like the Ionian

physiologists, anticipate in outline our theories of evolution.

He

held that the cosmos had always been,

necessity, arranged

in

tions never changing

balance

;

the earth

distributed

;

De

manner

;

by the

strictest

the starry revolu^

the four elements preserving a constant

always solid

according '

the same

to

their

;

land and water always

present proportions

Part. An., III.,

iv.,

sub m.

;

living

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE. species transmitting the infinite series

thi'ough an

same unalterable type

the h^iman race enjoying an from time to time losing all its conquests

of generations

eternal duration, but in

Iflt

;

some great physical catastrophe, and obliged

to begin over

again with the depressing consciousness that nothing could

be devised which had not been thought of an of times already

and

infiinite

number

the existing distinctions between Hellenes

;

masters

barbarians,

and

men and women,

slaves,

He

grounded on everlasting necessities of nature.

did not,

Democritus, distinguish between objective and subjective

like

properties of matter infinity

;

nor admit that void space extends to

round the starry sphere, and honeycombs the objects

which seem most incompressible and continuous to our senses.

He

did not hope, like Socrates, for the regeneration of. the

individual, nor, like Elato, for the regeneration of the race,

enlightened thought. her high function, first

opened, were

It

seemed

as

by

Philosophy, abdicating

if

and obstructing the paths which she had

now

content to systematise the forces of

and despair. under which Aristotle thought were

prejudice, blindness, immobility,

For the

restrictions

not determined

by

they followed on and would have im-

his personality alone

the logical development of speculation,

;

posed themselves on any other thinker equally capable of carrying that development to

its

predetermined" goal.

The

Ionian search for a primary cause and substance of nature led to the distinction,

made almost

opposite joints of view, by

between appearance and

simultaneously, although from Parmenides and Heracleitus,-

reality.

From

that

distinction

sprang the idea of mind, organised by Socrates into a systematic study of ethics and dialectics.

Time and

space, the

necessary conditions of physical causality, were eliminated

from a method having for difference

and resemblance,

of humanity.

things

its

form the eternal relations of

for its matter the present interests

Socrates taught that before enquiring whence

come we must

first

determine what

V

it

is

they are.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

322

Hence he reduced

science to the framing of exact definitions

same

Plato followed on the

track,

and refused to answer

i

single question about anything until the subject of investigation

had been

But the form of causatior

clearly determined.

had taken such a powerful hold on Greek thought, that could not be immediately shaken off and Plato, as he devoted more and more attention to the material universe, saw him-

i)

;

self compelled, like the older philosophers, to explain its con-

struction

by

tracing out the history of

its

growth.

What

even more significant, he applied the same method to

and

politics,

finding

and types of

easier to describe

it

how

is

ethics

the various

union came into existenee, than

tci

analyse and classify them as fixed ideas without reference

tc

virtues

time.

social

Again, while taking up the Eleatic antithesis of

and appearance, and

re-interpreting

noumena and phenomena, matter, he was impelled by self,

as a distinction between

ideas and sensations, spirit and

the necessity of explaining him-

and by the actual limitations of experience to

the two opposing series, superficial

images as a

if

or,

And

assimilate

at least, to view the fleeting,

reflection

which they concealed. as

it

reality

of

and adumbration of the being all

material objects, it seemed

the heavenly bodies, with their orderly, unchanging

movements, their clear

brilliant light,

and

their remoteness

from earthly impurities, best represented the philosopher's ideal.

Thus, Plato, while on the one side he reaches back

to

the pre-Socratic age, on the other reaches forward to the Aristotelian system.

Nor was

this all.

As

the world of sense was coming back

into favour, the world of reason

was

falling into disrepute.

Just as the old physical philosophy had been decomposed by the

Sophisticism of Protagoras and Gorgias, so also the

dialectic

of Socrates wa,s corrupted

Eubulides and Euthyd^mus.

into

the sophistry

of

Plato himself discovered that

by reasoning deductively from purely

abstract premises, con-

tradictory conclusions could be established with apparently

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARIST6TLE. equal force.

It

was

difficult to

323

see htiw a decision Could be

by appealing to the Jpstimony of sense. And a moral reform could hardly be effected except by similarly arrived at except

taking into account the existing beliefs and customs of mankind.

we

It is possible,

think, to trace a similar evolution in the

The

of the Attic drama.

history

tragedies of Aeschylus

resemble the old Ionian philosophy ih

thfa,

that they are

with material imagery, and that they deal with remote

filled

remote times, and remote places.

interests,

Sophocles with-

draws his action into the subjective sphere, and simultaneously

works out a pervading contrast between the illusions by which

men

are either lulled to false security or racked with needless

anguish, and the terrible finally

We

awaken.

oi"

have

consolatory reality to which they, his

also, in

wellrknown irony,

in

the unconscious self-betrayal of hi^ characters, that subtle

evanescent allusiveness to a hidden truth, that gleaming of

through

reality

dialectic,

which

appearance

constitutes,

the

first

then the mythical illustrationj and finally the physics In Aeschylus also

of Plato.

we have

the spectacle of sudden

and violent vicissitudes, the abasement of insolent prosperity,

and the punishment of lohg successful crime

most

the characters which attract victims,

;

only with him

interest are not the blind

—

but the accomplices or the confidants of destiny

the»,

great figures of a Prometheus, a Darius, an Eteocles, a Cly-

temnestra, and a Cassandra, level to

unfolded to their gaze. leading actors

in

Electra, Dejanira, forces

his

*

it is

own

if

characteristic works,

the

designs.'

first

The

Oedipus,

;

moving

they help to work out their own

unconsciously, or even in direct opposition to

Hence

This characterisation applies

ColSnus,

common

Far otherwise with Sophocles.

most

which they can neither control nor understand

destinies their

are raised above the

Ajax, and Philoctetes, are surrounded by

a world of illusion,

in

who

an eminence where the secrets of past and future are

and the

in

Aeschylus we have something Antigone nor to the Oedipus in dramas of Sophocles." The reason is

neitlier to the

last extant

Y

2

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

324 like

that superb self-confidence which distinguishes a Par-

menides and a Heracleitus in Sophocles that confession of human ignorance which the Athenian philosophers made on ;

their

own

mode

of thought,

which characterises Aristotle. dance of mystery religious

from others.

behalf, or strove to extract

introduces us to another

Euripides

more akin

For, although there

to that

is

abun-

has not the profound

in his tragedies, it

significance of the Sophoclean irony

he uses

;

it

rather for romantic and sentimental purposes, for the construction of an intricate plot, or for the creation of pathetic

His whole power

situations.

thrown into the immediate

is

and detailed representation of living roundings in which into

its

historical

it

is

passion,

and of the

sur-

displayed, without going far back

antecedents

like

Aeschylus,

Sophocles, into the divine purposes which underlie

or, it.

like

On

the other hand, as a Greek writer could not be other than philosophical, he uses particular incidents as an occasion for

wide generalisations and

dialectical discussions

these,

;

and

not the idea of justice or of destiny, being the pedestal on

which

his figures are set.

And

it

may

be noticed as another

curious coincidence that, like Aristotle again, he

is

disposed

to criticise his predecessors, or at least one of them, Aeschylus,

with some degree of asperity.

The critical tendency just alluded to suggests one more why philosophy, from having been a method of dis-

reason

covery, should at last

and arrangement.

become a mere method of

The

materials

description

accumulated by nearly

three centuries of observation and reasoning were so enormous that they began to

was any opening

stifle

the imaginative faculty.

for originality

it

order into this chaos by reducing

by mapping out the whole

field

If there

lay in the task of carrying it

tq a few general heads,

of knowledge,

and subjecting

each particular branch to the new-found processes of definition that the one

Euripides.

is

still

half Aeschylean, and the other distinctly an imitation of

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

And

and

classification.

new

theories there arose a desire to diminish the

325

along with the incapacity for framing

those already existing, to frame,

if

possible,

number of

a system which

should select and combine whatever was good in

any or

all

of them.

VII.

was the revolution

This, then,

by

effected

he found Greek thought in the form of a into a surface of the

and extension.

Aristotle, that

solid,

and unrolled

utmost possible tenuity, transparency,

In so doing, he completed what Socrates and

Plato had begun, he paralleled the course already described

by Greek poetry, and he offered the since then has

first

more than once recurred

example of what the history of

in

was thus that the residual substance of Locke and Berkeley was resolved into phenomenal succession by Hume. It was thus that the unexplained reality of Kant and Fichte was drawn out into a play of logical relations by Hegel. And, if we may venture on a forecast of the future philosophy.

It

towards which speculation

agnostics in our

who wish

is

now

advancing,

it

on human knowledge by

the limits imposed

own

is

thus that

positivists

and

day, are yielding to the criticism of those

to establish either a perfect identity or a perfect

equation between consciousness and being.

This

is

the posi-

France by M. Taine, a thinker offering many points of resemblance to Aristotle, which it would be tion represented in

interesting to

work out had we space

at our

command

for the

The forces which are now guiding English phipurpose. losophy in an analogous direction have hitherto escaped observation on account of their disunion

among

themselves,

and their intermixture with others of a different character.

But on the whole we may say that the philosophy of Mill and his school

corresponds very nearly in

to Plato's teaching

;

that Mr.

its

practical idealism

Herbert Spencer approaches

—

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

326

of theorisitig systematisation, whilq

Aristotle on the side

sharing to a more

extent

limited

realism which accompfinied

political

metaphysical

the it

and

that Lewes was

;

same transformation a step further in his unProblems finished of Life and Mini^\ thfit the philosophy of Mr. Shadworth Hodgson is marked by the same spirit of carrying the

actuality,

though not without a yista qf multitudinous pos-

sibilities in

the background

;

that the Neo-Hegelian school

what their master did in and that the lamented Professor Clifford had already given promise of one more great attempt to widen the

are trying to do over again for us

Germany

;

area of our possible experience into co-extension with the

whole domain of Nature.'

The

systematising power of Aristotle, his faculty for bring-

ing the isolated parts of a surface into co-ordination and con-

apparent even in those sciences with whose material

tinuity, is

truths he

was

Apart from the

utterly unacquainted.

falseness

of their fundamental assumptions, his scientific treatises are, for their time, masterpieces of far surpass his

method.

Jn this respect they

moral and metaphysical works, and they are

also written in a

much more

He

rising into eloquence.

vigorous style, occasionally even

evidently

move^ with much more

assurance on the solid ground of external nature than in the

cloudland of Platonic

an ideal morality. shall find

dialecticsi,

If,

such notions

or a^io^ig thp possibilities of

for

example, we open his Physics, we

as,

Causation, Infinity, Matter, Space,

Time, Motion, and Force,

for

the

time

first

in

history

apd ma^e the foundation of On the Heavens very promovements as a purely ^ilechanical

separately discussed, defined, natural philosophy.

The

perly regards the celestial

treatise

problem, and strives throughout to bring theory and practice. memorable declaration of Mr. F. Pollock : To me it amounts to a unknowable existence or unknowable reality in I cannot tell what existence meaijs if not the possibility an absolute sense. >

Cf. the

'

con,tradiction in terms to speak of

of being

known

or perceived.'

Spinoza, p. 163.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

327

While directly contradicting the modern astronomy, it stands on the same ground with them and anyone who had mastered it would be far

into complete agreement. truths of

;

better prepared to receive those truths than

acquainted with such a work as Plato's

maining portions of Aristotle's order,

logical

perfect

in

Auguste Comte's

scientific

and

directly or indirectly suggest

the labours of Aristotle with

it.

We

The

re-

very nearly to

they did

indeed,

if,

he were only

encyclopaedia follow

correspond

classification,

if

Timaeus.

not

cannot, however, view

unmixed

he

satisfaction until

comes on to deal with the provinces of natural history, com-

and comparative psychology. Here, as we have shown, the subject exactly suited the comprehensive

parative anatomy,

and systematising formalism

-observation

Here, accordingly, not only the

teaching

his

good.

is

in

which he excelled.

method but the matter of

In theorising about the causes of

phenomena he was behind the best science of

age

his

;

in

phenomena themselves he was far before it. Of course very much of what he tells was learned at secondBut to collect such -hand, and some of it is not authentic. dissecting the

masses of information from the reports of uneducated hunters,

tions,

and

grooms, shepherds, beemasters,

fishermen,

required an extraordinary

the

like,

power of putting pertinent ques-

such as could only be acquired in the school of Socratic

.dialectic.

Nor should we omit

to notice the vivid intelli-

gence which enabled even ordinary Greeks to supply him

But some of

with the facts required for his generalisations.

most important researches must be entirely

his

instance,

own

in

a

field

Friedrich Wolff, Aristoteles

von

Einleitung, p. 15.

d.

is

eyes

;

and, here,

observations are

authority that his

'

For

he must have traced the development of the embryo

chicken with his

accuracy,

original.

we have

it

on good

remarkable for their

where accuracy, according to Caspar

almost impossible.*

Zengung

u.

Entwickehmg

d. Thieve.

Aubert

u.

Wimmer,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

328

more important" than these observations themselves since rediscovered is the great truth he derives from them and worked out in detail by Von Baer— that in the developStill

—

ment of each individual the generic characters make their appearance before the specific characters.' Nor is this a

we

isolated remark, but, as

mere accidental or

shall

show

in

the next chapter, intimately connected with one of the philosopher's metaphysical theories. tionist,

portance of which has been

notices the antagonism between

and reproduction

with increased vitality

mobility,*

and of greater

realised in the light of the

first

Thus he

evolution theory. individuation' size

Although not an evolu-

he has made other contributions to biology, the im-

;

*

;

the connexion of increased the connexion

^

of greater

intelligence,* with increased

com-

plexity of structure

;

the physiological division of labour in

the higher animals

^

the formation of heterogeneous organs

;

out of homogeneous tissues

;

the tendency towards greater

^

centralisation in the higher organisms

— a remark connected

*

with his two great anatomical discoveries, the central position

of the heart in the vascular system, and the possession of a

backbone by

all

red-blooded animals

;

the resemblance of

*

human

animal intelligence to a rudimentary especially

as

manifested

children

in

;

'"

and,

intelligence, finally,

he

attempts to trace a continuous series of gradations connecting the inorganic with the organic world, plants with animals,

and the lower animals with man." The last mentioned principle gives one more illustration of the distinction between Aristotle's system and that of the evolutionist, properly so called.

'

>

De De

Gen. An.,

II.,

Res^r., 477,

iii.,

736, b,

*

»

Ibid.. II., X., 656, a, 4.

"

Ibid., IV., v.,

707, » '»

«

I.

a, 18.

682,

«

continuity recognised

/^^-^^

De

j^ xva\., 725,

Pari. An.,

vi.,

467,

a,

18

;

De

'

Part. An., 11.,

Hist. An,, VIII.,

ix., i

,

664, b, 11

siib in.

;

Ibid., II.,

Ingr. An.,

a, 24.

De

b, 25.

I., vii., sub. in.

Ibid., IV., vi., 683, a, 25.

8; De Long.,

a,

The

Zeller, p. 522,

» Zeller, p. 553.

i.

vii.,

CiTARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.

