 CHAPTER XI PART II OF HISTORY OF PHILLOSOPHY HISTORY OF PHILLOSOPHY by William Turner The Aristotelian doctrine of causes is a synthesis of all preceding systems of philosophy. The earlier Ionians spoke generically of cause. The later Ionians distinguished material and efficient causes. Socrates, developing the doctrine of Anaxagoras, introduced the notion of final cause. Plato was the first to speak of formal causes, unless the Pythagorean notion of number may be regarded as an attempt to find a formal principle of being. Thus did the generic notion of cause gradually undergo differentiation into the four kinds of cause. Aristotle was the first to advert to this historical dialectic of the idea of cause and to give the different kinds of cause a place in his doctrine of the principles of being. Consequently, the Aristotelian doctrine of cause is a true development, a transition from the undifferentiated to the differentiated. And nowhere do we realize more clearly than in this doctrine of cause that Aristotle's philosophy is the culmination of all the philosophies which preceded it. According to Aristotle, metaphysics is rightly called the theological science, because God is the highest object of metaphysical inquiry. For although we may in our analysis of the principles of being descend to the lowest determination or other to the lack of all determination, materia prima, we may turn in the opposite direction and by following the ascending scale of differentiation arrive at the notion of pure actuality, of being in the highest grade of determinateness. Aristotle in his proofs of the existence of God did not set aside the teleological arguments of Socrates. Devoted as he was to the investigation of nature and especially to the study of living organisms, he could not fail to be struck by the adaptation everywhere manifest in natural phenomena and particularly in the phenomena of life. He recognized, however, that the teleological is not the strongest argument for the existence of a supreme being. Accordingly, we find him establishing the existence of God by means of proofs more properly metaphysical than was the argument from design. He argues, for example, that although motion is eternal, there cannot be an infinite series of movers and moved. There must, therefore, be one the first in the series which is unmoves, the Proton Kinun Akinaeton. Again, he argues that the actual is of its nature antecedent to the potential. Consequently, before all matter and before all composition of actual and potential, pure actuality must have existed. Actuality is, therefore, the cause of all things that are, and since it is pure actuality, its life is essentially free from all material conditions. It is the thought of thought, noesis noesios. To the question, what does Aristotle understand by the primum movens immobile and the actus purus, the answer seems to be that by the former of these expressions he meant something other than the supreme being. In the physics where he speaks of primum mobile or rather of the prima movencia non mota, he describes the first being as the first in the order of efficient causes and intelligence, the primum celum. This, which is moved by the sight of the supreme intelligence of God, not, therefore, by any efficient cause, but by a final cause only, sets in motion the whole machinery of efficient causes beneath it. In the metaphysics, however, our philosopher pursues his investigation into the realms beyond the first heaven and finds that the intelligence which moves by its desirability the soul of the first heaven is the intelligence of intelligence, pure actuality, God. This is the interpretation of St. Thomas, who, while he regards God as the immediate efficient cause of the first motion of the universe, interprets Aristotle to mean that the first intelligence moves merely by the desire which he inspires, drawing towards him the soul of the first heaven. And it is natural to expect that in the philosophy of Aristotle, there should be a supreme in the physical order, as well as a supreme in the metaphysical order, that the metaphysical concept of first intelligence should complete and round out the physical concept of a first mover. God is one, for matter is the principle of plurality, and the first intelligence is entirely free from material conditions. His life is contemplative thought, neither providence nor will is compatible with the eternal repose in which he dwells. Nevertheless, Aristotle sometimes speaks of God as taking an interest in human affairs. The truth is that Aristotle's idea of God was, like Plato's, far from being a clear or even a coherent concept. Aristotle was content with deducing from his philosophical principles the idea of a supreme self-conscious intelligence, but he had no adequate conception of the relation between self-consciousness and personality. It was left for Christian philosophy to determine and develop the notion of divine person. We find the same indefiniteness in Aristotle's account of the origin of the world. The world he taught is eternal, for matter, motion, and time are eternal. Yet the world is caused. But how, according to Aristotle, is the world caused? Bruntano believes that Aristotle taught the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, and there can be no doubt that Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas saw no contradiction in maintaining that a being may be eternal and yet created. The most conservative critics must grant that while Aristotle does not maintain the origin of the world by creation, he teaches the priority of act with respect to potency, thus implying that since the first potency was caused, it must have been caused ex nihilo. His premises, if carried out to their logical conclusion, would lead to the doctrine of creation. Lower Case B. Physics Physics, the study of nature, considers existence not as it is in itself, but so far as it participates in movement. Kinesios Meteche Nature includes everything which has in itself the principle of motion and rest. The works of nature differ from the products of art, because while the latter have no tendency to change their originating principle being external to them, nature is essentially spontaneous, that is, self-determining from within. Nature does not, however, develop this internal activity except according to definite law. There is no such thing as accident or hazard. Nature does nothing in vain. Nature is always striving for the best. Thus, although Aristotle expressly rejects the Platonic idea of a world soul, he recognizes in nature a definite teleological concept, a plan of development, to which the only obstacle is matter. For matter it is that by resisting the form, forces nature, as it were, to be content with the better in lieu of the best. The striving of nature is, therefore, through the less perfect to the more perfect. Space, topos, is neither matter nor form. It is not the interval between bodies. It is the first and unmoved limit of the enclosing as against the enclosed. That is to say, the surface of the surrounding air, water, or solid substance, which is immediately contiguous to the body set to be in space, and which, though it may change, is considered as unmoved because the circumscribed limits remain the same. Particular space is, therefore, coterminous with extended body, and space in general is coterminous with the limits of the world. Space is actually finite, yet potentially infinite, in as much as extension is capable of indefinite increase. Time, chronos, which like space is the universal concomitant of sensible existence, is the measure of the succession of motion. Arithmos kinesios cathetoproteron chaihysteron. The only reality in time is the present moment. In order to join the past and the future with the present, that is, in order to measure motion, mind is required. If there were no mind, there would be no time. Movement kinesis is the mode of existence of a potential being becoming actualized. He etu dynami ontos entelegia etu juton. Motion does not require nor does it postulate a vacuum, since we may imagine that another body leaves the space which the moving body enters. Besides substantial change in which matter is the substratum, three kinds of motion are recognized by Aristotle, quantitative, qualitative, and spatial, fora. In his Stoichiology, Aristotle adopts the four elements, or radical principles, which Empedocles introduced. He teaches, however, that the celestial space is filled with a body different from the four elements. This seems to be the part assigned by him to aether. Aether then is neither a fifth element entering with the other four into the constitution of the terrestrial world nor, as is sometimes maintained, an undifferentiated substratum like the Aperon of Annexamander, from which the four elements originated. It is the constituent of celestial bodies. The natural motion of aether is circular, that of the other elements is upward or downward according as they are naturally endowed with lightness or with heaviness. It is hardly necessary to remark that until Newton's time there existed the belief that each particular body moved towards its own place upward or downward in virtue of the light or heavy elements which it contained. Aristotle's astronomical doctrines were not in advance of the notions of the age to which he belonged. The earth, the center of the cosmic system, is spherical and stationary. It is surrounded by a sphere of air and a sphere of fire. In these spheres are fixed the heavenly bodies, which they revolve round the earth from east to west, though seven of them revolve in longer periods from west to east. Outside all is the heaven of the fixed stars, the protos uranos. It is next to the deity who imported to its circumference a circular motion, thus immediately putting in motion the rest of the cosmic machinery. Aristotle agrees with Plato in teaching that the first heaven, like all the other heavenly bodies, is animated. It is in his biological doctrines that Aristotle shows how far he excels all his predecessors as a student of nature. When we consider the difficulties with which he had to contend, he never dissected a human body and probably never examined a human skull. He did not in any adequate sense dissect the bodies of animals, although he observed their entrails. When we remember that he was obliged to reckon time without the aid of a watch and to observe degrees of temperature and atmospheric changes without the aid of a thermometer or a barometer, we realize that the words of superlative praise in which Cuvier, Buffon, and others speak of him as a naturalist are far from being undeserved. His mistakes are due to conditions which limited his power of personal observation. Despite these limitations, he did observe a great deal and observed accurately, discussing, classifying, comparing his facts before drawing his conclusions. His histories of animals, for example, is a vast record of investigations made by himself and others on the appearance, habits, and mental peculiarities of the different classes of animals. Life is defined as the power of self-movement. The principle that all action is development applies here as elsewhere in nature. Everywhere in the world of natural phenomena, there is continuity. Life