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ENCYCLOPAEDIA METROPOLITAN A:
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EBOJEOIED BY SAMUEL TAILOR COLERIDGE.
THIRD EDITION, REVISED.
/first Sinramt. pi® fritntts.
MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY.
LONDON AND GLASGOW:
RICHARD GRIFFIN AND COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
1854.
London:
w il»on and (Joilvy,
Skinner street.
MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY.
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
by
Tut Rev. FREDERICK DEN I SON MAURICE,
CHAPLAIN TO LINCOLN'S INN ;
PBOFESSOB OP ECCLESIASTICAX HISTORY, KING'S COLLEGE, LONHON
THIRD EDITIONREVISED.
TO
Bis drititlratij the fijtnnliw 35trastn
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,
A SMALL lOKEN OS OKATIT0DE FOR HIS KINDNESS
I VIi OS RESPECT FOR HIS CHABACTBR.
PREFACE
to the second edition.
The article on Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy in the
Encyclopedia Metropolitana was undertaken at the desire of
the late Rev. Hugh James Rose, who became Editor of that
work after the death of Mr. Smedley. Mr. Rose expressed his
wish, that the form of the treatise should be historical, and not
didactic. I thought that there were many histories of Philosophy
already ; that the space allotted to a single article in an Ency¬
clopaedia was hardly sufficient to contain one; and that I was
very incompetent to write it. At the same time, the reasons
which Mr. Rose gave for objecting to a dogmatical treatise
seemed to me very weighty.
On consideration I believed that I should be acting in con¬
formity with the wishes of the accomplished Editor, who had, I
knew, a very hearty dislike to mere historical abridgments, if,
leaving the student to seek for a formal and regular account of
systems in the many French or German works which profess to
furnish one, I contented myself with offering him a few hints
which might help him in examining the purpose of the most
conspicuous teachers ; in reading their books, when they had left
any; in connecting them with the country or the age wherein
they flourished. If I confined myself to this object, I hoped
that the article, however short and imperfect, would not neces¬
sarily be superficial. The remarks in it could not be a substitute
viii
PBEFACE.
for the reflections of the reader, or for an examination of the
original sources: they might lead, I hoped, to both.
Nearly twelve years after the death of the kind-hearted and
excellent man under whose auspices I began this essay, I have
been requested to prepare it for separate publication. In look¬
ing over it after so long an interval, I have discovered that it
accomplished A'ery inadequately even the humble object which I
had originally proposed to myself. I failed, as it now seems to
me, in a clear apprehension of the word Philosophy,—in seeing
what part different nations had taken in the inquiries which it
denotes,—in tracing the workings of the "Wisdom which had
guided these inquiries,—in noticing how one grew out of another.
I found also I had indulged far too much in disquisition, and too
little in biography. Some of these errors I have endeavoured
to correct in the present volume, a great portion of which is
entirely new. Some of them, I have no doubt, remain, and will
be as offensive to the reader as they are to the writer. I wish
him at least to understand what I have attempted, that he may
be the more aware of my deficiencies, may suffer less from them,
and may not judge me by the standard of learned and elaborate
books, which I never pretended to imitate. I should have been
glad to have expunged the disagreeable affectation of the plural
pronoun; but I did not like to destroy altogether the connec¬
tion between this volume and the Encyclopaedia, seeing that I
have many personal reasons for being thankful that I had the
honour of contributing to its pages.
The present volume treats only of Ancient Philosophy; the
second part of the original article will require to be entirely
re-written.
London: July 1s50.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION 1-4
PAET I.—ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I.—THE HEBREWS 5-31
Section 1. Grounds of Hebrew Philosophy ... 5
2. Hebrew Philosophy ... , . 19
3. The Prophets ... ... 26
CHAPTER EL— EGYPTIANS, PHOENICIANS, ASSYRIANS,.. 32-36
CHAPTER III.-HINDOO PHILOSOPHY 37-53
Section 1. The Philosophy latent in the Religion 37
2. The Philosophy developed—The Bhagavad Gita 40
3. The Philosopher separating himself from the Priest ... 52
CHAPTER IV.—CHINESE PHILOSOPHY 54^73
Khottng-fou-Tsetj 54
Meng-Tseu ... ... 69
CHAPTER V.—PERSIAN PHILOSOPHY ... 73-81
Zbei>ubchi . . 73
x
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.—GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY ... 82-245
Division I.—Philosophy befoee the Time of Sooeates ...82-114
Section 1. Greek Wisdom in the Legendary Ages ... 82
2. The beginning of Philosophy ... ... ... 87
Thales ... ... ... 89
3. The Fir9t School ... ... ... 93
Anaximander ... ... ... ... 94
Anaxamines ... ... ... 95
Heraclitus ... ... 95
Democritua ... ... 98
Empedoeles ... ... ... 99
Anaxagoras ... ... ... 100
4. Pythagoras ... ... ... . ... 102
5. Zcnophanes, Parmenides, Zeno... ... ... 109
Division II. — Greek Philosophy from Soceates to Aris¬
totle ... ... ... ... 114-176
Section 1. Athens in the Time of Socrates—The Sophists 114
2. Socrates ... ... ... 122
3. The Socratics ... 135
The Cyrenaic School ... ... 135
Aristippus . . ... 135
Theodorus ... ... ... 135
Hcgesias ... ... ... ... 135
Anniceris . 135
The Cynic School ... ... 137
Antisthenes ... .. . ... 137
Diogenes ... ... .. 137
The Megarian School .. . . ... 137
Euclides ... ... ... 137
Eubulides ... .... 137
Diodoru9 . . 137
ttilpo ... 137
4. Plato ... ... .. 13S
CONTENTS. XI
Division III.—Aristotle ... ... ... 17G-231
Section 1. Aristotle the beginner of a New Epoch ... . . 176
2. Relation of Aristotle to Plato ... 179
3. The Logical Treatises of Aristotle . . 186
4. The Physics of Aristotle ... ... 192
5. The Metaphysics of Aristotle .. 197
6. Aristotelian Pyschology ... 218
7. The Aristotelian Ethics . . 221
8. Politics of Aristotle ... ... 230
Division IT.—The Later Sects .. ... ... 231-245
Section 1. Greece after the Time of Alexander ... ... 231
2. Epicurus ... .. ... .. . . 235
3. Stoicism ... .. ... 238
4. The Academic ... ,. 213
CHAPTER Yn.—ROMAN PHILOSOPHY 245-254
Section 1. Roman History and Mythology . . ... . . 245
2. Origin of Latin Philosophy ... . .. . . 246
3. The Roman Epicurean .. . . ... ... 248
4. The Roman Stoic ... ... .. ... 250
5. The Proper Roman Philosophy ... ... ... 251
CHAPTER Yin.—THE ALEXANDRIAN PHILOSOPHY . 254
Section 1. Alexandria
2. The Jewish Philosophy
254
256
INTRODUCTION.
i.
Philosophy means literally the love of "Wisdom. It is the philosophy
love of a hidden treasure. Therefore it comes to mean a
search after Wisdom.
II.
That this hidden treasure is not something which can be pnysu.ii
seen or handled, weighed or measured, all have confessed.
Yet it may be sought among the things that are seen and
handled, weighed and measured, or, to use a more general
expression still, among the things that are produced and
grow—among Physical things.
III.
The philosopher asks whether Wisdom is in these things ■ Mctupby
whether it is of the same kind with them ; or whether it is of Philosophy
a different kind, -whether it is fixed, constant, unproduced ?
He who seeks for an object which is not of the same kind with
the things around him is called a Metaphysical philosopher.
15
INTRODUCTION.
IV.
Uh'iToaophy. But how has lie learned to dream of an object different in
kind from these things? Is he different from them? How
comes he to desire this Wisdom, this hidden treasure? Must
it not have more to do with him than with them? If he
knew himself, the ways, habits, manners, which belong to his
race, might he not be nearer to the object which he seeks?
These ways, habits, maimers, occupy the Moral philosopher.
V.
ivsipn <>r It is the purpose of the present sketch to indicate how
treatise. men have been led into these inquiries, how in different
countries and ages they have been pursued, what have been
the issues of them.
VI.
scsjfrth— Moral inquiries are suggested by our daily acts, our ordi-
ur< t«-d m it. nary speech, our necessary relations. Metaphysical inquiries
are suggested by the discovery of powers in ourselves which
we do not find in other creatures. The former therefore
concern us most, and in a history will present themselves
first to our notice. But we shall find that they cannot be
separated. Of physical inquiries, so far as they have been
entered upon merely for the sake of ascertaining the order
and constitution of the world around us, nothing 17111 be
reported. So far as they have been suggested by the desire
to find Wisdom, they are too much involved in moral inquiries,
they arc too evidently presumed in the word no tuphyxiral
t > be passed over. The philosopher seeks for Wisdom
cv(rywhere that he may know wlieic it is not.
INTRODUCTION.
3
VII.
All nations have been engaged in this search for "Wisdom, Limitation
. ,, >f the sul -
those most activelyhich have left most records of themselves „«■«.
in the History of the World. Buildings, poems, pictures,
mechanical arts,above all polities, have indicated the direction
which different periods, countries, individuals have taken in
the pursuit. But the name " Philosopher" has been generally
and rightly confined to one who has engaged deliberately in
the search, and has traced out a method in it. Such a man
interprets the less conscious striving of his contemporaries.
VIII.
It would, however, be a fatal mistake to make even the Not a
history 11
most rapid and superficial sketch of philosophical investiga-
tions merely a record of the conclusions at which different
Schools have arrived. These conclusions are in general
premature efforts to terminate the search for Wisdom, to
confine the results of it within a few meagre propositions.
To trace the thoughts which were working in the minds of
those who founded Schools, to discover how they were affected
by their characters, teachers, disciples, opponents, personal
and political conflicts, to watch the processes by which they
were expanded, completed, narrowed, is a far more interesting
work, and one which falls far more property witliiu the pro¬
vince of the historian of philosophy. Those w ho busy tliem-
selves with the speculations and contradictions of Schools
are likely to begin with extravagant expectations and to end
in despondency. Earnest sympathising meditations upon
the actual efforts of men to discover the secret of their lite,
and iju< i ids r which Jiry Uv< , ei .A; in < ipial encourage-
m *nts to humility and to hope.
i
INTRODUCTION.
IX.
Divjbion ot This sketch will consist of two parts. It will treat of the
till, subject
Philosophy before and after the coining of Christ. The sub¬
jects considered in the first part will be—1st. The Hebrew
Philosophy; 2nd. The Hindoo; 3rd. The Chinese; 4th.
The Persian ; 5th. The Greek ; 6th. The Roman; 7th. The
Grseco-Hebraic or Alexandrian. In the second part the
subjects will be — 1. The Philosophy of the first six cen¬
turies ; 2. The Philosophy of the Middle Ages; 3. The
Philosophy of the centuries from the thirteenth to our own
time.
CHAPTER I.
THE HEBREWS.
SECTION I.
geotjnds of hebeew philosophy.
1. The Hebrew Scriptures are commonly passed over by the Whether the
historian of philosophy. Yet the book of Job describes philo- gce^ptures
sophy in particularly exact language. " Where is wisdom found, recognise
and where is the place of understanding ?" tliis is said to be the philosophy,
inquiry in which man is more interested than in finding the
veins of silver or in bringing the gold out of the earth. The
book of Proverbs sets forth the search for wisdom as its subject
and purpose. Man is to dig for it as for hid treasure. Such
language is scarcely consistent with an opinion which has been
eagerly maintained by persons holding the most opposite views
respecting these books ; that they assume all knowledge to be
communicated from above, and therefore not to be an object for
the search or investigation of man. This opinion, however,
could nut have been entertained so generally if there had been
no facts or reasons to justify it. The writers of the book of Job
and of the book of Proverbs presume the existence of a revela¬
tion, nay, ground their feeling of the possibility and the duty of
a search for wisdom upon it. Evidently, then, this revelatjon
must have a different meaning in their minds from that which
it bears in the minds of many modems. To know what sense
it does bear, we must refer to those books which profess to
record how God made himself known to man. In these we
shall find not Hebrew philosophy itself, but the grounds and
elements of it.
2. The book of Genesis opens with the creation of the World, Genesis,
or Order, in which we are dwelling. Modern geological disco- principles,
veries and speculations have done much to remove a veil which
had been thrown over the meaning of this record, and to bring
forth the all-important principle, that the sacred historian is
6
THE HEBREWS.
speaking of the world in its relation to Max. The whole after
history is incoherent and unintelligible if this principle is for¬
gotten ; if the words " (rod made Man in his own likeness," are
nivhoh'llC> uu* ^ken aM ^ll> ^ ; ^ie <*ours<l the Nisi hie world is
not contemplated as secondary and subordinate to the relation
between (Sod and our race.
Lents of These data once assumed, it becomes not a strange excep-
iiumaii tionat fact that the unseen Being should reveal or uuveil hiru^elf
histor>. jypan< |)u^. -the law and condition of man's being. That He
after whose image the creature is made should not Inne given
liini the capacity for beholding his own archetype, that He should
refine him the power of being what he was made to he, this
would he the contradiction. Accordingly it is taken throughout
these Scriptures as a contradiction. God is c\ try where said to
he speaking to man ; man is intended to hear. God places the
first man in a garden, calls forth in him the power by wbieh he
names the creatures, provides him with a helpmate, creates the
marriage bond. He submits to a lower creature, denies the
authority of the invisible Lord, wishes to hide himself from His
presence. He is awakened to own that presence, and to feel
that he has transgressed. He is driven from the garden : he is
to eat his bread bv the sweat of his brow; but this labour is to
teach him that he is not dependent upon the earth which he is
to till and subdue ; that he is dependent upon an invisible Ruler.
The first murder is committed in the world: God asks Cain for
his brother. His great punishment is that he goes out from
the presence of God. His descendants are described as building
cities and inventing mechanical arts. Another race, of which
Seth is the head, is said to he called by the name of the Lord.
The first is an irregular, disorderly coudition. The second con¬
fesses itself to he under the Invine government. Though
nothing is recorded of it but the succession of its families, it is
treated as being in the state intended for man at this stage of
his growth, (feneral violence and confusion afterwards over¬
spread the earth. A flood is sent to punish the wickedness of
those who dwell upon it: the race is preserved in one of the
iSeth family. A covenant of God with man is the foundation
of the restored world. The sons of Noah are meant to people
the earth according to their tongues, in their nations, in their
families. A portion of them seeks to set at naught this pur¬
pose, and to build a tower on the plain of Shinar, that thevmay
not he scattered abroad on the face of the earth. God, we are
told, confounded the rebellious scheme. They left off to build
that tower. But a mighty hunter established the kingdoms of
Babel and of Nineveh. The Babel kingdom is throughout
Scripture treated as the form of godless society.
THE HEBREW HISTORICAL BOOKS.
7
4. A Divine education, then, is assumed as the regular basis Theerounfi
of human life and human fellowship. God teaches man what kno\w"ai"e
he is. Man knows what ho is; he fulfils his appointed task antl life-
just so far as he receives this instruction. The instruction pro¬
ceeds from an invisible Being, and is addressed to something
else in man than that which connects him with the visible
world. He is always ready to forget God, to bow down before
visible things, bo far as he does this, he becomes a slave and
an animal. So far as he does this, the soeiety in which he lives
becomes corrupt and untenable.
5. Abram is called out by God from his father's house to go Theedura-
into a strange land. This calling is the foundation of his life. Abraham
The Lord of all is speaking to him; he heeds the voice and
obeys it. That Lord makes him know that He is one in whom
he may trust. He believes in Him as a righteous Being. His
faith is counted to him for righteousness; he acknowledges the
Being in whose likeness he is made ; he becomes like Him. His
outward life is of the most commonplace kind. He is simply a
shepherd, with many flocks and herds, dwelling in tents, sur¬
rounded by people who dwell in cities with whom he does not
mix but with whom he has frequent dealings. Once he goes forth
at the head of his servants to rescue a kinsman who had taken up
his abode in the city of bodom. As he returns, he finds a priest
of the most high God in Salem, to whom he gives a tenth of
his spoil. H e goes into Egypt: it is already an organized
nation ; a Pharaoh is reigning there. He loses his faith in God,
and tells a lie to save himself: it almost costs him his wife.
All his discipline is of the same practical kind. He finds that
God overthrows cities which have become hateful and given up
to beastly crimes : he is taught to intercede for the righteous in
these cities. He is sure that the Judge of all the earth will not
slay them with the wicked. He must do right. Abraham is
living under the promise that in him and his seed all the families
of the earth are to be blessed: but he has no seed. A child is
born to him by a bondwoman living in his house. Thus he
hopes the promise will be fulfilled: but he is told that the child
of his own wife must be his heir. She is barren : yet he believes.
He waits long When the child has been born, and is growing
up, he is called to sacrifice it. He gives himself to God; is ready
to do what is commanded. Another ottering is provided, and
Abraham is blessed for his trust. Thus the whole history, so
far as he individually is concerned, is the history of a man taught
to know himself by knowing in whom he has to believe. He
has nothing whatever to distinguish him from his kind: he
learns that which he ha-i in common with all human beings : he
learns the relations in which human beings stand to the world
about them and to their Creator.
8
THE HEBEEWS.
tion uf tkc" suc^ a history cannot be merely an individual one.
cii isen That he may know what he is, Abraham is taught what it is to be
fnmiiy. a master? a husband, a father. The discipline which has most
to do with himself has to do with him in these characters. It
is in his position as the head of a family, the founder of a race,
that God speaks to him. Thus he is educated to feel his con¬
nection with the past and the future. Hebrew history isgrounded
upon the belief that God made a covenant with the patriarchs
and with their seed after them. They are circumcised: they
are taught that they are separated and set apart by the Lord of
all. The sign shows that what they are separated from is some¬
thing in themselves. Their own flesh is cut oif. The Hebrew
has the same tendency to forget God as other men. Other
men, again, are treated as subjects of Divine teaching as well as
the chosen race. God speaks to Abimelech and to Pharaoh.
The sign of the covenant itself is shared with the descendants
of Ishmael. The patriarchs are shown to have all the evils of
their neighbours, to have some which belong peculiarly to them
from their sense of having peculiar privileges. Jacob is more
deceitful and treacherous than Esau ; he who prizes his birth¬
right than he who despises it. The one tries to get the rights
of an heir of the covenant by trick ; the other thinks nothing of
that inheritance, but much of the loss of corn and wine which
he believes are entailed upon it. Both are disappointed : the
deceiver becomes a wanderer ; but in his wandering learns that
God is with him, though he knew it not, and that there is a
ladder between earth and heaven. He has put himself under a
Divine education ; it does not leave him till it has punished him
for his falsehood. The more frank and open-hearted hunter has
his reward: he does not lose what he feared to lose; he misses
only that which he never cared for.
Joseph and 7. The rest of the book of Geuesis is in harmony with these
ins brethren p0rti0ng 0f it. The heads of the Jewish nation, the circumcised
sons of Jacob, commit the crimes which might be looked for in
a set of wild shepherds and settlers. Their sins are especially
family sins. The one who feels what it is to be in covenant
with a righteous being is taught to understand his privilege by
being an exile and a prisoner. He learns that God is with him,
keeping him from evil, giving him wisdom. He believes that
He cares for Pharaoh and Egypt, and is their Ruler and Teacher
as well as his. He becomes an instructor to a king. But it is
still with his family relations that the historian is chiefly occu¬
pied ; he cares more to tell how he behaved to his brethren,
and was made known to them, than how he bought up the
lands of the people of Egypt. The consciences and hearts of
human beings have testified that he is right; that such records
do concern us more, and are really more wonderful than the
the hebeew histoeicax eooes.
other: they belong to humanity, to morality : they set forth the
family relations of human beings as the first stage of their.spi¬
ritual history; that out of which all the other stages must gra-
dually develope themselves.
8. The book of Exodus exhibits the Jewish people still as aThefamiiy
collection of families: they have multiplied in Egypt, are re- ^t?on!nff a
garded as a dangerous body of aliens, are reduced into slavery.
The book gives the history of their deliverance from this con¬
dition. God sees the affliction of the people, and hears their
cry ; He remembers his covenant, and calls a man out of one of
their tribes to be their deliverer. Egypt is presented to us as
a nation abounding in wise men: they practise magic and sooth¬
saying : they are the advisers of the king. Moses is brought
up in the court of the king, and is learned in this wisdom.
"While he is still young, he feels for his countrymen, tries to
deliver them, and smites an Egyptian. He becomes an exile in
the land of Midian. There, as he is keeping his father-in-law's
flock at the back of the desert, the Lord God speaks to him,
and tells him that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
But He makes known to Moses another name—" Say to the
Israelites that the I Am hath sent thee to them." In this name
he speaks to his countyymen; in this name he commands
Pharaoh to let the people go. " The Lord God of the Hebrews"
had sent him with that message. Pharaoh asks " Who is the
Lord God ?" and increases the people's burdens. The river is
smitten ; flies, lice, locusts attack the Egyptians; the magicians
mimic the plagues. At last they and the people confess that a
real hand is stretched out upon them. The first-born are
destroyed. The slaves go out with a high hand. A memorial
feast is appointed them, which they are to keep from generation
to generation; a witness that the Lord was the protector of
their households, and that He brought them out of the house of
bondage.
9. In this stage of the history, the principles are evidently The new
the same as in the first. The invisible Lord is still the great whatV00'
speaker and actor in it. Men are recognised as in their right signified,
state when they hear His voice and confess His acting. It is
stiH the rule and not the exception that he should reveal himself.
But the new revelation is evidently of a deeper kind than the
former. The Egyptian priests and magicians had all kinds of
thoughts and speculations about God; they had all plans of
representing Him and propitiating Him. Hence superstitions,
tricks, exaltation of men for their skill in these tricks, worship
of the visible things in which they had discovered tokens of
power, instruments of utility, causes of fear. The Lord of all
comes forth declaring Himself as the true Being ; Himself the
10
TIIE HEBREWS.
teacher of wisdom to man, the ruler of the things to which he
is doing homage. He makes the power felt which lie is conti¬
nually exercising. The plagues were signal startling specimens
of judgments which He had exhibited before, and would exhibit
again in that laud. They are remarkable chiefly for this, that
the reason of them is explained. Natural agents are shown to
obey a moral law: a righteous Being sends them; they are to
punish the oppressor, and deliver the oppressed.
Hebrrw l(). On this foundation the polity of the Israelites stands,
polity. name ()f (ioc[ js the ground of it: He is the deliverer of the
people; He calls out the leader who guides them through the
wilderness; He gives them bread each morning, and causes the
water to flow from the rook for them. He goes before them by
night and by day; He easts the horse and the rider into the deep.
He is the judge between man and man, the Teacher of their
judges, lie gives the law, He appoints the priest and the sacri¬
fice ; Ho orders the host, and goes with it to battle. He is the
head of the tribes ; He appoints the bounds of their habitation.
The commonest arrangements have their sanction from His
name. He inspires the artificer with his power of doing cunning
works; He himself dwells in the tabernacle, and meets the
worshipper at the mercy-seat. ,
tnvniMied covenant of (rod is at the root of the national as it
from the was of the family society. There was for the most part no
Egyptian, novelty in the mere Jewish institutions. A law, a priesthood,
sacrifices, temples, existed in Egypt. The Jew did not bring
these social forms with him, he found them established in the
land to which he and his countrymen went as a hand of shep¬
herds. They might have been cast aside as mere portions of an
idolatrous system. In that ease, the Israelites would have re¬
tained a set of family or pastoral institutions after they had
grown into the dimensions of a people; in other words, they
would have become an Arab horde. Had Moses stolen the
tpnet of the unity of Hod from the Egyptian sages, and pub¬
lished it to his countrymen as a witness that they were no longer
a degraded caste, and that they might worship the one God of
nature instead of the multitudinous gods of their oppressors,
this would have been their fate. If, after taking this course, he
had, in accommodation to their prejudices, pretended that he
had a mission from an actual, living Being, who had authorized
him to establish a system in all its essentials like the Egyptian,
with a hard, lazy tenet of the Divine unity appended to it, he
would have framed the most incongruous scheme of falsehood
ever palmed upon the world ; his name ought to be held accursed
as that of the wickedest of all liars and blasphemers. Before we
pronounce that sentence upon him, we should hear his own ac-
the hebrew historical books.
li
count of the matter. He does not boast that he proclaimed any
tenet about the unity of (Sod at all. He says that the I Am, the
living Hod, sent him to be the guide and deliverer of his coun¬
trymen. The Egyptians believed in a hidden god. He said that
hidden Hod had come forth to declare himself. The Egyptians
thought that he had delegated to a set of priests the power to
interpret His mind. He said Hod was ever living and acting.
The priest was the witness of his presence, and of His relation
to men. The Egyptian held that sacrifices were the means of
converting the Dh ine will to man's will. He said they were
confessions of man's revolt from Hod's will, and could never be
bribes to the Divine Being, who had himself appointed their
kind and their amount. The Egyptian spoke of laws which were
either irreversible or to be changed at the will of the monarch.
He spoke of laws as the utterance of an unseen and eternal
King, which no man could set aside, which were ever proceeding
from the mouth of Hod himself, enforced by thunders and light¬
nings, declaring to each Israelite that he was in the presence of
Hod, warning him of tendencies which were hateful in Hod's
eyes, aud would destroy him. The Egyptian had statutes pro¬
vided for the particular emergencies of the land, which must be
enforced by some religious machinery. The law of Moses
assumes that the Lord of all, who does not think it beneath Him
to care for the growth of trees and the fall of sparrows, directed
the arrangements which were suitable to an agricultural people
dwelling on the shores of the Mediterranean. The Egyptians
had temples where they worshipped beings whom they con¬
ceived of from the different phenomena of Kafure in the places
where these temples stood. Moses affirmed that Hod does not
float in the air, or dwell in the hills, or in the clouds; but that
there, where it pleased him to dwell, might His glory he felt,
there might the worshipper converse with him.
Whether this description of the polity be true or not, it is at
least consistent. It does not set aside Egyptian institutions or
Egyptian faith ; it justifies them by inverting them. They were
grounded upon man's conceptions of Hod ; the Israelite's upon
Hod's declaration of Himself to man. The one assumes the
nation to be a society which must be upheld, which cau only be
upheld, by Divine sanction,—which must, therefore, forge these
sanctions; the other assumes the nation to be established by
the living and true Hod himself, to he the witness of His truth
and permanence, to be bound to a perpetual protest and war
against every attempt to confound Him with visible objects.
12. This, according to the Hebrew economy, is the one great The office of
characteristic function of the nation. It grows out of the the nation-
family; it is grounded on the family covenant; it must preserve
12
TEE HEBREWS.
the family distinctions; its lands must be apportioned to the
different tribes ; its memorial feasts must be connected with the
life of the household; in buttle every man must encamp by the
standard of the bouse of his fathers. But the nation is not a
mere collection of families. It is a witness of a perpetual battle
that is point; on between order and disorder, right and wrong,
the invisible God who is the Lord of man, and the visible things
which are claiming lordship over him. The Israelite, the cove¬
nant servant of God, is to take part in this tight; he is to go
forth as God's instrument in putting down corruption and op¬
pression. When he has a commission to destroy, he is to
aestroy. He is to hold the sacrifice of individual life a cheap
thing for the sake of asserting the right and the truth, which
men have violated. Idolatry he looks upon as the cause of all
strife and degradation. He is to hate it with a perfect hatred,
natloaamfef 11 ew stage the life of the Israelites is the com-
Son mencement of Song and of Written Law. The first is the ex¬
pression of thanksgiving for deliverance from the visible op¬
pressor. It proclaims the Lord as a deliverer and a man of war.
It is poured forth by an individual man who feels that he is the
member of a nation, and v ho becomes its spokesman. Though
he speaks the praises of God, he feels that he is inspired by
God. The flame of the song, like that of the sacrifice, has been
first kindled by Him to whom it ascends.
The Code. The Code is precisely the opposite of the Song. It comes
from the lips of the Lord; it is simply His utterance. It
carries with it no inspiration. It takes each man apart, and
makes him feel that he alone is spoken to, though a crowd sur¬
rounds him. Yet it too comes forth from a Deliverer; it is the
sign of a new and greatly-advanced stage of education. The
discipline of experience has not passed away, but distinct formal
precepts have been added to it. The memorial stones or pillars
have given place to the written letter. The finger of God has
permanently set down the decrees which his people are to keep,
its They are decrees. The whole force of the code, as a code,
authority, consists in its coming forth from Him who has a right to com¬
mand, who has given the sea its bounds, and has determined
what man is to be. The right of the Lawgiver to say—So it
shall be—is the foundation of every precept. But then it must
be remembered that He who claims this right first revealed
Himself to the Israelite as his Deliverer and Friend, as the
enemy of oppression and wrong, as One who does not act from
self-will. A law wanting in either of these conditions the
Hebrew Scriptures teach us to consider a contradiction. If law
is the creature of self-will, its meaning and its sanction perish
in the very attempt to enforce it. For law to proceed from
THE HEBREW HISTORICAL BOOKS.
13
those to whom it is addressed, is equally at variance with the
idea of these books. They assume that there is a righteous
Will in the universe, and that that Will can utter itself, and
has uttered itself.
But the code is addressed to the covenant people. It is The Code
strictly national. How, then, have the Ten Commandments 11211003 ■
been felt to be the moral institute of the tribes of modern
Europe, differing as they do in all external respects from the
Jewish ? It is not too much anticipating a future part of this
sketch, to say that this has only happened in so far as the in¬
habitants of modern Europe have felt themselves to belong to
distinct nations, and have recognised the essential grounds of
the Jewish polity, the covenant, calling, actual government of
an unseen Lord, as applying to themselves in their national
character. Not as members of a more extensive society, but
precisely as united in particular local societies, have they felt
the obligations and the virtue of this code. Anything which
has weakened their national feeling, or absorbed it, has weakened
the authority of the Ten Commandments. Hence the distinc¬
tion between these Commandments and the mere statutes of
the Jewish people has strongly commended itself to the con¬
science of these nations, not because they have denied the latter
to have a Divine origin, but because they have felt that the
same Wisdom which adapted a certain class of commands to
the peculiarities of one locality and age, must intend a different
one for another. The Ten Commandments they have recognised
as possessing nothing of this limitation.
The distinction of positive and essentially moral commands, Distinction
which some have sought to introduce into this subject, does not positive pre-
therefore seem to concern us here. We may have many oeca- cepts.
sions for noticing it hereafter, but into the question of a code it
cannot enter. Every part of a Law must, ex vi termini, be
positive ; that is, it must be laid down. But what is laid down
may concern the inhabitants of a particular district as such, or
may concern them as human beings. This is a distinction to
the perception of which the subjects of the Jewish economy
were especially awakened. To the Commandments which were
spoken on Sinai there were added no more. All the subsequent
legislation, though referred to the same Authority, is separated
from these. All the subsequent history was a witness to the
Jew that in the setting up of any god besides the Unseen Deli¬
verer, in the fancy that there could be any likeness of Him in
heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under
the earth ; in the loss of awe for His Name; in the loss of the
distinction between Work and Best as the ground of man's
life, and as having its archetype in the Divine Being, and as
14 THE HEBEEW8.
worked by Him into the tissue of the existence of His own
people; in the loss of reverence for parents, for life, for marriage,
for property, for character, and in the covetous feeling which is
at the root of these evils—lay the sources of political disunion
and crime, the loss of all personal dignity and manliness.
Property. Property, it will he seen, was carefully guarded by this code.
One of its provisions refers to this subject. It cannot be pre¬
tended that this law exists for the sake of protecting individual
possession, though it may truly be affirmed that the reverence
for property was a sign of this second stage of Jewish educa¬
tion. AVith the earlier tent life of the patriarchs it had com¬
paratively little to do. We see the commencement of it in the
disputes between the herdsmen of Lot and Abraham in the
arrangements about wells, in the purchase of burying-grounds.
It comes out clearly in the assignment of portions to the sons
of Jacob. But as yet there are within the limits of the chosen
people no distinct rules to protect it. It is connected with the
distinct protesting character of the nation itself, with the dis¬
tinct sense of individuality which was awakened in its members.
T),e But mixed with the family and national institutions, was the
universal hint of something more large than either family or nation. The
the nation. Levite tribe was exempt from the ordinary regulations of pro¬
perty. It represented the whole people, and represented each
family; while it bore witness that the relation in which the
Israelites stood to the I Am, could not be satisfactorily expressed
without breaking through the forms and limitations of a local
commonwealth. In fact, all these institutions, while they taught
Israelites to prize boundaries and land-marks, — while they
strengthened their attachment to place and their reverence for
it, were perpetually reminding every one who devoutly sub¬
mitted to them, and meditated on them, that he had that in him
which did not belong to space or to time, to which only a Being
above all such restraints could speak, which only the knowledge
of such a Being could satisfy.
The Jewish 14. AV hatever other characteristics this history may have, or
u.Ku"n",i-d may want> no oue whl deny that it is a moral and metaphysical
«\t] history, history, according to the definition which has already been given
of those terms. ( It is moral, in that, from the first to last, it
refers directly to man, to the habits, ways, constitution of the
human race, as distinct from every other race, "fit is metaphy¬
sical, inasmuch as it asserts that man himself is distinct frum
physical things; that though he has that in him which is under
the law of growth and decay, he has that also which connects
him with vvlit.it is ti\ h e.»r stant, pernrnvvt, with t> living per¬
sonal Being, vvno is above the laws of nature, and who Himself
imposed them.
THE TIEBREW HISTORICAL BOOKS.
15
15. But though a moral and metaphysical history, we have Ntf the
admitted already that it is uo history of a philosophy, of thoughts philosophy
about wisdom, or of a search after it. Another remark must be or"'.R
made here. If this is no history of a Philosophy, it is also no
history of a Religion, in the sense which we commonly give to
that word. It is not the history of men's thoughts about God,
or desires after God, or affections towards Him. Ifprofesses
to be a~history of God's umeiling of Himself to man. If it is v '
not that it is nothing, it is false from beginning to end.
To make it the history of the speculations of a certain tribe
about God, we must deny the very root of any speculations
which that tribe ever had, for this root is the belief that they
could not think of Him, unless He had first thought of them;
that they could not speak of Him, unless He were speaking to
them. A class of modern teachers assume that God is made in
the image of man, is formed after his conceptions; and then in¬
sist that a nation must have had this conviction, which acted
and lived upon the opposite one. Let every people be allowed
to speak its own word, to tell us what it means. We who
think the Hebrews spoke a true word—meant the true tiling,
only claim for them what we would claim for all,—the right of
interpreting themselves.
16. "We have denied that the history of the Hebrews is the The reii-
history of a religion or a philosophy. But we fully admit that of°thebu°k's
there are Hebrew books which, in the ordinary sense of the Hebrews,
word, are to be called religious, just as we contend that there
are some which, in the ordinary sense of the word, are to be
called philosophical. "When the Jewish Rabbinical schools
assigned the name of " holy writings" to one part of these
books, and of " histories" to another, they expressed their feel¬
ing that there are some of them which especially embody the
aspirations of the human spirit after a Divine person, just as
there are those w Inch set forth the acts of that Divine person
towards men. The book of Psalms is the chief of the holy
writings. The tendency in later times has been to give it this
character too strictly and exclusively,—to overlook the historical The Psalms,
and political features of the Psalms, which are so conspicuous to
all plain readers, and to regard them simply as utterances of
individual sorrow, or trust, or thankfulness, or rapture. By
doing so, we destroy the meaning of the writer; we do not
separate his religious feelings from their surrounding elements,
but give them a new character altogether. The Psalmist is not
a recluse brooding over his own feelings and experiences. He
is *i n an 1< ..ruing, nu ler the heavy pr"-suiv el'litr. in tli 1 battle¬
field, on the judgment-seat, through the crueiiy of persccnti l1-,
the fellow ship of outlaws, the rebellion of sons, his personal
16
THE HEBEEWS.
transgressions, to know his own feebleness, the necessity of
Divine succour, the mysterious relations in which he stands to
the Lord and to his fellow-men. As a king, the Lord of all had
revealed himself to the Israelites,—a king reigning from genera¬
tion to generation, in whose government lay the only freedom,
safety, hope of his subjects. Great changes had taken place in
the outward condition of the Israelite; he was no more merely
under the invisible Lord who had spoken IIis laws upon Sinai.
The unseen A king went forth in the sight of the Host as its leader; was
^sibicklng1; confessed to be the chief of the people's strength. The difficulty
was to connect these two truths together ; to prevent the visible
king from interfering with the homage which was due to the
Invisible, to make him the witness of God, instead of a rival
and a rebel. Saul had been made king, because the people dis¬
believed that God was an actual king. The whole of David's
strange history, as a shepherd-boy, a hero, an exile, a king rul¬
ing, and a king deposed, reigning righteously, and fading into
acts of rebellion and injustice, testified that the temporal sove¬
reign was nothing but the representative, an imperfect type of
One whose throne was for ever and ever. The twofold convic¬
tion that the unseen kingdom is the ground of every other, that
it is the true substantial kingdom, and that man is intended to
be the image of God in his royalty, is implied in ad the utter¬
ances of the book of Psalms, gives them their strength, their
unity, their variety, makes them as human as they are national.
The inward Trust in God is the life-spring of every prayer and song, trust
ba«U;UtWard ^ Kim as the Lord God of Israel, who will do what He has
promised, who wid show the Jewish cading not to be a vain
cading, who wid fully manifest Himself to men as their Ruler,
and will prove the falsehood of all the attempts of men to make
Him in their likeness, and the truth of His assertion, that He
has made men in His likeness. It is a long fight between the
true God and the false gods, the true image, and the false
image ; the struggle is desperate in that land, in every land, in
each man's heart. At times, ad hopes of a successful issue seem
over; " the faithful fad from among the clnldren of men," false
gods and false men have their own way. God seems to have left
the world to lies, to misery, to atheism. But out of the depth of
despair comes hope. The Lord shad arise, and man shad not
always have the upper hand; He wid defend the cause of the
poor and the fatherless, and see that those in necessity have
right. Let the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain
thing as they wid, He wid set His king upon His holy hid of
Zion, a king who shad reign as long as the sun and moon
endureth, and who shad set peace and righteousness on the earth.
Throughout these Psalms, ad those elements of Hebrew life
TI1E HEBREW HISTORICAL BOOKS.
17
and revelation to wliicb we have referred, the feast, the law, the
tribe, the tabernacle, the priests, the sacrifices, above all, the
battle-field against idolatry, present themselves to lis in connec¬
tion with all the inmost thoughts and longings of the writers.
But the ingenuity of modern criticism has discovered that some
of these Psalms must he the work of men who had attained a
higher degree of cultivation than was compatible with the reve¬
rence for the Mosaic institutions, or with the religious system
which surrounded them. One who could introduce the Lord, The p-uims
saying, " Thinkest thou that I will cat bull's flesh, or drink the
blood of goats or when lamenting his crime, could say, " Thou
desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee, but thou de-
lightest not in burnt offering," must, wc are told, have been
impressed with convictions which the old and orthodox Hebrew
would have regarded with horror. The conclusion of the 51st
Psalm, " Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem, thenshalt Thou be
pleased with burnt offering, and whole burnt ottering, then
shall they offer young bullocks upon Thy altar," is consoquently
set down as a priestly interpolation wholly inconsistent with the
tenor of the prayer. If our previous remarks are true, there is
no greater proof of the earnestness with which the Psalmist had
meditated on the Mosaic institution of sacrifice, and on the dif¬
ference between his own country and all others, than these pas¬
sages. The very lesson which one who devoutly obeyed the
Mosaic directions about sicrifice would have learnt from them,
was precisely this, that they were expressions of the surrender
of the heart to Him, from whom it had gone astray ; not "gifts
by which the heart might hope to bring the Divine Lord to
tolerate its wrung doings. It was a lesson which every humble
and contrite man would have learnt, that sacrifices would be
precious in God's eyes as witnesses of a reconciled spirit, of a
restored nation. But we readily admit that there is a truth
indicated in these rude attempts to destroy the unity of compo¬
sitions in which the consciences and hearts of all ages have
recognized a correspondence with their own deepest feelings and
intuitions. If the Mosaic economy were really part of a Divine
education, it should be able to show how it has done its .vnrk
it should be able to say, "the men who have been under this
training arc not wbal they would have been w ithout it, those
who have had the longest experience of it see the furthest, the
children who keep this Law are wiser than their forefathers."
The hook of Psalms, we readily admit, has that in it which dots
not belong to the patriarchal or legal period of Jewish history.
By claiming the privileges of the children of Abraham, by medi¬
tating on the Law night and day, by the divine discipline of
tnil, and strife, and sorrow, which the records of their father-
18
THE HEBBEWS.
explained to them, an insight and apprehension were cultivated
in them, which could not have belonged to the earlier time.
TVy<lraw They saw more into the meaning and heart of institutions ; they
sense and Baw how the principle implied in them rose above the accident
jn-d* and the rule: they learnt to protest against those who sacri¬
ficed their spirit for the sake of preserving their letter, and in
doing so, lost both; they saw how what was essentially and
eternally human was drawn out by that which was formally and
exclusively national; they found how an absolute, unchangeable
morality lay beneath the relative morality of the patriarchal
family, the positive morality of decrees and statutes.
( 19 )
SECTION II.
HEBREW PHILOSOPHY.
3. No one will say that the book of Proverbs is not character- Thecharac-
istically different "from the book of Psalms. All feel the dis- {{[ebook'of
tinction. The programmes of the books themselves recognize Proverbs,
and express it. When we say that the Proverbs is a philoso¬
phical book, we do but follow the definition which the writer
gives of it. " To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the
words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom,
justice, judgment, and equity, to give subtlety to the simple, to
the young man knowledge and discretion."
This is not a preparation for a book of passionate devotion,
for a book uttering the groans of a man in deep trouble, or the
confidence with which he flies to a place of refuge. It leads us
to expect just what we find, a book of observation, reflection,
experiment. It has, however, much which is in common with
the book, to which it is in form and purpose so unlike. Both,
as distinguished from the histories, set forth the seekings and
strivings of man's spirit; both assume that this seeking or
striving has been awakened in the man, and that the direction
of his search has been given him. The man seeks righteous¬
ness because the righteous Being has first sought him. He
seeks wisdom, because the wise Being has first sought him. He
is to know wisdom and equity, just as he is to be righteous and
know righteousness, because God has made him in His image.
2. That the Divine revelation was designed to awaken, and its connec-
would awaken, this kind of craving as much as the other, is h\story.h the
implied in the first statement of it. The Jewish history is no
mere exhibition of a gracious and benignant character, though
it is that in the highest sense. The Lord, the Lord God, mer¬
ciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, by
revealing Himself as such, leads men to feel their own want of
mercy, quickness to anger, unwillingness to forgive, is a wrong,
the departure from a standard to which they are meant to be
conformed. As these qualities are brought out practically,
their nature becomes gradually more intelligible, the sense of
rebellion against them more vivid. But such an exhibition of
them presumes a certain method of government, a fitting of
means to ends ; what we call judgment. The unseen King must
administer the world upon a plan. There must be in Him that
20
HIE HEBREWS.
which arranges, devises, orders. And that which is in Him is
in His creature. He is able to perceive it, to trace it out, be¬
cause he has that which corresponds to it. There is an eye in
him which meets the light, takes it in, sees objects by it.
Solomon, 3. The king, so Solomon felt, has that calling which demands
fh<* wee this wisdom; he asked it, and it was granted. His life became
' the type of wisdom to the Hebrew, the great key to his words.
Such it has been felt in all ages to be. "Within him were the
strongest tendencies to sensuality, the fullest sympathy with
all outward things and feeling of their attraction, an assurance
that the world is meant to be ruled aud examined hy man.
All possible motives to that visible worship or idolatry which
the law condemned were in him in their fullest, liveliest power.
But within him, too, was the sense of a relation to Him of whom
the law and the eonvenant testified, to the invisible Being, to
the absolute and perfect Xing, to Him of whom every king, by
his own personal authority, and by the permanence of his
dynasty, gave testimony, buch a Being was the only Protector
to whom he could look up against the powers that were con¬
spiring to rob hiiri of his strength, to make him a slu\e. Such
a Being only could teach him how to judge and to govern, how
to know the boundaries of order and disorder, of justice and
iniquity; how to make the things about him his instruments,
how to distinguish their uses aud properties. The Temple
which he built expressed his belief that the buildings and trea¬
sures of the world, which wore the objects and instruments of
idolatry, were to be consecrated to the unseen Being, and to be
witnesses of Him. The book of Proverbs, which he wrote,
expresses his feeling of the relation in which man stands to the
world aud to his Maker.
UimIoih 4. Solomon, it is said, knew all plants, from the hyssop on
|'hyl"cain0t to the cedar of Lebanon. He was a student of natural
things. But the Proxerbs contain uoue of this lore. The)
assume that "Wisdom is not to he found in them, earnestly as
the wise man may contemplate them, greatly as he may delight
in them. Wisdom has to do first of all with man ; he is to seek
it that he may he able to rule others and rule himself. He is to
seek it to deliver him from the strange woman, from the harlot
Sense, which is always draggiug him down into death. He is
to seek it that he may know the path of life,
rhe two 5 if jie seeks ^ niust find. For as sure as that tempting
voice is ever beckoning him to follow it, aud choose its \\a\s, so
surely is there another voice crying aloud in the places of con¬
course, speaking to the heart within, promising him riches and
h miiiir. durable riches and righteousness. Wisdom ^ i s to
enter into the heart, to draw the soul after it. When it does
T1IE PROVERBS, ECCLESIASTES, JOB.
21
enter in, when it is fully entertained, it becomes sweet and l
pleasant. But first it applies sharp corrections, bitter medicines. J
The man who will follow this guide must not be weary of '
discipline.
6. This dictinction of two powers or principles, which are Not a new
( drawing men in two different directions, was evidently implied dlscover>-
\in the Divine covenant and the Divine law. Without it we
could not interpret the calling of Abraham and his family; still
less the national faith and the national protest against idolatry.
Even some of the most apparently external arrangements of the
Mosaic institutions, such as the permission of certain meats
and the denunciation of certain others, the seemingly arbitrary
division of clean and unclean beasts, bad been cultivating in the
mind of the Israelite the feeling that there was an upward and
a downward path, to one of which he had a natural inclination,
into the other of which a Divine hand was leading him. The
author of the book of Proverbs does but draw out the sense
and purpose of these ordinances, does but recognize an essential
and eternal law as lying beneath them. The whole life of man
he represents as being nothing else but an expression and exhi¬
bition of this conflict. Every act he commits is done in obedi¬
ence to one or other of the influences which is every moment
acting upon him. Every act confirms him in obedience to one
or the other.
7. But these words—influences, principles, powers, are they The sedncei
adequate for our purpose ? We have spoken of the " harlot person
Sense." Solomon, with far more practical truth as well as
poetical power, speaks of her as " the strange woman." He can
tolerate no abstraction. It is an actual enchantress which
speaks to each unhappy youth. That which is the best indivi¬
dual language is also the best general language; there is no
way of describing the temptations of the race but by describing
the temptations of the particular heart. He does not arrive at
a notion of what is human by heaping together a number of
experiences ; in each one he finds that which belongs to all.
8. If that which seduces a man away from his proper state wisdom
must be described personally, how is it with Wisdom't Is that porsona •
merely an abstraction ? Is that not something to be embraced,
possessed, loved ? Is that not a reality, not a person ? If not,
how can its attractions be measured against those of the other ?
Can we follow a dream, a shadow, as we do that which we feel
and know to be substantial ? H' Sense comes before us as a
woman, Wisdom, so Solomon takes for granted, can be nothing
less fair, less attractive. To use the feminine pronoun in one
case, and not in the other, would make the meaning false in
both. Wisdom must have an intense loveliness, an intense cap-
22
THE HEBREWS.
tivating power, to those who have once come within the circle
of its influence ; and, of course, it would be contradicting the
whole doctrine of the book to fancy that this loveliness was in
any sense the creature of him who beholds it, and is enamoured
of it. It offers itself to him, overcomes his reluctance, draws
him after it. Instead of exalting his understanding into a
creator, he is bidden above all things not to lean on it, not to
trust to it. If he does, Wisdom disowns him ; he is a fool,
wisdom 9. But what is this Wisdom ? The question has become a
divine. more aucl more awful one at each step. Solomon had declared
at the outset that he who does not begin with the fear of the
Lord has no hope of attaining it. That fear must have been
strongly in the mind of the writer, mixed with a strange bold¬
ness, when he proceeds gradually to see Wisdom, the counsellor
of man as the counsellor of God, " by whom," here on earth,
" kings reign and princes decree justice, but who was set up from
everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." " When
there were no depths," thus Wisdom speaks, " I was brought
forth, when there no fountains, abounding with water, before
the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth ;
when as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the
d highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the
heavens I was there, when He set a compass upon the face of
the deep, when He established the clouds above, when He
strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He gave to the sea
his decree that the waters should not pass His commandment,
when he appointed the foundations of the earth, then was I by
Him as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the habitable parts of
His earth, an<i my delights were with the sons of men." This
is the very essence of Hebrew philosophy. It has been gradu¬
ally unfolding itself out of the previous revelations ; here it finds
its full expression. In this grand assertion of one who is the
sharer of God's mind, of one who was before the universe, in
whom the whole order of creation originated, but of one who
regards man as above all this creation, who has been from the
first his guide and teacher, in whom he attains the satisfaction
of his highest desires, by whom he is delivered from subjection
to the world around him, lies the foundation of all the most
minute practical teaching respecting the duties of the king and
of the shopkeeper. The Divine order of the world is at the same
time the true human order. fThe king is set upon his throne to
exhibit it in acts of protection and acts of punishment; the just
balances exhibit it as well. All confusion comes from men
forgetting their places in this order, ceasing to acknowledge the
power which is guiding them and keeping them in it, yielding
THE PROVERBS, ECCLESIASTES, JOB. 23
to the power which is seeking to put out the inward eye that
alone can discern it.
10. The antithetical form in which the book of Proverbs is The form
conceived evidently belongs to its essence. The main idea pfr^rb6
which goes through every part of it could not have been brought
out in any other way. It is also a very important circumstance
that the book is addressed by a father to his child. It is didactic
and affectionate ; it gives the results of experience, not the pro¬
cesses of it. In both these respects it is distinguished from the
other great book of Hebrew Philosophy, Ecclesiastes, or the
Preacher.
11. This book is the record of personal experiences, of strug- Ecclesiastes
gles, disappointments, partial conclusions. It is the story of wisdom
a man walking in a labyrinth, trying one passage after another,
and always baffled, always forced into some new oath which ends disappoint-
as hopelessly. The labyrinth, however, is not one of speculation ments-
merely or chiefly. It is the actual maze and puzzle of human
life which he is seeking to penetrate ; the actual contradictions
which a man must meet with who does not shut his eyes
to them. And though each conclusion seems to be one in
which nothing is concluded, it is not so in fact. Something is
ascertained by each experiment. Biches, all earthly enjoyments,
all works, toils, vocations, are found out to have a positive good
in them. The wise man whose eyes are in his head is found to
be better than all others. Though there is an excuse for thinking
that the old days were better than our own, it turns out not to
be wise to inquire about this. There is a comfort under the
oppressions which take place in cities and provinces. And yet
vanity and vexation of spirit is written upon all things. It is a
fact, and must not be disguised. Wisdom itself seems to be
under the same curse with other things; all the mere experi¬
ences of the seeker after it, of the wise man, are sadder, more
oppressive, than those of other men. But his sadness and his"\
oppression, his disappointments, his falls, are themselves chief
parts of his schooling, (jle is learning to acquiesce in the fact,
the discovery of which is at first so painful, that that which
is crooked cannot be made straight, and that that which is
wanting cannot be numbered./ He has been trying to make an
order, and has gradually learnr to perceive one. He has looked
upon himself as the centre of the universe, and, in spite of all
the skill and wisdom and piety which he combined with that I
false conception, it did cause him to find weariness everywhere.
He confesses God to be the centre; and then, " though the
silver cord be loosed, and the golden bowl be broken, though
the pitcher be broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at
the cistern," the spirit can find rest; it returns after all its^
24
THE HEBREWS.
Bpeculations and trials to Him 'w ho made it, it learns to behold
itself in Him, and Him in all things.
Tiu* hook of 12. It is a very difficult question whether the book of Job
should be reckoned among these philosophical books, and if it
should, to what time it belongs. On this last question critics
have been always very fluctuating, and it seems to be not much
nearer a settlement now than in former days. The weight of
modern opinion is perhaps in favour of assigning it to a compa¬
ratively late period. But the arguments in support of its ex¬
treme antiquity still seem decisive to a great many. In a trea¬
tise like the present, it would be absurd to enter into the
reasons for either opinion, though the result is by no means
Ase in uninteresting to the student of philosophy. If it does belong to
* ntieu!WaS a8e Abraham or Moses, it would prove that the deepest
and most conscious agonies of the human spirit were experienced,
and might be set forth, at a time in which, judging from the
book of G-enesis, more than from any other document, we are
wont to think that faith would be exhibited chiefly in practical
life, and that the divinest utterances would take the form of
simple history. Assuredly it is not impossible that there should
have been such thoughts working in men's minds in the first
ages. H' we could be assured that there were, it would be like
the revelation of a new and wonderful country where we least
expect to find it, a discovery which reasonable persons would
gladly obtain at the sacrifice of any theory. On the other hand,
if it must be referred to the age of Solomon, or even to the
Chaldaie period, it cannot lose that profound reality which be¬
longs to it as the history of an actual human struggle, or be
tortured by any devices of criticism into a mere book of specu¬
lation. Let it have been written where, and when, and by
whom it will, it must remain for all human beings what the
peasants of our laud and of every land feel it to be, the divine
record of what one felt who was of the same flesh and blood
with themselves, who was plunged in the deepest sorrows which
they can suffer, and had to work his way, not unhelped or
unguided, though with all human friends and counsellors striving
against him, into health and peace. When we attribute this
kind of interest to the book, and suppose that such minds are
sharers in it, we may seem to have settled the question whether
it belongs to the strictly religious or the strictly philosophical
portion of the Hebrew writings. But this would be a rash
its personal conclusion. We have tried to show that the Proverbs and
realit>. Ecclesiastes are in the truest sense human books, that they are
essentially practical, and concern the life of every one. The
intense suffering of Job makes it no doubt his first concern to
find out whether there is a gracious and loving Being ruling
THE PROVERBS, ECCLESTASTES, JOB.
over the world or no, whether his misery is to be traced to such
a source, or must come from somewhere else. In his agony he
(^pours out words like the east wind; he seems at times to denjr
the goodness of his Maker, he continually contradicts himself.
His pious, well-instructed friends, have a set of authorized,
beautiful, eloquent phrases to confute him with ; they can appeal
to the judgment of their elders, to whom they are mere children;
they are shocked at his irreverent expressions; they wonder
that he is not afraid of affronting the Being who has laid him
low and might raise him again. Job tells them that he lias heard
a thousand such things, he has them all by heart. But God is
actually smiting him. At such a time fine speeches arc of no
avail. He must know what his anguish means. It is everything
to him to believe in a righteous God, he has nothing to hope in,
if that hope be taken from him ; therefore he cannot be content
till he sees how He is righteous, how He can be so while he is
afflicting him,—a man who feels and knows inwardly that he has
tried to be right and to do right, and has clung and clings still
to Him whose rod is laid so heavily upon him.
So far this wonderful history would seem more fit to be its
classed with the Psalms than with the Proverbs. But when Pbllos°Phy-
God answers Job out of the whirlwind, it is especially with a
view of His wisdom that He lays him prostrate. He had as¬
serted in his inmost heart, and generally "with his lips, the
righteousness of God, he had justified Him as his three friends
had not done, however they seemed to do it; but he had taken
no measure of the wisdom of Him who had made Orion and the
Pleiades in the heavens, and the horse to paw the valley, and
the ostrich to lay her eggs and forget her young ones, and the
leviathan to take his pastime in the great waters. He had
thought he could judge of the means by which the All-wise
would accomplish His righteous ends, why he appointed suffering
for man, how He maintains the conflict with evil, how He will
bring it to an issue. A revelation not of the power or sove- ^kof the
reigntv, but of the infinite wisdom of God, was his humiliation;
this was his cure. In dust and ashes he sees the Being of
whom he has heard by the hearing of the ear, actually exercising
His gracious and mysterious dominion. He abhors himself;
then he is raised to a new and nobler life. At this point surely
the book of Job asserts its right to a place with the books of
Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, among these which set forth the
search after wisdom; the methods by which it pleases God to
guide a man in that search, and the reward of it.
( 26 )
SECTION III.
the prophets.
1. The book of Job has sometimes been considered a history of
the Jewish nation rather than of an individual. One cannot
wonder that such an hypothesis should have been entertained
by intelligent readers; or that it should have encountered a
vehement resistance. The prosperity, misery, restoration of a
nation, are surely to be read in that book. Tet one who has
suffered will never be persuaded that he is not reading of his
own struggles,—of struggles which have passed in the heart of
an actual person.
The Jewish prophets teach us to reconcile the two opinions.
They feel in their own hearts the miseries of their nation, and
of every nation. They enable us to feel that the experiences of
the particular man and of the body politic are not different, but
essentially the same. The Jew has to tight the battles of his
country in his soul; his study of its present condition, its past
history, its coming fortunes, is not something distinct from the
experiences of his own life. He understands what he sees
without, by what is passing within. He does not know himself
except as he is an Israelite.
The prophet 2. The writings of the prophets cannot be reckoned strictly
philosopher, among the philosophical writings of the Hebrews. The prophet
is not primarily and characteristically a seeker, but a preacher.
He comes to denounce existing evils, and foretell evils which
are approaching, as one who has received light and can impart
it. Nevertheless,]'any view of Hebrew philosophy must be im¬
perfect which does not include him. Mixed with his announce¬
ments and denunciations, there are continual exhibitions of the
speaker's own difficulties and confusions. If he has been
brought into the sunshine, he has had a long preparation of
darkness and twilight. His public teaching cau never be sepa¬
rated from the school in which he has been brought up, or from
the Temple in which he has seen his most glorious visions.
The 3. Every Hebrew teacher was a prophet. Moses, the guide
orderCtiCa* anc^ lawgiver, claims that character. A Jew would scarcely
have been justified in refusing it to Abraham. For it was far
from necessary that the prophet should leave written records of
his thoughts. He might even bear his testimony as the father
of the nation did, by acts rather than words. Still there was
The nation
and the
individual.
the prophets.
27
evidently a time when the prophet became a more distinct, sub¬
stantial element of Hebrew society,—when the name began to
be the designation of a class or Order. This time is fixed in
the Sacred Kecord at the point of transition between the age of
the Judges and the age of the Kings. It is connected with a
general shaking in the most sacred of the Mosaic institutions.
It is never hinted in the Scripture Books that the priest, because
he had " holiness to the Lord" inscribed on his forehead, was
less prone to evil than other men. The very first High-priest,
the brother of Moses, was the leader and tool of the people in
setting up an Egyptian idol. But now certain members of the
priestly family became utter reprobates, and the High-priest did
not restrain them. The people abhorred the offerings of the
Lord. Then a boy, who was dedicated to the service of the
Temple, as he slept in a chamber near it, heard a voice calling
him. He thought it was the priest's voice; he found it was
the Lord's. He was appointed to tell the priest of his sins, and
of the approaching fall of his house. The Word of God had
spoken to Samuel; he let none of his words fall. It was known
that there was a prophet in Israel.
The elders of the people believed that there was a charm in Samnei: his
the tabernacle to save them from their enemies ; they took it office"
with them to battle ; it fell into the hands of the Philistines.
Samuel became a judge and a deliverer. He restored law and
order to the people, defined boundaries, executed justice between
man and man. His sons did not walk in his ways. The people
craved a leader of their hosts : Samuel told them of the Invisible
King who was in the midst of them. He anointed the visible
king ; he testified to him of his self-will, and foretold his ruin.
He anointed the man after God's own heart.
■4. Here we have clearly pointed out to us the essential quali- The
ties of the prophetical office. Hence we may understand what gchooi!tlCal
a school of the prophets was. The ground of their mission lay
where Samuel's lay ; they were taught that the Word of God
was speaking to them ; to heed this voice, to follow it in what¬
ever it enjoined. In the school they were trained to study the
law of God, to meditate upon it, to consider the past history of
their people, how God had dealt with their fathers, what the
meaning of their calling as Israelites was. But this was just
that they might know how He was dealing with them then.
They were not less under His government and guidance than
their fathers. They were not reading of the acts of One who
had been, but of One who was then and would be evermore.
The Living God was the only name by which they could speak
of Him or think of Him. Their countrymen forgot Him ; they
thought that He lived only in the past, not in the present. The
28
THE HEBREWS.
whole economy of priesthood, sacrifices, tabernacle, had become
a dead machinery, instead of the assurance of His permanent
and continual presence. The prophet was to be trained in the
belief of that presence, to act upon it, to live upon it, to tell
priests and kings and people that their acts were lies, their
whole lives lies, except while they recognised this as the ground
of them.
Jews 5. This was the true Jewish education. AVe have no reason
partakers of t° suppose that prophets only were trained in these schools;
this divine they might train their countrymen in them. And they could
teaching. on^, ^rajn them in the same lore. They could but tell them, as
they do tell them in all their written discourses, that though
they may have no special call to be teachers or prophets, yet
that the Word of God was speaking to them, was earning them
against their evil tendencies, was guiding them to be right and
true, and that they could only lead safe and honest lives by
following this guidance.
The false Oftentimes those who claimed the special office of prophet
e ' were those who heeded this teaching least. And for this very
reason : they did not look upon it as the teaching of a righteous,
wise Being, to the whole nation. They valued themselves upon
their special gifts ; they thought it was a wonderful thing to be
able to speak words in God's name. They did not submit to
be schooled before they poured forth their utterances; they
never learnt to distinguish between the whispers and suggestions
of the harlot Sense—of the vain, self-exalting spirit—and the
lesson of Him who came to humble, and sift, and purify.
Therefore these men became a set of traders in prophecy.
They spoke a lie out of their own hearts, and said " The Lord
hath saidnow making the heart of the righteous sad, now
speaking peace when there was no peace; the base, selfish
flatterers of kings, inventors of tricks, patrons of idolatry; the
cunning or impudent deceivers of a people which loved to bo
deceived. These men converted prophecy into divination: they
made guesses as to coming events from what they saw, or
caught up at second-hand the utterances of departed seers. It
was nothing terrible with them to speak of the judgments of
God, because they really did not believe in them or in Him.
They were words which might be sported with to frighten their
enemies or please their disciples,—words which came out of
hollow, hypocritical, atheistical hearts, and which tended more
than all others to make the people hollow, hypocritical, and
atheistical.
The true 7. Against these false brethren of their own order, more than
prophet. even against the heartless priest, the godless king, did the true
prophet testify by his words and his acts. It was no part of
THE PROPHETS.
29
his vocation to pass himself off for something else than he was,
—to hide from himself, or even from others, the conflicts which
he had with the evil in him, the iliflieulty which he had to sepa¬
rate the precious from the vile, the reluctance with which he
often obeyed the Divine voice. It was not in pride of spirit
that he claimed Divine inspiration. His temptation was to
deny it; to boast that he had something of his own; to pretend
that he could be anything, or do anything, except as he was
submitting to the government of One higher than himself. He
is not a person v ho seeks credit for himself by declaring what
is to come. It is with the present he is mainly busy. It is
God as a present God that he is bringing in all ways—by signs,
by discourses, by songs—before the consciences of the presump¬
tuous or cowardly king or prophet. It is God as a present God
of whom he witnesses to the heart of the crushed and oppressed
Israelite. The future is all contained in the past and the pre¬
sent. God is, and therefore He will manifest Himself. He
reigns; and the unrighteous rulers, Jews or heathens, shall
know that he reigns. Their want of faith shall not hinder the
accomplishment of His purposes. Tyranny and disorder shall
not always prevent men from knowing what His gracious domi¬
nion is. Kings who were set up to testify of His rule may
utterly misunderstand their vocation, priests may forget Him
and become idolaters, prophets may utter lies in His name, the
whole people may misunderstand why it has been called out;
but a perfect King shall reign in righteousness, the true Priest
and Prophet of the World shall appear. There shall be myste¬
rious sufferings mixed with mysterious exaltation. At last God
will confound all the false images of Him, and manifest His
true image to man. Israel may go into captivity—may become
the lowest of the nations, heathens may be God's ministers for
punishing it; but the promise will still prove itself true,—in
Abraham and in his seed shall all the families of the earth be
blessed.
8. It would be the duty of an historian of Hebrew philosophy Relation of
to notice these remarkable records, if it were only to show how
entirely the popular teaching of the Hebrew corresponds with of Proverbs
that which appears in the specially philosophical books; how [Jj VVor
entirely esotericul that teaching is in the highest and best sense Prophets,
of the word, when by esoterical we mean that which concerns
the inner man,—his highest, moat mysterious relations; how
entirely exotrrical, if by exoterical we mean that which is pro¬
claimed to all men,—that which concerns states and govern¬
ments, and the most outward circumstances of man's life. But
it is especially necessary to point out how this popular teaching,
connected as it was with the deepest personal meditation and
30
THE HEBEEWS.
experience, fills up a gap in the merely philosophical teaching,
and removes a difficulty which might otherwise cause us great
confusion. We have seen that Wisdom, in the book of Proverbs,
is spoken of as a person, but as a female. Everybody must feel
that the passages which were quoted from that book would have
been artistically less beautiful, less perfect, if this form of lan¬
guage had not been adopted. But artistical beauty in all cases
rests upon some substantial ground of truth. We could not
feel the propriety of such expressions if they did not correspond
to something in our hearts which required them, and would
suffer if others were substituted for them. Wisdom, when
regarded primarily as an object of our search and love, even
though it is intimated to us that we have been first sought for
and loved, does come before us in this feminine shape. But the
prophet who speaks in God's name says at once "The Word of
God came to me, saying." We feel sure that he is under the
same teaching with Solomon; that he means the same antagonist
to^the harlot Sense, the same Divine Counsellor, the same per¬
son who was with the Lord as one brought up with Him before
the earth was formed, or the heavens brought forth, and whose
delights were with the sons of men. Yet we are sure that this
is no female voice; it is He who speaks, who commands men
and judges men, the Ruler and King of their inmost hearts and
spirits. Of such an One the prophets are testifying in every
speech of theirs. They could not believe in a human king, or
priest, or, prophet; they could not believe that man was made
in the image of God, if they did not acknowledge such an One.
Because they do believe in Him they are confident that God
will be completely declared to men, that His image will be seen
in a man. That prospect carries us beyond the region of the
Hebrew philosophy as we find it in the Proverbs; but it fur¬
nishes the complement to that philosophy. By reflecting upon
it we shall perhaps understand better what that philosophy is,
and what all philosophy is; wherein consists its deep, essential
truth, and its necessary limitation.
Transition 9. From the last remark our readers may gather that it is not
Hebrew^to on^ ^or sake of Hebrew philosophy that we have noticed
Gentile these prophets, especially this leading characteristic of them,
philosophy, jq. -g imp0ssil)}e to read them simply and not to feel that they
looked upon that Being who was speaking to them in their
hearts as the real Lord of all men. In their comments upon
the state of the world at the time in which they were living,
they go far beyond the limits of Palestine. In proportion as
they discover all heathen evils in their own countrymen, they
discover, and rejoice in the discovery, that there is" a bond of
spiritual connection between them and all people. It was im-
THE PROPHETS.
31
possible for them to believe that there could be any government,
or order, or desire of light or wisdom, in any human creatures,
which did not proceed from the Source of order, and govern¬
ment, and light, and wisdom. Resistance to the Divine teach¬
ing they looked upon as the sin of their own land, and of all
lands. Their hopes of future blessings to their own people, and
to all people, rested upon the assurance that He who was then
speaking secretly would be proclaimed openly.
10. In entering upon the philosophy of the other nations of Different
the earth, we have the choice of four methods. It is more considering
honest to state at the outset which we shall adopt, that our l!<eir reia-
readers may be upon their guard against any effort we may other?
make to strain facts into accordance with it.
i. Either, first, we may assume that the Hebrews, like all
other people, were merely following their own instincts and im¬
pulses in the search after wisdom, and were not guided to it, aB
they pretended to be, by a Divine Teacher;
11. Or, secondly, we may determine that we will make out a
connection between the Scriptures, or the writers of them, and
the different philosophers of Hindostan, of Persia, or of Greece,
believing it to be impossible that they could have obtained light
in any other way;
iii. Or, thirdly, we may determine that these philosophers
never had any light,—that they were merely following delusions,
and propagating them;
iv. Or, fourthly, we may assume that doctrine which seems
to us to be asserted throughout every part of the Scriptures,
and to be especially elucidated and enforced by the prophets,—
that all men really have had a Divine Teacher, whether they
have followed His guiding or not.
This doctrine we believe to be true. It adds unspeakably to
the interest and wonder of those records which we have been
considering. It makes us deeply anxious that we may not mis¬
represent those of which we are about to give an account.
( 32 )
ClIAPTEK II.
EGYPTIANS, PHOENICIANS, ASSYKIANS.
How far the
historian ot
philosophi¬
cal inquiries
is concerned
with these
countries.
Their
ph>sical
science
borrowed
from the
Hebrews.
1. Three countries are especially connected with Jewish
history—-Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldfea. Each of these countries
has left memorials of itself: those of the first are becoming even
more interesting to this time than to any former time ; the last
is only beginning to discover its treasures to European enter¬
prise. None of the three can be said in strictness to have pro¬
duced any philosophers ; but they have indirectly influenced the
philosophy of other nations, in a manner too important to be
overlooked. A few words on this subject seem a necessary
sequel to the chapter on the Hebrews.
2. The wise men, magicians, or soothsayers, of whom we read
in the book of Exodus, were no doubt students of nature.
They had observed something of its powers and mysteries, some
of the influences which it exercises over man, some of the means
which he possesses of directing its influences to advantage or to
mischief. There can be no doubt that they believed such know¬
ledge to have been communicated by some Divine power. We
are not disposed to question their opinion. If they referred
any observations which they might make respecting the course
of the year, or the cultivation of the earth, to a celestial
Teacher, they spoke, it seems to us, far more humbly, more
truly, more in accordance with the spirit of the Hebrew books,
than the Romanised Jew Josephus, who, in his foolish patriotism,
or his desire to make his countrymen respectable in the eyes of
their masters, pretends that Abraham, or Joseph, or Moses,
instructed the Egyptians in astronomy. It is almost needless
to say that no hint is given by the Hebrew legislator that his
ancestors imparted any such wisdom, or possessed it; what he
had himself must, if we believe the New Testament commentator
upon his words, hu\e been received first from the Egyptians,
though his Divine Teacher, purging his mind from the idolatries
and confusions with which their physical doctrines were sur¬
rounded, enabled him to give man his true place in creation.
The Hebrew history does assert that Joseph, iustrueted hv the
Invisible King, communicated skill and foresight to Pharaoh.
Acquaintance with the mechanical arts, and with all the powers
of nature which are neecs&ary to the invention of them, it never
claims for Jews—it implicitly concedes to their tyrants.
EGYPTIANS, PHOENICIANS, ASSYBIANS. 33
3. Here we discover the main characteristic difference between Great
the development of the two people. Modern science may be
allowed to claim for Egypt a long series of dynasties, clear indi- wisdom;
cations of an organised hierarchy, of a civil order, with very sj.n»jlrt'8Ults
great and probably very early achievements in stone and masonry.
But the moral philosopher must ask, why all these great powers
bore so little fruit for the world ? How was their growth
stunted and deformed ? Why is it that unbounded skill and
research have to be expended after all these generations, only
to prove that the oldest nation in the world had a substantive
existence in it ?
■i. The answer to this question seems to ustobethis—if it be the cause of the
wrong one, our inquiries respecting other nations will contradict deference
it:—The Egyptian knowledge of the phenomena of the uni¬
verse, and of its powers, was not balanced and sustained by any
knowledge of the powers and destinies of man. Those who
became acquainted with the things about them, could not but
feel that they, the observers, were in some way superior to that
which they observed. It is clear that they had that conviction,
that they were even oppressed by it. But the objects which
they saw, the facts which were revealed to them, soon became
all in all. They nearly lost themselves in the things; their
higher culture only helped to make the people the helpless ser- Effect of
vants of them. What he could tell of his discoveries, made his premature
countrymen idolaters ; what he reserved, made him feel his dif- ance with
ference from them, and led him to affect new airs of superiority,
to devise new arts for the purpose of keeping up the difference man,
and the sense of it. Thus the sagacious man from being a true
observer, passed into a diviner ; thus he became the enslaver of
those whom he should have emancipated, each new invention
being, as it were, the creation of a new god. Such magicians
are the great corrupters of kings, teaching them to rule by craft
and not by righteousness, giving them animals for subjects, not
human beings. The healthy, patriarchal faith of the Hebrew
boy infused a new life into the mind of a Pharoah, taught him
the difference between true judgment of the future, and cunning andon his
conjectures respecting it, introduced another element into countrymtu
Egyptian society, or rather made the elements that were already
in it sound and coherent. But the government and the faith of
the people ran again into their old rut; the soothsayers and
magicians turned their physical knowledge to the service of false
hood and tyranny; the Pharoahs built their treasure-cities to
their own glory, by the help of Jews. Then came the vindica¬
tion of moral order, and the assertion of man as cared for by
God, from the lips and the rod of Moses.
5. These indications respecting the Egyptian mind, from what-
VOL. I. D
34
egyptians, pekeniclans, assyrians.
The contra- ever period of its history we suppose them to have been taken,
Egyptian* are a c^ue interpret the later as well as the earlier stages of
I'fc- it. Why its forms of idolatry should have been so various, so
dependent upon local position ; why its priests should seem to
have possessed such stores of secret information, and why its
people should have been so degraded; why Greeks should have
listened to the teachers at Memphis with so much wonder, and
yet should have felt so little sympathy with them ; why the forms
of their sculpture should be so gross and animal, and yet should
imply so much reflection, and should suggest bo many thoughts
—may not be difficult to understand, if we patiently consider
what must have been the effect of men being crushed and over¬
whelmed by natural images and impressions before they had
for emanci- any bmer life with which to sustain them. And hence we may
pation from understand what form the moral and metaphysical philosophy
' o atry. j)gyp^jan must ]iave taken, when he was stirred up to
ask questions concerning himself, as well as concerning the
things around him. To grope for a meaning in these things;
to discover what relation there is between animal forms and
study of man, what there is in their acts which shows forth and typifies
symbols. kig acts; this was the slow, painful, upward process by which
the Egyptian must have sought to disengage himself from the
degrading objects to which he had submitted, and to emerge
into clearness and freedom. In all such efforts, if we could have
any clear record of tbem, we should be bound to take the greatest
influence of interest, and to recognize the guidance of a Divine hand. Facts
Ejfypt upon which are notorious give us a full right to believe that the
Jevvs^and intellect of the Egyptian was especially exercised in discovering
Christians, the symbols of JNature, in detecting the higher and human
meanings which lay beneath them. In this way the atmosphere
exercised an influence over both Jews and Greeks, which we
shall have to consider hereafter; still more strikingly over some
of the teachers of the Christian church. But these moral in¬
quiries had no power to leaven the polity of Egypt or to reach
the heart of its people. They can only bave been the struggles
of a set of sages to escape from the webs which sages had first
spun for themselves and their land. The history of Hindoo
philosophy will furnish us with more clearly-ascertained evi¬
dences of this kind of conflict. However certain we may be
that it must have taken place in Egypt, we should have to resort
to mere idle conjecture if we endeavoured to trace the course of
it there.
