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THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

GIFT OF

Mrs* F. M. Foster

HISTORY

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

HISTORY

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

DR. W. WINDELBAND

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITT OF STRASSBURQ

^utj)0ri|eti Cranglation

HERBERT ERNEST CUSHMAN, Ph.D.

INSTRUCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY IN TUFTS COLLEGE

FEOM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1899

GIFi

4 6S^^^£^

2anibf rsttg Press :
John Wn.soN and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

WILLIAM R. SHIPMAN, LL.D.

Professor of EntjItsI) in ^Tufts (Collcfle,

MV FRIEND AND COUNSELLOR.

lVl633ri:i6

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

Professor Windelband's Geschichte der Alien Philo-
Sophie is already well known to German philosophical
readers as one of the famous Miiller series of hand-books,
and yet to that wider circle of English readers it is still a
foreign book. In many quarters technical scholars of
Greek philosophy have already commended its important
innovations, and to these its erudition and scholarship are
patent. In its translation, however, under the title of "The
History of Ancient Philosophy," it will reach the general
reader and serve as an introduction to the beginner in phi-
losophy. I have personally never been able to see why the
approaches to the study of philosophy have been made as
difficult and uninviting as possible. In other hard sub-
jects all sorts of helps and devices are used to allure the
beginner within. Into philosophy the beginner has always
had to force his way with no indulgent hand to help. In
the past the history of thought has too often been entirely
separated from the history of affairs, as if the subjec-
tive historical processes could have been possible with-
out the objective concrete events. Professor Windelband
has gone far to lead the general reader to the history
of thought through the history of the affairs of the Greek
nation. This is, to my mind, the difficult but absolutely
necessary task of the historian of thought, if he wishes
to reach any but technical philosophers. This work occu-

Vlll PREFACE

pies a unique position in this respect, and may mark the
beginning of an epoch in the rewriting of the history of
philosophy.

I am indebted to many friends for help in my transla-
tion of this work. The reader will allow me to mention in
particular Professor George H. Palmer, of Harvard, my
friend and former teacher, for introducing me to tlie work ;
and my colleagues, Professor Charles St. Clair Wade for
much exceedingly valuable assistance, and especially Pro-
fessors Charles E. Fay and Leo R. Lewis, whose generous
and untiring aid in the discussion of the whole I shall
ever remember. Whatever merits the translation may
have, are due in no small measure to their help; for
whatever defects may appear, I can hold only myself
responsible.

So complete are the bibliographies here and elsewhere
that I have found it necessary to append only a list of such
works as are helpful to the English reader of Ancient
Philosophy.

HERBERT ERNEST CUSHMAN.
Tufts College, June, 1899.

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION

Having undertaken to prepare a r^sum^ of the history of
ancient philosophy for the Handhuch der Klassischen Alter-
tumsivissenschaft, it seemed expedient to offer to my trained
readers, not an extract from the history of the literature of
the Greeks and Romans, which can be found elsewhere ;
but rather a short and clear presentation, such as would
awaken interest and give an insight into the subject matter
and the development of ancient philosophy. The necessity
of a new edition gives evidence that this presentation has
won itself friends far beyond the circle of those most
nearly interested. This, moreover, would not have hap-
pened had I not abandoned the idea of presenting a col-
lation from the data usually furnished, and had I not given
to the subject the form which my long personal experience
as an academic teacher had proved to be most available.
As a result I found myself in the somewhat painful posi-
tion of being compelled to present didactically many very
considerable deviations from the previous conception and
treatment, without being able in the limitations of this
r^sum^ to advance for experts my reasons save in short
references. I should have been very glad if I could have
found time to justify my innovations by accompanying de-
tailed discussions. But, unfortunately, the execution of
my whole purpose has been postponed up to this time
through more important and imperative tasks. The new

X PREFACE

edition, therefore, finds me again in the same position of
being compelled to trust more in the force of the general
relations of the subject matter and in the emphasis briefly
laid upon important moments, than in a leisurely extended
polemical presentation, which would otherwise have been
usual in this particular field.

For the chief matters in which I have gone my own ways
— the separation of Pythagoras from the Pythagoreans
and the discussion of the latter under " Efforts toward
Reconciliation between Heracleitanism and the Theory of
Parmenides," the separation of the two phases of Atomism
by the Protagorean Sophistic, the juxtaposition of Democ-
ritus and Plato, the conception of the Hellenic-Roman phil-
osophy as a progressive application — first ethical and then
religious — of science, to which I have also organically con-
nected Patristics, — all this the reader finds unchanged in
its essentials. My treatment of these questions has found
recognition in many quarters, but in many also an expected
opposition; and the reader may be assured that I have
always been grateful for this latter, and have given it care-
ful consideration. This weighing of objections was the
more needful since I had occasion in the mean time to deal
with the same questions in a larger connection and from
a different point of view. The trained eye will not fail to
recognize in this second edition the influence of the objec-
tions of experts, even where these have not convinced me,
in the numerous small changes in the presentation, and in
the choice of bibliography and citations. Here, again, the
revising hand needed to follow many a kindly suggestion in
the discussions of this book, and accept many a gratifying
explanation in the works that have appeared during the
past five years.

The only change in the external form of the book is in
the very desirable addition of an index to the philosophers
discussed.

TREFACE xi

Then may my brief treatise continue to fulfil its task :
to solicit friends appreciative of a noble cause, to preserve
alive the consciousness of the imperishable worth which
the creations of Greek thought possess for all human
culture.

WILHELM WINDELBAND.

Strasburg, April, 1893.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Translator's Preface vii

Author's Preface (to second German edition) ... ix

INTRODUCTION

1. Significance of ancient philosophy to European civilization 1

2. Division of ancient philosophy 3

3. Historical methods 5

4-6. Sources and developments of ancient philosophy ... 8

A. — GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Introduction : The preliminary conditions of philosophy in
the Greek intellectual life of the seventh and sixth cen-
turies b. c 16-292

7. Geographical survey 16

8. Social and political relations 17

9. The period of ethical reflection : the Seven Wise Men . . 18

10. Practical and special learning 20

11. Religious ideas 26

12. The reformation by Pythagoras 28

13. The first problems of science 33

1. The Milesian Nature Philosophy. Pages 36-45.

14. Thales • . 36

15. Anaximander 39

16. Anaximenes 43

xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

2. The Metaphysical Conflict. — Heracleitus and
THE Eleatics. Pages 46-71.

17. Xenophanes 46

18. Heracleitus 52

19. Parmenides 59

20. Zeno and Melissus 65

3. Efforts toward Reconciliation. Pages 71-100.

21. Empedocles ^ . . . . 73

22. Anaxagoras 80

23. The beginnings of Atomism : Leucippus 87

24. The Pythagoreans 93

4. The Greek Enlightenment. — The Sophists
AND Socrates. Pages 100-151.

25. Eclecticism and special research 100

26. The Sophists 108

27. Socrates 123

28. The Megarian and Elean-Eretrian Schools 135

29. The Cynic School 140

30. The Cyrenaic School 145

5. Materialism and Idealism. — Democritus and
Plato. Pages 151-223.

31. The life and writings of Democritus 155

32. The theoretic philosophy of Democritus 159

33. The practical philosophy of Democritus 170

34. The life and writings of Plato 174

35. The theory of Ideas of Plato 189

36. The ethics of Plato 204

37. The nature philosophy of Plato 216

6. Aristotle. Pages 224-292.

38. The Older Academy 224

30. The life and writings of Aristotle 230

40. The logic of Aristotle 247

41. The metaphysics of Aristotle 257

42. The physics of Aristotle 268

43. The ethics and poetics of Aristotle 282

TABLE OF CONTENTS xv

B. — HELLENIC-ROMAN PHILOSOFHY

Paob

44. Introduction 293

1. The Controversies of the Schools. Pages 298-329

45. The Peripatetics 298

46. The Stoics 303

47. The Epicureans 319

2. Skepticism and Syncretism. Pages 329-349.

48. The Skeptics 329

49. Eclecticism 337

60. Mystic Platoiiism 341

3. Patristics. Pages 349-365.

51. The Apologists 352

52. The Gnostics and their opponents 355

53. The Alexandrian School of Catechists. Origen .... 361

4. Neo-Platonism. Pages 365-383.

54. The Alexandrian School : Plotinus 366

55. The Syrian School : Jamblichus 375

56. The Athenian School : Proclus 377

BIBLIOGRAPHY 385

INDEX 389

HISTORY

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

INTRODUCTION

1. Scientific interest in ancient, especially in Greek,
philosophy, is not confined to the value that it possesses as
a peculiar subject for historical research and for the study
of the growth of civilization. But it is also equally con-
cerned in the permanent significance that the content of
ancient thought possesses by reason of its place in the
development of the intellectual life of Europe.

The emphasis falls primarily upon the lifting of mere
knowing to the plane of systematic knowledge, or science.
Not content with his storing of practical facts, and with
his fantastic speculations born of his religious needs, the
Greek sought knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge,
like art, was developed as an independent function from
its involvement in the other activities of civilization. So,
first and foremost, the history of ancient philosophy is an
insight into the origin of European science in general.

It is, however, at the same time the history of the birth
of the separate sciences. For the process of differentia-
tion, which begins with distinguishing thought from con-
duct and mythology, was continued within the domain of
science itself. With the accumulation and organic ar-
rangement of its facts, the early, simple, and unitary science
to which the Greeks gave the name <^L\oao(f>La, divided into

2 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the special sciences, the single cf^iXoaocjyiai, and these then
continued to develop on more or less independent lines.

Concerning the history and meaning of the name of " phi-
losophy," see especially R. Haym, in Ersch and Gruber's Ency-
Mopddie^ III. division, vol. 24 ; Ueberweg, Grundriss^ I. § 1 ;
Windelbaud, FraeXudien^ p. 1 ff. The word became a technical
term in the Socratic school. It meant there exactly what sci-
ence means in German. In later time, after the division into
the special sciences, the word philosophy had the sense of
ethico-religious practical wisdom. See § 2.

The beginnings of scientific life that are thus found in
ancient philosophy are most influential upon the entire
development that follows. With proportionately few data,
Greek philosophy produced, with a kind of grand simplicity,
conceptual forms for the intellectual elaboration of its facts,
and with a remorseless logic it developed every essential
point of view for the study of the universe. Therein con-
sists the peculiar character of ancient thought and the high
didactic significance of its history. Our present language
and our conception of the world are thoroughly permeated
by the results of ancient science. The naive ruggedness
with wdiich ancient philosophers followed out single motives
of reflection to their most one-sided logical conclusions,
brings into clearest relief that practical and psychological
necessity which governs not only the evolution of the
problems of philosophy, but also the repeated historical
tendencies toward the solution of these problems. We
may likewise ascribe a typical significance to the universal
stages of development of ancient philosophy, in view of the
fact that philosophy at first turned with undaunted courage
to the study of the outer world ; thwarted there, it turned
back to the inner world, and from this point of view, with
renewed strength, it attempted to conceive the World- All.
Even the manner in which ancient thought placed its
entire apparatus of conceptual knowledge at the service of

INTHODUCTION 3

social and religious needs has a peculiar and more than
historical value.

The real significance of ancient philosophy will be much ex-
aggerated if one tries to draw close analogies between the dif-
ferent phases of modern philosophy and its exponents, and
those of the ancients. Read K. v. Reichlin-Meldegg, D. Pared-
lelismus d. alien u. neuen Philosophies Leipzig and Heidelberg,
1865. A detailed parallelism is impossible, because all the
forms of the modern history of civilization have so much more
nearly complete presuppositions, and are more complicated than
those of the ancient world. The typical character of the latter
is valid in so far as they have " writ large" and often nearly
grotesquely the simple and elemental forms of mental life,
which among moderns are far more complicated in their
combinations.

2. The total of that which is usually designated as
ancient philosophy falls into two large divisions, which
must be distinguished as much in respect to the civilizations
that form their background as in respect to the intel-
lectual principles that move them. These divisions are,
(1) Greek philosophy, and (2) Hellenic-Roman philosophy. '^^
We may assume the year of the death of Aristotle, 322 b. c,
as the historical line of demarcation between the two.

Greek philosophy grew out of an exclusive national
culture, and is the legitimate offspring of the Greek spirit.
The Hellenic-Roman philosophy came, on the other hand,
out of much more manifold and contradictory intellectual
movements. After the days of Alexander the Great a
culture that was so cosmopolitan that it broke down all
national barriers, increased in ever-widening circles among
the nations upon the Mediterranean Sea. The fulfilment of
these intellectual movements was objectively expressed in
the Roman Empire, subjectively in Christianity ; and, be it
remarked, the Hellenic-Roman philosophy forms one of the
mightiest factors in this very process of amalgamation.

Moreover, there is a not less important difference in the
scientific interest of the two periods. Greek philosophy

4 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

began with an independent desire for knowledge. It was
ever concerned in the quest for knowledge that was free
from all subordinate purposes. It perfected itself in Aris-
totle, partly in his logic, which was a universal theory of
knowledge, and partly in the scheme of a developed system
of sciences. The energy of this purely theoretic interest
was gradually extinguished in the following time, and was
only partly maintained in unpretentious work upon the
objective special sciences. The practical question how the
Wise Man should live entered into " philosophy," however,
and knowledge was no longer sought on account of itself
but as a means of right living. In this way the Hellenic-
Roman philosophy fell into dependence upon the general
but temporary changes in society, — a thing that never
happened in purely Greek philosophy. Then later its
original ethical tendency changed entirely into the effort to
find by means of science a satisfaction for religious aspira-
tion. In Greece, philosophy, therefore, was science that
had ripened into independence ; in Hellenism and the
Roman Empire, philosophy entered with a full possession
of its consciousness into the service of the social and
religious mission of man.

It is obvious, from the elasticity of all historical divisions,
that this antithesis is not absolute, but only relative. The post-
Aristotelian philosophy is not entirely lacking in endeavors
for the essentially theoretical, nor indeed among the purely
Greek thinkers are there wanting those who set for philosophy
ultimately practical ends, — the Socratics for example. How-
ever, comparison of the different definitions which in the course
of antiquity have been given for the problem of philosophy,
justifies, on the whole, the division we have chosen, which takes
the purpose of philosophy in its entirety as the principium
divisionis.

These divisions approach most nearly among later writers
those of Ch. A. Brandis in his shorter work, Gesch. d. Entwick.
d. gn'echischen Phil. u. Hirer Nachimrkiuigen im romisclien
lieiche (2 vols., Berlin, 18(52 and 1864), although he distin-
guishes formally three periods here, as in his larger work.

INTRODUCTION 5

These periods are: (1) pre-Socratic philosophy; (2) the devel-
opmeut from Socrates to Aristotle; (3) post-Aristoteliau phi-
losophy. Yet he unites the first two divisions as " the first
half," and distinctly recognizes their inner relationship in con-
trast to the third division, which forms "the second half."
Zeller and Schweglcr also employ these three periods as the
basis of their work upon the Greeks, while Ritter puts the
Stoics andf Epicureans also in the second period. Hegel, on
the other hand, treats the entire Greek philosophy until Aris-
totle as the first period, to w^hich he adds the Graeco-Roman
philosophy as the second and the neo-Platonic philosophy as
the third. Ueberweg accepts the divisions of Ritter, with this
variation, — he transfers the Sophists from the first period to
the second.

We purposely desist from dividing here the two chief periods
of philosophy into subordinate periods. The demand for com-
prehensiveness, which alone would justify further divisions, is
satisfied with the simple general divisions, while a comprehen-
sive view of the steps in development is provided for in another
manner by the treatment of individual doctrines. If a completer
subdivision should be insisted upon, the following might be
adopted : —

(a) Greek philosophy into three periods : —

(1) The cosmological, which includes the entire pre-Socratic
speculation, and reaches down to about 450 b. c. (§§ 1-3) ;

(2) The anthropological, to which belong the men of the
Greek Enlightenment, i. e., the Sophists, Socrates, and the so-
called Socratic schools (§ 4) ;

(3) The systematic, which by its uniting the two preceding
periods is the flowering period of Greek science.

(6) Hellenic-Roman philosophy into two sections : —

(1) The school-controversies of the post- Aristotelian time,
with the accompanying essential ethical tendency, critical skep-
ticism, and retrospective erudition (§§1 and 2).

(2) Eclectic Platonism, with its bifurcation into the rival sys-
tems of Christian and neo-Platonic religions (§§3 and 4).

3. The scientific treatment of the history of philosophy
or of a part of that history, as in this treatise, has a
double task. On the one hand it must determine the
actual number of those concepts which are claimed to be
" philosophic," and must conceive them in their genesis,
particularly in their relation to each other. On the other

6 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

hand, it must determine the value of each individual
philosophic doctrine in the development of the scientific
consciousness.

In the first regard the history of philosophy is purely an
historical science. As such, it must without any predilec-
tion proceed, by a careful examination of the tradition, to
establish with philological exactness the content of the
philosophic doctrines. It must explain their origin with
all the precautionary measures of the historical method.
It furthermore must make clear their genetic relations, on
the one hand, to the personal life of the philosophers, and,
on the other, to civilization as a whole. In this way it
will be plain how philosophy has attained to an actual
process of development.

From this historical point of view, however, there arises
for the history of philosophy the critical task of determin-
ing the results which the various systems of philosophy
have yielded for the construction of the human concep-
tion of the world. The point of view for this critical study
need not be the peculiar philosophical attitude of history.
Nevertheless it must, on the one hand, be that of inner
criticism, which tests the teaching of a philosophical sys-
tem by logical compatibility and consistency ; it must, on
the other hand, be that of historical generalization, which
estimates philosophical teaching according to its intellec-
tual fruitfulncss and its practical historical efficacy .

The history of ancient philosophy as a science has to
meet very great and sometimes insuperable difficulties in
the fragmentary character of the literary sources. On the
other liand, in its critical ])roblem, it is fortunate in being
able, after a development of nearly two thousand years, to
judge the value of individual teaching with no personal
bias.

The different points of view taken in investigating the his-
tory of philosophy are as follows : —

INTRODUCTION 7

(1) The iiaiVe point of view of description. According to
this tiie teachings of the different pliilosophers are supposed to
be reported with historical authenticity. So soon, however, as
any report is claimed to be of scientific value, the tradition
must be criticised ; and this, as all other historical criticism,
can be accomplished only by investigating the sources.

(2) The genetic point of view of explanation^ which has three
possible forms, —

(a) The psychological explanation. This represents the per-
sonalit}^ and individual relations of the respective philosophers
as tlie actual causes or occasions of their opinions.

(6) The pragmatic method. This is an attempt to under-
stand the teaching of each philosopher by explaining the contra-
dictions and unsolved problems of his immediate predecessors.

(c) The kultur-historisch view. This sees in the philosophical
systems the progressive consciousness of the entire ideal de-
velopment of the human mind.

(3) The speculative attitude of criticism. Starting from a
systematic conviction, this seeks to characterize the different
phases of philosophical development by the contributions thereto
wliicli they have severally furnished- (Compare Hegel, in Vor-
lesunyen ilber d. Gesch. d. Phil., Complete Works ^ Vol. XIII.
19 ff. ; Ueberweg, Grundriss, I. § 3 ; Comjylete Works, Gesch. d.
Phil., Freiburg i.B.,1892,§§l and 2.) Until within the previous
century enumeration of the placita philosop)horum, with some
little application of the pragmatic method, essentially predomi-
nated in the history of philosophy. Hegel, with all the exagger-
ation of this speculative point of view, was the first to raise
philosophy from a mere collection of curiosities to a science.
His constructive and fundamental idea — that in the historical
order of philosophical theories the categories of true philoso-
phy repeat themselves as progressive achievements of human-
ity— involved an emphasis upon the kidtui'-historisch and the
pragmatic explanations, and this required only the individual-
istic p)sychological supplementation. On account of Hegel's
speculative conception, on the other hand, historical criticism
fell with the disappearance of faith in the absolute philosophy.
By this historical criticism the mere establishment of the facts
and their genetic explanation are changed into a complete philo-
sophical science. Hegel created the science of the history of
philosophy according to its ideal purposes, but not until after his
day was safe ground presented for achieving such a science by
the philological method of getting the data without presupposi-
tions. Upon no territory has this method since recorded such
far-reaching success as upon the field of ancient philosophy.

8 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

4. The scientific helps to the study of ancient philos-
ophy fall into three classes : —

(a) The Original Sources. Only a very few of the
writings of ancient philosophers have been preserved.
As to complete single works in the purely Greek philos-
ophy, they are to be found only in Plato and Aristotle.^
The original sources, however, are richer in the Hellenic-
Eoman period. The writings of the ancient Greek think-
ers are preserved in only a fragmentary way through
incidental citations of later literature.

The most comprehensive collection not especially mentioned
hereafter, is that of F. W. A. Mullach, Fragmenta philosoplio-
rum Gra'corum (3 vols., Paris, 1860-81). Yet it satisfies to-
day neither the demands for completeness nor for accuracy.

Nevertheless the works that have come down to us are
by no means to be accepted in toto and on trust. Not
alone unintentionally, but also from its desire to give to
its own teaching, so far as possible, the nimbus of ancient
wisdom, later antiquity substituted in many instances its
own compositions for the writings of the ancients, or in-
terpolated their texts. The sources of Greek philosophy
in particular are not only in a very fragmentary but also
in a very uncertain state, and we are still limited to a
conjecture of a greater or less degree of probability in
regard to many very weighty questions. The philological-
historical criticism, which seems indispensable imder these
circumstances, requires a safe criterion for our guidance, and
this criterion we possess in the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Opposed to tlie easy credulity with which in the previous
century (according to Buble) tradition was receive J, Schleier-
maclier liad the especial merit of having begun ai d incited a
fruitful criticism. Brandis, Trendelenburg, Zeller, and Diels
were likewise the leaders in this direction.

5. (^>) TJie Corroborative Testimony/ of Antiquity. Early
(according to Xenophon) in ancient literature we find tes-

INTRODUCTION 9

timony on the life and death of notable philosophers. Of
importance for us, moreover, arc the passages in which
Plato and Aristotle — especially in the beginning of his
Metaphysics — linked their own teaching to the early phi-
losophy. At the time of Aristotle there arose a widely
spread, partly historical and partly critical literature, con-
cerning what w^as then ancient philosophy. Unfortunately,
this has been lost, excepting a few fragments. Especially
deplorable is the loss of the writings of this character of
Aristotle and his immediate disciples, — Theophrastus in
particular. Similar w^orks, likewise no longer extant, issued
from the Academy, in which, moreover, commentating also
had its beginning at an early time. So, also, the historical
and critical works of the Stoics have gone forever.

This historiography of philosophy, the so-called dox-
ography, with its commentating and collating, developed
enormously in the Alexandrian literature, and had its three
philosophical centres in Pergamus, Rhodes, and Alexandria.
These voluminous and numerous w^orks in their original
form are in the main lost. Yet with all recognition of
the erudition that doubtless permeated them, it must still
be maintained that they have exercised a bewildering
influence in various ways upon succeeding writers, who
took excerpts directly out of them. Besides this almost
unavoidable danger of reading later conceptions and theo-
ries into the old teaching, there appear three chief sources
of error, —

(1) In the inclination to fix the succession of ancient philoso-
phers after the manner of the later successions of scholarchs.

(2) In the fantastic tendenc}^ to dignify ancient Greece with
the miraculous and the extraordinary.

(3) Finally, in the effort that sprang out of an undefined feel-
ing of the dependence of Grecian upon Oriental culture. En-
couraged by a new acquaintance with the East, some scholars
have tried to knit every significant fact as closely as possible
with Oriental influence.

10 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Statements at only third or fourth hand are left over to
us from the Roman period. The historical notes in the
fragments of Yarro, in the writings of Cicero (Rud. Heizel,
Untersuch. zu C. jt)7?z76»s. Schriften, 3 parts, Leipzig, 1877-
1883), as well as of Seneca, Lucretius, and Plutarch, are
valuable, but must be used with care. The philosophical-
historical writings of Plutarch are lost. The compila-
tion preserved under his name, De pTiysicis pMlosopJiorum
decretis (in Dubner's edition of the Morals, Paris, 1841),
is, according to Diels, an abstract of the Placita of Aetius,
dating back to Theophrastus, and was made perhaps in
the middle of the second century. The spurious book
irepl ^i\oa6cj)ov laropla^, which is falsely ascribed to
Galen, is in the main identical with it in the nineteenth vol-
ume of Kuhn^sclien Gresamtausgahe) . Many later excerpts
of Favonius are included among the uncritically collected
reports ; so, also, those of Apuleius and of Gellius (Nodes
atticce, ed. Hertz, Leipzig, 1884-85 ; see also Mercklin,
Die Zitiermethode u. Quellenhenutzung des A. (7., Leipzig,
1860). Lucian's writings must also be mentioned in this
connection. Those numberless historical accounts in the
writings of Galen (especially De placitis Hijjj^ocratls et
Platonis, separately published by Iwan Miiller, Leipzig,
1874) and of Sextus Empiricus (Op. ed. Bekker, Berlin,
1842 : 7rvpp(i)V€Coc viroTviraxrei'^ and 7rpo9 /nady/jLarLKOv^;) are
philosophically more trustworthy. Out of the same period
grew the work of Flavins Philostratus, Vitce sophistarum
(ed. Westermann, Paris, 1849), and of Athenseus, Deipno-
sophistte (ed. Meincke, Leipzig, 1857-69). Finally, there
is the book which was regarded for a long time almost as
the principal source for a history of ancient philosophy ;
viz., that of Diogenes Laertius, irepl /Slcov, Soyf^drcov kol
d7ro(f)6€yfidTcov tmv ev (f)cXo(TO(f)ia 6vBoKifi7j(TdvTa)v ^i(3\ia
heKa (ed. Cobet, Paris, 1850).

Another kind of secondary sources is furnished by the

INTRODUCTION 11

writings of the church fathers, who have polemical, apolo-
getic, and dogmatic aims in reproducing the Greek phi-
losophy. This is especially true of Justin Martyr, Clement
of Alexandria, Origen {Kara KeXo-ou), llippolytus (^Refuta-
tio omnium hceresium, ed. Duncker, Gott., 1859, the first hook
of this being formerly snpposed to be a work of Origen
under the title (f)i\oaorf)ovfi6va), ^useh'ms (^Prcep. evanr/. ,cd.
Pindorf, Leipzig, 1868), and in certain respects also Tertul-
lian and Augustine. The importance of the church fathers
as sources for the study of ancient philosophy has attained
recently to a completer and more fruitful recognition,
especially since the impulse given by Diels to their study.

Finally, the activity in commentating and historical re-
search was carried on in a lively fashion in the neo-
Platonic school. The chief work indeed, that of Porphyry,
is not preserved (</)t\ocro0o9 to-ropia). On the other hand,
the writings of the neo-Platonists in general offer numerous
historical data ; and, as already the earlier commentaries
of Alexander of Aphrodisias (zu Arist. 3Iet., ed. Hayduck,
Berlin, 1891, and zu Arist. Top., M. Wallier, Berlin, 1891 ;
smaller works by Ivo Bruns, Berlin, 1893), — so the com-
mentaries of Themistius, and especially Simplicius, contain
many carefully and intelligently compiled excerpts from
the direct and indirect sources of earlier times. Amoncr
the latest writers of ancient literature the collections of
StobjBus and Photius, and those also of Hesychius, appear
useful for the history of philosophy.

Compare Diels, Doxorp-aphi Grwci (Berlin, 1879). An ex-
cellent and, for a beginning, an extraordinarily instructive
collection of the most important passages from the primary and
secondary sources is that of Hitter and Preller in their Ilistoria
X)hilosoplii(.e Gr<rco-romance ex fontium locis contexfa (7 ed. is
brought out by Schulthess and AYellmann, Gotha, 1888).

6. (c) The Modern Expositions. Scholarly treatment
of ancient philosophy was in modern literature con-

12 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

fined at first to a brief criticism of the latest works of
antiquity. Thus, the occasional historical collections con-
cerned with ancient philosophy which we find in the
Humanistic literature, in the main led back to neo-Platonic
sources. The very first work, the History of Philosophy^
by Thomas Stanley (London, 1665), scarcely more than
reproduced the reports of Diogenes Laertius. Bayle in his
Bictionnaire historique et critique (1 ed., Rotterdam, 1697),
gave a powerful impulse to critical treatment.^

Later appeared the writings of Brucker, thoroughgoing,
industriously compiled, but in point of fact not equal to
the task : Kurze Frag en aus der philosophischen Historie
(Ulm, 1731 f.), Historia critica philosop)hice (Leipzig,
1742 f.), Institutiones histories philosophice (Leipzig, 1747 ;
a compendium for a school manual).

With the formation of the great schools of philosophy,
particularly in Germany, the history of philosophy began
to be treated with reference to its single directions and
systems. In the front D. Tiedemann came with his em-

ft'

pirical-sceptical Geist der Philosophie (Marburg, 1791 ff.).
Then followed, from the Kantian point of view, J. G. Buhle
with Lehrhuch der Geschichte der Philosophie (Gott., 1796
ff.) ; Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, 1798 if.);
then tlie Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (5th
ed.), Amad. Wendt, Leipzig, 1829, a much used epitome,
commending itself by its careful literary data ; and J. F.
Fries, Geschichte der Philosophie (1 vol., Halle, 1837).
From the Schcllingen point of view, there are Fr. Ast's
Grundriss einer Geschichte der Philosophie (Landshut,
1807) ; E. Reinhold, Geschichte der Philosophie nach den
Hauptpunkten ihrer Entwickelung (Jena, 1858). From
the point of view of Schleiermacher, are his own notes
for his lectures on the history of philosophy in a collection

^ Upon which a philosophical article of value in part even to-day has
been published in German by II. Jacob (1797-98, Halle).

INTRODUCTION 13

of three parts, four volumes (Berlin, 1839) : H. Ritter,
Die Geschiclite der Phllosopliie (Hamburg, 1829 ff.) ; F.
Ch. Potter, Die Geschichte der Philosophie in Umriss
(Elberfeld, 1873).^ From the Hegelian point of view,
are Hegel's lectures upon the history of philosophy in his
complete works, XIH. ff. ; J. E. Erdmann, Griindriss
der Gescliichte der Philosophie (3 ed., Berlin, 1878).
From tlie Herbartian point of view, is Ch. A. Thilo, Kurze
'pragmatische Geschichte der Philosojjhie (Cothen, 2 ed.,
1880). With especial reference to the factual development
of problems and concepts, ancient philosophy has also been
treated by W. Windelband, Geschichte der Philosophic
(Freiburg i. Br., 1892). Of the other numerous complete
presentations of the history of philosophy, that of J. Berg-
mann (Berlin, 1892) may be finally mentioned. Of the
presentations in other languages than German which also
give valuable contribution to the study of ancient philosophy,
may be here mentioned : Y. Cousin, Histoire generale de la
philosophie (12 ed., Paris, 1884) ; A. Weber, Histoire de
philosop)hie europ>cenne (Paris, 5 ed., 1892) ; A. Fouill^e,
Histoire de la Philosophie (Paris, 3 ed., 1882) ; R. Blakey,
History of the Philosophy of Mind (London, 1848) ; G. H.
Lewes, A Biographical History of Philosophy (London,
4 ed., 1871, German ed., Berlin, 1871).

The completest literary data for the historiography of philos-
ophy, and particularly ancient philosophy, are found in IJeber-
weg, Grundriss d. Philos.^ a work which presents also in its
remarkable continuation by M. Heinze (7 ed. , Berlin, 1886) an
indispensable completeness in its annotations. The texts fur-
nished by Ueberweg himself were at first only superficially
systematized by him, and were given an unequal, confused, and,
for beginners, untransparent character by his later additions,
interpolations, and annotations.

1 An inspiring statement of the development of ancient philosophy is
also that of Brandis's Gescliichte der PJiilos. seit Kant, 1 Part (Breslau,
1842).

14 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

The profounder philological studies at the beginning of
the nineteenth century were advantageous to the history of
ancient philosophy, since a critical sifting of tradition and
a philological and methodical basis for historical-philoso-
phical research was facilitated (compare Zeller, Jalirhucher
der Gegemvart Jahrg., 1843). The greatest credit for such
a stimulus is due to Schleiermacherj whose translation of
Plato was a powerful example, and whose special works
upon Heracleitus, Diogenes of ApoUonia, Anaximander,
and others have been placed in Part III. book 2, of his col-
lected works. Among the numerous special researches are
to be mentioned A. B. Krische's Forschujigen auf dem
Gebiete der alien Philosophie (Gott., 1840) ; also A. Trende-
lenburg, Historische Beitrdge zur Philosophie (Berlin,
1846 f.), the author of which deserves credit for his stimula-
tion of Aristotelian studies ; H. Siebeck, Untersuchungen zur
Philosophie der Griechen (2 ed., Freiburg i. Br., 1888) ;
G. Teichmiiller, Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe (Berlin,
1874 ff.) ; 0. Apelt, Beitrcige zur Geschichte der griechischen
Philosophie (Leipzig, 1891) ; E. Norden (the same title),
Leipzig, 1892.

As the first product of these critico-philological studies,
we may consider the praiseworthy work of Ch. A. Brandis,
Handhuch der Geschichte der griechisch-romische^i Philoso-
phie (Berlin, 1835-60), by the side of which the author
placed a shorter and especially finely conceived exposition,
Geschichte der JEntwickelungen der griechischen Philosophie
U7idihrer Nachwirkungen im ro^nischen Beiche (Berlin, 1862
u. 1864). With less exhaustivencss, but with a peculiar
superiority in the development of the problems, Ludw.
Striimpcll (2d part, Leipzig, 1854, 1861), K. Prantl
(Stuttgart, 2 cd., 1863), and A. Schweglcr (3 ed., espe-
cially, by Kcistlin, Freiburg, 1883) treated the same subject.
All these valuable works, and with them the numerous
synopses, compendiums, and compilations (see Ueberweg,

INTRODUCTION 15

above mentioned, pp. 27-29), are overshadowed beside that
masterpiece and, for many reasons, final word upon ancient
philosophy : E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Grlechen (Tu-
bingen, 1844 ff. : the first book is published in the fifth edi-
tion, the second in the fourth edition, the otliers in the third
edition).^ Here, upon the broadest philological-historical
foundation and upon original sources, a philosophical,
authoritative, and illuminating statement is given of the
entire development. Zeller has published a clever sum-
mary of the whole in Grundriss d. Gesch. der Alien P kilos.
(4 ed., Leipzig, 1893).

The special sides of ancient philosophy have been presented
in the following notable works : —

Logic: K. Prantl, Gesch.d. Logik im Abendlande (vols. 1 and
2, Leipzig, 1855 and 1861) ; P. Natorp, Forscliungen z. Gesch.
des ErTxenntnissprohlems im Altertum (Berlin, 1884) ; Giov.
Cesca, La teoria della conoscenza nella Jilos. greca (Verona,
1887).

Psychology: H. Siebeck, Gesch. d. Psy. (vol. 1, Gotha, 1880
and 1884) ; A. E. Chaiguet, Histoire de la j^s?/. des grecs
(Paris, 1887-92).

Ethics : L. v. Henning, D. Prinzipien d, Eihik, etc. (Berlin,
1825) ; E. Teuerlein, D. pJiilos. Sittenlehre in ihren geschicJit-
lichen Hauptformen (Tubingen, 1857 and 1859) ; Paul Janet,
Histoire de la philosophie morale et politique (Paris, 1858) ; J.
Mackintosh, The Progress of Ethical Philosophy (Lowdow^ 1862) ;
W. Whewell, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy
(Loudon, 1862) ; E. Blakey, History of Moral Science (Edin-
burgh, 1863) ; L. Schmidt, D. Ethik d. al. Griechen (Berlin,
1881) ; Th. Zeigler, D. Ethik d. Gr. u. Edmer (Bonn, 1881) ;

C. Kostlin, Gesch. d. Ethik {1 vol., Tubingen, 1887) ; especially
compare R. Eucken, D. Lebensanschauungen d. grossen Denker
(Leipzig, 1890).

The following particularly treat special topics : M. Heinze,

D, Lehre v. Logos (Leipzig, 1872) ; D. Lehred. Eudaemonismus
in griech. Philos. (Leipzig, 1884) ; CI. Biiumcker, Das Problem
d. Materie in d. griech. Philos. (^Miinster, 1890) ; J. Walter,
Gesch. d. Aesthetik im Altertum (Leipzig, 1893).

^ Referred to in this work usually as I^, 11^. , etc. — Tr.

16 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

A. GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Introduction

The Preliminary Conditions of Philosojyhy in the CrreeJc
Intellectual Life of the Seventh and Sixth Centuries B. G?-

7. The history of the philosophy of the Greeks, like the
history of their political development, requires a larger con-
ception of the geography of the country than the present
conception of its political relations would imply. Our
usual present idea of ancient Greece is of a country
wherein Athens by its literature overshadowed the other
portions, and by the brilliancy of its golden age eclipsed its
earlier history. Ancient Greece was the Grecian sea with
all its coasts from Asia Minor to Sicily and from Gyrene to
Thrace. The natural link of the three great continents was
this sea, with its islands and coasts occupied by the most
gifted of people, which from the earliest historical times
had settled all its coasts. (Homer.) Within this circle,
the later so-called Motherland, the Greece of the continent
of Europe, played at the beginning a very subordinate role.
In the development of Greek culture, however, leadership
fell to that branch of the race which in its entire history
was in closest contact with the Orient, the lonians. This
race laid the foundation of later Greek development, and
by its commercial activity established the power of Greece.
At first as seafarers and sea-robbers in the train of the
Phoenicians, in the ninth and eighth centuries the lonians
won an increasing independence, and in the seventh cen- ^
tury they commanded the world's trade between the three
continents.

Over the entire Mediterranean, from the Black Sea to
the Pillars of Hercules, tlie Greek colonies and trade cen-

^ Reference should be made to corresponding sections in historical
parts of this book for details.

GREEK PIIILOSOniY 17

tres were extended. Even Egypt opened its treasures to
the enterprising Ionian spirit. At the head of these cities
of commerce, and at the same time the leader of the Ionian
League, Miletus appeared in the seventh century as the
most powci'ful and most notable centre of the Greek genius.
It likewise became the cradle of Greek science. For here
in Ionia of Asia Minor the riches of the entire world were
heaped together ; here Oriental luxury, pomp, material
pleasure held their public pageants ; here began to awaken
the sense of the beauty of living and the love of higher
ideals, while rude customs still ruled upon the continent of
Europe. The spirit became free from the pressure of daily
need, and in its play created the works of noble leisure, of
art, and of science. The cultured man is he who in his
leisure does not become a mere idler.

8. Thus, while wealth acquired from trade afforded the
basis for the free mental development of the Greek, so, on
the other hand, this same wealth led to changes of polit-
ical and social conditions which were likewise favorable to
the development of intellectual life. Originally, aristo-
cratic families had ruled Ionian cities, and they were
probably descended from the warlike bands that in the so-
called Ionian migration from the continent of Europe had
settled the islands. But in time, through their commerce,
there grew up a class of well-conditioned citizens, who re-
stricted and opposed the power of the aristocracy. On the
one hand bold and ambitious, on the other thoughtful and
patriotic men took advantage of these democratic ten-
dencies, and after destroying the power of the oligarchy
tried to set up monarchies and equalize, as far as possible,
the interests of all classes.

The tyranny based on democratic principles is the typical
governmental rule of this time, and extended its power,
although not without vigorous and often long partisan
struggles, from Asia Minor across the islands even to

18 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

European Greece. Thrasybnlus in Miletus, Polycrates in
Samos, Pittacus in Lesbos, Periander in Corinth, Peisistra-
tus in Athens, Gelon and Hiero in Syracuse, — these men
had courts that at this time constituted the centres of in-
tellectual life. They drew poets to them ; they founded
libraries ; they supported every movement in art and sci-
ence. But, on the other hand, this political overthrow
drove the aristocrats into gloomy retirement. Discon-
tented with public affairs, the aristocrats withdrew to pri-
vate life, w^hich they adorned with the gifts of the Muses.
Heracleitus is a conspicuous example of this state of
affairs. Thus the reversed relations favored in many ways
the unfolding and extending of intellectual interests.

This enrichment of consciousness, this increase in a
higher culture among the Greeks of the seventh and sixth
'\y centuries, showed itself first in the development of lyric
poetry, in which the gradual transition from the expression
of universal religious and political feeling to that which is
personal and individual formed a typical process. In the
passion and excitement of internecine political conflict,
the individual becomes conscious of his independence and
worth, and he " girds up his loins " to assert his rights
everywhere. In the course of time satirical poetry grew
beside the lyric, as the expression of a keen and cleverly
developed individual judgment. There was, moreover, still
more characteristic evidence of the spirit of the time in the
so-called Gnomic poetry, the content of wbich is made up
of sententious reflections upon moral principles. This sort
of moralizing, which appeared also in fable-poetry and in
other literature, may be regarded as symptomatic of the
deeper stirring of the national spirit.

9. Now, any extended reflection upon maxims of moral
judgment shows immediately that the validity of morality
has been questioned in some way, that social consciousness
has become unsettled, and that the individual in his growing

GREEK PHILOSOPHY 19

independence has transcended the bounds authoritatively
drawn by the universal consciousness. Therefore it was
entirely characteristic of this Gnomic poetry to recommend
moderation ; to show how universal standards of life had
been endangered by the unbridled careers of single per-
sons, and how in the presence of threatening or present
anarchy the individual must try to re-establish these rules
through independent reflection.

The end of the seventh and the beginning of the sixth
centuries in Greece formed, therefore, an epoch of peculiar
ethical reflection, which is usually called, after the manner
of the ancients, the Age of the Seven Wise Men. It was an
age of reflection. The simple devotion to the conventions
of the previous age had ceased, and social consciousness was
profoundly disturbed. Individuals began to go their own
ways. Notable men appeared, and earnestly exhorted ^
society to come back to its senses. Rules of life were
established. In riddle, in anecdote, in epigram, the moral-
izing sermon was made palatable, and " winged words "
passed from mouth to mouth. But, let it be remembered,
these homilies are possible only when the individual op-
poses the vagaries of the mob, and with independent judg-
ment brings to consciousness the maxims of right conduct.

Tradition selected earlv seven of such men, to whom it
gave the name of the Wise Men. They were not men of
erudition, nor of science, but men of practical wisdom, and
in the main of remarkable political ability .^ They pointed
out the right thing to do in critical moments, and therefore

^ With this conception about the Seven "Wise Men, it is conceivable
that Plato (Protag., 343 a) should characterize them as forerunners of
the old stronjj Dorian moralitv in contrast to the innovations of the
Ionian movement ; ^t^Xcot..! kuI epaa-ral kol fjLadrjToi ttjs AaKcBaifMovioiv

- Dicaiarchus called them ovre aoff)ovs ovre (^tXotrot^ovf, avverovs Se
Tivas KOL vo^odfTiKovs. Diog. Lacrt., I. 40.

20 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

in public and private matters were authorities to their
fellow-citizens. The spirit of Gnomic poetry was prom-
inent in the apothegms, the catchwords, which tliey are
supposed to have uttered. Nothing was repeated by them
so often and with so many phrasings as the firjEev dyav I

Tradition is not agreed as to the names of " the Seven."
Four ^ only are mentioned by all : Bias of Priene, who upon the
invasion of the Persians recommended to the lonians a migra-
tion to Sardinia ; Pittacus, who was tyrant of Mitylene, about
GOO B. c. ; Solon, the law-giver of Athens and the Gnomic poet ;
Thales, founder of the jMilesian philosophy, who advised the
lonians to form a federation with a joint council in Teos. The
names of the others vary. The later age ascribed to the Seven
all kinds of aphorisms, letters, etc. (collected and translated
into German, but without critical investigation, by C. Dilthey,
Darmstadt, 1835).^

While in this way, through political and social relations,
the independence of individual judgment was educated
first on its practical side, and the propensity was formed
for expressing such judgment, it was an inevitable con-
sequence that a similar emancipation of single individuals
from the ordinary way of thinking should take place within
the domain of theory. Independent judgment naturally ap-
peared at this point, and formed its own views about the
connection of things. Nevertheless this propensity could
manifest itself only in a revision and reconstruction of
those materials, which the individuals discovered partly in
the intellectual treasures accumulated previously in the
nation's practical life, and partly in the religious ideas.

10. The practical knowledge of the Greeks had in-
creased to very remarkal)lc dimensions between the time of
ITcsiod's Works and Days and the year 600 b. c. The
inventive, trade-driving lonians undoubtedly had learned
very much from the Orientals, witli whom they had inter-

^ Compare Cic. Rep., I. 12. Also Lael., 7.
- Bruiico, Aet. Sem.-ErL, HI. 299 ff.

GREEK PHILOSOrHY 21

course and of whom they were rivals. Among these,
especially among the Egyptians, Phucniciaiis, and Assyrians,
there existed knowledge that had been garnered through
many centuries, and it is incredible that the Greeks should
not have appropriated it wherever opportunity offered.

The question how much the Greeks learned from the Orient
has passed through many stages. In opposition to the un-
critical, often fantastic, and untenable statements of the later
Greeks, who tried to derive everything important of their own
teaching from the honorable antiquity of Oriental tradition,
later philology, in its admiration for everything Greek, has
persistently espoused the theory of an autochtlionic genesis.
But the more the similarities with the Oriental civilization,
and the relations between the different forms of the old and
the Greek culture have been brought to the light by acquaint-
ance with the ancient Orient, dating from the beginning of
this century ; and the more, on the other hand, philosophy
understood the continuity of the historical moments of civiliza-
tion ; so much the more decided became the tendency to refer
the beginnings of Greek science to Oriental influences, particu-
larly in the history of philosophy. AVith brilliant fancy A. Roth
(Gescli. unserer abendldndischen Philos., Mannheim, 1858 f.,)
attempted to rehabilitate the accounts of the neo-Platouists,
who by interpretation and perversion had read into the mj^thic
narratives, which were introduced from the Orient, Greek philo-
sophical doctrines ; he then rediscovered these doctrines as prime-
val wisdom. With a forced construction, Gladisch (D. Religioii
u. d. Philos. in Hirer iveltgesch. Entwick., Breslau, 1852) tried to
see in all the beginnings of Greek philosophy direct relations
to individual Oriental peoples ; ancl he so conceived the re-
lationship that the Greeks are supposed to have appropriated in
succession the ripe products of all the other civilizations.
This appears from the following titles of his special essays :
Die Ff/tharjoreer und die Schinesen (Posen, 1841) ; Die Eleaten
und die Indier (Posen, 1844) ; EmpedoMes und die Egypter
(Leipzig, 1858) ; Ileracleitos und Zoroaster (Leipzig, 1850) ;
Anaxagoras und Israeliten (Leipzig, 18C4). Besides the fact
that they first found many analogies through an artful in-
terpretation, both Goth and Gladisch fell into the error of
transmuting analogies into causal relations, where equally
notable disparities might also have been found. ISloreover,
where, as usual, religion is concerned, that of the Greeks, which

22 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

has influenced the beginnings of science in so many ways, was
found to be in genetic and historical relationship with that of
the Orient.

Such exaggerations are certainly censurable. But, on the
other hand, it would be denying the existence of the sun at
noontide to refuse to acknowledge that the Greeks in great
measure owe their information to contact with the barbarians.
It is here even as in the history of art. The Greeks imported
a larse amount of information out of the Orient. This con-
sisted in special facts of knowledge, particularly of a mathe-
matical and astronomical kind, and consisted perhaps besides in
certain mj^thological ideas. But with the recognition of this sit-
uation, which recognition in the long run is inevitable, one does
not rob the Greeks in the least of their true originality. For as
they in art derived particular forms and norms from Egyptian
and Ass3'rian tradition, but in the employment and reconstruction
of these used their own artistic genius, so there flowed in upon
them too from the Orient many kinds of knowledge, arising out
of the work and practical needs of many centuries, and various
kinds of mythological tales, born of the religious imagination.
But nevertlieless they were the first to transmute this knowledge
into a wisdom sought on account of itself. This spirit of sci-
ence, like their original activity, resulted from emancipated and
independent individual thought, to which Oriental civilization
had not attained.

Principally in mathematics and astronomy do the Greeks
appear as the pupils of the Orientals. Since economic needs
compelled the Phoenicians to make an arithmetic, and from
early times led the Egyptians to construct a geometry, it is
probable that in these things the Greeks were pupils rather
than teachers of their neighbors. A proposition like that
concerning proportionality and its application to perspective,
Thales did not communicate to the Egyptians, but derived
from them.^ Altliough there are further ascribed to him
propositions like that concerning the halving of the circle
by the diameter, the isosceles triangle, the vertical angles,
the equality of triangles liaving a side and two angles equal,
yet it may be safely concluded in every instance that these
elementary pro})ositions were generally known to the Greeks

1 See § 24.

GREEK riiiLosoriiY 23

of his time. It is likewise a matter of indifference whether
Pythagoras liimself discovered the theorem named after him
or whether his school established it, whether the discovery
was the result of pure geometrical reasoning or was an actual
measurement with the square and by an arithmetical calcu-
lation, as Roth says. Here, again, the reality of such knowl-
edge at that time is rendered certain, and its suggestion, at
least, from the Oriental circle is probable. In any case,
however, these studies in Greece soon flourished in a high
degree. Anaxagoras was reported, for instance, to have
busied himself in prison with the squaring of the circle.
Astronomical thought had a similar status, for Thales pre-
dicted an eclipse of the sun, and it is highly probable that
he here availed himself of the Chaldean Saros. On the
other hand, the cosmographical ideas ascribed to the oldest
philosophers point to an Egyptian origin, especially that
view, authoritative for later time, of concentric spherical
shells in which the planets were supposed to move around
the earth as a centre. From all reports it appears that the
questions concerning the constitution of the world, of the
size, distance, form, and rotation of the planets, of the incli-
nation of the ecliptic, etc., keenly interested every one of
the ancient thinkers. The Milesians still thought the earth
to be flat, cylindrical, or plate-shaped, floating upon a dark,
cold atmosphere and in the middle of a world sphere. The
Pythagoreans seem to be the first independently to discover
the spherical shape of the earth. In the physics of this
time the interest in meteorology is dominant. Every phi-
losopher felt bound to explain the clouds, air, wind, snow,
hail, and ice. Not until later did an interest in biology
awaken, and the mysteries of reproduction and propagation
called forth a multitude of fantastic hypotheses (Parmcni-
des, Empedocles, etc.).

Deficiencv in nhvsioloo:ical and anatomical knowledure
obviously delayed for a long time the progress of medical

24 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

science. Therefore we are safe in saying ^ that medical
science was inlierited in its original tradition entirely inde-
pendently of all other sciences as the esoteric teaching of
certain priestly families ; and that philosophy also hardly
had any connection with medicine down to about the time
of the Pythagoreans. Medicine consisted simply in empir-
ical rules, technical facts, and a mass of data accumulated
during the experience of centuries. It was not an aetiological
science, but an art practised in the spirit of religion. We
have still the oath of the Asclepiades (a priestly order of
this sort, which however had also lay brethren), who as well
as the gymnasts practised the art of healing. Such medical
orders or schools existed notably in Rhodes, Cyrene, Cro-
tona, Cos, and Cnidus. Rules for the treatment of the sick
were partly codified in documents, and Hippocrates knew two
versions of the 7i^w/xat Kvihiai (Cnidian sentences), the more
valuable of which (laTpLKOirepov) came from Euryphon of
Cnidus.

Likewise the geographical knowledge of the Greeks had
reached a high degree of completeness about this time.
The broad commercial activity whereby they visited the
Mediterranean Sea and all its coasts had essentially trans-
formed and enriched the Homeric picture of the world. It is
stated that Anaximander drew up the first map of the world.
The statement of Herodotus^ is interesting, that Aris-
tagoras, by showing such a chart in Laceda3mon, sought to
awaken the continental Greeks to a realizing sense of the
menaced geographical situation of Greece by the Persian
Em[)ire.

Historical knowledge too was beginning to be accu-
mulated at this time, — yet strikingly late for a people
like the Greeks. From the old epic had issued the theo-
gonic poetry, on the one hand, and the heroic on the other.

1 lliiser, Lehrbuch d. Gescli. d. Medizin, 2 ed., §§ 21-25.

2 V. 49.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY 25

Collections of saira and of the histories of the foimdino: of
cities, as they had been gathered by the logographers, were
added to these for the first time in the Ionian cities of Asia
Minor. Men, who after long journeys gave to their logog-
raphies greater extent and variety of interest, introduced
then that form of historical presentation which we may
still recognize in Herodotus. At the same time, however,
this was pressed into the background by the grouping of all
accounts around the important event of the Persian wars.
In place of fantastic fables about strange people in the
form that Aristeas of Proconnesus related them, we now
have the more sober reports of the logographers. Of these
there appeared, in the sixth century, Cadmus, Dionysius,
and especially Hecateius of Miletus, with his 7re/3t^i7?;o-t?, in
which geography and history are closely interwoven. In
these men realistic considerations had taken the place of
iesthetical, and their writings therefore have the prose
rather than the poetic form.

About 600 B. c. the intellectual circle of the Greeks was
replete with this manifold and important knowledge, and it
is clear that there were men, otherwise favorably conditioned
in life, who took a direct and immediate interest in knowl-
edge which had hitherto been employed for the most varied
practical ends. They planned how to order, classify, and
extend these acquisitions. It is likewise comprehensible
how scientific schools for the same purposes were formed,
as it might happen, around distinguished men, and how in
these schools by co-operative labor a kind of scholastic
order and tradition maintained itself from one generation
to another.

After the investigations of H. Diels (Philos. Aufsdtze z. Zel-
lerjubildnm^ Berlin, 1887, p. 241 f.) it can scarcely be doubted
that ill this very early time the scientific life of the Greeks
constituted itself into closed corporations, and that the learned
societies already at that time carried all the weight of judicial-
religious associations (Otao-oL) which v. Wilamowitz-Mollendorf

26 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

(Antigonos von Karystos, p. 263 f.) has already proved for the
later schools. The Pythagoreans were undoubtedly such an
association. The schools of physicians were organized on the
same principle, — perhaps still more rigorously in the form of
the priestly orders. Why, then, should this not be the case
with the schools of Miletus, Elea, and Abdera?

11. Likewise, in the religious notions of the Greeks lay
certain definite points of departure for the beginnings of
their philosophy, especially since those religious notions
were in the liveliest fermentation about the time of the
seventh and sixth centuries. This is accounted for by
the great vitality which from the beginning characterized
the religious existence of the Greeks by reason of their
unparalleled development. Out of the early differentiation
of originally common ideas, out of the capricious formation
of local cults within families, tribes, cities, and provinces,
incidentally also out of the introduction of distinctive
foreign religious ceremonies, there grew up a rich and, as
it were, confusingly iridescent variety of religions. Stand-
ing over against this, epic poetry had already created its
Olympus, its poetic purification, and its human ennobling
of the original, mythical forms. These products of poetry
came to be the national religious property of the Hellenes.
But along with the veneration of these products there
were the old cults that shut themselves up only the more
closely in the Mysteries, in which now as ever the peculiar
energy of religious craving expressed itself in a service
of expiation and redemption. With the advance of civiliza-
tion, however, the aesthetic mytliology succumbed to a
gradual change in two directions which had been blended
indistinguishably in the Olympian forms. The first direc-
tion was toward mythical explanation of nature ; the second
was toward ethical idealizing.

The first tendency showed itself in the development of
the cosmogonic out of the epic poetry. Cosmogonic poetry

GREEK rillLOSOPllY 27

shows how the individual poets with their peculiar fancies
studied the question of the origin of things, and in addition
niythologizcd the great powers of nature in a traditional or
freely creative form. Two groups can be distinguished
among them, corresponding to the different interpreta-
tions of Homeric poetry. Such of the Orphic theogonies,
which go back thus far, belong, with the sole exception of
Hcsiod, to one group, and Epimenides and Acusilaus are
amoug its better defined historic names. Whether they
presuppose only Chaos or Night as the original powers,
or whether with these Air, Earth, Heaven, or something
else, — they appear reasonably enough in Aristotle as ol i/c
vvKTo^ y€vvMVT€^ OeoXoyot. For it is always some dark and
reasonless primeval ground from which they evolve material
things, and they may be considered as representatives of
the evolutionist idea. Likewise in this respect Milesian
science followed immediately in their wake, and had in
part the same principles but with greater clearness of
thought (§§ 14-16). Over against these was the later ten-
dency whose representatives were regarded by Aristotle as
standing between the poets and philosophers (fiefiLyfiivoL
avTOiv). By these the Perfect was supposed as the form-
ing (creative) principle at the beginning of time. To
them belongs, besides the entirely mythical Hermotimus of
Clazomenae, ^ the historical Pherecydes of Syrus, a contem-
porary of the earliest philosophers and a man who wrote
his conceptions in prose. He presupposed Zeus as the per-
sonality giving order and reason to the world, and that
Time 2 and Earth act with Zeus as original principles
{xpovo^, X^^^)' He appears to have represented in grotesque
images the "five-fold" development of individual things
out of the rational principle.

1 Whom some try to identify with Anaxagoras. Sec Carus, Nach-
gelassene Werke, 4 vols., 330 f. ; Zeller, I''. 924 f.

2 Xpovos may mean something else. Zelk-r, P. 73.

28 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Sturz (Leipzig, 1834) has published the fragments of
Pherecydes. Roth, out of most uncertain data, Gesch. unserer
abendlandischen I* kilos. ^ II. 161 f., tried to attribute to Phere-
C3Tles the introduction into Greece of Egyptian metaphysics
and astronomy. J. Conrad (Coblenz, 1857), R. Zimmermann,
Studien u. Kritlken (Vienna, 1870, 1 f.), also treat the " phi-
losophy" of Pherecydes. See H. Diels, Arch. f. Gesch. d.
Philos., I. 11.

These later cosmogonies were apparently already under
the influence of the ethical movement, which had pressed
into the circle of religious ideas, and, as against the nature-
mythical interpretation that ascribed aesthetic character to
the different gods, sought to embody in them the ideal of
moral life. The second tendency comes to light in the
Gnomic poetry in particular. Zeus is thus (Solon) honored
less as creator of Nature than as ruler of the moral world.
The fifth century, in following out this idea, saw the
Homeric mythology expressed completely in ethico-alle-
gorical terms (especially ascribed to Metrodorus of Lamp-
sacus, a pupil of Anaxagoras). Three moments especially
in the ethicizing of religious ideas appear : (1) the gradual
stripping off of naive anthropomorphism from the gods,
which led to a violent opposition to aesthetic mythology on
the part of Xenophanes, who was a direct descendant in this
respect of the Gnomic poets ; (2) necessarily connected
with the above, the development of the monotheistic germs
contained in the previous ideas ; (3) the emphasis on the
thought of moral retribution in the form of faith in immor-
tality and transmigration. So far as the last two thoughts
belonged with a greater or less degree of clearness also to
the Mysteries, they were in some degree the centre of an
ethical reaction against the pantheon " constructed by the
poets."

12. In this direction tended the great movement wliich
shook the Avestern part of civilized Greece about tlie end of
the sixth century, and in many ways influenced the devel-

GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 29

opment oT science. This movement is the etJiico-religious
7'eformation of Pi/tltagoras.

It is jihsohitel}^ necessary, in the interest of historical clear-
ness, to distinguish Pythagoras from the Pythagoreans, and the
practice of the former from the science of the latter. The in-
vestigations of modern time have more and more led to this
distinction. The accounts of the later ancients (neo-Pythago-
rean and neo-Platonic) had gathered so many myths al)out tJie
personality of Pythagoras, and had so ascribed to him the ripest
and highest thoughts of Greek philosophy through direct and
indirect falsification, that he became a mysterious and entirely
inconceivable form. But the fact that the cloud of myths
should thicken from century to century in ancient time around
him, makes it necessary^ to go back to the oldest and, at
the same time, most authoritative accounts. Therein it ap-
pears that neither Plato nor Aristotle knew anything about
a philosophy of Pythagoras, but simply make mention of a
philosophy of the " so-called Pythagoreans." Nowhere is the
"number theory" referred to the "Master" himself. It is
also to be regarded as highly probable that Pythagoras himself
wrote nothing. At any rate, nothing is preserved which can be
confidently attributed to him, and neither Plato nor Aristotle
knew of anything of the sort. On the other hand, the first philo-
sophical writing of the school is that of Philolaus,'^ the con-
temporary of Anaxagoras, and therefore of Socrates and
Democritus. This philosophic teaching will be set forth in
the place which belongs to it chronologically in the develop-
ment of Greek philosophy (§ 24). Pythagoras himself, how-
ever, in the light of historical criticism, appears only as a kind
of founder of religion, and a man of grand ethical and political
efficiency. His work had an important place among the causes
and the preliminary conditions of the scientific life in Greece.

Concerning the life of Pythagoras little is certain. He came
from an old Tyrrhean-Phliasian stock, which had migrated to
his home, Samos, at the latest in the time of his grandfather.
Here he was born, somewhere between the years 580 and 570,
as the son of JMnesarchus, a rich merchant. It is not impos-
sible that differences that arose between him and Polycrates, or
the antipathy of the aristocrat to this t^a-ant, drove him out of

1 Sec Zeller, P. 256 if., against A. Roth (Gesch. iinserer ahendlayi. Phi-
los., II. b, 2G1 £., 48 £.). Zeller shows clearly that Pythagoras had no
philosopliy.

2 Diog. Lacrt., YIIT. 15, 85.

30 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Samos, where he seems to have entered already iipoiv a career
similar to that of his later life. It is not to be determined
with perfect surety, but may be regarded as by no means im-
probable, that he made a kind of educative journey to investi-
gate the sanctuaries and cults of Greece. At this time he
came to know Pherecydes. This journey may have extended
also into foreign lands as far as Egypt.^ About the year 530,
however, he settled in Magna Graecia, the region where (at
a time when Ionia already was struggling with Persia for
existence) were brought together, in the most splendid way,
Greek power and Greek culture. Here was still a more motley
mixture of Hellenic stocks, and here between cities, and in the
cities between parties, the battle for existence was most passion-
ately waged. Pythagoras appeared here and preached, founded
his new sect, and met with the most decided success. He
chose the austere and aristocratic Crotona as the centre of his
operations. It appears that his sect co-operated in tlie decisive
battle (510 b. c.) in which Crotona destroyed its democratic
rival, the voluptuous Sybaris. But very soon after that event
democracy became predominant in Crotona itself and in other
cities, and the Pythagoreans were cruelly persecuted. These
persecutions were more than once repeated in the first half of
the fifth century, and the sect was entirely dispersed. Wliether
Pythagoras in one of these persecutions, perhaps even in the
very first instigated by Cylon in 504, found his end, or whether
in another way, or where, when, and how, is uncertain. His
death is surrounded by myths, but we shall have to place it
at about 500.

Jamblichus, De vita Pythagorica^ and Porphyry, De vita
Pytluujorce (ed. Kissling, Leipzig, 1815-16, etc.), H. Ritter,
Geschichte der 2^ythagorischen Philosophie (Hamburg, 182G) ; B.
Krische, De societatis a Pyt/i agora in urbe C rotoniatarum con-
ditce scoiio politico (Gottingen, 1830) ; E. Zeller, Pyth. u. die
Py th. -saga, Vortvug u. Ablidl. I. (Leipzig, 1865) 30 ft'.; Ed.
Ciiaignet, Pytliagore et la 2}hiloso2)hie pythago7icienne (Paris,
1873) ; J^. V. Schroeder, Pyth. u. d. Inder (Leipzig, 188-1) ; P.
Tannery, Arch. f. Gesch. d. Ph.., I. 29 ff.

On the one hand, Pythagoras found his purpose in the
moral clarification and purification of the world of religious

1 There is scarcely a ground for doubting the testimony of Isocrates
(Rusir, 11). The circumstances of the second half of the sixth century
make it appear as in no wise an exce})tional case that the son of a patri-
cian of Samos should journey to Egypt.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY 31

ideas. He stood in this respect entirely in line with llic
progress and innovation of the time, and he antagonized, as
a point of view antiqnated or coming to be so, tlie religion
of the poets, in which he missed a moral earnestness. On
the other hand, he was inspired by the same ethical impulse
ao-ainst that weakenini^ of the moral bond to which the
new methods of Greek social life threatened to lead, and
in fact had already led. He called, therefore, for a return
to the old institutions and convictions. Especially in
politics, he represented a reaction in favor of the aristoc-
racy as opposed to the growing democratic movement. This
opposition determined the peculiar position of the Pythag-
orean society. The society was, in truth, one of the most
important factors in the religious and intellectual advance
of the Greek spirit, and at the same time it flung itself
aG:ainst the current of the time as rerards ethics and
politics.^ As to the latter, the Ionian Pythagoras preferred
the more conservative Dorian character, and the " Italian
philosophy" founded by him passed among the ancients
as an antithesis to the Ionian.

The emphasis upon the unity of the divine Being and a
purely moral conception of the same was carried no farther
by Pythagoras and by the Pythagoreans than by the Gnomic
poets. Neither was the conception of tlie purely spiritual here
attained, nor a scientific foundation and presentation given
to ethical concepts, nor, finally, a sharp contradiction made to
the polytheistic popular religion. (Of course we do not in-
chide in this statement the doctrines of the neo-Pythagorean
and neo-Platonic schools.) On the contrary, Pythagoras had
the pedagogic acumen to develop these higher conceptions from
tliose existing in the myths and religious ceremonies. He used
in this way the Mysteries, especially the Orphic, and he himself
appears to have been connected with the cult of Apollo in
particular. He laid particular emphasis upon the doctrine of
immortality and its application to a theory of moral religious
retribution, and this also took the mythic form of the doctrine

1 Similarly and on a larger scale this is repeated by Plato's work.

32 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

of metempsychosis. But doubtless the Mysteries themselves
contained much in harmony with the doctrine of transmigra-
tion, especially those Mysteries of the chthonic divinities.
But to the ordinary Greeks transmigration was and remained
a foreign conception, wiiich in early times they had mocked
at,^ and they were most inclined to lay it at the door of foreign
influence.

Whatever of the Pythagorean ethical teaching is certainly
proved, may be found in the Gnomic teachings. But at all
events we see there, in the consciousness of duty, in introspec-
tion, and in subordination to authority, a greater earnestness
and rigor, with at the same time a decided abandonment of
sense-pleasure and a powerful tendency to spiritualize life.^
Many ascetic tendencies doubtless were already connected
with this. The pronounced political turn which Pythagoras
at the same time gave to his society determined its fate and
led it first to victory, then to destruction. Yet this political
tendency is not to be regarded as original, but as the natural
consequence of the moral-religious ideal of life.

In order to attain such a goal, Pythagoras founded at
first in Crotona his religious society, which soon spread
over a greater part of Magna Graecia. But this sect was,
to be sure, at first only a kind of Mysteries, and nearest
related to it were the Orphics. It is to be distinguished
from these only so far as it expressly determined also the
political and in part even the private life of its members by
its regulations. It sought to evolve also a general educa-
tion and an all-round method of life out of its moral-
religious principle. Its most commendable feature was,
that within the society the external goods of life were
relatively little prized, and the common activities were
directed toward fostering science and art. Thus, the
religious in time became a scientific Olacro^. To Pythago-
ras himself may be referred the thorough study of music,

1 See Xcnophancs' witty distich against it : Diog. Laert. , VIII. 36.

2 The so-called " golden poem " wherein the Pythagorean rules of
life are laid down was, according to IMullach, collated by Lysis. Zeller
is certainly right in saying that it was probably earlier handed down
in verse form.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY 33

and perhaps in the same connection the beginnings of
mathematical investigations which therefore, like medicine,
liave a point of depai'ture equally independent of that of
" general philoso])hy." ^

It is 110 longer certain how much the society directed by
Pythagoras liiiiiself was in possession of all of the rules by which,
according to later accounts, the community life of the members,
their initiation, their education even to the particuUirs of each
day's duties, were provided for. The conception taken from
later analogies is scarcely credible, that the Pythagoreans
were a secret society in which the novitiate first after a long
preparation and after the performance of many symbolical
formalities could share in the " mysteries." Roth in particular
has tried to re-establish this distinction of the esoteric and ex-
oteric. Pythagoreanism was certainly no more and no less
a secret society than all the other Mysteries, and there is not
the slightest ground for assuming a secret science in it. That
the stimulus given by Pythagoras to the spiritual community
of life was concerned with music and mathematics, may safely
be accepted. All else is doubtful, and probabl}^ fabulous. So,
too, it is impossible to find out anything certain as to the founder's
personal famiUarity with these subjects. Even the well-known
geometrical proposition is not to be attributed to him in entire
confidence. He himself belongs rather to the religious and
political life. But the spirit in which he founded his school
was of such a nature that scientific interest could and actually
did flourish in it.

13. In Greek national life such were the essential condi-
tions for the origin of the philosophy which appeared at the
beginning of the sixth century as an independent phenom-
enon. Its entire course, however, since it was dependent
upon the general civilization of the nation, shows a gradual
drifting from circumference to centre. The beginnings lie
scattered in those circles of Hellenic life where, in friendly
as well as in hostile contact with neighboring peoples, it
first developed into full independence. Afterwards in the
entire Sophistic Enlightenment philosophy centred itself in

^ See G. Cantor, Vorlesungen iiher d. Gesch. d. ]\f(ilJi., I. 125 f.

34 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the Athens of Pericles ; and there through the great per-
sonality of Socrates it became naturalized, it perfected itself,
and established its great schools.

Subjectively viewed, the development of Greek science is
a fully rounded whole. Like all naive and natural think-
ing, it began with a recognition of the outer world. Its first
tendency was entirely cosmological, and it passed through
the physical into metaphysical problems. Foundering in
these and at the same time troubled by the dialectic of
public life, the Spirit made itself an object of reflection.
An anthropological period began, in which man appeared
as the most worthy object of consideration, and ultimately
as the only object of investigation. Finally, science in its
perfected strength, acquired in the profound study of the
laws of its reason, turned back to the old problems, the
conquest of which came to it now in great systematic
continuity.

See § 2, note. — Hegel, Gesch. der Pliilos., Complete WorTcs^
Vol. XIII. 188. If one strips away the formal from Hegel's
terminology, which served him in his systematization of the
historical processes, then one meets here, as so often in Hegel,
an inspired insight, with which he apprehended the essential
features in the development of historical phenomena.

The origins of scientific reflection are to be sought in the
cities of the seacoast of Ionia, which were in a flourishing
condition about 600 b. c. The happy nature of the Ionian
race was here accompanied by all the necessary material,
social, and intellectual requisitions for science. Its men-
tal alertness, its frequently dangerous curiosity for the novel,
and its creative talent were remarkable. Here, for the
first time, mature minds brought their independent judg-
ment to bear not only upon practical but upon theoretical
questions. ^ The idea of the connection of things was no

1 Plutarch Sol., 8 (concerning Thales) : nepairepco rrjs xpf"'$' f |iAcea-<9at
T^ Bccopia.

GREEK riiiLosoriiv 35

longer formed after the models of mythology, but by per-
sonal reflection and meditation. Nevertheless these new
endeavors leading to science grew out of the circle of reli-
gious ideas, and thereby did science prove itself to be one
of the functions which had been differentiated out of the
original religious life of human society. At first science
treated the same problems that concerned mythological
fancv. The difference between the two does not Ke in
their subject matter, but in the form of their interrogation
and the nature of their reply. Science begins where a
conceptual problem takes the place of curiosity as to se-
quences, and where, therefore, fancies and fables are
replaced by the investigations of permanent relations.

The common task for the Greek philosopher lay in the ^
necessity to understand the change of things, their origi-
nation, destruction, and transmutation into one another.
This very change, this process of happening (^Gesclieheii) j
was accepted as a matter of course, and was not required ■
to be explained or reduced to its causes. It had rather to ^
be described, objectified, and conceptually stated. The myth
accomplished this in the form of a narrative. To the ques-
tion. What existed previously ? it made answer with a
description of the origin of the world, and tells of the
battles of Titans and how they finally produced this world. ,
Among men of science this interest in the past gave way !\
to an interest in what is permanent. They no longer
asked for the temporal but for the real prius of perceived
Being. Face to face with the perpetual vicissitudes of in-
dividual things, they expressed the thought of a world- 1
unity, by asking what is permanent amid the changes;,! -
Consequently they formed as the goal of their research
the concept of a world-stuff that changes into all things,
and into which all things return when these things vanish
from perception. The idea of a temporal origin of things
gives place to that of eternal Being, and thus arises the

36 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

apyi)^ the first concept of Greek philosophy. The first
question of Greek science was, " What is the stuff out of
which the world is made, and how is the stuff changed
into single things ? " Science thus arose from cosmogonies
and theogonies.

The transition from the myth to science consists in
stripping off the historical, in rejecting chronological nar-
ration, and in reflecting upon the Unchangeable. Tlie first
science was obviously an investigation of nature.

See S. A. Byk. Die vorsocratiscJie Philos. d. Or. in Hirer org an-
ischen Gliedenmg, 2 parts, Leipzig, 1875 and 1877.

1. The Milesian Nature Philosophy

14. The principal centre for these beginnings in science
was the chief of the Ionian cities, Miletus. From two gen-
erations of scientists in this city, tradition has preserved
three names : Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.^

^ Arist. 3Iet., I. 3, 983, b. 8. : e^ ov yap €(ttlv anavTa to. ovra Koi i^
ov yiyveraL TrpcuTov Kai (Is o (fydeiperai TeXfuraioi/, rrjs fiev otcri'as' vnofievov-
crT}s, TOLS be ivaOecn pera^aXXovo-qs, tovto (ttol)(^7ov koL tuvttjv apxtjv (ftaaiv
(Ivai r5>v uvtcov. Omitting the deduction of the Aristotelian categories,
ova-ia and ttcWos, this definition of dpxr), which furnishes an immediate
suggestion of the transition from the temporal to the conceptual, may
be taken as historical in the sense that it existed among the old lonians.
It is of little importance who introduced the term apxf] in this concep-
tual way. Simpl. Phi/s.^ 6 recto, 24, 13 asserts it to be due to Anaxi-
mander. The thought was already present in Thales.

2 It is evident that one need not liudt the Milesian philosophy to
these three well-known men ; but nothing is traditionally certain.
For the allusion of Theophrastus, who (Simpl. Phys., 6) speaks of pre-
decessors of Thales, may also be applied to the cosmogonies ; and the
reports of Aristotle, according to which the physicists were those who
accepted as apx^ the intermediaries between air and water (Z)e ccelo,
III. 5, 303 b, 12) or between air and fire (Phi/s., I. 4, 187 a, 14) leave
open the possibility and probability that he has in mind the later eclec-
tic stragglers. Compare § 25.

THE MILKSIAN NATURE I'lULOSOPHY 37

R. Ritter, Gesch.dcr ionischen PJulosojthie (lierlin, 1821) ; R.
Se3'del, Der Fortschritt der Jletap/n/j^ik aider den dltesten ionU
schen Philosophen (Leipzig, 18(11) ; P. Taunery, Poar Vhistoire
de la science hellene, I. (Paris, 1887).

Tlialcs (about 600 b. c.) answered the question concern-
ing the substantial constitution of the workl (^Weltstoff)
bv declarino: it to be water. This is the only assertion that
can be attributed to him with perfect certainty. Even
Aristotle,^ who could give only traditional reports concern-
ing Thales, as early as his time had only conjectures about
the grounds of this assertion. When Aristotle states that
the moist character of the animal seed and animal nutri-
tion was the occasion for this statement of Thales (and to
Aristotle's inference,^ all later supplementary conjectures
appear to refer), we are permitted to attribute this inference
tn flip^apppifip. ipterest in biology, which appealed strongly
to the Stagirite, but, for all we know, not at all to Thales.
More probable is the conjecture, likewise reported by
Aristotle,^ which brings the teaching of Thales into connec-
tion with ancient cosmological ideas. In these the ocean
was considered the oldest and most important thing. It
would be exceedingly strange if the Ionian thinker, in an-
swer to the question as to the constitution of the world,
had not decided in favor of- the element so important to his
people. The thouo-ht of its infinite mobility, its transfor-
nx(ition into earth and aiF, ifs^l-engul fi n g violence, could

not but have holrl fin impoi-tnnt p1npn in fho rnind.^ of spn-

^ffljing f'^lk The reported cosmographical '^ ideas of Thales u
also agree with this, i(fc he is said to have thought that the
earth floated in water, and to have given, in connection
with this, a Neptunian explanation of earthquakes. /

1 Met., I. 3, 983 b, 22, Xa^wj; 'iacos Tf}v vnoKr^^iv.

2 Plut. Plac.phiL, I. 3 (Dox., 276). Compare Zeller, P. 175, 2.

3 See beyond.

4 Arist. De ccelo, IT. 13, 294 a, 28.

38 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

But it makes no difference whether Thales came to his
assertion more through organic than inorganic observations.
So much is clear, that the cliemical composition of water,
the pure HgO, did not determine his choice of it as the cos-
mic matter. Rather its_flm(j[ state of aggregation and the
important r51e jthat it p1ayed-4a^ie mobile JjIfi-oLnature
detemuned.hjs^ decision, so that in the ancient reports
vypov is often substituted for vhcop. \ The idea of Thales

\ seems to have been to select as the world stuff that form
of matter, which promised to make most readily compre-

^ hensible, the transformation on the one hand to the solid,
on the other to the volatile.J. More definite data concern-
ing the modus operandi of these changes do not appear to
have been furnished by Thales. It must remain problemat-
ical whether he, like the later philosophers, conceived this
process of change as a condensation and rarefaction.

At any rate, Thales represented tliis fluid cosmic matter
as in continuous self-motion. Of a force moving matter
and distinguishable from it, he taught nothing.^ In
naively considering an event as a thing requiring no
further explanation, he advocated, like his followers, the
so-called hylozoistic theory, which represents matter as
eo ipso moving and on that account animated. With this
are compatible his iravra irXyjpT) Oeojv elvai'^ and his ascri})-
\ tion of a soul to the ma^net.^ The scientific view of the
world had obviousT^ at this stage not yet excluded the im-
aginative view of nature held by Greek mythology.

^ According to the statements of the later writers (Cicero, De nat.
deor., I. 10), Thales i)laced in antithesis to the cosmic matter the form-
ing divine spirit. Such statements betray^ on the one hand, the termi-
nology of the Stoics, and on the other lead us to infer a confounding of
Thales with Anaxagoras. TliQ^iylozoism eft all the ancient physicists,
including Thales, is aflirmed by Aristotle in Met., I. 3.

2 Arist. De aimna, I. 5, 411 a, 8.

8 Ibid.y I. 2, 405 a, 20.

THE MILESIAN NATURE J'HILOSOriiY 39

The time in which Thales lived is detcriiiiiied by an eclipse,
which he is said to have predicted. In accordance with modern
investigations (Zech, Astronomische Untermiduuicjen iiber die
icichtifj.sten Finsfernisse^ Leipzig, 1853), this must be placed in
the year [)85 n. c. His life falls, at all events, in the flourishing
period of j\liletus under Thrasybulus. The year of his birth
cannot be exactly determined; his death may be placed
directly after the Persian invasion in the middle of the sixth
century (Diels, Ehein. Mas., XXXI. 15 f.). He belonged to
the old family of the Thelides, which sprang from the Boeotian
Cadmians, who migrated into Asia Minor. Hence the state-
ment that he was of Phoenician derivation (Zeller, I'*. 169, 1).
See § 9 for his practical and political activity; § 10, for his
knowledge of mathematics and physics. The Egyptian jour-
neys which later literature reports, are at least doubtful ;
although, provided that he was engaged in commerce, they are
not impossible. None of the writings of Thales are cited by
Aristotle, and it is consequently doubtful if he committed any-
thing to writing.

15. If Thales is to be regarded as the first physicist, we
meet the first metaphysician in the person of his somewhat .
younger countryman, Anaximander ,(611-545 B. c). For^^
his aiis^ver -to the_c|uestion concerning the constitution of .. ^
the universe is already to be essentially distinguished, in its
content as well as in its fundamentals, from that of Thales.
Thales had sought to find the cosmic matter in the empiri-
cally known, and had^seized upou-wliafc. appears asthemost
completely mutable. If Anaximo^i^p^- WP^ ^""^^ ^ontonti with
this tlicory, it was on account_of his pronounced principle i^ '^
thatJhe_cosmic matter must bethought ns infiijjtp, SO that it

n^aynot be thought to exhaust its'^lf in itp crontionff From
this it followed immediately that the cosmic matter r^^n^t
be found among empirically giyen forms of matter, all of
which are limited. LThus there remained for the definition
ofl:he cosmic matter only the quality of its spatial and
temporal infinity^- Consequently ^naximander said that
the a/3%»; is the aireipov.

1 Arist. Phys., III. 8, 208 a, 8-. see Plut. PZac, I. 3 {Dox., 277), Iva
f) yevearis fj-fj eTrikeinrj.

40 HISTORY OE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

TItp mngf. imj>nvfrvnt aspect of tliis dictuHiJs^tliat' here,
.:^ forJiLfi-£j:&t time, is the step taken from the concrete to the
ahstract^ f rom the anschaidich to the hegrifflich. fAnaxi-
mander explained the sensuously given hy the concept,
' The advance consisted in the fact that the airetpov is dis-
tinguished from all perceptible forms of matter) Anaxi- j
mander thus referred the world of expjxience_to_JLJ^Qa■lity i
beyond experience, the idea of which arises from a concep- '•
l:ual postulate^ He characterized tliis transcendent reality
by all the predicates which his mind conceived as requisite
for the cosmic matter. He called it aOdvarov /cal avooXe-
Opovy ayewnrov Kal d(j)6apTov ; ^ he described it as including |
all things {ireptexeiv) and as determining their motion \)
{KvlBepvav) ; ^ and he designated it in this sense as to Oelov.
But with tliis first metaphysical concept began then also
the difficulty of giving a content to it.^ That Anaximander
conceived the aireipov to be pre-eminently a spatial and
temporal infinity, follows from the way in which he arrived
at this principle. Concerning his attitude, however, toward
the question of the qualitative determination of the
aireipov^ both antiquity and still more modern investiga-
tors have apparently had divided opinions. The simplest
and the most natural theory to entertain is the following :
(that Anaximander did not express himself about the quality
)of this imperceivable cosmic matter, for the ancient ac-
counts agree that he did not identify it with any one of the
(known elements. More questionable, certainly, is it
whether he, as Herbart (W. W., I. 196) and his school
(Striimpcll, I. 29) are inclined to accept, expressly denied
the qualitative determination of tlie cosmic matter, which

would have anticipated the Plnlnni.-- V li^i.^folimi pnnpoi.fmri ^

1 Arist. Phijs., ITT. 4, 203 b, 8. Likewise atSiov and dyrjpa, see
Ilippol. Ref. hcer., I. G (Dox., 559).

2 AVliifh expression does not mean, as Roth thinks (GescJi. unseref
ahendl. Philos.j II. 142^, " a mental guidance." See Zeller, I*. 204, 1.

THE MILKSIAN NATURE rJlILOSOPHY 41

of matter as an undetermined possibility. But, on the
otiier liand, it is ccrtiiin that Anaximandcr thought of tlie
aireipov always as Gurpuimil,^ and only the kind of cor-
poreality can bo subject to controversy. The hypothesis,
too, expressed repeatedly in later antiquity, is untenable,
viz., that he asserted the cosmic matter to be an inter-
mediary state between water and air, or air and fire. On
the contrary, the combination of the Anaximandrian prin-
ciple with i\\Q ixi>y^a of Empedocles and Anaxagoras^ which
Aristotle gives, led even in antiquity to the conception
of the aireipov as a mixture of all the empirical material
elements. If noWj_also, the adherence x)f Anaximander to^^
hylozoistic monism is — as ..Aristotle 5ays it is — so. very
certain that one cannot make liim (with Ritter, op. cit.')
the father of mechanical physics, in opposition to. Ionian
dynamics,^ yet, on the other hand, it is incontrovertible that
Anaximander in some conjecturable, obscure way must
have stated that the aireipov contains^ in itself all known '.
material elements, and then differentiates these elements -
in the cosmic process.^ Doubtless he held an attitude of
uncertainty as to the relationship of the aireipov to these
particular elements, similar to the mythological primeval
idea of_Cha^s^.jihiiili_.idea, to be .sure, had already been
greatly purified, but not yet thoroughly elaborated and
assimilated.

Accordingly Anaximander was doubtless content in
merely indicating as eKKpiveaOai the development of par-

1 Compare Zeller, I^. 18G, 1, as against Michelis, De an. infnito
(Braunsberg, 1874).

2 Arist. Met., XI. 2, lOfiO b, 22 : to which add especially P/^//.?., I. 4,
1S7 a, 20 : ol d €K Tov iubs evoixrai ras ivavTLOTrjTas cKKpiveadai, wcrirep
Kva^lfxavhpos (f)rjai ktX. Compare § 22.

3 Brundis, Hamlhuch, I. 125.

^ Arist. Met., XI. 2, and Theoplirastus (Simpl. Phys^., 6) interpret
this as a dwdnei inclusion. Tlie uTreipop became to them their aopiaros
v\t).

42 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

ticular things from the cosmic matter. Indeed he caused
the antithetical "Wlarm jmd Cold to bo differentiated from
the aTTetpov as its first qualitative determinations. Out of
the mixture of these two qualities was supposed to be
formed then the Fluid, the fundamental material, of the
finite empirieal^world. Thus the metaphysical basis to the
theory of Thales was complete; for Anaximander_ tnught
tliat the particular parts of the world had been differejitiated
out- of the Fluid. These were the earth, air, and the fire
encircling the whole.

The philosopher inserted into this meteorological account
of the origin of the world a multitude of single astronom-
ical ideas (§ 10) which, even if they appear childish to
us to-day, nevertheless not only show a many-sided in-
terest in nature, but also presuppose independent obser-
vations and conclusions. Anaximander reflected upon the
facts of organic life also, and there is preserved one obser-
.^ vation of his in accord ^ with the modern evolution theory.
This is to the effect that animals appeared when the primi-
tive liquid earth dried up, and were originally fish in form.
Then some of them, adapting themselves to their new envi-
ronment, became land animals. This process of develop-
ment, in its naive explanation, includes even man.

The single qualitative differentiations are lost again in
the perpetual life-process of the cosmic matter, in the same
wav that thev arise out of the direipou, Anaximander, in the
single fragment verbally i)reserved to us, has described this
reabsorption in a poetic ^ manner — reminding us of original
Oriental-religious ideas — as a kind of compensation for the
injustice of individual existence. ef mv Be i) yevrjal'; ean
roU oixTL, Kat rr)v (f)9opav eh ravra yiveoOat Kara to '^pecov.
hthovai ryap avra hiKriv koI Tiaiv [aXX^/Xoi?] Tr\<=; ahiKia^ Kara

1 riut. P/rtC, V. 19 {Dox., 430) ; Ilippol. Eef. hoer., 1.6{Dox., 560).
Coin)>are Teichmiiller, Studien, I. 63 f.

2 Simpl. PJujs., 6^, 24, 13.

THE M1LE8IAN NATURE rillLOSOPHY

T)]v Tov ^povov Tci^Lv, To tliis Aiiaxiinandcr united the
^theory, iilso_siiiiilarly Oriental3_..that JJic^ciasinicjna^te^ ^
perpetual transformation creates out of itself world-systems,
and again ajbsorbsjbliem.^ Whether to the viq^v of an end-
I^ss~pTurality of success1V«L world-formations was connected
also that of a })lurality of/Co-existing worlds, contained in
the primitive matter, I'^mains undecided and not probable.^

The deteijja^nation of the dates of the life of Anaximander
rests upou tl(e arbitrary statement of Apollodorus, that in the
second year or.the fifty-eighth Olympiad he was sixty-four years
old and directly Afterwards died. (Diog. Laert., U. 2.) This is
not far from the trutli. Further of his biography is not known.
His work, to which some one gave the title -n-epl (fivaews^ was in
prose, and appears to have been lost very early. Compare Sehlei-
ermacher, Ueher An.^ W. W. III. 2, 171 f . ; Biisgeu, Ueher das
aTreipov des A. (SYieshadQU, 1867) ; Neuhiiuser, ^jiaa;. Milesiiis^
(Bonn, 1883j.

16. We turn back from tlie metnphjm'fial to tT^^ pV'j^^l /
point of view when we pass from Anaximander to Anaxi-
menes, for the latter sought the cosmic matter a^ain in the ;
empirically known. Nevertheless the reflections of Anaxi-
mander were not ineffectual upon his successor. For when \
he substituted the air in place of the water of Thales, he
had especial reference to the postulate. .oL ^i ax imander::__
he explained that the air is the aireipo^ ^PX^- He found the
claims of the metaphysician to be thus satisfied by the em-
pirical material.^ At the same time he chose the air on

.^ft — -

1 Plut. Strom., fr. 2 {Dox., 579).

2 SoeZeller, I. 212 f.

^ This is attested expressly by Simplicius, Phys., 6r, 24, 26 : see Eus.
Prcep., I. 8, 3 {Dox., 579) and especially Schol. in Arist., 514 a, 33 ; anecpou
p.kv Koi avTos vneOeTO ttjv apx^v, ov prju en nopicTTov ktX. It is thus impossible
to premise with Ritter (Gesch. der Philos., 217) that Auaximencs made
a distinction between the air as a metaphysical cosmic matter and the
same as an empirical element. Brand is also, who first entertained this
view in his handbook, I. 144, has later (^Gesch. d. Entio., I. 5G, 2) not laid
so much stress on it.

44 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

account pf i<s f^nsy Tnntability : ol6fi€vo<; apKelv to tov aepo<;
^vaWoicorov 7r/3o? fieTa^oX^jp (Schol. in Arist., 514 a, 33). If
we add to this, finally, the single statement which is pre-
served of his writings : ^ olov rj ^frv)(^rj rj rj/jberepa arjp ovcra
avyKparel ^//^a?, kol oKov tov /coa/juov Trvevfxa /cat arjp Trepteyei,^
we know that his main object was to declare \he cosmic
matter to be tli£_mQat_alive and rtio^t contiRiimisly mnhilft
of the known elements. We likewise meet here a very i
definite idea of the maimer in which the apxv changes into
other kinds of matter : ^\jns theory of condensation and rare-
^f action (^fidvcocra or apaiwai<i — irvKvwcn^^. Out of the _
air through rarefaction originates fire : through condensa-
tion, wind, clouds, rain, water, earth, stones, successively
come. In this enumeration there appear considerable
definiteness in meteorological observations, and at the
same time the physicist's tendency to use the state of
a<ro;reo;ation as a standard for the different chan2:es in
^. the cosmic matter,^. Milesian ^ninricn n1 ready knew the
connection of the state of ap^tyrep^ation with the tempera- '
tare; and Anaximenes taught* that rai^efaetien-is identical
with .increase of warmth, condensation with increase of
cold,.^

From these general observations Anaximenes not only
gave a great number of explanations of particular phe-
nomena in which he showed himself to have been a many-
sided and sharp-sighted physicist, but he also gave a theory
of the oridn of the^vorld. To the latter was appended the

1 Plut. Plac, ]. 3 {Dox., 278).

2 Far from favoring a purely spiritual interpretation of the world
principle, by Anaximenes, as Riith (^Gescli. d. abendl. Philos., II. 250 f.)
will have it, this passage shows the naive materialism of earliest science
as it also appears in the casual remark of Anaximander that the soul is
air. The materiality of the cosmic matter of Anaximenes is proved
beyond a doubt by his theory of condensation and rarefaction.

3 Hipp. Ref. h., I. 7 (Dox., 560).

4 Plat. Depr.fruj., 7, 3, 947. , .

THE MILESIAN NATUKE PHILOSOPHY 45

safely attested ^ conception of^^Angj-iodic olinn,o;Q ^f world-
^JQi-niiniJCS and world-di'si ructions, i.e., of a successive)
plurality of worlds. It is not certain, however, that he
thought the destruction of the world to be conflagration.

Nothing is known of the life of Anaximenes, and its chro-
nological determination is ditiicult. See Zeller, K 219, 1.
Against the conjectures of Diels (lihein. Mas., XXXI. 27)
there is the probable theory that by the " capture of Sardis,"
with which his death is said to be coincident (Diog., II. 3), we
are to understand the capture by the lonians in the year 41)9.
Accordingly his birth would have to be in the 53d Olympiad, as
Hermann has it {De philos. Jonic. cetatilms, Gottingen, 1849).
Roth (II. a, 24G f. ; b, 42 f.) makes the date too late by placing
it in the 58th Olympiad. Ilis Trept cf>va€oj<; was written ^ yXoyaarj
'laSt airXfj kcu dTrcptrTO). This is the beginning of a dry practical
prose which shows itself contemporaneously in the historiog-
raphy of his countryman Hecatoeus.

With the destruction of Miletus-after the battle of Lade,
494, and the fall of the independence of lonia^ the first
development of Greek science along the lines of natural
philosophy came to an end.^ When, at least a generation *
after Anaximenes, in another Ionian city, Ephesus, the
great scientific theory of Heracleitus appeared, the new
theory did not leave the old theory unused. TTpvnpjpifng, /^
on the other hand, joined to the_old theory the religious
and metaj.)liysical problems which had appeared in the
mean time from other directions^

1 Sirapl. PJnjs., 25 7 T

2 According to Diog. Laert., II. 2.

^ The great chronological chasm between Anaximenes and Heraclei-
tus is consistent with the entirely different handling of the problems by
the latter. Therefore the customary way of making Heracleitus a
follower of the Milesians is the less tenable, since the teaching of
Pleracleitus absolutely presupposes that of Xenophanes.

* If one places the death of Anaximenes at 52.5 (Diels and Zeller)
and that of Heracleitus, at the earliest, at 475, then the chasm appears
still greater.

46 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

2. The Metaphysical Conflict — Heracleitus and the

Eleatics.

The advance from the speculations in jiature-pliilosophy
^f the Milesians to the conceptual investigations in Being
■ and Becoming of Heracleitus and his Eleatic opponents
was the result of a reaction, which the conception of the
^- world created by Ionian. science necessarily exerted upon
tlie religious ideas of the Greeks. The monistic tendency )
which science showed in seekinor the unitarv cosmic matter ^
i was in implicit opposition to polytheistic mythology, and ■•
necessarily became more and more accentuated. It was
inevitable, therefore, that Greek science on the one hand
should emphasize an d^ reinforce the mmTJ-^^J^- snggpsfion
which it found in the field of religious ideas, but on the
other that it should fall so much the more J^^^"^ ahnrppr
^^ opposition to_the jpoly theism_^f ,_ th e state ..religi on.

17. The imperturbable champion of this conflict, the
man who stands as the religious-philosophical link between
the Milesian nature philosophy and the two great metaphys-
ical systems of Heracleitus and Parmenides, and at the
same time the man who is the messenger_of philosophy
"■^from the East to the West, ^s Xenophanes.^ the rhapsodist

1 The disposition of the material of the text, whereby Xenophanes,
who is generally called the "founder" of the Eleatic school, has been
separated from this school, is justified by these two facts : firstly, the
theory of Xenophanes in point of time and subject matter precedes that
of Heracleitus, and the theory of Heracleitus in the same respects pre-
cedes that of Parmenides ; secondly, that Xenophanes is neither a
genuine Eleatic, nor yet a representative of the Eleatic theory of
Being, enunciated first by Parmenides. The importance of Xenophanes
lies not within a metaphysical but a religious-philosophical territory,
and his strength does not consist in conceptual thought (Arist. Met, I.
5, 986 b, 27, calls him, as opposed to Parmenides, dypoiKorepov) but in
the powerful and grand thought of Oneness. See Brandis, Handhuchy
I. 359.

THE METArMYSlCAL CONFLICT 47

of Colophon, who sang in Magna Graecia (570-470). To
him antiquity referred as the first champion against the
anthropomorphic element in the popular religion. He ,
criticised the representation of godsJii^JiiiiiumrJCQ^flajLand a
made sport of the~^ets who aTEnbuted to celestials the
passions and sins of men.^ He a^gserted the singleness of ^ .
the_highest and true God.i_ If we may believe that herein
he taught nothing but what was already provided for and
hinted at, if not indeed definitely presented, in the Pythag-
orean doctrine as known to him, and possibly even earlier

in the Mysteries, — then jjiat whi^Ji mnkns Xenophancs a

philosopher is the basis which he develgp^H for innimthn-
ism from the philosophv of the Milesian physics. We can
conaense his teaching into a sentence : the apyj] is the
Godhead. According to his religious convictiouy God is -j
'the original ground of all thinners, gjid to him are due all 'p^
attributes which the physicists had ascribed to the cosmic. I
iQatter. ^He is unoriginated and imperishable;* and, as
"fEe cosmic matter was identical with the World- AIL ior th^
lonians, so for Xenj:4jhaii£a -was.-GlQd^ideiiticaL-to the world-

alJ He contains all things in himself, and he is at the

same time ev koL irav.^ This philosophical monotheism,

1 Compare the well-known verse in Clem. Alex. Strom. ^ V. 714
(fr. 5, G).

2 Compare Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. 193 and I. 289,

* " Eis Bebs €u re Oeolai Koi avOpoanotai fieyLaros ovre dcfias 6vT]rol(nv
o^io'iios ovT€ vorjfia.^^ The njctapliysical JHQnotheism in Xenophanes and
later in the Greek thinkers— in a certain sense. even in Plato — is
allied with the recognition also of subordinate deities which are treated
Rs parts of the world. The Stoa was the first to attempt to analyze
this relationship in a conceptual way. Side by side with the
metaphysical monotheism, there thus continued to exist a mythical
polytheism.

* According to Arist. Rhet., TI. 23, 1399 b, 6, Xenophanes declared
it impious to speak of birth and death, of origination and extinction,
of a Godhead, d^(f)OTep(os yap o'vp.^alveiv prj flvai tovs deovs nore.

^ Compare Simpl. Phys.f 6', 22, 2G ; ev to ov koI nav . . . 3cuo<pdvi]v . . .
vnoTidea^ai,

48 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

SO energetically defended against the polytheism of the
myth, is consequently not tlieJii<^i(^, t^i't entirely ^n^j^iatic,.
as we use the terms. ^World and God to Xenopjianes are
iilenticiiU and a]Lthe_shio:le things of perception lose them-
selvesin^iat-jQJie^-iiughan^ n^^iversal essence.^ In con-
sequence of his religious predilection, however, Xenophanes
emphasized the singleness of the divine cosmic principle ?.■
more decidedly than the Milesians, to whom this is a self-
evident principle, owing to their concept of the ap^rj. It
remains indeed doubtful whether the entire Zeno-like argu-
ment for this, founded on the superlatives " mightiest "
and " best," can be ascribed to him.^ ^To the quality -oL-^^-
sino-]pTiPftft, however, Xenophanes further ascribed to-.the
cosmic deity that of unity ^ in the sense of qualitative
unity ;mrMnn(?r homogeneitv. Nevertheless, of what this"
consists lieiiad as little to say as Anaximander con-
cerning the qualitative constitution of the aireipov. In his
poetry he attributed to the Godhead in an incidental way
all possible functions and powers, spiritual * as well as
material.^ Yet out of the mass of his utterances Aristotle
could obtain^ only an indefinite and obscure assertion of
the essential homogeneity of all being. It was of greater
importance, however, for future pliilosophical development
that Xenophanes followed to its logical conclusion the con-
cept of qualitative unity ; and that moreover he extended

^ According to Sext. Emp. Pyrr. hypot., T. 33, the sillograph
Timon makes him say ; ottttt; yap i^ov voov eypvaaiyn Els' ev ravro t( Hdp
dvfXveTO • ndv 8' eov atei UdvTTj dueXKOfxeuov fxlav els (Pv(nv earad^ 6{j,oiap.

^ De Xen. Zen. Gorgias, dll a, 23 ; Simpl. Phys., 1. c.

3 In which the ambiguity of the eu played a great role.

* Sext. Enip. Adv. math., IX. 144 : ovXos 6pa, ovkos 8e voel, ovXos 5e r
aKovei' Simpl. Phys., 6', 23, 18 : aXX* dndvcvde ttovolo voov (ppevl mivra
Kpabau'd.

^ Thus the often mentioned ball-shape of the Godhead or of the
World. Compare Ilippol. Ref. //., T. 14 [Dox., bQb).

« Met., I. 5, 986 b, 22. Compare Plat. Soph., 242 d.

THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 40

,\it over temporal differentiations in such a way that he
ascribed unchangeability to the Godhead in every respect.^
He thereby enters into sitrnificant o|)j)osition to his prede^'
ccssors.2 From the concept of the divine apyi]^ there van- / /

iishcd the character of mutability which had played
great a role in the Milesian hylozoism. 1

In the emphasis upon tliis claim that the apxv is un-
originated and imperishahle, and must also be iinrnobile,
excluding therefore Kivijat^; as well as aXXoicocn^, lay the
digti n^t' ^'^ in n r>vati^" — of — the teaching of - Xenophanes; ^
For just here the concept of the apx^ ^oul4 no lon^r
serve as an explanation of empirical events. However,
Xenophanes did not himself appear to have been conscious
of the chasm he left between his metaphysical principle,
and the plurality and cliart^eableness of individual things.^
For in an obviously naive * manner he conjoined to his
religious metaphysics a multitude of physical theories.
Nevertheless he does not appear as an independent in-
vestigator in physics, but he simply follows the views of
Anaximander, with whose entire doctrine he seems to
liave been perfectly familiar,^ and adds certain more or
less happy observations of his own. Among the latter

1 Eus. Prcep. ev., L 8, 4 : elvai Xeyci to ndu del o/xolov. Hippolyt. Re/.,
I. 14 : ore eu to nav ccttiv e^o) fieTa^oXTJs. He also denied movement
to the world-all ; compare Simpl. Phi/s , 6'^, 23, 6 : aul S' iv tcovtco re uei/eiv
Kivovixevov ovdeu ovSe fxcT€p)(e(T6ai fxiu eTrnrpenei. uXXoBev (iWrj.

^ This very opposition Aristotle emphasizes in connection with
Met., I. 5.

^ It is possible, also, that he endeavored to avoid a difficulty here by an
indefinite expression, just as Diogenes, IT. 1, reports that Anaximander
(no source of authority given) tauglit : to. /leV fxepr] fxcTa^dXXeiv. to 5e
nav dfieTa^XrjTov clvai.

^ Thus ho lets stand the plurality of mythical gods under the meta-
physical Godhead.

^ Theophrastus appears to think him the puj)il of Anaximander See
Zeller, I*. 508, 1 .

