Chapter VIII

THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.

PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.

SENSATIONAL: THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER--LEUCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.

"Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered Paul."--Acts xvii. 18.

"Plato affirms that this is the most just cause of the creation of the world, that works which are good should be wrought by the God who is good; whether he had read these things in the Bible, or whether by his penetrating genius he beheld the invisible things of God as understood by the things which are made"--ST. AUGUSTINE, "De Civ. Dei," lib. xi. ch. 21.

Philosophy is, then, the world-enduring monument of the greatness and the glory of Athens. Whilst Greece will be forever memorable as "the country of wisdom and of wise men," Athens will always be pre-eminently memorable as the University of Greece. This was the home of Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle--the three imperial names which, for twenty centuries, reigned supreme in the world of philosophic thought. Here schools of philosophy were founded to which students were attracted from every part of the civilized world, and by which an impulse and a direction was given to human thought in every land and in every age. Standing on the Acropolis at Athens, and looking over the city and the open country, the Apostle would see these places which are inseparably associated with the names of the men who have always been recognized as the great teachers of the pagan world, and who have also exerted a powerful influence upon Christian minds of every age. "In opposite directions he would see the suburbs where Plato and Aristotle, the two pupils of Socrates, held their illustrious schools. The streamless bed of the Ilissus passes between the Acropolis and Hymettus in a south-westerly direction, until it vanishes in the low ground which separates the city from the Piræus." Looking towards the upper part of this channel, Paul would see gardens of plane-trees and thickets of angus-castus, "with other torrent-loving shrubs of Greece." Near the base of Lycabettus was a sacred inclosure which Pericles had ornamented with fountains. Here stood a statue of Apollo Lycius, which gave the name to the Lyceum. Here, among the plane-trees, Aristotle walked, and, as he walked, taught his disciples. Hence the name Peripatetics (the Walkers), which has always designated the disciples of the Stagirite philosopher.

On the opposite side of the city, the most beautiful of the Athenian suburbs, we have the scene of Plato's teaching. Beyond the outer Ceramicus, which was crowded with the sepulchres of those Athenians who had fallen in battle, and were buried at the public expense, the eye of Paul would rest on the favored stream of the Cephisus, flowing towards the west. On the banks of this stream the Academy was situated. A wall, built at great expense by Hipparchus, surrounded it, and Cimon planted long avenues of trees and erected fountains. Beneath the plane-trees which shaded the numerous walks there assembled the master-spirits of the age. This was the favorite resort of poets and philosophers. Here the divine spirit of Plato poured forth its sublimest speculations in streams of matchless eloquence; and here he founded a school which was destined to exert a powerful and perennial influence on human minds and hearts in all coming time.

These preliminary considerations will have prepared the way for, and awakened in our minds a profound interest in, the inquiry--1st. What permanent results has Greek philosophy bequeathed to the world? 2d. In what manner did Greek philosophy fulfill for Christianity a propœdeutic office?

It will at once be obvious, even to those who are least conversant with our theme, that it would be fruitless to attempt the answer to these important questions before we have made a careful survey of the entire history of philosophic thought in Greece. We must have a clear and definite conception of the problems they sought to solve, and we must comprehend their methods of inquiry, before we can hope to appreciate the results they reached, or determine whether they did arrive at any definite and valuable conclusions. It will, therefore, devolve upon us to present a brief and yet comprehensive epitome of the history of Grecian speculative thought.

"Philosophy," says Cousin, "is reflection, and nothing else than reflection, in a vast form"--"Reflection elevated to the rank and authority of a method." It is the mind looking back upon its own sensations, perceptions, cognitions, ideas, and from thence to the causes of these sensations, cognitions, and ideas. It is thought passing beyond the simple perceptions of things, beyond the mere spontaneous operations of the mind in the cognition of things to seek the ground, and reason, and law of things. It is the effort of reason to solve the great problem of "Being and Becoming," of appearance and reality, of the changeful and the permanent. Beneath the endless diversity of the universe, of existence and action, there must be a principle of unity; below all fleeting appearances there must be a permanent substance; beyond this everlasting flow and change, this beginning and ending of finite existence, there must be an eternal being, the source and cause of all we see and know, What is that principle of unity, that permanent substance, or principle, or being?

