Chapter III · * OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

CHAPTER III.*

Having dwelt at some length on the life and compositions of Plato, I now proceed to place in comparison with him some other members of the Sokratic philosophical family: less eminent, indeed, than the illustrious author of the Republic, yet still men of marked character, ability, and influence.1 Respecting one of the brethren, Xenophon, who stands next to Plato in celebrity, I shall say a few words separately in my next and concluding chapter.

Influence exercised by Sokrates over his companions.

The ascendancy of Sokrates over his contemporaries was powerfully exercised in more than one way. He brought into vogue new subjects both of indefinite amplitude, and familiar as well as interesting to every one. On these subjects, moreover, he introduced, or at least popularised, a new method of communication, whereby the relation of teacher and learner, implying a direct transfer of ready-made knowledge from the one to the other, was put aside. He substituted an interrogatory process, at once destructive and suggestive, in which the teacher began by unteaching and the learner by unlearning what was supposed to be already known, for the purpose of provoking in the learner’s mind a self-operative energy of thought, and an internal generation of new notions. Lastly, Sokrates worked forcibly upon the minds of several friends, who were in the habit of attending him when he talked in the market-place or the palæstra. Some tried to copy his wonderful knack of colloquial cross-examination: how far they did so with success or reputation we do not know: but Xenophon says that several of them would only discourse with those who paid them a fee, and that they thus sold for considerable sums what were only small fragments obtained gratuitously from the rich table of their master.2 There were moreover several who copied the general style of his colloquies by composing written dialogues. And thus it happened that the great master, — he who passed his life in the oral application of his Elenchus, without writing anything, — though he left no worthy representative in his own special career, became the father of numerous written dialogues and of a rich philosophical literature.3

Names of those companions.

Besides Plato and Xenophon, whose works are known to us, we hear of Alexamenus, Antisthenes, Æschines, Aristippus, Bryson, Eukleides, Phædon, Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, &c., as having composed dialogues of this sort. All of them were companions of Sokrates; several among them either set down what they could partially recollect of his conversations, or employed his name as a dramatic speaker of their own thoughts. Seven of these dialogues were ascribed to Æschines, twenty-five to Aristippus, seventeen to Kriton, twenty-three to Simmias, three to Kebês, six to Eukleides, four to Phædon. The compositions of Antisthenes were far more numerous: ten volumes of them, under a variety of distinct titles (some of them probably not in the form of dialogues) being recorded by Diogenes.4 Aristippus was the first of the line of philosophers called Kyrenaic or Hedonic, afterwards (with various modifications) Epikurean: Antisthenes, of the Cynics and Stoics: Eukleides, of the Megaric school. It seems that Aristippus, Antisthenes, Eukleides, and Bryson, all enjoyed considerable reputation, as contemporaries and rival authors of Plato: Æschines, Antisthenes (who was very poor), and Aristippus, are said to have received money for their lectures; Aristippus being named as the first who thus departed from the Sokratic canon.5

Æschines- — oration of Lysias against him.

Æschines the companion of Sokrates did not become (like Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus) the founder of a succession or sect of philosophers. The few fragments remaining of his dialogues do not enable us to appreciate their merit. He seems to have employed the name of Aspasia largely as a conversing personage, and to have esteemed her highly. He also spoke with great admiration of Themistokles. But in regard to present or recent characters, he stands charged with much bitterness and ill-nature: especially we learn that he denounced the Sophists Prodikus and Anaxaras, the first on the ground of having taught Theramenes, the second as the teacher of two worthless persons — Ariphrades and Arignôtus. This accusation deserves greater notice, because it illustrates the odium raised by Melêtus against Sokrates as having instructed Kritias and Alkibiades.6 Moreover, we have Æschines presented to us in another character, very unexpected in a vir Socraticus. An action for recovery of money alleged to be owing was brought in the Athenian Dikastery against Æschines, by a plaintiff, who set forth his case in a speech composed by the rhetor Lysias. In this speech it is alleged that Æschines, having engaged in trade as a preparer and seller of unguents, borrowed a sum of money at interest from the plaintiff; who affirms that he counted with assurance upon honest dealing from a disciple of Sokrates, continually engaged in talking about justice and virtue.7 But so far was this expectation from being realized, that Æschines had behaved most dishonestly. He repaid neither principal nor interest; though a judgment of the Dikastery had been obtained against him, and a branded slave belonging to him had been seized under it. Moreover, Æschines had been guilty of dishonesty equally scandalous in his dealings with many other creditors also. Furthermore, he had made love to a rich woman seventy years old, and had got possession of her property; cheating and impoverishing her family. His character as a profligate and cheat was well known and could be proved by many witnesses. Such are the allegations against Æschines, contained in the fragment of a lost speech of Lysias, and made in open court by a real plaintiff. How much of them could be fairly proved, we cannot say: but it seems plain at least that Æschines must have been a trader as well as a philosopher. All these writers on philosophy must have had their root and dealings in real life, of which we know scarce anything.

Written Sokratic Dialogues — their general character.

The dialogues known by the title of Sokratic dialogues,8 were composed by all the principal companions of Sokrates, and by many who were not companions. Yet though thus composed by many different authors, they formed a recognised class of literature, noticed by the rhetorical critics as distinguished for plain, colloquial, unstudied, dramatic execution, suiting the parts to the various speakers: from which general character Plato alone departed — and he too not in all of his dialogues. By the Sokratic authors generally Sokrates appears to have been presented under the same main features: his proclaimed confession of ignorance was seldom wanting: and the humiliation which his cross-questioning inflicted even upon insolent men like Alkibiades, was as keenly set forth by Æschines as by Plato: moreover the Sokratic disciples generally were fond of extolling the Dæmon or divining prophecy of their master.9 Some dialogues circulating under the name of some one among the companions of Sokrates, were spurious, and the authorship was a point not easy to determine. Simon, a currier at Athens, in whose shop Sokrates often conversed, is said to have kept memoranda of the conversations which he heard, and to have afterwards published them: Æschines also, and some other of the Sokratic companions, were suspected of having preserved or procured reports of the conversations of the master himself, and of having made much money after his death by delivering them before select audiences.10 Aristotle speaks of the followers of Antisthenes as unschooled, vulgar men: but Cicero appears to have read with satisfaction the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom he designates as acute though not well-instructed.11 Other accounts describe his dialogues as composed in a rhetorical style, which is ascribed to the fact of his having received lessons from Gorgias:12 and Theopompus must have held in considerable estimation the dialogues of that same author, as well as those of Aristippus and Bryson, when he accused Plato of having borrowed from them largely.13

Relations between the companions of Sokrates — Their proceedings after the death of Sokrates.

Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, were all companions and admirers of Sokrates, as was Plato. But none of them were his disciples, in the strict sense of the word: none of them continued or enforced his doctrines, though each used his name as a spokesman. During his lifetime the common attachment to his person formed a bond of union, which ceased at his death. There is indeed some ground for believing that Plato then put himself forward in the character of leader, with a view to keep the body united.14 We must recollect that Plato though then no more than twenty-eight years of age, was the only one among them who combined the advantages of a noble Athenian descent, opulent circumstances, an excellent education, and great native genius. Eukleides and Aristippus were neither of them Athenians: Antisthenes was very poor: Xenophon was absent on service in the Cyreian army. Plato’s proposition, however, found no favour with the others and was even indignantly repudiated by Apollodorus: a man ardently attached to Sokrates, but violent and overboiling in all his feelings.15 The companions of Sokrates, finding themselves unfavourably looked upon at Athens after his death, left the city for a season and followed Eukleides to Megara. How long they stayed there we do not know. Plato is said, though I think on no sufficient authority, to have remained absent from Athens for several years continuously. It seems certain (from an anecdote recounted by Aristotle)16 that he talked with something like arrogance among the companions of Sokrates: and that Aristippus gently rebuked him by reminding him how very different had been the language of Sokrates himself. Complaints too were made by contemporaries, about Plato’s jealous, censorious, spiteful, temper. The critical and disparaging tone of his dialogues, notwithstanding the admiration which they inspire, accounts for the existence of these complaints: and anecdotes are recounted, though not verified by any sufficient evidence, of ill-natured dealing on his part towards other philosophers who were poorer than himself.17 Dissension or controversy on philosophical topics is rarely carried on without some invidious or hostile feeling. Athens, and the viri Sokratici, Plato included, form no exception to this ordinary malady of human nature.

No Sokratic school — each of the companions took a line of his own.

It is common for historians of philosophy to speak of a Sokratic school: but this phrase, if admissible at all, is only admissible in the largest and vaguest sense. The effect produced by Sokrates upon his companions was, not to teach doctrine, but to stimulate self-working enquiry, upon ethical and social subjects. Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus, each took a line of his own, not less decidedly than Plato. But unfortunately we have no compositions remaining from either of the three. We possess only brief reports respecting some leading points of their doctrine, emanating altogether from those who disagreed with it: we have besides aphorisms, dicta, repartees, bons-mots, &c., which they are said to have uttered. Of these many are evident inventions; some proceeding from opponents and probably coloured or exaggerated, others hardly authenticated at all. But if they were ever so well authenticated, they would form very insufficient evidence on which to judge a philosopher — much less to condemn him with asperity.18 Philosophy (as I have already observed) aspires to deliver not merely truth, but reasoned truth. We ought to know not only what doctrines a philosopher maintained, but how he maintained them:—what objections others made against him, and how he replied:—what objections he made against dissentient doctrines, and what replies were made to him. Respecting Plato and Aristotle, we possess such information to a considerable extent:—respecting Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, we are without it. All their compositions (very numerous, in the case of Antisthenes) have perished.

EUKLEIDES.

Eukleides of Megara — he blended Parmenides with Sokrates.

