A Critical History of Greek Philosophy Part 2

The gradual drying up left parts of the earth high and dry, and marine animals migrated to the land, and their fins by adaptation became members fitted for movement on land. The resemblance of this primitive theory to modern theories of evolution is remarkable. It is easy to exaggerate its importance, but it is at any rate clear that Anaximander had, by a happy guess, hit upon the central idea of adaptation of species to their environment.

The teaching of Anaximander exhibits a marked advance beyond the position of Thales. Thales had taught that the first principle of things is water. The formless matter of Anaximander is, philosophically, an advance on this, showing the operation of thought and abstraction. Secondly, Anaximander had definitely attempted to apply this idea, and to derive from it the existent world. Thales had left the question how the primal water developed into a world, entirely unanswered.

Anaximenes

Like the two previous thinkers Anaximenes was an inhabitant of Miletus. He was born about 588 B.C. and {28} died about 524. He wrote a treatise of which a small fragment still remains. He agreed with Thales and Anaximander that the first principle of the universe is material. With Thales too, he looked upon it as a particular kind of matter, not indeterminate matter as taught by Anaximander. Thales had declared it to be water. Anaximenes named air as first principle. This air, like the matter of Anaximander, stretches illimitably through s.p.a.ce. Air is constantly in motion and has the power of motion inherent in it and this motion brought about the development of the universe from air. As operating process of this development Anaximenes named the two opposite processes of (1) Rarefaction, (2) Condensation.

Rarefaction is the same thing as heat or growing hot, and condensation is identified with growing cold. The air by rarefaction becomes fire, and fire borne aloft upon the air becomes the stars. By the opposite process of condensation, air first becomes clouds and, by further degrees of condensation, becomes successively water, earth, and rocks.

The world resolves again in the course of time into the primal air.

Anaximenes, like Anaximander, held the theory of "innumerable worlds,"

and these worlds are, according to the traditional view, successive.

But here again Professor Burnet considers that the innumerable worlds may have been co-existent as well as successive. Anaximenes considered the earth to be a flat disc floating upon air.

The origin of the air theory of Anaximenes seems to have been suggested to him by the fact that air in the form of breath is the principle of life.

The teaching of Anaximenes seems at first sight to be {29} a falling off from the position of Anaximander, because he goes back to the position of Thales in favour of a determinate matter as first principle. But in one respect at least there is here an advance upon Anaximander. The latter had been vague as to how formless matter differentiates itself into the world of objects. Anaximenes names the definite processes of rarefaction and condensation. If you believe, as these early physicists did, that every different kind of matter is ultimately one kind of matter, the problem of the differentiation of the qualities of the existent elements arises. For example, if this paper is really composed of air, how do we account for its colour, its hardness, texture, etc. Either these qualities must be originally in the primal air, or not. If the qualities existed in it then it was not really one h.o.m.ogeneous matter like air, but must have been simply a mixture of different kinds of matter. If not, how do these properties arise? How can this air which has not in it the qualities of things we see, develop them? The simplest way of getting out of the difficulty is to found quality upon quant.i.ty, and to explain the former by the amount or quant.i.ty, more or less, of matter existent in the same volume. This is precisely what is meant by rarefaction and condensation. Condensation would result in compressing more matter into the same volume. Rarefaction would give rise to the opposite process. Great compression of air, a great amount of it in a small s.p.a.ce, might account for the qualities, say, of earth and stones, for example, their heaviness, hardness, colour, etc.

Hence Anaximenes was to some extent a more logical and definite thinker than Anaximander, but cannot {30} compare with him in audacity and originality of thought.

Other Ionic Thinkers

We have now considered the three chief thinkers of the Ionic School.

Others there were, but they added nothing new to the teaching of these three. They followed either Thales or Anaximenes in stating the first principle of the world either as water or as air. Hippo, for example, followed Thales, and for him the world is composed of water, Idaeus agreed with Anaximenes that it is derived from air. Diogenes of Apollonia is chiefly remarkable for the fact that he lived at a very much later date. He was a contemporary of Anaxagoras, and opposed to the more developed teachings of that philosopher the crude materialism of the Ionic School. Air was by him considered to be the ground of all things.

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CHAPTER III

THE PYTHAGOREANS

Not much is known of the life of Pythagoras. Three so-called biographies have come down to us from antiquity, but they were written hundreds of years after the event, and are filled with a tissue of extravagant fancies, and with stories of miracles and wonders worked by Pythagoras. All sorts of fantastic legends seem to have gathered very early around his life, obscuring from us the actual historical details. A few definite facts, however, are known. He was born somewhere between 580 and 570 B.C. at Samos, and about middle age he migrated to Crotona in South Italy. According to legend, before he arrived in South Italy he had travelled extensively in Egypt and other countries of the East. There is, however, no historical evidence of this. There is nothing in itself improbable in the belief that Pythagoras made these travels, but it cannot be accepted as proved for lack of evidence. The legend is really founded simply upon the oriental flavour of his doctrines. In middle age he arrived in South Italy and settled at Crotona. There he founded the Pythagorean Society and lived for many years at the head of it. His later life, the date and manner of his death, are not certainly known.