Phoenicia. 6. We are so much in the habit of connecting the idea of
noMn'aself commerce with human progress, that it may seem strange we
favourable have so little to report of the nation which had Tyre for its
sopiiy!°* capital. The Phoenicians must no doubt have gathered many
EGYPTIANS, PHG2NICIANS, ASSYRIANS. 35
observations together in the course of their long voyages ; but
they were observations for others to reflect upon rather than
themselves. Their own genius seems to have been exclusively
active. However important an element in human life the love
of variety, the eagerness for new objects, may be, there must
something of silence and repose mingle with it before men can
steadily ask themselves " What is wisdom ?" or can care for an
answer. A Phoenician colony in Africa could produce a
Hannibal; a contemplative sage could hardly be looked for
either in the mother or daughter city. The temper of the
Phoenician, however, joined with other more stable qualities to
form the mind of the Greek. He was to prove that the sea,
which is the symbol and witness to man of his freedom, does
not merely tempt him to seek for the outward and visible trea¬
sures which so commonly enslave it. But before Phoenicia had
added anything to the traditions or the studies of the West, it
had been brought into contact with the Hebrew kingdom. It
was not a Joseph—a fugitive shepherd-boy—who represented
the Jewish life to Hiram and his successors. Solomon showed
them that the divine polity which he administered, though it
had its beginning in the tent life of the patriarchs, and seemed
in its legal stage devised for tillers of the ground, could expand
to meet and sustain the conditions and temptations ot a mer¬
cantile people ; because a deeper wisdom than that which earth
or ocean supplies had laid the foundation of it, and was still
upholding it.
7. In Chaldaea, as the Hebrew Scriptures present it to us, we Difference
meet again with wise men such as we heard of in Egypt; but Smof"
here they are especially spoken of as astrologers. The study Egypt and
of the heavenly bodies prevailed no doubt among the priests of a aa'
Thebes and Memphis: the first systematicobservationsrespecting
the course of the year may be rightly ascribed to them. On
this knowledge their claims to superior intellect respecting
human events will in part have rested. Because they knew more
of nature than others, they will have been able to divine what
would probably happen to the fields or the crops. It is another
step indicating a different order of thought and feeling to con¬
nect the stars directly with human life, and to believe that the
course of the one is influenced or regulated by that of the other.
8. Wide plains, still and beautiful nights, are favourable to Astrology,
the development of such a faith: perhaps only in such circum¬
stances has it ever taken deep root. For in such circumstances
we meet with a hunting rather than an agricultural people, with ^e4u<l,ft,np:
men whose speculations turn more upon the success of their society,
efforts to procure food for themselves, than upon the chances
that the earth will produce it for them. Physical knowledge in
36
EGYPTIANS, riKENICIANS, ASSYEIAKS.
this condition of society is not to be looked for. Tyranny, the
rule of a man claiming dominion over the beasts of the field, and
over the creatures of his own race by the same right, will have
here an earlier commencement. The Babel polity, spoken of in
Scripture, is of this character; its founder is said to have been
a mighty hunter before the Lord. In such a polity the human
form will be more reverenced, the forms and symbols of nature
far less ; a difference which every one will be conscious of who
compares the sculptures recently brought from Nineveh with
Assyrian the Egyptian remains. In these very early and remarkable
efforts of art, we perceive a reverence for animals, not in pro¬
portion to their usefulness to man, but to the strength of their
talons or the quickness of their flight. The forms of such crea-
tures combine with the human countenance to express the
notion of that which is Divine. Not that they will have sufficed
for this purpose ; the earlier Sabiean worship will have continued
side by side with these images of man's power and dominion.
But this worship will itself have been moulded by the character
its relation of the people who adopted it. The stars among this race of
sabiean conquerors will have become dynasts or rulers over man's life,
worship. Subjects feeling themselves at a hopeless difference from their .
sovereigns, regarding them as beings of another kind, will have
had no difficulty in looking upon these cold and distant, and
brilliant orbs, as the Kings of kings and Lords of lords. The
wise men who hoped for something better from the world than
that which they saw, will have asked these witnesses of calmness
and order when a brighter day should come, when the world
should be ruled with less of fantasy and caprice. The passion
for knowing the future will have become indissolubly connected
with the contemplation of the stars. A scheme of relations
between them and the dwellers upon earth will have been wrought
out. Guilty monarchs will have been perplexed with signs in
the heavens; they will eagerly have fled to the science of the
astrologers for relief. In general they will have converted
them into the ministers of their purposes, the props of their
authority.
The Jewish 9. These hints will not be useless with a view to the subse-
itebyioo in 9uen^ history. They are closely connected with that which has
gone before. For the Hebrew books represent the prophets in
Babylon as bearing witness especially against astrological divi¬
nation, by declaring that the unseen King and Lord of their
land did reveal the future through the present and the past, that
all events are connected by a moral law, that the hopes for a
more righteous government of the earth were not vain and
deceitful hopes, that the crises and revolutions of empires are
pre-ordained, and that they are all tending to the satisfaction of
the questions, What is wisdom't Where is it to be found ?
( 37 )
CHAPTER III.
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
SECTION I.
THE PHILOSOPHY LATENT IN THE RELIGION.
1. Pyramids, tombs, statues with inscriptions, deciphered or Hindostan
to be deciphered, contain all that we know from internal evi- a land ut
dence of Egyptian and Chaldaie wisdom. In Hindostan we books-
come again into the world of books; we find ourselves among a
literary people, literary by profession. It is not a literature
which explains a history, but one which is the substitute for a
history. We know almost nothing of what the Hindoo has
done, very much of what he has thought.
2. For an accurate knowledge of the Hindoo Yedas, the The Vedas.
English scholar must still wait. Till of late years, even the
most accomplished Sanscrit scholars have shrunk from the task
of translating them. The great beauty of their style and lan¬
guage we must take for granted, on the authority of those who
are competent to speak of it, and whose judgment cannot be
wholly distorted by the love of a favourite pursuit. But the invocations,
specimens which we possess are sufficient to acquaint us with
their general design and character. They are invocations.
Different powers of air, or earth, or fire, are implored for aid in
different emergencies. It is assumed that these powers are
related to man and can attend to his cries. It is even hoped
that they may have fellowship with him, that they may come
and share his food and his wine. The worshipper has no doubt
that they will be pleased with his offerings, that they may be
influenced by his sacrifices.
3. Here then we find ourselves at once in a sacerdotal region, sipns <>t a
The priest who ascribes the method of the invocation, the "p-"erty"tal
nature of the sacrifice, who presents the one or the other, is
the leading man of the community. The orders and ranks of
priests will evidently be defined first. By the offices which
they perform all others will be measured. It is evident also that
at this stage of Hindoo life, the objects of worship must have
been various, determined by the influences which different
powers in nature exert over man, the influences of these powers
being defined and arranged by the priest.
4. But there is a feeling of communion between the wor- Charac-
sbipper and the beings whom he is addressing, which distin- H^dou*0t
guishes this Hindoo adoration from the mere physical idolatry worship.
o6
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
of the Egyptians. The Hindoo from the first seems to seek
«u'h tife"1' friendship'with his divinities, nut merely help from them. And
koiIs. presently we discover that the help which he seeks is not only
in feeding his cattle, or subduing his enemies ; that the friend¬
ship of the wine-cup will not satisfy his notions of intercourse
Search for with the Divinity. He invokes a Purifier, he desires purification
purification. for himself. His ceremonies and sacrifices, though they may
have other subordinate ends, seem gradually to point more and
more to this end.
The purifier. 5. As they do so, one Being gradually seems to dawn upon
him, through the different objects which have been distracting
his attention. The name Agni comes out more and more con¬
spicuously amidst the forms which the Yedas seek to propitiate.
You feel that he is becoming the special object of Brahminical
service, that very soon he may supplant all the other objects,
and may be confessed as that Being which all the rest were
bringing into light. Such a unity we believe is latent in these
early books, strictly polytheistic as they are ; a unity, it will be
perceived, which seems to be the result of the worshipper's
experiments and discoveries; at all events, which reveals itself
to him in the course of his thoughts and devotion, in strange
contrast to all that variety which yet he is obliged to acknow¬
ledge as real, and which he had taught others as well as himself
to look upon as divine.
Jbotencai E-ere begins that distinction between the sacerdotal and
belief. the popular faith of the Hindoos, which has often been attri-
Grounds of buted to wilful imposture, which has no doubt been upheld by
imposture, but which may have had a less culpable origin. The
wish for purification implies the sense of something in ourselves
which does not belong to this earth, which may be separated
from it. As the man asks himself what this is, he discovers
with wonder that the very effort of putting the question sug-
Th»* wonder gests the answer. He thinks; thinks of all the things that are
ot thinking. a^out him. Surely his thought makes him superior to them.
If he can become a purely thinking being he is not any longer
one of them. He has gained that which he wants. But who
can make him such a thinking being ? The God whom he calls
upon must be himself a being of this kind. He must be the
thinker. He must be close to the thinking man, his patron, his
friend, his fellow-worker. Where can the union with him stop ?
Not till they become identical; not till the man actually sinks
into the God, and is lost. ,
Braiim the 7. Accordingly, in the next stage of Hindooism, Agni has
thinker. become Brahni. A priest-god has come out clearly before us.
It is impossible to give him any other name. He is emphati¬
cally the God of the priest, as distinguished from other
men. He is the priest himself, raised and transfigured. It
THE PHILOSOPHY LATENT IN THE EELIGION.
39
is the great effort and privilege of the priest to be absorbed in
him.
8. But has not the priest himself become changed during the The priest a
process ? Is he any longer the director of invocations and Phll080PlH:r.
orderer of sacrifices ? Has he not become the thinker, the
intellectual man, whose business it is to use all those powers
which the vulgar man has not, or has never cultivated ? The
priest is the philosopher, the seeker after wisdom which is hidden
irom other men. More than ever he must keep himself aloof
from them, must distinguish himself from those who pursue the
ordinary crafts and occupations of the world. He who merely
acts, if he be the greatest of heroes or warriors, must be far
beneath the thinker. The thinker must preserve sacred the
privileges with which he has been endued; he must transmit
them to an order of successors.
9. In such a scheme, what place is there for his old occupa- How he
tion? What is to be the end of sacrifices and offerings, if justifies his
thinking is to be the all in all ? There may be several answers office!'y
to the question besides the vulgarest and wickedest of all (to
which the Brahmin had a continual tendency), that such a
religion is needful for the fool, but not for the wise man.
1st. By concentrating divinity in Brahm, the universe was not
deprived of its sacredness. Every part of nature was a thought
of Brahm's. The cow, the elephant, the flower, were all some ah things
portions of him. There was no wrong then in paying homage i|JJ5 or
to these ; it might be considered a part of the service of Brahm. Srahm.
2nd. There is something inexpressibly awful to a mind at all
devout in that nearness in which it felt itself to Brahm, in the
confusion between the worshipper and the object of his worship.
Solemn invocations, habitual pronouncing of the name Om or Attempt to
Light, services of purification, might surely not be undesirable distinguish
to keep the priest-student in mind that he was calling upon worshipper
some being, and was not merely adoring himself, or an image the
thrown from himself. 3rd. If the storms and convulsions of
nature showed that there were dark thoughts in Brahm, there
might be need of sacrifice or propitiation to remove these, even Propitiation
though the direct worship of dark beings might not yet have
become a part of the mythology, or might be denounced by
those who adhered to the purer conception of it. Still there
were contradictions latent in the attempt to reconcile the philo¬
sophical and the sacerdotal position of the Brahmin, which were
certain to make themselves evident in his subsequent history,
and which were quite as likely to produce conflicts of opinion in
his own schools as any popular resistance.
40
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
TIIE PHILOSOPHY DEVELOPED—THE BHAGAVAD GITA.
tijp 1. Another great problem, or series of problems, also of the
nxstpai"]03' interest, occupied the Brahmin. Contemplation was
the other the business of his tribe. Still something was to be done. He
castes. ^.as jjjm3eif obliged to act; the other castes existed for the sake
of action. How were action and contemplation related to each
Contcmpia other ? In what way was the relation between the Brahmin and
actum" the other tribes to be kept up if they had a different worship
from him, if they were aiming at a wholly distinct object ?
What circumstances forced this question upon the mind of the
Hindoo, we have no means of ascertaining. That it did, at
The some time or other, become a very substantive and practical
Gita^avad Pai"f of his reflections, and gave a colour and shape to all his
philosophy, we know from that remarkable poem (its unity and
completeness entitle it to the name, though it is, in fact, only
the episode of a much longer poem), the Bhagavad Gita. The
its probable date of this production is still a subject of debate among scho-
date' lars. The late accomplished Latin translator of it, A. W.
Schlegel, unfortunately never completed his promised essay on
the subject; but he has very clearly intimated his opinion,
which seems to have been formed after much reflection on its
poetical structure and spirit, as well as upon its language, that
it has a right to take precedence of all the efforts of Greek
speculation. A much earlier origin than this remark would
imply has been claimed for it by Hindoos. We cannot deny
that a much later one, which would make it subsequent to the
Christian era, and within a moderate distance of the numerous
commentaries which were written upon it in the twelfth or
thirteenth centuries after Christ, has been imagined by some
authorities. However strong our inclination, on general and
abstract ground, in favour of Schlegel's opinion, it must, of
course, yield at once to any strong external evidence. But even
essence of*16 ^ question should be ultimately settled in that way which
Brahmin- would exclude the Bhagavad Gita from the records of the old
lsm' world, we should still feel that a document which is admitted to
contain the very essence of Brahminical philosophy, and which
sets forth, in a most lively manner, questions which must have
agitated the Hindoo mind at all periods, cannot be an unfit
subject for this sketch. We shall endeavour, therefore, to give
an abstract of it, believing that it will lead our readers into the
heart of the subject, and may save them from many pages of
wearisome and unprofitable discourse.
THE BUAGATAD GITA.
41
2. The scene opens on a field of battle. The Kooroos and Aijoon and
the Pandoos, kindred tribes, are about to engage in a Kreeshna-
deadly war. Aijoon is one of the heroes of the Pandoos ; he is
standing in a chariot drawn by white horses. Near him is the
divine Kreeshna, of whom at present we must only say that he
is the mysterious counsellor of the prince. What his offices
and nature are, he himself will tell us by and by.
Arjoon is looking on with dismay and horror upon a battle, Aijoon
in which there were uncles, tutors, cousins, sons, brothers, and PerPlexed-
bosom friends on both sides. He thinks there can be no
happiness for him hereafter if he should be the murderer of
people of his own race. Such a crime is likely to destroy the
virtue of the whole family or tribe ; hell is threatened by the
Sankar both to those who fall and those who survive. The
chief sits down in the chariot between the two armies, and
casts away his bow and arrows.
3. This divine adviser reproves him for his weakness. It is Krishna's
his duty to fight. "Tell me what I shall do," cries the young the soul?
man. " I am confounded between two duties. I am overcome
with the dread of sin. I see nothing to appease my grief,
though I were to rule the earth or the hosts of heaven." Then
Kreeshna instructs him in the nature of the soul. Arjoon may
go to the fight, for the soul neither killeth nor is killed. Tou
cannot say of it, it hath been, it is about to be, or is to be here- its eternity,
after. It is a thing without birth ; it is ancient, constant, and
eternal. As a man throweth away old garments and putteth
on new, so the soul, having quitted its old mortal frames,
entereth into others which are new. The weapon divideth it its migra-
not, the fire burnetb it not, the water corrupteth it not, thetl0ns'
wind drieth it not away. It is indivisible, inconsumable, incor¬
ruptible ; it is universal, permanent, immoveable. The former
state of being is unknown; the middle state is evident; the
future state is not to be discovered. The duty of thy tribe is
to fight; a soldier of the Kshatree tribe has no higher.
4. The belief of the soul's immortality is thus connected with Reward and
the practice of life. But is not that dread which Argoon had of punishment,
the future consequences pf his action a reasonable one ?
Kreeshna intimates to him that it is not. The people who held
out that kind of notion of reward and punishment looked for
transient enjoyment in heaven, not for eternal absorption.
The Veds, which seem to encourage it, are adapted to men in a
threefold condition. Turn to spiritual things, be firm in the indifference
higher path, and you will be free from care and trouble about
the future as well as the present. Consider the deed, and not
the event: let not the motive for action be the hope of reward.
Yet let not thy life be spent in inaction. Perform thy duty,
42
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
abandon all thought of the consequence; seek an asylum in
wisdom alone. Men who are endued with true wisdom are
unmindful of good or evil in this world. They who have aban¬
doned all thought of the fruit which is produced from their
actions are freed from the chains of birth, and go to the regions
of eternal happiness.
The wise 5. Aijoon wishes to know something more of the Moonee, or
ma"- thoroughly wise man. Kreeshna answers, " The wisdom of that
man is established, who, like the tortoise, can draw in all his
members, and restrain them from their wonted purposes. The
His tumultuous senses hurry away by force the heart even of him
character. restrain them. The inspired man, trusting in
Hj8 me, may quell them and be happy. Such a one walketh in the
blessedness. night when all things go to rest; he sleepeth in the day, the
time when all tilings wake. A man trusting in the Supreme,
goeth not astray; at the hour of death he shall mix with the
incorporeal nature of Brahm."
How man is 6. The subject of the relation of action to thought still dis-
led into evil, turbs Arjoon's mind, and gives occasion for another lecture
from Kreeshna. In the course of it, Aijoon asks how man is
led to commit offences ; it seems as if, contrary to his wishes,
inclination. was compelled by some secret force. " It is the enemy, lust
or passion," replies the teacher, " insatiable and full of sin, by
which this world is covered as the flame by the smoke, as the sword
by rust, or as the foetus by its membrane. This inveterate foe, in
the shape of desire, raging like fire, and hard to be appeased,
obscures the understanding of the wise man. This destroyer of
Resolution, wisdom and knowledge must be subdued. It is possible; for
though the organs are great, the mind is greater ; the Kesoluticn
is greater than the mind, and there is One greater than that.
When thou hast resolved what is superior to the resolution, and
fixed thyself by thyself, then determine to abandon inclination
or desire, thy great enemy."
who is 7. There is a deep mystery in the last sentence. Who is
resolution1'8 ^bat suPerior tbe resolution in man ? All the disci¬
pline seems to depend on this question. Kreeshna says that
he taught it to one and another,in former days, that it was
handed down to the Kajarshees, and lost. But how is this,
asks Aijoon, when thou, Kreeshna, hast come later into life than
some of those to whom thou hast imparted this secret ? " Both
I and thou," answers Kreeshna, "have passed many births;
mine are known to me, but thou knowest not of thine. Al¬
though I am not in my nature subject to birth or decay, yet as
His past I have command over my own nature, I am made evident by my
existence6.111 P°wer- When there is a decline of virtue in the world, I make
myself manifest; I appear from age to age for the preservation
THE BHAGAVAJ) GITA.
43
of the just, the destruction of the Tricked, and the re-establish-
raent of virtue." Two kinds of worship are pointed out: those
who acknowledge Kreeshna, do not when they quit their mortal
frames enter into another, but enter into him. On the other
hand, there are those who seek success for their works in this His
life; they worship the Devatas (demons or angels). The true worahiiipen.
Kreeshna worshipper sees rest in action, and action in rest; he
performs all duties, yet he, as it were, does nothing; he seeks
no reward—he is pleased with whatever he may by chance
obtain ; he is freed from the bonds of action,—the same in pros¬
perity and adversity. God is attained by him who maketh
God only the object of his works. There are various modes of
worship, all purifying; but the worship of spiritual wisdom is
far better than the worshipping with offerings of things. In Methods of
wisdom is to be found every work. Seek this wisdom with Purificat,on-
prostrations, with questions, and with attention ; then thou wilt
not again fall into folly, thou wilt behold all nature in me.
Although thou wert the greatest of offenders, thou shalt be able
to cross the gulf of sin with the bark of wisdom. There is not The service
anything to be compared in this world with wisdom and purity. ofwisdom-
He who is perfected by practice, in due time findeth it in his
own soul. He who has faith finds wisdom. The ignorant, and
the man whose spirit is full of doubt, is lost. Those, continues Faith,
the teacher, whose understandings are in the Deity, whose souls
are in him, whose asylum is in him, are by wisdom purified from
their offences, and go whence they shall never return. The
learned behold him alike in the reverent Brahmin perfected in -n,,, Deit/
knowledge, in the ox, in the elephant, in the dog, and in him in visible
who eateth of the flesh of dogs. Those whose minds are fixed th,n,r8'
on this equality, gain eternity even in this world.
8. The next lecture on the subject of the exercises of the soul The Yosri or
works out the same idea in a number of forms. To the Yogi, Perfectmun-
or devout man, it is said gold, iron, and stones are the same; he
is the same with those who love and those who hate, in the
company of saints or sinners. He delighteth in his own soul;
he is in God, and free from sin ; he believes in unity, and wor¬
ships me present in all things, and dwelleth in me altogether,
even on this earth. In the course of this conversation, Aijoon
asks, " Whither, O Kreeshna, doth the man go after death, who, What
although he be endued with faith, hath not obtained perfection cb of
in his devotion : because his unsubdued mind wandered from feet mac'
the discipline, does he come to nothing ?" Kreeshna answers,
"No man who hath done good goeth unto an evil place: a man
whose devotions have been broken off by death, having enjoyed
for many years the reward of his virtues in the region above, is
at length born again in some holy family; he is endued with the
44
fHINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
same degree of application that he held in his former body, and
he begins again to labour for perfection."
Kreeshna 9. But after all, who is Kreeshna ? The question has already
essence ofd been awakened in Arjoon's mind : he has arrived at the stage of
and theSS' when it may be answered. I, says the teacher, am
principle of the creation and the dissolution of the whole universe. There
destruction *s no^ any^hing greater than I; all things hang on me, even as
' precious gems upon a string; I am moisture in the water, light
in the sun and moon, invocation in the Yeds, sound in the fir¬
mament, sweet-smelling savour in the earth, glory in the source
of light. I am life in all things, and zeal in the zealous. I am
the eternal seed of nature; I am the understanding of the wise,
the glory of the proud, the strength of the strong; free from
lust and anger. There is a supernatural influence which be¬
wilders the wicked, the foolish, and the low-minded, and hinders
them from coming to me. I am not in these, though they pro¬
ceed from me. Many seek me, but the wise man is constantly
engaged in my service; I esteem the wise man as myself, for
his spirit dependeth upon me alone. Those who worship the
Devatas go to them; those who worship me alone, go to me.
The Divine The ignorant who are unacquainted with my supreme nature,
umty' which is superior to all things, believe me, who am invisible, to
exist in the visible forms in which they see me. I know all the
beings that have been, that are, that shall be ; but there is not
one amongst them that knoweth me. Those who trust in me
know Brahm, the supreme and incorruptible; they know the
emanations from which natural things are generated ; they know
the destroying nature. In this body I am the teacher of wor¬
ship. He who thinks constantly of me will find me. He who
finds me returns not again to mortal birth. The universe exists,
dissolves, is reproduced; there is an incorruptible abode which
is ray mansion. The supreme Being is obtained by him who
worshippeth no other gods ; in him is included all nature. By
him all things are spread abroad. I, continues Kreeshna. am
Krecshnajn the sacrifice ; I am the worship, I am the spices, I am the fire,
human I am the victim, I am the father and mother of this world ; I
beings. am roa(t 0f the good, the comforter, the creator, the witness,
the asylum, and the friend. They who serve other gods with a
firm belief, in doing so involuntarily worship me. I am the
same to all mankind. They who serve me in adoration are in
me. If one whose ways are ever so evil serve me alone, he
becometh of a virtuous spirit, and obtaineth eternal happiness.
Even women, and the tribes of Yisya and Soodra, shall go the
supreme journey if they take sanctuary with me; how much
more my holy servants the Brahmins and the Rajarshees!
Consider this world as a finite and joyless place, and serve me.
T1IE BHAGAYAD GITA.
45
10. Arjoon begins to regard bis teacher with wonder and Ardour of
adoration. He is taught that reason, knowledge, clear judg- tke ^"Pie.
ment, patience, truth, humility, meekness, birth, death, fear,
courage, zeal, renown, and infamy, all come from him. He is
the soul which standeth in the bodies of all beings ; he is the £^eosu**
chief of all warriors, floods, animals; the Himmalaya among Kreeshna.
mountains, the Ganges among rivers; the science in science,
the spring among seasons, gaming amongst frauds, the rod and
policy among rulers. " Amongst the secret I am silence,
amongst the wise I am wisdom."
11. All these are the forms of Kreeshna. Arjoon aspires to Kreeshna's
<ee his never-failing spirit. A mysterious revelation is granted,
The pupil is overwhelmed with rapture and terror. He sees all d
•reation proceeding from Kreeshna—swallowed up in him.
With this vision is mingled one of the army by which he is
surrounded. As troops of insects, with increasing speed, seek
their own destruction in the flaming fire; as the rapid streams
of flowing rivers roll on to meet the ocean's bed,—so these
heroes of the human race are rushing on towards the flaming
mouth of the Divine Being. The whole world is filled with His
grandeur. Kreeshna is the destroyer as well as the creator!
Not one of these warriors save Arjoon is to live. They are
already destroyed by the Divine power. Let him put forth his
land and be the immediate agent of their death. On to the
lattle!
12. But Arjoon'8 terror increases. He bows down before Reverence
lim whom he had called Kreeshna and friend. I was ignorant, £hjp.fellow~
re says, of thy greatness; I was blinded by my att'ection and
jresumption; I have trifled with thee ; I crave thy forgiveness.
Thou art the Father of all things, animate and inanimate ; the
<age instructor of the whole, worthy to be adored. Bear with
me as a father with his son, a friend with a friend, a lover with
his beloved. I am pleased to behold things never before seen,
but my mind is in awful fear. He is bidden not to be disturbed, Kreeshna in
nor to let his faculties be confounded. The god assumes his }?J®l^unian
benignant human shape: Arjoon is at peace.
13. After this wonderful discovery of himself, and some dis¬
course upon the method in which he is to be served in his visible
and invisible nature, Kreeshna proceeds to answer some of his
pupil's more difficult questions. First, what is Kshetra, or
body ? It consists of the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, n,e nature
and aether), consciousness, understanding, spirit, the elevenof body-
organs, the powers of the five senses, love and hatred, pleasure
and pain, sensibility and firmness. Secondly, what is Wisdom ? wisdom.
It is freedom from self-esteem, hypocrisy, and injustice; patience,
rectitude, respect for masters and teachers, exemption from
4G
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
attachment and affection to children, wife, and home; evenness
of temper upon the arrival of every event, whether longed for or
not; freedom from pride, worship paid to Kreeshna alone, love
of solitude, constant study of the superior spirit. Thirdly, what
The object Gnea, or the object of "Wisdom? It is that which hath no
ofwi om. beginning and js supreme, which can neither be called being
nor not being; it is all hands and feet; it is all faces, heads,
and eyes; it is all ear; it sitteth in the midst of the world ;
without organs, it is the reflected light of every faculty of the
organs ; connected with nothing, it containeth all things ; with¬
out quality, it partaketh of every quality. It is the inside and
outside, the moveable and immoveable of all nature. It standeth
at a distance, yet it is present; it is undivided, yet in all things
it standeth divided. It is the ruler of all things ; it is the light
in light, and it is declared to be free from darkness.
The instru- 14a. There are two other principles which Kreeshna declares
mental and to be without beginning : Prakreetee and Pooroosh. The for-
facuiti&£ mer would seem to be the mere instrument or agent in man ;
the other, the directing power in him. All things, animate and
inanimate, are declared to be produced from the union of Kshetra
and Kshetra-gna. I, says Kreeshna, am the Kshetra-gna in
every mortal frame,—the living power which directs it.
The three 15. From Prakreetee, or nature, three Goon, or qualities,
qua i iea. procee^. the truth quality, the passionate quality, the dark
quality. The Satwa-goon, or truth quality, leads to wisdom ;
the Eaja-goon, or passionate quality, to ambition and covetous-
ness ; the Tama-goon, or dark quality, to madness, distraction,
and ignorance. Those who are ruled by the first mount on
high ; the second stay in the middle; the last sink below. But
the soul must rise above all these qualities into a Being who is
superior to them, before he can drink of the water of immorta¬
lity. How this ascent is to be obtained,—how a man is to rise
above the particular Pooroosh, or soul, into the Poorooshottama,
or supreme soul,—is the next subject of Kreeshna's teaching;
of which we need not speak, as it has been anticipated in several
of the previous lectures.
16. An important subject still remains to be discussed. The
belief of the three different qualities evidently presumes the
existence of a different destiny for the creatures which are
endued with them. This principle is now distinctly affirmed.
Destiny. The Divine destiny is for absorption into the Divine nature;
the evil destiny confines the soul to mortal birth. Those who
are born under the influence of the evil destiny know not what
it is to proceed in virtue, or recede in vice. They say the world
is without beginning and without end,—without an Eeswar, or
Divine light; that all things are conceived by the junction of
THE BHAGAYAD GITA.
47
the sexes. These men say that the gratification of their sensual The sensual
appetites is the supreme good; they say, " This to-day hath man-
been acquired by me, and this I shall have also; I am powerful, ® ^ end™6
I am happy, I am rich; I am endued with precedence among
men. Where is there another like me ? I will make presents
at the feast, and be ra^rry." Such men are self-conceited,
stubborn, and ever in pursuit of wealth and pride. They wor¬
ship nominally and hypocritically. They place their trust in
pride and power; they hate me in themselves and others;
wherefore I cast them down into the wombs of evil spirits and
unclean beasts. They go from birth to birth; at length, not
finding me, they go into the most infernal regions. There are
three ways to these : lust, anger, and avarice. Avoiding these
gates of sin, thou wilt go the journey of the Most High.
17. Distinction of qualities leads to a distinction in the kinds The true
of faith or worship. All worship ; but the nature and object of orderly
the worship are determined by their different qualities. The worsb,p-
worship which is directed by £)ivine precept, without the desire
of reward, and with an attentive mind, is of the Satwa-goon.
That which is performed irregularly, without regard to the pre¬
cepts of the law, without the distribution of bread, without the
usual invocations, without gifts to the Brahmins at the conclu¬
sion, and without faith, is of the Baja-goon. That which is per- Th<?
formed with a view to the fruit, and with hypocrisy, is of the worsLi"
Tama-goon. Whatever is performed without faith—whether it The formal
be sacrifices, deeds of charity, or mortification of the flesh—is "oJalffr
called Asat, and is not for this world nor that which is above.
These same qualities exhibit themselves in works. He who has n,e three
the Satwargoon forsakes the fruit of action, but not action k>".ds of
itself. He who has the Baja-goon forsakes the work because it c
is painful; he who has the Tama-goon neglects action through
folly and distraction of mind. So of Wisdom: the wisdom of
the Satwa-goon sees one infinite principle in nature; the wisdom
of the Baja-goon sees manifold principles prevailing in nature;
the wisdom of the Tama-goon sees only self-interest in all things.
So of Pleasure: the pleasure which a man enjoys from his
labour, and wherein he finds the ends of his pains, that which
in the beginning is as poison, and in the end is as the water of
life, is of the Satwa-goon: this arises from the consent of the
understanding. The pleasure which arises from the mere meet¬
ing of the organs with their objects, which in the beginning is
as sweet as the water of life, and in the end is a poison, is of
the Baja-goon. The pleasure, which in the beginning and end,
tends to stupify the soul, is of the Tama-goon. There is not
anything, Kreeshna declares, in heaven or earth which is free
from the influence ot these three qualities.
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
Tbe tribes. 18. Upon these qualities depend the respective duties of the
four tribes of Brahmin, Kshatree, Yisya, and Soodra. The
natural duties of the Brahmin are peace, self-restraint, zeal,
Their purity, patience, rectitude, learning, theology. The natural
vocations. nuties °t the Kshatree are bravery, glory, rectitude, not to fly
from the field, generosity, princely conduct. The natural duty
of the Yisya is to cultivate the lands, tend the cattle, and buy
and sell. The natural duty of the Soodra is servitude. A man
Fif w°' contented ha3 own particular lot and duty obtaineth
them. perfection; for ho offers his own works to that Being from
whom the principles of all beings proceed. The duty of a man's
own calling is far preferable to the duty of another, let it be
ever so well pursued. A man's own calling, with all its faults,
ought not to be forsaken. With thy heart place all thy works
in me; by so doing thou shalt surmount every difficulty. But
if through pride, thou wilt not listen to my words, thou wilt
undoubtedly be lost. From a confidence in thyself, thou rnayest
think thou wilt not fight. ' This is a fallacious determination,
for the principles of thy nature will impel thee; thou wilt do
that through necessity, which thou seekest through ignorance
to avoid.
19. This conclusion, though perfectly in accordance with the
commencement of the story, and giving it a unity, may seem
inconsistent with what has been said of the special glory of the
ufdweUerhe Brahniin. Kreeshna adds, "JEeswar resideth in the bosom
ln w of every mortal being, revolving with his supernatural power
the universal wheel of time. Take sanctuary with him upon all
occasions, oh! offspring of Bahrat; by his divine pleasure thou
shalt obtain supreme happiness, and an eternal abode."
The leading 20. It would have been easy to select sentences from this
theUeem°f Poem> an(^ fr°m a number of other Hindoo books, and out of
epoem. construct a scheme of Hindoo philosophy. But such a
scheme would not at all have represented the actual thoughts
md conflicts in the minds of those to whom it would be
attributed. We might form a high or a low notion of this
remarkable people, or of their teachers; but we should know
nothing of one or the other. The occasion of the poem, its
scenery, the method in which the thoughts work themselves
out, are at least as important for this purpose as the results to
which Aijoon or Kreeshna, or the narrator of the story, arrives.
The final moral, in which the Kshatree tribe is shown to have
its own work and dignity, which are not incompatible with the
superior glory of the Brahmin, evidently goes through the
poem. To it all the dramatic interest, and all the speculations
are linked. The darkness in Arjoon's mind arises from his
TIIE BIT AG AVAD GITA.
49
fancying that the work which belongs to the priest also belongs
to the warrior; or that there is no escape from this conclusion
but in supposing that there is a different standard for each to
recognise, a different object for each to pursue, a different God
for each to adore. Such an opinion had, no doubt, been taught
in the Brahminical schools, and seemed a natural inference from
the idea of Brahminism. The author of the poem evidently felt
how opposed it was to that which he regarded as pure Brahmin¬
ism ; how it must force the Brahmin himself to acknowledge a
number of different objects, while his business was to search for
uuity; how it must lead to a hopeless division of the castes,
which should be bound together in obedience to that which was
most refined and spiritual. Evidently, then, the book is the
work of a reformer who wished to make the Brahminical tribe
conscious of its own vocation, as the guide, and not the tyrant,
of the rpst. In the effort for this object, he brings out the
highest form of Hindooism,—a form of it which never had been
nor could be realised, but by which we may understand its lower
and vulgarer manifestations far better than by contemplating
them alone.
21. The difference of this form from that which we find in
the Veds, has led many to conclude that the poem is throughout implied in
a protest, though a hidden one, against the scheme of beliefthe Poem-
which is embodied in them. But there seems no sufficient rea¬
son to doubt that the author is sincere in the respect which he
professes for them, and that he believed that he was drawing
out the sense which was latent in them. Nor, perhaps, was he
wholly wrong in that opinion. Though the writers of the Veds
would have been absolutely unable to follow him in a single step
of his philosophical speculations ; though there is no reason to
doubt that they did mean to ask Indra, and the other gods
whom they invoked, to come and drink with them,—yet their
cries for communion and friendship with the gods, and for puri¬
fication, grounded as they are upon religious aspirations of the
creature, not upon a revelation of the Creator, do contain im¬
plicitly those ideas which are developed in the Bhagavad Gita.
In one respect the writer of the poem seems to return from the
more exclusive Brahminism to the earlier teaching of the Vedas.
Kreeshna, not Brahm, is his hero. Now it is true that Kreesbna ^Xilrabn
is Brahm, and claims the name for himself: but he presents J'
himself first to us in a human shape; he comes forth as the
warrior, not merely as the thinker. This difference is involved
in the whole conception of the poem. The sudden manifesta¬
tion of his spiritual and divine glory which overwhelms Arjoon,
does not swallow up his human form, or hinder him from ap¬
pearing in it again. However great the difficulty, the Hindoo
VOL. I. E
50
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
philosopher perceives that, in Borae way or other, this union
must be realised,—that there can be no sufficient teacher of
man's spirit in whom both these conditions do not meet,
ultfmatcthC ^eeP an(^ Bincere the acknowledgment of such a
object of this teacher is, the soul of man is still the ultimate object in this
piniosophy. poem, as much as in the more narrow, merely meditative reli¬
gion. In one and the other it is equally true that the soul or
spiritual part of man is always unawares becoming the God,
even while there is the strongest effort to escape from this iden¬
tification,—a really earnest struggle of the man to sink in awe,
to confess One mightier than himself, to become nothing in his
presence. What is his presence ? Where is it ? Here the
Conse- Hindoo becomes lost; he sees images of himself everywhere—
quenres. gure ^at there is something which is not the image of him¬
self. To discover what it is, is worth the toil and sorrow of a
life; to know it must be the great reward hereafter. But while
that difficult problem is solving itself,—while he is devising the
means which are best for attaining the complete fruition,—
Earth is going on with her processes of growth, decay, and
destruction ; the man himself is born, has to live, fight, and die.
There is nothing to connect himself or Nature with God, unless
he worships himself or Nature, and makes the God comprehend
both. This, consequently, is the result—the downward result—
to which everything in Hindoo life and society always has been
tending.
Tiic Hebrew 23. The Hebrew was prohibited from connecting God with
Hindoo. anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the
waters under the earth. He was taught to look up to the Lord
as his God, the God of his fathers, the King of his land, the
Creator of things, the Lawgiver of himself. He was taught to
wage war with all the tendencies to worship natural gods, which
he found in himself, which he saw in others. He was taught to
acknowledge the Lord as the ever-present guide, and ruler, and
teacher of his whole nation ; every Jew being in the covenant;
priests, lawgivers, prophets, being God's ministers to them,
between^°n "^s is what is called their narrow, exclusive faith. But out of
them. it, as we have seen, there grew a philosophy, the recognition of
a Divine teacher of man, of a wisdom which is to be the object
of his search and love. The Hindoo starts from the discovery
to which the Hebrew had been led by such a long and painful
The contrast discipline. He is conscious of a mysterious Teacher near him,
Un'im *" of one working upon his spirit, of one who is at the same time
ruler over nature. But his search begins from himself, and, in
spite of his conviction that it ought not to be so, it ends in him¬
self. The purification of his individual soul becomes practically
the highest end be can pursue or conceive of; he must make it
THE BHAGAVAD GITA.
51
his aim; he must separate from society, to which nevertheless
he feels bound, that he may pursue it. The more he learns
about himself, the more he discovers that he must get rid of
himself; yet he is always pursued by that demon. To sink and
be lost is his only hope,—to sink in Brahm. But is Brahm
anything save a projection from himself ? To sink in him, does
it mean the same as to be nothing ?
24. Reflections such as these, upon which the whole condition worth and
of Hindoo society for thousands of years is the commentary, th^Hindoo
might suggest some doubts to those who think that the acknow- philosophy
ledgment of wisdom received is unfavourable to the search after j® "bgeliever
it; that the soul of man is most likely to be free when it is Hebrew
working out its freedom for itself, or under the guidance of a
set of wise men. But we who do acknowledge the Hebrew
principle, who have that vantage-ground for contemplating the
history of the universe, are not obliged to rest in this merely
negative conclusion. We are bound to look upon the whole
course of human thought as directed by a wisdom above man's
—by One who, as the Apostle speaks, " orders the times before
appointed and the bounds of men's habitations, that they may
seek Him, if haply they may feel after Him and find Him." To
one holding this faith, the seekings of the Bhagavad Grita, and
of the whole Hindoo world, must be of profoundest interest.
He must perceive, indeed, that they were baffled continually ; Spirit in
but he makes the discovery with sympathy, not exultation,— shouni'b®
with the certainty that they were struggling with questions studied,
which belong to him and to the whole universe ; to which he too
has to seek an answer, and cannot rest till he finds one. And
far from seeing only contradictions either in the method of the
search or the result of it, he will have continually to be humbled
by perceiving how much has been made known to these in¬
quirers ; what glimpses of light they have caught, what visions
of good have cheered their dreary path, what strength has been
given them for thought, for suffering, even at times for manly
action. If he feels even a wish to deny or to explam away this
fact, he will suspect himself of a secret atheism—of having
studied the Hebrew books to no profit.
25. These remarks belong especially, but not exclusively, to its relation
the subject we are now considering. Por modern inquiries have hjStoryaf,er
made it clear that the Sanscrit is the source of most of the Euro¬
pean languages. We have, therefore, a right to expect that the
habit of thought and feeling in the Sanscrit books may be
traced, under different modifications, in the nations of which we
shall have hereafter to speak. We may find, in fact, that these
Hindoo books are the commencement of a course of inquiry
which we shall have to trace in many windings through Greek
52
HINDOO PHILOSOPHY.
and through modern philosophy. The spirit of man, which in
the Hebrew books has been presented to us under a Divine
discipline and education, will henceforth be seen asking a multi¬
tude of questions respecting itself, its destiny, its relations to
the visible and invisible world, feeling after some object near it
which might be its guide or helper in the search, losing that ob¬
ject again and again, questioning earth and h« aven to tell whither
it is gone, how it may be recovered. Whether this Indo-Ger-
manic course of inquiries ever meets at any point that Semitic
teaching of which we have been hearing; whether the unity
which is revealed to the Hebrew is to explain or contradict the
unity which is sought for by the Brahmin, our future history
may show. But in the meantime we may remark, that the
problems which we shall meet with among Ionian, Eleatic, Pla¬
tonic philosophers, will be far less perplexing to us if we have lis¬
tened attentively to the dialogue between Arjoon and Kreeshna.
SECTION III.
THE PHILOSOPHEB SEPAEA.TING HIMSELF FBOM THE PBIEST.
I. Any allusion to the formal schools of Hindoo philosophy
will belong more properly to the second part of this sketch.
But there is one great Eastern revolution, assigned by most
authorities to the fifth or sixth century B.C., which stands in
the closest connection with the history of philosophy. Indeed,
the few glimpses which we possess concerning the external facts
of a conflict that has led to the most surprising results, would
be absolutely unintelligible to us if we were not helped by some
previous knowledge of Hindoo speculations.
Hi 2. The Buddhist is constantly spoken of in Hindoo books as
htuo'o 'St ^ were the member of a philosophical sect. We know him
as the professor of a religion which is received by nearly a third
of the inhabitants of the globe. To reconcile two such opposite
descriptions, we must recollect the remarks which have been
made upon the apparently unsociable characters which are
united in the Brahmin, and upon the nature of Brahm himself.
The priest is the man who uses his soul or intellect, in distinc¬
tion from the mass of men, who use only their senses. Brahm
is the Intellect or Buddha. That there should be a sect of
Brahmins who dwelt upon the idea of an intelligence in man,
till they began to suspect that their own pretension to an exclu¬
sive monopoly of it was, in fact, a denial of Brahm's presence,
might easily have been conjectured: that these same persons
should exalt the meditative part of religion above the sacrificial
would be most likely from the specimen of the same feeling we
have discovered in the Bhagavad (xita. But there was a period
THE PtTEE PHILOSOPHY.
53
very memorable and critical, it would seem, in the history of The
mankind generally, connected with the appearance of reformers fetation,
and legislators in various countries, perhaps marking the com¬
mencement of European society and civilization, when Brahmin-
ism was .shaken to its centre in Hindostan, and when the wor¬
ship of the One Intelligence was proclaimed aloud as incom¬
patible with the pretensions of an hereditary caste.
3. Not the original Hindoo doctrine, as some have affirmed,
in plain contradiction both to the letter and spirit of the Veds,
but certainly the idea which lay hid in that doctrine, and ever
and anon had threatened to break loose from it, did now become
the inspiring idea of whole countries. The philosophy, disen¬
tangling itself from the old faith, became itself a faith. Budd- The inw»rrt
hism is the most surprising effort of the human intellect to Buddhismf
assert its own supremacy of which there ever has been, or per¬
haps ever will be, any record. European sages in the last cen¬
tury, and in the present, have cried out, " When will philosophy
break loose from the fetters which priests have imposed upon
it ?" Philosophy in Asia performed that task two thousand
years ago. It threw off a yoke which was become quite in¬
tolerable ; it affirmed that man's soul is capable of unlimited
expansion; it claimed for that soul the homage due to a divi¬
nity : it made no mere idle boast of power; it actually won the
allegiance of multitudes.
4. Is the result one on which the lover of wisdom, or of his Its different
kind, can delight to dwell ? All possible forms in which the in-
telleet can express its belief in itself and in its own powers have
been discovered and tried. The Buddhist worships sometimes
the pure, absolute unity; sometimes he sees a soul above his
own soul, himself transfigured; sometimes he adores men who
have done great works on earth, the one Buddha distributed in
numerous Buddhas. Now he denies all symbols, now every its outward
thing is symbolical. He is the purest of theists, he is the most c,othins-
complete of atheists. He can conceive nothing too vast for
human wisdom, he sees it all gathered up in an infant. He is
always flying from himself, he can find nothing but images of
himself. The philosophy which began by emancipating itself its final
from religion has created for itself a religion,—one especially results-
narrow, artificial, material. Those who would not be priests or
have priests practise all priestly impostures, are slavishly priest-
ridden. The adored intellect makes uo progress, the seeker
after wisdom finds no resource but in identifying the search with
the object, and confessing that he finds nothing. Can this be
the process destined for the emancipation of mankind ?
( 54 )
CHAPTER IV.
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY.
sympathy of 1. Though we have said that the Buddhist revolution was an
pcauptufo- effQrt philosophers to free themselves from the shackles of an
sophers hereditary faith, we are quite aware that it is not to an experi-
eiVhteenth nient of this kind that the teachers of the last century would
Khout? fou1 ^ave *urne(l as an encouragement and an example to themselves.
tseu"Dg °U" Mysticism, which belonged as much to the revolters from the
Brahminical system as to that system itself, inspired them with
nothing but contempt. But the Eastern world supplied them
with another object, on which they could bestow the most fer¬
vent and unbounded admiration. They found in Khoung-fou-
tseu all that they missed in these sages of India, with an entire
absence of that which was offensive in them. They heard of a
Reasons man who, six centuries B.C., considered the outward economy of
justified it. an emP're a worthier object of study than all hidden and ab¬
stracted lore, who prized maxims of life and conduct more than
all doctrines respecting the Divinity, who had actually anticipated
some of the most modern propositions respecting the governor
and the governed. This man they found was not a mere name
for a set of opinions: he had a distinct, marked personality;
and his words and acts had not been limited to a narrow circle,
or to one or two centuries. He had left an impression of him¬
self upon the most populous empire in the world. After two
thousand years his authority is still sacred among the people,
the mandarins, the emperors of China; his influence is felt in
every portion of that vast and complicated society.
Chinese 2. Such a fact as this is worthy of all attention. Great as is
anri^Aenf the contrast between China and Hindostan—though that con-
expounded trast can hardly be expressed more accurately than by saying
by him. that tn India all history is a philosophy, and that in China all
philosophy is a history—yet it is equally true of each people
that its search after wisdom is the only satisfactory key to the
events which have befallen it. The difficulty of understanding
the long line of dynasties which preceded the birth of Khoung-
fou-tseu, though his words and acts compel us to believe in them,
is a sufficient proof of this fact. "We confess the antiquity of
the empire, because it is needful as an explanation of the reform
which he worked in it.
The old 3. This being the ease, we are excused from dwelling as much
Suhmust uP°n the old faith of China as we were forced to do on that of
be learnt iu India. This faith we are obliged to examine in a great measure
sureTo™1* with the eyes of Khoung-fou-tseu: he collected and remodelled
him.
KHOUNG-FOTJ-TSEU.
55
the books which contain it. He may have omitted much which
seemed to him immaterial for the education of his country, and
yet which, to a modern critic, might be of great use. At the
same time we are not disposed to question the general accuracy
of the conception which this teacher formed of the old institu¬
tions and the old creed of his country. There are abundant
roofs of the fidelity with which he studied them, of the earnest
esire which he had to preserve them. No one aspired less to His dislike
the reputation of an innovator; his main object was to remove tfon""0™'
innovations: yet this desire was balanced by a profound re¬
verence for that which was established. Nothing was to be
brought back for the mere purpose of bringing it back. Order
was not to be sacrificed even for the hope of redressing an evil.
4. Khoung-fou-tseu could not have produced the effect which The Chinese
he has produced upon the empire of China,—could not be ^mystical,
recognised in the character in which he has been recognised for
so many ages,—if his mind had not been the very highest type
of the Chinese mind; that in which we may read what it was
aiming at both before and after he appeared to enlighten it.
We may therefore acquiesce without difficulty in the opinion, The ancient
that the Chinese religion was from the first of a much less high (he
and mysterious quality than that of almost any people upon the eternal,
earth ; that the belief of the eternal as distinct from, and opposed
to, the temporal, which we have found so characteristic of the
Hindoo, existed very dimly and imperfectly in it, and was sup¬
plied only by a reverence for the past; that the sense of connexion
or communion with any invisible powers, though not absent,
must have been weak and slightly developed; that the emperor The emperor
must have been regarded always as the highest utterer of the
divine mind; that the priest must have been chiefly valued as a
minister of the ceremonial of the court; that rites and ceremonies
must have had a substantive value in this land independent of all
significance, which they have scarcely ever possessed elsewhere;
that there was united with this tendency one which to some
may seem incompatible with it—an attachment to whatever is
useful and practical; that the Chinese must have entertained a
profound respect for family relationships; that the relationship The father
of father and son, however, will have so overshadowed all the
rest, that they will have been regarded merely as different forms Obedience
of it, or as to be sacrificed for the sake of it; that implicit virtues'0
obedience to authority will have been the virtue which every
institution existed to enforce, which was to be their only pre¬
server. If we suppose the reverence for the shades of ancestors,
for the person of the emperor, for the dignity of the father, to
have been joined with something of a Sabfean worship, with some The worship
astrology and speculation about the future, we shall perhaps
56
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY-
arrive at a tolerably near conception of China as it may have
existed under the old emperors, to whom the sage continually
refers with admiration and regret,
v society 5. These were habits of mind which may have been represented
customs."1 more or less perfectly in the characters of particular sovereigns,
and which had embodied themselves in the forms of Chinese
society. A tyrant might, of course, derange the whole economy
of such a world. A state of things which rested merely on
custom, and was upheld by observances, might quickly pass into
utter confusion. " The dynasty of Yu," says the Book of Verses,
" might be compared to the Most High while it retained the
affection of th6 people : we learn by its decline how hard it is
to preserve the command of heaven." These words must be
illustrated hereafter: we quote them now merely to show where
teeuUuef°U' starting-point of the Confucian philosophy. The wisdom
reformer, at which it aims is that which shall be effectual for the removal
of a decayed condition of society, and the restoration of the
His wise principles that are implied in it. We hear almost as much of
UaiVpoK- the studious or meditative man in the Chinese books as in the
ticai. Brahminical. Quite as earnestly as the Brahmins, and perhaps
much more honestly than they, Khoung-fou-tseu speaks of the
superiority of thought and study to all animal pleasures, to the
pursuit of wealth, to the possession of offices. Tet no one is
less of a Moonee. He began as a man of affairs—a Chinese
official. The affairs of the empire were his study all his life
through: he trained his disciples to take part in them. Educa¬
tion lie looked upon as the one necessary means to good
government; but all education was to be for the sake of govern¬
ment. To ascertain the ends of government, and the means of
accomplishing those ends, was the one function of the sage.
TheLim-yu: Before we come to the doctrines of Khoung-fou-tseu on
Kimung-fou- this subject, and show how morals and metaphysics were eom-
tseu. bined in his political science, we must try to give our readers
some conception of the man himself. The third of the Chinese
classical books, called the Lun-yu, or Philosophical Dialogues,
is that which will be most helpful for this purpose. We have
there the recorded sayings of the man, which bear far more
internal evidence of genuineness than those which are commonly
attributed to the founders of the Greek schools. We have also
the testimonies of affectionate disciples respecting him, which,
if they are not wholly to be trusted, at least give us different
impressions of his character, out of which we may form one for
ourselves.
Fancied 7. M. Pauthier, the recent French translator of the classical
between3"" books of China, to whom we are under the greatest obligations
for bringing the treasures of the past within the reach of our
KHOUNG-FOU-TSEU.
57
ignorance, and whose enthusiasm for his subject is a warrant, in Kt.oung-fou-
addition to his general European reputation, that he has really socraies.
vanquished the difficulties of it, has somewhat rashly suggested
a comparison between the dialogues in the Lun-yu and those in
which Socrates is the hero. He is candid enough to add, that
the resemblance is chiefly to the sayings which Xenophon has
attributed to his master, and that it is not easy to detect the
artistical beauty and form of the Platonic dialogues in their
Chinese counterpart. He even admits that there is a certain
monotony in the utterances of Khoung-fou-tseu, though he adds, The^contrast
" even this monotony has something of the serenity and the them"0
majesty of a moral instruction, which is bringing successively *xhi0bj't®'be
under our eyes the different sides of human nature contemplated 0f tiie east
from a higher ground." Though, for ourselves, we might beandwest-
glad to exchange a little of this serenity and majesty for the
hearty and humorous sympathy of the Greek with all that is
passing around him, we are quite willing to accept it as a cha¬
racteristic of another order of genius belonging to the east rather
than the west, and entitled to its own meed of respect. And it
is scarcely just to Khoung-fou-tseu to speak of him simply as Modesty of
looking down upon his fellow-men : there are indications in his
deeds and words of fellow-feeling and real humbleness of mind.
The dogma which attributes such qualities in all cases to men
who have exercised a great influence over their kind, whether
true or not, is certainly not contradicted in this instance.
8. That our readers may not be unacquainted with the form,
such as it is, of this Chinese book, through our desire to cull
choice sentences that fell from the lips of Khoung-fou-tseu, we
will give the substance of one or two of the chapters which seem
best to explain his character and manner of thinking:—
" The philosopher said, I illustrate and comment upon the Love for the
old books, but I do not compose new ones. I have faith in the pu8t'
Ancients, I love them; I have the highest honour for our Lao-
pang" [a sage of the Chang dynasty].
" The philosopher said, To meditate in silence and to recall to ideal of a
one's memory the objects of one's meditations; to devote oneself grcat man'
to study, and not to be discouraged; to instruct men, and not
to suffer oneself to be cast down : how shall I attain to the pos¬
session of these virtues ?"
" The philosopher said, Virtue is not cultivated; study is not Lamenta-
pursned manfully ; if the principles of justice and equity are ^e"agevitr
professed they are not followed; the wicked and the perverse
will not be corrected: that is the cause of my sorrow."
" The philosopher said, If a man does not make any effort to ^ec0{
develope his own mind, I shall not develope it for him ; il a man tiou.
does not choose to make use of his faculty of speech (for the
58
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY.
purpose of making himself intelligible), I shall not penetrate
the sense of his expressions; if, after having enabled him to
know one angle of a square, he does not discover the measure of
the other three, I do not volunteer the demonstration"
44 The philosopher, interrupting Yeu-youan, said to him, If we
are employed in public functions, then we fulfil our duty; if we
are dismissed, we have the repose of a private life. You and I
are the only persons who act thus."
" Tseu-leu said, 4 If you were leading three bodies of troops of
12,500 men each, which of us would you take for a lieutenant ?'
The philosopher answered, 4 The man who with his own hands
would engage us in a combat with a tiger,—who, without any
motive, would wish to ford a river,—who would throw away his
life without reason and without remorse,—I certainly would not
take for my lieutenant. I should want a man who would main¬
tain a steady vigilance in the direction of affairs, who is capable
of forming plans and of executing them.' "
" The philosopher said, To get riches in a fair way, I would
mererespec- certainly engage in a low occupation if it was necessary ; if the
tabihty. means were not fair, I wonld rather apply myself to that which
I delight in."
Love of " The philosopher being in the kingdom of Tshi, heard the
music. music which is called Tehao: he was so affected by it, that, for
three months, he did not know the taste of his food. He said,
4 I do not fancy that, since the composition of that music, that
point of perfection has been once attained.' "
How his " Yeo-yeou said, 4 Will our master help the Prince of Wei ?'
founcUmt Tseu-koung said, 41 will question him upon that point.' He
the mind of went into the apartment of the master, and said, 4 What think
t eirmaster. yQu pe_» an^ Qjj0U.^gj j» q^e philosopher said, 4 These
men were true sages of the old world.' He added, 4 Did not
they experience any regrets ?' 4 No ; they sought to acquire
the virtue of humanity, and they obtained that virtue ; why
should they have had any regret ?' Tseu-koung went back and
said, 4 Our master will not assist the Prince of Wei.' "
The wise 44 The philosopher said, To feed upon a little rice, to drink
independent water, to have nothing but one's bent arm to lean upon, is a
ofextemaiB. state which has its own satisfaction. To get riches and honour
by unfair means seems to me like a cloud driven along by the
wind."
44 The philosopher said, If it was granted to me to add a
number of years to my life, I would ask fifty to study the Y-
king, that I might render myself free from great faults."
Ye-hong questioned Tseu-leu about Khoung-fou-tseu. Tseu-leu
did not answer him. 44 The philosopher said, Why have not you
answered him ? Khoung is a man who in his eagerness to
The
philosopher
an official
when it is
possible.
Mere
courage no
virtue.
Khoung'a
account of
himself.
KHOUNG-FOtNTSETT.
59
acquire knowledge often forgets to take nourishment; who in
the joy which he feels at having acquired it, forgets the pains
which it has cost him; and who does not disturb himself at the
approach of old age. Now you know about him."
" The philosopher said, X was not born endowed with know¬
ledge ; I am a man who loved the ancients, and made all exertions
to acquire their information."
" The philosopher never spoke in his conversation either of he
extraordinary things, or of civil troubles, or about spirits." avoided. 6
" The philosopher said, If three of us were travelling together, The two
I should necessarily find two instructors; I should choose the teacbers-
good man for imitation, and the bad man for correction."
" The philosopher said, Heaven has planted virtue in me, what
then can lloan-teu do to me ?"
" Do you fancy, my disciples, that I have any doctrines that I No esoteri-
conceal from you ? I have none. I have done nothing that I ral doctnne-
have not communicated to you, O my disciples !"
" The philosopher said, I cannot hope to see a holy man; all
I can do is to see a wise one." [The exact difference of the two
will be explained hereafter.]
" The philosopher said, I cannot hope to see a man truly vir¬
tuous ; all I can do is to hope to see a man constant and settled
in his views."
" To want everything, and to act as if one had abundance of
possessions; to be empty, and to show oneself full; to be little,
and to show oneself great—is a part very difficult to support
steadily."
" The philosopher said, How is it that there are men who act Action must
without knowing what they do ? I should not wish to behave of reflection,
myself so."
"We must hear the advice of many people, choose what is
good in their counsels, and follow it: see much, and reflect ma¬
turely on what one has seen; that is the second step in know¬
ledge."
"The inhabitants of Heou-hing were hard to teach; one of^*usivesof
their young men had come to visit the disciples of the philosopher, his school
They doubted whether they should receive him among them, reproved.
The philosopher said, I have admitted him to come among us, I
have not admitted him to go away. Whence comes this oppo¬
sition on your parts ? This man has purified himself, has renewed
himself in order to enter my school. Praise him for having gone
so far; I am not responsible for his past or future actions."
" The philosopher said, Is humanity so far off from us ? I wish Humanity
to possess humanity, and humanity comes to me." near t0 u8-
" The judge of the kingdom of Tchin asked, if Tchou-king Observation
understood the rites. ELhoung-fou-tseuanswered,He does under- Khoung'f:
ignorance.
60
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY.
stand the rites. Khoung-fou-tseu having withdrawn, the judge
said to On-raaki, I have been told that a great man never yielded
asaent to the faults of others; however, a great man has done it
now. The prince has married with a woman of the family On,
of the same name as his own, and he has called her Ou-meng-
tsew. A prince ought to know rites and customs. He, why
does not he know them? On-maki told the philosopher; who
cried, "What a happy man Khoung-fou-tseu is 1 if he commits a
fault, men are sure to know it."
what a sage " The philosopher said, In literature I am not equal to other
may oast men jf £ fchnjk of a man who unites holiness to the virtue of
humanity, how could I dare to compare myself to bim ? All
that I know is, that I force myself to practise these virtues, and
to teach them to others, without being disheartened."
Khounj?- " The philosopher being very sick, Tseu-leu besought him to
devot on* Perm^ disciples to address prayers for him to the spirits aud
on' the genii. The philosopher said, Is that the proper thing to do?
Tseu-leu answered respectfully, It is the proper thing. It is
said in the book called Leni, Address your prayers to the spirits
and the genii above and below. The philosopher said, The prayer
of Khoung-fou-tseu is constant."
Disobedi- " The philosopher said, If a man is given to luxury he is not
6reatest of su^mi8S've* H he is too parsimonious, he is vile and abject,
crimes. However, baseness is better than disobedience."
The highest " The philosopher said, Tai-pe might be called sovereignly
virtue.'6 °f virtuous. I know not how anything could be added to his
virtue; thrice he refused the empire, and the people saw nothing
admirable in his conduct."
Howvirtues « The philosopher said, If deference and respect towards others
chievous. are not regulated by rules or by education, they are mere grati¬
fications of our own fancy. If circumspection or vigilance are
not regulated by education, they are only other names for
extravagant cowardice. If manly courage is not regulated by
education, it means only insubordination. If rectitude is
not regulated by education, it brings the greatest confusion
after it."
What a ruler " The philosopher said, We may force the people to follow the
canuot do precepts of justice and reason; we cannot force it to comprehend
them."
How a man " He said, He who has an unshaken faith in truth, and who
iiAit1 course! loves study passionately, preserves the principles of virtue, which
are the consequences of this faith and love, to his death."
The Rood " If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty
atate!VI' an^ misery are a cause of shame. If a state is not governed by
the principles of reason, riches and honour are the subjects of
shame."
KnorxG-rou-TSEU.
G1
" The philosopher said, I see no defect in Yu ; he was sober inequalities
in eating and drinking, and devoutly pious towards the spirits £[aanfrcat
and the genii. His ordinary clothing was poor and mean; but
how beautiful and glorious his robes were at the ceremonies!
He inhabited a humble dwelling; but he directed all his energies
to the making of trenches and cutting canals for the conveyance
of waters."
9. Some of these sentences, which follow each other nearly in
the order we have given them, require illustration from other
passages.
In the last sentence Yu is commended for his devotion to the Apparent
spirits and genii, yet Khoung-fou-tseu seems on his sick-bed tion in ' "
scarcely to have acknowledged their existence, or at least to ggj
have shown no faith in their power ot helping him. This faith
apparent contradiction is perfectly intelligible, if we consider exi,lained-
the third chapter of this book. " Some one having asked, what His feeling
was the sense of the grand royal sacrifice, the philosopher said,
I do not know. He who did know this sense would find every-1 n *
thing under Heaven clear and manifest for him. He would
find no more difficulty in knowing everything than in putting
his finger in the palm of his hand." Again, " when the philo¬
sopher entered into the great temple, he informed himself
minutely about everything there. One who observed him cried
out, "Who will say now that the son of the man of Tsien knows His
the rites and ceremonies ? see how carefully he has looked at the""
each thing. The philosopher hearing these words, answered, I prescribed
do so in conformity with the rites." Again, " Tseu-kang order"
wished to abolish the sacrifice of the sheep which was offered on
the first day of the twelfth moon. The philosopher said, Tse,
you are only engaged about the sacrifice of the sheep, I am only
concerned about the ceremony."
By reflecting on these passages, we may arrive at some judg¬
ment of the religious feelings of Khoung-fou-tseu generally.
There appeared to him a mystery in the sacrifice which he could
not penetrate; he was far from wishing to deny it, he would
not for the world abolish the expression of it; but what it
meant, he did not know, or probably seek to know. He valued General
the sacrifice not for its own sake, not fur any benefit which he c01iclu6l0n-
expected from it, but as part of an august and. awful ceremonial.
He worshipped the spirits and the genii because it was the
ancient law, the established custom: therein consisted their
sacredness in his eyes; but be did not speak of them, he had
nothing to tell respecting them. It must not be concluded
from this statement that he pretended to a laitli, for the sake of
the vulgar, which be see ret lj disowned, or that he looked upon
62
cnnrasE philosophy.
the worship as a mere invention to maintain the government.
His sincerity There are evidences of sincerity in his own conduct which
negative the first supposition ; his demand for sincerity in
ministers and emperors disproves the second. The following
passage might seem even to set at naught all that we have said
respecting the ritualism of Khoung-fou-tseu, and to prove that
he did recognize a hidden ground for those ancient customs
which he so diligently preserved. " Tseu-bia asked him the
Not a mere meaning of these words in the Book of Verses: ' What an ayree-
rituaiist. a^e smi(e there is upon his fine and delicate mouth ! how sweet
and ravishing his look ! The ground of the picture must be pre¬
pared if you would paint? The philosopher answered, ' You
cannot lay on the colours till you have made preparation for
them.' ' You hint,' said Tseu-hia, ' that mere ritual laws are
secondary things.' 1 You have caught my meaning,' answered
the phdosopher; 1 you are beginning to understand my discourses
on poetry.' " So, again, he speaks in terms of a hidden sense
in the rites and ceremonies of the dynasty of Hai, which laws
and the opinions of wise men did not suffice to make known.
Forms the language leads us at once to the main principle of this
most perfect eminent teacher. Ceremonies, formalities, etiquette, in one
expression >vor(j so(qai customs, embody the principle of reason,—the very
principle of secret of order among men. This principle of reason is the
reason. divinest thing he knows of; traditional habits and forms are the
most accurate expression of it. These are the great restraints
upon mere self-will; adherence to them is the sign of the ruler
who desires to be in sympathy with his people. The perception
of what they signify is the great privilege and endowment of
the wise man ; that which he is to communicate, so far as he
can at least without any intentional reserve, to his disciples;
that which it is the great business of education to impress upon
End of the minds both of rulers and subjects. But, after all, this
education. wjS(jom cannot be expressed very much better than in the forms
themselves: it must be attained by observation, practice, habitual
discipline; it must come out in conduct, in gestures, in looks,
as much as in words; it must be uttered, so far as it is capable
of utterance, in short maxims and somewhat enigmatical poetry;
which will interpret themselves slowly to the person who com¬
bines an honest purpose, diligence, and political experience.
In the same manner we must understand a phrase of very
frtquent occurrence in the discourses of Ivhoung-fou-tseu, and
yet which we are told, somewhat strangely,hv one of his disciples,
that he did not often care to introduce. It is the word which
our French guide renders, and we have every reason to suppose
renders accurately, humanity. There are one or two passages in
the Dialogues which show that this word had a sort of profound,
KHOTJtfG-FOU-TSKU.
63
almost cabalistical significance in Khoung-fou-tseu's mind, which Humanity
may account for the remark that he spoke rarely of it, though,
in their reports, his disciples could not avoid frequently attri- Khoune-
buting it to him. " Ming-wow-pe asked, ' if Tseu-lou was ^scourseV
humane ?' The philosopher said, 4 I do not know.' Wlien the
same question was repeated, the philosopher answered, ' If it was
a question about commanding the military forces of a great
kingdom, Tseu-lou would be capable of it; but I do not know
what is his humanity.' ' And Kieou, what think you of him ?'
'Well, he might be the governor of a city with a thousand
houses, or of a family with a hundred chariots: I do not know
what is his humanity.' ' And Tchi, what of him r" The sage
said, ' Tchi, in an official sash, and occupying a post at the court, a sacred
might be capable, with his good elocution, of introducing and wor(1,
handing out the guests: I do not know what is his humanity.'"
We have already quoted passages from Khoung-fou-tseu which
indicate his great love for music. The importance which he
attached to it as an instrument of education and government is,
perhaps, the one point in which it is possible to discover a resem¬
blance between him and Plato. New music he evidently con¬
nected very closely with the sublime virtue, or complex of vir¬
tues, which he calls humanity. Humanity imports therefore, Music: the
we conceive, that order and harmony of relations in the body byjt*s#i<m
politic, and the corresponding order and harmony of feelings and
faculties in the individual man, of which music may be considered
the natural expression. There is a passage in which one of the
disciples of Khoung-fou-tseu declares, that the doctrine of his a man is to
master consists simply in having rectitude of heart, and in loving neighbour
our neighbour as ourselves. M. Pauthier apologizes for giving ** himself,
this form to his translation, but says he could find no other so
accurate. Till some greater scholar contradicts him, we are
bound to accept his statement. If he supposes that those who
believe that these words proceeded from higher lips will be
scandalized by it, we think he mistakes the matter altogether.
Those who attach the most awful significance to the utterances can such a
of these lips, and to the Person from whom they fell, will be the
least disposed to look upon him as the propounder of great Chinese
maxims, and not rather as the giver of a new life; will be the bot)k?
least likely to grudge a Chinese teacher any glimpses which
may have been vouchsafed to him of that which the true rege¬
nerator of humanity should effect for it.
Connected with this phrase is another to which we have The
alluded already, and which is also one of the key phrases of the heaven"11 °f
Confucian system; one also of those which its propounder seems
always to have uttered with hesitation and diffidence. The
philosopher, it is said, spoke rarely of destiny or of the command
64 CHINESE PHILOSOPHY.
of heaven. Perhaps the philosopher did not know precisely
what he meant by heaven ; but he did know that he meant some¬
thing which was real, and not imaginary. It is consistent with
the character which we have attributed to the original Chinese
worship, and with the character of his own mind, that he should
have been profoundly impressed with the order of the heavenly
bodies—with the evenness, calmness, steadfastness, which the
The order of succession of day and night reveals to us. Such an order he
of humand desired and sought for in the transactions of human society,
society. Such an order he believed that the imperial dignity Mas intended
to represent and uphold. It was executing the mandate of
heaven when it actually presented the image of this order ; dis¬
obeying the mandate of heaven when it forgot this principle,
and promoted or permitted derangement or confusion. A direct
Responsi- responsibility then in the emperor is presumed by Khoung-fou-
biiity of the tseu ; but to whom ? A number of expressions which recognize
emperor, mjseiy that ensues in the government when the sovereign
forgets his relations and duties to the governed, lead his modern
Not to the interpreters continually to hope that he may have a dream of
people, responsibility to the popular voice. Such a notion, however
plausibly supported by certain sentences, we believe outrages
the whole principle and history of the Confucian doctrine. The
emperor cotdd not have transgressed the commandment of hea¬
ven more in the mind of the philosopher than by forgetting that
he was an emperor and confessing he was a subject. But
Not to any responsibility to an actual living Being, who could call the
divine emperor to account for his conduct, is equally out of the ques-
peroon, tion. Homage to a principle, a law, to the idea of duty, is what
remains, and this it was which Khoung-fou-tseu, by all his edu¬
cation and discipline, was labouring to realize in his own heart
But to the and in the hearts of others. He had a wise consciousness of its
sense ofhe vaguencss > he felt the necessity of connecting it with some
duty. superior order, even if was but a natural order: he did not like
to say what the emperor obeyed, yet he must feel, and even
declare, that he, like till other men, nay because he was the lirst
of men, lived by obedience. Here is the point in which the
personal convictions of the teacher became identical with his
political philosophy, of which it behoves us now to render a more
exact account.
Extracts 10. " Ngrai-Koung questioned Khoung-fou-tseu on the con-
Tchoung stitutive principles of a good government. The philosopher said,
Young. TJie ]aws 0f the kings Wen and AVou were consigned to bamboo
tablets; if their ministers were living now their laws would be
in vigour: their ministers have ceased to be, and their principles
a of g< mi of good government are no longer followed. The combined vir-
gnveminent. tuetJ anj qualities of the ministers ol a prince make the adinims-
KHOTJNG-FOU-TSEU.
65
tration of a state good, as the virtue of the earth, uniting the Depends
moist and the dry, gives forth and causes to grow the plants
which cover its surface. This good administration resembles tion.
the reeds which are on the borders of rivers: it springs up
naturally on a soil that is suitable to it A prince who who can
wishes to imitate the old administration of the kings must £^®f«™no<1
.... .. , . . i i min'sters.
choose his ministers according to his own sentiments, which
must be always inspired by the public good. That his senti¬
ments may always have the public good for their moving prin¬
ciple, he must conform himself to the great law of duty, and
this great law of duty must be searched for in humanity, which
is the principle of love for all men. This humanity is man him¬
self: regard for relations is the first duty of it.
" The prince can never cease to correct himself and bring What IS
himself to perfection. Having the purpose of correcting and nectary in
perfecting himself, he cannot dispense with the rendering to his a pnnce'
relations that which is due to them. Having the purpose of
rendering to his relations that which is due to them, he cannot
dispense with the acquaintance of wise men, that he may honour
them, and that they may instruct him in his duties. Having
the purpose of obtaining the acquaintance of wise men, he can¬
not dispense with the knowledge of heaven, nor with the law
which directs in the practice of prescribed duties.
" The most universal duties for the human race are five, and The five
the man possesses three natural faculties for practising them. {{u™easn
The five duties are: the relations which subsist between the
prince and his ministers, the father and his children, the husband
and his wife, the elder and younger brother, and those of friends
among themselves. Conscience, which is the light of intelligence
to distinguish good and evil; humanity, which is the equity of
the heart; moral courage, which is the force of the soul,—
these are the three grand and universal moral faculties of the
man.
" Whether nature is sufficient for the knowledge of these uni- Results
versal duties, whether study is necessary to apprehend them, j^°pr®rta t
whether the knowledge is arrived at with great difficulty or not than the"
—when one has got the knowledge, the result is the same, ^"''in*' at
Whether we practise these duties naturally and without effort, them. "
whether we practise them for the sake of getting profit and per¬
sonal advantage from them—when we have succeeded in accom¬
plishing useful works, the result is the same.
" He who loves study, or the application of his intelligence to practice
the search of the law of duty, is very near to acquire moral r
science. He who devotes all his efforts to practise his moral >V * ffe*
duties is near that devotion to the happiness of man which is
called humanity. He who knows how to blush for his weakness
VOL. I. F
66
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY.
in the practice of his duties is very near to acquire the force of
mind necessary to their accomplishment.