50 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

belong the very childish ideas about astronomical objects.
For instance, the stars were to him clouds of fire, which
were quenched when they set and were enkindled when they
rose ; ^ he attached great significance ^ to the earth as the
fundamental element of the empirical world (with the
addition of the water), and he thought it to be endless^ in
its downward direction. His statement was more happy
about the petrifactions he had observed in Sicily, as a proof
of the original drying of the earth from its muddy condi-
tion.* Yet Xenophanes apparently held such physical
theories concerning the individual and temporary in small
esteem compared to his religious metaphysics, which he
championed vehemently. To this only can his sceptical
remarks in one of his fragments^ refer.

The differing statements as to when Xenophanes lived can
be reconciled most easily by assuming that the time when he,
accordingjto his own statement (Diog. Laert., IX. 19), at twenty-
five began his wanderings, coincided with the invasion by the Per-
sians under Harpagus (546, in consequence of which so many
lonians left their homes). He himself testifies (loo. cit.) that
his wanderings lasted sixty-seven years, at which time he must
have attained the age of at least ninety-two. Impoverished
during the emigration, if not already poor, which is less prob-
able, he supported himself as a rhapsodist by the public render-
ing of his own verses. In old age he settled in Elea, the
founding of which in 537 by the fugitive Phamicians he cele-
brated in two thousand distichs. According to the preserved
fragments, his poetic activity was essentially of the Gnomic
order (§0). He embodied his teaching in a didactic poem in
liexameter, of which only a few fragments remain. These
have been collated by Mullach ; also by Karsten, PhilosopJiorum
Graecorum operum reliquice^ I. 1 (Amsterdam, 1835) ; Reinhold,
De genuina Xeiiophanis docfrina (.Tena, 1847), and in tlie dif-
ferent works about Xenophanes by Franz Kern (Proyramm,

1 Stob. Eel, I. 522 {Dox., 348).

2 Achilles Tatius in Jsagoge ad Aratiwi, 128.

3 Simj)!. Phj/s. 41^ 189, 1. Sext. Emp. Ado. math., IX. 3G1.
^ Ilippol. Re/., I. 14 (Dox. 565).

6 Sextus Emp., VII. 4J), 110 ; VIII. 326. Stob. EcL, I. 224.

THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 51

Naumburg, 18G4 ; Oldenburg, KS7(; ; Danzig, 1871; Stettin,
1871, 1877) ; Freudentluil, Die Theoloyie ilr^ Xe)iophanes (Bres-
lau, 18.SG). Compare Arch. f. Gesdi. d. l*/iilos., I. 322 f.

Tlie pseudo-ArisLoteiiau treatise De XenopUane Zenone Gor-
cjia (printed in the works of Aristotle, and in Mullach, Fragm.
I. 271, also under the title De Melissa, Xehophane et Gorgia),
came from the Peripatetic school. According to the investii^ja-
tions of Brandis, Bergk, Ueberweg, Vermehren, and Zeller, "we
may believe that the last part of this work doubtless treats of
Gorgias, and the first part almost as surely of jNIelissus. The
middle portion presupposes an older presentation about Xcnoph-
anes which was referred wrongly by a later commentator to
Zeno, and was supplemented with some statements about Zeno's
views drawn from other sources. This part of the treatise can
be used only with the greatest judgment, and then as illustra-
tive of what on the one hand the fragments, and on the other
the reports, of Aristotle give.

The teaching of Xenophanes, immature as it appears,
nevertheless discloses the inadequacy of the Milesian con-
cept of the apxV' I In or behind the chanQ^e of single thina'ST'
jhe said^ should be souo'ht a cosmic principle ^'^^'^^ ^voofjr^o
ltheni_ji11, hut, ypf ^^g^^f nlwavs remains unchanoed. But
if we seriously conceive of this cosmic principle of
X Xenophanes as utterly unchangeable, aiid at the same
time regard it as the sole and all-embracing actuality, it is
jmpossilila to understand its capacity of heing^cjOiiselc^ly
transmuted into individual things. The two thouglji-mo-
ftifs that had been fundamental in the concept of tbp f^fj^
I now part company, — on the one .hand, the reflection upon
K thcumdamental fact of the cosmic process ( GescJiehe7is),
on the other tlip. fundamcutnl jmstulato of the pormanCJlt,
of the unchangeably self-determined, of Being. The more

difiicult their reconciliation appeared, the more conceivable
is it that the young science, at whose command there was
as yet no wealth of mediating data, and which on the other
hand w\as developed with naive unconcern, should fall upon
the expedient of thinking out each motif by itself without
regard for the other. From this courageous onesidedness,

HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

I jimdaunted as it was at paradoxical consequences, origi-
j/nated the two great metaphysical systems whose opposition
determined later thought. _ These are tlie theories of Hera-
cleitus and Parmenides.

18. The f| noj-.nne of ahsn1iTte,_ceaseless, and ujiiyj2rsal
^mutability already was even in antiquity regarded as the'
kernel of Heracleitanism. Its watchword is iravra pec ; and
Vlien Plato ^ gave the phrase a new turn, on iravra %&)pet
Kol ovhev fjuevei, he gave at the same time the obverse of
the proposition, viz., the denial of the permanent. Here in
this is Heracleitus, '^ the Dark," essentially distinguished
from the Milesian philosophers, with whom he, under the
name of the "renian natural philoso^jhers," is generally
classed (§ 16). Ij^racleitus found nothing permanent in
the perceptual world, and' he gave up search for lE"""^
the most varied 'phrase he presented the fundamental
truth of the continuous transmutation of all things into

one another. From every realm of life he seized ex-
amples, in order to point out the passage of opposites into
ach other. He described in bold figures.the ceaselessness

1 was to him tJie essence of thejvorjj^jjmd

A> i,necded lU) rIoHvn.tinn rn-id o \-])1nnntinn. There are no truly^
^existing thhigs, but all things oulyhecome and pass aiuay
agam in the play oi: perpetual world-movement. The a/o%^ is
>^not so much immutable matter in independent motion, as
^ the Milesians had said, but is the motion it;jiel^r-fi;Qm_which
j "ym forms of mnttpji_arc-lntnr derived as projjLicts.^ This
thought is stated by Heracleitus. ])y lio means with con-
ceptual clearness, but in sensuous pictures. { Already the
Milesian investigators had noted that all motion and
change iirG._connQctcd with temperature changes (§16), and
so. Heracleitus .thought that the etei'nal cosmic motion cx-
press.CiIitselfJby^rer7Fir_e is the apxn^ l^ut not as a stuff
identical with itself in all its changes, but rather as the

1 CrahjL, 402 a.

THE METAPHYSICAL C(^NFLICT 53

ever-uniform process itself, in which all things rise and vn
pass away. It is the world itself, therefore, in its unorigi-
nating and nnperishing mutability .^

The exceptional difficulty of this relationship was remarked
b3^ the ancients, and from it, especially, the Ephesian got liis
nickname, u-Korcur)-?. Herein appeared the amalgamation of
the abstract and the concrete, of tlie sensuous and the symboli-
cal, which, in general, characterized the entire thought and
habit of expression of Ileracleitus. Neither to oracular pride
nor to the assumption of raysteriousness (Zeller, I"*. 570 f.) is
this deficiency to be attributed in his writing, but to inability
to find an adequate form for his aspiring abstract thought.
Besides this, a priestly ceremoniousness of tone is unmistak-
able. Hence the wrestling with language which appears in
nearly all the fragments ; hence the rhetorical vehemence of
expression and a heaping up of metaphors, in which a power-
ful and sometimes grotesque fancy is displayed. Concerning
especially his fundamental teaching, his words seem to sliow in
isolated passages that he had ouly substituted fire for water or
air. But more exact search shows that the ap^rj meant quite a
different thing to him. He also identified fire and the world-all
and fire and the Godhead ; — nay, hylozoic pantheism finds in
tlie teaenmg ot iieracieitus its own most perfect expressio n .
Yelhe meant that this world principle is onlv t1i(vmovement
representerl in thn fire. It is the cosmic process itself.

Heracleitus proceeded from the point of view that the
Crc-motion is originally in itself the final ground of tilings,
and accordingly no permanent Being is fundamental in it.
He found fire to be the condition of*every change, and,
therefore the object of scientific knowledge. ^^But he did '
not only mean this in the sense that " nothing is perma- ;
nent save change," but also in the higher sense that IFis :
eternal movement completes itself in determined and ever-
recurrent forms. From this metaphysical thesis he at-
tempted to understand the problem of the ever-permanent
series of repetitions, the rhythm of movement and the la^^>^

^ Fr. 46 (Schust.) k6(t^ovt6v avrov dirdvTcov ovre tis decov oi/Ve duOpoi-
ir(ov €nolt](T(v, dXX' ^v del Koi 'dcrriv ivvp dei^coov.

HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

of change. ^In obscure and undeveloped form.MVJy mated
liere the conm$it>ion ^f-^^ii^f^wral laiu. It appeared in the
vesture of the mythical Elfjuapixevrj^ as an all-determining
Fate, or an all-powerful AUt], menacing every deviation
with punishment. Since it is to be regarded as the peculiar
object of reason, he called it the ^0709, — the reason that
rules the world. '''^J'^^

In the later presentations of this theory, in which its Stoicism
appears, it is difficult to get at what is in itself peculiarly
Ileracleitan (Zeller, 1 4. 606 f.). Tint, t^i^ /iliir"' ^ "-"Q'^^qi thought
of a world-order of natnral pbeDomena cannot b£L cTeriTed to

Heraoleitiis. ( lompare M. Heinze, Die Lelire vom Logos in der
griechischen PMlosopMe (Leipzig, 1872).

/ The most universal form of the cosmic process was, there-
re, for Heracleitus that of opposition and ita elimination.
From the notion of thft_^^flow of nil things/' it followed
that every single tiling in its continuous^ change unites^^J
injtself perpetually opposing determinations. Everything
is only a transitiojL, at^point of limit between the vanishiiig
and the alxmt-to^j^e. The lite of nature is a continuous pass-
ing into one another of all opposites^ and out of their strife
CQiXLg the individual thingjs >, TroA^eao? irdvrwv fjLevlrdT'^p^&Ti,
irdvTwv Be paaikev^.^ But as these antitheses ultimately
arise only out of the universal and all-embracing, living, fiery,
cosmic force, so they find their adjustment and reconciliation
in this same fire. Fire is, in this respect, the " unseen har-
Aiony." 2 Tbft ^vorld-all is consequently the self-divided ^
Jiifl tho self-rennitiirg nnify ^ It is at oiic_and the same

1 1 Fr. 75.

^ ('ompare Fr. 8 : apyiovlr] yap dcfjavqs (f)au€prjs KpeiTTcav. iv ^ras dia(popas
Koi erepoTTjTas 6 ^lyfucoi' Oeos €Kpvy\r€ kol Karedvaev. Coinp. Zeller, P.
604 f. The dcjxiprjs here obviously characterizes the metaphysical in
opposition to the j)hysical.

^ Plato, Sipiip., 187 a : to fv 8ia<p(p6p(vov avro avrco. Compare Soph.,
242 c ; also Fr. 98.

* Heracleitus sought to picture this relationshij) in the obviously unfor-

1t^

THE MiyrArilY.slCAL CONFLICT 55

time strife and peace ; or what seems to mean ^ the same
in ileracleitus' terminology, it is at one and the same time
want and fulness."^

Tlie physical application of these principles afforded
a thoroughgoing theory of the elemental changes in the
universe. /Action nnrl rpnp.f.i(^if take place in orderly sue-/ ^
P>uisiinn^ nnd indeed in such wise that they are constantly)
l)nhi.nced ii^ till^^'^ results. Thus it haijjjcns that single
tilings have the appearance of prsisting^ when two oppos-
ing forces temporarily hold each other in equilibriunyj
asTToTmstSiccT^ic^^r^^ appears as a permanent tli i ng
because just as much water flows to a point as flows from
it. Heracleitus designated this rhythm of change as the ♦
two 'i Ways " which are identical, the odoT^Kdra) and the
6Sh^ auo).^ By the first Way the original fire changes
itself inte-water and-tlien into eartl^ through condensation ;
by, the second the earth changes back through liquefac- ^
tien. to _ water and then to fire. This double process is -^^^^j^t^
true in one respect for the entire world ; for in regularly "^f^Xt
recui-rent periods* it develops into individual things from
the original fire, and then returns to the initial condition j
ofpurefire. Hence comes the idea of alternating world- "w^
formation and world-destruction.^ On tlie oThor hand, this / \

tima'te figure of the bow and the lyre : naXipTovos [-rponos] yap dpp.oviT)
Koa-^iov BKcoa-nep to^ov kul \vpT]s. As to the meaning, see Zeller, V. 598 f

1 Ibid., 641. I

2'Fr. 67. From these determinations apparently come vcIkos an
(pLKoTTjs, the different conditions developed by Empedocles (§ 21).

8 Compare Dioc?. Laert., IX. 8. The designations KaTio and avo) are to
be understood as first of all spatial, but they appear to have acquired a
connotation of value. A thing becomes less valuable, the farther it is
from the fiery element.

"4 He has suggested for these the Great Year (18,000 or 10,800 years?) ;
following perhaps the Chaldeans.

s The acceptance of successive world-format long and destructions
in Heracleitus may be looked upon as assured from the deductions of
Zeller, B. 626-6-40.

56 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

orderly change of matter verifies itself in every single
series in nature. How far Heracleitus, however, applied
his view to particular physical objects, we do not know.
In cosmogony, he appears to have been satisfied with bring-
ing "the " sea " out of the primitive fire, and then out of the
\ sea ijie earth on the one hand, and on the other the warm
aii\frhe only detail authoritatively attested — one that re-
minds us of Xenophanes — that the sun is a mass of vapor,
taking fire in the morning and becoming extinguished
in the evening, reconciles us to the loss of other theories
of Heracleitus, in case he had any. F(it Heradfiitus was
Y--^ess_a physicist than a metaphysician. He thought out
a single fundamental principle with profound reflection
and vivid imagination. His interest lay in the most
general of principles and in anthropological questions.

It can scarcely be accidental that in the preserved fragments
of Heracleitus there is little peculiarly physical, but much that
is jnetaphysical and anthropological. If his writing actually
had three koyoi (T)iog. Laert., IX. 5), of which one dealt with
TTcpi Tov TravTo?, and both the others were ttoXltlko^ and ^eoAoyt/co?,
this is proof tliat we have to do with a philosopher who did
not, n.R his ]\niesian predecessors, accord a merely casual
yVon^ideration to human life, but made it his prime study.

The conflict of the pure fire and the lower elements into
which everything changes repeats itself in man. 31i£._aaul ^
as the living principle is fire, and_ finds itself a captive in
a body made out of water aad earth, which, on account of
its inherent rigidness, is to the soul an abhorrent^ objecC^
With this theory Heracleitus united ideas of transmio;ray^
lion, of rctril)ution after death, and the like; and he, as
Pythagoras, seems to have attached it to certain Mysteries.
In general he took a position in religious matters similar
to that of Pythasforasr. Without breaking entirely with
the poi)ular faith, he espoused an interpretation of the ,'
myths that inclined toward monotheism and had an
ethical import.

THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 57

The vitality .ol-tke soul,- and consequently its perfection ^--^^S ■
in every respect, depends on its deriving its nonrislnncnt
from the cosmic fire, the universal reason, the \6yo<:/ The
breath is the physical mediuni of obtainnig this noui^ish-
ment, and cessation of the breath stops activity f) /^fimther
medium of life, however, is sense perception, whic^h is the
absorption of the outer throup^h the innnr fire; and this
accounts for the depression of soul-activitv in sleepN The
drier and more fiery, the better and wiser is the s^, and
the more does it participate in the universal cosmic reason,
feince the cosmic reason is cosmic law,_the reasonableness 1—^
of nian consists in his conformity to law^ and in his con- p
scions subordination to^y On that account Heracleitus A

regarded the ethicnl nnd politmni tnsVs of ninnkind as ^

expressions of the supremacy of law. His entire aristo- '
cratic hate against the democracy, that had attained to j
power, is revealed in diatribes against the anarchy of the
multitudes and their caprice. Onlx ^^^ subordination to
order and in the last instance -t» nosnnV, Inw^ can man
win that serenity wkiiili constitutes his happiness. In an
ajjprcliension of Jaw, however, and in subordination to
the universally valid, Heracleitus found the theoretical gimi
of mankind. Only tlio. reafton aurl not snuse pprcnption
guai-antees th^_att'-'i^"'^^^p^^t -of this aonl. and, without the
reason fyes and e^Yf\ m-P hnd w^itnesses.^ The great mass

1 The well-known Fra^irment 11 (Sext. Emp. Adi-. math., VIT. 12G),
KUKol fidpTvpes dv9p(OTroi(TCv 6(f)6aXp.oi kqI ara ^ap^dpovi ■'irvxds exovroiv,
is usually intcr]jreted as a disdain of sense knowledge. Schuster
(p. 19 f.) has made an attempt (confuted by Zeller, K 572 f., G5G f.) to
stamp Heracleitus as a sensualist on account of his theory of perception.
The correct position lies in the mean between these two authorities. Ki^'ht
knowledge indeed arises in sense when the right soul elaborate^ it,
Thecritcj'ion to which all things are referred is here ag^n conf
tq<^1^w^hjteh is universally valid and won only througTi
sleep and through mere individual perception every one has only his own,
and therefore a false, world of ideas. The analogy in practical life is

'jUv^^v

58 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

of mankind in this respect are badly off. They do not
reflect, but live on as the deluded victims of sense, whose
greatest deception consists hj its simulation of permanent
Being amid the transitoriness of all the phenomena of
perception, i

Heracleitus of Ephesus, son of Blyson, belonged to the most
eminent family of his native city, which traced its origin to
Codrus. In this family the dignity of apx^v /^ao-tAevs was in-
herited, and Heracleitus is said to have surrendered it to his
brother. The dates of his birth and death are not exactly
known. If he survived the banishment of his friend Hermodo-
rus (compare E. Zeller, De Herm. E]}liesio, Marburg, 1851), who
was forced from the city by the democratic ascendency after
the throwing off of Persian domination, his death can scarcely
have been before 470. About this time he himself went into
retirement to devote himself to science. His birth, since he is
said to have lived about sixty years, can be placed between
540-530. With these dates, moreover, the statements of
Diogenes Laertius agree, for Diogenes places the aKfx-q of
Heracleitus in the sixty-ninth Olympiad. His own writing,
in poetically ceremonial prose, supposes that Pythagoras and
Xenophanes are already familiar names. It was not probably
written until the third decade of the fifth century. His rude
partisanship upon the side of the oppi-p««pfl nricjtr.or^py i^t gll
that IS known of his nr'pi^ by wlnr-h Is explninfid his contempt
for mankind, his solitariness and bitterness, and his ever
emphatic antagonism toward the public and its capricious
sentiments.

In the collection and attempt at a systematic ordering of the
unfortunately meagre fragments of Ileracleitus' book, and in
the presentation of his doctrine, the following men have done
eminent service : Fr. Schleiermacher {Her. der DwnMe von
Ephesus, Ges. Wcrke III., II. 1-146) ; Jak. Bernays ( Ges.
Abh. herausgez. von Usener, I., 1885, 1-108, and in addition
especially the "Letters of Heracleitus," Berlin, 1869); Ferd.
Lassalle {Die Philos. Jler. des Dtinkeln von Ej^hesus, 2 vols.,
Picrlin, 1858) ; P. Schuster {Her. v. Ephesus, Leipzig, 1873,
in the Acta soc. ])hil., Lips, ed., Ritschl, III. 1-394) ; Teich-
midler {Neiie Stadien zu Gesch. der Begriffe, Parts 1 and 2) ;

shown in Fragment 123, ^wov eort naai to (fipovelv, ^vv vocd Xeyovras
IcTxypl^ea-QaL xph '''^ $vuco ttclvtohv, coanep vnp.(o noKis Kul rroXv laxvporepcos • ,
Tpe(f>oi>Tai, yap nduTfS ol duOpcomvui vopoi vno evos tov delov.

THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 59

J. I>y>Y:iter {Her. rellquiw^ Oxford), 1877, a collection which
iiichides, to be sure, tlie counterfeiLed letters, but those, liow-
ever, tluit presunnibly came from ancient sources ; Th. Goni-
perz {Zu JI.'s Lehre und den Ueherresten seines Werke, Vienna,
1887) ; P^dui. Plleiderer, Die Fhilos. der Her, v. Eph. im Lichte
der Mijsterienidcen (Berlin, 188G).

In the theory of Heracleitus, scientific reflection as the
sole true method already so far strengthened itself in the
abstract development of his concepts that it set itself over
against customary opinion and sense appearance with *
a rugged self-consciousness. To a still higher degree the
same attitude appears in the ^itagonist[c theory of the /i*

lEleatic School, x ,«^.,__Pi

19. The scientific founder of the Eleatic school was YO^^
Parmenides. What had been set forth by Xenophanes in
fcligiQus assertions about tlie unity and singleness ot the
Godhead and its identitv_with the wo rl„(L_j^aa._ developed
entirely conceptually by Parmenides as a metaphvsical
theory. Xh^t concept, however, which was placed as central
and drew all the others entirely into its circle, w^aa lieVng.
The great Eleatic was led up to his theory through rcflcc-
tions of a purely formal logical nature. In a still obscure
and undeveloped form the correlation of consciousness and ,^

Being hovered before his mind, ijl thinking is referreck-^^c^yru^i
to sQmetlp'ng t.hono-htj and therefore has Being for its con- \ '*^**-"
tout. -Thinking that refers to Nothing and is thei-efore ^

-contentless, cannot be. yhfirpfnrf^ not-T^oing cannot be ^
thought^ and much the less can it be.^ It is the greatest of
all follies to discuss not-Being at all, for we must speak of
it as a thought content, that is, as something being, and
must contradict ourselves.^ If all thinking refers, however,

^ Verses 35-40 (Mullach) : ovtc yap av yvoirji to ye fifj iov • ov yap
avvcTov. ovT€ (Ppdaaii. to yap avTo voelu eariv T€ Ka\ eivai.

2 vv. 43-51. Steinhart and liernays have rightly called attention to
the fact that Heracleitus is antagonized here, for he ascribes Being and
not-Being alike to the things conceived in the process of Becoming.

HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

to something being, then is Being everywhere the same.
For whatsoever also may be thought as in the particular
thing, nevertheless the quality of Being (^das Scin') is in all

the same. j^^jpg; i« ^^^^ ^^^^ pvnrlnpf nf gp ^,l->^b-^np.^,innjjinf.

has compared the particular thought contents. Being
alone remains when all difference hasbeen abstracted from
the content determinations of actuality.^ From this fol-

lows the fundamental doctrine of the Eleatics, that only
\ the one abstract Being is.

The philosophy of Parmenides would be complete in this
brief sentence eanv ehac, if on the one hand there did
not follow from this conceptual definition a number of
predicates of Being, — predicates primarily negative and
susceptible only disjunctively of positive formulation ; and
if on the other hand the philosopher did not deviate from
the strict logic of his own postulates.

In respect to the first, nj^l timn and qualitative distinc-
j tions must b<^ d^T7''*^^l ^^ Br^ifij]^ Being is unoriginated and (
y imperisliable. It was not and will not be, but only is in ,
timeless eternity .^ For time, wherein perhaps any thing
that is, first was and suffered change,^ is in no wise different
\ from a thino; that is. Beino' is also unchaBse^hlej^erLtirely
^ hoinogeneous and unitary in quality. It is also not plural,
J but is the one unique, indivisible,'^ absolute cosmic Being. ■>

Compare Zeller, I*. 670. The same dialectic in reference to Being
and not-Being is repeated in the dialogue, The Soj)hist (238), in seeking
for the possibility of error.

1 This line of thought is repeated by the Neo-Platonists, by Spinoza
et ah, and is unavoidable if Being is valid as the criterion of " things
being." Compare Kant, Kr. d. i\ Vern., Kehrb., 4 71 f.

2 V. 59 ff., especially Gl : ovbt ttot tJv ov3' ecrrai eVei vvv ecTTiv ofxov nav

8 V. 9r» : oi'Sf ;(/joi'Of eariv fj (CTTch nXXo napeK tov iovTOS. J his is di-
rected perhaps against the cosmogonies, ])erhaps against the chrono-
logical measure of cosmic development in Heracleitus.

4 V. 78.

THE METArm^STCAL CONELTCT , (61

All plurality, all qualitative difference, all origination, all
change or destruction are sluit out by true Being. In this
respect Parnienides has constructed the concept in perfect
clearness and sharpness.

But this abstract ontology^among the Eleatics nevertheless
took another turn through some content definitions obtained
from tlie inner and outer world of experience. This oc-
curred in the two directions resulting from the way in
which Parmenides gained the concept of Being from tlie
identity of thinking and the thing thought. That Being, >
to which thought refers in its naive conception as if it
were its own necessary content, is corporeal actuality.
Therefore the Being of Parmenides was identified with the p
absolutely corporeal. The polemic against the acceptance
of not-Being got a new aspect in this way. The 6v coin-
cides with the TrXeov, the fir] 6v Avith the Kevov ; and the ^
Eleatics taught _that there is no empty snace. There-
fore Being is_jjidivisibLe,im and excludes^ not *
only qualitative change, but also all cliange of place.
This absolute corporeality is therefore not boundless
(areXevTriTov)^ but is B^inj^^ that is complete in it^slf,
unchangeably determined, self-bounded, like a perfectly
rounded, changeless and homogeneous sphere.^

^ vv. 80, 85 ; rcovrov t' iv rcovrco re fieuov Ka6 ecovTo re Kflrai.

2 V. 88 f. Doubtless Parmenides antagonized the Milesian teachins:
of the aireipov in all its possible affiliations. But it is utterly unnecessary
to think that the opposition of nepas and aneipov presupposes the num-
ber investigations of the Pythagoreans. There is not the slightest
trace of this in Parmenides. Inversely, it is not impossible that the
opposition of the Eleatics against all predecessors made the dual con-
cept so important that the Pythagoreans inserted this among their
fundamental antitheses. Doubtless the purely Greek representation
influenced Parmenides, in which the measurable and self-determined
and never the measureless and undetermined was regarded as perfect.
Melissus seems (§ 20) to have neglected this point, and thus to have
approached the theory of Anaximander.

« V. 102 f.

62 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

On the other hand, however, there was again for Par-
menides no Being which was not eithejL-Caosciousness or
something thought : tcovtop 8' iarl voelv re koI ovveKev iaTL
L>67]iJLa (v. 94). As for Xenophanes, so also for Parmenides,
Gorporeality and thought perfectly coincide in this.jiosmic
god, this abstract Bein^ : to <yap irXeov iarl vorjfMa (v. 149).

We can designate, therefore, the Eleatic system neither as

mitLerialistic nor idealistic, because these terms liay-e meau-

ing_^nly when corporeality_.and thouolit have been previously

cansidered as different fundamental forms of actuality. The

'1 Eleatic theory is rather an ontolo^gy which in regard to its con-

I tent so completely took its stand at the naive_point of view of

/ the identification of corporeality and thought, as really to exalt

L^it to the dignity of a principle.

More prominently in the teaching of Parmenides than in
that of Xenophanes does the peculiar result appear : that the
principle, gained by conceptual reflection out of the need
of knowing the real world, proves itself entirely unsuitable
for the purpose. This Eleatic concept of Being could

explain so little of th^ f>rPpiT-ipn1 wnrlrl thnt Pnrmonulpfi

had to deny the existence of that world. All plurality and
diversitv. all comingpiito existence, existing and passing out
_of existence, are only illusory appearance, — taise"names.that
mortals have givepTo true ^>ei'po^.^ ^Ihe Eleatic found the
origin of this appearance in sense-perception, of whose illu-
sory ^ character he gave warning. He did not seem, however,
to realize the circle invoh'cd in his reasoning. Although
from an entirely opposite principle, he explained in a
sharper epigrammatic way than Heracleitus, how the truth
an be sought only in conceptual thought but never in the

^ V. 98 f. The conjecture 6vap instead of 6Vo/x* (v. 98, Gladiscli) is
invalidated by, among other thinLjs, the circumstance that Sophistry and
Eristic, which were develo})ed from Eleaticism, frequently spoke of the
plurality of names for the one thing that is (§ 28).

2 V. 54 f.

THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT

scnses._ His ontology is ar-pf4i-f4^<44j^<umaclQi^eif^ ratioiialism

loiiaiis

that slmt-Qiit all cxperionoo and d(^niod all^contcnt:

Nevertheless Parmenides believed that he conld not do
without a physical theory, possibly because he felt the de-
mands of his scientific society in Elea. So the second
part ^ of his didactic poem gave a kind of hypothetical and
problematical physics which stands out of logical connec-
tion with the ontology of the first ])art. But on the other
hand the " Human Opinions " about the many changeable
things offered to sensation were not simply reproduced,
but were transformed, as they would necessarily have to be,
according to his presupposition, if in general plurality';^
motion and change were to be recognized as real. To this
belonged first of all the statement jJiat that which is not, is
thought ^ as actual side by sidetliat which is ; and, that out
\^ of the reciprocal action of the two are derivp-d mnltiplinity
ajid the process of mdividual Becoming;. The physical ,
thfi(^f-y nf Parmenides was a d n a.! ism^.a theory of opno&ites. *
Although in this respect it reminds us strongly of
Heracleitus, the agreement with him is still more apparent
in the making whatever really is as the equivalent of the
light, and whatever really is not as the equivalent of the
darkness.^ When therefore this pair of opposites was
identified with the thin and thick, the light and the heavy,
the fire and the earth, the reference was to Anaximandcr.
Yet, on the other hand, there was full recognition of tlie
Ileracleitan teaching, which had set fire over against all
the other elements as the forming and determining ele-
ment. If Parmenides did not herein also point out the
relation between these two opposites as that of an active

1 V. 18-30; 33-7; 110 f.

2 On tliis point later Atomism, which was more logical than even
Parmenides himself in physics, regarded not-Being, i. e., empty space,
as actual.

\
<9

8 V. 122 f.

64 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

and a passive principle, nevertheless Aristotle was justified
[Met., I. 3, 984 b, 1), inasmuch as for Parmenides the fire,
which possesses Being, certainly had the value of an ani-
mating, moving principle over against the darkness as a
thing not possessing it.

Of the particular theories of Parmenides which have been
handed down in a very fragmentary condition, there is not
much to remark. With him also the princjpaL stress was
laid upon metaphysics. The little information that exists
proves that he tried with considerable art to develop the

,%La1iPim w^^^^"* ^9 rlprivprl from hi> general ontologv. and
that he even descended to details which he made it his duty ^
to explain in all their bearings. In some particulars he
subjoined existing theories to his own without making any

^actual advance in physics. His astronomical ideas agree
so thoroughly with those of the Pythagoreans, with whom
he doubtless came in contact, that one must admit the
dependence of the Eleatics upon the Pythagoreans in
astronomy .2 As^to the origin of man, he held the same
view that Anaximander held before him and that, Empe-
flpoTpR hfild a.fter him. Otherwise, excepting some remarks
about procreation, etc., only his theory of sensation has
come down to us. In this he taught, like Heracleitus, that
of JJie two fundamental elements contained in man, each is
sn{i;ceptible to that which is related to it in the external
world. The Warm in a living man senses the fiery connec-
tion-in-things (^Lebenszusammenhang'), but even also in
the corpse, the cold, stiff body feels what is like it in its
surroundings. JTp ovpvpggofi f^p npininn fhnf or my mau's

1 V. 120 f.

2 Compare, for details, ZeHer, I. 525 f . That Parmenides here showed
not the least knowledge of the so-called number-theory, is another proof
of the later origin of this philosophical teaching of the Pythagoreans,
whose mathematical and astronomical investigations obviously preceded
their metaphysical. See § 24. .

■vT

THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 65

ideas and intuitions aro determined .by ^ the mixture of
these two elements in him.

There is no ground for doubting the genuineness of the report
of Phxto"- that Purnienides in his old age went to Athens, where
the young Socrates saw him. The statements of the dialogue
l^annenides, which presents the fiction ^ of a conversation be-
tween Parmenides and Socrates, are not wanting in probabilit3\
According to tiiis, Parmenides was born about 515. He came
from a distinguished family, and his intercourse with the
Pythagoreans is w^ell attested.'^ On the other hand, however,
his acquaintance w^ith Xenophanes ^ is also well proved, together
with whom he directed the activity of the scientific association
in his native city, Elea. Parmenides exercised a decided in-
fluence on the political life also of this newly founded city,^ and
is in general represented as a serious, influential, and morally
high character."^ His work was written about .470 or somewhat
later. It was in answer to that of Heracleitus, and at the same
time it inspired the theories developed somewhat later and
almost contemporaneously by Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leu-
cippus, and Philolaus (Chap. III.). It is in verse, and shows
a peculiar amalgamation of abstract thought and plastic poetic
fancy. The greater portion of the preserved fragments came
from the first and ontological section of the poem, which was
perhaps also called irepl <^i'o-£co?. Besides Karsten and MuUach,
Am. Peyron (Parmenklis et EmpedoMis fragmenta, Leipzig,
1810) and Heiur. Stein {Symh. j^^iiiologorum Bonnensium in
Jionorem F. Jiitschleii, Leipzig, 1864, p. 763 f.) have collected
and discussed the fragments. Compare Vatke, Parmenklis
Veliensis doctrina, Berlin, 1844; A. Bilumker, Die Einheit des
P'scheti Seins {Jahrh. f. Jcl. klass. Fhilol., 1886, 541 f.).

20. Whereas Parmenides made a ncf inconsiderable con-
cession to the customary idea of the plurality and change
of things, at least in his construction of an hypothetical

1 V. 14G f.

2 Thecetetus, 183 e.

3 ParmenideSf 127 b ; Sophist, 217 c.

4 Diog. Laert, IX. 25; Strabo, 27, 1, 1.

5 Arist. Met., 1. 5, 986 b, 22.

^ Diog. Laert., IX. 23, according to Speusippus.
. '' Plato, Theoet, 183 e: compare Soph., 237 a; Parm., 127 b.

66 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

physics his friend and pupil Zeno of Elea proceeded to
refute even this customary point of view, and thereby to
establish directly the teaching of his master concerning
the unity and unchangeableness of Being. ' The habit of
abstract thinking, which was raised to a pre-eminence by
Parmenides, manifested itself here in the way in which his
pupil turned entirely from tlie earlier physical tendency of
science, ^eno was no longer concerned in apprehending
or understanding empirical reality.^ He was interested only
in the conceptual defence of t-h«-paradoxes of his teacher.
In seeking to discover, therefore, the contradictions which
inhere in ordinary opinions regarding the plurality and
mutability of things, he employed in a more partisan spirit
than Parmenides arguments not based on subject matter
or empirical fact, but only those ofjormal logic.

This appeared primarily in the form of the proof, —first
systematically and expertly used, as it seems, by Zeno.
By the continuous repetition of contradictory disjunc-
tives, he sought to deny exhaustively all the possibilities
of comprehension and defence of the assailed thought,
until it was at last brought into obvious contradictions.
On account of this keen application of the apparatus
of logic, which lets the entire proof seem to be controlled
by the law of contradiction, we may suppose that Zeno first
l^ad a clear consciousness of fonmul — logical — relations.

Aristotle even caller! hjip thp invAnfnv nf din1o.piiV..2 ^,

All tlie difficulties that Zeno by this method found in
the ideas of multiplicity and movement refer to the infinity
of space and time, and indeed partly to the infinitely large,
partly to the infinitely small. These difficulties simply
prove in the last instance the impossibility of thinking
exclusively of continuous spatial and temporal quantities

1 Zellcr, IP. 538, for unimportant and even trivial notes which seem
to controvert this, and for the most part rest upon misconceptions.

2 Diog. Laert., VIII. 57.

THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 67

as analyzed into discrete parts, — of thinking of the in-
finity of the perceptive process. Upon tliis ground the
dilliculties of Zeno could find no conclusive solution until tlie
very real and difficult problems resting on them were consid-
ered from the point of view of the infinitesimal calculus.

Compare Aristotle, Physics, in many places with the comments
by Simplicius. Bayle, Diet. hist, et crit., article Zenon; Herbart,
Einleitung in die Philos., § 139 ; Metcqyh.., § 284 f. ; Hegel, Gesch.
cl. Phil., Complete Works, Vol. Xlll. 312 f. ; Wellmann, Zenoii's
Beweise gegen die Beivegung und ihre Wideiieguiigen, Frankfort
a. O., 1870 ; C. Dunau, Les arguments de Zeiion d'EUe contre
le mouvement, Nantes, 1884.

The proofs advanced by Zeno against the multiplicity ^
of what really is, were two, and^^they were concerned in
mst with magnitude, in part with number. /As regards
ma^nitndft^ whatever posstf^sj^f^s Taping mUiSt, if it bo mt^ny^
be on the one hand infinitely small and on the other V
infinitely great : infinitely small because the aggregation
of ever so many parts, of which every one, being indivisible,
has no magnitude, can result also in no magnitude ;
infinitely great because the juxtaposition of two parts pre-
supposes a boundary between the two, which, as something
real, must itself likewise have spatial magnitude, but on
this account must again be parted by boundaries from the
two minor portions of .which the same is true, etc., etc.
Again, as regards number, whatever pnsspaspR Piping mnaf.^ if
it iuLsupposed to be many, be thought as both IjjyiJtpH nnrl
unlimite.d. It must be limited because it is just as
many as it is, no more nor less. It must be unlimited
because two different things possessing Being must be
separated by a boundary which as a third must itself be
different from these, and must be separated from them both
by a fourth and fifth, and so ad infinitum.'" ^

1 The second part of the argument is essentially the same in both
proofs, and was called by the ancients the argument ck dixoTOfxias, in

QS HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

:,. It is probable, and also chronologically quite possible, that
these proofs were even at that time directed against the begin-
nJLigft of AtoiTiiiUTi (§ 23). They are intended to show: that the
world cannot bethought as an aggregation of atoms. Consist-
ent with this view is the further circumstance that Zeno's
polemic wa^iaaiia-ivgainst the idea of mutability of what pos-
sesses Being only in the sense of Kiv7jo-t9, not in the sense of aAAotoj-
r^.c- (qnnntniivp. o.hTm^e^. - Atomism affirmed KtVyjcrts, and denied
qualitative chan^e.^ There is, in addition, a third argument
flgainst the pluraTity of Being, which Zeno seemed rather to indi-
cate than to develop. This is the so-called Sorites, according to
which it is inconceivable how a bushel of corn could make a
noise when the single kernels make none. This argument
became effective in the polemic against the atomists, who
sought to derive qualitative determinations from the joint motion
of atoms. Presumably against atomism there was directed
another argument of Zeno, which dealt neither with the plural-
ity nor the motion of what possesses Being, but with the
reality of empt}' space, which was the presupposition of move-
ment to the atomists. Zeno showed that if what pjosse^ses
Baing.should be thought as in space, this space jis nn actuality
must be thought to be^n another space, etc., ad mfinitum.

On the other hand, the application which Zeno made of the
categories of infinity and finiteness, of the unlimited and
limited, appears to suggest a relationship to the Pythagoreans,
in whose investigations these ideas played a great role. § 19 ;
§ 24.

The contradiction involved in the conception of motion
Zeno tried to prove in four ways : (1) ^i^JJie^mipo^&iJbility
of poi7iq through a fixed space. This means that the infinite
divisibility of the space to be passed through \vill not allow
the beginning of motion to appear thinkable. (2) By the
impossihilitii of 'passing through a sj^ane that haa oTinmihle
limits. Tliis^ supposes the goal, which is to be reached in
any finite time, to be pushed away, though perhaps ever so
little. An example of this is Achilles, who cannot catch
the tor-toi^Ki. (3) By the infinitely small amount of motion
nf. nnij I'^afn'ni ff f^vnp ^ sincc thc body lu motiou during any

■which tHylintqp^is used not in the logical but ip th^ nriginni physical
sense.

THE METAPTIYSICAL CONFLICT 69

individual instant of time is at some dcfrnitc point, i. e. at
rest. He used the resting arrow as an example. (4) B?/
the relativity of the amoxmt of matLoii^ A motion of a
carriage appears to differ in amount according as it is
measured in its process of separation by a stationary
carriage or by one in motion in the opposite direction.

Little is known about the life of Zeno. If one holds that
the exact chronological reports in the 'dialogue of Par men ides
are fictitious and the statements of the ancients about the
aK^xrj are doubtful, nevertheless it is certain Zeno can have
been scarcely a generation younger than Parmenides. One
^vill not make a mistake if one places the length of his life at
sixty years, between 490 and 430. He was, then, the contempo-
rary of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and Philolaus, and
it is easily possible that he held fast to Parmenides' doctrine
of Being in its conceptual abstractness in direct contrast to
the remodellings of it by these men. His well-attested ^vy-
ypajufxa was composed in prose, and, to suit his formal schema-
tism, was divided into chapters. In these the single virodicru'^
found their reductio ad absurdiim.^ If the presentation of
these in accordance with their polemic nature had the form
of question and answer,'^ then this is probably the beginning
of the philosophic dialogue-literature which later developed
so richly.^

Of lesser significance ^ wasJ^IfiJi^gH*- of Samos. Not a .

native Eleatic, he was al^n nnf, n nmiiplofp nnrl onnaiotfonfy^

supporter of Pfipmonidoc'B doctrine of Being. He was '
somewhat the junior of the Eleatic, and lived on into the
time of the eclectic tendency in which the opposing the-
ories began to fade out (§ 25). In the main, to be sure,
he thoroughly defended the Eleatic fundamental principle,
and in a manner obviously antagonistic to Empedocles,
Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and in part to the Milesian physics.

1 Plato, Pann., 127 c ff. ; Simpl. Phjs., 30 v, 139, 5.

2 Arist. nepl aocf). eXeyx-, 10, 170 b, 22.
8 Diog. Laert, III. 48.

* Arist. Met., I. 5, 986 b, 27 ; Phys., 1. 3, 186 a, 8. nepl ao(f). i\iyx-
5, 167 b, 13.

70 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

,-:.. X^t-JlS-StoQcl with his doct rino of the infinity of the One in

so striking a contrast to Parmenides, and in such obvions

^harmony with Anaximander, that he appears as a real

intermediary between the two. / The form of his arguments

shows the infinp.no.p.jjf tho. dialectic schematism of Zeno.

- Melissus tried to prove 'in these that (1) what really is,
|s Afprnnl_bacnusp it cnn nrige out of neither what is nor
whatjs not; (2) that what^rcallv is. is without hep;innino;
and end, temporally and spatially, i. e. infinite {aireipov) ;
(3) that, what really is, is single, since several thingsjjiat
really are^ would limit one another in space and time ; (4)
that what really~is, iff un^hnng^^^^^^^j^^^'ionl'^"", ^^^ pnnr|i-
tionless, because every change involves a kind of origina-
tijQiLJimLcjiding, and every movement presupposes empty
space whicli cannot be thought as possessing Eeing»- It is
thus clear that Aristotle correctly found the conception of
the €v in Melissus to be more materialistic than in Parmen-
ides. What Melissus won by such an approximation to
the Milesian physics, when he still denied every change
to Being, is not clear. His theory appears, therefore, to be
a compromise without any strong principle.

MeHssus, son of Itbagenes, was a navarch, under whom the
Samiaii fleet conquered the Athenians in 442. His personal
rehition to the Eleatics has not been explained. His ^I'yypa/x/xa
{■n-epl (^('(reojs or Trept tov 6vto<;^ Siniplicius and Snidas) was writ-
ten in prose. Compare F. Kern, Znr Wilrdignnq des 3/., (Stet-
tin, 1880); A. Pabst, De M. P. fmr/mentis {Bonn, 1889); M.
Ol'fner, Znr Beurtheilung des M. {Arch. f. Gesch. d. Fhilos., IV.
12 f.).

The pojemie of Zono gave clearest expression to the
fundamental principle of the Eleatic pliilosophy. He
thought out logically and consistently the conceptually
i^costi^ry oonoopt of Being, which in itself alone did not
suffice for the apprehension and explanation of the empiri--
cally actual. Tlio l-TovnninUn,. t.hpsis thni. the essence of.

EFFORTS T( ) W A K 1 ) K i:CONClLIxVTION

tliin.i2:s is to be sought in an orderly prno.p.ss oF po.rpo.fiinl
. cji an.<>c, stood opposed to it. Zeno's argument was pu rely
^ofltologicaTll. It recognized ^ly the one incrcate and un
chaniicable BeinJ, and denied the reality of multi])licitv

__.i-CL

'eality of multiplicity
_jjj4 -J^eoming without also explaining their appearance.
The arouimc^t_of-_H£Lcackilus was pnt.ivPJY prpnpfi^f ^ II

seized upon the process itself and its permanent modes with
out satisfying the need of_connecting this process witJi an
ultimate and continuous actuality ,_ The concept of Being
is, however, a necessary postulate of thought, and the pro-
cess of occurrence is a fact not to be denied. Consequently,
from the o])position of these two doctrines, Hellenic philos-
ophy gained a clear view of the task which in an indefinite
way underlay the very initial conception of the apxv- This
task was from Being to explain the process of phenomenaT
change.

tfi

Jt>

3. Efforts toward Reconciliation.

l^ The above problem gave rise to a number of philosophi-
cal theories which are best designated) as efforts toward

Tomnp,ih'n.tinn hntwfif>p fbo ihnu^ht onnf/^fs of thft yjp.n.tip. nnd

. Heracleitan schools.^) ' Since all the alignments aim at so
modifying the Elcatic idea of Being that from it the or-
dcrly process of occurrence irL_tlie Heracleitan sense may

seem oonooivfihlo. thpv nro. at oiipo nf n mpfnphysiTTnl nnrT,^
physical character.

Two ways were open for the solution of this problem : .
one led from Parmenides, the other from Heracleitus. I-
j^' ^[Tlio I'nnflofjnnpY pf the Elcatic concept of Being to explain j
" ! empirical ])luralitv and change w^as due essentially ^^ ^^'^ j
^cJ [.nualities of singleness and sp?^,tin.l immobility.? If thesefw ^^.^

/ cliaracteri sties, however, were given up, Biose of Bon-I M
' '^ Becoming, indcstrilfiiibility, and qualitative permanencej

could be; more strongly maintained in order to explain pro

HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

_gess and change by means of a plurality of objects^ pos-

■^sessing; Being (Seienden), with the help of spatial motion,/

)| The theories of Erapedocles, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists ^

moved in this direction. Common to them all was the

l]i,c;pi nf snhstn.nnesj and the mechanistic method of

explanation, in virtue of which oris^in, chan^-e, and destruc-

!iion were supposed to be derived merely from the motions

^f these substances unchangeable in them_sglves. These

eories were in -ft^trpmft antithesis to thf^ hvlozoistic ^
monism of the Milesians in particular. ' On the oOier
hand, these three systems were distinguishable from one
another partly as to the number and quality of the sub-
stances that each assumed to exist, partly as to the rela-
tionships of substances to motion and moving force. The

jnctnffim'f^ncy nf the Heracleitn.n thp.my p.nnsi.stfifl^ howpvprj
in its establishing the concept of the rhythm of the process
.Di-Qccurrence, but in retaining nothing else of what really.
is^_aa--entering Jnto- thea£L_.changes._, Heracleitus had not
recognized any one of the -empirical materials, nor any
abstract noumenon, and consequently nothing as Being. ^
Tf now Parmenides Rhnwprl fhnt thinking nnfloniflhly pro-
supposes something that really is, one would be forced to
try to vindicate the character of Pfijng fnj- fliP rpWinna
and connections which Heracleitus hnd retained— as the
.sole permanence. This the Pythagoreans attempted to do
with their peculiar number theory. (

C These fonr efforts toward reconciliation sprang accordingly
simultaneously out of one and the same need. Tlieir represen-
tatives were nearly contemporaneous. From this fact are
explained not only a number of tlie similarities and allinities in
tlieir doctrines, but also the circumstance that they frequently,
particularly in polemics, seem to have referred directl}^ to one
another. This is at tlie same time a proof of the lively scien-
tific interest and interchange of ideas in the middle of the fifth
century through the entire circle of Greek civilization.

The "efforts toward a reconciliation" used as a basis for
associating these philosophers here is fairly generally recognized

EFFORTS TOW A HI) RECONCILIATION 73

for the first three, although on the one hand Anaxagoras is
usually set apart by himself (Ilegel, Zeller, Uebervveg), be-
cause we have overestimated his doctrine of the i/oGs. On the
other hand, Atomism (JSchleiermacher, Hitter) has naturally been
classified with Sophistry. Compare, respectiveh^, § 22 and § 2*3.
Yet, from tlie time of the Pythagoreans until now, Striimpell
alone has preceded me in this proposed view. Brandis trea.ts
indeed the Pythagoreans for thft ^iisL tune before the Sophists,
but as a tendency independent of the others.

21/ The first and most imperfect of these attempts set
reconciliation was that of Empedocles. He ^proceeded .
expressly f^op t-h^ thfiaJR of Parmmiidpis, that-tliere can"^
be__no origination and destruction as such. In bis effort
to explain apparent origination and destruction, he said
that every orifyination should be regarded as a combi-
nation ,^ncre very destruction a separation ot the"original
elements.^ He called the original materials the pL^co/xara
irdvTwv, and he does not seem to have employed the later
customary expression, aroixela. i The pTcd^atcs of '^ unori-
ginated^' ^^imperishable," ^^ unchangeable,'^ belong to tliVlX''^
elements. Tjjui^are eternal Uemg ; and the manifold am

raUge of single t|.iings_are supposed to be explained b^
spatial motion, by virtue of which they are mixed in differ-)

i ng rfilntJQ^ig tn nnp nnnt.lipr '1

Accordingly,' Empedocles should apparently be accredited
with the priority of formino- tJm rmirejHion of the clement
that has been so powerful in the development of our science
of nature. Ti^ is thn conception of a matorinl^ homngn-
neous in content, qualitatively unchangeable, and liable to
chano-ino- states of motion and to inophnmVnl rli-vi^joi^^

He got this conception, nevertheless, in the attempt to make ' ^
the concept of Being of Parmenides useful in the explana-
tion of nature. Much less happy, although historically

1 Plutarch, Plac, T. 30 (7>o.r., 326) (jiva-i^ ovhcvo^ eo-riv amivTcov Bi^tjtwv
ovbe Ti9 ov\oiJL€vov Bavdroio reXevrr], aXXa ^ovov {u^is re diaXka^is T€ fiiyeuTOtv
eoTi, (pvais S'eVl tols ouofid^erai dvOpconoicnv.

74 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

quite as effective, was the point of view which Empedocles

formed of fV»f| nn^^^hnr nnd p,sro]K?o nf thpsp pifimnnfs He

adduced the well-known four : earth, air^ fire, aud„j£iiter. (

The choice of four fundamental elements was the result
of no systematic conception on the part of Empedocles, in the
way ihiit ArisLOt/e^^by i7>.o«,t this theory was established and
made the common property of all literature, later made them a
fundamental part of his system. As it appears, it was the result
of an impartial consideration of the previous philosophic theories
of nature : .water, iiir, fire are to be foimd ns elements among
the loniaus ; and earth in the hypotlietieal ph^^^ios-at-tb^-Ele-
^itins^ i Thnt Empedocles ^ placed fire over against the three other
elements, and thus returned to the two divisions of Heracleitus
(§ 19), reminds us of this latter. Nevertheless the number
of elements as four has in it somethiug arbitrary and immature,
as likewise appears from the superficial characterization that
Empedocles gave to each singly.^

r Empedocles to all appearances was not able to say how
the different qualities of particular things were derived
from their combining. Quantitative relationships and
states of aggregation might appear to be thus derived,
but not particular qualities. Consequently Empedocles
seems to have had only the former in mind when he so
described the process of combination and separation, that
therein the protruding parts of one body were supposed to
press into the pores, i. e. into the interstices,^ of another body.
Empedocles seems to be referring to the former also in
liis defining the relationship and the strength of the recip-
rocal attraction of empirical things by the stereometrical
similarity between the emanations of one substance and
the pores of another. ,: As to the qualitative difference

1 Arist. Met., I. 4, 985 a, 32 ; De gen. et corr., IT. 3, 330 b, 19.

2 Zellcr, P. G90.

3 That this acceptation presupposed a discontinuity of the orin^inal
matter, and hardly was to be thouojht withotit the presui)position of empty
space, which he with the Eleatics denied (fr. v. 91, Arist. De ccelo, IV.
2, 309 a, ID), appears to have furnished no difliculty to Empedocles.

EFFORTS TOWAKl) IIFCONCILIATION 75

between individual things, he taught only in very general
terms tliat this diri'erence depends on the dilTerent masses
in whicli all or only some of the elements exist in
combination.

)__But the more that Empcdocles claimed the character of
the Parraenidean Being for his four elements, the less could
he find in them an explanation of the motion in which they
must exist according to his theory of union and separation.

) As pure cjinugnl^ss V,9\no\ ^Ji(^. ekme.nt,^ rm,hi ^^nt wnv^fhp.'m..

selves, hut onlii he moved. Jo explain the world, the theory

needed further, then, beside the four elements, a cause of
motion or.i|^ moving -^rce. .. Here, in the statement of this
.problem, appears first completely Empedocles's opposition to
the hylozoism of tlie Mi1esii].ns. He was the first in whose
fl-t^nry /V^^Yf (iw^ ^''^'f^rv HT^ differentiated as sci)arate cog
powers. Under the influence of Parmenides he had"~accord-
ingly so conceived the world-stuffthat the ground of motion
could not be found in it itself. So, in order to explain the
cosmic process, lie_had to find a force different from tho,
stuff and moving it. Although Empedocles introduced this
dualism into the scientific thought of the Greeks, it ai)peared
not m sharp conceptual, but in mythical-poetic form ; for

ho HpsioM-infod tho fwn pngn-|jf^ forPP^ T.r^^^^\^ ^HUmd thp mm r^

bination and separation of theprimi^iv^ gnhRf,nnpp«, u^ Lr^'""
and Hate. _

The personification, which Empedocles moreover, as like-
wise Parmenides iu his didactic poem, extended to the ele-
ments, was mythical and poetic ; so also the representation
inadeq^ii^e because stated in terms of sense and not developed
to conjjbptnal clearness, was of the same character. Indeed, it
is ii|ft certain from the passages in which his principles (dp^^al)
were enumerated as six in all, Avhetlier or not he thought of
the two forces incidentally as bodies (Arist. De gen. et corr.^
I. 1, 314 a, 16; Simpl. Ph/js. G v, 25, 21), whicli as such were
mingled witli the other substances. Obviously he formed
no sharp idea of the nature of the actuality and the effi-
ciency that belong to Love and IJate. There is the additional

76 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

fact that the duality of forces not only was called forth by the
theoretic need of representing the different causes in the opposed
processes of cosmic union and separation ; but it was also
occasioned by considerations of worth, in which Love is the
cause of Goodness and Hate of Evil (compare Aristotle, Met.^ I.
4, 1)84 b, 32). The view of Aristotle is supported by the predi-
cates which Empedocles (fragment v. 106 f.) attributes to
<^iA.oT7y9 and velKo<s.

f From these presuppositions Empedocles derived an ex-
planation of the cosmic process, not indeed conceiving each
individual occurrence as ever and always arising from a
universal law of combination and separation, but jet satis-
fying the demands of the Beracleitan philosophy by the
assumption of a paqjgtua£^ycjic_^ proj^eaJpf dovolopment. ^

/He taught, namely, that ^he-fmif'eTcments,mat he assumed
as alike in their mass, change out of a state of perfect
mingling and equality, separate by the action of the i^et/co?,

I and become completely sundered ; that then from this state
of separation they paftf=^ hnp.k tliraugh t,hn influp.ncft of the
(^iXoTT]^ to their original absolute intermixture. There re-
y suits from this a cycle of four continuously dissolving cosmic
\^ states : (1) that of the unlimited supremacy of Love and
of the perfect unification of all the elements, which is called
by Empedocles o-c/xxtpo? and also designated as to ev or ^eo? ;

x(2) that of the process of successive separation through
the constantly growing preponderance of z^et/co? ; (3) that
of the absolute^ separation of the four elements through the
solo, supremacy of Hate ; (4) that of the process of sueces-
sive_rcconibination through the increased predominance of
(f)i\6TT]<=;.

Compare Arist. Phi/s., VIIT. 1, 250 b, 26.

It is clear that a world of iivdiy.idwal Illinois can appear onlv

ill tlie second and fourth stages of tlie cosmic process, and "that

such a world is characterized every time I>y ^^^^ nppn.sition and

conllict between the combining and separating principles. ,

\i Jlai^LJa-iiiC-ph^c c of tho lleracleitan fundamental principle in

T. the EmpedoclLian cunceptiou_o|_tiie cosiaps. Ou the other.

EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 77

liaiul, it can be said that the two parts of the Parmenidean
didactic i)oem appear no longer in the opposition of Being and
Appearance, l)nt in the relationship of changing cosn)ic states.
LThe first and third phases are acosmic in the Kleatic sense ; the
second and fourth are, ou the contrary, full of the Ileracleitan -

TTOJ

All that wc have of the particulars of the theory of Empe-
docles seems to teach that he regarded the present state of
the woi-ld as the fourth phase, in which tlie elements that
have been separated by Hate are reuniting through Love
into the Sphairos. At least' in reference to the formation
of the world he taught that the separated elements have
been brought through Love into the whirling motion that
is in the process of uniting them. Originally the air en-
compassed the whole like a sphere, and by virtue of this
motion fire broke out from below. The air was pressed
below and into the middle, was mixed with the w^ater into
mud, and then formed into the earth. The two hemi-
spheres originated in this way : one was light and fiery ;
the other dark, airy, and interspersed with masses of fire,
which on account of the rushing of the air in rotatory
motion around the earth created day and night.

In particular, Empedocles showed — not without dependence
on the Pythagoreans — highly developed astronomical ideas
concerning the illumination of the moon from the sun, concern-
ing eclipses, the inclination of the ecliptic, etc., and also many
interesting meteorological hypotheses.

Empedocles had an especial interest in the organic
world. He regarded plants as primary organisms and as
having souls like animals. He compared in isolated
remarks the formation of fruit with the procreation of
animals, their leaves with hair, feathers, and scales ; and so
one finds in him the beginnings of a comparative mor-
phology. Also numerous ])hysiological observations of his
are preserved. But especially are there biological rcllec-

78 HISTORY OF AI^CIENT PHIL0S(^PHY

tious, in which he in some measure in the spirit of the
present theory of adaptation explained, although with fanci-
ful naivete, the existence of the present vital organisms
by the survival of purposeful forms from things that on
the whole were aimlessly created.^

Empedocles did not except man ^ from this purely me-
chanical origination, and he constructed a large number of
interesting single hypotheses in respect to his physiological
functions. The blood plays an important role in this
theory. It was to him the real carrier of life, and in it he
believed he could see tlie most 4ifixfeiiLjiomM»«tion of the
four elements^ — ft is of especial interest that: he conceived
the process of perception and sensation as analogous to his
universal theory of the interaction of elements. He ex-
plained this process as contact of the small parts of the
perceived things with the similar parts of the perceiving
organs, wherein the former were supposed to press upon
the latter, as in hearing ; or the latter upon the former, as
in sight. Since then, in general, such interaction was to
his mind the more close, the more nearly similar were the
emanations and pores, Jie established the principle, there-
fore, that all extnrnni tliino-s n.ro. Imnwn by thnt in us
wliich JR Fiimilnr to tb^m Herein was involved to some
degree the idea tKni, tyi nn ia n. miV.roo.Qfim^ tlie finest admix-
ture of all the elements.

Hence it followed for Empedocles tlKit all perceptual
knowledge depends upon the combination of elements in

the body and esi)Ccially in the blnoH., nnd fbnt tbr> gpirifnnl

nature depends on the physical nature. Just on this

1 Aristotle has brought this thought into abstract expression, and it
contains the whole modern development theory in mice. Phys., II. 8,
198 b, 29; ottou fiev ovv arravra crvvefSi] cocrTrep Kau el evcKO. tov eyevero,
ravra jiev iaoidr)^ airo tov avro^drov crvaTitvTa €7nTT]8ei(Oi, baa de fir] ovtcos,
aTTcoXero kul aTroWvTai KaOamp ^EixnfdoKXjjS Xeyet, etc.

^ He appears to have made good use of the tales about the centaurs.

EFFORTS TO WARD RECONCILIATION 79

account, moreover he^oiild deplore incidentally^ as Xeno-\
plianes deplored, the limitation of human knowledge ; and
could assert, on the other hand^ with Henn^lf^ituft ^"'^ fc^'-
menideSj that truQ^ knowledge does not ^^row out of sense
perQeption^ but only put of reflection (voelv) audr^soft_

Empedocles of Agrigentum, the first Dorian in the history of
philosophy, lived probably from 490-430. He came from a
rich and respectable family which had been partisans for the
democracy in the municipal struggles. Like his father, Meton,
Empedocles distiuguished himself as a citizen and statesman,
but later he fell into the disfavor of the other citizens. In his
vocation of physician and priest, and with the paraphernalia of
a magician,- he then travelled about through Sicily and Magna
Gr.Tcia. Many stories circulated into later time concerning his
death, like that well-known one of his leap into JEtna. In this
religious role he taught the doctrine of transmigration and of an
apparently purer intuition of God, like that of the Apollo cult.
These teachings, which were not consistent in content with his
metaphysico-physical theories, show, however, much the greater
similarity to the teaching of Pythagoras (§ 12). Pythagorean-
ism he certainly knew, and indeed his entire career suggests a
copy of that of Pythagoras. When we consider his political
affiliations, it is improbable that he had any close connection
with the Pythagorean society. Empedocles stood comparatively
isolated, — save his acquaintance with the teachings of Hera-
cleitus and Parmenides, the latter of whom he presumably
knew personally. Nevertheless he seems to have been affili-
ated with a yet larger body in that he is characterized as one
of the first representatives of rhetoric.^ He had even con-
nections with the so-called Sicilian school of rhetoric (or ora-
tory) , in which are preserved the names of Tisias and Ivorax as
well as that of Gorgias, whom they antedate.'* Only Trept ^uo-ews
and KaOapfxoi are the writings of Empedocles that can be
authenticated. The preserved small fragments are especially
collated by Sturz (Leipzig, 1805), Karsten (Amsterdam, 1838),
and Stein (Bonn, 1852). Compare Bergk, De proemio, E. Berl.,

1 Fr. V. 24; 81.
'■^ Thus he pictured himself in the beginning of the Songs of Purifica-

cation (Kadapfioi).

2 Diog. Laert., VIII. 57 ; Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 6.
4 See below, § 26.

80 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

1839 ; Panzerbieter, Beitrdge zur Kritik und Erlduterung des E.
(Meiningen, 1844) ; Schlager, E. quate?ius IleracUtum secutus
sit (Eisenach, 1878). — O. Kern, E. und d. Orphiker (Arch, f,
Gesch. d. Ph., I. 498 f.).

22. " Older in years, younger in works than Empedo-
cles," ^ Anaxagoras brought the movement of thought,
which liaS" tmtrrP5egu n by Empedocles, to an end in one
direction. He, like Empedocles, was convinced that we do
\ not use language correctly when we speak of origination
i .and "destruction, siace the mass of the world must remain
^z^M'Junchangeablv the same.^ On this account appai^ent origi-
•^ I -nation and destruction are better designated as combina-
tion and separation (avyKpca-L^ sivc o-uya/xtft?). .^^jiatever
H enters into combination or whatever suffers separation waS
^/ _to him, also, a phu^aTityof original substanc^ which he
called y^pvuara or o-TrepfjLard. Thus tar ne^ a^^reed with his
\ predecessor. But he took decided exception to the arbi-
/ "^ trary assumption of Empedocles that there are only four

— ^ elements, since it is impossible to explain the qualita-
tive distinctions of empirical things by the union of these
four elements. Since the Parmenidean idea of Being
excludes the new creation and destruction of qualitative
determinations, and demands qualitative unchangeable-
ness for tlie totality of primitive materials, Anaxago-
ras argued thatthere are as many qualitative yprnjuara^
different from one another, as there are_ qualitative deter-
1 mi nations in emuimaJLthings. The things of which we
arc sensible are composite, and they are named according to
the primitive material that prevails in them at any par-
ticular instant.^ Their qualitative change (aWo/wo-t?)
'-^ consists in the fact that other primitive materials enter
into the combination or some are excluded from it.

1 Arist. Met., I. 3, 984 a, 11.
P' 2 Fr. 14.

8 Arist. Phys.,l\ 187 b.

EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 81

Tlie xpwara must, according to this, be thought as divis- ^
iblc ; ^ and in antithesis to the perceived things, wliich con-
sist of heterogeneous components, we must designate as
'y^pi^fiara all those substances which fall into homogeneous
parts, however far they be divided. Therefore Aristotle
designated the airepfiara of Anaxagoras as ofioLo/iepri,
and in later literature they go under the name of homoio-
meriai. Consequently, what Annv^H^-nrnft Wd horn in mind ^
was., nothing- otlioi^ tlian thr^^r^jiemist's idea of the element^^-
The utter inadequacy of data" on w^hich Anaxagoras could
depend appears in the development of his theory. For
since observation had as yet not been directed to chemical,
but only to mechanical analysis, the constituents of ani-
mals, such as bones, flesh, and marrow, as w\)ll as metals,
were enumerated as elements. Further, because _ the
philosoplier possessed iio.-.meana_jQJP fixing upon a deter-
mined number -oLjelements,.ha.declarad them to be num-
berless and differing in form (t^'a.), color, and taste. "*"" "

When Aristotle iu several places (see Zeller, I^. 875 f.) cites
only organic substances in Anaxagoras as examples of the ele-
ments, he is speaking more out of his preference for this field
than of an inclination on the part of Anaxagoras to refer
inorganic matter to the organic. There is not the slightest
trace to be discovered in Anaxagoras' cosmogony of a qualita-
tive distinction between the organic aiid the inorganic. In "^
particular, what we may call hi^ teleolog.^ is not by any means
confined to the organic.

As j-eprards the motion of these substances. Anaxagorns -'-^

rd^O_se,parpti]'l tllin pvinr^ipl^ nf Rpino- frnm flinf V>f RppnmW X_ .

i4i|r. hut, in nn entiroly fli_Pfovpnf wny frnm wlmt wp fjnrlj/

in Empedocles. The poetical and mythical form of this
thought ho stripped off ; but at the same time, instead

1 In remarkable dependence on Parmenidcs, Anaxagoras neverthe-
less makes a polemic, like Empedocles, against the acceptance of empty
space (Arist. P/<y.?., IV., G, 213 a, 22), and at the same time also against
the finite divisibility of matter postulated in the concept of atoms.

82 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

of rpflopfi'no; Jikp TTeracleitus upon the antagonistic pro-
cesses of motion, he_.emphasized ao;ain the unity of the
cosmic process. Since Anaxagoras, as is tlie case with
all naive conception, could think of the actual only as
material stuff,, ^O^^^.. j^ '^p^^ nmnnp; the numberless ;
ymf^^r^ii^^on^^^wEi^^ the common eauQe'-e^- motion ■
f(^|- ^]] f.ViP^Qthnrs. This primitive dynamic^material or
m£dilQiirS_tllfi_5vas conceived by him as having jjfo ipthin
it^self^ after the analogy ^of the ,. Ionian_cosmic matter. It
the others from within itself.^ Its nature, however,
was inferred by Anaxagoras from the character of the
world of perception that it brought into being. This
world presents itself as an ordered, purposeful whole,
and the forming force must also be orderly and purposeful.
Therefore after an analogy ^ to the principle actively
, working in living beings, Anaxagoras called it the z/ou?,
^ the reason, or, as it may best be translated, th£LJdlQU(jJit-
stuff {Deyikstoff). Far _from being an immaterial princi-
ple, the "- spirit " is to Anaxagoras corporeal matter, but
indeed in a ^tate__of exceeding refinement. It is the
" lightest," the most mobile, the only matter that moves
itself. It represents the Xoyo^;, both in the macrocosm
and in the microcosm. As regards the form and move-
ment of the cosmic process, it has all the functions of
the Heracleitan fire.

The order (koct/xo?) and purposefulness of the empirical
world, on which Anaxagoras depended in his assertion of the
1/01)9 haKocr(.iC)v ra 7rai/ra, was not noted by him so much in single
terrestrial things as in the great relationships of the nuiverse, in

1 Aristotle in Physics, VIIT. 5, 25G b, 24, proved only that Anaxagoras
has called thevovs the drradrjs and ajuiyjyy. The predicate aKivrjTos is only
an inference of Aristotle. The niohility of the vovs and its im])lications
in single things is clearly set forth in passages like Stob. EcL, I. "^00
(Box., 392), and Sinipl. PJajs., 35 recfo, 164, 23.

2 Arist. ^fct., T. 3, 984 h, 15, Kadcnrep iv rots ^oJoiy.

EFFORTS TOWARD RFCONCILTATTON .93

the regular revolutions of the hcavenl}' bodies.^ ..His mopism

and the teleolotjioal mptliml nf hw prncf>n<Mfinn roaforl on ns{||-p-

noniical considerations. Compare \V. Dilthey, ElnleitiiiKj in d.
Geisteswissensc/idftot ^ V. 201 f. He sought in a purely natu-
ralistic way a ph^'sical explanation, and was not in the sniaTrest
degree concerned with religious matters. If he, as is very
doubtful, called - the iW'? God, yet this would only have been a
metaph^^sical expression, as it had been among the JNIilesians.
The doctrine of the vovs was taken by Aristotle very nnich in
the sense of an immaterial spirituality, when in tlie well-known
passage (J/e^., I. 3, 981: b, 17) Aristotle placed the doctrine of
Anaxagoras as that of the only sober philosopher among them
all. In the Hegelian interpretation, whi<:ih even to-day is not
outgrown, Anaxagoras is placed at the close of the pre-So})his-
tic development on account of his alleged discovery of the
" Spirit." It sounds so fine when in this philosophy of nature
the world principle becomes ever more "spiritual" in passing
from water through air and fire until finally the " pure Spirit"
has been as it were distilled from matter. But this " Spirit " is
likewise only living corporeality, i. e., that which moves itself.
; Anaxagoras with his vorg is scarcely a step nearer the immate-
rial than Anaximenes with air, or Ileracleitus w^iUi hre. ' On the
other hand, we must not fail to recognize that in this character-
ization of the moving prmciple Anaxagoras, iil a still more em-
phatic manner than Empedocles, had taken up the factoF'of a
judgme^nt of value into liis theoretic explanation^JIyAdmiration
ofyths beauty and harmony of the world dictated ..t.Q_jLini the
acceptanceof a tliought-stuff arrailging the universe according
to a principle of order/j

1- XMS-JZOi)?, tbprpforp^ sfnnds over against tho other ole-
ments. It alone is in itself pure and unmixed. It is sim-
plcj n,p dispossesses through its '' knowledge^ a power_over
all other material stuff.^ It plays somehow as a stimulus
upon the other substances, wdiich are mixed by it. It
participates temporarily to a greater or less degree in the
particular things thus originating."! For^ like all matter, it

^ Simpl. 33 verso, 15G, 13 ; ndvTa SuKoa-firjcre voos kol ttju TTepi^aipTja-iv
ravTTjv, Tjv vvu rrepixcopel to. re aarpa, Ka\ 6 rjKios /cat t] (re\7}VT] ku\ 6 atjp koL
6 aWrjp oi dnoKpivopieuoi.

2 Cicero, Acail. IT. 3 7, 118 ; Scxt. Emp. Adv. maih.., IX. G.

3 Fr. 7 and S.

84 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

also is quantitatively divisible and qm^itntivrlf nna];),nTii;;f^

able __g:tl^Iil''Tii^ig- ^ssentinHy irl(^nt,iV.fl.l with itsp.lf, it is d i S-
-t,ril>1ltP.d ^'U flifFp.TPnt proporfiniia in alno-lp fhing-s 1

*• AnaxagQras_,ii&ed this tboiiPJTJ>sfviiff only to explain on
tke^one-liand the beginniiigs of motion^ imiJLQii_thfi other
such single processes which he could not derive from the
niechanism of the oaco^Jor all awakened cosmic motion. Q
What these processes in particular are, we cannot ^ ascer-
tain from the reproaches made against Anaxagoras.^ So
far as our knowledge goes, the application that Anaxagoras
has made of his roO? theory to explain the cosmic process
is limited simply to this, — fhnt jhA asnrihpd f.n. the " order-

ing'^ t.honght-ftfnfF thp hpgipning of motion^ fl]irl fhnf he 4:

tjirrLCfinnrivnd tho motion to go on rP^^l"'^^i^n1]y by J^^H?^^-
and pressnrp hptwppn the other primitivp TYintpvials lin a
*inanner planned by the vov^. Connected with this is the
fact that^Anaxagoras denied a plurality both of coexisting
successive worlds, and tbat he aimed to describe only
tJifl nrigjp of onr present worlds „ Con spquently in distinc-
1 from his-.prexi£!Xi£ssors he spoke therefore of a temporal^

Pg-inm'ng nf thp WOfl^

Preceding this beginning is a state of the most perfect ,
mingling of all substances, reminding us of the Sphairos of
Empedocles. In this mingling all '^pi^fiara^ with the excep-
tion of the 1/0O9, are so minutely distributed that the whole ^
possesses no particular character.

This idea reminds ns on the one hand of Chaos, on the other
of the aircipov of Aoaximander. In his delineation of this
idea, we have the fact tliat he taught that the mixtures of dif-
fering yQii^fxara let Only those qualities come into perception in

^ How misjudged the meaning is, is clear, for Anaxagoras conceived
his vovs as a divine being:,

2 It is highly improbable, according to Theopli. Hist, plant., -111. 1, 4,
that it concerns the genesis of the organism.

8 Plato, PJiwdo, 97 b; Arist. Met., I. 4, 985 a, 18.

EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 85

wliicli tlic components are all Jiarnionized. He also in this
way conceived the four elements of Empedocles as such mix-
tures of primitive matter.^ Absolute mixture has no quality;
ojiov Trarra ^^nj/jLara ijv is the beginning of tlie writing of
Anaxagoras.

L In this Chaos the primitive thought-material first created
at one point " a rotatory motion of great velocity. This, l)c-
ing extended in broadening circles, led to the formation of the
orderly world, and is further being continued on account of
the infinity of matter. By this rotation two great masses are
first differentiated which were characterized by the opposi-
tion of Bright, Warm, Pure-light, and Dry, as against Dark,
Cold, Dense-heavy, and Moist, and are designated by Anaxa-
goras as alOrjp and chjp.^ The latter is pressed into the centre,
and condensed into water, earth, and stones. His ideas of
the earth show him to have been essentially iiifiueiic(?d
Ijv^ the Ionjans^_ He regarded the stars as dissipated frag-
ments of earth and stone that have become glowing in the.,
fiery circle._^ He saw in the great meteor of Argospotamoi
a confirmation of this theory and at the same time a proof
of the substantial homogeneity of the world. Anaxagoras's
astronomical view shows highly developed, many-sided ideas
and inferences, which rest in part upon his own studies.
\^o, cvplained eclipses Corro.ct.ly ; nnd whilfi ho f|1]n\yod to
the sun and moon altogether too small dimensions, they
w^ere nevertheless very great compared to their perceptual
size._j ~~^

^ A ppnrflmorly A r^ni^n.frorns WHS convincod that^iis in Cliaos,

SO in all individual things developed from it, the combina-

1 Arist. De gen. el corr., I. 1, 314 a, 24 ; Zeller, 1*. 876.

- Presumably Anaxagoras assumed this ])oint to be die pole star : sec
H. Martin, M&nioires de rinstitut, 21), 1 7G f. ; see Dilthey, op. cit.

3 These antitheses remind us more of the lonians than of Parmenides.
In respect to the manifold of the mixture and the determination of the
qualities, they stand in Anaxagoras obviously between the filyfia and the
Empedoclean elements.

Z^ HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

linn of ti|f pjipmip. plpmpnf-.s is SO fine and intimate that
somethinp; at least of each one is everywhere,; Thus the
Q]^gninV rrnra^^inTn (jevelop as plants and animals on the
separation of the water and earth, which separation was
caused by the heavenly fire. But the z/oO?, as the vitalizing
principle, stands in intimate relations with these, and its in-
dependent power of motion was doubtless introduced here by
Anaxagoras as the cause of functions that are not mechani-
cally explicable.^ He, too, seems to have given especial
attention to sense perception, which, however, he derived, in,^
entire opposition to Empedocles, from the reciprocal action
of opposites influenced by the feeling of aversion. Accord-
ingly perceptual knowledge acquired in this way is only
relative.^ In contrast to it, the truth is found solely through Q^
^ the \6yo<;, through the participation of the individual in the
world reason.

Anaxagoras originated in Clazomena3 in the circle of Ionian
culture, from which apparently he got his rich scientific knowl-
edge and his pronounced positive and physical interest. His
birth is (Zeller, I^. 865 f., against Hermann) to be placed at
about 500. We do not know about his education, particularly
how he could have been so powerfully influenced by the Eleat-
ics. He was of wealthy antecedents, and was regarded as an
honorable gentleman, who, far away from all practical and polit-
ical interests, "declared the heaven to be his fatherland, and
the study of the heavenly bodies his life's task," — a statement
in which, side by side with the presentation of a purely theo-
retical ideal of life, is to be noted the astronomical tendency
which also characterized his philosophy. About the middle of
the century Anaxagoras, then the first among philosophers of
renown, removed to Athens, where he formed a centre of scien-
tific activity, and appears to have drawn about Inm the most
notal)le men. lie was the friend of Pericles, and became in-

^ 'Vo this the objection of Aristotle applies, that Anaxagoras did
not distinguish the ])rinciple of thought (i/oO?) from the animating (he-
seelenden) jjrinciple {-^vxr])- (/^e an., I. 2, 404 b.) This objection
certainly did not arise from immanent criticism.

2 Arist. Met., IV. 5, 1009 b, 25; Sext. Emp., VII. 91.

EFFORTS TOWARD UKCO.NCILIATION.

volved under the charge of impiety in the political suit brcfiiglit
against Pericles in 434:. He was obliged in consequence of this
to leave Athens and go to J^anipsacus. Here he founded a
scientific association, and while high in honor he died a few
3^ears later (about 428). The fragments of the only writing
preserved of his (as it appears) -n-epl ^i-o-eojs (^in prose) have
been collected by Schaubach (Leipzig, 1827) and Scliorn (with
those of Diogenes of ApoUonia, Bonn, 1820) ; Panzerbieter, De
fragmentorum Anax. ordine (Meiuingen, 1836) ; Breier, Die
PJiilosoplue cles An, nach Aristotles (Berlin, 1840) ; Zevort,
Dissert, de la vie et la doctrine d' A. (Paris, 1843) ; Alexi, A. it.
seine Philosophie (Neu-Ruppin, 1867) ; M. Heinze, Ueher den
vous des A. {Ber. d. Sachs. Ges. d. W., 1890).

Archelaus is called a pupil of Anaxagoras, but appears,
nevertheless, to be so much influenced also by other theories
that he will be mentioned in a later place. The allegorical
interpretation of the Homeric poem, which in part is ascribed to
Anaxagoras himself (Diog. Laert., II. 11), in part to his pupil,
Metrodorus, has only the slightest relation to his philosophy.

23.Vrhe philosopher who desired to abandon the arbitrary
theory of the four elemeiita of KTripprTocIps^ wns obliged, in
order to oppose to it a consistent theory ^JxLJiaa^rt either
that the qualjtnti^^ dofarmi'nQfinng f^f things are all pri- "
Tinnrv f\v. tl^it tto otip. of \]mm is_ The first way Anaxagoras^
[V'^iose ; the ^U^o mists the second. "P^Mtrin their explana-
tion of empirical occurrence they also poj^j^p^^^^^^ ^ plurality
of unchangcablp thinp;s having Beins^^ they had the boldness.
trT^dp(1iipp^nll"7pin[j|;|^tiye distinctions of the phenomenal
wni-lfl fn)m pnrply quantitn.tivp differentiations of the true
ft&5;piicp of thinfrs. This is their especial significance in
the history of European science^

It has been customary in the history of philosophy to treat
the theory of the Atomista in infsepn.rn,h1p nnnnopfinn ivifh the
pre-Spphistic systems. This is explained from the fact that all
direct knowledge fails concerning the founder of this theory,
Leucippus and his doctrine, and that the teaching of the
Atomists lies before us relatively complete only in the form
that Democritus developed it. But between Leucippus and
Democritus is an interval of certainly forty years, and this lies
in that epoch of most strenuous mental labor, — which epoch

88 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

witnessed in Greece the beginnings of Sophism. Leucippus is
the contemporary of Zeno, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, but
Democritus is the contemporary of Socrates, and, in the works
of his old age, of Plato. It is also consonant with this differ-
ence of years that the fundamental thought of the Atomists
in the form of the metaphysical postulate of Leucippus arose
from the Heracleitan-Parmenidean problems ; but also that the

I development of that postulate, which Democritus gave to these
pfoblems, was for the Jirst time possible upon the Sophistic

1 theories as a basis, especially those pf Protagoras (^ 32).; To
these changed temporal conditions there is the further corre-
spondence in the fact that those theories of the Atomists, Avhich
we can reter to Leucippus, remained entirely in the compass of
the problems confronting his contemporaries, Empedocles and
Anaxagoras. On the other hand, the theory of Democritus
gives the impression of being a comprehensive system, like that
of Plato. Therefore the reasons from the point of cosmology
and from that of the subject matter require the beginnings of
Atomism in Leucippus to be separated from the system of
Democritus, which was conditioned by the subjective turn given
to Greek thought. We must make this discrimination, however
difficult it may be in details. Accordingly in this place is to be
developed only the general metnpliysical basis of Atomism,
which has grown out of Eleaticism.^

It was theref or^~'o5r the one hand a complete misconception
of the primal motives, but on the other a legitimate feeling —
although defended entirely falsely in connection with precon-
ceived notions — with which Schleiermacher (Gesch. cl. Philos.^
ed. Windelband, III. 4 a, 73) and Ritter after him {Gesch. d.
Pliilos., 1. 589 f.) sought to classify the Atomists with the Sophists.

\_ In Leucippus Atomism arose as an offshoot of Eleaticism. The
theory of Democritus, however, far from being itself Sophistic,
presupposed the theory of Protagoras. The suggestion of this
relation may be found in Dilthey, Einleitung in die Geistes-
luitisenschaften, I. 200.

Leucippus, the first representative of this theory, stands
in flic most marked dependence on fh^ FiIp^^^^ fr^nr'lu'ncr
To his mind also, T^cJTL"; <^v^l'idod ^lot only all origination
and destruction, but tdi__qiiiilitaiii:i3 — ch-ange. — Likewise

Beinu: coincides with the corporeal, that is, the ov with the

1 As to the perfect certainty of ascribing this to Leucippus, see Zel.ler,
P. 843, n. 1.

EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. . 89

ifkeov. By virtue of this coincidence Parmenidcs liad felt
comiiello^tojtellTlMT^

also that of l)luBlIiJ}:.>>>nd motion. Should now, however,
as the interest of ])hysics demanded, plurality and motion
be recognized as real, and a scientific apprehension of the
actual again be rendered possible, then the simplest and
most logical method was to declare ^ that " Non-Bein^."
tlie A^oid {to Kevov)^ did nevertheless exist. The aim qA
this assumption, however, is simply this: to make possible "
plurality and mobility for that which reaUy is. ~TlTcl;ehy
it becomes jjossible to create a world of experience froi
tlTe^^^Toid " and the multiform " Full " moving in thJ

" Yoid,".. to construct that world from that which has no
Being and from a multiplicity of those things thatJiave//
Being. A categorical physics thus appears in place of the
hypothetical physics of Parmenides, and in place of a
problematical appears an assertorical and an apodeictic
physics.

But while Leucippus departed from the Parmeuidean \
concept of Being only so far as seemed absolutely neces-
sary to explain plurality and motion, he still clung not only
to the characteristic of unchangeableness (un-Becoming
and indestructibilitv), but also to the thorou^Effoins:
qualitative homogeneity of what possess Being. In oppo-
sition to Empedocles and Anaxagoras, Leucij^pus therefore
taught that all these varieties Qf what possess Being_aj'e
homogeneous in qualitv.__He agreed entirely witli_Par-
menides that this quality is abstract corporeality {to irXeov) ^
devoid of nil RpnoTlip. qiialitiPg" AccoidlJig tu the Eleatics,\
all,^djstinctions are due only to the permeation of that I
which__really_is noETWifert which really is. So, on the
one hand, to Leucippus djajinctions between individuals

1 Democritus seems to be the first to have made the pointed remark :
^if) fiaWov TO SeV fi TO fiT]8ev elvai, " das; Ichls sei um nicliis mehr real als das
iXichts/' Plut. Adv. col. 4, 2 (1109).

90 HISI^ORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOrilY.

(rliat really possess Being exist only in those qualities due
o their ""Kmij^tion throu.giLJtot--wIiIiSrreally is not ; viz.,
empty space. These are the distinctions ^_form and
motion. On the other hand, each of the changeless sub- 1
stances possessing Being must be thought as a corporeality,
homogeneous in itself, a continuum and therefore indivisi- '
ble. Being, which is moved in empty space, therefore con-
sists ofJjiiLn^'>''<^^'^^^l^; f^^'^rC^^ling^y g^nQn i-x-triip^a Leucippus
called these Atoms (^cito/jlol), every one of which is, like

the Being of Pn r m pn 1 d p.s^ji T) ori gi n n.ted ^ i n d ^gt.rii ojjhlp ^ un-
changeable^^ indmjibj^^and homog^ne in itself and with /
all other Being. The single cosmic-Being of Parmenides
was broken up into an infinite number of small primitive
elements which, were they not separated by empty space,*
would constitute a single element in the sense of Empe-
docles, and indeed would be the absolute qualitativeless ep
of Parmenides.

Of all the transformations of the Eleatic teaching, that of
Leucippus is characterized by a striking simplicity, and by keen
logical limitation to that which is indispensable to a professed
explanation of the phenomenal world. At the same time it is
clear that the Atomism which became later so important in the
development of scientific theories did not grow out of experi-
ence, or observations and the conclusions built upon them, but
directl}^ out of the abstractest metaphysical concepts and
absolutely universal needs for the exj[)laiiation. of actuality.

Up to this point the Atomistic theory has been regarded
as _a^ jvariant of the Eleatic metaphysic, arising from an
interest in physics. But, o:ii^lic other hand, Leucippusjs so
far under the influence of Ionian monism that he does
not sopk f,hf> rause^of motion in n. foree different from
the_stuff, but hc_regards sj'>^^''^V uijitijiiujJTujfjis a^cjuality,
immano]it in the stiifF. The corporeality that is» homoge-
neous in all atoms did not, in his mind, possess the power
to change itself qualitatively, that is to say, aWo/wo-t^ ; but
it did possess /c/j/^^crt?, an original underivable motion that

EFFORTS TOWAUD RECONCILIATION. 91

is ffiven ill its own essence. In fiict, Leiicippus seems to
have understood by this term not so much that of heavi-
ness,— fall from above downward, — but rather a chaotic
primal conditioii_of bodies moving, disorderly, among each
other in all directions (§ 32). At all events, the Atom-
ists bnlil llii.^ originnl state of motii^n ng nnpnucod ^^^,^ ^y^^(»^ t^(^i
s<Ji-evident^i So we can see in tlieir view the perfect"
svnthcsis of the Ileracleitan and Elcatic thouirht : all homo-
gcneouij elemeuls of BohlJT ure thOuiz'ht as unchanL^eable.
hnt nt thpVvm^ ^^^"'"'^ ^^ i^'' ^ ^rs^^f" pf motion thaFis sclf-
nj;jo;irinJ7^.d, ;

This is the extent to which the beginnings of Atomism
may with certainty be ascribed to Leucipims. It is an >L
attempt to explain the world by atoms in original motioiK^
in empty space. The purely mechanical part of the ^
theory, that the world was formed by collision, lateral and
rotator V motion, likewise presented itself to the founder of
Atomism in the same form in which Democritus later
developed it. It is not so easy to explain, however, how
Leucippus solved the more difficult and delicate question
regarding the manner in which the various empirical
qualities arose from these complexes of atoms ; that is to v
say, the transformation of quantitative into qualitative y^
differences. Of his answer we know nothino:. The sub-

jective method which Democritus applied to it was not as
yet available to the founder of Atomism, since this method
grew out of the investigations of Protagoras. Whether
Leucippus^ was content with setting up this origination

J
1 To my mind, there is no foundation for the belief that Leucippus in
his doctrine of the aia-drjTo. employed the antithesis of ^vaci — j/o/xw ;
from its significance and following all tradition, this antithesis is Sp-
phistic. The inference rests upon the obviously late and inaccurate note
in Stoba?us, EcL, I. 1101 (Dox., 397 b, 9) from which it might also be
adduced that Diogenes of Apollonia was an Atomist. It is certain that
Leucippus, as an Eleatic, denied sense qualities as real. For some later

Jv^

92 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

of the qualities out of the quantitative relationships only
as a metaphysical postulate ; whether he explained these
qualities, like Parmenides, simply as vain show and illu-
sion; or whether he in an uncertain manner, like Empedo-
cles, derived all other material from the four elements
and their mixtures, so that he too sought to refer empirical
things back to the different form and size of the combining
atoms, — how far, in fact, he in general passed from the
metaphysical principles to the specific development of the
physical theory, — concerning all this it is doubtless too
late to determine.

From the allusions in his theory, and from the very uncertain
reports from the extant literature, it is only safe to say that
probably Leucippus was younger than Parmenides, considerably
older than Democritus and contemporary with Empedocles and
Anaxagoras. It is hardly possible to decide between the differ-
ent reports, whether his residence was in Miletus, Elea, or
Abdera. Since however his pupil (eratpo?) Democritus doubt-
less was an Abderite, and came from a scientifically active circle
which we cannot^ possibly suppose to be that of the Magi,
alleged to have been left behind by Xerxes, we may assume
that a scientific activity was developed in Abdera in the second
half of the sixth century, which city attained its highest glory
under the influence of the colonists from Teos. Leucippus was
its first representative of an}^ significance.- Protagoras appears
to have originated in the school of Abdera at a time between
the two great Atomists (§ 26). That Leucippus put his thought
in writing is not entirely certain, but is probable. Nothing of
his work remains, however. In any event, even early in anti-
quity, there was uncertainty about the authorship of what had
been ascrilx'd to him.^ Theophrastus ascribed ^ to him the /xeyas
Stakocr/xo? wliicli went under the name of Democritus. It is

reporter this denial is identical with the assertion of their subjectivity
(i/o/xQj). Parmenides himself best teaches us how little this equivalence
was possible for a pre-So})histic thinker.

1 Zeller, R 763.

'^ Diels. Aufsdtze ZeUcr's JuhiUaunh p. 258 f.

^ De Xen., Zen.^ Gory., G, 980 a, 7; iv rois AcvkIttttov KaXovfxevois
Xoyois-

■* Diog. Laert., IX. 4G.

EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 93

strange that in the memory of succeeding times and indeed in
modern time (Bacon, Alb. Lange), even as in anti({uity (Kpicu-
rus), he has been entirely overshadowed by Deinocritus.^

24. " Between these and in part already before them." ^
t-kiii^ytltagoreans sought finally to apply their matliGmaticnl
s Uidies to the solution of the Heracleitan-Eleatic problem i

However in this respect the Pythagoreans faiJiLjnoj^ei'fectly
homogeneoH* wlrohr. - it appears rather that within the society,
corresponding to its geographical extension and its gradual
disintegration, the scientillc work divided on different lines.
^ Some Pythagoreans clung to the development of mathematics'
and astrononi}' ; others busied themselves partly with medicine, ,
partly with the investigation of different physical theories (con- \
cerning both see § 25) ; others finally espoused the metaphysical \
theory, which so far as we know was constructed first by
Philolaus and is usually designated as the number theory.

Philolaus, if not the creator, at least the first literary repre-
. seivtalive ot the ^^ Pvlhagorj[?mi philosophy," was an older cori^
tompornryof Socrnt.ps .nnd Demonntiis, and cannot, at any rate,
be set farther back than Anaxagoras and Empedocles. Indeed
he is presumably somewhat younger than the latter two. Of his
life we know nearly nothing, and we are even not sure whether
he was a native of Tarentum or Crotona. Also that he, like

other P3-thflg^r-^rrTr^1^"-"^<- t1>P o^^f^ nf thn fifth pontnry, liypd for

a time in Thebes, is inferred with uncertainty from the passage
in Plato, Phcedo, 61. Nearly as doubtful is his supposed
authorship of the fragments that are preserved under his name.
They have been collated and discussed first by Bockh (Berlin,
18PJ). From the investigations of Fr. Preller (article Philolaos
in Ersch mid Gruher Encykl, III. 23, 370 f.), V. Rose {De
AristoteUs Uhrorum ordine et auctoritate, Berlin, 1854), C. Schaar-
schmidt (Bonn, 18G4), Zeller (Hermes, 1875, p. 175 f.), they may
be assumed in part to be genuine, but they must be very cau-
tiously introduced into the discussion of the original number
theory.

1 Zeller, P. 761, 843. Compare E. Rhode, Verhandl. der Trierer
Philol.-Versuchungen, 1879, and Jahrhiicher far Philologie u. Pddncjofjik,
1881, 741 f. Diets, Verlinndlungen der Stettiner Philologie Vers. 1880.

2 Arist. Met., I. "> : (v de rnvrois kcu npo tovtwv ol KoKovfievoi UvOayd-
petot Tuiv fiadrjiiciTOiv dyj/di-ievoi kt\.

94 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Along with Philolaus are mentioned, in Italy Clinias of Taren-
tum,^ in Thebes Lycis the teacher of Epamuiondas, and Eiirytus
the pupil of Philolaus, a citizen of Crotona or Tarentum. Eury-
tus in turn had as pupils Xenophihis of Thracian Chalcis, the
Phliasians Phanto, Echecrates, Diodes, Polymastus.^ From
Cyrene Prorus is mentioned. In Athens Plato brought forward
the two Pythagoreans, Simraias and Cebes, as witnesses of the
death of Socrates. Almost mythical are the Locrian Timaeus ^
and the Lucanian Ocellus. The philosophic teaching of any of
these men is not in any way certainly known. AVith the disso-
lution of the Pythagorean League in the fourth century the
school became extinct. The doctrines of the last significant
personality in it, Archytus of Tarentum, merged, so far as our
knowledge goes, into those of the older Academy (§ 38).

A collection of all the Pythagorean fragments is in Mullach ;
Ritter, Gesch. der pyth. Philos. (Hamburg, 1826) ; Rothen-
biicher, Das System der Pythagoreen nach den Angahen des
Aristoteles (Berlin, 1867) ; Alb. Heinze, Die meta. Grundleliren
der dlteren P. (Leipzig, 1871), Chaignet, Pythagore et la philos.
Pythagoi'ieime, 2 vols. (Paris, 1873) ; Sobczyk, Das JV/^K ^^.V-^-
tem (Leipzig, 1878) ; A Doering, Wandlungeninder pyth. Lehre
(Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos.^ v. 503 f.).

/ As to the Pythagorean teaching, only that can be regarded
as genuine which Plato and Aristotle report, together with the
concurrent portions of the fragments transmitted in such ques-
■ tionable shape._

In the Pythagorean society mathematical investigations
were pursued for the first time quite independently, and
were brought to a high degree of perfection. Detailed
views concerning the number system, concerning the series
of odd and even numbers, of prime numbers, of squares, etc.,
were early instituted^^ It is not improbable that they,
applying arithmetic to geometry, came to the conception
embodied in the so-called Pythagorean theorem. Herein
must they have had a premonition of the real value of
number-relations in that they represent number as the ruling

1 Jambl. De vita Pyth., 2G6.

2 Diog. Laert., YUJ. 4G.

3 The writing bearinnj this name and concerned with the soul of the
world, usually published in Plato's works, is certainly a later compendium
of Plato's Timceus.

EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION.

principle iii_sx>a£C. Tlieir niiin])cr tlieory was strengthened
by tlic results attained by them in music. Altliougli later
reports include ^ much that is fabulous and physically
impossible, there can nevertheless be no doubt that the
Pythagorean harmonic shows an exact knowledge of those
simple arithmetical relations (first of all, the string-lengths)
out of which musical melody arises. To this may be added
that the regular revolution of the stars, — of which they
made especially careful observations, and which are indeed
the standard for all time measurements, — made the world-
order (/coo-yLto?) likewise appear to them to be numerically
determined. From these premises it can be understood
how some Pythagoreans came therefore to find in numbers
the permanent essence of things, concerning which essence
the battle between philosophic theories had taken place.
On the one hand, nmnbers might be substituted — since
they were supposed ta be self-existent, unchangeable, and
self-unitary — for the njisj-mot Rping pf^the^ Eleatics_as, a
principle at least equally available in the explanation of the
phenomenal world. On the other hand, since Heracleitus
had found that the only permanent in change was hi the or-
derly forms of the natiire~"pK)Ccrsg7theTelationshlptJ df JirmF"
ber ruling the process of ch ange gave an exactfi i: . form to
_this idea. The Pythagorean number-theory attempted to
determine numerically the permanent relations of cosmic
life. ; The Pythagoreans said therefore : All is number, and.
they meant by this that numbers are the determining essfumc'
of all things. Since nowJJiesa-aamealiSLtractL numbers and
number-relationships are found in many different things
and processes, they said also that the numbers are the
original forms which are copied by thcjhings! '

1 Zeller, I*. 317. The observations of the Pythagoreans in the har-
monic or, as it is call41, canonic, wore apparently empiricall^^ffildc upon
the heptachord withltrings of different length. That they had no
theory of oscillation, goes without saying.

96 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

It is scarcely conceivable that the Pythagoreans came to their
predilection for mathematics, music, and astronomy through
metaphysics. The inverse is rather true, that they came from
such concrete studies, in undertaking to enter upon the solution
of universal problems, — as Aristotle (Met., I. 5) also suffi-
ciently indicated by the aij/dfxcvoL. For their treatment of geom-
etry and stereometry, and their prevailing arithmetical fondness,
see Roth (Gesch. unserer abendl. Philos., II. 2), although he on
this territory accredits indeed too much to the old Pythagoreans.
Cantor, Vorles. uber cl. Gesch. d. 3Iath., I. 124.

^ In order to derive, however, at one and the same time
the manifoldness and changeableness of individual things
from number relations, the Pythagoreans gave metaphysical
meaning to the fundamental opposition which they found
in the number theory. They declared that the odd and^
the even are respectively identical with the limited and .tjie
unlimited.^ As all numbers are composed of the even and the
odd, all things also combine in themselves fundamental an-
titheses, and especially that of the limited and the unlim-

>^ited. To this Ileracleitan fundamental principle there is

^ hound this logical consequence, that everything is flie^'ec- f
^^^X /Conciliation of opposites, or a ^Miarmony," — an expression

\ whicli m the mouth of the Pythagoreans has always the
suggestion of musical investigations.

The antithesis, however, acquired among the Pythagore-
ans in conformity to their later attitude a still more pro-
nounced value than with Heracleitus. The limited was the
better, the more valuable to them, as it was to Parmenides.
Odd numbers are more nearly perfect than even. In this
way the Pythagorean system got a dualistic cast, which is
noticeable in all its parts ; but this was theoretically over-
come by the fact that since the One, the odd-even primi-
tive number, creates both series from itself, so also all the

1 The ground of this identification (Simpl. Phys., 105 r. ; compare
Zoller, P. 322) is artificial in that it was obviously made ad hoc, and is
no natural product of the number theory.

EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 97

antitheses of the cosmic life arc in a grand harmonious
unity. •

The hiter Stoic neo-PLitonists, i. e. neo-P^'thagoreans, tried to
fuid in this autitliesis tliat of force aud stutl', spirit and matter,
and they deduced the dyads from the divine monads. Neverthe-
less, not the slightest suggestion of such a conception can be
found in the Plato-Aristotelian reports, which would certainly
have been particularly observant of this point.

All that \vc know with any certainty respecting the'
special doctrine of the Pythagoreans as contrasted with
these general principles reveals their effort tojeonstrnct, in
accordance with a scheme of numbers, an harmonic order
ofthmgs in the various fields. For~fhTs~tTlere"S^rTed fiTst
the decimal system, in which every one of the first ten num-
bers is accorded a special significance,^ derived from arith-
metical considerations. The ajU-hmotical mysticism or
symbolism of the Pythagoreans seemstahave consisted in
bringing into relation with numbers the fundamental ideas
of vanous departments of knowledge, and thereby giving
expression to the relatiye rank, value, and significance of
these ideas. .

There is here the suggestion of the ideal thought of an order
of things permanently determined by the number series; but
much caprice in oracular symbolizing and parallelizing was
obviously developed in details. Beside the number ten of cos-
mic bodies, the series of elements is about as follows (Jambli-
chus) : (1) point, (2) line, (3) surface, (4) solid, (5) quahty,
(6) soul, (7) reason, etc^;„or» on the other hand, (1) reason as
located in the brain, (2) sensation in the heart, (3) germination in
the navel, (4) procreation in genitaUbuSj etc7~~Then the virtues,
like justice, were also designated by numbers. At the same
time these concepts, which are symbolized by the same number
in different series, also suggest and nrp. related t^ ^ue another.^
Thiis it pnmp nbont fhnt. flio sQulwas called a -sqtvare or -.a
sphere. Doubtless with this the thought was connected that

^ In a certain sense the Pytha<Toroans appear to have rcgarrlo'l the
development from the One to the Ten as gradual. Arist. Met., XL 7,
1072 b. See Zeller, I^ 348.

98 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

different things shonlcl be assigned among a decade of gods. If
one adds that these determinations were given by different
Pythagoreans differently, it is easily understood why this first
scheme of a mathematical order of the world ended in an
unfruitful confusion.

J An approximate representation of the division of the
different domains to which the Pythagoreans applied, or
wished to apply, this number theory shows a collection of
pairs of opposites which were arranged in a parallelism,
like the original pair. Even here is the sacred number
ten completed : (1) limited and unlimited ; (2) odd and
eveh ; (3) one and many ; (4) right and left ; (5) male
and female ; (6) rest and motion ; (7) straight and
crooked ; (8) light and darkness ; (9) good and evil ;
(10) square and rectangle. This eccentric and in itself
principleless arrangement ^ shows that the Pythagoreans
attempted at least an all-round application of their fun-
damental principle. .Alongside their mathematical, meta-
physical, and physical conceptions, the ethical conceptions
theoretically find their place ; ^ but in the development,
nevertheless, the physical interest everywhere outweighs
the others. ^

While now this completely ontological number system
of concepts satisfied the Eleatic motifs yet the physics of
the Pythagoreans was very greatly under the influence of
Pleracleitus, as w^as also the physics of Parmcnidcs. In the
theory of the formation of the world,^ the Pvthao-oreans
placed fire in the middle as the original condition of things,

^ In Avhich always the first-named number is the more nearly perfect.