Now it is important to note that the Pythagorean {32} Society was not primarily a school of philosophy at all. It was really a religious and moral Order, a Society of religious reformers. The Pythagoreans were closely a.s.sociated with the Orphic Sect, and took from it the belief in the transmigration of souls, including transmigration of human souls into animals. They also taught the doctrine of the "wheel of things," and the necessity of obtaining "release" from it, by which one could escape from the weary round of reincarnate lives. Thus they shared with the Orphic religious Sect the principle of reincarnation.

The Orphic Sect believed that "release" from the wheel of life was to be obtained by religious ceremonial and ritual. The Pythagoreans had a similar ritual, but they added to this the belief that intellectual pursuits, the cultivation of science and philosophy, and, in general, the intellectual contemplation of the ultimate things of the universe would be of great help towards the "release" of the soul. From this arose the tendency to develop science and philosophy. Gradually their philosophy attained a semi-independence from their religious rites which justifies us in regarding it definitely as philosophy.

The Pythagorean ethical views were rigorous and ascetic in character.

They insisted upon the utmost purity of life in the members of the Order. Abstinence from flesh was insisted upon, although this was apparently a late development. We know that Pythagoras himself was not a total abstainer from flesh. They forbade the eating of beans. They wore a garb peculiar to themselves. The body, they taught, is the prison or tomb of the soul. They thought that one must not attempt to obtain "release" by suicide, because "man is the {33} property of G.o.d," the chattel of G.o.d. They were not politicians in the modern sense, but their procedure in practice amounted to the greatest possible interference in politics. It appears that the Pythagoreans attempted to impose their ordinances upon the ordinary citizens of Crotona. They aimed at the supersession of the State by their own Order and they did actually capture the government of Crotona for a short period. This led to attacks on the Order, and the persecution of its members. When the plain citizen of Crotona was told not to eat beans, and that under no circ.u.mstances could he eat his own dog, this was too much. A general persecution occurred. The meeting place of the Pythagoreans was burnt to the ground, the Society was scattered, and its members killed or driven away. This occurred between the years 440 and 430 B.C. Some years later the Society revived and continued its activities, but we do not hear much of it after the fourth century B.C.

It was largely a mystical society. The Pythagoreans developed their own ritual, ceremonial and mysteries. This love of mystery, and their general character as miracle-mongers, largely account for the legends which grew up around the life of Pythagoras himself. Their scientific activities were also considerable. They enforced moral self-control.

They cultivated the arts and crafts, gymnastics, music, medicine, and mathematics. The development of mathematics in early Greece was largely the work of the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras is said to have discovered the 47th Proposition of Euclid, and to have sacrificed an ox in honour thereof. And there is good reason to believe that practically the whole of the substance of the First Book of Euclid is the work of Pythagoras.

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Turning now to their philosophical teaching, the first thing that we have to understand is that we cannot speak of the philosophy of Pythagoras, but only of the philosophy of the Pythagoreans. For it is not known what share Pythagoras had in this philosophy or what share was contributed by his successors. Now we recognize objects in the universe by means of their qualities. But the majority of these qualities are not universal in their scope; some things possess some qualities; others possess others. A leaf, for example, is green, but not all things are green. Some things have no colour at all. The same is true of tastes and smells. Some things are sweet; some bitter. But there is one quality in things which is absolutely universal in its scope, which applies to everything in the universe--corporeal or incorporeal. All things are _numerable_, and can be counted. Moreover, it is impossible to conceive a universe in which number is not to be found. You could easily imagine a universe in which there is no colour, or no sweet taste, or a universe in which nothing possesses weight. But you cannot imagine a universe in which there is no number.

This is an inconceivable thought. Upon these grounds we should be justified in concluding that number is an extremely important aspect of things, and forms a fundamental pad of the framework of the world.

And it is upon this aspect of things that the Pythagoreans laid emphasis.

