One of the most celebrated sayings is that of Solon in his conversation with Crœsus, which Herodotus (I. 30-33) has in his own way given us very fully. The result arrived at is this:—“Nobody is to be esteemed happy before his death.” But the noteworthy point in this narrative is that from it we can get a better idea of the standpoint of Greek reflection in the time of Solon. We see that happiness is put forward as the highest aim, that which is most to be desired and which is the end of man; before Kant, morality, as eudæmonism, was based on the determination of happiness. In Solon’s sayings there is an advance over the sensuous enjoyment which is merely pleasant to the feelings. Let us ask what happiness is and what there is within it for reflection, and we find that it certainly carries with it a certain satisfaction to the individual, of whatever sort it be—whether obtained through physical enjoyment or spiritual—the means of obtaining which lie in men’s own hands. But the fact is further to be observed that not every sensuous, immediate pleasure can be laid hold of, for happiness contains a reflection on the circumstances as a whole, in which we have the principle to which the principle of isolated enjoyment must give way. Eudæmonism signifies happiness as a condition for the whole of life; it sets up a totality of enjoyment which is a universal and a rule for individual enjoyment, in that it does not allow it to give way to what is momentary, but restrains desires and sets a universal standard before one’s eyes. If we contrast it with Indian philosophy, we find eudæmonism to be antagonistic to it. There the liberation of the soul from what is corporeal, the perfect abstraction, the necessity that the soul shall, in its simplicity, be at home with itself, is the final end of man. With the Greeks the opposite is the case; the satisfaction there is also satisfaction of the soul, but it is not attained through flight, abstraction, withdrawal within self, but through satisfaction in the present, concrete satisfaction in relation to the surroundings. The stage of reflection that we reach in happiness, stands midway between mere desire and the other extreme, which is right as right and duty as duty. In happiness, the individual enjoyment has disappeared; the form of universality is there, but the universal does not yet come forth on its own account, and this is the issue of the conversation between Crœsus and Solon. Man as thinking, is not solely engrossed with present enjoyment, but also with the means for obtaining that to come. Crœsus points out to him these means, but Solon still objects to the statement of the question of Crœsus. For in order that any one should be conceived of as happy, we must await his death, for happiness depends upon his condition to the end, and upon the fact that his death should be a pious one and be consistent with his higher destiny. Because the life of Crœsus had not yet expired, Solon could not deem him happy. And the history of Crœsus bears evidence that no momentary state deserves the name of happiness. This edifying history holds in its embrace the whole standpoint of the reflection of that time.
_Division of the Subject_. In the consideration of Greek philosophy we have now to distinguish further three important periods:—in the first place the period from Thales to Aristotle; secondly, Greek philosophy in the Roman world; thirdly, the Neo-platonic philosophy.
1. We begin with thought, as it is in a quite abstract, natural or sensuous form, and we proceed from this to the Idea as determined. This first period shows the beginning of philosophic thought, and goes on to its development and perfection as a totality of knowledge in itself; this takes place in Aristotle as representing the unity of what has come before. In Plato there is just such a union of what came earlier, but it is not worked out, for he only represents the Idea generally. The Neo-platonists have been called eclectics, and Plato was said to have brought about the unity; they were not, however, eclectics, but they had a conscious insight into the necessity for uniting these philosophies.
2. After the concrete Idea was reached, it came forth as if in opposites, perfecting and developing itself. The second period is that in which science breaks itself up into different systems. A one-sided principle is carried through the whole conception of the world; each side is in itself formed into a totality, and stands in the relation of one extreme to another. The philosophical systems of Stoicism and Epicureanism are such; scepticism forms the negative to their dogmatism, while the other philosophies disappear.
3. The third period is the affirmative, the withdrawal of the opposition into an ideal world or a world of thought, a divine world. This is the Idea developed into totality, which yet lacks subjectivity as the infinite being-for-self.
SECTION ONE FIRST PERIOD, FROM THALES TO ARISTOTLE IN this first period we shall again make three divisions:— 1. The first extends from Thales to Anaxagoras, from abstract thought which is in immediate determinateness to the thought of the self-determining Thought. Here a beginning is made with the absolutely simple, in which the earliest methods of determination manifest themselves as attempts, until the time of Anaxagoras; he determines the true as the _νοῦς_, and as active thought which no longer is in a determinate character, but which is self-determining.
2. The second division comprises the Sophists, Socrates, and the followers of Socrates. Here the self-determining thought is conceived of as present and concrete in me; that constitutes the principle of subjectivity if not also of infinite subjectivity, for thought first shows itself here only partly as abstract principle and partly as contingent subjectivity.