2 This l)oginning of scientific consideration of ethical ideas, of which
intimations arc at hand in the special doctrines, likewise bespeaks a
later position for the Pythagorean philosophy.

8 It must remain uncertain wlicther they also accepted the theory of
periodic world-formation and destruction. They taught " the great year "
in the sense that, with the return of the original arrano-ement of the stars,
all individual appearances, persons, and experiences would return.

EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 99

as the self-determining One, the animating and impelling
force. Fire drew around itself, however, the unlimited
(i. e., empty) space, ^ and limited (i. e., formed) it in ever-
growing dimensions, — a conception which vividly reminds
us of the Sli^j] of Anaxagoras and Leucippus.
/The most brilliant achievement of the Pythagoreans was ^
their astronomy, and ijitlns respect th.ey are far in advance '
of all tlieir contemporaries. They regarded not only the r
world-all as globular, but also the single stars as luminous y
globes, which move around the central fire in transparent
globular shells, the spheres. Their most important advance
here is in the fact that the earth likewise was regarded as a
globe, moving around this same central fire. The older
Pythagoreans believed that the earth presents always the
same side to the central fire, so that mankind on the oppo-
site side never gets sight of the central fire, nor yet of the
counter-earth (^avrlxOcou) that is between the earth and the
central fire. The counter-earth was conceived, presumably
in order to complete the number ten. However, mankind
does get sight of the changing aspects of the moon circling *
outside the earth, as well as of the sun, five planets, and
heaven of fixed stars. The distance of the spheres from ^
the central fire was determined by the Pythagoreans accord-
ing to simple number relationships. Corresponding to this,
they assumed that from the revolution of the spheres there
resulted a melodious musical sound, the so-called harmony
of the spheres. In this way the orderly revolution of the
stars became-loi^li^m- the- perfect and divine, while the
terrestrial world, the world under the,. mo on, was repre^
?mntnrl ns f]ip nhnngmg^ changeable, and imperfect^ Thus
the Eleatic static world and the ITeracleitan changing
world appear to have been apportioned to different regions
of the actual world.

1 The assumption of the k€uov is expressly confirmed by Aristotle,
Phys., TV. 6, 213 b, 22.

100 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Compare Bockh, De Platonis systemate codestlum globoncm
et cle vera indole astronomioe Philolakce (Berlin, 1810) ; Gruppe,
Die Kosmischen Systeme der Grieclien (Berlin, 1852) ; M.
Satorius, Die Entivickelung der Astronomie bet den Griechen bis
Anaxagoras und Empedokles (Breslau, 1883).

Furthermore, the shape of the elements among the Pythag-
oreans is worthy of note. Just as thej reduced the space
forms to number relationships, so they referred the different
corporeal elements to space forms, by ascribing simple
stereometric forms to the ultimate constituents of matter :
the tetrahedron to fire, the cube to earth, the octahedron to
air, the icosahedron to water, and, finally, the dodecahedron
to the aether, which was added by them to the four Empedo-
clean elements and conceived as surrounding all the others.
If one is able to see in this the result of an interest in crys-
tallography, nevertheless, on the other hand, also here a fan-
tastic caprice is only too apparent.

Although consequently the augury of a mathematical state-
ment of natural law is the permanent service of the Pythag-
orean philosophy, yet the form of the statement that was
advanced by them was little suited to further scientific investi-
gations. Apart from astronomy, this knowledge of the Pythag-
oreans, to which some value in empirical investigations may
be ascribed, stands in no connection with the metaphysical
number theory, and has come from such Pythagoreans, who
were little, if at all, interested in the number theory (§ 25).

4. The Greek Enlightenment.

the sophists and socrates.

25. After the rapid development in which Greek science
at the first onset defined a number of valuable and funda-
mental concepts concerning nature, a kind of reaction began
about the middle of the fifth century. The metaphysical
tendency of thought declined. Of hypotheses there were

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 101

already many enough, and it seemed more important to test
and verify them in application to special kinds of knowledge.

The lively exchange between the different schools led
easily to a blending of principles, which thereby lost their
harshness, but unfortunately their force as well. The
more the circles of scientific activity increased, the more the
interest turned to the single problems of science. There
began an epoch of eclecticism and detailed investigation.

The after-effects of the Milesian researches are met not
only among the younger physicists, who regarded the cos-
mic matter as a compromise between air and water or
between fire and air, but also, in a man like Idceus of
Jlimera, who agreed with Anaximenes in maintaining that
the air was the apxV'^ -^ ^^^^^ adaptation, however, of the
Milesian teaching to the position of science, in its attempts
at compromise, appears in by far the most important of
these eclectics, Diogenes of Apollonia.

Nothing is known about his life. It is even doubtful, on
account of the Ionian dialect of his writing, -n-epl ^tVew? (see
G. Geil, Pliilos. Monatsheften, XXVI. 257 f.), if the place of his
birth was the Apollonia in Crete. Schorn and Panzerbieter have
collected the fragments, — Schorn (Bonn, 1829, with those of
Auaxagoras) and Pauzerbieter (Leipzig, 1830, Diog. Apollonia).
See Steinhart's article in the EncyMopddie of Ersch and Gruber.
Schleiermacher, who in his treatise concerning Diogenes (Com-
plete Works, IIL 2, 149 ff.) at first placed him very high
and chronologically early, came later ( Vorles. uher Gesch. der
riiilos., Complete Works, III. 4 a, 77) to view him as a prin-
cipleless eclectic. Zeller agrees with this last conception
(I*. 248 f.). D. Weygoldt {Arch. f. Gesch. d. Pliilos., I. 161 f.)
has identified some teachings of Diogenes in some pseudo
writings of Hippocrates.

Diogenes anticipated his later point of view in the desire,
expressed in the beginning of his writing, for an unambigu-
ous starting-point and a simple and worthy investigation.
The hylozoistic monism of the Milesians formed for him

1 Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. 360.

102 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

this starting-point, which he defended ^ against pluralistic
theories (Anaxagoras and Enipedocles) by the subtle con-
ception that the process of Becoming, the change of things
into one another and tlieir reciprocal influence, are expli-
cable only by the presupposition of a common fundamental
essence, of which all particular tilings are shifting transfor-
mations {irepotooaei^). The constitutive characteristics,
liowever, of the apx^) he regarded on the one hand, like the
lonians, as motion and animation, and on the other, in ap-
parent agreement with Anaxagoras, as reasonableness and
purposiveness which are manifested in the proportionate
distribution of matter in the universe. So he accepted in
the list of predicates of the Air of Anaximenes those also
of the Anaxagorean vov^, and called ^ this air-spirit a crMfia
fieya kol la')(ypov Koi athiov re koI aOdvarov koL iroWa etSo?,
The air, likewise called iruev/jia, as being the medium of life
and of thought, is the uniform and universal reality, both in
the microcosm and in the macrocosm. Through condensa-
tion and rarefaction, which were respectively (compare
§ 16) identified with cooling and warming, the cosmic
matter changed into individual things. Through the effect
of weight, which drove the rarer above and the more con-
densed below, there were completed the order and motion of
tlie world-all, which was conceived to be in a periodic alter-
nation of origination and destruction. In the organism the
air serves as the soul. The soul is denied to plants, and in
animals it is found in the blood (after Empedoclcs). Life
depends upon the blood receiving the air, upon the mixing
of which tlie mental condition of the organism depends.
Witli a just presentiment Diogenes pointed out the distinc-
tion between the arterial and venous blood. Moreover, his
valuable knowledge of the arterial system, his idea of the
brain as the seat of thought, his theories of the origin of
sense perception, as well as his numerous other physiologi-
1 Simpl, Phys., 32 verso, 151, 30. 2 7^^^,^ 33 j,^cio, 153, 17.

THE GUEEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 1U3

cal iiiid biological observations, sbow a fine, accurate sense
for detailed resoarcli in the organic world.

Inversely, there is an approximation to Ionian hylozoism
— as it pi-esented itself among the Eleatics to Melissus —
in the only pupil of Anaxagoras of whom anything definite
is known. This is Archclaus of Athens or Miletus, who
identified with the air the original mixture of all the
Xpijf^ara of Anaxagoras, and associated the vov<; essentially
with the air (§ 26), similarly to Diogenes, only in a more
mechanical way.

In Ephesus, on the other hand, a school continued to exist
which actively held to the teaching of Heracleitus. It did
not lessen the paradoxes of Heracleitus, but appears to have
exaggerated them in so enthusiastic and unmethodical a
manner that Plato made sport ^ of them. At least it is
reported ^ that Cratylus, the most important of these Hera-
cleitans and a younger contemporary of Socrates, the teacher
of Plato, so subtilized the Heracleitan proposition concern-
ing the inability of stepping into the same river twice, as to
postulate the impossibility of stepping in even once.

Antiquity ^ associated with Heracleitus a movement de-
veloped within the Pythagorean circle, whose leader was
Hippasus of Mctapontum, approximately a contemporary of
Philolaus. He emphasized the Heracleitan moment in the
Pythagoi'can physics so exclusively that fire was for him
entirely the apx'l i^^ the Ionian sense. The old tradition ^
designated him as the head of the exoteric xVcousmatics,
who were not initiated into the secrets of the number
theory.

On the other hand, Ecphantus, and similarly perhaps

^ 7Vtecbt., 17'J e. In the same feeling is the entire dialogue of
Cratylus written.

2 Arist. Met., Ill 5, 1010 a, 12.

3 Ihld., I. 3, 984 a, 7.

* Janiblichus, De vit. Pyth., 81.

104 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Xuthus,^ joined the Pythagorean teaching to atomism, to
which the transition appears to have been made in the ste-
reometrical construction of the elements as attempted by
the Pythagoreans. Likewise in Ecphantus we find simi- I
larities to the vov^ theory of Anaxagoras.^ The atoms,
differing in size, form, and force, are so moved by the pov^
that out of them the unitary spherical shape of the world
is perfectly formed and maintained.

While such adjustments and compromises between the
metaphysical theories were being attempted, the special in-
terest of this period was in detailed investigation. This
developed vigorously in all domains, and in its progress spe-
cial departments of science even then were differentiating
themselves from general philosophy. Mathematics ^ was
the first to proceed independently ; not only in the Pythag-
orean school, but among other thinkers (Anaxagoras, and
later Plato and Democritus), it found recognition and pro-
motion. The trisection of an angle, the squaring of the
circle, the doubling of the cube, were the pet problems of
the time. A certain Hippocrates of Chios wrote the first i
manual of mathematics, and introduced the method of des-
ignating figures by letters. There was wanting, it is true,
a logical development of the art of demonstration. How-
ever, a considerable amount of knowledge was accumulated,
which Avas obtained in an empirical way, partly experi-
mental and partly tentative.

Brilliant progress in astronomy * was made in the fifth
and in the beginning of the fourth century, particularly by
the Pythagoreans. Whether it were experience (the cir-
cumnavigating of Africa ?) or theoretic reflection upon the

1 Compare Zeller, K 405, 1.

2 Details by Zeller, P. 458 f.

8 Cantor, Vorles. iiher d. Gesch. d. Math., I. IGO f., 171f. f

4 Compare O. Grupjie, Die kosmischen Systeme d. Giiechen, Berlin,
1851.

rilK GKKEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 105

problems that led to the hypolhesos of the central fire and
the counter-earth, gradually the theory of the diurnal
movement of the earth around the central fii-e, which alone
could explain the apparent rotation of the heavens, was
superseded by the theory of the revolution of the earth
upon its axis. Jlicetas of Syracuse appears to have been
the founder of this theory. He was certainly younger
than Philolaus, and perhaps a participant in that last
phase of Pythagoreanism, as it merged in the Academy ^
(§ 38).

About this time, in other departments of natm-al science,
a richer, more exact treatment of individual facts took the
place of ultimate hypotheses. Here appeared a wonderful
revolution, when interest in meteorological observations be-
gan to give place to interest in the investigation of the
organic world, and of man in particular.

Typical in this respect appears Hippo ^ (of Samos ?), a
naturalist of the time of Pericles, who, inasmuch as he
postulated the moist as a/o%^,^ is usually mentioned in
connection with Thales ; so also Cleidemus,^ in whose

^ Here, as for the following, we may refer once for all to the Gescliklite
der Maihematik, Naturwissensdiafl und Medizin m Alterlum, appearing
in this same volume of the German edition. This special treatment
allows us to make only a brief sketch of these subjects, and to lay the
emphasis upon the distinctively philosophical movement.

2 Compare Schleiermacher, Ucher den Philosophen Ilippon, Complete
Works, Vol. III. p. 408 f . ; Uhrig, De Hippone atheo (Giessen, 1848).

8 With special emi)hasis upon the moist character of animal seed,
Arist. De an., I. 2. This explains the one su})j)osition of Aristotle con-
cerning the origin of the teaching of Thales (see § 14). If the charge of
Atheism which was made against Hippo refers to the fact that he did
not recognize anything as imperishable, and declared that nothing exists
except phenomena (schol. in Arist., 534 a, 22), he was, in spite of his
moist apxf}-, a purely positive anti-metaphysician. This explains Aris-
totle's prejudice against him {(PopriKo^Tepos, De an., I. 2; evreXcia ttjs
btavoia?, Met., I. 3).

4 Zeller, K 927.

106 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

researches into the physiology of sensation we find sug-
gestions of Anaxagoras.

Medicine also could not hold itself apart from the influ-
ence of the general body of science, and it appeared for a
time as if it would be entirely absorbed into the speculations
of natural pliilosophy. The impulse thereto arose from the
Pythagorean circles, and is principally traced back to
Alcmseon,^ a physician in Crotona, and perhaps a some-
what older contemporary of Philolaus. He stood aloof
from the number theory, but in common with its adher-
ents held to the doctrine of antitheses.^ He also believed
in the fundamental opposition of the terrestrial imper-
fection and the celestial perfection, which dualism he,
like Philolaus, appears to have developed astronomically.
His medical views depended upon the universal Pythago-
rean-Heracleitan presuppositions, since he defined health
as the harmony of opposing forces. Specifically, there
were supposed to be fundamental humors whose homo-
geneous mixing indicated health, while an excess or defi-
ciency of any one of them led to pathological conditions.
Such getiological theories did not, however, prevent Alc-
ma3on from making careful and valuable investigations.
He is said to be the first to make sections ; he appears
to have been the first to locate thought in the brain, and
to designate the nerves as canals leading thither from
the sense-organs. Connected with this — for him as well
as later for Democritus and Plato — was the fact that
lie in an Eleatic-Horacleitan fashion opposed thought to
}»erception.

As a type of the temporary amalgamation of medicine
and natural [)hilosophy, we may take ^ the pseudo-Hippo-

1 Unna, De Alcmcconc Crolnniata ej usque frafjmentis, found in Peter-
sen's rird. Jiist. Stud. 1832; R. Tlirzei, Henncs, 187G, p. 240 f.

2 Arist. Mcf., T. 5, 986 a, 27.

8 Compare Siebock, Gesch. der Psi/choL, I. 1, 94f.

THE GIIKKK ENLIGHTENMENT. 107

cralic work irepl BtaLry^, which has been proved ^ by Zcller
(1. 663 f., against Sclmster, Ileraclltus, 99f., and Teichmliller,
Neue jStudien, I. 249 f., II. 6 f.) to belong to the time after
Enij)edoclcs and Anaxagoras and before Plato. This writ-
ing* pictures in the microcosm of the human body, as well
as in the universe, now a constructive and now a destruc-
tive battle between fire and water, and it ascribes motion
to fire and nourishing power to water. The theory is then
carried out in detail, and deviates into a medical psychology
which regards the soul as a mixed essence corresponding
in miniature to the body.

The merit of Hippocrates (460-377) ^ was that he de-
fended the independence of medicine against such nature-
philosophical tendencies, which he contested principally
irepl ap-x^air]<; l7]rptKrj<;. He separated medicine as a Te)(v7]
from philosophy in a purely Greek fashion as the art of
restoring to the body its beauty lost through disease. On
the other hand, Hippocrates {irepl SiaiTTj^ o^ecov) also re-
jected the purely symptomatic method that was in vogue
in the Cnidian school. He urged that the determination
of the empirical causes of disease w^as to be attained by a
comprehensive and careful observation of the alriaL;^ and
in this he found a successor in Diodes of Carystus. He
distinguished causes dependent on external events, like cli-
mate, seasons, etc., from those subject to the human will,
like the diet. Remoter causes are distinguished from the
more immediate, but always investigation is limited to
experience, and only immanent, not transcendent, atiolo-

1 Compare Weygoldt, /r//<;7>. /. Id. PhiloL, 1882, IGl f.

2 Tlu! mass of writings passing under the name of Hippocrates
arc pnbhshed by Kiihn and by Littre, and the latter ha-s made a French
translation. Only a small portion of these writings belongs to Hip-
pocrates, and this portion contains several very difficult })roblems of
detail. J. Ill)erg, SlwIUi Pseiidippnrrafea (lj(}\])z\fi, 188.3).

'^ Sec C. Goring, Ueber den Begrijjf d. Ursache in d. griech. Philos.
(Leipzig, 1874).

108 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

gies are sought. As with Alcmseon, the mixture of the
four fundamental humors — the blood, phlegm, yellow gall,
and black gall — formed likewise the central point of this
medical theory. Besides this the school of Hippocrates de-
veloped an accurate knowledge of anatomy and physiology.
In the former branch the knowledge of the brain and ner-
vous system, and especially, even thus early, of the particu-
lar sense nerves, is to be particularly noted ; and concerning
the latter is the theory of the e/x(f)VTov Oepfiou, wherein the
cause of life was sought. The bearer of life, however, was
held to be the TrvevjjLa, which is a material wafted like air
through the veins, ^ This is an hypothesis which, like
similar teachings of Diogenes of Apollonia, seemed to rest
upon a presentiment of the importance of oxygen.

Historical research also, like tliat of natural science,
acquired at the end of tlie fifth century not only greater
extent and more manifold form,^ but also a positive and
scientific method. While in Herodotus the naturalistic
narrative was still interwoven with myth and saga, and
the realistic conception was still permeated with elements
of the old faith, the stripping off of the mythical appears
to have been perfected in Thucydides, whose mastery of
psychological motivation was determined entirely by the
spirit of his time, the Attic Enlightenment.

26. But with this internal process of transformation
there went on also in the second half of the fifth century a
great change in the external relations of Greek science.
There was here, too, a powerful influence in the mighty
development of the national life which had dawned upon

1 Sec n. Sicbeck, Die Entioickelung der Lelire vom Geist (nvev^a) in
der antiken Wissenschaft : ZeitschrifL fiir VdlkersjyFsycliologie, 1881, p.
364 f. Compare with his Gescli. der Psycholof/ie, I. 2, p. 730 £.

^ Logography developed into histories of locaUties (Xanthus of
Sardis and IIi])])asus of Rheginm, the Lydian and Sicihan histories);
then (§ 11), into fuller expositions by Charo of Lampsacus, Hellanicus
of Mitylene, Damastes, etc.

THE GllKEK ENLIGHTENMENT 109

Greece during the Persian wars. The glorious struggle
for existence which the Greeks made against the Asiatic
ascendancy had strained the powers of the people to the
utmost, and had hrought all their possibilities to their
richest unfolding. The most valuable prize of the victory
was that impulse for a national unity of mental life, out of
which the great creations of Hellenic culture proceeded.
Science was involved in this movement. Science was
drawn out of the silent circles of the select societies in
which it had until then been nurtured. On the one hand, it
entered with its discoveries and inventioi>s into the service
of practical life ;^ on the other hand, its doctrines, and par-
ticularly its transformation of religious views, were brought
through poetry to the apprehension of the common mind.

The view of nature in ^sch3'lus, Sophocles, Pindar, and
Simonides appears on the whole in a similar setting as in the
Gnomic poets. Direct allusions to philosophy are found first in
Euripides (compare especiall}' E. Kohler, Die Philosophie des
Eurijndes^ I. ; Anaxagoras und E.^ Biickeburg, 1873), and in
Epieharmus, who stood near to the Pythagoreans, but also seems
to have been familiar with the other philosophic teachings of
his time. (Compare Leop. Schmidt, QucBstiones Epicharmecp,,
Bonn, 1846; Zeller, P. 460 f.) ''The divestiture of nature of
its gods by science " pressed always further to an ethical alle-
gorizing of the gods (Metrodorus of Lampsacus ; compare § 11).
This permitted, on the other hand, the comedy (of Epiehar-
mus, Cratiuus, Eupolis) to outdo the anthropomorphism, which
had been for good and all outgrown, even to the extent of witty
persiflage of their divinities. The weaker faith appeared, the
greater seemed the need of supplying its place by knowledge.

Amid such increased intellectual activity there arose in
all Greece in the fifth century an impulse for education, aris-

^ An example may be found in the architecture of Hippodaraus of
Miletus, whose connection with the Pythagoreans is indeed very doubt-
ful. His ma^jnificent buildinprg, however, in the Piraeus, Thurii, and
Rhodes, and the entire development of architecture, presuppose a high
degree of development in mechanics and technology. Compare K. i^ .
Hermann, D. H. Milesio (Marburg, 1841).

110 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOrilY.

ing out of need, curiosity, and wonder. Everybody desired
to know what the schools had developed through research
and reflection concerning the nature of things. To such
questioning a ready answer was speedily forthcoming.
There were men who engaged to reveal the results of
science to the people. Philosophy stepped out of the
school and forth upon the mart.^ These public teachers
of science were the Sophists.

That the Sophists converted science into a trade is one of the
chief and heaviest charges which Socrates,^ Plato,^ and Aris-
totle ^ raised against them ; these three thought the dignity of
science as a disinterested research was impaired in this way by
the Sophists. If we cannot agree ^ with this judgment from a
modern point of view, yet the fact is nevertheless to be recog-
nized that when science was taught for pa}', it assumed an en-
tirely new social position ; and this is the essential fact in the
whole matter.

This movement showed itself first of all in Athens.
Here, in the middle of the fifth century, the intellectual life
of Greece was concentrated, had attained its highest efflo-
rescence, and had gained its political power and commer-
cial supremacy. Science, like art, crowded into this r?}?
'EWdSo<: TO irpvTavelov rr)? ao^ia<^. Here the need of cul-
ture developed most actively among the lesser citizens, here
learning began to have political and social power, and
here the supremacy of culture was personified in Pericles.
Thus in science also Athens absorbed into itself the scat-
tered beginnings of Greek civilization.

Anaxagoras had lived for a long time in Athens. Par-
mcnides and Zeno probably visited Athens, and Ileracleitanism
was represented tliere by Cratylus. All important Sophists

^ Sec Windelbaiul, Praeludien, p. 5G £.

'^ Xen. Afem., I. 6.

8 Gorg., 420 c.

4 Eth. NiL, IX. 1, 11G4 a, 24.

6 See Grote, Hist, of Gr., VIII. 493 f. ; Zeller, li 971 f.

THE GREEK ENLIGIHTENMENT. Ill

sought and foiiiul here lionor and glory. With them began
the Attic period of ancient pliilosophy, its most magnificent
period.

The Sophists are, accordingly, first and foremost the
bearers of the Greek Enlightenment. The period of their
activity is that of the expansion of scientific culture. With
less ability in independent creation, the Sophists devoted
their energies to revising and popularizing existing theories.
Their work was first directed, with an eye to the people's
needs, to imparting to the mass of people the results of
science. Therein lay, along with their justification, also
the danger to which the Sophists succumbed.

'Xo<fiL(rTri<; meant originally ''a man of science" in general.
Then, as Protagoras^ claimed for himself, it meant "a teacher
of science " and of political virtue ; later, expressly, a paid
teacher of rhetoric (see below). The opprobrium attached to
the word Sophist at present is due to the polemics of Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle, which have unfavorably dominated history in
its judgment of the Sophists, until Hegel (Complete Works, Vol.
XIV. 5 f .) made prominent the legitimate moment of their work.
Since then, this has attained a complete recognition (Brandis,
Hermann,^ Zeller, Ueberweg-Heinze), but on the other hand
has been exaggeratedly emphasized by Grote (History of Greece,
VIII. 474 f.). Compare Jae. Geel, Historia critica Hopliistarum
(Utrecht, 1823) ; M. Schanz, Die Sophisten (Gottingen, 1867) ;
A. Chiapelli, Per la storia della sophistica greca (Arch. f.
Gesch. d. Ph., III. ) ; the fragments in Mullach, II. 130 f.

The difference between the earlier and later Sophists (Ueber-
weg) is well founded, since in the nature of the case at the be-
ginning the serious and legitimate aspects of the movement
were more prominent, while later on appeared the vagaries of
the members and the menace of their doctrines to society.
This development was so necessary, the consequences were so
certainly determined by the precedents, and this distinction is
on that account only so relative, that it, particularly for a brief
presentation, will not be adopted as a basis of subdivision.

Phito's dialogue Protagoras gives in its clear characteriza-
tion of the principal personages an exceptionally vivid pic-

1 Plato, Protag., 318 d.

2 Hermann, Gesch. u. Sj/st. d plat. PJiilos., T. 179 f., 296 f.

112 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

tare of the entire movement of the Sophists. In spite of the
general polemic character of this work, the better aspects
of Sophism are not entirely obscured. The most derogatory
characterization of the Sophists is given in the dialogue Sophist
transmitted under Plato's name. The Aristotelian conclusions
agree with this dialogue in the main {Met., III. 5 ; VII. 3).
The worst is the definition Trept a-o(^. l^^yx- I- 165 a, 21 ; la-n
yap ry crocfitcrTLKr] cfiaLVOfjiivr] crocfiLa ovaa o ov • Koi 6 o"o<^tcrT^s
•)(jiy]lxaTi(TTr]t; cltvo ^ati/o/^ei/Ty? croj^tas akX ovk ovcrTjqo

The popularizing tendency of Sophistry found an emi-
nent representative in Hippias of Elis. A brilliant poly-
histor, he dazzled his contemporaries in all sorts of
mathematical, zoological, historical, and grammatical learn-
ing. At the same time, however, as the dialogue Hippias
Major shows, he aimed by his somewhat colorless moral
teaching to achieve a cheap success with the masses. It
was very much the same with Prodicus of lulls on the
island of Ceos, of whose shallow ethics an example is
preserved in the well-known Heracles at the Cross Ways.^
The strength of Prodicus lay in synonymy.

See L. Speugel, Swaywyr) Tex^wv (Stuttgart, 1828) ; J. Mahly,
Die Sojjliist Hipjpias von Elis (Bheinisches Museum, 1860 f.) ;
F. G. Welcker, Frodikas der Vorgdnger des Socrates (in a
smaller work, II. 393 f.). Both were about of an age, and
somewhat younger than Protagoras. Nothing further is known
concerning their lives. Hippias, who prided himself on his
memory and his great learning, was pictured as one of the
most conceited Sophists. Prodicus was treated by Plato with
playful irony on account of his pedantic pains in word-splitting.
For Socrates' relation to him, see § 27.

The instruction that the Sophists were called upon to
give had to adapt itself to a specific purpose. Democracy
had gained ascendency in Athens and most other cities, and
the citizen was brought by duty and inclination into active
participation in public affairs. This evinced itself particu-
larly in oratory. With the higher culture of the masses,

^ Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. d. plat. Pldlos., I. 179 f., 296 f.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 113

the greater were the demands upon tliose who by the
power of the spoken word wished to win infhience in the
state. The youth who attended upon the teaching of
the Sophist desired to be trained by him into a cultured
and eloquent citizen of the state. So the iSoj)Justs found
their chief task in scientific and rhetorical instruction for
public life. The instruction consisted on the one hand in
technical and formal oratory, and on the other in that
learning which appeared especially important for any par-
ticular end they had in view. Therein lay not only the
social-historical significance of the Sophists, but also the
tendency of all the independent investigations through
which the Sophists have furthered science. Gorgias of
Leontini and Prota2:oras of Abdera mav be reo'arded the
most eminent representatives of this phase of Sophism.

For the characterization and criticism of Sophism as a tech-
nique of education in statecraft, one ought to consult especially
Plato's dialogue, Gorgias. Concerning the relation of the
Sophists to rhetoric, see Fr. Blass, Die attische Bereclsamkeit
von Gorgias his Lysias (Leipzig, 1868). As a typical expres-
sion of these attempts of the Sophists which embraced also
legal oratory, may be taken the utterance of Protagoras that
he would pledge himself to ^ tov tJtto) \6yov KpciTTw Trctar, — an
expression, to be sure, which called forth the crushing criticism
of Aristophanes, who in the Clouds imputed it to Socrates.

A more reliable fact about the life of Gorgias is that he was
in Athens in 427 as head of the embassv from his native city
(Thucyd., III. 8G). His life has been set by Frei (Bh. JTiis.,
1850, 1851) in the time from 483 to 375. He made a great
impression in Athens by his eloquence, and exercised a
distinct influence upon the development of rhetorical style.
He spent his protracted old age in Larissa in Thessaly. The
genuineness of both of his preserved declamations (ed. Blass,
Leipzig, 1881) is doubtful. His philosophical treatise bore
the title Trcot ^tVco)? i) Trcpi TOV /xt/ oj'to? (see below). His con-
nection with the Sicilian school of oratory (Corax and Tisias),
and therefore also with J^mpedocles, is undoubted. Llis con-
nection with the Fleaties appears equally certain, from the argu-

1 Arist. Rhet., 11. 24; 1402 a, 23.

114 TTISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

mentation in his writings. Compare H. E. Foss, De G. L.
(Halle, 1828) ; H. T>\Q\s,Gorgias unci Empedodes (Berichte der
Berliner Akademie) .

Alcidamus of Elea, Tolus ^ of Agrigentum, Lycophron, and
Protarehiis '^ are named as pupils of Gorgias.

Protagoras, doubtless the most important of the Sophists,
was born in Abdera in 480 or somewhat earlier. It can be
assumed that he was not distant in his views from the school of
Atomists in that city. Considerably younger than Leucippus,
and about twenty years older than Democritus, he formed the
natural connection between the two (see §§ 23, 31). With
keen insight into the needs of the time, and much admired as a
teacher of wisdom, he was one of the first to make an extended
tour of the Grecian cities. He was in Athens many times.
In 411, and during the rule of the four hundred, he was there
for the last time, and was accused of atheism. He was con-
demned, and upon his flight to Sicily was drowned. The titles
(Diog. Laert., IX. 55) of his numerous writings, only a very
few of which are preserved, prove that he dealt with the most
varied subjects in the domain of theory and practice. Com-
pare J. Frei, Qumstiones Protagorem (Bonn, 1845) ; A. J. Vi-
trhiga, De Prot. vita et pliilos. (Groningen, 1851). Lately
Th. Gompertz {Vienna Session Reports, 1890) has identified a
Sophistic speech with the Apiology of Medicine in the pseudo-
Hippocratic writing, irepl rexvy]'?-, and has noted its not fully
undoubted connection with the teaching of Protagoras.

Antimserus of Mende, Archagoras, Euathlus,^ Theodorus the
mathematician, and in a wider sense Xeniades of Corinth also
are to be regarded as pupils of Protagoras. Eminent citizens of
Athens, like Critias, probably Callicles, or poets like Evenus
of Paros, etc., stood in a less intimate connection with the
Sophists.

The practical and political aim of their instruction com-
pelled the Sophists to turn aside from independent nature
study and metaphysical speculation, and to content them-
selves with the presentation, in popular form, of such the-
ories only when they were called for or appeared effective.*

1 Plato, a org. ' ^ Plato, Phileb.

^ Plato, Thece fetus.

4 Many, like (Jorgias, rejected tliis as perfectly worthless. See Plato,
Meno, 95 c.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 116

The peculiar task in teaching men how to persuade drove
them, on the other hand, to interest themselves more thor-
oughly in man, especially on liis psychological side. Who-
ever endeavors to inlluence man by speech must know
something of the genesis and development of his ideas and
volitions. While earlier science with naive devotion to
the outer world had coined fundamental concepts for its
knowledge of nature, Sophistry, so far as it adopted the
methods of science, turned to inner experience, and com-
pleted the incomplete earlier philosophy by studying the
mental life of man. In this essentially anthropological
tendency, sopliistry turned philosophy on the road to
subjectivism. 1

This new kind of work began first with language. The
efforts of Prodicus in synonymy, those of Hippias in
grammar, were in this direction. Protagoras was especially
fruitful in this respect. Persuaded that theory without
practice was as little useful as practice ^ without theory, he
connected the practical teaching, to which Gorgias seems
to have limited himself, with philological investigations.
He concerned himself with the right use of words,^ in their
genders, tenses, modes,^ etc.

Compare Lersch, Die SpracJij)lnlos, der alien. T. 15 f. ; Alherti,
Die Sprachpliilos. vor Platon (Philol., 1856) ; Prautl, Gesch. cler
Logik, I. 14 f.

Similar small beginnings in logic appeared, in addition
to those in grammar. That teachers of oratory should

1 Wliat Cicero (Tusc, V. 4, 10) said of Socrates, that he called
philosophy down from heaven into the cities and houses, is equally
true for the entire Greek Enlightenment, for the Sophists as well as for
him.

2 Stobseus Florilen^ium, 29, 80.
8 Plato, Phmlr., 267 c.

4 Diog. Laert., IX. 53, in which he distinguished ev^wAfyi e/jcorrjo-iy,
nnoxprjcris, and cWoXjJ.

116 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

reflect how a thing was to be proved and controverted, is
obvious. It is also easily credible (Diog. Laert., IX. 51 f.)
that Protagoras had his attention drawn to the nature of
contradictory propositions, and was the first to teach the
method of proof (Ta<i tt^o? ra? deaei^; eVt^^etp^Jcret?). Appar-
ently formal logic sprang up here as an art of argumen-
tation, proof, and contradiction. Of how far it was
developed in details by the Sophists, we unfortunately
know absolutely nothing.^

We are better informed concerning their general view
of human knowledge. The less the Sophist championed
earlier metaphysical and physical learning, and the more
he entertained his hearers by his clever opposition to it,
and the more vividly again instruction presented to the
consciousness of the rhetorician the possibility of proving
different things of the same object, so much the more con-
ceivable is it that these men lost faith in any universally
valid truth or in the possibility of any certain knowledge.
Their preoccupation with the theory of knowledge led, as
things were, by a psychological necessity to skepticism.

This skepticism is the theoretical centre of Sophistry. That
this degenerated among the younger Sophists into frivolous
argumentation should not lead to the misconception of tlie
scientific seriousness with which the negative epistemology was
developed, especially by Protagoras. On the other hand, it
was an unhistoric interpretation for those in modern time, fol-
lowing G rote's example, to celebrate Protagoras as the founder
of Positivism : E. Laas, Idealismus imd Positivismus^ I.
(Berlin, 1880) var. loe. ; W. Halbfass, Die Berichte des Platon
n. Arisfoteles ilber Protagoras (Strassburg, 1882). Opposed to

1 That the Aristotelian logic was not without precedents, literary or
in the form of practical exercise, may be taken a priori as extremely
probable. IIow far these precedents reached cannot be determined
from the very few indications from extant literature (see particularly
]'lato's (?) dialogue Sophist). This lack of evidence is one of the most
regrettable deficiencies in the history of Greek science. Compare
Prantl, Gescli. d. Log., I. 11 f.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 117

this is P. Natorp, Forschungen zu Geadi. dcs Erhnntnisi^proh-
lems, p. 1 f., 1-49 f. Compure Fr. Sattig, Der Protagoreisdie
SensuaUsmus in Zeitschr. f. Pliilos. (1(S85 f.). The chief
source for the episteiiiology of Protagoras is PUito's dialogue,
T/mvtitus. Yet it is a question liow far the presentation
developed in this may be referred to Protagoras himself. The
teac'lii ng of Gorgias is in part preserved in the pseudo-Aristo-
telian l)e 3leIisso^ Zenone., Gorgia, c. 5 and G (§ 17) ; and
in part in Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 65.

In order to establish his skeptical belief about human
knowledge, Protagoras made the eternal flux of Hera-
cleitus his point of departure. But he emphasized still
more than Heracleitus the correlation, in which every
single thing does not so much exist, as momentarily come
into existence, through its relation to other things. From
the disavowal of absolute Being it followed that qualities
of things arise only out of the temporary effect of things on
one another. Quality is the product of motion/ and in-
deed, as Protagoras in a purely Heracleitan manner set
forth, always of two corresponding motions but in opposite
directions. One of these was designated as activity, the
other as passivity .^ It follows that in general it can never
be said what a thing is, but at most what it becomes in its
changing relation to other things,^ and the Protagorean cor-
relativeness contained a still greater significance in apply-
ing this general theory of motion to the theory of human
perception. Whenever a thing affects one of our senses,

1 It is not clear from the Thecetetus whether and how Protagoras
discussed the substratum of the Kivrja-is. Even if he did not with
Heracleitus deny it, yet he regarded it at any rate as incognizable. It
is conceivable that the Abderite Protagoras developed this theory in
compliance to the demands of Atomism, in which shape Democritus
later received it (§ 32).

2 r/iecet., 156 f.

8 Similarly the skeptical statements of Xeniades a])pear to have been
conceived. Compare Zeller, IK 988.

118 HISTORY OF ANCIENT rillLOSOPHY.

in which the motion proceeding^ from the object meets a
reacting motion of the organ, there then arises in the sense
organ the perceptual image,^ and simultaneously in the
thing, the quality corresponding ^ to the image. Therefore
every perception teaches only how the thing appears in tlie
moment of perception for the perceiver, and indeed for him
alone. Now for Protagoras, sense perception was regarded
as the only source of knowledge and of the entire mental
life."* Therefore there was for him no insight into the Being
of tilings over and above those relations ; no idea of what
things might be in themselves abstracted from perceptual
relations. Rather is everything for each individual ^ just
what it appears to him ; but it is such only to that indi-
vidual, and, more exactly, only for his momentary state of
perception. The well-known statement^ has this meaning:
TrduTcov '^pTjfidrcov fierpov av6pco7ro<;, rcov ixev ovtcop w? earc,
TMv Se /jir) ovTcov CO? ov/c ear IV.

1 The ability of the different objects to influence the different sense
organs api)cars ah'eady to have led Protagoras to his theory of the
different velocities of movements of the objects. See Thecet., 156 c.
With this reduction of the qualitative to the quantitative, Protagoras
stood entirely in the school of the Atomists (§§ 23 and 32).

2 Under this term the sensations and also the feelino-g are classified in
the Thecelelus (156).

3 That the a'ladijTov in reality arises with the aladrjcns, is an addition
presumably of those who had extended and applied the theory of the
Abderite (according to the Thecetetus). For such an assertion carries
one far beyond the bounds of skepticism. This cannot apply to
Democritus.

* Whether and how Protagoras has proved and explained this view
{fxrjdev elvai rrjv -^vxriv Trapa ras aladrjaeis, Diog. Laert., IX. 51) is not
known. In the light of the earlier Rationalism (§§ 18-23) this sensa-
tionalism seems somewhat unwarranted. It is presaged in the physio-
logical psychology of the later nature philosophy (§ 25).

^ The explanation of Thecetetus (152 a) does not permit the (ivBpcoiros
in this well-known sentence to refer to the genus. See Arist. Met., X. 6,
1062 b, 13.

^ Thecctelus, 152 a; Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 60.

TliK GKKEK K.NLiUllTENMENT. li'J

As Protagoras based his philosopliy upon tliat of ITcra-
clcitus, so (Jorgias founded his upon that of the Elcatics.
The former had conchulcd that to all opinion there is
attached a rehitive, but to none an absohite, truth ; the
latter sought to demonstrate in general the impossibility
of knowledge. While, however, the practical investiga-
tions of Protagoras enriched j)hilosophy in the succeeding
systems of Plato and Democritus, the argumentation of
Gorgias was developed in a captious and sterile dialectic.
Gorgias showed : (1) Nothing is. That which is not, can-
not be, and even as little can that which is. For that which
is, cannot be thought either as unoriginated and imperish-
able or as originated and perishable ; neither can it be
thought as one or as many, nor indeed finally as moved,
without being involved in obvious contradictions. The
arguments of Zeno are everywdiere re-employed here
(§ 20). Moreover, that which is and that which is not to
exist simultaneously, is impossible (against Heracleitus ?).
(2) Were there something, it would not be knowable ; for
that which is and that which is thought must be differ-
ent, — otherwise error would be impossible.^ (3) If there
were knowledge, it could not be communicated, because
conmnmication is possible only by means of signs, which
are different from the thing itself. There is no warrant
that there is a like apprehension of these signs by different
individuals.^

Howsoever seriously and scientifically the theories of
Skepticism were held, even by Protagoras, they neverthe-
less led to the demoralization of science, and resulted finally
in a frivolous diversion in daily life. Gorgias had found

1 This dialectic is more finely spun out in the dialogue of the Sophisl.

2 One is almof^t inclined to regard these paradoxes of this anti-philo-
sophical rhetorician as a grotes(|ue persiflage of the Eleatic dialectic.
At all events, this last is inevitably and fatally involved in its own
toils.

120 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

that every predication of a subject is doubtful,^ if indeed
there is any difference whatever between subject and pred-
icate. He therefore called in question synthetic judgments.
Protagoras himself doubted the reality of mathematical
knowledge.^ Euthydemus, in the spirit of this relativism,^
said that anything is suitable to everything ; one cannot
err, for what is spoken exists also as a something thought.^
One cannot contradict himself ; if he appears to, it is only
because he is speaking of a different thing, and so on.
Since the majority of the Sophists did not take truth seri-
ously from the beginning, their entire art amounted to a
dispute with formal adroitness jK>ro et contra over anything
whatsoever, and to equipping their pupils in this facility.
Their principal aim was accordingly to be able to confuse
the listener, to drive him into making absurd answers, and
to refute one's opponent.

Protagoras also wrote avrtkoylat and /caraffaXXovref; ; ^
and the practice of the Sophists, especially in later time,
in trying to be sensational, consisted simply in that art,
which is called Eristic.

Plato's Euthydemus describes with many playful witticisms
the method of Eristic h\ the example of the two brothers
Euth3'demus and Dionysidorus, and Aristotle has taken the
pains to arrange S3'stematicall3' these witticisms in the last book
of tlio Topics (Trept o-ocfiLo-TLKSiv ikeyx'iyv). The greater number of
these witticisms are puns. The ambiguit}^ of the words, of the
cn(hngs, of the S3'ntactical forms, etc., are in the main the basis
of the witticisms (Prantl, Gesch. d. J-^oc/-> !• 20 f.). The great
favor with which these jokes were received in Greece, and espe-

1 Sophist, 251 b.

2 Arist. Met., IT. 2, 998 a, 3.

^ Twv irpos Ti eiuai ttju aKf]deiav. Scxt. Emp. Adv. mafJi., VII. 60.

4 Hero the ambiguity of the copula also plays a part. Lyco])liron
j)r()p()sed to omit the copula.

^ 'J'lie proposition that " man is the measure of all things " is cited as
the be<'-inning of this work, and at the same time as the beginning of a
work, called aX^^eta, which perhaps formed the first part of it.

THE GKEEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 121

cinlly ill Athens, is explained hy the yontliful inclination to
quibble, b}' the soutlnon's fondness for talking, and by the
awakening of reflective criticism upon familiar things of daily
life.

However, this facetious method was unpromising for the
serious progress of science. On the other hand, the con-
victionless attitude of mind that the Sophists designedly or
undesignedly encouraged became a direct menace in its
a])plication upon that domain in which, as their entire
effort showed, they were alone deeply interested, — the
cthico-politicaL Since the time of the Seven Wise Men
(§ 9), the content of moral and civil laws and obedience to
them had been a common subject for reflection. But the
growing individualism, the inspired activity of the Periclean
age, and the anarchy of the Athenian democracy for the
first time brought into question through the Sophists the
justification of tlicse norms. Since here also the individual
man with his temporary desires and needs was declared to
be the measure of all things, the binding power of the law
became as relatively valid as theoretical truth had been.

See H. Sidgwick, The Sophists (Journal of Philology, 1872,
1873) ; A. Harpf, Die Ethik des ProUuioras (Heidelberg, 1884) ;
and the general literature concerning the 8o[)hists and particu-
larlv tliat concerning Socrates. Of the profounder investigations
in which the more important Sophists were largely engaged, almost
nothing is preserved save individual remarks and striking asser-
tions. At most there is the nn'tli of Piotagoras in the dialogue
of that name (320 f.). Perhaps the first half of the second book
of the Heinihlic refers also to something of the same sort. Per-
haps the Soj)hists suffer in this domain, as in theory, from the
fact that we are instructed concerning them only from their
opponents.^

The most important point of view which the Sophists in
this respect set up appeared in their contrast of the natural

^ There is also a fragment found by Fr. Blass (ITniver?;. Sclirijt. Kiel.y
1889) in Jamblichus, Protreptkce oraiiones ad philosophiam, c\\. ?0, who
attributed it to the Sophist Antiphon. . . _

122 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

and social condition of man. From reflection upon the
difference and change not only of legal prescriptions but
also of social rules,i the Sophists concluded that at least a
greater part of these had been established by convention
through human statute (Secret sive vo^xw) ; and that only
such laws were universally binding as were established in
all men equally by nature ((/)uo-et)- The natural therefore
appeared to be of the greater worth, — more nearly per-
manent and more binding than the social. Natural law
seemed higher than liistoric positive law. The more se-
rious Sophists endeavored then further to strip off from
natural morality and natural laws the mass of convention-
alities: Protagoras'^ taught that justice and conscience
(hiKT) and alSco'^) are the gifts of the gods, and are common
to all men ; but neither this nor the assertion of Hippias,
that "law" violently drives^ man to many things that are
contrary to " nature," sets up any thoroughgoing and neces-
sary opposition between the two legislations. But the
more the theory of the Sophists conceived of " nature " as
" human nature," and as " human nature " limited to its
physical, impulsive, and individual aspect, so much the more
did "law" appear a detriment and a limitation of the nat-
ural man. Archelaus, the pupil of Anaxagoras, declared
that social differences do not arise from " Nature." They
are conventional determinations (ou (pvaei, aWa vo^w).^
Plato ^ has Callicles develop the theory that all laws are
created by the stronger, and these laws, on account of need
of protection, the weaker accept. He ^ puts into the mouth

1 Compare IIii)})ias in Xcn. Mem., IV. 4, 14 f.
^ III liis myth roprodiiccul by Plato.

3 riato, Prol., ool V. Similarly, but somewhat more brusquely, Cal-
licU'S expresses himself in Plato, Gonjlas, 482 f.

4 Diog. Laert., II. IG.
^ Loc. cit.

0 Republic, 1, 338 f.

thl: guki:k KNLic.irrENMKNT. 123

of Thrasymachus of Clialcedon a naturalistic psychology of
legislation, according to which the ruler in a natural body
politic would establish laws for his own advantage. In
this spirit Sophistry contended, in part from the point of
view of " natural right," in part from that of absolute
anarchy, against many existing institutions : ^ not only as
the democratic Lycophron against every privilege of the
nobility, or as Alcidamus against so fundamental a prin-
ciple of ancient society as was slavery, but finally even
against all custom and all tradition.'-^ The independence
of individual judgment, Avhich the Enlightenment pro-
claimed, shattered the rule of all authority and dissipated
the content of social consciousness.

In the attacks which already science in its more serious
aspects had directed against religious ideas, it is obvious
that religious authority also would be swept away with the
flood of the Sophistic movement. All shades of religious
freethinking are met with in Sophistic literatui-e : — every-
thing, from the cautious skepticism of Protagoras, who
claimed ^ to know nothing of the gods, to the naturalistic
and anthropological explanations of Critias ^ and Prodicus ^
as to belief in the gods, and even to the outspoken atheism
of a certain Diagoras ^ of Melos.

27. Against the destructive activity of the Sophists ap-
peared the powerful personality of Socrates, who stood
indeed with his opponents upon the common ground of the
Enlightenment, and like them raised to a principle the indc-

1 To some extent with positive propositions whose authors, according
to Aristotle {Pol., If. 8 & 7), were Hippodanius and a certain Phaleas.

2 Compare Arist. Pol, I. 3, 1253 b, 20.

3 Hy reason of the vagueness of the object and the brevity of human
life; compare Diog. Laert., IX. 51.

* Compare the verse in Sext. Em p., IX. 54.
^ Cic. Be nahira deorum, I. 42, 118.
6 Compare Zeller, I*. 864, 1.

124 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

pendent reflection concerning everything given by tradition
and custom. But at the same time he was unshaken in
the conviction that through reflection a universally valid
truth could certainly be found.

The reports of Xenophon/ Plato, and Aristotle are the chief
sources of our knowledge coucerniug Socrates. The remarkably
different light that is cast from such different men upon this
great personality makes him stand out in plastic distinctness.
Xenophon saw more of the sober, practical, and popular side of
the life aud character of the man. Plato, on the contrary, beheld
the height of his imaginatiou, the depth of his spiritual being,
his elevating influence on youthful and highly gifted minds. See
S. Ribbing, Ueber das VerhaUuiss zwischen d. xenojihontischen
u. d. platonisclien Berichteu ilber d. Persdnliclikeit u. d. Lehre
d. So%rates (Upsala, 1870). Xenophon's representation, so far
as the author's knowledge goes, is one of historic fidelit}^, but
it was strongly under the influence of Cynic party prejudice.
Plato's writings, however, place in the mouth of Socrates less
often Socrates' teachings (only in the Apology and the earliest
dialogues) than the consequences that Plato has drawn out of
them. Aristotle's teaching is everywhere authoritative as re-
gards the teachings of Socrates ; for, following Socrates by some-
what of an interval, and uninfluenced by personal relationship,
he was able to set in clear light the essential features of Socrates'
scientific worko

H. Kochly, Sokrates u. sein Volk (in Acad. Vortr. u. Bed., I.
219 f.); E. V. Lasaulx, Des Sokrates Lehen, Lehre ujid Tod
(Miinchen, 1857) ; M. Carriere, Sokrates u. seine Stellung in
der Gescli. des menscJdicheu Geistes (in Westermaiui' s Monats-
heften, 1864) ; E. Alberti, Sokrates, ein Versucli ilber ihn nach
den Qndlen (Gottingen, 1869); E. Chaignet, Vie de Sokrate
(Paris, 1868); A. Labriola, La doctrina di Sokrate (Neapel,
1871) ; A.FomWee, La pJnlos. de Sokrate (Paris, 1873) ; A.Krohn,
Sokrate doctrina e Flatonis repuhlica illustrata (Halle, 1875) ;
AVindelband, Sokrates (in Praeludien, p. 54 f .) ; K. Joel, Der
Echte a. der xenophontische Sokrates, I. (Leipzig, 1892).

1 The Memorabilia arc essential for our consideration of this (sec A.
Krohn, Soc. u. Xen., HalN-, 1874). So is the Sj/mposium. The cinestion
as to the priority of the S//i)iposiu7n of Xenophon or the S>/mposiu7n of
Plato is not yet fully (leci.icd in favor of the former, but is of late
acce[)ted. Compare Ch. V. Compare Sander, Bemerkungen zu Xeno-
phon^s Berichlen, etc. (Magdeburg, 1884).

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 125

Socrates was born hi Athens a little before 409,^ the son
of Sophroniscns, a sculptor, and PhiiMiarete. He learned
the trade ^ of his father, and discrinihuitingly absorbed the
various elements of culture of his time, without ap})lying;
himself to properly erudite studies. Acquaintance with the
methods of instruction of the Sopliists awoke in him the con-
viction of the dangerousness of their tendencies. Against
them he felt himself called by divine direction ^ to a serious
examination'* of himself and his fellow-citizens, and to un-
remitting labor in the direction of moral perfection. He
was moved by a deep religious spirit and an exalted moral
sense in his investigations. He shared with his contem-
poraries an immediate interest in these investigations; and
his own peculiar activity, which began in Athens as early
as the commencement of the Peloponnesian war,^ rests
upon these. He belonged to no school, and it was foreign
to his purpose to found one. With spontaneous feeling,
he sought on the broad public held, which Athenian life
offered, intellectual intercourse with every one. His extra-
ordinary exterior,^ his dry humor, his ready and trium-
phant repartee brought him into universal notice. His
geniality, however, and the fine spiritual nature which lay
hidden in his astonishing shell,''' the unselfishness which
he manifested unstintedly toward his friends, exercised an
irresistible charm upon all the remarkable personalities of
the time, especially upon the better elements of the Athe-

1 He was at his death (399) over seventy years old.

2 Concerning a piece, later on pointed out as one upon which the
young Socrates was said to have wrought, see P. Schuster, Ueher die
Portrdts cler griech. Philos. (Leipzig, 1877).

8 Plato, Apol, 33 c.

* i^eTii^etv cfiavTou Koi Tovy (iWovs I ibid., 28 e.

^ The production of the Clouds, 423, attests his popularity.

^ The humorous characterization of his own Silcnus shape is in Xeno-
phon's Si/mpnsiiim, 4, 19 f.

■^ Compare the beautiful speech of Alcibiadcs in Plato, Si/mposium,
215 f.

126 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

iiiaii youth. While he in this way obeyed higher duty to
the neglect ^ of home cares, in free fellowship a circle of
admirers formed itself around him in which especially the
aristocratic youth were represented in men like xllcibiades.
He held himself as far away from political activity as pos-
sible, but the unavoidable duties of the citizen of a state he
performed with simple integrity .2

At the age of seventy Socrates was accused of " cor-
rupting the youth and introducing new gods." The charges
arose originally from low personal motives,^ but became
serious through political complications,^ in that the aristo-
cratically inclined philosopher, as the most popular and
active " Sophist," was to be made answerable for moral
degeneration by the democratic reactionary party. Not-
withstanding he would have been freed with a small pen-
alty ^ if he himself had not offended ^ the Heliasts by his
candid pride in his virtue. The execution of the sentence
of death was delayed thirty days by the Oewpla to Delos,
and Socrates disdained in his loyalty "* to law the flight so
easily possible to him. He drank the cup of hemlock in
May ,8 399.

1 Concerning; Xantippe, whose name has become proverbial, see
E. Zeller, Zur Ehrenrettung der Xen. (in Vortrag und Abhandlung,
I. p. 51 f).

^ He made three campaigns, and showed himself, as prvtanis, just and
fearless against the excited minds of the masses (see Plato, ApnL, 32 f.).

3 The accusers Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon acted out of personal
animosity, unless they were men of straw (K. F. Hermann, De Soc, accu-
satoribus, Gottingen, 1854).

'* See Grote, History of Greece, VITT. 551 f.

5 The verdict of " guilty " was carried only by a majority of three or
thirty ; the sentence of death had a nnich larger majority (more than
eighty).

* The Apology of Plato may be taken as authentic in its essentials,
' Compare Plato's dialogue, the Crito.

^ Tn respect to the extern:d circumstances of the day of his death,
Plato's dialogue, the Phcvjlo, is certainly historical, although Plato in it

THE GKKKK RNLKJHTKNMENT. 127

An instructor in philosopliy, in the strict sense of the term,
Socrates did not have. He culled himself (Xen. Si/iifposium^
1, 0) avTovfiy6<i. But {ippiireutlv he hud become familiar witii
man}- of the scientific theories, especially with those of Ilera-
cleitus and Anaxagoras, not onh' through the discourses of the
Sophists but through his own readings. (Compare K. F. ITer-
mann, De jS. iiuKji^tris et discq^lbia juveiiiU, Marburg, 1837.)
The process of development portrayed in the Phmdo is scarcely
historical, but can be looked upon as a sketch of the Platonic
theory of ideas. (Compare Zeller, IP. 51.)

Xenophon, as well as Plato, makes Socrates meet persons of
every position, calling, and political complexion in his conver-
sations. His relation to young men was an ethically pedagogical
and morall}' spiritual ennoblement of the Grecian love for boys.
Among the men who made his popular philosophical method
their own are to be named : Xenophon, who stood very near to
the Cynics (compare F. Diimmler, A)itisthenica^ Berl., 1882, and
Acadeinica^ Giessen, 1889) ; also ^schines (not the orator),
who wrote dialogues in the same spirit (K. F. Hermann, De
u^sch. Socratici reliquiis (Gottingen, 1850) ; and the almost
mythical shoemaker Simon (see Bockh, Shmmis Socraticis
dialogic Heidelberg, 1810, and E. Heitz in O. Mtiller's Lit-
tcraturgeschichte^ IP. 2, 25, note 2).

The legal measures against Socrates are open to the most
different constructions. The old view that the philosopher was
ruined through intrigues of the Sophists may be regarded as
given up, and also the conception originated by Hegel {Complete
Works^ II. 560 f.,XIV. 81 f), according to which, as in a tragedy,
Socrates was the champion of the higher Idea, and was ruined
by his unavoidable crime of offending the established laws. These
great antitheses play no part in the trial. It appears, rather, that
through personal and political intrigues Socrates became a
sacrifice for the discontent which the democratic reaction fostered
against the entire Enlightenment. Although presumably unin-
tentionally, nevertheless Aristophanes did a decided injury to
the philosopher in his caricature of him in the Clouds,^ in that
he stamped him in the public mind as a type of precisely those
Sophistic excesses which Socrates fought most vigorously.
(Compare H. Th. Rotscher, Aristophanes und seine Zeitalter,

goes far beyond Socrates in his theory of the immortality of the soul
(compare ApoL, 40 c) not only in his present?ation of evidence, but as to
his personal conviction.

1 Compare especially II. Diels, Verh. d. StelL Phil Vers., 1880,
106 f.

128 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Berlin, 1817; Brandis, in the Rh. Miis., 1828; P. W. Forcli-
hammer, Die Athener unci jSoc, Berlin, 1837 ; Bendixen, Z/eber
den tieferen /Schriftsifm, etc. (liusum, 1838.)

The theory of knowledge of the Sophists had led in all
its parts to a relativism of individual opinions. The effort,
on the other hand, for a stable and universally valid knowl-
edge formed the central point of the activity of Socrates.
The iirto-TTJfjLr} was set in antithesis to the So^ul by him ;
yet the eiriarrnjuT] is not a complete, erudite possession to be
handed down, but an ideal to be striven for in work in com-
mon with other men.

Fr. Schleiermacher, Ueher d. Wert des SoJcrates als Philos. in
Ges. Werk, III. 2, 287 ff.

Socrates did not try, therefore, to impart knowledge or
to give purely formal instruction, but to engage in a mutual
seeking for truth. The basis of this was the conviction
that such a norm of truth existed paramount to individual
opinion. Therefore his activity found its necessary form
in the dialogue, the conversation in w^hich, through the
exchange of opinions and through mutual criticism of these,
that should be found which is recognizable by all. While
the Sophists studied the psychological mechanism by which
opinions come to be, Socrates had faith in a law of reason
that determines the truth. His whole endeavor was only
a continuous invitation to his fellow-citizens to help him in
this search. His confession of his io^norance ^ sii^nified this,
while he also at the same time herein intimated ^ his
failure to attain his ideal of aocpia. Yot he demanded the
same measure of self-knowledge ^ also from others. For

1 Plato, Apol, 21 f. ; Symp., 21G d.

2 Compare Plato, Sipnp., 203 f. In this connection the term (f)i\ocro(f)ia
wins, as contrasted with the more pretentious aocfjia (aocjiiaTTjs), its pecu-
liar meaning, '* striving for knowledge." See Ueberweg, p. 2.

3 Compare the oracular yvwdi creavTovy Xen. Mem., IV. 24 f. ; Plato,
AjmL, 21 f.

THE GKEEK ENLlGHTEKiVlEKT. 129

nothing more dangerous blocked the way of wisdom than
that conceited affectation of wisdom which the Sophistic
half-education developed in the majority of minds. There-
fore his conversation analyzed with exasperating logic the
opinion which at the outset he elicited from others, and in
this superior manipulation of the dialectic consisted the
Socratic irony.^ But after removing this impediment
Socrates, in leading the conversation, sought to draw out
gradually what was common to the participants. In the
persuasion that serious reflection could find such a common
thought, he " delivered " the slumbering thought from the
mind ; and this art he called his maieutic.*^

The method of the Socratic investigation corresponded,
in point of content also, to this external schema. He set
the concept as the goal ^ of scientific work over against
the single ideas given by individual perception. When
therefore Socrates in general aimed at definition, he
came into contact with the efforts of the Sophists * who had
busied themselves in fixing the meanings of words. But
he on his part went much deeper, in the hope of grasping
the essence of fact and the law governing single cases and
relationships by the application of this universal principle.
In making the answer to the particular question from which
the conversation proceeded depend ^ on the general defini-
tion to be sought, he was making man conscious of the law
of logical dependence of the particulars upon the universal,
and exalting that law to the principle of the scientific
method. In the search for universal concepts Socrates still

1 riato, Eep., I. 337 a.

2 With reference to the profession of his mother; Plato, TTiecet., 149 f.
» Arist. Met., XII. 4, 1078b, 17 : to 6plC((rdai KadoXov. The tech-
nical expression for the concept is, in this connection, \6yoS'

* Particularly with Prodicus, with whom his relations were uniformly
friendly.

6 Xen. Mem., IV. 13.

■s

130 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

remained strongly fixed in the habits of naive reflection.
For the inductive procedure, the introduction of which is
accredited to him,^ consisted in the comparison of arbitra-
rily collated particular cases, by means of which, however,
a complete induction could not be guaranteed. But, never-
theless, the Socratic method was a distinct advance over the
entirely unmethodical generalizations, which earlier think-
ers had drawn from single observations or thought motifs.
It began, moreover, to set a methodical treatment in the
place of ingenious fancies.

P. J. Ditges, Die epagogische Methode des S. (Cologne,
1864) ; J. J. Guttmann, Weber den wisseiischaftlichen Stand-
pu7ikt des /S. (Brieg, 1881). Examples of the Socratic method
are to be found in the Memorahilia of Xenophon and in most
of the dialogues of Plato. Socrates did not advance to a defi-
nite formulation of methodical principles, but his entire activity
has given them distinctly the character of an inspired insight.

The realm to which Socrates applied this method of the
inductive definition of concepts included — as in the case
of the Sophists — essentially the problems of human life.
For, as his search for conceptual truth was rooted in the
strength of his moral conviction, science and moral self-
culture were to him in the last instance identical. The
universally valid truth, which he said was to be found by
means of conversation, is the clearness and certainty of
moral consciousness.

The limitation of philosoph}' to ethics, and on the other hand
the establishment of scientific ethics, passed even in antiquity
as the essential characteristic of the Socratic teaching. (See
Zeller, IP. 132 f. ). Neither the poetic license, with which
Aristophanes (in the Clouds) made of him a star-gazer, nor the
passages in the later Platonic dialogues {Phcedo and Philebus)^
in which a teleological nature-philosophy is put into his mouth,
nor, finally, the very homel}^ utilitarian theory, presumably after-
ward revised ^ by the Stoics, which the Memorabilia makes him

1 Arist. Met.^ 1. c. ^ See A.Krohn, Xen. u. Soc. (Halle, 1874).

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 131

develop, — none of these can liave weight against the veiy defi-
nite expressions of Xenophon (J/^.m., I. 1,11) and Aristotle
{j\fct., I. G, 987 b, 2). On the other liand, liis aversion to
natural science was not in the spirit of Skepticism, but due to
the deficiency of science in ethical value. A universal faith in
the teleological arrangement of the world and in a Providence
over mankind remained side by side with this aversion. See con-
clusion in Plato's Apology, in Euthyphro^ etc.

In this specific ethical turn, Socrates followed, however,
a psychological principle, which expresses the rationalistic
character of the Enlightenment in its purity. It is the
formula of the identity of virtue and knoivledge} In the
complicated relationships of civilized life the habitual ob-
servance of national conventions had become insufficient.
In the confusion of public life, where one thing was com-
mended here, another there, every one felt that he needed
knowledge and judgment for making correct decisions.
In the increasing competition in civilization the well-in-
formed 2 man proved himself to be the abler in all depart-
ments of life. Socrates expressed himself most clearly as
to this condition, when he, applying the case to morals,
declared that true virtue consists in knowing, and that right
knowing leads always of itself to right acting. Thereby
to know the Good was elevated to the essence of morality
and reflection to the principle of living. Philosophy, as
Socrates understood it, was the independent meditation of
reasoning man upon that law of goodness valid for all
alike. Knowledge is a moral possession, and the common
striving for it he designated as a process of mutual help-
fulness 3 under the name epco?. On the other hand, this

1 See Xen. Mem., III. 9, 4.

2 Ibid., 9, 10 ff.

8 This is the Socratic concept of epcos, whose extreme importance
appears in the fact that not only Plato and Xenophon, but also other
friends within the Socratic circle, have written about it. Compare
Brandis, Uandhuch, II, 1, 64.

132 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

point of view involved a deterministic and intellectual con-
ception of the will, which makes moral excellence depend-
ent upon intellectual culture, and in general the decision of
will exclusively dependent on the clearness and ripeness
of the insight. When he asserted that all evil action pro-
ceeds only out of a deficient insight,^ this is the same as
proclaiming entirely in the spirit of the Enlightenment that
knowledge is the ethical ideal. For Socrates all other
virtues accord with the fundamental virtue, eTrLarrj^T]^
and possessing this all the others are attainable and
teachable. The process begun at the time of the Seven
Wise Men was completed in these definitions of Socrates ;
and the norms of universal consciousness, after they had for
a time been imperilled by individual criticism, during the
wild anarchy of opinions were again found by rational re-
flection and by the recognition of the universal validity
therein involved.

The question of the teachableness of virtue is treated in a most
engaging dialectic in the dialogue Protagoras^ while the other I
dialogues of Plato's earliest period have for their common theme
the reduction of the single virtues to the fundamental virtue of
knowledge. These are JEiUhyphro^ Laches, Charrnides^ and
Lysis. Compare F. Dittrich, JOe 8. sententia virtutem esse
scientia?n (Braunsberg, 1868) and particularly T. Wildauer,
Lie Psycholoyie des W'dlens hei Sokrates^ Platon und Aris- >
toteles, Fart 1. (Innsbruck, 1877). Besides, the determinism of ,
Socrates stands in a close relation to his eudaemonism (see
below). For the proposition that no one will freely do wrong
is founded upon the same basis with that proposition that if
one has recognized what is good for him it would be impossible
for him to choose the opposite against his own interest. Com-
pare Xen. Mem., IV. 6, G; Arist. Magn. Moral.^ I. 9, 1187 a,
17.

In the realm of ethics, moreover, Socrates stopped at
this most general suggestion without developing syste-

1 Xen. Mem., III. 9.

2 Til Xenopbon one still finds the word ao(f)ta for this ; see Mem.f

111. 9.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 13

matically that kind of knowing (Wlsseri') in which vir-
tue was said to consist. For the distinctive trait of the
activity of Socrates was that he never lost sight of the
given conditions. Therefore the question, " What tlicn is
the Good ? " always became the question as to what is
the Good in a particular respect and for a particular indi-
vidual ;i and the answer was always found in the suitable,
in that which perfectly satisfies the striving of man and
makes him happy. According to the grosser 2 interpreta-
tion of Xcnophon, Socrates' ethical theory was utilitarian-
ism, and the value of virtue founded on knowing sank to
the prudential cleverness of acting in every case according
to correct knowledge {Erkenntnis) of expediency. The finer
presentation of Plato refers, liowever, this co(f>e\L/jLov, which
is assumed as identical with koXov and a<ya66v, to the
health of the soul,^ to its furtherance toward a true state
of perfection. In both cases, nevertheless, intellectual
virtue is identified with happiness."* Right action, toward
which insight guides, makes man happy. The fundamental
conception of ethics in Socrates is thoroughly eudeemonis-
tic, and ancient philosophy did not pass beyond this point.

Compare M. Heinze, Der Euddmonismus in der griech.
Fhilos. (Leipzig, 1883) ; Zeller, IP. 149 f. In all particulars
the Socratic morals remained essentiall}' within the compass of
Greek social-consciousness.^ It sought to find a basis in the

1 Mem., III. 8.

2 In whose writings, in one passage, it would appear that Socrates
agreed in morals with the relativism of the Sophists: Mem., III. 8,
TTavra dyada koL KoXd ecTTL npos a av €V i^rj^ '^"'^" ^^ '^^'^ alcrxpa npos a av

KaKCOS.

8 Particularly note the representation of the Phcedo.

* Xen. Mem., TV. 1, 2.

5 To be excepted is only the prohibition of doing evil to an enemy.
If here the contradiction between Plato's and Xenophon's representa-
tions is irreconcilable, we are inclined to regard Plato's report as the
true one : for the Crito, which treats this prohibition as one already long

134 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

reverent recognition of divine law and established usage. Par-
ticularly Socrates liiinself, the model of noble and pure morals,
gave high place to civic virtue, to submission to the laws of the
state. In the state, however, he would have not the masses, but
the good and intelligent, rule (Xen. 3Iem., III. 9, 10).

Socrates personally supplemented his indifference to
metaphysical and physical theories by a deep and religious
piety, which led him to believe in the rule of the divine es-
sence in nature and in human life. He likewise supple-
mented the rationalistic one-sidedness of his ethics by his
unswerving faith in obedience to the divine voice, which he
believed he heard in himself as haiixoviov.

Likewise in the development of this thought, Xenophon, pro-
vided the extant form of the 3Iemorabilia comes from him,
stood at the point of view of commonplace utility, while Plato's
Apology represents faith in Providence in a high ethical light.
In Socrates the rejection of nature knowledge comes about from
the fact that such knowledsje contains trifles that waste our
time.^ On the other hand, there was the interest of piety, which
led ^ him to require a teleological view of the cosmos. It is im-
probable that he gave an exhaustive development of it, because
(Mem.f I. 4, and IV. 3) Socrates usually was most prudently
reserved on such questions. Even Monotheism he by no means
emphasized sharpl3\ He speaks mostly of " the Gods," both in
Xenophon and Plato, and no enem}' ever once charged him with
disavowing "the Gods." ^ Concerning the Satixovtov, compare
Ueberweg, 1^. 107, and Zeller, IP. 74.

Regarded on the whole, the activity of Socrates, in that
he set up the ideal of reason as against relativism, was an
attempt to reform the life morally by means of science.
The success of his teaching led among the best friends of

recognized in the Socratic circle, though indeed at variance with popu-
lar opinion, clearly l)clongs to tlic earliest writings of Plato.

1 Xen. Mem., I. 1, and IV. 7.

2 Ibid., I. 4, and IV. 3.

^ lie was reproached with introducing a new divine being, and his
enemies appeared to be aiming especially at the daifioviov.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 135

^fhc philosopher to the highest achievements of ancient
culture. The principle of rellective introspection, however,
which was thus victoriously awakened, and the enthusiasm
with which Socrates turned his meditations from the charm
of external existence to the value of the intellectual life,
were in the Grecian world a new and strange thing. At
this point of view the philosophy embodied by him detached
itself from its background of culture and took other shape.
28. Under the name " Socratics " a number of schools
are usually grouped, which, founded by men of more or less
close association with Socrates, stepped forth, directly after
his death, with opinions that belonged in their direction and
content entirely to the Greek Enlightenment. If we look,
nevertheless, more closely, we see that these men and their
teaching have a much nearer relationship to the Sophists ^
than to Socrates ; and that, especially in the development
of these schools, the '' Socratic element," which to some
degree was still present in Euclid, Antisthenes, and Aris-
tippus, vanishes more and more from sight. These so-
called " Socratic schools " should rather be viewed as
branches of Sophism which were touched by the Socratic
spirit. There were four such schools : the Megarian and
the Elean-Eretrian, the Cynic and the Cyrenaic. Among
these the Cvnics stand nearest to Socrates.

K. F. Hermann, Die 2?hiIos. Stellung der alteren SoJcratiker
u. ihrer ScJinhm (in Ges. Ab/ia?icll., Gottingen, 18-i9, p. 227 f.) ;
Th. Zuglcr, Gesch. d. Ethik, I. 145.

The founder of the Megarian school, Euclid, believed in
his ability to give content to the Eleatic concept of Being,
by identifying it with the Socratic concept of the Good.
Yet no victory over the abstract sterility of the Parme-
nidean principle was won by this method. For even if

1 Aristotle calls {Mel., 11. 2, 996 a, 33), for example, Aristippus a
Sophist, and with justice.

136 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Euclid defined ^ the Good as the one ever immutable ^
Being, which is given ^ different names by men ; even if he
characterized the different virtues only as the changing
names of the one uncliangeable virtue, that is, of knowing,
which was thus identified with Being as among the Eleatics ;
even if he thereby refused^ reality to all concepts other
than to that of the Good ; — nevertheless all this led
neither to the construction of an ethics nor to an enrich-
ment of theoretical knowledge, but gave evidence of a con-
tinuation of unfruitful dialectic in the direction of Eleatic
Sophistry. The Megarians, therefore, accomplished noth-
ing in the realm of ethics. The only one of them to whom
political teachings are ascribed was Stelpo, the later head
of the school, who, however, in this respect had entirely
adopted the views of the Cynics. In metaphysics the
Megarians were satisfied with the assertion of the unity of
that which possesses Being, and with an indirect proof of
that assertion resembling the Eleatic argumentations. In
this spirit Diodorus Cronus added ^ to the arguments of
Zeno new ones which were indeed less significant and far
more captious. In these the impossibility of constructing
a continuum out of a sum of discrete quantities again
played the chief role. There was a similar tendency mani-
fested in the investigations of the Megarians concerning the
categories of modality. For the assertion that only the
actual ^ is possible, and the famous proof (^Kvptevaw) "^ of
Diodorus Cronus — that the unactual, which has demon-

1 Diog. Laert., YII. IGl.

2 Cicero, Acad., II. 42, 129.
8 Diog. Laert , IL 106.

^ Ibid.: compare Euseb. Prc^p. ev., XIV. 17.

5 Preserved in Sext. Emp. Adv. math., X. 85 f.

c Arist. Met., VIIL S, 104G b, 29.

■^ Compare Cicero, De fato, 6, 12 f. Later pliilosoplicrs, particularly
Clirvsippus, have definitely declared their positions with reference to
this argument.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 137

stratcd itself through its unactuality to be impossible, may
not be called possible — ])oiiit only in a rather abstract
way to the refutation of Becoming and change.^

Compjire F. Bej'cks, Die Megaricorum doctrina (Bonn,
1827) ; llcnne, tcole cle Ilegare (Paris, 1843) ; Mallet, His-
toire de Vecole de Megare et des ecoles d'Mis et d J^retrie
(Paris, 1845).

We can only speak in general of the dates of the life of
Euclid of Megara, one of the oldest and truest friends that
Socrates had. He was not much 3'ounger than Socrates, yet he
considerabl}^ outlived him, and opened after the death of the
master his hospitable house to his friends. About this time a
school formed itself around him, and it appears to have re-
mained intact through the fourth centur}'. Of the most of
those who are mentioned as adherents of this school, we know
only the names. Particulars are reported only of Eubulides of
Miletus, the teacher of Demosthenes, of Diodorus Cronus, of
lasus in Caria (d. 307), and especially of Stilpo, who was a
native of Megara (Diog. Laert., II. 113 f.). Stilpo lived from
380 to 300, and aroused universal admiration by his lectures.
He linked the INIegarian dialectics to the Cynic ethics, and deci-
sivel}' influenced thereby his chief pupil, Zeno, the founder of
Stoicism. His younger contemporary was Alexinus of Elis.

The most important controversial question arising in refer-
ence to the Megarian school concerns the hypothesis set up by
Schleiermacher (in his translation of Plato, V. 2, 140 f.) and
opposed b}^ Ritter {Ueher d. Philos. der meg. Schule, Hhein.
Mus., 1828) and Mallet (loc. cit. XXXIV. f.), accepted by most
others, including Brandis and Prantl, and defended by Zeller
(P. 215 f.). This hypothesis is to the effect that the represen-
tation of the theor}' of Ideas in the dialogue, the SojjJiist (246 b,
248 f.), refers to the Megarians. If one is convinced that
this dialogue is genuinel}^ Platonic, it is diflicult to provide for
this theory of Ideas. For to presuppose an}' kind of an other-
wise unknown school (Ritter) as the author of so significant a

^ Since Aristotle cites the proposition as Megarian, that only the
actual is the possible, it can scarcely have arisen from the polemic
against the Aristotelian categories dvvafiis and ivepyeia. But possibly
the later Megarians, for example Diodorus, developed it in this direction.
Compare Hartenstein, Ueher die Bedeutung der megarisclien Schulejur
die GescJdcJite der metapliysischen Probleme (in Hist, philos. Ahhand-
lungen^ 127 f.).

138 HlSTOliY OF AMCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

s^'stem as that of the dcruy/xara £(,'877, is forbidden because Aristotle
{Met. , I. 6 ; Nic. Eth. , I. 4) designated Plato distinctly as the
inventor of the same. It is certainly very far from having any
place in the Socratic schools. But the teaching is even as little
consistent with what has been at other times confidenth' ascribed
to the Megarians as with the teaching of any one of the other
schools. In no place is there a single indication of it. It
stands in so abrupt opposition especially to the abstract theory
of Being of the Megarians, that we do not avoid the difficulty
by taking for granted a gradual development within the school.^
On the other hand, it may be shown that the description^
which the dialogue, the Sophist, gives of this theory of Ideas,
agrees completely and even verbally with that phase of the
Platonic philosophy expressed in the St/mposiiwi.^ There is,
accordingly, nothing left but either accept Plato as opposed to
an earlier phase of his own teaching and its (^tA.01, or to find
the author of this criticism of the Platonic philosophy in an
Eleatic contemporary of Plato. (For details, see Ch. V.) In
neither case can the theor}^ of Ideas treated in the passage in
the Sophist, nor the developed theory of knowledge connected
closely with it and completely Platonic in character, be ascribed
to the Megarians. This theory in the Sophist amounts to a
sensuous knowledge of yeVecrt?, or a knowledge of the corporeal
world plus a conceptual knowledge of ovcria, which is a knowl-
edge of the non-corporeal Ideas.

The only remaining feature worthy of comment in regard
to the Megarian school is its development of the Sophistic
art of Eristic. Its abstract theory of unity involved a
skepticism regarding all concrete knowledge and a nega-
tive trend in its instruction. The prominent fact in re-

^ Zeller seems to believe (IP. 261) that the Euclidean theory of
Ideas was given up in the course of the development of the school to
satisfy the theory of unity. Since the latter theory had been given
from the very beginning in the form of Eleaticism there must then be
expected conversely a gradual division of the Eleatic One into a plural-
ity of Ideas and this is precisely what Plato accomplished.

2 See E. Appel, Arch. f. Gesch. d. Ph., V. 55 f.

3 In this connection there is hardly an allusion to Ideas as causes of
the phenomenal world. Zeller, I^. 31 G. The ovaia as alria is first intro-
duced in the Phcedo, Philebus, and the latter parts of the Republic.
See Ch. V.

THE GliEEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 139

spcct to Euclid is that he in polemics followed the method ^
of neglecting proofs and even premises, and leaped directly
to tlie conclusion by means of reductio ad ahsurdum. Stilpo
accepted the Sophistic-Cynic assertion, that according to
the law of identity a predicate different from the subject
cannot be ascribed to the subject. The younger members,
Eubulidcs and Alexinus,^ got their notoriety by inventing
the so-called " catches." These are questions put in such
a way that no one of the possible disjunctive answers can
be given without involving a contradiction.

See Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, I. 33 f. ; Diog. Laert., 11. 168,
enumerates seven of these "catches," — the Liar, then three
practically identical ones, the Concealed, the Disguised, and
the Elect ra^ and further the Horned Man, and finally the Heap
(Sorites) and the Bald-head, which positively and negatively
suggest the acerrus of Zeno (§ 20). As was the case with the
Sophistic witticisms, these were in the main reducible to verbal
ambiguities. The livel}- interest that antiquity had in them was
almost wholly pathological.

Still less significant was the Elean-Eretrian school, which
was founded by Phaedo, Socrates' favorite scholar, in his
native city Elis. Later it was transferred by Menedemus
to his home, Eretria, where it died out about the beginning
of the third century. It appears to have taken a similar
line of development as the Megarian school and Phaedo
agreed with Euclid '^ in all essentials. Menedemus, who
received instruction in the Academy and from Stilpo, co-
operated with Stilpo in turning the school toward Cynic
ethics. Both schools merged finally, like the Cynic, in the
Stoa.

1 Diog. Lacrt., IL 107.

2 Whose name was facetiously perverted into 'EXey^luos: Diog.
Laert., H. 109.

8 Presumably lie had received powerful influence from Euclid dur-
ing his stay in Megara,

140 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Compare Mallet (see above) ; L. Preller, Phcedon^s Lehens-
scliicksale unci Schriften {Ersch und Gruher^ III. 21. 357 f.) ; v.
Wilamowitz-Mollendorf {Hermes^ 1879).

Phaedo, when very young, was taken into captivitj' b}' the Athe-
nians, and not long before Socrates' death he was, at the insti-
gation of Socrates, freed from slaver}^ b}' one of his friends.
The genuineness of the dialogues ascribed to him was earl}' very
much in doubt. At any rate, as little from the literar}' activity
of this school is preserved as from that of the Megarians.
Menedemus, who is said to have died soon after 271 at the age
of seventj'-four, had (Diog. Laert., II. 125 f.) raised himself
from a very low position to one of considerable authority. It is
now impossible to determine whether his apparently loose and
transitory relation to the Academ}^ was a fact. Onl}^ the names
of the other members of the school are preserved.

29. Notably more important are the two schools existing
immediately after Socrates and not uninfluenced by his
ethical doctrine. In these, the Cynic and Cyrenaic, the
opposition as to both moral and social conceptions of life
took definite form. They had in common an indifference
for theoretic science and a desire to concentrate philosophy
upon the art of living. Common also was the origin of
their philosophy from the Sophistic circle ; and they found
partial support in the formulations of Socrates. They
were, however, diametrically opposed in their conception of
the place of man and his relation to society. This re-
mained a typical opposition for the whole ancient world.
Both theories as the result of the cultural and philosoph-
ical impulse given by the Sophists reveal the disposition
of the Grecian world toward the value which civilization
possesses in its control of individual impulses. This com-
mon problem put the same limits upon their endeavors in
spite of their different conclusions.

Tlie Cynic school was called into life by Antisthenes of
Athens, and maintained its popularity on account of the
original character, Diogenes of Sinope. Among its more
distant followers may be named Crates of Thebes, his wife
Hipparchia, and her brother Metrocles.

THE GREEK KNLrOIITENMENT. 141

Antisthenes, born about 440, was not a fiill-bloodcd Athenian.
He had entered the Sophistic profession of teaching as the pupil
of Gorgias, before he came under the infhience of Socrates,
whose active admirer he became. After the death of Socrates
he founded a school in the gymnasium Cynosarges, which he
administered for quite a time. Of his numerous writings
(Diog. Laert., VI. 15 f.) only a few fragments are preserved, —
collected b}' A. W. Winckelmann (Zurich, 1842). Compare
Chappius, Antisthme (Paris, 1854) ; K. Barlen, Antisthenes u.
Platan (Neuwied, 1891) ; K. Urban, Ueher die JEncahnungen
der Philos. des Antisthenes in den platojiischen jSchri/ten
(Konigsberg, 1882) ; F. Diimmler, Antisthenica (Halle, 1882)
and^lAv/dem<X-6« (Giessen, 1889); E. Norden, i^ezYm^/e 2. Gesch.
d.gr. Ph., 1-4.

Diogenes, the 2(j)KpdTr]s fxatvoixevos, fled as a counterfeiter from
his home to Athens, and ornamented his proletariat and queer
existence with the wisdom of Antisthenes. He claimed to put
the theory of his teacher consistently into practice. In old age
he lived as tutor in the house of Xeniades in Corinth, and died
there in 323. Compare K. W. Gottling, Diogenes der Kyniker
oderd. Phil, desgr. Proletariats ( Geschich. AbhandL, I. 251 f.) ;
K. Steinhart [Erscli u. Gridjer^ I. 25, 301 f.)

Crates of Thebes, nearly contemporary of Stilpo, is said to
have given awa}^ his property in order to dedicate himself to
the Cj'uic life. His rich and nobly connected w-ife followed
him into a beggar's existence. Anecdotes onl}' are preserved
concerning his brother-in-law, Metrocles. Cynicism continued
later as a popular moralizing instruction ; for example in Teles,
whom V. Wilamowitz-Mollendorf treats {Philol. Untersuchungen,
TV. 292 f.), and whose fragments have been published by 0.
Hense (Freiburg, 1889). Later do we find Cynicism in Bion of
Borysthenes, whose sermons greatl}^ influenced later literature
(Horace),^ as upon the other hand the satires of the Phoenician
Menippus, which breathe the Cynic spirit, influenced Varro.
See Zeller, IP. 246, 3.

As only the Good was Being for the Megariaiis, for
the Cynics virtue appeared to be the only legitimate con-
tent and purpose of life. With similar Eleatic one-sided-
ness they remained averse to all other ideals and disdain-
ful of them. They taught indeed, like Socrates, that virtue
consists in knowing, and yet they emphasized the practical

^ Compare R. Heinzc, De Horatio Bionis imitatore (Bonn, 1889).

142 HISTORY O^ ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

side, that is, right action, and especially the consistent
carrying out of moral principles ^ in life. They like-
wise attributed only so much value, therefore, to scien-
tific investigations as those investigations serve ethical
purposes.

It is to be added that in its epistemology also this school
stood entirely upon the ground of Sophistic skepticism.
It indeed sounds to some degree Socratic for Antisthenes
to demand ^ the explanation of the permanent essence of
things by definition. Yet in his development of this pos-
tulate he fell back upon the opinion of Gorgias that of no
subject can an attribute differing in any way from it be
predicated. He made it equivalent to the statement that
only identical judgments are possible.^ Accordingly only
the composite are definable ;^ all simple things, on the other
hand, can be indicated ^ only by their peculiar individual
names, which, however, do not explain the essence of the
fact itself. Thus their theory of knowledge reduced itself
to bare skepticism ; and it also manifested itself in Antis-
thenes adopting the Sophistic teaching that a contradic-
tion is wholly impossible.^

1 Even in tlie character of Antisthenes this consistency, this serious
and strict adherence to principles, was the central point. Diogenes
intended assuredly to outdo him in this respect.

2 To hira belongs the definition Xoyos eo-riv 6 to ti rju rj eari dijX^v.

^ That the place in the So])hist, 251 b, refers to Antisthenes, Aristotle
teaches in Metaphysics, IV. 29, 1024 b, 32.

4 Compare Aristotle, ibid., VII. 3, 1043 b, 24.

^ The logically central truth of the Cynic teaching appears in the
Platonic statement (Thecet., 201 f.). This truth is that the ultimate
terms (to. irpwra) by which all else may be defined are themselves not
definable or reducible to something else. This opinion is closely joined
with that wh'uh looks upon these last elements of concepts as the
a-TOLxiia, by which all things are really constituted. This is a view
which in a certain sense sounds like the homoiomeriai of Anaxagoras,
and also like the Platonic theory of Ideas.

6 Arist. Met., IV. 29, 1024 b, 34.

TllK GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT 143

This purely Sophistic limitation of knowledge to nomenclature
had taken on as a most obvious nominalism a distinct polemical
tendency against the theory of Ideas. The old tradition placed
in the mouths of Antisthenes and Dioi>;enes roui>h and coarse
ridicule of the Platonic tlieor}' (r/javre^wi/ opoj, T/jaTre^oTT/ra ^\)vx
of)u), Diog. Laert., VI. 53; compare Schol. in An'M., Gij b, 45,
etc. ; Zeller, IP. 255) ; for these leaders of the Cynics onl}'
single things existed m natura rerum. The class concepts are
onl}' names without content. At the same time it is evident
that, since the essence of a thing did not seem to them logicall}''
determinable, thej' claimed that it was producible only in sense
perception. Thus they fell into the coarse materialism which
regards a thing as actual only as the thing can be held in the
hand. Presumabh' this fact is meant in the Sophist^ 246 a ;
Themtetus^ 155 e, Phwdo^ 79 f. Compare Natorp, Forschungen^
198 f.

So much the more was the science of these men limited
to their theoretically meagre doctrine of virtue. Virtue,
and it alone, is sufficient to satisfy all strivings for happi-
ness. Virtue is not only the highest, but the only good, —
the only certain means of being happy. Over against this
spiritual and therefore sure possession, which is protected
against all the changes of the fateful world, the Cynics
despised all that men otherwise held dear. Virtue alone
is of worth ; wickedness alone is to be shunned ; all else is
indifferent {jL^id<\>opov)} From this principle they taught
the contempt of riches and luxury, of fame and honor, of
sense-pleasure and sense-pain. But with this radical con-
sistency, Avhich ever grew sharper with them, they also
despised all the joy and beauty of life, all shame and con-
ventionality, family and country.

The obtrusive moralization of these philosophical beggars
appears mainly in their coarse witticisms ; and ver}' many anec-
dotes relate to Diogenes. There is very little of serious inves-
tigation in their moralizing. Antisthenes appears to assert the
worthlessness of pleasure, perhaps against Aristippus, and to
have sought to demonstrate that man with such a conviction,
even if it be not entirely right, would be proof against the

1 Diog. Laert., VI. 105.

144 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

slavery of sense pleasure.^ In Diogenes this disgust of all
external goods grew to the philosophical grim humor of a prole-
tarian, who has staked his cause on nothing. Irrespective of
the mental culture to which, so far as it concerns virtue, he
ascribed some worth, ^ he contended against all the devices of
civilization as superfluous, foolish, and dangerous to virtue.
Most dubious in all this was the shamelessness of which the
Cynics were guilty, and their intentional disregard of all the con-
ventions of sexual relations ; similar too was their indifference
to the family life and to the state.^ For the cosmopolitanism in
which Diogenes took pride * had not the positive content of a
universal human ideal, but sought only to free the individual
from every limitation imposed upon him by civilization. In
particular, the Cynics fought against slavery as unnatural and
unjust, just as already the Sophists had fought. On the other
hand, it must not remain unnoticed that'Antisthenes/ in defiance
of the judgment of Greek society, declared that work is a good.
Cynicism finally reckoned also religion among the a8ta</)opa. All
mythical ideas and religious ceremonies fall under the class of
the conventionally determined, the unnatural, and are excusable
only because they may be regarded as allegorical expressions of
moral concepts. Positive^ the Cynics represented an abstract
monotheism which finds in virtue the true worship of God.

The fundamental purpose of Cynicism in all these deter-
minations is to make man entirely independent. The wise
man to whom virtue, once gained,^ is a permanent'' pos-
session, stands in his complete self-sufficiency ^ over against

1 See Arist. Elh. Nic, X. 1, 1172 a, 31; on the contrary, Plato
(Phileb., 44 b) can hardly be regarded as referring to Antisthenes
(Zeller, 11^. 308, 1). It is probable that places like the Republic, 583 f.,
refer to Democritus. See below, § 33 and § 31.

^ Diog. Laert., VI. C8, and elsewhere.

8 From Diogenes on, the Cynics had wives and children in common.
(Ibid., 72.) This is only one of the instances that they manifested of
a levelling radicalism (in distinction from Plato).

* Loc. cit. 63: see ibid., 11, 38, 72, 98.

5 Ibid., 2.

^ It can also be teachable, but more through practice than through
scientific instruction. Ibid., 105 f., 70.

7 Xen. Mem., 1, 2, 19.

^ Diog. Laert., VI. 11 f.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT 145

the great mass of fools. His reward is the perfect inde-
pendence in which he is equal ^ to the undcsiring gods.
In order to be as independent of external goods as possible,
he reduces his needs to those most external. The less
one needs, the hap[)ier2 one is. The Cynic Wise Man feels
liimself free from society also; he sees through its preju-
dices ; he despises ^ its talk ; its laws and its conventions
do not bind him. The independent lordship of the vir-
tuous Wise Man does not need civilization and casts it
aside. The Sophistic opposition of c^uo-t? and vofio^ is
constructed into a principle, and all human limitation by
statute is unnatural, superfluous, and in part corrupting.
From the midst of the fulness and beautv of Greek civiliza-
tion, the Cynic preaches the return to a state of nature
which would avoid all the dangers of civilization indeed, but
would forfeit all its blessings.

30. The joyous wisdom of the life of the Cyrenaics formed
the completest antithesis to the morose seriousness of the
virtue of the Cynics. The leader of this school was
Aristippus of Cyrene, a man of the world, who once
belonged to the Socratic circle, but at other times led a
wandering life as a Sophist. Through his daughter Arete
his conception of life passed down to his grandson, the
younger Aristippus. Soon after this the school branched
out with the special interpretations which men like
Theodorus the atheist, Anniceris, and Hegesias gave to
the Aristippian principle. Among later representatives
Euemerus is to be mentioned.

1 Diog. Laert., VI. 51.

2 See the self-description of Antisthenes in Xenophon's Symposium,
4, 34 f. In this respect Cynicism showed that Eudtemonism is logically
absence of need. From the eudaemonistic point of view, then, the goal is
the renunciation and sup])ression of all avoidable desire.

^ Thus Diogenes accepted the designation of Kvav, which was origi-
nally a witticism in reference to the seat of the school, the gymnasium,
Cynosargus.

146. HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

The years of the birth and death of Aristippns cannot be
very exactly determined ; his life included from thirty to forty
years in the fifth and fourth centuries (435-360). When he was
young he was influenced to come to Athens by the fame of
Socrates, and often during the course of his life did he return to
that city. That he for some time lived in Syracuse in the court
of the older and younger Dionysius, that he probably met Plato
there, cannot well be doubted. The founding of his school in
his native city, the rich and luxurious Cyrene, occurred prob-
ably at the end of his life, since all the known adherents to
the school were considerably 3'ounger than he. Compare H. v.
Stein, De vita Aristippi (Gottingen, 1855), also his Geschiclite
des Platoyiismus, 11. 6 Of.

The technical development of the theory ^ seems to have been
completed by the grandson (/xT^rpoStSaKros), of whom nothing
further is known. Theodorus was driven out of his home,
Cyrene, soon after the death of Alexander the Great. He lived
in exile for some time in Athens and at the court of Eg3'pt, but
he returned finally to Cyrene. Anniceris and Hegesias (Treio-t-
0dvaTo<i) were contemporaries of Ptolemaeus Lagi. Hegesias
wrote a treatise the title of which Cicero mentioned as 'A-n-oKap-
T€po)u ( Tusc, I. 34, 84). Euemerus, probably of Messene (about
300), set his views forth in what were well known to antiquit}'
as the lepa avaypa^-q. Compare O. Sieroca, De Euemey^us (Konigs-
berg, 1869).

The smaller fragments are in Mullach, II. 397 f. Compare J.
F. Thrige, Res Cyrenesium (Copenhagen, 1878) ; A. Wendt,
De phUos. Cyrenaica.iGfOitmgQn, 1841); Wieland (Arisfip.,
4 A^ols., Leipzig, 1800 f.) also gives a graceful and expert
exposition.

In his theory of life, Aristippns followed closely the
teaching of Protagoras,^ just as Antisthenes followed the
direction of Gorgias. Indeed he developed the relativism
of the Protagorean theory of perception to a remarkably
valuable psychology of the sense feelings. Sense percep-
tion instructs us only as to our own states {irdOrj)^^ and is

1 According to Eusebius, Prcep. ev., XIV. 18, 31. Compare, besides,
Zeller, IP. 344.

^ Which was communicated to him perhaps by his fellow-citizen, the
mathematician Theodorus (compare Plato, Themtetus).

8 Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 191 f.

THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT 147

not concerned with the causes of those states (ra ireiroir]-
Kora TCL TTciOrji). The causes are not recognizable ; our
knowledtic directs itself only to the chani>:es of our own
essence, and these alone concern us. Sensations, since
they are a consciousness of our own condition, are always
true.^ In this spirit the Cyrenaics assumed an attitude of
skeptical indifference to natural science. They followed
Protagoras in the individualistic turn of this theory when
they asserted that the individual knows only his own
sensations, and common nomenclature is no guarantee of
similarity in the content of the thought.

That these epistemological investigations of the school of
Aristippus were used for a basis of their ethics but did not evoke
their ethics, is proved for the most part by the subordinate posi-
tion which they received in the later systematizations of the
school. According to Sextus Empiricus {Adv. math.^ VII. 11),
the treatment at this time was divided into five parts : concern-
ing good and evil ; concerning the states of the soul {irdOrj) ;
concerning actions ; concerning external causes ; and, finally,
concerning the criteria of truth (/rt'o-rei?).

However, the fundamental problem of the Cyrenaics
(as of the Cynics) was that concerning the real happiness
of man, and they emphasized simply the included moment
of pleasure or displeasure in those states of mind to which
knowledge is limited. As, however, Protagoras had re-
ferred the theoretic content of perception to differing cor-
poreal motions, the Cyrenaics sought to derive also the
affective tone of the same from the different states of
motion of him perceiving.^ Gentle motion (\eia KLvrjat^;^
corresponds to pleasure (^r^hovrf)^ violent (rpa^'^'^'Ci) to dis-

1 S«rxt. Emp. Adv. malh., VII. 191 f. ; farther, Diog. Laert., II. 92.

^ Sext. Emp. op. cit. 105.

3 P^usebius, loc. cit. ; Dioj;. Laert , II. 86 f. Likewise the exposition
in the Philehus,A2 f., which l)rin_i!js this teaching directly into connection
with the ndvra pel, presumably refers to Aristippus. Compare Zeller,
IP. 352 f.

148 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

pleasure (ttoVo?), rest from motion to absence of pleasure
and pain (^aySovia koI airovia). Since now these three
possibilities include the whole range of stimuli, there are
only two, perhaps three irdOr]'. pleasant Qqhea)^ unpleasant
(ttX7eim), and the states of indifference between them (ra
fiera^v).^ Since, however, among these three possible
states, pleasure alone is worth striving for, ijSoui] is the
only goal of the will (Te\o<i), and accordingly is happiness
or the Good itself. Whatever gives pleasure is good.
Whatever creates displeasure is bad. All else is indif-
ferent.

The question concerning the content of the concept of
the Good, which was not really answered by Socrates, was
answered by these Hedonists, in that they declared pleasure
to be this content, and indeed all pleasures, whatever their
occasion ,2 to be indistinguishable. By this only the single
momentary state of pleasure is meant. The highest, the
only good, for these Hedonists was the enjoyment of the
moment.^

From these presuppositions the Hedonists concluded, with
entire correctness, that the distinction of value between single
feelings of pleasure is determined not by the content or the
cause, but only by the intensity of the feelings. They asserted
that the degree of intensity of the bodily feelings is greater than
that of the spiritual feelings.* The later Cyrenaics, particularly
Theodorus,^ came therefore to the conclusion that the Wise Man
need not regard himself restricted by law, convention, or indeed
religious scruples, but he should so use things as to serve his
pleasure best. Here, again, the Sophistic antithesis between
V0/X09 and </)i;(Tt?'"' is repeated, and the natural individual pleasur-
able feeling is taken as the absolute motive of action. Still more
pronounced than in the degenerate phases of Cynicism appeared
licre the egoistic, naturalistic, and individualistic trait which is
basal in the common problem of both theories. On the other

1 Scxt. Emp. op. cit. 199. 2 piato, Philehus, 12 d.

' See A. Lange, Gescli. des Mater., p. 37, 2 cd.
< Diog. Lacrt., II. 90. 5 md.^ 99,

« Sec ihid., 93.

TDE GPvEEK ENLIGHTENMENT 140

Lnntccris^ sought later to temper this radicalism, and to
ennoble the desire for pleasure by emphasizing the enjoyment of
friendship, of family life, and of social organization as more
valuable. At the same time he did not lose sight of the egoistic
fundamental principle, but onl}' carefully refined it. With this
turn in its course, however, the Cyrenaic philosophy' merged into
Epicurean hedonism.

Virtue Avas, accordingly, for Aristippus identical with
the ability to enjoy. The utility of science consists in di-
recting men to the proper satisfaction. Right enjoyment
is, however, only possible through reasonable self-control -
{(f)p6vr}<TL^).^ Requisite insight for this frees us from preju- —
dice, and teaches us how to use the goods of life in the
most reasonable way. Above all else it gives to the Wise
Man that security in himself by which he remains proof —
against weakly yielding to influences of the outer world. —
It teaches him, while in enjoyment, to remain master of
himself and his surroundings. The problem for both Cynic —
and Cyrenaic was the attainment of this individual inde- -
pendence of the course of the world. The Cynic school ^
sought independence in renunciation ; the Cyrenaic in lord- -
ship over enjoyment, and Aristippus was right when he -
said that the latter was more difficult and more valuable
than the former.^ In opposition to the Cynic ideal of re-
nunciation of the world, the Cyrenaic drew, as his picture
of the Wise Man, that of the perfected man of the world. ^
He is susceptible to the enjoyment of life, lie know^s what
animal satisfactions are, and how to prize spiritual joy,
riches, and honor. In elevated spirit he scrupulously
makes use of men and things, but even then never forgets
himself in his enjoyment. He remains lord of his appe-
tites ; he never wishes the impossible, and even in the few
happy days of his existence he knows how to preserve vie-"
toriously the peace and serenity of his soul. ^

1 Diog. Laert., If. 96; see Clemens Alex. Strom. ^ II. 417.

2 Diog. Laert., II. 91. a Ibid.y 75.

0^-

150 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT riilLOSOPHY

With these qualifications (reminding us of Socrates), Aris-
tippus went beyond the principle of momentary enjoyment of
pleasure when he, for example, explained activity as repre-
hensible if, on the whole, it 3'ields more unpleasurableness than
pleasure. He recommended on this same ground that there be
universal subordination to custom and law. Theodorus then
went still further, and sought ^ to find the rekos of mankind, not
in individual satisfaction, but in serene disposition (xo-pd)- This
is also already a transition to the Epicurean conception.

If the principle that onl^' educated men know how to enjoy
happily verified itself in the temperament and circumstances of
Aristippus, his school on the other hand drew another irresistible
consequence from the hedonistic principle, viz., pessimism. If
pleasure is said to give value to life, the greater part of human-
ity fails of its purpose, and thus life becomes worthless. It was
Hegesias who dissipated the theory of Aristippus with this doc-
trine. The desire for happiness cannot be satisfied,^ he taught.
No insight, no opulence, protects us from the pain which nature
imposes on the bod}'. The highest we can reach and even as
TeA.09 strive for is painlessness, of which death most certainly
assures us.^ The particular ethical teachings of Hegesias ap-
pear more nearly like the precepts of the C3'nics than like many
of the expressions of Aristippus.

The isolation of the individual shows itself in the hedo-
nistic philosophers in their indifference to public life.
Aristi})pus rejoiced that in his Sophistic wanderings no
interest in politics infringed upon his personal freedom.^
Theodorus^ called the world his country, and said that
patriotic sacrifice was a folly which the Wise Man is above.
These all are sentiments in which the Cynics and Cyrc-
naics agree almost verbally, and in these the decline of
Greek civilization was most characteristically expressed.