and its manifestations offer no exception. Nonliving matter gives rise to living things. The sponge is intermediate between plants and animals. The monkey, pithecoi, keboi, quinoa kefaloi, is intermediate between quadrupeds and men. The lower animals are divided into nine classes. The viparous quadrupeds, of viparous quadrupeds, birds, fishes, whales, mollusks, malacastrica, testacia, and insects. Of these, the first five classes are blood possessing, the latter four being bloodless. In his anatomical studies, he divided organs into omoyomere, made up of parts which are like the whole organ, and anamoyomere, made up of parts which are unlike the whole, as the hand is made up of the palm and fingers. Digestion and secretion are the results of a cooking process. The soul is the principle of that movement from within, which life has been defined to be. It is the form of the body, psucheistin and elegea heprote somatos fisicudunamei zoen echontos, and its relation to the body is generically the same as that of form to matter. Soul, then, is not synonymous with mind. It is not merely the principle of thought. It is the principle of life, and psychology is the science of all vital manifestations, but more particularly of sensation and thought. Thought is peculiar to men. But since in the hierarchy of existence, the more perfect contains the less perfect, the study of the human soul includes all the problems of psychology. What then is the human soul? It is not a mere harmony of the body, as some of the older philosophers thought. It is not one of the four elements, nor is it a compound of the four, because it exhibits powers of thought, which transcend all the conditions of material existence. In no sense, therefore, can it be said to be corporeal. And yet it is united with the body, being, according to its definition, the form of the body. For the body has mere potency of life. All the actuality of the body comes from the soul. The soul is the realization of the end for which the body exists, the totuhenika of its being. Soul and body, although distinct, are one substance, just as the wax and the impression stamped upon it are one. It is worthy of note that, as in metaphysics, Aristotle distinguishes without separating the universal from the individual, so in psychology, he maintains on the one hand the distinction, and on the other the substantial unity of soul and body in man. The soul, the radical principle of all vital phenomena, is one. Still we may distinguish in the individual soul several faculties, dunamis, which are not parts of the soul, but merely different phases of it, according as it performs different vital functions. The soul and its faculties are, to use Aristotle's favorite comparison, like the concave and the convex of a curve, different views of one and the same thing. The faculties of the human soul are, one, nutritive, terepticon, two, sensitive, aestheticon, three, aperitif, orecticon, four, locomotive, kineticon, and five, rational, logicon. Of these, the sensitive and the rational faculties claim special attention. Sensation is the faculty by which we receive the forms of sensible things without the matter, as the wax receives the figure of the seal without the metal of which the seal is composed. This form without the matter, edus aceton, or typos, is what the schoolman called the specius sensibilis. It differs essentially from the effluxes of which empedically spoke, for these latter are forms with matter. Besides, the Aristotelian typos is not like the efflux a diminished object, but a medium of communication between object and subject. Sensation is a movement of the soul, and like every other movement, it has its active and its passive phase. The active phase is what we call the stimulus. The passive phase is the specius. Now, the active and passive phases of a movement are one and the same motion. The specius, therefore, is merely the passive phase of the stimulus, or the operation of the object as Aristotel calls it. This is the explicit teaching of the treatise de anima, for example, he de tu aestetu energia caites aesthesius, he o temen esticae mia, todenae ut autonauteis. Aristotel distinguishes five external senses, to each of which corresponds its proper object, esteton idion. Besides objects proper to each sense, there are objects common, coina, to several senses, such as movement, and there is the sensibili per acidens, or inferential objects, catasum bebecos, such as substance. Among the internal senses, the most important is the common or central sense, esteterion coinon. By it would distinguish the separate communications of the external senses, and by it also we perceive that we perceive. It has its seat not in the brain, but in the heart. Having no idea of the function of the nerves, Aristotel naturally regarded the veins as the great channels of communication, and the heart as the center of functional activity in the body. Moreover, he observed that the brain substance is itself incapable of responding to sensation stimulus. In addition to the central sense, memory and imagination are mentioned by Aristotel as internal senses. Imagination as a process, fantasia, is the movement resulting from the act of sensation. As a faculty, it is the locus of the pictures, fantasmata, which are the materials of which reason generates the idea. Without the phantasm, it is impossible to reason. Intellect, nous, is the faculty by which man acquires intellectual knowledge. It differs from all the sense faculties in this, that while the latter are concerned with the concrete and individual, it has for its object the abstract and universal. It is well called the locus of ideas, says Aristotel, if we understand that it is the potential source of ideas. For in the beginning it is without ideas, it is like a smooth tablet on which nothing is written. We must always bear in mind this two-fold relation of intellect to sense, namely distinction and dependence. The process by which the intellect rises from the individual to the universal has already been described in part. It is a process of development. The material on which the intellect works is the individual image, phantasm, or the individual object. The result of the process is the intelligible form or idea, and the process itself is one of unfolding the individual so as to reveal the universal contained in it. The intellect does not create the idea. It merely causes the object which was potentially intelligible to become actually intelligible. In the same way as light causes the potentially colored to become actually colored. The expressions developing, unfolding, illuminating are of course metaphorical. What really takes place is a process of abstraction, a separation of the individuating qualities from the universal, or an induction, that is to say a bringing together of individuals under a universal image. Quote, just as in the routed army one man must stand so as to become the center round which others may group themselves. End quote. It is evident therefore that while the intellect does not create the concept, it is active in causing the object to become actually intelligible. There is however a subsequent stage in the process. Once the object is rendered intelligible, it impresses itself on the intellect in precisely the same way as the sensible object impresses its species on the senses. The intellect in the second stage of the process is called the passive intellect, nus pathetikos, while in the first stage of the process it is called topoyun. It is worth every mark that although it is usual to speak of the active and passive intellect, Aristotle never speaks of a nus poetikos, always designating the active intellect by means of the present participle. From this it is clear that in Aristotle psychology there is no room for the doctrine of innate ideas. All knowledge comes through the senses, nothing being innate in the mind except the native power of the active intellect by which it discovers in the concrete and individual the abstract and universal elements of thought contained therein. But what is this active intellect? What is its relation to the psuche, the vital principle in man? These are questions which have vexed the commentators and interpreters of Aristotle from the days of Theophrastus down to our own time. There is even greater difficulty in determining what Aristotle meant by the passive intellect. Where there is so complex a diversity of opinion, it is perhaps hazardous to classify interpretations. Still it seems that the commentators and interpreters may be included under the heads transcendentalists and anthropologists. Eudymus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, the Arabians of the Middle Ages, and most modern commentators since the time of Hegel understand the active intellect to mean something apart from or transcending in some way the individual soul. While as to the nature of the passive intellect they are in a state of hopeless confusion. Theophrastus, Philoponus, Themistius, Simpletius, Boethius, and the greater number of the schoolmen understand the active intellect to mean a faculty of the individual soul. While many of the schoolmen identify the passive intellect with the active, making the difference between the two powers to consist merely in a difference between two phases of the same faculty. It will be sufficient here to give the words in which Aristotle describes the active intellect without entering into the question of interpretation. He speaks in the Anima 34429a of the intellect as separate and unmixed. In the following chapter he describes the active intellect as being a lone separate eternal and immortal, 430a, and in the Generazione Animalium 23736b28 he describes it as coming from without Thorathan and as divine, Theon. It must however be borne in mind that the chapters in which Aristotle enunciates his theory of knowledge are a fragmentary nature, and moreover that this portion of Aristotle's psychological treatise deals with a question which no modern school with the exception of the transcendentalist school has attempted to solve. It is therefore not a matter for surprise that in expounding Aristotle, so many modern writers have fallen into the error of interpreting him in the terminology of transcendentalism, thus illustrating the adage Aristotelen non nisi ex ipso Aristotele intelligis. By reason of its intellectual function, which it performs without intrinsic dependence on the bodily organism, and by which it transcends the conditions of matter, the soul is immaterial and immortal. Aristotle's doctrine of immortality is however conditioned by his doctrine of the active intellect. If the active intellect is something separate from the individual soul, an impersonal intellect common to all men, and this is the interpretation followed by Alexander by the Arabians and by many modern scholars. It does not appear how Aristotle could hold that the soul is in any true sense of the word endowed with personal immortality. With regard to Will, in place of Plato's vague, unsatisfactory notion of Thumos, we find the definite concept of Bolesis, which may be described as a conciliance of reason and desire. Will is rational appetite. It is the desire of good as apprehended by reason, and because it is preceded by a rational apprehension of good, it is free. This view of freedom of choice proiresis is supported by the recognized voluntariness of virtue, and by the equally well recognized fact that man is held accountable for his actions. Reason in its function of suggesting the best means by which an end is to be attained is called practical. Before proceeding however, to treat of ethics which is the science of human conduct according to the principles of practical reason, it is necessary to mention the last division of theoretical philosophy, namely mathematics. Lower case C. Mathematics deals with immovable being, thus differing from physics which has for its subject being subject to motion. It differs from metaphysics in this that it deals with corporeal being under the determination of quantity, while metaphysics has for its object being in general under its highest determinations such as act and potency, cause and effect. Upper case C. Practical philosophy includes the science of political government and organization as well as the general questions of moral science. 