329

by the former only obtains among a number of coexisting types

;

a purely logical or ideal arrangement, facilitating

it is

the acquisition

and retention

nothing to

real

its

of

The

content.

implies a causal connexion

continuity of the latter

between successive types evolved

from each other by the action of mechanical over,

correct

exaggeration.

its

only imperfectly

human

fill

to be derived,

same

served, with

accept

interval

between the highest

the

because they are collaterally, and not

stage of another, although

more constancy than

some have

monogenetic

by considerable

hypothesis,) spaces,

pre-

others, the features of a

In diverging from a single stock

parent.

separated

up the

time, to

totality of existing species

Prbbably no one of them corresponds to

less devieloped

common

The

is

and the inorganic matter from which we assume

life

lineally, relatied.

any

More-

forces.

our modern theory, while accounting for whatever

true in Aristotle's conception, serves, at the

it

adding

Knowledge, but

they

(if

we

have become

which the innumerable

multitude of extinct species alone could

fill

up.

Our preliminary survey of the subject is now completed. So far, we have been engaged in studying the mind of Aristotle rather than his

chapter

we

shall

that system in relations to

system of philosophy.

In the next

attempt to give a more complete account of its

internal organisation not less than in

modern science and modern thought;

its

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

330

CHAPTER

VII.

THE SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. I.

We

have considered the Aristotelian philosophy

to the great concrete interests of ture,

and

We have

science.

now

life,

in relation

morals, politics, litera-

what

to ask

has to

it

about the deepest and gravest problems of any, the ciples of Being and Knowing, God and the soul,

and

matter, metaphysics, psychology,

logic.

We

tell

first

us

prin-

spirit

and

saw that

very high claims were advanced on behalf of Aristotle in and had we begun respect to his treatment of these topics ;

with them,

example

we should only have been

We

of his expositors.

keeping them to the

last,

following the usual

have, however, preferred

that our readers might acquire

familiarity with the Aristotelian

method, by seeing

it

some

applied

to subjects where the results were immediately intelligible,

and could be tested by an appeal to the experience of twentytwo centuries. We know that there are some who will demur to this proceeding, sician stands

man

who

on quite

will

say that Aristotle the metaphy-

different

ground from Aristotle the

of science, because in the one capacity he had, and in

the other capacity he had not, sufficient facts to warrant

an authoritative conclusion. They will say, with Prof. St. George Mivart, that in accumulating natural knowledge men's

minds have become deadened

Edwin Wallace,

to spiritual truth

that the questions opened

not yet been closed, and that

by

;

or with Mr.

Aristotle have

we may with advantage

begin

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

331

them under his guidance. We, on the other endeavour to show that there is a unity of compo-

our study of

hand, will

running thtough the Stagirite's entire labours, that they

sition

everywhere manifest theusame excellences and defects, which are those of

genius

;

an anatomising,

critical; descriptive, classificatory

most important conclusions, however great

that his

any

or even

their historical iriterest,

are without

educational value for

ijs,

being almost entirely based on false

physical assumptidns

;

that hi§ ontolpgy and psychology are

not what his admirers suppose logic,

them to be

though meriting our gratitude,

is

;

and that

far too confused

his

and

throw any light on the questions raised by

iilcompiste .to

modern

positive

thinkers.

Here, as elsewhere,

we

shall

employ the genetic method do not, indeed, present

Aristotle's writings

pf investigation.

development of ideas which makes the Platonic Still they exhibit traces of such a Dialogues so interesting,

that gradual

development, and the most important

among them seems

to

have been compiled from notes taken by the philosopher before his conclusions were definitely reasoned out, or

up into a consistent whole. which, from having been

It is this

unknown

placed by some

has received a

after the Physic's,

worked

fragmentary collection

name

still

editof

associated with

every kind df speculation that cannot be tested by a direct or indirect appeal to the evidence of external sense.

Whether there exist any to us

be

by

this evidence,

worth,

beyond what are revealed

and what sensible evidence

problems

were

realities

itself

may

already actively canvassed

iri

His Metaphysics at once takes us into the thick of the debate. The first question of that age was. What

Aristotle's time.

are the causes

and principles of things

the materialists -representatives.

or air or

fire,

.'

On

one side stodd

—

the old Ionian physicists and their living

They

said that all things

came from water

or from a mixture of the four elements, or from

the interaction of opposites, such as wet and dry, hot and cold.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

333

Aristotle, following in the track of his master, Plato,

them

for ignoring the incorporeal substances,

does not mean what would now be understood states of consciousness, or

consciousness

even the

spiritual

blames

by which he

—

feelings or

substratum

of.

— but rather the general qualities or assemblages

of qualities which remain constant amid the fluctuations of sensible

phenomena

considered, let us observe, not as sub-

;

jective thoughts, but as objective realities. in the older physical theories is that efficient

Another deficiency

they either ignore the

cause of motion altogether (like Thales), or assign

causes not adequate to the purpose (like Empedocles)

when they it

final

The which

;

or

on the true cause do not make the right use of

Anaxagoras).

(like

the

hit

Lastly, they have omitted to study

— the good

cause of a thing

for

which

it

exists.

teleology of Aristotle requires a word of explanation,

may appropriately

find its place in the present

connex-

In speaking of a purpose in Nature, he does not mean

ion.

that natural productions subserve an end lying outside themselves trees

as

;

if,

to use Goethe's illustration, the bark of cork-

was intended to be made

bottles'

;

into stoppers for ginger-beer

but that in every perfect thing the parts are interde-

pendent, and exist for the sake of the whole to which they belong.

Nor does

he, like so

many

theologians, both ancient

and modern, argue from the evidence of design in Nature to the operation of a designing intelligence o^ide her. Not believing in any creation at

all apart from works of art, he in believe a not creative could intelligence other than that of man. He does, indeed, constantly speak of Nature as if she

were a personal providence, continually exerting herself for the good of her creatures. But, on looking a little closer, we find that the agency in question is completely unconscious,

and may be

identified with the constitution of

thing, or rather of the type to

said that Aristotle's intellect

we have here another

which

was

it

each particular

belongs.

We have

essentially descriptive,

and

illustration of its characteristic quality.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

333

The teleology which he parades with so much pomp adds nothing to our knowledge of causey implies nothing that a positivist

need not readily accept.

functions,

an analysis of

It

who

were really any philosophers

a mere study of

is

Of course,

statical relations.

if

there

said that the connexion

between teeth and mastication was entirely accidental, the

was a

Aristotelian doctrine

absurdity

but when

;

useful protest against such an

we have

between organ and function, association

in

affirming

in

does.

it

some 4nore

established a fixed connexion

we

are

satisfactory

general terms, which

Again, whatever

may be

bound to explain the manner than by rethat Aristotle ever

all

is

the relative justification of

teleology as a study of functions in the living body,

we have

no grounds for interpreting the phenomena of inorganic

Some Greek

nature on an analogous principle.

ting that slants

philosophers

While admit-

were acute enough to perceive the distinction.

and animals showed traces of design, they

held that the heavenly bodies arose spontaneously from the

movements of a vortex or some such cause religious savants

of our

own day

reject the

while accepting the nebular hypothesis.^

;

just as certain

'

Darwinian theory

But to Aristotle the

unbroken regularity of the celestial movements, which to us is

the best proof of their purely mechanical nature, was,

on and directed much more so indeed

the contrary, a proof that they were produced

by an

absolutely reasonable purpose

;

than terrestrial organisms, marked as these are deviations

and imperfections

;

by

occasional

and he concludes that each of

movements must be directed towards the attainment of some correspondingly consummate end ' while, again, in those

;

dealing with those precursors of Mr. Darwin,

be called, disprove

who argued

its

Phys., II., ^

such they can

that the utility of an organ does not

spontaneous origin, since only the creatures which,

by a happy accident, came '

if

viii., p.

198, b, 24.

Phys., II.,

iv., p.

to possess ^

The

196, a, 28

;

late

De

it

would survive

— he

Father Secchi. for example.

Coel., II., xil.

':

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

THE-

334

answers that the constant reproduction of such organs enough to vindicate them from being the work of chance

is ;

thus displaying his inability to distinguish between the two ideas of uniform causation

As

and design.

a result of the foregoing criticism, Aristotle distin-

guishes four different causes or principles are determined to be what they are

and Purpose.^ steel

;

the form, a toothed blade

assuming that shape, a smith

When we

qr stone;

we have

the ?igent or cause of

;

the purpose, to divide

;

have enumerated these four

Aristotle could not keep the last three separate

extended the definition of form until

and purpose;'

;

is

its

wood

principles,

known about a saw.

told everything that can be

identified with, agent

things

all

Form, Agent,

example, we take a saw, the matter

for

If,

by which

—Matter,

But

he gradually

it

absorbed, or became

It

was what we should

eall the idea of function that facilitated the transition.

If the

very essence or nature df a saw implies use, activity, movement,

how can we

toothed blade

ment.

is

Again,

define

it

without telling

its

purpose

The

t

only intelligible as a cutting, dividing instru-

how came the saw

into being

the steel into that particular forhi

We

.'

}

What shaped

have said that

it

Was the smith. But surely that is too vague. The smith is a man, and may be able to exercise other trades as well. Suppose him to be a musician, did he tnake the saw in that, No and here comes in a distinction which plays capacity an immense part in Aristotle's mdtaphysics, whence it has: ,'

;

He He

passed into our every-day spfeech.

saw quA musician but qu& smith.

Nevertheless, had he only learned to

so forth.

make saws it would be enough. '

PJiys., II., viii., p. 199, b, 14.

2

M^taph.,

I.,

m., sub

in the Tauchnitz ed.) »

II.,

Metaph., VIII., i.,

;

make the

make many other tools—knives,

ejiercise of his trade ^s grpith

axes, and

does not

can, however, in the

irt.

Phys. iv., p.

732, a, 4; Phys., 11.,

;

Therefore, he does not

Anal. Post.,

II.,

iii.

1044,

;

\),

vii., p.

II., xi.,

De

Gen. An.,

\

De

;

sub I.,

Gen. An.,

198, a, 24

ff.

in. i.

Bekker.

make

(cap. x.,

sub in.

I., i., p.

715, a, 6;

ib.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. the saw qud axe-maker, he again, does- he

make

it

makes

qiiA

it

335

saw-maker.

Nor,

with his whole mind and body, but

only with just those thoughts and movements required to give the steel that particular shape. Now, what are these thoughts

but the idea of a saw present in his mind and passing through

and hands,

his eyes

till

it

fixes itself

on the

The

steel ?

immaterial form of a saw creates the real saw which

we

use.

Let us apply the preceding analogies to a natural object for example, a man. What is the Form, the definition of a man } ;

Not a being possessing a certain outward shape, for then a marble statue would be a man, which it is not nor yet ;

3 certain assemblage of organs, for then a corpse

man, which, according to Aristotle, is

not

;

but a

living, feeling,

whose existence

is

to

fulfil

criticising

would be a

Democritus,

it

and reasoning being, the end of

all

the functions involved in this

So, also, the creative cause of a man is another man, who directly impresses the human form on the material

definition.

supplied

by the female

definite individual

ofgaflism.

In the same way, every

aggregate becomes what

it is

through the

agency of another individual representing the same type its

iq

perfect manifestation.'

The

substantial forms of Aristotle,

combining as they da and a f

\

the notion of a definition with that of a inoving cause fulfilled

Ideas

;

purpose, are evidently derived from the

Platonic

a reflection which at once leads us to consider the

relation in

which he stands tdihe spiritualism of Plato and

to the mathematical idealism of the Neo-Pythagoreans.

He )

agrees with

them in thinking that general conceptions are the

sole object of

of change.

knowledge

He

differs

— thg sole endyring reality from them

in

in a

maintaining that such

conceptions have no existence apart from the particulars in

which they reside. It has been questioned whether Aristotle ever really understood his master's teaching on the subject. Among recent critics, M. Barth^lemy Saint-Hilaire asserts, Phys., II.,

iii.,

p. igS", a,

32

ff. ;

Metaph., IX.,

viii., p.

1049,

b

/

world

24.

1

'

'

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

336

It is certain

with considerable vehemence, that he did not. that in

some

respects Aristotle

theory, that he exaggerates

its

not just to the Platonic

is

absurdities, ignores its develop-

ments, and occasionally brings charges against

be retorted with at sophy.

it

which might

least equal effect against his

But on the most important point of

own

all,

philo-

whether

Plato did or did not ascribe a separate existence to his Ideas,

we could hardly

believe a disciple of twenty years' standing

to be mistaken, even

if

the master had not

left

on record a

decisive testimony to the affirmative side in his Parmenides,

and one scarcely

less decisive in his

the controversy reduces is

Timaeus?

left

make him independent minuteness of his criticism

how another

Yet such was the that not only was immediate

his

of is

skill

their

was great enough

to

The extreme us, who can hardly

support.

wearisome to

opinion could ever have been held.

fascination exercised it

not,

by Plato himself;

unanswered he had a perfect right to

repeat them, and his dialectical

conceive

so far as

His most powerful arguments are

entirely right.

indeed, original, having been anticipated

but as they were

And

itself to this particular issue, Aristotle

by

Plato's idealism,

upheld with considerable acrimony by but under one form or another it

followers,'

has been revived over and over again, in the long period which has elapsed since its first promulgation, and on every

one of these occasions the arguments of Aristotle have been raised up again to meet it, each time with triumphant success.

Ockham's

razor,

Entia non sunt sine

borrowed from the Metaphysics

ttecessitate micltiplicanda,

Locke's principal objection to innate ideas closely resembles the sarcastic observation in is

'

That

is,

;

according to the traditional view, which, however, will have to he if we accept the conclusions embodied in

considerably modified

Teichmiiller's

Literarische Fehden.

A

Tim., 28, A. ; from a passage in the ^A^/mr (II., ii., p. iyja^ a 35) where partisans of the Idea are said to be exasperated by 'any slight thrown on ^

Partnen., 130,

»

As we may

ff.

infer

their favourite doctrine.

;

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

337

the last chapter of the Posterior Analytics, that, according to

we must have some

Plato's theory,

of which

we

wonderful knowledge

ijery

And

are not conscious.'

the weapons with which

Trendelenburg and others have waged war on Hegel are

avowedly drawn from the Aiistotelian

arsenal.*

In his criticism on the ideal theory, Aristotle argues that it

unproved

is

that the

;

would be rejected by the

consequences to which themselves

;

thatit involves

of existence

;

that

idealists

a needless addition to the

sum

leads

it

it

neither

explains the origin of things nor helps us to understand them,

while taking

away from them

their substantial reality

;

that

the Ideas are merely sensible objects hypostasised, like the

men

anthropomorphic divinities of primitive

that, to

;

speak

of them as patterns, in whose likeness the world was created, is

a mere idle metaphor

that,

;

even assuming the existence

of such patterns, eacb individual ness,

many

not of one, but of

instance,

must be modelled

must be made ideas

—a

after the

absolutely,

although

all

being, for

ideal biped

and the

man

many

ideal animal, as well as after the ideal

the ideas themselves,

in the like-

human

while

;

of

supposed to exist

are

must be dependent on other and simpler types

assuming an idea for every a^ract relation, must be ideas to represent the relation between every

finally, that,

there

sensible object

and

its

prototype, others for the

and so on

thus introduced,

'

Repeated

'

This

sophy.

he

They

here.

are partly a

brought against the Platonic doctrine

Metaphysus, I., ix., p. 993, a, 1. inconsistent with our former assertion, that

in its

in the

may seem

German philosophy a place analogous far as

Neo-Pythagorean theory of

numbers need not delay us

repetition of those

relations

to infinity.