They drew attention to proportion, order, and harmony as the dominant notes of the universe. Now when we examine the ideas of proportion, order, and harmony, we shall see that they are closely connected with number. Proportion, for example, must necessarily {35} be expressible by the relation of one number to another. Similarly order is measurable by numbers. When we say that the ranks of a regiment exhibit order, we mean that they are arranged in such a way that the soldiers stand at certain regular distances from each other, and these distances are measurable by numbers of feet or inches. Lastly, consider the idea of harmony. If, in modern times, we were to say that the universe is a harmonious whole, we should understand that we are merely using a metaphor from music. But the Pythagoreans lived in an age when men were not practised in thought, and they confused cosmical harmony with musical harmony. They thought that the two things were the same. Now musical harmony is founded upon numbers, and the Pythagoreans were the first to discover this. The difference of notes is due to the different numbers of vibrations of the sounding instrument. The musical intervals are likewise based upon numerical proportions. So that since, for the Pythagoreans, the universe is a musical harmony, it follows that the essential character of the universe is number. The study of mathematics confirmed the Pythagoreans in this idea. Arithmetic is the science of numbers, and all other mathematical sciences are ultimately reducible to numbers.

For instance, in geometry, angles are measured by the number of degrees.

Now, as already pointed out, considering all these facts, we might well be justified in concluding that number is a very important aspect of the universe, and is fundamental in it. But the Pythagoreans went much further than this. They drew what seems to us the extraordinary conclusion that the world is _made of_ {36} numbers. At this point, then, we reach the heart of the Pythagorean philosophy. Just as Thales had said that the ultimate reality, the first principle of which things are composed, is water, so now the Pythagoreans teach that the first principle of things is number. Number is the world-ground, the stuff out of which the universe is made.

In the detailed application of this principle to the world of things we have a conglomeration of extraordinary fancies and extravagances.

In the first place, all numbers arise out of the unit. This is the prime number, every other number being simply so many units. The unit then is the first in the order of things in the universe. Again, numbers are divided into odd and even. The universe, said the Pythagoreans, is composed of pairs of opposites and contradictories, and the fundamental character of these opposites is that they are composed of the odd and even. The odd and even, moreover, they identified with the limited and the unlimited respectively. How this identification was made seems somewhat doubtful. But it is clearly connected with the theory of bipart.i.tion. An even number can be divided by two and therefore it does not set a limit to bipart.i.tion.

Hence it is unlimited. An odd number cannot be divided by two, and therefore it sets a limit to bipart.i.tion. The limited and the unlimited become therefore the ultimate principles of the universe.

The Limit is identified with the unit, and this again with the central fire of the universe. The Limit is first formed and proceeds to draw more and more of the unlimited towards itself, and to limit it.

Becoming limited, it becomes a definite "something," a thing. So the formation of the {37} world of things proceeds. The Pythagoreans drew up a list of ten opposites of which the universe is composed. They are (1) Limited and unlimited, (2) odd and even, (3) one and many, (4) right and left, (5) masculine and feminine, (6) rest and motion, (7) straight and crooked, (8) light and darkness, (9) good and evil, (10) square and oblong.

With the further development of the number-theory Pythagoreanism becomes entirely arbitrary and without principle. We hear, for example, that 1 is the point, 2 is the line, 3 is the plane, 4 is the solid, 5 physical qualities, 6 animation, 7 intelligence, health, love, wisdom. There is no principle in all this. Identification of the different numbers with different things can only be left to the whim and fancy of the individual. The Pythagoreans disagreed among themselves as to what number is to be a.s.signed to what thing. For example, justice, they said, is that which returns equal for equal. If I do a man an injury, justice ordains that injury should be done to me, thus giving equal for equal. Justice must, therefore, be a number which returns equal for equal. Now the only numbers which do this are square numbers. Four equals two into two, and so returns equal for equal. Four, then, must be justice. But nine is equally the square of three. Hence other Pythagoreans identified justice with nine.

According to Philolaus, one of the most prominent Pythagoreans, the quality of matter depends upon the number of sides of its smallest particles. Of the five regular solids, three were known to the Pythagoreans. That matter whose smallest particles are regular tetrahedra, said Philolaus, is fire. Similarly earth is composed {38} of cubes, and the universe is identified with the dodecahedron. This idea was developed further by Plato in the "Timaeus," where we find all the five regular solids brought into the theory.

The central fire, already mentioned as identified with the unit, is a characteristic doctrine of the Pythagoreans. Up to this time it had been believed that the earth is the centre of the universe, and that everything revolves round it. But with the Pythagoreans the earth revolves round the central fire. One feels inclined at once to identify this with the sun. But this is not correct. The sun, like the earth, revolves round the central fire. We do not see the central fire because that side of the earth on which we live is perpetually turned away from it. This involves the theory that the earth revolves round the central fire in the same period that it takes to rotate upon its axis. The Pythagoreans were the first to see that the earth is itself one of the planets, and to shake themselves free from the geocentric hypothesis. Round the central fire, sometimes mystically called "the Hearth of the Universe," revolve ten bodies. First is the "counter-earth," a non-existent body invented by the Pythagoreans, next comes the earth, then the sun, the moon, the five planets, and lastly the heaven of the fixed stars. This curious system might have borne fruit in astronomy. That it did not do so was largely due to the influence of Aristotle, who discountenanced the theory, and insisted that the earth is the centre of the universe. But in the end the Pythagorean view won the day. We know that Copernicus derived the suggestion of his heliocentric hypothesis from the Pythagoreans.