3. The third division, which deals with Plato and Aristotle, is found in Greek science where objective thought, the Idea, forms itself into a whole. The concrete, in itself determining Thought, is, with Plato, the still abstract Idea, but in the form of universality; while with Aristotle that Idea was conceived of as the self-determining, or in the determination of its efficacy or activity.
CHAPTER I PERIOD I.—DIVISION I.—THALES TO ANAXAGORAS SINCE we possess only traditions and fragments of this epoch, we may speak here of the sources of these.
1. The first source is found in Plato, who makes copious reference to the older philosophers. For the reason that he makes the earlier and apparently independent philosophies, which are not so far apart when once their Notion is definitely grasped, into concrete moments of one Idea, Plato’s philosophy often seems to be merely a clearer statement of the doctrines of the older philosophers, and hence it draws upon itself the reproach of plagiarism. Plato was willing to spend much money in procuring the writings of the older philosophers, and, from his profound study of these, his conclusions have much weight. But because in his writings he never himself appeared as teacher, but always represented other people in his dialogues as the philosophers, a distinction never has been made between what really belonged to them in history and what was added by him through the further development which he effected in their thoughts. In the Parmenides, for instance, we have the Eleatic philosophy, and yet the working out of this doctrine belongs peculiarly to Plato.
2. Aristotle is our most abundant authority; he studied the older philosophers expressly and most thoroughly, and he has, in the beginning of his Metaphysics especially, and also to a large extent elsewhere, dealt with them, in historical order: he is as philosophic as erudite, and we may rely upon him. We can do no better in Greek philosophy than study the first book of his Metaphysics. When the would-be-wise man depreciates Aristotle, and asserts that he has not correctly apprehended Plato, it may be retorted that as he associated with Plato himself, with his deep and comprehensive mind, perhaps no one knew him better.
3. Cicero’s name may also occur to us here—although he certainly is but a troubled spring—since he undoubtedly gives us much information; yet because he was lacking in philosophic spirit, he understood Philosophy rather as if it were a matter of history merely. He does not seem to have himself studied its first sources, and even avows that, for instance, he never understood Heraclitus; and because this old and deep philosophy did not interest him, he did not give himself the trouble to study it. His information bears principally on later philosophers—the Stoics, Epicureans, the new Academy, and the Peripatetics. He saw what was ancient through their medium, and, generally speaking, through a medium of reasoning and not of speculation.
4. Sextus Empiricus, a later sceptic, has importance through his writings, _Hypotyposes Pyrrhonicæ_ and _adversus Mathematicos_. Because, as a sceptic, he both combated the dogmatic philosophy and also adduced other philosophers as testifying to scepticism (so that the greater part of his writings is filled with the tenets of other philosophers), he is the most abundant source we have for the history of ancient philosophy, and he has retained for our use many valuable fragments.
5. The book of Diogenes Laertius (_De vitis_, &c., Philoss. lib. x., ed. Meibom. c. notis Menagii, Amstel. 1692) is an important compilation, and yet it brings forward copious evidence without much discrimination. A philosophic spirit cannot be ascribed to it; it rambles about amongst bad anecdotes extraneous to the matter in hand. For the lives of philosophers, and here and there for their tenets, it is useful.
6. Finally, we must speak of Simplicius, a later Greek, from Cilicia, living under Justinian, in the middle of the sixth century. He is the most learned and acute of the Greek commentators of Aristotle, and of his writings there is much still unpublished: to him we certainly owe our thanks.
I need give no more references, for they may be found without trouble in any compendium. In the progress of Greek philosophy men were formerly accustomed to follow the order that showed, according to ordinary ideas, an external connection, and which is found in one philosopher having had another as his teacher—this connection is one which might show him to be partly derived from Thales and partly from Pythagoras. But such a connection is in part defective in itself, and in part it is merely external. The one set of philosophic sects, or of philosophers classed together, which is considered as belonging to a system—that which proceeds from Thales—pursues its course in time and mind far separate from the other. But, in truth, no such series ever does exist in this isolation, nor would it do so even though the individuals were consecutive and had been externally connected as teacher and taught, which never is the case; mind follows quite another order. These successive series are interwoven in spirit just as much as in their particular content.