Aristotle's objections to the ideal

new

to that held

by

incomplete ; and, so a Platonist rather than Mr. Herbert Spencer stands

Such analogies, however, are always more or attributes a self-moving power to ideas, Hegel

an Aristotelian.

Similarly,

as

an evolutionist,

much nearer to early Greek thought than to so much resembles.

Hegel holds in Greek philo-

Aristotle in

Aristotle,

less

is

whom,

in other respects,

he

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

338

original form, partly derived

from the impossibility of identi-

fying qualitative with quantitative differences.'

Such arguments manifestly tell not only against Platonism, but against every kind of transcendental realism, from the natural theology of Paley to the dogmatic agnosticism

A modern

Mr. Herbert Spencer.

the hypothesis of a creative

first

of

Aristotle might say that

cause, personal or otherwise,

logically involves the assumption of as

many

original specific

energies as there are qualities to be accounted

for,

and thus

gives us the unnecessary trouble of counting everything twice

over

;

that every difficulty* and contradiction from which the

transcendental assumption analysis, reappear in the

God who as

intended to free

is

assumption

to deliver us from evil

is

the creator of evil

;

itself

us,

must, on

— for example, the

must be himself conceived

the infinite and absolute can

that

neither cause, nor be apprehended by, the finite and relative that to separate from Nature

perpetuation, and relegate antithesis

whether

is

the forces required for

them to a sphere

abstraction

efficient or final,

world

this

and a

sterile

all

apart,

lastly, that

;

is

is

;

a false

causation,

once begun, cannot stop

not self-existing, nothing

;

its

that

;

if

that the mutual

adaptation of thoughts in a designing intelligence requires to

be accounted for just

like

any other adaptation

;

that

if

the

relative involves the absolute, so also does the relation be-

tween the two involve another absolute, and so on to

These are

difficulties

which

until every shred of the old

To

will continue to

by the very theory

He was

assumed a greater importance it

off.

profoundly

against which he contended

and, at the risk of being paradoxical,

been attributed to

perplex us

metaphysics has been thrown

that task Aristotle was not equal.

influenced

infinity.

we may even say that

system than had ever

in his

by Plato

;

it

himself.

To

prove

this,

we

must resume the thread of our exposition, and follow the '

Zeller,

Ph.

d.

Gr„

II., b,

297

f.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. Stagirite reality

further in

still

of the fundamental

analysis

his

339

with which the highest philosophy

is

concerned.

Ever since the age of Parmenidea and Heracleitus, Greek thought had been haunted by a pervading dualism which each system had in turn attempted to reconcile, with no better, result

than

its

reproduction under altered names.

And

speculation had latterly become still further perplexed by the question whether the antithetical couples 'supposed to divide all Nature between them could or could not be reduced to so

many

aspects of a single opposition.

we showed

In the last

comand Not-Being, the One and the Many, the Same and the Other, Rest and Motion. Plato employed"

chapter but one peting pairs

that there were four such

—Being

his very subtlest dialectic in tracing

out their connexions,

and diminishing the total number of terms which they involved. In what was probably his last great speculative effort, the Timaeus, he seems to

readjusting their

relationships,

have selected Sameness and Difference as the couple best adapted to bear the heaviest strain of thought.

some reason

for believing that in

followed the Pythagorean system

One and

preference to the

the

employed the two expressions would sooner commend mathematician.

itself to

As

more

Many

qlosely, giving the ;

may have

or he

The former

indifferently.

such, the antithesis of Being little

unknown

in

all

and

or no value, suited

Accordingly, he proceeds to work

clearness before

is

a dialectician, the latter to a

Not-Being, to which Plato attached

him best.

There

spoken lectures he

was both, but he was before

Aristotle

things a naturalist.

his

it

Greek philosophy.

out with a

The

first

principles, he declares, is, that a thing cannot

and surest of all both be and not furthermore that

be, in the it

must

same sense of the words, and

either be or not be. z 2

Subsequent

;

THE GREEK PHILJOSOPHERS.

340

these axioms another, declaring that

logicians prefixed to

whatever

The

is is.

known

three together are

Identity, Contradiction,

as the laws of

By

and Excluded Middle.

all,

except

Hegelians, they are recognised as the highest laws of thought

and even Hegel was indebted

to them, through Fichte, for the

ground-plan of his entire system.'

The whole meaning and must

propositions

value of such excessively abstract

much and

too

them

too

little

of

;

—the theory of

any

the theory of Anaxagoras,

the measure of

logical in-

Heracleitus, that everything

originally confused together is

once

at

— for he employed

•

motion

man

Too much

his.

made

Aristotle

solve.

to refute doctrines not really involving

consistency

problems

in their application to the

lie

which they are employed to

;

that

is

in

everything was

the theory of Protagoras, that

Too

all things.

—

little

rfor

he admitted

a sphere of possibilities where logical definition did not apply,

and where subjects simultaneously possessed the

capacity of taking on one or other of two contradictory attributes.

Nor

is

from what

this

After sharply distinguishing what is and refusing to admit any intermediary

all.

not,

is

between them, Aristotle proceeds to discover such an intermediary in the shape of what he calls Accidental Predication.'

An

accident

is

—

in its subject

an attribute not necessarily or usually inhering in other words, a co-existence not dependent

on causation. Aristotle could never distinguish between the two notions of cause and kind, nor yet between interferences with the action of some particular cause and exceptions to the law of causation in general

an

intelligible

theory of chance.

;

and so he could not frame

Some

us, are necessarily true, others are it is

he

when a

Metaph. IV.,

iii.

and

cold

viii.

day happens 2

to

come

liid.Vl.,

ii.,

in the

tells

and

;

the exceptions to the latter which constitute accident

for instance,

'

propositions,

only generally true

;

as,

middle

p. 1036, b, 21.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. So

of summer.

man

also a

is

necessarily an animal; but

SucIl distinctions are not unin-

only exceptionally white.

they prove with what

teresting, for

invariable sequence

34'

the idea of

difJSculties

had to contend before even the highest it. There was a constant liability to

intellects could grasp

confound the order of succession with the order of co-existence, the order of our sensations with the order of objective

and the subjection of human actions to any fixed and choice. The Greek thinkers had proclaimed that all things existed

existence,

order, with the impossibility of deliberation earlier

by

necessity

but with their purely geometrical or historical

;

point of view, they entirely ignored the tions raised

and moral

more complex ques-

by theories about classification,

responsibility.

by Epicurus,

And

logical attribution,

the modifications introduced

show us how unanswerreasonings seemed to some of his ablest

into the old physics,

able Aristotle's successors.

we

Absolute being

is

are told, has

no

declaration,

Aristotelian

next distinguished from truth, which, objective existence

'

—a

remarkable

which throws much light on other parts system, and to which

we

of-

the

subsequently

shall

return.*

After explaining at considerable length what Being

is

not,

what it is. He tells us be either odd or number must qud that just as all number even, so all Being qud Being must have certain universal When attributes. These he sets himself to discover. Descartes long afterwards entered on a somewhat similar

now proceeds

Aristotle

he

inquiry,

sciousness.

fell

to ascertain

back on the

Aristotle,

consciousness of mankind as embodied

In

how many

answer

is • •

own

facts of his

individual con-

on the contrary, appeals to the common

senses do

we

in

ordinary language.

say that a thing

is ?

The

contained in his famous Ten Categories.'

Metaph., VI., iv., Ibid., VI., ii., sub

" Ibid.,

p. 1027, b, 29. in. ;

VII.,

i.,

sub in.

;

Topic,

VI.,

I., ix.

iv.

first

These

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

a42

are not

what some have supposed them to

summa

of existence, but

be,

summa genera

genera of predication.

In other

words, they are not a classification of things, but of the in-

formation which

more

thing,

is

it

possible to

receive about a single

especially about the richest

—a human being.

and most concrete

we want to find out Of what sort ? How all about a thing we ask, What is it ? To what does it belong } Where and when can we large find it } What does it do ? What happens to it ? And if the object of our investigations be a living thing, we may add, What are its habits and dispositions ? The question has been raised, how Aristotle came to think of these ten thing

known

to us

If

.'

and a wonderful amount of rubbish has subject, while apparently no scholar could see what was staring him in the face all the time, that Aristotle got them by collecting all the simple forms of interrogation supplied by the Greek language,' and writing out their most general expressions. Having obtained his categories, Aristotle proceeds to particular categories,

been written on the

mark

from the other nine.

off the first

substance

named

in

answer to the question.

exist without having

any

quality, size,

The What

and so

of it; but they cannot exist without

it.

subject or is it ?

can

forth predicated

Logically, they

cannot be defined without telling what they are

;

really they

cannot be conceived without something not themselves in These are

voeiv, ttoB, irore, and irSj. Tl is associated with wpifj which has no simple English equivalent. Apparently it was suggested to Aristotle by iroo-iic, how much ? in connexion with which it means, in relation.to what standard? If we were told that a thing was double, we should ask, double what ? Again, the Greeks had a simply compound question, T^ jraWK, meaning, what was the matter with him? or, what made him do '

fi, iioi6v,

in the question vphs tI,

it

?

From

this Aristotle extracted iri(rxeiv,

a wider notion than our passion,

meaning whatever is done or happens to anything ; which again would suggest Finally, irws, taken alone, is too vague a question for any irotcTv, what it does, answer, but must be taken in its simplest compounds ttSs Suueel/uvoy and irSi two rarely-occurring categories ^x*'" and Kei(r6ai, for which ?X« V Inftnito Universo e Mondi, p. 54 (j*.). '

Non

lei [la terra]

pensar oltre

feccia tra le sustanze corporali.' '

.

.

—

;

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. sidereal sphere there

was no longer any necessity

Mover.

a Prime

for

H

There is

357

is,

certainly

perhaps, no passage in Aristotle's writings— there

none

in

his

scientific writings

—more

eloquent

than that which describes the glory of his imaginary heavens.

The

following translation

solemnity and splendour

We

may

believe, then, that the

its

We

orb

;

some

whole heaven

without beginning or end through

time within

give

faint idea of its

:

is

one and

everlasting,

but holding infinite not, as some say, created or capable of being all eternity,

it on account of the grounds already stated, on account of the consequences resulting from a different hypothesis. For, it must add great weight to our assurance of its immortality and everlasting duration that this opinion may, while the contrary opinion Cantiot possibly, be true. Wherefore, we may trust the traditions of old time, and especially of our own race, when they tell us that there is something deathless and divine about the things which, although moving, have a movement that is not bounded, but is itself the universal bound, a perfect circle enclosing in its revolutions the imperfect motions that are subject to restraint and arrest ; while this, being without beginning or end or rest through infinite time, is the one from which all others originate, and into which they disappear. That heaven which antiquity assigned to the gods as an immortal abode, is shown by the present argument to be uncreated and indestructible, exempt alike from mortal weakness and from the weariness of sdbjection to a force acting in opposition

destroyed.

and

to

believe

also

its

natural inclination

;

for in proportion to its everlasting continu-

ance such a compulsion would be laborious, and unparticipant in the highest perfection of design. We must not, then, believe with the old mythologiSts that an Atlas

some

is

needed to uphold

it

;

for they,

more recent times, fancied that the heavens were made of heavy earthy matter, and so fabled an animated necessity for their support nor yet that, as Empedocles says, they will last only so long as their own proper momentum is exceeded by the whirling like

in

;

motion of which they partake.' Nor, again, is it likely that their evercan be kept up by the exercise of a conscious will

lasting revolution

This conjecture of Empedocles deserves more attention than it has as yet reIt illustrates once more the superior insight of the early thinkers as compared with Aristotle. '

ceived.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

3SS

could lead a happy and blessed existence that was engaged it would, an unceasing struggle with their native tendency to move in a different direction, without even for no soul

in such a task, necessitating, as

the mental relaxation and bodily rest which mortals gain by sleep,

doomed

but

the

to

eternal torment of an

on the other hand,

explanation,

is,

as

we

Our

Ixion's wheel.

say, not only

more

consist-

ent with the eternity of the heavens, but also can alone be reconciled

with the acknowledged vaticinations of religious faith.'

be seen from the foregoing passage how strong

It will

a hold the old Greek notion of an encircling limit had on

mind of

the

Aristotle,

and how he transformed

the high intellectual significance given to original sense of a

also be seen

that

mere space-enclosing

it

figure.

how he credits his spheres with a

moving power which, according to him with that

between two extremes the earth

in

The heavenly

delighted.

back from

full

into its

And

it

will

measure of

his rather

criticism, the Platonic Ideas did not possess.

also supplied

it

by Plato

unfair

His astronomy

graduated transitions

series of

which Greek thought so much

bodies rtiediate between

God and

partly active and partly passive, they both receive

;

The

and communicate the moving creative impulse.

four

elements are moved in the various categories of

terrestrial

substance, quantity, quality, and place

place only,

a change.'

;

the aether moves in

God remains without variableness or shadow of Finally, by its absolute simplicity and purity, the '

aether mediates between the coarse matter perceived senses and the absolutely immaterial

Nous, and

by our itself

is

supposed to be pervaded by a similar gradation of fineness Furthermore, the upper fire, which from top to bottom. must not be confounded with flame, furnishes a connecting link between the aether and the other elements, being related to

them

as

Form

when the elements qualities,

to wet

to Matter, or as agent to patient

decomposed

are

into

their

;

and,

constituent

hot and cold occupy a similar position with regard

and dry. '

Di

Coelo, II.,

I.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

IV.

,

In mastering Aristotle's cosmology,

we have gained

key to his entire method of systematisation. Stagirite has

no

by generalising exhibit them still more erred

;

The

thought.

is

us.

modern

clearly in their conflict with

by Aristotle

method, then, pursued

his subject into

the

Henceforth, the

Where we were formerly he erred, we can now show why he his principles of arrangement, we can from

secrets

show that

content to

359

two more or

less

is

to divide

unequal masses, one of which

supposed to be governed by necessary principles, admitting while the other

of certain demonstration;

irregular,

is

can only be studied according to the rules of ,

evidence.

The

parts of the one are

and

probable

homogeneous and con-

movements of each being controlled by that immediately outside and above it. The parts of the other are heterogeneous and distributed among a number of antithetical pairs, between whose members there is, or ought

centrically disposed, the

to be, a general

having a

equilibrium preserved, the whole system

common

centre which either oscillates from one

extreme to another, or holds the balance between them.

The second system

is

enclosed within

altogether dependent

on

it

processes of metamorphosis

and

is

its

first,

Where

equilibration.

system to

internal adjustments of a

and

determining

the

for the impulses

itself or

of one system to

the other are not consciously made, Aristotle calls

Nature.

They

continuance

are always adapted to secure

either

Actuality belongs

in

more

an

individual

possibility to" the second,

but both

its

are, to

first

them

everlasting

or a specific

particularly to the

the

form-

sphere,

and

a certain extent,

represented in each.

