D. 1 29.)

Of far greater importance is Democritus, born at the Ionic colony of Abdera in Thrace, B.c. 460, the chief expositor of the Atomic theory, which was originated by his elder contemporary and friend, Leucippus the Eleatic (N. D. 166). Briefly stated, their doctrine is that of Anaxagoras, minus Vous and the qualitative diversity in the seeds or atoms. They adopted the Eleatic view so far as relates to the eternal sameness of Being, applying this to the indivisible, unchangeable atoms, but they denied its unity, continuity and im- mobility, and they asserted that ‘Not-being’ (the Vacuwm of their system) existed no less than ‘Being,’ and was no less essential as an apxy, Since without it motion would be impossible. The atoms are absolutely solid and incompressible, they are without any secondary qualities, and differ only in size (and therefore in weight), in figure, position and arrangement. Though too small to be seen or felt by us, they produce all things by their combinations; and the com- pounds have various qualities in accordance with the differences in
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. XVii
the constituent atoms, the mode of arrangement, and the larger or smaller amount of vacuum separating the atoms. Thus Soul, the divine element pervading the world, is a sort of fire made up of small, round, smooth atoms in continual motion, and largely mixed with vacuum. The account given by Democritus of the origin of the existing universe is that there were, to begin with, an infinite number of atoms carried downwards by their own inherent gravity at different rates in proportion to their magnitude, that thus they impinged one upon another, and gave rise to all sorts of oblique and contrary movements, out of which was generated an all-absorbing rotatory motion or vortex. Under these various movements cor- responding atoms found their fitting places and became entangled and hooked together so as to form bodies. Thus the earthy and watery particles were drawn to the centre where they remained at rest, while the airy and fiery rebounded from them and rose to the circumference, forming a sort of shell between the organized world and the infinitude of unorganized atoms on the outside. There was an endless number of such worlds in various stages of growth or decay under the influx or efflux of atoms; the destruction of each world followed upon its collision with another world. |
The account given of the mind and its operations was. as follows :— Particles of mind or soul were distributed throughout the body, and were continually escaping owing to their subtle nature, but, as they escaped, their place was taken by other particles inhaled in the breath. When breathing ceased there was nothing to recruit the living particles, and death speedily followed. Every mental impression was of the nature of touch, and was caused either by actual contact with atoms as in the case of taste and hearing, or by images thrown off from bodies external to us, and entering in through the pores.
These images were a kind of film consisting of the surface atoms which were continually floating off from all bodies without any disturbance of their mutual order, and were, so to speak, a sample of the object from which they were detached. Democritus also used the same word (eidwAa) for the anthropomorphic combinations of the finest soul-atoms which he believed to exist in the air, and to be at times perceived by men. These were the Guds of the popular religion, not immortal, though longer lived than men: some were friendly, some malignant ; he prayed that he might himself only meet with the former. Cf. N. D. 129 & 120.
XV1l1 INTRODUCTION.
Democritus closes the series of the pre-Socratic dogmatists, men who devoted themselves to the investigation of Nature as a whole, believing that the investigation would lead to the discovery of the truth. Between these and Socrates, the great regenerator of phi- losophy, is interposed the sceptical or Sophistic era. That the latter was a natural and necessary stage in the development of Greek thought will be apparent from the following considerations :—
What we are told about Pythagoras and his disciples must have been more or less true of all the early philosophers. The sage no less than the poet believed himself the organ of a special inspiration, which in the case of the former revealed to him the inner truth of nature; those who were worthy to receive the revelation listened with reverence to his teaching, and rested their faith implicitly on their master’s authority. But when different schools sprang up, each asserting their own doctrines with equal positiveness ; when the increase of intercommunication spread the knowledge of these contra- dictory systems throughout the Greek-speaking world ; when philo- sophical questions began to be popularized by poets like Euripides, and discussed in the saloons of a Pericles or an Aspasia; when Zeno’s criticisms had made clear to the public, what had been an esoteric truth to the hearers of Parmenides and Heraclitus, that not merely traditional beliefs, but even the evidence of the senses was Incapable of standing against the reason of the philosophers,—the result of all this was a widespread scepticism either as to the existence of ob- jective truth altogether (Protagoras) or as to the possibility of the attainment of physical truth by man (Socrates) If we remember at the same time the incredibly rapid development in every depart- ment of life which took place in Greece and especially in Athens during the 5th century B.c.; the sense which must have forced itself on all the more thoughtful minds, of the incompetency of the old beliefs to explain the problems of the new age which was dawning upon them; and on the other hand the growing importance of oratory and the immense stimulus to ambition, held out in a state like Athens, to those who were of a more practical turn of mind,— we shall not be surprised if there was much curiosity to learn the opinions of the most advanced thinkers, and much eagerness to acquire the argumentative power by which a Zeno could make the worse cause appear the better. The enlightened men who came forward to supply this demand called themselves by the name of Sophists, or teachers of wisdom. They were the first who made
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. xix
a profession of the higher education, and some of them amassed con- siderable fortunes by their lectures on rhetoric, the art of speaking, which was also made to include instruction in regard to political and social life. The speculative interest of the older philosophers was in them changed into a predominantly practical interest, 1st, as to how to acquire wealth and notoriety for themselves, and 2ndly, as a means to this, to attract by omniscient pretensions, by brilliant declamation and startling paradox, clever and ambitious young men of the richer classes; and then to secure their continued discipleship by careful training with a view to the attainment of political power™*.