Eukleides was a Parmenidean, who blended the ethical point of view of Sokrates with the ontology of Parmenides, and followed out that negative Dialectic which was common to Sokrates with Zeno. Parmenides (I have with already said)19 and Zeno after him, recognised no absolute reality except Ens Unum, continuous, indivisible: they denied all real plurality: they said that the plural was Non-Ens or Nothing, i.e. nothing real or absolute, but only apparent, perpetually transient and changing, relative, different as appreciated by one man and by another. Now Sokrates laid it down that wisdom or knowledge of Good, was the sum total of ethical perfection, including within it all the different virtues: he spoke also about the divine wisdom inherent in, or pervading the entire Kosmos or universe.20 Eukleides blended together the Ens of Parmenides with the Good of Sokrates, saying that the two names designated one and the same thing: sometimes called Good, Wisdom, Intelligence, God, &c., and by other names also, but always one and the same object named and meant. He farther maintained that the opposite of Ens, and the opposite of Bonum (Non-Ens, Non-Bonum, or Malum) were things non-existent, unmeaning names, Nothing,21 &c.: i.e. that they were nothing really, absolutely, permanently, but ever varying and dependent upon our ever varying conceptions. The One — the All — the Good — was absolute, immoveable, invariable, indivisible. But the opposite thereof was a non-entity or nothing: there was no one constant meaning corresponding to Non-Ens — but a variable meaning, different with every man who used it.

Doctrine of Eukleides about Bonum.

It was in this manner that Eukleides solved the problem which Sokrates had brought into vogue — What is the Bonum — or (as afterwards phrased) the Summum Bonum? Eukleides pronounced the Bonum to be coincident with the Ens Unum of Parmenides. The Parmenidean thesis, originally belonging to Transcendental Physics or Ontology, became thus implicated with Transcendental Ethics.22

The doctrine compared to that of Plato — changes in Plato.

Plato departs from Sokrates on the same point. He agrees with Eukleides in recognising a Transcendental Bonum. But it appears that his doctrines on this head underwent some change. He held for some time what is called the doctrine of Ideas: transcendental Forms, Entia, Essences: he considered the Transcendental to be essentially multiple, or to be an aggregate — whereas Eukleides had regarded it as essentially One. This is the doctrine which we find in some of the Platonic dialogues. In the Republic, the Idea of Good appears as one of these, though it is declared to be the foremost in rank and the most ascendant in efficacy.23 But in the later part of his life, and in his lectures (as we learn from Aristotle), Plato came to adopt a different view. He resolved the Ideas into numbers. He regarded them as made up by the combination of two distinct factors:—1. The One — the Essentially One. 2. The Essentially Plural: The Indeterminate Dyad: the Great and Little. — Of these two elements he considered the Ideas to be compounded. And he identified the Idea of Good with the essentially One — τὸ ἀγαθὸν with τὸ ἕν: the principle of Good with the principle of Unity: also the principle of Evil with the Indeterminate. But though Unity and Good were thus identical, he considered Unity as logically antecedent, or the subject — Good as logically consequent, or the predicate.24

Last doctrine of Plato nearly the same as that of Eukleides.

This last doctrine of Plato in his later years (which does not appear in the dialogues, but seems, as far as we can make out, to have been delivered substantially in his oral lectures, and is ascribed to him by Aristotle) was nearly coincident with that of Eukleides. Both held the identity of τὸ ἕν with τὸ ἀγαθόν. This one doctrine is all that we know about Eukleides: what consequences he derived from it, or whether any, we do not know. But Plato combined, with this transcendental Unum = Bonum, a transcendental indeterminate plurality: from which combination he considered his Ideas or Ideal Numbers to be derivatives.

Megaric succession of philosophers. Eleian or Eritrean succession.

Eukleides is said to have composed six dialogues, the titles of which alone remain. The scanty information which we possess respecting him relates altogether to his negative logical procedure. Whether he deduced any consequences from his positive doctrine of the Transcendental Ens, Unum, Bonum, we do not know: but he, as Zeno had been before him,25 was acute in exposing contradictions and difficulties in the positive doctrines of opponents. He was a citizen of Megara, where he is said to have harboured Plato and the other companions of Sokrates, when they retired for a time from Athens after the death of Sokrates. Living there as a teacher or debater on philosophy, he founded a school or succession of philosophers who were denominated Megarici. The title is as old as Aristotle, who both names them and criticises their doctrines.26 None of their compositions are preserved. The earliest who becomes known to us is Eubulides, the contemporary and opponent of Aristotle; next Ichthyas, Apollonius, Diodôrus Kronus, Stilpon, Alexinus, between 340-260 B.C.

With the Megaric philosophers there soon become confounded another succession, called Eleian or Eretrian, who trace their origin to another Sokratic man — Phædon. The chief Eretrians made known to us are Pleistanus, Menedêmus, Asklepiades. The second of the three acquired some reputation.

Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus — Ethical, not transcendental.

The Megarics and Eretrians, as far as we know them, turned their speculative activity altogether in the logical or intellectual direction, paying little attention to the ethical and emotional field. Both Antisthenes and Aristippus, on the contrary, pursued the ethical path. To the Sokratic question, What is the Bonum? Eukleides had answered by a transcendental definition: Antisthenes and Aristippus each gave to it an ethical answer, having reference to human wants and emotions, and to the different views which they respectively took thereof. Antisthenes declared it to consist in virtue, by which he meant an independent and self-sufficing character, confining all wants within the narrowest limits: Aristippus placed it in the moderate and easy pleasures, in avoiding ambitious struggles, and in making the best of every different situation, yet always under the guidance of a wise calculation and self-command. Both of them kept clear of the transcendental: they neither accepted it as Unum et Omne (the view of Eukleides), nor as Plura (the Eternal Ideas or Forms, the Platonic view). Their speculations had reference altogether to human life and feelings, though the one took a measure of this wide subject very different from the other: and in thus confining the range of their speculations, they followed Sokrates more closely than either Eukleides or Plato followed him. They not only abstained from transcendental speculation, but put themselves in declared opposition to it. And since the intellectual or logical philosophy, as treated by Plato, became intimately blended with transcendental hypothesis — Antisthenes and Aristippus are both found on the negative side against its pretensions. Aristippus declared the mathematical sciences to be useless, as conducing in no way to happiness, and taking no account of what was better or what was worse.27 He declared that we could know nothing except in so far as we were affected by it, and as it was or might be in correlation with ourselves: that as to causes not relative to ourselves, or to our own capacities and affections, we could know nothing about them.28

Preponderance of the negative vein in the Platonic age.

Such were the leading writers and talkers contemporary with Plato, in the dialectical age immediately following on the death of Sokrates. The negative vein greatly preponderates in them, as it does on the whole even in Plato — and as it was pretty sure to do, so long as the form of dialogue was employed. Affirmative exposition and proof is indeed found in some of the later Platonic works, carried on by colloquy between two speakers. But the colloquial form manifests itself evidently as unsuitable for the purpose: and we must remember that Plato was a lecturer as well as a writer, so that his doctrines made their way, at least in part, through continuous exposition. But it is Aristotle with whom the form of affirmative continuous exposition first becomes predominant, in matters of philosophy. Though he composed dialogues (which are now lost), and though he appreciates dialectic as a valuable exercise, yet he considers it only as a discursive preparation; antecedent, though essential, to the more close and concentrated demonstrations of philosophy.

Harsh manner in which historians of philosophy censure the negative vein.

Most historians deal hardly with this negative vein. They depreciate the Sophists, the Megarics and Eretrians, the Academics and Sceptics of the subsequent ages — under the title of Eristics, or lovers of contention for itself — as captious and perverse enemies of truth.

Negative method in philosophy essential to the controul of the affirmative.

I have already said that my view of the importance and value of the negative vein of philosophy is altogether different. It appears to me quite as essential as the affirmative. It is required as an antecedent, a test, and a corrective. Aristotle deserves all honour for his attempts to construct and defend various affirmative theories: but the value of these theories depends upon their being defensible against all objectors. Affirmative philosophy, as a body not only of truth but of reasoned truth, holds the champion’s belt, subject to the challenge not only of competing affirmants, but of all deniers and doubters. And this is the more indispensable, because of the vast problems which these affirmative philosophers undertake to solve: problems especially vast during the age of Plato and Aristotle. The question has to be determined, not only which of two proposed solutions is the best, but whether either of them is tenable, and even whether any solution at all is attainable by the human faculties: whether there exist positive evidence adequate to sustain any conclusion, accompanied with adequate replies to the objections against it. The burthen of proof lies upon the affirmant: and the proof produced must be open to the scrutiny of every dissentient.

Sokrates — the most persevering and acute Eristic of his age.

Among these dissentients or negative dialecticians, Sokrates himself, during his life, stood prominent. In his footsteps followed Eukleides and the Megarics: who, though they acquired the unenviable surname of Eristics or Controversialists, cannot possibly have surpassed Sokrates, and probably did not equal him, in the refutative Elenchus. Of no one among the Megarics, probably, did critics ever affirm, what the admiring Xenophon says about Sokrates — “that he dealt with every one in colloquial debate just as he chose,” i.e., that he baffled and puzzled his opponents whenever he chose. No one of these Megarics probably ever enunciated so sweeping a negative programme, or declared so emphatically his own inability to communicate positive instruction, as Sokrates in the Platonic Apology. A person more thoroughly Eristic than Sokrates never lived. And we see perfectly, from the Memorabilia of Xenophon (who nevertheless strives to bring out the opposite side of his character), that he was so esteemed among his contemporaries. Plato, as well as Eukleides, took up this vein in the Sokratic character, and worked it with unrivalled power in many of his dialogues. The Platonic Sokrates is compared, and compares himself, to Antæus, who compelled every new-comer, willing or unwilling, to wrestle with him.29

Platonic Parmenides — its extreme negative character.