1. The supreme good of man is happiness. Of this no Greek had the least doubt. The word eudaimonia has however more of an objective meaning than our word happiness. It is more akin to well-being or welfare. But how is this well-being to be attained? What is it that constitutes happiness? Happiness is determined by the end for which man was made, and the end of human existence is that form of good which is peculiar to man, the good which is proper to a rational being. Now reason is a prerogative of man. It should therefore be the aim of man's existence to live conformably to reason, to live a life of virtue. Nevertheless, Aristotle would not exclude wealth and pleasure from the idea of human happiness. For wealth is necessary for the external manifestation of virtue, and pleasure is the natural reward of a virtuous life. Happiness also includes friendship, health, and a word all the gifts of fortune. 2. Virtue, while it is not the only constituent of happiness, is the indispensable means of attaining happiness. It is not a mere feeling, but rather a fixed quality or habit of mind, axis. Now, mind must first of all hold the lower functions and especially the passions in subjection, and then it must develop its own powers. Thus we have moral virtue and intellectual virtue. 3. Lowercase A Moral virtue is a certain habit of the faculty of choice, consisting in a mean, mesotes, suitable to our nature and fixed by reason in the manner in which a prudent man would fix it. It is a habit that is a fixed quality. It consists in a mean between excess and defect. Courage, for example, preserves the mean between cowardice and reckless daring. Virtue, it is true, is impossible without moral insight. Still, we must not identify these two, as secretaries did, when he reduced all virtue to knowledge. There are many kinds of virtue. Her virtue is a quality of the will, and the defects and excesses to which the will may lead us are many, as will be seen by the following schema. Defect, mean, excess. Defect, cowardice. Mean, courage. Excess, rashness. Defect, insensibility. Mean, temperance. Excess, intemperance. Defect, illiberality. Mean, liberality. Excess, prodigality. Defect, pettiness. Mean, munificence. Excess, vulgarity. Defect, humble-mindedness. Mean, high-mindedness. Excess, vain-gloriousness. Defect, want of ambition. Mean, right ambition. Excess, over ambition. Defect, spiritlessness. Mean, good temper. Excess, irascibility. Defect, surliness. Mean, friendless-ability. Excess, obsequiousness. Defect, eronical deprecation. Mean, sincerity. Excess, boastfulness. Defect, boorishness. Mean, wittiness. Excess, buffoonery. Defect, shamelessness. Mean, modesty. Excess, bashfulness. Defect, callousness. Mean, just resentment. Excess, spitefulness. Justice, d'caussionne, in its generic meaning signifies the observance of the right order of all the faculties of men, and in this sense it is synonymous with virtue. In a more restricted sense, justice is the virtue which regulates man's dealings with his fellow men. It is divided into distributive, corrective, and commutative justice. Lower Case B. The intellectual virtues are perfections of the intellect itself, without relation to other faculties. We have one, the perfections of the scientific reason, namely understanding, nous, science, episteme, and wisdom, Sophia, which are respectively concerned with first principles, demonstration, and the search for highest causes. And two, the perfections of the practical reason, namely art, which is referred to external actions, poeine, and practical wisdom, which is referred to actions the excellence of which depends on no external result, prattin. The most characteristic of Aristotle's ethical teachings is the superiority which he assigns to intellectual over ethical virtue, and the most serious defect in his ethical system is his failure to refer human action to future reward and punishment. Three. In his political doctrines, Aristotle starts with the principle that man is by nature a social being, politicon zone, and is forced to depend on the social organization for the attainment of happiness. Man's social life begins in the family, for the family is prior to the state. The state is consequently bound to keep the family intact, and in general its mission is the advancement and development of its subjects, the lifting up of the people by the just administration of law to a higher plane of moral conduct. Aristotle combats the state absolutism of Plato. There are three ultimate forms of government, monarchy, aristocracy, and the republic. The best form of government is that which is best suited to the character of the people, Politica 317. Thus, although monarchy is the ideal, the best attainable form seems to be an aristocracy, not of wealth nor of birth, but of intellect. A true aristocracy, a government of the best. Upper case D, poetical philosophy. Under this head, Aristotle treats the theory of art. Art, he teaches, is traceable to the spirit of imitation, and consists in the realization of external form of the true idea, a realization which is not limited to mere copying, but extends also to the perfecting of the deficiencies of nature by grouping the individual phenomena under the universal type. History merely copies. Poetry idealizes and completes the work of history. Poetry is more philosophical and more elevated than history. Aristotle's analysis of the beautiful is like Plato's confined to study of the objective constituents of beauty. These he reduces to order and grandeur, which are found especially in moral beauty. So vague and indefinite is this analysis that Aristotle was obliged, as we have seen, to base his theory of art on the realization of the essence, without referring art at all to the notion of the beautiful. The aim of art is the calming, purifying, and ennobling of the affections. Historical position It is difficult to form a true estimate of Aristotle's philosophy, and the difficulty arises, strange as this may seem, from our too great familiarity with many of the notions which Aristotle introduced into human science. The basic ideas of his philosophical system have become the common places of elementary education. They have found their way into the vocabulary of our everyday life, and have impressed themselves indelibly on the literature of western civilization. The terminology, the invention of which is one of Aristotle's chief titles to preeminence, has become indissolubly associated with the exposition of Christian theology, and forms, so to speak, the alphabet of our catechetical instructions. All this has made it difficult for the modern reader to appreciate the importance of Aristotle's contributions to philosophy, consueta velescund. It is necessary, therefore, to forget how familiar many of Aristotle's discoveries have become, to go back in imagination to the time when they were first denunciated, and in this way to realize, if we can, the breadth and depth of a mind that could succeed in accomplishing such a vast amount of original work as to entitle him to be considered the founder of logic, the author of the first treatise on scientific psychology, the first natural historian, and the father of the biological sciences. Placing ourselves at this point of view, we shall be less inclined to single out the undeniable defects of Aristotle's philosophy, finding it a more natural as well as a more congenial task to compare Aristotle with his predecessors in the history of Greek speculation. Aristotle's philosophy is the synthesis and culmination of the speculations of pre-Socratic and Socratic schools. His doctrine of causes is an epitome of all that Greek philosophy had up to his time accomplished. But it is especially with Plato, his master, that Aristotle is to be compared, and it is by his additions to Platonic teaching that he is to be judged. Plato built out of the ruins of pre-Socratic speculation a complete metaphysical structure according to a definite plan, a structure beautiful in its outlines, perfect in its symmetry, but insecure and unstable, like one of those golden palaces of fairyland which we fear to approach and examine, lest it vanish into airy nothingness. Aristotle, on the contrary, drew his plan with a firmer hand. He laid the foundation of his philosophy deep on the rock bottom of experience, and although all the joints in the fabric are not equally secure, the care and consistency with which the design is executed are apparent to every observer. It was left for scholastic philosophy to add the pinnacle to the structure which Aristotle had carried as far towards completion as human thought could build unaided. If Plato has been called the sublime, Aristotle must be called the profound, a title which, when applied to a philosopher, should be the expression of higher praise, for wisdom is oft times nearer when we stoop than when we soar. CHAPTER XII. THE PARAPATETIC SCHOOL. Sources. Besides our primary sources consisting of treatises and commentaries of the philosophers of Aristotle's school, we have as secondary sources the works of Diogenes Lertius and the references made by Cicero, who it should be said is more trustworthy when he mentions the parapetetics than when he speaks of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Theophrastus Elesmus was born about the same year as Aristotle. He seems to have become Aristotle's disciples even before the death of Plato. After Aristotle's death he ruled in the parapetetic school at Skolark for about thirty-five years. He wrote many works of which the best known are the two treatises on botany and his ethical characters, the latter consisting of lifelike delineations of types of human character. He extended and completed Aristotle's philosophy of nature, devoting special attention to the science of botany. In his ethical doctrines he insisted on the Coregia secured by virtue of the possession of external goods. Of the life of Eudemus of Rhodes little is known except that he and Theophratus were disciples of Aristotle at the same time. It is probable that he continued to belong to the school when Theophrastus became Skolark. He is the author of the Eudemian Ethics, which however is merely a redaction of Aristotle's