Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 37

The attainment of this consummation is the grand purpose of the Platonic philosophy. Its ultimate object is "_the purification of the soul_," and its pervading spirit is the aspiration after perfection. The whole system of Plato has therefore an eminently _ethical_ character. It is a speculative philosophy directed to a practical purpose.

Philosophy is the _love of wisdom_. Now wisdom (s?f?a) is expressly declared by Plato to belong alone to the Supreme Divinity,[664] who alone can contemplate reality in a direct and immediate manner, and in whom, as Plato seems often to intimate, knowledge and being coincide.

Philosophy is the aspiration of the soul after this wisdom, this perfect and immutable truth, and in its realization it is a union with the Perfect Wisdom through the medium of a divine affection, the _love_ of which Plato so often speaks. The eternal and unchangeable Essence which is the proper object of philosophy is also endowed with _moral_ attributes. He is not only "the Being," but "the Good" (t? ??a???), and all in the system of the universe which can be the object of rational contemplation, is an emanation from that goodness. The love of truth is therefore the love of G.o.d, and the love of Good is the love of truth.

Philosophy and morality are thus coincident. Philosophy is the love of Perfect Wisdom; Perfect Wisdom and Perfect Goodness are identical; the Perfect Good is G.o.d; philosophy is the "_Love of G.o.d_."[665] Ethically viewed, it is this one motive of _love_ for the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness, predominating over and purifying and a.s.similating every desire of the soul, and governing every movement of the man, raising man to a partic.i.p.ation of and communion with Divinity, and restoring him to "the _likeness_ of G.o.d." "This flight," says Plato, "consists in resembling G.o.d (????s?? Te?), and this resemblance is the becoming just and holy with wisdom."[666] "This a.s.similation to G.o.d is the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the divine element of the soul. To approach to G.o.d as the substance of truth is _Science_; as the substance of goodness in truth is _Wisdom_, and as the substance of Beauty in goodness and truth is _Love_."[667]

The two great principles which can be clearly traced as pervading the ethical system of Plato are--

1. _That no man is willingly evil_.[668]

2. _That every man is endued with the power of producing changes in his moral character_[669]

[Footnote 664: "Phaedrus," -- 145.]

[Footnote 665: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.

61.]

[Footnote 666: "Theaetetus," -- 84.]

[Footnote 667: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.

277.]

[Footnote 668: "Timaesus," ch. xlviii.]

[Footnote 669: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i., bk. ix. ch. vi., bk. x. ch. xii.]

The first of these principles is the counterpart ethical expression of his theory of _immutable Being_. The second is the counterpart of his theory of phenomenal change, or _mere Becoming_.

The soul of man is framed after the pattern of the immutable ideas of the _just_, and the _true_, and the _good_, which dwell in the Eternal Mind--that is, it is made in the image of G.o.d. The soul in its ultimate essence is formed of "the immutable" and "the permanent." The presence of the ideas of the just, and the true, and the good in the reason of man, const.i.tute him a moral nature; and it is impossible that he can cease to be a moral being, for these ideas, having a permanent and immutable being, can not be changed. All the pa.s.sions and affections of the soul are merely phenomenal. They belong to the mortal, the transitory life of man; they are in endless flow and change, and they have no permanent reality. As phenomena, they must, however, have some ground; and Plato found that ground in the mysterious, instinctive longing for the _good_ and the _true_ which dwells in the very essence of the soul. These are the realities after which it strives, even when pursuing pleasure, and honor, and wealth, and fame. All the restlessness of human life is prompted by a longing for the _good_. But man does not clearly perceive what the _good_ really is. The rational element of the soul has become clouded by pa.s.sion and ignorance, and suffered an eclipse of its powers. Still, man longs for the good, and bears witness, by his restlessness and disquietude, that he instinctively desires it, and that he can find no rest and no satisfaction in any thing apart from the knowledge and the partic.i.p.ation of the Supreme, the Absolute Good.

This, then, is the meaning of the oft-repeated a.s.sertion of Plato "_that no man is willingly evil_;" viz., that no man deliberately chooses evil as evil. And Plato is, at the same time, careful to guard the doctrine from misconception. He readily grants that acts of wrong are distinguished as voluntary and involuntary, without which there could be neither merit nor demerit, reward nor punishment.[670] But still he insists that no man chooses evil in and by itself. He may choose it voluntarily as a means, but he does not choose it as an end. Every volition, by its essential nature, pursues, at least, an _apparent_ good; because the end of volition is not the immediate act, but the object for the sake of which the act is undertaken.[671]

[Footnote 670: "Laws," bk. ix. ch. vi.]