We

have already seen how

this

applied to the universe as a whole.

not content with

classifying

the

fundamental division

is

But our philosopher

is

phenomena

as

he finds

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

36o

them

he attempts to demonstrate the necessity of their dual and in so doing is guilty of something very like a

;

existence

;

For, after proving from the terrestrial

vicious circle.

ments that going, he

move-

must be an eternal movement to keep them the revolving aether, and argues that

thei-e

now assumes

there must be a motionless solid centre for

it

to revolve round,

although a geometrical axis would have served the purpose

By

more palpable fallacy, he proceeds to show that a body whose tendency is towards the centre, must, in the nature of things, be opposed by another body whose tendency is towards the circumference. In order to fill up the interval created by this opposition, two interequally well.

a

still

mediate bodies are required, and thus we get the four

ments

—earth, water,

air,

and

and wet, hot and

into the antithetical couples, dry

possible combinations of which,

elements once more. wet, air wet

and

having a quality terised

is

hot, fire hot

in

by the

Earth

ele-

These, again, are resolved

fire.

by

cold, the

twos, give us the four

dry and

cold,

and dry

;

water cold and

each adjacent pair

common, and each element being charac-

excess of a

particular

quality; earth

is

and fire hot. The common what Aristotle calls the First Matter, the mere abstract unformed possibility of existence. This matter always combines two qualities, and -has the power

especially dry, water cold, air wet,

centre of each antithesis

is

of oscillating from one quality to another, but

it

cannot, as a

rule, simultaneously exchange both for their opposites.

may

Earth

pass into water, exchanging dry for wet, but not so

readily into

air,

which would necessitate a double exchange at

the same moment. Those who will may see in all this an anticipation of chemical substitution and double decomposition. We can assure

them that

parallel discovered

it

will

be by no means the most absurd

between ancient and modern

possible, however, to trace a

ideas.

It

is

more real connexion between the

Aristotelian physics and mediaeval thought.

We

do not

of

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. mean

course

361

the scholastic philosophy, for there never was.

the slightest doubt as to

its

derivation

alchemy and astrology which did auty

many

we

;

allude to the

for positive science

and even overlapped it down to the time of Newton, himself an ardent alchemist. The superduring so

stitions of

centuries,

astrology originated independently of the peripa-

system, and probably long before

tetic

it,

but they were likely

by it instead of being repressed, as they would have been by a less anthropomorphic philosophy.

to be encouraged

Aristotle himstelf, as

we have

seen, limited the action of the

heavens on the sublunary sphere to their heating power

by

;

but,

them with an immortal reason and the pursuit unknown to us, he opened a wide field for conjecture

crediting

of ends as to

what those ends were, and how they could be ascertained. stars and planets were always thinking and acting,

That the

but never about our

was hot a notion

affairs,

Neither was

permanently accepted.

their various configurations,

it

likely to

be

easy to believe that

movements, and names (the

last

probably revealed by themselves) were entirely without significance.

scopes still

is

From

such considerations to the casting of horo-

not a far remove.

The Aristotelian chemistry would

more readily lend itself to the purposes of alchemy. If is one vast process of transmutation, then particular

Nature

bodies, such as the metals, not only vertible

into,

one another.

And

mayj

blit "must

even those

who

be conrejected

Aristotle's logic with scorn still clung to his natural philo-

sophy when theory

it

flattered their

of substantial forms.

looking for a method

forms

hopes of gain.

His

Baebn kept the

originality

by which any form,

consisted

in

or assemblage of

might be superinduced at pleasure on the underThe real development of knowledge pursued

lying matter.

a

far different course.

The

great discoverers of the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries achieved their success by absolutely reversing the

by bringing into fruitful which he had condemned to barren isolation.

method of

contact principles

Aristotle,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

362

They

physics

terrestrial

carried

the heavens

into

brought down the absoluteness and eternity of celestial earth

;

they

law to

they showed that Aristotle's antithetical qualities were

;

merely quantitative

These they resolved into

distinctions.

modes of motion and they also resolved all motions into one, which was both rectilinear and perpetual. But they and their successors put an end to all dreams of transmutation, when they showed by another synthesis that all matter, at least ;

within the limits of our experience, has the changeless consistency once attributed exclusively to the stellar spheres.

When sophy of

Aristotle passes from the whole

life,

illustrated,

ration

is

his

but

method of systeriiatic

still it

may

be traced.

between body and

soul.

cosmos to the philo-

division

is less

distinctly

The fundamental sepaThe latter has a wider

meaning than what we associate with it at present. It covers the psychic functions and the whole life of the Organism, which, again, is not wha;t we mean by life. For life with us is both individual and collective it resides in each speck of protoplasm, and also in the consensus of the whole organism. With Aristotle it is more exclusively a central principle, the ;

final

cause of the organisin, the power which holds

and by which

it

Was

originally shaped.

it

togetheri

Biology begins by

determining the idea of the whole, and then considers the

means by which

it

realised.

is

The

psychic functions are

arranged according to a system of teleological subordination.

The lower

precedes the higher in time, but

is

logically neces-

by it. Thus nutrition, or the vegetative life in general, must be studied in close connexion with sensation and impulse, or animal life and this, again, with thought or pure reason-

sitated

;

ing.

On

the

other

hand,

anatomy and physiology are

considered from a purely chemical and mechanical point of view.

A

vital

purpose

is,

indeed, assigned to every organ,

but with no more reference to than

if it

its specifically vital

formed part of a steam engine.

properties

Here, as always with

Aristotle, the idea of moderation deterniines the point of view

— SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. whence the

inferior or material

Organic tissue

made up

is

and dry

system

to be

is

363

studied.

of.the four elemental principles

—

mixed together in proper proportions and the object of organic function is to maintain them in due

hot, cold, wet,

;

equiUbrium, an end effected by the regulating power of the soul,

which, accordingly, has

the body. to

It

work out

its

seat in the heart or centre of

has been already shown how, in endeavouring chimerical theory, Aristotle went

this

much

further astray from the truth than sundry other Greek physiologists

less biassed

by

the requirements of a symmetrical

method. After the formal and material elements of separately disqussed, there

by which they ard

fifst

by psychic

have been

comes an account of the process

brought into connexion, for this

With him

.Aristotle views generation.

of matter

life

force

;

and

it is

his notions

is

how

the information

about the part

which each parent plays in the production of a new being are vitiated throughout

by this mistaken assumption.

on the

theless his treatise

siiJaject is,

for its time,

Never-

one of the

most Wonderful works ever written, and, as we are told on

good

authority,' is

ndw

researches of Hafvey. observation, analysis, his success

;

less

antiquated than the corresponding

The

philosopher's peculiar genius for

and qamparisoii

will partly

account for

and less Here the fatal separation of form and matter first starting, precluded by the very idea of

butj

if

we mistake

not, there is another

obvious reason. was, except at

and the teleological principle of spontaneous efforts end was, as it happened, perfectly predetermined a

generation to realise in

;

accordance with the facts themselves.

And Aristotle

now, looking back on his cctsmolgy, we can see that was never so near the truth as when he tried to

bridge over the gulf between his two spheres, the one corruptible and the other eternal, by the idea of motion considered as a specific property of all matter, '

Lewes, quoted by

and

persisting through all

Zeller, p. 524.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

364

time

;

the celestial revolutions and

as a link between

changes occurring on or near the earth's surface

;

and,

th(

finallj

as the direct cause of heat, the great.agent acting in oppositio:

to gravity

—which

last

view

capital discovery, that heat

may have

is itself

a

suggested Bacon'

mode

of motion.

Another method by which Aristotle strove to overcom the antithesis between life as a mechanical arrangement an life as a metaphysical conception, was the newly created stud

The

of comparative anatomy.

variations in structure an

accompany variations in the environmen and not d3^amically conceived, bring v very near to the truth that biological phenomena are subjec to the same general laws of causation as all other phenomena and it is this truth which, in the science of life, corresponds

function which

though

statically

1

the identification of terrestrial with celestial physics in science of general mechanics. ised principle

stationed

in

Vitality

is

not an individua

the heart and serving only

balance opposite forces against one another

through

all

plasticity

the tissues,

tl

;

but

it is diffuse

and bestows on them that extraordina

which responds to the actions of the environme

by spontaneous

variations capable of being

direction, and so creating entirely

new

summed up

in ai

organic forms witlio

the intervention of any supernatural agency.

We

have now to consider how Aristotle treats psycholo|

not in connexion with biology, but as a distinct scienceseparation not quite consistent with his

own

definition of so but forced on him by the traditions of Greek philosophy a

of things. Here the fundamental antithe assumes a three-fold form. First the theoretical activity mind is distinguished from its practical activity the one bei

by the nature

;

exercised on things which cannot, the other on things whi

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. can,

be changed.

36S

Again, a similar distinction prevails within

Where truth

the special province of each.

ledge stands opposed to sense ris^s superior to passion.

;

is

the object, know-

where good

The one

is

antithesis

sought, reason

had been

intro-

duced into philosophy by the early physicists, the other by Socrates.

They were confounded in

the psychology of Plato,

and Aristotle had the merit of separating them once more. Yet even he preserves a certain

artificial

parallelism between

them

by using the common name Nous, or reason, to denote the conTo make his anthropology still more trolling member in each. complex, there

is

a third antithesis to be taken into account,

that between the individual

and the community, which also

sometinies slides into a partial coincidence with the other two. Aristotle's treatise

on the soul

is

scription of the theoretical faculties

By

reason.

sense

qualities of things

;

mainly devoted to a de-

— sense,

and thought or

we become acquainted with by thought, with their forms

the material or ideas.

It

has been already mentioned that, according to our philosopher, the organism

by the

how

soul,

is

a system of contrary forces held in equilibrium

whose seat he supposes to be

learn that every sensation

and every mode of matter,

is

raised

by the presence of some one

in sufficient strength to incline

we

We

from

force,

possibility to actu-

such as heat or cold,

the balance that way.

Here

have, quite in Aristotle's usual style, a description instead

of an explanation. off

the heart.

In other words, the sensorium being virtually any

librium.

ality

in

a disturbance of this equi-

is

The atomic

notion of thin films thrown

from the object of sense, and falling on the organs of sight

or touch,

was but a crude guess

the discoveries of a phrases

Young

;

still it

about potentiality and

actuality.

implies a disturbance of equilibrium truth

;

only, the equilibrium

has more affinity with

or a Helmholtz than scholastic

is,

That sensation

indeed, an important

must be conceived

as a balance,

not of possible sensations, but of molecular states that is to say, it must be interpreted according to the atomic theory. ;

THE GREEK. PHILOSOPHERS.

366

Aristotle

more

is

He

the imagination.

movement

successful

explains

it

to be a continuance of the

communicated by the

originally

to discuss

when he proceeds

object to the'

felt

organ of sense, kept up in the absence of the object itself;— as near an approach to the truth as could be

And

he

tasms

his time.

also right in saying that the operations of reason

is

are only

made in

made

—that

is,

possible

by the help of what he

phan-

calls

faint reproductions of sensations. In addition to

he points out the connexion between memory and ima-

this,

gination,

and enumerates the laWs of association

He

with great accuracy.

So

their scope.

processes,

however, altogether unaware of

is,

from using them to explain

far

all

he does not even see that they account

tary reminiscence, and limits

by which we

recall

but

briefly,

them

to the voluntary operation

name

a missing

the mental

for involun-

or other image to con-

sciousness.

So

far,

Aristotle regards the soul as a function, or energy,

or perfection of the body, from which rated than vision from the eye.

it

can no more be sepa-

It is otherwise

part of mind which he calls Nous, or Reason

with the

— the

faculty

which takes cognisance of abstract ideas or the pure forms of things.

Nous

This corresponds, in the microcosm, to the eternal

of the macrocosm, and,' like

Hot depending for organ. tion

There

is,

its

activity

absolutely immaterial,

however, a general analogy between sensa-

and thought considered as processes of

vious to experience, the

Nous

is

no thought

merely a possibility of thinking, waiting to be written on. idea

it, is

on the exercise of any bodily

by contact with

determination

is

It is

like

a smooth

power

to actuality.

injurious

The law

it

is

of

Excessive

and then destructive to the much of an idea the

organs of sense, but we cannot have too

more intense

tablet

the objective forms of things, and in this

raised from

first

is

wax

determined to some particular

moderation, however, does not apply to thought. stimulation

Pre-

cognition."

in particular, but

the better are

we

able to conceive

;

all

the

— YSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. ideas that

come under

And

real process.

just because ideation

it,

is

367

an incorpo-

there seems to be this further distinction

between sensation and thought, that the completely identified with

its

latter is

much more

object than the former

the very act of imprinting themselves on the

Nous

;

it

is

in

that the

forms of things become perfectly detached from matter, and so attain their final realisation.

only in our conscious-

It is

ness that the eternal ideas of transient

conscious of themselves. pretation of Aristotle's

and a passive Nous. the other

is

Such,

active

Nous

colours from possibility to actuality.

no remembrance of

its

Nous, without which

it

It will

Nous

to

phenomena become it, is

the true inter-

famous distinction between an active The one, he tells us, makes whatever

The

made.

we take

is

like

light raising

It is eternal,

but we have

past existence, because the passive

cart

think nothing,

is

perishable.

be seen that we do not consider the two kinds of

diiifer

froni

each other as a higher and a lower faculty.

This, in our opinion, has

been the great mistake of the com-

who do not identify the active Nous with God, or with some agency emanating from God

mentators, of those, at least,

a hypothesis utterly inconsistent with Aristotle's theology.

They

describe

as a faculty,

it

and as concerned with some

higher kind of knowledge than what ligs within the reach of the passive Nous,* potentiality

reason

is

But with Aristotle faculty is always a recipient, whereas the creative

and a passive

expressly declared to be an actuality, which, in this

•connexion, can difficulty is to

mean nothing but an individual idea. The why the objective forms of things

understand

should suddenly be spoken of as existing within the mind,

by a term carrying with it such subjective Nous a difficulty not diminished by the mys-

and. denominated associations as

;

terious comparison with light in

its

relation to colour,

an

illus-

> So Trendelenburg, Brandis, Kampe, and apparently also Zeller. Grote speaks of it rather vagudy as an intelligence pervading the celestial sphere.

^Schwegler vacillates between the theological and the psychological explanation.

;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

368

tration which, in this instance, has only

We

the darkness

made

was led to express himself He began by following considerations. as he did by the simply conceiving that, just as the senses were raised from visible.

believe that Aristotle

potency tq actuality through contact with the corresponding qualities in external objects, so also

moulded

was the reasoning faculty

into particular thoughts through contact with the

particular things

embodying them

;

thus, for instance,

by

led to conceive the general idea of straightness

it

was

actual ex-

lines. It then, perhaps, occurred to him same object could not produce two such

perience of straight that one and the

profoundly different impressions as a sensation and a thought that

mind was opposed

to external realities

;

not directly impress

itself

idea pf a creative

by the

and that a form inherent

of self-consciousness

Nous

attribute

matter could

in

The we think, devised in order to The ideal forms of things are

on an immaterial substance. was,

escape from these perplexities,

carried into the mind, together with the sensations,

and

in

passing through the imagination, become purified from the

matter previously associated with them. conceived as part of the mind acting on

its

—

in,

Thus they may be

though not yet of it

— and as

And, by a

highest faculty, the passive Nous.

kind of anticipation, they are called by the name of \yhat they

become completely

;

while, in both capacities, activity

is

the old

As

identified with in cognition.

things they are eternal

forms of

as thoughts they are self-conscious

they are

creative,

and

;

their creative

Here we have and function the old

an essentially immaterial process.

confusion

between

form

;

inability to reconcile the claims of the universal

and the par-

After all, Aristotle is knowledge and existence. obliged to extract an actuality from the meeting of two possibilities, instead of from the meeting of an actuality and a Probably the weakness of his own theory did not possibility. ticular in

.

escape him, for he never subsequently recurs to '

The

last

it.'

chapter of the Posterior Analytics sets forth a much more developed

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. Aristotle's

work on reproduction

is

supposed by

363

many

to

contain a reference to his distinction between the two Reasons, but we are convinced that this is a mistake. What we are told

that at the very

is

ently,

;

by the male vital

;

is

that

(being, appar-

heat of the parent

is

also carried in with the semen, into

which

it

been introduced from without, but where, or when,

first

how

by the female

and, finally, that the rational soul, although entirely

immaterial,

or

contributed

engendered in the semen by the

organism)

has

is

being, the

exclusively corporeal function,

precontained in the elements furnished the sensitive soul

new

formation of a

first

vegetative soul, being an

is

not more particularly specified.*

But even were

the genetic theory in question perfectly cleared up,

it

would

throw no light on the distinction between active and pas-

still

can be understood by the For we are expressly informed

sive reason, as the latter alone

rational soul to

which

it

refers.

