Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 24

"The first act in the drama of Grecian speculation was performed on the varied theatre of the Grecian colonies--Asiatic, insular, and Italian, verging at length (in Anaxagoras) towards Athens." During the progress of this drama two distinct schools of philosophy were developed, having distinct geographical provinces, one on the east, the other on the west, of the peninsula of Greece, and deriving their names from the localities in which they flourished. The earliest was the _Ionian;_ the latter was the _Italian_ school.

It would be extremely difficult, at this remote period, to estimate the influence which geographical conditions and ethnical relations exerted in determining the course of philosophic thought in these schools.

Unquestionably those conditions contributed somewhat towards fixing their individuality. At the same time, it must be granted that the distinction in these two schools of philosophy is of a deeper character than can be represented or explained by geographical surroundings; it is a distinction reaching to the very foundation of their habits of thought. These schools represent two distinct aspects of philosophic thought, two distinct methods in which the human mind has essayed to solve the problem of the universe.

The ante-Socratic schools were chiefly occupied with the study of external nature. "Greek philosophy was, at its first appearance, a philosophy of nature." It was an effort of the reason to reach a "first principle" which should explain the universe. This early attempt was purely speculative. It sought to interpret all phenomena by _hypotheses_, that is, by suppositions, more or less plausible, suggested by physical a.n.a.logies or by _a priori_ rational conceptions.

Now there are two distinct aspects under which nature presents itself to the observant mind. The first and most obvious is the _simple phenomena_ as perceived by the senses. The second is the _relations_ of _phenomena_, cognized by the reason alone. Let phenomena, which are indeed the first objects of perception, continue to be the chief and almost exclusive object of thought, and philosophy is on the highway of pure physics. On the other hand, instead of stopping at phenomena, let their relations become the sole object of thought, and philosophy is now on the road of purely mathematical or metaphysical abstraction. Thus two schools of philosophy are developed, the one SENSATIONAL, the other IDEALIST. Now these, it will be found, are the leading and characteristic tendencies of the two grand divisions of the pre-Socratic schools; the Ionian is _sensational_, the Italian is _idealist_.

These two schools have again been the subject of a further subdivision based upon diverse habits of thought. The Ionian school sought to explain the universe by _physical a.n.a.logies._ Of these there are two clear and obvious divisions--a.n.a.logies suggested by living organisms, and a.n.a.logies suggested by mechanical arrangements. One cla.s.s of philosophers in the Ionian school laid hold on the first a.n.a.logy. They regarded the world as a living being, spontaneously evolving itself--a vital organism whose successive developments and transformations const.i.tute all visible phenomena. A second cla.s.s laid hold on the a.n.a.logy suggested by mechanical arrangements. For them the universe was a grand superstructure, built up from elemental particles, arranged and united by some ab-extra power or force, or else aggregated by some inherent mutual affinity. Thus we have two sects of the Ionian school; the first, _Dynamical_ or vital; the second, _Mechanical_.[400]

[Footnote 400: Ritter's "Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 191, 192.]

The Italian school sought to explain the universe by rational conceptions and _a priori_ ideas. Now to those who seek, by simple reflection, to investigate the relations of the external world this marked distinction will present itself: some are relations _between_ sensible phenomena--relations of time, of place, of number, of proportion, and of harmony; others are relations _of_ phenomena to essential being--relations of qualities to substance, of becoming to being, of the finite to the infinite. The former const.i.tuted the field of Pythagorean the latter of Eleatic contemplation. The Pythagoreans sought to explain the universe by numbers, forms, and harmonies; the Eleatics by the _a priori_ ideas of unity, substance, Being _in se_, the Infinite. Thus were const.i.tuted a _Mathematical_ and a _Metaphysical_ sect in the Italian school. The pre-Socratic schools may, therefore, be tabulated in the following order:

I. IONIAN (Sensational), (1.) PHYSICAL {Dynamical or Vital.

{Mechanical.

II. Italian (Idealist), {(2.) MATHEMATICAL Pythagoreans.

{(3.) METAPHYSICAL Eleatics.

I. _The Ionian or Physical School._--We have premised that the philosophers of this school attempted the explanation of the universe by physical a.n.a.logies.