Protagoras of Abdera (B.c. 490—415) and Gorgias of Leontini in Sicily (Bc. 480—375) are the earliest of the so-called Sophists. Protagoras taught in Sicily and at Athens, from which latter place he was banished on a charge of impiety in consequence of his treatise on Theology referred to by Cicero, N. D. 129 & 63. His treatise on Truth began with the famous sentence, ‘Man is the measure of all things;’ meaning that truth is relative, not absolute, that what each man holds to be true, that is true to him; and similarly in regard to conduct, that it is impossible to pronounce universally that one kind of conduct is right, another wrong: right and wrong depend upon opinion; what is generally thought right is right generally; what each thinks right is right for him, just as each man’s sensations are true for him, though perhaps not for another; there is therefore no more reason for one general assertion than for another, perhaps an opposite assertion. It is plain that this was a sort of conciliation theory naturally springing from the fact of the opposition of philosophical schools: ‘each of you are equally right relatively, equally wrong absolutely ; there is no need for quarrel.’ Protagoras also wrote on Grammar and Philology. Gorgias is said to have first come to Athens in B.c. 427, and afterwards to have travelled about giving lectures from town to town. He devoted himself mainly to the cultivation of rhetoric, but also wrote a treatise rept gicews, in which he maintained 1st ‘that nothing exists’ (¢.e. doubtless ‘in the absolute Eleatic sense’); 2nd that if anything did exist, still it could not be known; 3rd that even if it could be known, the knowledge of it could not be communicated
* The general features of the Sophistic period are photographed in the Clouds of Aristophanes, and in Thucydides’ chapters on the Plague of Athens and the Coreyrean revolution, and his speeches generally.
>.9.¢ INTRODUCTION,
to others. Hippias of Elis and Prodicus of Ceos were some twenty years younger than Protagoras. The former was best known for his scientific attainments: he is said to have given utterance to the revolutionary sentiment of the age in the phrase, ‘Law is a tyrant over men, forcing them to do many things contrary to nature.’ Prodicus is famed for his moral apologue on the Choice of Hercules narrated by Xenophon, Cicero (N. D. 1118), following Philodemus, reports that he considered the Gods of popular religion to be merely deified utilities, Bacchus wine, Ceres corn, «ce.
But the extreme effects of the disintegration of established beliefs were not scen in the teachers, but in some of their pupils who were less dependent on public opinion, young aristocrats who fretted under democratic rule, and were eager to take advantage of the disorganized state of society in order to grasp at power for them- selves. Such was the Callicles of the Gorgias, such Critias and Alcibiades, both disciples of Socrates, of whom we have now to speak,
Socrates was horn at Athens 470 B.c.; he was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor, and Phaenarete a midwife. While sharing the general scepticism as to the possibility of arriving at certainty in regard to the Natural Philosophy which had formed the almost exclusive subject of earlier speculation, he maintained, in opposition to most of the popular teachers of his time, the certainty of moral distinctions, and laid down a method for the discovery of error on the one side, and the establishment of objective truth on the other. The main lines of his philosophy are given in three famous sen- tences: (1) that of Cicero, that he brought down philosophy from heaven to earth; (2) his own assertion that he practised in regard to the soul the art (wavevrexy) which his mother had practised in regard to the body, bringing to birth and consciousness truths before held unconsciously ; (3) Aristotle’s statement that Socrates was the first to introduce inductive reasoning and general definitions. But more important than any innovation in regard to method was the immense personal influence of Socrates. His force of will, his in- difference to conventionalities, his intense earnestness, both moral and intellectual, contrasting so strongly with the dilettantism of ordinary teachers, and yet combined with such universal interest and sympathy in all varieties of life and character, his warm and genial nature, his humour, his irony, his extraordinary conversational
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Xxl
powers, these formed a whole unique in the history of the world ; and we can well believe that they acted like an electric shock on the more susceptible minds of his time. For we must remember that Socrates did not, like earlier philosophers, conterit himself with imparting the results of solitary meditation to a few favoured dis- ciples: nor did he, like the Sophists, lecture to a paying audience on a set subject; but obeying, as he believed, a divine call, he mixed with men of every class wherever they were to be found, cross- questioning them as to the grounds of their beliefs, and endeavouring to awaken in them a consciousness of their ignorance and a desire for real knowledge. His own account of his call is as follows: one of his disciples was told by the Oracle at Delphi that Socrates was the wisest of men. Socrates could not conceive how this should be, as he was conscious only of ignorance; but he determined to question some of those who had the highest repute for wisdom ; accordingly he went to statesmen and poets and orators, and last of all to craftsmen, but everywhere met with the same response: none really knew what were the true ends of life, but each one fancied that he knew, and most were angry when Socrates attempted to disturb their illusion of knowledge. Thus he arrived at the conclusion that what the oracle meant was that the first step to knowledge was the consciousness of ignorance, and he believed, in consequence of other divine warnings, that it was his special mission to bring men to this consciousness.
The next step on the way to knowledge was to get clear general notions, by comparing a number of specific cases in which the same general term was employed; or, according to the phraseology of ancient philosophy, to see the One (the kind or genus, the general principle, the law, the idea,) in the Many (the subordinate species or individuals, the particulars, the phenomena, the facts) and conversely to rise from the Many to the One. The process of doing this he called Dialectic, 2. e. discourse, since it was by question and answer that he believed the proposed definition could be best tested, and the universal idea which was latent in each individual could be brought to light. Truth and right were the same for all: it was only ignorance, mistake, confusion which made them seem different to different men, And similarly it is ignorance which leads men to commit vicious actions: no one willingly does wrong, since to do right is the only way to happiness, and every man desires happiness, Thus virtue is a knowledge of the way to happiness,
XXil INTRODUCTION.
and more generally, right action is reasonable action; in other words, virtue is wisdom, and each particular virtue, such as courage or temperance, wisdom in reference to particular circumstances or a particular class of objects. Self-mastery and superiority to the outward conditions of life are essential to happiness,
In regard to religion, Socrates, while often employing language suited to the popular polytheism, held that there was one supreme God who was to the universe what the soul of man was to his body, that all things were arranged and ordered by Him for good, and that man was the object of His special providence and might look for guidance from Him in oracles and otherwise. The soul was immortal, and had in it a divine element. Socrates believed that he was himself favoured beyond others in the warning sign (ro dapoviov) which checked him whenever he was about to take an ill-judged step.