Religious beliefs are among the things which the Hedonists
shoved one side with sceptical indifference. Freedom from
religious prejudices seemed to them (Diog. Laert.., II. 91) to

1 Diocr. Laert., II. 98. '^ Ibid., 94 f.

8 The lectures of Hegesias TreiacdavaTos are said to have been for-
bidden in Alexandria because he spoke too much of voluntary death.
Cicero, Tusc, I. 34, 83.

4 Xeu. Mem., II. 1, 8 f. ^ iJiog. Laert., 11. dS.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 151

me indispensable for the Wise Man. It is not related, however,
[that they set up in any way in opposition to positive religion
[another conception. Theodorus proclaimed his atheism quite
fo[)enly. Euemerus devised for an ex[)lanation of the belief in
gods the theory- to-day called after him, and often accepted in
modern anthropology in many forms. According to this theory,
the worship of the gods and heroes is developed from a rever-
ence of rulers and otherwise remarkable men. (Cicero, UenaL
deor.^ I. 42, 119 J Sext. Emp. Adv. math.^ IX. 17.)

5. MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM.

DEMOCRITUS AND PLATO.

The Greek Enlightenment had impeded the progress of
natural science by destroying the naive confidence of the
Greek in the validity of human knowledge. Science was
being utilized for practical life, and was in danger of losing
its dignity and the independence which it had just achieved.
On the other hand, the prevailing interest of the period
in psychology had widened the circle of scientific work.
Logic and ethics had thus been added to physics, — to
use the classification of the ancients. Conceptions of the
psychical aspects of life now stood side by side with those
of its physical aspects. Man had become conscious of his
share in the construction of the idea of the world. The
essence of scientific research was found to consist in the
examination of concepts and the fundamental proposition
of science had its formulation in the law of the domina-
tion of the particular by the universal. At the same time,
however, the principle was seen that science could never
give satisfaction if it disregarded the connection between
human life, as teleologically determined, and the objective
world.

The subjective moment had been sundered in its devel-
opment from the objective, and consequently placed in a

152 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

certain opposition to it. In the mutual interpenetration of
the two, and in the tendency of these principles to coalesce,
did Greek science find the profoundest deepening of its
conceptual life and the greatest broadening of its practical
life. From the Peloponnesian war until Philip of Mace-
don, when the political life of Greece was already approach-
ing dissolution, science created its comprehensive systems,
and perfected itself in its ripest undertakings, which are
associated with the three names Democritus, Plato, and
Aristotle.

In the first place, as preparation for the final synthetic
statement of Aristotle, appeared the two metaphysical sys-
tems which expressed the greatest opposition possible within
the realm of Greek thought ; the materialism of Democritus
and the idealism of Plato.

Both appeared at that culmination point of Greek culture
when the flood of Greek life was passing over to its ebb ;
the Democritan system was about three decades before the
Platonic, and in a remarkable degree independent of it.
Each system developed its doctrine on a broad episte-
mological basis, and each is related both positively and
negatively to the Greek Enlightenment. Both were met-
aphysical systems of outspoken rationalism. Each in
complete exposition compassed the entire range of the
scientific interest of the time. Finally, in both became
defined those opposed philosophical views of the world
which have not been reconciled up to the present time.

But there are just as many differences as there are simi-
hiritics. Although agreeing with Plato as to the Protago-
rcan theory of perception, Democritus turned back to the
old rationalism of the Elcatics, while Plato created a new
ideal Eleaticism out of the Socratic theory of the concept.
Democritus may therefore appear less progressive and less
original in tliis respect tlian Plato, but we must remember
that as to their general metaphysics the principle of phys-

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 153

ics dominated the Democritau system, and the princi})le of
ethics tlie Tkitonic system. Kthies was incidental in the
former system, wliile in the hitter pliysics was the incident.
In every direction the theory of Democritus shows itself
to be an attempt to perfect the philosophy of nature by the
aid of the anthropological theories of the Enlio-htenment
while Platonism was developed as an original recreation
out of the same problems. The liistorical fate of both
these philosophies was also determined by this relationship,
for the materialism of Democritus was pressed into the
background from the beginning, while Plato became the
determining genius of future philosophy.

The great significance, which — in this exposition in distinc-
tion from all previous ones — is given to Democritus by making
him parallel with Plato, is required solely by historical accuracy.
A similar view was, for that matter, very common among the
writers of antiquity. As a matter of chronology Democritus, who
hved between 430 and 360 (§ 31), was about twenty years
30unger than Protagoras and ten 3'ears younger than Socrates.
Although he never came under the direct personal influence of
the latter, yet it must be taken for granted that a man to whom
in all antiquity Aristotle alone was comparable in learning, had
not studied the scientific work of the Sophists in vain. To treat
him entirely among the pre-Sophistic thinkers, as is customary,^
would be justified only if no traces of the influence of the En-
lightenment are seen in him. We hope to show the contrary in
the following exposition of his theory. But, however, this ex-
position will not support the attempt to stamp the Democritau
theory as a kind of Sophistry, as Schleiermacher and Ritter have
made* it. The strong bias of judgment and vagueness of treat-
ment that has arisen from this interpretation is sufficiently
repudiated by Zeller (P. 842 f.). The points of view and theo-
ries in Sophistic literature of which Democritus certainly did
make use, were arranged by him synthetically in a unified niet-
aphysic, but such a metaphysic lay far outside the horizon of
the Sophists. On the other hand, it is to be entirely admitted
that even this materialistic metaphysic played a relatively

1 Most unfortunate in this connection is the arran.<2:ement of Schwegler-
Kbstlin, where the Atomists (as also Empedocles and Anaxagoras) were
treated before the Eleatics. 3 ed. p. 51 f.

154 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

unfruitful part in rejuvenating ancient thought. For ancient
thought took a Platonic tendency, and therefore we have been
very imperfectly taught concerning the Democritan theor}'.
But the case is entirely different when we consider the whole
European history of science. Since the time of Galileo, Bacon,
and Gassendi, the Democritan teaching has become the funda-
mental metaphysical assumption of modern natural science, and
however sharph' we ma}' criticise this theory, we cannot deny
its significance (Lange, Geschichte des Materialis'inus , 2 ed., I.
9 f.). Just in this, however, consisted its historical equality
with Platonism.

One of the most striking facts of ancient literature is the
apparentl}' perfect silence that Plato maintained concerning
Democritus.^ This was discussed many times in antiquitj'.^ The
neglect is not possibly explained as hate or contempt.^ Plato
was very much interested in men like the C3'nics and Cyrenaics
whose manner of thought must have been far less in sympath}^
with his own than that of Democritus, — with men who must
have appeared to him far less significant intellectually. That
Plato knew nothing of Democritus is chronologically a matter of
greatest improbability. If we also admit that Democritus on
account of his long journeys entered^ comparativel}' late upon his
literary activity, 3'et the amount of his literary work requires
that its beginning be set distinctly before Plato's first works, and
much the more before Plato's later works : when Plato wrote
the Symposium, Democritus was seventj'-five years old. The
more remarkable is it that Plato, who otherwise refers to, or at
least mentions, all the other early philosophers, ignores not only
Democritus, but also the Atomic teaching.^ It must therefore

1 The name Democritus occurs nowhere in Plato's writino-s, and there
is nowhere a mention of the Atomic doctrine. When Plato speaks of
materialism (compare above), he cannot possibly have Democritus in
mind.

2 Diog. Laert., IX. 40.

^ As early as Aristoxenus there appears to have been related the
foolish story of the designed burning of the Democritan books by Plato.
Diog. Laert, op. cit.

^ The time of the composition of his jutKpos SiaKoo-/A09, Democritus
himself (Diog. Laert., IX. 41) places at 730 years after the destruction of
Troy (see Zeller, D. 762), i. e. about 420.

^ It is significant that both the Sophist and the Pannenides —
whether they be dialogues written by Plato or originating from the Pla-
tonic circle — do not mention Atomism, although there were present

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 155

be concluded, at all events, that Atomism — the writing of
Leucippus being doubtful — had found no lavor within the circle
of Attic culture. It therefore appears conceivable that the
Athenians were ^ entirely indifferent to the essentially scientific
nature-investigations of Democritus at the time of the Sophists
and Socrates. In Athens one worked at other things, so that
riato even later also made no mention of the writings of the
great Atomist in developing his own nature-theories. That he
was not really acquainted with them appears to become more
and more doubtful. R. llirzel has pointed out two places (P/aY.,
43 f. ; Rep.^ 583 f.) where references are made to Democritan
ethics {Uiitersicchungenzu Cicero s pJiilos. Schriften^ I. 141 f.).
P. Natorp has assented to this {Forschungen^ 201 f.), but he has
few results in following up " the traces of Democritus in Plato's
writings" {Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos.^ I. 515 f.). It would be
more satisfactory to seek negative and positive relations to
Democritus in Plato's later metaphysic {Philehus) ^ and in his
philosophy of nature dependent on it {Timceus). Compare be-
low the references in the remarks to § 37.

81. Democritus of Abdera, the greatest investigator of
nature in antiquity, was born about 460. He was first
attracted to scientific research in the school of Leucippus,
probably about the time when Protagoras, who was some
twenty years his elder, also belonged to that circle. Hav-
infy the liveliest sense for individual investiiration in natu-
ral sciences, he travelled extensively for many years. This
led him through Greece, for a longer time into Egypt, and
over a greater part of the Orient. The exact time of his
return and the beginning of his literary activity, however,
must remain a subject for conjecture, and his death can

important occasions for it in the Sophist in the discussion of Being, and
equal occasions in the Parmenides in the dialectic over the One and the
Many.

1 In any case the expression of Democritus (Diog. Laert., X. 36) is
characteristic : rjXdov eh 'Adrjvas kgl ovrcs fie eyvoiKev. At the time of the
Sophists of the Peloponnesian war, no one, not even Socrates, had the
spirit for serious investigation into the nature studies of Democritus,

2 H. Uscner (Premsisches Jahrhuch, LIII. p. IG) has already given
much attention to this {Philebus, 28 f.).

156 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

only be approximately set at 360, He settled in his home
in Abdera. He became highly honored there, and he lived
surrounded by those who prosecuted their researches under
his direction. He remained distant and apart from the
Attic circle of culture, in which little notice was taken of
him, but he may have been in occasional intercourse with
the physician Hippocrates, who spent his later years in
Larissa.

Tlie life of Democritus is fixed by approximately safe data,
from his own statement (Diog. Laert., IX. 41) that he was
forty 3'ears younger than Anaxagoras, and from the statements
he made concerning the time of the composition of his /xtKpos
8taKocr/i.o5 (§ 30). The acquaintance of Democritus with the
teaching of both his countrymen, Leucippus and Protagoras, is
entirely assured b}' the testimony of antiquity and the character
of his philosoph}'. He doubtless knew the Eleatics as well, and
one possessed of his great erudition could hardlj' be ignorant
of most of the other physicists. Traces here and there in his
system show this. He did not accept the number theor}' of
the Pythagoreans. The friendly relationship to the Pythago-
reans, attributed to him,^ can have reference only to his mathe-
matical^ researches, and perhaps in part to his physiological
and ethical undertakings. He also appeared to be very familiar
with the theories of the 3'ounger physicists. But more impor-
tant for his development of the Atomic theory were, on the
one hand, his own very extensive and painstaking researches,
and, on the other, the theory of perception that he obtained from
Protagoras. Whether he gave much attention to the theories of
the other Sophists, is stiU doubtful. The}- were entirely alien
to his metaphysical and scientific tendency. But the thorough-
ness of his anthropolog}', the significance that he laid on meta-
physical and ethical questions, and the single points which he
found valid in them, prove, nevertheless, that he was not unin-
fluenced by the spirit of his time from which he was otherwise
somewhat isolated. All these circumstances assign to him the
place of one wlio through the subjective period of Greek science
was the banner bearer of the cosmological metaphysic ; and in
consequence of his partial acceptance of the new elements was

1 Diog. Laert., IX. 38.

2 Ho prided himself particularly on his mathematical knowledge
(Clemens Alex. Strom., 304 a).

MATERTALTSM AND TDKALISM 157

the finisher of the system. He did not receive the sh^htest

Iinthience from his great contemporary Socrates.
Tlie duration of his travels was at all events considerable,
and his stay in Egypt alone is given as about five years. ^ He
certainly came to know the greater part of Asia.'^ He got
nothing philosophical from his travels, especially since his
thought habitually avoided ever3'thing mythical. Nevertheless,
his gain in breadth of experience and in the results of his col-
lections was onl}' the greater. His return to Abdera after his
journcN's was the beginning of his teaching, and his literar}'
work ma}' be dated, in view of the extent of these travels, not
before 420.^ Presumably' he continued his work into tiuitura
vetustds (Lucret. JDe rer. nat., IH. 1039). His fellow-citizens
IPhonored him with the name o-ocfiia. He seems to have been
little interested in public affairs, and he reached the great age *
of ninety or, according to some, of one hundred and nine years.
His intimacj' with Hippocrates (§ 39), which is not improbable
in itself, has been the occasion for the forgery of letters between
the two (printed in the works of Hippocrates).

Gefifers, QiiCBstiones detuocritece (Gottingen, 1829) ; Papen-

cordt, De atomiconun doctrina (Berlin, 1732) ; B. ten Brink,

Verschiedene AhhandhuKjen in the Philologus^ 1851-53, 1870 ;

L. Liard, De Deraocrito ijhilosopJio (Paris, 1873); A. Lange,

GeschicJite des Mater icdismus^ P. (Iserl., 1873) p. 9 f.

The literary activity of Democritus was certainly very
great. Even if a part of the works which Thrasyllus had
arranged in fifteen tetralogies, whose titles are preserved
in Diogenes Laertiiis (IX. 45 f.), — even if this part was
wrongfully ascribed to him (for Diogenes mentions there

1 Diodor., I. 98. 2 Strabo, XV. 1, 38.

^ It is little probable that Democritus appeared publicly with his
theory, especially with his discussion of definitions, before the beginning
of the activity of Socrates (about the time of the beginning of the
Peloponnesian war). The passage in Aristotle {De part, antjn., I. 1,
G42 a, 26), is not to be taken to mean with certainty a chronological rela-
tionship of the two philosophies, especially when compared with Meta-
physic'^, XII. 4, 1078 b, 17. It signifies only that among physicists and
metaphysicians Democritus first treated definition, although only ap-
proximately; while the direction of the scientific thought of Socrates
was turned to ethics.

* In reference to the numerous anecdotes about the " laughing phil-
osopher," see Zeller, D. 76G.

158 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

titles of spurious writings), yet there remains a magnificent
number besides. In the genuine works all departments of
philosophy, mathematics, medicine, metaphysics, physics,
physiology, psychology, epistemology, ethics, sesthetics, and
technics are represented. Since the writings themselves
do not lie before us, the question of their genuineness must
be decided on the score of greatest probability.

The ancients were proud of the works of Democritus, —
which by the way were written in Ionian dialect, — not only
for the wealth of their contents, out of which Aristotle took
so much for his scientific writings, but also on account of
their highly perfected form. They placed him in these
respects by the side of Plato ^ and other great litterateurs.^
They admired the cleai-ness of his exposition^ and the
effective power * of his buoyant style.

The loss of these writings, which appears to have hap-
pened at some time from the third to the fifth century after
Christ, was the most lamentable that has happened to
the original documents of ancient philosophy. While the
work of Plato has been preserved in its complete beauty,
there remains of that of his great antipode only a torso that
can never be completed.

Compare Fr. Schleiermacher, Ueher das Verzeichnis der
Schriften des JDem. hei Diog.Laert.^ Complete TFbrX:^^ Division
III., Vol. III. p. 293 f. ; Fr. Nietsche, Beiirage zur Quellenkunde
und Kritik des Diog. Laert.^ p. 22.

The Fragments with annotations by Mullach, I. 330 f. (par-
ticularly Berlin, 1843) ; W. Burchard, Democriti philosofhuG de
sensibus fragmenta (Minden, 1830), Fragmente der Moral des
Abderiteii Democritus (Minden, 1834) ; Lortzing, Ueher d. etld-
schen Fragmente des Femocritus (Berlin, 1873) ; W. Karl,
Democritus in Cicero's philos. Schriften (Diedeuhofen, 1889).

The insecurity in early time in reference to the writings of the
Atomists can be seen in the fact that while Epicurus seems to
have called in question the existence of Leueippus (Diog. Laert.,
X. 13), the school of Theophrastus ascribed the /xe'yas SidKoa/xos

1 Cicero, Omt, 20, 67. 2 7/, ,7/^ jr^g ^j.at., I. 11, 49.

8 Ibid. J De dicin.^ II. G4, 133. '» l*liitarch, Qums. conv., Y. 7, 6, 2.

MATERIALISM ANT) IDEALISM 159

to Leiicippus (Dio2;., IX. 40). Compare E. Khode and IT. Diels,
in Yerhand. der l^hilologlschen Versuchunyeii^ 1879 and 1880,
and the former in Jahrhudi f. Philoloyie^ 1881. The ethical
writings, which V. Rose {De Arist. libr. ord.^ p. G f.) holds as
entirely ungenuine, can be taken in part as genninc (Lortzing),
especialh' Tnpl evOvfXL-qq. Concerning this last writing and the
use Seneca made of it (De animl tranquillitate) , see Ilirzel
(in Hermes^ 1879).

32. The metaphysical principles of the Dcmocritan
teaching were given above in the Atomism of Leucippiis
(§ 23) : empty space and numberless self-moving, qualita-
tively similar atoms. These atoms differ only in form and
size, and in their union and separation all events are to be
explained. Their motions were accepted as self-evident;
but the aXXotft)(ri9, the qualitative characteristics of the per-
ceived thing, and the change arising from its motion must
remain as inexplicable for Leucippus as for the Eleatics.
Here Democritus entered armed with the perception theory
of Protagoras. The perceived qualities of things arise as
products of motion. They belong not to things as such,
but are only the manner in which the subject perceiving at
the time carries on its representation. They are, therefore,
necessary signs of the course of the world, but they do not
belong to the true essence of things. In contrast to abso-
lute Being, that is, atoms and space, only a relative reality
belongs to the sense qualities. But this relative reality of
the images of perception was supposed by Democritus to be
derived from absolute reality — the Heracleitan from tlie
Eleatic world. The realm of the relative and the chanirinsc
had been known by Protagoras as the subjective, as only the
world of representation. But the objective world, which
the Sophist with skeptical indifference had thrust aside, re-
mained still for Democritus the corporeal world in space.
When he thus tried to derive the subjective process from
atomic motions. Atomism became in his hands outspoken
materialism. *

160 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

The peculiar significance of Democritns in the histor}' of
Atomism seems to lie more in this materialism than in his com-
prehensive detailed investigations. He scarcely changed history
in any way in its fundamental cosmological principles ; but
the careful development of anthropology, which we cannot after
all ascribe to Leucippus, is clearl}' his chief work.

The unifying principle of Atomism, as it has been devel-
oped into a system by Democritus, is the complete develop-
ment of the concept of mechanical necessity in nature.
Democritus, as well as Leucippus, designated this as avd'yKri^
or in the Heracleitan manner as el/juapfjievrj. Every actual
event is a mechanics of atoms ; possessing originally a
motion peculiar to themselves, they get impact ^ and push
by contact with one another. Thus processes of union and
separation come about and these appear as the origin and
destruction of things. No event is without such a mechan-
ical cause.2 This is the only ground for explaining all
phenomena. Every teleological conception is removed a
limine, and however much Democritus in his physiology
referred to the wonderful teleology in the structure and
functions of organisms, nevertheless he apparently saw
therein little reason or cause for such teleology in point
of fact.

Outspoken antiteleological mechanism is obvioush'' the prin-
cipal reason for the deep chasm which continued to exist be-
tween Democritus and the Attic philosophy, even at those points
concerning which Aristotle recognized the value of the investi-
crations of Democritus, — the chasm vv^hich divided the teaching^
of Democritus from that of Aristotle. This was the reason that
after the victory of the Attic philosophy, Democritus lapsed into
oblivion until modern science declared in favor of his i)rinciple
and raised him to recognition. A highly significant moment in

1 Since empty space which has no real Being cannot be the bearer
of motion, the transit of motion from one atom to another is possible
only through contact, and "actio in distans " is excluded. When the
latter seems to occur, it is explained by emanations, as in the working
of the magnet (as in Empedocles).

^ Oiidev xprj^a fidrrjv ylyverai, dXKa Trdura €K Xoyov re Koi vn dvdyKr}^.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 161

the human apprehension of the world, and one never to he loft
out of account, came hereby to clear and distinct consciousness,
and ruled all Atomism as a methodical postulate. The charge
raised by Aristotle (P/if/s., H. 4, 19Ga, 24) and before him ])y
Plato {Fhileb., 2S d) and lately repeated (Ritter), that Democri-
tus made the world one of chance (avro/xarov, rvxv) I'ests upon
the entirely one-sided teleological use of this expression. Com-
pare Windelband, Die Lehren vom Ztifall, p. 56 f.

The Atoms are to be primarily distinguished from each
other by their form (^cr^rjfia or ISea),^ and there are an in-
finite number of forms. The difference of size^ is referred
in part ^ to their difference of form.^ Motion dwells within
the atoms, as a necessary irreducible function by which
each atom, lawless in itself, and each one for itself, is in
process of flight in empty space. "Where, however, several
of them meet, there arises an aggregation. The shock of
meeting causes a vortex,^ which, when once begun, draws
more atoms into itself from the space surrounding it. In
this whirl Like find Like. The coarse heavv atoms collect
in the centre, while the finer and more volatile are pressed
to the periphery. The motion of the whole mass has a
balanced revolution however. With reference to the indi-
vidual objects constructed ^ in this way, the order, position,

1 It is most characteristic that the I8ea, the term that appears in
Anaxagoras, equally appears in Democritus and Plato for absolute real-
ity. Of course in a different sense Democritus wrote (Sext. Emp. Adv.
math., YII. 137) a separate work, nepl Ibecop.

2 At all events, the atoms were thought of as so small that they were
imperceptible.

^ Yet in this the different reports do not fully agree, in that occasion-
ally fieyeOos and ax^jfJia secm co-ordinated, and atoms of similar forms are
assumed to be of different sizes. See Zeller, I^. 777. It is, however, not
impossible that Democritus had in mind atom-complexes for such cases.

* Which, as the only ground of difference, is often quoted. See pas-
sages in Zeller, I^. 776, 1.

5 Diog. Laert., IX. 31 f.

^ Arist. Met., I. 4, 985 b, 13. In this place under to ov is to be under-
stood the thing possessing Being constructed out of atoms. For rd^is and

162 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

and form of the atoms which constitute them, are the de-
termining factors. The real qualities of a perceived thing
are spatial form, weight, solidity, and hardness. Weight ^
depends on the mass of matter, with an allowance for
the interstices of empty space. Solidity and hardness de-
pend on the nature of the distribution of matter and empty
space.

These are the primary ^ qualities which belong to the
thin<>:s in themselves. All others belons; to the thino-s onlv
so far as they affect the perceiving subject. The secondary
qualities are not therefore signs of things, but of subjective
states.^ Democritus considered color, taste, and temperature
as belonging to the secondary qualities, and he based their
subjectivity on the difference of the impression of the same
object upon different men.*

In this theory of the subjectivity of sense qualities (for de-
tails, see below) Democritus carried out the suggestions of
Protagoras. His principle of relativit}' especiall}' shows this.
His polemic against Protagoras was prompted by the fact that he
held, like Plato, side by side with the theory of the relativity of
sense perception, the possibility of a knowledge of absolute real-
ity. On this account, even as Plato, he battled against the Pro-
tagoreau theor}^, in which ever}' perception in this relative sense

Beaii could not be marks of distinction between the single atoms, but only
between the complexes. Compare De generatione et corrup(io7ie, 1^., 314 a,
24, in which things are distinguished hy the atoms, and their rd^ti and
OecTLs. Finally, both of the latter moments (order and position) deter-
mine the dWoicoais, the qualities of particular things.

1 Heaviness (/3apo?) in Atomism very often clearly signifies approxi-
mately the same as movableness, i. e. the degree of reaction in pressure
and impact. The direction of the movement in fall is included by the
term in Epicureanism.

2 The expressions " primary and secondary qualities " have been in-
troduced by Locke. The Democritan distinction had been previously
renewed by Galileo and Descartes. Descartes reckoned solidity among
the secondary qualities, but Locke placed it back among the primary.

^ TTCidr] T^s alaBrjaecos aXkoLOVfxeuTjs : Theoph. De 86713., 63 f.
4 Ihid.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 1G3

must be called true. Compare Scxt. Emp. Adr. math., VIII.
50, Vir. 139; Plutarch, Adr. col., 4, 2 (1109). Democritus
also added to his recognition of the subjectively relalive the
assertion of the objectively absolute, lieality, however, con-
sists of space and geometrical forms of matter, and herein is iiis
relationship to the Pythagoreans. Compare V. Brochard, J^ro-
tagoras et Democrit {Arch. f. Gesch. der Philos., II. 308 f.).

Every place of the meeting of several atoms can there-
fore become the beginning of a vortex movement that is
ever increasing in its dimensions, and proves to be the point
of tlie crystallization of a particular world. On the one
side it is possible that the small worlds thus formed may
be drawn into the vortices of a larger system and become
component parts of it, or on the other hand that they may
shatter and destroy each other in some unfavorable col-
lision. Thus there is an endless manifold of worlds, and
an eternal living-process in the universe, in which the
single worlds arise and again disappear through purely
mechanical necessity.

As to the form of our own world-system. Atomism taught
that the whole swings in empty space like a ball. The out-
ermost shell of this ball consists of compactly united atoms,
and the interior is filled with air, while in the middle, like
a disc, rests the earth. The process of separation of what
is stable and what is flowing, is taking place still in the
earth. The stars are like the earth, except that they are
much smaller bodies. Their fires are kindled by the rota-
tion of the whole world, and are nourished by the vapors
of the earth. Democritus said that the sun and moon are
of large dimensions, and he spoke of the mountains of the
moon. Both sun and moon were originally independent
atom-complexes. They have been drawn into the terres-
trial system by its revolution, and they were in that way
set on fire.

We cannot here go into the detailed description which tlic
Atomists made of this division of the elements, as brought about

164 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

by the vortex movement ; see Zeller, I*. 798 f. Nevertheless,
the interpretation still championed bj' Zeller, I^. 874 f., and
earlier the universal interpretation, has been shaken by A. Brieger
{Die Urbewegung der Atome, etc., 1884, Halle; compare -Dd
atomorum Epicurearum, motu principally M. Hertz, p. 888), and
by H. C. Liepmann {Die Mechanik der Democritischen Atome,
Leipzig, 1885). This earlier interpretation was that the Atomists
regarded the original motion of the atom in the direction of the
fall, i. e. downwards as perceived by the senses. Though the
ancient commentators thus brought the motion of the atoms into
connection with ^dpos (compare above), yet the movement down-
wards was not expressly mentioned as absolute. Democritus
could easily designate in the vortex system of atoms the opposi-
tion between centripetal and centrifugal directions as Karto and
av(o. Accordingl}^ he could have investigated the effect of the
"heavy" in the vortex without teaching the conception of the
Epicureans that " weight" is the cause of motion.

Atomism has been apparently very much confounded with
this in later time. However in the sources (probably academic)
which Cicero {Defin.^ I. 6, 17) uses, there is the express state-
ment that Democritus taught an original movement of the atoms
in infinito inani^ in quo nihil nee summum nee infimunn nee
medium nee extremum sit. Epicurus, on the contrar}-, degraded
this teaching in assuming that the fall-motion is the natural one
for bodies. The turbulenta atomorum co7icursio, on the other
hand, here (20) was made a charge against Democritus. Plato
{Ti?n..f 30 a, Ktvovfxevov 7rA.r//X|ueAaj9 kol araKrtos) appears to me to
signify this, and doubtless refers here to Atomism. Com-
pare Aristotle, De coelo, III. 2, 300 b, 16. In his matured rep-
resentation of endless space, it is remarkable that Democritus
took a i)oint of view in astronomy that was even for his time
very antiquated. He did not think of the shape of the earth as
spherical. He affiliated closely throughout with Anaxagoras,
never with the Pj'thagoreans. With this exception his single
hypotheses, especially his peculiar meteorological and ph3'sical
hypotheses, make us recognize in him the thoughtful man of
research and the penetrating observer. We find him'collecting
many kinds of particular observations and explanations even in
biology, wliicli Aristotle and others later used. He agreed
with Empedocles as to the origin of organisms (§ 21).

The most important of the elements was thought by
Democritus to be fire. It is the most perfect because it is
the most mobile. It consists of the finest atoms, Avliich ai'e

MATERIALISM iVND IDEALISM 105

smooth and round "^ and the smallest of all. Its importance
consisted in its being the principle of motion in organisms,^
and hence it is the soul-stuff.^ For the ynotion of fire atoms
is psychical activity.'^ Upon this principle Pemocritus built
an elaborately developed materialistic psychology, which in
turn formed the fundamental principle of his cpistemology
and ethics.

Fr. Heinisoeth, Democritus de anima doctrina (Bonn, 1835) ;
G. Hart, Zur Seelen- und Erkenntnislehre des Democritus (Leip-
zig, 1886). It is evident that the theory of fire in Democritus
goes hack to Heracleitns. Fire plays, however, in Atomism the
same role in many respects as the mind-stuff lo^s in Anaxagoras.
This is especialh' true in his explanation of the organic world.
Fire is indeed not the element that is moved by itself alone, but it
is the most movable element, and it imparts its motion to the
more inert material. It must be understood, from these refer-
ences and relationships, that Democritus also thought that the
soul and reason were distributed through the entire world, and
that the}' could be designated as the divine.^ Yet it is certainly
a later explanation which attempts to find in his theory a world-
soul like the Heracleitan-Stoic w^orld-soul. The isolation by the
atomistsof the motion of the separate fire-atoms has no reference
to a unitar}' function.

In physiology Democritus considered the soul atoms to be
disseminated throughout the entire body. He supposed that
between every two atoms of the material of the human bod}' is
a fire atom.^ Thereby he concluded that soul-atoms of differ-
ent size and motion are associated with different parts of the
bod}'. He accordingly located the different psychical functions
in different parts of the body, — thought in the brain, percep-
tions in the different sense organs, the violent emotions {opyi])
in the heart, and the appetites in the liver. The fire atoms were
supposed to be held together in the body by the breath, so that
tlie diminution of the breath in sleep and death leads to the
diminution or nearly entire destruction of the psychical life.
The spiritual individuality of man is also destroyed at death.

The peculiarity of the Democritan psychology consisted
in the fundamental hypothesis that the life of the soul and

1 Arist. De ccelo, IIL 4, 303 a, U. 2 jj^id. Be an., I. 2, 404 a, 27.

3 Compare Zeller, K 814. -* Arist. he. cit. 405 a, 8.

5 Cicero, De nat. deor., I. 43, 120. ^ Lucret. De rer. nat.,lll. 370.

166 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

its entire qualitatively determined content has its final
explanation in the quantitative difference of the motion of
atoms. The life of the soul is really also only an atom-
motion, although the very finest and most nearly perfect
of all motions.^ This doctrine attempted to elaborate the
different kinds of atomic motion which form the true
essence of the different psychical functions.

This shows itself in the first place in his theory of per-
ception. Since, for example, the influence of external things
upon us, which is manifested in perception, is possible only
by contact according to a mechanical principle,^ sensation
can be induced only by emanations of these things pressing
upon our organs. The sensitive fire-atoms found in these
organs, are thus set in a motion, which precisely is the sensa-
tion.^ Indeed Democritus, with support from the theory of
Empedocles, concludes that in every organ the stimulating
motions corresponding to its atomic constitution become
perception, when a similar motion meets* them from the soul
atoms of the organ. Democritus developed these theories
for sight and hearing in particular. It is particularly im-
portant for his entire theory that he called the influences
emanating from objects "small images" (et^wXa), in his dis-
cussion of sight.

1 That Democritus did not actually deduce the qualitative from the
quantitative, but only had assertions and good intentions about it, is quite
obvious. It is of course unattainable ; and this shows the impossibility of
a logical completion of the materialistic metaphysic. That he, however,
sought to work it out systematically, makes him the father of materialism.

2 Therefore touch is the fundamental sense ; compare Arist. De
sens., 4, 442 a, 29. This conception reappears in the " new psychology,"
— an interesting fact of historical development.

8 Theoph. De sens.^ 54 f.

^ Ibid. 5G. Developed in respect to the car. Here is also the
modern conception concerning the specific energy of the sense-organs, as
dependent on the peri})heral end-organs being suited to the ref)roduction
of different motions. This is approximately the thought of Democritus.

MATEUIALISM AND IDEALISM 167

Dcmocritus agreed entirely with Protagoras in his as-
sessment of the episteniological value of these sensations.
Since, then, the motion thus called forth is conditioned not
only hy the transmitting media ^ but also by the indepen-
dent action of the fire atoms,^ sensation is no true expres-
sion for the nature of perceived things. Therein consists
the subjectivity of sense perception and its inability to give
true knowledge, and sense docs not therefore truly repre-
sent the atoms and their connection in empty spiice. Sense
yields only qualitative determinations, like color, taste, and
temperature, Democritus associated the formulation of
this thought with the Sophistic contrast of the law of na-
ture and the law of man : vojjlm jXvkv Kal vo/jucp iriKpovy vojjlo)
OepjJiov, vofjLO) ^Irv^pov, vofia) XP^^V • ^'^^V ^^ cirofia Kal K€v6v.^
Thereby to sense experience objective truth is denied.*
Sense experience yields only an obscure view of what is
actual. True knowledge^ — viz., of the atoms, which are
not perceptible to our senses, and of likewise imperceptible
empty space — can be attained only by thought.

This rationalism, which in a t3'pical manner stands in contrast
to the natural science theory of sense perception, arose out of
the metaphysical need of the Protagorean theory of perception,
and went be3-ond it. For a ver}'' instructive parallel between

^ Theoph. De sens., 50.

2 The Heracleitan-Protagorean moment of this theory lay in this
counter-motion particularly.

3 Sext. Emp., VTI. 135. Compare Theoph. De sens., 63. lie like-
wise traced the human nomenclature for thin2i;s back to decrts. See
Zeller, P. 824, 3.

* The occasional strictures about the limitations of human knowledge
(Diog. Laert., IX. 72 ; see Zeller, P. 823 f.) are, as also in Empedocles,
to be considered only in this relation. It seems all the more true,
since Democritus expressly t;uight that there might also exist for other
things other methods of perception than those of man. This was con-
sistent with his whole theory. See Plutarch, Plac, IV. 10 (Box., 399).
Compare below.

5 Sext. Fnip. Adv. math., VII. 139.

168 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Plato and Democritus, see Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math.^ VIII.
56. This rationalism of Democritus corresponds, in fact, entirel}^
to that of the old metaphysic and the nature philosophy-. The
only difference is that here in Democritus it is not only asserted,
but it is also based upon an anthropological doctrine. It is
further to be observed, and it is also of value in drawing a
parallel with Plato (Natorp, Forscliungen, 207), that Democritus
yvoijxt] yvqa-irj refers to space and the mathematical relations pos-
sible in space. It must remain undecided how far connections
with the P^'thagoreans are to be supposed. Democritus, at all
events, is as far distant as the P^'thagoreans and the Academy
from a really fruitful application of mathematics to physics in
the manner of Galileo.

But, finally, thought itself, which grasps the truth of
things, is nothing else than a motion of atoms, and in so
far is like perception. ^ Furthermore, since thought, as all
kinds of motion, can arise only from mechanical causes,
Democritus saw himself driven to the conclusion that the
voriai^i as well as the ataOrjai^ presupposes'^ impressions of
elScoXa from the outer world upon the body. In view of
the documents that lie before us, it is only supposititious ^
liow Democritus more exactly represented to himself the
process of thought. It is certain ^ that he traced dreams,
visions, and hallucinations to e'iScoXa as their causes.
These arc also ideas introduced indeed through bodily im-
pressions, but not by the customary path of perception

1 AltliouGjh in itself not equivalent on the higher planes. It is like-
wise dissimilar to all the functions of the fire atoms.

2 Plutarch, Plac, IV. 8 (Dox., 395).

3 Zeller (V. 821, 2) thinks that Democritus did not attempt such an in-
vestigation concerning the psychological principle in order to establish the
preference of thought to perception. Zellcr's view seems improbable, in
the first place, on account of Democritus' elaboration elsewhere of his
epistemological and psychological doctrine; in the second place, on
account of the importance of the matter for his whole system ; finally,
because of the traces of such undertakings in his preserved fragments.
Compare G. Hart, Zur Seelen- und Erkenninislehre des Dem., p. 19f.

4 Plutarch, QucBst. conv., VIII. 10, 2; Cic. De div., II. 67, 137 f.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM. 169

tliroiigli the organs of scnsc.^ Democritus is so far from
holding these images as purely subjective that he ascribes to
them rather a kind of presentient truth.^ He looks upon the
process distinctly after the analogy of the sense of sight as
the name eiScoXa shows. ethcoXa, liner than those inlluencing
the sense, create a correspondingly finer motion of the
soul atoms, and thus arises our dream knowledge. If now
Democritus regarded thought as the finest motion of the
fire atoms, he must have looked upon the finest ei^coXa also
as the stimuli of that motion, viz. those et^coXa in which
the true atomistic form of things is copied. Thought is
accordingly an immediate knowledge ^ of the most minute
articulation of actuality, — the theory of atoms. These
finest eiScoXa remain ineffectual to the greater portion of
humanity compared to the gross and violent stimulations
to the sense organs. The Wise Man, however, is alone
sensitive^ to them, but he must avert his attention from
the senses ^ in order to conceive them.

Compare E. Johnson, Der Sensualisinus des DemoJcrit^ etc.
(Plauen, 1868) ; Natorp, Forschungen, 164 f. To designate De-
mocritus as a sensualist is only justified bv the fact that he thought

1 It does not appear from the preserved passages exactly clear
■whether Democritus in his explanation of dreams thought that the
eXboika press in during sleep without the help of the sense organs ; or
that they were those that had pressed in during wakefulness, but on
account of their weakness had first come into activity during a state of
sleep. Perhaps he had both conceptions.

2 According to Plutarch {op. cit.), the dream is able to reveal a
strange life of the soul to the dreamer.

^ Thought in analogy to sense of sight ; pointed out first by Brandis
{Handbuch, I. 333 f.) and abandoned by him (Gesch. d. Ejitio., I. 145) ;
analogy revived by Johnson. This analogy is to the effect that thought
is an immediate inner perception or the intuitive conception of absolute
reality.

^ Compare the somewhat dark passage, Plutarch, Plac, IV. 10:
ArjuoKpiTOi nXeiovs ciuat aladrjcrcLS irepX to. aXoya ^(oa Koi nepi tovs cro(f)ovs
Koi TTfpi T0V9 Beovt.

* See Hart, op. cit. p. 19 f.

170 HISTORY OF ANCIENT rillLOSOPflY

that the ground of the stimulation and the functioning of thought
is analogous to that of (sight) perception. The distinguishing
characteristic of Democritus is, however, this, that thought
could go on without the help and therefore to the exclusion of
sense-activity. Therefore he is an outspoken rationalist.^
These passages in which it is apparentlj^ as€ribed to Democ-
ritus that he drew conclusions from cf^atvofxeva concerning the
vorjTOi (Sext. Emp., VII. 140; Arist. J)e an., I. 2, 404 a, 27),
prove onl}' on the one side that he undertook to explain phenom-
ena from atomic movement : rw dXXoLovo-Oat Troiet t6 ala-ddvecrOai
(Theoph. De sens., 49). On the other side these passages show
that he tried to have the theories verify themselves through
their ability to explain phenomena, and to derive appearance
from absolute actuality. Aoyot Trpos rrjv Oio-Orjcnv ofioXoyovfieva

Xiyovres (Arist. De gen. et corr., I. 8, 325 a).

33. The Ethics of Democritus, like his epistemology, has
its roots in his psychology. Feeling and desire are KLvi^aei^^
motions of the fire atoms. As, however, he established in
theory this difference of value, — that only obscure recog-
nition of phenomena takes place in the gross stimula-
tions of the senses, and that insight into the true form of
things is solicited by the gentlest movement of thought, — so
in pi'actice he applied the same distinction. As in meta-
physics knowledge is the re\o^^ in ethics happiness (evSai-
fjLovla) is the T6\o<=;. In the attainment of this happiness
there is also here the fundamental difference between ap-
pearance and truth.3 The joys of sense deceive, and only

1 Just as all pre-Sophistic pliilosophers (Heracleitus, Parmenides)
arc found to have their epistemological rationalism united with a distinct-
ively sensualistic psychology of thought. Compare Windelband, Gesch.
d. Plidos., § 6.

2 Or ovpo<:, fr. 8 and 9. With this establishment of a unifyinLi; prin-
ciple for the ethical determination of value, Democritus stood unicpiely
by the side of Socrates. Practically he differed from Socrates but
little. Compare Zietjjler, Grsch. tier Ethik, I. 34. Fortunately, ibid.
36, there is an allusion indicating that Democritus' pupil, Anaxarchus,
was called EvbaiiJLovLKos.

3 The opposition of vojxos and (pvais prevails also here. Only through
1 nun an convention (i/o/xo)) desires are of value. The Wise Man lives
here (fivirei.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 171

those of the spirit arc true. This fundamental thought
shows itself through all the ethieal expressions of Demo-
critus as a principle fully parallel to his epistemological
principle. Also here he held the principle as authoritative
that violent and stormy ^ motions disturb the equilibrium of
the soul, i. e. disturb the fire atoms. Such motions bring
with them a state of agitation of the senses. Therefore, in
spite of their apparent momentary pleasure, such motions
lead in reality to lasting dissatisfaction. Fine and gentle
motions of thought have, on the contrary, true pleasure in
themselves.

Compare Lortzing, JJeher die ethischen Fragmenta Denio-
crifs (Berlin, 1873) ; R. Hirzel in Hermes (1879, p. 354 f.) ; F.
Kern, in Zeitschr. fur Fhilos. u. j^hilos. KritiJc (1880, supple-
mentary part) ; M. Heinze, Der Eudamoni sinus in der griech.
Fhilos. (Leipzig, 1873). The attempt to reduce all qualitative"
to quantitative relations, which ver}' properl}' gives a uiiique
place in ancient philosophy to the Democritan atomism, becomes
the capstone of his ethics. The fXLKpal klvtjo-cls contain true
happiness in the moral as well as in the intellectual world, and
the fxeydXat are disturbing and deceptive. For particulars, see
especially G. Hart, O]). cit., p. 20 f. If then the value of the
psychical functions is made dependent in both directions upon
the intensit}" of atomic motion, and indeed in inverse ratio,
then it is difficult not to think of the similar purpose in the
hedonism of Aristippus, who made the same distinction, in a
coarser way to be sure, in estimating the value of the delights
of the senses. It must remain undecided whether Democritus
directlv influenced the Cvrenaics, or whether there had been a
common source for the two in the doctrine of Pvthao"oras.

The pleasures of sense are relative. They have a phe-
nomenal 2 but not an actual value, viz., the value belonging

1 Fr. 20 (Stob. EcL, I. 40).

'^ Plato, Rep. 584 a. The above representation is supported prima-
rily by Plato's Republic, 583 f., and Philehus, 43 f., whose references to
Democritus appear to Ilirzel and Natorp to be certain (see above).
In both instances it is remarkable to see the exposition colored by
medical expressions and examjdes wliich probably belong to the writing
of Democritus (nepl evBvjjLirjs).

172 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

to (f)vcn^. Sense pleasures differ like the perceptions
in different individuals, and depend on circumstances.
Every sense pleasure is conditioned ^ only by the cessa-
tion of unpleasurable feeling in the desire concerned, and
therefore loses its apparently positive character. True
happiness consists in peace {rjauxLci) of the soul, and
Democritus generally uses evOvfxia to designate it. But
he also uses many other expressions, as aOaix^la^ arapa^la,
adavjjiacrla, dpfiovia, ^u/jL/jLerpia,^ especially evecrrco. He has
for it a very happy simile of a calm of the sea (yakrjvrj').
By every excess*^ of excitation thought is aroused to
aWo(j)pov€tv^ and feeling to stormy unrest. The right
condition of gentle harmonious motion of the soul-atoms
is possible only through intellectual knowledge. Out of
this flows the true happiness of man.

In these definitions the content of the ethics of Democ-
ritus is fully on a level with the ethics of Socrates. The
ethics of Democritus intimately connected the social worth
of man with his intellectual refinement. The ground of
evil is lack of cultivation.^ Happiness therefore con-
sists not in worldly goods,^ but in knowledge/ in the har-
monious leading of the life, in a life of temperance and
self-limitation.^ The social worth of a man is to be esti-
mated ^ by his mental calibre and not by his actions ; and
he who acts unjustly is more unhappy than he who suffers
unjustly .^*^ Everywhere he regarded the peace of man to
be within himself (eveaTco). He looked upon the with-
drawal from the sense-desires and upon the enjoyment of
the intellectual life as true happiness.^^

1 Fr. Mor. 47.

2 Both the last terms have a Pythasjorean sound.

3 Fr. 25. 4 Theoph. De se7is., 58.
5 Fr. 116. - 6 Yr. 1.

7 Fr. 136. 8 Fr. 20 ; compare 25.

» Fr. 109. 10 Fr. 224.

11 It must remain uncertain to what extent Democritus distinguished

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 173

The numerous single sentences which have been preserved
from Democritus suit entirely the quality oi" this noble and high
view of life. Since they all, however, have been transmitted in
a disconnected wa}-, it can no longer be determined whether
and how they have a systematic derivation from the developed
fundamental principle. In particular is to be emphasized the
high worth that Democritus places in friendship,^ and on the
other hand his full understanding of the importance of civil life,
from which he seems to have deviated only in reference to the
Wise Man- with a cosmopolitanism analogous to that of the
Sophists. Yet there remains here much that is doubtful.

Democritus maintained an attitude of indifference to religious
belief, which was consistent with his philosoph}'. He ex-
plained the mythical forms, in part by means of moral alle-
gories,* in part by nature-myth * explanations. He accepted, in
connection with his theory of perception, essentiall}- higher an-
thropomorphous beings imperceptible to the senses, but influential
in visions and dreams. He called these daemons ctSwAa, an ex-
pression emplo^'ed elsewhere in his epistemology for the emana-
tions from things. They are sometimes benevolent, sometimes
malevolent.^

The school at Abdera disappeared quickl}^ after Democritus
died. Even in its special undertaking, it performed,^ after the
leader fell, scarcely anything worth mentioning. Its philosophi-
cal tendenc}', however, became more and more sophistic,' and
thereby led to Skepticism. Metrodorus of Chios and Anax-
archus of Abdera, the companion of Alexander on his Asiatic
campaign, are the notable names. Through the influence of
Pyrrho, a pupil of Metrodorus, the Abderite philosophy became
Skepticism, and the contemporaneous Nausiphanes formed the
connection between it and Epicureanism.

between the perfect happiness of the Wise Man won through the yvqa-ir]
yvco^T), and the peace of the ordinary man obtained by temperance and
self-control. Compare Th. Ziegler, op. cit.^ who wishes to put into a
similar relationship both of the chief ethical writings, Trepi evdvfiLTjs
and vnodrJKai.

1 Fr. 1G2 f. 2 Fr. 225.

3 Clemens, Cohort., 45 f.

'* Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. 24. ^ Ibid.

^ The astronomical tenets of Metrodorus seem to indicate a relapse
into Heracleitan ideas. Compare Zeller, P. 859.

' For the theoretical skepticism of Metrodorus, compare Eusebius,
Prcep. ev., XIV. 19, 5. Whatever is reported of the ethical tendency of
Anaxarchus reminds one of Hedonism, and Cynicism as well.

174 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

84. Democritus' consummation of the metaphysics of
science by means of materialistic psychology formed in the
total growth of ancient thought only an early dying branch.
The principal tendency of Greek thought perfected itself
nearly contemporaneously in the ethical immaterialism of
Plato at the centre of Attic civilization. The same ele-
ments of the earlier science, which were fundamental to
the theory of Democritus, were combined afresh and in an
entirely different manner in the Platonic system under the
influence of the Socratic principle. Heracleitus, Parmeni-
des, Anaxagoras, Philolaus, and Protagoras furnished the
material for the theory of Plato, but it was worked over in
an entirely original manner from the point of view of con-
ceptual knowledge.

Plato, the son of Aristo and Perictione, was born in
Athens in 427, and came from a distinguished and pros-
perous family. Endowed with every talent physical and
mental, he received a careful education, and he was
familiar at an early age with all the scientific theories that
interested Athens at that time. The political excitement
of the time made the youth desire a political career. The
Peloponnesian war was raging, and during its progress the
internal and external affairs of Athens were becoming
more and more precarious. On the other hand, the rich
artistic development of the time was irresistibly attractive,
and Plato was led to try poetry in many of its forms. Both
Plato's political and poetic longings appear to follow him
in his entire philosophy : on the one side in the lively, al-
though changing interest that liis scientiRc work always
shows in the problems of statecraft, and on the other in
the artistically perfected form of his dialogues. But both
are subordinate to his entire absorption in the personality
and teaching of the character of his great master Socrates,
whose truest and most discriminating pupil he remained
for many years.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 175

Of the general works concerning Plato and Iiis tlicorv tlicrc
arc to be named W. G. Tennemann, fSf/stcm der phit. Philoti.^
4 vols. (Leipzig, 1792-5) ; Fr. Ast, rUUon's Leben u. ScJiriften
(Leipzig, 1816) ; K. F. Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. der j)lat.
Philos. (Heidelberg, 1839) ; G. Grote, Plato and Other Com-
p(niio?is of Socrates (London, 186.5) ; II. v. Stein, Siehen Bucher
zurGesch. des Platonismus (Gottingen, 1861 f.) ; A. E. Cliaignet,
La vie et les ecrits de Plato (Paris, 1871) ; A. Fouillee, La2)hilo-
sop/u'e de Plato (4 vols., 2d ed., Paris, 1890).

The nearest pupils of Plato, especiall}' Hermodorus, dealt with
his life ; also the Peripatetics, Aristoxenus and others. The
expositions of Apuleius and Ol3'rapiodorus (published in Cobet's
edition of Diogenes Laertes) have been preserved. Besides
there is a life of Plato in the Prolegomena (printed in Hermann's
edition of the Platonic writings). The collection of spurious
letters printed with his works is a very un trust worth}' source.
Only the seventh among them is of any worth. K. Steinhart
has published a life of Plato (Leipzig, 1873), which ranks well
among the new works.

On his father's side, Plato had the blood of the Codrus family
in his veins, and on his mother's he traced his lineage back to
Solon. -^ He himself was called after his grandfather, Aris-
tocles, and is said to have been called Plato for the first time by
his gymnasium teacher on account of his broad frame. For the
determination of the j'ear of his birth, the statements of Her-
modorus are decisive (Diog. Laert., III. 6), that when he went to
Euclid at Megara in 309, immediately after the death of Socrates,
he was twentj'-eight years old. That his birthday was celebrated
in the Academy on the seventh Thargelion emanates possibly
from the Apollo cult, to which many of the early myths about
the philosopher seemingly are referable.

That Plato was early remarkable in every physical and musi-
cal art is entirely in agreement with every part of the picture
of his personality. The particular accounts about his teachers
(Zeller, IP. 394) throw no light on his own scientific significance.
His early acquaintance with the Heracleitan Cratylus is attested
by Aristotle.^ At what points of time in his development the
teachings of the other philosophers whose influence is traceable
in his works were known to him, cannot be ascertained.
Early in his career Heracleitus, the Eleatics, Protagoras and
other Sophists, and later ^ Anaxagoras and the Pythagoreans
were authorities for him.

1 It is improbable that his family was poor, as many later writers
would have it. His style of life indicates the contrary.

2 Met.^ I. 6, 987 a, 32. ^ luJeed, relatively late: see below.

176 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Plato was hostile to the democrac}', as was consistent with
the traditions of his family' and the political views of his teacher,
Socrates. Yet his political inclinations, as he has laid them
down in his works, diverge so far from historic aristocracy that
his complete abstinence from public life in his native city appears
highly conceivable. That he concerned himself in his 3'outh,
as was the custom, with epic and dramatic poetr}', is not to be
doubted, notwithstanding the uncertainty of the particular tra-
ditions about it.

Concerning the time when he became acquainted with Socrates,
an acquaintance that certainl}' eclipsed all the early interests of
the 3'outh, there is nothing very definite to be said. If he were
then, according to Hermodorus/ twenty 3'ears old, there remained
very little room for his poetic attempts, which ceased when he
began philosophy. It is probable that Plato had formulated the
content of the separate conversations in the earliest dialogues
durinof Socrates' life.^

After the death of Socrates, Plato went first, with other
pupils of the master, to Euclid at Megara. He soon after
began a journey which took him to Cyrene^ and to Egypt,
and he seems to have returned to Athens from this journey
about 395. Here he apparently already began, if not his
teaching, yet the part of his literary work in which he
opposed the different tendencies of the Sophists. About
the end of the first decade of the fourth century, he began
his first tour to Magna Grascia and Sicily, which not only
brouglit him into personal touch with the Pythagoreans, but
also led him to the court of the elder Dion of Syracuse.
Here he was in close intimacy with Dion, and was thereby
drawn into the strife of political parties which ruled the
court. Matters became dangerous for him, for the tyrant
grew hostile and treated him as a prisoner of war. He
delivered Plato over to the Spartan ambassador, and the

1 Diog. Laert., III. 6.

2 The statement concerning the Lysis, ibid. 35, is in itself by no
means improbable.

8 His intimate relations with the mathematician Tlieodorus, the pupil
of Protagoras (see Thecvtelus) , are somehow connected with his stay in
Cyrene ; possibly also his essentially polemic relation to Aristippus.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 177

latter sent the philosopher to tlie slave-market of ^gina,
where a man from Cyrcne bought his freedom. About 387
Plato returned to Athens, and founded his scientific society
soon after in the Academy, a gymnasium. Here, to a con-
tinuously increasing band of friends and youths, he imparted
his philosophic theories, sometimes in dialogues, sometimes
in lono'cr discourses.

The only data for this part of his life which are not reported
alike cverywiiere in the sources have probably been given their
definitive statement by Zeller, II*. 402. It is probable that
Plato's Wanderjahre, from the death of Socrates until liis failure
in Syracuse, were not without interruption, and that he mean-
while had ah-eady begun his instruction at Athens, altliough to
a small circle, and not yet to tlie closed and organized Academy.
The literary activity of Plato in tlie interim (395-91) was essen-'
tially only a defence of the Socratic doctrijie, as Plato conceived
it and had begun to develop it against Sophistry, which was
flourishing more than ever. Whether or not Plato left his liome
a second time for political reasons, during the Corinthian war,
when Athens was again ruled by the democracy,^ is uncertain.
He probably at that time attempted in Syracuse, perhaps in
collusion with the Pythagoreans, to bring his political principles
into vogue by the exercise of influence upon the tyrant. For
the treatment which he experienced at the hands of Dionysins,
who seems to have threatened his life, is hardlj' to be explained
by an}' mere unpopularity of his ethical parrhesia, but is, on the
contrary, natural enough if Plato entered politics.

At first Plato probably taught in the Socratic manner by con-
versation, and he sought to construct concepts with the help of
his pupils. But the more his own opinions became finished, and
the smaller the organization of the Academy grew in numbers,
the more didactic became his work, and the more had it the form
of the lecture. In the successive dialogues the work of the inter-
locutor becomes fainter and less important. Later Aristotle and
the other pupils published lectures of Plato.

The philosopher allowed himself only twice to be induced
away from his teaching in the Academy, which teaching

^ That about this time public attention turned again to Socrates, is
shown by the circumstance that even then the rhetorician Polycrates
published an attack upon Socrates. See Diog. Lacrt., II. 39.

178 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY '

lasted the entire second half of his life ; and then only !

through the hope of fulfilling his political ideals. After |

the death of the elder Dionysius, he sought, with the help '

of Dion, to influence the younger Dionysius. He had no j

success in the first attempt in 367, and the third Sicilian ;

journey in 361 brought him into great personal danger '

again. In this journey his special effort was to reconcile j

Dion and Dionysius the younger. Only the energetic effort j
of the Pythagoreans who, with Archytas at their head, repre-
senting the power of Tarentum, seems to have saved him.

Plato died in 347, in his eightieth year. He was revered

by his contemporaries, and celebrated as a hero by posterity, i
He was a perfect Greek and a great man, — one who united

in himself all the excellences of bodily beauty with intel- '

lectual and moral power. He also ennobled the esthetic ,

life of tlie Greeks with a depth of spirituality which assured \
to him an influence for a thousand years.

The political character of the second and third Sicilian journey's
is beyond doubt, but that does not preclude the supposition that
Plato at that time, in his intercourse with the Pythagoreans, was
pursuing his scientific work. At any rate, the number theory
exercised an increasing but scared}' a healthy influence on part
of the development of his philosophical thought. On the other
hand, his influence on the Pythagoreans was very fruitful.

The reports of the ancients as to the length of life and the
time of death of the philosopher differ only a little. They are I
easil}' reconciled in the statement that Plato died in the middle
of the year 347. It is also said that he died suddenly in the
middle of a marj'iage feast. The report of Cicero — scribens est
mortuus — signifies only that Plato was still laboring to perfect
his works at the time of his death. The aspersions upon his
character in later literature arose from the animosities of the
scholastic controversy. They are refuted, however, by the
respectful tone with which Aristotle always spoke of Plato,
even when he was battling against his theory. It is not entii-ely i
impossible that in later time, when Aristotle went his own way
and Plato became more Pythagorean in his mysticism, that the
relations between the two became less close and somewhat in-
harmonious.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 170

Wc can get the most reliable picture of Plato from his own
writings. They sliow in their author the realization of the
Socratic ideal : his scientific investigations are carried on
with all the seriousness of a moral endeavor seeking its
own fulfilment. The serene beauty of his compositions
and the perfect purity of his diction reveal the artist who
from the heights of the culture of his time gives to the
thought of that time a form that transcends the time.
With the exception of the Apology^ they are dialogues in
which the conversation and the deciding word, if a decision
is reached, fall in by fai* the majority of cases to Socrates.
In reference to their content, only a few of the dialogues
have a fixed plan of philosophical research. Rather, almost
always threads of thought were spun from the chief prob-
lem in any direction and followed to the end. On that
account the dialogues are not scientific treatises, but w^orks
of art in which scientific " experiences " are reproduced in
an idealized form. One remarks this agsthetic character in
Plato's use of myths, which appear usually at the beginning
or end of an investigation, where Plato cannot or will not
develop his thought conceptually. The story form of the
argument enhances its poetic power.

By the term *' experiences," which are elaborated in Plato's
dialogues, we do not mean so much the conferences wliich the
poet philosopher employed or devised as the outer scenorv of
his works, but the discussions in which he himself led in the
circle of his riper friends.-^ Such a dialogue as the Parmenides
bears even the character of being the aesthetic resume oi actually
fought out word-battles. The Platonic authorship of these is
extremely doubtful, but they must have originated in the Pla-
tonic circle. Tlie actuall}- occurring conversation is idealized
and universalized in these dialogues, being placed in the mouth
of Socrates and other persons, some of wliom had already
died. Plato shows here his imagination by his selection and

^ Tliis certainly happened later also, when scholastic teachin<T and
practice had place in the Academy, in which tt;aching the preserved
diyerescs and definitions may have been used.

180 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

adornment of the situations under requirements of fiction, in
which situations these conversations purport to have taken
place ; by the plastic characterizations of the champions of
various theories, in which he uses frequentl}' the effectual means
of persiflage ; and also by the delicate structure of the conver-
sation, which forms itself into a kind of dramatic movement.
Countless allusions, of which only a very few are understood
bv us, apply to the historical persons figuring in the dialogue,
and in part perhaps to the companions of Plato.

In the undoubtedly genuine Platonic dialogues, Socrates is
made the speaker of Plato's own views. The only excep-
tions are the latest, Timceus and Critias, and the Laws. In
the first two the reason for this exception is that Plato deals
onl}' with the mythical and not with sure knowledge. In the
Laws the head of the school has become an authority and
speaks as such. Usuall}^ the dramatic scenery in the first dia-
logues is much more simple and less ornate ; in the works of
his aK/x»J, the scenic effect is fully developed ; in the Philehus,
on the contrary-, and in the other later works, it sinks back
again to a schematic investiture. The conversations are partly
"give and take," partly repetitions whereby sometimes the chief
dialogue is introduced into the discussion of another dialogue.
Although the earlier dialogues follow, on the whole, the second
principle, and the later the first, yet these principles are not safe
criteria for the chronological succession ^ of the dialogues.

The reports of antiquit}' that Plato divided ^ philosoph}^ into
dialectics, physics, and ethics can refer only to his method in
the Academ}'. This division in the dialogues can be made
neither directly nor indirectly. On the whole, epistemological,
theoretical, metaphysical, ethical, and sometimes phj'sical mo-
tives are so interwoven that while here and there the one or the
other interest predominates (in Thecetetus the epistemological
and theoretical ; in the Republic the ethico-political), never does
a conscious sundering of the realms of the problems take place.
This belongs moreover to the poetic rather than the scientific
character of Plato's literary workmanship.

Concerning the myths of Plato, compare especially Deuschle
(Hanau, 1854) and Volquardsen (Schleswig, 1871); concerning
the general character of Plato's literary activity, see E. Heitz
(O. MuUer's LiteraturgeschicJite., II. 2, 148-235).

^ In Theaitetus this innovation is made, and reason is siven for it
(143 b, c). The Plucdo also, which was certainly a late dialogue, and
the probal)ly later Syynposium returned to the older method.

- Cicero, Acad.fl. 5, 19. Compare Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. IG.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 181

There is no gToiiiid for sii|)|)osing that any one of the
writings of Plato has been lost. On the other hand, the
transmitted collection contains many that are undoubtedly
questionable and ungenuine. We may take the following
as certainly Platonic : the Apology^ Onto, Protar/oras,
Gorgias, Cratglui, Meno, Thecetetus, Phcedrus, Sginposium,
PJucdo, Republic, Timceus , and also probably Philebus and
the Laivs. The following are certainly not genuine : Alci-
hiades II., Anterastce, Demodorus, Axiochus, Ep)inomis,
Eryxias, Hipparchus, Clitophon, Minos, Sisyphus, Theages,
and the small studies irepl StKalov and irepl aperijj's. Among
the doubtful, Parmenides, Sophist, and Politicus are of
special importance. The criterion of their genuineness is
chiefly the testimony of Aristotle, who mentions many of
the writings with the name of Plato and title of the book,
many only with either name or title, many without certain
reference to Plato. To a canon established in this way,
there are to be added writings that Plato himself cites, or
whose form and content make them Plato's.

Just as important as the question of the genuineness of
the writings of Plato, is the question of their order and con-
nection. The chief controversy over the order of the writ-
ings is between the Systematic and Historical theories. The
Systematic theory, advocated by Schleiermacher and Munk^
finds a plan in the whole of Plato's writings, — a consistent
system organized at the beginning. Hermann and Grote
advocate the Historical theory, which makes each dialogue
a stage in the development of Plato's thought. Beside the
general reasons for the Historical theory, there are the nu-
merous variations in the establishment, development, and
application of the fundamental thesis, -- a thesis which is
clearly present although undergoing transformation. In
both directions the body of the Platonic writings presents
one of the most difficult problems of antiquity, — insolv-
able in some particulars ; yet time has brought about a

182 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT rHlLOSOFHY

pretty complete agreement concerning the more important
ones.

The works of Phito were arranged and pnbUshed hi antiquity
by Aristophanes of Byzantium partially in trilogies, and b}-
Thrasylus in tetralogies. In the Renaissance the}' were excel-
lently translated into Latin by Marsilius Ficinus, and printed in
Greek text at Venice in 1518. Further pubhcations of the
works are those by Stephanus (Paris, 1578) which has been
cited, the Zweibrucken edition (1781 f.),that of Imman. Bekker
(Berlin, 1816 f.), Stallbaum (Leipzig, 1821 f., 1850), Baiter,
Orelli, and Winkelmann (Zurich, 1839 f.), K. Fr. Hermann
(Leipzig, Teubner, 1851 f.), Schneider and Hirschig (Paris,
184G), M. Schanz (Leipzig, 1875 f.).

Translations with introductions : Schleiermacher (Berlin,
1804 f.), Hieron. Miiller and Steinhart (Leipzig, 1850 f.), V.
Cousin (Paris, 1825), B. Jowett (Oxford, 1871), li. Bonghi
and E. Ferrai (Padua, 1873 ff.).

The most nearh' complete and comprehensive picture of the
special literature which is not to be reproduced here and also
concerning the single dialogues, is given by Ueberweg-IIeinze, V.
138 f. The chief writings on the subject are as follows : Jos.
Socher ( Uebcr Flaton's Schnften (Munich, 1820) ; Ed. Zeller,
Plat. St'iuUen (Tubingen, 1839) ; F. Susemihl, Prodromu splat.
Forschmu/en (Gottingen, 1852) ; Genetischen Entioichelungen
der plat. Pliilos. (Leipzig, 1855-60) ; F. Suckow, D. wissensch.
■u. JmnstlerlUcJie Form der plat. Schriften (Berlin, 1855) ; E.
Munk, D. naturlv'he Onltmng der ])lat. Schriften (Berlin,
1856) ; H. Bonitz, Platonische Studien (3 ed., Berlin, 1886) ;
Fr. Ueberweg, Untersuchwngen ilber Echtheit itnd Zeitfolgepdat.
jSchr. (1861, Vienna) ; G. TeichmliUer, D. plat. Frage (Gotha,
1876); Ueher die Reihenfolge der plat. Dialog e (Leipzig, 1879);
TMterar. Fehden itn vierten, Jalirh. vor C/ir. Gel). (Breslau,
1881 f.); A. Krohn, Pie plat. Frage (Halle, 1878) ; W. Ditten-
berger (in Hermes.^ 1881) ; H. Siebeck, in Jahrhuch f. Mas.
PIdlohu/ie (1885) ; M. Schanz {Hermes, 1886) ; Th. Gomperz,
Zur Zeitfolge plat. Schriften (Wien, 1887); E. Pfleiderer,
Zur Ldsiing der plat. Frage (Freiburg, 1888) ; Jackson,
Plato's Later Theory of Ideas {Jour, of Philol, 1881-86);
F. Diimmler, Ak((<lemil'a (Giessen, 1889) ; K. Schaarschmidt,
D. Samrn. der plat. Schr. (Bonn, 1866).

With reference to all the different factors, the Pla-
tonic writings group themselves somewhat as follows : ^

1 To which there liiive been added lately, but with little success, some
philological statistics.

RIATEKIALISM AND IDEALISM 183

(1) The Works of Plato's Youth. These were written
under the overpowering inlUience of Socrates ; in part dur-
ing Socrates' life, in part in Megara immediately after his
death. To lliis group belong Lf/sis and Laches, and, if they
be genuiuc, Charmides, Ilipinas Minor, and Alcibiades I. ;
so, also, the Apology and both the apologetic dialogues,
Crito and Euthyphro.

Lysis (concerning friendship) and Laches (concerning cour-
age) have purely Socratic content. Hijtjnas Minor is also
Socratic, and for its genuineness we have Aristotle's authority in
Metaphysics, IV. 29, 1025 a. This treats the parallel between
Achilles and Odysseus from the point of self-conscious virtue.
Charmides (concerning prudence) and the rather unskilful and
incoherent Akihiades I. are doubtful. The Apology and Crito
(concerning Socrates' fidelity to law) are usually placed aftei* the
death of Socrates. Included in this class is Enthypjhro (con-
cerning piety), which also has entirely- the character of an
apology. Euthyphro criticises the charges of impiety made
against Socrates by proving that true piet}' is the Socratic virtue.
It is not impossible that the latter three were written about 395,
during Plato's residence at Athens, and were an answer to the
renewed attacks upon the memory- of Socrates.^

(2) The Disputations concerniyig Sophistical Theories.
In these appear now, besides his criticisms of the Sophists,
indications of his own philosophy. These works are sup-
posed to have been written or begun in Athens in the time
between the Egyptian and Sicilian journeys. They are the
Protagoras, Gorgias, Euthydemus, Cratylus, Meno, and
Thecetetus. Presumably there belong to this period the first
book of the Republic and the dialogue concerning justice.

These dialogues, with the exception of the Meno, are entirely
polemic and without positive result. They form a solid phalanx
against Sophism, and show the falsity and insutriciency of its
doctrines one after another : the Protagoras, by the investiga-
tion concerning the teachableness of virtue, which Plato shows

1 Compare above. Further evidence of this is the manner in whi<-li sev-
eral dialogues (Gorglas, Meno, and Thewfetus), which fur other reasons
are known to belong to that time, contain allusions to the trial of Socrates.

184 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

to be presupposed b}' the Sophists, but incompatiblf^ with their
fundamental principles ; the Gorgias^ through a criticism of the
Sophistic rhetoric, in contrast with which genuine scientific cul-
ture is celebrated as the only foundation for true statecraft ;
the Euthydemus through the persiflage of eristic ; the Cratylus
hy a criticism of the philologic attempts of the sophistic
contemporaries ; the TliecBtetus^ finall3% in a criticism of the
epistemolog}' of the different schools of Sophists.

Protagoras^ dramaticall}' the most animated of Plato's dia-
logues, heads this series as a masterpiece of fine iron3\ It is
doubtful whether Gorgias followed it immediatel}^, for there is a
great difference in the fundamental tone of the two. Yet it is
entirely natural that the artist, Plato, in the second dialogue, in
which he takes a much more positive position, should adopt a
more serious tone, and should give a more intensely spiritual
expression to his political ideal of life. The Euthydemus and
Cratylus, which perhaps, therefore, are to be placed before the
Gorgias^ follow the Protagoras^ the irony mounting to the most
insolent caricature.

If Hippias Major is taken as genuine, it belongs in this class,
for it contains Plato's criticism of the sophistic art of Hippias.
Yet it is probable, rather, that the Hippias Major was the pro-
duction of a member of the Academy who was fully familiar
with the Platonic teachino-s.

The dialogue concerning justice is a polemic against the Soph-
ists, and, indeed, against their naturalistic theory of the state.
Tliis dialogue forms at present the first book of the Bejmblic, and
was possibly its first edition (Gellius, jSfoct. Att., XIV. 3, 3). It
resembles throughout in tone the writings of this time, which fact
does not obtain as to the chief parts of the Republic. Also the
first half of the second book of the RepuUic (until 367 c) seems
to be a copy of a Sophistic speech called Praise of Injustice.

In the Meno the Platonic epistemology had its first positive
expression, even if it is only an exposition developed by sugges-
tions, and stated after the manner of the mathematician. The
Pythagorean influences, which are also found in the Gorgias. do
not oblige us to put the Meno in the time after the first Italian
journey. It is remarkable that the Themtetus, so soon after the
youthful enthusiasm with which the Gorgias had proclaimed
(174 f.) the vocation of the philosopher to be statesmanship,
advocated^ so pessimistically the retirement of the philosopher

1 The oi)inion shared by Tli. Bu^k {Funf Ahh. z. Gesch. d. yr. Phil,
u. Astron., ]*>crlin, 1883), that this dialogue should he put as late as the
fourth decade of the fourth century, cannot be reconciled with its content.

MATEKIALISM AND IDEALISM 185

from public life. Yet the ox[)l;inalion of this nin}' be that Plato
began the Thartetus in Athens, and completed it after or npon
his journey ; for the dialogue refers to a wound that Theiiitetus
received in an encounter during the Corinthian war. His clash
with the tyrant and his wily and adroit tlatterer (Aristii)pus?)
is consistent with his experiences at this time. There is per-
haps a connection between this and the change of form, which
makes it necessary to place the dialogue at the end of this series.

(3) The Works of the Most Fruitful Period of Plato's
Acticity. These are the Phcedrus^ Symjyosiiim^ and the cbief
part of the Republic. In the same period were probably
written the Parmeiiides^ Sophist^ and Politicus, which cer-
tainly came from tbe Platonic circle.

The Phcedrus ma}^ be viewed as Plato's program delivered
upon his entrance (386) into active teaching in the Academy.
Philosophicall}' it contains the fundamental thoughts of this
period in mythical dress : the theorj' of the two worlds (§ 35)
and the triple division of the soul (§ 36). In the contention
between L3sias and Isocrates he takes the latter's part, but de-
clares tliereby (276) that he prefers the living conversation to the
written word. If Plato concentrated from now on his powers in
oral instruction, it is natural that he should appear not to have
published any work in the two following decades.

Not until immediately after the Phcedrus did he give tlic fullest
expression to his entire teaching in the " love speeches " ^ of the
Symposium (385 or 384). The most superb of all his artistic

1 The exposition of these thoughts lies so essentially in the direct
line of the Platonic philosophy that it does not seem necessary to
seek their inspiration in the appearance of a work of Xenophon. Xeno-
phon did not have the sliorhtest occasion to treat the " love-speeches "
hy the side of the MemorahUin as a separate work, as he manifestly
did treat them. It is rather probable that after Plato idealized the
evening feast (for there is undoubtedly some historical ground for
the descri[)tion) in his own way, Xenophon felt compelled to give an ac-
count of the facts. His additions were especially to the thoroughly prac-
tical conception, Avhich Socrates developed, as to the relations of the
sexes. In addition to these practical reasons there are also verbal and
historical grounds for placing Plato's account prior to that of Xcno-
])hon's rather than the opposite. Compare A. Hug (PhiloL, 1852), and
Rettig (^Xen.'s Gastmahl, Greek and German, Leipzig, 1881).

186 HISTORY OF ANCIENT riilLOSOPHY

products, it represents in every respect the acme of bis intellect-
ual [)o\ver. [n the elegance of its rhetoric and in the character-
ization of single individuals carried out to verbal detail, it is
surpassed b}' no work. Upon the background of the cosmology,
suggested in the Phoedriis and clearly developed here, it pictures
the epoj? as the living bond of the Phitonic society.

The Menexenus has the same general tendencies as the Sym-
jwsium and the Phmdrus, but it was probabl}' written not b}'
Plato, but b}- one of iiis pupils. It boasts somewhat proudl}'
at the end that Aspasia has many more beautiful speeches like
the given funeral-oration.

During the time of literar}' silence that immediately followed,
Plato appears to have been going on with his great life work, —
that one, among all his works, which presents the most serious
critical and historical difficulties. This is the Hepuhlic. As it
lies before us, it is wanting in an intellectual and artistic unity in
spite of its subtile, often all too intricate, references and cross-
references. All attempts to establish such a unity fail. Follow-
ing the fruitless dialogue concerning justice, which forms the
first part of the work (first, according to the present divisions,
which were indeed traditional earl}' in antiquity), there comes,
after the insertion of a species of sophistic discourse, the conver-
sation with entirely new persons concerning the ideal state, and
concerning the education necessar}' for constructing a state by
which the ideal justice may be realized. Thus there appear tw^o
perfectly unlike parts welded together, but the second and greater
(Books II.-X.) is b}' no means a decided advance in thought.
In particular, the diatribe taken up again at the beginning of the
tenth book against the poets,, stands abruptly in the way between
the proofs that the just man in the Platonic sense is the happiest
man on earth (P>ook IX., 2d half, 588 f.) as well as after death
(Book X., 2d half, 608 c.) It is particularly striking that
whereas the teaching about the ideal state and the education
l)eculiar to it restricts itself entirely to the limits set forth in
the Phcedrus and Sjjmposium, we find an intervening section
(487-587) which not only expresses the teaching of Ideas as
the hiiihest content of this education in the sense stated in the
PJiwdo and developed in the Philebus, but also develops in a
more extended way the different metaphysical teachings of the
later j)eriod. These and other single references, which cannot
be followed out in this i)lace, show that there are three strata in
the PepnbUc: (1) the dialogue of early origin concerning justice
(Book I., possibly including ai)[)endix, 357-G7) ; (2) the outline
of an ideal state as the realization of justice, originating at the
time of his teaching, that followed the Phwdras and Syniposiam

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 187

(liooks II. -V.), and the entire conclnsion from Ch. XII. (IJook

I IX.) ; (3) the theory, dating from the time of the PJimdo and
Philebns, of the Idea of the Good, and the critique of the consti-
tutions of the state (487-587). As I'Uito grew older, he sought
to weUl these tlu'ee parts into one another. To accompHsh
tliis, he now and then worked over tiie earher portions, but he
did not succeed in bringing them into a perfect organic union.
In acce[)ting a successive genesis of the whole, the simplest ex-
planation is given of the insertions, which appear still further
within the different parts in polemic justification. These in-
sertions are attempts to meet objections that had in the mean
time been raised oralh' or in writing.

In the course of the discussion of the theory of Ideas in the
Academ}', there appeared difficulties in the way of their devel-
opment. The Parjnenides and Sophist were written especialh'
to express these objections and to discuss them. The Parmt-
nides with a dialectic which drew its formal and practical argu-
ments from Eleaticism, tears the theory of Ideas to pieces
without reaching a positive result. The contemptuous tone and
the boyish immature role which is clearly given to the Socrates-
Plato, stands in the wa}' of regarding this as Plato's criticism of
himself. Probabl}- an older member of the Platonic circle,
who was educated in Eleatic sophistry, is the author of this
dialogue. The Parmenides does not give to Socrates, but to
Parmenides, the deciding word, and it bears entirely the Eleatic
character of sterile dialectic.-^

The question about tlie genuineness of the Sophist and the
PoUficus is more difficult. That both have the same author
can be inferred from their form. On the one hand, in both, as
in Parmenides, not Socrates but a friend and guest, who is an
Eleatic, leads the conversation ; on the other hand, there is the
pedantic and somewhat absurd schematism, with which, by a
continuously progressive dichotomy, the concept of the Sopiiist
and statesman is attained. It is therefore impossible to ascribe
one dialogue to Plato and the other not to him, as Suchow has
attempted. The tw^o stand or fall together. It might be pos-
sible to divine an intended caricature of the philosopher in
certain externals that are in other respects wholly un-Platonic,
but the contents of both forbid this. The criticism of the theory

^ If Philebits, 14 c, refers to Parmenides, the notable way in giving
up the investigation of ev and noXKa. is rather a reason for regarding
the Parmenides as a polemic that had been rejected. This is better
than to let both these dialop-ues stand or fall to«;ether, as Ueberwe<»'
prefers (I. lal, 7th ed.).

188 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

of Ideas which is contained in the Sophist (compare § 28)
might be conceived, perhaps, as Platonic self-criticism, although
weighty reasons are also against it. But the manner in which
it solves the discovered difficulties is not Platonic.^ So the
Politicus contains many points of view which agree with Plato's
political convictions. It is, however, not probable that the
philosopher tried to treat the same problem in a book other
than the Republic^ especially since the Politicus sets up other
teachings wiiich differ on important points. Convincing reasons
are therefore adduced for seeking the authorship of both in a
member of the Academy with strong Eleatic sympathies.^ It
is singular enough that the divergence of both from the Platonic
teaching lies exactly in the direction of the metaphysics and
politics of Aristotle,^ who entered the Academy in 367.

About this time the dialogue lo may have originated, which
indeed makes use of Platonic thoughts in its distinction between
poetr}' and philosophy, but cannot be safely attributed to the
head of the school.

(4) The Chief Works on Teleological Idealism. These
were written in the time before and after the third Sicilian
journey. They are the Fhcedo^ Philebus, the correspond-
ing parts of the llepuhlic (487 f.), and in connection with
these the fragment of Critias and the Timmus.

The characteristic of this period is the introduction of Anaxa-
gorean and Pythagorean elements into the theorj' of Ideas.
The central concept is the Idea of the Good. The introduction
of these elements finds its full perfection in the Pliwdo^ which
was written presumabl3' shortly' before the third Sicilian journey'.

1 In the passa,2;c of Pliaido (101 d), Plato explains the problem of
the Sophist and also of Parmenides as relatively indifferent problems,
compared to the importance of the establishment of the theory of
ideas.

2 Who perhaps was prevented by death or other cause from the
third proj)osed dialogue ((f)LX6(ro(f)os). Th:it the trilogy seems to be
connected as to its external framework (which is moreover very much
wanting in fancy) with the conclusion of tli(i Thecctetus, is not decisive
for the Platonic authorship.

' The way in which he mentions both dialogues, 1 cannot recognize
as proof of their genuineness, in spite of the conclusions of Zeller (IP.
457 f.).

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 189

As if conscious of the diingers to be met, PLito gives to this dia-
logue tlie tone of a hist will and testauient to the school. As a
delightful counterpart to the /Si/mpof^iuni, he pictures the dying
Wise Man as a teacher of inimortalit}'.

After this journey, the philosopher ^ reached the zenith of his
metaphysics in his investigations concerning the Idea of the
Good, which are embodied in the dialogue Philebus. All the
thoughts - that are expressed there, are to be found again in
the less abstract presentation in the middle part of the liepuhUc,^
which was designated above as its third stratum (487-587).'*
Plato has then, as an afterthought, brought into external rela-
tionship the incomplete sketches of his philosophy of history
(Cn'tias)^ and hkewise his mythical theory of nature (Thnceus)
with the scenic setting of the llepuhlic (supposabl^- finished at
this time).

(5) The Laivs. This is the work of his old age.

This sketch of a second-best state originated at the time when
Plato in his Xo'yoi aypa-Trroi entirely went through the theor}' of
Ideas with the Pythagorean theory of numbers in mind. The
exposition passes over here into senile formalit}-, although still
worthy our admiration. The present form of the work pro-
ceeded from Plato even in its details, although the manuscript
was said to have been published first by Philip of Opus after the
death of Plato. The same scholar had edited the epitome of
the Laivs^ which under the title of Ejnnomis was received in
the Platonic circle.

35. The epistemological, metaphysical doctrine, known
as the theory of Ideas, forms the central point in tlie

1 The new course that Plato certainly takes, shows itself in
the peculiar fact that in the Philehus expressions like epoo? and
dv(invT](rLi have lost the specific sense Avhich the earHer dialogues have
given them,

2 Among others, the treatment also of the concept of pleasure which
mic^ht he claimed to belong to Democritus. (See above.)

8 Tn this part a number of pedagogical and political discussions
appear to have been sprinkled, which already could have belonged to
the earlier sketch of the ideal state and supposably did belong to it.
The details cannot be given here.

* This interpolated piece begins with a discussion. In this discus-
sion the experiences, which the philosopher underwent with the young
tyrant at Syracuse, are made use of detail by detail.

190 HISTOPvY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Platonic philosophy. The root of this inspired conception
lies in Plato's attempt to transcend the Protagorean doc-
trine of relativity, whose validity for the world of sense and
perception he recognized. By the help of the study of
concepts after the Socratic method he tried to attain a safe
and a universally valid science of the true essence of
things. The final motive of this theory was, however, the
ethical need of winning true virtue by true knowledge.
The subjective point of departure ^ ^as, for Plato as for'
Socrates, the conviction of the inefficiency of customary
virtue. The virtue of custom, resting upon convention and
prudential considerations, is unconscious of its fundamen-
tal principle, and is exposed to the insecurity of change and
opinions. Plato showed to Sophistry ^ that it with its
pleasure theory took the popular point of view for its own,
and he found the reason for this in the fact that Sophis-
try renounced all real knowledge, and therefore could find
no fundamental basis for virtue. In this sense Plato ^
purposely agreed with the Protagorean theory about the
value of sense perception and of opinions based on it.
He was vigorous in asserting the relativity of such knowl-
edge, and its inability to give us the true essence of things.
But precisely for that reason the ethical need drove Plato
beyond Sophistry, and led him to fight Protagoras the more
energetically with Protagoras' own relativism. If there be
virtue of any sort, it must rest on other than relative
knowledge, which alone the Sophists considered.

But Socrates had, to the mind of Plato, shown us the
way through conceptual science to this other knowledge
which is independent of all accident of perception and

1 Especially Meno, 9G f. Compare Phwdoj 82 a, and t\\Q RepuUic \n
dilTerent places.

- Cliielly in the GorgUis.

^ All the points of view of the Sophistic epistemology are discussed
thoroughly in the Thecv.lehis.

MATKKTATJvSM AND IDEALISM ]01

opinion. Tlic methodical development of this postuhite was
called by Plato the Dialectic.^ Its object is on the one
hand to find individual concepts (a way coy ij), and then to
establish the mutual relations of these concepts by division
(BLaip€(TL<;, re/jLvecv). Plato used the Socratic induction in
the main in finding the concepts, and supplemented this by
hypothetical discussions in testing and verifying the con-
cepts. These hypothetical discussions draw out all the
consecpiences from the constructed concept, and thus bring
it to the touchstone ^ of fact. The dividing of these class
concepts is the method which was introduced anew ^ by
Plato with the intention of exposing the logical relations
between concepts ; and therefore connected with this pro-
cess of dividing there are investigations concerning the
compatibility and incompatibility of concepts, i. e., concern-
ing the principle of disjunction.* As the last goal of
dialectic, there appeared withal a logical system of con-
cepts,^ arranged according to their relations of co-ordina-
tion and subordination.

Herbart, De Plat, systematis fundamento., Vol. XIT. Gl f . ;
S. Ribbing, Genetisclie Darstellting V07i Plato)is Idecnlehre
(Leipzig, 1863-64) ; II. Cohen, Die plat. Ideenlehre (ZeitscJir,
f. Volkerpsych. u. S2yrachioisse)ieh. 1866) ; H. v. Stein, S'lehen
Biicher zur Geschichte des Plat. (Gott., 1862-75, 3 vols.) ;
A. Peipers, Untersiichimgen ilher das System Plat., Vol. I.
(The epistemology of Plato, examined with especial reference

1 PhcEdr., 2G5 f. ; Rep., 511 f ; ibid., 533. ; PJiileh., 16.

2 Meno, 86; Phced., 101; Rep., 534. The Parmenide!^ similarly
(135 f.) ; ])ut applies the Platonic principle in the spirit of the fruitless
antinomy of the Eleatic Sophists.

3 Phileh., 16.

4 Particularly Phfcd., 102 f.

^ In their metliod, the Parmenidca, Snphht, and PoUticus stand
entirely on PLatonic ijround by their happy and logically sharp turns.
The application, however, that they make of the method seems a juve-
nile attempt at independent development rather than an ironical auto-
caricature Itv Plato.

192 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

to the Thecetetus) (Leipzig, 1874) ; Onotologia jylatonica
(Leipzig, 1883).

The Frotagorean doctrine of relativity is for Plato not only an
object of polemic, but, as in the case of Democritus, is an inte-
gral part of his system. This will become more evident as we
proceed. Skepticism of the senses is the might}" corner-stone
of both these S3'stems of rationalism. On the other hand, the
ethical point of view of Plato carried with it the attitude — and
herein that of Democritus was also one with it — that it could
not ascribe to the Sophistic doctrine of pleasure even the worth
of a relatively valid moment. This was at least the doctrine in
the first draft of the theory of the Ideas, although later, especially
in the Philebus^ Plato's conception was in this somewhat changed
(§ 3G).

Direct, logical, or methodological investigations were not yet
made by Plato, at least not in his writings. On the contrary,
one finds numerous isolated statements scattered through his
dialogues. In practical treatment the synagogic method out-
weighs by far the dieretic. Only the Sophist and Politlens
give examples of the dieretic method, and these are indeed very
unfortunate examples. Hypothetical discussions of concepts,
however, grew to a fruitful principle in the scientific theories of
the Older Academy (§ 37).

These concepts include a kind of knowledge that is very
different in origin and content from that founded on per-
ception. In perception there comes into consciousness the
world of change and appearance. Conception gives us the
permanent Essence of things (^ovala). The objective con-
tent of conceptual knowledge is the Idea. If true knowl-
edge— thus Plato followed the Socratic ideal — is supposed
to be given in the concepts, then this must be a knowledge
of what really is.^ As, therefore, the relative truth of
sense perception consists in its translating the changing
relations that spring up in the process of Becoming, so
the absolute truth of conceptual knowledge (that of Dia-
lectic) consists in the fact that it conceives in the Ideas
the true Being, independent of every change. So two dif-
ferent worlds correspond to the two ways of knowing: a

1 Thecct., 188; Rep., 47G f.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALIS^t 193

world of true reality, the Ideas, the object of conceptual
knowledge ; and a world of relative actuality, the things
that come and go, the objects of sense perception.^ The
predicates of the Eleatic Being belong therefore to the
Idea as the object of true knowledge, avro KaO' avro fjueO'
avTov /jiovoeiSe^ ael 6v ; ^ it is unchangeable, ovhe ttot ovSa/jbrj
ovSa/jLco'^ dWoLcoaiv ovSe/jblav ivSex^raL.^ The perceivable
individual things, on the contrary, constitute the Hcracleitan
flux of continuous origination, change, and destruction.
The fundamental principle of the metaphysical epistemol-
ogy of Plato is this : two worlds must be distinguished,*
one of which is and never becomes, the other of which be-
comes and never is ; one is the object of the reason (1/07^0-^9),
the other is the object of sense (alaOi^o-i^^. Since, now,
the objects are as completely separated (%ft)/3t9) as the
methods of knowing are distinct, the Ideas stand as incor-
poreal forms (^do-cofjLara etSr)) in contrast to material things,
which are perceived by the senses. The Ideas, which are
never to be found ^ in space or in matter, which indeed exist
purely for themselves (etXt/cpti^e?), which are to be grasped^
not by the senses but only by thought, form an intel-
ligible world in themselves (totto? votjto^). A rational
theory of knoivledge requires an immaterialistic meta-
physics.

This immaterialism was the peculiarly original creation of
Plato. Where in the earlier systems, not excluding that of
Auaxagoras, the discussion turned upon the spiritual as the
distinctive principle, nevertheless the principle always appeared
as a pecuUar kind of corporeal actualit}'. Plato, on the other
hand, first discovered a purely spiritual world.

The theory of Ideas is, therefore, an entirely new mediation
of the Eleatic and the Heracleitan metaphysic, employing the

1 This view is stated most clearly in TbncBus, 27 £., 57f. Compare

Rep., 509 £., 533. 2 Si/mp., 211.

8 PhcEclo, 78. 4 xim., 27 d.

5 Symp., 211. 6 p^gp^^ 507; Tim., 28.

194 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

opposition between the Protagorcan and Socratic theories of
knowledge. Precisely for this reason, in the Thecetetus, Plato
brought the Sophistic theory of perception into closer relation-
ship "to the Tvavra pet than the Sophist himself had brought it.
On the other hand, the close relationship of the Socratic episte-
mology to the Eleatic doctrine of Being had already been recog-
nized by the Megarians (§ 28). The positive metaphysic of
Plato may be characterized, therefore, as immaterialistic Eleati-
cism.^ Therein consists its ontological character (Deuschle).
It cognizes Being in Ideas, and relegates Becoming to a lower
form of knowing.

The neo-Pythagorean-neo-Platonic conception was an en-
tire misunderstanding of Plato. According to this concep-
tion. Ideas possess no independent actuality, but are only
thought-forms supposed to exist in the divine mind. Through
the neo-Platonism of the Renaissance, and even down to the
beginning of this centurj', this interpretation of Plato obtained.
Herbart was of great service in his opposition to it {Einleit.
in d. Fhilos., § 144 f. ; Vol. I. 240 f.).

Consistent with the theory of two worlds, as the central
point in Platonism, is the manner in which Plato repre-
sented our cognition of Ideas in particular.

The primary function of the Ideas is to set forth the
logical character of the class concepts, to reveal the com-
mon qualities (to kolvov) of the particulars which the
class concepts comprehend. They are, in the Aristotelian
phraseology, the ev eirl ttoXXcov.^ But Plato regarded the
process of thought, not as analysis, nor as an abstraction by
comparison, but as rather a synoptic jniuiMon ^ of reality
presented in single examples. The Idea cannot be con-
tained in its perceived phenomenon. It is of another sort,
and cannot be found in appearance. In other words, ma-
terial things do not include the Idea, but are only the

1 The relative pluralistic character of the theory of Ideas is in con-
trast to original Eleaticism. It did not, as in the earlier attempts at
mediation, arise from the need of an explanation of Becoming;, but from
the circumstance that conceptual knowledge can and must refer to a
manifold of independent content-determinations.

2 Met., I. 9, 990 b, G. ^ Pha>dr., 265; Rep., 537.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 195

copies or shadows^ of it. Therefore the perceptions can-
not inchidc the Ideas as separable integral })arts, but are,
on the contrary, only the occasions for the apprehension of
that Idea that is similar to the perceptions but not identi-
cal with them. Since the Idea cannot be created by re-
flection, it must be regarded as an original possession of
the soul which the soul remembers when it sees its copy in
the sense world. The recognition of the ideas is dud-

In the mythical representation in the Phccdrus, Plato
presupposes that the human soul has gazed upon the Idea
with its supersensible faculties, — those related to the
world of Ideas, — before its entrance into earthly life, but
it remembers them only upon the perception of correspond-
ing phenomena. Thereby out of the painful feeling of
astonishment at the contrast between the Idea and its
phenomenon is created the philosophic impulse, the long-
ing love for the supersensible Idea. This love is the epco^,^
which conducts it back from the transitoriness of sense to
the immortality of the ideal world.*

There is an interesting parallel between the intuitive character,
which the recognition of Ideas in Plato possesses, and the
yi'oi^T) yvrjai-q of Democdtus. In Plato also analogies to optical
impressions predominate. Both Democritus and Plato have in
mind immediate knowledge of the pure forms (ISiat), the abso-
lutel}' actual ^ which is attained wholly apart from sense percep-

1 Rep., 514 f. ; Phcedo, 73.

2 Meno, 80 f. ; Phcedr., 249 f. ; Phcedo, 72 f.

3 Phcedr., 250 f., and especially Symp.j 200 f.

^ The theory of the epcos takes on thereby in the Symposium a more uni-
versal aspect of hoholding the living principle of all Becoming {yevea-Ls)
in the desire for the Idea {oxxrla), and so prepares the way for the teleo-
logical interpretation of Ideas.

^ One has the same right to speak of " sensualism " in Plato as in
Democritus. Both explain true knowledge of the oircoy ov as the recep-
tion of the tSe'ai by the soul, not as an act of sense perception, although
as illustrated by the analogy to optical perception.

196 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

tion. The exposition of this teaching appears in Plato {Phcedrus
and Symposiuvi) in mythical tbim. For since it is a question of
the time-process of the knowledge of the eternal, of the genesis
of the intuition of the Absolute, a dialectic presentation is not
possible.

Since the Ideas are liypostasized class-concepts, in their
first draft there are foi' Plato as many Ideas as there are
class concepts or general names for different perceptual
things. There are, therefore. Ideas of all that is in any
wise thinkable,^ — Ideas of things, qualities and relations,
of products of art and nature, of the good and of the bad,
of the high and of the low.^ The later dialogues (^Sympo-
sium^ Phcedo^ Timceus) speak only of such Ideas as have
an inherent value, such as the good and the beautiful ; of
such as correspond to nature products, like fire, snow, etc. ;
and, finally, of mathematical relations, like great and small,
unity and duality. Aristotle reports that Plato in later
time did no longer recognize Ideas of artifacts, negations,
and relations, and that he held, in place of these, essentially
nature class-concepts.^ An exacter determination of the
circle within which the philosopher, especially in different
periods of his development, extended or wished to extend
his theory of Ideas, cannot be made.

In general the chronological order of the dialogues indicates
that Plato originally constructed a world of Ideas according to
his logical and epistemological view of class concepts. In the
course of time, however, he came more and more to seek in this
supersensible world the highest values and the fundamental onto-
logical forms, according to which the sense world of Becoming
is modelled. From the world of Ideas there thus arose an

1 Rei)., 59G.

2 For particular proofs, consult Zeller, II^. 585 f. The dialogue
Parmenides proves with fine irony to the " young Socrates " that he
must accept also the Ideas of hair, mud, etc. (130 f.). In as late a
writing as the middle part of the Republic, Plato used the Ideas of bed,
etc., to illustrate his theory.

8 Met., XI. 3, 1070 a, 18.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 197

ideal world. The norms of value thus took the place of class
concepts. The ctliical motive became more and more inilueu-
tial in his philosoph}', as appears also in what follows.

The more thoroiiglily the theory of Ideas in their first
draft distinguished the two worlds from each other, the
more difficult it became to determine the relation of the
things of sense to their respective Ideas. The characteristic
of this relation most frequently given in the dialogues 3feno,
Thecetetus, Phcedrus, and Symposium, and likewise in the
Phcedo, is similarity. This is consistent with the thought
which the philosopher developed in those same dialogues
concerning the origin of concepts ; for similarity forms the
psychological ground through which ,^ stimulated by percep-
tion, the recollection of the Idea is said to come. Similar-
ity ,2 however, is not equivalence. The Idea never appears
fully in the things,^ and accordingly Plato designated the
relationship of the two as /jLi/jLrjai^:^. The Idea is thus
regarded ^ as the original ( Urhild) {irapaheiyixa) ^iho sensed
object as the copy {Ahhild) (^el'SwXov^ . Exactly herein
consists the small amount of reality which the corporeal

1 Now one would say: accordinjr to the law of the association of
ideas, which moreover Plato enunciated expressly in this respect in the
Phcedo, 73 f.

2 In view of the same the Parmenides raises the dialectic plea
(131 f.), that it presupposes a iertium comparationis for the Idea and the
phicnomenon and forms an infinite regress. It is the objection of the
TpiTos (iv$po37ros. Comparc Aristotle, Met., VI. 113, 1039 a, 2.

8 Plato was probably prompted to emphasize this by the inconp;ruity
of actual life with the ethical norm ; primarily, however, from the theo-
retical point of view by the fact that the mathematical concepts are
factors in the consideration, and that these are never the result of per-
ception. See Phcedo, 73 a; JMeno, 85 e. The hypothetical discussion of
concepts stands furthermore in most exact connection with this.

* Whether lie thus early adopted this expression from the Pythago-
rean number theory need not be discussed.

^ See the freely accommodative and relatively early presentation in
the RepuUiCj 595 f.

198 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

world possesses in contrast to the ol/tw^ 6v. On the other
hand, viewed from its logical side, the Idea is the unitary,
the permanent,^ in which the things of sense in their origi-
nation, change, and destruction have only temporary and
occasional part {iierex^i^v).^ Tliis relationship is, again, on-
tologically so viewed that the change of qualities of sensi-
ble things is reduced ultimately to a coming and going of
Ideas. On account of this change the Idea at one time
participates in tlie particular thing Qirapova-ia)^ and at
another leaves it.*

The later phase (PJicedo^ of the theory of Ideas lias a
thought that seems to have been absent from the original
statement, viz., that in the Ideas the causes may be some-
how found for the things of sense appearing as they do
appear. The purpose of Plato was originally only to recog-
nize permanent true Being. The theory of Ideas in the
Meno, Thecetetus, Phcedrus, and Symposmm does not attempt
. to be an explanation of the world of phenomena. The sig-
nificance of the S'ophist is that it proposes this problem.
Confronting the theory of Ideas with other metaphysical
theories, the Sophist asks how this lower world of sense-
appearance and its Becoming can be conceived as deduced
from supersensible forms which are removed from all motion

1 The Parmenides (130 f.) makes also at tliis point some dialectic
objections of the Eleatic sort. Plato {Philehus, 14 f.) very curtly deals
with these.

2 STjmp., 211 b. 3 Phced, 100 d.

^ The way in which the Plicedo develops this (102 f.) shows a re-
markable analogy to the teaching of Anaxagoras, which teaching is also
significant in other respects in this dialogue (sec below.) As in Anax-
agoras, the individuals are said to owe the change of their qualities to
the entrance or exit of the qualitatively unchangeable xPW^^^ (§ 22),
so here the Idea is added as giving a quality and as augmenting the thing
(TTpuayiyucadai). Or it disappears again when, of mutually exclusive
Ideas, the one already inherent in the thinir shuts out the other. This
ex})lanation is essentially that of the Ilerbartian conception of Ideas as
alisolnfe Qualitdten.

IMATEUIALLSM AND IDKALISM 19'J

and change. It shows that immaterial Eleaticism is as nn-
ablc as early Eleaticism to explain this problem. For in
order to explain the motion of the sense- world. Ideas must
I themselves be endowed with motion, life, soul, and reason.
[But the elScov 4>lXol deny ^ to the Ideas all these qualities,
especially the most important quality of motion.

The Platonic philosophy reaches its zenith in tho solution
of this problem. The Fhcedo declares that in the Ideas
alone is the cause (alria) of the phenomenal world to bo
found, and however this relationship is to be conceived, the
sense object is indebted to the Idea alone for its qualities.^
This is the strongest of Plato's convictions, and to prove
it is the greatest problem of the dialectic. There are in-
troduced in the same dialogue, however, the two elements,
Anaxagoreanism and Pythagoreanism,^ through which this
new phase of the theory of Ideas took shape in his mind.

1 Soph., 248 f. The author of the SopJiist founds this criticism
(2-47 d) upon the definition that the ovtods 6V must be thought as dvvafMis,
and whatever possesses Being must be thought as power in order to
explain Becoming (das Gescheheii). Althougli this expression is not
to be explained in the spirit of the Aristotelian terminology (Zeller, II^.
575, 3), still this view lies nowise in the direction in which Plato later
solved the problem, bvvaixis is active power (see Republic, 47 7, where
bvvajxLs is used in the sense of a faculty of the soul). Ideas are, how-
ever, final causes, and not such '' faculties " as are definable only
through their effects {Rep., loc. cit.).

2 Phccdo, 100 d, where reference seems to be made to the dialof^ue
Soph ist.

3 About the time of this change Aristotle entered the Academy;
hence his exposition of the genesis of the theory of Ideas (Met., I. 6).
The great significance which is ascribed in the Metaphysics to tlic Pythago-
rean theory in its bearing on Plato is not consistent with the content
of any of the foundation dialogues, ThecBtetus, Phcedrus, and Sympo-
sium. Practically it begins first with the Philehus. But even the
Phmdo shows, in its choice of persons and also in its discussion of the
problems, that account is taken of the Pythagorean philosophy. Never-
theless (Met., XII. 4, 1078 b, 9) Aristotle himself elsewhere remarks

200 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PIIILOSOrHY

If the Ideas cannot themselves move and suffer change,
they can be the causes of phenomena only in the sense that
they arc the purposes which are realized in phenomena.
The only conception which therefore, from the point of
view of the theory of Ideas, appears to be possible as an
explanation of phenomena, is the teleological.^

The true relation between the Idea (^ovaio) and the
phenomenon (^yeveac^} is that of purpose. Plato found in
the z^oO^-theory of Anaxagoras an attempt to make this
point of view valid. But while he subjected the insufficient
development of this theory to a sharp criticism,^ he main-
tained in addition that the establishment as well as the
development of a teleological view of the world is possible
only to a theory of Ideas.^

The same theory is further developed in tlie PJiilehus
and in the corresponding part of the Republic. If the
Soj^hist^ from a formal and logical point of view called
attention to the fact that a similar Kotvayvla, a relationship
of co-ordination and subordination, exists between Ideas as
well as between phenomena and Ideas, so the Eepuhlic^
and the PJiilehus ^ emphasized also the systematic unity of
the ova la, and found it in the Idea of the Good, as including
all other Ideas within itself. Thus the pyramid of con-
cepts reached its apex, not by means of a formally logical
process of abstraction, but, as it happens in the entire Pla-
tonic dialectic, by means of an ontological intuition, express-
ing here its final and highest viroOeai^.'' For since all

that the oriiirinal conception of the theory of Ideas was independent
of the ninnber theory.

