History of the Intellectual Development of Europe Volume I Part 15

THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN.--_Disastrous in its political Effects to Greece, but ushering in the Age of Reason._

ARISTOTLE _founds the Inductive Philosophy.--His Method the Inverse of that of Plato.--Its great power.--In his own hands it fails for want of Knowledge, but is carried out by the Alexandrians._

ZENO.--_His Philosophical Aim is the Cultivation of Virtue and Knowledge.--He is in the Ethical Branch the Counterpart of Aristotle in the Physical._

FOUNDATION OF THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA.--_The great Libraries, Observatories, Botanical Gardens, Menageries, Dissecting Houses.--Its Effect on the rapid Development of exact Knowledge.--Influence of Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, on Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Chronology, Geography._

_Decline of the Greek Age of Reason._

[Sidenote: The Greek invasion of Persia.]

The conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great is a most important event in European history. That adventurer, carrying out the intentions of his father Philip, commenced his attack with apparently very insignificant means, having, it is said, at the most, only thirty-four thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, and seventy talents in money. The result of his expedition was the ruin of the Persian empire, and also the ruin of Greece. It was not without reason that his memory was cursed in his native country. Her life-blood was drained away by his successes.

In view of the splendid fortunes to be made in Asia, Greece ceased to be the place for an enterprising man. To such an extent did military emigration go, that Greek recruits were settled all over the Persian empire; their number was sufficient to injure irreparably the country from which they had parted, but not sufficient to h.e.l.lenize the dense and antique populations among whom they had settled.

[Sidenote: Its ruinous effect on Greece.]

[Sidenote: Injury to Athens from the founding of Alexandria.]

Not only was it thus by the drain of men that the Macedonian expedition was so dreadfully disastrous to Greece, the political consequences following those successful campaigns added to the baneful result.

Alexander could not have more effectually ruined Athens had he treated her as he did Thebes, which he levelled with the ground, ma.s.sacring six thousand of her citizens, and selling thirty thousand for slaves. The founding of Alexandria was the commercial end of Athens, the finis.h.i.+ng stroke to her old colonial system. It might have been well for her had he stopped short in his projects with the downfall of Tyre, destroyed, not from any vindictive reasons, as is sometimes said, but because he discovered that that city was an essential part of the Persian system.

It was never his intention that Athens should derive advantage from the annihilation of her Phoenician compet.i.tor; his object was effectually carried out by the building and prosperity of Alexandria.

[Sidenote: Scientific tendency of the Macedonian campaigns.]

[Sidenote: Origin of the influence of Aristotle through Alexander.]

Though the military celebrity of this great soldier may be diminished by the history of the last hundred years, which shows a uniform result of victory when European armies are brought in contact with Asiatic, even under the most extraordinary disadvantages, there cannot be denied to him a profound sagacity and statesmans.h.i.+p excelled by no other conqueror. Before he became intoxicated with success, and, unfortunately, too frequently intoxicated with wine, there was much that was n.o.ble in his character. He had been under the instruction of Aristotle for several years, and, on setting out on his expedition, took with him so many learned men as almost to justify the remark applied to it, that it was as much a scientific as a military undertaking. Among those who thus accompanied him was Callisthenes, a relative and pupil of Aristotle, destined for an evil end. Perhaps the a.s.sertion that Alexander furnished to his master 250,000_l._ and the services of several thousand men, for the purpose of obtaining and examining the specimens required in the composition of his work on the "History of Animals" may be an exaggeration, but there can be no doubt that in these transactions was the real beginning of that policy which soon led to the inst.i.tution of the Museum at Alexandria. The importance of this event, though hitherto little understood, admits of no exaggeration, so far as the intellectual progress of Europe is concerned. It gave to the works of Aristotle their wonderful duration; it imparted to them not only a Grecian celebrity, but led to their translation into Syriac by the Nestorians in the fifth century, and from Syriac by the Arabs into their tongue four hundred years later. They exercised a living influence over Christians and Mohammedans indifferently, from Spain to Mesopotamia.

[Sidenote: Scientific training and undertakings of Alexander.]

[Sidenote: His unbridled pa.s.sions and iniquities.]