The personal enmity provoked by the use of the Socratic elenchus, and the more general dislike to the Socratic method as unsettling the grounds of belief and undermining authority, a dislike which showed itself in the Clouds of Aristophanes as early as 423 B.c., combined with the democratic reaction, after the overthrow of the Thirty, to bring about the execution of Socrates in the year 399 B.c. The charges on which he was condemned were that he did not believe in the Gods of the established religion, that he introduced new Gods, and that he corrupted the young: the last charge probably referring to the fact that Socrates freely pointed ont the faults of the Athenian constitution, and that many of his disciples took the anti-popular side (N. D. 11 18, 167).
Our authorities for the life of Socrates are the writings of his two disciples, Xenophon and Plato. The former (440—355 B.c.) was a soldier and country gentleman with a taste for literature, who endeavoured to clear his master’s memory from the imputation of impiety and immorality by publishing the J/emorabilia, a collection of his noteworthy sayings and discourses. Xenophon was banished from Athens for fighting in the Spartan ranks at Coronea. Plato is distinguished from the other disciples of Socrates as the one who represents most truly the many-sidedness of his master, completing indeed and developing what was defective in him and incorporating all that was valuable in the earlier philosophers. Before treating of him it will be convenient to speak shortly of the ‘imperfect’ or one-sided Socraticists.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Xxill
Euclides of Megara, the founder of the Megaric and so ultimately of the Sceptic school, was chiefly attracted by the negative teaching of Socrates, and his followers are noted as the inventors of various sophisms which served them as offensive weapons against their opponents. The main positive doctrine attributed to them is that they identified the Good, which Socrates called the highest object of knowledge, with the Absolute One of Parmenides, denying the existence of Evil.
Antisthenes (N. D.1 32), the founder of the Cynic and indirectly of the Stoic school, was the caricature of the ascetic and unconven- tional side of Socrates. Nothing is good but virtue, nothing evil but vice. Virtue is wisdom, and the wise man is always perfectly happy because he is self-sufficient and has no wants, no ties and no weak- nesses. The mass of men are fools and slaves, and the wise man is their appointed guide and physician. Acting on these principles the Cynics were the mendicant Friars of their time, abstaining from marriage and repudiating all civil claims while they professed them- selves to be citizens of a world-wide community. On the subject of religion Antisthenes stated explicitly, what was doubtless implied in the teaching of Socrates, that there was only one God, who is invisible and whose worship consists in a virtuous life.
Aristippus of Cyrene (N. D. 111 77), the founder of the Cyrenaic school, resembled Antisthenes in dwelling exclusively upon the prac- tical side of his master’s teaching. He interpreted the somewhat ambiguous language of Socrates about happiness in a purely eudae--, monistic sense and declared that the only rule of life was to enjoy the present moment. Wisdom was essential to this, as it freed the mind from prejudice and passion. It was the boast of Aristippus no less than of Antisthenes ‘mihi res, non me rebus subjungere conor’, Among the more prominent members of this school were Theodorus (N. D. 1 2, 63), surnamed the Atheist, who lived towards the close of the 4th century, B.c. He objected to the doctrine of his predecessor on the ground that it did not leave sufficient scope to wisdom, since pleasure and pain are so much dependent on outward circumstances ; and put forward as the chief good not the enjoyment of passing pleasure, but the maintaining of a calm and cheerful frame of mind. Euhemerus, whose religious system is referred to by Cicero (N. D.1 119), was a pupil of his. His contemporary, Hegesias, called meoifavaros from his gloomy doctrine, considered that as life has more of pain than pleasure, the aim’of the wise man should be not
XXIV INTRODUCTION.
to obtain pleasure, but to steel himself against pain. Thus in the end the Cyrenaic doctrine blends with the Cynic,
Prato, the ‘deus philosophorum’ (N. D. 1m 32), was born at Athens 428 B.c. and became a disciple of Socrates in 408 B.c. After the death of his master he left Athens and lived at Megara with Euclides. From thence he visited Cyrene, Egypt, Magna Graecia and Sicily. After nearly ten years of travelling he took up his residence again at Athens and began to lecture in the gymnasium of the Academia. He died in his eightieth year.
Building on the foundation of Socrates, he insists no less than his master on the importance of negative Dialectic, as a means of testing commonly received opinions; indeed most of his Dialogues come to no positive result, but merely serve to show the difficulties of the subject discussed and the unsatisfactory nature of the solutions hitherto proposed. As he makes Socrates the spokesman in almost all the Dialogues, it is not always easy to determine precisely where the line is to be drawn between the purely Socratic and the Platonic doctrine, but the general relation of the one to the other may be stated as follows.