One cla.s.s of these early speculators, the _Dynamical_, or vital theorists, proceeded on the supposition of a living energy infolded in nature, which in its spontaneous development continuously undergoes alteration both of quality and form. This imperfect a.n.a.logy is the first hypothesis of childhood. The child personifies the stone that hurts him, and his first impulse is to resent the injury as though he imagined it to be endowed with consciousness, and to be acting with design. The childhood of superst.i.tion (whose genius is multiplicity) personifies each individual existence--a rude Fetichism, which imagines a supernatural power and presence enshrined in every object of nature, in every plant, and stock, and stone. The childhood of philosophy (whose genius is unity) personifies the universe. It regards the earth as one vast organism, animated by one soul, and this soul of the world as a "created G.o.d."[401] The first efforts of philosophy were, therefore, simply an attempt to explain the universe in harmony with the popular theological beliefs. The cosmogonies of the early speculators in the Ionian school were an elaboration of the ancient theogonies, but still an elaboration conducted under the guidance of that law of thought which constrains man to seek for _unity_, and reduce the many to the one.

Therefore, in attempting to construct a theory of the universe they commenced by postulating an ????--a first principle or element out of which, by a _vital_ process, all else should be produced. "Accordingly, whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable, as well as _universal_ element in the ma.s.s of the visible world, was marked as the seminal principle whose successive developments and transformations produced all the rest."[402] With this seminal principle the living, _animating_ principle seems to have been a.s.sociated--in some instances perhaps confounded, and in most instances called by the same name. And having pursued this a.n.a.logy so far, we shall find the _most decided and conclusive_ evidence of a tendency to regard the soul of man as similar, in its nature, to the soul which animates the world.

[Footnote 401: Plato's "Laws," bk. x. ch. i.; "Timaeus," ch. xii.]

[Footnote 402: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. 1. p.

292.]

_Thales of Miletus_(B.C. 636-542) was the first to lead the way in the perilous inquiry after an ????, or first principle, which should furnish a rational explanation of the universe. Following, as it would seem, the genealogy of Hesiod, he supposed _water_ to be the primal element out of which all material things were produced. Aristotle supposes he was impressed with this idea from observing that all things are nourished by moisture; warmth itself, he declared, proceeded from moisture; the seeds of all things are moist; water, when condensed, becomes earth.

Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he declared it to be the first principle of things.[403]

And now, from this brief statement of the Thalean physics, are we to conclude that he recognized only a _material_ cause of the universe?

Such is the impression we receive from the reading of the First Book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. His evident purpose is to prove that the first philosophers of the Ionian school did not recognize an _efficient_ cause. In his opinion, they were decidedly materialistic. Now to question the authority of Aristotle may appear to many an act of presumption. But Aristotle was not infallible; and nothing is more certain than that in more than one instance he does great injustice to his predecessors.[404] To him, unquestionably, belongs the honor of having made a complete and exhaustive cla.s.sification of causes, but there certainly does appear something more than vanity in the a.s.sumption that he, of all the Greek philosophers, was the only one who recognized them all. His sagacious cla.s.sification was simply a resume of the labors of his predecessors. His "principles" or "causes" were incipient in the thought of the first speculators in philosophy. Their accurate definition and clearer presentation was the work of ages of a.n.a.lytic thought. The phrases "efficient," "formal," "final" cause, are, we grant, peculiar to Aristotle; the ideas were equally the possession of his predecessors.

[Footnote 403: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]

[Footnote 404: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 77; Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.]

The evidence, we think, is conclusive that, with this primal element (water), Thales a.s.sociated a formative principle of motion; to the "material" he added the "efficient" cause. A strong presumption in favor of this opinion is grounded on the psychological views of Thales. The author of "De Placitis Philosophorum" a.s.sociates him with Pythagoras and Plato, in teaching that the soul is incorporeal, making it naturally self-active, and an intelligent substance.[405] And it is admitted by Aristotle (rather unwillingly, we grant, but his testimony is all the more valuable on that account) that, in his time, the opinion that the soul is a principle, ?e?????t??--ever moving, or essentially self-active, was currently ascribed to Thales. "If we may rely on the notices of Thales, he too would seem to have conceived the soul as a _moving principle_."[406] Extending this idea, that the soul is a moving principle, he held that all motion in the universe was due to the presence of a living soul. "He is reported to have said that the loadstone possessed a soul because it could move iron."[407] And he taught that "the world itself is _animated_, and full of G.o.ds."[408]

"Some think that _soul_ and _life_ is mingled with the whole universe; and thence, perhaps, was that [opinion] of Thales that all things are full of G.o.ds,"[409] portions, as Aristotle said, of the universal soul.