notes, or at most a treatise intended to supplement Aristotle's Nicomachian ethics. In his writings and doctrines Eudemus shows far less originality and independence than does Theophrastus. Aristotle's zenus of Tarentum, known as the musician, introduced into the parapetetic philosophy many of the ideas of the Pythagoreans, attaching a special importance to the notion of harmony. Straito of Lamsaekus, the physicist, succeeded Theophrastus as Skolark in 288 BC and continued to preside over the school for eighteen years. Like his predecessor he devoted his attention to the study of nature, manifesting however a tendency to discard from natural philosophy the theological concept and the idea of the incorporeal. Demetrius of Filaris and others of the earlier parapetetics confined their literary labors to general history and the history of opinions. Among the later parapetetics mention must be made of Andronicus of Rhodes, who edited the works of Aristotle about 70 BC. To the second century of our era belong Alexander of Aphrodisius, the exegete, and Aristocles of Messines. To the third century belongs Profuri, and to the sixth century Philoponus Implicius. All these, though they belong to the Neoplatonic or eclectic schools, enrich the literature of the parapetetic school by their commentaries on Aristotle. The physician Galen, born about 131 AD, is also reckoned among the interpreters of Aristotle. Retrospect The second period of Greek philosophy has been characterized as subjective objective. Compared with the preceding period, it is subjective. That is, it diverts the mind of the inquire from the problems of nature to those of thought. Compared with the period immediately following, it is subjective. That is, it is not concerned solely with the ethical problems and the problems of the value of knowledge. It is not wholly subjective. Historically the period is short, not extending over more than three generations. Yet in that brief space of time much was accomplished. It is perhaps because the period was so short, and because it was dominated by three men, each of whom stood to his predecessor in the relation of personal disciple, that there exists so perfect and organic unity among the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The philosophy of Socrates was the philosophy of the concept. It was concerned with the inquiry into the conditions of scientific knowledge and the basis of ethics. The philosophy of Plato was the philosophy of the idea. It claimed to be a scientific study of reality, a system of metaphysics. The philosophy of Aristotle was centered around the notion of essence, and essence implies the fundamental dualism of matter and form. It is in Aristotle's philosophy, therefore, that the objective and subjective are united in the highest and most perfect synthesis. For organic unity is compatible with growth in organic complexity. The concept is the simplest expression of the union of subject and object. Next in complexity is the idea, which is a form of being and knowing, existing apart from what is and what is known, while highest in complexity is the essence, which is in part the matter and in part the form existing in the reality and also in the object of knowledge. From Socrates to Aristotle there is, therefore, a true development, the historical formula of which is ideally compact, concept, idea, and essence. End of Chapter 12 The death of Aristotle marks the end of the golden age of Greek philosophy. From Thales to Socrates was the period of beginnings. From Socrates to Aristotle, the period of highest perfection. With the opening of the post-Aristotelian period begins the age of decay and dissolution. To this third period belongs the pantheism of the Stoics, the materialism of the Epicureans, and the final relaxation of all earnest philosophical thought, culminating in the absolute skepticism of the Pyranists. The period of highest perfection in philosophy was also the period of the political greatness of Greece, and the causes which brought about the political downfall of Greece are in part accountable for the decay of Greek philosophy. Sixteen years before the death of Aristotle, the battle of Caronea, 338 BC, was fought, the battle in which the doom of Greece was sealed. There followed a series of unsuccessful attempts to shake off the Macedonian yoke. In vain did Demosthenes strive to arouse in the breasts of the Athenians the spirit of the days of Marathon and Thermopylae. The iron hand of military despotism crushed the last manifestations of patriotism. Then the Roman came to succeed the Macedonian, and Greece, the fair home of philosophy in the west, was made a province of a vast military and commercial empire. The loss of political freedom was followed by a period of torpor of the creative energies of the Greek mind. Speculation in the highest sense of constructive effort was no longer possible, and philosophy became wholly practical in its aims. Theoretical knowledge was valued not at all, or only insofar as it contributed to that bracing and strengthening of the moral fiber which men began to seek in philosophy, and for which alone philosophy began to be studied. Philosophy thus came to occupy itself with ethical problems, and to be regarded as a refuge from the miseries of life. When men ceased to count it an honour to be a citizen of Hellas, they turned to philosophy in order to become citizens of the world, and so philosophy assumed a more cosmopolitan character. Imported into the Roman Empire, it failed at first to take root on Roman soil because in the Latin contempt of the Graculus was included a contempt for all things Greek. Gradually, however, philosophy gained ascendancy over the Roman mind, while in turn the Roman love of the practical asserted its influence on Greek philosophy. All these influences resulted in, one, a disintegration of the distinctively Greek spirit of philosophy and the substitution of a cosmopolitan spirit of eclecticism. Two, a centering of philosophical thought around the problems of human life and human destiny. And three, the final absorption of Greek philosophy in the reconstructive efforts of the Greco-Oriental philosophers of Alexandria. But while metaphysics and physics were neglected in this anthropocentric movement of thought, the mathematical sciences, emancipating themselves from philosophy, began to flourish with new vigor. The astronomers of Sicily and later those of Alexandria stand out of the general gloom of the period as worthy representatives of the Greek spirit of scientific inquiry. The principal schools of this period are, one, the Stoics, two, the Epicureans, three, the Skeptics, four, the Eclectics, and five, the Mathematicians and astronomers. A separate chapter will be devoted to the philosophy of the Romans. Chapter 13, the Stoics. Sources. All the writings of the earlier Stoics, with the exception of a few fragments, have been lost. We possess indeed the complete works of the later Stoics, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Heraclitus, and Cornutus. But these philosophers lived under the Roman Empire, at a time when foreign influences had substituted new elements for the doctrines which had been characteristic of the school at the beginning of its existence. We are obliged, therefore, to rely for our knowledge of early Stoicism on writers like Cicero, Plutarch, Diogenes Leotius, Sextus Empiricus, and the Aristotelian commentators who, however, do not always distinguish between the earlier and the later forms of Stoicism. Consequently, it will be found more satisfactory first to give a history of the Stoic school, and then to describe the Stoic doctrine as a whole, without attempting to determine the contributions made by individual members of the school. History of the Stoic School. A. Greek Stoics. Zeno of Citium, 350-258 B.C., the founder of the Stoic school, was born at Citium in Cypress in the year 350 B.C. He was at first a merchant, but owing, it is said, to a shipwreck in which he lost a considerable part of his wealth, he repaired to Athens with the intention of pursuing the study of philosophy. On reading the memorabilia of Xenophon and the Apology of Plato, he was impressed with the remarkable character of Socrates, and was led to attach himself to the school of Cretes, the cynic, who appeared to reproduce in his own life and manners the character of this age. Later on, repelled, no doubt, by the coarseness and vulgarity of the cynics, he became successively disciple of Stilpo, the Magarian, and of Xenocrates, the ruler of the academy. About the year 310 B.C., he founded a school of his own, which reason of his habit of teaching in the painted porch, Stoa, came to be known as the Stoic school. He reached an advanced age, and, according to account given by Diogenes and others, ended his life by suicide. His writings have all been lost. Cleante's succeeded Xeno as master of the Stoa. He is said to have been originally a pugilist. Xeno characterized the mental temperament of Cleante's by comparing him to a hard slab on which it is difficult to write, but which retains indefinitely whatever is written on it. True to this description, Cleante's preserved the teachings of his master, but showed himself incapable of expanding them into a more complete system. He is the reputed author of A Hymn to the Most High, preserved by Stabias. Crispus, who succeeded Cleante's, was born at Soli in Cilicia, in the year 280 B.C. He was more original than Cleante's, and under his direction, the Stoic school reached its full development. Among his disciples were Xeno of Tarsus, Diogenes of Cilicia, and Antipater of Tarsus, whose pupil, Panatius, 180-111 B.C., introduced Stoicism into the Roman world. B. Roman Stoics Among the Roman Stoics, the best known are L. Aeneas Cornutus, A.D. 20-66, M. Aeneas Lucanus, A.D. 39-65, Seneca the Younger, A.D. 3-65, Perseus the Satterist, A.D. 34-62, Epictetus the Philosopher's Slave, Flourished A.D. 90, and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 121-180. It is a fact worthy of note that Cleante's, Seneca, and Lucan committed suicide in accordance with what, as we shall see, was one of the ethical doctrines of the school, imitating in this the example of the founder. Stoic Philosophy General Idea of Stoic Philosophy The Stoics evidently considered themselves the true disciples of Socrates, and it was, without doubt, from Socratic principles that they deduced their Idea of the Aim and Scope of Philosophy. We have seen that Zeno was first led to philosophy by the hope of finding in it consolation for the loss of his temporal goods, and when he came to establish his school, he took for his starting point the Socratic doctrine that knowledge is virtue, making the pursuit of knowledge, philosophy, and the cultivation of virtue synonymous. When, however, the Stoics set about discovering a systematic basis for their ethical teachings, they went back to pre-socratic systems, and drew largely from the physical doctrines of Heraclitus. Now there were two tenets in the Heraclitian Philosophy which recommended themselves in a special manner to the Stoics. One, that all individual things about the ever-changing manifestations, or apparitions, of the ever-enduring fire, and two, that there is but one law which