Phileh., 54 c, : ^vfj-naaav yeueaip ovaias eveKa ylyveaOai ^vinraaTji.

2 Phcrdo, 97 f.

8 Ibid.^ 99 f. lie called this the bfvTcpos; n'Kovs of philosophy, and
the development of philosophy as a theoretical explanation of phenom-
ena he sketched in 95 c, ff.

4 Soph., 251 f. 6 Rep., 511 b.

c Phileb., 16 f. 7 phcEdo, 101 b; Rep., loc. cit.

MATEUIALISM AND IDEALISM 201

that is, is for sonic good, the Idea of the Good or of tlie
ahsoUite purpose is that to which all other Ideas are subor-
dinated, this subordination being teleological rather than
logical. The Idea of the Good stands, therefore, even above
Being and Knowing, which are the two highest disjunctives.^
It is the sun 2 in the realm of Ideas from which everytliing
else gets its value as well as its actuality. It is the
World Reason. To it belong the name of povs^ and that of
Godhead.

This iinmiiterialistic perfecting of the Anaxagorcan thought is
set by Plato in the Philebus (28 f.) and stands o[)posed to the
svstem of irrational necessitv of Democritns. In this connection,
as a matter of fact, the vov<i and the Godhead and the Idea of the
Good, so far as it included all the others under it, were identified
with the total world of Ideas (ama ; compare Zeller, IP. 577 ff.,
593 f.). Neither is there here any suggestion of a personal divine
spirit. Compare G. F. Rettig, Atria im Philebus (Bern. 18G6) ;
K. Stumpf, Verhdltnis des plat. Gottes zur Idee des Guten
(Halle, 1869).

The teleological cosmology of Plato consisted in his
regarding Being or the world of Ideas as both purpose
and cause 3 of phenomena or the world of matter, and
besides these teleological causes he recognized no other
causes in the strict meaning of the term. Likewise in the
particular relations of phenomena those things which pre-
sent themselves to sense perception as acting and having
effect are valid for him only as secondary * causes (fwm/rta).
The true cause is purpose.

However, the Idea never realizes itself fully in corporeal

1 Rep., 508 f. 2 jiicl ; compare 517 b.

8 In Philebus, 2G c, the search for the fourth principle is opened with
the expressed explanation that r} tov ttoiovvtos <^vaii (the essence of
activity) may be distinguished only in name from the cause (aiVia). If
this aiTia in the purpose is found in the Idea of the Good, then is the
concept of the teleological cause attained.

^ PhoedOy 99 b, wliere the cause is distinguished from the ov avev to
aiTiov ovK av nor firj qltiop.

202 lllSTOliY OF ANCIENT riilLOSOPHY

things. This thought was peculiar to the first draft of the
theory of Ideas, and it got new support and significance
in Plato's tendency toward Pythagoreanism which set
the perfect and imperfect worlds in opposition to each
other. The more, however, the world of Ideas became the
ideal world, the perfect Being or the kingdom of Worth,
the less could it be viewed as the cause of imperfection in
the world of sense. The world of imperfection could rather
only be sought in the thing that has no Being. For the
sense world as eternally '' becoming" has part not only
in that which has Being (the Ideas), but also in that
which has no Being (/jltj 6v)} Empty space- was re-
garded as having no Being by Plato as by the Eleatics.
Plato moreover regarded empty space, like the Pythago-
reans, as in itself formless and unfashioned, and precisely
for that reason as pure^ negation (crrepT^o-t?) of Being.
But the formless is capable of all possible forms, and retains
them by virtue of mathematical determinations. In this
sense the Philebus ^ makes the Pythagorean fundamental
opposition a part of his teleological metaphysic, in that
he defined as the two first principles of the world of experi-
ence the aireipov (endless formless s})ace) and the irepa^
(the mathematical limitation and formation of that space).
Out of the union of the two the w^orld of the individual
things of sense appears, and the fourth and highest prin-
ciple forms the basis of this " mixing." This principle is
the alrla^ the Idea of the Good, or the cosmic reason, the

1 Rep., All a.

'^ That the ixT} ov wliich is flesignatecl in the Philebus as the aneipou
and in the Tlnucus (§ 3 7) as de^aixevrj, (Kfxayelov, etc., is space, Zeller
has proved (IIP. G05 f. ; see also II. Siebeck, Untersnchungen, 49 f.).
On this account the word " matter " has been avoided, lest it imply its
unavoidable subordinate nieaninn;, "unformed stuff." "Unformed stuff,"
the vXt) of Aristotle, had not yet had its meaning determined by Plato.

'^ Compare Arist. PJujs., I. 9, l'J2 a, G. * Phileh., 23 f.

iMATERLVLlSM A^l) IDEALISM 20 o

IMatliomatics, whose importance for the dialectic has been
enipliasized above, had an ontological ini[)Oi'tance also in Plato's
system. Mathematical forms are the link by means of which
the Idea shapes space teleologically into the sense world. ^ Here
for the first time is explained the position which the philosopher
assigns this science in connection with his epistemology. INIathe-
matics is a knowledge not of the phenomenal world but of the
[)ermanent worhl. For that reason in the earlier dialogues it
seems to have been used onl}' for dialectic "^ purposes. Its objects,
liowevcr, esi)ecially geometrical objects, have still something of
sense in them, which distinguishes them from the Ideas in the
later evaluation of the Ideas. Therefore mathematics belongs,
according to the schema of the Mepublic (509 f., 523 f.) not to
the Soi^a i^the knowledge of yeVeo-t?), but to vorjais (the knowledge
of ovaia). Within ova-La it is to be distinguished as Stdvota from
the peculiar iTnrrTijjA-r], the knowledge of the Idea of the Good.
jNIathematics appears, then, in the education of the ideal state as
the highest preparation for philosophy, but only as preparation.

Concerning Plato as a mathematician, his introduction of
definitions and the analytic method, see Cantor, Geschichte der
JLfthematik, I. 183 f.

In bis latter days Plato borrowed from the Pythagorean
number theory the principle by which he hoped for a
systematic presentation and articulation of the world of
Ideas. Logical investigations^ toward this end were given
up as soon as from the teleological principle the Idea of
the Good had been placed at the head. The Pythagorean
method of developing concepts according to the number series
commended itself to him. In adopting this method, Plato

1 A good parallel exists also here between Plato and Democritus,
altlioufrli in the lattcr's theory in the place of the teleological ahia of
the Philehua stood the avayKr) ( tj tov oKoyov Ka\ eiKrj dvvafxis koX to.
oTTjy €Tvx€v, Pliileb., 28 d), and although the Kevov and the (r;^r;/Mara
(the tScat of Plato) produce the sense world. In view of this, one
can sec in the exposition in the Philehus, 23-26, a reference to Demo-
critus, whose teaching this dialogue appears to have used in other
places (§ 33).

2 The Mono shows how we can know Ideas by geometrical examples
(Pythagorean doctrine),

3 Sophist, especially 254 f.

204 HISTORY OF ANCIENT nilLOSOrHY

also symbolized single Ideas by ideal numbers. The ele-
ments of the Ideas are the aTretpov and the 7re/oa? in analogy
to the principles laid down for the sense world in the Phile-
hus. The aireipov has here the significance of " intelligible
space." ^ Out of the ev which he identified ^ with the Idea
of the Good, he derived all other Ideas, as a graded series
of conditioning and conditioned (irporepov Kal varepov).

Traces of this senile attempt are to be found in tlie Pliilehus
and the Laws. In other respects we are instructed only by
Aristotle concerning these aypanra ^oyfxara: Met., I. 6, XII.
4 f. ; compare A. Trendelenburg, I'lat. deideis et nnmeris doc-
trina ex Arist. illustrata (Leipzig, 1826), and Zeller, II'l 567 f.

36. Measured by its first motive, Plato's theory of Ideas
is an outspoken ethical metaphysic. Consequently Ethics
was the philosophical science which he chiefly and most
fruitfully built upon. Among the Ideas that the dialectic
undertook to develop, social norms had a prominent place.
The immaterialism of the double-world theory necessarily
involved an ascetic morality that was very uncharacteristic
of Greek thought. The Thecetetu^^ for example, sets up
an ideal of retirement from the world for the philosopher
who, since earthly life is full of evil, finds refuge as quickly
as possible in the divine presence. The Phcedo ^ further
develops this negative ethics in all its details. It pictures
the whole life of the philosopher as already a dying, a puri-
fication of the soul from the dross of sense existence. The
soul in the body is, as it were, in prison, and it can free
itself only by knowledge and virtue.

This view, which is particularly like that of the Pythag-
oreans among the ancient moral theories, took in the
metaphysical theory of Ideas a special form, by virtue
of which the psychological basis was created also for

1 Compare H. Sicbcck, Untersucliungen, 97 f.

2 Aristox. Elem. harm., II. 30.

3 172, 176 f. * G4f.

'materialism and idealism 205

the positive ethics of Plato. In the theory of the two
worlds the soul must take a peculiar intermediary position,
— a theory that could be developed not without difficulties
and contradictions. On account of its ideal character the
soul must be capable of conceiving the Ideas, and on this
account must be related to them.^ The soul belongs to the
supersensible world, and should have all the qualities of
that world, — non-origination, indestructibility, unity, and
changelessness. But since it is the carrier of the Idea of
life,^ and as cause of motion is itself eternally movable, it
is not identical to the Ideas, but very similar to them.^
Therefore for Plato it had pre-existence and lasted beyond
the earthly body. Yet in that changeless timelessness of
Being which belongs to the Ideas it has likewise only a
share, since it also belongs to ^eveai^ but it is not identi-
cal with the Ideas. On the other hand, the Socratic prin-
ciple required that the soul's goodness and badness must
not be attributed to external fate, but to the soul itself."*
Since its essence, related as it is to the world of Ideas,
cannot be answerable for a bad decision, its lii(jher nature
must be considered as deformed by the temporary incli-
nations of the senses.^ Hence the theory of the three
" parts " ^ of the soul. This theory, although represented
mythically in the Fhcedrus (consistent with its subject
matter), became in the Reimhlic an entirely dogmatic basis
of ethics. There is the part that is related to the Ideas,
the directing, reasoning part (j]^efiovLK6v, Xoyto-TLKov).
Then there are the two passionate (^affektvoUe^ parts. One
is the nobler : it is the strong activity of will (^f/xo?, 6vfMo-
etSe?). The other, less noble, consists of sensuous appetites
(i'iTL6viir}TiK6v, (^L\o-)^prifiaTov). These three parts appear
in the Phcedrus and the Repuhlie as the Forms {e'l^r]) of

1 Phmlo, 78 f. 5J 7j,v/., 105 d.

^ o^ioiOTaTov] ibid., 80 b. ■* Rep., 617 f.

s Rid., 611 f. « Phcedrus, 246 f.

206 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOrHY

activity of the soul in its unity. Hence in the Phcedrus,
also, the soul that is described there as a unity, unites in
itself in the next life all the functions that in the dialogues
are ascribed to its three parts. ^ The myths of the Timceus
for the first time expressly speak of the iieprj^ of which the
soul is composed, and treat the parts as separable, in
such a way that one part, the voi)^^ is immortal, the others
mortal.

Jas. Steger, Plat. Studieii^ III. ; Die plat. Psychologle
(Innsbruck, 1872) ; P. Wiklauer, Die Dsy. des Willens, 11.
(Innsbruck, 1879); H. Siebeck, Gesch.der Psy., I. 1, 187 f . ;
Schulthess, Plat. Forschungen (Bonn, 1875).

Plato's psychology was by no means only a result of his
theory of nature, but was a metaphysical presupposition for it,
resting upon ethical and epistemological motives. This is
shown in the beginning of the myth in the Timmus. Pre-
existence is supposed to explain our knowledge about Ideas
(by dvdfivrja-Ls) , and on the other hand to explain our guilt, on
account of which the supersensible soul is bound in an earthly
body (see myth in Phcedrus'). The post-existence of the soul,
on the other hand, makes possible not onl}' the striving of the
soul to reach beyond earthly life after a completer identification
with the world of Ideas, but above all it makes possible moral
recompense. Thereupon Plato illuminated this teaching ever}--
where by mythical representations of judgment at death, of
wanderings of souls, etc. (see Gorgias., PejnibUc^ Phcedo). Con-
sequently, however weak the proofs may be which Plato had
adduced for individual immortality, 3'et his absolute belief in it
is one of the chief points of his teaching. Of the arguments
on which he founded this belief, the most valuable is that
wherein he (Phoido, 86 f.) contended against the Pythagorean
definition of the soul as the harmony of the bod}' by the proof
of the soul's substantial independence through its control over
the bod}'.^ His weakest argument is that in which the P/ucdo

1 In the Phcedrus that previous determination of the soul is ascribed
to the sense appetites, which explains the errors of earthly life. In the
Phcedo, the fortunes of the soul after death are made dependent on the
adherence of its sensuality, l^re-existence and post-existence arc ascribed
in both cases to the whole soul. 2 Tim., 69 f.

5 The Mendelssohn copy of the PJinufo (Berl. 17G4) especially raises
this point in the spirit of the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 207

sums lip and crowns all tlic other arguments : a dialectic sub-
reption from the double meaning of the word dOdvaTo^, in which
the soul is explained as immortal because it can exist in no
other way than as a living thing {Phcedo, 105 f.). Compare
K. F. Hermann, De i)nmortalitatis notume in Plat. Phcedone
(Marburg, 1835) ; id. de jyttrtibus animce immortal i bus (Gott.,
1850) ; K. Ph. Fischer, Flat, de immortal itate animoi doctrina
(Erlangen, 1845) ; P. Zinmiermann, Die Unsterhlichkeit der
Seelein Flat. Fhmd. (Leipzig, 1869) ; G. Teichmiiller, /Studien,
I. 107 f.

The relationship of tlie three parts to the essence of the soul
is very difticult, and is not made perfectly clear. Plato main-
tains clearly, on the whole, the unity of the soul, but only in a
few places particularly emphasizes it. On the one hand, the
Fhcedrus makes all the three parts belong to the essence of
the individual, in order to make conceivable the fall of the soul
in its pre-existence. On the other hand, it appears as if both
the lower parts originated in the union of soul and body, and on
that account again were stripped off entirely from the true essence
of the soul {vov^) after a virtuous life {Bep.^ 611 ; Fhcedo,
83). The abrupt and direct opposition of the two worlds made
this troublesome point in his system (i?ep., 435 f.). So also
the specific psychological meaning of the three parts, whose
origin is made clear by ethical evaluation, is undetermined.
In spite of some similarities, this division is in no wise identical
with the present-da}' psycholog}' and its customary triple division
into ideas, sensations, and desires. For the alaOrjcrei^ did not,
according to Plato, belong to the Aoyto-rtKoV, but must, although
he has not expressly' stated it, be ascribed to both the other
parts. On the other hand, there belong to the vovs not only the
knowledge of Ideas, but also the virtuous determination of the
will, wliich, according to Socrates, corresponds to that knowledge.
We come nearest to the Platonic thought when we think of the
life of the soul as ordered into three different degrees of worth.
Each degree has its own theoretic and practical functions in
such a way that the lower functions ma}' exist without the
higher, but the higher appear — at least in this life — in con-
nection with the lower. So plants have €7nOv^r]TiK6v ( Tim.^ 77 ;
Rep.., 441) ; animals have ^vynoet^c? in addition to cVt^i^/xT/riKoV ;
and men have, besides these two functions, the XoyifTTiKov- The
vov? is localized in the brain, ^v/xo? in the heart, and iTnOvfXLa in
the liver. ^

In the application of this to ethnography, he claimed for the

^ Affreeinfj with Democritus.

208 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Greeks the excellence of Xoyta-TLKOv {Republic^ 435 e), allowed
to the warlike barbarians of the north the predominance of
^K^o?, and to the weak barbarians of the south that of iinOvfjiia.

Upon the basis of this psychological theory, Plato went
beyond not only the abstract simplicity of the Socratic
theory of virtue, but also the ascetic one-sidedness of his
own first negative statements. That moral conduct alone
makes man truly blessed ^ in this or the other life,^ is his
fundamental conviction. But even if he was inclined to
find this true happiness only in the most complete perfec-
tion of the soul, in which happiness the soul is a sharer in
the divine world of Ideas ; and even if therefore he refused ^
as unworthy of the soul every utilitarian principle of con-
ventional ethics, yet he recognized other kinds of happiness
as justifiable moments of the highest Good. These kinds
of happiness are all which, in the entire sweep of the soul's
activities, appear as true and noble joys. The Philehus *
develops such a graded series of goods. Plato contended
also, in this dialogue, against the theory that would find the
Te\o<^^ only in sense pleasure. But against the view of
those who explain all pleasure as only illusory, he held fast
to the reality of a pure and painless sense-pleasure,*" and he
contended against the one-sided view that sought true hap-
piness only in insight.'^ But while he on the other hand
recognized the legitimacy of intellectual pleasure, he laid
claim to it not only for rational knowledge (z/oO?), but also
for correct ideas in every science and art.^ Above all this,
liowever, he set the participation in ideal evaluations and

1 Rep., 353 f.

2 Compare entire conclusion of Rep., Books IX., X.
8 Rep., 302 ; Thecet., 176 ; Phaido, 68 f.

* See Laws, 717 f., 728 f. 5 ^s already seen in Gorgias.

* Supposably Democritiis.

■^ These statements could be aimed just as well against Antisthenes,
Euclid, or Democritus (Phileb., 21, 60).
8 Phileb., 62 f.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 209

their actunlization in individual activity.^ All the beauty
and vitality of Greece was amalgamated here in the tran-
scendental ideal of the i)hilosoplier, and a simihir union
of the two sides of reality was already suggested in the
scries of objects which the Symposium'^ develops as the
working of the e/^o)?.

A. Trendelenburg, DePlat. Philebus consilio (Berlin, 1837) ;
Fr. ISusemihl, Ueber die Gutertufel iin Philebus (Philol. 18G3) ;
R. Ilirzel, De bonis inJinePhilebi enumeratis (Leipzig, 18G8).

However, Plato founded the development of his theory
of virtue in a still more systematic way upon his triple
divisions of the soul. While his first dialogues took pains
to reduce the single virtues to the Socratic eZSo? of knowl-
edge, the later dialogues proceeded upon the theory of the
distinct independence and the respective limitations of the
particular virtues. In so far as the one or the other part
of the soul preponderates in different men according to
tlieir dispositions,^ are they suited to developing one or
another virtue. For every part of the soul has its own
perfection, which is called its virtue and is grounded in its
essence.* Accordingly Plato constructed a group of four
cardinal virtues which at that time were beginning to be
frequently mentioned in literature. There is the virtue
of wisdom (o-oc/xa) corresponding to the ri^e\xoviicov ; that of
will-power (avBpla), corresponding to the Ov/ioecSe^i ; that of
self-control (auxfypoavvrj)^ corresponding to the 67rcdv/ji7jTt/c6v.
Finally, since the perfection of the whole soul consists^ in
the right relations of the single parts, in the fulfilment of
the soul's particular task through every one of these parts
(^ra eavTov Trpdrreiv^, and in the regulative control of

1 Phileb., 66 f. 2 Smip., 208 f.

3 Rep.,A]()f. 4 Rep.,Ul f.

^ In the t-ntire Repnhlic the ascetic thought of stripping off the lower
parts of the soul is entirely put aside.

210 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

reason over the two other parts, ^ so we have as a fourth
virtue that of an equable arrangement of the whole. This
last is called by Plato hiKaLoavvT)?

The last term, which is scarcely understandable from
the point of view of individual ethics, arises from the
peculiar derivation which Plato has given to these virtues
in the Repuhlie. Loyal to the motive of the theory of
Ideas, the Platonic ethics sketched not so much the ideal of
the individual as that of the species ; it pictured less the
perfect man than the perfect society. The Platonic ethics
is primarily social ethics. It does not treat of the happi-
ness of the individuals, but that of the whole,^ and this
happiness can be reached only in the perfect state. The
ethics of Plato perfected itself in his teaching of the ideal
state.

K. F. Hermann, Die historischen Elemente des platonischen
Idealstaates (Gesch. Abhandl.^ 132 f.); Ed. Zeller, Der ijlat.
Staat m seiner Bedeutung filr die Folgezeit {Vortrcige wnd
Abhandl., I. 62 f.) ; C. Noble, Die Staatslehre Plat.^s in ihrer
geschichtlichen JEntwickelung (Jena, 1880).

Whatever* may be the natural and historical origin of
the state, its task is the same everywhere, according to
Plato : viz., so to direct the common life of man that all
may be happy through virtue. The task can be accom-

1 Since already aaKfypoa-vvT] is possible only through the right rule of
the appetites, a-uxppoavvr) and diKaioavut] are not mutually exclusive.
Compare Zeller, IP. 749 f.

^ The most usual verbal translation, justice, concerns only the politi-
cal, not the moral spirit of the case. Righteousness does not fully state
the Platonic meaning.

^ Precisely on that account the philosopher must share in public life,
even if he would find his happiness only in his turning from the earthly
and in his devotion to the divine. See above ; also Rep., 619 f.

* The first book of the Republic develops critically the views of the
Sophists on this point. How far in the representation of the genesis of
the state, given in the second book (3G9 f.), positive and negative
analogies appear, cannot be discussed here.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 211

plislicd only by ordering all the relations of society accord-
ing to the i)rinciples of man's moral nature. The perfect
state is divided into three distinct parts, like the soul of
man. There are the producers, the warriors, and the admin-
istrators. The great mass of citizens (S/'y/xo? ; yecopyol Kal
Srj/iiovpyoi), corresponding to the eTTLdvfiijriKov or (fyiXo-
Xpyjfiarou, are entrusted with providing for the material
foundation of the life of the state by caring for its daily
needs ; and they are prompted to make this provision by
their own sensuous appetites. The warriors and officials
(e'lrUovpoi), corresponding to the dv/jboetSe^ in the unselfish
fulfilment of duty, have to guard the state externally by
repelling invasion, internally by executing the laws. The
rulers, finally (dpxovTe^), corresponding to Xoyto-riKov or
i)ye(xovLK6v^ determine, according to their insight, the legis-
lation and the principles of administration. The perfection
however of the entire state — its "virtue" — is justice
{SLKaLO(TvvT])j^ that every one may get his right. Justice
consists in these three classes having their proper distribu-
tion of power, while at the same time every one fulfils his
own peculiar task. Therefore the rulers must have the
highest culture and wisdom ((jo(/)/a), the warriors an
undaunted devotion to duty (az/Spta), and the people an
obedience which curbs the appetites (o-&)(/)poo-i;z^7;).

The constitution of the ideal state for Plato is an aristoc-
racy in the strictest sense of the word. It is a rule of the
best, — the wise and virtuous. It places all legislation and
the entire direction of society in the hand of the class of
the scientifically cultured {(faXoaocfyoL).^ The task of the

1 Therefore the corresponding virtue of the individual, the ethical
equilibrium of the parts of his soul, is designated by the same name,

2 Thus must the celebrated sentence {Rep., 473 d) be understood.
There will be no end to the sorrow of man until the philosophers (the
scientifically cultured) rule or the rulers are philosophers (are scientifi-
cally cultured).

212 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

second class is to execute practically the orders of the
highest class, and to maintain the state and preserve its
interests both internally and externally. The mass of
mankind have to work and obey.

Since, however, the object of the state does not consist in
the securing of any merely outward benefit, but in the
virtue of all its citizens. Plato demanded that the individ-
ual should merge liimself entirely in the state, and that the
state should embrace and determine the entire life of its
citizens. Plato thus went beyond the political principle of
the Greeks. The development which this idea found in
the social organization of the iTo\iTeia was restricted,
nevertheless, to the two higher classes, which were taken
together under the name of " guardians " ((j)v\aKe<^). For
the mass of the 8?)/i,09 there is accessible no virtue founded
on knowledge, but only the conventional virtue of society,
which is enforced by the strict execution of the laws and
attained through utilitarian considerations. The Platonic
politics leaves therefore the third class to itself. In its
desire for acquisition, this class is moved by a fundamen-
tally sensuous motive ; and it performs its duty when
by its labor it furnishes the material foundation for the life
of the state, and yields to the guidance of the " guardians."
But the prenatal and present life of the " guardians " are
to be controlled by the state. Impressed by tlie importance
of the propagation of the species, Plato would not leave
marriage to the voluntary action of the individual, but de-
cided that the rulers of the state should provide for the
right constitution of the following generation by a fitting
choice of parents.^ Education of the youth in all depart-
ments belongs to the state, and gives equal attention to
bodily and spiritual development. In the latter it pro-
gresses from folk-lore and myths through elementary
instruction to poetry and music, and thence through math-

1 Rep., 41G b.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 213

omatical training to interest in philosophy, and, linally, to
the knowledge of the Idea of the Good. In the different
steps of this education, wliich is the same for all the chil-
dren of the two higher classes, those children are pruned
out by the state otlicials that no longer seem to show iitncss
of disposition and development for the higher tasks. Dif-
ferent grades of otlicials and warriors arc thus formed from
these. This sifting process leaves ultimately the ^lite, who
succeed to the position of archons and dedicate their lives
partly to the furthering of science and partly to the admin-
istration of the state. Herein are the two upper classes a
great family ; every form of private possession is renounced,^
and their external wants are cared for by the state support,
which is furnished by the third class.

The Platonic state was accordingly to be an institution
for the education of society. Its highest aim was to pre-
pare man by the sensible for the supersensible world, by
the earthly for the divine life. The social-religious ideal is
that which floats before the philosopher in his methodical
delineation of the " best " state. As all the higher interests
of man will be included by this social community of life, so
the philosopher believed that the state should have exclu-
sive control not only of education and science but also of
art and religion. Only that art shall be allowed whose
imitative 2 activity is directed upon the Ideas, especially the
Idea of the Good.^ The Greek KoXoKayaOia consisted in
the evaluation of everything beautiful as good. Plato
reversed the order of this thought by establishing only the
good as the really beautiful. In the same way the ideal
state accepts in the main the myths and the culture of the
Greek state religion as educational material for the third
class of society, and partly also for the second class, espe-
cially in childhood.^ But the state expunges from the

I Rep., 416 b. - Ihid., 313.

3 Ibid. y 3m f. 4 Ibid., 3GU f.

214 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

myths all things immoral and ambiguous, and permits their
use only as the symbolical representations of ethical truths.
The religion of the philosophers, however, consists in sci-
ence and virtue, of which the higliest goal is the attainment
of likeness to the Idea of the Good, — the Godhead.

Plato did not conceive his cit}^ as an imaginary Utopia, but in
all earnestness as a practicable ideal. He employed therefore
in many particulars, especially in social arrangements, numerous
features of the then existing Greek states, and he preferred, natu-
rally enough, the stricter and more aristocratic ordinances of the
Doric race. Though he was convinced that out of the existing
circumstances his ideal could be realized only through force,^
3'et he had none the less faith that if his proposal were tried, he
would bestow upon his citizens lasting content, and would make
them strong and victorious against all foreign attack. In the
incomplete dialogue, Critias^ the philosopher tried to develop
this thought, — that the state founded on culture should show
itself superior to the Atlantis, the state founded on mere ex-
ternal power. An idealizing of the Persian wars probably floats
before him. The description is broken off at the ver^- beginning,
and there is wonderful similarity in the picture of the Atlantis
to the institutions of former American civilizations.

As to details, we should make a comparison of the Repiiblic
with all of Plato's other writings. Tlie FoUticus offers many
similar thoughts, but with the interweaving of much that is
foreign-, and it has predilection for monarchical forms of govern-
ment. It deviates from the Republic^ especially in its theory of
the different kinds of constitutions, contrasting three worse
forms with three better.^ The kingdom is coiitrasted to the
tyranny, the aristocracy to the oligarchy, the constitutional to
the lawless democracy. Inexact sketches are drawn of the
seventh, or best, state in contrast to these. In the Bejmblic,^
Plato used his psychology to show how the worse constitutions
come from the deterioration of the ideal states. These are the
timocracy in which the ambitious rule, the predominance of the
OvixoetSk ; the oligarchy in which the avaricious rule, the pre-
dominance of the iTTLOvfiTjTLKov ', thc dcmocracy or realm of uni-
versal license; and, finally, the tyranny or the unfettering of
the most disgraceful arbitrary power.

The aristocratic characteristics of the Platonic state corre-
spond not only to the personal convictions of Plato and his

1 Rep., 540 d. 2 Polit.^ 302 f. 3 Ji^j,^^ 545 f.

JNIATEKIALIISM AND IDEALISM 215

great teacher, ])iit arc developed necessarily from the thought
that scienlilic culture can be obtained only by the very few.
In scientific culture is the highest virtue of man, and his only
title to political administration (Gorgias). Likewise, the exclu-
sion of all non-intellectual labor from the two directing classes
is consistent with the universal Greek prejudice against the
proletariat. However, it is justified by Plato in the reflection
that all true labor presupposes love for its task, or brings love
with it ; and accordingl}', that all manual work necessarily lowers
the soul to the sensuous, and makes distant its supersensible
goal. From the same motive came the exclusion of family life
and private possessions. It is misleading to speak here of a
communism. The community of wives, children, and goods is
expressly delimited to the two higher classes. This was not to
satisfy a claim for universal equality, as was the case in the
naturalistic investigations of radical Cynicism, but, on the
contrar}', to prevent private interest from interfering in any
way with the devotion of the warrior and ruler to the welfare
of the state. It is, in a word, a sacrifice made to the Idea
of the Good.

The peculiar character of the ethics of Plato, and at the same
time its tendency to go beyond actual Greek hfe, consisted in
the complete subordination of the individual life to the purpose
of the political whole. In contrast to the degenerating Hellenic
culture the philosopher held an ideal picture of political society,
which could first actually be when the Platonic thought predom-
inated : that all earthl}' life has value and meaning only as an
education for a higher supersensible existence. To a certain
extent the hierarch}" of the Middle Ages realized the Platonic
state but with the priests in place of the philosophers. Other
moments of the Platonic ideal — for example, the control of
science by the state — have been realized also to some extent in
the pu))lic measures of some modern nations.

Concerning Plato's theory of education see Alex. Kapp
(Minden, 1833); E. Snethlage (Berlin, 1834); Volquardsen
(Berlin, 1860) ; K. Benrath (Jena, 1871) ; concerning his atti-
tude toward art, K. Justi, Die cesth. Elemeute in der pZa^. PJd-
los. (Marburg, 180O) ; concerning his attitude toward religion,
F. Ch. Bauer, Das Chrisfliche des Platonismus (Tubingen, 1873).
Compare, also, S. A. Byk, Ilellenismus und Platonismus (Leipzig,
1870).

Similarly Plato's ethics also experienced as disadvan-
tageous a later transformation in the Laivs as his theoretic

216 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

philosophy in the lectures of his old age. In pessimistic ^
despair 2 as to the realization of his political ideal, the phi-
losopher attempted to sketch a morally ordered community
without the controlling influence of the theory of Ideas
and its devotees. In the place of philosophy, on the one
hand religion presented itself in a form much nearer to tlie
national mode of thought, and on the other mathematics
with its Pythagorean tendencies to music and astronomy.
Philosophical culture was replaced hy practical prudence ^
(^<f)p6p7](Tc<;'), and precise conformity to law and the Socratic
virtue by a moderate dependence on ancient worthy cus-
toms. Thus the state in the liepuUic changed, when it
appeared in the later writings, into a mixture of monar-
chico-oligarchic and democratic elements, — the ideal power
into a compromise with historical conditions. Moreover,
all this is set before us in a long-winded, unconcentrated
presentation, which seems to be wanting the last finishing
touches and the final redaction.*

Just because the Laios give details of contemporaneous life,
they are of high antiquarian, even if of very little philosophical
value. They represent so great a deterioration, not only from
the theory of Ideas, but from Plato's entire idealistic thought,
that the doubts which have been wiselj^ put aside again as to
tlieir genuineness are 3'et entirely conceivable. Compare Th.
Oncken, Staatslehre des Arist., 197 f. ; E. Zellcr, IP. 809 f. ; the
five essays by Th. Bergk, concerning the History of Greek
Piiilosophy and Astronomy (Leipzig, 1883) ; E. Pn\3torius, Be
legibus Plia. (Bonn, 1884).

37. The epistemological dualism of the theory of Ideas
allowed and demanded a dogmatic statement concerning
ethical norms of human life, but no equivalent recognition

1 Laius, 644. The conviction as to the badness of the world grew up
here to the extent of a belief in an evil world-soul, which works against
the divine soul. Compare § 37. See Laws, 896 f.

2 Ibid., 739 f.

3 Thid., 712, in exact antithesis to Jlej^., 473.

4 Ibid., 746 f.

MATERTALISIsr AND IDEALIS^r 217

of nature plioiiomena. For although Plato had fully deter-
mined that tho tasks of metaj)h}sics lay in regarding tlie
Ideas and especially the Idea of the Good as tlie cause of
the sense-world, that world nevertheless remained to him
as before a realm of Becoming and Destruction. According
to the premises of his philosophy, this realm could never
be the object of dialectic or true knowledge. The point of
view of the theory of Ideas presupposes a teleological view
of nature, but it offers no knowledge of nature.

In his latter days, complying with the needs of his
school, Plato drew natural science also within the realm of
his research and tlieory, — which science he in the spirit
of Socrates had earlier entirely avoided. He, nevertheless,
remained always true to his earlier conviction, and empha-
sized it with great clearness and sharpness at the beginning
of the Timceus^ in which the result of these investigations
was set down.^ Tliis was to the effect that there can be no
iiTLCTTi'jixri of the Becoming and destruction of things, but
only TTiart^ : no science, but only a probable conclusion.
He claimed therefore for his theory of nature, not tlie value
of truth, but only of probability. The presentations in the
Thnccics are only etKore^; fMvdoi, and, however closely related
to his theory of Ideas, they nevertheless form no integral
part of its metaphysics.

Aug. Bockh, Be Platonka coiyoris mundani fabrica (Heidel-
berg, 1809) ; Untersuclmnijen iiber das kosmische System des Pint.
(BerHii, 1852) ; H. Martin. Pltudes sur le Timee (2 vols., Paris,
1841).

Plato's philosophy of nature stands, then, not in the same, but
in a very similar relationship to the metaphysic of his theory of
Ideas, as the hypothetical i)hysics of Parmenides to his theory of
Being. In both cases it seems to have been a regard for the needs

1 Tim., 28 f ; which discussion, 27 d, begins witli the recapitulation of
the theory of the two worlds. The relation of the philosophy of nature
to the theory of Ideas is characterized most exactly by sentence 29 c;
ort nep npos yeviatv ovaia, tovto vrpoy niaTiv dX^deia.

218 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

and wishes of the pupils that occasioned their descending from
interest in permanent Being to an experimental interest in
the changeable. Plato designated expressly this play with the
elK()Teq fjivOot as the onl}^ permissible diversion from his dialectic,
wliich was his life-work (Tim., 59 c). Although a critical and
often, indeed, polemical consideration of existing opinions ap-
peared here, the formal moment of which Diels (Aufs. z. Zeller-
Jub., 254 f.) made of great importance in Parmenides, Plato took
account of the fact that a school that had a school-membership
of the organization and range of the Academy could not hold
itself indefinitely aloof from natural science, and that such a
school would be obliged finalh' to come to some terms or other.^
While, however, upon the basis of the theory of Ideas a perfect
knowledge of the comparative worth of the individual, society,
and histor}' could be obtained, yet the determination of the
reality of nature through the Idea of the Good was not to be
developed with equal certainty as to details. Suppose, then,
physics and ethics to be the two wings of the Platonic edifice,
the ethical wing is like the main portion of the edifice in style
and material ; the physics is, however, a lighter, temporary
structure, and is merely an imitation of the forms of the other.

That which pressed upon the philosopher and was treated by
him w'ith careful reserve was, remarkably enough, made of the
greatest importance b}^ his disciples in later centuries. The
teleological physics of Plato was regarded through Hellenistic
time and the entire Middle Ages as his most important achieve-
ment, while the theory of Ideas was pressed more or less into
the background. Relationships to religious conceptions are
chiefly accountable for this, but still more the natural circum-
stance that the school had an especial fondness for the more
tangible and useful part of his teaching. This explains why
alread}^ Aristotle (De an., I. 2, 404 b, 16) contended against
the myths of the Timceus as though they were serious state-
ments of doctrine.

The basis for the myths of the Timceus is the metaphys-
ics of the Philehus. The sense world consists of infinite
space, and the particular mathematical forms wdiich that
space had taken on in order to represent the Ideas. But
conceptual knowledge cannot be given of the efficacy of
these highest purposes. Consequently the Timceus begins

^ Concerning the inlluence of Eudoxus, see H. Usener, Preuss. Jahrh.,
LIll. 15 f.

MATEKIALISM AND IDEALISM 219

by personifying this efficacy mythologically as the world-
forming God, the S7]fjLLovpy6<;. It is purposeful force ; it
is good, and because of its good-will lias made the world. ^
In the act of creation it had in view the Ideas, those pure
unitary forms of which the world is a copy .2 The world
is tberefore the most perfect, best, and most beautiful,^ and
since it is the product of divine reason and goodness, it is
the only world.

The perfoctness of the one world which is reasserted with
especial solemnity at the end of the Timceus, is a necessary
requisite of the teleological basis of thought. The denial of the
oi)posite proposition, that there are numberless worlds (Tim.,
31 a), appears as a polemic against Democritus, especially in
connection with what immediately precedes (30 a). According
to Democritus' mechanical principle, the vortices arise here and
there in the midst of chaotic motion, and out of these the
worlds arise. According to Plato, the ordering God forms only
one world, and that the most perfect.

That, however, this world corresponds not perfectly with
the Ideas,* but only as closely as possible, is due to the
second principle of the sense world, to space into which
God has built the world. Space is known neither by
thought^ nor sense. It is neither a concept nor percept,
Idea nor sense object. It is the f^rj 6v or what possesses
no Being, without which the 6vt(i3<^ op could not appear,
nor the Ideas ^ be copied in sense things. It ' is the ^walTiov
in comparison to the true alTLov', and so also the things
formed in it in the individual processes of the world are
^vvalrta.^ They form a natural necessity (^dvdyKrj') ^ beside

1 Ti77i., 29 c. 2 jii^^^ 30 c.

8 The teleolosjical motive (jf the teachin2j of Anaxagoras, which
was accepted ab-eady in the Fhccdo, forms one of the fundamental
teachings of the Timceus.

4 Twi., 30 a, 4C c. ^ /j;^,^ 52.

^ AVliich are midway between Being and not-Being. Rep., 477 i.

^ Thji., 68 e, meaning a second kind of airla.

8 IbUL, 4G c ; Phccdo, 96 f.

^ Tim., 48 a, another term used comi)letcly in Democritan sunse.

220 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the divine reason, wliicli necessity nnder certain circum-
stances stands in the way of the teleological activity of the
divine reason. Space ^ (^x^copa, totto^} is that wherein the
cosmic process comes to pass (^eKelvo iv c5 <ylryveTaL^ which
talvCS on all bodily forms (^(pvo-i^ ra iravra aco/j.ara S€-)(^ofi€vr],
also the rj Se^afievy or viroho')(ri t^? y€vea€co<^^, and is in-
determinate plasticity (^d/jLop(f)op iKfiayelov^. Out of this
Nothingness ^ God creates the world.

The identity of Platonic " matter" of the Tpirov yeVos (Thn.,
48 f.) with empty space is most certainly proved by his con-
struction of the elements out of triangles (see below), in wliich
connection the philosopher identified the mathematical body
immediately with the physical body. See also J. P. Wohlstein,
JIaterie und Weltseele im jdatonischen System (Marburg, 1863).

The cosmos must also, as the most perfectly perceivable
thing, possess reason and soul. The first task of the de-
miurge in the creation of a world is the creation of a world-
soul.^ As the life-principle of the All, the world-soul must
unite in itself its Form-determining capacity, its motion and
its consciousness. The world-soul is the mean between the
unitary (the Idea) and the divisible (Space), and possesses
the opposite qualities of sameness (ravrov) and change
(Odrepov). It holds in itself all numbers and dimensions.
It is itself the mathematical form of the cosmos, is distrib-
uted by the demiurge into harmonious relations, in which
distribution an inner circle of changing motions and an
outer circle of uniformity (the place of tlie fixed stars and
planets) is to be distinguished. The latter is again divided
proportionately within itself. By means of these circles,
each moved according to its own nature, the world-soul is
supposed to have set the entire cosmos into motion. By
means of this motion, permeating the whole and returning ^
to itself, the world-soul created in itself and in individual

1 Ti7n., 49 f. ^ Compare the claims of Deraocritus.

8 Tim., 35 f. 4 75/^;.^ 37,

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 221

things consciousness, perception, nnd tliouglit. The most
perfect kind of knowledge, however, is the circular move-
ment of the stars, which continually returns to itself.

The particulars of this extremely imaginative description of
the Tim(('us are obscure, and have been subject to controversy
(see ZcUer, IP. G4G i\'.). The tendency toward the number
theory of the Pythagoreans as well as toward their astronomy '^^

and harmonics is unmistakable. In the division of the world-
soul, witli which the divisions of the astronomical world are
identical, harmonic proportion and arithmetical means phi}' the
chief role. The important thouglit is that with this general
division of the mass and motions of the cosmos, a perpetual
definiteness of form (Trepa?) belongs to space, which is a com-
pauion priuciple of the aTreipov in the Philehus (§ 35). The
mathematical was therefore not for Plato entirely identical with
the world-soul ; but it was in the most intimate connection with
it, and was in a similar intermediary position between the Ideas
and the sense world.

The characteristic of the Platonic tlieory of motion is that it
referred all motions of individual objects to the teleologically \^

determined motion of the whole. It thus was in antipodal
opposition to Atomism, which considered motion to be an inde-
pendent function of single atoms. It is remarkable that the
TimcBus emphasizes manv times (Zeller, II''. 663, 3) the con-
nection, nay the identit\', between motions and intellections.
The *• right idea " is referred, for example, to the ^arepor, to
irregular motions ; rational knowledge, on the other hand, is re-
ferred to ravToi, the uniform, circular motions (Tun. ^ 37).^ It
is also here cliaracteristic that all particular acts are referred to
the universal functioning power of the world-soul. Thus to the
world-soul is lacking the characteristic of personality.

The further mathematical formation (Trepa?) of empty
space is accomplished in the individual things, which have
been introduced by the demiurge into the harmonious sys-
tem of the world-soul ; and, firstly, in the formation of the
elements {a-roxela). Besides an artificial deduction of their
fourfold number,'-^ which introduced air and water as the two

1 If in these theories any use is made of Democritus — which I re-
gard by no means improbable — his teachings have, at any rate, received
an independent treatment.

2 Tim., 31 f.

222 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

means between fire and earth, Plato ^ gave a stereometrical
development from these four elements, which development,
as among the Pythagoreans, presents the four regular
bodies as the fundamental forms of the elements. The
tetrahedron is the fundamental form of fire ; the octa-
hedron, of the air; the icosahedron, of the water; the
cube, of the earth. He conceived, however, these funda-
mental bodies as constructed out of planes, and indeed of
right-angle triangles which are sometimes isosceles, and
sometimes of such a nature that the catheti stand in the
ratio of one to two.^ With this construction the transfor-
mation of space into corporeal matter seemed to be con-
ceived. From the different magnitudes and numbers of
these indivisible plane-triangles^ were next derived with
clever fancifulness the physical and chemical qualities of
individual stuffs, their distribution in space, their mingling,
and the continuous motion in which they exist.

Plato also believed that the individual elements and stuffs are
in a determined part of space according to the predominating
mass, to which the scattered parts then strive to return. It is
not entirely clear how he introduced the relationships of weight
into this thought. At any rate, he had been sensible of the
fact that the direction from above downward cannot be re-
garded as absolute ; but that in the world-sphere only the two
directions, to the centre and to the periphery, exist.

[ Plato's astronomical views differ from those of the Py-
' thagoreans essentially in his acceptance of the stationari-
ness of the earth. According to his theory, the earth rested
like a sphere in the middle of a spherical-shaped world-all.
Around the " diamond " axle of this world with daily
revolution from east to west swings in the outermost periph-

1 Tim., 53 f.

- The square is constructed out of the former ; the equilateral tri-
angle, of the latter.

^ Which accordingly take the place of the arofia and axrjfiaTa of
Dcmocritus.

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 223

ery tne lieavcn of the fixed stars, in which the single
stars are conceived as " visible gods " ^ in continuous per-
fect movement upon their own axes. That revolution is
commmiicated to the seven spheres, viz., the five planets,
the sun and the moon. These intersect the first circle (of
the fixed stars) in the direction of the zodiac. The planets,
sun and moon, have, however, within their orbits their own
reverse movements of differing velocity.

The last proposition as an astronomical explanation of the
apparent irregularit}' of the movements of the planets, remained
for a long time authoritative. The methodical principle
h'ing at its basis has been strikingl}- formulated by Plato or
his followers in the question : tlvwv v-n-oreOetauiV ofxaXwv koI reray-

fX€l'(DV KLl'lJCTCijOV StaGnoOyj TO. TVepl TttS KLVyj(T€i<i TOJV 7rXaV0Jfl€V0)V CjiaLVO-

fteva (comp. Simplicius with Aristotle, De coelo, 119).

The theory of motion in the Timceus concludes with a
detailed account of the psycho-physical process of percep-
tion.2 It is concerned with establishing those conditions
of motion of external objects and of the body which call
forth the motions of the soul, its sensations and feelings.^
With great pains in this connection the investigations of
the physiologists, just as the theory of Protagoras,^ were
adjusted to the teleological theory of motion. Since the
subjective moment is, moreover, separated from the objec-
tive in aiadrjaL^, the nature philosophy confirms the episte-
mological point of departure which the Thecetetus had illu-
minated.

Finally, by way of appendix, the Timceus gives a sketch
of a theory of diseases and their cures, and thus yields to
the encyclopaedic demands of the Platonic school.

1 Tm., 40 a.

2 Ibid., f)lf. For details, see H. Siebeck, Gesch. der Pstjch.^ I., 1,
201 f.

^ In this respect the exposition of the Timceus is supplemented by
that of the Republic and the Philebus, while it develops empirically the
theoretical ])rinciples of the Thecetetus.

* And perhaps much also which belongs to Democritus.

224 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

6. ARISTOTLE.

A career of nearly forty years in teaching gathered a
large number of superior men around Plato, and gave to
the operations of his school, in its treatment of ethico-his-
torical and scientific medical studies, that comprehensive-
ness of which indications appeared in his later dialogues.^
To the stately number of men that belonged to the school
more or less closely, empirical research owed much valu-
able enrichment in the immediately succeeding time, but
philosophy gained at their hands scarcely anything worthy
of mention. Only the one man, Plato's greatest pupil,
who it is true did not remain in the ranks of the Academy,
but founded a school of his own, was called to bring to
completion the history of Greek philosophy with his won-
derful system of thought. This man was Aristotle.

The history of the Academy is generally divided into three
and perhaps five periods : the Older Academy, which lasted
about a century after the death of Plato ; the Middle Acadeni}',
which filled out the second century, in which period we distin-
guish two successive schools, that of Archesilaus and that of
Carneades ; the New Academy, which extended to neo-Platonism,
and in which the dogmatic movement advocated by Philo of
Larissa is to be distinguished from a later eclecticism of Anti-
ochus of Ascalon. The two later phases belong to the sj'ncretic
skepticism of Greek philosoph3\ For general comparisons, see
H. Stein, Sieben Bilcher zur Gesch. d. Platonisinus (3 vols., Got-
tingen, 1862-75).

38. The so-called Older Academy stood entirely under
the influence of that less healthy tendency which the
Platonic philosophy in later time had shown theoretically
toward the Pythagorean number theory and practically
toward a popular and religious system of morals. Speu-
sippus (d. 339), the nephew of Plato, took charge of the

^ See H. Usener, Ueher d. Organhation d. icissenschafdicJien Arbeit
im Alterthvm {Preuss. Jahrh. 53, 1 ff.) ; E. Hitz, D. PhUos. scliulen
Athens [Deutsche Revue, 1884).

ARISTOTLE 225

school after Plato, and Xcnocratcs of Chalccdon followed
Speusippus. To the same generation belonged Heracleides
of Pontic Ileraclea and Philip of Opus. The astronomer
Eudoxus of Cnidus and Archytas of Tarcntum, head of the
Pythagoreans of that time, stood in a loose relation to the
Platonic scliuol. The following generation of the school
yielded to the spirit of the time, and turned essentially to
ethical investigations. Polemo of Athens was then liead
of the school, from 314 to 270, and since his gifted pupil.
Grantor, died before him. Crates of Athens became his
successor.

An exact description of all the Academicians of this time is
in Zc'Iler, IP. 836 f. ; F. Biiclieler, Acad.pMlos. index Mercula-
nchsis (Greifswald, 18G9). Our kuowledge concerning the dif-
ferent tendencies within the Academy arises from the fact that
after Plato's death, as Speusippus had been designated b}' Plato
to succeed him as scholarch, Xenocrates and Aristotle left
Athens. The former was afterward chosen to lead the school ;
the latter somewhat later founded a scliool of his own.

Judging by what has come down to us about Speusippus, he
was a vague and diffuse writer. Diogenes Laertius (IV. 4 f.)
gives a list of his writings, and these touch upon all parts of
science. The most appear to have been vTrofjivi^fxaTa in reference
to his career as a teacher. It was these that Aristotle had in
mind in his frequent and mostly polemical references to Speusip-
pus. A writing is particularly mentioned which was concerned
with the Pythagorean number, and so also the"0^ota, which is
an enc3'clopedic collection of the facts of natui'al history arranged
by name. Compare Ravaisson, Speiis. dej^^'lmis rerum princi-
piis placifa (Paris, 1888) ; M. A. Fischer, De Spjeus. vita
(Rastadt, 1845). Xenocrates, Plato's companion upon his third
Sicilian journe}', who was distinguished for his strong, serious
personality, was hardly more significant as a philosopher than
Speusippus. Diogenes Laertius (IV. 11 f.) mentions the long list
of his writings. R. Heinze, X. (Leipzig, 1892), gives a compre-
hensive exposition of his theor}' with the fragments appended.
Heracleides came from the Pontic Ileraclea, was won over to
the Academ}' by Speusippus, and had especially as an astron-
omer independent importance. Plato passed over to him, dur-
ing his Inst journey to Sicily, the leadership of the Academ}-.
Wlien jiftcr Speusippus' death Xenocrates was chosen scholarch,

226 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

TTeracleides went to liis home and fonnrled there his own school,
wliich he administered nntil afler ooO. He was a many-sided,
aesthetically inclined, and prodnctive writer, and he was familiar
not only with the Platonic and Pythagorean teaching, but also
with Aristotelianism. Compare Diog. Laert., V. 86 f. ; Eouler,
De vita et scrlpiis Her. Pon. (Loewen, 1828) ; E. Deswert, De
Her.Pon. (Loewen, 1830) ; L. Cohn (in Comment, j^hil. in hon.
EHfferacheid, Breslau, 1884). Philip of Opus probably edited
the Laios of Plato, and was besides the author of the Epinomis,
The renowned astronomer Eudoxus (406-353) joined the Acad-
emj' for some time according to the many different testimonies of
tiie ancients (Zeller, IP. 845 f ), and he developed its astronomical
theories. But on other questions, especia% ethical ones, he
deviated widely from the Academy. A. Bockh, XJeher die
Yierjaliriqen Sonnenkreise der Alien, hesonders den eudoxi-
schen (Berhn, 1863).

Among the later Pythagoreans, Arch3'tas was pre-eminent.
In the first half of the fourth centur}' he pla3-ed a great role in
his native cit}', Tarentum, as scholar, statesman, and general.
Whatever has been transmitted with any assurance concerning
him and others, shows us that just as the Pythagoreans influ-
enced Plato in various ways, so also Plato on his side influenced
to such a degree the Pythagoreans, that the theor}' of numbers
in its last phase fused perfectly with the theory of Ideas, which
was nominally' its rival. The significance of Arch3'tas lay in the
realm of mechanics and astronomy. His philosophy agreed
throughout with that of the Older Academ}-. On account of
the close personal relationship in which he stood to Plato, the
genuineness of those fragments may well be possible in which he
gave a Platonic turn to P3'thagoreanism. These fragments are
collected by Conr. Orelli (Leipzig, 1827) ; see MuUach, II. 16 f. ;
G. Hartenstein, De Arch. Tar. frag. 7;^^7c»s. (Leipzig, 1833);
VQtQV§>Qn (^ZeitscJir. f. Altertimisvnssenschaft, 1836) ; O. Gruppe,
Die Frag, des Arch. (Berlin, 1840) ; Fr. Beckmann, De
Pgthagoreorum reliquiis (Berlin, 1844); Zeller, V^. 103 f . ;
Eggers, De Arch. Tar. etc. (Paris, 1833).

Polemo and Crates owe the leadership of the Academy more
to their Athenian birth and their own moral worthiness than to
their philosophical significance. Grantor originated in Soli in
Cilicia, and was known particularly through his writing, ir^pl
TrevOovs. H. E. Meier, Ueber die Schriff, Trepl 7rev6ov<; (Halle,
1840) ; F. Kaj^ser, De Crantore Acade^nico (Heidelberg, 1841).

The Older Academy took in general the Laivs of Plato
as its point of view. It pushed the theory of Ideas aside

ARISTOTLK 227

Ito make way for the number theory. Thus Speusippus on
his side ascribed to numbers a reality that is supersensible
and separated from the objects of sense, — the same which
Plato had given to the Ideas. Similarly Philip of Opus in
the Ephiomls declared that the highest knowledge upon
which the state in the Laivs must be built is mathemat-
ics and astronomy. For these sciences teach men eternal
proportions, according to which God has ordered the world
and by which he is leading it to a true piety. Besides this
mathematical theology Speusippus, accommodating himself
to the spirit of his school, recognized to a greater degree
than Plato the worth of empirical science. He dilated
upon an aia07jai<; iino-TrjiJLoviKrj^ which participates in con-
ceptual truth. 1 But he had no explanatory theory of this,
rather only a collection of facts arranged logically as he pre-
sented them in his compendium (ofioia ovo/uLara) which was
manifestly intended for the use of the school. Xenocrates
divided philosophy into dialectics, ethics and physics as a
i basis for instruction.^ He held firmly to the theory of
'Ideas, but recognized that mathematical determinations had,
in contrast to the sense world, an independent reality similar
to that of the Ideas. He distinguished, accordingly, three ^
realms of that Avhich can be known: the supersensible, the
mathematically determined forms of the world-all, and the
sense objects. To these objects there corresponds, first, the
eiriarrjfiT], including dialectics and pure mathematics ;
secondly, the ho^a^ which as an astronomical theory is given
both an empirical and a mathematical basis ; thirdly, the
aLaOr]aL<;, which is not false, but exposed to all sorts of
delusions.

Tlie Platonists seem to have thought that the chief
task of their metaphysics was the teleological construction
of a graded series of mediatory principles between the

1 Sext. Emp., YIT. 145. 2 jJjIj^^ Kj. 8 7/,/^/.^ 14 7.

228 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

supersensible and the sensiblej In the sohition of this
task, however, two opposing tendencies made themselves
felt, which are connected with the names of Speusippus
and Xcnocrates. If the former abandoned the theory of
Ideas, it was essentiallv because he could re^-ard the Per-
feet and the Good,^ not as tlie alrca of the more Imper-
fect, the Sensible, but rather as its highest teleological
result. He therefore postulated numbers as the dp-^^
and unity and plurality as their elements and next in order
geometrical magnitudes and stereometrical forms, to whose
fourfold number he added the Pythagorean ether.^^* Be-
sides this, he found the principle of motion in the world-
soul (pov^), which he seems to have identified with the
central fire of the Pythagoreans. The goal of motion is
the Good, which as the most perfect belongs at the end.
Xenocrates contrasted with this evolution theory the theory
of emanation, in that he derived numbers and Ideas from
unity and indeterminate duality (dopiaroi; Svd^}. Numbers
are to him identical with the Ideas, according to the
schema of Plato's d^ypairra Soyfiara. He also further
defined the soul as self-moving number.^ * Thus there is
a descent from the unity of the Good down to the Sensi-
ble ; and between the world-soul and corporeal things
exists a completely graduated kingdom of good and bad
daemons. In this very contrast Plato's pupils showed
that they were engaged upon the unsolved problems of
Plato's later metaphysics, in that they desired to develop
further his teaching on its religious side. The opposition
between alrla and avimiriov, between Idea and space,
between the perfect and the imperfect, grew entirely to*
a religious antithesis of the Good and the Bad. They —
especially Xenocrates — surrendered the monistic motive

1 Arist., Met., XI. 7, 1072 b, 31. 2 See § 24.

3 Plato, Procr. an., I. 5 (1012); see Arist., Anal, past., II^. 91 a, 38.

^ Sec R. llcinze, Xenocr., p. 15 f.

AFxISTOTLE 229

ill the teaching of their master to fantastic speculations
which turned particularly upon the cause of eviP in the
world.

More interesting than the fantastic Pythngorizing by the
leaders of the school is, on the other hand, the high development
of mathematics whicli arose in the P^'thagorean-Platonic circles
at this time, even to tlie solving of the more dilficult problems.
There was the diorism of Neocleides, the theory of the propor-
tion in Arch3'tas and P3udoxus, the golden section, the spiral
line, the doubling of the cube by the application of parabolas and
hyperbolas (see Cantor, Gesch. der Math.^ I. 202 f.). Then
there was the astronomy' taught b}' Hicetas, Ecphantus, and
Heracleides, concerned with the stationariness of the fixed heaven
of stars and the turning of the axis of the earth. Herakleides
thought of Mercurv and Venus as satellites of the sun. See Ideler,
AbhamlL cl Bed. Akad. d. Whs., 1828 and 1830. On the
other hand, however, there is the fact that those men, who were
only indirectl}' related to the school, developed the relationship
of certain motives of Platonism with other teachings. Thus
Heracleides still held to the Platonic constrnction of the ele-
ments when he advocated the synthesis that P>-phantes sought
between Atomism and Pythagoreanism (§ 25). Eudoxus like-
wise conceived the tSeat entirely in the sense of the homoiomerii
of Anaxagoras.'-^

With such a mathematical corruption of the theory of
Ideas there was conjoined the lapse into popular moraliz-
ing on the part of the older Academicians. Only in some
measure, however, did the energy of their religious spirit
compensate for this deterioration. As concerns morals,
the school can hardly be made answ^eralde for the hedo-
nism of Eudoxus,^ especially since Heracleides appears* to
have openly antagonized it. The theory of goods, however,
found in the Philehits ^ was cultivated much more in an ac-
commodative sense : for Speusippus sought happiness in the

1 See Arist., especially Met., XIII. 4, 1091 b, 22.

2 Ibid., I. 9, 991 a, IG, with the commentary of Alexander Aphr.
(Schol. in Arist., 572 b, 15).

8 Arist. Eth. Mc.,l. 12, 1101 b, 27.

* Atben., XII. 512 a. 5 Compare above, § 36.

230 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

perfect development of natural gifts ; ^ Xenocrates, though
recognizing fully the value of virtue, nevertheless recog-
nized external goods as also necessary to the attainment of
the highest good. He set for the majority of mankind ^ the
practical (j)p6vr]at^ in place of the iTTio-Ti-j^-r-j wliich falls to
the lot of the few, and finally, in opposition to the Stoics,
described ^ virtue, health, pleasure, and wealth as the various
soods, evaluating them in that order.

^It is especially noteworthy that according to all that we
know the social-ethical character and the political tendency
of the Platonic morals were not further fostered among
his pupils, i Rather in the Academy the quest after correct
rules of living for the individual came more and more into
the foreground. I Nature philosophy still engaged the at-
tention of theorists, as^can be seen in Grantor's commen-
tary to the Timceus. LEthical researches, however, took on
the individualistic aspect of the period J Polcmo taught
that virtue, which is the essential condition of happiness,
completely gives satisfactory happiness (avrdp/cr] 7rp6<;
evSai/jboviav) only in connection with the goods of the body
and life. Virtue cannot be practised in scientific research,
but in action.^ Scarcely a step was necessary from such

views to those of the Stoa.
I-—

39. \ Beneath these different efforts of the Older Academy
would obviously lie a fundamental tendency to adjust Plato's
idealism to the practical interests of Greek society and of
the empirical sciences. But dependence upon Pytliagorean-
ism on the one hamTand on the other a general lack of
philosophical originality always stunted all these under-
takings. In the mean time the problem was solved by
him who had brought with him into the Platonic theory

1 Clemens, Sh-om. ,JJ. 21 (500). Compare concerning Polemo, Cicero,
Acad., TI. 42, 131.

2 Ck'mens, Strojn., U. 5 (441).

8 Soxt. Erap. Ado. math.j XI. 51 f. * Diog. Laert., IV. 18.

AUISTUTLK 231

an inborn predilection for medicine and the science of
nature. This perfecter of Greek philosophy was Aristotle
(384-322).

Fr. Biese, Die Fhilos. des Aristoteles (2 vols., Berlin, 1835-
42) ; A. Rosmiiii-Serbati, Aristote esposto ed emmijiafo (Torino,
1858) ; G. II. Lewes, Aristotle, A Chapter from, the History of
the Science (Lond. 1864; German, Leipzig, 1865) ; G. Grote,
Aristotle (incomplete, but published by Bain and Robertson, 2
vols., London, 1872) ; E. Wallace, Outlines of the Philosophy
of Aristotle (Oxford, 1883).

The home of Aristotle was Stagira,^ a city in the
neigh]:)orhood of Athos, on that Thracian peninsula which
had been colonized ^ chiefly from Chalcis. He came from
an old family of physicians. His father, Nicomachus, was
body-physician and a close personal friend of the king,
Amyntas, of Macedon. Detailed reports about the youth
and education of the philosopher arc wanting. His edu-
cation was in the charge of his guardian, Proxenus of
Atarneus, after the death of both his parents. He was
only eighteen years old when he entered the Academy in
367, and his connection with it was uninterrupted until
Plato's death, so far as we know. Ho won a prominent
place in it very quickly, grew early from the position of a
puj)il to that of a teacher in the band, was the champion
literary spirit of the school through his brilliant writings
which at once made him famous, and in public lectures
concerning the art of speaking, antagonized Isocrates, to
whose anti-scientific rhetoric the Platonic school had never
been reconciled.^

Concerning the life of Aristotle, see J. C. Bnhle, Vita Arist.
per annos diyesta, iii the Bipontine edition of the works, 1. 80 f. ;

1 Also Sta![jciros.

- Aristotle disposed in his will (Diog. Laert., V. 14) of a piece of prop-
erty in Chalcis, which he jjerhaps inherited from his mother, Phaistias.

2 In spite of the advances Plato showed to him in the Phcedrus as
always preferable to Lysias.

232 HISTORY or ancient philosophy

A. Stahr, Anstotelia, Part I., on the life of Aristotle (Ilallc,
1830). Of the ancient biographies of the philosopher, the more
valuable, those of the older Peripatetics, are lost, and only a
few of the later remain.

It is imcertain whether Aristotle grew up in Stagira or in
Pella, the residence of the Macedonian kings. It is as little
determinable when his father died, and where he himself lived
under the tutelage of Proxenus, — in Stagira or Atarneus.-^
AVe are also entirely restricted to the following suppositions as
to his educational training : it is scarcely to be doubted that,
according to the famil}^ tradition, as the son of the Macedonian
court physician, he was destined by his famil}' for medicine and
received a training for it ; in the intimate relationship existing
between scientific medicine, in which Hippocrates was the
leading spirit, and the Democritan studies of nature, it may be
supposed that these were the first elements in the early educa-
tion of our philosopher. At any rate, he grew up in this atmos-
phere of the science of medicine in northern Greece, and he
owed to it his respect for the results of experience, his keen
perception of fact, and his carefulness as to details in investi-
gation, which contrast him with the Attic philosophers. On
the other hand, it must be said that one must not magnify too
much the reach of knowledge that his seventeen 3'ears in the
Academy brouolit to him. It was certainlv later that Aristotle
got his immense scientific erudition, — in part, to be sure, during
his attacliment to the Academy, but chiefl}' during his sta}' in
Atarneus, Mitylene, and Stagira before he began to teach. It
is possible that Aristotle remained true to this scientific incli-
nation wiiile he was in the Academy, and that he was in part re-
sponsible for gradually causing more attention to be paid to those
matters (§ 37). At first, however, the spirit of the Platonic
school must have turned him in other directions, and what we
know of his activity in the twent}' 3'ears of his study, of the
form and contents of his writings of that time, the rhetorical
lectures, etc., do not allow us to suppose that such inclinations
predominated in him.

The malicious school gossip which was circulated in later
time al)out the relations between Aristotle and his great teacher
sliould be passed over with a deserved silence. See particulars
in Zeller, IIP. 8 f. If one holds himself to that which is safely
testified to, especially in the writings of Aristotle, one finds a
simple human relationship. The pupil looked upon his teacher

1 The later references to Atarneus can be explained by the fact that
Ilermeias was for a long time an auditor of Plato.

IMATEllIALISM AND IDEALISM 233

with great revoionco.^ lUit the more mature he liecame, the
more iiulepondeiitly did lie pass judgmont in)on Phito's philo-
sophical positions, lie recognized with accurate glance their es-
sential detects, and he did not conceal his doubts, if his aged
master directed his theory upon unfortunate lines. Never-
theless he remained a member of the fraternity with his own
intk^pendent circle of activit}', and he separated from the school
only at the moment when after his master's death perversit}'
was exalted to principle in the choice of an insignificant head
of the school. Nothing makes against the conclusion that in
these difficult relations Aristotle avoided both extremes, with
that worth}' tact that always characterized his actions.

►See below concerning the writings of this i)eriod. That his
relation to Isocrates was somewhat strained, we see on the one
liand from Cicero's reports {De orat., HI. 35, 141 ; Orat.^ 19,
62; compare Quint.., III. 114), and on the other from the
shameful pamphlet which a pupil of the orator published against
the philosopher. Aristotle showed here also his noble self-
control, when he later in the Rlietoric did Hot hesitate to give
examples fl'om Isocrates.

After Plato's death Aristotle in company with Xenoc-
rates betook himself to Hermeias, the ruler of Atarneus and
Assus, and a true friend to Aristotle. Aristotle married
his relative, Pythias, later after the tyrant had met an un-
happy end, the victim of Persian treachery. Previously
he seems to have migrated for a time to Mytilene, and
perhaps also for a short time to Athens.^ In 343 he
obeyed the summons of Philip of Macedon to undertake
the education of the then thirteen-year-old Alexander.
Although we are entirely without information concerning
what kind of education this was, yet the entire later life
of Alexander bore the best witness of its effect. Also
later the philosopher remained in the best of relations with
his great pupil, although the treatment of the nephew of
Aristotle, Callisthenes, by the king may have brought a
temporary estrangement.

1 Compare the simple beautiful verses of Aristotle from the elegy
to Eudemns : Olympiad, in Gorg., 166.

2 See Th. Bergk, Rhein. Mus., XXXVII. 359 f.

234 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

The regular instruction of the young prince ceased,
at all events, when he was entrusted by his father, after
340, with administrative and military duties. The relation
of the philosopher was therefore more independent of the
Macedonian court, and the next years he was engaged for
the most part in scientific work in his native city, in inti-
mate companionship with his somewhat younger friend,
Theophrastus, who became a real support to him in the
following time. For when Alexander entered upon his
campaign in Asia and Aristotle saw himself entirely free
of immediate further obligation to him, he went with his
friend to Athens and founded his own school there. This
school, in the universality of its scientific interest, in the
orderliness of its methods of study, and in its systematic
arrangements for joint inquiry, very soon rose above the
Academy, and became the pattern of all the later societies
of scholars of antiquity. Its place was the Lyceum, a
gymnasium consecrated to the Lycian Apollo, from whose
shady walks ^ tlie school got the name of Peripatetic.

Twelve years (335-323) Aristotle administered this
school in ceaseless activity. When, however, after the
death of Alexander, the Athenians began to rise up against
the Macedonian rule in Greece, the position of the philoso-
pher became dangerous, standing as he did in such close
connections with the royal house. He betook himself to
Chalcis, and in the following year a disease of the stomach
cut short his active and honorable career.

Concerning Hermeias^ of Atarneus, see A. Bockh, Kleine
Schrift, VI. 185 ff. ; P. C. Engelbreclit, IFeber die Bezielmngen zu
Alexander (FAslehen, 1845) ; Rob. Geier (Halle, 1848 and 1850) ;
M. Carriere (Wester7ncmn, Monatsh.^ 1865). Aristotle owed to

1 ProLably from the custom of lecturing part of the time ainthulando.
See Zeller, IIP. 29 f.

2 In memory of this friend, Aristotle dedicated his hymn upon virtue ;
Diog. Laert., V. 7.

ARISTOTLE 2o^}

/lis relations with difTercMit courts and to his own eas}- circum-
stances tlie abundance of the scientific expedients which amouir
other thin<2:s made his extensive collections possible. The
reports of the ancients concerning the greatness of the sums
placed at his disposal arc obviously somewhat overestimated.
One cannot doubt, on the whole, from his court relationships,
the support which he found for his work.

Concerning the relations of the philosopher and his great
pupil, gossip has circulated widely, just because there has been
wanting any trustworthy information about it. If the friend-
ship in later years was actually somewhat cooler (as Plutarch
also reports, Alexander, 8), yet it was entire foolishness and slan-
der on the part of later opponents to charge Aristotle with a share
in the supposed poisoning of the king (see Zeller, IIP. 3G f.).
The favorable relations of the philosopher to the Macedonian
court were most clearly confirmed by the events after the death
of the king. Doubtful as the single statements here again ma}'
be, it is certain that the philosopher left his circle of activity at
Athens in order to avoid a political danger. How great it had
become can no longer be determined ; for the reports concern-
ing the charges of impiety,^ concerning his defence and the
excuse for his escape in the expression that he wished to spare
the Athenians a second crime against philosoph}', — all this
smacks, especialh' in its details,'-^ strongly of an attempt to make
Aristotle's end as uearl}- as possible like that of Socrates.

To every depreciation that the character of Aristotle has
suffered, his system of science stands as the best contradic-
tion. It is a creation of sncli magnificent proportions and
of such construction that it can have been only the work
of a life filled w^ith the pure love of tru.th, and even then it is
almost beyond our comprehension. Zl^or the Aristotelian
philosophy includes the entire range of knowdedge of that
time in such a way that it comprehends all the lines of ear^
lier development at the same time that it considerably elab-
orates the most of these lines. It turns upon all territories
an equal interest and an equal intellectual appreciationT?

1 See E. Heitz in O. MUller, Lit. Gesch., IP. 253 f.

^ Compare E. Zeller in Hermes^ 187G ; II. Uscner, Die Organisation
der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit bei den Alten : Preuss. Jahrb., LIII. If.
(1884).

236 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Aristotle met the demands of the history of science more
completely than Plato. Even in his Ethics the purely theo-
retic and not the practical interest is fundamental. He is the
scientific spirit Kar e^o^vv. ] In him the process of the in-
dependence of the spirit of learning completes itself. He
is, in the ^yonderful many-sidedness of his activity, the em-
bodiment of Greek science, and he has for that reason
remained "the philosopher" for two thousand years. /

Furthermore he became " the philosopher," not as an isolated
thinker, but as the head of his school. The most striking char-
acteristic of his intellectual personalit}' is the administrative
abilit}' with which he divided his material, separated and formu-
lated his problems, ordered and co-ordinated the entire scientific
work. This methodizing of scientific activity is his greatest
performance. To this end the beginnings already made in the
earlier schools, especially in that of Democritus, might well have
been of service. But the universal sketch of a system of science
in the exact statement of methods such as Aristotle gave, first
brings these earlier attempts to their complete fruition. His
conduct of the Lyceum can be looked upon not only as a care-
fulh' arranged and methodically progressive instruction, but also,
above all, it must especially be viewed as an impulsion to inde-
pendent scientific research and organized work.^

Tlie great number of facts and their orderl}' arrangement are
only to be explained through the combined efforts of man}' forces
guided and schooled by a common principle. All this appeared
and was developed in the Aristotelian writings. The activity
of the school, which is itself a work of the master, forms an in-
tegral constituent of his great life-work and his works.

The collections of writings transmitted under the name
of Aristotle do not give even an approximately complete
I)icture of the immense literary activity of the man. They
apparently include, however, with relatively few exceptions,
just that part of liis work upon which his philosophical
significance rests, viz., his scientific writings.

1 Compare E. Zeller in Hermeft, 1876 ; H. Usener, Die Organisation
der ivianenschaftlichen Arbeit bei de)i Alten: Preuss. Jahrb., LIU. If.
(1884).

ARISTOTLE 237

The preserved remainder of the Aristotelian writings forms
still a statel}' pile, even after the genuine have been separated
from the doubtful and S[)urious. But in extent it is manifestly
only a smaller part of that which came forth from the literar}'
wo]ksho[) of the philosopher. From the two lists of his writings
that antiquity has preserved (published in the Berlin edition, V.
14G3 f.) the one of Diogenes Laertius (V. 22 f.), which was
changed b}' the anonymous Megarian, probably b}' Hesychius,
is supposably based u[)on a report of the Peripatetic Hermippus
(about 200 B. c), concerning the Aristotelian collection in the
Alexandrian library. The other list originated with the Peripa-
tetic, Ptoleniicus, in the second centur}' a. d., and was preserved
parti}' by Arabic writers (Zeller, IIP. 54).

The traditional collection appears essentially to have come
from the published Aristotelian writings, which somewhere in
the middle of the first century b. c. were prepared by Andro-
nicus of Rhodes with the co-operation of the grammarian
Tyrannion. In modern time it was printed first in a Latin
translation in 1489, together with the commentaries of Averrocs,
and in a Greek translation in Venice in 1495 ff. Of the later
editions ma}' be mentioned the Bipontine, by Biehle (5 vols.,
incompleted, jB^^o^i/fi et Argentorati^ 1791 f.) ; that of the Berlin
Academ}' (text recension by Imm. Becker, annotations by
Brandis, fragments by V. Kose, index by Bonitz 5 vols., Berlin,
1831-70) ; the Didot edition by Dlibner, Bussemaker, and
Heitz (5 vols., Paris, 1848-74) ; stereotype edition of Tauchnitz
(Leipzig, 1843). Concerning a special edition of his single
works, see Ueberweg, V. 186 f. German translations are in
different collections, particularly' in J. v. Kirchmann's Philos.
BihliotJiek.

These preserved writings offer problems for solution which
differ from those in the Platonic writings, but are no less dilli-
cult. Indeed, there is but little agreement among the authori-
ties as to the questions involved. The discussion has been
only a little concerned with the chronology- of single works ; it
has had niore concern with the very doubtful genuineness of
many of them ; it has found its greatest concern with the liter-
ar\' character, the origin and purpose of the single writings and
of the collection.

J. G. Biihle, De lihrorum Aristotelis distributio7ie ^V^. exoteri-
cos et acvoamatiros (Bipontine ed., I. 105 f.) ; Titze, De Arist.
opmim serie et dUti)ictione (Leipzig, 182G) ; Ch. Brandis
{Rhein. Mus., 1827) ; A. Stahr, AHstotelia, Part II., Die
ScJiir/csale der Arist. Schrifte)i (Lei|)zig, 1832); L. Spengel,
Abhwidl. der hair, Akad. der Wlss., 1837 f. ; V. Rose, De Arist.

238 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

librorura ordine et auctoritate (Berlin, 1854) ; H. Bonitz, Arist.
Studien (Vienna, 1862 f.) ; Jac. Bernays, Die Dialoge des
Arist. (Berlin, 18G3) ; E. lleitz, Die verlorenen /Schriften des
Arist. (Leipzig, 1865) ; tlie same in O. Mlliler's Litteratur
Geschich.., ll\ 256 f. ; F. Vahlen, Arist. Aufsatze (Vienna,
1870 f.); R. Shiite (Oxford, 1888).

The writings ^ of Aristotle are divided with reference to
their literary character into three classes : —

(1) The Works published by Aristotle himself, and in-
tended for a wider circle of readers.

Of these no single work is complete, and only frag-
ments are extant. They originated in the main during
Aristotle's attendance at the Academy, and showed strongly
the influence, even in their titles, of the Platonic philosophy.
They were, on the whole, dialogues, and if they did not also
possess the artistic fancy with which Plato managed this
form, they are striking, nevertheless, in their fresh in-
tuitions, happy inventions, florid diction, as well as in the
richness of their thought.

These cKSeSo/xeVot Xoyoi were counted by Aristotle, in his occa-
sional mention of them in his didactic writings, as belonging
to the general class of c^wreptKot Xoyoi. B}' this class he seems
to have understood the more popular treatment of scientific
questions in antithesis to the methodical and scholastic cultiva-
tion of science. The latter, which centres in the lectures of the
head of the school, appeared later as the acroamatic writings.
The opposition of the exoteric and the acroamatic teaching does
not, then, necessaril}' signif}- in itself a difference in content of
doctrine, but onl}' a difference in form of presentation. There
is no word about a secret teaching. It may, however, be ac-
cepted as true that the exoteric writings originated when he was
in the Academy, and the acroamatic, when he was an indepen-
dent teacher ; and from this fact even essential differences are
easily explained. See Zeller, III^. 112 f. ; H. Diels, Sitzungsher.
der Bed. Akad., 1883 ; H. Susemihl, Jahrbuchf. FhiloL, 1884.

Aristotle owed his literar}' fame in antiquity to his published

1 Excepting the personal writings like the verses, the testament (Diog.
Laert., V. 13 f.), and the letters, of which scarcely anything genuine is
preserved.

ATlISTOTLt: 239

writings, and certain!}' in all justice if we ma}' judge from the
few preserved specimens.^ For if, on account of the "golden
flow " of his words, he is classed with Democritus and Plato as
a model," nevertheless this praise cannot be applied to the writ-
ings that have been preserved. The " golden tlow " is so seldom
in these writings that it is more supposable that they are ex-
cerpts from his dialogues that were made either by Aristotle
himself or by some of his pupils.^

The composition of the Aristotelian dialogues is said to have
l)een distinguished from the Platonic by a less vivid treatment
of the dramatic setting, and also by the circumstance that the
Stagirite himself gave the leading word. In content the}- were
affiliated in part closel}' to the Platonic dialogues. Thus, the
Eudemus especially appears to have been a detailed copy of the

Phoido. Other titles like Trepl hiKaiO(Tvvy]<i, VpvXko<; r) TrepI prjTOpLKrj'i,
cro(/)tcrT7^9, 7roXLTLK6<;, eptort/cos, avfXTrocnov, M.eve$€vo^ remind US imme-
diately of the works of Plato and his school. Others refer directly
to popular philosophical discussions, like the three books irefA
TTOLrjTun', TTcpt ttXovtov, Trepl ev-^rjs, Trept evyevet'a?, Trepl r)Sov7]<i, Trept
TraiScias, Trepi (SaaiXeLa^.^ The genuineness of all of these has not
been established, nor is it certain that all were in the form of
the dialogue. It is very improbable that the nporpeTrrtKo? was
in this form (R. Hirzel, in Hermes^ X. 61 f.). The most signifi-
cant, and, as it appears, those most independent of the Platonic
influence among these exoteric writings, are the three books of
the dialogue Trepl </)tAoo-o</)ia9. (See By water, in Jour, of PhiloL,
1877, 64 f.)

|__ (2) The Compilations ; partly critical excerpts from
scientific works (vTrofMvrjfMara), partly collections of zoologi-
cal, literary-historical, and antiquarian data which Aristotle, ^
probably with the help of his pupils, used as material for ^r ^
scientific research and theory.

These also have unfortunately been lost except a very
few fragments, although it appears that at least a portion
of them had been published either by Aristotle himself or
by his pupils.

^ See Cicero, De nat. deor., IT. 37, 95.
2 See place in Zeller, IIP. Ill, 1.

^ See Fr. Blass, Att. Beredtsamkeit, 427 note; also Rhein. Mus.
1875.

* Dedicated to Alexander, as also Trepl dnoiKiaiv.

240 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY ^

To these last ])elong the notes of the philosopher concerning
the later lectures of Plato : Trept rayaOov and Trepl twv etSoJy. Com-
pare Cli. Brandis, De perditis Aristotelis de bono et ideis lihrls
(Bonn, 1823). Tliere are also reports of some extracts from
the Laws, the JRepuhlic, and the Timceus, the critical notes about
Alcmceon, the Pytliagoreans, — especially about Archytas, —
Sj)eusippus, and Xenocrates. Also the writings De Melisso
Xe)iophone Gorgla arose from a like need in the Peripatetic
school. The fruits of this comprehensive study of the history
of philosophy appear in the numerous historical relations which
the Aristotelian didactic writings generall}^ set up in entering
upon the treatment of problems. The Trpo^XrjfxaTa serve similar
purposes of instruction and of research, although their present
form is a later conception of the school. Compare C. Prantl,
Abhand. der Munvhn. Akad., VI. 341 f. The same holds
good for all the definitions and diaereses which antiquity then
possessed.

In the magnificent collections which Aristotle planned i. .
the Lyceum must first be mentioned the avarofxaL, the descrip-
tive basis for zoolog}", furnished, it seems, with illustrations.
Then there is the collection of the rhetorical theories under the
title TC)(yo)v crvvayitiyr], and of the rhetorical models ivOv/jirjjxaTa
prjTopLKOL ; besides the collection relating to the histor}' of trage-
dies and comedies, and the questions raised about the diff'erent
poets, Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Euripides, and others ; fi-
nally, the historical miscellanies : the Tro/Vtretat, reports concerning
one hundred fifty-eight Greek state constitutions, vo^i/xa /SapfSa-
piKa, StKtttoj/xartt rdv TroAecoj', and besides 'OAv/XTTtovtKat, VvdiovlKai^
TTCpl €vpy]^dTO)v, TTcpt OavfjiacTLOiv dKovcrfJidTOiv, Trapot/xtai, etc.

Concerning the character of these scientific materials, which
until the present time were apparently entirel}^ lost, some years
ago a very surprising disclosure was made, parti}' by the fortunate
discovery of a most important piece, the TloXtreta twv AQ-qvaifw
(published by G. Kaibel and U. v. Wilamowitz-MoUendorf,
Berlin, 1892 ; translated into German b}^ G. Kaibel and A.
Kiessling, Strassburg, IS'Jl); the literature on it, especially on
its genuineness, has, as may be expected, qnickh' appeared ; a
complete review can be found in the English edition of J. E.
Sandys (Lond., 1893, p. Ixvii). To be sure, the beginning and
end are wanting, but by far the greatest part is preserved in
nearl}' a complete continuit}'. It appears not as a dry collection
of facts, but as a ripe historical work clearl}' and perfectly' devel-
oped. The greatness of conception, the practical simplicity
of representation, the accuracy of judgment make it appear
a worthy writing of the master in whose last years its composi-

ARISTOTLE 241

tion must have oocurrecl. Should this history of the Alhonian
constifutioii be the work of one of his [)ii[)ils, then would it
indeed be a new honor for the Lyeeuni.

Although many of those eoUections that are attributed to
Aristotle may have come from his pupils, or perha[)s even
later, and although by no means can all those titles refer to
writings of the philosopher himself, they nevertheless give proof
of the versatilit}' and cyclopedic character of the scientific work
of the school. Upon all territories, both historical and scien-
tific, he gave the fruitful impulse to seek out the entire existing
material and to place it in order, and thus to make it available
for scientific treatment. The Lyceum, in its storing of the
treasures of erudition, was, to a higher degree than theAcadeni}-,
the centre of culture of Greece.

(3) The Didactic Writings originating in the school and
intended for its use. It is these only that have been pre-
served, and they together make what is known as the col-
lection of Aristotle's works. They are not complete, how-
ever, and in many cases probably not in the original form.
They nevertheless exhibit in the liighest degree some
peculiar characteristics. A sharply impressed, delicately
worked out, and consistently developed terminology is com-
mon to them. On the other hand, complete absence of
grace and of aesthetic motive of presentation is to be
noted. The scheme of investigation is, on tlie whole, the
same: the precise formulation of the problem, the criticism
of opinions which are submitted concerning the problem,
the careful discussion of the single points of view as they ^

appear, the comprehensive marshalling of the facts, and the
striving for a clear and conclusive result. In all these
respects the Aristotelian writings make a complete antithe-
sis to the Platonic ; the difference being that between sci-
ence and oesthetics. The Aristotelian writings afford
different and therefore less attractive enjoyment. It must
not be forgotten that the excellences of the Aristotelian
works are qualified in many striking ways. The unequal
develo])mcnt, wherein many parts give the impression of

242 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

being masterly and final and others of being hasty and
sketchy ; the disorder which predominates in the principal
writings of the transmitted series of books ; the — in part
verbal — repetitions of even lengtby sections ; the unful-
filled promises, — all these facts forbid the belief that the
writings in their present form were intended by Aristotle
for publication ; while, on the other hand, in point of form
and content the interconnection of the works is evident, and
is emphasized by numerous cross references that are often
reciprocal.

All these characteristics are only explicable and are
also fully conceivable upon the hypothesis that Aristotle
entertained the purpose of developing into text-books the
written notes that he had made the basis of his lectures.
These text-books would have been manuals of instruction
for the Lyceum, and would have been given into the hands
of his pupils. In addition it is supposable that Aristotle
undertook this work in direct connection with his lectures,
and about the same time with reference to the sciences
treated by him. He probably pursued this work during
the twelve years of his leadership. Before, however, this
giant work came to an end, death had seized him. Except-
ing the smaller works, which perhaps were waiting to be
included in his larger works, only parts of the Logic — the
Topics in particular — appear to have been completed. It
may also be accepted that the gaps which thus remained
were filled in part by the most intimate pupils, probably
on the basis of tlieir notes of the Aristotelian lectures.
These interpolations were made by different pupils differ-
ently. Thus in the school many redactions of the text-
books were handed on, and among such redactions many
later productions of the school slipped in. This went on
until Andronicus of Rhodes published the first edition
(00-50 B. c), which lies at the basis of the present
documents.

ARISTOTLE 243

The close relationship between tlie preserved writings of
Aristotle and his actual teaching is evident, even if we take no
account of such direct evidence as his atldress to his auditors at
the conclusion of the Topics. The question is onl}' as to a
clearer determination of the relationship, and it would appear as
if all the opinions expressed about the relationship may be justi-
fied to a certain extent. Undoubtedly the notes of the philoso-
pher form the body of the discourses ; — not only such sketches
as he might use for his lectures, but on the other hand also suck
as he had made ready for the text-book.^ The latter set forth
in a wonderful manner the clearness and ripeness of the Aris-
totelian spirit. Other facts, especially the ditferent redactions of
the same book, hardly allow another interpretation than that of
Scaliger, that interpolations from the writings of the auditors
have taken place. In accordance with this theory the presence
of such parts or of entire writings which cannot in form or con-
tent be ascribed to Aristotle, is most simpl}' explained.

A very venturesome but in itself a not incredible theory was
spread in antiquity concerning the fate of the Aristotelian manu-
scripts.- They were supposed to have fallen with the propert}-
of Theophrastus to his pupil, Neleus of Scepsis in Troas, and
to have been hidden in a cellar hy his descendants out of fear
of the mania for collecting of the kings of Pergamus. After-
wards they were found and purchased in a much damaged state
by the Peripatetic Apellicon of Teos and removed to Athens.
When Sulla conquered that city, the writings fell into his hands
and were published at Rome by the grammarian Tyrannion,
and finally by Andronicus of Rhodes. This story does not
explain, of course, the remarkable condition of the transmitted
documents. It is indubitablj' proved in the case of single writ-
ings — as is obvious — that the Peripatetic school possessed the
scientificalh' most important writings of its founder from the
beginning. On the other hand, it is nevertheless not improb-
able that the rediscovery of the original manuscripts afiforded

^ In this fact and in the smaller importance of the copies by his
auditors consists the chief difference between the character of tlie corpus
Aristotelicum and the somewhat analogous form in which a series of
Hegel's lectures is presented to us. Hegel had not begun a remodelling
of his Hefte for text-books, while, on the other hand, we owe the most
valuable of the preserved works of Aristotle to the fact that he had
besrun such a remodellincr,

- Plntareh, Sulla, 26 ; Strob , XITI. 1, 54 ; compare E. Essen, Der
Keller zu Skepsis (Stnrgard, 1SS6).

244 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Aiidronicns not only the occasion but also, as far as the manu-
scripts reached, the distinct ground for his standard edition in
contrast to the school tradition.

Since the didactic writings form internally a perfectl}^ con-
sistent whole, the question about the order of their origination
is comparativel}' unimportant. The question is, moreover, en-
tirely purposeless, since it ma}' be accepted that work upon the
writings was continuously- and simultaneously carried on in con-
nection with the lectures repeatedly given during the twelve
years of his activit}' as a teacher. It ncA^ertheless appears that
the Logic was the first to be conceived, and relativelj'^ to the
others was brought more nearl}- to completion.

Compare with the following Zeller, IIP. 67-109.

The preserved didactic writings are most simply ar-
ranged in the following groups : —

(a) The Treatises on Logic and Rhetoric — the Cate-
gories, the very doubtful treatise On the Proposition^ the
Analytics^ and the Topics^ including the last and compara-
tively independent book Concerning the Fallacies ; and the
Rhetoinc.

The grouping of the logical works, in the customary series,
under tie name opyavov^ occurred first in the Byzantine period.
A special edition is published by Th. Waitz (2 vols.. Lei p.,
1844-4G). The genuineness of the Karayopiai is doubted, espe-
ciall}' by Prantl (Gesch. d. Log.^ I. 207 f.). The conclusion of
these writings, i. e., concerning post-predicaments, can at all
events not be ascribed to Aristotle, and the remainder of the book
appears to be based upon his sketch only in essentials. 11 cpt
kpfxr]v€La<i is Subject to stronger suspicions to which even as earl}'"
a writer as Andronicus gave expression. The Analytics is a
masterl}' logical groundwork, which develops the theory of the
conclusion and of proof in two parts {avaXvTtKa Trporepa and
varepa)^ cach consisting of two books, — the second part being
not so completel}' rounded out as the first. Joined to it, as the
most com])lete of all the works, is the Topics^ which treats of
the method of probability. In connection with it, as its ninth
l)ook (\yaitz), there is irqn a-ofjua-riKinv iXey^tov. There are pre-
served besides a great number of titles of logical-epistemological
theoretical discussions, of which the Aristotelian authorship is
more or less doubtful : xept etSujv Kal yevm', Trepl rCov avTiKUfxivinVy
TTcpl Karat^acrews, crvWuyLaixoLj opttrrtKu, Trept tov Trpos Tif Trept Bo^rjSp
TTcpt i7naT7Jfir]<;y etc.

ARISTOTLE 245

The first two books of the Rhetoric may be regarded as gen-
uine in spite of some dillicnUies (Spengol in Abh. der Munch.
Ak((d.^ VI.). The third is doubtful. The so-called RJietoric
to Akxamh'r is, on the contrary, generally regarded as spuri-
ous, but it probably belongs to the Peripatetic school. The
Rhetoric of Theodectes is also mentioned, which was pul)lished
duriuii: the life of Aristotle. This work embodied the teachiuiis
of the philosopher, and was probablj' based upon his lectures.

(I)) The Writings on Theoretic Philosophy — the Meta-
physics, which in Aristotelian terminology was called " first
philosophy " or " theology ; " besides, the book on mathe-
matics being lost, the Physics, the History of Animals, the
Psychology, and the three minor treatises belonging to
these three.

The Metaphysics (special edition b}^ Brandis, Berlin, 1823 ;
Schwegler, with translation and comraentar}', Tubingen, 1847-
48 ; Bonitz, Bonn, 1848-49 ; translated into German, Berlin,
1890 ; Greek edition by \Y. Christ, Leipzig, 188G) has pre-
served its traditional name for the philosophic science of prin-
ciples, because of its />/ace in the ancient collection (/xera to,

^vcrtKa).

From the fourteen preserved books the second (a iXarrov) is
certainly to be set apart as a school compilation of many parts
welded together. Among the other thirteen books the first,
second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth books (numbered
according to the Berlin edition) form a connected but not a com-
pleted, and also not a finally edited investigation, to which after
a break the ninth book also belongs. The fourth book, which
was cited b}' Aristotle himself, under the title Trept tov -n-oaa.yu)^,
is a school manual containing a discussion of terminolog}'.
The first eight chapters of the tenth and the first half of the
eleventh book are either an Aristotelian sketch or a school-
extract from the chief investigation. The second half of the
eleventh book is an outline of the teaching of the Godhead.
The conclusion of the tenth book is a compilation from the
Physics, obviously not by Aristotle. Books twelve and thirteen
appear to be an older form of the criticism of the Platonic
Ideas. The preserved collection is so much the more unique,
since it is the more probable that it was taken in hand soon
after the death of Aristotle, perhaps by Kudemus.

From the series of mathematical writings only the discussion

246 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Trepi drofiwi/ ypa^u/xcov is extant, and its transmitted form is
probabl}' spurious.

Of the eight books of lectures on the science of nature, ^vctlkt]
oLKpoao-Ls, — the modern name would be " philosoph}' of nature,"
— books five, six, and eight treat Trepl Kivqa-na^. The earlier
books are concerned with universal principles in the explanation
of nature (Trepl apx'^'^^) 5 the seventh book gives one the impres-
sion of being a preliminary' sketch. Astronomy- and physics
proper are included as developments : Trepl ovpavov, Trepl yevecrews
KOL cfiOopas fxerewpoXoyLKd. A number of separate treatises are
lost, the ^Tj^avLKo. is spurious, and also the Trepl k6(tp.ov. See
below, § 49.

The parallel work to the Trepl to. ^a)a laopia, of which book ten
is presumably not genuine, is the Trepl cfivrm', which is lost. On
the other hand, some restorations of the former are preserved :
Trepl ^lOLov [xopLwv, Trepl ^wwv yevetretos, Trepl ^(o^ov Tropetas.

Among the most mature works belong the three books Trepl
if/vxrjs (published by Bartht^'lem}' St. Hilaire, Paris, 1846 ; A.
Torstrick, Berlin, 1862 ; A.Trendelenburg, 2ded., Berlin, 1877 ;
E. Wallace, Cambridge, 1882).' With these are collected a
number of treatises on ph3'siological ps^'chology : Trepl alaOijcreiDs
KOL al(jOrir<jiv ; Trepi (xvrjfxrj^ kol ava^vfjcretos ; Trept vttvov Kac iypr)yop(T€(ji)<s j
Trepl IvvTvviisiv and Trepl r^g KaO^ vttvov fiavTiKr}'^ ; Trepl fiaKpofSioTrjTOs
Kttl Ppaxy^LOTrjTO'i ; Trepl t,u)rj<i Koi OavaTOV ', Trepl avaTrvorjs- The writ-
ing Trepl TTvevfiaros owes its origin to the Aristotelian school.

(c) 77ie Writings on Practical and Poetic Philosophy :
the Ethics (in the Nicomachean and Eudemcan versions),
the Politics^ and the Poetics.

Among the preserved forms of the Ethics, the so-called 'HOlko,
MeydXa is essentially' only an extract from both the others, of
which, moreover, the ten books of the 'HOlkol NiKo^a;)(eta appear
to be nearest to Aristotle's design. The seven books of the
'H^tKtt 'Et'Sr/^ettt appear to be based on the notes of Eudemus.
The identity of the Nicomachean Ethics V.-VII. and the
pAidemian IV.-VI. allows room for various interpretations of
a mutual supplementation of the two redactions. Of smaller
ethical treatises nothing is preserved. The essaj" Trepl dperCyv
Kal KaKLUiv is spurious.

The eight books of the likewise incomplete Politics (published
by Susemihl, Leipzig, 1870) arc problematic as to their preserved
order. See literature in Zellcr, III^. 672 f. Books seven and
eight should undoubtedly come directl}' after book three. The

ARISTOTLE

247

transposition of books five and six is still in dispute. The
Economics is not genuine.

The tVagnicnt irefn TrotT/riKf/-; is preserved, but only in a ver^
fragnientaiT and altered condition (published by Susemihl,
Leipzig, 1SG5, and Vahlen, Berlin, 18G7; G. TeichniUller,
AristoteUsche Forschungcn^ Halle, 18G0 and 18G9).

140. The effort to transform the Socratic-Platonic con-
ceptual philosophy into a theory that will explain the
phenomenal world was the centre of the Aristotelian
philosophy. The conviction that the tasks of science can
be solved only by the Socratic method — the method of
conceptual knowledge — was taken for granted by Aris-
totle, and was his reason for reckoning himself in later time
still within the Platonic circle. The advance, however,
which he made upon Platonism was based on his insight
into the insufficiency of the theory of Ideas to explain
empirical facts. It is true that Plato had in the end very
emphatically asserted that the Ideas, which at first for
him meant only permanent Being, were also the air la of
the woj-ld of sense. However, as Aristotle later showed,
Plato had not been able to harmonize this thought with his
first conception of the world of Ideas. Aristotle justly found (
the ultimate ground for this inharmony in Plato's funda-
mental ascription of a self-substantial separate reality to the
world of Ideas. This transcendence of the Ideas, which es-
sentially is only a duplication of the empirical world, must
be annulled. The Ideas must not be conceived as different
from the objects of experience and as existing separate
from them. They must be known as the peculiar essence
of existence, as its determining content. Plato's weakness
as well as his greatness lay in his theory of two worlds.
The fundamental thought of Aristotle was that the super-^
sensible world of Ideas and the world of sense are identical, flf

The polemic of Aristotle against the theory of Ideas, espe-
cially in the first, sixth, and twelfth book of the Met(ij)liiisics^
concealed the fact to the earlier criticism that his antagonism

248 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

was far out weighed by the importance of the role assigned in his
own philosopiiy to the theor}' of Ideas ; for his dependence on
that theory was an accepted fact by him and the circle of his
pnpils, although Aristotle only incidentally alluded to it. The
polemic was directed solely against the xfjpto-|Uo?, the hypostasiz-
ing of Ideas into a second and higher world. He pointed out
the difficulties involved therein : that the Ideas make neither
motion nor knowledge conceivable, and that their relation to
the world of sense has not been satisfactoril}- and consistentl}'
defined. In other respects the Stagirite shared throughout the
fundamental conceptions of the Attic philosophy : he defined
the problem of i)hilosophy to be the knovvledge of wiiat really
is/ and he asserted that tliis knowledge is not acquired by per-
ception,^ precisely because the things of sense change and are
destroyed.^ He likewise characterized the universal, the con-
cepts, as the content of true knowledge, and accordingly also of
the truly actual.^ However, from the beginning Aristotle united
a genetic theory with his ontology, and he demanded that
science explain the origin of phenomena from what reall}' is.^
He insisted, therefore, that the Ideas be so understood that
the}', as the true essence of sense objects, make these olijects
conceivable. If Aristotle did not solve his problem perfectly,
it was due entirely to his continuous dependence on fundamental
definitions of the Platonic philosophy.

See Ch. Weisse, J)e Platonis et Aristotelis in constituendis
sum.mis j^hilosophice pHucipiis differentia (Leipzig, 1828) ;
M. Carriere, De Aristotele Platonis aniico ejusque doctrincG iusto
censore (Gottingen, 1837); Th. Waitz, Platon u. Aristoteles
(Cassel, 1843) ; Fr. Michelis, Pe Aristotele Platonis iii idearum
doctrina adversaria (Braunsbcrg, 18G4); W. Rosenkrantz, Pie
phitonisvhe Ideenlehre und Hire Pekampfang durch Aristoieles
(Mainz, 18G9) ; G. Teichmuller, StudienX\^14.), p. 226 f.

^2jiice the essence of things is known by means of class
concepts, the fundamental problem of Aristotelianism is
the relationship of the universal to the pai^tieular. When
Aristotle made this fundamental principle of scientific
thought — recognized by Socrates in inspired intuition —
an object of separate preliminary investigation, he created

1 Anal, post., II. 19, 100 a, 9. 2 Jl)lcl., I. 31, 87 b, 28.

3 Met., VI. 15, 1039 b, 27.

■^ IhlJ., H. 4, 999 a, 28; II. G, 1003 a, 13.

^ Be an., I. 1, 402 b, 16. •

ARISTOTLE 249

tho science of logic. ITc introduced tliis science as a uni-
versal theory of scientific nictliod ^ preliminary to single
practical investigations. \\\ this self-knowledge of science
tho historical process of emancipation of the intellectual
life perfects itself into full consciousness. As the " Father
of Logic," Aristotle represented the maturity of Greek
scientific development.

Aitlioiigh Aristotle certainly separated the single hranclies of
science and fixed npon tlieir relationship of rank, yet the pre-
served dociiriKMits offer no generally complete division. On the
one hand, he treated the branches pedagogieally, proceeding
from the facts up to their causes, and on the other lie inversely'
proceeded from the principles down to the consequences. Tlie
division in the Academy at one time was into logical, physical,
and ethical researches,"^ at another time into theoretic, practical,
and poetic science,^ while in the Peripatetic school^ the division
into theoretic and practical science was eustomaiy. So much
appears to be certain, viz., that Aristotle introduced the Logic
(Analytics and Tonnes) as a universal and formal preparation
or metiiodology for all othei- branches, since he himself does
not mention it under " theoretic " sciences.^

A. Trendelenburg, Elemoita logices Aristotelecp- (3d Ad.,
Berlin, 187G) ; Th. Gumposch, Ueberaie Lof/ik v. cl. logisc/ien
Schn'ften des Arist. (Leipzig, 1839) ; H. Hettner, De logices
Aristotelicce specukitivo j^rincijno (Halle, 1843) ; C. Heyder,
Die Jlcfhodologie der arist. Jr^hilos. (Erlangen, 1845); C.
Prantl, Gesch. d. Logik, I. 87 f. (see Abhandl. derhayer. Akad.^
1853) ; F. Kampe, Die ErkenntnisstJieorie des Arist. (Leipzig,
1870) ; R. Eucken, D. Methode der arist. Forsclmng (1872,
Berlin) ; R. Biese, D. Erkenntnisslehre des Arist. k. Kanfs
(Berlin, 1877).