These views are quite in harmony with the theology which makes the Deity the moving energy of the universe--the energy which wrought the successive transformations of the primitive aqueous element. They also furnish a strong corroboration of the positive statement of Cicero--"Aquam, dixit Thales, esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem quae ex aqua cuncta fingeret." Thales said that water is the first principle of things, but G.o.d was that mind which formed all things out of water;[410] as also that still more remarkable saying of Thales, recorded by Diogenes Laertius; "G.o.d is the most ancient of all things, for he had no birth; the world is the most beautiful of all things, for it is the workmans.h.i.+p of G.o.d."[411] We are aware that some historians of philosophy reject the statement of Cicero, because, say they, "it does violence to the chronology of speculation."[412] Following Hegel, they a.s.sert that Thales could have no conception of G.o.d as Intelligence, since that is a conception of a more advanced philosophy. Such an opinion may be naturally expected from the philosopher who places G.o.d, not at the commencement, but at the _end_ of things, G.o.d becoming conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches that G.o.d himself has had a progressive development, it is no wonder he should a.s.sert that the idea of G.o.d has also had an historic development, the _last_ term of which is an _intelligent G.o.d_. But he who believes that the idea of G.o.d as the infinite and the perfect is native to the human mind, and that G.o.d stands at the beginning of the entire system of things, will feel there is a strong _a priori_ ground for the belief that Thales recognized the existence of an _intelligent G.o.d who fas.h.i.+oned the universe_.

[Footnote 405: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 71.]

[Footnote 406: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 2, 17.]

[Footnote 407: Id., ib., i. 2, 17.]

[Footnote 408: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," p. 18 (Bohn's ed.).]

[Footnote 409: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 17.]

[Footnote 410: "De Natura Deor.," bk. i. ch. x.]

[Footnote 411: "Lives," etc., p. 19.]

[Footnote 412: Lewes's "Hist. Philos.," p. 4.]

_Anaximenes of Miletus_ (B.C. 529-480) we place next to Thales in the consecutive history of thought. It has been usual to rank Anaximander next to the founder of the Ionian School. The entire complexion of his system is, however, unlike that of a pupil of Thales. And we think a careful consideration of his views will justify our placing him at the head of the Mechanical or Atomic division of the Ionian school.

Anaximenes is the historical successor of Thales; he was unquestionably a vitalist. He took up the speculation where Thales had left it, and he carried it a step forward in its development.[413]

Pursuing the same method as Thales, he was not, however, satisfied with the conclusion he had reached. Water was not to Anaximenes the most significant, neither was it the most universal element. But air seemed universally present. "The earth was a broad leaf resting upon it. All things were produced from it; all things were resolved into it. When he breathed he drew in a part of this universal life. All things are nourished by air."[414] Was not, therefore, _air_ the ????, or primal element of things?

[Footnote 413: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.

203.]

[Footnote 414: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 7.]

This brief notice of the physical speculations of Anaximenes is all that has survived of his opinions. We search in vain for some intimations of his theological views. On this merely negative ground, some writers have unjustly charged him with Atheism. Were we to venture a conjecture, we would rather say that there are indications of a tendency to Pantheism in that form of it which a.s.sociates G.o.d necessarily with the universe, but does not utterly confound them. His fixing upon "_air_" as the primal element, seems an effort to reconcile, in some apparently intermediate substance, the opposite qualities of corporeal and spiritual natures. Air is invisible, impalpable, all-penetrating, and yet in some manner appreciable to sense. May not the vital transformations of this element have produced all the rest? The writer of the Article on Anaximenes in the Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us (on what ancient authorities he saith not) that "he a.s.serted this air was G.o.d, since the divine power resides in it and agitates it."