How to " So soon as the prince shall have well regulated and improved
condltmn of himself, straightway the universal duties will be accomplished
bieSaiid ^owar^8 h'ra- soon as he shall have learnt to revere wise
enviable.' men, straightway he will have no longer any doubt about the
principles of truth and falsehood, of good and evil; so soon as
his parents shall be the objects of the affection which is due 1o
them, straightway there will be no more discussions between
his uncles, his elder brothers and his younger brothers ; so soon
as he shall treat, as it becomes him, secondary functionaries and
magistrates, the doctors and literary men will zealously acquit
themselves of their duties in the seminaries; so soon as he shall
love and treat the people as his son, the people will be drawn to
imitate its superior ; so soon as he shall have drawn about him
all the savans and the artists, his wealth w ill be advantageously
spent; so soon as he shall entertain agreeably the men who
come from a distance, straightway will men from the four ends
of the empire flock in crowds into his state, to receive part in
his benefits; so soon as he shall treat with kindness his great
vassals, straightway he will be respected throughout the whole
empire."
AYe must not separate these political axioms from the follow¬
ing, which are more purely moral -.—
Hi-.solution "All virtuous actions, all duties which have been resolved
eminent of* beforehand, are thereby accomplished; if they are not resolved
action. upon, they are thereby in a state of infraction. If we have de¬
termined beforehand the words which we must speak, we shall
not hesitate. If we have determined beforehand our affairs
and occupations in the world, they will thereby be easily accom¬
plished.
Perfection. " The perfect, the true, disengaged from all mixture, is the
law of heaven. The process of perfection, which consists in
using all one's efforts to discover the celestial law, the true prin¬
ciple of the mandate of heaven,—this is the law of man. The
The saint perfect man attains this law without help from without; he has
and the sage. no need 0f meditation, or long reflection to obtain it; he arrives
at it with calmness and tranquillity. This is the holv man. He
who is continually tending towards perfection, who attaches
himself strongly to the good, and fears to lose it, is the sage."
riie leading 11. These extracts are taken from the second of the classical
of'tiiis*16 books which bear the general title of " The Invariable in the
philosophy. Mean." In the opinion of the Chinese, it contains the very
essence of all philosophy—that which belongs to the great
school, for which the first sehool—what may be called the school
of custom or etiquette—is the vestibule. As we shall so often
KHOUNG-FOU-TSEU.
67
have to deal with the doctrine of the mean or middle in the
schools of the West, it is as well that we should ascertain, as
nearly as we can, what anticipation there is of it in the passages
we have quoted from the Tehoung-Young.
Our readers wall not have failed to have been struck with the Fonu of ,ts.
form in which the Confucian maxims evolve themselves. The prop<"rf,0,ls-
sorites, says M. Pauthier, is clearly a Chinese invention. To The sorites,
be a good emperor, you must be a good friend; to be a good
friend, you must be a good son; to be a good son, you must
know the law of right, &c. This is the mode in which the sage
seems naturally and habitually to deliver himself.
Each duty involves another. What is the first duty from The straight
which all derive their sanction—the performance of which makes ,me-
the performance of the others possible ? It is difficult to find :
often we seem to be moving in a circle. But evidently all duties
involve a rule. To be right is to be regular. Irregularity must
be the common expression for the violation of all relations.
But irregularity is clearly the effect of some bias determining
us to one side or another. The law of rectitude, then, must be
the law of the mean. All study and discipline must be for the The mean,
preservation of this. " Before joy, satisfaction, anger, sorrow,
have been produced in the soul [says our book], the state in
which we are found is called the mean. When once they have
been produced in the soul, and they have not transgressed cer¬
tain limits, the state in which we are is called harmonic. This
31 can is the grand foundation of the world. Harmony is tho The
universal and permanent law of it. When the Mean and the suite!""'1
harmony have been carried to the point of perfection, heaven
and earth are in a state of perfect tranquillity, and all beings
receive their full development. Khoung-fou-tseu said, the man
of superior virtue perseveres invariably in the mean ; the vulgar
or unprincipled man is constautly in opposition to this invariable
mean. Eew men are there, he cried at another time, who know Theie-saiui
how to keep long in the right way. I know the reason: culti-the mon'"
vated men pass beyond it,—ignorant men do not attain it; men
of strong virtue go too far,—men of feeble virtue stop short."
Here we have the very marrow of Chinese life, Chinese morals, The rim v-p
Chinese politics. Hence we may explain that passion for belongs"!?.1
minute ceremony which seems to Western people so ridiculous ;ts nn.st
and intolerable. Hence it arises that the most affectionate dis- philosophy,
ciples of a man really so honest and simple as Khoung-fou-tseu
was, should spend whole pages in informing us that if he had to Reports <>f
salute persons who presented themselves to him either on the
right or the left, his robe, behind and before, always fell straight Kiiounj.-
and well-arranged ; that bis step was quickened when he intru- bliiavlour
duced guests, and that he held his arms extended like the wings
68
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY.
of a bird ; that when he entered under the gate of the palace he
bent his body as if the gate had not been sufficiently high to
let him pass; that in passing before the throne his countenance
changed all at once, his step being grave and measured, as if he
had fetters on, and his words being as embarrassed as his feet;
that, taking his robe with his two hands, he ascended into the
hall of the palace, his body bent, and holding his breath as if he
had not dared to breathe; that his nightdress was always half
as long again as his body; that he never ate meat which was
not cut in straight lines; that if a meat had not the sauce which
belonged to it, he never touched it;—with a thousand other
particulars, of which these are fair specimens, and which we
willingly omit lest we should diminish our readers' respect for
a really remarkable man, when our intention is only to throw
light upon the national character, and to show how entirely the
philosophy of Khoung-fou-tseu grew out of it, and was deter¬
mined by it. That philosophy is not a mere collection of dry
Worth of formalities ; it is based upon a large experience ; brings out the
nhaosophy. idea of duty as it was never brought out in the West, till Greek
idea of duty, philosophy was remoulded by the Latin mind. It suggests very
deep thoughts respecting the connection of social and individual
individual life ; it may help us as much by that which it fails to recognize,
life. SOC'al as by that which it actually proclaims. But the blanks which
are so significant to us have been filled up in China, as they
could only be filled up, by new maxims, a more rigid ceremonial,
an intense self-conceit and self-satisfaction. There have, indeed,
Attempts to been other experiments to supply Khoung-fou-tseu's deficiencies,
deficiencies ^ mystical rationalism and the Buddhist divinity have been both
called in to help out the cold atheism of the authorized creed.
But the true Confucian feels, and feels rightly, that these plants
are not indigenous to the Chinese soil, and have no rightful
affinity with it. He still clings to his classical books, learns
them by heart, dwells on the rules of equity, the contempt of
money, the reverence for antiquity which they enforce; shows
by the contradictions of his acts and life what truth there is in
its zreat these maxims, and what powerlessness ; how faithfully they
I'ffecta. foretell the decline of a country in which they are not obeyed;
how utterly unable they are to produce obedience. The philo¬
sophers of the last century had a right to point to the existence
of China through so many centuries, with all its mechanical
appliances, its early maturity, its political experience, and to say
its variable- " See what can be effected by mere intelligence, content to dwell
uesb. upon the earth, aspiring to no acquaintance with things divine."
We accept their words and their example. Such intelligence
could do this; so God has willed. Alas for human beings, if
there is nothing which can do more !
MENQ-TSETT.
69
12. "We should do great injustice to China if we said nothing The fourth
of the fourth of the classical books, which bears another name book!**'
than that of the great teacher and reformer; of a man, however,
who was a teacher and reformer, who considered Khoung-fou-
tseu the great legislator of the world, and laboured in a society
which had become again degenerated to restore his precepts and
his practice. Meng-tseu belongs to the fourth century B.C. He Meng-tseu.
is immeasurably more interesting to us than his predecessor,
and therefore we should suppose must seem far inferior to him
in Chinese eyes. Inferior he probably was, inferior in quietness
and self-control, and in perfect adaptation to the habits of the
people with whom he conversed. We can quite imagine that he
never would have been a great legislator, or have left any great
impression upon the mind of his country, if Khoung-fou-tseu
had not led the way. But in place of the solemnity and general Not 6°
dryness of his master, there appears to have been in Meng-tseu Chinese^
real humour, a very earnest dislike of oppression, a courage in
telling disagreeable truths to the highest personages, and a
power of perceiving the practical application of sound maxims to But much
the details of government, which cannot be contemplated without ™?erestin*
admiration and profit after a lapse of 2,000 years. We have to us.
tempted our readers to imitate the worst habits of the Chinese,
if we have led them to think scornfully of eastern wisdom, or to
suppose that it has no lessons for England in the nineteenth
century. Let us repair our error, by asking them to listen to a
conversation of Meng-tseu with Siouan-Wang the king of Tshi.
The king interrogated Meng-tseu in these terms: " I have been When the
told that the park of the king Wen-Wang was seven leagues in complain of
circumference ; was that the case ?" Meng-tseu answered re- r°y»' Par^
speetfully, " History tells us so." The king said, " If so, was not smaiL1""
its extent excessive ?" Meng-tseu answered, " The people con¬
sidered it too small." The king said, " My insignificance has a
park only four leagues in circumference, and the people consider for
it too large ; whence this difference ?" Meng-tseu answered, being too
"The park of Wen-Wang contained all these leagues, butlarge'
thither resorted all persons who wanted to cut grass or wood.
Thither went all who wanted to take pheasants and hares. As
the king had his park in common with the people, the people
thought it small, though it was seven leagues round. Was that
wonderful P I, your servant, when I was about to cross the
frontier, took care to inform myself of what was especially for¬
bidden in your kingdom, before I dared to venture further.
Your servant learnt that there was within your line of customs
a park four leagues round, and that the man who killed a stag
there, was punished with death, as if he had killed a man. So
that there is an actual pit of death of four leagues in circum-
70
CniNESE PHILOSOPHY.
ference, opened in the heart of your kingdom. The people think
that park too great. Is it wonderful?"
From a very long conversation with the same prince, all of
which well deserves to be extracted, we take a passage which is
not so illustrative of the talent of Meng-tseu as many others;
but it will at least prove that his philosophy is not obsolete.
" To want things necessary for life, and yet to preserve an equal
and virtuous mind, is only possible for men whose intelligence
raises them above the multitude. The mass of the people, when
it wants the necessaries of life, wants also an equal and virtuous
mind. Then follow violation of law, licence, and debauchery;
there is nothing which it is not capable of doing. Then you
bring them before judgment-seats, then you punish them. So
you catch the people in a net. If there was a man truly endowed
with the virtue of humanity occupying the throne, could he com¬
mit this criminal action of catching the people in such a snare ?
Condition of " At present, the constitution of the private property of the
davsot"the People i-"5 such, that the children have not wherewith to minister
Menu-tieu. to their fathers and mothers ; the fathers have not wherewith to
support their wives i nd their children. In years of abundance,
the people suffer to the end of life pain and misery; in years of
calamity they are not preserved from famine and death. In such
extremities, the people think only of escaping from death. What
time can they have to occupy themselves with the moral doctrines
which may teach them how to conduct themselves according to
the laws of justice and equity ?" Meng-tseu proceeds to sug¬
gest remedies: improved cultivation of the land, plantation of
trees, rearing of animals, the manufacture of silk—above all,
education.
sympathy of One of his great maxims is, that the monarch should always
aud people 8^are pleasures with his people. " If a prince rejoices in the
joy of his people, the people rejoice also in his joy. If a prince
sorrows in the sorrows of his people, the people also sorrow in
his sorrow. Let a prince rejoice with everybody, let him sorrow
with everybody; in so doing it is impossible he can iind any
difficulty in reigning."
The same monarch, in another conversation with Meng-tseu,
expressed great admiration for two lines in the Book of Verses:
" We may be rich and powerful, but we should have compassion
on the widows and orphans." Meng-tseu answered, rather
abruptly, " Oh, king ! if you find them so good, why do you not
practise them ?" The king answered, " My insignificance has
a defect; my insignificance loves riches." Meng-tseu answered
respectfully, " Kong-lieou loved riches also, so he shared them
with his people that he might gratify his love. If you love
them, try the same plan." The king said, " My insignificance
Crimes of
the pour:
lion
connected
nith their
poverty.
How to
gratify a
taste tor
riches
MENG-TSEU.
71
has another weakness; my insignificance loves pleasure." and for
Meng-tseu answered, with respect, " Tai-wang loved pleasure ; P,ttt-ure-
he loved his wife dearly, so he contrived that in all his kingdom
there should be no celibats."
The following is still more pointed : it is a conversation with What an.
the same patient prince. " Suppose a servant of the king trusts toXwh"
a friend with his wife and children, just as he is about to set out hifi
for a journey: if, on his return, he finds that his wife and chil- provinces,
dren have suffered cold and hunger, what must he do ?" The
king: " He must break with his friend." Meng-tseu went on :
" If the chief judge cannot govern the magistrates who are under
him, what must be done with him ?" The king: " He must be
deposed." Meng-tseu : " If the provinces situated at the ex¬
treme limits of the kingdom are not well governed, what must
be done ?" The king looked to the right and left, and turned
the conversation. Meng-tseu said, " The great man has three The
satisfactions : to have his father and mother still living, without "he^'ise" °f
any cause of dissatisfaction or dissension between the elder and ina11*
the younger brother, is the first; to have nothing to blush for
in the face of heaven or of man, is the second; to meet wise
and virtuous men among those of his generation, is the third.
These are the three causes of satisfaction to a wise man. To
rule an empire is not included among them."
" When the prince of Lou desired that Lo-tcbing-tseu, a dis- Hearty )o\f
ciple of Meng-tseu, should undertake the whole administration of a""*1 a
of the kingdom, Meng-tseu said, ' Since I have heard that news, tkm'for^ic
I cannot sleep for joy.' Some one asked, ' What, has he a
great deal of energy ?' Meng-tseu said ' Not at all.' ' Has he
prudence, and a mind that is apt to form great designs ?' 'Not
at all.' ' Has he studied much, and has be very extensive know¬
ledge ?' ' Not at all.' If so, why do you lie awake for joy at
his promotion ?' ' Because he is a man who loves what is good.'
* Is that enough ?' ' Yes ; to love what is good is more than
enough to govern the empire: how much more to govern the
kingdom of Lou! If one who is proposed for the administration
of a state loves what is good, the good men who inhabit within
the four seas will think nothing of travelling one hundred leagues
to come and give hiin good counsel. But if he loves not what
is good, these men will say within themselves, He is a self-
satisfied man, who always answers, " I knew that a long while
ago." That tone and air will drive good counsellors one hun¬
dred leagues from him. If they go, then the slanderers, the
flatterers, the people whose countenances say " Yes" to every
word he speaks, will arrive in crowds. t Li such company, if he
wishes to govern well, how can he ?' "
72
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY.
SnffVrinjr The following is in a yet higher strain. " Chun came to the
which^rea" empire from the midst of the fields ; Fou-youe was raised to the
tramed'b ran^ minister from a mason; Kiao-he was raised from a seller
Heaven. 7 of fish and of salt; Kouan-i-ou became a minister from a gaoler.
Thus it is when heaven wishes to confer a great office upon its
chosen men, it begins always by proving their souls and their
intellects by days of sorrow ; their nerves and their bones are
worn out by hard toil, their flesh is tormented with hunger.
The results of their actions are always contrary to those which
they hope to obtain. Thus their souls are stimulated, their
natures hardened, their force augmented by an energy, without
which they would have been unable to accomplish their high
destiny. Men begin by committing faults, before they can cor¬
rect themselves. They experience anguish of heart, are hin¬
dered in their projects, till at last they come forth. It is uni¬
versally true that life comes through pains and trials, death
through pleasures and repose."
The We cannot help thinking that Khoung-feu-tseu himself comes
pwpie'of a in a somewhat braver and fine spirit in the reports and
village: commentaries of Meng-tseu. For instance, he quotes him as
saying " that the most honest men of a neighbourhood are the
pests of virtue." " Who are these men ?" asked Wen-tchang.
what they "Those," said Mengtseu, " who take pains never to speak or
»re- act otherwise than all around them. If you wish to find them
in a fault, you never know where to take them. Whatever side
you attack them, you never get at them. That which dwells in
their heart has a certain resemblance to rectitude and sincerity ;
what they practise seem like acts of temperance and of integrity.
As all their neighbourhood boasts of them incessantly, they
fancy themselves perfect people. Therefore Khoung-fou-tseu
why calls them the pests of virtue. ' I detest,' says Khuung-fou-
tou-tseu tseu, ' that which has appearance without reality; I detest
hated them, clever men, for fear that they shall confound justice ; I detest
an eloquent mouth, fearing lest it should confuse truth ; I detest
the sounds of the music Tching, because they corrupt music ; I
detest the colour of violet because it mimics the colour of
purple; I detest the most respectable people of a neighbour¬
hood because they mimic virtue.' "
Meng-tseu's 13. Meng-tseu, it will be perceived, in spite of this last
tendeiiciesf1 extract, has a much more democratic tendency than his master.
He is even reported to have said, "The people is the most
noble thing in the world. The spirits of the earth and the
fruits of the earth are second to them. The prince is of the
least importance of all." Such a sentiment as this, found in a
book which all Chinese men of education learn by heart, found
MENG-TSEU.
73
side by side with precepts which seem to represent the emperor
as the source of all light and wisdom to his people, must needs
give rise to great perplexities in the more thoughtful members
of the Celestial Empire, especially in those who are necessarily
brought into contact with the notions and history of barbarians.
The effects of such teaching may be much greater than we can
foresee. Certainly one cannot expect that they will be favourable
to the real freedom and moral culture of this singular people.
The deepest wisdom both of Khoung-fou-tseu and Meng-tseu
seems to have consisted in awaking monarchs to a consciousness
of their position and their duties; their greatest failures to have
arisen from their inability to show what higher and more
righteous power sustains them in that position, and can give
them energy for the discharge of these duties. Whatever
teaching can supply that defect may be the instrument of
making China what God intends it to be. A subversion of its
political order must be also the subversion of its ancient
wisdom, without giving it any capacity for the acquisition of
fresh light.
CHAPTER Y.
PERSIAN PHILOSOPHY.
1. The biography of Khoung-fou-tseu is as clear, accurate, and
formal as that of a man who lived a century ago. The bio¬
graphy of Zerduscht, who occupies the corresponding place in zerduscht,
the annals of Persian philosophy, is altogether confused and £i8
mythical. It is hardly possible to compose any orderly history
out of the wild legends of his birth, his adventures, and his
reformation. The most intelligent modern critics have given
up the task. They doubt whether such a man ever existed ;
they think that he represents an epoch, or a great struggle of
opposing principles,—that different persons who illustrated
that epoch, or engaged in that struggle, may have been blended
under one name, and that the traditionary history may have as
much or as little to do with one as with another of them.
2. If we were forced to acquiesce in this conclusion, to what His age.
period will this imaginary hero belong ? It is difficult not to
connect him with that general movement of the Asiatic mind to
which we have already alluded in this sketch. The Buddhist
convulsion in Hindostan, the great Chinese reformation, and the
movement in Iran or Persia, of which we are now to speak, if
not strictly contemporaneous events, may not have been sepa-
74
PEHSIAN PHILOSOPHY.
What was rated by the distance of more than a century. That there was
th'"different something common in them all will easily be admitted. The
oriental Indian, the Chinese, the Persian reformers, alike believed
lions"10* that they were bringing back some old order or principle, which
had been forgotten or violated, or for which some modern prac¬
tices and notions had been substituted. Neither the Buddhist
nor the disciple of Zerduscht would have allowed, any more than
Khoung-fou-tseu, that they were introducing innovations into
the worship or polity of their country : all professed to sweep
Their great innovations away. But their differences are only made the
i erenccs. lnore remiirkable by this coincidence, and by the power which
all were able to put forth. They did leave an impress upon
vast regions of the earth,—they proved that there were certain
great ideas of which these nations were, aud perhaps had
always been, the appointed depositaries. We have tried to
discover in the practical records of Chinese thought and legis¬
lation what their characteristic is ; is it possible to penetrate
through the vagueness of the Zendavesta, and to detect what
was latent in the minds of those who composed it, or believed
in it ?
he 3. To give any account of this strange collection of litanies
Zendavesta. seems impossible. How it came together is a question still
unsolved. The debates about the language in which it is com¬
posed are receiving so much illustration from recent inquiries,
that it would be unwise to enter upon them, even if our subject
required it. If we gave specimens of the style of the book, as
it comes to us through the French compiler, M. Anquetil, we
should perhaps rather confuse our readers respecting its object
than help them to arrive at it. We shall, therefore, content
ourselves with some general hints respecting the meaning and
purpose of the change which has been for so many centuries
connected with the name of Zoroaster,—hints not in the least
novel, in accordance for the most part with the conclusions at
which all students of the subject have arrived, but which may
throw some light upon the question, what place Persia occupies
in the history of philosophical inquiries, aud how it is connected
in the way, either of resemblance or opposition, with Egypt,
with India, with China, with Greece.
The Persian 4. The difficulty of attributing a personal existence to Zoro-
rea" person as^erver7 much that which meets us again in the cases of
Lycurgus, Odin, and many more ; a difficulty, we may be per¬
mitted to remark, belonging chiefly to our own time, connected
with a true feeling of the wonderful manner in which institu¬
tions, beliefs, habits, have diffused themselves through parti¬
cular races, and characterised them from the very first; con¬
nected also with a vague and false feeling,, that acts can some-
ZERDTTSCHT.
75
how accomplish themselves without living agents,—that great
conflicts may be transacted in the clouds and the air, without
human combatants or personal leaders. In each instance we
have named, it is probable that we shall ultimately return to
the belief of our forefathers in an actual legislator or champion,
however we may confess our inability to arrive at that very de¬
finite notion of his position and acts, which they attained by
supplying the chasms of fact out of the stores of their imagina¬
tion, or by the opposite process of stripping legends of their
poetry,—of all that gives them their worth and significance,—
and so reducing them into facts. Of Zerduscht we must speak
as an actual person; he may have had some other name,—he
may have done acts of which we know nothing, and have not
done any of those his biographers record ; but that there was
some one who maintained the conflict which produced results so
striking and so lasting we may at once assume, and speak upon
the assumption.
5. The conflict of Zerduscht was with the Magians. This Hisenemies.
we take to be the facts of his history, whatever fictions may ^®ians
surround it. He found a set of men doing homage, as he be¬
lieved, to powers, or a power of evil. Probably they made no
secret of this homage. They taught that such a power was to
be worshipped; they could teach the method of the worship.
They knew the secrets of the evil being; they could explain how
his wrath was to be averted. Upon the belief that they pos¬
sessed this knowledge their influence stood.
6. This was practically the case whatever worship they might Ahriman the
also pay to a beneficent Divinity. There is no reason to sup-
pose that the reverence for Ormuzd had ceased among them, worship.
Most likely there were services which they rendered habitually
and punctually to him, and called upon the people to render. But
what is the worship of a good Being, when the Evil dwells pro¬
fessedly side by side with him ? The latter becomes inevitably
the God. The character of the whole service is leavened and
moulded by his character. Let the theories respecting the
relation of the two beings towards each other be what they may,
Ormuzd becomes really the servant of Ahriman. The Magians
were in truth his priests, even when they were nominally bowing
to his rival.
7. The effects of sucb a religion manifest themselves in all °sfhi
directions. Zerduscht felt them in one direction especially, on'tiiiage.
The earth in Iran was overgrown with weeds; nothing was done
to till it or make it fruitful. How much is gathered up in these
words! What a history of the effects of a priesthood, which
looks upon its chief Divinity as the author of curses instead of
blessings! Slavish dependence upon seasons, without any study
76
PERSIAN PHILOSOPHY.
of the laws which govern them,—a fear of meddling with the
thorns and thistles as if they grew by Divine ordinance, and
had a sacred right which could not be disturbed,—the arms
growing feeble every day from want of manly exercise in their
appointed work,—the heart growing feeble through the decay of
Practice and hope: here was a state of things to which a Magian might
actiir' and triumphantly point and say, " See the proof of our doctrine!
rencting on Does not the evil prevail; is it not becoming mightier ? "What
each other. caQ we (jQ bribe it to be less severe and all-exacting ? Where
shall we direct our prayers and sacrifices if not to this terrible
conqueror ?" It was an opinion which was always establishing
itself by new evidence,—always producing the facts which
demonstrated it.
TheOrmuzd 8. What line must a reformer take to encounter them ? He
worshipper. couj^ a(jm^ no compromise. He must declare at once " Your
whole scheme of worship is a lie ; the ground on which it is
based is a lie. The earth is meant to bring forth and bud; the
thistles are meant to be destroyed. Man is meant to put the
seeds into it, and call the strength out of it. These evil spirits
are not his masters; he owes them no service. They create
nothing, produce nothing, keep nothing alive. The powers of
creation, production, nourishment, are all good. Whatever
begets, brings forth, makes life more plentiful,—this is to be
sought for as a counteraction to the powers of death. Let
them be as Btrong as they wdll, there must be that which is
stronger."
Polytheism 9. To these Powers of life and production, then, Zerduscht
ofZerduscht raises his prayer. It is idle to pretend that he invokes only
one Power. The litanies of the Zendavesta are addressed to a
multitude of Powers. And yet the opinion is not so wrong as
it may seem. Zerduscht would have affirmed himself that he
worshipped only Ormuzd. He felt assuredly that as all which is
Mono- destructive and evil tends to division, so everything which is
element good tends to unity. This was not a theory in his mind, as it
latent in it. would have been in a Hindoo's ; it was a strong practical con¬
viction which he did not so much utter in words as exhibit
in his acts. He worshipped goodness. Whatever seemed to be
doing good, to be acting beneficially for man whether in nature
or out of nature, this seemed to him to have proceeded from
Ormuzd, and to have a tendency to return to him.
Ormnzd 19. The Magians were of course astrologers. Their tendency
light. was to contemplate the stars as evil agencies,—prophets of
mischief to man. Zerduscht does not depart from the line of
thought which he finds in his country. Light is the object
of his reverence. Light is evidently the great source of fruit-
fulness to the earth. Light is man's benefactor. It becomes
ZERDUSCHT.
77
identical in Zerduscht's mind with Ormuzd. It ia Good, or
such a witness and symbol of Good as he cannot distinguish
from it. Hymns and invocations to Light are surely means of
resisting the dark being and his agents,—means of bringing
good to the land, and to those who cultivate it.
11. Zerduscht was, therefore, as practical a man as Khoung- Prayer the
fou-tseu, as much aiming at the increase of the wealth of his ^ap0n of
country in the simplest sense of the word. But he was directly the Persian
opposed to the Chinese, in that devotion'Vas his great instru- eviTpowars.
ment. The word "instrument" is hardly adequate to express
this difference. Zerduscht did not look upon prayer in any
sense as a mere means to a result; it was in his mind an actual
looking up to a Power who was capable of helping men against
their enemies. The petitioner is driven to it by the might and
the multitude of the evil powers which are striving against him.
His litanies, if they seek for material blessings and deliverance
from material evils, yet are undoubtedly addressed to some invi¬
sible Power, some Power of Light, against a tyrant partly
visible, partly invisible, who would make all his acts and his
thoughts contused and dark. It is not easy to say how much Prayer
of visible idolatry he would himself have tolerated; but the ™viMbie°
testimony of Herodotus as to the character of Persian worship powers,
is certainly entitled to very great weight, and is not, we con¬
ceive, overborne by any clear evidence on the other side. He
felt the absence of' visible symbols to be the characteristic dif¬
ference between the Persian service and his own. Though he
did not see the empire in the time of its strength, when we
may suppose the Zerduscht reform to have been most strongly
felt, yet we may be sure that its influence had not passed away;
and we may fairly conclude that it was not only a protest
against the worship of Ahriman, but against the homage to
visible things, which his servants the Magi will doubtless have
encouraged. All the petitions of the Zendavesta seem to point,
primarily at least, to powers and influences,—powers and influ¬
ences, as we have said already, which dwelt in natural things,
but still which were not congnizable by the senses. This dis- Tbe later
tinction we may believe would come out more and more promi- gi've^pthe
nently in the two opposing worships, till at last some eclectical visible world
philosophy, seeking to establish a kind of reconciliation betweent0 A rimau-
them, and to make a fair distribution of their respective pro¬
vinces, will have assigned the whole outward framework of
things to Ahriman as his proper and original territory, main¬
taining the invisible as the creation of Ormuzd, and that through
which he was carrying on repeated assaults and iucursions upon
the possessions of his rival.
78
PERSIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Opposition
between
ZerduRCht
anil the
Brahmins.
The Persian
morality.
Xenoplion.
Time
without
bounds.
How this
idea entered
into the
faith of
Zerduscht.
12. But there was so such eclecticism as this in Zerduscht
himself, or in auy of his true followers. His faith was in a per¬
petual uncompromising war between the powers of good and
evil. The earth was no permitted or tolerated habitation of
Ahriman or his subjects ; on the contrary, it was for the sake of
the earth and for its restoration that all prayers and sacrifices
were to be addressed to Ormuzd. And herein certainly is the
interest of the Zerduscht doctrine and reformation for the moral
philosopher. It was a search after light, an inquiry after the
Being who gives light and order to the universe. Only this
source of light and order did not present itself mainly to the
Persian as an intelligence, but mainly as one who is right and
true. Good and evil, right and wrong, became in his mind much
more primitive, fundamental distinctions, than they ever did in
the mind of any heathen people of the east or of the west. The
Persians were much more distinctly a moral people than the
Hindoos, or than any tribe of the Greeks. Xenophou's romance
is a distinct acknowledgment of this fact by a Greek. Though
he must have had plentiful experience of the gross dishonesty
into which they fell when they were engaged in transactions
with his countrymen, yet he still recognised and admired this
as the typical form of that character which he had seen in some
measure in the younger Cyrus, aud which he fancied, or tried to
fancy, had been exhibited almost perfectly in the founder of the
nation.
13. In one way it has been supposed that Zerduscht did
recognise a kind of reconciliation between the divinity whom he
abjured and the divinity whom he worshipped. A Time without
bounds, it has been thought, lay in the mind of the .Reformer,
beneath all his conceptions either of a good or evil being; both
alike must have proceeded from it. That there are litanies in
the Zendavesta which suggest such a notion, and which may be
as early as the time of Zerduscht, it is impossible to deny ; that
the doctrine which is deduced from them very greatly influenced
the later Persian pliilosophy we shall see when we come, in the
second part of this sketch, to consider how it ati'eeted, and was
affected by, the faith of the Christian church. But that this
abstraction really interfered in any practical sense with the
homage—theexclusive homage—which Zerduscht paid to Ormuzd,
and to the different benignant powers which he supposed to pro¬
ceed from him, there is, we conceive, not the slightest proof.
The use of prayers to a Time without bounds did, it seems to
us, express the teacher's consciousness that there must be a
deeper Unity, a more absolute Being, than he had apprehended.
He was not satisfied—how could he be ?■—with a Being whom he
ZERDT7SCHT.
79
must contemplate as one and almighty, and yet who was identical
with every gracious influence, every productive power. For the
sake and honour of Ormuzd himself he needed some other more
distinct mode of declaring him, of invoking him. This was the
mode—awkward and incoherent, leading to the very consequence
which he sought to avoid, pregnant with future abstractions
and confusions, but one which a man so thoroughly practical as
Zerduseht could resort to without any care about its speculative
difficulties, as an escape for his spirit from a real and oppressive
contradiction, as a way of bringing his worship into closer sym¬
pathy with his human and political faith.
14. The Cyropa?dia, and the testimonies of Herodotus respect- The Persian
ing the feelings of the Persians towards their king, and his in- kinK-
separable connection with their worship, fully confirm another
most important inference which we should deduce from the
legends respecting Zerduseht. The Magian, officially, was his
antagonist; some monarch was always the ally in his reforms.
To exalt the royal above the sacerdotal function, to prevent the
kings from being the servants of the priests, was unquestionably
a great part of his work. Herein he was probably acting out a An antngo-
faith which was far older in Persia than himself. It is difficult
not to trace—most modern historians have traced—an opposition
between the Persian and Median tribes (an opposition not pre¬
venting bnt necessitating an attempt at union between them),
which points to more than the strife of mere personal feelings
and interests. The Median predominance seems always to in-Medians and
dicate the triumph of a priestly order and of priestly habits; i>CT8ia,ls-
the Persian prevalence shows that a king is ruling who knows
that he is a king, and is determined to maintain his authority
against all opposers, by whatever visible or invisible instruments
they may work. The nobler kings, such as were Cyrus and
Darius Hystaspes, do not merely proclaim their own tyranny.
The) assert that Ormuzd is King; they are as entirely religious
as those who are leagued against them ; their faith is the ground
of all their acts; in the strength of it they decree justice,
organize satrapies, improve the tillage of the land, constitute one
of those mighty monarchies in which we recognised the charac¬
teristic strength and spirit of Asia. In those monarchies every¬
thing depends upon the central power, or rather upon the
earnestness with which the central power confesses its subjection
to a gracious and beneficent Power in whose name it rules and
fights. The inscriptions which Major Eawlinson has recently
interpreted show how remarkably this was the case with Darius Darius
Hystaspes: they embody the very spirit of the Zerduseht refor- H>stasPes-
mation, and might almost tempt us to the notion, a favourite
with some German critics, (not, however, it seems to us, com-
80
PEttSIAJN" PHILOSOPHY.
patible with any of the popular traditions,) that he was iden¬
tical with the Prophet. He no doubt realised the conception
of the teacher much more than any mere teacher could have
realised it. His order was that attempt to imitate the order of
Thekinp the the heavenly bodies, the calmness and regularity of Nature,
light" °f whmh one wh0 looked upon light as the centre of the outward
universe, and the king as the centre of the human society, would
especially have admired and rejoiced in.
weakness of 15. But in the heart of this order, wonderful as it was, lay
order and seeds of weakness and decay. The king confessed a King
m,ad- mightier than himself; a King in whom dwelt supreme right and
justice. But he was the one utterer of the will of this higher
Sovereign; his own absolute dominion represented the divine
absoluteness. The light which comes forth from the heavenly
bodies may symbolize a goodness and wisdom that penetrates
into the remotest corners, that quickens and enlivens the least
thing as well as the greatest, calling forth its own distinct
nature and properties. But this light may be looked upon as
gathered into one luminous orb, an object of distant reverence,
altogether unlike the materials on which it shines. Such was
more and more the tendency of the Persian mind; the Zerduscht
reform did not resist it for more than a short time, nay, in one
sense promoted it. There was probably in him more of tribe
feeling, more of patriotism in the western sense of the word,
than we commonly meet with among Asiatics. But the strength
which his faith gave to the monarchy soon made it, like the
great monarchies that had preceded it, impatient of boundaries,
eager to swallow up all tribes within itself, careless of their dis¬
tinctions. Zerduscht's zeal in breaking the chains of priestly
domination, which had preventedthe free activity of the sovereign,
might give a large scope to beneficent government, and be the
instrument of putting down a multitude of abuses and abomina¬
tions that were fostered by the Ahrimanic devotion. On the
other hand, he weakened the witness which was latent in the
priestly character, which could not be wholly lost even after the
priest had become a servant of evil powers, that there is a refuge
tor the oppressed subject when the visible ruler becomes a mere
self-willed despot, when all feeling of relationship to his subjects
has forsaken him, when he pays habitual homage to Ahriman.
The later history of Persia, while it interprets the meaning and
illustrates the power of Zerduscht's principle, shows also how
small a protection it afforded against this danger ; what an open¬
ing, nay, what a necessity there was for Magian conspiracies and
counter-revolutions to check the regal tyranny, even to restore
it when it had fallen through its own crimes and weakness; what
a still greater need there was that some witness, which Asia
ZERDUSCHT.
81
could not afford, to prove that life and movement are necessary
for man, as well as a fixed eternal law.
16. Those who find an especial delight in proving eminent zerdnscht's
teachers of former generations to be impostors, charlatans, or ambition
knaves, dwell much upon some of the legends of Zerduscht's Cism.ana
life, which convict him, they think, of many violent and ambitious
acts. When it is settled how much of these legends are entitled
to credence, we may accept them as evidence against the
Eeformer. But to reject all the records which show the high
estimate that his countrymen formed of him, as mere fictions—
to assume those as veracious, though not less miraculous, which
offend our consciences—is a monstrous violation of critical fair¬
ness. The total inference which they leave upon our mind is
certainly this, that Zerduscht was possessed with a sense of his
vocation to put down, by all possible means, the Abrimanic
worship, to assert the worship of Ormuzd. Whether this should
be done or not was a question of life and death ; the material, as
much as the spiritual, well-being of Persia depended upon it.
We have no doubt that, in the accomplishment of this purpose,
he stirred up wars, persecuted, urged his own claims to inspira¬
tion, till he may sometimes have forgotten the work in its
champion. But we are equally convinced, from the results of
his labours, that he did, in the main, sacrifice himself to the
cause, and not the cause to himself.
17. By doing so he has, we think, earned for himself a right Zerdusc|lt
to no unimportant place in a history of Philosophy. The name in what
does not belong to Persia, or to the Persian character as it was p^fosopber.
formed by Zerduscht. The light which the Persian worshipped
told him what it behoved him to follow, what to shun. Their
rule of right was given once and for ever ; whoso trangressed it
was doomed. There was no room for speculation. They
abhorred it as leading to confusion and darkness—refined sym¬
bolism implied in their minds falsehood, and traffic with evil
spirits. Intellectual subtlety of all kinds in the days of their
strength they crushed with law and the sword, as leading to
dishonesty and trickery; in the days of their weakness, they
shrunk from it as an unknown mysterious power which they
could not cope with. The fanaticism of Cambyses in Egypt, the
struggles which are attributed to Zerduscht with the intellec-
tuaHsm and priestcraft of the Brahmin, exhibit some aspects of
this character towards foreigners. We have now to contemplate
another ; we have to see in what sense the Persians were philo¬
sophers, by viewing them in contrast with the nation to which
that title strictly and originally belongs; the nation which, in
every stage of its existence, merits the apostle's description,
" They seek after wisdom."
VOL. I. G
( 82 )
CHAPTER VI.
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
DIVISION I.—PERIOD BEFORE SOCRATES.
section i.
greek wisdom in the legendary ages.
Cut ere and 1. The opposition betvceen Greece and Asia presents itself to
onitrast6 the schoolboy who is reading the Homeric poems. It meets
between the again in the first pages of Herodotus ; he traces it through.
"s ' the whole of his varied narrative ; it connects the episodes with
the main story ; it gives a unity to books which strike him at
first as confused and miscellaneous. In them, Persia gradually
becomes the representative of Asia; the glorious conflict of the
historian's own age interprets all the ages that had preceded it.
Wherever the young reader turns he is reminded of this contrast,
and the connection between the two people. He finds it in the
retreat of the Ten Thousand; it is forced upon him by the efforts
of the leader of that retreat to bring Persian manners and Per¬
sian virtues before the minds of his countrymen. He cannot
dwell upon the conflicts of the republics among themselves
without some event to recall to him the monarchy which had
sought to crush them, and which they had defied. The mind of
Demosthenes is inspired by the thought of that republican
triumph, when he determines that a pretended Greek shall not
obtain the dominion which the ruler of the whole barbarian
world could not win. It inspires no less the heart of the son
of the hated Macedonian, when he goes forth to prove that the
signal-fires which proclaimed that Troy had fallen were faithful
rophecies that the furthest regions of the East should bow
efore the descendants of Odysseus and Neoptolemus.
Ground of 2. A few very notorious facts will show that the opposition
tinscontrast. wyiic]1 thus presents itself on the surface of the history existed
in the heart of these nations. The student perceives at once
urmuzd and that Ormuzd was not the god of the Greeks. Goodness is not
Zpus' the primary characteristic of any one of their divinities. What
their essential and common quality is, it is not, we think, hard
to discover. The continually recurring epithet fitirtera, as
applied to Zeus, immediately suggests it. The title Cloud-
compeller may express his acts: this is clearly meant to be sig¬
nificant of his very nature. For it is not a solitary expression ;
the more we consider the different transactions which Homer
attributes to the father of gods and men, the more do we find
" counsel" to be the main quality which is indicated by them.
THE LEGENDARY AGES.
83
The mind of the god may be swayed by various impulses and
passions, but he always acts with a purpose and devises a train
of means for the accomplishment of it.
3. The other gods are like Zeus. Apollo is the deviser and Counsel tiie
suggester of counsels; Athene still more conspicuously. If file Lrw-k'
this character is wanting in Ares and Aphrodite, they become,
for that reason, objects of ridicule to mortals, let the sword of
the first and the girdle of the other be ever so mighty.
4. This quality seems to involve at once the idea of secresy and
of society. The counsels are carried on deep within the heart of
the divinity, but they must be shared. Zeus must communicate
his intentions, or part of his intentions, to the Olympian
assembly; they must be submitted to discussion, deliberation,
opposition: there must be ministers to execute them; often
opposing agents to thwart them. Instead of various beneficent
powers, all proceeding from Ormuzd, all invoked by his name,
all united against the realm of darkness, the Greek does homage
to a number of beings who are bringing about a result by their
conspiracies and contradictions, who are in themselves neither
good nor evil, who have the same inclinations to good and evil
with human beings, who often seem physically not more power¬
ful, but who have a depth and subtlety of wisdom to which men
cannot attain.
5. In Persia the king presents an image of god, but he is not
personally related to him. Ormuzd is continually contemplated kinsi,\,.iu ^
as the unapproachable light; his goodness, though it is shown from Zvus
in acts of mercy to man, is not to be confounded with human
goodness. But the counsellors in Olympus are always related
to sages below; they meet with mortal nymphs, become the
fathers of earthly heroes, impart to them their sceptres and
their wisdom. The kings reign as sons of Jove. In early times
the feeling of belonging to the divine race is the warrant of their
sharing the divine attributes. There is never the least doubt
what is the special and necessary constituent of royalty ; it is royal riia-
not physical strength—it is not mercy, kindness, justice—it is ractens,K
not courage ; it is the being a man of many devices. Courage,
justice, mercy, may or may not be added to this.gift or be
involved in it; but it is the fundamental one, all others are
accessory. Strength is thrown into the shade in those heroes
in whom we would expect it most; lightness and grace are
preferred to it: Achilles is the " swift-of-foot." The ambush
and stratagem, as has been so often observed, are quite as much
the test of the hero as the open fight. Diomed shows his
heroic talent not more in wounding Ares than in persuading
Glaucon to change the golden armour for the iron, that worth a
hundred oxen's hides for that worth nine, when they are meeting
84
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
as friends on the field of battle and telling the story of their kins-
manship. These are indications of a deep and pervading spirit,
exhibiting itself, be it remembered, in a stage of society which
we are wont to speak of, and in one sense rightly, as one of
great simplicity, and in those fights where strength and personal
TiicHomeric prowess might seem to be all in all. Clearly tbey are not all in
aniirouncil- ; council-chamber is as much a part of the Homeric pic-
< hamber. ture as the field of battle: on that field, if we see distinct
heroes in a death-struggle, we see also the troops moving
collected, in ranks, in silence (an excellence which, except on a
field of battle, would not have been specially characteristic of
Greeks).
tiitytypeof No one who considers the story of Odysseus, and feels, as
ihe Greek all have felt, that he represented actually and prophetically all
nation. 0f hj8 country's mind and tendencies, will doubt that TroXvfxrtriq
is the epithet for the Greek hero as much as for the god. But
no one who feels the exceeding beauty, delicacy, pathos of that
story, will admit for a moment that "cunning" or "crafty" is
an adequate — even the most distant approximation to an
adequate—version of that title. All possibilities of craft and
cunning lie in it; such qualities can scarcely have been
morally offensive to the man or the nation that claimed it as the
Trirknot most honourable of all badges. Within it also lay the possibi-
e-sfiitiai to a wisdom which might rise superior to tricks and false-
riiaracter. hood, which might discover them to be essentially foolish. The
" man of many counsels" had a large sympathy, a wonderful
power of communicating with men, of receiving impressions
from them, of making an impression on them. He had the
its noble clearest, sharpest faculty of observation; all the forms of nature
iiuaimes. presented themselves to him in their distinctest outline, with all
their varying shadows. Animal nature did homage to the
higher instinct which dwelt in him. He felt that material
things were given him to shape and mould, and quicken.
Though fond of seeing the ways and the cities of men, he had
still the sense of a home; the rocks of Ithaca were dearer to
him than all the world besides—dear to him for the sake of those
who dwelt there. He might cast away many ties which he found
established at his birth ; he might leave his father's house to
Sacredness become a wanderer and seeker of new lands : but the voluntary
t:olunmy bonds into which he had entered, the marriage-tie, the oath to
marriage, the kinsman, or fellow-citizen, or even the stranger, confirmed
by the divine sacrifice, were unspeakably precious; no perils or
wars were too long or distant to punish the breach of them.
Of all men he most understands the meaning and worth of
association, yet he is of all men the most tempted to choose a
wa) of his own : of all men he is most disposed to recognise law
THE LEGENDARY AGES.
85
and government as especially belonging to man, and distinguish¬
ing them from the inferior creatures ; the most inclined to break
loose from law and government, in his eagerness to assert the
skill of men to create them for themselves.
7. In process of time some of these great contrasts, especially Contrast of
the last, were exhibited in the rivalship of the Dorian and Ionian j^'^1 and
tribes. Though we may be continually tempted to fix upon the
last as the proper specimens of the Greek character, though
there is great excuse for such a notion, yet it is only in contem¬
plating them as both equally Greeks that we can attain to a full
appreciation of that which distinguished this people from every
other on the face of the earth. If there were points of sym- The
pathy between the Lacedemonian and the Persian character, ^hoppoKed
there was also the strongest repulsion between them. The to the
Spartan Pausanias, affecting the airs of an Asiatic satrap, is a Pcr8,ai^
far more ludicrous object than Themistocles would have been in
the same position. The Spartan kings when compared with the
king exhibit the difference between the East and West even more
strikingly than the Athenian democracy. The legislation of
Lvcurgus is as little like that of the Medes and Persians as
Solon's. If we inquire the reason of the difference, we shall Both
find that counsel or wisdom, not goodness, is the object of faith Greek.'"1'*
and reverence as much with one tribe as the other. It was the
very fact of their having this common ground to start from—
the sense of a community of feeling and of language—which made
the differences of their conceptions respecting the conditions of
wisdom and the modes of attaining it so remarkable, and their
actual contests so terrible. Indeed, the existence of such
opposing tribes, and the vast influence which they were both
able to exert, suggest the greatest and most memorable contrast
between European and Asiatic life. The vastness of the oriental
despotism, with all the different races blended together, sub¬
mitting to one central lord—what a picture is this to contemplate
side by side with the struggles of two small cities, each possessed
with the idea of one government or principle being better than
another, ready to destroy or be sacrificed for the sake of its own
maxim—imparting the conviction of it, and the enthusiasm for
it, to twenty other cities in different parts of the world, and in a
measure to every man who dwelt in every one of them ! And it
must never be forgotten that, amidst all these conflicts, there
was still the common Hellenic name—there was still the feeling
in all Greeks that they were separated from barbarians by that
name, and by the gifts which it indicated—there was still the
god of Delphi who gave counsel to the Ionians and Dorians
alike, and from whom the rulers of Asia believed that oracles
proceeded by which they also might be guided.
86
GRECIAN PniEOSOPnT.
Delphi. 8. The acknowledgment of this teacher of civil wisdom, who at
the same time could not easily be separated from the source of light
to the world, is one of those facts in Greek history which every
Apollo noil thoughtful student has seen to be full of significance. Apollo
the light. ant[ Artemis, as our own great poet has said, " held the sun and
moon in feethey, beautiful beingB, with human forms and
human sympathies, possessed and governed these natural orbs;
the material light which proceeded from them was only an
emblem of the light which was imparted to the mind of him who
sought help from the divine priestess. This inspiration was not
merely produced by the exhalations of the cave, nor was it con¬
fined to her—the votary shared it in a much more practical sense.
Inspiration, In later times, belief in an inspiring god, prompting the highest
song as well as the wildest revelry, became embodied in the
legends and the festivals of Dionysus. The Greek felt an
impulse near him which was degrading him into a beast and a
slave, and one which could raise him into a man and free¬
man. His actual history proved the truth of both his con¬
victions.
i'r?imnd ^eu9 the G"reeks is very different from Ormuzd,
'lu' " he is almost as unlike to Brahm. The object of Hindoo worship
we have seen is Intelligence, but it is intelligence as contrasted
with action. Every Greek legend exhibits gods or heroes as
the teachers of some art, as deliverers from some plague or
nuisance, as making some one region habitable, or introducing
communication between different regions, as establishers of law
and order, as builders or defenders of cities. The main tendency
of the Greek mind is certainly to contemplate intelligence only
as bearing upon action, leading to direct practical results,
governing material things and bodies of men.
10. Hence the skill, or counsel, or wisdom of the Greek was
especially valued for its creative or productive powers. The
(,mk more this power exerted itself, the more various the directions
sc I'll -ism. -which it took; the more the suspicion began to arise in the
miuds of the people, that they were themselves the authors of
that to which they looked up,— that the king, the priest, the god,
wore their own handiwork. Hence there lay in the very heart
of the faith of the Greek a seed of unbelief, which was con¬
tinually fructifying. Hence this unbelief was likely to be most
active in those whose faculties were the liveliest and the most
energetic. Hence, also, there was something akin to it in the
popular feeling and sympathy, even then when it clung most
fondly to its old legends and ceremonies. These were loved
with a parental more than a childlike fondness; the Greek clave
to them as his own, as something which he was to hold against
others, not which he depended upon and revered himself.
THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY.
87
11. If Zeus and Apollo hold the highest place as objects of Hermes.
Greek devotion, Hermes had his own special honour. The The p(wer
teacher of words, the author of eloquence, had conferred a gift of words,
upon mortals which the Greeks felt to be greater and more
wonderful than the gifts of corn and wine. Their latest his¬
torian poiuts out with especial carefulness and earnestness, how
in the very infancy of the nation the power of words was
recognised ; how significant was the picture on the shield of
Achilles, of the trial in the Agora, ana the pleaders who sup¬
ported each side; how public speaking was felt to be " the
standing engine of government and the proximate cause of
obedience,"1 long before the heroical had given place to the his¬
torical period. The most careless reader of the Iliad must have
been struck by the poet's sense of the wonder which lies in
" winged words," by the emphasis with which he recognises
them as the especial characteristic of human beings, by his
feeling that through them men held communication with the
gods as well as with each other. The power of wisdom and the
power of words became indissolubly connected in the Greek
mind. By these, men exerted the highest influence of which
they were capable; they flew forth from the lips of the speaker
messengers of health or of destruction ; they were in the most
remarkable sense his. Yet there was that in them which he
did not make ; an order to which he was obliged to conform.
12. The mysteries expressed something which words could The
not express. So far as these were connected with Demeter and "^l^hey
her worship, they bore reference of course to the secret and imported
productive powers of vegetables or animals ; they might be in¬
vested with a more material significance, they might be
associated with all gross and sensual images. But the importance
which was attached to them by statesmen showed that they
were acknowledgments of a wisdom dwelling somewhere, which
could not be measured or reduced into human forms, by which
the operations of nature, of the mind, and even of political
society, were ultimately regulated.
SECTION II.
THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY.
1. The seven wise men bear the same relation to the after The wise
history of Greece which the seven champions of Christendom
bear to the history of the Middle Ages. No doubt Bias,
Pittacus, Periander, Solon, belong to the region of fact; St.
George and St. Denys chiefly to that of fable. But their mys-
1 Grote, vol. ii. c. xx. p. 106.
GEECIA.TT PHILOSOPHY.
tical number shows that they were felt to represent different
aspects of the same character. Amongst them are included
tyrants, legislators, students of nature. There were the most
various reports respecting them. One said that they all occupied
themselves with poetry.1 Another that they were merely a set
of clever men concerned about law-making.2 They were reported
to be favourites of Croesus, with the exception of Thales. Others
spoke of their meeting together at the Panionium, or at Delphi.
Hie various 1 hese reports may all be correct. They were, no doubt, mainly
hem recon- of sagacity, aovtrdi, held to possess the divine, heroic,
•iiabie. Odyssean gift in a greater degree than their neighbours. That
they should have been fond of putting their thoughts in verse
was natural. It was a language different from that which men
spoke in the market—more than met the ear was expressed by
it; common men felt the power of it; a notion of prophecy was
still connected with it. That these sages should have cultivated
the acquaintance of a great Asiatic dynast, some for a directly
personal object, some for the sake of their city, some for the
pleasure of exhibiting the power of the Greek in contrast with
that which seemed so much greater and was so inferior, is pro¬
bable. That they should still have been thoroughly Greeks,
should have interested themselves in all Greek events for council
and government, might also have been concluded. Por this
reason they will no doubt have held much intercourse with
Delphi.
rlie different 2. But, supposing these to have been common characteristics,
which their there was room for the widest divergency in their pursuits,
wisdom took One might glorify himself upon his knowledge of all the weak¬
nesses of his fellows ; might apply to his own use the recognised
Greek maxim, that the wise man was to have dominion over
fools; by fair means or foul, by courtesy or violence, by benefi¬
cent acts or destructive ones, he might make himself a tyrant.
The tyrant. His claim to that title, his power of holding it, would still be,
not that he was member of some illustrious family, or that he
supported some particular theory, or that he was a military
chief; but that he was a wise man. Another might count it a
The much nobler work to lay down rules for the preservation and
legislator. Well-being of the city in which he dwelt—rules that would endure
after he ceased to belong to it; he might part with ease, wealth,
temporary power, for the sake of compassing this end. Such a
man would be a legislator in the higher sense of the word ; but his
legislation would still be a form of his " wisdom." He would be
listened to and obeyed only so far as he had acquired the repu¬
tation of being a wise man, and could retain it. Lastly, if a
1 Diog. Laert. lib. i. c. i. b. 14. 2 coverobs vivas ical vo/ioflfTiKovs.
THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY.
89
man had acquired any of the properly oriental lore, if he had The student
studied astrology, and could calculate eclipses of the sun, there of p^81"-
would be some perplexity in the Greek mind respecting him.
If he turned his studies in nature to account, either for his own
benefit or for the good of his country, he would be regarded as
essentially a politician; if he was seen to retire from society for
the sake of contemplation, he would be stigmatised as a star-
gazer. But still the phrase " wise man" would describe him in
both characters. It would denote the shrewdness which he dis¬
played in the common affairs of life ; it would intimate that he
knew or pretended to know things which people in general were
ignorant of.
3. In this last description our reader will recognise Thales, who £ "r*LES'
commonly holds the first place among the aoipoi. Herodotus qj 35 3
says that " he was a citizen of Miletus, and a Phoenician by or 35' 1'
descentDiogenes Laertius,1 that " be was believed by some B c 039
to have come from Phoenicia, and to have been made a citizen of or 030'
Miletus, but that the greater number of people believed him to ciinton,
have been a native, and of an illustrious family." The authority ¥-H-
of Herodotus must assuredly outweigh the judgment of this origin.B'at,C
" greater number of people," who, of course, were not willing
to share the glory of such a name with Asiatics. After all, the
Greeks have immeasurably the largest portion in him. If he
brought his astrology from Phoenicia, he was a thorough Milesian
in the application of it. To the lonians, says Herodotus,2 he
predicted the eclipse which happened when the Lydians and
Medes were fighting, and which led to a peace between them.
It was he, the Greeks generally believed—Herodotus had a dif¬
ferent opinion—who enabled Croesus to pass the Halys, by
turning the course of the river, when he was making his fatal
attack upon Persia.3 It was said, however, by others that he
was no friend of Croesus, that he prevented Miletus from allying
itself with his fortunes, and so saved it from the wrath of the
conqueror. Bias of Priene gave good advice to the Ionian cities
after their overthrow by Harpagus, but Thales, says Herodotus,4
had urged them before their fall to establish a common assembly,
and to fix it at Teos.
4. There were very opposite reports current respecting Thales. The
Some said that he bought up the oil-presses just before the olive {h^ereeks°f
season, that he might show how easily a wise man could make respecting
himself rich ; others told of his falling into a pit while he was
looking at the stars, and of his being mocked by an old woman
for knowing that which was over his head so much better than
1 Diog. Laert. lib. i. c. i. s. 1. 2 KXei», c. lxsiv. 3 KXeiu, c. lxxv.
4 KXeio), c. clxx.
90
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
The
philosophy
of Thales.
that which lay at his feet.1 These stories are both probably the
produce of Greek invention, but they indicate the uncertainty
of his countrymen whether they should assign him a place among
meu of business or theorists, and their notion that in some way
or other he blended the two characters. Neither of them, how¬
ever, accounts for the special distinction which he has acquired,
that of being separated from the rest of the ov<pol, and being
named a philosopher. He obtains that title from no less an
authority than Aristotle,2 who certainly would not have given it
him merely because he calculated eclipses, or studied astrology,
or made himself rich, or turned the course of the Halve, or sug¬
gested a common assembly of Ionians. Nor was the judge a
specially favourable one. Aristotle seems to have known little
of the Ionian sage. His words intimate that he had seen no
writings of Thales, or that there were none. He includes him
in a class which he compares to the untrained boxers, who deal
out many good blows, but without seience.3
5. " He maintained water to be the ground of all things, and
the world to have a soul, and to be full of demons." Such is the
account which the gossiping Greek biographer gives of the
" philosophy " of Thales. But this surely was not his philosophy;
it is merely the index to his philosophy. How came Thales to
think about water at all, or about a ground of all things, or about
a world with or without a soul, full or empty of demons ? What
put kim upon seeking when he had the reputation of having found
out so much more than other men ? And what was he seeking
for'( The word Philosophy is the plainest and best answer to
the question. He was thought to have got Wisdom, a wisdom
which might be used for ruling men, or making bridges, or
making money, or making laws. He had tried it in some of
these ways; not altogether without success. He had obtained
his full share of admiration. Probably if he had wished to put
himself at the head of some party in Miletus, or to embroil it
with some other city, he would have found his wisdom amply
Disappoint- sufficient. But he had cherished a more extravagant ambition ;
meiu- he had thought he could bind his countrymen and their cities
together; that he could make them a peaceful community.
Then he discovered that he had elements to deal with which did
1 Diog. Laert. lib. i. c. i. pp. 5 and S.
3 The words of Aristotle are not so strong as they are sometimes made to
appear. He calls him (Met. A. c. 3) 6 rijt roidvrrjs <pt\0(ro<blas,
meaning the philosophy which sought for a physical dgxb or clement. But
as this was the first school of Greek inquiry, the language certainly implies
that he was the first philosopher.
'A/ruSguis «al ouSev aatpebs, &.W' oHov iv ra?y fi&xal3 ayvuvatrrot iroiovoiv.
These words apply directly to Empedocles, but they evidently include all of
whom he has been speaking before.
Wisdom
seeking to
regulate
human
affairs.
TUE EEGINXI5TG OE PHILOSOPHY.
91
not acknowledge fixed laws, like the stars; bodies subject to
alternations of light and darkness that could not certainly be
predicted; strong currents which could not be turned out of The order of
their courses so easily as the Halys. Was it among these that nature'
he could look with any hope for the principle of order and
unity ? Must it not rather be in the world which offered itself
to his senses, a world subject no doubt to fierce convulsions, but
even in them confessing a control ? And the wisdom that we
boast of so much, can the first principle and root of it be in us ?
Must it not be somewhere else ? Must it not be there where
the caprices of men are not at work, or are counterworked by
an order which is mightier than they are ? Philosophy was the
search not for something else, but for Wisdom itself; for the
very thing of which other people thought he had the full usufruct
and masterv.
6. Whether, then, Thales dealt straight blows or random ones, The
he was the Greek who discovered that he must ask the question o?wisdom*
which the man of Uz asked long before: " Where is wisdom found,
and where is the place ot understanding ?"■—that it was one to search iorit.
which he and his countrymen were not yet provided with an
answer; that it was one to which they might from some source
or another expect an answer. If it is said, the answer of Thales
was poor and unsatisfactory—even more poor and unsatisfactory
on this showing than on any other—we may admit at once that
it was not the answer which was wanted for the sake of Thales,
or of Ionia, or of mankind. But we cannot admit that it was a The result at
worthless answer. The fact that moisture is necessary to the Thames
life of all things that live, to the growth of all things that grow, arrived,
is it nothing ? Does it not deserve to be noted ? No doubt
every one has noted it; as every one has remarked the fall of an
apple. Is not almost the whole difference between a man whose
eyes are in his head and one whose eyes are in the ends of the
earth, just this, that the one observes commonplaces, and thinks
of them, and that the other passes by and despises them ? It
cannot be said that Thales exaggerated the importance of the
fact which seemed to him so wonderful. He probably under¬
rated its importance. And if it appeared to him the one all-
absorbing fact, that to which every other was to bow and do
homage, let it be remembered that it was his fact, that for which His fact
he bad travelled, that which had presented itself with mighty "n'jgnificant
force and conviction to his mind. The world would not surelv one.
be the better if there were not some to treasure such facts with
a mother's love ; we suspect it would be very barren of all pre¬
cious observations and discoveries.
7. It may, however, be urged that such a course actually led Greek
and could only lead to scepticism ; that the early Greeks, if they BcePt,cl6ni-
92
GEE CI AN PHILOSOPHY.
had an insecure faith, had still some faith ; that they referred
wisdom to divine persons, if those persons were called Zeus,
Apollo, Athene ; that what is personal must be better than what
is impersonal; that to find the beginning of things in an element
like water is virtually to deny the existence of any distinct
divinity; that the doctrines attributed to Thales concerning the
world's soul, and the world being full of demons, contain the
germ of all the later Greek pantheism.
The true 8. These objections are very important, and require a serious
n)"srce of treatment. What we shall say of them at present will only be
scepticism. for the sake of removing perplexities from the student's mind,
and enabling him to see more clearly the answer which the sub¬
sequent history gives to them. We have observed already that
the seed of the most widely-spreading scepticism lay in the Greek
mind. The wise Greek had learnt to believe that he was not
sprung from the gods, but that they were sprung from him; that
their wisdom was derived to them from his. Every new exercise
of his faculties—those exercises especially which led to the pro¬
duction of beautiful forms of the divinity—strengthened this
conviction; it had already taken unconscious possession of a
multitude of minds, it was working itself rapidly into conscious¬
ness. Now surely the feeling, " I do not possess wisdom, I
must look for it," instead of being an aggravation of this ten-
The dency, was a powerful counteraction of it. If Thales had dis-
of Timies an carded all faith in Apollo and Athene, and had substituted the
effort to belief in water as the first germ of all things for it, he would at
himself! °Ir. ^east ^ave ^een laying hold of a fact in nature of which he was
not the author, while the tendency of his countrymen was to
believe nothing except that which they had created. But, so far
as we see, the effect of physical inquiries on his mind was not
this at all. The acknowledgment of something beyond himself,
out of himself, seems rather to have given a religious awe to his
The mind. " Can our ill doings escape the eye of the gods ?" " Nay,
awjfwhfch not our thoughts," Thales is said to have answered. The words
accom- are less like what a later Greek would have uttered than most
p me i. ^ ^oge are attributed to him ; if they are genuine, they
may be taken to interpret the other words, " that all things are
full of the gods or of demons."
The; world 9. Whether this phrase of Thales pointed most directly to the
demons. connection of demons with himself, or with the world which he
beheld through his senses, we may not be able to ascertain.
Probably if we had asked him, he could not have told us. The
question which occupied him was just this : whether that which
he knew was working in him might not have its original home,
its highest throne, in Nature ; whether the order which he per¬
ceived there might not be the order to which he belonged ? But
THE FIRST SCHOOL.
93
it would be a very great mistake to suppose that because he was
engaged iu this inquiry, all past traditions which reminded him
of beings like and related to man were indifferent to him.
Poseidon and Oceanus may have been more, not less, venerable The World,
to him, from the significance which he attached to the element
of water. And when he is said to have believed in " a world
with a soul," we must not allow ourselves to be perplexed by the
determinations of the more recent schools from which this lan¬
guage is derived.1 Aristotle felt that Thales was rather seeking
to know what the soul is, than settling whether it should be
attributed to the universe. Thales seems, he says, to have con¬
sidered it " a moving power or principle."2 He found a living
moving power in himself, apart from which his own solid body
would have been a mere heap of atoms ready to fall into pieces.
He found a living power in nature—water or moisture—apart
from which the solid framework of things would have been a
mere dead heap of atoms. The two facts illustrated and explained
each other. It was natural to give a common name to both.
What is this which I call soul, or wisdom, in myself—that which The wai.
distinguishes Greeks from barbarians, slaves from freemen P Is
it not here also, or a particle of it, or perhaps the very root
and ground of it ?
SECTION III.
THE FIRST SCHOOL.
1. We ought to distinguish the first philosopher from those The w°rdM
who follow him, that we may not be confused by the word school, what™
or derive our definition of it from times in which it meant
chiefly the receivers, transmitters, expounders, developers of a Greeks.y
certain set of theories about gods, men, and nature. The men
of that which is called the Ionic school were not, in this sense,
disciples of Thales. They did not adopt his maxim respecting
water, incorporate it with certain maxims of their own, and
establish a sect called after their founder. They were connected
together by a real bond ; but it was one of quite another kind.
They were all seekers after wisdom, and they all sought in the
same direction, though the conclusions at which they arrived
were markedly distinct and opposite. There have been some
who have represented this opposition as even more decided than
it actually was. It was a favourite practice in old digests of
philosophy to speak of Thales as referring all things to water,
Anaximander to earth, Anaximenes to air, Heraclitus to fire.
Thus the so-called four elements were amicably apportioned
1 "Efx\pvxos K&anos. Diog. Laert. lib. i. cap. i. 27.
2 KwtjtikiJv tc n«gt lib. i. cap. v.
04 GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
The among four Ionic teachers. In more learned and modern
d/vhied*9 treatises, the natural philosophers of Greece are divided into the
between the dynamical and mechanical—Tbales being assigned to the former
philosophers cfass. ^ imine(liate successor. Anaximander, to the second:
whence it is concluded that they cannot have stood to each other
in the relation of master and disciple.
anaxi- 2. Now Thales did, as we have seen, refer to water as a first
bornDER' principle. Anaximander was a geographer and an inventor of
B c 610 geographical instruments. The earth, therefore, considered as
01 42 3 t^le c,),nldex of sea and land, occupied much of his thoughts.
Clinton,' But the Infinite (to aireipov), not the earth, was his watchword.
F- H- Such a phrase shows that an aggregate of phjenomena seemed to
him a worthier and more profitable subject of contemplation
than a vital power. On this ground he may be called anti-
dynamical. But the historian of philosophy has no right to
adopt a classification which is formally correct, if it is not one
which represents the contrast between the mind and purpose of
Division ^w0 iu(luirers- This opposition of "mechanical" and "dynamical"
between suggests the notion that Thales and Anaximander devoted them-
an(iamical selves to the study of nature, in the sense and spirit in which a
mechanical modern German or Englishman devotes himself to it; that is to
phm?*why sa7' w^h a distinct consciousness that the physical world is one
ab'icCti°n" inTestioati°n> an(l the political or human world another.
It is very important, we conceive, to recollect that this was not
the case at all; that they were by vocation wisdom-hunters;
that they started their game in another ground, and were led bv
various accidents and impulses to follow it hither. The track of
the first pursuer was that in which the next ran, till some fresh
Relation of scent turned him out of it. Anaximander can hardly have been
manrterto enough t° hear Thales, yet he belonged to the same city, and
Thaies. was greatly influenced at least by the reports and traditions of
his predecessor. But Thales discoursed; he wrote—a difference
of the greatest practical importance. Thales, seeking for that
order in things which he could not find among men, lighted upon
a fact. Anaximander having to set down in written characters
the object of the student's, inquiries calls it the beginning or
Thi1oIso1^'hers e^emen^ (^PX'l or OTOLX£loy)-1 The name which seems so con-
wercseeking venient for pointing out the direction of the philosophy, to a
torunawcj. certain extent changes it. The pursuit of an apx>) threatens to
take the place of the pursuit of wisdom. Still more dangerous
was Anaximander's other phrase, " the Infinite." A formula so
comprehensive seemed to exhaust all possibilities. Philosophy,
just beginning, had already reached its goal. "What could it
nn mere"*16 beyond the unbounded! Let us, however, do
Phrase- 1 I)iog. Laert. lib. ii. cap. i. 9.1.
THE FIRST SCHOOL.
95
Anaximander the justice to believe that " the Infinite" was Dot Anaxi-
merely a formula iu his mind; that the name expressed thoughts maDder-
too deep for utterance; that he really bowed before that which he
could not measure and comprehend, while he seemed ambitious
of summing it up in a few syllables.
3. In Anaximenes we perceive the effect of the step which anaxi-
Anaximander had taken, and at the same time evident indications
of a return to the line which he abandoned. The word up^r) is B c 543 .
equivocal. It suggests the idea of " rule" as well as that of Q] 53 .
" beginning." Anaximenes seems to have perceived that the lived to
philosopher should seek for a power which rules, not merely for 01. 74.
an element or starting-point. Plutarch, who can never be taken The d0ut,ie
as a fair judge of the old philosophers, seeing that he con- force of the
templated all the subjects of their inquiry from entirely aword apx*>'
different point of view, may be received as evidence respecting
them when he attributes language to them which he is not
likely to have invented, and which has all the marks of an earlier
stage of thought. Anaximenes, he says, held that " the air rules The air and
over all things, as the soul, being air, rules in man."1 Such a thesoul-
phrase at once explains the assertion of Aristotle, that Anaxi¬
menes made air his apx9> and connects him with the seekers for
wisdom. This ruling power in man—this invisible, intangible
power, which nevertheless accomplishes such wonders, compels
huge bodies to obey it—what is it, where is it ? "We are looking
into the natural universe to see if it is there. Is not this air—
invisible, impalpable, all-penetrating, all-commanding,—the very
thing ? Jove was said of old to rule in the air; to be the cloud- The air and
compeller. May he not be this air ? It was a perilous question. Jove-
When it was answered in the affirmative by the untrembling
lips of later teachers, the result was fatal to all sense of a per¬
sonal moral ruler. We conceive the suggestion of it by Anaxi¬
menes may have been in quite a different spirit. The air may
rather have been humanised and glorified by its association with
Jove, than Jove naturalised and materialised by his identification
with the air. The coarseness of the old mythology may have
been diminished in the mind of the student; it may not have
been stripped of all its real associations.
4. There was, however, another danger lurking in such lan- Hbra-
guage, though not caused by it. The Greek was more liable, flourished
in practice, to confound the " great Counsellor" with the soul, b.C. 503 ;
the ruling element which dwelt in himself, than with the air. 01. 69,2
Of that tendency in his countryman, Heraclitus the Ephesian
1 Plutarch, De Placitis Philosonhorum, lib. i. (wegl ruv of"" V p'jj0n'
V i'lQ otrra auyKgarei
96
GEE CI AN PHILOSOPHY.
Hcraciitus. seems to have been especially aware; his dread of it seems to
be connected with all his political theories, his physical specula-
Politics of tions, bis individual sorrows. In his mind.it is quite evident
Heraclitus. . ■ , , , , J
that these were never separated.
Love of law. 5. He believed that we should fight to death for the law.
But he would not be a magistrate of Ephesus ; he would rather
play at dice with the children before the temple of Artemis.1
W hat good could come of making laws for evil men ? He would
live upon herbs upon the mountains rather than among those
Dislike of who banished their best citizens, and would not of their own
democracy choice have a good one left among them. Heraclitus, therefore,
was considered a stern aristocrat and despiser of the people.
Tet he is said to have received the civilities of the great king
with even more indifference than those of his countrymen. His
feelings towards them were, we should judge, much more those
of a disappointed lover than of a scorner. " Pride or insolence,"
he said, " should be stifled more diligently than a fire." The
vaunting of the Greeks, their sense of superiority to the rest of
the world, seems to have inspired him with pity and mourning.
" Tour knowledge of many things," he said, " does not give you
reason or wisdom." An obvious saying, in which, nevertheless,
much of his philosophy is latent. Is the individual soul, as
How his Anaximenes thought, the ruling power in man? Is it not in
philosophy itself a very poor, weak, insignificant thing, most contemptible
grew out of when it is most presuming ? Separate a man from his fellows,
feeling™°Dal an(l what is he worth ? Abolish laws, government, and what
Ail things, becomes of the atoms which compose your society ? What is
considered each good for ? You Greeks are always making the experiment,
unreal. See what comes of it in this city of mine ! See what infinite
disorder, what infinite cause for sorrow. Would not nature have
told you the secret if you had studied her ? We do not find a
set of individual energies and powers at work there. All things
TJje central are efficient and energetical only in their harmony ; only in their
1 * subjection to some central principle of life. Take that away,
and the things we behold are only phantoms ; the phenomena
of the universe exhibit only an endless flux. The coal without
reflux!1"1 the fire, is a man trying to exist in himself; the coal ignited,
receiving communication from another nature, there is a
man's soul enkindled by communication with a higher diviner
reason.
t?ire- 6. This statement and this comparison may explain why
Heraclitus has been supposed to attach so much sacredness and
significance to the element of fire. It seemed to him (old fables,
diligently considered and connected with facts of experience,
might teach him the lesson,) the vital quickening power of the
1 Dipg. Laert. lib. ix. cap. i.
THE FIRST SCHOOL.
97
universe; that which was or which expressed—sometimes it Heraciitus.
might present itself to him as the symbol, sometimes as the Symbol of
thing symbolised—the universal life, by participation in which J^"ntral
all particular things have their being; apart from which they power,
are unsubstantial, unreal. But this physical fire was never
divorced from the law which holds societies together, from
the higher and universal mind with which the individual
mind is meant to be in communion. When, therefore, we are The name of
told that Heraciitus said the object of man's life is to know JuPlter-
the name of Jupiter, we may be sure that Jupiter did not
mean to him either air or fire; that it did mean a reality
which he could not comprehend, which he desired should com¬
prehend him.
7. Such was Heraciitus, a man with a marked individual cha¬
racter, full of deep and pregnant intuitions. The vulgar notion Tbe crying
of him as the crj-ing philosopher must not be discarded as if it Phllos°Pher-
meant nothing, or had no connection with the history of his
speculations. His thoughts are like fragments torn from his
own personal being, and not torn from it without such effort
and violence as must needs have drawn many a sigh from the
sufferer. Neither is that other notion of him, as " the obscure
or dark" man, an unfounded one. The fire that was in his
heart and brain, and of which all the world around had presented
to him the image, no doubt emitted much smoke which confused
and stifled, not, perhaps, to his displeasure, the careless gazers
and passers by. But there was something within him which
neither his tears nor his smoke at all adequately represent. Tbe
sense of a harmony existing beneath a perpetual conflict of
powers, and making that very conflict the m^ans of their pre¬
servation. pervaded his being, gave the tone to all his thoughts,
and realised itself to him in all the inner forms and outward
images of nature.
8. These four men, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and The ionians
Heraciitus, have been usually regarded as constituting the Pr°Per-
Ionic school. There is a reason and an advantage in the classi- naturalists,
fication. They belonged to the same region, they were exposed
to similar external influences ; they succeeded each other at no
very considerable intervals; there was, we think, a certain
transmission of apprehensions and discoveries from the first to
the last. Still it is a needful preparation for the study of those
writers who were technically and practically the moral and meta¬
physical philosophers of Greece, that we should speak briefly of
two or three others, who, in different circumstances, were led to
occupy themselves chiefly with the phenomena and powers of
Nature.