governs the actions of men as well as the processes of nature. Consequently, the Stoics made these principles the foundation of the science of human conduct. At the same time, they did not hesitate to supplement the physics of Heraclitus by borrowing from Aristotle's physical doctrines. They were influenced too by Antisthenes' nominalism and by his opposition to the Platonic Theory of Ideas, and, in their theological doctrines, they made use of the Socratic and Platonic Tilliology. All these elements they amalgamated into a consistent system. Logic and physics, they made subservient to ethics, on the principle that the theoretical should be subordinated to the practical. We have, therefore, three divisions of Stoic philosophy. One, logic, including the theory of knowledge. Two, physics, including theology. And three, ethics, the hegemonic science. Stoic logic. It was probably Zeno who first gave to logic the name by which it is now known, though this is by no means certain. The logic of the Stoics was simply the analytic of Aristotle, supplemented by a more adequate treatment of the hypothetical syllogism, and by the addition of the problem of the criterion of truth. To the latter question, they devoted special attention, and, in their solution of it, developed the Stoic theory of knowledge. Theory of knowledge. One, the Stoics start with the Aristotelian principle that all intellectual knowledge arises from sense perception. Sense perception, a theses, becomes representation, or imagination, fantasia, as soon as it rises into consciousness. During the process of sense perception, the soul remains passive, the object producing its image on the mind, just as the seal produces its impression on wax. The process was, therefore, called typosies, although chrysalis is said to have substituted the word heteroeosies, alteration of the soul. When the object of knowledge is removed from the presence of the senses, we retain a memory of it, and a large number of memories constitute experience, imperia. 2. The next step is the formation of concepts. Concepts are formed either, a, spontaneously, that is, when, without our conscious cooperation, several like representations fuse into universal notions, prolipses, or, koinai, inoei. Or, b, consciously, that is, by the reflex activity of the mind, which detects resemblances and analogies between our representations, and combines these into reflex concepts, or knowledge, epistomy. Neither spontaneous nor reflex concepts are, however, innate. Spontaneity does not imply innateness. 3. As, therefore, all our knowledge arises from sense perception, the value to be attached to knowledge depends on the value to be attached to sense perception. Consequently, the Stoics decided that apprehension, catalepsies, is the criterion of truth. That is true, which is apprehended to be true, and it is apprehended to be true when it is represented in the mind with such force, clearness, and energy of conviction that the truth of the representation cannot be denied. The saying attributed to Zeno by Cicero, that perception is like the fingers extended, that ascent is like the half-closed hand, that apprehension is like the hand fully closed, and that knowledge, or cientia, is like the closed hand firmly grasped by the other hand, would seem to attribute knowledge a superiority over sense perception. On closer examination, however, it is seen that the difference is only a difference of degree. 4. The question, what is the value of concepts, was answered by the Stoics in accordance with nominalistic principles borrowed from Antisthenes, who, in opposition to Plato, taught that no universality exists outside the mind, the individual alone being real. 5. In their classification of concepts, the Stoics reduced the ten Aristotelian categories to four. 1. Substance, hypokiminon, 2. Essential quality, topion, 3. Accidental quality, pos-ekon, and 4. Relation, pros-tipos-ekon. This enumeration, as will be readily perceived, does not retain the Aristotelian distinction between predicables and categories. All the Stoic categories, except the first, are modes of predication rather than modes of being. Stoic Physics and Theology. The physics of the Stoa is a system of materialistic monism, while the theology of the Stoa may be described as a compromise between Theism and Pantheism. The Stoics maintained that the material alone is real. They would not admit, for example, that the soul, or virtue, is real except insofar as it is material. God Himself they believed to be material. Above all the categories, therefore, they would place not on being, but tea, something, a transcendental notion including not being as well as being, the incorporeal as well as the corporeal. Thus did they identify the incorporeal with the unreal, and include all real being under the generic concept of matter. Consistently with these principles, the Stoics teach that all attributes are air currents. Emotions, concepts, judgments, virtues, and vices are air currents which either pass into the soul or come out from it. In extenuation of this crude materialism, it must be remarked that the Stoics distinguish between a finer and a coarser matter, attributing to the former an active, and to the latter a passive character. The air currents are in substance material. In function, however, they are active and may be said to play a role similar to that which the form plays in Aristotelian philosophy. Everything, therefore, is material. The common distinction between corporeal and incorporeal is merely a distinction between coarser and finer matter. We may indeed distinguish two principles or sources of reality, matter and force, but we shall find that in ultimate analysis force too is material. God is at once the author of the universe and its soul, the imminent principle of its life. For every kind of action ultimately proceeds from one source which, whether it resides in the heavens or in the sun or in the centre of the world, on this point the Stoics were not agreed, diffuses itself throughout every part of the universe as the cause of heat and growth and life and motion. God is at one time described as fire, ether, air, atmospheric current, humour, at another time as soul, mind, reason containing the germs of all things. Logos Spermatikos. While sometimes both styles of phraseology are combined and he is called the fiery reason of the world, mind in matter, reasonable humour. The language of compromise is never wholly consistent and the Stoic theology is an attempt to compromise between theism and pantheism. It is, however, certain that the Stoics conceived God to be something material, for in their explanation of the presence of God in the universe they assume that the universal intermingling, Krassus di Halon, implies the impenetrability of matter, so that even when they call him mind, law, providence, destiny, they understand by these terms something corporeal. God and the world are the same reality, although there exists a relative difference between God, or reality regarded as a whole, and the world, or reality considered in some one or other of its aspects. This pantheism is the central doctrine of the Stoic physics. Indeed, it may be said to be the inspiring thought which justified to the Stoic mind, the study of natural phenomena. For the Stoics, as has been said, looked upon philosophy as primarily a matter of practical import, and studied physics only in order to find a basis for their ethical speculations. Such a basis they found in the doctrine of pantheism. This doctrine may, therefore, be said to have been their religion as well as their philosophy. Accordingly, they criticised the popular beliefs of their time. Being careful, however, to admit whatever elements of truth they found in polytheistic religion, and making free use of allegory as a means of bridging over the chasm between polytheism and pantheism. We may therefore speak of the world as the body, and of the deity as the soul of the universe, if we are careful to bear in mind that the distinction is merely a relative one. The world arose in the following manner. The primal fire was condensed into air and water. Water in turn was condensed into earth. The derived elements are constantly tending to return by rarefication to the primal fire. But no sooner will this destruction by conflagration have taken place than the primal fire will issue forth in another series of condensations, thus beginning another cosmic period, which will end like its predecessor in conflagration. Here the influence of Heraclitus is apparent. The deity, regarded as the origin of these processes of condensation and returning rarefication, the primal fire, is Logos Spermatikos, regarded as the ruling or guiding principle of these processes. He is Providence, Pranoia, and Destiny, Emamene. For all things come forth from the primal fire according to law, and all the subsequent changes in the world, all the events of human history, take place according to the necessary sequence of cause and effect. When we think of the order and intelligent arrangement of the divine government, we name the divine ruler Providence. When we think of the necessary dependence of effect on cause, we name him Destiny or Fate. According to the Stoic conception, Providence is directed immediately to the processes of the universe in general, and only immediately to the individual and his actions. In support of their doctrine of Providence, the Stoics appeal to the universal consent of mankind, being, apparently, the first to use this argument. The human soul is material. This not only follows from the general principles of Stoic philosophy, but is also expressly taught by the Stoics and proved with the aid of many arguments. The soul is conceived as fiery breath, numa, diffused throughout the body. In fact, the relation of the soul to the body is the same as that of the deity to the world. It is, in a special sense, part of the deity, partaking more and more of the nature of the deity according as we allow greater play to the divine or reasonable in us. Now, it is precisely on account of this special proximity of the soul to the divine that it cannot escape the necessity which divine law imposes on all things. The soul is in no sense free, unless it be said to be free because the necessity by which it is ruled comes from its own nature rather than from anything external to it. Merit and reward follow the action which, although it must be performed, is performed voluntarily, that is, with perfect acquiescence in the rule of divine destiny. The Stoic idea of the soul is as incompatible with immorality as it is with the freedom of the will. The soul, being material, is destined to destruction. The time, however, at which the soul is to be dissolved into the primal fire, is not the moment of death, but the end of the cosmic period when all matter is to be destroyed by conflagration. The Stoics were divided as to whether the souls of all men, or only those of the wise, will last until that time. Seneca's reference to death as the birth of a future life, and his description of the peace that awaits the soul beyond the grave, suggestive as they are of platonic and, possibly, Christian influences, contain nothing that is at variance with what the Stoics taught about the