This fundamental question has assumed three separate forms or aspects in the history of philosophy. These forms have been determined by the objective phenomena which most immediately arrested and engaged the attention of men. If external nature has been the chief object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been, What is the ἀρχή--the beginning; what are the first principles--the elements from which, the ideas or laws according to which, the efficient cause or energy by which, and the reason or end for which the universe exists? During this period reflective thought was a PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. If the phenomena of mind--the opinions, beliefs, judgments of men--are the chief object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been, What are the fundamental Ideas which are unchangeable and permanent amid all the diversities of human opinions, connecting appearance with reality, and constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth? Reflective thought is now a PHILOSOPHY OF IDEAS. Then, lastly, if the practical activities of life and the means of well-being be the grand object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been, What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of human conduct, we may determine what is right and good in individual, social, and political life? And now reflective thought is a PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. These are the grand problems with which philosophy has grappled ever since the dawn of reflection. They all appear in Greek philosophy, and have a marked chronology. As systems they succeed each other, just as rigorously as the phenomena of Greek civilization. The Greek schools of philosophy have been classified from various points of view. In view of their geographical relations, they have been divided into the Ionian, the Italian, the Eleatic, the Athenian, and the Alexandrian. In view of their prevailing spirit and tendency, they have been classified by Cousin as the Sensational, the Idealistic, the Skeptical, and the Mystical. The most natural and obvious method is that which (regarding Socrates as the father of Greek philosophy in the truest sense) arranges all schools from the Socratic stand point, and therefore in the chronological order of development:

The history of philosophy is thus divided into three grand epochs. The first reaching from Thales to the time of Socrates (B.C. 639-469): the second from the birth of Socrates to the death of Aristotle (B.C. 469-322); the third from the death of Aristotle to the Christian era (B.C. 322, A.D. 1). Greek philosophy during the first period was almost exclusively a philosophy of nature; during the second period, a philosophy of mind; during the last period, a philosophy of life. Nature, man, and society complete the circle of thought. Successive systems, of course, overlap each other, both in the order of time and as subjects of human speculation; and the results of one epoch of thought are transmitted to and appropriated by another; but, in a general sense, the order of succession has been very much as here indicated. Setting aside minor schools and merely incidental discussions, and fixing our attention on the general aspects of each historic period, we shall discover that the first period was eminently Physical, the second Psychological, the last Ethical. Every stage of progress which reason, on à priori grounds, would suggest as the natural order of thought, or of which the development of an individual mind would furnish an analogy, had a corresponding realization in the development of Grecian thought from the time of Thales to the Christian era. "Thought," says Cousin, "in the first trial of its strength is drawn without." The first object which engages the attention of the child is the outer world. He asks the "how" and "why" of all he sees. His reason urges him to seek an explanation of the universe. So it was in the childhood of philosophy. The first essays of human thought were, almost without exception, discourses περὶ φύσεως (De rerum natura), of the nature of things. Then the rebound of baffled reason from the impenetrable bulwarks of the universe drove the mind back upon itself. If the youth can not interpret nature, he can at least "know himself," and find within himself the ground and reason of all existence. There are "ideas" in the human mind which are copies of those "archetypal ideas" which dwell in the Creative Mind, and after which the universe was built. If by "analysis" and "definition" these universal notions can be distinguished from that which is particular and contingent in the aggregate of human knowledge, then so much of eternal truth has been attained. The achievements of philosophic thought in this direction, during the Socratic age, have marked it as the most brilliant period in the history of philosophy--the period of its youthful vigor. Deeply immersed in the practical concerns and conflicts of public life, manhood is mainly occupied with questions of personal duty, and individual and social well-being. And so, during the hopeless turmoil of civil disturbance which marked the decline of national greatness in Grecian history, philosophy was chiefly occupied with questions of personal interest and personal happiness. The poetic enthusiasm with which a nobler age had longed for truth, and sought it as the highest good, has all disappeared, and now one sect seeks refuge from the storms and agitations of the age in Stoical indifference, the other in Epicurean effeminacy.

