have predicted the eclipse of the 28th of May, 585, and to have been acquainted with the phenomenon of magnetism, as well as with the attractive property of polished amber (ἤλεκτρον). 2. According to ANAXIMANDER,1 a fellow-countryman and disciple of Thales, the author of a work On Nature, the first principle is not water, but the infinite atmosphere (Tò ǎπερоv), from which it comes in order to fructify the earth. This infinite, indistinct matter is the mother of the heavens and the worlds which they encompass (τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ τῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς κόσμων). Everything that exists owes its being to the first principle, and arises from it by separation; it is therefore just that everything render to it, at the hour appointed by Fate, the life which Fate has given it, in order that this life may circulate and pass to new beings. The opposites, warm and cold, dry and moist, which do not exist in the amepov, the primitive chaos where everything is neutralized, are gradually parted off, and form nature, with its contraries, its opposite qualities, and separate elements. The first opposition is that between the warm and dry, on the one hand, and the cold and moist, on the other; the former occurring in the earth, the latter in the heavens which surround it. The earth is a cylindrical body, and floats freely in the infinite ether, being held in equilibrium because of its equal distance from all the other heavenly bodies (διὰ τὴν ὁμοίαν πάντων ἀπόστασιν). There are an infinite number of worlds (@eoí), which are alternately formed and destroyed. The first animals were produced 1 Sources: Aristotle, Met., XII., 2; Phys., III., 4; Simplicius, In Phys., f. 6, 32; Plutarch, in Eusebius, Præp. evang., I., 8; Hippolytus, Refut. hæres., I., 6; Cicero, De nat. deor., I., 10; Schleiermacher, Ueber Anaximandros, Complete Works, 3d series, vol. II., pp. 171-296; Ritter and Preller, pp. 12-19; [Mullach, Fragmenta, I., p. 240; Burnet, pp. 47 ff. — Tr]; C. Mallet, Histoire de la philosophie ionienne, Paris, 1842; [Teichmüller, Studien and Neue Studien. — TR.]. in the water, and from them the more advanced species gradually arose. Man sprang from the fish. Individuals and species constantly change, but the substance whence they are derived, the ἄπειρον, is indestructible (ἄφθαρτον, ἀθάνατον, ἀνώλεθρον), because it is uncreated (ἀγέννητον). It envelops everything, produces everything, governs everything (περιέχει ἅπαντα καὶ πάντα κυβερνᾷ). It is the supreme divinity (Tò eîov), possessing a perpetual vitality of its own. 3. ANAXIMENES1 of Miletus, the disciple of Anaximander and third representative of the Ionian philosophy, calls the generative principle of things air or breath (ańρ, πveûμa, ψυχή). yuxý). His philosophy, which is a more exact formulation of Anaximander's doctrine, may be summarized in the following words: infinite matter, a perpetual motion of condensation and rarefaction that is something like a plastic principle, necessity directing the motion (díkŋ, áváyên). Matter, motion, motive force, directing necessity: we find among the Ionians all the elements of the explanations of nature attempted afterwards. But their systems are like rudimentary organisms. The perfection of a living being depends upon the greater or less differentiation of its organs; the more its constitutive parts differ from each other and become specialized, the higher it rises in the scale of beings. Now, the Ionian philosophy is, when compared with that of Aristotle, perfectly uniform. Thales regards water, Anaximenes air, as substratum, motive force, and fate, or the law of motion.2 Progress in science, as well as in nature, is made possible by the division of labor, by differentiation of the constitutive elements of being, by the multiplication and opposition of systems. 1 Plutarch, in Eusebius, Præp. evang., I., 8; Cicero, De nat. deor., I., 10; Schleiermacher, Ueber Diogenes von Apollonia (loc. cit.) ; Ritter and Preller, pp. 20-23; [Burnet, pp. 79 ff. - TR.]. 