\The principle of the Aristotelian logic is the thought
that just as in natura rerum the universal or conceptually
defined essence is the cause or ground of definition of the
particular, so also the ultimate task of an explanatory

1 Met., III. 3, 1005 a, 33. 2 Top., L 14, 105 b 20.

8 Met., I. 1025 b, 18.

4 See Eth. EwL, I. 1, 1214 a, 10 ; Met., I. 993 b, 20.
^ Met., V. 1, 102G a, 18, counts as such only physics, mathematics,
and theology (metaphysics).

250 KISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

science consists in deriving (aTroSetft?) the single from the
universal, and thereby in attaining the conceptual necessity
of the empirically actual.^ /Scientific explanation consists
in understanding the perceptually known from its causes^)
It is the reproduction by the process of knowledge — in
the relationship of ground and consequent — of tli^real
relation of the universal cause to its particular result;^

;However, all knowledge consists ^ only in the union
of concepts (\6709 as avfiirXoKif} of ovo^a and pr]fia), that is,
in the premise Qirporaai^') or in the judgment {dTT6<^avai^)^
since either as an affirmative judgment {/cardcpaaL^) it ex-
presses ^ real union or as a negative judgment {a7r6(l>a(7L<i)
real separation of the determinations of content that are
thought in the subject and predicate. So the last task of
all scientific explanation (eVtcrrxi^T;) is the derivation
{(iTToBeL^L'i) of particular judgments from the universal.
On this account the tlieory of the conclusion and proofs
which he himself called the Analytics, formed the centre
of the Aristotelian legic. /

The Aristotelian Analytic acquired the appearance of an ab-
stract formal logic through misunderstandings and through the
misapplied development of it by the School in later times. In
truth, it was conceived by Aristotle methodologically in the most
vital relationship to the practical tasks of science ; and therefore
in the Peripatetic school the logical treatises are rightly called
" organic." But just for this reason are they ruled throughout
by a number of epistemological presuppositions concerning that
which really is and the relationship of thought to Being. The
highest presupposition, even if not expressl}' formulated by
Aristotle, is the identity of the forms of apprehending thought
with the forms of relationship belonging to actualit}'.^ Thus the
first systematic sketch of logic includes in close union the three
points of view under which this science was later treated.
These are the formal, methodological, and epistemological.

1 Anal, post., I. 2 f. '-^ De cat., 4, 2 a, 6.

3 Met., III. 7, 1012 a, 4.

^ See Met., IV. 7, 1017 a, 23; 6aa^o)s Xey^rai Tuaaxojs to eivia

(TTJIMllvei.

ARISTOTLE 201

One can determine the formal difference between Plato and
Aristotle by noting that the point of departure of Plato is the
concept, of Aristotle the judgment. Aristotle sought truth and
error only in the union of concepts ^ in so far as such a union,
is asserted or denied. If this emphasizes principall}' the quality'
of the judgment, yet the syllogistic, as the theor}' of the estab-
lishment of the judgment, demands a treatment of quantit}- and
thus a distinction between general and particular judgments
(kuOoXov — e'l' fiepet).^ The consideration of judgment from the
points of view of relation and modality was still distant from
Aristotle. When he pointed out that the content of judgment
is the knowledge either of actuality or necessit}' or possibilit^^^
this assertion rests upon that principal point of view in his
Metaphysics (§ 41), and has nothing to do with modalit}' in its
modern sense (Kant, Critiqued, r. Verniutft^ § 9, Kehrb. 92 f).
But, fiuall}', all researches which Aristotle instituted for distin-
guishing judgments are decided by reference to the theory of
the conclusion, that is, by the question what significance they
can have in the conclusion. As mediating between the two, he
treated in a thoroughgoing way the theories of reasoning :
AumI. prior.., I. 2 f.

iiCJie Aristotelian syllogi^ti^ is the search, for.tliat which
can ^ be deriyed with ]Derfect_certainty from given proposi-
tions. It finds the fundamental form of inference in the
establishing of the particular proposition through the univer-
sal^ and thc^subsumption tliereunder (inference by subalter-
nation). / To this so-called first figure of the syllogism he
referr^aits other two forms (a^ijimaTa) , which are character-
ized ^ by the different logical place of the middle term
(^fieaov') in both premises [reOevra) , and thus mediate in the
conclusion {avfirrepaafia) the differing relations of the two
chief con ce4)t3 (aKpa}. So Aristotle conceived that the-^
result of the syllogism is always an answer-itrt-liequ^tion,"
whether at all and to what extent one of these concepts
is subsumed ujider the other; that is, how far the universal
determination of the latter concept holds for the former.

1 De an., III. 6, 430 a, 27. Compare De interpr., I. 16 a, 12.
This thought was hinted at in the dialogue of the Sophist, 259 f.

2 Anal, prior., I. 1, 24 a, 17. 3 /^,<v/.^ 2, 25 a, 1.
^ Ibid., 1, 24 b, 19. 6 ji,i^i^ 4_6.

252 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

The s3'llogistic includes according!}' a, system of rules, by
which, pi;o:v:ided universal propositions are established, particu-
lars can be derived from them. According to the purpose of the
philosopher, it woulcFtherefore be established how in the perfected
sciejtce all particular knowledge ma}- be derived from universal
principles and its subject matter be explained. For practice
a universal sclieraatism of proof was according!}' given, in
which the tentative eftbrts of the Sophists for an art of proofs
were carried out to their scientific conclusion. For the Aris-
totelian Analytics with a perfect!}' conclusive certainty solved
this definitely circumscribed problem, viz., according to what
ru!es propositions follow from given propositions. It is
tlierefore conceivable, on the one hand, that this system during
the entire Middle Ages, when science was directed not to research
but to proof, passed as the liighest philosophical norm, and on
the other hand that this system in the Renaissance, whicli was
filled wath a need for new knowledge and sought an ars itiveni-
endi^ was set aside in every part as insufficient. Indeed the
limitations of the system of Aristotle, like its greatness, consisted
in its attention to the entire process of inference from the point
of view of the su!)sumptive relations between concepts. It
analyzed these relations, moreover, with absolute completeness.
See Ueberweg, System der Logik^ § 100 f.

roof and inference, whicli make up the form of the
com{)leted science, presuppose ultimate premises, whicli are
not derived from more universal propositions but are imme-
diately certain {afieaa)? These {cip')(^cil aTroSet^ew'i) are,^
in part the axioms that rule all knowledge, among which
are the law of contradiction and that of the excluded
middle; in part special propositions, applying to the separate
branches and tliose arrived at only from the exact knowl-
edge of the objects "* themselve&r-

/ The highest principles of explanatory theory cannot be
accordingly demonstrated, but only strengthened as to their
validity for all particulars. They must be sought out by

1 His investigation also concerning contradiction, indirect proof, and
false conclusions answers this end.

2 Anal, post., I. 3, 72 1), 18. ^ y^/^/.^ 7^ 75 a, 39.
^ Anal, prior., I. 30, 4G a, 17.

►,"

ARISTOTLE 253

science in its development (investigation in distinction from
aTToSei^i'^^. The i)rocess of induction (eTrayayy/)), as opposed
to deduction, promotes this attempt. Induction ascends
from the facts of experience (^ifjuireipla) and the opinions
{evho^a) about experience to the universal conceptual defi-
nitions by which the former are explained. This task of
investigation, directed to the establishment of i)rinci})les, is
called Dialectic^ by Aristotle./ The Topics devehip its
method. Its results are not logically certain in themselves,
but only probable. They have, however, the character of
knowledge in so far as they explain phenomena ; while on
the other hand this dialectic, operating as it does with
])robable proof (^eirix^ipiiiJbaTa) forms, where it is used in the
practical service of politics, the scientific foundation of
rhetoric.

Immediate certaint}' formed an extremely difficult, but also the
most important, tenet of the Aristotelian theory of knowledge. In
contrast to Plato, the Stagirite here distinguished the logical
from the psychological point of view in a ver}" suggestive wa}'.
The ultimate and fundamental propositions, from which all
inference proceeds, are logically undemonstrable, but they are
neither ps3'chologically innate, nor are they gained in early life.
They must rather be won from experience, through which they
cannot be demonstrated but only presented. What the nature
of tliese highest principles is, Aristotle did not explain. From
he logical laws valid for all sciences, he mentioned onl}' the
above, — especially the principle of contradiction as_tUi3 most
unconditional and most universal fundamental principle.^ He
emi)hasized very rightl}' that particular principles belong to the
individual sciences, but he did not develop these in detail.

What Aristotle understood by induction is to be carefuU}' dis-
criminated from the present meaning of the word. He, for in-
stance, did not mean b}- induction a kind of proof that is different
from the syllogism, but, on the contrary, a jiietlLQdja£_re§earch
and discovery. From this very fact he was satisfied in its
application with a relativeh' universal (cVt to -n-oXv) everywhere,
where human knowledare does not lead to the absolutelv univcr-
sal. The syllogistic explanation of all particuhirs from uui-

1 Met., Tir. 2, 1004 b, 25; Top., I. 2, 101 b, 2.

2 Met., HI. ;:;, louob, i7.

254 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

versal principles floated before him as the ultimate ideal of all
science. But, as a matter of fact, the material of experience
reaches in many ways (and everywhere in the special sciences)
only to an approximate comprehensiveness, which satisfies the
needs of explanation within empirical limits. At this point
Aristotle caused the investigator of nature to assume the role
that the philosopher is obliged to relinquish.

Another practical point of view, the political, supplements
scientific exactness in the science of rhetoric by means of
instructive persuasiveness (ivOv^rjfia), which is supported upon
what is in general true. Accordingl}' rhetoric in the scientific
form that Aristotle first gave to it, is in respect to its purpose,
an gjLixiliar}' science of poM4.ics. But in its content and the
technism developed from it, it is a branch of Dialectic and
the Tojjics. For if a speech be parliamentary, juridical, or
cEsthetic (^(tv(i/3ovX€vtlk6v, SiKaviKov, cTrtSetKTtKov yeVos — Rhetoric,
1, 3), it must always begin with popular ideas in order to lead
the auditors to the speaker's goal. We can refer here only in a
general way to the accuracy of the applied psjxhology with
which Aristotle gave his directions in the Rhetoric.

When Aristotle thus regarded the derivation of the
particular from the universal as the ultimate problem of
science, but maintained that the insight into iJie highest
principles, tliout>:h not jnd^^iL-proved, is sought for, and
clarified by the epagogic inveatiga,tiQnJba,sed upon facts, this
apparent circle of rea^aanmg_explains itself from the con-
ception .which he held of the human thinking process and
its relation to the essence of things. He held this, more-
over, in intimate connection with his general view of the
world.^' For he meant that the historical and psychological
Icvelopment of human knowledge corresponds inversely to
he metaphysical and logical connection of things, in that
the thinking process, bound as it is to sense perception and
developing from it, is recipient jof„, the phenomena ; and
that then from the phenomenaTt advances b^' induction to
a conception of the true essence of things. Out of this as
their fundamental ground the_^erceivable things arose, and
are therefore to be_ entirely explained by the perfected
science through the process of deduction.

AKISTOTLE 255

The inverted parallelism in which the method of deduction
(Antdi/tics) and that of investigation {Topics) exist in Aris-
totle's teaching, is ex[)lained by his distinction between ps3cho-
logical and logical relations. That, for instance, which is the
irporepov Trpos Ty^utt?, i. e., the phenomena, is the varcpov rfj ^t'o-ct ;
conversel}', that which is the Tvporcpov rfj <f>v(T€t, i. e., the essence of
the thing, appears in the development of our ideas as the va-rcpov
7r/)09 r/,ua9.^ While the relationship between cause and effect is
identiu'al with that between ground and consequent for the ideal
of a perfect explanatory science, this relation in the genesis of
knowledge is inverted. In investigation the (sensible and
particular) result is the basis of our knowledge of (conceptual
and universal) cause. As soon as we, in accordance with the
philosopher's explanations, discriminate between the ideal
problems of explanatory science and the actual process of
investigations leading to it, all apparent differences and difficul-
ties of some of his single expressions vanish. Aristotle made
use of his universal metaphysical concepts of possibilit}' and actu-
ality (§ 41, and Zeller, IIP. 198 f.) for conceiving the psycho-
genetic development of perception in his explanatory theory, in
that he assumed that the concept of Essence that has not come
actuall}' into consciousness is latent as an undeveloped possi-
bility in sense representation.

The most important point is that, accordingly, human knowl-
edge can obtain a conception of the essential and the permanent
onlv throu2:h exact and careful scrutinv of the facts.. In these
teachings Aristotle theoretically adjusted Platonism to empiri-
cal science. Aristotle was not at all the nominalist oi' empiri-
cist that~tie has been represented here and there ; but he
showed that the problem which Plato set for himself, and which
be made his own, was to be solved only through the widest /

elaboration of the facts.

The fundamental philosophical question about the con-
ceptual essence of that which really is, could be solved,
according to Aristotle, only in systematic connection with
the explanation of the facts. The logical form of these
sohitions for which all science accordingly strives, is
Definition 2 (opia/xo?) in which the permanent essence {ouaia,
TO ri r)v elvat) is established as the ground of the changing
conditions and manifestations (ra av/jb/Be^rj/cora) for every

1 Anal, post., T. 2, 71 b, 34.

2 See especially the sixth book of the Topics.

256 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

single phenomenon ; but at the same time the conceptual
dependence upon the more universal is expressed. The
logical form is therefore the judgment of determination in
which the subject is defined by its superordinated class-con-
cept and by its own specific characteristic. These deter-
minations of concepts are based partly upon deduction and
partly upon induction, but they in turn presuppose ulti-
mately underivable and only illustrable definitions of the
highest class-concepts {^evr)).

Concepts appear thus here as content of immediate knowledge,
and their unfolding (the analytical judgments of Kant) giveti
the highest axioms of the deductive theories. See Zeller, IJI^.
190 f. Here appears a wider development of the Socratic-
Platonic principle for the explanation of reality. M. Rassow,
Arist. de notionis defiRitlone doctrina (Berlin, 1843) ; C. Kiihn,
De notionis definitione qucdem Arist. constituent (Halle, 1844).

The Aristotelian system of concepts has no point of uni-
fication like the Platonic Idea of the Good. As a scientifi-
cally inclined thinker, he remained entirely conscious of
the many possible independent points of departure for
scientific theory, and he demanded only that every branch
of knowledge should grow from his peculiar principle. He,
however, made no attempt to collect and systematically to
arrange the indemonstrable principles {Oeaet^i dvaTroSec/cTOi),
and just as little the resulting immediate premises (irpord-
a€L<i dfxecoi).

The possible kinds of predicates, the Categories, are the
highest class-concepts for logical investigation, and are
irreducible. They represent the different points of view
under which the different concepts can be made elements
of a proposition or judgment by virtue of the factual rela-
tions of their contents. Aristotle gave ten ^ categories :
ovala, TToaop, ttolov, irpo^ tl, ttov, Trore, Trocetv, Tracr^et^',
KelcrOaL, e;^eM'. He sometimes, however, omits the last two.^

1 Top., I. 9, 103 b, 21 ; De cat., 4, 1 b, 25.

2 Anal, jw^t., I. 22, 83 b, 16; Phys., V. 1, 225 b, 5; Met, IV. 7,
1017 a, 24.

ARISTOTLE 257

A. Trendelenburg, Gcsch. der Kategorienlehre (Herlin,
1846) ; II. Bonitz, Arist. tStudien, Part VI. ; Fr. Brentiino,
Von der iiiannigfacken Bedeutung des Seiende7i nach Arist.
(Freiburg in Breisgau, 1862) ; W. Schuppe, Die arist.
Kategorien (Gleiwitz, 1866) ; Fr. Zelle, Der Unterschied in
der Axiffassuncj der Loglk hei Arist. u. Kant (Berlin, 1870) ;
G. Bauch, Aristotelische Studien (Dobberan, 1884) ; W.
Luthe, Die arist. Kategorien (Ruhrort, 1874) ; A. Gercke,
Urspmng der arist. Kategorien {Arch. f. Gesch. d. Ph.., IV.
424 f.).

Metaphysical motives enter into Aristotle's theory of the cate-
gories no more than into his whole system of logic, which has,
as its most general presupposition, the identity of the Form of
thought with that of Being. The principle of this theory is
manifestly concerned with the office the elements of judgment
(ra Kara firjSejXLav avfA7r\oKr]v keyoiueva^ — cat. 4) are fitted tO
assume in the judgment itself. They are either that whereof
affirmation is made, and which can only be subject, 1. e., the
ovo-la, the TL icr-L ; or that which is predicated of the substance,
and is to be thought as actual onl}' in connection with it. Aris-
totle made this contrast of the ovo-ta to all the other categories
(Anal, post.^ I. 22, 83 b, 24). Under the (Tvfi(3€l3rjK6Ta he dis-
tinguished {3Iet., XIII. 2, 1089 a, 10) only modes and relations
(-TrdOq, TTpo? tl). In the minute enumeration of possible pred-
icates, the advance is unmistakable from quantitative and
qualitative determinations to spatial and temporal relations and
thence to causal relations and dependence. Also the grammati-
cal distinctions of substantive, adjective, adverb, and verb, appear
to play parts in the ten or eight categories. The medial catego-
ries, K€LcrOaL and ex^tv, were held by the philosopher occasionally
as unnecessary, compared to the active and passive.

41./^ristotle's attempt to reconcile the theory of Ideas
with his empirical conception of the world is developed
in his Metaphi/sicSj^hiefiy in his theory "concerning that
which rp;i.11y j^ (niirrln). The conviction that only a con-
ceptual universal can be the object of true knowledge, i. e.,
absolute actuality, forbids us thinking the content of tem-
porary, .particular perceptions as ouo-i'a. LDn the other
hand, the conviction that the universal does not have a
higher actuality, separated from sense objects, forbids the
hypostasizing of class concepts in the Platonic manner^

258 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

True actuality is the individual which is thought of con-
ceptually in contra^ to changing states and conditions
(avfjLJSePTjKora). ] Accordingly in it, and only in it, does the
general deterroTnation (elSo?) become actual. The ulti^
mate object of scientific knowledge is neither the particular?
form perceived nor the schemata of abstraction, but the )
thing which maintains its conceptual^essence in the chang^
of its^sensible phenomenal .aspects.

In the concept of the ovo-ia^ both antithetical tendencies of
AristoteUau thought come together in such a way that his defini-
tion thereof is as difficult as it is important. Here is a task
which, as it happens, is not facihtated by the technicat~-tise of
the word ovcrta in the preserved writings. Plato gave form to
this concept in antithesis to yeVeo-i?, and constructed the same
opposition between Aoyo? and aLa-Orjais, and Aristotle remained
everywhere loyal to the same use of the terms. But he gave
objectively to ovata and accordingly subjectively to Xoyo? an
entirel}^ different content. He asserted most positively that
complete metaphysical reality belongs only to the individuals ^
as over against a dualism (x«)pio-/uos). The class concepts {exSr]
and ycVr;, species and genera) are always only qualities, which
are common to several things, can be actual onl}' in things, and
predicated ^ of things. They subsist not -n-apa to. iroXXa but
Kara 7roX\u}v.^ This factor in the teaching of Aristotle makes
him later appear as the opponent of scholastic reahsm, i. e., as
the opponent of the recognition of the metaphysical priority of the
class concepts, and it makes him also appear as a nominalist by
the same sign. This tendency is expressed so stronglj^ in the
preserved form of the writing Trept Kar-r^yopioiv^ that there the
individual things are designated as Trpwrat oiuo-iai, beside which
the yevT] can be called only by way of derivation SeuVepat ova-iat.
On the other hand, Aristotle distinguished with exactitude every
present perception of phenomenal things from the conceptuall}'
recognizable substances (17 Kara t6v Xoyov ovata).^ He asserted
that these, permanent in contrast to phenomena, are determined
by the etSos. The elSos is true Being : to tl tjv eti/at eKao-ro) koI

1 Met., II. 6, 1003 a, 5.

2 Ibid., VI. 13, 1038 b, 8; Anal post., I. 4, 73 b, 26.
^ Anal, post., 1. 11, 77 a, 5.

* De cat., 5, 2 a, 11. See Met., IV. 8, 1017 b, 10.
« Met., V. 1, 1025 a, 27.

ARISTOTLE

259

rrjv TTpoWrjv ovcriav.'^ This oiWa is, theu, tlie essence which is
determined and lecognizuble b}' its universal, permanent
qualities. It is an essence which is the basis of the perceptual
phenomenal forms. Therefore ouo-ta can sometimes mean es-
sence, sometimes species, sometimes Form, sometimes stuff.
3M., VI. 3, 1028 b, 33 ; Zeller, IIP. 344 f.

I Metaphysical reality isj^theiij to be found between the
class-forms and the perceptual forms : viz., in the concept-
ually determined individual thing. Aristotle attempted to
obviate the difficulty of this manner of representation by
the universal relationship w^iich governs his entire under-
taking : ^e relationship of matter to Form^ of possibility
tqjts actuality. This mediation between the universal,
conceptual essence of things and its particular, percep-
tual phenomenon, he found in the Principle of Develop-
ment. His conception of the nature process (^<yev6?Tt^~
was : that therein the permanent, original essence Qovaia)
of things passed over from mere possibility {hvva^jLi^), into ^
actuality (eVe/976m) ; /that this process completes itself
when matter (i/X'^;), whWi contains all possihiliti^s in ifsplfj
yields to the Form Jel^o?, yLtopt^?;) that is latent in it. Aris-
totle took analogies in part from human technical activity,
and in part from the life of organic bodies, for grounding / x/*. |^v^
this theory, and they became to himM^ft fnndn mental \ c/
ideas of his conception of the world)

These fundamental ideas were for Aristotle the universal form
of apperception, under which he regarded all things and sought
to solve all problems, — sometimes too in a very schematic way.
When we speak of a formalism of the Aristotelian method, the
formalism lies in the predominancepf these concepts of relation,

^ Met., VI. 1032 b, 1. The apparent terminological contradiction
between this passage and De cat. 5, does not necessarily mean that the
categories are spurious. The contradiction is explained away by the
fact that on the one hand ovcrla means sometimes the perceived thing
{Met., 11. 4, 999 b, 11, ovcrla aurSnT^, ibid., VII. 2, 1028 b, 24) some-
times essence, while Eidop, on the other hand, means sometimes species-
concept, sometimes Form.

260 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

which are not alwa3's in point of content the same for the
philosopher. This is shown very plainly in their application to
the problematic relation of the particular with the universal. On

/ the one hand, that is to say, tha class forms the undeterminpH
possibility {vTroKecfievov, d6pL(TTov) which is iMt .actual^ foi;^ itself
alone : viz., the material which is formed and accordingly actual-
ized in the ova-ca by a specific difference (reAewata Sta^opa),^
On the other hand, these universal determinations are also
tlieJB'orms through which and on account of _which all actualiza-
tk)jBL_Qf the possible is explicable.'^ There is no doubt that^
Aristotle's acceptation of the double meaning (Form ancj Class-
concept) of the elSos is an important factor in the unsolved
dilBcultie^^f the situation.

The examples that Aristotle used ^ for elucidating this funda-
mental relationship, viz., house, statue, growth of plants, prove

I on the one hand that the principal motive of this most impor-
tant doctrine was the ne^ ofjrYj^lflining pro'^'pss ftn^4-H4<nng^ ;
on the other hand, that the philosopher had in mind sometimes
the work of the artisan upon the plastic material and sometimes
the organic process of development. The ratification therein
found of the teleological presupposition develo[:ed to a universal
principle of explanation. Aristotle is throughout governed by
Plato in this formation of his fundamjental priiiciple, and the
ascendency of his philosophy wholly obscured the mechanical
conception of the world of Democritus.

In this connection Aristotle perfected in these concepts of
-^ relation the ripest synthesis of the Heracleitan and Eleatic prin-

( ciples that inspired ancient philosophy. Those who had tried

^ to recognize the permanent had, Plato not excepted, not been
able to explain Becoming. Those to whom change was patent
had been able to give to it either no substrate, or no meaning
comprehensible in view of the essence of that which reall}- is.
Aristotle established the concept of that win'ch possesses^Eeing
as tihp substance that realizes itself and is conceived in the pro-
cess from possibility to its actualization. He believed, accord-
ingl}', that this definition satisfied both the ontological and the
genetic interest of science. The earlier systems, he taught,^

1 Arist. Met., VII. 6, 1045 a, 23.

^ Precisely for this reason Aristotle has used ovaia and cidos many
times as equivalents, while in the stricter meaning the ova-ia is a crvpo-
\op e'^ vXrjs Koi e'lBovs.

8 Met^^ vi. 8, 1033 a, 27; VII. 2, 1043 a, 14; VIII. 6, 1048 a, 32 ;
Phys., I. 7, 190 a, 3, etc.

4 Phys., I. 6 ff. ; especially I. 8, 191 a, 34.

ARISTOTLE 2G1

have furnished the proof that Becoming is to be exphiined as
derived neither out of tliat which is nor out of that wliicli is not,
nor out of the union of the two. So it remained to conceive of
that which is as something which in its inmost essence is in the
process of development, it remained also to formulate the con-
cept of Becoming so that it formed the transition from a condi-
tion of a substratum, that no longer is, to one that not yet is, for
which the transition is essential.

Cj\

The fundamental relation between matter and Form is
applied on the one hand to individual things, and on the
other to relations between things in such a way that insight
into the essence of Becoming (dq^^^^schehen) is made to
result from it. In every individual thing Form and matter
are in such correlation that there can be no such thing as
formless matter or matterless Form. But precisely on tliis
"account they are not to be regarded as distinct pre-existing^ -|
potencies which have found their union in the individual jl/
but the same unitary esseiice of_ thejndividual, in so far as
it is a potentiality and in so far as it is viewed onl^ as a
p0-ssibili|y3 is^matter; and in so far, as llLjjresents a comj^Iiita
actuality it is Foi-m. Tliere exist neither pure potentialities^
uior perfectly actualized Forms. The ovala is not merely
Sui'dfiei, nor purely evepyela. It is rather a potentiality, in
the continuous process of actualization. The temporal
change in its conditions is determined by the changing
measure of tliis actualization. Aristotle called the poten-
tiality which belongs to the essence of the individual ^ and
comes to reality in the individual, the eV^^ar?; vXrj.

^ The potential tree and the complete tree do not exist independent
of and before the growing tree. They are only different conceptions of
the thinj; that is forming itself in the tree.

2 Met., VII. 6, 1045 b, 18 ; VI. 10, 1035 b, 30. The expression is used
in the logical sense. In the descending process from the most universal,

262 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

On the other hand, this relationship becomes entirely dif-
ferent whenever it obtains between different individual
things. In this case, where one is the receptive matter and
the other is the moulding Form, the two stand also in a rela-
tion of necessary reciprocity. Yet they exist also indepen-
dent of each other, and^nly in their union create the new
thing in that now the one is the matter and the other is the
Form./) In all these cases the relation of Form and matter
is only a relative one, because the same thing can be con-
ceived in one aspect as Form and in another aspect as
matter for a higher Form.
I There is, therefore, a scale of things in which every indi-

/vidual is the Form in respect. to what is beneath it and the
J .aatter in respect to wj^ ig hi o'lie iN This system of devel-

\opment must, however, have a limit, both below and above :
below in a matter which is no longer Form ; above in a Form
which is no longer matte^i*. The former is stuff-material
(irpouTT] vXt]) ; the latter Js pure Form or Godhood/'(TQ rl rjv
elvai TO TrpcoTop). Since, however, matter is pure"1pbssibility,
it does not exist for itself, but ever in formed states. It is,
nevertheless, the foundation for the realization of all par-
ticular Forms. On the other hand, the concept of pure Form,
as absolute reality, excludes all matter, all pure possibility,
and signifies accordingly perfect Being.

Aristotle did not expressl}- formulate the two different uses of
the schemata of possibiUty and actuality, matter and Form (poten-
tia and actus), l3iit he thoroughly applied them in practice. One

undetermined possibility (ttpcott; vXrj) to ever narrower definition of
essence and logical determination, the specific difference, by which the
individual is distinguished in its genus proximum from other individuals,
is " the last." This difference coincides with the form of the individual.
Yet sometimes this is entirely turned about and designated as Trpayrr) v\tj
of the individual. See Met., IV. 4, 1014 b, 32.

1 Thus the timber exists, and the thought of the house in the head of
the builder exists, each by itself. The house is the result of the co-
operating influence of the Form of the latter with the material.

ARISTOTLE 263

use of these terms is suited to organic development, the other to
technical activity. In this difference alone can be explained the
fact that this dillicult subject is sometimes so presented as if
Svia^i<i and ivipyua were identical in essence, and only different
ways of conception or phases of development of the same ova-ia.
uniting d^o'^ and vA?; in itself. At other times Form and matter
are represented as separate realities, wliich influence each other.
There is a kind of reconciliation between both methods of repre-
senting the case ; for also in the first method the two factors,
which are separated onl}' in abstracto are yet so treated as if one
intiuenced the other ; ^ the automatic or self-developing process
is so presented as if it divided itself into a moving Form and a
moved Stuff.-

In presenting matter ' thus on the one hand^ as the not-vet
actual, on tlie other, nevertheless, as the unorigrnated and inde-
structible^ busis {yTvoKci^evov) of all Becoming, in conceiving
the system of the latter as an unbroken progress from possibility
to actuality^ finally in defining the Godhead as an absolutely
pure exclusion of all possibiUty from himself, the Aristotelian
philosophy, like the Platonic, established difl'ering grades and
kinds of metaphysical reality. The lowest is matter whose posi-
tive character is recognized by Aristotle in his rejection of the
Democritan-Platonic term /xr/ 6v and in his desire to call it
(TT€pij(TL^ in so far as it is thought in abstracto as deprived of all
Form. -The highpst. ia thft Form complete in itself^and entirely
changeless, corresponding to the Idea, or ama of Plato. Between
"lliese two extremes there is the whole realm of graded things,
in which and between which, movement passes from the lower to
the higher grades of actuality. Different grades of knowledge
correspond in Aristotle to the different grades of Being. Matter
as the afiop(f>or. aTretpov, and aopKTTov, is also the detSe? and the
ayvwa-Tov.^ Since all systematic knowledge is directed toward
the €1809 and the ovcrca, and God is pure form and primary es-
sence, the object of the highest and most perfect knowledge is
the Godhead. The things of Becoming must, however, be con-
ceived in that their elSos is developed out of their vX-q.

^ As shown especially in the activity of the soul ; § 42.

2 PJnjs., III. 2, 202 a, 9.

3 Sec Jas. Scherler, Darstellung und Wiirdigung des Begriffs der
Materie bei Arist. (Potsdam, 1873).

4 Met., VII. 1, 1042 a, 32 ; 3, 1043 b, 14.

5 Phgff., III. 6, 207 a, 25; 3Iet., VI. 10, 1036 a, 8; De ccclo, III. 8,
306 b, 17.

264 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHU.OSOPHY

/ ) Motion, Becoming, and. Change Is j^i.raiisition from the

condition of possibility to that of actuality, and is based
in part upon the essence of the individuals themselves^ in
part upon their relations to one another. yDevelopment
^ "Hjelongs accordingly to the nature of thinp, and is eternal,
^ without beginning or end.V E^^ery-iaotion {KivTjaL^) presiijD-
/ poses on the one hand moved material, which is the primal
state of possibility, and on the other hand the moving Form,
which is the final state of actuality,.ip.Qrm is then the cause
^>^-y— :^Hthe_inotion which is to be found ^ in that which re ally, is^
In so far as the evepryeua creates this process of actualization,
it is also called by Aristotle ivreXexeia. On the other hand,
motion, precisely as transition, is determined not only by tliat
which is about to become and which exercises the impelling
force ; but also by that out of which it is to become, — by
the matter to be changed and pearing^in itself the possibility
of change) Matter stands, however, in an essential relation
to its Form, and has therefore the tendency to realize^ the
Form. In this, matter reciprocates the influence of Form.
As possibility, it is also possibility for something else, and
in so far it conditions movement to the extent of preventing
perfect realization of the Form, and of bringing about inci-
dental results which do not directly follow from the Form.
-/In. this sense matter is the cause of tlie^ iwperfeAjt and the
accidenta]_ in '^^^^Aa^^rr:/

Thus, according to Aristotle,-iwo kinds ^- of causes are
tb be distinguished in tlie explanation of motion : the
formal causes, and the material causes. The former are
tt^cological ^0^ eveKa) ', the latter arc mechanical (ef
dvayKT]';^. Purpose and nat,ur£zneiiessity are of equal im-
portance as principles of the cosmic process. The Platonic
and Democritan explanations of nature are reconciled in
the relation of Form and matter. /

1 Phijs., VIII. 1, 252 b, 5. ""^Met., VIII. 8, 1049 b, 24.

3 Phys., I. 9, 192 b, 16. ■* Depart, an., I. 1, 639 b, 11.

^v' AEISTOTLE 265

Aristotle incidental!}' ^ distinguished four principles {apxai) in
explaining movement : vX-q^ elSo?, v^ji ov^riXo^. But the tin-ee last
are together always contrasted with tlie first. If the three are
sometimes separated in the realm of particular processes, the}-
form nevertlieless more frequently' only one principle (especially
in the organic development of the individual) in that the essence
of the fact (etSo?), as the thing to be realized (xeAos), is the mov-
ing force (klvovv).

In this sense as teleological cause the substance or essence is
cntelechy. The expressions ivepyua and ivTeXixeta are gener-
ally indifferently used in Aristotle, and an exact difference is
hardly attempted, certainl}' not developed, between the two
words. See Zeller, IIP. 350 f. The etymology of the word
Tc/\o9 is obscure : see R. Hirzel, hn-eXex^ta unci ivSeXex^eta (lihein.
3ruseum, 1884).

The reality, which Aristotle ascribed to matter, appears most
significantly in the reciprocal actions that he gave to it in its
relation to final cause. It is due to the indeterminateness of
vAt/,^ that the Forms are imperfectl}' realized. In this respect
matter is a principle of obstruction. Hence it follows that for
Aristotle nature's laws, which originate in the conceptual forms
of things, are not without exceptions, but are valid only i-n-l to
TToXv.^ In this wa}' he explained unusual phenomena, ripara, —
abortions, monstrosities, and the like. But furthermore the
positive character of matter appears in that it leads to acciden-
tal results ^ in motion on account of its indeterminate possi-
bilities, and these accidents are not immediately involved in the
essence or purpose.^ Aristotle named these o-vfufSe/S-qKora,
accidental ; their appearance he called chance, avrofjarov ; ^ and,
within the region of purposed events, rvxv-' Aristotle's con-
ception of accident, therefore, is entirely teleological. It is also
logical so far as the purpose is identical with the concept. See
W. Windelband, Die Lehren vom Zufall (Berlin, 1870) p. 58 f.,
69 ff.

The application of the name avdyK-q to the efficienc}' of the
stuff makes us at once see Aristotle's intention of recognizing

1 Met., I. 3, 983 a, 26 ; IV. chap. 2; Phys., II. 3, 194 b, 23.

2 De gen. an., IV. 10, 778 a, 6.

8 De part, an., HI. 2, 663 b, 28 ; De gen. an., IV. 4, 770 b, 9.

4 Phjs., II. 4 £f.

^ These happen napa. (f)v(Tiv {Phys,, 11. 6, 197 b, 34), in which (pvais
= ovaia = eibos- Compare the expression 7rapa({)vds, Eth. Nic, 1. 4,
1096 a, 21.

6 Phys., II, 6, 197 b, 18. 7 Ihid., 5, 196 b, 23.

266 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the Democritan principle of mechanism, while at the same time
the teleological activity of the Form is manifestly only a de-
velopment of the Platonic concept of the airta. Democritns
thought that an event is determined only through what pre-
ceded it ; Plato thought an event determined by what shall
issue from it. Aristotle sought to reconcile this antagonism,
and so he attributed to matter one kind of determination and to
form the other kind. His teaching is therefore the last word of
Greek philosophy on the problem of Becoming (§ 13).

But, however much the philosopher takes account of the
Democritan motive, 3'et in this solution the Platonic thought
obviously preponderates. For not only the higher actuality
belongs to the final cause in contrast to that of the material
cause, but also in their operations the}' are so distinguished that
all results of value come from the final cause, while all that is
less important comes from the material cause. Matter is the
ground of all imperfection, change, and destruction. To its
positive capacity for obstruction and deflection Aristotle
ascribed, with a far better right, all those consequences with
which Plato overloaded the firj 6v. This preference of the Stagi-
rite for his teacher shows itself also in his introduction of
mechanical causes under the names awaiTiov and ov ovk avev,
which are taken from the Fhmdo and the Timmus} In this
way mechanical causes are characterized directly as causes of
the second class, or accidental causes. Matter alone could not
move, but if it is moved by the Form, it nevertheless is a deter-
mining factor in the movement. Matter is, then, in every
respect a secondary cause.

With this active antagonism the Aristotelian teaching mani-
fests, in spite of its effort at harmony, an expressly dualistic
character which ancient thought could not overcome. For the
independence of existence and activity, attributed to matter in
the explanation of nature, permeates the entire system along with
liis fundamental monistic principle, that matter and Form are
essentially identical, and matter is onl}' a striving toward the
realization of Form. All the oppositions meet finally in Aris-
totle's conception of God.

AjBvcry motion in the world has a (relative) ap')(ri^ which
is die For 111- that cansoa it. Since, however, on account of
its connection with matter, this Form js also itscULmoved,
the series of causes would have no end^ unless there

1 PJiys., XL 9, 200 a, 5 ; Met., IV. 5, 10 15 a, 20.

2 Met., XI. 6, 1071 b, 6.

AKISTOTLE 267

exists, as an absolute dpxv ^^ ^^^ motion, tlic pure Form,
Tlie sharer of no mere possibility and therefore of no
motion, — the (jrodhead.^ Itself^unmovcd^ it is tlic cause of
motion^ the irpwrov kivovv} irEternal even as motion ^

itself, unitary and single e^'tmas the band of the entire
system ^ of the universe, and unchangeable,* it calls all the
)motions of the world forth, but not by its own activity.
That would be a motion in which the Godhead, as without
matter, cannot share.^ But it calls forth all the motion of
the world through the desire of all things for it, and
through the endeavor of all things to actualize Kara to
hvvarov the Form that is eternally realized in the Godhead.
As the object of desire, it is the cause of all motion : Kivel
CO? ipcofxevop.^

j The essence of the Godhead is immateriality .^perfect in-
^fET^lilifc -Piire^pirituality, vo\>^. Tt is tlmn^btj wb'^^^
has no_ other content than itsf^lf [vnrjrrr^ voijaeo)^),^ and
this self-contemplation (Oecopia) is its eternal blessed. life.^
God wishes nothing, God does nothing.^*^ He, is absolute
self-consciousness. ''

In the conception of the Godhead as the absolute Spirit who, ^
himself unmoved, moves the universe, Aristotle's theory of
nature culminated in such a wa}' that he designated his science
of principles as a theologv- The scientific establishment of
jiiauatliaisHVJiLliiiili, since Xenophanes, formed a leading theme
of Greek philosophy, appeared here completed as its ripest
fruit. In its form it is like the so-eallcd cosmolocyical proof-
141 its '^^ntent, tlu'ough its coucept nf th^ Qf^^Hippr] ^g n pny^y -
spirit, it, js fnv Rnpp.rior to n.11 t\\p. earlier attempts. The funda-
mental principles of Plato are just at this point, however,

1 Met., III. 8, 1012 b, 31. 2 p^^^.^ vill. 6, 258 b, 10.

8 Met., XT. 8, 1074 a, 36.

* avaXXotWoj and d-rrados : Met., XI. 7, 1073 a, 11.
5 Ibid., 1072 b, 7. 6 /^,v/.^ io72 a, 26.

"^ Ibid., 1073 a, 4 : Ke;^a)picr/Ltei/7; rcov alaOr]T(ou.
8 Ibid., 1074 b, 34. ^ Ibid., 1072 b, 24.

^^ Eth. Nic, X. 8, 1178 b, 8 ; De c(bIo, II. 12, 292 b, 4.

268 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

decisive for Aristotle. For the Aristotelian doctrine centres ^
in God all attributes which Plato had ascribed to the Ideas, and
the wa}^ fiTwIitcfa" the Btngirite determined tlie relation of God
to the world is only the exact and sharp definition of the teleo-
logical principle, which Plato had indicated by the ama. On
this account the Aristotelian Godhead shares with the Platonic
Idea the characteristic of transcendence. In his theology,
Aristotle is the perfecter of Platonic immaterialism. Thought
conceived itself and hypostasized its self-consciousness as the
essence of the Godhead.

The self-sufficienc}' of the God of Aristotle, to whose absolute
perfection there can be no want,^ whose activit}', directed upon
himself and upon naught else, can be no activity nor creation
in our sense of the word, did not satisf}^ the later religious
need. This idea is, however, the true corner-stone of his
S3'stem, and at the same time eloquent testimony for the theo-
retic character of tlie Aristotelian philosoph}'.

Jul. Simon, De cleo Aristotells (Paris, 1839) ; A. L. K^'m,
Die Gotteslehre des Aristoteles und das Christeiitum (Zurich,
1862) ; L. F. Goetz, Der aristotelische Gottesbegriff, mit Bezug
auf die christUche Gottesidee (Leipzig, 1871).

/ 42. Aristotle looked upon nature as the organic bond
of all individuals, which actualize their Form in their
motions, and in their totality are determined by pure Form
as their highest purpose. There is, therefore, only this
one 2 world, and this world is permeated^ in its activity
wdth a purpose both in the motions and relationships of
the individual things. The actualizing of the purposes
of tilings, howeviiiviKiicm-s always jthroiigh the motion of
matter {KtvijcrL^ or iiera^oXi]), This motion^ is either
change of place {Kara to ttov — 4*opd), or change of

1 Therefore, in contrast to Speusippus, the Homeric citation is given
in the spirit of monism : ovk ayaSbv nokvKoipaviTj * els Koipavos ecTTco.
Met., XI. 10, 10 7G a, 4.

2 He is avTapxTjs- Ibid., XIII. 4, 1091 b, 16.

8 De ccelo, I. 8, 276 a, 18 ; Met., XI. 8, 1074 a, 31.
4 Phys., II. 2 and 8; De ccelo, I. 4, 271 a, 33 : o Beds Koi rj (pvats
ovBeu fiuTTju TToiovaiv. Polit., I. 8, 1256 b, 20.
fi Phys., V. 2, 225 b, 18; II. 1, 192 b, 14.

ARISTOTLE 269

quality (^Kara to ttolov — dWolcjac^^, or change in quan-
tity {Kara to TToaov — av^7]ai<i /cal (fjOicFL'i). /

Ch. Leveque, La physique d^Aristote ~et la science contem-
poraine (Paris, 1863).

0vo-t9 was, in truth, in Aristotle not a substance, nor an
individual, but a unitary somewhat, the total teleological life of
the corporeal world. In this sense he spoke of the activities,
purposes, etc., of nature. In connection with his theor}- of
nature belongs therefore also that of the soul, because, although
not corporeal itself, the soul as Form of the bodj' is its principle
of motion. On the contrary, all those bodies are excluded from
his definition of nature which get their form and motion from
human activit}', and not from their own essence.^

Teleolog}' in Aristotelianism was not only a postulate, but
also a developed theor}'. It was not at all a mythjcal imagining,
but an essential doctrinal principle. The Platonic principle in
this theory did not displace the Democritan, but the Democritan
is accepted as a factor, since the mechanical motion having
its basis in the material appears as a means toward the
actualization of the Form.

The teleological fundamental principle, that there ia a rela^^
tionship of rank and value among phenomena, governs Aris-
totre*s~iJonceptiQa or tne^tliree kinds of motiou^^ Change of
place is tUe lowest, yet it is indispensable to^he higher proces^s.
For qualitative changes perfect themselves always" 15y spatial
dislocations, like condensation and rarefaction.^ On the other
hand, growth is always conditioned ^ by the C[ualitative processes
of assimilation and ttie consequently necessar}' spatial changesT"
Thus this division makes the gradation into mechanical^ chemi-
cal^ and organic processes, in which the higher always involves
the lower.

Under the class concept of fierafSoXt]^ which is, to be sure,
often made equivalent to KLVTiat^^ Aristotle contrasted origina-
tion (yev£o-is) and destruction (cfiOopd) to KLvrjo-t^ in the nar-
rower sense. This kind of change concerns, however, onh' the
compounded individual things, since there is no absolute origi-
nation and destruction :* further, one of the three kinds of motion
[ways present in this change.

his investigation into the fundamental principles of
mechanics, Aristotle came to look upon the world as limited

1 Phijs., II. 1, 193 a, 31. 2 /j/^/^^ yiji. 7^ 2GO b, 4.
8 Ibid., 260 a, 29; De gen. et corr., I. 5, 320 a, 15.
* Ibid., 3, 317 a, 32.

270 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

in space, but on the other hand as moving in time without
beginning or end. He disallowed reality to empty space,
and demQd.actio in distans. Motion is possible only through
contact.^^J

The form of the limited world-all is the most perfect,
i. e., it is a sphere. Within the world there are twa funda-
mentaj kinds of^lnotion, — in a circle and in a straight
line. Of these two, the- former, as self-limiting and unitary,
is the more nearly perfect, while the latter involves the
opposition of the centripetal and centrifugal directions.
These primitive spatial motions are distributed among dif-
ferent kinds of matter. The natural medium of the circular
motion is the aether, out of which the heavenly bodies are
formed. Motimia=m=st^aigbt lines, belong to the elements
{aToi')(€la) of the terrestriaLjrorld.

Thus Aristotle separated his world-all into two essen-

. tially different systems : the heaven with the_i:egular,
.circular motions of the aether^ and the .earth with the
changing, antagonistic, and straight-line motions of the

! elements. The heaven is the place of perfectness,^regular-
ity, and changelessness. The earth is the theatre of im-
perfection and of the eternally changing manifold. While
earthly things come and go, while their qualities are
received and lost, while on earth there is increase and
diminution, yet the stars do not Become nor pass away.
Like the blessed gods, they suffer no change, and in un-
cUanj^egsblo revolutions they move in orbits eternally the
same. /

In the definition of space {tottos) as " the boundar}' of an
enclosing body on the side of the enclosed " ^ Aristotle went
beyond the relative space relationships of particular bodies, but
did not, therefore, reach an intuition of space. In contesting
the notion of the void, he had Democritus ^ particularly in mind.

1 Phys., III. 2, 202 a, 6.

2 Ibid., IV. 4, 211 b, 14 ; De coelo, IV. 3, 310 b, 7.
« Phys,, IV., 4-6.

AKISTOTLE

271

In the dispute as to the reuhty of space, he contended against
Plato's position, to whose construction ot" the elements he
opposed ^ the distinction between mathematical and physical
bodies. Aoaiust the notion of the endlessness of the corporeal
world (aTreipov) he maintained'- that the world can bethought
only as complete and perfected, as a fully formiid thi4ig. Time,
oi^n the contrary, as the " measure of motion " ^ and as not actual
in itself, but 'used only for computing,'* is beginningless and
endless, like the motion that belongs necessarily_Jo Bemg.
Therefore the Aristotelian philosophy offered in opposition to
all earlier philosophy no picture_of _a.creation of the world, and
contended against in this respect the presentation in the Platonic
Timceus.

On the other hand, his philosophy in its essentials was greatly
influenced bv the Timceus. For the antagonism, formulated
by Aristotle in an authoritative way for many hundred years, —
the antagonism between the heavenly and the terrestrial w^orld,
— was based entirely upon that which Plato had developed in
his divisions of the world (see Plato), and also upon those
dualistic reflections that had been peculiar to the Pythagoreans
in early times. Aristotle developecl these notions in a theoretic
way. He gave the theor}' greater forcefulness conceptually than
had been the case with Plato's mathematical development of it ;
these notions became transformed at once into qualifications of
value.

Such a theory obtained also in the contrast drawn between
the aether and the four elements. Also m this the Eleatic in-
jvai^ability, unqrigiuatedness, etc., was attributed to the God-
head ^ mthat he explained the stars as living things moved
by. reasoning.-^Ijdts_^f_a^ highei' and superhuman order® (Oela
o-co/iara).' Therefore there must be for these a better matter,
the tether, corresponding to their higher form.

Aristotle's particular conceptions concerning mechanical mo-
tion have no peculiarities. His ver3]^aiinnir6"pom6fpiuc' division
into drawing, pushing:, carrying, and tuFning he did not further
developT and EelJicr"uOt reach the point of formulating law^s of
mechanics.

O. Ule, Die Haumtlieorien des Arist. und Kanfs (Halle,
1850) ; A. Torstrick, Ueher des Arist. Ahhandltiiig von der Zeit
(Pliilol. 1868) ; H. Siebeck, Die JLehre des Arist. von der

1 De coelo, III. 1, 299 a, 12.

3 Ihid., IV. 11, 220 a, 3.

6 Meteor., I. 3, 339 b, 25.

7 Met.j XI. 8, 1074 a, 30.

2 Phys., III. 5 f.

4 Ibid., 14, 223 a, 21.

6 Eth. Nic, VI. 7, 1141 a, 1.

272 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Ewigkeit der Welt {Unters. z. Fh. d. (7., 1873); Th. Poselger,
Ai'ist. mec/ianischeProhleme (Hannover, 1881).

The astronomical theory of the dtagixLte was, that around
the stationary sphere of the earth the hollow spheres revolve
concentrically, in which spheres the moon, sun, five planets,
and the fixed stars are placed. Aristotle conceived that
these last, by virtue of their relatively unchanging position,
have only a common sphere. This heaven of fixed stars
in the outermost circle of the world is set in motion by the
Godhead,^ while the other spheres find the principle of their
movements in their own spirits. Aristotle followed here
Eudoxus and Callippus, the pupil of Eudoxus, when in his
explanation of aberrations he ascribed to the planets a plural-
ity of spheres dependent on one another in their movements.
The star concerned was supposed to have its seat in the
lowest of these spheres. He conceived in his development
of this theory fifty-five spheres in all. The motions of the
planets influence the motions of the elements, and in this
way the planets in general influence terrestrial life.

The theory of the spheres in the form established under the
name of Aristotle pushed aside the riper conceptions of the
Pythagoreans and Platonists. It itself had to yield later to the
hypothesis of the epicycles. J. L. Ideler, JJeher Eudoxus
{Ahliandl. d. Berl. Acad., 1830).

Aristotle provided for a later demonolog}^ in his theor}' of the
subordinate gods of the spheres of the planets, as on the other
hand his theor}' of the dependence of earthly existence on the
stars gave occasion for astrological superstition. To the chang-
ing positions of the sun, moon, and planets in relation to the
earth, he attributed the character of eternal change, which
in earthly life is to be contrasted with the eternal regularity of
the " first heaven." ^

Aristotle developed the differences between the earthly
elements from their tendencies to move in straight lines in

* Kivel o)? eponfjLevov, as above mentioned.
2 De (/en. et corr., II. 10, 336 b, 11.

ARISTOTLE 273

Opposite directions. Fire is the centrifugal, earth the cen-
tripetal element. Between the two there is the air, which
is relatively light, and the water, which is relatively heavy
Therefore the ea_rth has its natural^ place in the middle
point of the world-all ; and successively toward the peri-
phery of thejieiwen^^stand water, air, and fire.

l>ut the elements have qualitative differences as well ns
mechanical, and these ar^nuL urig'Illiilly and in particular
derived from mathematical differences. In their develop-
ment ^ Aristotle used the same pairs of opposites which had
played a great rule already in the most ancient nature-
philosophy and afterward in the younger physiology. These
opposites were warm and cold, dry and moist. Of these
four fundamental kinds of sensation, he called the two
first active and the two last passive, and constructed accord-
ingly out of the four possible combinations the qualities of
the four elements, each one of which must include ^ an active
and passive quality. Fire is warm and dry ; air is warm
and moist ; earth is cold and dry ; water is cold and moist.
No^element appears unmixed in any individual thing; on
the contrary, there is a mixture of all elements in each
thing.

Aristotle explained the common elemental meteorological
phenomena by means partly of the mechanical, partly of the
chemical qualities of the elements, using the earlier theories
in a most comprehensive way. Moreover he made a special
study of the distinctly chemical processes, and distinguished
between bodies of equal and of unequal parts, and investi-
gated the origin of new qualities arising from the combina-
tion of simple bodies.

Concerning the predecessors of Aristotle as to the doctrine of
the elements, see Zeller, IIll 441, 2. For Aristotle to have
assumed the four elements of Empedocles is consistent with the
traces elsewhere found of the influence of that pliilosopher. The

1 De gen. et corr., II. 2 and 3. 2 Meteor., IV. 1, 378 b, 12.

274 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

assertion as to the primariness of qualities was aimed expressly
against Plato and Democritus, and therewith Aristotle turned
away from mathematical science to an anthropocentric view of
nature. For, inasmuch as the first qualities of the elements
were deduced from tactile sensations, so the wider chemical
investigations were chieflv derived from mixtures of other sense-
qualities, especially from those of taste and smell, but also as
well from those of hearing and sight. In this way the investiga-
tions of physiological psychology (2>e cm., II., and in smaller
treatises) complete the specific chemical treatments which form
Meteorologia., IV.

The contrast of active and passive qualities involved, on the
one hand, the thought of the internal vitality of all bodies. On
the other hand, it led in the whole of the system to the applica-
tion which the different kinds of matter receive in the organisms.
Yet the present division into organic and inorganic chemistry is
not to be read into his division of olfioLoixeprj and avoiioLOfxeprj,
even if the latter were also designated as more completely repre-
senting organic purposiveness.

That, finally, this beginning of chemical science at first had at
its disposal very sporadic and inexact knowledge, and in Aris-
totle was still limited ^ to clumsy methods of experimentation,
like boiling, roasting, etc., cannot be wondered at. Neither does
it detract from the value of the first special treatment of chemical
problems. See Ideler, Meteorologia veterum (Berlin, 1832).

LLhe series of grades of living creatures is determined by ^
differences of ^oul, which as the entelechy of the body ^ in
all things is the Form that moves, changes, and fashions
matter. Souls^also" TTave^a relative ranking.^ The lower
can exist without the higher, but the higher only, in con-
nection with the lower./ The lowest kind of soul is the
vegetative (to dpeirrcfcov), which is limited in its functions
to assimilation and propagation, and belongs to plants.
The animal possesses in addition to this the sensitive soul
(to alaOrjriKov), which at the same time is appetitive {6pe-
KTLKOp), and has also to some degree the power of locomotion
(kiv7)tlkov Kara toitov). Man possesses, besides both these
other soiilSj-XliaSDn (to BLavorjriKov re kol vov^).

1 Meteor., IV^. f, 2 d^ ^n., II. 1, 412 a, 27.

8 Ibid., 3, 4Ub, 29.

ARISTOTLE 275

The purposivcness of the organism is explicable from the
activity of the soul. TIic soul builds ^ for itself out of
matter the body as an organ, or as a system of organs. It
finds its limitations only in conflict with matter, whose
nature-necessity leads to Forms, that are from the circum-
stauces purposeless or purpose-thwarting.

^Tlie si.tj:nificance of Aristotle as an investigator of nature'^-^^y^
Jics in his development of organology. Under his principal
teleological treatment came the questions of systematology,
of morpliology, of anatomy and physiology, and of biology,
in a way that was for his time exhaustive and for many cen-
turies authoritative. ( His philosophical principle was that
nature strives upward from the very first signs of life, which
.^ig;nsca,n be seen even in inorganic processes, and that /
the striving is expressed in an unbroken series from the /"
lowest kinds of spontaneous creations to the highest form
of terrestrial life which is manifested ijL-inan.

When Aristotle conceived the soul as a principle of inde-
pendent motion of the individual, he attributed to it a number
of functions (especially all the vegetative) which pass in the
present-day science as purel}' physiological. The soul was
thought by Aristotle to be incorporeal but nevertheless bound
to matter which is the possibility of its activity and does not
therefore exist for itself alone. It has its seat in a particular
organic matter, — in the Oepfxov or the Trvevjua, — which is related
to the aether and is supposed to be found in animals in the
blood chiefl3\ In this doctrine Aristotle allowed himself to be
mis+ed back into the popular view, which was opposed to the in-
sight of Alcmreon, Democritus, and Plato, that the heart is the
princii)al organ of the soul ; and the brain plays the secondary
rOleof a cooling apparatus _fQr the blood boiled in the heart.
The sjnritus anini'ih:^ of later times were developed theoreti-
cally from Aristotle's physiological psj'cholog}'.

The three grades of life of the soul correspond in general,
although onl}' very vaguely, to Plato's three divisions of the soul.
Yet this doctrine is conceived and developed with much more

1 See classical development of the human form : Be part, an., IV. 10,
686 a, 25.

276 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

conceptual sharpness and clearness in Aristotle than in his
predecessor.

Aristotle's predilection for teleology in the realm of the or-
ganic sciences, in which his thoroughgoing treatment of the
facts most brilliantly appears, in no way hindered the care of
his observations and comparisons. It rather sharpened to a
high degree his insight into the anatomical structure of the
organs, their morphological relations, their ph^'siological func-
tions, and their biological significance. Some mistaken analogies
and unfortunate generalizations, which have been correctly
enough charged against him b}' modern investigators, cannot
injure the fame which is due him in this field. They are only
the excrescences and imperfections of his great and comprehen-
sive conception. In details he utilized chiefly the previous
works of Democritus, whose mechanical theory, it must be said,
had not stood in the wa}^ of his conception and admiration of
the purposef ulness of organisms.

See J. B. Meyer, Aristoteles' Tierkunde (Berlin, 1855) ; Th.
Watzel, Die Zoologie des Aristoteles (in three parts, Reichenberg
1878-80).

iJJhe psychology of Aristotle has two parts, which, al-
though running over into each other, still reveal the pre-
dominance of two distinct scientific points of view: (1) the
general theory of animal souls, a doctrine of the psychical
processes which 'are possessed in common by animals and
men, although developed in man more richly and more
nearly perfectly ; (2) the doctrine of the vov^ as the dis-
tinctive possession of man. We can designate these two
views as the empirical and speculative sides of Aristotle's
psychology. The former he treated essentially as an inves-
tigator by carefully recording, ordering, and explaining the
facts. The latter view, on the contrary, was governef
partly by his general metaphysics, partly by his interests
in epistemology and ethics^\^

K. Ph. Fischer, De principiis AristoteUcce de anima doctrince
(Erlangcn, 1845) ; W. Volkmann, Die Grundzuge der aristo-

1 Aristotle himself distinguished between the physical and philosoph-
ical treatment of the soul : De an., T. 403 b, 9; De part, an., I. 1, 641 a,
17.

ARISTOTLE 277

telischen Psf/cJwlogle (Prague, 1858) ; A. E. Cliaignct, Essai
sar la P'^^f/chologie cVAristote (Paris, 1883); II. Sicbeck,

^Geschichte iler J'sf/chologie, I. 2, pp. 1-127 (Gotha, 1884).

' Aristotle I'ounci i)re(lecessors in empirical psychology, — which
is parth' physiological psychology, as we to-day designate it, but
is not entirely embraced by it, — partly in the piiysicians and later
nature-[)hilosophers, parti}' in Democritus, and also pcrhai)s in
Plato in the Timwus. But he also betrayed in his theorj' of the
vov<i the inclinati(jn which had led all earl}' philosophers to adjust
their conceptions of psjcholog}' to their epistemological and
ethical views.

The animal soul is differentiated from the vegetable soul
essentially by its concentration and unity (yLtecroTT;?),^ which
is wanting in plants. Sensation is the fundamental form
of activity (^al'a07]aL<;), which he explained^ by the con-
cert of action betw^een the active, Form-giving perceived t
thing and the passive, impressionable perceiving thing, — I
an action mediated in different senses through different
media. The most primary sense and common to all ani-
mals is the sense of touch, with which Aristotle likewise
classified taste. In value, however, hearing is first.

However, the activity of the special senses is restricted
to receiving those qualities of the external \vorld which are
peculiar to the senses themselves, — senses which are in the
similarity of their material adapted to such reception.
The combination of the psychic elements, nevertheless, into
complete perceptions and the conception of the conditions
of things, which are common to the different senses — the
conception of their number, their spatial and temporal con-
j- nections, their conditions of motion — takes place through
the central sense organ, the ^'common-sense" (aladrjrripLov
KOivov), which has its seat in the heart. In this central or-
gan arises our knowledge of our own activities.^ In it the
ideas remain * as (f)avTaaiaL after the external stimulus has
cei^sed. Imagination becomes memory {iJLvrjfxi}) as soon as

1 De an., II. 11, 424 a, 4. 2 /^^-^/^ 5^ 417 a, 6.

8 Ibid., in. 2, 425 b, 17. * Ibid., 3, 427 b, 14.

278 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

it becomes recognized as the copy of an earlier perception.
The entrance of remembered ideas is conditioned upon the
series in which they are bound together. Upon the basis
of this association of ideas voluntary recollection is possible
in man (dvdfivi]o-i<;)}

H. Beck, Arist. de sensuuni actione (Berlin, 1860) ; A. Crata-
cap, Arist. de seiisibiis doctrina (Montpellier, 1866 ) ; CI. Biiumker,
Des Arist. Xe/ire "von der)% dusseren mid inneren Sinnesvermogen
(Leipzig, 1877) ; J. Neuhauser, Arist, Lehre von dem sinnliclien
£Jrken7itnisvermdgen und seinen Organen (Leipzig, 1878) ; J.
Freudenthal, Ueber den Begriff des Wortes (fjavTaata hei Aristo-
teles (Gottingen, 1867) ; Fr. Sclieiboldt, De imaginatione dis-
guisitio ex Arist. libris repetita (Leipzig, 1882) ; J. Ziaja, Die
aristoteUsche Lehre vom (reddchtnis und von der Association der
Vorstellungen (Leobschlitz, 1882).

Aristotle's idea of single processes of perception is condi-
tioned b}' the general principles of his philosophy of natural
science, and is in many ways distinguished from that of his pre-
decessors. The most important point in the theoretic part of
his animal psychology is his insight into the synthetic character
of perception, which is expressed in the hj'pothesis of the
common-sense. Aristotle did not follow further the valuable
thought that consciousness of activities, i. e., the inner percep-
tion as distinguished from the objects of those activities, is
rooted in tliis synthesis. In the doctrine of the association of
ideas and in the distinction between voluntary and involuntary
memory he scarcely advances beyond Plato.

Next to the different grades of ideas, desire (opeft?) is
the second fundamental form of tlie activity of the animal
soul. It originates in the feeling of pleasure or displeasure
Qt-jhif and Xvirrjpov^, which is derived from the ideas so far
as the content of these promises to fulfil a purpose or not.
Therefore affirmation or negation results, which express
the essence of the practical life of the soul in pursuit or
in aversion (fiioiKeiv — (j^evyetv').^ In all cases, then, the idea
of the agreeable is the cause of pleasure and desire, and vice
versa. Desire, however, calls ^ forth teleological move-

^ See the writing nepl ixvrjixijs koi dvafxvfjaeois.

a De an., III. 7, 431 a, 15. -^ De mot. an., 7, 701 b, 7-

ARISTOTLE 279

monts of the organs through their wanning or their cooling
which follow physiologically from the intensity of the
feelings of pleasure and displeasure.

In the fundamental division into theoretical and practical ^
activities of souls, Aristotle associated feeling with the desire as
a constant accompan3ing phenomenon. Yet he taught, on the
other hand, entirely in the spirit of the Socratic psycholog}', that
every desire presupposes the idea of its object as something of
value. He represented indeed the genesis of desire as a con-
clusion wherein the momentar}' content of the idea is subsumed
under a more universal teleological thought.^ The result is,
then, affirmative or negative, as in a conclusion. It is, more-
over, interesting that Aristotle identified the act of agreement
or disagreement in the practical functions of feeling and desire
exactlj' with the logical terms of affirmative and negative judg-
ments (Kara^acrts and dtTro^acrts) . This showcd in him, not only
in his psychology but in his entire teaching, the characteristic
tendency to subordinate the practical under the prevailing
determinations of the theoretical.

All these activities of animal souls constitute in man the
material for the development of the Form peculiar to him,
i. e., the reason (vov^). No longer a Form of the body, but
rather of the soul, it is purely immaterial, is not to be con-
fused with the body as a potentiality, and as mere Form it
is simple, unchangeable, and incapable of suffering.^ The
vov<; does not originate with the body, as the animal func-
tions of the soul originate. It enters from without^ as
a higher, godlike activity, and it therefore alone remains
afkii^the body has passed away.^

/ihe fundamental activity of the soul is thought (hiavoela-
dat),^ and its object is those highest principles, in which
the ultimate ground of all Being and knowing is immediately
(df^eaa) conceivedr? Only in so far as the reasoning insight

1 This he also calls Ovfxos; Pol, VII. 7, 1327 b, 40: see P. Meyer,
6 Bv^os apud Aristotelem Platonemqxie, Bonn, 1877.

2 De mot. an., 7, 701 a, 8 ; Eth. Nic, VII. 5, 1147 a, 26.

3 De an., III*. 429 a, 15. * De gen an., 11. 3, 736 b, 27.
5 De an., III. 5, 430 a, 23. « Ibid., Til. 4, 429 a, 23.

»/9

280 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

can become the cause of desire, is the reason also practi-
cjdJ This higher kind of ope^t? is designated as fiov\7jat<;.
In the human individual, however, the reason is not pure
'orrn but self-developing Form. Therefore we must again
distinguish also in human reason between its potentiality
and its actuality, between its passive material and its active
Form, j Therefore, although Aristotle designated '^ the vov^
itseTflis TTOLovv, he contrasted it with its potentiality which
is capable of being actualized, as the vov^i TraOrjTCKOfi.
This potentiality exists, however, in the theoretic func-
tioning of animal souls, yet only so far as these functions
can become in the human organism the occasion for
reflection u}:^ft* those highest and immediately certain
principles. 2 ^JHistorical development of the reason in men
is therefore this, — that through the persistence of sense
impressions (^/juovi]} * general notions arise (to irpoyrov iv
rfj -^vxfi Ka66Xov), and these then form the entire occasion
in the epagogic process for the knowledge of the actual
reason appearing upon the original tabula rasa ^ of the voix;
iraOrjTLKo^. The actualizing of the reason is dependent
upon the physiological process of representation, and it
remains so because the sensuous pictures are always asso-
ciated alsQ with the supersensible product of the thinking
process.^

Jul. Wolf, De intellectu agente et patiente doctrina (Berlin,
1844) ; W. Biehl, Veher den J^egriff des vov? bei Aristoteles
(Linz, 1864) ; F. Brentano, Die Psychologie des Aristoteles
insbesondere seine Lelire vom vovq TroL-qrtKo'i (Mainz, 1867) ; A.
Bullinger, Aristoteles Nus-Lehre (Dillingen, 1884) ; E. Zeller,

1 Be an., III. 10, 433 a, 14. 2 /j^v/.^ 5^ 430 a, 12, 19.

^ These functions man shares with the beast ; but among animals
they are not instruments of the reason because the active principle of
reason is wanting. This relation does away with the doubt raised by
Zeller, Ilia. 5 70 f.

^ Anal post., 11. 19, 99 b, 36. ^ De an., III. 4, 429 b, 31.

6 Ibid., 7, 431 a, 16.

ARISTOTLE 281

Ueber die Lclire des Aristofeles von der Evaigkeit des GeiMes
(Sifz Bcr. der Bed. Ak., 1882).

The difficulties of Aristotle's theory of the vov<i lie first in the
fact that the reason in our usual terminology is delined and
treated as the peculiarity of the human soul, but it is thereby so
restricted that it can fall no longer under the class concept of
the soul as " the entelechy of the body." With Aristotle the true
relationship is rather this : that the vov<i bears the relation to the
human i/'vx^J (and in so far this is true of animal souls) as the
animal ipvxt] bears to the body.^ In some respect the distinction
is the same in the German between Geist and Seele^ and in the
Middle Ages a similar distinction was made between spirltus
or spinicidum and a?iu/ui. Therefore the reasoti in-its^ is
thout^ht to be pure actuality, and_ to have no relatioa..lQL_the
body, to come from without into the body an.cLlQ Uyc after the
body. Aristotle's '' possibility " is, on the contrary, the animal
if/vxy ; and therefore the vov^ -rraO-qriKo^; ^ is also mortal (<^6'apTos).
On the other hand, the animal i/^i^X^? does not be<;iQiiie-4iie vovs
T-aOrjTLKO'i until by the influence of the vov<i TroLrjTiKfk upon it. In
itself it is empt}' so faras^^Teasmiiiig^knowledge^oeSj^and only
oflj^ the occasion for the reasoning knowledge to actualize itself.

On account or tins tne Aristotelian didactic writings leave in
a very uncertain state the question of individual immortality,
concerning which the commentators were in livel}' dispute even
until the Renaissance.^ For doubtless, according to the Aris-
totelian definition of a concept, all those psychical contents
which compose the essence of the individual belong to the vov^
TTaOyTLKO's, which is destro3'ed with the body. Pure, universal
rational knowledge of the vov? TroirjTLKo^ has remaining in it so
little that is individual, that according to the characteristics that
are ascribed to it — pure actualit}', unchangeableness, and
eternalness — a difi'erence between it and the divine spirit can-
not be made out. We cannot decide whether or by what method
Aristotle tried to solve this problem.

But, at any rate, his speculative psychology shows a strong
dependence upon the Platonic, and particularly upon the form of
Platonism in the TimcBus. In both cases, to the distinction
between a reasoning and an unreasoning part^ of the soul there

1 So the i/ouf in Aristotle is called a higher kind of soul: De an., 11.
2, 413 b, 26.

2 Ibid., III. 5, 430 a, 24.

^ See Windelband, Gesch. der neueren Phil., T. (Leipzig, 1878), p. 15 f.
* Eth. Nic, I. 13, 1102 a, 27. There is also in Aristotle a vovs
XopKTTos : De an., III. 5, 430 a, 22.

282 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

is added the postulate that the former is immortal and the latter
is mortal with the bod}'.

The psycho-epistemological conception which Aristotle devel-
oped concerning the temporal actualizing of the vovs in man,
resembles, also, the Platonic conception. For if the epagogic
processes of i.ivr](.i7] and ifiTretpia lead to the highest principles,
whose certainty rests upon the immediate intuition of the vovs,
if indeed the natural wa}' from the irporepov vrpo? rj^a^ to the irpo-
Tepov TTJ (jivaet does not include the grounding of the highest
premises, but ultimately only the occasion for immediate intuition
of the same to enter, — then this theory is only the dcA-elopment
and refinement of the Platonic doctrine of ava^vr)(Ti<i.

The 8tai/ota, the knowledge which the reason possesses, has a
theoretical and practical use (iTna-TrjfxovLKov and Xoyio-riKoV) .^ The
former as Ocoipta leads to iTna-Trifxr], the latter as c}ip6v7](TL<i tore^vT^.
But it is also true that the practical reason in itself is only a
theoretic activity, an insight into the right principles of action.
Whether the individual shall follow that knowledge or not
depends upon his free choice.

L. Schneider, Die Uhsterhlichkeitslehre des Aristoteles (Pas-
sau, 1867) ; K. Schlottmann, Das Vergdngliche unci Unver-
gd)}gUche in der inenschlichen Seele nach Aristoteles (Halle,
1873) ; W. Schrader, Aristotle de voluntate doctrina (Branden-
burg, 1847) ; J. Walter, Die Lehre von der^yraktischen Vernunft
in der qriechisclien Philosopliie (Jena, 1874).

43.* -Furthermore, the practical philosophy of Aristotle
was built up on these universal theoretic principles. The
goal of every human action is a Good, to be realized by
activity (irpaKTov a^aQov). Yet this goal is only a means y^'
to the liighi^st goal, Happiness, on account of which all else
is desired. J To perfect et'SatyLtoi^ /a belongs also the possession
of the goods of the body, of the outer world, and of success ;
but since these are only accessories, their lack will only^^ve
a certain limitation ^ to the amount of happiness. The
essential condition of happiness, on the contrary, is activ-
ity, and indeed^^^tU^ activity peculiar to man ; that is, it is
that of reason.^ /

Now the state (ef ^9) * which renders possible to man the

1 Eth. Nic, VI. 2, 1139 a, 11. 2 /^„v/,^ yn^ 14^ 1153 b, 17.
« Ibid., I. 6, 1097 b, 24. ^ Ibid., 11. 4, 1106 b, 11.

ARISTOTLE 283

perfect use of his peculiar activity is virtue. Virtue has in
certain bodily qualities its natural aptitude, out of which it
is developed ^ only by use of the reason. From the exercise
of virtue^Dleasure ^ follows as a necessary result of perfect
Activity. I

J^^The problem of the reason is twofold : first, it is concerned
with knowledge ; secondly^^wTth the direction of desire and
action through knowledge./ In this way, Aristotle distin-
guished between the dianoetic and ethical virtues.^ The
former are higher. They unfold the pure formal activity
of the i^oO?, and give the most noble and perfect pleasure.
The human being finds in them his possible participation
in the divine blessedness.

K. L. Michelet, Die EthiJc des Aristoteles (Berlin, 1827) ; G.
Hartenstein, Ueher den wissenschafilichen Wert der aristotelischen
Etldk{\n Hist.-philos. AbhandL, Leipzig, 1870); R. Eucken, Ueber
die 3Iethode \ind die Grundlageii der aristotelischen Etliik
(Frankfort a. M., 1870) ; P. Paul, An Analysis of Aristotle's
Ethics (London, 1874) ; A. OUe-laprune, De Aristotelece ethices
fundamento (Paris, 1880). Concerning the Highest Good,
G. Teichmiiller, Die Einheit der aristotelischen Euddmonie
(in Bulletin de la classe des sciences hist., etc., de Vacadeiuie de
St. Petershourg., XVI. 305 fif.). Concerning dianoetic virtues,
see C. Prantl (Miinchen, 1852, Gluckw,-schr. an Thiersch) and
A. Kiilui (Berlin, 1860).

The sense for what is actual, the thoroughgoing investigation
of facts, and the inclination to bring qualitative distinctions to
the same touchstone, are shown in the practical philosophv of
Aristotle perhaps more than in his theoretical philosoph}'. The
NicomachiBan ethics definitely refused to take its point of de-
parture from the abstract Idea of the Good, adopting in its stead
the Good so far as it is an object of human activity (I. 1, 1094 a,
19). In the determination of the concept of happiness, also,
which to him was obviously the highest good, he included the
possession of material wealth and good fortune, although always
subordinated to the exercise of the reason, if the reason is to
reach complete and untrammelled development. Onl}' this
potential value justifies the consideration of earthly good in ethics.

1 Eth. Nic, VI. 13, 1144 b, 4. 2 7^/j.^ x. 4, 1174 b, 31.
8 Ibid., I. 13, 1103 a, 2.

284 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

The dialectic that had been developed by Socrates upon the
question of the relation of pleasure and virtue was completed
with exalted simplicity by Aristotle ; for he taught, in antago-
nism to the one=sided doctrines, that pleasure is never the motive,
but always the result of virtue. Therefore, also, the activity of
the reason unfolding itself in virtue is always the measure of the
worth of the different pleasures (Eth. Nic.^ X. 3. ff.).

In respect to the psychological characterization of virtue,
Aristotle laid weight upon its conception as a continuous con-
dition and not as a single state. On the other hand, he found a
hvvaixi^ for it in bodily qualities, such as the characteristics of
the natural disposition, temperament, inclination, and feelings.
These are also in children and animals, but they are not there
under the rule of the reason.

Tlie dianoetic virtues are related to theoretical as well as to
practical insight. The latter is either rexi^i; as the knowledge of
the right, requisite for artistic creation, or cfipovrja-t^ as the recog-
nition of justice, which recognition is necessary for activity in
public or private Ufe {Eth. A7c., VI. 5ff.). The cftpovrjats is
also split into (1) o-vVeo-ts, the understanding of objects and rela-
tions which are the cause of its activity, and (2) ev/SoXta, the
knowledge of teleological processes. The o-o<^ta is of more value,
for it is the knowledge having no ulterior purpose, but sought on
account of itself. Its content is highest actuality and first prin-
ciples. Its application to single sciences and departments is
iTTLaTrjfxrj ; its knowledge of itself is Sidvota, or the vov<s as pure
Form. It is that Oewpta, in which the highest happiness con-
sists {Met., XL 7, 1072 b, 24 ; see Mh. iWc, X. 7,^ 1177 a, 13),
and this makes the perfectness of God : r/ Oeoipta to ySio-Tov koI
apia-rov. This is ethically, as well as metaphysically, the funda-
mental princii)le of the philosophy of Aristotle. It is rooted in
his personality : and is the expression of that pure joy in knowl-
edge that forms the basis of all science and is the absolute con-
dition of the independence of science. In the logic of Aristotle
Greek science recognized and formulated its essence, and in his
ethics its practicability.

As the dianoiitic virtues have their seat in the intellect,
the ethical virtues have theirs in the will. Rational
insight, as experience teaches us, is not alone sufficient for
right action, but there must be added to it the strength of
the will (hyKpdreia),'^ in order to give the insight validity

1 Not reckoned among the virtues : Eth. Nic, IV. 15, 1128 b, 33.

ARISTOTLE

285

ill contrast to the affections and desires.^ Tliis is only pos-
sibl^ by the will choosing freely what it knows to be good.
/jithical virtue_isatheji» that continuing state of the will by
means of which practical reason- rules the desires. Besides
disposition and insight, virtue also needs for its develop-
ment exercise,^ because the direction of the will must be
estabHgJied through habit. The rj6o<; is developed out of
t\i0rWo(;.

.fi^ontrol of the desh-es-by the reason consists in the ^
right mean being (ihosen^ between the extremes, towar^?C
which uncurbed desires press. It is the task of practical
insight to recognize this right mean in individual rela-
tions by using our knowledge of objects and of human
nature ; and it is the business of virtue to act according
to

to tliii

lis insight (0/3^09 \6yo^')>

t of this principle Aristotle developed from his
accifrate knowledge of the world and human kind the
single ethical virtues in a rising. series, which seem * not to
have been systematically grounded, articulated, or deline-
ated. The purely Greek fuiidamental_j)rinciple in it is
that of the.. value .of moderation. / *?

A. Trendelenburg, Das Ebenmass^ ein Band der Vencandt-
schaft zwischen griecJiischen Archciologie iind griechischen
Philosophie (Berlin, 1865).

Although Aristotle regarded right insight as the conditio
sine qua non of right action, yet he was still conscious that it is,
after all, the province of the will to follow right insight, and that -■
the will has the power of doing the wrong thing contrary to right
insight. It is for us to say (e^' ri^lv) whether we wish to act
well or ill. The investigation concerning freedom that Aristotle
made {Eth. Nic.^ III. 1-8) directs itself indeed against the
Socratic intellectualism, and views the question essentially from

1 See the polemic against the Socratic doctrine, ILth. Nic, VII. 3 if.

2 Ibid., II. 1, 1103 a, 24. 3 /^/^.^ 5^ hqg a, 28.

* See, nevertheless, F. Hacker, Das Ei?iteilungs- und Anordnungs-
prinzip der moralischen TugendreUie in der nikomacliischen Elhik (Berlin,
1863); Th. Ziegler, Gesck. der EthiL; I. IIG.

286 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the point of responsibilit3\^ The question is, how far a human
being can be regarded as the dpx^ of ^is own activit}.'-^ This
freedom is annulled through ignorance of the facts and through
external force. The -n-poatpeats is essential to it, which is the
decision through choice between contemplated possibilities.

The dogmatic completeness which characterized the Platonic
ethics was not reached by Aristotle's system. Aristotle made
amends for it by his deep rational insight into the manifold
relations of life. The virtues treated b}^ him are : courage
(dySpeta), as the mean between fear and daring; temperance
(crco0poo-uV7y) , between intemperance and insensibleness ; liberal-
ity (eXevOepioTrjs), and in larger relationships magnificence
(^cya^oTrpeVcitt), between stinginess and prodigality ; high-mind-
edness (^leyaAoi/^uxta), and in affairs of less importance ambi-
tion, between vaingloriousness and self-abasement ; mildness
(TrpaoTTy?), between irascibility and indifference; friendliness
(also called (/)iXta) , between obsequiousness and brusqueness ;
candor (dXTj^eia), between boastfulness and dissembling ; ur-
banity (evTpaTrekeia), between trifling and moroseness f finally,
justice {SLKaioa-vvYj) , which consists in recognizing the rights of
men neither too much nor too little. The philosopher giA'^es an
exhaustive treatment of justice (Eth. Nic.^ V.), on the one hand
because in a certain sense it comprehends * in itself all the
virtues in respect to our fellows, on the other because it is the
foundation of the political life of society. Its fundamental
principle is equality,^ — either the proportional equality of merit
or the absolute equality of legal rights. Therefore Aristotle
distinguished distributive justice (to iv rat? Siaro^ai? or t6

BLavefirjTLKOV 8t/<atov), and commutative justice (t6 iv tol<; a-waWdy-
juacrt or TO hiopOoiTLKov hiKaiov).^ Both investigations led to inter-
esting details of political economy and political law.

1 With express reference indeed to criminal law, EtJi. Nic, III. 1,
1109 b, 34. Metaphysical aporia from freedom of the will are not yet
considered in this connection ; and only once in connection with the law
of the excluded third term : De iyiterpr., 9, 18 b, 31.

'^ Eth. Nic, III. 5, 1112 b, 31 ; 3, 1111 a, 73.

8 Also shame (alda>s) and sympathy are mentioned by Aristotle in
this series, hut they indicate excellences of temperament {Eth. Nic, II.
7, 1108 a, 32); in other words, (jivcriKal dpeToi

4 IhlcL, V. 3, 1129 b, 17. 6 Jhid., 5, 1130 b, 9.

<5 Wherever the latter legally carried out would not satisfy the ethical
need, and where the former takes its place, there reigns the virtue of
fair-mindedness (t6 (meiKes).

AKISTOTLE 287

A principle in this series of virtues is to be found only in its
content, since the formal mean (jueo-orr;?) is everywhere the same.
The principle consists in the gradual advance from the individual
relations toward the social relations and among the latter, from
the external to the more spiritual relations of life. At the be-
ginning stands courage, the virtue of self-preservation of the
individual ; at the end justice, the ethical basis of the state.

Finally, the beautiful representation of friendship, ^vhose ideal
the philosopher found in the common striving for the beautiful
and good ((^iXia)^ forms a transition to the treatment of social
life. He applied this standard to some similar relations of
friendship, to conventional and unconventional social relations,
raising the latter from their utilitarian origin to means for
ethical ennoblement. The same obtains also in regard to the
state. See R. Eucken, Aristoteles^ Anschaimng von Freund-
schaft und Lebensgutern (Berlin, 1884) ; also Aristoteles' JJrteil
uher die Menschen (^Arch. f. Gesch. d. JPh.^ III. 541 ff.).

I Man, however, who is designed by nature {twov ttoXl-
TiKov) ^ as an essentially social being, can perfect his
activity only in communal life. The natural and funda-
mental form of society is the family (olKia) ; the most
perfect, however, is the state. Since the etlyjcaJLmlues of
mnn c.i\r\ develop perfectlv ^ only in the life of th^ stntp^ so
also, altbuugh the state arose * out of the needs of utility,
the state is essentially nnd thfioret^^^^l1y fhn np.fnn1i'7nfinn>
the highest good of the active man {rauOpocnTivov djaOov).

This idea seemed so important to Aristotle that in the begin-
ning of his Ethics he designated the whole of practical philos-
ophy as TToXtriKr/,^ which is divided into the theory of the con-
duct of the individual (Ethics) niyl thp theory of the conduct
of the whole (Politics). The relationship is not to be so con-
c?elved !iy If ethics set up an ideal of perfect individuality,
and as if politics then showed how this ideal was developed by
society. But as the whole is more valuable and essentially ) \^

1 Eth. Nic, VIIL f. 2 poi^ I. 2, 1253 a, 3.

^ In the treatment of friendship, Aristotle used frequently the ex-
pression (Tv^Tjv. See FAlt. Nic, IX. 12, 1171 b, 32.

* See conclusion of Ethics and beofinninG: of Politics,

^ Which he also called philosophical anthropology (fj nepi ra dvOpcoTTLva
<^iXo(70(/)ta) in Eth. Nic, X. 10, 1181 b, 15.

288 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

earlier than the parts, so also a man as an active being attains
in social life a more perfect actuality than in isolation {Mli.
Mc, I. 1, 1094 b, 7).

Aristotle agreed with Plato and the author of the dialogue,
Politicus, in the ethico-teleological conception of the hfe of
the state. But he was thinking here, as in general, not of
the transcendent, but the immanent teleology. His state is
no form of government of superhuman beings, but the perfection
of the earthly life, the full actualization of the natural dis-
position of mau. On the other hand, Aristotle was far from
.{ letting man be swallowed up in the state, as was the case with
" Plato. The individual's participation in the divine holiness of
the OeiDpLa remains his independent enjoyment, even if he must
be guided by social education to dianoetic and ethical virtue,
y While subordinating the citizen to the community, Aristotle
nevertheless gave to him in private life ^ a ver}' much greater
circle of independent activity, since he expressly contended
against the Platonic conception ^ of a community of wives,
,lreu, and property. So his theory of the state held the
appy mean between the socialism of Plato and the individual-
sai of other schools, and it became thereby the ideal expression
f Greek life.
Aristotle gave the same relative independence also tt) the
-^^ famih', the natural communit}', upon which the state is built.
TheTamil}- is the prototype of the political forms in its relation-
ships of man to wife, parents to children, and to slaves.^ The
conception of marriage reached a height in Aristotle which
antiquity did not surpass. He saw in it an ethical relation-
ship between peers in which only from natural disposition
the man is the determining, the wife the determined element.
Slavery, which he desired to treat in all humaneness, is an in-
dispensable groundwork for family and political life. He justi-
fied it —feeling its practical importance for Greece — because
only through it the good of leisure (o-xo^)^ is made possible for
the citizen^ and this leisure is a condition necessary to the exer-
cise of virtue. He also was of the opinion that natural dis-
position has predetermined one man as slave, another as free
citizen.

See W. Oncken, Die Staatslelire des Aristoteles (Leipzig,

1 He said emphatically that the state consists in individuals that are
in some respects like and in others unlike. Politics, IV. 11, 1295 a, 25.

2 Ihid., IT, 2 ff.

3 Eili. Nic, VIII. 12, IIGO b, 22.

* Concerning the word "leisure," soc Tlnd., X. 7, 1177b, 4.

ARISTOTLE 289

1870) ; C. Bradley, The Politics of Aristotle (Berlin, 1884) ; P.
Janet, Histolre de la science poUtitjue (Paris, 1887), I. 165 fF.

The living and perfected virtue of all its citizens is the *\/
final purpose of the state. For the realization ^ of this >
purpose we must take the material at hand ; viz., a natural,
historical and concrete society in a particular environment.
Although it is impossible to fix upon a valid norm for the
constitution of all states, nevertheless under all circum-
stances the actual constitution must be measured by the
general purpose of the state, and its worth will be assessed
according to its sufficiency (opOy^ and deficiency (f^^aprrj'
fiem]'). The political constitution i^. an ^arrangement in
which the rulejsjn^he hands of ii justly ordained^asEer.
Thereft)re tb^ wxtrth of a state depends on the ruling
power keeping the purpose of the state (to kolvov crvfM-
(pepov) in view. Since the rule may be in the hands of
the one or the "few or the many, there are ^ six po^ble
forms of political constitutions, — three good and three,
that are deficient. The former three are monarchy ( ySa-
(TiXeia), SLYistoGrsiCj, and "polity" (iroXLTeia) ;^ the latter
three are despotism (rupavvc^^, oligarchy, and democracy
(Sy/jLOKparLo].^ With the fine analysis of an observing"
statesman, Aristotle investigated the essential principles of
these different forms, their conditions, their rise, their fall,
and their legitimate transmutation one into another. With
the firm hand of a philosopher he drew his estimate of
these various forms after the " concept " of a state.

1 Pol., VII. 4, 1325 b, 35.

2 Aristotle changed the somewhat external principle of division of
the number of rulers (Ibid., III. 17, 1287 b, 37) by considerations about
the character of the different peoples.

8 Ibid., 7, 1279 a, 25.

* What Aristotle here calls noXiTeia in the narrower sense was later
known as democracy (drjiMOKparia). Polybius has a better name for the
Aristotehan democracy, which is ox^oKpaTia.

290 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Among the good constitutions, monarchy and aristocracy
are the most perfect, since they are the rule of the^ best
man or men, ethically speaking. Of these, monarchy
would be preferred if we could hope that it would ever
correspond entirely to its concept ; that is, to the rule of
one man who surpasses all others in virtue.^ In reality
the aristocracy offers greater guarantees. Among the
degenerate kinds of constitutions, the rule of the masses

is always less unendurable, that of tyranny the most

aboimriable.

Under the presupposition of fulfilling all conditions which
were demanded for realizing the political ideal, the idea of
the best state was delineated, whose development Aristotle
began but did not complete.^ The best state must have the
fundamental form of " polity " at least, but the administra-
tion of public affairs must, as in the aristocracy, be in the
hands ^ of the virtuous. It would be a state of peace and
not of war,^ and its chief task would be the correct educa-
tion of all its citizens. The citizens would not only be
efficient in practical affairs, but they would ^ also be sen-
sible to beauty and finally capable of the highest enjoyment,
that is, of that which attends knowledge.

The incompleteness of the Aristotelian writings is perhaps
nowhere so much to be regretted as in the Politics. The torso
of this work shows a wonderful thoroughness, a philosophical
penetration of all the political conditions of Hellenic histor}',
the clearest understanding of the limitations and the develop-
ments of political life. These excellences make all the more
keen our regret that the ideal picture of the state, based on
what he has given, was only proposed and not developed. In

1 Pol, V. 10, 1310 b, 31. 2 jU(j^^ YYi^ 4 ff.

' Aristotle distinguished — in a manner not entirely consistent to
the new theory of the three kinds of power, but yet with an approximate
suitability — to /SovXfvo/ievoi/ irepi tcov koivwv, to rrepi ras dpxai, to diKa^ov
(Ibid., IV. 14, 1297 b, 41).

* Ibid., VII. 14 f. fi Ibid., VIII. 2 f

ARISTOTLE 291

the same way the thcor}' of eduction of Aristotle comes to an
abrupt end after a sketch of the elementar}' principles of educa-
tion, suggesting many valuable points of view. It put forth in a
clear way that all aisthetical training is to bring about thq
ethical and theoretical unfolding of what is essentially human, f

With Aristotle's practical philosophy is connected the
PjMics^ the science of the creative activity of man. But
in the preserved writings, this science is developed only on
the side of beauty in fine art, and particularly in reference
to poetry in the Poetics.

J. Bernays, Zicei Abhandhmgen ilber die aristotelische Theorie
des Dramas (Berlin, 1880) ; A. Doring, Die Kunstlehre cles
Aristoteles (Jena, 1876) ; the details of a rich bibliography are
found in Doring, p. 263 ff. ; Ueberweg-Heinze, V. 225.

_ All art is_imitation, and the different arts are to be dis-
tinguished partly by their media, partly by the objects to be
imitated.^ The media of poetry, are words, rhythm, and har-
mony .^ The objects of poetry are men and their conduct,
good or bad.^ Tragedy, to whose analysis the preserved
fragment on poetry is essentially limited, presents directly
to the spectator in beautiful language a significant and
complete action through its different characters.*

The purpose of art, however, is to arouse the emotions of
man in such a way that he may be freed and purified {kcl-
6apai<^) from their power — precisely through their arousal
and intensifi cation. This is possible only when art presents,
not the empirically actual^ but that which could be in itself
possible, — so presenting it that it raises the object into
universality.

1 Poet., 1 f. 2 7^;^.^ 7^ 1447 a, 22. « JUd., 2 f.

* The celehraterl and miich rjipcussed definition of tragedy is {Ihid.,
G, 1449 b, 24) : tarnv ovv rpaytobla fiL^rjais npa^ews o-irnv8aias Koi reXeias,
/ze'ye^oy f^ovaijs. rj^vcrpevco Xoyo), ;)^coptf eKaarov toov eldcou eu rots /xopiois,
hpoavTwv KOI ou 5i' dirayyeXias, St* eXeov Koi (f)6^ov ircpalvovaa ttjv ratu
ToiovTOiv TTaBr]p.dT(t>v Kd6ap(nv.

292 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

The ethical result of traged}^, the purification of the passions,
whether the KaOapcnq is usecT in religious, medical, of other
analog}', goes accordingly hand in hand with its intellectual
significance. Art, like philosophy', presents the actual in its
ideal purity {Poetics^ 9, 1451 b, 5), and is more than the mere
facsimile of individual facts, as the tcrropta presents them. This
conception of the universal significance annuls the emotions of
fear and S3'mpathy through which tragedy' has to operate.

The long strife over the meaning of the Aristotelian definition
of tragedy has gradually resolved itself into the belief that
the healthiness which this Kadapcra brings with it rests upon
this idealizing of the aesthetic result, — upon an exaltation to
immediate knowledge of the universal.

Thus Aristotle fulfilled upon this territory, in contrast to the
greatest poetic performances of his nation, the task of its
philosoph}', which is no other than the attainment of the self-
consciousness of Hellenic culture.

IIELLENIC-ROxMAN rillLOSOrilY 293

B, HELLENIC-ROMAN PHILOSOPHY

44. If in the philosophy of Aristotle the essence of Greek
civilization was reduced to conceptual expression, yet it
a})peared when the sun of Greece was setting. The })hilos-
opliy of Aristotle was the legacy of dying Greece to the
following generations of man.

The spiritual decay of the Grecian civilization at the time
of its Enlightenment had advanced in ever-widening circles,
and from then on led to its external destruction. Already,
since the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war, which de-
stroyed forever the vitality of Athens, the centre of Greek
culture, the influence of the Persian power in the politics
of Greece had been dominant. Moreover, out of this
lamentable situation Greece got freedom only through
subjection to the Macedonian kingdom. Likewise in
the succeeding time Greece in intermittent and inconse-
quential movements could only occasionally stagger to an
independence amid the vicissitudes of the Hellenic king-
doms, especially of Macedonia. Finally, however, it
entirely lost its political independence by its being incor-
porated into the Roman Empire, in order to save here and
there a wretched respectability.

But precisely through its political decadence Greece ful-
filled in a higher sense the problems of its civilization.
The kingly pupil of the ripest Greek philosoplier had
borne the victorious Greek spirit into the far East with
his conquering arms. In the enormous mingling of the
peoples, which was begun by his campaign of conquest and
furthered by the varying battles of his successors, did
Greek culture become the common possession of the ancient
w^orld, and finally the commanding spirit of the Roman
Empire, and the eternal possession of humanity.

After the creative period of Greek philosophy there fol-

294 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

lowed, therefore, centuries of criticism, appropriation,
readjustment, and remodelling. This second section of the
history of ancient thought is incomparably much poorer in
content, although covering a longer period of time. Every
conceptual principle for comprehending and judging reality
had been presented by Greek science in its youthful in-
spiration. There only remained for the epigones to see
their way clearly in their variously animated world, to
employ the previously discovered points of view in every
possible way, to combine the inherited thought, and to
make this combination fruitful for the purposes of the new
situations of life.

The very little originality which the Hellenic-Roman philoso-
phy shows in contrast to Greek philosophy is true even of neo-
Platonism, its most significant intellectual phenomenon. In
all the independence which its religious principle seemed to
give to it, neo-Platonism remained inextricably bound to the
thought of Plato and Aristotle.

From the critical x>oint of vieio, which is the authority for
the divisions of this surve}', Hellenic-Roman philosoph}' appears
to be only a gleaning of Greek philosophy. It is only the
"after-effects^' (Braudis) of Greek philosoph}- in the Hellenic
and Roman realms. Among these after-effects the great
systems of Stoicism and Epicureanism are to be reckoned, not
only because they took root and blossomed in those times
when the divisions between Greek and barbarian began to
break down, but especiall}' also for these two reasons : (1) be-
cause they, though with great refinement in details, represented
in general only a new distortion of the old principles which
the original development of Greek thought, until Aristotle, had
gained ; (2) because they made this distortion in a typical
manner from the new points of view of individual 2^'*'^^<^^^^^^
wisdom.

On the wliole, the second section of this history is less im-
portant to philosophy than to the history of civilization and
literature. This is a natural result of the fact that in this
period the literary sources, although very far from pure, are
nevertheless ver}' much richer. Therefore on this account this
period is extraordinaril}' rich in interesting, difficult, and various
problems still unsolved, although its product of philosophical
principles and fundamental concepts is relatively small.

IIELLENIC-ROiMAN rillLOSOPHY 295

With this relative deficiency in originality we note the
api)earance in the post-Aristotelian philosophy of the great
school-associations, with their wholesale scientilic produc-
tions, rather than of single personalities. It is true, detailed
research also here hetrays individual shadings in the con-
struction of single theories, although often indeed seen
with ditficulty and not with full certainty ; yet such varia-
tions stand in value and significance far behind the
great and general antagonisms of the school systems.
Moreover, such antagonisms are much less those of
scientific theory than those of the conception of life and
its conduct.

The post-Aristotelian philosophy showed, therefore, the
peculiar phenomenon of the practical convictions of differ-
ent schools existing in sharp conflict, while the peculiar
scientific differences became gradually obliterated. Scien-
tific activity was turned to special researches, and found
neutral ground partly in nature studies, partly in history,
especially the history of literature. Upon this neutral
ground, although with a certain agreement in fundamental
conceptions and methods, the representatives of the differ-
ent schools were in active rivalry. This ardent cultivation
of the special sciences had the most universal results of
Greek philosophy for its obviously valid fundamental prin-
ciples, and interest in metaphysical problems passed more
and more into the background. Erudition pressed out
the spirit of speculation. The special sciences became
independent.

The beginning of this specialization in science already existed
in the Abderite, the Platonic, and particularly the Aristotelian
schools. In the Hellenic period specialization was, however,
the more remarkable because the period was wanting in great
determining personalities and organizing fundamental prin-
ciples. This popular impulse for specialization was limited
neither to Athens nor to Greece. Rhodes, Alexandria, Per-
gamus, Antioch, Tarsus, etc., became scientific centres, in

296 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

which scholarly work b}^ means of great libraries and collections
was being S3'stematica% carried on. Later Rome, and finally
also Byzantium, entered into the competition.

That now, however, the conflict between the schools was
no longer waged over theoretical but practical philosophy,
was due not only to the fact that Aristotle had given the
final word to the speculative movement, but also to the
changing cliaracter of the times and the changing philo-
sophical demands. The more the Greek national life and
spirit faded through the universal mixing of nations and
their destinies, so much the more the individual retired
within himself and away from the changing external
world. From the great maelstrom of things he sought to
save as much as possible of inward peace of mind and sure
happiness, and to secure them within the quiet of his in-
dividual life. This, then, in Hellenic time is what was
expected from philosophy : it should be the director of life ;
it should teach the individual how to be free from the
world and to stand independent by himself. The deter-
mining, fundamental point of view of philosophy became
i\mt oi practical wisdom.

The Greek Enhghtenment showed tendencies in this direction
in the teachings of Socrates, especially, however, in the teachings
of the Cynics and Cyrenaics, which expressed through their atom-
istic principles the dismemberment of Greek societj' (see § 29 f.).
Opposed to this the great systems of Greek science, especially
Platonism and Aristotelianism, had maintained the higher thought
with the essential political tendenc}' of their ethics. The post-
Aristotelian philosophy even in the schools of both masters
turned to the ethics of the individual. The antagonisms that
developed between them concerned fundamental!}' only tiieir
subtleties and the enriched developments of the simple types
which Greek life in its bloom had brought forth.

While then the essence of Greek philosoph}' was exclusively
directed to a unified conceptual knowledge of the world, the
science of the succeeding centuries divided (1) into specializa-
tion into single branches, for wliich methodical bases had been
established ; and (2) into a philosophy which made all knowl-

HELLENIC-KOMAN rillLOSOrilY 297

edge an ancillary maiden to the art of living, and was concerned
entirely in setting np an ideal of a perfect, free, and liappv
man. This art of living still retained the name of philosophv,
and it is only this side of the scientific life of antiquity which
is to be followed out further in this place. ^

Individualistic ethics, which the post-Aristotelian schools
made the burden of their philosophy, was virtually called to
restore to the cultured worki of antiquity the religion lost
in the Greek Renaissance. Its fundamental problem 2 was
on this account the release of man from the power of the
outer world and the vicissitudes of life. But virtue, as the
Stoics and Epicureans taught it, did not prove adequate to
be the solution of this problem ; thus philosophy also be-
came drawn into the great religious movement which had
possessed the races of the Roman Empire. In that move-
ment the terrified mind seized upon all kinds of religious
forms and cults, and eagerly pressed on to a saving con-
viction. The more this tendency became predominant in
philosophy, and the more philosophical interest passed from
ethics to religion, so much the more did Platonism, the
specific religious form of philosophy, come into the fore-
ground. Its transcendent metaphysics, its separation of
the material and immaterial worlds, its teleological prin-
ciple, which regarded the life of nature and man with
reference to a divine cosmic purpose, made it seem called
to give scientific form to the amalgamation of religions.
Its concept of the world was equal to absorbing the reli-
gious forms of the Orient. It gave the philoso])hic material
with which Christianity, the new religion, constituted itself
into a didactic system. Out of it the Hellenic world tried,
finally, to create its own religion as the daughter of science.

^ For the development of the special sciences since Aristotle one
should consult the respective parts of this manual.

2 See K. Fischer, Gesch. der neueren Philos., T. (2 cd., Mannheim,
1865), p. 33 f.

298 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

This gradual transmutation of ethics into religion divided
the Hellenic-Roman philosophy into two parts (see above,
Introduction) ; in the former of which the ethical interest
predominated; in the latter, the religious interest ; Syncretic
Platonism made the transition. The controversies between
the schools and their adjustment in Skepticism and Eclecti-
cism, preceded the transition period. Patristics on the
one hand, and neo-Platonism on the other came after this
transition.