If the letter quoted by Plutarch as having been written by Alexander to Aristotle be authentic, it not only shows how thoroughly the pupil had been indoctrinated into the wisdom of the master, but warns us how liable we are to be led astray in the exposition we are presently to give of the Aristotelian philosophy. There was then, as unfortunately there has been too often since, a private as well as a public doctrine.

Alexander upbraids the philosopher for his indiscretion in revealing things that it was understood should be concealed. Aristotle defends himself by a.s.serting that the desired concealment had not been broken.

By many other incidents of a trifling kind the attachment of the conqueror to philosophy is indicated; thus Harpalus and Nearchus, the companions of his youth, were the agents employed in some of his scientific undertakings, the latter being engaged in sea explorations, doubtless having in the main a political object, yet full of interest to science. Had Alexander lived, Nearchus was to have repeated the circ.u.mnavigation of Africa. Harpalus, while governor of Babylon, was occupied in the attempt to exchange the vegetation of Europe and Asia; he intertransplanted the productions of Persia and Greece, succeeding, as is related, in his object of making all European plants that he tried, except the ivy, grow in Mesopotamia. The journey to the Caspian Sea, the expedition into the African deserts, indicate Alexander's personal taste for natural knowledge; nor is it without significance that, while on his death-bed, and, indeed, within a few days of his decease, he found consolation and amus.e.m.e.nt in having Nearchus by his side relating the story of his voyages. Nothing shows more strikingly how correct was his military perception than the intention he avowed of equipping a thousand s.h.i.+ps for the conquest of Carthage, and thus securing his supremacy in the Mediterranean. Notwithstanding all this, there were many points of his character, and many events of his life, worthy of the condemnation with which they have been visited; the drunken burning of Persepolis, the prisoners he slaughtered in honour of Hephaestion, the hanging of Callisthenes, were the results of intemperance and unbridled pa.s.sion. Even so steady a mind as his was incapable of withstanding the influence of such enormous treasures as those he seized at Susa; the plunder of the Persian empire; the inconceivable luxury of Asiatic life; the uncontrolled power to which he attained. But he was not so imbecile as to believe himself the descendant of Jupiter Ammon; that was only an artifice he permitted for the sake of influencing those around him. We must not forget that he lived in an age when men looked for immaculate conceptions and celestial descents. These Asiatic ideas had made their way into Europe. The Athenians themselves were soon to be reconciled to the appointment of divine honours to such as Antigonus and Demetrius, adoring them as G.o.ds--saviour G.o.ds--and inst.i.tuting sacrifices and priests for their wors.h.i.+p.

[Sidenote: The Greek age of Reason ushered in.]

[Sidenote: Its inability to accomplish the civilization of Europe.]

Great as were the political results of the Macedonian expedition, they were equalled by the intellectual. The times were marked by the ushering in of a new philosophy. Greece had gone through her age of Credulity, her age of Inquiry, her age of Faith; she had entered on her age of Reason, and, had freedom of action been permitted to her, she would have given a decisive tone to the forthcoming civilization of Europe. As will be seen in the following pages, that great destiny did not await her. From her eccentric position at Alexandria she could not civilize Europe. In her old age, the power of Europe, concentrated in the Roman empire, overthrew her. There are very few histories of the past of more interest to modern times, and none, unfortunately, more misunderstood, than this Greek age of Reason manifested at Alexandria. It ill.u.s.trates, in the most signal manner, that affairs control men more than men control affairs. The scientific a.s.sociations of the Macedonian conqueror directly arose from the contemporaneous state of Greek philosophy in the act of reaching the close of its age of faith, and these influences ripened under the Macedonian captain who became King of Egypt. As it was, the learning of Alexandria, though diverted from its most appropriate and desirable direction by the operation of the Byzantine system, in the course of a few centuries acting forcibly upon it, was not without an influence on the future thought of Europe. Even at this day Europe will not bear to be fully told how great that influence has been.

[Sidenote: The writings of Aristotle are its prelude.]

The age of Reason, to which Aristotle is about to introduce us, stands in striking contrast to the preceding ages. It cannot escape the reader that what was done by the men of science in Alexandria resembles what is doing in our own times; their day was the foreshadowing of ours. And yet a long and dreary period of almost twenty centuries parts us from them.