destiny of the human soul. Stoic ethics. The Stoics regarded ethics as the divine part of philosophy, from which, as from a centre, all their logical and physical inquiries radiate. Questions of logic and physics were of interest merely insofar as their solution threw light on the paramount problem of philosophy, the problem of human destiny and human happiness. Thus, at the very outset of the ethical inquiry concerning happiness, the Stoics applied the most characteristic of their physical doctrines, that everything in the world of reality obeys and must obey inevitable law. Man, it is true, is endowed by reason, and is thereby enabled to know the law which he obeys. He is nonetheless obliged to obey it. Nay, more. Since he is in a special-sense divine, he is under greater necessity to obey than other manifestations of the divine. The Supreme Canon of Conduct is, therefore, to live comfortably to nature, homologa menos te fisi zen. Or, as Zeno has said to have formulated the maxim, to live a consistent life, homologa menos zen. This is man's happiness, idamonia, his chief good, agathon, the end of his existence, telos. The highest purpose of human life is not, therefore, contemplation, but action in accordance with the laws of universal nature, with the will of the deity. A hint of this purpose is contained in the instinct of self-preservation, which is the primary impulse in every being. Action, in accordance with nature's law, is virtue, which Cicero translates, recta ratio. Virtue is not merely a good, it is the only good. Consequently, riches and pleasure and health and honors are not goods in any true sense of the word. And the Stoics persistently combated the teaching of Plato and Aristotle, who considered that the external goods of life are worthy of being desired, although they are subservient to the chief good, which is virtue. Stoicism was still more decided in its opposition to the hedonist doctrine, which made virtue itself to be a good subordinated to pleasure. Therefore, then, virtue is the only good. It must be sought for its own sake. It contains all the conditions of happiness. Virtue is virtue's own reward. Everything else is indifferent, adia foron. The Stoics adhered to the Socratic doctrine that virtue is one, and yet, since virtue, while one, may have a plurality of objects, they considered that there are different manifestations of virtue, such as prudence, courage, temperance, and justice, which Plato regarded as four kinds of virtue, and patience, magnanimity, etc., which may be regarded as derivations from one or other of the cardinal virtues. Accordingly, a man who is prudent must of necessity be courageous, for he who possesses one virtue must possess all. Now, he who has a right appreciation of good and evil, and who consequently intends to do good is virtuous, from which it follows that no act is in itself praiseworthy or reprehensible. The morality of the act is determined by disposition, non quid fiat, ought quid deter, refert, said quimente. Vice, the opposite of virtue, consists in living out of harmony with the laws of nature. Like virtue, it is essentially one. He who is guilty of one vice is guilty of all. There is no distinction of degree in vice. Omnia picata pariah. The Stoics, however, although they seem to identify moral excellence with intellectual or rational insight, and spoke of the virtuous man as the wise man, recognised that man is not wholly rational. From his irrational nature springs the emotions, pate. The emotions, perturbations, as Cicero calls them, are movements of the mind contrary to reason. Now, there is a desire, horme, which is according to law and reason, and this is the natural impulse towards what is good. The desire, on the contrary, which is according to emotion, is intrinsically unreasonable and therefore bad. For all emotions are contrary to reason. It follows that the wise man should aim at eradicating all his emotions. He should strive to become absolutely emotionless. This doctrine of apathy is one of the most characteristic of the doctrines of the Stoa. In their application of these ethical principles, the Stoics developed a vast number of paradoxes referring to the wise man, that is, to the ideal Stoic philosopher. He alone is free, beautiful, rich, and happy. He alone knows how to govern as well as to obey. He is the orator, the poet, the prophet. The rest of the world is mad. The majority of men pass their lives in wickedness, slaves to custom, to pleasure, and to a multitude of desires. The wise man alone is indifferent to pain. For him, death has no terrors, and when he is called upon to decide between death and dishonour, he is true to his Stoic teaching if he prefers the former. Suicide, therefore, is sometimes a duty. It is always justified if impending misfortune is such as seriously to threaten peace of mind and tranquility of soul. The wise man is independent of all ties of blood and kinship. He is at home everywhere. He is a citizen of the world, or, as Epictetus says, he is a child of God and all men are his brethren. Stoic philosophy, by reason of its systematic development, approaches more closely to the comprehensiveness of the Platonic and Aristotelian systems than does any other philosophy of this third period. Taking up the best principles of the cynic morality, it advanced far beyond the cynic philosophy, owing to the larger part which it assigned to mental culture in its scheme of life, and also to the broader and more systematic basis of logic and physics on which it built its ethical teaching. Nevertheless, Stoicism is not free from the dominant vice of the age to which it belonged. It is a one-sided development of philosophy. It subordinates the theoretical to the practical. In its theory of knowledge, it is sensistic. In its physics, it is materialistic and pantheistic. In the development of its moral principles, it subordinates the individual to universal law, stamping out individual desire and advocating the merging of domestic and political instincts in the far-off dream of the fellowship of cosmopolitan philosophers. It lacks that comprehensive sweep of contemplation which, in the golden age of Greek philosophy, set the theoretical by the side of the practical, placed the study of nature on a footing which gave it a value of its own, distinguished, without separating, matter and mind, and in ethics gave due importance to the individual emotions and to the social instincts as well as to the immutable moral law. This disintegration of the universal philosophical view and the consequent isolation of separate aspects of speculative and practical problems, which is first seen in Stoicism, goes on increasing in the systems which come after the philosophy of the stoa. Of all the defects of Stoicism, that which contributed most to the downfall and dissolution of the school was the doctrine that the wise man is emancipated from all moral law. This doctrine is not the only tenet of the Stoics which recalls the philosophy of the Orient rather than that of Greece. The identity of God and the world, the emanation of the soul, the final reabsorption of all things in God, these and similar doctrines are peculiar to the Oriental form of speculation. We must remember that Zeno of Cyprus was not more than half Greek, and though his mental training and the logical derivation of his philosophy were entirely Greek, there was in him enough of the Oriental temperament to infuse into his philosophy a spirit more in accordance with the quietism of the East than with the Grecian sense of artistic completeness. This quietism, together with the exorbitant claim set up on behalf of the wise man, finally brought Stoicism down to so lower level of moral aims that it was scarcely to be distinguished from Epicureanism. For the history of the school, the most important primary source is Lucretius poem De Rume Natura. As secondary sources we have the works of Cicero, Plutarch, Diogenes Lertius, and the Aristotelian commentators. History of the Epicurean school. Epicurus was born at Samos in the year 341 or 342 B.C. His father, Neoclas, was Strabo-Telsus, a school teacher. According to the tradition of the Epicurean school, Epicurus was a self-taught philosopher, and this is confirmed by his very superficial acquaintance with the philosophical systems of his predecessors. Still he must have had some instruction in philosophy, for pamphilists and asophans are mentioned as having been his teachers. Epicurus, however, would not acknowledge his debt to them, boasting that he had begun his self-instruction at the age of fourteen, having been driven to rely on his own powers of thought by the inability of his teachers to explain what was meant by the chaos of Hesiod. He first taught at Mytolene, afterwards at Lamsacus, and finally at Athens, where he established his school in a garden, thereby giving occasion for the name by which his followers were known, Hoy Apoton Keiton. Here he taught until his death, which took place in 270 B.C. The most celebrated of the disciples of Epicurus were Metrodorus, born 330 B.C., Hermarchus, who succeeded Epicurus as president of the school, and was succeeded by Paulistratus, Dionysius, and Balisedes. Towards the end of the second century B.C., the school was represented at Athens by Apollodorus, Zeno of Sidon, and Phaedrus. Amofinius, about 150 B.C., seems to have been the first to make known the doctrines of Epicurus to the Romans. Later on we hear of Assyro, or Skyro, who taught Epicurian philosophy at Rome. But it is Lucretius, Titus Lucretius, Charus, 950, 51 B.C., who in his poem De Roam a Natura gives us the first Latin contribution to Epicurian literature. Although the school of Epicurus is said to have been distinguished by its cheerful tone, it is certain that it indulged in much abusive criticism, for the Epicurians were known throughout antiquity as leaders in the art of Columni. Everything, therefore, which the Epicurians say about the systems and the philosophers of pre-Socratic and Socratic times, must have corroboration from other sources before it can be accepted. Epicurus himself set the example in misrepresentation when he gave expression to his contempt for his teachers and predecessors. While from his own followers he exacted every outward mark of respect, even insisting on their committing to memory certain brief formulas, curiae doxi, which contained the pith of his teachings. Hence it is that Epicurian philosophy adhered so closely to the form which it first received from the teaching of Epicurus. Epicurian philosophy. Epicurian notion of philosophy. Having defined philosophy as the art of making life happy, and having laid down the principle that there should be no deviation from the curiae doxi, Epicurus subordinate his speculation to the practical aspects of philosophy and effectively discouraged all independence of thought on the part of his disciples. It is well known that he despised learning and culture. The only logical problem to which he gave even cursory attention was the problem of knowledge. He attached greater value to the study of nature, but only because he considered that a knowledge of natural causes may free the mind from a fear of the gods and in this way contribute to human happiness. In the philosophy of