In his theory of knowledge Plato unites the Socratic definition with the Heraclitean Becoming and the Eleatic Being. Agreeing with Heraclitus that all the objects of the senses are fleeting and unreal in themselves, he held that they are nevertheless participant of Being in so far as they represent to us the general terms after which they are named. Thus we can make no general assertion with regard to this or that concrete triangular thing: it is merely a passing sensation: but by abstraction we may rise from the concrete to the contemplation of the Ideal triangle, which is the object of science, and concerning which we may make universal and absolutely true predications. If we approach the Ideal from below, from the concrete particulars, it takes the form of the class, the common name, the definition, the concept, the Idea; but this is an incomplete view of it. The Ideal exists apart from, and prior to, all concrete em- bodiment. It is the eternal archetype of which the sensible objects are the copies. It is because the soul in its pre-existent state is already familiar with this archetype that it is capable of being reminded of it when it sees its shadow in the phenomenal existences
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. XXV
which make up the world of sense*. All knowledge is reminiscence. What cannot be traced back to this intuitive consciousness in the soul itself is not knowledge, but mere opinion. Dialectic is the means by which the soul is enabled to recover the lost consciousness of the Ideal. The highest Ideal, which is the foundation of all existence and all knowledge is the Ideal Good, personified as God. He, as the Creator or Demiurgus, formed the universe by imprinting the ideas on the formless chaotic Matter. The process of creation is described in the Zimaeus under the form of a myth, Plato holding, like Parmenides, that it was not possible to arrive at more than a symbolical adumbration of physical truth. The cause and ground of creation is the goodness of God, who seeks to extend his own blessedness as widely as possible. He begins his work by con- structing the soul of the world out of the two elements before him, the immutable harmonious Ideals and changing discordant Matter. This soul he infuses into the mass of matter, which there- upon crystallizes into the geometrical forms of the four elements, and assumes the shape of a perfect sphere rotating on its axis. The Kosmos thus created is divine, imperishable and infinitely beautiful. Further, each element is to have living creatures belonging to it. Those belonging to the element of fire are the Gods, both the heavenly bodies and those of whom tradition tells us. All these were fashioned by the Demiurgus himself, but the creatures be- longing to the other elements, including the mortal part of man, were the work of the created gods. The immortal part of man, the reason, is of like substance with the soul of the world, and was distributed by the Demiurgus amongst the stars till the time came for each several particle to enter the body prepared for it by the created gods, where it combined with two other ingredients, the
* The reader will remember the magnificent ode in which Wordsworth has embodied Plato’s sublime conception. The fact which underlies it was well illustrated by the late Prof. Sedgwick, commenting on Locke’s saying that ‘the mind previous to experience is a sheet of white paper” (the old rasa tabula), ‘*Naked he comes from his mother’s womb, endowed with limbs and senses indeed, well fitted to the material world, yet powerless from want of use: and as for knowledge, his soul is one unvaried blank; yet has this blank been already touched by a celestial hand, and when plunged in the colours which surround it, it takes not its tinge from accident, but design, and comes forth covered with a glorious pattern.” —Discourse p. 53. Phe Common-sense Philo- sophy of the Scotch and the @ priori judgments of Kant are other forms of the same doctrine.
MC; c
XXVl INTRODUCTION.
appetitive (ro éxvOupytexov) and the spirited (rd Ovpoedés) which it had to bring into subjection, If it succeeded, it returned to its star on the death of the body; if it failed, it was destined to undergo various transmigrations until its victory was complete. In all these physical speculations Plato was much influenced by the Pythagoreans.
We have now to speak of his ethical doctrines, which were based upon the psychological views mentioned above. The soul is on a small scale what the State or city is ona large scale: it isa constitution which is in its right condition when its parts work harmoniously together, when the governing reason is warmly sup- ported by its auxiliary the heart, and promptly and loyally obeyed by the appetites. Thus perfect virtue arises when wisdom, courage and temperance are bound together by justice. The highest good is the being made like to God; and this is effected by that yearning after the Ideal which we know by the name of Love (N. D. 1 18—24, 30 al.).
Aristotle (Jonge omnibus—Platonem semper excipio—praestans et ingenio et diligentia, Tusc. 1 22) was born at Stagira, a Greek colony in Thrace, in the year 385 B.c. He came to Athens in his 17th year and studied under Plato for twenty years. In 343 B.c. he was invited by Philip, King of Macedon, to superintend the education of his son Alexander, then a boy of 13. When Alexander set out on his Persian expedition Aristotle returned to Athens and taught in the Lyceum. As he lectured while walking, his disciples were called Peripatetics. On the death of Alexander, Aristotle left Athens to escape from a charge of impiety, and settled at Chalcis in Euboea, where he died 322 B.c.