TOL. I.
98
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
J>EMO-
CRITUS.
ji.o. 460.
01. 80.
Clinton.
The
traditional
contrast
between
him and
Heraclitus
not unim¬
portant.
Effects of a
irood temper
and easy cir¬
cumstances.
View of
inimaiiity.
9. "We depart a little from chronological order,1 for the sake
of bringing Demorritua of Abdera into immediate juxtaposition
with Heraclitus of Ephesus. The old story, which opposes the
smiles of the one to the tears of the other, is not without its
significance, either as to the characters of the men or of their
philosophies. He who recognises the existence of a central
power adequate to keep all things at one, who believes in an
order, must at times be overwhelmed by the distractions which
the actual world presents to him. In proportion to the intensity
of his belief will he be oppressed by the contradictious of expe¬
rience. Heraclitus worshipped law, and saw a multitude of
incoherent elements resolving to disregard it. He found a
refuge (but how imperfect a refuge!) in nature. There he
could detect an uniting organising energy. But how, with his
mind harassed and tormented by human confusions, could he
help also seeing their counterpart here; a whirl of atoms, which,
if the invisible compulsion that bound them together was for a
moment forgotten, must make the brain sick, and the heart
sadder than it was before.
10. But suppose a man should arise, whose position did not
lead him to meditate much on the perplexities of human society,
or to seek for the removal of them ; a man provided with exter¬
nal comforts, blessed with a good digestion, indifferent to fame,2
with a Greek habit of observation, with opportunities of seeing
various cities and men, for no one of which he has any passionate
preference ; and we need be at no loss to conjecture the results
at which he would arrive both in practice and theory. Every
one will see in such a man the elements of a benignant, agreeable,
sociable companiqp; of one who would regard the disorders of
humanity as mere eccentricities, to be noticed with so much the
more kindliness if the suspicion should intrude itself that some
of their results may be serious, even painful, to iliose who
exhibit them. He would gradually come to think even the word
" eccentricities" too strong to express variations which after all
might not be deviations from any standard. Eor is there a
standard,is there a centre? Can we find one in human beings,
can we find one in the physical world ? Our senses tell us of
no such. Perhaps we cannot depend on our senses. But have
we anything better to depend upon ? Can we see more than
those atoms, the sight of which so disturbed Heraclitus ? Is it
not worth while to get at them ; to examine and dissect the
world; to see what it is actually made of; to leave our own
1 reyove 8J roTs xp6"0is (&>s uvris (pjjffij/ iv r<2 p.iKptp Aiau6ap<p) veos Kctrh
irpeaSiWyv Ava^aySpav. Diog. L:\evt. i. ix. c. 7.
2 Aoue? 8£ Kal Afrfivace iA&eiv Kut pi) <rirov$aaai yfoad'tuai, $6%i)s Kctra-
<ppovwv. Diog. Laert. ubi sup. 5.
N:1( ' STERN
THE FIRST SCHOOL. U RSJ J V 99
-L-fc—JJr-tj' "Pa
guesses, dreams, beliefs, hopes, as much as may be out of the Democritus.
question ? Is not that the course for the sound physical inquirer How a wise
who wishes to know what may be known ? Js it not the course behave10
for the man who wishes to keep his mind quiet, easy, and healthy, himself,
without the disturbance of expectations, dark or cheerful, that
may never be realised ?
11. Here we seem to have Democritus the Thracian, whom Democritus
Aristotle and Bacon both honoured above the majority of Greek 1?^™ by
speculators, because he mixed, they thought, less of speculation Aristotle
with the actual observation of facts—because he looked hardily and Bacon-
at the materials of which the world is composed, without fearing
that he might meet something in it which must not be looked
at. We do not undervalue qualities which two such judges felt
to be important. Democritus no doubt has filled his place use of the
among physical inquirers, and has brought to light a kind of ^oarine.
investigation which is indispensable. But we may venture to
remark that if there had been no men more sombre and less
pleasant than he was, no inquirers who were haunted by the
sense of powers and mysteries of which he ignored the existence,
physical philosophy would have been as little possible as moral,
the examination of atoms would have been as lazily pursued and insufficiency
as little productive as the study of laws and of spirit.
12. Emperlocleft of Agrigentum presents us with yet another Emfedo-
phase of Greek life and feeling. Utterly unlike Democritus in flourishing
his indifference and equanimity, not less unlike Heraclitus in B.C. 455.
his scorn of the mob and his hatred of equality, this enthusiastic 01. 81,2.
Sicilian exhibited in his acts, his poetry, and his philosophy, all a lover of
the strange elements that were at work through so many ages eiuality-
in the political and physical microcosm in which he dwelt.
13. Nowhere had a man such an opportunity as in Sicily of influence
witnessing every change and condition of society ; nowhere had „ponhis
he more temptation to take part in its revolutions. Nowhere nnnd and
would he be more constantly reminded of the similar convulsions p 106
which are going on in the earth's womb, of the influence of
Nature upon man, of the powers which man is able to put forth
in opposing Nature. The last observation seems to have im¬
pressed Empedocles most, and to have connected itself with all
he had heard and read of divine helpers of men, who had in¬
structed them in mysterious arts, and had delivered them from
oppressive plagues. That there were still such helpers, and that Divine
he who studied the powers of nature diligently might still be teachers and
guided and inspired by them, seems to have been his inmost
conviction. It procured him the name of an enchanter; it was
mixed partially in his own mind with a confused notion that he
was himselt a kind of celestial person, who could wield natural
100
GEECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Empedocies. powers at his pleasure. But in general it would seem that he
used the wisdom which he had, honestly and benevolently, for
the good of others more than for his own glory ; and it is certain
that he was not content with that wisdom; he was a seeker
after the springs and fountain of it. For him the varied
powers in the universe could reduce themselves into no one
TLe war of element; the endless warfare of opposing forces, none of which
elements. couid destroy the other, none of which, perhaps, could sub¬
sist without the other—this was the marvel which tilled his
heart.
Thp human 14. It was no imaginary battle-field in the mind of Empedocies;
at«arm the selfsame powers which Homer had exhibited fighting for
nature. Greeks and Trojans were engaged in it. The human passions,—
love, hatred, friendship, dissension,—were all seen mixing in the
war of earth, air, fire, and water. Aristotle, the great classifier
of the world, is of course shocked at this confusion of physics
and ethics. "With much admiration for Empedocies as an
artist, he seems to have had a more than common dislike to him
value of this as a speculator. We may be excused from participating in his
confusion feelings, since that which offended him is for the historian of
human inquiries one of the most interesting of all facts, that
these early and zealous students of the outward world did not
and could not disengage it from the deeper perplexities which
they found in themselves and in human intercourse. To insist
upon their doing so is simply to insist upon their not following
out the great question which agitated their whole being. For
ourselves, we have no wish to separate Empedocies who won at
the chariot race, as his father had done before him, and who
fought for the liberty of Agrigentum, from Empedocies the
author of the KaSappoi, who as a poet forms a curious link
between Homer, Pindar, and his Eoman admirer Lucretius.
Anw-a- 15. Anaxayoras of Clazomeua; belongs by birth and early
c.ijrab. i>orn education to the Ionic school. But it was at Athens that he
died taught; to the iufiuences which surrounded him at Athens the
b c 428. direction of his mind and the peculiarity of his doctrines may,
Clinton. we thiuk, clearly be traced. Anaxagoras would have been most
Teariies in reluctant to confess this obligation; he was, it would seem, even
Athens. more utterly without patriotism, in the ordinary sense, than
e\en Democritua. " You care nothing for your country," some
The stars his one sa^ " Yery much indeed," was the answer; " my
country. country is there," pointing to the stars. There appears to have
been no affectation in such language. He was, to a degree in
which no Greek before him ever had been, absorbed iu mere
physical contemplation. Natural philosophy iu his mind was
separated from political wisdom, even opposed to it.
THE FIRST SCHOOL.
101
16. But this violent reaction against the habits and tendencies Anaxa^oras.
of his countrymen must have been produced by seeing them in Effect of
their fullest activity. The bustle of Athens drove him to the ^
stars. And into that country of his choice and adoption one him.
finds him unawares introducing the maxims of the one which he
despised. As he listened, wearily and with forced interest, to
the accounts of party affinities, club fellowships, alliances among
leaders formed and broken, which were brought him by some
favourite and admiring disciple, one can conceive how he was
led to reflect on the way in which a whole is made up of certain
portions that seem perfectly distinct, and which have a
mysterious attraction for each other; how the loss of that
attraction is what we mean by dissolution or destruction, how
by it all things are preserved in life. Out of such reflections, Homceo-
quickly transferred from the region for which he had an utter menie-
distaste to the one in which he delighted to dwell, the theory of
Homceumeriee, in which modern students have perceived the
germs of important discoveries respecting the laws of cohesion, Political and
may easily have developed itself. Pericles, we may be sure, natural-
would at once perceive the human analogy of which his master
had lost the sense, and though he might feel pleasure at being
transported for a while into a world so different from that in
which his ordinary work lay, and may have found his thoughts
elevated by the clearer and rarer atmosphere which he breathed
there, we cannot doubt how he applied the doctrine; where he Application
looked for the similar particles which he was to combine. For ^ctrfneby
that there must be a combiner, Anaxagoras also taught. The Pericles,
mere cohesion of particles was not sufficient. As Aristotle
observes, the particles could not be the cause of the change
which took place in their position and relation to each other.
17. Nous (Intelligence) was called in to produce and maintain Nons.
their fellowship—called in, the critic remarks, merely as 'scheme
resource when the other expedient for solving the difficulty had of the
been tried and failed. Be that as it may, the philosopher clearly univer8e-
told the Athenians that " all things at first were in a heap; that
Nous came in and set them in order" (turned a chaos into a
universe) ; a doctrine which had been always latent in the Greek
mind, of which the ^njrtera Zevg in Homer had been the indication
which was implied in the Ionic search for wisdom amidst
natural elements.
18. But if Anaxagoras had brought to light the principle connection
which his countrymen half-unconsriously recognised, he had °™°idS>wth
stripped that principle not only of certain confused sensual divinities,
additions which they had made to it, but of all which had
rendered it practically and vitally precious to them. This Nous,
which had set the stars in order, what was it to them ? It was
102
GEE CLAN PHILOSOPHY.
Anaxagoras. not Zeus ; not the acting, living ruler, taking part in human
Athenian affairs and interests, whom Homer had brought before them,
suspicions. ye£ ^ seeme(j £0 asgurDe all functions ; to do all the work
which they had ascribed to him. Was this what they had
meant; was there nothing else in their traditions and their
hearts besides this ? The conscience of the Athenians answered
that there was something besides this. But the answer was a
confused muttering one, mixed with a painful suspicion that
they did not habitually believe more than Anaxagoras told them ;
Grounds for not generally quite as much as he told them. Out of that mixed
impression, with the true indignation, the malignant hypocritical
bitterness which the different portions of it engendered, an
accusation of impiety against him naturally proceeded. Mixed
Accusation with it was another, which Anaxagoras must have listened to
of profoun(i astonishment. He was accused of Medism—a
disposition to betray Athens into the hands of Persia. Probably
the fact that there was such an empire as the Persian existing
had escaped him, or only remained with him as connected with
some geographical observation. But his devotion to the stars
may have furnished those who wished to wound Pericles through
the side of his teacher with a very plausible plea for representing
Excuse forit. him as having Magian tastes and propensities. The charge of
malignancy during the English Civil Wars, and of the Popish
Plot—of incivmne during the French Bevolution—was esta¬
blished by evidence which can leave us and our neighbours little
excuse for condemning the Athenian democracy, if they yielded
to such proofs. Anaxagoras, whether condemned for political or
religious offences, retired to Lampsacus, we are told, with a
Bmile of regret that his countrymen had exiled themselves from
him. He suffered less than almost any man would have suffered
from the loss of home ties and affections ; the stars were to be
His seen at Lampsacus as at Athens. It is difficult to feel all the
ams men . gy^^y we wjsh for a victim to the injustice of men in whose
welfare he took no interest, whose evils he had never sought to
reform.
section rv.
PYTHAGORAS.
bobn b.c. g08 ob 605 (beetle!) ; b.c. 570 (rodweix and clinton).
Transition 1. We pass from the least political to the most political of all
kinYof* Greek philosophers. The records concerning Pythagoras
inquiry. which we possess, imperfect as they are, are important, not only
as an introduction to the next division of our subject,—to the
life of Socrates, and to the doctrines of Plato ; they also throw
PYTHAGORAS.
103
light upon the Ionic school, out of which this eminent teacher
arose—some members of which, Empedocles especially, confessed
the greatest obligations to him.
2. The same traditions which speak of Thales as the first phi- The name
losopher of Greece, affirm that Pythagoras first used the name, p^'"80"
He dared not, we are told, arrogate to himself wisdom. That
he held to be a divine possession; men could only love it and
seek for it. Such modesty, in the judgment of some, is very
inconsistent with the character of Pythagoras ; if he exhibited
it, they say it must have been feigned. For he habitually claimed Belief in his
a divine inspiration, he took to himself the credit of most un- insPiratlon*
usual gifts. Could he have renounced a name which had been
freely bestowed upon quite ordinary mortals ?
3. The answer to this question lies in his history. At pre- word "Phi-
sent we shall only remark that the difficulty is not diminished, losopher"
if, following other authorities, we suppose Socrates to have in- gttribXdto
vented, as he pertinaciously adopted, the word Philosopher, in Socrates,
the sense we have given it. Socrates also claimed to be under
divine teaching, and, what is more remarkable, made that claim
the very reason for renouncing the title of " wise man." The
nature of the inspiration which Pythagoras believed was vouch¬
safed to him, we may consider presently; we only ask our
readers not to judge of it or of him by the reports of fanatical
admirers in the post-Cliristian period, or by the satires of Lucian
of Samosata.
4. Pythagoras was born at Samos, in what precise year may His raaster
be doubtful. Under what master he studied has been a subject aniihiseariy
of great controversy; if we might venture to choose one guess studies-
out of many, which may all be false or all true, we should take
that which assigns his early training to Anaximander. That
philosopher, as we have seen, carried his mathematical studies
further than any of his predecessors ; his geometry in a great
degree determined the nature of his theory. A youthful pupil
of earnest character and high imagination, coming into contact
with such a thinker, would be likely to experience a great con¬
flict of feelings. The science, new not only to himself, but in
some measure to all around him, would seem to him strange,
wonderful, sublime ; the doctrine appended to it would repel him
as cold, vague, and unsatisfactory. He would begin, we may
fancy, to meditate on his teacher's favourite phrases, " the In¬
finite"—ro aweipov—this forsooth is the sum of all things in the
universe. A conclusion how unlike that which geometry would
have suggested ! that leads us to the idea of limitation, distinct¬
ness, in each thing and in all things. And is not such limita¬
tion, such distinctness, that which constitutes their perfection ?
Surely it is this, the iripag—the ultimate limit, and not the
limitless, which the wise man is to seek after. Again, Auaxi- Arithmetic.
104
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
mander talked of an dp\>). Here, indeed, he has profited by his
science. Mathematics did not teach him the necessity of this.
He found every line starting from a point, every series beginning
from a fixed number. " But why forsake the teacher ? Why go
abroad to look for your beginning when you have it in the very
instrument which you carry with you ? You Ionian philosophers
are groping after unity in the world about you. But where did
you get that idea? Was it not from these numbers, from this
geometry ? Surely it is there that we find not the mere shadow
of unity, but unity itself."
Therbvipas. 5. Such thoughts we may fancy began to work in the mind
of Pythagoras while he was yet among Ionians ; to excite in him
a discontent with previous methods of inquiry, and a hope that
he might discover a better. With these feelings we may sup¬
pose him to set out on his travels, his impulse to leave bus
country being, it is said, the tyranny of Polycrates. He carried
away another (perhaps a greater) benefit from his Asiatic edu¬
cation. The rhapsodists, who used to sing the legends of earlier
days to the Greeks of that region in which Troy stood, and in
which Homer or a number of Homers lived, these were perhaps
silent. But not only their words were preserved, and by this
time at least committed to enduring characters, but the melodies
in which they had spoken still lived in the hearts of the people.
Music. The impression of the Dorian and Lydian measures on a young
Greek must have been very deep ; it might be effaced afterwards
in some by the passion for abstract speculation, in others it
would give speculation itself a richer and more poetical charac¬
ter. All the thoughts of Pythagoras respecting the mystery of
number seemed to have combined themselves from the first with
musical feelings and associations. Was not music itself an
illustration, the highest illustration, of this mystery ? Whence
came that strange disposition of thoughts and words into verse ?
whence the fascination of melody and tune ? whence, if number
be not the secret law, the moving soul of the universe ?
Pythagoras 6. All these apprehensions and. imaginations might have dwelt
a traveller. Jq mjnd and produced little fruit, or no better fruit than a
crude philosophical system. But Pythagoras, as we said, became
a traveller. The reports of the regions through which he
journeyed are all uncertain. This at least we may conjecture
with tolerable confidence, that he was brought into contact with
human beings in a variety of different positions and circum¬
stances, and that he began to think more deeply of their nature
and destiny. And then what with new interest, in what a new
light, wouid the number-mystery present itself to him ! This
surely was the very problem which all legislators had been seek¬
ing to solve,—in what way a number of apparently separate
units might be able to feel themselves really a unity. All society,
PTTHAGOEAS.
105
all government, was but the working out of this problem. Away-
then once and for ever with all Iouian experiments after a
physical unity ! here was the true field for examination and dis¬
covery. But what is it in man which has the capacity for asso¬
ciation and organization? It is not resemblance in feature
which produces it; it is not contiguity in space which produces
it. It is that wonderful thing which inhabits this animal frame
—which can transport itself beyond all limits of space and time.
I, Pythagoras, can carry myself back to the age of Achilles and
Agamemnon ; doubtless in some condition or other I actually
lived in their time. I can project myself forwards into ages that
shall come ; doubtless under some condition or other I shall live
in those ages. But in what condition ? This soul,' which can Metempsy-
thus look before and after, can shrink and shrivel itself into an ch0S18,
incapacity of contemplating aught but the present moment: of
what depths of degeneracy it is capable ! what a beast it may
become ! And if something lower than itself, why not some¬
thing higher ? And if something higher or lower, why may
there not be a law accurately determining its elevations and
descents ? Each soul has its particular evil tastes, bringing it
to the likeness of different creatures beneath itself; why may it
not be under a necessity of abiding in the condition of that
thing to which it has adapted and reduced itself ?
7. Such thoughts Pythagoras may, or may not, have borrowed where he
from Egyptian priests. Doubtless to a man in his posture oflearnt
mind every old tradition, every relic of national faith, will have
been precious; still there was nothing in the doctrine of a
metempsychosis which might not easily and naturally have
grown out of his reflections upon that which makes men human,
and enables them as human beings to associate with each other.
To another and deeper discovery he was no doubt led by study¬
ing the governments of different countries, especially those which
had received the Dorian impress. He found everywhere in these
communities that the bond of connection was the recognition of Law.
a power superior to man, a righteous law-giving power. No
human legislature ever dared to dispense with this recognition,
no society could cohere without it. Deep and awful idea! The
union of men presumes a still deeper ground. Is not this ground
the 7r£pac, the ultimate unity, after which we are seeking ?
8. Thus gradually we suppose the idea of limitation, which Results of
Pythagoras had acquired from geometry, and which had been 18 m<,uirJr*
brought out in his mind in opposition to the notion of an all-
comprehending Infinite or Indefinite ; and the idea of beginning
and succession which he had acquired from arithmetic, and which
had come out in his mind in opposition to the notion of a mere
external ground of things, fused and softened as they both were
106
GEECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Wisdom
above tbe
soul.
to the
Pythago¬
rean philo¬
sophy.
The society
in South
Italy.
Its cha¬
racter and
perils.
by a sense of music dwelling deep in the heart of the world,
may have become associated with practical thoughts respecting
the nature of the human soul, and the bonds by which souls are
related to each other.
9. The more this feeling of the sacredness and mysteriousness
of human fellowship unfolded itself in the mind of Pythagoras,
the more peril and evil he will have seen in the pretensions of
men to wisdom. The destruction of order lay in such individual
pretensions. Wisdom must be contemplated as altogether above
the soul; as something which it cannot appropriate, to which it
must do homage; which it must seek in silence, yet not in
solitude; which each man must reverence for himself, but yet
which he must feel is not his more than his fellows' ; which can
only be truly pursued by those who are willing to abandon out¬
ward enjoyments for the sake of it. The philosophy of Pythagoras
therefore could not be carried out except in a community of
living men.
10. In the bonds by which they were held together in their
dealings with each other and with men without—in the silence
and fear with which they acknowledged an invisible ruler—was his
inmost meaning to be expressed. Thus would the proportions
and relations of the universe be manifested on their highest
ground ; thus would the mystical harmony be felt and acknow¬
ledged; thus would the dignity of the human soul, its capacity
for growth and perfeetionment, be proved; thus would the nature
of distributive justice, the geometry and arithmetic of politics, be
practically realised ; thus would the idea of God be felt as the
foundation of social life. Such we apprehend was the feeling
that led to the formation of the Pythagorean society, which grew
up in the South of Italy ; which after all deductions for the ex¬
travagance of later reporters, must have exercised a great in¬
fluence on various cities of Magna Gnecia; which wrought
legislative and moral reforms, engaged in political intrigues, and
was finally put down as a dangerous religious confederacy, in¬
compatible with the existence of regular government.
11. In calling this society " an order," Bishop Thirlwall and
Mr. Grote have done much to explain the secret of its strength
and influence, as well as of its errors and its decay. The earnest
seeker of wisdom found hearts yearning for it like his own. It
was an inheritance intended for them and him: in proportion
as they could make it the common object of their lives, they
might hope to share it together. The lessons which they re¬
ceived from their master were not communicable except to those
who formed the circle around him ; to others they would have
been different lessons: apart from the practical discipline which
accompanied them, they were not true; they served no purpose
PYTHAGORAS.
107
of purification, they were not a method of seeking wisdom.
The allegiance which men so associated pay to him who has
given the first impulse to their minds, and who is directing all
their energies, is affectionate, devout, dangerous. They are
united by sympathies and reverence. A man is the object of
their reverence and sympathy. If that man has felt deeply that Sense of a
their union does not stand in any power or wisdom of his, he ^"teacher
will tell them so continually; he will strive, by all the forms
and arrangements of their polity, to preserve them in the recol¬
lection. But if he believes that what he teaches is not bis own,
he must believe, and strive to make them believe, that it has
been imparted to him ; he must regard his work as a vocation.
The more he uses the language which expresses this conviction,
the more it will be perverted by passionate idolatrous followers ;
the more will his earnest desire to disclaim wisdom be made an
excuse for maintaining that he possesses it under conditions al¬
together new and peculiar. How can that idolatry fail to react
upon the object of it ? How can it fail to awaken in him a idolatry of
vanity, a self-consciousness, a self-glorification, which have to d>sciPll;B-
maintain a fearful struggle with the earnest truth-seeking,
truth-loving temper which led him to say, " I did not choose
this course for myself; I did not make this discovery. A
mightier wisdom has guided me on my way, and showed me
what I could never have found." The histories of such struggles
are not written, or written very imperfectly, even in the auto¬
biographies and secret confessions of great teachers: another
day may reveal them to us, with all the strange contradictions
which have pnnoked our harsh judgments, and should have
called forth our pity and sorrow. The outward results of the
secret battles are better known, and are often very tragical. In
the case of the Pythagoreans, we have only indistinct glimpses
of them, but enough, with the experience we have since acquired,
to show how zealous the society must have been to bring others
within the circle of their light; yet how proud in their boast of
enjoying that light by some exclusive tenure! how resolute they
must have been not to separate their essential and moral prac¬
tices from their outward doctrines, yet how apt, in the vehe¬
mence of propagandism, to part with all inconvenient austerity,
to tolerate and use the corruptions which they undertook to
remove ; how their first object will have been to use their society
as a means of making all society deeper in its foundations, truer
in its acts; how at last they may have come to think that it
had no deeper foundation than the Pythagorean rule, and that
false and dishonest means might be legitimate for the establish¬
ment of that rule. Some traditions would represent the founder
as forwarding the ambitious views of his order, as sharing in its
108
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
downfall. We have no means of testing their accuracy. If
they are true, they need not make us doubt the sincerity of his
purpose, nor the real worth of the principle for which he testi¬
fied. The failure of a noble scheme may make good the internal
conviction of him who planned it better than its success. If
Pythagoras believed that human society had a mysterious and
divine ground, and that every true philosopher and reformer
lives to convince it of that fact, it was fitting that he and his
order should perish when he or they began to fancy that they
could build up society by their devices, upon their wisdom.
His name remained a sacred and venerable name for Greece.
None might be able to tell in terms what it had done for them.
Those who spoke of Pythagorean doctrines in earlier times
meant the doctrine of Philolaus, Lysis, Eurytus, Arehytas,—
men who knew nothing of the Italian master, who had never
shared his discipline, who had been brought up amidst the ordi¬
nary influences of Greek society. Those who spoke of Pytha¬
goras himself in neo-Platonic times meant a Thaumaturgist
whom they had created by mixing Christian and Pagan records
together, to convince the world that the Christian church was
a plagiarism. But Plato and Aristotle retained a reverence for
the name of the original master, which they never transferred
to the school where his opinions were dried for use and expor¬
tation. Iambliehus and Porphyry were bearing unconscious
testimony to the fact that the best and wisest teachers of ancient
Greece had been led by all their studies of nature and of man,
and, as they rightly deemed, by some guide who was higher
than either, to seek for a brotherhood which did not rest on
human wisdom; that they tried to create one, and that they
failed.
section v.
XENOPHAXES—PARMENIDES—ZENO.
p°etry a"d 1. It has been observed before, that most of the Greek sages
p • obop y. were p0e(;Si Verse seemed the natural language for thoughts
which were to be a kind of oracles meant for the experienced
ear, perplexing to the vulgar. When the wise man became the
philosopher, he more rarely used this medium of communication.
The mind of Empedocles was evidently rich and poetic : Anaxa-
goras, Anaximander, Anaximenes, probably never departed from
ordinary discourse. But in each, whether they used this vehicle
or not, the suspicion began to arise, that the poet, so far as he
answered to his name, so far as he was a Maker, was the anta¬
gonist of the philosopher. Homer had a hold upon the sympa¬
thies of the Greek, which the most profound student did not
Destruction
of the order
desirable.
The feeling
about Pytha¬
goras m
after times.
XENOPHANES.
109
possess. "Whence did it arise ? Was it a wholesome influence ?
Were not his creations hindrances in the way of the investigator ?
Had he not assumed the result of an inquiry which thev were
pursuing ?
2. The sense of this opposition reached its highest point in xeno-
Xenophancs. He was, like Pythagoras, an Ionian by birth : he fl"uAr^g'd
became, like him, an Italian colonist. He felt bitterly the B c
luxury of his own city, Colophon. The manners, and especially 540-500.
the love of amusement in the Greeks of Asia and of the islands, 01.60-70.
disgusted him. He must have gone to Italy a discontented Education
man,—discontented, probably, with the investigations of lonians, pj^ee"°"
as well as with their political life. The example of Pythagoras,
or his own reflections, will have taught him that what he wanted
was not an element or apx>/- Hut he does not seem to have
been much interested in geometry or arithmetic, or to have re¬
ceived any of the same deep impressions which Pythagoras
received from music. The thoughts of Pythagoras respecting
the soul of man and its migrations took no hold of him. In
one of his fragments he ridicules a sage for not suffering a dog
to be beaten because he recognised in his growl the voice of an
old friend.
3. Neither does he seem to have had a desire to be the founder
or the member of any political association. He may have heard
of the dispersion of the Pythagorean society, and may have
turned with dislike from similar experiments. His genius, how¬
ever, did not impel him in that direction. Social unity was not
the problem which he sought to resolve. The problem which
did present itself to him concerned unity, but in quite a diffe¬
rent sense. What are the gods in the Homeric poems ? Is Hisquestion
there any reality corresponding to them ? Are they not formed thePgods!g
by the poet's brain, and clothed by him in sensible forms and
images ? Is it to sensible forms and images that our minds do
homage ? Pythagoras had approached the last question, but
from a different side and in a different spirit. He had recog¬
nised a Being near to man, to be adored in silence and awe.
Such a Being had not much in common with the gods whom his
countrymen worshipped; but he never denied that homage was
due to them. Nor can his secret instructions to his disciples
have been that this homage was only to be paid in deference to
the opinions of the vulgar. They must have been efforts to
make it more sincere and significant than it was with the majo¬
rity. Pjthagoras felt that he had no substitute to offer for the
personal objects he had been taught to revere. He felt that
some living being, not an abstraction, not a creation of his own
mind, must sustain his and every human polity.
4. In Xenophanes all these checks to freedom of inquiry
110
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
The nature respecting the faith of his country were wanting. The naked
answer question, " What does my soul affirm respecting God ; what
conceptions can it or can it not form respecting Him ?" came
before him. His verses—for he wrote in verse of various styles
and measures—were answers to it. The philosopher tries as a
poet to criticise the poets; to show that they have been making
the beings to whom they bow down. All the Homeric gods
have the shapes and forms of men ; why, but because men have
formed them after their own likeness ? If an ox were to form
a god, would he not give him horns and hoofs ? How is it
possible to form any conceptions of God ? What mean your
finite and your infinite? Are they not both alike terms of
your own mind ? How can you make Him out of them ?
sceptic may sound like scepticism ; but it was not scepticism
in the mind of Xenophanes. He did not say that because the
senses cannot tell us of God—because we cannot measure Him
by our conceptions, therefore He is not. He said just the
reverse: he said, " My senses do not tell me that which is;
they only tell me of appearances. My conceptions do not mea¬
sure that which is; it lies deeper " Instead, therefore, of deny¬
ing that to be, of which he said the Homeric pictures presented
no likeness, his disapprobation of them arose from his desire to
assert a real ground of things, independent of man's conclusions
or conceptions ; which he affirms to be, but which he does not
make.
A very wonderful process of thought indeed, pregnant with
results which our future history must unfold. Xenophanes was
But tbe no atheist, but a very earnest theist. He asserted a Being. If
worshipped be had been asked " what Being ?" he would have owned that
negation cou^ n0^ rc'IJly- He could only say what he was not. He
approached the border of negation, but he approached it man¬
fully and reverently ; therefore he did not pass it. He pointed
out a void which he could not fill. That alone would have been
a reason for feeling gratitude to him. But he also saw the way
to a deep and radical truth.
6. A healthier thinker than Xenophanes, yet one in whom it
is not perhaps possible to feel the same interest, took up his
nh^um" course of inquiry : this was Parmenides. The question respect-
about ing the nature of God, w hich had so occupied the philosopher
n.e. 536. of whom we have just been speaking, does not seem at all in
01. 61. the same degree to have agitated him. His mind rested on the
principle of Xenophanes, that what the senses present to us are
appearances ; that only that which the mind affirms without the
aid of the senses actually it. "What is this, then, that the mind
affirms? Xi-iinphanes had said " God."' Parmenides said
The one. "Unity," or "The One." My senses tell me thousands of
PAKMENIDES—ZE^O.
Ill
things, and yet has not every man who thinks and feels ever
been groping after some one root and ground of all these things ?
This, verily, is what man wants, and this is affirmed to be by
that within him which tights against apparitions and phantoms.
Plurality is merely one of these apparitions—deceitful, transi- Plurality an
tory; nothing abides but unity : this is permanent, eternal. "PP*™110"*
Such a belief could not dawn upon the mind of a Greek philo¬
sopher without imparting to him a feeling of deep wonder. He
had seen a succession of Ionians questioning all nature to tell
them of this unity. He had seen Pythagoras evoking it out of
the relations of number, and actually constructing a human
society to illustrate it. And now this unity declared itself to
be a condition of the human mind itself—it had been seeking
for that in all other things which really dwelt only with itself.
The confused look of a child gazing upon a new world, is but a
faint emblem of the surprise with which such a thought must
have possessed the mind of an earnest seeker on whom it has
just burst. Yet he cannot doubt that it is a true thought. It
makes so much of all that had before been perplexed in his
mind intelligible, it accounts so well for the thoughts which
have revealed themselves to other men. But what consequences
follow ? Paith in the things about us becomes impossible; we
live in a shadow world; we do not, in fact, behold anything.
For these distinctions of things, this apparent multitude of
objects, exists not; it speaks to our fancy only. The unity which
the mind beholds and demands, this only has substance.
7. Every one must see how this doctrine of Parmenides laid zkso,
him open to the jests of witty men, such as grow upon the sur-
face of all lands, and of which Greece and her colonies were cer- q'j '
tainly not less productive than others. These wits believed 110 His answer
doubt that they were opposing self-evident facts to mere dreams. to the wits
But Parmenides had a friend and disciple who was not willing experience'
to leave them in undisturbed possession of this opinion. Zeno
of Elea was convinced that there was not only positive falsehood,
but direct absurdity in that doctrine which experience seemed
so irresistibly to establish, and he boldly undertook to make this
absurdity palpable to the popular mind. In a series of argu¬
ments, some of which are still preserved to us, he endeavoured
to show that space cannot exist, that we cannot suppose a
plurality of objects without attributing self-destructive qualities
to them ; that if there be a number of real existences this num¬
ber must be both finite and infinite; lastly, that the notion of
movement involves a contradiction. Our readers would not,
perhaps, be much interested in these early specimens of Greek
subtlety ; nay, they would be inclined to denounce them as the
exploits of a mere word-conjurer. But assuredly Zeno deserves
112
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
no such name. He was both in action and speculation a brave
man, and we owe to him a great practical discovery. In fact,
he occupies a peculiarly important position as a thinker, which
it is for the advantage of our future studies in Greek philosophy
that we should understand.
The Eicatic 8. Every philosophy must have an instrument or organ to
or"un' work with if it would make itself intelligible. Some external
object served this purpose for the Ionic philosopher ; lines and
numbers for the Pythagorean. But what was the instrument of
the Eleatic philosopher ? He seems to have ascended into a
region of such pure metaphysic, and so entirely to have rejected
all common and sensible analogies, that one does not at first see
how he can ever impart his doctrine to others, or at least suggest
any successful method of pursuing investigations in his own
direction. This difficulty seems to have been felt by Xenophanes,
and to a certain extent by Purmenides. Precious and pregnant
as are the hints which each of them presents us with, it seems
likely that they will be obliged to stop at the point which they
have already obtained, and to leave no race of successors. But
Zeno has found the solution of the puzzle; he has found that
words bear to this philosophy the relation which sensible objects
and numbers bear respectively to the other two. The language
in which we discourse with each other must needs embody the
law and principle of our own mental workings, and it was exactly
this principle which the Eleatics were dealing with,
zeno honest 9. Zeno had only an imperfect consciousness of this truth,
words.1"* °f but he acted upon it, and it bore useful fruits for him and for
us. There was no falseness in his use of words. He felt that
they did affirm and embody truths, and he employed them for
the purpose of elucidating truths. And herein he was surely as
honest as those wits who set themselves to confute Parmenides
and philosophers of his class by an appeal to experience. For
they too profit by our belief in words. They awaken our con¬
sciousness to the fact, that the words which we speak bear on
them an impress and image of the external world; and it is this
consciousness which they rest upon as their real defence against
the philosophers who set at nought the evidence of the external
world. Zeno awakens our consciousness to the fact, that the
words which we utter express something to which there is no
counterpart in the external world, and he rests upon this con¬
sciousness to oppose the conclusions of those who set at nought
the witness of their own minds. Both appeals are in themselves
fair, and carry conviction with them. But the one merely con¬
vinces us of a fact which we took for granted previously; the
other obliges us to perceive truths lying very near our inmost
being, which were yet almost entirely hidden from us.
ZENO.
113
10. But it is the practical discovery which was the direct Logic
result of this search after an organ or instrument for the Par-
lnenidean philosophy that obliges us to regard Zeno with most
admiration and gratitude. Mathematical science we owe, ac¬
cording to the best historical evidence, to the East. And it
entirely accords with the calm, contemplative, and yet sensual
character of the Orientals, that this should have been their con-
tribu ion to human knowledge. Bub the science of Logic, the
science "w kieh declares, not what are the conditions to which
external things are subject, but the conditions under which we
ourselves speak and judge—this was of purely Greek invention.
Xo other people had ever the subtlety to conceive the possibility
of such a science, far less to ascertain its distinct province and
its appointed work. Though logic, in a formal and narrow
sense, is considered as the antagonist of poetry, yet only a most a Greek
imaginative and poetical nation could have discovered the mean- dlscovery-
ing and necessity of logic, and have given it the statue-like per¬
fection which it has attained in Greek hands. Now Zeno is
believed, on the best grounds, to be the inventor of logic. He
first was led clearly to perceive that the mind has a distinct
law regulating its own allirmations, and he consequently was
first stimulated to inquire what this law may be. How much
we owe to him for this achievement we shall understand better
as we advance. Our principal object here has been to point out
the connection between it and the Eleatic philosophy, of which
Zeno was the accomplished and able defender; to indicate the
kind of influence which that philosophy exercised upon the mind
of Greece; to show how important a place it fills in the history
of human inquiry; and to excite our readers' interest in the
future development of the doctrine which they have beheld in
its first germ. In so very rapid a sketch as ours it is clearly
impossible to do more than notice what seems to us the living
ana central peculiarity of each thinker as he arises up before us.
But the real germinant principle is often hard to discover amidst
the multitude of mere notions and opinions with which it has
environed itself. An historian "vnill distrust his own sagacity in
detecting it, and will rejoice greatly if he can find it anywhere
in its rude and primitive shape. Little value as it may seem to Value of
have, nay, as it may actually have, while it remains in this con- schools/
dition, yet he deems it not wise to wait till the animalcule has
become a perfect insect, or till the insect has died, before he
commences his examination of it. We offer this apology for
noticing the ante-Socratic schools, briefly indeed, but yet at a
length which many may think disproportionate to the time that
we shall be able to bestow upon their successors. We are con¬
vinced that our readers, whom we wish not to furnish with a
VOL. I. I
114r
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
history, but to put in a right method of procuring one for them¬
selves, will have a clear or confused understanding of the palmy
period of Greek philosophy between the age of Socrates and of
Aristotle, as well as of the age of senility which followed, exactly
in proportion as they study or pass over the years of its infancy.
Let them not hope to understand Plato or Aristotle, or even
Epicurus, Zeno of Cittium, and Carneades, if they have begun
with despising Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Parmeuides. Nay,
we might go further, and say that we should greatly doubt the
pretensions of any one professing to have a real acquaintance
with Hobbes, Locke, Leibnitz, or Kant, who could discover
nothing but confusion and barrenness in these early inquiries.
DIVISION II.—GREEK PHILOSOPHY FROM SOCRATES TO
ARISTOTLE.
SECTION I.
ATHENS IN THE TIME OF SOCRATES.—THE SOPHISTS.
Tiie city of 1. If Greece was the country of wisdom and wise men, no
Wisdom. Que jias eyer (Joubfced that Athens was in this sense the capital
of Greece; that there Wisdom was worshipped with all her
rites; that there wise men had an honour which was bestowed
upon them in no other part of the world. The name of the city
affected all the acts of the citizens; the meanest of them had
some sense that the Goddess of Wisdom was his protectress, and
that he had received some endowments from her.
2. As there is no dispute about this fact, so there is none that
the age of Pericles was that in which Athens attained the glory
she was always aiming at, that it was then all the powers of her
sons reached their manho )d. The great statesman thoroughly
understood the character of the people whom he ruled. The
funeral oration which Thucydides puts into his mouth, mar not
have been delivered by him iu the very form in which we receive
it, but it expresses exactly that accurate perception of the
Athenian mind which the historian knew that he possessed.
Pericks; With the same dramatical propriety, if the speech be not a
AtV<*mauf rePur^» he exhibits it as the settled purpose of Pericles, not to
life. restrain the tendencies of this character, but to give them their
full play and development. He would suffer no Spartan morose-
ness to interfere with Athenian freedom. The corrections
which it needed, so he believed, must be supplied from itself.
Any attempt to introduce the maxims and habits of another
(tribe would destroy the Athenian energy without really
(imparting to it the Dorian self-restraint.
ATHENS IN THE TIME OF SOCRATES.
115
3. AVhether this calculation were a right or a wrong one, the
effects of it are memorable in the history of the world. Those
to which we most naturally recur are the creations of the
sculptors aud poets. The perception of the beauty and symmetry The scuip-
of the human form which was awakened at that time, the images p,>etB: i,ow
of the gods to which it gave birth, though they may have won
the admiration and influenced the character of future generations, their con-
must be considered in connexion with the processions and the te,nporaneB*
temples of the people for whose use they were immediately
designed. So again the works of the great tragedians, however
much they may deserve the attention of solitary students, ought
to be thought of as represented at the festivals, as rivals for a
popular prize, as acted before delighted or critical crowds.
Those which have lasted through all the changes of much more
than 2,000 years, show with what deep thoughts concerning the
destiny of man the minds of some Athenians were exercised.
But they were mixed with multitudes of other works which
were probably at the time not felt to be inferior to them ; they
themselves were judged by their fitness to confer present
amusement, by their adaptation to the varying demands of
exceedingly clever, but also probably very impatient, spectators.
The quickness and versatility of an author in creating that
which should excite their sorrow or their mirth, would be the
measure of his popularity, even though on the whole he who had
thought and felt most would call forth the deepest echoes in
their minds, and would ultimately obtain the greatest reverence.
^Eschylus and Sophocles towered above their contemporaries
probably even in the judgment of the many, but the qualities
which we admire in them must have been to a great degree for¬
gotten in the contemplation of the immediate effects which they
produced. It was for after-times to discover how much there as
in them which could not be exhausted iu any shows, and which
did not belong to one age or to one nation, but to mankind.
4. Why, it may be asked, are such reflections more appropriate
to the age of Pericles than to the age of James I. ? Were not
Ben Jonson and Fletcher regarded chiefly as men who produced
masques for the entertainment of the court—Shakspeare as an
actor in the Globe Theatre ? Such a remark is true in itself;
but there is a special need for a student of philosophy, most of
all for a student of the life of Socrates, to recollect in what light
all the great men in Athens, whose main instruments were words,
appeared to their fellow-citizens at this time. They were all
exercising some kind of wisdom; that wisdom was addressed in They pro-
the theatre, or the agora, to a class of judges who were them- '(^/arYind
selves wise and conscious of wisdom; able to appreciate it, of wisdom,
able to bestow the rewards of it. The great tragedians, fixing
their nfinds on the heroic agi% were able to preserve them-
116
GEECIAN MTLOSOrilY.
Bel\Tes from making their own wisdom the creature of the
mob wisdom. It required very high genius in a comic writer,
whose business was with the present, to resist that in¬
fluence ; such a man would try to do it in a measure by choosing
the most broad and conspicuous conceits and affectations of his
age as objects of his ridicule. But the strongest temptation
could not after all beset those who were using their \\ isdom for
purposes of entertainment. Those who employed it for the
direct object of persuasion, those who uttered words for the
sake of leading their fellow-citizens to deeds, would he in a far
more dangerous position for their own honesty, might be
instruments of greater and more wide-spreading mischief. By
degrees the kind of power which they exercised would become
the measure of all others, The rhetorician would be regarded
as the man who had ascertained the effectual use of words.
Poets, statesmen, thinkers of all classes, even the commonest
handicraftsmen, would gradually become rhetoricians ; it would
be looked upon as the craft of the wise city.
TheSoptiBts 5. It has been commonly supposed that there was a certain
class of men, formed in the different cities of Greece, but always
esteeming Athens as their head-quarters, who helped to keep
alive this tendency in the minds of young Athenians, and to
give it a very dangerous prominence. These men have been
called Sophists ; from them especially the notion of the name as
an evil name has been derived; it has been supposed that the
main work of Socrates was to counteract and undermine their
Mr. Grote's influence. Learned men have shared this impression with the
arguments. vujgar. most modern and critical writers with mere nar¬
rators. [Recently these notions have been impugned with great
skill, and apparently with a great weight of e\idence. The
existence of a sophistical system has been distinctly denied.
Those who are designated by the common name were unlike each
other, it is said, in all their doctrines, pursuits, habits of life.
They were not men to whom any corrupt purpose or an immoral
character can be imputed; proofs of their respectability may be
obtained from the books of their greatest opponents. They did
not cause Athenian society to degenerate from the standard of
past ages, for no such degeneracy is visible in the history. The
opprobrious epithet Sophist was not such at all in Greek appre¬
hension ; it was only a synonym for the wise man ; it was con¬
ferred by impartial writers upon poets, upon philosophers, upon
the supposed antagonist of sophistry himself. Plato and
Aristotle have chosen to use it in a bad sense ; they had a right
to their own definition; but they cannot give us a right to
pronounce an ex post facto sentence upon their contemporaries.
Finally, we may hold the object of the life of Socrates to be a
decidedly good object, without blaming the different Sophists
ATHENS IX TRE TIME OF SOCRATES.
117
whom h<* or his disciple blames. He aimed at a universal stan¬
dard of wisdom and truth; they professed only to teach
Athenians how to think, speak, and act. These conclusions, if
they are true, must affect the whole course of our after history.
It becomes us therefore to consider how far they are borne out
by the able arguments and undoubted facts which Sir. Grote has
produced.1
G. We at once accept Mr. Grote's definition of the Sophist as The Sophist
the Platonical and the true one. He was " the professor of of^wraT
wisdom; he taught young men to speak, think, and act." We wisdom,
wish for no other and no worse account of him. If modem
artists have thrown any darker shades into their picture, we
believe they have done him a benefit instead of an injury. Their
clumsy exaggeration hides the essential ugliness which Mr.
Grote's flattering sketch brings out in full relief.
7. They have, we conceive, been especially wrong in their The age of
attempts to blacken the age of Pericles, as if it was, essentially |jjeJ££th,sts:
and inherently, worse than any previous age. In many respects respects
it was assuredly much better. Not only were all the intellectual f^erages
energies of the people more developed, but their great writers
displayed a moral insight and purpose which are not to be found
in the older times or in their immediate predecessors. Who
can deny that the tone of Thucvdides is much higher than that
of Herodotus ? that there is a much deeper recognition of prin¬
ciple in the (Edipus Tyrannus than in the Odyssey—that even
Aristophanes (though we may quite agree with Mr. Grote in
refusing him the dignity of a moral teacher) yet tacitly acknow¬
ledges a standard in his satires upon bad citizens, which would
not have been as readily perceived by poets or recognised by
their audiences in the times of Solon and Pisistratus ? There
had been a progress unquestionably in the minds of the better
men in moral perceptions and apprehensions, a progress which
could not have been found in them unless their contemporaries
had been capable of the same. The political training and dis¬
cipline of the Athenians must have greatly contributed to this
result; their experience of society and government led them to
practical distinctions which, without it, would have been hidden
from them.
8. Whatever we may think of the Athenian democracy, we
cannot doubt that it rendered this signal service to the eminent
men who lived under it, and through them to the world. Its
corrupt maxims and practices are made known to us by the
emphatic protests against them which have come to us in his¬
torical reflections and prophecies—in lessons from the past, in
1 Grote, vol. viii. cap. lxvii.
118
GEECIATT PHILOSOPHY.
ridicule of the present. But the protests show us what the
peculiar temptation of the Athenians was ; why they were more
in whnt prone to it in this than in any former time ; what kind of
influences were most certain to foster it. We have seen that a
majority of the Greek wise men were tyrants (or despots, as Mr.
Grote prefers to call them). The natural use of their wisdom
was to obtain power—to make them fit for governing fools.
Every Greek was inclined to hold this opinion. It grew in him
with the growth of his faculties. Democracy afforded him an
obvious opportunity of exercising them in this particular direc¬
tion. The Peloponnesian war suggested thoughts (which had
been latent in the Persian) of rivalry between Greeks, of
Athenian ascendancy, of the difference between forms of govern¬
ment. The passionate impulses of patriotism, which had their
own characteristic dangers, had yielded to deliberate schemes
and calculations respecting the method of obtaining rule and
wielding it. There might not be more of evil-doing in the one
time than in the other. There must have been more conscious¬
ness of evil-doing; more internal wickedness ; a greater readiness
in bringing crimes under a theory, and in defending them upon
that theory. This is the inference which the Melian controversy
inevitably suggests. Make what allowance you please for the
aristocratieal tendencies of the writer: it cannot be denied that
an experienced and wise man imputes to his fellow-citizens such
a distinct understanding of an evil purpose and principles as we
do not meet with elsewhere, and yet such an understanding as
we should, without his authority, have attributed to a people
possessing the Athenian wit and subtlety,
professors ^ ^at waa ^"antin£ f° give this wit and subtlety their
an of full play, was, that a set of men should appear, starting from the
schools.1 sarae maxim as the wise men in general had started from, but
furnished with a set of instruments which had not belonged to
them, and ready to teach the skill which they had used in a nar¬
rower sphere for their own advantage. The professors of whom
we are speaking exactly answer to this description. They pos¬
sessed all the respectability which Mr. Grote claims for them ;
were many of them aged and grave; were men of uncommon
sagacity and penetration. They had studied in different schools.
Some had learnt under Empedocles, some under Zeno. Some
devoted themselves to physical studies, some to moral, some
directly to political. Each possessed some sort of wisdom.
Each undertook to teach that wisdom. Each held out the
acquisition of political power as the prize to be obtained. There
was their common point of agreement; possibly there was no
other. The young Athenians wanted to learn how to think, act,
ATHENS IN THE TIME OF SOCRATES.
119
and speak upon all subjects, that they might guide the people
according to their pleasure. For this purpose they sought the
aid of a Sophist or Professor.
10. It was very needful that the Athenians should learn to How they
think. What was to be their teaching for this end F They must think,' l°
be told about natural subjects, about moral subjects, about and
political subjects, by men who had been at the pains to learn
what Thales said about them, what Pythagoras said about them,
what Parmenides said about them. They must be told about
the views of ancient cosmogonists respecting the world and the
gods ; about the views of modern thinkers and allegorists upon
the same subject. They must hear about the Heraclitan flux,
and the Parmenidean One: they must hear about the way in
which cities were said to be built by the lyre of Apollo in former
days, about the way-in which they had been held together by
the skill or legislation of recent despots. All these different
views they were taught to compare together—to see the greater
strength of the one and feebleness of the other, or to combine
and reconcile them. Thus the Sophist taught his pupils to
think. But all thinking is for the sake of action. Our pro¬
fessors are thoroughly practical men. They do not come to
withdraw us from the business or work of the world at all.
What should we care for them in Athens if they did ? We want
to know about men, not about the stars. We want to defeat
Brasidas, or to support our party at home against Nicias, or to
make ourselves rivals to Cleon, much more than to know
anything about Heraclitus, or Parmenides, or Zeno. Well!
But the one learning is the way to the other ; for remember what
comes between thiuking and acting; remember what Homer says
of " winged words remember that these have been with Greeks
always " the great engines of government, the proximate cause of
obedience." If we teach you to speak, we teach you in the most
efficient manner to act. These different physical, and meta¬
physical, and moral theories, will furnish you with topics for
speaking ; they will be the tools of your trade ; they will give
you a wonderful power of embarrassing, confuting, overawing an
uninstructed opponent. All may serve this end. Theories
about the order and formation of the world in the skilful hands
of Hippias may make as good a rhetorician as direct moral
teaching from Prodicus, or speculations upon government,
human or divine, from Protagoras. All will supply topics; all
will be instruments of persuasion. And then see what power
Zeno has put into our hands! AVords you see may mean the
most opposite, the most contradictory, things. If you could be
taught the secret of this contradiction, and how to turn it to
account, would not this be invaluable lore ?
120
grecian philosophy.
speech the 11. In the last paragraph we have just hinted at the modern
chief thing. meaning of the word Sophist, which Mr. Grrote bo indignantly
repudiates. Unquestionably it is not the meaning. The one
which our historian has substituted for it is far more comprehen¬
sive and satisfactory. But by the necessity of his calling, he
who taught to think, to act, to speak, would come to regard the
last part of his profession as that which included both the others.
He would become a rhetorician and a teacher of rhetoric. For
that purpose he must deal with the subtle meanings of words ;
whether honestly, as Zeno did, or treacherously, would depend
upon the object which he proposed to himself. If that object
was to influence the mind of a mob, he was at least in consi¬
derable danger of leading his pupils to give the word sophistry
that force with which we are most familiar.1
12. We cannot think, then, that accomplished scholars and
honest men, like Bitter and Brandis, are fairly charged with
imposing upon their less-instructed readers when they use such
a phrase as " Die Sophistik" to express their feeling that there
was an art which was practised by all the ditferent professors of
wisdom in the age of Pericles. Such an opinion does not in the
1 As we have admitted the respectability of the Sophists generally, it is
not necessary to consider the arguments which Mr. G-rote has brought to
prove that respectability in each particular case. But one of his statements,
upon which he places much reliance, requires a short notice. Prodieus, he
thinks, can be shown by more tlian negative evidence to be not an immoral,
but a highly moral, teacher. The story of the Choice of Hercules, in the
form in which we commonly read it, claims him for its author. What more
decided proof ran be given that he urged upon the Athenian youth a severe,
even an ascetiral, self-restraint ? We have no wish to dispute the beauty or
the worth of that fable. It must have been full of instruction for that age,
since it has been found full of instruction for all ages. But we submit that
the effect of the lesson which it inculcates is good or evil according to the
object which the reader of it proposes to himself. If he wishes to acquire
the power of draining marshes and killing noisome beasts, all must ble-s him
for not yielding to the voice of the Goddess of Pleasure. If he merely seeks
to be the strongest of men, by resisting the enchantress, it might have been
better for the world and for himself that he should have yielded to her
blandishments. Mr. Grote is not likely to have forgotten the celebrated
paradox of Gibbon respecting the clergy, " Their virtues are more dangerous
to society than their vices." On the hypothesis which Gibbon no doubt
adopted, that this order is divided into those who deny themselves for the
sake of obtaining dominion over their fellow-creatures, and those who yield
to animal indulgences, his dictum may be easily admitted. The monk who
restrains his appetites that he may be more followed and idolised as a con¬
fessor, does more barm to others, is probably more evil in himself, than the
sleek abbot who is given up to his hawks and hounds. The principle is of
•universal application. We must know whether Prodieus departed from the
general rule of the professorial class, by not holding out political power as
his prize, before we can pronounce liim a useful teacher, because be told his
pupils how they might obtain the bone and nerve of Hercules.
ATHENS IN THE TIME OF SOCEATES.
121
least interfere with the fact that the word Sophist may have
been applied to a poet, to any person who exercised an influence
through words rather than swords,—to Thales, to Pythagoras,
to Socrates. Astrology has an undoubted meaning,—most per¬
sons think a bad meaning ; yet, is an astrologer more than one
who studies the stars ? Why should not the man who studied
them with the most ample intention of ascertaining the laws by
which their courses are regulated have been called an astrologer
as well as any one of the innumerable doctors who determined
from the stars the events which were to occur in the political
world ? These traders in natural knowledge did not form one
school or guild, any more than the Athenian professors; they
had their different maxims; they were rivals ; they were ene¬
mies : yet it has been usual to think that they had a common
work, which may be denoted by a common name. And every
man who claimed to be an astronomer, and not an astrologer,
was bound to make good his claim by the labours of a life, to
show wherein he differed from him who cast nativities. By
doing so, he must put a stigma upon a name which was not
necessarily evil before; he must acquire a name for himself which
was in some sense new. He will have the ultimate compensa¬
tion of vindicating the fame of many a worthy predecessor who
had not been distinctly conscious of his own end, but who had
honestly sought for light when others were boasting that they
possessed it and could turn it to account. Till he has accom¬
plished his task he must be content to bear the same reproach
with those whom he is most opposing ; from whom he is seeking
to deliver his fellows.
13. There were many at this time who scorned and ridiculed Thede-
the young men of Athens because they frequented the teaching Sop™sts
of one or another Sophist, and because they exhibited the effects — Amto-
of the teaching in their self-conceited words and acts. Aristo- PhaueB»&c-
phanes, above all, could teach these young men to laugh at
themselves—at their own thoughts, speculations, imaginations—
as well as at those of their teachers. In doing so, he expected
perhaps to restore the habits of an older, and, as it seemed to
him, a simpler method.
Neither reason nor evidence wan-ant us in believing that his
success was proportioned to his zeal or to his genius. He may
have abated some of the nuisances which were infesting Athens;
he may have diminished the race of sycophants, have made the
vulgar kinds of mob-persuasion less effectual, have even done
something to abate the litigious spirit of his fellow-citizens;
but he can have helped very little to root out that which was
the real cancer of the nation's being,—that which fed upon the
hearts, not of the worst, but of the best, and noblest, and most
122
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
promising of the Athenian youth. No one could apply any
sound remedy to this evil who despised the age into which ho
was born,—who merely saw the effects of the sophistical poison,
without understanding its nature and the constitutions on which
Reformer ^ was working- only could hope to reform the young men
of Athens who could heartily and affectionately sympathise
with them, who did not express his contempt or indignation for
their favourite teachers, but was ready to follow them through
all their windings and subtleties,—who, without for a moment
forgetting the purpose of finding his way back to realities, could
yet grapple fearlessly with the most shadowy and impalpable
abstractions. A man of this kind would have sore difficulties to
encounter, through which nothing but the clear perception of
his object could possibly lead him unhurt. His inward con¬
flicts, before he could be fitted for his task, must be severe ; of
his outward, the greatest, perhaps, would be this: that his pur¬
pose would be infallibly misconstrued by those who were aim¬
ing, with very different instruments indeed, to resist the same
evils. It would be inevitable that he would pass with them for
one, perhaps the subtlest and most mischievous, of the sophis¬
tical class. Because he sought to make men feel that there was
no resting-place in any of their theories or opinions, he would
be suspected of universal scepticism; because he led them to
feel that they were not without a ground to stand upon, if they
would seek for it, he would be accused of undermining the
ground on which their forefathers stood; because he endeavoured
to look through the clouds which had been drawn up from the
earth, into the serene heaven that lay behind them, it would be
fancied that he invoked their protection and did them homage.
Such a man was Socrates, and this was his fate. He was
hated by Sophists, and ridiculed as the worst of them. He
treated the diseases of his country according to a method exactly
the opposite of that which Aristophanes adopted, and therefore
he was denounced by Aristophanes as the great promoter of
them.—We have now to consider what his method was, how it
affected his own age, and what traces it has left of itself for
subsequent generations.
SECTION II.
SOCRATES.
BORN OL. 77, 4; B.C. 468.
Socrates. p. There is little doubt that Socrates was the son of a statuary
and a midwife. He was born in a little burgh of Attica. When
he came to Athens we know not with any exactness; probably
about the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, when
SOCRATES.
123
Pericles was still living and Anaxagoras teaching. He frequented
the school of the latter. Nor is it at all unlikely that he must His first
have entered with considerable ardour into the studies of his teacher-
master, and may have carried away from him many valuable hints.
2. Anaxagoras, as we have seen, was at the furthest remove he did
from the trading Sophists of his day. Political life was with a student of
them everything; with him it was nothing. He sought to dwell Na,ure-
apart from the world of human beings, to find a home in the
world of nature. It was surely a noble experiment. If young
Pericles felt it to be so, though the desire of his life was political
ascendancy, young Socrates, who never evinced that desire in
any period of his life, would, one might have thought, have been
carried away by it. But he could not find a country where
Anaxagoras sought for one. As he listened to the sublime
physical speculations of his master, he seems to have asked him¬
self, " What are all these to me ? Let atoms be connected by
what law of affinity they will; let them whirl at random througn
space, or be guided by an intelligence ; still the question remains,
What am I ? They do not help to answer this question. But in
some way or other it must be answered. Any carpenter or shoe¬
maker who can put me in the way of solving this problem would
be my benefactor. The profoundest teacher whose thoughts are
turned in another direction is not the man I want." The school
of Anaxagoras therefore was forsaken. There was something
very inviting in its quietness; but if that quietness was to be
obtained by the sacrifice of human feelings and interests, the
gossip of the Agora, the bustle of the Pirams, was better.
3. Socrates then was, like the Sophists, a man of business and ^^etfome
action. His wisdom, if he had any, must, like theirs, be directed a professor
to that which was passing around him, not to that which was ofwis,lwm-
going on in some other sphere. But had he wisdom which was
available for this purpose? Could he communicate knowledge
about things on earth, or things in the skies ? The more he
considered, the more he found that he was not a possessor of
wisdom ; that it was the very thing which he needed. He could
not put it into the hands of a set of disciples to use it and traffic
with it. He must go in search of it. The distinction between
the Sophist, or wise man, and the philosopher, had dawned upon
Pythagoras, perhaps upon Thales; it became the cardinal dis¬
tinction in the mind of Socrates. To possess wisdom, to profess
it, would be for him at least the most utter falsehood. He did
not find that he could lay down theories or maxims about the
commonest things. What he needed was to understand them ;
and this, that he might understand himself, that he might find
out what ground he had to stand upon; whether he had any, or
was only floating in the air.
124
GBECIAX PHILOSOPHY.
The Dmrinn 4. "Who can assist him in this inquiry? It was one which
of Socratta. concerned his own very self; that which no eye could see, chat
which lay beneath all utterance, all thought. There was near
him (as Socrates believed) one who did take cognizance of the
most secret movements of his mind and will, who reproved him,
restrained him, warned him. A divine teacher was with him at
all times. Though he did not possess wisdom, this teieher could
put him in the road to seek for it, could preserve him from the
delusions which might turn him out of that road, could keep his
mind fixed upon the end for which he was to act and live.
Xenophon asks with plain, soldier-like honesty, whether his
accusers could believe that he told a lie about this matter, and
hints that it would shake his faith in all reality, to suppose that
the mind of a man so clear-sighted aud free from superstition
could be the victim of an utterly false impression, or that it could
produce the wholesome effects which he himself had witnessed.
We believe that Socrates told no lie about his Daemon; that it
was precisely this faith which kept him from lying; which was
the cause of his clearness of sight and his freedom from super¬
stition.
The eod at ^is guide or teacher Socrates connected with the mythology
Delphi. of his countrymen. He seems to have interpreted the one by
the other. He was sure that there was such a teacher of him¬
self; he could acknowledge, therefore, a teacher of wisdom to
Greeks and men. Much that was said about the god of Delphi
might seem to him profane; he turned from it with disgust.
But on the whole he believed much more, not less, than his
countrymen believed, and he shrunk from the scepticism and
irreverence which they and their poets ventured to indulge in.
He had no notion of substituting a Xous or Intelligence for
Jupiter or Apollo. It would have been altogether strange if he
had done so, since he was not accounting for the existence of
the universe, but craving for a light to show him his own path
through it. He was not, therefore, a Mnuotheist in the sense
in which some ha\e represented him as being so; he did not
affirm that there were not various objects of worship. In many
acts of his life he confessed them. But as he felt that there was
one teacher, one source of light and wisdom, who was leading
him out of the contusions and bewilderments of sense, he was
Eracti cully more of a Monotheist than he could have been if he
ad tried to reduce the traditions of Greece into physical specu¬
lations, or had treated them as mere follies.
His calling. 6. Socrates spoke of his D;emon as reproving and restraining
himself; but since he connectjd this Diemon with the gods of
his country, he felt of course that other men bad also a director
whom they were to obey, and who could lead them to the object
SOCEATES.
125
which he sought. Instead of being a solitary thinker, he had
the most interna sense of a vocation to help and instruct others.
Though he could not give them wisdom, he might put them into
the same way of seeking it, in which he was striving to walk
himself.
7. What charms he used to draw a circle about him may seem Hischa-
at first inexplicable. Most of the Sophists were men advanced
in age and reputation when he first appeared in Athens. They
promised to fit men for being politicians, orators, generals, and
offered very plausible evidence to prove that they could do what
they promised. He promised nothing. He was come, he said,
to exercise his mother's profession on behalf of those who had
thoughts of which they wished to be delivered. You could not
understand what line he took; whether he was a philologer,
like Prodicus, or a professor of statesmanship, like Protagoras ;
he seemed to be all things by turns, and nothing definitively or
constantly. Personal gracefulness and beauty were great recom¬
mendations among the Athenians: he had large projecting eyes,
like those of a bull, a flattened and upturned nose, a protuberant
stomach; he wore a tattered cloak, and was seldom seen with
sandals. Nevertheless, the youth of Athens began to flock about
him ; they thought that he had something to teach them; per¬
haps that by some means or other he would be able to impart to
them the art of governing better than the more regular doctors.
It is impossible to say that some of the causes which we have
mentioned as likely to alienate his countrymen may not them¬
selves have contributed to this result. The Athenians liked a
humorist, and a humorist Socrates, by his outward negligences,
as well as by the whole tone of his discourse, showed himself to
be. Moreover, he had a most hearty, genial way of interesting
himself in whatever interested those with whom he was mixing;
as little of solemn quackery as was ever found in the composition
of any man. Add to this that he was a thorough, genuine
Greek ; Greek in all the habits of his mind, Greek in his taste
for society, Greek in wit and argument, Greek in a brave un¬
flinching love for his own land, Greek in making freedom (to a
much greater degree than is usually observed or acknowledged)
the passion and end of his life. But all these circumstances
together could not have availed to counteract the many disad¬
vantages under which he laboured, if he had not possessed the
real magnet which must draw the hearts of young men after it,
be they never so reluctant—a knowledge of the thing which they
are really wanting, and which they have been toiling in vain to
find.
8. Political power was, as we have seen, the one prize which H'9
the Sophists proposed to themselves and held out to their pupils ia ogues'
126
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
as the reward of all the trouble which they bestowed upon
abstract speculations. Now, though there were different roads
to this end, and though each teacher believed himself, and in¬
duced his disciples to believe, that his was the shortest, yet one
method was common to them all; all sought to acquire power
by meaus of words. The mastery over words was the great art
which the Athenian youth was to cultivate; his own feelings,
and an observation of what was passing every day in his city,
told him that there was a charm and fascination in these which
the physical force of an Oriental tyrant might vainly try to com-
Hnw pete with. It seems to have been the first observation of
usetTthem ^ocrafes when he began earnestly to meditate on the condition
of his countrymen, that in this case, as in most others, the
tyrants were slaves; that those who wished to rule the world
by the help of words were themselves in the most ignominious
bondage to words. The wish to break this spell seems to have
taken strong possession of his mind. But the wish would have
been ineffectual, and would only have interfered with the main
feeling of his life, if he had not been able to connect the study
of words with that deep question respecting his own being of
which we spoke just now. As he reflected, he began more and
more clearly to perceive that words, besides being the instru¬
ments by which we govern others, are means by which we may
become acquainted with ourselves. In trying really to under¬
stand a word, to ascertain what was the bond fide meaning which
he himself gave it, he found that he gained more insight into
his own ignorance, and at the same time that he acquired more
real knowledge, than by all other studies together. In this
work he knew that he was really honest; he was feeling for a
ground; he was breaking through a thousand trickeries and
self-deceptions. If, thtu, he was to deliver his countrymen from
that miserable shallowness into which they had been betrayed
by the ambition of wisdom and depth,—if he was to lead them
out of the multitude of systems above morality into any firm
feeling that there was a morality,—above all, if he uas to rescue
them from the worship of power,—this must be his means. He
must not stop to canvass the wisdom of this proposition or
that. He must not deuounce with great moral indignation some
that struck him as very mischievous or outrageous. He must
not candidly and generously concede the truth and wisdom of
those which seemed to him plausible or reasonable. But in
every case he must lead his disciples to inquire what they actually
meant by the words of the propositions which they were using,
and must consider no time wasted which they honestly spent in
this labour; no perplexities or contradictions dangerous which
started out of their own minds in the course of it.
SOCRATES,
127
9. No doubt this would be a most irritating, vexatious course His
of proceeding. No doubt an opponent who had adopted a cer- eleucl,us-
tain proposition, and was provided with abundance of arguments
in defence of it, would be tortured beyond measure by finding
himself not fairly encountered upon those arguments, but led
back into a question which he had assumed, forced to give an
account of a word which he fancied every one was agreed upon,
and not permitted, after all, to bring any of his own resources
into play. It was most perplexing for a disciple who had come
expecting that a certain doctrine would be either established or
refuted, and, perhaps, that the ingenious arguments on both
sides of the question might serve his purpose in a popular
assembly, to find that he got no decision either way, and, more¬
over, that he himself had been talking all his life in a language
which he did not understand, and using words as if they were
algebraic characters. Yet in some way or other the Sophist was
taught that he was in the presence of one stronger than himself.
He might chafe and fret, and complain that he had been treated
with great unfairness. He could not say that his opponent had
not got the better of him in his own word-fighting ; he could
not say that all the scepticism which he had brought into play
against the common thoughts and feelings of his countrymen
and of mankind had not been made to tell with tenfold force
upon himself; he could not help owning and feeling that there
was one in conflict with him who had some other end than the
mere exercise or display of power, and yet who did possess a
power before which his own quailed. On the other hand, the
disciple, amidst all his bewilderment, will have gone away with
a feeling that he (perhaps for the first time in his life) had
actually learned something, and with a conviction that if there
be not something better than the attainment of dominion over
other men's minds, there is at least a most important and indis¬
pensable preliminary to it, unless we would have our own the
sport of every deceiver.
10. The infinite humour and vivacity of Socrates must of His irony,
course have been of the greatest service in such dialogues as
these. But oftentimes his opponents will have fancied that he
was merely indulging his humour when he was, in fact, follow¬
ing out his principle. The practice of confessing his uncertainty
or his ignorance upon any subject that was presented to him,
v, hich formed in their eyes the chief element of his " irony,"
was not always or generally affected. We make no doubt that
he often entered upon a discussion without knowing whither it
would lead; actually, as he professed, hoping to be a learner by
the result of it. He was certain, not of a particular conclusion,
but that his method was a sound one, and that it would conduct
128
GRECIAN PHILOSOrnY.
each person who followed it to clearness and truth. It is pro¬
bable that his discoveries respecting himself and his fellow-
creatures were the practical fruits of this method. For instance,
Recollection it was by repeated experiments that he convinced himself of the
immense importance of the habit of recollection ; how the mind
that wants it is at the mercy of all accidents; how the mind that
possesses it is continually realising its own possessions, receiving
them as if they were then for the first time bestowed. Upon
this principle the greatest part of his moral discipline depended.
The necessity of removing the impediments to recollection, of
leading the mind away from mere sensible images and impres¬
sions into an examination of its own treasures, was the purpose
and ground of it. But this principle was redeemed from any
Brahminical tendency by his habitual use of words and sensible
images as the means whereby a man feels his way into the
principles and grounds of his being. It is in trying to under¬
stand all common things—what the carpenter does with his
wood, the shoemaker Avith his leather, the mason with his stones,
—it is by really getting to know what we intend when we talk
of all these things, that a man learns to understand himself. It
was not therefore to an escape from common life, from daily
business, that the withdrawment or recollection of Socrates
pointed. It formed the habit of seeking out in everything that
which it really is, and not merely its shapes, and appearances,
and accidents, which the man is to cultivate, and which is ulti¬
mately to fit him for perceiving that which is deepest and truest.
Flow, it is the faith attained by repeated proofs and trials, that
man has that in him which does desire to find out the truth of
things; and again, that he has an inclination to be constantly
conversing with the mere images of things, and that just so far
as the first of these tendencies is kept uppermost, and subordi¬
nates the other to it, he is in his honest sound position ; and that
just so far as the lower tendency is uppermost, he becomes a
mere shadow-pursuer and shadow-fighter, which is the soul of
foundation ®0cra^es s doctrine. It was not adopted as a scheme to sup¬
plant another scheme ; he stumbled upon it as a fact which he
could no more gainsay than any one for which he had the
evidence of his senses—a fact which was, let it be explained as
it would, and must be recognised in all our dealings with our¬
selves or with other men.
Aicibiades H- There was one young man in Athens whom Socrates
theAtheidan reSarded w^h an intense affection. In him the qualities of the
character. Greek were exhibited in their highest perfection. Creati\re
power, skill in the management of words, personal beauty,
fascination of manner, were all united in him. The love which
Socrates bore him shows how thoroughly he sympathised with
SOCRA.TES.
129
the feelings which he regarded with most fear, and in which he
saw all possibilities of evil. If Alcibiades could have learnt to
see that there was a right and a wrong—that to walk in a line,
not to devise one—to perceive, not to create—is man's business,
the a\ hole history of Athens might have been different. No doubt
there must have been critical moments in the life of this youth,
when he confessed to himself that there was something that was
more worth seeking than dominion. No doubt there were
moments when the feeling that he too had a guide and monitor
within him whom he might obey, was stronger than the sense
of power and the inclination to wrong-doing which accompanied
it. But Ahriman prevailed over Ormuzd : Alcibiades yielded to
the darker power within, which was tempting him continually to
glorify his own intellect—to use the mighty gifts which had been
entrusted to him, for the destruction of his country and of
himself. Then all the skill which he had seen his master
exercising in word-fighting became his curse. It was an
instrument of mighty mischief in his hands. Having once
parted with the moral purpose at which Socrates was aiming,
that which he received from him became indeed sophistry of the
wor-d kind. It taught him to act more effectually upon the
maxim, that all order and society had been invented some time
or other by the strongest or the cunningest, and that what they
invented the} could pull down.
12. This, says our recent historian of Greece, was not the The mere
sophistical teaching. The Sophists merely intended to fit soC"ates
Athenian young men for the purposes of civil life. Their aim was miarht pr»t •
not so high a one as that of Socrates, but it was far from a bad mischievin '
aim. "We believe that Socrates would have answered, "Either
it is this aim that I am setting before myself, or it must be a bad
aim. All my own teaching, my own influence, if it has not this
aim, is bad teaching, bad influence. My elenchus is nothing
better in itself than the logic or rhetoric of any other professor.
If it is merely taken up as a more skilful or ingenious art, it will
be worse; for its purpose is to lead men into the apprehension
of that which is—to silt and separate that which is from its
shapes and counterfeits, from that which is not. The Sophists
are destroying the heart and soul of my countrymen, because
they are continually leading them to think that what they want
is an art which shall enable them to do or to make, when what
they actually want is a science, a means of seeing that which they
did not make, that which lies beneath all our doiugs, which is at
the root of our ownselves."
13. From this statement it will be seen in what sense know- Knowledge
ledge seemed to Socrates the basis of morality. Those who ienwtUie
suppose that he meant to exalt the human faculties and to make basis of
1 virtue.
130
GEECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
them the grounds of virtue and of truth, do not merely mistake,
but invert his meaning. To destroy the worship of power, and
especially of intellectual power, may be said to have been the
purpose of his life. And in nothing did he show this more than
in his doctrine respecting the relation of knowledge to morality.
As the outward eye sees certain objects, and is good for nothing
except as it sees them, so the inward eye perceives certain
objects, and is good for nothing except as it sees them. The
objects are there. It is the whole blessing of the man to behold
them ; as he beholds them he is like them, but they are, not the
variable functions of his mind, but the eternal, unchangeable
principles and grounds of it. A notice of Socrates is only an
occasion for indicating this faith ; in speaking of his great dis¬
ciple, we must strive to expound it.