Of the six dialogues composed by Eukleides, we cannot speak positively, because they are not preserved. But they cannot have been more refutative, and less affirmative, than most of the Platonic dialogues; and we can hardly be wrong in asserting that they were very inferior both in energy and attraction. The Theætêtus and the Parmenides, two of the most negative among the Platonic dialogues, seem to connect themselves, by the personnel of the drama, with the Megaric philosophers: the former dialogue is ushered in by Eukleides, and is, as it were, dedicated to him: the latter dialogue exhibits, as its protagonistes, the veteran Parmenides himself, who forms the one factor of the Megaric philosophy, while Sokrates forms the other. Parmenides (in the Platonic dialogue so called) is made to enforce the negative method in general terms, as a philosophical duty co-ordinate with the affirmative; and to illustrate it by a most elaborate argumentation, directed partly against the Platonic Ideas (here advocated by the youthful Sokrates), partly against his own (the Parmenidean) dogma of Ens Unum. Parmenides adduces unanswerable objections against the dogma of Transcendental Forms or Ideas; yet says at the same time that there can be no philosophy unless you admit it. He reproves the youthful Sokrates for precipitancy in affirming the dogma, and contends that you are not justified in affirming any dogma until you have gone through a bilateral scrutiny of it — that is, first assuming the doctrine to be true, next assuming it to be false, and following out the deductions arising from the one assumption as well as from the other.30 Parmenides then gives a string of successive deductions (at great length, occupying the last half of the dialogue) — four pairs of counter-demonstrations or Antinomies — in which contradictory conclusions appear each to be alike proved. He enunciates the final result as follows:—“Whether Unum exists, or does not exist, Unum itself and Cætera, both exist and do not exist, both appear and do not appear, all things and in all ways — both in relation to themselves and in relation to each other”.31

If this memorable dialogue, with its concluding string of elaborate antinomies, had come down to us under the name of Eukleides, historians would probably have denounced it as a perverse exhibition of ingenuity, worthy of “that litigious person, who first infused into the Megarians the fury of disputation”.32 But since it is of Platonic origin, we must recognise Plato not only as having divided with the Megaric philosophers the impulse of negative speculation which they had inherited from Sokrates, but as having carried that impulse to an extreme point of invention, combination, and dramatic handling, much beyond their powers. Undoubtedly, if we pass from the Parmenidês to other dialogues, we find Plato very different. He has various other intellectual impulses, an abundant flow of ideality and of constructive fancy, in many distinct channels. But negative philosophy is at least one of the indisputable and prominent items of the Platonic aggregate.

The Megarics shared the negative impulse with Sokrates and Plato.

While then we admit that the Megaric succession of philosophers exhibited negative subtlety and vehement love of contentious debate, we must recollect that these qualities were inherited from Sokrates and shared with Plato. The philosophy of Sokrates, who taught nothing and cross-examined every one, was essentially more negative and controversial, both in him and his successors, than any which had preceded it. In an age when dialectic colloquy was considered as appropriate for philosophical subjects, and when long continuous exposition was left to the rhetor — Eukleides established a succession or school33 which was more distinguished for impugning dogmas of others than for defending dogmas of its own. Schleiermacher and others suppose that Plato in his dialogue Euthydêmus intends to expose the sophistical fallacies of the Megaric school:34 and that in the dialogue Sophistês, he refutes the same philosophers (under the vague designation of “the friends of Forms”) in their speculations about Ens and Non-Ens. The first of these two opinions is probably true to some extent, though we cannot tell how far: the second of the two is supported by some able critics — yet it appears to me untenable.35

Of Eukleides himself, though he is characterised as strongly controversial, no distinct points of controversy have been preserved: but his successor Eubulides is celebrated for various sophisms. He was the contemporary and rival of Aristotle: who, without however expressly naming him, probably intends to speak of him when alluding to the Megaric philosophers generally.36 Another of the same school, Alexinus (rather later than Eubulides) is also said to have written against Aristotle.

Eubulides — his logical problems or puzzles — difficulty of solving them — many solutions attempted.

Six sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides. 1. — Ὁ ψευδόμενος — Mentiens. 2. — Ὁ διαλανθάνων, or ἐγκεκαλυμμένος — the person hidden under a veil. 3. — Ἠλέκτρα. 4. — Σωρείτης — Sorites. 5. — Κερατίνης — Cornutus. 6. — Φάλακρος — Calvus. Of these the second is substantially the same with the third; and the fourth the same with the sixth, only inverted.37

These sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides, and belonged probably to the Megaric school both before and after him. But it is plain both from the Euthydêmus of Plato, and from the Topica of Aristotle, that there were many others of similar character; frequently employed in the abundant dialectic colloquies which prevailed at Athens during the fourth and third centuries B.C. Plato and Aristotle handle such questions and their authors contemptuously, under the name of Eristic: but it was more easy to put a bad name upon them, as well as upon the Eleate Zeno, than to elucidate the logical difficulties which they brought to view. Neither Aristotle nor Plato provided a sufficient answer to them: as is proved by the fact, that several subsequent philosophers wrote treatises expressly in reference to them — even philosophers of reputation, like Theophrastus and Chrysippus.38 How these two latter philosophers performed their task, we cannot say. But the fact that they attempted the task, exhibits a commendable anxiety to make their logical theory complete, and to fortify it against objections.

Real character of the Megaric sophisms, not calculated to deceive but to guard against deception.

It is in this point of view — in reference to logical theory — that the Megaric philosophers have not been fairly appreciated. They, or persons reasoning in their manner, formed one essential encouragement and condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory. They administered, to minds capable and constructive, that painful sense of contradiction, and shock of perplexity, which Sokrates relied upon as the stimulus to mental parturition — and which Plato extols as a lever for raising the student to general conceptions.39 Their sophisms were not intended to impose upon any one, but on the contrary, to guard against imposition.40 Whoever states a fallacy clearly and nakedly, applying it to a particular case in which it conducts to a conclusion known upon other evidence not to be true — contributes to divest it of its misleading effect. The persons most liable to be deceived by the fallacy are those who are not forewarned:—in cases where the premisses are stated not nakedly, but in an artful form of words — and where the conclusion, though false, is not known beforehand to be false by the hearer. To use Mr. John Stuart Mill’s phrase,41 the fallacy is a case of apparent evidence mistaken for real evidence: you expose it to be evidence only apparent and not real, by giving a type of the fallacy, in which the conclusion obtained is obviously false: and the more obviously false it is, the better suited for its tutelary purpose. Aristotle recognises, as indispensable in philosophical enquiry, the preliminary wrestling into which he conducts his reader, by means of a long string of unsolved difficulties or puzzles — (ἀπόριαι). He declares distinctly and forcibly, that whoever attempts to lay out a positive theory, without having before his mind a full list of the difficulties with which he is to grapple, is like one who searches without knowing what he is looking for; without being competent to decide whether what he hits upon as a solution be really a solution or not.42 Now that enumeration of puzzles which Aristotle here postulates (and in part undertakes, in reference to Philosophia Prima) is exactly what the Megarics, and various other dialecticians (called by Plato and Aristotle Sophists) contributed to furnish for the use of those who theorised on Logic.

If the process of theorising be admissible, it must include negative as well as affirmative.

You may dislike philosophy: you may undervalue, or altogether proscribe, the process of theorising. This is the standing-point usual with the bulk of mankind, ancient as well as modern: who generally dislike all accurate reasoning, or analysis and discrimination of familiar abstract words, as mean and tiresome hair-splitting.43 But if you admit the business of theorising to be legitimate, useful, and even honourable, you must reckon on free working of independent, individual, minds as the operative force — and on the necessity of dissentient, conflicting, manifestations of this common force, as essential conditions to any successful result. Upon no other conditions can you obtain any tolerable body of reasoned truth — or even reasoned quasi-truth.

Logical position of the Megaric philosophers erroneously described by historians of philosophy. Necessity of a complete collection of difficulties.

Now the historians of philosophy seldom take this view of philosophy as a whole — as a field to which the free antithesis of affirmative and negative is indispensable. They consider true philosophy as represented by Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, one or other of them: while the contemporaries of these eminent men are discredited under the name of Sophists, Eristics, or sham-philosophers, sowing tares among the legitimate crop of wheat — or as devils whom the miraculous virtue of Sokrates and Plato is employed in expelling from the Athenian mind. Even the companions of Sokrates, and the Megarics among them, whom we know only upon the imperfect testimony of opponents, have fallen under this unmerited sentence:44 as if they were destructive agents breaking down an edifice of well-constituted philosophy — no such edifice in fact having ever existed in Greece, though there were several dissenting lecture rooms and conflicting veins of speculation promoted by eminent individuals.

Whoever undertakes, bonâ fide, to frame a complete and defensible logical theory, will desire to have before him a copious collection of such difficulties, and will consider those who propound them as useful auxiliaries.45 If he finds no one to propound them, he will have to imagine them for himself. “The philosophy of reasoning” (observes Mr. John Stuart Mill) “must comprise the philosophy of bad as well as of good reasoning.”46 The one cannot be complete without the other. To enumerate the different varieties of apparent evidence which is not real evidence (called Fallacies), and of apparent contradictions which are not real contradictions — referred as far as may be to classes, each illustrated by a suitable type — is among the duties of a logician. He will find this duty much facilitated, if there happen to exist around him an active habit of dialectic debate: ingenious men who really study the modes of puzzling and confuting a well-armed adversary, as well as of defending themselves against the like. Such a habit did exist at Athens: and unless it had existed, the Aristotelian theories on logic would probably never have been framed. Contemporary and antecedent dialecticians, the Megarici among them, supplied the stock of particular examples enumerated and criticised by Aristotle in the Topica:47 which treatise (especially the last book, De Sophisticis Elenchis) is intended both to explain the theory, and to give suggestions on the practice, of logical controversy. A man who takes lessons in fencing must learn not only how to thrust and parry, but also how to impose on his opponent by feints, and to meet the feints employed against himself: a general who learns the art of war must know how to take advantage of the enemy by effective cheating and treachery (to use the language of Xenophon), and how to avoid being cheated himself. The Aristotelian Topica, in like manner, teach the arts both of dialectic attack and of dialectic defence.48

Sophisms propounded by Eubulides. 1. Mentiens. 2. The Veiled Man. 3. Sorites. 4. Cornutus.