— what indeed hardly required to be stated —that the embryonic souls exist not in act but in potency.^

that Mr.

fore,

Edwin Wallace

It

seems, there-

doubly mistaken when he

is

quotes a sentence from this passage in justification of his statement, that

Aristotle

'

'with

thinker

because

at all

;

j

'

' first,

would seem almost to identify the '

God

creative reason

it

as the eternal

and omnipresent

does not refer to the creative Nous

and, secondly, because,

if it did,

the words would not

stand the meaning which he puts upon them.* by which general ideas are formed. We think was composed at a considerably later date than the rest of the work, and probably after the treatise on the Soul, to which we should almost suspect an and

definite theoiy of the process

that

it

word iriKiu (p. 100, a, 14), did philology permit. The reference can hardly be to the first part of the chapter (as is generally supposed) j nor has the subject under discussion been touched on in any other part of the Analytics. ' Grote and Kampe think that Aristotle assigns a portion of aether as an extended, if not precisely a material, substratum to the rational soul ; but the arguments of Zeller (p. 569) seem decisive against this view. " De Gen. An., II., iii., p. 736, b, 15. allusion in the

•

Oittlines of the Philosophy

*

The word

applies

it

Oiiav,

at any

of Aristotle,

rate,

to the intelligence of bees,

III., X., p. 761, a, S

;

p. 45.

does not

and

mean 'almost God,'

also to the heavenly bodies

Z>^ Coelo, 11., xii.. p. 292, b, 32).

B B

for Aristotle

{De Gen. An.,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

370

But

even so

if

little

as this remains unproved,

to think of the astounding assertion, that

'

what are w

Aristotle's theor

of a creative reason, fragmentary as that theory the answer

is

left,

1

to all materialistic theories of the universe.

Aristotle, as to a

subtle Scottish preacher,' " the real presuppc

sition of all

knowledge, or the thought which

all things, is

not the individual's consciousness of himself

is

the prius

individual, but a thought or self-consciousness which all individual selves,

and

which

is

the unity of

their objects, of all thinkers

How

and

all

all

is

(

i

beyon

individual selve

objects of thought."

'

can materialism or anything else be possibly refuted b

a theory which is so obscurely set forth that no two interpretei are able to agree fn their explanation of

it ?

And

even wei

and fulness, how can an hypothesis be refuted by a mere dogmatic declaration Aristotle ? Are we back in the Middle Ages that his ip^ dixit is to decide questions now raised with far ampler mear As to Principal Caird of discussion than he could possess metaphysics, we have no wish to dispute their theoreti it

stated with perfect clearness

(

.'

accuracy, and can only admire the liberality of a Church which propositions so utterly destructive of traditional orthc

i

doxy

But one thing we

are allowed to be preached.

certain

of,

and that

is,

ai

that whether or not they are consister

with Christian theism, they are utterly inconsistent wit Aristotelian principles.

sciousness

'

former,

is

it

latter, it

Which

is

the

'

thought or self-cor

referred to, a possibility or an actuality

not a prius, nor

cannot transcend

is it

all

.'

If th

the creative reason.

If th

or any individual selves, fo

with Aristotle, individuals are the

supreme being of neither can

it

his

system

unify them*,

for,

sole

reality,

and

th

pre-eminently individual

is

according to Aristotle, tw

things which are two in actuality cannot be one in actuality.

We

now '

turn to Sir A. Grant, who, as was mentioned

Principal Caird. »

Metaph., VII.,

' xiii.,

Outlines, Preface, p.

p, 1039, a, 4.

viii.

£

—

;

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

371

the beginning of the last chapter, makes Aristotle a supporter

We will state the

of the late Prof. Ferrier.

view in his

own words

His utterances on this subject

'

learned Principal's

:

[the existence of

are perhaps chiefly to be found in the third

On

the Soul," beginning with the fourth chapter.

we

an external world]

book of his

On

treatise "

turning to

"

see that he never separates existence from knowledge.

them

A thing

he says, "is identical with the knowledge of that Again, " The pKjssible existence of a thing is identical with

in actual existence," thing."

the possibility in us of perceiving or is

perceived or known,

it

knowing

Thus,

it."

until

a thing

can only be said to have a potential or

And from this a doctrine very similar to that of be deduced, that " nothing exists except //wi- me," that

possible existence.

—

Ferrier might is

to say, in relation to

much

After

some mind perceiving

searching,

we have

it.'

{Aristotle, p. 165.)

not been able to find the

two passages quoted by Sir A. Grant.

originals of the

We

found others setting forth the doctrine of

have, however,

Natural Realism with a clearness which leaves nothing to be Aristotle tells us that former naturalists were wrong,

desired.

when they vision,

said that there could be

and no

taste without tasting

no black or white without that is, they were right ;

about the actuality, and wrong about the possibility

;

for,

as

he explains, our sensations are produced by the action of external bodies on the appropriate organs, the activity being the

same while the existence in

the action of the

body are

for,

is

different.

our hearing

produces a sound

;

A

identical,

but not their existence

he adds, the hearer need not be always

sonorous body sounding

This

is

'

(ttws)

cogitable

;

and so with

all

listening, nor the

the other senses.*

not making Xhepercifi of objects their esse.

in the eighth chapter

way

;

sonorous body

the sound perceived and

all

he

tells

us that the soul

is

'

in

Again, a certain

things, since all things are either sensible or

and then he proceeds to explain what

is

meant by

' De An., III., ii., p. 426. a, 20 ; 425, b, 25 ff. What Aristotle means by saying that the eItoi of object and sensation is not the same, appears from a

passage in his tract on of a portrait and

employs the illustration (p. 450, b, 20), where he which are the same, although their thu is different. B B 2

Memory

its original,

' ;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

372 '

Sense and knowledge are distributed over

in a certain way.'

the possibility, and They must, then, their actuality the actuality, of the things.

things in such wise that their possibility

is

be either the things themselves or their forms. things themselves they are surely not, for the stone soul,

but

its

form.'

effect,

not in the

is

but even more explicitly.

ing the Protagorean doctrine, he reduces if

the

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle expresses

himself to the same

urging that

But

'

Criticis-

to an absurdity

it

by

there were nothing but sensibles, then nothing

at all could exist in the absence of

animated beings, for

without them there would be no sensation. He admits that in the case supposed there would be neither feelings nor felt objects, since these presuppose a sentient subject

that for the substances

ing not to exist

is

(^h. liroKsLiLSva)

impossible

;

'

;

but adds,

which produce the feel-

for there

is

something

besides the feeling which must necessarily exist before

And

else it.'

immediately afterwards he clinches the argument by ob-

serving that

if

appearances were the only truth, there would

be no independent existences, and everything would be relative, since appearances exist only in relation to some one to

whom

Now we

they appear.

need hardly say that

this uni-

was pi'ecisely what Ferrier contended for. is on stfbnger, or rather on more inaccessible Grant Sir A. ground, when he uses the distinction between the two reasons

versal relativity

as involving a sort of idealistic theory, because here Aristotle's

meaning

is

much

less clearly

tation be the correct one,

if

expressed.

the creative

Yet,

if

our interpre-

Nous simply means

the forms of things acting through the imagination on the possibilities of subjective conception, Aristotle's

exactly the reverse of that contended for thought, instead of moulding, will ternal reality.

In no case have

itself

we a

by

Sir

view will be

Alexander

be moulded by ex-

right to set an obscure

^nd disputed passage against Aristotle's distinct, emphatic, and reiterated declarations, that sensation and ideation are '

Metaph., IV., v„ sub fin.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

37^

substantially analogous

processes, taken together with his equally distinct declaration, that the objects of sensation are independent of our feelings. ?Siink, indeed, that Sir A.

We

Grant will

on reconsideration, that he is proving too For, if the things which reason creates were external

much.

find,

would go at least as far as those from whom his expositor is

to the mind, then Aristotle '

extreme German

idealists

anxious to separate him.

up

set

'

observe that to

between form and matter

distinction

Aristotle's

we would

Finally,

in

opposition to the materialistic theories of the present day,

shows a profound misconception of

Form and

meaning.

its

matter are nowhere distinguished from one another as subject

and

Form simply means

object.

the attributes of a thing, the

entire aggregate of its differential characteristics.

But that

does not of itself amount to conscious reason we are told by Aristotle himself.' On the other hand, the matter to which some philosophers attribute an independent exist-

this

'

'

ence,' is

not his

'

matter

minus consciousness. in the possibility of

'

at

The

'

'

'

all,

but just the

Stagirite did not,

sum

it is

of things

true, believe

we have

such a universe, but only (as

shown) because he was not acquainted with the highest laws Yet, even taking

of motion.

matter

'

'

in his

own

technical

would have agreed with Prof. Tyndall, that contained the promise and the potency of all future life,

sense, Aristotle it

reason alone excepted. sensitive soul

is

He

not body, belongs to body

any so

materialist

far,

us very clearly that the

tells

a somatic function, something which, although ;

and

this

would now contend

there really

was nothing

we

conceive

is

all

that

to

And. having gone prevent him from going a for.^

had he only been acquainted with the dependence on nervous action. At any rate, the tenobliterate the distinction where he drew it, dency is now to and to substitute for it another distinction which he neglected. While all functions of consciousness, from the most elementary step farther,

of

all

'

intelligence

DeAn.,

III., iv.,

sub fin.

"

De

An.,

II., ii., p.

414,

a, 20.

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

374

complex reasoning, seem to pass into

sensation to the most

one another by imperceptible gradations, consciousness m general is still separated from objective existence by an impassable chasm it lies

and

;

there

if

is

in the absolute idealism

What we

any hope of reconciling them

which he so summarily

rejected.

have had occasion repeatedly to point out in other

departments of his system,

The

chology.

is

verified

once more in his

psy^^

from

thought has resulted

progress of

a

reunion of the principles between which he drew a rigid demar-

We

cation.

have found that perception can only be under-

stood as a process essentially homogeneous with the highest thought, and neither more nor less immaterial than

the objective side, both actions

And

;

may be

on the subjective

here, also,

we have

pates modern thought, synthetic conception.

it is.

On

resolved into sensori-motor

side, into

groups of related

to note that

when

feelings;

Aristotle antici-

through his one great mediating,

it is

He observes incidentally that our know-

ledge of size and shape

acquired, not through the special

is

—

by motion an apergu much in advance of Locke.* If there are any who value Aristotle as a champion of spiritualism, they must take him with his encumbrances. If senses, but

his philosophy proves that it

one part of the soul

proves equally that the soul, taking

able.

Not only does he

reject

is

immaterial,

altogether,

it

is

perish-

metempsychosis as

Plato's

inconsistent with physiology, but he declares that affection,

memory, and reasoning are functions not of the

eternal Nous,

but of the whole man, and come to an end with his dissolution.

As

to the active Nous, he tells us that

it

the assistance of the passive Nous, which

cannot think without is

mortal.

And there

Nicomachean Ethics showing that a future life, and was perfectly resigned to its conseqOences." At one period of his life, probably when under the immediate influence of Plato, he had indulged are various' passages in the

he had faced

'

'

this negation of

'

DeAn.,

^

See Zeller pp. 602-606, where the whole subject

III.,

i.,

p.

425,

n, 13. is

thoroughly discussed.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

'

zTi

in dreams of immortality ; but a profounder acquaintance with natural science sufficed to dissipate them. Perhaps a lingering veneration for his teachei*hiade him purposely use

ambiguous language creative reason

consciousness. proposition,

in

reference

eternity of that

to the

which he had so closely associated with selfIt may remind us of Spinoza's celebrated

Sentimus experimurque nos aetemos

absolutely disconnected with the

esse, words hope of a continued existence

of the individual after death, but apparently intended to enlist

some of the sentiment associated with that

own

of the writer's

On the other

belief

on the side

philosophy.

hand, the spirit of Plato's religion survived in

the teaching of his disciple under a new form. eternal personality was, as

it

were, unified and

The idea of an made objective

by being transferred from the human to the divine and so each ;

philosopher developes an aspect of religious faith which

is

wanting in the other, thereby illustrating the tendencies, to

some extent mutually between them. theism his

is

exclusive,

which divide

remains to observe that

It

if

inconsistent with the Catholic faith,

psychology be

Philosopher

is

its

theology

much more must

The Philosophy of

direct negation.

as fatal to

all

even Aristotle's

the

the Church's doctrine of future

rewards and punishments as

it

is

to her doctrine of divine

interference with the usual order of nature.

VI.

We

now

pass to the consideration of Aristotle's most

important achievement also,

we

shall find

—

much

^his

system of

to criticise,

logic.

is

it

And

as,

here

as well to begin

by

saying that, in our opinion, his contributions to the science are the most valuable ever made, and perhaps have done

more to advance

it

than

all

other writings on the same subject

put together.

The

principal business of reason

is,

as

we have

seen, to

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

376

form abstract ideas or concepts of things. But before the time of Aristotle it had already been discovered that concepts, or rather the terms expressing them, were capable of being united in propositions which might be either true or false, and whose truth might be a matter either of certainty or of simple opiriion.

Now,

the most recent times,

it

as there

is

in

modern psychology, down

to

has always been assumed that, just

an intellectual faculty or operation called abstrac-

tion corresponding

to the terms of which a proposition

composed, so also there

ment corresponding

is

is

a faculty or operation called judg^

to the entire proposition.

Sometimes,

again, the third operation, which consists in linking propositions together to form syllogisms,

faculty called reason

;

sometimes

is

assigned to a distinct

all

three are regarded as

ascending steps in a single fundamental process.

Neither

Plato nor Aristotle, however, had thought out the subject so scientifically.

To

both the framing, or rather the discovery,

of concepts was by far the most important business of a philosopher, judgment and reasoning being merely subsidiary to ists

Hence, while in one part of their logic thqy were realand conceptualists, in other parts they were nominalists.

it.

Abstract names and the definitions unfolding their connota-

Nature^the

tion corresponded to actual entities in

eternal

—as

Ideas of the one and the substantial forms of the other well as to mental representations about

whose existence they

were agreed, while ascribing to them a

different origin.