1. The Controversies of the Schools.

45. The development of the Peripatetic school took a
similar course to that of the Academy (§ 38). It had in
fact, at first, its significant centre in the person of the old
friend and coadjutor of its founder; to wit, in Theophrastus.
Theophrastus knew how to direct the activities of the school,
how to inspire the development of the sciences in the true
spirit of the master, and how to give to the Lyceum an
eminent position in the intellectual life of Athens through
the brilliancy of his lectures. Yet for him in his recasting
and supplementation of the Aristotelian doctrine, and also
for the majority of his associates, the empirical outweighed
the philosophical interest, and so more and more the school
tended to the specialization of scientific work. Thus Theo-
phrastus developed the science of botany especially ; Aris-
toxenuSjthe theory of music; Dicsearchus, historical sciences.
History seems to have taken the most space in the scien-
tific work of the school. Literary-historical and scientific-
historical work were especially carried on in this and the
succeeding generations of the Peripatetic school, and to
such a degree that this school is designated as the unique
centre of the above very learned but little creative spirit.

The etliical questions, also, were treated by all these men,
and especially by Eudemus, more particularly upon their

CONTUOVEKISIES OF THE SCHOOLS 299

empirical side and with reference to popular morality. On
the other hand, however, the ethical questions were sub-
ordinated to a theological interest, in which metaphysical
demands seem to have been centred. Influenced doubtless
by Platonic and Pythagorean doctrines, Eudemus inclined
to emphasize the transcendence of the divine Being, and in
a similar manner to maintain the speculative psychology of
Aristotle with the transcendence (^^cop^cj/Ao?) of the reason.
There was another tendency, which, beginning with The-
ophrastus, ran counter to the above, and developed the
principle of immanence, both metaphysically and psycho-
logically. This tendency grew to a thoroughgoing pan-
theism and naturalism in the person of Strato, who from
287 to 269 followed Theophrastus as head of the school.

When Strato explained the concept of pure Form meta-
physically and psychologically as unnecessary and equally
as impossible as that of pure matter, he practically identified
God and the world on the one hand, and on the other
thought and perception. The whole world-system and all
particular events therein are only explainable by the quali-
ties and forces in things under the law of mechanical
necessity. Warmth is the most important force among
these, both in the macrocosm and in the microcosm. The
soul is the unifying reasoning power {rjyefjLovcKov), and it
has the senses as its organs. Thus the activity of sensa-
tion is never complete without thought. Thought, however,
on its side is limited to the given perceptual content.

The theory of Strato seems to be, on the whole, a victory
for the Democritan element that was in the Aristotelian
doctrine, although in particular assertions Strato approaches
very near the Stoic philosophy.

W. Lyngg, Die peripatetisclie Schule (in Philosophlsche
Stuclien^ Christiania, 1878) ; II. Siebeck, Die Vmbikhoig der
'peripatetischen NatarphiloHophie i?i die der Stoiker (Unters,
z. Philos. d. Gr., 2 ed., 181-252).

300 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Theophrastus, from Eresus in Lesbos, was about twelve years
younger than Aristotle. He probably got acquainted ^ with
Aristotle in the Academy, and he remained a lifelong friend to
the Stagirite. He shared the residence of Aristotle after the
latter bade adieu to the Macedonian court, and was his right-
hand man in the administration of the Lyceum. Theophrastus
afterwards assumed the conduct of the Lyceum himself, and
directed it with the greatest success. An attempt to drive the
philosophical schools out of Athens (oOG b. c.) seems to have
failed solel}' by reason of the respect in which he was held
(F. A. Hoffmann, De lege contra jyhilosophos imprimis The-
ophrastum auctore ^ophode Athenis lata, Carlsruhe, 1842).
There have been preserved of his numerous works (list in Diog.
Laert., V. 42 ff.) the two botanical works, rrepl (ftvTwv lo-ropta?
and Trept (fiVTihv ahiiov, — of the greatest importance, since the
corresponding works of Aristotle are lost, — certain fragments
of his metaph3'sics, of the history of physics, besides some
minor treatises. The tjOlkoI yapaKTrjp^';, a description of moral
failings based on many observations, are a selection from the
ethical work of this philosopher. These are published by J. G.
Schneider (Leipzig, 1818); Fr. Wimmer (Breslau, 1842-62);
a portion of the metaphysics in Chr. Brandis' Separat-aiisgabe
der aristoteliscJien (Berlin, 1823), p. 308 ff. ; also newly published
by H. Usener (Bonn, 1890); Characters, Dlibner (Paris,
1842) and E. Petersen (Leip., 1859) ; Philippson, vXrj avOpMirivr]
(Berlin, 1831) ; H. Usener, Analecta Theophrastea (Bonn,
1858) ; the same in XVL volume of Hhein. Mus.; Jac. Bernays,
Th.'s Schrift iiber die Frdmrnigkeit (Berlin, 1866) ; H. Diels,
Dox. Gr.^ p. 475 ff. ; E. Meyer, Gesch. der Botanik, p. 164 ff. ;
Th. Gomperz, Ueber die Charactere Th.'s {Wiener Sitz.-Ber.^
Berlin, 1888).

The naturalism of Theophrastus seems to be expressed in his
subsumption of thought under that of motion {Kivqat^), although
he did not materiahze the concept in the Democritan manner.
The dubious consequences, that followed for the Aristotelian
concept of God, seem to have been expressly deduced first by
Strato.

The significance of Theophrastus lies in the realm of science,
and it is to be regretted that only few fragments of his history
of natural science have been preserved (</)vcrtKr; la-Topca). On
the whole he contented himself with the perfecting of the Aris-
totelian system, and he probably remained its most complete
representative. The results in logic also, which he reached

1 Diog. Laert., V. 36.

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 301

with the aid of Eudeiiuis, concerning the niodahty of the judo--
ment and the theory of the hypothetical syllogism, are only of
minor importance.

Eudemus of Rhodes seems to have been a man of less signifi-
cance, allhoiigh he also possessed encyclopedic knowledge and
wrote extensive works, later widely used, on tlie histor}- of
geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. Spengel has collected
the fragments of Eudemus' writings (BerHn, 1870). See A.
Th. H. Fritzsche, De JSudemi llhodli vita et scriptis (Regens-
burg, 1851, in connection with the edition of the ethics). I J is
theological bias likewise appears to some degree in his elabora-
tion of the Aristotelian ethics. His departure from its funda-
mental political idea is seen in his insertion of economics between
ethics and politics.

Aristoxenus of Tarentum was stimulated b}' the Pythagorean
doctrine, which he carried into psycholog}' and ethics. He is
especialh' notable in the field of the history and theory of music.
Besides the fragments, there has in particular been preserved
his writing, Trept apfxovtKihv (rTOL\€L(Dv^ published b}' P. Marquardt
(Berlin, 1868), translated into German, with annotations by R.
Westphal (Leipzig, 1883) ; see W. L. Mahne, De Aristoxeno
(Amsterdam, 1793) ; C. v. Jan (Landsberg a. W., 1870). The
fragments of the historical works of the Peripatetics in general
have been published by C. Midler, Fragmenta historicoriun
gnecorum, II. (Paris, 1848).

Apostasy from the theoretic ideals of Aristotle began to
appear already in Dicoearch of Messene, in his preference for
the practical life which was of interest indeed to the historian
and political theorist. From his numerous works in political
and literary history, among which the /5to9 'EAAaSo? is the most
important, and also from his TptTroAtrtKos, only small portions
have been preserved. M. Fuhr, DiccBarchi quae supersunt
(Darmstadt, 1841) ; F. Osann, Beitrage, II. (Cassel, 1839).

The more original genius, Strato of Lampsacus, was called
"the physicist," and this shows how actually independent he
became of Aristotle. He threw aside all the Platonic imma-
terialism that Aristotle had retained, — the pure spirituality of
God and the supersensible origin and character of the human
reason. Even if he thereby threw away the keystone of the
Aristotelian teleology, Strato was, on the other hand, opposed to
the Democritan mechanical atomism. He found the explanation
of the world in the inherent qualities and forces (Swa/xet?) of
particular things. He designated the fundamental forces (apyat)
as heat and cold. Of the two, heat plays the more important
and creative role. The renewal of the old Ionic modes of repre-

302 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

sentation is thus completed in the Peripatetic school, and it also
at the same time found expression among the Stoics. It was
a return characteristic of the time of the epigones. G. Rodier,
La physique de /Strata d. Lamp. (Paris, 1891).

In the following generations the Peripatetic school be-
came completely absorbed, so far as we know, in the
specialized investigations of Alexandrian erudition, in which
its champions played an important role. Under Andronicus
of Rhodes, the eleventh head of the school after the founder,
the school made a great effort for philosophical autonomy.
The publications of Andronicus marked the beginning of a
systematic reproduction, interpretation, and defence of the
original teaching of Aristotle. This activity continued then
through the following centuries, and found in Alexander
of Aphrodisias (200 a. d.) its most distinguished repre-
sentative. The activity was maintained to later time, until
the Peripatetic school was lost in neo-Platonism.

A great number of names of Peripatetic philosophers have
come down to us from the compan}' around Theophrastus and
Strato, as well as names of some of both the nearer and the
more remote pupils of the latter. These latter have in the
main no longer significance for us : Clearchus of Soli (M.
Weber, Breslau, 1880), Pasicles of Rhodes, who was presum-
ably the author of the second book of the lletaphysics, Phanias
of Eresus (A. Voisin, Gant., 1824), Demetrius of Phalerus
(Ch. Ostermann, Hersfeld, 1847, and Fulda, 1857), Hipparchus
of Stagira, Duris of Samos, Chamaeleon of Heraclea (Kopke,
Berlin, 1846) ; Lyco of Troas, who succeeded Strato (269-226)
as head of the school, whose successor was Aristo of Ceos ;
Aristo of Cos, Critolaus, who belonged^ to the embassy to
Rome, 155 b. c. ; and, finall}', Diodorus of Tyre.

From the works of the Peripatetics dealing with the history of
literature and the specific history of philosophy, the ^lol of Her-
mippus and Satyrus (200 b. c), the Ata8o;)(at to)v cjaXoa-ocbMv of
Sotion, and the abstract of the last by Heracleides Lembus
(about 150) deserve especial mention. The later writers, who
form our secondary sources, have drawn upon these works.

1 Cicero, Acad., II. 45, 137 ; see Wiskemann (Hersfeld, 1867).

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 303

The serviceable work of Andronicus was further carried on
chiefly by his pupil, Boethus of Sidon, nevertheless in a spirit
akin to that of Strato and the Stoics. The later exefj-etes,
like Nicolaus of Damascus, and later Aspasius, Adrastus, Her-
niinus, Sosigenes, held rather to the logical writings of Aristotle.
A comprehensive, philosophical, and competent appreciation
and exposition of his teaching is first found in the commenta-
ries of Alexander of Aphrodisias, "the exegete." Amono- his
commentaries those upon the Analytics prior /., Tojncs^ Mete-
reologij, De sensu, and especially the Meta2}hysics have been
preserved. The last is in the Bonitz edition (Berlin, 1847).
See J. Freudenthal, Abhandl. der Berl. Akad. d. Wiss.^ 1885.
In his own writings {-epl xpvxn'i — Trept ei/xap/xeV?;? — (jivdiKdv KOL
rjOiKiov a7ropLu)v kol Xvaewv, et al.), he defends his naturalistic in-
terpretation of Aristotle, especiall}" against the Stoics.

46. The most important scientific system that the Greek
epigones developed was Stoicism. Its founder was Zeno of
Citium, a man perhaps of Semitic or half-Semitic origin.
Captivated but not satisfied by the Cynic Crates, he listened
in Athens also to the Megarian Stilpo, and the Flatonists
Xenocrates and. Polemo. After long preparation he opened
bis school in the Uroa ttolkIXt] in the last decade of the
fourth century, and from this place his society got its name.
His countryman, Persaeus, as well as Cleanthes of Assus,
who was Zeno's successor as scholarch, Aristo of Chios,
Herillus of Carthage, and Sph^rus from the Bosphorus, are
named among his pupils. These from a philosophical point
of view stand far behind the third head of the school,
Chrysippus of Soli in Cicilia, who was really the chief
literary representative of the school. Among his numerous
followers there appeared later Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes of
Seleucia, a Babylonian living in Rome in 155, and Antipater
of Tarsus. In connection with the Stoic school, Eratosthe-
nes and Apollodorus stand among the great scholars of the
Alexandrian epoch.

For a general history of the Stoa, see Dietr. Tiedemann, ^Sijs.
der stoischen philos. (3 vols., Leipzig, 1776); F. Ravaisson, Essai
sur le Sto'icisme (Paris, 1856) ; R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu

304 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Cicero's philos. Schriften (2 vols., Leipzig, 1882) ; G. P. Wey-
goldt, Die Philos. cler Stoa nach ihrem Wesen imdihren Schick-
salen (Leipzig, 1883) ; P. Ogereau, Essai siir le systeme philos. du
Stoicisme (Paris, 1885). Tlie chief source for tlie older Stoics,
whose original literature is nearly' entirely lost, is found in Diog.
Laert., VII., who breaks off in the midst of an exposition of
Chrysippus. His statements go back in substance to Antigonus-
Carystius (see U. v. Wilaraowiz-Mollendorff, Berlin, 1881).

The Stoa was characterized as the typical philosophy of Hel-
lenism, from the fact that it was created and developed in Athens
on the principles of Attic philosophy, and by men that originated
in the mixed races of the East. Likewise, it was of great moment
for the general progress of the world that this particular doctrine
was afterwards extended and most vigorously developed in the
Roman Empire.

Zeno of Cition, the son of Mnaseas, 340-265 — for the diffi-
cult chronology see E. Rhode and Th. Gomperz, Rheln. Mus.,
1878 f. — was a merchant whose residence in Athens was perhaps
occasioned by a shipwreck. He entered the different schools,
and co-ordinated their teaching with painstaking care. His
writings (see list of Diog. Laert., VII. 4) deal with the most
varied subjects, yet their form is not remarkable. See Ed.
Wellmann, Die Philos. des Stoikers Zeno (Leipzig, 1873) ; C.
Wachsmuth, Comtnentationes I., II. de Zeno Citii et Gleanth.
Assio (Gottingen, 1874) ; A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of
Zeno and Cleanthes (London, 1890).

N. Saal, De Aristone, Chio et JELerillo Carth. commentatio
(Cologne, 1852) ; H. Heinze, Arist07i v. Chios bei Plutarch
und Horaz., and O. Hense, Ariston v. Chios {Rliein. Mus., 1890,
497 ff. and 541 ff.).

Cleanthes, who is said to have performed menial work by
night in order to listen to Zeno by day, is in his simplicit}',
perseverance, and austerity a type of the C3'nic Wise Man, but
he is insignificant as a philosopher. His hymn to Zeus is
preserved and published by Sturz-Merzdorf (Leipzig, 1835).
See F. Mohnike, Kleantlies der Stoiker (Greifswald, 1814).

The scientific systematizer of the Stoic doctrine is Chrysippus
(280-206), a copious writer of great dialectic ability. The
titles of his writings are listed in Diog. Laert., VII. 189 ff.
See F. N. G. Baguet, De Chrisippi vita doctrina et reliquiis
(Loewen, 1822) ; A. Gercke, Chrysippea {Jahrh. f. PJiilol.^
1885). For further information, see Zeller, IV^. 39, 44, 47 f.

A second period of the Stoic philosophy, in which it
made a nearer approach to the Peripatetic and Platonic

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 305

teaching, began in the middle of the second century B. c.
with Panietiiis of Rhodes, who introduced Stoicism into
Rome. Boethus of Sidon worked beside him, animated
by a similar spirit. After him his pupil Posidonius, of
Apamea in Syria, directed the school in Rhodes with
great success.

Paiicutius (180-110) won in Rome the friendship of men like
Lfelius and Scipio Africanus the Younger, and accompanied
the latter on his mission as ambassador, in 143 to Alexandria.
He became scholarch in Athens later. He brought the Stoa
into great repute and made its success assured in Rome. This
success was promoted b}' his forming Stoicism into a kind of
philosophy of universal culture for the needs of the Roman
Empire. He ameliorated its original severity, he accommodated
it to other great systems, he expressed the system itself in a
clever and tasteful wa}'. His chief writing, according to Cicero,
was -rrepi tov Ka6r)KovTo<i. See F. G. van L3"nden (Leyden, 1802).

His contemporary ^ Boethiis of Sidon partially followed the
doctrine of Strato and Aristotle in theology and psj'chology.
The eclectic tendency appeared still stronger in Posidonius
(135-150). He was listened to with delight b}* the aristocratic
Roman youth in Rhodes, where after extended journeys he had
settled as head of the school. See J. Bake, Posidonii Rhodii
reliquicB di ctrince (Le^'den, 1810) ; P. Topelmann, De Posldonio
Hh. rerum scriptore (Bonn, 1867) ; R. Scheppig, De Posklo)iio
Apamensi. rerum^ r/enthwi, terrarum scriptore (Berlin, 1870);
P. Corsseu. De Posido?iio Phodii. 31. T. Ciceronis in libr. I.
Tusc. aucTore (Bonn, 1878). In his comprehensive erudition
and many-sided interests, Posidonius is the most successful
representative of syncretism, that blending of Stoic, Platonic,
and Aristotelian doctrines. He is also the most important of
those who prepared the way for the Alexandrian philosophy.
A thorou2:h examination of his work in detail seems to be the
most important and most difficult desideratum for the history
of Hellenic philosophy.

For a list of the Stoics of this period, see Zeller, IV^. 585 ff.
See A. Schmekel, Die Philos. der mittleren Stoa (Berlin, 1892).

During the time of the empire, Stoicism became merely
a popular moral philosophy ; but even in this condition it
joined together the noblest convictions of antiquity in an

1 Zeller, !¥». 4G, 1.
20

306 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

impressive form and manner, and it directed the moral
feeling along religious paths. Seneca, Epictetus, and
Marcus Aurelius appeared as its chief representatives at
this time.

Lucius Aunaeus Seneca, son of the rhetorician M. Annneiis
Seneca, was born about 4 a. d. in Cordova. He was educated
in Rome and called to different offices of state. He was the
teacher of Nero, and condemned to death by his pupil in 65 a. d.
He has expressed most completely the monitor}' character of
later Stoicism in his sententious writings, — to which the name
of scientific researches cannot be unqualifiedly applied. Besides
his unimportant Quoestiones naturales, there are preserved De »
providentia^ De co7istantia sapie7itis, De ira^ De consolcitione^ I
De brevitate vitce^ De otto, De vita beata, De tranquillitate 1
animi, De dementia^ De beaejiciis, and the E^nstolce tnorales.
Also in his strongl}' declamatory tragedies there is involved this
same conception of life. Complete sets of his works are pub-
lished by Fickert (3 vols., Leipzig, 1842-45) and Haase (3
vols., Leipzig, 1852 f.) ; German translation b}^ Moser and
Pauly (17 vols., Stuttgart, 1828-55), English translation or para-
phrase b}' T. Long (London, 1614) ; see Holzherr, Die Philos.,
L. A. Seneca (Tiibingen, 1858 f.) ; Alfr. Martens, De L. A,
Senecce vita et de tempore quo scripta eius philosojj/iica'
co'mp>osita sint (Altona, 1871) ; H. Siedler, De X. A. Senecce ,
philosopMa morali (Jena, 1878) ; W. Ribbeck, X. A. Seneca
der PMlosoph u. sein Verhdltniss zu Epicur^ Plato ii. dein
Christenthicm (Hannover, 1887). Further in the historj' of the
bibliography, see Ueberweg, 244 f., especially for the writings
cited elsewhere about his relationship to Christianit}', of which
the most important are edited by F. Chr. Baur, Seneca und
Paulus (1858), printed in three dissertations and published by
Zeller (Leipzig, 1875).

The satirical poet Persaeus, the erudite Heracleitus, and L.
Annoeus Cornutus, who systematically developed the allegorical
sisfnificance of myths in a theoloirical writins; are mentioned
among the many names of Stoics, and in particular, C. Muso-
nius Rufus, who confined himself more closely to the practical
teaching of virtue. Compare P. Wendland, Qumstiones musoni-
ance (Berlin, 1886).

His pupil is Epictetus, the notable slave of a freedman of
Nero. He later became free himself, and lived in Nicopolis in
Epirus, when the leaders in philosopliy were proscribed b}'
Domitian. His lectures were pul^lished by Arrian as Atarpt/^at

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 307

and 'Ey;(cipi8iov, and in modern times b}' J. Schweighauser
(Leii)zig, 1799 ; in the appendix is tlie commentary of Simplicius
to the Encheiridion, 1800). See J. Spangenberg, Die Lehre des
JEpiktet (Ilanau, 1849) ; E. M. Schranka, Uer tStoiker Epictet
u. seine I^hilos. (Frankibrt a. O., 1885) ; R. Asmus, Questio/ies
JEpictetem (Freiburg, 1888) ; II. Schenkl, Die epikteteischen
Fragmente (Vienna, 1888) ; A. Bonhofer, Epictet ii. d. Stoa
(Stuttgart, 1891).

The last significant expression of the Stoic literature is the
Meditations (to. els eavTov) of the noblest of Koman emperors.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180). These are edited by J,
Stich (Leipzig, 1882), and translated into German by A. Witt-
stock (Leipzig, 1879) [English translation by G. Long, Bohn's
Librar\', The Thoughts of the Emperor^ M. Aurelius Antoninus'\.
See A. Bach, De 31. Aurelio imj^eratore philosophante (Leipzig,
1826) ; M. E. de Suckau, Aude su7' Marc Aurele, sa vie et sa
doctrine (Paris, 1858) ; A. Braune, 31. AureVs 3feditation€n
(Altenburg, 1878) ; P. B. Watson, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
(London, 1884).

The more Stoicism took to moralizing, the more did its
Cynic inheritance begin to preponderate. Thus, in the first and
second centuries after Christ, Cynicism revived in the persons
of those wandering preachers who went from cit}' to city in the
costume of the philosopher with obtrusive inconsiderateness and
in affectation of beggar}'. They were eccentric figures, but are
of more interest to the student of historv than of science. The
chief types are Demetrius, a contemporary of Seneca ; Oinomaus
of Gadara ; particularly, however, Demonax, concerning whom
we have information in a writing, reported under Lucian's name
(see also F. V. Fritsche, Defragm. Demon, philos., Rostock and
Leipzig, 1866), and Perigrinus Proteus, whose extraordinary
end has been pictured by Lucian. See J. Bernays, Lukian u,
die Kyniker (Berlin, 1879).

Stoicism, as originally presented, especially by Chrysip-
pus, was a perfectly well-rounded scientific system, which
gradually grew lax in some particular doctrines, and finally
vanished into a philosophically colorless moralizing. Yet
it must be admitted that from the very beginning it was
wanting in such organic coherence of its parts as one finds
in the separate Greek philosophical systems. In the teach-
ing of Zeno and Chrysippus a number of the elements of
the earlier sciences are closely interwoven without making

308 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the texture logically necessary and consistent. The Eclectic
development, then, which the Stoic school took, was not a
fate that came to it from without, but the necessary conse-
quence of its inner constitution.

However man}' analogous relations may exist between the
different parts of the Stoic teaching, yet one must not make the
mistake of thinking that its ethical teaching of submission to
natural law might not have been as compatible to an idealistic
metaphysic as to its materialism. It is, moreover, equally
certain that the Stoics' anthropological principle of the identity
of the human soul and the divine reason might have been placed
at the basis of a rationalistic theory of knowledge, just as well as
at the basis of their sensualism and nominalism. The theories
of the Stoa are not an organic creation, but woven together with
care and cleverness. They make a well-connected system, but
are not homogeneous. They could afterwards, therefore, be
separated with relative ease.

The scholastic division of philosophy into logic, physics,
and ethics was likewise especially distinct among the Stoics.
The main point in their teaching lies in their etliics. To
teach virtue as the art of living was for them the entire
purpose and essence of philosophy. Virtue was conceived
by them entirely in its practical meaning of right action.
Only so far as this definition of virtue was identical with the
Socratic '' correct knowledge," did the first division, ethics,
need the other two divisions, logic and physics, for its basis.

The development of special sciences corresponded so little
with the originally established general relationship of the three
divisions, and the Stoic logic and physics stood in such loose
connection with its ethics, that it is perfectly conceivable how
Aristo, a member of the school standing at first close to pure
Cynicism, should estimate these collateral subjects of etliics as
useless. It is not remarkable, either, that the physical and
logical doctrines of the old Stoa were changed for others and
then laid entirely aside. The care with which physics and logic
were pursued in the old Stoa in contrast with ethics shows
rather that the scientific interest of tlie school had not been
fully lost. To this interest, which was expressed in the numer-
ous special works — particularly the historical — Herillus com-

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 309

iiiitted himself, when be declared science in the Aristotelian
sense to be the highest good.

G. J. Dichl, Zur Ethikdes Stoikers Zeno (Mainz, 1877) ; F.
Ravaisson, De la tnorale du Sto'icisme (Paris, 1850) ; M. Ileinze,
Stoica ethica ad origines suas relata (Nauniburg, 18G2) ; Kiis-
ler, GrundziKje der stoischen Tur/endlehre (Berlin, 18G4) ;
Th. Ziegler, Gesch. der Ethik., I. 1G7 ff.

The central point in Stoicism is the Ideal of the Wise
Man. Stoicism drew its picture of the normal man after
the model of Socrates and Antisthenes. It was its funda-
mental motive to picture the perfect man in absolute free-
dom from the changes of this world. This ideal was
consequently first defined negatively as the independence of
will and conduct from the passions {Affekte). This apathy
(emotionlessness) of the Wise Man consists in his refusal
to submit {av^KaTciQeai^) to the excess of natural im-
pulse, from which excess the passion springs. This re-
fusal makes up the judgment of worth and the functioning
of the will. The Wise Man feels impulse, but he does not let
it grow into a passion, and he regards the exciting object as
neither a good nor an evil. For to him virtue is not only the
highest but the only good, and in this he is a true Cynic.

M. Heinze, Stoicorum de affectibus doctrina (Berlin, 1861) ;
O. Apelt, Die stoischen Definitionen der Affekte luid Poseido-
niiis (Jahrb. f. PliiloL 1885).

One must regard it as a result of the ethical psychology of
Aristotle, that the Stoics so turned the Cynic unity of virtue
and knowledge that the}' found the essence of passion in the
judgment of worth, inasmuch as this judgment is immediately
identical with feeling and willing. To desire, and to regard
something as a good, are two expressions for the same thing.
The excess of impulse {opfx}] TrXeovd^ovo-a) leads the powers of the
soul (yyefjLoiaKov) into false judgment, and at the same time to a
reasonless and unnatural excitement (aXoyo? Kal -n-apa. cfyvaiv j/'ux^?
KivrjcTis,), and in this very thing consists the excitement, Tra^o? {per-
turb((tio). The Stoa distinguished four fundamental kinds of
unnatural excitement : pleasure, trouble, desire, and fear. Tliey
and their subordinate classes were treated as diseases from
which the Wise Man is free, for he has true health.

310 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Since the passions consist in false judgments and men-
tal disturbance, so the virtue of the Wise Man, positively
defined, consists in reasonable insight and the resulting
power of will. Virtue is the reason determining itself
theoretically and practically {recta ratio). Whether man
will let loose this or that passion in himself, depends
on him. That is to say, the matter is not determined by
external events, but through his own inner nature.

" Nature " ((^ucrt?), which, according to the fundamental
principle of the Stoics, is identical with reason (X070?), forms
the content of insight, and obedience to insight consti-
tutes virtue. By " Nature " is meant partly the universal
nature of things, partly human nature. While passion is
unnatural and unreasonable, the Wise Man acts naturally
and reasonably when he makes his will to agree with the
universal law of nature, and when he subordinates himself
to that law. But in this subordination he is only acting as
the reason of man requires. The ethical principle of the
Stoa was ohedieiice to the world law, and in this way it pos-
sessed a religious coloring.

The ethical dualism of the Stoics, with its contrast between
nature and what is contrary to nature, and with its identification
of reason and nature, goes back to the Sophistic P^nlightenment.
It avoided, however, the sharpened Cynic antithesis between
civilization and natui'e. It rather referred what is contrarv to
nature to the preponderance of the individual impulse, and it
characterized the natural as reason dwelling in each and all
alike. The latter thought, which led to tlie conventional reli-
gious prhiciple of subjection to the world-reason, is an obvious
revival of the logos doctrine of Heracleitus.

The possibility of unnatural and unreasonable phenomena, as
the}' are supposed to appear in the passions, is absolutely irre-
concilable with the metaphysical development of the Stoics' doc-
trine, and with their idea of fate and providence. Their ethical
dualism and metapliysical monism stand in absolute contra-
diction. This difficulty came to the Stoics in the form of the
problem of the freedom of the will and the responsibility of
conscience. These are ethical postulates whose union with
mechanical uecessitv made difficulties for them, and difficulties

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 311

that were solvable only in appearance. In respect to these difli-
culties the}' had to defend themselves against the attacks of
Epicurus and Carneades.

In designating the o/AoA-oyou/xcVco? rrj ^I'o-ct ^rjv as tlie positive
content of virtue, and in representing at the same time the cosmic
universal law as " Nature," the Stoic lacked a principle of morals
that had real content. Consequentlv, on the one hand in the
Stoic school, human nature was substituted for (/)i.'crt?, — at all
events, according to Chrysippus, with reference to its unity with
the world reason. On the other hand, the purel}' formal charac-
ter of the consistency and of the harmon}' of the reason was
accentuated (simpl}' o/zoAoyov/xeVws). In this sense, suggestive
of the "categorical imperative," was Stoicism accepted by the
iron statesmen of Rome. Nevertheless, in the Stoic metaphys-
ics, the formula of subjection to the world reason remained an
empt}' form which found its living content first in the Christian
doctrine of love.

The Stoics were little able to make theoretically clear their
antithesis of the reasonable and the unnatural, yet they rendered
the service of introducing into moral philosoph}- the principle of
duty by the accentuation of this antithesis, and b}' defining vir-
tue as subjection to cosmic law ; and furthermore of having laid
a greater stress upon the antithesis between that which is and
that which ought to be. Wholly consonant with this is the
pessimism which they for the most part held concerning the
great mass of mankind and the circumstances of life.

The Socratic concept of virtue, that the Stoa held, concentrated
into practical insight (^/^oVr/o-ts) the whole of moral life, and allowed
the existence of a pluralit}- of virtues onl}- in the sense of the
application to man}' objects of this single fundamental virtue of in-
sight. In this wa}', for instance, the four Platonic cardinal virtues
were derived. Yet herein the Stoic clung to the thought of the
unity of virtue to such a degree that all the particular forms of
virtue exist in inseparable union. They form not only the en-
during characteristic (Siddea-Ls) of the Wise Man, but they also
animate his ever}' action.

The unity and perfectness, which the Stoics like the Me-
garians and Cynics regarded as essential in the concept of
virtue, and in the ideal of the Wise Man, led them in the
first thoroughgoing statement of their system to say tliat
this ideal is reached either entirely or not at all. In neither
goodness nor badness are there degrees of ethical value.

312 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Men are either good (^cnrovhaloi), or bad (^avKoi). and to
the latter belong all who do not attain the ideal of wisdom.
It makes no difference whether they be near to it or far
from it. They are all fools, — spiritually sick. Thus for
the older Stoics all virtuous actions {/caropOco/iciTa) were
ethically of equal value, and likewise all sins (dfiapTij/uiaTa).
With the same rigorism the Stoics declared virtue as the
only good, vice as the only evil, and all between as (dSi-
d(j)opa^ indifferent things.

The last definition led to many serious consequences in ap-
plied ethics in which the Stoics agreed with the Cynics, although,
it must be said, in theory more than in practice. Since the
Stoics assessed the disposition etbicall}-, they therefore made the
Wise Man indifferent in principle to external conventional forms
of performance or non-performance. In their theor}' of goods,
they made a polemic attack, especiall}' against the Peripatetic
recognition of the importance which the goods of fortune were
supposed to have for perfect happiness. Especially prominent
is their treatment of life as an aScdffiopov, which theoretically and
practically represented suicide as permissible for the Wise Man.

This rigoristic dualism could not last long, and so the

school gradually inserted the striving, earnest man

(^irpoKoiTTcov) between the Wise Man and the fool, and the

fitting action (to Ka6i)Kov) between virtue and sin. The

school distinguished in the great interval which lies between

the highest good and the evil, the Trpoijyfjieva from the

aTTOTrpoTj'y/jLeva.

On the whole, the Stoics are the most outspoken doctrinaires
that antiquity witnessed. The Stoa was a school of character
building and also a school in reckless stubbornness (Cato). In
the development of the school there entered with the different
individuals many varieties and compromises of doctrine accord-
ing to impending practical needs. These changes kept pace
with the approach of the school to the teaching of the Lyceum
and the Academy. Thereupon the perfectly unpedagogical
character was gradually stripped off, which the representation
of the ideal of the Wise Man originally had, and in its place in
later times came the reverse and admonitory teaching, how one
should become a Wise Man.

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 313

KaTof)6(Mfxa^ the conduct of a Wise Man, coming from a good dis-
position, and KaBijKoi'^ the activity of the ordinary ambitious man
adjusted to external requirements, stand somewiiat in the rela-
tionship wiiich modern ethics marks between moraUty and
legality. The setting up of this distinction shows how the
realized ideal of the Wise Man was making way to the more
modest ambition of approximating that ideal.

The individualistic tendency expressed in the ideal of
the self-sufficient Wise Man, is counterbalanced by tlie
concept of the subordination of the individual to the
cosmic law and the society of rational beings. The
Stoics recognized, therefore, the social needs of man as
natural and reasonable. They saw the realization of those
needs simply on the one side in the friendship of individual
Wise Men, and on the other in the rational communion of all
men. Whatever lies between — that is, the national life in
its different political forms — passed for them more or less as
of historical indifference (^dScdcpopov}. The Wise Man bows
to this as a temporal necessity, but he holds aloof from it
as far as possible. Historico-national distinctions vanish
before that reason, which gives equal laws and equal rights
to all. The point of view of the Stoic Wise Man was that of
the cosmopolitan.

For the remarkable synthesis of individualism and univer-
salism which characterized the Stoa, it is to be noted that the
school soon passed in its social theor}' from individualism to
the most general principle of association. The later Eclectic
Stoics in particular were concerned with the theory of the state,
and followed Aristotle in many things. But the ideal of the
school remained still the citizenship of the world, the fraternit}'
of all men, the ethico-legal equalization of all distinctions of
condition and race. From this thought proceeded the begin-
nings of the idea of natural or reasonable right, which later
were laid as fundamental in the scientific theory of Roman
rioht.^ Thev reflect in theoretical form the levellin": of those

1 See M. Voigt, Die Lehre vom jus naturale, etc. bei den Romern
(Leipzig, 1856) to p. 81 ff.

314 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

historical distinctions, which was completed for antiquitj- about
the beginning of this era, and thus show Stoicism to be the ideal
philosophy of the Roman Empire.-^

To this ethical teaching there was joined in a most re-
markable manner an outspoken materialistic metaphysics.
The monistic tendency, expressed in the metaphysics, was
united with the ethical principle, and was developed in an
open polemic against the Aristotelian dualism. Uncreative
themselves, the Stoics accepted the naive materialism of
the pre-Socratic philosophy in the form of Heracleitanism.
They expressly taught that nothing is real except the
corporeal. They, however, recognized, in regard to the
relationships of individual things, the Aristotelian duality
of a passive and an active principle, a moved matter and a
moving force (jrda'xpv and itolovv). They give to the uni-
fying cosmic force all the characteristics of the Heracleitan
X0709 and the Anaxagorean vov^. But they emphasize
particularly the materiality of this reasonable cosmic force.

In their confessed materialism, the Stoics went nearly to the
childish consequence of looking upon all qualities, forces, and
activities of bodies as again themselves bodies which were
supposed to inhere spatially in the first bodies (Kpaaa 8t' oXow).
This reminds us in some measure of the homoiomeriai of
Anaxagoras. The Stoics also regarded time qua^ita and the
like, as bodies — assertions that show nothing more than the
doctrinaire wilfulness of the authors. See H. Siebeck on
the subject.

The Stoics, like Heracleitus, found in fire the unifying
cosmic force, which is God, — w^hich is changed by its own
inner rational law into the world. They conceived fully
that fire was the identity of the corporeal primeval matter
and the rational spirit, and in this way they fell back from

1 Cicero especially (Z)e rep. and De leg.) developed the Stoic thought
of the (f)v(r€i bUaiov as the lex naturce born in all men ; but also he has
attempted to be just to the historical moments of jurisprudence. See K.
liildcnbrand, Gescli. u. System cler Beclits- u. Staatsphilos.j I. 523 ff.

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 315

the dualism of the time of the epigones to the naively
vague monism of the previous time. Fire is therefore on
the one hand the original corporeal substrate, the ap-^ri of
the Milesians. On the other it is the primeval spirit, the
world-soul, the reason moving and forming all things,
permeating and governing, like a divine living breath
(7ri'ei}/xa), the entire world of phenomena proceeding from
it. It is indeed the creative world-reason, the X0709
airepfiaTLKO'^.

Fire has differentiated air, water, and earth from itself
at the beginning of things, so that the two more volatile
elements stand as the active and forming principle, in
contrast to the two heavier as matter. In the cosmic devel-
opment the primitive fire is destined gradually to reabsorb
the world of variety into itself, and will finally consume it
in a universal catastrophe (eKTrvpcoo-i^). The complete
cosmic cycle is so perfectly determined in all particulars
by the divine Being that it is exactly repeated periodically.
In so far as the Godhead acts like a body under the law of
mechanical necessitv, is this absolute determination of the
movements of all individuals Fate (ei/^a/o/xeV?;). In so far
as it acts as a purposeful spirit it takes on the garb of
Providence Qirpovoio), and the Stoic evidently means by
this that nature can yield only perfect and teleological
forms and relationships.

In all this we do not meet new concepts or new ways of
stating facts. The Ileracleitan principle is combined witii the
Platonic and Aristotelian concepts without being scientillcally
more serviceable. No scientifie contribution worthy of the
name can be found among the Stoics. In particular cases, as
in astronomy, the Stoics join themselves in essentials with the
Peripatetics. On the whole, in their treatment of tliese questions,
they show a relapse from the inductive science of Aristotle to
the old metaph3'sics.

The pantheistic character of this concci)tion of nature led the
Stoic to a nature religion, whicli at the same time is a rcHgion
of reason. A characteristic monument to this is the hymn to

316 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Zeus of Cleanthes (preserved in Stob. Ecl.^ I. 30). In the
same spirit the}' made the most comprehensive use of the alle-
gorical interpretation of myths. Teleolog}' was so connected
with this interpretation, and was so attenuated to a small an-
thropomorphic spirit in praise of the arrangements useful for
human needs, that it anticipated to a great degree the tasteless
philosoph}' of the eighteenth centur}'. The great ethical prin-
ciples of the Platonic and Aristotelian philosoph}' diminished in
the hands of the Stoics to a miserable utilitarian theory, which
was the more characteristic the less it found a point of support
in the Stoic doctrine of goods.

It is of particular interest to note how the Stoics began to
work a positive religion into their natural religion ; for they
treated, by the use of the nature-myth interpretation, the gods
and daemons of the popular faith as special forms of the original
divine force. The}' came in this way to a systematic theology of
polytheism, and they subjoined to it their widely accepted theory
of divination, based on the principle of a universal teleology.

The pantheism and determinism in Stoicism stood finally in
absolute contradiction with its ethical dualism. The former was
as optimistic as the latter was pessimistic. That everything
bad happens -jrapa (jiva-tv was treated as ethically fundamental,
although according to their metaphysical principle it was impos-
sible. This contradiction seems to have come in some measure
to the consciousness of some of the Stoics. In response to the
sharp attacks of their opponents, particularly of Carneades, it
was the occasion for evasions tending toward such questions as
the reconciliation of evil with a divine omnipotence, which we
have later designated as theodicy. On the one hand, the Stoics
attempted to disclaim the reality of evil, and then on the other
to make sin and suffering the teleologically indispensable parts
of the good and perfectly oi'ganized universe.

The anthropology of Stoicism was consistent with its uni-
versal physical postulates. The body, teleologically put
together out of crass elements, is permeated through and
through, and in all its functions ruled by the soul. The
soul is the warm breath {irvev^ia ei^Oepfjuov'), which, as an
emanation of the divine soul of the world, forms the uni-
tary, living guiding force of man (to rjye/jiovLKov^. It con-
stitutes his reason , it is the cause of his physiological
functions, of his speech, of his imagination and desires ;
aud it has its seat in the breast.

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 317

Ludw. Stein, Die Psychologie der Stoa (2 vols., Berlin,
1886-8.S).

The essential identity of the human and divine soul (taught
also b}' the pic-Socratics) was carried out by the Stoics, espe-
cially on ethical and religious lines. The analogy seemed suitably
drawn between the relation of the human soul to its bod}', and
the divine reason to the unirerse.

The Stoics consistently ascribed to the soul of man no abso-
lute immortality'. At the most they gave to it a permanence
until the eKTri'ptoo-i?, the absorption of all things in tlie divine.
Yet some Stoics reserved this last privilege onl}^ for the souls
of the Wise, while the ^arAoc were dissipated both in soul and
bod}'.

In the Stoic anthropology, as in their entire system, the fun-
damental contradiction was this : their theoretic doctrine allowed
to a[)pear as mechanically necessary that very rationality which
according to their ethical postulate was requisite to the formation
of the ideal, so that tlie actual incompleteness of the ideal is incon-
ceivable. From this is explained the fact that the whole theoretic
philosophy of the Stoa was subjected to the point of view of
that insight which guides the perfectly Wise Man in his con-
duct. The same contradiction showed itself in the Stoic episte-
molog}', where the emanation from God (eficfivrov irv^vixa) was
represented as a tabula rasa. The tabula rasa does not already
possess its rational content, as one would expect from this
teaching, but wins its content gradually by the action of the
senses.^

Wc must go back to the Cynic opposition to the Academy
to understand how the Stoics can combine a sensualistic
and nominalistic theory of knowledge with their doctrine of
a cosmic reason. The Stoics souo'ht in their nominalism,
even as extrinsically as in their ethics, to give to their funda-
mental principle of individuality the concept of universal
validity, — a validity from which they could in neither situ-
ation escape. The soul is originally like a tablet of w^ax, on
which nothing is written, and in which ideas (cfyavrao-iaL^

1 There was therefore an easy union possible widi Stoic metaphysics,
when the later eclectic popular philosophy (Cicero) said that knowledge,
particularly that of practical truths, was God-implanted, universal to
humanity, and equally innate.

318 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

appear through the influence of things. Every original
idea is an impression (ruTrwo-t?) on the soul, or a change in
it — as Chrysippus said, in order to refine this crude materi-
alism. On that account this idea always refers to par-
ticular things or conditions. Concepts {evvotai) are, however,
pictures aroused by memory and the reasoning faculty
rendered possible by the memory. They are purely sub-
jective, and, therefore, nothing actual corresponds to
them, as in the case of the perceptions. Yet the Stoa
vaguely tried to find in them the essence of all scientific
knowledge.-^

Concepts originate in perception, in part involuntarily
from the very necessity of the mental mechanism, in part
with conscious premeditation. The foi-mer are a natural
production, and are common to all alike (^kolvoX ewoiai).
This class is therefore to be regarded as the norm of ra-
tional knowledge, and as the \ ixWdi pre sup j^osition {irpoXj^'^Lf;).
In this sense the consensus gentium plays a great role
in Stoic argumentation, especially in ethics and religion.
For the consensus gentium is a common property of concepts
existing for all men with equal necessity.

As regards the scientific construction of concepts, the
Stoics busied themselves with great, and, for the most part,
very unfruitful formalism in their detailed study of the
Aristotelian logic. They combined this study with that of
grammar. In treating of the hypothetical character of
logical truth, which tliey emphasized especially in their
theory of the syllogism, tliey needed a criterion of truth for
those original Ideas, from which the logical work of thought
is supposed to proceed. They found such an one only in
immediate evidence, according to which single Ideas force
themselves upon the soul and compel its assent (crvyKard-
Oecrisi). An idea of this sort they called (^avraala KaToXrj-

1 See Zcller, lY^. 77 ff.

CONTUOVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 319

TTTLKi]} Tliov found it either in clear and certain percep-
tions or in the kolvoX evvoiav.

R. Ilirzcl, De loglca Stoicorum (Berhn, 1879) ; V. Brochard,
Sur la logique da Sto'icisme {Arch. f. Gesch. d. Fhilos., V.
449 ff.).

Under the collective name of logic, which the}' first employed
in the study of terms, the Stoics grouped grammatical and rhe-
torical studies. They — especially Chrysippus — investigated
many grammatical problems, and decided a great many of the
questions of fact and terminology for more than foV antiquit}'.
Compare Lersch, Die Spnicliphilosoi:)liie d. Alien (Bonn, 1841) ;
Schomann, Die Lehre von den Redeteilen, nach den Alien dar-
geslellt u. benrteilt (Berlin, 1863) ; Steinthal, Gesch. d. Sprach-
iciss. bei d. Griechen und Homern (Berlin, 1863).

Concerning the formal logic of the Stoics, see C. Prantl,
Gesch. d. Log., I. 401 ff. When the Stoics distinguished studies
concerned with the criterion of truth from those concerned with
correct syllogistic method, they transmuted the Aristotelian logic
into a purely formal science. They were stranded, however, in
empty sophistry, which was unavoidable in such a limited con-
ception. The Aristotelian analytic alwa3's is the frame on which
they stretch out their artificial sj'stem with its unnecessar}' ter-
minological changes. They have added nothing significant.
Even in their simplification of the theory' of the categories Aris-
totle himself had preceded them. The}' recognized only the fol-
lowing four categories : VTrOKafXeVOV, TTOIoV, TTOJ? €)^0V, TTfJOS TL TTui?

t^oj' : substratum, quality, condition and relation. See A. Tren-
delenburg, Gesch. der Kategorienlehre (Berlin, 1846), p. 217 ff.

The distinction of involuntary, universal ideas that enter the
mechanism of representation, from those formed with scientific
consciousness (Lotze, Logik, 1874, § 14), has psychological and
logical value, but its epistemological use by the Stoics is an
unhappy one. They also, however, according to their ethical
principle, first ascribed full certainty to science as a system of
fully developed concepts: Diog. Laert., VII. 47; Stob. Eel,
II. 128.

See W. Luthe, Die Erkenntnisslehre der Stoiker (Leipzig,
1890).

47. "With less philosophical originality, but with a greater
degree of nnity and compactness, Epicureanism was the

1 Of the difficulty with this term, — the comprehension of the actual
from the side of the spirit, or the comprehensibility of the spirit from the
side of what is actual, see Bonnhofer, Epiklet unci die Slon, p. 288 ff.

320 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

form in which the Cyreiiaic conception of life found devel-
opment just as Stoicism was the development of Cynicism.
In contrast, however, to the multiform eclecticism which
characterized the Stoa in the persons of many of its active
scientific champions through the centuries. Epicureanism
was born mature in its founder as a complete method of
living. Its numberless disciples in all antiquity changed
it scarcely more than in its unesseutials.

Consequently, apart from Epicurus himself, who founded
the school in his garden in Athens in 306, there are no
independent thinkers of the school to be named. We may
name some literary representatives : Metrodorus of Lamp-
sacus, the friend of the founder ; Colotes of the same city ;
Zeno of Sidon (100 b. c.) ; Ph^drus, whom Cicero heard
in Rome about 90 b. c. ; Philodemiis of Gadara and more
especially the Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus.

See P. Gassendi, De vita, movihus et doctrina Epicuri (Leyden,
1647) ; G. Prezza, Ejncuro e V Epiciireismo (Florence, 1877) ;
M. Guyaii, La morale cVEjiicure (Paris, 1878) ; P. v. Gizycki,
Ueber das Leben und die MoralpliUosoplde des Epikur {W^AXg^
1879); W. Wallace, Epimreanism (London, 1880) ; R. Schwen,
Ueber griech. u. rom. Epicureismus (Tarnowitz, 1881).

As original sources, besides what is left by Epicurus, there
are the didactic poem of Lucretius, De rerum natura (edited by
Lachmann, BerUn, 1850, and Jac. Bernays, Leipzig, 1852), and
the writings found in Herculaneum, particularly of Philodemus:
Herculanensium voluminum quce snjjersimt (first series, Naples,
1793-1855, second since 1861). Compare D. Comparetti, La
villa del Pisoni (Naples, 1879) ; Th. Gomperz, Herkulanen-
sische jStudien (Leipzig, 1865 f., Wiener Sitzungsberichte, 1876,
1879). Secondary antique sources are Cicero (De fnibus and
De nahira deorum)^ Seneca, and Diogenes Laertius, B. 10.

Epicurus was born 341 in Samos of an Athenian of the deme-
Gargettos. His father seems to have been a school-teacher.
Epicurus grew up in simple circumstances. He had read some
philosophers, especially Democritus, and perhaps also listened
to some of his older contemporaries in Athens. But he had not
at any rate enjo3'ed a thorough education, when, having tried
his hand as a teacher in Mytilenc and Lampsacus, he afterwards

CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 321

loiinded bis school in Athens, which was later named after the
garden in which it was held (ol a-rrb tcov kt/ttwi/; horti). His
teaching was opportune, easil}' understood, popular, and in har-
mony with the spirit of the time. It is thus explicable how he
found wide acceptance equally with the more serious schools
of science. Owing to his personal charm, and because he did
not make so high and strict demands either upon the life or
thought of his auditors as others made, he became greatly
esteemed as the head of the school. As such he worked until
his death in 270, He wrote much,^ only a little of which has
been preserved. Of the thirtN-seven books of 7re//t ^uo-ew? onl}-
two were found in the Herculanean library ; (published by Orelli,
Leipzig, 1818.) In addition three didactic letters and the
Kvpiai So^ai^ besides man}- more or less extensive fragments,
have been found. H. Usener has published a notably complete
and orderly collection, excepting the two books Trepl (^vVews
b}' the name Epicurea (Leipzig, 1887).

Epicurus' confidant and celebrated colleague, Metrodorus, died
before him. See A. Duening, De M. Ejncurei vita et scriptis, cum
fragm., Leipzig, 1870, Alfr. Korte, Metrodori fragm., Leipzig,
1890). The headship of the school passed directl}' then from
Epicurus to Hermarchus. From that time on, numerous pupils
and heads of the school are mentioned (see Zeller, IV^ 368-
378), but seldom in such a wa}- as to lead us to know their dis-
tinction as philosophers. We know Colotes from the treatise
which Plutarch aims against him, as the champion of the school ;
Zeno and Phaedrus from the reports of Cicero ; also Philodemus,
whose wo'ks in part were found in Herculaneum. See the liter-
ature in Ueberweg-Heinze, I'. 264 f., especially H. v. Arnim,
Philodemra (Halle, 1888).

Especially at Rome, where C. Amafinius (middle of second cen-
tur}^, B. c) had first naturalized Epicureanism to a considerable
degree, the theory found many supporters, and most of all in
its poetical presentation in Lucretius (97-54). See H. Lotze,
Qucestiones Lucretiayice (Philol., 1852) ; C. Martha, Le poeme
de Lucrece- (FsLYis, 1873) : J. Woltjer, L. philosoplda cumfontihus
comparatc'j (Groningen, 1877).

Concerning the development of the school, see R. Ilirzel,
Unters. zu Cicero's philosophischen Schriften, I. 98 ff.

The ethics of Epicurus was a reproduction of hedonism
(§ 30) in a form riper in so far as the more youthful fresh-
ness of the Aristippan doctrine of sense-pleasure made way

1 See Diog. Laert., X. 26 ff.
21

322 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

for deeper reflection, such as already existed among the
later Cyrenaics. The limitation of philosophy to a search
for the means of attaining individual happiness was most
boldly expressed by Epicurus, and was developed utterly
regardless of every other interest, especially of science.
Science and virtue are nothing that should be prized in
themselves. They have worth only as indispensable means
for the attainment of pleasure, and pleasure is the natural
and obvious goal of every desire.

Pleasure is not only positive pleasure in the narrower
sense which arises out of a motion that satisfies the need
{rjSopr) iv Kivrjcrei). It is the more valuable pleasure of
painlessness, which goes with the state of more nearly per-
fect rest ^ (^rjSouT} KaTaaT7)fxaTiKrj) , a state consequent upon
the satisfaction of wants. The latter affords doubtless
a certain pleasure, but perfect happiness (^/jbaKaplco^; ^tjv')
can be found only in a state in wMch every want is absent.
Happiness is health to the body and repose {drapa^la) of
the soul : Scfcaioavpr]^ KapiTO<^ /jLeyiaro^; drapa^ca.^

Epicurus showed his deficiency in scientific training in the
ambiguity of his expressions, and in his lack of logical clearness.
His deficiency also appears in his disdain of all theoretical occu-
pations. He had no appreciation of scientific investigations
which serve no use. Mathematics, history, the special natural
sciences were closed to him. The theory of pleasure that he
called ethics, strictly included his entire philosoph}'. Physics,
which had a determined ethical task to perform, and was pur-
sued only so far as it performed it, was only ancillary ; and
as a help in preparation for this, a httle logic was deemed
necessar3^

It has given rise to much confusion, because Epicurus con-
sidered rjSovri sometimes as a positive pleasure arising from the
satisfaction of all want, and because he sometimes used the word
in the more general sense when he meant the more valued ataraxy
(drapa^ia). The introduction of the latter idea probably can be
traced back to Democritus. When the TrdOrj are designated as

1 Olymp. in Plato's Phileb., 274 (also Fr. 416).

2 Clem. Strom., VI. 2 (also Fr. 519).

CONTllOVEKSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 323

storms, and yaXr/i'icr/xo? as tranquillit}' (Diog. Laert., X. 83), we
are reminded of the manner of expression of the great Abderite.
This Epicurean drapa^iu has onl}' an outward resembhmce to the
Stoic apathy. The former is the virtue of ethical indilference
to all passions ; the latter is passionlessness, which is based
upon the perfect satisfaction of all desire. On this account it
was looked upon, both b}- Epicureans and Cynics, as acquired
only through a limitation of desire.

Therefore Epicurus distinguished formall}' three classes of
wants: natural and indispensable; natural and perhaps dispen-
sable ; and linally, imaginary, which are neither natural nor in-
dispensable. Without satisfying the first, man cannot live ;
without satisfying the second, he cannot be happy ; the third
are to be disregarded. Thus the opposition which the Cyrenaics
urged between the natural and the conventional was taken up.
Its strenuousness was diminished, however, in so far as the Epi-
cureans gave a place to much in the second category-, which the
Cyrenaics were compelled to discard, because they recognized
onl}^ the first categorj'.

Feeling (irddos:^ can only decide as to what exists in
any particular pleasure. We need, in order to counteract
this, to reflect upon the course of life, and to assess the
different pleasures so as to bring out also their conse-
quences.^ Such an estimate is possible only through the
rational insight, the fundamental virtue of the Wise Man
((f)p6v7](n<;}. This virtue was developed into different single
virtues, according to the different problems to be assessed.
Through it the Wise Man is able to estimate the different
impulses according to their value for perfect satisfaction.
He is able to appreciate expectations and fears at their true
value, to free himself from illusionary ideas, feelings, and
desires, and to find in the proper balance of enjoyment that
serenity of soul which is allotted only to him.

The Epicurean ideal of the Wise Man is represented in
nearly the same particulars as the Stoical Wise Man. The
Wise Man is to the Epicureans also as free as the gods.
By his reflective insight, rising superior to the course of

1 Eus. Prtep. ev., 14, 21 (also Fr. 442).

324 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the world and of external fate, he finds happiness only in
himself and in his virtue, which once acquired can never
be lost. Yet the Epicurean description is made in some-
what brighter colors than the Stoic, rather more pleasing
and more joyous. But even if they avoided the sombreness
of the Stoics, they were, on the other hand, rather lacking
in vigor : the Stoic feeling of duty was wanting, as were
both tlie submission of the individual to universal law and
the consciousness of responsibility. Epicurus prized, it is
true, spiritual above bodily satisfactions, because they are
better qualified to lead to the ideal of rest to the soul. In-
deed, he recommended what he himself to a high degree
possessed, — a pure and noble morality, social refinement,
benevolence, and consideration toward all. But all this is
commended to us, because every kind of roughness of deport-
ment must appear to an educated Greek as inharmonious
with the aesthetic enjoyment of existence, which had become
to him a natural want. The wisdom of life of the Epi-
cureans was aesthetic self-enjoyment. Their egoism became
delicate and refined, but nevertheless it was still egoism.

The concept of cfipovyjo-c^ appeared in Epicurns's theorj^ almost
exactly as it appeared in that of Aristippns, only the matter of
measuring the consequences of particular pleasures is rather more
emphasized than in Epicurus. Merely upon this distinction of
consequences Epicurus founded bis preference for spiritual pleas-
ures over bodily pleasures, and not upon an original distinction
of worth. He insisted, in accordance with his sensualistic ps}--
cholog}', that the spiritual pleasures reduce in their simplest
terms to bodily (o-ap^) ^ pleasures.

The fundamental characteristics of the ethical atomism of
Epicurus are shown most clearly in his treatment of social
relations. He recognized no natural community of man-
kind, but he treated all the mutual relations of individuals
(1) as those which depend upon the will of the individuals,
and (2) those which depend upon a rational consider-

1 Athen., XII. 54G (also Fr. 409).

CONTROVErxSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 325

ation of useful consequences. He regarded tlicse human
relations not as higher powers, but only as self-chosen
means for individual happiness. In this spirit he dissuaded
the Wise Man from entering upon marriage, because it
threatens him with care and responsibility. So also he
recommended avoidance of ])ublic life. He regarded the
state as a union ^ tliat has arisen out of the need of mutual
protection, and created by tlic rational reflection of the
individuals. The functions of the state are conditioned in
their entirety by the point of view of general utility. This
purpose of law brings about certain universal jjrinciples as
everywhere necessary, but law takes a variety of forms of
single laws under different circumstances.

Friendship is the only social relationship w^orthy of the
Wise Man. It rests indeed, too, upon the calculation of
mutual usefulness. Among wise and virtuous men, how-
ever, it rises to a disinterested communion, and in it the
happiness of the individual reaches its zenith.

It is thoroughly characteristic of the Epicurean conception of
life, for its social ideal to be a purely individual relationship,
viz., friendship. Friendship was particularly cultivated in
this school, and in connection with its view of the Wise Man
friendship easily got an insipid character of mutual admiration.
The X(i6e ^uocras is the reverse side of it, wherein indifference to
political interest and responsibility, the selfish isolation of the
individual, decay of national loyalty, is raised to a principle.
With this egoistic withdrawal into private life. Epicureanism be-
came the " common sense " philosophy of the Roman world.
For the strongest basis of despotism is that desire for enjoy-
ment with which every individual seeks in the quiet of his own
life to save as much individual comfort as possible out of the
universal confusion.

The utilitarian politics of P^picurus has also its germ in that
of the Sophists. Yet Epicurus seems to have been tlie first to
carr}' politics out consistently, and thus also to have developed

^ Diog. Lacrt., X. 150 (from tlio Kvpiai So^at) : to rrjs (pvaeoys bUcnov
e'oTi avfi^oXov rov (TVfx(pepovTos els to fir] ^XdnTciv dWi'jXovs /i'jSe ^\a~
irreadai.

326 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the lending principle of political compact {a-wOrjKr}). It was b}'-
the use of this theory that the Enlighteunient of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries tried to conceive the state as the pro-
duct of the selfish reason of individuals who were without a
state. There was, therefore, for Epicurus such a thing as right
and wrong only where this sort of agreement about universal
utility takes place between individuals.^ Lucretius has repre-
sented in a t3'pical manner this supposed transition of man
from a state of savagery to a state of society (V. 922 tf.).

If the insight of the reason shall afford peace of soul to
the Wise Man, it accomplishes this principally by freeing
him through correct knowledge from all superstition, erro-
neous representations of the nature of things, and therefore
from all related idle fears and liopes which could falsely
determine the will. In so far the insight is this <^p6v7)(TL^,
being not only practical but theoretical in its purpose. To
this end we need a physical view of the world which ex-
cludes all myths and miracles, all transcendent, religious,
supersensible, and teleological aspects. Epicurus finds such
a view in Democritus.

Compare Alb. Lange, Gesch. des McifenaUsmus, (2 ed. Iser-
lohn, 1873, I. 74 ff., 97 ff.). Familiarity with the theory of
Democritus is said to have been made possible to Epicurus
through Nausiphanes. At an^^ rate, it is the most significant
scientific influence which he experienced. Yet he is far from
understanding and taking up into himself the body of thought
of the Democritan system. He selected from the cosmology of
Democritus what appeared useful for his shallow pseudo-enlight-
enment, and he left untouched what was really philosophically
significant. The identification of his ph^'sical and metaphysical
theory with that of Democritus has undoubtedly done the
most to hinder an earlier recognition of the scientific greatness
of Democritus.

The renewal of Atomism by Epicurus is betrayed in the
theory that nothing is real except the void and the atoms,
and that every event consists merely of the motion of the
atoms in empty space. Epicurus refused, however, to ac-

^ Kvpiai do^ai, 32 f . ; Diog. Laert., X. 150.

C0NTR0VKK81ES OF THE SCHOOLS 327

cept tlie fundamental thought of Dcmocritus of the pure
mechanical necessity of all motion. He replaced the origi-
nally irregular motion of the atoms in the absolutely direc-
tionless and boundless space, such as Democritus taught, by
an originally uniform motion fro7n above downward, which
the senses appeared ^ to represent to him as absolutely
given. This is the rain of atoms? Since the intermingling
of the atoms could not in this way, however, be explained,
he asserted that single atoms arbitrarily deviated in a very
slight degree from the direct fall. In consequence, collis-
ions and vortices arose, from which the atom-complexes
and finally the worlds came. Thus the cosmic theory of
Epicurus again blended with that of Democritus and ser-
vilely followed it from this point on. Yet he depended
on tlie theory of Democritus only in its most general
characteristics of anti-teleology and anti-spiritualism. He
took pains to explain that it is a matter of indifference
how one answers particular scientific questions.^

That this gross representation of an absolute fall of the atoms
is not of Democritan origin, but a new theory of Epicurus, can
be safely accepted after the researches of Biieger and Liep-
mann ; so also, Lewes, Hist, of Philos.^ I. 101 ; Gu3'au, Morale
cV Epicure^ p. 74 ; Plutarch, Plac, I. 3, 26 (Box., 285) ; Cicero,
De fin., I. 6, 17 ff. ; De fato, 20, 46 ff. When Lucretius (II.
225 ff.) made a polemic against the view that earlier was held
as Democritan, which alleged that the collision of tlie atoms could
be explained by the quicker fall of the heavier ones, he had in
mind supposably the hypothesis of other Epicureans. These
latter wished to proceed as determinists guided by the funda-
mental principle of the master, and this seems to have been at
one time the inclination in the school. It is not, indeed, im-
possible that Epicurus in part used also this more mechanical
method of explanation side by side with the acceptance of in-
finitesimal (eXaxio-Toi/) declinations. (Cicero, Defato, 10, 22.)

Arbitrary self-deviation from the perpendicular fall — a theory
with which Epicurus destroyed entirelj' the thcor}' of Democ-

1 Diog. Laert., X. 60. ^ Lucre., De rev. 7uit., 11. 222.

8 Diog. Laert., X. 87 ff.

328 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

i-itus — is onl}' the solution of a self-created difficulty. That
Epicurus prepared for himself this difficult}' is to be explained
from his anxious adherence to the truth of the senses. The
wa}' in which he explained it was suited to his ethical conception
of the metaph3sical independence of the individual. Pie made
the deviation of the atoms from the perpendicular fall analogous
to the voluntar}' activity of man. He showed himself to be in
both cases the opponent of Democritus' leadiug idea of the
elfxapfxevT]. (Cicero, Defato, 10, 23.)

This anti-teleological conception, which Lucretius especially
developed in details, and extended in an Empedoclean fashion
to the apparent!}' teleological organic forms, seemed to the
Epicureans to be absolute deliverance from superstition. They
spoke as little of natural religion as of positive religion. On the
other hand, Epicurus developed a Democritan thought in order
to imagine blissful gods in the intermundia, the empty space
between the numberless worlds. These gods, undisturbed as
the}" are in these worlds, appear in the eternal enjoyment of
their self-satisfying peace as a glorified actualization of the ideal
of the Wise Man who does not reach a state of perfection on
earth.

A gross sensualistic epistemology was joined to the
materialistic metaphysics of Epicurus. The soul, whose
materiality and mortality he especially emphasized, receives
all the content of its ideas from sense perception. Sense,
therefore, with its immediate evidence (^ivdpyeia') is the
only criterion of truth. If concepts {TrpoXTjyjrec^} arise
through the aggregation of similar perceptions, and if out
of these upon reflection concerning the causes of phenom-
ena, opinions (Sofat) and accepted views ( l/ttoX 71/ret?) are
developed, the only criterion of their truth is in their re-
peated confirmation by perception.

The Logic of Epicurus, or, as he called it, the Canonic, is lim>
ited to such meagre definitions. See Th. Tohte, Eptitur's Krile-
rien der WahrheU (Clausthal, 1874). Pie purposely avoided the
theories of concepts and syllogisms. In his school l^hilodemus
accomplished something in the scientific construction of the
hypothesis and the inductive method : see Fr. Bahnsch, Des
Eiiicureers Phil. Schrift^ irepl o-T^/xctW /cat arjixeuoo-coiv, Lyck, 1879) ;
H. Philippson, De phil. libro, irepl cny/xctW koI o-T^/xetwcretov et Epi'

STvEPTICTSM AND SYNCRETISM 329

cureorumdodrhialogica (Berlin, 1881); P. Natorp, Forschunrjen,
209 ff. In the interest of this methodology which iiinicd at a
theory of enii)irical knowledge, the later Epicureans merged
with the younger JSkeptics (§ 48). But in contrast to the out-
spoken positivism of the latter, the Epicureans held to the con-
viction that scientific concepts were formed to give us on the
one side the probabilities of the imperceptible causes of phe-
nomena (a8r;A.oi'), and on the other the expectations about the
future (jrpoaixevov) through the comparison of facts.

2. Skepticism and Syncretism.

The strife concerning philosophical truth wliich waged
fiercely between the four great schools, not only in Athens,
but also in other intellectual centres, especially in Alexandria
and Rome, necessarily presented to unprejudiced minds
the skeptical question about the possibility and limits of
human knowledge. This would certainly have happened,
even if the question had not already come up in the earlier
development of Greek philosophy, and if it had not re-
mained a current opinion since the time of the Sophists.
It is perfectly comprehensible that the skeptical way of
thinking should be consolidated during these school-
controversies, and in contrast with them should become
more aud more systematic. At the same time, however,
skepticism succumbed to the universal spirit of the time,
when it was brought into most intimate relations with the
question of the wise way of living.

K. F. vStaudlin, Geschichte. u. Geist des Skepticismus (Leipzig,
1794-95) ; N. Maccoli, The Greek Skeptics from Pj/rrJio to Sextus
(London and Cambridge, 1869) ; V. Brochard, Zes sceptiques
Grecs (Paris, 1887).

48. The first to perfect the system and ethics of Skepti-
cism was Pyrrho of Elis, whose working years were con-
temporaneous with the origin of the Stoic and Epicurean
t schools. Lie seems to have confined himself essentially

330 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

thought seems to have been his pupil, Timon of Phlius.
The doctrine of skepticism was of such a nature that no
school could form around it, and so it vanished with the
next generation from the field of literature.

Ch. Waddington, Pyrrlion et le Pyrrhonisme (Paris, 1877) ;
R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Cicero's pliilos. /Schrifteri, III. 1 ff. ;
P. Natorp, Forschungen, 127 ff.

Concernino- Pyrrho's life little is known. He lived from 365
to 275 approximatel3^ That he was acquainted in his home with
the Elean-Eretrian school, the Megarian Sophism (§ 28), is
probable. It is very doubtful whether or not this happened
through the medium of Bryso, said to be the son of Stilpo.
A safer datum is that he joined the Alexandrian campaign with
the Democritan, Anaxarchus. He later lived and taught at his
home. No writings of his are known.

When one speaks of the school of Skeptics, it lies in the na-
ture of the case that one does not mean an organized societ}' for
scientific work, like the four others. Although moreover the
Greek historians here also speak of diadochi, yet for this as for
later time it must be remembered that only the most distin-
guished representatives of the skeptical manner of thought
(ajMyy]) are meant. Among these Timon is of the first rank,
while the other names in the time succeeding Pyrrho (Zeller,
IV^. 483) are of no importance. Timon lived betw^een 320
and 230 in Athens in his last years, and from his rich literarj^
activit}' are preserved particularh' fragments of his o-t'XXoi, in
which he derides the philosophers. See C. Wachsnuith, De
Timone Phliasio ceterisque sillographis Greeds w^ith the frag-
ments (Leipzig, 1859).

The direct derivation of Pyrrhonism from Sophistry
shows itself partly in its reliance on Protagorean relativism,
and partly in its reproduction of the Skeptical arguments
found in the Cynic and Megarian teaching. As regards
the relativity of all perceptions and opinions, Pyrrho as-
serted tliat if sense and reason were deceptive singly, no
truth could be expected from the two in combination.
Perception does not give us things as they are, but as
they appear in accidental relations. All opinions, not
excepting the ethical, are conventional (yoiicf), and not

SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 331

of natural necessity. Thei'cfore any assertion can be
maintained against the o})posite. Of contradictory propo-
sitions one is not more valid (ou fidWov') than the other.
We should on this account express nothing, but should
withhold (eirex^iv) our judgment. Since we know nothing of
things, things are also indifferent (dSidcpopa) to us. He
that abstains from judgment is secure against a disturbed
condition of mind resulting from mistaken views. The
moral worth of the abstinence of judgment (i-rroxv) consists
in the fact that it alone can produce equanimity {drapa^la),
which is likewise the moral ideal of the Skeptics.

The equal emphasis on drapalta by Epicurus and Pyrrho, ac-
companied by a most distinct disinclination to science, coincides
with the idea of a common source of the two theories in the
younger Democritans, Anaxarchus and Nausiphanes. But
nothing is certain about it. That the Democritan view of the
world rather than that of the teleological S3'stems would neces-
saril\' further an ethical quietism, is plain. But the hedonistic
tendenc}' and the one-sided emphasis of the Protagorean relativ-
ism — which was subordinated in Democritus — may be charac-
terized as a falling awa}' from Democritus and a relapse into
Sophism.

Even if the so-called ten tropes in which later Skepticism formu-
lated its relativit}' of perception, should not be stated in this form
in P3aTho, nevertheless the Protagorean principle involved is
current throughout his teaching. That he took pains to bring
Skepticism into some sort of a S3'stem is to be seen from the
division which Timon made, to wit, that there is a distinction
between the constitution of things, our right relation to them,
and the profit that we have to expect from them. That the last
is the proper goal of the entire teaching is self-evident. The ura-
pa^ia is the happiness of the skeptic. The i-n-oxr} not only in the
theoretical, but also in the practical sense is meant as tlie abstain-
ing from judgment in general, also from judgment of worth, and
therefore from desire and feeling. It reminds us of the Stoic
apathy which was also a restraint of assent. In either case the
ideal of the Wise Man is equally foreign to life, and a denial of
life. The iTroxy'i (called also aKaTa\r]\f/ia) was regarded as the
central and characteristic concept of the system. Its adherents
were designated on that account i(f>eKTLKOL.

In this Skeptical theory it is of importance to note that the

332 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

will is emphasized as a moment in judgment. The denial of thej
(TvyKardO€(TL<; (see p. 318) is possible only because affirmation ort
denial, as well in theoretic judgment even as in the approval ori
disapproval of natural feeling and impulse, is an act of will, andii,
therefore icfy rjixtv. This is a theory common to Skeptics andf
Stoics. It is uncertain how far the former philosophers arej
dependent on the latter.

Skepticism took a scientific and practically more avail- -i
able form at the time when it temporarily succeeded to j
an ascendency over one of the great schools. Through i,*
Arcesilaus, who followed Crates as leader and died 241, itiii
was introduced into the Platonic society, and maintained ;|i
itself there for perhaps a century and a half, a period which
is customarily called that of the Middle Academy. The ^
most significant representative of the school at that time i
was Carneades of Cyrene, who died 129 b. c. after a long'i
leadership. j

From the entire Middle Academ}^ only these two personalities^il
distinctl}' appear. Neither seems to have left anything in writ--"
ing. The theory of Arcesilaus was written down by his pupill'
and successor, Lacydes. Clitomachus, who died about llO,,!"
stood in the same relation to Carneades. AVe know about these'
two onh' indirectl}'; especialh' through Cicero, Sextus Empiricus,
and Dio2:enes.

Arcesilaus (written also Arcesilas), born about 315 in Pitane.''
in u3Eolia^ had listened to Theophrastus and the Academicians...''
He also came under the influence of the Megarians, and prob- i
abl}' of Pyrrlio. He was notable, moreover, as a keen andi?
witt}' orator. See A. Geffers, De Arcesila (Gottingen, 1841) ;;i^
^6^V/., De Arcesilce successor thus (Gottingen, 1845). J

In scientific significance and authority, Carneades tow^ers above {
him, — Carneades, the great opponent of the Stoics, whose writ--^
ings he had carefully studied, and in his brilliant lectures re- -J
futed. He appeared in Rome in the year 155 with the embassy' J
of pliilosophers, and gave there a deeply impressive example of 1
\ the in iitramque j^ct^tem disputare in his two discourses for and 7
against justice. Compare Roulez, De Carneade (GJient, 1824). f

For the names of the above, see Zeller, IV^ 498, 523 ff.

The Academy Skeptics seem to have made the nega-
tive part of Pyrrho's theory their own, — and in the main

SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 333

in unchanged form. In using this negative doctrine in its
essentials in their polemic against the Stoics, they directed
their arguments chiefly against the theory of a crite-
rion of truth. In this respect Carneades took the lead
with his destructive dialectic by showing how little tlie
subjective moment of assent {o-pyKardOecri^} is a safe
determiner of truth or falseness, and by investigating thor-
oughly the numerous difficulties of the theory of the
KaraXriTTTLKr) ^auraala (ideas carrying conviction). But
he also directed his attack against the guaranty of the
truth in logical reasoning. He showed how every proof
demands a new proof for the validity of its premises,
which leads to an infinite regress, since there is no imme-
diate certainty.

■ It is astonishing how little these Platonists seem to have
cared for the rationalism of their original school. The}' did not
lead their rationalism into the field against the Stoic sensual-
ism — nay, they even sacrificed it, for their radical Skepticism
holds rational knowledge impossible. The}' did not seem ex-
pressly to confute rationalism, but they silently neglected it
as passe. When it is said of Arcesilaiis (Sextus Empiricus,
Pl/rrh. Ilyp.f I. 234 f.) that he used skepticism simply on
the one side as a polemic and on the other as mental gym-
nastics, but within the innermost circle of the school he
held fast to Platonism, the statement is so far true that the
Academy took the skeptical arguments only as welcome instru-
ments against the continuously pressing competition of the
Stoa. But in doing so, nevertheless, the Academy became
estranged from its own positive teaching. It is not impossible,
hut perfectly probable, that even if the above were a fact in
regard to the leaders of the school, in the seliool itself the
Platonic tradition was kept alive as before. The strenglii of
the polemic interest among the leaders is shown in Carneades,
who raised with these formal objections many practical ones
against the Stoics. He combated particularly, and occasionally
with great acumen, their theology, teleology, determinism, and
theory of natural right.

* In the Middle Academy the eiroxn (see p. 381) is the result-
ant of these views. Meanwhile Carneades and Arcesilaus

334 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

saw that the eiro^r] was impossible in practice. In order to '
act, man must consent to certain ideas, and if he renounces \
truth, he must be satisfied with probability (evXo^ov, akr^Oe^ \
(f)aLp6/jLevov)' Neither ethical principles nor the knowledge ;
of single relations will bring undoubted certainty, but the '
will is moved by indistinct and not fully evident ideas. ;
Therefore everything depends on judging correctly the
degree of probability of different ideas. There are many ,
such degrees, three in particular. The lowest degree of '
probability is present in an idea that is plausible in itself '
alone (irtOavT]^ ; the higher in such an idea as without con-
tradictions can be joined to the whole body of ideas to i
which it belongs (TrcOavrj koI direpiaiTao-ro^') ; the highest i|
is present in every individual of such a body of ideas when >
all the parts have been tested as to their mutual congru-,'
ence (iriOavri KOI direpi(T7ra(7To<i koI TrepicoSevfievr]).

The content which Carneades gave to this practical prob- '
ability is thoroughly consistent with the doctrine of goods ^
in the Older Academy. The entire system therefore is ani
attempt to destroy dogmatism through skepticism and to)!|
found a system of morals for the Academy.

This fact, which indeed accorded with the spirit of the time, iss
to be emphasized : — that the theory of probability of the Middle
Academv originated from an ethical, and not from a logical in--
terest. 'it was applied only to ethical questions. This does not,^
however, prevent our recognizing that Carneades, to whom we '
particularly owe the development of this theory, proceeded in his
work in great part upon the basis of the Aristotelian topics,
and always with great acuteness. The chief source is Sextus ,
Empiricus, Adv. math.^ VII. 166 ff.

Later Skepticism disassociated itself from the Academy,,
in which dogmatic eclectic tendencies became ascendant,,
and was propagated especially in the circles of the medi-:
cal empiricists. The representatives of this theory weree
^nesidemus, Agrippa, and Sextus Empiricus. i

Concerning the careers of these men there is little information.!;

SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 3o5

[See P. L. Haas, De j^Ji^i^osophonivi scepticoi'um successionibus

[(Wurzburg, 1875^ ; and K. Pappenheim, Arrhic f. Gesch. d.

^hil.^ I. 37 ff., who puts the locality of the later Skepticism in

I" a city of the East, unknown to us." JEnesidemus of Cnossus

[taught in Alexandria, and wrote Ilvppwetot Aoyot, which he dedi-

icated to the Academician L. Tubero, of whicii Photius [)re-

Ipared an al)ridgment still extant. If this Tubero was the friend

lof Cicero, one must put the activity of ^nesidemus at the latest

[in the middle of the first century, or a little earlier. This is,

'however, not fully certain. Zeller places him at the beginning

of our era, and MacoU at 130 a. d. The calculations accoiding

to the Diadochi are doubtful on account of the uncertainty of

the duration of the school of Skeptics. See E. Saisset, Le seep-

ticisme: Enesideme, Pascal, Kant (Paris, 1867) ; P. Natorp,

J^orschungen, 63 ff., 256 tf.

We know about Agrippa onl}' b}' the mention of his theory of
the five tropes. The names only of man}' of the other Skeptics
are preserved (Zeller, V^. 2 ff.).

Neither the native place nor residence of Sextiis Empiricus
(200 A. D.) is knowni. His writings, on the other hand, form the
most complete body of skeptical theories. The Ilvppo)V€LOL xmo-
TVTTojo-eis in three books are preserved, and also two other works,
which are usually grouped under the title of Adversits mathema-
ticos. Of these works, one (Books 1-6) treats of the science
of general culture, of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic,
astronomy, and music; the other (Books 7-11) criticises the
logical, ph3'sical, and ethical theories of philosophers from a
skeptical point of view. See E. Pappenheim, De Sext. Emp.
Ubrorum numero et ordine (Berlin, 1874) ; ibid., Lehensverhlllt-
nisse des Sext. Emp. (Berlin, 1875). The same author has also
translated and annotated the sketches of Pvrrho (Leipzig, 1877);
S. Haas, JOeben des Sext. Emp). (Burghausen, 1883) ; ibid.,
Ueber die Sclirifteii des Sext. Emp. (Freising, 1883).

This later Skepticism moved exactly on the general lines
of the older, and it sought in vain to disown dependence
upon the Middle Academy. It particularized the Protag-
orean objections to knowledge based on sensation, and, in-
deed, as appears first in ^nesidemus, there were considered
ten so-called Tpoiroi. These are badly arranged, but have
for their purpose partly the discussion of the relativity of
the perceiving subject, partly that of tlie perceived object,
and partly that of the relationship between the two. The

336 HISTORY OP ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

five tropes pi'esented by Agrippa are of more importance.
To the theory of the relativity of perceptions (o airo rod
TTpo^ Ti TpoTTo^}, and to the conflict among opinions (6
aTTo rf;? Sca(f)a)pla<^), he added the thought developed by
Carneades, that proof demands either an endless regress
from the premises (o et? airetpov eicPaXkwv)^ or presupposes
unallowed and unproved premises (6 viroOenico^). He
finally added that scientific method supports its proof upon
assumptions which themselves could only be verified by
the thing to be proved. These opinions of Agrippa led his
followers to the reduction of the skeptical theory to two
tropes. Knowledge would be possible either through im-
mediate or mediate certainty ; the former is not possible,
because the relativity of all representations fails of a cri-
terion, and the second would be possible only if it found
its premises in the first. ^ "•

There is the mooted question whether among all the Skeptics
iEnesidemus actuallv, as Sextiis also seems to report, found in
the general Sophistic theory of the la-oaOevaa tCjv Xoyiov, that is,
that the affirmation and negation of ever}^ proposition can be
equah}^ well defended, a bridge to the reproduction of the meta-
physical opinion of the reality of opposites. This would con-
nect it with the Heracleitan thought, and Zeller seems to be
decided (V^. 34 ff.) that the ancient reporters have made a mis-
take. See E. Pappenheim, Der angeblicJie Heraklitismus des
uEnesidemus (Berlin, 1889).

The new tropes, which Agrippa introduced in a clever way,
are arrayed especially against the Aristotelian theory of the
a/xeo-a, that is, of immediate certaintjs and are closely allied to
that doubt, which in modern times has been made by Mill
against the syllogism. The difficulty is that the particular judg-
ment, which is supposed to be based on the syllogism, is itself
necessary for a basis of the general premise. (See Sext. Em p.,
Pprrh. hyp., II. 194 ff. ; J. S. Mill, Logic, II. 3, § 2 ; Chr.
Sigwart, Logik, I. § 55, 3.

Connected with the opinions of the empirical schools of ph}'-
sicians, who in denying all causal theories limited themselves
entirely to medical observations (rrypr/o-t?) , there is the more

1 Sext. Eiiip., Pyrrh. hyp., I. 178.

HELLENIC-ROMAN THILOSOPIIY 337

developed treatment, which the Skeptics since il^^ncsidemus
bestowed npoii the concept of causaUty, in discovering many
dialectical and metaphysical dilliculties. Relativity, the time
relation bet-ween cause and effect, the pluralit}' of causes for
ever}' event, the inadequac}' of hypotheses which themselves
demand causal explanation, etc., are among these dilliculties.
See C. Hartenstein, Ueher die Leliren der antiken Skejms
{Zcitschrift f. Philos. u. philos. Kritik, 1888, vol. 93).

49. The four great schools of philosophy which existed
side by side in Athens — the Academy, Lyceum, Stoa, and
the Gardens — made violent, nay, passionate war upon each
other in the third and second centuries. Long afterward the
opposition was so outspoken that after the time of Marcus
Aurelius special chairs in the " university " of Athens
were endowed by the government for them. Through this
mutual contact the different theories weve so far recon-
ciled that in the first century before Christ the tendency
appeared in these schools to emphasize less their disagree-
ments, to render prominent their points of unity, and to
unite them upon that common ground which exists in the
most highly generalized ethics. The tendency appeared
least of all in the Epicurean school, for that school was
relatively stationary.

The Stoa was the first, in conformity to its original na-
ture, to incline to such syncretic views. After the time of
Pan^etius and Posidonius, it adopted into its teaching many
Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines, while it tempered its
ethical rigorism, and enriched its scientific interests. The
teleological principle proved a most efficient cement, and
on this account Epicureanism I'emained to a greater or less
degree excluded from this syncretic process.
^ How far on the other hand the advances on the part
of the Aristotelian school could be under the circumstances,
the pseudo-Aristotelian writing irepl Koa/iov ^ shows. This

1 Published in the works of Aristotle, p. 301 fE.

338 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

was written probably by a Peripatetic, and siipposably at |
the beginning of this era. It contained the interesting at- '
tempt at uniting Aristotelian theism and Stoic pantheism li
in a way that recognized the transcendence of the divine I
spirit, and derived the teleologically arranged world from :
its omnipresent creative power. It is to be noticed that i
this view gave to power a value independent of the divine i
spirit. j

Compare the literature in Zeller, IV^. 631, 3, as well as the
exposition following it ; see also the same in Sitzungs-Berkhte '
of the Berlin Akademie, 1885, p. 399 ff. Zeller regards as a
mean between the Peripatetic and Platonic ethics (IV^. 647 f.) ,
the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Trept dperajv kol KaKtCjv. >

To the discrimination between the transcendent essence and the |
immanent power of God, there is appended, in the writing -n-cpl i
KocTfxov, a conception related to the Stoic theology. This is con—;
cerned with the degrees of divine power in which the peripatetic^',
teaching of -n-vevfxa forms the natural and philosophical link. !

The union of the teleological systems that existed in later i
times seems to have been first announced in the Academy.,,
In that school Philo of Larissa (b. 87 b. c. in Rome) wentj?
from Skepticism to dogmatism when he asserted that in '
all the polemic expressions of the school teleology hadl|
always remained its esoteric teaching. But his representa-'i
tion of this teleology resembled genuine Platonism only ini
very slight degree. His more distinguished pupil, Antiochusij
of Ascalon, to whom Cicero was auditor in Athens in the'
winter of 79-78 b. c, championed the opinion that Plato-.'
nism and Aristotelianism were only different aspects of the'|
same thing, and that this thing also definitely reappears:,
with some terminological changes in Stoicism.

J. Grvsar, Die Akademiker Philon imd Antiochns (Cologne,,
1849) ; C. F. Hermann, De Philone Larlssceo (Gottingen, 1851,,
55) ; C. Cliappe, De Antiochi Ascalonitce vita et doctrina (Paris, ,
1854) ; R. Hover, De Antiocho Ascalonita (Bonn, 1883).

The Platonism of tliis third, or of the fourth and fifth Acad-i
emies, is onl}' to be found in its ethical teaching. Even Anti--|
ochus himself set aside the theory of Ideas, although he wasii

SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 339

much more energetic than IMiilo during the breach with the
Skeptics of the school. Metaph3sics and physics botli remained
in the background for these two men, and both epistemology
and ethics were quite as Stoic as ITatonic. The Alexandrians,
Eudorus, Arius Didymus, and Potamo, are said to be contiuuers
of the movement of Antiochus.

In their adoption of the Greek philosophy the Komans
naturally gave to it a thoroughly eclectic form. When, after
conquering their first aversion, they went into the school
of Greek science, they went to it in their peculiarly prac-
tical way with the need for ethical orientation, and for that
general culture in ethics such as a statesman might ask.
Undisturbed by the technicalities and hair-splittings of the
" controversies of the schools," they selected in the differ-
ent systems what was suited to their needs. They com-
pleted this choice from the point of view that the truth
must be found in a practically useful conviction illumi-
nating all with its natural evidence. The probabilism
of the Middle Academy and the Stoic teaching of consen-
sus gentium, however, for the most part furnished the
point of view, which may be called of the " healthy human
understanding."

It was Cicero's merit to have given his countrymen a
tasteful presentation of Greek philosophy in the above accep-
tation of the term. His friend Yarro and the School of the
Sextians, which flourished for a brief period at the begin-
ning of this era, may be mentioned with him. Cicero, who
was without independent philosophical significance, had
great success in naturalizing the philosophical content of
Greek thought in Latin literature, and in thus making it
fruitful even beyond Roman civilization.

E. Zeller, Ueher die Religio7i unci Philosophie hei den ROmern
(Virch. Iloitz. Vortr., Berlin, 18G6) ; Durand de Laur, Le viouve-
ment de la pensee pliilosopliique depuis Ciceron jusqu'd, Tacite
(Paris, 1874).

The fear which the stricter Romans entertained that the new
learning would undermine the traditional morals of society led

340 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

to a decree of the Senate in 161 b. c. which banished philoso-
phers and rhetoricians from Rome. But in the middle of this
century the flow of Greek philosophy into Roman intellectual
life began and went on uninterruptedly. At first the philo-
sophic message came through the Greek teachers in Rome,
then through the custom among the younger Romans of per-
fecting their education in the centres of Greek science, — in
Athens, Rhodes, and Alexandria ; and, doubtless, not the least
of these influences was the embassy of Athenian philosophers,
Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes (156-155 b. c).

M. TuUius Cicero (106-43) had listened to Greek philos-
ophers of all the schools in Athens and Rhodes, and he had
read much, so that in his latter years, when he made Greek
philosophy speak the Roman tongue (^rdmiscli reden)^ a rich
material stood at his command. Out of this, without much
scientific discrimination, but with tact for what was suitable
for Rome, he brought his books together fairly quickly. Those
preserved are : Academica (partly), De Jinihus honorum et ma-
lorum^ Disputationes Tiiscnlance, De officiis^ Paradoxa, De
amicitia^ De senectute., De ncUura deorum, De fato (imperfect),
De divinaiioyie^ De repubUca (partly). Only fragments of
Hortensiiis^ Coiisolatio^ De legihus remain. Cicero made no
secret that he was essentially setting forth the Greek originals,
and in many cases we can determine his sources. From the
rich literature (see Ueberweg-Heinze, V. 283 f.) we may men-
tion A. B. Krische, ForscJiimge?^ Vol. I. ; Die theologiscJien
Lehreii der griechlschen Denke)\ eine Prilfung der Darstellung
Cicero's (Gottingen, 1840) ; J. F. Herbart, Ueher die Philoso-
phie des Cicero (1811, Complete Works, XII. 167 ff.) ; R.
Kiihner, 3L T. Cicero in pliiloso2)hiam ejusque partes merita
(Hamburg, 1825) ; C. F. Hermann, De interp)retatione Timm
dialogi a Ciceronis relicla (Gottingen, 1842) ; J. Klein, De
fontibus Topicorum Ciceronis (Bonn, 1844) ; Th. Schiche, De
fontibus librorum Ciceronis qui sunt de divinatione (Jena, 1875) ;
K. Hartf elder, Die Quellen von Cicero's De divinatione (Frei-
burg i. B., 1878) ; especially R. Hirzel, Untersuclmngen zu
Cicero's philos. Schriften (3 vols., Leipzig, 1877-83).

In his epistemology Cicero adhered to the Middle Academy's
teaching as the most moderate, elegant, and important method
of philosophizing. Metaphysically he was a Skeptic, and was
indifferent in the main to physical problems. Probability how-
ever did not satisfy him as an ethical criterion, but he appealed
to the Stoic coiisensus gentium both in ethics and in the allied
topics of natural religion, — that is, as to immortality, the exist-
ence of God, and providence. Nevertheless he conceived the

SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 341

Koival ei'voLai iiot ill the seiisc of the Stoic TrpoXryi/^ci? (see p. 318),
but rather as iiiuate and natural, aud therefore inunediately cer-
tain convictions ; and his strength rests in a nol)le representa-
tion of these.

Likewise his friend, the learned M. Terentius Varro (llG-27),
made such a profound study of Greek i)hilosophy as to enable
hun to distinguish two hundred and eighty-eight Cxreek sects.
He found the suitable synthesis of these in the eclecticism of
Antiochus of Ascalon, to which he, in the spirit of Pana^tius,
added somewhat more Stoicism. He took in particular from
Panjvtius the distinction between a philosophical, a poetical,
and a popular religion. His fragments offer much yet for the
history of Hellenistic philosophy. See E. Norden, BeUni/je,
p. 428 f.

Yet nearer to Stoicism stand the Sextians, whose first mem-
ber, Quintus Sextus, lived as early as in the Augustinian age.
His son, who bore his name, and Sotion of Alexandria followed
him. The latter was a revered teacher of Seneca and of several
others (Zeller, IV^. G76 f.). The school soon became extinct,
because, as it appears, it rested on the personal impression
made by the dignilied moral instruction of the Sextians. Some
of their Sentences are still in a S3''rian version (Gildemeister,
Bonn, 1873). The Stoic morals form the essential content of
these Sentences, interspersed, nevertheless, with old Pythago-
rean precepts, supposedly through the influence of Sotion.

The Eclectic popular philosophy, not as a school, but as the
conviction of cultured men, was propagated throughout an-
tiquity nearly in the manner that Cicero had presented it.
Its most remarkable later literar}^ representative of this is
the well-known phj^sician Claudius Galenus (died about 200).
He has immortalized his name in the history of formal logic,
through the unfortunate discovery of the fourth figure of the
syllogism, named after him. See K. Sprengel, Beitnige zur
Geschichte der Medicin, I. 117 fif. Ch. Daremberg, Essen sar
Galien considere comme pliilosophe (Paris and Leipzig, 1848) ;
a series of discussions by E. Chauvet (Caen and Paris, 18G0-
82) ; Ueberweg, Logik, § 103.

50. It was a result of the Sophistic Enlightenment and
its destruction of all belief in the supernatural that Pla-
tonic immaterialism could not at first find fast footing in
the circles of Greek and Roman civilization; and that,
therefore, all the different schools united in laying the
whole strength of their convictions in ethics, while cherish-

342 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

ing their coldly rational natural religion. In the mean
time, however, among the Roman peoples, the religious
spirit grew to a mighty desire for a saving faith. It began
to invade philosophy also more and more. The masses
lost the Hellenic trust in the satisfactoriness of earthly
existence. In its place there entered that feverish longing
for a higher mysterious satisfaction, which longing showed
itself in the groping about after all cults that were foreign
and fantastic. In this way belief in the self-sufficiency of
the Wise Man vanished from philosophy, and yielded to
that expectancy that a higher power would give a bless-
edness and release from the world, — a thing that virtue
could not guarantee. When the consciousness of the old
world, broken as it were, thus rose in its longing for super-
natural help, philosophy passed out of the sensualism and
rationalism, which had governed the post-Aristotelian
time, into Mysticism. From its inmost need philosophy
seized then upon that conception of the world which
contrasted the sensible and supersensible worlds : viz.,
upon Platonism.

The centre of this movement was Alexandria, where in
liveliest intercourse of the people of the Orient and Occi-
dent the amalgamation of religions was completed on the
grandest scale. Here, at the beginning of our era, two
tendencies in mystic religious Platonism became prominent.
One of these accorded more with the Greek, the other with
the Oriental life. They were the so-called neo-Pythagorean-
ism and the Judaic-Alexandrian philosophy. Both seem to
have gone back to the attempt to develop into a scientific
theory, with the help of Platonism, the views which had
been fundamental in the Pythagorean mysteries.

J. Simon, Histoire de Vecole cVAJexandrie (Paris, 1843 ff.);
E. Matler, Essai sur Vecole cVAlexandrie (Paris, 1840 ff.) ; E.
Vachei'ot, Histoire critique de Vecole d' Alexandrie (Paris, 1846
ff.) ; see W, J. Thiersch, Politik u. Fliilos. in ilirem Verlillltnis

SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 343

zur Religion winter Trajan^ Hadrian, u. den Antoniiien (Marburg,
1853) ; Til. Ziegler, Ueber die Entstehumj der Alexa)idrischen

Ch Has. {Pli iloJo(jtnversa m mix ng^ 1 882 ) .
That tlie so-called neo-Pythagoreanism is only a branch of
v,vlectic religious Tlatonism is obvious from the content of the
theory. It has very little to do with the original Pythagorean
philosophy (§ 24), but the more with the religious spirit of the
Pythagorean mysteries. But neo-Pythagoreanism shares (Zeller,
V^. 325 ff.) this with the Jewish sect of Essenes to such a degree
that the origin of the Essenes and their new religious concep-
tion may be sought in the contact of Judaism with these Orphic-
Pythagorean mysteries. The practical consequence of this
contact was in Palestine the origination of the Essenes ; the
theoretic consequence was in Alexandria the philosophy of
Philo.

The Pythagorean band, which in the course of the fourth
century B. c. lost its character as a school of philosophy,
but, as we may suppose, had always retained its character
as one of the Mysteries and as an asceticism, reappeared in
the first century B. c. with philosophic teachings. These
were, it must be said, essentially of a religious cast, and
were developed during the next two centuries in a very
large literature, which the band foisted almost altogether
upon Pythagoras or other older Pythagoreans, especially
Archytas. Among the personalities who represented this
direction of thought, and were therefore called neo-Py-
thagoreans, were P. Nigidius Figulus, a friend of Cicero,
Sotion, a friend of the Sextians (§ 49), and particularly
Apollonius of Tyana, Moderatus of Gades, and, in later
times, Nicomachus of Gerasa and Numenius of Apamea.

See M. Hertz, De Nigidii Figuli studiis atque oj^eribus (BerVm,
1845) ; also dissertations by Breysig (Berlin, 1854) and Klein
(Bonn, 1861).

Apollonius was the ideal of neo-Pythagorean wisdom to him-
self and to others, and he appeared with great eclat at the time
of Nero as the founder of a religion. His life is oddly embel-
lished by Philostratus (220 b. c.) (published by Westermann,
Paris, 1848, and Kayser, Leipzig, 1870-71). See Chr. Baur,
Apollonius von T>/ana unci Christus (in three editions, Leipzig,
187G) ; Ueberweg-Heinze, V. 300 f.

344 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

I
Numeoius, who lived in the second half of the second cen-
tury, was already under Philo's influence, and probably also >
under that of the Gnostics. The doctrine of the three gods is c
characteristic of him: (1) the supreme and supersensible; '
(2) the demiurge giving form to material things; (3) the uni- |
verse thus formed. (See F. Thedinga, I)e Numenii philos. ];)lat.^ •
Bonn, 1875.) We possess only the arithmetical and musical
works of his younger contemporary Nicomachus. For the spu-
rious literature essentially accounted for by a need of authority |
for the school, see in Fr. Beckmann, De Pytliagoreorum reliquiis :
(Berlin, 1844); Zeller, V'. 100 ff. I

Neo-Pythagoreanism joined monotheism to its fantastic I
cult of gods and daemons in entirely the same way in which ,
we meet this in the old Pythagoreans, in Plato, and in a 1
systematic way among the Stoics. But neo-Pythagorean- I
ism transformed its monotheism with the help of the Pla- I
tonic-Aristotelian teaching into a reverence for God as a j
pure spirit, which man has to serve not by outward sacri- |
fice and act but in spirit, with silent prayer, with virtue |
and wisdom. Apollonius travelled about the ancient world'
as the proclaimer of this pure knowledge of God and this :
higher worship. Pythagoras and he were honored as the ,'
perfect men in whom God had revealed himself. The sci- '
entific significance of the school, however, consisted in the
fact that it united with this cult a philosophical point of
view. One finds, indeed, this point of view in all its essen-
tials in Plato, Aristotle, and in part in the Stoa ; yet it is
distinguished from the other, one-sided moralizing impulse
of the time by its lively theoretic interests, which, although
dependent and unproductive, extended to logical and phys-
ical questions as well.

A sharp dualism of spirit and matter is the fundamental
postulate in this theory in the sense that the former is the
good, pure principle in life, and the latter the bad, unholy
principle. Although God is here likewise pictured in
Stoical fashion as t'lie irvevfjia immanent in the whole
world, nevertheless he must, on the other hand, be free

SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 345

from all contact willi inatler which might ])olIutc him.
Consequently he cannot directly act upon matter, but the
demiurge for this purpose is introduced as a mediator
between God and matter (Timaeus). The Ideas accordin"-
to which God perfects the world passed for the neo-Pytha<'-o-
reans only as archetypes in the divine spirit. They became,
in a similarly fantastic way, partly identified witli the
Pythagorean numbers, partly set in some secret relation-
ship, as they had begun to be regarded by Plato and his
immediate pupils. At the same time they are the foi'ms of
matter in the Aristotelian sense. In the graded interval
between God and matter, the daemons and stellar gods
find place above men.

The anthropological dualism of the neo-Pythagoreans is
consistent wdth their metaphysical dualism. The spirit is
punished by being confined in a corporeal prison, and can
free itself again through purification and expiation, through
mortification of the flesh, and through godly life. The Pla-
tonic theory of the three parts of the soul is blended wUh
the Aristotelian teaching of the vov^ (Tima3us), and im-
mortality is represented in the (partially conscious) mythical
form of transmigration. The moral and religious problem
is how to suppress the senses. In the solution of this prob-
lem man is helped by mediating dsemons and by divine
revelation, wdiich speaks in holy men like Pythagoras and
Apollonius.

Pythagoras is said to have revealed such doctrine to his
band and to have veiled it in his theory of numbers, Plato to
have borrowed it from him. The later neo-Pythagoreans, par-
ticularly Numenius, referred the revelation still further back to
Moses. This is due to Pliilo's influence.

The authoritative importance whicli tlie fundamental opposi-
tion of good and bad has for the neo-Pythagorean idea of the
world makes this philosophy appear au offshoot of the Old
Academy. Its historical transition is through eclectic Phito-
nism, supposably in the form that Posidonius connected it in
Stoicism. ISee K. lleinze, Xenocrates, p. 156.

346 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

The divergence of neo-Pytliagoreanism from the Platonic
metaphysics consisted essentially in its stripping the Ideas (and
numbers) of their metaphysical independence and in making
them thon2;hts in the divine mind. This is also the authorita-
tive conception for neo-Platonism. The far-reaching signifi-
cance of this change consisted in the fact that the immaterial
substance was thought as spirit, as conscious Immanence. The
beginning of this thought is to be found in the Aristotelian
vorjo-i? voTja-eoi^, its wider preparation in the Stoic doctrine which
contrasted the content of the ideas (to Xcktov) as incorporeal
to the objects, all of which are corporeal. This tendency
reached its perfect development in Philo's concept of the divine
personality.

Neo-Pj'thagoreanism was the Jirst system which exjyressed the
prmciple of authority in the form of divine revelation, and thus
against sensualism and rationalism it initiated the mystic di-
rection of ancient thought. The saints of this philosophical
religion are divinely favored men, to whom the pure doctrine
has in part been given. Theoretically this new source of knowl-
edge was designated still as vovs, as the immediate intuition of
the intelligible (votjtov). It is to be distinguished from the
Stavota, or the knowledge of the understanding, as also from the
So^a and the alo-O-qc-i'^.

Daemonology was the theoretic basis for the peculiar amal-
gamation of this monotheism with the Mysteries. It rested
upon the need of bridging the chasm between God's tran-
scendence and the world. But it offered the possibility of
uniting all the fantastic faiths and cults into one system.
The detailed system of divination which the neo-Pythagoreans
got from the Stoics was united with this theory.

The peculiar blending of Platonism and Judaism was
also closely related to the above neo-Pythagoreanism, and
was completed at the beginning of our era in the so-called
Alexandrian religious philosophy. Pliilo of Alexandria
was its leader.