If now we have succeeded in presenting the real problem of philosophy, it will at once be obvious that the inquiry was not, in any proper sense, theological. Speculative thought, during the period we have marked as the era of Greek philosophy, was not an inquiry concerning the existence or nature of God, or concerning the relations of man to God, or the duties which man owes to God. These questions were all remitted to the theologian. There was a clear line of demarkation separating the domains of religion and philosophy. Religion rested solely on authority, and appealed to the instinctive faith of the human heart. She permitted no encroachment upon her settled usages, and no questioning of her ancient beliefs. Philosophy rested on reason alone. It was an independent effort of thought to interpret nature, and attain the fundamental grounds of human knowledge--to find an ἀρχή--a first principle, which, being assumed, should furnish a rational explanation of all existence. If philosophy reach the conclusion that the άρχή was water, or air, or fire, or a chaotic mixture of all the elements or atoms, extended and self-moved, or monads, or τὸ πᾶν, or uncreated mind, and that conclusion harmonized with the ancient standards of religious faith--well; if not, philosophy must present some method of conciliation. The conflicts of faith and reason; the stragglings of traditional authority to maintain supremacy; the accommodations and conciliations attempted in those primitive times, would furnish a chapter of peculiar interest, could it now be written.

Let us not, therefore, be too hasty in representing the early philosophers as destitute of the idea of a God, because in the imperfect and fragmentary representations which are given us of the philosophical opinions of Thales, and Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, we find no explicit allusions to the Uncreated Mind as the first principle and cause of all. A few sentences will comprehend the whole of what remains of the opinions of the earliest philosophers, and these were transmitted for ages by oral tradition. To Plato and Aristotle we are chiefly indebted for a stereotype of those scattered, fragmentary sentences which came to their hands through the dim and distorting medium of more than two centuries. Surely no one imagines these few sentences contain and sum up the results of a lifetime of earnest thought, or represent all the opinions and beliefs of the earliest philosophers! And should we find therein no recognition of a personal God, would it not be most unfair and illogical to assert that they were utterly ignorant of a God, or wickedly denied his being? If they say "there is no God," then they are foolish Atheists; if they are silent on that subject, we have a right to assume they were Theists, for it is most natural to believe in God. And yet it has been quite customary for Christian teachers, after the manner of some Patristic writers, to deny to those early sages the smallest glimpse of underived and independent knowledge of a Divine Being, in their zeal to assert for the Sacred Scriptures the exclusive prerogative of revealing Him.

"Whose body nature is, and God the soul."

So much being premised, we proceed to consider the efforts and the results of philosophic thought in

THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.

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

It would be extremely difficult, at this remote period, to estimate the influence which geographical conditions and ethnical relations exerted in determining the course of philosophic thought in these schools. Unquestionably those conditions contributed somewhat towards fixing their individuality. At the same time, it must be granted that the distinction in these two schools of philosophy is of a deeper character than can be represented or explained by geographical surroundings; it is a distinction reaching to the very foundation of their habits of thought. These schools represent two distinct aspects of philosophic thought, two distinct methods in which the human mind has essayed to solve the problem of the universe.

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

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

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

I. The Ionian or Physical School.--We have premised that the philosophers of this school attempted the explanation of the universe by physical analogies.