The Sophisms ascribed to Eubulidês, looked at from the point of view of logical theory, deserve that attention which they seem to have received. The logician lays down as a rule that no affirmative proposition can be at the same time true and false. Now the first sophism (called Mentiens) exhibits the case of a proposition which is, or appears to be, at the same time true and false.49 It is for the logician to explain how this proposition can be brought under his rule — or else to admit it as an exception. Again, the second sophism in the list (the Veiled or Hidden Man) is so contrived as to involve the respondent in a contradiction: he is made to say both that he knows his father, and that he does not know his father. Both the one answer and the other follow naturally from the questions and circumstances supposed. The contradiction points to the loose and equivocal way in which the word to know is used in common speech. Such equivocal meaning of words is not only one of the frequent sources of error and fallacy in reasoning, but also one of the least heeded by persons untrained in dialectics; who are apt to presume that the same word bears always the same meaning. To guard against this cause of error, and to determine (or impel others to determine) the accurate meaning or various distinct meanings of each word, is among the duties of the logician: and I will add that the verb to know stands high in the list of words requiring such determination — as the Platonic Theætêtus50 alone would be sufficient to teach us. Farthermore, when we examine what is called the Soritês of Eubulides, we perceive that it brings to view an inherent indeterminateness of various terms: indeterminateness which cannot be avoided, but which must be pointed out in order that it may not mislead. You cannot say how many grains are much — or how many grains make a heap. When this want of precision, pervading many words in the language, was first brought to notice in a suitable special case, it would naturally appear a striking novelty. Lastly, the sophism called Κερατίνης or Cornutus, is one of great plausibility, which would probably impose upon most persons, if the question were asked for the first time without any forewarning. It serves to administer a lesson, nowise unprofitable or superfluous, that before you answer a question, you should fully weigh its import and its collateral bearings.

Causes of error constant — the Megarics were sentinals against them.

The causes of error and fallacy are inherent in the complication of nature, the imperfection of language, the small range of facts which we know, the indefinite varieties of comparison possible among those facts, and the diverse or opposite predispositions, intellectual as well as emotional, of individual minds. They are not fabricated by those who first draw attention to them.51 The Megarics, far from being themselves deceivers, served as sentinels against deceit. They planted conspicuous beacons upon some of the sunken rocks whereon unwary reasoners were likely to be wrecked. When the general type of a fallacy is illustrated by a particular case in which the conclusion is manifestly untrue, the like fallacy is rendered less operative for the future.

Controversy of the Megarics with Aristotle about Power. Arguments of Aristotle.

Of the positive doctrines of the Megarics we know little: but there is one upon which Aristotle enters into controversy with them, and upon which (as far as can be made out) I think they were in the right. In the question about Power, they held that the power to do a thing did not exist, except when the thing was actually done: that an architect, for example, had no power to build a house, except when he actually did build one. Aristotle controverts this opinion at some length; contending that there exists a sort of power or cause which is in itself irregular and indeterminate, sometimes turning to the affirmative, sometimes to the negative, to do or not to do;52 that the architect has the power to build constantly, though he exerts it only on occasion: and that many absurdities would follow if we did not admit, That a given power or energy — and the exercise of that power — are things distinct and separable.53

These arguments not valid against the Megarici.

Now these arguments of Aristotle are by no means valid against the Megarics, whose doctrine, though apparently paradoxical, will appear when explained to be no paradox at all, but perfectly true. When we say that the architect has power to build, we do not mean that he has power to do so under all supposable circumstances, but only under certain conditions: we wish to distinguish him from non-professional men, who under those same conditions have no power to build. The architect must be awake and sober: he must have the will or disposition to build:54 he must be provided with tools and materials, and be secure against destroying enemies. These and other conditions being generally understood, it is unnecessary to enunciate them in common speech. But when we engage in dialectic analysis, the accurate discussion (ἀκριβολογία) indispensable to philosophy requires us to bring under distinct notice, that which the elliptical character of common speech implies without enunciating. Unless these favourable conditions be supposed, the architect is no more able to build than an ordinary non-professional man. Now the Megarics did not deny the distinctive character of the architect, as compared with the non-architect: but they defined more accurately in what it consisted, by restoring the omitted conditions. They went a step farther: they pointed out that whenever the architect finds himself in concert with these accompanying conditions (his own volition being one of the conditions) he goes to work — and the building is produced. As the house is not built, unless he wills to build, and has tools and materials, &c. — so conversely, whenever he has the will to build and has tools and materials, &c., the house is actually built. The effect is not produced, except when the full assemblage of antecedent conditions come together: but as soon as they do come together, the effect is assuredly produced. The accomplishments of the architect, though an essential item, are yet only one item among several, of the conditions necessary to building the house. He has no power to build, except when those other conditions are assumed along with him: in other words, he has no such power except when he actually does build.

His arguments cited and criticised.

Aristotle urges against the Megarics various arguments, as follows:—1. Their doctrine implies that the architect is not an architect, and does not possess his professional skill,55 except at the moment when he is actually building. — But the Megarics would have denied that their doctrine did imply this. The architect possesses his art at all times: but his art does not constitute a power of building except under certain accompanying conditions.

2. The Megaric doctrine is the same as that of Protagoras, implying that there exists no perceivable Object, and no Subject capable of perceiving, except at the moment when perception actually takes place.56 On this we may observe, that the Megarics coincide with Protagoras thus far, that they bring into open daylight the relative and conditional, which the received phraseology tends to hide. But neither they nor he affirm what is here put upon them. When we speak of a perceivable Object, we mean that which may and will be perceived, if there be a proper Subject to perceive it: when we affirm a Subject capable of perception, we mean, one which will perceive, under those circumstances which we call the presence of an Object suitably placed. The Subject and Object are correlates: but it is convenient to have a language in which one of them alone is introduced unconditionally, while the conditional sign is applied to the correlate: though the matter affirmed involves a condition common to both.

3. According to the Megaric doctrine (Aristotle argues) every man when not actually seeing, is blind; every man when not actually speaking, is dumb. — Here the Megarics would have said that this is a misinterpretation of the terms dumb and blind; which denote a person who cannot speak or see, even though he wishes it. One who is now silent, though not dumb, may speak if he wills it: but his own volition is an essential condition.57

4. According to the Megaric doctrine (says Aristotle) when you are now lying down, you have no power to rise: when you are standing up, you have no power to lie down: so that the present condition of affairs must continue for ever unchanged: nothing can come into existence which is not now in being. — Here again, the Megarics would have denied his inference. The man who is now standing up, has power to lie down, if he wills to do so — or he may be thrown down by a superior force: that is, he will lie down, if some new fact of a certain character shall supervene. The Megarics do not deny that he has power, if — so and so: they deny that he has power, without the if — that is, without the farther accompaniments essential to energy.

Potential as distinguished from the Actual — What it is.

On the whole, it seems to me that Aristotle’s refutation of the Megarics is unsuccessful. A given assemblage of conditions is requisite for the production of any act: while there are other circumstances, which, if present at the same time, would defeat its production. We often find it convenient to describe a state of things in which some of the antecedent conditions are present without the rest: in which therefore the act is not produced, yet would be produced, if the remaining circumstances were present, and if the opposing circumstances were absent.58 The state of things thus described is the potential as distinguished from the actual: power, distinguished from act or energy: it represents an incomplete assemblage of the antecedent positive conditions — or perhaps a complete assemblage, but counteracted by some opposing circumstances. As soon as the assemblage becomes complete, and the opposing circumstances removed, the potential passes into the actual. The architect, when he is not building, possesses, not indeed the full or plenary power to build, but an important fraction of that power, which will become plenary when the other fractions supervene, but will then at the same time become operative, so as to produce the actual building.59

Diodôrus Kronus — his doctrine about τὸ δυνατόν.

The doctrine which I have just been canvassing is expressly cited by Aristotle as a Megaric doctrine, and was therefore probably held by his contemporary Eubulidês. From the pains which Aristotle takes (in the ‘De Interpretatione’ and elsewhere) to explain and vindicate his own doctrine about the Potential and the Actual, we may see that it was a theme much debated among the dialecticians of the day. And we read of another Megaric, Diodorus60 Kronus, perhaps contemporary (yet probably a little later than Aristotle), as advancing a position substantially the same as that of Eubulidês. That alone is possible (Diodorus affirmed) which either is happening now, or will happen at some future time. As in speaking about facts of an unrecorded past, we know well that a given fact either occurred or did not occur, yet without knowing which of the two is true — and therefore we affirm only that the fact may have occurred: so also about the future, either the assertion that a given fact will at some time occur, is positively true, or the assertion that it will never occur, is positively true: the assertion that it may or may not occur some time or other, represents only our ignorance, which of the two is true. That which will never at any time occur, is impossible.

Sophism of Diodorus — Ὁ Κυριεύων.