Aristotle’s philosophy may be roughly described as Plato put into prose and worked out in detail. The vague mysticism, the high poetic imagination, of the master was altogether alien to the scholar, but the main lines of the two systems are the same. Plato’s Dialectic method was developed by Aristotle into the strict technical science of Logic: Plato’s Ideas were shorn of their separate supra-mundane existence and became the first of the four famous Causes of Aristotle, the formal, the material, the efficient, the final, which are really four kinds of antecedent conditions required for the existence of each thing. For instance, in order to the pro- duction of a marble statue by Phidias there is needed (1) the pre-
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. XXVi
existence in his own mind of the ideal form which is subsequently impressed upon the stone; (2) the existence of the stone; (3) the process of carving ; (4) the motive which induced the sculptor to make the statue, as for instance the desire to do honour to the God whose statue it is. But the opposition of form and matter is not confined to such simple cases—it covers the whole range of existence from the First Matter, which is mere potentiality of being at the one extreme, to the First Form which is pure immaterial actuality, the Divine Being, at the other extreme. The intermediate links in the chain are matter or form according as they are viewed from above or below, as marble for instance is form in reference to stone generally, matter in reference to statue; vitality is form in reference to the living body, matter in reference to rationality. God the First Form, is also the First Mover, the cause of the upward striving of the universe, of the development of each thing from the potential into the actual; and this not by any act of creation, for He remains ever unmoved in His own eternity, but by the natural tendency which all things have towards Him as the absolutely Good, the object and end of all effort, of all desire. The universe itself is eternal, a perfect sphere, the circumference of which is composed of the purest element, ether, and is carried round in circular motion by the immediate influence of the Deity. In it are the fixed stars, themselves divine. The lower planetary spheres have a less perfect movement and are under the guidance of subordinate divinities. Furthest removed from the First Mover comes the earth which is fixed in the centre, and composed of the four inferior elements. Still it exhibits a constant progressive movement from inorganic into organic, from plant into animal, from life which is nutritive and sensitive only into life which is locomotive and finally rational in man. The human soul is a microcosm uniting in itself all the faculties of the lower orders of animated existence, and possessing besides, the divine and immortal faculty of reason. As each thing attains its end by fulfilling the work for which it is designed by nature, so man achieves happiness by the unobstructed exercise of his special endowment, a rational and virtuous activity. Pleasure is the natural accompaniment of such an activity. Virtue, which may be described as perfected nature, belongs potentially to man’s nature, but it becomes actual by the repetition of acts in accordance with reason. It is subdivided into intellectual and moral, according as it is a habit of the purely rational part of the soul, or as it is c2
XXV1ll INTRODUCTION.
a habit of the emotional part which is capable of being influenced by reason, but not itself rational, Every natural impulse is the potential basis of a particular virtue which may be developed by repeated actions freely performed in accordance with the law of reason so as to avoid either excess or defect. Since man is by nature gregarious, his perfection is only attainable in society, and ethical science is thus subordinate to political science (N. D. 1 33, 1 42, 44, 95, al.).
The later Peripatetics are of no great importance. Cicero men- tions in the N. D. Aristotle’s immediate follower Theophrastus (N. D. 135), whose treatise on Friendship is copied in the Laelius ; and Strato (N. D. 1 35), who succeeded Theophrastus as head of the school in the year 288 B.c. Critolaus was one of the three philo- sophers who were sent by the Athenians as ambassadors to Rome in the year 155 B.c., and whose coming first introduced the Romans to the new world of philosophy. Cratippus presided over the school during the lifetime of Cicero, who sent young Marcus to Athens to attend his lectures.
To return now to the Academy, this is divided into three schools, the Older, the Middle and the New Academy*. To the first belong the names of Speusippus (1 32), Xenocrates (1 34) and Polemo, who successively presided over the school between 347 and 270 B.c., as well as those of Heraclides of Pontus (1 34), Crantor and Crates. They appear to have modified the Platonic doctrines mainly by the admixture of Pythagorean elements, Crantor’s writings were used by Cicero for his Consolatio and Tusculan Disputations. The chief expounders of the Middle Academy were its founder Arcesilaus 315—241 s.c. (1 11, 70), Carneades of Cyrene 214—129 B.C. (1 4, 11 65, 11 44), one of the Athenian ambassadors to Rome in 155 B.c., and Clitomachus of Carthage, his successor in the presi- dency. They neglected the positive doctrine of Plato, and employed themselves mainly in a negative polemic against the dogmatism of the Stoics, professing to follow the example of Socrates, though
* Cicero only recognized the Old and the New Academy, the latter cor- responding to what is above called the Middle Academy, but including Philo. Antiochus himself claimed to be a true representative of the Old Academy. Later writers made five Academic schools, the 2nd founded by Arcesilas, the 3rd by Carneades, the 4th by Philo, the 5th by Antiochus,
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. XX1x
they thought that even he had approached too near to dogmatism in saying that he knew that he knew nothing. Probable opinion was the furthest point in the direction of knowledge to which man could attain. The Academic argument put into the mouth of Cotta in the 3rd book of the N. D. is mainly derived from Clito- machus, the literary exponent of the views of his master Carneades, who is said to have never written anything himself. The New Academy commences with Philo (N. D. 1 59, 113), a pupil of Clito- machus and one of Cicero’s teachers. In it we see a return to dogmatism combined with an eclectic tendency which showed itself most strongly in Philo’s pupil Antiochus (N. D. 1 6, 16), who en- deavoured to reform the Academy by uniting Stoic and Peripatetic doctrines with the original Platonism. Cicero studied under him and used some of his writings for the De Finibus. Brutus, to whom the N. D. is addressed, was one of the most distinguished adherents of this stoicized Academy.
We turn now to the two most important developments of post- Aristotelian philosophy, Stoicism and Epicureanism. To understand them it is necessary to look for a moment at the changes which had been brought about by the conquests of Alexander. While Greece proper lost its national life, the Greek language and Greek civiliza- tion spread throughout the world, and the Greeks in their turn became familiarized with Oriental thought and religion. Thus the two main supports of the authoritative tradition by which practical life had hitherto been regulated, the law of the State and the old religion of Greece, were shaken from their foundations. The need which was most strongly felt by the best minds was to find some substitute for these, some principle of conduct which should enable a man to retain his self-respect under the rule of brute force to which all were subject. It must be something which would enable him to stand alone, to defy the oppressor, to rise superior to cir- cumstances. Such a principle the Stoics boasted to have found. Zeno (N. D. 1 36 al.), the founder of the school, was a native of Citium in Cyprus.. He came to Athens about 320 B.c. and attended the lectures of Crates the Cynic and afterwards of Stilpo the Mega- rian and of some of the Academics, and began to teach in the orod mouxiAn about 308 B.c. He was succeeded by Cleanthes of Assos in Asia Minor about 260 B.c. (N. D. 1 37, 1 13, 24, 40, 11 63). Among his other pupils were Aristo of Chius (N. D. 1 37), Herillus of
XXX INTRODUCTION.