Politically, Aristotle, through his friends.h.i.+p with Alexander and the perpetuation of the Macedonian influence in Ptolemy, was the connecting link between the Greek age of Faith and that of Reason, as he was also philosophically by the nature of his doctrines. He offers us an easy pa.s.sage from the speculative methods of Plato to the scientific methods of Archimedes and Euclid. The copiousness of his doctrines, and the obscurity of many of them, might, perhaps, discourage a superficial student, unless he steadily bears in mind the singular authority they maintained for so many ages, and the brilliant results in all the exact parts of human knowledge to which they so quickly led. The history of Aristotle and his philosophy is therefore our necessary introduction to the grand, the immortal achievements of the Alexandrian school.

[Sidenote: Biography of Aristotle.]

Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Thrace, B.C. 384. His father was an eminent author of those times on subjects of Natural History; by profession he was a physician. Dying while his son was yet quite young, he bequeathed to him not only very ample means, but also his own tastes.

Aristotle soon found his way to Athens, and entered the school of Plato, with whom it is said he remained for nearly twenty years. During this period he spent most of his patrimony, and in the end was obliged to support himself by the trade of a druggist. At length differences arose between them, for, as we shall soon find, the great pupil was by no means a blind follower of the great master. In a fortunate moment, Philip, the King of Macedon, appointed him preceptor to his son Alexander, an incident of importance in the intellectual history of Europe. It was to the friends.h.i.+p arising through this relation that Aristotle owed the a.s.sistance he received from the conqueror during his Asiatic expedition for the composition of "the Natural History," and also gained that prestige which gave his name such singular authority for more than fifteen centuries. He eventually founded a school in the Lyceum at Athens, and, as it was his habit to deliver his lectures while walking, his disciples received the name of Peripatetics, or walking philosophers. These lectures were of two kinds, esoteric and exoteric, the former being delivered to the more advanced pupils only. He wrote a very large number of works, of which about one-fourth remain.

[Sidenote: He founds the inductive philosophy.]

The philosophical method of Aristotle is the inverse of that of Plato, whose starting-point was universals, the very existence of which was a matter of faith, and from these he descended to particulars or details.

Aristotle, on the contrary, rose from particulars to universals, advancing to them by inductions; and his system, thus an inductive philosophy, was in reality the true beginning of science.

[Sidenote: His method compared with that of Plato.]

Plato therefore trusts to the Imagination, Aristotle to Reason. The contrast between them is best seen by the att.i.tude in which they stand as respects the Ideal theory. Plato regards universals, types, or exemplars as having an actual existence; Aristotle declares that they are mere abstractions of reasoning. For the fanciful reminiscences derived from former experience in another life by Plato, Aristotle subst.i.tutes the reminiscences of our actual experience in this. These ideas of experience are furnished by the memory, which enables us not only to recall individual facts and events witnessed by ourselves, but also to collate them with one another, thereby discovering their resemblances and their differences. Our induction becomes the more certain as our facts are more numerous, our experience larger. "Art commences when, from a great number of experiences, one general conception is formed which will embrace all similar cases." "If we properly observe celestial phenomena, we may demonstrate the laws which regulate them." With Plato, philosophy arises from faith in the past; with Aristotle, reason alone can const.i.tute it from existing facts.

Plato is a.n.a.lytic, Aristotle synthetic. The philosophy of Plato arises from the decomposition of a primitive idea into particulars, that of Aristotle from the union of particulars into a general conception. The former is essentially an idealist, the latter a materialist.

[Sidenote: The results of Platonism and Aristotelism.]

From this it will be seen that the method of Plato was capable of producing more splendid, though they were necessarily more unsubstantial results; that of Aristotle was more tardy in its operation, but much more solid. It implied endless labour in the collection of facts, the tedious resort to experiment and observation, the application of demonstration. In its very nature it was such that it was impossible for its author to carry by its aid the structure of science to completion.

The moment that Aristotle applies his own principles we find him compelled to depart from them through want of a sufficient experience and sufficient precision in his facts. The philosophy of Plato is a gorgeous castle in the air, that of Aristotle is a solid structure, laboriously, and, with many failures, founded on the solid rock.