Socrates the 14. Socrates then was, we conceive, as he said himself, a philo-
aPph!io-ea °f s°pher> a philosopher and nothing else—a philosopher in the
up her. most strict sense of the word—a philosopher who helps us better
than any one else to know what philosophy is. He never
imagines that his philosophy contains or provides its own object.
He is the wisest of men, as the oracle said, because he knows
nothing; that is to say, because he brings nothing with him, but
acknowledges or recognises that which presents itself to him.
When he speaks of the dignity of the philosopher, he means us
to understand the dignity of a man who does not exalt himself,
who does not put himself in the way of the thing which he is
examining, who has the simplest, most open eye for receiving
light, whencesoe ver it shall come. That there is a source of light
from whence it does come, and that this light is connected with
man, is a principle assumed, if it is ever so imperfectly developed,
in all his words and acts.
•rhe con- 15. How can such a man, it has often been asked, have been
'If Socrates compelled to drink hemlock ? Must not the restored democracy
natural. of Athens have been worse, and more intolerant, than any power
which ever existed on the earth P Mr. Grote answers, we think,
most reasonably, that the wonder is how such a man should have
been suffered to go on teaching for so long. No state, he adds,
ever showed so much tolerance for differences of opinion as
Athens. We would make an addition to this statement. If it
had been possible to regard Socrates merely as an utterer of
peculiar opinions, as one of the Greek Sophists or professors, he
might still have taught with impunity. Anytus and Meletus
might have had their own special causes of dislike to him; his
connexionwithCritiasorAlcibiadesmighthaveawakenedsuspicion
in different minds; the ridicule of comedians might have kept
up an habitual prejudice against him ; but the tolerance of the
Athenian people would have triumphed. He would have been
S0CEAXE3.
131
acquitted on the count of corrupting the minds of the youth, as
well as on that of introducing new daemons. But there always
has been, and always will be, a limit to the indulgence of those
who regard all opinions as equally possible. If a man positively
denies that he is proclaiming an opinion, if he speaks of the pos¬
sibility of knowing, of the duty of distinguishing, of a truth which
men do not create, and which does not change with the changes
of our intellect—he comes under quite a different category
from the promulger of opinions ; he is not entitled to the same
mercy. Tolerant people, on the very ground of their tolerance, The
feel bound to silence or to crush him. "What business has he to Athemans
insult the opinions of other men; to tell them that there is aiVopinions,
something which it is dangerous for them not to see; that there °^k°fraof
are falsehoods clinging to their lives which they ought to cast truth,
off ? It is long indeed before a thoroughly good-natured
man can persuade himself that any one has reached this height
of criminality. All pity will be shown to his fanaticism as long
as it is> possible. He will be treated in spite of himself as a
sectarian teacher propounding a particular opinion. But if he
continues with incurable pertinacity, as Socrates did, to assert
that he is not a Sophist, not the putter forth of a certain theory,
it is evident that tolerant men must—experience shows that they
will—resort, though reluctantly, to the same racks, dungeons,
and poison-cups, which bigots are wont to employ. For it comes
to this: if the teacher is right in what he says, he must be
regarded as a public benefactor; the city must honour him above
all its citizens. When the judges had condemned Socrates to
death, they asked hiin, according to Athenian custom, what
milder sentence he would propose for himself. He answered,
" A public support in the Prytanmum." Though they might be
offended at his audacity, their consciences told them that this
was the real alternative. Not being prepared to take it, they
allowed the sentence to be executed; so assuredly choosing a
course immeasurably more honourable to Socrates, and more in¬
structive to after ages.
1G. We must be careful of separating the discourse of Socrates nie
after his condemnation from the course of his life whicli pre-
ceded it. His faith in a future state is often put forward as a immortality
characteristic which distinguished him from the rest of his coun¬
trymen and of the pagan world. Now, no one refers more
frequently than Socrates himself to the old stories which express
this faith ; to JEaeus and Rhadamanthus, the functions that were
attributed to them, the souls upon which they passed judgment.
Evidently he believed that the essence of these stories was true;
that they did set forth the fact of a enrr< spondetiee bit ween tl e
condition of men hereafter and their condition here. As iu nthc*
132
OnEClAX PHILOSOPHY.
cases, lie received the teaching of those who had cone before
him; but he asked himself what that teaching meant, and how
it concerned him. His countrymen believed that, somehow or
other, they should he judged hereafter by what they had done
here; that some particle of themselves would suffer a vague
punishment or enjoy a iague happim..*. He was fixed in the
conviction that a man's blessedness consists in knowing that
which is, in having his soul engaged i 1 the pursuit of thi-. know¬
ledge ; that his misery consists in being without it, in ht ing
given up to dreams and unrealities. He hoped that what he had
desired to know here he should know ; he sought for arguments
to convince himself that, however the accidents which surrounded
him might change, he himself should continue, and being more
disengaged and purified from the corruptions and restraints of
which he had been conscious here, should he able to comerse
with the perfect Wisdom and (loudness. Socrates did not tell
his disciples that his future life was to be separate frotn his life
here; it was the continuation and unfolding of that life which
he looked for. He felt that his eyes had been partially opened,
that they would he opened more perfectly, that he should sti 1,
and always, be a seeker after wisdom ; but that wisdom would
meet him and embrace him, and ever reveal to him new treasures,
which would awaken in him ever fresh longings, and would con¬
tinually satisfy them. The seeker of wisdom, who passed here
for a pursuer of shadows, would grasp substance; the seeker of
wealth and power, who passed here for a pursuer of substance,
would grasp a shadow.
^rmtes yj "jhe hints which we have thrown out may, we think,
ciuuds. enable our readers to reconcile the three documents which we
possess concerning the life of Socrates. If we look first at the
Aristophanic portrait, we shall find that it is indeed a broad and
extravagant caricature, but drawn by a consummate artist, who,
even in distorting the expression of his original, shows that he
has studied it. We could not consistently bestow this praise
upon him if he had, as some of his commentators pretend,
represented Socrates as a natural philosopher. But the name
of the play of which he is the hero is almost the only excuse for
such a notion. And who that knows anything of the genius of
Aristophanes, or of the delicacy of the Athenian taste, will suspect
him of perpetrating, or his audience of tolerating, the wretched
conceit that a man worships the clouds, because he is fond of
gazing at the stars ? Far rather the airy nymphs whom the
philosopher is said to have substituted for the gods of his
country, are the patronesses of those attempts to catch the thin,
delicate, evanescent meaning® and shadows of the meanings of
nurds which might so plausibly he imputed to one who estimated
SOCBATES.
133
philology highly for its own sake, and found it so indispensable
a weapon in his warfare with the Sophists. The basket, too, in Senates not
which the philosopher is found hanging between heaven and byPAmto-d
earth, because he wishes to mingle his thoughts with the con- phone*, as a
genial air, indicates no sort of apprehension on the part of the physics °f
poet that Socrates looked upon himself as a mere particle of the
general life of the world, and desired to be reunited with his
native element; but, on the contrary, points to that doctrine of
the withdrawment of the spirit from the phantasms of the world,
which we have spoken of as forming so capital an article in the
moral creed of Socrates, and of which his idea respecting the
condition of the soul after death is only the expansion and ful¬
filment. The maps and geometrical instruments which the old
Athenian found in the phrontisterium partly prove that illustra¬
tions from subjects with which the education of the Athenian
youth made them familiar, were frequently in the philosopher's
mouth, and partly seem intended as a joke at the iSocratie
attempt to red ace morality to a science. The dialogue re¬
specting the cause of thunder is evidently intended far more as a
caricature of the philosopher's method of discourse than as an
expositiou of any of his particular opinions; the chief object
being to leave an impression on the hearer's mind, that Socrates
substituted some special daemon of his own (which the poet, to
keep his metaphors consistent, and to strike an oblique blow at
the really physical speculators, calls At roe) for Jupiter. It is
necessary to make these remarks in justification of Aristophanes,
lor if in these parts of his play he has wished to represent
Socrates as a naturalist, the whole plot of it is absurd and'in-
appropriate. Why should Strepsiades go to a natural philoso¬
pher that he may learn how to cheat his creditors ? or how should
such a teacher give Pheidippides lessons in beating his father ?
But the most remarkable feature in the whole play—the contest
between the just and the unjust principle—is at once decisive as
to the meaning of Aristophanes. The ingenious satirist, with
the quick, intuitive discernment which might be expected from
an Athenian, and such an Athenian, has perceived the conflict
between an uplooking and a downlooking mind to be the most
characteristic and important peculiarity of the system he was
ridiculing.
18. The one point in the life of Socrates of which Aristo- TheSocrates
phanes shows himself to have been utterly ignorant, is the object
of it; and this is the one point upon which Xenophon is anxious
to give us information. This worthy disciple is too anxious to
show us Socrates in his dignity, and therefore we miss the
hearty humorist who may be seen, though disguised, in the
comedian's picture. It was natural that a soldier should be
134
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
more struck with the positive conclusions at which Socrates
arrived upon direct practical matters, than with his method of
arriving at them. It was equally natural that the professed
apologist should be eager to exhibit his master in the way that
would be most intelligible to plain persons, who had been puz¬
zled with reports of his strange argumentations, and who had
fancied that some great mischief must lurk in them. But if we
bear these facts in mind, and look upon Xeuophon as rather the
expounder of the Socratic discipline than of the man himself, or
of his principles, we shall probably be much more struck with
the agreements than with the differences between him and the
other biographers. Homage to an invisible guide and teacher,
the distinction between the principle in man that looks upward
and that which gravitates to the earth, the recognition of
restraints upon the animal nature as means for the enfranchise¬
ment of the true man, we shall find in every page of the Memo¬
rabilia. Standing alone, Xenophon would be unsatisfactory—
nay, even misleading. His Socrates would be almost as much
a mere bundle of fine qualities or true opinions as his Cyrus.
But he is most useful in giving clearness and steadiness to the
apprehensions which we derive from other, and, on the whole,
better sources. We see clearly in him that Socrates did from
first to last keep a moral end before him. We see that he was,
to all intents and purposes, a practical man. And this discovery,
instead of making it more difficult to interpret the accounts of
him which some think inconsistent with it, renders those ac¬
counts more intelligible and more consistent with themselves
than we should otherwise have thought them.
The 19. In the Socrates of Plato we find both the Aristophanic
sicrates. Xenophontic Socrates—the mere humorist and debater,
and the mere moralist—uniting to form the real man. It has
often been said that the brilliant imagination of this philosopher
created a hero between whom and the actual Socrates there
were, perhaps, very few points of resemblance. Certainly it
would be a hopeless task to vindicate Plato from the charge of
a brilliant, and more than a brilliant, imagination. But two
meanings may be given to this word. If it signifies a contempt
of reason and probability, the gift, we apprehend, must belong
in a much lower degree to Plato than to those who conceive it
possible for a person living in the very city wherein Socrates
had been for years walking and talking, to have palmed upon
his countrymen a false or fantastic image of him. If, on the
contrary, by imagination we understand the power of giving to
that which would be otherwise a mere shadow, substance and
life, it must surely be a most serviceable ally to him who would
collect and harmonise the remembrances of an actual character,
THE SOCEATICS.
135
no less than to him who would call into being one that never
existed. Strong affection may supersede the necessity of such
a faculty in a mere biographer; or rather, perhaps, may awaken
it. But one who has not only to describe the thoughts, words,
and acts of a friend, but to show how they bore upon the state
of his country, and how they will bear upon men's speculations
aud lives for ages to come, has need that no ordinary measure
of this faculty should be imparted to him. This is the work of
Plato. It was Socrates, as the guide into a particular line and
course of thought, whom he proposed to exhibit. But in order
to do this, it was absolutely necessary that he should be brought
livingly before us; that we should see, not his opinions, but
himself; that we should be able to trace the workings of his
mind, to see how he acted upon others and they upon him. By
any other means Plato would have been unable to give us the
true Socrates; and without presenting us the true Socrates he
could never have brought out with any clearness and distinctness
the different sides of his own philosophy.
SECTION III.
THE SOCEATICS.
1. The immediate outgrowths of the Socratic philosophy and The
discipline were three schools, ordinarily distinguished as the £3^™"*
Cyrenaic, Cynic, aud Megaric. These may be said to be the Aristip'pus,
parents of the most conspicuous theories with which later Greece
was occupied. The Cyrenaic doctrine, having mingled with a Annicens.
tributary stream flowing from the physics of Dempcritus, termi¬
nated in Epicurism. The Cynic combined with the Megarian
to constitute Stoicism. The Megarian, moreover, contributed
one element to the important speculations which had their home
at a much later period at Alexandria. It is interesting, there¬
fore, to trace the leading thoughts of each, and to show how
they originated with Socrates.
2. Aristippus of Cyrene seems to have been a man of a singu- AristippuR,
larly easy, happy temperament. Pleasures excited him not, flourislJ5!j
pains passed lightly over him. Eew men, one would have B,c"
thought, would have had less sympathy with Socrates, who was
a hard fighter, all his life long, with himself and with the world.
Nevertheless this earnest thinker had charms even for Aris¬
tippus. Socrates said that we are not to yield to circumstances,
but are the masters of them ; and the light spirit which no cir¬
cumstance affected or oppressed found an interpretation for the
maxim in his own experience. The perturbations and restless¬
ness of the thoughtless, unrecollected man were frequent topics
for the pity and warnings of Socrates; could there be a more
136
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
natural inference than that freedom from annoyance, a dismissal
of all careful and turbulent anxieties, is the great end of philo¬
sophy ? In addition to these, the well-known commonplaces of
his master's discourse, Aristippus could no doubt quote authentic
fragments of his conversations, in which he had seemed to
assume pleasure as the end of life, and to adjust his other maxims
to this conclusion. He could tell, we may be sure, of cases in
which Socrates, addressing himself to his own lazy, voluptuous
habits of mind, and reprehending them, had yet seemed to make
it his object to prove, not that they were leading to a wrong
end, but that they were ill-chosen means for accomplishing that
end. Aristippus, therefore, easily persuaded himself that he
had a good title to call himself a Socratic—nay, that he was the
best and most complete interpreter of the Socratic views—when
he announced the great discovery that pleasure and pain are the
ultimate principles of human life; that the pursuit of the one
and the avoidance of the other is and must be the business of
a!rcaiiin^6 eyei7 man- Whatever honour belongs to the first formal pro¬
linuria" mulgator of a doctrine which has occupied so prominent a place
'•aerates?' ^ philosophy of all ages as this, must in all justice be given
to Aristippus. That in which he is distinguished from later
and less practical reasoners of the same class is in the distinct
and honest assertion that the momentary, concrete gratification,
and not the complex notion of happiness, is and must be the
object of men's desires and labours. It was easy for Aristippus
to adjust some other portions of the Socratic creed to this doc¬
trine. If the choice of what is agreeable, and the rejection of
what is disagreeable, be the great virtue of the human soul, how
conveniently might the language of Socrates respecting the con¬
nection of virtue with reason and knowledge be pressed into the
service of the new sect! Of course it is the intellectual faculty
which prefers and discards; and why should not these acts of
judgment be the same with those acts of reason, that perception
of what is and what is not, to which the master had so con¬
stantly referred ? And as for the apparent self-restraint and
bodily privations of Socrates, these were in no real contradiction
to the Cyrenaie theory, which admits, of course, all varieties of
taste, and may well permit one man to seek mental pleasure at
the expense of corporeal,—another, corporeal at the loss of
mental. This school underwent several changes. In the hands
of Theodorus pleasure and pain ceased to be real outward
objects, and self-seeking and self-glorification became the defined,
acknowledged ends of the wise man. In Hegesias the hope of
attaining pleasure is exchanged for a mere invention of con¬
trivances to avoid pain. Anniceris seems to have taken off the
rough edges of the doctrine, and to have prepared the way for
THE SOCRATICS.
137
its merging in the more general notions about happiness which
were matured by Epicurus.
3. The Cynic school—as it presents itself in the persons of Jchhe0^y.nic
Antisthenes, its founder, and Diogenes, its only very notorious Antisthenes
disciple—is the formal opposite of the Cyrenaic. Yet they neg
added one to the numerous illustrations of the old maxim, which
Mr. Coleridge has observed to be of all maxims the most preg¬
nant for the philosopher and the philosophical historian,—" Ex¬
tremes meet." Both, in fact, started from the same Socratic Antisthenes,
maxim ; both may probably have alleged the same discourses in u c
vindication of their system. The wise man should not submit 49(^374
to circumstances, but rule them, said Aristippus; his whole D~„.enes
business is to arrange his circumstances that they may produce 1 '
the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of pain. A man is 4X2-323.
to be superior to his circvunstanccs, said Antisthenes, and there¬
fore he is by all means to overcome his sensibility to pleasure
or pain, and endeavour to live solely within himself, cultivating
that nobler part of him which is not affected by outward impulses
and impressions. If the first could allege passages from the
discourses of Socrates in support of his theory, the latter could
more confidently appeal to the whole course of his life, to his
habitual endeavours after a victory over mere sensations. The
Cynics were, in fact, more disciplinarians than doctrinists.
They had a hard dogmatism of their own, but they were much
more ambitious to show their own indifference to passing acci¬
dents than to discover principles and reasons for such an indif¬
ference. Of the two professors of the school, Antisthenes
seems to have been the honester, Diogenes the more original.
The first was hard and narrow, but apparently sincere; the
second was an ostentatious coxcomb, from whose proud and
insolent spirit were emitted now and then sparks of what might
have been genius if it had been accompanied with simplicity of
character and a true purpose.
4. Euclides of Megara was unquestionably a more sagacious The
and subtle man than any of those we have named. He was
attracted to Socrates by no hope, either of obtaining a theory Euclides,
respecting life, or of discovering a scheme of self-culture, but by modoru"'
his unrivalled skill in disputation. Had Euclides lived thirty stiipo.
years earlier, he would have been an Eleatic, or else a Sophist.
But in nothing is the effect of the Socratic teaching, and the
change it had wrought upon the minds of his countrymen, more
remarkable than in the moral tone which it imparted to the
thoughts of those who would otherwise have been debaters
merely. To argue wys the taste and the vocation of the Mega-
rian school, but their arguments were all irresistibly drawn to
the question, " What is the Good ?" In pursuing this inquiry,
138
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
they were naturally led to those pregnant positions of Socrates
respecting evil, as a departure from, and rebellion against, what
is, which constituted, as we have seen, the ultimate, and, in one
way, the most characteristic part of his philosophy. This prin¬
ciple, in fact, disjoined from all the living processes by which
Socrates had arrived at it, and by which he sought to make other
men conscious of it, and exhibited in naked opposition to all
other ideas of virtue or goodness, constituted the Megarian doc¬
trine. All their labours were employed in disproving the
obvious and apparently irresistible opinion, that those things
whereof the senses give us information are the most real and
certain. "We have heard how Zeno defended the doctrine of his
friend and master Parmenides by showing the utter instability
of sensible presumptions and conclusions. The Megarian school
adopted the same method. The difference lay in the characters
of the respective periods; the purpose of Zeno vi as to support
the metaphysical idea of Oneness,—of the Megarian, to support
the moral idea of absolute, unchangeable Being.
Degeneracy 5. The history of this school is melancholy and instructive,
school. Euclides, though the bias of his mind was to disputation, felt
the grandeur of the moral lessons which he had learned from
Socrates. In Eubulides positive faith was superseded by delight
in his own subtlety, and in the confutation of antagonist argu¬
ments. The mere forms of the understanding, apart from all
vital principles or results, were the objects of admiration and
reverence to Diodorus Cronos. Lastly, Stilpo seems to have lost
the characteristic idea of the Megarian school altogether, while
he carried its characteristic infirmity to its greatest height.
Not to establish the existence of objective truth, but to show
how an intellect may be formed which shall be most impassive
to influences from without, and least disturbed by affections
from within, was his problem. One of his pupils was Zeno of
Cittium, the author of Stoicism.
section rv.
PLATO.
Tiip dream 1. Once upon a time, the biographer of the Greek philosophers
of Socrates, reports,1 Socrates dreamed a dream. He found an unfledged
cygnet upon his knee. In a few moments it became Avinged
and flew away, uttering a very sweet sound. The next day a
young man came to him, who was said to reckon Solon among
his nearer ancestors, and looked back through him to Codrus
and to the god Poseidon. The name of this young man was
Plato.
1 Diog. Laert. lib. iii. cap. i. 6.7.
PLATO.
139
2. Before lie came to Socrates, this youth had been a writer Plato's early
of dithyrambics, and songs, and tragedies. He had studied l,fe-
under Ariston, the Argive, a celebrated wrestler. Some say
that he won his name from the breadth of his chest, and that he
gained a prize for wrestling at the Isthmian games. But, what¬
ever his earlier studies may have been, the day in which he
settled on the knees of Socrates was the one which determined
the course of his after-life. Nothing that he had learnt before
that time was assuredly wasted, but the discourses of Socrates
gave his studies a meaning and a direction. From him Plato
learnt to understand himself, and thence to understand his pre¬
decessors and contemporaries. Prom him he learnt what it
behoved a Greek to seek for, what it behoved a man to seek for,
what perils and temptations beset the one and the other if he
enters upon the search.
3. So completely has Plato identified himself with his master, The paucity
that it is difficult to discover with any certainty the events and cir- concerning
cumstances of his own life. Less is recorded of him than of many his life-
of the most insignificant of Greek sophists. "What is recorded
rests upon very unsatisfactory evidence. The epistles which are
called by his name have long been rejected as spurious, though
some fragments of information respecting him may be derived
from them. The most interesting of these concern his expedi¬
tions into Sicily, his connection with the elder tyrant Dionysius,
his experiments for the reformation of the younger, his hope of
realising some ideal polity through the influence of a dissolute
and worthless tyrant, his direct influence upon the character
and fortunes of the stern aristocrat, the conspirator, the despot
Dion. Though it may not be possible to arrange the parts, of
this history, we may perhaps admit that Plato had an intense
longing to prove that he was no mere dreamer; that what he
believed was capable of realisation. We have not enough facts
to point a moral respecting the infirmity of a noble mind in
yielding to the hope of great results through such instruments.
He may never have entertained any flattering expectations, but
may simply, and perhaps reluctantly, have fulfilled a task that
was imposed upon him. How far it was necessary that his
polity should be tried in Syracuse, or anywhere else, in order
that the truth of its principles might be tested, we may under¬
stand better when we have considered what that polity was.
The question which immediately concerns us is, whether Plato,
when he became fledged, flew away into the air, and left his
master upon the earth, as some have fancied, and as the old
tradition seems to intimate, or whether he was the truest and
most faithful expounder of his master's doctrines, the true
Socratic, because he was not the founder of a Socratic system,
but a living and original investigator.
140
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Relation
between tbe
Socratic
schools and
Pluto.
How
Socrates
escaped
narrowness
and the
temptation
to theorise.
4. Plato "conversed with both Aristippus and Antisthenes.
With Euclides he enjoyed a closer intimacy than with either of
them, for to Megara he and other disciples fled after the death
of Socrates, when it seemed less safe to dwell in Athens. It
would be rash to say that the direction of his own thoughts was
determined by his observation of these three men, for it is a
notion apparently well supported by internal evidence, that his
Pfuedrus and his Laches were written in the lifetime of his
master. Yet it seems impossible to doubt that he had very early
noticed the tendency in his different fellow-disciples to adopt
certain sentences which fell from their teacher's lips, and from
these to form systems and schools, and that he had considered
very deeply whether there was no course by which he might
escape from the like temptation. If Socrates had compounded
his creed out of the different systems then prevalent in Greece,
it could surprise no one that the elements thus artificially put
together should reassert their independence, and in some new
shape, perhaps, be claimed as the property of the minds to which
they were severally most adapted. Everything that he had seen
of his master made this supposition impossible. Whether he
had studied the doctrines of other schools or no, it is evident
that every thought which he uttered came fresh and living from
himself, or, rather, was the united fruit of his own reflections
and of those of the persons with whom he conversed. It was
evident that he had been able to minister to other minds,
because he knew so well what was passing in his own, and had
sought out every principle as the solution of an actual difficulty.
But it is fair to suppose that every philosopher is in some sort
an inquirer into the workings of his own mind—nay, that his
philosophy, so far as it is sincere, is an exhibition of his own
mind. How then was Socrates, who was so remarkably himself \
preserved from that narrowness and exelusiveness into which
Aristippus and Antisthenes, both sincere men in their way, had
obviously fallen ?
5. Plato could only answer the question by supposing that it
was the healthy habit of always connecting his own thoughts
with outward circumstances, and with the puzzles of the age in
which he was living, which prevented the Socratic doctrines, in
their owner's hands, from ever stagnating into a mere theory.
The obvious resource for making a philosophy complete and
general, and suited to all times, was to strip it of those accidental
features which had adapted it so happily to a particular crisis.
Plato was convinced, by reflection and experience, that precisely
the opposite course was the safe one. The poetry of Homer
could be read and enjoyed in the age of Pericles, not because it
stood aloof from all temporary and local accidents, but because
it was enveloped in them. It was exactly when men were pre-
PLATO.
141
seated to them as they were in an entirely different state of
manners, that they were able to realise them as their brethren
and their countrymen. Reasons will no doubt occur in multi¬
tudes to the reader why the analogy of poetry is inapplicable to
philosophy : it is sufficient for our purpose that they did not
weigh with Plato. No one knew so well as he—no one felt so
strongly—the essential difference between poetry and philosophy;
he even was betrayed into exaggerations in his attempt practically
to assert it. But he was convinced that it did not consist in
this, that the poet obtains immortality for thoughts which he
utters by adapting himself to the feelings of the age in which
he lives, and the philosopher by divesting himself of them all.
He thought he could see that the abandonment of all living and
practical sympathies, the attempt to divorce himself from human
interests, gives to the philosopher that narrow and bounded
character from which he hopes by these means to deliver him¬
self. If, then, Grecian wisdom was not to retrograde from the
point to which Socrates had brought it, or if it was ever to
become useful in other countries and periods, Plato concluded
that it must not resolve itself into speculations or declamations
about this or that scheme of life, this or that principle of action
or pursuit, but must be content to exhibit itself in the conver¬
sations of actual men, not of some imaginary day, but of that
day, talking about the matters of which they did talk when they
met in the streets or at their feasts. He would not take the
least pains to forget the people among when he was living, or
the transactions that were occupying them, or adopt any more
universal mode of thought and speech than that which was com¬
mon among them.
6. The Dialogue of Plato is not then, as some have represented why Plato
it, an artistical invention, in which the philosopher sacrificed his Dialogues,
severe judgment to his imagination, or to a desire of reputation
for dramatic skill with his contemporaries or with posterity, or
to the ambition of presenting truths in an agreeable form. It
is evident that he regarded it as a necessary mean for the eluci¬
dation of the truths with which he believed himself to be pos¬
sessed ; and that he is not at all more anxious to impress any
one principle upon his readers than this, that in the Dialogue,
rightly used, we have the induction to all principles. It is
straDge, indeed, that Plato should be accused of sacrificing the
interest of his disciples to a selfish desire of fame, by that method
which has the effect of leading them onwards step by step in
self-inquiry ; or that he should be supposed to have used this as
a way of conciliating their favour, when, in fact, it has caused
more conscious vexation and irritation to every superficial talker
of that day, than any which his genius could have devised. A
142
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
mere artist endeavours to carry us at once into noble contem¬
plations, which make us conscious of our own greatness and
dignity. It is Plato's desire that we should feel our own way
into these contemplations, ascending into them through rugged
aud thorny paths, discovering how many frivolous difficulties
suggest themselves to us, which must be cleared away before we
Character can see anything as it is. His Dialogues are literally an educa-
Duiogoes. tion, explaining to us how we are to deal with our own minds,
how far we are to humour them, how far we are to resist them;
how they are to entertain the glimpses of light which sometimes
fall upon them; how they are to make their way through the
complications and darkness in which they so often feel them¬
selves lost. Nowhere but in the sacred oracles do we find an
author so cognisant of his own perplexities, so little anxious to
hide them from us; nay, so anxious to awaken us to the con¬
sciousness of them, in order that we may be delivered from
them. Herein lies the art of Plato. Most consummate art it
is, we admit; superior in the depth of insight which must have
led to it, and in the influence which it exerts, to that which is
displayed in almost any human composition. Still it is not art,
in the sense commonly given to that word; it has no indepen¬
dent purpose of pleasing. It does not work underground,
leaving the ordinary man to feel its effects simply, and the
thoughtful man to judge of its character by its effects. On the
contrary, it anxiously draws your attention to its own methods
and contrivances; that you should enter into them, and under¬
stand all the springs and valves that are at work, is as much
the writer's ambition, as that you should accept any one of the
fiual results. Indeed, he does not acknowledge the results as
yours, till in the region of your own inner being you have gone
through the processes which lead to them.
a cham 7. Plato above all men must be studied in Plato. A hearty
unwindmff ant^ sympathising acquaintance with one Dialogue will do more
itself. n to initiate a student into what is blunderingly called his system,
than the reports of all philosophical critics and historians.
There you find no digests of doctrine, no collections of ready-
manufactured notions, to be adopted and carried away. Every
one is alive and at work. The actors too are not, as in our best
Dialogues—in those of Berkeley, for instance—personages with
significant names; they are real Plnedruses, (xorgiases, and
Protagorases, discoursing, in a place which is ascertained to us
by an accurate and vivid description, about some passing ques¬
tion in the folds of which are found to be contained the deepest
and highest principles of our being. These are drawn forth,
nor \ii»l 'ntly by any predetermination that such and such i'lcts
shall gno forth such aud such a moral, but by the ordinary
PLATO.
143
accidents of conversation, amidst explanations and contradic¬
tions, the confusion of disciples, the anger of doctors, clumsy
attempts at reconciliation by good-natured bystanders. The
dialogue is often a Siris. Like Berkeley's admirable treatise, it
may be bound here on earth to no worthier a stake than the
properties and virtues of tar-water. Oftentimes the starting-point
may be one far less worthy than this, the lying speech of some
rhetorician in support of some mischievous and vulgar paradox.
Yet the chain is unwound with a skill of which our modest
countryman would have cheerfully confessed that his was but a
feeble copy, till its highest link is felt to be about the throne of
Him whose name it was the privilege of Berkeley to utter, the
honesty of Plato to declare unutterable.
8. Thus far we have described Plato as reasserting the entire His
principle of Socrates against those who had dismembered it. £d ecu asm.
But a notion has gone forth, and has received support from an
able and eloquent French commentator of our day, that Plato
was an Eclectic ; in other words, that his object on every occasion
was to set in opposition two imperfect principles, and either, by
merely showing their inadequacy, to suggest the hint, or, by
clear exposition, to develope the form, of a third idea which
should include them both. This is the most plausible shape
which the theory has taken. Another and common way in which
it is stated is, that Plato framed to himself the notion of a phi¬
losophy which, taking its start from the doctrine of Socrates,
should adopt into itself all the other Greek philosophies, whether
metaphysical or moral, and that accordingly we do find in him
not only an attempt to harmonise the doctrines of the schools
which took their name from Socrates, but also of those which
preceded him. In both these statements there is, as it seems
to us, much truth: yet truth put into a form which is
exceedingly likely to mislead a reader, and utterly to pervert
his notions respecting the real object of the Greek teacher.
We suspect that, in considering these theories, we may
both arrive at a clearer apprehension of Plato's meaning, and
gain some light which will profit us in all our future in¬
quiries.
9. One main object of Plato in using the dialogue was, that Moral
he might discover the latent meaning of words, and might lead the'primary
the inquirer to recognise this meaning as that which had been narpose of
implied in them from their origin, and had been floating in the a °*
minds of those who had given them quite a different signification.
Hereby he was carrying out the method which Socrates, as we
have seen, had been throughout his life maturing, and to which
we have traced the success of all his experiment* in moral
science. For this practice was grounded upon a faith which is
GKECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
ripened day by day into certainty, that there is in every man
that which apprehends and recognises truth ; that the truth is
continually near him; and again, that his view of it is con¬
tinually interrupted and distorted by the phantoms which are
presented to his senses. In drawing forth this truth out of the
mind of the student, and teaching him to realise it as his own,
consisted, as Plato believed, the great duty of the Socratie
teacher ; to this all his labours were to be bent; so far as he did
this work faithfully, he might hope to be rewarded with greater
illumination. Never, however, was it to be forgotten that the
discipline was a moral as well as an intellectual one, nay, that
it was primarily and essentially moral; that he must resist the
attractions and bribery of sense in order to escape her im¬
positions. Now the process we have described leads to a result
which often looks like the result of Eclecticism. An opinion
seems to be rejected as false, an opinion that is set in opposition
to it is shown also to be unsatisfactory, and then at last a truth
is seen, or suspected to be hidden somewhere, which both alike
had been aiming ineffectually to reach. The reader of Plato's
Dialogues will be encountered again and again with instances of
this sort. But let him beware of hurrying to the conclusion,
that the reconcilement of these opinions, or the construction of
another opinion which shall be more comprehensive than both,
was the aim of the teacher. If he will quietly accompany him
along the road, he will find that in such conversations as these,
distinction is much more his object than accommodation. To dis¬
tinguish between those images which the mind shapes for itself
out of the objects of sense when it is sense-ridden and sense-
posscssed, and that sound meaning and reality which it is capable
of perceiving when it has sought to purge itself of its natural
and habitual delusions—to teach it the art of rejecting as well
as choosing, and to put it in the posture for either one act or the
other; this is the intention of Plato. It may be that he has
done more to introduce harmony and unity into moral specula¬
tions than any philosopher who ever lived ; we fully believe that
he has. But he begins with cultivating in us the habit of moral
distinction. He begins with leading us to feel that truth and
falsehood are radical ultimate contradictions which cannot be
accounted for or resolved into any others. To see that which is,
as it verily is, this is the highest privilege of the best and wisest
man; to see things as they are not, confused, seusualised, cor¬
rupted, this is the misery and curse of the thoughtless, slavish
victim of inclination. To open that invard eye by which the
reality of things is discerned in other men, is the vocation and
privilege of him who has himself served an apprenticeship to
truth, and feels that he is her servant.
PLATO.
145
10. Such, we conceive, is the object of one large class of the Purely
Plutonic Dialogues, which are the induction or vestibule to the
rest. In these Plato is distinctly and emphatically Socratic.
They must, indeed, differ in an important respect from the
actual conversations of Socrates, in that the end must always
have been more present to the mind of the writer, than it could
have been to that of the speaker. In Socrates the strongest
feeling seems to have been, u I am certain there is something
which is not appearance or phantasy, which man did not shape
out for himself, but which will remain when all phantasies have
disappeared, which is, and which I must recognise if I would be
anything but a phantom or shadow myself." This was the con¬
clusion of a practical working mind. By earnest meditation
upon this conclusion, Plato came to feel that if there is an
unseen reality in all things, a truth, a substance in things, of
which the eye sees only the shape and colour, there must be a
truth and substance which has none of those sensible adjuncts,
which is in itself, and the beholding of which is the function and ,
highest attainment of the purified spirit. Now the outward
shell of this opinion so closely resembles the doctrine of Euclides
that we cannot wonder that some critics, in their desire to
reduce the philosophy of Plato into fragments, should have pro¬
nounced several of the earlier Dialogues to be not in fact his,
but productions of the Megarian school. All in which they
found this substance, this to qv, put forward as the end of human
investigations, they naturally connected with a system which
had the assertion that Good and Being are identical for its pro¬
minent characteristic. Those who agree with us in the view we
have taken will at once see the plausibility of the critic's notion,
and its utier untenableness. In no part of Plato's works is the These
distinction between him and the Megarians so conspicuous as in D^,0i>'uts
this where he is asserting their own principle. For by adhering Mepan m.
closely to the method of Socrates, by making his Dialogues not
the declaration of a truth, but a mental exercise to arrive at it,
he has not only divested the doctrine of all its dryness and
prickliness, but he has shown how it is connected with those
other more obvious notions to which the Megarian set it in rude
opposition. Pleasure is not the good, they said ; self-denial is
not the good; Being is the good. Xes, said Plato, but there is
a Being in pleasure, there is a reality in it as well as a falsehood
in it. Whatever man has found an expression for in language,
whatever man has pursued as an object in life, there is in that a
truth, a substance, which may be distinguished from the lying
phantom that surrounds and counterfeits it. And so far as a Opinions
man does this, so far does he put himself into the right condition recuuule(1-
of mind for arriving ultimately at the perception of that Truth,
YOL. I. L
146
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
that Being which is encompassed with no accidents. But then,
in order to attain or to cultivate this state of mind, there must
be a discipline, a curbing, and contradiction of the lower nature,
and therefore this too is a good,
ot u'ittk^ucs Without, then, any purpose of combining opinions, nay,
" "" while resolutely maintaining boundaries, and using a most
subtle test for the discrimination of the true from the apparent,
Plato had actually reduced the three doctrines which assumed
the name of Socratie into a certain relation and harmony. It
now became him to consider how far this same doctrine and
method might be applied to the earlier philosophers of Greece;
how far his master had been anticipated by Xenophanes,
Heraclitus, Parmenides, or Pythagoras; how far he had thrown
back a light upon them which might make their speculations
more intelligible and consistent with each other. Here com¬
mences, in our judgment, the second class of the Platonic
Dialogues, that in which the link between Moral and Metaphy¬
sical Philosophy, between the doctrine of Being which Socrates
had asserted, and the question respecting Unity, which had
been so great an occupation of the Greek mind, is illustrated and
developed.
32. Our readers will not have forgotten that the leader of the
Eleatie school, Xenophanes, was in one respect distinguished
from his successors. His language at first sight seems remark¬
ably to accord with that of Socrates. That which he supposed
to be the true object of man's contemplation was God, or
" The Being." Yet, while doing justice to the course of thought
by which he arrived at this conclusion, we were obliged to admit
that he was essentially a destructive thinker; that he reduced
his Being to a mere negation of human qualities and attributes ;
and that Parmenides found a happier expression for the results
of his inquiries when he said that they simply led to the affir-
Ditterence mation of Oneness. How, then, did the doctrine of Socrates
between differ from that of Xenophanes ? It was separated from it by a
andSocrates whole heaven. The Being of Xenophanes was altogether
exclusive; the Being of Socrates was altogether inclusive. If
the language of men contained such words as "just," " merciful,"
" good," if it attributed these names to certain acts, then,
whether these words had been understood or no, whether they
had been rightly applied or no, there was a reality corresponding
to them, there was a "justice," a "mercy," a "goodness," and
all these centred and united themselves in the Being. No
Sophist could embarrass him with the question, " Seeing man
also uses the words ' unjust,' ' unmerciful,' ' bad,' why should
not these also have their appropriate archetypes ? and why may
not these, as much as the others, dwell in that permanent and
PLATO.
147
all-containing substance ?" For it was assumed in the very
hypothesis that all these are departures from that which is, that
they are intrinsically falsehoods. Now, it was by reflection upon
this difl'erence, so delicate yet so vital, so strikingly marking the
man who was fighting against all popular opinions and faith
from the man who was finding out substance and life in all, that
Plato seems to have gained his first insight into that doctrine of
Ideas which constitutes the most native and peculiar portion of ideas,
his philosophy, that which may not wrongly be called its purely
Platonic portion. We are perfectly willing to admit the asser¬
tion which the other disciples of Socrates seem to have made
with no little vehemence, and which Aristotle has adopted from
them, that no such principle as this was enunciated by Socrates
in any of his discourses. Yet we believe as undoubtedly, that
by his steady adoption of the Socratic method, Plato arrived at
this principle, and that they failed in apprehending it only
because they neglected that method, in endeavouring to make
this remark clear, we shall also perhaps be able to give our
readers such insight as a treatise like this may hope to give into
the subject itself.
13. The Greek word for appearance and for opinion is the Pnrti<ai
same. An opinion is that which seems to each man. Now the ti'^so^rat"
whole of the education and discipline of Socrates had been to doctrine,
lead his disciples away from appearances to realities. And just
so far as he did this he felt that he was leading them from
Opinions to Kuowledge. His experiments upon others convinced
him, his own heart told him, that there is in us a thirst after
knowledge, that with less than kuowledge we cannot be satisfied.
These at least are Socratic assertions ; no one pretends that thev
were palmed upon him by Plato. But how could this be ? The opinion hmI
essence, the being of a thing, or of a person, seems shut up in ,um
that thing or person. I may acknowledge that it is there, but
how can it ever come within the region of my perceptions ?
Must it not be, after ad, some shape, or image, or phantom of
this thing which I take account of, and not the very thing itself?
Supposing this were admitted, the Socratic philosophy falls to
the ground. And what falls with it? Not a scheme or a
system, but the faith that truth is anyhow cognisable by man,
the faith that he is not the necessary dupe of shadows and im¬
postures ; the fact_AhakJie_is~ar~mOral fieTn^T It was noTTa
doubtful question whether these results-"would follow from such
a determination as this; they had followed -, the practice and
education of Socrates had been nothing less or more than a
deliverance from them. The Sophists had turned the world into
a shadow world, in which they could safely practise their juggle¬
ries. It was the great assertion that something is, and that
14S
GEECIAH" PHILOSOPHY.
only what is may be known, which had discomfited them, and
made a mock of their Bubtleties. Yet unless this great practical
puzzle could in some manner be resolved, the conclusions of
Socrates, however ascertained to be sound by the reason and
moral feeling of every one who fairly worked them out, would be
liable to continual assaults on the side of the understanding.
On this point, too, Plato was not left to his own conjectures.
The Sophists had stolen their armour from the real, the honest
philosophers of Greece. They had not dared to grapple with
this difficulty, and the proofs which they had left of its existence
in their speculations had been eagerly laid hold of by those who
knew so well how to suck the poison out of every flower.
Herarieitans 14. We have intimated that a faithful and affectionate study
aid Lieutics. 0p strangej earnest thoughts which occupied Heraclitus
might be profitable to any man. But his sayings concerning
the endless vicissitude of things, and the falsehood of all human
conjectures, made far more impression upon the Greek mind
than his deeper thoughts respecting the universal light in man,
and the power he possesses of conversing with that which is
universal. These latter sentiments had only connected them¬
selves with the vague pantheistic notions which were now
gaining ascendancy (notions probably very far indeed from the
mind of Heraclitus himself, who thought it the ultimate wisdom
to know the name of Jupiter) ; the former, in the hands of
Protagoras, had become a system which excluded all feeling of
constancy and permanence or order. One man has one notion
of the things which he beholds or meditates upon ; another man
another. Any one of these notions may be as right as another;
and that we cannot have more than such notions, that we cannot
arrive any more nearly to the truth of things, is a proposition
not so much to be proved as to be taken for granted. Meantime
the Eleatic " fixedness," which was the formal opposite of the
• Heracleitan " flux," served the purpose of the deceiver equally
well. To be able to deny the fact of plurality, and so embarrass
the minds of men respecting the objects of their worship, was
just as convenient a line of policy as to upset their faith in their
own convictions. Such observation might have led another man
to despair of all inquiries ; they only gave Plato a stronger moral
interest in prosecuting those upon which he had entered.
15. All the notions, you say, which the mind forms respecting
that which the bodily eye sees, or that which its own inward
eye sees, are confused, fluctuating, contradictory. My notion
of the flower is not rhe very flower ; my notion of what is just
is not the very just. Most true, Heraclitus ; most true, Prota¬
goras. But these notions are indexes, guiding-posts to that
which is not false, or confused, or contradictory. This notion
PLATO.
149
of the flower aud of justice proves that there is a very flower—a Notions and
very justice. Again, the mind is capable of beholding the Being, ,deas-
the One. But of this Being, of this One, all the notions, imagi¬
nations, premonitions of the sensual understanding offer most
miserable and counterfeit resemblances. True, Xenophanes and
Parrnenides; yet there is that in this Being, this One, which
does and must answer to these notions ; that which they are
trying, however vainly, however awkwardly, to express. If, then,
we connect the results of these inquiries, which start from such
opposite points, what follows ? There are forms permanent and
unchangeable in which that which is, manifests itself as it is; in
which we behold it as it is. Are these forms, then, in the
beholder, or in that which he beholds ? We answer, the region
of pure Being, that in which the inner mind dwells, may be (one
might expect that it would be) under some corresponding law
to that of sensible phenomena. At all events there could be no
d priori presumption against the doctrine that as a soimd can¬
not, by the very nature of language and of things, be referred
only to that whence it proceeds, but likewise involves the sup¬
position of an ear which receives it, so there may be such a pre¬
sentation of that which actually is, of the substance or essence
of each thing, as can neither be understood merely in reference
to that thing, nor merely in reference to that whereunto it is
made, but must by its nature appertain one and the same mo¬
ment to both. But then this presentation cannot by its very
nature be fluctuating or variable; it must be permanent and
substantial, or it cannot make known that which is permanent
and substantial; it must be the very opposite to that which is
its parallel in the world of sense. Are we to say of such ideas ideas
or forms that they are eternal as well as substantial ? To answer Bubstantial-
" Yes," would perhaps startle no one, if these ideas or forms
had merely reference to Justice, Goodness, or even Beauty.
But when we speak of the actual flower and tree that we behold
as having a primary form or idea, is there not something dan¬
gerous in a doctrine which would represent such forms as eter¬
nal ? The reply is, that this statement would do but very par¬
tial justice to Plato. For if in the minutest thing he believes
that there is a reality, and therefore in some sense an archetypal
form or idea, yet he believes also, just as firmly, that every idea
has its ground and termination in one higher than itself, and
that there is a supreme idea, the foundation and consummation
of all these, even the idea of the absolute and perfect Being, in
whose mind they all dwelt, and in whose eternity alone they
can be thought or dreamed of as eternal.
16. This remark may also relieve the doctrine of another
objection. These ideas, being by their very nature substantial,
150
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
must be substantially in him who perceives them. It is only
seeking to remove the difficulty a step further from us, and fall¬
ing into a contradiction and absurdity in the attempt, to sup¬
pose that there are indeed forms or ideas of things, but that we
Liens—how have only notions or conceptions of these ideas. The idea itself
"9' must be considered as with us and in us ; the notion which we
form about that whereof it is the idea, when we begin to use
our senses, to compare and to reflect, must not be identified
with the idea, but is a witness and proof of its presence, and
that we are feeling after it; to realise or to possess the idea is to
have the science or the knowledge of the thing. But then this
assertion, that these ideas are substantially with us, must be
taken in connection with what has been said before, and it will
be seen at once that, instead of affirming the ground and root
of our knowledge to be in ourselves, this is the very falsehood
which Plato was seeking to overturn. These ideas are the
witnesses in our inmost being that there is something beyond
us and above us; when we enter into the idea of anything we
abdicate our own pretensions to be authors or creators, we
become mere acknowledgers of that which is. And to enter
into that deepest and ultimate idea, which is the ground of our
being, must be in the deepest sense an abdication of our own
notions and imaginations, an act of submission to, and reception
of, the Truth.
Plato no 17. Here, then, we find Plato most consistently carrying out
theorist. the principle which it had been the vocation of his master from
first to last to assert. Here we see how perfectly harmonious
the Socratic doctrine, that knowledge is the end of life, is with
that humility and confession of ignorance which are at the root
of all the Socratic discipline and culture. Here we see the
harmony between knowledge and being; how necessarily a cer¬
tain state of character and affections is presupposed in every act
of knowledge. Here, lastly, we see how truly Plato reconciled
those two forms of philosophy, one of which had dealt with the
objects of our knowledge, one with our acts of perception—how
truly he discovered a truth, one side of which each had dimly
perceived, yet how little this was the result of any project for
harmonising opposite theories,—how much rather it was the
effect of resolutely pursuing a principle which supersedes
theories altogether, and so far as it is faithfully acted upon,
delivers us from our bondage to them. Not to frame a com¬
prehensive system which shall include nature and society, man
and God, as its different elements, or in its different compart¬
ments, and which therefore necessarily leads the system-builder
to consider himself above them all, but to demonstrate the utter
impossibility of such a system, to cut up the notion and dream
PLATO.
151
of it by the roots, this is the work and the glory of Plato. He
who is attempting the construction of such a Babel must under¬
stand not merely that he will not find the model of it in Plato,
but that before he advances one step he must undo everything
that Plato has done, must disprove all his conclusions, and prove
the falsehood of the process by which he has arrived at them.
Those commentators who can find in Plato nothing but the most
exquisite ridicule of all the system-makers in his own and in
past days have, it is true, understood him imperfectly. That
ridicule would not be so delightful and satisfying as it is, so
thoroughly genial and consolatory to every earnest student, if
he did not feel that it was the handmaid of the most severe
demonstration, that it was only another aspect of the most
generous and noble sympathy with everything that is honest
and humble, practical and true. The kind and experienced
teacher smiles at our useless waste of time in attempting to
build, but it is that he may urge us to the more profitable occu¬
pation of seeking after the foundation of that which is built.
The first is the employment of those who desire to be gods, the
second of those who believe that the highest blessing of which
man is capable is to know God.
18. But if it be true that Plato is almost free from that pro- His
pensity for theories which has beset most philosophers, nay, that cuSsifi-"1
his principle, consistently followed out, is positively incompatible cation,
with them, how is it that he is so commonly supposed to have
mapped out the domain of human knowledge into the three
provinces of Dialectics, Ethics, and Physics ? In considering
this question we shall perhaps discover the purpose of a third
class of his Dialogues, and be able, moreover, to contemplate his
so-called Eclecticism under yet another aspect.
19. The critics who have discovered this classification in Plato
evidently cannot mean that there is one portion of the Dialogues
which does, and one portion which does not, treat of dialectics.
They must be aware that every dialogue exhibits the dialectic
method of Plato, that every one is making with more or less
success some new trial or application of it. Neither, we think,
can they pretend, without doing violence to the purpose and
language of their author, that these dialectical dialogues are not
also ethical. Not only is a moral purpose conspicuous through- ^JJjectlCB
out them, but, as we have said before, the development of the amiethirs
method by which the truth is perceived and ascertained is in- in6t'Paral,lc-
separably interwoven with a moral culture. The disengagement
of the mind from sensible impressions and sensible fascinations
is the joint effect of restraint upon inclination and of the art by
which the apparent is distinguished from the real. Without the
feeling of this connection and intertwining of the ethical with
152
GHECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
the intellectual discipline, the most beautiful Dialogues are un¬
intelligible ; nay, the desire to separate that which Plato has
believed inseparable, is perhaps the main cause of the narrow
and partial views which have prevailed as to the object and con¬
struction of his works.
Fiiwilrus ^ook, f°r ^stance, at the Phcedrus. Lysias bad proposed
a certain thesis respecting Love, and had defended it with
abundance of ingenuity in studiously-balanced sentences, the
aptest clothing for a rhetorical purpose and a rhetorical method.
Socrates shows, first, how easy it is to meet his arguments with
a counter series as ingenious and as artificially expressed. Then
he discovers the radical defect of both sets of arguments, that
they were dealing with a word the meaning of which had not
been ascertained. In the attempt to find what this word sig¬
nifies, to separate the true from the apparent meanings of it, he
unveils the principles of his dialectics. But there is combined
with this exposition the most distinct declaration and warning,
(assuming a form which, however unfit for us, was appropriate
to the evil condition of Greek society, and proves the purity of
the writer who, in the midst of such society, could maintain so
elevated a standard,) that only by restraining the grosser appetites
can we be in a state for apprehending the true nature of Love.
In the conclusion of the Dialogue, the two principles are har¬
monised in a splendid mythus, wherein the disciple is taught
that only he who governs himself, who has his lower nature in
subjection, can be fit for the highest exercise of his faculties, for
the contemplation of that which verily and indeed is. We can¬
not reduce this Dialogue under any of the partial names and
descriptions that have been given of it. "We cannot consider it
a mere attack upon the rhetoricians, or a mere development of
the Socratic method for testing the meaning of words. Neither
does it seem to us a treatise on pure love, or on the idea of
beauty. All these subjects may be hinted at, and even most
valuably illustrated. But the reader of the Phcedrus must be
contented to feel how they sustain each other, and to let them
form themselves into a whole in his mind, without being eager
to give the absolute supremacy to any one of them. He will
then find, we believe, that this Dialogue is one of the most con¬
spicuous, we might say the type dialogue, of that class which
teaches us how to make substance or being the end of our in¬
quiries and meditations; but he certainly will not be able to
discover whether it is more ethical or dialectical.
TheGorjias. 21. The Gorgias is another almost equally striking instance of
the same kind. Formal critics have determined that this too
shall be merely an attack upon rhetoric, or else that it shall have
the merely moral object of explaining the nature and purpose of
PLATO.
153
punishment. It must strike a person, "who only hears of this
discussion, that a work which could suggest such opposite inter¬
pretations must be most incoherent and rhapsodical. The more
he reads it the more he will be struck with the sequency of its
thoughts, with the natural and easy manner in which one grows
out of another. And he will find, we believe, upon reflection,
that as the intellectual purpose of the Sophist was inseparably
combined with the moral, as the pursuit of political power for
an end was inseparably united to the cultivation of a treacherous
art as the means, so it was impossible to introduce a sounder
intellectual discipline among the youth of Atliens, without lead¬
ing them at the same time to perceive that the true purpose of
their lives was not the acquisition of dominion, or the escape
from suffering and punishment, but the attainment, even through
suffering, punishment, and disgrace, of a deliverance from the
moral evil which obstructed their search after truth, and made
Eower a curse to them. Here, again, he distinguishes the true
■om the apparent, not by the help of ethics without dialectics,
or of dialectics without ethics, but of both conjointly.
22. How the case stands in reference to physics we shall have
to explain shortly. But thus much we may affirm now, that
whensoever his opponents have engaged in physical speculations,
Plato is not unwilling in those Dialogues, which have most dis¬
tinctly a moral purpose, to cope with them, and that he never
in such wise divides these two provinces as to suggest the
thought that the principles by which either is governed may not
most usefully or injuriously affect the other. Of this fact we
could easily convince our readers, if we could afford space for an
analysis of the Theatetus. But we must do no more than com- The
mend that exquisite specimen of Platonic wisdom to their care- Thesetetns-
ful study, and proceed to show how the notion that Plato
established a formal division in the subjects of human thought
may have originated, and may be reconciled with our belief in
his hatred of theories and consistency of purpose.
23. We have often observed that the founders of the different Third class
schools in Greece had been led by the circumstances of their o^1*10^66-
position, or by the peculiar tendencies of their own minds, to
choose for themselves a distinct sphere of observation. It was
no forethought or wish to be a natural philosopher that drew
Tbales into his course of speculation. It was merely that the Search after
outward facts submitted to his senses were those which struck unity-
him as the most likely to contain the solution of the problem
which he found within. In like manner, Pythagoras was led by
a series of scarcely known or acknowledged influences gradually
to desert the maxims of his native soil, and to make Society, or
the State, the subject of his inquiries. To these we know he
154
Grecian miLosornr.
added a scheme of nature which he tried to reduce under the
same law as the facts which related to the order and govern¬
ment of men. Parmenides and Zeno again entered into their
purely metaphysical region, not from any resolution of choosing
one province of thought more than another, but merely by
reflecting upon the two preceding systems, and finding that they
were inadequate. They too sought to make their own system
universal, and to make the scheme of the political world and of
nature in some sense dependent on the laws which concern the
region of pure mind. Plato then found the fact already esta¬
blished for him, that there actually are these three lines in which
the thoughts of men, when they are strongly exercised, naturally
run. He had not to create any artificial distinctions; the
natural distinctions had been disco\eredby the experience of his
Unity in predecessors. What remained for him 'i To follow them into
"orieiy'/in each of these regions, to inquire how far any of them had dis-
knowiedge. covered the unity of which he was in search, to consider whether
what they had looked for in nature, in society, in the mind of
man, may not be implied indeed in each of these, yet have its
foundations beneath them all. This, we believe, was the final
and consummate eifort of the Platonic philosophy. As there is
a set of Dialogues which seem to us designed merely to unfold
the JSocratic doctrine of Being, another expressly intended to
develope the principle of Ideas, as necessary to the support of the
former, and as solving a problem which the Heracleitans and
Eleatics had shown to exist, so we believe there is a third in
which Plato reflects upon his master's discoveries and his own,
and exhibits them in direct application to the three subjects of
nature, of society, and of knowledge. Every one will recognise
in the Tim&us an attempt to discover a unity for the external
universe; in the Republic, an attempt to discover the meaning
of political unity. And, therefore, without contradicting our
previous assertion that, in all his Dialogues, Plato is evolving a
dialectical method, we may also admit that there are some in
which he proposes to himself the direct and formal aim of show¬
ing how this method is a guide to the true unity in knowledge.
Hor must it be forgotten that Plato was enabled by his position
as a reviewer of past systems, was obliged by his position as an
expounder of Socrates, to reverse the order which we have
followed in tracing the rise of these schools historically. He
why Plato not only might begin with those principles which the Eleatics
order!68thl8 had expounded, and descend to the natural speculations of the
lonians, but be could not follow any other course if he was to
make the Socratic doctrine of Being, and the Socratie method
of distinguishing the real front the fantastic, his guiding stars
through the whole journey. Here, then, we must begin our
plato.
155
notice of his experiments in search of unity. "We are eager to
introduce our readers to that 'which we consider the crowning
labour of his life, the end at which he was obscurely aiming
through the whole of it—his polity ; but we must first refer to
his discussions respecting the conditions and meaning of
science. A few words will then be sufficient for the less im¬
portant, though by no means uninteresting, question—how far
his views respecting the physical world were in conformity or
disagreement with his other principles.
21. There was one great and obvious difference between the unity in
position of the Parmenideans and that of the Pythagoreans or se'ence.
Ionians. No one could doubt that they had a real subject for
their inquiries, let those inquiries be as idle as they might. But
the Eleatie had to produce both the dream and the interpreta¬
tion ; to maintain that there was a region of pure mind, as well
as to show what was transacted there. Plato, therefore, had
also two tasks. He had to show that their assumption was
sound, before he ventured to inquire how far it was able to
carry them. For this purpose he adopted a method which has
greatly puzzled many of his readers. In the Dialogue entitled
Parmenides he introduces Socrates, full of youthful vivacity, ™emendes
broaching the doctrine of ideas in opposition to the antiplurality
doctrine of Parmenides and Zeno. The aged philosopher treats
his antagonist with most graceful courtesy, allows him to put
forth one explanation after another of his scheme, shows him
that all are untenable, then encourages him to hope that, after a
more severe philosophical training, he will understand himself
better, and finally proceeds to establish his own doctrine of the
One in a series of annihilating propositions, wherein he shows
that it must exist, and that it cannot exist under any conditions
or limitations with which the understanding is acquainted.
Probably no one but Plato ever ventured upon such an experi¬
ment as this—the experiment, we mean, of showing that his own
principle was untenable except so far as it is connected with and
grounded upon the principle of another philosopher who did not
recognise it. But the Dialogue of the Parmenides does not
merely serve the purpose of establishing the truth that the mind
witnesses of something which is not under sensible laws, but it
also prepares us to feel the want which the Eleatie doctrine
could not satisfy. A conviction of the purely negative character
of the method grows upon us as we read, and while we assent
to its conclusions we feel an increasing moral interest in seeking
for some higher point of view from which we may contemplate
it, and that imperfect substitute which the young Socrates had
proposed for it. In the Sophist this wish is to a great degree TheSophist.
realised. There we have an Eleatie stranger discussing with the
156
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
young Thestetus the meaning of the word Sophist, and the
qualities of the animal which it denoted, how far it belongs to
the same genus with the Philosopher, or how they are distin¬
guished. In the course of this dialogue we arrive at the con¬
clusion that the great object of the Sophist is to set up a
universal science. By universal science he means merely a
capacity of talking upon all manner of subjects, of framing a set
of images of that which is, and passing these off for substances
and realities. But here a difficulty arises: Parmenides, whose
opinions the Eleatie stranger might be supposed to favour, has
told us that we are not to inquire respecting that which is not;
that the conception is in fact an impossible one. How then
will our definition of the Sophist practically avail us ? How
The Sophist shall we be able ever to pursue him on to that ground where-
PhUosopher. un^° we ^ave ^ad eleare9t evidence that he has betaken
himself ? The Eleatie stranger finds himself obliged then, much
as he fears the guilt of parricide, to inquire into the soundness
of this doctrine of his honoured countryman and teacher. By
degrees the fallacy unveils itself. "We find that in refusing to
recognise the notion of not-being, he was in fact shutting his
eyes to something which is. The contradiction may appear
startling, but we do not escape it by refusing to look it in the
face. We have actually stumbled upon an instance in which
that which is adverse to reality must be treated to all intents
and purposes as real. And when we look a little further into
the use of language, we see more and more the impossibility of
giving that definite rigid exclusiveness to the word or notion of
Being which it must bear in the system of Parmenides. We
find that ne cannot by any means identify our notion of same¬
ness or of difference with our notion of Being. And yet the
notion of Being enters into both of these ; there w a sameness
and a difference between things. Whither does all this lead ?
The It leads to the conclusion which, as is so constantly the case in
£22- Plato, is carried more directly home to our understanding than
it is expressed in words, that Parmenides is after all dwelling in
a region of words. For all that he seems to have sounded the
very inmost depth of thought, and though he has actually dis¬
covered that there are depths which words do not reach, yet he
himself is at last only setting up one notion against another
notion. It is not Being, but the notion of Being which he has
been investigating, and which he has necessarily investigated
most imperfectly. And now, then, the vision of a new kind of
science wholly unlike that of the Sophist, yet in one sense as
universal as his, wholly different from that exclusive dogmatic
national philosophy of Parmenides, yet, like his, having unity for
its condition and ultimate ground, opens upon us. This is the
PLATO.
157
science of dialectics, the science expressly appertaining to the
philosopher. It is that which rejects no form of thought or
language as unfit for its investigation, but searches out the idea
of each, and ascertains what notions and phantasms are incon¬
sistent with it, and attach themselves to it, and have sought to
make themselves part of it. Being it looks upon as the object
of its search, but Being connected with life, connected with
power, not a dry abstract notion, the mere negation of other
notions. This must be the science of sciences ; not because it
reduces all forms of thought to one, or because it includes all
existing sciences, but because it discovers in all forms of thought
an ultimate ground of unity beneath them all, because it assigns
to each science its specific object, and its relation to every
other.
25. Every science is seeking after a foundation. It rests Dialectical
upon the faith that there is a law for the facts which it inquires science: "
into; what that law is, is the subject of its inquiry. The science »tn|USt
should explain to us how the mind proceeds in the search after
these laws through whatever set of facts we may be looking for
them. But its own specific object is the deep ground of all
laws, the Being from whom they derive their life and potency.
This dialectics then is the search after premises. Parmenides
and Zeno had gone no higher than to the notion of a Logic
which, taking the premises of the mind for granted, should
affirm what conclusions will legitimately and necessarily flow
from them. This was in fact their universal science, as Rhetoric
was that of the Sophist. The first overthrew all facts, setting up
a law in the mind in opposition to them. The second con¬
founded law and fact, using certain laws of the mind to overturn
admitted facts, or the contradictions of facts to disprove the
existence of law. The principle of seeking for laws in and
through facts is the principle by which Socrates upheld the faith
and morality of men against the invasions of Rhetoric, and by
which Plato upheld the possibility of science against the inva¬
sions of Logic. Here is that inductive science which two
thousand years after had to maintain the same battle against the
same enemies, when it for the first time clearly and efficiently
asserted itself as the only guide to a knowledge of the physical
world. The iSocratie doctrine of Being makes us feel that it is
necessary. The Platonic doctrine of Ideas makes us understand
that it is possible. The demand in the mind for a Unity which
shall be not negative, but positive, not the amalgamation of parts,
but that which precedes all distinction into parts, and remains
unaffected by it; this makes us confident that it is real.
26. The connection between the Platonic dialectics and the DmiH-hi-,
Platonic politics is indicated by several passages in the Dialogues, s
which are intended to unfold the character of each. Thus in how'?1 e<
158
GHECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
the Sophist the Eleatic stranger proposes to examine the mean¬
ing of three words, Sophist, Philosopher, Politician. The last is
reserved for a separate discussion, and actually forms the sub¬
ject of one dialogue. But it is obvious that Plato intended us
to feel how strong was the relation between the three persons
denoted by the words, and how impossible it would be to in¬
vestigate the last without a previous knowledge of the other
two. The young Athenian, under the teaching of the Sophist,
began more and more to feel that the rhetorician and the states¬
man were convertible terms, that the efficient and practical ruler
of men was the efficient master of words. On the other hand,
it is obvious that the logic of Parmenides and Zeno must have
made politics a mere set of abstract propositions, to which an
earnest and enthusiastic man might impart a practical meaning
and life, but which would lose all the qualities that had endeared
them to him as a logician, in proportion as they received this
impregnation. Zeno himself was probably a specimen of this
class, but we have no reason to suppose that he left any succes¬
sors ; his disciples must either have devoted themselves merely
to inquiries respecting entity and unity, or have become politi¬
cians of the rhetorical kind. Now, it is obvious that the
dialectics of Plato, by their very nature and definition, could not
pretend to be themselves Politics. They necessarily assumed
facts, not indeed as premises to start from, but as the raw
materials, in the heart of which premises lay hid. The laws
and conditions of society were to be investigated by this dialectic,
could not be investigated without it: but they were presumed
to exist, and they were perfectly distinct from the faculty and
science by which they were discovered. Plato then was in a
condition to do justice to Pythagoras as he Lad done justice to
Parmenides. He could believe that there might be much in the
discoveries of the one respecting the order of society, as there
had been much in the discoveries of the other respecting the
conditions and requirements of the pure mind, and he prepared
himself to use the philosophy which he had ascertained to be
true in one region for an investigation of the observations which
had been made and the doctrines which had been broached
respecting the other.
The 27. But this is not all. The reader of Plato's Republic will
thePnot'on discover, not perhaps without some surprise, that questions re-
that it is specting the nature and objects of dialectics occupy a consider-
ethical or able place in this political treatise. Hence it has been inferred
treatise™1 tbe title of the work is altogether misleading; that it is
not the purpose of Plato to teach us the conditions and the
relations of a State, but merely to raise a platform upon which
to carry forward with more interest, and probably with greater
success, the philosophical inquiries which he has commenced in
PLATO.
159
his other Dialogues. The Republic, according to these com¬
mentators, is a kind of laboratory which he has built for the
purpose of pursuing his experiments into the nature of the
individual man. On many accounts this hypothesis will be
likely to find acceptance in this day, even if it had not been sup¬
ported by talents and erudition of the first order. We are not
anxious to refute it, but we are anxious that our readers should
study the Republic with a free spirit, and that they should not
he hindered by a theory from perceiving how it illustrates a
subject which has occupied us so much already, and must occupy
us at every step of our future progress; we mean the relations
between the mind of man and the constitution of society. To
Plato we believe was committed the task of expressing the
deepest wants and necessities of our being, and of discovering or
prophesying the kind of satisfaction that must be provided for
them. We make no apology for dwelling so long upon hi3 name
in this rapid sketch of moral and metaphysical inquiries, because,
we are satisfied that if we put our readers in a right course for
studying his works and those of Aristotle, and the Jewish
Scriptures, they will be able to trace with little assistance from
us the progress of these inquiries in modern Europe, whether in
the age of the fathers, of the schoolmen, or in the period since
the .Reformation; whereas the most able and elaborate discourses
upon the ethics and metaphysics of later times without this
preparation can, we think, avail them little. It must, therefore,
be a great point with us to ascertain whether Plato is silent
upon those wants which belong to our social being and position;
whether he thought them of a purely secondary and accidental
character; or whether he found them so imbedded in the con¬
stitution of man that he could not investigate the law of each
man's internal life without also investigating that by which he
is related to his fellows. The supporters of the former opinion
(as the readers of Schleiermacher's Introduction to the Republic
will perceive) have felt that they needed and have not failed to
exercise the most admirable ingenuity in working out their con¬
clusion. Those who adopt the latter may content themselves
with beseeching attention to the express language of Plato, and
with briefly recapitulating the heads of his dialogue.
28. We find ourselves at the beginning of the Republic in a The
circle of Athenians met to witness a religious ceremony lately firsulook.
introduced from Thrace. The most prominent and interesting opening,
person in the group is old Cephalus, a cheerful and benignant
octogenarian, with whom Socrates begins a discourse on the
comforts of old age, and the advantage or disadvantage of riches.
A remark of Cephalus leads to the inquiry, whether the defini¬
tion of justice given by Simonides, that it consists in speaking
160
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
the truth, and giving to each man that which is his due, is satis¬
factory or no ? Cephalus being called away to perform a sacri¬
fice, his part in the dialogue devolves upon Polemarchus. But
Justice. -we have not advanced further in the discussion than to a general
consent of the parties that the mere external acts indicated in
the words of Simonides cannot satisfy the idea of justice ; and
again, that its obligations cannot be affected by our position to
each other as friends or enemies ; when the sophist Thrasyma-
ehus breaks in with a vehement assertion that the whole notion
of justice is a fraud practised by the strong man upon the
weaker. The consequence, that the life of an unjust man would
be in itself desirable, is one from which he does not shrink, and
to the examination of this doctrine the greater part of the first
book is devoted.
Second book 29. In the beginning of the second, we find young G-laucon
and Adeimautus professing themselves dissatisfied with the
manner in which Thrasymachus has defended his cause, and with
his haste in abandoning it. They have no sympathy with his
views, they are convinced in their feelings that Justice is intrin¬
sically good, but the arguments by which it is proved to be so
seem to them inconclusive. Is it not true that society has put
honour on a certain course of conduct which ministers to its
Can justice own security and advantage ? Has it not succeeded in helping
nottobethe ou^ vv"ea^ne99 °f own sanctions by religious feelings and
creature of terrors ? Are we not brought into the world under this twofold
society? gej. impressions in favour of what is called justice, and against
injustice ? Can we suppose a man retaining the idea and prac¬
tice of Justice in opposition to laws and his fellow-men, and
without the imagination of some divine sanction or patronage ?
The question Socrates allows to be difficult; perhaps it cannot
be at once answered. But might we not arrive at some solution
of it if we examined it upon a larger scale ? The question
presumes an existing state of society; it supposes this notion
of justice, be it a fiction or reality, to be necessary to the
support of a State. Shall we inquire then how it becomes
necessary to a State ; what justice in a State is ? Then possiblv
we may know better what justice in an individual is, and whether
it can or cannot be maintained under the disadvantages ima¬
gined by Glaucon.
30. Now we would remark in passing, that those who consider
the political part of the Republic merely accidental and subordi¬
nate, look upon this Preface as the great staff of their theory.
They maintain that it is altogether so much easier and more
consistent to believe that the subject started in the outset is
really the main and central one of the book, and that all subjects
which may occur by the way are merely intended for the illus-
PLATO.
161
tration of it, that no student of Plato who really understands
that teacher's method will tolerate any other supposition. "We
admit at once that this is the object of Plato; that the Republic Thp
is an inquiry into the nature and meaning of Justice; that ifanm^uTrj*
this end be lost sight of, it would be quite impossible to under- respecting
stand the connection of its different parts. But then we sayJut,tlce"
that the most natural and obvious construction of Plato's words
leads to the belief that the idea of political justice was in his
mind inseparable from that of individual justice; that this was
precisely the quality which he perceived to be the meeting point
between the spheres of ethics and politics; say, rather, which
proved that these are two concentric spheres- The clear esta¬
blishment of this relation is, we conceive, the great purpose of
these two first books. They are a lesson to all future reasoners
with sophistical men, that they can only maintain the moral
ground safely when they are content to follow their opponents
to their own political ground; when, instead of contending that
there is an order which the individual is obliged to follow, sup¬
posing society to have no existence, they will be at the pains to
prove that there are eternal principles involved in the constitu¬
tion of society itself, to which its individual members conform
themselves, not because they are content to sacrifice their own
distinct personality, but because they have no other way of assert¬
ing it. Whether modern writers on ethics would have fared
worse or better if they had attended to the admonition of the
most experienced and subtle of all the antagonists of sophistry,
we may have occasion to inquire hereafter. At all events, those
who believe that the main purpose of the Platonic Dialogues is
to discover and develope a method of thought, must, we think, be
strangely hampered by a theory which compels them to suppose
that on this occasion the result arrived at is the only important
consideration; and that the processes for attaining it are
altogether artificial, and vet, withal, most clumsy and cumbrous.
31. But to return: Starting with the hope that the proposed Third book,
scheme for seeking after justice in a State will lead to a solution
of our difficulties, Plato proceeds at once to the formation of a
society. Now any one who looks in the arrangements which he
here sets forth for the outlines of some imaginary perfect com¬
monwealth, will unquestionably be much disappointed. So far
from there being anything mystical or Utopian in his primary its freedom
conception of the society, everything is as terrestrial and com- mj^icism
monplace as the merest materialist could desire. Men meet
together, and find that each is not sufficient to provide for his
own animal wants. Different necessities arise, different capaci¬
ties discover themselves among the persons associated, adapted
to these necessities; hence division of labour, distinct oecupa-
TOL. I. M
162
GRECIAN PIIILOSOPHY.
tions and professions. By and by comes the desire for an excess
of the good things which earth produces; hence tumults and
The external wars. Now we feel the necessity for a set of guardians
guardians. or wafc[;h-d0ga of the state. "What manner of persons must these
guardians be ? Clearly they are in danger of becoming wolves
instead of watch-dogs. How is this to be prevented ? How
are we to produce in them those internal qualities which are so
obviously necessary for the welfare of the whole community ?
We say that these arrangements are very unlike what might be
expected from the builder of an imaginary commonwealth. No
assumption of any advantageous position; no previous theory
about the wants and feelings of the persons composing the
society; above all, no hope, by outward contrivances and dispo¬
sitions, to avert the occurrence of crime. How can this be ac¬
counted for ? Does not such apparent carelessness about external
contrivances rather favour the notion that the society is only a
scaffolding ? We answer, if it were so we should be utterly
The unable to account for the scaffolding not being more elaborately
^aginary01 constructed. If Plato had the liberty of forming his own plan
at ail. and choosing his own materials ; if it were a matter of utter in¬
difference to him how far these are consistent with the nature
of things, provided they did but help him to a discovery which
would afterwards be good and entire on its own ground, what¬
ever steps had led us to it, any attempt to conform to dry ordinary
facts as they meet us in the world would be idle, and, as an
offence against art, censurable. If, on the contrary, his object
were not to frame a society after an ideal in his own mind, but,
as we have supposed all along, to investigate the conditions of
political unity —the idea involved in the very existence of society,
by departing from which it has become confused and incoherent
—if this be the view of the treatise, which is most consistent
with the rest of Plato's philosophy, and which most clearly
exhibits its relation to the other Dialogues, then it can be no
matter of wonder to us that Plato should carefully abstain from
any exercises of imagination while he is setting before us the
bare and naked elements of which society is composed; that he
should take pains to convince us that he is not a creator but a
searcher; not one of those poets to whom he can assign no place
in his commonwealth, but one of those investigators of the truth
as it actually is whom he would put at the head of it.
is the 32. The Republic of Plato then assumes seltish desires to exist,
treatise on an(^ ^ie ev^ resu^s °* them to have occurred. And it is an
education? examination of this question,—Under what conditions can we
suppose it permanently to cohere, in spite of the tendencies to
decomposition which manifestly discover themselves within it?