We come across Thales first amongst the Ionic people, to whom the Athenians belonged, or from whom the Ionians of Asia Minor, as a whole, derived their origin. The Ionic race appears earlier in Peloponnesus, but seems to have been removed from thence. It is, however, not known what nations belonged to it, for, according to Herodotus (I. 143), the other Ionians, and even the Athenians, laid aside the name. According to Thucydides (I. 2 and 12), the Ionic colonies in Asia Minor and the islands proceeded principally from Athens, because the Athenians, on account of the over-population of Attica, migrated there. We find the greatest activity in Greek life on the coasts of Asia Minor, in the Greek islands, and then towards the west of Magna Græcia; we see amongst these people, through their internal political activity and their intercourse with foreigners, the existence of a diversity and variety in their relations, whereby narrowness of vision is done away with, and the universal rises in its place. These two places, Ionia and Greater Greece, are thus the two localities where this first period in the history of Philosophy plays its part until the time when, that period being ended, Philosophy plants itself in Greece proper, and there makes its home. Those spots were also the seat of early commerce and of an early culture, while Greece itself, so far as these are concerned, followed later.
We must thus remark that the character of the two sides into which these philosophies divide, the philosophy of Asia Minor in the east and that of Grecian Italy in the west, partakes of the character of the geographical distinction. On the Asia Minor side, and also in the islands, we find Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Leucippus, Democritus, Anaxagoras, and Diogenes from Crete. On the other side are the inhabitants of Italy: Pythagoras from Samos, who lived in Italy, however; Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles; and several of the Sophists also lived in Italy. Anaxagoras was the first to come to Athens, and thus his science takes a middle place between both extremes, and Athens was made its centre. The geographical distinction makes its appearance in the manifestation of Thought, in the fact that, with the Orientals a sensuous, material side is dominant, and in the west, Thought, on the contrary, prevails, because it is constituted into the principle in the form of thought. Those philosophers who turned to the east knew the absolute in a real determination of nature, while towards Italy there is the ideal determination of the absolute. These explanations will be sufficient for us here; but Empedocles, whom we find in Sicily, is somewhat of a natural philosopher, while Gorgias, the Sicilian sophist, remains faithful to the ideal side.
We now have to consider further:—1, The Ionians, viz. Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes; 2, Pythagoras and his followers; 3, the Eleatics, viz. Xenophanes, Parmenides, &c.; 4, Heraclitus; 5, Empedocles, Leucippus and Democritus; 6, Anaxagoras. We have to trace and point out the progression of this philosophy also. The first and altogether abstract determinations are found with Thales and the other Ionians; they grasped the universal in the form of a natural determination, as water and air. Progression must thus take place by leaving behind the merely natural determination; and we find that this is so with the Pythagoreans. They say that number is the substance or the essence of things; number is not sensuous, nor is it pure thought, but it is a non-sensuous object of sense. It was with the Eleatics that pure thought appeared, and that its forcible liberation from the sensuous form and the form of number came to pass; and thus from them proceeds the dialectic movement of thought, which negates the definite particular in order to show that it is not the many but only the one that is true. Heraclitus declares the Absolute to be this very process, which, according to the Eleatics, was still subjective; he arrived at objective consciousness, since in it the Absolute is that which moves or changes. Empedocles, Leucippus, and Democritus, on the contrary, rather go to the opposite extreme, to the simple, material, stationary principle, to the substratum which underlies the process; and thus this last, as being movement, is distinguished from it. With Anaxagoras it is the moving, self-determining thought itself that is then known as existence, and this is a great step forward.
A. THE IONIC PHILOSOPHY.
Here we have the earlier Ionic philosophy, which we desire to treat as shortly as possible; and this is so much the easier, that the thought contained in it is very abstract and barren. Other philosophers than Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, only come under our consideration as names. We have no more than half a dozen passages in the whole of the early Ionic philosophy, and that makes it an easy study. Yet learning prides itself most upon the ancients, for we may be most learned about that of which we know the least.
1. _Thales._ With Thales we, properly speaking, first begin the history of Philosophy. The life of Thales occurred at the time when the Ionic towns were under the dominion of Crœsus. Through his overthrow (Ol. 58, 1; 548 B.C.), an appearance of freedom was produced, yet the most of these towns were conquered by the Persians, and Thales survived the catastrophe only a few years. He was born at Miletus; his family is, by Diogenes (I. 22, 37), stated to be the Phœnician one of Thelides, and the date of his birth, according to the best calculation, is placed in the first year of the 35th Olympiad (640 B.C.), but according to Meiners it was a couple of Olympiads later (38th Olympiad, 629 B.C.). Thales lived as a statesman partly with Crœsus and partly in Miletus. Herodotus quotes him several times, and tells (I. 75) that, according to the narratives of the Greeks, when Crœsus went to battle against Cyrus and had difficulty in passing over the river Halys, Thales, who accompanied the army, diverted the river by a trench, which he made in the form of a crescent behind the camp, so that it could then be forded. Diogenes (I. 25) says further of him as regards his relations to his country, that he restrained the men of Miletus from allying themselves with Crœsus when he went against Cyrus, and that hence, after the conquest of Crœsus, when the other Ionic States were subdued by the Persians, the inhabitants of Miletus alone remained undisturbed.