2 Aristotle, Met., I., 10, 2. § 6. The Problem of Becoming 1. The first question that arouses controversy is the problem of becoming. Being persists, beings constantly change; they are born and they pass away. How can being both persist and not persist? Reflection upon this problem, the metaphysical problem par excellence, since it lies at the root of all the sciences and dominates all questions, gives rise to three systems, the types of all European philosophies, the Eleatic system; the system of Heraclitus; the atomistic system, which was proclaimed in the idealistic sense by the Pythagoreans, in the materialistic sense by Leucippus and Democritus, and with a dualistic turn by Anaxagoras. The first two are radical; each suppresses one of the terms of the antinomy; the third is a doctrine of conciliation. According to the Eleatic hypothesis, being is everything, change is but phenomenal; according to Heraclitus, change is everything, and being, or permanence, is but an illusion; according to the monadists and atomists, both permanence and change exist: permanence in the beings, perpetual change in their relations. The Eleatics deny becoming; Heraclitus makes a god of it; the atomists explain it. A. NEGATION OF BECOMING § 7. Eleatic Philosophy. Xenophanes, Parmenides, At the time when Anaximander flourished in Miletus, another Ionian, Xenophanes of Colophon, immigrated into 1 Considered by the Pythagoreans as ideal unities or numbers; by the atomists as real or material unities. 2 [Karsten, Philosophorum græcorum veterum operum reliquiæ, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1835 ff.; Bergk, Commentatio de Arist. libello de Xeno phane, etc., Marburg, 1843. — TR.] Magna Græcia, travelled through the cities as a philosopher and rhapsodist, and finally settled in Elea in Lucania, where he gained adherents. His theological innovations were developed and systematized by Parmenides of Elea and Melissus of Samos, who raised them to the dignity of a metaphysic. Zeno of Elea, the disciple of Parmenides, undertook to defend them by means of dialectics, thereby becoming the precursor of the Sophists. 1. XENOPHANES 1 is a decided opponent of the national mythology, towards which he assumes a similar attitude to that of the Hebrew prophets who raised their powerful voices against polytheism and its empty conceptions. His written and spoken words proclaim him as the real creator of philosophical monotheism, which he identifies with pantheism. With an eloquence that is full of irony, his satires, some fragments of which are extant, combat the error of those who infinitely multiply the divine Being, who attribute to him a human form (anthropomorphism) and human passions (anthropopathism). There is one God, he says, one only God, comparable to the gods of Homer or to mortals neither in form nor in thought. This God is all eye, all ear, all thought. Being immutable and immovable, he has no need of going about, now hither, now thither, in order to carry out his wishes, but without toil he governs 1 Aristotle (?), De Xenophane, Zenone, et Gorgia; Clement of Alex., Eтpoμara, V., p. 601 C; ibid., p. 711 B; Buhle, Commentatio de ortu et progressu pantheismi inde a Xenophane, etc., Gött., 1790; V. Cousin, Xenophane, fondateur de l'école d'Élée (in the Nouveaux fragments philosophiques), Paris, 1828; Kern, Quæstiones Xenophanec, Naumburg, 1846; Mullach, Fragmenta, I., pp. 101 ff.; Ritter and Preller, pp. 75– 84; [Burnet, pp. 115 ff.]; J. Freudenthal, Ueber die Theologie des Xenophanes, Breslau, 1886. Freudenthal bases his view partly on the words ev Tois beoiσi (Mullach, p. 101), and makes Xenophanes a polytheist. This is a strange misconception of the spirit for the letter, and would be like reckoning Spinoza among the theists, because he calls nature God, and God a thinking thing. all things by his thought alone. Mortals, of course, accept the authority of Homer and Hesiod, and think that the gods are born as they are, and like them have feeling, voice, and body; and they ascribe to the gods all things that are a shame and disgrace among men, - theft, adultery, and falsehood. They do as the oxen or lions would do if they could paint: they would certainly represent their gods in the form of lions or oxen. In place of these imaginary beings, let us adore the one infinite Being, who bears us in his bosom, and in whom there is neither generation nor corruption, neither change nor origin. 2. PARMENIDES 2 completes the teachings of his master, and makes them the starting-point for a strictly monistic 1 Mullach, pp. 101-102 : Εἰς θεὸς ἔν τε θεοῖσι και ἀνθρώποισι μέγιστος, οὔτε δέμας θνητοῖσιν ὁμοίος οὔτε νόημα. 2 Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math., VII., 111; Simplicius, In phys., f. 7, 9, 19, 25, 31, 38; Proclus, Comment. in Plat. Timæum, p. 105; Clem. of Alex., Strom., V., pp. 552 D, 614 A; Mullach, Fragm. phil. gr., I., pp. 109 ff.; Ritter and Preller, pp. 85 ff.; [Burnet, pp. 218 ff.]. |