When, however, we direct our attention to the means of pre-
PLATO.
163
serving any body from decay, we may either consider what
positive precautions are necessary in order to resist the progress
of its corruption; or, on the otner hand, by what means it is
possible to call forth and invigorate those principles of life which
it must have within it in order that it may be at all, though their
presence may only make itself manifest through the power which
opposes them. Plato again and again gives us to understand
that it is with the development of these principles of life, and
not with the outward regulations for the repression of evil, that
he concerns himself in this dialogue. It is on this account that
the Republic has assumed to many persons the appearance simply
of a treatise on education, nay, of little more than a censure
upon the existing Greek education. These critics remind us Reasons flu
that he has scarcely given the first rude hint of his society before e op,n"m
he tells us that the minds of the guardians of the State must
not be corrupted by those false ideas of the gods which occur in
the poems of Homer. That a great part of the third book is
occupied with the consideration of two particular branches of
education, gymnastics and music, and even with a minute and
elaborate inquiry respecting the kinds of music which serve or
frustrate the ends of education. That the subject is renewed
in the sixth and seventh books, where the use of all the sciences
in forming the mind of a statesman is carefully investigated.
All this is true, yet we are persuaded that the value of this por¬
tion of the work will be far more appreciated by those who con¬
sider it subordinate to the great object of discovering the prin¬
ciple which lies at the foundation of society, w hich connects it
with the processes of the individual mind, and which gives con¬
sistency and harmony to both of them, than by those who
determine that it shall be the sole and independent purpose of
the dialogue. Nothing is more entirely consistent with the
purpose which we have attributed to Pinto than his placing a
right view of the character of the gods at the threshold of bis Chara«*t«*i <-i
education ; for the idea of the Good, and of this as connectedtbe 80th"
with Order, is that which underlies his whole scheme. To make
men feel that this is, that this exists, to teach them how to dis¬
tinguish between the anomalies of society and its principles, is
his great endeavour. Above all things, therefore, we must see
that our models are not defaced with our own corruptions.
33. For precisely the same reason the subject of music becomes Muglc.
invested with so much importance. To develope the sense of
order and harmony in the minds of the members of the common¬
wealth, is the secret for making it really that which it pretends
to be. It is a part of this order that the feeling of it should be
first communicated to the guiding, guarding minds of the society,
that from them it should diffuse itself through the whole. By
164
GEECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
this means a new and most important element of our Republic
is brought to light. Among the guardians will be some of a
higher order than the rest. They will be those on whom the
education has produced its complete mellowing effect; distin¬
guished from the others in this, that whereas they have chiefly
derived a more braced and masculine tone of character from the
union of gymnastic exercises with the higher forms of music,
these have imbibed the very essence of the music, have acquired
that perfectly harmonised temper, that sense of wholeness, which
makes them the true ideals and representatives of the entire
Clitics community. These are obviously our magistrates. But how
<>f ti e shall we persuade our people that these different qualities exist,
magistrates. an(j constitute a fitness for the different offices in the
state ? We must tell them a story, says Plato, in order that we
may bring home this conviction to their minds. We must inform
them that they were all made originally out of the earth, which,
on that account, they are to love as their common mother;
reckoning themselves brethren in consequence of their relation
to her. That however it pleased the gods to introduce different
materials into their composition, making some of gold, some of
silver, some of inferior metals; that it is important that these
should not be confounded, but should be kept distinct and
applied to distinct uses, in order that the society may receive
benefit from each of them. Such is the parable by which our
author teaches us that he looks upon himself not as the contriver
of some imaginary scheme, but only as following out the inten¬
tions of Providence in the institution of society.
of ^is time we seem to have been forgetting our original
tn th<* question respecting Justice. But we find in the fourth book
individual, that the arrangements of the State, and even our long discussion
Fourth book Up0n music, have been preparing the way for a more clear
development of this idea. We have discovered three classes in
society, and we have seen that each of these classes embodies a
certain characteristic quality, which through it becomes the
quality of the whole fellowship. The class of magistrates ex¬
presses to us the very idea of Wisdom, superintending, distin¬
guishing, arranging; the class of guardians, the very idea of
Fortitude, sustaining, amalgamating, preserving; the inferior
classes, while they keep their position, the very idea of Tem¬
perance, self-restraining, and submitting. Without any of these
it is obvious that a society could not exist, and the permanence
of its existence depends upon the degree in which the qualities
Musir and of each class interpenetrate the rest. But then do not these
justice. imply the existence of still another quality—of some principle or
power which fuses together all the classes and all these qualities
—which belongs not primarily or particularly to one class, but
PLATO.
165
must by its very nature be predicated of the whole ? This is
evidently that musical principle which we have been seeking by
all our education to instil. But what shall be the name of it ?
Is not this that Justice which we have been trying to understand,
the meaning of ? Do we not translate the rude outward notion
of Simonides into a practical, satisfactory idea, when instead of
making justice consist in giving every man his due and in speak¬
ing the truth, we describe it as that which determines the true
relation of all things and persons to each other, the very law
and harmony of the world. Yet may we not go still a little
deeper ? Our first object was to discover the nature and effect
of justice, not in society, but in the individual. At every step
of our progress we seem to have found proof that these two con¬
siderations are inseparable ; that the law of society must be the
law of the individual. Now, perhaps, we are in a condition to
explain this fact more particularly. Our inquiry has brought
to light three classes as the necessary constituents of the State;
a class of magistrates, a class of guardians, a class occupied in
supplying the animal wants of the whole body. Whence the
necessity for this distribution of society ? Is it not that there
is a similar distribution of parts in the man himself ? Is there
not in him Reason, Energy, or Will, Cupidity, or an animal
nature ? And if these are not to exist in perpetual discord, the
man in perpetual misery, must there not be that in him which
preserves each of these parts in its proper relation to the rest,
giving the supremacy to Reason, preserving the strength and
purity of Will, subjecting Cupidity? Is not Justice then neces¬
sary to each of us ?
35. This point being ascertained, Socrates is willing to finish Thcgrea
the dialogue. But Glaucon and Adeimantus remind him that society"
justice being, according to him, the principle of harmony or
unity in the commonwealth, he is bound to explain the other
conditions of this unity. For if any inevitable circumstances
make this union impracticable, justice itself is impracticable;
and if for the commonwealth, then, according to the whole
tenour of the argument, for the individual also; so that we
should be obliged at last to acquiesce in a conclusion not very
unlike that sophistical one which we have been labouring to
confute. The four next books, then, from the beginning of the
fifth to the end of the ninth, are occupied with these questions:
first, in what sense are family relationships compatible with the
unity of a commonwealth ? secondly, how far can it consist with
individual selfishness and ambition ? thirdly, how can it consist
with that law of decay and degeneracy to which all societies
seem to have been subject ?
36. What Plato's statements are upon the first of these sub-
GHECIAJ* PHIXOSOPIIY.
jects we have no need to inform any reader. Those who know
scarcely anything else of him have heard that he has somewhere
spoken of the two sexes as intended to perform exactly the same
duties and exercises, and that he has connected with this doc¬
trine another (which indeed in a logical mind will generally be
inseparable from it), of a community in wives and children.
muiUwn°m" They have heard also that these notions actually enter into the
composition of his perfect commonwealth, and that he wishes to
supersede all the existing relations of father and child, wife and
husband, which lie, as we suppose, at the foundation of all moral
apprehensions and all political order. The question, then,
naturally suggests itself, not whether we are prepared to offer
any justification for this part of his speculations, but how, while
such a huge and hideous blot exists in them, we can venture to
speak of them as important; above all, can devote so much time
to the examination of them ? Many readers and admirers of
Plato have dwelt with much satisfaction on the fact, that in the
Lam (a later work, undoubtedly, than the Republic) he appears
to ha\e changed his views, and to recognise the sanctity of
human relationships as they exist. We confess that we do not
regard the passages referred to as a recantation. Even if Plato
considered them so himself (of which there is no proof), we feel
convinced that he would have relapsed into his former opinion,
if he had again devoted himself to the task of studying the idea
The doctrine of a commonwealth. The Laws, it seems to us, are intended to
and"8: explaiQ the conditions under which any particular nation exists;
why whence proceeds the coercive power by which the evils of its
tmm tiiat of members are restrained; how it is to be preserved as a distinct
theRepubiic community. For this end Plato perceived the importance of
distinct relationships ; he could not help seeing that they lie at
the very foundation of national life; that with the loss of them
it would perish. The Republic, on the other hand, is not an
inquiry respecting the conditions of a particular state. Phrases
may occur in it again and again which seem to define this as its
object; but others, far more pregnant in their meaning, and
oftentimes uttered unconsciously, show that another and grander
aim was present to the mind of the writer, and was haunting
him when he could not realise it. He felt that there should be
some body which expresses, not the law of a confined, definite
national life, but the law of society itself, the principle of its
unity. He felt that such a body as this is implied in the
existence of every national community, but yet transcends it,
and is not subject to its limitations. We could easily produce
roofs of this feeling from every book of the Republic, but we
now none in which it comes forth more strikingly than in that
fifth book of which we are now speaking. The idea of a universal
PLATO.
167
Greek society is there formally put forth, yet it is evident that
this does not satisfy the mind of Plato ; he has the dream of
something still more comprehensive: a feeble sophist would
have tried to express the dream in big words ; he is content to
suggest the nearest practical approximation to an expression of
it that his circumstances made possible. But with this universal
society Plato docs not see how distinct relationships are com¬
patible. Perfect community seems the very law of its being;
whatsoever interferes with this seems to frustrate its intention.
37. Here, then, we see at once the ignorance and knowledge Advancers
of Plato. How such a universal society as this could grow out error to us.
of a national community, out of a family, and could preserve
uninjured, in harmony with itself, both those holy institutions
which had been its cradle, this he did not know; this wisdom
was reserved for the shepherds of Palestine. To them it was
only communicated by degrees, and their chief duty consisted in
keeping that which had been divinely given them in the sure
confidence that more would be added. But this was permitted
to the sage of Greece—he was allowed to feel the necessity of a
universal community to the life of man; he was permitted to
feel that it was a great living truth implied in the existence of
society, though yet undeveloped. To such insight and honesty
of purpose, rejecting no light that has been vouchsafed, it is
granted, that even the crudities and ignorances into which he
fell in the search after truth shall be for the benefit of future
generations, nay for the practical correction and exposure of
these very crudities when they are reproduced by men of a
different spirit. The fifth book of the Republic is a curious
anticipation of every scheme of universal society which has been
propounded by religious fanatics or political theorists from the
propagation of Christianity to the present day. It remains a
standing practical testimony from the wisest man in the ancient
world, that this is the only consistent law, and must be the
ultimate law of every such society, whensoever it attempts to
exist alone, as a merely spiritual or cosmical family. Rejecting,
then, with indignation the errare mehercule malo of the Roman
academician, and loving Plato only as far as he loved truth, we
may yet find a worth even in this unfortunate passage of his
writings.
38. The portion of the Republic comprehended in the sixth How a
and seventh books is second to no part of it in interest. The
difficulty to be solved in it is the compatibility of such a State is com-
as we have described with the selfish notions of men. Plato selfishness.11
does not blink the question. He at once declares his conviction sixth book,
that such a State could only be administered by philosophers;
and he then goes on to explain what he means by a philosopher;
168
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
why it is that the persons generally bearing that name are
unfit to be practical politicians ; what their real relation to the
rest of their countrymen is. Here then we have the full expo¬
sition and development of that doctrine which we found lying
at the root of Soeratic teaching; that the selfish, self-seeking
principle, leading men to animal gratifications, is the source of
disorder and confusion in the life of man, not really the moving
spring of it; that there is in man something higher, which is not
satisfied with itself, but which seeks after converse with the
Good. The philosopher is the man who is holding this con¬
verse ; whose mind is fixed on the true end and meaning of
things, upon the substance, the reality of them. The rest are
following images and shadows, but still in the pursuit of these
are confessing their want of a Good, and are blindly feeling
after it. The philosopher, if he descends to the pursuit of their
shadows, becomes worthy of their contempt, for there is a per¬
petual contradiction between the higher aims of which he is
conscious and the grovelling course he has actually taken. If,
on the other hand, he steadily keeps his own idea in sight, he is
necessarily unintelligible to them, and on that account they
despise him. But suppose, having worked his own way out of
the mine in which they are dwelling, and no longer receiving
light through the little crannies which transmit it broken and
confused, and lead men utterly astray as to the fountain from
which it has flowed, he has come out into the open sunlight, and
by it seen all objects as they are, he neither glorifies himself by
The phiio- living apart from them, nor yet submits to confuse his light with
dutyetothe darkness, kut goes down amongst them that he may lead
multitude, them by the same track which he has himself trodden into the
clear day—would he not then be fulfilling his function as a
philosopher, and yet be most truly a politician ? If the question
Seventh occurs to you, what is this upward road ? Plato is ready to con-
k0014, sider it with you. There is a certain education recognised among
men; they teach arithmetic, geometry, as well as the gymnastics
and music we spoke of before, and they evidently attach a high
value to these studies. Are they wrong ? surely not. They are
wrong only in this, that throughout their whole lives they are
seeking shadows instead of substances, and that they have made
all these sciences helpful to their low ambition. Arithmetic
and geometry have been resorted to merely for secular com¬
mercial ends; they might be made the means of purifying the
mind to a perception of the truth of things. What is the
appropriate function of each of these sciences, with a view to
this object, he carefully inquires: and this inquiry brings out
the necessity of that grand, deeper science of Dialectics, which
directly leads to the contemplation of truth as truth, of good as
PLATO.
169
good, in its pure essence. Now a nation thus guided and
educated comes into the condition of such a republic as we have
described. Its wisest, deepest-minded men will be its magis¬
trates ; the community will have one end; that principle of
justice, which assigns to each his proper place, imparts a sense
of proportion and harmony to all, will be diffused through it
and actuate it. Thus, then, the existence of ambition and
selfishness does not upset the idea of our Republic, does not
prove that it is not implied in the nature of society, does not
show that it may not be at some time or somewhere realised.
39. We come next to that law of decay in societies which Lawof decay
most speculators have recognised, and which the Pythagorean in 80c,eties-
philosophers fancied they could express in certain numerical ninthLooki.
ratios. Plato has given a very valuable turn to the inquiry by
connecting it with the cardinal doctrine of the Republic, that the
life of men and the life of States explain each other. In con¬
formity with this doctrine, he maintains that there is a demo-
cratical, an oligarchical, and a tyrannical form of character
answering to those respective forms of government. This form
of character is obviously a departure from some true and original
model. The same may be shown of the governments ; and it is
possible in each case to trace the process of degeneration, and
to show how that which takes place in society, and that which
takes place in the individual, react upon each other. In this
part of the dialogue, Plato proves that his faculty of close, lively,
practical observation had not been impaired but strengthened
by his converse with transcendent realities. It would be hard
to find a passage in any ancient work on which a modern
statesman might more profitably meditate, or in which he would
be more sure to find hints explaining to him the facts of his
daily experience, than the eighth and ninth books of the
Republic. The result of the investigation is the same as in the
former case. This law of degeneracy exists in the common¬
wealths of the earth, just because they have not understood and
steadfastly contemplated that original model, that perfect idea
of a commonwealth, which is also the original model and perfect
idea of a human character. It is a contradiction and absurdity
then to allege the fact of this degeneracy as a proof that no
such model is to be found. But after all these inquiries does
the thought still linger about the mind, where is it to be found ?
Plato answers (book ix. p. fin.), AXV ivovpayw laiog irapubeiypa
avaKEirai Tip fiovXop£yu> opdr cal bpwvri eavroy karoiKi^tiy. Is it
wonderful that such words should have suggested to some of the
Christian fathers the recollection of those words in the Epistle
to the Hebrews, which describe the hopes of the head of the
covenanted people, Eyap r»)v roue OepeXiovs l-^°vaav
170
GRECIAN FIULOSOPIIY.
Art and
poetry.
tt6\iv tfg re\vlrt]q Kai stimovpyoq a 0£oc ; or those which describe
this hope as accomplished, TI/i<5v to itoXirevfta iv ovpavoic
vwupx^1 ?
Tenth hook. 40. There is still one subject upon which it is needful to say
a few words, especially as Plato has devoted his last book to the
full exposition of it: we mean his opinion respecting the imitative
arts generally, and especially respecting poetry, so far as it is
included atnong those arts. It is evident that our author
attached great importance to these opinions, and yet that he was
never wholly satisfied with them. He touches upon the question
almost as soon as he has sketched the first outline of his society;
he recurs to it again when his task seems completed, partly as
if he felt there was no security for the reception of his idea
while any doubt overhung this point, partly as if there was
something in it which he had not fully penetrated. Again, in
the introduction to the Timeeus, he offers a kind of apology
to the poets for his severity, and appears to think that they
may have an important vocation, though he does not clearly
understand what it is. It is observable that the grounds upon
which he places his arguments in the third and in the tenth
books, are not precisely the same. In both, indeed, he dwells
much upon the fact that the poet must adapt himself to the
opinions of mankind respecting actions and character, otherwise
they will not acknowledge the verisimilitude of his picture;
hence he must need pervert the truth of things, and can never
exalt those minds to which he accommodates himself. But in the
last he appears to see a peculiar mischief in poetry from its ten¬
dency to destroy the harmony of character, to weaken self-
control, and thus to undermine the justice and order of the
commonwealth by the honour which it bestows upon all excited
and passionate feelings. The latter argument might lead one
to suspect that Plato was at least in part determined to these
views by the circumstances of his own age. The exaltation of
oMiisoMi8 Pa9s'on) waQt of balance and harmony in characters, the
time. preference of weak, earthly creatures to calm and stately ideals,
were the great characteristics of the Euripidean, as distinguished
from the Sophoclean drama. Add to this the influence of a
poetical age (an influence felt most when that age had departed)
in fostering the worship of mere creative power, and the notion
of the mind of man being the origin of all that is, which lay, as
we have seen, at the root of Greek sophistry, and which it had
been the great aim of Socrates throughout his life to combat.
Still Plato's attack upon Homer, and his eagerness to disprove
the common opinion that the Greeks were indebted to him for
much of their organisation and cultivation, are proofs that he
was not merely affected by these temporary considerations.
How far
lit* was
influenced
by the cir-
PLATO.
171
"We leave it then as a hint for our reader's reflection, whether
this reluctant condemnation of poetry by one who had been
himself a poet in the formal sense of the word, and in the best
sense continued a poet always, may not be explained in the same
way as we explained just now his theory respecting relationship.
Poetry seems to belong primarily and almost exclusively to
national life. The sense of national union gives the first national,
impulse to it; when that sense is weakened it withers, with its
revival it starts to life again; without it men would never
become conscious of their own powers, their own affections, their
own wants; aud in the consciousness of these consist the joy
and freedom of their life as the citizens of a state. By calling
this forth in the Greeks, Homer may be said to have made them
a nation, a nation full of life, full of turbulence. But is there
nothing better than this mere consciousness of power ? Is there
no higher condition of society than this of being citizens of a
state ? The Rejmblic is an answer to the question. It teaches
that far beyond this consciousness of power lies the contemplation
of truth and goodness, and the assimilation of the soul to these.
It shows that far beyond the mere feeling of energy to dare, to
act, to revenge, lies the perception of order and harmony, an
intimate fellowship with a Being above us, and the beings
around us. It teaches that there is a universal society, of which
this contemplation and assimilation are the ground, this per¬
ception of order and harmony the life, of which this fellowship
is the result and the realisation. "With this community, says
Plato, poetry hath little to do. Praise of the gods, eulogies of
great men, these are the only fields for its exercise. Strictly
speaking, we think he is right; that is to say, if it were possible
for us, as it was necessary for him, to separate (how important
it is to distinguish we hope we have explained) the national life
from the universal life, the national society from the universal,
poetry, which is the soul of the first, would, except in the cases
named by him, be excluded from the other. If we would connect
all the vital energies of which poetry is the expression, with
those deeper insights, that perfect moral state and moral life
which belong to the higher region, we must also understand, and
by understanding realise, for ourselves at least, and, so far as
is permitted us, for mankind, the law by which the universal and
the national societies sustain each other.
41. The Rqmblic ends nobly with a discussion on immortality, immortality
which has been less popular than that in the Phcedo, because the
scenery of it is less solemn and affecting, but which for its own
merits seems entitled to even more attention. "We are far,
indeed, from thinking so lightly as some have done of those
arguments from reminiscence, and from the law of interchange
172
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
between light and darkness, death and life, winch 'occur in the
dying conversation of Socrates. On the contrary, they seem to
us pregnant with the deepest meaning. But we cannot help
thinking that when Plato had once realised in his own mind the
connection between the life of the individual and the life of
society, he felt he had a stronger ground to fix his hope of im¬
mortality upon—that he had found the point where the witness
in the heart meets the demands of the reason. The sense of
belonging to a community, stretching behind and before, out¬
lasting the deaths of generations of men, is an evidence to each
man of his individual immortality, which you may be quite
unable to translate into syllogisms, but which happily supersedes
the necessity of them. Plato only went to the roots of this
feeling, when, having shown that the existence of the individual
and of society are alike based upon the idea of justice, and are
alike sustained by the contemplation of that which is true and
permanent, and alike die a moral death when they contradict the
principles of their being, he affirmed that the accident of phy¬
sical death can as little change the condition of ODe as of the
other, and that as they have lived here must be their life
hereafter.1
1 As the Rrpnbltr, like so many other of the Platonic Dialogues, closes with
a my thus, and as the passage in the third book on Lying brings the whole
Bubject of the use which Plato thought it lawful to make of fables and legends
directly before us, it may be as well to make one remark on this subject.
Throughout this dialogue, even more than in his other writings, it is evident
that, dearly as he loved truth for its own sake, and firmly as he believed it
could be contemplated in its pure essence, he vet felt that there was no cri¬
terion of truth so sure as that it governed pru< tiee and was the law of lite.
To substitute a pure idealism for the faith of hi> country was never his object
or his dream. He hated such attempts, not more for their hardness and
cruelty than for their utter inconsistency with his whole doctrine. He left
them to men who did not believe that ideas were substantial, who thought
they were mere creations of the mind and had nothmg to do with living acts.
While then he was very jealous of all those stories which evidently hindered
men from acknowledging goodness and truth as the ultimate ends of their
existence, he was equally certain that, somehow or other, all great principles
must have an investiture of farts, and cannot be fully or satisfactorily pre¬
sented to man except in facts. And if no such series of facts embodying and
revealing truths were within his reach, rather than leave it to he fancied that
his truths were bare naked conceptions of his mind, he would invent a
clothing for them : it was the least evil of the two. But it was an evil; it
exposed him to fearful contradictions; it often put his love for truth in the
greatest jeopardy. Then what pretence have those to the name of Platonists
who vrtsh to believe that there is no series of facts containing a revelation of
supersensual and transcendent truths, who think it an a prion probability
that the deep want of such facts which Plato experienced has not been satis¬
fied ; who are determined even hy the most violent treatment of historical
evidence to prove that whenever a supposed fact manifests a principle, it
must be a fable P
PLATO.
173
42. "We have dwelt so long, for reasons which we have ex- Plato, how
plained already, upon this great summary of the ethical, meta- g0rr"an.ytha"
physical, ami political philosophy of Greece, that we can afford
time but for one remark, which is necessary to show how the
doctrine of Plato is connected with that of the great predecessor
whose labours, we suppose, it was his intention to review. That
there is a Pythagorean character in the Republic, the book on
music, the passages on geometry and arithmetic, and certain
mystical sentences respecting the law of decay in a State—
which have defied the skill of commentators—prove abundantly.
But if we look well at the work, we shall find that the whole of
it may in one sense be called Pythagorean. For the discovery
of the musical law which gives internal wholeness to a State, as
distinguished from that external law by which its parts are
prevented from falling asunder, is in fact the object of the
treatise. Wherein then does he differ from Pythagoras ? Pre¬
cisely in this—that while he gives music and arithmetic their
due honour as instruments for cultivating in man the feeling of
his own position and relations, he does not deduce that position
and those relations from any combinations of notes or series of
numbers. He makes Justice—a moral principle—the music of
his commonwealth. And this is the more remarkable and the
more honourable, because it is evident that be felt the temptation
to be a cabbalist, and never divested himself of the belief (perhaps
no deep thinker was ever able quite to divest himself of it) that
there is something profoundly and mysteriously interwoven with
the life of man in the relations of lines, of numbers, and of
sounds. It was a great merit thus to keep the practical ground
so steadily, and never to forget that this is really the highest
ground. By doing so he was enabled to perform the same
service in one sphere which he had already performed in another,
to discover the political principle which Pythagoras had been
seeking for amidst the laws that connect us with nature, as he
had discerned the scientific principle which Parmenides had been
groping after amidst the forms of our own minds.
43. It is a great satisfaction to us that our duty, as historians Ph>sicsor
of moral and metaphysical inquiries, does not call upon us, or Pla,°-
even permit us, to say many words on the subject of Plato's
Physics. Still the Timceus is so curiously connected with the The Tim;pus
Republic by the exquisite introduction to it, in which Critias
tells the story of the submerged State, so like in all respects to
that which Socrates had described the day before, (here we have
the doctrine of reminiscence obviously brought into play, and a
new evidence that our philosopher considered the Republic as
no work of imagination, but the discovery of a truth implied
and forgotten in the constitution of all societies,) and so much
174
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
importance baa been attached, both in early and later times, to
this dialogue, as if it contained the very heart of Platonism,
that we cannot venture entirely to pass it over. With respect
to the link between the Politics and the Physics of Plato, we
Peculiarities would not speak confidently. He may have perceived a closer
,,f Jt' relation between the moral Koayoc, which he had been investi¬
gating in the Republic, and the material universe which Tim®us
creates, than we are able to trace. But this we think is evident,
that he did enter upon his new task with a kind of consciousness
that it behoved him to fill up a gap in his speculations, and to
complete his review of the ancient philosophy, and at the same
time with a secret apprehension that the light which had hitherto
guided him might forsake him in this region. It is strange at
all events that, while undertaking to develope a subject so im¬
portant in Greek eyes as the creation and organisation of nature,
he should make Socrates merely a listener. To a faithful student
of Plato it must seem still more strange that he should on this
occasion utterly desert his customary method, that the dialogue
form should be merely used to throw a graceful dramatical veil
over the introduction, and that in the expository part it should
be exchanged for the haranguing style to which Plato was in
general so averse.
Use that has 44. And yet it is to this cause more than any other that the
been made nmaus owe9 jts reputation among those who undertake to
furnish summaries and synopses of Platonieal doctrine. Else¬
where they found him balancing opinions, often refusing to
pronounce a verdict upon their respective merits—most un¬
necessarily tedious (as they think) in tracing the road to a
conclusion, most unaccountably and ill-naturedly forgetful of
the duty of clothing it in precise, available, transferable
formulas. Here, on the contrary, though his language may be
more obscure than it is in other places ; though there may be
more allusions to ill-understood portions of (Jreek speculation
than in all the rest; though, lastly, his teachings refer to a
question upon which we all believe that he could have only very
partial illumination ; still the manifest convenience of catching
so Protean a philosopher for one moment in a rigid definite
state, has overweighed all these considerations, and has made
the Platonic cosmogony the grand storehouse from which diligent
redacteurs have been wont to collect their notions of the mind
and the works of Plato. Nay, it has even been a plausible and
popular theory, ingeniously accounting for the uncertainty of
the other Dialogues, that they were only intended as a vestibule
to the inner oracle of the Tiuneus. Having sullieiently explained
our views respecting these so-called uncertainties, and having
endeavoured to show how much the method of Plato is part and
PLATO.
175
parcel of Plato himself, we must needs regard this particular
work with very different feelings. Not pretending to behold
with indifference the splendid theory which it developes, aware
how closely that theory is connected with some of those which
exercised the strongest influence upon the minds of men,
especially in the first ages of the Christian Church, and being
very willing to accept for Plato the compliments which natural
philosophers have paid him for his intuition of truths hereafter
to be established, we must yet confess that the Timeeus seems
to us chiefly valuable because it illustrates the worth of the
principle from which it is so signal a departure. In every other
dialogue, Plato is teaching us how to discover a universal law
in any particular fact which falls under our notice ; here we
have huge hypotheses to begin with, and all facts fitted and
disposed according to them.
45. For whatever there is of truth in these hypotheses he is His
indebted to his previous studies in another direction. Having theolo-iy" °f
arrived by his own sure course of upward investigation at the with physics
doctrine of ideas, he was able to see that the world must be
created according to an idea. But having attained this point,
his light forsook him ; he was not able to apply his dialectic to
the elimination of this idea, from the names or facts in which
it was imbedded. He had simply to trust to his imagination
to construct a theory. Whereas in other cases he is a philoso¬
pher seeking for light, and when he could not perceive the tract
of it, showing where it ought to be, and from what unrisen sun
it must flow ; here he is a presumptuous theologian, assuming
himself capable of declaring that which must be revealed, and
thereby losing the right way to that which may be discovered.
Bacon does him no injustice in respect to his Physics when piato and
he says that he confused and corrupted them with theology; Bacon,
when he implicitly includes him among the giants who piled
hill on hill in hopes of reaching heaven. Would that our
countryman, for the honour of his own character, for the sake
of the ages which were to follow him, had been as willing to
recognise the truth of Plato, as he was acute in detecting his
falsehood; as honest in acknowledging him for a guide, as he
was right in pointing him out for a beacon. He would then
have seen that the Timaus was in contradiction to the principle
of induction, because it was inconsistent with the principle of
Plato. He would have seen that in one solitary instance the
Greek sage was betrayed by that ambition of completeness and
circularity (which far more than the desire of fame deserves to
be called the last infirmity of noble minds) into the examination
of a subject on which he could only dogmatise, and could dog¬
matise only by forsaking his own method. He would have
176
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
confessed that the Novum Organum was but the extension of
that method to a new class of subjects. He would have taught
his disciples that the course of investigation which promised
them such new discoveries in the world of sense—which was
grounded upon the great principle that man is but a seeker,
which is prosperous in proportion as he endeavours simply to
behold that which is, and not to darken it by the mists of his
own conceptions—had been ages before marked out as the only
one by which they might safely hope to become acquainted
with the truths of their own being. He would solemnly have
conjured them to remember that a heathen, uninstructed by that
revelation which deals directly with these transcendent truths
and lays them open to every peasant, had yet perceived that
they must be the most precious which a man can know, and that
only in knowing them he is truly a man. He would have told
them, that if ever that study, in which the heathen sage forgot
his usual wisdom, should become the only one in which Chris¬
tians care to be proficients, if ever ex reseratione viarvm semus
et arcensione majore lit minis natures aliquid incredulitatis et noctis
anirnis nostris erga divina mysteria oboriatur—or there should
grow up a feeling towards these mysteries which is worse than
unbelief, if it be not another form of unbelief, a stupid acqui¬
escence in them without the acknowledgment that they answer
to any cravings in the heart, any necessities of the reason, any
predictions of the imagination, then, for the sake of the age and
country upon which such a disease had fallen, for the sake of all
that should follow it, for the sake ot physical knowledge itself,
which can never long flourish apart from moral light, it would
be most desirable that men should resume the study of the
Athenian philosopher, should realise the wants of their minds
by observing those which he experienced in his, should consider
in what way we' can find an adequate provision for both.
DIVISION in.—ARISTOTLE.
SECTION I.
ARISTOTLE THE BEGINNER OF A NEW EPOCH.
Thea^ of 1. When we speak of Plato as the ideal philosopher, we
of Ideal"a?e sometimes forget that the people of Greece, his own fellow-
citizens especially, were pursuing ideals during the whole time
in which he and his master flourished. Socrates was born in 468
B.C. Plato died 347 B.C. Pericles had begun to take part in
public affairs one year before the birth of Socrates; Olynthus
was taken by Philip of Macedon the very year in which Plato
ARISTOTLE THE BEGINNER OF A NETV EPOCH.
177
died. If one could find an expression for this period of 120
years, it would surely be this, that sculptors, painters, poets,
politicians, cities, mobs, were all occupied with some ideal of
beauty, wisdom, freedom, self-government, were striving to
realise it, or setting it before themselves in some dream, or playing
with it to bewilder their fellow-men. The philosopher, if he
belonged to mankind, belonged as remarkably to his own time;
he interpreted, methodised, justified its cravings, showed that
they had a true foundation, and must have an ultimate satis¬
faction.
2. It is quite clear that we enter upon a different stage of The
the history when Philip appears in it. His name is a sign that J^^oniai1
the age of individual energy, when pregnant events were trans¬
acted in insignificant localities, when the lowest party contests
were developing the most permanent and universal principles,
had passed away. His name is a signal that an age has come of
concentrated organising power, of successful assaults upon
freedom, of grand conceptions, of extensive conquests, of what
has well been called material sublimity. This age needed its
own philosophical expounder and representative. One was pro¬
vided for it, who was destined to exercise a mightier influence
upon after times than upon his own.
3. In the year 367 a young man arrived in Athens who was Aristotle:
born at Sta^ira in Chalcidiee. His father was a physician at y^rs.
the court ot Amyntas II., king of Macedonia. This youth had
already been brought to that court, and had met there Philip,
the son of the king, who was a few years younger than himself.
But when he was seventeen years of age, no court attractions
could keep him from the city in which Plato dwelt, and in which
all wisdom was to be found. Perhaps he was almost ashamed of
a country which Athenians still affected to consider semi-
barbarous.
4. The most scrupulous Athenian could have detected nothing An Athenian
barbarous in the young Aristotle, for a certain defect which was 8tudent-
observable in his pronunciation1 was owing to a lisp. Some
difference might be seen between him and an ordinary student,
in that he was more attentive to his person, setting off, it would
appear, his short and slender figure with the advantages of a
somewhat fastidious costume.2 Small quick eyes, and a sarcastic
curl about his lips, were noted as characteristics of him, perhaps
the only important characteristics, till Plato, who appears to
have been absent on his Sicilian journey, returned and found the
most promising pupil who had ever appeared in his school, one
1 rgavAbs rV ipwvqv Sjs (prjcri Ti/i68eos 6 'AOrpaios Iv ITe^l Bluu.
- 'AA\a Ka\ hrxvotnteAi)!, <pa<r\v, %i>, ki\ fj.iKg6nfJ.aros" ItrdTfTi re iiriar\fj.f
Kal SaKTuAiois, Kal Kovpa.
VOL. I. N
178
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY,
whom he surnamed "the reader," and whose philosophical
devotion he found it necessary to check rather than excite.
The tutor of 5. Nevertheless Speusippus, not Aristotle, succeeded Plato
exan er. ^ca(jemy Aristotle left Athens just at the time, as we
have mentioned already, when the triumphs of Philip were
becoming terrible to the liberties of Greece. Pive years after
he was at the court of Philip educating his son Alexander. It
is evident that the influence of Aristotle upon Alexander's mind
must have been prodigious ; that all his subsequent history
depended upon the period which elapsed between his fourteenth
and his seventeeth year. He came into the hands of his master
a raw untamed youth, with impulses which no man could under¬
stand or govern. He left him a Greek prince, uniting the vigour
and accomplishments of the republican period, with the schemes
and capacities of his father, with a desire to conquer the world,
and with an intellect that was able to effect what he desired. It
is not necessary to inquire whether the particular projects of
Alexander were inspired or favoured by Aristotle. Even if they
were discouraged, it would not be less true that the direction of
mind which made the conception or the achievement of them
possible, was received from the teacher by one who, without
this culture, might have aspired no higher than to be a victor in
one of those Olympic contests from which a not very remote
ancestor had been excluded.
His later 6. Alexander bestowed upon his master the only reward for
,,fe- these precious gifts which he really prized: he enabled him to
make his history of animals a book which should be one of
instruction and wonder to all after generations—not least to
that of Cuvier and Owen. Every nation which he conquered
enriched Aristotle with some new and more valuable facts. It
was in Athens that Aristotle husbanded and meditated upon
these treasures. There all his great works were written. There
he gathered about him a circle of devoted pupils, who listened
to his more popular and his more systematic instruction ; there
he commented upon his predecessors, corresponded with Alex¬
ander, endured the misunderstandings of him and his court,
suffered domestic sorrows, which he felt as a man, and which
give us a personal interest in him ; Anally underwent the popular
charge of impiety, which had caused the banishment of Anaxa-
goras and the death of Socrates. On this charge Aristotle was
summoned before the Areopagus; he declined to appear, and
was condemned to death. He retired to Chalcis, and died there
in 322 B.C.
( 179 )
SECTION II.
RELATION OF ARISTOTLE TO PLATO.
1. A student passing from the works of Plato to those ot The
Aristotle is struck first of all with the entire absence of that
dramatic form and that dramatic feeling with which he has become Treatise,
familiar. The living human beings with whom he has conversed
have passed away. Protagoras, Prodicus, and Hippias, are no
longer lounging upon their couches amidst groups of admiring
{)upils ; we have no walks along the wall of the city, no readings
>esides the Ilissus, no lively symposia giving occasion to high
discourses about love, no Critias recalling the stories he had
heard in the days of his youth, before he became a tyrant, of
ancient and glorious republics ; above all, no Socrates forming a
centre to these various groups, while yet he stands out clear and
distinct in his individual character, showing that the most subtle
of dialecticians may be the most thoroughly humorous and
humane of men. Some little sorrow for the loss of so many clear
and beautiful pictures will be felt perhaps by every one. But
by far the greater portion of readers will believe that they have
an ample compensation in the precision and philosophical dignity
of the treatise for the richness and variety of the dialogue. To
hear solemn questions treated solemnly; to hear opinions calmly
discussed without the interruption of personalities; above all,
to have a profound and considerate judge, able, and not unwilling,
to pronounce a positive decision upon the evidence before him ;
this they think a great advantage, and this, and far more than
this, they find in Aristotle.
2. Still we are of opinion that a person who is able to render was
justice to the method of the master, will, on the whole, be the ^j®gytle
most likely to appreciate the disciple; at all events we shall not practical
understand either well if we content ourselves with a vague J|^l'lrl"
notion that one was a consummate artist, the other a profound
practical philosopher. That Plato did not adopt his dialogue
form for any artistieal purpose, but simply because it was ne¬
cessary for the development of his idea of science, we have con¬
tended already. And we feel it equally necessary, in order that
we may claim for Aristotle the true and very noble position
which of right belongs to him, not to let it be supposed that his
pretensions to be either practical or profound rest upon his want
of those qualities, and his abandonment of that method, by which
Plato is distinguished. In common parlance we are wont to
consider those most practical whose studies are most connected
with real, living, passing questions. 2sow it was the actual
opposition of Sophists, which drove Socrates and Plato to seek
180
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
for principles not yet recognised, lest they should lose those
which they had. Aristotle had the advantage of being able
calmly to examine sophistical arguments, because it was the
hour in the school for that particular subject to be lectured upon.
It was a question of life and death in Plato's day, whether we
have something permanent to rest on or not; for men in every
town of Greece were abusing the name of Heraclitus in support
of the doctrine of a perpetual flux. Aristotle could label this
question physical or metaphysical, and patiently balance it against
some opposite theory. The Parmenideans forced Plato to in¬
vestigate the nature and conditions of science, for they threatened
it with a hopeless stationariness. Aristotle is under no such
alarm; he has merely to make out a system of analytics. It
was because the body of Socrates was about to pass through
death, that he was led to consider the meaning, and nature, and
enduring properties of the soul. Aristotle begins his treatise
on the same subject, with inquiring whether it is to be considered
in reference to any particular person at all or abstractedly, and
whether we are to speak of it physically or dialeetically.
"Without determining which of the two courses we have in¬
dicated is the best, we think it must be a violence upon ordinary
usage to say that the latter is the more practical,
profound? Either is the quality of depth precisely that one which
we conceive ought to be predicated of Aristotle, when it is our
object to contrast him with his predecessor. It was the neces¬
sary consequence of Plato's situation, and of the task which had
been committed to him, that he was always seeking for princi¬
ples. The most simple every-day facts puzzled him; nothing
that human beings were interested in was beneath his attention:
but then it was the meaning of these things, the truth implied
in them, which he was continually inquiring alter. He found
the commonest word that men speak, the commonest act that
men do, unintelligible, except by the light which comes from
another region than that in which they are habitually dwelling.
Of this feeling there are no traces in Aristotle. To collect all
possible facts, to arrange and classify them, was his ambition,
and perhaps his appointed function: no one is less tempted to
suspect any deep meaning in facts, or to grope after it. In like
manner, to get words pressed and settled into a definition is his
highest aim : the thought that there is a life in words, that they
are connected with the life in us, and may lead at all to the in¬
terpretation of its marvels, never was admitted into his mind,
or at least never tarried there. In this disposition there may
be a comfort and an advantage ; but it certainly is not that upon
which persons who are careful in the use of language would
bestow the epithet profound,"
RELATION OF ARISTOTLE TO PLATO.
181
4. Another prejudice in reference to these great men it is How far
necessary to remove, or we shall not understand their relative ^"erenced
positions. It is often fancied—and Aristotle seems not altogether Socrates,
anxious to do away the impression—that Plato's disciple forsook
him when he forsook his master; that the later philosophy is in
some important respects a return to the simple faith of Socrates.
If what we have just said be correct, this notion must be not
only wide of the truth, but in direct contradiction to it. The
personality of Plato was precisely that quality of his mind and
of his writings which he had inherited from Socrates. That he
so seldom deviated into abstractions,—that he preserved so
strongly the feeling, " we are actual men, wrestling against evil
tendencies within, and evil powers without, capable of being
educated, and of educating each other into a longing after, and
perception of, the perfect Goodness and Truththis he owed
to Socrates. His own especial work was to connect this personal
struggle with the orderly development of principles. It was
precisely then with the Socrates in Plato that Aristotle was in¬
capable of feeling sympathy. That he had a general reverence
for his good sense, that he recognised him as the useful and
victorious opposer of what was mischievous and unphilosophical,
and that he sincerely believed him not to have held certain
offensive opinions of his disciple: this we can easily imagine.
But that he the least admired the Socratic method, or that all
his wisdom could avail to teach him into what conclusions that
method must necessarily lead one who habitually followed it, we
cannot believe.
5. Though these remarks seem for a moment derogatory to Feeiinus of
the fame of this wonderful man, they will be found upon reflec- towards6
tion to relieve his character from some unjust imputations, to PJat0-
set his actual merits in a clearer light, and to explain the kind
of influence which he has exerted, and must always exert, over
mankind. There are passages in his works which, in the opinion
of over-watchful and sensitive critics, indicate a personal jealousy
and dislike of Plato. They remark that he does not introduce
his comments upon him in a manly, philosophical spirit, but
generally with some of those affected phrases of reluctance
which display often more than the strongest vituperation the
ill-will that is lurking within. Possibly far less meaning would
have been seen in these passages, if the gossiping anecdote-
mongers of later Greece had not illustrated them by stories of
dissensions between the master and the pupil, which, though
obviously derived from a very vulgar invention, or a memory
generally treacherous, because always trivial, still unconsciously
influence our minds when we have once heard them, and prevent
us from fairly looking at the evidence which gives them their
182
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
only plausibility. Separated from these stories, the quotations
•we think prove no more than that Aristotle felt a certain irrita¬
tion and displeasure when he perceived there was something in
the words of Plato which his large intellect and immense infor¬
mation did not enable him to comprehend. To be continually
haunted with a consciousness of this kind, " In all definable
qualities I am equal, nay superior to my predecessor; I have
reduced subjects into far greater order, I analyse far more per¬
fectly, I have a far greater store of facts at my command; and
yet there is in him something quite undefinable, which seems to
make an incredible difference between usthis may, no doubt,
have been very vexatious even to an honest and great mind.
For it was not merely the personal humiliation of such a reflec¬
tion which would be grievous to him, it would jar against his
strongest conviction that nothing ought to be incapable of defi¬
nition, and that whatsoever does defy it can scarcely be of any
great worth. While, then, it is no doubt possible that petty
quarrels may have been stirred up between two such men by
admirers and flatterers, who were equally incapable of under¬
standing either, we have no need of that supposition to account
for the sneers and taunts (if such they must be called) which
now and then displease us in Aristotle.
Dialectics of conf°rmity with these remarks, it will not be difficult to
piato: why show wherein the peculiarity of the Stagirite philosophy con-
him and t'o s^et^» how ^ grew out of the Platonic, how far they are contra-
imdiscipies. dictory, how far one occupies a space which the other had left
void. We have seen by what steps Plato was led into his high
estimate of dialectics. He watched his master maintaining a
safe moral position against the attacks of the sophists. To assert
realities against appearances and counterfeits was his single aim.
Keeping this aim steadily before him, he almost unconsciously
wrought out a method entirely different from that of previous
philosophers. As Plato reflected upon the end which Socrates
had proposed to himself, he perceived the full practical meaning
of that truth which in terms had been asserted by Xenophanes
and others,—that Being is the object of all our inquiries. He
saw at the same time how necessary it was to connect the end
with the method ; for till that method had been practised, Being
had been a word, a notion, a negation,—not an object to be
really beheld and striven after. Hence the immense importance
of bringing that method forward; of presenting it substantively,
as it were, to his pupils; not allowing them merely to contem¬
plate it as leading to certain results, but as the safe and universal
means of arriving at any results. We have alluded to a class of
dialogues having this purpose ; and these, or something answer¬
ing to them (approaching, it is possible, the nature of ordinary
RELATION OF ARISTOTLE TO PLATO.
183
exposition, though we can scarcely believe that Plato ever aban¬
doned the dialogue as his vehicle of instruction), must have been
the peculiar study of the Academy, as such, and expressly of the
more advanced disciples.1 Hence there will have grown up
among these pupils a feeling respecting dialectics which Plato
would have been anxious to discourage, and yet which his own
works continually tended to foster. Seeing it used as a key to
unlock the secrets of social life, of moral life, of physical life,
and seeing likewise the pains which their master took that they
should examine the wards of the key, it was most natural that
they should think a much fuller and more systematic develop¬
ment of this all-important science was desirable, and even neces¬
sary. It would occur to them that there was something like
confusion and irregularity in the proceedings of their great
teacher. Had he not strangely mixed together inquiries respect¬
ing the grounds of morality with statements respecting the
nature of science ? Surely it would have been much better,
much more orderly, that these questions should have been kept
distinct, and referred to particular heads. And were there not
also some indications of narrowness in Plato, which a more accu¬
rate habit of distinction would have delivered him from ? Had
not his aversion to some of the usual abuses of rhetoric led him Ambition
to undervalue the whole art, when it was undoubtedly capable, °[rfrne*p?r
like every other, of being reduced to strict laws, and must ment and
deserve to be contemplated without any reference to its acci- sys,em-
dental results ? The same might be said of his doctrine respect¬
ing poetry ; the same, still more strongly, of his ill-concealed
indifference to physical speculations. If all these subjects could
be directly looked at in themselves as distinct branches of human
culture, how much increase of knowledge might be expected in
each, how much increase of clearness respecting the capacities
and limitations of the human intellect!
7. Such thoughts, we suppose, may have been at work in the ^stes'ius
minds of many who frequented the school of Plato. In few they desire,
will have borne any fruit, in most of these few the unripe or
blighted fruit of some feeble theories, professing to universalise
the system of Plato, really proving that their authors knew
nothing either of Plato or of themselves. But there was one
who was able to make the thoughts of the rest intelligible. To
him Platonism will have appeared a needful preparation for a
1 In the Life of Aristotle, by Mr. Blakesley (published in the Encyclopedia
Metropolitana), it has been shown, we think most satisfactorily, that the
acroamalic treatises of Aristotle differed from the exoteric not in the abstruse-
ness or mysteriousness of their subject-matter, but in this, that the one
formed part of a course or system, while the others were casual discussions
or lectures on a particular thesis. The remark in the text is an extension
and adaptation of this doctrine to the case of Plato.
184
GBEClAN PHILOSOPHY.
complete and circular philosophy. Its unsystematic character,
its imaginative flights, its disregard of certain provinces of
thought, will have seemed to him indications of rudeness and
infancy. And he will have conceived the thought of assigning
to each study its true position, that one which Plato declared
and proved to be so important, occupying the first place, being
exhibited in its full proportions, and determining the character
and treatment of the rest. Dialectics, then, was in some sense
the centre of both philosophies. Nor would it be correct to say
that Aristotle consciously altered the signification which the
word dialectics had borne in the discourses of his predecessor.
He only wished to give the study more distinctness and promi¬
nence, to exhibit the processes and operations of which it treated
apart from any particular applications and results. But in ful¬
filling this desire, the character of the pursuit became inevitably
changed. The feeling of Plato was, There are certain objects
presented to my mind; they may be sensible objects, as trees;
they may be objects for the understanding merely, as names ;
but objects they are still,—things thrown in my way; and I
must know what they mean, I must find out the truth of them,
which lie "^0r end I must have dialectics. The object has vanished
necessarily from before the eyes and mind of Aristotle ; he has begun to
the"*10118 devote the whole energy of his mind to the contemplation of
riatonicai dialectics in themselves. What is the consequence ? The sense
principle. 0f requiring them as the means of escape from the impositions
which intercept our views of things as they are, become3 more
and more weakened, till at last it disappears altogether. That
principle which it had been the business of Plato's life to assert
against Protagoras and his school, that the mind is not its own
standard, that the aspects under which objects present themselves
to us do not constitute our knowledge of them, but that we
may arrive at an acquaintance with them as they are in them¬
selves ; this principle, which had given his dialectics all their
meaning, is no longer felt with any potency by his disciple. On
the contrary, it is precisely the aspects under which we see and
judge of things that he proposes to investigate. He wants to
know what are the rules and conditions under which the mind,
by its own constitution, considers and discourses. He makes
the mind a centre, referring everything to itself, just as those
did with whom Plato contended. But he differed from them in
this, that their intention was knavish, his most honest. They
set up the doctrine that all things are merely as they seem to
us, for the purpose of unsettling all faith, and proving the judg¬
ment of each individual to be a lawful standard. He sought to
convince men that all is not unstable and fluctuating, by show¬
ing them that there is a fixed rule to which human judgments
RELATION OF ARISTOTLE TO PLATO.
185
must conform, which limits the exercises of individual taste and
caprice, which tests and reduces to order those appearances
which the Sophist pretended were infinite.
8. From this statement it will be easily apparent that the The
definition of dialectics in Plato and Aristotle may be almost the dialectics of
11 . realities and
same, and yet that the whole scope and object ot the science affirmations,
indicated by this common definition will be different. One as
much as the other could say, Dialectics is that science which
discovers the difference between the false and the true. But
the false in Plato is the semblance which any object presents to
the seusualised mind ; the true, the very substance and meaning
of that object. The false in Aristotle is a wrong affirmation
concerning any matter whereof the mind takes cognizance; the
true, a right affirmation concerning the same matter. Hence
the dialectic of the one treats of the way whereby we obtain to
a clear and vital perception of things ; the dialectic of the other
treats of the way in which we discourse of things. W ords to
the one are the means whereby we ascend to an apprehension of
realities of which there are no sensible exponents. Words to
the other are the formulas wherein we set forth our notions and
judgments. The one desires to ascertain of what hidden mean¬
ing the word is an index; the other desires to prevent the word
from transgressing certain boundaries which he has fixed for it.
Hence it happened that the sense and leading maxim of Plato's
philosophy became not only more distasteful, but positively more
unintelligible to his wisest disciple, than to many who had never
studied in the Academy, or who had set themselves in direct
opposition to it. When Aristotle had matured his system of
dialectics, there was something in it so perfect and satisfactory,
that he could not even dream of anything lying out of its circle,
and incapable of being brought under its rules. He felt that he
had discovered all the forms under which it is possible to set
down any proposition in words, and what there could be besides
this, what opening there could be for another region entirely
out of the government of these forms, he had no conception.
At any rate, if there were such a one, it must be a vague, unin¬
habited world. To suppose it peopled wjth other, and those
most real and distinct forms, was the extravagance of philoso¬
phical delirium. Accordingly, when he speaks of the doctrine
of substantial ideas—of ideas, that is to say, which are the
grounds of all our forms of thought, and consequently cannot be
subject to them—he is reduced to the strange, and for so con¬
summate a logician, most disagreeable necessity of begging the
whole question, of arguiDg that, since these ideas ought to be
included under some of the ascertained conditions of logic, and
by the hypothesis are not included under any, they must be
fictitious.
186
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
9. As we proceed we shall have occasion to notice how this
primary difference affected the views of these philosophers upon
all questions which came under their notice. At present we
speak of it in order to show that the methods having a perfectly
distinct object, do not of necessity interfere with each other;
that the Platonic doctrine is not absurd, because Aristotle could
find no place for it in his system ; that the labours of Aristotle
are not useless or ill-directed, because they do not supply, as he
fancied they did, any satisfaction to the inquiries which Plato
had awakened.
SECTION III.
THE LOGICAL TREATISES OF ARISTOTLE.
The 1* Every orderly examination of Aristotle must then, we con-
io^ie°theian ce*ve' start from his treatises on logic. That these are
key to his not the most interesting of the works which he has bequeathed
philosophy. the world we may easily admit; but, unless something is un¬
derstood of their nature and purpose, it is scarcely possible to
understand the character, the value, and the necessary limitation
of his opinions on ethics, on politics, on rhetoric, on poetry.
We shall presently quote the opinion of an eminent writer on
physical science, to prove that a just estimate of Aristotle's
labours in that department depends upon our knowledge of the
importance which he attached to the forms of logic. And the
settlement of the long-dobated question which falls more within
the province of this sketch, what precise meaning he attached to
the word Metaphysics, or what portion of his thoughts his dis¬
ciples referred to under that name, can, we think, be hoped for
only from a previous examination of his dialectics.
Complete- 2. In the Berlin edition of Aristotle, the Categories occupy
nessof these the first place. Some doubt has been entertained respecting the
genuineness of this treatise, which modern inquiries appear to
have removed. It would in many cases afford a reasonable
ground of suspicion against a work, that it exactly filled up a
gap in a set of acknowledged works by the same author, so that
with it they form a complete system of instruction upon the
subject which they treat. But it is a set-off against this consi¬
deration, that roundness is the great characteristic of Aristotle ;
and that it is less hard to imagine how a perfect series of his
logical writings can have come down to us, than to believe any
pupil capable of supplying a void which he had left in it. The
difficulty, too, of supposing one man to possess the full mastery
of this subject indicated by the successive works which he has left,
is diminished when we remember that theoriginal conceptionof the
study was not his but Zeno's. How naturally that conception
arose in a mind which had once entered into the great principle
The worth
of hotb phi¬
losophies.
THE LOGICAL TREATISES OF ARISTOTLE.
187
of Xenophanes and Parmenides, that the mind has laws of its
own, and is independent of the appearances and determinations
of the senses, we have explained already. What more than this
discovery, and the application of it in confuting sensible con¬
clusions, may be owing to Zeno, we do not know. It is not
impossible that some of the Sophists, while they turned the art
to the worst purposes, may have done something for the refine¬
ment and improvement of it. In the school of Euelides, not
only the practice, but the principles of logic must have been
studied and elucidated. With these materials to work upon, it
seems nowise incredible that one trained in the school of Plato
to the greatest subtlety and precision of thought, and possessing
in himself a comprehension and a diligence quite unparalleled,
should have been able to produce a design and an edifice
which after ages have found it scarcely possible to alter or amend.
He had not to raise a science from its foundations ; but lateri-
tiam invenit, marmoream relirpiit, may, perhaps, be said of him with
as strict truth as of almost any architect that the world has seen.
3. How the work on the Categories seems to be a fitting ves- The
tibule to this building. On entering it, we feel at once that the Categories:
purpose to which it is consecrated is altogether different from work.'0'"16
that which Plato has been teaching us to regard as all-important,
and we feel that it is a true purpose still. There is a way of
penetrating into the nature and essence of things, whether those
which present an outward image to my senses, or those, equally
real, ^vhich merely utter themselves to my mind. With this
way Aristotle does not concern himself. But it is equally
certain that our mind forms notions and conceptions about the
things belonging to both these kinds which it contemplates, and
it may be that these conceptions themselves are subject to cer¬
tain rules. They may be defined and classified; there may be a
general set of conceptions to which all particular conceptions will
refer themselves. This Aristotle affirms to be the case. Under
the ten notions of Substance, Quantity, Quality, Eelation, Time,
Place, Position, Possession, Action, Passion, he says you may
reduce all your notions. Now a Platonist is very likely to ask,
" But what do these words Substance, Quantity, &c. themselves
signify ?" " How do I know what Substance is, better than I
know what a man or a horse is ?" " Quantity, better than I
know what three cubits long is ?" And these are questions
which, as we shall find hereafter, had need to be asked, and were
asked with effect and advantage when the Aristotelian province
of thought had endeavoured to bring all other provinces within
it. But for any further purpose thau for destroying this preten¬
sion they are impertinent. When I study an actual man, or
an actual horse, the substance is doubtless the x or unknown
188
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
quantity which I am inquiring after; to assume that X know it,
is to stop all investigation. But I understand the name sub-
Btance, as well as I understand the name man or horse. And
who told you that, because there is a science of things, there is
not a science of names ? that there are not laws of dependence
and affinity among them ? and that conformity or nonconformity
to these laws is not exactly what we mean by coherent or
incoherent discourse ? There is no alternative between the
assertion, that the desire so deeply implanted in us of arrange¬
ment and classification, is a mere disease, or the belief that it
arises from the sense of certain limitations and conditions to
which our minds themselves are subject, and is another name
for the wish to understand what they are.
Such a work 4. The rules of grammar, the terminology of every art and
necessary. scj,ence5 the very attempt to be intelligible, presume these. And
there is no safety from the efforts of men to invent divisions and
schemes of thought, no safety for the great principles and laws,
which these dividers and schemers are continually narrowing
and stifling, but iu the clear and steady perception of certain
necessary boundaries not imposed upon us by our fellow-men,
but by the nature of our own understandings. Let, then, the
reader carefully consider this work on the Categories. Let him
ask himself whether it has not the effect of clearing his mind,
and that in no ordinary degree, respecting his own modes of
speech; whether it does not lead him to feel, more than he did
before, that his words, winged though they be, can take no
chance flight, but must move along an appointed preordained
path ; and, therefore, whether there be not a witness in himself
that Aristotle has a distinct and reasonable end of his own, which
it is very much for our interest to be acquainted with.
Logic based 5. From the investigation of these general forms under which
on facts. we reduce all the notions that enter our minds, he proceeds in
his treatise riepi 'Epgrtvetag, to inquire respecting the mode of
our affirmations and denials. In this treatise he developes the
nature and limitations of propositions, the meaning of contraries
and contradictories, the force of affirmations and denials, in im¬
possible, contingent, and necessary matter. We have no excuse
for dwelling on works of a merely formal character, but we men¬
tion them for the purpose of pressing the important remark of
Archbishop Whateley on our readers, that the two books of
'AvaXum-a Opdrepa develope the syllogistic principle and process.
Aristotle is not the mere inventor of an art, but the masterly
expounder of the facts upon which that art rests, and but for
which it would have no meaning. He does not teach us how to
make propositions, but what propositions are, and necessarily
must be, according to the conditions of the human intellect.
THE LOGICAL TREATISES OF ARISTOTLE.
189
He does not tell us how to make syllogisms, but how we do
syllogise, when we do not violate the laws of our mind as much
as we should violate the laws of our body, if we tried to walk
upon our heads instead of upon our feet.
6. But Aristotle perceived that this analysis of our mental
operations was not sufficient. He had told us how we discourse,
but he had not told us how we know. Are these forms of logic
themselves knowledge ? Is the syllogistic demonstration the
same thing with science ? Or, is one kind of it science ? Or,
are the results of it science ? Or, are there certain premises
assumed in it which also do or may belong to science ? What
are these ? how do we get at them ? Such are the important
inquiries which occupy Aristotle in his 'AvaXvrtKa vortpa. We
shall endeavour to seize a few of those points in the investigation
which will best enable the reader to estimate the character of
Aristotle's mind, and to see how he stands related as well to his
great master, as to the expounder of the inductive philosophy.
7. The treatise opens tbus :—IId<7a ^<£atn;aAia rat ttacta pdBri-
oig titavoijriKri ek -Trpovirapxovffrjg yiverai yvwoEiog' <pavepov be
tovto detopoiienv £7rt traouiV at re yap padqpartKai rStv eirtatiipiov
bia tovtov tov TpoTrov irapayivovTai ku\ tuiv dXXaiv EKaorr) texvwv'
opoiwg h icai xept rovg Xoyovg o'l re bid avXXoyiapiov Kai oi hi Eira-
yutyjjc" apL(f>07£p0L yap $ia irpoyivwirKopEviov iroiovvrai rijv btbaoKa-
Xiav, ol piv Xap&avovTEQ we irapa Ivvievtmv, oi Se beiKvyvreg to
KadoXov did roii $rj\ov elvai to i:a8' EKaorow tlig afiriog sal oi
Pijrop(tt» ovfiTTEtdovatv' #j yap Sta TrapabeiypaTWi/ o eoti iirayivyrj
fj hi' Evdvpi}paru)v oirep earl trvXXoyiopog. There are two very
important words in the opening clause of this sentence which we
imagine were carefully distinguished in the school from which
Aristotle came, SiSaoKaXia and paSyoig. We feel confident,
also, that the last being, by the force of its name, the method of
learning and acquisition, would have uniformly taken precedence
of the other, which points to the communication of knowledge.
That the order is here changed, that faBaofcaXta is put foremost
as if it included the other within itself, is a very significant cir¬
cumstance, which is an explanation of much that follows. Plato,
it is well known, had a profound reverence for mathematics. He How piato
was wont to say, " Let no man undisciplined in geometry enter
the halls of philosophy." Now we cannot account for this admi- their views
ration unless we suppose him to have perceived in the mathema- „aTicshe
tical process something akin to his own method. But this resem¬
blance certainly does not lie in that which we are wont to call
the mathematical demonstration, it does not lie in the machinery
of axioms, definitions, hypotheses, propositions. This machinery,
valuable as it is, has scarcely a Socratic element in it. What
remains ? Plato, we conceive, would have answered, Exactly
190
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
that which is the essence of mathematics, exactly the /ia ^<r<c-
For this demonstration is but the MaaKaXla, a necessary and
inseparable accident of the science, but implying the presence of
something else and unmeaning without it. The gabyaic is the
process whereby in any particular triangle I arrive at this as one
of the laws which belong to it as a triangle, that its three angles
are equal to two right angles ; the diSaoKuXla is the formal verbal
enunciation of that law, and the confirmation of it by certain
deductions from previously admitted premises. In this sense
mathematics would seem to him not indeed the science, but the
best preparation for it, because it recognises certain permanent
forms and principles existing in visible objects, which we are
capable of entering into and discovering. Now Aristotle, as we
have often hinted, perceives only the forms and laws of our
mind. That, consequently, which was the subordinate and ac¬
cessory part of mathematics in the judgment of his master,
became in his judgment the whole. He looks upon mathe¬
matics simply in reference to the demonstrations ; the charac¬
teristic of mathematics is that it deals with necessary matter.
If you ask why necessary, the only answer you can get is, that
it starts ultimately from some self-evident propositions. So that,
after all, the proposition, a mode of our own mind, becomes the
ultimate ground of all things. Or if you will find out a
Hercules' pillar beyond these, you have the Categories. Pent
within these limits, it becomes difficult to grasp the meaning of
science. Aristotle feels the difficulty, and with his usual honesty
is know- does not evade it. He acknowledges that it may puzzle us to
result of6 tell whether science is only that which we obtain after a series
syllogism? of satisfactory syllogisms, or whether the premises assumed in
those syllogisms must not of themselves be entitled to the same
character. And he can only say, that we must deal fairly with
facts, and that what we are bound to assume as known, we do
actually in some sort know. Ultimate knowledge, then, as well
as primary knowledge, the most perfect truth which the philo¬
sopher can attain, as well as the point from which he starts, is
still a proposition. All knowledge seems to be ineludt d under
the two forms,—knowledge that it is so; knowledge trhy it is
so. Neither of these can, of course, include the knowledge at
which Plato is aiming, knowledge which is correlative with
Being—a knowledge not about things, or persons, but o/'them.
sensible b. But if these forms of our mind are the ground of our
perception; knowledge, we cannot at once arrive at them. What are the
knowledge? steps't Here comes in the Aristoteliau doctrine about sensible
objects. Our perception of these is not strictly to be called
knowledge; that vord, wbother used about premises or con¬
clusions, the data of a syllogism or its results, has still inference
THE LOGICAL TREATISES OF ARISTOTLE.
191
to what is universal. Our sensible apprehensions refer only to
particulars, to individuals. But from these, which are the most
evident to us, we come to the more general by a process of in¬
duction. "What this induction is, and how entirely it differs
from that process which bears the same name in the writings of
Bacon, the reader will perceive the more he studies the different
writings of Aristotle. He will find, first, that the sensible
phenomenon is taken for granted as a safe starting-point. That
phenomena are not principles, Aristotle believed as strongly as
we could. But to suspect phenomena, to suppose that they
need sifting and probing in order that we may know what the
fact is which they denote, this is no part of his system. The
sensible impression was to him satisfactory, not indeed to rest
in, but as a true beginning; all the difference between those
who acquiesce in it and the most consummate philosopher, lay
in the use which the latter made of his power of generalising
and syllogising. It is in this way that Aristotle has become
the parent of all the modern schools of sensible philosophy,
which schools have, nevertheless, drawn their very best and most
convincing arguments from the errors into which Aristotle and
the Aristotelians were led by the adoption of their own hypo- The
thesis. The first book of Locke may be justly said to be an ^Xction?n
elaborate and satisfactory exposure of the notions into which
the Stagirite school is driven, by its determination to recognise
no foundation of truth but sense and experience. They were
too learned and thoughtful not to perceive that universal forms
are in some way or other demanded by the mind ; and because
they would not acknowledge them as the grounds of our mind,
they were forced to seek for them in the mind, and thus to con¬
ceive them in the shape of propositions. Hence the fancy of
an innate notion that whatever is, is; that the whole is greater
than its part, &e.; a fancy which Mr. Locke has confuted amidst
such shouts of triumph from his admirers, while he was, in
fact, conspiring with Aristotle to disparage the principle which
delivers us from such fallacies. But we are anticipating a future
page of our sketch.
9. These later analytics deal, it will be seen, entirely with The Topics,
demonstrative reasoning. The Topics, a much longer work,
refer wholly to probable reasoning. On this subject Aristotle,
it seems to us, is much more at home than on the other. AYe
have intimated our suspicion that he never did possess or
could possess the idea of Science. It lay altogether out of his
province ; when he tried to grapple with it he necessarily brought
it within conditions and forms which robbed it of its very
essence. But no one ever did so much as he to give a scientific
form and semblance to those subjects which are by their nature
not scientific. No one ever did so much to give our thoughts
192
OEECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
precision and clearness respecting all tlie wavering and fluctuat¬
ing matters that fall within the domain of opinion and of ordi¬
nary conduct. When we look at the Topics, we are brought to
confess (not without a certain reluctance) that there is no
method of persuasion or human discourse so loose and random
but that it may be subjected to analysis, and shown to involve
certain inevitable limitations. Undoubtedly there is some jus¬
tification for our discontent with these resolute reductions of all
our thoughts and arguments to a system ; we feel that the vital
Probable power is not there; that what really brings men into consent
reasoDinR with either a falsehood or a truth, the energy and conviction of
rules! t0 him who utters it is taken no account of, and that the habit of
contemplating arguments without reference either to the truth
of that which they are meant to establish, or to the moral in¬
fluence which they exert, is somewhat hardening and deadening
to the mind. But we shall find that the work of a thorough
master in this line, like Aristotle, will, on the whole, produce a
good effect. He so entirely understands himself and what he
is able to do, that we cannot commit the mistake which inferior
writers often draw us into, of fancying that nothing is wanted
but what he tells us. His exquisite dissections teach us what
more blundering dissectors might not; that there is something
which cannot be dissected. To understand Aristotle rightly,
the Topics should be read together with the three books on
Rhetoric. "We cannot speak of that work now, because so
much of the moral and political wisdom of Aristotle is presumed
in it. Nevertheless it is closely connected with this work on
probable arguments. The Topics are to it what the six books of
Euclid are to a treatise on practical mechanics. Now, though
it may seem strange to talk of a geometry expressly for a
rhetorician, and though we have already shown in what sense
geometry was very alien from the habits of Aristotle's mind,
yet we cannot help seeing that just so far as a person who has
the faculty of persuasion can be taught that his is not a mere
craft, but has maxims and laws to govern it, he will become at
any rate less mischievous, and may become a sincere, true-minded
man. In another point of view the Topics give that roundness
and completeness to the logical system of Aristotle which we
said that he evidently desired, and had in so remarkable a man¬
ner realised.
section rv.
THE PHYSICS OF AEISTOTLE.
Rxtract 1. A short treatise on Sophistical Proofs winds up the series
from nr. 0f Aristotle's works on logic. Then follow his voluminous
wiieweii. writingS on physics. In these we have no direct interest. To
THE PHTSICS OF AEISTOTLE.
193
show, however, how the logical ideas of Aristotle affected his
views in this department, we shall take the liberty of extracting
a passage from Dr. Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences,
vol. i. sec. 2 ; " The Aristotelian Physical Philosophy."
2. "The principal treatises of Aristotle are, the eight books Thebooks^
of Physical Lectures, the four books Of the Heavens, the two fact's. y"fa
books Of Production and Destruction, for the book Of the
World is now universally acknowledged to be spurious, and the
Meteorologies, though full of physical explanations of natural
phenomena, does not exhibit the doctrines and reasonings of
the schools in so general a form ; the same may be said of the
Mechanical Problems. The treatises on the various subjects
of' natural history, On Animals, On the Parts of Animals, On
Plants, On Physiognomies, On Colours, On Sounds, contain an
extraordinary accumulation of facts, and manifest a wonderful
power of systematising; but are not works which expound
principles, and therefore do not require to be here con¬
sidered.
3. "The Physical Lectures are the works concerning which The Physical
the well-known anecdote is related by Siraplicius, a Greek LcLturt'h•
commentator of the sixth century, as well as by Plutarch. It
is said that Alexander the Great wrote to his former tutor to
this effect: ' You have not done well in publishing these Lectures,
for how shall we, your pupils, excel other men if you make that
public to all which we learned from you ?' To this Aristotle is
said to have replied : ' My Lectures are published and not pub¬
lished ; they will be intelligible to those who heard them and to
none beside.' This may very easily be a story inscribed and
circulated among those who found the works beyond their com¬
prehension ; and it cannot be denied that to make out the
meaning and reasoning of every part would be a task very la¬
borious and difficult, if not impossible. But we may follow the
import of a large portion of the work with sufficient clearness
to apprehend the character and principles of the reasoning ; and
this is what I shall endeavour to do.
4. " The author's introductory statement of his view of the of
nature of philosophy falls in very closely with what has been s"
said, that he takes his facts and his generalisations as they are
implied in the structure of language. 1 We must in all cases
proceed,' he says,' from what is known to what is unknown.'
This will not be denied; but we can hardly follow him in his
inference. He adds, ' We must proceed, therefore, from uni¬
versal to particular. And something of this,' he pursues,£ may
be seen in language; for names signify things in a general and
indefinite manner, as circles, and by defining we unfold them
into particulars.' He illustrates this by saying, {thus children
VOL. I. O
194
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
at first call all men father, and all women mother, but afterwards
distiuguish.'
5. " In accordance with this view he endeavours to settle
several of the great questions concerning the universe, which
had been started among subtle and speculative men, by unfolding
the meaning of the wordB and phrases which are applied to the
most general notions of things and relations. We have already
noticed this method. A few examples will illustrate it further.
Whether there was or was not a void, or place without matter,
a void. had already been debated among rival sects of philosophers.
The antagonist arguments were briefly these: there must be a
void because a body cannot move into a space except it is empty,
and therefore without a void there could be no motion; and, on
the other hand, there is no void, for the intervals between bodies
are filled with air, and air is something. These opinions had
even been supported by reference to experiment. On the one
hand, Anaxagoras and his school had shown, that air when con¬
fined resisted compression, by squeezing a blown biadder, and
pressing down an inverted vessel in the water; on the other
hand, it was alleged that a vessel full of fine ashes held as much
water as if the ashes were not there, which could only be ex¬
plained by supposing void spaces between the ashes. Aristotle
How decides that there is no void on such arguments as this:—In a
Aro"« that vo^ there could be no differences of up and down ; for as in
th-re is nothing there are no differences, so there are none in a privation
none. or negation; but avoid is merely a privation or negation of
matter; therefore, in a void, bodies could not move up and down,
which it is in their nature to do. It is easily seen that such a
mode of reasoning elevates the familiar forms of language, and
the intellectual connections of terms to a supremacy over facts ;
making truth depend upon whether terms are or are not primitive,
and whether we say that bodies fall naturally. In such a phi¬
losophy every new result of observation would be compelled to
conform to the usual combinations of phrases as they had been
associated by the modes of apprehension previously familiar.
Before and 6. " It is not intended here to intimate that the common
Atter. modes of apprehension, which are the basis of common language,
are limited and casual. They imply, on the contrary, universal
and necessary conditions of our perceptions and conceptions;
thus all things are necessarily apprehended as existing in time
and space, and as connected by relations of cause and effect;
and, so far as the Aristotelian philosophy reasons from these
assumptions, it has a real foundation, though even in this case
the conclusions are often insecure. We have one example of
this reasoniug in the eighth book, where he says that there
never was a time in which change and motion did not exist;
THE PHT3ICS OP ARISTOTLE.
195
' for if all things were at rest, the first motion must have been
produced by some change in some of these things; that is, there
must have been a change befere the first change and again,
* How can before and after apply where time is not ? or how
can time be when motion is not ?' ' If,' he adds, ' time is a
mensuration of motion, and if time be eternal, motion must be
eternal.' But we have sometimes principles introduced of a
more arbitrary character, and, besides the general relations of
thought, the inventions of previous speculators are taken for
granted; such, for instance, as the then commonly received
opinions concerning the frame of the world. From the assertion
that motion is eternal, proved in the manner just stated, Aris- better and
totle proceeds by a curious train of reasoning to identify this
eternal motion with the diurnal motion of the heavens. ' There
must,' he says, ' be something which is the first movedthis
follows from the relation of causes and effects. Again, ' Motion
must go on constantly, and therefore must be either continuous
or successive. Now what is continuous is more properly said
to take place constantly, than what is successive. Also the
continuous is better ; but we always suppose that which is better
to take place in nature, if it be possible.' "We see here the
vague judgment of better and worse introduced, as that of natural
and unnatural was before into physical reasonings.
7. " I proceed with Aristotle's argument, ' We have now, circularity
therefore, to show that there may be an infinite, single, con- of'""1'""-
tinuous motion, and that this is circular.' This is, in fact,
proved, as may readily be conceived, from the consideration that
a body may go on habitually revolving regularly in a circle. And
thus we have a demonstration, on the principles of this phi¬
losophy, that there is and must be a first mover, revolving
eternally with a uniform circular motion.