[Footnote 671: "Gorgias," ---- 52, 53.]

How is it, then, it may be asked, that men become evil? The answer of Plato is, that the soul has in it a principle of change, in the power of regulating the desires--in indulging them to excess, or moderating them according to the demands of reason. The circ.u.mstances in which the soul is placed, as connected with the sensible world by means of the body, present an occasion for the exercise of that power, the end of this temporal connection being to establish a state of moral discipline and probation. The humors and distempers of the body likewise deprave, disorder, and discompose the soul.[672] "Pleasures and pains are unduly magnified; the democracy of the pa.s.sions prevails; and the ascendency of reason is cast down." Bad forms of civil government corrupt social manners, evil education effects the ruin of the soul. Thus the soul is changed--is fallen from what it was when first it came from the Creator's hand. But the eternal Ideas are not utterly effaced, the image of G.o.d is not entirely lost. The soul may yet be restored by remedial measures. It may be purified by knowledge, by truth, by expiations, by sufferings, and by prayers. The utmost, however, that man can hope to do in this life is insufficient to fully restore the image of G.o.d, and death must complete the final emanc.i.p.ation of the rational element from the bondage of the flesh. Life is thus a discipline and a preparation for another state of being, and death the final entrance there.[673]

[Footnote 672: "Gorgias," ---- 74-76.]

[Footnote 673: "Phaedo," ---- 130, 131.]

Independent of all other considerations, virtue is, therefore, to be pursued as the true good of the soul. Wisdom, Fort.i.tude, Temperance, Justice, the four cardinal virtues of the Platonic system, are to be cultivated as the means of securing the purification and perfection of the inner man. And the ordinary pleasures, "the lesser goods" of life, are only to be so far pursued as they are subservient to, and compatible with, the higher and holier duty of striving after "the resemblance to G.o.d."

CHAPTER XII.

THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).

THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).

ARISTOTLE.

Aristotle was born at Stagira, a Greek colony of Thrace, B.C. 384. His father, Nicomachus, was a physician in the Court of Amyntas II., King of Macedonia, and is reported to have written several works on Medicine and Natural History. From his father, Aristotle seems to have inherited a love for the natural sciences, which was fostered by the circ.u.mstances which surrounded him in early life, and which exerted a determining influence upon the studies of his riper years.

Impelled by an insatiate desire for knowledge, he, at seventeen years of age, repaired to Athens, the city of Plato and the university of the world. Plato was then absent in Sicily; on his return Aristotle entered his school, became an ardent student of philosophy, and remained until the death of Plato, B.C. 348. He therefore listened to the instructions of Plato for twenty years.

The mental characteristics of the pupil and the teacher were strikingly dissimilar. Plato was poetic, ideal, and in some degree mystical.

Aristotle was prosaic, systematic, and practical. Plato was intuitive and synthetical. Aristotle was logical and a.n.a.lytical. It was therefore but natural that, to the mind of Aristotle, there should appear something confused, irregular, and incomplete in the discourses of his master. There was a strange commingling of questions concerning the grounds of morality, and statements concerning the nature of science; of inquiries concerning "real being," and speculations on the ordering of a model Republic, in the same discourse. Ethics, politics, ontology, and theology, are all comprised in his Dialectic, which is, in fact, the one grand "science of the idea of the good." Now to the mind of Aristotle it seemed better, and much more systematic, that these questions should be separated, and referred to particular heads; and, above all, that they should be thoroughly discussed in an exact and settled terminology. To arrange and cla.s.sify all the objects of knowledge, to discuss them systematically and, as far as possible, exhaustively, was evidently the ambition, perhaps also the special function, of Aristotle. He would survey the entire field of human knowledge; he would study nature as well as humanity, matter as well as mind, language as well as thought; he would define the proper limits of each department of study, and present a regular statement of the facts and principles of each science.

And, in fact, he was the first who really separated the different sciences and erected them into distinct systems, each resting upon its own proper principles. He distributed philosophy into three branches:--(i.) _Theoretic_; (ii.) _Efficient_; (iii.) _Practical_. The Theoretic he divided into--1. _Physics_; _2. Mathematics_; 3.

_Theology_, or the Prime Philosophy--the science known in modern times as Metaphysics. The Efficient embraces what we now term the arts,--1.

_Logic; 2. Rhetoric_; 3. _Poetics_. The Practical comprises--_1.