Diogenes records, moreover (I. 23), that he soon withdrew his attention from the affairs of the State and devoted himself entirely to science.
Voyages to Phœnicia are recorded of him, which, however, rest on vague tradition; but that he was in Egypt in his old age seems undoubted.[19] There he was said to have learned geometry, but this would appear not to have been much, judging from the anecdote, which Diogenes (I.
24, 27) retails from a certain Hieronymus. It was to the effect that Thales taught the Egyptians to measure the height of their pyramids by shadow—by taking the relation borne by the height of a man to his shadow. The terms of the proportion are: as the shadow of a man is to the height of a man, so is the shadow of a pyramid to its height. If this were something new to the Egyptians, they must have been very far back in the theory of geometry. Herodotus tells (I. 74), moreover, that Thales foretold an eclipse of the sun that happened exactly on the day of the battle between the Medians and Lydians, and that he ascribed the rising of the Nile to the contrary Etesian winds, which drove back the waters.[20] We have some further isolated instances of, and anecdotes about his astronomical knowledge and works.[21] “In gazing at and making observations on the stars, he fell into a ditch, and the people mocked him as one who had knowledge of heavenly objects and yet could not see what lay at his own feet.” The people laugh at such things, and boast that philosophers cannot tell them about such matters; but they do not understand that philosophers laugh at them, for they do not fall into a ditch just because they lie in one for all time, and because they cannot see what exists above them. He also showed, according to Diogenes (I. 26), that a wise man, if he wishes, can easily acquire riches. It is more important that he fixed that the year, as solar year, should have 365 days. The anecdote of the golden tripod to be given to the wisest man, is recorded by Diogenes (I.
27-33); and it carries with it considerable weight, because he combines all the different versions of the story. The tripod was given to Thales or to Bias; Thales gave it to some one else, and thus it went through a circle until it again came to Thales; the latter, or else Solon, decided that Apollo was wisest, and sent it to Didyma or to Delphi. Thales died, according to Diogenes (I. 38), aged seventy-eight or ninety, in the 58th Olympiad; according to Tennemann (vol. i. p. 414), it was in Olympiad 59, 2 (543 B.C.), when Pythagoras came to Crotona. Diogenes relates that he died at one of the games, overcome by heat and thirst.
We have no writings by Thales, and we do not know whether he was in the habit of writing. Diogenes Laertius (I. 23, 34, 35) speaks of two hundred verses on astronomy, and some maxims, such as “It is not the many words that have most meaning.”
As to his philosophy, he is universally recognized as the first natural philosopher, but all one knows of him is little, and yet we seem to know the most of what there is. For since we find that the further philosophic progress of which his speculative idea was capable, and the understanding of his propositions, which they alone could have, make their first appearance and form particular epochs with the philosophers succeeding him, who may be recognized thereby, this development ascribed to Thales never took place with him at all. Thus if it is the case that a number of his other reflections have been lost, they cannot have had any particular speculative value; and his philosophy does not show itself to be an imperfect system from want of information about it, but because the first philosophy cannot be a system.
We must listen to Aristotle as regards these ancient philosophers, for he speaks most sympathetically of them. In the passage of most importance (Metaph. I. 3), he says: “Since it is clear that we must acquire the science of first causes (_ἐξ ἀρχῆς αἰτίν_), seeing that we say that a person knows a thing when he becomes acquainted with its cause, there are, we must recollect, four causes—Being and Form first (for the ‘why’ is finally led back to the Notion, but yet the first ‘why’ is a cause and principle); matter and substratum, second; the cause whence comes the beginning of movement, third; and fourth the cause which is opposed to this, the aim in view and the good (for that is the end of every origination). Hence we would make mention of those who have undertaken the investigation of Being before us, and have speculated regarding the Truth, for they openly advance certain principles and first causes. If we take them under our consideration, it will be of this advantage, so far as our present investigation goes, that we shall either find other kinds of causes or be enabled to have so much the more confidence in those just named. Most of the earliest philosophers have placed the principles of everything in something in the form of matter (_ἐν ὕλης εἴδει_), for, that from which everything existent comes, and out of which it takes its origin as its first source, and into which it finally sinks, as substance (_οὐσία_), ever remains the same and only changes in its particular qualities (_πάθεσι_); and this is called the element (_στοιχεῖον_) and this the principle of all that exists” (the absolute prius). “On this account they maintain that nothing arises or passes away, because the same nature always remains. For instance, we say that, absolutely speaking, Socrates neither originates if he becomes beautiful or musical, nor does he pass away if he loses these qualities, because the subject (_τὸ ὑποκείμενον_), Socrates, remains the same. And so it is with all else.