A. Gfrorer, Philo imd die alex. Theosophie (2 ed., Stuttgart,
1835) ; F. Diihne, Die jildisch. -alex. Religionsphilosophie (Halle,
1834) ; M. Wolff, Die j^hilonische Philosophie (2 ed., Gothen-
burg, 1858). Concerning the Aoyo? doctrine, see F. Keferstein,
Philo's Lehre von dem gottlichen 3Iitteltresen (Leipzig, 1846) ;
J. Bucher, Philonische Studien (Tubingen, 1848) ; Ferd. De-
launey, Philo d'Alex, (Paris, 1867); J. Reville, ie /o^os d'apres

SKEPTICISM AND SYNOIIKTISM 347

riiilo (Geneva, 1877) ; Histories of Judaism by Just, Graetz,
and Abr. Geiger; Ewidd, Gesch. des Volkes Israel; Dorner,
Enttoickehuujsijescli. der Lehre von der Person Christi u. andere
do(/nien(jesch. Werke ; see Ueberweg-Heinze, F. 292 f.

Philo (born about 25 b. c. and died 50 a. d.) came from one
of the most intluential Jewish families in Ah^xandria. He
headed the embassy in 39 and 40 that the Alexandrian Jews
sent to Caligula. His writings, among wdiich there is much
that is doubtful and spurious, have been published by Th. IVlan-
gey (London, 1742), C. E. Richter (Leipzig, 1838 ff.), and
stereotyped by Tauchnitz (Leipzig, 1851 ff.). See Ch. G. L.
Grossman, Qua'stiones Fhilonecje (Leipzig, 1829, and other edi-
tions) ; Jac. Beruays, Die unter PJdlo's Werken stehende Sclirijl
ilber die Etcigheit der Welt (published by Berlin Academy,

1877) ; concerning the writing irepl tov iravra (nrov^aiov eu^at eXeu-

Ocpov^ see K. Ausfeld (Gottingen, 1887) and P. Wendland,
Arch. f. GescJi. d. Philos., I. 509 ff. ; H. v. Arnim, Quellen-
Shidien zu Philo (Berlin, 1889) ; J. Drummond, Philo Judceus
(London, 1888) ; ]M. Freudenthal, Die Erkenntnistheorie Philo's
(Berlin, 1891).

As earl}^ as the middle of the second century before this era
there can be seen influences of Greek philosophy, especially
Platonic, Stoic, and Aristotelian theories, at work in the inter-
pretation of the Jewish scriptures (Aristobulus, Aristeas,
etc.). All doctrines of any essential importance are included
by Philo.

Li the philosophy of Philo, the theory of the transcen-
dence of God is more distinct than in any other form of
Alexandrian thought. God is so far beyond all finiteness
that he can be defined only negatively through the denial
of every empirical quality (avroto?), and wholly abstractly,
as an absolute Being (to 6V, — according to the Platonic
principle also ro yevvLKwTarov^, This absolute Being is
beyond all human ideas of perfectness, even beyond virtue
and wisdom. Nevertheless the divine Being is the foi'ce
that forms the universe by his goodness and rules it with
his might.^ Since God cannot enter into direct relations
with impure and evil matter which in contrast to him
is passive, potencies (Svudfi€i,<;) go out from him with which

^ The references here are similar to those in the writing 7rf/)t Kua-fiov.

348 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

he forms and directs the world. These (Stoical) potencies
were identified on the one hand with the Platonic Ideas, and,
on the other, with the angels of the Jewish religion. Their f
unit}^, however, is the Logos, the second God, the con- |
tent, on the one hand, of all original Ideas (X0709 evhidOero^:
= ao(j)ia'), and, on the other, of the teleological formative f
forces (X0709 iTpoc^opiKo^) that reveal God's presence in j

the world.

In man, as the microcosm, the spirit (yov^) in its eternal
heritage stands in contrast to the body of mortality (crdp^).
It is so involved by its own guilt that it can only get
release from the universal sinfulness by divine help. Its
problem is how to become like the pure spirit of God. Its
attainment of indifference to all desires, modelled after the
Stoic apathy, and its purification which rises above this
ethical ideal into knowledge (the Aristotelian dianoetic
virtue) are upward steps toward that highest blessedness
which is only reached in an ecstatic state of absorption in
the divine Being, with the full surrender of one's individu-
ality. This supra-conscious ecstasy (eKaracns:) is accorded
as a revelation and gift of God only to the most perfect
men.

Platonic and Stoic thories, and incidentally also the Aris-
totelian, were mingled in the Pliilosopliy of Philo in the most
complicated manner. With an abundant empk:)yment of the
Stoic method of allegorical myth-interpretation he read these
theories into the primitive records of his religion, i. e., into the
teaching of Moses. He found not only in Moses but in the
teachings of Greek philosophy that revekation of God to which
human knowledge alone can never attain. In these religious
revelations Pliilo distinguished the corporeal and spiritual, the
verbal and conceptual sense. God has to reveal himself to
sensuous man in a manner that man may comprehend. There-
fore it is the task of philosophy (or theology) to reinterpret the
religious records into a system of conceptual insight. Compare
Siegfried, Pliilo von Alex, als Ausleger des alten Testaments
(Jena, 1875).

The later so-called "negative theology," which in Philo re-

PATRISTICS 319

gardcd God as the absolutely inconceivable and inexpressible,
corresponded to the theory of ecstasy in which also the human
spirit was conceived to be lifted out of evcrytliing limited
and representable, and thereby itself became God {aTroOeovcrdaL,
deijicatio).

The mediation between the neo-Pythagorean transcendence
and the Stoic immanence was in the divine potencies. These
on the one side inhere in God as Ideas, and on the other work
upon matter as independently active potencies. The Logos has
also the same specious double aspect of a divine potency and
an independent personality. The need of a unifying mediation
between God and the world is consistently conceived in the
conception of the Logos.

Finally, in a similar manner, the Platonists of the first
and second centuries of this era, under the influence of tlie
neo-Pythagorean teaching, perfected a mysticism which sub-
stituted a confident faith in divine revelation for the ethical
Wisdom of the earlier philosophy. The exponents of this
are Plutarch of Cha^ronea and Apuleius of Madaura.

See Zeller, V^ 203 ff. ; Ueberweg-IIeinze, 303 ff. To this
religious eclectic circle belong the writings current under the
name of Hennes-Trismegistas. See R. Pietschmann, Hermes
Ti'ismegistus (Leipzig, 1875).

Plutarch's philosophical w^ritings (Moralia) form, in the edi-
tion of Diibner (Paris, 1841), volumes III. and IV. See R.
Volkmaun, Leben, Scliriften unci Pliilos. des Fhitarch's (2 ed.,
Berlin, 1872) ; E. Dascaritis, Die Psycliologie u. Pddagogik des
Plutarch's (Gotha, 1889) ; C. Giesen, Be Phdarcho contra
Stoicos disjmtationihus (JNIVuister, 1890) ; von Willamowitz-
Mollendorf, Zit PlutarcJi, Gastmahl der sieben Weisen (in the
Hermes, 1890). There belongs m the same connection withtlie
philosophical writings of Apuleius (collected by Hildebrand,
Leipzig, 18-12) his well-known romance, the Golden Ass, whose
sharp satire seems to be based allegorically upon the neo-
Pythagorean mystic view of the world and life.

3. Patristics.

The religious Platonism of the first centuries of our era,
in the breadth and varictv of its assimilations of the most
different religious convictions, showed a change in the

850 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY '

philosophical point of view. Science as well as philosoph}'j
was placed in the service of a feverish religious need
Philosophy was no longer to be an ethical art of life but a'
religion. When, on the other hand, science was beginning;
to be weary of the problem, the new religion began its tri-(
umphant march through the ancient world.

The Gospel originally took no note of science; it wasi
neither its friend nor foe, and its attitude to the ancient j
political state was like its attitude to science. It had, nev-
ertheless, to assume more of a positive relation to both, the
more it spread, following its own natural impulse among,
the people on the Mediterranean Sea. In both cases the ;
course of things was as follows : the Church, in its need of
self-justification, found itself in positive contact with the'
world, and assimilated gradually the ancient life ; thus-.
it finally overcame Greek science as well as the Roman il
state,^ — an impossible result unless Christianity reactedli
in turn and adopted the essentials of antiquity for its own..,

The philosophical secularizing of the Gospel which wentt
^n parallel with the organization and political growth of the^'
cliurch was called Patristics, and extended from the second!!
to the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ.

Patristics in the general history of philosophy is usually sep-
arated from the development of ancient thought, and then is.j
afterwards generally treated as the beginning of Christian phi--i
losophy. It is not our purpose to pass judgment upon the
propriety and usefulness of the usual arrangement, when we
make this sketch deviate from that arrangement, or when we ,
draw the most general outlines of Patristic philosophy. This^
sketch is made, not only because the Patristic philosophy be--
longs in its time relations to antiquity,- but the principal reason i;

1 See K. J. Neumann, Bei' roinlsche Staat unci die allgemeine Kirclie '
his atif Diokletian, I. (Leipzig, 1890). i

2 These actual relations show themselves so strong that the present t|
author develops the arrangement introduced here, in his general Ge-->
schichte der PhilosopJue ; and he has found them by far the best for the
exposition of scientific development in the first centuries of our era.

PATRISTICS 351

is that in it is to be seen a final development of ancient thoni!;lit '
corresponding tbronghont to neo-riatonisni. It is obvious that
all specilic theological moments are left out of account, and the
survey is limited strictly within philosoi)hical bounds. There is
certainly not much of philosophical originality to be expected
in this period. Originality can be found to some extent only
among the Gnostics and in Origen. Patristics is only a variation/
and development of Greek thought, and then only from a re-\
ligious point of view, — a point of view in which ardent long-
ing has given place to the firm conviction of faith.

With the text-books on the history of philosophy we must
compare the following histories of the church and of dogmatics,
if we would understand this subject. See Ilarnack, Lehrhuch
der Dogmengeschichte, Vol. I. (Freiburg i. B., 1886) ; Deutinger,
Geist der Christlicheii UeberUeferamj (Regensburg, 1850-51);
A. Ritschl, Die Entstehung der altkatolisdie Kirche (2 ed.,
Bonn, 1857) ; F. Chr. Baur, Das Christentum der ersten drei
Jahrhunderte (Tubingen, 18G0) ; Job. Alzog, Grundriss der
Patrologie (3 ed., Freiburg i. B., 1876) ; Alb. Stockl, Geschichte
der Philosophie der patristiscJien Zeit (Wiirzburg, 1859); Joh.
Huber, Die Pliilosoiyhie der Kirchenvdter (Munich, 1859) ; E.
Havet, Le christianisme et ses origines (2 vol., Paris, 1871) ;
Fr. Overbeck, TJber die Anfdnge der patristiscJien Litteratur (in
Hist. Zeitschrift, 1882). The sources of Patristic literature
are most completely collected by J. P. Migne in his collection :
Patrologice cursus completus (Paris, since 1860).

The occasion for Christianity taking some position toward
Greek science arose partly out of its polemically apologetic
interests, partly out of those that were dogmatic and con-
structive. With its missionary spirit Christianity stepped
out upon a scientifically blase world in wdiich even the less
educated people had learned to flee from their religious
doubt to philosophy, and in ^vhich philosophy was trying to
vouchsafe to those in religious need a contentment that
had been lost to the world. Christianity entered at the
same time into the religious controversies where, under
these circumstances, the victory w^ould belong to that ])arty
which absorbed most completely the culture of antiquity.
It therefore followed that the new religion had to defend
its faith theoretically against the mockery and contempt of

352 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

heathen wisdom, but at the same time it had to vindicate
itself as the fulfihnent of human need of salvation. The
Apologists undertook to accomplish this.

On the other hand, the unity and purity of the Christian
conceptions threatened to be lost with the spreading of the
community, on account of the many ways in which those
conceptions came into contact with the religious elements
of the Grseco-Roman and Oriental philosophies. The church
needed for its inner constitution not only the simple regula
fidei, but also a fundamentally scientific expression of this
formula, a fixed and conceptually developed system of dog-
matics. The Gnostics were the first to attempt such a
philosophical structure for Christianity. But inasmuch as
they at the first step made a striking departure from the
rule of faith, the solution of their problem fell into the
hands of the Alexandrian School of Catechists, which cre-
ated for Christianity its scientific dogma from the ripest
thought of the Grecian world.

51. To a philosophical vindication of Christianity, natur-
ally only such members of that communion could be called
who had a mastery over the thought of Greek and Roman
philosophy. But even these men, if their purpose was to
rationalize the new religion, would be necessarily inclined
to bring the content of the new faith as near as possible to
the results of ancient science, and to read into the old
philosophy the teachings of the new faith. Unintention-
ally, therefore, the Gospel was hellenized by the Apolo-
gists, the most important of whom are Justin Martyr,
Athenagoras, and, among the Romans, Minucius Felix,
and, later, Lactantius.

Corpus Ajpohxjetarum Christianorum seculi secundi, published
by Otto (Jena, since 1842).

Of the predecessors of Justin, we must notice Aristides of
Athens especially, wliose fragments (published in Venice, 1878)
contain a philosophical argumentation for Christianity as a re-
vealed monotheism.

PATRISTICS 353

Flavius Justin Martyr of Sichcm (Flavia Neapolis), in Sa-
maria, a man of Greek origin and culture, after investiirating
several contemporaneous systems of science, came to the con-
I Jvictiou tlio t only the Christian faith was the true philosophy.
He suffered death at Rome (163-lGG) for defence of this doc-

ine. Of his writings (see first volumes of Otto's edition) the

ialogue with the Jew Triphon and both the Apoloyies are gen-
ine. See K. Semisch, Justin der Mdrtyrer (Breslau, 1840-42) ;

. Aube, St. Justin^ Philosoj^he et Martyr (Paris, 1861); M. v.

ngelhardc, Das Christenthum Justin d. Mlirtyrer (Erlangen,
Sb^). Justin's two Apologies have been translated into Ger-

an and analyzed by H. Veit.

Athenagoras of Athens addressed to Marcus Aurelius (176-

177) his 7rpeo-/3eta ircpi Xpto-Ttavwv. There is also preserved his

cpt dvao-Tao-eco? ruiv veKpwv (in Otto's edition, Vol. VII.). See

h. A. Clarisse, De Athenag. vita scriptis et doctrina (Leyden,
il819) ; F. Schurbriug, Die Philosophie des Athenag. (Bern,
"882).

The conception which Theophilus of Antioch (about 180)
embodied in his address to Autolycus in writing {Corpus^ Vol.
VIII.) is related to the above. The Apology oi Melito of Sardis
and ApoUinaris of Hierapolis is likewise related.

The apologetic dialogue, Octavius (about 200), of Minucius
Felix (pul'lished in the Corpus scriptorwn ecclesiasticorum lati-
norum^ by C. Halm, Vienna, 1867) presents Christianity nearly
entirely in the sense of ethical rationalism. See A. Soulet,
Essai sur V Octavius de Min. Fel. (Strassburg, 1867) ; R. Kiihl,
Der Oktavius d. Min. Fel. (Leipzig, 1882).

Similar ideas are found in beautiful form, but without philo-
sophical significance in the rhetorician Firmianus Lactantius
(died about 325). He undertook in his chief work, the lustitti-
tiones divince, to make a system of Christian morals, whose
individual characteristics were to be found strewn in Greek
philosophy, which nevertheless in their totality could only be
conceived as ultimately grounded through a divine illumina-
tion. See J. G. Th. Miiller, Quoistiones Lactantiece (Gottingen,
1875). /'

These lielleiiizing apologists sought to prove that Chris- 'x

tianity was the only "true philosophy," in that it guaranteed

not only correct knowledge but also right living and true

holiness here and hereafter. They based the pre-eminence

of Christian philosophy upon the perfect revelation of God

in Jesus Christ. For only through divine inspiration docs

354 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the rational come to man, who is buried in the wicked
' sense-world and is in the toils of dasmons. Nevertheless
inspiration has been active from the beginning in human
life. Everything that the great teachers of Greece — Py-
thagoras, Socrates, Plato — have known of the truth, they
have owed not solely to their own reason. They have, in
part, got it directly through divine revelation, and, in part,
indirectly through the inspired teaching of Moses and the
prophets, whom they were said to have used. But all these
( revelations are only sporadic and embryonic (\0709 airep-
IxariKos;^, In Jesus first is the divine Logos perfectly and
completely revealed and become man. For the Godhead,
who is nameless and inexpressible in itself, has unfolded
his entire essence in his Son.

The peculiarity of the teaching of these men, especially of
Justin, is the thoroughgoing and detailed identification of rea-
son and revelation. The way was prepared in the Stoic Logos-
concept for this and in its transformation at the hands of
^•Philo, in which the materialistic character of the Xdyos was
stripped off and only the omnipresent character of the divine
spirit in nature and history remained. When, therefore, Justin
found nearly all the moments of Christian truth, the ethical
bearing of which he strongly emphasized, already in ancient
philosophy, when he opined that something of the truth of sal-
vation as a natural endowment (e/x^vrov) has come to all people
by divine grace, he was regarding as inspired what is natural
and rational according to Greek science. Therefore in that
teaching approved by him and sanctioned as Christian, he
found partly an immediate revelation, partly an appropriation
of the statements of Moses and the prophets, of whom he
thought Plato had ample knowledge. Philo had already done
this before Justin. On the other hand, in contrast to the in-
definite search for a revelation which characterized neo-Pythago-
reanism and the other forms of mystic Platonism, the Apologists
had the enormous advantage of a faith in a determinate, abso-
lute, positive, and historical revelation in Jesus Christ. In their
representing him, they united the Logos conception of Philo
with the ethical religious meaning of the Jewish ideal of a
Messiah. They designated him, therefore, as the " second
God," created by the Father, in whom divine revelation had
been incarnated.

PATIUSTICS 355

The metaphysical dualism of the Apologists stood in intimate
relation to their theory of inspiration. Tiiey metaphysically set
the aiJiopcl>o<i v\r) over against the Godhead, who forms the world
through the Logos, entirely in a Tlatonic and neo-l*ythagoreau
sense. The entl of this is to conceive matter as in every way
reasonless and bad. Thus results, as their fundamental prin-
ciple, the following : the Logos, as the content of divine revela-
tion, has appeared in Jesus Christ the man in order to redeem
man fallen in sin, and to establish the kingdom of God.

52. The desire to transmute faith (Tr/crrt?) and its au-
thoritative content into conceptual knowledge {yvcoac^) be-
gan very early in the Christian communion. The Pauline
epistles show this. It was completed in a larger way at
the beginning of the second century within the Syriac-
Alexandrian circles of Christians. Here nco-Pytliagorean,
Platonic, and Philonic thought met in a heightened fancy,
the occasion of which was the Svriac mixture of Oriental
and Occidental cults and mythologies. The rivalry of re-
ligions was reduced in the presentation of these Gnostics
to a Christian philosophy of religion, whose disciples, being
chiefly the members of the communion steeped in Hellenic
culture, constituted themselves in many localities as unique
Mysteries. They perfected an idealism with the fantastic
mythological formulae of the East, and lost, on this account,
all sympathy with the majority of the Christian commun-
ion, so that they were finally set aside as heretics. The
leaders of Gnosticism were Saturninus, Carpocrates, Basil-
ides, Yalentinus, and Bardesanes.

A. W. Neander, Genetische Entwickelung cler vornehmsten
gnostischen Systeme (Berlin, 1818) ; E. Matter, Histoire critique
dii gnosticisme (2 ed., Paris, 1843) ; F. Chr. Baur, Die christ-
lic/ie G?iosis ocler JRelirjionspliilosophie (Tubingen, 1835); A.
Lipsius, Der Gnostizismus (Leipzig, 18G0 ; separately published
in Ersch u. Gruber, Vol. 71); H. 8. Mansel, The Gnostic
Heresies (London, 1875) ; A. Harnack, Zur Qiipllenkritik der
Geschichte des Gnostizismus (Leipzig, 1873) ; A. Hilgenfeld,
Die Ketzerqeschichte des Urcliristentums (Jena, 1884) ; M. Joel,
Blicke in die RoHrjionsgeschichte zu Anfang des zweiten Jahr-
hunderts (Bveslixuy ISSO-l^SS) .

356 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Of the conditions of life of the eminent Gnostics but little
is known. Only very few fragments of their writings are
preserved. Among these is particularly the ttlo-tls cro^ia of an
unknown author from the circle of Valentinians (published by
Petermann, Berlin, 1851). As for the rest, the knowledge we
have of the doctrine of these men is limited to what their op-
ponents say about them, especially Irenseus {tXcyyp<i koI di/a-
rpoTT^ T^s i/'euSwi/v/xou yvwo-eo)?, Leipzig, 1853), Hippolytus {eX€yxo<;
KaTOL naa-wv atpeo-ewv, Oxford, 1851), Justin, Tertullian (adversus
Valentmianos)^ Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius,
Augustine, and SaturninuS; who came from Antioch and taught
in the time of Hadrian. Carpocrates flourished about 130 in
Alexandria, and was contemporary to Basilides the Syrian.
The career of the most notable of these men, Valentinus, falls
somewhat later. Valentinus lived at Rome and died in Cyprus
about 160. Bardesanes was born in Mesopotamia and lived
155-225.

See lihlhorn. Das hasilidianische System (Gottingen, 1855) ;
G. Heinrici, Die vale7itinia7iische Gliosis u. die heil. Schrift
(Berlin, 1871) ; Fr. Lipsius, Valentinus u. seine Schule (Jahrb.
f.prot. TheoL, 1887); G. Kostlin, Das gnost. System cles Bucks
TTLo-TLs (TO(f>La (Tkeol. Jakrb. Tubingen, 1854) ; A. Hilgenfeld, Ba?'-
desanes der letzte Gnostiker (Leipzig, 1864).

The fundamental principle which secures to the Gnostics
a permanent place in the history of philosophy in spite of
the sensualistic and mythological fancifulness with which
they developed this principle, is their plan on a great scale
of a philosophy of history. This plan originated in their
fundamental religious thought. Since Christianity wished
to conceive itself as a victory both over Judaism and
Heathenism, the Gnostic interpreted the battle of religions
allegorically as a battle of the gods of these religions.
They interpreted this battle intellectually also into a theory
that upon the appearance of the Redeemer not only the de-
velopment of the human race but also the history of the uni-
verse reached its denouement. This denouement, however,
is the fundamental part of Christianity : the redemption of
the iviched through the perfect revelation of the highest God
through Jesus Christ.
), The transformation of all nature philosophy into ethical-

rATRISTlCS 357

religious categories is consequently the fundamental form
of the philosophy of the Gnostics. They undertook at first
with a radical one-sidedness to conceive the universe en-
tirely from a religious jwint of view. They thought of the
cosmic process as a strife hetween good and evil, which is
ended in the redemption of the world by Christ, giving the
good tlie victory.

So far as this antithesis was logically conceived, it a})-
peared in the form of a neo-Pythagorean dualism of spirit
and matter. In the mythological embodiment of it, how-
ever, which took up by far the greatest space in the Gnos-
tic systems, the heathen da3mons and the god of the Old
Testament, who had the form of the Platonic demiurge,
were considered the powers of this world to be overcome.
They were brought into opposition to the true God, who
conquered them by the revelation of Jesus, to the same ex-
tent as other religions are brought in opposition to Chris-
tianity.

The beginnings of the Greek natural sciences were of such a
nature that there seemed to be no possibility of giving a satis-
factory answer, even in the great teleologieal systems, to the
question of the significance of historical development in its en-
tirety. The science that was wanting to them was the philosopliy
of history, and of this want the world must needs become con-
scious when ancient culture was in its senility. The Gnostics
are therefore the first iiliUosophers of history. Since there
stands as the centre of their philosophy of history the Christian
principle of the salvation of the Avorld by Jesus Christ, they
must be acknowledged as philosophers of Christian history and
religion, in spite of their deviation from later orthodoxy.

The conquest of Judaism by Christianity was tlms mytholo-
gized by men like Cerinthus, the Syrian Cerdo, and particu-
larly Mareion and his pupil Apelles. The God of the Old
Testament who formed tlie world and gave the Judaic law was
conceived as a daemon lower than the highest God, who was
revealed by Christ. The former is recognizable in nature and
in the Old Testament ; the latter is inexpressible and unknow-
able; the former is only just, the latter is good, — an ethical
distinction emphasized by Mareion particularly.

358 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

This way of representiog things led the Gnostics into a dual-
ism between good and bad, spirit and matter. The dualism be-
tween spirit and matter was developed in a true Hellenic
fashion with a most decided leaning to neo-Pythagorean syncre-
tism by Carpocrates, but by Saturninus, and particularly by
Basilides (see Irenaeus), by means of Oriental mythology. Accord-
ing to the astronomical dualism of the Pythagorean and Aris-
totelian thought, the space between God and the world is filled
by whole races of daemons and angels that are arranged ac-
cording to numerical symbols. The lowest of these is far
enough distant from the divine perfectness so that the lowest
can have relationship with the impure material, and as demiurge
form the world. In this world then, as already in the spirit
world, the battle of the perfect and imperfect, of light and
darkness, waged until the Aoyos, the vov?, Christ, the most per-
fect of the aeons, came down to the world of the flesh to re-
lease the spirit shut up in matter. This is the fundamental
idea of Gnosticism, and its different mythological shadings are
of no philosophical importance.

Their anthropology in a corresponding manner distinguished
in man the material of sense {vX.r]), the daemonic soul {^vxq)j
and the divine spirit {Trvevixa). According, then, to the preva-
lence of one of these three elements man is either spiritual,
psychic, or material, — a distinction which was incidentally
identified by Valentinus with that between Christianity, Ju-
daism, and Heathendom.

This dualism originated apparently in the Alexandrian, that
is, the Hellenic, circle, and assimilated later some analogies from
Parseeism. Manichaeism arose later (third century) from the
influence of the Gnostics upon the religions of the East. It
^as an extreme dualistic religion, and played an important role
in the intellectual controversies of the following centuries (F.
Chr. Baur, Das wMnichdische Religion ssy stem (Tlibingen,
1831) ; O. Fliigel, Mani u. seine Lelire (Leipzig, 1862) ; A.
Geyler, Das System des ManichdismAis (Jena, 1875).

This dualism accorded with the Christian's ethical convic-
tions as well as with those growing out of his need of redemp-
tion ; but not with his metaph3^sical principles, which could
recognize no other power in the world besides the living God
and be consistent with its Jewisli traditions. The monistic
feeling naturally turned away from the dualism of Greek
thought and tried to overcome it. Later forms of Gnos-
ticism approached Monism, which predominated among the
orthodox churclimen. At the same time it sought to explain
dualism by a theory of emanation from the divinity, and it had

PATRISTICS 359

las its model the Stoic theory of tlie change of the cosmic fire
into its elements. It itself in turn thus became the model for
jneo-riatouism. The school of Basilides, if the statement of
IIi})polytus refers to it, followed out tiiis motive, and it was
[perha[)s intluenccd by the notable Gnostic, Valentinus.

Valentinus undertook first to transfer the antitliesis to the *
[original divine being ( TrpoTrarcop) . He called it the eternal
[Depth (jSu^ds), wdiich created out of its underived and unspeak-
able content (o-ty?; _ ewoia) in the first place the irXrjpw^a, the
world of Ideas. From this world, one Idea, aocjiLa^ falls on
account of its unbridled longing for the Father and creates
the sense world ^ through the deminrge. There was here at-
tempted for the first time in entirely mythical form the conquest
of Greek dualism and the establishment of an idealistic mon-
ism, w^hich w^as a fantastic precreatiou of neo-Platonism.

In their teaching and their cult the Gnostic mysteries
were so far distant from the Christian Church which had
been continuously developing its organization, that Gnosti- ^
cism was placed under the ban as heresy. Its bold phi-
losophy of religion called forth on the one hand an ex-
treme reaction against turning faith into a science, and
on the other a polemical limitation of dogma to the
simplest content of the regula fidei. Tatian and Tertul-
lian are to be named here : the one as the radical cham-
pion of Orientalism, which beheld in all Greek culture the
work of the Devil ; the other as the ingenious and narrow-
minded opponent of rationalism. Tertullian pushed the
anthropological dualism so far as to maintain that the
truth in the Gospel is confirmed just because it contradicts
human reason. Credo quia ahsurdum. Contem))oraneously
with Tertullian and Tatian, Iren^eus (140-200) and his
pupil Hi])polytus combated the anti- Judaic philosoi)hy of
history of the Gnostics with the Pauline theory of a divine
method of education. According to this theory the Judaic
Law was " our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." They
also formulated a religious philosophy of liistory in that

\} Windulband, History of Philosophy, 251, n. 2. — Tr.]

360 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

they conceived the historical process as a teleological scries
of acts of divine redemption, which expresses in the con-
ception of the church QeKKXrjcrla) the ideal community of
mankind. This anti-Gnosticism was not able to maintain
itself without help from Greek philosophy (Stoicism in
Tertullian, Philonism inlrenasus and Hippolytus) and even
from Gnosticism itself, especially in Tatian, who later
went over entirely to Valentinian Gnosticism.

Tatian was an Assyrian. His treatise, Trpos "EXXT^vas, which
used the Justinian reflections for a polemic against all phi-
losophy and set up against the Greek pretended wisdom the
faith of the barbarians, is to be found in Otto's collection,
Vol. VI. (Jena, 1851), printed lately by E. Schwartz (Leipzig,
1888). See Dauiel, Tertullian der Ajyolo^jet (UaWe, 1837).

Tertulliau (160-220), in his last years champion of the Mon-
tanists, is the Christian Stoic. His strict, relentless morality
and his abrupt contrast of sensationalism and morality is con-
joined with a fantastic materialism and sensualism. His
numerous writings, partly apologetic, partly polemic, partly hor-
tatory, are published by F. Oehler (Leipzig, 1853 if.). Compare
A. W. Neander, Antignosticus ; Geist des Tertullian und Jihi-
leitv.ng in dessen Schriften (2 ed., Berlin, 1849) ; A. Hauck,
Tertullian'' s Lehen und Schriften (Erlangen, 1877) ; G. R
Hauschild, Tertallian^s Psychologie und Erkenntniss-Theorie
(Leipzig, 1880).

This same spirit, but without tlie paradoxical originality of
Tertullian, occurred later in the African Rhetorician, Aruobius,
who wrote his thesis Adversus gentes about 300 (published by
A. Reifferscheid in the Corpus scriptoruni eccl. lat.^ Vienna,
1875). Pie and Tertullian uphold in a t3q:>ical way the theory
that orthodoxy, intending to demonstrate authorit}^, grace,
and revelation to be absolutely necessary for men, suppresses
the natural intelligence as far as possible, and makes com-
mon cause with sensualism and its skeptical consequences.

Excepting some fragments, the writings of Irenneus exist
only in Latin translations. See Bohringer, D/6 7i/i;r7ie Christi
(Zurich, 18G1), I. 271 ff. ; H. Ziegler, Irenaeus, der .^ischof vo7i
Lyon (Berlin, 1871) ; A. Gouillond, St. Iremvus et son temps
(Lyon, 187G). The work of Hippolytus, whose first book was
earlier than the (faXoaocfiovfxeva of Origeu, is published hy Duncker
and Schneidewin (Gottingen, 1859). See Bunsen, Hippolytus
und seine Zeit (2 vols., Leipzig, 1852 f.).

PATRISTICS 301

53. The scientific statement of the reli.<j:ion of tlie Chris-
tian church likewise took final form in Alexandria in tlie
use of the Gnostic and the Apologetic theories by the
School of Catechists. Clement of Alexandria (about 200)
and Origen, the founder of Christian theology, were the
leaders of this school.

Gnerike, De schola, qucc Alexandrian floruit catechetica (Halle,
1824 f.) ; C. W. Hasselbach, De schola, quce Alexand rice floruit
catechetica (Stettin, 1826) ; further the writings of E. Matter, J.
Siuion, I. Vacherot

The three chief writings that are preserved of Clement are

Xoyos Trporpe—TLKo^ Trpos EAAT^ras, Tratoaycoyos and oTpw/xarctg. The

last has especial significance in the history of philosophy.
Clement's dependence on Philo appears clearly in his teaching.
It is Diutatis mutandis the application of the principles of Philo
to Christendom, and it is related to Christendom in exactly the
same way as Philo's teaching to Judaism. Although there-
fore not throughout philosophically independent, Clement has
the great significance that through him and the more orig-
inal Ibrm of his theory in Origen, eclectic Platouism, strongly
mixed as it was with Stoical elements, was definitely crystal-
lized iuto Christian dogma. See Diihne, De yvoScrei Clementis
Alex, et de vestigiis neoplatonicae, pliilosopldce in ea obviis (Leii>
zig, 1831) ; J. Reinkens, De flcle et yvwau Clementis (Breslau,
1850) and De Clemente j^reshytero Alexandrino (Breslau, 1851) ;
Liimmer, Clement Alex, de Aoyw doctinna (Leipzig, 1855) ;
Ilebert-Duperron, Essai sur la polemique et la philo sojjhie de
Clement (Paris, 1855) ; J. Cognat, Clement d^Alexandrie sa
doctrine et sa 2)olemlque (Paris, 1858) ; H. Treisehe, Do yi/ojcret
Clementis Alex. (Jena, 1871).

Origen (185-254), whose surname was the Adamantine,
appeared early as teacher in the School of Catechists that had
been directed by Clement. He attended afterward the lectures
of Ammonius Saccus (§ 54). He had to endure much persecu-
tion on account of his teaching, and, driven from Alexandria,
he spent his old age in C?esarea and Tyre. The most important
philosophical writings of his are Trept apx^^v and Kara KcXo-ov.
Celsus, a Platonic philosopher, wrote between 170 and 180 his
aXyjOr]<; Aoyos, which was partly a reconstruction of the opposing
thesis of Origen, and contained an arsenal of verbal weapons
against Christianity. See Th. Keim, Celsus's icahres Wort (Zurich,
1873); E. Pelagant, itude sur Celse (Lyon, 1878); Origen's
thesis concerning Principles is preserved almost exclusivel}' in

362 HISTORY OE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

the Latin version by Rufinns. See Migne, vol. 11-17 ; G. Tho-
masius, Origenes (Niimberg, 1837) ; liedepenuing, Origines,
eine Darstellung seines Lebens u. seiner Lelire (2 vols., Bonn,
1841-46) ; J. Denis, De la pMlosoiohie d^Orighie (Paris, 1884) ;
A. Harnack, DogmengeschicJite^ I. 512 ff.

Anticipated thus by Clement, Christian theology was
founded by Origen as a scientific system. For if the church
then and later took offence at some of Origen's doctrines
and supplanted them, yet his philosophical point of view
and his conceptual structure remained in a manner authori-
tative for the permanent foundation of Christian dogma in
the shape into which he had developed it from the ideas of
the Alexandrian school. Origen has the significance that
in trying to transform Tricrrt? into 'yvoi(Ti<; (he called it also
ao(f)la), he was not carried away from the Christian fun-
damental principles by mythical speculation or by philo-
sophical theories. So far as its purpose is concerned, his
teaching is then wholly parallel to Gnosticism. But while
the Gnostic boldly and deliberately created a separate and
individual form of Christianity, the Alexandrian school of
Catechists gradually began a scientific organization of the
universal Christian faith from within itself, and Origen
drew with steady hand the fundamental outlines within
whose limits later detailed developments were made.

The regnla ficlei and the canon accepted by the church of the
Holy Writ of the Old and New Testament were therefore for
Origen the source and measure of religious knowledge. The
science of faith is the methodical explanation of the Gospel.
After the manner of Philo, Origen said this method consisted in
the translation of historical into conceptiial relations. Tlie
historical element in revelation is only the " somatic " meaning
of revelation, and is intelligible to the masses. The " psychic "
meaning of revelation is its moral interpretation, and is especially
applicable to the Old Testament. Above both is the " pneu-
matic " meaning of the philosophical teaching expressed in Holy
Writ. If thereby an esoteric is distinguished from an exoteric
Christianity {xpurriavo^ o-w/xariKos) , Origen justified himself by
claiming that revelation, equal everywhere in its content; is

■ suited in its form to the dilTerent endowments and stages of

■ development of the mind. As, therefore, the true spirit of the
Old Testament was first revealed in the Gospel, so ever behind
the New Testament is the eternal pneumatic gospel to be
sought, which is now, for the first time, revealed only to a few,
by the grace of God.

As the leading principle of the teaching of Origen, stands
the concept of God as the pure spirit, who in perfect
changelessness and unity (em? — fiovd^;) above all Beings
{iireKeLva rr)^ ovaia^;) is recognizable as the everlasting
author of all things, but in his entire fulness transcends all
human knowledge. His essential characteristic is the abso-
lute causality of his will. Creativeness is an essential ele-
ment of his being, and therefore his creative activity is as
eternal as himself. On account of his unique unchange-
ableness, nevertheless, his creative activity cannot deal
directly with ever-changing individual things, but only
with the eternal revelation of his own essence, with his
image the Logos (o X0709). The Logos is expressly con-
ceived by Origen as a person, as an hypostasized being.
He is indeed not 6 ^eo?, but still ^eo?, a Bevrepo^; Oeo^^ and
the Holy Spirit stands related to him as he is related to the
Father. The X0709 is related to the world as the ISea
ISecov, the archetype according to which the divine will
creates all things. Creation then is also everlasting, and \
made up of the endless number of spirits who are destined
to participate in divine blessedness, and all of whom shall
finally become part of the divine essence (^deoTrocov/nevot').
They are endowed, liowever, with freedom, to which is due
the fact that they each to a greater or less degree, in his
own manner, fall away from the divine essence. For their
purification God created matter, and thus do the spirits in
heaven become materialized and graded according to their
worth : the angels, the stars, mankind, and evil daemons.

In a characteristic and specifically Christian way, and in
opposition to Hellenic intellectualism, Origen emphasized tiie

364 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

will and the metaphysical meaning attached to it. The will of
God appears here as the eternal necessary development of his
being, but the wills of the spirits, as free temporal choice. The
two stand in a inutual relation that in the Platonic system
obtains beticeen ovaia and yevecn<?. In contrast to the unchange-
ableness and nnity of the divine will, the freedom of will of the
spirits includes the principle of variety, of change, in a word,
of nature processes. Freedom is the ground both of sin and
of materiality. So Origen made it possible to join with his
conception of the absolute causality of God, which conception
forbids the originality of matter, the existence of wickedness,
sense, and imperfection. He reconciled ethical transcendence
with physical immanence, — God as creator, but not creator of
evil. Faith in divine omnipotence and the consciousness of sin
are the two fundamental antithetical principles of Christian
metaphysics. Origen mediated between them by his conception
of freedom.

Eternal creation involves the acceptation of an endless series
of aeons, and of world systems, wherein fall and redemption
are continually repeated in new individuals. Yet this difficult
point is not further treated by Origen, but is avoided on ac-
count of the concentration of his attention upon the realm of
spirits.

The fallen spirits strive to rise from matter, to which
they are condemned for purification, and to return to their
divine source. In their own freedom do they aspire on
account of the divine essence within them, which is never
entirely lost, however deeply they may be abased. But
they do not have to act without the help of grace, which
was always active in man as a revelation from heaven, and
is revealed perfectly in the person of Jesus. One recog-
nizes that a propedeutic value was given by Origen here,
after the manner of the Apologists, to the heathen philoso-
phy, especially to Platonism and Stoicism. The eternal
X0709 has connected itself with the blameless ^Irv^v of Jesus
in a divine-human unity. Through his suffering he has
presented redemption as a temporal fact for the whole
body of believers, but through his essence the true illumina-
tion has been brought to those especially chosen (the pneu-
matically inspired). With his help, the eternal spirit has

NEO-PLATONISM 365

[attained different grades of redemption : faith, — the reli-

[gioiis understanding of the perceptual world, — knowledge
)f the \0709, and finally absolute absorption in the God-
head. Through the conjoined action of freedom and grace,

[all souls shall finally be redeemed, material existence shall
'anish, and salvation of all things be perfected in God

UdTroKardaracTL^;).

These are the coueeptual principles of Christian theology, as
>ngen developed them. They show that Christianity seized
bhe ideas of ancient philosophy and revised it with its own
religious principle. The changes which dogmatic develop-
nent made in the system pertain especially to eschatology
and Christology. As to Christology, Origen emphasized more
the cosmological than the soteriological aspect of the Aoyo?, and
neither is fully developed. The battles waged over his theory
in the third and fourth centuries until the perfect consolidation
of the Catholic dogma, are attributable to specific theological
motives, aud change none of his fundamental philosophical
principles.

4. Neo-Platonism.

The Hellenistic thought that ran parallel to Christian
scientific faith was neo-Platonism. Out of the same circles
of Alexandrian culture, in which all the forms of Greek
science and all religions met, arose two contemporaneous
theories, — the theory of Origen and that of Plotinus. As
we can see in Gnosticism a kind of precreation of Christian
theolosrv, so in the eclectic Platonisra influenced bv Philo
(particularly in Nuraenius) can we also see a preparation
for neo-Platonism.

Neo-Platonism and Christian theology had a community
of purpose and a common origin. Both were scientific
systems that methodically developed a religious conviction
and sought to prove that this conviction was the only true
source of salvation for the soul needing redemption.

But there is a great difference between the two. Chris-

366 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

tian theology was not only supported, but also gradually
regulated, by the religious consciousness of a community
organizing itself into a church. Neo-Platonism was a doc-
trine thought out and defended by individual philoso-
phers, which spread to associations of scholars, and then
sought to profit by contact with all kinds of mysteries.
Christian theology was the scientific external form of a
faith that had already mightily developed. Neo-Platonism
was an erudite religion, which tried incidentally to assimi-
late all the then existing cults. Although the scientific
strength of neo-Platonism was certainly not less than that
of Christianity, this attempt at assimilation was the cause
of its downfall.

The historical unfolding of neo-Platonism was in three
stages. In the first stage it was essentially a scientific
theory. In the next it was a systematic theology of poly-
theism, and in this it was in pronounced opposition to
Christianity. After it had gone to pieces in this way, it
sought in its third stage to become a scholastic recapitula-
tion of the entire Greek philosophy. We are accustomed
to designate these different phases as the Alexandrian, the
Syrian, and the Athenian schools, and to place, as the head
of each respectively, Plotinus, Jamblichus, and Proclus.

See E. Matter, J. Simon, and Vacherot; Barthelemy Saiot-
Hilaire, Sur le concours ouvert par V academic ., etc., sur
Vecole d' Alexandrie (Paris, 1845) ; K. Vogt, NeojAatonismus u.
Christentum (BerUn, 1836) ; K. Steinhart (in Pauly's Realen-
cyUopddie des Mass. Altertums) ; R. Hamerliug, Ehi Wort iiher
die Neuplatoniker (with examples translated into German,
Triest, 1858) ; H. Kellner, Hellenisvius w. Christentum oder die
geistige Reaktion des antiken Heidentums gegen das Christen-
tum (Cologne, 1866) ; A. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I. 663 ff.

54. The founder of neo-Platonism was Plotinus, born
204 A. D. in Lycopolis in Egypt. He received his philo-
sophical education in Alexandria, especially at the hands
of a certain Ammonius Saccus. He took part in the expe-

NEO-PLATONISM 367

ditiou of the Emperor (Jordiau in his Persian campaipi in
order to pursue scientifie studies in the Orient. About 244
he appeared with great ^clat as a teacher in Rome, and
died in 269 at a country estate in Campania. Among
his pupils were Amelius, and especially the publisher of
his documents, Porphyry.

Ancient traditions designate the porter Ammonius (175-
242) as the founder of neo-Platonism. He abandoned Chris-
tianity for Hellenism, and held impressive lectures in Alexan-
dria. Among his pupils were said to be, besides Plotinus and
the Christian Origen, Herennius (Erennius), Origen the
Platonist, and the rhetorician and critic Longinus (213-273).
Nothing is, however, at all certain about the teaching of Am-
monius, and these so-called pupils travel such theoretically
different ways that there is no good reason to speak of Ammo-
nius as the founder of the specific philosophy of Plotinus. See
W. Lyugg, Die Lehre des Ammonius (publication of Gesell-
schaft d. Wlssenschaft at Christiania, 1874).

The Platonist Origen is not the Patristic, as G. A. Heigl
supposes. See Der Bericht des Porphyrius iiher Or'iyenes
(Regensburg, 1835) ; G. Helferich, Untersuchungen aus der
Gehiet der klass. Alterthiunswissenschaft (Heidelberg, 1860).
He asserted (probably in opposition to Numenius) the identity
of God with that of the world-builder. See his writing on fxavos
TTOLTjTrj'i o I3acn\€v<s. Compare Zeller, V^. 461, 2.

Ets TO, fx€Ta(fiV(TLKd is the name of a document transmitted
under the name of Herennius, but it is a compilation of much
later origin. See A. Mai, Classicorum Auctorum^ IX. ; E. Heitz
(Berlin Sltzungsherichte^ 1889).

Longinus, who taught in Athens, held fast to the pure Pla-
tonic teaching of the reality of Ideas independent of the
Spirit, and was opposed to Plotinus' interpretation. In spite
of many doubters on the point, he is presumably the author of
a treatise under his name, irepl vif/ov^ (published by J. Vahlen,
1887). The rhetorical phases of the subject seem to have been
of chief interest to the author ; yet the treatise has real value
beyond this, for it developed in the highest spiritual and intel-
lectual manner the aesthetic concept of the sublime as not only
independent of the idea of the beautiful and co-ordinate with it,
but also in its numerous variations and applications. This
treatise had a very great intlueuce on the aisthetic theory and
criticism of later time.

368 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

If, in comparing the great systems of Origen and Plotiuus,
one wishes to draw a conclusion as to the doctrine of their
common teacher, one meets only the most universal principles
of the Alexandrian religion-philosophies, and even then perhaps
only the fundamental principles of overcoming metaphysically
the dualism which forms the presupposition of that philosoph3\
There is not even a hint that would let us trace these philoso-
phies back to Ammonius. He existed rather in the air, so far
as the development of Alexandrian thought was concerned.
The form of Ammonius is historically as colorless as perchance
the view ascribed to him that Aristotelianism and Platonism are
in essential agreement. See Zeller, V^ 454 ff.

Plotinus found so great recognition in the highest circles of
Rome that he desired to found a city of philosophers in Cam-
pania, with the help of the Emperor Gallienus. It was to be
called Platonopolis. It was to be arranged after the model of
the Republic, and would be a retreat for religious contemplation,
an Hellenic cloister. But it came to naught. Plotinus was
active in a literary way only in his old age, and he wrote his
doctrine in single treatises and groups of such. They were
classified by his pupil, Porphyry, in six enneads, and published.
They were translated into Latin by Marsilius Ficinus (Florence,
1492), and into Greek and Latin (Basel, 1580); new publica-
tions of them are : Oxford, 1835, Paris, 1855 ; Leipzig (by
Kirchhoff), 1856 ; Berlin (by H. MlUler), 1878-80. There is
also a German translation of them (Leipzig, 1883-84) by
Volkmann.

See K. Steinhart (in Pauly's Realencyklopddie) ; H. Kirchner,
Die Philosophie des Plotin's (Halle, 1854) ; A. Richter, Nevpla-
tonische Studien^ five volumes (Halle, 1864-67) ; H. v. Kleist,
Plotinische Studien (Heidelberg, 1883).

Porphyry, probably born and certainly brought up in Tyre,
became the true disciple of Plotinus in Rome. Besides pre-
senting and defending the doctrine of Plotinus, he busied
himself especially with making commentaries on the Platonic
and Aristotelian writings, and particularly on the logic of the
latter. His EiVaycoyr; €ts Ta.<; Karr/yopm? is preserved. It is pub-
lished by Busse (Berlin, 1887). This became exceedingly im-
portant for the Middle Ages, as was also his biography of
Plotinus (see Kirchhoff and MiiUer's publication of the works
of Plotinus) and his smaller single writings. See bibliography in
Ueberweg-Heinze, V. 313. See also the Parisian Plotiuus edition.

The problem of the Alexandrian philosophy of religion
was the same for the Hellene as for the Christian. In the

NEO-PLATONISM 309

development of ancient thought, the individualization and
the conteniplativeness of the spiritual life kept e(pial pace,
and creat(}d finally the burning desire to conceive the
divine essence immediately and wholly with the inner-
most activity of the soul, — to unite oneself entirely and
undividedly with that essence. But the more that con-
fidence in the ancient forms of mythical representation
vanished, the farther off, the more unknown, and the more
incomprehensible appeared the divine essence. The Chris-
tian faith overcame this difficulty by the principle of love ;
the mythical religion by the interpolation of countless
grades between God and matter ; science, by attempting to
conceive the totality of things as a series in diminishing
perfection from the one all-creative divine power, and, con-
versely, by looking upon the entire cosmic life as the simi-
larly graded returning series of things completed in God.
The neo-Pythagorean dualism was to be overcome both
ethically and metaphysically and therein Plotinus and Ori-
gen agreed. But while the latter, absorbed in the mysteries
of the fall into sin and the redemption, analyzed the entire
physical existence in ethical and religious terms, the former
strove to make conceptual in the terms of sense the spir-
itual unitv of the universe. Whereas the return to God
according to the conception of Origen formed a tremendous
historical cosmic process for the entire spiritual realm, it
was limited by Plotinus to the mysterious ecstasy of the
individual.

Metaphysics and ethics to Plotinus were, then, in inverted
parallelism : ethics teaches the way of salvation to be the
same series of stages of development toward an end, which
is known in metaphysics as the process of origination from
a beginning

To Plotinus the Godhead is the original P>eing (to
TTpoyrov') superior to all oppositions, inaccessible to all defin-
itive characterization, wholly unspeakable (dppTjrov). As

370 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

absolute unity it is superior to all oppositions, especially to
those of thought (vorjat^') and Being {ovo-lo). Only by
relative determinations can it be conceived as a cosmic
final cause (to aya66v) and a cosmic force {Trpcorr] Svpa /jll'^) ,
as pure, substratum-less (^substr ados') , cresiting activity. As
such, it creates the world out of itself in an eternal, time-
less, and necessary process. It is present in all creatures,
yet it is separate and distinct from plurality. Itself eter-
nally finished, it lets the fulness of things proceed from it-
self without division of itself or losing anything of its
essence. The emanation of the world from the Godhead
is an Overflowing in which the Godhead is as unchanged as
light when it throws its gleam into the depths of the dark-
ness. But as its gleam becomes less and less strong with
the increase of distance from its source, so the creations of
the Godhead are only a reflection of its glory, which re-
flection becomes less and less bright and finally ends in
darkness.

The attempt to reconcile the monistic causality of God
with the fact of the imperfection of individual things, and on
the other hand of reconcihng (religious) transcendence with
(Stoical) pantheism, became also very prominent in Plotiuus.
His " dynamic pantheism " completed an abstract monotheism
which sought to regard the Godhead neither as spirit, soul, nor
matter, nor in fact under any category. Yet the theory con-
ceived the Godhead, though entirely coutentless, as the origin
of all determinations and as superior to them all. The light
in the darkness is an illustration ; yet this simile defines also
the thought of the philosopher from his point of view.

There are three particular steps in which emanation pro-
ceeds from the divine being : spirit, soul, matter. Spirit
(vov<;) as the image {eUoyv) of the One bears in itself the
principle of duality. For all thinking, even consciousness
of self, involves the opposition of subject and object, of
thought-activity and thought-content (vorjrop). The vov^
having its source in the Godhead is indeed a unitary,

NEO rr.ATONISM 371

self-related, intuitive function. Nevertheless it includes
within itself the entire manifold of objects, the Ideas
Tvhich are the archetypes of individuals. These arc then
designated as single spiritual potencies (^vol). They are in
the vov<; and form in it the Koafjuo^; vo7]t6<;, but as efficient
powers they are at the same time the particular causes of
levents.

From reflection upon the essential duality of the activity
[aud the content of thought, there resulted the fact that the
[neo-Platonists were the first to formulate and investigate
with exactness the psychological conception of consciousness
(cruvaLo-OrjcTis). The Aristotelian theory of alcrO'qTyjfiiov koZkov
gave them a point of departure which they happily further
followed out. The distinction between the unconscious content
of an idea and the activity to be directed upon that content is
current in their psychology and was their most important service.
See H. Siebeck, Gesch. der Psych. ^ I. b, 331 ff.

This distinction naturally ceases to apply to the divine vov?
in so far as it thinks its entire content of ideas as eternally
actual. In Aristotelian Phraseology, Plotinus said that the
duality (irepoTrjs) within the Spirit's essence presupposes the
antithesis of thought-form (vor;o-ts) aud thought-content (vXrj
vorjTLKrj)., — a content which is distinguished nevertheless from
sense-content by the fact that it is formed without residuum
and in timeless evepyeta.

" Matter " is here the principle of plurality, and Plotinus
followed this thought also so far as to develop the manifold of
Ideas in a Pythagorean number-speculation. In this the Idea
is however no longer the Platonic class-concept, but the (Stoic)
archetype of the particular thing.

In respect to the intelligible world the Aristotelian categories
were cast aside in so far as they refer to spatial and temporal
relations and especially empirical events. For these Plotinus
substituted five fundamental conceptions which were experimen-
tally treated in the dialogue Sojyhist (254 b) as Koti/wna tojv
LOewv : ov, crracrt?, KLvrjcri^^ ravroTT/?, kT€poTr]<;.

So far as Ideas are causes of events, they are called Xoyot, as
for that matter the vovs of Plotinus has throughout to take the
place of the Xoyos of the Philonic and Christian philosophy.
See M. Heinze, Die Lehre voJti Logos., p. 306 ff.

The Soul {-^vxn) stands in the same relation to the Spirit
as the Spirit to the eV. Since, although it belongs to the

372 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

world of light, it stands on the bounds of the world of
darkness, there is a duality in it: (1) unity and (2) divisi-
bility, the higher and the lower souls. This duality is
predicated in the first place of the world-soul, which Plo-
tinus divided into two potencies, and the lower part, the
(pvai^, as a directly formative power {Oea/uLo) creates the
body of the world and enters into it. It is the same with
the individual souls into which the world-soul has dis-
charged itself. There exists also in mankind the super-
sensible soul, to which were ascribed the functions of the
Aristotelian z/o£>?. (See above.) This has pre-existed, and
shall after death undergo metempsychosis according to its
deserts. This soul is to be distinguished from the lower
soul which has built up the body as an instrument of its
working power and is present in all its parts as well as
in its sensational and functional activities.

As the light gradually fades away into darkness, the
streaming out of the divine essence degenerates finally in
matter. Plotinus regarded matter expressly as f/.r} 6v in
the sense that it has no metaphysical dualistic independ-
ence in relation to the Godhead. It is the absolute
aTepr)(Ti<^, the irevla Traz^reX^;?, and as airovcria rod dyaOov it
is also TTpcorov KaKov. Plotinus founded his theodicy upon
these negative determinations. Whatever is true, is divine
and good : the bad is only what belongs to the /^^ 6v. By
the same necessity with which the gleaming of light is lost
in the darkness, souls were supposed to create matter out
of themselves and enter into it as formative powers.
The world of sense phenomena has an existence that is
just as eternal as the soul. In a circular process of me-
chanical development it unrolls the archetypes of Ideas.
Then follows not merely a teleological conception of na-
ture, but a downright magical one. Every event is an activ-
ity of the soul : the pure world-soul creates gods, star-spirits,
and the (/)i;(rt9-d demons out of itself. In the mysterious

NEO-PLATONISM 373

co-operation of the whole is the individual symi)athetically
bound and prophetically to be foreseen. All investigation
of nature was here annulled, but the door to all forms of
faith and superstition was opened.

This comprehensive view of nature, however, was under
these premises cleft in two. The entrance of the soul into
tiie matter created bv it is its fall into the darkness, its
alienation from the divine source of light. The world of
sense is bad and irrational. Yet, on the other hand, the
w^orld of sense is formed by the soul which enters into it as
X6yo<r o-irepixaTLKo^;, and to that extent is it reasonable and
beautiful. In this respect Plotinus, in spite of the dualistic
point of departure made necessary by his religious problem,
held distinctly to the Greek conception of the beauty of the
world of sense, and he knew how to connect it in the most
happy way with the fundamental outlines of his picture of
the world. When he enthusiastically praised, in opposition
particularly to the Gnostic disdain of nature, the harmony,
soulfulness and perfection of the world, and proved this
out of his idealistic construction of the world, he gave us a
metaphysical aesthetic. Beautiful is the object of sense
when it makes its X070?, its ideal form, its eZSo?, appear in a
perceptible form. Beautiful is the world because down to
the lowest deeps it is permeated and illuminated by the
divine essence.

Like a last farewell to the Grecian world was this theory of
the beautiful which Plotinus brousrht into close connection with
the ultimate principles of his system, and which he used for the
first time as an integral part of a system of philosoph}'. To be
sure, he strongly used Platonic and Aristotelian thoughts in it.
But even the theory of the beautiful was not so fully developed
by Plato, nor was it so essential a moment of Plato's as of
Plotiuus's sj^stem. The celebrated Ennead, I. 6, is doubtless
the most orio-inal scientific acliievement of Plotinus. The dis-
tinction of bodily and spiritual beauty, the contrast between
the beauty of nature and of art, the organic insertion of a.^sthet-
ics partly into his metaphysical system and partly into the de-

374 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

velopmeiit of his ethics and psychology — all these are great
points of view which Plotinus is the first conceptually to define.
See Ed. Miiller, Gesch. der Theorie der Kunst bei den Alten^ II.
285 ff. (Berlin, 1837) ; R. Zimmermaun, Gesch. der u3^stlietik
(Vienna, 1858), 122 ff. ; R. Volkmaun, Die Holie der antiken
u^sthetik Oder Plotin's Abhayidl. vom Sclwnen (Stettin, 1860) ;
E. Brenning, Die Lehre vom Schonen bei Plotin (Gottingen,
1864) ; A. J. Vitriuga, De egregio^ quod in rebus corporeis con-
stituit Plotinus jpulcri principio (Amsterdam, 1864) ; J. Walter,
Gesch. der u^sthetik in AUerthum (Leipzig, 1893), pp. 736-
786.

Plotinus set out from the opposite point of view in his
ethics, when he designated the share that men have in
the divine life and their independence of the world as
their goal ; and also when he conceived of the freeing of
the soul from the body and its purification from sense —
in a word, the turning away from the material — as the fun-
damental ethical task. There is not lacking a positive sup-
plement to this negative morality. Although only in small
measure did the philosopher indeed find such positive sup-
plementation in ethical or, as he called it, political virtues.
Conduct was of little value to him, for it bind '. the soul to
the material world. Social and political integrity is only a
preparation by which the soul learns how to become free
from the power of sense. Therefore the teaching of Plo-
tinus was also without significance for political life. His
attempt to realize the Platonic Republic seemed to be not a
political experiment but the realizing of a condition in
which chosen men could live their true lives of " contem-
plation."

The return of the soul to God consists in its soaring to
the i^oO? from which it came. Pure sense-perception offers
little help to the soul for this return ; reflection affords
rather more. The most potent incentive is found in love
for the beautiful, the Platonic e/?&)9, when the soul turns
from sense impressions to the illuminating Idea. He who
has an immediate recognition of the pure Idea, is pressing

NEO-PLATONISM 375

on to higher perfection. Yet true blessedness Is neverthe-
less attained only when man in an ecstasy {eKo-raat^^ tran-
scending thought for a more complete contact and union
(a(^7;, aTrXwo-t?) with the divine unity, forgets himself and
the objective world and becomes one with the Godhead in
such moments of consecration.

Plotinus regarded this highest holiness as a grace which
comes only to few, and to these but seldom. He granted that
the culture of positive religion is a help to the attaiument of this
ecstatic condition, although in other respects he opposed posi-
tive religion. This help, however, had earlier seemed essential
to Porphyry, and among the later members of the school it be-
came the all-important thing.

55. A pupil of Porphyry, the Syrian Jamblichus, used the
philosophy of Plotinus as the groundwork of a speculative
theology of polytheism, w^hich co-ordinated all the cults of
ancient religions in a systematic whole, and wiiile exclud-
ing Christianity attempted to consider the religious move-
ment as complete. Among the enthusiastic supporters of
this speculative theology are Theodorus of Asine, Maximus
of Ephesus, the Emperor Julian, his friend Sallustius, and
the martyr Hypatia.

Jamblichus came from Chalcis in Coele-Syria, and listened to
Porphyry and his pupil Anatolius in Rome. He himself went
to Syria as a teacher and rehgious reformer, and had very soon
a numerous school, which exalted him as a worker of miracles.
Nothing further is known of his life, and his death also is only
approximately set about 330. His literary activity was limited
almost entirely to commentaries on Plato and Aristotle, as well
as on the theological works of the Orphics, Chaldieaus, and the
Pythagoreans. Portions of his exposition of Pythagoreanism
are preserved : Trcpt rov UvdayoptKov ^iov (published by Kiessling,
Leipzig, 1815 f ., and Westermann, Paris, 18.50) ; Aoyos TrpoTpeir-
TtKos cts (faXoa-o^tav (Kiessling, Leipzig, 1813) ; -rrepl ttjs Kotvyjs
fjLaOrjtxaTLKrj<; iTTKTTijixrjs (Villoison, Venice, 1781) ; ttc/k t^s Niko-

fJidx^ov apiOixr)TLKris etcrayooyrj and ra ^eoXoyov/xcva t^s apiOfXi]TLK7]<;
(Fr. Ast, Leipzig, 1817). Related (and probably erroneously
ascribed to him) is De mysteriis jEgyptiorum (by Parthey, Ber-

376 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. '

lin, 1857) ; see Harless, Das BucJi von den dgyptischen Myste- j
rien (Munich, 1858) ; H. Kellner, Ancdyse der Schrift des i
Jamblichus De Mysteriis (in Theol. Quartalsschrift, 1867).

^desius, Chrysanthius, Priscus, Sopater, Eusebius, Dexip-
pus are other members of the school. A writing of Dexippiis
concerning the Aristotelian categories is preserved (edited by
Spengel, Munich, 1859). Some of the biographies of philoso-
phers of the time by Eunapius of Sardis are also preserved
(edited by Boissonade, Amsterdam, 1822). Maximus pla3'-ed a
great role at the court of Emperor Julian, whose short reign
marks the zenith of the power of this Syrian school. Precisely
these same court connections drove the school into its hopeless
war with Christianity. Julian himself was a devoted follower
of Jamblichus. The letters published under his name are spuri-
ous. His views appear in his speeches and in the fragments of
his thesis against the Christians. Jidiani contra Christianos
quce siq^ersunt (E. J. Neuman, Leipzig, 1880 ; translated into
German, Leipzig, 1880) ; other editions of his writings by E.
Talbot (Paris, 1863) and F. C. Hertlein (2 vols., Leipzig, 1875
ff.). See A. W. Neander, Ueber den Kaiser Jidian u. seine
Zeitalter (Leipzig, 1812) ; W. S. Teuffel, De Juliano Imp.
Christianismi contemtore et osore (Tubingen, 1844) ; D. Fr.
Strauss, Jidian der Abtrimnige^ der Romantiker aufdem Thron
der Cdsaren (Mannheim, 1847) ; Auer, Kaiser Jidian (Vienna,
1855) ; W. Mangold, Jidian der Abtriinnige (Stuttgart, 1862) ;
C. Semisch, Jidian der Abtriinnige (Breslau, 1862) ; Fr. Llibker,
Jidian'' s Kampf u. Ende (Hamburg, 1864) ; A. Miicke, Julian
nach den Quellen (Gotha, 1866-68) ; A. Naville, Jidien TApo-
stat et sa philos. die polytheisme (Neufchatel, 1877) ; F. Rode,
Gesch. der Reaction Julian's gegen die christliche Kirche (Jena,
1877) . A compendium by Sallust of the theology of Jamblichus
is preserved (published by Orelli, Zurich, 1821).

Concerning Hypatia, see Rich. Hoche (in Philol. 1860) ; St.
Wolfe (Czernowitz, 1879) ; H. Ligier (Dijon, 1880). Her pupil
was the bishop Synesius, who tried to unite Neo-Platouism to
Christianity in a unique way. See R. Volkmann, Synesios von
Kyrene (Berlin, 1869).

The theology of Jamblichus included no new point of
view for philosophy. His metaphysics and ethics were en-
tirely those of Plotinus so far as the treatment is conceptual.
But this was exactly what did not satisfy the theologian.
Born in a land of the greatest religious eclecticism, a land
where Christian Gnosticism had arisen, he wished to trans-

NEO-PLATONISM 377

form tills philosophy into an amalgamation of all religions.
Since he regarded the ordinances of the Mysteries and the
activities of all their fantastic cults as indispensable for
sinning man in solving moral and religious problems, he
used the neo-Platonic metaphysic only for inserting by alle-
gorical interpretation the forms of gods of all religions in
the intermediate grades which Plotinus had supposed to lie
between the human soul and God. In order to find place
for this fantastic pantheon, he had to increase consider-
ably the number of these intermediaries ; and in order to
bring the entire world of gods into a system, he had noth-
ing better to use than the Pythagorean number-scheme.

The passing success that this theory had in the cultured and
political world shows only the obstinacy with which the Hel-
lenic, as opposed to the Christian world, held fast to the hope
of solving the religious problem from within itself; and Julian
also, who gave historical signitieance to this fantastic theory,
can only thus be understood.

The details of this polytheism, and indeed those of the theurgie
undertakings of Jamblichus and his pupils, are philosophically
unimportant. Even his fancy of setting the Travry apprjros apxv
over the eV of Plotinus, which, bare of qualities, must not also
be identified with the ayaOov, is still only aimless sophistry.
Plotinus set up tlie opposition of subject and object in the
vovs, and Jamblichus made out of this opposition the KoVftos
vorjTo^ and the Koaixos vo€p6<;. These are two worlds which are
peopled with their own gods, and are again trebly divided.
Some of his pupils further developed these divisions, and in
this showed a preference for the triad schema, as did Jam-
blichus also to a certain extent.

56. The failure of this philosophical restoration of the
old religions frightened neo-Platonism back to erudite
studies, the centre of w^hich again appeared finally at
Athens. Through the influence of Plutarch of Athens
and his pupils Syrianus and Hierocles, the school turned
back to the study of Plato and Aristotle. In the person
of its leader Proclus (410-485) it tried to systematize in a

378 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

dialectic way the entire historical content of Greek philo-
sophic thought.

The commentators stand out advantageously against the
background of fantastic theories of the time. As Themis-
tius previously, so Simplicius and Philoponus now, trans-
mitted their learned compilations of the works of Aristotle,
which became of value to subsequent time. But when the
pupils of Proclus — Marinus and Damascius — undertook
to develop the system of their master, then they fell victims
to unfruitful quibbling. The effect of this was unfortunate
in proportion as the diction was bombastic and assertive.

The power of Greek thought was extinguished. The
simple magnificent spirit of Greek philosophy had, to speak
after the manner of Plotinus, grown so weak through all
the Hellenic emanations that it passed away into its op-
posite, into ostentatious vapidity.

The edict by which the Emperor Justinian in 529 closed
the Academy, confiscated its property, and prohibited lec-
tures on Greek philosophy in Athens, was the official certi-
fication of the death of ancient philosophy.

Plutarch was called "The Great" by his pupils after the
neo-Platonic mamier of excessively admiring the leaders of
their school. By this title he is generally distinguished from
his really more significant namesake. He died soon after 430.
He seems to have been particularly interested in psychological
questions, and he further developed a theory of consciousness,
defining it as the activity of the reason in sense perception.

Of the Syrian commentaries on Aristotle's writings, that
upon a part of the Metcqyhysics is preserved and ])ublished in
the fifth volume of the Berlin edition of Aristotle (p. 837 ff.).
The commentary of Hierocles on the Golden Poem of the Py-
thagoreans is in Mullach's Fragments (I. 408 ff.) ; Photius has
preserved extracts from Hierocles' writing, irepl Trpoi^ota?.
Hierocles and his pupil Theosebius worked in Alexandria, and
Syriauus was scholarch in Athens.

Proclus was the intimate pupil and follower of SjTianus.
He was of Lycian family, born in Constantinople, educated in
Alexandria under Olympiodorus the Aristotelian, and was re-

NEO-PLATONISM 379

Ivered as head of the scliool by his pupils with extravagant de-
[votion. His life was written by liis pupil Marimis {Cobefs
\Ed'itlon of Diog. Laert.). Among the works of Proclus (see J.
[Freudenthal in the Hermes^ 1881, and Zeller, V. 778 ff.), espe-
jcially noteworthy is -rrepl Trjs Kara IIAaTcova OeoXoyias ; and there
[are also the commentaries on the Timceus, liepuhUc, and Par-
vmenkhs. These are collected by V. Cousin (Paris, 1820-25),
|with Supplement (Paris, 1864). See A. Berger, Froclns, exposi-
Hon de sa doctrine (Paris, 1840); H. Kirchner, De Frocli
letaphysica (Berlin, 1846) ; K. Steinhart, article in Pauhys
^ealencijclopadie.

Of the pupils of Proclus there are mentioned, besides his
Jfiuccessor Mariuus, Ilermias, who wrote a commentary on the
*haedrus ; the son of Hermias, Ammonius, who edited the
writings of Aristotle ; the mathematician Asclepiodotus, and
'further, Isidorus, Hegias, and Zenodotus. The biography of
Isidorns by Damascius is partly preserved in the writings of
Photius.

The last scholarch of the Academy was Damascius, who,
like Isidorus, returned to the fantastic theories of Jamblichus.
He Avas born in Damascus and studied in Alexandria and
Athens. After the closins; of the school he emiiifrated with
Simplicius and other neo-Platonists to Persia. They returned
soon, however, after some hard experiences. Of his writings we
possess, besides fragments of various commentaries and his
biography of Isodorus, also a portion of his writing Trept twi/
TrpwToiv apx^v (published by J. Kapp, Frankfort on the Main,
1826, with details of his personality), and also the conclusion of
his commentary on the Parmenides. This commentary shows
markedly the influence of Proclus. See Ch. E. Ruelle, Le
P/illosoi^he Damascius (Paris, 1861, and also in Arch. f. Gesch.
d. Ph. 1890); E. Heitz (particularly). Per Philos. Pamascius
(in Strassburger Abhandl. zur Philos.., Freiburg i. B. uud Tu-
bingen, 1884).

Among the commentators who occupied a position of greater
independence toward the neo-Platonic theory was Themistius,
called 6 ei-c^paSrJs on account of his remarkable manner of presen-
tation. He lived about 317-387, and taught in Constantinople.
Those of his preserved paraphrases upon Aristotle are upon
the second Analytics., the Physics, and the Psychologn (pub-
lished by Spengel, Leipzig, 1866). The paraphrase erroneously
ascribed to him on the first Analytics can be found in the Ber-
lin edition of commentators (M. Wallies, Berlin, 1884). See
V. Pose (in the Hermes, 1867).

Of the commentaries of Simplicius the Cilician, who, next to

380 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Alexander of Aphrodisias, was the most notable expounder of
Aristotle and the contemporary and companion of Damascius,
there are preserved those upon the first four books of the Physics
(published by H. Diels, Berlin, 1882), and his commentary on
JJe coelo (published by S. Karstein, Utrecht, 1865), on De anima
(published by M. Hayduck, Berlin, 1882), on the Categories
(Basel, 1551), and on Epictetus' £lucheiridion.

By the side of Priscianus and Asclepius there was the younger
Ol^nnpiodorus, whose commentaries on the Gorgias^ Philebus,
Plicedo, and first Alcibiades (with the life of Plato) are preserved.
There was also John Philipouus, of whose numerous commenta-
ries (Venice, 1527 f.) those on the Physics have been published in
the Berlin collection by Vitelli (1887).

Of still greater significance than these men for our present
knowledge of ancient philosophy there was a neo-Platonist,
who, a contemporary to them, came out of the movement in
the East. This was Boethius, who was condemned in 525.
Although calling himself a Christian, he recognized only the
arguments of ancient science in his treatise, De consolatlone
lohilosoj)hi(B (published by R. Peiper, Leipzig, 1871). His
translations and expositions of Aristotle's Logic and of the Isa-
goge of Porphyry belong among the important writings on
philosophy in the early Middle Ages. See F. Nitzsch, Das
System des Boethius (Berlin, 1860) ; H. Usener, Anekdotoii
Holderi (Bonn, 1877) ; A. Hilderbrand, Boethius u. seine Stel-
lung zum Christenthum (Regensburg, 1885).

The peculiarity of the work of Proclus was his union of
mythological fancifulness with barren formulism, of his
insatiable desire for faith with the gift of dialectic combina-
tion. He was a theologian to the same extent as was Jam-
blichus, but he constructed for his teaching a philosophical
schematism which was carried out with exactness even to
the smallest detail. He got the content of his teaching from
authority : from the barbarian and Hellenic religions, and in
addition from the great philosophers, especially Plato,
Plotinus, and Jamblichus. He had himself initiated into
all the mysteries, and no superstition however childish was
so bad as to be rejected by him. He did not rest until he
had given a place in his universal system to every such
significant thought ; and he was the true systematizer of
Heathendom and the scholastic of Hellenism.

NEO-PLATONISM 381

The fundamentally constructive thought in his system was
its abstract expression for the universal j)roblcni of neo-
*latonism : the problem to make comprehensible the de-
[velopment of the One into the Many and the return of the
[any into the One. The manifold effect is similar to the
mitary cause, and yet different from it ; and this contra-
diction is reconciled by the fact that the effect strives by
means of that very similarity to return to the cause from
its state of separation from the cause. Hence these three
momenta, per manence, going-forth, and return {fiovrj^ 7rp6oSo<;,
i7ri(TTpo(f)i]), are essential in every event. This is the lead-
ing idea of the conception of nature of Plotinus, who had
also added the further principle that the return is through
the same phases as the going-forth. Proclus, however,
applied this triadic schematism with a powerful dialectic to
every distinct phase of development in nature, and repeated
it again and again even in treatment of the finest details.
Every form of his metaphysical theology divides into three
parts, each of which is again subjected to the same dialectic,
fate ad infinitum.

A certain formal likeness is obvious between this method of
Proclus and the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel. It must not be overlooked, however,
that by the latter the relationship is considered as between con-
cepts, by the former between mythical potencies. But Hegel
and Proclus are particularly alike in striving to systematize a
very large given content of ideas in a dialectic way. (W.
Windelbaud, Gesch. cler neueren Philos., II. 306 ff.)

The development of the world out of the Godhead was,
then, represented by Proclus as a system of triadic chains,
in which the descent is from the universal to the particu-
lar, from the simple to the complex, from the perfect to
the imperfect. At the apex stands the original One, the
original Good, wliich is raised above all determinations,
entirely inexpressible, and only figuratively represented as
the One, the Good, the aiTiov. Out of this One emanate

382 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

(even before the vov^) a limited, but, for our knowledge, an
indeterminable number of unities (emSe?) which are also
unrecognizable. These are above Being, life, and reason,
and are gods having power over the world.

These Henades had this theological significance for Prochis,
that they place at his disposal a great number of supernatural
incognizable gods. Metaphysically these appear in place of the
second eV of Jamblichus. Another "Somewhat" accordingly
perhaps plays a part here. Proclus is, like Porphyry, an
outspoken realist in the spirit of the Middle Ages. The uni-
versal stands over against the particular as a higher and more
nearly primitive actuality. Cause is identical with the universal,
and the highest cause, the cf, is identical with the highest, most
nearly characterless abstraction. One might, accordingly, sup-
pose these simple abstract concepts to be the Henades, over
and above which conceptions only the "Somewhat" remains.
They have then a meaning similar to the Spinozistic attributes
of the divine substance.

The Spirit is divided, in the scheme of Proclus, into the
vo7)t6v, the vorjTov d/jua Kal voepov^ and the voepov. The
Plotinian distinction between thought content and thought
activity is fundamental here, but it is, however, at once dis-
regarded on account of the theological construction. For
here the vorjrov is divided into three parts, in which the
concepts of Trepan, airetpov^ and ^lktov are combined re-
spectively with Trarr/p, Svua/j,L<;, and vorjat^. Further, the
concepts of ovcria and virap^L^y of l^wr) and alcov are com-
bined in so multifarious a relationship, and with so many
interchangeable meanings that a whole army of gods re-
sults. This same play repeats itself in the second sphere,
and in part with the same categories. In the third sphere
there are the seven Hebdomades of intellectual gods,
among which, for example, the Olympians appear.

This entire construction, which in accordance with the
same scheme is carried in the psychical world to gods,
daemons, and heroes, has no real intellectual motive at its
basis. It is a kind of philosophical "mummification" of

NKO-TLATONISM 383

Hellenism. This is partly due to the dialectic architectonic,
and partly to the need of giving to every form of })oly-
tlieism its place in the hierarchy of mythological formula)
mto which l*rocliis had translated the Greek conceptual
world.

The phj^sics aud ethics of Proclus show little individuality.
He stood far olT from the first, and adduced only this new
thouglit that the material is not derived from the psycliical, ])ut
directly from the airupov of the first intelligible triad, aud that
it is fancifully formed by the lower world-soul, the ^ro-t?. His
attempt in ethics is to lower the metaphysical dignity of the
human soul aud to make it appear thereby the more needy of
the help of positive religious exercise and of divine and dicmonic
grace. Proclus thinks, therefore, that the characteristic of the
soul is its freedom, aud therefore its guilt. The steps of its
redemption are here also "political" virtue, scientific knowl-
edge, divine illumination, faith, and finally ecstasy (fxavta) for
which a peculiar power of the soul is presupposed.

The two great streams of theosophy which burst forth
from Alexandria, on the one hand, into Christian theology,
on the other into neo-Platonism, were not long separate
from each other. Although neo-Platonism was destroyed
by scholasticism, it sent its thought through a thousand
channels into the orthodox as well as the heterodox de-
velopment of Christian thought after Origen. Both systems
of thought found their perfect reconciliation in an original
thinker, who was the philosopher of Christianity, — Augus-
tine. The doctrine of Augustine, however, was much more
than a receptacle for the confluent streams of Hellenic-'
Roman philosophy. It was rather the living fountain ol
the thought of the future. His was an initiating rather
than a consummating work, and therefore he does not
belong to the history of ancient philosophy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(A list of works on Ancient Philosophy for English readers.)

[Histories of Philosophy: by Stanley, London, 1655; Tenne-
niann, Gmndriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, English tr. in
Bohn Library, 1833, 1852; Ueheriveg, 3 vols., 8th ed., tr. by
G. S. Morris, New York, 1872-74; Hegel, Vorlesiingen uher die
Geschichte der Philosophie (vols. XIII. -XV. of the Complete
Works), tr. by E. S. Haldane, 3 vols., London, 1892-96;
Schwegler, tr. by Seelye, New York, 1856 ff., and by J. H.
Sterling, 7th ed., Edinburgh, 1879; Cousin, tr. by 0. W.
Wight, 2 vols.. New York, 1889; Lange, Geschichte des Ma-
tenalismus, 3 vols., tr. by E. C. Thomas, London, 1878-81;
Erdmann, 3 vols., tr. edited by W. S. Plough, London, 1890;
Lewes, 2 vols., 3d ed., London, 1863; Windelband, tr. by
J. H. Tufts, London and New York, 1893 ; Weber, tr. by F.
Thilly, New York, 1898.

Histories of Greek Philosophy : by Zeller, 5 vols., in 3 parts,
5th ed., tr. by S. F. Alleyne and 0. J. Eeichel, London and
New York, 1876-1883; ibid., Grundriss, tr. by S. F.
Alleyne and Evelyn Abbot, New York, 1890; Ferrier, Lectures
on Greek Philosophy, 2 vols., Edinburgh and London, 1866,
London, 1888; Burnet, Early Greek Philosophers, London and
Edinburgh, 1892; Mayor, A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy
from Thales to Cicero, Cambridge, 1881 ff.; Benn, The Greek
^Philosophers, 2 vols., London, 1883; Marshall, A Short History
of Greek Philosophy, London, 1891; Butler, Lectures on the
History of Ancie7it Philosophy, 2 vols., London, 1866; Hitter,
History of Ancient Philosophy, tr. by J. W. Morrison, Oxford,

386 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1838-46; Anderson, The Philosophy of Ancient Greece Inves-
tigated in Origin mid Progress, Edinburgh, 1791.

Histories of Greece, Greek Literature, etc. : Grote, History of
Greece, 6th ed., 10 vols., London, 1888; Mahaffy, History of
Classical Greek Literature, 2d ed., 3 vols., London, 1892;
Laurie, Historical Survey of pre-Christian Education, London,
1895; Sidgwick, History of Ethics, London and New York,
1892; Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, New York,
1894 ; Bosanquet, History of jEsthetics, London and New York,
1892; Wundt, Ethics, vol. II., tr. by M. F. Washburn, New
York, 1897 ; Cushman, History of the Idea of Cause, Har-
vard College Doctorate Thesis, Harvard Library; Botsford,
History of Greece, New York, 1899; Holm, History of Greece,
English tr., 4 vols., Boston, 1894: How and Leigh, History of
Pome to the Death of Ccesar, New York, 1896; Bury, History
of the Roman Empire, New York, 1893; Mommsen, History of
Rome, 5 vols., New York, 1869-70; Peter-Chawner, Chronolog-
ical Tables of Greek History, New York, ; Kiepert, Atlas

Antiquus, Berlin and Boston, 1892 ; Kiepert, Manual of
Ancient Geography, New York, 1881 ; Teuffel, Geschichte der
romischen Literatur, tr. by G. C. W. Warr, New York, 1891;
Jebb, Primer of Greek Literature, New York, 1878; A. S.
Wilkins, Primer of Roman Literature, New York, 1890; Ma-
haffy, History of Classical Greek Literature, 2 vols.. New
York, 1891; Cruttwell, History of Roman Literature, New
York, 1878; Middleton and Mills, The Studenfs Companion
to Latin Authors, New York, 1896; J. W. Mackail, Latin
Literature, New York, 1895..

The pre-Socratic Greeks: Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy
with translations, London and Edinburgh, 1892; Patrick,
Heracleitus on Natxire, Baltimore, 1889 ; Bohn's Classical Li-
brary, translations ; Encyclopcedia Britannica, especially article
by H. Jackson on Sophists ; Davidson, The Fragments of Par-
menides, in Jour, of Sj^ec. Phil. IV., 1, St. Louis, Jan. 1870.

Works on Socrates : Plato, Apology, Crito, and Phmdo, Phce-
drus, Meno, Thecetetus, etc. ; Xenophon, Memorabilia and Sym-
posium; Aristotle, Metaphysics, I., 6 ff . ; Grote, History of

BIBLlOGRAniY 387

Greece, vol. VIII., ch. Q'^ ; Potter, Characteristics of the Greek
Philosophers, Socrates and Plato, London, 1845; R. D. Hamp-
den, The Fathers of Greek Philosophy, Edinburgh, 18G9 ; see
also articles in Encyclopcedia Britannica.

Works on Plato : Jowett, Translation of the Dialogues, with
introductions and analyses, in 5 vols., 3d ed., New York and
London, 1892; Grote, Plato and Other Companions of Socrates,
3 vols., London, 1865; Pater, Plato and Platonism, New York
and London, 1893; Van Oordt, Plato and His Times, Oxford
and the Hague, 1895 ; Bosanquet, A Companion to Plato^s Re-
public, New York, 1895; Hartmann, Philosojjhy of the Uncon-
scious, tr. by E. C. Thomas of the chapter On the Unconscious
in Mysticism ; Martineau, Types of Ethiccd Theory, London
and New York, 1886 ; see also Essays ; Campbell, in Encyclo-
pcedia Britannica, article Plato ; Nettleship, in Sellenica, The
Theory of Education in Plato's Republic ; Mill, J. S., Essays
and Discussions.

Works on Aristotle, Translations : Psychology in Greek and
English, page for page, with introduction and notes, by E.
Wallace, Cambridge, 1882 ; Nicomachcean Ethics, tr. with
analysis and notes by J. E. C. Welldon, New York and London,
1892 ; also by Williams, 1876, Chase, 1877, Hatch, 1879, Peters,
1881, Gillies, 1892 ; Politics, tr. by Welldon, Cambridge, 1888,
also by Jowett, 2 vols. 1885-88, Ellis, with introduction by
Morley, 1892 ; On the Constitution of Athens, tr. with notes by
Kenyon, London, 1891; Politics, tr. by Wharton, Cambridge,
1883 ; Rhetoric, tr. by Welldon, London and New York, 1886 ;
Metaphysics, Organon, and History of Animals, tr. in the Bohn
Library ; Lewes, Aristotle, London, 1864; Grote, Aristotle, 2
vols., incomplete, 3d ed., London, 1884; E. Wallace, Outlines
of the Philosophy of Aristotle, 3d ed., Oxford, 1883; A. Grant,
Aristotle, in Ancient Classics for English Readers, Edinburgh
and London, 1878 ; Davidson, Aristotle and Ancient Educational
Ideals, New York, 1892 ; Th. H. Green, Works ; Bradley, in
Hellenica, on Aristotle's TJieory of the State ; Taylor, Disserta-
tion on the Philoso2)hy of Aristotle, London, 1813; Bain, Senses
and Intellect, supplement by Grote, London, 1869.

388 BIBLIOGRAPHY

The post-Aristotelian period: W. Wallace, Epicureanism^
London, 1880; Grote, Aristotle (see Aristotle) ; Jackson, Seneca
and Kant, 1881 ; Bryant, The Mutual Influence of Christianity
and the Stoic School, London, 1866; Capes, Stoicism, London,
1880; Lightfoot, St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippiayis, 4tli ed.,
London, 1878.

For Epictetus, the Atarpt/Jai and *Eyx«tpt§tov, tr. by T. W.
Higginson, Boston, 1865; for Marcus Aurelius, tol d<s iavrovj
tr. by G. Long; Watson, Life of Marcus Aurelius, London,
1884; Drummond, Philo Judmus, London, 1888; Schlirer, His-
tory of the Jeivish People, 5 vols., New York, 1891; Munro,
tr. of Lucretius' poem, De Natura Rerum, London, 1886;
Masson, TJie Atomic Theory of Lucretius, London, 1884;
Courtney, in Hellenica, subject, Epicureanism; Maccoll, Tlie
Greek Sceptics, London, 1869; Owen, Evenings with the Sceptics,
London, 1881; A. Seth, in Encycloj^cedia Bintannica, article
Scepticism; Cicero, Translations of, in the Bohn Library;
Tredwell, Life of A2)ollonius of Tya^ia, New York, 1886 ; Pater,
Marius the Epicurean, London and New York, 1888 ; Yonge,
tr. of Philo, 4 vols., Bohn Librar}^, London.

Works on neo-Platonism and Patristics: Plotiiius, tr. of
parts of works of, by Th. Taylor, London, 1787, 1794,
1817; Harnack, Neo-Platonism in Encyclo2:)cedia Britannica ;
St. Paul, Epistle to Corinthians, L, XV. ; ibid., Philippians, I. ;
Gale, Life of Protagoras, of Plotinus, and Epistle to Aneho, by
Porphyry, Oxford, 1678 ; Taylor, Life of Pythagoras, London,
1818; Chiswick, Egyptian Mysteries, 1821, also by Taylor;-
Schaff and Wace, Library of Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers,

; Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies, London, 1875; Allen,

Continuity of Christian Thought, Boston, 1884; Donaldson,

Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine, ;

Neander, Expositio7is of the Gnostic Systems, tr. by Torrey, Bos-
ton, 1865; ibid., Antignosticus, tr. in Bohn Library; Bigg,
Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Oxford, 1887; Harnack,
Encyclopcedia Britannica, article Origen; Taylor, tr. of works
of Proclus.

INDEX

Academy (see also under uames of

its representatives).

Older, 224 ff., 249.

Middle, 224, 332.

New, 224.
Acusilaus, 27.
Adrastus, 303.
iEdesius, 376.
-^nesidemus, 33 ff.
-^schiues, 127.
^schylus, 109.
Alcidamus, 114, 123.
Alcmffion, 106, 108.
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 303 f.,

380.
Alexandrian philosophy, 342.
Alexinus, 137, 139.
Amafinius, 321.
Amelias, 367.

Ammonias Saccus, 362 ff., 366.
Ammonias, 379.
Anatolius, 375.
Anaxagoras, 80-87, 88 f., 93 f.. 102 f.,

110 f., 165 f., 175 f., 199 f., 229,

314.
Anaxarchus, 173, 331.
Anaximander, 36, 39-43, 49, 70.
Anaximenes, 36, 43-45.
Andronicus, 237 f., 243.
Anuiceris, 145 f., 149.
Antimajrus, 114.
Antiochus, 224 f., 338 f.
Antipater, 303.
Anytus, 126 n.
Autisthenes, 140-145, 135.
Apellicon, 243.
Apelles, 357.
Apollinaris, 353.

Apollodorus, 43, 303.

ApoUonius (mathematician), 343.

Apologists, 352 ff.

Apuleius, 349.

Arcesilaus, 224, 332 ff.

Archagoras, 114.

Archelaus, 87, 103 f., 123.

Archytas (philosopher and mathema-
tician), 94, 225 f., 229.

Aristeas, 25, 347.

Aristides, 352.

Aristippus, 145-151, 135.

Aristobulus, 347.

Aristo of Chios, 302 f.

Aristo of Ceos, 302.

Aristo of Cos, 302.

Aristophane.s, 113, 127, 130.

Aristotle, 224 f., 36 n., 37, 74, 81, 83,
124, 152 f., 160, 188, 230-292,
314 ff.

Aristagoras, 24.

Aristoxenus, 298 f., 301 ff.

Arius Didymus, 339.

Arnobius, 360.

Arrian, 306.

Asclepiades (The), 24.

Asclepiodotus (philosopher), 379.

Asclepius, 380.

Aspasius, 303.

Athenagoras, 352 f.

Athenian (embassy), 340.

Atomists, 68, 73, 87-93, 151-174,
104, 229.

Augustine, 228, 356, 383.

Averroes, 237.

Bacon, 154.
Bardesanes, 355 f.

390

INDEX

Basileides, 355 f., 358 f.

Bias, 20.

Bibliography concerning philosophy,

7-15.
Bion, 141.
Boethius, 380.
Boethus (Peripatetic), 303.
Boethus (Stoic), 305.

Cadmus, 25.
Callicles, 114, 122.
Callippus, 272.

Carneades, 224 f ., 332 ff., 339.
Carpocrates, 355 f.
Catechists (school of), 352.
Cebes, 94.
Celsus, 361.
Cerdon, 357.
Cerinthus, 357,
ChamjBleon, 302.
Chrysanthius, 376.
Chrysippus (philosopher), 303 f.
Cicero, 338 ff.
Cleauthus, 303 f., 316.
Clearchus, 302.
Cleidemus, 105.

Clement of Alexandria, 356, 359 ff.
Clinias, 94.
Clitomachus, 332,
Cnidian Sentences, 24.
Colotes, 320 f.
Cornutus, 306,
Crantor, 225 f., 230,
Crates of Athens, 225 f,, 303, 332.
Crates the Cynic, 140.
Cratinus, 109.
Cratylus, 103, 110, 175.
Critias, 114, 123.
Critolaus, 302, 339.
Cynics, 140, 145, 135, 296 f.
Cynics (later), 307 f.
Cyrenaics, 145-151, 135, 171, 296 f.,
320 f.

Damascius, 378 ff,
Demetrius of Phalerus, 302.
Demetrius, Cynic, 307.
Democritus, 151-173, 87 ff,, 195, 207
n,, 263 ff,, 322, 326 f.

Demonax, 307.

Dexippus, 376.

Diagoras, 123.

Dicsearch, 298, 301 f.

Diodes, 94, 107.

Diodorus Cronus, 136 f.

Diodorus of Tyre, 302.

Diogenes of Apollonia, 101 f.

Diogenes of Sinope, 140-144.

Diogenes the Babylonian, 303 f., 340,

Diogenes Laertius, 157, 237 f.

Dionysius (logographer), 25.

Dionysius of Syracuse, 146.

Dionysiodorus, 120.

Duris, 302.

ECHECRATES, 94.

Ecphantes, 103, 229,
Elean-Eretrian school, 139,
Eleatics, 46-52, 59-6.5, 152, 175, 193 ff.,

260 f.
Empedocles, 23, 69, 73-80, 81 ff., 88 f.,

102 f., 113 f., 164.
Epicharmus, 109.
Epictetus, 306 f .
Epicurus and Epicureans, 319-329,

164 ff., 297,331 f.
Epimenides, 27,
Eratosthenes, 303.
Erennius, 367 f.
Eristic, 138,
Euathlus, 114.
Eubulides, 137, 139,
Euclid (philosopher), 125 f., 176.
Eudemus, 298-301, 239, 245 f.
Eudorus, 339.
Eudoxus, 225 f., 229, 272.
Eueruus of Faros, 114.
Euemerus, 145 f., 150.
Eupolis, 109,
Eurytus, 94,
Euryphon, 24,
Eusebius, 356, 376.
Euthedemus, 120.

Galenus, 341.
Galileo, 154.
Gasseudi, 154.
Gelon, 18.

INDEX

301

Gnomic poets, 26, 28, 32, 50, 109.

Ciorgias, 113 f., 119, 79, 142.

Greeks, the early, 16 if . ; aud the
Orient, 21 £f. ; poetry, 18, 24,
26 f.; later poetry, 109.

Hecateius, 25.

Hegel, 243 u.

Hegesias, 145 f., 150.

Hegias, 379.

Helleuic-Romau philosophy, 293 ff.

Heracleides of Toutus, 220 f ., 229.

Heracleides Lembus, 302.

Heracleitus, 46, 52, 59-63, 70 ff., 76,
82 f., 88 1, 93 ff., llOf., 117 f.,
159 f., 175, 193 f., 260 f., 310 ff.

Heracleitus (Stoic), 306.

Heracleiteaus, 103.

Herbart, 194.

Herennius, see Erennius.

Herillus, 303, 308.

Hermarchus, 321.

Hermeius (Academician), 233 f.

Hermeius (Neo-Platonist), 379.

Hermes Trismegistus, 349.

Hermias, 378.

Herminus, 303.

Hermippus, 302.

Hermodorus, 176.

Hermotimus, 27.

Herodotus, 108, 24.

Hesychius, 237.

Hesiod, 20.

Hicetas, 105.

Hiero, 18.

Hipparchia, 140 f.

Hipparchus, 302.

Hippasus, 103.

Hippias, 112, 122.

Hippodamus, 123 n.

Hippocrates of Cos, 107, 24, 101,
156.

Hippolytus, 356 f., 359.

Hippo, 105.

Homer, 28.

Hj'patia, 375 f.

Id^us, 101.
Irenajus, 356, 359 ff.

Isiodorus, 379.
Isocrates, 30 u., 231 f,

Jambliciii:8, 3G6 f., 375-377.
Jewish Alexandrian philosophy,

346 ff.
Julian, 375 f.
Justin, 353 ff.
Justinian, Emperor, 378.

Lactantius, 352 f.

Lacydes, 332.

Leucippus, 69, 87-93, 159 f.

Logographers, The, 25.

Longinus, 367.

Lucretius, 320 f.

Lycis, 94.

Lyco, 126 n., 302.

Lycophron, 114, 123.

MANICmEISM, 358.

Marcion, 357.

Marcus Aurelius, 306 f., 337, 353.

Marinus, 378.

Martyr, .Justin, 352 f.

Maximus, 376 f.

Megariaus, 135-140, 194.

Meletus, 126n.

Melissus, 69.

Melito, 353.

Menedemus, 140,

Metrodorus of Lampsacus, 28, 87,

320 f.
Metrodorus of Chios, 173.
Metrocles, 140 f.
Minucius Felix, 352 f.
Moderatus, 343.
Musonius, 306.
Mysteries, The, 26, 31 f., 47,

56.

Nausiphanes, 173, 326, 331.
Neleus, 243.
Neocleides, 229.
Neo-Platonists, The, 365-383.
Neo-rythagoreans, The, 97, 342 ff.
Nicolaus, 303.
Nicomachus, 343 f.
Numenius, 343 f.

392

INDEX

Ocellus, 94,

Oinomaus, 307.

Oljmpiodorus, 367, 378.

Origen (Christian), 356, 361 ff., 367.

Origen (Neo-Platouist), 367.

Orphics, 32.

Pan^tius, 305, 337.

Parmenides, 23, 46, 59-65, 69 ff.

73 f., 80, 88 ff., 93 f., 110 f., 135 f.
Pasicles, 34, 302.
Peisistratus, 18.
Periander, 18.
Pericles, 87.

Peregrinus Proteus, 307.
Peripatetics, The, 298 ff.
Perseeus, 303, 306.
Phiedo, 140.
Phaedrus, 320 f .
Phaleas, 123 n.
Phanias, 302.
Phanto, 94.
Pherecydes, 27, 30.
Philip of Opus, 189, 225 f.
Philodemus, 320.
Philolaus, 93-100.
Philo of Larissa, 224 f., 338.
Philo the Jew, 343-349.
Philopomus, 378 ff.
Photius, 379.
Piudar, 109.
Pittacus, 18, 20,
Plato, 174-224, 124 ff., 146, 151,

232 ff., 250 ff ., 260 f.
Platonism, Eclectic, 339 fF.
Plotinus, 366-375.
Plutarch of Chairouea, 349.
Plutarch of Athens, 376 f.
Points of view regarding philosophy,

6f.
Poetry, Early, 18.
Potamo, 339.
Polemo, 225, 303.
Polycrates, 18.
Polymnastus, 94.
Porphyry, 367 ff.
Posidonius, 305, 337, 345.
Positivism, 116.
Priscianus, 380.

Priscus, 376.

Proclus, 366 f., 377-383.

Prodicus, 112, 115, 123.

Prorus, 94.

Protagoras, 114-123, 146 f., 152 f.,

159 f., 175, 190 ff.
Protarchus, 114.
Pyrrho, 173, 329 ff.
Pythagoras, 28 ff., 23, 56, 79, 171,

344 ff.
Ptolemseus, 237.
Pythagoreans, The, 23, 24, 26, 64 ff.,

72, 77, 79, 93, 100, 175ff., 199 ff.,

229 f.

EuFUS, C. MusoNius, 306.

Sallustius, 375 f.

Saturninus, 355 f.

Satyrus, 302.

Seneca, 305 f.

Sextians, The, 341 f.

Sextus Empiricus, 333 f.

Seven Wise Men, 19, 132.

Sicilian school of rhetoric, 7, 9,

113.
Simmias, 94.
Simon, 127.
Simonides, 109.
Simplicius, 379 f.
Skeptics, The, 329-337.
Socrates, 123-135, 152, 172, 296 f.
Socratics, The, 135 f.
Solon, 20, 28.
Sopater, 376.
Sophists, The, 34, 108-123, 128 f.,

159.
Sophocles, 109.
Sosigenes, 303.
Sotion (Peripatetic), 302.
Sotion (Neo-Pythagorean), 341,

343.
Speusippus, 224 f.
Sphngnis, 303.
Stilpo, 136, 139, 303 f.
Stoics, The, 303-319, 230, 299.
Strato, 299-302.
Synesius, 376.
Syrianus, 377 f.

INDEX

393

Tatiax, 359.
] Teles, 141.

Tertnllian, ."356, 359 f .

Thales, 20, 22, 36-39, 105.

Themistius, 378 f.

Theodorus (mathematician), 114.

Theodorus (Cynic), 145-151.

tTlieodorus (of Asine), 375.
Theophilus, 353.
- Theophrastus,243f.,298f.,300ff.,332.
Theosebius, 378.
Thrasymachus, 123.
Thrasybulus, 39.
Thrasyllus, 157.
Thucydides, 108.
Timreus, 94.
Timon, 330 f .
Tubero, 335.

Valentinus, 355 ff.
Varro, 339 ff.

Xantippe, 126 n.

Xeneniades, 114, 141.

Xenocrates, 225 f., 230 f., 233,

303.
Xenophanes, 28, 46-52, 56, 62,

267.
Xenophon, 124, 127 ff., 183f.
Xuthus, 104.

Zexo of Elea, 51, 65-69, 119,

136 ff.
Zeuo of Cition, 137, 303 ff.
Zeno of Tarsus, 303.
Zeno of Sidon, 320.
Zeuodotus, 379.

A System of Ethics

By FRIEDRICH PAULSEN

Professor in the University of Berlin

Translated and edited by Frank Thilly, Ph.D.

Professor of Philosophy in the University of the
State of Missouri

8vo - - - $3.00 net

Of this work it may be said that it has taken its place as a standard
authority on the subject, and its style, moreover, is so fascinating that a
subject ordinarily regarded as heavy and didactic is invested with a genuine
human interest. We know of no work in which the ethical impulses of
Christianity are more clearly described. — Nezu York Tribune.

The book itself I have admired for many years, its adequate plan, lucid
exposition, and abounding scale of life. It will be a great gain to have it
in English, especially English so clear and idiomatic. Most translated
books do not quite come over into the new language. But Professor Thilly
has taught Paulsen English so that he speaks it like a native. — Professor
George H. Palmer, Harvard University.

It is a splendid book. — Professor William James.

Just those problems are selected for discussion which sooner or later are
bound to force themselves upon the attention of the thoughtful layman,
while matters of purely academic interest have been vigorously excluded.
Professor Paulsen seems rather to have written a laboratory manual of life
than a text-book in the ordinary sense of the word. — Professor Frank
Chapman Sharp, University of Wisconsin.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers

153-157 Fifth Avenue, New York

A History of Philosophy

By ALFRED WEBER

Professor in the University of Strasbourg

Translated by Frank Thilly, Ph.D.

Professor of Philosophy in the Ufiiversity of
the State of Missouri

From the Fifth French Edition
Revised and Enlarged With Bibliography

8vo - - - $2*50 nd

The value of Weber's book lies especially in his method, which gives a
clear, untechnical exposition of the several systems and points out their
fundamental errors, and, above all, exhibits the regular development of one
philosophical system out of another. This is useful in the exposition of
Kant and his successors. — The Outlook.

For the first time a sketch of the history of philosophy which unites the
three necessary qualifications for a text-book, — fulness, brevity, and read-
ableness. — Presbyterian and Reformed Review.

While the author's expositions and criticisms of ancient philosophy are
skilful, and his treatment of the philosophy of the Middle Ages fuller and
better than would be expected in so brief a manual, it is in the exposition
and criticism of modern philosophy, to which, as already said, more than
half of the volume is devoted, that we regard him as most successful. It is
difficult, however, where all is good, to select for especial mention the ex-
position of any one system. The expositions of Descartes, Spinoza, Locke,
and Kant are all models of their kind, and would be readily understood and
enjoyed by the young student and the general reader. The exposition of
Hegel, too, is about as luminous as so brief a presentation can well be
made. — Professor George Martin 'Duncan, of Yale University, in The
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