But

they did not in like manner treat propositions as the expression of natural

mind

;

laws without, or of judgments within, the

while reasoning they regarded

thinking, a

method

much more

for the discovery of ideas,

as an art of

than as the

systematisation of a process spontaneously performed

every

human being without knowing

their

tendency

is

to connect

it

it

;

with the theory of definition

rather than with the theory of synthetic propositions.

approach to a

realistic

view

is,

by

and, even as such,

indeed,

made by

both.

Some The

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

277

restless and penetrating thought of Plato had, probably towards the close of his career, led him to enquire into the

mutual relations of those Ideas whifh he had at

He

clined to regard as absolutely distinct.

Sophist tity,

how

and so

first

been

shows us

in-

in the

the most abstract notions, such as Being, Idenforth,

other's nature

;

must, to a certain extent, partake of each

and when

their relationship does nut lie

the surface, he seeks to establish

it

by the

third idea obviously connected with both.

of the Republic he also points to a

on

interposition of

a

In the later books

scheme

for arranging his

Ideas according to a fixed hierarchy resembling the concatenation of

mathematical proofs, by ascending and descending

whose successive gradations the mind with absolute truth

method

syllogistic

theless,

what

;

and we

same

following in the

is

to

become familiarised

shall presently see

track,

how Aristotle,

sought for a counterpart to his

in the objective order of things.

Never-

with him, as well as with his master, science was not

it is

with us, a study of laws, a perpetually growing body

of truth,

but a process of definition and classification, a

what had already been perceived and

systematisation of thought. It

was from the

this direction. definition,

By

initiative of Socrates that logic received

insisting

on the supreme importance of

he drew away attention from the propositions

which add to our knowledge, and concentrated which only so doing he

it

on those

with precision the meaning of words. Yet, in was influenced quite as much by the spirit of the

fix

older physical philosophy, which he denounced, as necessities of the

introduce.

new humanistic

His definitions were,

on a very minute

scale, of those

culture,

by the

which he helped to

in truth, the reproduction,

attempts to formulate the

whole universe which busied the

earliest

Ionian specula-

Following the natural tendency of Greek thought, and the powerful attraction of cosmic philosophy, an effort was speedily made to generalise and connect these partial defini-

tion.

:

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

378

tions until they

into a system of universal classification

grew

It was when, under the influence of a new analysis, thi: system threatened to fall to pieces, that a rudimentary doc

trine of judgment first

made its appearance. The

structure of

i

grammatical sentence was used to explain how objective ideas could, in a manner, overlap and adhere to one another

Hence

propositions, which, as the expression of general truths

were destined to become the beginning and end of thought remained at

first strictly

subordinated to the individual con-

cepts that they linked and reconciled.

With

He

Aristotle propositions assumed a

new importance

looked on them as mediating, not only between concepts

but also between conception and reasoning.

Still,

neither

as

a psychologist nor as a logician did he appreciate them at theii

A

real value. in his

very brief consideration

work on the

soul,

and we are

given to judgmeni

is

doubt whether

left in

it

is

a function of Nous alone or of Nous combined with some othei Setting aside the treatise on Interpretation, which

faculty. is

probably spurious, and, at any rate, throws no new light or

the subject,

dozen

different suggestions

sitions,

In

all

we may gather from

his logical writings half

2

towards a classification of propo-

based partly on their form and partly on their import

we

find

an evident tendency to apply, here

also, his

grand fundamental distinction between the sphere of uniformity

and the sphere of change and opposition. are either universal or particular

;

either necessary or actual or contingent

or not reciprocating

;

All propositions

either positive or negative ;

either reciprocating

either essential or accidental

;

eithei

question in the categories, or to one

answering to the

first

the other nine.'

But nowhere

is

oi

any attempt made to com-

bine and systematise these various points of view.

In the theory of reasoning the simple proposition as a starting-point '

Anal. Pr.,

Tauchnitz ed.,

I.,

vi.).

i.,

;

is

taken

but instead of deducing the syllogism

sub in.

;

ii.,

sui

in.

;

Top.,

I.,

viii.,

Bekker

(in thf

;

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

379

jrom the synthesis of two premises, Aristotle reaches the premises through the conclusion. He tells us, indeed, that reasoning

a

is

thing that

we

way

of discovering

did not

know

fr^

before.

what we know, someWith him, however, it is

a process not of discovery but of proof He starts with the conclusion, analyses it into predicate and subject or really

major and minor, and then, by a further analysis, introduces a middle term connecting the two. Thus, we begin with the proposition,

Caius

'

is

mortal,'

the notion humanity between

and prove its

by

it

interpolating

two extremes.

From

this

point of view the premises are merely a temporary scaiTolding

the major and minor into connexion with the

for bringing

middle term

and

;

this is also the reason

why

Aristotle recog-

nises three syllogistic figures only, instead of the four ad-

by

mitted

For, the middle

later logicians.

may

either

be

contained in one extreme and contain the other, which gives us the

figure

first

second figure third

and

;

;

;

or

it

may

contain both, which gives the

or be contained

this is

in

both,

which gives the

an exhaustive enumeration of the possible

combinations.'

We have here,

also,

the secret of that elaborate machinery-

devised for the very unnecessary purpose of converting syllo-

gisms of the second and third figure into syllogisms of the

which

For

one of the Stagirite's principal contributions to

is

it is

only

in

the

first

figure that the notion

extremes are either united or held apart term, that distinction

serves

is

to say, really

is

firstj

logic.

by which the

really a middle

comes between the

others.

The

between perfect and imperfect syllogisms also

to illustrate Aristotle's systematic

the necessary

and the contingent.

The

division

between

method of proof by

inclusion corresponds in its unconditioned

and independent

arrangement of the supernal spheres with their conversions and reducfigures, the second and third tions, to the sublunary sphere in its helpless dependence on

validity to the concentric

'

Anal. Pr.,

I., xxiii.,

41, a, II (in the Tauchnitz ed., xxii., 8).

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

38o

the celestial revolutions, and

ments

into

The

transformations oH the

its

one another. which Aristotle gives us

rules

ele

for the conversion

(

propositions are no doubt highly instructive, and throw gres light

on

their

meaning

but one cannot help observing tha

;

such a process as conversion ought, on his

With

have been inadmissible.

and predicate corresponded

ject

own

principles,

t

Plato, the copulation of sub to

an almost mechanica

juxtaposition of two self-existent ideas.

It was, therefore,

what order they were placed. Aris totle, on the other hand, after insisting on the restoration c the concrete object, and reducing general notions to a: matter of indifference in

analysis of

its

particular aspects, could not but

dicate subordinate to,

and dependent

which altogether

tion

excludes

antithetical structure of the

duced even

rela

first

c

another.'

whole system

is

rcprc

where there

in the first syllogistic figure,

similar opposition between the

the pre

—a

the logical possibility

making them interchangeable with one

The

make

on, the subject

is

mood, by which alon

universal affirmatives can be obtained, and the remaining three

whose conclusions are

And

either negative or particular, or botl

the complicated rules for testing the validity of

tlTos

syllogisms in which the premises are distinguished as neces sary, actual,

and

possible, are still

more obviously based

Aristotle's false metaphysical distinctions

;

o:

so that with th

overthrow of those distinctions large portions of the Analytic lose their entire value for

On

modern

students.

the other hand, a theory of reasoning based on th

on the relations of judgment;

relations of concepts, instead of

necessarily leaves out of account the whole doctrine of hypo

and disjunctive propositions, together with that c the syllogisms based on them since the elements of whic they are composed are themselves propositions. And thi inevitable omission is the more remarkable because alterna thetical

;

'

This point

is

well brought out in F. A. Lange's Logiscke Uvtersuchungen.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. tive and, to

a less extent, hypothetical arguments form the

staple of Aristotle's

own

never occurs in

all.

all

381

it

at

dialectic

;

while categorical reasoning

His constant method

to enumerate

is

possible views of a subject,

the other, rejecting those

and examine them one after which are untenable, and resting

content with the remainder. positive conclusions

In other words, he reaches his through a series of negative premises

representing a process of gradual

Analytics

method.

elimination.

and the valid moods are sifted out from a

number of

illegitimate syllogisms.

The

First

—a

going back

reasoning at

method of

still

further,

in

Homer,

all

trial,

we it

greater

It

was essentially and selection.

elimination,

find that is

much

dialectic of Socrates

and Plato followed the same procedure. experimental

On

The

an admirable instance of his favourite Every possible combination of terms is discussed* itself

is

when

there

is

any

conducted after the same

Hector, in his soliloquy before the Scaean Gate,

fashion.

imagines three alternative courses, together exhausting the possibilities

He may

of the situation.

either retreat within

the walls, or offer terms of peace to Achilles, or fight. first

two

third.

alternatives being rejected, nothing remains

This

the most elaborate example

is

;

The

but the

but on

many

other occasions Homer's actors are represented as hesitating

between two courses, and finally deciding on one of them. Disjunction ing,

and, as such,

You

is,

in truth, the primordial

form of

all

reason-

out of which the other forms are successively evolved it

is

are taking a

common

walk

to

in the

man

;

with the lower animals.

country with your dog.

You

a stream and jump over it. On measuring the distance with his eye, the animal is afraid to follow you. After waiting a little, he first runs up stream in search of a oppocrossing, and, finding none, returns to look for one in the

come

to

site direction. -

Failing there also, he comes back once more, and

on the leap or makes his way home by some Now, on considering the matter a little more

either ventures

other route.

;;

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

383

we shall

closely,

find that hypothetical reasoning takes its rise

from the examination of each separate alternative presented plurality of courses being open by a disjunctive premise.

A

to us,

we

consider what will ensue on the acceptance or rejec-

The dog

tion of each.

canine fashion) that

he

be

will

left

if

he jumps he

Hector

behind.

walls, because, if

our illustration thinks (after a

in

may

fall in

he does, Polydamas

will

nor will he offer terms of peace, because, will refuse

them.

Once more,

;

if

he does

not,

not take refuge within the

will

triumph over him

if

categorical reasoning

veloped out of hypothetical reasoning

by

deducing consequences from a general

;

he does, Achilles is

de-

the necessity of

Hector must

rule.

have argued from the known characters of Polydamas and Achilles, that in certain circumstances they

We may add, that

certain manner.

reasoning to which

is

would act

after

a

this progress of conscious

a reproduction of the unconscious logic according

life

itself is

All sorts of combinations are

evolved.

spontaneously produced, which, in consequence of the struggle for existence,

cannot

ditions of

are selected, on

and

their

life

all survive. trial,

at the

disjunctive

proposition

to the con-

expense of the

adaptation or non-adaptation

accordance with categorical laws. of a

Those adapted is

rest

determined in

Furthermore, the framing

necessitates

the

systematic

distribution of possibilities under mutually exclusive heads,

thus involving the logical processes of definition, division, and Dialectic,

classification.

as

Plato understood

it,

consisted

almost entirely in the joint performance of these operations

—a

process which Aristotle regards as the immediate but

very imperfect precursor of his

own syllogistic method.' You by dividing, for instance, all

cannot, he says, prove anything

two classes, mortal and immortal unless, you assume the very point under discussion to

living things into the

indeed,

which

;

—

Yet this is how he and even demonstrative reasori-

class a particular species belongs.

constantly reasons himself '

Anal. Pr.,

I.,

;

xxxi.

j

Anal. Post.,

II., v.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. he interprets

ing, as

of propositions

a thing

it,

implies the possession of a ready-made

For, according to him,

classification.

which predicate

—

in other words,

some

of the subject

the definition

383

consists exclusively

it

softie essential attribute

attribute already included in

and a continuous

;

of

such definitions can only be given

by a

series

of

fixed classification of

things.

VII.

We

have endeavoured to show that Aristotle's account of

the syllogism

is

redundant on the one side and defective on

due to a

the other, both errors being

reasoning process

effect

itself,

The same

philosophy.

false analysis of the

combined with a

evil influences tell

false

metaphysical

with

much

greater

on his theory of applied reasoning. Here the fundamental

division,

corresponding to that between heaven and earth in

the cosmos,

is

between demonstration and

mental reasoning.

The one

with

starts

dialectic or experifirst

principles

of

unquestionable validity, the other with principles the validity of which

is

to be tested

by

their consequences.

most abstract form, the distinction prefigures the

modern

tion,

the process

the

process

division

is

its

between deduction and induc-

by which general laws

by which

Stated in

sound, and very nearly

they

are

are

applied,

established.

however, committed two great mistakes

;

and

Aristotle,

he thought that

each method corresponded to an entirely different order of

phenomena

and he thought that both were concerned for the most part with definitions. The Posterior Analytics, which :

contains his theory of demonstration, answers to the astro-

nomical portion of his physics

and necessary

truth.

And

;

it is

the doctrine of eternal

just as his ontology distinguishes

between the Prime Mover himself unmoved and the eternal

movement produced by guishes between

his influence, so also his logic distin-

infallible

first

principles

and the truths

derived from them, the latter being, in his opinion, of inferior

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

384

Now, according to Aristotle, these first principles are definitions, and it is to this fact that their self-evident certainty At the same time they are not verbal but real defiis due. value.

nitions—that

is

to say, the universal forms of things in them-

made

selves as

stamped upon

And, by a

manifest to the eye of reason, or rather,

it

like the impression of

a signet-ring on wax.

further refinement, he seems to distinguish between

the concept as a whole and the separate marks which it

make

up, these last being the ultimate elements of all existence,

and as much beyond

its

complex forms as Nous

is

beyond

reasoned truth.

Such a view was

essentially unfavourable to the progress

of science, assigning, as

it

did,

a higher dignity to meagre and

very questionable abstractions than to the far-reaching combinations

by which alone we

are enabled to unravel the inmost

texture of visible phenomena.

Instead of using reason to

supplement sense, Aristotle turned universal kind of sense

;

and

it

if this

into a

more

subtle

and

disastrous assimilation

was to a certain extent imposed upon him by the traditions of Athenian thought, it harmonised admirably with the descriptive

and

Muth was

own

superficial character of his

also

intelligence.

due to the method of geometry, which

in his

time had already assumed the form made familiar to us by Euclid's Elements.

The employment

of axioms side

by

side

with definitions, might, indeed, have drawn his attention to the existence and importance of judgments which, in Kantian terminology, are not analytic but synthetic

—that

is,

which

add to the content of a notion instead of simply analysing it. But although he mentions axioms, and states that mathematical theorems are deduced from them, no suspicion of their essential

difference

from

definitions, or of the typical significance

which they were destined to assume ing,

in the theory of reason-

seems ever to have crossed his mind

hardly have failed to ask

;

otherwise he could

how we come by

them, and to what they correspond

in

our knowledge of

Nature.

On

the whole,

'

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

385

seems likely fhat he looked on them as an analysis of our ideas, differing only from definition proper by the gene-

it

rality

of

its

application

for he names the law of contradicmost important of all axioms, and that from

tion as the

;

which the others proceed excluded middle, which

example

is,

that

if

ders are equal, a is

by no means

We

;

is

'

next to

he places the law of

it

also analytical

;

and

his only other

equals be taken from equals the remain-

judgment the synthetic character of which and has occasionally been disputed.^

clear,

who

cannot, then, agree with those critics

Aristotle a recognition of such things as

attribute to

laws of nature,' in

and sequences.^

the sense of uniform co-existences idea implies a certain balance

'

and equality between subject

and predicate which he would never have admitted. in his

own

language, be

the leading category.