The argument here recited must have been older than Diodorus, since Aristotle states and controverts it: but it seems to have been handled by him in a peculiar dialectic arrangement, which obtained the title of Ὁ Κυριεύων.61 The Stoics (especially Chrysippus), in times somewhat later, impugned the opinion of Diodorus, though seemingly upon grounds not quite the same as Aristotle. This problem was one upon which speculative minds occupied themselves for several centuries. Aristotle and Chrysippus maintained that affirmations respecting the past were necessary (one necessarily true and the other necessarily false) — affirmations respecting the future, contingent (one must be true and the other false, but either might be true). Diodorus held that both varieties of affirmations were equally necessary — Kleanthes the Stoic thought that both were equally contingent.62

It was thus that the Megaric dialecticians, with that fertility of mind which belonged to the Platonic and Aristotelian century, stirred up many real problems and difficulties connected with logical evidence, and supplied matters for discussion which not only occupied the speculative minds of the next four or five centuries, but have continued in debate down to the present day.

Question between Aristotle and Diodôrus depends upon whether universal regularity of sequence be admitted or denied.

The question about the Possible and Impossible, raised between Aristotle and Diodorus, depends upon the larger question, Whether there are universal laws of Nature or not? whether the sequences are, universally and throughout, composed of assemblages of conditions regularly antecedent, and assemblages of events regularly consequent; though from the number and complication of causes, partly co-operating and partly conflicting with each other, we with our limited intelligence are often unable to predict the course of events in each particular situation. Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, all maintained that regular sequence of antecedent and consequent was not universal, but partial only:63 that there were some agencies essentially regular, in which observation of the past afforded ground for predicting the future — other agencies (or the same agencies on different occasions) essentially irregular, in which the observation of the past afforded no such ground. Aristotle admitted a graduation of causes from perfect regularity to perfect irregularity:—1. The Celestial Spheres, with their included bodies or divine persons, which revolved and exercised a great and preponderant influence throughout the Kosmos, with perfect uniformity; having no power of contraries, i.e., having no power of doing anything else but what they actually did (having ἐνεργεία without δύναμις). 2. The four Elements, in which the natural agencies were to a great degree necessary and uniform, but also in a certain degree otherwise — either always or for the most part uniform (τὸ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ) — tending by inherent appetency towards uniformity, but not always attaining it. 3. Besides these there were two other varieties of Causes accidental, or perfectly irregular — Chance and Spontaneity: powers of contraries, or with equal chance of contrary manifestations — essentially capricious, undeterminable, unpredictable.64 This Chance of Aristotle — with one of two contraries sure to turn up, though you could never tell beforehand which of the two — was a conception analogous to what logicians sometimes call an Indefinite Proposition, or to what some grammarians have reckoned as a special variety of genders called the doubtful gender. There were thus positive causes of regularity, and positive causes of irregularity, the co-operation or conflict of which gave the total manifestations of the actual universe. The principle of irregularity, or the Indeterminate, is sometimes described under the name of Matter,65 as distinguishable from, yet co-operating with, the three determinate Causes — Formal, Efficient, Final. The Potential — the Indeterminate — the May or May not be — is characterised by Aristotle as one of the inherent principles operative in the Kosmos.

Conclusion of Diodôrus — defended by Hobbes — Explanation given by Hobbes.

In what manner Diodorus stated and defended his opinion upon this point, we have no information. We know only that he placed affirmations respecting the future on the same footing as affirmations respecting the past: maintaining that our potential affirmation — May or May not be — respecting some future event, meant no more than it means respecting some past event, viz.: no inherent indeterminateness in the future sequence, but our ignorance of the determining conditions, and our inability to calculate their combined working.66 In regard to scientific method generally, this problem is of the highest importance: for it is only so far as uniformity of sequence prevails, that facts become fit matter for scientific study.67 Consistently with the doctrine of all-pervading uniformity of sequence, the definition of Hobbes gives the only complete account of the Impossible and Possible: i.e. an account such as would appear to an omniscient calculator, where May or May not merge in Will or Will not. According as each person falls short of or approaches this ideal standard — according to his knowledge and mental resource, inductive and deductive — will be his appreciation of what may be or may not be — as of what may have been or may not have been during the past. But such appreciation, being relative to each individual mind, is liable to vary indefinitely, and does not admit of being embodied in one general definition.

Besides the above doctrine respecting Possible and Impossible, there is also ascribed to Diodorus a doctrine respecting Hypothetical Propositions, which, as far as I comprehend it, appears to have been a correct one.68 He is also said to have reasoned against the reality of motion, renewing the arguments of Zeno the Eleate.

Reasonings of Diodôrus — respecting Hypothetical Propositions — respecting Motion. His difficulties about the Now of time.

But if he reproduced the arguments of Zeno, he also employed another, peculiar to himself. He admitted the reality of past motion: but he denied the reality of present motion. You may affirm truly (he said) that a thing has been moved: but you cannot truly affirm that any thing is being moved. Since it was here before, and is there now, you may be sure that it has been moved: but actual present motion you cannot perceive or prove. Affirmation in the perfect tense may be true, when affirmation in the present tense neither is nor ever was true: thus it is true to say — Helen had three husbands (Menelaus, Paris, Deiphobus): but it was never true to say — Helen has three husbands, since they became her husbands in succession.69 Diodorus supported this paradox by some ingenious arguments, and the opinion which he denied seems to have presented itself to him as involving the position of indivisible minima — atoms of body, points of space, instants of time. He admitted such minima of atoms, but not of space or time: and without such admission he could not make intelligible to himself the fact of present or actual motion. He could find no present Now or Minimum of Time; without which neither could any present motion be found. Plato in the Parmenidês70 professes to have found this inexplicable moment of transition, but he describes it in terms not likely to satisfy a dialectical mind: and Aristotle denying that the Now is any portion or constituent part of time, considers it only as a boundary of the past and future.71

Motion is always present, past, and future.

This opinion of Aristotle is in the main consonant with that of Diodorus; who, when he denied the reality of present motion, meant probably only to deny the reality of present motion apart from past and future motion. Herein also we find him agreeing with Hobbes, who denies the same in clearer language.72 Sextus Empiricus declares Diodorus to have been inconsistent in admitting past motion while he denied present motion.73 But this seems not more inconsistent than the doctrine of Aristotle respecting the Now of time. I know, when I compare a child or a young tree with what they respectively were a year ago, that they have grown: but whether they actually are growing, at every moment of the intervening time, is not ascertainable by sense, and is a matter of probable inference only.74 Diodorus could not understand present motion, except in conjunction with past and future motion, as being the common limit of the two: but he could understand past motion, without reference to present or future. He could not state to himself a satisfactory theory respecting the beginning of motion: as we may see by his reasonings distinguishing the motion of a body all at once in its integrity, from the motion of a body considered as proceeding from the separate motion of its constituent atoms — the moving atoms preponderating over the atoms at rest, and determining them to motion,75 until gradually the whole body came to move. The same argument re-appears in another example, when he argues — The wall does not fall while its component stones hold together, for then it is still standing: nor yet when they have come apart, for then it has fallen.76

Stilpon of Megara — His great celebrity.

That Diodorus was a person seriously anxious to solve logical difficulties, as well as to propose them, would be incontestably proved if we could believe the story recounted of him — that he hanged himself because he could not solve a problem proposed by Stilpon in the presence of Ptolemy Soter.77 But this story probably grew out of the fact, that Stilpon succeeded Diodorus at Megara, and eclipsed him in reputation. The celebrity of Stilpon, both at Megara and at Athens (between 320-300 B.C., but his exact date can hardly be settled), was equal, if not superior, to that of any contemporary philosopher. He was visited by listeners from all parts of Greece, and he drew away pupils from the most renowned teachers of the day; from Theophrastus as well as the others.78 He was no less remarkable for fertility of invention than for neatness of expression. Two persons, who came for the purpose of refuting him, are said to have remained with him as admirers and scholars. All Greece seemed as it were looking towards him, and inclining towards the Megaric doctrines.79 He was much esteemed both by Ptolemy Soter and by Demetrius Poliorkêtes, though he refused the presents and invitations of both: and there is reason to believe that his reputation in his own day must have equalled that of either Plato or Aristotle in theirs. He was formidable in disputation; but the nine dialogues which he composed and published are characterised by Diogenes as cold.80

Menedêmus and the Eretriacs.

Contemporary with Stilpon (or perhaps somewhat later) was Menedêmus of Eretria, whose philosophic parentage is traced to Phædon. The name of Phædon has been immortalised, not by his own works, but by the splendid dialogue of which Plato has made him the reciter. He is said (though I doubt the fact) to have been a native of Elis. He was of good parentage, a youthful companion of Sokrates in the last years of his life.81 After the death of Sokrates, Phædon went to Elis, composed some dialogues, and established a succession or sect of philosophers — Pleistanus, Anchipylus, Moschus. Of this sect Menedêmus,82 contemporary and hearer of Stilpon, became the most eminent representative, and from him it was denominated Eretriac instead of Eleian. The Eretriacs, as well as the Megarics, took up the negative arm of philosophy, and were eminent as puzzlers and controversialists.

Open speech and licence of censure assumed by Menedêmus.

But though this was the common character of the two, in a logical point of view, yet in Stilpon, as well as Menedêmus, other elements became blended with the logical. These persons combined, in part at least, the free censorial speech of Antisthenes with the subtlety of Eukleides. What we hear of Menedêmus is chiefly his bitter, stinging sarcasms, and clever repartees. He did not, like the Cynic Diogenes, live in contented poverty, but occupied a prominent place (seemingly under the patronage of Antigonus and Demetrius) in the government of his native city Eretria. Nevertheless he is hardly less celebrated than Diogenes for open speaking of his mind, and carelessness of giving offence to others.83

ANTISTHENES.

Antisthenes took up Ethics principally, but with negative Logic intermingled.