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

Heraclitus was the first to proclaim the doctrine of the perpetual fluxion of the universe (τὸ ῥέον, τὸ γιγνόµενον--Unrest and Development), the endless changes of matter, and the mutability and perishability of all individual things. This restless, changing flow of things, which never are, but always are becoming, he pronounced to be the One and the All.

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

With Heraclitus we close our survey of that sect of the physical school which regarded the world as a living organism.

The second subdivision of the physical school, the Mechanical or Atomist theorists, attempted the explanation of the universe by analogies derived from mechanical collocations, arrangements, and movements. The universe was regarded by them as a vast superstructure built up from elemental particles, aggregated by some inherent force or mutual affinity.

Anaximander of Miletus (born B.C. 610) we place at the head of the Mechanical sect of the Ionian school; first, on the authority of Aristotle, who intimates that the philosophic dogmata of Anaximander "resemble those of Democritus," who was certainly an Atomist; and, secondly, because we can clearly trace a genetic connection between the opinions of Democritus and Leucippus and those of Anaximander.

The ἀρχή, or first principle of Anaximander, was τὸ ἄπειρον, the boundless, the illimitable, the infinite. Some historians of philosophy have imagined that the infinite of Anaximander was the "unlimited all," and have therefore placed him at the head of the Italian or "idealistic school." These writers are manifestly in error. Anaximander was unquestionably a sensationalist. Whatever his "infinite" may be found to be, one thing is clear, it was not a "metaphysical infinite"--it did not include infinite power, much less infinite mind.

Thus by Democritus was laid the basis of a system of absolute materialism, which was elaborated and completed by Epicurus, and has been transmitted to our times. It has undergone some slight modifications, adapting it to the progress of physical science; but it is to-day substantially the theory of Democritus. In Democritus we have the culmination of the mechanical theory of the Ionian or Physical school. In physics and psychology it terminated in pure materialism. In theology it ends in positive Atheism.

The fundamental error of all the philosophers of the physical school was the assumption, tacitly or avowedly, that sense-perception is the only source of knowledge. This was the fruitful source of all their erroneous conclusions, the parent of all their materialistic tendencies. This led them continually to seek an ἀρχή, or first principle of the universe, which should, under some form, be appreciable to sense; and consequently the course of thought tended naturally towards materialism.

Thales was unquestionably a dualist. Instructed by traditional intimations, or more probably guided by the spontaneous apperceptions of reason, he recognized, with more or less distinctness, an incorporeal Deity as the moving, animating, and organizing cause of the universe. The idea of God is a truth so self-evident as to need no demonstration. The human mind does not attain to the idea of a God as the last consequence of a series of antecedent principles. It comes at once, by an inherent and necessary movement of thought, to the recognition of God as the First Principle of all principles. But when, instead of hearkening to the simple and spontaneous intuitions of the mind, man turns to the world of sense, and loses himself in discursive thought, the conviction of a personal God becomes obscured. Then, amid the endlessly diversified phenomena of the universe, he seeks for a cause or origin which in some form shall be appreciable to sense. The mere study of material phenomena, scientifically or unscientifically conducted, will never yield the sense of the living God. Nature must be interpreted, can only be interpreted in the light of certain à priori principles of reason, or we can never "ascend from nature up to nature's God." Within the circle of mere sense-perception, the dim and undeveloped consciousness of God will be confounded with the universe. Thus, in Anaximenes, God is partially confounded with "air," which becomes a symbol; then a vehicle of the informing mind; and the result is a semi-pantheism. In Heraclitus, the "ether" is, at first, a semi-symbol of the Deity; at length, God is utterly confounded with this ether, or "rational fire," and the result is a definite materialistic pantheism. And, finally, when this feeling or dim consciousness of God, which dwells in all human souls, is not only disregarded, but pronounced to be an illusion--a phantasy; when all the analogies which intelligence suggests are disregarded, and a purely mechanical theory of the universe is adopted, the result is the utter negation of an Intelligent Cause, that is, absolute Atheism, as in Leucippus and Democritus.