Some indications of the views of Anaximenes may perhaps be gathered from the teachings of Diogenes of Apollonia (B.C. 520-490,) who was the disciple, and is generally regarded as the commentator and expounder of the views of Anaximenes. The air of Diogenes was a soul; therefore it was _living_, and not only living, but conscious and _intelligent_. "It knows much," says he; "for without _reason_ it would be impossible for all to be arranged duly and proportionately; and whatever objects we consider will be found to be so arranged and ordered in the best and most beautiful manner."[415] Here we have a distinct recognition of the fundamental axiom that _mind is the only valid explanation of the order and harmony which pervades the universe_. With Diogenes the first principle is a "divine air," which is vital, conscious, and intelligent, which spontaneously evolves itself, and which, by its ceaseless transformations, produces all phenomena. The soul of man is a detached portion of this divine element; his body is developed or evolved therefrom. The theology of Diogenes, and, as we believe, of his master, Anaximenes also, was a species of Materialistic Pantheism.

[Footnote 415: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 8; Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 214.]

_Herac.l.i.tus of Ephesus_(B.C. 503-420) comes next in the order of speculative thought. In his philosophy, _fire_ is the ????, or first principle; but not fire in the usual acceptation of that term. The Herac.l.i.tean "fire" is not flame, which is only an intensity of fire, but a warm, dry vapor--an _ether_, which may be ill.u.s.trated, perhaps, by the "caloric" of modern chemistry. This "_ether_" was the primal element out of which the universe was formed; it was also a vital power or principle which animated the universe, and, in fact, the _cause_ of all its successive phenomenal changes. "The world," he said, "was neither made by the G.o.ds nor men, and it was, and is, and ever shall be, an _ever-living fire_, in due proportion self-enkindled, and in due measure self-extinguished."[416] The universe is thus reduced to "an eternal fire," whose ceaseless energy is manifested openly in the work of dissolution, and yet secretly, but universally, in the work of renovation. The phenomena of the universe are explained by Herac.l.i.tus as "the concurrence of opposite tendencies and efforts in the motions of this ever-living fire, out of which results the most beautiful harmony.

This harmony of the world is one of conflicting impulses, like the lyre and the bow. The strife between opposite tendencies is the parent of all things. All life is change, and change is strife."[417]

[Footnote 416: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.

235.]

[Footnote 417: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 70; Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 244.]

Herac.l.i.tus was the first to proclaim the doctrine of the perpetual fluxion of the universe (t? ????, t? ?????e???--Unrest and Development), the endless changes of matter, and the mutability and perishability of all individual things. This restless, changing flow of things, which never _are_, but always are _becoming_, he p.r.o.nounced to be the _One_ and the _All_.

From this statement of the physical theory of Herac.l.i.tus we might naturally infer that he was a Hylopathean Atheist. Such an hypothesis would not, however, be truthful or legitimate. On a more careful examination, his system will be found to stand half-way between the materialistic and the spiritual conception of the Author of the universe, and marks, indeed, a transition from the one to the other.

Herac.l.i.tus unquestionably held that all substance is material, for a philosopher who proclaims, as he did, that the senses are the only source of knowledge, must necessarily attach himself to a material element as the primary one. And yet he seems to have _spiritualized_ matter. "The moving unit of Herac.l.i.tus--the Becoming--is as immaterial as the resting unit of the Eleatics--the Being."[418] The Herac.l.i.tean "_fire_" is endowed with _spiritual_ attributes. "Aristotle calls it ????--soul, and says that it is ?s?at?tat??, or absolutely incorporeal ("De Anima," i. 2. 16). It is, in effect, the common ground of the phenomena both of mind and matter it is not only the animating, but also the intelligent and regulating principle of the universe; the ?????

?????, or universal Word or Reason, which it behooves all men to follow."[419] The psychology of Herac.l.i.tus throws additional light upon his theological opinions. With him human intelligence is a detached portion of the Universal Reason. "Inhaling," said he, "through the breath the Universal Ether, which is Divine Reason, we become conscious." The errors and imperfections of humanity are consequently to be ascribed to a deficiency of the Divine Reason in man. Whilst, therefore, the theory of Herac.l.i.tus seems to materialize mind, it may, with equal fairness, be said to spiritualize matter.

[Footnote 418: Zeller's "History of Greek Philosophy," vol. i. p. 57.]

[Footnote 419: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 297, note.]

The general inference, therefore, from all that remains of the doctrine of Herac.l.i.tus is that he was a Materialistic Pantheist. His G.o.d was a living, rational, intelligent Ether--a soul pervading the universe. The form of the universe, its ever-changing phenomena, were a necessary emanation from, or a perpetual transformation of, this universal soul.

With Herac.l.i.tus we close our survey of that sect of the physical school which regarded the world as a living organism.