Antisthenes, the originator of the Cynic succession of philosophers, was one of those who took up principally the ethical element of the Sokratic discoursing, which the Megarics left out or passed lightly over. He did not indeed altogether leave out the logical element: all his doctrines respecting it, as far as we hear of them, appear to have been on the negative side. But respecting ethics, he laid down affirmative propositions,84 and delivered peremptory precepts. His aversion to pleasure, by which he chiefly meant sexual pleasure, was declared in the most emphatic language. He had therefore, in the negative logic, a point of community with Eukleides and the Megarics: so that the coalescence of the two successions, in Stilpon and Menedêmus, is a fact not difficult to explain.

The life of Sokrates being passed in conversing with a great variety of persons and characters, his discourses were of course multifarious, and his ethical influence operated in different ways. His mode of life, too, exercised a certain influence of its own.

He copied the manner of life of Sokrates, in plainness and rigour.

Antisthenes, and his disciple Diogenes, were in many respects closer approximations to Sokrates than either Plato or any other of the Sokratic companions. The extraordinary colloquial and cross-examining force was indeed a peculiar gift, which Sokrates bequeathed to none of them: but Antisthenes took up the Sokratic purpose of inculcating practical ethics not merely by word of mouth, but also by manner of life. He was not inferior to his master in contentment under poverty, in strength of will and endurance,85 in acquired insensibility both to pain and pleasure, in disregard of opinion around him, and in fearless exercise of a self-imposed censorial mission. He learnt from Sokrates indifference to conventional restraints and social superiority, together with the duty of reducing wants to a minimum, and stifling all such as were above the lowest term of necessity. To this last point, Sokrates gave a religious colour, proclaiming that the Gods had no wants, and that those who had least came nearest to the Gods.86 By Antisthenes, these qualities were exhibited in eminent measure; and by his disciple Diogenes they were still farther exaggerated. Epiktetus, a warm admirer of both, considers them as following up the mission from Zeus which Sokrates (in the Platonic Apology) sets forth as his authority, to make men independent of the evils of life by purifying and disciplining the appreciation of good and evil in the mind of each individual.87

Doctrines of Antisthenes exclusively ethical and ascetic. He despised music, literature, and physics.

Antisthenes declared virtue to be the End for men to aim at — and to be sufficient per se for conferring happiness; but he also declared that virtue must be manifested in acts and character, not by words. Neither much discourse nor much learning was required for virtue; nothing else need be postulated except bodily strength like that of Sokrates.88 He undervalued theory even in regard to Ethics: much more in regard to Nature (Physics) and to Logic: he also despised literary, geometrical, musical teaching, as distracting men’s attention from the regulation of their own appreciative sentiment, and the adaptation of their own conduct to it. He maintained strenuously (what several Platonic dialogues call in question) that virtue both could be taught and must be taught: when once learnt, it was permanent, and could not be eradicated. He prescribed the simplest mode of life, the reduction of wants to a minimum, with perfect indifference to enjoyment, wealth, or power. The reward was, exemption from fear, anxiety, disappointments, and wants: together with the pride of approximation to the Gods.89 Though Antisthenes thus despised both literature and theory, yet he had obtained a rhetorical education, and had even heard the rhetor Gorgias. He composed a large number of dialogues and other treatises, of which only the titles (very multifarious) are preserved to us.90 One dialogue, entitled Sathon, was a coarse attack on Plato: several treated of Homer and of other poets, whose verses he seems to have allegorised. Some of his dialogues are also declared by Athenæus to contain slanderous abuse of Alkibiades and other leading Athenians. On the other hand, the dialogues are much commended by competent judges; and Theopompus even affirmed that much in the Platonic dialogues had been borrowed from those of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.91

Constant friendship of Antisthenes with Sokrates — Xenophontic Symposion.

Antisthenes was among the most constant friends and followers of Sokrates, both in his serious and in his playful colloquies.92 The Symposion of Xenophon describes both of them, in their hours of joviality. The picture drawn by an author, himself a friend and companion, exhibits Antisthenes (so far as we can interpret caricature and jocular inversion) as poor, self-denying, austere, repulsive, and disputatious — yet bold and free-spoken, careless of giving offence, and forcible in colloquial repartee.93

Diogenes, successor of Antisthenes — His Cynical perfection — striking effect which he produced.

In all these qualities, however, Antisthenes was surpassed by his pupil and successor Diogenes of Sinôpê; whose ostentatious austerity of life, eccentric and fearless character, indifference to what was considered as decency, great acuteness and still greater power of expression, freedom of speech towards all and against all — constituted him the perfect type of the Cynical sect. Being the son of a money-agent at Sinôpê, he was banished with his father for fraudulently counterfeiting the coin of the city. On coming to Athens as an exile, he was captivated with the character of Antisthenes, who was at first unwilling to admit him, and was only induced to do so by his invincible importunity. Diogenes welcomed his banishment, with all its poverty and destitution, as having been the means of bringing him to Antisthenes,94 and to a life of philosophy. It was Antisthenes (he said) who emancipated him from slavery, and made him a freeman. He was clothed in one coarse garment with double fold: he adopted the wallet (afterwards the symbol of cynicism) for his provisions, and is said to have been without any roof or lodging — dwelling sometimes in a tub near the Metroon, sometimes in one of the public porticoes or temples: he is also said to have satisfied all his wants in the open day. He here indulged unreservedly in that unbounded freedom of speech, which he looked upon as the greatest blessing of life. No man ever turned that blessing to greater account: the string of repartees, sarcasms, and stinging reproofs, which are attributed to him by Diogenes Laertius, is very long, but forms only a small proportion of those which that author had found recounted.95 Plato described Diogenes as Sokrates running mad:96 and when Diogenes, meeting some Sicilian guests at his house and treading upon his best carpet, exclaimed “I am treading on Plato’s empty vanity and conceit,” Plato rejoined “Yes, with a different vanity of your own”. The impression produced by Diogenes in conversation with others, was very powerfully felt both by young and old. Phokion, as well as Stilpon, were among his hearers.97 In crossing the sea to Ægina, Diogenes was captured by pirates, taken to Krete, and there put up to auction as a slave: the herald asked him what sort of work he was fit for: whereupon Diogenes replied — To command men. At his own instance, a rich Corinthian named Xeniades bought him and transported him to Corinth. Diogenes is said to have assumed towards Xeniades the air of a master: Xeniades placed him at the head of his household, and made him preceptor of his sons. In both capacities Diogenes discharged his duty well.98 As a slave well treated by his master, and allowed to enjoy great freedom of speech, he lived in greater comfort than he had ever enjoyed as a freeman: and we are not surprised that he declined the offers of friends to purchase his liberation. He died at Corinth in very old age: it is said, at ninety years old, and on the very same day on which Alexander the Great died at Babylon (B.C. 323). He was buried at the gate of Corinth leading to the Isthmus: a monument being erected to his honour, with a column of Parian marble crowned by the statue of a dog.99

Doctrines and smart sayings of Diogenes — Contempt of pleasure — training and labour required — indifference to literature and geometry.

In politics, ethics, and rules for human conduct, Diogenes adopted views of his own, and spoke them out freely. He was a freethinker (like Antisthenes) as to the popular religion: and he disapproved of marriage laws, considering that the intercourse of the sexes ought to be left to individual taste and preference.100 Though he respected the city and conformed to its laws, yet he had no reverence for existing superstitions, or for the received usages as to person, sex, or family. He declared himself to be a citizen of the Kosmos and of Nature.101 His sole exigency was, independence of life, and freedom of speech: having these, he was satisfied, fully sufficient to himself for happiness, and proud of his own superiority to human weakness. The main benefit which he derived from philosophy (he said) was, that he was prepared for any fortune that might befall him. To be ready to accept death easily, was the sure guarantee of a free and independent life.102 He insisted emphatically upon the necessity of exercise or training (ἄσκησις) both as to the body and as to the mind. Without this, nothing could be done: by means of it everything might be achieved. But he required that the labours imposed should be directed to the acquisition of habits really useful; instead of being wasted, as they commonly were, upon objects frivolous and showy. The truly wise man ought to set before him as a model the laborious life of Hêraklês: and he would find, after proper practice and training, that the contempt of pleasures would afford him more enjoyment than the pleasures themselves.103

Admiration of Epiktêtus for Diogenes, especially for his consistency in acting out his own ethical creed.

Diogenes declared that education was sobriety to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, ornament to the rich. But he despised much of what was commonly imparted as education — music, geometry, astronomy, &c.: and he treated with equal scorn Plato and Eukleides.104 He is said however to have conducted the education of the sons of his master Xeniades105 without material departure from the received usage. He caused them to undergo moderate exercise (not with a view to athletic success) in the palæstra, and afterwards to practise riding, shooting with the bow, hurling the javelin, slinging and hunting: he cultivated their memories assiduously, by recitations from poets and prose authors, and even from his own compositions: he kept them on bread and water, without tunic or shoes, with clothing only such as was strictly necessary, with hair closely cut, habitually silent, and fixing their eyes on the ground when they walked abroad. These latter features approximate to the training at Sparta (as described by Xenophon) which Diogenes declared to contrast with Athens as the apartments of the men with those of the women. Diogenes is said to have composed several dialogues and even some tragedies.106 But his most impressive display (like that of Sokrates) was by way of colloquy — prompt and incisive interchange of remarks. He was one of the few philosophers who copied Sokrates in living constantly before the public — in talking with every one indiscriminately and fearlessly, in putting home questions like a physician to his patient.107 Epiktêtus, — speaking of Diogenes as equal, if not superior, to Sokrates — draws a distinction pertinent and accurate. “To Sokrates” (says he) “Zeus assigned the elenchtic or cross-examining function: to Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising function: to Zeno (the Stoic) the didactic and dogmatical.” While thus describing Diogenes justly enough, Epiktetus nevertheless insists upon his agreeable person and his extreme gentleness and good-nature:108 qualities for which probably Diogenes neither took credit himself, nor received credit from his contemporaries. Diogenes seems to have really possessed — that which his teacher Antisthenes postulated as indispensable — the Sokratic physical strength and vigour. His ethical creed, obtained from Antisthenes, was adopted by many successors, and (in the main) by Zeno and the Stoics in the ensuing century. But the remarkable feature in Diogenes which attracts to him the admiration of Epiktêtus, is — that he set the example of acting out his creed, consistently and resolutely, in his manner of life:109 an example followed by some of his immediate successors, but not by the Stoics, who confined themselves to writing and preaching. Contemporary both with Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes stands to both of them in much the same relation as Phokion to Demosthenes in politics and oratory: he exhibits strength of will, insensibility to applause as well as to reproach, and self-acting independence — in antithesis to their higher gifts and cultivation of intellect. He was undoubtedly, next to Sokrates, the most original and unparalleled manifestation of Hellenic philosophy.