Ethics_; 2. _Politics_. On all these subjects he wrote separate treatises. Thus, whilst Plato is the genius of abstraction, Aristotle is eminently the genius of cla.s.sification.

Such being the mental characteristics of the two men--their type of mind so opposite--we are prepared to expect that, in pursuing his inquiries, Aristotle would develop a different _Organon_ from that of Plato, and that the teachings of Aristotle will give a new direction to philosophic thought.

ARISTOTELIAN ORGANON.

Plato made use of psychological and logical a.n.a.lysis in order to draw from the depth of consciousness certain fundamental ideas which are inherent in the mind--born with it, and not derived from sense or experience. These ideas he designates "the intelligible species" (t?

????e?a ????) as opposed to "the visible species"--the objects of sense. Such ideas or principles being found, he uses them as "starting-points" from which he may pa.s.s beyond the sensible world and ascend to "the absolute," that is, to G.o.d.[674] Having thus, by immediate abstraction, attained to universal and necessary ideas, he descends to the outer world, and attempts by these ideas to construct an intellectual theory of the universe.[675]

Aristotle will reverse this process. He will commence with _sensation_, and proceed, by induction, from the known to the unknown.

The repet.i.tion of sensations produces _recollection_, recollection _experience_, and experience produces _science_.[676] "Science and art result unto men by means of experience...." "Art comes into being when, from a number of experiences, one universal opinion is evolved, which will embrace all similar cases. For example, if you know that a certain remedy has cured Callias of a certain disease, and that the same remedy has produced the same effect on Socrates and on several other persons, that is _Experience_; but to know that a certain remedy will cure all persons attacked with that disease, is _Art_. Experience is a knowledge of individual things (t?? ?a???asta); art is that of universals (t??

?a?????)."[677]

[Footnote 674: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.]

[Footnote 675: "Timaeus," ch. ix.]

[Footnote 676: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i.]

[Footnote 677: Ibid.]

Disregarding the Platonic notion of the unity of all Being in the absolute idea, he fixed his immediate attention on the manifoldness of the phenomenal, and by a cla.s.sification of all the objects of experience he sought to attain to "general notions." Concentrating all his attention on the individual, the contingent, the particular, he ascends, by induction, from the particular to the _general_; and then, by a strange paralogism, "the _universal_" is confounded with "the _general_"

or, by a species of logical sleight-of-hand, the general is trans.m.u.ted into the universal. Thus "induction is the pathway from particulars to universals."[678] But how universal and necessary principles can be obtained by a generalization of limited experiences is not explained by Aristotle. The experiences of a lifetime, the experiences of the whole race, are finite and limited, and a generalization of these can only give the finite, the limited, and at most, the general, but not the universal.

[Footnote 679: "Topics," bk. i. ch. xii.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.]

Aristotle admits, however, that there are ideas or principles in the mind which can not be explained by experience, and we are therefore ent.i.tled to an answer to the question--how are these obtained? "Sensible experience gives us what is _here_, _there_, _now_, in such and such a manner, but it is impossible for it to give what is _everywhere_ and _at all times_."[680] He tells us further, that "science is a conception of the mind engaged in universals, and in those things which exist of necessity, and since there are _principles of things demonstrable and of every science_ (for science is joined with reason), it will be neither science, nor art, nor prudence, which discovers the principles of science;... it must therefore be (????) pure intellect," or the intuitive reason.[681] He also characterizes these principles as _self-evident_. "First truths are those which obtain belief, not through others, but through themselves, as there is no necessity to investigate the '_why_' in scientific principles, but each principle ought to be credible by itself."[682] They are also _necessary_ and _eternal_.

"Demonstrative science is from necessary principles, and those which are _per se_ inherent, are necessarily so in things."[683] "We have all a conception of that which can not subsist otherwise than it does.... The object of science has a necessary existence, therefore it is _eternal_.

For those things which exist in themselves, by necessity, are all eternal."[684] But whilst Aristotle admits that there are "immutable and first principles,"[685] which are not derived from sense and experience--"principles which are the foundation of all science and demonstration, but which are themselves indemonstrable,"[686] because self-evident, necessary, and eternal; yet he furnishes no proper account of their genesis and development in the human mind, neither does he attempt their enumeration. At one time he makes the intellect itself their source, at another he derives them from sense, experience, and induction. This is the defect, if not the inconsistency, of his method.[687]

[Footnote 680: "Post. a.n.a.lytic," bk. i. ch. x.x.xi.]

[Footnote 681: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.]