Carthage, Persaeus, who like his master was a native of Citium (N. D.1 38), Aratus of Soli in Cilicia, the author of two astronomical poems translated by Cicero (N. D. m1 104—115). Cleanthes was succeeded by Chrysippus of Soli (b. 280, d. 206), who developed and systematized the Stoic philosophy (N. D. 1 39 al.) Next came Zeno of Tarsus, and Diogenes of Babylon, one of the three ambas- sadors to Rome in 155 B.c. From this time forward Stoicism begins to show a softened and eclectic tendency, as we may see in Panaetius of Rhodes (180—111 B.c.), the friend of Scipio and Laelius, whose work zept tod xaOyxovtos formed the basis of the De Offciis (N. D. 1 § 118), and also in his pupil Posidonius of Apamea in Syria, who was one of Cicero’s instructors (N. D. 17 & 123, 11 88), and from whom much of the Stoic argumentation in the N. D. is probably derived.
The end of philosophy with the Stoics was purely practical. Philosophy is identical with virtue. But since virtue consists in bringing the actions into harmony with the general order of the world, it is essential to know what this order is, and thus we arrive at the famous triple division of philosophy into physics, including cosmology and theology, which explains the nature and laws of the universe ; logic, which ensures us against deception and supplies the method for attaining to true knowledge; ethics, which draws the conclusion for practical life. The chief point of interest in the Logic of the Stoics is their theory as to the criterion, They considered the soul to resemble a sheet of blank paper on which impressions (pavraciar) were produced through the senses. The concept (évvoia) was produced from the impressions by generalization, which might be either spontaneous and unconscious, giving rise to common ideas or natural anticipations (xowat évvorat, guputoe tpodAnes), or it might be conscious and methodical, giving rise to artiticial concepts. In entire opposition to Plato they held that the individual object alone had real existence; the universal, the general term, existed only in the mind as subjective thought. The truth or falsehood of these impressions and conceptions depended on their possession of 70 katakymrixov, the power of carrying conviction. An impression which was not merely assented to, but forced itself irresistibly on the mind, was a xatadynmtiKy davracia, a perception that has a firm grasp of reality. The same irresistible evidence attaches to a zpo- Anus, but artificial concepts required to have their truth proved by being connected with one or other of these criteria.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. XXX1
The physical theory of the Stoics is a pantheistic materialism. The only real existences are such as can act and be acted upon, and these are bodies, for like can only act on like, But these bodies are not moved simply by mechanical laws, as Democritus supposed. The whole universe is an embodied spiritual force, of which we may call one part passive, one part active, but all is alike material. The active portion is soul, a fiery ether pervading the whole, but having its principal seat in the heaven which encompasses it on every side ; the passive portion consists mainly of the inferior elements, water and earth. These latter proceed from the former and are periodically reabsorbed into it in the world-conflagration. The universe itself, as a perfect living creature, is rightly called God, but the name is more particularly given to the soul of the universe, who is also known by many descriptive appellations, Rational or Artistic Fire (zip voepov, wtp texvixdv), All-penetrating Air, Spirit, Reason, Nature, Providence, Destiny, Law, Necessity, the Ruling Principle (76 7ye- povixov), and, with reference to his creative and ‘informing’ power, the Generative Reason (Adyos omeppartixds). The gods of the popular religion represented different activities of the one true Deity. The human soul is an emanation from Him. Although it outlives the body, it will only retain its individual existence till the next con- flagration, and that only in the case of the wise. The stars being made of pure fire are divine.
In all this we see the influence of Heraclitus, who was much quoted by the Stoics, though the distinction of the active and passive elements in the universe has been with some probability referred back to the Aristotelian distinction between Form and Matter. They- agreed with Aristotle also in holding the unity, finiteness and sphericity of the world, but, unlike him, considered that there was an unlimited void beyond it. That which was peculiarly Stoical was the strong moral colouring which they gave to their materialistic system. The all-pervading fire was at the same time the all-seeing Providence who created and governed all things for the best ends, and makes each several existence, each several fact, conspire together for the good of the whole. It is the privilege of man to be able knowingly and willingly to act as a rational part of the rational whole, instead of yielding himself up to irrational and selfish impulse: but however he acts, he must perforce carry out the divine purpose, as Cleanthes says in his noble hymn : .
XXX INTRODUCTION.