For there must be one nature, or more than one, from which all else arises, because it maintains its existence” (_σωζομένης ἐκείνης_), that means that in its change there is no reality or truth. “All do not coincide as to the number of this principle or as to its description (_εἶδος_); Thales, the founder of this philosophy,” (which recognizes something material as the principle and substance of all that is), “says that it is water. Hence he likewise asserts the earth to be founded on water.” Water is thus the _ὑποκείμενον_, the first ground, and, according to Seneca’s statement (Quæst. Nat. vi. 6), it seems to him to be not so much the inside of the earth, as what encloses it which is the universal existence; for “Thales considered that the whole earth has water as its support (_subjecto humore_), and that it swims thereon.”
We might first of all expect some explanation of the application of these principles, as, for example, how it is to be proved that water is the universal substance, and in what way particular forms are deduced from it. But as to this we must say that of Thales in particular, we know nothing more than his principle, which is that water is the god over all. No more do we know anything further of Anaximander, Anaximenes and Diogenes than their principles. Aristotle brings forward a conjecture as to how Thales derived everything directly out of water, “Perhaps (_ἴσως_) the conclusions of Thales have been brought about from the reflection that it was evident that all nourishment is moist, and warmth itself comes out of moisture and thereby life continues. But that from which anything generates is the principle of all things.
This was one reason for holding this theory, and another reason is contained in the fact that all germs are moist in character, and water is the principle of what is moist.” It is necessary to remark that the circumstances introduced by Aristotle with a “perhaps” which are supposed to have brought about the conclusions of Thales, making water the absolute essence of everything, are not adduced as the grounds acknowledged by Thales. And furthermore, they can hardly be called grounds, for what Aristotle does is rather to establish, as we would say from actuality, that the latter corresponds to the universal idea of water. His successors, as for instance Pseudo-Plutarch (De plac. phil. I. 3), have taken Thales’ assertion as positive and not hypothetical; Tiedmann (_Geist der spec. Phil._ vol. I. p. 36) remarks with great reason that Plutarch omits the “perhaps.” For Plutarch says, “Thales suggests (_στοχάζεται_) that everything takes its origin from water and resolves itself into the same, because as the germs of all that live have moisture as the principle of life, all else might likewise (_εἰκός_) take its principle from moisture; for all plants draw their nourishment, and thus bear fruit, from water, and if they are without it, fade away; and even the fires of sun, and stars and world are fed through the evaporation of water.” Aristotle is contented with simply showing in regard to moisture that, at least, it is everywhere to be found. Since Plutarch gives more definite grounds for holding that water is the simple essence of things, we must see whether things, in so far as they are simple essence, are water, (_α_) The germ of the animal, of moist nature, is undoubtedly the animal as the simple actual, or as the essence of its actuality, or undeveloped actuality.
(_β_) If, with plants, water may be regarded as for their nourishment, nourishment is still only the being of a thing as formless substance that first becomes individualized by individuality, and thus succeeds in obtaining form. (_γ_) To make sun, moon and the whole world arise through evaporation, like the food of plants, certainly approximates to the idea of the ancients, who did not allow the sun and moon to have obtained independence as we do.
“There are also some,” continues Aristotle, “who hold that all the ancients who, at the first and long before the present generation, made theology their study, understood Nature thus. They made Oceanus and Tethys the producers of all origination (_τῆς γενέσεως_), and water, which by the poets is called Styx, the oath of the gods. For what is most ancient is most revered, and the oath is that most held in reverence.” This old tradition has within it speculative significance. If anything cannot be proved or is devoid of objective form, such as we have in respect of payment in a discharge, or in witnesses who have seen the transaction, the oath, the confirmation of myself as object, expresses the fact that my assurance is absolute truth. Now since, by way of confirmation, men swear by what is best, by what is absolutely certain, and the gods swore by the subterranean water, it follows that the essence of pure thought, the inmost being, the reality in which consciousness finds its truth, is water; I, so to speak, express this clear certainty of myself as object, as God.