Admiration excited by the asceticism of the Cynics — Asceticism extreme in the East — Comparison of the Indian Gymnosophists with Diogenes.

Respecting Diogenes and the Cynic philosophers generally, we have to regard not merely their doctrines, but the effect produced by their severity of life. In this point Diogenes surpassed his master Antisthenes, whose life he criticised as not fully realising the lofty spirit of his doctrine. The spectacle of man not merely abstaining from enjoyment, but enduring with indifference hunger, thirst, heat, cold, poverty, privation, bodily torture, death, &c., exercises a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind. It calls forth strong feelings of reverence and admiration in the beholders: while in the sufferer himself also, self-reverence and self-admiration, the sense of power and exaltation above the measure of humanity, is largely developed. The extent to which self-inflicted hardships and pains have prevailed in various regions of the earth, the long-protracted and invincible resolution with which they have been endured, and the veneration which such practices have procured for the ascetics who submitted to them are among the most remarkable chapters in history.110 The East, especially India, has always been, and still is, the country in which these voluntary endurances have reached their extreme pitch of severity; even surpassing those of the Christian monks in Egypt and Syria, during the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian era.111 When Alexander the Great first opened India to the observation of Greeks, one of the novelties which most surprised him and his followers was, the sight of the Gymnosophists or naked philosophers. These men were found lying on the ground, either totally uncovered or with nothing but a cloth round the loins; abstaining from all enjoyment, nourishing themselves upon a minimum of coarse vegetables or fruits, careless of the extreme heat of the plain, and the extreme cold of the mountain; and often superadding pain, fatigue, or prolonged and distressing uniformity of posture. They passed their time either in silent meditation or in discourse on religion and philosophy: they were venerated as well as consulted by every one, censuring even the most powerful persons in the land. Their fixed idea was to stand as examples to all, of endurance, insensibility, submission only to the indispensable necessities of nature, and freedom from all other fear or authority. They acted out the doctrine, which Plato so eloquently preaches under the name of Sokrates in the Phædon — That the whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death: that life is worthless, and death an escape from it into a better state.112 It is an interesting fact to learn that when Onesikritus (one of Alexander’s officers, who had known and frequented the society of Diogenes in Greece), being despatched during the Macedonian march through India for the purpose of communicating with these Gymnosophists, saw their manner of life and conversed with them he immediately compared them with Diogenes, whom he had himself visited — as well as with Sokrates and Pythagoras, whom he knew by reputation. Onesikritus described to the Gymnosophists the manner of life of Diogenes: but Diogenes wore a threadbare mantle, and this appeared to them a mark of infirmity and imperfection. They remarked that Diogenes was right to a considerable extent; but wrong for obeying convention in preference to nature, and for being ashamed of going naked, as they did.113

The precepts and principles laid down by Sokrates were carried into fullest execution by the Cynics.

These observations of the Indian Gymnosophist are a reproduction and an application in practice114 of the memorable declaration of principle enunciated by Sokrates — “That the Gods had no wants: and that the man who had fewest wants, approximated most nearly to the Gods”. This principle is first introduced into Grecian ethics by Sokrates: ascribed to him both by Xenophon and Plato, and seemingly approved by both. In his life, too, Sokrates carried the principle into effect, up to a certain point. Both admirers and opponents attest his poverty, hard fare, coarse clothing, endurance of cold and privation:115 but he was a family man, with a wife and children to maintain, and he partook occasionally, of indulgences which made him fall short of his own ascetic principle. Plato and Xenophon — both of them well-born Athenians, in circumstances affluent, or at least easy, the latter being a knight, and even highly skilled in horses and horsemanship — contented themselves with preaching on the text, whenever they had to deal with an opponent more self-indulgent than themselves; but made no attempt to carry it into practice.116 Zeno the Stoic laid down broad principles of self-denial and apathy: but in practice he was unable to conquer the sense of shame, as the Cynics did, and still more the Gymnosophists. Antisthenes, on the other hand, took to heart, both in word and act, the principle of Sokrates: yet even he, as we know from the Xenophontic Symposion, was not altogether constant in rigorous austerity. His successors Diogenes and Krates attained the maximum of perfection ever displayed by the Cynics of free Greece. They stood forth as examples of endurance, abnegation — insensibility to shame and fear — free-spoken censure of others. Even they however were not so recognised by the Indian Gymnosophists; who, having reduced their wants, their fears, and their sensibilities, yet lower, had thus come nearer to that which they called the perfection of Nature, and which Sokrates called the close approach to divinity.117 When Alexander the Great (in the first year of his reign and prior to any of his Asiatic conquests) visited Diogenes at Corinth, found him lying in the sun, and asked if there was anything which he wanted — Diogenes made the memorable reply — “Only that you and your guards should stand out of my sunshine”. This reply doubtless manifests the self-satisfied independence of the philosopher. Yet it is far less impressive than the fearless reproof which the Indian Gymnosophists administered to Alexander, when they saw him in the Punjab at the head of his victorious army, after exploits, dangers, and fatigues almost superhuman, as conqueror of Persia and acknowledged son of Zeus.118

Antithesis between Nature — and Law or Convention — insisted on by the Indian Gymnosophists.

Another point, in the reply made by the Indian Gymnosophist to Onesikritus, deserves notice: I mean the antithesis between law (or convention) and nature (νόμος — φύσις) — the supremacy which he asserts for Nature over law — and the way in which he understands Nature and her supposed ordinances. This antithesis was often put forward and argued in the ancient Ethics: and it is commonly said, without any sufficient proof, that the Sophists (speaking of them collectively) recognised only the authority of law — while Sokrates and Plato had the merit of vindicating against them the superior authority of Nature. The Indian Gymnosophist agrees with the Athenian speaker in the Platonic treatise De Legibus, and with the Platonic Kallikles in the Gorgias, thus far — that he upholds the paramount authority of Nature. But of these three interpreters, each hears and reports the oracles of Nature differently from the other two: and there are many other dissenting interpreters besides.119 Which of them are we to follow? And if, adopting any one of them, we reject the others, upon what grounds are we to justify our preference? When the Gymnosophist points out, that nakedness is the natural condition of man; when he farther infers, that because natural it is therefore right and that the wearing of clothes, being a departure from nature, is also a departure from right — how are we to prove to him that his interpretation of nature is the wrong one? These questions have received no answer in any of the Platonic dialogues: though we have seen that Plato is very bitter against those who dwell upon the antithesis between Law and Nature, and who undertake to decide between the two.

The Greek Cynics — an order of ascetic or mendicant friars.

Reverting to the Cynics, we must declare them to be in one respect the most peculiar outgrowth of Grecian philosophy: because they are not merely a doctrinal sect, with phrases, theories, reasonings, and teachings, of their own — but still more prominently a body of practical ascetics, a mendicant order120 in philosophy, working up the bystanders by exhibiting themselves as models of endurance and apathy. These peculiarities seem to have originated partly with Pythagoras, partly with Sokrates — for there is no known prior example of it in Grecian history, except that of the anomalous priests of Zeus at Dodona, called Selli, who lay on the ground with unwashed feet. The discipline of Lykurgus at Sparta included severe endurance; but then it was intended to form, and actually did form, good soldiers. The Cynics had no view to military action. They exaggerated the peculiarities of Sokrates, and we should call their mode of life the Sokratic life, if we followed the example of those who gave names to the Pythagorean or Orphic life, as a set of observances derived from the type of Pythagoras or Orpheus.121

Logical views of Antisthenes and Diogenes — they opposed the Platonic Ideas.

Though Antisthenes and Diogenes laid chief stress upon ethical topics, yet they also delivered opinions on logic and evidence.122 Antisthenes especially was engaged in controversy, and seemingly in acrimonious controversy, with Plato; whose opinions he impugned in an express dialogue entitled Sathon. Plato on his side attacked the opinions of Antisthenes, and spoke contemptuously of his intelligence, yet without formally naming him. At least there are some criticisms in the Platonic dialogues (especially in the Sophistês, p. 251) which the commentators pronounce, on strong grounds, to be aimed at Antisthenes: who is also unfavourably criticised by Aristotle. We know but little of the points which Antisthenes took up against Plato and still less of the reasons which he urged in support of them. Both he and Diogenes, however, are said to have declared express war against the Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas. The functions of general Concepts and general propositions, together with the importance of defining general terms, had been forcibly insisted on in the colloquies of Sokrates; and his disciple Plato built upon this foundation the memorable hypothesis of an aggregate of eternal, substantive realities, called Ideas or Forms, existing separate from the objects of sense, yet affording a certain participation in themselves to those objects: not discernible by sense, but only by the Reason or understanding. These bold creations of the Platonic fancy were repudiated by Antisthenes and Diogenes: who are both said to have declared “We see Man, and we see Horse; but Manness and Horseness we do not see”. Whereunto Plato replied “You possess that eye by which Horse is seen: but you have not yet acquired that eye by which Horseness is seen”.123

First protest of Nominalism against Realism.