ayou 6€ w & Zed, cat ot ¥ 7 Ilerpwuevn, Oro rod” byiv elul dtateraypévos*
ws EYouat y aoxvos' jv 6é wn Oddy,
Kaxos yevouévos, ovdéev Arrov EWouat
From this it follows that the swmmuwm bonum is to live according to nature and it is through virtue or wisdom that we are enabled to do this. One who thus lives is avrapxys, in need of nothing. External good, external evil are matters of indifference ; they only provide the field in which virtue is to exercise itself. Pleasure is a natural concomitant of activity, but is not a natural end: not even if we count as pleasure that high delight which belongs to virtuous activity, for pleasure regarded in itself has a tendency to lead man away from the true end, viz. acting not for self, but for the whole. Man’s reason being a part of the reason of the universe reveals to him the divine law. As the emotions are liable to confuse or to disobey reason, it is the part of the wise, z7.e. of the virtuous, man to uproot them altogether. Wisdom is not only speculative, judging what is in accordance with nature or the divine law, but practical, strongly willing what is thus determined to be right. We may distinguish different virtues in thought, but in fact no virtue can exist apart. He who has a right judgment and right intention is perfectly virtuous, he who is without right judgment and intention is per- fectly vicious. There isno mean. The wise man is perfectly happy, the fool perfectly miserable: all the actions of the former are wise and good; all the actions of the latter foolish and bad. There may be a progress towards wisdom, but, until the actual moment of con- version, even those who are advancing (ot zpoxorrovtes) must still be classed among the fools. Thus we have the strange union of a highly ideal ethics with a materialistic philosophy. But it was impossible to maintain this uncompromising idealism in practice. The later Stoics found themselves compelled to admit that apart from virtue and vice, the absolute good and evil, there were preferences to be made among things indifferent, from which it followed that besides perfectly virtuous actions (xkatop$wuata) there was a subordinate class of appropriate actions (kafjKovra). In the same way, since they were compelled to allow that their perfectly wise man, whom they vaunted to be equal to Zeus, had never existed, they found it necessary to allow a positive value to mpoxomwy, progress towards wisdom, and to self-control, as contrasted with absolute apathy.
One other characteristic doctrine of the Stoics may be mentioned
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. XXXill
here. It will have been noticed that many representatives of the school were not of Greek birth, but only connected with Greece by the Macedonian conquests. It was easy to rise from this fact to the higher doctrine which flowed naturally from their first princi- ple, the doctrine namely that all men were members of one state, that the world is the common City of Gods and men, that all men are brethren as having the same Divine Father.
Epicureanism may be roughly described as a combination of the physics of Democritus with the ethics of Aristippus. Epicurus (341—270 B.c.) was an Athenian, born in Samos, where he is said to have received instruction in the doctrines of Plato and Democritus (N. D. 172 & 93). He founded his school at Athens about 306 B.c., teaching in his own ‘Garden,’ which became not less famous than the Stoic ‘Porch’. Among his most distinguished disciples were Metro- dorus (N. D.1 86, 113) and others mentioned N. D,193. Cicero men- tions among his own contemporaries Phaedrus, Zeno of Sidon (N. D.1 59, 93) and Philodemus of Gadara: and his account of the Epicurean doctrines is probably borrowed from these, especially from the last. Epicureanism had great success among the Romans; but, with the exception of the poet Lucretius, none of the Latin expounders of the system seem to have been of any importance. Cicero speaks with great contempt of Amafinius and Rabirius (cf. Tuse. 1 7, and Zeller on the Epicureans, ch. 15).
The end of the Epicurean philosophy was even more exclusively practical than that of the Stoics. Logic (called by Epicurus ‘Canonic’, as giving the ‘canon’ or test of truth) and physics, were merely sub- ordinate to ethics, the art of attaining happiness. Knowledge in itself is of no value or interest. In fact it has a tendency to corrupt and distort our natural judgment and feeling: and thus Epicurus prided himself on being mainly self-taught (N. D.1 72). Truth is based on the senses: our sensations are always to be trusted: error comes in when we begin to interpret them. Repeated sensations produce a permanent image or general notion (zpoAnyis, so called because it exists in the mind as an anticipation of. the name which would be unmeaning if it could not be referred to a known type). These general notions also are to be trusted -as a natural and spon- taneous growth. But opinions (vroAjPes) about these may be either true or false; true, if testified to by the sensation, or, supposing such direct evidence unattainable, if there is no contrary sensation ; false,
XXXIV INTRODUCTION.
in all other cases. Epicurus himself does not seem to have carried his logical investigations further than this.
The only reason for studying physics was to free the soul from superstitious fears, and with this view to prove that the constitution of the universe might be explained from mechanical causes. The two main principles asserted by Epicurus were that nothing could be produced out of nothing, and that what exists cannot become non-existent. From these principles he deduced the truth of the atomic system, differing however from Democritus in one important point, viz. in his explanation of the manner in which the atoms were brought together. Democritus had asserted that the heavier atoms overtook the lighter in their downward course, and thus initiated the collision which finally resulted in a general vortical movement. Epicurus retaining the same crude view of ‘up’ and ‘down’ held that each atom moved with equal speed and that they could only meet by the inherent self-movement of the atoms, which enabled them to swerve from the rigid vertical line, and he found a confir- mation of this indeterminate movement of the atoms in the free will of man. In other respects there is little difference between the physical views of Democritus and Epicurus. Both held that there were innumerable worlds continually coming into being and passing out of being in the infinitude of space. As to subordinate arrange- ments Epicurus thought it unnecessary and indeed impossible to assign any one theory as certain. It was enough if we could imagine theories which were not palpably inadmissible, and which enabled us to dispense with any supernatural cause. Nor was it at all necessary to suppose that the same phenomenon, e. g. sunrise, always proceeded from the same cause. The existence of the present race of animals was explained, as it had been by Empedocles, on a rude Darwinian hypothesis. Out of the innumerable combinations of atoms which had been tried throughout the infinite ages of the past, those only survived which were found to be suited to their environment. The eye was not made to see with, but being made by the fortuitous concourse of atoms it was found on trial to have the property of seeing. But though denying in the strongest terms any creative or governing Reason, Epicurus did not object to Gods who did not interfere with the world or with man. On the contrary he held that the universality of the belief in Gods proved that such belief was based upon a primary notion, a real mpoAnis, though it had been corrupted by the admixture of idle imaginations, vaoAmpes.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. XXXV
And he pleased himself with the thought that he might find in the Gods a pattern of the true philosophic life. Perfect happiness, im- mortality and human shape were of the essence of this rpdAnWs. Hence he inferred that they must be composed of the finest atoms and enjoy eternal repose in the vacant spaces between the worlds, undisturbed by those labours of sustaining and superintending the universe which were ascribed to them by other schools, as well as by the popular religion (N. D. 1 43—56). Such Gods were worthy of the worship and the imitation of the philosophers. On the nature of the soul and the manner in which it receives its impressions by images from without, Epicurus follows Democritus.