" Though this kind of philosophy may appear too trifling to
deserve being dwelt upon, it is important for our purpose so far
to exemplify it that we may afterwards advance, conscious that
we have done it no injustice.
8. "I will now pass from the doctrines relating to the motions Element!, ot
of the heavens to those which concern the material elements oftllL'u,11^rsl •
the universe. And here it may be remarked, that the tendency
(of which we are here tracing the development) to extract
speculative opinions from the relations of words must be very
natural to man ; for the very widely-accepted doctrine of the
four elements, which appears to be founded upon the opposition
of the adjectives hot and cold, wet and dry, is much older than
Aristotle, and was probably one of the earliest of philosophical
dogmas. The great master of this philosophy, however, puts the
opinion in a more systematic manner than his predecessors.
19 G
GEECIAH PHILOSOPHY.
Contrane- 9. " 1 ITe seek,' he says, ' the principles of sensible things,
tllb" that is, of tangible bodies. We must take, therefore, not all the
contrarieties of quality, but those only which have reference to
the touch. Thus black and white, sweet and bitter, do not
differ as tangible qualities, and therefore must be rejected from
our consideration.
" ' Now the contrarieties of quality which refer to the touch
are these, hot, cold ; dry, wet; heavy, light; hard, soft; unc¬
tuous, meagre; rough, smooth ; dense, rare.' He then proceeds
to reject all but the four first of these, for various reasons ;
heavy and light because they are not active and passive qualities ;
the others because they are combinations of the four first, which,
therefore, he infers to be the four elementary qualities.
" ' Now in four things there are six combinations of two; but
the combinations of two opposites, as hot and cold, must be
rejected ; we have, therefore, four elementary combinations which
agree with the four apparently elementary bodies ; air is hot,
wet, (for steam is air,) water is cold and wet, and earth is cold
and dry.'
Bacon 10. " It may be remarked that this disposition to assume that
some common elementary quality must exist in the cases in
nominalism. which we habitually apply a common adjective, as it begun before
the reign of the Aristotelian philosophy, so also survived its
influence. Not to mention other uses, it would be difficult to
free Bacon's Inquisitio in Naturam Calidi, 1 Examination of the
Nature of Heat,' from the charge of confounding together very
different classes of phenomena under the cover of the word hot.
" The rectification of these opinions concerning the elemen¬
tary composition of bodies belongs to an advanced period in the
history of physical knowledge, even after the revival of its
progress.
Absolute 11. " The Aristotelian doctrines concerning motion are still
?eu't,7lat"e founded upon the same mode of reasoning from adjectives; but
in this case the result follows, not only from the opposition of
the words, but also from the distinction of their being absolutely
and relatively true. ' Former writers,' says Aristotle, ' have
considered heavy and light relatively only, taking cases where
both things have weight, but one is lighter than the other; and
they imagine that in this way they defined what was absolutely
(ottAwc) heavy and light.' TVTe now know that things which
rise by their lightness do so only because they are pressed
upwards by heavier surrounding bodies ; and this assumption of
absolute levity, which is evidently gratuitous, or rather merely
nominal, entirely vitiated the whole of the succeeding reasoning.
The inference was that fire must be absolutely light, since it
tends to take its place above the three other elements; earth
the metaphysics of aristotle.
197
absolutely heavy, since it tends to take its place below fire, air,
and water. The philosopher argued also with great aeuteness
that air, which tends to take its place below fire and above
water, must do so by its nature, and not in virtue of any combi¬
nation of heavy and light elements. For if air was composed of
two parts, which give fire its levity, joined to other parts which
produce gravity, we might assume a quantity of air so large that
it should be lighter than a similar quantity of fire, having more
of the light parts. It thus follows that each of the four elements
tends to take its own place, fire being the highest, air the next,
water the next, and earth the lowest. The whole of this train
of errors arises from fallacies which have a verbal origin; from
considering light as opposite to heavy, and from considering
levity as a quality of a body, instead of as the effect of surround¬
ing bodies."
section v.
the metaphysics of aristotle.
1. These remarks of Dr. Whewell's show how necessarily the
method of Aristotle obstructed the true observation and inter¬
pretation of nature. To us they are important chiefly from the Jhe.^v®f
connection which has always been felt to exist between the fi®" word
hysical treatises and those which by Aristotle himself, or some Metaphysics
isciple, are classed under the name of Metaphysical. These
latter writings have been the subject of much dispute. Some
have supposed that they owe their name to an accidental juxta¬
position with the books on Physics, among which it was evident
that they could not conveniently be classed; some to a feeling
in the mind of Aristotle, that he was ascending into a region
above and beyond that in which he had been dwelling previously.
2. One of his early commentators appears to adopt both ex¬
planations of the title.1 He says, " The object of this treatise
is theological. Herein Aristotle theologises. The order is this:
we make our beginning from those things which naturally are
the last, seeing that these are the better known to us. For this
reason, then, he discoursed to us first concerning physical mat¬
ters, for these are last by nature, but to us first. But this pre¬
sent subject is first in nature, but to us last, since the imperish¬
able things are older than the perishable, and the ungenerated
than the generated. "Wherefore Aristotle discoursed to us first nions
concerning those things that are moved without an order (in his question,
book on Meteors) ; then again concerning those things which
are moved according to an order or system (in the work on the
1 The Scholia of Asclepius after Ammonius. Ammonius belongs to the
fifth century a.d., Asclepius to the sixth.
198
GRECIAN" PHILOSOPHY.
Heavens, concerning the stars and the spheres) ; and finally in
this treatise he discourses to us concerning those things which
are in all cases immovable. Now this is theology, for such a
study befits the gods. For this reason the work is inscribed
After-the-Physics (JUera rii (pvaitca) ; seeing that he first dis¬
coursed to us concerning the physical things, then consecutively
concerning this ; it is proper, therefore, to read it after the
physical treatises: this the title shows." Another of the
scholiasts is more decisive: " This work is entitled Mera ra
<pvaiKa, not in reference to the character of the book, but to the
order in reading it, for he treats concerning physical prinriples."
These hints, if considered in connection with the books them¬
selves, will, we conceive, explain the origin of the two theories,
and in a great degree reconcile them. We shall see as we pro¬
ceed in what sense Aristotle " theologises in what sense he
treats of things " unmoved," and therefore not physical; or in
what sense he treats of physical " principles."
The first 3. The first Book of the Metaphysics, or that which we rea-
book* sonablv suppose to be the first from its style and method, ascends
from an investigation of the words Art and Experience (words
which we shall meet with again in the Ethics), to an examina¬
tion of the word Wisdom or ao<f>ia. Wisdom is the knowledge
about certain causes and principles. The question seems to
follow of course, What kinds of causes or principles ? But this
question Aristotle thinks that he has answered implicitly already.
Sense and experience take cognizance of individual cases;
Experience wisdom rises to the first causes and the first principles—those
wisdom, ^at are most universal, those that lie furthest from mere casual
observation. We must continue in his own very striking words:
"Through Wonder, men both now and heretofore began to
philosophise. At first, indeed, they wondered at the more
difficult things which lay close by them, then went on by little
and little, inquiring concerning greater things, as concerning the
changes of the moon, or about the sun, and the stars, and the
generation of the universe. But he that is at a loss and that
wonders, thinks that he is ignorant. Wherefore also the lover
of wisdom (the philosopher) is in some sort a lover of fables,
for the fable consists of wonders. Now, seeing they philo¬
sophised for the sake of escaping ignorance, it is evident that
they pursued knowledge for the sake of knowing, and not for
the sake of any advantage. The fact supports this conclusion ;
this kind of wisdom began to be sought out, when things
sufficient for occupation and leisure were already provided.
Just as we say that a man is free who exists for his own sake
and not for the sake of another, so this is the only knowledge
which is perfectly free, for it is the only one which exists purely
THE METAPHYSICS OF AHISTOTLE.
199
for its own sake. "Wherefore the possession of it may be justly
considered as not pertaining to man. For oftentimes the
nature of men is servile; so that, according to Simonides, ' God
alone would have this prize, and it is unworthy not to seek that
(to be content with that) knowledge which is appropriate to
him.'
" If indeed the poets say truly that the Divine Nature is
envious, Simonides must be right, and all over-learned people
must be unhappy. But the Divine Nature cannot be envious ;
rather, as the proverb says, ' the poets lienor is it fitting to
think any study more honourable than this, for that which is
most godlike is also most honourable. Now science may be
godlike in two ways ; godlike because it is that thing which God
hath above all others, or because it is itself the knowledge of
the Divine. This fulfils both these conditions, for God seems
to be a sort of beginning of causes, and God will possess this
kind of knowledge alone or chiefly. All kinds of knowledge then
are more needful than this (for common purposes), but none is
better."
•4. The wise man now presented to us is not the old Greek The "Wise
sage who could overreach his fellows and build up a tyranny ; he ^'siotic.
is not the anxious questioner in all different directions," Where
is wisdom found ?" he is not the Sophist who brings all different
kinds of knowledge to the market, and sells them to the highest
bidder, under a pledge that they will procure him power and the
fruits of power ; he is not the Socratic philosopher asking all the
things that he sees for the meaning or truth which is latent in
them; he is not the Platonic philosopher seeking for that which
keeps knowledge, society, nature, at one. He is a man who
must be carefully distinguished from, and opposed to, the man
of business or practice (a person, nevertheless, to be highly
prized in his way), who has a function altogether his own, a
function which raises him to an almost Divine level, and makes
him the one fit beholder of that which is Divine. If we ask
what this is, the answer we receive is, the Divine is the Cause,
that which lies beneath all other causes, that which is not subject
to accident, movement, the law of growth; that which is the
original root of all things. Here we have the Aristotelian
theology.
5. But this theology is by the definition Metaphysics. It ™e8lotelian
comes after physics in the order of its discovery : after physics theology a o"
because it is implied in them; after physics because it is beyond metaplijaics,
them. Yet for this very reason it cannot be separated from
them ; you do not know what it is except by considering it in
its relation to them. "We have been careful hitherto to use the
name as little as we might, at least in our sketch of Greek
200
GEECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
inquirers. It is dangerous to anticipate a name. The time will
come, we may be sure, when it will be imposed if it is wanted.
Soon a definer of boundaries will certainly appear, to say, " This
is Morals This is Physics;" "This is Metaphysics," "When
he appears, if he is a man who shows he has a right to be heard,
we must of course listen to him. But his accurate limitations
will be far less intelligible to us, we shall not appreciate them as
they deserve, if we have not allowed previous students to take
their own course and explain themselves. In general, however
grateful we may be to our teacher for telling us what we are
to call and are not to call each thing that conies before us, we
must be careful of taking him as the interpreter of his prede¬
cessors. He has a service of his own to render us, but it is
involved in the nature of this sendee that he should be an over-
strict disciplinarian, insisting that guerilla troops whose worth
consists in their sudden and irregular appearance, should con¬
form to the rules of regular warfare ; compelling those whose
order is quite as strict as his own, but altogether different from
it, to adopt his signs and divisions under peril of being treated
as disobedient and. lawless.
Review of 6. This remark is especially applicable to an able review of
philosophies previous Greek philosophers, which is contained in the first
book of the Metaphysics. Causes, Aristotle says, are four¬
fold : 1. The substance of a thing, or that which constitutes it.
2. The matter of a thing, or that which is the needful condition
of it. 3. The source whence the motion of anything proceeds.
4. The reason, or purpose, or good of its existence. No one can
deny the value of this classification for Aristotelian purposes,
nor that it may help, if used with moderation, to clear the mind
of any student respecting his own objects. But Aristotle be¬
lieves that one or other of these courses of inquiry was followed
by each school of Greek thinkers, and was considered by that
school as the only and all-sufficient method. Thus the Ionic
philosophers studied the matter of things in hopes of discovering
a primary element to which all other things might be referred.
Those of this class who selected fire as their element, were natu¬
rally led by the effects which they observed resulting from that
power, to speculate upon the meaning and mystery of Motion.
Hence a new kind of inquiry was started, which proceeded,
however, much in the spirit of those respecting elements, till
Anaxagoras discovered the necessity of an Intelligence to set
physical agents in movement. As, however, he had only recourse
to this ultimate principle when other instruments failed him, the
Atomic theory, which furnished a more plausible explanation
of the facts of nature than his Homaeomeriae, easily supplanted
them. Between this theory and that which affirmed Numbers
THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE.
201
to be the first principles of things, Aristotle appears to detect a
connection, one not well supported by chronology. That
doctrine of numbers he considers the first form of the inquiry
after the essence or substance of things. The archetypal ideas
of the Platonists, who regarded numbers as a kind of intervening
powers between sensible things and pure essences, is the second
and higher form of it. The inquiry respecting the object or
purpose of things had not, he imagines, been pursued distinctly
by any class of his predecessors, but it had entered somewhat
confusedly into the speculations of them all.
7. Now if Socrates was, as we have maintained, the keystone Objection to
of Greek speculations—an opinion which derives support from ^'assifica-8
many passages in Aristotle himself—this historical sketch, how- tion.
ever ingenious, cannot be correct. For in it Socrates is merely
an interloper; of right therefore only mentioned in a parenthesis,
as chiefly devoting himself to ethical inquiries, Plato's in¬
tellectual descent being traced, not through him, to the Ionian
and Heraclitan schools. Throughout this treatise Aristotle
shows a want of sympathy with his predecessors, which must
have made it impossible for him to understand those complicated
thoughts and anxieties, even if he had not been determined to
arrange them, and therefore became needlessly irritated with
those whose vagrant habits defied arrangement. But his hints
respecting other men are very important helps in becoming
acquainted with himself. The Metaphysics of Aristotle are
troublesome reading, partly from the frequent repetitions which
occur in them, partly from the difficulty of discovering a
sequence in the books. Nevertheless they should be read by
any student who wishes to investigate the questions which have
occupied men in later times. We shall illustrate our previous
remarks by tracing a very rude outline of the subjects which
are discussed in them, and recording some of the solutions
Aristotle has given of the difficulties which he starts.
8. A kind of appendix which follows the first book contains a The
proof that causes are not infinite, that there is consequently a ®1^dort,lc
possibility of carrying on that inquiry in which past philosophers practical
had engaged. The same short book contains some important ra
remarks upon the manner in which the search was to be con¬
ducted, upon the contributions to truth which each school may
have made, upon the advantages which a philosopher may derive
from attending even to popular notions, upon the dislike which
some have to exact mathematical reasoning, and the determina¬
tion of others to have nothing else, and upon the proper limita¬
tion of mathematical accuracy to things without matter. We
have here also the clear announcement of a principle which the
student of Aristotle has need to keep constantly in recollection,
202
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
QewpijTtKijg nev rt.Xoc AXqdem, 7rpoKrt/ojc epyov. He adds an
explanation, which still further illustrates his meaning, and
makes the difference between him and his master more con¬
spicuous, that the practical man has nothing to do with the
eternal or the absolute, but only with the relative. This book
ends with a promise of an inquiry into the meaning of the word
Nature, which is not, however, fulfilled in that which is com¬
monly placed next to it.
for°aoiutk>n ^is second book is a collection of doubts or questions to
' be hereafter resolved. The first doubt is, whether it is the
business of one science, or of more, to inquire into all kinds of
causes or principles. This question involves the very subject
of the whole treatise. So many different subjects seem to be
included in that province to which the general name aofta has
been given—matters purely belonging to the senses, the causes
of motion, the nature of Being, the reason and purpose of things
—how is it possible to suppose a single science dealing with
principles apparently not admitting either of analogy or con¬
trast ? Secondly, are we to look upon the most comprehensive
Genera to which individual things can be referred, or upon the
atoms of which they consist, as their Principles ? The third
question is connected with this, is there anything besides
individual things ? If not, how can they be known, for are not
individual things infinite, and is not knowledge of that which is
one and universal? Fourthly, are the principles of things
perishable, and of things imperishable, the same ? Fifthly
(which is the great question of all), are Being and Unity the
essences of things that are, and not distinguishable from them;
or are we to seek for the to ov and to iv as if they had each a dis¬
tinct nature ? Sixthly, are numbers, bodies, planes, and points,
substances or not ? Such are the general controversies of which
we are to hope for some settlement in the books that follow.
The 10. The third book may be considered an answer to the first
the'Phi lo™* question. There is a science which contemplates Existence as
sopher, and Existence, and whatever appertains to it in reference to it; not
the Sophist. other sciences, merely the attributes of certain particular
existences. There are, he says, certain things peculiar to Being
as Being, and these are things concerning which it is the phi¬
losopher's function to investigate the truth. The dialectician
and the sophist resemble indeed the philosopher ; Being is the
common subject-matter to all three. They discourse concerning
the subjects which are in a peculiar sense his property. The
dialectical liivapts differs from the philosophical in its nature ;
the sophistical in the intention of him who uses it, tart Ik 7}
SiaXcKTtKrl vEtpaoTiKi) vepiwvri <pt\o<ro<p(a yvwpitTrtKi), ij $k ootpttrritrff
tpatvofiivtf, oZoa ov. This is an important passage as illus-
THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE.
203
trating the difference between the Platonic and the Aristotelian
dialectics. Accoi'ding to Plato dialectics was the human science,
the science of the philosopher as such. 2o0ta in its essence
belongs to God. Aristotle, we see, discovers a difference between
dialectics and the highest philosophy, and inevitably; for, as his
dialectic treats only of the forms of human thought, as it deals
with knowledge merely in the sense of the powers and means of
knowing possessed by us, there must be another science con¬
cerning the objects of knowledge as such. But then, in this
science also, the objects cease to be objects ; they become subjects
for man's contemplation; they become Metaphysics or Ontology.
The hint respecting the Sophist contained in this sentence
should also be compared with the elaborate exhibition of bis
character and functions in the dialogue between the Eleatic
stranger and Theaetetus. It connects itself with the inquiry,
whether mathematical axioms are subjects of inquiry for the
Ontologist or highest philosopher. The answer is in the
affirmative. Those axioms were assumed by the mathematician.
The student of physics sometimes meddles with them, but
rashly and presumptuously; they are first principles, and as
such are cognizable only by the person whose office we are
defining. Now as it was the especial delight of the Sophist to
deny axioms, to say that the same thing could be and not be,
this becomes the natural place for settling his pretensions.
Consistly with their characteristic difference, Aristotle repre¬
sents him, not in Plato's manner, as one who invents coun¬
terfeit images of that which is, but as one who attributes
accidents to accidents instead of to substances. We can scarcely
conceive two portraits of the same person so correct and
felicitous, and yet expressing so thoroughly the manner and
principle of the respective artists.
11. The fourth book is a book of definitions. We can only Definitions,
convey a notion of its importance by giving a list of the words
defined. They are Principle Cause, Element, Nature,
Necessity, Unity, Being, Substance, Sameness, Opposition,
First and Last, Power, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Perfection,
Limitation, To Ka0' o {secundum quid) ; [the meaning is easily
understood from Touchstone's words in As You Like It, " In
respect that it is of the country it is a good life, but in respect
that it is not of the court it is a vile life," &c.] Disposition,
Habit, Passion, Privation, Inclusion, Derivation, Part, Whole,
KoXofiov (the mutilated), Kind, Falsehood, Accident. The ex¬
planations of some of these words will, it is obvious, have been
repeated from the Categories and the Analytics. Some of them
will be better understood from the arguments in the subsequent
books than they could be from any formal definitions; still they
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
are worthy to be read and reflected on. The one on " Nature"
ia perhaps the most important; but to his notions of this word
the entire treatise is the only satisfactory clue.
h"w°l0g7: 12. The fifth book explains Aristotle's view of the difference
differs from between physical and ontological science. They agree in this,
Physics. that they are theoretic, not practical or poetic. They differ in
this, that the physical deals with that which has a capacity for
change or movement, and with that which is imbedded in matter.
The primary philosophy deals with the unchangeable, and with
that which is separate from matter. Mathematical science lies
between them, resembling ontological science in the first char
racteristic, physical in the second. If there be such a science
as Theology, it must be a part, and the highest part, of the
primary Philosophy. The Divine Nature must be pre-eminently
that which is out of the circle of composite and movable things.
The condition of those things whereof physical science treats, is,
that they are susceptible of accidents. Not that there can be
a science of accidents ; as such they exclude science altogether.
But there may be, and there are, principles and causes of those
things which admit of accidents. Seeking these, physical science
still retains its formal distinction from that higher science which
deals with beings and essences as such. There is another sense
in which "Being" had been used, especially by the Platonists,
which it is necessary to distinguish from our notion of it.
Being had been confounded with truth, Not-being with falsehood.
Now truth, according to Aristotle, is not in the things but in
the mind. Affirmation combines, negation separates; false¬
hood separates that which should be combined, combines that
which should be separate. But the existences with which we
are dealing are simple or uncompounded. Here again we have
one of the capital and vital points of difference between the two
philosophies.
13. The sixth book contains some of the most important dis¬
tinctions and differences in the whole treatise. Ontology is
concerned with Substance. What is to be included among
substances ? Are walking, sitting, being in health, substances ?
No ; all these imply a subject to which they must be considered
as referring. In this way we get rid of the notion of a sub¬
stantial good, as well as a substantial warmth or whiteness, &e.
All these alike are considered as qualities of some subject, and
what that subject is must be sought in each individual which
offers itself to our observation.
Qualities 14. But does not substance when thus considered necessarily
Substance, connect itself with body ? Here is one of our great puzzles.
Some would have the boundaries of body to be substances ; some
would have substances which are in nowise cognizable by the
THE AIETArilYSICS OF AEISTOTEE.
205
senses ; some would make the One the primary substance, and
suppose different sets of substances, such as numbers, magni¬
tudes, souls, to be generated from this. Aristotle's opinion is
this:—To every subject belongs, first, vX>j, which we must trans¬
late matter; secondly, fioprpi), or form. The matter of a thing Form and
is its necessary condition. But this matter is not its essence ; Multer*
something else is implied in it, something which it presents or
makes manifest. Applying this principle to the questions which
occupied the third class of philosophers mentioned in the in¬
troductory book—the Platonists namely, and the Pythagoreans
—it appears that this form is the true eldog of which they
dreamed. It is the essential thing in each thing; it is that
in virtue of which substance is possible, without which it is in¬
conceivable. But it does not exist apart from each particular
subject; it is that which enters into the definition of every
subject, and without which the definition would be no definition;
obviously, therefore, it must be viewed in that subject, and
cannot be contemplated as a distinct, peculiar essence. Tested
by this rule it is obvious also that all notions of an ideal form of
hollowness or of pugnosedness (we use Aristotle's favourite
illustration) must be out of the question; these cannot be, pri¬
marily at least, subjects for a definition; they presuppose some¬
thing whereof they are properties, and in that, and that only,
can you look for an elcog. All notion again of Being as distinct
from the particular person who, or the thing which, is, falls to
the ground. Socrates and the being of Socrates are identical;
the avroeKaarov, of which he had talked, is nothing else but this
elcog, or form, inherent in the thing itself.
15. The mode in which this same principle is applied to ^o^iion;
another class of inquiries, those which relate to the genesis or bifida'],
first origin of things, requires a more minute examination. automatic.
In considering any production we find, first, something whence
it has been generated; secondly, something by which it has
been generated; thirdly, the result or the thing itself. There
are three modes of production—natural, artificial, automatic.
In natural productions we discern at once a matter; nay, in the
largest sense. Nature itself may be defined that out of which
things are produced. Everything that becomes has a nature,
which is only another way of saying that it has a v\i]; and that
in each thing which might not have been is this i/Xy. Now the
result formed out of this matter or nature is any given substance
—a vegetable, a beast, a man. But what is the producing,
generating cause in each case ? Clearly something akin in kind
to the result. A man generates a man. Then there is implied
in the resulting thing a productive force distinct from the matter
upon which it works. And this is our eUog. And it is the
206
GBECIAJf PHILOSOPHY.
combination of this tlSoe with the v\tj which both produces a
substance and constitutes it. Look now at artificial productions.
Here the el&>c is still the producing power. It is in the soul.
The art of the physician, the plan of the architect, is that tlcuc
which produces actual health or an actual house. Here, how¬
ever, a distinction arises. In these artificial productions is sup¬
posed a v6tjctic and a iroinoiq. The vorjaic is the perception and
internal entertainment of the form ; the ttoirjaig the creation out
of the given matter. But we mentioned a third mode of pro¬
duction not strictly natural or artificial, but by the action of the
thing itself. For instance, a cure may take place by the
application of warmth; a body may become warm by rubbing;
this warmth then in the body is either itself a portion of health,
or something is consequent upon it like itself, which is a portion
of health. Evidently this implies the previous presence either
of nature or of an artificer. Evidently also there is a necessity
that this kind of generative influence should combine with
another. There must be a productive power, there must be
something out of which it is produced. In every case, then,
there will be an vXjj and an elcog. That which is generated is
the whole substance, consisting of matter and form. But the
form, properly speaking, is not generated. It is reproduced in
each particular subject in combination with a certain matter, and
it becomes a new and peculiar form in virtue of that combination.
There is necessary then to every production a certain form and
a certain matter; and all the qualities appertaining to this sub¬
stance which is produced must inhere (not actually but potentially)
in the substance producing, and mar/ belong to the form when
they are produced.
16. It remains to consider how this doctrine bears upon the
inquiries of those philosophers who busied themselves with the
search after a primary element: the inquiries of those who
sought for the to ol iycua are reserved for another discussion.
But before we can enter upon this subject several of the doubts
in our second book must be resolved. First, as to the meaning
Whoie?d °* words Part and Whole. The first and most obvious sig¬
nification of part has relation to quantity, but this has nothing
to do with our subject. What we want to know is the connexion
of the idea of Part with substance. Assuming the division of
substance into vXij and tiSos, we should say that in a brass
statue the brass formed part of the statue, as the complex of
form and matter, but not of the statue considered as a Form.
Now as Form is the proper subject of a definition, seeing it can
be described in itself, and since that which is material cannot be
so described, it comes to pass that in certain cases we necessarily
speak of the parts as constituting the whole, and in other cases
THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE.
207
not. "We define a circle without reference to its parts. We
define a syllable by the letters or elements -which compose it;
for the parts of the circle are material parts, the parts of the
syllable are formal, logical parts. Of course if you look upon a
syllable as composed of certain letters in wax, or even of sounds
in the air, its divisions become material and do not fall within
the scope of a logical definition. Again, in a material division
vou assume the whole as preceding the part. On the contrary,
logically and formally, the part precedes the whole. For instance,
if you define the life of an auimal you will describe it by some
of its functions. None of its other functions can be performed
without sensation. This particular faculty of sensation, there¬
fore, will be assumed in the existence of the whole animal. This
principle holds equally in reference to msthetic matter (that
which the senses take account of), as in noetic (the figures of
mathematics). Generally, therefore, it maybe affirmed that the
question as to the priority of "part" and "whole" depend
upon the distinction between matter and form, and that you
cannot settle it if that distinction be disregarded. At the same
time, Aristotle admits the difficulty of defining simply with
reference to form, and not to the complex substance, which
consists of it and of matter together. He acknowledges that
the attempt to divide matter from substance and to look upon
things sensible as not sensible, has led to all the Pythagorean
and Platonical inventions which he regards with so much
dislike.
17. Another question, in which these philosophers are also Generaand
involved, follows immediately upon this. How are substances individuals,
connected with kinds ? If there be certain types after which all
sensible things are formed, these types would seem to be
universals, and those things with which the senses converse,
particulars. All possible differences and properties which can
be discovered in the most marked individual of any kind must
then upon this showing be included in those primitive, universal
forms ; but, according to logic, precisely the opposite is the case.
The genus is divested of the difference which goes to the com¬
position of the species, and of the properties which go to the
composition of the individual. Your genera can never be types
of the individual. By their very nature they are deficient in all
that characterises him. The eldog then which forms the essential
in each thing, which makes it be that which it is, must be looked
upon as individualised by the v\ij with which it is connected.
Apart from the modification which it thus uudergoes it is only
a logical existence, the highest genus to which it is ultimately
referred being pre-eminently that which can only be contem¬
plated by and in the mind. Such we take to be the meaning of
208 GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. '
Aristotle, and from it the doctrine seems to follow very closely
with which he winds up this book, and which applies the
meaning of it to those who had dealt mainly with the uA»j. Any
fact or thing being given, I have no further occasion to trouble
myself about the fact, the on. This the sense, or something
corresponding to sense, supplies. I am not to ask what is the
musical man when 1 see a musical man. He is that which I
behold, and nothing else. My business is with the cion, the
cause. Why is he this or that ? And the answer is in the
cleoc, the form or constitution. This is the ultimate reason of
that which each thing is. Consequently I do not get nearer the
cause or reason of things by reducing them into their natural
The seekers elements. The analysis may be physically proper or useful, but
dement ^ ^oes n0^ ^eat^ me *° *^at ^"hich I am in search. Everything
confuted, which is, and which I can either behold with my senses or my
mind, is not the A or the B whereof it is composed, but is
something else ; the synthesis of the A and the B involves the
presence of a form or existence, which cannot be found in either
of them separately. So that find out as many primary elements
as you will, you do not thereby find an <4px>)-
Energies. 18. Our main business then is to discover the meaning of this
eJSoc, and the relation which exists between it and the vXrj.
The seventh book takes up this subject, and carries forward a
hint which was given in the last—one which is, perhaps, the
most pregnant of all the hints in Aristotle's writings, and that
which has most effect upon his whole philosophy. The elSog or
fxop<pr) is an energy, the i/Xri is a cvvafiig or capacity, implying
and requiring the action or co-operation of the energy to produce
a result. 'O0<ria, as we said before, is the synthesis of these:
omitting the evtpyeia you come merely to certain material
elements and combinations which do not in any way give you
the actual things you are examining. The difficulty is respecting
those things which appear to have no evtpyeia in themselves, as
Test of a house. Must the substances of these be considered as some-
ddinition. thing distinct from them and external to them ? The answer is
this:—Do you mean to ask whether the material house, that is
to say the stones and cement, is a substance ? Certainly not;
you have excluded the very notion of substance by the mode of
your question. But do you mean to ask whether that house is
actually something ? You assume it by your very question.
You cannot define anything without treating it as a substance,
satisfy yourself as you will about the reason that it is so ; there
is something then not distinct from the house, but implied in it,
which is a form or e'liog. The test that there is, is your own
attempt to define it.
Capacity. 19. Proceeding upon this principle of an energy and a cvvapug
THB METAPHYSICS OF AIIISTOTLE.
209
in each substance, he shows how needful it is in any inquiry after
causes to keep the three questions in sight. By cause do you
mean capacity, ivyayig ? By cause do you mean moving power ?
By cause do you mean the form ? (The two last may always be
the same, still the inquiry after the constitution of each thing
is distinct from the inquiry after its productive force.) Do you
mean, lastly, the o5 ivtKa £ (This also may be the same ques¬
tion with "the last, though differently stated ; that is to say,
the constitution of each thing may determine the purpose or
object of it.)
20. But this use of the word capacity (cvvapig) suggests mr
another doubt. Has not every subject a capacity for contraries r1 ' '
Must not we say that every healthy body is potentially sick ?
that water is potentially both wine and vinegar ? The answer
is, that this absence or deprivation of qualities is an accident of
these qualities, and not itself a quality. For a dead body to
become alive it must pass into a certain vXij, which has therefore
the potentiality of life; for vinegar to become wine it must pass
into water; nothing similar happens in the opposite case.
Finally, he applies this principle to the solution of that difficulty
respecting unity at which he had so often hinted, and on which
he had expressed his opinion with sufficient plainness already.
If the definition of a man be that he is a biped animal, how
comes it that each of these—" animal," "biped," does not con¬
stitute a separate entity ? What, in short, is the ground of our
conception of each thing and person as one ? Aristotle inti¬
mates that this question is hopeless aud unanswerable if put in
this form, for then by each variety of your definition you create
a new puzzle. He would rather then assume the unity of each
thing as a fact or datum of the understanding, and account for
its being reduced into different constituent elements. And this
is accounted for by the necessary co-presence of matter and
form in each thing, and from the matter being merely a poten¬
tiality, and the form an energy. In this way the dream of a
unity distinct from the individual thing is got rid of, as the
dream of a substance distinct from each particular thing had
been got rid of before.
21. The eighth book is still occupied with the subject of ncfimtu n or
capacities aud energies. Aristotle inquires into the different (-aPuc,tie5-
senses of the word Cvyagic ; what we mean when we say that
a tiling can or cannot be. There is a use of this language in
geometry, which is metaphorical, and not to our present purpose.
We say that a thing can or cannot be, meaning that it is or it
is not. But all Cvyageig, in their proper sense, have reference
to some primary ivya/jig, which is the cause or bey inning of a
change in some other thing as another thing. Warmth, for
tol. I. p
210
GEECIAIT PHILOSOPHY.
instance, is a cvvapiq. It is so equally in that which warms, as
in that which is warmed. The cuvafxig in the thing warmed
hath reference or relation to the corresponding primary tvvagtq
in the thing warming, and this necessary implication of that
which answers to itself in something besides itself, is its charac¬
teristic nature. To every capacity there will of course corre¬
spond a certain incapacity, which may be understood either as
the absence of a faculty of communication, the absence of a
faculty of reception, or, again, merely as a negative want, or as
a positive state involving that want.
iuem'0n °f £tc are divided into rational and irrational; the
rational those which subsist in the reasonable soul, the irrational
those that are merely physical. AU art and knowledge are of
the first class. Now, if we look for a radical distinction between
them, we may find it in this way. Warmth, an irrational
cvvafiiQ, has the power only of producing warmth; the art of
the physician has the power of producing either health or sick¬
ness. Generally, therefore, the one kind of power can produce
contrary changes, the other only a certain change; and these
contrary changes are wrought by the rational powers with and
upon the irrational powers.
Being and 23. This description of Zwaptic might seem in some points
Becoming-. trench upon that notion of energies which Aristotle had given
us in his last book. He proceeds therefore to distinguish them.
The Megarian sect, in conformity with their general rule of
reducing every idea into that of Being, and of excluding all
distinct notion of production and becoming, had identified Power
or Capacity with energy. Where there is no building, said they,
there is no builder. Apply this, says Aristotle, to arts, and the
man who has studied the longest ceases to have the art as soon
as he ceases to exercise it. Apply it to things without reason
or life, and there is nothing sweet, nor warm, nor cold, except
at the moment when it is tasted or felt; an argument not,
perhaps, very destructive of the proposition, in our minds, but
which was very effective as against the Megarians, who had a
great horror of the Protagorean doctrine. It is then possible
for a thing to have the capacity of being and not to be, and to
have the capacity of not being and to be; that of which it is
the capacity takes place when something is superadded to it,
which is Energy. Energy is analogous to motion. You cannot
predicate either motion or energy of things which are not; the
moment energy or motion is added to them they are; but manv
things which are not have a possible or potential existence.1 At
1 " Oik ecrri 8e," adds Aristotle, " tai ovk ivre\(xeia ^atl(Met. 8, iii.
3G). This paj-sage, perhaps determines as clearly as any we could produce,
the meaning of the word &TeA«x«<o, which is so important in some branches
THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE.
211
the same time Energy is not to be confounded with Motion.
The difference does not lie where we might suspect, in that
motion belongs to that which is irrational, energy to the rational,
for Learning is referred to the head of Motion, sight to the head
of Energy. The difference is in this, that every motion is
incomplete, tending towards an end, but not including the end
in itself; that energy has an end in itself, and that it does not
involve a pause or a termination. Learning, building, walking,
all imply a termination. Seeing, thinking, being happy, imply
no termination; these ar6 Energies.
24. Upon this showing, energy, in the order of reason and Relation of
of substance, precedes citvapic; in the order of time not always, capacaiealo
It precedes in the order of reason because the first of all capa- each other,
cities or possibilities is the capacity or possibility of energising.
A man who has the faculty of building, is one who has in him
the capacity of using his energy in the art of building. In time
it i3 otherwise. The primary energising power of course
precedes, even in this sense, that which receives the impression
of it, Form being older than Matter. But if you take the case
of any particular person or thing, we say that itB capacity of
being that person or thing precedes its being such actually or
energetically. Yet, though this is the case in each particular
thing, there is always a foregone energy presumed in some other
thing to which it owes its existence. And thus the principle is
asserted, which we shall find afterwards turned to practical ac¬
count in the Ethics, that the exercise of any particular energy
precedes the habitual use of the faculty appertaining to that
energy; that it is by playing on the harp we become harp
players. Several important ethical doctrines are in fact deve¬
loped in the course of this inquiry, but of these we shall take
distinct notice hereafter. One pregnant notion more directly
bearing upon our present subject occurs in the course of it.
had been defined that which is the cause of change in
some other thing as another thing. But this notion wants a
resting-place, unless you believe that there is some primary
SvvttfitQ presupposed in all others, which is the beginning of
motion. This is <pv<ri£, and thus we have arrived at the most
complete notion of it which we can expect. This first and
primary cause of all change, Energy still precedes and surpasses.
of the Aristotelian philosophy. It is the opposite to pot>-ntia/ili/, yet would
be ill translated by that which we often oppose to potentiality,—actuality.
ElSos expresses the substance of each thing viewed in repose,—its form or
constitution; ivtpytia its substance, considered as active and generative;
imtXixfta seems to be the synthesis or harmony of these two ideas. The
effectio of Cicero, therefore, represents the most important side of it, but not
the whole.
212
GEECIAH PHILOSOPHY.
Aristotle proceeds to show wherein Energy is better and more
glorious than tvva/iic; as, for instance, because tvvapis is the
same of contraries. The capacity of health and sickness is the
san^e; of stillness and movement; of being raised up and of
falling down. But one of these must be good, and therefore
the energy which determines which of these contraries shall
have effect must be better than the Faculty or Capacity. Two
consequences follow. The Energy is that which makes things
be evil which have only the possibility or potentiality of evil in
them. Secondly, in those things which are primary and eternal
there is no evil, no fault, no decay; the capacity for evil lies in
Nature. The importance of these two axioms will be felt by
every moral and theological student. Another proposition,
which has been extensively applied in another direction, is
added respecting discovery. It is, that Discovery means the
bringing things into Energy which exist potentially ; because
Knowing is an Energy.
25. This book concludes with another reference to the relation
Distinction between truth and being, falsehood and not-being. Truth and
of subjects, falsehood being the accordance or discordance of our judgment
with the actual state of things, there are three cases which may
fall under our notice. First, things always united and insepa¬
rable, or things always separable and never united. Respecting
these the judgment must be uniform ; the same will be truth in
all cases, falsehood in all cases. Secondly, things which may be
either separated or united. Here comes in the possibility of
that being true to-day which is false to-morrow; of that being
true under one aspect which is false under another. Thirdly,
things perfectly simple, things admitting neither of division nor
combination. To these the words true and false do not apply,
but merely knowledge and ignorance. You either know such
things or you do not. Respecting these there is no mistake, no
deception possible ; but merely the presence or absence of know¬
ledge. All sensible objects whose existence you ascertain by
touch or sight are of this kind; the want of touch or sight, not
a false opinion, excluding them from you.
26. In the ninth book we come again upon the question of
On.'nes*. unity. The name One is used, he says, in four ways. It means
denmtiitns that which is continuous by nature, a whole, an individual thing,
oflt> that which is predicated of a tvko/e. The general sense of the
Indivisible is common to all these. And again unity in any of
these senses we may attribute to some particular substance
which is inseparable in place, in form, in thought, as well as to
some actually indivisible whole. The fundamental notion of
unity he conceives to be that of a measure to quantities ; without
such a measure quantity is inconceivable. There may be some-
THE JtETAPHYSICS OF AEISTOTLE.
213
tiling actually indivisible; there may be that which is indivisible
to our senses; an actual unity in form, and a supposititious
unity in matter. Each will bear the name, because each will be
used as a measure. The need of such a measure he asserts,
in opposition to the Protagorean notion of man being the
measure of all things, which he treats as a silly truism, putting
on the form of a paradox, and producing "the effects of a
falsehood.
27. The existence of a distinct absolute unity is denied on No absolute
precisely the same ground as the existence of a distinct absolute Un,ty'
substance. The One is always some one thing or nature. In
colours, if you suppose them all to originate from white, white
is the one. In voices, the elementary vowel, and so in all other
cases. Of course, then, the Ionic attempt to discover some
matter, such as air or fire, which shall be unity, is as unreason¬
able as the Parmenidean, Pythagorean, and Platonic attempts
to invest unity itself with a formal and separate character.
28. " The One" is the undivided, or the indivisible; this is plurality,
the primary notion of it, to which all others may be reduced.
" The many" then will mean the divided or the divisible; from
which, as more cognizable by the senses, the One will be in¬
ferred. The question occurs next, how the one and the many
are opposed to each other; whether the " many" and the " few"
are not equally opposed, and whether, if this be the case, unity
is not merely an element of plurality. This question introduces
a discussion respecting the different modes of opposition; the
opposition of contradiction, of things in relation, of privation,
of strict contrariety. Possibly there has been some confusion
of different lectures or reports in this part of the book ; for in
the lengthened explanation we seem to lose sight of the original
subject. Our readers cannot fail to have remarked how much
the idea of a " law of opposition" in things entered into all
Greek speculations, so as to seem to many the foundation of
them. Aristotle contemplates the subject from the logical side;
the forms of opposition which he discovers in our minds deter¬
mine his view of the actual opposition which exists in nature.
And in this way his remarks on this point, though apparently
irrelevant, throw considerable light on his doctrine respecting
unity. What our understanding wants in order to explain to
itself' the existence of multitude, this he called "the One."
Unity was therefore, in his mind, identical with Singleness.
29. The next book is for the most part a recapitulation of
puzzles and solutions already given ; not, however, to be passed
over on that account, for Aristotle's repetitions of himself, or
the reports of his different pupils, generally clear away many
difficulties : and here, especially, the remarks on the nature and
214
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
limitations of the primary philosophy, and his confutation of the
two cardinal sophisms of Protagoras, are, in many respects, more
complete than those in the third book. We shall, however,
Motion. notice merely his analysis of Motion and his remarks on the
idea of the Infinite. Motion is neither an energy nor yet
merely a potency; but it must be contemplated, alternately,
as each. A lump of brass is potentially a statue; the energy
which is to make it one is in the mind of the sculptor. The
motion, i. e. the transition from its condition as brass to its
condition as a statue, is not found in the brass, neither is it
found in the mind ; it is that which gives the potentiality of
the brass its meaning and connects it with the energy. Or to
express this in a formula. " Motion is the entelechy (the per¬
fecting power or principle) of the potential as potential." He
admits the difficulty of finding an expression for this idea; but
he shows, by an examination of previous attempts, that his own,
however awkward, is the only one which is satisfactory,
ihe infinite. 30. On the subject of the Infinite, which had so much exer¬
cised the minds of previous Greek speculators, and had been
resorted to as an ultimate solution of so many difficulties, he
aims at no precision of language. By its very nature it excludes
precision. To bring it into a scheme, or regard it as a helpful
definition of nature or the universe, is, in his judgment, absurd ;
it can only be looked upon as marking the ne plus ultra to which
human thoughts and inquiries can reach, or, at least, have already
reached. The limitations by which alone you are able to deal
with the subjects that fall under human cognizance it excludes
by its very name. His opinion on this point is characteristic
of his mind, and it has an important bearing upon the history
of metaphysics. Scarcely any more interesting question occu¬
pied the Greek mind than that which was at issue between the
schools of Pythagoras and Xenophanes, whether it is more true
and reverential to speak of God as the to nepag, or as the In¬
finite. Aristotle's concluding remark on the subject of the
Infinite should be quoted for the casual light which the latter
clause of it throws on his idea of Time, an idea which the stu¬
dent of modern philosophy has so much need to reflect on :—
to <5' &TTEipov ov ravTOv iv ueyiOet cat kivtjoei kat \p6vtf ws pia rig
<pviric, hXXa to vrrrEpov Xtytrai kara to TrpoTEpov, oiov kivi\oiq Kara
to pE-yEdoQ E<p ov kive'itcli f; a\\otovral ?/ avbrai, xpoyog Se dia ti)v
Ktyijotv.
Number 31. Book eleventh opens with an attempt to ascertain the
"r15™1. number of causes or first principles. There is in every sensible
p ' substance a capacity of change: these changes are four: changes
in respect of substance, of quality, of quantity, and of place.
Generation and corruption are the names for the first kind of
THE METAPHYSICS OF AHISTOTLE.
215
change, growth and decay for the second, alteration (aXXotWtc)
for the third, transference (<popa) for the fourth. These are
changes into contraries. But contraries themselves do 'not
change ; there must be something which undergoes the change
from one to the other of them. This something must be Matter.
Being does not arise from not-being; but being in potency is
changed into being in energy ; and being in potency is matter.
Assuming this, there are three dp^ai or iirst principles; the two
contraries Form and Privation (areptioic), and the Matter which
passes from one to the other.
32. But Aristotle says that this enunciation is strictly appli- The Cause.
cable only to material things ; in these the element (arointlov)
and the principle (up^t)) are the 9ame- You have heat, the el3oc ;
cold, the tTTEpytrie ; that which has the potency of being either
(u\jj) ; the resulting substance, the flesh, bone, or whatever it
may be. But in those things which are apprehended by the
mind, another idea intrudes itself. Besides the two opposites,
health and sickness, and the matter, which is susceptible of both,
you have the health-making art of the physician. The principle
in this use of it acquires a double meaning which does not
belong to the element. It must be contemplated both as the
stationary Form and the moving Power. There must in a sense
be four dpgcu, though only three elements. These conclusions
have been, the reader will perceive, partly anticipated, but it is
needful to repeat them here; for here is the link between Aris¬
totle's Metaphysics and his Theology ; this is the road, or at
least one step of the road, by which he arrives at the conception
of a First Moving Cause. To the unfolding of this conception
the greater part of this remarkable book is devoted. We can
but give our readers the results of an argument which Aristotle
evidently felt to be the summing up of his metaphysical series.
There must be an eternal, immovable Substance, which is at
the same time the source of all movement. The primary notion
of this substance is that it is an Energy. The notion of poten¬
tiality is excluded from it, for the highest form of Being is
incompatible with the mere capacity of Being. And seeing
Matter and Potentiality are convertible terms, it must be im¬
material There is no refuge from the notion that all things
proceeded from darkness and nothingness, except in this belief.
Energy being anterior to mere potency, eternity must be pre¬
dicated of the chaos or night out of which things are supposed
to be formed, in a different sense from that in which it is affirmed
of the Primeval Being.
33. We must attribute a continual negative existence to this Eternity,
potency, but a continual operative existence can only be attri- p?edjcabie
buted to the First Cause. We want the one to account for of Matter.
216
GRECIAN PniLOSOPflY.
Corruption and Decay. "We want the other to account for
actual Existence and Life. Matter is in no sense a cause either
to itself or to any other thing; and to a First Cause we neces¬
sarily attribute self-causation. Other things impart motion,
having first received it; this must be its own Mover. The next
step in the apprehension of this Being we obtain by the con¬
sideration of our own intellect and volition. There is an object
of cognition or thing to be known; an object of volition or
thing to be desired. By these respectively the intellect and
the volition in us are set in motion. That which appears good
to each Understanding or Will actuates it; that which primarily
actuates, must be that which is good. In this we discover the
union of the faculty of knowledge with that which is to be
known, the union of the faculty of will with that which is to be
desired. Thus self-contemplation and self-delight must be the
essentials of Deity.1 By other processes of reasoning he arrives
at the conclusion that the Being must be without parts (a/uepifr),
without passions (affadcc: our readers will perceive the change
of gender, and will easily believe that to Oeiov is the more
common antecedent than o deog), and subject to no vicissitude
(a vaWoiwrov).
i?'Tpi»*nye' 3-1- We then approach the grand question, whether there is
one such cause, or many. In nothing is the difference between
Aristotle and his master more remarkable than here. We have
seen with what tenderness Plato treated the mythology of his
countrymen, not from cowardice, but because he felt that it
contained a latent truth for which no philosophical abstractions
or generalities could offer a substitute. Aristotle, having
satisfied himself that the argument was in favour of a one cause,
sweeps away all notions which interfered with it, considers the
gods whom his country worshipped as derived from certain
astrological notions, and merely as setting forth the secondary
sensible substances which proceed from the first immaterial
Cause.
Prpvi.-us 35. With equal decision he denounces (upon this new ground)
t -a. iters. different; philosophical schemes which had been substituted
for the old cosmogonies ; attributing to them these two common
vices, that they had acknowledged an antithesis and con-
1 We must quote the fine passage in which this argument is summed up.
'H Si vbijots 7] has' airvfiv rov kc&' atnb ipitrrov Kal y paAioTa to5 fia\terra.
avrbv 8i voft 6 vovs farck ^etoAt)tf/tv tov votitov' voirr&s yap ytyvercu biyyavaiv
kcil i'ouv, ciotf ravrbv vovs Kal vorfrbv. rb yap SesriKOv tov voijtov Kal rijr
olaias vovs' ivepyet Si *xa'y' &tt' ^kflv0 p-b\\ov tovtov 3 Soke? 6 vovs Of tov
tXeiv «al T) &fcopta Tb fjbioTov Kal HpitTTov. ti oiv otrrais tv ?xft <*>* wore,
6 Src'os aft, davp.a<rTtiv fi Si fiaWov, eti davpamarrfgov. ?xfJ «8«. Kal $*&?}>
5e yt {nrapxfi. i) yctp vov ivfpytla faWj, fKfivos Si i] tvtpyEta- tvepyfia 5e
Kad' aimjv fKttvov igKTTij Kal aiStos. Met. xi. 7.
THE METAPHYSICS OF ABISTOTLE.
217
tradiction in things, but had not taken account of that third
element, matter, which is the only explanation of the evil and
disorder in the universe, and that they had substituted many
original principles for the one.
36. In the two last books, their doctrines (respecting ideas Reai object
and numbers) are again discussed at great length, and with ®^J(,sthew;
Aristotle's wonted ingenuity. It cannot be expected that we
should go over arguments to which we have so often adverted,
and which we are less anxious to present fully and formally than
to fit our readers for studying them in the places where they
occur. But we may take this opportunity of remarking, that
the continual renewal of these discussions with the Platonists
and Pythagoreans is very important in helping us to determine
the nature and connection of these particular treatises, as well
as the character of Aristotle's whole mind and system. It is
evident that he felt the refutation of these opinions, and the
substitution of something else for them, to be in a manner the
business of his life. At all events, it was the needful preliminary
to his more positive proceedings : while his mind was haunted
with these notions, the system—physical, metaphysical, or
moral—which he proposed to rear, had, it seemed to him, a
dubious and infirm foundation. "We look, therefore, upon the
metaphysical treatises (whether capable or not of being reduced
into a formal sequence and unity) as having this subject for
their centre. To show what ideas are not, and what they are ;
to establish the doctrine, that the tT^oc is not distinct from the
particular individual substance—existing apart and connecting
it with some higher substance—but merely its inherent form ;
to connect the eldoc, which is the constituent principle of each
thing, with the iyepyeia, whereby it is called into existence, and
thus to make the same answer satisfactorily to the two Greek
inquiries respecting the nature of being and origin of matter ;
to explain the nature and conditions of the v\tj, and by depriving
it of all intrinsical substantial properties, and reducing it into a
mere potency, practically to get rid of the old Ionic investiga¬
tions ; then finally to hint at a principle of which bis moral
writings are the full exposition, that the final Cause, or the ov
eveKa, is also connected with the eiSoc and erepyeia • that the
good or purpose of each class of substances is known when we
know what its nature and proper energy are : this is the object
at which he is aiming most consistently amidst all his windings
and recapitulations in the books of Metaphysics.
37. But this object is connected on the one side with Logic, Metaphysics
on the other (as the scholiast is so anxious to inform us) with —how
Theology. Though we have not seen our way to adopt Bitter's
method of identifying the logical treatises with the metaphySical
(a plan inconsistent with the very words of the third book) ;
218
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
though, as it seems to us, we should sacrifice by such a course
much insight into the habits of the philosopher's mind, and the
growth of his opinions, which we obey by studyiug them dis¬
tinctly, and yet acknowledging the most intimate connection
between them, we believe Aristotle to be primarily and at heart
a logician ; to have become thoroughly enamoured of the forms
of logic, and convinced that they supplied a satisfactory expo¬
sition of the facts of the world; and then gradually to have
worked out in his mind an Ontological system, which gave the
rationale of those forms and interpreted their relation to dif¬
ferent phenomena. Now, if it be true, as we have maintained,
that the mathematician has another set of laws, discovered to
him in the course of his inquiries, from those with which the
logician is conversant, we need not be surprised either that the
arguments of Aristotle against Ideas should be so constantly
mixed with allusions to the Pythagorean Btudy of Lines or
Numbers, or that that study should actually have been the base
of the principle which he is endeavouring to subvert.
How 38. It is on all accounts a more important inquiry how
connected Theology became interwoven with either set of speculations.
Theology. We think it cannot be denied that the recognition of an
absolute Being, of an absolute Good, was that which gave life
to the whole doctrine of Plato, and without which it is unmean¬
ing ; that, on the contrary, it is merely the crowning result, or
at least the necessary postulate, of Aristotle's philosophy. In
strict consistency with this difference, it was a Being to satisfy
the wants of Man which Plato sighed for; it was a first Cause
of Things to which Aristotle did homage. The first would part
with no indication or symbol of the truth that God has held
intercourse with men, has made himself known to them; the
second was content with seeking in nature and logic for demon¬
strations of his attributes and his unity. When we use personal
language to describe the God of whom Plato speaks, we feel
that we are using that which suits best with his feelings and
his principles, even when, through reverence or ignorance, he
forbears to use it himself. When we use personal language to
describe the Deity of Aristotle, we feel that it is improper and
unsuitable, even if, through deference to ordinary notions, or the
difficulty of inventing any other, he resorts to it himself. Theology
then can have no connection with the ethics of Aristotle.
section n.
ARISTOTELIAN PSYCHOLOGY.
Aristotelian 1. The light which the metaphysical treatises throw upon the
basedon01 point to which we last referred, makes them an important in-
Theoiogy; troduction to Aristotle's ethical system.
A. Ill STO TEL IAN PSYCHOLOGY.
219
We might have concluded from his Dialectics, that he
utterly rejected the Platonical doctrine of Ideas as a scientific
exposition. It would not follow that he should discard that
belief in some ideal of excellence which had impregnated all
mythologies, and had never been banished from the hearts of
men. But the Aristotelian conception of God as a ground of
nature simply, leads us at once to perceive that no recognition
of his perfection can have the least connection in his mind with
a scheme of practical life and conduct. It is not with Plato, or
any philosopher who had attempted to give the rationale of
men's dreams on this matter, that he will feel a want of sym¬
pathy ; he actually has not discovered in himself, and does not
recognise in his brethren, the want which all ages had been
contriving in so many forms to express. And then it becomes
an interesting question, what groundwork in the Aristotelian
ethics will replace that Theology which is so obviously the foun¬
dation of the Platonic ?
2. The answer to this question brings us to a very important but on the
treatise of Aristotle, which embodies more of what has, in our "be'souuf
day, been commonly called metaphysics, especially here and in
Scotland, than the works professedly bearing that title. We
mean the three books on the Soul. The first of these books is
occupied as usual with an examination of previous theories on
the subject. He despatches very elaborately the different
notions respecting the soul which Democritus, Empedoeles, or
the Pythagoreans had encouraged. He shows why we can
never be satisfied with calling it motion, or the principle of
motion, or the primary element or number. He then proceeds
in the second book to develope his own doctrine. The soul
belongs to the category of entities. It has then, of course, asouithecha-
matter and a form ; the matter here, as elsewhere, coincides with olivine'*
its Cvvctfiic; the form is iyre\e\eia. The soul is neither of these creatures,
separately, but the result of both. There go to the forming
of sight the energy of vision, and the faculty of vision^ ana
there is, in addition to both, an organ, aD actual eye. What is
true of this sense is true of the whole substance oi which it may
be said to form a part. The soul, possessing both its energy
and its faculty distinct from the organ through which both are
manifested, does yet require such an organ. The soul is not a
body, but neither is it without a body. Generally, it is the dis¬
tinction of a living creature (faov), that it has a ^rvxv-
3. But all living creatures have not a soul exercising the same Distinction
Swafitiq. We may define all the faculties which can exist inofsoul8,
any living creature to be these: first, the faculty of receiving
nourishment (QptirriKT]); secondly, the faculty of sensation
(AioAtjrnoj) ; thirdly, the faculty of motion in place (icivijmq) ;
220
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
fourthly, the faculty of impulse or desire (opck-rurij) ; fifthly, the
faculty of intelligence (Siavoijruo/). The threptic faculty is the
lowest of these, and is present in all cases. The soul, therefore,
as endued with this one faculty, may be attributed to vegetables.
Wherever any of the higher faculties are present, there all the
lower will exist also. Under each of these heads a very inter¬
esting discussion arises respecting the character and limits of
the particular faculty. The question, for instance, under the
first head is, whether the life in each plant or thing must be
considered as the active or only the passive instrument in self-
sustentation ? Under the head of sensation many more com¬
plicated points arise, and Aristotle enters into the whole theory
of the subject, examining the operation of each sense in detail.
This, it may be remembered, is the discussion which is carried
on with so much liveliness and profundity in one part of the
Thecetetus. The opinions there attributed to Protagoras (and
so far as the doctrine of sensation goes, apart from its moral
consequences, not denied by Plato) is nearly the same as that
maintained by Aristotle. Sensation is neither in the organ of
sense nor in the object, but is generated between both, and is
the effect of the medium through which they hold communion
with each other. The question as to the motive faculty involves
us at once in a consideration of that which is higher than itself.
Movement must depend upon impulse. This will be true in all
creatures. And in spite of the effect of the appearances which
are produced upon or by means of the senses, in generating
impulses or desires, we must not impute a governing power to
sensation ; we must rather think that the nature of the faculty
of impulse determines how these shall influence it, than that it
is determined by them. It would seem, then, that each creature
has a nature, which is expressly seen in this faculty of impulse.
Wherein then does man differ from other creatures ? Neither,
it would seem, in the absence of this impulsive faculty, nor in
its being less properly his nature than it is that of other animals,
but rather in his having the dianoetic faculty to direct it and
act with it. In the coincidence and conspiracy then of these
two faculties will consist the true nature of man. Thus, the
soul may be considered as containing three portions, logically
not materially separate, one absolutely without reason, the other
rational, another participant of reason.
In this psychological system we discover the root of the
Aristotelian ethics of which we were in search: they begin in
Psychology and terminate in Politics.
THE ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS.
221
SECTION vn.
THE ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS.
1. At the outset of the Nicomachaean Ethics (which has The
always been regarded as the most complete exposition of his
views on this subject), Aristotle tells us that Ethics is an intro¬
duction to Politics. The two, therefore, are not identified in
his mind as they are in Plato's; it is quite possible, nay
necessary, to treat of them distinctly. According to his uniform
method, he seeks for the grounds of combination and society in
the nature of man. He cannot tolerate Plato's simplicity in
admitting outward necessities and accidents to be the occasions
of society ; for this simplicity necessarily involves another pro¬
ceeding which seemed to him not simple but pregnant with all
Plato's idealism, that of supposing some higher Unity than
that which is expressed in the character of any particular
society to be involved in the constitution of Society itself. A
principle of equality and adjustment is that which seems to him
to pervade all things, to be in a manner a law of the universe,
and to be especially the secret of human order and government.
The like principle, taking a different form, is the mainspring of
his ethical system. Virtue lies in a mean; in a sense it may be
said to be a mean, so that, on the one hand, Government, which
is also a mean, is naturally occupied in sustaining the virtue of
particular men, and on the other, this Virtue is itself the great
conservation of government. This observation ought to be
made, as without it the connection between these two spheres,
which is as much acknowledged by Aristotle as by his master,
will not be apparent. Many difficulties also will present them¬
selves to the reader as insurmountable, if he looks at the ethics
as an entire system, and does not remember that a directing
educating power is for practical purposes presumed to reside in
a governing body, the functions and nature of which have not
yet been defined.
2. But we are not to suppose that Virtue, or the attainment Happiness
of this mean, is in Aristotle's judgment the formal object at |^eri^l,'ct of
which either the life of each particular man, or society at large, pursuit.
is aiming. AVhen once the notion of an absolute good, which
" those dear" and troublesome men, the Platonists, had intro¬
duced, was taken out of the way, there remained one obvious
and generally admitted end of all human desires and searchings.
Happiness is emphatically the human reXog. But if human,
then the definition of this happiness must be sought in that
which is peculiarly the characteristic of the human class. It
cannot exist in any of those powers or faculties which are
222
GBECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
common to it with other classes ; not therefore in the threptic
or the jesthetic powers merely and chiefly. And anyhow, it
must be in some exercises or energies that it will consist, for in
these the soul or life of every creature makes itself manifest.
It must be then in the energies of our best and highest nature,
exercised not at intervals, but through a whole life, a life pos¬
sessing so much of external prosperity as shall permit them a
free scope.
The human 3. But all energies must have a certain direction; the right
virtue. direction of its energies constitutes the virtve of each class.
What then will be specifically the human virtue ? It must of
course be in the man, and, according to our psychology, the optfrc
(the impulsive faculty) is the constitutive faculty of the human
soul, though its excellence consists in its subjection to the dia-
noetic faculty. Virtue then will imply the presence and har¬
mony of both these ; still it will be found most positively and
characteristically in the former. It must be then a habit. But
of what kind ? To what does it point ? What is its aim,
seeing that an absolute good, or an ideal, is out of the question,
and that happiness cannot be the aim, because it is the very
nature of happiness which we are now resolving into its ele¬
ments ? We are not, Aristotle says, to trouble ourselves about
scientific accuracy in our definitions; our purpose is purely
practical; we want to form an actual man of a certain character,
not a theoretic man.
Excesses. 4. Well, then, practically speaking, excess is in every case
that to which you attribute mischief and derangement. There
is an excess called Timidity, and an excess called Fool hardiness,
an excess called Prodigality, and an excess called Narrowness
The Mean, or Avarice. But the extremes suppose a mean. This is the
end at which our habit aims. Virtue generally lies in this.
But we are aiming at action ; and actions are not general, but
specific; how then shall we arrive at the notion of specific
virtues ? Their species will be determined by their distinct
objects. Certain tendencies and habits will be conversant with
external pleasures. Certain others with passions of the mind
itself; in each case it will be found that the practical pur¬
pose defines the virtue. But though a general description may
be given both of the excesses and the means which correspond
to them, a description which will be really applicable in all
cases, it must ever be remembered that the excess itself may be
different for each man, actually different according to his actual
circumstances, different in its effects and influence upon him
according to his greater proneness to one side or the other. For
instance, liberality will be practically a different quality in the
rich man and the poor man, and the temptation to profusion
THE ABISTOTELIAN ETHIC3.
223
will be that whicb is to be most resisted by one, to meanness
by another. Virtue will be therefore in a mean, that is one to
im, and not one which can bo absolutely and invariably ascer¬
tained by rule.
5. Hence it follows that this habit supposes the exercise of a Predetermi-
faculty of choice or predetermination. But what is predeter- natlon-
mination ? Is it the same as the act of willing ? Clearly not:
that has reference to ends, this to the choice of means for the
attainment of ends. It implies a right end, and a right deter¬
mination of the will to that end. It may be called fye&c
fiovXevnki) (the reader will observe how steadily his psycholo¬
gical axiom which we have spoken of is kept in view throughout
the scheme). But to what cases does this will or counsel refer,
and how far is it dependent upon ourselves ? Clearly we do
not consult about things absolute or eternal, nor about things
within the sphere of accident. What remain are all such things
as are done by us or with our concurrence. Now of such some
may be doubtless taken from under our control by actual vio¬
lence practised upon us; such cases give rise to various ques¬
tions of casuistry, as to the course which a virtuous man will
choose, whether he will submit to do wrong or to die, each of
which cases must be determined on its own merits. With
respect to ordinary cases, the doubt arises, whether inclination
is not itself a force upon the will and on the reason both.
Such a notion Aristotle disposes of, first, by the remark that an
influence upon the impulse or will cannot by any reasonable
man be confounded with a force by which its operations are
hindered; and secondly, by admitting that an incapacity for
particular action may doubtless he produced in any man by
these influences, but that this incapacity is itself the result of a
previous habit which need not have been formed. Habits then
are in our own power, actions not always.
6. Having settled these foundations, the particular ethical Specific
virtues come next under his consideration. Here lies a field for churacters-
the exercise of his always acute and often delicate habits of
observation. It is alien from the temper of mind which Shak-
speare has wrought into us, to contemplate any character as
the mere development of a single specific quality. We do not
like to hear of a man as the Magnificent, or the Magnanimous,
or the Modest, or the Temperate, or the Just. But, doubtless,
there was something in this which suited well with Greek
habits. Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, if they had not a dis¬
tinct purpose of realising a particular form of character, yet
drop more readily into certain moulds than the traditionary
characters in the story either of ancient Home or modern
Europe. How a similar tendency was revived at one period
224
GUECTAN PHILOSOPHY.
in Christian society, and how its revival was connected with a
scholastic reverence for Aristotle, we may have to notice here¬
after.
Justice. 7. Among these virtues it behoves us especially to take notice
of two, because they throw some light upon the entire system,
and upon ethical inquiries generally. The first is Justice
(Siicatoouvri). Is not this virtue itself an abstract of all the
virtues ? We have seen how Plato answers the question in his
Republic. Aristotle treats it differently, yet so as to make
us see how much he had felt the influence of his master's
ideas, even when he rejected them. In one sense (he says)
StKaioovvt) may indeed be said to be a complex of virtues. For
as it is the habit which mainly disposes us to obey the laws,
and as laws prohibit excesses of all kinds, and encourage virtues
of all kinds, this will have respect to them all. But yet there
is such an offence as overreaching, and there must be a specific
virtue answering to this. The specific virtue will bear relation
to the general. Inequality, in matters appertaining to property,
will be the evil. Evenness or equality will be the virtue. This
evenness or equality implies, on each side, an excess, a more and
a less; a more and a less, however, in reference to given persons.
The conservation of the right proportion or relation of things to
persons, and the restoration of the balance when it has been
violated, is then that at which this virtue especially aims. Take
away the restriction to property, and this virtue would seem to
be in a remarkable manner the very virtue of virtues; so emphati¬
cally is it the preserver of the mean. But that very restriction
makes it more difficult to tell how far this virtue belongs to the
individual, and how far to the State, so that Sucauxrvyri, though
bearing a much more limited meaning, becomes, to our author
as to his master, a kind of debatable ground between the two
regions. At all events SiKaiovvri must be looked upon as the
ethical virtue of a statesman.
Moderation. 8. The other virtue we must speak of is crauppoenyrj. As this
is opposed to aKo\<nrla, and involves the general notion of an
even habit of mind not overcome or disturbed by sensual desires,
Self it might seem to include within it eyKpareia, or self-restraint.
restraint. But as in the psychology of Aristotle the soul consists of a
rational, an irrational, and a quasi-rational part, the quality
which implies a control over the irrational or merely animal
nature will not necessarily be the same with that which con¬
cerns the quasi-rational, that is, the passions and affections.
As the name auxppoavyt) is given to the first, the name eyKpareia
is used for the second. Hence a curious consequence. This
selt-government seems something distinct not only from the
peculiar virtue which has reference to sensual desires, but even
THE ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS.
225
from virtue itself. That has its chief seat in the nature or im¬
pulsive faculty over which this is supposed to rule. "We are
somewhat puzzled, therefore, after going through our catalogue
of virtues, to find a book opening with the remark, that there
are three moral states to be avoided, k<m'a, aKpaaia, Oqptoriic,
and three good states corresponding to these, aptrri, kyKpareia,
and a certain divine excellence as much transcending ordinary
humanity as dypiorijc sinks below it. This result will appear
inevitable to any one who reflects upon the system; that which
is conservative of virtue must in some way be distinct from
virtue, but we must acknowledge also that it considerably
impairs the symmetry of a design otherwise singularly complete.
9. Before, however, Aristotle touched upon this conservative The
power, which, of course, is connected witn the purely ethical ^Ces'0
part of man, it was needful for him to expound more dis¬
tinctly than he had done in his psychology the nature of these
dianoetic faculties to which such important functions are com¬
mitted. He begins with reaffirming the position so often
insisted upon, that the Spe£tg, and the dtaroia, must co-operate
in order that any good moral act may be the result, or, as he
expresses it, with neatness and in more strict accordance with
his own notion of the Biuvoia—that what is affirmed or denied
by the one should be what is pursued or avoided by the other.
Now, the soul, he says, may affirm or deny truly in five ways,
by rixvy, by imorripi), by tppovyoig, by <rotf>ta, by vovg. Tixvij
is what in modern language would be called the creative power
or faculty, the poetic organ in its highest and lowest sense.
'EiriaTfipT] is the converse of this. It deals with that which
cannot be otherwise, it does not fashion anew hut perceives;
what it deals with are universals, not particulars. Aristotelian
science is, as we have seen already, conversant with conclusions,
not premises ; but there must be some faculty which deals with
premises, a tact, intuition, or spiritual sense; this is vovg. The
sphere of this faculty would seem to be very limited, for as it is
bounded on one side by knurr>//*>/, it is bounded on the other by
crofia.. This faculty, we wero told in the Metaphysics, was con¬
versant with hpxai or principles; it might therefore seem to
cover the whole ground which is assigned to vovg. But that
which affirms things to be so and so without a reasoning pro¬
cess, is undoubtedlwlistinct from that faculty which, through
long and winding labyrinths, searches for causes. Now, when
the vovg is said to deal with premises, the first kind of operation
is indicated ; when the tro<pla, the second. *t>p6vr](rig, the last of
the five, is different, and yet has something of the character of
the preceding. Its sphere is with the altering and the alterable,
like Ttjfvtfa yet it is not productive or creative, but perceptive
TOL. i. Q
226
GEECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
and distinguishing. So far it resembles £7r«rr<j/ir/, differing from
it wholly in its subject-matter. It has a quickness of tact like
the vovq, but this is merely the result of practice and experience.
It is, therefore, like ao<pla, a laborious investigating faculty. Yet
its end is not speculation, but practice. The (jipovipog, or practical
experimental man, therefore, is contrasted with the crotpog, or the
meditative speculative man; though it is not denied that ootpia
may assist and be usefully connected with <pp6vrioiq. From this
analysis it is evident that this last quality is especially that
which, in combination with a right fjdog, or a proper condition
of the impulsive faculty, produces virtue. The doctrine of
Socrates, that virtue is <pp6ri)<rig (a doctrine, by the way, which
is somewhat carelessly stated, for the real Soeratic doctrine
treats virtue as imtrriipii, the knowledge of what is absolutely
good, prudence being only a guardian faculty to preserve the
soul when seeking that knowledge from the seductions and con¬
fusions of sense), this doctrine is said to form only one side of
the truth; (ppuvrjatQ is not virtue, though virtue cannot exist
without it.
Friendship. 10. "We have seen that liKatoavvr) does to a certain extent
occupy the same position in the Aristotelian and in the Platonic
system as a link between morals and politics. But Aaristotle
could not help perceiving that this quality, under the conditions
which he had imposed upon it, explained but very imperfectly
the connection of human society with the life of the individual.
This dry and hard principle of distribution, commutation, and
rectification, could never be substituted for the music of Plato's
Commonwealth. Reflecting on this difference, it seems to have
struck him, that in the idea of Friendship we have that which
fills up the void, and that Friendship together with Justice con¬
stitute the social law. Regarded in this light, Friendship
occupies the most important place in a system of ethics, which
is always looking onwards to Politics. And we cannot wonder
that Aristotle should have devoted two elaborate books to the
consideration of it. Any one who is acquainted with the tra¬
ditions and with the mythology of Greece, must be aware how
much the Greek mind was occupied with this subject. Here, as
elsewhere, physical and moral thoughts became intertwined, and
the same language was used to explain the law of sympathy
between the skies and earth, and that between man and
man. Aristotle is careful to disengage himself from these
ambiguous phrases, which he had not perhaps imagination enough
to perceive were more than metaphors, and fixes his mind
upon Friendship as one of the essential conditions of our
nature to which the very existence of communion must be
referred.
THE ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS.
227
11. This being assumed, he has no hesitation in setting aside Ground o
many popular notions of friendship as giving a wholly inadequate ^eudbhip.
view of its nature. The doctrine which refers friendship either
to Utility or to Pleasure as its ultimate foundation, he rejects,
not with sentimental indignation, but as being at variance with
facts and reason. The transitoriness of such friendships, and
their dependence upon accidents, are arguments as much to the
practical man as to the philosopher, that the essence of the
quality is not to be discovered ill them. The friendship of good
men for each other must then be that from which we are to
deduce the nature of friendship itself. Here, and here only, we
learn the conditions, or even the possibility of friendship, for,
properly speaking, it is not possible, except upon the supposition
that one man can really delight in another, and love him as
himself. A politician seriously reflecting on the existence of
society, must feel that a principle is at work among men which
can only be defiued in these terms ; that all the imperfect ap¬
pearances 'which it presents in the world, so far as they are
imperfect, make its meaning less intelligible; that, supposing
selfishness absolute, it could not exist at all, and that the highest
form in which it exhibits itself is the test of its character.
These important conclusions are stated again and again, and
with the greatest precision, by Aristotle. On the strength of
them he affirms, that the idea of equality or proportion is as
much discoverable in friendship as in justice ; only that in justice
the worth of each object is the first consideration, its fitness to
us the second; in friendship, fitness or suitableness the first,
worth the subordinate. On the same ground he maintains that
friendship is to be seen in its true operation, not in clubs, nor
societies, nor partnerships, where men associate for some specific
object (though here also Justice is required as its assessor and
its complement, every kind of society implying a law to regulate
it, as well as a motive to form it, a principle of government as
well as of concord), but in a polity of which all these must be
considered as portions. An inquiry, therefore, into the different
kinds of government becomes connected with an inquiry into
the law of friendship.
12. In this passage we discover how much Aristotle surpassed Ground or
Plato in his apprehensions respecting the nature of relationships, relationship*
while he fell so far short of him in everything that concerns the
absolute. He discovers in the relations of father to son, of
husband to wife, of brother to sister, three primary forms, as it
were, of friendship ; and the grounds of the three kinds of
government to which all others may be reduced: Monarchy,
Aristocracy, Timocracy, of which the three corruptions are,
Tyranny, Oligarchy, Democracy. Under each of these trye
228
GBECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
forms of government, friendship and justice will be found existing
and mutually sustaining each other. Friendship, however, will
take its peculiar form from the form of the society. It will be
the friendship of patronage and of reverence in a monarchy.