This debate between Antisthenes and Plato marks an interesting point in the history of philosophy. It is the first protest of Nominalism against the doctrine of an extreme Realism. The Ideas or Forms of Plato (according to many of his phrases, for he is not always consistent with himself) are not only real existences distinct from particulars, but absorb to themselves all the reality of particulars. The real universe in the Platonic theory was composed of Ideas or Forms such as Manness or Horseness124 (called by Plato the Αὐτὸ-Ἄνθρωπος and Αὐτὸ-Ἵππος), of which particular men and horses were only disfigured, transitory, and ever-varying photographs. Antisthenes denied what Plato affirmed, and as Plato affirmed it. Aristotle denied it also; maintaining that genera, species, and attributes, though distinguishable as separate predicates of, or inherencies in, individuals — yet had no existence apart from individuals. Aristotle was no less wanting than Antisthenes, in the intellectual eye required for discerning the Platonic Ideas. Antisthenes is said to have declared these Ideas to be mere thoughts or conceptions (ψιλὰς ἐννοίας): i.e., merely subjective or within the mind, without any object corresponding to them. This is one of the various modes of presenting the theory of Ideas, resorted to even in the Platonic Parmenidês, not by one who opposes that theory, but by one seeking to defend it — viz., by Sokrates, when he is hard pressed by the objections of the Eleate against the more extreme and literal version of the theory.125 It is remarkable, that the objections ascribed to Parmenides against that version which exhibits the Ideas as mere Concepts of and in the mind, are decidedly less forcible than those which he urges against the other versions.

Doctrines of Antisthenes about predication — he admits no other predication but identical.

There is another singular doctrine, which Aristotle ascribes to Antisthenes, and which Plato notices and confutes; alluding to its author contemptuously, but not mentioning his name. Every name (Antisthenes argued) has its own special reason or meaning (οἰκεῖος126 λόγος), declaring the essence of the thing named, and differing from every other word: you cannot therefore truly predicate any one word of any other, because the reason or meaning of the two is different: there can be no true propositions except identical propositions, in which the predicate is the same with the subject — “man is man, good is good”. “Man is good” was an inadmissible proposition: affirming different things to be the same, or one thing to be many.127 Accordingly, it was impossible for two speakers really to contradict each other. There can be no contradiction between them if both declare the essence of the same thing — nor if neither of them declare the essence of it — nor if one speaker declares the essence of one thing, and another speaker that of another. But one of these three cases must happen: therefore there can be no contradiction.128

The same doctrine asserted by Stilpon, after the time of Aristotle.

The works of Antisthenes being lost, we do not know how he himself stated his own doctrine, nor what he said on behalf of it, declaring contradiction to be impossible. Plato sets aside the doctrine as absurd and silly; Aristotle — since he cites it as a paradox, apt for dialectical debate, where the opinion of a philosopher stood opposed to what was generally received — seems to imply that there were plausible arguments to be urged in its favour.129 And that the doctrine actually continued to be held and advocated, in the generation not only after Antisthenes but after Aristotle — we may see by the case of Stilpon: who maintained (as Antisthenes had done) that none but identical propositions, wherein the predicate was a repetition of the subject, were admissible: from whence it followed (as Aristotle observed) that there could be no propositions either false or contradictory. Plutarch,130 in reciting this doctrine of Stilpon (which had been vehemently impugned by the Epikurean Kolôtês), declares it to have been intended only in jest. There is no ground for believing that it was so intended: the analogy of Antisthenes goes to prove the contrary.

Nominalism of Stilpon. His reasons against accidental predication.

Stilpon, however, while rejecting (as Antisthenes had done) the universal Ideas131 or Forms, took a larger ground of objection. He pronounced them to be inadmissible both as subject and as predicate. If you speak of Man in general (he said), what, or whom, do you mean? You do not mean A or B, or C or D, &c.: that is, you do not mean any one of these more than any other. You have no determinate meaning at all: and beyond this indefinite multitude of individuals, there is nothing that the term can mean. Again, as to predicates — when you say, The man runs, or The man is good, what do you mean by the predicate runs, or is good? You do not mean any thing specially belonging to man: for you apply the same predicates to many other subjects: you say runs, about a horse, a dog, or a cat — you say good in reference to food, medicine, and other things besides. Your predicate, therefore, being applied to many and diverse subjects, belongs not to one of them more than to another: in other words, it belongs to neither: the predication is not admissible.132

Difficulty of understanding how the same predicate could belong to more than one subject.

Stilpon (like Antisthenes, as I have remarked above) seems to have had in his mind a type of predication, similar to the type of reasoning which Aristotle laid down the syllogism: such that the form of the proposition should be itself a guarantee for the truth of what was affirmed. Throughout the ancient philosophy, especially in the more methodised debates between the Academics and Sceptics on one side, and the Stoics on the other — what the one party affirmed and the other party denied, was, the existence of a Criterion of Truth: some distinguishable mark, such as falsehood could not possibly carry. To find this infallible mark in propositions, Stilpon admitted none except identical. While agreeing with Antisthenes, that no predicate could belong to a subject different from itself, he added a new argument, by pointing out that predicates applied to one subject were also applied to many other subjects. Now if the predicates belonged to one, they could not (in his view) belong to the others: and therefore they did not really belong to any. He considered that predication involved either identity or special and exclusive implication of the predicate with the subject.

Analogous difficulties in the Platonic Parmenidês.

Stilpon was not the first who had difficulty in explaining to himself how one and the same predicate could be applied to many different subjects. The difficulty had already been set forth in the Platonic Parmenidês.133 How can the Form (Man, White, Good, &c.) be present at one and the same time in many distinct individuals? It cannot be present as a whole in each: nor can it be divided, and thus present partly in one, partly in another. How therefore can it be present at all in any of them? In other words, how can the One be Many, and how can the Many be One? Of this difficulty (as of many others) Plato presents no solution, either in the Parmenidês or anywhere else.134 Aristotle alludes to several contemporaries or predecessors who felt it. Stilpon reproduces it in his own way. It is a very real difficulty, requiring to be dealt with by those who lay down a theory of predication; and calling upon them to explain the functions of general propositions, and the meaning of general terms.

Menedêmus disallowed all negative predication.

Menedêmus the Eretrian, one among the hearers and admirers of Stilpon, combined even more than Stilpon the attributes of the Cynic with those of the Megaric. He was fearless in character, and uncontrouled in speech, delivering harsh criticisms without regard to offence given: he was also a great master of ingenious dialectic and puzzling controversy.135 His robust frame, grave deportment, and simplicity of life, inspired great respect; especially as he occupied a conspicuous position, and enjoyed political influence at Eretria. He is said to have thought meanly both of Plato and Xenokrates. We are told that Menedêmus, like Antisthenes and Stilpon, had doctrines of his own on the subject of predication. He disallowed all negative propositions, admitting none but affirmative: moreover even of the affirmative propositions, he disallowed all the hypothetical, approving only the simple and categorical.136

It is impossible to pronounce confidently respecting these doctrines, without knowing the reasons upon which they were grounded. Unfortunately these last have not been transmitted to us. But we may be very sure that there were reasons, sufficient or insufficient: and the knowledge of those reasons would have enabled us to appreciate more fully the state of the Greek mind, in respect to logical theory, in and before the year 300 B.C.

Distinction ascribed to Antisthenes between simple and complex objects. Simple objects undefinable.

Another doctrine, respecting knowledge and definition, is ascribed by Aristotle to “the disciples of Antisthenes and other such uninstructed persons”: it is also canvassed by Plato in the Theætêtus,137 without specifying its author, yet probably having Antisthenes in view. As far as we can make out a doctrine which both these authors recite as opponents, briefly and their own way, it is as follows:—“Objects must be distinguished into — 1. Simple or primary; and 2. Compound or secondary combinations of these simple elements. This last class, the compounds, may be explained or defined, because you can enumerate the component elements. By such analysis, and by the definition founded thereupon, you really come to know them — describe them — predicate about them. But the first class, the simple or primary objects, can only be perceived by sense and named: they cannot be analysed, defined, or known. You can only predicate about them that they are like such and such other things: e.g., silver, you cannot say what it is in itself, but only that it is like tin, or like something else. There may thus be a ratio and a definition of any compound object, whether it be an object of perception or of conception: because one of the component elements will serve as Matter or Subject of the proposition, and the other as Form or Predicate. But there can be no definition of any one of the component elements separately taken: because there is neither Matter nor Form to become the Subject and Predicate of a defining proposition.”

This opinion, ascribed to the followers of Antisthenes, is not in harmony with the opinion ascribed by Aristotle to Antisthenes himself (viz., That no propositions, except identical propositions, were admissible): and we are led to suspect that the first opinion must have been understood or qualified by its author in some manner not now determinable. But the second opinion, drawing a marked logical distinction between simple and complex Objects, has some interest from the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle: both of whom select, for the example illustrating the opinion, the syllable as the compound made up of two or more letters which are its simple constituent elements.

Remarks of Plato on this doctrine.

Plato refutes the doctrine,138 but in a manner not so much to prove its untruth, as to present it for a verbal incongruity. How can you properly say (he argues) that you know the compound AB, when you know neither A nor B separately? Now it may be incongruous to restrict in this manner the use of the words know — knowledge: but the distinction between the two cases is not denied by Plato. Antisthenes said — “I feel a simple sensation (A or B) and can name it, but I do not know it: I can affirm nothing about it in itself, or about its real essence. But the compound AB I do know, for I know its essence: I can affirm about it that it is compounded of A and B, and this is its essence.” Here is a real distinction: and Plato’s argument amounts only to affirming that it is an incorrect use of words to call the compound known, when the component elements are not known. Unfortunately the refutation of Plato is not connected with any declaration of his own counter-doctrine, for Theætêtus ends in a result purely negative.