Such an It

would,

making relation, instead of substance, It must be remembered also that he

did not

acknowledge the existence of those constant conjunc-

tions in

Nature which we

He

call laws.

did not admit that

matter was heavy, or that fluidity implied the presence of

all

The

heat.

possession of constant properties, or rather of a

property

single constant

the aether.

Nor

is

—

this a

indefinitely multipliable

circular

common

rotation

—

is

reserved for

property of different and

phenomena

;

it

characterises a single

body, measurable in extent and unique in kind.

Moreover,

^ Anal. Post., I., x. iii., sub in. 'Die Wissenschaft soil die Erscheinungen aus ihren Griinden erklaren, welche naher in den allgemeinen Ursachen und Gesetzen zu suchen sind (Zeller, p. 203). 'Induction is the method of proceeding from particular 'It sterns to have been his instances to general laws' (Wallace, p. 13)flash of [Aristotle's] idea that after gathering facts up to a certain point, a Apropos intuition telling us "This is a law'" (Grant, p. 68). '

Metaph., IV.,

'

would supervene, whence this

we may observe that Sir omits to provide for verificatheories agree on the contrary, most anxious to show that bjs his memorable declaration (De Gen.

of the discussion

A. Grant

An.,

all

the

last

passage

is.

known

facts.

extracted,

more to be trusted than reasonings. distinguished from law.s is by Aristotle on concepts as translation of the Metaphys:cs, German his in Kirchmann,

The emphLs by J. H. v.

laid

noticed

P-I3I.

'

See in particular

III., .., p. 760, b, 27), that facts are

VOL.

is

quite mistaken in saying that Aristotle

Aristotle

tion.'

with

is

^^

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

afe

we have something better than indirect evidence on point we have the plain statement of Aristotle himself,

this

that

;

all

science depends on

first principles,

about which

it

is

im-

possible to be mistaken, precisely because they are universal

abstractions not presented to tion,'

the

mind by any combina-

— a view quite inconsistent with the

priority

now

given

to general laws.

Answering if

to the

first

principles of demonstration in logic,

not absolutely identical with them, are what Aristotle

We

causes in the nature of things.

calls

have seen what an im-

portant part the middle term plays in Aristotle's theory of the demonstration, the con-

syllogism.

It is the vital principle of

necting link

by which the two extreme terms

one another.

are attached to

In the theory of applied logic, whose object

is

to bring the order of thought into complete parallelism with

the order of things, the middle term through which a fact

demonstrated answers to the cause through which

it

is

exists;

According to our notions, only two terms, antecedent and consequent, are involved in the idea of causation tion only

becomes a matter

that the sequence Aristotle

is

for reasoning

and causa-

when we

perceive

But

repeated in a uniform manner.

was very far from having reached, or even suspected,

A

this point of view.

cause

two phenomena cedes and this ;

is

explained.

is

why he

with him not a determining by which the co- existence of

is

antecedent, but a secret nexus

Instead of preceding

make

it

inter-

finds its subjective counterpart in

the middle term of the syllogism. will

;

the matter clearer.

Some of his own examples Why is the moon eclipsed 1

Why

Because the earth intervenes between her and the sun. is

the bright side of the

moon always

Because she shines by his reflected middle term).

Why

is

turned towards the sun

light (here light is the

that person talking to the rich

Because he wants to borrow money of him.

two men friends '

^

.'

.'

Why

man }

are those

Because they have the same enemy.^

Be An., III., vi., sub in., taken together with^«a/. Post., Anal. Post., I., xxxiv. ; II., ii.

I., vi.

;

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

387

Aristotle even goes so far as to eliminate the notion of

He

sequence from causation altogether

tells

us that the

causes of events are contemporary with the events themselves those of past events being past

and of future events,

future.

'

This thing

will

not be because

that other thing has happened, for the middle term

homogeneous with the extremes.' limitation abolishes the power of if

not the only test of knowledge,

The

able verification. ing too

much

It is

'

must be

obvious that such a

scientific prediction, is

at

Stagirite has

to deductive reasoning

any

rate

its

it

;

now appears its

which,

most valu-

been charged with

the contrary, he had no conception of function.

;

of present events, present

;

trust-

that,

on

most important

Here, as everywhere, he follows not the synthetic

method of the mathematician, but the analytic method of the Finally, instead of combining the notions of cause

naturalist.

and kind, he systematically

remembered how his excellent formal, efficient,

and

final,

confuses

It

will

be

was rendered nugatory by the

continued influence of Plato's ideas.

tended to absorb the other three assimilation

them.

division of causes into material,

;

The formal cause always

and

it is

by

their

complete

he attempts to harmonise the order of For the formal

that

demonstration with the order of existence.

phenomenon simply meant those properties which it shared with others of the same kind, and it was by virtue of those properties that it became a subject for general reasoning, which was interpreted as a methodical arrangement of cause of a

concepts one within another, answering to the concentric disposition of the cosmic spheres.

Owing

to the slight importance

which Aristotle attaches

compared with concepts, he does not go very deeply into the question, how do we obtain our premises He says, in remarkably emphatic language, that all knowledge to

judgments

as

.'

is

by demonstration or by induction or rather, since demonthe last resort by the latter only,

acquired either

we may add,

in

;

'

a, 36Altai. Post., II., xii., p. 95i

cc a

—

'

388

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

stration rests

on generals which are discovered inductively

but his generals

mean

definitions

and abstract predicates

subjects, rather than synthetic propositions.

attention had been called to the distinction,

own

that he would, on his

principles,

If,

c

however, h

we cannot suppos

have adopted conclusion

essentially different from those of the

modern

experientic

Mr. Wallace does, indeed, claim him as a supporte

school.

of the theory that no inference can be

made from

particular

and

to particulars without the aid of a general proposition,

a

having refuted, by anticipation. Mill's assertion to the contrarj

We

quote the analysis which

Wallace's

We

own words

is

supposed to prove

this in

M:

:

reason that because the war between Thebes and Phocis wa

a war between neighbours and an

evil, therefore the war betwee Athens and Thebes, being also a war between neighbours, will all probability be also an evil. Thus, out of the one parallel casethe war between Thebes and Phocis we form the general propostion. All wars between neighbours are evils; to this we add th minor, the war between Athens and Thebes is a war between neigh hours and thence arrive at the conclusion that the war betweei Athens and Thebes will be likewise an evil. i;

—

—

On the strength

of this Mr. Wallace elsewhere observes :—

His [Aristotle's] theory of syllogism is simply an explicit state ment of the fact that all knowledge, all thought, rests on universa truths or general propositions tive

'

or

—

We

of general propositions.

in

into the belief that reasoning ticular,

that all knowledge, whether

inductive,' is arrived at

'

and a

'

village

matron

is '

'

deduc

by the aid, the indispensable aic England have been almost charme perpetually from particular to pai

and her Lucy '

'

have been used

t

express the tjuth for us in the concrete form adapted to our weake

comprehension (Mill's Logic, bk. ii. ch. 3). We shall next be tolc oxygen and hydrogen do not enter into the composi tion of water, because our village matron perpetually drinks forsooth, that

'

without chemist

'

passing through

'

either element,

and the

analysis of th

be proved as great a fiction as the analysis of the logiciai has supplied the links which at once upset all such superficii

will

Aristotle

'

'

Wallace's Outlines^ p. 14.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. He

analysis.

has shown that even in analogy or example, which

apparently proceeds in this

another particular instance, so far as

389

way from one particular instance we are only justified in so proceeding

we have transformed

to in

the particular instance into a general

proposition.' Novir,

there

that the former

Mill,

between Aristotle and only showing how reasoning from

this great difference

is

is

examples can be set forth is

in syllogistic form, while the latter

investigating the psychological process which underlies all

reasoning, rests

—

and the

on which a valid inference

real foundation

questions which had never presented themselves clearly

mind of the Greek philosopher at all. Mill argues, first instance, that when any particular proposition

to the

the

deduced from a general proposition, evidence as that other particulars Aristotle.

He

and, so

;

far,

itself rests,

is in -perfect

namely, on

agreement with

then argues that inferences from particulars to

particulars are perpetually

general proposition the

he

is

proved by the same

it is

on which the general

in

example of a

'

:

made without

passing through a

and, to illustrate his meaning, he quotes

village

matron and her Lucy,' to which Mr.

Wallace refers with a very gratuitous sneer.^

However, as we have seen, he against Mill. clear,

but

The

of his

drift

we suppose

it

is

own

not above -turning

implies that the

sciously frames the general proposition

:

My

it

very

illustration is not

matron unconremedy is good

from the same disease as Lucy and with equal unconsciousness reasons down from this to the case for all children suffering

;

of her neighbour's child.

Now,

Mill's analysis superficial

because

it is it

quite unjustifiable to call leaves out of account a

hypothesis incompatible with the nominalism which Mill quote against it professed. It is still more unjustifiable to

'

Ibid., Preface, pp. viii.-ix.

tutors, and as if other philosophers Mill wrote exclusively for Oxford by concrete examples. One does arguments their elucidated had not constantly should be more deservmg of contempt than not see why the village matron Aristotle's Thebans and Phocians. 2

As

if

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

39°

who

the authority of a philosopher

who

disbelieve in the possibility of unconscious knowledge,'

and contemptuously rejected

Nor

perfectly agreed with those

The

this all.

is

Plato's opinion to the contrary.

doctrine that reasoning

even when

ticulars to particulars,

it

passes through general

propositions,

may

admissions.

If nothing exists but particulars,

ledge

be rigorously deduced from Aristotle's own

of what exists, then

is

Therefore,

if

from par-

is

all

knowledge

is

and

if

know-

of particulars.

the propositions entering into a chain of reason-

ing are knowledge, they must deal with particulars exclusively. And, quite apart from the later developments of Aristotle's

we have

philosophy,

his express assertion, that all generals

are derived from particulars, which

with the alleged

fact,

that

'

all

is

absolutely incompatible

knowledge,

universal truths, on general propositions

whether

"

deductive

"

or " inductive,"

is

all

thought, rests on

that

;

all

knowledge,

arrived at

by the

To

the indispensable aid, of general propositions.'

aid,

Aristotle

the basis of knowledge was not 'truths' of any kind, but

concepts

and

;

in the last chapter of the Posterior Analytics

he has explained how these concepts are derived from senseperceptions without the aid of any

We

'

propositions whatever. '

are here confronted with an important

puted question.

Was

Aristotle an empiricist

decidedly that he was,

should be meant

if

—one

by

who

empiricist

is

.'

and much

We

dis-

hold most

meant, what alone

believes that the

mind

neither

anticipates anything in the content, nor contributes anything

to the form

knowledge

of experience to

be the

;

in

imposed by things on thought.

when

other words,

who

believes

agreement of thought with things

We

have already shown,

discussing Sir A. Grant's view to the contrary, that

Aristotle

was

in

no sense a transcendental

half of our position

is

Analytics already referred facie so

much '

in favour of

That

is,

idealist.

The other

proved by the chapter in the Posterior to,

the language of which

is

primi

our view that the burden of proof

knowledge which has never been

actualised.

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. rests

on those who give

it

another interpretation.

whom we

these, the latest with

are acquainted

eminent German historian, after

assli-ting in

is

391

Among The

Zeller.

former editions

work that Aristotle derived

of his

self- contemplation

his first principles from the of the Nous, has now, probably in deference

the unanswerable arguments of Kanipe, abandoned this

to

He

position.

indefinable

d.

still,

however, assumes the existence of a rather

priori element in the Aristotelian noology,

strength of the following considerations

the

:

— In

according to Aristotle, even sense-perception

place,

the is

on

first

not a

purely passive process, and therefore intellectual cognition

can

still

amount

less

be so

190).

(p.

But the passages quoted only which is raised

to this, that the passivity of a thing

from possibility to actuality differs from the passivity implied in

the destruction of

of abstract thought

its

proper nature

come from

the sense that they are presented reason.

The pure

He would

freely

ence, but

is

a quite different sort of operation truth;

and he would also

from that highly-abridged and representative ex-

constitutes it.

new

generalise not directly from outward experi-

perience which

tion to

by the imagination to the deny either position.

admit that to lose one's reason through

from being impressed with a

we

from without, in

empiricist need not

drunkenness or disease

admit that

and that the objects

;

within, not

memory

supplies.

Neither process, however,

an anticipation of outward experience or an addiIt is

that Aristotle

from the differs.

materialist, not

He

from the empiricist,

believes that

the forms under

which matter appears are separable from every particular portion of matter, though not from

world

them

all

matter, in the external

;

and he believes that a complete separation between

is

effected in the single instance of self-conscious reason,

which again, in cognising any particular thing is identified with Zeller's next argument is that the that thing minus its matter. cognition of ideas by the Nous is immediate, whereas the process of generalisation

from experience described by Aristotle

,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

392 is

extremely

the word

Here

indirect.

Zeller seems to. misunderstand

Aristotle never applies

ajMea-os.

knowledge, but

to

it

only to the objective relations of ideas with one another.

Two

terms constitute an

'

immediate premise when they are '

not connected by another term, quite irrespective of the steps

by which we come

So with 'immediate' when they

to recognise their conjunction.

They

the terms themselves.

are

cannot be derived from any ulterior principle they are simple and uncaused.

when,

;

in short,

Finally, the objection that

being the most certain and necessary of any,

first principles,

cannot be derived from sensible experience, which, dealing only with material objects, must inherit the uncertainty and

contingency of matter,

itself

;

and

—

is

an objection, not to the empiricist

of Aristotle's philosophy, but to empiricism

interpretation it is

not allowable to explain

away

the plain words

of an ancient writer in order to reconcile them with assumptions

which he nowhere

necessity involve intuition, is

That

admits.

and

universality

an d priori cognition or an intellectual

a modern theory unsupported by a single sentence

We

in Aristotle.'

when he goes on

quite agree with Zeller

to say that in Aristotle's psychology

'

and

certain thoughts

notions arise through the action of the object thought about

on the thinking mind, just as perception

arises

action of the perceived object on the percipient'

how

this differs

from the purest empiricism

is

through the (p.

19S)

;

but

more than we

are able to understand. It is

remarkable that Aristotle, after repeatedly speaking

of induction as an ascent from particulars to generals, when

he comes to trace the process by which we arrive at the most general notions of any, does not admit the possibility of such a

movement

individual

in

are,

one direction only. according to

The

elementary sense-impressions, and the business of >

It is a

mistake to translate intuite ideas, but

Nous does not

v6ricris,

is

and the

universal

him, combined in our most

as the

Germans

scientific

do, by Anschauung.

converted into and consists of them.

The

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. experience

separate them.

to

is

393

Starting from a middle

we work up to indivisible predicates on the one hand and down to indivisible subjects on tte other, the final appre-

point,

hension of both extremes being the

office,

not of science, but of

This theory

is

equally true and acute.

of individual facts

is

just as difficult

Nous.

and

The

perception

just as slowly ac-

quired as the conception of ultimate abstractions.