It will have the conjugal model in an aristocracy, one party
being respected as the superior in worth, and retaining that
respect only while he asserts dominion on that ground. The
fraternal type of equality will be preserved in all friendship
under a Timocracy. On the other hand, in the depraved forms,
friendship will be depraved and weak; and in a tyranny, which
he regards as the worst of all, because the corruption of the
best, both it and justice will disappear, subjects being regarded
as animals, and as such incapable of human qualities. The
existence of this law of sympathy being then established as one
of the two necessary conditions of human fellowship, and virtue
being shown to be the necessary condition of friendship, Aristotle
proceeds to solve a great many questions of deep and practical
interest. The most important of these turn upon the relation
Friendship between friendship and self-love. In what sense is friendship a
iove.^1'" part of self-love ? in what sense opposed to it ? As the notion
of pleasure or utility had already been separated from friendship,
it is obvious that the vulgar notion of self-love must be separated
from it also. Still, ordinary language intimates that there must
be some analogy between the two ideas, and it seems hard to
arrive at any higher description than this, that the friend is loved
as another self. May not the difficulty then be solved thus ?
may not self-love be itself distinguished from all associations of
profit and loss? and may we not affirm that the wise and good
man is the true self-lover, the person who alone is at one with
himself, and can take pleasure in his own company ? If this be
so, it would not be correct to seek for the ground of friendship
in self-love; it would be more correct to say that they mutually
illustrate each other. Only the man who has the capacity of
friendship will have himself'for a friend ; and only he who can
enjoy and love himself, is capable of enjoying and loving another.
These two books on Friendship are certainly not the least pro¬
found in Aristotle's writings, and to the general reader they will
be far the most delightful.
Pleasure. 13. From this subject we proceed, in the tenth book, to the
question of Pleasure; what it is; how far, according to the
doctrine of some philosophers, it is to be denounced as an evil,
how far it is a good, or connected with the good. Aristotle
argues against many prevalent definitions of pleasure. He
shows why it is neither a riygoii, a mere movement, a ytvtaiq,
the passage into a state, or an dva7r\iipwaig, the filling up of a
want. He considers the universal longing of mankind a snffl-
TEE ABISTOTELLVN ETHICS.
229
cient witness that pleasure is something real and worthy in
itself, and not merely a means to some other end. An
examination of the facts leads to the same conclusion. But it
leads also to a refutation of the opinion, that pleasure can be
made a distinct formal purpose of life. It is the flower or con¬
summation of something else. The exercise of sight, the
exercise of hearing, each brings its own appropriate pleasure
after it. But the pleasure is connected with the energy or
exercise, and cannot be severed from it. If then you would
understand what pleasure is, and what are the highest pleasures,
you must understand what energies are, and what are the
highest energies. You cannot refer the last to the first, you
must refer the first to the last. That energy, then, which is
most appropriate to each creature, brings the pleasure which is
appropriate to that creature; " the energy of the soul, according
to virtue,1' brings the highest pleasure to man. The pleasure
which an act gives to him who performs it is the test of that
act having become habitual to him, of his having acquired the
character corresponding to that act. The man who delights in
musical energies has become a musician. The man who delights
in just acts is a just man.
14. Prom this analysis of the nature of pleasure, the step is Tbehiehest
easy to a reconsideration of the meaning and nature 0fhappiness-
happiness, and so to a brief review of the whole treatise.
Happiness he has found to be the end of man, and to consist in
(not, like pleasure, merely to be the effect of) the use of his
highest energies. "What then, on the whole, is the highest
happiness ? It is that of the contemplative man. If we can Contempia-
imagine what the life of the gods is, seeing it is absurd totion-
attribute to them Justice, because that has respect to contracts
and conventions; Temperance, because that implies temptations
to which they cannot be exposed ; and so of most of the other
acts which preserve the mean for man,—we must believe it to
consist in Contemplation. But then for the attainment of this
celestial life in those who can attain it, there is need of early
discipline and education. There is need that they should be
trained to the avoidance of those extremes in which evil lies,
and to the exercise of those virtues which are the only con¬
ditions of, and preparations for, the contemplative happiness,
though it transcends them. And for the rest there must be a
discipline to cultivate what capacities there are in them ; or in
case of resistance to such cultivation, to coerce and punish them.
Here then is the field for the science of Politics. That science,
Aristotle says, the Sophists had resolved into a mere teaching
how to talk and argue, but the foundations of it lie in ethical
knowledge and ethical practice; it must be worthless and
230
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
rotten when these foundations are not discovered. This is the
introduction to the book on Politics.
SECTION VIII.
POLITICS OP ARISTOTLE.
How 1. We can hut give our readers a few hints to assist them in
*ppM«?to8 ^e study of this treatise, which, valuable and interesting as it
Politics. is, can never bear the same relation to the other Aristotelian
writings which the Platonic Kepublic bears to his dialogues.
Not, it will be evident enough from our former remarks, that
the Politics of Aristotle are not most closely connected with his
Ethics and his Ontology, but that they are connected with them
rather as results and deductions than as being a principal and
fundamental part of the design. The doctrine which has been
set forth with so much diligence in the Metaphysics, that every
substance presupposes a lordly energising power, and a sub¬
missive receptive faculty or matter, reappears again here in
connection with the most obvious and outward facts. The
relation of Male and Female is assumed as the first hint of the
existence of society, and as containing the principle of it. The
idea of fellowship implied in this relation involves another,—
that of rule and subjection, which has its complete expression in
the relation of Master and Slave. Compare these two relations
with that relation in each man which has been explained in the
Psychology and illustrated in the Ethics, between the reasoning
power, the faculty participant of reason, and the mere animal
nature, and you feel at once that the two explain each other, and
set forth the condition under which society is meant to exist.
Where the reason is developed and its magisterial authority
acknowledged, the other faculty being in fellowship with and
subordination to it, and the animal nature controlled and sub¬
jected, there you have as well the true condition of the indi¬
vidual man as the true condition of society; there the relations
of husband and wife, and master and servant, will be preserved;
they will not be arbitrary, but legal and orderly.
The 2. In such a state of things only a polity is possible ; and, as
an<nhe°city. this is the only true condition of each man, it is evident that a
political state is his only proper and natural condition, every
other must be anomalous. Tou find then the constituents of a
polity in a household; but a house is not therefore a miniature
city; a city is not merely a collection of households; each has
its own distinct nature and laws, though each alike has this
characteristic—that by human relations it consists—that in
them you discover the end of its existence—and that all means
and instruments are to be contemplated with reference to these.
GREECE AFTER THE TIME OF ALEXANDER.
231
Economy is not primarily, but secondarily and accidentally, the
management of the goods or property of the household; it is
mainly the right ordering of the household itself. The slave is
the connecting link between one branch of economy and the
other; he must be considered as an instrument, and yet he
must be treated as a man. A polity can be considered only as
composed of freemen, quite as much because a freeman only
understands how to obey as because he only understands how to
govern.
3. It follows almost necessarily from this view of the case—The Platonic
first, that the Platonic idea of unity should be as little heeded JjSjJJcd
by Aristotle iD his Polity as in his Metaphysics ; that he should
utterly abhor the attempt to embody that idea by abolishing
distinct relationships, these being in his opinion the very foun¬
dation of society ; that he should recognise all forms of govern¬
ment as good which have their ground in any actual relation,
and all as evil which have become in any sense arbitrary; that
he should therefore acknowledge, much as Plato did, three true
forms, and three departures from these; and that he should
look on the democratical departure, the attempt to establish a
society in which all should govern, with at least as little com¬
placency as the rest; that, at the same time, he should conceive
the form from which this is a deviation,—the form which makes
all freemen eligible to government, though not necessarily par¬
ticipant of it, as his ideal. These seem to us the main principles
of the book, which being understood, the occasional difficulties
and contradictions it presents will be less puzzling ; its position
in reference to the other parts of the philosophy will be lelt; its
value as a key to the political science of modern as well as
ancient times will be appreciated.
DIVISION IV.—THE LATER SECTS.
SECTION I.
GREECE AFTER THE TIME OF ALEXANDER.
1. It may surprise our readers that so large a portion of this The small
sketch should have been devoted to Greek philosophy, and that [^,aa't"srof
nothing should yet have been said about those schools which schools;
we are wont to regard as the great representatives of it. The
Epicureans, the Stoics, the Academics, are continually spoken
of as the Greek schools. Not a few young Englishmen grow
up with the impression that in them are to be found those
thoughts in their highest and most concentrated form, which
have made Greece wonderful. Such an impression is strangely
232
GBECIAtf PHILOSOPHY.
at variance with facts. "What have the teachers of these great
schools left, by which we may judge of them and of their doings ?
Of Epicurus, we have three letters preserved by Diogenes
Laertius ; of Zeno, nothing; of Cleanthes, a single hymn to
Jupiter; of the Academics, merely traditions. We have not
spoken of the three books of Aristotle's Rhetoric, because,
amidst the multitude of his books, it was necessary to choose
those which refer most directly to our subject. In each of
these books—we might add, in the short notes on poetry—there
is five times as much matter bearing directly upon moral and
metaphysical philosophy as in all the Greek remains of the
later schools (of course we limit the remark to the time before
Christ). If their words and those of Aristotle were weighed
instead of measured, we believe the disproportion would be found
far greater.
yet they 2. It cannot be replied to this statement that Thales,
lately. Pythagoras, Socrates, wrote nothing, and yet that few men
have done more to awaken the energies by which books are
produced. Epicurus, Zeno, and their respective followers, belong
to an age of books, and were in the strictest sense makers of
books. Each of them may have written as much as Aristotle.
The dialogue, as an interchange of feelings with disciples, can
never have been characteristic of them; they were teachers,
lecturers, men who laid down maxims and laws which their
disciples repeated, modified, and argued for.
3. And this is in part the explanation and the justification of
the place which has been assigned them among their countrymen.
We have heard of seekers of wisdom, of men who were steadily
working out problems. The men we are speaking of had finished
their search, had solved their problems. They had ascertained
what was to be known and not to be known ; they could set
down the results of their inquiries in definite, manageable
propositions ; they had a well-ascertained, transmissible doctrine.
They therefore deserve the name which nas been given them—
they are the Greek sects. To call them the Greek philosophers
is absurd, at least if philosophy is to bear the sense which
Socrates or even which Aristotle gave to it. But they did dis¬
tinctly appropriate to themselves one set of conclusions or
results; they had fixed theses and formulas which could be
learned by heart; they could supply the Greeks of the ages to
which they belonged with all that the Greeks of those ages
wanted—topics of disputation; they could supply another, and
a nobler race, with suggestions which they could mould into some¬
thing like a satisfaction for the cravings of their energetic minds.
AiexandCT "^e gTeat Alexandrian period had succeeded to the re-
an er" publican period—the age when Greeks proved that they could
GREECE JLFTIHJ THE TIME OF ALEXANDER. 233
subdue barbarians to the age when they maintained their own
freedom against barbarians, or indulged the excesses of that
freedom in conflicts with each other. Of this time we have
considered Aristotle as the representative. This was the time
when he surveyed all the different provinces of human thought,
and mapped them out; Vhen he reproduced the inquiries of his
predecessors, and cast them into moulds of his own ; above all,
when he assigned to the wise man and to the practical man, two
perfectly distinct spheres of activity, though spheres in which
each might beneficially or injuriously affect the other. Aristotle
then, to a great extent, proclaimed the search for wisdom to be
at an end. He left the impression on the minds of his disciples
that the whole scheme of the universe could be brought under
the forms of the human understanding. Iso doubt there was
much in his teaching to counteract this impression. There was
a vast range for the activity of the practical man in regulating
his own mind, iu preserving or improving society. The divine
" Theorist" might surely hope that he, too, had afield to explore
which was almost or quite inexhaustible. So long as the age of
Alexander lasted, the practical man and the theorist would alike
gain strength and hope from the change which was taking place
in the state of the world, from the new treasures that were dis¬
covered in it, from the prospect of seeing Greek wisdom at the
head of it.
5. That dream passed away : there were some, perhaps, who The age
felt while it lasted how brief it was to be. An age of intrigue "^ceeded.
succeeded, in which all great principles were lost sight of; in
which it was proved that the elements of which Greek society
consisted were absolutely unsociable; in which, however, the
restoration of the older freedom was as hopeless as the preser¬
vation of a united empire. What a sense of weariness and ex¬
haustion must alterations so sudden have produced in the mind
of the most active and feverish nation that ever existed! How
certainly would the speculations of its wise men reflect that
weariness and hopelessness!
6. Scepticism we have spoken of as a Greek characteristic. So The new
far from attributing it to philosophy, we have supposed that Scepto''®.
philosophy was a great protest against) it. If a Greek could
learn that there was something which he could not create, he
had advanced a certain way towards reverence and belief. But
another kind of scepticism was possible, which may, in some
sense, be called the fruit of philosophy. A man might say,
" We have been seeking a long time ; what have we found ?
Have we got hold of any certain determinations ? Aristotle
says that we have. Socrates and Plato seem to say the reverse.
They perhaps are as goocl authorities as he is. And when we
234
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
consider what a multitude of different notions have been circu¬
lating among us for these two or three hundred years, who can
be ^confident that any one is entitled to more respect than any
other V Some function there is, undoubtedly, for the wise man.
We Greeks are assuredly to be still, as we have always been,
the wise people of the earth. But the function of the wise man
is not perhaps to determine anything. May it not be rather
that he is to tell us how it is best for those to behave themselves,
who, as Socrates said, know that they know nothing."
Pywhoj, 7. Of this state of mind, Pyrrho has always been considered
18 18 ry' the representative. He is said to have been in the army of
Alexander, to have conversed with the Indian Gymnosophists,
to have arrived at the conclusion that there is nothing noble or
base, or just or unjust; that nothing truly is ; that men do all
things by custom and law; that each individual thing is not
more this than that. Being naturally nervous, he is said to
have cultivated, with great success, Lrapa^ta, or freedom from
disturbance; so that he would not leave the road to escape
from being thrown down by a carriage, or bitten by a dog; that
he lived 90 years; that he was made a high priest by his own
citizens, who, for his sake, excused philosophers from payment
of taxes; that the Athenians honoured him with their citizen¬
ship. h
Its hDthTal Excepting the reports about his practical conduct, which
pro a 11 y. ar0 mere}y jokes, not very clever ones, upon his efforts after
quietness, tne outlines of this story are very credible. A Greek
coming into contact with an absorbed Brahmin would be very
likely to admire his seeming freedom from external disquiet,
and, at the same time, to increase his own growing doubts
about the importance or reality of the questions in which his
people had been interested. The language about the good and
the base is the ordinary language of sceptical despair. Such
despair being compatible with the belief that anything is pos¬
sible because nothing is true, could not the least disqualify a
man for a priest. It was not natural that the city which in less
degenerate days gave Socrates the hemlock, should give Pyrrho
its highest rewards for stating in words that which a great
majority of Athenians will at once have recognised as their own
inward persuasion. Whether the history of the individual man
Pyrrho is authentic or fictitious, it is no doubt in substance the
history of thousands in that time.
Pyrrhonism 9. But what is there in this universal scepticism which at all
or the sects corresponds to the character we have given of the different
which were! sects ? In one sense, Pyrrhonism lay at the root of all these
reaction' * sects; in another they were the reaction against it. A despair
against it. of discovery—of philosophy in its old sense—was implied in them
EPICURUS.
235
all. A belief that the main object of the wise man is to seek
for freedom from the disturbances and distresses of the ordinary
man, is implied in them all. But men who have fallen into
doubt through exhaustion soon find doubt itself very exhausting.
They crave for some distinct, positive decisions; decisions, if
possible, which shall be novel, which shall be better than any
given before ; which shall make them conscious of their superi¬
ority to those in past times who toiled and travailed, and after
all affirmed little; decisions which shall embody the results of
much thinking without calling for the effort of it; but, at all
events, decisions, which can be easily set forth and argued for,
and used to controvert any old or new opinion that may be
opposed to them.
SECTION II.
epicurus.
BORN B.C. 342, DIED B.C. 270.
1. Epicurus, we are told, liked to hear anecdotes respecting Epicurus a
the indifference and apathy of Pyrrho. In these qualities he dosmatiat-
aspired to imitate him. But Epicurus was no doubter ; he was
the most imperious of dogmatists. No one had ever such en¬
tire faith in his own conclusions; no one more thoroughly and
heartily rejected all conclusions but his own, as absurd, even as
impossible. Unless he had attained to this perfect satisfaction
in his own judgment, he would have missed the main object
which he proposed to himself. But, on the other hand, any
one who proposes that object to himself may be tolerably secure
of attaining such self-confidence. A man must be brought into
a peculiar condition of mind before he can believe that the uni¬
verse and all that it contains exist only that they may tell him
how he is to be comfortable; but when he has once believed
this, it will be wonderful indeed if h's ears ever catch any sound
which is not an echo to his demand, or some fragment of an
answer to it. Do you deny that all men like pleasure and dis¬
like pain ? This is his kind of inquiry, which, as it means
simply, Do you deny that all men like what they like, and dis¬
like what they dislike ? certainly reduces an opponent to very
considerable perplexity.
2. Epicurus was fond of boasting that he had made his own His boast of
philosophy. He was a " self-taught" man. A really original
thinker seldom puts forth such a profession. He knows that
what he has learnt is his own ; he is glad to confess from whom
he has learnt. Epicurus might be perfectly honest in saying
that he had read very little, and had worked out his conclusions
in his own mind ; but he was a copyist nevertheless ; few men
236
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
more entirely so. Aristotle had shown clearly that if an ab¬
solute good is not the end of practical life, happiness must be
its end. Epicurus could say no more; he could only find out
some new criterion of happiness, seeing that Aristotle's defini¬
tion of it as an energy of the soul, put forth in conformity with
certain existing relations, implying a body politic, must needs be
unsatisfactory. In seeking for this criterion, Epicurus had no
resource but to adopt the old sophistical dogma; he could only
say that we must refer everything to the standard of our sensa¬
tions. No doubt he may have refined considerably upon this
thought, for, in the first place, he had a body of formulas pro¬
vided him by Plato and Aristotle on the subject of sensations ;
and, secondly, he lived in an age in which thought was less
active, but in which all that contributes to mere gratification,
whether bodily or mental, was far better understood. It is a
question which has been much, and we think very unnecessarily,
Seusatioo. debated, whether, by making sensation his standard of happi¬
ness, Epicurus did, or did not, mean to encourage what is
formally called sensuality. The testimonies of antiquity re¬
specting his personal character are various, and the most modern
criticism seems rather inclined to revert to the vulgar opinion
respecting it, rejecting, certainly with good reason, the fanatical
panegyrics of some Ereneh and English writers in the last
century. Upon the whole, we are inclined to believe that
Epicurus was an apathetic, decorous, formal man, who was able,
without any great difficulty, to cultivate a measured and even
habit of mind, who may have occasionally indulged in sensual
gratifications to prove that he thought them lawful, but who
generally preferred, as a matter of taste, the exercises of the
intellect to the more violent forms of self-indulgence. And
this life would, it seems to us, be most consistent with his
opinions. To avoid commotion, to make the stream of life flow
on as easily and uninterruptedly as possible, was clearly the aim
of his philosophy.
Dialectics 3. For this end it was advisable to avoid the pursuit of
t!,vvby'ly6"cs wealth and honours; it was better to abstain from extremely
touched by vehement enjoyments, but it was absolutely necessary to get
Epicurus, rid 0f superstitious fears. How these were produced was,
therefore, an important question for the founder of such a sys¬
tem. The answer to it led him much further than he at first
intended to go. Naturally, Epicurus cared only for moral ques¬
tions, that is to say, for such questions as related to the manage¬
ment of human life. "With dialectics, either in the Platonic
or Aristotelian sense of the word, he had no proper concern ;
for what had he to do with a science which distinguishes the
false from the true either in things or words ? In physics he
EPICUEtJg.
237
took even less interest; the fixed order of nature is a painful
weight upon the mind of a man who aims at adjusting a scheme
for himself, and who disbelieves in any actual order and govern¬
ment. Theology, so intimately blended with both of these in
the earlier systems, would have been still more resolutely
banished from his. But then all these subjects must pass under
his review, because from all of them conclusions had been de¬
rived which affect man's serenity and cause him dreams. A
study answering to logic may be used to explain the origin of
opinions, and why some of them must, for want of' better epi¬
thets, be called false and some true. A man has certain sensa¬
tions, and certain images are presented to him from without.
The sensations are to be trusted, the representations are to be
trusted : only in the exercise of some power by which a judg¬
ment is formed from these sensations or representations does
error arise. These are corrected by referring again to the sen¬
sations, the only ultimate standards. Here again the ori¬
ginality of Epicurus consists, it will be Been, wholly in his
omissions.
4. The relation between the senses and the visible represen- how to
tations which are set before them had been treated by Plato ^peen/er°™
and Aristotle, each in his own method, with the profoundest an order,
skill and discrimination. Epicurus had only to avail himself of
such fragments from the intuitive observations of the one, or
the rigid analysis of the other, as were consistent with the re¬
jection of their principle that there is another and a surer
standard than that which the senses supply. In physics Epi¬
curus was still a copyist; and any one who studies tne rest of
his philosophy may perceive that, as he adopted the theory of
Democritus simply because it was the one which it was most
comfortable to hold, so he was guided, in many changes which
he introduced into it, simply by the wish to get rid of some dis¬
tressing fact which interfered with his moral speculations, and
made his scheme of life less practicable. The idea of myste¬
rious powers in nature had been one which had at all times
haunted the Greek mind, and to which the speculations of the
philosophers bore as much witness as the fables of the mycolo¬
gists. With this thought was connected another, still more
oppressive to the mind of Epicurus, still more interfering
with the calmness and apathy of the true sage. It seemed
that these powers were organised, that there were the ves¬
tiges of a scheme in nature, that there was something in
them which answered to man's own powers of art and con¬
trivance, while it controlled them. Erom these paiuful im¬
pressions there was one joyful refuge. The notion of the
world being composed of atoms which had met i^ empty space,
had united and disposed themselves into the light forms or heavy
238
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
masses of which our senses take cognizance, at once relieved
Physics of its connection with Theology.
The Soul of 5. And since one product of these invisible atoms was that
mBn' which had been called the soul of man, a new light dawned upon
the moral system from this natural philosophy, a new confirma¬
tion of the great principle that man is a machine which may,
like any other, be regulated and adjusted to produce certain
desirable results.
Deciinotion 6. One fault, however, there is in the doctrine of Demo-
of Atoms. critus* His descent of atoms in a direct line savoured too much
of a determinate purpose, a fixed law. Suppose them to decline
a little from the line—a very little—and thi3 charm is broken,
and, what is better still, you have a method of accounting for
the existence of choice and freedom in man. If Epicurus anti¬
cipated an actual physical discovery in this speculation, it is a
new evidence that the divinity which he supposed took no
interest in human thoughts or designs, does sometimes shape
them into a strange resemblance of what is true, when they are
shaping themselves into the most grotesque forms of falsehood.
On the whole, it seems unnecessary to attribute to the founder
of this philosophy any deep and malignant design of undermin¬
ing the foundations of human belief or human conduct. The
worst that can be said of him is, that he exactly caught the im¬
pression of a wretched emasculated age; the best that can be
said of him is, that he showed some skill in combining the
notions of former philosophers into the only scheme of doc¬
trine which could seem to the men of such an age plausible
or possible. One thing should be noticed, that if Epicurism
Epicurean ^ u^unately destructive of moral habits, it is not to these,
the enemy of but to science, that it sets itself in direct opposition. The
science. Epicurean is essentially the unscientific man—it would be
more correct to say, the hater of science; a fact the more
striking, because in modern days, when physical science has
established itself in the world by another agency than theirs,
the disciples of this school have sometimes affected to take
it under their patronage, and even to boast of themselves as
the exclusive promoters of it. Perhaps we shall find, when
we come to speak of them, that thev have departed more
in appearance than in reality from the fundamental principle
of their sect.
SECTION III.
STOICISM.
stru^Ie8 second great effort against the Pyrrhonism of this
against age is the Stoic philosophy. In speaking of this system, as
unbelief, ag 0f the last, we must endeavour to detach ourselves
STOICISM.
239
as much as possible from Roman associations and representa¬
tions. To do this entirely is out of the question, for till
these philosophies were adopted by the living minds of Rome,
they can scarcely be said to have found their meaning. Still
it is important to consider the form of the statue as it came
from Greek artists, now no longer able of themselves to im¬
part animation to their works, before it was embraced by the
Italian Pygmalion. If we reflect how deeply the feeling
of an intercourse between men and a divine race superior to
themselves had worked itself into the Greek character, what a
number of fables, some beautiful, somo impure, it had impreg¬
nated and procured credence for, how it sustained every form of
polity and every system of laws, we may imagine what the effects
must have been of its disappearance. If it is possible for a man,
it certainly was not possible for a Greek, to feel himself con¬
nected by any real bonds with his fellow-creatures around him,
when he felt himself utterly separated from every being but them.
But the sense of this isolation would affect different minds very
differently. It drove the Epicurean to consider how he might Zeno.- birth
make a world in which he should live comfortably, without dis- du-urt#in'
tracting visions of the past and future, and the dread of those 263 B.C.
powers who no longer awakened in him any feelings of sympathy.
It drove Zeno to consider whether a man may not find enough
in himself to satisfy him, though what is beyond him be ever
so unfriendly. This again was no new problem, either for a prac¬
tical man or a theorist to deal with. Again and again it had
presented itself to the Greek sages ; again and again experi¬
ments had been made to solve it, and the conditions under which
it could and could not be solved had been profoundly investi¬
gated. Here then, as in the former case, we can expect no
originality in conception ; the sole interest lies in the thorough
desolation of heart which led the philosophers of the Porch to
venture once more upon this inquiry. We may trace in the
productions which are attributed to Zeno a very clear indicar
tion of the feeling which was at work in his mind. He under¬
took, for instance, among other tasks, to answer Plato's Republic.
The truth that man is a political being, which informs and per¬
vades that book, was one which must have been particularly
harassing to his mind, and which he felt must be got rid of
before he could hope to assert his doctrine of a man's solitary
dignity. He appears to have carried out, with some consistency
and steadiness in his life, the principle for which he was con¬
tending, really showing an indifference to outward circum¬
stances, and maintaining, with less dogmatical affectation than
many others, a creditable independence and uprightness of
character. Zeno taught at Athens. He was not accused of
210
GEECIAIf PHILOSOPHY.
corrupting the youth or bringing in new demons; he received a
golden crown, and was buried publicly in the Ceramicus. Athens
may not have sympathised with his severity as much as with
the indifference of Pyrrho ; but it could do justice to the good
qualities of any man whom it could understand. Socrates was
neither sceptic nor dogmatist; they knew not where to have
him ; it was safer to get rid of him.
2. It is pleasant to meet with a hardy, energetic, and free
B.C. 300. man dreary and formal time. Cleantkea, the disciple and
successor of Zeno, seems to deserve this character.
One who began life as a boxer,1 who came to Athens with five
drachmas; who drew water by night that he might have leisure
to attend Zeno's lectures by day; who was brought before the
Dicastery to account for his healthy appearance when he had no
obvious means of supporting existence, and who was acquitted
upon the testimony of the gardeners for whom he worked; who
refused the ten minas which the Areopagus ottered him as a
reward of this discovery; who was accounted a very slow toil¬
some man,2 and patiently endured to be called "The ass," taking
it as a compliment that he could bear the burden which Zeno
put upon him—such a man would be a striking figure in any
time, specially striking amidst a race of clever talkers, iropa-
tient of rough toil, ambitious above all things of the reputation
for quickness and wit.
Cleanthes wrote a great many beautiful books, says the bio¬
grapher. The list of their titles makes us glad that they are lost,
as they might probably have spoiled our impressions of him as
a living being; degraded him into a mere diseourser upon
Sensation, Time, Art. He survives truly and satisfactory in his
Hymn to Jupiter, which is the only production remaining to us
that connects the early Stoicism with the higher and nobler
form it acquired, after it had received the Roman impregnation,
in the Life and Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Chrvsippus, 3. The " slow " Cleanthes had far less favour in the Porch
b^c 280 fc^an PUP^' the rapid Chrysippus.3 " Give me your doctrines
and I will find the demonstrations," he said to the humble
bearer of burdens. " If the gods have a science of dialectics
among them it must be that of Chrysippus," was the reverent
language of his disciples. He did not dissent from their judg¬
ment respecting him. " To what instructor shall I commit my
son ? " asked an anxious parent. " To me," said the Stoic; " if
1 vpSrrov r}V irvitrns.
- Hv Si TtyviKos nil' KclSk'putTiKos 8f Ka! flpaSuv {nrep€aA\/iiTco?. "Ovos
aitoiuv TrpoecSt XfT0' ^e7w" ainbs Suvaa&ai Tit Zt]venvoi
tpogriov. Diog. Lui'rt. lib. vii. c. v.
J avi/p (Opviji kal o^vraros ev itoxtI n(Pf '• dog* kb. VII. cap. vii.
The
Athenian
respect lor
liiin.
STOICISM.
241
there were a better philosopher to be found, should not I go
to him ?"
Such a person was not likely to write a hymn to Jupiter; but
he was the man of all others to perfect the Stoical system.
There had been many differences among the professed followers
of Zeno. Ariston scorned dialectics; and seems, in some of his
conclusions, to have approached Epicurus. Chrysippus put an
end to these heresies, and gave the school a definite form and
culture. It may be worth while to point out very briefly how
the first naked conception of a man striving to live apart from
the time and things around him, shaped itself into a compact
and tolerably consistent theory of the universe.
3. The Stoics could hardly invent any division of studies stnicai
different from that which use had so long sanctioned; theydiv,s,on-
could not be so negligent as not to extend their theory into the
different departments of Morals, Logic, and Physics. They
introduced, however, a novelty of expression. They spoke
of Virtue as being ethical, logical, and physical. It was not
that there were three different kinds of virtue, but three
different parts which composed it: logic, they said, was
the shell of the egg, ethics the white, physics the yelk. Much
may be learnt from this language. First we learn that virtue,
a certain state of mind or character in the individual man, is all
that the Stoic is capable of conceiving. This is the ultimate
idea upon which all ideas of truth, as well as of outward tangible
forms, are dependent. It will be seen at once how easily such
an opinion as this grew out of the Aristotelian doctrine, and yet
how it may have appeared, in certain points of view, more
unlike to that than to the Platonic. In the doctrine of Socrates,
developed by his great disciple, virtue in man is always a con¬
formity to a standard out of himself, a participation in that
which is absolutely good, and inseparable from the possession of
that which is absolutely true. This doctrine Aristotle rejected,
striving to fix practical morality in one department, and the
study of Being in another. Upon his system, virtue and happi¬
ness acquired the substantive and independent character which
neither Socrates nor Plato could ever have assigned them. But
the very separation which he had eff ected between the provinces
of Ethics and Ontology enabled him the more easily to follow
the natural bent of his character, and to represent the contem¬
plative life as the highest life—that which peculiarly appertains ^erence
to the philosopher. The Stoic, in carrying out his conception between the
respecting virtue, disconnecting it entirely from every dream of
an absolute good, rejected with indignation his praise of Con¬
templation, and seemed to return to the older Socratic language
by representing virtue as consisting in a conflict with appear-
VOL. I. K
242
GRECIAN PHILOSOrHT.
ancea and deceptions. But the fact is that the Stoic took only
the negative side of the Socratic doctrine; his virtue had nothing
to converse with, nothing to behold but itself; the impediments
which it was to clear out of its way, the temptations which it
was to resist, were not those which dimmed the human vision,
and prevented it from beholding its proper object, but only those
which made it less conscious of its own independence and glory.
The Stoical ethics, therefore—borrowing all which was genuine
and vital in them from the language of Socrates respecting the
slavery of the undisciplined and sensual spirit, borrowing also
and misapplying many of his phrases respecting the connection
of virtue with science—so far as they were of native manufac¬
ture, consisted merely of pithy maxims of conduct, wire-drawn
and minute, entering into the lowest details and frivolities,
tending to emasculate the character under pretence of elevating
it, and worthy of the censure that they were fitter for nurses
than for philosophers. This was the white of the egg.
The 5. That Dialectics should have been nothing more than the
sbel?CtiCBl shell, is a proof bow very little of the real feeling of the Socratic
philosophy had survived in this feeble imitation of it. In fact,
the language to which we have just alluded, in which science was
represented as connected, nay, almost identical with virtue,
meant, in the mouths of the Stoics, nothing more than this—
that a virtuous man is a man of good taste, has a shrewd dis¬
cernment of what should be accepted and of what should be
rejected. Truth as reality, falsehood as a positive opposite to
truth, they in nowise recognised. Dialectics, therefore, in the
Platonic sense, which is the science of distinguishing between
truth and falsehood, they had no use for. All they understood
was that in some way or other that which is desirable is preferred
by some and not preferred by others, and that it was necessary,
therefore, to inquire what it is in us which determines the fitness
or unfitness of things; how we know when we get a right result
from things, and when we get a wrong one. In all essential
respects their conclusions upon the subject were the same as the
Epicurean; that is to say, the one has just as little belief as the
other in any standard besides sense, in any difference between
the real and the apparent. The difference of their moral scheme,
however,made the Stoics unwilling to acknowledge this similarity;
they wished to persuade themselves—to a certain extent they
could persuade themselves honestly—that those who aimed at
the attainment of virtue as their end, would not have the same
fluctuating rule and measure of what was good, as those who
aimed only at the production of certain pleasurable results.
The Stoics sought therefore for a science, though they could not
reach it; and in their attempt to reach it they invented a
STOICISM.
243
number of acute verbal distinctions, which, with some mixture
of grammar and rhetoric, constituted their dialectical virtue, as
those rules of behaviour of which we spoke just now constituted
their moral. Certainly this was very fitly compared to a shell
containing no nourishment in itself, and so conveniently fragile
as to afford an easy passage to the yelk within.
6. It may surprise our readers that the essential part of the The physical
Stoical egg, the whole of which is the type of Virtue, should be
the physical part. But there is nothing really inconsistent in
this notion, either with the origin of Stoicism or its after-develop¬
ment. If the Epicurean undervalued physics because they
spoke of something fixed and pre-ordained, something therefore
inconsistent with that adjustment and adaptation to circum¬
stances and accidents which he considered his chief good, the
Stoic, who wished to rise above circumstances, to attain a firm
and independent position, as naturally delighted to contemplate
an undeviating system. The perception of any real law and
standard for man had forsaken both alike. But there are some
who can never lose their deep feeling of the necessity for such
a law; these therefore, in their despair of discovering it, will
take refuge in the most exact type and counterpart of that
which they are seeking, in the sequence of the operations of
nature. The invariable attendant upon this feeling is, reverence
for fate or necessity, with a proud and voluntary submission of
ourselves to its dominion. Such a Fate became the god of the
Stoic—strictly speaking his only god ; but as he saw it imaged
in the movements of the universe, and as be felt at times the
need of something more real, more connected with himself than
this abstraction, the World became the living form in which he
contemplated the object of his worship. And since he found it
expedient for the strengthening of some of his moral habits,
and accordant with some of the maxims of his philosophy, not
to reject established opinions, he easily persuaded himself to
adopt the opinion of Aristotle, that the old legends did in fact
represent processes in the material world. They might, there¬
fore, without any violation of his philosophical dignity, be
recognised and defended. Theology being thus identified with
physics, it surely becomes no matter of surprise that the latter
should be treated as the most inward and sacred part of morality.
section rv.
THE ACADEMIC.
1. One sect yet remains to be mentioned to complete our p,at"m0Bt
picture of Grecian philosophy in its decrepitude and decline, to his school.
This is the Academic. We have seen how entirely the very
p ower of conceiving that which we have described as the central
244
OHECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
principle of Plato's philosophy had departed from his country¬
men. All his language about Being was to them the merest
dream; they could not even understand the elaborate arguments
of Aristotle against his doctrine. Nay, his views respecting
the Form and the Matter in each substance had become prac¬
tically as unintelligible as the deeper speculations of his master.
Under such circumstances we may easily conceive what a change
must have taken place in the schools bearing their names. The
Peripatetic, who worshipped the name of Aristotle, might still
satisfactorily expound his Physics, his Logic, part of his Meta¬
physics, and whatever of his Ethics could be detached from the
Politics; but the Academics found the incomprehensibe part of
their master's creed impregnating all his works; it could no
more be detached from the Phwdrus and the Pkeedon than from
the Republic.
The resource 2. There was, however, one circumstance in their favour.
For reasons which we have considered at quite sufficient length,
the great principle of Plato is developed in dialogues, in which
two propositions seem to be set up for the purpose of knocking
each other down. Could anything be more natural than the
notion that Plato intended hereby to keep men's judgments in
a perpetual equilibrium; to maintain, in short, a habit of entire
interminable scepticism ? The conclusion was most plausible ;
yet so much did there appear in the writings and in the whole
purpose of Plato to refute it, so much did it seem the very
object of his life to overthrow scepticism, that a long time
elapsed before this plausible notion was able to establish itself.
The Academy appears to have undergone many changes; what
they were has been the subject of much controversy, but the
language of Cicero leaves little doubt that it did at one time
assert certain dogmatical propositions as the doctrine of Plato,
and that it passed by slow degrees into that purely sceptical
society from which he derived, or fancied he derived, his own
opinions.
piatonists, 3. The result is curious, but by no means inexplicable. Scep-
alldRhe- ticism was, as we have said, the foundation of both the other
toricians. sects, though they attempted to break loose from it. The
Academic yielded submissively to the spirit of the times, and
embodied it most consistently in his own no views. He dis¬
coursed eloquently upon all topics, carefully abstained from
coming to a conclusion upon any; he could not say what was
right, but he was satisfied that both Epicurean and Stoic were
wrong, and this was quite sufficient for his purpose. Arguing
was his vocation; a kind of arguing, however, which did not
exclude an indulgence in flights and flourishes of rhetoric, when
the occasion might serve for their introduction. In fact, the
diseqles of that philosopher who wrote the Gorgias and the
ROMAN HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY.
245
Phadrus became nothing else than the teachers of men how-
to become Sophists and Ehetoricians. Such were the lees
of Greek philosophy, from which one may conjecture how rich
must have been its flavour, how full its body, when it was in
its prime.
CHAPTER VII.
ROMAN PHILOSOPHY.
section i.
ROMAN HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY.
1. In the ballads or songs, which are supposed to be the
foundation of one part of Roman history, there will assuredly
have been allusions to a number of divine persons. But there
will assuredly not have been a divine counsellor, a God of wis¬
dom, in the centre of them. This is not the leading character¬
istic of the Roman Jove. Neither is it the leading quality of
any of the subordinate demigods. They are lawgivers, rulers,
preservers of boundaries, champions of right, avengers of wrong.
It could never have occurred to any Latin mind to reverence
them chiefly, or perhaps at all, for their wit and subtlety.
2. All the heroic characters in early Roman history or tra- The Roman
dition are distinguished in the same manner from the Greek eroeii'
hero. There is not a single Odysseus among them. His
countrymen, indeed, might easily have transferred his qualities
to Romulus, or Numa, or Publicola; they might have said,
" Intelligence is that which organises infant communities, which
prescribes rites and laws; if you suppose the creation of an
order, you presume device or counsel in him who establishes
it." No doubt this was necessary to a Greek; he could not
separate the two thoughts from each other. A Roman separated
them without the least effort. Even if he felt that wisdom was
necessary to the preservation of order, the order would always
be first in his mind, the wisdom second. He might confess
that the legislator was a wise man ; he never would have allowed
that the wise man was as such a legislator.
3. Though we may reject a great part of the stories in Livy The Roman
(he himself' scarcely asks us to believe thein), no one can doubt ^|h?n
that he had a very deep perception of the meaning of the history.
A simple reader, who takes his facts for granted, receives from
them the impression that a wonderful order was growing up
during a great many centuries, by mysterious influences, through
conflicts of opposing forces, under a divine direction. The
critical investigator brings us at last to the same conclusion.
Each event, truly or falsely recorded, preserved by the vanity of
patrician families, or expressive of popular sympathy or indig-
246
EOJLAN PHILOSOPHY.
nation, still explains the development of some new principle in
the commonwealth—shows how that which had been latent
became manifest, how actual institutions came forth when they
were needed out of seeds that had been in the soil ages before.
We may understand better than in former days what elements,
Latin or Etruscan, entered into the composition of the body
politic; but the fact that it was a body politic, and that influ¬
ences higher than mortal gave it its coherency and preserved it
from dissolution, remains as the common result of old credulity
and modern investigation,
absence^ ^hese considerations may enable us to understand why the
the elements old Roman life seems so much less a preparation for philosophy
sophy'in *han either the old Oriental or the old Greek life. The seeds of
the Roman all later Brahminism were contained in the original Hindoo
Hund' faith. It is a natural transition from the Homeric chief or king
to the sage tyrant of Samos or Corinth; thence to the student
of physics or of man. But what germs of such a student were
there in the countrymen of Fabrieius and Camillus ? By what
steps could they be led to become professors of wisdom, or
hunters for it—sophists or philosophers ?
section n.
ORIGIN OF LATIN PHILOSOPHY.
Roman love 1- If we recollect how many of the inquiries which have
supplies the hitherto occupied us have been inquiries after an order in nature
want. or in human society, we may find an answer to this question.
No doubt the naked problem, " Where is wisdom found ?" was
not likely to present itself to the Roman of any age. Those
who had been seeking hither and thither for some solution of
that problem he would never really understand. The mere
wisdom trader or hawker might, in certain periods of the com¬
monwealth, be a person of some reputation ; for the prizes which
he held out to the Athenian—the possession of rhetorical skill
and political power—were quite as precious to the Roman. But
the course of the history, the forms of the constitution, the kind
of arguments by which the Roman candidate appealed to the
sympathies of his electors, would make the mere skill in dispu¬
tation, in the use of general maxims, in word-subtleties, not
generally available for his purpose. The Sophist and the
Rhetorician both might exist; but they would have distinct
functions. And the former trade, one may be quite sure, would
not be carried on by native hands. They would be found
altogether clumsy both in making the wares and disposing of
them. When Sophists were wanted in Rome, they would be
brought in as part of the spoils of the conqueror, to march, like
any other slaves, in his triumph, and furnish him with a new
OBIGIN OP LATIN PHILOSOPHY.
247
luxury. But the love of order which was so deeply seated in
the heart of the Roman—which was connected with all his
hardest fights—which was identified with his glory—if it failed
to be satisfied by the aspect of the surrounding society, might
bring forth questionings as deep and earnest as those by which
any Greek in the past times had ever been exercised.
2. These inquiries, in any distinct shape which could be Motives to
recognised under the name of philosophy, would of course be of","^I£reek
late appearance. They would be preceded by a long internal
growth of the national powers, by a sudden and wonderful ex¬
hibition of them in victories over the surrounding world, by a
bewildering sense of their vastness, by an accompanying and
contradictory consciousness of weakness and decay. Clever
Greeks coming to Rome at such a time, with a whole apparatus
of notions and phrases which were strange to the Latin ear,
would produce the most different impressions upon different
minds. A new fashion is, of course, most desirable for men in
search of excitement, and who have exhausted their old resources.
Men tired of the monotony and stateliness of Roman traditions
would eagerly catch at the promise of something that would
raise them above the past, and enable them to despise it. The
old conservative, who was doing much himself to separate the
present from the past by his adherence to corrupt practices,
and by carrying out all the worst habits of ambition and
aggrandisement to which his countrymen were inclined, would
be startled and shocked by the invasion of fantastic follies, and
would take the coarsest and rudest methods of resisting them.
He would be quite unaware that there was a class of men far
more patriotic than himself, who listened to the Greek teachers
in the very hope that they might find the way of recovering a
state of things which they fancied had once been theirs, and
which had departed, listened to them with astonishment and
admiration, even with blind and devout acquiescence, and yet
really brought to them far more than they received from them
—feelings, recollections, hopes, which could convert the driest
chips of doctrine into practical realities.
3. The young Roman, it may be said, was obliged to take wiiy the
what he could get. If Carneades or Cratippus was the teacher R^,arJed
of his day, he must learn of him, and not of Plato nor of Aristotle; the later
Bince the living voice will always be mightier than the book, and scb00ls-
has the power of transforming it. This is partly true. Yet it
^will be evident from what we have said that the Roman had a
natural affinity for the later schools, and an incapacity for
appreciating the earlier. Epicureans, Stoics, Academics, were
occupying themselves about the manner in which men were to
live ; they had distinct and definite propositions about the con¬
dition and conduct of the human or physical universe in which
248
HOMAN PHILOSOPHY.
they were dwelling. The Roman, discontented with the politi¬
cal schemes and intrigues in the midst of which liis lot was cast
—unable to recover the maxims of his ancestors—aware of the
tricks which were resorted to by the augurs and diviners of his
land—of the state-craft which had worked itself into all the
religion of his country—cared little for questions about Being
or Unity, but eagerly craved for anything which should give
him a hope of greater coherency and consistency in his own
relations.
section m.
THE SOMAN EPICUEEAN.
The poem of 1. The poem of Lucretius naturally presents itself as the first
Lucretius. an([ most marvellous outburst of that spirit which all the wis¬
dom of the Censor and of the older Romans was unable to keep
in check. Everything at first sight tends to heighten the wonder
which this poem produces in us. The philosophical poems of
that nation which had furnished the language of philosophy,
and given birth to the most splendid poetry, have perished ; only
a few fragments remain of the verses in which Xenophanes and
Parmenides conveyed their opinions ; Empedocles of Agrigentum
is scarcely more than the shadow of a name. Nor have we any
reason to believe that the productions of these men, though
they were men of genius and originality, deserve to be regretted,
at least as works of art. How strange, then, does it seem that
the greatest effort of Roman genius should be a work written
on a subject utterly alien from the habits of the Latin mind, by
a young man struggling with a language which, for his purposes
at least, was barren and uncouth; a language too which one
would have thought could only have become poetical when it
was used to speak of the actions of great men, and of people
subdued to laws ! It may seem to some even a more astonish¬
ing circumstance than any of these, that the theory which
its Lucretius undertook to defend and illustrate was, of all that
peculiarity. Qreece had produced from the days of Thales downwards, the
hardest and most mechanical—one would have said the most flat
and prosaic. Genius, no doubt, is called forth by difficulties,
and if it had nothing to overcome would not deserve its name.
Still there is a fitness in the choice of subjects which we are
generally able to recognise, and without which it is hardly pos¬
sible that a work, even if it were written, could become a great
national possession. With respect to the doctrine, no thought¬
ful reader can believe that it was adopted from a false notion
either that it was particularly suited for poetry, or that great
fame would be obtained by triumphing over its unsuitableness.
Lucretius writes with the most entire conviction; his whole
mind is evidently impregnated with his doctrine. And this was
THE ROMAN EPICUREAN.
249
one necessary condition of his producing so great a poem,—he
felt what he said: an earnestness, which had not been in the
mind of any Greek for at least two centuries, had got possession
of his. He may have selected a miserable idol, but such as it
was he rendered to it the most entire, devoted worship.
2. This earnestness he owed to his Roman education. He Owes its
had not perhaps himself any strong impulses towards active life, Roi"anhnot
or much of the legal and rhetorical abilities which were the to Greek
qualification for it. The rage and contention of parties, the lnfluencc*-
atrocities and the meannesses which, in the days of Marius,
Ciuna, and Sylla, he must have heard of every day, will have
been most distracting to him. We may be able to perceive how
much better Roman society in that age, with all its abominable
crimes, was, than the dreary condition of Greece, even when its
sleep was confused by those dreamy efforts of patriotism which
the appearance of Flaminius and the Romans called forth. We
may see that great social principles were struggling with each
other in those conflicts of rival parties which could not have left
such an impression upon history, if there had not been much
good mixed with the apparently unbroken evil. But to Lucretius influence of
the misery and confusion will have presented themselves almost
without relief; and then, little knowing how much he was in¬
debted to the forms of his country's polity, and to the truths
that lay underneath its false worship, for the disgust which such
spectacles excited in him, he will have been led to question the
worth of the faith and reverence by which a system of falsehood
and cruelty seemed to be upheld. In such inquiries he will
probably have found most of the thoughtful youths about him
engaged, with no great difference in the result, except that they
could abide quietly in contempt of the popular opinions, while
he required some positive substitute for them. Arriving with
such feelings at Athens, what could be more natural than that
the words of an Epicurean lecturer should take a hold of his
soul which they never had obtained over the person who uttered
them ; that he should have welcomed them as the deliverance
from an intolerable burden, as the discovery of a region of which
he had been dreaming, but which he never believed to exist; nay,
as the satisfaction of that love of order which his Roman disci¬
pline had imparted to him, and which the circumstances of Rome
itself were continually affronting ?
3. A poem on the Nature of Things, written under such cir¬
cumstances by a man possessing the vision and the faculty
divine, might well embody some of the deepest, nay, truest feel¬
ings. The strongest patriotism, the greatest command of his
native tongue, might be exhibited by a man apparently adopt¬
ing all the habits and notions of a Greek. Under the guise of
Epicurism, he might express a religious desire for a deliverance
250
SOMAN PHILOSOPHY.
from the tyranny of powers whom he could not love ; the Demo-
critic concourse of atoms might convey to him his first notion
of any scheme or order in the universe: and such a poem might
well become national, for it would express the very state of mind
of the age in which it was produced as reflected in the person of
the most genius ; it would bring out the whole nature of the
union which was effected in that age between Greek speculation
and Roman life ; would show how the latter really asserted its
dominion over the beggarly materials with which it had to work.
4. We have no excuse for dwelling at any length upon this
noble poem, both because it is so well known, and because the
illustration which it gives of Roman feeling at this crisis is the
chief light which it throws upon the history of philosophy. In
reference to that point, however, we would suggest two re¬
flections to our reader. The first relates to a marked difference
between the poet and his master. Epicurus, as we have seen,
valued himself mainly upon the moral or human part of his sys¬
tem : the physical, which he borrowed from Democritus, was
adopted only as a resource. Lucretius, on the contrary, at once
fixed upon the atomic theory as the central part of his philoso¬
phy. Nothing can illustrate more strikingly the difference
between them. How to find an excuse for a voluptuous and
indolent temper, whether it were a sensual one or not—how to
arrange the world in conformity with it—was the problem pro¬
posed to himself by the Greek; to recognise some ^ind of
principle and connection in things was the delight of the Ro¬
man. Such being their repective impulses, we may fairly say,
that Lucretius was in spirit further removed from Epicurus than
either Zeno or Chrysippus. Another obvious peculiarity of
Lucretius illustrates a remark which has been made already.
He has evidently the greatest craving for an order in the phy¬
sical world; but he does not feel the least necessary connection
between it and the Nous which Anaxagoras spoke of. He can
more readily regard it as the result of a concurrence of atoms.
Lucretius wanted a Moral Ruler ; not finding one he became an
Atheist. Has the Atheism of any Latin been ever removed by
the mere acknowledgment of a skilful Designer or Demiurgus ?
SECTION IV.
THE EOMAN STOIC.
embrace*0 ^ there were some of a more adventurous genius, who
stoicism, fled ex face Romuli to the study of the laws of the material uni¬
verse, there were many more who found their great relief in
contemplating the severe forms of the elder Romans ; who
either saw in the records of their country, or created out of the
materials which they furnished, men of a stately character to
whom wealth was indifl'erent, loving their country above all
THE PROPER ROMAN PHILOSOPHY.
251
things, ready to sacrifice themselves, or whatever was dearest
to them, for its sake. Between such simple men and the stiff
solemn conscious Stoic a whole heaven would seem to intervene.
Yet there was enough of external resemblance in the two char
racters to deceive those who felt that they wanted some know¬
ledge which their fathers had not, who were unwillingly half
ashamed of their old ignorance, and half afraid lest their new
philosophy should weaken their admiration and their patriotism.
To be taught how they might upon rule and principle be that
which their ancestors had been from some unattainable instinct
—to be taught how they might be only better and more con¬
sistent Romans for this Greek infusion—was most soothing and
satisfactory.
2. That such feelings existed we have abundant evidence; cat0 and
but they did not, like the thoughts of the great Epicurean, find Rrutus.
their principal expression in words. The lives of Cato and
Brutus—the one more formal and severe, as of a person who felt
that he was trying to support a character, the other more genial
and free, like one who had really caught the spirit of the olden
time,—both Roman aristocrats at heart, however they might
speak the language of the schools—these are the true utterances
of Roman stoicism, which have thrown a splendour around
the doctrine that it could never have obtained either from its
first teachers, or from Seneca and the rhetoricians who after¬
wards talked of it in Latin.
section y.
THE PROPER ROMAN PHILOSOPHY.
1. Thus far we have seen the Romans only translating into
living words or living acts the dead formulas of the Greek
schools. But Rome was also to have a formal philosophy of its
own ; if not to make any new discoveries or to follow any course
of thought which had not been previously marked out, at least
to give a dignity to one particular department of thought,
which, in the minds of even the greatest Greeks, had obtained
only a secondary importance. We have spoken of Cicero as an Cicero.
Academic ; and doubtless there was much in his character, in
his political career, and in his rhetorical habits, which might
have led us to predict that this was the sect to which he would
be most naturally drawn. He appears to have had a singular
equitable, balancing, compromising nature. The circum¬
stances of his age, the utter impossibility of adhering with
steadiness to any one party, when parties were so constantly
shifting their ground ; his conscientious unwillingness not to
take some part in political life, or to set up any immutable,
unattainable standard for those who were engaged in it, con¬
firmed all his original tendencies ; the profession of an advocate
252
HOMAH PHILOSOPHY.
riveted and perfected them. Though certainly not the person
to be fixed upon as exemplifying the highest form of the Roman
character, he had in a remarkable degree the Roman tempera¬
ment, and he seems especially formed to show us what the in¬
tellect of his nation was when at its greatest natural stretch,
not raised by some extraordinary impulse of genius or devotion
above itself. On this account it is that his letters, speeches,
and dialogues, present so perfect an image of his own age, and
that some have thought a history of Rome might have been
composed from them, if all other monuments were lost,
preferred ^ must be observed, that merely practical wisdom is
the not able to express and embody itself in words till it has been
Academy. mixedwith an apparently incongruous element. If Cicero had not
studied Greek philosophy, and been, so far as an accomplished
scholar and statesman can be so, a pedant, he would not have
enabled us to understand himself or his countrymen as he has
done. His philosophy was unquestionably important to him
and to us; still it is amusing to hear him speak as if his habits
of mind had been in any considerable degree moulded by its
influence, when it is evident that they were wrought into him by
the influence of old forms and institutions, by the circumstances
of his country, and the tone of the men who surrounded him.
These determined the system of philosophy which he took
under his patronage. He found the Academics treating philo¬
sophical questions in the same manner and with the same fair¬
ness as prosecutor and defendant were treated in the Roman
courts : arriving at no settlement, as he could arrive at none in
the disputes of factions, yet inclining to established notions in
opposition to the dogmatical denials of the Epicurean, and to a
moderate behaviour accommodated to circumstances, in opposition
to the fixed rule of the Stoic, he was therefore irresistibly pre¬
possessed in favour of their views.
Suffered 3. But that which gave those views favour in the mind of the
from his Greek was their fitness for talk—a talk which might be carried
teachers. on for ever witii0Ut the least reference to life. That which en¬
deared them to the Roman was their apparent suitableness for
practice, their seeming to show the very point where the lines
of philosophy and practice intersect each other. This was the
point at which he was aiming; aud in his own speculations,
however they may seem to be merely derived from the Acade¬
mics, he is continually bringing it before us. If there was one
feeling in which the Greek Academician was utterly deficient,
it was the feeling of Duty, the feeling that there is a work which
a man is sent into the world to do. This feeling is wanting in
all the sects: each was framing a scheme of life, or aiming at
some ideal of excellence ; none was acknowledging a vocation.
It would be very unjust to say that the sense of duty was absent
THE PROPER ROMAN PHILOSOPHY.
253
from the minds of Plato and Aristotle ; they had it unquestion¬
ably, or they would not have been what they were, or have done
what they did. But it is true that it was not the prominent
characteristic in either of them, or in any Greek. On the other
hand, this feeling is the one which gives all the meaning and
interest to the works of Cicero. You can always see that he is
impatient of any subject which he does not think has a direct bear¬
ing upon human life ; that when he writes upon such subjects, he
has only the use of his left hand; that they never do really
affect him at all; that he has no opinions upon them, and does
not care to have any. He will, therefore, retail the opinions of
all the philosophers so far as he knows them, or will allow some
able representative of the different sects to state the views of
each, and will seem to have no aversion to anything but the
dogmatism which each exhibits. Yet in the end you find
that he has a set of firm convictions in his mind, which have
remained undisturbed by all these controversies, and by his own
nominal scepticism. He can see nothing but a difference of
words between the Peripatetics and the Academics, and it is
quite clear that he means to extend the observation to the
original masters of those two schools. The whole subject of Not an
Being and Ideas, about which Greek philosophy in its be&t days asceptic°r
was conversant, is an unknown world to him. Plato he looks
upon chiefly as the most eloquent of men ; from Aristotle he
has gained good helps in the study of rhetoric. One cannot
discover that he cared anything about physics; logic he prized
chiefly as a mental exercise, and in all disputes about the
nature of the gods, so far as they bear upon either of these
subjects, he seems to be neutral, and, if one tried him by modern
rules, we might fancy atheistic. But ho is not so at all; he has
a much stronger belief in a Divine power, and a Divine govern¬
ment, than many whose opportunities of knowledge are infinitely
greater than his. He attained this belief without any assist¬
ance from the Greeks, and he retained it, not at all strengthened
certainly, but not materially weakened, by what he learnt
through them. Without a Divine Being there can be no sanc¬
tity, no duties, no laws ; this was the conclusion of his heart and
reason both, and he felt that it was a deeper and securer one
than any which arguments could furnish him with. This ground,
therefore, he vindicated to himself; he brought out the idea of idea <»r Duty
Moral Obligation with a distinction with which it had not obligation,
been presented before. Not that it would be easy to point out
passages in his books in which the subject is discussed amply
and satisfactorily; not that the student will not often have to
complain of much looseness in his language upon it; not that
he will not be sometimes puzzled to conceive how so much in¬
difference to absolute truth can consist with a strong sense of
254
BOMAN PHILOSOPHY.
moral duty; yet this seems to be the total effect of his books,
— the result which is left upon our minds both by their meritsand
their omissions. Though he has established nothing, he leaves
us with the conviction that something is established, and that
it is not something independent of us, but something with which
we are concerned, and in conformity with which we are bound
to act. His philosophical works, therefore, appear to have been
unjustly exalted, and as unjustly disparaged. When he is used
as an interpreter of the older Greeks—when we try to under¬
stand Plato through his means—we confer on him a station
which was never intended for him, and he will unquestionably
lead us astray. On the contrary, when we regard him merely
as the translator into eloquent Latin of what he had heard from
his teachers in Athens, we degrade him just as unfairly. His
philosophy has a substantive value; such language as his can
never be a mere clothing for other men's conceptions, though it
may not be a fitting expression for the very deepest ideas. And
it should be observed, that in those works wherein he has
adopted Plato's titles, and might seem to have followed him
most closely, as in the Laws and the Republic, he has really
drawn most upon his native resources, and established the truth
of his own words, that he had learned more from the Twelve
Tables than from all the philosophers.
a new aee 4. The sentence upon Cicero, sealed and sanctioned by the
beginning. y0UBg Octavius, was the sign that the republic had really
passed away; that a new age was beginning. What the cha¬
racter of that new age would be, how it would affect the condi¬
tion of Rome and of the universe, what questions it would settle,
to what questions it would give rise—we may have to consider
hereafter. Possibly we shall find that the answer is not to be
gained wholly or chiefly from Roman history. The youth who,
as Virgil hoped, was carried everso succurrere seeclo, did not fulfil
that task. The return of the Saturnian reign was not brought
about by the son of Pollio. When Dante spoke of his noble
predecessor as a teacher and guide in the search for wisdom, it
was mainly because he had led his hero into the invisible world,
and had suggested to his Florentine disciple the thought that
thence he must obtain his knowledge respecting the destinies
of Italy and of mankind.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ALEXANDRIAN PHILOSOPHY.
SBCTXON I.
ALEXANDRIA.
The Greek 1. Tite kingdom of the Ptolemies in Egypt was the most re-
gypt' markable result of the conquests of Alexander. This capital
ALEXANDRIA.
255
was worthy to hear his name : so much of the Greek wisdom
which he sought to make supreme in the world was gathered
there; so much of the wisdom of other people of the earth
eame thither to do it homage. There Indian sages perceived
the connection between their faith and the old Egyptian mys¬
teries. There the Persian, who had once waged war agaiust
those mysteries, might declare his own belief in the conflict of
good and evil powers. Thither came the members of a nation
which had had a much older connection with Egypt. A
powerful Jewish colony established itself in Egypt; in Egypt
the Jews had even a temple. At the command of an Egyptian
monarch the Jewish scriptures were translated into Greek.
2. Thus the country in which we find the first beginnings of u**>cc
civilization, and perhaps also of speculation, was appointed to there°Ug "
receive into itself different streams of thought, which bad been
running, in various directions, during all the period between
the birth of Moses and the birth of our Lord. Was it possible
that these streams should really mingle ? Could it be at all
ascertained which had descended from the highest ground ?
To what river the rest were tributary ?
3. The Gymnosophist or Brahmin was a subject of curious Feebleness
speculation to the observers and geographers of Greece; but, of each'
except in the case of Pyrrho, there is no instance of any effect
upon Greek thought and speculation proceeding from him. The
dualism of the Persians had actually entered largely and practi¬
cally into the thoughts of Socrates and his great disciple.
Neither in its own native form, nor in any other, was it likely
to affect the minds of men who had ceased to feel there was a
conflict in themselves—who merely discoursed and criticised.
The Egyptian animal worship had become too gross for any
symbolism. If symbolism took no form but that, it would only
affect Greeks with disgust. None of these different doctrines
then could subdue the Greek mind to itself, or even change its
direction. And, certainly, the teachers of Alexandria could as
little interpiet the faith of any people of the East or West^
They knew nothing really of Plato or Aristotle; they could
comment upon them ably; they had never thought or felt with
them at all.
4. In time another element was added to those which the The Roman
patronage of the Ptolemies had collected. The Boman appeared coniiueror
on the Egyptian soil; Egypt became a Boman province. A
sufficient proof seemed to be afforded by this fact, that there
was something stronger in the world than Greek subtilty.
5. Yet here, as elsewhere, the Boman conqueror did homage submit* to
to tbe Greek slave. No countryman of Cicero would have dared the 0reek*
to express his thoughts or conceptions in an Alexandrian
school which the legions of his country protected or overawed.
25G
the jewish philosophy.
However conscious he might be of a capacity in government,
which was utterly unknown to the Greek of any age, he could
yet feel that the Greeks of the lowest age had in this depart¬
ment of philosophy a right to be his masters and dictators.
Nowhere less than in Egypt were his maxims respecting duty
and obedience likely to be heeded. Among all the motley
classes which composed the population of Alexandria, there
were scarcely any but the Roman soldiers upon whom they
would make the slightest impression.
The Jew. 6. Among all those who visited the city of the Ptolemies the
Jew is perhaps the last in whom men generally would expect
to find an expounder or reconciler of the thoughts which had
possessed or disturbed the minds of other people. "Was he not
prevented from his very calling and position from meddling
with the words and acts of the uncireumcised ? Was he not
bound especially to regard their search after wisdom as profane
and dangerous ? Did not the Divine lore which he had received
exclude and condemn all other? We have partly consi¬
dered these questions already, so far as the principle of them is
concerned ; we have now to consider what answer facts return
to them.
SECTION II.
THE JEWISH PHILOSOPHY.
Ecciesias- 1. The books which we call apocryphal, with the exception
Wisdom of6 °f two books of Maccabees, contain little that is interesting
Solomon, or valuable as history. The books of Ecclesiasticus and the
Wisdom of Solomon are in the strict and formal sense of the
word philosophical. Amidst much that seems to most AVestern
readers trivial and inflated, the passages which speak of AVisdom
as a teacher, of AVisdom as an object of passionate love, of
Wisdom as that for which all things else are to be sacrificed,
possess a beauty which every one confesses. The fervour of
these passages has been caught in a study of those which belong
really to the age of Solomon ; they are commentaries upon his
writings, but not mere commentaries; the writer was not a
book student only or chiefly; he has himself pursued wisdom,
and lived under her discipline. There is a devout recognition
of the sacredness of Jewish history in these books. The Divine
Ruler of the nation is looked upon as the Ruler of the spirit of
each individual man ; every fact in the revelation is treasured up
as needful for the education and meditation of the seeker for
wisdom. And yet it is not only the language which separates
these books from the Scriptures, and connects them ith Greek
Phiio, bom thought; there is a Platonic character about them, such as we
about oa not mee^ iQ Cicero, or even in Cicero's groat pupil.
b.c. zO. Intellectual y the son of Sirach, whoever he may have been.
T1IE JEWISH PHILOSOPHY.
257
was beyond measure inferior to Aristotle or to Cicero, yet we can¬
not help believing that Plato would have sympathised with him
more than with them,and have found him capable of apprehending
positions which all their intimate acquaintance with the technical
phraseology of the schools could not have enabled them to mast er.
2. "When these apocryphal books were written, the Jew, how- pbiio.
ever, had probably not claimed his connection with the philoso¬
phers of G reece and of the world. About the beginning of the
Christian era, a Jew was teaching in Alexandria, who, while he
retained the profoundest reverence for the Divine oracles of his
country, acknowledged the Indian Gyumosophist, the Greek phi¬
losopher, the Egyptian symbolizer,as having received wisdom from
the Source of wisdom, as having been led, so far as they were led,
out of the pursuit of visible and sensible things, by One who is
seeking to bring man's spirit into communion with Himself.
3. There are few particulars known respecting the early life Hismeir'ai
of Philo, this Alexandrian Jew. His own narrative of his em- h,story
bassy to Caligula, for the purpose of representing the state of
his countrymen in Egypt, is a curious document both for
Roman and Jewish history, but it throws no light upon his own
life, except so far that it shows that when a very old man he
retained his patriotic sympathies, had not destroyed his practical
powers by speculation, and possessed to a great degree the
confidence of his Jewish fellow-citizens. What else is known
of Philo must be gathered from his books; those books which
exercised so great an influence over the early Christian church,
and which have procured him the name of the Theosopher.
4. An examination of the meaning of this word will be the An admirer
best help to the explanation of the writings which have es- philosophy,
tablished his claim to it. The word philosopher is of continual
recurrence in Philo's writings. He speaks of the lover and
pursuer of wisdom as the spiritual or divine man; who has
quitted the downward path, and is seeking his proper object.
But the seeker of wisdom is also the seeker of God. Wisdom
is not an aggregate of conclusions; it is not the human soul,
it is not a something diffused through all things; it is the
I Am who spoke to Moses in the bush—the Instructor and
Inspirer of all the prophets—He who gave the law on Sinai.
5. Philo confessed, as any Jew must, an absolute Being ; one The Divine
dwelling in light which no man hath seen or can see. How such Word*
a Being should converse with man, how there could be sympathy
between Him and a creature, was the wonder of the Hebrew
psalmist and prophet. But he believed while he wondered.
Philo saw that such an intercourse was as much implied in all
the Hebrew records; as much implied in the nature of God
Himself as His self-existence and self-concentration. The two
VOL. I. s
258
TLIE ALEXANDRIAN PHILOSOPHY.
truths could not be reconciled in a theory. A Divine "Word, a
Logos, speaking to the mind and spirit which was opened to
hear the voice, was, Philo thought, the reconciliation. Such a
speaker he traced in all the most obvious and minute expressions
of the divine book, in all the steps of the Hebrew history.
Th<» teacher 6. It is this principle, worked out through all the Scripture
of men. narratives, which constitutes the peculiarity of Philo's writings.
This is his philosophy or theosophy. On this ground he can
contemplate with interest the Brahminical aspirations after ab¬
sorption in the divine essence; the struggles of men to know
the divine, the beautiful, the good ; their eagerness to escape
from sensual defilements and the prison-house of the body;
their sense of moral obligation ; their mythological or natural
allegories. The path of sensuality and darkness is that which
most men tread ; a few have been led along the upward path ;
a few in all countries and generations have been wisdom-seekers,
or seekers of God ; they have been so because the Divine Word
or Wisdom has looked upon them, choosing them for the know¬
ledge and service of Himself.
Philo's great 7. From the hints which we threw out when we left the
D,ent!>" Jewish Prophets to enter upon the wide field of Gentile specu¬
lation, it may be fancied that we shall gladly rest in Alexandrian
theosophy as the end and consummation of our inquiries. We
spoke of the Divine Word who had taught the prophets as the
one source from which, as they and we believe, all illumination
proceeded. Philo, holding that faith, has discovered a standing
point, from which he can regard with affectionate sympathy a
number of earnest thoughts which have occupied the hearts of
men in different ages. He has escaped the temptation of sup¬
posing that any general theory or system can unite these
thoughts ; from the temptation, that is to say, of killing them,
that he may harmonise them. He has told us what the phi¬
losopher is pursuing, and who is guiding him in the pursuit.
But there are several serious questions to be asked before we
cau give ourselves up to the hopes which the Alexandrian
teacher seems to hold out. What has he done to explain the
great puzzle of the Bhagavad Gita—how practical life can be
reconciled with the life of the Brahminical sage ? What link is
there between his mysticism and the dry business-like reflections
of Khoung-fou-tseu ? What one step has he taken towards
solving the problem of Plato's republic ? If the Aristotelian
" theory" is abundantly honoured in his books, what hint is
there which cau explain Aristotle's assertion that politics is
the architectonical science, or can bring his reverence for human
relationships into consent with the communism of his master ?
If the Roman sense of duty meets with some respect from the
Alexandrian, how can he enable any Roman to understand his
THE JEWISH PHILOSOPHY.
259
feeling, that a divine power had been building up his city for
generations; to foretell whether the battle of Actium and the
death of the Egyptian queen would be the means of restoring
or destroying its order ; to guess whether Augustus, or some
ruler of quite a different kind, would be the founder of a uni¬
versal kingdom in which freemen could dwell ?
8. On all these points Philo is silent. The meditations of phiio'sirr«it
the philosopher or theosopher are everything to him ; the con- deficiencies,
dition of the universe, except as it consists of philosophers or
theosophers, nothing. He cannot, therefore, satisfy the demands
of philosophy, for that in its highest, as well as its humblest
form, is occupied with questions, not about itself, nor about the
class which professes it, but about nature, man, God. Did this
incapacity arise from his adhering too closely to his own records ?
They speak from first to last of a polity ; they describe the
gradual growth of one under Divine superintendence, out of a
single family. Of this growth Philo sees nothing. The shep¬
herd life of Abraham—the acts of Moses and Joshua—are
nothing, except as tbey suggest divine allegories, from which
the theosopher may derive nourishment. Is it not possible,
then, that he failed to explain Plato, and the teachers of the old
world, precisely because he had not a sufficiently simple appre¬
hension of the books which he studied so profoundly, and
admired so earnestly, and in which he thought that he could
find the essence of all philosophy ?
1. A society arose in the days of Philo which said that it was A Jew
the expansion and fulfilment of the polity, the beginnings of foruXwric
which are recorded in the Hebrew histories. A teacher who 1,1,11 ty
had lately become one of the officers in that society, was accused mUie'6
by a synagogue of the Alexandrians, before the High Priest and (,<,tv1^n,'on
Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, of speaking blasphemous words against ai.solute
the temple and the law,—of saying that One was come who U€1"R-
would change the customs which Moses had delivered. He
defended himself, not by interpreting the story in an allegorical
sense, but by showing in a plain narrative how in each period
there had been a fresh unfolding of a divine kingdom, through
human agents,—how each period assumed and made necessary
the manifestation of One who should prove its foundation to be
actually divine and actually human. That witness was stoned,
as those who spoke like him in former days had been.
2. Another Jew, who was present at his death and took part a Jew
in it, shortly after incurred the hatred of his countrymen by
• • 11 • • /> r\ l -n i l 1* mi ihl* Sf.llVD Of
inviting heathen citizens of Corinth, ot Dphesus, and ot Ihessa- utier
lonica, to become members of the society which had begun in wiUuid'vuie
Palestine, and which at first had only included circumcised men. iwuum
Hi* disciples at Corinth were full of the Greek passion for Fu3u"'
260
THE ALEXANDRIAN PHILOSOPHY.
wisdom ; they fancied that he and an Alexandrian teacher were
rival sophists, each desirous to palm his own doctrine or theory
upon them, and to bind them together in a sect called after
their name. He told them that that teacher and himself had
come to proclaim a hidden and divine wisdom, but a wisdom
which had shone forth in weakness, of which the only perfect
manifestation was in a Man who had been crucified. He told
them that their fellowship included the weakest, the most
ignorant, the most evil; that the members of it formed one
body in one Head, and that whoever sought to divide them, or
boasted of some wisdom of his own, was their enemy and
destroyer. He told the people of the city in which Heraclitus
had dwelt, that all spiritual blessings were theirs,—all the
mysteries of divine knowledge ; and yet that they were com¬
posed of all the kindreds and tribes of the earth, the invisible
and the visible worlds being reconciled in Him who anited
divine glory with human nothingness. At Jerusalem he said
that this divine society was the flower and consummation of that
which their fathers had possessed,—of that which had begun in
Abraham's tent. Finally, to the Jews and Gentiles of Home he
asserted the worth of outward law, because it made men con¬
scious of internal evil,—because it made them realize the opposi¬
tion between the flesh, which flies from what is right and true, and
the spirit, which desires but cannot attain—because it drives man
to seek a righteousness above his own, which condemns his evil
nature, justifies and satisfies the cravings of his inner man.
rpr.inri!eror an Galiltean fisherman, living in the country
tiu-oid and where Greek philosophy began, proclaimed the reconciliation
the New. 0f ^hat Revelation which had been from the beginning, with the
Light which had shined afresh upon the world, declared that the
Word was with God and was God; that in Him was Life, and the
Life was theLight of men; uttered a divine Name which expressed
The Being and The Unity; saw a city descending out of
heaven, of which this Unity was the centre and the ground.
4. There are some readers who fancy that ancient and modern
history are divided by the so-called fall of the Western Empire.
The historian of philosophy cannot adopt their arrangement.
The poiut at which we arrived is the one at which the curtain falls
on the speculations of the old world. When it rises again we shali
find a set of new actors, occupied with questions closely connected
with all which we have been considering, but in many important
respects different from them. A new element we shall find has
been infused into the minds of Pagans and Jews, as well as of
Christians. If we agree with Philo that the speculations of men
in the ages before Christ were under the guidance of a Teacher
who knew what was in man, we need not fear to enter upon the
more complicated and embarrassing inquiries of the later time.
IMPORTANT WORKS Febniai7'1855'
Jti Science anil ©encral Citeratnrc,
PUBLISHED BY
RICHARD GRIFFIN AND COMPANY,
Publishers to the University op Glasgow,
5 Warwick Square,
PATERNOSTER ROW,
LONDON.
BUCHANAN-STREET,
GLASGOW.
Arts and Manufactures.
Book of Trades. -----
Encyclopaedia of Pino Arts,
©lassifieti Snbex.
Miscellaneous—continued.
Groat Speeches of tho Groat Statesmen, - Page 6
Phillips's Metallurgy.
— Troatiso on Oold-Mining.
Biography, History, and Antiquities.
ncient History-
unpWU'a Naval History. -
brenolygical Tables. - - ...
raphy, -
graphy. -
tern Religious Biography, -
l«ry.
»1 History, -
Kadie » Oriei
Ecclesiastical Hist .
Hale's History of tho Jews, ...
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