[Sidenote: Aristotle's logic]

Under Logic, Aristotle treats of the methods of arriving at general propositions, and of reasoning from them. His logic is at once the art of thinking and the instrument of thought. The completeness of our knowledge depends on the extent and completeness of our experience. His manner of reasoning is by the syllogism, an argument consisting of three propositions, such that the concluding one follows of necessity from the two premises, and of which, indeed, the whole theory of demonstration is only an example. Regarding logic as the instrument of thought, he introduces into it, as a fundamental feature, the ten categories. These predicaments are the genera to which everything may be reduced, and denote the most general of the attributes which may be a.s.signed to a thing.

[Sidenote: and metaphysics.]

His metaphysics overrides all the branches of the physical sciences. It undertakes an examination of the postulates on which each one of them is founded, determining their truth or fallacy. Considering that all science must find a support for its fundamental conditions in an extensive induction from facts, he puts at the foundation of his system the consideration of the individual; in relation to the world of sense, he regards four causes as necessary for the production of a fact--the material cause, the substantial cause, the efficient cause, the final cause.

[Sidenote: Temporary failure of his system.]

[Sidenote: The Peripatetic philosophy.]

[Sidenote: Substance, Motion, s.p.a.ce, Time.]

[Sidenote: The world.]

[Sidenote: Organic beings.]

[Sidenote: Physiological conclusions.]

But as soon as we come to the Physics of Aristotle we see at once his weakness. The knowledge of his age does not furnish him facts enough whereon to build, and the consequence is that he is forced into speculation. It will be sufficient for our purpose to allude to a few of his statements, either in this or in his metaphysical branch, to show how great is his uncertainty and confusion. Thus he a.s.serts that matter contains a triple form--simple substance, higher substance, which is eternal, and absolute substance, or G.o.d himself; that the universe is immutable and eternal, and, though in relation with the vicissitudes of the world, it is unaffected thereby; that the primitive force which gives rise to all the motions and changes we see is Nature; it also gives rise to Rest; that the world is a living being, having a soul; that, since every thing is for some particular end, the soul of man is the end of his body; that Motion is the condition of all nature; that the world has a definite boundary and a limited magnitude; that s.p.a.ce is the immovable vessel in which whatever is may be moved; that s.p.a.ce, as a whole, is without motion, though its parts may move; that it is not to be conceived of as without contents; that it is impossible for a vacuum to exist, and hence there is not beyond and surrounding the world a void which contains the world; that there could be no such thing as Time unless there is a soul, for time being the number of motion, number is impossible except there be one who numbers; that, perpetual motion in a finite right line being impossible, but in a curvilinear path possible, the world, which is limited and ever in motion, must be of a spherical form; that the earth is its central part, the heavens the circ.u.mferential: hence the heaven is nearest to the prime cause of motion; that the orderly, continuous, and unceasing movement of the celestial bodies implies an unmoved mover, for the unchangeable alone can give birth to uniform motion; that unmoved existence is G.o.d; that the stars are pa.s.sionless beings, having attained the end of existence, and worthy above other things of human adoration; that the fixed stars are in the outermost heaven, and the sun, moon, and planets beneath: the former receive their motion from the prime moving cause, but the planets are disturbed by the stars; that there are five elements--earth, air, fire, water, and ether; that the earth is in the centre of the world, since earthy matter settles uniformly round a central point; that fire seeks the circ.u.mferential region, and intermediately water floats upon the earth, and air upon water; that the elements are trans.m.u.table into one another, and hence many intervening substances arise; that each sphere is in interconnection with the others; the earth is agitated and disturbed by the sea, the sea by the winds, which are movements of the air, the air by the sun, moon, and planets. Each inferior sphere is controlled by its outlying or superior one, and hence it follows that the earth, which is thus disturbed by the conspiring or conflicting action of all above it, is liable to the most irregularities; that, since animals are nourished by the earth, it needs must enter into their composition, but that water is required to hold the earthy matters together; that every element must be looked upon as living, since it is pervaded by the soul of the world; that there is an unbroken chain from the simple element through the plant and animal up to man, the different groups merging by insensible shades into one another: thus zoophytes partake partly of the vegetable and partly of the animal, and serve as an intermedium between them; that plants are inferior to animals in this, that they do not possess a single principle of life or soul, but many subordinate ones, as is shown by the circ.u.mstance that, when they are cut to pieces, each piece is capable of perfect or independent growth or life. Their inferiority is likewise betrayed by their belonging especially to the earth to which they are rooted, each root being a true mouth; and this again displays their lowly position, for the place of the mouth is ever an indication of the grade of a creature: thus in man, who is at the head of the scale, it is in the upper part of the body; that in proportion to the heat of an animal is its grade higher; thus those that are aquatic are cold, and therefore of very little intelligence, and the same maybe said of plants; but of man, whose warmth is very great, the soul is much more excellent; that the possession of locomotion by an organism always implies the possession of sensation; that the senses of taste and touch indicate the qualities of things in contact with the organs of the animal, but that those of smell, hearing, and sight extend the sphere of its existence, and indicate to it what is at a distance: that the place of reception of the various sensations is the soul, from which issue forth the motions; that the blood, as the general element of nutrition, is essential to the support of the body, though insensible itself: it is also essential to the activity of the soul; that the brain is not the recipient of sensations: that function belongs to the heart; all the animal activities are united in the last; it contains the principle of life, being the principle of motion: it is the first part to be formed and the last to die; that the brain is a mere appendix to the heart, since it is formed after the heart, is the coldest of the organs and is devoid of blood; that the soul is the reunion of all the functions of the body: it is an energy or active essence; being neither body nor magnitude, it cannot have extension, for thought has no parts, nor can it be said to move in s.p.a.ce; it is as a sailor, who is motionless in a s.h.i.+p which is moving; that, in the origin of the organism, the male furnishes the soul and the female the body; that the body being liable to decay, and of a transitory nature, it is necessary for its well-being that its disintegration and nutrition should balance one another; that sensation may be compared to the impression of a seal on wax, the wax receiving form only, but no substance or matter; that imagination arises from impressions thus made, which endure for a length of time, and that this is the origin of memory; that man alone possesses recollection, but animals share with him memory--memory being unintentional or spontaneous, but recollection implying voluntary exertion or a search; that recollection is necessary for acting with design. It is doubtful whether Aristotle believed in the immortality of the soul, no decisive pa.s.sage to that effect occurring in such of his works as are extant.