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The Pythagoreans also taught "The Great Year," probably a period of 10,000 years, in which the world comes into being and pa.s.ses away, going in each such period through the same evolution down to the smallest details.

There is little to be said by way of criticism of the Pythagorean system. It is entirely crude philosophy. The application of the number theory issues in a barren and futile arithmetical mysticism. Hegel's words in this connection are instructive:--

"We may certainly," he says, "feel ourselves prompted to a.s.sociate the most general characteristics of thought with the first numbers: saying one is the simple and immediate, two is difference and mediation, and three the unity of both these. Such a.s.sociations however are purely external; there is nothing in the mere numbers to make them express these definite thoughts. With every step in this method, the more arbitrary grows the a.s.sociation of definite numbers with definite thoughts ... To attach, as do some secret societies of modern times, importance to all sorts of numbers and figures is, to some extent an innocent amus.e.m.e.nt, but it is also a sign of deficiency of intellectual resource. These numbers, it is said, conceal a profound meaning, and suggest a deal to think about. But the point in philosophy is not what you may think but what you do think; and the genuine air of thought is to be sought in thought itself and not in arbitrarily selected symbols." [Footnote 3]

[Footnote 3: Hegel's _Smaller Logic_, translated by Wallace, second edition, page 198.]

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CHAPTER IV

THE ELEATICS

The Eleatics are so called because the seat of their school was at Elea, a town in South Italy, and Parmenides and Zeno, the two chief representatives of the school, were both citizens of Elea. So far we have been dealing with crude systems of thought in which only the germs of philosophic thinking can be dimly discerned. Now, however, with the Eleatics we step out definitely for the first time upon the platform of philosophy. Eleaticism is the first true philosophy. In it there emerges the first factor of the truth, however poor, meagre, and inadequate. For philosophy is not, as many persons suppose, simply a collection of freak speculations, which we may study in historical order, but at the end of which, G.o.d alone knows which we ought to believe. On the contrary, the history of philosophy presents a definite line of evolution. The truth unfolds itself gradually in time.

Xenophanes

The reputed founder of the Eleatic School was Xenophanes. It is, however, doubtful whether Xenophanes ever went to Elea. Moreover, he belongs more properly {41} to the history of religion than to the history of philosophy. The real creator of the Eleatic School was Parmenides. But Parmenides seized upon certain germs of thought latent in Xenophanes and trans.m.u.ted them into philosophic principles. We have, therefore, in the first instance, to say something of Xenophanes. He was born about the year 576 B.C., at Colophon in Ionia.

His long life was spent in wandering up and down the cities of h.e.l.las, as a poet and minstrel, singing songs at banquets and festivals.

Whether, as sometimes stated; he finally settled at Elea is a matter of doubt, but we know definitely that at the advanced age of ninety-two he was still wandering about Greece. His philosophy, such as it is, is expressed in poems. He did not, however, write philosophical poems, but rather elegies and satires upon various subjects, only incidentally expressing his religious views therein.

Fragments of these poems have come down to us.

Xenophanes is the originator of the quarrel between philosophy and religion. He attacked the popular religious notions of the Greeks with a view to founding a purer and n.o.bler conception of Deity. Popular Greek religion consisted of a belief in a number of G.o.ds who were conceived very much as in the form of human beings. Xenophanes attacks this conception of G.o.d as possessing human form. It is absurd, he says, to suppose that the G.o.ds wander about from place to place, as represented in the Greek legends. It is absurd to suppose that the G.o.ds had a beginning. It is disgraceful to impute to them stories of fraud, adultery, theft and deceit. And Xenophanes inveighs against Homer and Hesiod for disseminating these degrading conceptions {42} of the Deity. He argues, too, against the polytheistic notion of a plurality of G.o.ds. That which is divine can only be one. There can only be one best. Therefore, G.o.d is to be conceived as one. And this G.o.d is comparable to mortals neither in bodily form nor understanding.

He is "all eye, all ear, all thought." It is he "who, without trouble, by his thought governs all things." But it would be a mistake to suppose that Xenophanes thought of this G.o.d as a being external to the world, governing it from the outside, as a general governs his soldiers. On the contrary, Xenophanes identified G.o.d with the world.

The world is G.o.d, a sentient being, though without organs of sense.