While the ethical doctrines of Epicurus are mainly the same as those of Aristippus, he differs from him in attaching more value to permanent tranquillity than to momentary gratification, and also in preferring mental pleasures to bodily, as stronger and more enduring. Virtue is desirable as the means to attain pleasure. The wise man, i.¢é. the virtuous man, is happy because he is free from the fears of the Gods and of death, because he has learnt to moderate his passions and desires, because he knows how to estimate and compare pleasures and pains so as to secure the largest amount of the former with the least of the latter. The distinction between right and wrong rests merely on utility and has nothing mysterious about it. One chief means of attaining pleasure is the society of friends. To enjoy this we should cultivate the feelings of kindness and benevolence.
The four last mentioned schools, i.e. the Academy, the Lyceum, the Porch and the Garden were, and had long been, the only recognized schools at the time when Cicero was growing up to manhood. Cicero was personally acquainted with the most distinguished living repre- sentatives of each. In his 19th year, B.c. 88, he had studied under Phaedrus the Epicurean and Philo the Academic at Rome; in his 28th year, B.c.79, he attended the lectures of the Epicureans Phaedrus and Zeno, as well as of Antiochus, the eclectic Academic, at Athens, and in the following year those of Posidonius, the eclectic Stoic, at Rhodes. Diodotus the Stoic was for many years the honoured inmate of his house. He had also a high esteem for the Peripatetic Cratippus, whom he selected as the tutor for his son at, what we may call, the University of Athens. Nor did he only attend lectures: his letters show that he was a great reader of philosophical books, and he left behind him translations or adaptations of various dialogues
XXXVI INTRODUCTION.
and treatises of Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Crantor, Carneades, Panaetius, Antiochus, Posidonius, and others. In a word he was confessed to be by far the most learned and accomplished of the philosophical amateurs of his time. As to the nature of his own views, we shall be better able to form a judgment, if we look first at the man and his position. Cicero was much more of a modern Italian than of an ancient Roman. A novus homo, sprung from the Volscian municipium of Arpinum, he had none of that proud, self-centred hardness and toughness of character which marked the Senator of Rome. Nature had gifted him with the sensitive, idealistic tem- perament of the artist and the orator, and this had been trained to its highest pitch by the excellent education he had received. If he had been less open to ideas, less many-sided, less sympathetic, less conscientious, in a word, if he had been less human, he would have been a worse man, he would have exercised a less potent influence on the future of Western civilization, but he would have been a stronger and more consistent politician, more respected no doubt by the blood-and-iron school of his own day, as of ours. While his imagina- tion pictured to him the glories of old Rome, and inflamed him with the ambition of himself acting a Roman part, as in the matter of Catiline, and in his judgment of Caesar, and while therefore he on the whole espoused the cause of the Senate, as representing the his- toric greatness of Rome, yet he is never fully convinced in his own mind, never satisfied either with himself or with the party or the persons with whom he is most closely allied. And this indecision of his political views is reflected in his philosophy. Epicureanism indeed he condemns, as heartily as he condemns Clodius or Antony: its want of idealism, its prosaic regard for matter of fact, or rather its exclusive regard for the lower fact to the neglect of the higher, its aversion to public life, above all perhaps its contempt for literature as such, were odious in his eyes. But neither is its rival quite to his taste. While attracted by the lofty tone of its moral and re- ligious teaching, he is repelled by its dogmatism, its extravagance and its technicalities. Of the two remaining schools, the Peripatetic had forgotten the more distinctive portion of the teaching of its founder, until his writings were re-edited by Andronicus of Rhodes (who strangely enough is never mentioned by Cicero, though he must have been lecturing in Rome about the time of his consulship), and it had dwindled accordingly into a colourless doctrine of com- mon sense, of which Cicero speaks with respect indeed, but without
ANALYSIS OF BOOK I. XXXVil
enthusiasm. The Academy on the other hand was endeared to him as being lineally descended from Plato, for whose sublime idealism and consummate beauty of style he cherished an admiration little short of idolatry, and also as being the least dogmatic of systems, and the most helpful to the orator from the importance it attached to the use of negative dialectic. But while Cicero defended the Academic doctrine of Agnosticism in regard to speculative questions of metaphysics, while he held it impossible to give any demonstrative proof either of the immortality of the soul or of the existence of God, he refused, both on the ground of sentiment and of policy to extend his scepticism to practical questions of morality and religion, He held in common’ with the Stoics that the universal instinct of mankind must be regarded as testifying to a universal truth; and, in common with Scaevola and the elder generation of Roman states- men, that it was the duty of a good citizen to accept the tenets of the national religion except in so far as they might be inconsistent with the plain rules of morality. Thus the conclusion of his argument on the nature of the Gods may be considered to point the way, vaguely indeed and hesitatingly, to the mysticism of later times, when the human mind wearied out with its fruitless search after truth, abjured reason for faith, and surrendered itself blindly either to the traditions of priests or to the inward vision of the Neo-Platonists,
§ 2, ANALYSIS OF BOOK I.
A. Introduction Ch. 1. § 1—Ch. vir § 17. B. Epicurean Argument Ch. vit § 18—Ch. xx § 56,