Moreover,

on pari passu, each being only made possible by and through the other. No true notion

the two processes are carried

can be framed without a firm grasp of the particulars from

which

it

is

abstracted

without analysing

it

is

we now

;

two elements

—a solution of

the

—one

mean

the distinctive originality of his

see that his induction

phenomenon, but

universal and the other into the extremes.

whole system was to

such extremes for the universe

—a

And

fix

two

self-thinking thought in

absolute self-identity at one end of the scale,

and an abso-

other; by combining

indeterminate matter at the proportions he then re-constructed

which in various

whole intermediate phenomenal

reality.

particular class of facts, he follows the

genus

is

under a general law, but the interpolation of a

analysis into

lutely

afforded by

We saw that, was not the subsumption of a

not the finding of a law for the particular

individual

—

What, however, we

Greek method of thought.

mean between two extremes is

predicates, the

combination

the illustration incidentally

our philosopher, syllogism

particular case

its

common

their special

is,

apergu of Aristotle's analytical method, which

also the essentially for

group of

—that

from every other object.

it

wish to remark this striking

no individual object can be studied

into a

idiosyncrasy of which differentiates

;

is

the

In studying each

same method.

The

marked by some characteristic attribute which one

species—the prerogative species, so to speak— exhibits in form a graduated scale its greatest purity, while the others

by variously combining this Hence his theory, privation.

attribute with

since revived

its

opposite or

by Goethe, that

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

394

many

the colours are so

mixtures of light and

different

darkness.

been customary to speak as

It has, until lately,

knew about

Aristotle

induction was

scattered passages where

mean simple

that

mentioned under that name

it is

This, no doubt,

the Analytics.

if all

contained in a few

true, if

is

But

generalisation.

by induction we

we understand by

if

philosophy of experimental evidence

—the

in

it

the

analysis of those

means by which, in the absence of direct observation, we decide between two conflicting hypotheses then the Topics must be pronounced as good a discussion on the subject as was compatible with his general theory of knowledge. For he supposes that there are large classes of phenomena, includ-

—

.

ing,

among

other things, the whole range of

not being bound by any fixed order, scientific

lie

human life, which,

outside the scope of

demonstration, although capable of being determined

with various degrees of probability

and here also what he

;

is

not the discovery of laws, but the construction

of definitions.

These being a matter of opinion, could always

has in view

be attacked as well as maintained. flict

and balancing of opposite

forces,

Thus the constant conwhich we have learned

to associate with the sublunary sphere, has

its

logical repre-

sentative no less than the kindred ideas of uncertainty

And,

vicissitude.

logic, Aristotle

who took then very

in

connexion with

Analogy,

what

common among educated of reasoning

Athenians, and frequently

Hence, while we find Such as

suggested.

Disjunctive Reasoning,

is

we do

For Analogy, see Top.,

Hypothetical Reasoning,

IT.,

II., x.,

many

Reasoning by

Hypothetical

most remarkable, three out of

perimental Methods,' '

and

of applied

has also to consider the requirements of those

(though without a generalised expression for and,

side

part in the public debates on disputed questions,

turning on verbal definitions. varieties

this

Reasoning

all its varieties),

Mill's four

Ex-

not find that any interesting or Disjunction, II.,

sub

x.,

sub in.

;

p.

115, a

15; Method of Differences, II.,

vi.,

in.

;

;

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. useful application

handbook

made

is

Even considered

of them.

for debaters, the

395

as a

With

is not successful.

Topics

the practical incompetence of a mere naturalist, Aristotle has

supplied heads for arguments in such profusion utter carelessness of their relative importance that

and such

no memory

could sustain the burden, except in the probably rare instances

when a

lifetime

was devoted

to their study.

VIII.

We mental

have now concluded our sui-vey of the antithesis, that

great

first

between reason on the one hand, and

sense and opinion on the other.

The next

between reason and passion,

occupy us a much shorter

With

time.

it

we

will

pass from theory to practice, from meta-

physics and logic to moral philosophy. the preceding chapter, Aristotle for

him the supreme

knowledge.

antithesis, that

is

interest of life

But, as

we saw

in

not a practical genius is still

the acquisition of

Theorising activity corresponds to the celestial

world, in which there can be neither opposition nor excess

;

while passion corresponds to the sublunary sphere, where order

is

only preserved by the balancing of antithetical forces

and the moderating influence of reason,

to the control exer-

by the higher over the lower system. The passions themselves, and the means by which they

cised

can be either excited or controlled, are described Rhetoric with wonderful knowledge of abstract, but with almost

purposes the infotmation

human

in Aristotle's

nature in the

no reference to the art is

ostensibly systematised

for ;

whose

while in

the Ethics they are studied, so to speak, statically, in their condition of permanent equilibration or disequilibration virtues xi.jsub in.

and

vices being represented as

Method of Residues, VI.,

;

xi.,

sub

in.

;

so

many

;

the

different

Concomitant Variations,

II.,

37; v., viii., jai5 ?». ; VI., vii., sub in. The Method of Agreement occurs An. Prior., IL, xxvii., sub Jin. ; and An. Post., II., xiii., p. 97, b, 7.

X., p.

114, b,

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

395

obvious that such an exparallelism could not be carried out without

aspects of those conditions.

tremely

artificial

It

is

The

a considerable strain and distortion of the facts involved.

only virtue that can, with truth, be described as a form of

and even in temperance this is Elsewhere Aristotle deduces the extremes from the mein rather than the mean from the extremes and sometimes one of the extremes is invented moderation

temperarice

is

;

accidental rather than essential.

;

To

for the occasion.

justice, confessedly the

fit

most import-

ant virtue, into such a scheme, was obviously impracticable Instead of an

without reinterpreting the idea of moderation.

equilibrium between opposing impulses in the same person,

we have

equality in the treatment of different persons

again resolves

which

;

giving them their own, without any

itself into

definite determination of

what

their

own may

It

be.'

cannot

even be said that Aristotle represented either the best ethical thought of his own age, or an indispensable stage evolution of

thought.

all

ethical theory

The extreme

in

the

insufficiency of his

due to the fancied necessity of squaring

is

it

For no

with the requirements of his cosmological system.

sooner does he place himself at the popular point of view

than he deduces the particular virtues from regard to the

them

welfare of others, and treats

all

as so

many

different

forms of justice.^ Aristotle has sometimes been represented as

of free-will against necessity.

an advocate

But the question had not

He

really

had him that internal motives might exercise a not occurred to constraining power over action. Nor has his freedom anything

been opened

to

in his time.

do with the

It

may

;

but

self-assertion of mind, its extrication

chain of physical antecedents. '

rejected fatalism

It is

it

from the

simply the element of

fifth book of the Nicomaekean Ethics is of dilemma remains that Aristotle either omitted the

possibly be urged that the

doubtful authenticity.

most important of

all

Still

the

moral questions from his

miserably inadequate manner. « Eth. Mc, v., iii. ; Rhel.,

I., vi., p.

ethics, or

1362, b, 28

;

that he treated

ix., p.

1366, b, 4.

it

in a

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

397

and uncertainty supposed to characterise the region of change and opposition, as distinguished from the arbitrariness

higher region of undeviating regularity.

only in this higher region that perfect virtue can be realised. The maintenance of a settled balance between rival It is

solicitations, or

between the excess and defect of those im-

pulses which lead us to seek pleasure

and avoid

pain,

is

good

The law

indeed, but neither the only nor the chief good.

moderation does not extend to that supremely happy

which

of

life

related to our emotional existence as the aether to

is

the terrestrial elements, as soul to body, as reason to sense,

Here

as science to opinion.

means

it is

the steady subordination of

to ends which imitates the insphering of the heavenly

orbs, the hierarchy of psychic faculties, gistic

arguments.

much, and

all

Of

and the chain of

theoretic activity

other

activities,

syllo-

we cannot have

too

whether public or private,

much machinery for ensuring its Wisdom and temperance had been

should be regarded as so prosecution.

peaceful

absolutely identified

by Socrates

;

they are as absolutely

And what we

held apart by Aristotle.

have had occasion to

observe in the other departments of thought

once more.

The method

verified here

is

of analysis and opposition, appar-

Notwith-

ently so prudent, proved, in the end, unfruitful.

standing

The

his

Socrates was substantially

paradoxes,

brought about, not by Dorian

discipline,

but by free A^thenian

thought, working on practical conceptions of

right.

moral regeneration of the world was destined to be

new

moral truth, or rather

of old truth. of theoretic

by the

—by the discovery

dialectic

development

And, conversely, the highest development was not attained by isolating it in

activity

egoistic self- contemplation

but by consecrating

it

vitality, and subjecting

from the world of human needs,

to their service, informing it,

in

common

it

with their

with them, to that law of

moderation from which no energy, however godlike, is exempt. The final antithesis of conscious life is that between the

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

39'5

In this sense, Aristotle's Politics is the completion of his Ethics. It is only in a well-ordered community that moral habits can be acquired and it is only individual

and the

state.

;

in

such a community

that the best or intellectual

attained, although, properly speaking,

it

life

can be

not a social

is

life.

Nevertheless, the Politics, like every other portion of Aristotle's

system, reproduces within

To

pendent whole.

itself .the

understand

must begin by disregarding

its

elements of an inde-

internal organisation,

(chiefly

adapted from Plato) of constitutions into three

gitimate

—Monarchy,

illegitimate

Aristocracy, and Republic

;

— Democracy, Oligarchy, and Tyranny.

distinguishes

we

Aristotle's abortive classification

them by saying

le-

and three Aristotle

that the legitimate forms are

governed with a view to the general good

the illegitimate

;

with a view to the interests of particular classes or persons. But, in point of fact, as Zeller shows,' he cannot keep up this distinction

;

and we

substituting for

it

understand his true idea by

shall better

another

The

the material state.

—that

between the

object of the one

highest culture for a ruling caste, dustrial occupations,

and

dependent population.

The

and

to secure the

are to abstain from in-

by the labour of a Such a government may be either

to be supported

monarchical or aristocratic

hands of a few.

who

intellectual

is

;

but

it

must necessarily be

object of the other

is

in the

to maintain a

stable equilibrium between the opposing interests of rich and

poor

— two classes practically distinguished as the few and the

many.

This end

is

belongs to the middle

best attained where supreme power class.

The

deviations are represented

by oligarchy and tyranny on the one side, and by extreme democracy on the other. Where such constitutions exist, the best mode of preserving them is to moderate their characteristic

excess by borrowing certain institutions from the opposite

form of government, or by modifying their own in a conciliatory sense. '

P- 753-

institutions

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.

399

In the last chapter we dealt at length with the theories of

and especially of tragic poetry, propounded in Aristotle's For the sake of formal completeness, it may be mentioned here that those theories are adapted to the general

art,

Poetics.

scheme of

The

his systematic philosophy.

plot or plan of a

work answers to the formal or rational element in Nature, and

why

this is

Aristotle so immensely over-estimates

And,

ance.

ment, represented by character-drawing, ated to plied

by

it.

The

centre of equilibrium

is,

subordin-

strictly

is

however, not sup-

but by exact imitation of Nature, so that the

virtue,

characters

import-

its

just as in his moral philosophy, the ethical ele-

must not deviate very

far

from mediocrity

in the

direction either of heroism or of wickedness.

IX. Notwithstanding the radical error of Aristotle's philosophy false abstraction and isolation of the intellectual from

—the

the material sphere in Nature and in nish a useful corrective to the ated,

if

much

human falser

life

—

country.

Taken

may

fur-

philosophy insinu-

not inculcated, by some moralists of our altogether, the

it

own age and

teaching of these

writers

seems to be that the industry which addresses itself to the satisfaction of our material wants is much more meritorious

work which gives us direct aesthetic enjoyment, or the literary work which stimulates and gratifies our

than the

artistic

intellectual cravings

of portraiture

is

and within the is

set

;

while within the artistic sphere fidelity

preferred to the creation of ideal beauty intellectual sphere,

mere observation of

above the theorising power by which

and explained. great enemies

Some

of the school to

of materialism

materialism of the

;

facts are unified

whom we

allude are

but teaching like theirs

worst description.

;

facts

is

Consistently carried

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

400

would first reduce Europe to the level of China, and^then reduce the whole human race to the level of bees or beavers. They forget that when we were all comfortably clothed, housed, and fed, our true lives would have only just begun. out,

The

it

choice would then remain between

some new refinement

of animal appetite and the theorising activity

cording to Aristotle,

which,t:, ac-

the absolute end, every other activity

is

being only a means for

its

attainment.

There

not, indeed,

is

such a fundamental distinction as he supposed, for

activities

of every order are connected by a continual reciprocity of services

but

;

knowledge

is

only amounts to saying that the highest

this

a means to every other end no less than

Aristotle

in itself.

an,

We

sity of leisure as a condition of intellectual progress.

may add it

that

it is

a leisure which

industrial production could not

height.

Nor should

imposed on

the

spiritual as

not be carried on at

amply earned,

is

be maintained at

The

on material labour.

all

for without its

present

same standard of perfection be latter could

unless success, and not failure, were

It is otherwise in the

the rule.

end

also fully justified in urging the neces-

is

ideal sphere.

proportions are necessarily reversed.

out of a thousand guesses and

trials

We

There the

must be content

if

one should contribute

something to the immortal heritage of truth. Yet we may hope that this will not always be so, that the great discoveries

and creations wrought out through the waste of innumerable not only the expiation of all error and suffering in

lives are

the past, but are also the pledge of a future fices shall

when such

sacri-

no longer be required.

The two elements

of error and achievement are so

inti-

mately blended and mutually conditioned in the philosophy' which we have been reviewing, that to decide on their resgective importance

is

impossible without

first

deciding on

a- still

larger question— the value of systematic thought as such, and

apart from

its

actual content.

For Aristotle was perhaps the

greatest master q/ systen;atisation that

ever

lived.

The

SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. I

framev'ork and language of science are

[

what he made them

;

and

still,

401

to a great extent,

remains^© be seen whether they,

it

be completely remodelled. Yet even this gift has not been an unmixed benefit, for it was long used in the will ever

service of false doctrines,

and

it

still

into tne Aristotelian forms truths

Let

contain.

or even of

none

to

us.

whom

conclude by observing that of

the methods and results of

could so easily be

he would

still

critics to

read

which they do not really all

the ancients,

thinkers before the eighteenth century, there

all

reversed his

induces

explained.

own most

is

modern science

While finding that they

cherished convictions on every point,

be prepared by his logical studies to appreciate

the evidence on which they

rest, and by his ardent love of them without reserve. Most of all would he welcome our astronomy and our biology with wonder and delight, while viewing the development of modern machinery with much more qualified admiration, and the progress of

truth to accept

democracy perhaps with suspicious fear. He who thought that the mind and body of an artisan were alike debased by the exercise of some simple handicraft under the pure bright

sky of Greece, what would he have said to the

on human beings by the noisome, grinding, drudgery of our factories and mines

would he have deemed issues

its

effect

wrought

sunless, soulless

How profoundly unfitted

!

victims to influence those political

with which the interests of science are every day

becoming more unwillingly, he

vitally

connected

Yet slowly, perhaps, and

!

might be brought to perceive that our industry

has been the indispensable basis of our knowledge, as supplying both the material means and the moral ends of cultivation.

He

might also learn that there

relationship between the

two

:

is

its

an even closer

that while the supporters of

privilege are leagued for the maintenance of superstition, the

workers, and those

who advocate

equality, are leagued for

YOL.

I.

its

their claims to political

restraint

D D

and overthrow.

And

if

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.

402

shrank back from the heat and smoke and turmoil amid which the genius of our age stands, like another Heracleitus, in feverish excitement, by the steam-furnace whence'

he

still

powers of revolutionary transmutation are derived, we too might reapply the words of the old Ephesian prophet,

its

bidding him enter boldly,

for here also there are gods.

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