Epicurus, therefore, ethics or the inquiry into the nature and conditions of happiness is the paramount problem to which logic and the study of nature are merely the preliminaries. Epicurian logic. This portion of Epicurian philosophy was styled canonical because it consists merely of a system of rules or canons referring to the acquisition of knowledge and the ascertainment of truth. It passes by the question of formal logic and is in reality an epistemology. In their theory of knowledge the Epicurians favor more pronounced censism than that of the Stoics. They maintain that while in practice the standard of truth is pleasure and pain, in theory the ultimate test of all knowledge is sensation, isthesis. Sensation as such is always to be relied upon. Error lies not in the sensation itself, but rather in our judgment concerning sensation. Several sensations amalgamated in a general picture result in a notion, polypsis. The notion, however, as regards objective value is not superior to the sensations from which it arises. From notions arises opinion or thought, doxa, or polypsis, which likewise depends on sensation for its truth. How then does sensation take place? In their answer to this question the Epicurians content themselves with reproducing the doctrine of Democritus, according to whom sensation takes place by means of certain efflexes, idola operoi, which detaching themselves from external objects and passing through the pores of the air enter the senses. If therefore sensation is sometimes apparently at fault, the real source of the deception lies in the objective distortion or mutilation of the efflex images. Thus, for example, the image of a man and the image of a horse, combined as it were by accident, give rise to the impression of a centaur. Our impression, even in cases of this kind, corresponds to the image and consequently the sensation is true. And if as sometimes happens, the same object affects several persons differently, the cause of the diversity of impression is the plurality of images. The sensation in each case is true because it corresponds to the image which produces it. Epicurian Physics The physical doctrines of the Epicurians receive their tone and character from the purpose which the Epicurians always had in mind throughout their investigations of nature, to free men from the fear of the gods. To this aim the Epicurians subordinated their physical inquiries, and as they cared little whether their explanation was accurate or inaccurate, complete or incomplete, they left matters of detail to be settled by individuals, according to individual choice, insisting, however, in their general explanation of natural phenomena, on the exclusion of any cause that was not a natural cause. Deliberately rejecting the Socratic philosophy of nature and turning to the pre-Socratic system of philosophy, Epicurus recognized that the philosophy which was most naturalistic in his explanations, and waged most persistent warfare on final causes, was that of Democritus. As history of nature, therefore, he adopted the physics of Democritus, modifying it as we shall see in one important respect. Thus he accepted without modification the atomism of Democritus as well as the Democritian idea of a vacuum. Nothing exists except atoms and void. Mind as moving cause is a superfluous postulate. Ergo preto inane et corpora, torsie per se, l'olopotes rerum, innumero nathro relinquie. The only point on which Democritus and Epicurus differ is in reference to the primal motion of atoms. Democritus maintained that the atoms falling through empty space moved with different velocities on account of their difference in weight. This Aristotle pointed out is impossible. Epicurus, acknowledging the justice of Aristotle's criticism, sought to account for the collision of the falling atoms by postulating on the part of the atoms a self-determining power by means of which some of them swerved slightly from the vertical line and thus caused a circular or rotatory motion. In his account of the origin of life, Epicurus accepted the theory of Empedocles, who held that all sorts of deformed and monstrous creatures first sprang from the earth, those alone surviving which were fit to support and protect themselves and to propagate their kind. The Epicurian account of human society is well known. Lucretius taught that the men of olden times were as strong and as savage as beasts, and that the primitive condition of the race was one of warfare, and that civil society was formed as a protection against anarchy and the absolute power of kings. Similarly, religion, according to the Epicurians, was of natural growth. Fear is the basis of religion. Ignorance, too, is a factor in the genesis of the religious instinct. It was owing to ignorance and fear that men attributed natural portents to the intervention of supernatural powers and sought to explain the regularity of the motion of the heavenly bodies by referring to the agency of providence. Nevertheless, Epicurus did not wholly abandon belief in the gods. The gods, he said, exist because they have appeared to men and left on the minds of men representative images, prolapses. They are immortal. They enjoy perfect happiness. Formed of the finest atoms, they dwell in the uppermost parts of the universe, in the spaces between the stars. The popular notion, however, that the gods take an interest in human affairs is erroneous, because an interest in the affairs of men would be inconsistent with the perfect happiness which the gods enjoy. The human soul is, like the gods, composed of the finer kind of atoms. It is a more subtle kind of body resembling air and fire. More accurately, it is composed of air, fire, vapor, and a fourth element which is nameless. This last constitutes the rational part, logicon, of the soul, which is seated in the breast, while air, fire, and vapor constitute the irrational part which is scattered throughout the remainder of the body. Lucretius calls the rational part animus or mens and the irrational part anima. According to the Stoics, it is the soul which holds the body together. According to the Epicurians, it is the body which shelters the atoms of the soul, so that when the protection afforded by the body ceases, as it does at the moment of death, the soul-atoms are instantly scattered owing to their extreme lightness. In this way Epicurus, keeping in mind the chief aim of all his physical inquiries, sought to rob death of its terrors by teaching that there is no future life. Epicurus asserted the freedom of the will. He denied the existence of fate, but in his own analysis of human action he was obliged to substitute chance for fate. Despite his doctrine of freedom, he was forced to maintain that there is no truth in disjunctive propositions referring to the future. Epicurian Ethics The Epicurian Canonic and the general views which the Epicurians maintained in matters of physical science led inevitably to the conclusion that the only unconditional good is pleasure, a conclusion which is the basis of Epicurian Ethics. The ethical system of Epicurus is simply a modified form of the hedonism of Aristipus and the other Cyreniacs. When, however, Epicurus comes to define pleasure, he does not, like Aristipus, define it as a gentle motion. Considering rather its negative aspect, he describes it as the absence of pain. He does not indeed omit the positive aspect. He merely insists that the negative aspect repose of the mind ataproxia is essential while the gentle motion which constitutes positive pleasure is secondary and accidental. Unsatisfied desire is pain, and pain is destructive and mental repose. For this reason and for this reason alone, should the desires be satisfied, and it is only in this way that positive pleasure becomes part of the highest good. The difference between the Epicurians and the Cyreniacs is furthermore apparent in the Epicurian doctrine of the hierarchy of pleasures. Highest of all pleasures are those of the mind, namely knowledge and intelligence, which free the soul from prejudice and fear and contribute to its repose. For this reason the wise man should not place his hope of happiness in the pleasures of sense, but should rise to the plane of intellectual enjoyment. Here, however, Epicurius was inconsistent. He could not logically maintain a distinction between sense and intellect. Indeed, Diogenes preserves a saying of Epicurus to the effect that there is no good apart from the pleasures of the senses, and Plutarch and others represent metrodorus as maintaining that everything good has reference to the stomach. In their application of the doctrine of pleasure, the Epicurians recognize that each man is, in a certain sense, his own legislator. It is for him to determine what is useful or pleasant, and what is harmful or painful. Hence the principle of moderation. Restrain your needs and desires within the measure in which you will be able to satisfy them. And while no kind of pleasure is evil in itself, the wise man will avoid those pleasures which disturb his peace of mind and which therefore entail pain. Virtue has for the Epicurians a merely relative value. It is not good or praiseworthy in itself, but only so far as it is useful in securing that painlessness which is the happiness of life. The virtuous man secures the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of pain. Temperance teaches him to avoid excess, and courage enables him to forego a pleasure or endure a pain for the sake of greater pleasure, or less pain in the future. Less successful even than these attempts at finding a rational basis for courage and temperance is the Epicurian attempt at analyzing the virtue of justice. For justice in the Epicurian philosophy is based on the social compact into which primitive man entered as a means of self-defense and self-preservation. Cicero complains that the ethics of the Epicurians leaves no place for the sentiment of honor. A more serious fault is its failure to supply a rational basis for the virtue of justice. The claims which of the Epicurians advance on behalf of the wise man are similar to those advanced by the Stoics. The wise man alone is master of his desires. He is unearing in his convictions. He is happy in every circumstance and condition of life. And although he is not, as was the Stoic sage, wholly unemotional, still he holds his emotions in perfect control. Later, however, this ideal gradually degenerated, and despite the example of moderation set by Epicurus and his early followers, the wise man of Epicurian tradition became the model of the careless man of the world, with whom it is impossible to associate earnestness of moral striving. Historical position. The Stoic and Epicurian schools, the two most important schools of the period, both sprang up and developed under the influence of the same external conditions. The internal principle of their development was, however, different. The Stoics were fatalists. The Epicurians were causalists. This difference in their conception of nature led to the difference in their view of practical life which is so apparent in their ethical systems. Yet there were points, theoretical as well as ethical, in which the two schools approach very closely to each other. Both were materialistic in their physical systems and sensualistic in their theories of knowledge. Both were illogical in their development of the idea of duty, although, as Zeller points out, the charge of inconsistency is urged with less justice against the Epicurians than against the Stoics. The Epicurians defined philosophy as the art of making life happy, and for them happiness was primarily a matter of feeling rather than of knowledge, while the Stoics defined happiness as consisting in a life led in harmony with nature. For the Stoic, therefore, the study of nature and the adoption of a consistent theory of nature were of greater importance than they were for the Epicurian. The physics of the Epicurians differs, as has been said, from the physics of Democritus in regard to the doctrine of the swerving motion of the atoms, an admission which destroys the consistency of Democritus' theory. This theory was, at least, not self-contradictory. The Epicurian theory is a mixture of dynamism and mechanism which cannot stand a moment's serious investigation. The ethics of the Epicurian school is simply the hedonism of Aristipus refined under a broader idea of culture and a more enlightening concept of Socratic eudaimonism. In spite of Socratic influence, the Epicurian ethics is not, in the strict sense of the word, a system of morality at all. It contains no principles of morality. It reduces right and wrong to a matter of individual feeling, substituting for good and evil the categories pleasant and painful. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15-17 Of the History of Philosophy This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Pyro, the chief skeptic of this period, left no writings. Of the writings of his earlier followers, very few fragments have come down to us. We are obliged therefore to rely on secondary sources, such as Diogenes Lertius, Aristocles, quoted by Eusebius, and the later skeptics. The Stoics and Epicurians laid down certain theoretical principles from which they deduced canons of conduct, always keeping in view the practical aim of philosophy, to make men happy. The skeptics agreed with the Stoics and Epicurians in referring philosophy primarily to conduct and the pursuit of happiness. But instead of laying down theoretical principles as the Stoics and Epicurians had done, they taught that the first step to happiness is to forego all theoretical inquiry and to disclaim all certainty of knowledge. The principal skeptics are, one, Pyro, two, the Platonists of the Middle Academy, three later skeptics, including Ines Edimas. Pyro, Life Pyro of Ellis was a contemporary of Aristotle. Very little is known about his life. It is probable that he died about the year 270 B.C. Among his disciples, Timon Aflias, surnamed the Stilographer, is best known. Timon composed satirical poems, Siloi, in which he attacked the dogmatists, following in this the example of his teacher, who declared that Democritus alone deserved the name of philosopher, and that all the rest Plato and Aristotle included were mere sophists. Doctrines. In accounting for Pyro's skepticism, it is safe to add to the influence which Democritus may have exercised on his mind, the influence of the Magarian spirit of criticism which must have prevailed in Pyro's native city. All we know about the teaching of Pyro may be reduced to the following propositions. One, in themselves real things are neither beautiful nor ugly, neither large nor small. We have as little right to say that they are the one as we have to say that they are the other. Hence the famous Uden-Malon. Real things are therefore inaccessible to human knowledge, and he is wise who recognizing the futility of inquiry abstains from judging. This attitude of mind was called Hippoxaeophagia. Three. From this withholding of judgment arises the state of imperturbability, ataraxia, in which human happiness consists. In this account of Pyro-nism no attempt has been made to separate the doctrines of Pyro from those of Timon. Pyro taught orally, and the fact of his having left no writings accounts for the freedom with which his writers attribute to him the principles and tenets of his followers. The Middle Academy. Arcesilus incarniades, departing from the tradition of the Platonic school, of which they were the official representatives, lent their aid to the skeptical movement by seeking to establish on rational and empirical grounds the thesis that it is impossible to arrive at certitude. The skepticism of the Middle Academy very quickly gave way before eclecticism. The later skeptics. Under this title are included Inesidemus and others who were, for the most part, physicians, and who from sensualistic premises deduced a system of skepticism which was more radical than the idealistic skepticism or the probabilism of the academy. Inesidemus of Canosis in Crete taught at Alexandria about the beginning of the Christian era. According to Ritter and Preller he flourished between the years 80 and 50 BC. Diogenes alludes to the work of Inesidemus in which by means of ten tropes, tropoi, he strove to show that contradictory predicates may be affirmed of one and the same subject, and that consequently certain knowledge is impossible. These tropes are a fairly complete enumeration of the arguments of the skeptics and furnished directly or indirectly material to more than one advocate of the relativity of knowledge in subsequent times. According to Sextus Impericus Inesidemus objected the notion of cause to special analysis and pronounced it to be self-contradictory. A cause, he argued, either precedes the effect or is synchronous with it or is subsequent to it. Now it cannot precede the effect if it did it would be a cause before it was a cause. It cannot be synchronous with the effect for in that case cause and effect would be interchangeable. There would be no reason why one rather than the other should be called the product. Finally the hypothesis that cause is subsequent to the effect is manifestly absurd, and this way did Inesidemus conclude sophisticly that the notion of cause is utterly devoid of meaning. Inesidemus however did not regard skepticism as a system but only as an introduction, a go-gay to a system of philosophy. A gripper who lived about a century after Inesidemus reduced the tropes to five and argued that knowledge is impossible because the major premise of the syllogism being itself a conclusion, syllogistic reasoning, is a regressus infinitum. Sextus Impericus, who is the most important of the later skeptics, lived in Alexandria about the year A.D. 300. In his work against the mathematicians and in his treatise known as Pyronic Hypotyposes, he subjects to critical examination the dogmatism not only of the great constructive systems of theoretical and practical philosophy, but also of arithmetic and geometry. He maintains that no science is certain or rather that the true skeptic should refrain from any absolute judgment whatever. Historical Position The history of Greek skepticism exhibits an interesting phase of the practical idea which dominated the philosophy of Greece during the third period. Like the Stoics and Epicurians the skeptics were animated with the desire to find in philosophy a refuge from the disheartening conditions of the times in which they lived. But unlike their dogmatizing contemporaries they believed that the first step towards securing happiness is the abdication of all claim to the attainment of scientific knowledge. Chapter Sixteen The Eclectics The electricism of this third period of history of Greek philosophy is merely another aspect of the skepticism which resulted from the exhaustion of speculative thought. The conflict of parties and schools led to the skeptic despair of attaining scientific knowledge. The same cause led to the eclectic attempt at finding in a looser concept of system a common speculative basis on which to erect a philosophy of conduct. Eclecticism relinquished the task of constructing a speculative system in the stricter sense of the word and adopted what may be called a working hypothesis, falling back on common consciousness or uncriticized immediate knowledge as the final test of philosophic truth. The eclectic tendency penetrated all the schools everywhere dissolving the spirit of system which under school arcs of inferior ability had already begun to lose its primitive power of cohesion. Accordingly among the Stoics and Epicurians as well as among the followers of Plato and Aristotle we find all through the century and a half before Christ as well as during the first three centuries of the Christian era evidences of the eclectic spirit preparing the way for the more comprehensive syncretic efforts of the school of Alexandria. Among the Stoics the principal eclectics were Boethys who borrowed from the peripatetic sources Empanitius and Pasodonius. The latter two belonged to the second century before Christ and strove under the influence of Platonic and Aristotelian ideas to moderate the rigor of Stoic morality. Later in the second century after Christ Demetrius and Demonex exhibited a tendency to return to the ultra Stoic rigor of cynicism. Among the Epicurians Esculpeides of Bethenia modified the teaching of his school by maintaining the indefinite divisibility of atoms. The Platonic Academy shows the influence of the eclectic spirit in the teachings of Philo and Larissa and of Antiochus of Ascalon as well as Eudorus of Alexandria who was a contemporary of Augustus. Mention has already been made of Andronicus of Rhodes, Alexander of Aphrodisius and Galen who were eclectics of the peripatetic school. Chapter 17 The Scientific Movement As an inevitable result of the skeptical and eclectic tendencies of the age, the natural and mathematical sciences gradually broke loose from philosophy. They flourished especially in the Greek islands of the Mediterranean and in Egypt, because there they were free from the disheartening influences which at Athens and elsewhere in Hellas led to the dissolution of classical culture and classical philosophy. In Sicily where Pythagorean tradition is still unbroken, Heisetus in Archimedes taught as early as the third century before Christ a system of astronomy which was far superior to the astronomical doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. About the same time Aristarchus of Samos advanced the hypothesis that the earth moves round the sun. This theory was stamped as impious by the Stoics and rejected by Ptolemy himself. It did not succeed in supplanting the old conception until the dawn of modern times when its truth was demonstrated by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. At Alexandria they developed under the influence of the Ptolemies a new phase of philosophic thought, the study of which belongs to the history of Greco-Oriental philosophy. Side by side with this new philosophy there grew up a new science in which Euclid about 300 BC is the chief representative. He wrote the elements of geometry and treatises on harmony and optics and catropics. Ptolemy, Claudius Ptolemaus, who lived about the middle of the second century after Christ, belongs also to the Alexandrian School of Science. His work the Amalgus, or Megalae's Suna Toxis, continued to be the authoritative source of astronomical learning until the time of Copernicus.