[Sidenote: Causes of Aristotle's success and failure.]

Aristotle, with a correct and scientific method, tried to build up a vast system when he was not in possession of the necessary data. Though a very learned man, he had not sufficient knowledge; indeed, there was not sufficient knowledge at that time in the world. For many of the a.s.sertions I have quoted in the preceding paragraph there was no kind of proof; many of them also, such as the settling of the heavy and the rise of the light, imply very poor cosmic ideas. It is not until he deals with those branches, such as comparative anatomy and natural history, of which he had a personal and practical knowledge, that he begins to write well. Of his physiological conclusions, some are singularly felicitous; his views of the connected chain of organic forms, from the lowest to the highest, are very grand. His metaphysical and physical speculations--for in reality they are nothing but speculations--are of no kind of value. His successful achievements, and also his failures, conspicuously prove the excellence of his system. He expounded the true principles of science, but failed to apply them merely for want of materials. His ambition could not brook restraint. He would rather attempt to construct the universe without the necessary means than not construct it at all.

Aristotle failed when he abandoned his own principles, and the magnitude of his failure proves how just his principles were; he succeeded when he adhered to them. If anything were wanting to vindicate their correctness and ill.u.s.trate them, it is supplied by the glorious achievements of the Alexandrian school, which acted in physical science as Aristotle had acted in natural history, laying a basis solidly in observation and experiment, and accomplis.h.i.+ng a like durable and brilliant result.

[Sidenote: Biography of Zeno.]

From Aristotle it is necessary to turn to Zeno, for the Peripatetics and Stoics stand in parallel lines. The social conditions existing in Greece at the time of Epicurus may in some degree palliate his sentiments, but virtue and honour will make themselves felt at last. Stoicism soon appeared as the antagonist of Epicureanism, and Epicurus found in Zeno of Citium a rival. The pa.s.sage from Epicurus to Zeno is the pa.s.sage from sensual gratification to self-control.